I was reading the Netscape Blog today and came across an interesting post on the politicization of climate science. They report:

More than 120 scientists across seven federal agencies say they have been pressured to remove references to "climate change" and "global warming" from a range of documents, including press releases and communications with Congress.

So out of that discussion I pulled a couple of interesting urls.

The first is from Russia

ST. PETERSBURG, August 25 (RIA Novosti)- Global cooling could develop on Earth in 50 years and have serious consequences before it is replaced by a period of warming in the early 22nd century, a Russian scientist said Friday.

Environmentalists and scientists today focus on the dangers of global warming provoked by man's detrimental effect on the planet's climate, but global cooling - though never widely supported - is a theory postulating an overwhelming cooling of the Earth which could involve glaciation.

"On the basis of our [solar emission] research, we developed a scenario of a global cooling of the Earth's climate by the middle of this century and the beginning of a regular 200-year-long cycle of the climate's global warming at the start of the 22nd century," said the head of the space research sector of the Russian Academy of Sciences' astronomical observatory.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov said he and his colleagues had concluded that a period of global cooling similar to one seen in the late 17th century - when canals froze in the Netherlands and people had to leave their dwellings in Greenland - could start in 2012-2015 and reach its peak in 2055-2060.

Here is a report with links showing the connection between solar activity and climate for the last 1,000 years.

During the Medieval maximum of 1000-1300 there was an extremely large Sunspot which is believed to have warmed the Earth higher than normal. There were no accurate measurements of the weather to call upon during this time but the discovery and colonization of Greenland by Eric the Red supports this hypothesis. Eric was exiled from Iceland for manslaughter and sailed west discovering Greenland. He then led many ships, filled with people who wanted to make a fresh start, to this new land. For 300 years Greenland flourished, new communities settled, trade with other countries grew, and the population increased. Around 1325 the climate cooled down considerably, people started to abandon the northern settlements. By 1350 glaciers covered the northern settlements, and the southern most settlements were dying out as well.

The Sporer minimum of 1400-1510 and the Maunder minimum of 1645-1715 were each known as a "little ice age." They were both droughts in Sunspot activity, and a link to a time of abnormally cold weather on Earth. In addition to finishing off the Greenland colonies, the Sporer minimum showed increased rates of famine in the world, and the Baltic Sea froze solid in the winter of 1422-23. Some of the more notable effects of the Maunder minimum included the appearance of glaciers in the Alps advancing farther southward, the north sea froze, and in London there was the famous year without a summer where it remained cold for 21 consecutive months.

The Sun could start going through a down trend in sunspot activity at any time. We could find ourselves back in a state similar to the Maunder Minimum with decades of much colder weather. Or sunspot activity could increase to an even higher level and temperatures could rise more than the amount some models project as a consequence of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide.

My guess is that the chances are greater for a reduction in sunspot activity than for an increase. Why? Most of the time the planet Earth is in an ice age. This is suggestive of the possibility that the Sun just doesn't put out enough heat to keep the Earth out of ice ages most of the time. Also, the higher sunspot activity reported above is at the high end of an over 1,000 year period. Therefore the odds seem greater that we will have more future years with lower sunspot activity than with higher sunspot activity.

My further guess is that a reduction in sunspot activity would cause more harm to humans than a further increase in sunspot activity. A decrease could put large amounts of farm fields out of production and would reduce the useful length of the growing seasons for other fields. The freezing over of rivers and seas along with snows and ice would interfere with transportation more than higher temperatures would.

He is not alone.

The New Scientist report, along with other scientific assessments warning of global cooling, also come as a blow to the campaign -- led by David Suzuki and one of the directors of his foundation -- to portray all who raise doubts about climate change theory -- so-called skeptics -- as pawns of corporate PR thugs manipulating opinion. If the Suzuki claim is true, then the tentacles of Exxon-Mobil reach deeper into science than anyone has so far imagined.

Dramatic global temperature fluctuations, as New Scientist reports, are the norm. A Little Ice Age struck Europe in the 17th century. New Yorkers once walked from Manhattan to Staten Island across a frozen harbour. About 200 years earlier, New Scientist reminds us, a sharp downturn in temperatures turned fertile Greenland into Arctic wasteland.

These and other temperature swings corresponded with changing solar activity. "It's a boom-bust system, and I expect a crash soon," says Nigel Weiss, a solar physicist at the University of Cambridge. Scientists cannot say precisely how big the coming cooling will be, but it could at minimum be enough to offset the current theoretical impact of man-made global warming. Sam Solanki, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, says declining solar activity could drop global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius. "It might not sound like much," says New Scientist writer Stuart Clark, "but this temperature reversal would be as big as the most optimistic estimate of the results of restricting greenhouse-gas emissions until 2050 in line with the Kyoto protocol."

That was discussed at length at Winds of Change. In fact the discussion basically evicerates the whole cimate change modeling community for over promising on the reliability of their results.

The more I look into this the more I find it is old news. From October of 2000 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).

Although the processes of climate change are not completely understood, an important causal candidate is variation in total solar output. Reported cycles in various climate-proxy data show a tendency to emulate a fundamental harmonic sequence of a basic solar-cycle length (11 years) multiplied by 2^N (where N equals a positive or negative integer). A simple additive model for total solar-output variations was developed by superimposing a progression of fundamental harmonic cycles with slightly increasing amplitudes. The timeline of the model was calibrated to the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary at 9,000 years before present. The calibrated model was compared with geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence of warm or cold climates during the Holocene. The evidence of periods of several centuries of cooler climates worldwide called "little ice ages," similar to the period anno Domini (A.D.) 1280-1860 and reoccurring approximately every 1,300 years, corresponds well with fluctuations in modeled solar output. A more detailed examination of the climate sensitive history of the last 1,000 years further supports the model. Extrapolation of the model into the future suggests a gradual cooling during the next few centuries with intermittent minor warmups and a return to near little-ice-age conditions within the next 500 years. This cool period then may be followed approximately 1,500 years from now by a return to altithermal conditions similar to the previous Holocene Maximum.

More on the 1,500 year solar cycle

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Barcepundit's Jose Guardia links to a fascinating piece on modern art, titled "Admit it - you really hate modern art":

There are esthetes who appreciate the cross-eyed cartoons of Pablo Picasso, the random dribbles of Jackson Pollock, and even the pickled pigs of Damien Hirst. Some of my best friends are modern artists. You, however, hate and detest the 20th century's entire output in the plastic arts, as do I.

"I don't know much about art," you aver, "but I know what I like." Actually you don't. You have been browbeaten into feigning pleasure at the sight of so-called art that actually makes your skin crawl, and you are afraid to admit it for fear of seeming dull. This has gone on for so long that you have forgotten your own mind. Do not fear: in a few minutes' reading I can break the spell and liberate you from this unseemly condition.

