Friday, December 23, 2005
Okay, This is Pretty Cool (But for God's sakes don't let the ACLU know)
Courtesy of BlackFive I recently found out that this year is the 50th anniversary of NORAD (yeah, the nuke guys) tracking Santa Claus' annual Christmas flight. Kids can get updates on Santa's location by phone at 1-888-HI-NORAD. I wonder if they also track Hanukkah Harry?
Courtesy of BlackFive I recently found out that this year is the 50th anniversary of NORAD (yeah, the nuke guys) tracking Santa Claus' annual Christmas flight. Kids can get updates on Santa's location by phone at 1-888-HI-NORAD. I wonder if they also track Hanukkah Harry?
Thursday, December 22, 2005
I Guess Reuters Reporters Don't Do Math: Hat tip James Taranto
In a recent article on presidential popularity, Reuters (the "news" service that refuses to identify Osama bin Laden as a terrorist) cites President Bush as "the least popular and most bellicose of the last ten U.S. presidents, according to a new survey". The article goes on to note "Only nine percent of the 662 people polled picked Bush as their favorite among the last 10 presidents. John F. Kennedy topped that part of the survey, with 26 percent, closely followed by Bill Clinton (25 percent) and Ronald Reagan (23 percent)." Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do the math here:
John Kennedy 26%
Bill Clinton 25%
Ronald Reagan 23%
**********************
74%
Now, that leaves 26% for the seven remaining. With Bush at 9%, we see only 17% for the remaining six. Now, suppose one of the presidents in the six (Ike, maybe) does beat out President Bush. He must have 9.01% support for the best president. But, that leaves only 7.99% for the remaining five. But, since Bush has 9%, he can at worst rank fifth of ten.
Back of the class for Reuters
In a recent article on presidential popularity, Reuters (the "news" service that refuses to identify Osama bin Laden as a terrorist) cites President Bush as "the least popular and most bellicose of the last ten U.S. presidents, according to a new survey". The article goes on to note "Only nine percent of the 662 people polled picked Bush as their favorite among the last 10 presidents. John F. Kennedy topped that part of the survey, with 26 percent, closely followed by Bill Clinton (25 percent) and Ronald Reagan (23 percent)." Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do the math here:
John Kennedy 26%
Bill Clinton 25%
Ronald Reagan 23%
**********************
74%
Now, that leaves 26% for the seven remaining. With Bush at 9%, we see only 17% for the remaining six. Now, suppose one of the presidents in the six (Ike, maybe) does beat out President Bush. He must have 9.01% support for the best president. But, that leaves only 7.99% for the remaining five. But, since Bush has 9%, he can at worst rank fifth of ten.
Back of the class for Reuters
Friday, December 09, 2005
Just Trying to be Helpful
Well, it looks like the CodePink skanks have started a campaign to ban war toys this Christmas. Well, I'm not a particular fan of the idea. I think little boys have an aggressive streak that we try to suppress to our own detriment. But, hey, in the spirit of the season, I'd like to offer a few ideas to America's toymakers that will meet the Pinkos demands while still offering little Johnny hours of good clean American fun:
* The Halliburton Playset Now little Johnny can enter the exciting world of oilfield services. Comes with a six foot derrick with autopump action and a talking cellphone with catchphrases like "We'll have to grease a few wheels to get the environmental clearances on that one..." and "Funnel the payments through the offshore account...".
* The Fox News Game Special artificial intelligence allows the game's electronic "brain" to evaluate how well little Johnny and his friends have put together sensationalized news clips discrediting liberal groups (like CodePink) from random elements provided by the computer. The "brain" awards points in terms of additional viewership. The first player to have higher ratings than CNN and make MSNBC a laughingstock wins.
* The Karl Rove Action Figure (With Special Mind Control Beams) Why get little Johnny a GI Joe to go after the bad guys when you can get him a Karl Rove to get all of his friends' GI Joes to go after the bad guys (and whoever else little Johnny deems a nussiace). As a bonus, whenever near the Karl Rove action figure little Janey's Barbies become Ann Coulter neocon babes.
* PNAC Trading Cards Lets face it, kids today aren't all that into baseball. And do you really want to be caught getting Johnny Pokeman cards? Well, now you don't have to worry. With cool dudes like Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, you'll be starting little Johnny on his own road to becoming a neocon intellectual.
I understand CodePink's aversion to violent toys, even if I have some misgivings. But lets face it, the age of direct physical confrontation is long gone. We've come to a time where its necessary to have smart people who can direct resources to accomplishing their goals. I think, perhaps, a new generation of toys that will teach the next generation how to marshall these resources might both overcome the ladies' objections, and move childsplay to its next stage of development.
Well, it looks like the CodePink skanks have started a campaign to ban war toys this Christmas. Well, I'm not a particular fan of the idea. I think little boys have an aggressive streak that we try to suppress to our own detriment. But, hey, in the spirit of the season, I'd like to offer a few ideas to America's toymakers that will meet the Pinkos demands while still offering little Johnny hours of good clean American fun:
* The Halliburton Playset Now little Johnny can enter the exciting world of oilfield services. Comes with a six foot derrick with autopump action and a talking cellphone with catchphrases like "We'll have to grease a few wheels to get the environmental clearances on that one..." and "Funnel the payments through the offshore account...".
