Okay, I'm going to respond to my open source critics here, because I think I need more space than is available in the comments.
First of all, I should rephrase what I said about IBM. My commenters point out that IBM does, in fact, fund open source now. To which I respond, why do you think this is? Because IBM is a nice company that wants to help some deserving kids get a start in the world? Umm. . . no. IBM hopes to kill Microsoft, in the hopes that the hardware manufacturers will regain some leverage in the PC market.
No Microsoft, no free money. As a business matter, pouring billions into something when you have no way of ensuring that its benefits accrue to you rather than competitors is not a sustainable practice -- not if the shareholders get wind of it, it isn't.
And I am aware that the open source folks talk about business models that will support their habit. The problem is, they don't quite think those business models through. Let's think about the financials of open source.
Assume that you can make open source work with approximately the same number of programmers, give or take, as there are in the world now. Maybe you need 15% less because Open Source is so damn efficient.
Well, all the programmers currently working for software companies won't be any more. That's no longer a revenue stream.
Corporations don't need more IT consultants or programmers than they have. Switching from NT administrators to Linux guys doesn't increase the net number of paying jobs in IT.
More than 15% of programmers currently work for software companies, particularly when you leave out the wizened old mainframe guys at large industrials, who won't be working on open source linux code in their retirement.
Companies won't pay a ton for non-proprietary consulting. Look at the differentials between a SAP consultant and ordinary contract programmers. Again, less money in the system.
No software companies means no corporate funding for CSci departments. Look for a reduction in the number of university positions in the US as the Computer Science tries to make do with the same level of funding as the Lit department.
So you just lost more than 15% of your wages; you probably lost (a wild ass guess) 30% of jobs, between the software firms and the university cutbacks. Plus let's throw in a conservative 15% across the board wage reduction for those who are left. What? I hear you scream. That's economics. Consulting services aren't scaleable; you are limited by the number of hours you can work in a week, unlike selling software. Consulting services have considerably higher marginal costs for scheduling, sales, and such. So you have both minimized your revenue stream, and maximized your cost, in relation to selling software. Meanwhile, the proprietary systems which push up revenue, like SAP or Microsoft, are no longer certifying authorities that up your rate. Because customers can't be sure of what they're getting, rates go down for everyone. Plus there's now a glut on the market. All of these things make a 15% average wage reduction not only likely, but timid. Are programmers really going to work at 7-11 to support their Linux habit? Maybe initially. But the flood of entrants into CS will slow, further reducing the programmers we think we need to make good code.
Open source is good code and bad marketing. Linux is great, but it would scare the hell out of your average consumer. And who do they call when it breaks? IBM isn't going to keep a staff of Linux gurus on staff gratis. Microsoft does the troubleshooting on its programs and pushes that data out to the OEM's. Who's collecting a database of all the fixes? How do users know what's good and bad? What's the difference between a legit website and some scary dude who wants to hack your machine? Brands exist for a reason.
Here's the thing: tech people hate Microsoft because Microsoft doesn't produce the kind of software they like. But Microsoft provides a whole slew of services that consumers do like, and for which open source has not yet offered a reliable alternative.
Let me summarize this way: there is, at this point, X amount of money in the world software developement system, squeezed out of corporations and consumers in exchange for the software and systems they like. The "new paradigm" takes out all the money currently gotten from revenues on software, and doesn't put any back. Companies pay for customization and optimization now. A marginal increase in the amount of optimization required does not increase the amount of money in the system to support the developers who write the code. Nor could consulting replace software revenues even with a drastic increase in the amount of consulting, because the cost structure is disadvantageous. Hardware companies are not going to drastically increase their R&D budgets when the benefits accrue as much to their competitors as to themselves. I'm not an idiot who doesn't understand business models; I'm a veteran of three startups who understands TANSTAAFL.
I'm not saying that there's no business model that makes open source work, but the ones that I've seen rely on not examining the hidden subsidies from the software industry that percolate all through the system, from R&D to salaries, and money from companies that are trying to kill Microsoft now in the hopes that they can extract those extortionate market rents instead. IBM isn't looking for a way to redirect the money that Microsoft now gets for its software to Linux programmers; it's looking for a way to redirect that money to IBM. Clearly open source works as a coding system, but I haven't yet seen it work as an economic one. Which is why most of the people predicting that Linux will displace Windows are programmers, not bankers.
