Quick Roundup 72

It has been a way busier week than I thought it would be! I'm tired, brain-dead, and stuck at work until a few things in the lab finish up, so I'll go ahead with a link dump/news roundup.

50,000

My 50,000th site visitor arrived from Alpharetta, GA, on Wednesday, and I see that he's a fellow Linux user.

But I bet he wouldn't admit to using Tinfoil Hat Linux even if he did!

Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad

The Penn State Objectivist Club has a pretty good blog, which I've decided to list in my blogroll.

And I agree with Zach that the following video ought to go viral.

Be sure to listen all the way to the end. You will laugh out loud.

I can't believe this guy got in trouble for this feat of Islamic scholarship -- summing up the entirety of the actual and potential contributions of Islam to the rest of the world in only four words! Quick! Attach this man to the Chaplain Corps and send him to Quantico!

Why Submariners Are So Sarcastic

I think this post by PigBoatSailor explains it pretty well. Among other things, he notes something I occasionally still run into, believe it or not.... (Chortle.)

So that explains why we are so hard on each other. But why on other sailors, or other branches? Well, we make a game of abuse underway, when we abuse our fellows. We come to find the humor in it. So, when we are ashore, and among the more civilized members of our society, we tend to forget that our humor has a rather nasty tone to some. To us, well, it is in good fun. Even more so than usual, since exposing a sore spot on others and poking at it mercilessly does not mean we might be ruining a crewmember. So, yes, we abuse. Consider it flattery, though. We feel you, the objects of our abuse, are worth the effort -- you are enough of a brother to earn our attention, and therefore, our friendly abuse. The problems arise when others do not realize there is meant to be friendliness there.

The first time I ran into this, from a prior enlisted nuke when I entered Officer Candidate School, it was pretty hard to take. I must say that I initially thought the guy was a complete jerk!

Submarine Nicknames

Another good sea story from Bothenook! (And it has a few capital letters in there just to see if you're paying attention!)

so anyway. why did pud get called pud? he didn't start out as pud. he was FNG. for you non-military types, that would be fucking new guy.

we were scheduled to get underway at O dark early, but things didn't work out. that wasn't unusual on the ustafish. as a matter of fact, we were a couple days late getting underway.

why is that important?

the supply officer and the chief cook would draw up the menus for the coming month, and stuck to them pretty religiously. and when we got underway, they would try to keep the greasy fried foods, or really odious dishes off the menu. that works. unless you get underway 3 days late, and the menu has sliders, fried shrimp, and chili. you saw the old timers eat very sparingly at lunch. and they warned everyone else. but pud, well, that boy liked to eat. he liked to eat a lot. so he did. a lot. of everything.

i don't know how many of you have travelled out the golden gate, but there is a stretch of water known as the potato patch. it's reputedly the roughest stretch of coastal water on the western seaboard.

and it lived up to its name.

Take a guess and drop by to see whether you got it right!

Good One by Ed Cline

If you haven't read Ed Cline's take on the recent multi-billion dollar contributions to charity by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, go by Rule of Reason right now and do so.

Let us also note that, in regards to the wealth Gates will donate to the public education system, the students who will be the immediate or direct beneficiaries of that money, for as long as they are hostages of that system, will not emerge brighter students or super achievers. By all the direct evidence of plummeting test scores and the inability of increasing numbers of students and young adults to think, read, do simple math, and write, learning how to use technology or some souped-up library or data system will not turn them into independent individuals capable of emulating Gates's business success.

What Gates overlooks or is oblivious to is that the education system is committed to turning young people into selfless individuals who defer to arbitrary authority and regard themselves as mere cogs in society, some more adept or skillful than others, tolerated as long as they remain obedient ciphers.

To donate money for the sake of the alleviation of some social ill and have none of it spent on changing what causes that ill is to throw good money after bad.

Accidental Discoveries

I enjoyed this list.

Natural Antifreeze

If you liked my (really, Adrian Hester's) post about Antarctica awhile back, you'll find this interesting. The Commissar points to a story about the discovery of how fish adapted to the frigid temperatures there produce antifreeze. "[A]ntifreeze glycoproteins (AFGP) originate primarily from the exocrine pancreas and the stomach."

I can top that easily. I happen know of a higher primate which employs its brain to produce antifreeze. Interestingly enough, most of the humans familiar with this primate do not regard this process as "natural" even though there is ample evidence that the primate's brain evolved specifically to perform this and similarly sophisticated tasks. In fact, many of them doubt this primate has much of a use for its brain at all.

Crime Against Logical Thinking

I recently noted the propensity for Moslems to indulge in self-contradictory notions, only to find an even better example in a news report I learned about from Little Green Footballs.

The incitement to hatred of Islam should be considered a crime against humanity, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg yesterday.

...

The Turkish prime minister called on Western countries to integrate the Muslims living among them to a much greater degree. [my bold]

How are we supposed to "integrate" a people who want special treatment?

And, oh by the way, Turkey is one of the more "secular" Moslem states, in case its Prime Minister caused anyone to forget....

-- CAV

Pew Polls the Borg

Over at Jewish World Review is an article by Daniel Pipes in which he discusses the results of a recent Pew Survey of Moslem attitudes in six countries with longstanding Moslem majorities and in four nations with substantial, but relatively new Moslem minorities. Here are some highlights, with the boldface being Pipes' own broad classification of the findings.

A proclivity to conspiracy theories: In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The proportions range from a mere 15 percent in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48 percent among French Muslims. Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined from 46 percent in 2002 to 16 percent today. In other words, in every one of these ten Muslim communities, a majority views 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government, Israel, or some other agency.

...

Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8 percent (in Turkey) to 72 percent (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13 [That's all? --ed] percent (in Germany) to 69 percent (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come.

British and Nigerian Muslims the most alienated: ... The situation in Britain reflects the "Londonistan" phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression.

Nigerian Muslims have generally the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for bin Laden and suicide terrorism. This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria.

Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best -- where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in the U.K., nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria.

I have to disagree with Pipes on the last two paragraphs above. My interpretation of the situations in Britain and Nigeria is that they are substantially the same. Unlike in the other five Moslem countries, if Moslems form an overall Nigerian majority, it is a bare one. (They do dominate the north of the country, however.) In both cases, the Moslems live in states with substantial numbers of non-Moslems, stand to gain significantly more power, and are not being met with sufficient resistance. In Britain, the infidels are surrendering. In Nigeria, they merely look beatable.

One further interesting note.... I recall reading, a long time long ago, about the capacity for the Moslem mind to entertain contradictory notions without being troubled in the least. The example was along the lines of some Arab family who professed a visceral hatred of America, but who were planning a trip to Disney World so they could ride the Teacups. The fact that so many Moslems apparently believe both that the atrocities of September 11, 2001 are not the fault of Moslems and that Osama bin Laden is some kind of hero strikes me the same way. Wasn't that supposed to be his greatest "achievement"?

No surprises here. This survey really serves only as a reminder that we are at war with savages, and that Islam is not a "peaceful" religion, no matter how many times one simpering idiot or another says so.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 71

As I catch up with email upon my return home, I find several interesting things waiting for me....

Dreamchaser

It isn't private space flight, but it's a baby step in the right direction. NASA may eventually replace its beleaguered space shuttle program -- with services purchased from private firms.

Even as one NASA team prepares for next week's shuttle launch, another team is taking a hard look at six alternative visions for low-cost successors to the shuttle. NASA officials are keeping a low profile, but the six finalists involved in the agency's $500 million commercial space competition are giving way more visibility to those future spaceship visions.

The idea behind NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS, is that the space agency would purchase services on privately built spacecraft to send crew members or cargo back and forth between Earth and the international space station. The concept has been compared to renting a truck from U-Haul rather than maintaining your own fleet of moving vans and buses. [links dropped]

Among the finalists is the Dream Chaser.

