perfidy

ABC is reporting on the list of people and organizations who supported Saddam Hussein's regime and were given oil contracts as a result. All of the contracts were under the UN administered Oil for Food program, and were awarded between 1997 and the start of the war. The list was discovered in the files of the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Investigators say none of the people involved would have actually taken possession of oil, but rather just the right to buy the oil at a discounted price, which could be resold to a legitimate broker or oil company, at an average profit of about 50 cents a barrel. ...

According to the document, France was the second-largest beneficiary, with tens of millions of barrels awarded to Patrick Maugein, a close political associate and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac.

Maugein, individually and through companies connected to him, received contracts for some 36 million barrels. Chirac's office said it was unaware of Maugein's deals, which Maugein told ABCNEWS are perfectly legal.

The single biggest set of contracts were given to the Russian government and Russian political figures, more than 1.3 billion barrels in all — including 92 million barrels to individual officials in the office of President Vladimir Putin.

George Galloway, British MP and vocal critic of the war, was on the list for 19 million barrels, though he denies any involvement. Most disturbing to me was the presence on the list of the Russian Orthodox Church. I wonder what defense they are offering.

I don't think anyone should be surprised about the French involvement.

Steve at Begging to Differ has found a wonderful, addictive internet timewaster:

Hit the Penguin

You are a Yeti. Your job is to whack the penguin as far as you can. The key is to get some air under him, but not too much. You need to skip him like a flat stone on a creek. So far, the record is 323.4 by Fred. Mine is 322.6.

There is another version of the game, Yeti on 'roids. Records there are 593.5, and 499.7 on the fly - both by BTD Steve. (I've gotten 591.3 and 498.1. So close, but yet so far away. As Vince Lombardi once said, second place is the first loser.)

[wik] And, while we're at it, here's another fun game: Moonlander, which is reminiscent of one of my favorite old school arcade games. If I could have any three classic arcade games, they would be Asteroids, Moonlander and Centipede.

[alsø wik] My wife informs me that there is also a super-steroid version.

On the recommendation of Trent Telenko and Tom Holsinger, commenters over at Winds of Change, I went out and got a copy of Lee Harris' book Civilization and its Enemies, The Next Stage of History. Over lunch, I got about 30 pages in, and I can tell you that it is an amazing book. I'll report back on this when I've absorbed a bit more, but I suggest you run to your local book purveyor and get yourself a copy.

In case anyone was wondering, the trackback function for Perfidy posts is now working. A small matter of configuration, and no HTML Gnomes were killed or injured in the effort to provide you with the highest quality perfidious service. (Several were subjected to vicious haranguing, and as a result had their feelings hurt.) Link on!

A vigorous exchange on Winds of Change left me wondering...exactly how many insults were thrown in my direction? I should, of course, count the insults I hurled in return as well. I might have been pre-emptive once or twice as well. ;)

"full of 'understanding' for the suicide bombers"
"bleeding-heart liberal"
"an enabler" (for terrorism)
"I fear the evils of our Islamo-facist enemies less than I fear what fools like Ross may make both inevitable and necessary"
"People like Ross are delaying the American quest for victory"
"secular-left apologist of suicide bombing"
"completely disassociated"
"you are not a serious person"

And here are my uber-insults:

"sanctimonious ass"
"frothing extremists"
"two-tone mental stance"
"As for my conjuration of smart remarks: Someone has to, and you're not holding up your end."
"save your "9/11 means nothing" bullshit for a little rally of like-minded jackboot-steppers"
"Make sure nobody gives Telenko the controls for the spaceship"

Darn it, I don't come out looking too good in the insult count. I believe I have hurled more than I have received, and that is piss-poor news for my purported civility.

I feel bad about the "frothing extremist" thing. That was totally unnecessary. Sorry Mary! Heat of the moment, Lord of the Flies, and all that.

As Johno has noted, Ross is in a pissing match with the good people over at Winds of Change. I wish there was some way to say, "Why can't we all just get along?" without sounding like a complete sap. Ross, Trent, and others have moved past the ability (at least in this exchange) to see the valid points in the other's comments. While I definitely trend toward Trent, Tom, Joe and the others in my assessment of the situation with the War on Terror (as my previous post should make obvious) I haven't felt the need to call Ross a fool, or an idiotarian. Yet.

Trent and the others are a little too eager to cast Ross and others into the outer darkness because of his liberal views, rather than argue. Ross is of course a little too eager to turn up the invective as well. Reasoned debate is a good thing; but it's a lot easier to get in person, with a beer in hand. (We've seen that before right here on this very blog, haven't we?)

Blackfive has some extensive notes on how to prepare for a deployment in Iraq.

James, of the indispensable Outside the Beltway, links to a New York Times/AP report that a high-ranking Al Qaida officer has been captured in Iraq by US and Kurdish forces.

Osama bin Laden's terror network is seeking a foothold in Iraq as evidenced by the recent arrest of a top al-Qaida operative trying to enter northern Iraq, the commander of coalition forces said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez cited the capture of Hassan Ghul by U.S.-allied Kurdish forces as evidence of al-Qaida's interest in establishing operations in this country. Officials in Washington reported Ghul's arrest Saturday, describing him as a senior recruiter and facilitator for al-Qaida who reported directly to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the architects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who was captured in March near Islamabad, Pakistan.

"The capture of Ghul is pretty strong proof that al-Qaida is trying to gain a foothold here to continue their murderous campaigns,'' Sanchez said. "Ghul's capture is great news for both the Iraqis, the coalition and the international community's war against terrorism.''

US officials have said that most of the attacks against coalition forces have come from the remnants of Saddam's Baathist regime. But recently, military officials have noted the use of "al-Qaida-like tactics," including suicide attacks.

Before the war, I heard many people argue that the religious fanatic al Qaida would never work with the secular Baathist. They denied any connection between Saddam's regime and al Qaida. This was obviously untrue at the time, and has become even less true over the last year. Even if the two groups absolutely hated each other, they would still have the common interest of defeating or at least attacking the US. And it is after all an Arab proverb, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." For decades, there has been a terrorist network. The IRA trained in Libya. Then the IRA trained Columbian drug cartels. The various Marxist or pseudo Marxist terror groups exchanged numbers while training in the USSR, or at Soviet sponsored training camps in the Middle East. Whether the terror groups were Marxist, Religious, Nationalist or just bugfuck, they all have each other’s numbers in the Rolodex.
And this network was in communication with the intelligence agencies of the nations that are or were state supporters of terror. We know that al Qaida met in the Czech Republic with mid level officers in Saddam’s intelligence apparatus. We know that Ansar Al-Islam has been operating in Iraq, and had training camps there. The capture of a ranking member of al Qaida is just one more piece of evidence.

We have been told to be careful in our denunciations of Islam. It’s only a few isolated, hateful wackos who are attacking us. We have also been told by some that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with and in fact was a distraction from the war on terror.

But the more I read, the more I believe that the problem is not so small. There is a continuum of Islamic terror that stretches from the terrorists themselves at one end; through the Imams who preach hatred for the west in particular and everything that isn’t Islam in general (witness my recent post on the murders of the Buddhist monks, and the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhist statues); through the nominally secular Arab governments that support the terrorists with money and sanctuary, and whose media spread anti-semitism and hatred for America; to the ‘Arab Street’ that openly and loudly celebrates things like 9/11 or the Columbia accident; and on to the mass of the Islamic population that never says a word and thus gives tacit support for all the evil that is done in their name.

It is not enough to hunt down individual terrorists and their cells, destroy their training camps and cut off their funding. We might manage that, sometimes with and sometimes without the cooperation of the governments in the region. But that doesn’t end our problem. They still hate us, not just a few, but majorities in the polls I’ve seen. Granted, they’re being lied to by the official media and their religious leaders. But so were the Germans.

Trent Telenko and Wretchard are right when they fear that a successful large scale attack on the United States could cause widespread devastation in the Middle East. We have been restrained up til now, but there is little hope that we would be if we lost a city to a terrorist nuke. And that possibility is still very real. Libya’s nuclear program was shockingly far advanced, and we knew nothing of it.

We are fighting evil. There should be no doubt about this. People who target civilians for purposes of terror are evil. People who give aid and comfort to them are evil. And the population of Islam is complicit in that evil, because they celebrate when it succeeds, and never utter a word of criticism. Even among the Muslims in this country, we hear very little in the way of condemnation for terror, and we know that their views are not being suppressed by authoritarian governments.

That’s what we’re up against. The third totalitarian movement we have faced in the last century. And they have clearly stated that we are their enemies. We need to take them at their word, and defeat them. If Hitler had been opposed in the twenties, or even in the mid thirties, millions of lives would have been saved. We waited. Communism was worse, and there were many in the west who defended it, excused it, and lied about it. Nevertheless, we opposed it. Right now, Islamic totalitarianism is weak. Now is the time to stamp it out, before it gains the capability do us serious harm.

