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April 29, 2005
Evolutionary Psychology Takes A Hit
Sharon Begley in today's Wall Street Journal reviews a book that delivers some serious blows to the theory of evolutionary psychology. This theory, which has entered the public consciousness because it just seems so logical, attempts to explain certain common human behavioral patterns (such as older men marrying attractive, much younger women; or stepfathers abusing their stepchildren) by implying that we modern humans have "hard-wired" traits that originated in our pre-historic ancestors.
In a nutshell, evo psych argues that Pleistocene humans who engaged in certain behaviors left more descendants than did contemporaries who did not engage in those behaviors. As a result, we, their descendants, are wired for the behaviors.
But as Prof. [David J.] Buller, a professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University, dug deeper, he concluded that the claims of evo psych are "wrong in almost every detail" because the data underlying them are deeply flawed. His book "Adapting Minds," from MIT Press, is the most persuasive critique of evo psych I have encountered.
Begley goes on to recap Buller's examination of the empirical data behind these and other traits evolutionary psychology attempts to explain; these data all have bad flaws, such as the study that found that men preferred an age of 25 years in a potential mate. Buller discovered that the men who answered the poll were themselves only in their late twenties, on average. Similar problems plagued the other conclusions.
Moreover, Begley notes that even beyond the data there are serious questions about evolutionary psychology: if rape (as the theory goes) is an "advantageous reproductive strategy", why then do the great majority of men abstain from raping? Or if the tendency to abuse their stepchildren is hardwired into stepfathers, why do most stepdads refrain from abusing their non-biological children?
Begley, at least, is convinced:
After "Adapting Minds," it is impossible to ever again think that human behavior is the Stone Age artifact that evolutionary psychology claims.
Sounds like a book to add to my (considerable) stack.
Posted at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Ahh, The U.N. We All Know And Love
Via The Corner:
"Zimbabwe, the human rights pariah accused of violence, intimidation and suppression of free speech against its people, has been re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Commission for a three-year term over the strong protests of Australia, the US and Canada."
Can anyone provide me with any reason at all why this useless, malignant bureaucracy should not be raized to the ground? (Please excuse the mixed metaphor...my blood pressure's a little high right now.)
Posted at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Hollywood vs. Historical Accuracy
Excellent post by Logical Meme on Hollywood's little problem with historical accuracy. If The Village Voice cries foul, it just has to be bad.
Posted at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 28, 2005
Tax Reform Update
Here's an informative update on the state of the Bush administration's efforts to reform the tax code. Author Liz Ann Sonders is Chief Investment Strategist for Charles Schwab & Co., and sits on the bipartisan Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform (via Free Republic). Some good bits (emphasis mine):
Since Feb.16, we have held seven public meetings across the country. [...] We repeatedly heard that our system is needlessly complex. [...]
Increasingly, Americans are looking to experts for help navigating this complexity, with over 60% using a paid preparer to compute their taxes. [...] The complexity of the tax code is costing the U.S. economy about $140 billion per year, according to commission estimates that take into account the size of the IRS budget, out-of-pocket tax preparation costs, and the six billion hours individuals and businesses spend annually preparing their taxes. That’s roughly the same as giving $1,000 to every family in America, or the amount of money needed to fund all of the following: the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, NASA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, the United States Congress, our federal courts and all foreign aid.
This is staggering, and very depressing. It is a monument to the power of the bureaucracy and of special interests armed with smart lobbyists. Sonders goes on:
Two of our more distinguished witnesses, James Baker and Alan Greenspan, told us that a broad-based, low-rate tax system would provide the greatest economic efficiency, simplicity and ease of administration. It was observed that the wave of tax reform in developed countries around the world during the past two decades reflects the view that low-rate, broad-based, progressive systems are fairer and more efficient than tax codes laden with special provisions that must be subsidized by higher rates on all taxpayers. [emphasis in original]
As Ms. Sonders points out, the need for and benefits of tax reform are points that everyone agrees with. Of course the gordian knot arises from...who, exactly? Who can possibly defend the utterly wasteful and unfair system we now labor under? This is one of those issues you'd think a liberal could support...the potential for freed-up (if not increased) revenue ought to be a spur even to the Democrats.
Posted at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)April 27, 2005
Bob Dole On The Constitutional Option
Bob Dole argues persuasively in the New York Times for adopting the "Constitutional option", which would require only a simple majority for confirmation of federal judicial nominees (nod to Decision '08). Highlights:
When I was a leader in the Senate, a judicial filibuster was not part of my procedural playbook. Asking a senator to filibuster a judicial nomination was considered an abrogation of some 200 years of Senate tradition.