A space plane designed for hauling passengers and cargo into Earth orbit was shown here June 21 -- the SpaceDev Dream Chaser -- one of a handful of finalists in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Demonstration (COTS) effort.

The vehicle is a candidate for NASA's four year $500 million COTS initiative. The Dream Chaser would be capable of carrying one to six people and/or cargo to the International Space Station, with the winged craft able to return to almost any runway in the world.

(HT: Hannnes Hacker)

Two Space Sites

Coincidentally, Adrian Hester sent me links to two good space-related sites just before I left last week: Encyclopedia Astronautica and Space Facts.

Summer Issue of TOS

Craig Biddle reports the following exciting news.

The print version of the Summer issue of TOS has been mailed, and the online version has been posted to our website (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com).The contents are:

From the Editor

Letters and Replies

"Religion vs. Free Speech", by Craig Biddle

"William Tecumseh Sherman and the Moral Impetus for Victory", by John Lewis

"Teaching Values in the Classroom", by Lisa VanDamme

"The 19th-Century Atomic War", by David Harriman

"Getting More Enjoyment from Art You Love", by Dianne Durante

If you're a subscriber, I hope you enjoy Vol. 1, No. 2. If you're not a subscriber, I hope you will subscribe today. [minor formatting changes, two hyperlinks added]

The main page of the web site provides links to the beginning paragraphs of the articles.

I can't wait to receive my copy!

The June Newsletter ...

... of the Doctors for Medical Liability Reform is loaded with interesting reading. Three blurbs in particular stood out.

Legislative Update

On June, 22, the Senate will be holding hearings on legislation sponsored by Senators Enzi (R-WY) and Bauchus (D-MT) that would provide funding for a health courts pilot project, as well as on the "MEDiC" bill sponsored by Senators Clinton (D-NY) and Obama (D-IL) (See "Sen. Clinton Admits ... " below).

Despite last month's Senate filibuster, Congress has vowed to continue the fight in support of comprehensive medical liability reform legislation. Talk on the Hill is that the House of Representatives will take up this issue again sometime this summer. And some in the Senate hope to re-visit medical liability reform before the campaign season gets into full swing.

Protect Patients Now is encouraged by continued support on Capitol Hill, where a clear majority in both the House and the Senate want to see reform passed. And leading up to the mid-term elections, PPN will continue to expand its grassroots campaign to educate the American people on the continuing crisis of lawsuit abuse. We recently mailed our candidate pledge to all Senate candidates and Senators up for re-election in November. Stay tuned for exciting new developments and ways that you can help move this vital issue forward.

Sen. Clinton Admits Lawsuits Harm Patient Health Care

In a startling admission in a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama write that high premiums "are forcing physicians to give up performing certain high-risk procedures, leaving patients without access to a full range of medical services."

As DMLR Chairman Stuart L. Weinstein, M.D. responds in this press release, "We're glad that Senator Clinton has finally seen the light and is willing to admit that medical liability lawsuits undermine patient health care, but her proposed 'MEDiC' legislation ... does nothing to address the fundamental problem and little to stem the mounting crisis."

Meritless Lawsuits, Anyone?

In his new study published by the Manhattan Institute, George Mason economist Alex Tabarrok lays waste to trial lawyer contentions that greedy insurance companies are the cause of rising medical liability premiums and points a direct finger at meritless lawsuits instead. The full study can be found here.

We particularly like the way the study's author skewers the "price gouging" thesis in a related Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. Noting that one of the nation's largest insurers withdrew from the market, he asks, "Were the profits from all that gouging just too much for St. Paul's guilty conscience?" And given that almost half of doctors are insured through doctor-owned insurance companies, "Are the doctors gouging themselves?" [minor formatting]

-- CAV

Tracinski Lays an Egg

(Or: "What Mr. Wakeland doesn't know about soccer, Mr. Tracinski doesn't know, either.")

Robert Tracinski of TIA Daily, whose work I generally admire, would doubtless be ejected from the below soccer match (HT: Martin Lindeskog) for the enthusiastic recommendation he recently gave in his newsletter for the latest example of a phenomenon that crops up reliably in America every four years, around the time of the World Cup: The Anti-Soccer Editorial by Someone Who Has No Appreciation for the Game.

Although this is the "best" example I have ever seen of one of these, it is just one of many. Its appearance is about as predictable as the "Annual Spring Taliban Offensive" (with obligatory liberal hand-wringing in the MSM) Tracinski himself is so fond of pointing out in his newsletter. And its perspicacity is on about the same par as the pacifistic hand-wringing Tracinski debunks.

I'll quote his endorsement in full here.

I am not a serious sports fan. Instead, I'm the type who ignores the regular season and tunes in only for the championship game, or only to see a player I particularly like (such as Michael Jordan). But I'm pretty ecumenical in my tastes: I'll watch football, basketball, tennis -- and every two years, I enjoy seeing some of the many obscure sports that get television coverage only during the Olympics.

But I can't stand soccer. Jack Wakeland and I have been complaining privately for many years that soccer is, in Jack's words, "a game designed for double amputees." We have speculated that soccer is the perfect product of a socialist society, which commands man not to use his most effective organs of survival -- in the economy, he cannot use his own judgment; in sports, he cannot use his hands.

I was delighted to see all of those points echoed in this article from the website of the Weekly Standard, along with another very important observation: soccer deprives its spectators of the essential spiritual experience that rewards the viewer's interest in sports -- the experience of scoring. In the realm of sports, scoring is success -- and soccer is diabolically arranged to deprive its viewers of the sight of success.

Well, at least Tracinski starts out by admitting the obvious: that he is not a serious sports fan. And he does also admit to hating soccer. You can't fault a man for not knowing much about sports, for his tastes, or for being up-front about the same.

But you can call his speculation that soccer is a "perfect product of socialism" what it is: baloney. Is the marathon a "race designed for double amputees" because one does not use his hands? Is figure skating, for which I seem to recall that Tracinski has a special fondness, also for double amputees? I didn't think so. Oh, and while we're on the subject, would someone please tell me how one "scores" in figure skating? What was that? Oh! They're awarded by a panel of judges from countries whose residents regard America in Iraq as worse than Iran having nukes? Talk about a "diabolical way of depriving us viewers of the sight of success"....

No. I don't mean to trash figure skating for having to be judged, but in doing so, I am making the point that someone who knows little to nothing about soccer sounds about as ridiculous damning it for not having a goal every five seconds as I would for complaining about something -- like judging controversies -- that are simply an inevitable result of the rules of international figure skating competitions.

On the subject of scoring in sports (when such scoring isn't subject to judicial fiat), one could make a similarly facile argument condemning basketball for the opposite sin as soccer: having "too much" scoring. After all, it is not uncommon for basketball players to traverse the court numerous times in the process of scoring over a hundred points -- one, two, or three at a time -- to win a game, when all a soccer team usually has to do is score perhaps a handful of points to win.

Basketball, such an "analysis" would hold, is wracked with inflation, robbing its players of the value of the successes they have already produced by making them have to score "too many times" to win a game. No wonder it's popular with blacks, who bloc-vote for Democrats (and their inflationary policies), and becoming more so in socialist Europe, particularly in nations (like Greece and Italy) which historically had high inflation and unstable currencies before the Euro!

And the spiritual experience for the fans, of seeing points scored, is cheapened by the fact that it occurs so often. By Jove, one might as well watch footage of a printing press reeling off fiat currency! Basketball may allow players to use their hands all they want -- just like men in inflationary economies are free to use their minds -- but it retroactively robs them of the value of their past efforts!

Of course, this analysis is complete baloney. Just as Tracinski's remarks about soccer are, as well as the numerous idiotic points made by the article he praises. I'll close by considering just a few of the more ridiculous ones. I follow each with my comments in italics.

The historic game with Italy ended in an epic 1-1 tie. But in what was ballad as one of the greatest games ever played by an American team, the United States failed to score. The goal credited to the Americans was scored by an opposing player who--oops!--accidentally kicked the ball into his own goal.

