other : Duthie On...

For a variety of reasons, I'm taking a bit of time off from blogging on current events, and focusing on other aspects of my life. The blog will stay up, and I will probably post something from time to time when there's something I'm particularly moved to write about, but there are other things more important than blogging for now.

Clearly, the network news folks need a remedial course on conducting intelligence gathering operations…either that, or they need to get out of the spy business.

Apparently, a reporter for NBC attempted to go undercover to secretly record attendees at the DefCon security conference, and apparently did so even after having been asked when she arrived if she wanted a press pass, or to review the rules and regs of the conference for press. She refused both, then excused herself to go to the bathroom and set up a pinhole camera in her purse, which she was later seen “panning…around the room.”

Nothing like a little subtlety to help you blend into the background, eh? Full story here:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/005078.html

Regardless of your opinion of such events, the reporter clearly broke the rules here, and did so in a pretty obvious way. The reporter got off pretty easy with just the humiliating escort out (which you can see in the video link in the above story).

And now that I think about it…wasn’t it NBC’s Dateline that was sued for fraud relating to their show about exploding GM pickup trucks. Oh yes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_fraud#.22Waiting_to_Explode.22.2C_Dateline_NBC_.281992.29

Always good to see when people learn their lesson.

Today @ PC World Undercover Reporter Outed, Flees DefCon Conference

Time to fire up the fear engine:

With another summer upon us, the media is again abuzz with news about the West Nile virus. News agencies across the nation are offering tips and advice on how to avoid contracting the disease. Advice ranges from the pragmatic (drain water on your property) to the impracticable (limit time outside at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active). Innumerable experts have been consulted and their consensus is clear: be afraid, very afraid.

So begins a column from AFF Brainwash that provides a critical reminder that what the media tells us to fear isn't always so fearsome:

If you get bit by a mosquito infected with the West Nile virus, there’s a 20 percent chance that you’ll develop West Nile fever. Even if you bit by a mosquito infected with the West Nile virus (not likely) and you develop West Nile fever (even less likely), there’s just a one in 150 – .67 percent – chance of developing a severe illness!

Doesn't sound so scary now, does it?

The problem, of course, is that the media fear machine leads to expensive attempts to mitigate this miniscule threat, diverting resources that would be better used to deal with real threats (or...shocking thought...perhaps government could let us keep our money instead of spending it on attempting to eradicate vanishingly small risks). According to the article, federal and state officials spent tens of millions of dollars last year, between efforts towards a human vaccine, and mosquito control.

Is that a good use of funds? The article never answers yes or no, but rather points out that there are clearly less expensive ways to do more to save lives:

Unfortunately, a limited budget means doing finite good in society. Each lifesaving technique has a different cost-effectiveness: it costs just $39 per life saved to install defibrillators in emergency vehicles for resuscitation after cardiac arrest, but it costs $18 million per life saved to strengthen buildings in earthquake-prone areas. While it's easy to say which costs are worth it, it can be hard to say which are not.

Is WNV intervention worth it? Perhaps, the answer pivots on information that we don't have. To know if we’re making any progress we need to know how many mosquitoes are infected in the general population. At $20 a pool, taking samples is cost prohibitive. So instead, we test what we can and hope that the millions of tax dollars spent on public intervention is doing something.

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of a population that is generally ignorant of both basic economics and statistics and probability is that it makes it much harder to recognize government spending that sounds good (eradicate West Nile risk), but may turn out to be a very poor bargain, particularly given what we're not doing with the resources spent.

Source: AFF's Brainwash :: Not Just A River In Egypt

Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, though I'm not yet 40, but isn't there something a bit strange about a waiter who thinks that it's OK to plop down at the table with you while taking your order?

This happened to me last night while I was out with my family at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, so it's not like it was some crazy theme restaurant, or a local diner where we were regulars. And as it happened, apart from his difficulty recognizing boundaries, our waiter was attentive, funny, and very helpful.

According to my mother, who was dining with us, this is becoming somewhat of a trend, with some restaurants actually encouraging their waitstaff to do this. How appalling. It's not that I need to see a waiter or waitress as being lesser than me, or anything like that. But when I'm paying them to provide a service, I expect a certain amount of respect and decorum, and I think that's reasonable to expect. They're not my pals, and we're not hanging out around the house.

I did inquire of the management whether they had a policy of encouraging waitstaff to sit down with customers, and the manager assured me that they did not. So it seems like our waiter was just freelancing. I hope the management makes clear that's not a good idea, because he would do better without such antics.

In the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders, I had numerous conversations with a friend of mine who graduated from VT. One of the points I made to him was regarding the response of the students was to wonder whether the "don't resist" policy we've been teaching for years really made sense anymore. My friend argued that the students were just following normal instincts, while I contended that culture and our attitudes towards guns played into it, too.

Via Instapundit, I found an article by Marc Danziger in the DC Examiner that expresses what I meant as well or better than I could. In the wake of VT, it's really critical that we re-examine our recommended response to an armed assailant. Cooperation may no longer be as safe as we once assumed (if it ever was).

OK, at the risk of giving him more attention than he deserves, I have a question...

Is there anyone on the PLANET who was surprised that Alec Baldwin would shout nasty things at someone...even his daughter?

I mean, NEWS FLASH!!! ALEC BALDWIN IS A JERK!

For this, we interrupted coverage of Anna Nicole Smith? Oh wait, that was last week. This week was Rosie. Jeez, I love popular culture.