* The Fox News Game Special artificial intelligence allows the game's electronic "brain" to evaluate how well little Johnny and his friends have put together sensationalized news clips discrediting liberal groups (like CodePink) from random elements provided by the computer. The "brain" awards points in terms of additional viewership. The first player to have higher ratings than CNN and make MSNBC a laughingstock wins.
* The Karl Rove Action Figure (With Special Mind Control Beams) Why get little Johnny a GI Joe to go after the bad guys when you can get him a Karl Rove to get all of his friends' GI Joes to go after the bad guys (and whoever else little Johnny deems a nussiace). As a bonus, whenever near the Karl Rove action figure little Janey's Barbies become Ann Coulter neocon babes.
* PNAC Trading Cards Lets face it, kids today aren't all that into baseball. And do you really want to be caught getting Johnny Pokeman cards? Well, now you don't have to worry. With cool dudes like Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, you'll be starting little Johnny on his own road to becoming a neocon intellectual.
I understand CodePink's aversion to violent toys, even if I have some misgivings. But lets face it, the age of direct physical confrontation is long gone. We've come to a time where its necessary to have smart people who can direct resources to accomplishing their goals. I think, perhaps, a new generation of toys that will teach the next generation how to marshall these resources might both overcome the ladies' objections, and move childsplay to its next stage of development.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
On Andrew Sullivan & Torture
As of late, Andrew Sullivan has gotten back on his soapbox on the torture issue, excoriated the administration for what he claims is an unacceptable readiness to torture in both the Iraq War and the larger War on Terror. Now, Sullivan is a pretty smart guy, and I'm hardly willing to take on the role of sadistic bastard, but I think his campaign would take on a little more plausibility if he could meet a couple of basic criteria:
* A vetted, consistent definition of torture: Put bluntly, Sullivan's definition of torture seems to float around depending on whether he's trying to argue against torture as acceptable or trying to point out instances of the behavior. This ends up, in many ways, a rhetorical bait-and-switch. When he's pointing out torture as unacceptable, he draws on hypotheticals of a goonish lout hooking up electrodes to some poor fellow's testicles for some sort of bizarre gratification. Unfortunately, once he's gotten our buy-in on this situation, he extends the definition to include providing favorable treatment to cooperative prisoners or smearing fake blood on someone to undermine their resistance to questioning. Of course, a great many of us who would object to the former find his alarmism at the latter as excessive. If Sulivan draws the line at "waterboarding", one of his most cited examples, that's understandable, but then he's set the standard well below that he's used to raise the cry of torture in other instances. Many of us who take an uncertain view regarding torture feel that the cry is a never-ending device to beat our efforts into a purely legalistic exercise inevitably descends into whack-a-mole. A consistent position that reflects a consensus view of what torture is needs to be presented to prevent this sort of erosion.
* Recognition that an accusation of torture is just that: The fact of the matter is that we have recovered information (including Al Quaeda training materials) that our enemies have recognized the value of accusations of torture as a strategic asset. In effect, we know that they have specifically been instructed to accuse the U.S. of torture regardless of the accuracy of the charge. Sullivan seems to consistently ignore this fact in addressing the torture issue. His analyses of the relative inefficacy of torture largely rely on the perception of the U.S. by other parties and presume that, absent any torture, the perception would be that the U.S. is a fair and humane participant in the GWOT. But this is not the case if accusations have any effect on perceptions. More problematically, Sullivan treats pretty much any accusation of torture with near perfect credulity. He's even gone so far is to imply, without taking the responsibility of a direct accusation, that the military court martial of torture accusation that resulted in acquittal is evidence of a broadly complicit conspiracy. Whatsmore, after loudly blasting incident after incident of alleged torture with strings of postings, Sullivan becomes strangely silent when the accusation proves unsubstantiated or even highly suspect. Personally, I think Sullivan should accord Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld at least as much benefit of the doubt as he accords a Muslim fundamentalist caught with an RPG in the Sunni Triangle.
* Provide a reasonable level of context in discussing torture: For most people, the definition of torture and its acceptability is largely a matter of context. Even something so seemingly straightforward as police beatings falls within this situation. Lets face it, if Osama Bin Laden were captured by the police department of New York or Chicago or Philadelphia, not too many people, Sullivan probably included, would be too inclined to question the arresting officer's report that Osama had fallen down the stairs a couple of dozen times or had mercilessly attacked the arresting officer's nightstick with his face and teeth. Likewise, most people recognize that, in certain emergency situations (think the nuke about the go off and the suspect with knowledge of its location), torture may in fact be justified. But Sullivan largely drops the context of activities within the military. Hence prosecuted excesses by troops are treated as policy. But their authorization matters dramatically in evaluating the administration's record. Likewise, Sullivan reports ad nauseum about smearing fake menstrual blood on a detainee without acknowledging that the interrogators had put red ink on the detainee to undermine his use of faith to counteract interrogation. In effect, a debatable interrogation technique (Only in efficacy, Andrew. Most of us aren't ready to define torture so broadly that putting ink on someone is the equivalent to whips and thumbscrews.) is mutated into basically some sort of weird S&M fetish on the part of the interrogators. Without recognizing the context of many of the torture accusations, Sullivan makes skepticism about what may even be legitimate torture accusations all the easier. On hearing reports that interrogators had orders to use a blowtorch in questioning, one would only be left to wonder what information had been left out.
