Representative Bart Stupak:

What are Democratic leaders saying? "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

Well, technically, if the children who are born go on to work for the private sector, they become net contributors who provide millions (if not billions) more in wealth. The only ones who "cost" are those the few handicapped who will never be able to work, and those who will choose not to create wealth — such those who work as career politicians or bureaucrats.

And they shouldn't complain too much about the later because they're talking about their biggest future supporters. Odd how Democrats disdain their own.

Good example of how big government devalues human life itself. Many run for office claiming life is so precious every one deserves government support, but then govern as though each new human is a curse and a burden. I guess that's inevitable when you believe economics is a zero-sum game.

One of the things I truly appreciate about the Intelligent Design debate is the way it drives men who are allegedly scientific, rational, intelligent thinkers to make irrational and even deeply stupid statements.

For example, upon noting PBS seemed to be promoting Neil deGrasse Tyson as a new Carl Sagan, I noticed a group of "rational atheists" quoting this rather idiotic argument from him:

This present-day version of God of the gaps goes by a fresh name: "intelligent design." The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods. An interesting hypothesis. But why confine ourselves to things too wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a superintelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence? And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs-an entertainment complex built around a sewage system? Stupid design could fuel a movement unto itself. It may not be nature's default, but it's ubiquitous. Yet people seem to enjoy thinking that our bodies, our minds, and even our universe represent pinnacles of form and reason. Maybe it's a good antidepressant to think so. But it's not science-not now, not in the past, not ever.

Now, mind you, I'm not saying it's an ineffective or even un-persusasive argument. (If you think the two are always connected, try reading the lyrics to pop music — where you'll find a lot of really stupid, yet apparently rather persuasive material.)

But boil it down and you're left with a true stinker:

1. Intelligent Design must imply a God
2. If God "designed" anything, most objects in the universe must appear designed
3. If something strikes us as comical, or it must be badly designed
4. By counting such objects, and comparing them to objects we think are well designed, we disprove this argument.
5. The belief our bodies were designed can never be considered science.

What's so touching about this argument is that almost every major point in it is fallacious in some manner: either a straw man, or an unwarranted assumption. And yet it's also being promoted as a primary example of 'rational' atheism!

I realize it's probably not clear to some readers why every point above is in some way flawed. (For some atheist readers, a few may be deeply ingrained dogmas.) And it will take a moment to explain each. This is, sadly, the problem with errors: they're simple to commit, and harder to correct; but to be as brief as possible:

1. ID implies a God.

This is a straw man; it goes beyond what the movement proposes. Tyson seems to want to avoid the actual definition of Intelligent Design — so he substitutes his own perception of the term. I suppose it would now be fair for me to refute Dawkin's "selfish gene" by saying that it "suggests" genes have emotions and plan to steal stuff from other genes? (Hey, because that what *I* thought the term suggested?) In Tyson's world, such straw men pass as reasoned debate. How sad.

As an aside, one might argue: Even if ID itself doesn't propose a God, many ID proponents are God-believers, and are arguing so because of that belief. Granted. And so? If metaphysical motives invalidate arguments, then much that Dawkins (and Tyson, above) say must be similarly invalid by the same rule.

To understand why this is a fallacious (ad hominem) argument: Analogously, let's say that we were debating the odds of a particular protein forming. I argue it's so improbable, it shouldn't have happened in the history of the universe. You say I'm arguing this because I think it must imply such a 'miracle' would mean God exists. Okay, let's grant that. But my alleged motive for doing so doesn't render the question necessarily unscientific. Nor, even if I'm right about the odds, that wouldn't necessarily validate my further deduction.

2. If God "designed" anything, most objects in the universe must appear designed

One of the things which puzzles me about atheists is that they often seem to tell us they know quite a lot about God: One often hears unsupported assertions that the only kind of God which can exist is X. (In Tyson's argument X = "makes all objects in the universe appear designed") Yet how do they know God must be just like that? It appears they're just inserting their own religious assumptions, with no supporting arguments, as statements of faith. I suppose that can be cathartic, but it's certainly not a form of reason.

3. If something strikes us as comical, or it must be badly designed.

Tyson's choice of argument couldn't be more amusing: he argues placing sexual organs lower in the body, near those involved in processing waste, is a really comical or stupid design. Yet if his own core assumptions are true, evolution must have come up with many, many other alternative configurations, and this particular configuration won out because it was the "most fit" of all the alternatives. (Indeed, try imaging what Tyson apparently thinks would be better: a world where most animals had their sex organs near their heads, on their backs, or on their feet! Can you imaging giving birth from your neck or ankles? Tyson thinks this would be much better than the current arrangement, apparently!)

Indeed, the current sexual arrangement (keeping the sex and digestion organs on the bottom of things, in less vulnerable areas, near the center of gravity, and minimizing the number of vulnerable orifices), which he argues here is comically bad, seems to succeeded rather brilliantly, given that it's found in almost all animals. But never mind the data, eh? Tyson ignores plain evidence of successful function because a theological point is on the line. Don't confuse him with facts!

