How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back

At least some elements of the Black community are beginning to come out of the closet about the effect of rap music on the behavior of it's youth, or at least some elements therein, as this piece by John H. McWhorter in the City Journal shows so elegantly. This is not written by one of the right-leaning voices from that community, nor from a right-leaning publication. It therefore bears more than a cursory look. Far be it for me to dissect the work; as a conservative libertarian Jew, I have no standing. But as McWhorter says:

Sadly, some black leaders just don’t seem to care what lesson rap conveys. Consider Savannah’s black high schools, which hosted the local rapper Camoflauge as a guest speaker several times before his murder earlier this year. Here’s a representative lyric:

Gimme tha keys to tha car, I’m ready for war.
When we ride on these niggas smoke that ass like a ’gar.
Hit your block with a Glock, clear the set with a Tech . . . .
You think I’m jokin, see if you laughing when tha pistol be smokin—
Leave you head split wide open
And you bones get broken. . . .

More than a few of the Concerned Black People inviting this “artist” to speak to the impressionable youth of Savannah would presumably be the first to cry out about “how whites portray blacks in the media.”

But McWhorter does not blame the whites. He's speaking within his own community.

WaPo Stumbles Upon the Truth

In these days when our political discourse has become so coarse, and the truth is so hard to find, it is a pleasure when we can see anything that suggests a trend in the opposite direction. Friday we noted that Alan Colmes, a professional liberal. supported the truth about Rush Limbaugh in the McNabb Afair. And now we find the Washington Post telling the truth about the report from David Kay:

Mr. Kay's report contains powerful evidence that significant illegal weapons programs were not discovered by U.N. inspectors and that Saddam Hussein was aggressively violating U.N. Resolution 1441, which offered him "a final opportunity" to voluntarily disarm. The report says the team "discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002." These include "a clandestine network of laboratories" suitable for producing biological weapons; a prison laboratory that may have been used to test biological agents on humans; and strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home. Most remarkable are multiple and extensive Iraqi programs for producing banned long-range ballistic missiles, one of which continued even while the inspectors were in Iraq.

The unclassified piece of Mr. Kay's report supports his conclusion that Saddam Hussein never abandoned his intention to produce biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and would have manufactured such weapons as soon as inspectors departed -- or, in the case of some weapons, even while they were in Iraq. It is also possible that some stocks of chemical weapons remain: In an interview on PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Mr. Kay said that "general officers" of the Republican Guard told his group that "their units were readied" to use chemicals against U.S. troops during the war, though the munitions have not been found.

For opponents of the war, Mr. Kay's report ought to raise the question of how the illegal and dangerous activity he has uncovered would have been stopped without military intervention, given Iraq's success in concealing it from inspectors.

Albeit this is from an editorial, and many news items from the WaPo persist in spreading leftie propaganda, but we feel that zero base thinkers must recognize even baby steps toward truth telling in the mainstream media. The onslaught of lies that began even before the Kay report was released, claiming that Kay had found nothing, has been overwhelming. Indeed, most people that I have discussed this with to date have the impression that nothing is all that Kay has actually found. The editorial board here at Zero Base Thinking applaud these efforts that some elements of the left are making toward reclaiming their place as honest arbiters of the truth.

Colmes Gets Something Right

Alan Colmes, of Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes Show, makes his living holding up the left end of this tabloid television news commentary/debate show, and usually can be relied upon to represent the views of the left wing of the Democrat party. Tonight he deviated from the leftie script, by defending something that Rush Limbaugh said.

Rush has come under withering leftie fire for what should be an uncontroversial statement. He had accused the mainstream media of exaggerating the prowess of an NFL quaterback due to his status as an African/American. Lets review exactly what Rush said:

"I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well," Hush said during ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" show in reference to Eagles QB Donovan McNabb. "There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Limbaugh, as an expert spectator of Football and the NFL, thought that most football fans would agree with him. He has said as much. He claims to have thought long and hard before he made these remarks, but the politically correct left has granted him absolutely no license, and have gone after him hammer and tongs. As a result he resigned his position with ESPN's Countdown show.

Leslie Marshall was the guest on the Hannity and Colmes Show designated to go after Rush on this issue, and a more empty-headed leftie they could not have found. After repeating the drivel that should be expected of anyone of her ilk, Alan Colmes came to Rush's rescue! We can credit Sean Hannity's absence for some of Colmes's boldness, but Alan must get some credit for stating the obvious, especially since it goes against his leftie roots. He said that what Rush said was not racist, but merely accused the media of a sort of "reverse" racism. In the face of such obvious truth, Ms. Marshall stuck to her guns, and accused Rush of a towering insesnitivity, and claimed the "if even ONE PERSON was offended, then Rush should have been fired." This statement ignores the fact that Rush resigned, but she should be forgiven since, as a leftist, resignation is something that one should never do, merely to stem the embarrassment of one's employers.

