:: Bluestarblog ::

:: Saturday, November 30, 2002 ::

Remind me to take this formula to the clubs the next time I go - A Mathematical Model of the Mating Preferences of Homo Sapiens.

It must work, it has the word math in it.

:: Scot 10:56 PM [+] :: ::
...

Old And In The Way - the metaphoric title of Karl Zinsmeister's terrific essay on American European relations.

(from Instapundit)

:: Scot 2:22 PM [+] :: ::
...

Mark Steyn's site has been listed for awhile but it looks like it's finally active.

:: Scot 2:09 PM [+] :: ::
...

The cover of the latest Astronomy magazine asks 'Do you believe in the Big Bang?' John Scalzi doesn't think this is possible.

Fundamentally, one doesn't "believe" or have faith in much of anything as it regards science, since as a process science isn't about believing at all. It's about testing and verifying, discarding what doesn't work, and refining what does work to make it better describe the nature of reality. For a scientist, a belief functions at the level of a hypothesis, which is to say, it's an idea that requires testing to determine whether it accurately models reality.

Even at their current stage of understanding about it, it's probably not accurate to say that scientists "believe" in the Big Bang theory, to the extent that there are still holes in the theoretical model that need to be plugged and scientists working to plug them (Astronomy magazine points out these holes, as it should, since doing so doesn't expose the weakness of the Big Bang theory, but the strength of the scientific process). If it turns out that the Big Bang theory is ultimately incompatible with the data, it'll have to be thrown out and something more accurate created to replace it.

Asking whether one "believes" in the Big Bang doesn't really answer any questions -- it merely suggests that the Big Bang is itself part of a faith-based system, equivalent to a belief in Christ or Allah or Buddha or whomever. This is another piece of semantic ammunition that Creationists and others like to use: That science is just another system of "belief," just another species of religion. Not only is science not just another species of faith, it's not even in the same phylum. Faith is a conclusion. Science is a process. This is why, incidentally, the two are not ultimately inherently incompatible, just as driving somewhere is not inherently incompatible with having a fixed home address.

:: Scot 2:05 PM [+] :: ::
...

Here's something interesting I came across while doing some other research. There is a discipline in social psychology called 'conterfactual thinking' which is exactly what it sounds like - the extrapolation of timelines based on the outcome of specific events. Neal Roese on his site Counterfactual Research News gives this definition - 'the term counterfactual thinking refers to a set of cognitions involving the simulation of alternatives to past or present factual events or circumstances.'

Conterfactual thinking is a well known phenomenon in both psychology and philosophy circles, but it looks like the field has opened up. In a unique merging of science fiction and history, we have Uchronia - the Alternate History List. A fine collection of 'what if' literature.

:: Scot 1:56 PM [+] :: ::
...

Michael Kinsley on literary awards:

As for awards, they are the purest example of gratuitous or superfluous meritocracy. Life itself is constantly sorting people out, awarding prizes and glory to some and misfortune or ignominy to others. Much of this is inevitable or even necessary: Free-market capitalism, specifically, works well for almost all by rewarding some people more than others. But why look for additional, unnecessary opportunities to say that somebody is better than somebody else? Even if you could say for sure that one nonfiction book published this year is better than all 401 others, what is accomplished by doing so except to make 401 people feel a little worse and one person feel a lot better? Total national feelings remain about the same, but the distribution of good feeling has become less equal. What's the point?

:: Scot 12:21 PM [+] :: ::
...

And speaking of the political/cultural gap between Europe and America, I always suspected there was a difference between their English and ours. This snazzy American-British Dictionary has confirmed my hunch.

:: Scot 6:59 PM [+] :: ::
...

Political science student Benny Irdi Nirenstein identifies a few alarming signals from Europe:

Last week in Florence, 300,000 Europeans — many waving Palestinian flags and sporting t-shirt images of Che Guevara, Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tong — marched to denounce the possibility that the United States will liberate the Iraqi people. In the upside-down world of these European demonstrators, democracies are to be condemned and dictatorships coddled.

In Italian classrooms, political ethics are reversed. Terrorism is justified, but and defense of democracy is not. Military campaigns are roundly condemned, even though it was the military and not political appeasement that freed Western Europe from the worst tyranny. For many Italian students, professors, journalists, and politicians, there can be no justification for war. When the Baath party seized power in a coup, Saddam Hussein purged hundreds of political competitors. But to a new generation of Europeans schooled by Sixties radicals and liberal elites, Saddam is a legitimate nationalist leader and masterful tactician, while President George Bush, leader of the world's strongest democracy, is simply dismissed as stupid.

I don't know whether the gap between Europe and America has ever been so great. No one I know identifies himself as pro-American. Despite recent waves of anti-Semitic and racist violence, and Le Pen's strong showing in the French elections, Europeans believe Americans to be racist, while they themselves are culturally tolerant. Europeans believe themselves to be empathetic while Americans are merciless and ruthless. They see no irony in the fact that it is the United States that is standing with Iraqis and Iranians against murderous dictators, while the European Union seeks to expand its business ties to Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They do not see any problem with Mary Robinson's legitimization of suicide bombings, nor the European Union's subsidization of the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. For my European teachers, Saddam is more a representative of a different culture than a dictator set on accumulating weapons of mass destruction.

:: Scot 6:51 PM [+] :: ::
...

Excellent piece on the scumbag Saudis from the New Republic's Jason Zengerle.

By begging off this week's Sunday shows, the Bush administration managed to avoid having to answer these questions right away. But laying low has its downside--namely, the Bushies have now allowed Lieberman and others to frame the debate, and when the administration finally does get around to addressing the Saudi matter, it will be forced to do it on the terms that Lieberman and the others have set. It's not like the White House to cede the initiative when it comes to public relations; but, in this instance, the Bushies have opted for the extra time because, in the matter of the Saudis and 9/11, the administration has apparently concluded it is dealing with an extremely volatile situation. Based on what we saw today, there's no reason to believe they're wrong about that.

(must have been reading Steyn)

:: Scot 6:31 PM [+] :: ::
...

From the Online Books Page is a list of banned books worldwide and in the schools. The bottom third of the page has some excellent links on censorship, digital freedom, and some interesting legal cases.

Here's a good chronology of Canada's history with freedom of expression (though it hasn't been updated since 1997).

:: Scot 2:27 PM [+] :: ::
...

America's favorite hypocrite Michael Moore gets an online pasting from the blogosphere.

"Years From Now They'll Call it 'Payback Tuesday'," Moore wrote in a hyperbolic letter urging his fans to vote in the U.S. elections Nov. 5. The full letter, posted to michaelmoore.com two days before the vote, predicted, "We will deny Bush control of the Congress next week ... Expect a wake-up call from me at your bedside 6 a.m. Tuesday!"

