Oops!

I just noticed that the suggested file in the XSLT and Mathematics entry is erroneous. It should be:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="hailstor.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<num>27</num>

I have since corrected it.

Identifying Epicycles

As a general rule, if a theory takes longer to summarize than the facts it's suppose to explain, something is wrong.

Epicycles Sighted

It looks like the “race realists” are starting to develop epicycles on their theories. On the other hand, their epicycles aren't quite as egregious as the theory that global warming is producing a new ice age.

How Do Authoritarian Leftists Justify Themelves?

I have a theory about why the same people would be anti-authoritarian in one direction and authoritarian in the other.

The heirs of the “New Left” do not believe in individuals. I don't mean that they distrust individuals the way an authoritarian conservative would; I mean they do not believe individuals can come up with anything on their own. This theory leads to the following conclusion: If someone is not going along with a group (The People) then he/she must be following another group (The Establishment).

According to this view, classical liberalism (which defended individual rights against The Establishment) must have been about strengthening the right of The People to tell individuals what to do. Anyone opposed to that obviously would have opposed the American Revolution and the abolitionists. (This explains why modern liberals—who think of themselves as nonconformists—are so eager to claim to be mainstream.)

If The People agree with The Establishment they are not acting in accordance with their true nature and can be disregarded. If 90% of The People believe in family values, the work ethic, religion, etc. (Establishment values) and 10% don't, the 10% are the real mainstream of The People. (Authoritarian conservatives think that “nonconformists” are trying to be nonconformists. They're not. They're trying to be their type of conformist.)

This opinion is almost impervious to criticism. The ex-New-Left will assert that every group has the right to do what it wants. The obvious objection is that a group may want to oppress other groups. They can get around that in two ways:

1. They can assert that only The Establishment of the group wants to oppress. (If The People want to oppress they can only be following The Establishment.)
2. They can claim that The People are only opposed to The Establishment of the target group. Sure a few members of The People on the other side might be blown up, but that's the fault of Their Establishment.

In this theory, individualism and The Establishment are two sides of the same coin. The Establishment is the source of individualism because there is no other reason why so many people would oppose community. Individualism produced The Establishment because without individualism The Establishment would not oppose the community.

On the other hand, maybe it's just a case of “You don't tell us what to do; we tell you what to do.”

Why Have Conservative Christians Become Philo-Semitic?

One possible explanation: A typical fundamentalist Christian reading the Gospels in 1960 would figure that the crowd yelling for the execution of Jesus represented Judaism. The same person in 1970 had spent much of the preceding decade watching people he despised claim they were speaking for The People. He would now think the lynch mob in the Gospels were just a bunch of agitators.

A Christmas Gift for Peter Singer

The Twelve Days of Christmas are not over. There's still time. We can decide on the best possible gift by considering the following quote:

America

What Americans overrate most is — America. They imagine that they live in the most democratic nation on earth, but in the United States, to a far greater extent than in many other democracies, electorates are shamelessly gerrymandered, the voting system squeezes out minor parties, Wyoming has as many senators as California, and money gives the rich a wildly disproportionate share of power and influence.

Americans think they are the freest people on earth, but the president keeps American citizens in detention for nearly two years without even allowing them to talk to a lawyer, let alone putting them on trial. And no one in America has the freedom of the Dutch to choose how they die, should they become incurably ill.

Americans also favor "American pre-eminence" — the Hobbesian view that the United States ought to rule the world, simply because it has the military muscle to do so.

Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University.

Let's give him what he wants. Let's deport him.

XSLT and Mathematics

I've been studying XSLT lately. After I found out that it can produce factorials, I decided to devise an xsl file that could produce a hailstorm sequence:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
 <xsl:output method="text"/>
 <xsl:strip-space elements='*'/>
 <xsl:template name="hailstorm">
  <xsl:param name="n" select="1"/>
  <xsl:variable name="sequence">
   <xsl:if test="$n mod 2 = 0">
    <xsl:call-template name="hailstorm">
     <xsl:with-param name="n" select="$n div 2"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
   </xsl:if>
   <xsl:if test="($n mod 2) * ($n - 1) > 0">
    <xsl:call-template name="hailstorm">
     <xsl:with-param name="n" select="$n * 3 + 1"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
   </xsl:if>
  </xsl:variable>
  <xsl:value-of select="$n"/>
  <xsl:if test="$n > 1">
   <xsl:value-of select="', '"/>
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:value-of select="$sequence"/>
 </xsl:template>
 <xsl:template match="number">
  <xsl:variable name="x" select="."/>
  <xsl:variable name="y">
   <xsl:call-template name="hailstorm">
    <xsl:with-param name="n" select="$x"/>
   </xsl:call-template>
  </xsl:variable>
  <xsl:value-of select="'hailstorm('"/>
  <xsl:value-of select="$x"/>
  <xsl:value-of select="') = '"/>
  <xsl:value-of select="$y"/>
  <xsl:value-of select="'&#xA;'"/>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

You can start by naming the above file "hailstor.xsl" and running it on the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="hailstor.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<num>27</num>

Remember Whose Birthday It Is

It's Isaac Newton's birthday!

MERRY NEWTONMAS!

Cancelled Air France Flights

I assume everybody has heard that several Air France flights to LA were cancelled for security reasons. They would have a nearly-full load of fuel and might used for revenge against the French for banning head scarves. (Islamofascists feel betrayed when somebody they thought had been tamed turned out not to be. That's why they were so offended at Zionism. They thought Jews were tame.)

If This Happened in Israel…

Police Officer Kills Man Who Assaulted Him With Rock

Seen via Fark, where it was classified as obvious.

Aren't similar events in Israel treated as evidence for the horrible, racist persecution of harmless rock throwers?

Did the U.S. Treat Saddam “Like a Cow”?

According to Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Trendy Cliches Department, the U.S. treated Saddam “like a cow.”

That's a load of bull. Sure we're going to milk as much information out of him as possible but that's no reason to have a beef with us.

I wouldn't steer you wrong. After all, our honor is at steak!

Restaging One of Tony Kushner's Plays

I don't mean Angels in America. I mean A Bright Room Called Day. According to Timothy Hulsey (seen via Andrew Sullivan):

The only Kushner play I've had the chance to see firsthand is A Bright Room Called Day, his first major work. It features a group of liberal German intellectuals who natter away in their fashionable apartments while Hitler slowly takes over. Kushner means to draw a parallel with liberals of the Upper West Side who have passively permitted Reagan Republicanism to sweep America. Naturally, the play assumes that Reagan equals Hitler, Republicans are Nazis, and America under Reagan is comparable to the Third Reich. Your tolerance for this play will depend on the extent to which you share these assumptions.

Hmmm… It should be easy to restage that so it's about liberal American intellectuals nattering away while Islamofascists slowly prepare a terrorist campaign.

A Reason to Take Global Warming Seriously

One of the most annoying habits of environmentalists is organizing a “consensus” (this usually involves telling the eminent scientists signing some petition that it means something completely different from what's reported in the media) and then claiming anyone disagreeing is going against “the scientific community.” It started with nuclear test ban activism, and then continued with anti-SDI petitions, pro-biodiversity petitions, and, most recently, global warming hysteria (which somehow does not emphasize nuclear energy).

I have noticed this kind of collective thinking is much rarer when there is enough real evidence behind a theory—even when the theory has been politicized. We hardly ever hear of pro-evolution petitions and never hear of petitions against cigarette smoking or lead gasoline additives. (Lead can cause brain damage and exposure to lead is positively correlated with voting for Democrats.)

I have a theory that when scientists sign petitions instead of stating their beliefs individually, it is because they are trying to hide behind each other. If the petition turns out to be nonsense, they can blame somebody else.

In any case, we must always be suspicious of anything defended on the basis of “they say” instead of “it is.” I have some to the conclusion that the best test of whether someone is citing real science or PC bullsh!t is whether they cite collective ideas. If an idea is defended by petition, we must be suspicious of it.

