What makes people vote Democrat?

What Makes People Vote Republican?

Jonathan Haidt asks this question at The Edge. He could as easily have asked "What Makes People Vote Democrat?"

He opens with the standard diagnostic answer:

What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.

Yet this diagnostic answer may lead to a trap:

...Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats.

In order to address the question of why people vote Republican, he examines what we mean by "morality". He comes up with two rules governing morality. First, "feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete." Most moral decisions are not thought through, but are felt. The guidelines we use were internalized and sub-conscious-ized so long ago that they've become conditioned reflexes. Our subconscious programming tells us what's right or wrong in a situation, and then, if pressed, we concoct reasons to justify our stand. These reasons may or may not be valid, but by the time we're coming up with them, it doesn't matter.

The second rule is, "morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way."

...imagine society not as an agreement among individuals but as something that emerged organically over time as people found ways of living together, binding themselves to each other, suppressing each other's selfishness, and punishing the deviants and free-riders who eternally threaten to undermine cooperative groups. The basic social unit is not the individual, it is the hierarchically structured family, which serves as a model for other institutions. Individuals in such societies are born into strong and constraining relationships that profoundly limit their autonomy.

This is in contrast to a society "as a social contract invented for our mutual benefit" where everyone is free to do as he or she wills, so long as it doesn't harm others. Laws that are implemented exist to prevent this harm as much as possible. (Haidt cites John Stuart Mill, and calls a society organized in this fashion "Millian".

Now it turns out that a "Millian" society rests on two moral dimensions --

First, people in all cultures are emotionally responsive to suffering and harm, particularly violent harm, and so nearly all cultures have norms or laws to protect individuals and to encourage care for the most vulnerable. Second, people in all cultures are emotionally responsive to issues of fairness and reciprocity, which often expand into notions of rights and justice. Philosophical efforts to justify liberal democracies and egalitarian social contracts invariably rely heavily on intuitions about fairness and reciprocity.

This seems to be the essence of society, according to social liberals. What about social conservatives? How are they different? Don't they support fairness and the prevention of harm and suffering?

Well, it turns out they do, but there are other factors as well:

My recent research shows that social conservatives do indeed rely upon those two foundations, but they also value virtues related to three additional psychological systems: ingroup/loyalty (involving mechanisms that evolved during the long human history of tribalism), authority/respect (involving ancient primate mechanisms for managing social rank, tempered by the obligation of superiors to protect and provide for subordinates), and purity/sanctity (a relatively new part of the moral mind, related to the evolution of disgust, that makes us see carnality as degrading and renunciation as noble). These three systems support moralities that bind people into intensely interdependent groups that work together to reach common goals. Such moralities make it easier for individuals to forget themselves and coalesce temporarily into hives, a process that is thrilling, as anyone who has ever "lost" him or herself in a choir, protest march, or religious ritual can attest.

In several large internet surveys, my collaborators Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and I have found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally. (You can test yourself at www.YourMorals.org.) We think of the moral mind as being like an audio equalizer, with five slider switches for different parts of the moral spectrum. Democrats generally use a much smaller part of the spectrum than do Republicans. The resulting music may sound beautiful to other Democrats, but it sounds thin and incomplete to many of the swing voters that left the party in the 1980s, and whom the Democrats must recapture if they want to produce a lasting political realignment.

Or, another way of looking at is that Democrats are morally color-blind when compared with Republicans.

Indeed, this might be a better analogy.

Take a person with red-green color blindness. Most of the time, the condition is a nuisance. He can see just fine for most purposes. He can walk through an art museum and enjoy most, if not all, of the paintings there. But in a situation where he needs to distinguish between a red light and a green light, he could get himself killed, and possibly take others with him.

A morally color-blind person is the same way. He's sensitive to the harm/suffering and fairness/reciprocity "colors" of the moral spectrum, but if he needs to come to the right answer with respect to group loyalty, respect for authority, or purity, he may be in trouble.

In the case of individuals, color blindness is usually only a nuisance, because people with normal color vision have mostly screened out dangerous situations where color vision is essential. You don't need color vision to distinguish poisonous berries from edible ones in a grocery store, for example. Likewise, in the moral realm, long-established institutions exist that protect individuals, whether they recognize the mechanisms involved or not.

Who's in firstsky?

Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog has a post by Max Boot addressing evidence that Russia may have started the war with Georgia.

Georgia has rolled out a powerful new weapon in the info-war it has been waging with Russia ever since Russian troops invaded its soil. In the words of the New York Times: "Georgia has released intercepted telephone calls purporting to show that part of a Russian armored regiment crossed into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia nearly a full day before Georgia's attack on the capital, Tskhinvali, late on Aug. 7." Those calls occurred among Ossetian border guards, and they would seem to buttress Georgia's assertion that it was not the aggressor in this conflict.

Many questions remain, and the tidbits quoted in the Times are hardly conclusive evidence of who fired the first shots, but they do serve to establish an important point: that, because of these intercepts, Georgian officials genuinely were convinced on August 7th that Russian troops were already invading their country, and they had to respond. Perhaps that impression was mistaken, but it certainly seems that the Georgians acted in good faith. Were that we could say the same for the Russians who are piling one lie on top of another, accusing Georgia of every sin under the sun, to include unsubstantiated charges of genocide.

Geoengineering against global warming

Der Spiegel has an article about a plan to use robot ships to put the brakes on global warming.

Sprühroboter auf großer Fahrt: Ein britischer Forscher will Hunderte Geisterschiffe auf die Ozeane schicken, die rund um die Uhr Meerwassertropfen in die Luft blasen - das soll die Aufheizung der Atmosphäre bremsen. Die Technik beruht auf der Idee eines deutschen Erfinders, hat aber ihre Risiken.

Robot sprayers on a great journey: A British researcher wants to put hundreds of ghost ships on the ocean, which will spray droplets of sea water into the air around the clock -- which should put the brakes on the warming of the atmosphere. The technology is based on the idea of a German inventor, but it has its risks.

Die Tröpfchen dienen als Kondensationskeime und sollen die Wolken über den Ozeanen so hell wie möglich machen. Dadurch erhöht sich ihr Reflektionsvermögen für Sonnenstrahlen, weniger Wärme unseres Zentralgestirns kommt an der Meeresoberfläche an. Insgesamt heizt sich die Erde etwas weniger auf - der Klimawandel wird gestoppt. Soweit die Theorie.

The droplets serve as condensation nuclei and should make the clouds over the oceans as bright as possible. This increases their ability to reflect the sun's rays, less heat from our central star makes it to the sea surface. All together, the Earth is heated less -- climate change is halted. In theory.

More on the financial crisis

Jay Tea at Wizbang asks if the narrative in this crisis is too good to be true.

Media doing it right

Wizbang reports on this letter to the editor of the Lebanon Daily News:

A letter to the editor of the Lebanon Daily News-

As a Republican and strong McCain supporter in 2000, I was disappointed and saddened in 2004 when McCain permanently traded in his maverick credentials and sold out his principles to support George W. Bush. I now find it equally disturbing to see him gamble our security and future with a reckless choice for a running mate.

Gov. Sarah Palin clearly has a bright future in politics. She may even have the depth and diversity of experience to be a vice-presidential candidate four years from now.