...as if any more were necessary. Behold...Cooking with Bubba!

And as a side note, has there ever been another former elected official who was more of an attention junkie than Bubba? Really, I think he was always more interesed in being the Celebrity in Chief (thus the "boxers vs. briefs moment, playing sax on Arsenio, etc.) than in actually running the country. If only that were the case with Hillary...then we could just get her Rosie's slot on The View, and not have to worry about the disastrous effect her policies would have on the country. But Hill's always wanted power more, while Bill loves the spotlight.

According to this story, USC students disarmed and held for police a fellow student who had been asked to leave a party and who had threatened a woman.

After 9/11, our collective attitude about hijacked airplanes changed. No longer could we assume (if we ever could) that the hijackers would release their captives if their demands were met. If, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, we recognize that we cannot trust our safety to the unknown intentions of an armed assailant, I think that will be a step towards preventing a repeat occurrence.

This item, from Andy McCarthy on NRO's The Corner, is a grim reminder of why the makeup of the courts matter.

WARNING: Graphic and disturbing descriptions of abortion...but ones you should read, nonetheless.

An awful thing happened at VT this week. A clearly unhinged person murdered more than 30 people, and in that act, demonstrated once again the inanity of the notion that policies against guns at schools, or banning guns in general, do nothing to prevent those who flout the law from committing heinous acts.

Of course, there's no guarantee that if someone at the scene had been armed they would have been able to stop this madman, but can anyone doubt it would have improved the odds? This VT grad student sure seems to think so.

Meanwhile, John Derbyshire, on NRO's The Corner, wonders why none of the victims appears to have tried to take down the shooter, despite his having been armed only with pistols. While potentially opening himself up to accusations of blaming the victims, I think he has a point. Have we managed to raise a generation of Americans who don't understand that if someone points a gun in your face, you need to assume that they plan to use it?

Just as 9/11 taught us the folly of assuming that if you just cooperated with hijackers they'd let everyone go once their demands were met, one would hope that the horrific attack at VT would teach us that following the typical advice...cooperate with a gun-wielding attacker and don't resist...is no longer an acceptable option. It's understandable that if you have little time to react and have been told over and over that it's dangerous to resist an armed assailant you would tend to submit. Is that what happened here? I don't know. But it's hard to explain how this happened otherwise.

In the wake of this terrible event, I hope that we look carefully at the cost of both policies that leave potential victims defenseless, as well as at advice that tells us not to resist someone who may have less interest in taking our possessions than in simply taking our life for unknown (and perhaps unknowable) reasons.

My prayers go out to the victims and their families. Regardless of how or why this happened, none of them deserved this fate. May they rest in peace, and may their friends and loved ones be comforted in their loss.

Not to mention a clever way of recapping the week's news.

In an earlier post, I pointed to an article on American Thinker about the problems with compact fluorescent bulbs, and also proposed a spoof of the "got milk" ad campaign to highlight the issue of mercury in CFLs.

Now, American Thinker has been kind enough to pick up the graphic and put it on their homepage. My thanks to AT for their interest.

American Thinker has the story.

Perhaps we should start an ad campaign...Got Mercury?



Feel free to pass the above image along, if you're so inclined.

UPDATE: I wanted to add a link to the Wikipedia article on CFLs, which confirms the 5mg figure cited in the graphic I created, and which is referred to in the article I link to. Note that the Wikipedia article also claims that the overall output of mercury from a CFL should be less, given the theoretical reduction in emissions from coal-fired power plants, than using incandescents. I find this conclusion dubious both in its merits and in its applicability to me personally.

On the merits, the conclusion assumes a direct reduction of emissions from coal-fired power plants, an assumption that isn't necessarily justifiable, as it may not take into account the percentage of US power being generated by non-coal sources, the additional power requirements in China due to the need to add manufacturing capacity for more CFLs, and other issues. And given that China is hardly a paragon of environmental responsibility, one would reasonably assume that both manufacturing of CFLs and powering of the plants are likely to be dirtier there than they would be here in the US.

On applicability, even if one accepts the argument that the overall mercury load represented by CFLs is less than that of incandescents, one has to look at the problem of waste handling. If an incandescent bulb in my home breaks, I need only worry about finding and cleaning up all the sharp glass. If a CFL breaks, I have to worry about toxic heavy metals. If the mercury load from incandescents is largely or entirely based on emissions from coal-fired plants, it's much easier to deal with by improving scrubbers or other emissions technologies, compared to figuring out what to do with potentially millions upon millions of spent CFLs, not to mention educating consumers that they cannot safely just throw them into the trash.

So it seems to me that even granting the best possible assumptions for CFL supporters we are going to end up trading mercury emissions in US coal-fired plants for:

1. Mercury emissions from Chinese coal-fired plants
2. Mercury pollution at CFL facilities in China
3. Mercury pollution in the US waste stream

This just doesn't seem like a wise trade-off to me.

This story is pretty nasty. You have to wonder (or perhaps the answer is obvious) whether the cloak of anonymity (or even semi-anonymity), combined with a level of remove from the impact of one's actions, leads people who normally wouldn't think of threatening or attempting to intimidate others into doing so online.

Regardless of the cause, it's foul, and I hope those responsible end up prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As with the now-infamous Deb Frisch, who inadvertently made herself into an internet buzzword (along with losing her job, and probably any prospect of a future career) by threatening the child of a blogger she disagreed with, these sick pups should suffer some consequences for what should be, in a decent society, actions that are completely out of bounds.