4. By counting such [badly-designed] objects, and comparing them to objects we think are well designed, we disprove this argument.

First, as the previous point shows, not everything which appears "badly designed" at first (especially at the hands of someone wishing to show it as such) is actually badly designed. Many tools seem "hard to use" until you "get the hang of" them. Similarly, many features of our bodies — the appendix, for example — were declared useless junk until we later discovered their 'purpose'.

Second, the presence of badly- or non-designed objects doesn't do anything to refute any argument pertaining to design. Imagine you find a building on an otherwise rocky and barren world. You comment: "Well, I think the roof was badly designed." Does that mean the building wasn't put there by an intelligence? Or — most amusingly — would you be impressed by the argument that it couldn't have been put there by an intelligence because there are ten trillion rocks also on the planet, which don't appear to have been designed? Yet this is precisely what Tyson demands here: the presence of many seemingly non- or badly-designed object negates cases where design clearly seems apparent.

I would hate to be the prosecutor in a courtroom designed by Tyson: If I produced the murder weapon with the accused's fingerprints clearly on it, he would demand we start counting the number of objects on our planet which did NOT have the man's fingerprints on them! That's not just, it's not fair, and it's not rational — but it certainly would deliver the fore-ordained verdict.

5. The belief our bodies were designed can never be considered science.

Why? Is it because metaphysical beliefs aren't science? Then what are we to make of 'scientists' like Dawkins when he asserts that many things in nature appear designed, but they really are not? Isn't that equally unscientific, for the exact same reason?

X is designed => not science
X was not designed => science?

Why should this be so? Have these men simply redefined "science", for their own purposes, to mean "atheism"? If so, then aren't there a large group of people who are confusing their religious beliefs with 'science'? (I suspect so, actually.)

Or is "X is designed" not science because it's allegedly wrong? So how did they prove it was wrong? Because they believe God doesn't exist? And that was demonstrated by science? And are other wrong propositions also not science? How many Grand Unified Theories have we got now? Can all of them be right? So aren't the vast majority "not science" because the odds are low that they're correct?

I don't know how you can support a statement like this, from Tyson, except by redefining the word 'science' to either mean membership in a religious movement (Tyson's particular strain of atheism), excluding Tyson's argument itself as unscientific (it is also metaphysical), or to mean that no proposal can be considered scientific until it is proven correct. Which, frankly, means no research today is 'science' either. (Clarifications welcomed.)

Anyway, my point here isn't to argue in favor of Intelligent Design. My point here is only to mention another case in point where any whiff of God (as they see it) apparently induces seemingly sane, intelligent, rational men to produce blithering, idiotic arguments. But I guess "reason" isn't much of a check on religious (or anti-religious) dogma and fervor. Some are apparently willing to believe anything, apparently (including that our sex organs would work far better on our chest, back, legs, neck, arms or head!) rather than admit some minor point which seems (to him) to lead, eventually, to an unwanted outcome involving a creator.

Reuters is so cute:

California students protest fees

SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 (Reuters) - University of California students take to the streets on Thursday to protest fee hikes, campus racism, and what they call privatization of the public system that was a beacon for the state in the 1960s.

Students are not alone in their dissatisfaction. Polls show residents see California headed the wrong way with a gaping budget shortfall, legislative gridlock, slashed social services and double-digit joblessness.

Students are upset that the state of California won't be giving away enough fee stuff — which is, apparently, exactly the same concern shared by most other California residents. Right, Reuters?

Racist acts, including a swastika and anti-gay graffiti has raised temperatures on campuses.

I wasn't aware "gay" was now a race. We can learn so much from the smart people at Reuters.

Fee hikes of more than 30 percent to over $10,000 per year will make the university more costly than rivals in other states.

They've only been paying $7,000 or so per year for a first-class university education? My heart weeps bitterly for them. (Don't ask how much I owed in student loans.) California's taxpayers, many of whom are less privileged than these students (and will never hope to earn as much) should cough up, instead, to prevent these students from having to pay for the value they're receiving.

"Beyond the fact that there isn't money..."

Details! But what could be more horrifying than bankruptcy?

"...there is a sense that education has become a private good," University of California spokesman Pete King said.

Oh no! Capitalism!

Pete: Any time you feel like (a) quitting your state-funded job, and pledging to work only in the private sector, so you create wealth rather than consuming it, and also (b) give away the majority of your salary — then I'll believe that your own education wasn't mostly a "private good," from your point of view.

Consider Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Like our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, her husband is also a former president. Unlike Hillary, she made it all the way into office, receiving a hefty 22% edge over her rival. She's also a rather physically attractive figure.

On the other hand, her former high popularity has plummeted: she's been found to have received at least one suitcase full of money (the tip of an iceberg, no doubt) from Hugo Chavez. (Her husband, Nestor, formerly engaged in "unity talks" to align their government with the Chavez regime.) She passed an unpopular law raiding private pensions to support the government's society security system — yet at the same time, critics have demanded an investigation into huge increases in Christina and Nestor's wealth.