After Republicans handily won majorities in both the House and Senate, the essay disappeared from Moore's site. The irony of Moore –- who ambushes executives and politicians on film with their own statements -- apparently trying to erase his own words was too rich even for some of his fans. Taking a lesson from Moore himself, bloggers dug up cached copies of the page and posted both text and screenshots to their journals. Others pasted it into Moore's own message board.

Sucks doesn't it?

:: Scot 2:43 AM [+] :: ::
...

Eugene Volokh has a cool piece on speech codes on campus.

:: Scot 2:36 AM [+] :: ::
...

Nice to see Mark Steyn rip into the Bush Administration once in a while:

As long as Dubya and Colin Powell and the rest are willing to prance around doing a month-long Islamic minstrel-show routine for the amusement of the A-list Arabs, Muslims will rightly see it for what it is: a sign of profound cultural weakness. Healthy relationships require at least some token reciprocity -- I said as much during the Monica business, and it never occurred to me the same problem would rear its ugly head during this Administration. But, hosting an iftaar (the end-of-day break-of-fast) for hundreds of head honchos from Muslim lobby groups, Colin Powell felt obliged to announce yet another burst of Islamic outreach. According to the Associated Press, he told his audience that "he is trying to expand programs to bring educators, journalists and political and religious leaders from Islamic countries to the United States."

Why? The problem isn't that Colin Powell's admissions program is too restrictive, but quite the opposite. It was his Saudi "visa express" conveyor belt that admitted the September 11th terrorists to the U.S. on forms filled in with a perfunctoriness no eighth-generation WASP Canadian snowbird would try getting away with. When asked why 15 of the 19 killers that day were Saudi, the Kingdom's Ambassador to London, my old friend Ghazi Algosaibi, replied with admirable candour that that was simply because it was easier for Saudis to get into America. In other words, the State Department's Islamic outreach facilitated the murder of thousands.

As things stand, there are only three countries that are serious about the "war on terror": America, Britain and Australia. And, even within that shrunken rump of the West, there are fierce divisions: Australia's sissy press makes The Toronto Star look like, well, the National Post; it's doubtful whether Tony Blair speaks for more than 30% of his parliamentary party; and President Bush's resoluteness doesn't extend to his Secretary of State or even, during Ramadan, to himself. The longer this already too long period of phony war continues, the more likely it is that even these stalwarts will decay and Canadianize. I worry about the thin line on which our civilization depends. This last year has been too quiet. Next Ramadan, when the traditional calls for a bombing pause are issued, let's hope there's some bombing to pause.

:: Scot 2:33 AM [+] :: ::
...

Ex-communist and current Globe and Mail writer Rick Salutin has a few random thoughts:

Globalization and the Grey Cup: Canadian football has been through a rough patch that coincides pretty much with the neocon, free-trade era: a time when Paul Godfrey tried to replace Toronto's Argos with an NFL team just because it was American; and the CFL nearly self-immolated by "expanding" into the U.S. but failed, even at that. Now there is a rise in interest and viewers, in the west and Quebec! The virtues of the Canadian game may be involved: its larger field, like the larger European hockey surface, leading to more speed, creativity, less crunching and claustrophobia. Or the rouge and mandatory runback of punts.

He then goes on to suggest the CFL may regain it's 'mythology' as people turn away from Americana - which he declares has already consumed the world's cultures. And why would anyone want to watch America's sport?

Well, think about American football and what it reflects, without much deep interpretation required: the automaton quality of players, uniforms, strategy; the terminology (long bomb, the blitz); win-lose obsessions; even the militaristic precision of the half-time marching bands.

Salutin accidently sells the wrong show here. Whining about what the NFL has (which it is proud of) that the CFL doesn't (which it is unsure of) is no way to persuade your readers. Maybe Salutin should stay away from sports altogether. This admiration of hockey player punditry is a little disturbed:

High-scoring Maple Leaf winger Alexander Mogilny, a Russian, has a nice irony when he talks about himself, often saying he doesn't know why they pay him so well since he's over the hill. There was no irony, though, when he spoke with the Toronto Star's Rosie DiManno about terror, including Chechens, Bali, Iraq and Palestinians: "It's not a surprise. . . . If you look deep down, you start to understand . . . you can't just bully people. You have to respect them. . . . If somebody knocks you over all the time . . . eventually you're going to fight back, any way you can. . . . You can't kill their kids and expect them not to retaliate. . . . They fight the only way they can, as much as I hate to see it. . . . I just wish that we could change foreign policy . . . not just go out there and bomb everybody and expect that will make the world safe."

I've rarely seen an athlete speak so unguardedly and provocatively. People who work in hockey say the great scorers are the true artists; it's their need to express themselves, and they can't not.

No wait, I thought the great scorers are the true Apostles. Or maybe that was the true telepaths. Either way, they can't not be some kind of public intelligentsia. After all, they do score a lot of goals.

:: Scot 2:25 AM [+] :: ::
...

So much for the argument that the U.S. is neglecting the war on terrorism by targeting Saddam.

:: Scot 9:09 PM [+] :: ::
...

This certainly doesn't look as sexy as it sounds. West Marin women strip for peace:

MAKING THEIR BODIES FIGURES OF SPEECH – West Marin women are serious enough about PEACE to spell it out. Wearing nothing but afternoon rain, 50 determined women lay down on Love Field near the Green Bridge Tuesday afternoon to literally embody PEACE and "show solidarity with the people of Iraq," said the organizers. "Women from all ages and walks of life took off their clothes, not because they are exhibitionists but because they felt it was imperative to do so," the organizers added. "They wanted to unveil the truth about the horrors of war, to commune in their nudity with the vulnerability of Iraqi innocents, and to shock a seemingly indifferent Bush Administration into paying attention." The coordinators, who came up with the idea only a day earlier, said that the coming together of this group on short notice was a testament to the seriousness with which the women view the threat of war with Iraq. "Remembering that tens of thousands of civilians have already died in Iraq as a result of US bombing and sanctions, these women are not convinced by Bush Administration fear mongering that one more person should die," organizers said. They hope the president and news media take notice.

They may not be too bright, but they're probably easy.

:: Scot 5:55 PM [+] :: ::
...

Rene Chun has a long piece on chessmaster Bobby Fischer's consuming dementia.

:: Scot 5:53 PM [+] :: ::
...

