Blasphemy

Here’s Lou Dobbs again (who, I confess, reminds me fondly of Ted Baxter) with a great idea involving bulldozers.

Having any kind of law on the books prohibiting blasphemy is antithetical to freedom and completely unconstitutional. All religions deserve criticism, and any religion which cannot tolerate criticism is a failed religion.

Islam needs to learn from Christianity. When a holy symbol of Christianity was famously – and not very artistically – displayed in a jar of urine (I’m reminded of Hitchens’ “not funny” barb) the Christians did the right thing: They complained. They expressed indignation. They said they were offended. And they didn’t behead anybody, set any cars on fire, or try to get anybody arrested.

Update:

This, along with the preceding three posts, was found languishing in “Drafts”. For some reason they all failed to launch, and I had blog posts there going back to last March. So you aren’t experiencing time travel if these don’t seem fresh. But this one, at least, is still quite timely.

A Rigged Game

Yup.

A rule we can rely on to be unfailingly applied is this: No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains. This of course is evidence of a rigged game.

Beauty in Numbers

Behold the Mandelbulb.

Here’s a version generated by a raymarcher written just yesterday by Iñigo Quilez:

More here.

I Think It’s Official

If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed really is brought to trial in civilian court, his attorneys (and I’m not, for the moment, counting Eric Holder) can use the discovery process to gut our intelligence-gathering capabilities, KSM could be set free, or both.

Given that KSM is not a citizen, this is at least a breach of constitutional and military law precedent. Given that he is an enemy at war with us, either of the above scenarios constitute aid and comfort to the enemy.

So explain to me how Eric Holder and, by implication, his boss, Dear Leader, would not thus be guilty of treason.

Were a candidate for office to clearly state the following truths I can’t see how he would not be elected by large margins, in spite of the one third or so of the country that seems to be suicidally idiotic:

• We did not start this war.
• There are only two ways to end a war: Victory and defeat. Victory can not come if you do not name the enemy.
• We are at war with Islamic Jihadists: Radical Muslims who seek to impose Sharia law by force.
• Sharia is a great evil, an abuser of women,  completely incompatible with democratic freedom, and should not be tolerated in any way, shape or form.

Our Dear Leader is, I am convinced, not only incapable of saying any of those truths in public, but does not believe a one of them in his heart.

That makes Him the enemy.

Update:

The most charitable reading possible is that The Messiah is a 9/10 man in a 9/11 world.

Celebrating Veterans

Let some dogs show you how it’s done.

A Day Worthy of Remembrance

Twenty years ago today.

Carl Sagan Day

While his politics occasionally led him to make some silly pronouncements, Carl Sagan’s contributions toward popularizing science and germinating the modern skeptical movement make it worth celebrating his birthday today. He would have been only 75, which shows just how early we lost him.

Speaking of Friends of the Constitution

Orrin Hatch (R-Kolob) has once again demonstrated his scissor-like grip of both science and the constitution.

Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

Hatch has a history of supporting quackery, possibly because Utah is home to a lot of people selling so-called “supplements”. Secular Right is, rightly, squealing about the “separation of church & state” issue. (Yes, I understand that there is no such separation in the constitution. I also understand that the Founders very carefully set up a secular government.) To me the bigger issue here is the separation of superstition and science, not to mention the separation of taxpayers from their money.

If you want to pray for people, that is your right and it is guaranteed in the First Amendment. If you want to charge people for praying, and can get them to fork over, more power to you. But you do not have a right to put a gun to someone’s head to make them pay for your prayers. Remember: Every single penny the government spends is taken at gunpoint from productive people.

If you don’t think so, just stop paying taxes and let me know who shows up.

If the government has no constitutional authority to spend money on health care (which it doesn’t) it certainly doesn’t have the authority to force private companies to spend it on woo.

Both Hatch and Harry Reid belong to a religion that believes “the constitution will hang as by a thread.” With friends like these the constitution doesn’t need enemies. I wish both of these clowns would put down their scissors, go home, and just shut the hell up.

But that would require them to have an actual sense of shame. And that’s just not allowed in the Senate.

