Back of the Envelope

I really meant to be revising a short story of mine right now, but instead I'm being distracted by "Whose Line is it Anyway?" If you're not familiar with this show, it's an improv comedy show on ABC. It's also on Monday-Thursday on ABC Family at 10 pm. It's very funny, but the comedy isn't exactly family friendly.

Update: I managed to turn off the television and do some work. After about an hour I got through 10% of the first revision. Depending on how you count it, there will be two or three more revisions before it's done.

Old Post: My previous post on this topic is here.

Kevin at The Smallest Minority is hosting a discussion of judicial tyranny, going so far as to keep the post at the top of his blog in order to make sure the discussion continues. He kindly points to my post on the subject (link in Old Post section).

It's an interesting topic, and I've said plenty about it before, so I won't go into it again. Instead, try here and here.

Steven den Beste at USS Clueless thinks it's not entirely a bad thing:

It's been said that it is impolite to correct an enemy when he is making a tremendous mistake.
...
Our primary goal in Iraq is to establish a multi-ethnic tolerant liberal democracy, one which supports free expression. This is quite radical; there's never been anything like that before in an Arabic-speaking nation. And there's a natural tendency for those living in Iraq to wonder whether we're serious or hypocritical. After all, everyone believes in free speech when that speech agrees with them. Even under Saddam, anyone was free to praise him anytime they wanted.

The real test was whether we'd tolerate speech critical of us, and so far we have. Which is in the long run good. But it also meant we had to leave hands-off a lot of people in Iraq which we knew represented a terrible threat in the long run.

If we'd crushed them just for speaking against us, we would have been revealed as hypocrites, and the people of Iraq would not have come to support the process. By leaving them alone, they represented a danger but our tolerance also convinced other Iraqis we really meant what we said, and ultimately that was more important.

Now, however, we now have been given the opportunity to take the worst of them out without damaging broader Iraqi confidence in our commitment to freedom. We have proved that we will tolerate peaceful dissent, but we never promised we'd tolerate armed rebellion.

The thing to keep in mind is that these people are not the ones we believed would be happy and productive citizens of the new, democratic Iraqi society. al-Sadr has been causing trouble since the beginning, agitating for an Islamic republic. The ones in Fallujah, assuming they're Baathist holdovers, are the ones saying that they want Saddam back. As long as they were just talking, there wasn't a whole lot we could do without being hypocritical in our advocacy for free expression. Even when they advocated violence, there were limits to what we could do about them, and nothing we could do about their followers. An armed rebellion is different, however. Now they're out in the open, exposed, and they can be arrested, charged, and sentenced if they surrender. That or commit suicide by US Marine.

It will be spun very negatively in the press and by the Democratic leadership. However, I think it will be all over in a month (maybe as little as a week), and Iraq will be better off when these very dangerous people are gone.

New Post: It's been almost a week. What's the progress? See above.

Donald Sensing is worried about judicial activism, so worried that he's afraid that within a generation the US will be a tyranny. He feels that neither of the major parties has a strong position against judicial activism. The Republicans at least pay lip service to judicial restraint, and Republican judicial appointees generally show a greater respect for the Constitutional text (see Scalia and Thomas), but Sensing and others can point to plenty of counterexamples. They make the argument that the Republicans are only complaining about judicial activism because liberals are in charge of the judiciary, and that if they were in charge (and in a few cases cases where they have been in charge), they would be doing the same thing as the liberals. Maybe the Republican talk about judicial restraint is just lip service, and they aren't really interested in reforming the judiciary.

So what? At least they give it lip service, and while that may not be enough, it's a starting point. It's in Republican self-interest to oppose judicial activism, because they never seem to win those games. Maybe if they could make enough judicial appointments, they could start to win, but it doesn't look like that will ever happen. Democrats always appoint liberals, but Republicans never have much luck getting conservatives appointed. Senate Democrats vote against any Presidential appointee whose politics they can impugn, and they're quite good at that, while Republicans usually feel it's their duty to approve any appointee who's qualified. This difference in philosophy means that Democratic presidents can pack the courts with liberals, while Republican presidents only seem able to get moderates through.

The Republican position, even if it's not sincere, has drawn those who are sincere about it to the Republican banner. Today, those who want judicial restraint have no choice other than the Republicans. And since these people are now part of their base, the Republicans are more responsive to the sentiment. Those who believe in it are becoming more important in Republican circles, both as politicians and opinion writers. Read National Review. I'm fully convinced most of the writers believe in judicial restraint as a matter of principle, often arguing against Republican pet causes that they believe overreach the bounds of government and the courts. The gay marriage issue has galvanized the Republican base, but a large number of them, including myself, are arguing that the solution is not to ban gay marriage itself, but to stop the out-of-control judiciary which would impose it on us. It is Republicans who are proposing a bill which would give Congress a means to overrule the Supreme Court. This won't stop government overreach in general, but it would at least ensure that our elected representatives get the last word.

Constitutionalists won't find either of the major parties perfectly in tune with their goal. Judicial activism is just too accepted in our culture for either party, which are after all broad coalitions of many different political movements, to be totally against it. But they're going to have to choose the lesser of two evils, and they're only kidding themselves when they say that there's no difference between the two parties.

Update: I fixed the link which was supposed to point to my post on the Republican bill but instead led to a post by Donald Sensing. (Not that it was a bad post, just not what I was referring to; it's the same as the one which appears earlier in this post.)

New Post: More on the ongoing discussion above.

I've added a new blog to my blogroll. letters from babylon is a blog by Christian grad students focusing on matters of faith and academia. They all hail from Boston, and two of them have ties to MIT, including Tony Jimenez, with whom I worked in MIT's United Christian Organizations. The issues they discuss are the sorts of things I'd be discussing if I weren't so easily distracted by politics. They've kindly added me to their blogroll anyway.

To no one's surprise, except perhaps that of Spanish voters, giving terrorists what they want doesn't seem to deter terrorism:

The suicide apartment house blast that killed the alleged ringleader of last month's Madrid train bombings and four other terror suspects left the core of the terror group either dead or in jail, Spain's interior minister said on Sunday.

Explosives discovered in the building where the five killed themselves to avoid capture Saturday night indicated they were plotting more violence and were linked to the failed bombing of a high-speed rail line Friday.
...
The 22 pounds of dynamite and 200 detonators found in the apartment are the same as that used in the March 11 attacks and in the bomb that was discovered Friday before it could explode along the high-speed rail line between Madrid and Seville, Acebes said.

"They were going to keep on attacking because some of the explosives were prepared, packed and connected to detonators," he said.
...
The investigation into the Madrid attacks has focused on the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which has links to Al Qaeda and is related to a group suspected in last year's Casablanca bombings, which killed 45 people including 12 suicide bombers.

As the US found out after decades of half-hearted responses, with each reprisal-free success the terrorists grow bolder, with each concession they demand more. As their ultimate goal is a world-spanning Islamic caliphate (although they'll settle for the Mideast and most of Europe for now), total surrender is not an option as long as we secular, decadent Westerners aren't willing to convert to Islam. While to most of us (including myself) 9/11 seemed out of the blue, looking back over the past decade we could see the steady progression of deadly terrorist acts, by which measure 9/11 was merely one more step. That is when the US popular will woke up and said "No more." No more concessions, no more reprieves. The US has decided to do something about the terrorists, removing the organizations root and branch, ending those regimes which have supported it, and changing the culture of the Middle East in order to address the root cause.

Given this terrorist group's apparent success in altering the political will of a nation by setting off bombs just before the election, might terrorists try the same thing in the US? We might debate whether it would have the same effect, and they must be wondering the same thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried. We Westerners are convinced that terrorism cannot destroy a civil society, and I agree, but I'm not so sure that the terrorists understand this. If you recall the "smoking gun" video that showed Osama bin Laden's involvement in 9/11 (transcript here), the man he was talking to, Shaykh, said of the US thoughts at the time of the attack, "They [the Americans] were terrified thinking there was a coup." Now, I don't know of any American who thought the planes were part of a coup attempt; most of us can't imagine the possibility of a coup in the United States. Who would do something like that? How could he find anyone who would go along with it? The point is not that there could be a coup in the US, but that there are many terrorists and terrorist supporters who believe there could be. While we're certain they can't destroy the US with their attempts, they believe they can. Thus while we may think that a terrorist attack just before the election would only strengthen our resolve, how can we know what they're thinking? Perhaps they think that with just the right attack, they can bring our political system crashing down.

