Link roundup for 25 January 2008

Mock Paper Scissors has a wonderful dissection of Republican economic plans -- and another fashion fiasco.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Don't like any of the candidates for President? Consider this guy.

An Apostate's Chapel takes a hilarious and terribly sad look at 19th-century sexuality.

Spanish Inquisitor reveals the ancestor of whales (second item).

Creationist wingnuts lay siege to the school boards of Texas and Florida.

Jay Cost assesses Fred Thompson.

Here's why Super Tuesday could leave the Republicans more divided than ever.

I predicted a few days ago that John McCain's emergence as the Republican front-runner meant he would soon be pelted with mud by his own side, and -- yikes! Splat! Glorp! Splud! Plop! Squelch! Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay are pretty down on him too.

Hillary Clinton claims voter intimidation in Nevada.

Christopher Hitchens looks at Mike Huckabee's disturbing affection for the Confederate flag.

NATO generals offer a grim dose of realism.

Things aren't looking good for secularism in Turkey.

I always figured this was fakery.

Black Americans are defying their self-appointed leaders on the issue of illegal immigration.

Exit Zero unveils an especially ugly piece of cultural relativism.

British scientists are testing a breakthrough stem-cell treatment for heart attack victims.

Link roundup for 6 January 2008

Sesame Street's "The Count" zeroes in on the right number.

Bill Maher speaks out on religion in politics and on missionaries.

Mendip notes that today is the birthday of the British comedian Rowan Atkinson, of Blackadder fame.

Jabberwock has a new Chick dissection posted. Today's topic is evolution.

Here's an interesting posting about Darwin and Malthus (found via Apostate's Chapel).

BAC has some noteworthy clips of Hillary at the debate.

Daylight Atheism has some sensible observations about the Bible's most amazing miracle.

Let them come to Sderot.

Mike Huckabee is a little off-target about the Ten Commandments (found via Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant).

Here's an exhaustive overview of the notorious 2006 Lancet study, the source of the hugely-inflated figures for Iraqi civilian casualties which one still sees cited here and there.

Evolutionary Middleman posts the video of the recent roundtable among "the four horsemen of atheism" -- Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens.

Read this before you click on anything at Sears's website. Note the poll results at the lower right.

This Pakistani cleric is simply expressing the conventional Islamic stance toward non-Muslim societies as it has stood since Islam was founded -- but it's worth being reminded every so often what that stance actually is.

Finally, a very sad link. Andrew Olmsted was a blogger and an American soldier who was killed in action in Iraq this week. Here is his final posting, which has justifiably been drawing a great deal of attention around the internet.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (2)

An essential read about this document. It doesn't say what the media commentators have been saying it says.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

Just as November's breakthrough in cell reprogramming triggered a fusillade of right-wing declarations that "the stem cell wars are over" because embryonic stem cell research is no longer needed, so the recent release of the NIE alleging that Iran suspended its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 has now prompted a similar barrage of assertions that the option of an airstrike against Iran is off the table. The intent in both cases is the same: to narrow the range of the politically possible by drowning out anyone who tries to remind the world of the reality of the situation.

The best overview of this particular situation that I've seen so far is here; this comment is also worth reading. The Israelis, who for obvious reasons have the best intelligence-gathering capabilities where the Middle East is concerned, aren't buying the new NIE's claims; France and Germany don't seem impressed either. Here's a sober assessment of the implications for US politics; here's an even more sobering assessment of the implications for Iran.

Remember, we can't afford to be wrong about this one. The likely consequences of misjudgment are too horrifying to contemplate.

Update: The US public isn't buying it either.

A date for our enemies to consider

Today is the 66th anniversary of this -- which led directly and inevitably to this. Nemo me impune lacessit!

Quote for the day

"It remains an inconvenient truth that those neocons now hailing the surge's success would not be able to do so if Americans had taken their advice and voted Republican in 2006. Rumsfeld would still be defense secretary and Cheney's grip on national policy would remain unshakable."

Andrew Sullivan

Link roundup for 25 November 2007

Apparently the Apocalypse is coming again.....yawn.

I love this sign.

Every time I think Chick tracts couldn't possibly get any stupider, Jabberwock finds one that is even stupider. But surely this one must be the absolute rock bottom -- and Jabberwock's dissection is hilarious as usual.

Watch a priest go berserk.

I wonder if the Ron Paul campaign accepts these as donations.

Yet another televangelist sinks out of sight into a tar pit of sleaze. For more Christianity news, check out this megachurch leader and this bullying weirdo in Florida (found via Mendip). On a similar note, Daylight Atheism takes a look at the "prosperity gospel".