The McCain ticket, with all of its newfound "freshness" and despite all of the claims, has quickly devolved into the politics-as-usual that we have come to expect in the last eight years. McCain and Palin quickly emerged from the rhetoric of their convention as the uniters of dividers.

I talk politics with a lot of people from all walks of life. I find it compelling that many of the ordinary Republicans I talk to understand that their families cannot afford another four years like the last eight. We all deserve better.

Christopher Tarsa

Lebanon

A republican who don't like McCain. Where have I heard that before?

The Lebanon Daily News gave its readers, by adding a tag to the bottom of the letter, the writer's true identity

Tarsa is chairman of the Lebanon County Democratic Committee.

Fancy that.

The sex-education row

David Friedman has some thoughts on the fight over Obama's position on a particular sex-education bill.

There has been a considerable flap over a McCain ad accusing Obama of supporting comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students. Obama's people say the ad is a lie, and are supported by, so far as I can tell, most of the media other than McCain partisans. As I read the evidence, it reflects poorly on both candidates, but worst on the media.

....

Most of the reporters who repeated Obama's version as gospel do not seem to have actually bothered to read the bill, although it is readily available online. It contains, along with much else, the following language:

"Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV AIDS."

If Obama thinks that AIDS is transmitted by touching, he has problems more serious than his views on sex education.

It's true that the bill also says all instruction is to be age appropriate. Precisely how one provides age appropriate instruction in the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV to kindergartners has not, so far as I know, been explained by either the Obama campaign or anyone else.

And there, I believe, is the rub.

The banking crisis

I've just found two articles in a row discussing the mortgage/banking/stock market crisis, and both are perfectly willing to assess blame.

Powerline blog writes:

The current crisis, in its various manifestations, can be traced to the subprime mortgage market. A casual observer might wonder why there is such a thing as a subprime mortgage market, since a subprime loan is one that a lender would normally prefer not to make.

There are two answers to that question. The first is that various levels of national and local government pressured mortgage lenders to make risky loans so that they would be classified for regulatory purposes as good corporate citizens, and would be immune from charges of racism. So, like many market failures, this one has its roots in government policy. The second reason for the expansion of the subprime market is that mortgage lenders figured out that they didn't have to take the risks associated with bad loans. They were able to package mortgages together as components of fancy securities that, it turns out, virtually no one fully understood.

All of this worked until borrowers started defaulting and, partly in consequence of those defaults, home prices fell.

Walter Williams points out that:

...The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is a federal law that intimidated lenders into offering credit throughout their entire market and discouraged them from restricting their credit services to low-risk markets, a practice sometimes called redlining. The Federal Reserve Bank, keeping interest rates artificially low, gave buyers and builders incentive to buy and build, thereby producing the housing bubble. Lenders were willing to make creative interest-only loans, often high-risk "no doc" and "liar loans," in order to allow people to buy more housing than they could afford. Of course, with the expectation that housing prices will continue to rise, it was no problem for lenders and borrowers but housing prices began to fall, leaving some people with negative home equity and banks in trouble.

The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. In fact, what we see now is a market correction to foolhardy government policy. Congress' move to bailout lenders and borrowers who made poor decisions will simply create incentives for people to make unwise decisions in the future. English philosopher Herbert Spencer said, "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

Keep this in mind when politicians are railing against "special interests" and "greed".  Greed was certainly a factor, but the underlying problem was politicians greedy for votes.

If he were on McCain's ticket...

....The left would hate his guts.

From the New York Times, of all places:

Crusader Sees Wealth as Cure for Caste Bias

Mr. Prasad was born into the Pasi community, once considered untouchable on the ancient Hindu caste order. Today, a chain-smoking, irrepressible didact, he is the rare outcaste columnist in the English language press and a professional provocateur. His latest crusade is to argue that India's economic liberalization is about to do the unthinkable: destroy the caste system. The last 17 years of new capitalism have already allowed his people, or Dalits, as they call themselves, to "escape hunger and humiliation," he says, if not residual prejudice.

....

Mr. Prasad is a contrarian. He calls government welfare programs patronizing. He dismisses the countryside as a cesspool. Affirmative action is fine, in his view, but only to advance a small slice into the middle class, who can then act as role models. He calls English "the Dalit goddess," able to liberate Dalits.

Along with India's economic policies, once grounded in socialist ideals, Mr. Prasad has moved to the right. He is openly and mischievously contemptuous of leftists. "They have a hatred for those who are happy," he said.

...Dalits are far less likely to be engaged in their traditional caste occupations — for instance, the skinning of animals, considered ritually unclean — than they used to be and more likely to enjoy social perks once denied them. In rural Azamgarh District, for instance, nearly all Dalit households said their bridegrooms now rode in cars to their weddings, compared with 27 percent in 1990. In the past, Dalits would not have been allowed to ride even horses to meet their brides; that was considered an upper-caste privilege.

....

...But here is the problem with Mr. Prasad's survey. Even if it chronicles progress, the survey cannot tie it to any one cause, least of all economic changes. In fact, other empirical studies in this budding area of inquiry show that in parts of India where economic liberalization has had the greatest impact, neither rural poverty nor the plight of Dalits has consistently improved.

What is called "contrarian" in India is called "conservative" here.

Also, I have heard Oprah Winfrey quoted as saying "excellence is the best defense against racism."  Why wouldn't it defend against caste-ism, as well?

Put a dead tree in your tank!

Merv at Gateway Pundit has spotted an article on converting coal into liquid fuel.

Ralph Hostetter:

Coal liquefaction has been around for a long time. Although relatively unfamiliar in the American energy vocabulary, it dates back to 1923, when German scientists developed the Fisher-Tropsch process for converting coal into the liquid fuels of gasoline and diesel.

....

Less expensive coal is normally used in coal liquefaction. Coal costs in June of 2008 ranged in price from $14 per ton for Powder River Basin, 8,800 British thermal unit coal, to $54 per ton for Uinta Basin, 8,700-BTU coal. The $14 per ton coal would be adequate for coal liquefaction.

The cost ratio of 1.25 barrels per ton of coal at a cost of $14 to $54 per ton would prove very advantageous with oil at $119 per barrel on Aug. 11, 2008. The profitability of liquefaction would be in line with Sasol profits in South Africa - so great that excess profit taxes were assessed.

Hostetter estimates that fuel from coal could be produced at about $1.85 a gallon. That sounds like a bargain at today's prices. I am not sure how much can be produced by he estimates about 3.5 million barrels a day which would be about 17 percent of daily consumption. I think it would be enough to reduce demand for oil to levels to make the price of crude come in line with it. The biggest obstacle will be energy hatred lobby of the Demcorats and environmentalist.

 

Anticipation

Under the heading of "Markets Anticipate the Future", Don Boudreaux posts a copy of the letter he sent to a local radio station:

Dear Sir or Madam:

This morning your reporter interviewed a resident of Galveston, Texas, about the effects of hurricane Ike.  The person interviewed said that she went to the gasoline station before Ike hit to "top off" her tank.  But she was angry to find that gasoline prices had jumped 50 cents per gallon from the day before.  "It's ridiculous," this woman opined. "Ike hadn't hit yet!"

Your reporter should have immediately asked this woman: "Well, why were you topping off your tank?  Ike hadn't hit yet."