But Alan Colmes acted like a mensch tonight. He said the necessary things, even though his constituency is taking this incident as nothing morenor less than an excuse to rail against Rush Limbaugh, a figure that they would like to bring low, however they can. It is possible that that is exactly why ESPN hired him in the first place, much like MSNBC hired and fired Michael Savage (but I have no inside information that this is what happened here, like the inside dope I had on MSNBC). Yet, what else did ESPN think was going to happen? They are the ones who hired Rush Limbaugh in the first place. He is a controversial figure, who makes his living saying controversial things. They got exactly what everyone should have expected, and kudos to Alan Colmes for calling it as he saw it.

Kyoto Dead, Chirac Throws Fit

This past week at the World Climate Change Conference in Moscow, Russia's leaders have cast doubt on the chances that Russia will ever ratify the Kyoto Agreement. The response from France has been typically French: Chirac is stamping his feet, threatening Russia...

French President Jacques Chirac on Monday joined calls for Russia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saying future relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation depended on it.

Chirac made the plea in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backed away on Monday from an earlier pledge to swiftly ratify the U.N. pact on global warming, a step necessary to bring the agreement into force worldwide. Ratifying the pact "would underline Russia's determination to accept all the responsibilities of a large modern country towards future generations," Chirac said...

"I therefore see in it an essential element to the constitution of the common economic area we decided to create in St Petersburg," Chirac said, referring to plans for a common European economic space.

France and Germany like the Kyoto protocols because they are the two industrialized countries that would have the easiest time complying with them. But with nations that account for over two thirds of global greenhouse gas enissions not affected by the pact, Russia's stance is the only sensible position for them to take. Now almost three quarters of the world's emission emitters are out of the pact. How amusing that it may be for the wrong reasons, but at least the world has made the right decision.

Much Ado About Nothing

It's truly amazing how much attention has been lavished on the controversy over the outing of the CIA operative, Valerie Plame. If ever a story needed some Zero Base Thinking, it is this one. There is so much noise here, and almost no substance at all.

The law, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, was enacted in 1982 and was designed to protect the identities of covert U.S. agents. It was a response to an organized campaign led by former CIA agent Philip Agee to identify CIA and other U.S. covert agents around the world. The law calls for a finding that the CIA employee not only be a "covert operative" but also to have been operating out of the country within the last five years. According to Robert Novak, the columnist who started this mess: "Valerie Plame was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives." So far as I can glean from public sources, Ms. Plame has not been out of the country for the last six years.

Those enemies of the Bush administration who are trying to use this brouhaha to cast aspersions are ignoring these facts. Rather than investigating the truth of her status as a covert operative, they are concentrating on the "leak." It is a sad state of affairs that this nation is in, that the news media are pushing this anti-Bush propaganda as if it was a serious story. It is not. Just as with their behavior in covering the global warming phenomenon, the media can't report the truth and still pursue their agenda. So they report on the Emperor's new clothes, while those with the eyes to see realize that the clothes are not new, there are not any clothes at all.

War On Pain Patients

We can discuss the reasons for it, but the fact is uncontroversial: the U.S. government has declared war against pain patients, and the doctors who treat them. Whether it is medical marijuana or OxyContin, the government has decided that it must exert its power over its citizens who fail to obey its arbitrary rules.

Over the last few years medical science has rediscovered the fact that intractable pain can almost always be effectively treated by opioid pain killers, if the dosage is titrated (adjusted) to the level that works in each individual patient. In some patients, that dosage is very much higher than a single, minimum dosage pill. That brings medical science into conflict with that holy of holies, the war on drugs. A patient on high doses of potent painkillers might discover that, thanks to the war on drugs, the government has created a scarcity that has the effect of creating a market for these painkillers that is willing to pay an incredibly high price for these medications. Perhaps understandably, some of these patients give in to the temptation to divert some of their medication to the black market. These few patients give the government all the evidence thay need to imprison the doctors who wrote the prescriptions in the first place. It may be unfair, it may be immoral, it may be wrong, but that's exactly what's going on in prosecutions like that against Dr. William Hurwitz.

Dr. William E. Hurwitz, 57, was named in a 49-count indictment handed up in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He was accused of conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances, drug trafficking resulting in death and serious bodily injury, drug trafficking, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and health care fraud.

If you read the rest of the article you will find that Dr. Hurwitz is a dangerous criminal who should be put behind bars for life. But if you read what some of his peers, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, say about this case:

The Administration delivered on its threat to treat doctors "like the Taliban" last Thursday when federal prosecutors indicted and imprisoned William Hurwitz, M.D. of McLean, VA., for prescribing legal pain relief supervised and approved by the Virginia Board of Medicine.

Trial attorneys think doctors should pay dearly for abuse of medication by patients after they leave the doctors' offices. But why is Bush Administration government jailing doctors for the misdeeds of their patients?

