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Saturday, December 29, 2001
YOU GOTTA HAVE HEART: Steven Den Beste, Captain of the USS Clueless, thinks Osama is dead. So do I. But Steven takes it a step further:
The second thing is that I don't think we'll ever find the body. If he has indeed died, I think his people would conceal the corpse. His value to the movement is far greater with his fate unknown than it is as a known martyr, especially if he died cornered in a lonely cave, overwhelmed by American air power.
I have to disagree. The U.S. government has already leaked that it has bin Laden DNA in its possession. President Bush has said, time and again, that bin Laden is wanted "dead or alive." If so, proof of Osama's death should be enough to get the reward. A finger might not be enough. But a sliver of heart or brain tissue would probably do the trick. For 25 Real Big Ones, I have to think that someone will find a way to make sure not all of bin Laden vanishes.
Speaking in Arabic, bin Laden also repeatedly called for Islamic youth "to continue the jihad action, militarily and economically" against the United States, describing the fight as "the most dangerous, fiercest, and most savage Crusade war launched against Islam."
What was it, only a month ago the United States was soft, weak, and gutless? Now we're the "most dangerous, fiercest, and savage." Things are moving in the right direction.
STUPID PUNDIT TRICKS: One of the great things about the Internet, as blogger Ken Layne has pointed out is that "we can fact check your ass." Thanks to marvels of archiving like Google's cache function, anything digitized becomes as permanent as the redwoods, available for study ten or a thousand years after the fact. The temptation is too delicious to ignore, and so TheBS herewith inaugurates a semi-regular feature: Stupid Pundit Tricks. We'll try to find and resurrect those columns the mediacrats hoped would stay buried forever, and display them here for your edification. Your nominations, of course, are welcome.
BEATING A DEAD HORSE, PART XXIII: Noted cultist Robert Fisk interviewed Osama bin Laden in 1993, and emerged to tell the tale of a simple Sudanese builder: ''I am a construction engineer and an agriculturalist. If I had training camps here in Sudan, I couldn't possibly do this job.''
Fisk also dishonestly mines this article for one he writes eight years later. In the most recent version, bin Laden waits through "milliseconds" of serenity for a mortar shell at his feet to explode. In the original version, bin Laden's serenity leads only to a peaceful snooze.
DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY: Writing in the December, 1996 issue of The Nation, Richard Barnes pooh-poohs the entire idea of international terrorism directed at the United States, and predicts a future of peace and quiet - if only that warlike Clinton regime will allow it. "Phil Wilcox, State Department coordinator for anti-terrorist attacks, points out that the 'long-term trend towards a reduction in international terrorism continues.' "
After street riots left dozens dead and brought on a state of siege, forcing President Fernando De La Rua to resign, his Peronist successor, to the thunderous cheers of parliament, defaulted on the Argentine national debt of $155 billion.
The new government of Argentina is proposing a third currency, called the argentino. This currency, which the government will print in order to relieve a consumer cash crunch, will float, which means it will sink like a stone. This all sounds like a recipe for disaster, but for one thing: for the last ten years, the argentine peso and the American dollar have been fully interchangeable on a one-to-one basis. Most clear-thinking Argentines made the exchange to dollars long ago. Which means that, unless the government simply appropriates (read: "steals") the contents of private bank accounts denominated in dollars, the effect of the argentino will be a huge paycut for the bloated bureaupol governing class.
We're going to spend billions on upgrading airline security, and pay even more in constricted civil liberties, and yet I'm willing to bet we'll keep on seeing stories like this (and like Shoebomber Boy) for the indefinite future. In the end, this whole effort may prove an instructive lesson: there isn't any such thing as perfect security, maybe not even good security. Nobody can give it to you, not yourself, not your police, not your government. So there's no point in bartering away your freedoms for something that is at best a chimera, at worst a cruel joke.
It's been long believed that Osama bin Laden was responsible for assassinating Ahmed Shah Masood two days before 9/11 in order to demoralize the Northern Alliance and circumvent any US move to use the Alliance against the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Similar suspicions have been raised about the suicide attack on India's Parliament. If al-Qaeda was behind that Indian attack, it underscores the sort of pragmatic madness that seems to have gripped bin Laden himself.