What sort of attack would they attempt? It's hard to say. As I've already noted, they don't understand us, and I can't claim to understand them. However, I wouldn't bet on a big, showy attack. It's possible that what they have in mind is an assassination attempt. During the campaign, both presidential candidates, and their running mates, are more exposed than under normal circumstances. I think they'd certainly be happy to get rid of Bush, and if they think getting rid of both candidates can throw the electoral process into chaos, they'd want to try it. I'm not predicting that's what they'll do, I'm only saying that it wouldn't surprise me, and I hope that the Secret Service is taking every possible precaution.

Here's what I've been writing about this week.

Vampires -- My post challenging my readers on their beliefs about Vampires generated as many comments as anything else I've ever written. Granted, it still came to only four comments, but still...

Judicial Appointments -- I explain why fighting Bush over his judicial appointments may backfire on the Democrats.

Kerry's Sermon -- My thoughts on Kerry's speech before a Black church.

CNN bias -- Is the CNN article on Bush's reversals biased? You betcha.

Engineer writers -- I "join" the Corner debate about Engineer writers.

Is Christianity inherently anti-Semitic? -- If you say the gospels are anti-Semitic, then so is the entirety of Christianity.

Muslims and The Passion of the Christ -- I add my two cents to the debate over The Passion's popularity in the Mideast.

It's time to take a look at what's going on with our favorite online comics.

Sluggy Freelance -- It looks like Riff's business is going under, and he can't get back to save it. Meanwhile, Zoe's trying to get Torg and Gwynn to help out around the house.

Day by Day -- I'll admit, sometimes I don't quite get Day by Day, Wednesday's being Exhibit A. I enjoyed the rest of the week's commentary on Richard Clarke, however.

It's Walky! -- With SEMME shutting down, Joe has one last chance to find a meaningful relationship.

College Roomies from Hell! -- Roger finds help for Dave while Mike manages to stave off insanity.

General Protection Fault -- Trudy has second thoughts about using Yoshi. Trudy, sympathetic? I never expected to see that.

Schlock Mercenary -- The mercenaries have found a job. Much humor and violence are certain to ensue.

Doc Rampage has a post where he discusses Christian science fiction and fantasy writers as part of his discussion of conservative science fiction and fantasy. It's an interesting list. I've already read the books he mentioned by C.S. Lewis (with the exception that I've never gotten ahold of a copy of Out of the Silent Planet), but I haven't read Chistopher Stasheff or C. Dale Brittain. Based on the Doc's suggestion, I plan to check them out, just as soon as I get through my present stack of books, which is heavy on Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Doc also includes me in his list of Christian writers. Being included in the same list as C.S. Lewis is an honor I'm not certain I'm worthy of, but I appreciate Doc's endorsement. He was apparently too humble to include himself, but he should have.

I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction myself. While I haven't notice a lot of Christian writers, there are a few. Tolkien comes to mind, for example. One thing you will notice immediately is that there are a lot of Mormon writers of speculative fiction (a catch-all term that includes both fantasy and science fiction and everything in between). Along with Orson Scott Card, whom Doc Rampage has already mentioned, there's also Tracy Hickman, one of the principle authors of the Dragonlance series, as well as plenty of other series he's co-authored with Margaret Weis. From what I understand of Mormon doctrine, other worlds are quite consistent with their beliefs, which explains their overrepresentation in speculative fiction. Mormons are not Christians, precisely, but Mormonism does derive from Christianity and thus you'll find many Christian beliefs reflected in writings by Mormon authors.

Update: Based on Doc's update, I fixed the spelling of C. Dale Brittain. I also added a link to one of Doc's earlier posts.

Now that's it's clear that The Passion hasn't been causing widespread anti-Semitism among American Evangelicals, there's another group to be worried about. Middle Eastern Muslims have suddenly become very interested in this movie, most likely precisely because it's been accused of being anti-Semitic. Having Arafat declare that the movie is not anti-Semitic is about as convincing as Kim Jung Il's endorsement of Kerry. (Although I'd be curious how the anti-Passion Europeans respond to this endorsement from their patron saint of Mideast peace.) As I mentioned below, Doc Rampage has a great post on this:

I think there is enormous cause for hope here. And if the film has positive effects in the Muslim world, a great deal of the credit will have to go to the Jewish groups that protested its release. This would be a double irony: the film gains popularity because they opposed it, and they benefit from the increased popularity. I hope that in twenty years we will be having great arguments about what was the more powerful influence leading to the great modernization and pacification of the Middle East: the liberation of Iraq or the release of The Passion of the Christ.

Most Mideast Muslims have never heard the gospel story, only a highlights version heavily filtered through Islam. What an incredible opportunity this is! Their own hatred is leading them to seek out a telling of the gospel story.

While The Passion hasn't shown any tendency to stir up anti-Semitism among the generally philo-Semitic American Evangelicals, will it fire up already anti-Semitic people? Possibly. Generally you expect people to get out of a movie what they bring in with them, but I wouldn't be so quick to discount the power of God. I have been praying, without a whole lot hope, that the Middle East would be opened to the Gospel. (I haven't been praying for mass conversions so much as that the people will be given the chance to hear the Gospel and freely choose whether to believe without fear of reprisal.) Now I'm starting to hope. I would encourage all Christians to pray that the Holy Spirit will work in the Middle East, and that The Passion might be an instrument of this work. That, as in Genesis 50:20, what men mean for evil, God means for good.

Old Post: I told you I was working on a means to sell my short stories online below.

Doc Rampage kindly tested the system for me, and it looks like it works. Drop by the Doc's blog, by the way. He has an excellent post on The Passion and the Muslim world. As for Amazon, it's changed what it charges for the transactions, so I'll have to think about the pricing again. $1.25 was precisely calculated to give me $1 after Amazon took its cut; based on this, I had worked out a whole pricing scheme based on length. Of course, this is a moot point until I have some actual stories ready to sell, and then I should worry more about how much people might be willing to pay for them than how to round it to nice even amounts added to my banking account.

Tonight, I was writing Chapter 20 of The War of the Elementals (of which Fire was Part I, so think of it as Chapter 20 of Fire). This explains why I'm up at 3 AM. I like how it's turning out, but it's getting rather long for a single chapter, so I could end up splitting it. I've considered publishing the chapters serially (and selling them individually), but I tried that idea with Fire and eventually gave up. After I finished Chapter 5, I went over a year without putting anything up, then published 12 chapters, and a revised version of the first five, at once. I hadn't been writing any slower, I just felt that the section I was working on needed to be written as one piece to make it consistent and readable. Afterwards I was working on my thesis, and I didn't write much fiction during that academic year, but I wrote two short stories afterwards. One of them came out pretty well, and I may send it around a couple of print magazines to see if it can get published. The other one grew to be much longer than I intended, so I couldn't send it to any magazines without seriously gutting it. However, this very length might make it a good candidate to publish here. The problem is I'm still not sure of how well the story reads, and I won't be sure until it's been through a couple of revisions. If I'm happy with it then, I may make it the first story I officially sell over the Internet. If I'm not, I may post it for free. Then again, if I'm really unhappy with it, I'll bury it and you'll never hear from it again. Just as soon as I'm finished with Chapter 20 (or Chapters 20 and 21), I'll get to work on it.

Update: I really should know better than to post at 3 AM. There was nothing gramatically wrong with this post, but stylistically it was choppy and disjointed. Hopefully it reads better now.

I haven't said anything about the Fallujah attacks yet. (That's not surprising, when you consider that I very rarely express my thoughts on a news item right away. I'm not a fast enough blogger to get there first, and I prefer to let my thoughts percolate. Then, if I have something to add to the debate, I will post something.) If you don't know what it's all about, terrorists bombed vehicles carrying civilian contractors, then a mob dragged the contractors out of the vehicles and mutilated their bodies.

Plenty of people have posted on this already. Donald Sensing argues that it's important to act, while Steven den Beste argues that it's important not to overreact. I agree with both.

One thing I'm not too worried about is being able to find the members of the mob. The whole thing was caught on video, and the mob wasn't camera shy. This isn't another Mogadishu. We clearly aren't going to run; we will instead respond forcefully, but not inhumanely.