Think about this about this for a moment. It just about sums up everything you need to know about soccer, or football, as it is known elsewhere.

Have Messrs. Frank Cannon and Richard Lesser never heard of the "safety" in American football? Or of quarterback passes being intercepted and returned for touchdowns? Or of a miscue making the difference in an ice skating competition? Accidents happen in sports and winning games (or competitions) will necessarily sometimes entail overcoming (or profiting from) such events.

Most soccer matches end in scoreless ties (or nil, nil in soccer parlance), 1-1 deadlocks or 1-0 victories. A final score of 2-1 is regarded as a veritable outburst of offense, an avalanche of goal scoring that leaves exhausted fans shaking their heads and pining for the old days when teams knew how to play strong defense. A score of 2-0 is said to be a crushing victory (or defeat) of Carthaginian proportions rendering national shame and humiliation and potentially resulting in coup d'etat, or even war.

Um. No. Many matches do end in draws. Many can be decided by a point or two. Two points is usually -- depending on how play went during the match -- regarded as a decisive victory. Three almost always is. At the international level, a loss of four or more is about as embarrassing as a twenty point defeat at the professional level would be in a basketball championship. Damn inflation!

As for the wars, that obviously hasn't a bloody thing to do with soccer as a game. But hey! When you don't like something, use whatever it takes to fool yourself into mistaking your ignorance and personal taste for virtue.

The game consists of 22 men running up and down a grassy field for 90 minutes with little happening as fans scream wildly.

Until the year Rice won the College World Series and I had the opportunity to watch several very good baseball games narrated by a very talented commentator, I had zero appreciation for all the strategy that goes into that game. I used to see (before switching channels): nine men standing around on a field, scratching themselves and spitting while some guy with a beer belly swung a stick at a ball.

I am still not a huge baseball fan, but I will never again be so dismissive of the sport just because I don't always appreciate what is going on strategically.

It is the same with soccer, which I have played and refereed. Not to knock the various sports I will contrast (sometimes a little heavy-handedly) with soccer here, but....

Unlike American football, with its many set plays, soccer features a jazz-like fluidity. A truly great player will develop a rapport with his teammates and create spectacular plays on the fly. If you don't care for improvisation, stay away.

Unlike in basketball, goals consist of much more than some seven-footer slapping a ball through a hoop at will. A goal is more often than not a hard-earned result of a team's patiently building up an attack, combined with on-the-fly teamwork. Sometimes, the player who scores does so after almost acrobatic efforts to strike the ball. If you haven't the patience to follow an offensive buildup or wait for the opportunity to see a spectacular individual althelticism, someone else could use your barstool.

Unlike most American sports, with their unlimited substitutions and interminable time-outs, the clock runs constantly in soccer. You must, quite literally, think on your feet most of the game. Furthermore, all but the goalkeepers and at most six other players must be well-conditioned enough to run almost constantly for two forty-five minute halves. There are no beer bellies in soccer. If fitness annoys you, switch channels.

... Scoring goals is of such little importance...

This is (usually) bass-ackwards. See my remarks above concerning basketball. In tournament play, this is sometimes correct due to how wins and draws are tallied during round-robin play. If long-range planning doesn't wax your lance, find something that does.

But soccer players use their heads, deliberately, to contact the ball. This is contrary to all human instinct, which is to keep the head out of the way of danger. Duck, you idiot! Protecting the head against injury is deeply rooted in our nature. It's an evolutionary survival response. Sacrifice a limb if you must, give up an arm or leg, but protect your head at all costs. Yet in soccer the player is encouraged, no, expected to hit the ball with his head. This is as stupid an action as a human being can undertake.

One protects himself from injuring his head by learning the proper way to strike the ball with his head. Physical contact is illegal.

And I'd still take a surprise hit on my unprotected head with a soccer ball over an errant (or deliberate) 90-plus MPH baseball in the head while wearing a plastic helmet (sans faceguard) any day. Or participate in a football game where some 300 pound behemoth can decide on any play to "risk" the loss of a few yards by grabbing the face-mask of my "protective" helmet and yanking me to the ground.

If you find that heading a soccer ball is a confusing concept, but that beanballs and face-mask penalties make perfect sense, I cannot help you. Seek a professional.

This article is utterly ridiculous to anyone with any familiarity at all with soccer, and its endorsement by Robert Tracinski, someone I hold in high regard, is particularly disappointing.

-- CAV

(My thanks to an anonymous commenter for suggesting this post.)

Temporary Comment Moderation

Blogging will be light for about the next week and due to travels over the next few days, I may or may not have reliable Internet access at all.

In the meantime, I have decided to enable comment moderation. This means that if you leave a comment on this blog, it will not appear until I have had the chance to review it via email.

I plan to return to more regular blogging by Tuesday and to unmoderated comments some time around Independence Day at the latest.

In the meantime, stop by some of the other blogs in my sidebar.

-- CAV

Around the Web on 6-22-06

50-50 Odds on a Roundup Next Week

If excusing oneself for a spell of light blogging is a membership requirement, then I'm about to join the club with Andy and Mike. Over the next week, I will be working on a major project and travelling, so the odds of my posting anything here are slim to none until late Monday. After that, we'll see. In any event, I am excusing myself now from the next mid-week linkfest in case I need the time.

But I shall return, unlike Alex, who has joined a group blog. Or, perhaps, Myrhaf (HT: Blair), who claims to have beaten his addiction to writing, but recently posted an update. Only to "quit" again. No. Not quite. He is "not blogging regularly again", you see.

That blog was one of my favorites and I must confess that I wouldn't mind seeing Myrhaf "not blog regularly" on a more frequent, if not regular basis! What? Did he really expect to post without hearing some smack outta me? On a more serious note, I am glad things are going well for him!

Close, but no Cigar....

Houston, compared to most other American cities, is a capitalist paradise. But one will occasionally get a reminder in the news that it still has a long way to go. In the latest such story, we learn that Harris County had considered privatizing its impressive, 83-mile-long toll road system. Unfortunately, Commissioner's Court has decided to rest on its meager laurels of having opened the nation's first all-electronic tollway that was designed as such.

I would have loved to be able to brag about our city being almost completely encircled by a private superhighway!

Islamocapitalism?

Articles like this one at TCS Daily really annoy me. The article reminds me more than anything else of the kind of rationalistic "arguments" I saw throughout my Catholic education. Namely: Someone wants to show that the Faith supports some position he likes and so goes into all kinds of theological and historical minutiae in "support" of his point. The big problem with this approach -- aside from the fact that one can find an authority to support almost anything one likes -- is that it fails to see the forest for the trees.

But for some items that the reader may find to be of historical interest, this essay is a complete waste of time. So what if Moslem societies have had quasi-market economies in the past? So have communist countries, and so must any society of more than a dozen or so to the extent that it can survive at all. One can not run a large economy by central planning, heavy regulation, or confiscatory taxation.

And so what if one can, say, bend the religion's famous prohibition against interest (which is just payment to the lender for his willingness to assume risk) into a prohibition against "unreasonable" interest? Is the market or Islam to determine what is reasonable? And is such reasoning heretical or not? How would we go about proving this, and is proof more important than blind faith?

This is a religion whose followers constantly issue threats against their coreligionists for not obeying its dicta to their satisfaction, and against non-Moslems who refuse to convert. How the hell is that "compatible" with a system premised on allowing men to act freely on their own best judgement so long as they do not violate the rights of others?

It is not.

How Kelo can you go?

Another TCS Daily article discusses an even worse law in Britain, and points to a list of abuses that have occurred in the United States iu the year since that odious Supreme Court decision.

For example: "In Hercules, CA, the city council on May 23, 2006, unanimously voted to seize property acquired by Wal-Mart, in order to prevent the retail giant from opening a store in town."

Robert Tracinski at RealClear Politics

Yesterday, Robert Tracinski reported via TIA Daily that he has become a regular (biweekly) contributor to the popular political web site RealClear Politics. In his first regular appearance, he discusses altruism as the morality behind the desolation in "Palestine".