This January, after a failed attempt to bring her country's central bank under her control, she and her husband were "reported to the Justice because of illicit gain". Last month, two members of her staff resigned under the same charges. She's made moves to restrict the media using both new laws (allowing the state to decide who can own what publications), and union allies who silenced critical news outlet using "force and threats of violence." Opponents have called for impeachment.

Amidst all this controversy, she suddenly decides her country needs a good war: time to invade the Falklands, again! Strategically, that's a clever move: it will keep the headlines off her and force Argentinians (she hopes) to rally around her government. It will also give her an opportunity to enact unprecedented controls and powers, the kind only appropriate during times of war.

The UK's government, in return, notes correctly that the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands have zero desire to become subjects of Fernandez. Their position is that such negotiations would thus add unhelpful creditability to Kirchner's desire for gaining control over the Falklands.

So who is the US backing? Take a wild guess...

Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said she agreed that talks were a sensible way forward and offered "to encourage both countries to sit down."

Her intervention defied Britain's longstanding position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands' 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in Buenos Aires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands....

What began as a last-minute change to Mrs Clinton's itinerary on her five-day sweep through Latin America has snowballed into a major diplomatic incident that has emboldened Argentina and caught the US largely unawares [sic].... US officials said privately that British fears of being abandoned by the US over the Falklands were wildly overblown, but any hope on the part of the Administration of staying on the sidelines looked forlorn yesterday.

Hector Timerman, the Argentine Ambassador to the US, said he had never seen "such substantial support" from Washington for his country's claim....

In the Falklands, reaction to the meeting ranged from dismay to fury. "It's outrageous after all the support we have given the United States," said Hattie Kilmartin, a sheepfarmer's wife. "They are not looking at the people who are actually living here and what they want, and it's crazy that they are even contemplating going against us." Jane Clement, who works at Stanley airport, said her reaction was "probably unprintable." She added: "I'm very disappointed. I always thought we would have support."

Tiffany Gillen, an American citizen living in the Falklands, wrote a letter of protest to President Obama, asking: "How can we not support these people, this country? Have we ceased to be allies of the United Kingdom?"

Apparently.

Well, at least we're pleasing some people with our bold new foreign policy stances. Too bad, as with Honduras, they tend to be allies of Chavez, people who affect a visible dislike for popular democracy and limited rule, people who use threats of violence to consolidate control and silence dissent.

As usual, you'll have to read a British newspaper for coverage.

Victor Sharpe, in American Thinker, raises a really good point about claims that Israel is an "apartheid" state: namely that Israel doesn't practice religious segregation while Palestine and Jordan actually do. I'd also point out that Saudi Arabia does, too, and has a massive sub-caste of Christian and other non-Muslim workers (from the Philippines and elsewhere) who have far fewer rights and freedoms than their Muslim counterparts.

Of course, the real concern by those who pursue such arguments is not a uniform attempt to stamp-out legal inequalities. If it was, the Islamic world as a whole would be squarely and constantly fixed in their rhetorical crosshairs. Instead, the foregone conclusion is that Jews Israel is uniquely evil, and this is just one more attempt to come up with a narrative to justify that foregone conclusion.

Ann Althouse positions herself in the "moderate" middle between two extremes (warning: impending blogospheric personality spat, about which I care little):

"Wouldn't it be *awesome* if Obama were as radical as the Rights thinks he is?" Tweets Ana Marie Cox about an article that I didn't click to when I originally read it yesterday. This morning, I happened upon an Andy McCarthy post over at NRO, decided to blog about it, and thought it would go perfectly with what Cox had written. I'd almost blogged Cox's remark, because I thought it was scarily left wing, and I wanted to blog McCarthy because I thought interestingly extreme.

MCarthy's "interestingly extreme" position, it turns out, is his contention that top Democrats (Pelosi, Reid, Obama, and their underlings) are not motivated so much by a desire to be re-elected, but by a desire "to execute the permanent transformation of American society." Both Cox and Althouse are fairly sure he is wrong on this.

Um, but why? Obama pledged to "transform America." Which is the "extreme" position? To assume he was lying when he said that? Or to assume he was telling the truth about a rather extreme position of his own? (It's apparently not "extreme" for Obama to want to transform American society, but it is 'extreme' for his opponents to note he said it and believe his own words???)

Further, the current healthcare plan polls as massively unpopular. Unless we conclude Pelosi doesn't know what polls are, we must conclude that she knows passing the bill will hurt her party's popularity, and possibly cost them the majority. If so, then the passage of the plan is indeed more important than getting re-elected.

How I think, or how I want to think, is remarkably simple. I look for a model that fits the data. If the current model doesn't work, and another solves more problems, fits more behaviors, then I jettison the first model for the second one. My old mental model assumed Pelosi et al were persuing what they thought (perhaps wrongly) was a mandate. That view breaks down, given current data. The replacement model says Democrat leaders aren't angling for short-term popularity, and thus (being at least vaguely rational actors) must therefore be thinking of some longer-term goal.