House Declares Constitution Null and Void

What tattered remnants of the constitution that remained in the House of Representatives was swept out into the trash tonight.

Regardless of the merits of the bill there is no constitutional authority for Congress to offer health care.

There is no constitutional authority for Congress to require the citizens of this country to buy anything.

I take small comfort in the opinions that this monstrosity of a bill is dead in the Senate. Every single moron, thug and despot who voted yea on this thing just violated his oath of office. At least now we know exactly who should not be reelected.

But that doesn’t matter, because laws are for the little people.

Time to get involved, folks.

Mars

Don’t miss this issue of The Big Picture.

Probably Guilty

If you serve on a jury and either prosecutors or defense attorneys start throwing around statistics, like in a blood type or DNA match, remember that you need to apply Beyesian Mathematics.

Mathematics might seem a logical fit for the courts, then. Judges and juries, though, all too often rely on gut feeling. A startling example was the rape trial in 1996 of a British man, Dennis John Adams. Adams hadn’t been identified in a line-up and his girlfriend had provided an alibi. But his DNA was a 1 in 200 million match to semen from the crime scene – evidence seemingly so damning that any jury would be likely to convict him.

But what did that figure actually mean? Not, as courts and the press often assume, that there was only a 1 in 200 million chance that the semen belonged to someone other than Adams, making his innocence implausible.

It actually means there is a 1 in 200 million chance that the DNA of any random member of the public will match that found at the crime scene (see “The prosecutor’s fallacy”). The difference is subtle, but significant. In a population, say, of 10,000 men who could have committed the crime, there would be a 10,000 in 200 million, or 1 in 20,000, chance that someone else is a match too. That still doesn’t look good for Adams, but it’s not nearly as damning.

Read the whole thing, including the part about O.J. Simpson.

Gracie Vindicated

George Burns and Gracie Allen had an old bit about how she wanted to adopt a child from France, except that she’d have to take French lessons so she could understand the baby when it grew up.

It turns out she was more right than we suspected.

Update:

Poor Gracie. In a shocking turn of events it seems that the popular press has completely misrepresented the science. And the science wasn’t so hot to begin with.

This technique of cherry-picking atypical “typical” values for rhetorical effect is fairly common in scientific writing, but it should alert us to the fact that the authors are perhaps not trying quite as hard as they should to disprove their own hypothesis.

The $99 Revolution

Universities have an internet bomb in the basement.

In less than two months, she had finished four complete courses, for less than $200 total. The same courses would have cost her over $2,700 at Northeastern Illinois, $4,200 at Kaplan University, $6,300 at the University of Phoenix, and roughly the gross domestic product of a small Central American nation at an elite private university. They also would have taken two or three times as long to complete.

The whole article is well worth reading. It misses an elephant or two in the room, though. First, a significant part of the meteoric rise in tuition is government interference in the market in the form of guaranteed student loans. In general, if prices are going up you’ll find the not so invisible hand of government.

The article further laments what might happen to universities once they go the way of newspapers.

But other parts of those institutions will be threatened too—vital parts that support local communities and legitimate scholarship, that make the world a more enlightened, richer place to live. Just as the world needs the foreign bureaus that newspapers are rapidly shutting down, it needs quirky small university presses, Mughal textile historians, and people who are paid to think deep, economically unproductive thoughts. Rather than hiding within the conglomerate, each unbundled part of the university will have to find new ways to stand alone. There is an unstable, treacherous future ahead for institutions that have been comfortable for a long time. Like it or not, that’s the higher education world to come.

That’s a feature, not a bug. Universities have become hidebound cauldrons of left-wing indoctrination. When they are no longer able to milk the public teat to pay for the brainwashing of undergrads education – actual education – will improve. As for those deep thinkers, I don’t worry for a minute that they’ll find a productive place in a vibrant, free economy. It’s an economy that will be less burdened by ivy-league parasites.

Bring it on.

 

Travesty

The “Flying Imams” won in court. I’m shocked – shocked – that they found a judge this stupid.

