It's magic!

Jonathan Chait has a brief, but very good, blog post entitled "Lamar and the Magic Climate Plan" (where I took the above Willy Wonka image) that points out the problem - er, one of the problems - with Republicans these days:

Lamar Alexander takes to the Wall Street Journal op-ed page to lay out his clean energy vision. It's a lot like the Republican health care vision: let's do all the popular stuff and none of the unpopular stuff it requires.

Well, of course. That's pretty much what we expect from Republicans these days - nothing serious, just propaganda to fool the uninformed. And it's the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, too - which had some of the looniest editorials in America even before it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch (of Fox "News" infamy).

All of Chait's post is well worth reading (and as I say, it's quite short), but I thought the last two paragraphs were particularly good:

This is not the only problem with Alexander's piece. He outlines goals, like increasing conservation and electrifying half the automobile fleet -- but he has absolutely nothing about how to obtain these goals. His electric car plan is literally what you read above: "Electrify half our cars and trucks." Who would do this? How? He does not say. Cars and trucks run on gasoline because gasoline is the cheapest fuel available. If you wanted half the cars to run on electric power, you'd have to change this so that gasoline was no longer the cheapest fuel available. It could be a tax on carbon emissions, enormous subsidies for electric batteries, regulatory fiat, something. Likewise, if you want people to conserve energy, you need to increase the cost of using energy.

I'm not sure how you have a debate with people like this. It's as if you propose that, in order to get your family out of debt, your 23 year old son living at home gets a job, and the son replies that he likes the part of your idea where he gets paid, but let's leave out the part where he goes to work. This is basically Alexander's case. And he's one of the moderate Republicans! Most of them just deny the science of climate change altogether. The moderate position is that we can fix the problem via magic.

You can't debate people like this, because they're not interested in determining the best policies. Their only goal is political advantage. Everything is presented through the prism of politics. Reality is immaterial. Reason is immaterial. Evidence is immaterial. What's important to them is only how it will fly with voters and campaign contributors. Here's another example:

Just a year and a half after they were tossed out of power, at the end of eight long years of criminal incompetence and unmitigated disaster (12 years in Congress), Republicans are working hard to get back in charge. But according to House Minority Leader John Boehner, they've learned their lesson. So, what's the magic plan that will miraculously fix everything this time? It's tax cuts! Yup, the same old obsession they had during the entire eight years of George W. Bush! Still that old magic...

Here's Talking Points Memo:

"You equate the idea of lowering marginal tax rates with less revenue for the federal government," Boehner cautioned. "We've seen over the last 30 years that lower marginal tax rates have led to a growing economy, more employment, and more people paying taxes. And if you look at the revenue growth over those 30 years, you've got a prime example of what we've been talking about."

This is practically the reverse of the truth. In the years after the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts, economic growth and employment were significantly lower than they were after Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increases. According to Michael Ettlinger and John Irons of the Center for American Progress, "Over the seven-year periods after each legislative action, average annual growth was 3.9 percent following [Clinton's 1993 tax increase], 3.5 percent following [Reagan's 1981 tax cut], and 2.5 percent following [Bush's 2001 tax cut]."

But beyond the factual contradiction, Boehner appeared to be in denial about the real impact of the Bush tax cuts. Another reporter followed up: "Are you saying that the Bush tax cuts didn't effect the deficits that we're in now?"

Boehner halted for a moment, then shrugged: "The reductions in '01 and '03 were to respond to an economic problem. '01 was done before 9/11. '03 was done in response to what happened to the economy. But that's not what led to the budget deficit. It's not the marginal tax rates. If you look at the problem that we've got here, it's a spending problem, that has grown over the last five or six years. A real spending problem. "

Bush did use the 2001 recession to argue for tax cuts...but only after running for President on a platform of reducing taxes in response to Clinton's budget surpluses. Tax cuts either way. And as for the latter claim--"that's not what led to the budget deficit"--the numbers tell a much different story.

Take a look at this graph from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Bush tax cuts are in fact the single biggest contributor to the current deficit.

So what, if anything, would Republicans do differently if they got another bite at the apple? The short answer seems to be: very little.

According to Republicans, black is white, up is down, and this time tax cuts really will magically fix everything. Yes, trickle down economics - voodoo economics - really does work, despite all the evidence when we've tried it. You just have to have faith.

And yes, of course, Republicans will drastically cut spending this time. Trust them. Of course, they won't tell us what they'll cut. And when they do propose cutting some specific program, it will have about as much effect on the deficit as spitting at it. But then, their goal isn't to cut the deficit. Their goal is entirely political.

Unless we start getting smarter voters - better informed, more rational, more honest, less gullible, less apathetic, braver - we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt. Republicans have nothing but the same old ideas that got us into this mess - into all of these messes - in the first place. And they're either cynical as hell or they're crazy enough to rely on magic to fix everything - or both.