Assassinating Shah Masood did make perfect sense. Sacrificing two al-Qaeda soldiers to eliminate a potentially powerful enemy is classic tactics that everybody from Sun Tzu to Napoleon would approve of. And it makes sense to distract the Pakistani military from patrolling the Afghan border and thus make al-Qaeda escapes easier. It even makes sense to "punish" General Musharraf for his support of the U.S. by fomenting a war against him from India. But this becomes an insane sort of logic, because the potential players - Russia, China, Pakistan, India, and even the United States and Britain - are all nuclear powers.
Nobody suggests that a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would necessarily lead to a wider nuclear war - though such an exchange would be horrific enough in itself. But this kind of "pragmatism" indicates a gotterdammerung death-wish on bin Laden's part. This is the "logic" that says, "I have mice in my house. A nuclear warhead will get rid of them."
If Colin Powell has any task right now, it must be to find a way to keep Pakistan and India from playing into bin Laden's grandiose dreams of extermination. It would also be helpful if bin Laden apologists like Robert Fisk understood the kind of stakes the al-Qaeda leader is apparently willing to risk.
Ann Coulter is way over the top, but she's usually a good read, and often makes sound points. That the points may be written on her hard little knuckles and planted smack between your eyes is only part of the fun:
The men who used passenger jets to attack America on Sept. 11 were Muslim extremists.
Last year, our warship, the USS Cole, was attacked by Muslim extremists.
In 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim extremists, killing 212 people and wounding thousands.
In 1996, Muslim extremists exploded a truck bomb outside an Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 and injuring hundreds more.
In 1995, five Americans were killed in a car bomb explosion executed by Muslim extremists.
In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by Muslim extremists, killing six and injuring thousands.
Also in 1993, Muslim extremists plotted to assassinate then U.S. President George Bush. (Intriguingly, the word "assassin" comes from a Muslim sect active in the 11th to 13th centuries known as "the Assassins" for their religious practice of murdering infidels.)
In 1988, another passenger jet, Pan Am Flight 103, was bombed by Muslim extremists, killing 270 people.
In 1986, Muslim extremists bombed a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen.
In 1985, Muslim extremists seized an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, and murdered Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound American.
In 1983, Muslim extremists blew up U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American servicemen.
In 1982, Muslim extremists bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 49 people, including 17 Americans.
In 1979, Muslim extremists stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iran and held American Embassy staff hostage for 444 days.
So, naturally, it took the airlines completely by surprise last week when the passenger who tried to detonate a sneaker bomb on a passenger jet turned out to be a Muslim extremist. Doggedly imitating an Alzheimer's joke, the airlines instantly began ever more intrusive examinations of elderly black men, cowboys and Asian women with small children.
There's lots more. Read it.
UPDATE: Bellicose Woman Kathy Kinsley dismantles Coulter's argument with a vigorous finality that suggests she could probably dismantle Coulter herself, hard little fists and all.
TUG OF THE FORELOCK: Iain Murray, bloggist and proprietor of the excellent The Edge of England's Sword, gives a mention and a link to TheBS today. We seem to be moving in some very good company, and are highly appreciative. Now, vast readership of mine, go read Iain. You'll be happy you did.
Three Somali warlords called for international military intervention in Somalia on Friday, saying radical Islamic groups al Qaeda and al-Itihad had several bases in the Horn of Africa country.
I think word is getting out about the kind of goodies available to indigenous warlords who support America's war on terror.
UPDATE: One of the three warlords is named Hussein Aideed. It turns out that Hussein is the son of Mohamed Farah Aideed, the warlord responsible for the defeat of the American efforts in Somalia in 1993. In 1978, at the age of sixteen, young Aideed was sent by his father to the U.S. He lived in West Covina, CA until he joined the Marines, who sent him to Somalia in 1992, not realizing his father was a local warlord. In 1996, the elder Aideed died, and Hussein returned to Somalia to take his place. Hussein claims to be a registered Republican. He's a big fan of Vice President Cheney. According to Peter Maas,
He hopes his fellow countrymen - Americans, in this case - will realize that things are looking up and help him rebuild Somalia.
"There are zero taxes here," Aideed says. "I am sure there are a lot of computer geniuses who can do a lot here."
