Argument 2: Safety :

SUV's don't meet car safety standards, and are really less safe in general, according to Consumer Reports.

When I think of safety ratings, the last place I think of is Consumer Reports. Rather, I think of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Look at the crash test results for the Ford Explorer, versus the Toyota Corolla.

note that the side imnpact ratings are worse for Corolla. The front impact ratings, according to the NTHSA, cannot be fairly compared across vehicle classes, but side impacts can (as can rollover ratings). The Corolla has only a one-star advantage over the Explorer for rollover, btw, which means about 10% less chance. Not a big deal.

(you can also look at detailed Info on methodology and you can look up any other vehicle )

That's hardly the only source of solid actual data on safety. There is also Insurance Instittute for Highway Safety (http://www.hwysafety.org/), run by the Insurance companies who obviously have an economic need for reliable unbiased data since it affects their business model to the very core.

The IIHS also does crash tests, and again the Ford Explorer compares well to a Toyota Corolla.

Here, the ratings are determined based on anmount of space left after the frontal crash and whether contact was made between passenger/driver's body and pieces of the car (its ingenious, actually, they coat the dummies with paint and then see where the paint marks end up on the interior of the vehicle).

and truthfully this makes intuitive sense. A decent sized SUV has a more powerful engine, giving you speed and control in traffic. It is heavier and has more safety systems, so occupants are protected better. And it has better suspension, brake, and steering components (rack and pinion in fact is standard on the 2002 explorer).

Note that minivans do get consistently higher safety scores in crash tests than SUVs. If all else were equal or if safety was the sole overriding concern, then there's no reason to buy anything other than a minivan. But the data supports the reasonable generalization to say that SUVs are safer for the passengers than a sedan or other car (except for the high-performance puppies like BMW or the Audi quattro models).

Regarding rollovers - the NHTSA ratings already take into account all those manuevrability factors, etc. The ratings are that each star corresponds to 10% less probability. Look at the definitions of the rollover star ratings , and this cautionary note:

even a five-star vehicle has up to a 10 percent risk of rolling over in a single vehicle crash. In fact, because of the aggressive way in which the vehicle is driven and/or the age and skill of the driver, certain five-star vehicles such as sports cars, may have a higher number of rollovers per hundred registered vehicles than certain three-star vehicles, such as mini vans, due to the fact that they are in more single vehicle crashes.

further, the website notes that All Vehicles Can Roll Over -

All types of vehicles can roll over in certain conditions. While SUVs have the highest number of rollovers per 100 crashes (see Figure 4), because of the higher numbers of passenger cars on the road, almost half of all rollovers which occurred in 1999 involved passenger cars (see Figure 5).

Its true that SUVs do have a higher center of gravity, but even passenger cars can roll over. So it doesnt matter what car our hypothetical idiot is driving.

I'm far less likely to get in an accident driving my Jeep, since I have 4WD and I know how to use it. Modern SUVs like the Explorer come with optional electronic brake assist, with standard ABS, and with optional traction control.

Some point to the unsafety of SUVs regarding braking distances. But, braking distances are based solely on weight, meaning that SUVs are no worse than Caddys or Buicks or even minivans as an entire class. And SUVs tend to come with larger pads on their disc brakes to compensate.

But braking is not al about friction, its also about anticipation. With better visibility in my SUV from being higher, I often see brake situations far ahead that the driver of the car ahead of me doesnt. I slow down gradually whereas the car invariably races on ahead and then brakes much harder. If we are talking about an intelligent driver, then the SUV gives you enormous advantages in visibility and control.

Finally, pickups and utility vehicles generally are heavier than cars, so occupant deaths are less likely to occur in multiple-vehicle crashes. Clearly, driving an SUV is safer for me and my family. If you want to drive your family around in a paper-thin econobox, its your choice, though I wont because of the crash test results I linked to above which are clearly not in dispute. but hey, at least you will save ten grand! thats nothing to sneeze at. And econoboxes are great as single-person commuter cars.


Overall, I consider teh data from the NHTSA and IIHs to be authoritative on the subject. Consumer Reports does have "ratings" (ie, "very good" and "poor") which are not quantitative in any way. In fact, CR uses the quantitative data from NHTSA and IIHS as inputs to their subjective and qualitative ratings:

The crash-protection rating in the Consumer Reports Safety Assessments, places more weight on the IIHS's offset tests, which measure how much a vehicle's structure is likely to intrude on the driver in an accident. We believe that the offset crash is a more common type of frontal crash and that the IIHS scores help differentiate one model from another. Unlike NHTSA's frontal-crash test, however, the IIHS's doesn't address how the front passenger might fare in a crash. Safety experts assert that NHTSA's test better gauges a vehicle's restraints. That's why both types of frontal test are critical

next time: gas mileage :)

Continue reading/discuss in defense of my SUV, part II: safety ...

Having lived in Boston for two years prior to moving to Houston, I am well aware of the enormous stereotypical gulf between "Taxachusetts" and "The Lone Gunman State".

Therefore, this news that the voters of MA may well elect to dump the state income tax boggles my mind.

I like the pair of quotes from the opposing sides of the issue:

''There's this incredibly arrogant and demeaning assumption that government are the only ones that can act to meet people's needs,'' Howell said. ''How many people are they so-called serving?''

versus

''It would completely decimate core government functions,'' said Senator Mark C. Montigny, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. ''It's a cheap political thrill, unless you are willing to live in the Idaho of the East Coast.''

We can thank, or blame, the libertarians if the measure passes :) What an interesting experiment, though...

UPDATE November 7th 2002: Looks like it lost, but barely. I'm disappointed but I am sure the issue will be back.

Continue reading/discuss Massachusetts becomes Texas ...

Suman Palit has written more about the I3-Axis, describing how already the countries in the region are moving towards greater economic cooperation. He then takes flight into political poetry, describing an intoxicating meme :

Imagine a network of nation-states from the Caspian to the South China seas, united in economic purpose, bound by fundamental social principles of democracy, self-governance and individual freedoms.

There�s another version of this same meme suffused through the recent science fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, called "The Years of Rice and Salt" (disclaimer: I am an Amazon affiliate)

The premise is that the Great Plague of Europe wiped out 90% of the population there instead of merely 30%. This is not a "look how great things would be if not for those smarmy whities" kind of book, it�s more of an expression of "parallel history". The world that evolves, as KSR imagines it, is fascinating and eminently plausible, and yet arguably not better or worse than ours. For example, a world war does develop, but more as an inter-civilizational conflict between China and Islam (personally, I think Huntington should have looked at this instead of Islam vs. the West, because the West and Islam share Abrahamic roots - they are really cousins. China is the true Other). Their world war lasts sixty years instead of being two smaller conflicts.

By far the most appealing thing (to me, given my ethnic background) is the rise of the Travancori League, which is the Indian civilization�s contribution to the world stage. This book is worth reading for that alone, because in many ways it describes something akin to the I3 Axis.

This book is full of hope, and philosophical insight into history and human nature. Its the best science fiction novel I have read in years.

And wait till you see the narrative device the author uses to bridge the centuries! two words : "karmic jati". Its brilliant. Pay attention to the starting letters of the characters' names!

Continue reading/discuss The Years of Rice and Salt ...

Just two of my favorites from different photoshop threads:

a hilarious little riff on Apple:



(original)

and the USS Constellation:



(original)

Continue reading/discuss more Farked photoshops ...

Instapundit has done his best to add to the "conventional wisdom" of the Right about the Left, by accusing liberals of yet another character flaw:

On the Left, though, we find all these pseudonymous name-calling bloggers whose specialty seems to be abuse aimed at those deviating from the party line. De Long isn't one of those, of course, but this line from his post bespeaks a certain tribalism: "There's still time for Kaus to return to his neoliberal roots."

As the old saying has it, the left looks for heretics and the right looks for converts, and both find what they're looking for

I think this is exactly backwards.

How many times was Jim Jeffords called a traitor? What is Justice Souter's reputation? Would Janet Reno have ever introduced the TIPS program? Which side coined the phrase, RINO ? Were liberals the ones accusing Americans of being unpatriotic, or even treasonous? And of course there's John McCain, perhaps the perfect counterexample.

Remember that it was Ari Fleischer that reminded all Americans that "they need to watch what they say and what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is." And that it was John Ashcroft who labeled debate on the tradeoffs of security vs. liberty as "tactics" that "aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."

So, according to the Bush administration, it's people who speak out about their rights, or who dissent, who are heretics.

And as far as the right looking for converts, granted they have Mickey Kaus. What about Arianna Huffington? David Brock? Jim Jeffords? Could it be a two-way street after all?

And name calling is hardly limited to the right - there is Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage... There was Charles Krauthammer's assertion that liberals are fools. He also claimed that liberals think conservatives are evil, but doesn't have a single example to support that claim. Interestingly, the "liberals are fools and conservatives are evil" meme was first promoted by Eric S. Raymond, who is many things but a liberal least of all. There's definitely a degree of echo-chambering going on here.

what's the point of this discussion? to illustrate that labels have become a substitute for thought - empirical support of Steven Den Beste's theory. The only labels you really need are "Us" and "Them" and drawing that neat line opens the door to demonization and dehumanization.

This leads to double-think. Glenn can point out examples of liberals who engage in name calling, who have converted to conservatives, label them as witch-hunters, but fails entirely to see the exact same processes in operation on part of the conservatives. Ann Coulter decries those who make excuses for suicide bombers, but makes the same excuses for murderers of abortion doctors:

Coulter was asked why she condemns the terrorists so strongly, but not those who kill abortion doctors. She said that the latter have been extremely frustrated by the fact that they can�t vote on this issue, thanks to Roe vs. Wade, and that they worked within the system for twenty years withoutsuccess before turning to murder. She said that those individuals believe they had been left with no other routes for dissent in the face of an ongoing atrocity. Coulter further suggested that althoughshe would not take it upon herself to take extreme actions on the abortion issue, she will not condemn those who do.

It's almost a source of despair to see how little true denate is taking place (aside from the blogsphere). In print media and television and radio, it's this doublethink that prevails, slowly eroding away at the subtleties of our political spectrum. And in doing so, the Administration gets a clearer and clearer mandate from its supporters - Us Vs Them is all about getting You to agree with Us, in the end. Even if we end up in a police state, with citizen snoops and our library card records being vetted by the FBI and citizens detained without recourse to due process.

I wonder if Orwell's book should have been titled 2004 instead of 1984.

Continue reading/discuss there are four lights ...