Gasoline became more scarce -- more precious -- in Galveston the moment Ike's arrival became likely. Gasoline retailers acted in anticipation of the future no more or no less than did motorists (such as your interviewee) who topped off their tanks.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Hyperinflation

Apparently, hyperinflation is a theme in the Dilbert comic strip, as the inflation rate in Elbonia hits one billion percent per day.  Today's strip shows the price for something increasing a hundred-fold over the course of a minute.

I left this comment at the Mises Economics blog where I found the link:

I suspect this qualifies as a nitpick, but today's Dilbert shows the price of a small fetid water inflating 100-fold in a minute. An inflation rate of one billion percent per day works out to 1.1256% per minute. At that rate, a 100-fold increase would take a little over six and three-quarters hours. (6 hours, 51 minutes, 25.7 seconds).

An inflation rate of one hundred times (ten thousand percent) per minute would be very hard to deal with.

Inflation and compound interest are examples of exponential curves.  Their tendency to grow to very large values from very small initial steps takes many people by surprise. 

Why conservatives like Palin

Found this at the Contentions blog, by Jennifer Rubin:

 Rod Dreher makes a convincing case that it is her small town and blue collar appeal that are truly shaking up the race. It may not be gender, but class and geography that are the keys to her appeal.

After reviewing an insightful New York Times column (which of course means it is in the style section) on Palin's small town associations in her hometown beauty shop, Dreher comments:

I understood more than anything else I've read about Sarah Palin why she's made that gut connection with so many Americans. She really is from a small town, and does not seem to have forgotten that. Think about the powerful message this sends to small-town, rural and working-class voters. Think about what it says about the place she comes from internally, and how she interprets the world. This is a woman who goes to the small-town beauty shop to trade hunting stories with her girlfriends, and to pray with them through their crises — and she didn't stop going there when she became governor of the state.

This is actually one of the qualities of a leader.  As Kipling put it:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,

....

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Palin v. Gibson transcript

The following is a transcript of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson:

GIBSON: Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you. And it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say, I have the experience, and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?

PALIN: I do, Charlie, and on January 20th, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, we’ll be ready. I’m ready.

GIBSON: When McCain asked you to take the spot on the ticket, for a moment, did you think no?

PALIN: I did not. I thought yes, right off the bat. When he offered me the position, as his running mate, the first thing I said to him was, if you really think that I can help the ticket, if you really think that I can help this country, absolutely, I want to do this with you.

GIBSON: And you didn’t say to yourself, am I experienced enough? Am I ready?

PALIN: I didn’t hesitate, no.

GIBSON: Doesn’t that take some hubris?

PALIN: I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness. And knowing that you can’t blink. You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country, and victory in the war. You can’t blink. So, I didn’t blink then, when asked to run as his running mate.

GIBSON: But this is not just reforming a government. This is also running a government on the huge international stage, in a very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact you have command of the Alaskan National Guard and Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?

PALIN: But it is about reform of government. And it’s about putting government back on the side of the people. And that has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues.

Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie. And that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years, as the governor of this state, that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy. That I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conversation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas developments in our state, to produce more for the United States.

GIBSON: National security is a whole lot more than energy.

PALIN: It is. But - but I want you to not lose sight of the fact that energy is a foundation of national security. It’s that important. It’s that significant.

GIBSON: Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?

PALIN: Canada. Mexico. And then, that trip that was a trip of a lifetime, to visit troops in Kuwait and stop and visit injured soldiers in Germany. That was a trip of a lifetime. And it changed my life.

GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?

PALIN: I have not. And I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you. But Charlie, again, we got to remember what the desire is in this nation, at this time. It is for no more politics as usual. And somebody’s big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yeah, they’ve had opportunity to meet heads of state.

GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.

PALIN: Sure.

GIBSON: Let’s start, because we are near Russia. Let’s start with Russia and Georgia. The administration has said, we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

PALIN: First off, we’re going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I was able to speak the other day and giving my commitment, as John McCain’s running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia. And we have to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have asserted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable. And we have to keep …

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked?

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked. And we have to keep our eyes on Russia. Under the leadership there.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions particularly in the last couple weeks does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.

GIBSON: You favor putting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine definitely yes. Yes. And Georgia. Putin thinks otherwise, obviously he thinks otherwise.

GIBSON: Under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. That is the agreement. When you are a NATO ally, is, if another country is attacked, you are going to be expected to be called upon and help.

GIBSON: Let me turn to Iran. Do you consider a nuclear Iran to be an existential threat to Israel?

PALIN: I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nuclear weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes.

GIBSON: So, what should we do about a nuclear Iran?

PALIN: We have got to make sure these weapons of mass destruction, that nuclear weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them. So we have got to put the pressure on Iran.

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and need to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends of Israel, and I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves, and for their security.

GIBSON: So if we didn’t second guess it and if they decided they needed to do it, because Iran was an existential threat, we would be cooperative or agree with that?

PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.

GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right?

PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.

GIBSON: We talk on the anniversary of 9/11. Why do you think those hijackers attacked? Why did they want to hurt us?

PALIN: You know, there is a very small percentage of Islamic believers who are extreme, and they are violent, and they do not believe in American ideals. And they attacked us. And now we are at a point, here, seven years later, on the anniversary, in this post- 9/11 world, where we are able to commit to never again. The only option for them is to become a suicide bomber, to get caught up in this evil, in this terror. They need to be provided the hope that all Americans have, instilled in us, because we’re a democratic and we are a free, we’re a free-thinking society.

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view?

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, annunciated September 2002, before the Iraq War.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made, and with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine as I understand it is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with us?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligent and legitimate evidence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country.

GIBSON: Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan, from Afghanistan, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?

PALIN: As for our right to invade, we’re going to work with these countries, building new relationships, working with existing allies, but forging new also, in order to, Charlie, get to a point in this world, where war is not going to be a first option. In fact, war has got to be and military strike a last option.

GIBSON: But governor, I am asking you, do we have the right, in your mind, to go across the border, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?

PALIN: In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America, and our allies, we must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie. In making those tough decisions of where we go, and even who we target.

GIBSON: And let me finish with this. I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes, that you think we have the right to go across the border, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government? To go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?

PALIN: I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying America, and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GIBSON: You said recently in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right, also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIBSON: Are we fighting a Holy War?

PALIN: That’s a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words, when he said, first he suggested, never presume to know what God’s will is, and I would never presume to know God’s will or to speak god’s words, but what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that’s a repeat in my comments, was, let us not pray that God is on our side, in a war, or any other time. But let us pray that we are on God’s side. That’s what that comment was all about, Charlie.

Today is the day that I send my first born, my son, my teenage son, oversees with his Stryker brigade. Four thousand other wonderful American men and women to fight for our country, to fight for our freedoms.

GIBSON: But you went on and said, “There is a plan, and it is God’s plan.”

PALIN: I believe that there is a plan for this world, and that plan, for this world, is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country, to be able to live and be protected within inalienable rights, that I believe are God-given, Charlie. And I believe those are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness./p>

That in my worldview is the grand plan./p>

GIBSON: Then, are you sending your son on a task from God?/p>

PALIN: I don’t know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision. What he decided to do, in serving for the right reasons in serving something greater than self, and not choosing a real easy path, where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer./p>

The Truth Machine

Ron Baily at Reason Magazine has a blog post on research into Truth Machines.