There has been a petition (discussed on Dissecting Leftism) stating:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Clearly, global warming is a dire emergency and we must take all possible steps to combat it! In other words, …

WE NEED NUCLEAR WINTER!

UPDATE: Shortly after posting the above I came across the following from Michael Crichton (seen via blissful knowledge):

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

………

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

On the other hand, “one investigator” isn't enough to check if the results are reproducible. On the gripping hand, consensus claims are sometimes used to dodge the reproducibility requirement.

The Effects of the BCRA Decision

Since media organizations are exmpted from the controls, the most obvious next step is for politically-interested organizations (NRA, ACLU, EFF, AARP, etc.) to buy or start their own media. This might be followed by attempts to regulate ownership of media properties (presumably on some high-sounding grounds such as “maintaining balance”). This can be fudged in nearly any direction. (You can always claim that people disagreeing with you is evidence of media bias.) When the law is challenged, the Supreme Court will have to decide between two possibilities: 1) upholding a law that clearly violates the First Amendment; 2) admitting that the law they had supported earlier was a pointless piece of feel-good legislation. What do you think they'll choose?

Of course, you can always base the media outside the US … and trust the UN to avoid interfering.

Suggested Constitutional Amendment

If there were a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw the BCRA, it would read:

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech; or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances AND WE REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME!

Question about Angels in America

Did Part I of Angels in America mention nuclear war at any point? I wasn't paying enough attention to be sure.

If it didn't, then it rewrote the 1980s. In the '80s, anybody ranting about AIDS, the ozone layer, and Reagan the Terrible would almost certainly talk about how Reagan was about to drop the Bomb any moment. It looks like a leftist embarrassment was dropped down the memory hole.

The Missing Link

I disagree with the theory that theory that the Islam–Left alliance is due to common enemies. They share the same type of goal. The object is not to win (since the Forces of Good will win in any case) but to be the instrument of the inevitable victory. The science-fiction writer Olaf Stapledon noticed a similarity between Communists and some types of religious fanatic several decades ago:

… Funny too, what a religious fellow that Communist really is. Of course, he doesn't know it, and he hates the word. Says men ought to care for Man and nothing else. A moral sort of cove, he is, full of ‘oughts.’ Denies morality, and then damns people for not being communist saints. Says men are all fools or knaves or wasters unless you can get 'em to care for the Class War. Of course, he tells you the Class War is needed to emancipate the Workers. But what really gets him about it isn't that. The fire inside him, although he doesn't know it, us a passion for what he calls dialectical materialism, for the dialectic of history. The one selfishness in him is the longing to be an instrument of the Dialectic, and oddly enough what he really means by that, in his heart of hearts, is what Christians so quaintly describe as the law of God, or God's will. Strange! He says the sound element in Christianity was love of one's fellow men. But he doesn't really love them, not as actual persons. He'd slaughter the lot of them is he thought that was part of the Dialectic of History. What he really shares with Christians, real Christians, is a most obscure but teasing, firing awareness of something super-individual. Of course, he thinks it's just the mass of individuals, the group. But he's wrong. What's the group, anyhow, but just everybody lumped together, and nearly all fools or limps or knave? It's not simply the group that fires him. It's justice, righteousness, and the whole spiritual music that ought to be made by the group. Damed funny that! Of course, I know all Communists are not religious, some are merely—well, like that bloody little man the other day. But this fellow is religious. And so was Lenin, I guess. It's not enough to say his root motive was desire to avenge his brother. In a sense, that's true. But one can feel behind nearly everything he said a sense of being the chosen instrument of Fate, of the Dialectic, of what might almost as well be called God.

(from Odd John).

Other religions have similar ideas (Stapledon mentioned Christianity), but in Islam the idea of submitting to God's will is primary. If God has decided everything with no room for free will, there isn't much point in deciding not to dive bomb the World Trade Center since God has already decided whether or not it will happen.

This also accounts for the odd imperviousness to past failures. Any past failure by Muslims (or leftists) simply means that the Muslims/leftists in question weren't true instruments of the victory of God/dialectic. If nationalists failed, that meant they weren't true Muslims. If eugenicists failed, that meant they weren't true leftists.

A Loaf of Bread, a Jug of Wine, and Thou …

How does Armin Meiwes prepare finger sandwiches?

On Today's Weather in New York

WE WANT GLOBAL WARMING!
WE WANT GLOBAL WARMING!
WE WANT GLOBAL WARMING!

I Don't Believe This

I find this hard to believe:

One of five Norwegian employers said they did not mind if their employees took a drink at work during the days before Christmas.
The survey conducted by Monster.no in 13 countries, indicate that Norwegians attitude to alcohol during working hours in the days before Christmas is different from the other countries participating.

I thought Norse is Norse and souse is souse and never the twain shall meet.

Bad Spellers

Joan Jacobs and Rand Simberg are discussing bad spellers. (There was a similar discussion by Jane Galt last year.) In my experience, mostly on Usenet, bad spelling goes with an uncritical attitude in general. The truly bad spellers will come up with something that supports their ideology without bothering to check it. Apparently, spell checking goes with fact checking.

The Fish Have Insomnia

Scientists have found caffeine in the ocean. (Seen via Fark.)

Free-Trade Sound Bites

In the real world, every dollar we send overseas comes back eventually.

When we send dollars overseas what happens to them? Do the Indians/Mexicans/Japanese/whoever use them as wallpaper? Do they use them as toliet paper? Do they burn them in huge bonfires and dance around shouting “We have jobs and you don't! Nyaah! Nyaaah! Nyaah! Nyaaah! Phphphphttttt!”?

A Hanukkah Gift for Anti-Semites

A Klein bottle hat:

A perfect gift for anyone with a zero-volume head. An important accessory to the one-sided mind. An essential headwarmer for your non-orientable friends who are temporarily immersed in our 3-dimensions.

Environmentalist Wackos in Traditional Religion

Preposterous leftist ideas in the guise of religion are not limited to watered-down religions or the fascist brand of Islam. For example, an Orthodox rabbi has absorbed a large part of environmentalist wacko propaganda:

The animal world instinctively respects natural demarcations. If, for example, wild animals leave the forest and begin to forage where humans have settled it is an indication that something is wrong with the ecosystem that should otherwise provide ample food for all the animals in the forest. When the ecosystem is healthy, wild animals tend to stay in the forest and avoid human habitation. In almost every situation of conflict and invasion, whether against animal or human, it is the human who confronts and invades, not the animal. The notion of animal conquest and domination does not exist in the natural world. It only exists in the fantasies of literature and movies.

First, not all wild animals are forest animals. The natural habitat of many species of animal is forest clearings. Those would be attracted to suburbs. Second, wild animals are likely to stay away from downtown areas, but that's not because downtowns are natural human habitats, but because the ecosystem is even more disturbed there. Third, studies of natural ecosystems have shown that ecosystems are naturally unstable with large population fluctuations. Fourth, if the “notion of animal conquest and domination does not exist in the natural world,” then the prey of carnivores are voluntarily handing themselves over to be eaten, a phenomenon which is not credible. (On the other hand, there are occasions when human beings have handed themselves over to be eaten.)

Most important of all, the “reasoning” involved is nearly identical to the claims that Palestinians become terrorists only because we invaded “their” territory.

I was looking into Orthodox Judaism as an alternative to Conservative or Reform Judaism (which sometimes seems like the Democratic Party at prayer), but I'm not sure if I'll bother …

Why Do They Hate Us?

They have their reasons. (Seen via Fark.)

UPDATE: After considering the Jewish version of Nuts R Us, I thought I'd mention that the above post was intended as a joke.

Frame Watch: Inverted Totalitarianism

The latest feeble excuse for comparing Bush to Hitler is called “inverted totalitarianism.” It's a way to claim that, even if the current administration is acting exactly opposite the way the Nazis acted, that anti-Nazi behavior is also suspicious.

