Back of the Envelope

I was going to comment on President Bush's Bioethics Council, but then I thought I should start closer to home.

I have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, which generally means that I am either a professor or a researcher. In my case, I am a researcher who runs experiments and analyzes the data. My area of research is quantum computation, as you may have figured out from other things I've said around here. Quantum computation has its own ethical dilemma. To date, we've discovered that it's very good at two useful applications, performing unordered searches and factoring large numbers. The first may be useful, while the second is definitely useful. It's much easier to find a prime number and multiply it by another large prime number than to factor a large product of primes. When I say much easier, I'm talking about it taking the same computer a few seconds to do the finding and multiplying, versus a few million years to do the factoring. This sort of one-way problem forms the basis for public key encryption (although it is of course more complicated than that), such as that used in RSA, the encryption protocol used to transmit information on the Internet. For more information on RSA, check this FAQ from the sci.crypt newsgroup. A quantum computer with a sufficient number of qubits could factor a large product of primes faster than a classical computer create it in the first place. If someone were to produce such a computer today, all Internet transactions would suddenly be vulnerable.

You can tell what use people are planning for a quantum computer by looking at where the funding is coming from. Right now, the people giving out the funds are the Army Research Office, the Defense Department, and, oh yes, the NSA. It's clear that the main objective is decryption (or, perhaps, to prove that a quantum computer is so far from realizable that public key encryption is secure).

In my experience, very few scientists working on quantum computation projects think about the ethical implications at all. For the most part, they console themselves with the fact that a quantum computer capable of factoring a decent sized key is so far in the future that by the time it gets here (~25 years or so), we'll have better encryption (hopefully, quantum encryption). That may or may not be the case. I've heard that the federal government may be pushing for a five-year program to develop a quantum computer that can factor 128-bit encryption. (I've been looking for confirmation but I haven't found it yet.) This is wildly ambitious--I don't think it will happen--but how many scientists, who previously considered quantum computation safe because it was decades away, would jump at the chance to partake of this funding?

For the record, I have thought a bit more in-depth about quantum computation, partially because I took part in a discussion group with MIT's Graduate Christian Fellowship based on the book Responsible Technology. To a large degree, the questions about developing a quantum computer revolve around who would get it. Quantum computers aren't going to be available on the open market anytime soon, and they'll probably be as regulated as nuclear power. So, assuming I helped create a quantum computer, would I trust the NSA to use it wisely? I certainly don't mind them cracking a terrorist's e-mail, but I wouldn't want them reading mine. So, I don't think that the technology itself is wrong, but I am concerned over how it would be used.

Dave Barry's newest column takes on the budget deficit in a convenient question and answer format:

Q. But surely we -- the baby boomers and senior citizens -- are not going to selfishly steal the future from our kids, and generations yet unborn!

A. Of course not! We're going to let the government steal it for us.

Q. Well, OK, then! It sure is a good thing that young people and generations yet unborn do not, as a rule, read the newspaper.

A. I'll say! If they ever found out about this, they'd be putting anthrax in the nation's Metamucil supply!

One thing Dave Barry forgets is that while we do not read the newspaper, we young people do read the Internet, so as long as his columns are posted online, we will find out about these things.

Old Post: This train of thought started below.

Doc Rampage joked a bit about how much traffic I get in a comment. I'm hardly high traffic, but I've done pretty well for being less than a month old. My average daily traffic these days is 25-35 visitors according to Sitemeter. It's partly luck and partly salesmanship.

Most of my traffic probably comes from Blogs for Bush. It's the only blogging consortium I'm on so far, although I'd like to join up with blogs4God, but they prefer blogs that are at least a month old. Joining these sorts of consortiums are probably the best way to gain traffic and make a name for yourself. Consortiums, aside from linking to all the blogs on their main page, usually ask their members to include some form of their blogroll as well. Blogs for Bush is especially good for this because it uses a rolling blogroll that puts the blog with the most recent update at the top, which means I'm pretty much guaranteed a few hits every time I post. Of course, just joining isn't enough... participating in Carnivals, posting in comments (with links to specific posts), and using trackback with those blogs that have it are all good ways to get attention.

Carnivals are pretty much consortium specific, but comments and trackbacks are good ways to get attention whenever they're available on a higher traffic blog. Then, of course, there's occasionally selling a post to one of those high traffic blogs by e-mailing a link. I haven't been doing that too much recently... the odds are pretty low considering the amount of e-mail they get. Sometimes you get lucky, though.

Also note that some blogs also have a reciprocating policy--you put them in your blogroll and they put you in theirs. Some of them use automated blogrolls to do this, powered by a service such as Blogrolling.

And of course, I post at a pretty good clip. I have something new every day, even if it's just a note that I don't have much today. Aside from giving visitors a reason to check back often, just in case I updated, it puts me at the top of those rolling blogrolls more often.

Don't overdo it, though. It's frustrating when you have good material that nobody's reading, but there's no point in getting attention when you don't have good material. You can get them to come, but they won't come back. Right now, I'm really not making much effort to sell my blog. A comment when I have something on my blog that's relevant to someone else's blog post, a trackback ping whenever I refer to someone else's blog in one of my posts, and participating irregularly in the Carnival of the Bush Bloggers. I like the traffic I currently get, and I want to make sure those who are coming by have something worth reading, which means I better stop with these self-indulgent posts about blogging and get back to politics. I never really did rake Glenn Reynolds over the coals properly...

Here's a quick review of the topics I touched on the previous week.

Quantum Computation -- I finally introduce the topic of quantum computation, with a quick introduction and pointers to some of my papers.

Skeptics Anonymous -- I complain about the misuse of this resource made available by MIT's Graduate Christian Fellowship.

The Complementarity of the Sexes -- I point out that men and women are, you know, different, and that in and of itself may make heterosexual marriage advantageous as a social unit.

The Bioethics Council -- After a week of promises, I finally get around to commenting on the controversy surrounding the President's Bioethics council.

What is a qubit? -- I talk a bit more about quantum computation, explaining what a qubit is.

The Blogosphere -- I comment on some of the utilities out there that link blogs together, especially those which have gotten me visits.

This post was written on May 11, 2004. The timestamp was set to put this post at the top of this page in the archives, since this seems to be the entry point for people looking for information on Bhuwan Singh.

I've gotten a lot of hits on this page from people looking for information about Bhuwan Singh. I'm afraid I don't know any more about his death than anyone else, but you can find some information here. The only other bit of information I have is that he was found in the afternoon, and he was seen in the Ashdown dorm around 7 am. The post that brought you here is this one, which contains a list of some of the papers our lab produced, one of which we were co-authors on.

And once again, I take a break from the usual politics to talk about webcomics.

Sluggy Freelance -- Pete draws a huge, beautiful Sunday comic that is unfortunately so confusing that he spends the next several days trying to explain it. It's a rehash. With stick figures. There ought to be a law against that. At least the ghost of Secret Cranky Office Temp is doing well. Once that's out of the way, Sam makes a return visit to the farm and runs into the vampires.

Day by Day -- Chris Muir takes on John Kerry, Corrine Brown, and relaxed fit jeans.

It's Walky! -- Walky and Joyce make up, Sal makes a mistake. As Jason would say, "Crikey! Every time I think that girl's about to make some sense out of her life, she bloody well screws it up again." Sorry, I don't do the bad British dialect as well as Mr. Willis.

College Roomies from Hell! -- Marsha and April fight each other to unconsciousness, Margaret dreams of Dave, Dave dreams of Blue, and Roger tries to keep Dave's insides from becoming his outsides.

General Protection Fault -- Trent installs Wi-Fi on GPF's network and Sharon goes ballistic.

Schlock Mercenary -- Xinchub arrives with plans to clean up after his liabilities. Of course, first he has to make them liabilities, otherwise he doesn't get to have the fun of doing the clean up. But does Jeevee have a plan for yet another double-cross?