That may be wrong, but simply characterizing it as "extreme" doesn't shed any light on how or why. I wish Ann (or anyone) would propose her more "moderate" explanation which makes sense of these new developments, so that we could all analyze it — instead of merely dismissing Andy's position as "extreme". (Isn't it also a bit "extreme" to ram through a wildly unpopular bill using a unprecedented (and possibly unconstitutional) strategy? How can you explain one extreme behavior, aside from appealing to chance, without appeal to an equally 'extreme' model of what's going on?)

I don't know Ann very well, but she seems nice, and frequently trenchant in her observations. And I have much sympathy with anyone who dares resist the flow in Madison, Wisconsin. But she did vote for Obama and then realize, later (with, to her credit, apologies) that he wasn't the finely-tempered moderate she'd envisioned — despite (what seemed to me) copious evidence to the contrary. Was that an example of the same process which is producing this analysis? (Which I imagine, perhaps wrongly, to be: "Oh that sounds too extreme. Let's not think it.")

I hope Andy's wrong too, but I don't have a better explanation. Anyone?

Politico:

[Obama] tried to call out the Republicans when they fell back on their usual tactics, noting at one point that Minority Whip Eric Cantor had a six-inch-high stack of papers in front of him. "Let me just guess, that’s the 2400 page Democratic bill," Obama said before Cantor started speaking. "These are the kinds of political things we do that prevent us from actually having a conversation."

Bringing his party's actual health care bill to a debate intended to facilitate its passage "prevent[s] us from actually having a conversation" about it?

You just can't make this stuff up.

So asks The Washington Post:

IN THE PAST few months, proponents of lifting U.S. and international sanctions against Cuba have been gaining momentum. Their argument is that the strategy of isolating the Castro regime has failed.... Since the critique of the old Cuba policy was grounded in its supposed ineffectiveness, it seems fair to ask: Is the new, Castro-friendly approach working? A good answer to that question came Tuesday, when Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year-old Afro-Cuban political prisoner, died after an 83-day hunger strike...

Human rights groups agree that Cuban totalitarianism has not eased since 79-year-old Raúl Castro replaced his 83-year-old brother, Fidel. "Rather than dismantle Cuba's repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active," said Human Rights Watch in a report last November. "Deplorable prison conditions, torture, and lack of medical attention" explained Mr. Zapata's death, said Freedom House, which in 2009 designated Cuba one of the "worst of the worst." Yet the stroking of the Castro brothers goes on. As Mr. Zapata died, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was arriving in Havana for another warm reunion with the brothers -- his third in the past two years....

Meanwhile, Cuban doctors — remember how we always heard about how great Cuba is because they "loaned" doctors to other South American countries undergoing leftist revolutions (never mind what their loss portends for Cubans) — a few of these Cuban doctors who apparently escaped are suing Castro and Chavez (in Miami courts), alleging they were held as virtual slaves:

Seven Cuban doctors and a nurse sued Cuba, Venezuela and the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) for alleged conspiracy to force them to work in conditions of "modern slaves" in order to pay off the Cuban debt with the Venezuelan government for oil supply.

The defendants "intentionally and arbitrarily" held the health staff in "debt servitude" and the staff became "economic slaves" and "political advocates," according to the complaint filed in the United States, Efe reported.... the leading defense attorney Arístides Cantón argued that the plaintiffs travelled to Venezuela in "deceit" and "threats," and were forced to work unlimited hours in a social welfare program known as "Mission Barrio Adentro," in areas with high rate of crime.

What is with the American celebrities who love dictators like Castro and Castro? Danny Glover, Harry Belanfonte, Naomi Cambell.... Chevy Chase even said: "Socialism works. I think Cuba might prove that." Works for who? Undoubtedly it's very good for the Castro brothers and their guests. Not so much for the once-proud nation now being held captive as their private possession.

They were certainly capable of getting excited about the horrors of the Bush administration. (You remember Bush? He ended his term quietly, on time, ceding to the Obama administration — who kept most of Bush's more "controversial" policies in place.) But when it comes to actual torture and slavery? This stuff bothers me, and it bugs me even more that there's simply no outrage about it at all from the American left or media. None.

Castro isn't their enemy. Chavez isn't their enemy. Sarah Palin — now there's a horrible human being we must focus on obsessively.

Cleverer how, exactly?

The conclusion was drawn following a five month online contest between the sexes conducted in nine languages and based on the popular board game Trivial Pursuit.... Women were strongest when answering questions from Entertainment. They answered twice as many from the category, traditionally characterised as pink, as men with 56.8 per cent of answers given correctly.

Ah. Entertainment. Well, that settles it. Who needs IQ tests?

I happened to be in Seaworld (San Diego) Monday this week. Today, both the San Diego and Orlando parks are closed because of the yesterday's accident, in which a killer whale killed one of his trainers, in full view of horrified tourists who had signed up for the "Dining with Shamu" event.

I was going to write about this anyway; this surprising and tragic accident puts my intended comments into even sharper focus.

The performance part of the "Shamu" stadium program was, indeed, very cool: you don't often see an animal of that size — from land or sea — moving that fast and gracefully. They are beautiful and graceful animals, and I believe we all have a legitimate concern about protecting them and their environment.