Brian, out of some masochistic impulse, has signed up for a mailing list called Ar-Rahman (The Beneficient). As far as I can tell (from his reports), it's populated by teens whose Cool Identity Thing is Islam instead of skateboarding or the Confederate Flag or any other similar substitute for their self-esteem. One of these young earnest types posted his Revelation of the Week:

everyone person born is a muslim at birth, since it is the true religion. After time, whether it be parents, where we live whatever, that changes, and people have then conform to their different religions. So I have reverted back to Islam. Most people that I have talked to, do not like the word converted. That means you made an entire switch, which is not true. Since you start off as Muslim, you are just reverting or coming back to it.

Brian was somewhat offended by this, which is understandable if taken at a superficial level (which most assuredly, the author is doing). But it is actually a reflection of a deeper and more elegant concept, which is not unique to Islam, either.

The underlying matter of dogma is that the faith (in this case, Islam) is laid out as Ultimate Truth for mankind, by the authority of God. This concept is at teh heart of Christianity as well. Christianity focuses on personal salvation, whereas in Islam I would argue it is more of a personal responsibility issue, but that is truly tangential.

Regardless, Christianity is just as explicit as Islam about the damned state of non-believers. It is fair for a Muslim to call Islam the true religion, and both Muslims and Christians agree that there IS such a thing as a "true religion". Given that the True religion was presented to Mankind 1,423 lunar years ago or 2,002 solar years ago (YMMV), it is logical that all persons born after those dates are subject to that true religion. In Islam, religion is not just a lifestyle choice or a set of abstract philosophies, but rather a condition or state of being. It is the default state for a human being (according to the dogma, of course. If you aren't Muslim, clearly you won't agree.)

It's worth noting that Islam also recognizes as Prophets of equal station, Jesus and Moses (and Noah, and Abraham, and Adam). One of my favorite stories as a child was a tale how the Prophet Moses convinced Muhamad SAW to ask God to reduce the number of daily prayers from 50 to 5. Thanks, Moses :) So in actual fact, Jews and Christians are seen as cousins in faith.

Our young zealot^[1] above is focusing on a semantic issue, mainly. For him, it's all about the word "converted". It's a valid but pointless argument. And, due diligence would require that he also mention these Ayats (verses) of the Qur'an:

Ayat 2:256 - "There is no compulsion in religion"



Ayat 109:6, "To you be your Faith, and to me mine."



(click the image to hear a recitation in RM format, courtesy of islam.org)

The point here is that individuals make choices of free will, and part of that is what leads people to either reject or accept the faith. These choices need to be independent (2:256) and respected (109:6). But there is a Right Choice and a Wrong Choice (these moral absolutes are part of what makes a religion a religion and not a science, and are not unique to Islam).


^[1]I use the term zealot in a deliberately condescending sense. If I use the word fanatic, it would be in a "this guy is off his rocker and keep him away from my family" sense.

Continue reading/discuss to you be your Faith, to me mine ...

although RIAA and their supporting companies can afford to spend 55 million dollars a year lobbying Congress and in the courts, they cannot afford to alienate every music buyer and artist out there. At that point, there will be a general strike, make no mistake. Just one week of people refusing to play the radio, buy product, or support our industry in any way, would flex muscles they have no idea are out there.

-- Janis Ian

Continue reading/discuss I am not a terrorist ...

...Saudi Arabia. And the way to deal with Saudi Arabia is to leave Saddam in place

Here's the How and What, forget about the Why:

Iraq:

- continue to enforce the no-fly zone
- intensify observation and intelligence, possibly including human intel
- court Iraqi defectors and spires the way we did with Russia
- continue to pound any military installations where WMD development can take place
- intensify information warfare by funding VoA, dropping pamphlets, etc. to destabilize Saddam's police state and embolden opposition forces

If the Iraqis deserve freedom, let them achieve it themselves. That's the same standard we have to apply to Iran. A home-grown movement can take decades - so be it. But it will be far more stable than a puppet state like Afghanistan. It is in our long term interests to encourage democracy, especially in oil-rich countries like Iraq. We can wait. In the meantime, we can continue to contain Iraq and systematically eliminate his WMD capabilities from the air.

I call this approach a "Chilly War" because we can apply much of the same lessons learned in the conflict with the USSR. Iraq can not escape our scrutiny. It's impossible for Iraq's WMD programmes to continue if we apply the same level of espionage that we employed during the Cold War. It's then just a matter of enforcement with F-16s. Also, we have the advantage of new technoology like bunker-busting bombs that give us new capabilities.

let us also acknowledge explicitly that the White House's attempt to link Iraq to 9-11 is purely FUD. The argument can, and should, be made solely in terms of long-term threat re: WMD. Trying to invoke American Outrage^TM is just an insult to our intelligence, which is about par for Rove and Fleischer.

Saudi:

This also needs to be revolutionized from within. The best way to achieve this, however, is to do one thing. Force Saudi Arabia to allow women to drive. The carrot is economic gain by allowing 1/2 the workforce mobility and greater prospects. The ban on women's diving, in addition to being unIslamic, immoral, cruel, and misogynistic, is also an enormous brake applied to what should be a fairly healthy economy (if you doubt this, compare Saudi to Dubai).

The stick is, Iraq. Explicitly state that our policy regarding Iraq is to enforce the no-fly zones, defend Israel, and destroy the WMD infrastructure. Military defense is no longer part of the plan. Speaking as a Shi'a, I can assure you that nothing quakes Wahabis in their boots so much as the thought of Shi'a taking control of Mecca and Medina (we might actually show some respect to the Wahabi-defiled graves of the Prophet's family, for one thing.)

And, we shoudl also have the VoA (in Arabic) used to full effect here, helping undermine the Religious Police's hold on the populace. Tell the women of Saudi that they should be driving. They pretty much agree, but let's make them really mad about it.

I accept the argument that WMD pose a threat to us. Agreed. But I don't buy the argument that neutralizing the WMD threat actually requires full-scale invasion. The proponents of an Iraqi invasion invoke the WMD threat, but Invasion does NOT logically follow from that threat.

Nor am I happy about the inevitable power vacuum - what happens if the Kurds move in to Baghdad, triumphant as the Northern Alliance? And then a resurgent Wahabi movement fosters another Taliban state. And Saudi becomes a haven for terrorists yet again. We have observed these cycles in Afghanistan already. The fact that all the debate has been on "Attack!" and essentially none on "what next?" should be of enormous concern. Currently, we have a dictatorial but secular tyrant running Iraq - that is far, far better than a theocracy run by Wahabis. We have actual empirical evidence on this.

And, the best way tod eal with Syria is to empower Lebanon. But that's an issue for later...

Continue reading/discuss the best argument against attacking Iraq is... ...

This is the first part of a multi-part series of essays on why I like SUVs (how so retro a topic, I realise). I am also working on my related and comprehensive essay describing why Apple Macintoshes are the SUVs of Home Computing :) I'm sure that title will offend pro-Mac anti-SUV people, but its actually a compliment. To think otherwise is almost hypocritical ;)

This is not an essay explaining why SUVs are the best possible car type ever. Its an essay (in series) describing why I choose to drive oine and why my next purchase will be another SUV. Your mileage may vary, pun intended.

My '94 4x4 Jeep Cherokee Sport is my first car. I never really thought about the SUV issue at first - my dad had bought it and when I moved to Boston he gave the car to me. It worked wonderfully in Boston's snow and rain. I moved to Houston and found it equally useful - Tropical Storm Allison was not fun. I'm hooked on 4WD and won't ever buy a vehicle without it now. But you don't necessarily need an SUV for 4WD or all-wheel drive (AWD) so that isnt a reason in and of itself to go for an SUV.

I like SUVs. That's my bias, up front. The rest of the post could conceivably be seen as simply rationalization (and probably will be dismissed as such by anyone who holds fast to ideology about SUVs. We could replace the word with Linux, or Mac OS/X, and have essentially the same conversation). My outlook is that cars are just tools, and SUVs fill several niches for me very well (including, but not restricted to, the aesthetic one). The truth is different for others and some might well find that a minivan is better or that a sedan or an econobox fits their needs.

That said, almost all of the arguments against SUVs are straw men. Each of the following issues are therefore looked at in the context of "all other things being equal". I'm also writing these points as "responses" to a fictional argument. The "quotes" are based on actual arguments in real life from some friends, but I have modified them to be more general for the purpose of this series.

Argument 1: Hauling people and cargo :

Minivans can hold more people more comfortably than even the largest SUV's, they're easier to get in and out of and usually have more cargo room...Getting seats in and out of a minivan (in order to haul stuff) is easy since they tend to be low and roomy.

This common argument clearly doesn't apply to large SUVs like the Ford Expedition which seats 7 comfortably, or the Excursion which seats NINE. No minivan that I am aware of matches that capacity.

The latest crop of mid-size SUVs have third row seating as an option (like the Ford Explorer and GMC Envoy XL). That makes them equal in carrying capacity to normal minivans, so I don't see any advantage. You can argue that SUVs or minivans are more/less comfortable by finding any two representative models to fit your desired result, but on the whole they are equal. I've spent 2,200 miles on the road from Boston to Chicago to Houston in my jeep and my butt was just fine. Kimberlee can chime in as to whether the Jeep was comfy for the Boston-NYC roadtrip we did, or not.

I only need seating for five. A minivan is overkill, just as a 7-passenger SUV.

with regard to cargo, Minivans and SUVs, on average, have about equal theoretical maximum cargo volume, but achieving the maximum capacity in practice is very different. To haul stuff, you have to make some modifications. In my Jeep, that means flattening the middle seat, which takes me about 30 seconds. In a minivan, that usually means physically removing the third row.

However, you usually have enough cargo area even in the default configuration of an SUV that reducing the passenger seating is not necessary. The cargo area on my Jeep even with the rear setback up and five people sitting inside is still enormous- for example, when I dropped my inlaws off at the airport for their trip to India last month, they left with three suitcases and three carryons. When I picked them up from the airport, they had six suitcases, two boxes, six carryons. And a friend who needed a ride. Stuff is cheap in India. If I had been in a minivan, there would have been a third row seat left behind on the tarmac to accomodate the extra goodies.

If you carry both cargo and people on a regular basis, A minivan simply involves extra hassle and less flexibility. I make enough trips to the airport (at least two a month) dropping people off that its not a negligible annoyance. I rarely need to just haul passengers or cargo, I usually haul both, and a minivan won't cut it for me.

(note that this issue is related to engine power, discussed later.)

The "hauling" excuse for an SUV is equally spurious. The actual weight allowance of most SUV's is so low that moving furniture safely would be totally out of the question. In fact, there are passenger cars with higher weight allowances than some large SUV's. The reasons behind that are twofold:SUV's sit up very high, and are heavy themselves so you've got both a center-of-gravity problem and a weight problem.

This is demonstrably false. If it were true, then standard trucks like the F-150 would also suffer from teh same flaw and be utterly useless. After all, the Ford Expedition (a large SUV) is built on the F-150 platform.