Only one prominent intellectual in the last century -- Ayn Rand, the great intellectual defender of individualism -- has been brave enough to name the moral lesson. Rejecting the morality of sacrifice, she declared that "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live," while in her classic novel The Fountainhead, her hero laments that "The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing." Ayn Rand remains a controversial figure, scoffed at by both left and right. But this phrase, "perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing" -- could there be a better description of the Palestinians' suicide bomb society?

Look at the horrific plight the Palestinians have chosen, and you can observe the real meaning of a culture of self-sacrifice. Look at America, by comparison, and you can see the life-affirming benevolence of a culture of rational self-interest. [bold added]

Read it all. Cox and Forkum have more on the subject, specifically on the weak-kneed Western "embargo" on war funding -- I mean, "humanitarian aid" -- for Hamas.

Help the Tsunami Victims!

Diana Hsieh tells of a way to get double the bang for your buck if you donate to the Colorado Books Project, which will bring Ayn Rand's revolutionary ideas into more high school classrooms. Academia remains devastated by an intellectual tsunami that struck in the18th century.

North Korea

I haven't covered North Korea in much detail lately, but that's okay. Amit Ghate points to a good threat summary.

ABC...

... hits a new low in "science" reporting.

Literatrix Punts on a Book!

"And here we have a first for my blog: a book so awful I have given up on trying to finish it."

Hmmm. That reminds me: I never was able to force myself to finish wading through Shut up and Sing! (But then I did foresee that very possibility!)

Toiler can't write mad.

I have the opposite "problem": Some of my best and fastest writing happens when I'm good and crocked off. The level of concentration is trance-like. The writing is superb. And I achieve catharsis.

But it is vitally important for me to fact-check after I've calmed down a bit as I can miss important details! (That one I learned the hard way.)

WMD Roundup

Eric writes about the predictable leftist reaction to recently-reported findings of WMDs in Iraq so I don't have to.

Frankly, if incontrovertibly clear evidence of WMDs were discovered ..., I think there'd be a huge outcry questioning the timing -- and a huge chorus along the lines of WHY NOW? Either Bush planted the evidence (BUSH KNEW, PART II?), or he knew all along but Karl Rove advised him to wait for election purposes, and if these arguments failed to gain sway, there'd always be the accusation of incompetence. (The WMDs were there all along, but because of Bush's bungling leadership and poor military strategy, they weren't found when they should have been.)

He also has plenty of links if you like that sort of thing.

We're in big trouble ...

... when we're having to import foreigners to remind us of the merits of our own countries.

Oh shit! I'm Hitler!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

(HT: Abe Lincoln)

-- CAV

A War of Wishes

Once again, there is talk, this time by our wartime president, of closing Gitmo.

Mr Bush said he understood European concerns over the US detention camp in Cuba.

"I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with," he said.

He said 200 detainees had been sent home, and most of those remaining were from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan.

Well, so would I, Mr. President! I wish I'd never have to hear about terrorism again, and that Moslems would learn to live and let live. I wish these and lots of other things. But wishing doesn't make it so.

One might be surprised to hear these words coming from the same man who, nearly five years ago, warned us that we would have to brace for a long war, and who advocated persistence -- until one considers that Bush continues to ratify the Clintonian policy of negotiating with rogue states.

U.S. ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said on Wednesday that if North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile it would be a "clear violation" of agreements it has made in the past.

The United States has activated its ground-based interceptor missile-defense system amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, a U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.

Asked if the United States would try to shoot down a North Korean missile, Schieffer said: "I think what we have said is that we have greater technical measures of tracking than in the past and we have options that we have not had in the past, and all these options are on the table."

So after nearly two years of trying to get North Korea to return to talks to negotiate an end to its ambition for nuclear weapons, we're talking about the dicey proposition of shooting down a missile of theirs as if doing so is some kind of a threat? The only option not on the table remains the only one that would work: reducing Pyongyang to rubble.

And what's worse, we're doing exactly the same thing with Iran, who see plainly that the lesson Bush taught North Korea is quite different than the one Truman taught Japan. Call the Iranians fanatical, but don't call them stupid.

Iran's president said Wednesday his country would take until mid-August to respond to incentives to roll back its nuclear program, prompting President Bush to accuse Tehran of dragging its feet. [bold added]

Unless Bush was thinking Ahmadinejad meant something like "mid-August of 2010", he can only look into the mirror for whom to blame for this delay.

This reminds me of all the silly conspiracy theories floated around by the loony left ever since the atrocities of September 11, 2001 to the effect that Bush knew the attacks were coming -- and let them happen in order to "have an excuse" to go to war.

Only now, we're seeing a series of events that, absent U.S. military intervention, put the lie to the professed concerns -- for peace by the left, and for American security by the Bush Administration.

For what would the left have wanted Bush do to prevent the atrocities of 2001 but exactly what he is doing now? He is releasing Islamists from jail so they can take out innocents when they eventually decide to commit suicide anyway, and "negotiating" with our professed enemies (read: sitting on his hands while they prepare to attack). What the left is prescribing as the way to prevent war is designed to fail, and yet Bush is doing just that in the name of America's national security.

Why does Bush seem less worried about the perception that he knows about an impending attack than about what his political opponents will think if he acts properly on that knowledge? His wish to be rid of this inconvenient war, and to be loved by the left will only be answered by the bombs he wishes weren't in the hands of madmen.

-- CAV

Arab Society and Schizophrenia

Over at MEMRI is a fascinating parallel drawn by Abd al-Khaleq Hussein, an Iraqi reformist, between some of the characteristics of Arab society and the symptoms of schizophrenia. Here is just a small sample. (While I am not a mental health professional, the symptoms Hussein ticks off sound correct to me.)

Delusions of Grandeur

A [schizophrenia] patient believes that he is exceptional and that others should treat him as though he is an important person. The Arabs also believe that they are more important than others in every respect. They [believe that they] are the best among nations..., and regard other nations with contempt. They acknowledge no religion [but their own] and are unwilling to coexist peacefully with other religions. [They believe] that their faith is the only faith that mankind should embrace, and that whoever fails to embrace it is an infidel.

In other words, all other religions are heathen, heretical and fabricated, and their followers should abandon them and embrace the Arabs' religion - Islam. If they fail to embrace Islam, the Muslims are entitled to wage war upon them, to kill their men or convert them by force, to take their women hostage, to sell their children in the slave market and to plunder their property...

This disparaging view applies not only to non-Muslims, but also to other schools of thought within Islam. Each Islamic school of thought is full of contempt and hostility towards the others. The Salafis and Wahhabis, for example, are convinced that the Shiites must be killed, and that whoever kills them will be rewarded in the world to come...

...

Somatic Delusions

The patient imagines strange and illogical things, for instance that foreign bodies are moving inside him, even though there is no evidence to suggest this. Similarly, Arab societies and governments suffer from the illness of [constantly suspecting] espionage by foreign agents. This is why the Arab jails are full of political prisoners and oppositionists accused of spying for other [countries]. In the eyes of the Arab governments and societies, the political opposition and the liberal intellectuals are traitors and agents of foreign intelligence [apparatuses] ...

Disorganized Speech

A [schizophrenic] patient's speech makes no sense. There is no connection between the sentences, and the hearer or reader cannot understand what [the patient] means to say. The Arab societies display the same symptom - [it is] even [displayed by] people who present themselves as intellectuals and writers. We read them with the hope of understanding what they mean to say, but to no avail... And when you dispute [their claims], they say that the problem lies not with the writer but with the reader, since he is shallow and insufficiently educated, and that is why he fails to understand the ideas of the important writers and intellectuals...

...

