Douglas Murray writes about the stifling of free speech in Europe

European Governments are so afraid of Muslim violence that they are stifling free speech in hopes of protecting themselves. Douglas Murray writes in the Sunday Times about the situation and says that what is happening is a mistake, and will not work, anyway. He says that the Netherlands is in particularly bad shape, and is doomed if the government doesn't change its ways. Douglas Murray's article is called "We should fear Holland’s silence".

Phil Windley has coverage of Alan Kay's talk "Is Computer Science and Oxymoron?"

My coworker mentioned Bob Barton and Alan Kay, this morning, and mentioned Alan's recent speech. Bob Barton was the designer of the Burroughs B5000, an innovative mainframe design. Bob Barton and the B5000 inspired Alan Kay in his idea about object-oriented programming. My coworker and also mentioned this quote from Bob Barton: “systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult”. Alan was part of a revolution that has pretty much spent its momentum, because the C/UNIX world rose to prominence (see "Do the Right Thing" and "Worse is Better"). In the software field, we are seeing the results of the triumph of pragmatism. We continue to look for ways to put bandaids on the software development field. Xegesis has a commentary on the subject.

David Horsey doesn't think much of the demogoguing on Dubai Ports

Today, in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, David Horsey has a cartoon about the demogoguing by talk radio and Republicans and Democrats in Congress. I will give you a hint: he doesn't think much of what is being said.

Razib comments on Michael J. Totten's piece on the Yezidis

Razib, writing at Gene Expression, comments on Michael J. Totten's piece on the Yezidis in Northern Iraq. Razib writes:

Michael J. Totten has an interesting piece where he interviews the religious leader of the Yezidis. I read a book on the Yezidis in college...and their "history" is difficult to untangle. If I had to bet I would contend that their assertion of the being the ur-religion of the Kurds is a rather late invention. I once talked a Kurdish cab-driver in Chicago who repeated the idea that Yezidism was the Kurdish ur-religion, so this idea seems accepted among Muslims. The Yezidi beliefs are a melange, and there are indications from their rituals that they were either Jacobite Christians or strongly influenced by Jacobite Christianity. Additionally, there are historical records of paganism within the mountains of Kurdistan, during the 17th century a Ottoman padishah was making his progress through this region and stumbled upon a village where everyone worshipped the sun. This solar paganism offended the padishah, and eventually the village converted to Jacobite Christianity (at least outwardly) to avoid his wrath. This area has a long historical record of solar paganism, the city of Haran in upper Syria was spared forced Christianization¹ during the 6th century because of special protection that the Persian shah extended to it (though it was in Byzantine territory, its nearness to the Persian Empire rendered it vulnerable to attack). Haran remained a pagan city with an indigenous religion at the time of the Muslim conquest.

...

1 - The Baalbek valley was forcibly Christianized while missionaris were sent into central Anatolia during the 6th century under Justinian so as to finally complete the nominal unification of the Byzantine Empire religiously.

I don't stand with the isolationist wing of the Conservative movement

William F. Buckley and Brent Scowcroft represent a wing of the Conservative movement for which I have little sympathy. This is apparently where Pat Buchanan falls, although he is an eccentric representative of this group. Ed Morrissey has a piece about the commentary that William F. Buckley wrote and where President Bush stands:

Now, almost a century later, Bush has launched a second Wilsonian effort to use democracy as a transformative agent to reduce or eliminate the radicalism borne of oppression and the terrorism borne of radicalism in the region. This is true liberalism, not the leftist/socialist tripe that hijacked its name -- the effort to spread liberty and individual freedom as a forward strategy against the evils that oppression breeds. Buckley may be proven correct in the long run, but given that the traditional conservative impulse in this region led us to the century of war and conflict that culminated in the 9/11 attacks, we can afford to spend more time and effort to see if Wilsonian impulses fare any better.

Jay Tea on the Dubai Ports deal

Jay Tea, writing at Wizbang, has a post about the Dubai Ports deal. I had already reached the conclusion that the deal needed to go through, perhaps with some additional safeguards. Jay concludes:

But simply because the Democrats and unions are opposed to a deal, does that mean it's bad? No. It's a good indicator, but not conclusive.

I've been a bit troubled by one element, and that's that the Democrats tend, as a national party, to not take the War on Terror seriously. In this case, though, they're making that THE deciding issue, and that discrepancy bothered me. That's very out of character for them. They don't usually work the big picture.

And thanks to Dafydd Ab Hugh, my suspicions were confirmed.

To sum up: right now the biggest concern we ought to have right now is Iran's headlong rush to acquire nuclear weapons. And the UAE sits right on the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint of the Persian Gulf. Keeping very close ties with the UAE is critical. And Dubai Ports World has a very good record of managing ports.