But look at the actual numbers between minvans and SUVs. The Ford Explorer can tow up to 3500 pounds sith the standrad tow package. With the optional tow package, it can tow up to 7500 lbs. The optional 4.6L V8 has 239 horsepower at 4750 rpm and 282 lbs.-ft. of torque at 4000 rpm. Compare that to the Ford Windstar minivan (one of the best minivans out there) which handles only 2000 lbs standard, 3500 as an option. The biggest engine that the Windstar has is a 3.8L SPI V-6 with horsepower @ rpm 200 @ 4900 and torque (lb.-ft. @ rpm) 240 @ 3600. The SUV has a truck engine, and the minivan has a car engine, basically.

The curb weight of a Ford Windstar is 4355 lbs. The curb weight of a Ford Explorer is 4344 lbs. They basically weigh the same. whither excess metal?

as for the center of gravity, thats also nonsense. Its true that smaller SUVs have rollover problems (for example, of the same size class as the Saturn VUE or smaller). Of course, an idiot could roll any SUV regardless of size. But the same is true for minivans or cars - put someone who doesnt know how to drive in charge, and its a menace regardless of make or model. I know I'm not taking sharp turns at 35 mph, whether I am driving my Jeep or my wife's 91 Corolla.

btw, the minivan is much more expensive. By about $2,000 for a comparably-equipped vehicle, amenities-wise. But we will examine amenities in the next post.

Continue reading/discuss in defense of my SUV, part I: cargo and passengers ...

Check out this new surreal blog called 4TH Humour, by Phlegmatic. His first post is dark, twisted, and strangely addictive reading:

It hits me that something this nonsensical like this could only happen if it facilitates the an event, the importance of which supercedes the laws of physics. I figure that the event is my death, that I somehow cheated it back in that hallway, and that Thrombus is going to hunt me down until I'm dead. I communicate this to the man and woman, and start to descent the escalator of my own will, when it shifts into moving upward for us instead. "Or not," I think to myself. Looking up/forward, I see Thrombus on another escalator, coming down toward us.
...
The cat hangs one arm out the window like a cool frood, the other paw on the steering wheel, looking about with that collected self-assuredness and assumed territorial ownership that cats have. In reality, R is using the gas pedal and steering with his left foot and hand from the passenger's seat. And yet I'm in the driver's seat, too, superimposed on the cat, I guess.

I am making a point of visiting blogs beyond the politico-lefty-warblog-spheres. There's a lot of great writing out there - Lileks is not the sole source of great prose. I do encourage dropping by 4TH Humour - it's something to be experienced...

Continue reading/discuss the fourth humour ...

Dalia Lithwick of Slate has taken the contrarian position that the Citizen Snitch program, TIPS, is actually a good thing. She makes a good point in that we do have similar "snitch" programs, namely mandatory child-abuse-reporting laws:

...these same dire possibilities lurks in the existing mandatory child-abuse-reporting laws, yet few of us are arguing for their repeal, and fewer of us argue that they have brought about the parade of horribles cited by the critics of TIPS. Indeed, many of us recently called for expanding the reporting laws to include clergy, following the recent church sex scandals. We believe that reporting systems work.
...
The states' mandatory-reporting statutes exist for good reason: We believe ferreting out child abuse is worth sacrificing some privacy. We believe child abuse is so clandestine that anyone able to pierce the shroud of secrecy should report it. We believe that simply asking good Samaritans to come forward and report abuse is ineffective; they don't. And we believe that child abuse is so awful that identifying the small number of substantiated cases is worth sifting through masses of false reports.

Why is terrorism different? Can't an equally compelling argument be made that terrorism is so vile, and obtaining information so difficult, that it's worth sacrificing some privacy to root out cells before they strike?

but the problem is that terrorism IS different. The reason is that a false accusation can be much, much more harmful. If you are falsely accused of child abuse, you still have a degree of due process. But for accusations of terrorism, all that is required to lock you away without access to counsel or your constitutional rights is simply labeling you as a menace. Just ask Jose Padilla, who has been secreted away without access to his lawyer for crimes he hasn't committed.

already we have seen the effect of having hyper-paranoid civilians in minor positions of authority. Consider the case of 20 year old Samyuktha Verma, a movie star from India flying to New York with her family:

The Vermas' excitement over seeing the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty for the first time and the seat-switching, finger-pointing and exclamations in a foreign tongue so alarmed one passenger that she alerted a flight attendant, fearing the group might be terrorists.

The end result was that the plane was escorted into La Guardia by F-16 escorts, and police officers stormed the jet and the entire family was taken into FBI custody, and freed after questioning. Verma was understanding but quite shaken - she said in an interview:

. "Now I am afraid to be here, that if I go shopping and start laughing or talking too loudly in my language, someone will think I am up to something. I say to Indians, 'Don't laugh during a flight. Just sit there quietly, read something or sleep.'

The problem with TIPS is that is exists in the post-9-11 world. Mandatory reporting laws still exist in a pre-9-11 atmosphere. But when it comes to the spectre of terrorism, you often hear the refrain, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact."

New Hampshire voters would disagree. Their position is, "Live free or die."

Continue reading/discuss live free or die ...

The oft-heard refrain on conservative radio is that "liberals" deliberately use misinformation to achieve their political ends. This is probably true. But the implied righteous posoition that conservatives are simply above such behavior (the moral majority, and all that) is blatantly deceptive.

Consider the case of Judicial Watch. During the Clinton presidency, this group was a darling of the conservative establishment, because it targeted Bill Clinton with lawsuits and legal attacks. Larry Klayman, the founder of the group, was an honored guest at many a GOP function.

However, Judicial Watch has turned its sights on VP Cheney for is involvement with Haliburton Co. accusing them of defrauding investors during his tenure by inflating revenue estimates. President Bush had tough words for lying CEOs when he signed the reform bill, but the White House's rhetoric about corporate accountability do not include members of the administration. When the courier from Judicial Watch attempted to serve Vice President Cheney with the lawsuit, the White House used the Secret Service to intimidate and threaten the courier with arrest :

Judicial Watch said its process server went the White House on July 22 to deliver the lawsuit to the vice president, who was chief executive of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. But the group said the courier was turned away by the Secret Service and allegedly threatened with arrest.

"We have served many a lawsuit on Bill Clinton, Al Gore ( news - web sites), and Hillary Clinton ( news - web sites) when they were in the White House ... Never before have our process servers been threatened with arrest," said Larry Klayman, who serves as chairman and general counsel of the 8-year-old legal foundation that has filed a number of highly publicized lawsuits against government officials.
...
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the courier was rebuffed when he called the vice president's office for clearance. Fitton dismissed suggestions that Cheney's private attorney should have been served. "You don't serve lawsuits on lawyers, you serve them on defendants," he said.

The Judicial Watch lawsuit alleges that Cheney conspired with others to file false financial statements that misled investors. The company overstated revenues by as much as $445 million over three years, it said.

This is astonishing in its brazenness. Yet, while Judicial Watch is being excoriated as a "public relations stunt" by the White House, it is also being held up as a martyr for allegations that Clinton tried to use the IRS as a weapon against it.

IN a related issue, the current spin by GOP partisans has been that the economy's woes of lying CEOs is actually due to Clinton. The absurdity of this has been well-documented elsewhere, but that hasn't stopped Sean Hannity et al. from drumming that theme daily on talk radio.

Now, however, Jonah Goldberg of National Review has also debunked the idea that Clinton is morally responsible for lies of CEOs. He does so in the context of absolving Bush, and also gets in a good dig at Gore. It's notable however that when conservatives link to this piece, they ignore the absolve-Clinton issue entirely.

Continue reading/discuss sins of omission ...

There's a lengthy post by Muslimpundit which goes to immense pains to justify the perception of jihad by the West as intrinsically violent. I suspect that Adil would love Eric Raymond's recent screed as they are extremely complementary.

Muslimpundit has little reason to like me, based on past correspondence (he didn't post my apologetic email followup, but I really have no excuse), so I fully expect to be visited by his sharp-pointed stick soon. So I may as well give him more material to roast me with :)

Let me state my opinion as to the overall flaw in his arguments - Muslimpundit has a Sunni-centric view of Islam. He ascribes great importance to collections of certain hadith which are (as I will demonstrate later) critically flawed. He is very well-read on topics of Islamic literature and commentary, but restricts himself to mostly Sunni sources and viewpoints. In fact, most of his generalizations about Islam are basically correct, but applied to only a small portion of the vast body of Islamic practice, jurispriudence and philosophy. It is true that Sunnis comprise the majority of the Islamic population, but the dominant Sunni theological frameworks are not the sole criterion on which Islam can be judged.

on to the fray.

His basic argument is that attempts by "moderate muslims" to stress the importance of jihad in contexts other than violent war are misguided and naive. While opinion can certainly differ in terms of theological analysis, he seems to go out of his way to put the cart before the horse. Promoting deviant interpretations of Islam is certainly a gravy train for linking by Instapundit, but this essay is a polemic, not a rigorous analysis. Not that there's anything wrong with polemics!

His first point is largely anecdotal. He asserts that "much commentary" has been published that proves that the "proper context as a term of Islamic literature" for the word jihad is "fighting to make God�s Word superior�. I certainly don't doubt that there are sources that do in fact make such assertions, but this is not proof. To compare, here is an equally anecdotal but opposing commentary, which proves in my opinion that there is no such thing as "proper" context. There is only context. Which one you choose depends on what polemic you have in mind.

He goes on to link the arabic word qitaal (fighting) to jihad, and claims that jihad is a conditional form of qitaal, despite the fact that they have different roots. It's worthy to note that the Qur'an quite explicitly discusses qitaal, and jihaad, and does not synonomize these two terms. I am sure that Adil's library of Islamic Analysts have many volumes on the "functional equivalence" but as far as I am concerned as a Muslim, if the Qur'an meant qitaal when it says jihad, it would say qitaal, not jihaad.

It is critical to note that the great wars of conquest in Islam were initiated by the three Sunni Caliphs after the Prophet's death. The fourth Caliph Ali AS, who was explicitly identified by the Prophet SAW as his heir, sought to restrain these. Therefore, much of the analysis and commentary that argues in favor of jihad as synonomous in context to qital, is self-serving polemic to justify the actions of those who controlled Islam after the Prophet's death without his permission. As they say, the victors write history, and Ali AS was not a victor in the political realm (His son, Husain AS, the grandson of the Prophet SAW, was murdered later by the Ummaiyad dynasty Caliph, effectively cementing their control over Islam's direction).