One of the fun parts about having a blog is all the tools that link blogs together. One thing that I like to do is check out all the places that are linking to me. There are lots of way to do that.

First, there's Sitemeter. They're the ones who provide the counter for this site. The counter has lots of features, but my favorite is that it lets me track visits by referrals. This lets me tell who's linking to me. I don't know how reliable it is, because sometimes I've traced it back to blogs where I couldn't find a single link to Back of the Envelope, but it's fun to check out. Most of it comes from other blogs that have me on their blogroll, usually Blogs for Bush who automatically reference me through the Blogs for Bush blogroll (see, I knew joining up would get me more hits).

Next, there's Technorati, which finds all the blogs linking to a site, even non-blog sites. Try it out on your own blog, or any random webpage. My blog has 28 blogs linking to it, mostly Blogs for Bush again.

Third, there's Blog Pulse. Blog Pulse looks for key phrases that are occuring with some frequency on blogs. I got a hit from someone looking at the phrase social security system. This post somehow managed to turn up at the top.

Fourth, there's the venerable Truth Laid Bear Blogosphere Ecosystem, where I'm still in the lowly realm of the Crawly Amphibian. I hope someday to make it up to Primate, or even--dare I dream?--Mortal Human. Unfortunately, there's no way this Blog is big enough, nor am I dedicated enough, to launch myself into the realm of Higher Beings, where Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan dwell.

Well, now that I've had fun pointing out all the ways you can find this blog on the Internet, which helps to lead plenty of people here who'd otherwise never have an interest in anything I have to write, what's my point? Well, I did want to point to a few people who've linked to me. For example, Alessandra, whose blog, Reflections in Order Not to Go Insane, is just a day older than mine, comments on my article on the Complementarity of the Sexes, both in a blog post and the comments section; it's only the fourth comment I've gotten overall. Then there's The Pryhills, which clearly has very different ideas than I about the Federal Marriage Amendment. I'm not quite sure how I ended up on its blogroll, considering.

Of course, when a big blogger links to me, it has a cascading effect. When Captain Ed found my Why Iraq? post interesting, Slings and Arrows picked up on it (Although, he may have found it independently, but it's hard for me to imagine someone just browsing my blog without a pointer. I'm modest that way.). And I still haven't managed to find everyone who linked to my post on Dave Barry's Kerry DYKWIA story that started a Cornerlanche.

Update: Added a pointer to Alessandra's comment.

Update: I forgot to mention Technorati's Breaking News, which looks for references to hot stories. I got a few hits when I picked up on Orrin Hatch's proposed amendment.

New Post: More above.

I've been writing some fiction recently. As usual, it's hard to get started, but difficult to stop myself once I get going. Today's been one of those days of off and on writing. Ten minutes here, an hour there, another thirty minutes as I try to work out a particularly tangled thought. It's probably not the best way--I'd rather have a full two hours of uninterrupted writing--but since I write for pleasure, I often have more urgent things that need to be done. Plus, I'm just easily distracted. In any case, here's a sample:

The long shadows cast by the disappearing sun cast their darkness on his as he navigated the raised stepping stones that gave pedestrians some hope of staying out of the muck which covered the pave streets. Buildings loomed several stories high on either side of him, and it was already late enough to leave some particularly narrow stretches, where the overhanging buildings nearly hid the sun at high noon, in deep shadow. Aulus wished that Artura has the same system of street lamps as Novaro, but a few private homes had lamps, and those were only lit in anticipation of the return of the patrician master or mistress. No one wanted to waste lamplight on those wretched strangers still out as evening set in.

Aulus had to move quickly to the side as one of those wealthy patricians came by. Slaves carrying torches took the lead, followed by a tight knot of burly slaves with clubs around a litter, heavy velvet curtains blocking out the sights and sounds of the street. Not the smells, I bet, Aulus thought. Just then the overpowering perfume which served that purpose swept over him, its sick sweetness causing him to break out in a loud coughing fit. One of the thugs who guarded the litter glared at him, taking a step in his direction. Fortunately, the litter was moving too fast to give him a chance to indulge in a little violence, and he had to hurry after it as the rear torchbearers caught up to him and Aulus. He barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief when he heard the screaming.

It's rough, of course, and will go through three or four revisions before it's ready for public consumption, assuming it ever is. It's a continuation of Fire, on my website, which I suppose is as ready for public consumption as it will ever be. It can be found here. And frankly, I consider it highly unlikely that I will ever tire of pushing my fiction on my blog. You better get used to it.

Old Post: It looks like I was onto something.

The opposition to gay marriage among Black churches is growing. As I suggested earlier, this works strongly to President Bush's advantage. More to the point, it's strongly to the advantage of the Federal Marriage Amendment. If Bush and the Republicans are crafty enough to go with Orrin Hatch's proposal, it can happen and happen quickly. As I said before, I'd like to make the Amendment a little stronger, to make it clear that no court can cram it down the throats of an unwilling populace, but I think he's on the right track. The political aftermath could be a catastrophic break between Black voters and the Democratic party, which could very well change the shape of American politics for the next few decades.

Old Post: I first discussed quantum computation in this blog here.

I'd like to take a moment to expand on the subject of quantum computation, and that means starting with the term "qubit." A qubit is a quantum bit, and it refers to any quantum system that has two states which can serve as zero and one. Examples include spin states of nuclei in a molecule, an electron's orbital states in an atom, photon polarization, or, in a system such as superconductors which exhibit macroscopic quantum coherence, current circulating in a loop. If it's quantum, it's been proposed as a qubit.

Not every quantum system makes a good qubit, however. The criteria necessary for a quantum system which can be used in a quantum computer were formalized by DiVincenzo. The requirements are the following:

First the two states, called the |0> and |1> states, must be measurable. It must be possible to tell the difference between them. This may seem trivial, but quite a few quantum states are difficult to differentiate.

Second, the states must be controllable. This means that one can first place the system in the |0> state accurately. Then, one must be able to rotate the qubit in order to achieve every possible state. The possible states are not just |0> and |1>. If a and b are complex numbers, such that |a|^2+|b|^2=1, a|0>+b|1> describes all the possible states of the qubit. Thus it is possible for the qubit to be in state |0> and |1> at the same time (called a superposition), as long as the proportions add up to 1. Since a and b are complex, it's not simply a matter of achieving the right proportions, but also the correct phase--the correct complex values.

Third, the qubit must be addressable. One needs to be able to decide which qubit to control and measure. If there's a solution filled with millions of identical molecules, and there's a way to rotate the oxygen atom nucleus in all the molecules at the same time, that's still only have one useful qubit (more precisely, it's an ensemble of that qubit). Now if it's possible to address the two carbon atom nuclei and the oxygen atom nucleus on each molecule separately, that's three qubits, and an ensemble of those three qubits. This is what is done in nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computing.

Fourth, one needs to be able to couple qubits together so that they affect one another. Thus one qubit will rotate only if another qubit is in a certain state. This is how one makes quantum gates.

Finally, one needs to be able to isolate the qubits from the environment. The environment, which means everything other than the qubits themselves, causes the qubits to decohere. Information is lost as the qubits dephase, drift from the intended phase, and relax, fall to the lowest energy states. If one waits long enough, qubits in just about any system eventually fall to |0>. Only if they remain in the desired states long enough to perform a useful calculation can you make a quantum computer.

And that's the second episode of quantum computation for the layman. Tune in next time as I tell you how you can build your very own quantum computer (with a $1 million grant and a Ph.D., of course).

Lileks has some comments on the "exploitive" ad:

Another suggested ad: “Some say that we shouldn’t haven’t invaded Iraq. Even after the discovery of mass graves. Even after the realization that the UN’s Food-for-Oil program diverted billions to Saddam’s pockets. Even after seeing how the terrorists have poured into Iraq to make a last desperate stand against freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Some say we should have listened to our allies.” A stock shot of Marcel Marceau in full-mime makeup, pretending to be trapped in a box. “Some people are a little too worried about what the waiter will think the next time they take a trip to Paris.” Shot of a Kerry lookalike in a bistro, saying “No, really, I’m Canadian.”

