March 2004 Archives

Several years ago while I was stationed in Japan I had the opportunity to travel to Guam where I was able to visit a most peculiar landmark. Near the Talofofo River lay a small cave where Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese soldier from WWII, hid after the U.S. forces occupied his country in 1945. When a pair of fisherman discovered him in 1972, he explained, “"We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive.” That singular, powerful belief motivated the Army Corporal to hide out for 27 years.

When the discussion of evolutionary theory and philosophical naturalism comes up in discussion, I always think of Yokoi. Like the old soldier, many atheists would prefer death rather than give up their belief in these twin theories. As Richard Dawkins once said in his now famous quip, “Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Unfortunately for Dawkins, the exact opposite is true. For contrary to what is commonly believed, modern evolutionary theory (macroevolution) and philosophical naturalism are quite clearly incompatible.

Such a statement will likely come as a surprise to those who believe that philosophical naturalism (which claims that either supernatural beings do not exist or if they do that their existence is irrelevant) is a foundation for macroevolution. But these two concepts have been soundly rebutted since 1994 when Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga published “Warrant and Proper Function.”

Though I’ve discussed Plantinga’s explanation in a prior post (Trusting the Monkey Mind: Naturalism and our Noetic Equipment), my summary can hardly substitute for the complete 58-page argument made in "Naturalism Defeated." Still, the gist of the paper can be outlined rather simply:

As an evangelical Christian I have a deep-rooted affection for Judaism. Though my theological differences with the religion are profound, they cannot reduce the love I have for the children of Abraham and Moses. The story of the Hebrew people is, after all, my story too. So it saddens and frustrates me to see that my own belief denigrated by the very people I would give my life to defend.

The website of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, a group dedicated to strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship by emphasizing our nations shared values, presents some outrageous claims in an editorial on anti-Semitism:

The trouble with Mel Gibson's film "The Passion" is not the film itself, but the gospel story on which it's based. The gospel story, which has generated more anti-Semitism than the sum of all the other anti-Semitic writings ever written, created the climate in Christian Europe that led to the Holocaust. Long before the rise of Adolf Hitler, the gospel story about the life and death of Jesus had poisoned the bloodstream of European civilization.

The article then goes on to spout the usual nonsense about the 'historical Jesus" and pins the blame of anti-Semitic sentiment on Paul and the early Church. Finding this anti-Christian rant on the website of a respectable organization like the AICE is disturbing. Though they are not responsible for the sites content, I doubt the many members of the 'honorary committee" of the advisory board, which is composed of such esteemed members of Congress as Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Charles Shumer, would agree with the views of the editorial.

While Christian anti-Semitism has been a genuine threat throughout history, many Christians -- from Vatican II-era Catholics to American evangelicals -- have worked to prevent such attitudes from ever taking root again. To claim that our most sacred scriptures are the cause of this evil is not only counter-productive and disrespectful, but is itself an anti-Semitic claim. The Gospels, after all, are about the Christian God. A God who also happens to be a Jew.

In my previous post I presented Christian bioethicist Gilbert Meilaender’s argument for why we should fix the beginning of individual human life slightly later than conception. Althouth my moral intuition told me there was something missing, I was beginning to be swayed by the Meilaender’s logic. Fortunately, my buddy Josiah Neely from Christus Victor set me straight by pointing out a rebuttal that I should have already known about.

Hidden in the appendix of the Bioethics council’s report on human cloning was a solid presentation of why we should accept that life begins at conception rather than implementation (note to self: always read the appendix). While Robert George’s lengthy reply deserves a close reading, I’ll highlight the two areas that refute Meilaender’s two main premises:

Is the morning-after pill abortion? That’s the question two columnists from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tackle in an article highlighted by Julie Ann Fidler. While Fidler presents an interesting personal perspective, the two columnists, Diane Glass and Shaunti Feldhahn, merely succeed in talking past one another. Too bad. This is an important question that shouldn’t simply be filed under the typical pro-life/pro-choice categories.

The controversy surrounding the issue is whether the morning-after pill should be classified as an abortofacient or a form of contraception. Abortofacients are drugs or devices which cause an abortion within the weeks of pregnancy. 'Emergency contraception", however, work by either inhibiting or delaying ovulation; inhibiting tubal transport of the egg or sperm; interfering with fertilization; or by altering the endometrium (the lining of the uterus). The first three processes are no different than ordinary contraception. It is only in preventing implementation of the fertilized egg that the line between contraception and abortofacient becomes blurred.

Ordinarily I would automatically assume that preventing implementation would be no different than performing a first trimester abortion. Once conception occurred and life began, I would have assumed that any attempt to end the process would be the equivalent of an abortion. But then an argument by Christian bioethicist Gilbert Meilaender caused me to rethink my position:

Yesterday Meryl Yourish pointed out that despite the expected outbreak of violence in Israel, the death of Sheik Yassin has not led to "earthquakes" of revenge." James Joyner agreed that this could be viewed as a "positive sign" but added:

I'm afraid there's no "winning" this war in the short term. The supply of fanatics seems inexhaustable.