Why is it that the audience for modern art is quite happy to take in the ideological message of modernism while strolling through an art gallery, but loath to hear the same message in the concert hall? It is rather like communism, which once was fashionable among Western intellectuals. They were happy to admire communism from a distance, but reluctant to live under communism.

When you view an abstract expressionist canvas, time is in your control. You may spend as much or as little time as you like, click your tongue, attempt to say something sensible and, if you are sufficiently pretentious, quote something from the Wikipedia write-up on the artist that you consulted before arriving at the gallery. When you listen to atonal music, for example Schoenberg, you are stuck in your seat for a quarter of an hour that feels like many hours in a dentist's chair. You cannot escape. You do not admire the abstraction from a distance. You are actually living inside it. You are in the position of the fashionably left-wing intellectual of the 1930s who made the mistake of actually moving to Moscow, rather than admiring it at a safe distance.

That is why at least some modern artists come into very serious money, but not a single one of the abstract composers can earn a living from his music.

Salvador means "savior" and Dalí said he was "destined for nothing less than to rescue painting from the void of modern art." Dalí disparaged modernism (which he saw as lacking respect for craft) as a dead end. He rebelled by infusing contemporary art with virtuoso draftsmanship and painstakingly realistic technique.

The only slight disagreement I might have with Spengler is his statement that "by inflicting sufficient ugliness upon us, the modern artists believe, they will wear down our capacity to see beauty." I'm not even sure that what they are inflicting is necessarily ugliness, because that would require a depiction of something which is ugly -- which would in turn generate an emotion, a reaction. Many fine artists have accurately depicted ugliness, especially human ugliness. Depicting something like spilled paint or a solid black canvas really depicts nothing at all, and I think it's more on the level of nihilism.

By contrast, here are a couple of Dali's depictions of ugly beings, from Hell:

They're meant to be appreciated as ugly.

A leading Dali dealer and art scholar told me that he loved talking to young fans of Dali who had not yet been to college, because they had not yet been taught to hate Dali.

I'm sure the fact that Dali draws bigger crowds than "traditional" modern (forgive me) artists doesn't help endear him to professors either.

MORE: Another advantage that modern art has over modern music is that it's easier to participate in the former than in the latter.

AND MORE: Great news for Dalí lovers! Via Pajamas Media, the Gala-Salvador Dal%iacute; Foundation now has an online catalog of the works of Salvador Dalí. What's great about this catalog is that it lists the works alphabetically, chronologically, and by the location all over the world.

Warning. Some generalizations follow. I can't really help it, because I'm thinking about the way people tend to think, and there's no way to think about the way people think (especially when it comes to things like "values") without generalizing about the way people think.

A lot of people argue over identity politics (and its profitable spawn, affirmative action), but what bothers me the most about it is not so much that it makes the irrelevant relevant, but that it gives it an actual value -- something measurable in terms of wealth. Dollars and sense.

When rewards are bestowed in the form of giving people real and tangible things (like admission to college, preferential treatment in hiring and promotions), the people who get these things can be expected to treat them the way anyone else might treat something of value. If you have something of value, your natural inclination is to fight like hell to keep it. When you're told that you deserve it, this adds a moral justification, and thus a moral "value" becomes a genuine value.

People argue over "values," but they're more likely to go to war over value. The former often supplies a justification for the latter, and when historians look back, they're often confused. Thus, the causes of the Civil War (and many other wars) are still debated.

While it is natural enough to expect someone to fight like hell to defend his property, it helps if he has a moral rationalization. A tenant in a rent-controlled apartment who pays a fraction of its market rent naturally wants what he has, but he'll feel better about fighting for it if he is told that he is good (or "oppressed"), and his landlord is bad ("exploitative"). Pennsylvania has a system of government-run liquor stores which stay in place despite widespread public opposition, because of the lobbying efforts state liquor store employees union, which claims to be "protecting the public." Similarly, the FCC claims that its artificial and outmoded licensing system protects the "public airwaves." So do the licensees, who have paid billions and don't want their licenses devalued.

When moral arguments are used in these and other instances to defeat logical arguments, people spend so much time debating the moral arguments (whether with logical arguments or moral counter-arguments) that they overlook the economic arguments.

Maybe they're uncomfortable with them. Perhaps economic factors are seen as irrelevant -- even immoral -- in the face of morality.

They are not irrelevant. Welfare, affirmative action, rent control, state regulation of alcohol and bandwidth are all someone's bread and butter. To debate the moral issues is fine, although I try to focus on logic. (Logic and morality do not always mix, of course.) Yet in logic, there is no way for me to ignore value as well as values. If someone is getting money, it is not going to be easy to turn off the flow. Money has a way of creating and fueling moral arguments, whether the latter should be there or not. Value often creates values.

Even arguments which seem driven by morality (and "fairness") like same sex marriage have strong economic components. People don't just want the "right" to a piece of paper saying they're married; they want real benefits they see others as getting. Global warming masquerades as "save the planet" morality, but I suspect there are careers, jobs, and vast economic forces behind a regulatory scheme which promises to be the most massive transfer of power in human history. The louder the moral arguments become (in what amounts to a vast international bureaucratic war against carbon), the more suspicious I become that a tangible shift in economic value is involved. If the war on carbon isn't started soon, public opinion might prevent the inevitable power grab, which would be very bad for the emerging new power class. Thus the heavy-handed moral rhetoric has become deafening.

Unfortunately, many of the fiercest proponents of global warming morality cut their teeth by championing an argument against the Vietnam War which many people (myself included) assumed was strictly a "values" argument -- in favor of "peace." While undoubtably there were a lot of sincere people who really believed in peace at the time, many of the peace demonstrators were violent. But that was only because they "believed" so strongly in their newfound peace values. At least, that was what I thought until I saw a sudden and dramatic drop in attendance at the demonstrations which accompanied the end of the draft. This made me suspect a more tangible value was involved -- the value of not risking your life. That's at least as legitimate a value as any economic benefit, but it was concealed by the values argument. And many of the people who did the concealing never admitted what they were concealing, because few asked them whether a very real motivation wasn't simply the preservation of their own lives.

Doubtless, had they been asked (and I'm sure some of them were), they'd have said that wanting to save their skins was "irrelevant." (An argument I have heard.) Really? Their own lives were irrelevant? I doubt it.

I don't mean to generalize about an entire generation of people (because many of them served honorably in the war, and many antiwar leftists have regretted their dishonesty), but some of them developed what I think is a bad habit of imagining that their moral values were more important than other values.

Worse, if these other values (like saving one's skin, keeping a job, keeping a rent-controlled apartment, or building a power base) are sources of shame, it is natural to expect them to be concealed.