Reality check. That’s a cruel mean harsh nasty ad.

As they say, RTWT (read the whole thing).

Plenty of people have already noticed that Kerry seems unable to speak in a straightforward manner. From the looks of things, the problem's even deeper than that. Debra Saunders reports from an interview with Kerry:

Kerry's answer was that Washington insiders believed that Bush didn't mean what he said. "I think that you had a hard-line group (then Pentagon adviser) Richard Perle, (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz and probably (Vice President Dick) Cheney. But when Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker (former advisers to the first President Bush) weighed in, very publicly in op-eds in The New York Times and the (Washington) Post, the chatter around Washington and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell in particular, who was very much of a different school of thought, was really that the president hadn't made up his mind. He was looking for an out. That's what a lot of people thought."

What about what Bush said to the United Nations? That was "rhetorical," Kerry answered. And "a whole bunch of very smart legitimate people" not running for president thought as he did. "So most people, actually on the inside, really felt that (Bush) himself was looking for the way out to sort of satisfy Cheney, satisfy Wolfowitz, but not get stuck," Kerry continued. "The fact that he jumped and went the other way, I think, shocked them and shocked us."

So not only is Kerry incapable of straight talk himself, he can't recognize it when it asks for his support for a war.

Say what you will about Bush, he says what he means and he means what he says. Lots of people hate him for that. One wonders if the reason is that he exposes their own fraudulence.

There have been some complaints about the use of 9/11 in President Bush's ad campaign. Having watched the ads in question, all I can say is "Huh?" Yes, 9/11 will be mentioned in Bush's ad campaign. It was the defining event of his presidency. You'd have to go through incredible contortions to sell his record--heck, to even talk about his record--without mentioning 9/11. The two ads I saw were hardly exploitive, and the image from 9/11 was a sad but hopeful picture of damaged buildings behind the American flag. Now, if you wanted incendiary, you could show the famous image of the plane ramming into the building, or pictures of those who chose to die by jumping rather than being burned alive. That might have disturbed me. The image shown was the least offensive image from 9/11 that you could find and still have something recognizable to show while mentioning it.

Update: Clarified what I meant about incendiary images.

Old Post: My last post on this matter is here

Orrin Hatch takes my advice. Well, not quite, but here is what he is proposing for the Federal Marriage Amendment(from National Review):

Civil marriage shall be defined in each state by the legislature or the citizens thereof. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman.

It's very close to what I suggested, although I would go slightly farther, and add after Constitution "nor any state constitution, nor federal nor state law." This, of course, requires an additional phrase at the end which says "unless explicitly stated otherwise." Hey folks, it might happen.

Update: For once, my Old Post, New Post scheme made my post less clear. For that reason, I repeated the Title at the beginning of the post.

New post: More here.

I've been wanting to comment on this, but every day I get further behind on the required reading, so it's becoming hard. Let me put in a couple of less-than-well-thought-out words:

First, Glenn Reynolds may think he's mainstream, but he's not. His libertarian outlook gives him a strongly progressive view on science, more progressive than that of most scientists I know. Definitely more progressive than most of the general populace. Therefore, I have a hard time taking his worries about council stacking seriously, since I think balanced in his view is a far cry from balanced in most other views.

And that's really the question here. A balanced council is useful, but balanced in what sense? Balanced where? The council is meant to advise the President, and as such, it needs to share certain core assumptions with him. Anyone too far removed from the president's worldview would have difficulty giving him coherent advice. He wouldn't be starting at the same place.

Second, I am personally against embryo stem cell research. I think there is a danger here that embryonic human life will become a commodity, and that is a dangerous attitude. Moreover, there's reason to believe that adult stem cell research holds more promise, and I'm all in favor of that.

Third, many have taken great offense that Leon Kass has stated that greatly extending human life expectancy would decrease quality-of-life. Put aside the fact that immortality has long been a dream of humans everywhere, does anyone deny that this is true? We are already facing a runaway Social Security system because life expectancy has increased by ten years since its founding. What if it extended by another ten, or a hundred? While we work hard to prevent premature death, no one lives forever. The death rate is still 100%. I'm troubled that some people never question whether increasing human life expectancy is a good thing, that they insist that there is, in fact, a moral imperative to do so. Would we really be better off if we lived forever? Sure, I'd like to live an extra hundred years, but if I were given the opportunity, I wouldn't jump at it without considering the cost.

Jonah Goldberg rightly criticizes those Democrats now arguing against a Federal Marriage Amendment on the basis that the Constitution is a sacred document that should not be amended. First, no one, least of all the Founders, thought the Constitution so perfect that it shouldn't be changed. That's why they included the amendment process in the first place, and then proceeded to add ten amendments(commonly called the Bill of Rights) immediately after it was accepted. Second, the Constitution, as originally written, definitely gets some stuff wrong, particularly slavery and voting rights. Now I'll grant that what these Democrats really mean is not that it shouldn't be amended, but that it shouldn't be amended lightly. I agree, and I'm quite reluctant to amend the Constitution for something like defining marriage. However, these same Democrats are all for judicial activism which treats the Constitution as a "living document" that can be interpreted by unelected judges to the point of incoherence. This is hypocritical and unconstitutional. To the extent that the Constitution can be changed, or even re-interpreted, by anyone by any reason, that's what the amendment process is there for. It is no harder to remove an amendment than to add it: both are hard, but both are determined by legislators who face re-election every 2-6 years. A change in public opinion can, within the course of a decade, remove an amendment. Removing a judicial interpretation is much harder than making it. Making a US Supreme Court judicial interpretation takes an agreement of five justices, while removing a judicial interpretation takes an agreement of five justices. It's much easier to make than an amendment, and theoretically easier to remove. Justices, however, don't go up for re-election. They serve for life, or retirement. A complete turnover of the court takes decades, and even then there's no guarantee that the new justices will be in line with popular will. They're selected by one man, the President, then approved by the Senate (which, until recently, pretty much rubber stamped the President's selections unless there were real ethical problems). That's one degree removed from popular choice, and since one president rarely appoints more than a couple of justices, the court tends to be mixed.

I can respect those who are against judicial activism and an amendment. I can even respect those against judicial activism while for an amendment. I have a problem with those who'd cede our national will to a few unelected judges, then argue against the Constitutional and democratic way to express that national will.

Some of those defending marriage as the union of one man and one woman argue from the basis of child-rearing. The two parent, male and female, model for a family is most able to raise well-adjusted children. This is true, but it fails to go as deep as it should. Why should children have a mother and father? What's so special about this combination? Well, they should have a male and female role-model. And why is that? What it all boils down to is the widely recognized truth that men and women are different. Many liberals would have us believe that the only difference between men and women is social, cultural, and some minor physical differences. Psychological studies show that there's more than that; that, in fact, men and women do think differently. They see the world in different ways. They interact with it differently, solve problems differently.

In fact, when God married Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, it wasn't solely so they could have children. Marriage makes two people one, not just in some metaphysical sense, but as a social unit which has a more complete understanding of the world than either one has alone, and who face it as a united front. A couple of two men or two women is incomplete. A single person, such as myself, is incomplete. There's not much that can be done socially or legally to change this reality.

Captain Ed takes Kerry to task:

For example, he's [Kerry] continually carped over and over that Bush "lied" to him when Kerry voted for military action in Iraq, and derided Bush's attempts to get UN support for an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein (which he spent five months negotiating before finally giving up on France and Russia). However, as soon as Haiti popped up, Kerry derides Bush for taking five days to get a UN resolution creating the multinational force that Kerry insisted Bush should have waited for in Iraq!

Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would have sent troops to Haiti even without international support to quell the revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "President Kerry would never have allowed that to get where it is," Kerry said, though he added he's not "a big Aristide fan." (via Tim Blair)

This is part of a pattern of equivocations by a completely reactive Kerry, who keeps playing both sides of every argument.

You know, I'm not too sure I agree with the Captain here. I think Kerry is being consistent, at least in the sense that he's always for supporting the despot.

Sorry, folks, I just haven't had much of a chance to post much today. I've wanted to address Glenn Reynolds' pro-cloning position (which is hardly surprising), and Joe Carter's response to it, but that'll have to wait until I have enough free time to read the relevant articles (as opposed to just the blog posts). Try me again tomorrow.

Carnival of the Bush Bloggers is up at Blogs for Bush. I didn't have an entry this time, but I'll probably submit something for next week.

I didn't watch the Academy Awards (Watch three and a half hours of Hollywood people telling each other how wonderful they are for three and a half minutes worth of information? I don't think so.), but I did read Captain Ed's live blogging of them. It looks like The Return of the King won not just Best Picture, but every other category for which it was nominated. I'm happy.

The Graduate Christian Fellowship at MIT, in which I participated during my graduate career, has a feature on its web page called Skeptics Anonymous. It's a web from that allows people to ask questions of our fellowship, which we try to answer and then post on our webpage or e-mail directly to the questioner. Unfortunately, it hasn't been in great repair since I left, so I can't guarantee you'll get a timely response if you use it.

The quality of the questions varies. Sometimes they are actually quite personal, and sometimes they are serious theological questions, often deeper than the questioner realized. Our first questioner was a Muslim who was more interested in converting us than reading the answers to his questions, which you could tell when he started repeating questions without commenting on the previous answers. Our most recent question (I'm still on the e-mail list) illustrates another major trend of the questions:

THE PREFERED DEATH FOR ACCUSED PERSONS HAS BEEN HANGING THRU HISTORY- IS EASIER AND SHOCKING, CRUCIFIXION IS TOO COMPLICATED AND EXPENSIVE, SO MOST PROBABLY IF JESUS EXISTED HE WAS HANGED THER IS A PLACE IN THE NEW TESTM. THAT SAYS SO PLESAE SOMEBODY ELABORATE.

This question's just silly. Of course Jesus was crucified. It was a common form of execution in the Roman empire. Were there easier ways? Sure, but the Romans used crucifixion precisely because it was so drawn out and painful. To directly answer his question, the gospels go into quite a bit of detail about the crucifixion, and there's no doubt that this is the sort of death Jesus endured. Mark 15:24 uses the Greek word for crucifixion for what was done to him. If this person had given an e-mail address, it would be possible to reply to him directly. Since he didn't, we'd have to put the answer on the web page, which is supposed to act as a resource for people with serious questions, while this one... Well, I'm not responsible for Skeptics Anonymous anymore, so I can just ignore it. Which doesn't necessarily mean that I will.

Update: Somehow this got posted multiple times. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it's fixed now.

Update: I edited the post to make it read better. Nothing substantive.

I've updated my personal homepage, fixing broken links and the counter, adding some hopefully non-broken links, as well as some pictures and a short story, "A Stranger in the Library." The story had previously been on the webpage, at that time called "Trial and Error," until I took it down, revised it, submitted it to some print mags for publication, received some rejection notices, and then returned it to the webpage. I think the time I spent trying to get it published has improved it.

Well, I haven't said anything about quantum computation yet. Honest, if I had noticed anything in the news, I'd comment on it. Right now, there's plenty of buzz in the physics world, but there's just not much that would be very interesting to a layman. Here, in any case, is a quick explanation of what quantum computation is, so that my blog isn't completely devoid of anything about it:

In classical computers, information is stored in the form of bits which hold a value of either 1 or 0. Quantum computers have qubits which can be both 1 and 0 at the same time, in differing proportions: half 1 and half 0, or two-thirds 1 and one-third 0, etc. A classical computer can store any number between 0 and 255 in a single byte, which consists of 8 bits. A quantum computer can store all the numbers between 0 and 255 at the same time on a byte of 8 qubits. Whereas a classical computer performs a calculation on its byte and produces a single answer for the single number on that byte, a quantum computer can perform one calculation and get all the answers for all the numbers on the byte at the same time. This gives you massive parallelism. Of course, it's not as easy as that--getting information out of a quantum computer is a lot harder than putting it in. Thus it's only really good at answering questions that have sharply "peaked" answers, meaning questions where you put in a lot of inputs while lookng for only one answer, such as an unordered search.

(Adapted from The Donald S. Crankshaw Newsletter, Vol. 24, Iss. 1.)

Meanwhile, I have a couple of publications on my specific work, which is on a superconducting qubit, called the persistent current qubit. If you're interested, you can find preprints of the papers online:

Impact of time-ordered measurements of the two states in a niobium superconducting qubit structure
K. Segall, D. Crankshaw, D. Nakada, T.P. Orlando, L.S. Levitov, S. Lloyd, N. Markovic, S.O. Valenzuela, M. Tinkham, K.K. Berggren
Published in Physical Review B, 67, 220506, 2003.

DC measurements of macroscopic quantum levels in a superconducting qubit structure with a time-ordered meter
D.S. Crankshaw, K. Segall, D. Nakada, T.P. Orlando, L.S. Levitov, S. Lloyd, S.O. Valenzuela, N. Markovic, M. Tinkham, K.K. Berggren
Accepted for publication in Physical Review B

Energy Relaxation Time between Macroscopic Quantum Levels in a Superconducting Persistent Current Qubit
Yang Yu, D. Nakada, Janice C. Lee, Bhuwan Singh, D. S. Crankshaw, T. P. Orlando, William D. Oliver, Karl K. Berggren
Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

These articles describe a series of experiments done on a persistent current qubit fabricated in niobium (which goes superconducting at 9 K), demonstrating a high Q and, by all indications, a long coherence time. Ask me sometime and I'll explain what that means, but for now, just trust me that these are good things.

Update: Now that Doc Rampage has linked to me, I figured that I needed to clean up the post a bit for clarity.

New Post: So what is a qubit, anyway? I go into more detail here.

This is my weekly review of the major posts and threads for the week.

Day by Day on Barry on Kerry -- Chris Muir picks up on Dave Barry's Kerry DYKWIA story with a cool comic

George W. Bush and the African-American Vote -- The reasons why I think the African-American vote may be in play this year, and some actions to make it happen.

Syria Conspiracy Theory Redux -- Evidence for and against my Syria conspiracy theory.

Federal Marriage Amendment -- The first of many, many posts on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Just keep clicking the link under New Post to read more.

But is he one of us? -- My thoughts on bloggers and their love/hate relationship with George W. Bush.

Pakistan's Nuke Codes -- My thoughts on what is now a pretty old news item.

Tired of all the talk about the Federal Marriage Amendment? So am I. Let's talk about webcomics instead.

Sluggy Freelance -- Torg gets help from an unlikely ally, while Sam flees the sun, and Arminius and Kent go back to the farm.

Day by Day -- Dave Barry's Kerry story gets a mention. Yay! Followed by still more Kerry bashing. Yay!

It's Walky! -- Sal tries to instruct Walky on the futility of bowing to fate. Or is that resisting fate?

College Roomies from Hell! -- Dave rules! Exorcism by eye lasers is just cool. It's too bad his survival looks so unlikely. Plus the long awaited scene switch takes us back to Diana, Paul, Marsha, and April.

General Protection Fault -- No more nudity, but Trudy has an encounter with the Gamester and some familiar time-traveling characters.

Schlock Mercenary -- Uh oh, Jeevee betrays Tagon and it looks like Xinchub is on his way. Just when you think you've got all the double-crossing figured out, it gets worse.