Adil's next point pertains to hadith (supposed quotations of the Prophet, whose accuracy is evaluated based on the veracity of the people in the chain of transmission, or isnad) . He quotes one hadith that supports the idea of violent jihad as "lesser" and inferior to the non-violent kind. He then quotes a numberof Sunni sources who (unsurprisingly) cast doubt on the isnad of this hadith. Fair enough! In my opinion, most hadith - whether they are true or not - have faulty isnad. I don't really care whether that hadith is accurate or not - because the Qur'an trumps hadith by definition.

Adil conveniently ignores mention of these Qur'anic verses :

"O you who believe, . . . do not kill (or destroy) yourself." (Qur'an 4:29)

"And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden except for the requirement of justice." (6:152)

"Whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter, or for spreading mischief in the land, it is as if he had slayed the whole people" (Qur'an 5:32)

In fact the Qur'anic discussion of jihad is a very rich discussion, with a great deal of historical and symbolic context. These translations only hint at this, and do no justice to the depth of meaning about jihad (and qital) that exists. To say that the Qur'an prortrays Jihad as a violent means is at best a sloppy mischaracterization, at worst a gross deliberate distortion.

>ASIDE: I hope that H.D. Miller is reading this and can lend his commentary.

Ironically, Adil goes on to invoke other hadith which support the view of jihad as violence. He has an uncritical devotion to the books of hadith by Sunni compilers Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. To say that these two books contain innaccurate hadith is an understatement.

ASIDE2: Let me preface this part with a few disclaimers. I have respect for Sunni muslims as my brothers in Islam. These are matters of theological debate, not religious quality or piety. I have not insulted the Caliphs here, nor have I impugned the Sunni faith. This tradition of cross-analysis only serves to strengthen Islam, not weaken it, as long as it is done in the common spirit of religious self-examination. If what I have written offends you, please write to me.

The objective of Bukhari and Muslim was to collect hadith, not to consider their authenticity. The ulema of the Hanafi school (one-fourth of all Sunnis) have critiqued these books as containing many weak and unconfirmed hadith.

for example, there are hadith in these collections that refer to Allah as a visible, material being:

Abu Huraira also narrates that a group of people asked the holy Prophet, "Shall we see our Creator on the Day of Judgement?" He replied, "Of course. At mid-day when the sky is free of clouds, does the Sun hurt you, if you look at it?"

and here's a reference to Allah's "bare leg" :

Allah will say in reply, 'Have you any sign between you and Allah so that you may see Him and identify Him?' They will say, 'Yes.' Then Allah will show them His bare leg. Thereupon the believers will raise their heads upwards and will see Him in the same condition as they saw Him for the first time.

this directly contradicts the Qur'an itself (again, translations, aaargh) :

"Vision comprehends Him not, and He comprehends (all) vision_." (6:103)

" He (Moses) said: 'My Lord! Show me (Thyself), so that I may look upon Thee.' He said: 'You cannot (bear to) see me...'" (7:143)

Let me note that I hate to precision-quote the Qur'an like this. I don't claim that my arguments are absolutely axiomatic. But I do think that they can at least recoignize that there is room for dissent, and disagreement.

but the strangeness of the hadith quoted in Bukhari does not stop there. There are stories about the Prophet Moses, running naked after a stone, that had stolen his clothes, and thus all his followers saw his "defective genitals". Moses then had to beat the stone so severely that it shrieked. Please allow me to state, for the record, WTF?!

The point I am making is that Adil's uncritical recognition of hadith as automatically beyond dispute if they are sourced from Bukhari or Muslim (ironically referred to by Sunnis as "Sahih" which means truthful) is out of character. But there is a persistent blind spot when it comes to these books. I have to admit to some distaste for the way that "Sahih" Muslim and Bukhari are accorded respect in some circles even above that afforded to the Qur'an itself.

It is also important to note that much of the deranged and depraved interpretations of Islam stemming from our Saudi and Wahabi "allies" draws much of its strength from Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, as well as a super-strict reading of the Qur'an (which ignores the contextual deeper meanings therein).

Adil does make a minor reference to the Qur'an in his essay, but doesn't actually quote any of it. He just states that the Qur'an subscribes to a "warfare-approach" to jihad. In fact, all such references to warfare are in the context of defending against oppression, and again he does not bother to draw any disctinction between use of jihad and qital in the text of the Qur'an (after all, he already demonstrated that these were synonyms by considering hadith and literature, so why bother? :P) He denies the defensive warfare interpretation, but just exhorts the reader to "look it up" in the "index". Presumably he means, find an English translation ? The implicit assumption of accuracy is quite erroneous.

anyway, my purpose is just to demonstrate that the qiuestion of Jihad is not closed. Muslimpundit has a nice summary of one viewpoint, but the inevitable barrage of links to his post are mistaken if they think it's complete or definitive. (But hey, he's Muslim, and he agrees with us, so it must be true, right?).

The Ithna Ashari Shi'a community has published a detailed account of a great debate between an Ithna Ashari jurist and a Sunni, that took place in Pakistan about a hundred years ago. The account has been published online as Peshawar Nights. Note that the description of Shia Islam is slanted towards the specific Itghna Ashari version - Ismaili Shi'a would disagree with the claims about the immortal Imam Mahdi returning as a saviour. But it is worth reading for its analysis on the misconcepotions about Shi'a Islam by the Sunni community, and gives a flavor of the doctrinal and theological diversity within Islam.

The definitive book about Shia philosophy and belief however is straight from the source - the great Peak of Eloquence (Nahj ul Balagha) , the collection of speeches by Ali AS himself. It can be found online here but I personally recommend reading it in book form, the paperback is very cheap on Amazon.com (that's not an affiliate link, btw, I wont get any profit if you buy it).

Continue reading/discuss this post is jihad ...

With the introduction of the six plans for restoring the WTC area of New York, the chorus of grumbling and disappointment has been steadily rising. There are complaints from across the political spectrum, for example this plaintive screed from the New York times:

I wondered if we have lost our knack for bringing together big bucks with big ideas. In earlier generations, planners had the gumption and the vision to build grand and memorable public projects like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and Rockefeller Center. Are we at the end of our creative run? Have we reached a moment when we are capable of designing only bland office parks and lightly nostalgic shopping malls? If so, we better snap out of it and fast. We can start in lower Manhattan.

New Yorkers expect a 21st century city to rise from the ashes of the twin towers and connect with the historic city. We need a "high-tech Machu Picchu," someone said at our table in the Javits Center.

Our culture has so many talented architects and planners, both within the large, established companies and at younger firms. When will we start asking them to help us imagine our future? We need designs that will truly revive and support our economy and satisfy our dreams for a world-class metropolis.

and this practical, functional critique from National Review:

Finally, all the plans involve creation of an intermodal transit nexus extending from the Hoboken Ferry terminal in Battery Park City to the presently labyrinthine Broadway-Nassau-Fulton Street subway complex east of the WTC site. What doesn't emerge in these plans is a new freestanding rail station, as opposed to "transit centers" submerged in commercial buildings. Such a station, which also figures in the Franck Lohsen McCrery scheme, would provide access to the PATH line to New Jersey as well as subway lines. A classical station rivaling Grand Central Terminal in beauty could reinforce the civic dignity and monumentality of the redeveloped WTC complex.

It's obvious that the vast majority of critics haven't seen the two following plans, which manage to satisfy both the critiques above. The first is called "Liberty Square" :

The project consists of a proud and heroic skyscraper, to be the tallest building in the world, flanked by nine of the tallest buildings in Manhattan and an entirely new train station building. These magnificent structures surround a dignified and urbane memorial square and monuments. All this situated in a beautifully improved system of city streets and blocks.

The design of this project immediately addresses the need for grand architecture - with the tallest building in the world, as well as a new Liberty Station. But the most moving aspect of this plan is the understated yet elegant plan for a memorial:

The heart of Liberty Square at the site of the former WTC plaza is the memorial monument which occupies two city blocks. A grass lawn is recessed three broad steps below street level. To the north of the square is the great pairing of History and Memory on opposite sides of a draped catafalque marking the place where thousands of victims died on September 11. At the square's southern edge in front of the train station are placed heroic statuary monuments to New York's great heroes: Firefighters and Policeman.

There is much more detail on the memorial at the site - a sketch of the Square, and a street plan detailing how the square is designed to be the "hub of the neighborhood" and an "oasis in the middle of the urban landscape". At the north end of the square, set back into will be statues of History and Memory, and a draped catafalque honoring the victims. If the sketch is any indication, these will rival the Lincoln Memorial as a place of quiet introspection and rverence. At the south end of the square, monuments to New York's Firefighters and Policemen will stand.

The second alternative plan is the Macchu Picchu one - WTC 2002: The Cyber City - a massive complex of five skyscrapers forming a colossal combined resdiential, commercial, and business space, 100 stories tall. Topped by an 11-story hotel in the shape of a glass pyramid. It's also been reviewed by the Miami Herald. The site claims that this plan is under consideration as the "7th plan" to be added to the previous six designs which elicted such yawns. NOTHING about this plan is yawn-worthy - pardon my french, but this plan has serious cajones. Even the website is all Flash and snazzy animation. There's a raw, quintessentially American spirit being exhibited here. Of course there is a memorial aspect to it, so it isn't all rip-roaring cowboy. The plan overview is:

The Twin Towers were 1320 Feet high. Mr Turner proposes to raise the structures to a height of 1449 feet, which, with the communications tower, will create the world�s tallest building at 1750 feet.

The concept comprises of five (5) cylindrical towers topped by an 11 story pyramid, arising from an enclosed, transparent, climatically controlled landscaped biosphere.

The fifth central tower accomodates 50 high speed elevators, each named after a State of The United States of America. The elevators are linked to the towers by transit levels every 10 floors, and two, seven story hydroponically landscaped galleries unify the massive aerial structures at the 45th and 75th levels.

The five circular floors atop the towers will include two revolving restaurant floors (one 'a la carte' International cuisine, one International buffet cuisine), two revolving tourist observation platforms with the fifth being the conference center for the 11 story �boutique hotel� in the form of a pyramid. (For example, Hyatt-In-The Sky)

A total of 111 floors rise above the sidewalks of Lower Manhattan.

The below-grade service areas (seven storys) and subway lines will extend under the entire site, above which, the domed enclosure of the Biosphere will accommodate commercial, residential, entertainment and related functions, including convention facilities, concert, opera, and theater halls along with recreation areas.

Within the Biosphere there will be 2833 living trees planted. Each living tree will be named and a plaque set at its base as a living memorial to those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001.

This plan's memorial isn't as moving as the Liberty Square one, but it is still an open area that is reserved for life. I do feel that any memorial should include space for people to engage in the simple act of everyday living, which in and of itself is a powerful negation to terrorism. I am glad to see "The Cyber City" under consideration as another official plan (if that claim is true). I hope Liberty Square also gets to be considered. Both add a mix of something sorely lacking to the existing dry proposals.