When concealed values masquerade as ostensible values, we spend a great deal of time arguing over the less relevant while missing the highly relevant.

Guilford College student Jazz Favor has been cleared by the school and allowed back on campus.

Greensboro, NC -- A Guilford College football player's mom is speaking out, only to WFMY News 2.

Anita Favors, Jazz Favor's mother, says the players and the Palestinan students were friends. She also says at least one of the accusers have already apologized to some of the football players.

Favors says her son was trying to break up the fight between his teammates and the three Palestinian students.

"Our son told us that it was a fight. It started out as an argument and then a whole bunch of people got involved. Jazz was instructed by an official of that school to break up the fight because he's so big and he grabbed a football player and asked him to leave," Anita Favors explained, "In the process of removing the football player he told one of the accusers just run and leave. He was telling everybody just run get out."

An independent investigation by the college is still underway, but Favors says her son has been cleared and allowed back on campus.

Now all Jazz has to worry about is the court case.

The details are murky but I have heard rumors that the fight was over stolen beer and that the "brass knuckles" may have actually been a gold watch. All rumor so far.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

So proclaims the motto of the U.S.S. Hillary Clinton, according to John Birmingham's Final Impact (The Axis of Time Trilogy, Book 3).

I didn't order it, as I'm not a sci fi reader, but in this case perhaps I should make an exception. Not only does Justin say it's great, but when Glenn Reynolds reviewed books one and two in the trilogy (Designated Targets and Weapons of Choice) -- he noted that the author (and blogger) got in trouble for calling Hillary Clinton "the most uncompromising wartime President in the history of the United States."

Stuff like that gets my attention in ways that "normal" science fiction can't, so maybe I should try reading the sequel.

It's probably a good idea to get caught up with history before it happens.

UPDATE: Via Wonkette (where they're outraged enough to manage a Hitler comparison, although they avoided saying "Hitlery") I see that six anti-war demonstrators have been arrested outside Hillary Clinton's office.

Hmmm....

Might these sci fi guys be onto something?

MORE: I guess this sort of thing was inevitable sooner or later.

You know, in the future, everyone will be Hitler for fifteen minutes?

No, I'm not going to copy and paste the offensive image! This armband was bad enough:

Can't we just get along, folks?

Please. Give war a chance.

And don't blame me! Wonkette started it!

ary's "ominous pastels' offensive, as Jan Moir of the Telegraph writes, Ilsa -- She wolf of the SS might be more appropriate:

UPDATE: Sissy Willis has a classic post about Hillary's Pink Offensive, with this picture:

Hmmm....

I see fusion! Confusion! Collusion!

(A Vast Conspiracy of Pink Triangulation!)

The accuseers in the Guilford College fight have finally met with police.

Last Edited: Monday, 29 Jan 2007, 11:21 PM EST
Created: Monday, 29 Jan 2007, 11:20 PM EST

GREENSBORO (WGHP) -- More than a week after a fight on the Guilford College campus, Greensboro police have interviewed the accusers. Three Palestinian students claim members of the football team beat them and used racial slurs during a confrontation January 20.

After two missed appointments last week, the three accusers met with Greensboro Police and the FBI Monday evening at their lawyer's office in downtown Greensboro.

This is the first step in the police investigation. The accusers have filed criminal complaints six football players.

Normally accusers do not do police interviews with their lawyers present. So that is kind of strange. Waiting a week before making contact (time to get the stories straight?) is also not the regular course of action following an altercation.

Not to worry. The Angry Studies people have it under control.

The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project chose to enter the public discourse by issuing a news release Monday afternoon.

"May God grant the Guilford College community the courage and wisdom to name, engage, and overcome their own underlying attitudes and cultural prejudices that led to such a tragic event," read the final sentence of the statement.

I suppose it couln't be the white people thing. Half the accused are black.

A look at the Reconciliation Project statement might be helpful.

We pledge to all the members of that college community our whole hearted support as they seek to deal fairly and compassionately with the students involved in this recent event, but also with the underlying spirit of racism and domination revealed in it---a hate-filled spirit from which none of us in this competitive, fragmented, violence-prone society is free.

We pray that God will assuage the wounds of our three young Palestinian neighbors and grant them many friends whose love and support will transcend the barriers of race and culture and hasten their healing in body and soul. May God grant the Guilford College community the courage and wisdom to name, engage, and overcome their own underlying attitudes and cultural prejudices that led to such a tragic event. May God grant the young men who participated in wounding their fellow students the tough love of honest friends and the necessary guidance and support by which they may be freed from the destructive power of the spirit of domination and the exclusive attitudes that drove them into such violent and hateful behavior.

What if the The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project are tough loving the wrong people? What if they don't have a lock on truth? What if they are really bigots in disguise?

Me? I smell a rat.

Here is how The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project got started. The short version: On November 3, 1979, Klansmen shot and killed five communists.

After digging further into The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project it looks to me like they are a group of "progressive" organizers. i.e. communists. Although the communists did extraordinary work on civil rights, their goal was never the reconciliation of the races. Their goal was to weaken America in the long cold war between the Soviets and the Western world. I think they are still at it.

I checked out some names mentioned at The Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project

More than 1,000 people -- Greensboro residents and national and international supporters -- took part Nov. 13, 2004, in the the 25th Anniversary March for Justice, Democracy and Reconciliation. The anniversary was marked by a collection of other religious, cultural and educational events featuring distinguished guests including Naomi Tutu, the granddaughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, nationally acclaimed playwright Emily Mann and veteran national civil rights activists including Vincent Harding, Elizabeth McAllister and Ruby Sales.

Don't let people fool you when they say they went to Grenada because the communists were taking over. Don't let people fool you when they say that someday they are going into Cuba because that's where the trouble starts. I know what Cuba was like before Castro came to power. I know what it means to be a slave. Don't be telling me about sending our young men to fight communism in Cuba.

The other names mentioned don't seem to have any obvious communist sympathies. If fact Naomi Tutu's father Desmond appears to have been anti-communist.

Desmond Tutu was Bishop of Lesotho from 1976 until 1978, when he became Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches. From this position, he was able to continue his work against apartheid with agreement from nearly all churches. Tutu consistently advocated reconciliation between all parties involved in apartheid through his writings and lectures at home and abroad. Though he was most firm in denouncing South Africa's white-ruled government, Tutu was also harsh in his criticism of the violent tactics of some anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress and denounced terrorism and Communism.

The current cease fire is holding. Except for one killing. So far.

A Hamas affiliated gunman was shot dead in Khan Younies on Tuesday afternoon. Hamas officials are holding gunmen from Fateh responsible for the shooting. It is the first fatality to be reported since the cease-fire came into effect at 3 A.M [local time -which is +2GMT - ed.] on Tuesday morning.