The New York Times is reporting that an Indian criminal court accepted a brain scan as evidence of guilt in a murder trial in India earlier this year. The developer of the the Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature (BEOS) test claims that it uses electrodes to detect when regions of the brain "light up" with guilty knowledge.

According to the Times:

The woman, Aditi Sharma, was accused of killing her former fiancé, Udit Bharati. They were living in Pune when Ms. Sharma met another man and eloped with him to Delhi. Later Ms. Sharma returned to Pune and, according to prosecutors, asked Mr. Bharati to meet her at a McDonald's. She was accused of poisoning him with arsenic-laced food.

Ms. Sharma, 24, agreed to take a BEOS test in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. (Suspects may be tested only with their consent, but forensic investigators say many agree because they assume it will spare them an aggressive police interrogation.)

As the Times points out, most U.S. experts doubt that the BEOS technology has been propoerly validated. However, neuroscience researchers are working toward creating such a "truth machine." As the Times notes:

....

Back in 2001, I looked at the status of brain scanning technologies and pointed to some of the possibilities that fully validated brain scanning technologies would offer for abuse by government and some implications for the future of privacy:

...James Halperin, author of the 1996 science fiction novel The Truth Machine.., notes an interesting convergence in current fMRI and brainwave research since his fictional "Cerebral Image Processor" measured a combination of electrical activity and blood flow. In The Truth Machine, Halperin illustrates the benefits and problems that the pervasive availability of an infallible lie detector would cause society. It is easy to see some of the benefits -- detecting would-be terrorists, finding politicians who tell the truth during campaigns, detecting honesty in meeting contractual obligations. But what about those areas of life we would like to keep private, say, one's sexual orientation, or unusual religious beliefs, or drug habits, or taste in pornography? Halperin suggests that right now, many of us tolerate laws and regulations on many of these private activities because we know that we are not likely to be caught when we violate them. In a world where the truth can be known absolutely, Halperin thinks laws regulating many private activities would be repealed and there would be areas of life in which the use of a truth machine itself would be banned.

Whole column here. 

Also mentioned are Constitutional issues.

 

Privacy may well suffer once such a machine is developed.  At least, as currently designed, this machine requires a close connection with the subject -- wearing electrodes or sitting inside a scanner, for instance.  If a form of this gadget can be built that reads at a distance, there will no longer be such a thing as "in the privacy of your own thoughts".

Lie detection by EEG

An actual lie detector has been the stuff of fantasy and science fiction.  While the magic spell that detects untruth or even compels truth may never be achieved, one scientist thinks he's identified brain waves that correspond to deception.

A Seattle scientist who has developed an electronic brain test that he says could improve our ability to force criminals to reveal themselves, identify potential terrorists and free those wrongly convicted may have finally broken through the bureaucratic barriers that he believes have served to stifle adoption of the pioneering technique.

As part of this research, Farwell ran across what would become the scientific basis of brain fingerprinting. It is a type of signal in the brain known as a P300 wave, so-called because it is an involuntary response to a recognized object or piece of information that happens within 300 milliseconds.

It's been a well-known and widely accepted phenomenon within neuroscience. What Farwell did is connect it with another related electrical brain response that he dubbed a MerMer (for "memory and encoding related multifaceted electroencephalographic response") that he contends provides a foolproof method for testing an individual's knowledge -- or lack of knowledge -- of a criminal act.

"It's 100 percent reliable and has been ruled admissible in court," Farwell said.

That was in Iowa, during a court case in which a man, Terry Harrington, was found innocent of murder and in 2003 released after spending 24 years in prison. Brain fingerprinting played a role, Farwell emphasized, but was not the only reason for Harrington's exoneration. And in another case, that of Jimmy Ray Slaughter in Oklahoma, Farwell's brain fingerprint finding that Slaughter was likely innocent did not persuade the court or prevent his execution.

Of course, before it's adopted, I'd like to see a lot more testing. 

Maybe that testing's already been done, in which case, we should be able to see lots of research papers.  I'd also like to see the results of testing on known sociopaths and other people with psychiatric problems.  A technique that works on college students may not work as well on the population that turns up in police interrogation rooms.

And then, of course, there are the constitutional issues.

The problem with computer models

Is that reality doesn't always agree with them.

Point 1: There are… serial, serious failures of the computer models of climate

….the computer models upon which the UN’s climate panel unwisely founds its entire case have failed and failed and failed again to predict major events in the real climate.

a. The models have not projected the current multidecadal stasis in “global warming”:

b. no rise in temperatures since 1998; falling temperatures since late 2001; temperatures not expected to set a new record until 2015 (Keenlyside et al., 2008).

c. nor (until trained ex post facto) did they predict the fall in TS from 1940-1975;

d. nor 50 years’ cooling in Antarctica (Doran et al., 2002) and the Arctic (Soon, 2005);

e. nor the absence of ocean warming since 2003 (Lyman et al., 2006; Gouretski & Koltermann, 2007);

f. nor the behavior of the great ocean oscillations (Lindzen, 2007),

g. nor the magnitude nor duration of multi-century events such as the Mediaeval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age;

h. nor the decline since 2000 in atmospheric methane concentration (IPCC, 2007);

i. nor the active 2004 hurricane season;

j. nor the inactive subsequent seasons;

k. nor the UK flooding of 2007 (the Met Office had forecast a summer of prolonged droughts only six weeks previously);

l. nor the solar Grand Maximum of the past 70 years, during which the Sun was more active, for longer, than at almost any similar period in the past 11,400 years (Hathaway, 2004; Solanki et al., 2005);

m. nor the consequent surface “global warming” on Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and even distant Pluto;

n. nor the eerily-continuing 2006 solar minimum;

o. nor the consequent, precipitate decline of ~0.8 °C in surface temperature from January 2007 to May 2008 that has canceled out almost all of the observed warming of the 20th century.

As Monckton states, the computer models are demonstrable failures.

Editing the Palin Interview

Over at the Mark Levin show:

EXCERPTS: Charlie Gibson Interviews Sarah Palin (September 11, 2008)

THE BOLDED & UNDERLINED PARTS WERE EDITED OUT OF THE INTERVIEW

TV Scenes We'd Like to See

(Remember MAD Magazine?)

A reader with a vivid political imagination dreams of the following exchange:

Charlie Gibson: “Senator Obama, you have referred in the past to ‘my Muslim faith.’ How strong is your Muslim faith?”

Barack Obama: “You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.”

Charlie Gibson: “Exact words.”

Can the Torreceli option be made to work?

I've been seeing analyses of why Obama can't replace Biden as his running mate, especially in favor of Hillary.

I mention one in this post.

Clayton Cramer believes much the same way.

Instapundit points to the futures trading on the possibility that Obama Messiah might replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket with Hillary Clinton. If Obama and his staff have any brains at all, they would immediately recognize this as about the only action that they could take worse than what they are doing now.

I'm not so sure.

And even if it is, someone might consider it worth the gamble – trading a certain loss for even a slim chance of a win.

Consider: For all the noise being made about how McCain is old, decrepit, at death's door, and likely to keel over once and for all immediately after saying "So help me God" at his inauguration, Joe Biden isn't any Highlander type. He's old, and he's been in the Senate longer than McCain. He's had health issues of his own – strokes, I believe. A serious health issue would be entirely plausible.

