Saturday, June 28, 2003
ISLAM RECONSIDERED
Again
I'm reading Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeor. This is a scholarly history of the institution of dhimmi, the Islamic customs and laws treating the life allowed to non-Muslims in lands conquered by Arabs and other Muslims. So far, it bears out the view I've gained from other studies: that there is no room for real tolerance in a religion and culture that is premised on a view that there is only "one true way" and that violence is an acceptable means for carrying out the fundamental commandement that the whole world should eventually follow that way. One interesting concept developed in the early parts of the book is that the "protection racket" offered to non-Muslim people when faced with the early Arab conquests was a natural extension of the culture that existed in Arabia at the time of Muhammed's life: Bedouin tribes were basically roving armed gangs who preyed on the more sedentary Jewish and Christian farmers and traders of the area, imposing a form of clientellism on them.
Meanwhile, there's a link at Arts and Letters Daily this morning to a review of Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honour World by Akbar S Ahmed. This book seems to communicate the opposite thesis, i.e. the "Islam is really a religion of peace" mantra that our politicians and most of our popular media have been chanting since 911. I don't buy it, but then I've got a lot of study to do -- before 911, I had no real exposure to Islam other than having read the Koran 30 years ago or so.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:41 AM
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
GENIUS MACHINE
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
The NYT has a story about work by an Australian scientist using transcranial magnetic stilumaltion -- a non-invasive magnetic field -- to induce what appears to be amazing savant-like capabilities in his subjects. Pretty cool. How long before Leon Kass condemns it?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:12 AM
Saturday, June 21, 2003
WE HAVE ARRIVED
Bio-Luddites Find a Voice
The Bio-Luddites now have an official journal: The New Atlantis. The link leads to the first issue. Naturally, the very first article is by the leader of the bio-conservatives in America and the head of the president's stacked-deck advisory board on bioethics, Leon Kass. Kass' article is well worth reading, since he openly struggles with the difficulty of arguing for death and arbitrary limits on human freedom:
Why, if at all, are we bothered by the voluntary self-administration of agents that would change our bodies or alter our minds? What is disquieting about our attempts to improve upon human nature, or even our own particular instance of it? It is difficult to put this disquiet into words. We are in an area where initial repugnances are hard to translate into sound moral arguments.
Kass pretty much admits that he's not being rational, and concedes that the usual arguments against technological enhancement of the human animal can't withstand close scrutiny. He confesses his famous "repugnance," and then writes:
But is there wisdom in this repugnance? Taken one person at a time, with a properly prepared set of conditions and qualifications, it is going to be hard to say what is wrong with any biotechnical intervention that could give us (more) ageless bodies or happier souls.
Kass proceeds to struggle and contort, but never escapes from the fact that his opposition to improving the human condition through technology is based purely on intuition and mystical feelings about the value to be found in becoming weak and forgetful with age, and accepting the lot that wonderful "nature" has doled out to each of us through the chance shuffling of the deck of genetic cards.
Make no mistake: Leon Kass and his buddies want you to suffer and die.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:01 AM
A REPORT FROM ORBIT
[...first blogging in quite a while -- I've been busy.] Here's a report on a recent interview with the ISS crew. Lu and Malenchenko seem to be doing well as a two-person "caretaker" crew, and Lu continues to be a very entertaining fellow, explaining all the little things that he's had to figure out to play the keyboard that someone brought up to the station, given the lack of gravity. Lu makes some comments about the progress of NASA's investigation of the Columbia disaster, which have some poignancy, since he and Malenchenko are as exposed to the result of that investigation as anyone could be.
Meanwhile, the next two pressurized modules to be added to the station have been delivered to Florida for final processing before launch. NASA's going to continue building the station, of that I have no doubt. But I wish they'd please think hard about just how wasteful the current program is without making the kind of adjustments I've been blogging abouthere all summer.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:02 AM
Monday, June 16, 2003
LIGHT BLOGGING
Anthea's nephew is visiting us and having a teenager around is time-consuming, so blogging is light for now...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:56 AM
Thursday, June 12, 2003
TRANSPARENT SOCIETY ?
"Cameraphone" Bans
Here's a story from the Beeb about the increasing phenomenon of banning "camera phones" -- cell phones equipped with cameras -- from places like gymnasium locker rooms. Apparently folks have been using them to take pics that end up on the net. (I guess I'm not at risk of being the target of such an invasion of privacy.) We'll be seeing much more of this kind of thing as video devices become more and more ubiquitous. This is just the beginning.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:05 AM
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
THE DEATH OF FRANCE?