Mental Paralysis

A [schizophrenia] patient is utterly convinced that his notions are correct, to the point of [mental] paralysis... The same [phenomenon] is also widespread in the Arab society, which believes that only its own culture and notions - which have been handed down from generation to generation - are valid, and tries to eliminate those who think differently... [Schizophrenia] patients are unable to understand abstract ideas according to their context, and take everything literally.... [some formatting added, minor changes to punctuation]

While not all of this is supported with detailed analysis, it is useful to consider the dictionary definition of schizophrenia:

Any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances.... [bold added]

Consider the high priority placed on tribal bonds (over independent judgement) and religious dicta (to be accepted over logic and evidence) in the Arab world for even a few moments and all of this starts making a huge amount of sense. That is a society that systematically pressures its members to sever all ties with reality.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 70

Islam: Too "Intolerant" for a (Recovering) Multiculturalist

This account by a man who very nearly converted to Islam -- until he was appalled by what he read in the Koran -- makes the following observation.

I was raised to value the virtue of tolerance. However, TOLERANCE CAN ONLY BE EXTENDED TO THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO RETURN THE FAVOUR!!!! The tolerant can accommodate all cultures except cultures of intolerance. These either have to be contained by law and kept out of the public sphere, or, very regrettably, broken apart by force if there is any threat that the intolerant sect might start hurting people.

There are many, many things I disagree with in this essay, but I found it remarkable that even someone so confused about so many things could see that respect for the rights of others is not a part of Islam.

Noam Chomsky: Blatantly Evasive

Awhile back, I said the following of Noam Chomsky: "[T]o Chomsky, America is the terrorist state, his unfortunately prolonged existence as a free man to the contrary." And now, a commentator attacking him from the left says basically the same thing.

[I]s that really what you see, Mr Chomsky, from the window of your library at MIT? Is it the stench of the gulag wafting over the Charles River? Do you walk in fear of persecution and murder for expressing your dissident views? Or do you make a damn good living out of it? The faults of the Bush administration will not be changed by books such as Failed States. They will be swept away by ordinary, decent Americans in the world's greatest - if flawed and selfish - democracy going to the polls.

Ouch!

The Unholy Alliance vs. Having a Good Time

The voluntary dhimmitude of multiculturalism in Germany leading up to the World Cup was annoying enough. It has now, unfortunately, polluted the triumph of an athlete on the field.

Many Egyptians were not pleased with the Israeli flag waving at the World Cup this weekend.

Ghana's John Pantsil who plays professionally for Hapoel Tel Aviv, kept his pre-World-Cup promise, and waved an Israeli flag after his team's second goal against the Czech Republic.

So if you play in Israel and wave its flag in celebration, you're hurting lots of fragile souls in the Middle East. A few may even explode here and there. What are these idiots doing even watching the World Cup in the first place? Isn't soccer un-Islamic?

Oh. But I forgot. The fact that anybody, anywhere might be living their life in blissful oblivion to the ravings of Mohammed's followers is even more un-Islamic. I guess that until soccer is eradicated completely, the world's millions of Moslems will be there to keep an eye out lest anyone enjoy the game too much.

Would someone please tell me why the hell Ghana apologized for this!

Governor Blanco calls out the Guard.

The inept governor of Louisiana now knows how to call out the National Guard. Too bad she still doesn't understand when she should do so, or have a grasp of the proper use of a couple of other parts of her government: the police and the criminal justice system.

Acting at the mayor's request, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday she would send National Guard troops and state police to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a bloody weekend in which six people were killed.

"The situation is urgent," Blanco said. "Things like this should never happen, and I am going to do all I can to stop it."

Except act to fix the revolving-door court system in New Orleans. Thanks for taking Louisiana one step closer to becoming a garrison state, moron! Showboating, and temporary measures will not make the Big Easy's crime problems disappear. Worse still, this sets a very bad precedent. It is not the job of the military to perform law enforcement on a daily basis.

Awhile back, Nicole Gelinas reported on the man-made nature of this emergency.

The Big Easy had a short break from its normal murder rate after Katrina. According to statistics released last week, New Orleans had nine murders in the last quarter of 2005, down from 64 in the previous year's final quarter. But murder has begun to accelerate in recent weeks as drug-dealing criminals come back to the city, often having found themselves unwelcome in tougher-on-crime cities like Houston, to which they had evacuated. Since last Saturday alone, New Orleans has booked four new murders.

If New Orleans wants a chance to lure back its vital working class and middle class, the city's new mayor must stop this violent-crime resurgence. Otherwise, middle-class evacuees will stay put -- and the time and money that New Orleans, Louisiana, and the federal government will spend building modern levees, as well as new housing and schools, will be wasted. [bold added]

I agree. With leadership like this, every dollar -- government-confiscated or not -- spent on this recovery is being wasted.

How to Insult a Criminal in Houston?

Just ask him if he's from New Orleans!

By late autumn, New Orleans's underclass wars had come to Houston. The Big Easy's style of crime isn't what Houston is used to. Houston gangs -- which include international drug traffickers -- are violent, to be sure, but their violence makes a rough kind of sense, having to do with money, position in the gang hierarchy, and the ruthless protection of turf and of affiliates. Though New Orleans's gangs, like Houston's trafficin guns and drugs, their main concern seems to be violence for the sake of violence. "Murders are just the way this group of individuals resolves conflicts," notes James Bernazzani, the FBI's special agent for New Orleans, who has studied New Orleans's gang culture carefully. "They graduate from theft to robberies to homicide" as they move through adolescence, he reports. One Houston police officer who has done prison details since Katrina mused to me that "hardened Houston criminals" have complained to him of how gratuitously violent the prisoners from New Orleans are. "That's an insult," Houston prisoners snarl when someone asks them if they are from New Orleans. [bold added]

On the one hand, I'm disappointed that New Orleans chose not to address its crime problem in its recent mayoral elections. On the other, I'm quite happy to see these scumbags beginning to leave.

-- CAV

Diana West nails it.

There is an outstanding Diana West column up over at Jewish World Review. It's all good, but this, especially, needed to be said by someone with a wide audience.

Such tactics suggest we no longer seek a military triumph over Islamic jihad -- if we ever did. Had we engaged in such a war, it would be over by now. The president would have directed the military to eradicate, freeze or neutralize jihad threats where they exist -- from Iran to Syria and from Gaza to Fallujah. Concurrently, we would have closed our own borders as a post-September 11 security precaution, and implemented an immigration policy designed to avoid repeating the European example of Islamization through massive Muslim immigration, or, as some are calling it, "reverse colonization."

But no. Such a war on terror long ago gave way to the Struggle to Make Everyone Think We're Swell. In this no-win fight, we must watch what we say -- as when the government distances itself from an official's frank characterization of three suicides at Guantanamo Bay as a jihadist "PR stunt."And we must watch what we do -- as when we repeatedly send our military on dangerous house-to-house missions with restrictive rules of engagement rather than using air power. In a war in which an interrogation could save a city, we rewrite our interrogation rules to make sure that they won't. "If this debate were limited to what's best for interrogation purposes, the decision [about whether to soften interrogation techniques] would be pretty easy," a senior Defense Department official told the New York Times. "But then you have to look at what we lose diplomatically."

We are indeed a far cry from the day when men risked life and limb -- because they knew that the fight for their freedom required it -- to sign a document that proclaimed that all men had "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Today, we have instead a government of mice, who scurry away lest anyone be offended by such "intolerant" language.

The funny thing about freedom is that you cannot keep it without a fight, but you can certainly lose it that way.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 69

Hedge Hoppin'

Reader Hannes Hacker says of this video clip: "I love the bit where one of the pilots reads what looks like a map. I can't even keep my pickup from weaving while I'm reading a map ..."

Good thing my father-in-law isn't a pilot. He was doing email on his BlackBerry while driving until my mother-in-law put the kibosh on it!

Italy 1-1 USA

Last week, after the American national team badly lost its opening match in the World Cup, I said, "Unless we at least have a win and a draw (and some help) in the remaining two games of round-robin play, we're out." Well, we got our help early Saturday, when Ghana defeated the Czech Republic 2-0. And then we drew Italy 1-1.