The burden of proof

(graphic from Pharyngula)

Great Games #4: Master of Orion

I posted about the original Master of Orion a few weeks ago, so I'll keep this short. I did want to include it in my Great Games series, but there's no sense in repeating myself. Check the earlier post if you're interested. (And note that MOO is still available - cheap - at GOG.com.)

This is one of my all-time favorite strategy games - probably #3, just behind Civilization II and X-Com: UFO Defense - and I've already explained a little bit why that is. But let me describe the beginning of the game (unfortunately, I couldn't find a video clip I liked). You start in your home solar system, about to start exploring, and colonizing, the galaxy. You can see the stars all around you, different colors, but you really know nothing beyond that.

What wouldn't I give to explore other solar systems in real life! Unfortunately, a game is the best we can do. But that sense of exploration and discovery is a very strong draw for me. And you find all sorts of different kinds of planets. Some will be uninhabitable by your species until you research better technology, and most will require terraforming to be really worthwhile, but occasionally, you'll hit the jackpot, and you'll rush to get a colony ship there before another species settles that superb planet first.

The first part of this game is exploration, and it's really addicting. What will you find at the next star system? You can't wait to find out (and the occasional superb find doesn't hurt a bit!). After the first phase, when you've encountered other species and need to start worrying about protecting your young empire, you'll start consolidating what you've claimed. The draw here is in improving your planets, turning a tiny colony on a marginal world into a powerhouse of a planet, terraformed to perfection. I'm a builder, and this part of the game is also hugely attractive to me.

And then, inevitably, you move into galactic war, the third phase. This isn't realistic, because you really can't live in peace with your neighbors, not for long. And I'm not actually a wargamer. But on the other hand, SimCity style simulations, with no conflict at all, generally leave me cold. Although I love building (and terraforming), the strategy and tactics of war, in games like this, are really essential. It's the combination of exploration, building, terrain-modification, and warfare that make games like Master of Orion and Civilization so much fun.

MOO isn't overly complicated, either. More recent space-based games have added complexity, but none of them has been as much fun. Fun is the point, after all. As far as I'm concerned, this game did everything right (including, as I explained earlier, adding a very clever research feature that greatly increased its replay value). And it's still lots of fun. Really, fancy graphics wouldn't do much for a game like this. The gameplay is the key.

Hey, give it a try. For less than $6, why not? And that price includes the sequel, Master of Orion 2, that many people liked even better than the original. Not me, though. There's no question in my mind that the original MOO was the best. It's not even close. The first Master of Orion was a masterpiece of a game.

BP spills coffee

This is funny, but of course, the problem isn't that BP has been inept in handling the current oil spill. It's a very difficult situation, after all.

No, the real problem has been our "drill, baby, drill" mentality, stupidly (and cowardly) refusing to accept the energy challenge we've been facing for decades, combined with right-wing anti-regulation ideology that basically let oil companies - and banks, too! - regulate themselves.

Thus the stage was set for this disaster. If we were going to let oil companies drill at such depths, we shouldn't have shrugged off the very real dangers involved. And in any case, we should have been using this to buy time while we engaged in a massive research and development effort to wean ourselves from fossil fuels.

Once the explosion occurred, it was too late for smart thinking. I have no doubt that BP is doing the best it can - and, indeed, that we've got every available expert working hard on this problem. But it's not as simple as spilling a cup of coffee. This is very deep in the ocean and very difficult to fix at this point. That's why we should have used our brains before the drilling ever started.

I'm angry at BP, too, which is why I laugh at this video. But I'm angrier at the Bush administration, and I'm even angrier at us, the American people who elected them, and who have let politicians take the easy way out for decades. This video clip is liable to give the wrong impression. But it's a lot easier to blame BP than to look in the mirror and see who really is to blame, isn't it?

It is our fault that we didn't get serious about weaning ourselves from fossil fuels after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, and in all the years since. It is our fault that we bought into right-wing ideology which claimed that corporations needed no regulation, because they'd just naturally do the right thing. It is our fault that we elected George W. Bush - twice! - and let him gut the government programs we still had in place. It is our fault that we left a Minerals Management Service rife with conflicts of interest, even after the 2008 scandals broke.

Now that oil is spilling everywhere, we're looking for a scapegoat. That's typical, isn't it? But if anyone is to blame, it's us. This is what happens when we're dumb. This is what happens when we're greedy. This is what happens when we're horribly short-sighted. And I'm afraid it's only the start. You think this is bad? Just wait. If we don't drastically change our ways, this is only the beginning.

That's entertainment!

Want to know what's hot on TV these days? Well, don't ask me. I only get a handful of stations, and I seldom watch television anyway. I do watch some shows on Hulu, but what I like tends to get canceled very quickly. In fact, usually I don't even discover a show until after it's already been canceled.

For example, it took me years to discover Firefly. Is there anyone these days who's not familiar with this space western that ran for all of one season almost eight years ago? Well, if I wasn't the very last person to discover this show, it is available on Hulu, though not the whole season at once. There are only five complete episodes available at a time, with a new episode added every Monday, apparently.