The man killed was an operative of the Al-Qassam brigades, an armed wing affiliated with the Hamas movement, according to Palestinian security sources. The gunman who opened fire at him has not yet been identified.

IMEMC called Fawzi Barhoum, the spokesman of Hamas in the Gaza strip. He stated that apparently some groups of Fateh are not commited to the political leadership commands of Fateh movement, and are still acting on an individual basis.

Give the situation, in another day or two the battles will be raging again.

It looks like the person killed was a Hamas military leader.

Gunmen shot dead a Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and the Islamist group blamed a Fatah-dominated security service for the first killing in the territory since a ceasefire went into effect overnight.

Hospital officials in the southern town of Khan Younis said Hussein Shabasi was shot in the head.

A spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said he was killed by the Preventive Security Service, most of whose members belong to President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction. The security service denied any connection with his death.

It looks like the cease fire is holding. So far. In addition Fatah and Hamas have exchanged hostages.

Rival Palestinian factions have swapped hostages under a ceasefire deal that went into effect hours earlier, largely halting gun battles in which at least 30 Palestinians were killed.

The internal Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip was the fiercest since the Islamist Hamas group, which rejects peace talks with Israel, trounced the more moderate Fatah faction in elections last year, triggering a Western aid embargo.

A total of 20 Hamas and 18 Fatah hostages were freed over a several-hour period, said Samih al-Madhoun, a senior leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah.

"The process of handing over the hostages has been completed," Madhoun said.

The truce agreed late on Tuesday to end five days of fighting seemed to be generally holding despite the killing of a Hamas commander in Gaza on Tuesday.

The ceasefire went into effect after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas met an aide to Abbas.

The bloodshed had derailed unity government talks between Hamas and Fatah and prompted some families in the coastal strip to flee their homes.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

In my post about the Moscow Mayor's comments (that gay parades are Satanic), one of the things that came up was whether Krishna is Satanic.

Here's why I think a lot easier to opine on whether gay parades are Satanic than whether Krishna is Satanic. Because nearly everyone believes in (I mean in the sense of understands that there is) such a thing as a gay pride parade, and that there are gay people. Whether they are Satanic depends on two things:

1. Whether you believe in Satan; and

2. Whether gay parades share a sufficient number of his (or her; depending on the sex of angels) attributes that they can be considered Satanic.

This makes the analogy at least managable, as simple logic can be applied to at least one side of the comparison. One thing exists; the other thing might or might not. Where it gets problematic is the definition of Satanic, because the existence of Satan is not easily demonstrated, and beyond that, the attributes of Satan are by no means universally agreed upon. It has, for example, been argued that Satan is a medieval adaptation of Nature's God Pan (aka the "Horned God"). And of course if the horned god is nature and Satan, then Satan is Nature, and (like nearly all world leaders) we are all Satanic to a certain degree and so on. It's an emotionally charged mess, because of a lack of readily agreeable definitions.

But calling Krishna Satanic makes calling gays Satanic almost child's play. There's a definitional threshold on both sides of the equation. As someone who does not believe in Satan or Krishna, for me to even entertain the idea that Krishna is Satanic (or Satan is Krishnatic) requires a quantum leap in suspending disbelief. It is my opinion that both of these deities are made up. Yet I don't want to disrespect anyone's religious beliefs, so I tend to assume for the sake of argument that both exist. And I must bear in mind that what's fantasy for me is dogma for others. So, while I can entertain the comparison, it's on the level of "Is Santa like Bacchus?" Not satifisying for those who believe in Santa Satan, or for those who believe in Krishna.

Oddly enough, those who claim Krishna is Satanic would seem to believe in both. Does that mean that to them, Krishna is not made up?

To stay with the example, in the case of Satan and Krishna, there are four possibilities:

1. Both Satan and Krishna are made up;

2. Only Krishna is made up, but Satan exists;

3. Only Satan is made up, but Krishna exists;

4. Both Satan and Krishna exist.

How is a reasonable and logical person supposed to choose from the above possibilities? By tallying up the number of people who believe in one or the other, and go with the winner? By looking at the "date of manufacture" to determine which deity was referenced first in human writings? Some combination of both? Or by believing neither without tangible proof? (The problem with me is that while I do believe in God, I am extremely skeptical of human religious writings.)

These sorts of things make it tough to have reasonable discussions. Not that an unreasonable discussion isn't occasionally entertaining. In the early 90s I remember actually spending time in chat rooms! (Yes, true confession time!) Lest anyone think the chatting was all dirty, I remember one time I argued well into the early morning with someone whose screen name is long forgotten, but who wanted to discuss religious issues vis-a-vis homosexuality, which he maintained was sinful. I was feeling very patient, and I thought I had done a great job of making allowances for what seemed to be a substantial educational disparity between us, and suspending my disbelief as best I could. All I wanted this person of unknown age or sex to do was to engage in logical thinking, and after hours (during which he asked me to "please wait") he brought some new person into the chat room who claimed he was the first person's minister. I started over with that person, and the argument turned into demands to know who I was, where I was, and finally, an accusation that I was "Satanic" and had been trying to "trick" the first person. This struck me as grounded in frustration, as well as an unanswerable, ad hominem attack, and I just wanted to sleep. The worst part of this is that I wasn't trying to win an argument. I just wanted to know exactly what this person thought, and it seemed to me he wasn't thinking so much as he was being told what to think. I only wanted to know why he thought it, and that was ultimately deemed "Satanic."

I'll have to say, it ended an argument which could never have been won.

That's because Satan by definition can't win for losing.

Bernard Lewis says that MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) does not work with people who want to be destroyed.

Outdated Cold war concepts, such as mutually assured destruction (M.A.D) are irrelevant when it comes to Iran , because the Iranian president and his circle see such a scenario "as an incentive, not a deterrent," renowned scholar Bernard Lewis said during a lecture Monday evening at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Addressing a packed hall, Lewis spoke after a screening of the film 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'.

"Ahmadinejad and his group clearly believe, and I don't doubt the sincerity of their belief, that we are now entering an apocalyptic age, which will result in the triumph of their messianic figure," Lewis said, referring to the twelfth Imam, Mahdi.

"Muslims, like Jews, believe that there are things you can do to hasten the messiah. M.A.D doesn't work with these people."

Lewis added that the threat of many Iranians perishing in a war did not deter the Iranian leadership, which believes "it would be doing them a favor, by giving them a free pass to heaven."

"Iran is a mortal threat, and one also has to take account of the apocalyptic mood of Ahmadinejad and his circle. Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, has an end of time scenario," the scholar said.

"There is only solution to the Iranian threat, and that can only come from the Iranian people," Lewis said.

I do think that the Iranian people will have to change Iran. However, there are some Iranian people who think that a push from the USA might be helpful.

