Apple's Safari web browser will soon come equipped with a tabbed browsing feature, "Think Secret has confirmed":http://thinksecret.com/news/safaritabbedbrowsing.html. New pre-release betas that are being tested include this capability, one of the most anticipated additions to the popular upstart browser.

This will make a great browser superb I can hardly wait.

Posted by Norm at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It began quietly enough two weeks ago when the first SUV was found on its side. "I had just finished breakfast," said Mike. I was going to take my daughter to school no way I'm going to have her walk the block and a half, temperatures in the forties, terrorists, well you understand. I had left the car in the driveway, who wouldn't, a new Explorer. I wanted the neighbors to see how much I love my family. I came out the front door and there it was sitting on its side. I can tell you I was shocked. I've never seen anything like it. I called the police they figure it was just a prank by some homesick farm boys, no cows in Glendale you see. They called the tow truck they had it upright in no time, but I sure do hate the scratches on the side. I want to find the bastards that did this. Like I said that was just the beginning in the past week the "fad" has swept the nation. SUV owners across the country have come out of their homes, grocery stores only to find their SUV on their sides. Mabel Smith of Chicago, said I parked my Escalade in the same two parking spaces I always use, and when I returned from shopping there it was lying on its side. I have friends that have had the same thing happen to them and it’s not funny. Some in the country are taking it much more seriously. John Ashcroft is said to be investigating possible terrorist ties. Arianna Huffington hasn't been seen since Monday, her friends are worried. The president has said this has got to stop. Our nation is at war. Our citizens have to be able to get to work. It all started in California and has now reached Washington D.C. I tipped a cow or two in my time, damn fun I must say, said the President, but there are no cows in our cities. It was a coming of age thing for me but we're talking about SUVs. Our nation relies on these vehicles; our military relies on these vehicles. Conspiracy theorists are certain that if not organized by terrorists it was certainly inspired by them. Homeland Security director Tom Ridge is now driving an orange Trail Blazer he suggests using duct-tape to attach your SUV to a nearby tree or post but it hasn’t worked. The vehicles ended up on their sides in spite of the effort and the tape often removed paint from the body. Many in government had just laughed at the first tippings but now they are becoming victims. Karl Rove's wife was trapped in their SUV on the Maryland Parkway for three hours. I was just sitting there she said. Traffic had come to a stop and all of sudden I was on my side. I was buckled in so I wasn't injured but it scared the hell out of me. John Ashcroft went berserk when he found both his Explorer and Navigator on their sides in his driveway. Enemy combatants, he said. I catch the bastards that did this and they're mine. If they're Americans I'll strip them of their citizenship. Dubya worried about the coming war. We don't know if there are tippers in Iraq, but I've ordered the manufacturer of Hummers to put additional stabilizing bars in any Hummers destined for the war. The current theory is that the anti-war movement is responsible, damming evidence uncovered today confirmed that all the tipped cars came to rest on their right side. How else do you explain that said Ashcroft. Today as suddenly as it began it stopped. Arianna returned home, confused and tired. The investigations are continuing and the President requests all Americans to remain observant If you see anything out of the ordinary just dial 1 800 NEW TIPS. Update: The Wall Street Journal confirmed today that the market for SUVs has collapsed. Americans are unwilling to take a chance on SUVs. Sales of Hybrids are booming. Detroit has vowed to modify designs across their model line creating more stable fuel-efficient cars. Who would have thought something as seemingly harmless as SUV tipping could transform our nation

Posted by Norm at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Those that react to criticism of _________ with why don't you criticize _________ are the same ones that upon receiving a traffic ticket ask the officer why he didn't give the other guy a ticket too. Here are a couple to get you started Bush - Saddam Israel (Palestine) - France (The Ivory Coast)

Posted by Norm at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"...I very well know that in many minds 'criticism' has today become an ugly word. It has become almost lese majesté. It conjures up pictures of insidious radicals hacking away at the very foundations of the American way of life. It suggests nonconformity and nonconformity suggests disloyalty and disloyalty suggests treason, and before we know where we are, this process has all but identified the critic with the saboteur and turned political criticism into an un-American activity instead of democracy's greatest safeguard."—Adlai Stevenson "via (thanks Mark)":http://www.cheap-date.org/

Posted by Norm at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you listen to an audio book are you reading it. I mean if someone asks have you read Harlan Coben's "Gone For Good" and you listened to it read by Dylan Baker as I did do you say oh yes I've read that or do you say you've listened to it. Do you volunteer that although it took five hours to listen to it that it was an abridged version, authorized by the author. Does that make a difference. If you listen to John Grisham's latest "King of Torts" and although it almost put you to sleep not a good thing to happen driving at 75 miles per hour on I-15 do you claim to have read that boring excuse for a story. Do you assume because this too was abridged that they simply left out all the good parts and that accounts for this slow-paced entirely predictable bit of tripe, that the abridgement just went terribly wrong, or do you conclude as I did that you were indeed fortunate that it was abridged, that the added words would have more superfluous fluff that would have made it even more boring and perhaps led to your death, a sleepy driver rollover. If you keep a list of books you've read do these two make the list, or do you simply write it off as entertainment a mere notch above talk radio. I'd really like to know. You help me I'll help you. I'll give you a brief review of the books you answer my questions. Do we have a deal? I've read several books by Harlan Coben, but it's been several years. I recall that he usually writes about some overpaid sports star the protagonist an agent that has to solve some crisis or another. This book was different. The story is about brothers one of which has been gone for 11 years accused of strangling a young woman. The first half of the book was amusing, suspenseful, and was improved by some original metaphors. You'll have to read the book to get them. My memory is not up to that sort of recollection and I don't have the book and I'm not going to listen to it again. Take my word for it. The second half however was grist for a course in cliches 101. A key turned in the lock, a phrase that was intended to jack up the tension repeated five or six times in the story. It didn't. The story was good plenty of fun twists and turns and kept my interest in spite of the cliches. I give it a two on my scale of 1-5. John Grisham on the other hand gets a minus one, what a piece of crap. I read "The Firm" and "Pelican Brief" both decent reads. "The King of Torts" however was stupid and boring. The nasty pharmaceuticals did exactly the same things we read about every day. Grisham's imagination is bereft of any inspiration. The best he could do was create a drug that, oops I almost spoiled the story for someone, though I could make the case I'd be doing them a favor. I'll admit when the King gets really really rich I imagined how I'd spend all that money, but a lottery fantasy only goes so far. The protagonist was totally unsympathetic and even the love story didn't work. I couldn't believe it when they got back together. Hey babe you got a loser. I found myself wishing him ill, and knowing that when redemption came it would be just as pitiful as the rest of the story. It was.