On the other hand, I found a number of the blatantly "religious" overtones disturbing. In particular, there were a number of video clips of different animals with captions beneath each like "Brother In-Law", "Sister", "Cousin", "Father" ("Father" was a bird) — culminating in the message that Earth was "Our Mother" and that we had to love, care for, respect (etc.) our "Mother" earth. Another segment showed a boy in a canoe and an Orca, narrating that they were members of two different species, both straining to become one with the other. And, stealing a cue from my least favorite Christmas movie ever ("Polar Express"), they constantly flashed the vacuous phrase "Believe!" on the video screens. They even had rituals: the crowd was to make an supplicating whale-tale shape and motion with their hands and chant "Shamu shamu!" repeatedly.

I think I understand the intention: If we imbue whales, earth, birds and so on with nearly magical properties, and teach each other that they're exactly as important as our human friends and relatives, then we'll treat them wonderfully and take better care of the earth.

But, to the contrary, if history is any guide, (and it is) blurring such distinctions tends to result in treating humans worse. In India rats were allowed to live off the harvested grain, while human beings starved. The Nazis were very sensitive to the suffering of animals (Hitler, a vegetarian, equated eating cows with eating humans), and were among the first anywhere to outlaw vivisection — and yet, well, we all know how compassionate they were towards their fellow human beings. A dog is not a boy. A bird is not your father. Humans are worth much, much more than rats.

Ironically, the ideology Seaworld promotes in such displays makes a mockery of their own business. If a bird really is my "Father", then is Seaworld a gang of terrorists for keeping penguins confined in a tank? Or do we conclude the opposite: if there's educational benefit in keeping dolphins or other animals confined and on display, then perhaps a similar logic can be applied to random human beings?

And the bit about two species "straining to become one" is particularly narcissistic. While I'm sure that there are people who deeply desire to "become one with" some other specie of animal (Timothy Treadwell, and the woman who married a dolphin spring to mind) animals don't wish to "become one with" humans. A bird near your park bench just wants your sandwich crumbs. A dolphin probably wants fish, to get back to the ocean, or some means of relieving boredom. Animals may even interact with us socially — dogs certainly do. But they're not seeking a religious experience — through us, or by any other means. That distinction sets humans apart.

Finally, one of the songs about "Saving the Earth" (you can listen here) has lyrics which sound nice until you think about what they're really saying:

We're playing our part
We're making some noise
Joining together with one voice

'Cause when it comes to saving this amazing place
The answer's black and white
It's our world / it's our chance / let's make it right

Does the world need "saving"? Patching up, protecting, healing even, in places — sure. But "saving"? The word presents an immediate crisis, permitting no time for delay, thought, research, or debate. Indeed: we apparently need to "make some noise" (politically) "with one voice." Whose voice? Mine? Saying what? (Do my opinions count?) Or is it to be the opinions and voice of someone more like Greenpeace or Al Gore? We should all unite behind them: "The answer's black and white", isn't it? No debate, no ambiguity, and if you don't agree, well, it's pretty clear which part of the two-toned spectrum you fall into.

Yeah, yeah, it's all entertainment. So are TV ads, but they're meant to persuade, too.

Jonathan Tobin:

The greatest threat to the hopes of those who think parts of Jerusalem should be off-limits to Jews comes not when Jewish-owned buildings go up in the city, but rather when Jews start digging into the ground of East Jerusalem. Because the more the history of the city is uncovered, the less credible becomes the charge that Jews are alien colonists....

The significance of this extraordinary find is that it provides new proof of the existence and power of the Davidic monarchy, the Israelite state that it led, and the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish presence in Jerusalem. These new discoveries, along with those of a previous dig in a different area of the city of David, contradict contrary Palestinian claims that the Jews have no claim to the area. They also debunk the assertions of some Israeli archeologists who have sought to portray the kingdom of David and Solomon as an insignificant tribal group and not the regional empire that the Bible speaks about.

Jews lived in Israel? Wild. Who could have imagined it? And they had a kingdom, a'la David and Solomon? Unbelievable! I could have sworn the authors of The Bible Unearthed assured me otherwise.

Apropos Tikkun's Michael Lerner (Hillary's one-time guru):

What happened in Obama's first year is that most of those who had allowed themselves to hope began to appear to themselves and others as naïve fools, and the humiliation that they experienced will take some years and psychologically or spiritually sophisticated interventions...

Wow. Who knew voting for Obama would be so traumatic for his supporters? Maybe the President could put a line item in the next stimulus package to help provide these crucial "psychologically or spiritually sophisticated interventions." Counseling and sweat lodges on the house!

But, that aside: What is with naïve? We have all these wonderful English words which, although entirely confusing in their relationship of spelling to pronunciation, at least can be written with the 26 letters in our alphabet. And along comes naïve, with its pretentious, doubly-dotted "i"; requiring a special keyboard (or a cut 'n' paste off someone else's website, or a confusing HTML entity code) to produce it.

Go ahead, blame the French. They loaned it to us.