My esteemed coblogger Ross has in the past dismissed the word "idiotarian" as trite, empty, and cheap, and rightly so in my opinion. As he is currently embroiled in a sharp exchange with some of the guys at Winds of Change that turns partially on that very matter, I hereby propose Judson's Law:

As a weblog discussion on politics grows longer, the probability of a participant calling another an "idiotarian" approaches one.

This is of course supported by Judson's Corollary:

In a weblog discussion, the first participant to call another an "idiotarian" automatically concedes defeat thereby.

[wik] Ok, ok ok. It was me who said that the word"idiotarian" was trite, empty and cheap. I editorialized a bit. Ross simply said it was meaningless and I ran with it. But, speaking as a historian, I can tell you the past is all in how you choose to remember it, and I like my version better. With apologies to Ross. I still owe you that twelvepack.

Rocket Jones is spreading the news about the Mars airplane that is under development by Aurora Flight Sciences: 

An exploration vehicle like this would vastly expand our ability to explore Mars. Rather than being limited to a very small area near the landing site, we would be able to cover hundreds of square miles at close range. A very cool thing, indeed. 

[wik] And yes, I was too lazy to make up my own clever title.

That's true, apparently, if you're Trent Telenko. I guess they're everywhere. Here is my rambling response...lunchtime is limited today, and therefore so is my ability to polish the words.

Dear Trent: Good Lord. Where do you get the balls to tell me that I pretend 9/11 didn't happen? I guess it's simple enough if you just enjoy making it up as you go. Find me anything I've ever written that implies that. I live in Washington DC. I was here on that day. I spent a good-sized part of it terrified because the person I cared about more than anything in the world was in a State Department building, and rumors were floating around about another plane, and that a car bomb had gone off, destroying the building, and I didn't know what had happened to her. So save your "9/11 means nothing" bullshit for a little rally of like-minded jackboot-steppers. It's not applicable to me, and frankly it's not generally applicable at all. You debase yourself every time you imply it about another person.

Ah, calm.

Perhaps you're referring to the fact that my _reaction_ to 9/11 is different from yours. Once again, I'm not sure how you know, exactly, what my reaction is.

I don't pretend that a death cult is not involved, because a death cult _is_ involved, plain as day. I don't write that Arab culture isn't sick, because I happen to think that in many ways, it is. Perhaps you are confusing what I have actually written with something else?

You and I differ on whether genocide and atrocities are necessary to remedy the situation. There is no simple outcome to this; there is no absolute "logical conclusion" to be had from the facts at hand (or at least those at my disposal). Good god, man, we're dealing with social sciences and human beings, here. Nothing is predictable; nothing is certain.

Which side of the February 26, 1993 divide are you on? THAT was the wake up call, and there may have been earlier ones. That was when Islamic terrorism crossed the line in clear effort. They've had the will to do this for a very long time now. 9/11 was the first operation that accomplished its goals at scale.

You miss the point of this discussion in a spectacular way. Iraq is not the issue, and never has been. The issue is resource allocation and effective means of defense against the super-empowered angry man, and states who defend him. If we set aside all other issues, I could certainly support military intervention in Iraq, for simple "it's the right thing to do" reasons.

We're in the middle of a spending several hundred billion dollars to effect change in Iraq. We don't really know how that's going to turn out -- it's a risk, right now. The benefits are highly nebulous and off in the future. Kay's testimony and report shows that the country did not have significant WMD (or any at all, for that matter). Alarmingly, though, he found that there are some pretty "smart" guys running around in the middle east who might be able to create certain kinds of WMD, whose talents are for sale. What could they build? Low-tech nuclear, possibly biological, certainly chemical. Where will they go now? They will go places where we do not have monitoring.

Each of these capabilities will, over the next century, become progressively more available to smaller and smaller groups. I conclude that we _will_ suffer from this form of terrorism; and there is no way to stop it.

We can delay, perhaps. A massive onslaught of violence and posturing against Middle Eastern culture will achieve some delay. Arab culture and radical Islam seem to be the primary generators of violence on the face of the planet, at the moment. Religious intolerance is stunning difficult to root out and eliminate. We must find a way to generate massive intolerance _within_ Arab culture to the cancer in its midst, to create the ultimate solution. That is an open problem.

The singular focal point of _secular_ Middle Eastern anger at America involves Israel. Given the resources we are expending and have expended on Iraq, can we find a better use? I believe we can. Invading Iraq to provide an example of how an Arab state _could_ be is POINTLESS without some benign resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. You can set up any democracy you want in Iraq, and anything you do of merit will be poisoned by that fundamental conflict. Note that I do NOT advocate a particular solution to that conflict, at this point -- I advocate a specific OUTCOME. Anything that achieves an outcome of stability, separation, and relative peace is acceptable.

Longer term, I view decentralization as the only defense against the progressive danger of WMD. I conclude that over the long run, free cities cannot be defended from the terrorism of the super-empowered angry man. We must study our infrastructure and create many points of strength, where we currently have single points of weakness. We must, by government intervention if necessary, decentralize our financial and political systems.

We live on a vast continent, and it's time we took advantage of that.

A couple of random notes:

WMD are either state-sponsored or not. Tens of thousands of Russian nuclear missiles aimed at the US are a civilization-ending threat (not to mention life-on-the-planet-ending). One nuclear weapon, detonated in a city, is an immeasurable tragedy and horror, but not a civilization ending event. Eliminating state-sponsored terrorism is a critical goal. Clearly, military operations in Afghanistan accomplished this goal. Just as clearly, the massive expenditures in Iraq are not justified with a corresponding reduction in terrorist capabilities or potential.

When I look at the list you use to "qualify" Iraq for invasion, what strikes me is how precisely Saudi Arabia maps into it. I find it very hard to believe that somewhere in SA, we would not find a rich man, funding a clever man, to build a horror. Certainly, SA is a primary source of funding for the "death cult" that is attempting to propagate itself around the globe.

The easiest form of terrorism is to simply fill a van with explosives, drive it next to a building, and detonate it. This technique could easily be used to kill tens of thousands of people in America. It wouldn't necessarily kill them all at once, but if a series of bombings were to take place, the effect might be even stronger. Why have we not seen this form of attack? Don't tell me it's because the INS is doing its job. That's a joke. I'm really not sure why we haven't see more domestic terrorism, but I think the answer is twofold: First, there just really aren't all that many of these suicidal nutjobs. Second, when said carefully trained nutjobs arrive in America, blend in, and possibly make friends, quite a large number of them realize that they've been living a lie, and fade away.

My basic, but uninformed solution for the Israeli/Palestinian crisis: Build the wall. Put it on the green line. Evict or imprison Arafat and his cronies. PAY for the relocation of Israeli settlers back into Israel proper. PAY to establish an economy in Palestine. With some meaningful self-direction, a decent economy, and secular causes _removed_, the radicals will find themselves on the receiving end of massive internal hostility. Inform Israel that their military aid is contingent upon acceptance (at no cost) of this offer. Inform the new Palestine (or whatever the hell they call themselves), that _any_ spending on a formal military will be met with an increase in military aid to Israel double the expenditure, and a cessation of any economic aid whatsoever. Create "truth" commissions on both sides, offering amnesty for detailed information, cessation of activites, and surrender of all war materiel. Place Jerusalem under UN authority, making it an independent "sub-state", with its own elected council, evenly divided along religious lines. The oath of office is a binding oath to preach non-violence and tolerance. Build desalination plants on the coast and convey the water to the new palestine. Create a UN-sponsored, secular education system in the new palestine. Fund it so no family will ever need to send a child to a religious school again. Do I want to reward terrorism by just _giving_ people all this? Hell, no. But I want more terrorism even less. And for my global strategy, I need Israel and suroundings to be peaceful and prosperous, on both sides.

I have been thinking about something that I know is controversial, and I struggle with it. It is a formal policy of assassination. Essentially, any _public_ religious figure who _publicly_ advocates "death to america (or another western country)" AND demonstrably and provably supports terrorism, through guidance or resources or some such, without repudiation of those statements, is subject to this policy. Anywhere in the world, any time. The uttering of "death to america" puts us on notice of intent to kill our citizens, from a particular individual. It may be necessary to generate an equal and opposite reaction.

Minister GeekLethal handcrafts some authentic evil with the assistance of his faithful minion, the demon whose name is Baphmotep Lingurian but on our plane of existence is known as Miss Cutiepie Fuzzle Kitty: 

The prescription drug benefit will cost $540 billion instead of the $400 billion we were promised. I didn't see that coming.

I will interrupt my self-imposed blogging hiatus to ask an important question:

I just received a spam to my personal account with the subject line, "glory dental shakespearian phosphate." Just what is the pitch here, and what could they possibly be selling (purple monkey dishwasher)?

[wik] Another one... from an entity calling itself "Rosanna Betts" with the subject line "altar shannon orville widgeon ." Sure! I'll buy one!

[alsø wik] Yet another... from someone called "Dr. Howard Dean, M.D."... it sez "Two days left - rally with Governor Dean." What the hell is that all about?

[alsø alsø wik] Via rocketjones I find this post from plasticbag.org, in which our hero takes spam literally at its word and busts out the photoshop to show the world. Witness!

Hi-larious!!