Russia is planning to develop nanotechnology-based weapons.

Italians resort to a simple but clever mosque-abatement tactic.

A British hair-salon owner is being sued for refusing to hire a Muslim who insisted on wearing a headscarf.

Bloggasm assesses the impact of Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion.

I'm glad to see this appreciation of Canada, whose contribution to the Afghan campaign should be more recognized in the US.

When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When he's a "counterweight".

More shameful denialism, this time on Iraq.

A California teacher describes how his views on illegal aliens changed due to personal experience (found via Chell's Roost).

The gun is civilization. Reason shows how gun control is wreaking havoc in Uganda, while Of Arms and the Law tells of how gun rights helped protect peaceful citizens from violent mobs in 1906.

Here's more debunking of the myth of US decline -- at The Times, at The Telegraph, at Real Clear Politics, and at The Economist.

Joshua Muravchik clarifies the problem of Iran's nuclear program in stark terms. And anyone who thinks that a nuclear-armed Iran could simply be deterred the way the USSR was needs to read this.

Support our troops (2)

Please tell me this is some kind of ghastly Monty Python concept and not reality.

If it is true, then I think those who constantly tie themselves in knots trying to defend every horror the administration comes up with have finally met their match.

Update: Apparently it is real. One Congressman (a Democrat, predictably) is sponsoring legislation to stop it.

Update 2: This report says that it's a "mistake". Some "mistake". I suspect backpedaling under the glare of publicity. It's not yet clear how many veterans have undergone this harassment or whether it will be officially rescinded in all cases.

Support our troops

Don't leave them to end up like this.

Unfortunately I don't see much basis for hope that this disgrace will be addressed effectively as long as the current administration is in office.

The true face of the UN

For the umpteenth time, UN peacekeeping troops have been fingered for "sexual misconduct and abuse" involving underage girls. As Glenn Reynolds observes, "If American troops had the kind of sex-scandal track record that U.N. peacekeepers do, we'd never hear the end of it. Since it's the U.N., though, we barely hear the beginning."

Link roundup for 20 October 2007

Jabberwock hilariously dissects an even-stupider-than-usual Chick tract about Halloween.

Tony Blair rocks!

John Derbyshire looks at Chinese demonstration sports for the next Olympics.

The Christian Right now has one more reason to hate the Harry Potter books.

Did you know that the pill is part of the "culture of death"?

Senator David Vitter (R-Diaper) has failed in his latest effort to advance the Christian Right cause.

Daylight Atheism looks at a new breakthrough in quackery.

This is supposed to make people pay attention to speed-limit signs. For some reason I hardly noticed the signs, though.

The Vatican is.....well, it's the Vatican.

Since Congress hasn't gotten around to mandating net neutrality, it seems to me that it's up to the public to punish Comcast for this. Are you one of their customers? Wouldn't you rather have an ISP that doesn't try to decide for you what you should and shouldn't be doing on the internet?

Check out the surrealist art of Jacek Yerka and Stanislav Plutenko.

Taking a stand against proselytizing in public schools sometimes gets results. Unfortunately, the problem is more intractable in the military.

This essay is on-target about the Armenian genocide resolution.

Christopher Hitchens looks at the future of the Anglosphere.

In yet another example of their unusual intelligence, elephants can use subtle cues to distinguish more-dangerous and less-dangerous categories of humans.

Lots of people are linking to this, but it's worth it: Greta Christina on atheist anger.

Few people can claim to understand Islam so well as those who formerly were Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, probably the world's most courageous atheist, speaks out here.

Clinton on foreign policy

This new article by Hillary Clinton in Foreign Affairs magazine is as good a basis as any for assessing what her foreign policy as President would be like. With the exception of one major point, I found it generally reassuring.

To address the most important issue first, there's this:

There is a time for force and a time for diplomacy; when properly deployed, the two can reinforce each other. U.S. foreign policy must be guided by a preference for multilateralism, with unilateralism as an option when absolutely necessary to protect our security or avert an avoidable tragedy. Use our military not as the solution to every problem but as one element in a compre-hensive strategy. As president, I will never hesitate to use force to protect Americans or to defend our territory and our vital interests. We cannot negotiate with individual terrorists; they must be hunted down and captured or killed. Nor can diplomacy alone stop the perpetrators of genocide and crimes against hu-manity in places such as Darfur. But soldiers are not the answer to every problem. Using force in lieu of diplomacy compels our young men and women in uniform to carry out missions that they may not be trained or prepared for. And it ignores the value of simply carrying a big stick, rather than using it.

On Iran:

Iran must conform to its nonproliferation obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table.