I was a little quicker with The Unusuals, a cop show that ran last spring. Despite the terrible title, it was pretty good. It had some quirky characters and plenty of humor. Well, I thought it was lots of fun, but I guess I was the only one. (Sure, it's not Cop Rock, but what is?) All ten episodes are freely available on Hulu.

I hear that they've canceled the office comedy, Better Off Ted, too. That's a shame. I thought it was very funny. It did last for two seasons, but right now, they're only showing five episodes at a time on Hulu. Check it out if you want a clever comedy, sort of in the style of Arrested Development.

Another show I didn't discover until years later is Dead Like Me. It's a fantasy, and plenty weird - but that's its appeal. I wasn't sure of it at first, but I guess it grew on me. Both seasons - all 29 episodes - are available at Hulu.

Should I mention the really old stuff, like McHale's Navy?  135 episodes should keep you going awhile, don't you think? It's still funny, too, though not nearly as funny as I remembered. On the other hand, Barney Miller and WKRP in Cincinnati are still just as funny as I'd remembered. Of course, they're not nearly as old, either.

Really, I don't want much TV, even online. But there are times when you just want to vegetate. As an occasional thing, that's fine. It's only when we adopt the couch potato lifestyle that it becomes a problem.

I keep hearing that the free model for this stuff won't last, that companies are determined to make Internet users pay. Maybe so. I guess we'll see. But meanwhile, Hulu is a pretty neat place (even after Comedy Central removed The Daily Show and The Colbert Report). And most TV programming remains a vast wasteland, so it's hard to find something I can watch in real-time.

Anti-incumbent fever

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2010 - Primary Victory for Women
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Good work, if you can get it

Here's a great article at Cracked.com: "6 Companies that Make Money Solving Problems (They Made Up)."

They say that sex sells, but when it comes to sales techniques, sex has nothing on fear. Huge swaths of our economy operate entirely on scaring people into giving up their money. And the worst part? A lot of the time their product is worthless.

Check it out. It's funny, but quite true. These are companies making money from people's gullibility. Disappointingly, there are no homeopaths or herbal supplement companies mentioned, though.

Of course, right-wing politicians have discovered that fear sells, too. They've done quite well politically by scaring gullible people into voting for them, and often enough they've just made up the problem (otherwise, they've hugely exaggerated it).

The mother of all conspiracies

(photo by Ben Birnbaum, The New Republic, in front of the White House)

It all ties together, doesn't it? But there's more! Both Barack Obama and crude oil are black! You don't think that's just coincidence, do you?

What a fiendish conspiracy! The only thing I don't understand is why "Obama" is in quotes...

South Carolina is always there for us?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina - The Race to Replace Disgrace
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I agree with Jon Stewart. This is all so depressing. Of course, I posted about this earlier, but I really needed the laugh - especially since, in this next segment, we see that California is also trying to join the bigotry bandwagon:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Socialism Studies
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Yes, I know that there are individuals like this in every state. They're certainly here in Nebraska. And unlike what happened in Arizona, I don't think those school officials in California are kowtowing to the bigots. That, at least, is encouraging.

Imagine there's no heaven

PZ Myers has a great post at Pharyngula about the incentives in an invisible afterlife:

The whole concept of Hell is so demented and irrational, that many religious people have abandoned it. There are quite a few Christians who sensibly reject it and simply say that because their God is a loving God, everyone gets to go to Heaven. Of course, now they're stuck with the concept of Heaven.

His points certainly make sense to me. I mean, I don't believe in any kind of afterlife because there's no good evidence for it. That's my main objection about the supernatural. I want to make that absolutely clear. I'm an atheist simply because there's no good evidence for belief, period. But aside from that, the whole idea of heaven and hell never made much sense to me anyway.

A benevolent god is going to torture me for eternity because I don't see any evidence that he exists? Obviously, ending up in heaven or hell after I died would be pretty good evidence that something was going on, don't you think? So if it's so important to the creator of the universe that I believe in him, why not make his existence obvious now?

As Myers points out, eternal torture is not possible for human beings because our minds would break very quickly. If it were possible, we'd no longer be human. And what's the point, anyway? Is torture supposed to make you love the torturer? If it's just a matter of disbelief, waking up anywhere after I died would fix that, wouldn't it? Seriously, none of this makes sense except as a threat while you're alive, and most likely just as a way of scaring children. I'm thinking that it's really just aversion therapy to keep children from actually thinking about all this after they grow up. (Remember, all successful organizations must maintain their membership, whatever it takes.)

But if hell is completely ridiculous, heaven isn't much better. Human beings aren't suited for eternity. Given enough time, no paradise would last. We can't even imagine forever, let alone try to live it. And the very nature of humanity is change. You are not the same person you were as a child. Visiting heaven would be great, but actually living there? It would be like living forever, unchanging, in an old age home.