For example, in Weimar Germany, before the Nazis took power, the "streets" were dominated by totalitarian-oriented gangs of toughs, and whatever there was of democracy was confined to the government. In the United States, however, it is the streets where democracy is most alive--while the real danger lies with an increasingly unbridled government.

Translation: You can say what you want and go where you want in the US. The very fact that the government pays almost no attention to you is evidence of its totalitarian nature.

Or another example of the inversion: Under Nazi rule there was never any doubt about "big business" being subordinated to the political regime. In the United States, however, it has been apparent for decades that corporate power has become so predominant in the political establishment, particularly in the Republican Party, and so dominant in its influence over policy, as to suggest a role inversion the exact opposite of the Nazis'.

Translation: You are not only free at home but also at work.

At the same time, it is corporate power, as the representative of the dynamic of capitalism and of the ever-expanding power made available by the integration of science and technology with the structure of capitalism, that produces the totalizing drive that, under the Nazis, was supplied by ideological notions such as Lebensraum.

Translation: There is no difference in LeftWorld between exerting power over human beings and exerting power over nature.

The article continues along the same lines (the lack of calls for sacrifice is suspicious, the lack of mobilizing hate-filled citizens is even worse, and the lack of concentration camps is simply inexcusable). In related news, leftists will put ice cream on the stove to cool it off and cook food in the refrigerator.

Cut and Run?

The problem with the plan to turn the Iraq government over to Iraqis isn't that it's a cut and run, but that shrilly thuggish and blusteringly petulant twits will spin it as a cut and run. For example, consider this usenet post. In a paraphrase, future terrorist recruiters will claim “the brave resistance fighters chased the Americans away.” They might have obtained inside information about an announcement of a turnover and scheduled the recent intensification of attacks to grab credit for the turnover. I suspect future concessions will be preceded by similar campaigns.

UPDATE: Some of my relatives objected to the language in the Usenet post in question, so I had to remove the quote.

Faster than Exponential Growth

One of the commonest environmentalist cliches is that exponential growth will exceed any other kind of growth. Environmentalists will then go on to claim that population grows exponentially (unless they're put in charge, of course) and resources won't. I see no reason why economic growth must be limited to linear or other polynomial rates. It might even grow according to Ackermann's function (currently being discussed at The Corner) or even the Busy Beaver function.

The really annoying phenomenon is that environmentalists assume that anybody who disagrees with them hasn't heard of exponential growth.

Framing Left and Right

According to George Lakoff, the left side of the political spectrum has been much less effective at putting forth arguments than the right. My fellow reactionary crackpots have been skeptical about this on the grounds that there is no shortage of left-wing media outlets. He was not referring to a shortage of left media but to a shortage of ideas on the left. He then proceeded to prove it by recommending the “same old stuff” that was rejected.

Lakoff's mistake was a matter of assuming that voters are unfamiliar with leftist frames. Conservatives are sometimes confronted with people whose idea of conservatism is very wide of the mark. That's rarer on the left. When a leftist says he is in favor of, e.g., Iraqi self determination, we know what it means and reject it. When a conservative refers to American national interest, that is frequently mistaken for mere blood-and-soil nationalism.

If we look at left-wing ideas in terms of which ideas are new, we see there is a shortage. Since the 1970s, there have been only two big ideas on the left that would have seemed unfamiliar to a McGovern campaign worker.

1. Open-source intellectual property.
   This isn't entirely a left-wing idea since many libertarians are also in favor of it. On the other hand, the leftist frame of open source is better known than the rightist frame.
2. Anti-globalization.
   This was a gradual development. The left used to be in favor of international anything. By the 1980s, they were starting to advocate nationalist economics as well. The current tendency to treat globalization as an enemy is only a decade old.
   It's starting to fade as they realize they can capture the UN.

There are also a handful of old ideas that the left can claim have new evidence backing them.

3. Environmentalism (chiefly global warming).
   Global warming is the only environmental issue which is both big, plausibly dangerous, and with some actual evidence to back it up. On the other hand, it can be used by the right in the form of being pro-nuclear.
4. Abortion (chiefly stem cells).
   Abortion is tolerated because it is currently common. As biotechnology (improved contraception, artificial wombs, raising the age of puberty) makes it obsolete, it will disappear. Several decades after the last abortion has taken place, there will be a belated and unnecessary ban. (Even an anarcho-capitalist society is likely to be transparent and those old-fashioned enough to still abort will be known and shunned.) A few decades after that, the sort of history student who second guesses historical figures (someone who regards the existence of the United States as hypocritical since many of the Founding Fathers were slave-holders) will turn the high abortion rates of the turn of the century into some kind of a scandal.
   Stem cells are a potential way of preventing that. On the other hand, a great amount of research is being published on non-embryonic stem cells. There are, after all, more of them. I also suspect that many scientists would rather avoid the morally problematic just as most doctors would rather not be abortionists.
5. Financial regulation.
   One problem with the leftist frame is that they usually oppose excess profits. The real scandal of the dot-com era (including Enron), wasn't excess profits but the disguised lack of profits.

As far as I know, that's it.

Have American Men Been Feminized? Part II

I tested Kim du Toit's essay on The Pussification Of The Western Male on The Gender Genie. The results:

Words: 2755
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 5368
Male Score: 4947

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

I think there's a bug somewhere.

Fighting the Drug War

Pejman Yousefzadeh is asking for opinions on the War on Drugs (marijuana in particular). My opinion is as follows.

I don't think a suggestibility drug such as marijuana should be encouraged.

Common drugs are likely to be more dangerous than rare drugs. If someone uses a rare drug and ruins his life the damage probably won't go much further than that. If someone uses a rare drug and gets over it, he can always find out what he missed and catch up later. If “everybody” at some college uses the same drug and makes the same mistakes, they are not likely to be marked wrong for those mistakes. (Professors are reluctant to mark everybody in a class as wrong.) When they try to catch up later they will absorb each other's erroneous opinions. (Environmentalism explained!)

I suspect that marijuana might be particularly dangerous from the point of view of inducing groupthink. I have not had any direct personal experience but I have noticed that it is defended as reinforcing the approved habits in the social group of the user. In Victorian times it was supposed to suppress the sex drive. Recently it was supposed to do the opposite. When it was used by peace protestors it was a “peace drug.” When it was used by soldiers it induced foolhardy bravery. When it was used in areas with high crime rates it was a “killer weed.” If we put that together we can see that marijuana is a conformist drug—probably because of its ability to make people suggestible. (That might explain the thoroughness of the collapse of trendy drug use in the '80s. Once its use declined, the remaining users would start conforming to the new trend and stop.)

Drugs that are more likely to be used in crowds should be regarded as particularly dangerous.

It is essential to break the link between how common a drug is and whether it is accepted. There is a very simple way to do that: Declare that any drug whose use declines will be legalized. That will encourage drug users to keep their friends off the drug and will eliminate the “everybody does it” defense.

After the Libertarians have legalized all drugs, we can encourage university administrators to only expel students found using common drugs.

Real message: Even us hysterical anti-drug kooks can favor legalization.

Risperidal … Stat!

I recently received the following piece of e-mail:

Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 05:18:08 -0600 (CST)
From: democracy@government.com
To: democracy@government.com
Subject: Democracy !

Democracy socialism dictatorship capitalism etc. those are not basic political systems they are secondary systems.

There are only two possible basic political systems let's overpopulate the world to death creating wars starvation poverty crime etc worldwide or have a proper amount of people in the world, you know enough but not too many people where you don't create wars starvation poverty crime etc worldwide.

***       Which one is yours !       ***

Kill pope johnny for starving babies to death to make money from their pain and suffering by demanding everyone overpopulate the world to death then have the local priests stand up and say Look at all that starvation over there everybody Quickly give me money!

Kill pope johnny for overpopulating the world to death creating wars starvation poverty crime insanity abortion etc worldwide. Killing millions and millions of people and enslaving billions and billions of people in total dispair with his;

Come on now more more more just keep having more children NO BIRTH CONTROL! LOOK LOOK LOOK everybody look at all that starvation over there!

