Baby Porcupines

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From Boing-Boing. It's Friday and I'm tired also. This just picked me up.

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If you have DSL, today's Rocketboom is a hit. Amanda Congdon is in Russia. Wonderful romp montage.

Google Zeitgeist...sad, sad commentary

This is the week of Israel's Gaza withdrawal, breaking news about a looming flu pandemic and a surge of activities in Iraq.
And here is the list of terms according to Google Zeitgeist, attracting the greatest number of inquiries for the week ending August 15, 2005.
1.pga
2.cindy sheehan
3.courtney love
4.terrell owens
5.tommy lee
6.gas prices
7.britney spears sue
8.dana reeve
9.dove ads
10.meteor shower
11.matthew mcgrory
12.sin city
13.pamela rogers turner
14.kimberly stewart
15.rolling stones

Sleep well America.

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." (H.L. Mencken)
Or, it seems, the intelligence, curiosity or sense of priority.

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Speaking of taste (or lack thereof) check out this post by Jeff Jarvis about yet another bad-tasting variant on beer. Don't miss the comments.

Feeling the heat in Iraq

Lest my readers imagine I never drive on the right, here is a comment that caught my eye fro View From the Right

Yesterday TV was showing how Iraqis especially in Baghdad have very poor electricity service. They can’t even count on electric fans, let alone air conditioning. Yet in that heat, 120 degrees I believe, the women still go around in black robes and headscarf. A woman and her husband were shown sitting together. He was dressed in light Western style clothes, short sleeved open neck cottony shirt and slacks, light colored. She was fanning herself with a little hand fan, and complaining of how she was suffering with the heat, yet still wearing her black robe and scarf. I think the scarf was light colored; perhaps that is their version of a sleeveless dress. But do you think anyone is putting two and two together? What kind of society with that kind of heat still demands that women dress in that fashion—and no doubt the women themselves have internalized the demand for one reason or another—simply because hundreds of years ago Muhammad got a hard on looking at his nephew’s wife in her nightie? Do you think any of our modern feminists who made the panty girdle the equivalent of the chastity belt chafe at seeing those robed women walking around in misery in the 120 degree desert heat? Especially since the men are allowed to dress reasonably? Perhaps they do but they bite their tongue because of multiculturalism and not wanting to make our society seem superior in any way. (BTW, the robes and scarves are appearing on American streets as well.)

Found it via one of Stephen Den Beste's "co-conspirators" who may be more esoteric than he is.

Dot Clue, new to me

I just added a new blog to my aggregator, Dot Clue. This morning's post...

What could possibly go wrong?

Scientists are proposing reintroducing large mammals such as elephants, lions, cheetahs and wild horses to North America to replace populations lost 13,000 years ago

My favorite line is this one, which tells
me that they’re shoveling elephant dung disguised as “science”:

Reintroducing the modern relatives of the Late Pleistocene losers to North America could spark fresh interest in conservation, contribute to biodiversity and begin to put right some of the wrongs caused by human activities.

No mention of the fact that elephants are incredibly destructive to the environment, and that their populations are exploding in parts of Africa that forbid hunting.
No, wait, I lied. This is my favorite line:

“Free-roaming, managed cheetahs in the southwestern United States…”

Sounds like they’re really trying to manage the ecotourist population. :-)

Any blog friend of Stephen Den Beste is a blog friend of mine, even if I don't have any idea what the're talking about.
At least now I have a clue.
(Groan)

Blogging on the brain

Ann Althouse points to a great post from March in a blog by a couple of clinical/educational pros. I have no idea how she came by this. It goes to show how a lot of nuggets can get passed over in an avalanche of information. Recommended quick read.

Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide are physician-parents with a national referral practice for children with learning difficulties. They are strong advocates for neurologically-based approaches to learning and learning differences.

During the past five years, blogging has exploded from virtual non-existence into an important and influential sociocultural force. Recent survey data indicate that there are now nearly 10 million bloggers, 90% of whom are between the ages of 13 and 29 years old. This incredible upsurge in activity has caused us to wonder: What effect is all this blogging having on the brains of bloggers?
1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

Each of these observations is supported by a tight, well-written, easily grasped explanation. This, for example, follows #2, regarding creative thinking.

To remain popular with readers, blogs must be updated frequently. This constant demand for output promotes a kind of spontaneity and 'raw thinking'--the fleeting associations and the occasional outlandish ideas--seldom found in more formal media. (Fortunately, the permanence and easily searchable nature of archived posts helps maintain some sense of decorum.) Blogging technology itself fosters this kind of spontaneity, since blogging updates can be posted with just a few clicks whenever a new thought or interesting Internet tidbit is found. Blogging is ideally suited to follow the plan for promoting creativity advocated by pioneering molecular biologist Max Delbruck. Delbruck's "Principle of Limited Sloppiness" states we should be sloppy enough so that unexpected things can happen, but not so sloppy that we can't find out that it did. Raw, spontaneous, associational thinking has also been advocated by many creativity experts, including the brilliant mathematician Henri Poincare who recommended writing without much thought at times "to awaken some association of ideas."

Avian Flu update

Lots of stuff coming in...