Or, as Myers points out, maybe you prefer the crack cocaine version of the afterlife, permanent ecstasy that would strip away your humanity just as surely as permanent torture would. Whatever vision of heaven you have, it's not life. It's not human. It might sound good to casual thought - just as you might idly think of how wonderful it would be to live wherever you're enjoying a brief vacation - but it just doesn't hold up to close examination.

Like it or not, we're mortal. Time moves forward, inexorably, and there's no stopping it, no turning back, no do-overs. You can daydream otherwise, but that's all it is, a daydream. In an eye-blink, we're born, we live, and we die. The universe got along without us perfectly well for some 14 billion years, and after we're dead, it will continue uninterrupted for even longer than that. We're just mayflies. If the universe could blink, it might very well miss your life entirely. It's that brief.

But from a human viewpoint (and what other is there?), your life is far from inconsequential. Each of us is important. Our lives matter. We may be mayflies to the universe, but the universe can't appreciate us. Our mayfly values are what matter here. Yeah, it's a shame that we'll all die soon enogh,... but that's life. It's hard to accept, but it would be cowardly to deny it. Are you that much of a coward?

As humans, let's not dwell on eternity. Eternity is not for us. We live in the real world, and it can be wonderful. Just the fact that we know it won't last should make us enjoy it even more. Do you think you have it bad because your life won't last? Well, at least you've had a life. And most of us will live far longer than our ancestors did - and have a lot easier time of it, too. Get off your knees and hold your head up high. Isn't that the kind of person you want to be?

And we are all part of something bigger than ourselves. We are social animals. We live in a society, we have a civilization, and we share our planet with countless other living things (all of them our relatives). When we die, our society, our civilization, our planet will continue. Not forever, of course, but forever is not for us. Still, the idea that something important will survive our deaths should be comforting. We do not live alone, and our death isn't the death of everything.

So we should strive to leave our planet a better place than it was before us. Again, this is not eternity, but it is a worthy goal for a mayfly. Or for a human being. We are part of something bigger than just our individual lives. In that respect, our lives will have an effect that outlasts us. It's not immortality, but it's pretty good, don't you think? Plus, it's real.

Galileo confirmed on the Moon

Somehow, I missed this years ago, but thankfully, we have YouTube these days. The video clip shows Commander David Scott during the last Apollo 15 moon walk in 1971 as he tests Galileo's conclusion that objects of different mass will fall, in a vacuum, at the same speed.

Neat, isn't it? And note that you've probably got more computing power in your cell phone than NASA had available back then to get us to the Moon. It's inspiring to think of what we can do when we have the guts and the determination to try.

My thanks to Why Evolution Is True for the link - and for Matthew Cobb's interesting post about turning Aristotle's views into dogma in the 13th Century, something which endangered Galileo more then three centuries later.

Racism is alive and well in America

(image borrowed from Pharyngula)

So, which American state is actually the looniest? There really seems to be a hard-fought contest going on for that distinction, don't you think? This time it's Arizona again, making another strong bid.

The above image is from a mural painted on an elementary school in Prescott, AZ.  Pictured are kids who attend that school. See the problem? Yup, some of them aren't white.

That shameful fact has got residents so upset that they've been driving past the school shouting racial epithets. A member of the Prescott city council, who has his own right-wing talk radio show, has been campaigning to change the mural, and now the school principal has ordered that the black and Hispanic faces on the mural - the faces of children who actually attend the school - be repainted and made light-skinned.

Here's how Wonkette puts it:

The children depicted on the mural, as we mentioned before but feel compelled to repeat, are little kids who go to the school — “a K-5 school with 380 students and the highest ethnic mix of any school in Prescott. Wall said thousands of town residents volunteered or donated to the project.”

And these children, for the past several months as this happy mural encouraging “green transportation” was being painted by local artists, have been treated to the city of Prescott’s finest citizens driving by and yelling “Nigger” and “Spic” at this school wall painted with pictures of the children who attend the school. And this has been encouraged by a city councilman, Steve Blair, who uses his local radio talk show to rile up these people and demand the mural be destroyed.

And now the faces are being painted white, “because of the controversy.”

Remember where you were, when you could still laugh about teabaggers and racists and Arizonans, because funny time is almost over.

As I've mentioned before, the election of our first black president has pushed America's bigots over the edge. Unfortunately, they seem to be trying to pull the rest of us with them. The Republican Party sucked up to these people for political advantage, and now they're trying to "take back America," apparently to the Bush years, where they can finish the job of destroying our country.

But lest you think that other states are letting Arizona take the prize without a fight, I give you South Carolina, a state seemingly obsessed with sex. But not just sex. This is the South, after all. One of the Republican candidates for governor, Nikki Haley, is of Sikh heritage (and, yes, she has her own sex scandal going on, seemingly like every other politician in the state - but this isn't about that).

From the Columbia Free Times:

With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her true religion from voters.

“She’s a f#!king raghead,” Knotts said.

He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

“We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina,” Knotts said more than once. “She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons.” ...