Miscellaneous stuff; brief notes which have been piling up...

Palin Derangement Syndrome: Let's see, what's so awful about Sarah Palin? Recently her critics went apoplectic with rage that she had written a few notes on her hand. Because, you know, that's exactly the same thing as reading everything, word-for-word, off a teleprompter. Then there was the horrifying scandal that she wore a bracelet bearing the name of her son who is serving in Iran. (Horrors!) Then, apparently the show "The Family Guy" decided to mock her family, including her son Trig, who was born with Down's syndrome. Classy, guys, really classy. Great demonstration of your moral superiority.

So, let me get this straight: There's a crowd of people out there who hate, hate, HATE Sarah Palin. Because... what? Because she has an accent? Because she once gave a bad interview? Because she wrote something on her hand? Because she wore a bracelet with her son's name on it? This is the stuff of villainy? Suggestion: If you find yourself steaming with hatred or derision for someone, and that is the worst thing you can think of to say about them — consider, perhaps, whether perhaps you're being the baddie there. Just a thought.

Luge Track: So it turns out another "luger" had warned about blacking out on the course, and the Olympic officials promptly did... nothing? But why was the track even built? Companies build roller coasters, using a system called CAD/CAM — and using computers they can find out if the G forces of the track exceed safe limits. Before. The. Track. Is. Built. Even! Geez, you'd think the Olympics was some kind of government-like monopoly. Oh, they are? Imagine that. And on that note...

'Helping' Airline Passengers: I'm yet again reminded of Ronald Reagan's 9 scariest words ("I'm from the government and I'm here to help!") — recently we had this story about airlines artificially making flights longer to avoid penalties for delays (which are usually dictated by air traffic controllers, not the airlines themselves). So now USA Today reports that airlines are going to be simply canceling more flights rather than delaying them. Because it's sooo much better to arrive a day or two late, rather than a few hours late. Thanks, President Obama! (Somebody's clearly never heard of the law of unintended consequences.)

Climate Change: I always heard that anyone doubting the "consensus" view of AGW was paid off by big oil. Okay: I get it: money can sway scientists. If so then how much "consensus" would four trillion pounds buy? Just asking. And about that warming? "Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995." Now he tells us. Might that have been a tiny bit important to mention in those IPCC reports, or before Copenhagen? Oh yeah, four trillion pounds...

Innocent, and on death row: Reason has a good but troubling article on the prospect that many innocent people may be on death row. As a proponent of a capital punishment, this is something I take very seriously. (Perhaps enough to change my mind.) But this shouldn't be just a concern for those who wish to argue against capital punishment; spending one's life in jail is no cakewalk either. Why is our justice system so ineffective? One thing I can think of is the sheer volume: what accounts for the increased rate of criminality in the first place? Conservative social critics point to the breakdown of the nuclear family. Libertarians cite drug laws. I'm open to other suggestions, too.

Is waterboarding effective? I've concluded it was, but, hey, I just base my beliefs on the available evidence. If the evidence changes, then I adjust. Does this change the picture? CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding

Probably not: His new claim is it doesn't work as quickly as he'd portrayed. But the indisputable bit is that it getting increasingly hard to believe testimony we hear as coming from CIA insiders who ought to know. This isn't to say there aren't good people there — undoubtedly there are. But they're probably the ones who are least likely to go running to the media for partisan points.

Finally: "Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity"? No, not really. Despite taking pleasure in boys and each other (as is, I hear, not uncommon in other Mideastern nations) these men have no "struggle" with their identity: they clearly think of themselves as not being 'gay'. Which, quite frankly, has been the pattern in most societies throughout history. The Western world, shaped by Jewish values, is the oddity here. (Dennis Prager has a nice article explaining this, if you're interested.) As we decide to abandon our former views of sexuality and marriage, I fear the high status of women will similarly drop, and I fear we'll eventually see similar trends re-emerge in the West. (Already many men are increasingly disinclined towards marriage — "why buy the cow?", so to speak?)

Best to you all; more later...
- Tim

Via WSJ:

Why a Six-Hour Flight Now Takes Seven

.... Across the airline industry, carriers have been adding minutes to "block times" — the scheduled durations — baking delays into trips so that late flights officially arrive "on-time" and operations run better because flights pull into gates more often on schedule.

.... lengthening scheduled arrival times boosts on-time rankings charted by the Department of Transportation: Those numbers can have a real effect on public perception. And in some cases, block times have grown simply because airlines have been making so many schedule changes as they have reduced capacity over the past two years. Flights that took off without a wait can now end up stuck waiting behind a line of jets because departure times have been changed.

On the positive side, it increases the chances a traveler will catch a connecting flight. On the negative side, it means fewer planes in the air, thus more expensive tickets, and significantly more time spent on travel for frequent fliers.

I have mixed feelings about the presence of clandestine organizations within a Democratic Republic. On one hand, contra Pelosi et al, I tend to think most governmental actions should be carried out in daylight. On the other hand, I admit that, in areas where you're on a war-like footing, there's a military-like need not to announce what you're doing, what you know, etc. Then there's the question of the use of deception, lies, coercion, and other negative tactics which I rather dislike.