I'm experimenting with being able to sell some of my short stories online. As a test, I've created an Amazon Honor System Paypage which allows access to digital content. The story I've chosen for this experiment is "A Stranger in the Library," which is available online for free, so I wouldn't recommend using this option unless you are looking for an excuse to give me money. In any case, the link is below. I may start offering some stuff from the sequel to Fire for pay.



Update: Dang. I was going to test the payment system, but it won't accept payments from myself. Anyone else want to test the system and make sure it works?

New Post: Doc Rampage tests the system so you don't have to. More above.

Doc Rampage has had a lot of good posts recently, and I've been remiss in not pointing them out earlier. (Of course, I've been remiss about blogging in general recently. I've been busy at work, and I've been trying to do some writing recently. The combination is not conducive to a lot of blogging.) First off, he infiltrated a conference in San Francisco dedicated to uncovering the truth behind 9/11, "truth" here being defined as a conspiracy cooked up by Bush and his Saudi friends to turn the US into a police state, or something along those lines. Doc Rampage lets you know what the conspiracy theorists are up to with a series of posts, in chronological order, here, here, and here. He also has a very good post entitled "the myth of nuance" where he argues that not recognizing the difference between competitors and enemies does not indicate a fine sense of nuance so much as a lack of not only nuance, but of even the simplest level of discernment.

Update: There was an extraneous "theory" between "conspiracy" and "cooked up by Bush." It's gone now.

Blogrolling seems to be down today, which means 1) My blogroll isn't working, and 2) I'm getting less than half the traffic I usually get, since a lot of blogs that blogroll me are missing their blogrolls too, especially the Blogs for Bush sites. It's a reminder of how much my traffic is dependent on Blogs for Bush.

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost has found an article on the website of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise which claims that the Gospel, and thus, Christianity as a whole, is inherently anti-Semitic:

The trouble with Mel Gibson's film "The Passion" is not the film itself, but the gospel story on which it's based. The gospel story, which has generated more anti-Semitism than the sum of all the other anti-Semitic writings ever written, created the climate in Christian Europe that led to the Holocaust. Long before the rise of Adolf Hitler, the gospel story about the life and death of Jesus had poisoned the bloodstream of European civilization.

Once again, no one's arguing that Jesus himself was anti-Semitic, and indeed if we had the narrative of the mythical historical Jesus, the Jesus who was a wise and good teacher who never performed any miracles or said anything that would cause him to be executed in the first place, everything would be okay. But we don't have that Jesus, and the only evidence we have for that Jesus is the wishful thinking of those who don't want to deal with the Jesus we do have, the one who said and did all sorts of outrageous things until the religious and political authorities of that day decided they had no choice but to execute him. If he had only stayed executed, we wouldn't have anything to worry about.

But when in doubt, it's easier to say that Jesus himself was really all right, if only it weren't for Paul who so distorted his message. Ignore for the moment that Paul himself never wrote a gospel. Charles Patterson, the author of the article, takes a strongly revisionist view of the gospels anyway, assuming that they were written outside of Judea in the late first century. This is probably wrong. Mark, at least, was most likely written in the middle of the first century in Judea, and is understood to be essentially Peter’s story. However, I’d be careful of taking either view as certain--there’s evidence, but no certainty, for where and when the gospels were written, or even whether they were originally written in Greek or Aramaic. As for by whom they were written, for that there’s much better evidence, but Patterson blithely ignores it, assuming they were written by anti-Semitic Gentile Christians. John and Matthew, in fact, were written by two of Jesus’s apostles, part of the group whom Patterson calls the Nazarenes, the early Jewish Christians from Judea. Mark was a younger witness to the events, although his family probably came from Alexandria. All of them were Jewish. Luke was the only non-Jew to write a gospel, and I think his comes across as less anti-Semitic than, say, John’s. Luke quotes Jesus as saying "Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.'" on the way to the cross. John's gospel looks the most anti-Semitic, largely because he often used "the Jews" to mean "the Jewish leaders," but also because he went to great lengths to demonstrate how the claims of Jesus were so unacceptable to Jewish thought.

I think it might be easier to argue that Judaism is anti-Gentile than that Christianity is anti-Semitic. After all, Judaism claims that the Jews are God's Chosen People. While they aren't inherently superior to others, they are better loved. Christianity doesn't dispute this claim, but rather it argues that Jesus's death on the cross made the Kingdom of God open to all. The supposed anti-Semitism of Christianity is really drawn from two internal debates, one among the Jews and one among the Christians. In this, I think Patterson does a much better job of explaining the history. I believe he's wrong about when, where, and by whom the gospels were written, but I will grant that most of the remaining history he gives is correct. Whereas the Jews were debating Jesus (which is the argument that we see in the Gospels themselves), the Christians were debating the role of the Gentiles. Many of the Jewish Christians regarded Gentile believers as second-class citizens in God's kingdom, and the most "anti-Semitic" of Paul's arguments center around his disputes with this attitude. This led to a certain amount of bad blood between Gentile and Jewish believers, and more bad blood between the Jewish Christians and non-Christians. That made for a whole lot of anger separating the Gentile Christians and the non-Christian Jews.

It is a shameful fact that the anger lasted for centuries in the Christian church, long after the exact causes were forgotten. I think to a large degree this was due to a lack of Biblical literacy, or any literacy, among the people of that era, so when they heard of those disputes they couldn't put them into context as the rough internal debates that they were. However, the strongly philo-Semitic evangelical church (see this article on Judeo-Christian values), in the US and elsewhere, gives the lie to the belief that Christianity is somehow inherently anti-Semitic. In fact, I rather suspect that Biblical literacy and anti-Semitism are inversely correlated. Not in all cases and for all people (Luther, sadly, became rabidly anti-Semitic in his later years, possibly due to disappointment with his overly-optimistic philo-Semitism when he first started studying scriptures), but as a general rule.

Sometimes, even John Derbyshire gets it wrong:

Andrew: The intersection set Writers x Engineers is not large. The only one that comes to mind is the fine & prolific British novelist Nevil Shute (ON THE BEACH, A TOWN CALLED ALICE, etc. etc.) He titled his autobiography SLIDE RULE.

This is, of course, incorrect. The problem is that Mr. Derbyshire hasn't taken the right genre into account, as I wrote him:

I fear you're looking in the wrong place. We engineers don't write boring old regular fiction, we write science fiction and fantasy. At least I do. (Of course, calling myself a writer since I put a couple of short stories and half a novel up on my webpage (http://www.ece.rochester.edu/~cranksha/writings/writings.html) may be a bit of a stretch.) I think it appeals to our creative instincts. We much prefer to create whole worlds with their own histories and cultures, not to mention their own rules for technology and/or magic, than to create just a few new characters and some boring real-life situation.

I haven't heard back from him. In case he's wondering, he has my permission to post my response on the Corner. If that link to my writings happens to be posted too, well, I suppose that's the price I must pay for freely offering my advice. Of course, some other readers responded before I did, prompting Derbyshire to post:

WRITER ENGINEERS [John Derbyshire]
Heinlein! Jerry Pournelle!! Arthur C. Clarke!!!

And best of all, from reader Peyton Cooke*, DOSTOYEVSKY!!!!!!!!

You'll notice that, aside from Dostoyevsky, all of those writers are known for their science fiction works, thus proving my point.

La Shawn Barber points the way to this excellent article by Dennis Prager on America's Judeo-Christian heritage, and just how unique that is in the Western world. It is true that the churches I grew up in put a great deal of emphasis on the Old Testament, but it hadn't occured to me that this was somehow distinctly American. For the record I disagree with the assessment that America is somehow uniquely heir to God's promises to Israel. I do believe we've benefited from the Judeo-Christian influence on our society, although I'm skeptical that this has somehow earned God's blessing. I won't deny that our country has been extraordinarily blessed, but this is less a cause for pride than for humility. Those to whom much has been given, much will be expected.

Out of curiosity, what is the point of a story like this one from CNN?

A look at Bush's reversals

President Bush's decision Tuesday to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly before the commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks reversed earlier White House insistence that she would only appear privately.

Some previous Bush reversals in the face of criticism:

[They then list five other times Bush "gave in" to public criticism, including his opposition to the Department of Homeland Security, and his opposition to various investigations.]