I suppose that all depends on whether you're a worker that wants a union or not. As the Center for Union Facts web site amply demonstrates, there are many workers for whom unions are not so great, and for some, deadly.

...after failed abortion.

It's hard to know where to begin with this one. While one must acknowledge how painful it would be, having made the decision to abort, to find that you're still pregnant, it is nonetheless utterly appalling that someone would even consider such a suit.

Imagine for a moment that you are this woman's child. At 2 years old, she is currently too young to be able to read news coverage of her mother's suit. But does anyone really think she won't find out about this when she's older? What would it do to a child's psyche to know that not only did her mother not want her (while this may not be an accurate depiction of the mother's state of mind, it is nonetheless how a child would see it), but that she filed a lawsuit over the mistake of her daughter's existance (I'm not claiming that's really the intent of the suit, but given how children view the world, that's not an outlandish interpretation)?

I can't imagine what that would be like, and I can only hope that the mother who filed the suit didn't take the time to consider it. Because while it would be awful enough to have been so thoughtless, it would be even more awful for her to have gone ahead with the suit having fully considered the implications for her daughter.

No, I'm not talking music. Having grown up in Ypsilanti, MI, about a half-hour east of Detroit, a fixture of my youth was pop (called soda here on the east coast), and not just any pop, but Faygo, which is celebrating it's 100th anniversary.

I remember enjoying many a bottle of Faygo in my youth, especially Red Pop (although a competing pop, Mello Yello, was a close second for pop-chugging contests). It's truly a mid-west and American classic.

Faygo is one of many immigrant success stories from early last century...I have to wonder whether the Feigenson brothers would have had the same success if our government had bent over backwards to accomodate them in continuing to speak Russian, rather than learn English, and our society put more emphasis on their "diversity" than on their hard work, innovation, and productivity.

Hats off to Faygo...go crack open a Red Pop!

H/T The Corner

A bit off the beaten path, this post doesn't deal with politics or anything similar.

Rather, I wanted to share a bit of a cautionary tale for those, like myself, who are either trying to lose, or in the process of losing, extra weight.

Some years ago (around 1999-2000 or so), I felt that I had gotten a little beyond a reasonable weight, so I embarked on the Atkins diet at the encouragement of a co-worker (who later moved on to The Zone, and did very well on it), and lost around 30 pounds or so. I mostly didn't mind the restrictions of the diet, and all was going reasonably well until my wife and I bought our first house, at which point the craziness of moving, unpacking, etc., made cooking at home regularly unrealistic for a period of a few weeks.

This being before many restaurants carried low-carb options, this effectively meant dumping Atkins. Of course, I promised myself to start back up once we were settled in the house, and of course, I failed to do so. The upshot of which was that I gained the weight back, and then some (remember, kiddies, Atkins requires a change in your dietary habits for life...it's not something you do short-term).

Flash forward several years. Around August of last year, I realized (again) that I really needed to do something about my weight. I was carrying far more than I should have been, and not only felt terrible, but looked bad, too. So I resolved to make a change.

I took a look at my dietary habits and realized that I was eating foods that didn't make sense (buttered toast with cinnamon sugar, for example) and eating much larger portions than I needed. Rather than take on a major shift in the foods that I eat (as with Atkins), or severely restrict my caloric intake, I decided to try an approach whereby I mostly removed some items from my diet (particularly high-calorie or high-fat items), and scaled back the portions of others. There wouldn't be any foods that I would cut out 100%, necessarily, but I'd be more cognizant of the impact of eating them, and limit how often they graced my plate.

The good news is that it's working. From August through the end of 2006, I lost nearly 40 pounds, and feel and look much better.

The bad news is that it appears that in part because I lost the weight so quickly, I may have exacerbated a problem that most of us have...gallstones. According to the folks at WebMD.com, gallstones are very common, though many people who have them have no symptoms. WebMD also notes that the risk of gallstones can be increased by rapid weight loss, and also by subsequent unintentional weight gain.

So while I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that my diet was responsible, it seems likely that due to my earlier Atkins experience, and subsequent weight gain, followed by my recent weight loss, was responsible for a gallbladder attack I experienced on New Year's Day of 2007. If you've never experienced such an attack, it's hard to adequately describe. Just imagine a sharp pain so intense that it's hard to breathe, and that no position (sitting up, prone, etc.) will relieve. I ended up taking an ambulance ride to the local ER in the middle of the night. Thankfully, with the administration of oxygen, the pain resolved on the way.

After a series of tests confirmed both the presence of gallstones, and problems with gallbladder function, my doctor recommended, and I proceeded with, laparoscopic surgery to remove the gallbladder. Thankfully, the gallbladder is not a critical organ, and the surgery went well, so I should be back to normal as soon as the incisions heal completely.

I hope that folks reading this who are attempting to lose weight will take to heart the caution about keeping to a reasonable pace, and consult your doctor about your weight loss plans. I am fortunate, both that the option exists to have the surgery laparoscopically (using several small incisions, rather than one large one), which dramatically reduces the recovery time, and that I only had one attack.

I certainly don't regret for a minute losing the weight, and I hope that this time, because of the approach of making more moderate changes to my diet, I'll be able to keep the weight off. But I hope that others can avoid going through the pain I experienced, since it's not really a necessary part of the weight loss process.

