Saturday, December 27, 2003
ENGLISH COPS SHOT
Here's a story from the Independent about an incident in which two unarmed policemen were shot, one fatally, when they pulled over a stolen car in Leeds. I don't understand how this could happen -- there aren't any guns in England: they're illegal! Even the cops don't have guns!
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 2:16 PM
THE SAUDI SITUATION
Foreign Affairs has a long but very good article about the current political and ideological struggle between reformers and Islamofascists in Saudi Arabia. Check it out.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:36 AM
Thursday, December 25, 2003
MARS CRUNCH
The first full opportunity to get a signal from the European Beagle 2 lander passed without news from Mars.
Bummer.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:32 PM
CHIMERAS TO THE RESCUE
Ron Bailey has a good piece on the promise of human-animal chimeras for medical purposes and the foolish opposition to them from the likes of Jeremy Rifkin.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 5:25 PM
MARS UPDATE
The European Mars Express orbiter is successfully in orbit around Mars, but no word from the Beagle 2 lander. Combining the two missions was a good idea for ESA, since the orbiter had a much higher chance of success than the lander. There are still lots of chances to hear from the lander, so let's see...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:57 PM
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
EUROPE TO MARS
Both parts of the European Space Agency's Mars probes are where they're supposed to be -- or not. The Beagle 2 lander will have hit the Martian surface, one way or another. But we won't know whether it landed successfully or not for a couple of hours. Likewise, the orbiter portion of the probe should have made its first, crucial orbital insertion engine burn. But there's no word yet whether that was successful or not. Yikes! The wait is killing me. Right now, there's another hour and a half before the U.S. Mars Odyssey orbiter will have the first opportunity to acquire a signal from the Beagle lander.
The most up-to-date information can be found at Spacefilght Now Mission Status Center and the offical ESA Beagle 2 web site.
UPDATE 11:23 CST: Preliminary data indicates the European Mars Express Orbiter has made its orbital insertion burn successfully. We may have some word on the lander in about an hour.
UPDATE 00:27 CST (Merry Christmas!): Any minute now we should have a signal from Beagle via Mars Odyssey, if the lander managed to make it down in one piece and has opened up. Even if it did get down safely, it may not be fully deployed yet, so we won't know for sure until tomorrow, if we don't get a signal in the next few minutes ...
UPDATE 00:35 CST: Space Daily is reporting that Odyssey got no signal from the lander. Time for bed. Oh well...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:53 PM
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE...
William Saffire hopes that Dean gets the nomination so that the Democrats don't get beaten as badly as they would if he doesn't get the nomination. Now there's some convoluted reasoning...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 5:48 PM
MAO'S IMAGE IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
There's a great essay at Shanghai Eye on the fate of the Mao cult in the flow of change that has been China's reality over the last twenty years.
By now, however, the Mao cult must compete with a thriving civil culture, and it can no longer set the terms. The Mao icon is dunked into the turbid soup of consumer society, and there is no way of telling how he'll eventually turn out. While the Party still has the means of imposing a brutal veto on the debate, it is merely one voice among many. Mao, as Warhol had envisaged in his famous prints, has now been packaged, both ideologically and commercially, and for the youngsters in modern-day China, he is nothing more than a old name in desperate need of rebranding.
Check it out.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:26 AM
PAKISTAN AND THE DILEMMA OF "ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY"
This morning the Beeb is reporting on "a deal with hardline Islamists to end a parliamentary stand-off" under which Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, will give up his military leadership roles next year. Let's review: According to the BBC, "[i]n the 55 years of its existence, Pakistan has not been able to find a workable model of democracy. There have been repeated interventions by the military and not once has there been a smooth transfer of power from one elected government to another." Mushareff took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, deposing the radical muslim president who had preceded him. Since then, Musharraf has had his rule "legitimized" by a referendum, but large parts of Pakistani society -- including crucial sectors of the police and military, the latter having possession of nuclear weapons -- are dominated by extremist Islamofascists. Meanwhile Pakistan's hundreds of Saudi-funded religious schools breed tens of thousands of new recruits to the most violent, intolerant brand of Taliban-style Islam every year.
Everyone in favor of "democracy" in Pakistan, raise their hands.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:20 AM
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
NEW CORVETTE OUT IN THE OPEN
Check it out! To the non-car-freak, the new Corvette will be hard to distinguish from the Fifth Gen. What I see is the sharper creases from the Third Gen "shark" imposed on the round curves of the best-vette-ever (i.e. my baby). Except for the slightly shorter overhangs, I'm not that impressed. It's a "freshening up," but not a radical departure. The interior on the other hand, to put it bluntly, sucks. Somebody at GM listened to the Euro-weenie yuppies and drained the interior of all true Corvette character. (UPDATE: I've looked at more pics and I'm even more disappointed. Soooo bland.)
But the engine is a fine 50 horsepower bump.
Overall, it won't be hard for me to keep tweaking Red Menace rather than run out to get a new vette..
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:17 PM
THE DEAN-O SHOW
Allah's on a roll!