So I think that the potential risks in letting DPW take over managing six of our ports are minimal, while the benefits to be gained are tremendous. I can even get over being on the same side of the issue as Jimmy Carter.

But any time Hillary Clinton, Pat Buchanan, and Big Labor are all agreeing on an issue, I think that's almost enough to sway my opinion to the opposite.

A co-worker pointed out this cool weapon

A co-worker of mine pointed out this cool idea for a submarine-launched, robotic UAV. Paul Miller, writing at Engadget says:

This new robotic-submarine-spy-plane from Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is just a concept for now, but it's one badass concept if you ask us, so we thought we'd share. The Cormorant is designed to be launched from the large missile tubes on subs that were originally designed for nuclear weapons. Once ejected, the robotic plane floats to the surface then fires up its rockets to fly its mission, be it a surgical missile strike or surveillance. After completion, the plane returns to the sea and is found by a robotic underwater vehicle which brings the drone back to the sub.

Paul has a picture of the concept.

This is the picture to which Razib, writing at Gene Expression, linked

The post that Razib wrote at Gene Expression links to a picture of the parents (both of mixed race) with the twins who have radically different coloring, although they look like twins. The picture is from the Daily Mail, in the UK. This is the picture to which he links:

The blonde girl with blue eyes looks very English, although her sister looks similar, except with coloring like her parents.

This sure seems to be true

I agree with Megan McArdle that our leftist buddies seem to be short on ideas. Megan, writing as "Jane Galt", writes:

The left used to have a Big Idea: The free market doesn't work, so the government will fix it. The social democrats disagreed with the Socialists and the Scoop Jackson democrats about how much fixing was necessary, but they all agreed on a basic premise, and could sell that simple message to the public. Then, after fifty years or so, people noticed that the government didn't seem to work any better than the free market . . . worse, actually, in a lot of cases . . . and it was awfully expensive and surly. Conservatives stepped in with their Big Idea: the government screws things up, so let's leave more stuff up to individuals, which, if nothing else, will be a lot cheaper. Obviously, liberals disagree with this . . . but they have not come up with a Big, Easily Sellable, Idea With Obvious Policy Prescriptions to replace it. Some of them have just kept repeating the old Big Idea, which it seems to me that fewer and fewer people believe, as the US continues to pull ahead of its economic peers. Others have focused on coming up with lots of little ideas . . . but those take up too much time and energy to attract voters. Gore tried to whang up anger against pharmaceutical companies, and Kerry tried to stoke anger against Bush, as replacement. But in politics, there's just no replacement for the Big Idea.

Razib has a piece about the twins, one blonde and one dark-skinned and black hair

Razib has a post about a striking case of how genetics works in strange ways. There is a couple (not married), who had twin girls. The mother and father are both of mixed race. The daughters came out with one having a skin tone and hair matching her father, while the other daughter is blonde, white, and blue-eyed. The girls look very similar, otherwise. Razib writes:

Desidancer and Diana both pointed me to this story about a mixed race couple who gave birth to daughters of very different phenotypes. The explanation in the story is about right, the loci which give you a gestalt impression of racial identity are a tiny sample of your overall genome. In the story it is reported that 7 genes control skin color and F1 (first generation) hybrids should carry half of the variants of each race (since their parents contribute exactly 50% of the genes to each). But the F2 generation can come out as a range of combinations, so it stands to reason that mixed-race couples will have children who vary a great deal in phenotype as the allelese resegregate themselves into alternative combinations. I lay out the details in By the Punnett Square. South Asians, who often exhibit a white range of color variation from near white to near black, should not be surprised at this sort of dynamic, as the variance within a family can be rather large in complexion.

Michael J. Totten has another piece from the land of the Kurds

Michael J. Totten has another long piece, with pictures, of the land of the Kurds. He starts off:

LALISH, IRAQ – In Northern Iraq there is a place called Lalish where the Yezidis say the universe was born. I drove south from Dohok on snowy roads through an empty land, seemingly to the ends of the earth, and found it nestled among cold hills.

I went there because the President of Dohok University told me to go. “I am a Muslim,” he said. “But I love the Yezidis. Theirs is the original religion of the Kurds. Only through the Yezidis can I speak to God in my own language.”

Chad, the Elder, on Chuck Hagel

Chad, the Elder, writing at Fraters Libertas, tells about hearing Chuck Hagel on Minnesota Public Radio (similar to Radio Moscow in the USSR) and thinking he was listening to a Democrat. Apprarently, Chuck Hagel intends to run for President in 2008. One issue is that his erstwhile buddy, John S. McCain, Jr., is also running (so it seems). Chad writes:

While out at lunch today, I flipped on Minnesota Public Radio. Gary Eichten was interviewing a politician, whose voice I couldn't recognize. After listening to him enthusiastically bash the Bush administration for a few minutes, I was curious to know his identity. Eichten mentioned that he was a US Senator. Hmmm...Couldn't be Mark Dayton. Too articulate and coherent. But then who? It had to be a Democrat based on his views, but I couldn't put my finger on the name.