Genetic predisposition versus biological determinism. Evolution's latest battle finds sociobiology hijacked by the left in Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate. Steven Johnson writes:

The true straw man of biological determinism, however, is the latter term, which implies a fantasy of genetic programming in which we are all slaves to our DNA, with free will, education, culture, chance, life experience--all the nonbiological forces--relegated to the margins of who we are. Not one of the leading neo-Darwinians--Wilson, Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Robert Trivers, William Hamilton or the science writers who have helped popularize their work, like Richard Wright and Matt Ridley--has ever argued for a pure genetic determinism. You can't read more than a few pages into any of the major books written on the subject without encountering the obligatory disclaimer, making it clear that the author believes that we are greatly shaped by culture and experience, and the biological component is only a part of what makes us human.

The idea that we are a mix of nature and nurture would seem to be common sense by now. But as Pinker demonstrates, the nature deniers continue to argue that beyond the basic support systems--breathing, excreting--our personalities are the product of our social existence, arriving courtesy of our parents, teachers, peer groups, media, dominant ideologies and cultural norms: the product, in other words, of our history, both personal and public. This is what Pinker calls the hypothesis of the "blank slate." It is a strange sort of human exceptionalism. Unlike all the other organisms on earth, which clearly arrive with a sophisticated set of instincts designed to exploit the parameters of their environment, human minds are merely abstract learning machines, born with no innate proclivities other than to soak up information along the way. The blank slate has turned out to be a way of drawing a line in the sand against the last 150 years of Darwinian encroachments. Sure, we share a basic body plan with all the vertebrates and a respiratory system with our fellow mammals, and perhaps even 98 percent of DNA with our chimpanzee cousins. But the human mind is another matter.

Unless you're a creationist, that sort of exceptionalism should seem preposterous on the face of it: Both our brains and our bodies share a common ancestor with the apes--you can't have one and not the other. But the more interesting question--and the one Pinker spends the most time unraveling in The Blank Slate--is why that exceptionalism should prove to be so appealing to liberals and leftists who otherwise count themselves as proud defenders of the Darwinian faith. The argument for the blank slate turns out to be a strange kind of Not in My Backyardism: We need to have Darwinian theory in those Kansas schools, but we don't dare use it to understand what's going on in our own heads.

:: Scot 5:30 PM [+] :: ::
...

A society of pussies. New Jersey schools (and courts) are having trouble reconciling dangerous games like tag and dodge ball on the playgrounds.

"There's potential for some victimization," said Mary Beth Klotz, a psychologist with the National Association of School Psychologists. "Tag may look OK socially, but it can be a double standard because kids can use it to bully a certain student."

Kids are getting hurt, kids feel left out, kids might feel like they're losers. Tough shit. Humility is one of the best things kids can learn.

:: Scot 6:09 PM [+] :: ::
...

The latest on what we intend to do about that pesky asteroid that is destined to someday smack into our planet.

:: Scot 5:38 PM [+] :: ::
...

Little Green Footballs on the latest round of Iraq weapons inspections:

The charade begins, with Blix the Wimp already rushing to assure the Iraqis that he’ll be sensitive to their wishes, and make sure none of the inspectors get too aggressive.

David Kay was chief nuclear weapons inspector in the last go-round, and in a Washington Post article he looks back at that frustrating experience—a history of Iraqi evasion, bullying, and outright lying that the United Nations (and the “anti-war” crew) seems to have completely forgotten. He reminds us that the last round of inspections lasted 7 years; this one is supposed to be wrapped up in 60 days with half as many inspectors and a leader with a noticeable deficit in the cojone department. Let’s face it. These inspections are a joke. With More at Stake, Less Will Be Verified.

:: Scot 7:59 PM [+] :: ::
...

Damian Penny makes the mistake of starting his morning with the CBC.

:: Scot 7:23 PM [+] :: ::
...

William Thorsell on multiculturalism and the reluctance to identify ethnic ailments:

Canada is a famously functional multicultural society, at least in the ambience of its major cities. It is our habit to celebrate the delightful variations in dress, cuisine, rituals and appearances that grace our major cities, and why not? They provide interest and sensual pleasure to an otherwise predictable landscape, however fleeting such pleasures may be.

Of more significance are the varied sensibilities among these communities -- loyalty, altruism, ethics. We often express admiration for the particular strengths of certain communities, evident in the success of their children in universities or their eminence in certain economic fields (construction, small business, security). On these grounds of observation, we are usually safe from charges of racism.

But if multiculturalism justifies happy observations about collective virtues, it must logically sustain generalizations about social vices, too. And, of course, it does -- in private. Only the dumbest hypocrite would deny holding attitudes that are less than flattering about various communities within our midst.

If we are going to celebrate our differences, we are going to have to acknowledge that some of them are troubling and dangerous. Many come from within communities, rather than from relations between communities. They require illumination and public discussion.

:: Scot 6:36 PM [+] :: ::
...

Speaking of strategy, the next time you find yourself engaged in a rock-paper-scissors fight, consider these gambits.

:: Scot 6:13 PM [+] :: ::
...

StrategyPage has an interesting piece on the information war the U.S. has been waging against Iraq.

:: Scot 6:11 PM [+] :: ::
...

Another blog wonder. The Homeless Guy has a pretty cool website - and it's become quite popular in the blogdom.

:: Scot 7:39 PM [+] :: ::
...

This site has been flying around the blogosphere - video clips of Al Qaeda spokespeople and sympathizers.

(from Instapundit)

:: Scot 7:24 PM [+] :: ::
...

A few offerings from the world of literature. Sandy Starr looks at Frederick Crews' Postmodern Pooh:

So what's wrong with contemporary literary criticism? A good clue in Postmodern Pooh can be found in the contribution by Carla Gulag - who has co-administered the 'ever popular Marxism and Society Program' and 'lectured and written widely on topics pertaining to Critical Sociology, Critical Anthropology, Critical Legal Studies, and Critical Criticism'. For Gulag, 'the truly essential tasks of criticism' are: 'cognitive mapping, reconciling emergent and residual forms, weighing symbolic against diachronic factors, detecting and disabling master narratives, retotalising the Real, and deciding what is hegemonic over what, and why.'

Crews has little time for such vacuous jargon. 'My academic friends tend to be the scientists, and they say: "What are your colleagues up to?" They just can't fathom why people would waste their time in this way.' According to Crews, the notion of a specific literary theory which holds all of the answers is self-defeating. 'People are always looking for the master key to interpretation. If you believe in a theory that applies to all of literature, you've essentially tied your hands.'

Here's an interesting one on literature's insight into consciousness and qualia. A couple of noted cognitive scientists weigh in:

Human consciousness, as the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, author of The Feeling of What Happens , makes clear, is self-consciousness. We not only have experiences, we are conscious of ourselves having them, and of being affected by them.

He draws attention to the paradox noted by the pioneering philosopher-psychologist William James, brother of the novelist Henry James, that "the self in our stream of consciousness changes continuously as it moves forward in time, even as we retain a sense that the self remains the same while our existence continues."

