Natalie Solent |
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Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.) Back to main blog RSS thingy 
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Monday, July 08, 2002
About that little misunderstanding back in 1776... Jim Bennett speculates on what would have happened if the colonists had lost. Typically, though, he recasts it as "what would have happened if Britain and America had compromised?" I also think that a politically unified Anglo-American bloc would have been too big for its boots. Still would be, as a matter of fact. America defines itself as the land of liberty. This has been of great benefit to the world. One of the benefits was Britain was motivated to say, "nyaah, we're the land of liberty - you own slaves, for God's sake." Eventually America sorted out that one, not without a little bother, and got back to the fun with "oh yeah? So what's the problem with universal suffrage then?" And a benevolent game of ping-pong has gone on ever since. France also gets to play on occasion... A point of precedence between a louse and a flea. Unusually for him, Junius confuses several issues when talking about the perennial question of whether Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR was worse.
I certainly did agree with the post above the Hitler/Stalin one. It describes the Observer as "beyond parody" and is a rich mine of fisking material. All in one issue you can read calls for state regulation of search engines, University entry and the end of the world. Oh sorry, force of habit. Correction: The Observer does not actually want the state to regulate the end of the world. It just announces, quoting the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace, that it will happen in 48 years because of George Bush. Meandering, but right is how I'd describe this Barbara Amiel opinion piece on Ken Livingstone and David Blunkett. This line is rather odd: Mr Livingstone's real crime is that he couldn't muster his fabled honesty to say that his domestic arguments are his own business and, if people don't like it, they can take the consequences."What consequences? What bad thing happens to nosy people who don't like Mr Livingstone talking about his domestic arguments? The consequences of folly, though, will be taken by those Londoners who thought it would be a laugh to give Tony Blair the ol' two fingers and vote for Ken. And, unfortunately, those who didn't. Both groups will end up paying £1,260 per annum as his new "congestion charge". How this squares with the desperate efforts to build cheap housing to attract policemen, nurses and other public service workers I don't know - as so often, one effort of statist interference is at war with another. Meanwhile here is a picture of a rat sleeping on its own head. If that is the way that http://www.zilberhere.com announces its new location, can you blame me for quoting? Saturday, July 06, 2002
John Weidner has finally flipped. The strain of having to process those Pythonesque remarks from Gray Davis was just too much. Cards to: Bide-A-Wee Nursing Home, Rue des fous étrangers, Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Friday, July 05, 2002
Off with his head! Alex Bensky writes: "Glad to see there are no hard feelings. None on this side--you started up with us, we won, happens to a lot of people, we're cool now. No disgrace to lose out to Americans, of course.It's worth remembering, when reading the description of the poverty, hopelessness and inertia that characterize the alternate America of Bring the Jubilee, that the current relative vigour of life in the West is unusual in history. The LA Examiner says (a) that the witness who said that the airport killer shouted "Artie took my job" was actually a prankster, and (b) quotes an AP story that the killer was actually an Egyptian called Hesham Mohamed Hadayet. The LA Examiner is Ken Layne and Matt Welch's new baby. Although the story is a grim one, I am glad to see that they are quick off the mark. The BBC website has now caught up.
In a sense there's nothing more to say about the killer. Just another one of the enemy. Good shooting from the El Al security guy, though. But I do hope they catch the "prankster" and reduce him to poverty. New kids. Ain't No Bad Dude welcomes some new left wing bloggers. Of the four he lists, I liked the Rittenhouse Review best, in particular the spiky responses to readers' letters. Sadly this blog won't be coming out until further notice due to a death in the author's family. Also mentioned were Max Speak, whose focus on individual senators and Congressmen meant that a non-American like me felt rather lost, Lean Left and Vaara. Welcome, boys. Nats says come on in and join us. Tony Harnden admiringly profiles US gun-control advocate Sarah Brady in the Telegraph. It's certainly OK by me if for the writer to record that she and her husband are brave and determined people who have overcome many trials. But an article about US gun control that ignores the passing of concealed-carry laws in many states, and the success of these laws, and the recent Supreme Court decision that the second amendment means what it says, and the rising trend of gun ownership coupled with falling violent crime; that talks as if the argument is all over - well, that's a disgrace to the profession of journalism. LATER. I was too harsh there. Harnden is no worse than many. It is a disgrace to the profession of (British) journalism that they are ignoring one of the biggest social stories in the last ten years, but the disgrace falls to the whole profession and not to Harnden in particular. Every other criminological trend that comes to us from America is reported. Zero-tolerance, they know about; tagging they know about. But to find out about the justified popularity of concealed-carry you have to be a gun nut to start with. Thursday, July 04, 2002
If you'd all had proper afternoon tea, none of this mess would have happened, as 1066 And All That so wisely observed. Just teasing. I know it was A Good Thing, really. So, to celebrate Independence Day, here's a little essay by Harry Harrison about his "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" , an alternative world where the American Revolution met its proper end. ;-). In recompense to his US readers, Harrison later wrote another very pro-American one called the Stars And Stripes Forever where Prince Albert died too soon to use his tact to defuse a confrontation with Lincoln, but I am far too patriotic to read the ones where Britain loses. In any case my husband says it ignores the existence of HMS Warrior which at that time would have wiped the sea floor with any other ship in the world. Actually, according to Evelyn Leeper's list there are six what-if books that have the Colonists losing. One I liked is The Two Georges. It's set in a present so felicitous as to have a diner on an airship remark, concerning these newfangled aeroplanes, that if travellers are in that much of a hurry they probably have not properly thought out the reasons for their journey. The plot concerns a not-very-credible racist/aristocratic conspiracy to kill the King while he visits his loyal American subjects, but the joy of the book lies in the cute touches. For instance Royal American Mounted Police flags fly at half mast outside police stations over the whole North American Union whenever one officer is killed. Sadly, that wouldn't be practicable in either the America or the Britain of our sorry excuse for a reality.