Now he won't be replaced by Hillary. She wouldn't take the job. She doesn't want to run against a Democratic incumbent in '12, and if Obama should become incapacitated for any reason, a minority of loudmouths will accuse her of complicity.

However, there must be some young Democrat in the wings somewhere. Maybe one of the Kennedy kids? Have they really looked at all the governors? (I doubt the mayor of New Orleans is on even the very longest of lists.) How about one of the opinionated Hollywood set? How about Whoopi Goldberg? At least we know she can memorize her lines.

Obama Tracker

Mentioned in a comment.

Palin was not a secessionist

Dirt on the front page, clean-up buried inside.

This is how they roll. Report it and get it out there. Get it picked up by all the television reporters who repeated it as recently as today’s morning news/chat shows. Too bad it isn’t true.

Willy Brown on Palin

This is echoing all over the place.

The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign.

Period.

Palin's speech to the GOP National Convention on Wednesday has set it up so that the Republicans are now on offense and Democrats are on defense. And we don't do well on defense.

Suddenly, Palin and John McCain are the mavericks and Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the status quo, in a year when you don't want to be seen as defending the status quo.

From taxes to oil drilling, Democrats are now going to have to start explaining their positions.

Whenever you start having to explain things, you're on defense.

That's just it. The Republicans have sente. Now to see if they can keep it.

Palin v. Gibson

Betsy Newmark has some comments about The Interview. Of course, the question arises, who's more ignorant of the Bush Doctrine, Palin or Gibson?

Beldar on Palin

Beldar will be guest blogging at Hugh Hewitt, at least until the election.

Here is an introductory post, with all kinds of neat stuff.

Among other things, Palin was not a surprise to people who were paying attention (which seems not to include many journalists).

My own online research into Gov. Palin, as an exercise in blogger curiosity, began back in early June of this year: Prompted by memories of Fred Barnes' excellent July 2007 article on Gov. Palin in the Weekly Standard, I ended up then with a 1900-word post, the central theme of which was that she would be a "grand slam" as John McCain's Veep. That became the first in what's now a series of fifty-six posts (chronologically indexed here) that I've written on Gov. Palin.

Friday Quick Hits

 

 

Sent to you by Karl via Google Reader:

 

 

Friday Quick Hits

via Reason Magazine - Hit & Run by jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker) on 9/12/08

* One way to beat the TSA watch list.

* A site devoted to breaking down the state-level presidential polls into a more understandable form.

* A list of "Essential Science Fiction and Fantasy for Libertarians." It is intentionally eclectic, has a left-libertarian tilt, and ought to start a bunch of arguments. Have at it.

 

 

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Reason Magazine - Hit & Run using Google Reader
• Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

 

 

Obama, McCain and Sex Education

From the Weekly Standard blog

Among other points,

In this argument, it is worth noting which side is actually quoting the bill and how it sought to change existing law and which side is arguing, as one reader put it, " common sense suggests that McCain's ad is b*******. Shouldn't the fact that it was first used by Alan Keyes have given you a hint?" If a broken clock can be right twice a day, it is not unthinkable that Keyes would raise a legitimate objection to the bill.

Frederick Kagan on Russian invasion of Georgia

at the Weekly Standard blog.

To sum up, Russian military forces at the order of Russia's president committed the following violations of international law in August 2008:

• Invading the territory of a sovereign state that had not attacked or threatened to attack Russia

• Conducting a strategic bombing campaign against both civilian and military targets in that state, with which Russia was not at war and which was not engaging in any activity remotely commensurate with such a response

• Seizing (stealing really) Georgian civilian and military hardware from Georgia proper

• Systematically demolishing Georgian military infrastructure in Georgia proper

• Failing to perform its international legal responsibilities by allowing Ossetian separatists to undertake an ethnic cleansing campaign in areas occupied by Russian forces

• Supporting Abkhazian separatists militarily in a patent land-grab

Wikipedia page on Frederick Kagan.  Needless to say, the Daily Kos crowd doesn't think much of him.

Gone too far?

Parent anger over lunchbox police

Rules on junk food in schools will be sent to all principals this week amid parent anger over teachers inspecting children's lunchboxes and confiscating items viewed as unhealthy. Education Department chief executive Chris Robinson told The Advertiser last night guidelines would be reissued to all state schools and preschools. This follows reports yesterday of several schools ordering teachers to search children's lunchboxes for "inappropriate" food. In some cases, confiscated items were not replaced, leaving children to go hungry.

Mr Robinson said the department's ban on junk food under the Right Bite strategy launched last year by Health Minister John Hill and Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith, applied only to food and drinks sold in school canteens and vending machines. Birthday cakes and food or drinks from home are not covered by the ban. But according to a February 27 memo sent to principals and preschool directors by department deputy chief executive Jan Andrews, each school has discretion to ignore those instructions. "It is up to each school and preschool community and their governing council to decide how to use the guidelines to encourage healthier eating beyond the requirement that bans junk food in school canteens and vending machines," the memo said.

Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni said schools were confused by the "mixed message". "Parents are rightly angry - it should be about education and not confiscation, and kids should not go hungry because food is taken from lunchboxes," he said.

Mr Robinson, speaking yesterday on radio FIVEaa, said: "Teachers don't have any role in going through children's lunchboxes, that's entirely a matter for parents and the healthy eating guidelines don't cover (them)."

But Seaview Downs mother Cassandra Liebeknecht told The Advertiser that staff at her son's preschool had, over time, confiscated a small packet of potato chips and fruit bars. "Where do you draw the line? Is white bread with jam on it healthy," she asked.

Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said: "This is an abuse of power. "No school teacher has the right to go into a child's lunchbox and arbitrarily deem some food acceptable and some not. It is a blatant interference in the rights of parents and has to stop now."

This was taking place in Australia.  I think US schools would discover there are Constitutional issues. Not to mention angry parents showing up and confiscating the lunches of offending teachers.

The profundity of Obama

How about that!  There's something profound about Barack Obama!

The essential problem coming to light is a profound disconnect between the Barack Obama of the candidate's speeches, and the Barack Obama who has actually been in politics for the past decade or so.

Gerard Baker at the London Times discusses why it's quite possible the Anointed One may lose the election.

Speechmaker Obama has built his campaign on the promise of reform, the need to change the culture of American political life, to take on the special interests that undermine government's effectiveness and erode trust in the system itself,

Politician Obama rose through a Chicago machine that is notoriously the most corrupt in the country. As David Freddoso writes in a brilliantly cogent and measured book, The Case Against Barack Obama, the angel of deliverance from the old politics functioned like an old-time Democratic pol in Illinois. He refused repeatedly to side with those lonely voices that sought to challenge the old corrupt ways of the ruling party.

Speechmaker Obama talks about an era of bipartisanship, He speaks powerfully about the destructive politics of red and blue states.

Politician Obama has toed his party's line more reliably than almost any other Democrat in US politics. He has a near-perfect record of voting with his side. He has the most solidly left-wing voting history in the Senate. His one act of bipartisanship, a transparency bill co-sponsored with a Republican senator, was backed by everybody on both sides of the aisle. He has never challenged his party's line on any issue of substance.

Speechmaker Obama talks a lot about finding ways to move beyond the bloody battlegrounds of the "culture wars" in America; the urgent need to establish consensus on the emotive issue of abortion.