Wired News reports the committee that oversees the USPS is proposing to implement "smart stamps" that would trace mail and identify senders. Positive identification would be required to purchase the stamps.
I wish there was some way to invest in e-mail. Snail mail is not long for this world.
Remember Jim Jeffords, the erstwhile Republican senator who went Independent and gave his vote to the Democrats in the Senate? He probably figured to be riding high as long as the Dems stayed in control. But Michael Crowley reports that:
The reality is rather different. For all the public appreciation, Jeffords is no more influential now than he was as a Republican--in fact, he may be less so. He has already witnessed the primary cause for which he left the GOP go down in defeat. And a second pet issue is also in serious peril. Gone is the power he once had to extort concessions from Republican leaders fearful of losing his vote; those leaders now despise and shun him. Worse, his Democratic friends may be starting to take him for granted. Indeed, in a recent meeting of House and Senate Democrats, he pronounced himself "the most depressed I have felt" since switching parties.
It's nice to see that just desserts is a dish best eaten cold.
The federal government is considering mandatory suicide- resistant tailpipes be installed on vehicles in a move to cut down on deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The $4 screen would prevent the insertion of a hose into the tailpipe while hidden venting would allow exhaust gas to escape under the vehicle if a hose or bag is taped to the outside lip.
If the Transport Canada idea is adopted, it would make Canada the first country to make such a suicide-resistant tailpipe mandatory.
The article goes on to point out that suicides by tailpipe carbon monoxide varied from 260 to 385 over the past 23 years, with 268 occurring in 1987, the last year tallied. In Canada, such suicides are an almost exclusively male phenomena. There are about 16 million autos in Canada. Equipping them with the filters would cost 64 million for parts, plus the labor to install them. Other, more expensive methods, like CO monitors in auto cabins, have also been suggested. The minimum cost (parts alone) for the basic plan works out to about $237,000 per suicide.
None of the methods offered would prevent suicide by CO in a closed garage.
BAN WORDS! IF IT SAVES ONE CHILD... Over at Ain't No Bad Dude, bloggist Brian Linse is engaged with a swat team from Samizdata on issues surrounding the 2nd Amendment. In a post titled Incoming, Linse says:
The right to keep and bear is set forth in the Bill of Rights, and the limits that government can put on individual liberties so innumerated are subject to review by the Supreme Court. Just as we limit speech in certain narrow situations, it is perfectly rational and logical to limit gun ownership. If Perry's logic were argued through, then it would have to be legal to incite to riot, or to falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, etc.
I've never understood this argument, and particularly this comparison. Yes, the Supreme Court has allowed some extremely limited restrictions on the First Amendment's speech clause. But beyond the "fire, crowded theater" and incitement-to-riot strictures, what are they? It's nearly impossible for me to commit libel. The Supreme Court has just decided that my speech protections as a bloggist are as strong as those of a print journalist. There are no prior restraints on what I am allowed to write. I can even march out into the middle of Main Street and burn the flag with impugnity under my rights of free expression.
How can Linse dream that restrictions on speech are in any way comparable to those on the right to keep and bear arms? If they were, he would have to get a license to operate his blog in the first place. He'd only be allowed to post once a month, and only after passing a test showing that he understood grammar and spelling. He'd have to prove he had no history of inflammatory speech. He wouldn't be allowed to use certain "assault words" at all, nor would he be allowed to use other words that merely resembled the assault words. On top of all this, he would be living in a world where a well-funded minority was spending money and political capital in an endless campaign to outlaw the words he still was permitted to use.
Anybody who makes this argument either has no understanding of the meaning of equivalency, or they are willfully ignoring the distinctly un-narrow restrictions gun owners (not just "gun nuts") live with every day. If gun owners only had to deal with the level of restriction that wordslingers are accustomed to, the RKBA wouldn't be an issue at all.
FAITH AND THE INFIDELS: Mickey Kaus at kausfiles.com comments on this article by Kevin J. Hasson in the Washington Post. Says Kaus:
Hasson wants religions, including Islam, to make "freedom an inviolable human right," in the manner of Vatican II. But even that may be an unnecessarily grandiose statement of what is required. Do you have to affirm someone's equal and "inviolable human right" in order to not wage deadly war against them? Anyway, the question of whether Islam provides a basis for even minimal tolerance is separate from the realization that minimal tolerance, and not relativism or Vatican II, is all that's required.