Quickly give me money!

If that was you starving to death you would want someone to give you something wouldn't you!

QUICKLY GIVE ME MONEY !

$1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10 Here ALL you poor people here is $1 for all of you Jesus Loves ALL OF YOU ! Praise the Lord !

Now don't try saying there is too many starving people, or that overpopulating the world to death creates wars, starvation, poverty, crime, abortion etc. worldwide. That is not the problem the problem is that YOU are not giving me enough money to take care of all those good and wonderful starving people. That's the problem.

And no no no I don't pay taxes the money is for the poor.

Well got to go and build more churches in all the rich neighborhoods.

I am the pope !

*** AND IF ANY OF THOSE STARVING CHILDREN TRY TO GET VIOLENT KILL THEM THEY ARE THE "BAD" ONES ***

No comment.

Why Do They Hate Themselves?

Why else would they do this?

Another Argument for Open Borders

Open borders will keep currently illegal aliens from being freeloaders:

Illegal aliens living in California can go to the state universities and pay only the in-state tuition, while native-born American citizens who live in neighboring Oregon or Nevada have to pay much higher out-of-state tuition to attend California's state universities. Apparently Mexico is not out of state.

Once those Mexicans are legal, they will become out-of-staters.

The Broadcast Flag and the War on Terror

One unwanted effect of copy restriction is that terrorists could conspire without ordinary people listening in. Right now there's a possibility their messages might wind up on Little Green Footballs the next day. Really effective copy protection might stop that.

Government agents could listen in but, even if we disregard those that apparently came from the Retief series, they probably couldn't keep track of the zillions of false positives.

Semiprofessional hackers could listen in, but <stereotype>they might sympathize</stereotype>

It Was a Warning Shot

I don't think this was a mistake.

Communism Has Taken over Saudi Arabia

There is a shortage of sand.

Have American Men Been Feminized?

Yes, according to Kim du Toit. On the other hand, an army of girly men kicked the sorry butts of Real Men in Afghanistan and Iraq. On the gripping hand, maybe feminism has been masculinizing women rather than feminizing men.

An Effect of China's One-Child Policy

The one-child policy might end up filling the Chinese Army with Private Ryans. If all those only children are trained to regard themselves as irreplaceable, China might end up with an army of egomaniacs unwilling to fight.

Are the French our Allies?

Could be. According to an article in The Washington Post (seen via The Belgravia Dispatch):

BAGHDAD, Nov. 2 -- Saddam Hussein refused to order a counterattack against U.S. troops when war erupted in March because he misjudged the initial ground thrust as a ruse and had been convinced earlier by Russian and French contacts that he could avoid or survive a land invasion, former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told interrogators, according to U.S. officials.

It looks like the French gave Saddam Hussein deliberate disinformation. They might be acting as triple agents—a pro-American nation pretending to be a pro-Arab nation pretending to be an American ally.

Besides, they are defnitely our allies in the other war for civilization going on at the moment—they know how to handle Greenpeace.

Oswald Spengler and The Onion

The following quote from Oswald Spengler (found in a comment thread on Gene Expression):

The final result is that endless industrious repetition of a stock of fixed forms which we see today in Indian Chinese and Arabian-persian art. Pictures and fabrics, verses and vessels, furniture, dramas and musical compositions--all is pattern-work. We cease to be able to date anything within centuries, let alone decades, by the language of its ornamentation. So it has been in the Last Act of all Cultures.

reminded me of an article in The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC—At a press conference Monday, U.S. Retro Secretary Anson Williams issued a strongly worded warning of an imminent "national retro crisis," cautioning that "if current levels of U.S. retro consumption are allowed to continue unchecked, we may run entirely out of past by as soon as 2005."

………

"We are talking about a potentially devastating crisis situation in which our society will express nostalgia for events which have yet to occur," Williams told reporters.

NARAL Will Have to Find a New Cliche

Soon, men will be able to get pregnant.

I Will Stop Using the Term “Freedom Fries” …

… after reading this.

Terrorism in the Megaton Range?

If the forest fires in California were set by terrorists, that would be terrorism in the megaton range. If 600,000 acreas were scorched and the fuel load is 20 tons/acre and the energy release from wood is 4 kCal/gram (typical of carbohydrates) and the energy in a megaton is 10¹² kCal, then the total energy release is 48 megatons so far.

On the other hand, by 911 standards the effects of this are lame. We can barely tell the difference between this and a typical California fire season.

How to Defeat the US

According to The CounterRevolutionary:

So, when our enemies attack in Iraq, they do not do so in a vacuum. Their primary goals are not to destroy a police station or to assassinate a political figure or even to cause chaos. They have one goal - to break the will of the democracy. The attacks are meant as "proof" of failure to the American audience. If the enemy believed that we would be discouraged by an epidemic of capitalism in Baghdad, then that is what we would see.

Of course, we'll be discouraged by an epidemic of capitalism. Our goal in this war is to show up the enemy as a bunch of raving maniacs. If they would not only have an epidemic of capitalism but would even show the calm confidence that comes from being so sure they will win eventually that they don't have to blow up anybody, we would have to admit defeat.

The preceding paragraph was a public-service announcement.

The Angry Left and the Angry Muslims

According to Arnold Kling, there has been a marked upswing in intolerance on the left:

I did not feel this sort of discomfort in 2000, which was the one other year when I attended Pop!tech. Back then, a conservative or libertarian attending the conference felt like a Jew among a group of tolerant Christians. This year, a conservative or libertarian felt like a Jew among a group of Christians whose main topic of conversation was the despicable nature of Jews.

I think a better analogy would be that in 2000, the attitude was similar to the attitude of Muslims toward Jews before Zionism whereas this year the attitude is similar to the attitude of Muslims toward Jews today.

You can think of neo-conservatrism as analogous to Zionism:

The basis for Zionism is that the land at the southeast corner of the Mediterranean, which had been run by Muslims for centuries, should be taken over by an even older tradition that Muslims had previously treated in a semi-tolerantly patronizing manner. This caused the Muslims to become much less tolerant. They initially tried to deal with the problem by the traditional means of military action but have recently turned to foaming at the mouth.

The basis for neo-conservatism is that the land at the U.S. government, which had been run by liberals for decades, should be taken over by an even older tradition that liberals had previously treated in a semi-tolerantly patronizing manner. This caused the liberals to become much less tolerant. They initially tried to deal with the problem by the traditional means of electoral action but have recently turned to foaming at the mouth.

Is Asymmetric Warfare the Wave of the Future?

A few years ago, it looked like asymmetric warfare (aka terrorism) was an unstoppable tactic against industrial countries. Currently, we see several different dysfunctional regimes (North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia) who are not using asymmetric warfare but are instead trying to resymmetrize war.

When Leftists Look at Typical Conservatives…

They almost always see people who are mindlessly following leaders—who are presumably chosen for either their sterling characters or insitutional positions. That explains two common leftist tactics:

• Point to examples of conservatives of less-than-sterling character and pretend that has discredited the principles they proclaimed. After all, in LeftWorld they had followers only because of their supposed virtues. In the real world, their followers already believed in the same ideas and are simply following someone who can express them well.
• Try to take over institutions formerly respected by conservatives. Example include: mainstream churches, Ivy-league universities, the Supreme Court, and the CIA. The next step, of course, is to be shocked at the way conservatives won't surrender.

Meanwhile, the left should learn that people didn't believe in conservative causes because they listened to Rush Limbaugh; they listened to Rush because they believed in conservative causes. They didn't oppose communism because the CIA said to do so; they trusted the CIA because they thought it was pro-American.

Explaining Greg Easterbrook's Firing

It's quite simple. An antisemitic mole in Disney headquarters came up the idea in order to make Easterbrook look like the victim of a Jewish conspiracy. (Actually, he was the victim of the Secret Nihilist Conspiracy. You can read all about them in The Protocols of the Elders of Nothing.)