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:51 PM
REALLY SMART BOMBS
Here's a note from Space Daily about the working demonstration of a new upgrade to the JDAMS smart bomb that was used so effectively in Iraq. Two very remote command & control aircraft (a J-STARS and an old BAC 1-111 carrying the scanning radar that will be on the Joint Strike Fighter) scanned an old T-60 tank that was being remotely operated through a confusing array of moving vehicles. An F-16 released the JDAM 11 kilometers from the target. The tracking radars relayed updated target information to the JDAM as it fell, guiding the bomb to a direct hit on the tank's turret as it manouvered through traffic.
The more I think about this, the more amazing it is. Ten years from now, it simply won't be worthwhile for any military force to even try to catch up to the U.S. armed forces.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:42 PM
Monday, December 22, 2003
RUSSIAN FLYING SAUCER?
Wired news points to this unusual Russian aircraft. I only had a few minutes to peruse the developer's site and work through the stilted English translation, but the thing looks workable. Cool.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:03 AM
Sunday, December 21, 2003
GOD vs.THE FUTURE
In the summer of 2001, I proposed that the enemies of progress in the human condition could be seen as an "Iron Triangle" -- an alliance among social "Guardians" who seek to impose an ideal and static order on humanity, "Romantic Naturalists" (i.e. environmentalists) who oppose progress as a force contrary to an ideal of nature distinguished from humanity and, lastly, traditional religions, "Magicalists," who oppose progress as an assault on a divinely-ordained order of life and death. The last of these forces has been somewhat slow to join the anti-progress coalition, but they are swiftly taking up their place in the war against the future. Two pieces in the current Christianity Today magazine explicitly acknowledge transhumanism as the enemy of their faith.
The first article, entitled The Techno-Sapiens are Coming fits the usual mold of anti-progress articles these days: The author notes the promise of nanotechnology and then paints the horrors that will befall humanity if it dares to transcend its evolved biological limits.:
The ethical implications of nanotechnology are great, but even more troubling is the philosophy of some of its proponents, who subscribe to transhumanism. This is the belief that someday we will re-engineer our natures to such an extent that a posthuman species, or several new species, will be created that are "superior" to homo sapiens.
Of course we get the standard scare-quotes around the word "superior" -- the rhetorical opening that ultimately leads to rejection of improving the human condition. Although the article is very short, the message is clear: Human beings are inherently flawed creatures and we must simply accept those flaws.
The second piece is an interview with a Christian bioethicist. The introduction describes "a coalition he's a part of. Feminists, environmentalists, and evangelicals..." The "coalition" stands explicitly against the notion of technologically-mediated improvement in the human condition. Sounds like I got it right.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:35 AM
LYBIA DEAL
The Guardian is reporting that the deal with Quadafi wasn't just for termination of Lybia's WMD programs, but also to roll over on the terrorist acitivities it has been supporting. Naturally, the Guardian manages to pull some quotes condemning Bush and Blair for negotiating with Quadafi -- in contrast with the invasion of Iraq. You can't win with some people.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:17 AM
Saturday, December 20, 2003
THE CHINA THREAT
Hat tip to MButler for this: A NYT op/Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof that contains this:
Yet what worries me about China isn't its upgrade of its nuclear arsenal and its military acquisitions to project power beyond its borders. China's military doctrine is cautious, and President Hu Jintao is leading China toward an increasingly constructive role in international affairs.
No, what troubles me, as one who loves China and is rooting for it to succeed, is the growing nationalism that the government has cultivated among young people.
Kristof is spot on. The CCP has been reaching for the dangerous pot of nationalism as a filler to fortify the increasingly thin gruel of watered-down Marxism it serves up to the country as an ideology to justify its monopoly on power. Mixed with the insecurity so many Chinese still feel in the world (and lack of knowledge of the world), this nationalism creates a bad brew.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 5:41 PM
BBC WATCH
Normally, I wouldn't link to story in the Sun, but this seems to be true: The BBC's management has sent an email to its staff that Saddam Hussein is to be referred to as "the deposed former President" instead of "the former dictator." No anti-war, anti-Blair/Bush bias there!
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 12:19 PM
Friday, December 19, 2003
LYBIA SURRENDERS TO CIVILIZATION
Proof it's Working
Lybia has agreed to allow international inspections of the destruction of its WMD programs. This would not have happened if the good guys hadn't gotten seriously tough.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:47 PM
MARS UPDATE
The European Beagle lander successfully separated from its coast-stage mother ship yesterday. In just six days -- on Christmas -- it will land on the Martian surface. Over the next few weeks, the two U.S. rover-landers, Spirit and Opportunity, will do the same. If all goes well, the human species will have three facilities doing science on the surface of Mars. Pretty damned cool.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:09 AM
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
RUTAN DOES THE CENTENNIAL RIGHT
Today -- the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers first powered human flight -- aerospace wonderboy Burt Rutan accomplished something truly amazing. Here is the story in the words of the press release:
Today, a significant milestone was achieved by Scaled Composites: The first manned supersonic flight by an aircraft developed by a small company's private, non-government effort.