This addresses my main concern about having a Democrat as President. The unilateral use of force when necessary is endorsed. The article spends a lot of time emphasizing multilateralism; to the extent that this takes the form of closer cooperation with other countries which share common interests with us, it would be a good thing. Clinton will probably waste more time fiddle-faddling around with the UN than a Republican would, but neither the UN nor any foreign government will have a veto over the use of American military power. Our national sovereignty will not be compromised.

Clinton is firm where the Russian regime is concerned:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has thwarted a carefully crafted UN plan that would have put Kosovo on a belated path to independence, attempted to use energy as a political weapon against Russia's neighbors and beyond, and tested the United States and Europe on a range of nonproliferation and arms re-duction issues. Putin has also suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism, created a new class of oligarchs, and interfered deeply in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics.....we must make clear that our ability to view Russia as a genuine partner depends on whether Russia chooses to strengthen democracy or return to authoritarianism and regional interference.

While the Bush administration has understandably focused on the Middle East since September 11, the efforts (however unsuccessful so far) of the Putin regime to create a new version of the Soviet threat deserve more attention than they have visibly received. The US should have been far more outspoken in affirming that the independence of countries like Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic states is an irreversible reality and that their internal affairs are none of the Russian government's business. Perhaps Clinton would do a better job in this area.

I was encouraged by what Clinton had to say about our country's most scandalous failure under the Bush administration:

Our brave soldiers who are wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq must receive the health care, benefits, training, and support they deserve. The treatment of wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was a travesty. Those convalescing or struggling to build new lives after grievous injuries need an expanded version of the Family and Medical Leave Act to enable their families to provide the support they need. Beyond health care, it is also time to develop a modern GI Bill of Rights in order to expand professional and entrepreneurial opportunities as well as access to education and home ownership.

This is what "supporting the troops" should mean: concrete action, not just a slogan.

The one major point that concerns me is this, on Iraq:

I will convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council and direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home, starting within the first 60 days of my administration.

Clinton is far too savvy not to realize that this is a very unwise commitment to make. It's impossible, in October of 2007, to know what the military situation in Iraq will look like in early 2009. Withdrawing might be the best option at that point, or it might not be. We're simply not in a position to know what will happen over the next year-and-a-quarter.

So I would interpret this passage as a political concession to the "withdraw-immediately-and-don't-confuse-me-with-facts" element of the Democratic base, which has been giving Clinton a huge amount of flak over this issue. It's unlikely to be meant as a serious commitment to a specific course of action. Still, given the likelihood that it could encourage the enemy and undermine the work of our own troops, it would have been better if she hadn't said it.

Clinton supports a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict based on a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, but US foreign policy has been paying lip service to that idea for years, and it will not suddenly become any less unworkable (or fatuous) in 2009 than it is now. The US has only limited influence over that situation.

Most of the rest is encouraging: a strong focus on anthropogenic global warming (even the Bush administration has given up on pretending that this problem doesn't exist, but still shows little inclination to do anything about it), an increase in the number of intelligence analysts proficient in Middle Eastern languages (it would help if we stopped arbitrarily firing the ones who turn out to be gay), rolling back the administration's encroachments on civil rights at home, and so on. Clinton wants America to lead the world differently, but does not question its right to lead. I stand by my conclusion here.

Link roundup for 14 October 2007

This Baptist minister is a worthy addition to the already-lengthy chronicle of weird fundamentalist sexual behavior. But this case is just sick. "Forgiveness"?!

Yet another recall of dangerous toys made in China (link sent by Mendip). Meanwhile, as the public awakens to the danger, long-embattled American toy manufacturers are so swamped with orders that they can barely keep up.

This story of courage shows us, once again, the quality of the people serving in the US military.

Urban Infidel has a great report, with pictures, on the anti-Ahmadinejad protest in New York City in September.

Cowardice in the Netherlands, bigotry in New Zealand.

Here's an interesting view of the ongoing shift in American politics.

The United States in the 1930s, as seen by Soviet journalists.

Black Sun Journal takes an in-depth look at Ayn Rand.

This creationist project (link sent by Mendip) has achieved something very rare -- it is utterly beyond parody.

I've heard of "catblogging", but.....

The activities of Britney Spears are seldom of any interest to me, but I'm glad she has apparently stuck with her preferred mode of dress despite all the negativity. Speaking of clothes, try to wrap your head around the concept that an actual fashion designer came up with this.

Who says football players don't have a softer side?

Whitest -- rapper -- ever.

Link roundup for 9 October 2007

Sixty leading scientists were asked to rank their favorite science-fiction movies. They made a superbly perceptive choice for #1.

Ironwolf has a great collection of quotes on the subject of sin.