The Next Pandemic?
A special section in the July/August 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs.
Editor's Note
As a call to action, the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs includes a special set of articles...[more]

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AN OUTBREAK of avian flu among wild and domestic birds in Russia is spreading west and starting to approach Europe, public health officials said yesterday.
The first cases of bird flu have been reported in the Chelyabinsk region of Siberia, close to the Ural mountains that separate Europe from Asia, though scientists are not yet certain that the virus found there is the deadly H5N1 strain.
Roads were cordoned off and hundreds of chickens were slaughtered in Chelyabinsk yesterday to contain the apparent advance of avian flu, first reported in Siberia in July and being spread westward by migrating birds. [More from the Times of London]

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The CDC predicts that a "medium-level epidemic" could kill up to 207,000 Americans, hospitalize 734,000, and sicken about a third of the U.S. population. Direct medical costs would top $166 billion, not including the costs of vaccination. An H5N1 avian influenza that is transmittable from human to human could be even more devastating: assuming a mortality rate of 20 percent and 80 million illnesses, the United States could be looking at 16 million deaths and unimaginable economic costs. This extreme outcome is a worst-case scenario; it assumes failure to produce an effective vaccine rapidly enough to make a difference and a virus that remains impervious to some antiflu drugs. But the 207,000 reckoning is clearly a conservative guess. [Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Coming Plague and Betrayal of Trust writing in Foreign Affairs. Very long. See addendum below.]

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Thanks Hugh Hewett and Stones Cry Out

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A blog was started at the end of March, Avian Flu - What we need to know, for the purpose of keeping up with Avian Flu. There have been posts almost daily. Good one to bookmark or add to the aggregator.

Addendum...
It's two days later and I have read through that Laurie Garrett paper cited above. It prints out to ten pages if you stretch the margins and use two column format. Pretty long.

There are a lot of if's, buts, mays and possiblies in the thing which makes it clear that there is no way to know with any kind of assurance what may happen. It's like predicting the big one in California, or speculating about the odds of an asteroid hitting earth. The difference is that big ones and asteroids don't seem to occur with the frequency of pandemics, so I would be careful not to dismiss the threat lightly.

If the president is reading about the great flu outbreak of 1918 I would guess he is weighing the political aspects of what could happen if there is a global disaster and he did too little, against another Y2K puff that triggered what turned out to be an unfounded exercise in overkill. Shades of duck and cover! The article suggest that any catastrophe that manifests could happen this next season or... and this strikes me as more likely...it could continue to loom for several years to come. The longer the delay, the less likely will be a political will that might cause anything constructive to be pushed through, either by Congress or by some future administration.

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Snips that struck me as interesting...

...as of May 1, about 109 people were known to have contracted it, and it killed 54 percent (although this statistic does not include any milder cases that may have gone unreported). Since it first appeared in southern China in 1997, the virus has mutated, becoming heartier and deadlier and killing a wider range of species.

... in a normal flu season about 200,000 Americans are hospitalized, 38,000 of whom die from the disease, with an overall mortality rate of .008 percent for those infected.
[In the event of a global disaster] the international community would look to the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe for answers, vaccines, cures, cash, and hope. How these wealthy governments responded, and how radically the death rates differed along worldwide fault lines of poverty, would resonate for years thereafter.

Nearly half of all deaths in the United States in 1918 were flu related. Some 675,000 Americans -- about 0.6 percent of the population of 105 million and the equivalent of 2 million American deaths today -- perished from the Spanish flu. [Statistics are incomplete. Many people perished in what we now refer to as the Third World.]... many historians and biologists believe that nearly a third of all humans suffered from influenza in 1918-19 -- and that of these, 100 million died.

Most strains of the flu do not kill people directly; rather, death is caused by bacteria, which surge into the embattled lungs of the victim. But the Spanish flu that circulated in 1918-19 was a direct killer. Victims suffered from acute cyanosis, a blue discoloration of the skin and mucous membranes. They vomited and coughed up blood, which also poured uncontrollably from their noses and, in the case of women, from their genitals. The highest death toll occurred among pregnant women: as many as 71 percent of those infected died. If the woman survived, the fetus invariably did not. Many young people suffered from encephalitis, as the virus chewed away at their brains and spinal cords. And millions experienced acute respiratory distress syndrome, an immunological condition in which disease-fighting cells so overwhelm the lungs in their battle against the invaders that the lung cells themselves become collateral damage, and the victims suffocate. Had antibiotics existed, they may not have been much help.

Influenza viruses contain eight genes, composed of RNA and packaged loosely in protective proteins. Like most RNA viruses, influenza reproduces sloppily: its genes readily fall apart, and it can absorb different genetic material and get mixed up in a process called reassortment. When influenza successfully infects a new species -- say, pigs -- it can reassort, and may switch from being an avian virus to a mammalian one. When that occurs, a human epidemic can result.

From 1998 to 2001 the virus went through multiple reassortments and moved back to domestic birds, spreading almost unnoticed in Chinese chicken flocks. It continued to evolve at high speed: 17 more reassortments occurred, and in January 2003 the "Z" virus emerged, a mutant powerhouse that had become tougher, capable of withstanding a wider range of environmental challenges. The Z virus spread to Vietnam and Thailand, where it evolved further, becoming resistant to one of the two classes of antiflu drugs, known as amantadines, or M2-inhibitors.

Over the course of this brief but rapid evolution, the H5N1 virus developed in ways unprecedented in influenza research. It is not only incredibly deadly but also incredibly difficult to contain. The virus apparently now has the ability to survive in chicken feces and the meat of dead animals, despite the lack of blood flow and living cells; raw chicken meat fed to tigers in Thailand zoos resulted in the deaths of 147 out of a total of 418. The virus has also found ways to vastly increase the range of species it can infect and kill. Most strains of influenza are not lethal in lab mice, but Z+ is lethal in 100 percent of them. It even kills the very types of wild migratory birds that normally host influenza strains harmlessly. Yet domestic ducks, for unknown reasons, carry the virus without a problem, which may explain where Z+ hides between outbreaks among chickens.