Damasio calls the self that is constantly modified the "core" self, and the self that seems to have a kind of continuous existence the "autobiographical" self, suggesting that it is like a literary production. Daniel Dennett, author of Consciousness Explained , says something very similar. As spiders make webs and beavers build dams, so we tell stories.

"Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control, and self-definition is not spinning webs or building dams, but telling stories, and more particularly connecting and controlling the story we tell others - and ourselves - about who we are."

And one from Christopher Hitchens on Terry Teachout's biography of 20th century philosopher Henry Mencken. Here's the Mencken Society home page.

:: Scot 6:24 PM [+] :: ::
...

There is an outbreak of an unusual disease, expected to kill 600 people, and you must choose between two public health programs to combat it. Program A has a 100 percent chance of saving 200 lives while Program B has a one-third chance of saving 600 lives and a two-thirds probability of saving no lives. Also consider that if Program A were adopted, 400 people would die. If Program B were adopted, there would be a one-third probability that no one would die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people would die. Confused? Welcome to behavioral economics.

Over more than two decades, working together or with others, Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Tversky elaborated many situations in which such psychological "myopia" influenced people's behavior and offered formal theories to account for them.

They established, among other things, that losses loom larger than gains, that first impressions shape subsequent judgments, that vivid examples carry more weight in decision making than more abstract — but more accurate — information.

Kahneman on loss aversion:

There is an asymmetry between gains and losses, and it really is very dramatic and very easy to see. In my classes, I say: "I'm going to toss a coin, and if it's tails, you lose $10. How much would you have to gain on winning in order for this gamble to be acceptable to you?"

People want more than $20 before it is acceptable. And now I've been doing the same thing with executives or very rich people, asking about tossing a coin and losing $10,000 if it's tails. And they want $20,000 before they'll take the gamble.

So the function for gains and losses is sort of kinked. People really discriminate sharply between gaining and losing and they don't like losing.

:: Scot 4:20 PM [+] :: ::
...

Gene Expression has a terrific account of Iraqi sympathizer Scott Ritter's visit to Caltech.

:: Scot 1:47 AM [+] :: ::
...

Tom Nichols takes a look at the current state of the jihadis:

Why are our opponents so politically ungainly, so unable to comprehend the consequences of their actions? There are several possibilities, chief among them that they have been so insulated from the West for so long that they have no idea what sorts of states and cultures they're attacking, or of how relations among those states even work. It's also possible that they have imbibed their own poisonous ideology for so long that they cannot imagine that it is failing them now, preferring to see — as Saddam Hussein apparently does as well — a West characterized more by bickering and weakness than by strength and resolve. (The Chinese made this mistake when watching the UN allies disagreeing at times over the Korean War, much to their regret.)

But there's one more possible explanation: They don't care. They may not really care how far along they progress toward their alleged "goals," and in the meantime are more entranced by the images and sounds of human suffering than by how that suffering does or does not further their agenda. This would not be the first time this has happened: Hitler's irrational need, for example, to inflict as much monstrous punishment as possible on the Soviet Union helped to seal his doom, as he ignored the more sound strategic advice of his commanders while he continued to pursue his vendetta.

If this is the case, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that it means more attacks, and more carnage. Terrorism is, fundamentally, easy to do on a small scale. (Look what two losers with a rifle managed to pull off around Washington last month.) The good news is that the incoherence of terrorist strategy means that they are going to make the job of eradicating them that much easier in the long run. As long as they strike without regard to the effects of their actions beyond the spilling of blood, they will help to accomplish their own isolation, build support for the coalition, undermine the fatuous arguments of the American left, Europeans and others who think terror is a result of U.S. policy, and serve up constant reminders of the justice — and undeniable need — of the war on terror.

:: Scot 1:18 AM [+] :: ::
...

What's that you say? Saddam and his cronies are rational actors who can be negotiated with and contained? You might have trouble explaining this - the letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Saberi Ahmed to the U.N. regarding the acceptance of the weapons inspectors. Here are some of the more amusing passages:

You may recall the huge clamour fabricated by the President of the United States administration, in the biggest and most wicked slander against Iraq, supported in malicious intent, and spearheaded in word and malevolence, by his lackey Tony Blair, when they disseminated the claim that Iraq had perhaps produced, or was on its way to produce, nuclear weapons, during the time when the United Nations inspectors had been absent from Iraq since 1998. Then they returned to stress that Iraq had in fact produced chemical and biological weapons. They both know, as well as we do, and so can other countries, that such fabrications are baseless. But, does the knowledge of the truth constitute elements for interaction in the politics of our day, which has witnessed the unleashing of the American administration's evil to its fullest extent, dashing away all hope in any good? Indeed, is there any good to be hoped for, or expected, from the American administrations, now that they have been transformed by their own greed, by Zionism as well as by other known factors, into the tyrant of the age.

We have said to the member of the Security Council whom we have contacted, or who have contacted us, when they told us about the pretexts of the Americans and their threat to perpetrate aggression against our country, whether unilaterally or with participated from others, if the Council were not to allow them to have their way, that we preferred, if it ever became necessary to see America carry out its aggressions against us unilaterally, when we would have to confront it relying on Allah, instead of seeing the American government obtaining an international cover with which to camouflage its falsehood, partially or completely, bringing it closer to the truth, so that it may stab the truth with the dagger of evil and confronted the United States before when it looked as it does now, and this was one of the factors of its isolation in the human environment on the globe at large.

We hereby ask you to inform the Security Council that we are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable. The parties concerned should bear in mind that we are in our holy month of Ramadan which means that the people are fasting, and this holy month will be followed by the Muslum's Eid. Nevertheless, we will cooperate with the concerned UN bodies and officials on the background of all this, and of the tripartite, French-Russia-China, statement. Dealing with the inspectors, the government of Iraq will, also, take into consideration, their way of conduct, the intentions of those who are ill-intentioned amongst them and their improper approach in showing respect to the people's national dignity, their independence and security, and their country's security, independence and sovereignty.

Please assume your responsibilities, by saying and advising the unfair people that their unfairness to Muslims, faithful Arabs, and to all, will be of dire consequences, and that God, the Almighty is capable of doing everything. Tell them that the proud Iraqi people are faithful and Mujahid and who had fought the old colonialism, imperialism and aggression, including the tyrant's aggression, for years and years. The price this courageous people paid to safeguard their independence, dignity, sublime principles was rivers of blood, with a lot of deprivation and loss of their riches, along with their eternal achievements and record of which they are proud. Therefore, we hope, that you will, Mr. Secretary General, advise the ignorants not to push things to the precipice, in the implementation, because the people of Iraq will not choose to live at the price of their dignity, country, freedom or sanctities, and they would rather make their lives the price if that was the only way before them to safeguard what they must safeguard.