I'm extremely fascinated by Open Source prophets because it never seems to occur to them to wonder who is going to pay for the food, shelter, and gadgets of the legions of programmers who will be working on the Open Source code after the software companies go out of business.
If you actually read his article, he's not claiming that the mainstream media is unbiased. What he's claiming is that the media in toto is not biased in a way that benefits liberals.
I don't know if it's true or not, but his claim is that the mainstream media has a liberal bias but mutes it (to a greater or lesser degree) in an attempt to be unbiased. In contrast, right wing media outlets like Fox News, the Wall Street Journal OpEd page, and various talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, are much more openly partisan. So that these voices, although not as widely distributed or heard, balance out the weaker bias of the mainstream media in public perception and influence, because there is no liberal counterpart to them. You've got a strong voice saying weakly liberal things, and a weaker voice saying strongly conservative things, so the net effect is a wash.
I don't know if I believe this analysis, although it's intriguing. But turning around and showing that there is a bias at the New York Times is not a refutation of what Kurtz is saying.
Well, first of all, he is saying, in effect, that the media isn't biased, or at least that that bias doesn't really affect reporting. And second, the point that Patrick is making is that in being unabashedly partisan, conservative voices give their audiences the opportunity to take their opinions with a grain of salt; liberal voices pretend that they are weighing both sides equally, when in fact they aren't. Need a quote on women? Call NOW. Need a quote on animal rights? PETA. African-Americans? Who the hell is Shelby Steele? I've already got Kweisi Mfume on speed-dial. Make sure that your audience knows that conservative voices are conservative; label liberal activists, even ones pretty damn far to the left, in neutral or positive terms that do not identify their political affiliation. Those are all measurable things that happen on the news pages -- not the editorial pages -- of the New York Times, the WaPo, and most other coastal papers. Nor would I call the New York Times practice of finding the stupidest conservative they can to make the other half on an argument "balanced".
And third, Howard Kurtz is more than a little selective:
Liberal media detractors – you know who you are – take note.
The conventional wisdom is that the mainstream liberal media helps, well, mainstream liberal politicians. That conservatives can't catch a break from the big media companies. That journalists have their thumb on the scale, tilting it to the left.
Those on the right, in this view, have to scramble to get their voices heard but are drowned out by the libs, who don't even know they're libs, since everyone they know in the media is lib.
Maybe so. But there's another theory.
That the conservative press is purely partisan, while the mainstream weenie press is concerned with issues like fairness and balance – and, in fact, often criticized Bill Clinton and other Democrats.
That it's not really an even fight, heavyweight boxers versus high school debaters.
That Democrats are actually hamstrung because they try to play to the major editorial pages, while the Republicans, with knives in their teeth, couldn't care less.
That's the argument mounted by Washington Monthly Editor Paul Glastris in a piece titled "Why Can't The Democrats Get Tough?"
It's got a great cover – a menacing-looking Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle and George Stephanopoulos, in muscleman T-shirts, wielding stillettos, chains and truncheons.
First, the premise: "The Bush team can attack Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), lose $4 trillion of the surplus, and meet with campaign contributors whose company stock they own, and Democrats just watch. ... And then there's Enron. Is there any doubt that if the situation were reversed, Republicans would be exploiting the scandal more aggressively? Would they have hesitated, as Democrats have, to frame Enron as a political scandal, or to bombard the White House with subpoenas? Democrats can't afford to go all wobbly, especially now."
Now the media critique: "The difference in partisan intensity also reflects the different media outlets to which the parties play. Democrats in Washington focus incessantly on the establishment press: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, CBS, CNN, NPR. That is where their worldview is shaped, and where they look for validation of their ideas and status. Republican leaders are hardly indifferent to the establishment outlets. But they increasingly take their cue from the expanding alternative universe of conservative media: The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, Fox News Channel.
"Needless to say, these two media worlds are governed by radically different rules. Yes, there is a certain amount of liberal bias in the mainstream press. But on balance, the big national papers and broadcast networks take seriously the traditional journalistic strictures of fairness, accuracy, and independence of judgement.
Which we know because the editor of the Washington Monthly says so.
"The conservative press, by and large, does not labor under these constraints. It does not pretend to be in the business of presenting all sides fairly, but of promoting its side successfully. 'The conservative press is self-consciously conservative and self-consciously part of the team,' observes conservative strategist Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform (who, like most conservatives I spoke with, doesn't buy the idea that Republicans fight more ruthlessly than Democrats). 'The liberal press is much larger, but at the same time it sees itself as the establishment press. So it's conflicted. Sometimes it thinks it needs to be critical of both sides, to be nonpartisan.'
