November 2004 Archives

Joe Trippi -- Howard Dean's erstwhile campaign manager -- says the Democrats lost the recent election because they weren't left-wing enough:

Since the Democratic Leadership Council, with its mantra of "moderate, moderate, moderate," took hold in D.C., the party has been in decline at just about every level of government. Forget the Kerry loss. Today the number of Democrats in the House is the lowest it's been since 1948. Democrats are on the brink of becoming a permanent minority party. Can the oldest democratic institution on earth wake from its stupor? Here are some steps to pull out of the nose-dive:

Democrats can't keep ignoring their base. Running to the middle and then asking our base to make sure to vote isn't a plan. And to those who say talking to your base doesn't work--Read the Rove 2004 playbook!

On one hand, I'm glad to read this since if the Dems take his advice they're certain to continue to decline in influence. On the other hand, it would be nice -- in theory -- to have two viable political parties instead of just one.

At the end of the piece, he argues that the Democratic Party doesn't have a clear vision or hasn't articulated it to the American people:

Finally, what is the purpose the party strives for today? What are our goals for the nation? You couldn't tell from the election. Very few good ideas come from the middle, and they tend to be mediocre. Consultants have become adept at keeping candidates in that safe zone. But the time has come to develop bold ideas and challenge people to sacrifice for the common good. Experts will tell you that you can't ask the American people to sacrifice individually for the common good. Those experts are wrong--it's just been so long since anyone has asked them.

Few good ideas come from the middle? That sort of logic defies the foundational principle of our two-party system that encourages people on both sides to find common, mutually agreeable solutions. Would Mr. Trippi eliminate the various checks and balances built into our government so that whomever is in the majority can wield unobstructed power? I don't think that's a wise idea, despite my party's present control.

And go ahead, ask people to "sacrifice individually for the common good" -- as if the government is the only organization that works for the common good -- that worked great for Hillary. The fact of the matter is that millions of (mostly red-state) Americans give tons of money to benefit the public good via churches and charities... Democrats are just upset because the money doesn't filter through the government before being spent.

Mr. Trippi has a glowing reputation because of his aptitude for fundraising, but his political instincts seem to be lacking. I think he's mistaken in thinking that the Democrats need to be more extreme, but then that goes with the Howard-Dean-territory I suppose. Most Americans know what the Democrats are about: higher taxes, abortion on demand, girlie-man foreign policy, and government control of every aspect of life other than sex. We know your vision, and we don't like it, and we don't want it.

The Daily Kfnork points to an article about moves in Holland to legalize killing babies that cannot survive on their own. As most of my readers know, I'm just about as against abortion and such as it's possible to be, but I'm not as outraged by this practice as DeoDuce. Why? The answer is near the end of the article itself:

However, experts acknowledge that doctors euthanize routinely in the United States but that such practice is hidden.

"Measures that might marginally extend a child's life by minutes or hours or days or weeks are stopped. This happens routinely, namely, every day," said Lance Stell, professor of medical ethics at Davidson College and staff ethicist at Carolinas Medical Center in the United States. "Everybody knows that it happens, but there's a lot of hypocrisy. Instead, people talk about things they're not going to do."

Even before hospitals and doctors existed, one of the most fundamental and difficult duties of a midwife was to kill babies that could not survive on their own. After birth the mother was in too much shock to know what was going on -- and the fathers were kept out of the birthing rooms partly for just this reason -- and if the baby was severely deformed or injured the midwife would kill him or her and tell the parents that the child died while being born. That's how it's been for thousands of years. Mercy killings are, in my opinion, far different than abortions or killings done for the sake of convenience.

Under what circumstances are these killings performed?

Examples include extremely premature births, where children suffer brain damage from bleeding and convulsions; and diseases where a child could only survive on life support for the rest of its life such as spina bifida and epidermosis bullosa, a blistering illness.

Some of these, like spina bifida, are not fatal and can be treated (even with in utero surgery). Epidermolysis bullosa is eventually fatal, but people born with it can live into their 30s...

