Last Word on Expelled

Finals are here, so naturally, it's time to start blogging again.

A while back, Ben Stein released a really bad movie about Intelligent Design called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. After long refusing to review it, we finally get Roger Ebert's thoughts on the movie.

Naturally, Ebert skillfully tears it apart. He does a particularly good job of addressing the "excluded middle" strategy routinely taken by proponents of Intelligent Design:

By his premise no secularists believe in Intelligent Design, and no people with religious beliefs subscribe to Darwin's theory. If there are people with religious beliefs who agree with Darwin (Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Mormons, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists, for example) they are mistaken...

This is one of the things the movie does quite well. They cast the debate as a struggle between all religious people and all non-religious people rather than an effort by a few religious people with one extreme belief to foist it upon everyone else.

For example, consider their interview with Eugenie Scott, Director of the National Center for Science Education,* about the organization's efforts to counter the introduction of ID into the public school classroom. They make sure to emphasize the fact that she is an atheist. When she points out that a lot of the organization's support comes from religious people (Catholics, Jews, etc.), they frame it as though these nice religious people are getting hoodwinked out of their money to support some godless cause. Never mind that the each of the last three Popes, all the way back to 1950, have directly stated that there is no conflict between Catholicism and evolution. As Pope John Paul II put it, Truth Cannot Contradict Truth.

This is why I don't get why so many religious people are scared of science: if God really did create the world, why don't religious people view the effort to objectively study and understand the natural world to be the most holy calling to which one may aspire? One intelligent commenter on Ebert's review put it more eloquently than I can:

As a devout Mormon with a PhD in genetics, I am always amazed at the anger that evolution evokes in some people or why they think that learning evolution is so dangerous to faith. Personally I think that religion that cannot handle truth gained from looking at the world around us is denying the most important works of God. The Bible is a short and incomplete book that does not attempt to explain orchids or dinosaurs or many other things.

Well said!

*I still owe the NCSE about $100 to offset the price of admission for two to Expelled, the Creation Museum, and the Creation Museum planetarium. These field trips are getting expensive.

Prediction!

You heard it here first: Citing how mean and sexist Joe Biden and that Obama-loving Gwen Ifill were to her during the debate, Sarah Palin will announce tomorrow morning that she is withdrawing from the race over the protests of a shattered and disheartened John McCain. She would rather spend time caring for her family than risk dragging down the McCain campaign (and the country!) as a target for continued attacks from narrow-minded, sexist elites.

Even thought the debate is nine hours away, I'm sure the press release has already been drafted.

Any thoughts on who her replacement will be. Lieberman? Lieberman?

UPDATE 12/7/08: So that prediction was a little bit incorrect. She did a lot better than I expected, and it's hard for me to feel bad, especially considering how the election turned out. I guess I'm actually kinda glad she stuck around.

Sorry. More Palin Videos

I know, you're tired of videos of Palin looking dumb. But, she is dumb (and REALLY inexperienced). So let's embrace that.



"Read? What? I like movies. And I'm, like, ready to be vice president because I watched Air Force One. And Harrison Ford is dreamy."

I hope McCain drops her. I'm offended as an American that he thinks she would be a good leader of the country. She insults my very being.

Did You Know...

...the Parliamant of Canada is composed of two houses.

The House of Commons is the dominant branch. Each of its 282 seats is elected from one electoral district (or "riding") by simple plurality vote. Members retain their seats until they resign or Parliament is dissolved for a new election.

The Senate's duties, on the other hand, are largely ceremonial. It is composed entirely of the winners of the most recent NHL All-Star Game and is presided over by the reigning MVP. Members of the 2008 Canadian Senate are:

Vincent Lecavalier - Forward
Daniel Alfredsson - Forward
Scott Gomez - Forward
Evgeni Malkin - Forward
Mar Savard - Forward
Marian Hossa - Forward
Ilya Kovalchuk - Forward
Alex Ovechkin - Forward
Mike Richards - Forward
Jason Spezza - Forward
Eric Staal - Forward (MVP)
Martin St. Louis - Forward
Andrei Markov - Defense
Zdeno Chara - Defense
Brian Campbell - Defense
Sergei Gonchar - Defense
Tomas Kaberle - Defense
Kimmo Timonen - Defense
Tim Thomas - Goaltender
Rick DiPietro - Goaltender
Tomas Vokoun - Goaltender

Fun Fact: Though the Senate rules do not explicitly prohibit it, no woman has ever served in the Canadian Senate.

Tina Fey is awesome.

I enjoyed this SNL bit...

Sarah Palin Interview Answers

Finally, we can get answers from Sarah Palin. For some reason she seems to dodge interviews and press conferences. I bet her baby gets sick before the debate and she can't go. Oh, was that a sexist comment? Sorry about that.

Anyhow, some brilliant guy wrote a thing to create Palin interview answers from computer analysis of her speeches and statements. "The Markov chain generated answers are surprising close to her actual answers." Whatever that means. But it's great. Just the kind of incoherent babble I'd expect

Q: Why should the US elect Senator McCain?