WASHINGTON - While United States Minister of Defense Robert Gates, along with many specialists on the matter, warn against a military attack on Iran, which in their view will entrap the Iranian people behind the Ayatollah regime, Iranian student leader Amir Abbas Fakhr-Avar believes an attack will have the reverse result.

In an exclusive interview with Ynet, Fakhr-Avar describes his blueprint for how to topple the regime. If the West launches a military attack on Iran , "The top brass will flee immediately. People will come out onto the streets protesting, why are we being bombed? Many of the regime's mid-level officials will shave their beards, don ties and join the (civilians) on the streets."

He testified before the US Senate, met with President George W. Bush and senior administrators in the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as with experts and analysts on Iran, like Professor Bernard Lewis and others.

His message to the West is: Stop supporting the reformists in Iran. Help us topple the Ayatollah regime. He claims the time is right; all that is needed is a push from the West.

Fakhr-Avar believes the revolution can be accomplished within ten months to a year. He does not ask for much from the Americans: "What we really need is the tools," he says. "Cell phones, computers, cameras, publication ability. This is the funding we need for our (revolutionary) activities, to coordinate within Iran and outside."

So what Amir see as his role in the USA?

Our main purpose and help we can give the administration is to help them to decide better. They don't know that society that well, they really don't know the regime or the people. We need to help them - we being the opposition outside Iran.

In my testimony to the senate I told them a few things: Mainly that sanctions will help to make the regime weak, and that they need to put down the regime.

The outside world does not know much about Iran, maybe they know at best 10 percent of what is going on in Iran, what the people's sentiments are. Seventy percent of the population is under the age of 30, but they've had grand experiences. They've been through post-revolution, war, robbery during (Akbar Hashemi) Rafsanjani's era, so-called reform.

Not the mobiles, not the cell phones. They don't have the technology to stop it, and there are too many. Right now they're busy controlling each other's mobiles - the mullahs, so that's why some of these guys are doing it freely. However, landlines, they do control. But mobiles there are problems.

What is interesting is that the rest of the world believes in the information network of the Islamic regime is very strong, but that is not the case. They are extremely weak. They have a very low IQ.

What we need to do then is flood Iran with cheap or free satellite connections. Uplink and down link. I think we have the technology for that.

Ahmadinejad is stupid. We've known him for the past 6-7 years from the political arena in Iran. When he was the mayor Tehran his plans were so stupid that people laughed at him. One of them was to pave the roadway that the 12th imam traveled on. He took all the intersections and removed the traffic signals so everyone can go where they want. A few months later they decided it was stupid and put them all back. It cost something like 2 billion dollars.

Amir says there is a generation gap in Iran.

People in Iran react the opposite of what the regime says. If the regime says it's day, they'll close their eyes and say it's night. Whatever the Islamic regime fights against- that becomes important to the Iranians. I don't represent the entire population of course, but I can give you an idea of what are the sentiments. I was elected by the students and I speak for them. Remember, 70 percent are under age 30.

The older generation is stuck in the 70s, the youngsters speak a language the adults don't understand

The majority of the population don't care for Hizbullah or the Palestinian people, mostly because they see that their money is going to them.

Israel's attack on Hizbullah was they best thing they've done in recent years. It helped to clean up the land from the terrorists, when they don't have land they have no place to run troops, that's why they drove Hizbullah crazy, regime in Iran wasn't happy either.

I hope the Iranian people get the tools they need. And, if necessary, the mullahs get a good hard shove to help them out the door.

I remember reading a few years ago an Iranian stating that if an American attack kept civilian casualties under 1,000 it would be worth it.

Faster please.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Now I'm not sure if magistration is a word. At least in the sense I intend to use it. So what do I mean by magistration? Getting a magistrate to swear out a warrant without any input from law enforcement. Basically a way to get a person jailed with out any evidence except a sworn statement.

Why is this of interest? It has just happened for the sixth time in the Guilford College case.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) -- A sixth Guilford College football player was charged Monday with assaulting a Palestinian student, court officials said.

The arrest warrant states that Rushing hit one of the victims while he was on the floor being beaten by others.

Micah Rushing, 21, of Albemarle, was released on a promise to appear, the Guilford County Magistrate's Office said.

The charges stem from accusations by three Palestinian students who said they were taunted with racial slurs and called "terrorists" as they were beaten by several members of the school's football team just after midnight Jan. 20, according to court documents. Besides assault, the five other players have been charged with ethnic intimidation.

Faris Khader, one of the three accusers, swore out the assault warrant against Rushing, the magistrate's office said. None of the charges against the players are the result of police investigation.

Just a guess, but I think the accusers were jealous of the football guys. What was that old Rolling Stones' song? "I can't get no...."

Here is a recap for those of you who would like to catch up on the case details:
Guilford College Six's Injuries
Palestinians Lawyer Up
Guilford Is A Street In Rockford

H/T reader linearthinker

Cross Posted at Power and Control

The hilarious Chris Hedges (whose views I ridiculed as the "final countdown to Bush Fascism") just can't seem to get enough.

Of what?

Humor, hopes Clayton Cramer, as he waits for Hedge's punchline and links Eugene Volokh's discussion of some truly horrendous anti-free speech remarks by Hedges.

From Hedges' book (American Fascists):

This is the awful paradox of tolerance. There arise moments when those who would destroy the tolerance that makes an open society possible should no longer be tolerated. They must be held accountable by institutions that maintain the free exchange of ideas and liberty.

The radical Christian Right must be forced to include other points of view to counter their hate talk in their own broadcasts, watched by tens of millions of Americans.

More from the Hedges book:

They must be denied the right to demonize whole segments of American society, saying they are manipulated by Satan and worthy only of conversion or eradication....

So where does this leave me?

Who does Hedges think I shouldn't be allowed to call Satanic? Hedges?

Hedges, you are Satanic!

There. I said it. Do I get to go to jail? Or will he just force me to have a leftie co-blogger assigned to criticize what I say? (I guess he means the latter, although the insanity of this is a little mind-boggling.)

From Hedges' NPR radio interview, Volokh has some hilarious quotes. He gets to Rushdoony:

Mr. HEDGES: I think that, you know, in a democratic society, people don't have a right to preach the extermination of others, which has been a part of this movement of - certainly in terms of what should be done with homosexuals. You know, Rushdoony and others have talked about 18 moral crimes for which people should be executed, including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and all - in order for an open society to function, it must function with a mutual respect, with a respect...

JIM: Sure.

Mr. HEDGES: ...for other ways to be and other ways to believe. And I think that the fringes of this movement have denied people that respect, which is why they fight so hard against hate crimes legislation -- such as exist in Canada -- being made law in the United States.

[NEAL] CONAN: But Chris, to be fair, aren't you talking about violating their right to free speech, their right to religion as laid out in the First Amendment?