Politician Obama's support for abortion rights is the most extreme of any Democratic senator. In the Illinois legislature he refused to join Democrats and Republicans in supporting a Bill that would require doctors to provide medical care for babies who survived abortions. No one in the Senate - not the arch feminist Hillary Clinton nor the superliberal Edward Kennedy - opposed this same humane measure.

Here's the real problem with Mr Obama: the jarring gap between his promises of change and his status quo performance. There are just too many contradictions between the eloquent poetry of the man's stirring rhetoric and the dull, familiar prose of his political record.

Seven Reasons why the Right likes Palin

From Townhall.com, John Hawkins writes:

When Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain's VP pick, it caught the mainstream media completely flatfooted. Most of them acted as if they'd never even heard of her, despite the fact that conservative bloggers had already selected her and Mitt Romney (they tied) as their most desired VP picks for John McCain.

Moreover, the reaction of conservatives to Sarah Palin, while not quite as rapturous as the liberal reaction to Barack Obama, is surprisingly strong and positive -- and again, the press seems puzzled. Why in the world are conservatives so enthused about someone who has never done Meet the Press or been to a single Washington cocktail party?

So, in an effort to help out our elitist liberal brethren who've been trying in vain to figure out what's so appealing about Sarah Palin, I decided to put together a little list that explains why conservatives love Sarah Palin so much.

The reasons are:

#1) She's conservative:

#2) She's a reformer:

#3) She is the right person at the right time:

#4) A lot of people can relate to Palin:

#5) She is from outside of Washington:

#6) She's our chance to be "first:"

#7) The Left's hate and fear of Sarah Palin:

Go and read.

Why Biden Stays

Dafydd at Big Lizards offers his take on why Obama will not dump Joe Biden and replace him with a real candidate for VP. (The Torricelli Maneuver) It's worth reading, even though I don't think it fully rules out the possibility.  I especially like this line near the end of his post:

You can fool some of the people all the time -- but they're already Democrats

 

Ooooh! Scary!

In his blog at the Herald Sun (Australia), Andrew Bolt looks at headlines about the "scary" Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin has given her first interview since being picked as the Republican's vice-presidential candidate. The media has scrabbled for evidence of fumbles, and evidence that a shootin', cussin' redneck is about to plunge the world into war.

He proceeds to examine the candidate's statements.  For example:

The first war a President Palin would allegedly start was with Pakistan, by invading it in the hunt for terrorists, and perhaps from the transcript you might agree the words are indeed naive and alarming:

We should start with the premise that the United States, like all sovereign nations, has the unilateral right to defend itself against attack. As such, our campaign to take out Al Qaeda base camps and the Taliban regime that harbored them was entirely justified… (I)f we've got (Osama bin Laden) in our sites, we should ask for Pakistan's cooperation, we should ask Pakistan to take him out. But if they don't, we shouldn't need permission to go after folks that killed 3,000 Americans.

Oops, sorry. That was actually Barack Obama. This is Palin:

ABC News Anchor Gibson also asked Palin several times whether or not U.S. forces have the right to make cross-border attacks into Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government…

"In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists, who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink..."

Read his post for more of the same. 

The obvious theme here is that Sarah Palin is a dumb hick who, once given any power at all, will plunge the nation into a war with perceived enemies. I remember another candidate about whom much the same thing was said.  He was elected President in 1980.

Palin in Debates

From Contentions, John Podhoretz writes:

To be a governor, even to be interested in being a governor, is by definition to be a policy wonk. The job is nothing but policy. The fun of the job is policy.

That is not true of legislators at all levels. Despite the clear bias, over decades, on the part of the Washington press for senators and (to a lesser extent) House members on the matter of experience and knowledge of the workings of government, it is far easier for those officials to coast on the strength of their staff members and their flesh-pressing, fundraising talents.

But governors grapple daily with the most tedious innards of governmental action. I've never met one, and I've met several, who didn't have an overpowering command of the details of the state budget, the peculiarities of the relation between the state and Washington, and the demands of satisfying constituents by delivering services and dealing with public-sector unions that want to deliver fewer services for more money.

This is one of the reasons why governors have done so well, in the modern era, as presidential candidates, even if they lose (four of the last five presidents have been governors). It's not just that they can claim to have run something; it's because, in the early going especially, they know how to impress people with their ease in dealing with policy matters.

Warning against complacency

From Betsy Newmark:

 

If you're feeling complacent...

 

Peruse this list of foiled terror plots against Americans since 9/11. Some I'd heard of, but there are quite a few that I was unaware of. And these are just the ones where there was an arrest. We have no idea of how many were foiled without an arrest and a public announcement.

I believe that many Americans have grown to discount the whole idea that there are people out there who want to kill Americans, preferably here in the United States, and would like to orchestrate as massive a killing as possible. We have grown complacent in the seven years since 9/11 and now take the lack of attack as the norm.

While some of these plots might seem like a bunch of losers cooking up some crackpot idea that never would have been successful, remember that, if the 9/11 plotters had been arrested before they took over those airplanes, their plot would have seemed like just some bizarre idea that a bunch of incompetent kooks was dreaming up. Foiled plots might not seem that scary when they're exposed, but just imagine how those plots would have seemed totally different if they hadn't been foiled.

Creationism, Evolution, Palin, and Evidence

Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspracy has a post on creationism, especially as the issue has been raised by attacks against Sarah Palin for "being a Creationist".

 

Creationism and Ability to Evaluate Scientific Evidence - Or, How I Caught Myself in a Contradiction:

Also:

Should We Hold Belief in Creationism Against Candidates for Political Office?

 

Palin on Creationism.

The Inevitable Iraq War

A must-read in Commentary Magazine:

As the English historian F.W. Maitland wrote more than a century ago, "It is very hard to remember that events that are long in the past were once in the future." Hard it may be, but the job of historians is not only to remember it but to judge events accordingly.

In this light—that is, in light of what was actually known at the time about Saddam Hussein's actions and intentions, and in light of what was added to our knowledge through his post-capture interrogations by the FBI—the decision to go to war takes on a very different character. The story that emerges is of a choice not only carefully weighed and deliberately arrived at but, in the circumstances, the one moral choice that any American President could make.

Had, moreover, Bush failed to act when he did, the consequences could have been truly disastrous. The next American President would surely have faced the need, in decidedly less favorable circumstances, to pick up the challenge Bush had neglected. And since Bush's unwillingness to do the necessary thing might rightly have cost him his second term, that next President would probably have been one of the many Democrats who, until March 2003, actually saw the same threat George Bush did.

It is too often forgotten, not least by historians, that George W. Bush did not invent the idea of deposing the Iraqi tyrant. For years before he came on the scene, removing Saddam Hussein had been a priority embraced by the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton and by Clinton's most vocal supporters in the Senate....

As Douglas Feith explains in War and Decision, the recently published memoir of his days as Under Secretary for Policy in Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department, there were several reasons why a post-9/11 strategy had to focus on Saddam Hussein. First among them was Saddam's ties to terrorist groups, of which the Clinton administration had been well aware and had repeatedly cited. Although no evidence existed that Saddam had been involved in al Qaeda's attack on New York and Washington—and no Bush official ever asserted otherwise—the White House learned after the liberation of Afghanistan that Abu Musab Zarqawi, one of al Qaeda's key operatives, had found safe haven in Iraq. There was also some evidence (cited by General Tommy Franks in his own memoir, American Soldier), that Zarqawi "had been joined there by other al-Qaeda leaders."