A: John McCain has a great plan to get caught up in this terror. They need to pursue those and we have to stand for that. I see the United States, and the insurance carrier duties of AIG. But first and shoring up allies and positions and figuring out what sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads us to a position like we are at a point, here, seven years later, on the table. I think that I just gave you. But, again, we've got to remember what the bailout does is help those who are hell bent on destroying our nation.

P.S. I don't like her or her stupidly large anti-choice Republican family.

Campaign Ads after the debate

I'm going to go ahead and say that McCain's post-debate ad is stupid and yet another McCain campaign distortion of the truth.

This is the ad about how Obama said "John McCain is right" several times during the debate. Way to jump on Obama for the stupidest reason possible. Attacking his competence because of his particular debate style is really disingenuous. Here's a run-down of the quoted statements:

1) "Well, I think Senator McCain's absolutely right that we need more responsibility." This followed McCain's comments that he would hold those on Wall Street accountable for this problem. Who wouldn't say that is rights? If Obama said "McCain is abolutely wrong," he would not be giving the wrong answer. Obama conceded a good point and moved on to say that his own plan would do the same thing, but more all the time.

I want a president who can look at other's statements and agree that something in what they said was useful. I don't want someone who will always stick to his own guns and never listen. That's led this country into a shithole over the last few years.

2) "Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused." Who wouldn't disagree with McCain's statement that earmarks are bad. Obama then went on to criticize McCain's incessant ranting about earmarks when there are clearly bigger problems.

I want a president, again, who will listen. Obama's quoted statement shows that while McCain was speaking, Obama was listening. He took what McCain said and agreed, but then made his own case clear. This is a debate strategy. No reason to fight just to fight. Make your opponent feel good before you slap him down with your argument.

3) "Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he's absolutely right." Of course, the ad doesn't quote the next line, "Here's the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world."

The quoted line is actually just the opening part of Obama refuting McCain's claim. Obama was agreeing with the exact fact, not agreeing with McCain's point in the least. If he had disagreed with the exact fact, he would have been wrong.

This ad is more asinine campaigning by the McCain campaign than panders to the lowest common denominator. The ignorant people in America that want to believe will see the ad and say, "Wow, Obama agrees with McCain." But those that watched the debate know that not to be true.

Of course, we all know truth is not really a priority to McCain.

And thanks for the transcript from the International Herald Tribune.

Awesome!

The Merchant of Death

CNN reports that the U.S. is working on extraditing the "Merchant of Death", Victor Bout.

Assuming the allegations are true, I wonder under what basis the U.S. is claiming jurisdiction over the man. He is charged with supplying weapons to a wide variety of unpleasant people: the Taliban, Charles Taylor (Liberia), the RUF of Siera Leone, and the Colombian FARC. It is this last group that got him in trouble.

The U.S. State Department includes the FARC on its list of terrorist organizations, but most of the crimes they appear to have committed include drug trafficking.

Mr. Bout attempted to sell weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to the FARC, which is how he got caught. U.S. DEA agents went undercover and posed as Colombian rebels to get the evidence in this case. They secretly recorded a meeting in Thailand where he offered to sell the weapons. Bout is charged with "conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile."

Isn't this stretching our legal system a little bit?

Looking at the charges, the first two kind of bother me: "conspiring to kill Americans and conspiring to kill U.S. officers and employees." Doesn't that imply some intent? To conspire, shouldn't he have intended that the sale would result in the killing of Americans? The FARC is a revolutionary army in Colombia, trying to change the Colombian scene. Yes, U.S. forces are there with the DEA, finding drugs, and U.S. citizens have been injured, but is that really the purpose for the FARC acquiring weapons? I doubt it. So at best, I would think we could only charge Bout with recklessly endangering American citizens.

How about "conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile." Negotiating in Thailand the sale of a Russian missile to people in Colombia doesn't sound like it should incur U.S. criminal charges. Are we saying that it is a U.S. crime to use or acquire an AA missile anywhere in the world for any purpose? That seems a little outside our jurisdiction.

And, finally, "conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization." I'll give them that one. If we are going to continue the War on Terror, the U.S. needs to be even handed in crushing terrorist groups everywhere. We can't pick and choose.

So what are the options?

We could detain him as an enemy combatant in Guantanamo. That doesn't seem to fit and imagine the questions that would raise in the international community.

We could do as we are and charge him with a U.S. crime. But nothing he did directly touched the U.S. Traditionally, foreign jurisdiction for crimes has generally rested on the 1) act occurring in the U.S., 2) the accused being a U.S. citizen, or 3) the victim being a U.S. citizen. 1 and 2 are pretty well accepted. 3 is too, especially after the many terrorist attacks on U.S. interests around the world.

I don't see the Bout case fitting any of the above categories. We are now exercising Universal jurisdiction. Any act, anywhere, that we deem a crime, the U.S. now is asserting criminal jurisdiction. That's a bold claim.

I propose that we go back to the 70s in terms of international jurisdiction. Or at least the 70s of the movies. International spies running around doing covert operations against the bad people.

It sounds so much easier that this stretching of the world's collective legal imagination.