"You see this all the time. The editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times supported or kept silent about the Republican Senate's strategy of blocking votes on Clinton judicial nominees. Now these papers cry foul when Democrat senators try to do the same to Bush. The New York Times and Washington Post editorials, on the other hand, have been consistent in their condemnation.
Well, true, but this is cherry-picking your issues. The New York Times condemned the Bush budget during the election cycle but kept silent about the equally idiotic Gore budget. It went after Enron and fell silent on Global Crossing. It lauded Bellesiles in no fewer than nine articles, then went dark on the subject for more than a year when evidence came forward that he was making it all up. They fact-checked The Bell Curve, but not Arming America. And the news section of the WSJ doesn't have an editorial direction like that of the Times.
"But to the conservative press, intellectual consistency is for, well, intellectuals. What's more important is to stiffen the resolve of GOP lawmakers to fight the Manichaean battle against liberalism. If the mainstream papers want to undermine the will of Democrats with a lot of high-minded consistency, that's their business. Let 'em get medals for fair play. We'll get the federal judiciary.
Which is entirely different from the way that the New York Times went after welfare reform.
"The same dynamic plays out among TV pundits. Conservatives such as Robert Novak, Kate O'Beirne, and Jonah Goldberg are ideological warriors who attempt with every utterance to advance their cause. Their center-left counterparts, people such as Juan Williams, Margaret Carlson, and E.J. Dionne, simply don't have the same killer instinct. While their sympathies are obvious, liberal pundits are at heart political reporters, not polemicists, who seem far more at ease on journalistic neutral ground, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, rather than in vigorously defending Democrats."
Umm. . . okay. Where's Eleanor Clift?
Overall, I find Howard Kurtz unconvincing. He selects examples which fit his theory -- where are the news pages and news programs in all of this, which is where conservatives claim the bias is most damaging? -- and ignores the ones that don't.
Which doesn't leave you with much doubt about where his sympathies lie, does it?
Update Charlie Toft points out that most of what I criticized is straight quotes from the Washington Monthly article. I don't have any particular bone to pick with Howard Kurtz; either he's quoting the piece straight, in which case the Washington Monthly is the one I want to criticize for selective quotation; or he's quoting selectively, in which case I'm still mad at Howard Kurtz. Either way, I don't think much of the argument.
Moving even in the direction of adopting a preventive war stance Bush said this- "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons." In this vein, he referred directly to North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as constituting "an axis of evil" whose pursuit of weaponry of mass destruction was grounds enough for a preemptive assault. It is true, of course, that such weaponry, as abetted by long-range delivery capabilities, could pose a grave threat to America and others in the future. But it is also true that these three states have not shown any disposition to attack the United States directly, and have confined their activities to their own geographical neighborhood; besides this, they had no connection at all, or none of any substance, with either al Qaida, Osama bin Laden, or the September 11 attacks. As such, even the more flexible framework of just war cannot be adapted to validate this type of American extension of the war on global terror. To engage in preventive wars on the basis of contrived links to global terror is to undermine in a dangerous and destructive way the whole enterprise of law and morality to circumscribe as narrowly as possible the discretion of states to wage war.
The author is essentially arguing three things: first, that we can't attack the "Axis of Evil" because they aren't bothering us right now, just their neighbors; second, that we can't attack Iraq because it's not a logical extension of the direct war on us launched by Al Quaeda, and third, that preventitive wars are a priori wrong.
Well, as much as I hate it when every conservative drags out Hitler to justify every war ever waged, I must point out that point one would seem to indicate that even if we'd known the full extent of what was going on in Europe, America wouldn't have any reason to invade until Hitler started bothering us. I'm pretty much just as horrified by the idea of Sadaam Hussein using nuclear or chemical weapons on, say, Tehran as I am by the thought of his using them on us.
Point two I'll address by saying that, first, it's clear that there are links between the Al Quaeda and Sadaam Hussein, and second, there's another war we haven't quite finished up -- if Sadaam doesn't let the weapons inspectors in, which he hasn't, we're quite justified in going in. That the changed mood of the American public is due to 9/11 does not mean that every military action we take must be in direct response to Al Quaeda.