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] The foregoing was merely an attempt to make perfidy.org load even slower.

I wouldn't even think of trying to compete in music writing with Johno, but as a long-time (suffering) fan of electronic music, I thought I might put together a list of notable stuff...you can't really go wrong with any of this.

1. Orbital - "Orbital 2". The "brown" CD. Classic mid-nineties, easily the most polished effort of its time, and therefore somewhat timeless. "there is a twist in space"

2. Tangerine Dream - "Poland". Get the import, 2 CD version. An absolute classic; a landmark political and musical event. One of the finest long-form electronic concerts ever.

3. Underworld - "dubnobasswithmyheadman". Spooky, weird, depressing, and brilliant. Later Underworld is more polished and even better, but this is a key recording and lead-in to what they became.

4. LFO - "Advance". Brilliant early, experimental recording. Ridiculously difficult to find, and proportionally fantastic. Found this when it was attached to the computer game "Hardwar"; it was one of the first games to have "serious" music with it.

5. Junkie XL - "Big Sounds of the Drags". One of the grooviest "dance" CDs ever. It's a bit of a bridge between listening music and dance, though -- tracks are danceable but just plain fantastic listening. Brilliant production.

6. Assemblage 23 - "Defiance". Good late-model melodic industrial...showing you where that genre has gone. Doesn't really stand up with the rest of this list, but is useful as a touchstone for this style.

7. Aphex Twin - "Selected Ambient Works 85-92". Xtal, oh xtal. Singular, beautiful, ethereal...and really the last thing by Richard James I actually liked. A landmark.

8. Alpinestars - "B.A.S.I.C.". The best new "retro" electronic out there...along with its followup "White Noise". Brand new music that has groovy analog shit in it.

9. Sasha - "Airdrawndagger". Hated it the first time I heard it, as I was expecting something different. Picked it up again 6 months later because I couuld still remember some of it, and I've loved it ever since. This is one of my highest recommendations on the list, and the first "DJ" CD I've really respected. Unless you count Tom Holkenberg (Junkie XL) as a DJ.

10. Morel - "Queen of the Highway". Enveloping, dark, groovy, and local. Just what the doctor ordered. Morel worked with Deep Dish, and the searing, unstoppable beat of this CD smooths out the harshness (in meaning, not tone) of the lyrics.

That'll get you started. Every CD on this list is utterly different from the others; they are all good representatives of their sub-genres...so buy, damn you!

AMac, who has recently graced our comments, recommends this symposium from Slate, which includes Berman; and Michael Totten links to this Dissent Magazine piece by Berman.

I have to say that I'm impressed by his writing, and thinking. Go read them, and we'll talk more about this tomorrow.

Here's a report that the Army has been authorized to increase its manpower by 30,000 under an emergency authority expected to last four years. The Army and Defense Department have rejected calls for permanent increases, saying that it is too early for permanent increases that would interfere with efforts to streamline and modernize the Army.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been making ever more insistant demands that the Army increase its size. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said a permanent increase would force the Army to expand permanently before it had made needed structural and operating changes.

While I recognize the need to make those changes, there is little question that we need to have more people in uniform. A couple more divisions' worth in the army, plus the necessary support troops is a minimum. We need to have troops for our current commitments, such as in Korea, for any emergency, such as in Iraq; more troops to relieve troops committed to an emergency; and for good measure even more troops to deal with another emergency. We only have enough for the first two, and the pressure on our soldiers in terms of lengthy deployments and the like will mean that a lot of them will not be reenlisting. This will create even greater problems in the future is this problem is not addressed now.

Wretchard, of the Belmont Club has also taken up the topic of the possibility of US action in Lebanon. I discussed this earlier, but Wrethard goes into a little more detail, and provides us with some more sources.

The Jerusalem Post article rightly suggests that any US special forces deployment would inevitably bring then into direct conflict with the Syrian occupiers of Lebanon and the sponsors the Hezbollah. Their use would perforce be accompanied by the organization and training of indigenous Lebanese auxiliaries, a feature of all US special forces campaigns from Indochina to Afghanistan. The special forces would be supported by air units and fire support, plus light infantry to prevent a repetition of the "Blackhawk Down" scenario. Units could draw on equipment already prepositioned in Israel, located in the mysterious Sites 51, 53 and 54. All in all, it would create a strategic nightmare for Damascus. With Americans in the Bekaa 40 km west of downtown Damascus -- less than a marathon run, the Israeli army on the Golan Heights a mere 60 km south of the capital and American forces on the Iraqi border 300 km to the east and Turkey on the northern border, the Assad regime would be literally encircled.

The US probably feels that it has the Iraqi problem in hand and may want to maintain the operational tempo in its wider campaign against the Middle Eastern dictatorships. An American deployment to the Bekaa would open a new low-intensity warfare front which would resemble a cross between the campaign in Afghanistan and the recent anti-Saddam counterinsurgency in Iraq. In the light of recent experience, the Pentagon may feel confident in challenging the Syrians and Hezbollah to what has become a familiar operation of war with a known cost and proven methods. But to the Syrians, Americans in the Bekaa will be a mortal threat, which they must prevent or repel. If they cannot, the spring of 2005 will see a new regime in Lebanon hostile to Syria and their Hezbollah lackeys in flight. It would also sound the death-knell of Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which will be boxed in and probably beset by American-sponsored auxiliaries. A successful campaign to topple Syria would in turn mean American control of a continuous swath of territory between the Mediterranean and the Iranian border. It would cut off the Arabian Peninsula to the north and squeeze Saudi Arabia and Yemen onto American deployments on the Horn of Africa -- of which the Washington Post's report of a return to Somalia would be a part.

Will it happen? Wait and see. Can it happen. Yes it can.

We have already been chasing insurgents over the border, so only the scope of the operation would really come as a surprise to the Syrians. There is little that they could do to prevent it. Keeping the fire hot under the nations that support terror is a very good thing. Our actions in Iraq led to the capitulation of Libya's Qaddaffi, but we do not want other state supporters of terrorism to think that we will stop with Iraq. Actions like this, along with a Presidential statement of support for the democracy movement in Iran would go a long way indeed to further our cause.

Michael Totten writes about recent Islamist attacks on Buddhist monks in Thailand. (Totten linked to a post on Totally Whacked, and his post has a dead link to a story. But I found another one.) He makes this comment about the murders:

It's not because Buddhist monks are "colonialist oppressors," nor is it because Buddhists drive the engine of corporate globalization. And it's not because Thailand is a superpower that deserves to be brought to heel. Thai Buddhists don't need to ask "why do they hate us?" It's because Buddhists are "infidels." And that's that.

A commenter on that post had this to say:

Whoever thinks hatred of America and Israel in the ME is about "the Occupation" is a total idiot. It's about Jihad. This is a war that has been raging since the 7th century when the muslim hordes burst out of the Arabian peninsula and captured and converted the Christian provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Antioch, etc., invaded Persia and swept across North Africa towards my beloved Spain. Only in the 17th century were they finally stopped at the gates of Vienna itself. Osama knows what this war is about, and he's been trying to tell us. But we insist it's about U.S. "policies". What a bunch of Liberal claptrap. Why don't we take Osama and the extremists at their word? To them this is a Jihad, and has been since the 7th century. The Crusades was merely an attempt to roll them back, and they're still pissed about it. Why do you think they still call us "crusaders"? Get with the program people. This has little or nothing to do with U.S. "policies" and "oil". This is a civilizational conflict that has raged across the centuries and will continue to do so.

Our policies did not create 9/11. If bad American foreign policy were the root cause of terrorism, why have we not been plagued with sixty years of suicide attacks from the Japanese? We handled them rather roughly in the Second World War, even dropped a couple nukes on them. It is condescending to imagine that another's actions are solely determined by your own. We need to take the terrorists and their supporters at their word, and not ask why they hate us. They've told us why.

Gaze in wonder at the stupidest patent I have seen in quite a while. I've been with pair.com since '95 or so. From the beginning, they've offered "vanity domains" of the form vanity.pair.com. In addition you've been able to form domains such as whatever.soletta.com since the very beginning.

This is a patent for that naming strategy. It was filed in 1999, many, many years after this technique was first used, publicly. Even the slightest level of real patent examination or search would have revealed this. The patent's owners are now vigorously suing various entities. They were stupid, though -- they're apparently going after the big guys first. This patent will be invalidated, and their initial victims have the resources to ensure that it will happen.

They should have gone after the little guys first, 'cause they don't have the resources to fight. But...isn't the patent system supposed to be in place to protect those little guys? Not any more, it isn't. The patent system is a pseudo-monopolistic mechanism used by lawyers and large companies to bludgeon away competition from small companies, or to extort from their earnings.

Litigation around patents creates inefficiencies in our economy; these are growing rather exponentially. We are shooting ourselves in the foot with these stupid IP laws. It has to stop, or we're going to lose yet another competitive advantage...