Reading the opinion elicits a question: Can we reasonably rely on law enforcement authorities to be so capable and diligent that they will arrive at appropriate determinations within a matter of a few minutes–when fifteen out of fifteen law enforcement professionals handled the case of the flying imams as they did?

The decision raises perhaps an even more basic question: What was law enforcement to do? Judge Montgomery believes the authorities were required to release the imams after a brief investigatory stop to go on their way and catch their flight or board another. The next time around, it will be the imams who fly and the other passengers who stay behind.

You can bet that nobody’s going to get me on the plane with guys who look and act like that. And that’s a very reasonable position.

The Blame Czar

Mark Steyn on the inverted way The Messiah’s droids speak truth to power and the bravery of modern artists.

Meanwhile, Larry David is now doing televised NEA exhibits on his HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Christians are said to be “angry” at him because of an episode in which, after he accidentally sprays his urine on a picture of Jesus, his assistant mistakes the droplets for tears and calls in her mother to witness the miracle of Christ weeping. Ha-ha! Oh, those brave transgressive artists! Of course, Christians aren’t “angry” in the sense that two U.S. residents arrested last week are. The pair – one an American citizen, the other Canadian – were so “angry” about the Muhammad cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that they hatched a plot to kill the artist and his editor. As many commentators pointed out, Mr. David’s splashy stunt is a dreary provocation: It’s easy to be provocative with people who can’t be provoked. If he were to start urinating in a more Mecca-ly direction, he’d find an entirely more motivated crowd waiting for him at the stage door.

 

This Is It

I just watched the Michael Jackson documentary concert film, since it was available free here at work. I wasn’t much interested until I read the Variety review. I’d say Barker is pretty much on the money.

The last 50-year-old that light on his feet was Fred Astaire. It’s hard to believe Jackson was nearly dead, because he’s keeping up with dancers young enough to be his children. the “MJ” in this film is still the emotionally-stunted weirdo you remember – but also obviously still a major talent. It puts the lie to the idea that he was about to keel over.

I call it the “inadvertant documentary” because, while it’s meant as a valentine to Michael Jackson and his fans, it actually reveals a lot if you look around the edges. The opening will convince you that dancers are the saddest people in the world. And the picture it paints of the incredible, massive amount of work it takes to put on a giant show is fascinating. The mixers did an astoundingly good job on this film and much of this rehearsal footage sounds as good as a produced album. I, and a friend who is also in the business, was paying attention and I am convinced that these are the real live recordings and not studio work.

Jackson was able to assemble a group of amazing dancers and just awesomely tight musicians. Man, those people could play. And some of the arrangements (I’m looking at you, The Way You Make Me Feel) are really sweet. As Barker notes in Variety it’s also obvious that Michael still had his singing chops. Human Nature is just beautiful.

It’s interesting to note that when he’s singing and dancing he’s eloquent, and when he tries to talk it’s barely English. And in spite of Jackson’s earnest, childish, over-the-top environmentalism (if you can watch the little butterfly girl hug the world and not laugh you’re a better man than I) you just have to sing along and tap your toes.

The context of Jackson’s imminent death makes the whole thing bittersweet, and one cannot help but mourn that this amazing concert never got to happen. Even a friend who isn’t a Michael Jackson fan at all and never would have attended it was sorry it never took place. Kenny Ortega is to be thanked for making this movie. It’s not a goulish attempt to cash in on Jackson’s untimely death, but a huge gift to the dancers, musicians and crew who put their hearts and souls into an event that never happened. The best thing about it is seeing that it’s clear that they, and Jackson, really loved what they were doing. That’s what comes through, and that’s what makes This Is It, flaws and all, worth seeing.

Banana Boy Bowdlerizes Darwin

As I suspected. It has now been confirmed that Ray “Banana” Comfort has dishonestly bowdlerized his free edition of On The Origin of Species.

The copy his publisher sent me is missing no fewer than four crucial chapters, as well as Darwin’s introduction. Two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcase biogeography, some of Darwin’s strongest evidence for evolution. Which is a better explanation for the distribution of plants and animals around the planet: common ancestry or special creation? Which better explains why island species are more similar to species on the mainland closest to them, rather than to more distant species that share a similar environment? The answer clearly is common ancestry. Today, scientists continue to develop the science of biogeography, confirming, refining, and extending Darwin’s conclusions.