Continue reading/discuss WTC rebuilding: the blind leading the blind ...

Apple is working with Sun on StarOffice for OS/X !

imagine if every Mac came bundled with StarOffice for OSX. This solves a number of problems for Apple - in that it lessens their dependency on their deteriorating relationship with Apple. It strengthens the value of buying an Apple, because now each Mac has the ability to handle (simple) Microsoft documents right out-of-the-box. It further enhances the relationship between Mac users and Unix users, which is a natural one given the freeBSD underpinnings of OSX.

All of this could mean more new sales - partly from users of unix/linux/bsd, and partly from the PC side who may have been inclined but afraid to make the switch for lack of software (getting Star Office for free instead of paying 300 to M$ is a non-trivial advantage)

And of course, it also is a boost to open source software, assuming that Apple is willing to give back to the community (not a given assumption). More users of StarOffice could lead to more development funding and user testing, leading to improvements that could improve StarOffice's image on the PC side as a viable alternative. And of course to the Linux community, since owning a Free Software system would be made more attractive and less of a risk.

The only loser is Microsoft. I bet they aren't happy :)

Continue reading/discuss brilliant strategy by Apple? ...

[link]

Palestinians carry the body of two-month old baby Duani Matar in a funeral procession, after she was killed during an Israeli missile strike, in Gaza July 23, 2002. Israel killed the commander of the military wing of Hamas and 13 other Palestinians, including eight children, in a night-time missile strike on his home in the Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

I'm going to make a point of putting up these photos of tragedy and grief as I find them. I don't care which flag these children are wrapped in. I don't see Palestinians or Israeilis anymore, I just see two minorities (Hamas and the settlers) opressing a huge majority (everyone else). Email me more if you find them (past or present).

Continue reading/discuss her ethnicity is irrelevant ...

NZ Bear eloquently sums up the underlying hypocrisy of supporting IDF assasinations while condemning suicide bombers (emphasis mine) :

The responsibility for the death of Sheik Shehada --- and the civilians killed --- lies with the Israeli military. They carried out the attack. They bear the responsibility for its consequences, for good and ill.

This doesn�t mean the attack was morally wrong. If the planners of the attack judged that by killing this one man --- and the civilians around him --- they would be saving hundreds of innocents down the line, then it was morally justifiable. But to imply that the �ultimate responsibility� for Shehada�s family lies with anyone other than the IDF is exactly the same twisted moral calculus that terrorists like Shehada use to justify the murder of Israeli citizens. �The Israeli�s have left us no choice, they say --- we have no other options but to use these tactics!�

When a terrorist blows himself up on a streetcorner and murders a score of Israeli civilians, what do we hear? It is the fault of the Israelis; their oppression of the Palestinian people has left them no choice! And now, when the IDF�s actions have resulted --- accidentally, and yes, that does make a difference, but resulted nonetheless --- in the death of civilians? It is the fault of the Palestinians, of Hamas, because, in Alterman�s words, � If you ask for war, you are asking to have your civilians slaughtered, unless you can keep the war on the other side�s turf. Well, Hamas asked.�

This is barbaric nonsense.

Yes, it is barbaric. Murdering civilians deliberately is barbaric. Even if there is no such thing as a civilian, there IS such a thing as a noncombatant. The kids at the disco, the patrons at the sbarro, the kids sleeping in their bed - these are people who were murdered. If their murder serves your ends, then it's your decision whether or not to do so. But trying to pin blame on the other side - essentially, blaming the victim - is vile.

I have to disagree with NZBear here - he says that it may be moral, but you have to take responsibility. I think that responsibility is a given - but that includes admitting that sometimes our means are achieved by immoral ends. Killing someone by targeting his family is immoral, and you cannot invoke potential future actions to argue that the net effect is to save lives. That way lies the nightmare of the movie, Minority Report in fiction and the detention of Jose Padilla in real-life.

Bottom line is, the attack was immoral. It was the IDF's responsibility. This is exactly the same moral equivalence problem that conservatives are fond of decrying when it serves their political ends. The IDF needs to acknowledge the immorality of the action even as they argue its necessity.

Sharon's statement about the civilians was "We of course have no interest in striking civilians and are always sorry over civilians who were struck". The IDF's position is that these children who were living in their homes were "human shields". Ha'aretz has this to say in response:

Dozens of incidents in which people have been killed have taken place in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 22 months of the current war of terrorism. Last December 30, three Palestinian children were killed by Israeli artillery fire north of Beit Lahia, in the Gaza Strip. On April 8, three civilians (including two young girls aged five and 10) were killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on the Brazil refugee camp in Rafah. On May 5, a mother and her two children (aged three and four) were killed near Qabatiyah by a tank shell.

However, these killing actions - and dozens of other incidents in which hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed - are substantively different from the one that occurred on Tuesday night in the Daraj neighborhood, near the Jabalya refugee camp. The reason for the difference is that this particular killing event, in which at least nine children and four adults - lost their lives, was the result of a direct, deliberate and conscious decision by the prime minister of Israel to drop a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood.

The prime minister of Israel did not want to commit a terrorist act. He did not want to kill Lilah Hamis Shehadeh (41), Iman Shehadeh (14), Mohammed Ashwa (40), Ahmed Ashwa (3), Mona Fahmi Hwaiti (22), Subhi Hwaiti (4.5), Mohammed Hwaiti (3), Iman Hassan Matar (27), Ala Matar (11), Diana Matar (5), Mohammed Matar (4), Iman Matar (18 months) and Dina Raid Matar (2 months). He only wanted to kill Salah Shehadeh, an arch-murderer. However, when Ariel Sharon decided that the goal of killing Shehadeh justified the means of dropping a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood, he made a decision over which a black flag flies. He turned the targeted and justified killing of Shehadeh into a grave and unforgivable act.

the operative principle is, do not kill the innocent. Do not target noncombatants. This is laid out in the Geneva Convention, a treaty signed by the United States and therefore has the force of law in this country second only to the Constitution :

Once a treaty is ratified by the US, it actually becomes part of the law of the land and it can be enforced by the courts. We don't have the constitutional ability to ignore treaties; it doesn't work that way.

The pragmatic side however says that sometimes civilians are targets. That was why we bombed Hiroshima and Dresden. In contrast, the Japanese only attacked military targets (Pearl Harbor). And there is a case to be made for "extra-judicial" killing by Israel. Such assassinations are intolerable under the Constitution and must never occur within the United States, however. There are many people in a fervent rush to equate Israel and the United States - but that is a massive fallacy which I will address later.

So - combining the principle with pragmatism - if you are going to target civilians, then you shoudl do so with full realization of the immoral aspect. What offends me to the core are the attempts by both Hamas/etc and the IDF to evade the moral responsibility. The American military, in contrast, has behaved much more honorably.

Continue reading/discuss moral equivalence ...

historical link of note.

Nazi Germany: The Decrees of 1933

I can't help but be reminded of what Tom Tomorrow said recently:

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say flat out: there are things to be learned from the lessons of history. And an official government system by which citizens are encouraged to spy on their neighbors should really set the alarm bells ringing.

Facism is a term thrown about too freely, and I don't believe we're at a point that its use is justified--but an oppressive and intrusive government, however you want to label it, does not ride into town wearing the uniforms and waving the flags of recognizable evil. It creeps in slowly, wrapped in the flag of your own country, and speaking the language of patriotism and duty, and at each step along the way, its actions seem plausible and defensible--until one morning you wake up and realize the gulf between the way things were and the way things are has grown so wide that there is no going back. Sinclair Lewis tried to point this out more than a half century ago, and given the current climate, It Can't Happen Here is well worth re-reading (or reading for the first time, if you've never come across it before).

When I wrote this cartoon a few months ago, people told me I was being a silly alarmist. Now it's actually happening. Satire cannot keep up with reality these days, and it's pretty disturbing.

and Reason Online notes, It�s like they aren�t even trying to pretend anymore.

Continue reading/discuss Nazi Germany: The Decrees of 1933 ...

David Warren has penned what I believe is the definitive essay on the political turmoil in Iran - it reads more like a gripping historical short story than an essay. I'll post it to the UNMEDIA mailing list also.

Some of the excerpts that drew my eye follow. But the essay deserves to be read in full.

on the resignation of Taheri and the response of the theocratic regime:

Ayatollah Taheri's five-page screed against the new tyranny was built around an apology for his own cowardice in failing to speak out before. It included an eloquent defence of Ayatollah Montazeri, the regime's most famous domestic critic, who has been under house arrest for years. In particular, it applauded Montazeri's recent "fatwah" or ruling against the practice of suicide bombing: denouncing this unambiguously as an affront to Islam.

The regime responded immediately, by banning media from reporting Taheri's resignation, and then closing a prominent Tehran newspaper for mentioning it. This hardly prevented the news from spreading.

In a further sign that the regime was losing its grip, it then confined its police to barracks in Isfahan, as it had done the previous day in Tehran -- doubting their loyalty. Instead they sent foreign thugs with paramilitary training, chiefly Palestinian and Iraqi Arabs, and Uzbeks and Tadzhiks from Afghanistan, to beat the demonstrators down. It was a desperate measure -- an implicit acknowledgement that the whole Persian people have now sided with the opposition.

on the passions of the Iranian youth in response to a lifetime of tyranny:

...almost two-thirds of the Iranian population was not yet born in 1979, when the Shah fell and Ayatollah Khomeini brought the world's first Islamist, terrorist regime to power...To the students in universities, and other young people coming of age in a time of Internet and satellite TV, the ayatollahs have nothing to say. Their parents, too, are sick to death of living under the Shia version of Islamist tyranny; but while their parents were cowed into submission, the kids refuse to sit still.

They have been told all their lives that the United States is the "Great Satan". Therefore they love America. (On the night of 9/11, huge numbers of Iranian students appeared spontaneously in the streets of many Iranian cities, carrying lighted candles to mourn the victims of Al Qaeda in New York and Washington. And there were illicit fireworks displays this year on the 4th of July.)

They have been fed from birth the most extraordinary diet of sick-in-the-head anti-Semitism. So Israel seems pretty cool to them, too.

And they have been taught that Islam -- submission to the will of Allah as interpreted by the ayatollahs -- is the whole meaning and purpose of their lives. So most are intensely secular. Or else they embrace an Islam that is increasingly apolitical, mystical, unworldly.