Via Instapundit, here's a symposium in David Horowitz's Front Page magazine among various French non-left luminraries (presumably all of them, since there are six) about the pathetic state of French society these days. Here are some choice quotes:
Toni Kamins: For decades Muslims from France’s former colonies have settled in France proper. But the French, who are loathe to accept anyone or anything non-French, have not made them welcome -- they don’t want them there. And to drive that point across they have relegated them to living in what are known as the banlieue or suburbs. These are government housing projects soulless places where the residents have little if any contact with the rest of French society except for a mind-numbing bureaucracy. Unemployment is high, education is an afterthought, access to mainstream French society is nearly impossible, and being arrested for suspicion of this or that is common. The disdain and contempt in which these people are held is palpable, and as comes as no surprise to anyone except the French, crime, drugs, and other social problems are rampant.
Guy Milliere: France behaves more and more as if she does not belong to the West anymore and as though she is the leader of the third world. Doing this, France has nothing to win, maybe just second-rate contracts and an ephemeral popularity among all the frustrated in the world. France will win only one thing, and for a short time, peace inside France: it will avoid riots among Muslims living in France now. If many Muslims did not integrate in France, it’s because a long time ago the government has chosen subsidies and welfare instead of jobs, and lawlessness instead of order. Now comes the time to pay the price: France has many unemployed Muslims, many lawless zones where people live off of many illicit tradings and make there in one day what they could make legally in one month.
Alain Madelin: France is a welfare state where it’s easy to earn more money asking for assistance than looking for a job. In many families, and now many Muslim families, assistance has become a way of life. If you spend your days doing nothing, you can start to have temptations. If you see drug dealers driving around in fancy cars, your temptations take shape. ... In schools, leftist teachers teach young Muslims that France colonized their countries and that the French army committed atrocities. The result: many young Muslims hate France. It’s not their fault it’s the fault of French education. ... For years, France has permitted to countries like Saudi Arabia to build many mosques and to send many radical imams to preach in these mosques. The result is a new generation of young radical Muslims.
Yves Roucate: France is a very sick nation. Sometimes I think that it’s only if France pays the full price for its positions that some real change will come. It’s not really the fault of the French people; they receive very bad information and almost all the books they can find in bookstores are anti-American. It’s the fault of the politicians who have no courage and explain nothing. It’s the fault of journalists who prefer Islam to America because the majority of them have been leftists in the sixties when they were young. They have not changed, they are just older.
Jean-Francoise Revel: France is the prey of an anti-American obsession. For the French, Americans are the enemy they have to hate in every circumstance. They have to hate Americans because Americans are successful, because Americans are powerful, because the French prefer resentment to achievement. They are so obsessed by their hatred of the United States they do not see anymore the real dangers confronting France. It’s a very dangerous situation. I do not know how we could go out of this situation. I honestly don’t know if it is even still possible.
What I find immensely ironic is the fact that the situation of the Muslims in France -- a chronically unemployed welfare class that is physically and socially segregated and despised by the native French population -- is precisely what the left -- in France and elsewhere -- describes America's ethnic minorities to be. And this isn't a picture just painted by critics from the non-left; I heard a lengthy report on NPR within the last couple of months that described exactly the same situation. Pathetic.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:36 PM
MASHED PROTATOS
Genetically Modified Potato in India?
Here's a report in the Beeb on the possibility that the Indian government will approve the growing of a genetically modified potato that has three times the amount of protein found in natural varieties (with the cute name "protato"). Naturally, the Beeb gives space to the queen of the bio-luddites, Vandana Shiva, who says
[I]t makes no sense to permanently introduce genes, to introduce toxins into my biodiversity, allow contamination of related crops.
Now, since when was protein a "toxin"?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:00 PM
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
HOG HEAVEN
Here's a report that the threat to the A-10, noted recently, has passed. The report says that the Hog will rule the skies until 2028.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:07 PM
IRANIAN PROTESTS
The Beeb is reporting on university student protests against the theocrats in Iran. More, please.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:02 PM
OUTTA HERE!
Spirit Mars-Bound
After two days of weather delays, the first of two NASA lander-rovers was succesfully flung toward Mars today. This is numero-two-oh, the Euros getting a head start. The next one, a twin of the NASA rover launched today, will be launched June 25. If all goes well, all three will be on the surface and operating at the same time by January 25 of '04.