Explaining Greg Easterbrook

It's quite simple. He was writing what should have been two essays. One of them would criticize Jewish movie producers on the grounds that Jewish history shows that we must never encourage leniency toward wanton violence. The other essay would criticize movie producers in general for greed. He made the mistake of combining the two.

How Libertarianism Can Go Wrong

Any ideologue with even a shred of fairness must try coming up with ways his cherished opinions can go wrong. Here is an attempt to come up with ways libertarian rhetoric can backfire:

1. Exaggerate intellectual property rights. (We have a taste of that in Scientology.) Ideas can be patented forever. Words can have a copyright. Potentially embarrassing information counts as a trade secret. Most important of all, “look and feel” can be patented. Anyone who wants to complain can be arrested for the illegal use of other people's concepts. They can't even make up their own terminology since that would violate someone else's patent on the look and feel of liberty.
2. Exaggerate parental rights. (You can think of the Elian Gonzalez case as a possible beginning.) Parents can sell their children into slavery. Any offspring of the slaves are considered offspring of the owners and thus can also be enslaved.
3. Real overpopulation—not the thinly-scattered settlement we see in Manhattan. When the total biomass of the human race approaches the mass of the solar system, the owners of resources will be able to extract anything they want from the lower classes. Since the lower classes might object, it is necessary to have a secret police to prevent rebellions.
4. Apply property rights with enclosure acts to government. (I was inspired by a discussion on Samizdata.) If property rights ensure that property is taken care of better, then clearly the government will be more competent if it is owned outright by an Emperor. The Empire must be hereditary to ensure that the Emperor wants to preserve the value of his property over the long term. If we do not currently live in an Empire, we must turn the government over to an Emperor as soon as possible.

Broccoli and Microwaves

Recent research appears to show that cooking broccoli in water in a microwave oven can remove 97% of the flavonoids (which have some health benefits). There's a simple solution. Don't microwave broccoli in water; microwave it in tea..

Logic and Harry Potter

If …

1. Everyone is afraid of Voldemort.
2. Voldemort is only afraid of Dumbledore.
.

… then Voldemort is Dumbledore!

After all, Premise 1 implies Voldemort is afraid of Voldemort and Premise 2 implies anyone Voldemort is afraid of is Dumbledore.

According to Islamofascists, Jews are Turks, Palestinians are Canaanites…

… and Saudis are Jews.

I am not making this up.

We Don't Have to Choose between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice

We can choose neither.

Predictions on Anti-Smoking Laws

I don't recall anybody predicting this.

Another prediction, on the other hand, turned out to be prophetic.

No Nepotism!

I'm glad to see that the Homeland Security Department does not believe in nepotism, unlike the CIA.

The Best Part of Anti-Schwarzenegger Hysteria

For years, anti-semites have claimed that accusations of being a Nazi are impossible to deal with. The Schwarzenegger election is a clear disproof of that.

Of course, it's still nearly impossible to deal with if it's true.

Microsoft and Mandatory Digital Rights Management

Since the following comment has attracted favorable attention, I'll repeat it here.

Mandatory DRM is not to Microsoft's advantage. If there's a law mandating DRM, it will be based on a publicly-available standard that changes in government time. That means anybody will be able to write software dealing with it. If there is no mandatory DRM, but some media companies use the commonest proprietary standard, Microsoft stands to gain. It can change the standard every year or two as competitors start to accumulate.

In other words, we'll have to be allied with Satan.

I Wrote the Following Long before the Plame–Wilson Controversy

From a usenet post (it's not something I made up yesterday to defend Dubya):

I think it's an excellent idea for much of the American public to look for "suspicious activity."

OTOH, the most obvious organization for terrorists and fellow travelers to infiltrate is the Federal Government, so we Americans should be given immediate access to classified material. We should be wary of secrecy. It can enable enemies of freedom to flourish.

This even applies to the Current Unpleasantness. For example, many government agencies have reacted by taking any discussion of threats offline. Since The Enemy has been plotting for years, they probably already know about those threats and even if they didn't it would take them years to do anything. Taking any mention of the threats offline will hamper the ability of ordinary citizens (the people who prevented the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania from being used as a weapon and the people who stopped Maxwell Stupid, the shoebomber) to come up with countermeasures. Instead, we are supposed to let the goofballs in the FBI, CIA, etc. to defend us.

But wait, there's more. Ralph Nader, the Arab American most likely to be a real sleeper agent, went to great lengths to get Dubya elected. Is there another sleeper agent in Dubya's staff? Was the same person responsible for the criticisms of Israel, the word "crusade," the phrase "Infinite Justice," and dropping food packages the same color as bombs? Is the secrecy policy a matter of national security or is it to enable moles to work undetected by reporters?

Even if the Feds haven't been infiltrated, deputizing spies will merely provide them with more information than they can handle. A single organization can't monitor that much information. That's why everybody must have snooping devices. The CIA can't monitor wannabee terrorists, their neighbors will have to do the monitoring.

If we look at the Current Unpleasantness, the government had the data needed to catch the terrorists ahead of time but did not have the manpower to analyze it. Once we get close to 300 million people on the case...

Modern wars are fought with intelligence. Each of us is a member of the unorganized militia and now we should regard each of us as a member of the unorganized CIA.

This even applies to encryption. Supposedly, it is now a public menace. If that's the case, we should ensure that decryption is as widespread as possible. IOW, the DMCA must be repealed.

Come to think of it, Joseph Wilson looks like the sort of infiltrator I warned against above.

Update: I just read (via BrothersJudd) that my congressman Peter King has come out against the CIA.

Schrödinger's Cat Comes Closer?

I'm dubious about whether the scientists trying to put a bacterium-sized object in two places at once can succeed. After all, an object that size might be locatable by its gravitational field.

Harry Potter Misreadings

After considering the Oxblog misreading of the Harry Potter series, I wondered about other possible misreadings. For example, in Harry Potter and the Goble of Fire, was the goblet single malt?

Wesley Clark's Excellent Adventure

The recent TCS article on De Rebus Bellicis is obvious evidence of time travel. We have a fourth-century treatise with ideas on weapons and tactics that seem like ordinary common sense today (e.g., paddle-wheel ships) but don't fit in late antiquity at all. We also have a professional military officer who gives advice to the world's only superpower and who's also interested in time travel. Coincidence?

Weathering the Storm

The viral storm continues, albeit at a slower pace. I finally found that there's a way to deal with it. Now I have to start setting up a cron job.

A Blogroll Retirement

I just noticed that Deinonychus antirrhopus is now on the Instapundit blogroll.

Poll Results in California Recall Race

A recent poll of Arianna Huffington's brain cells indicated that 42% of them favor the recall, 28% oppose it, 17% don't know, and 13% were waiting for results from her crystal ball.

Duct Tape Isn't for Ducts, after All

According to research done at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (seen via Instapundit and Jim MIller), duct tape is not an effective way to seal ducts:

“We tried as many different kinds of duct sealants as we could get our hands on,” says Sherman, of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division. “Only duct tape failed . . . often quite catastrophically.”

I shouldn't be surprised. A few months ago I tried using duct tape to seal the exhaust duct from my dryer when it kept coming apart. It didn't work as a sealant but it did succeed at attaching both parts of the duct to the wall.

The Fast of Gedaliah

Yesterday (September 29 or Tishri 3), I observed the Fast of Gedaliah, a fast in honor of Gedaliah and in dishonor of his assassins. Gedaliah was appointed governor of Judea after the Babylonian conquest. He was assassinated by the same type of nationalist bonehead who today blow up buses in Israel and NGO facilities in Iraq.

In other words, Jews have a solid precedent for calling those alleged “freedom fighters” terrorists.

Give this Man a Medal!

Recently, Abe Greehouse threw a pie in the face of Natan Sharansky (discussed on Little Green Footballs and Kesher Talk). He should be given a medal for that.

