Funmurphys: the Blog

Left Out, As Always

I feel so left out. I slept through the first quake at 4:30AM. I was jamming to Joe Satrioni at work and so missed the big aftershock. But I can be part of today's big story by directing you to this story that details how republicans are responsible for midwest quake. Thankfully, no one was hurt and damage was minimal.

Hey, at least I felt the one in 1968 (plus a bunch during my six California years).

A Spectacular Fall

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Although it's like getting Al Capone on tax evasion - his other crimes are much worse but at least he got got.

St. Louis had our own version of Eliot, without all the other baggage. George Peach was a prosecuting attorney who by day crusaded against the porno business and by night was in bed with them. Yeah, he too was a Democrat. Mr. Peach was like Gary Hart - he all but dared the local newspaper to investigate him. As I'm not a psychiatrist and don't actually know the people, you wonder is the dare from a desire to get caught so they can stop or just arrogance.

Oh well, one can hope that New York gets a better, less self-aggrandizing governor out of the resignation.

The World Outside

Perhaps it's because I'm getting over that killer flu that's going around and it seems like winter is never going to end, but my thoughts keep returning to the Norse idea that the end of the world is presaged by a winter without end - Fimbulwinter. But then that leads me to think Ragnarok and Roll and I can't help but smile.

And now, not only am I not alone in thinking this has been a particularly bleak winter, but I've got data to back me up.

No, I don't honestly think the world is coming to an end, the weather and my frailty combine to make my mood sink like the Earth's temperature recently. I know my mood won't be permanently affected (I really do have a naturally sunny disposition), and I'm hopeful the Earth's temperature isn't permanently affected, because no matter what climate alarmists tell you, warmer is better than colder. In moderation, of course.

Sometimes, Oops Isn't Enough

Every military base I've ever been to has had displays of equipment. I can still remember the directions I was given the first time I went to Pax River - "turn right at the plane on a stick." And when I got there, I turned right at the plane on a stick to visit the Armament hanger. Sometimes, things are exactly what they seem:

Apparently when Lincolnshire County Council were widening the road past RAF Scampton's main gate in about 1958, the 'gate guards' there had to be moved to make way for the new carriageway. Scampton was the WWII home of 617 Sqn, and said "gate guards" were a Lancaster...and a Grand Slam bomb.

When they went to lift the Grand Slam, thought for years to just be an empty casing, with an RAF 8 Ton Coles Crane, it wouldn't budge.

Read the rest if you can't figure out what happened or want to find out just how big a 22,000 lb bomb is.

I'm reminded of the story my old english teacher, Mr. Felling, used to tell of when he was assigned to a destroyer in the Navy. He went aboard, and noticed the sailors would sit and smoke on the depth charges- the live depth carges that is. At first, he thought they were crazy, but within a couple of weeks he too was lounging and smoking on the depth charges.

First They Came For The Gadfly

Free the Inner City Press!

Cheaters Never Prosper

Or Super Bowl 42.

An exciting quarter of football, a rewarding outcome, so so ads, a brief old school rock interlude, all stretched out over 4 hours.

Tom Brady is a great quarterback, but he had a poor game.

If Belichick is such a great coach, why is he such a cheater?

The Patriots were lucky all game until finally the Manning somehow escaped two defenders and Smith caught the ball on his helmet. Live by luck, die by luck.

News You Can Use

Here at FunMurphys.com, we don't believe in scaring you during sweeps week. No stories about flesh eating bacteria, just important news you can use.

First up, Marvel Comics is putting their catalog of comics on the internet. No downloads, just access to titles like X-Men, Amazing Spider Man, and as the Marvel Marketer put it, hot recent series and so much more! Looks like I waited too long to put my collection up for sale.

Researchers at Texas Tech have created a new drought resistant wildflower, "Raider Amethyst". That's the kind of plant I need around my house. I just love that phrase, researchers created a new wildflower.

Jay Rosen wants to improve reporting by having beat reports meet Facebook. Put another way, he wants to support beat reporters with what he terms a social network, but what I'd call a team of experts, but then I'm so last millennium.

I'm sorry, but I think polls like this are fun but meaningless: Zogby poll shows liberals play more games than conservatives. Just for the record, I've been playing strategy games since I was 9, video games since they were invented, and I don't play Madden NFL, Mario, or the Sims.

The Fed will make four expanded forecasts instead of the current two. What that really means is that the Fed will explain what they're thinking more often, because nobody, even the Fed, can make economic forecasts that are accurate - even figuring out what happened can be mighty hard.

My town, St. Louis, has a dubious distinction - we're tops in STD rates. So let's be careful out there.

In related news, it's now scientifically established that bars cause drinking -- Bars and nightclubs, but not liquor stores, are linked with excessive alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking in adults who live nearby, according to a new study from the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California. I loved this line from the report: "The investigators were not surprised with the results, they write, because bars, taverns, and night clubs, especially those that do not allow minors, are where social and cultural norms are more likely to accept, if not encourage, excess drinking."

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as a gag: What’s in a Name? Initials Linked to Success, Study Shows. And not just success, but failure, too. "Students whose names began with ‘C’ or ‘D’ earned lower GPAs than students whose names began with ‘A’ or ‘B.’ Students with the initial ‘C’ or ‘D,’ presumably because of an unconscious fondness for these letters, were slightly less successful at achieving their conscious academic goals." One has to wonder just how large this effect is and thus how significant it is. Just remember, just because you read it somewhere, or somebody in a white coat with more education than you says so doesn't necessarily make it true.

IRA vs. Islamicists

I'm not a Nobel prize winning author, and I never will be one, but then I have a certain grasp of facts. So for instance, when a nobel laureate says that the 9/11 attack wasn't as bad as the IRA's multi-decade terror campaign, I have to point out this is an apple, that is an orange. One is a single attack carried out by a terror ogranization, the other is a totality of terror campaign. Why not compare the number killed by al-Qaida world-wide to those killed in a single IRA attack?

A better comparison would be the IRA's multi-decade terror campaign, and al-Qaida's roughly decade long terror campaign. And then you should also compare what the aims of the two groups are, and then I think it becomes pretty clear that in a real comparison, the IRA is/were pikers compared to al-Qaida, and if you throw in the Islamicist movement compared to the IRA, there is simply no comparison in terms of numbers killed, tortured, lives disrupted or ruined, international scope, or total opposition to everything Doris Lessing holds dear as a member of Western society. None.

A Tragedy In Pakistan

I'm not a world leader, but let me express my shock, horror, and dismay at yesterday's suicide bombing in Pakistan and extend my condolences to the families of those killed and to all of Pakistan.

STREET IN KARACHI 20 YEARS AGO

I have fond memories of the time I spent there, and the wonderful people I met there. What a terrible tragedy, and a reminder that the virtues and evils of man are universal.

Ellen DeGeneres Goes To The Dogs

I don't watch Ellen DeGeneris so I missed her emotional meltdown the other day:

For those who missed out on her shaggy-dog edition of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," here're the condensed version: DeGeneres and her partner adopted Iggy, an adorable Brussels Griffon mix, on Sept. 20. But Iggy didn't get along the couple's cats, so after giving it the ol' celebrity try (about 10 days?), they decided to give him to DeGeneres's hairdresser and her two daughters. Unfortunately, DeGeneres forgot to tell the pet adoption agency, which requires notification for any change of ownership, and when the agency learned of this transfer, it told DeGeneres she had violated their contract and repossessed the dog.

While unpleasant, this kind of story is hardly unusual. What moves it into the realm of OFF/beat is that DeGeneres spent long, painful chunks of airtime dwelling on her clerical error. "I feel totally responsible for it and I'm so sorry. I'm begging them to give that dog back to that family," she bawled in a near-fetal (albeit seated) position. "It's not their fault. It's my fault. I shouldn't have given the dog away."

As a dog lover, I can relate to how tough it must have been. What I cannot understand, though, is why DeGeneres would bawl her eyes out on national television. And then it hit me like a Great Dane to the chest: damage control.