I got to see game and I was very pleased with the quality of play of our team for the first twenty minutes. I'd heard them compared to the abysmal 1998 squad after the Czech game, but Saturday, the guys I followed through qualification showed up, and it was anyone's game.

And then the idiot ref, Jorge Larrionda, who was scratched from officiating in the 2002 World Cup for "irregularities", started calling fouls, issuing warnings, and ejecting players for reasons real and imagined. As Bernie Miklazs of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put it:

The Yanks were victimized by hideous officiating. Jorge Larrionda, 38 and a clerk from Uruguay, did everything in his power to ruin a spectacular match. The Italians were on the receiving end of some terrible rulings as well, but the United States got the worst of it.

Larrionda was right to eject De Rossi for his intentional assault on McBride. [This left his face bloodied and required stitches. --ed] The red card left Italy a man short, and later the Italian coach agreed with the call. But instead of maintaining the strength of his convictions, Larrionda obviously felt the need to even things up and give the Italians a break. And he waited for the opportunity to do so.

Larrionda got his chance in the 45th minute when he red-carded U.S. defender Pablo Mastroeni for a late tackle on Italian midfielder Andrea Pirlo. The tackle, at most, warranted a yellow card.

In the 47th minute, Larrionda was at it again, this time showing the red card to U.S. defender Eddie Pope. The red card was automatic because Pope had received his second yellow card of the day, after fouling Alberto Gilardino. But Larrionda could have kept that yellow card in his pocket; it was a borderline infraction.

I will add that in soccer, the referee has a great deal of additional discretion under the "advantage" rule and may waive a call if he thinks it will harm the flow of the game. (i.e., Stopping play for a free kick would be less advantageous to the team fouled than continuing play would.) Larrionda thus not only unfairly ejected two of our players, he completely ruined the flow of the game.

We very nearly won anyway, but for a goal that was called back in the second half. (This call was actually correct.)

To advance, the Americans must defeat Ghana, whose two goal-scorers from its last game are suspended from the next match due to warnings accumulated in the first two games. Then the Yanks will need more help. The most straightforward scenario involves Italy defeating the Czech Republic. In that case, we advance. Period.

If there is a tie in that game or Italy loses, we will not advance unless we pummel Ghana because qualification will depend on tie-breakers, the first of which is, I believe, based on the difference between goals scored by each team and goals against. Losing that first game 3-0 thus looms large in any of these scenarios.

LA Times: Fraud OK for Storm Victims

Editorializing about the recent finding that some 16% of the government handouts from FEMA related to Hurricane Katrina were misspent, the LA Times declared amnesty:

It's easy, and necessary, to criticize FEMA's across-the-board incompetence in responding to the largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War. But obsessing about the spending habits of refugees comes perilously close to blaming the victim. [bold added]

Much is being made of this, but this attitude is merely a logical outgrowth of the notion that people who live in areas at risk for natural disasters are entitled to our money when the inevitable occurs. If we don't hold them responsible for the big mistakes they make, who cares how they spend a couple of thousand bucks of loot?

Not to side with the Times, but the morality of the free spenders is a red herring whether or not they knew that the FEMA money was "supposed" to be spent for certain things. The answer is not a larger bureaucracy or better auditing. It is the end of such welfare state programs.

Quibbling over how the recipients of stolen money are going to be allowed to spend it bypasses what we should really be concerned with: the fact that all this money has been stolen in the first place.

New Negotiations on Tap with North Korea

Now that the Clinton and Bush Administrations have shown the triumph of negotiations as a means of stopping the mentally ill from acquiring nuclear arsenals, I hear that President Bush is preparing to take a tough diplomatic "stance" against North Korea destroying any more than one American city now that they are preparing to test a missile that can reach the United States.

Memo to the President. In a time of war, the standard for success isn't, "They haven't actually bombed us yet." It's, "They are completely unable to bomb us." Please don't duplicate this "success" with Iran. And consider using our capability to remove North Korea as a threat, would you? That's basically the only reason I voted for you.

ACLU as Fashion Police

Let's leave aside for a moment the whole question of whether we should be telling businesses whom they can and can't hire. Let's even pretend that hiring quotas are alright.

If we do those things, we will see that the ACLU is now fighting its latest misguided fight not even for the sake of preventing discrimination against people for things beyond their control (like race or sexual orientation). It is making a mountain out of a cornrow!

"They told me I had to cut [the braids, which had been three feet long] even shorter or go home," DeLeon told The Washington Post. "They said they wanted an all-American thing. That's what they said to all the black people. I had already cut it a lot, so I just left."

The 2006 Six Flags America handbook states that employees are not allowed to have "any hairstyle that detracts or takes away from Six Flags theming."

...

Some employees said they tried to adjust by buying wigs to cover their hair or by paying to have their hair braided into cornrows, but they too were told that the hairstyles were inappropriate.

The ACLU had previously justified its assaults on capitalism by appealing to morality: that it is wrong to judge someone on the basis of something not under their control. But now, we're expected to accommodate for any hairstyle, no matter how outlandish.

This reminds me of the odd blue- or green-haired kid you'll encounter from time to time, who dresses like a bum or a thug, is covered with tattoos, and has piercings over every square inch of any stray appendage. Look at him funny and he'll fly off the handle, demanding that we not "judge" him.

Except that grooming is completely under everyone's control and should plainly be fair game for judgement as well as hiring decisions.

-- CAV

A Good One by Leon Hale

Leon Hale of the Houston Chronicle has, once again, written an excellent Father's Day column. In fact, it appeared above the fold on the front page of today's print edition. (The one he wrote in 2001 I clipped and have tacked to a bulletin board in my study to this day. This one has joined it.)

The column is well worth reading because it captures beautifully both the admiration he had for his father as a young lad and the awe he feels for him even as an old man. I think it also shows the power of a good parent to protect the innocence of a young child while he is still unable to handle adversity.

The following paragraphs will, I am sure, resonate with lots of sons out there.

Go back with me a long way, when I was nothing but a skinny kid in overalls. I then thought my father was the greatest man who ever walked, but I didn't feel close to him.

In fact, for a significant part of my childhood, I thought he didn't like me much. He didn't pay me a lot of attention.

On the rare occasions when he did -- say, he came out in the yard and played catch with me -- I was overwhelmed by that simple experience. Catching a ball thrown by my father.

In all my growing-up years, my father took me fishing one time. Just that once.

And the experience was so intense, so wonderful, that it remains engraved in my memory to this day. I can remember the orange light coming through the trees, across the river from where we sat. I can hear the blackbirds talking in the cattails nearby. And I can still smell the first-growth willow that dipped its branches in the water where we watched our corks.

I'll never lose one detail of that time I fished with my father.

Hale then goes on to ask why it was that his father was distant, and why he got to spend so little time with his first hero. In the process, he goes on to explain what he learned later that caused everything to make so much sense, particularly the very long hours his dad had to work in a dry goods store around the time of the Great Depression.

And then his admiration for the man, which has never waned, meets hindsight and the wisdom of Hale's own many years with a force one can never forget....

This poor man worked a schedule like that during most of my growing-up years, and it's no mystery to me now that he fell asleep during church.

That memorable day when he came out and played catch with me? That must have been on a Sunday afternoon. Knowing what I know now, if I'd been him I'd have been in bed Sunday afternoon.

The time he took me fishing, that was probably after he lost the job at the store. Because I remember the morning sun on the river, and it sure wasn't a Sunday morning or we'd have been in church.

That brought tears to my eyes, and not just because it reminded me of my own dear, departed father.

Thank you, Leon Hale.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: On thinking further about the role of a parent in protecting the innocence of a young child, I recalled the movie La Vita e Bella, which dramatizes this point very powerfully and which I highly recommend in its own right.

And a quick bleg: If anyone knows offhand of a good review of the movie, please comment below or drop me a line.