In the traditional spirit of Senate congeniality, Dole would prefer a negotiated settlement among the warring sides. But he notes that if majority leader Bill Frist cannot persuade the Dems to abandon their obstructionism, Frist could very well move to change the Senate rules:
By doing so, [Frist] will be acting in accordance with Article I of the Constitution (which gives Congress the power to set its own rules) and consistently with the tradition of altering these rules by establishing new precedents. Senator Frist was right this past weekend when he observed there is nothing "radical" about a procedural technique that gives senators the opportunity to vote on a nominee.
Dole then points out, as have others, that the Democrats have in the past worked to end the very delaying tactics they now claim to be Constitutionally sacrosanct. (Does the word "filibuster" appear in the Constitution?):
In fact, one of today's leading opponents of changing the Senate's rules, Senator Robert Byrd, was once a proponent of doing so, and on several occasions altered Senate rules through majoritarian means.
Bill Frist, and the Senate Republicans, must not lose this fight, or else GWB's victory will be neutralized less than six months after the election.
Posted at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Seipp Takes Estrich Downtown
Susan Estrich left a hanging curveball out over the plate to Cathy Seipp.
"That one got outta here in a hurry."
Thanks to Instapundit.
Posted at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 26, 2005
Syria: Next In The Series?
Coming Anarchy notes some interesting developments in Syria:
As part of a series of far-reaching reforms in Syria, the Ba’ath party in Syria is set to open Syria for multi-party elections. Sami Moubayed, author of the above linked to article, notes that this is further proof Syria is in no need of outside intervention. However, what Moubayed fails to realize is this is exactly what they are setting themselves up for.
What they are setting themselves up for, hopefully, is the same fate that befell Marcos in the Philippines and Pinochet in Chile. Read the whole thing.
Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Another Partisan Hit From An Ex-Diplomat
John Hinderaker at Powerline profiles Frederick Vreeland, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, who sent to Sen. Joe Biden an email critical of U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton. After a very thorough exposure of Vreeland's career proclivities, Hinderaker offers his conclusion:
So Frederick Vreeland's opposition to Bolton, which is being promoted as a non-partisan critique by a "former colleague," throws the issue of Bolton's nomination into stark relief. John Bolton stands for a certain set of opinons and values, which mirror those of President Bush: he doesn't think America is to blame for terrorist attacks; he doesn't think the U.N. is morally superior to the U.S.; he thinks the job of an American diplomat is to advance the interests of the United States, not other countries; and he sees neither virtue nor advantage in treachery toward American allies, especially Israel. Bolton's enemies hate him because of these values and opinions, not because he lacks the suave manners of the State Department clique that, for decades, has gotten everything wrong about the Middle East.
Dead on target. If John Hinderaker can condense this argument down into one very succinct paragraph, why can't the administration do a better job of promoting and defending Bolton? Hindrocket is a very smart man, but come on.
Posted at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 25, 2005
Malaria and DDT, Again
The Daily Demarche once again reminds us of the deadly and heartwrenching effects of the environmental movement's jihad against DDT:
Last Friday was Earth Day, and I am willing to bet that very few, if any, of the “celebrations” that marked the day touched on today- Africa Malaria Day. Malaria is the single largest cause of death in Africa- ahead of aids, even:
'Malaria kills one child every thirty seconds, about 3000 children every day, one in the five of the 4.6 million deaths in Africa each year is attributed to malaria and over one million people die of malaria each year, the report states in part. Also, more than 900,000 children under five years of age in Sub-Sahara Africa die of malaria.
As a heavy disease burden, an estimated 300-600 million people suffer from malaria each year, and the number of fever cases requiring treatment for malaria in children is much higher at an estimated 1-2 billion. [...] Malaria in pregnancy kills up to 200,000 newborn babies each year'.
The United States donates $19 billion a year in foreign aid, yet millions of children are dying as a result of mosquito bites. Why? Because the environmental lobby in America and the rest of the world won the battle over DDT in the 1970’s:
Dr. Demarche goes on to recount how EPA chief William Ruckelshaus, in contradiction of seven months of EPA hearings, announced a ban on most uses of DDT in the United States. Never mind that Ruckelshaus was a memeber of the Environmental Defense Fund, and that the environmental movement was using the DDT fight as a means to leverage their power.
A dear friend of mine, whose political compass points somewhere to the left of Noam Chomsky, is a great believer in the power of skepticism. Unfortunately, his skepticism includes questioning only the authority of the US government, or the "establishment". I believe he's failing to realize that any activist group is vulnerable to the same classic temptations of power. I often wonder at how leftists will reject out of hand any pronouncement of Donald Rumsfeld or GWB, yet will take as gospel the vagaries of the EPA.
We need to work to remedy the devastation caused by our unscientific and unethical banning of this very useful weapon in the fight against this killer disease.
Posted at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)An "Undeniable Fury" Among Republican Voters
Laura Ingraham strikes a nerve, with me anyway (via Free Republic):
There is an undeniable fury building among Republican voters coast to coast. It has now been almost six months since that euphoric day last year -- November 2nd -- when Republicans stunned Democrats across the board.
That seems like six years ago, not six months ago.
