I am now 50

I am now 50.

AS you can see, I have changed the name of my blog. It will no longer be the ramblings of a naive rustic looking at a too too complex world.
I am, after all, one of the most educated and informed individuals that has ever lived.
As you are, of course. We have all received educations far better than that of Egyptian scribe or Greek philosopher, and an order of magnitude better than any farmer, slave, or warrior prior to the last 100 years.
We are also, however, at the same time the least knowledgable group in generations. There doesn't seem to be a single fact, from the teachings of Jesus to the nutritional value of wheat, that has not been challenged outright.
Worse still, the idea of the evidence-based fact has fallen out of favour. Counter-arguments for ideas like global warming, antidepressant overuse, and rule of law have devolved down to little more than "Oh, yeah? Well I say you're wrong! So there!"
No one offers any evidence. No one CARES about evidence! The Da Vinci Code sold a million copies after it was proved - actually proved - that much of the basic arguments were based on a half-century old fraud.
Today, instead of fact, we have credibility. Perceived credibility, I should say. Someone is telling the truth if you believe that someone is telling the truth. Evidence and proof be damned - if Rush says it, it must be true, and all the evidence against him have been fabricated by a conspiracy of anti-Rush lunatics.
Our own technology has turned against us. We now believe that all pictorial evidence that doesn't agree with our worldview comes out of George Lucas's special effects lab, and that all documents we hate were created by some nerd on his laptop.

In such a world like this, we are left with "truthiness" - the truth as confirmation of existing beliefs. And as we sort ourselves into small microcultures of like-minded internet chatterers, we isolate ourselves from our neighbours, our culture, and our national ideals.

The end of that path is balkanization - the breaking up of a nation into a thousand mini-nations.
I wonder which group will get the nukes?

I wonder if that group will believe that they can survive a nuclear war?

I wonder if that group will believe that God wants a nuclear war?

Islamic Fundamentalism a fundamental difficulty in fighting Polio

Poliomyelitis, better known as polio, is a contagious viral disease that has been all but eliminated in most of the Western world thanks to a vaccine invented in the 50s by Jonas Salk. It has been eliminated in the First World, and almost eliminated in the Third World. India, one of the few countries where polio still kills children, reported just 66 cases of the disease last year, down from 1600 in 2002. This year, however, 325 cases have been reported already, 23 of them fatal.
Why? A few ultraconservative Muslim clerics are telling Muslims in the state of Uttar Pradesh that the polio vaccine is really a drug to sterilize Muslim children and lower the Muslim birth rate. 70% of those infected with polio this year are Muslim, even though Muslims account for only 13% of India's population. Dr Hamid Jafari, the regional advisor for the World Health Organization (WHO) on polio eradication, says "in certain places, fatwas have been issued against the vaccine."
Uttar Pradesh is a very poor region, and their hospitals and health services are marginal at best. All too many Muslims are able to believe that health workers, who ignore them otherwise, are not giving them medicine to fight polio, but to get rid of them.
This is not merely a problem for India. Genetic analysis shows that the Uttar Pradesh strain of polio has left India, and spread to at least three African countries - Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – which are fighting their own strains of polio. In addition, the virus has re-infected two neighboring countries which were polio-free - Bangladesh and Nepal.

To stop the shooters

The recent shooting in Montreal and in Pennsylvania display a fatal flaw in the Bush administration's plan to combat terror.
All of the wiretaps, all of the renditions, all the camps are based on one assumption - that the terrorists work in groups.
There is no strategy in place to deal with the lone bomber, the lone shootist.