The obvious tone of this article, which is presented as straight news rather than opinion, is "Bush is a stubborn fool who resists doing the obviously right thing until shamed into it." That is, admittedly, one way of looking at it. Or you can believe that he's simply open to compromise and willing to have his mind changed. Or you can believe, like Michael Novak in the Corner, that these are brilliant political maneuvers:

Look. We have seen this move before. Everybody rages that Bush is doing the wrong thing, he has to do X. Senator Daschle says he has to do X.

Republicans say he has to do X. The whole press says he is stupid for not doing X. Still, Bush refuses. And refuses. And refuses. Then, after everybody else has spoken, Bush suddenly says, O.K., we'll do X. Then, with the attention of the whole world upon him, and with everybody committed to X, he steps forward and goes right through the hole the attackers opened up for him. He does X, and knocks them dead.

In football, this play is called the mousetrap. The guard pulls out and moves toward the end, and the opposing players rush in on the attack. Suddenly the ball is handed off to a runner heading right for the spot the attackers had just vacated.

It looks like CNN still hasn't caught on.

Old Post: I originally mentioned my laptop problems here.

Since Glenn Reynolds and Captain Ed are discussing their laptop troubles, I felt I'd be remiss if I failed to mention mine. If you recall, my problem was that the AC adapter jack was flaky, so I contacted Dell via e-mail on Saturday. This morning, a technician came to my office and replaced the motherboard. Watching someone replace the motherboard on a laptop is quite an experience. I've put motherboards in desktops before, changed the processor in my home PC, upgraded memory, etc. In general, I feel like I know my way around a computer. But when it came to taking my Latitude D600 apart, I was astounded. First the screen had to come off, then the keyboard, then the touchpad, the DVD, the hard drive, the memory, the mini-PCI wireless LAN, the DVD player, the back panel, what remained of the front panel. I realized something that hadn't occured to me. In a desktop, the motherboard and everything else is mounted to the case. In a laptop, the case and everything else is mounted to the motherboard.

In any case, it all works now. I don't think he left any screws out when he put it together, but frankly I couldn't keep count. Also, it may be my imagination, but the seam where the front and back of the computer join seems a little wider, and not quite as even... ah, I'm just being paranoid, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm very happy with Dell's service, although I'm still annoyed that the darn thing developed problems after two weeks.

La Shawn Barber takes Kerry to task for misinterpreting scripture:

Speaking in a black church yesterday (time to rethink that tax-exempt status), John Kerry implied that "our present national leadership" is lacking in compassion because some people don't have jobs and teenagers are killed in drive-by shootings.

"The scriptures say, what does it profit, my brother, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? When we look at what is happening in America today, where are the works of compassion," preached Kerry.
...
James gives guidance on how individuals, not governments, can evaluate their faith to determine whether it's living or dead. It is the personal works of believers that James has in mind in this passage. It wasn't addressed to Caesar.

If Kerry were a Christian, he'd know that the biblical standard of the test of faith doesn't rest on whether poor people exist or teenagers are killed in the streets. Using taxpayers' money isn't a work of faith.

She rightly points out that Kerry's confusing personal responsibility with government responsibility. This is something I've pointed out before, in the post "Christianity and the Nanny State." Compassion on the part of the government is not only inefficient and rarely able to relieve the sense of being unwanted, it also lets us Christians off the hook, discouraging us from compassion. The more the government does, the more caring for the poor is left to professionals, the more Christians fail to live up to Christ's call to care for the poor and downtrodden. Considering Bush's many personal acts of compassion, which aren't well publicized but aren't really hidden either (see here and here (scroll to the March 25th 8:36 pm entry)), Kerry's charge shows such little understanding of what the Christian faith lived out looks like that it's depressing.

As I've said before, I think Bush should contact that church and ask if he can speak before it. I'm optimistic enough to believe the church members would recognize true Christian faith when they see it.

La Shawn got an Instalanche for her post, by the way. I've been trying for weeks to get one without success. If she has any advice she'd like to share, I'm listening.

The Democrats are now promising to block any future Bush appointments until he promises not to make any more recess appointments. Senator Schumer has said, "The president's use of recess appointments to circumvent the advise and consent process puts a finger in the eye of the Constitution ..." Apparently filibustering an appointment is exactly what the constitution intended when it specified "advice and consent." Senator Daschle said, "At no point has a president ever used a recess appointment to install a rejected nominee onto the federal bench." That's a bit deceptive given that Pryor was never rejected. In fact, if a vote had ever been allowed, he would have been confirmed, but the Democrats filibustered to prevent one. As recess appointments are hardly uncommon, and have been used by such Democratic presidents as Clinton to appoint judges, Truman appointed 39, JFK 25. Deceptive or not, what the Democrats are doing will motivate Bush's base than anything Bush has ever done.

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, scares us conservatives more than the very real possibility that in our near future our laws will be decided by appointed judges, not our elected legislatures. See Donald Sensing for example. It's already happening, with the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordering the legislature to rewrite its marriage laws. I'm willing to bet that most moderates and more than a few liberals are frightened by that idea as well. Now that the Democrats have made it very clear that ideology matters more in judicial appointment than competence, that any form of judicial restraint, or "intolerant" views which happen to agree with 2/3rds of the population, are not just reasons to oppose a nomination, but reason enough to filibuster it, we're becoming very nervous about what our judicial system will look like with President Kerry doing the appointing. If Bush can successfully frame the debate on judicial nominations in these terms, strenuously arguing for the importance of judicial restraint, his base's support will be as solid as a rock. I think it fits strongly with his theme of an ownership society.

There are practical steps that must be taken here. The first is the Federal Marriage Amendment. While there may be some reason to support the Musgrave amendment, Orrin Hatch's amendment, which I personally prefer, fits better with the overall theme of curbing judicial overreach, and is much more likely to pass. If Bush were to throw his support behind Hatch's amendment, I think the Republicans who want to stick with Musgrave's would go fot it.

Second, Bush could voice reluctant support for the Bill which gives Congress the authority to overturn a supreme court ruling with 2/3rds vote (blogged here). I think it would take an amendment to do this, and I am also uncertain whether this is really such a good solution, but Bush needs to argue for a permanent solution to the problem of judicial overreach, not just the ad hoc solutions of more conservative appointees and an amendment whose sole purpose is to put a stop to one particular instance of judicial overreach.

Update: Oops, I called the amendment Gallagher's, rather than Musgrave's. Maggie Gallagher is a vocal proponent of the amendment, but Musgrave is the Congresswoman who proposed it.

Do you believe in vampires? Believe it or not, there are places in the world where the belief in vampires is still strong:

On a recent afternoon, the village's single store, which also serves as its lone bar, was filled with men drinking hard as they explained the vampire facts to a stranger. Most had at least one vampire in their family histories, and many were related to vampire victims. Most had learned to kill a vampire while still children.

Theirs is not a Hollywood tale, and they laugh at Hollywood conventions -- that vampires can be warded off by crosses or cloves of garlic, or that they can't be seen in mirrors. Utter nonsense. Vampires were once Catholics, were they not? And if a vampire can be seen, the mirror can see him. And why would you wear garlic around your neck? Are you adding flavor?

No, vampires are humans who have died, commonly babies before baptism or people unfortunate enough to have black cats jump over their coffins. Vampires occur everywhere, but in busy cities no one notices, the men said.

Vampires are obvious when dug up because while they will have been laid to rest on their backs, arms folded neatly across their chests, they will be found on their sides, even their stomachs. They will not have decomposed. Beards will have continued to grow. Their arms will be at their sides, as if they are clawing out of their coffins. And they will have blood -- sometimes dried, sometimes fresh -- around their mouths.

We tend to scoff at these beliefs, but before you ridicule these superstitious people, ask yourself why you don't believe in vampires. I'll wait.




If you are a straightforward materialist who denies anything supernatural, you're on decent philosophical ground to be scoffing at vampires. Most of us have at least some belief in the supernatural, however, and that leaves our reasons somewhat shaky. Sure, it all sounds silly, but silliness isn't a factual argument. I am a Christian, and some of the things I believe sound silly to people who aren't. They don't seem the slightest bit foolish to me. The thing is, even those who think these beliefs ridiculous aren't arguing that they're illogical, at least not within my worldview, just that they're unseemly in theirs. For someone like myself who believes not only that God exists, but also that demons do, vampires seem unlikely--I'm not saying I believe in them--but I can't rule them out entirely.