But perhaps things aren't so bad after all. Evelyn Leeper, in the link above, quotes Mark Keller as saying: The most popular in French was "What if Napoleon had not been defeated?" which Keller said usually resulted in a better world than we have, while most American alternate histories show things as being worse. When someone in the audience asked why, Mark Olson replied, "We look at this as the best of all possible worlds, but the French know it isn't, because most people speak English." Oops, a Blogger glitch meant that the above post appeared twice. The same duplication seems to have struck Junius's case against the Euro and Public Interest's musings on Hugo Young. My turn to tell that Briffa man about his bugs, hah! Update: bug now stomped on in the Public Interest. I'd just like to pick up on one point from Moira Breen's fisking of Anatole Kaletsky. She writes: "Reviled red-zoners never have creditable reasons for holding opinions contrary to a Clintonite or a Kaletsky. Support for Israel, for example, is never a reasoned support, it's "unstinting", entirely without reservation on any point whatever of Israeli policy, utterly mindless. "That woman's been reading my mind again. Back when I wrote this post on British gun control I had, I really had, originally finished it with something very like this: "Ah, she would say that. She's an American, and everyone knows what they're like." While it is conceded that even Americans might hold their opinions on tort reform, the Moldavian National Debt, or the care and feeding of lemurs as a result of argument or observation; it is well known that the only possible reason for supporting gun ownership is genetic. The Second Amendment is considered to be a part of American culture in the same sense of the word "culture" that describes ritual scarification and female circumcision.Then Blogger ate my final edit, and I was in a hurry and let it go. Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Are you worthy to read Patrick Crozier's other blog, This Blog Has No Title, Just Words And A Loon? It is very select. You can't even get there from UK Trasport Blog, although, mysteriously, the converse is not true. Voice of hope. I don't agree with every word written by Omar Karsou in this Telegraph opinion column. In particular, the writer persists in skirting round the morality of terror killing. Mr Karsou's heart is in the right place. He regrets the fact that Palestinians have become synonymous with suicide bombings and violence, and says "we have to put our house in order first," yet seems to mean by this no more than the acquisition of a liberal democratic government: an admirable proposal in itself, certainly, and a means of prizing the coming generation free from the clutches of the death cult - but denouncing and stopping terrorism comes waaaay before all that. Nor, sadly, do I belive believe there is anything like a silent majority of moderate and peace-loving Palestinians.
But, perhaps there might be one day. This is a start: "Our legitimate cause was eventually hijacked by the despotic rule of the Palestinian Authority and by those who want to speak through violence." Read. Hope. Think good thoughts about post World War II Germany. The Great Open Source Giveaway! As someone who barely knows what an operating system is, let alone whether Lunix or whatever you call it is a good one, I do not want to involve myself in technical discussions. Back, back you fiends! Go and join the Libertarian Alliance Forum which is full to the brim of people steeped in such lore, although the way they keep grading each others' papers as C++ is a little schoolmarmish. I am, however, delighted to participate in spreading this meme; an "open source" article about open source products. Here is the recursive bit that really caught my interest: "And so the experiment goes on. As a contribution to it, New Scientist and AlterNet have agreed to issue this article under a copyleft. That means you can copy it, redistribute it, reprint it in whole or in part, and generally play around with it as long as you, too, release your version under a copyleft and abide by the other terms and conditions in the licence. We also ask that you inform us of any use you make of the article, by e-mailing copyleft@newscientist.com.Won't it be interesting to see how far it gets? How far would this model be replicable, once the novelty has worn off? The parallels with blogging versus newspapers are obvious. Tuesday, July 02, 2002
And now for the News. Dodgeblog reports: "Tony Blair has decided to send government "hit squads" to take over and "improve" under-performing blogs. It involves setting up a well-funded (at taxpayer expense) commission to determine why UK blogs are not performing well in the tables. This will involve MPs, ministers, and "experts", while not including any bloggers. They need to have hearings, "fact-finding" trips to successful blogging nations, and a full-time staff. Funds needed for this project will be in excess of £50 million over a 5 year period. Rumours that this commission is Peter Mandelson's way back into government have been denied by Alastair Campbell." "Change and decay all around I see..." Running down my links list, Ken Layne, Matt Welch, Glenn Reynolds, Bjørn Stærk and now Damian Penny have all gone off for longer or shorter periods. Jay Zilber, and Iain Dale have not posted for weeks; Myria and Muslimpundit have not posted for months. Aha! Now is my chance to take over the world. I just hope there's someone left to listen to my victory speech. Courage, mon brave. Paul Wright on the endurance demanded of a devoted dad. Tim Blair, look to your laurels, there's a another turbo-charged and very funny Ozblogger coming up behind. There is a serious point to be made about the way that treatment of Conservative peccadillos when they were in power was harsher than their treatment of Labour peccadillos now. There is. Really. Does anyone remember Stephen Milligan? He was a Conservative MP who accidentally killed himself while practising Autoerotic Asphyxia, back in February 1994. He certainly behaved oddly, and, as it turned out, with fatal foolishness. But, since his sexual behaviour concerned himself alone, the nearest he came to betraying a trust was in failing to present all sides of his character in his election leaflets. Few MPs would pass the test if the bar were set that high. So Stephen Milligan was not unfaithful to wife or partner, and was an ordinary MP - being Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Arms Minister, Jonathan Aitken, scarcely counts as cabinet office. Yet we all knew about him and his plastic bag before his body was in the coffin. No privacy for him. Normal practice in these cases is to await the inquest before releasing details of the death; but some copper wanted a moment of fame and spread the word by issuing an absurdly coy note that spoke of "unusual circumstances" and acted like a magnet to the press.
Stephen Byers, however, was unfaithful, was a big league minister when he shagged this woman, and is in every respect a better candidate for press attentions and serious discussion of What This Says About The Level of Judgement Expected From Those Entrusted With High Authority. But in this case, only the tabloid readers get any fun. Either publicize them all or none of 'em.
Captain Heinrichs gives Byers the benefit of the doubt: "Byers left his socks on till last" Monday, July 01, 2002
Scandal! Peter Briffa learns from The News of the World that Stephen Byers had his wicked way with a Labour party activist in a Cardiff hotel room. The deed took place at a conference devoted to Local Government and Women, and Stephen took the last half of the title literally. It's a good thing Peter braves the papers that more sensitive bloggers avoid, because we certainly heard nothing about it from the quality press. Yet whenever a minister, or even an ex-minister, erred in the days of Major's government, even the qualities would be on the case in no time flat. Odd, that. Perhaps it is their firm and unbending views on the sacredness of the marriage vow that leads to this peculiar omission: Mr Byers and the lady with whom he shares his life are not married, and hence his crime was (as Mr Briffa, ever just, pointed out when I e-mailed him on the subject) infidelity, but not adultery. Mr Briffa's commentary on the News of the World's story is frank. But even he could not bear to allude to one particular detail. A thing so cheap, so tacky, so sordid that I scarcely dare sully these pages with an account of it.