We Need This Man in the Whitehouse

Diagnosis

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD. These events can include:

• Combat or military exposure
• Child sexual or physical abuse
• Terrorist attacks
• Sexual or physical assault
• Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
• Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

After the event, you may feel scared, confused, or angry. If these feelings don't go away or they get worse, you may have PTSD. These symptoms may disrupt your life, making it hard to continue with your daily activities.

The United States has had PTSD for 7 years now. It's time we sought some help for it.

Procreation? What for?

So, I was helping a friend out with some high school science homework at the bar last night when in the midst of the module about asexual and sexual reproduction I encountered a surprisingly deep question. It was:

What is the purpose of reproduction?

I’m sure whoever wrote the question intended it to be pretty straight forward, but having just looked through the module on anatomical evidence supporting the theory of evolution, I couldn’t see past the mistaken premise of the question.

You see, there is no purpose for reproduction.

To see why, take a moment to follow me down the garden path.... Suppose there is a table in front of you with a bunch of objects on it. These objects do lots of things for no particular reason. Think of them as little robots. Some make noise. Some have flashing lights. Some bounce up and down. Some construct sculptures. And some make more objects like themselves.

Next, suppose that the table, though rather large, has a finite area and a very definite edge. Occasionally some of the little objects, particularly the ones that move around a lot, fall off the edge, and from time to time objects get accidentally bumped off by other objects.

In this hypothetical scenario with dumb little robots, what happens over time? Well, if you wait long enough, there is a day in the future when none of the robots you started with will be on the table. In the long run, if there is a finite risk that any particular robot will fall over the edge, then eventually any robot will fall off the edge.

So does this mean that there won’t be any robots left on the table? Not necessarily. Remember that some of those first robots made more robots. Maybe some of those newer robots will still be on the table on the day that the last of the original robots falls off.

Of course, even the little robots that were made by other little robots are subject to the cold math of the Edge, but that doesn’t imply that the table will be empty if you wait even longer. Rather, if any one of these little robots makes more robots, as long as some of those make more robots, and as long as the robots make more robots faster than they fall off the table, you may never run out of robots.

In fact, the table is bound to fill up with robots and overflow onto the floor even faster. These robots still might do all sorts of things (blink, beep, jump, etc.), but one thing is for sure, they are all descendants of robot making robots, and many of them (perhaps most or all) will be robot making robots themselves. In fact, over time, the average ability of the robots to make more robots, and the sophistication of strategies of avoiding the edge will increase exponentially.

So, what does this have to do with the purpose of reproduction? Well, which of these robots had a purpose to its actions? None - these robots are machines. They just do what they do. Is a robot that blinks any better than a robot that bounces? Is one happier? No – they don’t even know what they’re doing.

The only thing that is special about reproduction is that systems of populations tend toward populations that reproduce. This is true regardless of whether the elements of the population are capable of even intending to reproduce. Plants, animals, viruses, genes, memes, business plans all create or inspire copies of themselves without really meaning to.

People understand this, I suppose, but they also make the mistake of assigning purpose to the activity. I do it too. (I used the word “strategies” with some timidity three paragraphs ago.) Along the way, people also think of reproduction as success, even though it isn’t. It isn't failure either. Reproduction just is. It is the activity that, by definition, still is later. If a robot, descendant from a long line of reproducing robots was made so it didn’t reproduce, but did handstands instead, would it have somehow failed? No, because it had no more or less intent to make more robots (or do handstands for that matter) than its parent had to make more robots. They all just do what they do.

You might say, “People are different. We are not robots. We intend to do things. We do things for purposes.” I won’t disagree that we are different, but you must agree that the system is the same. The reason most folks think it is important to have kids is because we are all the product of that impulse, and most folks were built with that impulse. But that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean someone is any better or worse for doing something different (or doing the same, for that matter). They’re just doing what they do.

So, what’s the purpose of reproduction? Beats me. I don't know any better than a robot.

The Dems need to step it up

I'm feeling ranty today. I'm getting really tired of the Democrats and Obama not fighting like they want to actually win. I love Obama. He's exactly what I think this country needs in a president: he's can speak intelligently without looking like a jackass, he is a really intelligent person, he's got international experience and awareness, and he's a great motivator and organizer.

I hate Bush's smirk. Bush's speeches always remind me of Henny Youngman , the King of the One Liners. "Take my wife, please!" *laughter and applause* "Liberals think we're not winning in Iraq!" *smirk and applause* No that was not an exact or real quote, but you get the idea. McCain has the same stupid speaking style. One liners and he's got the stupid smirk. A politician smirking makes me think two things: he's already rigged the election and he's really just pandering for applause. Obama doesn't smirk. When he speaks, he says stuff. This is great.

And it is bad. Obama doesn't create the soundbites. He doesn't have that one-liner style that forces the audience to get up and cheer for him after everything he says. When Obama speaks, you listen to the whole thing and it makes you think. He doesn't get the laughs for the one-liners, he makes you appreciate the whole thing. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans seem to have short attention spans and really can only appreciate "The horse I bet on was so slow, the jockey kept a diary of the trip."