Here's the link to JPL's page on the launch. Definitely take a look at the video: The camera on board the rocket provided some stunning views of the ride uphill, including awesome views of the solids separating.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 5:59 PM
Monday, June 09, 2003
NOTARIES IN CHINA
Growth Pains for Private Law
Here's an interesting article about notaries in China. For American lawyers the subject will seem strange, since a notary in our system is not a legal officer of any great importance. But in the civil (or "code" or "Napoleonic") law system, notaries are usually a functionary sui generis; a combination of magistrate and lawyer. The role of the notary in civil law systems is important, since private parties aren't as empowered to create and adjust their own legal relations on their own -- at least in theory -- in civil law systems.
The referenced article has a lot of interesting points, since it both highlights the challenges of legal reform in China at every level, but also illustrates how the Chinese are forging a unique blend of legal concepts and systems. The text suggests that notaries will be purely non-governmental, profit-making operators, which certainly fits the notion, advocated by folks like David Friedman and Bruce Benson, that law can be a "private good" in economic terms.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:04 AM
SUNDAY! SUNDAY!
No blogging yesterday: In the morning blogger.com was down, and in the afternoon I made a quick dash up to Austin to meet with fellow members of Alcor. While I was there, I got some more pics from our recent dive trip to Cozumel, which I'll post as soon as I can find the time to format them and put them on my server. It was a fast trip, but a great cruise back and forth: I got to wind Red Menace up a little on the way and she was running as smooth as silk the whole trip.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:56 AM
Saturday, June 07, 2003
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD
There's an interview with Robert Baer at Atlantic Monthly that's well worth reading. Baer, a former CIA agent on the Middle East desk and author of The Fall of the House of Saud, has some pretty blunt things to say about the "combination of arrogance, xenophobia, and denial" that characterizes Saudi society and political life, and what our utter dependence on Saudi oil means in the face of those ugly facts. Check it out.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:19 PM
HOT ROD HISTORY
In a recent conversation, my friend Michael Dougan told me he really didn't "get" my fascination with classic hot rods. Well, to try to remedy that, I've put together a web-essay on the subject. Maybe this will clear it up.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:42 PM
Friday, June 06, 2003
FOAM CULPRIT
Test Confirms Damage
The "foam canon" test today confirmed that a strike like the one that impacted Columbia's left wing leading edge would cause a crack in the surface panels at that site. I think that's as good or better than the kind of forensic material the Challenger investigation produced and probably marks a wrap for finding "the cause" of Columbia's demise.
Now if only the space policy apparatus could have the courage to do the kinds of things I've been blogging about here, the Columbia Seven wouldn't have died in vain. But I'm afraid it will result in a patched-up fix (probably some kind of shield over the foam at the forward main tank attachment point) and then back to business as usual for the ISS/Shuttle system. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:19 PM
HAMAS DEMURS
Here's MSNBC's story on today's headline, that Hamas is pulling out of peace talks with the Palestinian peace camp. Is this just a ploy to ensure that Hamas gets a bigger place at the table, or a real end to the peace process on the Palestinian side? Whichever it is, it may well mark an end to the peace process in general. Groups like Hamas have no future in a world in which Israel and a Palestinian state coexist peacefully, and they know it.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:21 AM
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
SHUTTLE RESCUE DETAILS
This morning MSNBC has an article with more details about the work that's been done by the Columbia investigation board to develop rescue scenarios. It's heart-breaking.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:54 AM
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
FLYING LESSONS
Ed Lu's Space Blog Gets Its Second Entry
Ed Lu, the U.S. Science Officer on the current "caretaker crew" aboard the International Space Station, has posted his second letter. It's all about learning to get around in the micro-gravity environment. I like this toward the end:
Lately, I've been trying to perfect my technique flying across the node. When flying from the FGB there is a handrail right at the entrance to the node. If you grab that handrail for a split second as you pass and immediately tuck, then you will do somersaults across the node into the lab. If you time it just right you can grab a handrail right at the entrance to the lab to stop your rotation. If you time it wrong, you crash into the wall or go careening into the lab. Single flips are pretty easy now, but when doing double flips I still end up hitting something about half the time. I guess I need more practice.
Lu's a pretty good writer. Considering how busy the 2-man instead of 3-man crew is, it's great he's got the time to drop us a line from time to time.
And, yes, I've been grousing about ISS lately. But I'm an incurable sucker for human spaceflight.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:19 PM
AMERICA THE UNPOPULAR
Here's an article from the International Herald Tribune reporting on a recent Pew poll on attitudes abroad about America (and visa versa). It's about what you'd expect, with sharply anti-American views down, but still expressed by the majority in France and Germany. The poll found that anti-Americanism is all but universal in the Muslim world. Here's a quote from the discussion of those findings:
In fact, feelings are so intense in the Islamic world that Osama bin Laden was chosen by five Muslim publics - in Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority - as one of the three political leaders they would most trust to "do the right thing" in world affairs.