None of this is meant to legitimize torture. At best, its recognized as a necessary evil. But, administration critics have long claimed that they want to have an honest debate about torture. To the extent that they want their calls for reform to be taken seriously, they have a responsibility to present their case in an honest manner. Otherwise its difficult to say that they aren't just making cheap talking points against an administration they're angry with.
As of late, Andrew Sullivan has gotten back on his soapbox on the torture issue, excoriated the administration for what he claims is an unacceptable readiness to torture in both the Iraq War and the larger War on Terror. Now, Sullivan is a pretty smart guy, and I'm hardly willing to take on the role of sadistic bastard, but I think his campaign would take on a little more plausibility if he could meet a couple of basic criteria:
* A vetted, consistent definition of torture: Put bluntly, Sullivan's definition of torture seems to float around depending on whether he's trying to argue against torture as acceptable or trying to point out instances of the behavior. This ends up, in many ways, a rhetorical bait-and-switch. When he's pointing out torture as unacceptable, he draws on hypotheticals of a goonish lout hooking up electrodes to some poor fellow's testicles for some sort of bizarre gratification. Unfortunately, once he's gotten our buy-in on this situation, he extends the definition to include providing favorable treatment to cooperative prisoners or smearing fake blood on someone to undermine their resistance to questioning. Of course, a great many of us who would object to the former find his alarmism at the latter as excessive. If Sulivan draws the line at "waterboarding", one of his most cited examples, that's understandable, but then he's set the standard well below that he's used to raise the cry of torture in other instances. Many of us who take an uncertain view regarding torture feel that the cry is a never-ending device to beat our efforts into a purely legalistic exercise inevitably descends into whack-a-mole. A consistent position that reflects a consensus view of what torture is needs to be presented to prevent this sort of erosion.
* Recognition that an accusation of torture is just that: The fact of the matter is that we have recovered information (including Al Quaeda training materials) that our enemies have recognized the value of accusations of torture as a strategic asset. In effect, we know that they have specifically been instructed to accuse the U.S. of torture regardless of the accuracy of the charge. Sullivan seems to consistently ignore this fact in addressing the torture issue. His analyses of the relative inefficacy of torture largely rely on the perception of the U.S. by other parties and presume that, absent any torture, the perception would be that the U.S. is a fair and humane participant in the GWOT. But this is not the case if accusations have any effect on perceptions. More problematically, Sullivan treats pretty much any accusation of torture with near perfect credulity. He's even gone so far is to imply, without taking the responsibility of a direct accusation, that the military court martial of torture accusation that resulted in acquittal is evidence of a broadly complicit conspiracy. Whatsmore, after loudly blasting incident after incident of alleged torture with strings of postings, Sullivan becomes strangely silent when the accusation proves unsubstantiated or even highly suspect. Personally, I think Sullivan should accord Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld at least as much benefit of the doubt as he accords a Muslim fundamentalist caught with an RPG in the Sunni Triangle.
* Provide a reasonable level of context in discussing torture: For most people, the definition of torture and its acceptability is largely a matter of context. Even something so seemingly straightforward as police beatings falls within this situation. Lets face it, if Osama Bin Laden were captured by the police department of New York or Chicago or Philadelphia, not too many people, Sullivan probably included, would be too inclined to question the arresting officer's report that Osama had fallen down the stairs a couple of dozen times or had mercilessly attacked the arresting officer's nightstick with his face and teeth. Likewise, most people recognize that, in certain emergency situations (think the nuke about the go off and the suspect with knowledge of its location), torture may in fact be justified. But Sullivan largely drops the context of activities within the military. Hence prosecuted excesses by troops are treated as policy. But their authorization matters dramatically in evaluating the administration's record. Likewise, Sullivan reports ad nauseum about smearing fake menstrual blood on a detainee without acknowledging that the interrogators had put red ink on the detainee to undermine his use of faith to counteract interrogation. In effect, a debatable interrogation technique (Only in efficacy, Andrew. Most of us aren't ready to define torture so broadly that putting ink on someone is the equivalent to whips and thumbscrews.) is mutated into basically some sort of weird S&M fetish on the part of the interrogators. Without recognizing the context of many of the torture accusations, Sullivan makes skepticism about what may even be legitimate torture accusations all the easier. On hearing reports that interrogators had orders to use a blowtorch in questioning, one would only be left to wonder what information had been left out.
None of this is meant to legitimize torture. At best, its recognized as a necessary evil. But, administration critics have long claimed that they want to have an honest debate about torture. To the extent that they want their calls for reform to be taken seriously, they have a responsibility to present their case in an honest manner. Otherwise its difficult to say that they aren't just making cheap talking points against an administration they're angry with.