There is a certain irony in the Republican's repeated claim that the Democrats are mired in a pre-9/11 world, and have not yet grasped the new face of the future.
The Republican War on Terror is right out of the 50s. It assumes a monolithic foe, organized though hidden, which must be ferretted out through intelligence efforts.
They fail to grasp both the ubiquitousness and the anonyminity of the Internet society.
Today's would be terrorist doesn't need an organization. He has Google to find him his firey rhetoric and his bomb-making plans. The little man in his mother's basement can shop for weapons online and have them delivered, can scope out his targets in real time using satellite pictures, and can do up his suicide note as a slide show presentation using PowerPoint.
If he's at all competent with computers, his keyboard can double as an intelligence agency, digging up the details he needs on security and vulnerability.
The day of the one man army is here.

The idea of limited war vs. total war has been talked about elsewhere. We are treating the War on Terror as a limited war right now. The military are off somewhere dealing with it - Go on about your business, citizens!
But the hallmark of total war is the absense of the civilian - everybody is a target, everyone must fight. That is what we need right now. Total war.
We need 100 million sets of eyes, watching those guys in their basements. We need to get out of our houses, meet our neighbours, set up watch programs. We need to know the people around us, if only so that we can spot the dangerous ones.
We need to become a village again, where everybody knows everybody else, and is willing to warn their neighbours if they see Joe coming out of his house with a lumpy bulge around his middle, carrying three guns.

When anyone can be a terrorist, it takes everyone to stop him.

Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea the new head of U.N.?

South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon, will almost certainly become the new Secretary-General of the United Nations, replacing Kofi Annan.
He still must then go before the 192-country General Assembly, but this vote is almost always a "rubber stamp" of the Security Council's decision.
“It is quite clear that from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-Moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly,” China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said.
The 15 Security Council member countries each checked one of three boxes on a secret ballot for each candidate - “Encourage,” “discourage,” and “no opinion.” Mr. Ban received 14 votes in favour and one “no opinion” ballot. Every other candidate received at least one veto.
The United States has made it known in the past that it does not approve of the job that Kofi Annan has performed during his term of office. They appear to view Ban Ki-Moon more favorably.
“We're very pleased with the outcome here, very pleased,” U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.

Lebanon Resolution to call for "calm".

Members of la Francophonie yesterday voted for a resolution calling for hostilities to cease in Lebanon; a compromise decision after acrimonious debate on the original resolution. The original resolution, which would have condemned the attack on Lebanon by Israel, was opposed primarily by Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, who asked that the body of French-speaking nations recognize the suffering of everyone involved. Lebanese Culture Minister Tarek Mitri stated that he would have referred a resolution more supportive of his country.

10th Canadian soldier dies in a month.

A tenth Canadian soldier died yesterday as a result of stepping on a booby trap in Afghanistan. This is the highest toll among Canadian troops in combat since the Korean War.

Armed Coast Guard in Great Lakes are OK

The arming of U.S. Coast Guard craft on the Great Lakes was authorized by both governments, stated a report released today. The agreement, made in 2003 as a result of the 9/11 attack, allows the Coast Guard to equip rubber craft with .30 caliber machine guns, in order to better enable them to prevent illegal border crossings. So long as they remain in U.S. waters, treaties dating back to the War of 1812 are not violated.

Too bad his name was Duane

53-year-old Duane Morrison, a petty criminal who had been living inside his Jeep, walked inside a Bailey, Colorado school Wednesday with two handguns and a backpack that he claimed contained a bomb. A few hours later, after taking six female hostages and molesting them, he killed one of them, 16-year-old Emily Keyes, and then himself as policemen stormed the school.
Too bad his name wasn't Ahmed.
After all, America has a huge bureaucracy designed to deter men named Ahmed from killing Americans with suicide attacks. The President himself has said that America is safer because of what he and the Republican leadership have done since 9/11.Much of the current campaigning by Republican congressmen is about how they have gone to great lengths to make sure men named Abdul or Ahmed cannot commit such acts.
Yes, it's too bad the man's name was Duane.

Sex

It all started with St. Augustine.
Back in 400 AD, this admitted sexual acrobat reformed. And, like many reformed sinners before and since, demonized his addiction.
And that is why Christianity, and, from that, America, hates sex.