Until the end of the interview, when Eichten mentioned that the man he was speaking was a potential candidate for President in 2008. Yes, it was none other than Chuck Hagel, Republican(?) from Nebraska. Apparently Hagel was in town seeking to build support for his delusional 2008 run.

Michael J Totten has more pictures of Northern Iraq

Michael J. Totten traveled more in Northern Iraq and has pictures. Despite their faults, the Kurds have built a protected place for themselves and can live more normally than anywhere else in Iraq. Michael writes:

DOHOK, IRAQ – Everyone I talked to in Erbil said the city of Dohok, near the border with Turkey, was both safer and prettier. So I made the three-hour drive through the mountains, partly so I could see the spectacular scenery and also because I didn’t want to drive through Mosul. Mosul is part of Iraq’s greater red zone, so to speak. The scumbags of Al Qaeda still operate there.

It shouldn’t be a big deal to just drive through a place for ten minutes where Al Qaeda hides out. But a brief conversation I had with a driver and translator in Erbil made quite an impression on me. After driving around the city for two hours, my translator said “If we were doing this in Baghdad we would be dead by now.”

The driver nodded vigorously.

“It’s that dangerous?” I said.

“With your face,” my translator said, “and with our Kurdish license plates on the car we could not last two hours.”

Mosul isn’t as bad, although it is bad enough. I don’t know if Baghdad is really even that bad. But I didn’t want to test one of the hot spots with my life. Not without a security detail or at least some weapons of our own. We didn’t have any, and we weren’t going to get any. So we took the back roads to Dohok even though it added an hour of driving time.

I could see that Dohok was different from Erbil even from a distance. Erbil is south of the mountains, in the plains. Dohok is surrounded by mountains on all sides.

You should see his pictures and follow the link to his blog.

Michael J Totten has more on the Kurdish north in Iraq

Michael J. Totten seems to be very impressed by the governance of what he calls "Kurdistan" in Northern Iraq. He has painted a very appealing picture. In this post, he discusses the ultimate endgame for the Kurds: independence.

ERBIL, IRAQ – Iraq may not survive in one piece. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds are packing their bags. Most have already said goodbye. Erbil (Hawler in Kurdish) is the capital of the de-facto sovereign Kurdistan Regional Government. Baghdad is thought of as the capital of a deranged foreign country.

In January 2005 the Iraqi Kurds held an informal referendum. More than 80 percent turned out to vote. 98.7 percent of those voted to secede from Iraq. Not only have the Kurds long dreamed of independence, when they look south they see only Islamism, Baathism, blood, fire, and mayhem.

Ace has a post about Nigeria and protests

Nigeria is an odd place. There are some really intelligent and innovative Nigerians working the US in the software field. On the other hand, they are burdened with an ignorant and violent Muslim population that is working hard to cause trouble. Ace writes (at Ace of Spades HQ):

Churches Burned, 15 Killed In Nigerian Cartoon "Protests"

How dare a cartoonist suggest that Islam was often an intolerant, violent, aggressively expansionistic religion:

Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing at least 15 people in the deadliest confrontation yet in the whirlwind of Muslim anger over the drawings.

Dallas is having an ice-related problem

Earlier today, the Dallas Morning News website was making light of the situation, and suggesting that it would be better quickly. Now, they acknowledge what we heard on Fox 4 News last night, from the National Weather Service, that the Winter Weather Advisory was extended to at least 6pm today. Apparently, the situation is worse to the west (Fort Worth) and to the North. We are in the Southeast, and it is not quite so bad here. The ground was so warm that we have been spared worse--the only really bad places are on bridges, which are everywhere.

Rob Port says that Alec Baldwin is "As Nutty As They Come"

Rob Port, writing at the Say Anything blog, has a piece where he says the "Alec Baldwin is as nutty as they come", which is hard to argue against. Rob writes:

Baldwin actually believes that Enron was a plot hatched by Cheney to trick Gray Davis into mismanaging California's energy situation so that Arnie could be installed as the state's Governor.

He also believes that Cheney is a terrorist, suggesting once again that most of these wacked-out Hollywood liberal types probably don't even know what terrorism is. Maybe they all thought 9/11 was some new type of reality show or something. Who knows.

Getting hit by bird shot is pretty typical while shooting

Paul, writing at the Power Line blog, quotes a piece in the Washington Times about bird hunting and getting hit by bird shot:

The Washington Times reports that a poll of 883 South Dakota bird hunters, conducted before Vice President Dick Cheney's weekend hunting accident, found that 484 of the hunters, or about 55 percent, had been "peppered with shotgun BB's."