With her emotional and peremptory elocution, Ellen avoided being mauled by the tabloids and, more important, avoided disappointing her adoring fans. Rather than deny and explain, she confessed and begged forgiveness. And by crying those tears, whether alligator or not, she most likely won over even more fans. Think I'm being too cynical? Watch the video and decide for yourself.

I didn't watch the video. I did read the comments, and boy were they interesting as they showed a couple of things - the spirit of Bob Ford is alive and well, and a lot people love to complain about how other people get things done.

I've adopted a dog from a rescue organization and yes they were extremely thorough -- the application was several pages long, the references were actually checked, we had a home visit. We felt it was excessive, but then we aren't out rescuing dogs. It was made abundantly clear to us that if we were no longer able to keep Trooper, he went back to the agency and no one else. That's the agreement you make to get the dog. Don't like it, get a dog from somewhere else.

But back to Ellen D's meltdown - is it real, or is it for show? I don't know - how would I? On the one hand, it's mighty convient as well as excessive, but on the other, most celebrities seem to have emotional issues that cause them to want the attention of celebrityhood.

Torture 2007 Style

In light of this junk article out of the Washington Post about WWII interrogators criticising modern ones, I thought this article was just chilling: CIA May Threaten Detainees with Senate Hearings. Now that would make anyones blood run cold.

Back to the cranky old men, what do we know?

They illegally violated the Geneva convention on reporting the capture of prisoners, and let's be clear here, they knew exactly they were in the wrong and there was no question that the people they were interrogating were legitimately covered by the convention as lawful combatents.

They were not interrogating terrorist true believers who were ready to die for their cause. According to the article, they were interrogating soldiers and scientists. Clearly, some of the participants were quite willing to talk.

It's not clear how much real information they really did glean since the real intellegence story of WWII is that the Allies broke most if not all the important Axis codes during the war (especially Japan's codes). The problem was how much action to take on the information gained so that the enemy wasn't tipped off.

The claim is that they discovered submarine tactics - without naming them. Well, lest we forget it was the British capture of U-boats that led to the breaking of the Naval Enigma code. It wasn't knowledge of U-boat tactics (such as the details of Wolfpack operations), but the use of long range patrol aircraft to cover the North Atlantic that put an end to the U-boat menace.

Another claim is that they learned groundbreaking secrets of rocketry - which could well be, but the Allies didn't capture Werner von Braun his team of scientists until May 2 1945 and Von Braun was trying to surrender to Americans. So we know they came willingly, and they came too late to have any effect on the war.

The final claim was that they learned secrets of microwave technology. Since they weren't interrogating British scientists, perhaps what they mean is they learned about the strengths and limitations of German radar, as the British invented microwave technology and together with the United States held the lead in microwave and radar technology. And when would they have captured a German microwave scientist? Again, it couldn't have been until late in the war.

Stop Excusing Vick

I never put much stock in the whole "white privelege" notion, but I'm reconsidering a bit. The bit is that as a white person I don't feel the need to defend someone just because they are white. That doesn't seem to be the case for people of non-pallor, or at least it's the only reason I can think of that Whoopi Goldberg (among others) defended Michael Vick's torture and murder of dogs:

Goldberg pointed out that Vick was raised in the South.

"This is part of his cultural upbringing," said Goldberg.

So was slavery Whoopi, so was slavery. If it were, for instance, Trent Green who was in the dock, would Ms. Goldberg be defending him?

Enforced Virtue

I used to feel strange driving a car. As opposed to a minivan or SUV, that is. Back when I used to do my parental duty and take the Fruit of the Murphy Loins to functions for children, I often had the only car on the lot. And it didn't matter how green or blue the drivers were. Since then I've noticed that typically a person's politics don't have much impact on the kind of car they drive. People who complain about sending American jobs overseas have no trouble driving a foreign car; people who warn me about global warming and green house gases have no trouble driving some giant SUV; ardent free traders who loathe unions will only buy American cars.

I am not trying to call hypocrite here because it's way overused and I don't think it's accurate in this case. The point is a lot of factors go into the decision of what kind of vehicle to drive, and as with all parts of life, we have to make comprises and balance competing priorities. That's life. And that's why I support free markets in general - they allow the people living with the consequences to be the ones making the decisions.

But in light of the whole CAFE standards issue, more relevant than ever, I have to note while the politics don't seem to play a large role in what kind of car people drive, it does play a large role in support for CAFE standards. I'm against them, for the simple reason if people prefered gas milage over other features, then we'd be driving high gas milage vehicles. The CAFE standard is based on the illusion that we can all drive vehicles that get better gas milage all other things being equal. They aren't - there are always tradeoffs. The reason I don't support increasing CAFE standards isn't because I don't support increased gas milage in the abstract, it's because I know it comes at a price, and a price people aren't willing to pay.

A Window On A Wider World

The thing I enjoy most about the editorial page at the St. Louis Post Dispatch is the letters to the editor. Some are clunkers, and I often get the impression they pick the more extreme letters on a given subject, but I do love reading them. Perhaps I was in an especially good mood this morning, but I like this one so much I'm sharing:

The story "A return to the old ways" (June 14) considered the Tridentine Mass, which is not "the 1,600-year-old Mass" nor is it the "Mass of the Ages." It is the result of the Catholic Reformation of 16th-century Europe.

United in the Catholic tradition are 23 different churches, each with its own ancient rite. In the ninth century, Pope John VIII (872-882) decreed that the Mass need not be confined to the then-traditional Latin, Greek or Hebrew languages. His decision made possible Mass celebrations in Slavonic. This defended the missionary work of St. Methodius and set a new precedent.

If there are those who wish to celebrate the mere 400-year-old Tridentine Mass, let it be. But the claim that this one limited form of the Mass is somehow more Catholic than other forms is a denial of the rich Catholic tradition.

May the Post-Dispatch, which gave front-page coverage to the Tridentine Mass, now report on the more important news about the destruction of the ancient Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq.

Wayne Hellmann | St. Louis

Robert Phenix | St. Louis

The letter is brief but informative, tart without snark. But then what else would we expect from a couple of scholars - a chairman of the Theology Studies department and an adjunct professor of Biblical Studies.

Since the Post will never get around to providing coverage on the destruction of the ancient Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, here are some links: background, blogging,
news of a synod, and more sad news. One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.

Lileks: Reality's Mole In The Liberal Belly

It is said that the Strib was being foolish in demoting Mr James Lileks to a beat reporter. And I have no doubt that is true from the standpoint of the pecking order at newspapers. But I'd like to take a step back and take a second look.

Have you ever read Lileks? I happen to love his writing, but 90% of it is about the mundanities of life - fully half of it revolves around going to Target, being at Target, the trip home from Target, and just thinking about Target and Target-like stores. The crazy thing is he manages to make his experience of the Sturgeon part of life seem fun and interesting. The other 10% he weaves in revelations on modern life - politics, architecture, pop art and culture, home improvement - that astound.

Have you read the news part of a newspaper recently? Dull stories written from an uncritical liberal point of view that are leavened with 20% liberal pieties. News that might reflect poorly on any oppressed people (i.e. anyone who isn't a white male, or white males in journalism and academia, the two honorary oppressed while male groups) is routinely suppressed from the paper or omitted from stories.

Just think what the impact of having Lileks write some of these stories. Readership might actually go up, as (non-liberal and liberals alike) people actually began to read the news part of paper again. Spot the Lileks could become a local pastime and even a college drinking game (not that we endorse that sort of thing here at FunMurphys). And at last, news stories wouldn't be written from that insufferable liberal viewpoint and instead of liberal pieties we would get real insight along with all the relevant facts. What a deal!

The blog debate over newspapers isn't about whether they'll die, but when. And the Strib intends to do something about it. They are going to put their best writer on the one topic everybody agrees should be the strength (but isn't) of local newspapers - local news reporting. So what's the reaction from all those people who've been telling newspapers to do exactly that? Outrage.

So I'm going to have to disagree here, this makes perfect sense from the Strib's point of view, and Lileks will have to make up his mind whether he wants to be reality's mole in the belly of the liberal beast, or does he want to sever his ties with an organization that needs him more than he needs them. I'm hoping he choses the mole job, but fully expecting him to sever away.