Ya think? The Detroit Free Press has the best precis on the sordid issue:

Cleveland: Indians minor leaguer Kazuhito Tadano is asking for forgiveness for his appearance in a gay porn video in which he engaged in a homosexual act. Tadano took part in the video three years ago as a college student. "All of us have made mistakes in our lives," Tadano said, reading a statement in English. "Hopefully, you learn from them and move on." Shunned by Japanese baseball teams, the 23-year-old pitcher signed with the Indians last March. They think he can make their club this spring. Through an interpreter, Tadano added: "I'm not gay. I'd like to clear that fact up right now."

Well, I'm glad that's all straightened out. So to speak. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a couple articles on the subject as well. It just never ends when you're a Cleveland fan. Well, he may be a straight gay porn star pitcher, but at least he's our straight gay porn star pitcher.

Long posted along Korea's 38th parallel, America's 2nd Infantry Division has kept watch over the volatile Demilitarized Zone. Forward elements of the division harbor no illusions about their role in a new Korean conflagration, planning to act as a "trip-wire" to delay the invading North long enough for the rest of the country to enact its defense plans. For decades overpaid policy-type smart people have credited the 2IDs Korean presence as the cornerstone of a credible deterrent to North Korea, with the added benefit of being really irritating to China.

So we shouldn't be at all surprised that, as part of the continuing effort to refine and improve not only the peninsula's defense posture, but the American Fighting Man, lap dancing at clubs frequented by 2ID soldiers will be prohibited.

The article goes on to explain how unit leaders decided to define lap dancing. Associated research ultimately concluded that dancers are "typically of the opposite sex", and lap dances are often "done at close quarters". Leadership then took measures to ensure that no one could possibly enjoy any of it.

That's right kids. It's not more range time, or language study, or PT, or ROK liasons, the SOFA agreements, or the KATUSA program that needs improvement. It's eliminating simulated copulation that will really give us the edge over the commies.

Upon prodding from Nat at I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, who is an avowed and active partisan on behalf of Wesley Clark, I hereby endorse my choice for the next President of the United States, Ronnie James Dio. Dio is the only candidate to truly address the issues important to working-class America, and the only one truly qualified. To wit:

• Has experience managing large organizations
• Extensive public speaking and diplomacy experience
• The only candidate to know first-hand what drugs can do to our youth
• Slayed the dragon
• The only candidate who has had to put aside a political career to feed his family
• Can rock out and sing really fucking high

Visit his website, dioforamerica.com and see what he has to say on the issues.

• On health care: advocates universal healthcare to all: "No more forms and working shit jobs while sick"
• On gay marriage: "Rob Halford wants it, so it's cool with me."

I hereby cast my support behind the only candidate that can not only beat Bush, but vanquish him with silver sword in hand over a bitchen guitar solo from Vivien Campbell, Ronnie James Dio. 

Well, it looks like Kerry slaughtered Dean, Dean doesn't realize it, Clark and Edwards are altogether too happy given the implications of Vince Lombardi's aphorism, "2nd place is the first loser" (though Clark is currently edgin Edwards slightly) and Lieberman should be throwing in the towel - he didn't even clear double digits.

In surprising news, Kucinich got 2%, and Sharpton got 0%. The alien vote must have turned out in force to put Kucinich that close to victory, and as for the Don King of Democratic politics, Bejus Pundit said it best:

Sharpton got more of the vote than he deserved, IMHO. Should have been in the negatives.

James at Outside the Beltway has a good round up of the night's events.

Now that that's over, we can begin obsessing over South Carolina and the other primaries just around the corner. What blew my mind is this:

Ballot	Overall	White (58%)	Black (42%)
Clark	14%	19%	7%
Dean	9%	10%	8%
Edwards	21%	22%	19%
Kerry	17%	20%	13%
Kucinich	1%	1%	1%
Lieberman	5%	8%	1%
Sharpton	15%	6%	27%
Undecided	18%	14%	24%

Sharpton, who as I mentioned is the Don King of Democratic politics (thanks, Johno) is getting 15% of the support, and is third in that race. This is insupportable. I saw an interview with the good reverend (Crap! Now I have to wash my mouth out. Comedy is not pretty.) and he stated that his explicit aim was to gather enough delegates to play a kingmaker role in the nomination process, or at the very least to bend the Democratic platform to his will. Don't say he didn't warn you. It still sickens me that he has any, any credibility whatsoever.

But, if Edwards wins as projected, its a three way race as I don't see Clark pulling off any big upsets.

A couple of notes on the Winds of Change comment thread:

1. Note to the Rest of the Planet: Make sure nobody gives Telenko the controls for the spaceship. He seems to think that letting your enemy know that you intend his annihilation and the death of his entire culture, is an excellent tactic in the era of the superempowered angry man. Yeah, right. What we exactly need, in these circumstances, is an open declaration of war against an entire people. Tactically, it's plain stupid. If you're going to kill somebody, you just do it. You don't let'em know it's coming.

2. Gabriel, my SUV comment was simply intended as an observation. I intend no disrespect or arrogance by it, although comments containing those words are often written with that intention. Rather, I simply seek to juxtapose our lifestyle with that of others around the world. Hell, I'm more or less in _favor_ of the nice suburban lifestyle, if that's your thing. It's not mine. I'd like to see the environmental impacts of it lessened, and I'd like to see those SUVs in the driveways be hybrids, but those are attribute problems, not fundamental disagreements with lifestyle. I go out to my suburban friends' houses, and I marvel. ;) My biggest beef with suburbs is, frankly the #$^@%$%@ traffic jams that get created because zoning commissions are bought and paid for by developers...but that's a whole different post. :)

3. Katzman and I have been down this path before (http://old.perfidy.org/comments.php?id=P1231_0_1_0_C), and somehow I suspect this sand will show footprints again.

4. Katzman points out that "We need to understand the agents and actors feeding the mindset", while in the sentences before, indicating that we do NOT need to gain knowledge of the bombers themselves. Give me a break. In any sufficiently complex system, there are relationships between all parts. The agents and actors in this case are both within and without the Palestinian society. It would not surprise me to learn that some of the bombers are not from the territories; that would fit the patterns we see there. Why would we artificially restrict ourselves in analyzing this problem? To formulate strategy against the masterminds, we must understand how their techniques of control apply to those who are vulnerable (bombers). We must understand the sources of that vulnerability. It is all of one system; the interior political, exterior political, interior psychological, and exterior psychological. The men who have most affected history, have effected change that has given us our peaceful lives and the opportunity to have an SUV in the driveway, have been those who were able to avoid conflicts, turn disadvantage to advantage, conduct the most difficult and unpopular diplomacies...and even then, war is at times a necessary failure. We all do well to remember that.

5. The viral, memetic capabilities of Islam's usurpation by power-hungry, theocratical apologists for tribalism have never really been deliberately confronted by an adequate opposing force. Our cultural memes dominate at the levels of personal desire and freedom, the commerce level, and on many others. Why, then, have they been so unsuccessful in defeating or subverting Manji's "Desert Islam" at the spiritual and populist level? Non-religious forces (economics, tradition, pride) are at work in a complex system, defeating our implicit attempts in this area. Social memes represent the _aggregate_ of what we all do, what we all think, all our contacts, formal and informal, with the opposing entity. Within such an intricately related system, butterflies matter...some of our butterflies better not have shiny red buttons. They'll make a mess of the roost.

The Federal Government is closing early today, for fear of evil weather. Thus, I am homeward bound. I leave you with this thought: is it better to have the million plus federal workers go home spread out out over several hours - risking the tail end Charlie's exposure to an ice storm; or send them all home at once, overloading a metro system which is already running at as low as 50% capacity on some lines due to ice on the rails?

You be the judge.

Just when you think that the light of inquiry still exists in the world, and that rational, probing discussion still holds a place, Katzman at Winds of Blame steps out of his cave bearing his weighty log of truth via blunt force, grunts out dramatic oversimplifications, then shakes his log vigorously for good measure.

A procedural note: I'd appreciate it if you could make an effort to get the name of our blog right; the Ministry of Minor Perfidy is really Buckethead's and Johno's. I'm just an occasional writer. I promise to try and get "Winds Of Change" right from now on.

Where to start? The insults? Nope...I usually try to stay a little bit above that. Although, in the case of the comments on that particular thread, I did fire away at commenter Mary. My specific reason for doing so was in hope that she'd do exactly what she did do: Revert back to a factual discussion. She did so, laid out her position much more crisply, and provided references. "Ah!" I thought to myself, "this is exactly what I'd hoped for." I was not arguing a particular side...Mary's view and my own are actually very close. What I argue against is the ridiculous reductionism that applies to arguments rendered in heated, emotionally involved exchanges.

Katzman, apparently in search of non-existent support for his cowboy attitude, completely ignores the latter half of the comment thread, in which discussion resumed at an intelligible level. I am forced to wonder if he and I are from parellel universes, where dictionaries just don't have the same things written in them.

It has become distressingly apparent to me that I need to work through my meanings from first principles. I offer the following dictionary definitions; my use of the word "understanding" is a use of meaning one (1.), and not meaning four (4.).

con·done ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-dn) tr.v. con·doned, con·don·ing, con·dones

To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure. 

un·der·stand ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ndr-stnd) v. un·der·stood, (-std) un·der·stand·ing, un·der·stands v. tr. 