Byers left his socks on till last. Lies, damned lies and statistics. The headline to this Sydney Morning Herald article on child abuse distorts the facts, so anxious is it to avoid even seeming to criticize the working class or the unemployed. You will often see the same distortion elsewhere - I first noticed it on a series of British posters purporting to have been written by a policewoman and condemning child abuse that ran sometime around 1994. The Sydney Morning Herald headline reads, "Children at risk: rich suburbs no protection, figures show." That is what they would like you to think: that middle/upper class and working class/unemployed parents are equally likely to abuse their children. However the actual state of affairs is stated in the very first line of the article: "A surge of child abuse reports in some of Sydney's wealthiest suburbs has dented the stereotype that child attacks and domestic violence are the sole province of the poor or disadvantaged."In other words, the incidence of child abuse among upper/middle class parents is not zero, and we are told that it is rising in the Sydney suburbs. The fact remains that, in Sydney as elsewhere, child abuse is rarer among richer than among poorer parents. As the article says, "...And while most of the more affluent areas started from a relatively low base compared with traditionally difficult or disadvantaged areas..."To fight child abuse you must understand it. Any serious discussion of child abuse must acknowledge its correlation with one parent families, with unemployment, and with poverty. You don't have to be against welfare, as I am, to make this connection: many honest socialists quite see the point and, indeed, centre their arguments upon it. This headline-writer prefers delicately to close his or her eyes. Building working scale models of steam engines and steamboats is a solitary, creative, practical, typically British pastime. So of course the EU want to destroy it. "I love work. I could sit and watch it for hours." Join in the hypnotic pleasure of watching the Scottish Parliament building go up via The Scotsman's webcam. As I type this the crane on the right is swinging round. Funny way your clouds move up there in Scotland, though. All jerky. I reckon the earth rotates in a specially wobbly way that far north. Something to do with the way they precess their equinoxes, you know. If you prefer to people-watch, the street scenes from Glasgow and Edinburgh also provide addictive fun. This is Buchanan Street. Dawson is 39 today! His first birthday greeting of the day almost certainly came from the protean wisdom of Protein Wisdom, who is the latest to acquire one of those swanky new domain things and does not appear to need sleep, judging from the time he sent the e-mail. "Blair will quit if Britain backs Euro." Did I read that right? Yes, but it was said by Roy Hattersley, so I don't have to believe it. While England Slept. Alan Judd expresses my befuddled, yet slowly waking outrage over the way the European arrest warrant has become law by stealth. Saturday, June 29, 2002
Advantage: blogosphere. I was shocked to hear the BBC claim that the Israelis were shocked by this photo of a baby dressed as a suicide bomber. The Israelis who were surprised must have been living somewhere else other than Israel for the last few months. Or perhaps it was just the BBC who were surprised, seeing that they are so out of touch as to have only just noticed this child re-enacting a lynching, and not yet to have noticed this three year old girl coached to say on TV "why we kill the Jews", this little girl dressed as a suicide bomber at a Palestinian rally in Berlin, this whole archive (look under "kids dressed as suicide bombers"), and this boy dressed as a suicide bomber and surrounded by masked adults (scroll down), and several more circling around the blogosphere. Those are just the ones I linked to. The link to the "Jerusalem Post" picture of a child dressed as a suicide bomber, headed "Child's Play" is unavailable. In fact, as such pictures go, this latest is one of the least offensive. The kid is too young to remember the obscene thing that was done to him. If someone buys the child off his Palestinian parents in time he might yet be saved. (Link and further discussion of the suicide-baby picture found in Damianation.)
Getting back to the original BBC story, anyone have a clue what Palestinian "legislator" Hanan Ashrawi was on about when she described the photo as a "painful image" and said, "To me it is a... strange heroism" ? Huh? Who was being heroic where? Even by the peverted lights of her society I didn't see any heroism going on. Sheesh, anyone would think those were real sticks of dynamite.... Friday, June 28, 2002
The tinnitus will go away after a minute. And you had plenty of time, so you can chain up your lawyers again. When your mouse went to the link it showed up http://dawsonspeek at the bottom, didn't it? that meant you had at least a tenth of a second to realise it was Dawson and, give me a break, just how likely was it that he was going to do the "quietly" bit? However this really is quietly persuasive on the same issue. As is this, albeit persuasive in a different direction.
It's all right. Click them. Don't you trust me? Paul Wright of TANSTAAFL described this post about a Palestinian state as "anger management." Great post, great blog, but it didn't assuage my anger at all. (No kidding on the "great blog" bit. Read this passionate denunciation of Tim Blair's bête noir Margo Kingston. Put up or shut up, Margo.)
And on the ironing - what's with giving away our secrets, male scuzzball? Scepticism from reader Angie Schultz about the John Sweeney report mentioned here. I didn't see the "Correspondent" program you mentioned on your blog, but I did see BBC World's brief little segment on the faked child funerals. You can't expect any better from them, can you? Here is a classic Joanne Jacobs post on the treatment of disabled students. "In other words, special education doesn't mean educating students to function in the world. It means letting them grow up without self-control, manners or, inevitably, academic skills and knowledge. These students are being treated like animals."Read the rest. You Are All Guilty. Racial harassment officer sends libellous letter to every single resident of a street. (Via Libertarian Alliance Forum.) Wednesday, June 26, 2002
Busy day tomorrow (Thursday), so no blogging for me. And light posting for the next few days. Yup, gonna post that light all over the place. I'm stuffing some ultra-violet into envelopes right now. "Those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush." At least one reader, Mitchell Porter, didn't believe in the Chinese classification system that was featured in Teresa Neilsen Hayden's Making Light and wrote, "I have never seen this anywhere, except as a Borges quote.I'm pretty sure he made it up." But my regular correspondent, A Regular Correspondent writes:
"Some Chinese classification info: And there you have the answer that makes the classifications practical, given the formal style of Chinese art. For (a) one assumes that Imperial creatures must be drawn in a special style that shows their Celestial nature. This, naturally, is Lesson One. Conventions cognate to those we use in cartoons would cover the trembling of category (i) and the "innumerable ones" of (j). Category (m) would make a fetching study, suitable as a Mother's Day project to take home.
Much as I want to believe in it too, the tedious demands of honesty compel me to state that Foucault got the quote from Borges. Perhaps acknowledging the Higher Necessity of charm in relation to truth, my correspondent moves on to the ideal China of Kai-Lung.
Fiddlesticks! Chesterton never checked his quotes, so why should I? Also, where is your gamesmanship? Don't you want the fact that you can extensively quote Edmund Burke from memory advertised?
Yes. Small coffee table, centre-left pile, under the copy of Bulbasaur's Big Day and the letter from the school about the Easter holidays. Can't think why you didn't notice it before.
Oh, phooey. All these brainy people also think Borges made it up. Gagrind, thy name is Google.
Great White Telephone time. Instapundit is rude about an absolutely puke-worthy fan article idolizing (I choose the word advisedly) Cornell West. Ferrari awaits a ruling on whether they are allowed to bore motor racing fans to death by sublimating all individual ambition in their team members. Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Talking of Junius, read his latest post which incorporates an Observer article by John Sweeney describing how far the Iraqi government will go in its propaganda. I didn't see Sunday's "Correspondent" programme to which the article refers. Does anyone who did have any comments? Faster than a speeding blog... Literally within minutes of my posting the mention of Brendan O'Neill below, I had two e-mails. The first hit the mat at 11.21 and came from Chris Bertram of Junius and said: I was thinking of posting something on Boneill's latest too, (though am currently busy trying to disentangle all the various ways Rousseau talks about freedom). I take it that when you say that you agree with him about 4.5/6, you don't agree that the rights of states to non interference (as embodied in the UN charter) should trump individual rights, since that would be an extraordinary thing for a libertarian to agree to.and the second came at 11.24 and was ex anima Brendan himself . It said, So...which one-and-a-half do you disagree with?I am put to shame. I plucked the figure of 4 1/2 out of the air as approximately expressing my agreement-level. The extra half sounded um, you know, sort of humorous. Bloody hell, that's lame. Next time anyone asks I will be ready with a complex sum involving 0.15 agreement with point one, 0.8 agreement with point two and so on, which will all most certainly add up to 4.5 exactly.
Talkboardfightin' man. Tal G in Jerusalem had a link to a Guardian chatroom where the subject up for discussion was the Middle East. That link will keep changing as more comments are added, so I'll preserve a notable exchange below. Look at the speed of response from "reality1948". Remember, if you want to rule the talkboards, you gotta keep reading those blogs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It ain't chance. Joe Katzman links to and comments on a compelling article by Ralph Peters about what makes a country unsuccessful. I have meaning to capture the Winds of Change and set them blowing for the New Model Army for ages, and now I've finally got round to it. Also welcome Brendan O'Neill, writing from a very different (or, to use the technical term, wrong) perspective but nontheless managing to have broadly the same opinion as me (what we in the trade call being right) in 4½ out of his six shibboleths of received opinion.
Monday, June 24, 2002
The worst yet. You should read this. Link to it. Pass it on. "Avishai, 5, the family's youngest, began shrieking, after he awoke from the commotion. The terrorist soon opened fire on his tiny body. " God knows, I've said this before, but the defining feature of the Palestinian terrorists is that they seek out civilians, women, children and old people to kill, and the defining feature of Palestinian culture is that they like it that way. In this case the terrorist deliberately murdered three children and their mother. One by one.
A few days ago three Palestinian children, two of them from the same family, were killed by the Israeli army. They weren't harming anyone; they were going to market in Jenin, thinking that a curfew had been lifted when it had not. Someone panicked and opened fire. Those children's lives are not worth less than Avishai's and his two brothers. But they weren't murdered.
(Link found in Dawson, original report by Harvey Tannenbaum.) Bizarre as it may seem, given their "Free Country" campaign, the Telegraph website has hidden away this important story under a catch-all link title in tiny, tiny print. You see if you can find it. Now that you've failed miserably, I will show my irritating superiority by waving a careless hand and saying, "Here it is: 'Blunkett adopts EU arrest warrant.' " "More moppets, if you can stand it" was John Weidner's comment about this story covering the Palestinian 'Sesame Street'. I don't blame them for the adding the disclaimer, either. Jim Henson, a man who gave innocent pleasure to millions, would reach out from the grave to sue the **** out of them if they omitted it. And here, courtesy of Little Green Footballs, is a five year old re-enacting a lynching as part of a kindergarten class. Saturday, June 22, 2002
Who said this? "And it is necessary to reflect that the Palestinian suicide bombers don't even ask these questions. For the suicide bombers are executioners, the executioners of whole Israeli families. The immolation of their own lives does not excuse the fact that, in their last moments, they are able to see the Israeli child in the pram who will die with its mother, the Israeli family eating its pizzas on a hot Wednesday afternoon, the old folk celebrating a Jewish religious festival who will be his or her victims. The 17-year-old Palestinian girl who blew herself up to kill a 16-year-old Israeli girl remains an awesome symbol of youth destroying youth."Click here to find the surprising answer. Among their other crimes, the North Korean regime won't even tell their own people about South Korea's sterling performance in the World Cup. UPDATE: Given the outrageous incompetence of the referee in Korea's game against Spain, I'd correct that last phrase to "won't even tell their own people about South Korea's peso performance in the World Cup." The sad story of British gun control. The Financial Times carried this Joyce Lee Malcolm article. Not the FT's usual fare, but not nearly so surprising as if the ordinary Times, let alone the Guardian or Independent had carried it. I look to the day when we start seeing newspaper columns by British writers saying this same message. Unfair it may be, but many of her readers are going to spot the reference to Bentley University/MIT on the bottom line and say, "Ah, she would say that. She's an American, and everyone knows what they're like." (Link via Instapundit.) Friday, June 21, 2002
Back to the real world. The Palestinians: working towards statehood. JERUSALEM — Hours before her death in a suicide attack, 5-year-old Gal Eizenman was jumping around, a blond bundle of joy at a children's musical performance organized by her grandmother Noah Alon, 59. I've got a little running joke on this blog. I put up pictures of Palestinian kids dressed up by their loving parents in suicide belts and make a little play on the notion of a "Moppets and Martyrs" calendar. It's a way of dramatizing my belief that Palestinian society is sunk in barbarism. Well, just now I saw a picture of the little girl mentioned above who never got to play being blown up. They blew her up for real. Perhaps it would not be strictly accurate to call her a martyr. She didn't want to die, any more than did her grandmother. But in a way she was martyred. I can't cry now because it's a training day at the school so the kids are home. They are running about all over the house, my children and another little kid who's visiting, having a fine old time. I hope they don't come in here.
One day I'm going to make it out of TV and into the blogs.... Happy Fun Pundit on the sad tale of the Canadian cable TV channels who discovered "...their prime time audiences measured not in the hundreds of thousands, but in the hundreds. Or dozens. Or one guy named Old Joe who watches 'CanoeTV' religiously for the portaging tips." Blair still has not admitted the bad news. A scandalous cover-up. Typical spin and news management. When will Blair learn to come clean? Why aren't we tracking these things? Not to mention reducing them to their component atoms with cleansing nuclear fire. Asteroid came this close to hitting Earth. Good morning everyone! I now commence on a 48 page analysis of trade policy, Third Way economic macro-management and its correlation with underlying trends in-- My neighbour just drove in to the street like a bat out of hell. Whatever was she doing out of reach of a TV? Thursday, June 20, 2002
Watch patiently. If nothing happens after several seconds, twiddling the mouse may correct the problem. This... thing is my gift to you all. I got it, and the "thing" description, from MCJ who got it from Transterrestrial Musings. It needs Flash to work. Those that resemble flies from a distance. This comes from Teresa Neilsen Hayden's blog. It is unlikely to the point of impossibility that Teresa Neilsen Hayden resembles a fly from a distance, or, indeed from close up. (Indeed she doesn't. Just found her picture. Ignore me when I whiffle on like this.) But she does quote a passage from Borges that itself quotes an interesting Chinese classification system. I had come across this before - I seem to remember that Voltaire described it as "sublime", though Google gives me no reference. Anyway, quiz for you, with a provisional answer to be revealed in a few days. A friend of mine thought up an explanation of how this system came about, under which the classifications are eminently practical. Can you? Fat chance. Moira Breen observes the battle between two different PC sects: health fascists and fat activists. It sure pays to have a lifetime of double fries: you can sue MacDonalds for over-feeding you, then reinvest some of the proceeds by suing Southwestern Airlines for having too small seats. Click the comments, too. One lady, self-described as a "fat chick", takes charge of her own affairs well: she buys two seats. Patrick Neilsen Hayden of Electrolite makes some fair points and then finishes up most engagingly with "You know all this. I'm engaged in the process described on rec.arts.sf.fandom as "arguing in order to be polite." Except when it's good news. Then I'm not written out. Lots of people have commented on the Al Ahram/Independent article from Edward Said. OK, so I did make one of those atonal hums through the nose while reading it. No one would call it a clarion call to morality. But it's an advance on the time when Mr Said's idea of a good answer to "When are you [Palestinians] going to stop killing people?" was "That's an American question." Here is Junius's take on the article. There's more to come. InstaPundit led me to this excellent news in Zachary Barbera's blog. He links to a Sydney Morning Herald article saying that 50 notable Palestinians have taken out an advert condemning suicide bombings. Their quoted statement still seemed to dwell overmuch on the pragmatic inadvisability of the tactic, rather than its evil. But, again, it's a start. And they risk much more than Said does in speaking out. I'm written out for a while on the subject of suicide bombers. Iain Murray isn't. Also note spot-on comments from Kris Murray. And I see Iain, too, has a jeer about spoilsports Perugia. "For the Italian team, the whining noise doesn't stop when the plane touches down." That, from memory, was the unwontedly witty signing off line given to us by a BBC reporter on the news last night. Perugia sacked the Korean player whose goal pushed Italy out of the World Cup. La Bella Perugia! City of Raphael, Urbino, wine, truffles and babies in a sulk. Learn from us. The man behind "Rogernomics" in New Zealand says you can't fix the NHS with money. Compared to Gordon Brown, Roger Douglas is a paladin of economic good sense. Not everyone is a fan, though. Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Check out Eric Raymond's Armed and Dangerous. Not afraid to follow the thought through to any conclusion, is he? Go rant and roar someplace else! "OK," says David Janes, now at http://blog.davidjanes.com/ Update links time again. Honourable mention. Sorry, Basmallah. You may be cute, you may be three and a half, but you don't get a slot in the Moppets and Martyrs calendar because your Mummy hasn't said in so many words that she wants you dead. Yet. But getting coached to say that "we kill the Jews because they are apes and pigs" is a really good start, so keep trying, Basmallah! I ought to say that Medical Aid for Palestinians seem fairly respectable, and I am quite happy to see Palestinians get medical aid. (What with UNRWA looking after them, Saudi killathons and Yasser Arafat crisps they must be the most medically aided people in the world, but they don't seem to be getting any less sick. Sorry, meant to say, any healthier. Perhaps some of the money slips through the cracks.) What I object to is all the talk that implies that the Israelis shoot the curfew-busting husbands of women in labour for fun. They do it because murderous suicide bombers have given them ample cause to believe that they might have 0.02 seconds to get a bullet through the brain of the Palestinian driving very fast in their direction. What is it with ex-ambassadors to the Saudi Entity? Just re-read Matt Welch's demolition of the onetime US ambassador to the place, "Saudi lapdog" Wyche Fowler. Now update the scene to the floor so recently hit by Cherie's little dropped brick. The carpet so abused belonged to a charity called Medical Aid for Palestinians. And who is the guiding spirit of this body? ...What she got from Sir Andrew Green, a former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and MAP's chairman, was a gruesome slide show of the inhumanity he claimed the Israelis had carried out in several Palestinian villages... The whole Times story can be found - drat!, can be found on page 12 of the Times. Buy a paper for once. Every time I link to the website my computer freezes. If you want to risk it the story is headed "Slide show developed into a political sideshow."
So what gives? It could be that irresistible charm exercised by the class of Saudis who mix with Western diplomats, I suppose, that turns their heads, but Daniel Pipes thinks it's the consultancy fees. (When I started writing this post, I knew I wanted the earlier Matt Welch post on Wyche Fowler and googled straight to it. I had not yet seen this more recent Welch / Charles Johnson posting on the subject.) So there you are. Sir Andrew Green was amassador to the Saudi-Controlled Place from 1996 - 2000, overlapping with his US colleague Wyche as it happens. He's also guest speaker for Swan Hellenic cruises. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just one of those human interest details.
Like a pound coin found down the back of the sofa, this editorial saying that the post office needs competition sparkles brightly among the fluff, broken bits of toy and old lollipop sticks surrounding it. It's a poor memorial to the 19 innocents killed in Israel that much of what the British papers can find to say about them is what a clanger Cherie has dropped. However it was interesting to see the BBC Television news assuming that it was a clanger when all she was doing was repeating their own line of a few days ago. Last night's ten o'clock news was the most anti-bomber I have heard yet. Something has changed, and if the change sticks it will will save a few lives down the line. It might cut down the flow of EU money to Arafat for a start. BBC News 24 is quite separate editorially, but it too is beginning to feel the see-saw tip. No equivocation about this story: Child heroes of bus bomb rescue. On the other hand, BBC News 24 keeps to its old habit of putting quote marks round "terror attacks" in the introduction to the story about Israel re-entering the West bank, as if the terror attacks might be something else; friendly pats on the back for instance. (That link will only be good for today, Wednesday.) Can I make myself believe that the quote marks merely show that Sharon is being quoted? No.
Why blog? I posted a fortuitously-found quote from Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Macaulay over at Samizdata. Tuesday, June 18, 2002
As promised, I'm coming back to Brendan O'Neill's question "Why is blogging a right-wing thing?" As I said to him in a private e-mail, after his calling all my readers "easily shocked ladies who lunch" I would dearly love to rend his gobberwarts.* But there's a problem. I agree with him. He says, "I have always suspected that the right-wing blogging phenomenon is a result of the right's increasing isolation from the mainstream - from mainstream politics, mainstream journalism and mainstream debates. Over the past 10 to 15 years, traditional right-wing views have become ever-more unpopular, as Third Way and consensus politics have take centre stage. The Reaganites and Thatcherites who were in the ascendant in the 1980s have found themselves out on a limb in an age where we're all supposed to be caring, sharing, non-argumentative, environmentally-aware centre-lefties. "
You can't say truer than that. It's like being a sheepdog on a sensitivity training course these days. Pah. But after this strong start the limitations of Mr O'Neill's mindset soon become clear:
"And rather than build an effective and coherent opposition to the new political orthodoxies, some on the right seem happy to retreat into the 'Blogosphere', from where they can throw insults at their enemies without having to challenge them fundamentally."
Huh? Just what sort of fundamental challenge do you think I was putting up before the blog? Cleaning the toilet in a right-wing way? Non-multicultural clearing up after breakfast? The point about blogging is that it costs next to nothing, anyone from housewives to executives can do it, and you don't need to go through an editor. Mr O'Neill's disdain for such low-intensity warfare comes through in his repeated use of the word "challenge": "...the very nature of the Blogosphere ... means it is best suited to poking fun or poking holes in the mainstream media, rather than actually challenging it at a serious level."
Er, yes. Such a relief. As I write this post now I know that it is well short of the serious and weighty response that I could be composing were I Gladstone reborn. How nice that I'm not, and it's just a blog post that I can get done before nipping round the shop for some more milk. For all his romantic attachment to the spirit of 1798, Sir Brendan the Serious has all the attitudes of a nobleman demanding that these oiks put down the longbows and fight properly (with the very important caveat that first they have to buy the horse and the armour i.e. get a journalism degree and a proper job.)
"...it's safe to say that The Guardian - now the most mainstream, pro-government paper in Britain - won't be quaking in its boots."
No, but it's turning red and shuffling about. Did I ever tell you the story of Matthew Engel's column that was laughed right out of the Guardian archives?
"...it means that many on the right will end up simply talking to themselves, rather than building a real opposition to the Blairs, Clintons and Schroeders of this world. That is one of the reasons I have a lot of time for Iain Murray. Iain and I disagree on many things, but his Conservative Revival weblog was a good stab are thinking about actual alternatives to New Labour and how such alternatives could be reconstituted as an opposition."
He means proper politics again. Join a party. Become activists or local councillors or journalists. Get a proper job. Not that I have the slightest objection to Iain Murray (May his sword arm be ever strong!) or anyone else doing these things. But it all boils down to play nicely! To which I say, "Shan't!"
"In short, I think blogging is a right-wing thing as a result of the right's increasing isolation - and as a result of right-wingers' fancy for short, sharp, pithy attacks on an enemy that, in fact, they don't feel like they can take on. "
Classic guerilla tactics. And a classic guerilla error is to be tempted before you are ready into full scale battles that you are certain to lose. Whoah, brakes on. Perhaps I'm in danger of letting my military metaphor push me into conclusions I don't really believe. Although I do think the right wing three quarters of the blogosphere does indeed do much of its work by pinpricks, it may have its greatest effects through conventional means. As Brian Micklethwait says, 'Blogging is going to impact seriously on all this, by identifying non-left and libertarian journalistic talent, giving it a start, training it, and then feeding it into the mainstream media.' So come on Brendan, gis a job.
*As Terry Pratchett fans will know, not as much fun as it sounds.
For reasons I explain over there, this post also appears in Libertarian Samizdata.
Uncommon Sense says "I hasten to point out the following: The immigrant-welfare problem exists only in the welfare state. Eliminate the welfare state, this "problem" disappears as well." Yes.
Monday, June 17, 2002
Total Perspective Blogdex. Like Zaphod Beeblebrox discovering that he really was the centre of the universe, I emerge unconcerned from having passed under the lens of Brendan O'Neill. Hey, what's the problem? Any mention that puts me next to Instapundit is fine by my Inner Troll. Stirring up Junius and Public Interest simultaneously was an undeniably brave stroke, but I'm not sure that Brendan's daring last-minute substitution of his Fenian forbears into the argument - or rather, substitution of his Fenian forbears for the argument - is really enough to keep him in the tournament, seeing that so many Irish ancestors are playing for my team too. More tomorrow. Britain considered as a private party. Jim Bennett (who, I discover, is Australian - click link to find out more [UPDATE: No, he's an American. I misunderstood - see below.]) writes: Natalie:*&'$%"£! I should have thought of that. In fact I already had thought of it, but in another directory. My mind is like the internet without Google. The directory where I had thought of immigration as agreeing to a contract was headed "welfare/problems/immigration" or something like that. The world is full of hardworking, active people who would like to live in the Anglosphere. In order to get this valuable benefit they would happily contract to do without welfare. If we could let them in on these terms we existing residents would gain the benefit of their energy and talents and we wouldn't get swamped by freeloaders. But such is the horror of unequal treatment that even though both sides would benefit we can't bring ourselves to do it. The English lessons are - or were - subject to the same constraints. Quite rightly we don't want the Home Secretary checking our apostrophes, and so we shy away from allowing him to check anyone's. Mr Bennett's argument, that a contract freely assumed is no oppression, is a strong one. I teeter on the edge of agreement - but remain worried: what if we get the new immigrants learning English and citizenship (I assume they come as a package), and it works fine, and then someone oh-so-reasonably says, shouldn't we all share in the benefits of Education in Citizenship? Ah, come now, the test at the end is easy, platitudinous even... you just have to say that you are committed to the British ideal of "social justice" in order to pass.
The adoption issue, too, brings up a conflict between universal rights and particular conditions accepted as part of the deal. We've all heard about the hoops that those wishing to adopt a child must jump through. The hoops are frequently absurd and outrageous, but that's another story. Even if one accepts that some check must be made that prospective adopters are fit to be parents, that doesn't mean that one supports similar checks on natural parents. A tremor goes through me when I hear a sententious TV commentator raise the topic, because they always finish up by talking about the "anomaly" that even the most feckless natural parent is allowed to breed.
Finally, I gave some thought to another important question raised by Mr Bennett. Which is the best service area on the M1 for children? It's a close run thing, but I'd say Newport Pagnell if you like them fried, but Toddington if you go for the fricassee option.
What's all this Australian bit? In a sort of director's cut, Mr Bennett has sent out an extra three words for his column exclusively for readers of this blog. "I suppose I should have written the following sentence with the additional 3 words in brackets. "In its own way this immigrant mix has become part of Anglosphereness, so that a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup can be for me a taste of home (even when I'm ) in Australia."
British Muslims pro-integration? I was surprised by this finding: "Further evidence of the appetite for integration lies in the level of support for David Blunkett's plans for compulsory English language and citizenship tests for new immigrants - 65% of Muslims backed the proposal. " The Guardian and ICM carried out a poll on the attitudes of British Muslims. Although this commentary exaggerates the extent to which the respondents did want integration, I must admit that I was surprised and heartened by the support for Blunkett's proposals. Which is weird, because I don't actually support them myself. But given that I am a marginalized libertarian weirdo, I must take my comfort where I can; and while I oppose compulsory English and citizenship classes on the same grounds upon which I oppose compulsory anything else, it is nice that so many British Muslims want more of their people to learn English. It's a pity that there is a great swarm of "diversity officers", British Sign Language to Urdu intepreters and the like whose jobs depend on this not happening. Power without responsibility. Peace Process without Peace. There was a story in Saturday's Telegraph that brought back memories. Headed "Terror threat to policeman" it described how a young Catholic policeman narrowly escaped injury - they called it injury, though I would have thought "death" was more the mot juste - after a bomb exploded under his car. The link says that too many people are trying to access that story. Good. I hope the crowds trying to access note well that Mitchel McLaughlin, chairman of Sinn Fein refused to condemn the attack on the officer. Sinn Fein grow fat on the rewards of participation in the peace process. Their placemen prance about for photo-opportunities and pose at the big desks they now have in government. Yet they refuse to condemn attempted murder of a policeman. The story reminds us that this type of killing is not new. Both the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary were meant to be religiously mixed. But the IRA killed as many Catholic policemen and part-time soldiers as it could. It was easy to do. The gunmen knew where the Catholic recruits lived. Then, then, they set up a great wail that the UDR and the RUC were sectarian, and wasn't it shocking how few Catholics there were in them. And the "liberal" British press, let alone the foreign press, just lapped it all up. Dawson is up at five in the morning, posting for you. Loads of classic exuberant LOL ranting. Not everyone can do exuberant ranting. I think you need to eat mysterious Southern food, like fried opossum, to do it right. But I have to say that the link to the man he shot in Reno put me into a weird loop. Cunning, these Frenchies. UPDATE: Some of my less cosmopolitan British readers thought I was joking about fried opossum. No, I'm not. Do a Ctrl-F search or scroll down to find the 'possum, passing the bear fillet in burgundy on your way. Now, I'm very soft-hearted and happen to know that my meat appears by special act of creation divinely shrink-wrapped on Tesco shelves. But if I had to eat dead animals like the rest of you, there is a certain appeal in going out in the morning to hunt your lunch. Sunday, June 16, 2002
What is this, a frigging gossip column? My dear friend Junius (of course he's too high-principled to use his title, but we all know) tells me that Electrolite has moved to most chic little place at http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/ - cost him five million, you know, but worth it for that location, and of course we're all missing Myria who, getting serious here, is having a bad time according to a comment on her blog. I heard that snippet while at the most magical party thrown by my dear friends over at Dodgeblog... Saturday, June 15, 2002
Moves, News, Corrections. Midwest Conservative Journal is now at http://mcj.blogspot.com so adjust your links. I hope Our Editor does keep the archives available somewhere. Ain't No Bad Dude says that the Gun Show Loophole really exists and needs closing, others disagree. One for you Yanks, I think. And, keeping up the non-idiotarian liberal theme, Gary Farber's Amygdala is back and strategizing after a hiatus. Layman's logic has looked a little closer at The American Kaiser's post cited by me earlier. He corrects some maths and mathematical terms and gets a less dramatic result. The corrected figures are still striking: "...And therefore a Jewish child is two and a half times as likely to die as his Arab neighbour, and it's mother twice as likely." Someone else - in fact several someones - should check up on this. Not because I don't think Ben Sheriff hasn't done a capable job, but because if confirmed these figures are extremely important and should be spread widely.
But the checking won't be done by me any time today. I have birthday party games to arrange, loot bags to fill, panics to have, a temper to lose. I love it all really.
Friday, June 14, 2002
Wallabies from Hell hit Henley. Why do I have to turn to the Sydney Morning Herald to find out all the important news? I never heard about the chimpanzee, either. Cook, A Snoop, At the World Cup. Sorry. Couldn't resist that. A regular correspondent (Let's call him A.R.C. for short) writes:
Rage against a cupcake. The story that made my blood boil last night was not a murder, a rape, or a terrorist attack. I don't know why I should be so bothered by a school dispute in a foreign country, unless it's because I have been a teacher, but I was absolutely incensed by this story about some idle brat in Peoria, Arizona who who was about to fail for cutting classes, plaiglarism, ignoring the offered second chance and all-round complacent inefficiency. But not, I think, stupidity. Oooh, no, this chick knew how to ensure she passed without the trouble of actually working. She just gave Mommy and Daddy a call, and Mommy and Daddy hired this nice lawyerman called Stan F. Massad and he told the mean old teacher lady that he'd be make her very sorry if she didn't let Daddy's girl have fun with a cap and gown. But the school authorities knew that would be unfair to the honest students. They acted firmly to back up their teacher, Elizabeth Joice, and defend the reputation of their school, right?
Seems I wasn't the only one incensed. The Arizona Republic described the original report as "knuckle-whitening" and speaks of a wave of angry comment from readers. And several blogs have covered the story, such as Desert Pundit who includes an e-mail address for complaining about the lawyer's intimidatory tactics,
And here's the cool cartoon by Benson that gave me the "cupcake" line.
I've had a little play on Google myself. I didn't find Cupcake's name, alas, but I did find the website for Sunrise Mountain High School. (Motto: We Won't Fail You)
I bet Cupcake sang the school song with a big smile on her face as she graduated: "Go mighty Mustangs! gallop to glory / fighting all the way / Mustangs will conquer / in purple and white / standing up tall / with their heads held high / So let’s go, fight / we’re Sunrise Mountain High School / onward to victory! "
I've wimped out of ringing up Arizona. But if anyone nearer or braver wants to courteously ask the school why they allowed the hard work of their honest students to be debased, the phone number and address can be found here. Or perhaps the Peoria Unified School District Administrative Center at 6330 West Thunderbird Road, Tel. 623 486-6000 would be the guys to talk to; I am unsure of American practice in these matters. And if you're feeling very, very brave indeed, Pirhana-lawyer (I refer only to his undoubted tenacity and initiative on behalf of his clients) Stan F. Massad can be contacted here. I live far away and have a pure past, Stan. And no money.
Thursday, June 13, 2002
A good sport. I'd just like to mention that Nick Butterworth, author of the Percy the Park Keeper books, very good-humouredly signed a copy of his justly famous work, "Just Like Jasper" for my son. Nothing unusual about that you say? Well, the copy concerned still had its "Withdrawn from Hertfordshire Libraries" stamp clearly visible. I think we paid 20p for it. But we got Percy new, honest. And in hardback. Ain't no way to pretend that I'm posting this story about an actor alleged to have taken out a contract on his wife for any other reason than a ghoulish interest in its sheer filmability. An interest shared by the LAPD, according to the defence. Wednesday, June 12, 2002
I'd have caught this Lileks blast on the profiling issue eventually as I complete my sweep through the blogs I've missed over the last week or so. But Joanne Jacobs caught it first. Mr Lileks is talking about fingerprinting and photographing visitors to the US from high-risk countries. I don’t care. I am way past caring. I have not a jot of the care-sauce left in my bones. The care tank is empty. There’s no one home in Careville. The dog ate my care. The Care Crop didn’t come up this year. Self.com/care comes up as a 404.There's the germ of an idea in that last paragraph. Or rather, there's one point that has been widely made and another idea that needs to be teased out further. The widely made point is that he suppression, or attempted suppression, of obvious and moderate precautionary steps against Arab/Muslim suspected terrorists is one of the factors promoting hatred against innocent Muslims. Man, it does not please folk who have just had three thousand slaughtered in front of their eyes to be told that they are racists for wanting to check out the next Saudi buying a copy of "Teach Yourself To Fly." The point I haven't seen widely made is that intelligent profiling might have good effects on Muslims of goodwill. And I can see why. The way I've written it, it looks completely freaking loopy. Getting Hassled, Stopped, Frisked and Full Body Searched Is Good For You. Yeah, right. But there's something there. Something more than the obvious point that their lives might also be the one saved: many Muslims were murdered in the WTC, the Pentagon, and on those planes.
Perhaps the proposition looks a little saner if we consider what's happening now. There is a vicious circle. Moves that would clearly make us all safer are not openly taken. Result: resentment among non-Muslims at being endangered for the sake of political correctness. But, of course, Arabs and Muslims are being profiled, only stealthily, and you can bet the stealth adds poison to the way that baggage checkers and cops carry out this task. Next result: resentment among Muslims at the snide insults they suffer. So we get hysterical denunciations of measures that are not objectionable when the real cause of their anger was the objectionable way in which those measures were carried out. But the denunciations annoy non-Muslims even more, and motivate the frisker to be a little more rough, the policeman to put a little more sneer in his voice, the press and public to build on any existing tendency to lump all Muslims together as terrorists and enemies. And characterizations of that sort have a way of coming true.
Open and avowedly temporary precautions would be a lot better. The inconvenience to travellers is never going to be fun, and the powers granted to snoopers are always going to be worrying. But the bad effects would be much softened. Among those fingerprinted there would be occasion for dignity and fortitude, two qualities that Islam does seem to promote. There would be occasion for sympathy and imaginative identification among the bystanders, and that the West does well.
God knows, we're in need of some more positive thoughts about Arabs and Muslims. MEMRI's latest shocker, ably described by David Tell, featured on Instapundit today, and is going to be all over the world tomorrow. As it should be. Truth will out and should out. This soft-spoken corrupter of children, Doaa 'Amer, and her supporters should be denounced before the world. I think there are Muslims who would like to speak out against this behaviour. They are (mainly) silent for two reasons. The first is obvious: physical danger from either their rulers or the mob. Those more fortunately situated could make them safer by highlighting their cases in the way that Amnesty International still does well, when it can tear itself away from callow anti-Americanism. The second reason for silence is isolation. Like Winston Smith watching the film of the lifeboat being bombed, individual Muslims who are disturbed by the fanaticism look round and see everyone else baying for more blood. Why, even most of the Franks who you might think would object seeing as they are so loudly against racism, seem vaguely approving. Unless these individual Muslims are very exceptional individuals they do as Smith did and shrink into themselves. Here, again, Muslims and non-Muslims living in free countries help by speaking out. If the general population of Egypt, say, learn that the rest of the world are horrified by their anti-semitism some of them are going to wonder if the rest of the world might be right. The first person to say so looks a weirdo, quite possibly an apostate, and lives in fear of his life. The ten thousandth person doesn't. Fans of 'Robot wars' will like this picture from Random Jottings. Me, I feel sorry for the poor little aeroplane. Did laugh a bit, though. A certain profile. Dr Frank asks some questions about the exact histories of dirty bomb man Padilla and his British equivalent, Reid the shoe-bomber. Both are members of disaffected ethnic minorities who converted to Islam in prison. It is very clear to me that members of this category should be looked at hard. "Looked at" does not mean insulted, harassed, or arrested. Forensic profiling does have a fair record of success in catching serial killers, along with some notable failures. The term refers to a procedure more complex and more tentative than what people usually mean by profiling, although one-word profiling also has its uses. In other words, yes, I do think that the baggage checker should snap to attention when either an Arab or a Muslim reaches the head of the line. That is hard on the non-terrorist majority of Arabs and Muslims, so let it be done with decent discretion. The checkers should never be dozing, of course, but the ideal of constant total alertness when checking all passengers is forever unattainable. Some selectivity is necessary. The selection will be a mixture of simple broad-category-prejudice, more complex narrow-category prejudice and the copper's standby of watching to see if they twitch. And, I hope, specific intelligence briefings based on the answers to Dr Frank's questions. My point is that the broad category prejudice is not irrational. Al-Qaeda have turned to non-Arab agents such as Padilla and Reid precisely because the operations of their Arab agents are hindered by it. It is good that they are forced to work from a much smaller pool of agents, as their chances of finding people with the correct temperament are smaller. (Both Reid and Padilla seem to have lacked it: both prone to hysterical display.) But if you say, "no point in looking extra hard at Arabs because neither Reid nor Padilla was Arab" then you relax that pressure and restore access to the larger pool of terrorists. I made some similar comments to a post entitled "Profiling folly" at The Edge of England's Sword before seeing Dr Frank's post, which expressed what I wanted to say better than I did. Iain Murray correctly points out that most Arabs in the US are Christian, but I don't see that that negates my argument any more than the undoubted fact that most Arab Muslims are not terrorists negates it. All investigation has some element of slander, since even to look over a suspect violates the pure presumption of innocence. We just have to manage the balance as best we can. One-word profiling and detailed forensic profiling don't stop being useful merely because they are not security panaceas.
And it stayed 0-0. A table-full of football pundits seem to regard this as a quite good result for England. I begin to see why people like talking about football. It's nicer than real life. In real life people bomb school buses and the Guardian reports on it without comment. The American Kaiser has done some counting of the dead in the current conflict. (Link found by Damianation.) Everyone knows that many more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed. But did you know that "... nine Israeli women were murdered for every Palestinian woman, and five Israeli children for every Palestinian child." ? That, in a nutshell, is why I am so hostile to the Palestinian side in this war. They go for soft targets. The fact that these bombers also kill themselves is irrelevant in ethical terms. Certainly the fact that they are in the grip of that rare but ineradicable fever of the human species, a death cult, is important. The psychology of the cult demands that its adherents kill in in a spectacular way, outside the bounds of normal wartime behaviour. Put crudely, it would be a waste of all that mana generated by an act so unusual as premeditated suicide to use it all up while doing something so boring and passé as waging war according to the custom of civilized nations. It's important but not crucial. Suicide per se does not outrage me. It is not their self-killing that makes them evil but who else they kill. (Fattening up your own five year old children to kill themselves later does outrage me, but that's another story.)
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