Ann Coulter Robot Post

I'm just going to post this every time Ann Coulter comes up:

The problem with Ann Coulter is that whenever she makes some good points she discredits them with terrible hyperbole and insult. Her problem isn't uncommon in partisans who are forever overreaching, but far too often she misses provocative and land squarely in revolting.

Wall Street Insider Trading - Is That All There Is?

I don't know whether to be happy or sad after reading this article about a Wall Street insider trading ring:

Earlier this year, the SEC asked at least 10 Wall Street firms to turn over stock-trading records for the last two weeks of September, seeking to determine whether they leaked details about big stock trades to favored clients.

The government said yesterday that it broke one of the biggest insider-trading cases since the 1980s. According to the SEC, which brought a civil suit against 14 defendants, the scheme stretched over five years, included hundreds of tips and produced more than $15 million in illegal profits.

At a meeting at the Oyster Bar in New York's Grand Central Station in 2001, Mitchel Guttenberg, an executive director in UBS's equity-research department, and hedge-fund trader Erik Franklin hatched one of the schemes, the SEC claims.

Guttenberg, 41, offered to settle a $25,000 debt to Franklin, 39, by slipping him analyst ratings in advance, the agency said. To avoid getting caught, the men used disposable mobile phones to send each other coded messages, according to the SEC's complaint.

Should I feel sad because it indicates widespread and pervasive fraud in the securities market?

Should I feel happy because it's such small beer - a 25k debt, a total of $15 million for 14 people for 5 years of work - we're talking just over 200k per anum per person, which doesn't compare well with what I guess an executive director at a big name securities firm in New York makes, never mind the $10 billion per anum in fees these firms take in from hedge funds alone. But believe me, I'm not surprised people would risk so much for so little. But then I wouldn't be surprised if the SEC didn't add another zero to the take at a later date.

The Married Man Defense

The jury is still out in the Scooter Libby case, but I've weighed the evidence and have to agree that community service of this sort would be appropriate.

OK, according to the offense, I mean the prosecutor, the case is about Mr. Libby lying when he claimed he had forgotten that he had earlier learned about Mrs. Wilson from VP Cheney and other official channels and it was as if he had heard it for the first time from Tim Russert. According to the defense, the case is did Mr. Libby hear about Mrs. Wilson from Tim Russert as Mr Libby testified.

I have to say the case is about how many married people there are on the jury. If I were the defense, I would have offered up the married man defense - if I had been allowed to mount a memory defense unlike the actual accused. I can't tell you how many important things I have relearned over the years as if for the very first time despite hearing it from my wife earlier (or at least that's what she claims). "I told you that" -- what married man isn't familiar with that refrain. How many a married man has forgotten an anniversary, a birthday, or some other significant event?

So as a married man, a man who looked over at his son at Night At The Museum and said "You wear glasses?" to the immediate scorn of both wife and son, I can believe that Scooter Libby forgot something, something that people telling him thought vital, something that even he thought vital. I have no idea if he did or not, but I can believe it.

The Talented Mr. Russert

Tom Maguire of Just One Minute Fame has made the case that Tim Russert could have lied (OK, just let his memory go dim) in the Scooter Libby perjury case because he was covering for prior less than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth statements. Frequent commenter, Barney Frank, claims he should get credit for the white lie leading down a slippery slope of further cover up possibility. I'm sorry to tell both Mr. Frank and Mr. Maguire that there is a very fine movie that pre-dates Mr. Russerts legal entanglements, The Talented Mr. Ripley, that starts with a far more innocent misdirection and ultimately ends up in a far darker place than perjury. The movie is well worth seeing. The Libby Trial, not so much.

I have no idea if Russert was telling the truth about his conversation with Libby (Don Imus thinks he wasn't), although his actual testimony was that while he doesn't remember discussing Mrs. Wilson (which I can believe) with Libby, it was impossible that he told Libby about Mrs. Wilson. However, I can't believe Mr. Russert couldn't remember whether or not he told his boss he had cooperated with the FBI while NBC was fighting the grand jury subpeona. That I just simply can not believe. Nor can I believe that the FBI lost the notes from that initial conversation with Mr. Russert. Oddly enough, I haven't seen either mentioned in conventional news outlets.

More Heat Than Light

Just before the November elections, some nice lady in California, Jill Asher, called me a crazy nut case for opposing Amendment 2 here in Missouri. Clearly Ms. Asher is passionate about the subject because her step mother has Alzheimer's which is a terrible disease. However, she isn't particularly knowledgable about the amendment, and while she linked to a pro and anti site each, she didn't both to link to the actual text of the amendment.

"So when I hear about you nut cases voting against Amendment 2, you are voting to halt research against this horrible disease that affects my family - and soon will affect YOURS in some way. I guarantee that as you age, you or one family members will be doomed with this horrific disease - or other's that can be cured with stem cell research."

First off, stem cells aren't likely to cure alzheimer's.

Secondly, there is a distinction between adult and embryonic stem cells that Ms. Asher is ignoring. I'm all in favor of studying adult stem cells. Pour the money there, please.

And finally, a vote against amendment 2 wasn't a vote to halt any research whatsoever. Amendment 2 was a preemptive change -- it ties restrictions in Missouri to Federal restrictions. Since there are no stem cell research restrictions in Missouri, no reaserch would have been halted if Amendment 2 didn't pass -- and no reaserch started because restrictions were lifted by the passage of Amendment 2. The only effect is on the ability of institutions, mainly Washington University, to attract money and researchers for embryonic stem cell research because Missouri would be no worse than any other state. Needless to say, supporters didn't mention this angle.

"Sorry if I sound bitter, but I can't imagine that so many people would actually vote against funding that will help us all in the future, and possibly find cures for so many diseases. I know I probably won't change your mind, but I hope you get a crystal clear picture of what you will be going through in the future."

Funding? What funding? Maybe you are confused because California voted on funding embryonic stem cell research, but here in Missouri there was no funding involved.

Also, next time you have a failure of imagination, maybe you should do more investigation and ask yourself "maybe I'm wrong?". It works wonders for me.

And no, you won't change my mind with a post like that. You're passion means nothing to me; your reasoning, facts, and acknowledgment of my reasoning and facts mean everything.

"Do you understand what stem cell research can do for you and your family?"

Well here's the deal. The results so far indicate that adult stem cell therapies can provide all the benefits more easily than embryonic stem cell therapies. I understand the desire of scientists to study everything, but ethical factors should and do limit research from time to time. No doubt not all that long ago vivisection would have provided a great deal of useful medical knowledge, but it was outlawed for ethical concerns. And it would be much easier to experiment on people without their knowledge, but again we limit that as well for ethical reasons. Now I understand we disagree about the ethics of embryonic stem cell research, but please understand that ethical concerns are my objection to embryonic stem cell research, which means appeals to utility fall on deaf ears.

What I disliked most about the amendment was the deception involved. The amendment claimed to ban all human cloning while it specifically only banned creating a clone for reproduction and not for research. The Amendment claimed to guarantee access to stem cell cures for Missourians but there are no restrictions on the cures and there are no embryonic stem cell cures at the moment.

Ms. Asher called me a crazy nut case (yeah, that will help change my opinion) while linking my ballot measures roundup post wherein I thought I made clear the reasons I was opposed to the Amendment and summed up: "While I don't think this amendment will make much difference one way or another, I'm voting against it because (1) it is deliberately misleading, and (2) it doesn't belong in the constitution."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see how that makes me a crazy nutcase.

Superbowl XLI

The game: lopsided except for the score.

The ads: dull, dull, dull.

The halftime show: not bad.

I was looking forward to the superbowl, I was rooting for Indy, but when the half time show is the high point of the experience, something is wrong. Very wrong.

Maybe it's time to scrap the Roman Numerals and use Arabic. Maybe it wasn't time to hold the Superbowl in a stadium that isn't a dome. Maybe it's just another football game.

Why Is Scooter Libby On Trial?

I've promised one last Plame post numerous times, but the Scooter Libby trial requires comment -- if only for the sheer fun of saying the defendant's name. If you want the ins and outs, Tom Maguire is as always your man. I'm taking a big picture look.