And a brief aside on Obama's international experience. Republicans on one hand say Obama has NO foreign policy experience, then they bash him because he lived in Indonesia as a child, saying he is not American enough. You know what? Living abroad as a child helps develop a broad understanding of different cultures and a great mind for cooperation internationally. McCain's experience seems to be based on the fact that he spent a few years in the 60s bombing the shit out of Vietnamese. Then he got to enjoy the inside of a prison. Foreign policy based on blowing up foreigners and seeking revenge for years locked in a box isn't likely to be that great.

Palin has no experience other than living near Russia (that's a bullshit response). Her experience is a lot more like Bush's. Bush governed near Mexico, but had never travelled abroad before becoming president. Palin had to apply for a passport in 2007 to visit troops in Kuwait and Germany. At least Bush governed a state with a diverse population. I would love to have a president who's at least traveled a bit. Obama has done that. He hasn't performed international negotiations or anything else, but at least people around the world like him.

Back to my point.

Ok, so back to my point, if I have one. Obama and the Dems need to step it up. A lot. They've got a great candidate in Obama (and a reliable guy in Biden). They just are not fighting the way they need to. Winning candidates show that they are ready to fight for what they want. McCain's doing that. He's ready to contradict his previous statements and say what people want him to say. McCain didn't have the support of the far right conservatives, so he chose a redneck as his vice presidential candidate. She got the votes.

The latest from the McCain camp is a new ad blasting Obama for his sexist comments about Palin. McCain's campaign is claiming that Obama called Palin a Pig with Lipstick. That's a funny image...

The context of Obama's comment has nothing to do with Palin (directly): "That's not change. That's just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." But McCain's campaign wants to suck every bit of sympathy that they can out of Palin. She's a woman so Obama should be nice, and McCain wants to look like he will protect the women. Not that that concept isn't a bit paternalistic and demeaning to women, generally.

On the other hand, McCain used the same stupid pig in lipstick phrase to bash Hillary and has used it many times. But when Obama says it, it's sexist and McCain wants an apology.

Obama, two bits of advice for you. First, NEVER use this phrase. It should only ever be muttered by someone in Appalachia. McCain and Palin are working to corner the redneck market. Good for them. Use reaosnable, less creepy phrases. Second, fight back. Don't get on your speechifying stump and give one of your great speeches. Put together something that shows how sexist McCain is. I know you can find good clips. But fight back. This is the sort of stupid shit that people get worked up over.

I guess I'm just exhausted by this election already. I keep seeing McCain use low-brow campaign tactics and I keep seeing them work. Then Obama is staying above the fray, which I do appreciate, but it makes him look like he isn't fighting for it.

I would love to see Obama keep up his goodguy image and not stoop to McCain's level. If you have to give up your ethics to win, sometimes it isn't worth it. But McCain's contradictory tactics are working for him, look at the polls. I hope it backfires, but I don't think it will until Obama comes out swinging. Or maybe some independent Dem should start swiftboating the fuck out of McCain without Obama's approval. But somewhere or another, the Dems need to go on the offensive and stop assumign that Obama's intelligent discussion of the issues is going to win.

As a friend of mine recently said, "The last two elections, and this one incrasingly, have shown that you can bring up all the issues you want to, but that mudslinging works." While I would hate to promote the idea that the ends justify the means, I think some additional means should be used to prevent another Bush term.

The Bridge to Nowhere

View Larger Map

So, there's all kinds of talk lately about Sarah Palin's support (or opposition) to the Bridge to Nowhere. I imagine most people don't know what or where this bridge was supposed to be and probably don't know how amazingly stupid the idea was. Ketchikan, Alaska is a beautiful little town in Southeast Alaska, a couple hours north of Seattle. The town was once predominantly a fishing community with a cannery or two and a lot of commercial vessels based there. There's still that, but the town has moved to being a tourist town. The salmon and halibut fishing is great in the area, so there's a lot of fishing tours out of Ketchikan. Additionally, many cruise ships either begin there or dock there at some point during their journey to peruse the old town area's charming shops and massive souvenir markets. Probably most important though is Ketchikan is home to an (international) airport that can land larger planes, so it is a great base point to anywhere you might need to travel in Southeast Alaska.

The "problem" with the airport is that it is based on an island seperate from the island Ketchikan is on. The news says the Bridge to Nowhere was going to connect the two, never mentioning how close they are or the infrastructure built up to get people form the airport ot where they need to go. You really have a few options. First, many people (and companies) in Ketchikan have boats and they can dock at the airport island. Second, float planes might pick you up from the island to take you directly to one of the more remote islands. Finally, and most importantly, there is a ferry that runs about every 15 (or 30) minutes from one side to the other.

The ferry costs 5 bucks or so per person and the ride is a whole 5 minutes. Look at the photo to the right there. To the road to the right of the image is the ferry at the airport. On the far shore, at the very left edge of the photo, is the ferry loading zone in Ketchikan. This is not a far distance. This ferry is very convenient, fast, and for many tourists (me) it is a charming entrance to the town.