The other problem is more practical: our particular clandestine intel organization, the CIA, has been of rather questionable utility in the last several decades. The CIA was terribly wrong when they insisted Kim Jong Il was not developing nuclear weapons in the late 1990s. But he did, of course. So when it came to Saddam, the CIA wasn't going to be fooled again: Saddam most clearly was stockpiling WMDs, the CIA promised Bush. Which also turned out to be false. Shaken, the CIA overcorrected again, insisting in the 2007 NIE that, of course, Iran had abandoned its nuclear program back in 2003. Which, once again, turned out to be completely wrong.

Like a newbie playing the stock market, they bought high and sold low over and over again on the questions which mattered most to us as a nation. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Frankly, we could have done better with a coin flip. (It certainly would have been cheaper.)

So, if that's so, should we do away with the CIA, or its function?

Michael Rubin, writing over at NRO, notes an earlier failure of the CIA, and then draws what strikes me as the correct balance (bold added):

So there you have it. Right before the Soviets decided to withdraw, the CIA concluded that nothing could force the Soviets to withdraw. I always look at this document as a useful reminder to the importance of separating intelligence analysis from policy. Intelligence should color policy, certainly, but it should not supplant it. While raw intelligence can be useful, often the intelligence community's consensus documents are not. At the very least, they must be taken with a grain of salt. After all, a natural conclusion from this document — perhaps the one which the Agency was pushing — was that we could not win by sponsoring insurgency in Afghanistan; perhaps diplomacy would be better. Men like Charlie Wilson may have been in the minority, but fortunately they were in the right place at the right time and had a president serving over them like Ronald Reagan.

In other words, shut up and sing. Do what you're supposed to be good at. We want your facts, not your opinions.

Sadly, from what I hear (I hope the "ground truth" is different) the CIA has had insufficient human intelligence in recent years.

I don't know why this is important to me, but it is.

Two Cuban political prisoners:

Cuban dissidents Juan Ramón Rivera Despaine and Orlando Zapata Tamayo are cut from the same cloth. Together, they co-founded in 2002 the Alternative Republican Party, and behind the bars of the Castro gulag, they have kept up the fight, despite the grave threats to their lives.

Zapata has been on hunger strike since Dec. 3, demanding his captors respect his human rights. He is lying in a Camagüey hospital, dying from the effects of his protest, and as his mother reminded us last week, most in the world don't give a damn.

That will never be the case here, which is why he again is being honored here as a Political Prisoner of the Week....

Rivera last year was sentenced to 2 years in a labor camp on a charge of "assault," after police arrested him in June for selling a few tomatoes from his home.

Free Gao Zhisheng:

Christian human rights Attorney Gao Zhisheng was seized by a dozen police officers and last seen in public on February 4, 2009. Gao has been repeatedly kidnapped, arrested, imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities for defending the persecuted. He has been an unyielding and iconic advocate for justice in the Chinese courts and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.

On January 21, 2010, the Chinese government publicly acknowledged Gao Zhisheng to be in their custody, for the first time since his abduction more than 365 days ago.

Brave man.

In North Carolina:

He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.

"We are certainly not trying to go away from American history," Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, told Fox News. "What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day."

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country's founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

I don't see how you can understand later American History without even knowing the basic principles which motivated the Founders to create the Constitution. (Nor the Civil War.) But the cynic in me wonders if perhaps that's the point?

Not too long ago, an intelligent, politically-active co-worker wandered into my office and suggested that the intent of the Founders, in creating the Constitution, was to make society more "fair" — by which he meant to minimizing economic differences. I pointed out their prime concern was increasing liberty. Indeed, since they were generally very wealthy men, the idea that they had created a new nation to help minimize their economic potential would have been been an odd one; they were tax protestors, not socialists. I don't think he's alone: many others in my generation (raised in the 70's and 80's) are fairly clueless about US civics.

I dread to think what our next generation will fail to know.

I noted earlier that Richard Dawkins admitted he had detested the idea of "hijacking" a word by a special interest group — until that group was his own.

There's a second example, in the same essay, of Dawkins' philosophical consistency (or lack thereof): His stance that it's wrong to indoctrinate children into a particular worldview:

A phrase like 'Catholic child' or 'Muslim child' should clang furious bells of protest in the mind, just as we flinch when we hear 'one man one vote'. Children are too young to know their religious opinions. Just as you can't vote until you are 18, you should be free to choose your own cosmology and ethics without society's impertinent presumption that you will automatically inherit those of your parents. We'd be aghast to be told of a Leninist child or a neo-conservative child or a Hayekian monetarist child. So isn't it a kind of child-abuse to speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child?

Here also, taking inspiration from one of history's greatest thinkers, John Lennon (is Dawkins similarly impressed with Lennon's pretended hatred of private property?) Dawkins fulminates against the evil of raising a child after one's own metaphysical tradition:

If a social engineer set out to devise a system for perpetuating today's most vicious enmities, he could not come up with a better formula than sectarian education. Faith schools that taught all religions comparatively might do some good. But the whole point of faith schools is that the children of 'our' tribe must be taught 'their own' religion. Since the children of the other tribe are simultaneously being taught the rival religion with, of course, the rival version of the vendetta-riven history, the prognosis is all too predictable.