First off, near as I can tell just about everybody who got roped into Fitzgerald's investigation has had trouble with remembering what actually happened -- who said what to whom when -- or has changed their story, yet only Mr. Libby is on trial. Mr. Fitzgerald claims that is because Mr. Libby deliberately mislead him and impeded his investigation, but his investigation into what? He determined that no crime occured, and that determination had nothing to do with who leaked first, it had to do with Ms. Plame-Wilson's status.

Secondly, Joe Wilson has lied long and loud and clear yet he suffers no penalty for doing so. I'm not even sure he actually went to Niger since he's lied about everything else. And as it turns out, he is the guy who actually leaked his wife's status as an ex-NOC -- up until he yapped to Mr. Corn, his wife simply worked at the CIA. It's bad enough Armitage, Fleischer, Rove and Libby let out that much, but Joe himself the most damage.

Third and last, why is Fitzgerald and the government wasting time with this prosecution when real live CIA leaks that actually caused harm are going uninvestigated and unpunished?

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

I admit it - I love Scooby-Doo. Not the later, lamer cartoons, but the original. So I report with sadness that his creator, Iwao Takamoto, has died.

Obesity Has Replaced Starvation

I admit it's an odd sort of good news: Obeseity has replaced starvation as the main problem with world food supply. As a onetime Guidance and Controls guy (GPS isn't guidance, its Nav!) I hope it's just overshoot until we settle into a proper caloric balance:

One of the most surprising news items of 2006, at least to me, was the announcement that there are now more overweight people in the world than hungry ones.

Say what? It was not that long ago that all the experts were predicting that our skyrocketing human population would soon outstrip its food supply, leading directly to mass famine. By now millions were supposed to be perishing from hunger every year. It was the old doom-and-gloom Malthusian mathematics at work: population shoots up geometrically while food production lags. It makes eminent sense. I grew up with Malthus's ideas brought up-to-date in apocalyptic books like The Population Bomb.

Who defused the bomb? Instead of mass starvation, we seem to be awash in food. And it's not just the United States. Obesity is on the increase in Mexico. Fat-related diabetes is becoming epidemic in India. My parents used to tell me when I didn't eat my dinner to think about the hungry children in China. Today one in five people in China is overweight, 60 million are obese, and the rate of overweight children has increased 28-fold since 1985. Everywhere you look, from Buffalo to Beijing, it's ballooning bellies.

Needless to say, reality hasn't caught up to everyone just yet, but with world population set to peak around 2050, the looming problem is aging/shriking populations (yes Virginia, even China) and how will countries deal with that?

Hat tip to TinkertyTonk

Potpourri for 100

My wife likes Christmas CDs, I like Billy Idol, but somehow I don't think it's right to mix the two. IOW, I didn't buy the Billy Idol: Happy Holidays despite the obvious temptation.

Is it just me, or do liberals only like dead Republican presidents?

Is there a downside to the Rosie Trump feud? Yes - more attention for a couple of people who need to go on a strict publicity diet.

Maybe it's time to consider a 3 state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Let's Go Crazy

Speaking of Apple, I too noticed a slow down in the iTunes store on Christmas morning when the Fruit of the Murphy Loins were trying to load up their new gifts.

Speaking of layers of editors etc. , I just had to laugh at this line:

That extravagant spending may not last forever: one analyst said that while Apple now has about 75 percent of the market for downloaded music, it could see as much as 5 percent of market share go elsewhere in 2007 because of increased competition.

May not last forever? As the once and current Prince noted, forever is a mighty long time, so one can drop the "may" part. But then the writer would be confronted with putting a real time limit on how long Apple's dominance will last, which, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, is a known unknowable.

A Friendly Reminder

Nine shopping days left.

No, I'm not done. Are you?

My problem is that I always start with the easy gifts, and then as time is running out I'm stuck with people who are impossible to buy for. Yes, that is a pretty easy recipe for stress.

Jennifer Aniston Available

Jennifer Anniston is back on the market. I suppose I should point out that Hollywood you don't have to be married for a breakup to be considered news.

Dale Carnegie Meet John Brunner

Here's some good advice from novelist John Brunner, from his novel The Traveler In Black:

"But -- but I counseled against this foolishness!" stammered Jacques.

"No," corrected the one in black. "You did not counsel. You said: you are pig-headed fools not to see that I am absolutely, unalterably right while everybody else is wrong. And when they would not listen to such dogmatic bragging -- as who would? -- you washed your hands of them and wished them a dreadful doom."

"Did I wish them any worse than they deserved?" Jacques was trying to keep up a front of bravado, but a whine had crept into his voice and he had to link his fingers to keep his hands from shaking.

"Discuss the matter with those who are coming to find you," proposed the traveler sardonically. "Their conviction is different from yours. They hold that by making people disgusted with the views you subscribed to, you prevented rational thought from regaining its mastery of Ys. Where you should have reasoned, you flung insults; where you should have argued soberly and with purpose, you castigated honest men with doubts, calling them purblind idiots. This is what they say. Whether your belief or theirs constitutes the truth, I leave for you and them to riddle out."

I first read this many hears ago when in high school or junior high and I still remember it. While I have fallen into the trap of flinging insults where I should have reasoned too many times, I do try to be a moderate extremist and use reason as much as my worse nature permits.

One On One With Kim Jong-Il

Yes, this is going around so you can find it all over, and yes, it really is unfair to Madeleine Albright, but after She Who Must Be Obeyed opened her mouth, I couldn't resist.

A less funny, more traditional rebuttal was provided by Sen. John McCain. McQ delivers a fisking. Personally, I can't fault either administration too much because North Korea under Kim Jong-il was simply going to try and develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them no matter what anyone said. It was worth giving talk a chance, but once it becomes clear that's a waste of time, why continue? Now we need to talk to the North Korea's neighbors about what we are going to do, not talk to Kim.

And another thing, why is it the same people who criticize President Bush for acting unilaterally, or for the US acting like a bully, demand that the talks with North Korea only be with the United States? It's just more dead horse beating.K

Hewlett Packard, We Hardly Know You Anymore

I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Hewlett Packard. Perhaps it's because when I was a physics undergrad I used the original signal generators sold to Stanford University in my first lab (and yes, even then they belonged in a museum). When I was graduating, they were known as a quality employer with a special culture. So I have always associated the company with the best engineering values. It seems that all things change, and sadly H-P has changed too. The Carly Fiorina fiasco has now been followed by Patricia Dunn debacle. No, I don't think this has anything to do with the ability of a woman to run a great engineering company. I think it happens to do more with who runs large companies these days. Not just cream floats to the top.

Pope Benedict and Islam

Isn't it amazing? The way mobs across Dar al Islam seem to hang on the Pope's every word, even scrutinizing obscure addresses that get zero press in nominally Christian countries, unless Dar al Islam expresses its displeasure and the Western Press is forced to cover it. Considering what a wonderful address it is, I suppose I should thank them for raising such a stink that I got to read it.

Before we get to the meat of the address, I'm going to tackle the so-called offensive part of the address, which is being labled as a call for inter-faith dialogue. Well, Benedict calls it a cultural dialogue, and from his remarks he's going way beyond churchman from Christianity and Islam having their own hootenanny. It's a call for everybody to dialogue within a framework of reason, and he tells the story that got the the Moslem world so riled up to make this point: "not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature."

Now, did he have to include

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"?

Good question, and let me bounce that right back at you, since Mohammed claimed that the Bible was garbled and he was just straightening out Jews and Christians, what did Mohammed bring that was new? What is your opinion of Mohammed's changes?

I'd also like to point out that the press doesn't seem to be able to quote properly, as this article on CNN has trouble:

The pope enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammed brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

They seemed to have missed the whole "that was new" part. I suppose I should chalk it up to them having very little understanding of either Christianity or Islam. The emporer's point is that Mohammed didn't add anything to the Bible that wasn't inhuman and evil. A fine distinction you might claim, but an important one since it's saying not that everything Mohammed preached was evil, only those places where he made changes. And even more oddly, isn't that exactly what you would expect a Christian to believe? I do, and if I didn't, I'd be a Muslim, not a Christian.