This news item came out before I had a blog. Here's the key information:

Teams of American specialists, deployed in Pakistan's most sensitive military sites, have formulated launch codes to prevent the unauthorised use of nuclear missiles.
...
America's involvement in compiling missile codes raises the possibility that it might be able to prevent Pakistan from launching its nuclear weapons.

(From the Telegraph via Instapundit.) I don't know if it's true. It has the sound of a rumor, quoting a leader of the Islamist party and an oblique few words from a former US ambassador, saying that Gen Kidwai (who's apparently in charge of Pakistan's arsenal) "has been working very quietly, very slowly with us". Certainly, if this is the case, we shouldn't be finding out about it. We don't want people to know that we're changing Pakistan's launch codes so they need our permission to launch their nuclear weapons. Then again, if it is true, the only downside from the US perspective is that it's gone public. Hopefully, we have lots more stuff like this going on, some of which the public will never find out about.

One reason that the Islamic world views us hostilely is that they believe that our culture is thoroughly dissolute. Considering that their view of our culture comes almost entirely from Hollywood and television, that's not surprising. (The great irony, of course, is that those who most raise the ire of the Islamic world, and who most need to be defended against the violence that results, are among the least willing to support that defense.) Early on, Osama bin Laden's main objective was complete isolation of the Middle East from the West, cutting off the corrupting influence of the West.

It's not surprising that Islam views homosexuality as wrong (so does Christianity and Judaism). However, for the vast majority of the Middle East, homosexuality is not just sinful, it is vile and punishable by death. Imagine, then, their perspective on something like homosexual marriage, and the country that would permit it. A Federal Marriage Amendment, from their view, would show that the US is willing to draw the line somewhere, and share their moral beliefs at least to some degree.

The US should not decide its internal policy according to the views of the rest of the world. Frankly, our policies have succeeded better than those of the Middle East (obviously), or even Europe. However, it's interesting to note the ripples that flow from our decisions. (Old Europe would hate it, obviously, but I'll admit I'm not particularly concerned about that.)

Old Post: I mentioned that this might already be Bush's game plan below.

It looks like I'm not the only one arguing that the amendment should put the gay marriage issue directly before the state legislatures and forbid the courts from gainsaying them. A brief sampling:

Baseball Crank makes his case for "an amendment that would do nothing more than leave exclusively to each state's legislature the question of what kind of marriages or civil unions to approve."

The Wall Street Journal shares its opinion: "We think this entire issue should be decided in the states, by the people through their elected legislators. And if the voters want to alter the definition of marriage as a new social consensus develops, that should be their democratic right."

James Taranto of Best of the Web says

We'd say he [Bush] left the door open to our proposed amendment, which would prevent federal judges from imposing same-sex marriage on the country while leaving states free to enact it if they wish.

If he walks through that door, John Kerry will be in an uncomfortable position. Kerry claims to support "states' rights" on marriage, but he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, a statute aimed at protecting precisely those rights. If the debate were over a states' rights amendment, he would be forced to choose between his stated position and his most extreme supporters.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has that if we can't get an amendment defining marriage, then we may be able to get a compromise one:

That would be an Amendment to the full faith and credit clause to insure that the legislators of each state, not the courts, would make the decision on gay marriage and that their rulings would not impact other states. I think that kind of Amendment would have a much better chance of being passed because it would expose anyone who opposed it as zealots who want activist judges to impose their agenda on the rest of the nation.

And I've already mentioned Ramesh Ponnoru, who said, "I favor a constitutional amendment that would block both the federal and the state courts from instituting same-sex marriage, civil unions, or from leaving marriage eligibility alone but extending some of its benefits to the unmarried."

With all these minds coming to the same conclusion (some of them actually, you know, influential, unlike mine), I'm thinking it may actually happen this way. I wish I could take credit for this idea, but hey, they published first, and influenced me in the process. It's a brilliant political move, and could very well give us the amendment. The trick is to get enough Democratic Congressmen to express support for a "moderate" approach in opposition to the "far Right, religiously motivated" amendment, before pulling the rug out from under them. Once enough of them say it should be up to the states, then none of them can protest an amendment which ensures that it's up to the states. Put it in terms of a democratic decision decided by the state legislatures, and the faux-populist Democrats will have trouble coming up with an argument that doesn't sound like it comes straight from a lobbyist's mouth. They can splutter all they want about bigotry, but what they're really arguing is that the American people are inherently bigoted, so they can't be trusted to write their own laws. As for approval by the states--there's no way they wouldn't sign on to this. First, it solidifies the power of state legislatures, and I can't see legislators refusing that. Second, thirty-eight states have already passed laws or state constitutional amendments forbidding gay marriage. Third, the Massachusetts legislature will leap at the chance to give their bossy Supreme Court a black eye, so there's one more.

The only danger I can see is if I'm wrong about Bush and the Republicans in Congress. Are they willing to compromise for an amendment that will pass, as opposed to one that won't? Can they get it past the Democrats who will try to hole it up in committee, deride it as bigoted, and do everything in their power to keep it from a fair hearing and a fair vote? Once it's up for a vote, I think most Democrats will vote for this, because it's identical to their stated position, and they'll face the wrath of the voters if they don't.

Update: David Frum goes into reasons why a state by state solution wouldn't work. I may say more on this once I've had a chance to think about it.

New Post: Orrin Hatch supports this solution, above.

Old Post: I posted on this before below.

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost proposes something very similar to what I've proposed:

The compromise I propose is that if same-sex marriages are to be allowed they should be virtually indissoluble and would be excluded from "no-fault" divorce statutes. Divorce would be allowed only in extreme circumstances such as adultery, a felony conviction leading to imprisonment, desertion for over a year, or physical abuse.

Of course, what I proposed was different in that I thought we could get rid of "no-fault" divorce for everyone while creating gay marriage, rather than applying the stringent rules just to gay marriage.

I've been thinking about the Massachusetts Supreme Court's Goodridge decision which says that the Massachusetts legislature must pass the laws in order to legalize gay marriage. My specific thought is "Huh?" Even Glenn Reynolds says, "Though I'm in favor of gay marriage, the Massachusetts opinion is just unpersuasive. There's astonishingly little in the way of actual legal analysis there, and that hurts them." I figure that if the Massachusetts supreme court cannot be bothered to write an actual legal opinion, why should the Massachusetts legislature be bothered to write an actual law? For that matter, they could say, "The Massachusetts Supreme Court has no authority to tell the legislature what laws to write. If they try to do it again, we'll impeach the lot of them." I'm not sure whether the Massachusetts state constitution would allow them to do that, but I like the precedent that would set. It would do a lot to curtail the overreaching of the courts.

Old Post: My last post on this topic was here.

I've wondered why, when Bush announced his support for a Federal Marriage Amendment, that he did not propose a particular wording for it. One possibility is that, since the president has no real role to play in the amendment process, he's simply stating his support for it and letting Congress decide how to do it. There is another possibility, and that assumes that he really wants the amendment to happen. By stating his support but not proposing an amendment, he's giving the media and his political opponents time to react and stake out their positions. Most Democrats are, predictably enough, stating that they oppose gay marriage (it's not too popular with the general public), but that it's a matter for states to decide, and shouldn't be put into an amendment. However, if they stake out that position, then there are certain ways the amendment could be worded, such as the one I presented below, that would be in line with their position, and their platforms would be pulled out from under them. In essence, Bush is getting them to voice support for an amendment they haven't seen by letting them voice opposition to the amendments they have seen. It's similar to what he did in his State of the Union, "Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year. (Applause from Democrats.) The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule. (Applause from Republicans.)" If he gives them enough rope, they'll hang themselves. The assumption here is that he's serious about preventing the introduction of gay marriage by fiat, and is more interested in passing an amendment than playing politics with it. A compromise amendment will be much less satisfactory to his base, but it has a much greater chance of happening.