The medical histories of those who have died from H5N1 influenza are disturbingly similar to accounts of sufferers of the Spanish flu in 1918-19. Otherwise healthy people are completely overcome by the virus, developing all of the classic flu symptoms: coughing, headache, muscle pain, nausea, dizziness, diarrhea, high fever, depression, and loss of appetite. But these are just some of the effects. Victims also suffer from pneumonia, encephalitis, meningitis, acute respiratory distress, and internal bleeding and hemorrhaging. An autopsy of a child who died of the disease in Thailand last year revealed that the youth's lungs had been torn apart in the all-out war between disease-fighting cells and the virus.

The scarcity of flu vaccine, although a serious problem, is actually of little relevance to most of the world. Even if pharmaceutical companies managed to produce enough effective vaccine in time to save some privileged lives in Europe, North America, Japan, and a few other wealthy nations, more than six billion people in developing countries would go unvaccinated. Stockpiles of Tamiflu and other anti-influenza drugs would also do nothing for those six billion, at least 30 percent of whom -- and possibly half -- would likely get infected in such a pandemic.

In the summer of 1918, influenza killed far more soldiers than did bombs, bullets, or mustard gas. By October, some 46 percent of the French army was off the field of battle -- ailing, dying, or caring for flu victims. ...In the event of a modern pandemic, the U.S. Department of Defense, with the lessons of World War I in mind, would undoubtedly insist that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan be given top access to vaccines and antiflu drugs. About 170,000 U.S. forces are currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, while 200,000 more are permanently based elsewhere overseas. All of them would potentially be in danger: in late March, for example, North Korea conceded it was suffering a large-scale H7N1 outbreak -- taking place within miles of some 41,000 U.S. military forces. It is impossible to predict how such a pandemic influenza would affect U.S. operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, or any other place.

Although there is little evidence that isolation measures have ever slowed the spread of influenza -- it is just too contagious -- most governments would likely resort to quarantines in a pandemic crisis.

In 1971, the great American public health leader Alexander Langmuir likened flu forecasting to trying to predict the weather, arguing that "as with hurricanes, pandemics can be identified and their probable course projected so that warnings can be issued. Epidemics, however, are more variable [than hurricanes], and the best that can be done is to estimate probabilities."

Terrorism metastasizes

After reading a long, unsettling piece about avian flu, the unpredictable way that influenza viruses mutate, jumping from species to species...I started my morning surfing of the internet.
Wouldn't you know!
The first thing I hit was this reference by John Burgess pointing to a terrorist outbreak in Bangladesh.

...300 bombs that went off all over Bangladesh yesterday may have been crude and technically unimpressive devices but the level of organization that went into their being placed in 50 different towns and cities is worthy of note...It is also a puzzling matter as to why an organization such as Jamatul Mujahedeen would mount such a spectacularly big assault with such relatively low deadliness. Could it be that the real targets were not the innocent Bangladeshis caught in the blasts but the higher echelons of Al-Qaida leadership? ...If yesterday's mass attacks were indeed an attempt by Jamatul Mujahedeen to establish its credibility with Al-Qaeda, then particular attention need to be paid to Bangladesh's homegrown terrorist outfits. LINK

Tragic as it is, it would be unremarkable except for this...

This Arab News editorial is interesting. It posits that the rash of explosions across Bangladesh was not Al-Qaeda sponsored, but instead a plea by indigenous Islamic extremists for Al-Qaeda assistance in the future. By raising their profile, the piece suggests, the Bangladeshi extremists are showing that they're ready for the big leagues...all they need is resources.

My opposition to what we are doing in Iraq is not based on any idea that we have bad motives or are failing to get good results. The problem I see is that in a good faith effort we are inadvertently doing as much harm as good because of "collateral damage." In a broad sense, this damage, like the flu virus, spreads far beyond its immediate impact as it feeds a negative image of the US in the imaginations of ignorant populations worldwide. Combined with the equally poisonous credo of Al Qaida and its children, the result is incubating virulent groups such as this one in Bangladesh.

Another wrinkle to Israel's Gaza withdrawal

Tony at Across the Bay is a Ph.D candidate in Ancient Near Eastern Studies with focus on Semitic Linguistics, Ancient Levantine history, religion, and ethnicity studies.
Sunday's post points to some seemingly bright spots in the relationship between the post-Syrian Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority.

From the Palestinian Authority point of view, it makes sense to locate Palestinian forces on what will become Palestinian soil, instead of camping out in Lebanon, which is no longer under the Syrian domination as it was before the "Cedar Revolution."
This is a fairly long piece, heavy with content not be ingested easily by the casual reader. But if you go slow, pay attention and follow the links as you read, you will come to the end very impressed.

General Michel Aoun of Lebanon has his hands full with Lebanese issues without getting into a pissing contest between Israel and the Palestinians.

The complexities of politics always intrigues me. In this case I think we are witnessing a cascade of events set in motion by the death of Yasser Arafat. If that is so, I marvel at how powerful one individual can be just by breathing. And how quickly that power evaporates when the breathing stops.

Aoun went on to say that "a serious dialogue with Hizbullah necessitates that they clarify some ambiguities regarding thier positions on the resistance. What are the resistance's ultimate goals, and how long will it go on? What interests me more than the elimination of Israel is the preservation of Lebanon. The current approach will lead to the elimination of Lebanon before Israel."

How better to say "take your fight somewhere else?

And as an aside..

...back to the Palestinians, the Haaretz story noted what I've seen repeated in various papers about the possibility of opening a Palestinian embassy in Lebanon. This will be a good move and will continue to normalize relations between Lebanon and the Palestinians, and help take that relationship away from the grip of Hizbullah (now that the Syrians are gone). It might also put more pressure on the Syrians to exchange embassies with Lebanon, something which they have refused to consider.