Hasson writes:
Andrew Sullivan warns, "in a world of absolute truth . . . there is no room for dissent." And the only way to reconcile Islam and pluralism, amens Thomas Friedman, is for Islam to affirm "that God speaks multiple languages and is not exhausted by just one faith." The only good religion is a relativist one.
Now, Clinton and company would no doubt be horrified to discover that they agree with the Taliban on anything so fundamental as the nature of truth and freedom, but they do. Both assume truth and freedom are irreconcilable opposites. The difference is that the Taliban happily sacrifices freedom for truth, while Clinton and the others obligingly sacrifice truth for freedom. Both agree, however, that you are either a truth-owning jihadi or a freedom-loving relativist. Choose your corner, and come out swinging.
What both writers miss is the nature of the "truth" they are talking about. If Islam claims as "truth" a diktat that it is the duty of Islam to battle the infidel until he submits to Allah, then there is nothing outrageous about Sullivan et al's position that freedom is irreconcilable with this particular "absolute truth."
Of more interest in this debate would be some sort of authoritative judgment as to what Islam does regard as truth, vis a vis Islam's relationships with the infidel. We've had a host of interpretations from a host of sources, but nobody yet has come out and said, at least to my knowledge, that Islam forbids wars of religious submission waged against non-believers for no other reason than they are non-believers. Though it is sometimes honored more in the breach, the west has its various versions of "Thou shalt not kill,' which, even today, are used by some to condemn U.S. response to Osama bin Laden. If Islam does regard as truth the necessity of the submission of the infidel, then even Kaus's hope of "minimal tolerance" must be ultimately futile. Absent an Islamic condemnation of religious aggression as clear as the prohibition against killing in the Fifth Commandment, western suspicion of Islamic intentions will remain - and perhaps, rightly so.
This is what was once called "Most Favored Nation" status, and is now called "Normal Trade Relations." China, now also a full member of the World Trade Organization, assumes, as far as the United States is concerned, the same trade status as Britain, France, or Canada. The Asian Development Bank predicts a growth rate of seven percent for China in 2002. The Economic Review forecasts GDP growth of 1.4 percent for the U.S. in the same period.
Disturbing details emerged today of how "shoe bomber" Richard Reid used the internet to buy a lethal explosive known by Middle East terrorists as Mother of Satan.
The only interesting thing about this piece, which is cited on Drudge, is that there is not one bit of information in the body of the article that supports either the hed or the lede.
The gang at NRO post a host of predictions for the New Year, evidently trying to beat the rush. Kate O'Beirne ("Bill and Hilary separate") blithley steps out on her limb because of reassurances from Kathryn Jean Lopez that "these predictions will be impossible to retrieve from NRO's archives..."
Not from TheBS's vaults, though. See you in December, 2002, Kate.
Interesting article that explains how large chunks of the Internet - as many as 100 million hosts - have simply vanished from sight due to hack attacks, faulty routers, and unroutable milnet addresses. Spooky stuff. Cyber and cypher punks would understand.
Richard Colvin Reid, the British drifter who U.S. authorities allege is a foiled airline suicide bomber, reportedly traveled to Israel, Egypt, the Netherlands and Belgium before arriving in Paris and boarding an American Airlines jet last Saturday with plastic explosives embedded in his sneakers...The shoes contained a highly explosive compound that has been used frequently by terrorists and has been studied by operatives in the al Qaeda network, according to U.S. officials. The compound was used in 1988 to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and intelligence officials say they believe large quantities may be in the hands of terrorists based in Libya and other countries.
There's been a lot of official dancing around about exactly what sort of explosives were found in Reid's sneakers, but if it's the same stuff used in Lockerbie, it's Semtex, and it very possibly came from Moammar Gadhafi. Former Czech President Vaclav Havel revealed in 1990 that the previous Communist regime had delivered 1000 tons of the plastic explosive to Gadhafi. Semtex was the terrorist explosive du jour throughout the sixties and seventies because the KGB of the former Soviet Union handed it out like candy to any "revolutionary freedom movement."