Before you materialists scoff at my gullibility, consider this: Is regular alien visitation to Earth impossible? If you believe that life on other planets is possible, then regular alien visits may be unlikely, but you can't rule them out entirely.

Here's what I was talking about this past week.

We haven't forgotten -- Even after 2 and a half years, 9/11 still brings strong feelings.

Protesting the Imperial US Hegemon -- When wacky anti-war protestors go bad. It isn't pretty.

What is a Pharisee? -- Christians like to throw around the term Pharisee in a perjorative sense, to describe hypocrites in the church. While this isn't really fair from a historical perspective, the problems Jesus ran into with the Pharisees are common enough today. Of course, anyone who calls another a Pharisee is in danger of behaving like one in the worst way.

U of R survey on Religious belief -- I describe the results of a survey which Intervarsity took of the University of Rochester.

Ralph Nader's talk -- I blog a talk given by Ralph Nader at the University of Rochester on consumer advocacy. He sounded like a conspiracy theorist, talking about the evils of our corporate society.

Richard Clarke -- A quick summary of the Richard Clarke situation for those who are interested in my take.

Rather than write about politics today, let's take a look at our favorite webcomics.

Heh, that's what happens when I cut and paste... I just repeat what I said last week. Sorry, I'll try to be more creative in the future.

Sluggy Freelance -- Kiki comes to visit as well, but it doesn't last long.

Day by Day -- The anniversary of the Iraq war brings lots of commentary from the Left, which requires lots of mocking from Chris Muir.

It's Walky! -- Fewer lawyers, more zombie time. We all breathe a sigh of relief. This week is bloody--consider yourself forewarned.

College Roomies from Hell! -- Mike lucks out yet again, but with his memory coming back in full, there's a good chance his sanity won't last.

General Protection Fault -- Yoshi finally meets s1r3n face-to-face. We aren't really surprised, of course.

Schlock Mercenary -- Breya turns to mercenary work to raise some cash.

I've been having trouble with my Dell laptop. The computer hasn't been recognizing the AC adapter, so while the computer works, it has only been running off the battery and not recharging. I dealt with it in the same way I deal with most electronic problems--I took it apart and put it back together. You'd be surprised how often that works, and indeed, the AC adapter is now recognized. I'm hoping it continues to work, but I sent an e-mail to Dell support anyway. Chances are that the computer's jack has a flaky mechanical connection. According to the Dell bulletin boards, this problem is pretty common.

In other news, I've set up a wireless router in my home. I've named it Eyrie, which is appropriate since my laptop is named Gryphon. (My main computer is Dragon, and the network is called Lair.) So far, everything is working, and the computers can talk to the Internet. I had a harder time getting them to talk to each other, but that eventually started working.

New Post: Update on the laptop situation above.

There's an interesting aticle on how the GOP became dominant in the South here. It helps to debunk the myth that the GOP gained the South through covert appeals to racism. It's an interesting article, and I highly recommend it.

I've lived in the South for 11 out of my 29 years. While there is racism in the South, it's nowhere near as widespread and pervasive as you would think by listening to Democrats. It certainly isn't the motivating force in the areas from which Republicans draw their strongest support. In the end, accusing Republicans of racial appeals is insulting to them, but it's the Southerners they're outrageously deriding. If Democrats want to win in the South, perhaps they should be less nasty to Southerners.

The big story this week has been Richard Clarke. He's been accusing the Bush administration of not being serious about al Qaeda before September 11th. This doesn't agree with things he's said earlier, but while he denies he actually lied earlier, he claims that because he worked for the administration, he spun it in Bush's favor. That explanation might work if the comments were not in direct contradiction.

When Bush came in, Clinton's ineffectual policy had been unchanged since 1998, and had accomplished nothing when it came to degrading al Qaeda. Bush decided to keep the Clinton policy in effect, even expanding it and increasing its funding, while his team put together a more complete plan, a plan whose aim was to completely root out al Qaeda. That plan took time to put together, and Bush approved it the week before 9/11. It was a three-year plan that began with diplomatic pressure, then slowly built up force to directly overthrow the Taliban and destroy al Qaeda. Then 9/11 took place, and the timeline was significantly accelerated.

This is all what Richard Clarke said in a transcript released by Fox News earlier this week. I'm not sure how you could explain away the differences between that and his current statements as just spin.

Here's the clincher, however. Even if Bush had started bombing the Taliban on the day of his inauguration (Something which, as I said earlier, would not have been possible without a public mandate. Such a mandate takes time to build, which is one of the reasons why the Bush's plan had such a slow pace.), 9/11 was already in motion. The principals were no longer in Afghanistan. I'll admit that there's a chance that if we had gone after al Qaeda then, we might have captured a higher up who could have spilled the information, but I think the odds on that are slim. (Most of al Qaeda would have slipped over the border to Pakistan, and as Musharaf didn't come around to our side until after 9/11, we would have had to go to war against Pakistan to get them.) Most likely 9/11 would still have happened, and those who are now saying we did too little would have said that 9/11 was in retaliation for our attacks on al Qaeda. You know, the same folks who are saying we should have pre-emptively attacked al Qaeda but not Iraq, that Clinton did everything he could to get al Qaeda, but what he couldn't do in 8 years Bush should have been able to do in 8 months, even if it took him five of those months to get all of his people through the confirmation process.

Of course, most of you aren't hearing anything new from me; I'm just giving a quick summary of the facts for those who are curious about my thoughts on the matter. If you really want to know more about this issue read through Instapundit, Captain's Quarters, or National Review's Corner.

Update: I've cleaned up this post considerably. There's one point I haven't made, and that's this: Clarke can make a legitimate argument that before 9/11, Bush did not see al Qaeda to be as dangerous as it truly was. The problem was that, before 9/11, no one saw al Qaeda for the threat they were, and that includes Clarke, who made a name for himself in the 90s sounding the alarm about cyberterrorism. Bush, unlike Clinton, at least developed a comprehensive strategy to dismantle al Qaeda, even if the planning did not have the urgency it should have.

Old Post: I posted about the U of R survey on religious belief here.

Looking at the results of the survey, I suppose what I find most striking is the difference between the hard science majors and the humanities majors when it comes to the "Does God exist?" question. The percentage who say no is about the same within the margin of error: 6% for the humanities and 8% for the hard science majors. The percentage who say yes is 78% for the humanities and 59% for the hard sciences. That's a difference of 19 percentage points, or a ratio of 4 to 3. What's most intriguing is the difference between those who say they're not sure: 32% to 17%, nearly 2 to 1. I've never noticed the incidence of atheism to be much higher among scientists and engineers than the rest of the population, but it does look as if more of the hard science majors are uncertain. Are they just more skeptical when compared to the general population, more unwilling to put their trust in something they can't test? I've never really believed that was the case, since the science folks I met in college believed all sorts of crazy things, but now I'm beginning to wonder. After all, while I know science types pretty well, my experience with the general population is pretty limited, so maybe I just think the level of skepticism I deal with regularly is representative.

I only took one picture from Ralph Nader's talk, from a table selling paraphernalia outside. As it was dark and raining, I guess nobody wanted to demonstrate. In any case, here's the photo.



The angle wasn't good enough to get all the bumper stickers, and I don't remember all of them, but the ones which do show say the following:

"These colors don't run... the world"
"Visualize impeachment"
"Let's not elect him in 2004 either"

Update: I think the red one says "I'd rather be smashing imperialism"

As I feared, there’s no wireless connection available. By the time this post goes up, it will be all over. Still, I'll keep a minute-by-minute account running, so you'll see what I would have posted if I had been able to live-blog.

8:45 pm -- I arrived a few minutes ago and looked for a spot with wireless. No luck, I'm afraid. There's a decent crowd here, and it will only get bigger, as the event is sold out. A lot of the people here look like students, but there are quite a few older folks here.

8:50 pm -- There are quite a few cameras set up, but none of them look like professional TV crews. I did see a van belonging to the local FOX news affiliate outside, however.

8:55 pm -- Speak of the devil. The crew setting up some way beside me is professional. R news, a local news station. They were apparently just doing a test of some sort, as they didn’t stay long.

9:01 pm -- Ralph’s coming out, to much applause. They turned the lights out, but Ralph asked that they be turned up. I’m glad, because my laptop’s pretty bright. I don’t want to be that prominent.