This piece is rich with detail. And it isn't all dry. The following is really funny if you have done your homework.

Addendum 2: Here's the funniest soundbyte from Lebanon's unrivaled joker, and Lahoud court jester, Karim Pakradouni:

We maintain that there is one occupation and one resistance. The occupation is Israel's occupation of Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. And there is one resistance in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. We consider resistance to be legitimate, in all its forms.

Rock on, Karim, with your crazy self.

Another view from Rafah

Reader advisory: This is one of those I-report-you-decide posts. It wanders into an area that is inflammatory to the point of danger. The Israeli pullout from the Gaza strip makes it pertinent. Whether or not the details are factual, it is undeniable that the impact of reporting like this is as powerful as any ordinance.

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Mohammed Omer is a photo journalist keeping his head down in Gaza.

Mohammed Omer at twenty-one has spent his entire life living under apartheid, far more oppressive, according to Mandela than that of the former South Africa. He discovered his talent for photography in high school and is currently studying journalism at the University between roadblocks, bombings and curfews. He has worked with the New York Times as a photo guide and translator in Gaza and his photographs are regularly featured in many international publications. Today he also runs his website, RafahToday.org.
[...]
For Mohammed's safety, we cannot show you a picture of him. In the Occupied Territories, journalists are often targeted and killed. Like the United States, Israel is convinced it has a public relations problem, not a policy problem. Mohammed's pictures and stories expose the latter.
LINK

This site doesn't tell where it comes from, who puts it together or what the agenda might be. On a credibility scale I would rate it very low. It's only recommendation is that it came up in a Google search, and you know how much that is worth.

I was looking for the source of an interesting column copied in a low-traffic blog from the US. The article is from a Norwegian weekly magazine, but it is written in English. I gather that the blog host receives her information from the journalist via email.

The article is significant because it reflects a Palistinian view.
Whenever there is a conflict I always want to know as much as I can find about both sides. Understanding is always preferable to misunderstanding.

Read and decide for yourself.

The fervor—some would call it fanaticism—of the religious settlers has forced many of their secular neighbors into an awkward double game. Those who announced publicly they would be happy to leave Gaza if given adequate compensation and financial assistance in starting over have been denounced as traitors or worse by the ultra-Orthodox. Many received death threats, were harassed or even beaten. As a result, many secular settlers have secretly approached the Disengagement Management requesting compensation and voluntary evacuation, while in public, to preserve their safety, offering lip-service to the hard-liners. Making matters worse, the Sharon government has been painfully slow in announcing re-settlement plans, and the promised compensation has yet to be paid.
[...]
Many observant modern Jews had never heard of the Pulsa d'Nora ceremony (the "Scourge of Fire"), let alone seen it, when footage of the medieval rite recently surfaced on Israeli TV. Rooted in Kabalistic lore and ceremonial magic, the ritual calls down the most elaborate and dire curses on its target. A description sounds like a piece of horror fiction: twenty black-robed rabbis enter an underground cave in the middle of the night, light black candles, and keep repeating after the leader the name of the one to be cursed—most recently, "Ariel Sharon." In solemn prayers, the rabbis called upon the Destroying Angel to kill Sharon. Further, if by chance the rabbis misjudged the situation and their intended victim, Sharon, does not deserve death, then, they stipulate, may the Destroying Angel kill the twenty rabbis.

The extremist rabbis make no secret of the fact that the Pulsa d'Nora ritual was done against the late Israeli Prime Minister Itzak Rabin and, they insist, it succeeded brilliantly. In fact, a fanatic young Israeli student, Yeghal Amer, assassinated Rabin, but according to the rabbis, it was really the Destroying Angel at work.

This shocked me. It sounds like an anti-semitic urban legend. I checked it out, and sure enough, it happened. LINK...LINK
Here is an interesting exchange that captures the conflict in a nutshell.

Dabi Rosen, spokeswoman of the Gush Katif Regional Council, is never far from her cell phone these days. "I'm on my way back to Gaza from a setter's demonstration against the Prime Minister," she said in a phone interview. Ms. Rosen has often stated her outright hatred of Palestinians.

Told that this reporter was writing for Morgenbladet, she interrupted to say, "Oh, we have many good friends and supporters in Norway working against the disengagement."

Although I gave her my name, I am still not sure whether she simply wasn't listening, or perhaps thought ethnic Norwegians are often named "Mohammed."

Why, I asked, did Sharon want to evacuate the Gaza settlements?

"Sharon has personal problem with corruption," she answered, "but we settlers are the ones paying the highest price. Of course," she added, "the Palestinians will starve when we leave. We have been employing them in our settlements, but once we're gone, this will be nothing but a jail for them."

"Have you ever looked at a map of the world?" I asked her.

"I have one with me," she replied.

"Then how," I asked, "did it happen that Israel is sitting in the middle of 22 Arab nations here in the Middle East?"

"The word 'Palestinian' doesn't exist," she shouted. "There are no Palestinians! All this land was given to us by God! And if you refer me to the world map, I refer you to the Scriptures!"

I resisted the temptation to ask that if Palestinians did not exist, to whom, then, was she speaking? Instead, I asked her opinion of Sharon—if, as she'd often stated, Sharon was doing a grave disservice to Israel and the Jews, then who was Sharon serving in his war against the Palestinians?

I didn't get to finish the question when Rosen shouted, "War against Palestinians? What do you mean? It's the Palestinians who are killing Israeli citizens."