Likewise missing from Comfort’s bowdlerized version of the Origin is Chapter 13, where Darwin explained how evolution makes sense of classification, morphology, and embryology. To take a simple example, why do all land vertebrates (amphibians, mammals, and reptiles and birds) have four limbs? Not because four limbs are necessarily a superior design for land locomotion: insects have six, arachnids have eight, and millipedes have, well, lots. It’s because all land vertebrates descended with modification from a four-legged (“tetrapod”) ancestor. Since Darwin’s era, scientists have repeatedly confirmed that the more recently two species have shared a common ancestor, the more similar are their anatomy, their biochemistry, their embryology, and their genetics.

Ray Comfort may be a scientific illiterate but, hey, at least he’s deceptive.

Cell Size and Scale

Courtesy of the University of Utah, a wonderful illustration of micro-scale.

The amoeba turns out to be much larger than I imagined.

How to Win in Afghanistan

Michael Yon has one of his best-ever pieces on Afghanistan. He makes the compelling argument that it is not a country, but an illiterate teenager in need of adoption.

In Mr. Filkins’ article, a couple of seemingly small points are keyholes to profound realities, and to a few possible illusions.  For instance, the idea that Afghans are tired of fighting seems off.  Afghans often tell me they are tired of fighting but those words are inconsistent with the bitter fact that the war intensifies with every change of season.  The idea that Afghans are tired of war seems an illusion.  Some Afghans are tired.  I spend more time talking with older Afghans than with teenagers, and most of the older Afghans do seem weary.  Yet according to the CIA World Factbook, the median age is 17.6 years; meaning half of Afghans are estimated to be this age or below.  The culture is old, but the population is a teenager.  Most Afghans today probably had not reached puberty when al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks.  Eight years later, Afghanistan is more an illiterate kid than a country.  The median age for the U.S. is given at 36.7.  In addition to the tremendous societal disconnect between Americans and Afghans, there would be a generational gap even if those distant children were Americans.  Clearly this could lead to frustrations if we expect quick results.

We ask Afghans for help in defeating the enemies, yet the Afghans expect us to abandon them.  Importantly, Mr. Filkins pointed out that Afghans don’t like to see Americans living in tents.  Tents mean nomads.  It would be foolish for Afghans in “Talibanastan” to cooperate with nomadic Americans only to be eviscerated by the Taliban when the nomads pack up.  (How many times did we see this happen in Iraq?)  The Afghans want to see us living in real buildings as a sign of permanency.  The British at Sangin and associated bases live in temporary structures as is true with American bases in many places.  Our signals are clear.  “If you are coming to stay,” Afghans have told me in various ways, “build a real house.”  “Build a real office.”  “Don’t live in tents.”  We saw nearly the opposite in Iraq where pressure evolved to look semi-permanent.  The Dr. Jekyll–Mr. Hyde situation in Iraq seemed to seriously catch hold by 2006 or 2007, by which time Iraqis realized we were not going to steal oil and might decide to pull out while leaving them ablaze in civil war.

Victory (yes, I used the v-word, Barry) is possible but by no means assured. If you remember reading about that amazing mission to deliver a turbine to a hydroelectric project you should read how it has turned into a failure.

It’s going to be a long war no matter what.

Update:

Deebow has a relevant open letter to the president on Blackfive.

As an American, I demand that if the leaders that I freely elect are going to commit blood and treasure to the defeat of our enemies, then we do not go about it in vacillating half measures following incoherent policies that lead to indefinable outcomes spread over generations.

We fight to win, or we don’t fight at all.

If you are unwilling or you are unable to fulfill your role as Commander in Chief, then you should tender your resignation.

Update, and bumped:

Krauthammer has a good point.

We always think of Pakistan as a place in which you create a haven for the Afghan bad guys that we are attacking, but it works in the other way as well. You have got to have hammer and anvil. And the hammer now in Pakistan is the Pakistani army.