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gene Rossi declared to a reporter that "our office will try our best to root out (certain doctors) like the Taliban. Stay tuned." And earlier this month, the President pointed to physician prosecutions as the example of how he wants to pursue terrorists.

They are not going to be satisfied with just a few doctors, either. In a more thoughtful news piece in a local paper, another local doctor reveals that he is in denial about his own impending fate:

[Dr.] Statkus said: "They are busy prosecuting physicians and not individual drug addicts. I don't know where their focus is, but it needs to [be] redirected."

[Dr.] Statkus doesn't believe he is next on the hit list. "I was once told by a DEA agent they were going to get the top five prescribers of each area," Statkus said. "But my lawyers have told me they are backing off of us. They are going to be pretty busy with Billy (Hurwitz), I imagine, for a while."

But the feds have time. After they are through with "Billy," they will be coming after the next doctor on their list. I can only hope and pray that they don't come after mine.

Another Doctor In Jail

Pain specialist Dr. William Hurwitz was arrested Wednesday morning and sits in jail pending a Monday bail hearing. He was arrested after being indicted on federal charges related to his prescribing of opioid pain relievers in the course of his medical practice. Dr Hurwitz, a Jew, was presumably arrested on this particular Wednesday in order to keep him in jail over the Rosh Hashana holiday. Prosecutor Paul J. McNulty may have a different reason for choosing this particular day to arrest Dr. Hurwitz after an investigation covering several years but, if so, he isn't saying. The investigation of Dr. Hurwitz was begun prior to October of 1996, when the zealous prosecutors first showed their hand. The good doctor shut his office for the last time last year.

This is just the latest move in a campaign by the U.S. government against doctors who prescribe large doses of opiate pain relievers to patients in intractable pain. While the doses prescribed are in most cases well within the standards of medical practice, prosecutors use drug war rhetoric and horror stories to sway juries. This is enough to garner a fair few guilty pleas, as some doctors choose retirement rather than subjecting themselves to the possible jeopardy of stiff prison terms, but the prosecutions' success rate at trial is dismally low. Yet, the prosecutions go on.

As the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons press release has it:

As promised, the Bush Administration seized Dr. Hurwitz's assets under drug forfeiture laws, reserved for kingpins such as the Columbia cartel -- all without any finding of guilt. Then, in front of his two young children, about twenty armed agents seized the good doctor himself and imprisoned him without bail on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

This is a national disgrace -- doctors throughout the country are being targeted by egregious law enforcement for helping patients manage crippling pain with controlled, legal drugs.

"Physicians are being threatened, impoverished, delicensed, and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain," says Kathryn Serkes of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), explaining why AAPS has decided to support Dr. Hurwitz, as well as other doctors such as Cecil Knox, currently on trial in Roanoke, VA.

The "war on drugs" has turned into a war on doctors -- and lawful drugs and the patients who take them. Prosecutors make careers out of high-publicity cases involving the hot "drug du jour" such as OxyContin. But this war is causing enormous collateral damage and deaths from "friendly fire." Physicians have been drummed out of practice, sent to jail, and even been driven to suicide in the face of these 21st century witch hunts.

The public wants prosecution of terrorists, not doctors who relieve pain. Instead, the Department of Justice is using its inflated powers to encroach on state jurisdiction and terrorize unarmed, honest professionals. If this continues, not one doctor will be willing to prescribe the drugs that patients so desperately need.

I wonder, just who is the constituency for these prosecutions? Do the Bushes and the Clintons of the world really believe that this type of activity will garner them additional votes at election time? That is one question that will not receive much media coverage when G.W.Bush fails to achieve re-election. But mine is one vote that Mr. Bush lost last Wednesday. I don't care who takes his place, I just can't vote for a man who allows his subordinates to arrest a heroic man like Dr. Hurwitz, who continued to practice in the face of an impending prosecution. He finally retired when he did in order to allow his remaining patients to find alternative practitioners who would give them what they needed. It is a chilling fact that some of these pain patients, when they find themselves unable to secure sufficient pain medication, choose suicide rather than endure the pain that they are in. Yet the prosecutions go on.

Another One Gone

Another fine writer has fled the scene. Toren Smith has ended blogging at The Safety Valve. As he puts it:

Frankly, I'm tired of getting all bent out of shape about the stupidities of the world, which seem to be getting worse and worse as time goes by. The last few months it seems every day brings worse news about the corruption of science, the destruction of society by PC-think, the complete and utter end of rational political discourse, and the hydra-like expansion of government powers. International politics has gone insane. California is heading into the socialist shit pit, and most of the US seems poised to follow sooner or later.