I'm not Catholic, and I have some theological bones to pick with Catholicism, but I have to say that at least the last two popes have been extraordinary leaders, each in their own way. I'm going to have to start reading the pope more since he's the only guy out there defending Western thought, practice,and culture these days.

I've excerpted the introduction and the conclusion to Pope Benedict's address and urge you to read the whole thing:

It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

...

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

What more can I say?

The Path to 9/11 (2)

Yes, I actually watched The Path to 9/11, except a chunk in the middle Sunday night. First up, the negatives. I did manage to catch two glaring errors: a couple of times they talked about scrambling F-16s and they showed the same clip of a F-14. I'm sure Lock-Mart would have been happy to provide a clip of a F-16 taking off. And then when they had the Tomahawk missile strike against Afganistan, they showed video of a Harpoon leaving a canister. I suppose the marketing for the land attack capability in the latest version of Harpoon went much better than I realized. Since I worked on Harpoon for a long while, I admit I enjoyed that goof.

Seriously, while I loved the no commercials, the shaky cam started to seriously annoy long before the end. My head isn't that unsteady, so it just comes across as fake. And I about laughed outloud towards the end when after the attacks Condoleeza Rice told Richarde Clarke, "Yes boss, we sure do need a strong white man to run things around here." (Or words to that effect.) Perhaps I'm wrong, but it strikes me that in a meeting with Rice and Cheney in it, Clarke is in fact chopped liver. I think Condi had far more to complain about than Maddy Albright, who came across as tougher than the rest of the Clinton cabinet combined and someone who should be negotiating on behalf of our country. Hell, as peaceful as I am I'd be ready to fix bayonet and charge uphill into machine gun fire if the character in the movie were leading the way.

Could they have found an older looking guy to play Cheney? He's not a bad looking 65 in real life, but in the movies they always have somebody playing him who looks like he hasn't smiled in 40 years and has one foot in the grave.

Here's the real problem with the movie, and any such look back - there are nothing but connected dots. The movie spans 8 years in 3 hours, and only included are the events that matter. So when watching the movie, of course its all so obvious. But in real life, there is all kinds of stuff going on, and separating signal from noise is very hard.

The fault for 9/11 lies squarely with al-Qaida, and neither the Clinton or Bush administrations. Yes, had some things been done differently, we might have been able to sniff out and stop the plot. So rather than looking back to point fingers, we should be looking back to figure out what are the things we can do better. And that just isn't happening.

The Path to 9/11

It's getting ugly out there. Real Ugly. All that dispicable letter from the Democatic Senators needs is Luigi Vercotti's signature "Things break, Colonel."

I'm sorry if the people who brought us It's the Ecomony, Stupid!" don't like a reasonably accurate (hey, it's TV, it will never be entirely accurate) examination of the past, but so be it. I'm looking forward to the original work, but fully expect ABC to cave.

Just check out Libertas, which has been on top of this story like Tom Maguire on the big Plame-out.

I'm trying hard not to get a case of Leftist Derangment Syndrome, but it gets harder with every provocation.

Free Spirit or Cold Blooded Killer?

Michael Lee Shaver, Jr. has been charged with at keast one murder after confessing to seven. He made a living off robbing and killing drug dealers. I'm going to skip right over the grisly part of how he hid the evidence, and to right to what his neighbors had to say:

Neighbors on Southfork Drive said Shaver never fit in with other residents of the rural subdivision, where homes are built on three- to five-acre wooded lots.

They said Shaver, his mother and her husband moved into the house more than four years ago when the owner of the home returned from a nursing home stay and needed help. Shaver’s mother, Shirley Bryson, 53, cared for the older man and stayed on after he died earlier this year.

The rest of the neighborhood wasn’t happy with that. Occasionally, unfamiliar people would live there for a while, neighbors said.

Keith McMeins said an ever-changing cast of characters visited the log home. Their musical taste ran to Led Zeppelin and “headbanger crap,” which they played loudly enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, McMeins said.

McMeins said he once caught Shaver walking off with a garden hose, which Shaver dropped after McMeins threatened to call the sheriff.

“What possessed you to take the hose?” McMeins asked.

“Jack Daniels,” he remembered Shaver replying.

Neighbor Russ Feeback said the heavily tattooed Shaver was a “basic, prison-looking guy.” He said people in the area noticed a lot of traffic at the house and often heard Shaver yelling.

Usually the neighbors say "he was such a quiet man", but not this time. And by the way, don't ever call Led Zeppelin "headbanger crap".

Obama Calls South Africa On AIDS Response

I'm not a fan of Senator Obama, but I'm with him on this one -- South Africa is making a terrible mistake by advocating garlic, beetroot, lemon and African potatoes to combat Aids while underplaying the role of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. The only way I see that helping is the garlic keeping people apart. South Africa needs to get with the program and soon.

John Karr Arrested for the Murder of JonBenet Ramsey

Okay, my home town is in the national news again. Let's see if I can add some local angle to the story that you can't get from CNN.com.

Obviously the JonBenet Ramsey case was in the local paper for many months in 1997. A sizable amount of suspicion fell on her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. They attended an Episcopal Church in town, and some of the horrible fascination with the crime centered around the idea that these respectable church-going people might have a dark side.

The homicide case of Mary and Matthew Winkler in Selmer, Tennessee is a blunt reminder that church-going folk can also commit terrible crimes, but I never considered the Ramseys as likely suspects. That scenario was just too complicated, requiring an elaborate pattern of deception on the part of the dead girl's parents. Naw!

When I thought about the case at all, I preferred the intruder theory. The most obvious clue was that the amount of money demanded for the ransom ($118,000) matched the bonus that John Ramsey had just received from Access Graphics. Who would know that amount? Some disgruntled employee, that's who. So find the disgruntled employee! What's the problem? But the police didn't seem to key in on that aspect of the crime. I don't deserve any credit here because I never figured out all the angles to the theory.

The Ramsey house itself has attracted some unwanted attention. The Boulder Daily Camera has carried several stories of fights breaking out on the street in front, usually between people wanting to take pictures and people wanting to protect what little privacy the family had left. The neighborhood itself is in an area of steep financial gradient between the low-priced student rentals near the University, and the high-priced mansions on small lots up next to the open space and mountain parks. Lots of people flow through the area.

I've ridden my bicycle by the house a few times, taking care not to appear too interested. They've done some landscaping – planting trees in the front yard, and other touches. The place looks different now than it did on that Christmas evening in 1996.

The Rocky Mountain News on August 17 published a short item “Under suspicion” on page 31A detailing the other suspects in the case. If you want get creeped out, consider these:

A man who showed up at a memorial service for JonBenet a year after her death. The man has a criminal history, including the sexual assault of a 7-year-old girl in Oregon. Around the time of the slaying, he was getting food and picking up mail at a church near the Ramsey home. When arrested on an unrelated charge in December, officials found a stun gun and a poem about JonBenet in his backpack.

A man living in a suburb east of Boulder who an informant said had a basement shrine to JonBenet. The shrine included a candy cane similar to the candy canes in the Ramsey's front yard at the time of the killing. The tipster also said the man owned stun guns.

A man once arrested in Oceanside, Calif., for a crime against a child. The man lived six blocks from JonBenet's home but disappeared soon after her death.

We locals would like to think that the arrest and apparent confession of John Karr means that the case is solved, that justice has been done at last. Karr could also be some wacko who wanted to attract a bunch of attention, so he did some research and made up a cruel story with himself at the center. The evidence will come out in the weeks and months ahead, so we'll just have to wait and see.

One final note: I'm sure thankful that my own daughter is leading a normal life: reading mystery stories, learning to dance and play soccer, sleeping in on Saturday mornings, looking at algae through her microscope, braiding her hair, and – just living. That's what little girls should be doing. If she complains about having to eat her whole dinner, I don't mind so much. Because sometimes I think, what if she were suddenly taken from me? Or brutally assaulted and murdered like JonBenet was? I know I would long to hear her complain about dinner just one more time.

Andrew Then And Now

Andrew Sullivan once warned of the dangers of a fifth column, now he's a member. (And it's all Bush's fault).