Our White Knight turbojet launch aircraft, flown by Test Pilot Peter Siebold, carried research rocket plane SpaceShipOne to 48,000 feet altitude, near the desert town of California City. At 8:15 a.m. PDT, Cory Bird, the White Knight Flight Engineer, pulled a handle to release SpaceShipOne. SpaceShipOne Test Pilot, Brian Binnie then flew the ship to a stable, 0.55 mach gliding flight condition, started a pull-up, and fired its hybrid rocket motor. Nine seconds later, SpaceShipOne broke the sound barrier and continued its steep powered ascent. The climb was very aggressive, accelerating forward at more than 3-g while pulling upward at more than 2.5-g. At motor shutdown, 15 seconds after ignition, SpaceShipOne was climbing at a 60-degree angle and flying near 1.2 Mach (930 mph). Brian then continued the maneuver to a vertical climb, achieving zero speed at an altitude of 68,000 feet. He then configured the ship in its high-drag "feathered" shape to simulate the condition it will experience when it enters the atmosphere after a space flight. At apogee, SpaceShipOne was in near-weightless conditions, emulating the characteristics it will later encounter during the planned space flights in which it will be at zero-g for more than three minutes. After descending in feathered flight for about a minute, Brian reconfigured the ship to its conventional glider shape and flew a 12-minute glide to landing at Scaled's home airport of Mojave. The landing was not without incident as the left landing gear retracted at touchdown causing the ship to veer to the left and leave the runway with its left wing down. Damage from the landing incident was minor and will easily be repaired. There were no injuries. (emphasis mine)
This is a momentous accomplishment. Rutan's ship will almost certainly win the X Prize.
posted by Greg 8:49 PM
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
OH NO -- THERE'S NO LEFTIST BIAS IN THE MEDIA!
Don't think so? Allah knows.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:00 PM
HOWARD'S HATEFEST
Howard Dean is embarassed -- but not enough to fully disavow -- the childish hate-humor spewed by his supporters in our wonderful cultural world. Check this out.
I've been holding my tongue in denouncing the Bush hatred that's coming from the operatives of the left, because there was plenty of Clinton-bashing during the 90s coming from the right. But this is getting to be a qualitatively different phenomenon. And it will backfire on the left. The same thing that made the left unable to see how self-destructive things like Hanoi Jane's treason was will undo them now with this kind of thing.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:38 PM
THE RIGHT CARD
Instapundit links to this essay by Orson Scott Card. Unlike many of my friends, I'm not a fan of Card's fiction -- I think it's puerile and wooden. But Card is right on here. He's a self-proclaimed Democrat, but he calls the anti-war tactics of all but one of the Democratic presidential candidates deplorable, concluding:
I can think of many, many reasons why the Republicans should not control both houses of Congress and the White House. But right now, if the alternative is the Democratic Party as led in Congress and as exemplified by the current candidates for the Democratic nomination, then I can't be the only Democrat who will, with great reluctance, vote not just for George W. Bush, but also for every other candidate of the only party that seems committed to fighting abroad to destroy the enemies that seek to kill us and our friends at home.
And if we elect a government that subverts or weakens or ends our war against terrorism, we can count on this: We will soon face enemies that will make 9/11 look like stubbing our toe, and they will attack us with the confidence and determination that come from knowing that we don't have the will to sustain a war all the way to the end.
I have to reluctantly agree with OSC here: I'm not happy with the prospect of a totally Republican government. The GOP's diabolical deal with the religious right makes them enemies of liberty when they listen to the demons of theocracy that haunt the darker regions of their coalition. But if they are the only ones who are willing to fight the war -- as a real war -- then the simple imperative of survival means they have my vote.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:31 PM
STEYN ON SADDAMN
Of all the punditry since Saddamn's capture, I like Mark Steyn's best. Here are some choice quotes:
Saddam, of course, attempted to reclaim his stature, but, in his current position, opportunities are few and far between. In his first interrogation at Baghdad Airport, he was asked if he'd like a glass of water, and replied: "If I drink water I will have to urinate and how can I urinate when my people are in bondage?" If there's a statue left of him in Iraq, they should chisel that on the plinth. That's now the extent of his defiance: he can refuse to use the bathroom ... In fairness to the non-urinator, "How can I urinate when my people are in bondage?" is a model of sound logic compared to the latest all too pissy talking-points in Europe. For months the naysayers have demanded the Americans turn over more power to the Iraqis. Okay, let's start by turning Saddam over to the Iraqis. Whoa, not so fast. The same folks who insisted there was no evidence Saddam was a threat to any countries other than his own and the invasion was an unwarranted interference in Iraqi internal affairs are now saying that Saddam can't be left to the Iraqi people, he has to be turned over to an international tribunal.