But people want a bridge because it is easier and faster. When I'm going on vacation to a great fishing town, speed and efficiency are not really MY highest priorities. Maybe I'm just weird though.

Ok, so why would the Bridge to Nowhere be a REALLY stupid thing? And why would it cost so damned much money? Why should anyone with half a brain say it would be more trouble that it is worth? Because that little channel between Ketchikan and the airport island is a heavily traveled channel.



View Larger Map

In that map, do you see the large cruise ships docked at Ketchikan? Do you see the variety of smaller vessels moving about? I think I mentioned float planes at some point. How about the large ferries that run through there on the Alaska Marine Highway connecting other outlying islands? The point is, this is a busy channel that needs to have room for large vessels. A bridge over it would have to either be REALLY tall or a very significant drawbridge. It would hamper vessel traffic. It would be dangerous for the bazillion float planes that use the area. It would be really, really dumb. There is no reason to spend that much money to build a bridge to avoid a 5 minute ferry ride to the airport.

If Sarah Palin ever supported this stupid project then she is either:

a) a complete idiot, and/or

b) a wasteful spender who likes to throw taxpayer's money away on things she knows nothing about.

I hope this was educational in some way. I know a lot of people are talking about the Bridge, but most people don't seem to know what it is. I thought I would explain, with pictures.

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

There are two internet arguments going on right now that really highlight the problem with the whole anonymous-intertube-speak-my-mind thing that we got going these days: not enough brakes on being inconsiderate and not enough thick skins. Consequently, we get a little good ol'fashion radicalism. WOOT!

First, the trivial. Murky Coffee, a nice place where I study with good hot chocolate, apparently has a policy that prohibits them from pouring espresso over ice for integrity of the beverage reasons. (Don't ask me, I don't know anything about coffee.)

A patron ordered one and got offended that Murky was reluctant to let him have it. He wrote a blog post about it (here) jokingly threatening arson. Unfortunately, while at Murky, he didn't notice that the place is a damned fire-trap where arson is no joke, so the owner got all upset and threatened to punch him in the dick. Thus, we have tempers flaring over coffee and how it is to be served.

This puts things into perspective, I think, as we move onto discussions of the divine. It turns out that last week at some point, some dude goes into a Catholic church, accepts the Holy Eucharist and bolts without eating it. To Catholics who believe that through transubstantiation the little bread wafer actually becomes the body of Christ, absconding with the redeemer of our sins is obviously a big deal. On the other hand, to other folks like PZ Meyers (who I must add, I totally respect and proudly link to in this general direction ===>), the practice of worrying about the well-being of a cracker is just about as silly as refusing to serve espresso on ice.

Anyway, long story short, PZ rightly mocks Bill Donohue, head of the "Catholic League" (who as far as I can tell, doesn't actually speak for any actual Catholics), but then PZ takes it a step too far and says that if someone were to get him a piece of the Eucharist he would defile it (with photos) right there on his website. This make Donohue call out PZ as a Catholic hater and push for his university to fire him. This also results in a lot of hate mail and death threats by good Christian folk, apparently. PZ posts the death threats on his website. Then PZ's people start writing hate mail in the other direction.

So where did we go wrong? Well, for starters, we got into the habit of worrying too much about what people we don't know do with their own time. We get so worried about it, that we get offended. Frankly, its ok for PZ to think it is foolish to see the son of God in a "cracker," but it is entirely another thing to encourage people to fuck with the people who do and to be insensitive to how it would make people react. For starters, it just doesn't help his cause. Donohue is a fringe blowhard, but all of a sudden he can point to someone who is willing to desecrate a cracker just to piss off total strangers. All of a sudden, Donohue, a shallow hate-monger, looks reasonable in comparison.

Anyway, PZ: back off. Catholics: what can you do for the Son of God that he can't do for himself? We should all just go out and get an iced espresso and hug it out, but apparently not at Murky.

Well, at least Louis C.K. is more bitter about coffee shops than most of us could be about anything. Somebody's gotta take it easy for all of us sinners. Am I wrong, dude?

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

(Language NSFW.)

TED: Know Thy Enemy

If you do a Google(r) brand intertube search for "why they hate us," you'll get about 107,000 hits. 9/11 sparked two great arguments around this phrase. The first is an argument about the correct answer to the question, if there is one. The second argument is between those who think it is a topic worth studying and those who think asking is wrong because it somehow acknowledges some amount of our own culpability for the actions of terrorists.

Here are two very unrelated TED talks that illustrate beautifully why the folks who think we shouldn't ask "why they hate us" are so wrong. The first talk offers a new approach for our ongoing struggles against perhaps the most persistent and adaptable enemy our civilization has ever faced: germs. The second demonstrates a practical example of how to benefit from an intimate understanding of a pest (crows).

Paul Ewald: Can We Domesticate Germs?


Consider our approaches for battling infectious diseases in light of evolutionary principles. A lot of what we do pushes the evolution of infectious organisms in ways that ultimately make them more lethal. For example, our heavy reliance upon antibiotics naturally selects for drug resistant bacteria. Paul Ewald asks whether there are things we could do to make these diseases evolve in a way that selects for strains that are progressively less lethal?