1. To perceive and comprehend the nature and significance of; grasp. See Synonyms at apprehend. 

2. To know thoroughly by close contact or long experience with: That teacher understands children. 

3.1. To grasp or comprehend the meaning intended or expressed by (another): They have trouble with English, but I can understand them. 

3.2. To comprehend the language, sounds, form, or symbols of. 

4. To know and be tolerant or sympathetic toward: I can understand your point of view even though I disagree with it. 

5. To learn indirectly, as by hearsay: I understand his departure was unexpected. 

6. To infer: Am I to understand you are staying the night? 

7. To accept (something) as an agreed fact: It is understood that the fee will be 50 dollars. 

8. To supply or add (words or a meaning, for example) mentally.

When I said "I can objectively understand the factors that lead to an action I do not agree with", I hope my meaning is now less opaque.

Let me be crystal clear. I judge suicide bombers. Over and over you write that I do not judge, in defiance of the plain meaning of the English language. There is no moral ground here that you occupy, and I do not. But while I judge, I also try to gain understanding, meaning one. By understanding, I do not mean empathy. I am somewhat devoid of true empathy, being hundreds of steps removed from the subject, in cultural and economic circumstance.

The difference between us is this: unlike you, Joe, I seek answers that operate at a level deeper than "psychotic death cult", and "Arafat sucks". Those two answers may be entirely accurate, but they are incomplete. "Psychotic death cult" means what, exactly? What sociological causes and effects underlie it? Are there any means of preventing it? Who has done the good thinking on advancing those means? In the comment thread, Mary usefully provides some references informing us on the origins of terrorist thought.

But, you don't want to have that conversation, because your brain shuts off as soon as someone tries to discuss the psychological factors that contributed to terrorism. To engage in the scientific method we must create hypotheses, test them against the facts, then refine and repeat. Part of that process is confronting ugly realities, and either proving or disproving them.

It's a time-honored method that you don't seem to approve of. Perhaps commenter Mary has brought her freshly reasonable fact-based discourse to the wrong place.

I wrote: "So what could push you over the edge? What within your life could happen that would make you a little crazy, make you lose the civilized veneer? What if that happened; a son or daughter lost, and your anger became uncontrollable?"

Armed Liberal tells us, in the comment thread, that "Ross, if I was in that situation only one thing would occupy my thoughts...how do I win."

When I wrote that, was I referring to an Israeli or a Palestinian? AL thought I was writing from the perspective of an Israeli. Others may have thought the opposite.

An Israeli father, losing a daughter to a bomb in a restaurant, may feel (perhaps must feel) that anger...a Palestinian father, losing a son to the IDF response, will feel that same anger.

I think I know what it's about. You don't like all this mushy talk about feelings. I view the emotions in the situation as a barrier to successful resolution; as such, we must understand them and their effects and formulate solutions that deal with them.

There are two sides to every story. I seek an understanding of both sides of this one (once again, in the sense of meaning one, as I must make that clear). When we engage in angry rhetoric, we devalue the meaning of discourse, and make a solution harder. In short, fightin' words tend to make for more fightin' words, and just plain more fightin'.

Reasonable observers will agree that on both sides of this conflict, the last few years and seen substantial entrenchment, mutual dehumanization, and mutual demonization. This is clear deterioration. Ten and five years ago (in fact for as long as I can remember, before that), the Israeli government made a point of apologizing for accidental deaths in the terroritories. It does so no longer. I say this not in a judgmental sense, but simply to note a fundamental shift in viewpoint. Likewise, on the Palestinian side, a similar hardening has taken place, and has been sadly accompanied by increasing tolerance of the religious nutjobs who pretend to make a difference.

When we, as third parties to the situation, fail to exercise ourselves in reasoned discourse and search for truth, we aggravate the situation. We fail in our role as arbitrators. The first rule of arbitration is to gain the confidence and acceptance of the parties involved. This does not mean neutrality, necessarily. It means legitimacy, as perceived by both sides.

With your "there is no truth except my truth, and I am the messenger of truth" rhetoric and insult of ensuing discussion, you need look no further than any brief history of Islam to understand what happens when periods of discussion are closed. This, in my mind, makes you the "enabler". A fair-sized chunk of the dehumanization and resulting violence in the middle east is due to people like you, who actively preach it.

Here's the short version of this whole post, if it all came out wrong:

1. You don't know a damn thing about me and how I view the world. You seem to have gone out of your way to misread and misrepresent what I've written.
2. Dictionaries are helpful.
3. People telling other people not to talk about something is one of my hot buttons.
4. Unlike Joe Katzman, I believe that there is still hope, and an endgame is possible that does not involve thousands more dead and permanent hatred. I think the Israelis and Palestinians are both people who are stuck in a shitty situation. I think the rest of us need to find a way for them to get out of it.
5. Unlike Katzman, I am not a spectator in a Roman Coliseum, cheering my chosen champion's bloody sword...

I trust my position is sufficiently reformulated. It might give you pause the next time you scream "terrorist" at the man next to you, in response to his wrinkled brow, or his expression of confusion about facts. Somehow, I think it will not.

[wik] Katzman comments, inexplicably repeating the misrepresentations of my viewpoint, ever so carefully expounded upon above...I guess that's life in blog-land.

Citizen Smash gives us the poop on the increasing militarization of space, and the dangers that it may bring.

Sorry John, I've never had the pleasure of Ohio. Maybe Buckethead and I can swap Washington for Maine sometime? 

Rocket Jones found a nifty mapmaking utility on the magical interwebs. You can tell it what states you've been in, and it will draw a map for you. Here's where I been:

All educated folk know that the third millennium began on Jan 1, 2001. Not in 2000 as some rubes entranced with nice, round numbers believe. I would argue that the Millennium and our current, nameless decade began over nine months later, on the morning of September 11. It is convenient to divide recent history into bite sized nuggets. Ten years is a useful period of time, and we have very clear conceptions of the fifties, sixties, seventies, etc. But when exactly do they begin and end, if not on Jan 1 every ten years?

Here's how I would break it down:

• The Twenties began on November 11, 1918 and ended on October 29, 1929.
• The Thirties came to an abrupt halt on Dec 7, 1941.
• The Forties is a tough one. I am tempted to say that the decade concluded on August 14, 1945, but in the end I'll have to go with June 25, 1950.
• The Fifties took a bow on January 20, 1961.
• The Sixties died on May 4, 1970.
• The Seventies shuffled off into the sunset January 20, 1981.
• The Eighties took a powder November 9, 1989.
• And the Nineties ended on September 11, 2001, making it the longest decade in the twentieth century.

We can have the same fun with centuries - the nineteenth century lasted from 1815 to 1914. The eighteenth century began in 1702. The seventeenth century started in 1607. (This is for American history, of course.)

Not serious history, but something to idle away a few moments.

Over the last couple weeks, I've found that I've been hitting a few blogs almost everyday. The three blogs below stand out for their ability to write incisive commentary and to consistently find cool things to link to. Links to their blogs now have a permanent home over to my right, and below you'll find an example of the fine work of each:

• James of Outside the Beltway talks about Democrats returning to their roots. (I linked this earlier, as well.)
• John Hudock of Commonsense and Wonder talks about Euthanasia, and I don't think Godwin's law applies here.
• Michael Totten gives us some liberal perspective on why we went to war on Iraq

It comes to our ears that Bush is moving away from his spendthrift ways and is coming close to a total freeze on discretionary spending in the next budget. Bush will propose an increase of less than 1% for all federal programs save those for homeland security and defense. Fiscal conservatives have been savaging the president for "spending like a drunken sailor" and apparently this move is at least in some part a reaction to that criticism.

But the president will propose increasing governmentwide homeland security funding by 9.7 percent in the fiscal 2005 budget, and the military budget is expected to increase by a small amount.

"This is going to be an austere budget," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said of the budget that Mr. Bush will send to Congress on Feb. 2. The less-than-1 percent growth will be the smallest since Mr. Bush took office in 2001 — and the lowest since his father, President Bush, proposed his fiscal 1993 budget.

Conservatives are happy with the proposal, though some are dubious, myself included. Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said the proposal is "definitely a good start."

"The key question is whether the White House will back up this proposal with a veto threat, because last year the president proposed a 4 percent increase and, with the passage of the omnibus spending bill, he's about to sign a 9 percent increase," he said.

If - if - the president actually follows through with this, and puts the arm on congress and even threatens a veto (he has yet to veto a bill) then this will be a very good thing. Deficits, all things being equal, are not a good thing. However, there are reasons to run them, and war and recessions being some of them. So I am not opposed - in principle - to deficits. However, the spending surge under this Republican president has been disturbing to say the least. Most of the spending increases have not been for the military or for homeland security but rather for social and other programs.

These increases, which Bush either proposed himself or did nothing to hinder combined with the recession stricken economy and the tax cuts to bring about our current deficit situation. But the light at the end of the tunnel is that the tax cuts did their work as a stimulus to the economy, which is now looks to be in the early phases of another ten year boom. If the president restrains spending, the increase in revenue through from the growth in the economy should level out the deficits as it did back in the mid nineties. But spending has to be restrained - because its for damn sure that the government can outspend the economy, and will if not watched carefully.