Possible Email Glitch

A correspondent yesterday informed me that I had reported his email address as spam.

This was done in error -- as it would have to be for anyone else I normally correspond with.

Although I suspect this was a simple case of me checking the wrong box, I want to be as certain as I can that it was. I mention this because much of the spam I receive is unintelligible junk. Much is from Japan, which makes me think that my MyWay account chokes on Unicode or some other common type of email formatting. This brings up the small, but distinct possibility that I have reported other legitimate email as spam, thinking I had received junk.

If you have attempted to send me email recently and found yourself reported as a spammer, please accept my apology, and please let me know. If there is a problem -- other than an uncharacteristic lapse of attention on my part -- I would like to know so I can correct it.

Thank you!

-- CAV

Another Kind of Human Shield

Over at Jewish World Review is a half-way good column by David Limbaugh in which he does the best job I've seen of defending Ann Coulter's latest book, Godless.

Whether she intended it this way or not, the "harsh" remarks she made in the book have proven one of her theses in a way the book alone could not have done -- at least not as effectively.

She contends that liberals have employed certain "human shields" to advance their unpopular arguments, especially those pertaining to the war on terror. These people have either earned respect, like military heroes, or become sympathetic figures through personal tragedy, like Cindy Sheehan and the widows of 9/11 victims.

As a result of their status, these individuals are entitled to say anything they want, not just as a matter of free speech, which no one would dispute, but with full immunity from criticism. Their actions and statements cannot be challenged, no matter how ludicrous, no matter how destructive. [bold added]

Point taken, and I will add that I would agree that liberalism is essentially a religion in character. Nevertheless, plenty of others have already attacked the "human shield" premise, so I don't think this fully explains why Limbaugh is defending her. We didn't need Coulter to make an ass of herself to drive that point home.

But the title of her book points to something you won't hear Limbaugh complaining about any time soon: The fact that the right uses the loony left as its own "human shields" to protect its positions from criticism. After all, the implication of the title, common on the right, is that anyone who accepts -- no matter for what reason -- any of the ideas that commonly receive lip-service from the left (most notably acceptance of the Theory of Evolution), is therefore just another loony atheist.

Scratch that. They can now replace the inconvenient concept of atheism by saying, "... just another follower of the liberal faith."

A recent commenter helped me make this connection when he asked, "[H]ow does she then go on to attack evolution (which relies on close to two centuries of science) and defend her religious beliefs which also rely on faith?"

My answer?

Coulter and [her] ilk [can now] pretend -- aided by the mindless left -- that there is no rational alternative to religion.

When your beliefs can't stand up to even the barest rational inquiry, you want to prevent that inquiry from happening as much as possible.

Intellectually, the right wants to be able to "win" in the arena of ideas in the same way the Republicans are winning in the arena of politics these days: By not having a viable opponent. By default. What difference does having one monbat on your side matter when said moonbat has just strengthened your side's "human shields" ? Coulter is helping the right remove the necessity of arguing for its positions in the public discourse.

And this is why the Raving Moonbat of the Right will not go undefended. Mark my words.

-- CAV

Freegan Hilarious!

Drop everything you are doing right now, go straight over to the New York Press, and read this freegan article! You can thank me later.

Apparently, dumpster diving has become (or more likely, become known as being) a leftist lifestyle, and its practicioners call themselves "freegans".

Almost every week, [Adam] Weissman organizes an event commonly referred to as "dumpster diving," where he leads an open tour among the various trash heaps and dumpsters of Manhattan to gather discarded food. The activity is part of a larger social movement known as freeganism, which views capitalism as the primary force in destroying the environment and avoids the capitalist structure through such practices as eating discarded food, squatting in abandoned buildings instead of paying rent and refusing to hold a job. Just as vegans are vegetarians who avoid animal products, freegans subsist only on free food found in the garbage as consumer waste. In Manhattan, there is plenty to go around. [bold added]

Normally, I'd make a snarky comment right about now, but not only can you not tell these idiots to eat s--- (being how they're already practically doing that already), you can't do a better job of pointing out the sheer absurdity of their position than they already do!

Weissman assembled those who were still present for a final stop back to Daniel's Bagels. As expected, an enormous bag filled with bagels was waiting on the curb. Weissman grabbed a bagel from the bag and a mushy avocado from his backpack. He began dipping the bagel into the soupy avocado and looked around at the surrounding neighborhood.

When asked whether he viewed living so close to a beacon of unfettered capitalism such as New York as contradictory to his ideals, he quickly denied it.

"This is exactly where we need to be," he said. "If there's any one place on the planet where there's a vital need for people to be suggesting that capitalism is not a sustainable system, where people need to be demonstrating that we can create alternative ways of living to capitalism, then I think New York is that place."

Pausing to dab at the gobs of avocado stuck in his beard he said, "I couldn't think of another place in the world that would be more appropriate to what we're doing." [bold added]

"This is exactly where we need to be?" Well, you've got that right, bud! Might that, perchance, be due to the fact that the whole lot of you would freegan starve unless you hung around the very system you're trying to destroy?

What really blows my mind about the story, though, is that this isn't even the greatest irony. That honor goes to Weissman's hatred of school because "They promote obedience, they promote conformity, they promote the idea of unquestioning acceptance of authority and they promote the idea that we should accept daily boredom and misery and enforced banality as simply the way that life is."

As if picking through garbage and droning on about "resources" on a daily basis isn't banal. As if his political ideals aren't the logical extreme of what he was indoctrinated with while he was in school. As if the only way to be an individual is to act like a hippie, spout socialist nonsense, and sponge off everyone else -- just like all the other "non-conformists". This is one kid who was very unfortunate not to have dropped out at an early age!

Freegan idiots!

And what's worse, they're turning the rest of us into freegans by providing us all with ... free entertainment!

God help us all!

-- CAV

Updates

6-17-06: Corrected remark on Weissman's educational attainment. He did graduate from high school, the poor devil!

Around the Web on 6-15-06

Not Even Wrong

Paul Hsieh reports the publication of a book that offers a blistering critique of string theory in modern physics, and comments on its title, Not Even Wrong, which is taken from the worst of Wolfgang Pauli's three levels of insults for colleagues talking nonsense. (The other two were, "Wrong" and "Completely Wrong".)

Pauli's "Not even wrong" is the closest I've ever seen in mainstream science to the Objectivist concept of the "arbitrary".

Is this a positive sign for the culture? It would be if this phrase "crossed over" into the popular vernacular -- with its actual meaning intact, of course!

Clueless in Vienna (and Berlin, and Madrid, and Moscow, and Jakarta)

Amit Ghate at Thrutch on a world poll showing that "America in Iraq" is regarded as a bigger danger than Iran: "If that doesn't show how futile and ridiculous it is to look for permission from some 'global consensus' before we act in our own self-defense, I don't know what would ...."

Is the opposite of hair-splitting ...

... tearing your hair out?

Mike's Eyes See the Real Villain

I don't recall ever having heard anyone make this particular point about the high dudgeon feigned by liberals over rising oil and gas prices.

The price of gas is determined by the price of crude oil, which is being bid upon daily by nations all around the globe. Most of these bidders are governments not private oil companies. The OPEC cartel controls most of the oil out of the Mideast. Most South-American oil companies are state owned and Russia recently nationalized their oil industry. Yet the Levins and Ms. Stabenow want you to believe it's all the fault of evil, greedy private enterprise, and that governments are faultless, especially ours. [bold added]

The rest of his post is worth reading, as well.

Italy's Outrage Against the Truth

Andy cites a passage from an article on Oriana Fallaci's trial for "'outrage' to religion" in Italy.

[The] judge [who] ordered Fallaci to stand trial on charges of violating an Italian law that prohibits "outrage" to religion ... cited a passage that reads: "To be under the illusion that there is a good Islam and a bad Islam or not to understand that Islam is only one ... is against reason."