The gross hypocracy of those who urge the U.S. to turn civil authority over to the Iraqis, but demand that Saddam be tried by an international tribunal tests new limits, as far as I'm concerned, and Steyn has expressed that well.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:23 AM
TIEN AN MEN -- 14 YEARS ON
Living in China has a really good interview with a fellow who was involved in the student demonstrations of 1989, in Shanghai. This piece offers valuable insight into how the views of the events of 1989 have evolved over time in the minds of those who took part in it. I'd say that the patriotic, deeply ambivalent, but ultimately very hopeful, attitude expressed by the fellow who is interviewed is representative of the vast majority of his generation. I know quite a few people who are of the same generation and they all seem to have various shades of the same opinion. Highly recommended.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:13 AM
Sunday, December 14, 2003
SADDAMN!
I'm away from blogging for one day, and look what happens. I should take a break more often.
Way to go, U.S. armed forces! Sic semper tyranis! But, hey, here's a clue for all you guys in the Middle East: when you shoot a gun into the air, even if you're doing it because you're happy, the bullet will come back down.
UPDATE: back in the Batcave, I'm cruising the news and blogish reaction, savoring the moment. In amongst it all is this report in the Telegraph of evidence connecting Saddam with 911. I must say I'm skeptical, but willing to withhold judgment for now.
UPDATE: This is too much fun. (And I don't even like rap "music".)
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:03 PM
Saturday, December 13, 2003
LIGHT BLOGGING
Blogging will be light till tomorrow. We're going to visit our friends Max More and Natasha Vita-More.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:12 PM
EU CLUE
The EU summit -- aimed at moving the continent toward a real political union -- has ended in what the BBC's correspondent called a "disaster." This should come as no surprise. The dream of European union has always been just that -- a dream. The concept isn't founded on a realistic assessment of how people want to live.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:10 PM
ROBERT HEINLEIN, SOCIALIST (!?)
For science fiction fans of my generation, there was a "holy trinity" of writers whose books defined our visions of the future: Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke and Robert Heinlein. Of these, Heinlein was the most overtly political, and he infused my generation with libertarian ideas and ideals. But he wasn't always so. CBC News has an item about Heinlein's long-lost first novel, written in the 1930s. Set in the late 21st century, it describes a California that has adopted a socialist "basic income" scheme. Here's the crux of the review's discussion of the evolution of Heinlein's political philosophy:
James quotes Heinlein as telling another science-fiction writer about the later changes in his political philosophy: "I've simply changed from a soft-headed radical to hard-headed radical, a pragmatic libertarian." James also says the events of the Second World War and the Cold War, including the threat from communism, influenced Heinlein's change of political philosophy. He supported Senator Barry Goldwater for president in 1964 (some political analysts consider Goldwater the first neo-conservative).
How about that?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:29 AM
Friday, December 12, 2003
NIGHTHAWKS SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY?
The F-117 Nighthawk stealth "fighter" (it's not really a fighter at all, but rather a bomber) has been one of the most successful and important military aircraft of all time. And it's always operated in the dark of night. But here's an item (via defensetech.com) indicating that the Air Force may be thinking of letting the Nighthawks prowl during the day.
Since there's no armament that the F-117 can carry that other planes (especially the F-15E Strike Eagle) can't, there must be some thought that the radar-stealth characteristics of the F-117 must be sufficiently valuable during daylight hours to risk them in the light.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:15 PM
Thursday, December 11, 2003
ENVIRONMENTALIST EDEN
Normally I don't have much time for Michael Crichton: For a long time he's written screenplays, not novels, and he tends to do so by reading an article in Scientific American and then putting the text into the mouths of two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs. But Arts and Letters Daily this morning has a link to a speech he gave in September about environmentalism. It's superb. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
. . .
There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?
It's great when a figure like Crichton -- who has, after all done his part to scare people about the advance of science and technology -- talks sense about the irrational nonsense that lies beneath the faith of mainstream environmentalism. It's that anti-science faith that has brought me to stop calling myself an environmentalist (I now call myself a conservationist). Unfortunately, as I point out in my essay linked just above, the magical thinking of romantic environmentalism has taken firm root in our culture. It will take a lot of common sense like Crichton's speech to counter a generation of nonsense.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:59 AM
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
MORE FLYPAPER
Evidence continues to mount that jihadists are heading to Iraq from Europe. Of course, it depends on how you look at it, whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I think it's a good thing.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:06 PM
RULE OF LAW IN CHINA -- THE SILLY SIDE
Stories like this one from Shanghai Daily (via sina.com) may be a sign that China is begining to explore the real frontiers of the rule of law. We're told that a suit brought by the widow of a man killed by a train was dismissed -- because he fell from the tran while fleeing police after he had stolen a cell phone. It seems reporters can't resist a silly lawsuit in any country.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:40 PM
CHINA-TAIWAN MILITARY REALITY
Taiwan's presdient, Chen Shuiben, has barked back at Bush's signal to cool his independence rhetoric, apparently planning a March 20 referendum to at least condemn China's deployment of missiles aimed at the island. Many people may wonder what possible military basis Chen could have for asserting independence for Taiwan. The island's population is just 23 million, while China's is close to one and a half billion. The answer is the Straits of Taiwan, the part of the Pacific Ocean that separates Taiwan from the mainland. As Americans ought to know all too well, an amphibious invasion is one of the most difficult of all military operations, and China's military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) isn't really capable of carrying off such a move in the face of determined opposition from Taiwan, despite an invasion of Taiwan being one of the PLA's top priorities for over 50 years.