Imagine...

...a child with painful wounds similar to burns covering most of his or her body.
...having to wrap each tiny little infant finger with Vaseline gauze and then cover it with gauze to prevent the hand from webbing and contracting.
...never being able to hold your child tight because if you did, their skin would blister or shear off.
...a child who will never know what it’s like to run, skip or jump, or to play games with other children because even the slightest physical contact will injure his or her skin.
...a child who screams out each time it is bathed because the water touching its open wounds creates incredible pain.
...a diet of only liquids or soft foods because blistering and scarring occur in the esophagus.
...an active baby with his knees soaked in blood from the normal act of crawling.
...a teenager with stumps for hands, the affected fingers long gone.

This is the nightmare of life with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB)

In other cases, babies simply can't survive without life support, and even with it they won't live very long. So do we have a moral duty to spend thousands of dollars to extend the life of a doomed baby from one month to three months? Thousands of dollars that could be spent treating other patients with curable maladies? I don't know. Is it worth the health risk for a mother to carry and deliver such a baby even when his or her condition is known far in advance?

Even thinking about the problem makes me ill, and I pray that I'm never faced with such a decision. However, as with battlefield mercy killings and adult euthansia, I don't think the solution is as simple as "never under any circumstances".

Update:
It's been pointed out to me, from another article, that the final decision wouldn't fall to the parents but to the doctors, which I think is ridiculous. It's one thing to allow the next-of-kin to make life decisions based on what's best for their loved one, but it's another to allow a council of government doctors to make decisions based on what's best for the socialist health care system.

I may have to start watching Wheel of Fortune again, because so says Pat Sajak about Hollywood's silence over Theo van Gogh:

The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.

Despite the Crushing of Dissent in John Ashcroft's Alberto Gonzalez' America, I haven't noticed any Hollywood filmmakers brutally murdered recently, even the fat ham-enriched ones that tend to be -- as a species -- particularly hostile to the Bush Administration.

Update:
Such a specimen recently appeared on the Tonight Show, supposedly shorn of its gorilla-hair and adorned in human clothes. It didn't address the murder of fellow-director Theo van Gogh, but it did say that the War on Terror makes for a good "story". Also a good story: being attacked by OJ, with a ton of bacon, on the Tonight Show.

The sentencing phase of Scott Peterson's murder trial begins today, and he's stuck with the same jurors who convicted him of murdering his wife and unborn son. If I were on the jury I'd purposefully stall just so I could deliver the verdict on the anniversary of the murders: "Merry Christmas Scott, you get the death penalty. Sucka!"

How the heck did I not know about this creepy site?!

I need to eat more fruits and vegetables, but I only go to the grocery store once a month. What should I do? Plus, I eat out too often. I like frozen veggies, but most fruits need to be bought fresh. Is there a way I can get a weekly delivery of fresh fruits and vegetables that I can tailor to my tastes but not have to think about too often?

Yes, I'm lazy. I want a subscription food service that bills me monthly and doesn't take any effort.

So lots of people have noticed that the ad space on the right is available for a low, low price, and if you sign up now I'll contribute my share of the loot to the Friends of Iraq blogger challenge. If you don't want to buy an ad but still want to donate to a worthy cause, go here. If you're a blogger and want to participate, join Team Bear Flag. My only mission in life is to beat Hugh Hewitt and his dastardly Northern Alliance, so drop the kids out of college and give generously.

Here's a question: are there more people alive than dead? Well, the population is certainly higher now than it's ever been, and it's increasing by the birth rate minus the death rate. The number of dead people is increasing by the death rate. So, if (birth - death) > (death) on average throughout all history then there are more living people than dead people. It seems unlikely that the birth rate has been, on average, twice the death rate, and the standard demographic transition model reflects that for most of history both the birth and death rates have been very high.

# Stage 1, the situation that has characterized the world throughout most of history, is marked by high death and birth rates. Population levels fluctuate somewhat but there is no steady growth.