Ingraham goes on to catalog the seeming abandonement of appellate court nominees, the watery Republican support of John Bolton's nomination, the Congressional overspending (we're supposed to cut the pork, remember?), and the apparent unwillingness to deliver a hard check to the Democrats' weak but incessant canards, which, in collusion with the MSM's usual support, run the risk of becoming truth-by-repetition. All of this with Republican control of both houses of Congress, and the Presidency.
The frustration felt by many GOP voters has created a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for conservative politicians. [...] For the first time since George W. started his presidential campaign in the late 1990s, there is no clear standard-bearer for conservatives to rally round.
[...] If no one steps forward, and conservative voters increasingly watch their party kowtow to the McCains, Hagels, and Chafees of the mushy middle, then those voters will disengage from this party, meaning that the mainstream press will enjoy covering the elections of 2006 and 2008 a lot more than they enjoyed the election 2004.
Indeed. If Frist can't get the Senate in order, GWB himself needs to put his foot down.
April 24, 2005
Somebody Stop Me...
from buying this.
I've had the Beatles Anthology I for a while, but I just recently delved into it deeply. (The Beatles are so familiar by now that I can go long stretches listening to other stuff). But once again they have asserted their dominance as the greatest rock group, by far. The main point of that first collection is this: they were a smoking hot live band! The fabulous songs are familiar, and Lennon and McCartney are easily the two best rock vocalists ever (and George is damned good as well). But to hear these elements in a live setting, positively sparking with youthful energy, wound musically tight after innumerable gigs in the dives of Hamburg--the effect is overwhelming.
It is, of course, a treasured legend to Beatles fans how John Lennon, with a throat raw from a cold and with one last take left in him, summoned forth one of rock music's best vocal performances at the conclusion of their marathon recording session for their first album. And indeed it was a stupendous effort. But after listening to the Beatles live performance of "Twist and Shout" on Anthology I, I realized the Lennon's studio performance was a herculean, but maybe not unusual, effort: he was singing it that well every time they played it.
John said, "We played straight rock. And there was nobody to touch us in Britain, you know?"
And there never has been, since.
Posted at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 23, 2005
A Righteous Fisking
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler takes on The Daily Kos. The results are not pretty. (Hat tip: The Jawa Report)
Posted at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)New Energy News
I could link to something from Winds of Change every day, but their New Energy Currents, a compendium of news on alternative energy sources, is really fascinating. Here's a sample:
Cool Australian guy John Dobozy - after 30 years of research! - has developed a process for recycling "tyres" (aka tires) that essentially cooks the oil out of them with a giant microwave. This produces enough oil to power the process with enough left over to make $3/"tyre" in petroleum products, compared to just $.40/"tyre" for conventional recycling processes that just try to recover rubber. It's worth noting that he started out just trying to cook the "tyres" on the "Barbie", his barbeque, because that's awesome! (via POO-Rob)
And this:
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are in hot pursuit of "the Holy Grail of chemistry" - nanoscale devices that can efficiently separate out hydrogen from water molecules using solar energy. The key may be new research using hollow porphyrin tubes, which possess "interesting electronic and optical properties such as an intense resonance light scattering ability and photocatalytic activity." More details, and a lively discussion in the comments, over at FuturePundit.
There's lots more...go read it.
Posted at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 22, 2005
New Blogroll Additions
I have a couple of great additions to my blogroll: Doctor Sanity and Coming Anarchy. They both feature a dedication to the kind of rational analysis that I appreciate and aspire to.
Posted at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)April 21, 2005
Drinking With Ward
Matt Labash at the Weekly Standard (thanks Logical Meme) spent several days playing hurricane hunter to the freako-leftist cyclone that is the Ward Churchill lecture tour. Labash presents a pretty comprehensive recap of Churchill's many questionable claims, and adds to that some funny accounts of the several interviews he did with Churchill.
Posted at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Blog All Stars
John Hawkins at Right Wing News lists some A-list bloggers' favorite blogs: (hat tip: Chrenkoff).
My own (very cursory) further analysis shows that out of 100 total votes (ten bloggers with 10 choices each), the only four bloggers to get four votes were: Instapundit, Powerline, Tim Blair, and The Anchoress.
Instapundit generates more than 100,000 visits a day, and Powerline over 50,000 (per Site Meter). On the other hand, Blair gets around 6,000 while The Anchoress receives around 5,000.
I'd say The Anchoress has a pretty impressive influence-to-page-visits ratio.
Posted at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 20, 2005
Papal Primer
Carpe Bonum has an excellent primer on the new pope, Benedict XVI.
Posted at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)Marines vs. Jihadis...You Know The Rest
The Ten O'Clock Scholar relates yet another example of the stellar performance of our combat troops. From a USA Today article about a dual truck bomb attack on a US outpost:
From his tower lookout post on the Iraqi-Syrian border, Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Butler last week helped stop two suicide car bombers who were on a mission to kill hundreds of Marines here and strike a symbolic victory for the insurgency.