Despite the risk of arrest and flogging, the students actually goad the religious authorities, and dare the police -- turning out in such numbers as the police cannot handle. Girls make a point of wearing short skirts to the rallies; boys bring beer; the Stars and Stripes get unfurled, together with the Shah's old royal banner.

on the nature of the Iranian civilization, and the underlying bedrock of Shi'a Islam:

Yet the majority are also intensely Persian (Iran, more empire than nation, also contains several large minority nationalities). Here is a country that was also a civilization, that has been at or near the forefront of humane culture for several thousand years, reduced to a thugocracy. Like Italy, Greece, the culture never quite disappears, the pride in ancient -- and pre-Islamic -- accomplishments remains ever available. The Arabs could conquer and Islamicize Iran, but they never succeeded in "Arabizing" it. And chiefly Persian-speaking Shia Islam long considered itself not merely more legitimate, but more culturally advanced than its chiefly Arabic-speaking Sunni rival: a religion more of the spirit than of the sword.

In reference to this article, the Kolkata Libertarian makes an interesting and in my opinion extremely foresighted prediction about the rise of the I³ Axis - India, Iran, and Israel. Analysing Suman's idea a bit, it is interesting to note that all three are truly civilizations, not mere nations. India, Israel, and Iran all are ancient yet still have as much depth as China in its complexity, antiquity, and history.

Suman's prediction of the I³ Axis assumes that all three countries can survive the unique challenges that are facing them today. But if they do, it could easily be the rebirth of Asia and a dramatic boost to the fortunes of billions of people. As Suman observes, "we live on the edge of annihilation, and yet the future seems to hold unimaginable promises."


UPDATE 072202

Alex Frantz comments.

Continue reading/discuss Definitive Iran ...

Live from the WTC comments on the issue of reimportation of drugs to the US from Canada. It's an impassioned and meticulous argument, but in my opinion is based on an fundamental piece of misinformation by the drug companies themselves. That is, that if the drug companies' profits are lessened, then drug research and development will cease.

That's patent nonsense (pun intended :). The R&D budgets are huge, but so is the marketing department, in fact much more so. I know a large number of doctors and pharmacists (including my wife and my mother) and let me tell you, the amount that drug companies spend on these groups of professionals is obscene.

Case in point. A pediatrician will typically receive tickets to paid gourmet dinners at fancy hotels, $100 certificates to Amazon.com, gift cards from American Express i the range of $50 to $150, and of course enormous amounts of "free samples" - so many, that whenever we travel to India or Pakistan, we take along an entire suitcase and dispense them in free clinics for the poor.

All of this is to get the doctor to simply look "favorably" upon drugs - and it works. Doctors can prescribe from an entire range of drugs for any given ailment, and brand-name recognition really works. Doctors keep an enormous amount of information in their heads and they are not pharmacists. So they tend to make easy decisions about what to prescribe.

It woudl be different if doctors only specified what they were trying to do (ie, need an antibiotic targeted for ear infection, also want to reduce systemic inflammation) and let the pharmacists decide what specific drugs to administer. As things currently stand, pharmacists have an enormous amount of education that is for the most part, completely wasted. This is why Pharmacy is a hot field, ironically - so many Pharm D's are leaving, that there is a shortage. The minimum requirement to do most of the work at Eckerd's or Walgreens is really just a Bachelor's degree in Pharmacy, not a Pharm D.

Anyway, drug companies are notoriously tight-fisted about their expense sheets. It's because they want to hide how much money is thrown away on lavish marketing and the scale of that budget compared to R&D. But take claims by drug companies that high prices are essential to their development costs and their dire predictions of No More Drugs! to scare us at night. These are self-serving and suspect.

If drug companies want us to believe that R&D costs are on the knife-edge of profits, then they should open up their books and let us see publicly. The fact they won't is suggestive that they have something to hide.

and yes, the drug companies can give us cheaper drugs (and can afford to sell drugs below cost in places like Brazil or Africa).


UPDATE 072302

Megan McArdle comments. It's a complex post, and she summarized it in email to me:

My point was threefold. First of all, if you lower the price, you have to increase volume to make up the revenue. How do you increase the volume? Marketing.

Second of all, if you lower the price, you lower the projected return on any investment in the product. Since the projected return on R&D has to be very large to compensate for the capital tied up, R&D is more vulnerable than marketing. It is especially vulnerable because if you cut the price you send a political signal to the pharmaceutical companies that you are willing to, essentially, seize their property for political purposes. Doing so increases the risk of making any investment -- if it's successful, the government may just take it. Increasing the risk increases the discount rate you have to apply to the investment.

And third of all, the numbers don't even work arithmetically. A 40% decline in price cannot be offset by any conceivable combination of cuts in the marketing budget.

As for the biotechs, biotechs suffer from the same problem as R&D research, only more so. Biotech firms, almost to a one, are currently unprofitable. They are surviving on equity capital. But 90% of them will fail. In order to compensate for this risk, their projected profits must be very large, or investors will not give them any more capital. If you cut the price of their product by 40%, these biotechs will go out of business for the same reasons I enumerated two paragraphs above. The risks inherent in investing in one of these firms will increase, and the potential return will decrease.

I'm still not convinced though, as there are a number of assumptions in there that still don't seem tohave any source other than "it's this way, trust me". A far more detailed essay on teh subject was written two years ago by Gardiner Harris in the WSJ, titled "Drug Firms, Stymied in the Lab, Become Marketing Machines"

Continue reading/discuss the myth of vanishing drug R&D budgets ...

H.D. Miller has a lengthy post inspired by my recent piece on translations (and subsequent commentary on Ideofact).

He brilliantly describes the complexity of the Arabic language. He starts with a great quote by Joel Carmichael in his book, The Shaping of the Arabs: "Arabic loses on translation but all other languages gain on being translated into Arabic"

He then goes on to say:

individual Arabic words are formed from simple three letter roots. To these simple roots suffixes, prefixes, and infixes are added, and vowels are changed to produce a large number of individual words which have, either actually or metaphorically, meanings somehow related to the idea behind the simple root. For example, the Arabic root k-t-b is expressed as a verbal infinitive as kataba, meaning "to write". From that basic root we can then get the words kitab "book", kAtib "writer", maktUb "written" (with a metaphorical meaning of "predestined"), maktab "office", maktaba "library", makAtaba "correspondence", kutubi "bookseller", kuttAb "elementary school", istiktAb "dictation", makAtib "correspondent" or "reporter", muktatib "subscriber", and about a hundred more variations all produced from that original three letter root.
...
All of the words springing from the triliteral root k-t-b have that similar three letter sound to bind them together, which means that each of the words shaped from the root, when spoken, are capable of evoking any of the other words shaped from that same root... To the native speaker all of these various meanings resonate at either the conscious or unconscious level.

The richness and suppleness of the language and the way it lent itself to the most magnificent and evocative poetry, coupled with the way the Qur'an bound religion and language tightly together, meant that for the Muslims of the Classical era grammar was one of the greatest of their sciences. Medieval Muslim grammarians studied their own language with an intensity we reserve for partical physics and professional football. ...They even invented semiotics a full thousand years before Charles Pierce and Ferdinand de Saussure figured it out anew from scratch.

Of course, it's an element of my faith that Arabic was nurtured to this level of richness and complexity for the single purpose of serving as the language of the Qur'an. But even non-Shi'a non-Muslims can and have acknowledged this richness and complexity without having to necessarily believe in a divine origin to it. To each his own :) However, the vary nature of the Arabic language should itself be the first warning against strict, fundamentalist, literal readings of the Qur'an. Anyone claiming that there is zero esoteric, figurative, or symbolic content in the words of the Qur'an, whether they believe it to be of divine origin or not, is grotesquely ignorant.

I have to thank H.D for writing his piece - it's clear his knowledge of Arabic far outstrips mine. I do have to take exception with his minor assertion that:

'Ali was murdered in 661 CE, before the nuqat, the dots, were added to the Arabic script. They're an invention of a grammarian named al-Thaqafi in the first decades of the 8th century. So, there's no way 'Ali could have spent an evening boring his dinner guests with grammatical small talk.

I have asked H.D. to provide a source reference for this claim, but I am quite certain of its authenticity since the anecdote mentioned therein is extremely well-documented in the Shi'a oral tradition. There is often a bias against oral traditions in Western cultures, assuming that the printed word is superior to the spoken one. But I personally know at least four people in my community who have the entire text of the Qur'an committed to memory (we call such people by the honorific, Hafiz al-Qur'an). In fact the written word is just as subject to manipulation and alteration as the spoken one. And in cultures with strong oral traditions, a great deal of discipline surrounds memorization and propagation of these works of history and literature, such as the anecdote of Ali AS discussing the nuqta.

The bottom line is, I trust an oral tradition over a written record when it comes to Eastern works of literature or history. I trust the written word over the oral tradition when it comes to Western works of literature or history. Just as I don't put much stock in a Western historian's claim about Ali AS, I would not bother with someone in the streets of Cairo offerring to recite Shakespeare!

I'm also bound to point out that when Ali AS spoke on religion, it was never small talk. Even the usurping caliphs deferred to Ali's AS judgement in recognition of Ali's rightful position as the "gate to the City of Knowledge". Ali AS had enormous responsibility to ensure that Islam as delivered by the Prophet SAW survived in the face of the innovation and manipulation of the Ummaiyads, and so never wasted an opportunity to educate his followers. It would have been a sublime honor indeed to have received his knowledge first hand.

(I fully realise that Howard did not intend to denigrate Ali AS, nor do I mean to imply that Howard is uaware of the difference between oral and writtem traditions. This is my blog, I only write about the thoughts that go through my brain. I'm still not convinced anyone reads it besides my mom, and I'm not all that sure she does, either! I'm not trying to prove anyone wrong or propagate a point of view. I'm just putting thoughts to keyboard.)

Continue reading/discuss the special qualities of Arabic (translations, continued) ...

Finally the Bush Administration has had something to say about the situation in Iran. Unfortunately, it was just words, as Ledeen admits, it is unlikely that US policies towards Iran will change, and I'm not even sure how they should change. What really can the US do? This is an internal struggle. I hope they suceed but it has to be them who succeed. Iran must never be Afghanistan.

Tthe Open Letter to Iran (see below) probably will be seen by more Iranians and have more impact. Brendan O'Neill's snide comments notwithstanding (did he even bother to READ the Open Letter? clearly not. Pejmanpundit eviscerates him accordingly), I truly think the Open Letter is something concrete.

I do think there is a clear path for the Iranians to follow. The problem with battling tyrranny is that if you do it on their terms, they already have the infrastructure in place to deal you defeat after defeat. As Ghandi demonstrated, you have to take the game out of their court. In India, it was by applying economic and public-opinion pressure to the British citizenry, who then made the occupation of India untenable.