Mr. HEDGES: Well, I think that when you preach -- or when you call for the physical extermination of other people within the society, you know, you've crossed the bounds of free speech. I mean, we're not going to turn a cable channel over to the Ku Klux Klan. Yet the kinds of things that are allowed to be spewed out over much of Christian radio and television essentially preaches sedition. It preaches civil war. It's not a difference of opinion. With that kind of rhetoric, it becomes a fight for survival....

I'm inclined to agree with Clayton Cramer that it's Hedges who's the fascist. And, just as I agreed with the ACLU that the Nazis had the right to parade in Skokie, IL, I think Hedges has the right to perform his verbal goose steps on NPR.

Without having to allow Fred Phelps equal time.

I'm also hoping this is comedy.

(There's been a lot of it going around lately.)

The Palestinian civil war appears to be raging on. Fighting appears to be heavy and wide spread.

22:43 Jan 29, '07
(IsraelNN.com) Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was unhurt in heavy fighting near his home and office as he called for a halt in the violence which claimed the lives of at least thee more people Monday.

Heavy exchanges of gunfire between Fatah and Hamas supporters were reported earlier in the evening, and a rocket propelled grenade was fired on the Gaza police station a short time ago.

An explosion ripped through the Shati refugee camp near Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's house after nightfall Monday, witnesses said.

There was no immediate word of casualties.

Haniyeh's Hamas and rival Fatah forces have been fighting for several months. In another incident around the same time, security officials said Hamas militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a police station near Haniyeh's office in Gaza City.

Great news. A cease fire has been declared.

Warring Hamas and Fatah factions in Gaza declared a cease-fire early Tuesday, set to go into effect at 3 a.m. local time (0100 GMT,) Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar of Hamas announced.

Zahar spoke after a meeting between PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and a representative of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, with the participation of Egyptian mediators. They flanked him during his statement.

A Palestinian blogger has called on Israel to bomb Palestine. Nope. This is not a joke.

Following the suicide bombing in Eilat Monday, Palestinian journalist Fadi Abu Sada offered his two cents on the attack and the infighting in Gaza through his blog on Palestinian News Network:

"Israel poising to respond on Eilat attack, it could be by the aerial bombardment and artillery, or perhaps they will try to assassinate Palestinian resistance leaders, what a ironically, we really want that to happen quickly, it might be the only solution to stop the bloody fighting between brothers in the Gaza Strip.

"No Palestinian faction, and no one seems to be now able to mediate between fighters, and stop the bloodshed, either Arabs and their calls on the parties to meet in the country, and it does not seem that anyone actually will respond to that, despite the welcome media practitioners.

"It's defective to reach such thinking, to call Israel to stop this shameful chapter in the chapters of the Palestinian case, if there is case still after all that has already happened and is happening.

"But if this is the only option, there is no problem in this, if this will remind the fighters for a moment that the occupation is still perched on us, because it seems to be lost on their chest.

However, I don't think the Israelis will oblige. They have been very restrained of late. What is amazing is that the Sharon Plan for the evacuation of Gaza foresaw all this (not in detail) several years ago. The man is lying in a coma and his plan is working. A true military genius.

That didn't take long. The truce was suppsed to go into effect at 0100 GMT Tuesday. It is now 0414 GMT and the civil war is back on. Note Israel time is GMT +2.

Fighting raged in Gaza Tuesday morning despite a cease-fire declaration by warring factions.

Gunfire and explosions were audible in downtown Gaza City as gunmen from Fatah and Hamas ignored the cease-fire, reached at a midnight meeting between Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and a representative of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

The latest news is that the cease fire appears to be holding for now. (times given are Israeliy time which is +2 from GMT)

Jan. 30, 2007 0:46 | Updated Jan. 30, 2007 9:52

A cease-fire started taking hold in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, after five days of intense Hamas-Fatah fighting that left 34 people dead.

However, previous truce deals struck in recent weeks of factional clashes quickly collapsed, and it appeared unlikely the two sides would comply with all the terms of the current agreement, such as handing over all those involved in killings and abductions.

In Gaza City, gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the night, but the shooting stopped at about 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), several hours after the cease-fire deal was struck

Here are links to the last few Civil war watches. Because you can't tell the players without a score card.

Palestinian Civil War Watch - 10
Palestinian Civil War Watch - 9
Palestinian Civil War Watch - 8
Palestinian Civil War Watch - 7

and a few other items of interest:

Patterns Are Emerging
Very Complicated
Iraq Comes To Gaza
Palestinians Unpopular
Its Official
Pulling Out Doesn't Work
It's A Family Affair

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I don't know whether Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been taking moral equivalency lessons from Dinish D'Souza, but his comments that gay parades are Satanic are attracting a lot of attention. Here's GayRussia's colorful version of the story (which uses the charming translation "Satanist happening"):

Mayor Luzhkov said today that he will not even allow this year's Pride march, scheduled for Sunday May 27.

"Last year, Moscow was unprecedentaly pressured to allow here a gay parade which can only be called a Satanist happening," he said in a speech at the State Kremlin Palace during 15th Christmas educational readings.

"We did not allow this gay parade and will not allow it in future."

Mr. Luzhkov then thanked Patriarch of All Russia, Alexi II, for his support in this difficult situation when, according to Luzhkov, Moscow authorities found themselves in the situation of huge pressure, especially from the West.

He said that is not appropriate "to propagate same-sex love" and "blasphemy, as if it is creativity and freedom of speech".

Nikolai Alekseev, a co-organiser of Moscow Pride, said that he was shocked at the Mayor's outburst.

"We are shocked by the statements of Mr. Luzhkov that "gay pride is a Satanist happening" and consider them as personal insult against the organisers and potential participants of the gay pride," he said.

"Such words in respect to huge number of homosexual people who live in Russia are not worthy of an official of such high standing".

I'm not quite sure about what the specific religious objection is, because unless the marchers are having sex in the streets, what they are doing by parading is advocacy of an opinion about their lifestyle. If the conduct the Mayor is preventing is speech, the question becomes: is Satanic speech prohibited in Russia? I realize Russia has no First Amendment, and I don't know to what extent it is governed by religious law, but even if it was, is there any religious prohibition on advocacy of a homosexual orientation or lifestyle? There is the Leviticus prohibition on certain conduct (lying "with a man as a woman"), but does that prohibition extend to advocating it?

If it is conceded for the sake of argument that homosexual conduct is "Satanic," where is that found? Is it in the Bible, or is it an interpretation? Does it declare only homosexual acts Satanic, or does it additionally declare their advocacy Satanic? If it is a religious argument, there has to be some citation to some text, otherwise it's just an ungrounded assertion of Satanism.