9:02 pm -- Ralph’s starting to talk about consumer advocacy, and the political implications. It sounds like he’s blaming the harm done by automobiles -- traffic and pollution and safety -- on the failure of the auto consumers to organize, and instead the highway lobby was in charge. He's talking about how GM and its collaborators destroyed the trolley industry. I’m trying to wrap my mind around it. From the facts he’s put out, GM may be responsible for killing some trolley systems, but I don’t see how they can be held accountable for the entire nation’s highway system.

9:07 pm -- He’s singing the praises of public transit now. Hey, I liked Boston’s public transit, but you know, I like having a car now. I tend to think consumers like cars. But then, I’m an ignorant capitalist, what do I know?

9:10 pm -- He’s now saying that if consumers spent 10 hours learning how to buy food, we could save 30% on our food budgets. I’m all for educated consumers, but most of us learned how to shop for food from our mothers. Now, perhaps they didn’t teach us very well, but I know I spent more than 10 hours of my life going to grocery stores with her.

9:12 pm -- In the sense that he thinks consumers should be more educated, I agree.

9:14 pm -- He’s just described what’s in a hot dog. I can’t stand hot dogs anyway, so I’m not particularly concerned.

9:15 pm -- He’s just told us there’s 9.5 teaspoons of sugar in Coke. He says it’s not on the label, but I already knew there were 27 g of sugar per serving of Coke. That it does say on the can. I guess he’s complaining that it doesn’t give that amount in teaspoon units.

9:19 pm -- He attributes the diversifying of the supermarket on better consumer education.

9:20 pm -- He’s plugging his website, democracynow.org.

9:21 pm -- He’s telling how he berated one of his 25-year-old supporters for not liking radishes. When he said, "I don’t like radishes." Ralph asked, "Who’s I? Is it your kidney, your liver, your heart, your mind?" Apparently it was his tongue.

9:27 pm -- He’s telling a story about how one of his books encouraged car buyers to use Ralph’s own "consumer written" contract. The first guy who wrote him about what happened said the dealer called the police.

9:30 pm -- He’s complaining about tort reform. He says that in 1840 we filed more per capita lawsuits than today. I bet class action lawsuits were rarer, though.

9:32 pm -- He’s saying that courts do not favor consumers. I have no data on that.

9:33 pm -- He’s asking now whether people in the audience have ever filed a lawsuit, aside from divorce court, saying that it’s more than average than the population as a whole. I looked around, and I was thinking it looked like 5-10%. [Addendum: His argument, of course, is that this is not a litigious society, that we in fact do not sue often enough.]

9:37 pm -- He’s now talking about doctors. He’s saying that something like 5% should not have a license (I was typing when he said that, so I’m not quite sure of the number).

9:39 pm -- He’s now talking about the success of driving smoking from public areas.

9:41 pm -- He’s now telling a story about how he ended up sitting next to a smoker who recognized him on the last flight where smoking was allowed. Apparently, the smoker was not a forgiving sort. The crowd applauded.

9:45 pm -- Apparently only 25% of Americans smoke now, down from 46% in the 1960s. 25% seems like a lot more than I thought.

9:46 pm -- He’s complaining that we’re the only country of the Western world without universal health care, without four to six weeks of paid vacation, with such a poor public transit system. Of course, we’ve also got an economy that works, but I won’t go there. But at least we’re ahead in smoking. [Addendum: In getting rid of smoking, I mean.]

9:49 pm -- He’s telling how he helped to get the automobile industry regulated. Mandatory seatbelt, collapsing steering column. He says that this improved automobile safety from 5.6 deaths per 100 million miles to 1.6 per 100 million.

9:51 pm -- Cosmetics now. Talking about how the cosmetic industry defines commercial beauty standards. I’m pretty good at ignoring it. He’s talking about how it hurts us, by causing anxiety, neuroses, even suicide. So is he suggesting suing them? He hasn’t said.

9:55 pm -- He’s talking about how banks can debit you and you don’t notice the charges.

9:57 pm -- He’s saying that schools should teach consumer education, while seller education is a big concern. I’m thinking that’s because people are rarely paid to buy stuff.

9:59 pm -- He’s now saying that crime in the suites, corporate crime, takes more money and kills more people than crime in the streets. He’s saying that 10% of health care charges are fraudulent.

10:00 pm -- He’s saying that the money cheated from people is enough to provide health care for all the children who don’t have insurance. Show me a government program more efficient and less corrupt than an industry, in any country, and maybe I’ll believe him.

10:04 pm -- He’s talking about how Soviet citizens waited in lines, now we wait on the phone. I don’t see that there’s a real connection.

10:05 pm -- He says Southwest and Fed-ex answer their phones while others do not. Why? He still hasn’t said. I figured he’d argue that it was due to some law he lobbied for. It could very well be economic competition.

10:07 pm -- He’s saying that U of R needs two new courses: consumer education and citizen skills. Citizen skills sound like Political Activism 101: calling talk shows, writing effective letters to your congressman, attention-getting stuff, using the Freedom of Information Act, getting and disseminating information. I didn’t really need help to start a blog. Political education would be more interesting to me. How to spot media bias, maybe.

10:12 pm -- He’s talking about how corporate dominated U of R used to be, and how they can’t get permission to start these classes. His applause line stated that the University trustees should take off their corporate caps and concern themselves with the welfare of their students.

10:13 pm -- Another applause line: "Too many young people today lose their twenties trying to resolve personal issues they should have solved in their adolescence."

10:15 pm -- The recurring theme: We live in a corporate society.

10:16 pm -- I agree that there’s too much "corporate welfare." I’m not a big fan of corporate handouts, but that’s my libertarian side showing.

10:18 pm -- You know, from how he talks, you’d think the bulk of the government’s money was going to corporate handouts, rather than, say, Social Security.

10:21 pm -- He’s encouraging us "young people" to be more activist.

10:22 pm -- He says that most people make less money now, in adjusted income, than they did in 1973. He’s complaining about outsourcing now.

10:25 pm -- Talk’s done. Something of a standing ovation, although it looks like a lot of people are just leaving. I’ll wait to see if there are any questions.

10:26 pm -- Question: What do young people do in a university like this where the administrators who have been bought by corporations? [If that’s true, why did they let Ralph on campus? Someone in the VRWC screwed up!] Answer: The students should organize to make sure academic values are supreme. What’s the line between academic and corporate science? Need written policy to how much time faculty can spend moonlighting. Supposedly there’s a difference [Addendum: between corporate and academic science, I mean. I never did anything for corporations, but I have friends who did. The way MIT worked, anything done on campus by Grad students had to be publishable. Maybe not everyone has this policy.]

10:30 pm -- Question: How long will oil dominate? What will this mean concerning future wars? Answer: We don’t have an energy policy to get rid of oil and gas dependency. Corporations are in control.

10:31 pm -- Question: How do we get rid of the majority political system where minorities have no power? [Addendum: That pesky democracy!]Answer: Need to get rid of the electoral college. Since can’t get rid of it by amendment, should get rid of winner take all. Need proportional system. Not regional. If state have two seats, one ballot, first place and second place each get a seat, third place not get anything. [Addendum: Plenty of people think that regional politics should no longer matter. I don't agree, as I think regional governments are more responsive than national, and anything that gives regions less power over the federal government tends to centralize government. That pesky federalism!]

10:39 pm -- Question: What happens when budget deficit causes dollar to collapse? Answer: Now he’s praising the dynamic economy, saying that this won’t happen. [Translation: he’s not concerned about the budget deficit.] He says the economy will survive because the government will bail it out. [Addendum: He quotes his father as saying: "Capitalism will always survive because socialism will always bail it out." I bet the Europeans wish someone would bail out socialism.] Danger: we’re in debt to a lot of foreign countries. He’s mixing this with the trade deficit. The trade deficit is not the same thing as foreign debt, but he’s not making the distinction, so I’m having a hard time following his argument. [Addendum: But apparently it's a bad thing.]

10:41 pm -- Question: Are our lawsuits raising consumer prices? Answer: Huh, he’s talked about this his entire talk. Now he’s praising the insurance companies for spreading out corporate costs. Hmm, I seem to remember him complaining about the fraudulent insurance companies earlier on.

10:45 pm -- It’s getting late, I’ll be getting going soon. I don’t want to stay too late.