At least as things currently stand, the PLA possesses only a relative handful of amphibious assault ships and the Taiwanese air force has sufficient force to both achieve functional air superiority over the straits and sink an amphibious invasion fleet. The only force possessed by the Chinese capable of tipping the balance are theater-level missiles. But these would almost surely not be usable as counter-force weapons, and are really terror weapons: Taiwan's cities, then are hostages in this crisis. Thus the military situation is one of an all-or-nothing standoff.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:38 AM
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
SPACE POLICY CHANGE ON HOLD?
Last week the Bush administration leaked a trial balloon regarding the long-rumored announcement of a new space policy. Now it looks like that ballon's been popped: The WHite House is denying that a new policy announcement is imminent.
That's just as well. Any speech by Bush at this point would be drowned out by news from Iraq, terrost attacks, the developing presidential campaign and whatever celebrity gossip managed to fill any gaps left between the real news items. The truth is that the vast majority of the American public (or any other, with the possible exception of China's) doesn't care about space exploration or development. It's important and it will happen -- eventually -- but not because of any groundswell of popular interest. "Apollo babies" like me will just have to be patient and wait for technological developments to make reaching and developing the high frontier inexpensive enough for the project to be accomplished by the committed core of people who realize that humanity will have to leave the cradle some day.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:47 PM
SNIPERS FOR ALLAH
There have been plenty of press stories about John Malvo's attorneys using his jailhouse drawings to try to prove his insanity. Well, I've found an online repository of all the exhibits in the case -- including all of Malvo's drawings that have been put into evidence. The drawings begin about 2/3 of the way down the page, with the exhibit numbered "12/03/03 - DF Exhibit #65-006" -- they are listed in most recent/highest numbers at the top of the page.) Violent Islamism is a constant theme throughout Malvo's drawings.
Here's a question: Why have the mainstream news stories about this treasure trove of insight into Malvo's mind barely mentioned the fact that he had been thoroughly inculcated with violent Islam? I guess that wouldn't make sense, since Islam is the religion of peace...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 4:20 PM
THE CHINA-TAIWAN GAME
James Miller has an interesting take on a possible, if highly unlikely, scenario in the China-Taiwan crisis. He finds the moment of U.S. miliatry action against North Korea to be the ideal one for China to impose a military "solution" on the Taiwanese independence movement. I'm sure he's right, given the premise of a unilateral, purely pre-emptive U.S. strike against Pyongyang. But that's not going to happen.
Meanwhile, it looks like Wen Jiabao is getting one of the things he wanted out of his trip to the U.S.: a strong "cool it" from Washington to Taibei. If the U.S. aren't going to support them, who is -- the French?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:40 PM
DEAN GORED
Al Gore endorses Howard Dean. That's odd. Joe Lieberman, Gore's running mate in the 2000 campaign, is running against Dean for the Democratic Party's nomination. Back in 2000, Gore thought Lieberman was suited to be president if Gore wasn't able to fulfill his duties. Apparently not now. Loyalty never has meant much to that crowd.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:03 AM
Monday, December 08, 2003
CHINA HEATS UP
There have been lots of articles lately about the sexual revolution taking place in China -- young people are embracing their freedom in the direction young people are usually oriented. Here's a funny new twist, an article from Xinhua about young people making out -- and more -- in their cars.
The sexual behavior of some young people in parking lots in parks such as Guangzhou's Mt. Baiyunshan Park is causing public concern, according to recent media reports in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province. With more young people owning cars, some drive their cars to parks or scenic spots in the evenings and have sex in their cars in the parking lots. Baiyunshan police say sexual activity does happen in parking lots in the park, but when patrolmen discover it, they can do nothing but ask those involved to leave the park.
This item is so perfectly aimed at American sensibilities, I'm almost suspicious: What American won't respond to this with a benign grin and the perhaps unconscious feeling that things must be getting better in China if these are the kinds of problems that get written about in Xinhua, the Communist Party's official news outlet. On the other hand, it would take a pretty subtle and deep understanding of the American psyche to overcome old-fashioned communist Chinese prudishness about talking about such things in public just to score a very subtle PR point in the minds of a few Americans.
Then there's this comment, published in the Xinhua story, from a lawyer in Guangdong:
"This is an interesting new phenomenon in our society. We may raise this topic for wider and deeper discussion in public, but it is hard for us to say from a legal viewpoint that this sexual activity is illegal. A private car provides a specific private space for its owner to exercise his or her own human rights. If the owner's behavior brings no jeopardy to other people's rights, we cannot force him or her to stop it. Unless we make a new regulation or law forbidding such sexual activity, we cannot have any legal basis for the park administration or police to interfere in a car owner's private affairs if he or she chooses to make love in a private car. From this new phenomenon, we can see that, influenced by Western culture, some young Chinese people's sexual ideas and behaviors have taken on a big change: They are becoming more open sexually. I think the main issue with this sexual activity doesn't lie with our current law but with our current morals. Put another way, we can say this sexual activity is not elegant but we cannot say it is illegal."