The base commander at Camp Gannon, [...] credits Butler with preventing massive deaths here.
"Butler — that day, that Marine — that's the critical error the insurgents made," Capt. Frank Diorio says. "They thought they could keep the Marines' heads down. But he gets back up."
Ten O'Clock Scholar goes on to wonder if Syria perhaps aided the attackers. I wonder, too--and I agree wholeheartedly with his remedy.
Posted at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)April 19, 2005
I Hope This Is Stopped...
We are doomed, doomed I say (hat tip: LGF):
The Port of Olympia could become the Peace Port of Thurston County under a petition planned by the Green Party of South Puget Sound.
Party members hope to schedule a November ballot item to rename the port in response to its policy of accepting Iraq war-related shipments.
Stuff like this only serves to further illustrate the fact that there are large numbers of us who couldn't think critically if their life depended on it (and come to think of it, their lives probably do).
Posted at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)What's Really Holding Black Kids Back
There's a great piece by Kay Hymovitz in City Journal: "What’s Holding Black Kids Back?" (thanks to Logical Meme).
[Bill Cosby's recent] blunt talk seemed a refreshing tonic to the sense that the standard bromides about the inner city’s troubles weren’t getting blacks very far. Forty years after the War on Poverty began, about 30 percent of black children are still living in poverty.
Hymovitz proceeds to lay out some very startling research on why this is so.
Definitely a must-read.
Posted at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 18, 2005
High School Reform: Bill Gates vs. Diane Ravitch
In yesterday's Houston Chronicle there appeared two articles on the state of our public high schools. The one that was featured on the front page of the section was written by Bill Gates and was titled, "FLUNKING OUT: Our high schools just aren't doing the job we need to create an effective 21st century work force. We have to reinvent them."
Bill makes some good, albeit rather obvious, points: Our high schools were designed in a different age, and they are failing to produce students ready for college, work, and citizenship in the United States of the 21st century.
Gates goes on to assert that the basic goals of high school education should be refocused:
We have to do away with the outdated idea that only some students need to be ready for college and that the others can walk away from higher education and still thrive in our 21st century society. We need a new design that realizes that all students can do rigorous work.
[We should] ensure that all students are given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work; that their courses clearly relate to their lives and goals; and that they are surrounded by adults who push them to achieve.
Sounds good to me, but my gripe has always been that by the time public school students get to high school, they've had to traverse the even more awful elementary and junior high systems. If you're not taught to read properly in kindergarten and first grade, you are put at a disadvantage that you most likely will never fully recover from.
The other article, buried somewhat on the second page, was written by the peerless Diane Ravitch. She homes in on the problem with her usual precision.
Ravitch confirms that the performance of American high school students is appalling—most students score at, or below, the "basic" level (out of levels labeled basic, proficient, and advanced) set by the Education Department. And she goes on to detail, in contrast to Gates, the underwhelming comparison of American students to those in other developed countries.
But Ravitch thinks that in focusing on the high schools, we are missing the real source of the problem:
To understand why [the type of reforms Gates and others are proposing for high schools will likely increase, rather than reduce, dropout rates], you have to consider what the high schools are dealing with. When American students arrive as freshmen, nearly 70 percent are reading below grade level. Equally large numbers are ill-prepared in mathematics, science and history.
It is hardly fair to blame high schools for the poor skills of their entering students. If students start high school without the skills needed to read, write and solve math problems, then the governors should focus on strengthening the standards of their states' junior high schools.
She alludes to the long history of failed reforms by pedagogues, and goes on to explain that our high schools are in some ways better that our primary schools, because at least high school teachers are the most likely to have a degree in the subject they are teaching. Elementary school teachers, of course, are almost exclusively products of the education colleges, and are still the most likely to cling to the holy icons of "progressive" educational ideas like whole language (where phonics, spelling, and grammar are abandoned), and "fuzzy" math (where computational algorithms like long division are eliminated in favor of encouraging students to "construct" their own answers).
Professor Ravitch then proposes an alternate reform plan written by Sandra Stotsky and highlighted in a recent report by the National Association of Scholars. A student entering ninth grade would be given a choice between two paths: one that is subject-oriented, or one that is technical and career centered.
The former would look like a traditional college-preparatory curriculum, with an emphasis on humanities, sciences or arts. The latter would include a number of technologically rigorous programs and apprenticeships.
All students, regardless of their concentration, would be required to complete a core curriculum of four years of English and at least three years of mathematics, science and history. Students graduating from either program would be well-educated and prepared for higher education.
Ravitch concludes by opposing Gates's contention that high schools should be smaller--500 students or less. While this seems a little curious on Ravitch's part (I seem to recall from Left Back that she wrote critically of large high schools), I think the proposal has a lot of merit--the choice of a non-college path, as long as there's a rigorous core curriculum enforced, is an element that's been sorely lacking.