...hooking up, that is.

At least according to an email sent out recently by the Harvard Dean of Freshman Activities, entitled "Hooking Up: Hot Hints For Making Your Harvard (or Future) Sex Life Great."

Ignoring for the moment the stunning impropriety of a school administrator encouraging destructive sexual behavior (for those of you who've been living in a cave, "hooking up" makes one-night stands look like long-term relationships), as a college graduate myself, I don't seem to recall anyone around me needing the school administration to help them with their sex life. Now granted, I didn't attend an Ivy League school like Harvard, so perhaps things are different there, but is this really something that a Dean at Harvard should be spending their time on?

Hat Tip: Phi Beta Cons

John Podhoretz thinks so. If it's not the worst, it surely must be in the top 5. It's just awful, featuring a live-action Snow White, Rob Lowe singing, and Lily Tomlin being unfunny.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MC6Teda0y8A

Don't mess with grandpa...

After a long battle with cancer, Doug Reilly, a colleague and co-author, has died. His wife shared the news with his many friends, colleagues, and fellow geeks via his blog, which she took over recently as his cancer progressed to the point where he could no longer do so himself.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Jean, and their children Tim and Erin, and particularly to Doug, who was one of the bravest men I've known. He lived his life in the face of a rare form of cancer that he has battled with for years. And he did so without complaining, and with humor and good will that were remarkable.

Doug, you will be missed. Rest in peace.

This article describes how an off-label use of the medicine in the sleeping pill Ambien has allowed many patients supposedly in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) after injuries to their brains to speak, walk, and even carry on some more advanced physical activities like running and horseback riding.

The article is a wonderful example of the sometimes accidental benefits of modern pharmaceutical medicine, and should also serve as a caution to those who attack the supposed "greed" of the pharmaceutical industry...without which (the profit motive, that is), drugs like Ambien might never have been developed.

It should also serve as a reminder that we don't yet know everything about how the brain works, and that perhaps those who advocate terminating treatment and/or support for those diagnosed with PVS need to consider the morality and ethics of such a decision in the face of clear evidence that many people who appear to be completely unresponsive are nonetheless aware and retain cognitive ability.

But more than anything, the article is wonderful for its tales of families reunited with loved ones they thought lost forever. May more such reunions occur thanks to the work of these caregivers and researchers.

Discover Magazine has a list of five lessons we should learn from the Avian Flu outbreak. Strangely enough, "don't buy into pseudo-scientific hype and doom-and-gloom stories" doesn't appear in the list.

What's more, many of their "lessons" (#5 starts out "We are at the mercy of viral evolution.") could be construed as buying into the notion that we barely dodged a bullet in avoiding a major avian flu pandemic. The subhead of the article, "Work, Watch, Wait, Worry, and Wonder," only reinforces this impression.

But the article does contain the illuminating fact that fewer than 150 people worldwide have died as a result of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, making avian flu even more ridiculously overhyped than SARS was in its day (something I noted here, and here).

One would have hoped that a magazine purportedly reporting on science would have turned a little more skeptical eye on the subject, but perhaps that's just too much to hope for these days.

It's long been clear that there are major, systemic problems in the academy. But the University of Texas professor described in this article truly takes the cake. Austin is no doubt one of the most liberal cities in America, and doubtless has more than it's fair share of both students and teachers who think that Bush is responsible for genocide against Muslims for going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So you'd probably expect that they'd be a little concerned when one of their own advocates killing off 90% of the world's population. Well, as far as I can tell from the article, you'd be wrong. Not only does the "nutty (but dangerous) professor" not get condemned by either students or his peers, his peers in the Texas Academy of Science named him a 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

If this is what passes for science, I'll take some superstition, thanks all the same.

Last month, I posted a link to a powerful article in the Washington Post that described the increasing trend towards aborting children with physical disabilities, such as Down's Syndrome. Today, the post publishes a chilling profile, entitled "One Woman's Choice," of a woman who aborted her son after her doctor informed her that he would be born with Down's.

While I would not for a minute underestimate the challenges and the pain that can come with raising a child with disabilities (even profound ones), I find statements like this one terribly troubling:

We don't want a life like that for our child, and the added worry that we wouldn't be around long enough to care for him throughout his life.

It seems to me that such statements are less a reflection of concern for the child than concern for themselves. You often hear that justification...that the choice to abort is made to save the baby from suffering. Count me as one who doesn't buy that justification. I think that abortion increases suffering for all involved...including parents who honestly believe that they're doing the right thing (that this may be on the advice of their doctor is a topic for another discussion entirely).

Judging from her defensive tone, I'd imagine that this woman's suffering over the decision was rather significant. It's unfortunate that she so misunderstands the beliefs of those of us who are pro-life, as evidenced by this statement:

I'm sure pro-lifers don't give you the right to grieve for the baby you chose not to bring into the world (another euphemism, although avoiding the word "abortion'' doesn't take any sting out of the decision to have one). Only now do I understand how entirely personal the decision to terminate a pregnancy is and how wrong it feels to bring someone else's morality into the discussion.

This is mixed up on a number of levels. I'm not aware of any pro-lifer who would deny a woman the right to grieve for a child she chose to abort...in fact, many would grieve with her, and offer her counseling as a survivor of abortion. They would also profoundly regret not having had the ability to counsel her beforehand and perhaps help her to see that there are other options available that would not have required her to grieve at all. And the bit about "someone else's morality" is a fine example of how post-modern sensibilities have rotted away what was once a core part of society, the idea of shared values and morals.