Knotts says he believes Haley’s father has been sending letters to India saying that Haley is the first Sikh running for high office in America. He says her father walks around Lexington wearing a turban.

“We’re at war over there,” Knotts said.

Asked to clarify, he said he did not mean the United States was at war with India, but was at war with “foreign countries.”

Here's a photo of Nikki Haley, so you can see the "raghead" who's got the racists all stirred up. (I assume you know what the "raghead in Washington" - President Barack Obama - looks like.)

(photo from WCBD TV)

I'd say her biggest problem is that she's a Republican, but that's probably the only way to get elected in South Carolina. Or maybe she's really so loony, herself, that the GOP is actually the best fit for her, unfortunate skin shade and everything. (I really know nothing about her politics.)

You can probably guess what Jake Knotts looks like (yup, like a real American), but just for the record:

(photo from Carolina Politics Online)

Of course, the current governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, is the guy who mysteriously went missing while "hiking the Appalachian trail." He's still governor, probably because Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is rumored to be gay. (Notice how these good Christians seem to be on a never-ending witch hunt?)  Bauer is also the guy who worried that feeding children in school lunch programs would just keep them alive long enough to breed. (That, however, seemed to be a popular view in his state.)

OK, I don't expect Texas to take this lying down, but for now I'd say that Arizona and South Carolina are neck and neck in the looniest American state contest. What do you think?

Great Games #3: Daggerfall

Later in the post, I'll explain the circumstances behind this video. For now, it's enough to say that they (this video and the next) brought back great memories of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall by Bethesda Softworks.

Although this is #3 in my Great Games series, I don't mean to imply that it's my third favorite game of all-time. I love role-playing games, but I really can't rank them - and especially not alongside strategy games. Their gameplay is just too different. But this really was a great game.

I'd always liked party-based, turn-based RPGs, like the early Ultima games or SSI's Gold Box series, so I was disappointed when the industry turned to "real-time" first-person, single-character games. Playing hunched over a keyboard, madly clicking a mouse, didn't - and doesn't - appeal to me. (My preferred mode of play is leaning back in my comfortable computer chair, my feet on a footstool, drinking a cup of coffee as I leisurely make decisions.) And the fact that I'm pathetically bad - I mean really, really terrible - at "real-time" combat doesn't help, either.

But when the first Elder Scrolls game, Arena, was released in 1994, I heard that you could easily pause the game at any time to access your inventory, drink potions, and such. So I thought I'd give it a try. And it turned out to be a lot of fun. I don't remember the game too well, but I do remember the main quest which involved exploring a series of dungeons. I remember the neat lighting effects, where you could cast a light spell that would travel away from you, illuminating the dungeon as it went. And I remember the long-lasting Absorb Magic spell that made game easy enough even for me. I loved it.

But the second game in the series really blew me away. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was released in 1996. As the above video shows, your character starts out ship-wrecked, sealed in a cave with only a minimal weapon for defense. The cave opens into a "starter dungeon," where you battle creatures and find treasure (armor and better weapons are your first goal), while searching for the way out.

Note the rat that's the first creature to attack your character (rats are an RPG cliche, but one I always enjoyed). In Daggerfall, you can look up or down. And indeed, when battling a rat, you must look down, or else your sword swings will go completely over its head. And sometimes there will be steep passages going up and down. I remember how neat it was that I could look all around, even above or below my character.

But the sound effects were the best thing about the dungeons. You could hear the creatures in the game. When you got close, they would sense you, and you could hear their screams of rage. Frankly, many of them sounded scarier than they really were (of course, you are very weak in the beginning), but it really increased the tension in the game to know that something was trying to get to you.

Doors opening and closing made a lot of noise, too (at least, when you had your speakers turned up high, as I always did). Animals couldn't open a closed door, but evil men and monsters could. So when you heard a door open, you knew that something evil had sensed you and was moving your way. Since dungeon passages twist and turn, it might not be close to you in a practical sense. Creatures couldn't pathfind effectively unless there was a direct path to you, so they wouldn't necessarily chase you down. But you never knew.

In early RPGs, you could stand outside a room full of bandits forever, and they'd patiently wait for you to enter. But in Daggerfall, that wasn't the case. Furthermore, whenever you opened a door, you had to worry about something nasty coming up from behind you. In actual fact, that didn't happen very often, but the great sound effects in the dungeon made it seem like a constant threat. It was really neat. It made exploring a lot of fun.

The above video ends with the character jumping off a ledge, causing enough damage to kill him. That brings up the death animation scene (something I saw all too frequently). The next video, which I'll post below the fold, shows the outside world.

Be afraid, be very afraid

A wild ride

(Ed Stein)

If you think the ride is wild now, just wait until the GOP succeeds in privatizing Social Security! It's funny how you don't hear them talk about that much these days, not since the market crash. But it will be back soon enough, re-branded by their spin-doctors (since "privatize" doesn't poll well).