I can really relate to his sentiment. My own posting has become pretty sparse lately, as the society sinks further and further into a very coarse dialog, and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to shout against the wind anymore. Just tonight a very good friend of mine called, and unloaded a pile of his New York liberal venom on me. This is an intelligent fellow, yet the poison he believes boggles the mind at times. What is the point of telling the truth if the lowest common denominator of demagogic drivel carries the day? Our politics has gone straight to hell. And our jurisprudence? Also tonight, on Cops, a sheriffs department sting arrested 15 black men on the charge of "attempted possesion" of nickel bags of ersatz marijuana. It is not just that all of the "perps" were black and almost all of the cops were white, it was the futility of using the time and talents of a dozen police officers in the pursuit of what is arguably the most trivial "crime" ever conceived by the twisted mind of mankind. Then John Ashcroft and Bill O'Reilly will take to the airwaves and deny that this type of police action exists at all, that the "War on (some) Drugs" is involved solely in the pursuit of drug "kingpins" and, here's the latest, drug dealers must be stopped because the drug trade supports terrorism.

Bah Humbug! I understand why Toren has not the stomach anymore to shout against the wind. I wish that I could summon the balls to quit myself. Until I do, I will soldier on, pointing out the ridiculous aspects of our public reality and discourse.

Intellectual Property

Today's debate over file sharing over the internet, p2p (peer to peer), and the "Napster" phenomenon has evoked much strident debate. Law professors can be found claiming that song recordings have the same value as Disneyland, so the owner has the same right to demand admission payment whether his attraction is an edifice that requires maintenance, employees, and the payment of property taxes or is a recording that may have been the result of ten minutes of labor two hundred years ago. Law Professors. Musicians have sued their fans. The recording industry trade association has actually sued almost a thousand college students who have shared their property over the internet.

This debate has gone way too far. Congress, always ready to support the buttered side of their bread, has extended the time limits on copyright many times, such that works that the Disney Corporation took for free from the public domain before I was born are now protected until well after I will have died. And, since Disney and the recording industry have much more money to spend (and clout) than we consumers do, this bowlderization of the constitutional provisions relating to copyright can be expected to continue. And continue it has. Today, a 12 year old girl settled with the RIAA for $1,200.00 for the "crime" of trading songs online. College students have settled for between 12,000.00 and $17,500.00. Their "crime"? making songs that they legally own available to others, who make songs that they own available to them.

Now, we can't kill everyone who wants to continue a comfortable sinecure. But we can question whether they have the right to such continuance. I can certainly lend, or even rent or sell, any CD that I own. But somehow, if I transmit this music over the internet, rather than sneakernet, I become a criminal. This may be the best example or the poisonous effect of money in politics. Ane, surprise surprise, no proposal of "campaign finance reform" even begins to address the effect of lobbyist cash on the promulgation of legislation. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is an anticonstitutional travesty, and it is the basis of all this trouble I point out here.

What would be wrong if the system was changed to a form that agrees with our constitution, which demands that copyrights have a reasonable temporal limit? Who says that artists have the right to profit from their work, and then their children have the same right, and their grandchildren retain the same right to profit into the next century? Why, the U.S. Congress, that's who! And the president signed this bill, making it law, and the Supreme Court has confirmed is as well.

Nobody says that an artist has no right to profit from his work. What I and others propose is that more reasonable limits be placed upon this, and our (consumers) right to fair use of recordings we have bought be expanded just a little bit from what they have been whittled down to. Record companies have built up a stranglehold on an enormous profit center, but it is the essence of capitalism and entreneurship that capital will flow in different ways as society progresses, and no sinecure is forever. The record companies are terrified that new technologies will make their profit center less profitable. Rather than using technology to succeed, they will use the Congress and the courts to extend their success, as long as they can. Meanwhile, many artists are using technology that the record companies have used to maintain their stranglehold over the emergence of new acts to promote themselves, with some small success. I for one will do what I can to encourage them in this endeavor. I personally believe that anyone who buys the art of an artist who has sued it's fans (think Metallica) is a fool.

The Ten Commandments

So now the government has removed a monument to the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Supreme Court of Alabama. All secular humanists and atheistic intellectuals cheered. The court is now free of the poison of the rules that the Judeo-Christian world has held dear for millenia. As Lowell Ponte put it in his searing take on it:

Leftists cheered wildly as the moral strictures of the 10 Commandments were removed from the Alabama Supreme Court. It is easy to see why. If people decided to believe in those rules – especially the Commandments that prohibit stealing and the coveting of your neighbors’ property – the Democratic Party, with its endless use of envy and class warfare and discriminatory demands to “tax the rich,” would vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The Left is a diseased ideology of darkness that cannot survive in the pure light of moral clarity.

The ACLU has won out over common sense. Other than those commandments that are specifically pertaining to the religion (have no idols, keep the sabbath) which are, after all, not commands that must be followed by non believers, one would think that these rules of living are a sort of universal truth, that must be followed by everyone. But leftist ideology must obliterate all ten of these rules, because 5, 8, 9, and 10 pertain to activities that leftist ideology insists are necessary to continue their power over the rest of us. Class envy and redistribution of wealth are the cornerstones of leftist ideologies. Coveting and taking the posessions of the rich are so important to the left that the ten commandments themselves must be stricken from the house of our laws.