# In Stage 2, which began in the West around 1800, birth rates remain steady but mortality rates begin to decline because of improvements that reduce the toll of infectious diseases--the big killer in countries with high death rates. Population begins to grow.

# In Stage 3, a continuing decrease in death rates is accompanied by a decline in birth rates. Falling childhood mortality means that the number of births
needed to reach a desired family size drops. In response, fertility rates decline, but the population continues to grow because the number of births in a society is based not only on the number of children each woman bears but also on the number of women of childbearing age. With a disproportionate share of people in the childbearing years, population grows even after fertility rates decline.

# In Stage 4, the situation in the developed world today, there is a rough parity between births and deaths. Correspondingly, the population grows very slowly--if at all. Once a Stage 4 equilibrium of low birth and death rates is reached, immigration becomes the driving force for additional population growth.

Only in the transition stages (2 and 3) is the birth rate much higher than the death rate, so in my estimation there are probably far more dead people than living people.

With regard to conservatives' distaste for the recent movie about Alfred Kinsey, John Hiscock and James Burleigh quote writer and director Bill Condon:

Bill Condon, writer and director, said protesters wanted to "pretend that the last 50 years didn't happen"[.]

No, it's not that we want to pretend the past didn't happen, it's that we can clearly see the damage caused by some of the choices made by our predecessors and we'd like to undo it. As for Dr. Kinsey, it's clear that the experiments he performed on children in the 1940s and 1950s would be considered sexual abuse by modern standards. The Kinsey Institute denies that his research and data were based on child abuse, but rather on anecdotal evidence (so it's not science at all?).

The only pretenders are those who think the decades-long experiment of unrestrained sexuality has been anything but a monumental disaster.

Longing for Another Autumn Eve

Another early sunset brings
Another windy Autumn eve,
Another night that swoons and sings,
Another song of sweet reprieve.

From clocking hours and ticking clocks;
From surrounding crowds, yet all alone;
From hollow house and winsome walks
That only end when you come home.

The death of another Autumn day,
The cold wind blows without respite,
But your fire holds the dark at bay --
Seals in the heat and bounds the night.

Alas, my dear, too soon you leave!
O, for another burning Autumn eve!

Yet another redundant link: I think Scott Ott has the right perspective on Iranian nukes.

I haven't been posting much this weekend but I've been trying to follow the situation in Ukraine, and so far it looks very encouraging. The Parliament has called the recent election invalid, and observers seem to think this is a major step. The real key, of course, was the mass protest in Independence Square... I hope the oppressed in Arab nations are taking note.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Jewish Traveler's Prayer:

"May it be Your will, Lord, My God and God of my ancestors, to lead me, to direct my steps, and to support me in peace. Lead me in life, tranquil and serene, until I arrive at where I am going. Deliver me from every enemy, ambush and hurt that I might encounter on the way and from all afflictions that visit and trouble the world. Bless the work of my hands. Let me receive divine grace and those loving acts of kindness and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all those I encounter. Listen to the voice of my appeal, for you are a God who responds to prayerful supplication. Praised are you, Lord, who responds to prayer."

Very suitable for the times in which we live, particularly if you have friends or family serving abroad. Via Austin Bay.

Via Candied Ginger, I recommend Ivan Lenin for those who are interested in following the election debacle in Ukraine. I also encourage you to pray for a non-violent resolution that secures the liberty of the people in this developing democracy.

Update:
Instapundit also has lots more links (of course!), such as Le Sabot Post-Moderne blogging directly from the tent city in Independence Square. Maidan describes itself as "An Internet Hub for Civil Resistance to Authoritarianism in Ukraine" and has lots of information. SueAndNotU points out that the armed forces are a wild card and necessary to support any revolution, peaceful or violent.

Jim Price, in a comment here, points to a story about a fake document scandal perpetrated by Dan Rather over a decade ago.