Michael Yon: talk radio interview

I listened online to the Michael Yon interview Sunday night.
Those who have been reading his reports know that he is being called the "Ernie Pyle" of the war in Iraq. As an independent reporter he has few peers. Spellbinding reports.
The program didn't have anything dramatic, but hearing a voice to go with the reports makes them seem even more real. As you can see, I am a fan of Michael Yon.
Bookmark for listening later -- maybe over the weekend -- the program is now available online.

This morning's latest blogpost is not a letdown.
To see a video of an IED exploding click on the post title.
This guy reports like Mozart writing a sonata. It seems to pour out of him already organized and polished. When the book is published editing will be a snap. Check this out...

A fanatic who straps a bomb to his chest and walks into a market crowded with women and children, then detonates a bomb that is sometimes laced with rat poison to hamper blood coagulation, is properly called a "mass murderer." There is nothing good to say about mass murderers, nor is there anything good to say about a person who encourages these murders. Calling these human bomb delivery devices "suicide bombers" is simply incorrect. They are murderers. A person or media source defending or explaining away the actions of the murderers supports them. There is no wiggle room.

Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “she was asking for it.” In other words, like the empty rationalizations of a depraved criminal.The word martyr is derived from the word "to witness." It is used to describe a person who is killed because of a belief or principle. Given the choice to recant, martyrs chose instead to face their murderers and stand in witness to their beliefs. True martyrs do not kill themselves, but stand their ground and fight in the face of death to demonstrate the power of their convictions, sometimes dying as a result, but preferably surviving.

The only martyrs I know about in Iraq are the fathers and brothers who see a better future coming, and so they act on their beliefs and assemble outside police stations whenever recruitment notices are posted. They line up in ever increasing numbers, knowing that insurgents can also read these notices. The men stand in longer and longer lines, making ever bigger targets of themselves. Some volunteer to to earn a living. This, too, is honorable. But others take these risks because they believe that a better future is possible only if Iraqi men of principle stand up for their own values, for their country, for their families. Theses are the true martyrs, the true heroes of Iraq and of Islam. I meet these martyrs frequently. They are brave men, worthy of respect.

Another scholar looks at our ME policy

F. Gregory Gause 3rd is an associate professor of political science at the University of Vermont, where he directs the Middle East Studies Program. This article is based on an essay that will appear in the September/October 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.
This makes sense to me.

Although little is known about the causes of terrorism, available data does not show a strong relationship between terrorism and democracy. The political scientists William Eubank and Leonard Weinberg have shown that most terroristincidents in the 1980s occurred in democracies and that generally both the victims and the perpetrators are citizens of democracies.

In his recent book "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," Robert Pape argues that the targets of suicide bombers are almost always democracies, but that the motivation of the groups behind those bombings is to fight against military occupation and for self-determination. Terrorists are not driven by a desire for democracy but by their opposition to what they see as foreign domination.
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Those who assert that democracy will reduce terrorism presumably believe that potential terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, given the opportunity to participate openly in competitive politics and have their voices heard in the public square, will not resort to violence to achieve their goals.

But it is just as logical to assume that terrorists, who rarely represent political agendas that could mobilize electoral majorities, would reject the very principles of majority rule and minority rights on which liberal democracy is based. If they could not achieve their goals through democratic politics, why would they privilege the democratic process over those goals? It seems more likely that terrorists and potential terrorists would attack democracy if it did not produce their desired results.
[...]
...it is highly unlikely that democratically elected Arab governments would be as cooperative with the United States as the current authoritarian regimes. To theextent that public opinion can be measured in these countries, research shows that Arabs strongly support democracy. But many Arabs hold negative views of the United States. [Really? Izzat so???] If Arab governments were democratically elected and more representative of public opinion, they would thus be more anti-American.

Hello.
Seems to me that is already happening in Iraq. How many other people are pointing at a king in his underwear?

Again, thanks to the Aardvark.

When ideas fail the smell test...

...there might still be possibilities. Is there any way to adapt one of these to be used by politicians?
Gotta be Extra Large, of course.

Interview with the widow of the late Stephen Vincent

I am listening to the voice of Stephen Vincent's widow, a model of excellence impossible to describe here. She is clear, strong and articulate.
Vincent's tragic death by assassination will always be remembered as one of the war's noblest sacrifices by a journalist. He was about to come home, got careless, and was killed as a result.

He wrote back to me in his last email to me, "I'm really tired, it's 135 degrees in here, and this heat is really wearing on me and I've been just going every day." And I think--he didn't get killed--but he let his guard down and went out on the street when he really shouldn't have. But I think he thought that because he had been there so long, and was only going to be there for another two weeks, that it would be okay. And he forgot about the phone calls, and he forgot about Nour being approached--and they got him.

This is the most gripping audio stream that I have heard lately.
It's not short, but it is truly excellent.
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If this is any sample of what open source radio is like, terrestrial radio had better start reorganizing what it does. A transcript would not be the same. An oral report has too many words to make for good writing. Speaking is to communication the next best thing to a picture, which is why television is better than radio. (And radio is better than a newspaper if you are driving a car. Or if you cannot read. A good many people are either illiterate or unable to read a language that is not their mother tongue.)
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Thanks to Judith Weiss for the link.

"Waiting For The Barbarians"

I'm cheating.

Somebody among my referrals was looking for this poem in a Google search and the search hit this post from last November. I had completely forgotten about it, but now that I see it again I really like it. Better than before. All I have to do to is change the time and date and voila...it's back on top!

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In November it was referring to the upcoming election. But now it can be understood as the end of the war in Iraq. (I think it is euphemistically being called the "transition period" as we leave that torn and bruised land with fingers crossed, hoping the place doesn't implode in civil war.)