Michael J. Totten has a fascinating piece with more about his trip to Iraqi "Kurdistan"

Michael J. Totten has another piece about his trip to northern Iraq, to the land of the Kurds ("Kurdistan"):

I wasn’t as clear above as I should have been. At least one liberal reader (in the comments) was put off by what I wrote about George W. Bush and Kurdish pro-Americanism.

Kurds aren’t Republicans. Not once did anyone say "I thank George W. Bush for freeing us from Saddam." Thanks were always given to America as a whole. I never heard a single disparaging remark about the Democratic Party, John Kerry, etc.

Anyway, Kurdish pro-Americanism goes way beyond mere thanks for getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Kurdish people think like Americans in ways that surprised me again and again. Admiration for American values and culture is ubiquitous in that region. Even the Islamists I met were weirdly pro-American in some ways – and again it’s not just because the US destroyed Saddam Hussein. It goes deeper than that, and I’ll get into it in detail in future posts.

Jack Kelly writes about the Able Danger hearings

Jack Kelly has a longish post about the Able Danger hearings that he attended yesterday:

On 17 October 2003, at a meeting in Afghanistan (where Shaffer was assigned to a Ranger battalion) Shaffer tells staff director Philip Zelikow about Able Danger. It appears it's the first time Zelikow has heard about Able Danger. He gives Shaffer his business card and tells him to get in touch when he gets back to the U.S. (Zelikow has recently denied ever having met Shaffer, but Shaffer Zelikow's business card at the hearing.) The Pentagon's records indicate that Zelikow made a request for info on ABLE DANGER the same day Shaffer says they met.

The following January, Shaffer returns from Afghanistan and calls Zelikow's office. He's put off. Two weeks later, Shaffer calls again, and is told by aides that Zelikow is no longer interested in Able Danger. Obviously, between the middle of October and January, the fix was put in.

It isn't clear why the Bush administration is covering up the suppression of ABLE DANGER data, because it occurred on President Clinton's watch.

It could have something to do with Condoleeza Rice. The Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) where the data mining for Able Danger first took place was ordered to shut down and to destroy its files after then Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre had ordered a search of how U.S. military technology has wound up in Chinese hands. The search had turned up a number of prominent names, including that of Rice, who was then provost at Stanford University, where much of the espionage activity seemed to be focused. Zelikow is a senior adviser to Rice at the State Department.

Conspiracy theorists and 2 and 2 and get 22. I'm not prepared to do that here. But there seems to be a bipartisan interest in keeping the truth about ABLE DANGER from the American people.

Megan McArdle on "Moderates"

Megan McArdle suggests that Ann Althouse and Glenn Reynolds are "Moderates". She has a post at Asymmetrical Information that discusses the definition of a "Moderate".

I suppose in one way, you could see Mr Reynolds and Ms Althouse as extremists: they are effectively dancing up and down and shouting at Democrats, saying "Don't you see! This is REALLY, REALLY important!" And their tone is more than occasionally incredulous and/or intolerant. But the fact that they are talking at all would seem to me to indicate that they are not extremists; the reall hard-core partisans of left and right don't bother addressing those who disagree with them. I see them as saying "Your first principles are blinding you to a huge threat!"

Now, they could be wrong about this. I think that there is something irrational about the magnitude of America's response to a really quite small threat of terrorism--though, being the mushy, too-many-first-principles kinda libertarian I am, I'm not sure that that's a bad thing. Deterrant and all that, y'know. But if they were wrong, that wouldn't make them bad people, partisan hacks, or what have you. It would make them incorrect. One of the wonderful things about being a journalist is that your past failed predictions make you very conscious of the fact that we are all--even smart, good-looking and truly charming economics journalists with fancy degrees from top-flight universities--wrong quite amazingly often.

I seem to have wandered away from the original question: "Is Ann Althouse a moderate"? But if moderate is defined as I have argued, by someone who sees their positions as a weighting of many competing values, rather than the logical extension of bedrock principles, then yes, I think she's a moderate. I think she's a moderate who cares a great deal about national security, and who thinks that the Republicans are better on this issue than Democrats. She might be incorrect. But that doesn't make her immoderate.

Christopher Hitchins on the feckless US response to the Cartoon protests

Christopher Hitchins writes at the theage.com.au about the US response to the cartoon protests by Muslims. He calls his piece "Giving up on freedom", and he says that the bottom line is:

As it happens, the cartoons themselves are not very brilliant, or very mordant, either. But if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion.

And here one runs up against a curious reluctance. In fact, Sunni Muslim leaders can't even seem to condemn the blowing-up of Shiite mosques and funeral processions, which even I would describe as sacrilege. Of course there are many millions of Muslims who do worry about this.