What a freak.

:: Scot 12:47 PM [+] :: ::
...

Nice article here on the war plans the U.S.intends to use to mulch Iraq. What's obviously missing from this 'leak' is the stuff our heroes are made of.

:: Scot 11:48 PM [+] :: ::
...

If you're looking for a good article on racial profiling of the non-terrorist variety, read Margaret Wente's column Black blame, white guilt. Toronto's black community, as well as the liberal teat-sucking rag the Toronto Star, are rightfully under attack right now for their lack of co-operation with this uniquely black crime problem.

:: Scot 11:22 PM [+] :: ::
...

National Post's Andrew Coyne weighs in on the pounding the Democrats took last week:

The last two have been the worst. The Dems couldn't win in 2000, with a Democrat in the White House and the strongest economy in many years. And they couldn't win in 2002, with a Republican in the White House and the weakest economy in many years. Something fundamental is at work here, beyond the particular tactics adopted in any one election. The Democrats are caught in the vortex of history, on the wrong side of an intellectual debate that was decided long ago, marooned by the slowly retreating tide of welfare-statism.

The Clinton presidency -- perhaps "interregnum" is better -- was itself a tacit acknowledgement of that: Indeed, though personally successful he may well have accelerated the Democrats' long-term decline. Mr. Clinton won as a New Democrat, a centrist who had borrowed much of the Republicans' clothes. After the 1994 debacle, he tilted further toward the GOP, often pushing through legislation over the objections of his own party -- a strategy that became known as "triangulation." It made him a difficult target, and seemed to flummox the Republicans, long enough to win him re-election.

But triangulation has its perils. One, it makes you look shifty and opportunistic, without principled foundations. Two, it amounts to conceding that your opponents are right. And three, eventually you run out of policies to steal. It helped that the Republicans, in the face of this cleverness, kept their nerve: Rather than try a reverse-Clinton, they moved the yardsticks still further, and dared the Democrats to follow them. Agree with them or not, they set the agenda, as they have been doing since Reagan. The Democrats have been reduced to one of two responses: "Don't," or "Oh all right, but let us do it."

It is in this context that the incoherence of the Democratic campaign in this election should be understood. What do you do when you are on the wrong side of history? Agree with Mr. Bush's tax cuts, for example, and you give voters little reason to choose you. Oppose them, and you risk being marginalized.

Mark Steyn takes the Bush angle:

Well, if he is an "arrogant cowboy" he's got a lot more to be arrogant about. Within the space of 60 hours this week, George W Bush pulled off an amazing double, stacking up impressive victories in both the US elections and the UN Security Council. In both cases, Two-Gun Tex didn't have to fire a shot, merely stand back and let his opponents shoot themselves in the foot - or possibly a little higher up.

In the summer, Mr Bush said he didn't need congressional approval to go to war with Iraq. Congressional Democrats huffily insisted that he did. So Bush said fine, have a vote and let's see where you stand. Likewise, he said he didn't need the approval of the UN. The windbags of "the international community" huffily insisted that he did. So Bush said okay, you guys take a vote, too.

It's not just that Two-Gun Tex called their bluff but that he played them off against each other brilliantly, going to the UN just before the congressional vote to give the Democrats a little multilateral cover, and then whumping the Dems just before the UN vote to remind Chirac and co that, while he may be an arrogant swaggering moronic cowboy, there ain't gonna be a new sheriff in town for another six years.

So, after weeks of French obfuscation and veto preening, the Associated Press reported that "a breakthrough in negotiations came Thursday". Thursday, you say? Amazing. Wonder why that was.

:: Scot 11:06 PM [+] :: ::
...

A reverse Alan Sokal hoax? Whether the Bogdanov brothers are right or not (and it doesn't look like they are), an interesting detail has arisen from the world of physics.

Whatever the truth about the two Frenchmen, their case raises questions about quality control in theoretical physics. Many papers in the field are so arcane that few can comprehend them, say some researchers. "It has become acceptable to publish things that are not understandable to a sufficiently wide audience," says Mr. Verbaarschot of Stony Brook.

The problem reaches deeper than just publishing, says Mr. Wilczek of MIT. It affects the granting of degrees and promotions as well. "Faculties in physics departments all around have to make judgments on people whose work is understood by very few if any."

The scientists who sit in judgment often will not acknowledge that they cannot assess the work of their peers. "It's a very human thing," he says. "Nobody likes to admit that they don't understand something, especially if it's very fashionable."

Making matters worse, theoretical physics is straying so far from anything measurable that it has become difficult to hold it up to any yardstick.

"Parts of theoretical physics have become dangerously complicated and divorced from empirical roots," says Mr. Wilczek. "I think it's a very dangerous trend."

:: Scot 10:59 PM [+] :: ::
...

A Champion of Champions.

(inspired by Spot On)

:: Scot 10:37 PM [+] :: ::
...

Jonah Goldberg rips into Canada:

In the intellectual and political sphere, Canada is one giant university quad. On college campuses, tiny grievances are accorded tectonic significance and the most microscopic slights become metaphysical offenses. Passion is more persuasive than reason and facts take a backseat to self-esteem.

Same thing in Canada. The Canadians have for a while now taken it upon themselves to be a "moral superpower," not a military superpower. The problem with this — as is so often the case with groups, institutions, and even nations seeking to be the conscience of the world — is that it leads to knee-jerk and cost-free preachiness rather than any attempt at real sacrifices. Canada was once willing to back up its moral ambitions with force of arms; today it's ranked 37th on the list of peacekeepers. Its military, which used to punch well above its weight, is quite literally rusting through, and there are no plans to remedy that. In short, Canada has willfully forgotten that a nation which wants to be a moral superpower doesn't just say nice things, it does right things even at great cost — as when Great Britain put an end to the slave trade by force of arms, not force of words.

Now don't get me wrong — I like Canadians. They are often among the nicest and most decent people you'd ever want to meet. They just don't live in a normal country.

He's got that right. For a tasty magazine front, check this out.

:: Scot 8:07 PM [+] :: ::
...

Two must sees from the Comedy Network - The Gavin Crawford Show and Crank Yankers.

:: Scot 3:09 PM [+] :: ::
...

UPI has the text from the final U.S. resolution on Iraq.

:: Scot 12:20 AM [+] :: ::
...

How the world is looking at the U.S. elections:

--

Globe and Mail (Canada)

Republicans take both houses of U.S. Congress

Democrats left to grumble about Bush's wars outplaying concerns about economy.

--

The Economist (U.K.)

Bush triumphs

The Republicans have regained control of the Senate and increased their majority in the House of Representatives in mid-term elections. The victory will strengthen George Bush's hand as he looks towards his own re-election campaign.