Gadhafi has been relatively quiet since President Ronald Reagan launched a 1986 attack on Libya in reprisal for the bombing of a disco in Germany in which 63 American soldiers were injured and one killed. In 1999, the Christian Science Monitor reported that "The US may consider removing Libya from the list of sponsors of terrorism." The last thing Col. Gadhafi needs is for his government to be tied in some direct way to al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. Gadhafi and his secret service are a treasure trove of information about world-wide terrorism over the past thirty years. With major US media outlets already trying to establish a connection, look for some of the gaudier baubles to be handed over to the United States shortly.
UPDATE: CNN is now reporting that the FBI says they detected Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) in the explosive found in Reid's shoes. While this doesn't rule out the presence of Semtex, it is indicative of the possibly makeshift nature of the bomb. TATP can be brewed up from common household items. One conjecture: many have puzzled over the oddity of Reid trying to set off his shoebomb with a fuze. TATP is highly sensitive to heat. It would make a fine primary "blasting cap" with which to detonate a wad of Semtex.
TISSUE PAPER TIGERS: This article describes the sad state of affairs currently maintaining in the once-mighty German military, particularly regarding the "fighting" force they will send to Afghanistan.
The officers said that, in particular, the German units would need the combat support of the Americans if fighting broke out. "We are happy to have the Americans as a big brother standing behind us," said one of the officers.
From tiger tanks to paper tigers in two generations. But I've no quarrel with the bravery of the individual soldiers. It takes juice to go into a hot theater knowing you are dependent upon the kindness of others for your own defense.
NICE CALL: The blogger Flit predicts that the release of the movie version of the first book of the Rings trilogy will drive book sales:
Why? Because millions of non-Tolkienists want to know how it will end now. My date, who has not read the books, turned to me afterwards and said, "you mean I have to wait for two years until I find out what happens?" To which I replied, "well, you can always read the books." Her being an English lit major and all, I have no doubt she will. Bang! New audience.
As it happens, amazon.com is reporting that one boxed set of the trilogy is their number five seller, and another is sitting at number two.
HEADY STUFF INDEED: Tony Adragna and Will Vehrs at QuasiPundit have added The Blogical Suspects to their Blogs of Note list, which places TheBS in some rarified company. Needless to say, I'm grateful. And if you don't read QuasiPundit, you should. Like right now.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed December 27, 2001 the U.S. is planning to turn its Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a detention center for al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.
This should be interesting. Imagine the problems for Fidel if some of these people escaped. Would he give them shelter? I'd guess anything but. Nothing would be a bigger hot potato for Castro's public image, not to mention for Fidel himself. If he captured and returned any escapees, his revolutionary image in the part of the world that cares about such things (upper east side Manhattan, Susan Sontag's living room) would be shot. On the other hand, if he gave the escapees shelter, something more than his image might get shot. My hunch? Any captive who manages to escape from Gitmo will disappear silently, permanently, and irrevocably.
GEE, THANKS FOR NOTHING, BOB: Robert Fisk takes a break from a lifetime of self-loathing to tell us how he convinced Osama bin Laden to wage war not just on American soldiers and government, but on her citizens as well.
"I am not against the American people," he said. "Only their government." I told him I thought the American people regarded their government as their representatives. [emphasis mine: ed.] Bin Laden listened to this in silence. "We are still at the beginning of our military action against the American forces," he said.
Underscoring his point, Fisk ends the article on this note:
In the following two years, bin Laden was to form his al-Qa'ida movement and declare war on the American people – not just the government and army of the United States.
So, exactly what are you looking for here, Bob. Our gratitude?
This article reports on the phenomenon of a song (RealAudio link, above) created by Bob Holiday, an announcer at KFSH-FM, a contemporary Christian music station in Los Angeles. The conceit of the production is that Holiday voices the lyrics, which describe the events of 9/11, in the persona of God. The song is unabashedly evangelical in nature, and even hints that those who "ignored Me" weren't saved. Except that the production values are more determinedly mawkish, how is this example of Godly heathen-bashen all that different from Stephanie Salter's Christly Bush-bashing?