Well, that about sums it up. For the anti-war crowd, this will be "proof" that the war was an unwise inflammation of anti-Americanism in the Islamic world. To me, it's proof that the Islamic world is, by the standards of civilization, really messed up.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:39 PM
SARS PROGRESS
But the Bug is Bad
China Daily's update today on SARS cases runs as it has for the last few days with very low numbers of new infections. But the official line is that the battle against SARS is "far from over." As one American virus-soldier states, "We have many reasons to believe that SARS will remain a threat now and in the future." He said SARS prevention should be seen "not as a 100-meter dash, but as a marathon.''
All of this seems to be correct, especially given Ren Min Er Bao's report today that the SARS virus can survive a surprisngly long time outside the human body. You know, one of the most common reactions that first-time visitors to contemporary China have is to note how clean China's cities are. With the reality of the SARS coronavirus' tenacity, China looks set to become one of the most disinfected places on Earth! Beyond this, the reality of a continuing threat like this will further spur what I've been predicting for some time, which is Chinese leadership in biotechnology in the coming decades.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 6:32 AM
Monday, June 02, 2003
MARS RUSH BEGINS
Russians Launch ESA Mars Express
Here's Spaceflight Now's report on the successful launch of the European Mars mission, Mars Express, atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur. Note that ME cost only $350 million due, in large part, to using designs already developed for the Rosetta comet mission (from what now seems like a long time ago).
ME will get to Mars a couple of weeks before the two US rover/landers, on Christmas day of this year.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:53 PM
"AFTER 9/11, THE GLOVES CAME OFF"
David Kaplan writes a detailed summary of the post-911 hunt for al Quaida in this week's US News. This is a fine piece of journalism and well worth reading. Check it out.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:28 PM
BETTER BABIES?
Pinker on Bio-Luddite Fears
Steven Pinker has a good essay in the Boston Globe about why the current crop of bio-luddite fear-mongering books about human genetic engineering are missing the mark. Pinker takes an end-run on the subject by simply pointing out that genetic enhancements of the kind deplored by Fukuyama and Glass are just plain unlikely, since "rifle-shot" gene tinkering can't have predictable or even desirable effects. This is because of the complexity of the genome and its expression in real organisms. Pinker makes the point that the bio-luddite drive to ban human genetic engineering is premature and likely to do more harm than good by curbing important and necessary research.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:25 AM
Sunday, June 01, 2003
THREE GORGES BEGINS TO FILL
Here's a report this morning about the recent milestone reached in the Three Gorges dam project: Major filling of the reservoir has begun. For the ten years since construction began, we've been reading reports in the West about what a bad idea this project is. I'm much more open to it. Consider that so much of the press in the West is dominated by techno-pessimists, who subscribe to a world-view in which all significant technological progress -- especially any that impacts "nature" -- is viewed as hubris. How much of that reporting was written by biologists and hydrological engineers, and how much by liberal arts majors who were raised on Rachel Carson and Greenpeace leaflets? Also, one has to consider that all of the land that is being impacted has been completely sculpted by humans at every level -- from microbial to the geographic -- for thousands of years. The ecology of the Yangze basin hasn't been "natural" for a long, long time.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:25 AM
BANG, BANG; VROOM, VROOM; GOOD NIGHT SWEET PRINCE
I had a great day Saturday, largely away from the computer. In the morning, I shot sporting clays with some folks from the firm and, marking the season, a couple of summer clerks. Considering that I haven't fired a shotgun in at least eight months, I did passably well, shooting a 65 (out of 100) on a pretty tough course. The best shooter in the group, Jesus Garcia, who is a chillingly good shot, hit 86.
What time I did spend at the computer was absorbed by cruising links for information about hot rod building. I have this crazy dream of building a glass chopped and channeled '34 Ford 3-Window coupe. If you don't know what that is, well, I'm probably not going to be explain it to you. Anyway, I dropped some new links into my car page for use as I continue to dream and scheme about building a bitchin' rod.
Tonight Anthea and I saw the Alley Theater's production of Hamlet. After spending three hours exposed to what may be the greatest work of literature in the English language, it's hard to muster the courage to try to craft a description of this production. Suffice it to say that the folks at the Alley did a superb job. Ty Mayberry showed that he is really coming of age as actor in the role of the Prince of Denmark, giving meaningful life to those great words. (I knew he was making progress when he gave a great performance in the Alley's production of Equus.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 12:12 AM
