A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Bill Whittle (who I really should add to the blogroll), in a long essay, slices and dices today’s spoiled empty-headed celebrities.
[Update]
Doh!
Great minds think alike, I guess.
I just noticed that Asparagirl used exactly the same title to post this, and beat me by a couple days. I won’t change mine, because I’m too unimaginative right now to come up with a better one, but I’ll just leave this note as a nod to her first use.
Over at Welch’s site, an email buddy of his asks:
The entire pundacracy [sic], including in the blogisphere [sic], is seriously out of touch with mainstream opinion. Every pundit I have read so far is either for an attack on Iraq regardless of the U.N., or against an attack on Iraq, regardless of the U.N. Has any opinion-giver out there come out in favor of an attack only if the U.N. approves? Like, apparently, half the American population?
Well, half the US population is unacquainted with the fact that the earth orbits the sun, and would be unlikely to be able to point out the location of the UN headquarters on a map of Manhattan, let alone a globe (or at least that’s my recollection of the rough number the last time I saw a poll on the subject), so I’m not sure that’s a very good criterion to use to determine whether or not bloggers and pundits should agree with a position.
I think that most realistic and thoughtful people, along the political spectrum, have come to realize that the UN in its present form is an anachronism–a relic of the post war and the Cold War, now over for more than a decade. Further, to the degree that it is relevant at all, the UN at this point is primarily useful as a tool for other policy ends, and given the stakes of taking out Saddam by force, or not, whether or not the UN approves is indeed a marginal issue.
Last fall’s activities by Powell and Bush, forcing the UN to finally become serious about its own resolutions with respect to Iraq, were not just a last chance for Saddam, but a last chance for the UN as well. If we end up having to go into Iraq without the UN’s approval (though by the plain text of SCR 1141 we truly already have it), or are perceived to have done so, and are successful, it will probably be the end of that institution.
In a follow up to my post about the numbers not adding up for the efficacy of Total Situational Awareness, Jay Manifold has a mathematical proof that anyone who opposes TSA should also oppose gun control.
On “Fox News Sunday” this past Sunday, Juan Williams played devil’s advocate for the “peace” protestors, and managed to come off sounding almost as dumb as they do. He said that the Administration still hasn’t shown any connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda (making the implicit, and mistaken, assumption that this is necessary in order to justify regime change in Iraq as part of the “War on Terrorism”). Therefore, he concluded, it must be about…wait for it…ooooiiiiillllll.
Now, to be generous, let me just say that there are several steps missing in the logical sequence that would result in such a conclusion, but he was right about one thing.
The Administration in fact hasn’t made a good coherent case for why we’re taking out Saddam, in the context of the “War on Terrorism.” This is because we aren’t really engaged in a war on terrorism, which is only a tactic, any more than we’re engaged in a War on Boxcutters, or a War on Bellybombs, or a War on Shoebombs. We are, of course, waging a war on Islamic fundamentalism, and particularly that variety of it that continues to emanate from Saudi-controlled Arabia which, for short, we can designate Islamism.
I think that the Administration recognizes the reality, but fear that they can’t state it clearly, both because it would tip off our enemies as to the ultimate war aim, and because they may fear that they won’t get support from the public if it’s stated sufficiently baldly. That aim is to completely remake the Middle East, as I noted in my previous post, below.
I think that they’re wrong, and that the public will accept the premise that we are engaged in a struggle of ideology just as important, and just dangerous, in its own way, as the ones we faced against Nazism and Stalinism in the last century, and won. He has an opportunity in next week’s State of the Union address to start to expand on previous statements, and to make that case.
It will, unfortunately, require a little backtracking, because he has been so adamant since the WTC atrocity to say that our war is not against Islam. The reality is that it is, at least against a particular sect of it, and at some point we will not be able to fight it effectively if we don’t open declare it.
I would like to believe that the appeasement of the Saudis up to this point has been not just the product of entrenched Arabists in Foggy Bottom, and long-time Bush family connections with the House of Saud, but also a delaying tactic until we were ready to confront them head on. Once Iraqi oil is flowing freely, its proceeds going to build a democracy in Irag, rather than funding palaces, dungeons and WMD, the Saudis will no longer be able to threaten us as the swing oil producer. At that point, I hope that they will receive the appropriate ultimatum, which is to shut down the madrassas and democratize, or join Saddam.
There is a liberal democratic case to be made for this war, just as there was for the second world war, and the Cold War. It’s time for the Administration to start making it, forcefully, coherently and persuasively.
Which is just a long way of saying that Tom Friedman has made a start at helping them do so.
That stupid lawsuit against McDonalds for making people fat has been tossed out of court.
The EU says that we can’t go into Iraq without UN approval.
Well, I guess that settles it. Might as well have the ships turn back.
More and more, as I look across the Atlantic, it seems to be through a looking glass.
There seem to be multiple delusions going on here. First of all, we already have UN approval. SCR 1441 was carefully crafted by Powell to ensure that was the case. But the Europeans continue to fantasize that there is a need for another resolution (one that the French can therefore block by veto), when they lost that battle in October.
I guess that they’re in denial. If they were to no longer believe this, they’d have to confront the reality that they’ve made themselves utterly irrelevant. They’d no longer be able to pretend that they were players on the stage of world events.
But here are the other major delusions:
Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, EU president until the end of June, said a war would harm peace and stability in the Middle East.