Of course, this is not true. By almost any measure, the homeless who are victims of addiction and/or mental illness comprise the vast majority of Americans who don't have shelter. The only way to help these poor souls and their kids is for the government to demand that they seek treatment for their debilitating conditions. Tax money should be used to fund therapeutic-educational centers and if a homeless person declines the offer, he or she loses the safety net.
In his apparent eagerness to hammer the left, Bill O'Reilly manages to sound a little whacked himself. While he's right that the vast majority of the permanent homeless are either crazy or addicts, his ostensible recourse to personal responsibility - if a homeless person declines the offer, he...loses the safety net - is just goofy. These are nutcakes we're talking about. They don't have the facilities to make responsible decisions. If they did, they wouldn't be sitting shoeless on street corners in dead-of-winter Minneapolis.
We won't solve this problem until we find the courage to ignore both the bleeding-heart civil libertarians and the save-a-buck, let-'em-croak hard right, scoop these lost souls off the streets, and confine them in places where they can be fed, sheltered, and properly medicated. To let people incapable of rational choice die in the name of personal reponsibility is morally bankrupt. No, worse: it's evil.
Asked about bin Laden's whereabouts, Rumsfeld said that the Saudi extremist is either dead, hiding in Afghanistan or hiding in some other country. "We know, of certain knowledge, that we don't know which of those happen to be the case," Rumsfeld said.
The one nugget of real information in this article is that US forces bombed a walled compound near Ghazni, about 90 miles west of Khost. Khost is where Osama is supposed to have his backup cave complex, but the targets at the Ghazni compound were purported to be Taliban leaders. When last we heard of the top Taliban, the Mullah Omar, he was suspected to be hiding in Helmand Province, whose nearest point is about 120 miles from Ghazni. In other words, the Ghazni compound is about midway between supposed Osama territory, and supposed Omar territory. A possible meeting of the minds, do you think?
NAP TIME: Blogger is a bit too shaky at the moment to do much posting, so we'll give it a rest for a few hours, go walk the dog, and maybe try to get some money-writing done. See ya.
THANKS, MATE: We here at The BS (Just like TBS, except smart) would like to thank Tim Blair for giving us both a link and a mention. It is, as far as we know, the first. There's a reason Blair's site was listed in the hierarchy to the left of this page right from the git-go. Go read him and see if you can't figure out what it is.
UNDER THE PHASED-ARRAY RADAR: The UK Independent has an excellent analysis of the hopeful economic state of the former Soviet Union. Seems that despite all the western hand-wringing over the past decade (which was in large part driven by elite lefty horror at the collapse of their ideological Shining City on the Hill), the Russians are doing just fine, thank you.
In a side note, Jude Wanniski (remember him?), reminds that Russia has done away with the progressive income tax (which nobody paid) and now sports a 13% flat tax rate. We here in capitalist heaven should be so lucky.
As Instapundit hyperblogger Glenn Reynolds points out, the worst possible outcome for the whole concept of "international law" is that Americans should come to perceive it as a "bunch of one-sided rules set up by people who don't like the United States, in order to hobble the United States." I think the same goes for "human rights accords and UN resolutions."
In this case, the Village Voice doesn't seem to understand that most folks see ignoring farces like the latest one-sided, anti-Israel resolution to pass the General Assembly as a good thing. Any international body that persists in engaging in patently unfair legalisms risks endangering support for all international law from the one entity that really matters: the United States. And the US elites who write blank ideological checks in support of such shenanigans risk being similarly marginalized.
SALTER IN THE WOUND: Five days after a host of bloggers fired up her auto da fe, Matt Drudge finally links to the ludicrous Stephanie Salter 12/23 Christ-channeling column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Salter has already moved on to a new column offering a sullen little chunk of guilt to her readers, but the Drudge mention should really stuff her Christmas stocking with coal.
Look for a soggily offended screed decrying the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy from God Himself in response.
THREE YARDS AND A CLOUD OF BULLSHIT: In an article about Terrell Owens in the San Francisco Chronicle, sportswriter Ira Miller mentions in passing:
Dallas has a 4-10 record, but actually has one of the league's better defenses, ranking second overall and third against the pass. Last Sunday, Dallas limited Arizona's David Boston, the NFL leader in receiving yardage, to three catches for 26 yards.