Feet Of Clay

As you already know if you care about such things, Gunther Grass, so called conscience of post-war Germany, was in the Waffen-SS in WW2. Mr. Grass kept silent about this until he spilled the beans in his autobiography, Peeling Onions. On the one hand, this is Hitler's SS were talking about, on the other hand he was a draftee into a military unit.

Was it the crime or the cover up? Certainly keeping silent all these years only to reveal the truth in a memoir that would be guaranteed to sell like hotcakes is more than just "bad form". Really, how can you be a conscience if you can't admit the truth, and then only for personal gain?

Mr Grass certainly has his share of defenders, like Salman Rushdie and John Irving, and I'm certainly unboard with the view that his body of work stands indepently of himself (a view that allows me to see most movies and TV shows these days). So I don't believe the claim you should ignore a book because of the author's shortcomings. But Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews, has a point when she claims thathis criticsism of his countrymen's inability to confront their complicity with Hitler is absurd when he can't confront his own -- but it isn't the criticism itself, it's Grass himself who becomes absurd. What is the difference between Bill Bennet and Gunther Grass?

Eamonn Fitzgerald points out that American records from his POW internment indicate Grass was a member of the SS, and the German press and biographers never bothered to look at them, even though the docoments are in the hands of a German organization in Berlin.

St. Louis Weather

In case you're interested, yes, I survived last night's storm. In fact, I stood outside watching the storm approach with a neighbor and my son until the rain started. With straight line winds up to 80 mph -- yes, that's hurricane force -- and lots of lightning, it was a storm of Biblical proportions. Watching it approach on radar was interesting as well, because the storm covered just the St. Louis metropolitan region, no more no less.

We had a lot of leaves and small branches down, but nothing major, and no power loss. The A/C compressor did trip it's circuit breaker, which I didn't figure out until this morning, but we are certainly more fortunate than a lot of others - half a million others that is, like my parents, who are without power. The electric company, Ameren UE has run up the white flag and asked for help from anywhere. Did I mention they are predicting 102 today?

Hudson vs. Michigan, Walker vs. Scalia

The Post-Dispatch ran an op-ed by Samuel Walker that claimed Justice Scalia misused his research in the Hudson vs. Michigan decision that limited the exclusionary rule: that is that evidence obtained in violation of the constitution cannot be used in court.

Justice Scalia's (majority) Opinion:

This Court has rejected “[i]ndiscriminate application” of the exclusionary rule, United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897 , holding it applicable only “where its deterrence benefits outweigh its ‘substantial social costs,’ ” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U. S. 357 . Exclusion may not be premised on the mere fact that a constitutional violation was a “but-for” cause of obtaining the evidence. The illegal entry here was not the but-for cause, but even if it were, but-for causation can be too attenuated to justify exclusion. Attenuation can occur not only when the causal connection is remote, but also when suppression would not serve the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee violated. The interests protected by the knock-and-announce rule include human life and limb (because an unannounced entry may provoke violence from a surprised resident), property (because citizens presumably would open the door upon an announcement, whereas a forcible entry may destroy it), and privacy and dignity of the sort that can be offended by a sudden entrance. But the rule has never protected one’s interest in preventing the government from seeing or taking evidence described in a warrant. Since the interests violated here have nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence, the exclusionary rule is inapplicable. Pp. 3–7.

(c) The social costs to be weighed against deterrence are considerable here. In addition to the grave adverse consequence that excluding relevant incriminating evidence always entails—the risk of releasing dangerous criminals—imposing such a massive remedy would generate a constant flood of alleged failures to observe the rule, and claims that any asserted justification for a no-knock entry had inadequate support. Another consequence would be police officers’ refraining from timely entry after knocking and announcing, producing preventable violence against the officers in some cases, and the destruction of evidence in others. Next to these social costs are the deterrence benefits. The value of deterrence depends on the strength of the incentive to commit the forbidden act. That incentive is minimal here, where ignoring knock-and-announce can realistically be expected to achieve nothing but the prevention of evidence destruction and avoidance of life-threatening resistance, dangers which suspend the requirement when there is “reasonable suspicion” that they exist, Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U. S. 385 . Massive deterrence is hardly necessary. Contrary to Hudson’s argument that without suppression there will be no deterrence, many forms of police misconduct are deterred by civil-rights suits, and by the consequences of increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline. Pp. 8–13.

Prof Walker's complaint:

First, I learned that Justice Antonin Scalia cited me to support a terrible decision, holding that the exclusionary rule -- which for decades prevented evidence obtained illegally by police from being used at trial -- no longer applies when cops enter your home without knocking.

Even worse, he twisted my main argument to reach a conclusion the exact opposite of what I spelled out.

The misuse of evidence is a serious offense in academia as well as in the courts. When your work is manipulated, it is a violation of your intellectual integrity. Since the issue at stake in the Hudson case is extremely important -- what role the Supreme Court should play in policing the police -- I felt obligated to set the record straight.

Scalia quoted my book, "Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in American Criminal Justice," on the point that there has been tremendous progress "in the education, training and supervision of police officers" since the 1961 Mapp decision, which imposed the exclusionary rule on local law enforcement.

My argument, based on the historical evidence of the last 40 years, is that the court of Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1960s played a pivotal role in stimulating these reforms. For more than 100 years, police departments had failed to curb misuse of authority by officers on the street while the courts took a hands-off attitude. The Warren court's interventions (Mapp and Miranda being the most famous) set new standards for lawful conduct, forcing the police to reform and strengthening community demands for curbs on abuse.

Scalia's opinion suggested that the results I highlighted have sufficiently removed the need for an exclusionary rule to act as a judicial-branch watchdog over the police. I have never said or even suggested such a thing.

To the contrary, I have argued that the results reinforce the Supreme Court's continuing importance in defining constitutional protections for individual rights and requiring the appropriate remedies for violations, including the exclusion of evidence.

The ideal approach is for the court to join the other branches of government in a mix of remedies for police misconduct: judicially mandated exclusionary rules, legislation to give citizens oversight of police and administrative reforms in training and supervision. No single remedy is sufficient to this very important task.

I have to say I don't think the Professor made his case against the Justice. The Justice claims that police misbehavior is deterred internally to the police by increased professionalism and externally by civil suits. I have no doubt that the data in the good Professor's book supports that claim; however, the Justice has a different opinion of the future of deterence with a more limited exclusionary rule than the Professor. Namely, the Justice feels that the reforms have become self supporting, wheras the Professor feels that without the spur of the exclusionary rule the police, despite the risk of civil lawsuit and their increased professionalism, will backslide. The complaint in fact boils down to "Justice Scalia has a different opinion of a future course events", not the stated complaint that "Justice Scalia misused my research".

Perhaps Prof. Walker will next take up the curious case of Goldberg vs. the Star-Tribune.

However, let's look at the substance of the decision. Let's take up Justice Breyer's dissenting (minority) opinion:

In Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U. S. 927 (1995) , a unanimous Court held that the Fourth Amendment normally requires law enforcement officers to knock and announce their presence before entering a dwelling. Today’s opinion holds that evidence seized from a home following a violation of this requirement need not be suppressed

As a result, the Court destroys the strongest legal incentive to comply with the Constitution’s knock-and-announce requirement. And the Court does so without significant support in precedent. At least I can find no such support in the many Fourth Amendment cases the Court has decided in the near century since it first set forth the exclusionary principle in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914) . See Appendix, infra.

Today’s opinion is thus doubly troubling. It represents a significant departure from the Court’s precedents. And it weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution’s knock-and-announce protection.

... [Lots of legal citations]

There may be instances in the law where text or history or tradition leaves room for a judicial decision that rests upon little more than an unvarnished judicial instinct. But this is not one of them. Rather, our Fourth Amendment traditions place high value upon protecting privacy in the home. They emphasize the need to assure that its constitutional protections are effective, lest the Amendment ‘sound the word of promise to the ear but break it to the hope.’ They include an exclusionary principle, which since Weeks has formed the centerpiece of the criminal law’s effort to ensure the practical reality of those promises. That is why the Court should assure itself that any departure from that principle is firmly grounded in logic, in history, in precedent, and in empirical fact. It has not done so. That is why, with respect, I dissent.