Joyner is a former Army intelligence officer and one of the most insightful bloggers I know. But he appears to accept one of the most basic myths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For, contrary to common misperception, the supply of suicide bombers is surprisingly limited.

In the past ten years there have been 99 suicide bombings in Israel. While it is difficult to estimate how many attempts were prevented, it is probably a safe estimate to assume the Israeli security forces catch 9 bombers for every 1 that slips through. That would average out to 100 people willing to become suicide bombers every year for the past decade. That is not, of course, an insignificant number. The damage and loss of life that would result if these terrorists were "successful" would be devastating. But when we look at the overall numbers the supply of willing martyrs is much smaller than might be assumed.

Before we can assess the pathology of the bombers, we should first look at the "normal" rates of suicide in the region. Israeli has a population of 5.1 million Jewish citizens, of which 350 people commit suicide each year. Another 1500 attempts are documented, though because of underreporting the actual attempts could be as high as 3,500 to 4,000. We can consider this the baseline for the number of potential suicides that would be expected.

In November 1984, Fred Cohen, an electrical engineering student from USC, performed an experiment for a weekly seminar on computer security. It took Cohen eight hours to develop a new program called 'vd" which displayed Unix file structures graphically. He provided the program on a Unix system bulletin board and once programmers downloaded it to their system, Cohen was able to acquire, without the knowledge of the users, the system rights to their machines. After the success of the experiment on the Unix system, it became apparent that the same techniques would work on many other systems.

Len Adleman, a colleague of Cohen, called the new technique a 'virus."

From the experiment, Cohen concluded, 'Viral attacks appear to be easy to develop in a very short time, can be designed to leave few if any traces in most current systems, are effective against modern security policies for multilevel usage, and require only minimal expertise to implement." Cohen was right. Three years later, the first PC virus, known as Brain, was written in Pakistan and ushered in a new age of economic terrorism. It is estimated that between 2001-2003, PC viruses cost businesses 98 billion dollars.

Computer viruses provide a model for the interconnection between an inherent trait of human nature (malevolence) and newly harnessed biological concept (self-replication). Viruses have no purpose other than destruction and require for their creation nothing more than a programmer with a malicious intent. Considering the fact that there are over 60,000 such viruses in existence, there appears to be no lack of would-be evil geniuses ready to unleash their monsters on the world.

But what gives the programs their power is their ability to self-replicate. The viruses not only infect a computer or a system but have the ability to recreate themselves in order to infect others. This provides an exponential increase in their destructive impact. Self-replication has an incredible power that, once unleashed, is nearly impossible to control. When unleashed in the form of a computer virus the power can bring computer systems to a grinding halt, causing significant expense and reductions in productivity. But what will happen when self-replication is combined with other forms of technology? As Sun Microsystems cofounder Bill Joy wrote almost four years ago*:

Bloggers have a curious relationship with the media. When we find a story that we disagree with we ruthlessly fact-check every statement in order to find weaknesses. When we agree with the story, though, we never think to second guess the accuracy of what we’re being told.

When I first heard the claims that Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn had been removed from the President’s Council on Bioethics for political reasons I became suspicious. I'd been in the process of reading the council reports and meeting transcripts when the story broke and the facts didn’t fit correspond with Blackburn’s claims (I wrote several posts (1, 2, 3) documenting the discrepancies).

Numerous bloggers, however, jumped on the story as evidence that Council chairman Leon Kass was 'stacking the deck" with like-minded cronies. No one, it seemed, found it necessary to check to see if it were true. No one, it appears, except for Farhad Manjoo, a staff writer for Salon.com. In a recent article in which he criticizes Bush’s policies, Mr. Manjoo took the time to clear the problems with Blackburn’s claims:

Dallas Police have recently come under scrutiny for using deadly force to subdue a local resident named Jabari. Two women and a 3-year-old boy were assaulted by Jabari before he turned on police and was shot six times. Some citizens, however, are disturbed that the police didn’t resort to non-lethal means before applying deadly force and have even considered the shooting a 'murder." "Probing questions must be asked and answered," said Don Feare, a local lawyer. "Let our call go out to [Dallas] Mayor Laura Miller and the council to ask the hard questions."

The night after the shooting a small group of mourners held a candlelight vigil to mourn Jabari’s death and to protest the police use of lethal force. "I'm sorry about the families that were hurt -- especially the baby," said area resident Jarrod Garrett "We just wish the zookeepers were there before the police."

Zookeepers? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that Jabari was a 340 lb. gorilla?

With all of the fuss being made about Bush’s WMD joke, another quip slipped beneath the media’s radar. Ann Richards, the most overrated former governor in the history of Texas, made a name for herself at the 1988 Democratic National convention with her remark that George H.W. Bush was born 'with a silver foot in his mouth." Now at the Democratic unity rally for Kerry she turns her wit on her fellow Democrats:

"[The Republicans] drove us into each other's arms," former Texas Gov. Ann Richards said. "We are so united that, before their wives got wind of it, Joe Lieberman and Al Sharpton were on their way to San Francisco to get a marriage license."

The funniest thing about the joke is that she doesn’t even realize how ridiculous her party has become.

Bad Art for Bad Music Pork Tornado has the 10 worst album covers of all time.