10:47 pm -- Question: Why isn’t family helping? Answer: Corporate society destroys families. [That’s an interesting argument.] There’s a need for two breadwinners for a middle-class existence, and that draws parents apart. Television and video games make children less social, less family interaction.

10:52 pm -- Question: Why are you running for president rather than work on these issues? Answer: "We are shut out of Washington by a two party duopoly that is in bed with the corporate interests." We need consumer advocate in Washington. The Democrats are now much more in thrall to corporations than they used to be. One objective of running is to give young people opportunity to get involved. Wants universal healthcare. Wants "foreign policy that wages peace militantly." Decrease defense funding--we have no major enemies [Uh, this guy is running for President? He does know this is 2004, not 2000, right?]. Plug for votenader.org.

Update: I typed this over two hours while listening to Ralph Nader speak. I'm not a great typist in the first place, and since I was writing, not taking dictation, I spent most of that talk writing as fast as I could while listening. This inevitably led to mistakes and ugly stylistic missteps. I've decided to keep it as is, for the most part, but I'll correct any egregious grammatical errors. I may not be able to help myself with some of the stylistic things, but I'll make it clear if I make any substantive corrections. Any notes in italics that say [Addendum: More stuff here.] are later additions.

This is just a reminder that I will be blogging Ralph Nader tonight. His talk on Consumer Advocacy is at 9 pm. If I can live-blog it, I will, otherwise expect something to be up around 11 pm. I'll also bring my digital camera--maybe there'll be some fun demonstrators to photograph.

The Intervarsity Christian Fellowship at U of R took a survey of religious belief on the U of R campuses. I wrote up the results for an article in Campus Times, the college newspaper. Here's what I wrote:

This January the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship groups at University of Rochester River Campus and Eastman School of Music did surveys to begin to better understand the spiritual beliefs on the UR campuses. The survey was more informal than scientific, but given that over 194 students filled out surveys, the results lots of insight into the spiritual beliefs of UR and ESM students. The intervarsity groups will use the data to make their outreach and other programs more relevant. Probably most interesting were the responses to the four yes and no questions: "Do you believe God exists?", "Do you believe in a heaven?", "Do you believe in a hell?", and "If you believe in a heaven, do you believe that you will go there?" In all, 70% of the respondents believe that God exists, versus 8% who say He does not. The remaining 22% said they were not sure. 62% of the respondents say that Heaven exists, while 14% say it does not, as opposed to only 51% who say that Hell exists, while 26% say that it does not. 68% of those who believe in Heaven believe they are going, while 30% say they are not sure whether they are going or not, and only 2% said that they believe in Heaven but that they are not going. 80% of those who believed in Heaven also believed in Hell, while 7% said there was a Heaven but no Hell. The remainder were either not certain or did not answer the question. No one said they believed in Hell but not Heaven.

Of those who responded to thea question about religious background, 67% were from a traditional Christian background, either Catholic or Protestant, although only 84% of them said they believed in God, and only 63% had an orthodox Christian view of Jesus. Other common religious backgrounds included Jewish (6%), Atheism/Agnosticism (6%), Hinduism (3%), and Buddhism (3%). A striking 10% said they had no religious background.

Answers to the "Do you believe God exists?" question by campus and major.

Population	Yes	No	Not sure
River campus	63%	9%	28%
Eastman campus	81%	5%	14%
Hard sciences	59%	8%	32%
Humanities and social sciences	78%	6%	17%

I pretty much stuck with the facts and didn't do a lot of analysis. I'd do that here, but I don't have much time at the moment. I'll see if I can come up with more later.

New Post: I talk a bit about what I found most striking about this poll here.

There's a lot of effort to figure out who is to blame for 9/11 these days, from the Clarke book to the 9/11 commission. If we want to know who's responsible, however, it's dangerous to blame Presidents and administrations but not the people they led. No president wants to go to war without a popular mandate, and before 9/11, it simply wasn't there. It's possible that Clinton could have built a mandate based on the previous attacks, but it would have been nearly impossible for Bush to make the case in the first 8 months he was in office. It wasn't until September 11th that the American people were ready to support a war.

I think debates which ignore the political realities are missing a large part of the equation.

My small group is doing a study on Philip Yancey's book, The Jesus I Never Knew. Yesterday we had a lively discussion on a couple of paragraphs in Chapter 8, "Mission: A Revolution of Grace." The relevant paragraphs are these:

Somehow we have created a community of respectability in the church, I told my class. The down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome. How did Jesus, the only perfect person in history, manage to attract the notoriously imperfect? And what keeps us from doing this today?

Someone in the class suggested that legalism in the church had created a barrier of strict rules that made non-Christians feel uncomfortable. The class discussion abruptly lurched in a new direction, as survivors of Christian colleges and fundamentalist churches began swapping war stories. I told of my own bemusement in the early seventies when the redoubtable Moody Bible Institute, located just four blocks down the street from our church, was banning all beards, mustaches, and hair below the ears of male students--though each day students filed past a large oil painting of Dwight L. Moody, hirsute breaker of all three rules.

Everybody laughed. Everyone except Greg, that is, who fidgeted in his seat and smoldered. I could see his face flush red, then blanch with anger. Finally Greg raised his hand, and rage and indignation spilled out. He was almost stammering. "I feel like walking out of this place," he said, and all of a sudden the room hushed. "You criticize others for being Pharisees. I'll tell you who the real Pharisees are. They're you [he pointed at me] and the rest of you people in this class. You think you're so high and mighty and mature. I became a Christian because of Moody Church. You find a group to look down on, to feel more spiritual than, and you talk about them behind their backs. That's what a Pharisee does. You're all Pharisees."

All eyes in the class turned to me for a reply, but I had none to offer. Greg had caught us red-handed. In a twist of spiritual arrogance, we were now looking down on other people for being Pharisees.

In the first century, the Pharisees were a religious and political movement. They were neither collaborators with the Roman occupiers, nor revolutionaries. They attempted to find a middle ground, to be "in the Empire, not of it," to use an anachronism. Whereas today calling someone a Pharisee is a condemnation, at that time the Pharisees were respected and respectable. They made great efforts to live by the Law, which gave rise to a strict legalism and high moral standards.

Today, they are best remembered for their conflicts with Jesus. Why? What is it about them that made it so hard for them to get along with him? Well, what he often called them are "hypocrites," or "play actors." People who pretended to be something other than what they were. The passage from Philip Yancey's book points towards the problem: spiritual smugness. Anytime we look down on others because of our superior behavior, or doctrine, or worship style, deciding that we are the "better" Christians, we are acting like the Pharisees did. That is not to say that all beliefs or practices are equally good, or that blatant sin doesn't need a corrective, only that we, imperfect that we are, unable to see into the hearts of our fellow man, cannot judge anyone's spirituality but our own, and if we find that anything but wanting, we are in danger of forgetting our need for Christ.

Update: I am painting with a rather broad stroke here. As with any real-world political movement, there was a wide degree of variety among how individual Pharisees believed and acted. Many became Christians in the early years of the church. In Western thought, however, they are best remembered for their conflicts with Jesus, and I believe that conflict stemmed from the source I pointed out. Any movement which stresses individual purity runs into danger when its members believe they have achieved it.

Old Post: The earlier post is here.

In the Blogs for Bush carnival, my previous post is described as: "Back of the Envelope talks about how Kerry's association with VVAW, which was recently revealed to have discussed assassinating U.S. Senators, could destroy his political future." My first thought was "I didn't describe it that strongly, did I?" Well, I did come pretty close. I really think this story, if it were given anything near the attention that Bush's National Guard record was given, really could make Kerry's candidacy untenable, perhaps even cause him to withdraw, despite the fact that he's hardly the sort to do so. It looks like it won't get that attention, however, so it doesn't look like that will happen. It would take a prominent Democrat attacking Kerry on this, or at least a Bush ad about it, to get much media attention at all.