Really hates sex.
Grand Theft Auto. You may have heard of that video game, how it made the news a while back. Do you remember why? Was it the fact that you stole cars, slapped people around and killed them?
Nope. It was because a hidden level let your male picture "do the nasty" with a female picture.
Sure. Stealing and killing are tolerable, but sex? Forget it.
Movies. You can see theft in a kid's movie. Graphic violence will earn you an "R" rating. But, for the real forbidden fruit, the "X" rating, you need . . . well, nudity. Not even sex - nudity!
Educators and law enforcement personnel are continually warning us that our culture is deteriorating. Well, what do they expect? We make love detestable and violence desireable.
James Bond can blast people by the score in his films, but the one time he marries, the poor woman has to die. Can't have him married, can we?
In fact, we can't even show him under the sheets. Bond is the perfect action hero - he only pretends to have sex, he only hints at it. But when he blows something up, you can see bodies go flying.
No wonder we're becoming nihilistic. No wonder the kids are shooting their schoolmates. That's all they know.
Why does the Christian Church have it in for sex, anyway? It tolerates and forgives theft and murder, despite the fact that two of the Ten Commandments expressly forbids these acts. No commandment makes sex forbidden, yet Christianity lashes out against it.
Just about everything Evangelicals are up in arms against these days is sex related. Homosexuality, abortion, . . . both aspects of sexuality.
You don't hear them railing against the violence in Darfur, let alone Bagdad. Violence can be forgiven, in a good cause. Sex can't.
The first command to mankind was to "be fruitful and multiply". If you believe that Da Vinci Code garbage, then even Jesus had sex. But Christians continue to ignore the Bible in favor of the teachings of that 5th Century reformed sex addict.
That needs to change.
It's time we got over our intolerance for intimacy. It's about time that we accepted that real men care about people, that they care for women, and that their lives are not confined to the overcharged automobile and the semi-automatic weapon.
That way lies death. Literally. For America, too.

Iran - The No Win Situation

For years the anti-war crowd has warned about the possible fallout from the Iraq war.
Well, it would seem that Iran is that fallout.
Iran is a no-win situation for the US.
1) The US cannot just launch an airstrike. Sure, they might take out the nuclear plants, but what happens if Iran decides to strike back? Normally, they would not have a target, America being so far away and all. But, guess what's just a few miles over the border? That's right, it's the United States Army, along with civilian personnel, all trying to rebuild Iraq.
Now, normally, attacking the United States army would be suicidal. But remember - these troops have been tied up by terrorist bombs and activity for some time. The equipment needs maintenance, the troops need rotation.
For once, the outcome is not certain.
Iran could also strike east, into Afghanistan and against the troops stationed there. Any attempt to reinforce or extract those troops would be highly vulnerable.
2) The US cannot invade, either. They might win.
The United States government is going broke trying to put Iraq back together. What happens when it has to put two countries back on their feet?
3) The US cannot do nothing. Iran is inching closer and closer to nuclear capabilities, and statements by the Iranian government do not inspire the feeling that they might refuse to use them. It is already rumored that Iran is preparing a suicide force for a posible counterstrike. If that force is equipped with a nuclear weapon, . . .
4) The diplomatic route is all but closed, due to the actions of the Bush government over the last few years. Nobody will listen to a bully. Nobody wants to listen. Condi will not be able to defuse this problem, I'm afraid.
Most of the world has turned on the Bush government's heavy handed tactics. The US will find no help from anyone other than Great Britain (and, now, maybe Canada), and their military is not that big.

So, what's left?
Not much. No matter what decision America makes, things are going to turn out badly for them.
My worry is, what will happen back home? Will the Bush government try to blame all this on the liberals? Will liberals be herded into prisons, to shore up the neo-conservative position? Will America descend into totalitarianism?
I hope not. Only time will tell.
But it's happened before.