I have no time to make the case here, but Ponte surely does. Lowell Ponte is a writer who I have just discovered, and can't recommend him highly enough. This man has an encyclopedic knowledge of history, and the more you read him, or listen to his radio show, the more impressive he is.

Highly recommended

The Prime Minister Speaks

Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad is a fellow who is often quoted as a Muslim who believes that suicide bombing of innocents is not an Islamic activity. But recently, in an interview printed in the Straits Times reveals his understanding of the role of the Jews in the modern world.

Q: Do you still believe in this conspiracy of Jews in the Asian financial crisis?

A: I will have to give a very comprehensive answer to that. There are not that many Jews, only about 30 million. But they want to control the world, it has nothing to do with their religion, it's their personal Zionist ambition to rule the world.

The answer lies in capturing the most powerful country in the world — the United States.

How was it done? They invented and propagated the idea of democracy. If you are democratic, they have a right to all the rights of a democracy. They can stand for election, they can campaign, you cannot have any more massacres as they used to have in Europe.

Secondly, they promote the idea of human rights, that they must be given the same rights as anybody else. So again, there cannot be any discrimination against Jews.

Now, having spread these ideas among all the people, the majority feel that it is wrong to discriminate against the Jews.

At one time, Harvard University will not accept Jews. At one time, Jews were not allowed to participate in banking in America.

Through the spread of democracy and human rights, they can do all that. They can carry out banking, and they are very good in banking. From ancient times, they are the ones who collected the greatest amount of interest.

When they became equal, they went for institutions that have the most influence on society. They captured the media. The media in the West belongs to them, that includes the electronic media (TV) and Hollywood. It became a propaganda machine for them.

And then, having got the media, they go for politics. Today, the US Government, many of the members of Congress, are Jews. If they are not Jews, their staff members are Jews.

I appeared on the same platform as Mr Ashcroft in Davos, he was assisted by a young man whose name was Israel. Their staff are all Jews.

They come to Malaysia, and they have the same view.

So by controlling the Press and media, controlling the money through banking, and controlling now the Congress, they have become the power in the United States.

They may not be many, American political candidates are extreme candidates, but there are only six million Jews in America.

They can ensure that you win or lose, because they are united whilst the others are divided. In Malaysia, we have the same experience.

In a constituency with majority Muslim Malays, for example, and a minority made up of Chinese and Indians, the Muslims are actually divided. The Chinese and Indians will decide who will win, with their votes.

There are more Muslims than Jews in the US, but they are divided into 1,000 different groups. And they can never get together so they cannot play the same role as the Jews.

The biggest power in America now controls the world and economy. Their ideas about currency trading is that which resulted in the attack on Malaysia.

I said this, and of course, I was roundly criticised at that time. They said they want to make money, it's not because they are Jews. But whether they want to make money or not, the fact is that they are Jews and what they have done, benefit the Jews.

Remember, this is a moderate Islamic voice. Paranoid, if not psychotic, IMHO. But, compared to a society that honors a man who commits suicide, leaving two children of two and three years old, in the act of the murder of women and children on their way home from a religious site, maybe he IS the voice of reason. NOT! A sample:

However, later Tuesday, Hamas distributed fliers in Hebron, saying the Jerusalem bombing was carried out by one of its supporters, identified as Raed Abdel-Hamed Mesk, 29, a mosque preacher from Hebron.

Hamas released Mesk's farewell video. The plump man with the bushy beard said he was a member of the Hamas military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, accused Israel of violating the cease-fire offered by Hamas.

Mesk's wife Arij began clearing belongings out of her home late Tuesday, in expectation that it would be demolished by Israeli troops. The army routinely destroys the homes of suicide bombers, hoping it will act as a deterrent.

Arij Mesk said she was not sad. "God gave Raed something he always dreamed of. All of his life he dreamed of being a martyr," she said. The couple has two children, ages two and three.

The bus was blown up while making its way from the Wall to the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood.

Just another example of the members of the religion of peace, spreading the word, and righting wrongs.

Misdirection Play

The recent brouhaha over the MSBlaster worm shows the basic misdirection that Microsoft has played upon us all. A large part of the subject matter illuminated in this space regards misdirection, or what I like to call the "The Emperor Has No Clothes" theory of human events. We are a species of (predominately) sheeple who follow the crowd, and are usually united in our misapplication of the facts. The "common knowledge" is almost always wrong, as I (and others) like to point out. And, what with the perfection of public relations theory and advertising technology, those who would lead the populace astray, and cause us to believe a falsehood, have some very effective tools to make that happen. Such is the case with Microsoft, and, in particular, the popular misapprehension of their response to the MSBlaster worm.

We are told that their (Microsoft's) response to the threat shows us what a great, on the job company they are. The fact that this problem only arises because MS sold us all a faulty piece of software in the first place is forgotten. This is a classic case of misdirection: look at their response, and fail to notice the cause. During the recent anti-trust trial of MS, we were first told that Windows was not a monopoly, and then, when that "fact" became untenable, we were told that this monopoly was a good thing for us, that the prevalence of this single operating system made it possible for a much larger number of software designers to concentrate on coding Windows products. We are not supposed to notice that there has not been a really cool software product released in the last half decade. We are certainly not supposed to notice that all of our computers are so much more vulnerable to virus and worm attacks than they were before we all standardised on Windows.

The truth is that this very standardization on a single operating system is a very bad thing. It makes for a very easy target for those who would do us harm. Why do you think that there are no Linux worms? Not because Linux is a more secure environment (although it is) but because there are so (relatively) few Linux boxes to attack. Why do you think there is no genuinely interesting software being written any more? Because the market for Windows software is so huge, and Microsoft is so powerful (and voracious) that any truly successful new product is bulldozed out of existence when a less useful, but "free", version appears in the next iteration of Windows.

We need to break out of the mold that we are expected to fit into. Or at least, that is the way I see it. I don't know how this can happen, but if we as a people do not make more effort to become more individual, the overwhelming power of the herd instinct, combined with the tools available to the government and large corporations that induce us to follow the crowd, will combine to make things only get worse. Readers of this blog are less exposed than most others, but we must all take steps to break out of that mold. Buy a Linux distro and install it on one of your old computers that is gathering dust in your garage. Watch CSPAN instead of a sit-com. And read, read, read.

When Whales Ruled the Earth

People call me a contrarian, but it's not true. I merely attempt to apply logic and knowledge to common problems, without giving what is called "common knowledge" any place at the table. Just because many people believe things, or scream things, there is no reason to believe these things. But the volume level does draw one's attention. Thus came the news last week about the early population of Whales, as revealed in their DNA. While the original article is not freely available on the web, a pithy summary of it can be found here. The fact that the DNA reveals genetic diversity an order of magnititude greater than that observed by the early Whaling captains is important because international Whaling has been (almost) halted pending the moment at which Whale stocks have risen back up to a level that represents half of their historic levels. Since the (almost) permanent status granted to any animal, once it is allowed entry to an endangered species list, is a favorite subject of mine, I decided to investigate.

Clicking over to my favorite site for scientific discourse, Gene Expression There was a conversation going on about this subject. While I couldn't get the gnxp'ers to engage on this topic at great length, I did get an indication that this genetic evidence refers to Whale populations that might have existed 10,000 years ago. Well, that says a lot! 10,000 years ago the Earth was just emerging from an Ice Age, and many populations were very different from their numbers today.

So, what do we really have here? Some geneticists say that Whale populations used to be ten times their present numbers, so resumed Whaling is not legal, since we must wait for historic populations to regenerate. But the point of the exercise, and the Whaling law, is to return to populations that existed before Whaling began, not to numbers that existed in the last Ice Age! This is a perfect example of junk science: take a grain of truth, make a lot of noise, and hope that you drown out the voices of reason. In the best use of single interest politics, this whitewash depends upon the issue at hand being unpopular, which it certainly is. How many people really want Whaling to resume? But the fact is, especially for Minke Whales, populations are higher today than they were 200 years ago. And if people want to fish for them, the law is clear: they should be allowed to do so. But for those who believe that humans are a blight upon nature, there will never be enough Whales for a harvest to be allowed. And that't the truest fact of all.

Is Obesity Bad For You?

The quest for scientific truth in our politically correct society is one of the main points I try to illuminate in this space. What with the proliferation of sources in today's web-enhanced universe there are more and more places to which one can turn it is surprising to me that so much junk science is taken at face value, as one can read opposing points of view to almost any thesis. But some sources do such a great job of expounding and arguement that they deserve special mention. Such a source is Tech Central Station. James Glassman does such a great job ferreting out the truth that I subscribe to their newsletter, and read something from their site almost every day. Today I read a particularly lucid exposition of the junk science behind the war on the overweight.

Beginning with the quote: "The war on fat has reached the point where the systematic distortion of the evidence has become the norm, rather than the exception," Sandy Szwarc goes on to detail how and why this war continues. As per usual, as with the war against (some) drugs and other modern campaigns, this war is sustained by those who stand to continue to gain financially from the effort. "[T]he leading obesity researchers all have enormous economic stakes in seeing expanded forms of obesity treatment applied to more Americans."

Oftentimes the most knowledgeable experts are within industries. That's not always a problem. But in the case of obesity, Thomas Moore, M.D., of Boston University School of Medicine, observed, "Due to their economic interests and bias, a suppression of research antithetical to the diet industry's position exists. Research not supporting weight loss isn't funded and isn't published."

Also, as with the war against passive smokers,

Researchers and public officials were increasingly reporting not just that 300,000 deaths were linked to obesity, but suddenly caused by obesity, too. Most, like a study published in JAMA, Oct. 27, 1999, didn't actually specify what obese people were dying from. But as the author, David Allison, Ph.D., noted, "our calculations assume that all excess mortality in obese people is due to their obesity."

Sounds familiar, eh? Swarc has done a fine job of tracking down the few peer reviewed articles to support her thesis, and does it well. If you are one who believes that dieting may be more dangerous than eating well, or can't believe that Michael Jordan is obese, or just need to find out if 300,000 Americans die each year from being overweight, then you must read the entire article yourself. And, while you are at it, subscribe to the TCS newsletter as well.

All Lefties Are Not (Necessarily) Loonies

In this morning's Wall Street Journal there is an Op-Ed piece dealing with, well, let the title speak for itself, i.e. "A Moral Failure: Why did so many on the Left march to save Saddam Hussein? " In it he deals with his situation as a Leftist who supported the war against Saddam "for regime change reasons" and the failure of his colleagues to agree with him. It is not an apologia for them, it is a condemnation.

This from a man who calls The Guardian his "newspaper of choice." He tries to start out saying that the Left is committed to "democratic values and basic human rights." So, what is their excuse? Hatred of Bush, it seems, and an unwillingness to believe that anything that Bush (and the Right) might do is worthwhile. Even then he says "A person with a bad record is capable of doing good. There were some anti-Semitic rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust." Geras makes no excuse for these contemptible Lefties, who even now are in the position of supporting Saddam against those who liberated his people.

So what do we know about this Leftie who is capable of independent thought? Well, among other things, he is a recently arrived member of the blogosphere. As he puts on his blog, Normblog,

There's this global conversation going on out there: argument and counter-argument; thinking aloud; the sharing of information or just stray musings; the sharing of links, of things you want to draw to the attention of others, or merely incidents from your day, likes and dislikes, pictures, jokes, curiosities, you name it. There is, too, the letting off of steam at some damned thing you've been afflicted by in one medium or another. You could, of course, always write a letter to a newspaper - who could, of course, ignore it. Or you can blog.

I’m joining the conversation.

So, go and read Norm. Not bad. For a Leftie, not bad at all.

PFC Lynch: Survivor

I have been reading the US Army Official Report on 507th Maintenance Co.: An Nasiriyah, Iraq [.pdf] This report describes, in narrative form, the attack on an element of the U.S. Army 507th Maintenance Company by Iraqi military forces and irregulars in the city of An Nasiriyah on 23 March 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is, the "lessons learned" document from which our military planners decide what we did right, what we did wrong, and what to do differently next time. Focusing on the "activities" of our newest "hero," as the President has decreed we label PFC Jessica Lynch, it is easy to see why she survived and others died. Her formula for survival? Sit in the back seat of a HumVee, with a soldier on each side, and do nothing. One of her compatriots, PFC Patrick Miller, did exactly the opposite: refuse to surrender, shoot at the enemy, and travel 16 miles through enemy territory, killing the enemy as you go. Even though he got the Silver Star, I had never heard his name before, while "Jessie" the "hero" gets a movie and book deal. No wonder she can't remember what happened. Nothing did happen. She sat in a dark HummVee until it crashed, and then she woke up in a hospital.

Life may not be fair, but calling any captured soldier a hero, while we forget the actions of the real thing, makes me sick. Other things in the report are pretty strange as well, such as the fact that almost all of the weapoms the troops had with them failed, and the poor leadership shown by Captain Troy King. But a true hero has emerged from this action. PFC Patrick Miller, I salute you.

Conservatives for Bush?

Any reader on this page knows that I have little respect for the President's handling of domestic policy, and have argued hard against his reelection. Yet, the election is still a far piece away. In the pursuit of zero base thinking, however, I always read other points of view, and consider them. Today I read the most cogent reason to support the man:

But on the war front, he should not compromise an iota. He must do what he judges to be in the national interest, whatever the electoral effect. Not that he needs my advice on that point. He is a patriot and would gladly sacrifice his career, and even his life, on behalf of his nation's safety. That is why, as a conservative, I will vote for him, no matter what. We are damned lucky to have this man at the helm in these perilous times.

Tony Blankley makes the case well, without pulling any punches. It is hard to support a man who believes that the federal government must endlessly expand, who is setting up the greatest new entitlement since Nixon, pushes the war against (some) drugs, and can't find it in either his heart or his soul to veto anything, but a zero base thinker just has to wonder and ponder all sides of an equation, before making a final choice, on election day. There is a lot of truth to the statement, and it bears repeating, "We are damned lucky to have this man at the helm in these perilous times."

Democrats Have New Ally

At last Democrat party leaders have a new strong ally in their fight to make the American electorate believe that Bush lied: Saddam Hussein. It must be comforting to them to see that their thinking has such an important international supporter.

The whole "Bush Lied" meme has more than a little of the sound of irrelevance about it, and now the Clown of Iraq is singing the same song.

"What will the two liars Bush and Blair say to their people and to humanity? What will they tell the world? What they said was wrong and baseless," said the voice, which could not be independently confirmed as Hussein's. In an apparent reference to increasing questions about whether Bush and Blair accurately portrayed intelligence presented to them about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the voice on the tape said the two leaders have tried to "picture the situation differently and lay responsibility on others."

This heartening confirmation of the truth of their allegations puts the allies squarely in the same boat. It may be irrelevant, but it is all they think they have. Much like Whitewater, the donks hate Bush and want an issue. They have seized upon this, and are riding it for all it is worth. And like Whitewater, it is not strong enough to deter Bush voters, and will probably turn other voters in Bush's favor. Luckily for the Bush camp, they are not following more of the Clinton gameplan. Like, "It's the economy, stupid."

Same Sex Marriage

What's all the fuss about? All over the (Western) world, and soon to come to these shores, governments are allowing their civil laws covering the state of matrimony to apply to members of the same sex. Most recently, in Canada, the Ontario Appeals Court made a decision that, in combination with the federal government's refusal to challenge it, made "same-sex marriage" a fait accompli in Canada. And or course, our own Supreme Court refuses to allow legislation that regulates private sexual behavior (although they have not legalized prostitution or bigamy, and don't look like they are likely to). So the social conservatives are steaming hot over the "abandonment" by our governments of the most basic foundation of civilization, the institution of marriage. And again I ask: "What's all the fuss about?"

Marriage is a contract between two people. It has been enshrined in religious ceremony and license. It is only quite recently that governments decided to legislate the institution. In the way of governments and the nature of laws, these enactments were mostly intended to prohibit certain behaviors, but more recently, after bigamy and polyandry were prohibited, the thrust of matrimonial legislation and license was made to ensure the transfer of certain rights between the partners. Rights like the right to receive part of a pension or Social Security payments, the right to make certain medical decisions regarding the health of one's partner in times of dire need, the right to receive some of the assets and income or the other in divorce, and the right (and obligation) to participate in the lives of the offspring.

But, over time, these rights have blurred. Many, but not all, of these rights have become available to non-married people either through changing rules of society, or specifically contracted agreements between people. But not everyone executes a pre-nup, or antenuptial agreement, and not every pension plan allows marital payouts to be assigned by contract. And hospitals are wary of contractual agreements; a doctor friend of mine claims that even living wills are frequently ignored. But they will always listen to the wishes of the spouse. And that may be the most heartbreaking part of the problem. My wife could have the hospital pull the plug on me, should the need arise, but if I were gay, my partner could only watch me suffer, until the insurance money ran out.

My marriage is a legally standard one, but it really is a deal between me and my wife, with a side order of kids. I can not imagine that, after the novelty wears off, that many gays will want the same deal. But if they do, I can't see a logically compelling reason to deny them the legal protection that we enjoy. And if they can find or establish a church that will bless their union, God bless them as well.

(You can check out the opposite view, at davidwarrenonline.com - Essays On Our Times.)

Ridge Goes After Porn

Tom Ridge, Director of the Department of Homeland Security, has announced that he will use "all means possible" to prosecute pornographers, especially child porn vendors. Now, I have no love for those who pursue child pornography. But I hope that I won't be alone with this "I told you so." We establish this new uber-agency to go after terrorists, give them new powers and a new budget, almost unlimited resources, and they target Pornography?

I don't dispute that ensuring that those aliens who finish their sentences are actually deported is a valuable law enforcement function for the immigration authorities, but every other process that Ridge announced for this new initiative is already covered by an existing program. Their new database of pornography, which they are building with an eye to "rescuing the children" is already an initiative of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the FBI has been involved in the crusade against pornigraphers for decades, with such great prosecutions as those against Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, and Harry Reems already to their credit. It seems to me that the reason that the FBI was kept out of the Department of Homeland Security in the first place was so that the Department could keep its focus. It didn't take them long to revert to type.

I watched a fair amount of the debate in Congress over the formation of the Department, and read quite a lot. Ensuring their focus was a paramount concern for many, before they were granted these new powers. But it is the nature of bureaucracies to expand their area of operations and increase their budgets. And I can hardly fault Ridge for picking kiddie porn as his first target... it is simply a brilliant choice. Who, after all, is not against Kiddie porn? As with violence against women and drunk driving, bureaucrats always pick issues where there is no opposition when they seek to maneuver an end-around the Congress or the Constitution. Do not be fooled. Just as with the Violence Against Women Act and drunk driving checkpoints, you don't need to be in favor of the criminals to see the creation of a bad law or precedent-setting court decision. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking usually puts you in the minority.

On this one, we shall see soon enough whether there is an outcry or not, since this news just broke. We shall see.