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Looks like the barbarians haven't followed the game plan very well. They were expected to swarm over to the battlefield like a bunch of insects to be killed out as a group. Instead they have stayed in their respective homelands -- Britain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany, wherever -- making mischief all over the place. The Global War on Terrorism looks a lot more global indeed than it did when it was announced.

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Meantime the democratically elected leadership in Iraq seems to be cozying up with their former enemies in Iran. Uh, except for the Sunnis at one end who can't seem to tolerate their Shi'ite duly elected "leaders." And also those contrary Kurds at the other end of the country who want their own separate country.

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Not to worry, though. There will always be plenty of barbarians to go around. When you are the United States you can find them no matter where you look. I don't think we will be hurling stones at too many other countries, however, for a couple of reasons. First of all, we will have to start some diplomatic smooth talk, damage control, if you will, for our conduct over the last couple of years. Also, a good many candidate countries have contributed new Americans whose military service puts them on the fast track to US citizenship. It would be impolitic to malign their various mother countries. I'm working on a post about that for later.

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I think the plan is to shift the focus of patriots from the putative enemies who have been killing off our children in uniform to the domestic traitors who spoke out against the war. Timing is very important here. If things end too quickly, voters will forget the details by the next presidential election. It is important, then, that there be some freshly-spilled blood (not too much, though) maybe even as late as 2007.

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If they play their cards right, the party in power can pin any problems, social, economic or military, on those whose less than enthusiastic support for this war have become the barbarians in our midst whose lack of understanding is the font of all problems. See how that works?

...

..

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Waiting For The Barbarians
C.P. Cavafy

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

***

This poem has been circulating through the blogosphere lately. I ran across it a couple of places. It seems relevant to election day, since it points to one of the oldest leadership principles in history: we need an external threat to keep us unified. Any student of history can rattle off half a dozen examples, from China (why the Great Wall?) to Germany (Arians against the Jews) to Oceana, imortalized in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Who might today's barbarians be?

Hmm...

Mission Accomplished

Today's Washington Post...

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

Hey!
I wanna see which "U.S. officials" would say such a thing?
Surely not anybody speaking for the president. That would be a clear indication of someone trying to undermine morale and torpedo hopes for winning this thing.
C'mon, guys. Let's come clean and get a little transparency in government.
Who's talking this trash?
Patriotic Americans want to know!

As if that isn't enough, look at this!

Pentagon officials originally envisioned Iraq's oil revenue paying many post-invasion expenses. But Iraq, ranked among world leaders behind Saudi Arabia in proven oil reserves, is incapable of producing enough refined fuel amid a car-buying boom that has put an estimated 1 million more vehicles on the road after the invasion. Lines for subsidized cheap gas stretch for miles every day in Baghdad.

Oil production is estimated at 2.22 million barrels a day, short of the goal of 2.5 million. Iraq's pre-war high was 2.67 million barrels a day.

Why bring up oil, for goodness' sake?
Besides, who's worried about oil production levels while our troops are being killed?
This is not about oil! This war is about freedom and democracy!
C'mon, now.

As the rest of the world watches...

It is hard to predict how history will interpret what is about to happen in Gaza. Jews who came to work, live and rear families in Gaza are being officially (and forcibly) removed by other Jews!

“Normally we would storm a house killing everyone inside, whereas here we have to storm the house and keep everyone alive,” said one commander. “It’s not an easy job.”

This story from the Times of London is a case study in progress. There is something surreal about the whole affair.

Among the 60,000 Israeli soldiers and police being deployed this weekend are special “negotiating teams” that have been training for weeks to deal with maverick extremists.

Commanders will first approach their houses, hoping to persuade them to drop their weapons while gaining time for their commandos to prepare for any assault. The psychologists and religious officials will follow in a back-up team. With 17 soldiers to each house, the army is confident that no detail has been overlooked.

Rafah Pundit isn't expecting any big fuss.

In about twelve hours Disengagement (Disneygagement™ as we call it!) will begin and I haven’t a scooby what is going to happen. I believe most settlers will “go quietly”, making a token resistance, in a non violent way, their way of protesting what they see as the unfairness of the situation. From what I can gather the majority of Israelis will have little sympathy for them, their main concern will be whether Disengagement will result in an increase in the amount of terrorist attacks from inside Gaza.

I’ve rung round some friends in Rafah and they seem, for the most part, slightly disinterested, sceptical perhaps of what comes next. They are getting all their news from Israeli TV and very little from their government. They heard on the TV that the settlements will now be destroyed but haveheard little else.

One friend told me that it looks like Morag is already empty and that all the settlers and soldiers have left. Most are just watching the TV and waiting to see what happens next. Most believe that Hamas will not strike at the departing settlers because the repercussions from the public would be significant and Hamas are actively looking for the popular vote in Rafah.

While we here at Rafahpundits HQ are still sceptical of this being a move towards Palestinian statehood and self-determination there is some optimism about the future of Gaza post Disengagement (and to be feeling optimistic with a hangover this size is going some).

Heads up! Everybody! PunditDrome is keeping track...

So you're a big time, top-tier, high-traffic blogger?
Wanna feel like one of the crowd?
Didn't think so.
Well, get over it. At PunditDrome you are just one of the crowd.
Makes me want to drop Bloglines. Why bother? In fact, it makes me wanna quit blogging altogether. Work your tail off getting to the top and what happens? Get tossed in a basket with all the other Christmas candy.
Sigh.

Oh, and while you're there, don't think that what you are looking at is all there is. Beneath the banner is Second Page Liberal Conservative Centrist & Libertarian CurrentsComputing Science Canada Malaysia Minnesota UK GLB&TArts & Society Lawyers Academics African-American Food Humor Markets & EconomicsMuslims Christians Jews.