There's a growing college gender gap, but I'm not sure how much it's growing since it's something that I noticed in 1995 when I started at UCLA.

Today, many colleges, particularly selective residential schools, face a dilemma unthinkable a generation ago.

To place well in influential college rankings, those schools must enroll as many top high school students as they can — and most of those students are female. Administrators are watching closely for the "tipping point" at which schools become unappealing to both men and women. They fear that lopsided male-female ratios will hurt the social life and diverse classrooms they use as selling points. ...

Such recruiting is complicated because girls outperform boys in high school. High school boys do score slightly higher on the SAT but more girls have A averages, rank in the top 10% of their class and take more academic courses than boys, according to the College Board.

Researchers are divided about the causes and extent of the college gender gap.

Some say the gap is limited to lower-income students and minorities, with girls from those populations more likely to attend college and boys more likely to go directly to work or the military. Affluent white males are at least as likely to attend college as their female counterparts, according to those experts. Others say the gap crosses race and class lines.

I don't know for sure what's causing the gap, but there are at least two possibilities worth considering. The first is in the article:

A former counselor at two Los Angeles high schools, Hatch said that in college admissions "the developmental lag rears its ugly head." High school boys "are more likely to be late bloomers," sometimes not hitting their academic stride until their junior year, he explained. That, Hatch said, can hurt boys in class rank and cumulative grade point average.

It's definitely true that girls mature faster than boys, in many ways, and rating kids based on performance up to age 18 would certainly reflect that.

The second possibility is only hinted at in the article.

If students complain about the gender mix, it is usually with a sense of humor. "My friends tell me I should switch my major to engineering if I want a boyfriend," joked student government president and religious studies major Annie Selak, citing one of the few mostly male sectors on campus. ...

The female-heavy graduating classes are making their mark farther up the chain. Women outnumbered men among medical school applicants for the second consecutive year, and more women than men now earn doctorates.

The part about medical school, at least, is incorrect. (More men than women enroll, and more men then women graduate.) As for doctorates and grad school... my hypothesis is that men feel more of a pressure to earn a living and make money, while women may be able to afford to spend more time earning degrees that are essentially, financially, worthless.

Update:
Despite Kevin Drum's call for a "stream of outraged posts and crosstalk" from the right, it's perhaps worth noting that while I don't necessarily approve of gender preferences in this context, I definitely don't condemn gender discrimination in general. There are many situations in which treating men and women differently is not only justified, but morally required.

Here's a brief history of jury nullification -- the ultimate bastion of democracy. You should read up on it for when you serve on a jury and are called upon to enforce what you believe to be an unjust law. In short: you can vote to acquit no matter what anyone tells you.

(HT: either Mister District Attorney or CrimLaw, I forget.)

Diplomad has a great inside perspective on what the UN is really like.

Those who don't rely on the "elite" MSM for all their information, know about the UN's "oil-for-food" scam that is slowly being uncovered, and could prove the most massive financial scandal in human history (even bigger than Massachusetts' "Big Dig.") The "oil-for-food" scam, huge as it is, flows logically from the ruling ethos at the UN. The UN system is built on corruption, on the principle of the shake-down; whatever lofty objectives might have existed at its creation, for the UN corruption now provides the means and reason to exist.

Let us explain.

The UN as an institution is the purest of pure bureaucracy: it is the thirty-year single malt of bureaucracies. We refer you to the UN website for details on careers there, but suffice it to say that if you want a job that is VERY well-paying, has lots of perks (first class travel; a generous pension; right to retire almost anywhere you want; tax free), and involves little actual work, the UN bureaucracy is for you -- unfortunately, if you're an American (or Israeli) you'll have a hard time getting it given the solid anti-Americanism (and anti-Semitism) of the UN Secretariat. The UN bureaucracy must have served as inspiration for a sci-fi story we vaguely recall about an ancient civilization that builds an elobrate machine that continues to operate even after the civilization itself has died. Subsequent generations -- in this case, in Europe and the boardroom of the NY Times -- have no idea what the machine does, but don't tamper with it, and, in fact, begin to worship it.