The question of "offensiveness" is easy to decide. First, suppose that we all agreed to comport ourselves to avoid offending the believers. How could we ever be sure that we had taken enough precautions? On Saturday, I appeared on CNN, which was so terrified of reprisal that it "pixilated" the cartoons that its viewers needed to see. Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics.

Tom Elia has Tony Blankley's piece on the White House reporters

Tom Elia, writing at The New Editor blog, quotes Tony Blankley's piece on the state of the White House press corps:

We live at a moment of revolutionary change in the international order. The rise and violence of radical, possibly caliphate-forming Islam and the huge, culture-changing, unexamined consequences of rampant globalization make the present one of the least predictable moments to be alive.

... we have in the White House at the most elite level of American journalism, self-absorbed, self-important men and women who stand on their prerogatives even over marginal and inconsequential matters.

Should they ever have a truly daring, creative, productive, hard-researched idea about what is going on in this dangerous world, they should alert the media.

Paul at Wizbang comments on Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia spoke about the constitution, and Paul, at Wizbang, writes his thoughts about it:

Scalia criticized those who believe in what he called the "living Constitution."

"That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break."

"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Scalia said. "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."

It really is simple. Why have this document called "The Constitution" if not to use it set some things in stone? If you want something that changes like the latest fashion, don't waste time writing it down.

The people who want the Constitution to be a "living document" just don't like what it says.

And yes, they're idiots.

Michelle Malkin on anti-American violence in Pakistan

We have a few friends and many enemies in Pakistan. I have taken a generally hostile view of the country after our friend Shabbir was tricked into visiting Pakistan by his parents. Once he arrived, they had arranged that he not be able to leave. His crime was becoming to assimulated into American culture. Anyway, Michelle Malkin has a piece on anti-American rioting in Lahore:

Much of the American mainstream media has grown bored with the story, but the Cartoon Jihad continues to boil over. AP reports on the worst violence in the Islamists' pretextual protests against the Mohammed Cartoons today in Pakistan:

Thousands of protesters rampaged through two cities Tuesday, storming into a diplomatic district and torching Western businesses and a provincial assembly in Pakistan's worst violence against the Prophet Muhammad drawings, officials said. At least two people were killed and 11 injured.

Security forces fired into the air as they struggled to contain the unrest in the eastern city of Lahore, where protesters burned down four buildings housing a hotel, two banks, a KFC restaurant and the office of a Norwegian cell phone company, Telenor.

U.S. and British embassy staffers were confined to their compounds until police dispersed the protesters, some of whom chanted, "Death to America!"

Reuters coverage here. A Pizza Hut was also attacked and protesters also hurled stones at a Holiday Inn hotel and Western-owned filling stations.

Michelle links to a Reuters photo of the damage:

Michael J Totten has an interesting piece about being in Kurdistan

Michael J. Totten made a stealth visit to Kurdistan, and reports on what it was like. He had a good experience, fortunately, although that is what he expected. He had talked with a local entrepreneur who was trying to scare him to make him pay more for an escort. He hesitated, and did some investigation:

Later a man from the Kurdistan Regional Government rescued my nerves when I told him what Mr. Araz said to me about the dangers of walking around by myself.

“He told you what?” he said.

“He told me it wasn’t safe to walk around Erbil by myself,” I said.

He was literally taken aback – he flung himself ramrod straight against the back of his chair. His face flushed red. “Who is this man?” He pulled out his notebook. “What is his name and what is his phone number?”

I told him. “He also wanted to charge me 350 dollars a day for a driver and translator.”

“How much?” he said. “He is lying to you. He is lying to you so you will pay him more money. I can’t believe he is scaring visitors like that. I am going to report him.” To whom, I wondered? “You are safe here. You are as safe here in Kurdistan as you are in any American city.”

I believed him, partly because I wanted to believe him, but also because it lined up with everything I had heard and read about Kurdistan before I got there. Yes, it’s Iraq. But the war is in a different part of the country. There are no Kurdish insurgents. The Peshmerga guard Kurdistan’s de-facto border with ruthless effectiveness. Those who attempt to cross away from the checkpoints and the roads are ambushed by border patrols. Anyone who doesn’t speak Kurdish as their native language stands out among the general population. Iraqi Kurds, out of desperate necessity, have forged one of the most watchful and vigilant anti-terrorist communities in the world. Terrorists from elsewhere just can’t operate in that kind of environment. Al Qaeda members who do manage to infiltrate are hunted down like rats. This conservative Muslim society did a better job protecting me from Islamist killers than the U.S. military could do in the Green Zone in Baghdad.

I did what I wanted and needed to do. I threw myself into their society, without a gun and without any bodyguards, and I trusted that they would catch me. And catch me they did. I trusted the Kurds with my life. No trust in the world is greater than that, especially in a place like Iraq.