Notes to Myself I’ve often said, 'If only I knew then what I know now." Unfortunately, you can’t go back into your past to tell yourself what you know. But you can go into the future by sending yourself an email.

Simile of the Week From Jeffrey Collins: 'You don't get to take only the attributes of God you like. God isn't a buffet table where you get to pick and choose. God's more like the 72 oz. steak at The Big Texan. Either you eat the whole thing, or you're going to have to pay."

New Blog Alert One of my favorite commenters has finally given in and started her own blog. Mary Rose Maguire is a 'Life and Relationship Coach" who focuses on training single women in identifying valuable character traits in men for the purpose of marriage (glad my wife didn’t know about her before we married or I would have been in trouble). She started her blog, Find Your Path, in order to provide encouragement to others so stop by and encourage her in the new venture.

A Libertarian No More Mitch Berg has an interesting piece on why he isn’t a libertarian. I wrote a similar post before but Mitch’s point of view is one of a former 'true believer."

Re-Praiseal Several months ago I wrote about how Bill Wallo is one of my favorite bloggers. Since then he has only gotten better. Like me, Bill comes from the Stephen De Beste School of Blogging, so his posts tend to be longer than what you might be used to. But who have a longer attention span than an MTV viewer will appreciate his well-thought out points and solid arguments. Bill is one of the rare types who actually thinks before he forms an opinion (an approach I’m trying to learn from him). If you haven’t visited his blog before, now would be a good time. He has a slew of interesting posts up that would serve as a proper introduction.

Over the past few days Josh Claybourn has taken criticism for a post he wrote comparing the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to the evil Saruman of the Lord of the Rings. While I think his detractors are completely out of line, Josh has been more than capable of responding to their absurd accusations, so I won’t attempt to defend him here.

What I would like to respond to, however, is the inane and unbiblical motif that has been floating beneath the surface of these critiques. Since the theme is being espoused by Christian bloggers for whom I have the utmost respect I can only hope that I am completely off base in my assessment. But I feel compelled to correct the misunderstanding: God is not a pacifist.

Apologizing for 'light blogging" is rather pretentious. As the Comrade once said, 'I hate to be the one to tell you ... but we will survive. Really. With support of my family, I think I will be able to get by the next day or two without an update from 'YourDailyNanoBlogPundit.com.''

He has a good point and I won't insult you by apologizing for the paucity of posts over the past few days. What I will do, though, is give an explanation for the lack of output (and yes, there is a difference).

For the past week I've been working on earning my 'gray belt", the second rung on the ladder of the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. Since I haven't had much time (or energy) to keep abreast of the latest news and current events, I've been left with little to blog about. So in order to produce something I've decided to post about what I did today (normal blogging will resume soon):

According to Benjamin Franklin, '"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." By this definition we can conclude that the government of Israel is insane. Why else would they continue to assassinate leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a way to hinder terrorism? Because, as everyone knows, such actions only lead to more terrorist violence, right?

Wrong.

The Israelis live in a land that is considered strange and foreign to many American editorial writers and pundits. And no, the land in question isn’t the Middle East but rather a place called 'Reality." To live within the realm of Reality requires accepting logic, facts, and certain hard truths that don’t always fit conveniently within a preconceived theory of how the world is supposed to work. This requirement often excludes many otherwise intelligent people from accepting citizenship in that land.

Since the state of Israel, however, would cease to exist if it ever believed the perceptions portrayed in many areas of the American media, it’s probably worth examining some of these differences:

New Blog Alert Daniel McConchie not only has a job I envy (director of Public Relations and Public Policy for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity) but his new blog (McConchie on Bioethics) puts mine to shame. Anyone who thinks that bioethical issues are important -- and that should be everyone -- should add McConchie’s blog to their daily reading. Don’t miss it.

Ban Watch Brazil is on the verge of passing legislation that would ban research on embryonic stem cells as well as all forms of human cloning.

Assisted Suicide I The Liberal Democrat party in Great Britain has voted overwhelmingly to adopt medically assisted suicide as part of its official policy.

Assisted Suicide II Oregon has seen a slight increase (38 in 2002; 42 in 2003) in the number of medically assisted suicides.

Adult Stem Cells New research on mice is raising hope that ASCs may lead to a cure for baldness.

Virginia Doesn't Get It In the interest of full disclosure let me confess that I’ve never been impressed by Virginia Postrel’s blog. I’ve never found her arguments very convincing and her posts on bioethics rival on Glenn Reynolds in their complete lack of substance. One of her recent entries helps illustrate this point:

The United States has a politically influential religious right and a cultural tradition of distrusting government intervention in private affairs. (That's "distrusting" not "never allowing.") Canada has neither a politically influential religious right nor any cultural tradition of distrusting government regulation. Guess which country has banned cloning human cells for research?

Postrel appears not to have considered that there could possibly be valid reasons for banning cloning that have nothing to do with the 'religious right."

Update: In response to Mike's remarks in the comments section, Dan McConchie has added an excellent post explaining some of the reasons why we shouldn't kill embryos for 'therapy'.