New Post: I'm not the only one who thinks this is a good idea. Above.

I haven't said anything about Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion, yet, and I don't intend to say anything until I've at least seen the movie. I will be doing that eventually, but I don't know when. Meanwhile, Doc Rampage has some thoughts on the anti-semitism charge here and here.

Like I said, no comment, although it's hard to imagine it being anti-semitic when most of the characters, good and bad, are Jewish. All right, maybe that was just a little comment.

Old Post: My original comments are below.

In the previous post I said, "You know, if this were not in direct defiance to California's laws, I wouldn't be so bothered by this. At least it's an elected official doing this, and San Francisco being San Francisco, I doubt he's acting against the public will." Captain Ed explains why this is the wrong attitude (in a post that clearly has nothing to do with mine, by the way): "Legislatures make law, not the executive or the judiciary; the executive enforces law. Saying that the legal process is satisfied when any old elected official creates a law is to argue for the abolition of Congress." I'd defend my position, but it's not really defensible. I didn't really think it through, beyond relief that at least someone reasonably representative of the people was involved in the decision this time. I could probably argue that I was technically in the right, since my whole argument was that this was outside of his authority. And hey, I was just conceding a point before I went on the attack anyway. But that would be weaselly.

I've noticed something interesting among generally pro-Bush bloggers. Whenever he does something they agree with, he is principled and making the right decision (John Hawkins on gay marriage, Citizen Smash on immigration reform). Whenever, he's doing something they disagree with, it's pure political pandering (John Hawkins on immigration reform, Neal Boortz on the Federal Marriage Amendment). I'm curious about this. There's good evidence that Bush's principles make him for reforming immigration and against gay marriage (that whole Evangelical Christian thing). Is it really more important that we perceive Bush as being on our side than seeing him as principled? Perhaps Shannon Love was right, and it's all about having a president who agrees with us, in principle, on everything, even if he occasionally has to act differently for political reasons.

Of course, this isn't a problem for the anti-Bush bloggers, since from their perspective Bush has no principles and is always pandering for votes. In my personal opinion, Bush does have principles, but there are strong principles and weak principles. Strong principles include the defense of America, the right of the people to decide their laws rather than the courts, and the spread of democracy. Weak principles include balanced budgets and free trade. He's shown considerable willingness to take political risks based on the strong principles. Weak principles are more like good ideas, which can be compromised on.

Old Post: My last post on the Federal Marriage Amendment is here.

One of the arguments against gay marriage is that by redefining marriage you weaken the institution. Those in favor of gay marriage argue that gay marriage won't do any more harm to the institution of marriage than heterosexual divorce has already done. To which the response is that since marriage is already in such bad shape, why in the world whould you want to deliver the coup de grace?

I have two reasons to oppose gay marriage:

1. Religious: In the Bible, God clearly defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman, so that's what it is. You may call something else "marriage," but that doesn't make it one. That doesn't prevent the state from calling something else marriage (and indeed they do), but this is only a legal definition, and doesn't make it so in God's eyes or mine.

2. Process: It is up to the state legislatures to decide how to define legal marriage (this does not affect the spiritual truth one way or another), not the courts or city mayors. Since aside from the spiritual aspect, the social aspect of marriage is the main effect, it is important that the legal definition of marriage follow the social definition, and thus be decided by the elected representatives.

To be honest, the survival of marriage argument never did much for me. Orthodox churches will continue to define marriage by the Biblical definition, they will continue to encourage marriage within their congregations, and they will continue to marry only those who meet the religious definition. That doesn't mean that marriage can't be damaged in society as a whole, just that it can't be killed as long as Americans are a religious people.

Still, the idea is to strengthen, not weaken, marriage, and I think the most damaging thing to marriage today is no-fault divorce. It's hard to imagine that the existence of gay marriage will do more harm than that. I'll give you a couple of guesses as to who gave us no-fault divorce. Hint: it wasn't the religious or social conservatives. It was largely the same people and groups who are now pushing for gay marriage. A cynic might think they were trying to harm marriage or something, but assuming that's not the case, and that the gays who want to marry have a vested interest in making marriage a stronger institution, I have a proposal: If you'll help me repeal no-fault divorce, I'll help you get gay marriage. We'll put them both in the same bill before the state legislatures. Yes, from my perspective, changing the legal definition doesn't really make it marriage, but sure, you can call it that, and in the process we'll be cementing the marriages which meet the definition.

New Post: Thoughts on President Bush's tactics here.

I was wondering whether it might be worthwhile to register a domain name for my blog, so I checked to see whether www.backoftheenvelope.com was available. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Old Post: This seems silly, but it is policy. Look below for the previous post on this.

The blogosphere is afire with this topic. There are quite a few libertarian blogs out there who are generally in favor of Bush's policies when it comes to the war on terror, but are quite upset about this. I'm not saying too much before I see the text. I am personally against gay marriage for religious reasons. However, I believe that it is the responsibility of the state legislatures (not the state courts) to define this issue, and if Vermont decides to create gay marriage, fine. The trouble is the full faith and credit clause in the Constitution:

Article IV

Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

The second sentence should allow Congress to make an exception in the case of marriage, which it has in the Defense of Marriage Act. The problem is that sooner or later the DOMA will come up before the Supreme Court, and it will likely strike it down, if past decisions are any indication. So I can see a need for an Amendment, it's just not clear what it should be. My preference would be to curtail the power of the courts, which I think is the root problem here. As that is apparently too broad for most people, I guess we'll see something addressed to marriage. I might as well offer my suggestion, just in case W drops by this blog:

Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any couple or group aside from the union of one man and one woman unless explicitly defined otherwise in state law. No state shall be required to recognize the marital status or legal incidents thereof conferred by any other state aside from the union of one man and one woman.

This is adapted from one of the proposed amendments, and makes it clear that gay marriage would have to be explicitly enacted in state law, and no court can say otherwise. This is close to what Ramesh Ponnuru proposes.

New Post: More on gay marriage here.

Old Post: A discussion of an alternative to the FMA starts here.

Well, it looks like the president didn't take my advice and address the root cause of the problem. Instead, he's supporting a Federal Marriage Amendment:

Today, I call upon the Congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife.

The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.

He hasn't said what exact wording he would want yet, at least that I could find. I'd like to see that before I comment too much. My preference would be something that prevented the courts from imposing gay marriage while still allowing the legislature to implement it if the people wanted, but from his statement above, it looks like he wants the actual definition of marriage within the amendment.

The irony is that gay and lesbian activists, attempting to circumvent popular will by seeking court action rather than the legislative process, may have managed to block their own path. Overturning a constitutional amendment will be a much more difficult undertaking than convincing a state legislature to redefine marriage to their liking.

Update: It looks like Captain's Quarters has a similar view.

New Post: More here.

Old Post: My original Syria conspiracy theory is here.

There's lots of news coming out of Syria recently. On the bright side, it looks like they're interested in restarting negotiations with Israel. I'd cite that as evidence for my conspiracy theory, but I'd also have to deal with the counter-evidence that they seem to be providing aid to the terrorist forces in Iraq. So maybe my theory isn't so accurate after all. Or maybe it's more complicated than I thought. A true conspiracy theorist could work these bits of counter-evidence in.

In any case, conspiracy or not, there's evidence that there's a growing pro-democracy movement in Syria in this story:

More than half a million Syrians demanded political and economic reform in a petition to be handed to President Bashar Assad, a human rights group said Saturday.

Some 600,000 citizens, including intellectuals, lawyers and human rights activists, have already signed the document, the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria said.

The group said it hoped for a million signatures by March. Syria has a population of around 18 million.

One million is a significant fraction (5.5%) when the population is 18 million. Even 600,000 (3.3%) is nothing to be sneezed at. That that many people are unafraid to put their names on a petition indicates a real possibility of positive reform.