Point three, though, is where the article really falls apart. It's all very well to say that you shouldn't attack unless attacked, but when weapons of mass destruction are at issue, this is not a sufficient response. For one thing, the asymmetry of power it gives a nuclear nation is devastating. A nuclear Iraq also implies a nuclear Turkey and a nuclear Iran. A nuclear Iraq and Iran near a nuclear Israel is a recipe for disaster. For another thing, regimes centered around dictators, as Iraq and North Korea are, are inherently far too unstable to have a bomb. What if a coup overthrows Sadaam and he's about to be overrun and executed? The man gasses and starves his own people to maintain his power -- can we rule out the possibility that he might decide to take Tehran or Tel Aviv with him? And for a third thing, there is no reason to think that Iraq's use of nuclear weapons would be a traditional military one. How about a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in New York, Paris or London with a deadman's switch and a suicide bomber? Sadaam could demand anything he wanted. It is this asymmetry of power that resulted in the revolution in geopolitical theory in the post-WWII era, a revolution that the author seems to have missed.
Here is the article's prescription for dealing with a potentially nuclear state:
As the Preamble of the UN Charter so memorably intones, the purpose of the nations gathering at the end of World War II was "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The shape of international relations has not permitted this ideal to be realized, but surely responsible global leadership by the United States should certainly restrict the war option as used by itself and other to narrow grounds of necessity. Here, those grounds do not exist at present. Terrorist groups with specific nationalist objectives need to be dealt with by law enforcement and counter-terrorist methods, not by global war. The countries with possible capabilities to use weaponry of mass destruction need to be contained by deterrence or enticed to enter into broader disarming processes whereby all countries, including the nuclear weapons states, rethink their reliance on such weaponry. In its historic Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Nuclear Weapons rendered five years ago, the distinguished tribunal of judges, including the judges from the United States, Britain, France, Russia agreed on one point- that under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty all nuclear weapons states had an obligation in good faith to seek nuclear disarmament via international negotiations.
What deterrence does the author suppose will work, other than military threat? We've already cut off most economic activity with Iraq, and name calling doesn't seem to be effective. Such rhetoric foolishly supposes that it is not in Iraq's best interest to have a device. It is. Sadaam Hussein with a nuclear weapon is immensely more powerful than Sadaam Hussein without.
Disarmament is simply not a stable state. Imagine a non-nuclear world. Collectively, we may all be better off this way, but any one nation can improve his own position by getting a nuclear device. If we disarm the West, who have shown reluctance to use this power, we merely open the field to nations that have already proven that they have no compunction about bullying other countries. If Hitler, Tojo, or Stalin had gotten their hands on the atomic bomb before we did, we would all be living under the worldwide nuclear empire of whichever nation got there first. We are not, because it is not in the American political, social, or economic model to build that kind of empire. But this is not evidence, as some seem to feel, that other nations would behave similarly.
Geopolitically speaking, it is simply not enough to say "sovreignty" and step out of the way. We are not playing a touch football game where good sportsmanship is the ultimate end. If the US allows North Korea or Iraq or Iran to get nuclear devices, which they clearly aim to do, and something goes wrong, millions of people will die. Millions. A defense strategy which does not take this into account and seek to prevent it is not much of a strategy.
Via Oliver Willis: very interesting article on the former Clinton appointees who are running for office this cycle says that even Andrew Cuomo has thrown the Clinton connection overboard in preparing for the campaign. This does not bode well for his legacy. . .
Blogfest NY! last night was so enjoyable that I find myself unable to express it in words. Check out Andrew Hofer and Sophismata for details and pictures, including my world famous "Cousin It" imitation. Meanwhile, I was introduced to some new blogs: Amy Langfield, Arrogant Rants, and Clay Waters. I also gleaned some interesting gossip about more famous bloggers than I am, which I won't repeat, partly because it wouldn't be nice and partly because now if any of them find this page, they can just wonder what the rest of us lesser lights know . . .
First of all, it offers the activism of Creationists trying to get evolution banned in the local schools as if these things had already happened, which they haven't and never will -- remember the Supreme Court? There are all sorts of wing-nuts trying to get all sorts of bizarre things done in the schools at a local level -- how come we only hear about the Creationists, instead of the guy who thinks that whites are satanic "Ice People"? or the one who wants the social studies class to do a full unit on cheesemaking?