My enemy, my ally

My previous post got me thinking about Israel's recent bloody misstep. As Ed Stein noted, it was obviously a setup, and Israel walked right into it. But was it just incompetence, or were there Israelis who wanted exactly what their enemies wanted from that situation? Were they allies in that?

I'm not very familiar with Israeli politics, so let me give you an example of what I mean that's closer to home. For almost a decade, America has been battling Islamic terrorists. Terrorism is a tool of the weak. If al-Qaeda could face America openly, it would. Since they're far too weak for that, they use terrorism, instead, hoping to provoke an excessive reaction (just like the organizers of that fleet hoped).

The attacks on September 11, 2001 were designed with that in mind. Nineteen religious fanatics shocked the nation and certainly got the response they'd hoped for. In fact, al-Qaeda was probably overjoyed with how it worked out. This was a criminal act by a handful of religious nuts, and we could have kept it that way. We've faced terrorism before, and we've rightly treated it as a crime. And after 9/11, we had the whole world behind us. We could have kept that support and enlisted the rest of the world in a massive criminal probe to bring the guilty to justice.

That would have been the smart thing to do, and no doubt it would have been disappointing to our enemies. Luckily for al-Qaeda, though, they had allies here. Oh, those Americans were still their enemies, but they were allies in wanting the same thing at the time. We ended up doing exactly what al-Qaeda wanted, and that was only partly due to incompetence and human nature. Mostly, it was because all too many Americans wanted what the terrorists wanted.

Some of those people were in the media. Al-Qaeda wanted to shock America and needed us to focus obsessively on the attacks, and the media were their allies in this. Yes, that's their job, but they still had a financial interest, as well as individual personal interests, in making the most of this tragedy. 9/11 was a gift to the national media. I don't want to blame them for that, but merely to point out that their interest was aligned with al-Qaeda's. To that extent, they were allies.

More importantly, the Bush administration was allied with al-Qaeda in wanting the same wild over-reaction. George W. Bush had been elected as a "compassionate conservative" less than a year before, and he really wasn't taken very seriously. In fact, he was rather a joke, widely considered an amiable idiot - a nice guy, but not too bright. It's hard to believe now, but Dick Cheney was expected to be the steady hand in the White House.

With few exceptions (most notably the despised "moderate," Colin Powell), the administration was full of chickenhawks - right-wingers who loved war, but not for themselves. Bush, whose whole family had strongly supported the Vietnam War, used their connections to avoid fighting in the war himself. But by making this attack a "war," rather than the criminal act that it really was, he got to prance around in a flight suit and play commander-in-chief. For a chickenhawk, what could be better?

(As an aside, I had never heard the term "commander-in-chief" used so much as during the Bush administration. Previous presidents, starting with George Washington himself, had emphasized the civilian nature of their position. We had never before been led by caudillos, and, in fact, our Constitution specifically set civilian rule above the military. Our president was never the commander-in-chief of civilians. But Bush's supporters acted like being president was just a minor sideline for the commander-in-chief. And Bush got to play soldier with no danger to himself.)

Right-wing ideologues in the Bush administration and Congress saw 9/11 as a great opportunity. By making this a "war," they could do anything they wanted. The Democrats, eager to prove their patriotism, just rolled over and played dead. Well, according to Fox "News," it was treason to criticize a president in wartime. (Funny how that's changed now, isn't it?) The point is that Republican politicians from the president on down had reason to ally with al-Qaeda on this. GOP politicians wanted an over-reaction to the attack, which is exactly what al-Qaeda wanted.

There were other al-Qaeda allies on the right, too. Al-Qaeda wanted to present America's response as a war on Islam, and they found eager allies in the Christian right who've been battling America's separation of church and state for two hundred years. Both sides wanted the same message to be spread, that America was a "Christian nation" fighting against the Muslim people. Although they hated each other, they were allies in this.

Likewise, many right-wingers just wanted an enemy. Those people had been devastated when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, because they'd lost their great enemy. These are people who really need an enemy, for some reason, and they leaped to embrace the "war on terror" with great relief. They, too, were allies with al-Qaeda in the matter of over-reacting to 9/11.

The point is that we did exactly what al-Qaeda wanted us to do - wildly over-reacting to their terrorist attack - because there were powerful segments of the American population, including the White House and the majority party in Congress, with interests aligned with al-Qaeda in that particular respect. They were, in effect, allies.

Al-Qaeda's opponents in this were those of us who see America as a secular nation of diverse beliefs, those of us who wanted to hunt down the criminals who attacked us, in cooperation with the rest of the world, those of us who wanted to deny the terrorists the hysterical reaction they'd hoped to provoke. Sadly, we had no power at all in the days, months, and even years after 9/11.

Are there people in Israel who wanted that bloody incident just as much as the organizers of the fleet did? Perhaps they dread any movement toward a peaceful solution in the Middle East? Perhaps they're always looking to drive a wedge between Israel and America? Perhaps they just hate so fiercely that any excuse for bloodshed is welcomed? I don't know much about Israeli politics, but it really wouldn't surprise me. Of course, incompetence is always a plausible excuse, too.