I was living in Boston for the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and I saw my share of protestors, big puppets and ludicrous slogans and all. For the most part I ignored them. First, I was a Grad student at the time, so I lived in my own little world. Second, their timing was always horrible. Oh, they'd have plenty of time to protest before the war started, loudly speculating about the horrors the US would inflict, but once things got going, they could no sooner organize the protest than it was all over. I remember one protest, where they slept in tents to empathize with the plight of the Afghan refugees from the war. Of course, the protest took a couple of weeks to put together, and by the time it actually happened, the tipping point had taken place at Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul had fallen, food and medical supplies had begun to pour in now that the land routes were open, and thousands of refugees, including those who had fled the Taliban years earlier, were beginning to return. The Tech article describing the protest did not deign to mention any of these things. Reading that article, I felt sorry for the protestors, who apparently had their talking points planned in advance and didn't really have time to adjust to the new realities on the ground

Ignorant and mistimed protesting is little more than annoying and amusing. This is evil:

(From this website.) This image has been circulating around the web, and well it should. I know these people love to complain about the crushing of dissent and trampling on their first amendment rights whenever someone calls them "unpatriotic" and makes them feel bad. Granted, I've never heard anyone actually called unpatriotic--I've never done it myself--but in this case I'll make an exception. This person is unpatriotic. I'll go further: he (or she, it's hard to tell) is hateful, anti-American, narrow-minded, and bigoted. As Glenn Reynolds says, they're not anti-war, they're on the other side.

Glenn's back. He was out for five days. In terms of number of posts, that's like one of us mortal bloggers being gone for a month.

Old Post: My previous post on the Bake Sale is here.

Conservatives Gone Wild has much more on the Affirmative Action Bake Sale than I do, including some about the interactions between the University administration and the College Republicans. There's more above and below the post I linked to, so keep scrolling. There's also an article in Rochester's Democrat and Chronicle. (Thanks to The Corner for the links.)

Sometimes I wonder whether Americans have forgotten September 11th. Not that it happened, certainly, but what it was like. In my case, I was frankly disbelieving. I had an indication that something was happening--I'd seen and heard some workmen listening to a radio as I walked into work. I hadn't really heard what they were talking about, but I got the impression that it was big. I was a Grad student at the time, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I didn't have a radio or a television on hand when I got to my office. The first notice I got was through an e-mail with a call to a prayer meeting, and reading that the reason for the prayer meetings were airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon--I couldn't believe it. It didn't seem possible. I tried to get online, to check CNN.com, but with all the Internet traffic that day, I couldn't get access. Eventually, a friend came by to talk to me about it, and I got a phone call from my mother (who was concerned since two of the flights had left from Boston, although she had no reason to think that I would be traveling anywhere that day), and I drained them of all the information they had, which was surprisingly little. It's not the sort of thing you forget, but sometimes it seems like we have forgotten, that two years is just too long in this age of "Internet time."

Today I was eating lunch at Pellegrino's, a sub place near U of R. The two guys sitting behind me were talking. (No, I didn't make much effort to tune them out. Call it eavesdropping if you want.) Initially, they were talking about dating younger women, and that it's important to have shared "Where were you...?" moments. They mentioned the Kennedy assassination, which neither of them could have been old enough to remember, then the Challenger shuttle explosion. Then came September 11th, which clearly wasn't relevant to the dating scene. From then on, that was all they talked about. One of them had a brother who witnessed it firsthand, and though it was secondhand, the speaker could describe his experience in detail. I left then, having finished eating, but I was reassured. Those two hadn't forgotten September 11th, and I very much doubt much of upstate New York has either. I doubt New York City has either.

Have you had a bad week? So has Senator Kerry. At least you don't have Mark Steyn to mock you mercilessly when your week goes awry:

I wonder if John Kerry has perhaps launched his descent into caricature a couple of months too early. Usually, the successful losing candidate waits till late spring/early summer before shifting gears and beginning each day with the campaign trying to explain some rhetorical triviality from the previous week that's stuck to his shoe and he can't seem to shake off.

His summary of Kerry's week is well worth the read, although curiously he doesn't talk about either Kerry's snowboarding incident or the VVAW's assassination plot, which I think are the biggest stories of the week. Since both these stories broke on Friday, maybe they came out after Mark's deadline. It just goes to show that Kerry was having a bad week even before they happened.

The snowboarding incident, where Kerry collided with one of his Secret Service agents and then called him names, reminds me of an earlier snowboarding incident.

Here are the important posts for the week:

New Computer -- This may not seem like a big deal to you, but my new laptop (a Latitude D600, 14" screen, under 5 lbs), and especially, its wireless connection, may change the way I blog.

Spain: The attacks and the election -- I finally put in my two cents on the Madrid bombings and the following electoral retreat. It doesn't look good.

Blogging Ralph Nader -- All right, I'll do it! With a new laptop, and with luck, a wireless connection, I'll be live-blogging Nader's talk this week.

Do you want a revolution? -- Reasons why I think a revolution in Iran would be a good thing.

Cheney's Speech -- I comment on Cheney's excellent speech, with extensive quotes.

Affirmative Action Bake Sale -- U of R's College Republicans have an affirmative action bake sale, but I'm not sure it's really a great idea.

Kerry's VVAW problem -- I knew Kerry's involvement with this group would pose problems, but I didn't think they'd be this big.

Rather than write about politics today, let's take a look at our favorite webcomics.

Sluggy Freelance -- Riff's back. Enough said.

Day by Day -- John Kerry, the New York Times, and Martha Stewart. So many people to make fun of, so little time.

It's Walky! -- Martians, zombies, and lawyers. Who do you think is the most scary?

College Roomies from Hell! -- Mike's sneakiness gets him into trouble.

General Protection Fault -- Yoshi runs into trouble with the law.

Schlock Mercenary -- Now that the mercenaries have a little downtime, Breya pushes for some target practice.

There's a story developing that could actually kill the Kerry campaign. I haven't discussed it since it just seemed too out there to be believable at first, but Captain Ed has been going over the details. From a New York Sun story:

Senator Kerry of Massachusetts yesterday retreated from his earlier steadfast denials that he attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plan to assassinate U.S. Senators was debated. The reversal came as new evidence, including reports from FBI informants, emerged that contradicted Mr. Kerry’s previous statements about the gathering, which was held in Kansas City, Mo. in November 1971.

“John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago,” a Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said in a statement e-mailed last night from Idaho, where Mr. Kerry is on vacation.

As I said in the Captain's comments, how do you forget something like that? I mean, Kerry seems to remember every minute detail from his time in Vietnam, considering how every situation reminds him of a new anecdote. I think a meeting where he opposed an assassination attempt and which ultimately caused him to resign the organization would be just a little bit memorable.

And I'm being generous in my interpretation of events: Kerry, hearing about the plans for assassination, was horrified at the thought, argued strenuously against it, and even after successfully opposing the idea, decided that he had to leave the organization. There are much more cynical ways of looking at it, but even this way, guilt by association makes Kerry look very bad. His involvement in a truly radical organization makes him look hopelessly naive at best, more likely dangerously anti-American even if he did have limits.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this could kill Kerry's campaign. It may be enough of a disgrace to force him to withdraw from the race entirely. As I don't think a Sharpton or Kucinich Presidential nomination are very likely, that would leave the Democratic side wide open. There isn't much telling what would happen then.

New Post: More here.

U of R's College Republicans are holding an Affirmative Action Bake Sale today. If you don't know what that is, it's a bake sale where discounts are given to women and "disadvantaged" minorities (i.e., Blacks and Hispanics). When I went by, there was a good crowd there, although to judge by the stickers they were wearing, most of them were members of the College Republicans. I didn't see any hecklers or demonstrators, which these sorts of things have drawn at other campuses.

While I'll defend the right of the College Republicans to hold these Bake Sales, I'm not a big fan of the events. It strikes me as needlessly insulting, which I guess is the point. Why should you be offended by being offered baked goods at a discount if you aren't offended by lowered admission standards and job quotas? Shouldn't that be considered even more patronizing? (La Shawn Barber has a good post on this today.) Still, it seems to me that there ought to be better ways to get the idea across. First, who is the target audience? Presumably it's those who normally benefit from affirmative action. I doubt it's to get the non-beneficiaries all riled up (and I certainly hope that's not the case). Second, will your target audience be too offended to listen to your point? The thinking might be that they won't listen unless you show graphically how offensive affirmative action is to them, but I'm still unconvinced. And I think many of them have such a low opinion of Republicans that they'll assume that the whole purpose of the exercise is either to get the non-beneficiaries riled up or to insult the beneficiaries, and they'll miss the message the Bake Sale is supposed to convey.

New Post: If you want some information on the Bake Sale itself, I have some pointers above.