Terrorism has no gradients

Check this out:

The way [the British press] cover terrorism means that a person’s death at the hands of terrorists could be presented in many different ways.

For example, if you are killed by Abu-Mussab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, the BBC will say that you have fallen victim to “Iraqi resistance”. If you die in a terror attack in Sharm el-Sheikh you will be a victim of “Islamic militants”. If you are killed in Haifa you will be said to have fallen at the hands of “radical Palestinians.” Those killed in Spain are victims of “Basques separatists”, and if you die in Colombia you would be a victim of “leftist guerrillas”. In Kashmir anyone who dies would be a victim of “Muslim independence fighters.” Only if you die in Britain or the United States the BBC will describe you as a victim of terrorism.

The BBC is not alone in its posture. Several major British and American news agencies and quite a few reputable newspapers have banned the word “terrorist” except when Britain and the United States are attacked.

The belief that some terrorists are good and others bad can lead to other absurd situations. Each year, the Islamic Republic in Tehran celebrates the anniversary of the seizure of the American hostages as “a glorious day” in its history, although, under the Iranian Penal Code, taking hostages is a crime, punishable by 15 years imprisonment.

In August 1978 Khomeinist terrorists set the Cinema Rex in Abadan on fire, killing almost 600 people. The apologists of the regime regard the incident as “an historic moment when the true believers showed their just anger at a symbol of Western corruption.”

The claim that terrorism could be good in certain circumstances is based on the dictum: the ends justify the means.

The dictum amounts to a zoological definition of politics in which there is no room for ethics and law. All that you need to do is to claim that your cause is just and then grant yourself a license to kill as you please.

There is no taxonomy to terrorism assigning gradients of morality by measuring each instance against a variety of possible "causes."
In every case terrorism is an unmitigated evil. Period.

Now guess where this was published.

Food business war stories

Thanks to several decades in the food business, I am partial to stories about the business, especially anything illustrating the variety of human experience that is sure to surface when you start dealing with thousands of people. There are stories of medical problems, technical glitches, food disasters (or successes) and robberies, but the best stories are about the public. When any food business opens the door, the curtain rises on a stage. When good actors know their lines the play goes well. But when the players lose their places there can be hell to pay.

I discovered Waiter Rant a few weeks ago (via The Anchoress, who got it from Amy Welborn) and have been reading the stories ever since. The writer's day job is as a waiter, but when he takes to the keyboard he is clearly on the way to putting together a book. If he plays his cards right, and is fortunate enough to have a smart publisher who realizes that since most of America has spent at least some time in food service -- many more than the military or secondary education, I would guess -- there is a good market for well-done books about the nitty-gritty details of the business.

The latest Waiter Rant vignette is typical, and fun. In under forty-eight hours there are already ninety comments in the thread. Lots of people can relate to his stories. [Uh, language advisory for prickly readers...]

I take a deep breath and try and get my temper under control.

Suddenly another customer, an older gentleman lunching with his wife, speaks up, “Watch your mouths guys; you’re in mixed company here.”

Goatee laughs the old man off.

Now I’ve been a young man. I’ve done many of the stupid things these guys are doing. I pray for patience. But I remember when I acted like an idiot someone, my father or another older male, smacked me into line. I walk over to the table.

“Hello gentleman,” I say cheerily, “are you enjoying yourselves?”

“Yeah,” Goatee giggles.

“Good,” I reply, “But I have to ask you gentleman to watch your language.”

Goatee bursts out laughing.

“Or I’m kicking you all out,” I continue.

Now they’re looking at me.
“Excuse me?” Goatee asks in shock.

“Find your manners sir…..” I start to say.

Goatee starts to blush.

“……and find them now.”

The boys are quiet.

“Thank you gentlemen,” I say departing the area. The old man nods gratefully,
The trio keeps it on a low level the rest of the meal.

Goatee glares at me contemptuously once or twice. Oh well. Life’s tough.

I was looking at some old stuff I collected from a Message board and came up with this from an assistant manager who was witness to an embarrassing encounter between his boss and another boss two tiers up the flow chart. Life in a cafeteria is not always the picnic it seems to be.

I was just thinking today about all the times my DM and other officials embarrassed me over the years. Too many to count and recall, but one in particular still sticks in my craw to this day...

It was a Hot, Humid, Summer Sunday afternoon around 4PM, 60 some people in line for the early dinner rush. By this time, we had served almost 400 people. Not overly busy, but when you are short 3 line servers, leaving you with a 72 year old salad server and a mentally challenged high schooler serving bread, you feel like you have served 10,000. My GM was already in a fowl mood, as she oftenwas on Sundays, everyday really... but I digress, and in walks none other than....the King of the company and his lovely wife....

At this particular time, the dining room was trashed, the line was backed up and forgive me, yes 2 pans were empty on the line. The GM was running the line and I was trying to run the customers down the line as quickly as possible. He walks up and down the line without a Hey Y'all or nothing and pulls out his cell phone. Maybe he was calling to order a pizza, I don't know, but my curiosity was building by the moment. Then he looks up at the line, sticks out his finger and beckons my GM rudely off the line with "You! I need to see you now."

She walks off the line by the salad bar. As if he was Chef Paul Prudhomme himself, he started pointing to food items and loudly saying "...off MY line, NOW."

He walks out into the dining room and pulls out his cell phone again. He had called our DM and was ranting loudly on his phone in the middle of the dining room stating how incompetent the management was at this unit and the food look disgraceful!! By this time, most of the customers in the line and dining room were all staring and ears perked. My GM left the dining room in tears and he followed, his wife standing bewildered by the cash stand.