Abortion, more than most issues we face today, is corrosive of our values, and divisive in a way that few other issues are. Despite having spent most of my college and early adult years as a reluctant (and misguided) supporter of abortion rights, it's hard to understand the mindset that views aborting a pregnancy as necessary, yet at the same time feels the need to use euphemisms to describe not just their support for abortion (pro-choice), but also for abortion itself ("the appointment", "the procedure", "the baby you chose not to bring into the world"). I don't think these euphemisms exist entirely because these folks fear the response of rabid pro-lifers. I think it's because on some level, there's a regognition that aborting a baby, even one who will grow up disabled, is wrong.

If you see a veteran today in your travels (or any day, for that matter), why not take a moment to say "thank you" for their service to our country?

Thanks to all of our veterans for the sacrifices they've made and continue to make to protect our freedoms and our lives.

Reading this story in the Toledo Blade about rioting in the wake of a planned (but not actually completed) rally by a neo-nazi group in Toledo, the question that comes to mind (apart from why idiot neo-nazi groups continue to pursue their warped agenda, for which there is probably no coherent answer) is why we, as a society, continue to excuse inexcusable behavior.

The rioters didn't attack the few (apparently around 15) actual neo-nazi rallygoers who showed up. No, instead, they went on a rampage against police, and against innocent business owners, and in the process, destroyed parts of their own neighborhood. Toledo's police chief excused the rioters, saying "there’s a lot of anger among young people living in that neighborhood". Well, duh! But guess what? There are a lot of angry teenagers everywhere. Anger is a pretty major portion of the teenage personality. But not all teens go on rampages and attack police and innocent bystanders. So perhaps something else is missing...perhaps something like society's expectations for their behavior.

Whenever there have been riots, particularly in black communities, we seem to collectively rush to analyze and attempt to address the "root causes", whether poverty, racism, etc. What if one of the "root causes" is that we've tacitly given permission to riot by not clearly and forcefully stopping them, and by excusing them after the fact?

The mayor of Toledo, meanwhile, minimized the riots, saying:

“I don’t think it’s going to have a lasting impact...No one was killed. I don’t believe anyone was seriously injured. There was a crowd-control issue. There was milling around. After talking with them, and them deciding to desist, we had the place cleared. It was done. There were some arrests made. And that’s the way it should have been handled.”

Tell that to the business owners who were victimized by rioters and looters. I'm sure that the owner of Jim and Lou’s Bar, which was ransacked and then burned down by rioters, will take great comfort in the mayor's confidence about the minimal "lasting impact" the riots will have.

The rioters managed to accomplish discord, destruction, and damage to the city's reputation that the neo-nazi group could never have managed on their own. It's entirely possible that sowing discord was part of the purpose of the neo-nazi rally and, if so, they are to be condemned for it. But Toledo residents could have chosen to protest the neo-nazi rally peacefully, and to demonstrate the triumph of unity over divisiveness. Instead, some knuckleheads took it upon themselves to trash the place, ruin the livelihoods of people who had nothing to do with the rally, and embarrass their city. If the law-abiding citizens of Toledo, the police, and the city administration don't hold those knuckleheads accountable, they are effectively saying that what happened was OK. More importantly, they're virtually guaranteeing that it will happen again someday.

Interesting and creative site on human rights. Important to remember that removal of certain human rights has historically made others much easier to trample.

This one?

Or this one?

It's getting increasingly difficult to tell, isn't it?

This is kind of scary:

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

No, they're not talking about the current demon, Global Warming. That's Newsweek magazine talking about that other climate change, global cooling, just 30 years ago. Hmm...perhaps the thing is that climate is, well, variable?

Makes one wonder what environmental doomsday scenario we'll be debating in 2035.

OK, this ad campaign manages to combine breathtaking moral ignorance with appalling poor taste. To even remotely link a murderous thug like Che Guevara with the Prince of Peace strikes me as the height of blithering idiocy. I don't have any issues with someone promoting the notion that Jesus was a revolutionary in some sense, but the poster at the above site either reflects a profound lack of insight on the part of its creators, or an attempt at being "edgy" or "hip" that is grossly inappropriate, IMO.

[via Impromptus]

Really important article for anyone considering supporting calls for "anti-gouging" legislation or policies:

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04816.cfm

This is a really good explanation of the role that prices play in times of scarcity, and why rising prices actually help, not harm, consumers. One really critical bit:

When the product becomes scarce, however, additional information is added in the form of increased price that represents notice from the producer to the consumer that he may not be able to supply every customer with the full amount of the product desired. The customer is then more able to balance his wants with his needs and, again taken in aggregate, the market will respond to the scarcity by reducing its demand to meet the expected supply.

Good stuff. Read the whole thing.

According to this article, it would appear that the negative effects of our profligate consumption of fossil fuels has extended even to another planet. OK, so perhaps the article doesn't quite come out and say that, but it does note that "for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress". And since we all know that climate change is caused exclusively by man's burning of fossil fuels and the resulting greenhouse gases, it must be our fault that Mars appears to be warming, right?

Unless of course there's another explanation for the climate change on Mars, perhaps changes in solar activity. But then that can't be, either, since that might mean that we're not at fault for warming on Earth, and according to the global warming crew, there's simply no doubt any longer that the Earth is warming and that we're to blame.