Hat tip to Pejman for the link.

The good folks over at Begging to Differ have put up their weekly Sunday Comics, and I recommend you check it out. Other cool things I've seen include:

• Newspaper Ads over at Rocket Jones.
• The XM8, a love letter to an assault rifle, over at Murdoc Online.
• Insults Unpunished talks about the Syria situation.
• James of OTB has a good one on national policy and partisan politics.
• Too many good posts to list over at Commonsense and Wonder. I hate those guys, I really do.
• And, as Allah Pundit said it best, "Conclusive proof from the Clark campaign that there are wrong answers to subjective questions."

Tiger, raggin' and rantin' has come up with a useful method for expanding the range of your blogging. I think I'll be giving this a try:

Let's call it Go Back Five. Pick any blog on your blogroll, open the main page, go to the fifth entry, find a link to another blog, click it, if archived page, go to main page, go to fifth entry, click on a link to another blog, do this three more times until you are lookin' at the main page of that last blog, then find somethin' on that blog to blurb about.

This could certainly give you a boost out of any blogging rut you may find yourself in. Or waste a few hours at work, at the vey least.

Ap News has an interview with Dennis Miller, in advance of his return to cable tomorrow evening at 9:00 on CNBC. There's some good stuff there, as you'd expect, but this particular bit caught my ear:

"The United States right now is simultaneously the world's most loved, hated, feared and admired nation."

"In short," he said, "we're Frank Sinatra."

Newsweek has the scoop on why Clark was sacked as NATO CinC. Apparently, he was less than forthcoming with his superiors in the Pentagon during the Kosovo campaign:

Clark ran afoul of Cohen [then Defense Secretary] and Shelton [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] by being less than totally forthcoming in morning conference calls during the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999. From his NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clark wanted to wage the war more aggressively, but back in the Pentagon, Cohen and Shelton were more cautious. They would give Clark instructions on, for instance, the scale of the bombing campaign. "Clark would say, 'Uh-huh, gotcha'," says NEWSWEEK's source. But then he would pick up the phone and call [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair and [Secretary of State] Madeleine [Albright]." As Clark knew full well, Blair and Albright were more hawkish than Shelton and Cohen. After talking to the State Department and NATO allies, Clark would have a different set of marching orders, says the source, who has spoken about the matter with both Cohen and Clark. "Then, about 1 o'clock, the Defense Department would hear what Clark was up to, and Cohen and Shelton would be furious."

Shelton had commented shortly after Clark entered the race that he had been fired from his position for "integrity and character issues." The article also says:

As an ambitious officer, Clark gained a reputation among his peers for telling different people what they wanted to hear, without seeming to realize that his listeners might later compare notes and accuse Clark of being two-faced.

This jibes with what my friends in the military have said about Clark. I have a feeling that this revelation won't have much impact in New Hampshire, as it is still rather vague. I don't see Clark having much chance unless he finishes at least second in the primary, otherwise he's toast. He could be aiming for VP, though it's still beyond my feeble powers of comprehension why anyone one would want the job.

While reading the news about the recent Mars landers, I ran across this false color map of the Martian surface:

The colors are keyed to altitude, with blue representing the lowest parts of the Martian surface. This is a serendipitous choice, because we can get an idea what Mars might look like should we ever decide to terraform Mars. If we managed that incredible feat, the blue areas on the map above would roughly correspond to seas on a living Mars.

Terraforming is a rather bold concept - some argue that we couldn't begin to create a new ecosystem on Mars when we don't understand the one we have right here. Others argue that it would be wrong on general principles meddle with the environment as it exists now on Mars. Others, more pragmatically, argue that it's just too hard or it will cost too much, or any of the standard objections to doing anything new. I disagree with all of those objections.

The evidence is increasingly strong that there is water ice on Mars, most likely in great quantity - both in the polar ice caps and frozen in the soil. There is also frozen carbon dioxide in the polar caps, which is a useful source of materials we'd need in a terraforming program. Most of what we would need is already present on the Martian surface, but locked away where it does nothing to support conditions suitable for life. Scientists believe that liquid water once existed on Mars, and that the atmosphere was once far thicker. If we can alter the balance on Mars, we can (hopefully) tip it toward a warmer and wetter environment.

Currently, Mars temperatures are within shouting distance of conditions on Earth - just colder. But the atmosphere is very thin, and composed primarily of carbon dioxide; and the planet is very, very dry. We can engineer changes, but the most effective means will be those that start a virtuous circle of changes, and leverage natural processes on Mars to change the climate towards something that we could live in. So, we need to make it warmer, and wetter, and increase the thickness of the atmosphere. How do we go about it? There have been many proposals, and here are some:

• Cover the Martian ice caps with a thin coating of carbon dust. The black dust will absorb heat, and help to melt the ice caps. Once the ice begins to melt, water vapor and carbon dioxide act as greenhouse gases which will reinforce the melting.
• Construct very large orbital mirrors, made of very thin reflective mylar. Using these mirors, we can increase the amount of heat and light hitting the Martian surface. By aiming them at the poles (where the sun is teh weakest already) we can melt the caps with effects similar to those described above.
• Release large quantities of CFCs and other powerful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to increase heat retention.
• Introduce genetically engineered algae and other microbes to begin releasing oxygen and other useful gases into the Martian air. These would also form the beginning of a Martian ecosystem.
• Lob a comet or ice chunk from the rings of Saturn onto Mars. Actually, you wouldn't want a big, dinosaur killer type impact. It would be more effective to have a continuous shower of ice rocks which would deposit their loads of water, oxygen, and other volatiles directly into the atmosphere without impacting the surface.

If a terraforming project ever does start, it would likely use a combination of some or even all of these methods. The key, at the start is to induce warming. Once we warm Mars, and starting with the polar ice caps, we can begin to get Mars working for us. As the polar ice caps melt, CO2 will sublime directly into the atmosphere, increasing the density. Denser air retains heat better, which will increase the effects of whatever means we are using to melt the caps. Water vapor released into the atmosphere will further push this cycle.

As mean temperatures rise, and pressure increases, we should begin to see the effects of warming all around Mars. Subsurface ice deposits and permafrost (if they exist, but it seems likely) near the equator will begin melting, adding to the effects started at the poles. Here, larger iceteroids might be used to hit concentrations of subsurface ice, and the impact will release water vapor into the air quicker than otherwise would be possible.

At the bottom of the Valles Marinaris, the immense canyon as wide as the continental United States, air pressure will rise fastest. Here we can begin to introduce the first of the microbes that will begin to change the thickening atmosphere from largely CO2 to one more closely resembling Earth's. By introducing bacteria similar to those that once lived on Earth a billion years ago, we can get oxygen into the air. These organisms excrete oxygen as a waste product. As oxygen levels rise, these bacteria will die - because too much oxygen is poisonous to them. They will then form the food for the next wave of colonists. Algae, nitrogen fixing bacteria, lichens, whatever will survive in the thin but increasingly homelike Martian atmosphere.

While the first organisms are being introduced and tested, more mechanical processes will continue. When the Martian air is thick enough and warm enough, and saturated with sufficient oxygen, we can begin introducing life that evolved for conditions at high altitudes, extreme cold and dryness. They will push the ecology further. As the basins fill with water, creating the first seas and oceans, we can stock them with life as well. The seas of Mars will quickly become the primary driving force for thickening the atmosphere, and conditions there suitable for earthly life sooner than the cold desert of the dry land.

One thing that is most promising about the introduction of life to Mars is that beyond a certain point, we don't need to be overly concerned about what we introduce. If we get an atmosphere even a quarter as thick as Earth's, with half the oxygen, we can start introducing Earthly life. Whatever thrives will thrive, and the ecosystem will begin to develop a rude equilibrium. As the air thickens, we introduce a wide variety of other species, and again let nature take its course. The only thing we need to be careful about is making sure we don't introduce mosquitos, horseflies or ticks.

The life that survives will contribute to the process. And the lessons we learn will guide us in the later stages of terraforming. It will be an immense laboratory for the environmental sciences, and those lessons could easily be applied here on earth. Eventually, there will come a day when conditions reach "shirt sleeve" levels - when the air is thick enough and warm enough that men can walk on the surface with nothing more than winter clothing and an oxygen mask. Later, we would reach a point where the air is equivalent to high altitude areas on Earth.

Then, we can build ski resorts with hot tub equipped condos on the slopes of Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the Solar System.

Smarter people than I have looked at the ideas behind terraforming and believe it could work. Given the resources and the will, it could be done, especially as conditions on Mars are already so close to Earth's. Terraforming say, Venus, would be much more difficult. Thinking about moving comets and building hundreds of mile wide mirrors seems incredibly hard and at the very least hideously expensive. They would be, now. But if we move into space, we will develop the skills to do these things - we'll have to. If we construct solar sailing ships, we'll learn to create large lightweight mirrors. The Martian terraforming mirrors will just be larger versions. If we go to the asteroid belt, we will learn about moving rocks in space. Moving something in space is easier than moving something on Earth, because there is no gravity, no friction to slow it down. Even the largest rocks can be moved by a constant application of even a small amount of thrust. The more we live in space, the more we will learn to do things on a huge scale. Space is big - if Europeans think Americans are bad for thinking big, they will hate our descendants who live and work in space.