He cites two examples:
1. Cholera: Diseases that spread person-to-person have an evolutionary brake on virility because strains that make people so sick they can't leave their homes can't spread to other hosts. However, water-borne illnesses are trickier to contain because even when a person with Cholera becomes bed-ridden and immobile, their waste products usually make their way back to the water supply for transmission to others. Consequently, improved drinking-water treatment systems have two affects on water-borne illnesses. First, they greatly reduce the spread of Cholera in general. Second, they completely eliminate the primary means of transmission for the most deadly strains. Consequently, even if you don't eliminate cholera, you make it manageable. To back this up, he cites a cholera outbreak in South America in the 90's and compared the severity of strains over time in two countries with strikingly different water treatment systems (Ecuador and Chile). In only five years, the severe strains disappeared in Chile but remained in Ecuador.

2. Malaria: Unlike cholera, malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes (or skeeters). Ewald points out that improvements that make housing more mosquito proof have tremendous effects in countering malaria fatalities, but not in the way you might think. Mosquito-proofing ensures that severely sick people can't spread the disease through mosquitoes while they are too weak to leave their beds. You're still just as likely to get malaria when you venture outside, but as time passes you become much less likely of catching a variety of malaria that will put you out of commission because the serious strains have failed to find new hosts. This becomes particularly valuable in places in Africa where no amount of conventional efforts can control the prevalence of mosquitoes and malaria.

Joshua Klein: The Amazing Intelligence of Crows



Crows are smart-damned-birds, and this video is worth watching simply for the examples of how well they are able to use their big bird brains to survive and prosper among humans. Despite their um... charm, lots of folks consider them pests. However, Joshua Klein accepts the challenge of harnessing their intellect toward constructive ends. His solution: crow vending machines.

Klein walks you through his process for training crows to deposit coins into a specially made machine in exchange for peanuts. The crows in his neighborhood now sweep the city for discarded change and return it to his back yard. Unfortunately, he doesn't report a return on investment.

Lesson:
By examining what makes bacteria and crows tick, have we somehow ceded the moral high ground? Of course not - the question is amoral. We're looking into the dynamics of a system to find efficient means to exploit it. (In the case of the crows, the exploit just happens to be a mutually beneficial exchange.) Terror networks are organisms. They have their own dynamics, and they evolve. It is madness to fight them without understanding them. Consequently, societies that tolerate this sort of willful blindness toward the motives of their enemies are ensuring their own demise.

TED: Thomas Barnett - The Pentagon's New Map for War and Peace

Lately I've been watching a lot of the talks given at the TED conference. TED takes place each year in Monterrey, CA and shows off the ideas of some of the world's most inspired thinkers. Most of the talks and performances are now posted on YouTube, so it is a great way to spend the occasional 20 minutes or so of down time. They are all pretty thought provoking, and I'll probably be posting many of them here.

Here's one to get you started:

Thomas Barnett is a strategic planner who has been working for the Pentagon since the cold war ended. He gave an entertaining briefing at TED about how the Pentagon needs to adapt for post cold war conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. Specifically, he outlines a procedure for processing politically bankrupt states and proposes a dedicated force of people to manage the peace before and after conflicts. He argues that we have a brilliant Secretary of War, but we also need a Secretary of Everything else.

Here's a few choice quotes. The link is embedded below.

We field a first half team in a league that insists on keeping score until the end of the game. That’s the problem. We can run the score up against anybody and then get our asses kicked in the second half.
...
What are we missing? A functioning executive to translate will into action. Because we don’t have it every time we lead one of these efforts we have to whip ourselves into this immanent threat thing. We haven’t faced an immanent threat since the Cuban missile crisis – 1962. But we use this language from a bygone era to scare ourselves into doing something because we’re a democracy and that’s what it takes. If that doesn’t work, we scream “He’s got a gun!” just as we rush in. Then we look over the body, and we find an old cigarette lighter and we say “Jesus it was dark.”
...
What we need downstream is a great power enabled Systems Administration force. We should have had 250,000 troops streaming into Iraq on the heels of that Leviathan force sweeping towards Baghdad. What you get then is no looting, no military disappearing, no ammo disappearing, no Muqtadah Al-Sadr. No insurgency. Talk to anybody who was over there in the first six months: We had six months to feel the love, get the job done, and we dicked around for six months. Then they turned on us.
...
The question is, how do we reconnect American national security with global security to make the world a lot more comfortable and to embed and contextualize our employment of force around the planet?... Let's have a Department of War and a Department of Something else. Some people say, "Hell, 9/11 did it for you. Now we got a home game: an away game." Department of Homeland Security is a strategic feel-good measure. It's going to be the Department of Agriculture for the 21st century. TSA: Thousands Standing Around. Just be grateful Robert Reed didn't shove that bomb up his ass.

Turn Off the Light and Get That Out of Your Mouth!

A post entitled Top Ten WTF? US Sex Laws was getting a lot of Diggs today - understandably, I suppose. Two of the mentioned laws caught my eye because they were... um... in local jurisdictions. They are:

"2. In Virginia it is illegal to have sex with the lights on."