As it stands right now, our colleges are simply providing most of our students with the education they should be getting in high school.
April 15, 2005
Insight On Bolton
The Counterterrorism Blog has an interesting insight into John Bolton's personality.
It's a fairly safe bet that this small but telling story will not find its way into the confirmation hearings.
Posted at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Popestakes...
Very interesting analysis of the current favorites, over at The Corner.
Posted at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 14, 2005
"Progressive" = Oxymoron?
I hereby postulate that the term "progressive", in its political sense, is the only one-word oxymoron in the English language.
Any cause, movement, or ideology that labels itself "progressive"...isn't.
Posted at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1)Insanity Roundup
Maybe I'm just fried from reviewing my tax bill from my local school district--a bill totaling many thousands of dollars for education services that are unusable (thus our daily twenty mile roundtrip to a modestly priced private school).
Maybe it's my depression over the continued intellectual wanderings of my dear leftist friends.
Whatever it is, it seems like a particularly bad night for leftist insanity. Witness:
Professor Alex Hinton offers this robust example of personal angst writ large--did you know that our conduct of the war on terror has strong corollaries to the regime of Pol Pot? (via Powerline)
Ann Althouse covers a demonstration (anti-US? pro-insurgency?) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, organized to protest the US involvement in Iraq.(via Instapundit). Professor Althouse quotes a student demonstrator:
Sophomore [name deleted] said she supports the resistance in Iraq and said it will continue as long as the U.S. military is there.
And lastly, Mark Coffey at Decision '08 takes on the truly unfortunate task of neutralizing the most recent caustic bloviation emanating from Terry Jones, former member of the immortal Monty Python comedy troop. Jones:
A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.
This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.
This from a man who undoubtedly seen (even in 1960's London) many still-vacant blocks, courtesy of the Luftwaffe.
Our capacity to ignore evil, aided and abetted by our comfortable existence, is truly frightening.
Posted at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)"Liberal" vs. "Leftist"
Blogging will continue to be light through today...taxes must be completed.
In the meantime here's an excellent post by Mark Coffey at Decision '08, in which he expounds upon the varying meaning of the term "liberal". And congratulations to Mark on the occasion of his 50,000th visitor!
I myself try always to make a clear distinction between a "liberal" and a "leftist" (leaving aside the case of classical liberalism). Lyndon Johnson was a liberal; Ramsey Clark is a leftist. I believe the key indicator is the presence of a fundamental anti-Americanism. And by "anti-Americanism" I don't mean disagreeing with the current administration, or some other similar juvenile simplification. I mean a denial of the ascendancy of individual rights over the rights of the group (or class); a denial of the fact of human fallibility, which leads to the "blame America first" syndrome; and a general denial of the fact that the US has been the greatest force for freedom that has ever existed.
Posted at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 12, 2005
Environmental Optimism
Andrew Ferguson talks up Steven Hayward's annual Earth Day response to the environmental powermongers (via The Corner). Each year Hayward releases his "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators", in which he highlights the tremendous(and usually ignored) progress we've made over the last 30 years or so:
In last year's index, for example, Hayward and his colleagues cheerfully noted that levels of ambient air pollution in the U.S. had dropped dramatically, beginning in 1976. By 2002, ozone was down 31 percent, sulfur dioxide 70 percent and carbon monoxide 75 percent. Lead, once one of the deadliest, scariest and most ubiquitous pollutants, had dropped 98 percent.
The one question that is never asked of activist groups like Greenpeace, or MADD, is this: "What level of pollution (or drunk driving arrests, or whatever) will you be satisfied with?" If a person could go back in time and present today's quality of air to the original Earth Day activists, I bet they would be overjoyed with the progress.
Posted at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 11, 2005
Narcissism And Political Belief
Dr. Sanity has some fascinating thoughts on the psychological roots of political belief. In a post entitled "Narcissism and Society", she explains what narcissism is, gives a little of its history, and shows how, in addition to being a clinical personality disorder, it also can be a motivating factor in one's political beliefs:
For many on the Left side of the political spectrum, it is axiomatic that Narcissism is inextricably linked to business, Capitalism, individualism, and the pursuit of profit. The Left has idealized certain social and political systems because they supressed the individual and elevated the state, insisting that individuals had no right to exist for their own selves, but only to serve others.
She goes on to examine a different strain of narcissism that is rooted in idealism rather than personal selfishness:
This second kind of Narcissism [...] is disguised with a veneer of concern for others. But it is equally—if not more—destructive and causative of human suffering, death and misery. [...] The "grandiose" Narcissism is the stimulus for individual tyrants, while the "idealistic" Narcissism leads to groups imposing their will on others. We will talk more of this in Part II.
Well worth reading in its entirety.
Posted at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Good News...From The BBC!