What is a Community Organizer?

Source:

Chicago — Barack Obama often cites his time as a community organizer here in Chicago as one of the experiences that qualify him to hold the nation's highest office. "I can bring this country together," he said in a debate last February. "I have a track record, starting from the days I moved to Chicago as a community organizer."

When Obama says such things, the reaction among many observers is: Huh?

 

Voter myths

1. Our voters are pretty smart.

2. Bill O'Reilly's viewers are dumber than Jon Stewart's.

3. If you just give Americans the facts, they'll be able to draw the right conclusions.

4. Voters today are smarter than they used to be.

5. Young voters are paying a lot of attention to the news.

 

And in conclusion:

Only 11 percent of the young report that they regularly surf the Internet for news. Maybe Obama shouldn't be relying on savvy young voters after all.

But then again, maybe he's not.

I had a conversation with one young voter who was all set to vote for Obama.  After 5 minutes spent listing issues, he was all set to vote for McCain.  People seem to be voting for Obama because it feels good, not because they know anything.

Katrina Rumors

They Shoot Helicopters, Don't They?

Matt Welch at Reason Magazine looks at how unfounded rumors spread through the news media.

 

Also No, This Is the Story of the Hurricane – Katrina as a story of the culture war.

Putting the law online

Now Malamud wants to do the same for California -- and everywhere else. And he's willing to go to court to make his point. He thinks the court system will rule in his favor, establishing a precedent that all government agencies must follow.

"If that happens, it opens the doors to innovation," Malamud said.

To get the California Code online, he digitally scanned a stack of documents that weighed 150 pounds. Now anyone can download the 33,000 pages, and print whatever they want from his Web site, public.resource.org.

Palin Rumor link

Cripes, this has gotten ridiculous. Folks, look, let’s just run through a list here. (Updated.)
....
Anyone who sees a new rumor, leave it in a comment.
Update: The Other McCain has a better blurb than I did:

Charles Martin has established a clearinghouse for all the existing rumors about Sarah Palin, and any new ones you want to make up, if you want to try your hand at being a professional journalist like Elizabeth Bumiller.

2008-Sep-05 23:22 Update: Changed it to a numbered list. I’m beginning to think we need to start referring to these things by number.

Old Technology

I was talking with a friend after a LASFS meeting yesterday, and the conversation turned to Thomas Edison and his famous quote, "I haven't had a thousand failures, I've discovered a thousand ways not to make a light bulb." (Or whatever the number is.)

I mentioned the other accidental discovery Edison made, when he ran a cold wire next to a hot filament. He discovered electricity would flow from the hot filament to the cold wire.

This "Edison Effect" turned out to be useful in circuits. If you wanted current to flow in only one direction, you cold put one of these bulbs in the circuit, and current would flow from the hot wire to the cold one, but not the other way. This gadget would be named, variously, a "valve", and eventually, a "diode".

If you put a grid between the two wires, you could change how much electricity got from the hot wire to the cold one at any given voltage. One of the applications was that, if you got the voltages right, you could impose a weak signal on the current going into the grid, and you would get a strong signal imposed on the current coming through the diode. (Well, now a "triode", because it has three elements.)

My friend realized, with some astonishment, that Edison had accidentally invented at least two major industries, radio and computers.

I took electronics in college in the early 80s, at which time vacuum tubes were relegated to an appendix in the textbook. Does anyone still study the things nowadays?

Is Palin a creationist?

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs looks at creationist website Answers In Genesis (AIG) to see what they have to say.

...we should add that caution needs to be exercised in this area before confidently declaring her to be a biblical young-earth creationist. There are all kinds of origins views that span a spectrum that is bookended by a literal Genesis creation on one end and naturalistic evolution on the other. Most politicians, when asked about their origins beliefs, try to answer somewhere between the two bookends, settling into a comfortable place in between so as not to alienate those who believe in a Creator (the overwhelming majority of Americans) while protecting themselves from allegations that they reject mainstream science.

and...

In other words, Palin was not suggesting that the teaching of creation should be mandated (perhaps realizing that her statement the day before came across as arguing that creation must be in the science curriculum).
The Anchorage newspaper also reported her as saying she would not push the state’s board of education (governors in Alaska appoint board members, and the legislators confirm them) to add creationist alternatives to evolution to the state’s curriculum.

Johnson comments:

You can almost feel the disappointment, can’t you? But please note, the Answers in Genesis crowd is quick to reassure the world that they don’t want to force creationism on students—not because it’s wrong or anything, but because science teachers trained in “Darwinism” wouldn’t be able to teach their pseudo-science well enough.

Gov. Palin’s clarification of her views on the teaching of origins in public schools mirrors AiG’s general view: biblical creation should not be forced into classrooms, specifically because science teachers with a strong belief in evolution would teach creation poorly, so it would ultimately be counterproductive for the students.

Instead, they’re in favor of “teaching the controversy,” the current strategy of creationists and proponents of “intelligent design.” Rather than force their hooey into schools, they want to sneak it in.

Incidentally, it should be noted that there is no such position as a “neutral” or “non-religious” stance in this debate. Public school biology textbooks and many teachers explain the origin of the universe and life through “natural” processes, defining science as explaining things by “natural” processes. They are indoctrinating students in an atheistic religious belief—that no god is or has been involved; thus, naturalism—in essence, atheism—is now the religion taught in public schools. Parents need to wake up to the fact that public education is not non-religious. Even the Bible affirms that one is either for Christ or against—clearly teaching that there is no such “neutral” position.

If you don’t want to turn the clock back to medieval times and deny most of modern science, then according to Answers in Genesis you’re a damned atheist. And you can’t be neutral, or believe in God and evolution; it’s creationism or hell.
This is how they manipulate the gullible. It’s disturbing and cult-like. Their way is the only way, and God Himself (using Answers in Genesis as His vessel) says so. Depart from the one true path and you are the enemy.

Water Cooler Poll on Palin

Palin Scores With Average Americans

Posted by: Matt Lewis at 12:37 PM

... that's what I read into the fact that almost 70 percent of US Magazine readers say they think Sarah Palin would make a good veep.

 

The margin of error on a poll of that size is 201 votes, or 0.56% (2.326 times the standard error of the proportion, p<0.01)

Rebutting anti-Palin talking points

Rebutting the Democrats' Fearful and Intolerant Attacks on Sarah Palin

This piece at American Thinker goes through the talking points posted at the Daily Kos website.

Also, Defending Against the First Attacks on Sarah Palin.

Well, it is Obama's to lose

...it says right here...

From the Asia Times online.

How Obama lost the election
By Spengler

DENVER - Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city's Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.

....

I sat in on a session with three leaders of Veterans for Obama, a group of retired young officers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the New Republic's writer on the scene, David Samuels. With passion and enthusiasm, these young people spoke of their hopes for nation-building in Iraq. The George W Bush administration should have put twice the resources into the beleaguered country, they harangued me - not just soldiers, but agronomists, traffic cops, lawyers, judges, and physicians. The Department of Agriculture should have mobilized, along with the Department of Justice.

Nation-building? Doubling down on the US commitment to Iraq? Isn't that trying to out-Bush the Bush administration, while Obama campaigned on getting out of Iraq and spending the money on programs at home? Unblinking, one of the soldiers said, "That's what we think Barack will do." They believed in a more expensive version of the administration's program, and faulted Bush for half measures - and somehow they believed that Obama really agreed with them, all the public evidence to the contrary. And they believed in Barack with perfect faith.