This is even more perfectly crafted to appeal to western, especially American sensibilities. I wasn't able to find any reference to the lawyer's name or his firm using Google in English... but who knows?
UPDATE: But apparently there are limits. Blogger Mu Zimei's accounts of her personal sexual exploits won't be published as a book -- they couldn't make it past state censors.
GB, ThhotA
posted by Greg 7:01 PM
AMERICAN MUSCLE
The new issue of Car and Driver magazine has arrived, and it has two items that highlight the renaissance of American automotive technology (neither item mentioned here is available at their website yet). First, the 2004 Corvette has made CD's 10-Best list again, despite the fact that this is the last year for the 6th-generation vette. Second, the new Ford GT handily beats the two closest competitors CD could identify, a Porsche and a Ferrari. Unfortunately, most Americans still prefer Detroit's lowest-tech products, SUVs.
UPDATE:
GB, THHotA C/D's website now has these articles online.
posted by Greg 8:16 AM
Sunday, December 07, 2003
A DIFFERENT WAR
So, if we’re now involved in World War 5, how does this one differ from World War 4, a/k/a the Cold War? The nature of the opponent, at every level, is completely different. Yes, in some sense this war, like the Cold War was, is about “ideology” in the broadest and loosest sense of the word. But the nature of the ideas motivating our enemy is very different – more different from the liberal modernism they are attacking than communism was. Communism and liberalism shared the concept that the real world was the arena in which the two philosophies contended, and also shared the idea of progress.
Islam is the ultimate opponent in what military theoreticians call “asymmetrical warfare.” Not only do they have utterly different weapons and tactics, they are fighting – as far as they are concerned – in a completely different reality. The world in which children are blown up by a suicide bomber’s “martyrdom” isn’t the “real” world – or at least not the important one – as far as the bomber is concerned. In a very real sense, we are fighting an army of psychotics, people who hear voices and see things that aren’t there. Communists were motivated by a utopian fantasy, but at least they didn’t believe that it actually existed – yet. They were trying to bring about that ideal world, as Marx imagined it. The Islamofascists believe that the ideal world already exists. A communist soldier was being asked to die for the future – a future that began to seem increasingly unlikely as communist regimes sank into poverty. A mujahadeen dies for something he believes exists now
Ultimately, communism failed because it failed to create the paradise on earth that it had promised. But the paradise promised to the Islamofascists doesn't have to pass the test of actually existing, or even seeming to be more likely than not to exist in any rational sense. The fantasy of Muhhamed's whorehouse in the sky is clearly sufficient to motivate people to kill themselves in the process of committing murder.
Another crucial difference between the Cold War and this one is our leadership's inability to clearly identify or even talk about the real threat. During the Cold War, western leaders could and regularly did condemn communism for the dangerous totalitarian nonsense that it was. Today, our leaders must mouth the absurdity that Islam is "the religion of peace," while our so-called "allies" continue to fund the spread of the enemy ideology.
A very different war, indeed.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 4:11 PM
WHICH WORLD WAR IS IT?
That’s my name for a parlor game popular among history geeks like me. I vote for “World War 5.” This requires a little renumbering, thus:
WW1: Napoleonic Wars (All of Europe involved, combat in every sea and on every continent) – the war against French imperialism
WW2: WW1 – the war against German imperialism
WW3: WW2 – the war against fascism
WW4: The Cold War – the war against communism
WW5: The war between Islam and the West
The good guys won WWs1-4. But WW5 will last at least as long as WW4 ... so we have a long time before we know the outcome.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 3:50 PM
CANCER BREAKTHROUGH?
Here's a very hopeful development:
The preclinical results of cancer vaccine research led by Dr. Albert B. Deisseroth, president and chief executive of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC), will be published Dec. 9 by the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the ongoing study begun three years ago, when Dr. Deisseroth was head of the Medical Oncology unit in the Department of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, he and his colleagues discovered mice inoculated with an experimental cancer vaccine developed an immune response to a marker which is present in increased levels on several types of cancer, including specific manifestations of cervical, breast, ovarian, colon and lung cancers.
The Deisseroth laboratory at SKCC has shown that two injections of this vaccine suppress the growth of cancer cells for up to a year in test mice. Eventually, this vaccine will be combined with chemotherapy or hormonal therapy to prevent the recurrence of breast and colon cancer that occurs in some patients following surgery.
Go science!
GB, ThhotA
posted by Greg 3:49 PM
THE SAUDI CONNECTION
There’s a very good article at U.S. News that’s getting linked a lot throughout the blogosphere summarizing the growth and extent of Saudi funding for international Islamofascist terrorism, and how the U.S. intelligence and policy apparatus missed this global cancer:
Starting in the late 1980s--after the dual shocks of the Iranian revolution and the Soviet war in Afghanistan--Saudi Arabia's quasi-official charities became the primary source of funds for the fast-growing jihad movement. In some 20 countries, the money was used to run paramilitary training camps, purchase weapons, and recruit new members. The charities were part of an extraordinary $70 billion Saudi campaign to spread their fundamentalist Wahhabi sect worldwide. The money helped lay the foundation for hundreds of radical mosques, schools, and Islamic centers that have acted as support networks for the jihad movement, officials say.