The key seems to be outlined in this piece by Thomas Friedman, which describes the Iranian political establishment as three elements:

Iran has three power centers. There is Iran-E -- the evil conservative clerics, intelligence services and shock troops of the regime, who still have a monopoly on all the tools of coercion and are responsible for Iran's support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the killing of Iranian intellectuals a few years ago.

Then there is Iran-C -- the rational conservatives among the clerics and bazaari merchants, who backed the Islamic revolution out of a real revulsion for the Shah's secular despotism, but who favor democracy and the rule of law. For now, Iran-C is aligned with Iran-E.

Finally, there is Iran-R, all the reformers -- the economically strapped middle class, the rising student generation and former revolutionaries who are fed up with clerical rule. They want more democracy and less imposed religion, and they are leading the opposition in Parliament but they have the least power.

That's why the key to peaceful change in Iran is a break within the conservative ruling elite. The key is to get Iran-C, the rational conservatives, to break with Iran-E, the dark conservatives, and forge a new alliance with the reformers. It's not impossible.

(emphasis mine). And I share Friedman's optimism that the alliance of Iran-R with Iran-C is not impossible, because of recent events. As I noted earlier, Ayatollah Taheri, a senior cleric in the religius theocracy, has resigned in anger and issued a blistering denunciation of the ruling elite. It's notable that Taheri was appointed to his post by the Ayatollah Khameini himself. Khameini has made an attempt at damage control by co-opting of the message away from the topic of oppression towards talk of "corruption and poverty" but I am optimistic that Iran-R and Iran-C have moved closer together.

But mere closeness isn;t enough. As Friedman noted, Iran-C has to actually break its alliance with Iran-E. It's essential to keep in mind that a secular democracy, with American-style separation of Church and State, won't sit well with Iran-C. Iran-C prefers the status quo to that, because after all they are religious conservatives. That's why they supported the installation of the Islamic Republic in the first place and why they aren't abandoning Iran-E. To get them to change allegiances, they will have to be assured that a new Iran won't be a western-style free for all on their core Islamic values. Which are the same values as Western values, btw, but thats another discussion :)

So, part of what must be promoted amongst the Iranian people is the principle that Freedom is good for Islam. Freedom of religion, as a secular concept in the Constitution, is actually isomorphic with Qur'anic Ayat 2:256 :



which roughly translates to "there is no compulsion in religion".

The idea that freedom is the true face of Islam and that the Islam promoted by the theocracy is at odds with the Qur'an itself is essential. It will also give legitimacy to the Iran-C group who need more than vague assertions from we Americans that "our system is good, try it!".

If I were making the argument to a member of Iran-C as to why they should abandon Iran-E, I would phrase it thusly:

"America itself is built upon the same universal truth expressed in the Holy Qur'an, that there is no compulsion in religion (2:256). Pious muslims in America, Shi'a and Sunni and Sufi alike, are all free to build masjids, practice their faith in peace, and worship the glory of Allah. The theocracy has denied the basic freedom of faith and has gone against the Qur'an itself. What value is morality and virtue when it is imposed from above instead of rising from within? Freedom of religion and faith is the birthright of the Muslim and the generous bounty of Allah. The people of Iran deserve no less."

Labels: Iran

Continue reading/discuss more thoughts on Iran ...

نامه اي سرگشاده به مردم ايران از طرف جامعه وبلاگنويسان  انگليسي زبان

  براي نشان دادن پشتيباني خود از مردم ايران ما موافقت کرديم تا اين نامه را بر روي صفحات خود به انگليسي - و اگر امکان داشت به فارسي - به مدت يک روز و يا بيشتر به نمايش بگذاريم.

 ما سياستمدار و يا جنرال نيستيم. قدرتي نداريم که بتوانيم ديپلوماتي براي مذاکره بفرستيم. سرباز هم نداريم تا براي دفاع از آنها که جان خود را براي آزادي به خطر مي اندازند بفرستيم.

قدرت ما در کلمات و افکار ماست. و اين همان نيروييست که ما امروز به مردم ايران ارايه ميکنيم .

از ميان دنياي گسترده وبلاگها با سليقه هاي متفاوت و بعضا ستيزه جو , ما تصميم گرفته ايم تا امروز تفاوت هاي خود را کنار گذاشته و يکدلي خود را درباره اين اصول بنياني اعلام کنيم:

     * که مردم ايران متحد تمامي مرد و زن آزاده در هرجاي دنيا هستند و سزاوار هستند تا تحت حکومتي زندگي کنند که خود انتخاب کرده اند, حکومتي که آزادي هاي فردي آنان را محترم ميشمارد.    

      * که رژيم فعلي ايران ناتوان از ايجاد يک جامعه آزاد و کامياب است و سعي دارد اين ناتواني را با اختناق و ستمگري پنهان کند.       

ما وانمود نميکنيم که ميدانيم چه چيزي براي مردم ايران بهتر است ولي ما به سختي معتقديم که سياست هاي حکومت فعلي جلوي قدرت تصميم گيري مردم ايران براي خود را ميگيرد.

  پس ما به دولت خود اصرار ميکنيم تا به ايران توجه داشته باشد. رهبران و ديپلوماتهاي کشورهاي دموتراتيک جهان بايد به روشني مخالفت خود را با سياست هاي سرکوب کننده حکومت فعلي ابراز کنند و مهمتر اينکه به روشني حمايت خود را از اهداف مردم ايران به نمايش بگذارند.

و به مردم ايران: شما تنها نيستيد. ما تظاهرات خياباني شما را ميبينيم. ما راجع به سانسور روزنامه هاي شما ميشنويم و با اشتياق پيوستن شما به جامعه اينترنتي را در شمار بيشتر و بيشتر نظاره ميکنيم. ما آرزوي موفقيت شما در مبارزتان براي آزادي را داريم. ما نميتوانيم و نميخواهيم به شما راه صحيح به آزادي را ديکته کنيم چون براي شماست تا تصميم بگيريد. ولي به روزي اميد داريم که ورود شما را به کشورهاي آزاد دنيا خوش آمد بگوييم - چون قويا ميدانيم که چنين روزي فرا خواهد رسيد.

To show our support for the Iranian people, we each have agreed to display this letter, in English and in Farsi, on our pages from sunrise to sunset today, Tehran time.

We are not politicians, nor are we generals. We hold no power to dispatch diplomats to negotiate; we can send no troops to defend those who choose to risk their lives in the cause of freedom.

What power we have is in our words, and in our thoughts. And it is that strength which we offer to the people of Iran on this day.

Across the diverse and often contentious world of weblogs, each of us has chosen to put aside our differences and come together today to declare our unanimity on the following simple principles:

- That the people of Iran are allies of free men and women everywhere in the world, and deserve to live under a government of their own choosing, which respects their own personal liberties

- That the current Iranian regime has failed to create a free and prosperous society, and attempts to mask its own failures by repression and tyranny

We do not presume to know what is best for the people of Iran; but we are firm in our conviction that the policies of the current government stand in the way of the Iranians ability to make those choices for themselves.

And so we urge our own governments to turn their attention to Iran. The leaders and diplomats of the world's democracies must be clear in their opposition to the repressive actions of the current Iranian regime, but even more importantly, must be clear in their support for the aspirations of the Iranian people.

And to the people of Iran, we say: You are not alone. We see your demonstrations in the streets; we hear of your newspapers falling to censorship; and we watch with anticipation as you join the community of the Internet in greater and greater numbers. Our hopes are with you in your struggle. We cannot and will not presume to tell you the correct path to freedom; that is for you to choose. But we look forward to the day when we can welcome your nation into the community of free societies of the world, for we know with deepest certainty that such a day will come.

Continue reading/discuss Open letter to the people of Iran ...

the evils of Microsoft aside, I'd watch Donahue. If I could afford cable, anyway.

Continue reading/discuss finally, a reason to get cable ...

There's a link on FARK pointing to a story in the Daily News about how (quoting Fark) "President Bush still very eager to put Social Security money into stocks."

aside. Why can't conservatives like John Derbyshire run on the GOP ticket? If Derbyshire was running against Howard Dean for 2004, I'd be in heaven.

Continue reading/discuss best use of topic tag ever ...

what the hell?


4 soldiers suspected of selling stolen ammunition to Palestinians ??

for some reason it reminds me of this. There is method to ZM's madness - it serves his purposes to be executed by the United States. Instead of dousing himself with gasoline, he is making his political statement using our Justice system. Let him. Our system is strong enough to allow him his statement.

and it reminds me of the tactics of suicide bombings used by Hamas and Fatah. These too are ultimately self-destructive:

People who want the right thing have an obligation to seek it the right way, even and perhaps especially when those who would deny them their rights operate with no such restrictions. This is what "fighting the good fight" is all about: those who struggle nobly cannot be defeated, but those who rely on calumny can never really win.

Continue reading/discuss self-destructive tendencies ...

Steven Den Beste has an awesome series of posts critiquing the premise of the movie, Reign of Fire. He posits the superiority of our attack helicopters and jets, discusses the merits of speed in the air, and closes with an analysis of how dragons can't hide from heat-seeking missiles or radar.

I think that his analysis is essentially correct, if you assume dragons are just instinctual predators. But this doesn't take into account the fact that according to the standard mythos, dragons are not just flying dinosaurs, but sentient beings.

From a literary perspective, consider Smaug, the dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Smaug was malevolent, evil, and fearsomely intelligent. He was also the inspiration for dragons as represented in the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, in which the various races of dragons (red, green, gold, etc) had different alignments and represented the most powerful creatures you could meet - usually to your detriment. These portrayals of dragons inspired classic dragon movies like Dragonheart and Dragonslayer, where the concept of dragons as sentient beings was taken as an axiom.

It's because dragons are sentient that they have such a hold on our imaginations. Contrast the boring "new" Godzilla (a big hungry basilisk) with the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, who were scary precisely because they had a hint of intelligence. Both are just shadows of the threat that dragons represent, solely due to their intelligence.

OK, Dragons are smart. so what? well, imagine if some humans could fly, breathe fire, and were enormously strong. Those humans would rule the world in short order. It's not a simple matter of coexistence, it's a matter of competition. Consider our own history as a species, with the Neanderthals. According to evolutionary theory, they were a separate race, not our direct ancestors. They are gone and we are here, and that can only be because we were competing for dominance. Presumably the better (more "fit") race won - and we still don't know why.

This concept was brilliantly examined in a recent Star Trek: Enterprise episode, "Dear Doctor". The episode revolves around a planet where there are two sentient races - the dominant race (Valakians) coexisting with the lesser one (Menk) by forcing them into a welfare-dependent existence. It's clear that as long as the Valakians are around, the Menk will never evolve towards their potential. However, the Valakians are dying from a genetic disease which is curable by using the technology aboard Enterprise. The episode examines the moral quandary that the Captain faces in whether he should intervene as his compassion demands and save the Valakians (and consign the Menk to an pre-civ status), or let "nature take its course". The episode was designed to examine the need for, and hint at the origin of, the fabled Prime Directive, which mandates non-interference in pre-warp civilizations. There is a insightful and detailed review of the article by Jammer which I hugely recommend, as this is easily one of the best Star Trek episodes (of any series) ever filmed.