Earlier this month I was encouraged by my country’s willingness to stand with our Spanish allies when they were attacked by terrorists. The refrain of 'We are all Spaniards now" rang out from both ends of the political spectrum. But now, only two weeks later, I’m getting the sense that we don’t always stand with our friends when they are targeted by groups that wish to annihilate them. Or perhaps 'We are all Jews now" just wouldn’t be as catchy.

After Israeli forces killed Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas who was known as the 'godfather of suicide bombers", the U.S., along with every other country engaged in the war against terror, should have cheered. Yassin, after all, is cut from the same cloth as bin Laden, differing, perhaps, only in the number of civilian casualties that can be attributed to him. But as we now know, that is not what happened.

The fact that the European Union condemned the action came as no surprise. The virus of appeasement infected that continent forty years ago and continues its malignant spread through the body politic. But the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration is astounding. Denouncing the assassination as 'deeply troubling" while conducting operations to hunt down and kill bin Laden is morally repugnant.

It’s no secret that Glenn Reynolds dislikes the views of Leon Kass. Since Reynold’s radical libertarian views on bioethics (e.g., he favors reproductive cloning) are the polar opposite of the positions espoused by Kass it is inevitable that genuine disagreements are bound to arise. But to bring up Kass’ views on eating ice cream in public in order to cast aspersions on the man shows a deeper bias in effect:

As I noted earlier, Kass's views on this subject, while not specifically relevant to bioethics, "suggest a more generalized discomfort with the messy, physical side of life" that may explain his views in the bioethics arena. And it's a discomfort that puts him to the right -- if that's the proper characterization -- of Miss Manners, no less.

Well, no Mr. Reynolds, that’s not the proper characterization. Kass’ perspective is not based on politics but on religion -- he is, after all, a conservative Jew. You don’t have to be well-versed in the tenets of the religion to realize that regulations on food have a profound importance in Judaism. As one resource notes:

No current Iraq war conspiracy theory can be complete without a reference to Leo Strauss. Even before the war began, there were attempts to connect the Bush Administration’s 'neoconservative" foreign policy to the writings of the obscure political philosopher from the University of Chicago. The connection between Strauss, who died over 30 years, and the administration is laughably tenuous yet is espoused everywhere from New York theaters to the the House of Representatives.

Critics of the war who are looking to establish a literary connection, however, don’t have to resort to such odd theories. In fact, they don’t have to look any further than Kenneth Pollack. As the former Iran-Iraq military analyst for the CIA, and the director of Persian Gulf Affairs and Near East and South Asian Affairs for the National Security Council under Bill Clinton, Pollack has both the experience and credentials to make liberals take notice. When his book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, debuted in 2002 it caused quite a splash among fence-sitters who were unwilling to accept the Republicans case for war. The New York Times claimed that Pollack‘s, 'argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr. Bush." According to The New Yorker, Pollack’s 'comprehensive and convincing" case for war was presented, 'More effectively than Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz or any other of the hawkish big thinkers in the Administration…"

So where are Pollack’s critics now? Where are the anti-war protestors decrying that 'Pollack lied!" and that he duped the 'chickenhawks" into accepting that the war was necessary? We might also ask, 'Where is Pollack now?"

Mike the Marine shares some news from Iraq that you won’t be hearing about on CNN (note: names have been omitted to protect the privacy of the individuals involved):

Three Marines this past week stood out in their professionalism and humanity while participating in a vehicle patrol with an Army unit. The Patrol encountered an overturned truck in a canal and due to the gathering crowd could not pass. When the Marines learned an Iraqi man was trapped underwater in the truck they dismounted the vehicle, Sergeant Lxxxx established a secure perimeter while Sergeants Bxxxx and Wxxxx dropped their gear and entered the canal pulling the driver out. While the driver could not be resuscitated by an Iraqi doctor on the scene, the attitude of the crowd was noticeably and favorably changed when the Marines emerged from the water. Sergeants Lxxxx, Bxxxx, and Wxxxx demonstrated the very definition of our ethos "No better friend, no worse enemy." You should be proud of these Marines, I am.

I am too, Devil Dog. I am too.

(Hat tip: Blackfive)

Following the Money Trail Do you have suspicions that your neighbor is up to no good? Are you wondering if he might be funding a subversive group such as…the Howard Dean campaign! Well, now you can find out. Fundrace tells you which of your neighbors has been contributing to political candidates. Now, when you discover that the lady across the street is a Kucinich supporter you’ll have a justification for calling the police about the “odd looking” plants she has growing under a heat lamp in her garage. (Hat tip: Infinite Monkeys)

The New Socialism Slate writer Chris Suellentrop has an excellent article on how socialism isn’t what it used to be.

A Preventable Condition? Rusty Lopez highlights an article from a doctor who asks, “Is Pregnancy Really Normal?” Do I even need to point out that this doctor works for an abortion clinic?

This Game Sponsored by PETA If you enjoyed the Yeti smacking the penguin game your sure to enjoy this seal toss.

King & King Some parents in North Carolina are upset about a library book their elementary-age daughter brought home: a children's story about a prince whose true love turns out to be another prince. (I guess Heather Has Two Mommies was already checked out.)

New Blog Alert Puctilious is the newest addition to the list of Hugh Hewitt Inspired blogs. Be sure to check out the posts on why we should pull our troops out of South Korea.