-and-

"5. Engaging in any sexual position other than missionary is illegal in Washington, DC."

I know there are a lot of useless laws still on the books that legislatures haven't gotten around to repealing and haven't been challenged in the courts, but I also know better than to believe everything I read on the internet. So I decided I would look into these a bit.

The DC law is easy. There is no sign of it in the DC code, and at some point DC repealed the entire section on indecency where such a provision, if it ever existed, probably resided. So, feel free to mix it up in the District.

Virginia turned out to be a little more tricky. The Code of Virginia devotes Title 18.2 Chapter 8 to "Crimes Involving Morals and Decency." Among the long list of unsavory topics covered by the chapter (including gambling, prostitution, bestiality, obscene books, and bigamy) there were three statutes that, facially, make criminals out of a whole lot of well-meaning and otherwise law-abiding folks.

They are:

§ 18.2-344. Fornication: "Any person, not being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor."

§ 18.2-345. Lewd and lascivious cohabitation: "If any persons, not married to each other, lewdly and lasciviously associate and cohabit together, or, whether married or not, be guilty of open and gross lewdness and lasciviousness, each of them shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor; and upon a repetition of the offense, and conviction thereof, each of them shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor."

§ 18.2-361A. Crimes against nature; penalty: "If any person... carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony..."

Shocked? Imagine how uncomfortable the floor debate over these bills must have been way back in the early 19th century. (An old version of the last one used the classy term "buggery.")

Thankfully, the courts have granted us (some) relief from the prying whims of narrow-minded legislators.

Fornication:
This statute was indeed intended to punish all sex outside of marriage, but the last conviction occurred before the civil war. However it has been invoked to support public policy arguments against sex outside of marriage. But in 2005, the law was finally ruled unconstitutional when a man who was being sued by an ex-girlfriend for knowingly giving her herpes argued in his defense that he could not be liable for damages suffered by a willing co-venturer in an illegal sexual relationship. Martin v. Ziherl, 269 Va. 35 (2005). The Virginia Supreme Court invalidated the Va. statute citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas: "[T]he fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice." Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577.

So why does the statute remain on the books? The decision only invalidated the statute "as applied." Because the court found that the statute could be applied to cases lacking consent, involving minors, or involving public acts, it wasn't entirely unconstitutional. However, there are lots of other laws on the books that cover these other situations. This law is clearly intended to target the activities of consenting adults anywhere. A plain reading of it is misleading and totally uninformative about where the line is between legal and illegal conduct. Consequently, this law needs to be repealed.

Lewd and Lascivious Cohabitation:
This statute has two distinct parts. The first applies only to unmarried people and proscribes living with or routinely shacking-up with someone with whom you have a sexual relationship. The second part applies to married and unmarried folks alike and proscribes public displays of affection that cross the line into "lewd and lascivious" conduct.

This statute gets a lot more use than the fornication statute, but most charges stem from public acts outlawed by the second part. The last recorded conviction for private, consensual cohabitation was recorded in 1883.

The second part of the statute could be source of the alleged Virginia prohibition on having sex with the lights on. In one case, the defendants were acquitted when police officers saw the offenders in their home as the wind blew the drawn curtains to the side. Perhaps another case stands for the proposition that if you have the curtains open and lights on so that you are in view of the public you violate the second part of the statute.

In any case, the first part of the statute has not been challenged since the Loving decision, and it probably would not hold up. Consequently, it should be appealed along with the fornication statute.

Crimes Against Nature
This one, a prohibition on oral and anal sex, is also unconstitutional in light of Loving. Prior to Loving, the constitutionality of this statute was upheld, but it is hard to see how it might be constitutional today when applied to the private acts of consenting adults. Though I have little doubt it will stay on the books, like the fornication statute, to be piled onto charges otherwise illegal activity. But if that is all it is good for, why not clear things up with an amendment?

I'm not a fan of these long-outdated laws. Aside from the fact that they provide opportunities for selective, discriminatory enforcement against unpopular groups, they also contribute to a general lack of respect for the law by making nearly everyone a criminal at one point or another. Anyone who has ever argued against amnesty for illegal immigrants had better agree with me on this one or advocate throwing the book at slightly kinky couples everywhere.

Voodoo in a Box

In Evidence Class this week, my professor shared an interesting anecdote. He described a magical device called a "Contraband Detector" which could supposedly detect concealed drugs, cash, or weapons - pretty much whatever you wanted to find that a bad guy might be hiding.

The device was a scam, of course - just a box with some wiring in it and a little randomly fluctuating needle on the front. But, according to my professor, some cops bought it some officers even used it as a basis for their testimony in court: "We didn't find any drugs on the scene but we knew there was some there because the little black box told us so."

Anyway, my friend Dan thought he'd look into it further, and - I'll be damned - there is still a company out there selling this thing. Global Security Solutions is an Ontario based supplier of security, surveillance, and anti-terror supplies who proudly markets it on their website.