So, then, we'd assume Richard Dawkins would never, say, support an educational experience geared to pass on atheism to the the children of atheists, right?

Ha! Don't be silly! Of course he would. And did:

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, has helped launch an atheist summer camp for children.... Dawkins is not personally involved in Camp Quest, which originated in the United States, but helped subsidise the cost of the camp through his Richard Dawkins Foundation.

More on Camp Quest:

The camp's programs and activities introduce campers to the history and ideas of freethought. Campers also learn about science, the scientific method, critical thinking, world religions and church-state separation. Biblical stories and metaphors are discussed in the context of cultural literacy. Campers are taught that ethical behavior is not dependent on religious belief and doctrines, that religious belief and doctrines are sometimes a hindrance to ethical and moral behavior, and that irreligious persons are also good and fully capable of living a happy and meaningful life.

Recall, also, Dawkins is on record as saying religious indoctrination is "child abuse." But I suppose it's no crime as long as Dawkins agrees with the values being instilled. Or perhaps they've deluded themselves to think a child won't be unduly swayed by such experiences, and will really "think for themselves" in the way "Christian children" wouldn't, given a parallel experience at a Bible Camp.

For the record, I fully support Richard Dawkins' (and every other atheist's) desire to pass along their worldview, assumptions, values, etc. to his or her own children. There's no such thing as raising a child without values, and it's reasonable to expect a child will be most influenced by his or her parents' choices.

Nor would I criminalize someone of another belief (including Richard Dawkins) for teaching their children values someone else might consider harmful or wrong. To the contrary, if a prominent Christian stood up and announced they thought it should be illegal for atheists to teach their children atheism, I would publicly denounce them and have nothing to do with them. And I don't know a single Christian who I think wouldn't.

So I find it sadly telling that the vast majority of atheists seem to still honor Dawkins and take him seriously, given that he's said the same. But hey, as long its your side advocating it, then it's okay, right?

Sigh.

One of the enduring themes of my own life, and thus Random Observations is the battle between what I think of as the "clarifiers" and the "obscurers" — those, on one hand, who seek to make differences more clear, definitions being used as precise as possible, who strive for clear and rational discourse — and, on the other hand, those who deploy private definitions, who use logical fallacies, ambiguous language, and rhetorical slight-of-hand to obscure the underlying issue or question as much as possible.

The image atheists project (somewhat successfully, I'd say) — and Darwinist scientists, I'd add, in this particular case — is that of people concerned primiarily with reason, clarity, and a dispassionate analysis of the facts.

I just came across this passage, written by Richard Dawkins, which reveals, at least in him, a strong willingness to use rhetorical slights he one held to be wrong:

A triumph of consciousness-raising has been the homosexual hijacking of the word 'gay'. I used to mourn the loss of gay in (what I still think of as) its true sense...

So, like me, Dawkins once hated seeing words being "hijacked", emptied of its true content, and re-purposed for exclusive use a group. And what discovery or evidence changed his mind on this one?

Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an 'up' word where homosexual is a down word... Those of us who subscribe to no religion... we need a word of our own, a word like 'gay'. You can say "I am an atheist" but at best it sounds stuffy (like "I am a homosexual") and at worst it inflames prejudice (like "I am a homosexual").... Like gay, it should be a noun hijacked from an adjective, with its original meaning changed but not too much.

Ah! Utility! The "hijacking" he once hated worked, so now he's quite ready to do some "hijacking" himself.

And thus began the episode in history where atheists started demanding everyone call them "brights". An episode which ended in popular derision and which, I gather, Dawkins is none to keen to discuss today.

The larger point here is how one who was once (I presume) a "clarifier" — an opponent of politically-motivated word-hijackings — came to avidly embrace all his mind once recognized as unhelpful. If atheism provides safeguards against such tendencies, Richard Dawkins (and Daniel Dennett) are not good example cases.

In fact, I'd note that the recent attempt to redefine the word "atheism" itself — in a way which profoundly changes its meaning (and includes people who never wanted to be included in that definition) — shows exactly how prone the atheist community, as a whole, is to falling toward the non-clarifying, goalpost-shifting, word-redefining end of the rational-discourse spectrum.

If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.

When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Christianity is thus much closer — and more sympathetic — to the intent and assumptions behind Hinduism, Islam, Baha'is, Buddhists, et cetera than materialist atheism. Yet Christianity is often trashed on grounds it is too "exclusive" — as Lewis goes on to admit (and any atheist would agree): "As in arithmetic — there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others."

Yet I've never heard atheism criticized on the same grounds: that by saying God or the supernatural does not exist, an atheist "excludes" every faith which presumes otherwise. Christians must be arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and closed-minded for thinking "well, if X, which we believe, is correct, then not-X must not be" — but atheists are just making sense when they do likewise.