Gandalf's warnings about the irresistible voice of the wizard Saruman in J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings come to mind. If these battle-hardened veterans of America's wars fell so easily under the spell of Obama's voice, who can withstand it? Obama's persuasive powers, though, are strongest when channeled through the empathy of his interlocutor. Everyone believes that Obama feels his pain, shares his dream, and will fight his fight and heal his ills. But that is everyone as an individual. Add all the individuals up into a campaign platform, and it turns into three-quarters of an hour worth of promises that echo all the ghosts of conventions past.
....

In my February 26 profile, I called Obama "the political equivalent of a sociopath", without any derogatory intent. A sociopath seeks the empathy of all around him while empathizing with no one. Obama has an almost magical ability to gain the confidence of those around him. Perhaps it was the adaptation of a bright and sensitive young boy who was abandoned by three parents - his Kenyan father Barack Obama Sr, who left his pregnant young bride; his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetero; and by his mother, Ann Dunham, who sent 10-year-old Obama to live with her parents while she pursued her career as an anthropologist.

Combine a child's response to serial abandonment with the perspective of an outsider, and Obama became an alien species against which American politics had no natural defenses. He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. No country's politics depends more openly on friendships than America's, yet Obama has not a single real friend, for he rose so fast that all his acquaintances become rungs on the ladder of his ascent. One human relationship crowds the others out of his life, his marriage to Michelle, a strong, assertive and very angry woman.

If Novak's report is accurate, then Michelle's anger will have lost the election for Obama, as Achilles' anger nearly killed the Greek cause in the Trojan War. But the responsibility rests not with Michelle, but with Obama. Obama's failure of nerve at the cusp of his success is consistent with my profile of the candidate, in which I predicted that he would self-destruct. It's happening faster than I expected. As I wrote last February:

It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama ... Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals.

By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate.

The Difficult Concept of Evolution

I hope that the notion that there is zero heritability of intelligence is a straw man. The debate ought to be over what proportion of intelligence is heritable.

Don Boudreaux wrote (and recently recycled),

Just as there is a compelling non-creationist view of biological beings, there is a compelling non-creationist view of social order.

He is arguing against the view that we owe all of our peace and prosperity to government.

The point that both posts make is that the left, which denounces religious denial of the theory of evolution, nonetheless has a hard time with evolution. Friedman gives examples in which the left has difficulty accepting biological consequences of the theory of evolution. Boudreaux gives examples in which people insist on intelligent design rather than economic evolution.

I think that the concept of evolution is really quite difficult. Perhaps we have evolved with a hard-wired belief in intelligent design or creationism, and only with considerable effort can we accept evolution and spontaneous order.

Palin Around

Items from the blogs I have on my RSS reader...

Dem’s Gleeful Palin Misrepresentation

Here’s what The Nation, with all its Lefty investigative prowess has come up with thus far:

• “Palin once backed the Bridge to Nowhere.”

More important, though, is that she ultimately participated in its demise, and the fall of Ted Stevens. This one is, though, the most troubling of all the allegations, especially given the strong hand she dealt on it in her acceptance speech. I imagine that as time goes by, it all will be fully explained.

Right Of Privacy? Not From The Left!

The bloviating hypocrites at Daily Kos is ruminating today that Sarah Palin was never pregnant with a fifth child, but rather was covering up for an unwed daughter’s pregnancy by pulling the old switch-a-roo after the little ‘un was born.

Palin goes on offense in Troopergate, releases affidavit

The Verdict Is In: McCain Chooses "Transformative" Over "Kicking the Can"

I think John S. McCain (or his staff) must have been reading Big Lizards back in March. If so, they can't have missed our pair of posts on selecting a running mate, in which we argued that McCain must eschew the "known quantities," like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, or Rudy Giuliani... and instead pick his VP with a wow factor in mind; only then can the 2008 election be transformative, not simply kicking the can down the road:

Commanding Alaska's Guard w/ 24/7 missile defense

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It’s on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska, Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's.

The difference between Executive experience and Legislative experience

from COUNTERCOLUMN by Jason

In a nutshell: Executives don't get to vote "present."
Put that in your peace pipe and smoke it, libtards.

Splash, out

Watch out for this madness...

The drooling bunch of troglodytes that make up leftard opinion makers are now roundly accusing McCain of failing to vet Palin prior to naming her as the Republican Veep nominee... and exhibit A is the fact that Palin's daughter is expecting. The argument goes like this: The careless incompetents that make up the McCain campaign staff was clearly negligent in not specifically inquiring into the intimate sexual history of a 17-year-old girl.

Palin Has Not Pushed Creationism As Governor

(Hat tip: Little Green Footballs)

One of the smears being circulated against Sarah Palin is that she is in favor of teaching creationism in public school science classes, but as I pointed out last week this simply isn’t true. Apparently, she has a rather confused attitude toward evolution (an attitude she shares with about 50% of the US population), but when asked explicitly whether she would support teaching the pseudo-science of “intelligent design,” her answer was “No.” And today even the Associated Press has to admit that PPalin has not pushed creationism as governor.

And by the way, John McCain is also on the right side of this issue.

Palin said during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign that if she were elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum, or look for creationism advocates when she appointed board members.

At a GOP presidential debate in May 2007 in Simi Valley, Calif., McCain said he believed in evolution. “But,” he added, “I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”

Palin’s children attend public schools and Palin has made no push to have creationism taught in them.

Neither have Palin’s socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska’s chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.

“She has basically ignored social issues, period,” said Gregg Erickson, an economist and columnist for the Alaska Budget Report.

Ideas: Who is Against Evolution?

David Friedman looks at who opposes evolution. It turns out to be a larger group than you might think. Conservative religious opposition to evolution is well known, but there's a wide strand of opposition on the left that surprises many.

Friedman distinguishes between opposition to teaching evolution and opposition to taking it seriously.

Face it. If evolution happened, it has certain implications for humankind, and it implies things that fly in the face of the leftist vision of how the world should be.

Stephen Jay Gould liked to say that "human equality is a contingent fact of history." This means that things could easily have been very different – we could easily have had several subspecies of human, with very different levels of mental ability, and some of those would have made very good slave classes. That hasn't happened, largely because many strains of hominids died out in prehistoric times.

However, Gould took great pains to ignore the contingent nature of equality when looking at human variability. Different groups of people have different physical appearances – different enough that we call them "races". That each race is equal in terms of mental ability, personality, and other mental traits is purely contingent. The ins and outs of genetic drift could easily have given different groups an advantage here, or a deficit there.

And there's no evidence that it hasn't.

people who are against taking seriously the implications of evolution, strongly enough to want to attack those who disagree, including those who teach those implications, are quite likely to be on the left.

Consider the most striking case, the question of whether there are differences between men and women with regard to the distribution of intellectual abilities or behavioral patterns. That no such differences exist, or if that if they exist they are insignificant, is a matter of faith for many on the left. The faith is so strongly held that when the president of Harvard, himself a prominent academic, merely raised the possibility that one reason why there were fewer women than men in certain fields might be such differences, he was ferociously attacked and eventually driven to resign.

Ideas: Who is Against Evolution?