If Israel followed Arab standards (the response to humiliation should be sending out exploding idiots), they would blow up the entire Greenhouse family. The lack of such response demonstrated how trivial humiliation is. In gratitude for that, we should reward Abe Greenhouse by giving him a medal…

… followed by a boot in the head, a poke in the eye, and a pie in the face.

Yet Another Argument for Open Borders

According to a recent study (seen on Dissecting Leftism), Bosnian refugees showed more ‘Harm Avoidant personality traits’ than Bosnians who stayed home. Hmmm… Does that mean the refugees are more like Berkeley definition of conservative? Was the right-wing nature of the U. S. made possible by conservative refugees (in contrast to the leftists who stayed home)?

I also noticed instructions not to quote from the study without permission of the first author. This is an instance of how politically-correct academics (and otherwise-sane academics who are afraid of them) are far more dangerous to fair use than the DRM people.

A Scandal among Environmentalists

Whisper it: The late Garrett Hardin had four children.

If People Should Not Decide on War Unless Their Lives Are on the Line …

… then the decision to go to war should be made by a panel consisting of bond traders, NYC firemen, and Pentagon civilians.

Is There Really a Luck Gene?

There's evidence (seen via Fark).

Communication Problems

The e-mail storm continues. If you want to send me e-mail, send it to 73512 dot 1416 at compuserve dot com.

The Storm Hit on Thursday

I mean the e-mail storm. A virus somewhere is spewing out enormous numbers of e-mail messages and I'm getting a hundred or so per hour. My e-mail box is overflowing with the nonsense. In the unlikely event that you e-mailed me something, it might have gotten lost in the pile and you shouldn't assume I saw it.

They're Back!

Those posts from March that I complained about reappeared once I republished everything with the new blogger.

Anti-Imperialism the Old-Fashioned Way

In the comments on a post on the BrothersJudd blog, Paul Cella said:

I bet there were some nasty anti-Roman tracts and conspiracy theorizing in barbarian Germany -- or, better yet, in the formerly great Greek lands -- back in the second century.

One of the anti-Roman rants is still in print. You may have heard of it. It was called The Revelation of St. John the Divine.

Al Franken and Dr. Laura

Al Franken has come up with a reason Dr. Laura should not convert to Christianity.

Spread the Meme: No Torture Chambers Were Stopped When Clinton Lied

On the other hand, Bush's “lies” were more a matter of exaggerating the evidence for a plausible theory. This is similar to Al Gore's exaggeration of the evidence for a global-warming emergency On the gripping hand, “No torture chambers were stopped when Gore exaggerated” sounds underwhelming…

Global Warming Is a Joke

At first sight, the case for global-warming hysteria seems air tight. If we continue to pump carbon dioxide into the air at a rate greater than the biosphere can handle, it's likely to warm up the globe a bit. There is the minor problem that we are extremely unlikely to continue using 19th-century technology of fossil fuels for long. In view of the relative harmlessness of nuclear fission, the only good reason to avoid it is that solar might be better. In either case, fossil fuels will be obsolete soon. I'm reminded of Mark Twain's extrapolation of the shortening of the Lower Mississippi:

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Are We Too Cautious about Everything Nuclear?

According to an article in The Washington Post, we are:

I was recently invited to observe and offer advice during a revealing drill, spearheaded by the National Academy of Engineering, that tested how well information might be communicated to the public if a "dirty bomb" exploded in Washington. As I watched the interaction of real-life government officials and media decision-makers, I was struck by a glaring discrepancy: The rules for radiological emergencies are wholly inappropriate for such an event. They can change a relatively harmless incident into a life-threatening emergency. These rules apply not only to dirty bombs but also to any casualties involving nuclear power plants or their fuel.

Were the standards for radiological safety written by Arabists intent on removing competition for OPEC? They make nuclear reactors far more expensive and make cut-rate terrorism practical by turning a harmless release of radioactivity into an excuse to evacuate a city.

Besides, radioactivity might even be helpful.

A Fbeele Aempttt at Ecinsuxg Seillnpg Maeiksts

From David Harris' Science & Literature (that seems to be nearest thing to an “authoritative” source):

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Let's see if this pertains to painters of pantries done in loco parentis.

On the Other Hand, Let's Not Call Them “Suicide Bombers”

The term “Death Eaters” is far more appropriate.

It Looks Like the Flypaper Has Stopped Working

It's been a week since any US soldier has been killed in Iraq but the suicide bombers are back in Israel. Apparently, the other side's biggest loons have escaped from Iraq.

How Intellectual-Property Rights Can Go Wrong

There's currently an active discussion on intellectual-property rights on Samizdata. Abuse of intellectual-property law is one of the few real weak spots in libertarianism. Intellectual property rights would clearly be a good idea in a perfect world, but when administered by imperfect governments they can be obstructive.

That sounds familiar somehow…

Meanwhile we can carry out a worst-case analysis. (We already have a taste of that in Scientology.) Ideas can be patented forever. Words can have a copyright. Potentially embarrassing information counts as a trade secret. Most important of all, “look and feel” can be patented. Anyone who wants to complain can be arrested for the illegal use of other people's concepts. They can't even make up their own terminology since that would violate someone else's patent on the look and feel of liberty. (Libertarians to liberals: You thought we were just brain-channeled drones unable to think of the above possibilities. Nyaaaahhhh, nyaaaahhhh, nyaaaahhhh, nyaaaahhhh, phphphphtttt!!!!)

One way to look at intellectual-property rights is that they have to be discovered instead of being dreamed up a priori. A society that can export its ideas has a good claim to be using a better approximation of the True Axioms of Property Rights. (I'm using exports to measure the worth of a society's ideas since any society can claim they have better ideas but exporting ideas means people in other societies also agree.) For example, you can make a case that Finnish ideas are better for computer software but American ideas are better for pharmaceuticals.

This Looks Suspicious

According to a recent study, IQ has greater heritability in the upper classes than in the lower classes. On the one hand, I have no evidence against this. On the other hand, it is oddly convenient for the left. Now they can maintain their status as anti-racists while simultaneously ridiculing Dubya for an allegedly low IQ.

To make matters worse, they took away one of my favorite cute remarks.

This study could use the same treatment that the Berkeley study of conservatism got. Someone should turn it upside down, shake it, and see what falls out. It might even turn out to make sense after all.

UPDATE: John Ray has started.

I Was Cleaning my House Today …

… when I found a copy of The New York Times of April 15 with a headline: End of ‘Major’ Combat, Fall of Tikrit, Anxiety Over Syria.

So if anybody tells you that the word “major” was inserted recently, they're blowing hot air.

Are Conservatives Still the Stupid Party?

According to a leftist writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (see via Clayton Cramer), they are. I don't have much to add to Cramer's analysis other than the fact that the Berkeley psychologsts gave up on using traditional IQ tests in their character assassination attempt on conservatives.

On the other hand, we still have to explain why innovative ideas frequently come from the same areas as people who try regulating those same ideas out of existence. I have two and a half theories about that:

1. Leftists have an attraction to centers of power. They would rather be Rhodes Scholar dropouts than professors at Unknown University. (I came up with this theory when two of the most prominent Republicans were Newt Gingrich and Richard Armey.) That's why they flocked to the Kennedys. (The Kennedys started out excessively far right and have moved left with their advisors.) That's why they went to great lengths to provide the cliches for Hollywood. Hollywood didn't start out on the left. L.B. Mayer was not noted for radicalism. (At the other end of the scale, an extra named Ayn Rand was not exactly a socialist either.) The propaganda abilities of Hollywood attracted the left.
• They might be trying to fight The Establishment on its own ground. If you move to Manhattan or Silicon Valley, you can shut down capitalism or high technology at the source.
2. The “brainier” areas not set up very well for raising children. People in those areas are less likely to be married or have children. As a result, they have more free time in which to come up with innovative ideas.