Outrage

Ed Stein's comments:

This cartoon is in no way intended to absolve Israel of its actions. I’ve been a critic of the way Israel deals with the Palestinians for years. Many years ago, when Israel first occupied the West Bank and Gaza, Amos Oz, the great Israeli novelist (and soldier in the ‘67 war), realized that the occupation was a huge mistake–that Israel would lose its soul if it became an occupier, that it would not be able to function both as a democracy and as an oppressor. He was denounced as a traitor, but he was right. The boarding of the “humanitarian relief” vessels attempting to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza was only the latest in a long series of missteps by Israel as it struggles to maintain its deeply flawed policy. That the Turkish relief effort was a setup from the beginning (the stated goal was to goad Israel into a violent response, and it succeeded) is beside the point. Israel gave the world community yet another reason to condemn its actions.

All that said, the hypocrisy of many of those who express such concern for the plight of the Palestinians is especially galling given the scant attention those same folks pay to the human rights atrocities committed by other, more malignant states. Where is the scalding denunciation of North Korea for its torpedoing of the Cheonan and the death of 46 South Korean sailors, the calls for Hamas and Hezbollah to stop lobbing rockets at civilians, the fury over Iran’s routine executions of dissidents? Who among Israel’s critics also stand against China’s appalling suppression of Tibetan nationalism? Where are the voices demanding an end to Cuba’s dictatorship?

A biological basis for acupuncture?

Not Exactly Rocket Science (where I took the above graphic) has a great post about recent acupuncture research. According to Ed Yong, the researcher "claims to have found a biological explanation for the pain-relieving effects of acupuncture." But did she?

Taken on its own merits, this is a nice piece of biochemistry. But what does it really tell us about acupuncture? Does it actually validate this ancient method as a way of relieving pain? After reading the paper, you might walk away with that idea that we’re one step closer to understanding how a treatment with real medical benefits really works. ...

But these results have to be considered in the light of those that came before it. As mentioned above, new scientific discoveries stand on the shoulders of giants and in the case of acupuncture – one of the most well-researched of all “alternative therapies” – those shoulders are particularly large.

Many trials have demonstrated that acupuncture does have some pain-relieving effects – that is not in doubt. And as Steven Novella notes, unlike things like homeopathy or reiki, with acupuncture “something physical is actually happening… so it is therefore not impossible that a physiological response is happening”. But the big questions are whether this effect is genuine or nothing more than a placebo.

To answer that, clinical trials have used sophisticated methods, including “sham needles”, where the needle’s point retracts back into the shaft like the blade of a movie knife. It never breaks the skin, but patients can’t tell the difference from a real, penetrating needle. Last year, one such trial (which was widely misreported) found that acupuncture does help to relieve chronic back pain and outperformed “usual care”. However, it didn’t matter whether the needles actually pierce the skin, because sham needles were just as effective. Nor did it matter where the needles were placed, contrary to what acupuncturists would have us believe.

Unfortunately, this latest research did not use any sort of placebo control (maybe because it involved mice, not people?). It's an interesting study, but it really doesn't tell us very much. (And as Yong notes, one of the co-authors of the study is married to the director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, "an institute that has had its fair share of controversy in the past.")

As you might expect, though, the media haven't done a very good job of explaining all this. Reading newspaper articles about this research will likely give most people the wrong impression. Well, I thought that Yong did a very good job of showing why you really need to know the details about announcements like this. Don't believe everything you read.

And one scientific study, by itself, just doesn't mean very much. It needs to be duplicated by multiple, independent researchers, and previous research also needs to be considered. Let's face it, sensational headlines sell newspapers. So rational people might want to take such reports with a grain of salt.

You think your potholes are bad?

This is a massive sinkhole that opened up Sunday in Guatemala City as tropical storm Agatha struck Central America. Sort of puts our problems with potholes in perspective, don't you think?

Here's the high-resolution version of the photo. Take a look. It's really something. The photos were posted on Flickr by the Guatemalan government, but I took the above picture and the explanation from Andrew C. Revkin's column in the New York Times.

Non-Belief, Pt. 3: Evidence

In Part 1 of this series, I told how, when I was a child, I could see no evidence that any gods existed. Well, that's still basically why I'm an atheist. Of course, these days it would take a lot better evidence to convince me than when I was a child, but that hardly matters, since there's really no evidence at all.

I've heard some people argue that religion is a matter of faith, not evidence. OK. But you surely can't expect to convince me that you're right that way, can you? Since I don't have faith that there's a god,... that's it, end of story? Heh, heh. (Also, of course, countless other believers have equal faith that their own religion is true and yours is false.)

Actually, the idea that religion is entirely about faith, not evidence, doesn't seem to stop people from trying to argue - badly - that there is evidence, too. The argument from faith seems to come up only when believers are losing the evidence argument. Well, whatever you are willing to accept in order to believe what you want to believe, I need evidence.