Speaking after a meeting with visiting Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, Simitis said:
“We both estimate that peace (in Iraq) must be preserved. We both believe a conflict will result in delaying many developments and is a conflict that will not benefit stability and peace in the region.”
This supposes that “stability” is a positive attribute in a hellhole. After all, a grave is stable.
It also postulates that there is some existing “peace” in Iraq that is preservable, and that it is desirable to preserve it.
Take the second first. Can a country whose government terrorizes its own citizens, that has Al Qaeda guerillas attacking the northern parts nightly (the parts not under Saddam’s control), be properly said to be at peace? Not in my book. There will be no peace in Iraq as long as Saddam or one of his partners in monstrousness are in power there, and as long as Al Qaeda has safe haven in Iran from which to attack the Kurds in the north.
The Middle East is not at peace now, and will not be until there are wholesale changes in governments there. Thus, stability is not our friend, because it’s the stability of constant warfare by the regional governments against their own people (and particularly their women), some of which spills over into attacks on us, as we saw a year and a half ago.
We want to, we must destabilize the present Middle East–it’s the only hope of restabilizing it into something that offers hope for its inhabitants, and true peace, for us as well as them. As the old saying goes, sometimes, the only way out is through.
The Eurocrats who would perpetuate the notions described above are not contributing to peace, any more than did Neville Chamberlain sixty five years ago. Their course of delay and obfuscate would just make the ultimate necessary outcome much more difficult and costly in human lives, as did his.
Trent Telenko says that we are already at war with North Korea, and we’re quietly winning.
I just saw Gary Hart interviewed on Hannity and Colmes. Glenn’s right–he’s definitely the most formidable candidate that the donkeys could put up against Bush, and he might beat him if circumstances are right, particularly given the lame home security policies of the Administration, which are extremely vulnerable to attack from, well, a non-idiotarian perspective.
The only silver lining is that the Dems would probably be too dumb to nominate him.
Many people are confused about the difference between genotypes and phenotypes, and the relative effects of genetics versus environment in creating the latter. The genotype is the genetic information, and by Dawkins’ “selfish gene” theory, this is what “attempts” to replicate itself. (I use quotes around the word “attempts” because genes don’t really have any sense of purpose, or anything else.)
The phenotype is the body–the expression of the genotype in the physical world that is used to do the actual replication.
Much of the opposition to cloning stems from the assumption that the genotype is a blueprint , or specification for the phenotype, and fully describes the phenotype. In fact, blueprint is a poor analogy. Genes are much more akin to a recipe. That is, they’re not a plan–they’re a procedure. First grow this, here, next grow that there.
The difference is crucial, because if something is built to spec, it will, by definition, be very similar to another thing built to that same spec. A recipe, on the other hand, can come out dramatically differently, depending on the type of kitchen, available materials, the mood of the cook, etc. Two people can follow the same recipe and come out with different results.
The same applies to the expression of the genotype–the phenotype. Even identical twins have different retinal scans and fingerprints, so clearly they weren’t built to a specification–there’s nothing in the DNA to describe the exact configuration of the whorls and loops on the thumb.
What does this mean? It means that clones may, in fact, end up not being very similar to each other, meaning in turn that the fears about, e.g., armies of superwarriors are overblown. Identical twins share both genetics and the womb environment, so they are indeed close to identical, but even they will have distinct differences, as anyone who knows twins well can tell you. Two genetically-identical individuals gestated in entirely different environments may turn out to be dramatically different, to the point that it’s not at all obvious that they’re even related.
This has always been the theory.
Now apparently it’s the practice as well.
The first cats to be cloned ended up not being, well, clones.
Many people are confused about the difference between genotypes and phenotypes, and the relative effects of genetics versus environment in creating the latter. The genotype is the genetic information, and by Dawkins’ “selfish gene” theory, this is what “attempts” to replicate itself. (I use quotes around the word “attempts” because genes don’t really have any sense of purpose, or anything else.)
The phenotype is the body–the expression of the genotype in the physical world that is used to do the actual replication.
Much of the opposition to cloning stems from the assumption that the genotype is a blueprint , or specification for the phenotype, and fully describes the phenotype. In fact, blueprint is a poor analogy. Genes are much more akin to a recipe. That is, they’re not a plan–they’re a procedure. First grow this, here, next grow that there.
The difference is crucial, because if something is built to spec, it will, by definition, be very similar to another thing built to that same spec. A recipe, on the other hand, can come out dramatically differently, depending on the type of kitchen, available materials, the mood of the cook, etc. Two people can follow the same recipe and come out with different results.
The same applies to the expression of the genotype–the phenotype. Even identical twins have different retinal scans and fingerprints, so clearly they weren’t built to a specification–there’s nothing in the DNA to describe the exact configuration of the whorls and loops on the thumb.
What does this mean? It means that clones may, in fact, end up not being very similar to each other, meaning in turn that the fears about, e.g., armies of superwarriors are overblown. Identical twins share both genetics and the womb environment, so they are indeed close to identical, but even they will have distinct differences, as anyone who knows twins well can tell you. Two genetically-identical individuals gestated in entirely different environments may turn out to be dramatically different, to the point that it’s not at all obvious that they’re even related.
This has always been the theory.
Now apparently it’s the practice as well.
The first cats to be cloned ended up not being, well, clones.