--

BBC (U.K.)

Bush triumphs in Congress elections

Republicans have scored a dramatic victory in mid-term elections to the US Congress, winning control of the Senate and increasing their majority in the House of Representatives.

--

The Guardian (U.K.)

Bush wins hardline Iraq deal

Dual victory as Congress falls to Republicans.

--

The Pravda (Russia)

Party of War Triumphant! Jeb Bush Helps His Brother

The results of the elections give Bush more freedom to take up important issues such as abortion, the right to own weapons, the death penalty, and distribution of power between the federal and state governments.

--

Arab News (Saudi Arabia)

Democrats blame Sept. 11 for defeat

Republicans consolidated their hold on the US government yesterday after a historic sweep of both chambers of Congress gave President George W. Bush new power to enact his agenda.

--

Jerusalem Post (Israel)

Bush leads Republicans to midterm election triumph

Republicans won back control of the Senate and increased their majority in the House in Tuesday's elections, paving the way for easier passage of President George W. Bush's domestic legislative priorities and giving him a partisan boost as he contemplates a war in Iraq.

--

Japan Today

U.S. election results unlikely to affect Japan policy

The results of Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections are not likely to affect U.S. policy toward Japan as the bilateral alliance is important regardless of which party controls Congress, analysts and Japanese sources said Wednesday.

--

The Australian

Bush wins control of Congress

Americans have resoundingly endorsed US President George W. Bush's focus on the war on terrorism, giving the Republican party control of the US Congress with knife-edge wins in key Senate seats yesterday.

--

:: Scot 11:44 PM [+] :: ::
...

Jeffrey Simpson with more on the recent Turkish elections:

The election was about the economy, stupid, plus corruption. Sure, there were Islamic fundamentalists who supported the winning Justice and Development Party (AKP). But most AKP supporters just wanted relief from the old politics and a semblance of economic hope, not a takeover by political Islam.

Political Islam is verboten in Turkey. The constitution forbids it, and the military enforces the ban. That's the way Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, wanted post-Ottoman Turkey. A party more closely aligned with Islam won in 1996, but the military forced out the prime minister the following year.

The military will be watching Mr. Erdogan. Where they will be watching him remains a mystery. Mr. Erdogan was convicted in 1998 for inciting religious hatred by reading a poem that struck a court as too militantly Islamic.

Mr. Erdogan has cooled his rhetoric since then, but he could not run for parliament because of that conviction, and no one can be prime minister without a seat. Mr. Erdogan obviously will call the shots, but not from the prime minister's office until some means can be negotiated to get him into parliament.

What about Mr. Erdogan and the untried AKP? It's not an idle question, given Turkey's geographic position, NATO membership, Muslim population, and secular post-Atatürk political traditions. If Turkey lurches away from the West toward nationalism or Islamic fundamentalism, the whole region would be affected.

As Istanbul mayor, Mr. Erdogan sounded more radical than he does now. Indeed, he describes the AKP as the Muslim equivalent of Europe's Christian Democratic parties. He favours Turkey's membership in the European Union and NATO and a close alliance with the United States. But will he keep Turkey's military co-operation with Israel?

:: Scot 11:01 PM [+] :: ::
...

Don't worry about all that pot you smoked in university (or yesterday). Here's the latest on memory repairing smart drugs (link requires free registration).

Cognition--memory, perception, and attention--is a prerequisite to success, an essential for a normal life. When it becomes impaired through illness or accident, a person's life is turned upside down. Existing memory enhancement drugs treat maladies that rob memory, but they are relatively ineffective and have significant side effects. Some researchers, realizing the huge market that an aging, memory-slipping population can generate, are working to modify some drugs currently on the market and to generate others that improve memory, sharpen perception, and focus attention. Goals include increasing hippocampal levels of cycle AMP, and targeting ion channels and intracellular cascades.

Thirty years ago, cholinesterase inhibitors were tested in normal individuals. But bad side effects, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, made them acceptable only for patients with disease, though side effects have since lessened somewhat. One more recent study demonstrated the significant, positive effects of cholinesterase inhibitors, specifically one called donepezil, in normal, middle-aged private airplane pilots.1 This drug is frequently prescribed for patients with Alzheimer disease. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, investigators compared the flight simulator performance of nine normal pilots on placebo with that of nine normal pilots on donepezil. After 30 days of treatment, the latter group performed better on a set of complex simulator tasks. Senior investigator Peter J. Whitehouse, professor of neurology, Case Western Reserve University, says his group now plans to do tests with galantamine in normal persons; galantamine is the most recently approved drug for treating Alzheimer disease.

:: Scot 10:44 PM [+] :: ::
...

Looks like some Europeans get it.

Speaking at last weekend's Conservative Party Congress, Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller called Islamic fundamentalists 'the Nazis of our time.' The Foreign Minister passionately asserted in last Sunday's speech that the actions of a few 'fanatical figures' would crush neither the values nor the society of the Western world.

"Fundamentalism is not unique to Islam. The Nazis were fundamentalists who sought to eradicate any segment of the population that was unlike them, and Muslim fundamentalists are the Nazis of our time. Judgmentally, they appoint themselves judge, jury, and executioner over everyone and everything, but they will face judgment themselves. Terrorists will be hunted down, and will find no safe haven in this world," said Per Stig Møller at his party's annual congress.

:: Scot 10:01 AM [+] :: ::
...

Den Beste weighs in on the American-European power dichotomy - a topic that he is quickly becoming an expert on.

The Europeans come from a culture which has a long tradition of power and authority flowing from above downward. At different times different groups have been in command, but there is always the feeling that power naturally should concentrate in a few hands, who grant as much or as little downward as they wish.

At different times that power has been concentrated in the hands of monarchs, or church authorities, or military dictators, or revolutionary intellectuals, but it's invariably concentrated and Europeans have never known anything else.

When they argue about these things, it's a priori for them that this is the state of affairs. So they argue about who should be in charge, and the current major political argument in Europe is about the extent to which power should be concentrated in Brussels instead of in Paris and Rome and Berlin and London. When a political movement there tries to change things, they frame their argument in terms of proving that their new proposed elite is a better choice than the elite which currently holds power.

At one time this was called "the divine right of Kings" but though the theological basis for it has largely ceased to carry much credence, and though it is rarely monarchs now who wield it, that idea still holds sway there. Europeans are used to being ruled, and what they argue about is who the rulers should be.

The difficulty is that when they try to peddle those arguments to us, they run into the fact that we in America don't see things that way at all. From our point of view power is vested in the people, who grant it upwards and can take it back if they wish. When Europeans try to tell us that a given elite is the right one to wield power, Americans ask why there should be any elite at all wielding power, and begin to ask questions about accountability.