According to Wikipedia, the top UN contributors are:

As part of that agreement, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25 to 22 percent; this is the rate at which the United States is assessed. The United States is the only member that is assessed this rate, though it is in arrears hundreds of millions of dollars;(see also United States and the United Nations) all other members' assessment rates are lower. Under the scale of assessments adopted in 2000, other major contributors to the regular UN budget for 2001 are Japan (19.63%), Germany (9.82%), France (6.50%), the U.K. (5.57%), Italy (5.09%), Canada (2.57%) and Spain (2.53%).

Arrears? You mean we're not paying our UN dues?

U.S. arrears to the UN currently total over $1.3 billion. Of this, $612 million is payable under Helms-Biden. The remaining $700 million result from various legislative and policy withholdings; there are no current plans to pay these amounts.

That makes me smile; sometimes I really like Congress. Anyway, all the UN costs us is a couple billion dollars? That's not so bad. Plus, of course, the myriad headaches associated with all the nonsense resolutions -- but those only matter because it's still convenient to pretend we care.

Here's an excellent, and brief, article that explains in easily understandable terms why evolution is a poor theory.

This autumn 18 gifted UGA students and I are spending six weeks examining Stephen Hawking’s best-selling book “A Brief History of Time.” Therein Hawking states, “A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements. And it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.”

I consider Hawking’s statement to be an excellent definition of a good theory. How does evolution stack up to the two demands of a good theory? By the term “evolution,” I mean the claim that random mutations and natural selection can fully account for the complexity of life, and particularly macroscopic living things. ...

The second requirement for a good theory is far more problematical for the standard evolutionary model, sometimes called the modern synthesis. Over the past 150 years evolutionary theorists have made countless predictions about fossil specimens to be observed in the future.

Unfortunately for these seers, many new fossils have been discovered, and the interesting ones almost always seem to be contrary to the “best” predictions. This is sometimes true even when the predictions are rather vague, as seen by the continuing controversies associated with the purported relationships between dinosaurs and birds.

There's more, it's short, and I suggest you read the whole thing.

(HT: Donald Sensing -- glad you're blogging again!)

Update:
I appear to have gotten my links confused, and the post above has been corrected.

Here also is a peer-reviewed article by Stephen C. Meyer titled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories" in which "Dr. Meyer argues that no current materialistic theory of evolution can account for the origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms." (Linked to previously.)

Everyone has probably seen these two stories via Drudge: "September 11-style attack plans thwarted" and "Plane that was supposed to carry former president crashes". Can anyone point to any other "almost news" stories from 2004? There might be a prize in it for whomever links to the most almost-significant.

I sure wish the Bush Administration wasn't so in bed with big business.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Time Warner Inc. are nearing agreement on a deal in which the media giant would pay about $750 million to settle wide-ranging allegations of accounting irregularities at Dulles-based America Online Inc. ...

The $750 million figure being discussed is 50 percent higher than the $500 million that Time Warner previously set aside for a possible settlement. It would cover all fines, penalties and other payments from Time Warner necessary to resolve the matter fully with the SEC and the Justice Department, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an agreement has not been finalized.

Not that I claim to have extensive knowledge of the issue, but this one example seems to indicate that the SEC is doing it's job. Plus the Martha Stewart prosecution, which even I think was over the top.

I wasn't going to write about the NBA brawl, but now I kinda have to since no one else is making the obvious point: it was awesome. I mean, sure, in theory the audience shouldn't be throwing stuff at players and the players shouldn't be charging into the stands, but c'mon... don't sit there and tell me you didn't watch the video with bloodthirsty anticipation. So yeah, hand out suspensions and fines and press criminal charges -- those also make for great entertainment! -- but don't act so sanctimonious, as if the otherwise-snow-driven purity of NBA Basketball has been tragically besmirched.