X-Men III Plot Crimes

Toiler explains something that was bugging me about that movie: "I know we're not dealing with high drama here, but even the most base drama should get this right: the physical situations don't ultimately determine the man-made in a story; it's the other way around."

An Ayn Rand Favorite

Robert Tracy posts the Rudyard Kipling poem, "When Earth's Last Picture is Painted", which Ayn Rand especially loved.

Sistani's Escape Clause

I have heard much made of Iraqi cleric Ali al-Sistani's recent fatwa to the effect that Moslems should obey Canadian laws. However, Jihad Watch reports that news stories written in English have failed to mention one little detail.

A reader there translates from a French news story about the fatwa: "The Ayatollah Al-Sistani orders Muslims of Canada to respect the laws of their host country, 'insofar as religious values are not ridiculed.'"

Well. At least Sistani was honest about Sistani's intentions....

Hmmmm.

So now Republican Congressmen support a minimum wage hike and a California court made a ruling friendly to gun owners? Tell me again why should I vote Republican. This would be the Democrats' answer. If only the Republicans could be half as convincing....

As it is, sitting out the next election seems the best "choice".

Diesel Boat Gumbo?

Apparently, I'm not the only blogging ex-submariner who posts gumbo recipes on the Internet....

Tweaking a Classic

Here is a new ending to an old commercial that I saw a lot of during the last World Cup! (And LL's post title would be an apt description for what the U.S. national team will have to play in order to keep from packing its bags early!)

-- CAV

Bravo, Omar!

Leave it to the scheduling gnomes of the FIFA World Cup to find a way to get me to root for Mexico.

I was, of course, pleased to learn the other day that Mexico had, in Jay Leno's words, "gone through Iran's defense like they go through our border." Mexico decisively beat Iran 3-1 in first-round action in Germany.

And so today, Michael Ledeen has an entertaining piece that discusses how the superstitious Iranians might be interpreting that defeat and other recent Iranian setbacks. For background, a Mexican player by the name of Omar Bravo scored two of Mexico's goals.

Third is this ominous line from al-Reuters on the occasion of President Bush's jaunt to Baghdad:

BAGHDAD, June 13 - U.S. President George W. Bush told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad on Tuesday Iran's "interference" in Iraq must end, said Iraqi government sources who attended the talks.

Can it be that, at long last, we are going to take steps against the mullahs to save the lives of our fighters and the Iraqi civilians who have been targeted by the terrorists who are armed and manipulated by the Iranians and the Syrians? Faster, please.

But that is nothing compared to the clear message from On High on the soccer fields of Germany. No, I'm not talking about the demonstrations against President Ahmadinejad, I'm talking about the Mexican victory over Iran in the first round of the World Cup.

With the game tied 1-1, a Mexican player named Omar Bravo scored for Mexico, which went on to win 3-1. That name, Omar Bravo, sends chills down the spines of the mullahs. "Bravo" is a universal plaudit, enthusiastic praise for the person to whom the "bravo" is directed. And Omar? Well...Omar is the most hated name in the Shiite lexicon, the symbol of the forces of evil, the incarnation of satanic influence on earth.

And why? Because after the death of the Prophet, Mohammed's son in law, Ali (the husband of Mohammed's daughter Fatima) was fighting to become the leader of all Muslims. Ali lost out to Omar Bakr and to Omar, his close adviser and successor as Caliph. To this day, the Shiites believe that Abu Bakr and Omar usurped Ali's rightful inheritance as ruler of Islam. Not only that, but during the succession struggle Omar burst into Ali's house, crushing the pregnant Fatima behind the door, leading to the stillbirth of her son. And although Ali formally accepted the elevation of Abu Bakr, and then Omar, the Shiites still speak of Omar with intense hatred. In Iran today, one of the harshest things you can say about another person is Iaanat be'Omar, cursed by Omar.

To a devout Shiite of the sort that governs Iran today, the defeat of the Iranian national team by somebody named Omar Bravo cannot be easily dismissed as a random event. It cannot possibly be a coincidence (it is hard for Iranians to believe that anything is a coincidence), and it is most certainly a terrible augury. Many Iranians will interpret it as a message to the mullahs: just as Ali was defeated by Omar, so your doom has been signaled by a modern Omar. And that "bravo," can it be an accident? No way. [bold added, link dropped]

Hmmm. "But that is nothing compared to the clear message from On High on the soccer fields of Germany." I have just two things to say about that. (1) Whose fault is it that the Mullahs fear their own superstitions more than the willingness of the United States to give Iran a free demonstration on the proper use and deployment of a nuclear weapon? (2) It isn't too late for us to recalibrate the Iranian leadership, or at least for their subjects to rise up against them in revolt before such a recalibration becomes necessary.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 68

The Metaphysical vs. the Man-Made

Great minds think alike.

Yesterday, the Inspector mulled over a proposed fat tax.

They take a current, rights-abridging, aspect of how things are being done (i.e. inheritance as aristocratic) as the given. Rather than remove the abridgement of rights, they pile on further abridgements to "balance" it out. This can be seen with, say, their solution to the problem of socialism in medicine (i.e. more socialism), or their refusal to examine the necessity of social security.

And awhile back, I had a similar thought concerning certain anti-Wal-Mart and anti-immigration arguments.

The fact that the welfare state is taken for granted thus leads to a corporation being blamed for what is beyond its control -- and the real culprit, the government, being curiously absent from the list of suspects! Wal-Mart can't threaten someone who resists paying taxes to support Medicaid with jail or fines or confiscation of property. Only the government can do that. In a free economy, Wal-Mart would not be compelled to offer medical coverage to all its workers, but it might, to attract or avoid losing them. It may or may not have to raise prices to do so. But taxes would be out of the question.

While I do not admire Wal-Mart for counseling its employees to take Medicare, its current practice is made possible entirely by the government's intervention in the economy. This isn't the cost of Wal-Mart. It's a tiny portion of the cost of the welfare state! The Times article is good for what it does point out in Wal-Mart's favor, but this more important point would have been nice to see mentioned, even in passing.

Pipes on Profiling

I completely agree with Daniel Pipes, who notes the success of police profiling of terrorist suspects and the need to make it open and legal.

Even after this information came out, NYPD spokesman Browne claimed his department "does not engage in profiling."

When law enforcement lies, as it constantly does about profiling, public trust erodes. Profiling is an obviously useful tool, so the solution lies in passing laws to permit the police to do so overtly and legally.

Amen. Chalk up another destructive consequence, the "need" for law enforcement officials to lie in order to get away with doing their job, to multiculturalism.

Kook Scientist Wants Space Colonies

I'm working on what is turning out to be a very long review of Glenn Reynolds' An Army of Davids. At one point, Reynolds supports government funding for space research in the name of perpetuating the human race. He got this straight from Stephen Hawking, who's out hawking the same nonsense on the international stage, in Hong Kong.

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever- increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

I have nothing against space colonization, but I think it would be a real disaster -- for individual rights -- if governments start hopping on this bandwagon and forcibly divert funds and effort to endeavors like this. If it is genuinely profitable to colonize space, the free market will make it happen when it is truly feasible to do so. If not, we will waste nowhere near the time and effort trying as we would with governments (who do not have to worry about making any money) involved.

It is quite revealing that Reynolds, who decries anti-technology sensationalism early in his book, is perfectly happy to endorse what could be nicknamed "pro-technology sensationalism".

Same old collectivism, shiny new packaging.

Is this really a surprise?

Glenn Reynolds is also a co-founder of Pork Busters, which seeks to trim wasteful government spending -- but only to funnel the "savings" back into government relief programs for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Not too surprisingly, waste manages to pop up any time money is stolen from one person and given to another....

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change operation, the audit found. Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency. [bold added]

Memo to Glenn Reynolds: The only way to keep the government from throwing money away is to get rid of the welfare state. (And this is not even the fundamental reason we should do so.) Abolishing FEMA looks like one place to start.

-- CAV