OK, now we know. What are we going to do about it?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 3:46 PM
BLOGGER DOWN
blogger.com's been down all day. This has been the first time I've been able to post anything . . .
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 3:04 PM
Saturday, December 06, 2003
IRAQ WRECK
Unlike many others who supported the war, I've never had much optimism about what Iraq's politics or society will be like after Saddam. I do think that Iraq a few years from now will be better than it was under Saddam (but that's not saying much), and that the world will be a better place, over-all, with Saddam gone. But I have little hope that Iraq will fulfill the hopes of those who think there will be any kind of really peaceful, democratic society there.
These sentiments are reinforced by a quite lengthy but well written article in The New Yorker by George Packer. (via Arts & Letters Daily)Packer spent some time in Iraq after the invasion, investigating conditions there. His article is structured around profiles of various players in the pre-war planning for post-war activities, and then the way things actually played out. The most important parts of the piece document just how poor the planning and preparations for dealing with post-war conditions were:
One of the most hierarchical, top-down state systems on earth had been wiped out almost overnight, and no new system had yet taken its place. The neighborhood councils are imperfect embryos of local democracy. Confused, frustrated Iraqis turn to the Americans, who seem to have all the power and money; the Americans, who don’t see themselves as occupiers, try to force the Iraqis to work within their own institutions, but those institutions have been largely dismantled.
There was an almost complete failure by the Americans to envision just how non-existent Iraq's civil society was. The failure highlights the painful gulf between the West and places like Iraq: Life in Iraq had been so brutal and society so primitve for so long that there simply wasn't any structure at all available to take the place of Saddam's regime. In a very real sense, "there's no there there." I think the inadequate preparation for dealing with a post-war Iraq arose from a failure of imagination -- a failure to imagine a society that lacked all sense of civic virtue.
I think it's morally bankrupt to assert that anything is better than nothing under these circumstances -- Saddam wasn't better than the social vaccum that exists in Iraq now. But it's also deeply naive to think that things will be anywhere near good there any time soon. The irony is that things could have been better in the aftermath of war, but only if the Bush adminstration had been willing to see itself in terms that its enemies constantly use to describe it, but which they reject: as conquerors.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:44 AM
Thursday, December 04, 2003
ONE NATION -- UNDER GOD
Did you know that it is illegal in the state of Texas for an atheist to hold any public office? It is:
Article 1 - BILL OF RIGHTS
Section 4 - RELIGIOUS TESTS
No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.
I'd be ashamed to be a Texan knowing this (I didn't before today), but it's also true in Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee. Of course these laws are utterly unenforceable under the federal Constitution, but still, it's shameful.
UPDATE: having ruminated on this at the gym for about an hour, it occurs to me that professing the existence of any "Supreme Being" would satisfy this law. So, I suppose if you were to acknowledge Charles Manson as "the Supreme Being," the State of Texas would find you more fit for "public trust" than one who doesn't have an Imaginary Friend. So weird...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:53 PM
QUO VADIS?
The other day, Anthea asked me why there was a question mark after the title of the old movie, Quo Vadis?. Having had a little Latin plugged into my head when I was younger and smarter, I explained that the phrase was a question, meaning, "whither goes thou?" or, in a more contemporary fashion: "where are you going?"
There's a strong essay over at faithfreedom.org entitled Quo Vadis Ummah?. "Ummah" is the Arabic word for "the body of Islamic believers" that corresponds (sort of) to the English usage of the term "the Church" that means the body of Christian believers, or perhaps "Christendom" in the old way of speaking. "Islamdom," perhaps, is a better translation of "ummah" then. Anyway, the essay is strong medicine, but necessary. In it, Abdul Karim writes:
Peace of mind cannot be bought at the price of covering up the facts, or interpreting them away. The fact is that Mullah Omar was right about Bin Ladin: Bin Laden is a good Muslim. He did only what his “Holy” Book, the Quran tells him to do: to wage Jihad against the infidel until Allah`s religion rules supreme. Jihad is a commandment on every able-bodied Muslim male. If the world wants to find the roots of the hatred and violence of AL-Qaida and other affiliated Jihadi groupings, there is no substitute but to go to the source of that philosophy. And that source is not some out of the way Jihadi training camp in Afghanistan or Arabia, but in the Quran. While this truth may be unpalatable and politically incorrect, it is nevertheless true. Any person who takes the time and puts in the effort to read through the insanities, incitements and exhortations to Jihad against infidel people is struck by the raw hate and primitive killer mind of the 7th Century self proclaimed prophet who enslaved the Islamic word to an ideology of perpetual war and hatred to all things un-Islamic.