The excellent and unique The Coming Anarchy highlights a guardedly optimistic report from Iraq, on the occasion of the two year anniversary of the fall of Saddam. What's even more surprising is the source--the BBC, who solicit several Iraqis-on-the-street for their comments on the current situation:
Let me describe our situation before the fall of the previous regime. We were like a sick, weak prisoner under the thumb of a cruel jailer.
Then, suddenly and without warning, the gates of our prison were flung open. We were told: "Come on, you are free!"
The common complaint is still the "lack of security", but the truly striking observation about all of these comments is that the United States is scarcely mentioned! The encouraging sentiment is that these interviewees, at least, are looking to the Iraqi government for solutions.
If these attitudes are anywhere close to being widespread, this is very good news, indeed.
Posted at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 10, 2005
The New Media And The Kifaya Movement
An Associated Press story in the Houston Chronicle today details the spread of the kifayah democracy protests to Egypt [emphasis mine]:
When a small group of fed-up Egyptians had it with the regime, they said it with one word: Kifaya, the Arabic word for "enough!"
The movement's very first demonstration showed it was something different for Egypt: A line of more than 500 activists, men and women, stood silently in front of Egypt's Supreme Court, many with yellow stickers over their mouths or on their chest with kifaya in bold red letters. [...]
It's a large accomplishment for a group that began as a kernel of 300 intellectuals, leftists, liberals and Islamists holding seminars and signing a petition in September demanding reform.
Kifaya has no headquarters — just a Web site — and the main members meet at homes or offices.
This is another another example of the new media acting on a worldwide scale. It reminds me of an article I read several years ago about how the cell phone was revolutionizing third world communications, citing the explosion of cellular communications in South Africa after apartheid fell. With task of getting land lines run to the shanty towns all but impossible, the cell phone was causing a paradigm shift in access to communication.
When it comes to protests, the cell phone might more potent as an organizational tool than the internet: it is, of course, a device that goes where you go. The Washington Post recently had an article on the use of cell phone text messaging to organize protests in Kuwait:
In this roiling political spring of protest and debate about democracy in repressive Arab countries, cell phone text messaging has become a powerful underground channel of free and often impolite speech, especially in the oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies, where mobile phones are common but candid public talk about politics is not.
Let's hope the same dynamic is operating in Iran.
April 09, 2005
Lebanon Blogging!
Michael J. Totten's blogging from Lebanon. He writes of his visit to the gravesite shrine of former prime minister Rafik Hariri:
Rafik Hariri was a Sunni Muslim. And his grave is surrounded by candles. Candles are not a part of the Muslim tradition. They are Christian. The shockwave from Hariri's assasination, most likely at the hands of Syrian agents, reverberated powerfully through all sectors of Lebanese society. In life he was a Muslim hero. In death he is a national hero. He's rapidly becoming an international hero, as well.
Plenty more inspiring stuff there...check it out.
Posted at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 08, 2005
Let's Hear It For The Paper Trail
I think this is great news (via The Corner):
Meet the next big thing in paperless voting: paper.
Voting-rights groups and computer scientists, concluding that a tangible record is essential to any electronic voting system, are persuading a growing number of U.S. lawmakers and election officials either to reject paperless voting machines or to require fitting them with costly add-on printers to help verify results.
I wouldn't mind going back to the old mechanical machines. So what if they cost more--some things are worth paying for. That's probably unrealistic, but I think we have to have some kind of paper trail. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with computers knows that any system can be hacked.
WMDs: The Left's New McCarthy?
Every so often I marvel at the irony of the fact that the memory of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the infamous communist hunter, has been such an indispensable cudgel for the left. I bet the playing of the McCarthy card is second in effectiveness only to the use of the "racism" charge as a tool to instantly shut down a debate. The actual facts of communist infiltration into US society in the '40s and '50s are irrelevant; the image carefully crafted by Hollywood and the MSM provides a sort of Klingon cloaking device for "progressives" when legit criticism is aimed their way.
Now the left might have a new cudgel.
In a post in The Corner today, Stanley Kurtz writes expresses his relief Saddam is not still in power:
Thank goodness Saddam Hussein's not around to buy North Korean nukes. If we hadn't gone into Iraq, he'd be doing just that. It would be a terrible mistake to forget about the danger of WMD's falling into the hands of terrorists. That was, and is, the greatest danger we face.
The "Bush lied/mislead/rushed-into-war over WMDs" meme has been gold plated and enshrined as the holiest-of-holies in the tabernacle of the left. I sure hope that our failure to find WMDs in Iraq doesn't become the McCarthy card of the war on terror.
Posted at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 07, 2005
The Wall Street Journal: Temporary Insanity?