Is there any set of statistics more misleading than pro football's offensive and defensive numbers measured in yards gained or given up?
Only one statistic means anything: points gained or allowed. Games aren't scored by yards, but by points. Here are the top three teams in both categories, followed by their won-lost records:
Offense: Points Record
St. Louis 430 12-2 Oakland 360 10-4 SF 49ers 350 11-3
Defense
Philadelphia 174 9-5 Pittsburg 179 12-2 Chicago 190 11-3
All these teams are playoff bound. As for Dallas's "second-ranked" defense, with four wins and ten losses, the Cowboys aren't going anywhere but on vacation. Statistics based on yards have relevance to coaching paychecks and player incentives. But until Vegas books start handicapping games by yards instead of points, they are meaningless in the real world.
STOP DIGGING, COMRADE: In Pravda, of all places, this:
Pravda.RU Lew Rockwell: The Neocons Were Wrong In those days following Thanksgiving when the Taliban fell, the War Party enjoyed their greatest successes, and they didn't hesitate to rub our noses in it. Ha, ha, ha, they chortled, the people who warned of quagmire and failure were wrong.
Rockwell's position seems to be that we haven't captured the Taliban leaders, al-Quaeda, or Osama. Therefore, the anti-war factions were correct to oppose the invasion of Afghanistan. How he can be certain that none of the above are moldering in a pile of scorched cave dust is a question that he doesn't address. A professed Libertarian should understand when he's objectively wrong, but since Rockwell is too busy chortling, I'll just ask - no, wait, Rockwell has saved me the trouble:
Whenever I write about this topic, I receive a flurry of emails demanding to know: what is your alternative? The answer can be summed up in a single, very unfashionable word: diplomacy, the practice of resolving international disputes through adroit and tactful negotiation as an alternative to destructive war.
Have you run this theory past Richard "The Adroit and Tactful Shoebomber" Reid yet?
I FEEL GOOD, GOD: Stephanie Salter channels Jesus Christ in a recent column that legions of bloggers have already incinerated. The main complaint seems to be: What was the woman thinking? Aside from the obvious conclusion that she wasn't, I'd suggest that donning this sort of metaphysical drag is inevitable in the Bay Area, where self-respect is nearly non-existent. Only self-esteem matters.
And what could demonstrate higher self-esteem than mistaking oneself for Jesus?
NEED TO KNOW: Social conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly abhor the notion of school authorities prying into the private lives of their students and their students's families. The more interesting question is what are these educrats doing with the data they garner? Why do they want to know in the first place?
Operating on the theory that whenever there doesn't seem to be a good reason, the reason is always money, I'd guess that these intrusive exam/surveys are designed to produce info that will in turn be used to produce cash for the schools. Here in California there are dozens of programs designed to reach and minister to the "at risk" child. Naturally, the money required to do this is usually administered through grants to the schools. In a typically perverse structure of unintended consequence, the more at-risk kids a school produces, the more money it receives.
Present and accounted for: Presence technology What is it? A way to find people on the Net. What's cool? Call it the end of phone tag. Presence technology will let you know when your friends are logged on and what Internet device each is near -- a PC, a PDA, or a even cell phone. Some presence apps will figure out which device you're using and then choose the best medium for the message: video if you're at your PC, text if you have your Palm, audio if you're in your car. The GPS technology built into some mobile devices may let you pinpoint a person's location within 30 feet. When's it coming? Throughout the upcoming year. What's the catch? Want to be left alone? You may have to pay for the privilege, just as you do to block Caller ID or to keep your phone number unlisted.Yeah, I'd guess so. It used to be you could tell who the real honchos in a company were. They were the folks who didn't have to wear a pager 24/7. If the mere act of going online means massive violations of personal privacy, then what we will soon have is a new market niche to create Garboized protections for those weary of all the unwanted attention.