At which point each group looks at the other with mystification; the Europeans think the Americans stupid for even asking such a question, the Americans think that the Europeans are fascists who don't understand the most important principles of liberty. The Europeans still don't understand that when the US was founded, it began with the basic rejection of that entire principle and designed its governmental system based on power flowing upward, not downward, and on government serving the people rather than ruling them.

:: Scot 9:40 AM [+] :: ::
...

More on Can-Am border concerns from the Globe and Mail's Norman Spector.

Hezbollah is on the U.S. list of "A-level terrorists." Yet, CSIS director Ward Elcock repeatedly declares that "Sunni extremism" is the threat to Canada. That definition whitewashes both wings of Hezbollah -- an organization partly funded by their fellow Shiite Muslims, who rule Iran. Most disturbingly, CSIS's watchdog panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, adopted the same definition last month in reporting that the agency was fully on top of the terrorist threat prior to Sept. 11.

Our foreign ministry is interested in courting Iran. But any indication that intelligence agencies are tailoring their findings to conform to political demands would be very damaging to our national interests.

Canadians face a stark choice: Either we tighten up on our side of the border, or the Americans will on theirs.

:: Scot 8:53 AM [+] :: ::
...

David Frum with the latest on Canadian-American relations:

Graham and Jean Chrétien are trying to walk a narrow defile. On the one hand, they want to seem supportive enough of the Americans that they can ask for favours -- like the exemption from normal security procedures for Canadian passport-holders. On the other hand, they are plainly terrified of taking a tough line on terror and possibly provoking a terrorist attack against Canada.

So they waffle.

But waffling has its price. The old English-speaking alliance inherited from the Second World War and the Cold War -- the United States, U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- is breaking in half. The U.S., U.K. and Australia now sit at the alliance's adults' table, where the decisions are made. Canada and New Zealand sit at the children's table where their noises won't disturb the grown-ups. From time to time, when the kids really yell, the adults remember to send over a cookie, as the Americans did last week.

On the merits of the dispute about the treatment of naturalized Canadians, Canada is surely right. In both Canada and the United States, foreign-born citizens are entitled to be treated as citizens, plain and simple. Even on its own terms, the fingerprinting program makes little sense. If we're trying to predict terrorist sympathies from place of birth, surely the people we would want to fingerprint are people born in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, not Iraq? Yet for strategic reasons, those two most dangerous nations are exempt.

I am sure that Canadian diplomats quietly raised these points a month ago. Nobody in Washington seems to have listened, because in Washington attention and respect are earned. What Jean Chrétien and Bill Graham have earned for Canada instead is suspicion and disregard.

Wanna know what some Americans think of Canada's contribution to the war effort? Read this.

:: Scot 4:04 PM [+] :: ::
...

Smart paint creates chameleon tanks

Military vehicles including tanks, trucks helicopters and weapon systems will be covered with a coating that has been embedded with nanotechnology. The microscopic electromechanical machines - known as nanomachines - will send signals to Army personnel, alerting them if the coating is impaired.

If tanks are corroded or scratched, the vehicles will be able to detect it and heal themselves. The coatings could also reduce the sensitivity of explosives, making them safer for soldiers to handle. Perhaps most importantly, tanks would turn chameleon, creating instant camouflage and making themselves virtually invisible on the battlefield.

Tell me again how science fiction doesn't have a unique impact on our lives.

:: Scot 3:43 PM [+] :: ::
...

Teacher accused of making threats will return to classroom

A number of parents say Lois Emrich, a music teacher at Liberty Elementary School in Carpentersville, told their fourth-grade students she had a gun and would shoot them if they didn't play their recorders correctly during a music class early last week.

They also report their children said Emrich singled out one child, said there was a "blood spot" under his chair and pointed to a storage closet where she said she kept the bodies of those she had already killed.

"I was just appalled by how explicit she was and how detailed she was," said Cass Garcia, whose 9-year-old son Frank was sitting in the chair over the alleged blood stain.

Nobody said learning was easy.

:: Scot 3:24 PM [+] :: ::
...

A terrific piece from Dawson Speaks on our friends the Saudis. Contributor Joseph Norland writes:

Over the years, I have formed a very negative view about Saudi Arabia, and, committed to introspection any time a Saudi Prince makes pronouncements of this kind, I had to ask myself whether I too have been poisoned by Israel, or whether the facts support my view.

As the basis for my inquiry, I used a random array of recent news stories and commentaries, which found their way to my desk. I present them below under nine categories, each piece with the associated link (this is to enable readers to ensure that I am not “quoting out of context”).

On its own, each component may not add up to much, but I find the sum total of the entire array to be quite convincing.

What follows is about fifty different articles and references in nine different categories basically explaining why Saudi Arabia is a rotting cesspool and is anything but our friends. A good read.

:: Scot 3:18 PM [+] :: ::
...

From the Washington Post - 'Islamist' Party Sweeps Elections in Turkey. I hope this doesn't become an issue down the road.

:: Scot 9:55 PM [+] :: ::
...

Why Rolling Stone still doesn't get it. I'm firmly convinced this magazine will never again be worth reading. The cover shows the riveting and cerebral Christina Aguilera in her birthday suit with a guitar covering one tit and her hand covering the other. If the magazine is that eager to show a little sex kitten writhing on a bed, at least show someone who makes cool music.

:: Scot 9:50 PM [+] :: ::
...

Saudis deny Americans use of airspace for war againt Iraq.

Why bother co-operating when your regime is going to be overthrown too?

:: Scot 8:30 PM [+] :: ::
...

Three more pieces for the Reading Room:

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments by Justin Kruger and David Dunning

The Computational Universe by Seth Lloyd

Rules for a Complex Quantum World by Michael A. Nielsen

:: Scot 8:00 PM [+] :: ::
...

The European Union and its quest for power. Hugo Gordon explains:

The EU project, which began as an effort to enfold Germany in a constitutional embrace that would prevent it plunging Europe into war again, has turned into an overweening drive to subordinate all member states to a Franco-German command based in Brussels. The suppression of national sovereignty has become the cardinal aim, for that is what makes the EU a power to be reckoned with globally.

Now it is turning that effort on to the United States. It is the EU leaders, France and Germany, that most vociferously oppose America's right to decide that self-defense and enlightened self-interest make it wise to take military action against Iraq, unilaterally if necessary. It is the EU that is most determined to force the United States back into the economy-hobbling Kyoto climate change treaty. And Pascal Lamy, the EU trade commissioner, has made it clear he intends using the World Trade Organization, which originally buttressed national sovereignty, into a tool of European policy.