The Wall Street Journal had an editorial yesterday on the Sandy Berger case entitled "Berger's Plea: The Justice Department shows admirable restraint." To say that this is not a promising beginning is a brass-bound understatement. After a wan attempt to establish credibility by invoking its record of criticism of the Clinton administration, the authors then careen from one nonsensical conclusion to another. First (emphases throughout are mine):
Some of the documents Mr. Berger honed[sic] in on were multiple iterations of a sensitive "after-action" report on the Clinton Administration's response to the al Qaeda threat around the year 2000 celebrations, and he was obviously lying (he now admits) when he said last year that the documents had been taken inadvertently and as part of an "honest mistake."
So the Journal along with the Justice Department evidently agree that the documents were removed quite deliberately and with intent. Of course, the intent is the 2000 pound elephant sitting in the corner. And the "mulitiple iterations" of the report is a topic that appears to throw the Journal into a fit of the swooning vapors.
After a long investigation, however, Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence.
Sandy Berger graduated from Harvard law school, was a partner of a Washington law firm, held a high position in Cyrus Vance's State Department, and as National Security Advisor for Bill Clinton, "coordinate[d] the President's national security team, including the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
Are we then to believe Justice's assertion that this same man, who "knowingly and recklessly violated the law", did so out of carelessness, or a venal desire to work in the comfort of his law offices? He surely knew the risks involved; he knew that getting caught might very well put an end to any future cabinet position--yet he proceeded anyway. Perhaps he knew that if the contents of some of those "multiple iterations" referred to above were to become known, his chance of being appointed a future Secretary of State would vanish.
So we [at the WSJ] called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals."
What a malodorous red herring--no one is worried about the originals. Why would the Archives store multiple copies of a document if they were truly identical to the original? It's the National Archives, not the National Bulk Records Storage. The Archives staff must have kept those multiple copies because their handwritten notes rendered each of them unique documents--each worth keeping in and of itself. The Journal continues quoting Hillman:
"We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."
Is the 9/11 Commission the focus of all this? Not to me, it isn't. It certainly is worth finding out if the commission members saw all five versions of those documents. But again, this is obfuscation: The point is that those versions of the original are now no longer available to any subsequent examiner.
The Journal lurches to its conclusion:
Lesser officials have received harsher penalties for more minor transgressions, so a complete airing of the facts will show the public that justice is being done.
How so? The basic facts are already well known, and I don't think any justice has been done to date. What evidence do we have that: 1) the full story will indeed come out; and 2) the judge will impose a sentence worthy of the crime?
But given the minimal damage from the crime, this looks to be a case where prosecutors have shown some commendable restraint against a high-powered political figure.
And finally, what is the basis for the Journal's assertion that "minimal damage" has been done? This is only a discussion of national security policy that led to the most destructive attack on US soil by a foreign power. And why is restraint automatically "commendable" in dealing with a "high-powered political figure"?
Reread Sandy Berger's resume. He is no buffoon--he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and he proceeded in spite of the risks he, above almost anyone else, had to be aware of. We need to get to the bottom of this. We cannot let this story die.
April 06, 2005
Help Michael Totten Help Democracy In Lebanon
Michael Totten is asking that everyone lend a hand to help support the pro-democracy movement in Lebanon.
He's over there right now and will be blogging on-site soon. Should be fascinating and inspiring.
Posted at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 05, 2005
I "Feel" This Is A Conspiracy
Carpe Bonum highlights a review in the WSJ's OpinionJournal of Byron York's "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy". Jacob Laskin recounts York's analysis of the pre-election mindset of the left:
Feeling a passionate contempt for the president and his policies, the MoveOn rank-and-file labored under the illusion that they represented the majority of the American people.
It's always about "feelings" with the left, isn't it?
Posted at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 04, 2005
Busting The "Poverty Causes Terrorism" Myth
Back in November The Harvard Gazette published an article describing a research study on the root causes of terrorism, conducted by Kennedy School of Government researcher Alberto Abadie (via Tacitus). Professor Abadie found no correlation between the economic status of a country and the rate of terrorism in that country:
A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom.
Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences.
Now comes Arthur Chrenkoff with more. Arthur notes a study of the backgrounds of al-Qaeda members that again refutes the poverty-begets-terrorism myth:
Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist who conducted the study, said he assumed it would find that most recruits were poor and ill-educated. [...]
However, his study showed 75per cent of the al-Qaeda members were from upper-middle-class homes and that many were married with children; 60 were college-educated, often in Europe or the US.
Arthur goes on to make a trenchant point:
Thus the argument about the "root causes" of terrorism and political violence (poverty, etc.) is wishful thinking in a sense that it's not those who have most reasons (as someone could argue) to lash out that so. ... Most revolutionaries and terrorists are narcissist for whom "the people" are merely an excuse and a prop in an never-ending drama of self-actualization.
I couldn't agree more. I've often said that the irrational pronouncements and actions of leftists (such as bitterly opposing the military action in Afghanistan that has resulted in an unheard-of degree of freedom for Afghani women) are nothing more than the projection of personal demons onto an emotionally safe external target--politicizing the personal, if you will.