What else is Satanic? Apparently, the Russian Orthodox Church considers plenty of things Satanic, including Hinduism. In a letter to Mayor Luzhkov, the Archbishop of Moscow called the Hindu deity Krishna "satanic":

Respected Mr. Luzhkov - can you really allow the idolatrous disgrace to be erected for the glory of this wicked and malicious "god" Krishna? The construction of this Krishna "temple" is a blatant offense of our religious feelings, and an insult to the millennial religious culture of Russia, where the overwhelming majority of people, Orthodox Christians and Muslims, consider Krishna an evil demon, the personified power of hell opposing God. It is shown that even for Buddhists, Krishna is a negative figure, the head of black demons. Sikhs and Jains also consider him the most formidable demon.

Of course, modern Russia is a secular state, based on secular laws. But can these laws screen our peoples from the judgment of God? Can the Russian Constitution abolish our common responsibility for our acts before God?

Here we have people who (like the Hindus) indignantlly deny that they are Satanists, and claim the term is being hurled against them as an insult. But from a religious standpoint, they would seem to have the same rights as Satanists. As homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia, so they can't be accused of advocating illegal conduct either.

I'd say the Mayor is on shaky secular ground, and I think he might be on shaky religious ground too. Interestingly, as a former Communist Party official, he would have had to have most likely been an atheist, and would probably have been involved in the manufacture (see infra) of new Soviet Communist morality. Now he seems to have switched to the remanufacture of old morality.

I wonder how far it will go. Wife beating was once standard fare in the Orthodox Church. So was (and perhaps is) anti-Semitism.

History shows that times change, and morality changes with time. But there's no certainty about either.

I should be thankful to live in a country with a First Amendment, where calling people Satanists is as American as apple pie.

Let me state here at the beginning that I do not have it in for the Union Pacific, B&O, Southern Pacific or any of the myriad other rail transportation companiers in America. The kind of railroading I'm against is where police and prosectors home in on a suspect and won't let go despite evidence of innocence.

We have seen that in the Duke case where the charges against the 3 Duke lacrosse players is demonstratively false. The accuser's story has changed in very significant ways over time. None of them matching the evidence. The accuser couldn't identify any lacrosse players in the first two line ups. None of her early descriptions matched any of the boys she picked. And on. The case is a bust and yet DA Nifong couldn't quit. He needed the case to win a hotly contested primary election.

However, similar cases are reported all over America. What is unusual in this case is that the boy's parents were in a positioin to fight back. They have good lawyers who have investigated and destroyed the case before it even came to trial. So badly destroyed that the original DA in the case is now up before the bar on charges.

However, most such cases never get the spotlight or the resources this case did. Who gets buried by such tactics? Poor people. Many blacks, hispancics, and poor white trash. Which brings me to the Duke Chapel. Rev. William Barber spoke yesterday at Duke Chapel. A sermon. KC Johnson discusses what he heard.

I decided to watch the webcast of Barber's sermon to hear what he had to say. With copious references to Martin Luther King, Jr., Barber organized his talk around the "devastation of denial" when Pontius Pilate gave into the mob and denied clemency for Jesus.

"The refusal to acknowledge what is right in front of us," declared Barber, "can be devastating," even more so when accompanied by a denial of responsibility to change what is bad. Any "attempt to deny injustice covers us with the blood of guilt," since "all the denial in the world will not save us from ultimately having to face reality." To replace this atmosphere, "what we need today is a theology of truth and not denial."

What he needs to do is turn his whole mind set around. Which is very hard. What Rev. Barber needs to focus on is bigotry free justice. I'm not just talking in a raicial or other similar context. I'm talking about situations where there is a rush to judgement, which in itself is a kind of bigotry. Bigotry is the art of avoiding evidence contrary to preconcieved notions. We know this happens from the numerous cases of people on death row exonerated after many years in prison. We also know the system is reluctant to re-examine the evidence when it is available. Which means that the system thinks it has a lot to hide.

What I think the Rev. should do is join the anti-railroading society. Because, if the prosecutors would pull this on white boys look at how much easier it would be to do to blacks. How do poor people come up with even a retainer for top lawyers?

Rev. Barber needs a serious attitude re-adjustment.

Well any way. We should help our brothers get back on track rather than pick fights with them. It would be the Christian thing to do. Funny thing is I'm Jewish.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

The Carnival of the RINOs has been posted at Dan Melson's Searchlight Crusade.

I am delighted to see so many posts, especially after some post election slump.

Great posts, and a great job by Dan Melson!

Is graffiti is now officically sanctioned? So asks Glenn Reynolds, as he links a report from The Hill about the refusal by U.S. Capitol Hill Police to stop anarchists from graffitiing the Capitol:

Anti-war protesters were allowed to spray paint on part of thewest front steps of the United States Capitol building after police wereordered to break their security line by their leadership, two sources toldThe Hill.

According to the sources, police officers were livid when theywere told to fall back by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Phillip Morse andDeputy Chief Daniel Nichols. "They were the commanders on the scene," one source said,who requested anonymity. "It was disgusting."

The Hill continues:

Approximately 300 protesters were allowed to take the steps andbegan to spray paint "anarchist symbols" and phrase such as "Ourcapitol building" and "you can't stop us" around the area, thesource said.

Morse responded to these claims in an e-mail Sunday afternoon,explaining that the protesters were seeking confrontation with the police.

"While there were minor instances of spray painting ofpavement by a splinter group of Anarchists who were seeking a confrontationwith the police, their attempts to breach into secure areas and rush thedoors of the Capitol were thwarted," Morse said. "The graffiti waseasily removed by the dedicated [Architect of the Capitol] staff, some ofwhom responded on their day off to quickly clean the area."

He added, "It is the USCP's duty and responsibility to protectthe Capitol complex, staff and public while allowing the public to exercisetheir First Amendment rights ... at the end of the day, both occurredwithout injury to protestors or officers."

Yet, the sources who talked to The Hill were furious thatprotesters were not stopped before reaching the Capitol.

I'm not saying I agree with them, but let me (a former Police Review Commissioner who has dealt with professional anarchists up close and personal) play Devil's Advocate.

This might appear to be a clear case of principle, but is it?

That depends on how we define "principle." Is it a matter of principle to wait in a longer line to save two cents a gallon on gasoline? Sometimes, when I weigh these things, I'll decide that saving twenty cents isn't worth my time, and I'll just fill up where there's no line.

An easy example, though, because paying more for gasoline is not a matter of principle.

However, I think a simple weighing process -- which disregarded matters of principle -- went on in the minds of the bureaucrats who gave the order to allow grafitti.

What costs more? Arresting the vandals? Or cleaning up after them?

The latter is far, far cheaper. (In the short run, and depending on your perspective, maybe even in the long run.)