It's not clear how yet, but it must be President Bush's fault that a Democrat Congressman from Louisiana used National Guard resources, including troops, trucks, and a helicopter, "to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings" at the height of the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina. I mean, everything else about Katrina (including it's purported origins in "global warming") is Bush's fault, so why not the appalling behavior of a congressman from the opposition party?

Kudos to ABC news for reporting on this. It will be interesting to see whether any additional attention is paid by the rest of the mainstream media, given their apparent preference for a "blame Bush" story on Katrina.

 

I want the government (the feds in particular, but in this, probably the states as well) to get out of the business of subsidizing risky behavior.

I'm not going to hold my breath, however, given the way that the U.S. Congress is collectively falling all over itself to send as many taxpayer dollars to the gulf region for "rebuilding" (never mind how much of what's committed will actually be used for that purpose).

So here's my prediction, though it pains me to say it: We're going to see more Katrinas, and more suffering of the kind that Katrina prompted, because we are so busy attempting to appear "compassionate" that we are ignoring the plain fact that people respond to incentives, subsidies, and costs in fairly predictable ways.

If the cost of living near a flood plain, below sea level, or on the beach is that every few years you must bear the cost of completely rebuilding your home, how likely would it be for you to choose to live in one of those places? Likewise, does anyone really think that, absent government mandates, any private insurer would willingly insure properties at risk of being destroyed that regularly?

The problem is that when we isolate individuals from the costs associated with the risk decisions they make, it's not just costly in terms of dollars, it costs lives. It's not compassionate to ensure future suffering by subsidizing risk today, and those who argue that debating the wisdom of massive subsidies for rebuilting New Orleans is wrong are completely missing that point.

Although these words probably won't be read by anyone currently dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, it needs to be said that our prayers are with all of the victims, as well as with those currently attempting to rescue those still in danger. What a horrific disaster. We also pray that those who have been taking advantage of the chaos to loot will come to their senses and show their better natures.

Contribute via Catholic Charities...make sure to check if your employer will match your donation, as this can really increase the amount of aid available.

UPDATE:

Bump for participation in Katrina charity blogging day.

Captain's Quarters has a charity post that the Captain is updating throughout the day.

Instapundit has one as well.

NZ Bear is aggregating recommended charities from bloggers.

Mark Steyn makes his charity recommendation, and donates proceeds from book sales through midnight eastern time tonight to relief efforts (note that you have to order through his website).

Flood Aid on Technorati

Hurricane Katrina on Technorati

...well, not so much. I don't normally read the NY Times, in part because of their ingrained leftward tilt, and in part because they're one of the many newspaper sites that require registration to read most of their stories, but this story (via Instapundit) on the looting in the aftermath of Katrina had a quote from a NO public official that caught my eye:

East Baton Rouge Parish officials agreed to send 20 buses with special weapons and tactics officers to help evacuate New Orleanians, but only if a state trooper was also placed on each bus. The plan was scuttled.

"I told them I don't mind committing drivers and vehicles, but I wasn't going to put our people in harm's way," said Walter Monsour, the chief administrative officer of the parish.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't SWAT officers, almost by definition, people whose job it is to be in harm's way? There's no way of knowing from the article what the opinion of the SWAT officers was on the proposed plan, but Mr. Monsour should hang his head in shame. Unlike the NYPD and FDNY during 9/11 (as well as the blackout that hit NY a few years later), Mr. Monsour's response to a crisis of epic proportions seems to be "screw 'em".

My take is that if looters start shooting at police cars and ambulances, or (as has happened once already) shooting cops who try to stop them, you respond with overwhelming force. You don't stop this kind of thing by wringing your hands and trying to keep people sworn to enforce and uphold the law out of harm's way.

I know it's not entirely fair to judge people who are, after all, responding to an extraordinary crisis. But if we learned anything from 9/11, it's that it is possible for both individuals and leaders to rise to the occasion and make the best of extreme situations. While we should recognize that people are only human, and forgive them for their shortcomings, we should nontheless demand better of our public officials than some of the shameful conduct we are seeing during this crisis.

Oh, and good on Paul Cosma and those like him who are prepared not just to defend themselves and their property but, as the story describes, to face down some of the thugs attempting to take advantage of a bad situation:

Paul Cosma, 47, who owns a nearby auto shop, stood outside it along with a reporter and photographer he was taking around the neighborhood. He had pistols on both hips.

Suddenly, he stepped forward toward a trio of young men and grabbed a pair of rusty bolt cutters out of the hands of one of them. The young man pulled back, glaring.

Mr. Cosma, never claiming any official status, eventually jerked the bolt cutters away, saying, "You don't need these."

The young man and his friends left, continuing the glare. A few minutes later, they returned and mouthed quiet oaths at Mr. Cosma, and his friend Art DePodesta, an Army veteran, who was carrying a shotgun and a pistol.

Mr. Cosma stared back, saying nothing. Between the two sides, a steady trickle of looters came and went, barely giving any of them a look.

Kind of a contrast with Mr. Monsour, no? I guess Mr. Cosma figures he's already in harm's way, so what's a little more risk, if it helps keep the chaos down.