So, we humans out-evolved the Neanderthals (though had a space traveler come by and given the Neanderthals a boost, it might have gone differently). If dragons were sentient, that would also represent a evolutionary competition. How can we be certain we would retain dominance? We are not discussing genocide, but control. We did not do too well against the thinking machines of The Matrix, either.

However, we do have our technology, and Den Beste points out that dragons wouldn't be able to hide from our radar or our heat-seeking missiles. Fair enough - I agree that we humans would do some serious damage. But dragons are not machines, and biological systems are easier to maintain than mechanical ones. As Den Beste himself said in a previous essay, it requires an enormous amount of training to maintain a good air force. That training is extremely expensive and must be continual. But a sentient flying creature is already a better pilot than any human. The skill that humans strive towards with a rigorous regimen of disciplined training comes as naturally to dragons as breathing. The logistics of the air force supply and equipment are also very expensive, and more vulnerable. Den Beste points out in another essay that if we have air superiority, even a guerilla force is vulnerable to us though they require very little logistical support. But what if the other side has equal air superiority capability, or better? then your logistics are equally vulnerable. And if the other side has zero logistical requirements, your air superiority is useless and now you are at a disadvantage.

(aside: Den Beste is skeptical that dragons could find the resources to breed at such rates as they do, and still be flying fire-breathing machines. All they have to do is eat people and cows and they are pretty much set, though.)

A modern air force full of neat toys like the USAF has has a huge industrial support base, all of which is vulnerable to a comparable or superior air force (which doesn't exist in the real world). A race of sentient dragons has no logistical support base. They just fly around and eat people for fuel. There aren't any ground crews, rail lines, fuel depots, air strips, carriers, munitions dumps, manufacturing bases, oil fields, or hangars.

So everything that Steven said is true - if you put a single dragon up against a fully-loaded attack helicopter or fighter jet out in a desolate area and let them duke it out, the dragon is probably toast. But why would a smart dragon bother? Why not just eat our pilots?

There are a finite number of attack helicopters, Spectre gunships, AMRAAMS, and whatnot. They cost money to build, they need to be tuned and fixed and maintained. If there were a million dragons here, we would have cities being attacked on a scale well beyond WTC/9-11. Dragons would be smart enough to avoid the open spaces where missiles fly at MACH-5, and would destroy our cities from within. They would be analyzing our tactics, assessing our weaknesses, and making surgical strikes. For example, right here in Houston, the oil refineries in Texas City would surely be a target, which would affect the supply of oil for civilian and industrial use quite severely. Given dragons' penchant for mountain lairs, NORAD is just begging to be Smauged (Imagine a dragon stretched out in there, getting a nice tan from all the big screens from War Games).

Of course, we humans aren't that easy to get rid of. The dragons would do a great job in taking away our toys, but we are something more than the sum of our infrastructure. That was the lesson in another quite relevant piece of fiction: The Most Dangerous Game :)

Harry Knowles gave the movie a great review - I'm going to go see it for sure :)

Continue reading/discuss Takhisis vs. the A-10 ...

recognize this quote?

To hold these truth for for obvious in oneself, this whole man being to create equalizes, that to be to equip by their creator with some unalienable right, which among those to be life, freedom and happiness continuation -- which to fix these line, government being to institute among man, to derive their right power assent to govern, which all times that any form government to become destructive these end, right people to change or remove, and to institute new government, to create its base according to such principle, and to organize its power in a form, as to seem them most probably to carry out their Safety and happiness.

its the Declaration of Independence, after having been run through the Babelfish from English to French and back again.

Here it is again having gone through Chinese translation and back:

We hold these truth are self-evident, that all people are the equal which creates, then they with certain cannot become estranged by theirs creator the right subsidizes, is lives inside these, is free and -- consolidates these rights to the happiness pursue, the government is set up inside the person, derives their just strength from the agreement government, whenever government's any one form changes the destructive these terminals, it are the people right revise or abolish it, and sets up the new government, builds its foundation in such principle, with organizes its strength by such form, Very possibly seems as for them affects their safety and the happiness

The general gist is sort of preserved, but consider someone trying to decipher it without benefit of access to or any knowledge of the original text. "All people are the equal which creates" - means what? that People are God? And how would you interpret "government being to institute among man" ?

But this is merely an empirical example of why translations are fundamentally flawed. Trying to apply them to religious texts like the Qur'an is Sisyphean. Shi'a muslims like myself believe in a depth of meaning beyond the literal, which are obliterated in any attempt at translation. This is what the Qur'an is to the Shi'a :

To us, as to all Muslims, the Qur'an is the Word of Allah, revealed to Rasulullah (SAW) in the language of revelation and transcribed into the manifest Arabic language by a divine process. In effect, each word of the Qur'an is Allah's pristine, unaltered revelation.
...
It has, for mankind, a Guidance (al-Huda) that separates right from wrong (al-Furqan). It has within it all knowledge of everything pertaining to creation. The Qur'an itself says that there is nothing in the universe that is not in the Qur'an.
...
The bulk of the information of the Qur'an is in its multitude of allegorical and esoteric interpretations. Another level of information is in its numerical usage of words and letters, another in the numerical values attached to each letter, another in its order, another in the letters opening certain chapters, another in its captivating sounds, another in the way each verse was revealed - the list is almost unending.

The best analogy is that the Qur'an is a compressed file, where (due to its divine origin) the comprssion ratio is infinite. This interpretation is not shared by most Sunnis, and is outright rejected by the fanatical Wahabis and Qutbis (who go through extreme contortions to deny the words of the Qur'an itself on the matter. See Ideofact for a detailed analysis of the specific contortions of Qutb).

the very choice of the language of Arabic was no accident either. The richness of Arabic poetry in the pre-Islam arabian culture had no equal, and in fact the Qur'an itself is poetry on a scale that completely overwhelmed the pagan worshippers. The power of Qur'anic revelation was confirmation of the divine origin. None of this is even remotely describable to an english audience. And this innate complexity is intrinsic to the structure of the language itself:

Yet another level of information exists in the strokes of pen required in writing each word in Arabic. It was not by accident that Arabic was chosen for this Final Revelation. The language itself was nurtured in preparation for this task. The word Allah written in Arabic, for example, contains volumes of information that is completely lost if written in any other script. We know how Amirul Mu'mineen (SA) spent an entire night talking of the meaning of the dot (nuqta) under the letter "be" of bismillah, without exhausting the subject.

This is why I recite the Qur'an in Arabic and do not use translations in my religious practice. It is also why we pray in Arabic, even why we append "SAW" to the name of the Prophet Muhammad SAW and not PBUH. SAW are the english-transliteration of the Arabic initials for Peace be Upon Him. PBUH is the english, SAW represents the Arabic as best as possible without access to the Arabic script.

If a muslim does not understand Arabic, they still should recite it in Arabic only. It is easy to learn to read Arabic even if you do not understand it. And what is the point of reciting something that is not understood? If you believe the Qur'an to be writen by a man, then precisely none. But if the Qur'an contains the literal Words of Allah as revealed, with all divinity intact, then the mouth is repeating these divine words. The eyes see the divine script, the ears hear the divine sound, of the revelation.

It is said that angels perceive the reciter of the Qur'an as a shining star. Thus do translations fail utterly. And if understanding the Qur'an is your aim, then again the divide between Shi'a and Sunni arise. But that's a topic for later.

Many self-appointed experts in Islam turn to English translations of the Qur'an and from these, derive all sorts of generalizations and inferences about the religion. The most noted offender of this type is Eric Raymond, whose five-part series on Islam (starting here) is ludicrously flawed (and which I will deconstruct later), but examples abound within the warblogsphere.


UPDATES 071702:

Ideofact (Bill Allison) comments.

Stephen Skubinna shares a book recommendation by Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, translated into French and back again into English. More empirical evidence :)

UPDATES 071902

Traveling Shoes (H.D. Miller) comments

Continue reading/discuss translate this ...

John Derbyshire has quoted an email of mine in the Corner on NRO! I'm truly honored.

The full text of the email I sent him is reproduced here for posterity:

From: "Aziz H. Poonawalla"
To: "John Derbyshire"
Subject: Re: your article on Islam
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 13:31:56 -0500

I live in Houston and am a practicing Shi'a muslim myself. I have been
raised in my community's tradition of being loyal and law-abiding to the
country where you reside, and have always been grateful that it was my
fortune to have been born here in America. I have traveled to Britain,
India, and Pakistan extensively and I am aware that my freedom to practice
my faith is orders of magnitudes more free in America than anywhere else in
this world.

Prior to 9-11, I had often attracted attention here in Texas for my beard
and my intention of praying in public if I happen to be out during a
prescribed prayer time. But after the attack, my perception of others'
attentions changed. I am more hesitant in public to "flaunt" my being Muslim
(though with a full beard, it's pretty obvious). But after a few tense
paranoid months I realised that people were supportive, kind, and
understanding.

Not to say I haven't encountered bigotry. I have been spit upon, called
names, and even mooned :) But I haven't experienced a single incident of
prejudice since 9-11 (though, others in my community have been subjected to
abuse, especially in Dallas).

But my main observation is that Americans (myself included!) are for the
most part more tolerant and educated than people give them credit for. I
realize that there is a rabid fringe, but I have great optimism in the
nature of humankind, a principle I derive from my faith. I am sure that for
every accusatory email you receive, there are ten Americans out there who
are thoughtful. I hear invective against my faith evey day on talk radio
here in Houston but I have experienced the opposite in my dealings on a
personal level.

Until the threat recedes, there will be a source for anger. And the angry
are often the most vocal!

Regards
Aziz Poonawalla

PS. I know you are a scholar and so I think this might interest you. I
heartily recommend the text, "Peak of Eloquence" by written by Ali ibn
Talib, who was the chosen successor of the Prophet Muhamad. Its a much more
accurate look at what Islam's moral code and structure is, undistorted by
the Wahabis and the Qutbis and the attached cruft of their self-serving
hadith and fundamentalist interpretations. Shi'a revere Ali as the only
person of the Prophet's SAW companions who had the permission and authority
to interpret the Qur'an. Muhammad SAW himself said that "I am the city of
Knowledge, and Ali is the Gate.

Amazon link (non-affiliate): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0940368420/qid=1026129803/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-4216917-3204626
online freetext: http://www.al-islam.org/nahj/

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