Second of all, it says 40% of Catholics subscribe to the Creationist creed, which is unlikely -- Catholics who think the world was created a few thousand years more likely believe that the universe was created old than deny evolution, which is on the curriculum at all Catholic schools. You may not agree with the idea that God created the Universe already several billion years old, but there's no reason that you know of that this couldn't be true -- at least no reason that doesn't devolve to, "Well, if I were an omniscient, omipotent and omnipresent deity, I wouldn't. . . "
And third of all, it conflates Creationists with people who think that the world was created less than 100,000 years ago. Given that more than half of all Americans can't place dates within the correct half-century, I would like to know how many of those people are simply confused about the age of the universe, rather than subscribing to a literal chronological reading of the Old Testament.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm a big fan of evolution, and I in no way support teaching creationism in the schools. But I'm tired of the endless "Look! All those people out there in the sticks really are right wing nut jobs who couldn't tie their shoes if their Second Amendment Rights depended on it!" reporting.
You don't need to change your links to www.janegalt.net just yet! Get ready. . . but I need to straighten out the FTP'ing of my archives before it's a go.
Peggy Noonan offers a fair-minded take on the Aaron Sorkin debacle. Her piece makes the point that conservatives shouldn't be outraged, since he's flying his true colors proudly . . . and indeed, the people most upset by this seem to be the people at the network, who are treating him like an 8-year old who accidentally blabbed a family secret.
But the best part of the piece is this:
A note on Aaron's art. If he screened out the propaganda on his own it would not only make it easier on a lot of us, it would put him that much closer to being a dramatist of the stature of a William Inge or Tennessee Williams or Paddy Chayevsky. With a first-rate artist you can often guess his politics. Walker Percy, who wrote about the secret brokenness and lostness of our selves, which is to say our souls, was probably in many ways a conservative. Tennessee Williams with his great tugging heart toward the outsider, the outrider, the one who doesn't fit, was probably a liberal. Eugene O'Neill, if he had lived 20 years longer, through the 1970s, would probably have completed the transit from socialist to right-wing nut. Or so I imagine.
But I have to guess. Their work doesn't bludgeon me with the political views of the dramatist (or, in Percy's case, the novelist.) Their work stands, speaks and stays, untethered to passing political views and positions. Which is one reason they're great.
His show would be better if Aaron Sorkin tried to be great.
I confess I don't watch the show; one-sided political commentary doesn't make interesting TV for me. But I admit that I might find it compelling if it weren't such a polemic.
Via James Rummel: a Harvard researcher has come out with a study that says that children die at higher rates in states with higher gun ownership. Certainly provocative, although as Rummel points out, this same researcher has given us such research gems as "smoking causes suicide" (the good doctor does admit, grudgingly, that the causal relationship might be reversed), and "binge drinking leads to gun ownership", so as Rummel says, the one piece of rock solid data we can glean from this study is that its author, Dr. Matthew Miller, doesn't like drinking, smoking, or guns.
Still, some of the evidence is facially convincing:
The study showed that the five states with the highest gun ownership levels had many more firearm-related deaths among children than the five states with the lowest levels of gun ownership.
The two groups of states had almost the same number of children, but in the high gun-ownership states there were 253 accidental firearm deaths compared to just 15 in the low gun-ownership states.
There were 153 firearm suicides in the high gun-ownership states compared to 22 in the low-ownership states and there were 298 firearm murders in the high gun-ownership states compared to 86 in the low-ownership states.
Meanwhile, the rates of non firearm-related suicides and murders in the two groups of states were much closer, leading Miller to conclude the increase in deaths was attributable to the higher number of firearm-related deaths.
Of course, any gun statistics for either side have to be taken with a shaker of salt, because the reporting problems are so difficult. For one thing, whether an incident gets reported as a murder, a suicide, or an accident varies tremendously from precinct to precinct; the best guess is that many gun "accidents" are actually homicides or suicides. So there's the possibility, for instance, that states with higher levels of gun ownership are less likely to give credence to the idea that "it just went off by accident" then are states with lower levels. I note that the article mentions only the levels of gun-related suicides or homicides; from the fact that it leaves out accidents, I infer that these are in fact higher (since similar or lower levels would have bolstered the argument). This seems to bolster the possibility of reporting error.
I also note a little oddity lower down in the article:
The difference remains even when the data is controlled for poverty, education and urbanization, the study found.
"Although no conclusions about cause and effect can be made, this study provides compelling evidence that states with high firearm availability are states with high childhood firearm death rates," Dr. Therese Richmond of the University of Pennsylvania's Firearm Injury Center wrote in an editorial.