(Thanks to Instapundit and Winds of Change for the links)

It's always dangerous to talk about black issues when you're not black (as I'm not). However, I do think there are interesting forces at play here, and I think I can address them objectively. I'll do my best.

The black vote is one of the bedrock supporters of the Democratic party. Over 90% of it went to Al Gore in the 2000 election. This is not good for the Republicans, who have for the most part given up on winning these votes, nor is it good for the black community, who are taken for granted by the Democrats. It is assumed by some politicians in both parties that the black community is concerned only about "black" issues, and will tolerate any other policies important to the Democratic web of special issues. I don't believe that this is the case, and there are a number of reasons to believe that this important vote is in play this year.

Reasons why the black vote may be in play
War on Terror -- The War on Terror affects everyone, and this includes the black community, whose view of this struggle is probably closer to President Bush's than John Kerry's.

Military -- Blacks are a larger percentage of the military than of society as a whole. The military has a great deal of respect for Bush, a worldview which appreciates the necessity for the use of force, and a better knowledge of the facts on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. This doesn't make every one of them a Republican, but they are more amenable to Bush himself. They still don't make up a huge portion of the black community, but considering the public's awareness and respect for the military right now, they have significant influence on their communities.

Vouchers -- Many in the black community in Washington, DC, have come out in support of vouchers. The national Democrats, who are beholden to the teachers' unions, are strongly against them.

Gay Marriage -- Black churches in Boston, MA, are opposing gay marriage (thanks to Donald Sensing for the link), and it looks like this may be a dividing line between them and the Democratic candidate. Kerry is now supporting it. Bush is looking for a way to prevent gay marriage from being imposed by judicial fiat.

Religion -- Bush is an openly religious evangelical Christian. This makes him closer to most of the black community in spiritual matters than Kerry could hope to be.

Bush's Politics -- Bush is a moderate, who has been slow to take a stance on hot button civil rights issues, such as affirmative action, even when we conservatives wish he would. This does provide an opening here, however.

Bush's Administration -- Bush's administration contains a number of high-profile, moderate African-Americans, most noticeably Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.

Actions to put the black vote in play
Bush isn't going to be getting the NAACP endorsement anytime soon. He may, however, be able to make an end-run around the national organizations which believe they can deliver the black vote to the Democrats.

Public Speaking -- Black churches often invite Democratic politicians to speak. They're unlikely to invite Bush to speak to them, but if Bush were to ask for an opportunity, I think a lot of them would grant it. These talks would be good for Bush, as this is the sort of audience whose spiritual outlook he can strongly relate with. It is important not to use these talks to attack the Democratic candidates, and most certainly not Democrats in general (most of the audience have voted Democratic all their lives). He would need to talk positively about his vision for America and how it benefits them. This also gives him a chance to talk about his own spiritual life. The main purpose of these talks would be to give these communities a chance to get to know him as he is, not as the caricature which the Democrats are making him out to be.

Small Group Sessions -- Bush does well meeting with small groups of people, and meeting with black community leaders, interacting with them and discussing their concerns, would give them both a chance to know one another.

Policy -- As I've already pointed out, Bush is on the right side of many of the policy issues important to black voters. What about affirmative action? That's the ones that Republicans are, by definition, against, and blacks are, by definition, for, right? There may be some middle ground. Even conservatives can admit that affirmative action served a useful purpose (even if they think it was an unconstitutional way to bring it about). Even liberals will say that it should not continue forever (even if they don't really mean it). Extending affirmative action too far is patronizing to the beneficiaries, minimizing their accomplishments, and creating bitterness for those who are slighted by it, whether that slight is real or perceived, ultimately exacerbating racial tensions. At some point it will have to end, and it is reasonable to ask what criteria we can use to tell it is time. There may be a means to enact a sunset provision, hinted at but not required by O'Conner's Michigan decision.

Result
It is unrealistic to expect Bush to win 60% of the black vote. The stated goal of the Bush campaign is 15%. I think it may be possible to get higher, perhaps as high as 25%. The ultimate goal is to get black voters to seriously consider the Republican party as friendly to their community, rather than viewing it with distrust and supporting the Democrats as a bloc.

New Posts: More on Black churches and gay marriage here. More on how Kerry is his own worst enemy in winning the Black vote here.

I'm afraid that I won't be posting it inline, but I wanted to point out a Sluggy Freelance comic on UN weapons inspectors, circa October 2002. Look at the whole week's worth of comics if you want context. If you need more context than that, you need to read the whole archives.

Old Post: My most recent mention of Dave Barry's Kerry DYKWIA story is here.

It looks like Dave Barry's Kerry story, which I dug up, is getting a lot of play on the Internet, including in a comic from Chris Muir's Day by Day. It makes me feel all warm inside.




Day By Day© by Chris Muir. Used with permission.


Update: I revised the post a bit to give clearer credit to Chris Muir.

You know, if this were not in direct defiance to California's laws, I wouldn't be so bothered by this. At least it's an elected official doing this, and San Francisco being San Francisco, I doubt he's acting against the public will. There is the problem of full faith and credit, and I'm not certain whether it applies to cities rather than just states. I think in order for a city to issue state-recognized documents, they need the permission of the state, so that part is problematic. Anyway, the state law clearly makes the whole thing illegal, so this isn't surprising (thanks to Donald Sensing for the link):

Many of the more than 3,000 same-sex couples who obtained marriage licenses from the city said getting married was among the most joyous events in their lives. But because of legal uncertainty and political controversy, the certificates don't appear to be worth much more than sentimental value at this point.

I'm sorry, I just don't have much sympathy for them. Unless they were terribly naive, they knew this was against California's laws. Heck, the news program they heard about this from probably told them that in the next sentence. They decided to risk the legal uncertainties, probably more to make a statement than because they were expecting it to stick. If the gamble fails, well then, it was their choice to put up the stakes.

New Post: Some unrelated thoughts by Captain Ed force me to rethink my leading concession above.

I wasn't planning on saying anything more tonight, but when I read this, I felt my gorge rising. It first occurred to me that Kerry wasn't as smart as he thought he was when he claimed that it was good to see that the White House had finally tried diplomacy rather than force to get a deal with Gaddafi, as if the use of force in Iraq had no influence on Gaddafi's decision to give up his WMDs. Now I'm certain of it (thanks to Captain's Quarters for the link):

In a letter to Bush, Kerry wrote: "As you well know, Vietnam was a very difficult and painful period in our nation's history, and the struggle for our veterans continues. So, it has been hard to believe that you would choose to reopen these wounds for your personal political gain. But, that is what you have chosen to do."

Kerry was reacting to criticism earlier in the day from a leading Georgia Republican who, speaking for Bush's re-election campaign, predicted trouble for Kerry in the state's primary.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss said during a conference call arranged by the Bush campaign that Kerry has a "32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems."

First, can someone please show me where President Bush said anything at all? Second, can someone please show me where Chambliss said anything about Vietnam? Third, who has attacked whose Vietnam service? You know, it's not as if Kerry returned from Vietnam yesterday. It might just be that his voting record for the last thirty years is more revealing of his position on national defense than his service in Vietnam. If Kerry wants to pretend that the last 30 years of his life did not happen [Better make that 34, you don't want to include that Congressional testimony. -ed.], then, well, he is no smarter than he claims Bush is. Not for believing it has no bearing on his national defense positions, because I'm sure he's not stupid enough to believe that, but for believing the American people will buy his argument that it doesn't.

In the debates, I would love to see Bush ask Kerry, "Senator, are you saying that your votes in the Senate do not reflect your positions on national defense?" Or, "Senator, which do you believe is more revealing of our national defense positions, our actions thirty years ago, or our actions since September 11th, 2001? I won two wars, what did you do?" Or, "Senator, if you wish to run this campaign based on our actions in the 1970s, then I'll gladly comply. Let's start with your 1971 Congressional testimony. Here, I have a clip..."