Posted at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)April 03, 2005
John Paul II And Liberation Theology
Here's more from the Houston Chronicle's special section on the life of John Paul II and his treatment of "liberation theology":
The pontiff's crackdown on the left-leaning movement known as liberation theology and his open championing of conservative clergy came to define the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, which, scholars point out, has the largest population of Catholics in the world. [...]
The liberation theology movement, which encouraged clergy and laypeople to take a "preferential option for the poor" in pushing for social justice, had swept Latin America in the 1960s and '70s.
But having lived for decades under the totalitarian regimes of first the Nazis and then the communists, John Paul II was openly hostile to the Marxist rhetoric of some liberation theologists.
"When John Paul arrived, liberation theology was at its peak," [Mexican sociologist] Blancarte said. "He practically eliminated it."
I guess I'm most accurately described as a lapsed Catholic; and I can't say I agree with all of JPII's positions (though with more in depth study, I might). But his implacable opposition to Communism, wherever it was practiced, is reason enough for his canonization in my book.
Pope John Paul II
Charles Krauthammer on the pope:
It was Stalin who gave us the most famous formulation of that cynical (and today quite fashionable) philosophy known as ``realism'' -- the idea that all that ultimately matters in the relations among nations is power: ``The pope? How many divisions does he have?''
Stalin could only have said that because he never met John Paul II. We have just lost the man whose life was the ultimate refutation of ``realism.'' Within 10 years of his elevation to the papacy, John Paul II had given his answer to Stalin and to the ages: More than you have. More than you can imagine.
I heard a network radio news story yesterday just after the death announcement. The report summarized John Paul's vital effort in ending communist domination of eastern Europe, but then the report went on to mention that he "paradoxically" did not support the so-called liberation theology that was in vogue among some third-world countries at the time. The report gave no further explanation of liberation theology.
It is, of course, not paradoxical in the slightest for John Paul to reject a deviant theology based on the idea of perpetual class struggle, an idea that just happens to be the basis of the marxism JPII had devoted his life to defeating.
April 02, 2005
Berger To Americans: "Screw You, Chumps"
I cannot believe this guy's getting away with this. From an AP story in the Houston Chronicle:
Sandy Berger knew better than almost anyone the ground rules for handling classified documents. As President Clinton's national security adviser, he routinely reviewed the government's most closely held secrets and determined what needed to remain off limits to the public.
But on Friday in federal District Court, he admitted to a sequence of events at once slapstick and criminal: sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives in his suit, cutting up some of them in his office and then lying about it.
U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson didn't ask why and Berger never explained.
Magistrate Robinson didn't ask why? Anyone want to guess Robinson's political affiliation?
If ever a story deserved a Congressional investigation, this is it. (Instead, we get blubbering coward Mark McGuire). Sandy Berger, who was charged with maintained the security of the United States, purposefully destroys documents belonging to the National Archives and thus to all Americans, and he basically skates.
This story has been around a while, but it looks like it is not going to ignite into the kind of consuming conflagration of a scandal that I would wish.
I was going to conclude with the all-too-standard argument: "What do you think would be the reaction if he was a Republican...?" Instead I'm going for a long bike ride to burn off some outrage--twenty fast loops around the park ought to do it.
MORE: Powerline has more.
One aspect of Berger's sentence that seems almost humorous is the fact that his security clearance is suspended for three years. He wasn't going to need it during President Bush's second term, in any event, and he'll have it back in time for the new Democratic administration that, he hopes, will begin in 2009. What a penalty for attempting, apparently successfully, to destroy a portion of the historical record relating to the government's anti-terror activities in the months leading up to September 11.
Unbelievable.
STILL MORE: Check out PoliPundit's roundup (via Decision '08).
Posted at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 01, 2005
More Hillary vs. Condi
Mark Coffey at Decision '08 highlights Peggy Noonan's current take on Hillary's chances in '08. After Noonan reels off a convincing litany of reason Hillary will be tough to beat, Mark notes:
After that quite brilliant analysis, though, she has to spoil my mood with this cheap shot at Condi:
...[the Republican who will face Hillary is] not Condi , because the presidency is not an entry-level political office...
In the comments to the post, Mark argues to the contrary:
I do think [commenter] Clint has a point on the vetting process of prior candidacies, but I think Condi is a special case...she has a newfound air of celebrity around her that, I think, means most of the rules don't apply to her.
I agree, and I really do think that Condi, if she runs, will be such a unique candidate that she will negate the prior-office hurdle. After all, it's not like it hasn't been done before. Of course it's a long time between now and then, but if Rice continues her current performance as SecState, I believe her candidacy as the first African American woman to run for president will be successful.
In any event, it's time to own up to my secret Faustian bargain I made on election eve. I prayed to whomever would listen that I would gladly trade the election of Hillary in '08 for the current election of GWB, and most importantly the defeat of the pathetic and mortifying John Kerry. I don't regret the deal.