Gender Confusion

According to The Gender Genie, I'm male (which was unsurprising). On the other hand, the Spark Gender Test said I'm female (which came as a surpise).

On the gripping hand, both tests are probably bovine organic fertilizer.

A serious point: those Berkeley psychologists probably based their conclusions on similar research.

The Psy War Had an Effect!

When the Afghanistan campaign was starting, Glenn Reynolds has some suggestions for psychological warfare including the theory that Osama bin Laden was a Mossad agent. A few months ago, the same rumor was reported by Middle East Online:

A senior Palestinian security official claimed Saturday his services had uncovered an Israeli plot to create a mock Al-Qaeda cell in the Gaza Strip, while an Israeli official dismissed the charge as "absurd".

Gaza head of preventive security Rashid Abu Shbak told journalists at a press conference that Israeli agents, posing as operatives of Osama bin Laden's terrorist group, recruited Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Laura and Doonesbury

Dr. Laura'a recent spiritual problems reminded me of a Doonesbury comic strip:

Doonesbury had a great series. Rev Scotty [who is, by the way, modeled on the Rev Scotty McClendon, a UU minister who has been for years the chaplain at MIT, now at Stanford and the author of a new book "Finding Your Religion" Scotty and Gary Trudeau were friends at Yale] is thrilled that Lieberman has started talking about God, about a loving, justice seeking God. My favorite was when the Rev is talking with BD and says how wonderful Lieberman's talk is, that it is not about a vengeful, angry Old Testament God but a loving God of the New Testament. To which BD replies "But isn't he Jewish?" And Scotty says, well yes, technically. But that is only his base.

The Problem with Backup Power

The collapse of Seven World Trade Center (remember that?) may have been caused by a fire fed by the fuel tank for backup power:

As engineers and scientists struggle to explain the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, they have begun considering whether a type of fuel that was inside the building all along created intensely hot fires like those in the towers: diesel fuel, thousands of gallons of it, intended to run electricity generators in a power failure.

One tank holding 6,000 gallons of fuel was in the building to provide power to the command bunker on the 23rd floor. Another set of four tanks holding as much as 36,000 gallons were just below ground on the building's southwest side for generators that served some of the other tenants.

………

Engineers said that here and across the country, diesel-powered generators are used in buildings like hospitals and trading houses, where avoiding power outages is crucial. Partly for that reason, Jonathan Barnett said, a definitive answer to the question of what happened in 7 World Trade Center is perhaps the most important question facing investigators.

A Digression on the Decline of Google

While looking for news items about the collapse of Seven World Trade Center, I found that many of the responses from Google were wacky conspiracy theories.

A Mathematics–Blogosphere Connection

I just noticed that Instapundit has permalinked Eric Zorn, a grandson of Max Zorn.

Palestinian Cameraman Killed by U.S. Forces

I'm sure everyone on the net has heard of the Palestinian cameraman killed by U.S. forces. He spent years on the West Bank, pointing devices that look like guns at supposedly trigger-happy Israeli soldiers and survived. That makes the usual stories about the Israeli Defense Forces look a bit less likely.

A Problem with Immigration “Reform”

It will eventually be run by people enforcing their version of political correctness. (In the early 20th century, that meant racism; today it means anti-racism.) For example, on Gene Expression, they might want to admit only high-IQ immigrants. Once the Berkeley psychology department gets their hands on this, the IQ tests will be replace by tests of “integratively-complex” thought. People who don't toe the party line are likely to be kept out.

Besides, the idea that we're mainly in danger from proletarians is dated. Proletarian conspiracies were the 20th century's headache. The Current Unpleasantness came from a tycoon from a hereditary monarchy. His followers were unemployed engineers from societies where it took family influence to study abroad. They're trying to use propaganda campaigns along the lines of “We're Westernized but still hate you.” Since the “Westernized” is used as a synonym for “rich” and since the rich are highly privileged in the Mid-East, it's not surprising that people claiming to be Westernized hate us. The downtrodden just might be on our side.

Any Radioactive Spiders?

If there are radioactive wasps, why not radioactive spiders? Can Blinky the three-eyed fish be far behind?

The Question We Should Be Asking about the Blackout…

… isn't how it started, but rather why did it propagate so much instead of staying a local problem? In particular, why is the internet so much more robust than the power grid?

It isn't a matter of deregulation. We had these blackouts even with regulation. Besides. the example of the internet (or even the telephone network) shows that a deregulated system can be robust. The phones were back last Thursday after just a couple of hours. If we take the analysis of the notorious idiot Robert Kuttner:

Electricity can't be stored in large quantities, and the system needs a lot of spare generating and transmission capacity for periods of peak demand like hot days in August. The power system also requires a great deal of planning and coordination, and it needs incentives for somebody to maintain and upgrade transmission lines.

The above is true of telephone and data networks as well. Come to think of it, it's probably easier to store energy than data.

What is the difference between power and data networks? Is it a matter of multiple transmission paths? Is it a matter of excess capacity?

To return to Robert Kuttner, he also said:

The Enron scandal, which soaked Californians for tens of billions of dollars, was only the most extreme example.

I thought the real Enron scandal was that it pretended to be making profits. It couldn't have been much of a profiteer

Kuttner also said,

Much of the Southeast, by contrast, has retained traditional regulation — and cheap, reliable electricity.

Hmmm… If it were the other way around, you can be sure he would have gloated about the difference between red states and blue states.

A Pack Not a Herd, Continued

On my way home by bus during last Thursday's blackout, I noticed not everyone directing traffic was wearing a uniform.

UPDATE: A first-person account can be found here.

“Love-Bombing” Is a Common Cult-Recruitment Technique

For example, Dr. Laura appears to be going through a rough period:

''By and large, the faxes from Christians have been very loving, very supportive,'' she said. ''They'd say, 'We're praying for you.' 'We hope you can attain this because of the work you do.' 'We can see how committed you are.' 'You are doing God's work.' 'It's a shame you haven't been able to feel. ...' really supportive, nice stuff.

It can be contrasted with the expulsion of a “heretic”:

From my own religion, I have either gotten nothing, which is 99 percent of it, or two of the nastiest letters I have gotten in a long time. I guess that's my point, I don't get much back. Not much warmth coming back. It's intellectual, argumentative and angry. If anything, that's all solidified me where I am.''

Maybe, she should realize the dangers of doing what the Enemy wants her to do. Resistance should not be that hard. In my personal experience, I have found that the would-be inquisitors do not have very deeply-rooted opinions. On the other hand, a public personality might be deluged under a few thousand twits who argue for a brief period each.

By the way, why doesn't Dr. Laura have an e-mail address? We have to use faxes? That's like using cuneiform!

Sambo Was Indian, Not African

James Lileks was dubious about the Indian theme at a restaurant named Sambo's:

And even when it was Sambo’s, the mascot wasn’t that dreadful pickaninny archetype - this Sambo was an Indian child. That always made me wonder why they named the place Sambo’s at all.

Gentlemen, I propose a nationwide chain of restaurants based after an old story about a clever colored boy. We’ll call it Sambo’s.

Fine, boss, but that’s not going to go over well. In the North, anyway. Why don’t we make him an Indian child? I mean India Indian.

Brilliant! Little Brahmin Sambo. Our dinner values are Untouchable!

On the other hand, I checked The Story of Little Black Sambo:

NOTE: The "Story of Little Black Sambo" is rarely told any more, because it is presumed to be racist. However, examination of the story shows that it is about India, not Africa. The story refers to "ghe", a type of butter used in India. Also, tigers exist in India but not in Africa. The only thing African about the story is the "mb" sound in Sambo and Jumbo, which is a sound commonly heard in African languages.

More NIMBYism

Apparently, normally green celebrities are against wind power next door (seen via Asymmetrical Information). All I have to say is: When you ride to a protest against wind power, you ride with Osama.