UPDATE: I wanted to add one more thought...although I find the attitude of Mr. Mansour troubling, it's becoming more and more clear, as time passes, that the animals who are running riot in New Orleans are the ones who are really to blame. Those who would attack old folks' homes, hospitals, etc., shoot at cops, carjack, and steal, are preventing rescuers from getting to those who are desperately in need of help. These people must be stopped, even if that means sending in U.S. military units.

Hurricane Katrina on Technorati

Well, it's back. No, not the actual SARS virus. I'm talking about the latest hyped threat to mankind, the Avian Flu, aka Bird Flu. Not since SARS have we gotten so worked up about a disease with such a relatively small impact on humans.

One need only do a quick internet search to recall the breathless predictions of impending doom that accompanied the SARS virus as it attacked around the world. Only trouble was...it turned out to be a dud, relatively speaking. Without diminishing the sad loss of those who died of SARS, it's key to note that according to the WHO, between November 2002 and July 2003, when SARS reporting was at it's most breathless, fewer than 1,000 people died of SARS worldwide. This is fewer than the average for regular flu deaths each year (and considerably fewer, if you believe the CDC's estimate of 36,000 deaths per year from flu).

So is Avian Flu the next SARS? It sure seems like it to me. According to the CDC key facts on the Avian Flu, "it is thought that a few cases of human-to-human spread of H5N1 have occurred." No specifics are provided, so it seems that this may be little more than speculation. Despite this, we're seeing public health officials and scientist worry publicly that we're on the verge of another flu pandemic, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed millions.

Some of the stats and statements used to hype the story include:

• About 100 million domesticated birds -- mostly chickens and ducks -- either have died of the virus or have been intentionally killed to keep the viruses from spreading (source - Washington Post, 08/23/05). What they don't tell you is how many died of the virus versus being killed to prevent the virus from spreading. If most died of the virus, that might make the 100 million number more alarming, but we can't tell based on the information provided, can we?
• 112 people have contracted the bird flu, most or all via contact with infected fowl. Of those 112, more than 50 percent have died. That sounds pretty alarming, doesn't it? Especially when the article reporting the story says that this "outstrips any human flu epidemic on record". (WaPo again). The problem is that this information alone is next to useless. A 50% death rate in a population that small could be nothing more than the statistical equivalent of noise. If more than a handful of the approximately 56 people who died were elderly, suffering from other health conditions, etc., or were unable to get appropriate health care, it would certainly skew the statistics, wouldn't it? But again, we're not given any information about those who died.
• Robert G. Webster, an expert on animal viruses, is quoted as saying that an avian flu pandemic "is just inevitable. One of these is just going to blow."

It's important to notice a couple of things going on here. One is that the stories about avian flu (as with SARS before it) give us just the alarming bits, without providing any accompanying details (such as the pre-infection health status of those who have died of the virus) that might mitigate the alarm. The other is that those who are touted as the expert sources for such stories are almost inevitably people who have skin in the game, so to speak. That is, folks like Robert G. Webster make their livings based on public and private support for their research. It is, therefore, in their interest to make their research seem as important as possible. Does that mean that I think Webster is lying about the threat posed by the avian flu? Not at all. But human nature being what it is, I think it's reasonable to assume that someone whose professional life revolves around the theory of avian (or other animal) flu strains being responsible for flu pandemics is going to be assiduous in promoting that theory. Add to that a media always on the lookout for something with which to frighten their readers and viewers, and avian flu looks to be the next SARS...at least until the next virus threat rears its ugly head.

So after a long hiatus, and a switch to a newer version of the blogging software I use, Duthie on... is back. Still have a little tweaking to do, but I'll be posting more frequently again soon.

UPDATE: Tweaking's pretty much done. Looks like I've managed to get the URL back to what it was before the downtime (though I'll have to check the search engines and see if any of the links work from there), and make the blog viewable from outside. Now it's time for some more content.

UN Peacekeepers sexually abusing young girls in the Congo, some as young as 13.

Between this and the oil-for-food scandal, I'm wondering why no one other than Norm Coleman is calling for Kofi Annan to resign. He's been singularly ineffective in preventing suffering around the world, and has clearly presided over myriad abuses by UN functionaries and peacekeepers. Time to go, Kofi...

An excellent, if harsh (but justifiably so) rejoinder to some inappropriate humor.

[via InstaPundit]

Merry Christmas, and a healthy and happy New Year to all 3 of my readers. :-)

May all your holiday wishes come true.

And a special wish for all the members of the armed services who must be away from their friends and families: May you receive special blessings this Christmas season, and return home safely, and soon.

 

As I've written about before, I have been more and more aware of just how much of our consumer goods are manufactured in China, which is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which being the fact that the Chinese government uses political prisoners for forced labor, and then ships the resulting products to the United States.

One area in particular that I've been quite insistent about avoiding Chinese goods is in Christmas decorations. Given the persecution suffered by Christians in China, supporting the Chinese government even indirectly with my Christmas decorating is simply not acceptable. So I've been on a quest for Christmas lights that aren't made in China, with almost no luck until earlier this week, when I found some lights sold at my local Michaels store, under the GE brand. Normally, Michaels is one of those stores that I find wanting in this area, since even their Independence Day and patriotic decorations were mostly made in China when last I checked.