And usually, I'm astonished at what believers consider to be evidence. For example, "I feel it in my heart" is not evidence. In fact, it's indistinguishable from wishful thinking. If that's your idea of "evidence," how can you possibly tell when you're wrong? After all, you're not infallible. None of us is. So it's clearly possible that you're wrong. But how would you be able to tell that? Note that you'd never accept "I feel it in my heart" from me, as evidence that God does not exist, would you? Of course not, and rightly so.

Many Christians point to the Bible as their "evidence," but that's not evidence of anything. It could have been evidence, I suppose, if it had contained specific knowledge clearly unknown at the time - such as the germ theory of disease. Included in the Bible, the germ theory of disease could have saved millions of people - including countless children - a great deal of suffering and early death. But the men who wrote the Bible had no special source of knowledge. In fact, they knew far less than we do today.

No, the Bible is clearly a product of its time, full of slavery, misogyny, child-beating, genocide, witches, a stationary Earth at the center of the universe - all primitive ideas of a tribal, and very human, society. Since the Bible contradicts what we've learned about the world in recent centuries, contradicts the more advanced moral codes of modern times, and even contradicts itself, the evidence pretty clearly indicates that it was not written, dictated, or even influenced by a benevolent god. (A quick look at the Old Testament should clearly show you that! And the holy books of other religions are little different.)

OK, the Bible is not literally true, but maybe it's just an allegory. Maybe the "truth" is there, but it's disguised, written in the only way that primitive people would accept. Yeah, I hear that, sometimes. But it's obvious that the writers of the Bible meant to depict the literal truth, and that's certainly how people have taken it for centuries. In fact, through most of that time, you would have been tortured to death if you'd dared to suggest otherwise.

People who claim that the Bible contains allegorical truth simply recognize that it's crazy to argue it's literally true these days, while being unwilling to give it up entirely. It's just a fallback position, common among believers, when initial arguments fail. And really, if you actually read the Bible, God comes across as a vicious, jealous, vindictive horror, a genocidal maniac, the world's biggest mass-murderer. If it's supposed to be just an allegory, how does that make it any better?

But usually the arguments I hear are variations of the God of the gaps argument, combined with personal incredulity. "I don't believe all this could happen by chance" is one common phrase, combining ignorance about evolution with a misunderstanding of probability. But your lack of understanding isn't evidence. In ancient times, the idea that the Earth was a giant ball, spinning rapidly in empty space, would have seemed ridiculous. How could we be standing on a round, spinning surface? But we know that it's true, because of scientific evidence. And you have no problem believing it today, only because you grew up with that knowledge.

"I don't know what the sun is. Therefore, it must be God driving a fiery chariot across the sky. After all, what else could it be?" But as we slowly learn more about the natural world, God retreats from those areas. He retreats to the gaps where our knowledge is still incomplete. Note that we have never thought something had a natural explanation, only to discover that the real cause was supernatural. It's always been the other way around. Over and over again, we've discovered that our first explanation, a supernatural explanation, was wrong, that a natural explanation was actually true. It's been a consistent pattern throughout human history.

Compare religion with science. Creationism (renamed "Creation Science," and then "Intelligent Design," in a continuing attempt to get religious beliefs taught in public schools) has a long history of attacking evolution, looking for something - anything - that might disprove the theory. After all, if evolution is wrong, then Intelligent Design surely must be right, don't you think? But that's just not true. Even if they could find valid evidence against evolution (which they have not), that still wouldn't be evidence for creationism.

Scientists, on the other hand, have plenty of evidence that Intelligent Design is wrong. (Very briefly, good designs could theoretically be explained by either an omnipotent god or by evolution, but poor designs, sub-optimal designs, while easily explained by evolution, are clear evidence that an intelligent designer had nothing to do with it. The panda's thumb is the classic example of this, although there are many more.) But scientists don't accept evolution simply because of the overwhelming evidence against Intelligent Design (and "what else could it be?"). Instead, biologists required clear evidence for evolution.

You see the difference? Scientists don't point out the good evidence against Intelligent Design and then say that evolution must be true by default. But creationists never even attempt to find evidence supporting their beliefs. They spend all of their time attacking evolution (and failing, in scientific terms, though having some success in convincing the ignorant). That's just more evidence that Intelligent Design is not, after all, science.

If you want to convince me that there's one or more gods, I need to see some good evidence. I need evidence that backs up your belief and that can't be explained in other ways. (People claim to see ghosts, but that's not good evidence for the supernatural, since there are many other possible explanations. And those other explanations are known to exist. They don't require postulating anything new, let alone a whole new type of existence.) I don't need to show you evidence that God does not exist, because it's the person making a claim who must back it up. After all, do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or Russell's teapot, just because you can't prove they don't exist?

As a child, I could never see any direct or even indirect evidence that a god existed, and I still can't. If you want me to believe, show me the evidence.

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Note: The rest of this series is here.