"Quo vadis?," indeed.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:59 AM
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
CLEAR GUIDANCE
I've come across a really sad web site, clearguidance.com. This is a web site created for young Muslims, in English. It preaches the absolute most backward and violent Islamism, endorsing "martyrdom" (it's clear this means suicide bombing), commanding support for the Taliban ("it is compulsory upon all Muslims to help the Taliban Government"), and drawing a firm line against what it calls "modernism," i.e. any attempt to moderate the primitive teachings of Islam. I note that many of the "scholars" who provide such wonderfully "clear guidance" have addresses in the U.S.
This site has a "help with homework" forum that is well used by the children of American and English Muslims.
Allah akhbar, dude.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:53 PM
THE NANO AGE
President Bush today signed the "21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act." Here's the official White House press release. This day's been a long time coming, from the time when folks like me who saw a bright future in nanotechnology were considered nuts. There's still skepticism from some well-credentialled scientists about the most promising possibilities, but the doubters decrease in number every year.
The great thing about science is that testable claims are made -- and tested. Some day, we'll know who's really right.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:56 PM
WHY I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE
Continuing a Series
It's going to take more than coming up with a cool label like "South Park Republicans" to make me take the horrible leap of ever calling myself a Republican, but articles like this one in Popshot certainly don't hurt.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:34 AM
COMMENTARY ON THE TAIWAN CRISIS
Here's a good, brief discussion at Living in China of what official commentary from Beijing on the Taiwan independence crisis may mean. Be sure to read the first comment on the post.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:36 AM
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
TAIWAN SITUATION GETTING DANGEROUS
Mark my words, If Chen Shuiben doesn't cool down on the independence movement, there will be a crisis that will be very hard to contain. Given the U.S. public's deplorable tendancy to ignore events overseas until they boil over, this is going to seem to "come from nowhere," but it's been building for a while. Unfortunately, Chen's pushing things so fast and so hard, Beijing will feel squeezed into a corner.
What I want to know is why Chen feels he can do this. Right now, it's a mystery to me.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:15 AM
Monday, December 01, 2003
THE CIA AND THE CASE FOR IRAQI WMD
Here's a press release from the CIA looking back on the 2002 "National Intelligence Estimate" that set out the evidence for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The anti-war left will never understand (or at least admit) that the failure (so far) to find WMD in Iraq is not evidence that the U.S. and British administrations did not have a good faith belief that Iraq likely had such weapons, but reading this ought to help a rational person to understand this.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:53 PM
JULIE BURCHILL LEAVES THE GUARDIAN WITH SOME PARTING SHOTS
Columnist Julie Burchill is leaving the Guardian, but not before she uses her last few columns to slam the left that supports that paper. This is fun!
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:28 PM
NEW SPACE POLICY LEAKED
Spaceref.com has scooped the other space news sources with this item describing the new space policy to be announced soon by GWB. I'm on the run this morning, but the gist of the matter is this: Dominance over the Earth-moon region, including a return to the moon. They got it right.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:21 AM
THE REAGANS
We watched the controversial film, The Reagans, last night on Showtime. On the one hand, I thought the film was, as made-for-TV films go, a pretty good study of the Reagan family. In its defense, that's what the point of the movie was -- to show that the family itself was pretty dysfunctional, but to balance that with the depiction of a real love story, that between Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The problem, of course, was that the Reagans were not just another dysfunctional Hollywood family. One of them was president of the United States. And it was there that the film was ghastly. It was unrelenting in depicting Ronald Reagan as a one-dimensional simpleton. I honestly don't know enough to have an opinion on the subject, but I can see how people who might believe that Ronald Reagan was anything other than a puppet manipulated by behind-the-scenes Republican operatives might have wanted a more balanced view.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:13 AM
ANATOMY OF ANTI-AMERICANISM
This is good.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:05 AM
COOLING IN THE TRADE WAR
It's being reported that the Bush administration is about to roll back the steel tarrifs ruled illegal by the WTO. Good.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:53 AM
FRANCE ROTS
Corruption in the connection between French big business, politics and government has been a subject often discussed in the American zones of the blogosphere. Instapundit recently referred to this story in the Economist about the amazingly convoluted and flat-out fraudulent connection between a crony of Jaques Chirac and the Executive Life Insurance Company scandal in the U.S. (I well remember the collapse of Executive Life -- no one who practiced law on the personal injury defense side could forget the effect on settlements that had been funded by EL annuities that evaporated.)
Now there's this story in the BBC about a scandal that's been lingering for years and years, in which gross corruption accompanied the sale of French-built naval frigates to Taiwan:
By the time the six frigates [were] finally paid for, their price [had] rocketed to Ffr16bn (2.44bn euros), of which nearly a third is estimated to have been the cost of the bribes and commissions. The question is: where has this money gone? About half has been identified and some of that frozen in accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere. But that still leaves FFr2.5bn (380m euros) unaccounted for.
Investigation into the corruption has been thwarted by many deaths that look like murders (people falling from high places) and has gotten nowhere in France, despite the Taiwanese government's attempts to get to the bottom of the matter.
But America's the place where money runs politics, right?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:51 AM