Soon enough, we will have the skills do do it. And the cost may not be all that much to a civilization that lives on the scale of a solar system. The biggest objection that the project will have will come from the environmentalists, who will insist that Mars be left as it is. If life is discovered on Mars, terraforming would certainly kill it. That would be a reason not to proceed. But if Mars is a dead planet, I see no reason why we shouldn't expand not just human life, but all earthly life to another home. For insurance against accidents like the dinosaur killer if for no other reason.

Instead of a dead, dry and cold world, we could have another Earth. Beautiful as Earth is, but different, with new wonders for us to experience. Dolphins and whales could swim in Martian seas; and who knows, perhaps we can make good on the Jurassic Park idea and bring back the dinosaurs, and give them a new home on Mars. Along with Mammoths, Mastodons and sabertooth tigers.

And hey, if that ends up looking a little like Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom, so much the better.

The Mars Rover Opportunity made a perfect landing Saturday night, and is already sending back pictures: 

That makes five operational probes circum Mars - two American landers, two American Orbiters, and the European Orbiter. As a bonus, the European Orbiter has found some direct evidence of water on Mars. Now all we have to do is go there in person and set up ski resorts with hot tub equipped condos. Just think of the fun you could have skying in one third gravity! 

[wik] It seems that Spirit has been upgraded from 'Critical' to 'Serious but Stable' condition. Good news there. Link via On the Third Hand.

The Heritage Foundation recently released a study on Poverty in America. This study provides some welcome perspective on the issue of poverty. The study contains some interesting statistics and what not, and is well worth reading.

The underlying issue is the confusion between absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is what most of us think of when the word poverty is mentioned. People going hungry because they don't have enough money for food. Homelessness, evictions, ramshackle housing, or overcrowded tenements. The sort of thing that involves real suffering. Relative poverty is making less than other people, but nevertheless having sufficient money for housing, utilities, food, and other needs.

The government defines poverty in relative terms - most of the bottom quintile of income is by definition poor. But as the Heritage study indicates, most of these people are not poor in the traditional sense of the word. They have homes, cars, air conditioning, plenty of food and health care. They have tvs, vcrs, cable and other luxuries. The average poor person in America lives better than the average citizen almost anywhere else in the world. We need, really, to distinguish between the two.

Jesus said the poor we shall always have with us - and as long as we define "poor" as the bottom fifth of incomes, we always will.

Some people will always make less than others. Where we need to make the effort to ameliorate poverty is with the less than one third (possibly much less) of the government defined poor who actually suffer from a significant amount of absolute poverty.

I saw this report on the news Saturday evening, and was struck by the comments of the man (I didn't catch his name or what group he was with) who was interviewed to counterpoint the Heritage position. He expressed considerable disdain for the authors of the study, and suggested that they should walk the streets of the poor parts of our cities and see whether or not real poverty existed in this country. (Obviously, if they did so, they would see the light and immediately endorse any number of Democratic entitlement programs.) But that was not the conclusion of the study - not that there are no poor people in this country, but that the numbers are far smaller than some would claim if we are careful and honest in our definition of the word "poor."

A good while back, my compatriot Ross posed the question of why do we become conservative or liberal? Every now and again, I pull that question out of its cage and smack it around a bit. That study makes sense to me. Based on my own experience and on my expectations of both how the world works and how I think it should work. I was poor twice in my life. Once because I was the child of a single mother when I was young, and again in my twenties because I was young, unskilled, and far more interested in beer than regular, gainful employment.

We are a rich soceity; we can and should help the poor. But should I have been helped on either of the two occasions when I was poor? No, because I don't think we deserved the help. My mother and I made it, though things were often tight. She worked two jobs, and sometimes we rolled pennies at the end of the month. But Mom managed to save enough to buy a house by the time I was eight - five years after my parents separated. (Dad helped with the child support, too.)

What about the second time? Hell no. Once I laid off the intoxicants and the gave up my aversion to work, things swiftly turned around. My parents actually delayed this by helping me far too often out of corners I painted myself into.

With sound personal fiscal policy and a realistic appraisal of how much standard of living you can afford almost anyone with any income at all can meet all basic requirements for life, and live comfortably if not exactly in the catbird seat. Barring major upheavals, this can be maintained indefinitely. Those people do not need the government's assistance. They should fend for themselves because that is what freedom and personal responsibility call for.

I think people have a responsibility to look after themselves. Freedom also means the freedom to screw up your life, make poor life choices, and have a low income. The relative poor get my sympathy, but not my endorsement for dipping into the public purse. The absolute poor are a different story. If things have really gone balls up, charity demands that we help. If that charity is through the government, so be it. It is misguided to attempt to help those who no one in the history of the planet up until the last half century would have called anything but rich. A waste of money and effort that could be used to help the actual poor, or accomplish other worthy goals.

By way of Atlantic Blog, we hear that Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe has five questions for the candidates. Of the still live candidates, only Kerry did not respond.

Here are the questions:

• Please summarize the most important lesson(s) of Sept. 11, 2001.
• Have federal courts gone too far in requiring the removal of religious symbols or language from schools and other public places?
• What is the best way to achieve the colorblind society that Martin Luther King dreamed of?
• Is there any serious problem in American society that you do not believe calls for some kind of government response?
• In 1981, President Reagan hung Calvin Coolidge's portrait in the White House Cabinet Room. If you are elected, which president's portrait will you hang, and why?

I think the Atlantic Blogger got it right in one with his summary:

Lieberman comes across (I think tolerably accurately) as thoughtful, the only candidate not to answer the religion question by sounding as if he is picking bits from the How to Talk to the Different Constituency Groups book, and the only candidate with any sort of clue about the dangers of terrorism. Wesley Clark manages to convey, quite accurately, just how much of a windbag he is. Sharpton manages to do a decent job of hiding from the ignorant the simple fact that he is the most thoroughly evil man in American politics, including Ted Kennedy. But my favorite part is reading the ramblings of Kucinich. It must be pure agony for the satirists to read this stuff, trying to figure out how to satirize the guy.

My lovely wife, while preparing for our looming superbowl party in her monomaniacal yet adorable way, found this strange phenomenon:

A Republicans for Dean blog

The particular post linked above is all about using superbowl parties to hook people into shave their heads and wear the Dean saffron robes. Personally, I'm not a huge sports fan but if I went to watch the big game and was confronted with this, I'd be peeved. Belinda pointed out that the M.O. behind this concept is similar to that used by fundamentalists to witness to normal people. First you lure them in, then... bam! Hit 'em with God's truth.

The National Taxpayer's Union has released a study of the the Democratic candidates' fiscal policy statements which reveals that all of the candidates would significantly increase deficits, even counting the offset produced by repealing President Bush's tax cuts.

The NTUF study systematically examined the fiscal policy implications of the eight contenders' agendas, using campaign and third-party sources (like the Congressional Budget Office) to assign a cost to each budget proposal offered by the candidates. For actual legislation that the candidates have endorsed, the study also relies on NTUF's BillTally project, a computerized accounting system that has, since 1991, tabulated the cost or savings of every piece of legislation introduced in Congress with a net annual impact of $1 million or more. Highlights of the study include:

• If the policy agenda of any one of the eight candidates were enacted in full, annual federal spending would rise by at least $169.6 billion (Lieberman) and as much as $1.33 trillion (Sharpton). This would translate to a yearly budget hike of between 7.6% and 59.5%.
• All candidates offer platforms that call for more spending than would be offset by repealing the Bush tax cuts (using even generous estimates of the tax cuts' impact).
• The eight candidates have proposed over 200 ideas to increase federal spending, and only two that would cut federal spending. Those two proposals have been offered by Dennis Kucinich (thus, the seven other candidates haven't made a single proposal to cut any spending).

...George W. Bush, who campaigned as a fiscal conservative in 2000, has presided over a jump in federal spending of 23.7% since taking office. Yet, Johnson still found that even the most parsimonious of the Democrat Presidential candidates would have outpaced the spending run-up under Bush by 15%.

I've always found it amusing when Democrats criticize Bush for spending profligacy - not because they're wrong, but because of the deep pot-kettle-blackism of the exercize.

Michelle of A Small Victory came up with this nifty guide to the Democratic candidates: 

I don't know that I agree with all her choices - I would have hooked Clark to Niedermeyer and Sharpton to, oh, I don't know, maybe David Duke. Kucinich is spot on though. 

According to the World Tribune US intelligence estimates that over 70% of Al Qaida has been neutralized.

"The Al Qaida of the 9/11 period is under catastrophic stress," State Department counter-terrorism coordinator Cofer Black said. "They are being hunted down, their days are numbered."