Owen from Southern Appeal points out a photograph of a “free speech” zone at my old alma mater, the University of North Texas:

For those who can't make out the words, the plaque reads "Free Speech Area: To Schedule, Contact Dean of Students Office." That's pretty brazen, don't you think? As Truett muses, "if I were designing a university website, I'd think twice about whether or not the first thing I want people to notice is that, at my school, students are only allowed to exercise their free speech rights within specified zones, and by appointment only."

In his conclusion he asks, “Isn't it just good policy to abolish "free speech zones?"

I have a better suggestion. Why not just rename the areas “Freedom of Assembly Zones?”

The reason such zones are needed is because of the sheer size of the school. Currently there are about 30,000 students on a 500 acres campus, an increase of over 10,000 since 1987 when I was a freshman. I recall how even then it was difficult just getting from one end of the campus to another on a normal day; if there were a protest or other type of organized event you might as well skip class and stay in your dorm.

Call me old-fashioned but I think the first priority of any university should be to provide an education for its students. Obviously, organized student events have a role to play in that process but like everything else in academia it has to fit into the university’s structure. Besides, when space is limited declaring the entire campus a “free speech zone” could lead to chaos, especially now when virtually ever activity falls under the rubric of "speech.”

The problem, in my opinion, isn't so much in the concept but in the name. Even at UNT you have an almost unfettered right to free speech anywhere on the university. What you don’t have, however, is the ability to lead demonstrations and assemblies in undesignated areas.

Follow the path of almost any social conservative’s arguments about culture and they will inevitably come to a slippery slope. For better or worse, the slippery slope argument has become a common appeal that we rely when we attempt to argue our point. We assume that their effectivness is dependent on others agreeing that an unacceptable conclusion awaits at the bottom of the slope. But what happens when the argument is effective but the outcome is not deemed objectionable? Where do we go from there? Matthew Yglesias provides us with a prime example:

Forget San Francisco, Seattle is now the new battleground over same-sex marriage. King County is on the receiving end of two lawsuits, each from a different side of the issue. While one suit challenges the constitutionality of the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, another is using DOMA against the Mayor of Seattle’s decision to grant employee benefits to homosexual “married” couples.

According to the Seattle Times, four lesbian and two gay couples have sued King County Executive Ron Sims, a Democratic candidate for governor, and other officials after being denied marriage licenses. The suit attempts to use the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution, which “prohibits any law granting privileges to certain classes of citizens without applying them equally to everyone.” In a 1974 case, the state Court of Appeals ruled that the Equal Rights Amendment did not apply to same-sex marriage.

On the other side of the issue is the Pacific Justice Institute, which has joined forces with Affiliate Attorney K. Douglas Lee in claiming that the actions of Seattle mayor Grek Nikels, in issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, was a clear violation of the state’s DOMA.

“This is another example of a mayor choosing to ignore the law that he has sworn an oath to execute,” declared Brad Dacus, President of the Pacific Justice Institute. “Political pandering to a particular interest group is never a valid justification for a complete disrespect for the law and breaching of the public trust. We are resolutely committed to protecting citizens against such legal violations.”

While I side with PJI and the rule of law, my sympathy lies with the county attorney. I would hate to be the one who has to defend against both of these cases at once.

Is John Kerry simply incapable of telling the truth? I ask that question in all sincerit because I'm having a hard time finding the motive behind his propensity for dishonesty. Unlike some politicians who lie in order to protect themselves, Kerry’s lies are rarely useful and almost always come back to haunt him.

Perhaps it stems from an aristocratic sense of entitlement. Or maybe he subscribes to the postmodern idea that truth is a social construct. Honestly, I truly don't know what to make of his lack of veracity. While I’ve heard of politicians who believe they’re above the law, Kerry’s the first I’ve seen who acts as if he’s above the truth.

Take, for example, the speech he delivered yesterday at George Washington University on the “21st century military.” He begins the speech with a lie and proceeds downhill from there:

Kevin Walmsley added a comment to an earlier post that I think is worth highlighting:

It would be a surprise to much of the world that Islam doesn't want everyone to convert or die. Let's click off the trouble spots of the world, okay?

1. Pakistan-India--Muslims against the Indians
2. Chechnya--Muslims against Russians
3. Spain--Basque, ETA, and now Al Queda against Europeans
4. France--blown up supertanker (Muslims) and attacking synagogues. France
thinks that appeasement will buy them time? Not so.
5. Indonesia--Muslims against Christians.
6. Somalia--see number 5.
7. Philippines--see number 5,6.
8. New York [ed.'s note: Pennsylvania and D.C. should be included as well]
9. Yemen
10. Georgia/Abkhazia
11. Israel
12. Chechen-Ingusetia
13. Yugoslavia
14. Nigeria

I have more thoughts on this that I'll share later.

Google has added an interesting feature that allows you to search for local businesses and services on the web.

If you’ve ever spent much time around monkeys you've probably noticed an obvious trait that they all share -- they are really terrible at the game of Scrabble. In fact, for being such close evolutionary relatives, monkeys aren’t all that proficient at such traits as language and reason. This difference used to be attributed the asymmetrical shape of the human brain. But now that view is changing.