Let's do what it seems all Supreme Court Justices do these days - ignore precedent and examine my own unvarnished judicial instinct. The goal of the judicial system is to punish the guilty and exhonerate the innocent. Ideally we would do so perfectly, but we undertand that nothing in this life is perfect, and so in America we like to see the inevitable tradeoffs bias the system to exhonerating the innocent over punishing the guilty.

So how does the exclusionary rule fit in? If you haven't committed a crime (i.e. innocent), then there isn't any evidence to be excluded. However, if you have committed a crime, then the evidence is excluded and you get to "get out of jail free. In sum, it perversely allows the guilty to go free but does nothing for the innocent.

At first blush the exclusionary principle seems to actually run counter to what we want a judicial system to do. However, what are the other remedies for the innocent? Civil suits? Yes, in the case of great wrongs, but for the person who suffers little economic loss and only moderate or less non-economic loss such suits don't offer much remedy. That leaves us with civilian review boards and internal policing. Perhaps I'm too hard on government agencies, but my gut tells me that in either case more than the benefit of the doubt will go the police, and only the most flagrant cases will result in any discipline to the police.

The exclusionary rule reminds of the onetime taboo against children out of wedlock -- it served the broader interests of society while being, let's face it, unjust to the individuals it was directed against.

So I have to agree with Justice Breyer, and Professor Walker, that in our opinion, the exclusionary rule (as preverse as it is) is vital to keeping the police from abusing their authority and infringing on our rights. Better that one criminal go free than 10 people have their rights trampled. It is one of those rules that arises from the wisdom of experience, and I'm sorry to say Justice Scalia's reasoning in setting aside such a bright line rule is best described as airy fairy. I have to hope that if this experiment turns out to be a bust, that is if the police escalate the number of unconsititutional no-knock entries, the Supreme Court will treat this decision with as much respect for precedence it showed others and return to the strong but unpopular medicine of the exclusionary rule.

The (Pay Per) View: Star vs. Barbara

I can't say why I clicked through to the article about the Star Jones - Barbara Walters cat fight, but I did -- OK, it's the phrase cat fight -- and I was rewarded with puzzlement. No, not that celebrities are people too, but by this bizarre claim by Ms. Walters:

Jones was one of the original cast members of the show when it launched nine years ago. Word is network execs decided not to renew her contract for a 10th season because research showed her dramatic weight loss and 2004 wedding to banker Al Reynolds was a turn-off to viewers.

“We tried to talk them out of it, and we tried to give Star time to redeem herself in the eyes of the audience, and the research just kept getting worse,” Walters added.

What's this talk about redeeming herself? Does Barbara mean put the weight back on and get divorced? Who exactly watches The View if they don't like a sister losing weight and marrying? Fat lesbians?

UPDATE: This story just keeps getting stranger as time goes on. Star Jones Reynolds told Larry King that ABC told her to make up a story as to why she was leaving to spare her the embarrassment of admiting that it was because she was unpopular with the audience.

King read Reynolds a statement from ABC claiming that she had been dismissed from the show immediately because, after her remarks to PEOPLE, the network could not trust her to tell the truth on the air.

Reynolds said she was "having trouble reconciling" that charge with the fact that ABC had previously asked her to lie.

You and me both, Star. Oh wait, this is a network we're talking about. As Jack would say, you can't handle the truth! Nor the American people, as according to this People poll currently shows 62% supporting "Team Walters". Star Jones "betrayed" Barbara Walters for announcing the truth live on national television? [Is the view live? -- if it isn't why not cut the offending part out?] I guess this confirms that baba wawa wouldn't know a news story if it bit her in the butt, because this one sure did.

And just who was the lie really supposed to help? Star or The View? The View, of course, because who do you think less of, the person who got fired for losing weight and getting married, or the person who fired her? Tell me again who lost their dignity here?

How would you take "you're skinny, you're happily married, you're fired!"? Announce that you're leaving the show to stay thin and married? Or just come right out and tell the truth - they don't want me back.

As a futher butress to my claim that the View's core audience is fat lesbians, consider who they are replacing her with: Rosie O'Donnell. I rest my case.

Immigration Ecomonics

I expect you've heard this big picture thermodynamics question before: You have a thermally isolated room with a refrigerator. You plug the refrigerator into a working outlet and open its door. Does the room get colder, warmer, or stay the same? The answer is that the room gets warmer because the total energy in the room is increasing due to the electricity flow via the plug. If you look at the big picture, it's really a very easy problem.

So we come to the point of this post, the effect of large scale immigration on workers. The relevant law here is that of supply and demand, and if you increase the supply of workers, the price at which they are employed will inevitably fall relative to the price without an increase. Now it may well happen that if the increase in demand is greater than the increase in supply the actual price increases, just less than it would have if there had been no increase in the supply. So if you get a lot of immigrants who are increasing the supply of labor, then that will inevitably lower the price everybody is getting paid in that labor pool relative to what they would get without a change in labor supply. I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, I'm just saying what happens.

What sparked this particular post is a John Tierney column which would appear to be behind the Times Select Wall since the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran a column the NYTs published May 30th today. I'm a fan of Mr. Tierney, but I think he stumbles a bit in this article as he's pretty breezy with one consequence to large scale immigration (legal or not). And yes Virginia, there isn't just one consequence.

First off, neither Mr. Tierney or I compete in the same labor pool with the overwhelming majority of immigrants, so we are able to offer a bit more detachment than those who do. I admits its easy to blase, even upbeat about trends that you don't think affect you.

Secondly, Mr. Tierney makes the common mistake of confusing an anecdote with data. He offers the nice tale of a native American women (not to be confused with Native American) who loses her nail salon to the more numerous, lower cost salons run by Vietnamese immigrants. But she lands on her feet by going freelance and working for the wealthy of LA who are willing to pay to have someone who can carry on an intellegent conversation while doing their nails at home. So, despite the fact that a particular person was able to land on her feet, did the average wage in the nail salon business go up or down? Mr. Tierney doesn't comment on this directly, but I think we are safe to infer from the rest of the story it went down. And I'll point something out that Mr. Tierney doesn't -- the (better) job that his nail salon owner found existed before she found it; that is there were plenty of wealthy people who were willing to pay extra for in home nail care before the Vietnamese took over the salon business, its just that the salon owner was comfortable in her job and was not looking to make a change. But what about the wages of such freelance workers - have they gone up or down with the influx of American workers into that niche, displaced by the Vietnamese into the salon business? Again, Mr. Tierney is silent on this subject, but uses the anecdote to claim out that everything will be just fine for all the displaced workers because everything worked out for the particular lady he featured. What would the story have been like had this particular worker moved into the at home/freelance nail business several years ago? Would it have been quite to happy and upbeat? Or would she have been complained of declining wages due to the increased competition with her fellow natives who were moving into the business?

Well, I have no doubt that some workers will move to better jobs because they will actively seek jobs where they weren't looking in the past. But I also have no doubt that some workers will not move to better jobs, and there will be downward pressure on the wages of those workers who remain in their jobs.

And whether you considered this a positive or negative affect might depend if you were a worker in the field, or if you were a consumer of this product or service who was seeing a decline in its price.

And this raises an even bigger point for me -- I think we are better off as a nation looking at the issue, exploring the costs and benefits, weighing the options, and then devising the laws and regulations through the political process with representative government, than we are with our current system of immigration policy by default, with inflows determined by the immigrants themselves, because they aren't looking at the big picture, nor would I expect them to. They are looking at what it means to them.

One of the problems with illegal immigration is that not only the immigration, but so much of the life of such an immigrant takes place off the books. And as Hernado De Soto observes, this life in legal limbo is what makes so many countries poor, and will certainly hurt our own nation. So for me, whatever else the outcome of immigration reform, I just want to see the illegal, off the books part brought back into the law, back onto the books.

A great American Stephen Decatur once said "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country right or wrong.” I'm going to say: "Our representative goverment! May the outcome of our representative government always be in the right; but the process of representative government right or wrong."