The five states with the highest rates of gun ownership are Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia. The five with the lowest are Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.
How on earth would you control for urbanization between five almost entirely rural states, and five states of which four are on the Northeast Corridor and one is a resort mecca? There is a point at which controlling your data reduces your sample size too far to produce good results; think of the study which showed that gun ownership caused suicide, in which "controlling" for location discarded 2/3 of the data points.
Which is not to say the study is wrong. Indeed, at the margin I would assume that higher rates of gun ownership increase accidents, just as does higher rates of car ownership. The question, of course, is whether or not the benefits of gun ownership offset the risks; John Lott and others say they do, but of course their data has the same kind of reporting problems. I will be interested to see what the inevitable critics make of the data.
But I'm not going to listen to anyone who wants to argue that guns change marginal behavior in owners, but not in criminals.
John Ellis says that the reason that the Dems aren't taking advantage of the corporate governance issue as they should is is that Terry McCauliffe is vulnerable because of his Global Crossing connections. In which case, he's hurting the party to save his own ass, and the Democrats should toss his ass overboard faster than you can say "Sweetheart deal".
I don't see why not; its not as if McCauliffe's Clinton-era glamour is the asset it once was. But I'm probably naive.
Hey, y'all -- anyone who's linking the tapes, I appreciate it -- just make sure that the actual link (you know that "a href=" thing) includes the words Danny Pearl Tape, etc, so that Google gets it.
VodkaPundit is moving, and so am I. Look for these files over at www.janegalt.net just as soon as I fix up my little FTP problem at my new host. You know, you could, like, bookmark the new link now so that there won't be any problems with the switchover. Just a suggestion.
Things I need to do before I can edit my article on the Microsoft Civil Complaint
1) Reboot my computer 2) Clean the screen 3) Get Q-Tips and clean the keyboard 4) Readjust my chair 5) Look up the closing price of Microsoft on the day the AOL complaint was filed 6) Go to the store for more Diet Coke 7) Check my hit counter to see if anyone new is visiting 8) Search my name on Google to see why I'm getting hits from Alt.Sex.Spanking 9) Get another glass of Diet Coke. 10) Go to Microsoft to see if they have a response to the complaint. Download all relevant updates for my copy of Windows. 11) Search for legal clipart on the web. 12) Search for my ex-boyfriend the M&A lawyer. 13) Search for all my ex-boyfriends. 14) Get the bottle of Diet Coke from the fridge so I don't have to keep getting up. 15) Walk the dog. 16) Go through my old college yearbooks to make sure that my ex-boyfriend the M&A lawyer actually was once cute. 17) Readjust my chair. 18) Watch Friends. 19) That new show looks pretty good too. 20) Send my sister out for another bottle of Diet Coke. 21) Go to TurboTax to estimate my tax burden this year. 22) Buy books on Amazon. 23) Organize my pencils. 24) Highlight relevant passages in the complaint. 25) Make a list of all the things I have to do before I can edit my article on Microsoft.
The Times' take on the designer baby reads: Baby Spared Mother's Fate by Genetic Tests as Embryo. This is not technically correct. The baby actually escaped the fate of its sibling embryos who were found to be unworthy of implantation and destroyed. The egg which was fertilized to form the chosen embryo already had not inherited it's mother's faulty gene. It is incorrect to say, then, that the child which grew from that embryo was spared from the mother's fate by the screening process. It's as though you picked a black marble from a bag of whites and declared that it was your selection of it which it made it black. It was already black-- that's why you picked it. Likewise, this child was born because it did not share its mother's flaw. Had it had the bad gene it would have been destroyed with the others, and another embryo would have been implanted. That embryo would be as different from the girl which was just born as one is from one's brother or sister. All you can say is that its parents were spared the heartache of bearing a child who would develop Alzheimer's disease should it live to be forty, and to achieve this end, who knows how many embryos were created and then destroyed.
I don't have an opinion on fetal research/cloning right now; I was disturbed by this case more because it seems irresponsible, to me, to make a special effort to bring a child into this world when you're going to be too senile to parent it within ten years. Nonetheless, while this story may or may not be heartwarming, dpending on your point of view, it gets us no further on the fetal research debate.
Charles Kuffner asks an interesting question about Andrea Yates:
Ask yourself this question: If Yates' erratic and ultimately lethal behavior had been caused by a brain tumor, would you feel differently about her? If the answer is yes, then why is postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia not enough to mitigate your emotions?