A British psychiatrist is even accusing some researchers of having an 'observer bias" and of finding asymmetry where it doesn't exist:

In a paper in the April issue of the journal Laterality, Tim Crow of the Warneford Hospital in Oxford also criticizes the high-profile journals that have published their findings. 'It is as if the editorial policies of Science and Nature are directed towards obfuscating the origins of Man," he writes (Laterality, 9:233-242, April 2004).

Crow believes the authors of these papers want to find precursors of language in nonhuman primates to support a theory of graduated evolution. Instead, he revives Paul Broca's 1877 hypothesis that an evolutionary leap took place between our closest ape relatives and us, and produced language.

What? Peer-reviewed science journals skewing evidence to fit their preconceived notions of macroevolution? No way. They would never do that. Because if it were true that would cast doubts on the interpretation of other evidence and then we might have to start thinking about these issues for ourselves. We certainly can't have that, now can we?

In 1803, the power of judicial review was established by the Supreme Court’s decision in Marbury vs. Madison. Now, 201 years later, Congress wants to take that power back for themselves.

A dozen Congressmen have co-sponsored H.R.3920, the Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004 which will 'allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court." The impetus for the bill was the November ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriages and the subsequent rulings on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. As Kentucky representative Ron Lewis said while introducing the bill:

An aristocratic Brit who was kidnapped by pirates at the age of 16, sold into slavery, escapes, becomes a priest, returns to Ireland and face off against hordes of Druids…Patrick isn’t your typical Saint. Mark Roberts has more on the “Real St. Patrick.”

And you thought St. Patty’s day was all about green beer and parades…

In Whit Stillman’s charmingly quirky comedy Barcelona, there’s a scene where Ted, a stuffy corporate drone working in his corporation's Spain headquarters, has a conversation with his cousin Fred, a dim young Naval officer assigned as an advance man for the 6th Fleet:

FRED: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and--

TED: Really?

FRED: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this thing about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs--they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?

TED: The text.

FRED: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.

Ever since the bombing in Madrid I’ve felt the same way as Fred. While everyone talks about the subtext of the event – the terrorists caused the Socialists to win the election, the Spanish will pull their troops out of Iraq, etc., -- no one talks about the text, the part that is on the surface, completely open and obvious: the fact that nothing significant has changed.

Glenn Reynolds is an intelligent, erudite polymathic ur-blogger who I agree with about 87% of the time. Normally his assessments are sound and his judgement wise but when he writes about Leon Kass and the Bioethics Council his reasoning and arguments get sloppy.

On most topics this could be overlooked. But many people will fall for the argument from authority fallacy and assume that since Reynolds writes knowledgably about law and nanotechnology that he must have something important to add on the similiar issue of bioethics. That’s why I feel an obligation to take him to task on one of his latest post and present an opposing view that might not otherwise be heard:

Craig from Lead and Gold has the best line of the week:

Jonah Goldberg generally doesn't care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home. But he is willing to make an exception when it comes to Mel Gibson and his accountant.

The South Dakota abortion ban was voted down in the Senate by a margin of 18-17. Governor Mike Reynolds had sent the bill back on a “style and form” veto that required the legislature to approve his 25-word change. The Governor said he made the changes to ensure that current pro-life laws will remain on the books if the proposed legislation was ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

I don’t mean to be cynical but it certainly appears that Rounds used this procedure in order to have the bill killed. Even Senators who supported the proposed law believed that the wording exceeded the provision for “style and form” veto and would have set a dangerous precedent. Rounds also knew that a couple of the legislators were having second thoughts. If he wanted to please both sides by staying in the middle and letting others take the blame, he certainly used the right tactic.

(Hat tip: Ben Denomech)

In his brilliant essay 'Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Idealogy", Lee Harris explains how our instincts when dealing with a culturally exotic enemy can be fatal. He relates the story of the Aztec leader Montezuma who was unsure of what to make of the arrival of Cortez and his Spanish troops:

When Montezuma learned of Cortés’s arrival, he was at a loss to know what to make of the event. Who were these white-skinned alien beings? What had they come for? What were their intentions?

These were clearly not questions that Montezuma was in a position to answer. Nothing in his world could possibly provide him with a key to deciphering correctly the motives of a man as cunning, resourceful, and determined as Cortés. And this meant that Montezuma, who, after all, had to do something, was forced to deploy categories drawn from the fund of experience that was ready-to-hand in the Aztec world.

By a fatal coincidence, this fund of experience chanced to contain a remarkable prefiguring of Cortés — the myth of the white-skinned god, Quetzalcoatl. And, indeed, the parallels were uncanny. But, of course, as Montezuma eventually learned, Cortés was not Quetzalcoatl, and he had not appeared on the coast of Mexico in order to bring blessings.

The fall of the Aztec empire was due not only to military inferiority but because Montezuma could not step outside of his own culture and see his enemy for what he truly was. The reactions to the Madrid bombings and the subsequent Spanish election show that we too have failed to see our enemy as they are but prefer to view Al Queda as Clausewitzian rational actors who are attempting to affect 'politics by other means.'