According to the description, the CDS-2002i can detect concealed "weapons, narcotics, alcohol, and explosives. As the suspect object is scanned, contraband materials reflect the low-level radiation, which is measured by the very sensitive detector."

This could be read two ways depending on how much charity you wish to extend to the folds at GSC: either totally bogus or semi-bogus.

Totally Bogus: If they mean that there are specific properties of contraband that this thing detects, this is just an outright scam. Is there something about not being allowed to have something that affects its physical properties? Will it detect nudie magazines under your son's bed?

Semi-Bogus: Of course, this could simply be a device to determine whether or not an object is solid all the way through. For example, you may want to know whether there is a bag of drugs submerged in a barrel of coffee beans, and maybe solid coffee beans reflect radiation differently than drugs surrounded by beans. I'd say this sounds more plausible except for the fact that they have a different product that does this using microwaves: The Advanced Contraband Detector.



If these things do anything at all, they probably just generate probable cause for searches. For every object you wanted to scan, you would have to have to scan an identical, contraband-free target to calibrate the device. Any detectable difference between your calibration target and the scanned object would raise suspicion regardless of whether it is the result of contraband, something allowable, operator error, or a poorly selected calibration target. The only way to tell the difference would be to perform a search. Perform enough searches, you will find some contraband. As long as you aren't being scientific about it (law enforcement generally isn't), selection bias might influence you to believe that the device is helping you find contraband, when in reality are just conducting random searches.

Note that GSC isn't just selling to small time suckers. They eagerly tout the fact that they are registered in the central contractor database to sell to the Defense Department and Homeland Security. I did a quick search and found that the Air Force bought a $20k "Surface Explosive Detector" from them in 2005, a device I couldn't find on their website. That's the only contract I found, but if they are making other sales as a subcontractor (a common practice), it wouldn't appear in my search. At any rate, lets hope taxpayers haven't foot the bill for too many dubious products.

Piracy: Scapegoat for an Entire Industry

Back in October, I posted, in excited anticipation, about Radiohead's newest release In Rainbows. You may recall that the band opted not to sign to a record label. Instead, they made the album available for download and allowed users to pay whatever they wanted.

Radiohead has not released their sales figures, but surveys indicate that most users paid very little for the album. However, whatever Radiohead did receive in payment likely exceeded their share of sales royalties under a conventional recording contract.

Now the physical version of the album is in stores, and (Guess What!) it went straight to #1 in sales for the week. Granted, January is a slow month for music sales, and the total US sales in the first week were about half of Radiohead's highly anticipated previous release. However, this supports the case (however strongly) that piracy is not the primary issue facing the ailing record business. Even here, where listeners were encouraged to download the album for free before it was available in stores, they are able to demonstrate sales most other artists would be jealous of, not to mention that every physical album sold is just gravy at this point.

Instead, the problem with the record industry is stubborn insistence on an outdated business model. They market one catchy song and sell it as a pricey album with 12 crappy songs. Yes, consumers are pirating the catchy songs, but they wouldn't if they were given an alternative with value, like a reasonably priced single (consider the success of iTunes) or an album of genuine quality (think Radiohead).

Don't get me wrong. As a budding Intellectual Property attorney, I firmly support the right of record labels to control the terms of distribution of their copyrighted works. But at some point, they have to consider the practical aspects of enforcement. If their marketing strategy encourages more piracy than they could possibly hope to control, it is bad business not to adapt. Examples like Radiohead's new album illustrate that record labels may be a hindrance to artists rather than an aid, and more artists may choose to exploit their copyrights on their own.

Farewell Andy Olmsted

Major Andrew Olmsted, a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq and frequent blogger at Obsidian Wings, was killed in action on on January 3rd. He left behind a final post to be published in the event of his death. Here's an excerpt:

Soldiers cannot have the option of opting out of missions because they don't agree with them: that violates the social contract. The duly-elected American government decided to go to war in Iraq.... As a soldier, I have a duty to obey the orders of the President of the United States as long as they are Constitutional. I can no more opt out of missions I disagree with than I can ignore laws I think are improper. I do not consider it a violation of my individual rights to have gone to Iraq on orders because I raised my right hand and volunteered to join the army. Whether or not this mission was a good one, my participation in it was an affirmation of something I consider quite necessary to society. So if nothing else, I gave my life for a pretty important principle; I can (if you'll pardon the pun) live with that.
...
Sometimes going to war is the right idea. I think we've drawn that line too far in the direction of war rather than peace, but I'm a soldier and I know that sometimes you have to fight if you're to hold onto what you hold dear. But in making that decision, I believe we understate the costs of war; when we make the decision to fight, we make the decision to kill, and that means lives and families destroyed. Mine now falls into that category; the next time the question of war or peace comes up, if you knew me at least you can understand a bit more just what it is you're deciding to do, and whether or not those costs are worth it.

It is a very insightful and moving post from a self-effacing, fallen soldier. I hope you will read it.

Andy was killed by a sniper while attempting to convince suspected insurgents to surrender before he and his men opened fire. Andy is survived by his wife Amanda.

[Thanks to Cosmic Variance.]