HERONIN: Shortly after 9/11 there was widespread fear that the Taliban would unleash a flood of opium and heroin on the West, and British papers reported that the West would target opium crops and stockpiles. Now, with the war winding down and the nearly non-existent state of the Afghan economy becoming clear, it's obvious that the only immediate source of cash for the country is the drug crop. No doubt the West will issue a partially blank check to the government of Hamid Karzai, but it's doubtful that enough of that will trickle down to the average Afghan farmer to make a difference. The upshot of all this is that Afghanistan will remain an exporter of drugs for the near future. Moreover, as the various wars and lesser internal disputes wind down, the country will likely begin to export drug gunmen as well. A wave of Soviet Mafia crime swept Europe after the Soviet collapse. Look for something similar as unlettered men with no skills other than warfare and banditry seek to make a living wherever and however they can.
Addendum: most libertarians advocate the legalization of drugs. However, the only thing supporting the price of opium, and thus the current Afghan economy, is that drugs are illegal. How would the hypothetical rapid response teams from Cato and Heritage deal with that?
An Afghan Disaster (washingtonpost.com) "Afghanistan's economy is in a state of collapse," said a report issued last month by the World Bank, which estimates that at least $25 billion is needed over the next five years to begin putting the country back on its feet. "The key economic institutions of state -- a central bank, treasury, tax collection and customs, statistics, civil service, law and order, judicial system -- are extremely weak or simply missing."
Libertarian doctrine would indicate that only one of the above "key economic institutions of state" is really necessary: a judicial system (which by its nature would take care of law and order). Why wouldn't Afghanistan be an excellent testbed for Libertarian theory put into practice? Gun control isn't going to be a problem there any time soon, which should, according to Robert Heinlein, make for a polite society while the Libs get to work. So how about some Libertoid economic swat teams parachuting in? Heritage Foundation, Cato, anybody?
IN OTHER WORDS, KISS OFF: Asymmetric warfare boils down to making tiny efforts that result in (relatively) huge damage to the enemy. The ratio of small to large can vary, but in general, the larger the ratio the better (for the attacker). A few letters stuffed with anthrax sent to strategically selected recipients; 19 hijackers armed with box-cutters; a guy with plastique in his shoes; all represent a small initial effort for a potentially large payoff.
There is a way to widen the gap between effort and result even more effectively. In the course of everyday life, disasters occur. The fires bracketing Sidney mentioned below are an example. It's hot and dry Down Under right now, perfect fire weather. Worse, almost every major natural fire seems to inspire human firebugs to add to the conflagration. All an aspiring terrorist needs to do is publicly claim credit for any given disaster. In the current atmosphere of free-floating paranoia, some percentage of the population would believe the claim. The only defense the authorities have against such tactics is to try to suppress the news of such claims altogether, but the danger of this is obvious; if the suppression is exposed, the claims would automatically be legitimized in the eyes of many.
One response might be to lump all such occurrences into a single mental category, so that acts of God, man, or nature assume a single rational classification loosely grouped under "shit happens." Unless al-Quaeda can get its hands on thermonukes or quite a few samples of aerosolized smallpox, many more will die in auto accidents than terrorist incidents. Yet we don't live in terror of the automobile crash. The first answer to terrorists is to find and destroy them. But failing that, the second is to unlink their acts from the terror in our own minds they are intended to cause.
A SLIPPERY, BUT MODESTLY PROPOSED, SLOPE: Jacob Sullum slides from the evils of tobacco to the dangers of Santa Claus as a role model. For several years, smokers outraged at the increasingly stringent legal limits they have to endure have predicted that other unhealthy minorities would eventually experience similar opprobrium. Now it's fat's turn at bat as Sullum tongues his cheek and makes his case.
THERE IS NO NEWS IN PRAVDA, AND NO TRUTH IN IZVESTIA: Pravda cites Al-Jazeera TV for an article that claims,
"The USA continued its “war with terror,” having dispatched not less than 100 commandos to the island of Moheli (or Mwali) on Wednesday morning. Moheli is included in the Islamic republic of the Coromo Islands. This republic is a member of the Arab League."
HOT STUFF: Tim Blair reports on fires raging in the Sidney, AU area. In these times, any sort of disaster has to get a second look, especially these blazes, many of which authorities say were set by arsonists on Christmas Day. Arson is a quintessential asymmetric attack: a few matches can tie up thousands of firefighters, cause millions or billions in damage, raise insurance rates by millions more, and the firebugs are very hard to catch.
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