But the terrorists have no political objective; their goal is nothing more than to live out their fantasy in which they are doing the will of Allah. By trying to ascertain what is trying to be accomplished we completely miss the point of their actions. As Harris notes:

The news that the Selective Service is taking steps toward a military draft that would target people with special skills in computers and foreign languages reminded me of a recurring dream I have. In the dream, Donald Rumsfeld goes to the podium and declares that a national draft will begin in exactly one week. No deferments, no excuses, and open to every eligible male that is capable of standing upright long enough to take the oath of enlistment. Seven days reprieve and then the lottery begins.

On the seventh day, with extra guards stationed along the border of Canada, Rumsfeld steps back up to the podium and with a sly grin says, "Just kidding."

Then he closes the border and refuses to allow any would-be draft dodgers to return back to the States. That's my favorite dream. And the chances of it actually happening are only slightly less than the military reinstating the draft.

You probably won’t see it mentioned in travel brochures. And your local travel agent isn’t likely to have any package deals available. But Switzerland has become the destination of choice for “suicide tourists.” Since the country is one of only a handful in Europe that allow assisted suicide, a Zurich clinic has been flooded with foreigners expressing their desire to die.

The Swiss government is currently trying to impose new regulations, including one that would require a six-month residency before becoming eligible for assisted suicide. Officials became alarmed when it was discovered that foreigners were spending less than 24 hours in their country before “checking out.” By law, “assisted suicide” clinics are required to check that patients are suffering from incurable illnesses and have repeatedly expressed the desire to die. But a controversy erupted last year when a British couple in their 50’s, neither of whom were known to have had a terminal illness, died in a clinic after receiving an overdose of barbiturates.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday challenged Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to name the foreign leaders he claims want him as the next U.S. president. “If he feels it is that important an assertion to make,” said Powell, “he ought to list some names.” While I agree with Mr. Powell that Kerry owes the county an explanation of which leaders he is referring to, there is a more pressing question that needs to be answered: did Senator Kerry violate the law?

According to TITLE 18 , PART I , CHAPTER 45 , Sec. 953. of the U.S. Criminal Code, commonly referred to as the “Logan Act”:

In 1997, the bioethics Leon Kass wrote an article for the New Republic entitled 'The Wisdom of Repugnance" which proposed a ban on human cloning. Though the article is rarely read by critics of Dr. Kass, the title lives on as a dismissive summation of the 'anti-scientific, pro-religious" view of bioethical debate. The concept, however, is not intended to be an argument but rather a reason why we should question our reasons for continuing further along a morally dubious path:

Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday's repugnances are today calmly accepted - though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is father-daughter incest (even with consent), or having sex with animals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering another human being? Would anybody's failure to give full rational justification for his or her revulsion at these practices make that revulsion ethically suspect? Not at all. On the contrary, we are suspicious of those who think that they can rationalize away our horror, say, by trying to explain the enormity of incest with arguments only about the genetic risks of in-breeding.

There is one problem with Kass' concept. He makes the mistake of believing that everyone has a moral compass that is sufficiently calibrated and in tune with prerational understandings. Certain people, particularly those who have an almost idolatrous view of human reason, will reject this concept outright. Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, the cell biologist who served on the Bioethics Council, is a prime example of one who would disagree:

In 1980, cult-movie director David Lynch released 'The Elephant Man," a film that told the story of John Merrick, a 19th-century Englishman who had the disfiguring congenital disease, Proteous Syndrome. After spending most of his life as a side-show freak, Merrick wanted nothing more in life than to regain his dignity. In the most memorable line of the movie, Merrick cries out in anguish, ' I am not an animal! I am a human being! I...am...a man!"

Ironically, the very emotion that led people to treat Merrick as an animal is one that is peculiarly human. One of the most essential needs of humanity is a recognition of our inherent dignity which entails separating us from the other species. In the seminal psychological research report 'Body, Psyche, and Culture: The Relationship Between Disgust and Morality", the authors note:

The concept of the "wisdom of repugnance", a phrase first coined by bioethicist Leon Kass, has been much maligned recently. Many critics believe the idea that the "ick factor" should play a role in ethical debate is patently absurd and completely irrational. I disagree and in this three-part series I hope to show that the emotion of disgust not only has a valid role to play in moral decision-making but that human dignity is put in danger when we reject the "deep wisdom" of repugnance.

Relating an incident that occurred on an expedition to South America, Charles Darwin wrote:

Can You Pass The Third Grade? Take this elementary school test to see how well you know your states. (Hat Tip: Eric Erickson)

New Blog Alert David Opderbeck, a law professor at Seton Hall, has not just one but two new blogs. His more established blog, Law, Science and Technology, focuses on -- as you might have guessed -- the intersection of law, science, and technology. His newest effort, Through a Glass Darkly, is dedicated to exploring issues relating to evangelical Christian faith and culture.

Old Socialist Ideas Never Die… Focus on Freedom has an interesting outline on the the Italian socialist and political theorist Antonio Gramsci’s views on how to implement a collectivist government.