Posted by Norm at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The ruling view is the view of those who run the show By Stephen Gowans History, it is understood wrongly, is a chronicle of battles and wars and statecraft and diplomacy. A parade of kings, dictators, princes, generals, captains of industry, and emperors march across the pages of history books -- the "great men" of history who led armies, performed great deeds, and conquered nations. Rare is a history told from the other side, from the perspectives of peasants and factory workers, slaves and the conquered, conscripts and servants. When Howard Zinn wrote "A People's History of the United States," he turned history on its head, telling "the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees...of the postwar American empire as seen by the peons in Latin America." It was, remarked reviewers, an inversion of history as it's normally recounted. But for every people's history, there a thousands of histories told from the viewpoint of those on top. The news, or what is sometimes called "history on the run," is much the same. It too is presented from the standpoint of leaders and generals, conquerors and victors, and their indispensable servants -- experts. Rare are inversions, where stories are told from the eyes of the conquered, the exploited, the poor. Last week I read a story of how affluent Venezuelans are arming themselves, fearful that the poor from the barrios will spill into their comfortable enclaves and dispossess them of their comforts. Indeed, much of what I read of Venezuela is presented from the standpoint of those at the top: the business leaders, the owners of the media, the leaders of labor unions (whose unions receive funding from the US.) But there's another story, untold, of the nameless, faceless poor of Venezuela, who live in squalor. These are the people the comfortable have taken to arming themselves against. We don't hear from them, or of how widespread poverty exists alongside incredible oil wealth, and why this is so. And there's much else we hear too little of: Of ordinary Zimbabweans, and how their hopes for land reform have been dashed by a London that is trying to resurrect the idea of colonialism. Instead, we hear of Mugabe, and white farmers, the latter of whom we're led to believe run small, single-family farms, that grow produce for domestic consumption. They are operators of vast farms, that employ hundreds, and produce cash crops for export. We hear too little of the lives of Palestinians, and how brutal the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory is. Instead, we hear of Sharon, and how he says he's willing to make painful concessions. We hear of suicide bombers and their Israeli victims, but not of what drives young men and women to detonate bombs strapped to their bodies. We're led to believe religious fanaticism and the irrational hatred of Jews is at the root of these atrocities. But it's dispossession, the encroachment of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, the brutality of the Israeli army, Tel Aviv's intransigence, and a thousand and one daily humiliations that make people lash bombs to their chests. We heard too little of the Afghans who were terrorized by American bombs. The media has exercised care not to go too far. A peevish edict was issued at CNN: Scenes of suffering in Afghanistan were to be accompanied by a reminder: 3,000 died on September 11. The edict seemed to say that an atrocity suffered is a license to commit atrocities against the innocent. We hear too little of what becomes of countries after they are "liberated" by the United States, and delivered into the hands of the IMF and the World Bank and governments whose members are hand-picked by Washington. So too will we hear too little of Iraqis and the sheer terror, and unspeakable suffering, the United States, Britain, and a coterie of pusillanimous tag alongs will inflict upon them in the weeks to come. Instead, the deaths will be noted, and then blamed on Saddam. He could have disarmed. He could have gone into exile. He used his own people as human shields. This will be said because the White House and the State Department and the Pentagon will say it, and newspaper columnists will repeat it, because the White House and the State Department and the Pentagon said it. MediaLens, a group that scrutinizes the British media, asked various newspapers why their coverage of Iraq is dominated by the views of the Prime Minister and his cabinet, while dissenting voices are marginalized. The answer: the government is running the show; the dissenters aren't. By this reasoning, the role of the media is to act as an instrument for disseminating the views of those in charge, (because they are the views of those in charge), while giving scant coverage to the dissenting views of those who aren't in charge, (because they aren't in charge.) Newsworthiness is to be decided by the extent to which one is exploiter versus exploited, oppressor versus oppressed, conqueror versus conquered. That this guarantees the media will be indistinguishable from the state-run media of Communist countries that the misnamed "free" press used to complain about freely, should be obvious to any intelligent 13-year old, but will be lost upon editors and media owners. But dumbness, if it serves the interests of those in charge, has a certain survival value. By comparison, the voices of the exploited, the enslaved, the conquered have no survival value in an evolutionary system driven by a single test: Does it serve the interests of those who run the show? And so their voices aren't heard. This is not entirely lost on the media. An editorial cartoon, clipped from my local newspaper, evinces a rare self-insight. A large, overfed man -- "media" is written across his back -- leans over an emaciated child, dressed in filthy rags. "Listen kid," he says, "if you want to me to report what appears to be a famine crisis here in Ethiopia, you're going to have to convince George Bush to declare hunger as part of the axis of evil." http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/ruling.html

Posted by Norm at 10:54 PM | Permalink

Ocean Colour Scene Profit In Peace All the people under broken homes Dont wanna fight no more All the people nursing shattered bones Dont wanna fight no more But theres no profit in peace So we've gotta fight some more And all these who are in foreign lands Dont wanna fight no more And all those those lost their feet or hands Dont wanna fight no more But there's no profit in peace boys We gotta fight some more Hey we dont fight no more Hey, Hey, Hey, We dont wanna fight no more But theres no profit in peace So we gotta fight some more And all those just trying toplay their part Dont wanna fight no more And all those who own a human heart Dont wanna fight no more But there's no profit in what you want So we must fight some more And all those who got an axe to grind down Dont wanna fight no more And all those who got their burning lives Dont wanna fight no more But theres no profit in ever being right So we must fight some more Chorus And all the people under broken homes Dont wanna fight no more All the people nursing shattered bones Dont wanna fight no more But there is profit in the land you own So we must fight some more And all those who got a tired face Dont wanna fight no more And all those who are lost without a trace Dont wanna fight no more But there is profit in the love of hate So we must fight some more

Posted by Norm at 8:37 PM | Permalink

I missed Bill Maher's debut on HBO last Friday a trip to Yuma Arizona intervened temperatures in the mid-seventies, lovely. I arrived home last night and caught the re-broadcast of the program. The verdict, I was disappointed. The timing was all off, perhaps he'll get it together as the series progresses otherwise expect a quick end to this program. He did have Ann Coulter as a guest, always amusing. Ann's new book " Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism" a sequel to "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right" There is a rumored third book in the works making it a trilogy the working title is "Ann Coulter: Liberal With The Bullshit" Ann was immediately attacked for accusing one and all of treason. Not true pleads Ann that’s not what I said that’s not what I wrote, can't anyone read anymore. She did acknowledge the peace marchers were not guilty of treason, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that nobody is going to arrest them for treason, she did equivocate a bit. She seemed especially pleased when she brought out her heavy guns. She twisted her head rearranging her long golden strands and defending a statement from the book said, I do stand by, I still stand by my statement that those opposed to the missile defense shield are guilty of treason and furthermore though I've given this example of treason many times no one NO ONE has given a satisfactory explanation as to why I'm wrong. It's simple, she said they are opposed to defending America and that is treason. Bill Maher at this point smiled and said,"an explanation an explanation because it doesn't fucking work". A great sound bite for sure. I imagined I was on the show and got to follow up on the topic. Ann darling, I said. Let me get this straight are you trying to say that if I oppose any defensive or offensive weapon system Dubya suggests or deploys I'm guilty of treason. There you go she says misquoting me again. I said that if you weren't in favor of defending our country you are guilty of treason. Ann we have limited resources (she looks smug but puzzled) Choosing how to defend ourselves balancing our need for defense against other pressing needs is called decision making. To disagree with how the Presidents spends or proposes to spend is called democratic free speech. That's good Ann. It's a question of getting the most bang (Ann giggles) for our buck (giggles again). That's buck not butt Ann. It's Reason Ann, not Treason, got it. Statements attributed to Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are accurate in their essentials though not verbatim.

Posted by Norm at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross."—Dwight D. Eisenhower Speech given in 1953 at the end of the Korean War

Posted by Norm at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time...I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing." --President Dwight Eisenhower, 1953, upon being presented with plans to wage preventive war to disarm Stalin's Soviet Union

Posted by Norm at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Have you ever looked at your referrals and the search words that spawned them and wanted to answer the questions they posed. It happens to me all the time. What am I talking about, well let me show you. Here are some recent search terms here at onegoodmove and my answers. # black sounding names — Black, Blackham, Blackburn # You deserve a break today —Thanks # empty warhead —That’s an easy one, Dubya # 100,000 body bags —too many I hope # I hate SUVs —Me too # logical fallacies in the news —Just read or watch you'll see plenty, right-wing sources excel at this # Search and Destroy Vietnam War —Better yet lets search for and destroy the Iraq war before it starts # you deserve a break today —Yeah everyone is telling me that, do I seem stressed? # false dilemma fallacy —You are either with us or you're against us. —G.W. Bush # needed to pee —We all do from time to time # The Ugly American —Dubya again # Ari Fleischer is a liar —Yes so tell me something i didn't know # you deserve a break today # you deserve a break today —Alright I'll take a fucking break I'm leaving for few days we'll be visiting my wife's Dad in Yuma Arizona. Posting will be sporadic or non-existent until Wednesday next.

Posted by Norm at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

There has been more than a little French Bashing going on during the past month. Time for a little balance. Here is the link to Molly Ivins latest

As our coaches used to say, "OK, people, settle down and listen up." We have been enjoying a lovely little spate of French-bashing here lately. Jonah Goldberg of The National Review, who admits that French-bashing is "shtick" -- as it is to many American comedians -- has popularized the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" to describe the French. It gets a lot less attractive than that. George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried." That was certainly amusing. One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Hitler. On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny. In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly.

and here an interview with Jacque Chirac presenting the French view on Iraq.

"France Is Not a Pacifist Country" The target of U.S. scorn, France's Jacques Chirac tells TIME's James Graff and Bruce Crumley of his objection to war and his love of American junk food

update: A warburger and some freedom fries please The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," a culinary rebuke of France, stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq. This is Simply too Stupid.

Posted by Norm at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

If you don't understand the idea of regression to the mean you are much more likely to make thinking errors that will cause you great difficulties. Here are some links to definitions and some examples that will make it all clear. regression and the regressive fallacy

The regressive fallacy is the failure to take into account natural and inevitable fluctuations of things when ascribing causes to them (Gilovich 1993, 26). Things like stock market prices, golf scores, and chronic back pain inevitably fluctuate. Periods of low prices, low scores, and little or no pain are eventually followed by periods of higher prices, scores, pain, etc. To ignore these natural fluctuations and tendencies leads to self-deception regarding their causes and to post hoc reasoning. For example, a professional golfer with chronic back pain or arthritis might try a copper bracelet on his wrist or magnetic insoles in his shoes. He is likely to try such gizmos when he is not playing or feeling well. He notices that his scores are improving and his pain is diminishing or gone. He concludes that the copper bracelet or the magnetic insole is the cause. It never dawns on him that the scores and the pain are probably improving due to natural and expected fluctuations. Nor does it occur to him that he could check a record of all his golf scores before he used the gizmo and see if the same kind of pattern has occurred frequently in the past. If he takes his average score as a base, most likely he would find that after a very low score he tended to shoot not a lower score but a higher score in the direction of his average. Likewise, he would find that after a very high score, he did not tend to shoot a higher score but rather would shoot a lower score in the direction of his average.

and from this article one of my favorite examples of the regressive fallacy Do You Sabotage Yourself?

Kahneman captured his first great insight by observing his own students. In the late 1960s, he was teaching a class on the psychology of training to flight instructors in the Israeli air force. Concerned at how the instructors screamed obscenities and pummeled trainees' helmets until they cried, Kahneman told his class that research on pigeons showed reward to be a better motivator than punishment. One flight instructor burst out, "With all due respect, sir, what you're saying is for the birds." He heatedly told Kahneman that trainees almost always did worse on their next flight if they'd been praised--and tended to fly better just after getting yelled at. Kahneman was dumbstruck. He realized he was staring into the face of a profound misperception: The flight instructor believed that his own praise or criticism caused the trainee's performance to reverse. In reality, Kahneman knew, chance alone dictates that an unusually good or bad event is typically followed by a much more ordinary one--what statisticians call "regression to the mean."

Still want more? From Fallacy Files Weblog

Posted by Norm at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

"For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture."—Francis Bacon

Posted by Norm at 9:51 AM | Permalink

I often receive interesting comments on old posts, alas I'm the only one who knows they're there except for an occasional search engine hit. As soon as I figure out Now that I have figured out Shelleys instructions on how to add recent comments I will have solved that problem. In January of 2002 I posted the following quotation, one of my favorites. "It is more convenient to follow one's conscience than one's intelligence, for at every failure, conscience finds an excuse and an encouragement in itself. That is why there are so many conscientious and so few intelligent people."— Nietzsche Today someone posted two anonymous comments, a good reason for allowing them, that I found quite amusing.

Since I still am hiding in the bunker can anybdoy explain who all these people are...other than you all...see I am like a Proust novel...in this case Le Prisoner, except I wont know when I am actually biting into the mint. That should all bring you to a screeching halt...well except Collins who is looking for the appropiate quote...Kirkkegard, Wittgenstein, Babe Winklemann. First of all Marcel Proust was nothing but a Romain Rolland wannabe...his writing style was a 19th century version of Chicken Soup for the Soul, but written with three and a half million words. Secondly, Wittgenstein, while an accomplished philosopher, was certainly no Soren Kierkegaard. It is easy to lump Wittgenstein into the philosophical "rat pack" (if you will allow me the analogy), where Kierkegaard (Martin), Nietzsche (Sinatra), Wittgenstein (Sammy), Adorno (Bishop), and Derrida (Lawford) act as gadflies to create a counterculture of heretical philosophy where they could only say what they meant by abandoning the conventional wisdom of the day and inventing a whole new irreverent form of writing through the use of humor, satire, and parody (all generally regarded as deconstructive techniques) in order to make the accepted forms of wisdom and value untenable. Kierkegaard had (in my opinion) a far more profound impact on modern day (not to be confused with postmodernism) philosophy than did messrs. Wittgenstein & Winkelman (although The Babe wins hands down in the shore lunch department). As proof of this postulate (redundant), I draw to your attention the fact that Wittgenstein was reduced to a mere caricature of himself (which some may argue was the ultimate homage, but I digress) where he appears as a fictional character in numerous writings following his death. His significance is inflated by the mystical adventures of the fictional character Wittgenstein and his encounters with evil foe the likes of Mothra and The Wolfman. In closing, I will leave you with the words of our good friend Sinatra (well...our Sinatra character in our humor-laden rhetorical hypothetical theoretical satirical paradoxical pack of rats)...It is more convenient to follow one's conscience than one's intelligence, for at every failure, conscience finds an excuse and an encouragement in itself. That is why there are so many conscientious and so few intelligent people.

Posted by Norm at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (2)

Liberal Oasis right on target as usual.

First of all, you know, size of protest, it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy *based upon a focus group.* The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security -- in this case, the security of the people. -- George W. Bush, on antiwar protests, 2/18/03 As we roll out the broader communications strategy, [we] have done quite a bit of work with professionals around the country -- *who include focus groups* -- as a way to communicate the message that really helps people feel empowered and educated rather than alarmed. -- Tom Ridge, on homeland security, 2/14/03 [emphasis added in both] Ah, sweet hypocrisy. The mother’s milk of Republican politics.

Posted by Norm at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Too Much of a Good Thing by George Monbiot from The Guardian

Underlying the US drive to war is the need to open up new opportunities for surplus capital

In a series of packed lectures in Oxford, Professor David Harvey, one of the world's most distinguished geographers, has provided what may be the first comprehensive explanation of the US government's determination to go to war. His analysis suggests that it has little to do Iraq, less to do with weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with helping the oppressed.

The underlying problem the United States confronts is the one which periodically afflicts all successful economies: the over-accumulation of capital. Excessive production of any good -- be it cars or shoes or bananas -- means that, unless new markets can be found, the price of that product falls and profits collapse. Just as it was in the early 1930s, the US is suffering from surpluses of commodities, manufactured products, manufacturing capacity and money. Just as it was then, it is also faced with a surplus of labour, yet the two surpluses, as before, cannot be profitably matched. This problem has been developing in the US since 1973. It has now tried every available means of solving it and, by doing so, maintaining its global dominance. The only remaining, politically viable option is war.

This makes sense to me as one of the reasons for our actions. I would be interested if the economists agree.

Posted by Norm at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I like Molly Ivins, she's smart, she can criticize without seeming smug or making snide remarks. Here don't take my word for it check out a current interview by Salon writer Laura McClure. I like Molly so much that when I saw some smug, snide criticizm of her in my local paper, the Salt Lake Tribune, I had to respond.

Direct Descendant Stephen Nielson (Forum, Feb. 7) thinks that columnist Molly Ivins would accuse President Bush of causing the extinction of the dinosaurs and the fall of Rome. That's just silly, though I'm sure the president is a direct descendant of whoever did.

NORM JENSON Sandy...

Posted by Norm at 1:05 PM | Permalink

Pejman Pundit, is feeling picked on. Here is part of a post that accuses me of terrible sins. He believes he's been victimized.

I've been attacked and victimized in some of the most inane and childish ways possible by people who hold differing views. Don't believe me? Check out www.pejmanpundit.com, www.pejmanpundit.org, and www.pejmanpundit.net, and you will be directed to a site where the domain names are parked. Scroll down and check the availability of those domain names, and you will find that they are registered by a lefty blogger with whom I have tangled in the past, and who apparently believes that the only way to win an argument with me is to try to take away my soapbox when and if I ever move to my own domain server, or at the very least, to make the import of my soapbox to my own server as difficult and inconvenient as possible. It is surely tempting to retaliate against this kind of mindless and nonsensical behavior, and needless to say, legal options remain open for me due to provisions against cybersquatting.

But if that retaliation spreads to the point where you inundate people with whom you disagree with hatemail, or to the point where someone takes out a website called "NormJensonSucks.com," then remember that you are descending to their level. It's been said before, but it deserves to be said again that you should never engage in an argument with an idiot. The idiot drags you down to his own level, and wins because of long years of experience in his chosen intellectual station.

The fact that they are parked and haven't been used should tell you something. I originally purchased them for two reasons . One I was considering putting up a parody site which I decided against. The other, I thought it would be amusing when he attempted to get them and found I had them. My intent was to make a gift of them to him which in spite of his recent post I would still be happy to do. He could have easily discovered my motives by simply emailing me in private. He didn't. Instead he mounted his soapbox and engaged in his standard hyperbole. It is as pathetic as it is amusing. Pej is just seeing a part of himself in me. It's not there. So yes Pej I'll make it just as difficult and inconvienent as possible if you want them just ask my gift to you.

update: Pej in the comments to his post now says that "I just went and got myself a better domain name long ago" The statement does tend to undermine his claims of my making it difficult and inconvenient for him to move to his own server, or for the possibility of exercising his legal options. I checked though he didn't get a better domain name, asshole.com was already taken.

correction to update: I was close but I was wrong it wasn't asshole.com that he wanted but rather conservativeasshole.com, conservative asshole a name given to him by Atrios which Pej says "I wear as a badge of honor" It's still available Pej, but let me suggest you also register conservativeassholesucks.com you wouldn't want anyone to co-opt your message.

Posted by Norm at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Security Chief May Lower Security Warning

Washington D.C.—The head of U.S. Homeland Security Tom Ridge said today the alert system warning currently at orange could be lowered in the coming days. The level of unbridled free speech having decreased. Some are still speaking freely and there is reason enough to maintain the orange alert for a day or two longer. The administration put the country on the higher alert level more than a week ago when specific warnings of civil disobedience surfaced in the New York area in response to court orders forbidding demonstrations. Citizen have been urged to stock up on supplies particularly duct tape and to keep the tape on their person. Duct tape is know to an effective way to stifle unwanted speech when placed over the speakers mouth.

Posted by Norm at 8:38 PM | Permalink

I just finished reading Dating Can Be Murder a Samantha Shaw Mystery by Jennifer Apodaca recommended by another mystery reader that knows I enjoy Evanovich. If you like the spunky gal genre of mystery you'll like this. It is not of the same quality as Janet Evanovich, or the early Sue Grafton, or even Sara Paretsky, but it was a decent read. It had its moments as they say, and those women who read romances will find it to their liking. A soccer mom who discovers her dead husband was a rat, and his past is going to threaten both her and her family creates the tension and is the catalyst for her personal transformation. Most of the characters were just fair, but a dog named Ali was dynamite. Why read a book like this. It passes the time like a mindless television program and without the ads, and besides I learned the rules to a game called Bunko. I give it a two on a 1-5 scale but that may be stretching it. Well now that is out of the way I can get back to Updikes Seek My Face. All the war talk, alerts, and nasty politics are wearing me out.

Posted by Norm at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Oh my God Tony, the thought of war makes me so hot!

via Mirror.co.uk

Posted by Norm at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Why is it that some are so predisposed to Black and White Thinking? They see every argument, every discussion, as a zero sum game. Where criticism of Bush is praise of Saddam. Believe it or not there can be two good guys, or two bad guys, or a good guy and a bad guy, or one that is mostly bad but has some good and another who is mostly good but has some bad. In fact there are an infinite number of variations on this theme, but some only see two, black and white.

I've been carrying on a conversation with Deb both through posts and emails and we disagree on the subject of the war, and of course there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is that Deb constantly frames questions as Black and White here is the latest example which she thoughtfully labeled One Last Thing. What follows are her words followed by my comments:

On that point you made about "not giving Saddam more credit" than Bush, well what do you call accusing Bush of withholding support from the UN inspectors?

I call it accusing Bush of withholding support from the U.N. inspectors. Section 10 of U.N. resolution 1441 follows:

10. Requests all Member States to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information related to prohibited programmes or other aspects of their mandates, including on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items, and by recommending sites to be inspected, persons to be interviewed, conditions of such interviews, and data to be collected, the results of which shall be reported to the Council by UNMOVIC and the IAEA;

I don't think the U.S. has given the inspectors full support so I criticize that. Follow the link you'll find some more names to add to the list of those "giving Saddam more credit than Bush" must be some sort of conspiracy.

I suppose you are accusing him, or the CIA (as is the latest leftist fashion) of obstruction then?

Yep

I see, but Saddam is NOT obstructing?

No Saddam is obstructing too.

It's a MOOT POINT. Even if we were withholding intelligence, it is Saddam's obligation to TURN OVER weapons voluntarily, period.

Saddam has obligations to turn over weapons that's right he is required to meet his obligations, that doesn't excuse us from our obligations.

Even if we had zero intelligence, it is not our job to go find it before deciding someone who is already in material breach is, in fact, still in material breach! Read 1441 will you!

Whether he is in material breach or not I think it wise to continue with inspections as long as progress is being made.

Saddam started out guilty, we did not.

True

Therefore, and because of the specific obligations he had, that we did not, the standards by which you should be evaluating his performance vs. ours are much much stricter.

It is true he has many more obligations under the resolution and he should meet his obligations. We should also meet ours.

Still, you seem to see the two as equivalent--that we had
just as much of an obligation to "help" inspectors uncover his lying as he had to tell the truth.
HORSE SHIT.

No I don't see them as equivalent. His are far more serious, but they are both obligations. He is responsible to meet his obligations and we are responsible to meet ours.

Every time you put the blame on the US for not proving something. Every time you accuse Bush or any member of his administration or intelligence community of obfuscation or obstruction, you are blaming the wrong person for the failure of inspections

No I'm not. I'm not blaming the US for not proving something I'm saying that we should meet our obligations under the resolution. I'm blaming Saddam for his part of that failure and us for our part in that failure, and before you come unglued. Our failure pales along side his.

and that is exactly what I was talking about when I said you gave Saddam more credit than Bush.

Criticising Bush or criticizing the United States does not give Saddam credit for anything. It simply criticizes Bush or the United States. They are not connected in the way she implies they do. It is not Black or White it is not a zero sum game and your attempt to make it so is simply wrong.
It would be nice to understand how otherwise intelligent people make such a fundamental error in reasoning. I have a theory in this particular case. It has to do with the link they make between the two, now instead of analyzing them objectively, seperately, they view them in terms of each other. So if Saddam is evil and George is a saint they like that because the distance between them is great. They feel it strengthens the case against Saddam. It doesn't. On the other hand if one points to flaws in Bush then though Saddam hasn't changed he doesn't look as bad in comparison in their minds. So it is this faulty linking that creates the problem. Understanding that is the key to where they are going wrong. That's how I see it. What do you think?

Posted by Norm at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Two arguments to consider on the eve of war.

My Enemy's Enemy

A powerful reason to Doubt Powell

Posted by Norm at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Vinny recently slighted me. He didn't do it intentionally in fact I don't think he even knew I would take it as a slight. But Vinny indirectly conferred the title of Bush Basher on someone else. I've been trying all year long to convince the world that I don't like George W. and I've engaged in a very regular schedule of Bush Bashing. I respect the office of the President it is just the current occupant I take exception to. So I dedicate this decidedly Bush Bashing post to Vinny.

Bush is like a modem without a serial cable. He pings and pongs and boings and screeches, but he never seems to connect.

Well how did I do Vinny, is that Bush Bashing enough? Did I improve my ranking?

Posted by Norm at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

A few days ago I posted Questions and Answers, the post resulted from an exchange I had with Deb both on her site and through the exchange of emails. She asked that I answer a few questions. The questions and my answers are the topic of the post. I sent her the link and later asked if she'd received it. She replied, " Yes, I did, and I read your answers. I'm still thinking them over though, so I'll refrain from comment until I have time to say something remotely intelligent. Thanks for attempting it, few others have"

Today, I noticed I was getting a few referrals from a comment at Cold Fury. Interesting how many of these Warblogger sites have angry names. Anyway, my interest peeked I followed the links the post was:

You want answers? Here you go

For what it's worth, here are my answers to the questions directed at us pro-war folks in NZ Bear's and Stand Down's Cross-Blog Iraq Debate.

It was similar to my exchange with Deb in that it was a question answer format. An interesting discussion by the way. The referral link was in the comments to the post so I started reading the comments and found the following by Deb:

Great post. I feel like I've read three or four of these in the past week, and yet I haven't seen ONE that actually did the job well coming back the other way. One guy tore me apart on my site and through e-mail, and then posted questions I'd asked him on his site, presumably with "answers."

Well, I've read it several times, and I still can't make heads or tails of it--certainly found no "answers" that weren't just deflections that's for sure. Maybe you can find them?

Good job!

Posted by Deb at February 12, 2003 03:36 PM

Much of the comment it seems has to do with her conversation with me. I'm puzzled by the comment though, "presumably answered" she writes, now presumably in this context I assume means probably, but that makes it more confusing. She said in reply to the earlier email that she had read the answers. Now I presumably answered them. Either I answered the questions or I didn't. She may not think I answered them well or that my answers missed the point entirely or any number of possible descriptions of the "answers". She makes no specific statements about individual answers, perhaps that is yet to come, but what the hell does presumably answered mean. If I just take it at face value it means I probably answered them. But no she later clarifies what she means when she says "she found no answers that weren't just deflections." So she found the answers but they were a special class of answers, not presumed answers but deflections. What does that mean? Will she explain? She did invite her friends at Cold Fury to see if they can find them. Find what, the deflections or the answers that were deflections or that there were no answers just deflections. Confusing isn't it? Deb claims she is "a stickler for language" So does it mean that deflections are presumably answers or am I just being unfair, a stickler for language.

Posted by Norm at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Liberal Oasis has the goods on Colin Powell the newest member of the Axis of Liars!

First, it appeared that Colin Powell was the only sane member of the Administration, just chronically submissive.

Then, as he gradually moved to the attack-Iraq camp, his stature and savvy painted him an enlightened realist -- doing his best to buttress the UN, maintain our alliances, while dealing with Saddam.

Today, following his comments about the bin Laden tape, it is clear what Powell really is.

A manipulative liar.

A fake.

A phony.

With blood on his hands.

Just like the lot of them.

He sealed his place in the annals of prevarication once he used the bin Laden tape to back up last week’s suspect assertions of a Saddam-Osama connection.

When the exact opposite was proven.

update: Here is a link to the transcript.

Posted by Norm at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

The Beast is back with the 50 MOST RIDICULOUS THINGS ABOUT THE UPCOMING WAR IN IRAQ!

1. WE'RE ALL CRAZY, VOL. 1: a Gallup Poll conducted in August, 2002 found that 53% of Americans actually believe that "Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks."
2. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR OF FOX NEWS MAKES: a poll conducted about a year earlier by the same agency found that only 3% of Americans considered Saddam Hussein a primary suspect. ...

Posted by Norm at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

What a wonderful resource the Internet is. I posted a remembrance of my Uncle Merle Borrowman sometime ago and as a result met Debra who was kind enough to leave a comment relating how she had the opportunity in the 70's to hear my uncle speak. She is also sending me a copy of the cover of the program for that engagement, wow. I was gratified when Debra left kind words about this site and she recommended a couple of her favorite links Take Back The Media and Democratic Underground which she finds entertaining. She even expressed her opinion of our so called leader by way of the following quotation and a gem it is:

"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid"—Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Thanks Debra

Posted by Norm at 8:38 PM | Permalink

AMERICA ORDERS 100,000 BODY BAGS

UP to 100,000 body bags and 6,000 coffins have been secretly delivered to a US base in Italy, a Catholic archbishop claimed yesterday. continued

So now we know what the adminsistration considers a worst case scenario.

via Interesting Monstah

Posted by Norm at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Crawford Texas —Vandals Tear Down 'George Bush' Fence Post

Workers from the RNC today repaired a fence near the Presidents Crawford Texas Ranch. Vandals had torn down a fence post which loyal Republicans had been visiting because they believed it appears as a likeness of the President. For more than a year now loyal Republicans have been making the pilgrimage to a point North of the Presidents Ranch, about 500 feet from a wooden fence which, when viewed at certain times of the day through squinted eyes appears to bear a striking resemblance to the President. John Ashcroft said the Justice Department is actively investigating the defacement.

Posted by Norm at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dude! The actor who gained fame and a cult following as the slacker "Steven" in commercials for Dell computers was arrested buying a small bag of marijuana, police said.

continued

Posted by Norm at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

via South Knox Bubba

Posted by Norm at 3:53 PM | Permalink

I'm critical of the Bush Administration. I've been quick to react to the right-wing when I believe their criticisms of left-wing views, views I share are attacked, or when they use hyperbole to make their points. It was just such a post that resulted in an extended conversation with Deb host of Insomnomaniac. Her original post captured my interest or better put got me off on another rant was this one where she suggested that someone should Buy the Left a Dictionary, please! That some on the Left had no idea what patriotism is and she went on to accuse some of treason. A couple of emails revealed that Deb is not of the Paul Wellstone is a traitorous piece of shit right-wing though she links to them, but less hateful and more rational. She has asked that I answer several of her questions as one who shares the views of the left. My opinions are my own of course and how much they reflect the view of the left I'll leave to the reader to judge.

Deb asks why since we are so critical of the United States and of George Bush on this subject why we aren't protesting against France and their incursions of the Ivory Coast, as well as other occupations. Why do most protests she sees and reads about focus SOLELY [her emphasis] on the big bad U.S.A. She wants a little consistency.

I'm happy to answer those questions, but first let me make clear that whether I protest against other injustices whether I'm consistent or not is not evidence that I'm wrong about the U.S.A. or that it lessens the United States culpability. To claim that would be committing the Fallacy: Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. The same claim is often made to divert attention from attacks on actions Israel takes. I don't think that is what Deb is doing, but many on the Right certainly make the argument that way. It may be inconsistent, and it may be hypocritical but it has nothing to do with the truth or veracity of the claims.

But, I said I'd answer her questions on this subject and I will. There are a couple of reasons why criticism is frequently leveled against the United States and Israel.

One is they both claim the moral high ground. They both say that they are democratic, that they are more fair; they are more honest, that they have the answers. They present themselves as models of how things out to be. In short, they invite criticism if they fail to live up to those claims those standards as opposed to someone who doesn't make the same claims. They are being hypocritical. Let me be clear here and I'm not claiming the others are not wrong in their actions. I do not excuse their abuses. I'm simply explaining why I place the emphasis on The United States.

The second reason is that both the United State and Israel are the ones that get most of the coverage in the press, they become the topic of the conversations going on and hence are mentioned more often than other countries.

Why does Deb see the most protests about the big bad U.S.A. because we are Americans we have more influence on our country than we do on others; I'm dreaming perhaps. We want the United States to meet the standards it claims for itself.

Let me repeat I'm concerned about injustices wherever they occur and because I focus on one or two doesn't mean I don't care about the others. As Deb pointed out in her email to me there simply isn't time to discuss them all, Indeed.

The discussion has expanded beyond the question of patriotism and treason. She says she wants solutions not self-loathing. She wants something besides repetition of failed strategies. She doesn't want to hear wishful thinking. She wants to know if Bush is wrong what is right.

So let me address her questions. Self-loathing, by which I assume she means those that make the hate America statements. There are many who don't take the time to articulate their views, something that happens on both sides of the debate. It is important not to over generalize. Often, one will combine reasonable arguments along with a little self-loathing, It is easy to focus just on the self-loathing or if you are on the left it is easy to focus on the hate. Like I've done when I point to someone calling Senator Wellstone "this piece of traitorous shit useless idiot can rot in Hell forever", which he later "retracted", or planning a little party when we blow the hell out of Iraq and I quote " Enjoy your last few weeks of happiness, fuckheads. If you think YOU'RE happy NOW, I can only say it's a pity that you won't be around to witness the all-night party I'm going to have when they drag your mutilated corpses through the streets of Baghdad!" it is difficult to ignore such hyperbole but perhaps we should, and just understand that it is anger and fear speaking, but words matter and it is also important to call one to task for such rhetoric. It is not the provenance of the Left or Right but both though from my admittedly bias point of view more of it comes from the Right.

She wants something besides repetition of failed strategies. I think here she is probably referring to containment and inspections, but I would argue that they have not been failed strategies that both inspections and containment have worked, though I would grant not perfectly. Is perfection a reasonable goal are the right offering a perfect solution is a perfect solution even possible.

She doesn't want wishful thinking, again I think she's probably talking about the same containment and inspections and again I would contend that those strategies are not wishful thinking and certainly no more wishful than the thinking that taking out Saddam hanging out in Iraq for who knows how long and everything is dandy world view.

Let me offer this article by as a summary of my views on the containment option.

Keeping Saddam Hussein in a Box
By JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER and STEPHEN M. WALT

The United States faces a clear choice on Iraq: containment or preventive war. President Bush insists that containment has failed, and we must prepare for war. In fact, war is not necessary. Containment has worked in the past and can work in the future, even when dealing with Saddam Hussein.

The case for preventive war rests on the claim that Mr. Hussein is a reckless expansionist bent on dominating the Middle East. Indeed, he is often compared to Adolf Hitler, modern history's exemplar of serial aggression. The facts, however, tell a different story. continued

I have recently heard a new argument that if offered as evidence that Saddam is not rational. The argument goes if he is so rational why doesn't he take us up on the offer of exile. I think the answer to that is quite simple he believes the offer disingenuous. He believes that the U.S. is bent on his destruction either in or outside of Iraq. Do the Right believe a Saddam in exile would no longer be a threat. Would no longer use his fortune to try to retaliate for the loss of "his country." It seems to me that again he is behaving quite rationally.

Finally, she wants to know if Bush is wrong what is right.

Let me point out that I don't need to provide a solution to make the case that Bush is wrong, but I do think that containment is a better strategy. No one has perfect vision of what the future will bring we are all just making our best judgments based on the facts we have. Perhaps it will turn out that the coming war will be successful in meeting our goals though I seriously doubt it. I think the what comes after the actual fighting that is most problematical. Perhaps the course I support would not be any better, or perhaps there is some other course of action that would be better than either of those being proposed, time will tell.

I often hear the argument that the government has more information that I should trust what they say, and while It is true that they have better information whether they are trustworthy I have serious doubts. I have vivid memories of the Vietnam War. I was twenty years old in 1965. Many of my friends returned in body bags, some 50,000 Americans died because the President of the United States lied to the American People about the Gulf of Tonkin. I have listened to the debate about Iraq and am highly suspicious of the veracity of our leaders. The claim for example that the aluminum tubes were purchased for use in a centrifuge seems dubious, or take the great dossier of Great Britian produced that Colin Powell praised.

British Government Admits Plagiarizing Student Report
Times OnLine UK

Friday 07 February 2003

Downing Street today said it made a mistake in failing to acknowledge that a large section of a dossier on Saddam Hussein was copied from a Californian postgraduate student's outdated thesis.

The dossier was designed to help win over sceptics by outlining Iraq's alleged efforts to hide its weapons of mass destruction. It said UN weapons inspectors were outnumbered by 200 to one by Iraqi agents trying to deceive them, and provided "up to date details" of Iraq's security organizations.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, even recommended it to the world in his keynote UN presentation on Wednesday, in which he called the document a "fine paper."

But it emerged overnight that much of the document was lifted from a paper by Ibrahim al-Marashi, from Monterey, California - who was researching material relating to the build-up to the 1991 Gulf War[emphasis mine] and not to the current situation.

Today former Labour minister Glenda Jackson, MP for Hampstead and Highgate, suggested the Government had misled the public. She told the BBC: "If that was presented to Parliament

and the country as being up-to-date intelligence ... and in fact as we now know they simply lifted it from a university thesis, it is another example of how the Government is attempting to mislead the country and Parliament on the issue of a possible war with Iraq.

"And of course to mislead is a Parliamentary euphemism for lying."

continued

The administration it seems puts a spin on damn near everything. Colin Powell recently spoke at the U.N. where he pointed to a chemical warfare training camp they had discovered. Why the hell is it still there, why didn't he tell the U.N. about it as required by 1441 when it was first discovered. One can only assume that either they are not sure of their facts, or it is simply propaganda for our consumption. It may indeed be a serious problem, but the way it was presented leaves some doubt, some questions to be answered. We don't need spin from our government. We need unadorned facts, and I consider it outrageous that we get anything less.

Well there you have it some questions and some answers. I doubt that I've changed any minds, but talking about our views explaining why we feel the way that we do is a good thing. Deb and I agree on one thing, here are her words "Whatever happens, we have to remember, we're all Americans and hating or being mad at each other is just what the "bad guys" want, so let's not do it! " I don't think we'll accomplish that goal but it is a good goal and one we should strive for.

Posted by Norm at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Redmond WA— Microsoft announced today a change in name for its .net technology. It has come to our attention the the public is having difficulty getting its head around this revolutionary concept. So beginning today we will no longer refer to the technology as .net, but rather we'll be calling it .update consisting of the three Microsoft Divisions that support it .worm .virus and .bug

Posted by Norm at 2:30 PM | Permalink

Have you ever felt like reversing course of changing directions of backtracking. Well have you?

Posted by Norm at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the most debated questions in comparative political science is: What causes countries to become democratic, and to remain democratic? Or, conversely, what prevents countries from becoming democratic or remaining democratic? One well-confirmed hypothesis is that richer countries are more likely to be democratic. There is, however, one major empirical exception to this general rule: the Middle East. Several Middle Eastern countries have a relatively high degree of wealth, as measured in per capita GDP, but are also non-democratic.

One major reason suggested for the absence of democracy in relatively wealthy countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman is the presence of large oil resources. Michael Ross, in a recent World Politics article, tests three causal processes in which oil hinders democracy, and finds at least significant confirmation of each of these processes. The first idea is the 'rentier effect'--authoritarian states with a lot of oil money can pay off potential opponents and keep taxes low, which helps them resist democratic pressures. Second is the 'repression effect'--oil states can spend a lot of money on a repressive apparatus which represses democratic dissenters and opponents of the regime. Third is the 'modernization effect'--the democratizing effects of capitalism are associated with its tendency toward the differentiation of the labor force, urbanization of the population, and increased mass communication. In oil economies, these processes are retarded so that wealth grows without a corresponding increase in democratic pressure. All in all, Ross give some serious support to the idea that being a major oil exporter hurts a country's democratic chances.

Posted by at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

In a recent article Dr. Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of optical character recognition used in flat bed scanners amongst other things, has suggested that once computers get better than humans at chess, we will lose interest in this venerable game. “Deep Fritz-like chess programs running on ordinary personal computers will routinely defeat all humans later in this decade. Then we'll really lose interest in chess.” This article was written after a match between world champion Vladimir Kramnik and Deep Fritz, programmed by Frans Morsch of Germany. The eight game match was tied 4-4. Gary Kasparov, who has the highest rating in the world, is currently playing Deep Junior. “Deep” in these names refers to the use of more than one processor in parallel. After 5 games at the time of writing the match is tied 2.5-2.5. There is only one game left and Kasparov will have black. It is likely that this match will be a tie or that the computer will win. If Deep Junior wins this match, should we lose interest in chess?
I think it is a strange attitude Dr. Kurzweil has here about the relation of computers and humans in chess. I have no doubt his prediction that desktop computers will regularly beat the best humans within a short amount of time is true. But why should this cause us to lose interest in the game of chess. The fact that Kasparov can beat me every time in a game of chess doesn't mean that I should lose interest in the game. The same applies to the situation between computers and humans. We don't lose interest in the 100 yard dash because an automobile can defeat the fastest humans every time. I think it is a tribute to the human mind that we have held out against computers this long. The only thing we might lose interest in is computer v human competitions. Human v human competition in chess will always be interesting regardless of how strong computers get.

Posted by Chris Jenson at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I am much more frightened by the empty warhead we have sitting the the White House than the empty ones recently found in Iraq— Doug Wildfoerster letter to the editor Salt Lake Tribune

Posted by Norm at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bush stunned the world today reversing the United States long standing policy of nuclear disarmament. George said, "We will begin today providing Nukes for all the countries of the world beginning with Iraq" Europeans were taken aback by the announcement coming on the heals of Colin Powell's United Nations Speech calling for the immediate disarmament of that very same country. It's like this George said, I read this cool book by a great American John Lott, it's called "More Bombs Less War" I know it doesn't seem quite right but he says that it works we can reduce wars if everyone is armed and he's conducted imperial studies to back it up. The really cool thing is you don't even have to use your arms. He says that 98% of the time all you have to do his brandish your Nuke and bad guys will run away all really scared. Japan announced they won't be accepting the offer that their constitution forbids possessing such weapons. Late reports indicate the armada of American Ships currently stationed in the Gulf has weighed anchor and is heading towards Japan.

Posted by Norm at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

—Jack London

Posted by Norm at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Having seen the Reuters Story I referenced in the previous post here is a perhaps more balanced view of worlds reaction to the Shuttle disaster from the L A Times. Every country has their hate-mongers ours have cheerleaders called warbloggers. There are of course many Muslims that share that hate and react in similar ways, but for most people in the world we share a common humanity, a humanity that transcends Governments and that is what is being expressed here.

U.S. Friends, Foes Share Pain of Crash

BAGHDAD -- From Iraq to Cuba, even many foes of the United States found common ground with America on Sunday, mourning the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and viewing the five men and two women who perished in the catastrophe as "brave scientists" who gave their lives for a noble purpose.

In interviews on the streets of Baghdad, most Iraqis did not hesitate to express a bond and sympathy with the astronauts who died -- among them a decorated Israeli pilot who as a young man took part in the bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor.

Several Iraqis volunteered that, in spite of the rising threat of a U.S.-led war against their government -- as well as the Arab world's long-standing antipathy toward Israel -- they took no pleasure in the pain felt by Americans and Israelis after the disaster.

"As Iraqis, we respect science, and they were on a scientific mission," said Abdul Awith, a mathematics professor passing Sunday afternoon at backgammon with a grizzled friend at the Hassan Ajami cafe on one of Baghdad's oldest streets.

"What does it matter if it is an American or an Israeli who is killed? It is a human being," Awith said.

"It is a very sad event," said Ali Jabur Khassem, 37, who ekes out a living reselling canned milk and baby formula originally purchased under Baghdad's U.N.-mandated "oil-for-food" program. "What we hate is the American administration, not these astronauts. For them, we feel respect."

Similar views were expressed by Iraqi officials, although elsewhere in the Arab world there were also expressions of ambivalence and, occasionally, hatred.

continued

Kim at Thyme Wise has addressed this issue as well as those we've been discussing in an open letter to the warmongers making many of the points we have made here. It is formatted in a You Say, I Say format and well worth the read.

You say... Look at the way the Iraqis reacted when Columbia exploded! They deserve it!
I say... Attack someone for mocking you? Is that what you would teach your kid? If someone teases her, pop him one?

As I said in email to someone this morning, I hardly find it surprising that the Iraqi people should have such a reaction to what happened Saturday. Any culture who puts any stock at all in portents would certainly see one in the fact that there was an Israeli on board who happened to be one of the pilots involved in the raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. If the tables were turned, you can bet there would be plenty of Americans reacting in much the same way. We might use words like "poetic justice" instead of "God's will," but it would amount to the same thing.

Posted by Norm at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Our nation suffers a tragic loss, and all this Warblogger can do is spew his hate, and sadly his attitude is the rule rather than the exception. Misha the pooch writes about the Iraqi's that viewed The Shuttle's loss as retribution. He quotes a Reuters report.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew -- including the first Israeli in space -- was that it was God's retribution.

"We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.

They Really WANT Us To Wipe Them Out, Don't They?

Enjoy your last few weeks of happiness, fuckheads. If you think YOU'RE happy NOW, I can only say it's a pity that you won't be around to witness the all-night party I'm going to have when they drag your mutilated corpses through the streets of Baghdad!

This is the same pooch who said the following when Senator Paul Wellstone died.

I am saddened to hear the news and my Christian heart goes out to the families and friends affected by the horror of this tragedy. May the Lord God lend you strength in the horrid and trying times to come.

That being said, I cannot find it in my heart to babble on about what a great loss to the nation that Sen. Wellstone's death was, 'coz it wasn't.

Sen. Wellstone was quite prepared to sell my fellow citizens down the river by opposing a pre-emptive strike against one of the most psychopathical murderers of our times, just so he could polish his halo and say that he was "against war".

He would happily condemn millions of my fellow countrymen to death in a chemical, biological or nuclear Hell to advance his own self-righteousness.

I don't give a flying fuck whether his stand was "principled" or "unaffected by pollsters", the only thing I care about is that he was ready to trade the lives of my two little boys for the transient glory of having been "moral".

As far as I'm concerned, this piece of traitorous shit useless idiot can rot in Hell forever, I'm not ever going to say something nice about a load of crap that was willing to trade the future of my two boys for the fake halo of being "principled".

You can rot in Hell, Senator Wellstone, I couldn't care less.

Misha an equal opportunity hater, American or Iraqi, if they cross this "good Christian boy" he's ready to send them to hell.

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."—Herman Hesse

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Posted by Norm at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (1)

Extracted from A Devil’s Chaplain and Other Selected Essays by Richard Dawkins

By Richard Dawkins

Genes work just like computer software, says this writer - which is why the luddites don't get it, but their children probably will.

IT IS HARD TO EXAGGERATE the sheer intellectual excitement of genetics. What has happened is that genetics has become a branch of information technology. The genetic code is truly digital, in exactly the same sense as computer codes. This is not some vague analogy, it is the literal truth. Moreover, unlike computer codes, the genetic code is universal. Modern computers are built around a number of mutually incompatible machine languages, determined by their processor chips. The genetic code, on the other hand, with a few very minor exceptions, is identical in every living creature on this planet, from sulphur bacteria to giant redwood trees, from mushrooms to men. All living creatures, on this planet at least, are the same “make”.

The consequences are amazing. It means that a software subroutine (that’s exactly what a gene is) can be carried over into another species. This is why the famous “antifreeze” gene, originally evolved by Antarctic fish, can save a tomato from frost damage. In the same way, a Nasa programmer who wants a neat square-root routine for his rocket guidance system might import one from a financial spreadsheet. A square root is a square root is a square root. A program to compute it will serve as well in a space rocket as in a financial projection.

What, then, of the widespread gut hostility, amounting to revulsion, against all such “transgenic” imports? This is based on the misconception that it is somehow “unnatural” to splice a fish gene, which was only ever “meant” to work in a fish, into the alien environment of a tomato cell. Surely an antifreeze gene from a fish must come with a fishy “flavour”. Surely some of its fishiness must rub off. Yet nobody thinks that a square-root subroutine carries a “financial flavour” with it when you paste it into a rocket guidance system. The very idea of “flavour” in this sense is not just wrong but profoundly and interestingly wrong. It is a cheerful thought, by the way, that most young people today understand computer software far better than their elders, and they should grasp the point instantly. The present Luddism over genetic engineering may die a natural death as the computer-illiterate generation is superseded.

Is there nothing, then, absolutely nothing, in the misgivings of Prince Charles, Lord Melchett and their friends? I wouldn’t go that far, although they are certainly muddleheaded. The square-root analogy might be unfair in the following respect. What if it isn’t a square root that the rocket guidance program needs, but another function which is not literally identical to the financial equivalent? Suppose it is sufficiently similar that the main routine can indeed be borrowed, but it still needs tweaking in detail. In that case, it is possible that the rocket could misfire if we naively import the subroutine raw. Switching back to biology, although genes really are watertight subroutines of digital software, they are not watertight in their effects on the development of the organism, for here they interact with the environment furnished by other genes. The antifreeze gene might depend, for optimal effect, on an interaction with other genes in the fish. Plonk it down in the foreign genetic climate of a tomato, and it might not work unless properly tweaked (which can be done) to mesh with the existing tomato genes.

What this means is that there is a case to be made on both sides of the argument, and we need to exercise subtle judgment. The genetic engineers are right that we can save time and trouble by climbing on the back of the millions of years of R & D that Darwinian natural selection has put into developing biological antifreeze (or whatever we are seeking). But the doomsayers would also have a point if they softened their stance from emotional gut rejection to a rational plea for rigorous safety testing. No reputable scientist would oppose such a plea. It is rightly routine for all new products, not just genetically engineered ones.

A largely unrecognised danger of the obsessive hysteria surrounding genetically modified foods is crying wolf. I fear that, if the Green movement’s high-amplitude warnings turn out to be empty, people will be dangerously disinclined to listen to other more serious warnings. The evolution of antibiotic resistance among bacteria is a vicious wolf of proven danger. Yet the menacing footfalls of this certain peril are all but drowned out in the caterwauling shrieks over genetically modified foods, whose dangers are speculative at most. To be more precise, genetic modification, like any other kind of modification, is good if you modify in a good direction, bad if you modify in a bad direction. Like domestic breeding, and like natural selection itself, the trick is to introduce the right new DNA software. The realisation that software is all it is, written in exactly the same language as the organism’s “own” DNA, should go a long way towards correcting muddled thinking.

Then again, as we discover more about the genetic code and the way it works, doubters will begin to recognise the potential benefits. Building on the Human Genome Project, the Human Genome Diversity Project focuses on those relatively few nucleotide sites that vary from person to person and from group to group. The implications for medical science are enormous.

Hitherto, almost all medical prescribing has assumed that patients are pretty much the same and every disease has an optimal cure. Doctors of tomorrow will be more like vets in this respect. Doctors have only one species of patient, but in future they will subdivide that species by genotype, as a vet subdivides his patients by species. For the special needs of blood transfusions, doctors already recognize a few genetic typings (OAB, Rh) etc. In the future, every patient’s personal record will include the results of numerous genetic tests: not their entire genome (that will be too expensive for the foreseeable future) but, as the century goes on, an increasing sampling of the variable regions of the genome, and far more than the present blood group typings. The point is that for some diseases there may be as many different optimal treatments as there are different genotypes at a locus — more, even, because genetic loci may interact to affect susceptibility to disease.

Another important use of the genetics of human diversity is forensic. Precisely because DNA is digital, like computer bytes, genetic fingerprinting is potentially many many orders of magnitude more accurate and reliable that any other means of individual identification. Moreover, identity can be established from a tiny trace of blood, sweat or tears (or spit, semen or hairs).

DNA evidence is widely regarded as controversial and it is easy to see why. Human error can obviously vitiate the accuracy of the method. But that is true of all evidence. Courts are already accustomed to taking precautions to avoid the muddling up of specimens, and such precautions now become even more important. DNA fingerprinting can establish, infinitely far beyond all reasonable doubt, whether a smear of blood came from a particular individual. But obviously you must test the right smear.

The idea of a nationwide database, in which all citizens’ DNA fingerprints would be held, is now being discussed. I don’t see this as a sinister, Big Brotherish idea, but many people would want to stop well short of a nationwide database because they have something to hide, not from the law but from each other. A surprisingly large number of people, of all ages, are genetically unrelated to the man they think is their father. To put it mildly, it is not clear that to disillusion them, with conclusive DNA evidence, would increase the sum of human happiness.

If a national DNA database were in place, it might be hard to control unauthorised access to it. If a tabloid newspaper were to discover that the official heir to a dukedom was actually sired by the gamekeeper, the consternation in the College of Heralds might be mildly amusing. But in the population at large it doesn’t take much to imagine the family recriminations and private misery that could flow from freely available information of true paternity. Nevertheless, the existence of a national DNA database wouldn’t alter the situation much. It is already perfectly feasible for a jealous husband, say, to take a saliva or blood sample from one of his supposed children and compare it with his own, to confirm his suspicion that he is not the real father. What the national database could add is a swift computer search to find out who, out of all the males in the entire country, is!

The study of human diversity will bring other radical changes to the way we manage our lives. It is possible that, by the end of the 21st century, doctors will be able accurately to predict the manner and time of death of everybody, from the day they are conceived. At present this can be achieved only for possessors of genes such as Huntington’s Chorea, a horrible disease which waits till early middle age before killing you. For the rest of us, all that is possible is the vague statistical forecast of the life insurance actuary, based on our smoking and drinking habits and a quick listen through a stethoscope. The whole life insurance business depends upon such forecasts being vague and statistical. Those who die old subsidise (the heirs of) those who die young. If the day comes when deterministic forecasting becomes universal, life insurance as we know it will collapse.

That problem is soluble (presumably by universal compulsory life insurance with no individual medical risk assessment). What will be less easy to solve is the angst which will hang over everyone’s psychology. As things are now, we all know we are going to die, but most of us don’t know when, so it doesn’t feel like a death sentence. That may change, and society should be prepared for difficulties as people struggle to adjust their psychologies to it.

Extracted from A Devil’s Chaplain and Other Selected Essays by Richard Dawkins, edited by Latha Menon. Published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £16.99. Available through the Times Bookshop at £13.59

Posted by Norm at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)