Lies.

Our culture is based on lies.
Not on lies per se - not everything you hear is a lie - but on the idea that whatever you hear, no matter who the source, you probably think, or suspect, that what you've been told is a lie.

Advertising. Only a complete innocent believes the fashion ads today. Every one of them, from makeup to swimwear, is floated before you on some model's body with the unstated promise of "Wear this, and you'll look beautiful!" Right. First of all, that model with her 36" bust and airbrushed features would look beautiful if she was dressed like a bag lady and covered in oil. Your perfectly normal figure will never look like that. They lie to you.

From ads to books. Every generation has its Big Research Lie. Velikovski's Worlds in Collision. Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods. And today, The Da Vinci Code.
The book is pseudoscience from start to finish, but that hasn't stopped it from reaching the Top 10 lists. Sure, it's a lie. The people who read it know (I hope) it's a lie. But it's an entertaining lie. And people are fed up with trying to determine the truth anymore in science. Nutritionists tell you meat is bad, meat is good, and meat is unimportant - depending on whether they are paid by the Beef lobby, the Chicken lobby, or the Vegetarians. Scientists tell you global warming is real, and a hoax - again depending on whom they work for. The idea of scientists being idealistic seekers after truth vanished with the mad doctor. Today's scientist is a bottle washer who spends his day putting a drop of solution 55232 onto substrate 11965, recording what happens, and moving on to substrate 11966. The people on the podium are professional lecturers who read prepared statements. Pay them enough, and they will announce the air is fine while choking on each breath. They lie.

From books to news. In the last year or so we have seen no less than six major newsperson frauds. These people have made up facts, published them as truth, and been found out.
No less than six - and these are the ones we know about.

Where am I getting with this?
To today's polarized society, that's where. You see liberals and conservatives holding opposite opinions, neither able to convince the other, compromise, or even agree to disagree. Liberals wonder why conservatives can't see the truth, and conservatives wonder why liberals hate America. With one set of facts, why can't they reach a consensus?
It's because, when you think everything is a lie, you have to rely on faith.
Both sides take it for granted that the media is lying to them, that the scientists and newspeople and spokespeople are all paid shills saying what they're paid to say. With no credibility, there is no way to judge true from false.
So, both sides take sides. The Bush supporters hold that everything pro-Bush is true, and everything anti-Bush is lie. Liberals take the other side. Both sides simply ignore data that would disprove their side, simply assuming it to be a lie.
We now assume that everything we don't believe in is a lie.

And you cannot change a mindset like that.

And that is why liberals and conservatives will never reach an agreement.

Too much blogging is bad for your opinions.

There is a problem with blogging every day.
Unless you are retired, or have made it your life's work - or you don't have a life - you lose perspective. You rush through the daily news and write down your snap opinion of those news stories - or maybe your opinion of another person's opinion - and you don't consider the big picture.

I've taken two weeks off from blogging in order to look at all the opinions, all the news, and all the background. The next few days will be spent, I hope, telling you what I have found.

Starting with the next entry.

Condi retracts

Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice said the United States made possibly "thousands" of tactical mistakes in the war against Iraq. "I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them, I'm sure," she said.
Today, Condi retracted that statement.
"First of all, I meant it figuratively, not literally," she said. "Let me be very clear about that. I wasn't sitting around counting. The point I was making to the questioner ... is that, of course, if you've ever made decisions, you've undoubtedly made mistakes. The important thing is to get the big strategic decisions right, and that I am confident that the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people an opportunity for peace and for democracy is the right decision."

Sad.
Either she's unable to make any statement deviating from the party line without a stern call from Washington telling her to get back out there in front of the cameras and retract,
or
She's unable to understand that the government is able to make literally thousands of tactical errors, and that it's OK to admit it. A more forthright government would have no problem admitting a few faults - it's the desperate and the corrupt ones that must project an image of infallibility.

Iraq will not be pacified.

How do you stop a crime wave?
That, in a nutshell, is the problem facing the army in Iraq.
There is no organized army opposing them. No tanks to destroy, no foreign soil to occupy. The soil has already been occupied.
What they are facing are gangs going around kidnapping, shooting, and smashing things. The military has been thrown into the role of policemen - and they can't enforce the law.
No one enforces the law 100%, anywhere in the world. In New York, premiere city of the most advanced civilization of all time, the murder rate hits double digits before the New Years decorations come down. Hundreds of crimes are committed, and despite what the Law and Order franchise might lead you to believe, most go unsolved.
Why would Iraq be any different?
And why would the Bush government think that they might be able to end this crime wave?
If the troops are not going to come home until peace is achieved, then they'd better send for their wives. The kind of peace they're talking about has never been achieved. Anywhere.

Anti-Christian, Anti-American, Anti-Peace.

It amazes me sometimes how anti-Christian the vocally pro-Christian Right can be - and how anti-American the presumably pro-American Right can be.

Two stories.
No doubt you have heard about the peace activists/hostages rescued this week. Well, both Little Green Footballs and Blogs for Bush have jumped on them for their "peace activism". Apparently, Turn the Other Cheek and Blessed are the Peacemakers are not in their vocabulary. In the case of BFB, the only solution to the war is kill all the Muslim leaders and convert all the arabs to Christianity. Only this way, he claims, will there ever be peace.
Well, what did Christ know, anyway. Right?

Second story.
The anti-homosexual pastor, the Reverend Fred Phelps , has just been attacked by the Right. Why? Has the right finally started reading the Constitution allowing freedom even for the gay?
Nope. They are down on Phelps because he has been attacking America's soldiers.
Around here, you have the right to freedom of expression only if you express the right things. The Right things.
Phelps gave up that right when he attacked the Pride of the Right.
The bloggers don't seem to get it, any more than the anti-ACLU group. In a free country, EVERYBODY gets a chance to speak, even - especially - if they are saying things you don't want to hear.
Thay's why the ACLU is always getting into trouble for defending the indefensible - because in a free country, even the indefensible gets a fair defense.
The right doesn't understand this. BFB even said "Using this example, I hope that all the lefty readers here will understand the similarity between Phelps' group and organizations like ANSWER and Code Pink." What, they're supposed to cheer because the right is attacking a target of the left? It's the attitude the left attacks, not the people.

But, when you believe that only war brings peace, then your only defense is to attack people.

What is a civil war, if not Iraq?

The President of the United States, his VP, and his Secretary of Defense, all stated today that there is no civil war in Iraq. The President (?) of Iraq begged to differ.
"If this isn't a civil war, then what is?" he stated.

So what is a civil war?
Better yet, what is it not?

It is not necessarily a war where everybody is either on one side or the other, like the Korean War was. There have been many civil wars where the majority were neutrals trying to dodge bullets.
It is not necessarily limited to two sides. The war in The Congo had at least 17 armies struggling to take control of the country.
Most importantly, it is not tactics. A civil war doesn't have to be about tank battles, or ranks of riflemen. It can be a terrorist war, a shadow war.

I think Iraq is currently experiencing a civil war, no matter what the Bush government decide to call it.

Canada's Republican!

Well, it looks like the Republicans have finally gotten a Canadian Prime Minister they can find likable.
A few days ago, Steven Harper visited Afghanistan and gave a speech to the troops about "staying the course".
Today, Stephen Harper imposed central control over all information and comments to the public issued by government officials, and even cabinet ministers, telling them to have everything cleared by the Prime Minister's Office.

Sound like anybody we know?

The US Budget - $2.8 trillion!

Fact - Conservatives are people who, among other things, stand for fiscal prudence and small government.
Fact - The Senate has just passed the Administration's 2.8 trillion dollar budget.
Hypothesis - The Bush Administration is about as conservative as I am Hindu.

Saddam using George's excuse?

Saddam Hussein continues to try to turn his trial into a circus. He insists that the court has to authority to try him.
His major argument is hauntingly familiar.
"Where's the crime?" he says. He was leader of his country. Therefore all his actions were, by definition lawful.
This argument was used in Nuremburg.

And in Washington.

It is the core of President Bush's arguments concerning the warrantless wiretaps. He had the authority to circumvent the Constitution because he is the President.
I wonder if the same argument will come up when it is time to defend his policies on torture, renditions, and war.

The War of Ideas

The reaction of the Right to the Feingold proposal is typical of them.
He is a traitor to America. He is helping the terrorists. He is posturing for votes.

Poor, poor Right.
Don't they know how much they are helping AlQaida with their attacks?

Terrorism is primarily a war of ideas.
Think about it. Territory is not captured, armies do not clash. Instead, two ways of thought collide in battle, vying for the support of the general populace.
And, yes, America is losing. Why? Because we are discrediting all our ideas, all our values, all our talking points.
How do you win a war when you smash your own guns?

The battle: Democracy vs. Tyranny.
On the face of it, America should win hands down. They tell everyone that in a democracy, people have rights, while in a dictatorship, only the leaders have rights. In a democracy, dissenting voices are heard, while in a dictatorship, only the voice of the government is allowed. In a democracy, leaders are accountable, while in a dictatorship, leaders get away with murder. America trumpets these ideas to try to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.
And then?
And then protesters at official functions are made to stay in fenced off areas, away from everyone else. And then laws are passed that let private property be seized by the State under Eminent Domain. And then right wing bloggers announce that the President doesn't have to answer for his actions, because we are at war. And then the vice-president shoots someone in the face, but doesn't get arrested. And then a movement starts to remove a senator from office because he requested a motion to censure the president.
And then the average Iraqi watches these things, and thinks "They say one thing, but that is not what they really believe." And the battle is lost.

The Battle: Christianity vs. Islam.
A harder battle to win, this, because Islam has the home advantage. Still, you would think that America and Christianity have several talking points. Christians believe in love over hate, friendship over fear. They beat their swords into plowshares, forgive their enemies. The parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Widow's Mite, all paint an inviting picture.
And it's the same God.
Where mullahs call for endless war and hate, ministers call for endless help for the poor and suffering. All and all, it looks like a slam dunk for Christianity.
And then?
And then Pat Robertson calls for an assassination. And then right wing bloggers start using words like "Islamofascist", "raghead", and "wiping out the false religion". And then Christians start excusing torture, denying science, and demanding obedience to their strict lifestyle.
And then the average Iraqi, seeing this, thinks "They are not what they say they are. They do not believe what they say they believe. By their own standards, they are damned."
And the terrorists win.

And it goes on and on. The latest battle, Senator Feingold, is a good example.
It doesn't matter whether the motion is right, whether it is traitorous, whether it is intelligent.
In a democracy, he has a right to say it, and others have a right to listen.
Mind control is the mark of the tyrant. A tyrant allows only one opinion - the one that favors him. Only in a democracy are you allowed to say crazy or unpopular things.
Look at the Cartoon scandal. Someone drew something that offended the powers that be in the Middle East, and the result was riot. America proudly places itself above such things - and then? The government expresses outrage over a Tom Toles cartoon. Newspapers regularly suppress comic strips that carry controversial content, even when they appear in family comics like For Better Or For Worse, or ultrapopular comics like Doonesbury.

The technical term for someone who preaches one thing and practices another is hypocrisy.
The title of hypocrite is not bestowed lightly. It doesn't apply to a backslider - sinner, or weakling is the usual term in those cases. No, hypocrite is reserved for those who knowingly, deliberately, and willingly ignore the ethics they demand from those around them.
Once gained, it is difficult to live down.
As the Right is about to learn. Again.