Just a Coincidence? In his post on Terrorism Fatigue, Adrian Warnock wonders why the American and British press have not made more of the fact that there are 911 days between the 9/11 attacks and the 3/11 bombing. Was it merely an odd coincidence or an intentionally symbolic gesture?

Lessons Learned JD Mays from an Army of One has pointed out an article by an Army infantry commander on 'Lessons Learned" in Iraq. I’ll be studying that closely and making sure all of my junior Marines do the same.

Thanks I truly can’t express how grateful I am for all the kind words I’ve received about my upcoming deployment to Iraq. Since I won’t be leaving for at least 3 more months (a decade in blog time) I was hesitant to even mention it yet. I really appreciate the support from fellow bloggers JD Mays, Guy, Jared Bridges, and The Elder.

But I have to admit that St. Paul from Fraters Libertas dang near got me choked up with his much-too-kind post:

I’m sure all bloggers like to occasionally think our ceaseless sarcasm, ridicule, and pulsating acrimony are doing some good in the grand debates of politics and life. And maybe it does, who knows? But what is the worth of the sum total of the entire blogosphere’s output compared to one man picking up a gun and making the security of his countrymen his personal responsibility?

His post is a great tribute to all Marines. Don’t miss it.

The Madrid bombings have underscored the fact that the global war on terror is indeed a global war. There is no continent, no country, no city that is not a target of the terrorists. As Hugh Hewitt wrote today:

It is all one war, and yesterday the casualties were Spanish, but their names belong on the 9/11 memorial and our victims belong on the fountain or wall the Spaniards will build. History will see this clearly, even if the wilfully blind refuse to today and tomorrow or until the next big blow strikes.

While we mourn with those in Spain we cannot forget terrorism’s other victims. The incredibly high death toll and the fact that the war is bleeding over into Europe should not blind us to the deaths that have occurred throughout the world in the past couple of months. Just counting those who have been targeted in suicide bombings since Febuary 1st, we find over 319 deaths and more than 500 injured.

Suicide bombing has become an epidemic and one that we must effectively counter if we are to win this war.

Here is just a handful of the examples of the impact this tactic has had in the past few months:

Although completely unwarranted, Hugh Hewitt has included me among an illustrious list of MilBlogs (Sgt Hook, Smash, MudvilleGazette, Blackfive, and Chief Wiggles). As he points out, my blog 'ends more towards the cultural, religious, and political than the military." That, however, will soon be changing as I just recently found out that I’m scheduled to leave for Iraq this fall. Now I’ll finally get to call myself a 'warblogger" (or perhaps more fittingly, a 'reconstruction blogger").

For those who have come over from the Weekly Standard article I’ve highlighted some of the military related posts:

(By the way, Weekly Standard readers might also find this article on "How To Spot a Straussian" of interest.)

The military has literally hundreds of thousands of veterans. Out of that number at least a handful could be found that have both the talent and interest to write knowledgeably about military affairs. With so many to candidates to choose from, why does the Los Angeles Times keep William Arkin as their military affairs columnist?

Last October, Hugh Hewitt wrote a column entitled 'Who is William Arkin?' for the Weekly Standard:

[Arkin] is the scribbler who launched the assault on Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin a week ago by providing NBC with tapes of Boykin speaking in churches, and then followed with a Los Angeles Times op-ed that accused the general of being "an intolerant extremist" and a man "who believes in Christian 'jihad'" (Arkin later admitted on my radio program that Boykin never used the term "jihad").

The fact that he misleading implied that Lt. Gen Boykin used the term 'jihad" in his speech should have been enough to get him fired. But the Times kept him and allows his shoddy reporting to lower the paper's credibility even further.

As I wrote yesterday, when the Marines deploy to Baghdad this month they will be taking a new non-lethal tool, the LRAD. Even though the use of such a device could help save many lives, both Americans and Iraqis, Arkin thinks this is cause for concern:

There is only one form of blogger that is more tedious that the navel-gazer who posts about the eflluvia of their daily lives and that is the blogger who gazes at other people’s navels, especially those who do so looking for lint. Gawker and Wonkette are the twin archetypes of the OPNG, each representing two of the most self-important cities in America - New York (Gawker) and Washington D.C. (Wonkette). (Will LA be next? If so I recommend the name Gazer.)

Both sites are published by entrepreneur Nick Denton whose Gawker media also includes blog sites dedicated to reviewing p*rn (Fleshbot) and gadgets (Gizmodo). Denton is to snaky blogs what Mark Burnett is to reality TV: a well-connected insider whose projects gain attention simply because of his 'brand." This helps explain why his blogs attract attention despite the fact that they completely suck. (Ironically, Wonkette is written by Ana Marie Cox, who used to edit the now defunct Suck column which, as a matter of fact, didn’t suck at all.)

The fact that you have ever heard about these blogs has little to do with their content. As I’ve said before, blogging about the ban on garlic in a company’s cafeteria won’t get you noticed by Instapundit. If the cafeteria belongs to New Yord media conglomerate Conde Nast, though, it will get you mentioned in their magazines.

But even if you live in New York or D.C. and catch all the inside references the shtick would still be lame. Jack Shafer, who refers to these blogs as 'the twin offspring of a date-rape incident between Drudge Report and the original Spy magazine", writes: