Richard Dawkins

Below:  Freyguy gets his books signed by Professor Richard Dawkins after a public lecture.  The celebrated evolutionary biologist has authored many books, including the (in)famous atheist treatise and bestseller, The God Delusion.  You can see how thrilled he was to meet me, after an hour lecture, a half-hour of questions, and an hour of signing books.  I think it's safe to say that Richard and I are now close personal friends.

Kidding aside, he was extremely generous with his time and it was a real privilege to meet him and hear him speak.  Only an Oxford-educated Brit can call something "uttah nonsense" and still sound polite.  Here's a clip of Dawkins discussing evolution, science and religion with George Coyne, a Jesuit priest and astronomer.

What do you think of Dawkins?  Love him?  Hate him?  Indifferent?

Not so fast

You may have heard about a particle-physics experiment called OPERA, which seems to have measured neutrinos coming from the CERN accelerator traveling faster than the speed of light. If confirmed, this result would be extremely exciting and intriguing, as it would modify the foundations of all physics for the past 100 years.

The physics community seems to accept that the team at OPERA did a professional and thorough job, but naturally, there is also widespread skepticism.  The effect they measured might be explained simply by some systematic error of 60 nanoseconds, although finding the source of the error itself could be interesting.  In the next year or so, laboratories in the U.S. and elsewhere should be able to independently test the result.

A professor of particle physics told me and some other students, "It should be looked into with an open and skeptical mind."  She's seen many extraordinary discoveries and disappointments in her 50 years as a physicist, so I guess she would know.

Just for fun:  below is a video of how to build your own cloud chamber, a simple device which forms visible tracks as particles fly through it (go to 3 min. 10 sec. in the video to watch the tracks).  Watching the tracks is fun and mesmerizing, and you don't actually need any radioactive samples like the one used in the video; unless you live in a lead box, an empty chamber will produce a frenzy of zig-zagging tracks due to the ambient particles raining down on us every day (mostly muons).

Palestinian statehood

The situation as of 2007, from here.  A detailed, full-page map of the West Bank can be found at the Washington Post.  Israel has a population of 7.5 million (about 5.8 million Jews and 1.5 million Arabs).  The West Bank has a population of 2.6 million, plus 500,000 Israeli settlers.  Gaza has a population of 1.7 million.

The U.S. and Israel have been trying to dissuade the Palestinian Authority from seeking recognition as a state at the United Nations.  Israel has threatened "harsh and grave consequences" if the PA goes ahead with its application to the UN.


But why?  After all, polls have shown that a sizable majority (or at least plurality) of Israelis and Palestinians have supported a two-state solution for years.  Clinton, Bush, and Obama have pushed for two states.  President Obama said that "the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security."  Since Israelis are recognized by the UN as having a state, shouldn't Palestinians be recognized, too?

President Solyndra

President Solyndra

The current case of the solar panel company collapsing and taking a half billion dollars of taxpayer money down with it, is an excellent example of why the federal government should not be in the business of trying to manage business. I have explained to the Grad Student a number of times over the years that there are two fundamental reasons that the government shouldn't be in the business of managing business. The first is competence. They're incompetent. This is not to say that the people in the government are incompetent people, or that they aren't smart, anymore than saying Michael Jordan was an incompetent professional baseball player means he wasn't a great athlete. Look at the experience and education of the President and the Congress…even their advisors are academics, lawyers and financiers…not business professionals who have ever had much, if any business experience. The second is motivation. The government largely has the wrong motivation…political or personal, not profitable business goals.

This brings us back to Solyndra. The application for funding for the solar panel company was started under the Bush administration. But the people in the government agencies, charged with reviewing these applications, raised all kinds of "red flags" and tabled the loan application. First, it appeared (last January) that the company was very unprofitable, had no plan to get profitable, and would run out of cash by September (that's right, the "underlings" were able to predict almost exactly when it would crash). Further, this was a huge loan ($500 million) for this size company. But, the biggest equity investor was/is one of the largest "bundlers" of campaign contributions to the President's campaign, and this was/is exactly what he wants to promote…"green" energy; 1,000 jobs; stimulus money doing good on multiple fronts; etc. He even made a filmed photo op at Solyndra. Then, the government went even further…it apparently violated a law put in place that all federal loans of this type be in front of equity and other (junior) debt. This is common practice in the private business world anyway. But the government created an exception for this special case, and ordered it off the back-burner and accelerated. "Poof!"…there goes a half billion taxpayer dollars while a political backer gets bailed out, and almost all 1,000 people get laid off. Incompetence? Cronyism? Political favors? Wanting business to be what you wish it to be? You decide. I'm simply saying…my two reasons seem validated.

The Old Man

Muslim Americans weigh in on justifiability of killing civilians

Gallup released the following results from a poll of nearly 2,500 Americans.  The results are, I must admit, quite surprising.

Who knew that such large percentages of American Christians, Jews, and atheists believe targeting and killing civilians is sometimes justified?  Who knew Muslim Americans were so strongly opposed?

The disparity between Muslims and Christians is astonishing when you consider the fact that the Prophet Muhammad was a military general, while Jesus espoused turning the other cheek.  A solid majority of Christian Americans appear unconscious of the contradiction between their beliefs about violence, versus the word of the Gospels:

43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; (Matthew 5, King James Version)

"...Oh, and I forgot to say unto you, target and kill your enemies.  Including civilians sometimes." ~ Jesus

Avoiding Obamageddon

The following was written by Fred.  Freyguy posts it on his behalf.

We’ve all heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, it turns out that until 2009 the path to perdition was overgrown with weeds and meandered through woods over environmentally sensitive areas. But thanks to shovel ready stimulus we can now get there far more quickly.

One of the paradoxes that economists, particularly liberal (Keynesian) economists like to point to is how behavior that is good for the individual (saving) can be bad for the economy (which needs people to spend). Frankly I consider this, how shall I put it, wrong. What is bad for the economy (and usually the individual) is sudden and dramatic change (whether or not you believe in it). Savings are good for all manner of entities.

World War II is said to have brought us out of the Great Depression, which is taken by many as proof that what we need during depressions/recessions is massive government spending. But Roosevelt went through the alphabet on government spending programs prior to WWII and the result was that we stayed mostly mired in economic woe. So what got us out of the Depression? Well, it’s seldom just one thing that causes it or ends it. But barring consistently poor leadership, depressions and recessions have been known to end all by themselves as the economy rebalances – that is the natural state of things economic.

Fast forward almost six decades and we find that huge increases in spending by the federal government have not had the desired effect of stimulating the economy. Of course you can blame headwinds and floods and the Tsunami and banks and Wall Street and energy companies (unless they produce subsidized “green” energy) and greedy Benedict Arnold business people who outsource jobs and even greedier millionaires and billionaires who won’t pay their fair share and terrorists from the disloyal opposition and the S&P rating agency and… oh, the recession was deeper than first thought. Yeah, so then the recovery should have been steeper.

Now I don’t have a problem with No Drama Obama dialing up the rhetoric. Heck, the election will be upon us before we know it and what else is he supposed to run on? With a projected one billion dollars at his disposal (and with his ability to have the public pick up campaign expenses if he claims it’s an informational bus tour) I am buying my popcorn early and grabbing a front row seat for what is sure to be the most negative campaign since… well, I don’t know. Most have been pretty ugly.

So do I blame Obama? Sure, he’s earned it. But the problem has been building for a long time. Politicians need to realize that while they can anoint winners and losers the economy is neither a mathematical construct with interchangeable parts nor a zero sum game. You never get to mourn businesses that were never born.

So what do we need? More certainty would be a good place to start, but less regulation would be even better. Passing trade deals that have been collecting dust as Democrats dither would also be nice. Allowing more immigrants to arrive and stay legally would be good for the economy, particularly those immigrants who are bright, well-educated and entrepreneurial (neither party seems to be able to grasp that one). I am uncertain whether higher taxes for millionaires and billionaires who earn more than $200,000 (is there a disconnect here?) will hurt the economy much, but closing the loopholes and simplifying the whole mess would certainly help. Basically we need a tax code that incentivizes productivity or at least doesn’t punish it. Oh, and also one that even a run-of-the-mill MBA can figure out without professional assistance.

Most of all, we need to understand that spending does not create wealth. Efficiencies create wealth. Yes, I know, efficiencies can put people out of work. Obama periodically mentions that (the difficulty of creating jobs, sigh). But the modern age has shown that there’s tremendous upside potential to not having 90% of your population engaged in agriculture…organic gardens not withstanding of course.

American Atheists: a bunch of jerks?

In July, the publicly-funded 9/11 Memorial Museum was sued by an atheist group to prevent the display of a cross made of WTC beams. The group American Atheists said on their website:

"This cross is set to be included in the official WTC memorial.  No other religions or philosophies will be honored.  It will just be a Christian icon, in the middle of OUR museum.  This will not happen without a fight.
...
We will pay for our own memorial of equal size inside the museum, or the museum will not include the cross.  Equality is an all-or-nothing deal."

The museum has since said that a Jewish star of David cut from the WTC rubble will also be on display.  American Atheists subsequently argued that since Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists died on 9/11, they should all get displays in the museum--not just Jews and Christians.  Otherwise, the group argues, the cross should be removed.

What do you think?

Personally, I don't think it would be so terrible if the museum allowed several religions/philosophies to erect memorials.  But the whining coming from American Atheists is silly.  The group fails to recognize that the 9/11 cross is an historical artifact. It was used as a makeshift shrine by the laborers who were digging out bodies during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  If the workers had memorialized a piece of rubble resembling an atom--which is the symbol of American Atheists--I expect that would be displayed in the museum, too.  But history does not respect American Atheists' definition of "equality", and our museums would surely be impoverished if exhibits of religious significance were an "all-or-nothing deal".  (Imagine trying to apply the logic of American Atheists to a memorial museum of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.)

I'm relieved that other atheists agree this 9/11 cross suit is much ado about nothing.  I have never liked this group, American Atheists.  They try to remove roadside crosses--you know, those harmless memorials for people killed in car accidents.  Frankly, they act like jerks.  Pouncing on every opportunity to claim offense, and throwing tantrums over trifles, is just as tiresome when it comes from atheist groups as when it comes from Christian groups.

Who's the Leader?

The following was written by The Old Man.  Freyguy posts it on his behalf:

I've been listening all week to our President, as he officially launches his "Fear and Blame" campaign...The Downgrade is due to the Tea Party holding the Republican's hostage... The downgrade is due to a divisive debate... The Congress should come back to work and solve this (if they do, call me, I'll be on Martha's Vineyard)... There's an unwillingness to compromise in Washington, and that's causing the problems...S&P was wrong to downgrade the U.S....The "rich" should pay their "fair share", that's the problem.

But...but...who's the Leader? Who is supposed to bring the sides together to compromise? Who is supposed to lead by example and not use partisan attacks and accusations? Who was supposed to bring Hope and Change to Washington DC? Has anybody seen that Leader? I find the quote below, from a 2008 Presidential candidate, to be on point.

"If we think that we can secure our country by just talking tough without acting tough and smart, then we will misunderstand this moment and miss its opportunities. If we think that we can use the same partisan playbook where we just challenge our opponent's patriotism to win an election, then the American people will lose. The times are too serious for this kind of politics."

BARACK OBAMA, speech, Aug. 19, 2008

What Cicero didn't say

This phony quote has been making the rounds on the internet again:

"The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and any assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." -Falsely attributed to Cicero, 55 B.C.E.

Some mutations say "public debt should be reduced" and "the mobs should be forced to work".  (It's so hard to find good slaves these days.)  The quote has cropped up in conservative corners of the internet (where else?), from the distinguished pages of Forbes.com, to user signatures on forums about Ron Paul and gun ownership, websites about liberty and free markets, and so on.

But the quote is "almost certainly spurious", according to Respectfully Quoted:  a Dictionary of Quotations.  It appears to come from A Pillar of Iron, a work of historical fiction written several decades ago by Taylor Caldwell.  The book has been criticized as excessively fictional.  I haven't read it; forgive me for judging this book by its cover:

I'm picturing a movie version of this, where Cicero is played by Antonio Banderas; in the last fight scene he says some one-liner like "Not in my Rome!" before throwing Julius Caesar from the top of the Senate.

This false quote, and others, have inspired the Freakonomics blog to develop three cardinal rules to help identify phony quotes:

Quotation Rule #1: Quotes that a politically conservative quoter disagrees with that are attributed to Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler are almost always phony.

Quotation Rule #2: Quotes that a politically conservative quoter agrees with that are attributed toLincoln are almost always phony.

Quotation Rule #3: Quotes that a politically conservative quoter attributes to classical figures like Cicero, and that criticize modern, allegedly liberal trends are almost always phony.

In my experience, these rules are true too often; beware quotes with these properties.

The ban on gay blood

Since the HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C outbreaks of the 1980's, which killed thousands of hemophiliacs in the U.S. alone, governments around the world have adopted blood donation policies which ban, or temporarily defer, people who are in statistically high-risk groups for blood-borne diseases.  Every bag of donated blood is tested for a number of diseases, but excluding high-risk groups provides an additional measure of safety.  In most countries, the list of deferred donors includes IV drug users, people who have paid or been paid for sex, hemophiliacs and their sexual partners, and men who have had sex with other men since 1977 (MSM).

It's the permanent, lifelong ban on MSM blood donations (common in most countries) that is the most controversial policy.  People naturally find the insinuation that their own blood is somehow "unfit" for charitable donation insulting.  And the gay community is, understandably, especially sensitive to a policy which seems to throw wood into the fire of homophobia.

In the media, and especially on the Left, there appears to be near-unanimity that the MSM policy is outrageous, unfair, scientifically unsound.  A New York Times article reported:  "Gay Men Condemn Blood Ban as Biased".  A recent Washington Post blog agrees the policy is "unfair, outrageous, and just plain stupid," and unapologetically cites an article comparing the policy to "blood libel".  A writer at the Guardian apparently believes the UK National Blood Service, and others who support the MSM ban, are "bloody bigots".  Senator Kerry and several other Democrats wrote a letter to the FDA urging revision of the policy.  Both Canada and the U.S. revisited, but did not change, their MSM policies.

As a hemophiliac, and a scientist-in-training, and a proud LGBT rights supporter, I have a somewhat unique perspective on this issue. Opponents of the ban seem to make great use of rhetoric, but shy away from the most important and sobering facts of the matter.  Here are some of them:

Estimated Number of New HIV Infections, by Transmission Category, 2006

There were 53,600 new HIV infections in the U.S. in 2006.  Notice that more than 53% of new HIV infections were due to male-to-male sexual contact, even though the CDC estimates MSM constitute only 2% of the overall population.  (This contrasts with Italy, where HIV is transmitted primarily by heterosexual contact, and MSM are no longer banned from donating blood).  Furthermore, virtually all of the HIV transmissions by non-MSM behavior came from IV drug use and "high-risk" heterosexual contact.  Here, "high-risk" refers to heterosexual sex with (1) an IV drug user, (2) MSM, or (3) a person known to be HIV positive.  In other words, practically none of the new HIV transmissions were caused simply by heterosexual behavior which did not involve a condom--at least in the U.S.  This is remarkable, when you consider how many more heterosexuals than MSM there are in the U.S.

In many countries, anyone who has ever used an IV drug, or ever had MSM contact, is permanently banned from donating blood.  However, the other piece of the pie--the high-risk heterosexuals--are typically only deferred from donating for 12 months.  This difference, it is argued, is unfair.

But then, HIV is not the only concern.  MSM are also at higher risk of other viruses, such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HHV-8 (herpes virus).  Then there is the concern about the new viruses that, like HIV and Hep, may one day appear in the blood supply, without warning, without testing.  This point is made rather well in this BBC show on the issue.  The host introduces "a scientist and a gay rights activist" (he says this without irony).  The scientist--medical director of a blood transfusion agency--says that a 12-month deferral of MSM "might be okay" to mitigate the risk of HIV transmission, but "it's not all about HIV ... [MSM] have in the past been a source for new and unknown infections coming through" to the blood supply.

In the scholarly literature, it is widely accepted that the ban on MSM donations has made the blood supply safer, and lifting the ban will increase the risk in most countries without significantly increasing the available blood supply (here, here, here, here, here).  Still, there is room for scientific debate.  It may be that today, a lifetime ban of MSM is overkill.  The American Red Cross and the blood banks say a one-year deferral would be sufficient.  The key point here is that governments should revise the MSM policy based on detailed, quantitative, empirical analysis of the risks and benefits such changes would pose to blood recipients (including, of course, gay recipients).  Policy should not be determined based on appealing (but misguided) feelings about what is fair to blood donors.

On a side note ....

I found this interesting:  the NY Times cited a "comprehensive report" on the blood donation issue published by an AIDS service organization.  The report is authored by people with PhDs in unspecified fields (they appear to be professors of various humanities).  Curiously, none of the "comprehensive reports" that appear regularly in peer-reviewed journals like Transfusion or Blood, where the authors have degrees in things like medicine and biochemistry, made it into the NYT article.  I also note the report mistakenly claimed that "Italy, Spain, and France defer donors solely based on high-risk behavior, not on a donor’s history of MSM behavior".  As a matter of fact, like most countries France permanently bans MSM from blood donation, as acknowledged by the report elsewhere, and its own sources, and this study from June 2011.  Nevertheless, the appealing idea that France does not exclude MSM blood donors has caught on (here, here, here, and in this blog post authored by eight Democratic representatives).

The Miranda Myth

Flashing red and blue lights woke me up in the middle of the night tonight.  I went to the window and saw a guy with dreadlocks and a backpack, and a fat woman with two shopping carts and multiple purses.  The guy with dreadlocks was being arrested.

The woman asked the cop where they were going.  "He's going to jail," the cop said.  For what?  "For criminal mischief."
"Could you read him his rights?" she asked politely.
Then the officer said this:  "I don't have to read him his rights.  I only have to read him his rights if I'm taking him to court.  I'm taking him to jail."

This statement confused me.  (Needless to say, many things about the scene unfolding outside my window confused me.)  Standing there in my underwear, I wondered, aren't cops required to read the Miranda rights when they make an arrest?  I checked good ol' Wikipedia and, wouldn't you know it, this is a common myth.  I guess I've watched too many cop movies (and hey, it's late).  The police only have to read your Miranda rights if they are going to interrogate you and if any self-incriminating statements you make during interrogation are to be admissible in court.  But if you're just "in the hood and up to no good" and a cop catches you, he doesn't have to read jack before he takes you to the clink.

The last thing I saw was the woman approaching the cop car.  The dreadlocks guy sat in the back seat, hidden by tinted windows.  "You don't have to say anything," she told him, in a reassuring, motherly tone.  Then, she pointed a finger at him and her tone changed:  "Don't say nothing until I get there!"  The cop car drove off.  She consolidated the baggage into a single cart, shoved it in front of her, and waddled angrily down the sidewalk, muttering to herself.  In my head, the song "Bad Boys" from Cops was playing.

Now that I've discovered the subtleties of the Miranda warning, only one question remains:  what the #@$% were those people doing outside my window?

The religion of Paul Dirac

Paul Dirac was one of the giants of physics in the 20th century.  He made fundamental contributions to our understanding of quantum theory, along with Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, Schrodinger, and others.  In the 1920's, before the current age of Big Science, the world's leading physicists could sit down in a room together, apparently, and discuss such idle topics as politics and religion.  A Wiki article relates the story of one such conference, quoted from Heisenberg's book.  I thought it was pretty funny (make sure to read until the end):

"...Dirac said:

“

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

”

Heisenberg's view was tolerant. Pauli, raised as a Catholic, had kept silent after some initial remarks, but when finally he was asked for his opinion, said: "Well, our friend Dirac has got a religion and its guiding principle is 'There is no God and Paul Dirac is His prophet.'" Everybody, including Dirac, burst into laughter."

I made a graph

I made this graph in order to try to answer the question:  Is a public health system more expensive than a private one?  The x-axis is government expenditure on health as a percentage of total health expenditure.  The y-axis is total health expenditure, as a percentage of GDP.

The orange diamond represents the United States.  Data is from 2007 and compiled from the World Health Organization 2010 report.  The solid blue line is a linear fit.

The countries shown are from the top 27 countries by GDP per capita. Not shown are those countries which spend less than 4% GDP on health:  Singapore, and the Islamic/Arabic monarchies Qatar, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.  Also not shown are countries which receive external resources for health:  Israel.

List of countries shown:  Luxembourg, Norway, United States, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, Austria, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, Finland, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, Spain, Italy.

Thoughts?

The Climate Change Debate

One remarkable aspect of the climate change debate is the difference between public and scientific opinion.  Only 49% of the American public says rising global temperatures are a result of human activities (Gallup, 2007-2008).  In contrast, 97% of climate scientists are convinced by the evidence that it is "very likely" greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for "most" of the "unequivocal" warming of average global temperatures over the last half of the 20th century (U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2010).

In this respect, the debate over human-caused global warming is similar to the "debate" over the evolutionary origins of species.  Among the public, the most basic principles of biology remain controversial:  about half of Americans say they do not believe humans share a common ancestor with other species.  One may even find a few dissenting biologists, somewhere, willing to speak to legislators of the need to teach evolution in schools only as a scientific "controversy".  Their climate-change counterparts can be found making vastly disproportionate contributions to Congressional hearings, or the Wall Street Journal. 

A recent review of climate change evidence characterized the debate this way (Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2010):

"The history of science reveals a series of ‘controversies’. These often develop into a state where there is little debate within the relevant academic community (and what there is tends to be on peripheral issues), yet widespread popular debate remains. This usually occurs because the research has challenged the beliefs of a significant fraction of the population at large. The nature of the controversies, however, has changed. Where, for example, the advances made by Galileo and Darwin faced opposition because they challenged the established teachings of organized religion, climate scientists in the developed world have faced opposition from their more secular societies because they challenge beliefs that justify lifestyles and/or political allegiances (Malka et al. 2009; Nisbet 2009)."

But as the article points out, there is a crucial difference between the climate change controversy, and the evolution controversy.  While "humankind could often afford to wait for previous controversies to abate", in the case of climate change there is evidence that "time for effective action is extremely short".  The American Physical Society, which represents thousands of physicists (including yours truly!) agrees:

"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." 

Declare War and Go On Spring Break

Declare war and go on spring break

Remember when “regime change”, attacking another country, and taking sides in another country’s “civil war”, were anathema to Liberals? Remember when two dozen countries invading a Muslim country wasn’t a “coalition because “who’s kidding whom?”, the U.S. is really leading and doing all the bombing? Remember when trying to hunt down a brutal Arab dictator who murdered his own people wasn’t enough reason to declare war and hunt him down?
But, this is another day and another time, and besides, “we” like this President, and nobody likes that dictator. Why, even the French are willing to oust him, it must be the right thing to do. Let’s just declare war and go on spring break with the kids…they’ve never been to Brazil. And besides, I’ve got my Blackberry if they really need me on any of this war stuff.

What about Iran?

While President Obama sends U.S. warships to Libya, and Secretary Clinton calls for regime change, and the Obama administration openly sends in weapons to rebels to overthrow a government, the liberals cheer.
And so does Ahmadinejad, as his warships complete a trial run to Syria, and he arrests and executes adversaries in Iran, while our President says only "it would not be wise for the U.S. to be seen as meddling in Iranian affairs".

"According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, 500 Iranians are serving jail terms for political protests. Another 500 are detained and awaiting processing, including 80-year-old former Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi, the world's oldest political prisoner."

Even more ominous, 120 Iranians have been executed since Jan. 1, according to the rights group. Iran executes more prisoners per capita than any country and is second only to China in the total number of those killed by the state.

Where is the western media? Where is "the Beeb"? Where are the hushed tones of NPR reporting the arrests in the dark of night, and the executions in the broad light of day? Where is the condemnation from that august body, the UN? And where is our President...who chooses so carefully his places to "meddle"?

The Old Man

President reduces the size of government

President Obama, in response to the din calling for reducing the cost and size of government, decided this past week to eliminate the Supreme Court. It's not just the cost of the court itself, but the huge expense of legal actions progressing through the courts to the Supreme Court. The President simply proclaimed the "Defense of Marriage" law enacted by the legislative branch (Congress), "unconstitutional", and directed the Justice Department not to defend the law. See, that was easy..no need for legal action...no need to change the law...the President can just proclaim which laws he judges to be "constitutional" and which ones he decides are "unconstitutional". Come to think of it, we don't have to spend all that money on the legislative branch either. Authoritarian government is so much more efficient.

The Old Man

O'Reilly Morph

I just saw Bill O'Reilly interview President Obama. The interview was boring and bordered on irrelevant (although his minions will play to his ego and tell him how "hard hitting it was) with piercing questions like "do you think you've changed" and "do you think you've moved toward the middle?". But the amazing part was watching O'Reilly morph into Larry King!

The Old Man

NASA "Hanging by a Thread" according to U.S. Army Assistant Secretary

U.S. Army Assistant Secretary Malcolm R. O'Neill gave graduate science students some frank career advice last week, warning that federal budget constraints have NASA "hanging on by a thread".  The comments took place during a discussion after a lecture O'Neill delivered to the physics department.  O'Neill, who earned his PhD in physics from Rice University and was assigned as the head of the (in)famous "Star Wars" program, talked at length about military-related research, as well as the war in Afghanistan.  The Afghan war costs taxpayers $10 billion per year, he said.

According to the space agency's published budget, the NASA budget is expected to be $20 billion per year.  In addition to the shuttle program, NASA funds a wide range of basic and applied research, which takes up half of its budget.  Examples of projects supported by NASA funding include Earth-observing satellites whose data are made freely-available to researchers, new water-purification systems, and of course, grants and training for the next generation of scientists.

The day after O'Neill's lecture, Dmitri Denisov of Fermi National Laboratory discussed the termination of the Tevatron experiment, due to federal budget constraints.  During the discussion, faculty and students -- including those working on the Large Hadron Collider, the main competition of the Tevatron -- expressed audible signs of consternation and disappointment.

The enormous Tevatron collider in Illinois was responsible for the discovery of the top quark, among other achievements, and was the most powerful high-energy physics experiment on the planet until the Large Hadron Collider became operational in 2009.  But the machinery and the labor of 1,200 physicists came at a price of $35 million per year.  Now that the curtains have fallen on the Tevatron, it is likely the much sought-after Higgs boson (if it exists), as well as any surprises Nature may have in store for the Standard Model, will be discovered at the LHC, with European funding.

Egyptian-Americans rally for democracy in Houston

"Down, down, Mubarak!"  That was the call and response being chanted today all around me as I stood outside the Egyptian consulate in Houston, Texas, in a crowd of about 100-200 people.  They waved Egyptian and American flags, smiled and cheered as passing motorists honked their horns in support.  Most of the crowd seemed to be Egyptian, or Egyptian-American; there were plenty of women wearing brightly-colored headscarves, holding signs in one hand and a stroller in the other.  Images below reposted from Houston's indymedia.

The signs I saw read: "In solidarity with the Egyptian rage revolution", "30 years is enough", "Fair elections", "Constitutional reform", "US backed Mubarak dictatorship", "Obama: Democracy or Hypocrisy?", "America! Support the Egyptian people! Not the regime!"  A shy little girl ran away as I tried to capture her sign on my cell phone:  "Let the people live".

A young man, with the red, white and black Egyptian flag draped about his shoulders, told me he has been able to talk to his friends and family in Egypt only a few times since the regime cut off cell phone, Facebook, and Twitter services.  I asked him what it is the protesters want.  He basically said they want democracy.  Opposition parties are effectively barred from power in Egypt.  It is illegal to "insult" President Mubarak.  All important government buildings must have a mural of Mubarak's visage.

Mubarak is getting ready to hand power over to his son.  "His son is like 40, so if his son takes power we could face another 40 years of this."
"That sounds like monarchy, not democracy," I said.
"Exactly."

The protesters want Mubarak to leave, and then they want fair elections in which not just Mubarak's party can participate, and not just Mubarak is guaranteed to win.  Egyptians are tired of the same "bullshit" every year, the same corruption, the same problems with unemployment and poverty, he said.  Egypt is a rich country, he said, but the wealth and U.S. foreign aid is hoarded by a small segment of rich society; 50% of the people without political connections to the ruling party are in poverty.  He has friends with college degrees who can't find jobs, and live homeless on the streets.  "But Mubarak doesn't want to leave, because he's afraid they will try him as a criminal once he loses power."

What about the Muslim Brotherhood, I asked.  "Egypt is a country of 80 million people.  The Muslim Brotherhood has like 10 thousand members.  Every country has extremists."

He said the protesters in Egypt are primarily a democratic youth movement, but the regime is trying to portray them as violent criminals and radical Islamists to the rest of the world.  The regime deliberately withdrew police protection from neighborhoods and the National Museum, which contains priceless artifacts of Egyptian heritage.  "The youths are smart.  They got whatever weapons they could, sticks and knives, and protected their own neighborhoods against criminals.  If they don't know you, you aren't allowed into their neighborhood.  They locked arms outside the National Museum to keep out looters.  They know that protecting Egyptian heritage and keeping the peace is important to the revolution."  Some of the looters were cornered by citizens and found to have undercover police identification, he said.

"The Mubarak regime is sending the same message it has been sending for 30 years.  The message is: 'without me, this is what Egypt will get.  The country will be taken over by criminals and extremists.  Egypt needs me.'"  But in reality, this either-or choice between a dictator and extremists is just fear-mongering by the Mubarak regime, he said.

Why has the U.S. supported the dictatorship in Egypt?  "To other countries, Mubarak is great.  He gives them the impression he's a humanitarian.  But to Egyptians, he's terrible."