But I was next door to Michaels picking up office supplies, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised to find several varieties of non-Chinese Christmas lights and lighted decorations. Among them were:

• Lighted Snowflake Set
• Super Sphere (these come in several colors, but the only one they had was green...I would assume they're all made in the same place, but if you're also avoiding Chinese goods, you should check the label to be sure)
• GE 'Constant On' Lights (I bought blue, red, green, and multi, all of which were made in the Phillipines...they also sell clear, but didn't have those in stock at the store. They may also be made in the same place, but again, best to check)

I also managed to find some neat decorations at Home Depot that do not appear to be made in China. My local Home Depot has the classic (I admit some might say 'tacky') plastic light-up snowmen (large and small), Santa Claus, and reindeer, made by a company out of Norfolk, VA. So it's not entirely impossible to find Christmas decorations that aren't made in China (though you should probably forget about any mass-produced stockings...just about every single one I've seen, apart from a couple at Pier 1, are made in China), just difficult. Perhaps if more people avoided the stuff from China, retailers and wholesalers would get the message. One can hope, anyway.

UPDATE:
Unfortunately, the news isn't as good as I thought. While the GE 'Constant On' lights that I bought at Michaels are made in the Phillipines, a bunch that I bought online thinking they were all made in the same place turned out to be made in China (argh!). Don't make the same mistake. Don't order online unless you can verify with the merchant that the ones they stock are the ones that aren't made in China. Very frustrating, though I guess that's what I get for making assumptions.

Those of you who know me, know I'm a big fan of video games. I have mixed feelings about certain genres, such as first-person shooters, and there are some games that I think are simply beyond the pale. A good example of this kind of game is the Grand Theft Auto series, in which your goal in the game is to carjack, rob, rape, and murder. Another is a game series in which you play a professional assassin. Ick.

In a furtherance of the trend towards pushing the envelope ever further, a Scottish game developer has announced the release of a game that provides players the ability to re-create the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Now, I'm no big fan of the Kennedy clan, but I think this is disgusting, despicable, and horribly insensitive. That the game's developer could say that they “had nothing but respect for Kennedy and for history” strikes me as either the most clueless statement of the year, or the biggest lie of the year. Either way, I hope that this company suffers in the marketplace for such classless, grotesque pandering to the vilest instincts of their customer base.

The Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) has the some comments about a post by NRO's Jonah Goldberg on the topic of TV and abortion, in which Jonah makes the observation that Hollywood seems to portray the decision to keep or abort a baby as having the power to make the difference between whether the child is, in fact, a child, worthy of caring for and reading to in utero, etc., or merely a clump of cells to be discarded. In response to Jonah's points, Instupundit makes the following analogy:

I realize I'm not quite addressing Jonah's argument here, but it's not so shocking that a single decision like that might change, if not a person's moral status, at least the constellation of duties that someone has in regard to them. A classic example (and one that I've always meant to write a law review article about, but never gotten around to) has to do with abortion and the duty to rescue.

At common law -- and still, pretty much, the law generally -- there's no duty to rescue. The classic example, in fact, involves a man walking down the sidewalk and observing a baby drowning in a half-inch of water. Even if the man could rescue the baby with no risk and minimal inconvenience to himself, he's under no duty to take any action at all, and can simply keep walking without facing any penalty beyond moral condemnation.

But if he decides to help, and takes action, then he becomes obligated to follow through and must exert all reasonable effort (short of risking death or serious bodily harm; inconvenience doesn't generally count) to save the baby's life and leave it in a position of reasonable safety. The analogy should be obvious here.

Perhaps he thinks the analogy is obvious. I disagree. In fact, I think his example is not apt at all, as it ignores completely several salient factors. One obvious one is that in the vast majority of cases, the mother must bear some responsibility for becoming pregnant in the first place. Apart from situations involving forced sexual relations (which is a topic for another time), the mother is not at all like his stranger walking down the sidewalk and discovering a drowning baby. The other obvious factor ignored in his example is that a mother and her unborn child are physically linked in a way that isn't addressed at all in his example. Finally, taking a legalistic approach to “duties to rescue” seems rather cold and calculated. Perhaps the man in the example would indeed not be legally liable for allowing the baby to drown. But one would certainly hope that he would be shunned and shamed and condemned for his inaction, at the very least. Is this what Reynolds thinks should be the fate of women who choose to abort their children? I don't think that's what he's saying, of course. But that's a more apt lesson to take from his analogy than that a mother has no legal obligation to “rescue” her child from a decision to abort. Perhaps it makes more sense if you're a lawyer (I'm not, of course).

Today is Veteran's Day. Please take a moment out of your day today to thank those who have served this country and who have paid with their bodies the price of freedom.

4,435 Americans died in the Revolutionary War^[1].

116,516 Americans died in WW I.

405,399 Americans died in WW II.

36,576 Americans died in the Korean War.

58,200 Americans died in the Vietnam War.

382 Americans died in the Persian Gulf War.

500+ Americans have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The total number of casualties for these and other major US conflicts is approximately 639,997. May they rest in peace.

But now, given the unhappy anniversary we mark today, consider another statistic:

Over 40,000,000 Americans have died from abortion^[2]. More than 40 million. That’s nearly 7 times the number of Americans killed in all foreign wars combined. That’s more than double the population of the entire New York City metropolitan area. That’s nearly twice the population of Iraq. That’s two-thirds of the population of the United Kingdom.

So the next time you hear someone bemoaning the number of troops we’re losing in Iraq, perhaps you might consider reminding them of a more tragic statistic:

Forty million…may they rest in peace.

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^[1] http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/WCPRINCIPAL.pdf

^[2] http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortionstats.html