Black's assertion, made in an interview with the London-based British Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday, is based on U.S. intelligence community estimates that about 70 percent of Al Qaida has been neutralized, officials said.

Saudi officials agreed with the U.S. assessment and said the kingdom has made significant gains against Al Qaida, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Al Qaida leaders have been arrested and training camps have been discovered.

U.S. officials said Al Qaida has been rapidly losing its attack capabilities and was relying increasingly on smaller Islamic groups based in Southeast Asia and North Africa. The officials said thousands of Al Qaida operatives have been captured, killed or neutralized, with cells eliminated even in such strongholds as Kuwait and Yemen.

With the capture of Saddam, many resources have eben transferred back to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Rumors of his capture were floating around yesterday, including over at the Northeast Intelligence Network. As the situation in Iraq settles down somewhat over the coming months, more resources will be shifted to the hunt for Al Qaida, and I think that we'll see more victories on that front.

Officials said Al Qaida would continue as a much weaker organization and would focus largely on Saudi Arabia, the Horn of Africa while seeking to consolidate under the protection of Iran. They envision attacks being financed rather than carried out by Bin Laden.

The loss of veteran insurgency operatives has reduced the lethality of operations, officials said. Another factor has been the lack of success by Al Qaida to establish and sustain cells in many Western countries.

"The next group of concern would be a generation younger," Black said. "They're influenced by what they see on TV; they are influenced by misrepresentation of the facts. They seem to be long on radicalism and comparatively short on training."

This is substantial progress, but we need to focus on other terrorist groups, and find more ways to put pressure on state sponsors of terror. My earlier post on hezbollah speaks to both of these concerns.

Reuters is reporting that a recent Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll shows that Kerry has a nine point lead over Dean, but that the race is narrowing.

Kerry led Dean 31 percent to 22 percent in the latest three-day tracking poll, but the last day of polling showed Kerry with a much smaller margin over Dean while John Edwards and Joseph Lieberman both gained ground on the leaders.

"Kerry's lead is now nine points over three days, however he led only by 26 percent-22 percent over Dean in Friday polling alone, while Edwards and Lieberman each hit 10 percent," pollster John Zogby said.

"Dean's showing on Friday may suggest that he has bottomed out and may in fact be starting to increase," Zogby said. "Another day like this and Dean may be in striking distance again."

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, in third place, held steady at 14 percent.

It looks like the damage from the "I have a scream" speech was serious indeed, but hasn't effected Dean's hard core supporters. If Lieberman and Edwards continue to make inroads into Kerry's numbers it could be a wide open five-way race with Kerry only first among equals. It will be very interesting to see how the polls play out in the days leading up to the election.

I find it heartening that the Democratic party seems to be rejecting the dark side and giving more support to the moderates. A real presidential race will benefit the conservatives by forcing the Republicans into an open debate on the issues, and to clarify their positions in opposition to those of a strong Democratic candidate. Fighting against Dean would ahve allowed the GOP to pursue the middle much easier.

Godless Capitalist slams the Canadian medical system again. That's just too many times today for me to stay quiet.

Dear Godless: Please familiarize yourself a little further with the Canadian health care system. A key statistic is per-capita spending which is around C$3200, or about US$2440. That's for universal health care, year 2000-2001.

In that same year the US health care system spent around $4600. At that figure around 84% of the population was covered (16% had no insurance). Medical insurance rates here have increased tremendously since then (I know; my company has been paying them).

The assertion that a private system _must_ be more efficient is simply erroneous. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

A 2003 study of costs indicated the following (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E2DE1F30F932A1575BC0A9659C8B63):

"BOSTON, Aug. 20 -- A comparison of health care costs has found that 31 cents of every dollar spent on health care in the United States pays administrative costs, nearly double the rate in Canada.
Researchers who prepared the comparison said today that the United States wasted more money on health bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to the tens of millions of the uninsured. Americans spend $752 more per person per year than Canadians in administrative costs, investigators from Harvard and the Canadian Institute for Health Information found.
Published: 08 - 21 - 2003 , Late Edition - Final , Section A , Column 6 , Page 23"

Here's the point -- you simply cannot compare the two. They're apples and oranges. The Canadian system has very tight control on costs and yes, this leads to shortages at times. When the pain gets great enough, the population speaks and the purse strings come open.

Note that there are no significant differences between the US and Canada in any health metrics such as length of life and so forth. We're all basically equal.

Canada _could_ elect to dramatically increase its spending on health, by say 20% or 30%. This would still keep its total costs far below those of the US, per capita, but would substantially increase quality of care, and on the average could probably exceed levels of service in the US. Certainly, some might make the argument that there is a moral purpose to doing this.

Note that with health costs contained and handled by the government, Canadian businesses are free to concentrate on what they _should_ be concentrating on: Being efficient providers of services and goods. They don't have to babysit their employees and be "big brother" like US companies are _compelled_ to do.

There are no controls on medical spending in the US. The current system is utterly broken and spiralling out of control. I believe that there are private solutions that can work.

Walmart can help. Walmart can demand of its insurance providers that they agree to insure _anyone_ wherever Walmart has a store. Walmart doesn't pay the tab, of course -- the person getting the insurance does. But that individual is getting Walmart's negotiating power. And I don't mind seeing Walmart take a cut of that money.

Relatively inexpensive catastrophic coverage insurance is one possible solution...

Maybe I like him after all.

From Bike Crazy via my personal deity, Allahpundit.

[wik] I shouldn't kick him when he's down; but if you're not gonna kick a man when he's down, you shouldn't kick him at all.

[alsø wik] I found, over at Mother, May I sleep With Treacher?, another good Dean parody mp3. This one is Deliverencesque.

James over at Outside the Beltway (which name doesn't exactly narrow his location down much, does it?) links to a report from UPI and Janes that the United States is seriously considering striking Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon. Jane's Intelligence Digest released a report saying the administration is considering strikes in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where the bulk of Syria's forces are deployed, as way to pressure Damascus.

"Our sources are pretty damn good," Standish [editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest] told United Press International. "We've never had a libel action since we were founded in 1938. ... If you look at the track record of people who have given us this sort of information ... these are tried and tested sources that we have confidence in."

Standish dismissed the possibility that the information could have been planted by an American who wanted to derail any such attack.

"I think this is a U.S. administration that does what it says it will do," said Standish, stressing that this is a plan under consideration, not a decided course of action. "Clearly, this is about ratcheting up the pressure on Damascus. ... I think this is also part of the wider Realpolitik, which is to start the process of isolating Hezbollah much further. ...

"What we're looking at in this context are air strikes and the use of special forces snatch squads -- that kind of activity. We're not talking about a peacekeeping deployment or an invasion of southern Lebanon."

Standish said if this were another administration, there would be more room for skepticism. But the Bush administration is willing to go in a new direction after Sept. 11, 2001.

The prospect of an attack in Lebanon is not so crazy when you consider the incursions that US forces have made across the Syrian border in the past several months. The motivation behind any potential attacks, suggests Standish, is this:

"I think one can understand the reasons why people in Washington would like to apply this kind of pressure, because if Syria can be forced to cease backing Hezbollah -- which obviously has its own connections with Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- this is an issue. If you can cut the funding off for international militant organizations, that's a pretty big first step in reducing the effectiveness that they have in terms of the trouble they can cause."

How would air raids and special forces operations cut the funding?

"The funding comes from Damascus and Tehran. If the administration shows that it actually has the will to strike directly at Hezbollah targets, it sends a very powerful message: 'Look what we've done with your proxies. The next step along the line will be you.'

Standish was asked why U.S. air strikes would have a different effect than Israeli air strikes.

The psychology would be different, he replied.

"Hezbollah expects to be hit from time to time by Israel. ... But if the U.S. itself chooses to engage, I think that is an enormous step forward because it's a difference fundamentally between Israel saying that it's acting in self-defense or in a measured response to a particular incident and the U.S. saying, as a matter of policy, that just as it made war against al-Qaida and closed its bases and denied it the freedom to operate in Afghanistan," it is taking the same steps against Hezbollah. ... "A key issue is to deny the enemy the ability to train, to maintain bases, and of course ultimately -- on the political level -- to attract funding from Tehran and Syria."

The United States, as the last superpower, can send such a message, Standish said.

"Already I think it's having an effect in the Iranian situation," he added, "if you look at the concessions in real terms that have been made on the nuclear front and the willingness to conduct covert diplomacy. It's been a pretty open secret that there have been middle-ranking talks (between the United States and Iran) over the last few years in Switzerland and other European locations. So I don't think we should be surprised if Tehran decides that to continue to put funding into Hezbollah is counterproductive for its own safety."

"I think this sends a message, and I think the message is uncompromising: 'There is still time for diplomatic maneuver, but patience may be limited.' "

I would not be opposed to these sorts of actions. The more direct pressure we can put on terrorist groups, and psychological pressure on their state sponsors, the better.

Friends, we are not defeated!

They can beat us, they can shoot us,
they can take our homes and land.
They can drive us out and destroy
everything we hold dear.

But friends, countrymen,
there is one thing they cannot do....
They can never take our cookies!