Update: Sometimes, when I look back on what I wrote the night before, I wish I had slept on it. I don't like calling anyone an idiot, even Democratic presidential candidates who make me want to tear my hair out when they talk. I've toned the post down. Some.

Update: I couldn't resist. I added a bit more sarcasm to my hypothetical debate.

Old Post: This is a continuation of the discussion here.

Doc Rampage lists his answers to my objections. He makes some good points, although I don't think his response to the political question of the Brown test is as strong as he thinks. Yes, it is probably possible to make a case that the Brown decision is solid on Constitutional grounds even with this amendment in place, but politically that matters less than the public perception, and I think that those who will oppose this amendment can raise serious enough doubts about what the Brown ruling would have been if the justices had been constrained by this amendment that it will have a hard time passing.

He also says he's uncomfortable discussing this matter too much where real experts on the law such as Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh can comment on our ignorance. Heh, I thought that was the point. To get them to comment, that is.

This may become a regular feature, especially on Sundays where there's not much to talk about and I feel pretty lazy anyway. In any case, here's a list of my posts which I don't regret writing:

Federal Marriage Amendment Alternative -- My first post discussing an amendment aimed directly at judicial activism, which sparked my first interblog debate.

Conspiracy Theory -- What if Syria really does have Iraq's WMDs? What if Bush already knows this?

A few questions for Mr. Kerry -- Questions I'd like to ask Kerry about his 1971 Congressional testimony.

Christianity and the Nanny State -- My thoughts on Joe Carter's thoughts on Matthew Yglesias's thoughts on a Christian libertarian's thoughts on... Christian libertarianism.

Why name your blog "Back of the Envelope," anyway? -- What's in a name?

Do You Know Who I Am? -- The post that started a Cornerlanche. Dave Barry on Kerry's elitism.

Bush's Immigration Plan -- My thoughts on the matter. Hint: Ambivalent, but I don't think it's mercenary pandering.

Ideological Purity and the War on Terror -- I have little patience for conservatives who feel that Bush's moderate politics are reason enough to stay home in November.

Why Iraq? -- The reasons I think Iraq was not just a necessary step, but the necessary next step, in the war on terror.

Kerry minus thirty years -- I rant and rave about Kerry's inability to discuss any part of his record which occurred after he returned from Vietnam.

It's been a slow day, with only one post. Rather than try to fill my quota with self-important ramblings on politics and such, I decided to give a quick summary of this week in the webcomics I link to in my sidebar. This may become a weekly feature. What I'm writing here are spoilers, of course, but they're so vague that if you're not familiar with the comic, you'll forget all about them by the time you get through the archives.

Sluggy Freelance -- "Who is Philinnon? What are the vampires' plans for Torg? Who is spying on the hunters from the dark woods? How many will survive the confrontation between Arminius, Amelia, and Sam? Wow, right when everything's getting good, what better time for an INAPPROPRIATELY TIMED FILLER WEEK! Tune in tomorrow to see what we do! I know I will!" Fortunately for us, Pete's filler week contains some truly gorgeous artwork, such that I'm not entirely convinced it would not have been less work for him to just do the regular comics.

Day by Day -- Sam wins her paternity suit, and then it's politics as usual.

It's Walky! -- Sal visits Danny while Billie's away, but it looks like he finally grew a spine.

College Roomies from Hell! -- The guys are reunited. That's how you know that things are about to get really, really bad.

General Protection Fault -- Trudy dreams of friends and enemies. This week has some nudity.

Schlock Mercenary -- In Tagon's and Breya's bids to double-cross one another, Tagon gains the upper hand and makes an offer that Breya can't refuse.

Update: This post has been bumped to the end of Saturday.

So I've gone a whole week and I still haven't tried pointing people to my personal homepage. It was good while it lasted, wasn't it? I'll admit that the page hasn't been updated in a while, but then it serves a different purpose than my blog. The blog, of course, is for me to post my thoughts and feelings about current events live. The webpage is my repository for autobiographical information, pictures, and finished, or semi-finished, projects which I want to share, mainly my writings. Each serves a purpose, and I love them both equally.

It's a legitimate question to ask. Why did we go after Iraq rather than, say, Iran, which recently has been showing signs of being much further along the WMD path? Well, when making the case for war, the White House considered a number of reasons, which Wolfowitz elucidates:

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but . . . there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two...

Now all these things are true concerns. While the WMD reasoning has come under a lot of fire recently, there's no doubt about Saddam Hussein's barbaric treatment of his own people. His ties to terrorists are well-known, and there's good evidence, if not absolute proof, of his ties to al Qaeda. As for the WMDs, it's true that no large stockpiles have been found. That they existed at one point is not in doubt; he used them in the war against Iran and against the Kurds. Whether they've been destroyed by US attacks against Saddam through the years, destroyed by Saddam in secret (the least likely, I think), buried in the sand, or shipped to Syria, I don't know. The programs, however, were certainly there--Kay reported on many of them. None of them involved large scale manufacturing, but when it comes right down to it, we were never as worried about large scale manufacturing as we were about producing just enough to contribute to a terrorist attack. It does not take a large quantity of chemical or biological weapons to mount a terrorist attack--remember the anthrax letters? They involved an absurdly small quantity of anthrax. Imagine what could have happened with larger, but hardly massive, quantities.

These are not the only reasons, however. Another reason, largely unstated, is that we are embarking on a mission to change the whole of the Middle East, and that could not happen with Saddam Hussein in the way. Contrary to what Edward Said would have had us believe, the biggest problems in the Middle East are not due to poverty and ignorance, but to tyranny and oppression. To deal with that, we have to bring democracy to the Middle East. Now, since a large number of people in the Middle East already want democracy, it's not as if we're forcing it upon them, but they are currently living under oppressive regimes who are uninterested in the idea, or use it just for show. See Iran's recent "election." The way to start that change happening is to show support for these native movements, to demonstrate that democracy can work in the Middle East, and to demonstrate our own determination to follow through. Aside from being a strong candidate of where to first establish democracy in the Middle East, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a living example of US impotence. While we beat Saddam in 1991, he had routinely thumbed his nose at US and UN demands. What is probably worst of all, when a popular uprising occurred in response to his defeat in the first Gulf War, he crushed it ruthlessly, while the US did too little, too late. In doing this, the US failed to show support for the democratic forces in Iraq, and as long as the US did nothing, this was taken as a continuing sign that the US either could not or would not do anything against the tyrants of the Middle East who oppressed their people.

There were other reasons to go after Iraq first, the main one being that the American people were willing. They saw Iraq as unfinished business, and believed that we would have to deal with Saddam sooner or later, so that when President Bush said that the time was here, they agreed. While the President can attempt to start a war without the support of the US people, Congress can very effectively stymie those attempts. Thus, while it was fairly easy for the President to gain popular support for a war to remove Saddam Hussein, the same could not be said for a war against Iran or North Korea, arguably as dangerous if not moreso. (There are probably other ways to deal with these countries, however. I may discuss them later.)

Finally, there was the international law. That may surprise those of you who call the Iraq War a violation of international law, but the truth is it was an open and shut case. Saddam Hussein had signed a ceasefire agreement at the end of the first Gulf War. He had violated it: time and time again. It was no longer valid, therefore the war continued. I'm surprised that people really have to argue about this one. That, I think, was the final reason to go after Iraq. Weapons of Mass Destruction gave the issue an urgency, possibly a false one, but the case for removing Saddam Hussein never needed them.

Update: Welcome to readers from Captain's Quarters. It seems that shamelesslly selling myself in his comments section worked. I'd direct you to other posts of interest, but I really hate it when other bloggers do that (I did add a few links to the post if you're interested, however). My blog is archived by week rather than post, anyway, and since it's only a week old, pretty much everything is on this page.

New Post: And to be fair and balanced, I make the case against the war in Iraq above.