Yet another Republican has been caught engaging in sordid sexual solicitation in a public place. Update: see also the strange and sad story of Rev. Gary Aldridge, especially the link with the text "what police discovered".

The latest toxic Chinese export item is Boy Scout badges.

Check out this intriguing survey (by a Christian website) of young Americans' attitudes about Christianity. Among Americans aged 16-to-29, not only are a startling 40% "outsiders" to Christianity, but their attitude toward Christianity is much more critical and hostile than that of any previous generation. And even among Christians within that age group, "many of the negative images generated significant traction." American culture has become significantly more hostile to Christianity than it was even a mere ten years ago.

Here's another example of why we're not getting honest reporting about Iraq.

The Group News Blog has a frightening but informative posting up about stalking.

Behold the official logo of the 2008 Republican convention -- and take some time to savor the comments.

More info is emerging about last month's Israeli raid on Syria. The Bush administration does not come out of this looking very good.

The Muslim presence in Britain is fueling an upsurge in creationist belief which threatens to undermine the teaching of evolution.

Link roundup for 3 October 2007

Friendly Atheist has a funny interview with Pastor Deacon Fred.

Here's what can happen when you write in a language you don't quite know.

I guess a life of prayer, penance and quiet contemplation isn't quite what it's cracked up to be.

Check out Russia's new island.

Richard Dawkins discusses the logical connection between faith and evil.

Our screwed-up sense of aesthetics: Could this political poster (click image for larger version) have appeared in the United States? Of course not; naked images, even of healthy and attractive people, are deemed offensive and unsuitable for display in public in this country. No such objections, however, seem to apply to billboards depicting ghastly flayed corpses (yes, that image and others like it have appeared on billboards here in Portland).

Here's why there hasn't been so much news about Iraq in the media lately.

China admits that the Three Gorges Dam may be a disaster in the making. Well, what do you expect, when one of the most gigantic engineering projects on Earth is undertaken by a country which apparently can't manufacture a Thomas the Tank Engine toy safely?

Here's some optimistic speculation about Iran, and about that mysterious Israeli raid on its Syrian catamite-state.

Hillary Clinton has a powerful new ally in her quest to become President: many Christian Right leaders are so incensed at the prospect of a non-fundamentalist-nutjob Republican nominee that they are seriously considering doing for her what Ross Perot did for her husband. (Update: based on this, the impact could be substantial.)

The GOP isn't doing so well with big business these days either. But on the bright side, the era of Christian Right dominance over the party may be ending (found via Seething Mom).

Was Ahmadinejad really wrong to say that Iran doesn't have homosexuals?

Want to do something about the savagery in Burma? Here's one option -- help put pressure on the junta's backers in Beijing.

An ancient and ugly demon is rearing its head in Europe again.

More Republican hypocrisy

How "don't ask, don't tell" in the military really works.

Iraq: what's really going on?

Ralph Peters, writing from Fallujah, Iraq, assesses the situation there:

Out here in Anbar Province - long the most troubled in Iraq - the change has come so swiftly and thoroughly that it's dazzling. Marines who were under fire routinely just months ago are now directing their former enemies in battle.

Although this trend has been reported, our battlefield leaders here agree that the magnitude of the shift hasn't registered back home: Al Qaeda is on the verge of a humiliating, devastating strategic defeat - rejected by their fellow Sunni Muslims.

Forget the anti-war nonsense you hear. The truth is that our troops want to continue this struggle. I know. I'm here. And I'm listening to what they have to say. They're confident as never before that we're on the right path.

Notice how just about everyone who has actually been to Iraq recently seems to be saying things like this? (A notable example: anti-war Democratic Congressman Brian Baird.) The defeat-is-inevitable stance now seems to be the province of people sitting behind desks in the United States, too strongly committed to their position to listen to those with firsthand experience.

Iraq roundup

If you want to know what's really going on in Iraq, why not read the postings of people who are actually there, such as Michael Totten and Michael Yon.

Ralph Peters reminds us of the astonishingly clean record of American troops in Iraq, despite the heavy media emphasis on crimes committed by a handful of individuals.

US military fatalities reached an eight-month low in July.

Public support for the war effort has begun to increase, a sign that news of the recent improvements in the situation on the ground is getting through despite the relentless negativity of the MSM.

A noteworthy juxtaposition

Why is Bush still coddling the one country more responsible than any other for the rise and flourishing of jihadism?

Armor

A research center in eastern Ukraine has developed technology to produce transparent armor capable of stopping armor-piercing bullets, which is light enough to be used on helmets and aircraft. The research was carried out for, and funded by, NATO -- another sign of the growing ties between NATO and Ukraine.