Two years ago next month, Jacques Chirac, the French president, speaking at the Hague about Kyoto, said: "I call upon the United States of America…to cast aside their doubts and hesitations…[and join in] building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance…"

Just as the builders of the European Union are burying the nation state on their own continent, so they are working toward the imposition of global governance. EU power blooms amid multilateral structures that militate against American power. That is now the EU's raison d'etre.

Having twice in the past century sent its sons to fight in Europe, with great loss of life, America understandably wants to see the development of a united Europe as benign. But the lens of 20th-century war now prevents America from seeing the European Union properly, and it needs to be put aside. European leaders do not hide their ambition to make the EU a global counterweight and rival to America; we should take them at their word.

Here's more on the EU from Charles Kupchan.

:: Scot 6:54 PM [+] :: ::
...

Daniel Pipes has a good take on Jihad and what it means to university professors.

:: Scot 8:38 AM [+] :: ::
...

The New Criterion has a specal feature this month on anti-Americanism with a couple of great articles by Roger Kimball and John Derbyshire.

The Notes and Comments section backs up the Maureen Dowd as dingbat theory:

If Annie Sprinkle provides one sort of counter-cultural entertainment, The New York Times’s op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd provides another, less sexual but not necessarily less obscene. Dispassionate readers, encountering Dowd’s hysterical outbursts, might be forgiven for wondering if she were quite sane. (They might also, we suppose, wonder about the sanity of her employers.) Dowd was already out of control in the Clinton years, when she first came to prominence. But since George W. Bush took office, she has left mere stridency for a form of editorial hectoring that is partly irresponsible, partly surreal. We would not presume to say which of Maureen Dowd’s recent effusions is the absolute worst—the competition for that award would be too gruesome to adjudicate. But “The Soufflé Doctrine,” published on Sunday, October 20, does represent a new level of rhetorical incontinence. It is one of Dowd’s “creative writing” efforts, in which she pretends to be inside the head of her subject—in this case George W. Bush. The opening sentence epitomizes the tone and moral weather of the essay: “The Boy Emperor picked up the morning paper and, stunned, dropped his Juicy Juice box with the little straw attached.” “Boy Emperor”? “Juicy juice box”? Dowd obviously gets a little thrill out of referring to the President of the United States as “boy”: she does it nine times in the space of a 725-word piece. The aim of her expostulation is to pillory the President as a “befuddled” know-nothing manipulated by his advisors, especially by the eminent defense policy expert Richard Perle. What she succeeds in doing, however, is lampooning herself and casting doubt on the judgment of her editors. It was a fateful day when someone congratulated Maureen Dowd on her cutesie, baby-talk style of political satire. Poor thing, she believed it. And she has been embarked on a campaign to outdo herself ever since. It is a grotesque performance, the journalistic equivalent of Gloria Swanson’s character in Sunset Boulevard. Unfortunately, while journalists like Dowd preen themselves, deadly enemies of the West go about their murderous business. Last week it was Bali. The week before, a French tanker off the coast of Yemen. Before that, some U.S. Marines in Kuwait. Not to mention the 3000 dead in lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and that field in rural Pennsylvania. Such realities do not penetrate the coddled thought processes of Maureen Dowd. She is too engaged with her private arias. She is serious only as the symptom of a disorder. The question is, what should we make of a newspaper that continues to treat Maureen Dowd as a serious commentator?

:: Scot 3:48 PM [+] :: ::
...

Andrew Sullivan on the British corruption of America:

It's something of a cultural turnaround, this British dumbing-down of the United States. Though the trend has been gaining momentum for years, it still hasn't quite been recognized by Americans. Old brands, after all, die hard. And there are few things more dear to Americans than the notion of Britain (or, more accurately, England) as a halcyon place of tea, crumpets, and generations of aesthetes who went to tony private schools and know much of Shakespeare and Milton by heart. In this cranny of the American psyche, the English are eternally polite, classy, reliable fuddy-duddies. The image is kept afloat by stray, elevated English exports that always find a market and appeal particularly to culturally insecure Americans--The Economist, any film by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, the Harry Potter novels, The New York Review of Books pieces by Simon Schama, a new PBS production of The Forsyte Saga (now breathing new life into that flagship of civilized Britannia, "Masterpiece Theatre"). But in the last decade or so, as British society has morphed into a free-market melting pot of cultural brashness, these upmarket products have become the exceptions. The most powerful British influences on American culture today are ferociously crass, unvarnished, unseemly--and completely unapologetic about it. They are, in fact, one of the latest assaults on what was once quite a civilized country.

:: Scot 3:23 PM [+] :: ::
...

Yikes! Looks like NASA is being crippled by fraud.

:: Scot 12:46 PM [+] :: ::
...

Democracy in the Middle East? You don't hear much from Bahrain in the news.

Think about the contrasting headlines made last week by the biggest Arab state and the smallest Arab state. From the biggest state, Egypt, came the news that its state TV planned to run a 41-part series during the month of Ramadan — when TV viewing is at its highest — about a Zionist conspiracy to control Arab lands. From the smallest state, Bahrain, came the news that it had successfully conducted the first democratic parliamentary election in the Arab gulf, to begin empowering Bahrainis to control their own land.

Therein lies the two Arab responses to 9/11. One, the Egyptian model, is to feed their people bread, circuses and conspiracy theories to explain why they are falling behind in the world. The other, the Bahraini model, is to feed their people more responsibility, a freer press and greater ability to shape their own future to help them catch up in the world.

I discovered that at Al Wasat — the first independent newspaper allowed in Bahrain — when I asked its gutsy young editor, Mansoor al-Jamri, about the roots of 9/11.

"There are domestic roots for what happened [on Sept. 11]," says Mr. Jamri, "and the root is that if you squash freedom, if you stop freedom of expression, insult this person and just give him money, he transfers all this money into revenge, because of having lost his dignity. We have six people from Bahrain in Guantánamo Bay. One is a member of the ruling family. The other five are . . . from the upper class. And for a young man from the ruling family, who receives a monthly salary, who is 23 years old, to go to Afghanistan to fight, there must be some sort of an explanation."

"There is a vacuum," he said. "You empty a person, you fill him with money, you fill him with material things, but that does not fulfill his aspirations as a human being. He has some objectives. He has feelings. He is not fulfilled. And all of a sudden someone comes and tells him that the cause of all that is this global power [America], which has insulated us, which continues to look at us as a bunch of nothings, who are basically eating and sleeping and going after women. And all of a sudden he directs his anger at what he thinks is the reason why he doesn't have what he wants — his sense of being a true human able to express himself and having influence on his society and being respected locally and internationally. This lack of respect as a dignified person has resulted in a bin Laden phenomenon."

:: Scot 12:41 PM [+] :: ::
...