I don't have an answer. On the one hand, I think it's pretty clear that she's as nutty as a junebug. On the other, I feel the same way about Jeffrey Dahlmer, and I didn't want him walking around, because then aren't we giving people a sort of an incentive to make their crimes as heinous as possible?
I know I'm all with the Heinlein quotes these days, but this one (I'm paraphrasing -- my books are in storge) seems to fit: "I figured there were two possibilities if he was sick. Either he wouldn't get well, in which case why leave him suffering? Or he would, in which case how could he go on living, knowing what he'd done. In the end, I figured the important thing was that no more little girls would die. That satisfied me. I went to sleep." Which I offer not to justify executing Andrea Yates, or even locking her up -- but how can she live with herself, if she isn't evil? Are we saving her life just to prolong her suffering?
Check out this excerpt from American Jihad, the new book on extremist muslim groups in America. If it's true, it's. . . well, take a look for yourself.
Okay, this is going to sound awfully self-righteous and angry, but darn it, I am angry, which just naturally leads to the self-righteous part.
The other day, a radio station in New York that one of my co-workers listens too read a play-by-play of the R Kelly videotape. It is the first time I've ever been made actually nauseous by something I heard or watched. For those who aren't aware of it, R Kelly is a musician who purchased the services of a 14-year old girl from her family and . . . no, I can't go on. It makes me want to get sick just thinking about it.
Well now websites are offering clips of it. Some say it's just journalistic and are offering it for free; others are charging for it. Either way, it's appalling.
However, this, combined with this article, got me thinking. I have the following proposal. Let those of us in the Blogosphere post the following two links on our pages:
These go to my ISP, which has no counter, so I'm not trolling for hits. The idea is to make this page top the list of the Google searches. If others want to get into the act, we can at least make it harder for people to find the stuff.
A kind reader sent me this article, thinking that after the bra wars, I'd get a kick out of it. Which I did, in more ways than one -- the lingerie store it talks about is ten blocks from my parents' apartment. My grandmother is one of the last women on the planet who wears a girdle, and when the garters wore out, we couldn't find them anywhere. I must have looked through hundreds of google sites. But then one day my mother stopped into the Towne Shop on the off chance that they might have them -- and they did! My mother practically fainted with gratitude. The man who sold them to her told her that they sold 6, 8 sets a year, and that he had suggested to the owner -- his 94 year old grandmother -- that they discontinue them because they sold so few, but she made him continue to carry them so that she, and the other old women who had patronized the shop since they bought their trousseau there in the 20's, could get them whenever they wanted.
That 94 year old grandmother is the subject of the article, and apparently she's a pistol.
And it turns out that I may need her services. We just got our first (soon to be disappointed) Premium Member of the Countdown to Drunken Rioting!
Someone's been playing another game of "bait the religious" with the modern secularists favorite sport -- dragging verses out of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and waving them at Christians or Orthodox jews. Usually this is done for the amusement of similarly minded friends, which is why those who do it are so shocked and embarassed to find that no, the religions in question didn't just, for example, take their position on homosexuality because they're mean, homophobic people (they may be, but that's neither here nor there; they all have well reasoned scriptural precedents for their positions. Whether or not you happen to agree that scripture is a sound basis for decision making is not relevant.) This particular letter is addressed to Dr. Laura, which just goes to show that whoever wrote it is ignorant as hell, because the last thing you want to do is get into an argument with an Orthodox Jew about the Law. Rabbis who were smarter than you and more fond of arguing spent a hundred years or so debating every possible permutation of every single law in the Torah, and then wrote it all down so thet the Orthodox you just picked a fight with can bore you for hours on the subject. It's called the Talmud, and go read Chaim Potok if you don't believe the shiksa.
The refugee camps have been a stronghold for Palestinian militia groups, because Israeli military is so hampered by the small alleys that militia leaders have bragged that Israeli soldiers wouldn't dare enter the camps.
On the one hand, it does seem like those in the refugee camps have gone through enough without a military assult. On the other hand, the refugees are kept in those camps by Arab governments who won't let them resettle, precisely because they wish to provide a stronghold from which to push the Israelis back to the sea. And the AP report seems to indicate that the majority of those hurt were in fact holding guns at the time they were wounded. Before I hear anything about the evil Israelis, I want to hear a little about the morality of using civilians as human shields.