Michelle Kwan withdrew from the Olympics

After hearing about a bad initial practice, I was not surprised to hear that Michelle Kwan withdrew from the Olympics. On the radio, they attributed the withdrawal to a groin injury that prevented her from performing well. She has long been the darling of many in the US, but she could never really win "the big one".

Wretchard comments on a piece in The Guardian

Wretchard, writing at The Belmont Club, comments on a piece in The Guardian by Polly Toynbee:

Occasionally the truth is spoken before dissimulation can prevent it. That must have been the case when Polly Toynbee at the Guardian set out her thoughts on the Iran crisis. (Hat tip: Scott Burgess)

If Iran is determined, no one can stop it becoming a nuclear power, alongside Israel, Pakistan and India. The crazed dictator of North Korea shows the way: nuclear weapons make nations unassailable. Why on earth would Iran not want them too? ... Fantasy diplomacy is ready to fight all the way to stop the mullahs getting the bomb. Reality suggests there is a difficult choice: if you cannot win, give up at once to minimise the damage. Get off the high horse and start to negotiate terms on which Iran can be allowed to enrich uranium. It amounts to turning a blind eye to their weapons potential while striking a deal that saves their face, affords them some dignity and entices them economically into becoming a more stable force.

I saw a new Dodge Caliber today

I saw an unfamiliar, but really hot-looking car on my left, as I drove west on Northwest Highway, in Dallas, this morning. I could barely see the name, and it looked like "Cruiser" to me, but it was actually a "Caliber". I had thought it might be the new-look PT Cruiser, but it is something else. I saw the deep red car that looked like a small SUV. I was favorably impressed. It really looked like a 21st Century design:

(Thanks to Autoblog)

The United Farm Workers are suing Marc Cooper!

Marc Cooper has succeeded in bringing down the wrath of the United Farm Workers. Apparently, they are thin skinned, and have reason to be concerned about criticism. Therefore, they sued Marc for what he wrote:

The United Farm Workers union — founded 40 years ago by Cesar Chavez– has found a novel way to quash criticism of its poor performance in the fields. It is now directly threatening to sue its critics in the press.

Including me.

Last Friday the L.A Weekly was handed a 20 page lawyers’ letter demanding it either retract what I wrote last month, or face an expensive lawsuit.

This ominous tactic has been directly imported from the playbooks of the most ruthless corporations — who have long used so-called SLAPP suits not to seek redress, but rather to silence their critics. That the UFW, founded on the principles of social justice, now recurrs to a similar chilling device against the press — the alternative press in this case– speaks volumes about the crisis the union currently finds itself in.

Here is a link to my just-pubished response to the threatened UFW suit. Here is, also, the full text as it appears in this week’s L.A. Weekly

Ace on the low fat diet studies

Ace has a piece on low fat diet studies. He writes:

Study: Low-Fat Diet Doesn't Lower Risk of Cancer or Heart Attacks

Atkins was right?

I remember when I first heard of the Atkins diet thing. It was about three years ago. At my girlfriend's parents' house was a NYT Sunday Magazine with a cover showing bacon and eggs and the headline, What If It's All Been Just A Big Fat Lie?

The article detailed the Atkins theory of weight gain (and weight loss), and questioned whether it was high-fat diets causing heart problems. What if it were actually high-carb diets causing not only obesity but related ailments, like high blood pressure or heart disease?

The article noted some renewed interest in the once-dismissed Atkins' claims, but this new study seems to confirm that earlier interest:

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet keeps women from getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet had no effect.

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women aged 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer heart attack and stroke as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.

"These are three totally negative studies," said Dr. David Freedman, a statistician at the University of California at Berkeley, who is not connected with the study but has written books on clinical trial design and analysis. And, he said, the results should be taken seriously for what they are — a rigorous attempt that failed to confirm a popular hypothesis that a low-fat diet can prevent three major diseases in women.

And the studies were so large and so expensive that they are "the Rolls Royce of studies," said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. As such, he said, they are likely to be the final word.

"We usually have only one shot at a very large scale trial on a particular issue," Dr. Thun said.

Global Cooling

Paul, writing at Wizbang, has a piece about Global Cooling. He quotes an article:

Scientist predicts 'mini Ice Age' ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A Russian astronomer has predicted that Earth will experience a "mini Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported.

The global cooling in the 17th Century and early 18th Century caused late season severe storms. There was the storm near the Shetlands in July-August 1652, the storm off the Netherlands in early November 1653, and The Great Storm in the Channel in November 1703 (at least in the old style calendar).

Jay Tea, at Wizbang, assesses Carter's presidency

"Jay Tea", writing at Wizbang, assesses Jimmy Carter and the damage he did during his presidency:

It took a long time and a lot of hard work to undo the damage Carter (who was incredibly sincere and well-meaning as he sent the country straight down the crapper) inflicted. I recall the "triple doubles," with double-digit inflation, unemployment, and interest rates. But the single worst thing he did, the single act (or, more correctly, inaction) that caused the worst harm, had to be his handling of the Iranian situation.