But unless we secure the Afghan areas on the other side, the bad guys will relocate and have sanctuary in Afghanistan.

That’s why the wars are linked, and that’s why the increase in the violence now in Pakistan is linked intimately with our decision on Afghanistan. And I worry that if you adopt the McChrystal-light strategy…a narrow strategy, holding the cities and the infrastructure and leaving the countryside to the enemy. I’m not sure if that would in any way succeed.

The Stuff of Nightmares

Suzanne Somers Knockout

David Gorski has a long, but fascinating and important, post about Suzanne Somers’ dangerous ignorance.

He makes a great case that she has seriously injured herself with the brutal regimen of supplements she takes. Will any reporters interviewing her during her book promotion tour see this article and ask some tough questions?

Don’t hold your breath.

Best Argument Ever for Good Science Education

There are people who actually believe this stuff. Many of them are allowed to vote and to carry sharp objects.

Armageddon Time

Peter Robinson has a sobering article at Forbes. Just in case you need some cheering up.

“The Iranians are very good at procuring banned materials very easily,” said Baer. “They are very close [to having what they need to produce weapons]. They could move very quickly.”

How quickly?

“Six months, a year.”

The second observation: The Iranians have no interest in running a bluff. Once able to produce nuclear weapons, they will almost certainly do so.

Armey’s Axiom at Work

The axiom is: “The market is smart. The government is stupid.” Here’s how an entrepeneur is making a business out of having less obtrusive, stupid, unnecessary government in his customers’ lives.

“In the post-9/11 world,” Craford told me, “we identified a need and moved to fill it. Remember when Congressman (Peter) DeFazio threw a fit when he was pulled out of line at PDX for a security check and complained that he was one of the congressmen that established the TSA regulations? Well, we realized that business travelers were being terribly inconvenienced by the TSA regulations. So we decided to right-size the platform for the market and offered them a way to get from Portland to Seattle without dealing with airport security.”

Transportation Security Administration regulations apply only to aircraft that carry 30 passengers or more. Because SeaPort’s aircraft are smaller, business travelers to Seattle can enjoy commuting without the hassle of airport security screeners.

If SeaPort, or someone else, doesn’t introduce a service like this between Oakland’s North Field and, say,  Burbank, I’ll eat my hat. I see they are already operating also in the Mid-South. Yes, I see that they are taking subsidies. Using government money to get less government interference is a kind of economic Judo, I think. And:

“One thing I’m really proud of and that I think speaks well to the potential economic sustainability of the service is we never hit our subsidy cap, and we don’t expect to,” Craford said. “The amount of revenue as a portion of cost is going up. The subsidy is trending down.”

Besides, the Pilatus is a wonderful airplane.

We Are All Connected

It’s time to celebrate that which binds us all together and links us as brothers, right down to our cores.

I speak, of course, of physics.

The Beauty of Caustics

You may picture something different from the word “caustic” unless you work in a business like mine. We used the term all through the production of Finding Nemo. These are some impressive examples of just how beautiful they can be.

Ah, youth

Just kids. Jumping rope.

Grounded

Since 9/11 the Secret Service has been going way overboard on presidential security. Others are jumping on The Messiah for this, but I doubt it’s His fault. When He goes anywhere now there is an absurd, 10-mile radius no-fly zone installed. When the center of that zone is downtown San Francisco a lot of businesses get hurt, like my home FBO, Oakland Flyers.

Jim Gray, the owner of the club, is not taking it lying down. He is sending Dear Leader and the DNC a bill for the club’s losses while the planes are grounded.

Good for Jim.

There’s a reasonable need for security, of course. But General Aviation aircraft are really not much of a threat, and this kind of thing is overkill. Pity the poor pilots near presidential retreats during vacations. They get shut down for weeks at a time. It’s stupid.

The iPhone is Awesome

I actually like mine a lot. Even if I didn’t have one, I’d have to admit that any device that can inspire this is doing something right.

This is CNN

Yes, this is an old video. But remember that this is the same “news” network that buried stories unfavorable to Saddam Hussein in order to keep their Baghdad office open.

Never trust the MSM.