By the way, NIMBY rhetoric usually includes horrible-sounding scenarios. Has anybody tried checking how many of these scenarios actually took place? I know of an un-horror story that took place near my house. A few years ago, some real-estate developers wanted to build a new shopping center and movie theater nearby. Some of my neighbors went into anti-American mode and opposed it. (Apparently the riff-raff were about to move in and ruin the supposed character of the neighborhood and cause The End of the Neighborhood as We Know It. They even got eight-year-old puppets to throw fizzling arguments instead of fizzling bombs.) Even despite local opposition, a court (run by someone similar to Judge Naragansett) said that the developers could build on their own property. The neighborhood is still there anyway.

Come to think of it, the Arab opposition to Israel can be considered a type of NIMBYism …

Terrorist Attacks on Low- and High-Density Areas

Jay Manifold speculates about the possibility of a terrorist attack on Kansas City, a very low-density metropolitan area. It's hard to arrange a terrorist attack on Kansas City using methods such as explosions or nerve gas. If the attack method can “live off the land,” on the other hand, its power is proportional to the area, so low density is no defense. At present, the only reliable terrorist attack that can extract resources from its surroundings is arson. Arson is commonly used by the Earth Liberation Front, but it's rarely spectacular enough to make headlines. That can change.

If the terrorists use gray goo as a terrorist weapon, they may prefer to attack areas with more potential food for the goo available. Food sources may include the obvious (gas storage tanks, oil storage tanks, munitions dumps) and also the not so obvious (reams of paper, asphalt roads, nearby trees, or maybe even lawns). If it will release energy when combined with oxygen, it is a potential gray-goo food. A low-density area might still be relatively safe, but only if all the streets are concrete instead of asphalt and if lawns and trees are prohibited.

High-density areas are not necessarily easier targets, even at present. Biological attacks might be less effective in areas with more hospitals. It's probably easier to wash radioactivity from a “dirty bomb” off concrete than out of dirt. The vulnerability of skyscrapers can be reduced by building down instead of building up. For a while, it seemed possible there could be a few survivors in some of the World Trade Center's basements.

In general, there are two types of ways to deal with terrorism: to reduce people's options in the hope terrorists will be unable to carry out their plans or to allow people to foil the terrorists on their own (also known as the pack-not-a-herd principle). Since terrorists depend on surprise, it is impossible to anticipate their every move. We will have to depend on letting people improvise. It is, of course, easier to improvise a response when there are more people around.

Keeping Potential Terrorists out of the Country

Open borders can be dangerous since some of the “immigrants” are potential terrorists trying to infiltrate the US. At present, such terrorists are likely to believe in an ideology that calls for death before dishonor. So if we insist that immigrants be dishonored (e.g., by being filmed as they are hit by cream pies) before they can become citizens…

Feminist Loon says, “Logic Is Insane!”

I am not making this up. It's right there in Word of Power by Andrea Nye. I'm reminded of the “Appeal for Sanity” from the Reverend Arthur Belling as reported by Monty Python:

You know, there are many people in the country who, through no fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane. Some of them became sane later in their lives. It is up to people like you and me who are out of our tiny little minds to try and help these people overcome their sanity. You can start in small ways with ping-pong ball eyes and a funny voice and then you can paint half of your body red and the other half green and then you can jump up and down in a bowl of treacle going ‘squawk, squawk, squawk…’ And then you can go ‘Neurhhh! Neurhhh!’ And then you can roll around on the floor going ‘pting pting pting’…

Okay, she didn't mean that; she meant that logic is male chauvinist. (That rumbling sound was Ayn Rand turning over in her grave.) Apparently, logic has been used as a weapon by an occasional male chauvinist in the past. Somehow, I suspect that more women were in danger of male chauvinists wielding fists than male chauvinists wielding arguments.

European Weather This Summer

This weather calls for NUCLEAR WINTER!

Why Can't the Left Use Historical Examples?

One of the more amusing aspects of the left is the way the supposedly intellectual side of the political spectrum almost always uses historical analogies based on events that occurred since liberalism was invented. As far as they're concerned, the universe began with the French Revolution (or maybe Karl Marx) and recorded history started with World War II. They rarely used the example of the Star Chamber during Clinton's impeachment even despite the fact that it was both a plausible analogy and a cute sound bite. (Googling usenet for “star chamber” and clinton and impeachment produced only 186 examples. Googling for “starr chamber” and clinton and impeachment produced 210 examples.) Antiwar leftists talk about Nazi Germany in a very misplaced analogy. Antiwar conservatives talk about Imperial Rome (a far more plausible analogy).

Of course, from the point of view of the Berkeley psychology department, an optimistic conservative talking about the past wants to return to an idealized time and a pessimistic conservative talking about the past is showing fear and aggession …

An Alternative to Cracking down on Visas

Instead of simply keeping people from terrorist-ridden nations out of the country, maybe we should apply the pack-not-a-herd principle and use an analog of Megan's Law. Instead of leaving the decision to let would-be Americans (or would-be saboteurs) into the country in the hands of overworked bureaucrats, we can distribute the information and let their neighbors, their flight instructors, and the neighbors of their flight instructors keep track of suspicious activities.

One potential problem is that the immigrants might cluster in a neighborhood that's 90% from X-land. (This is the situation in Israel. The Palestinians are concentrated which means they have no Israeli neighbors to snoop on them.) That will lead to a shortage of neighbors that can keep track of them. It might be necessary to invert the usual zoning laws and disperse potentially undesirable minorities.

Why We Need Policy Analysis Markets

They can enable John Gilmore to get a seat on an airplane. Once it's possible for him to point to the actual odds against being a real terrorist, getting a seat should be a snap. It will be like getting a loan once you can point to your value in the labor market.

“Cheap-Labor Conservatives” …

… vs. no-labor liberals (seen via Fark). According to the latest caricature of conservatism from the looney left, conservatism is based on cheap labor. That appears to make sense until we realize that wages are not set by a band of Evil Capitalists^TM sitting around a table and saying “We'll pay everybody $1 per hour! Ha ha!” The only two ways to raise wages are increased productivity (which usually increases profits as well) and limiting the supply by forcing people to not work. For example, minimum wage laws prolonged the Depression, immigration restrictions shut the door in the faces of the “wretched masses,” and legalized abortion forces people not merely out of the job market or out of the country, but out of existence. When the left takes over you might be one of the lucky ones still working, but don't count on it.

On the other hand, I must admit there are some rich people who fit the stereotype. You can tell who they are because the looney left thinks they're socially responsible.

UPDATE: There is a more extended fisking at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

Ban Life Insurance! Ban Undertakers!

Ban Six Feet Under!

WE CAN'T LET ANYBODY MAKE A PROFIT ON DEATH!

Seriously, some of the reactions to the proposal to allow bets on terrorist attacks are a bit hysterical. It's possible that someone might order a terrorist attack and bet on it as a criminal activity, but that's no different from similar possibilities in life insurance. The intent of such markets is to take decision-making out of the hands of a small group of people who might be fooling themselves and let outsiders judge what makes sense. Some of the arguments that are supposed to be against the program are actually a defense of it. For example:

Investors have proven that they're good at forcasting stuff in general

No, they haven't. Statistics show that most 'top level' investors, ie fund managers, are thrown right back into the middle of the crowd within two years. In other words, the stock market is a big fat gamble, where some may do _slightly_ better than others.

The idea of this is to reward unconventional methodologies, not results. In that, it's a sound idea-- but unfortunately, human actions are involved in both the 'demand' and 'supply' portion of the curve (the latter proving this as a meta market), so it won't really work unless it is kept secret, but that is gone now...

Markets are not identical with “top investors.” If the top investors could beat the market, it would more sense to hand the decisions over to them rather than to the market.

The best argument against the Defense Department doing this is that private enterprise is already doing it.

Just a few days after the Berkeley psychologists (I thought I was through with them but I was wrong) tried claiming that conservatives are close-minded, we have an example of how leftists react to ambiguity, uncertainty, and new ideas with far more “fear and aggression” than typical conservatives. I wonder if that was the hidden agenda …