Isaac Isaac Schrödinger on Christopher Hitchins

Isaac Isaac Schrödinger has a piece about Christopher Hitchins and things he disagrees with, but tolerates:

The Christopher Hitchens link.

Isaac's comments:

The only principles of such Muslims is the total superiority of Islam and the infallibility of their Prophet. In their minds, any freedom that clashes, or any person who disagrees, with these said principles is not worthy of respect. This debate is almost exclusively one-sided. The brave Jordanian who showed reason -- a most remarkable attribute in the Islamic world -- is now behind bars.

Daniel Drezner has a piece on the economy

Daniel Drezner writes about the economy and quotes Michael Mandel about why the economy might be doing better than the numbers would indicate:

I've got an advanced degree in economics, and I'm here to tell you that the official numbers on the U.S. economy are just plain strange.

On the one hand, in the fourth quarter of 2005, GDP growth slowed to a crawl. On the other hand, that had little effect on U.S. labor markets, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that the economy has generated more than 200,000 net new jobs a month, and that unemployment is now down to 4.7%.

On the one hand, the U.S. trade deficit shows no sign of reversing itself; on the other hand, some economists insist that dark matter is not being counted.

On the one hand, European work fewer hours than Americans. On the other hand, it's possible that Americans have more leisure time than Europeans.

The latest: Time frets on it's cover that we may be losing our edge.

Except that Michael Mandel says on the cover of Business Week that the economy is stronger than conventional statistics indicate

Wretchard on our current situation

Wretchard, writing at The Belmont Club, has a thoughtful piece that compares the time from September 11, 2001 to now to the "Phony War" period between the outbreak of WWII and the German attack on France in May 1940:

A contest to humiliate Mohammed has been launched not in Texas, not in Israel but in the Netherlands. The Netherlands. Almost inconceivable. A smoldering match in a continent riddled with unassimilated Muslim enclaves. Now the European leaders who staked their careers on political correctness and oleagenous kowtowing to radical Islam find themselves unable to assert themselves. It's a moment when Nicolas Sarkozy or Hirsi Ali may count for more in dampening the anti-Mohammed wave than Chirac or Dominique de Villepin. The key challenge for the leaders of Europe is how to get out in front of their publics; hard because they are so far behind.

Yet the cartoon crisis has been cruelest to radical Islam because it has upset the timetable for the slow demographic conquest of Europe. It forced the crisis before the time was ripe to win an outright trial of strength. And it has deranged the carefully crafted plan to hold Europe politically neutral while the Islamists concentrated their force on their most dangerous enemy, the United States. Unless the Islamists can reverse or at least pause the process of confrontation it will find itself engaged on two fronts, against Europe and the United States simultaneously.

Marco Cooper on the Mohammed cartoon issue

Marc Cooper, who is an atheist, does not think much of the Muslim reaction to the cartoons. He shows one of the cartoons and then he writes:

My reactions to the mob rallies, embassy torchings, and death threats provoked by the now infamous Danish cartoons lampooning Mohammed are far too many and intense to sort out in any articulate way.

That does not mean, however, that this is in any manner a difficult moral call. I stand on the side of secularism and the enlightenment and I really don’t care how much the believers in any particular religion are offended or insulted by someone else’s views – or by their heaping ridicule. But what a world our children are facing. I don’t believe that we will see anything except an escalation of the current madness for years to come.

Anyone who doubts the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism and its more barbaric manifestations best sit down and carefully read the lead stories of this past weekend. Much of the world still resides in darkness and plenty are those who wish to cloak it in even more obscurantist veils.

I still rankle at the idea that it is against the law to push for balance at PBS and NPR

There is something wrong when it is against the law to press for balance in PBS and NPR programming. We are supposed to be content to let them broadcast leftist propaganda, we are supposed to be ready to fork up tax money to make it happen. If we can't directly pressure our leftist buddies at PBS and NPR to provide more balance in their programming, maybe we just take our money away and let them do their thing. I am pained to admit that I have been subsidizing the local PBS station for perhaps as long as 7 years. My wife tells me that she uses the daytime children's shows in her special education teaching, so that has kept me pumping money into something I do not otherwise support. I heard a bit of "On the Media" today, and that has prompted this "outburst".

Radio Blogger has the transcript of Hugh Hewitt's conversation with John McIntyre.