Insults Do Not An Exchange Of Ideas Make

After taking Ann Coulter to task for her insulting remarks about a certain group of 9/11 widows, I think it only right to show case a remark by one Larry Johnson that is far worse than any Coulter made: "Karl is a shameless bastard. Small wonder his mother killed herself. Once she discovered what a despicable soul she had spawned she apparently saw no other way out." Mr. Johnson has since tweaked the remark, although from "Small wonder his mother killed herself" to "This could explain why his mother killed herself" really isn't much of a change in meaning. So what's the point? Mr. Johnson objects to Mr. Rove's "attacks" on Jack Murtha and John Kerry for wanting to withdraw all American troops ASAP - as well as the usual assorted claims against the Bush administration. Does such a remark reveal anything about Mr. Rove, let alone shed any light on the correctness of any claims by either Mr. Johnson or Mr. Rove? Of course not, but they do reveal a lot about the character of Mr. Johnson, none of it positive. And I can't even say about Mr. Johnson it reflects badly on his substantive points because he doesn't have any. He simply wants us to believe the paranoid fantasies of the left based on his insults of the right.

Nor do I care what Johnson has to say about Don Surber, who demonstrates how to argue like a grown up, not a petulant, spoiled baby who cries and lashes out when people simply don't do as he demands.

When Not Is News

So when is something not happening news? When it's Karl Rove Not being indicted. Why is his not getting indicted news? Because a lot of people on the left were convinced he would be, and since most people in the news media were also convinced (since there is of course no overlap between lefties and the news media according to both lefties and the news media) that he would be, his not being indicted is almost bigger news than if he had been. Tom Maguire, who's been all over this story from conception, has the story. I'm still wondering who's worse, Nifong or Fitzgerald.

Palestine, Hamas, and us.

OK, remind me again why we should give Hamas a nickel, or why the Palestinians, who've never missed an oportunity to miss an oportunity, deserve a state (and not the Kurds?) Because from where I sit, all I can see is the partying in the streets after 9/11, and now the comes the reaction of Hamas to Zarqawi's death - a man responsible for the death of thousands, and a man who took delight in beheading people: "With hearts full of faith, Hamas commends brother-fighter Abu Musab ... who was martyred at the hands of the savage crusade campaign which targets the Arab homeland, starting in Iraq". If Hamas considers Zarqawi a brother fighter, and Zarqawi clearly fought against the US, that means that Hamas considers themselves ... in a fight against us. I say we don't disappoint them.

Ann Coulter and The Jersey Girls

The problem with Ann Coulter is that whenever she makes some good points she discredits them with terrible hyperbole and insult. Her problem isn't uncommon in partisans who are forever overreaching, but far too often she misses provocative and land squarely in revolting. For instance, Confederate Yankee is able to make the point she was trying to make without any insult: "The point, of course, was simply this: personal tragedy does not bestow omnipotence upon the bereaved." I would add that the greater the demonstration of bereavement, the greater the compromise of wisdom and perspective, but then I come from the stoic Midwest.

Borders Will Carry Mohammed Cartoons

Borders has decided that while they weren't willing to risk jihad over an obscure publication that a few people read, they are willing to put their necks on the line for Vanity Fair. Maybe they figure Jihadists were already so upset at the pictures of mostly naked women in the ads (so I've been told) that they wouldn't bother to notice that VF has the infamous Mohammed Cartoons in them. Or Borders could be run by a bunch of buttholes. We report, you decide.

Haditha

There are two kinds of news stories I lack confidence in (just two?). There is the anonymously sourced story, and there is the "local people tell us" stories. The first is a staple of political reporting - and the shortcoming is that an anonymous source always has an agenda, and the anonymity hides the agenda. I'm not talking about the "some people say" or "experts say" without providing an actual person which is the way reporters simply inject their own opinions into a story, I'm talking were the reporter is relying on a source for information but just not telling us who that is all the while pretending that we are getting the whole story. We're not.

The "local people tell us" is a staple of international reporting, but it doesn't have to be international. The whole Katrina reporting debacle - yes, Virginia, pretty much everything the press reported about New Orleans following Katrina was wrong, and wrong because it was "local people tell us". The press didn't make up these stories out of whole cloth, they simply reported rumor as fact (and they thought that if multiple people told them the same rumor, why it must be fact). Think about how bad the press got it during Katrina, when the sources by and large had no agenda but were simply repeating what they had heard in good faith. Then think about all those stories where an intrepid reporter discounts the "official" version of events in a foriegn land because he's talked to the locals and found out what they know (or in reality, what they think they know). Now the reporter isn't just running with rumor dressed up in it's Sunday best, but is often relaying whatever agenda the locals have as well.

This brings me to the story of a possible deliberate killing of civilians by Marines in Iraq. I have no idea what happened, and to my mind both the worst and the best may have occured. But the story is being driven by leaks to the New York Times. Maybe the leaker just wants to get the story out a month or two sooner - or far more likely the leaker has an agenda and wants to shape the story by getting his or her version out there first. And the story of a massecre is also supported by local witnesses -- who may be right, but who may be wrong or even lying. And what do we know about eyewitnesses testimony? It's unreliable, and it can be influenced into error after the fact.

Maybe the lurid storiy of a Marine unit shooting innocents is completely accurate. I don't know. It wouldn't be the first time American soldiers have done terrible things. I don't want to confuse my hopes with reality, but I prefer to wait to more facts are in - what's really in the report, what is the physical evidence, and even what local eyewitness have to say in detail.

President Bush's Immigration Speech

I didn't see the President's speech last night as I was at my daughter's orchestra concert. And then picking up my son from scouts. And then walking the dog. In the rain. Uphill. Both ways.

I have read the speech, and I think it is a dandy. Because it does everything it should, it will be condemned by extremists on both sides, plus the usual Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers. I'm not an immigration extremist - I don't think we should just let everybody in who wants to be an American, nor can I find it in my heart to condemn people who have yes, broken the law by coming here, but not done anything wrong (IMHO) because they have come here because yes, Virginia, this is the best country in the world. And doubly so when we did next to nothing once they made it here.

I have only one question for President Bush: I know you're plates been full, but what took so long?

The next question is what will Congress do? My prediction - not much slowly.

Current Obsessions Over Nothing

Gas prices seem to be like the weather these days: Everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything about it. Have you noticed anybody slowing down on the road these days? Driving less? How about bitching about it like somehow we're all entitled to nice weather and cheap gas all the time? The first two, nothing. The third, plenty.

Yesterday I came across the USA Today story about NSA gathering information from three out of four telephone companies with mild boredom. I didn't even bother blogging about it because it seemed so trivial. Now the government has a trifle of the info that private companies already have and I'm supposed to care? This is what kills me about so much of the privacy paranoia - the information has already been gathered by one entity, but if the federal governement gets its hands on it, watch out, dictatorship is around the corner (or already here). Thankfully, most of my fellow Americans agree with me, and those who don't (in the story, anyway) turn out to have a full blown case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. At least there is more ot this story than the Bush Fishing Kerfuffle.

All Mouth, No Stomach

Sudan is a killing field. No question about it, whatever you decide to call it. Well, now some people have discovered it - like George Clooney. No problem with that, and welcome. I have no doubt Mr. Clooney et al are sincere. But I do have a few questions.

First off, what's the difference between Sudan/Darfur now and Iraq pre-2003? Other than more dead Iraqi's and the prospect of neverending death and destruction? So if you didn't like the intervention in Iraq, why are you urging it in Sudan? Just because you personally visited one region and not the other? Why not go talk to survivors of Hussein's reign of terror then? What will happen when the only way to stop the slaughter now is to give up on the UN and act unilaterally, or at best with the same circle of trusted allies (like the British)? Will you be out cheering President Bush then? What will happen when US forces kill Africans in Africa? What will happen when the US takes casualties in Sudan? Will you stand firm for what you urged, or will you question why we are intervening in someone else's civil war? Will you stand firm, or will you question why the US, stained by slavery, is killing innocent black people in Africa? Will you stand firm, or will you start in with American boys are paying with life and limb for Sudanese Oil?

What I'm asking is, when the going gets rough as most surely it will -- the only way to stop the killing will be to intervene militarily, and we will take casualties, and we will ki