Ten minutes later my GM walks out of the office, pocket book in hand and out the door she goes. The King comes out with an "I did good" look on his face not realizing he had just run off a 22 year veteran, who was merely caught on a "bad" day, turned to his wife and stated, "lets eat at Red Lobster"

"Good. Please do" a nearby customer uttered, and he turned and yelled down the line at me, YOUR DM will be here in 2 hours, I suggest you get this mess cleaned up. I totally lost respect for him that day, not that I had a whole lot for him anyway. Mind you he had been in a month before praising us for our $8.75 check average and new unique food items on the line. He invited my Gm and I to join him and his wife at their table and we yapped for an hour, he wasn't too concerned about the line and short staff issue that day.. what was the change?

My GM quit that day, and the big boss followed suit that following month. A regular customer came up to me a while later after he had left and things had quieted down and asked me "Who was that rude gentleman who just came in here and turned this place upside down?"

I was glad to say that was the CEO of the company and kindly added with great sarcasm how "proud" we were of his leadership and accomplishments...

She replied with a simple "Oh, in other words he's an asshole." The lady was about 75 years old and words like that just didn't seem right coming out of such a sweet looking "grandmotherly" person.

After that day the GM was replaced twice, the check average returned to mediocrity, the customer counts fell drastically, and 5 months later the unit was closed. I quit soon after the first new GM came in. The first indication he wasn't going to work out was when he came in asked me when he could take his lunch break.....

Frank Gardner interview

So who is Frank Gardner?
Glad you asked.
In his own words, "I am in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, I am crippled for life, I will never walk again, I will never run into the sea with my children, I will never dance, walk up stairs, climb a mountain or do any of the things I love. At the age of 44, my physical active life is over, yet I have received no compensation from the Kingdom. Now this would be understandable if I was out there on my own, as I have done in the past but I was not. I am very upset about that. On one hand, I am very grateful to the ministry of the interior and Prince Salman, but I am very angry with the Ministry of Information. I hope that the new Minister will make amends to the situation." Those of us who don't regularly get our news from the BBC wouldn't know without looking it up.

BBC Security Correspondent since 2002, Frank Gardner is the only British TV journalist dedicated to reporting on the "War on Terror" full time.

Frank, 42, has reported from all over the Arab world, as well as the Balkans and South America.

Fluent in Arabic and deeply well-informed about the Arab world, Frank exercises expertise and insights into the complex realities of global terrorism, Al-Qaeda and the environment in which it operates.

Recently his reporting on Al-Qaeda has taken him to Yemen, the Horn of Africa, Guantanamo Bay and the USA.

Before the shooting of Sunday 6 June - in which Frank was injured and a cameraman was killed - his most recent report was a From Our Own Correspondent dispatch on Radio 4 depicting the unease sweeping Saudi Arabia's expatriate communities in the wake of terrorist attacks.
LINK

John Burgess points to an interview in Asharq Al-awsat .

...Unlike many in the BBC, Gardner is not a moral relativist. If he ever had any inclinations in that direction, I never saw them in my dealings with him. Especially after the attack, and those in London, he isn’t giving anyone a free ride.

His recollection of the attack, in which his cameraman, Simon Cumbers, was killed is worth reading on its own account. Gardner is not enamoured of US policy in Iraq, as he makes clear. His criticisms, though, are not off-the-wall.

Perhaps more interesting are his observations on how Al-Qaeda uses the Internet in a game of cat-and-mouse with Western intelligence. Also of note are his comments on the Saudi committment to fight terror, his treatment by the Saudi Ministry of Interior (good) and Ministry of Information (none). He’s quite angry at the Ministry of Information, and with good cause. They were the most useless ministry in the government when I was working there. With a new Minister, they can only improve.

He said to read the whole thing.
Everybody says that.
Well I did, and it is worth the time it takes to do so.
On mornings like this, when I want to go surfing to find all kinds of clever items to post, showing how very cute I am to find such treasures on the internet, I am gripped by the feeling that getting informed about what is happening in the Middle East is more important. Maybe nobody will ever get their head around enough of it to make any difference, but I have to believe that the more informed everyday people are, the better the chances that we will be able to give more informed input to elected people as well as our peers in casual conversation.

This is a short clip from the interview.

A man called Faisal Al-Dakheel gave the orders to kill us, and the first person I saw get out of the car was a man called Abdullah Al-Subaie, who was killed in December of last year in the attack on the Ministry of Interior. I remember very clearly that he got out of the car, and he came up to me smiling and said "Asalam Alaykum" and I said to him "Alaikum asalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatahu", he then took out a gun and shot me.

For me, someone with a degree in Islamic studies, who respects Islam and has a great love of the Arab world, this was one of the worst moments of my life. To have somebody say "Asalam alyakum" and then shoot you, that was a terrible thing. I have spent so much of my life telling people that Muslims are good people, that there are genuine grievances in the Arab world, that you can understand why people are angry when they look at Iraq and Palestine, but that does not mean that Muslims are violent people, and then for something like that to happen is a terrible thing.

I am enormously grateful to the Saudi police for rescuing me, and to Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz for making sure I received the best medical treatment possible at the King Faisal specialist hospital, and to the Ministry of Interior generally for investigating the attack. I am very disappointed that more than one year after the event, we have never had a letter of condolence from the Ministry of Information. We put our trust in the Ministry of Information and did not go on some mad trip of our own. We put our faith in the Ministry of Information to look after us and they drove us around Riyadh . Yes, we did ask to go to al-Suwaydi, but we did not want to go deep into it.