John McIntyre is the propriator of RealClearPolitics.com. Duane Patterson, at RadioBlogger, has teh transcript. The theme is that "The Daily Kos-Huffington Post-Howard Dean-MoveOn.org crowd is flying the Democrats into a mountain". Hugh asked John about the President's state of the Union speech and how the Democrats are proceeding:

JM: Totally, and what's interesting, there was a short story in the Chicago Tribune. Rahm Emanuel went out to Ohio for a fundraiser for a Congressional candidate out there, and he was trying to talk about health care and education. And the Democratic activists want to talk about nothing but the war. And Rove and Bush are going to talk about nothing but the war. And so I think the Democrats are doing the same thing they did in '02 and '04. They're going to turn this election, the national issue is going to be Iraq, terrorism, wiretapping, and none of that works to their favor.

HH: Agreed. Earlier this week, you ran an op-ed by Tim Roemer at Realclearpolitics.com. Tell people about that, and who he is, by the way, to set the stage.

JM: Well, Congressman Roemer was a six-term Congressman from Indiana. He was on the 9/11 Commission. He's a pro-life Democrat. He ran for DNC chair and lost.

HH: Didn't lose. He got beaten like a bongo drum.

JM: Well, yeah. Exactly. He got beaten like a bongo drum. But he was trying to make an argument that let's not talk about the legal issue here on abortion, and let's try to work on actually implementing laws or policies that are going to make the reality of having less abortions. And I think it's part of a broader strategy on the Democrat side that they realize that the abortion issue is killing them in national elections.

Mort Kondracke thinks that the political situation is only going to get worse

Mort Kondracke has a piece published at RealClearPolitics.com called "Bush, Democrats Talk 'Good Will' But Prepare for War". He says that the goal of the Democrats is to take the House of Representatives in 2006, so that they can impeach President Bush. He also says that there is room for dialog and compromise, but neither side is in a place to consider compromise. This is war.

February 2nd

February 2nd is a significant day for me. On February 2, 1970, I arrived at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. They told us that the windchill was 69 degrees below zero. It seemed cold enough that it might have been true

I had enlisted in the Navy in September 1969 to keep from going to Viet Nam as a draftee. My younger brother was probably on his way home by then. He had enlisted in the Marines in the Spring of 1968, and spent 17 months in country, almost all of it in the north, near the DMZ.

When I arrived, I had a rookie Company Commander (recruit trainer). He made the mistake of making me the RPOC (pronounced "Are-Pock"), because I had college. That was quickly corrected, and I ended up getting sick with a 104 temperature that set me back two weeks. I ended in in BTCS Biby's company, which was a very good thing. I sailed through the rest of Boot Camp, under his experienced control.

After Boot Camp, I went to "Beep School" (Basic Electricity and Electronics). I started to prosper, and went on the the Electronics Technician "A School", as an ETN, picking up "Third Class" after the first portion. While there, I applied for the NESEP program. When I finished, I was shipped off to Greenbury Point, across the river from the Naval Academy. In the Spring of 1972, I found out that I had been selected for NESEP. The people I worked with were amazed, as I was struggling as a technician. My chief petty officer, after hearing of my selection, told me that I could "fall into a pig pen and come out smelling like rose" (or words to that effect).

I eventually got through Purdue and went to OCS in Newport, RI. I was commissioned and then sent to Surface Warfare Officers School. From there, I was sent to the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42). You might have shaved with a piece of the Roosevelt, as she was decommissioned and broken up in the latter 1970's.

I eventually picked up Lieutenant on active duty and then Lieutenant-Commander in the reserves, before I bailed. I am not sorry that I had the experience, as I grew and prospered in the process.

Marc Cooper says that the Abramoff scandal is a Republican scandal

Marc Cooper has a new column out about the Abramoff scandal (which he writes about in his blog), but he also says that the Democrats don't have any reason to feel smug:

No more clearer than in the reaction to the Abramoff dung pile. Republicans walk cavalierly around the steaming dump right in front of them saying “they all do it.” Democrats, meanwhile, gleefully point to a “Republican culture of corruption” and pretend not to notice the stink in their own quarters.

Both sides are half-right. And half-wrong. The Abramoff scandal is strictly a Republican affair. The “culture of corruption” is, however, fully bi-partisan. Here’s my riff on that theme as it appears in my latest L.A. Weekly column.

Ed Morrissey says that Louisiana turned down the Federal offer to evacuate hospitals and nursing homes

Ed Morrissey writes about how an official of the State of Louisiana turned down a Federal offer to evacuate hospitals and nursing homes. They did that and then ignored their own emergency response plans:

Once again, the evidence for the failure of emergency relief in Louisiana keeps pointing back to the state and local officials who responded without referencing their own emergency plans, who left assets to sink under the flood waters, and who sat around pointing fingers and mouthing off to the cameras instead of doing their jobs. Their refusal to ask for federal help -- indeed, for telling the feds that no help was necessary -- cost dozens of lives.

These investigations will not make Ray Nagin or Kathleen Blanco look good. If the Exempt Media gives it any kind of coverage at all, it will recast the Katrina relief story significantly, and to the detriment of their reputations.