I say this because of my experience with anarchists, and with civilian review of the police. Anarchists are not ordinary people, but true fanatics. Their operating maxim reminds me of an expression attributed to Golda Meir --

"We will show the world that killing Jews is an expensive enterprise."

In a previous post, I quoted from an anarchist who was honest enough to have provided an example of this mindset at work:

....we will battle the authorities with all means that can be used in an anarchist way.

As anarchists, we have no interest in the justice system. Rob says he did not commit the crimes of which he was accused, and we will certainly do what we can to prove this. But from an anarchist perspective, the guilt or innocence of a comrade is not important in determining our solidarity with him or her. This concept of guilt and innocence is just another aspect of the democratic system of justice and law which we reject.

The justice system, justice as it exists in the present society, is a system of judgement, a system which allows certain people to determine that others--whom these judges have never met and know nothing about--should be locked up, forced to give up certain free doms, even killed. Such a system is beyond any sort of reform that could be acceptable to an anarchist, because at its heart it is authoritarian. Thus, an expression of revolutionary solidarity with an imprisoned comrade would be a struggle aimed at the destruction of the justice system.

This requires an understanding of the justice system. It is courts, judges, prosecutors, the entire trial process; but it is also prisons, police, and laws. There is no use in pursuing prison reforms. No matter how gentle and homely a prison becomes. it remains a prison, a place for locking up one who offends the law. Nor are better behaved police of interest to us. No matter how well behaved the cop is, he or she remains the armed protector of state power and private property, both of which the anarchist seeks to destroy. And better laws only reinforce state power. Their purpose is to protect the present social order, to maintain social peace. And social peace is based in the violence of domination and exploitation, the violence of power.

So our struggles in solidarity with specific prisoners such as Rob base themselves in our struggle against the social order. They use the anarchist methods of attack against that social order, not the democratic methods of accommodation and negation.

Who knows? I might keep my job for a day.

Sigh.

In other cave news, Justin pointed me to this report that head lice are now being tolerated in the Oakland public schools:

Under new guidelines, Oakland children with lice or nits will be allowed to stay in class -- a policy that may be a first in the Bay Area.

Oakland officials cited schools in western Australia as their model, saying the policy encourages treatment and is justified.

"There are no serious health consequences or risks of students having head lice," said Joan Edelstein, the district's health services coordinator. "We don't want students to be missing five to 10 days of schools when they pose no risk of harm to themselves or anyone else."

I seem to be obsessed with war news these days. Kind of a morbid fascination. In any case, US forces in Iraq have some how managed to get a group of insurgents to stand up and fight. As usual under such circumstances the insurgents are taking a beating.

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces killed some 250 gunmen from an apocalyptic Muslim cult on Sunday in a battle involving U.S. tanks and aircraft near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, Iraqi police, army and political sources said.

Two Americans were killed, the U.S. military said, when an attack helicopter went down during the day-long battle in what was one of the strangest incidents of the four-year conflict. Iraqi officials said the helicopter seemed to be shot down.

According to one Iraqi political source, hundreds of fighters drawn from both Sunni and Shi'ite communities were still fighting. A Reuters reporter at the scene, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, saw U.S. tanks and heard blasts after dark and an Iraqi officer said F-16 jets were bombing the area.

Details of the day's fighting were sketchy and the origins of the fighters unclear. An Iraqi army source said some of the dead wore headbands declaring themselves a "Soldier of Heaven."

The governor of Najaf province said the group had gathered in orchards near the city and had been planning to attack the main Shi'ite clerical leadership on Monday. It is the climax of the annual Shi'ite rite of Ashura, marking a 7th century battle which entrenched the schism between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam.

Normally guerillas do not stand and fight. As this fight shows it is not to their advantage. Worse, is to fight in the open. They must have been in a very bad position to get into a situation where all they could do is go down fighting.

It is possible that the troop surge is having an effect. Not necessisarily beneficial to the anti-government forces.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

This is the next president of the United States?

DAVENPORT, Iowa, Jan. 28 -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called today for President Bush to "extricate our country" from Iraq by the time he leaves office in 2009, and she also said she knew enough about "evil and bad men" to protect the country from its enemies.

Hmmm....

Not that there's anything wrong with protecting us from evil and bad men. (Or for that matter, evil and bad women.)

I don't want to sound skeptical, but at this point, it's all just talking the talk. (Like asking "Are you a good evil man, or a bad evil man?")

Back in 1939, Billie Burke really knew how to walk the walk!

And if the questioning got tough, she knew how to disappear.

Not in a puff, but in a bubble!

And it never burst.

MORE: Was the "evil and bad men" remark possibly a reference to Bill Clinton? Glenn Reynolds links Don Surber, who wonders about Hillary's "Maalox moment," and thinks she should divorce him:

Every day, hundreds of young women with little babies to feed work up the courage to divorce the rat they married. Hillary should dump him already.

If Britney Spears is smart enough to dump K-Fed, surely the valedictorian of the Wellesley Class of '69 can figure this out.

If she dumps Bill, she might be happier, but she bursts her own bubble. I don't think she can be elected without him.

Of course, bubbles do cause gas.

(Hence the Maalox moment.)

You knew that already, didn't you? Well a little extra darkness has been added.

10:21 Jan 29, '07

IsraelNN.com) Gunfire and rocket attacks by rival terrorists hit a power transformer, plunging the western part of Gaza into darkness. A sixth militia gunman was killed a short time ago as fighting and kidnappings continued despite agreements by Hamas and Fatah leaders to accept mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia.

Hamas militia men kidnapped the teen-age son and nephew of the commander of the Fatah militia in Gaza.

This is no longer just about business. It is about family. It could get really vicious. In fact it has already.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

"Kerry is exactly what the U.S. needs right now."

--Tehran Times, June 2004.

This is not to suggest that Bush is perfect. Far from it. I'm often disappointed in him, and many times I've looked back and asked whether things might have been different had Kerry won.

The answer is yes they would have. I think they would have been worse. The more I read about Kerry, the more I'm glad I didn't vote for him.

But none of it surprises me. It's not as if we weren't warned.

Kerry might be known as a flip-flopper, but he's remarkably consistent on Iran.

Right now, it's looking like this Cox and Forkum cartoon was a full three years ahead of its time:

I don't know whether to call this "Kerry nostalgia," as I tend to think of nostalgia as something pleasant.

Perhaps its post-election nostalgiaphobia.

Or considering that we're in a state of perpetual state of election, maybe that would be pre-election nostalgiaphobia.

UPDATE: I said I was glad I didn't vote for Kerry. But watching his performance on the video here, I'm even more glad. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

UPDATE: Thank you, Glenn Reynolds for linking this post. Welcome all!

Considering the way Democrats (like Carter and Kerry have been acting), no wonder Joe Lieberman is considering endorsing a Republican. (I think that whether the two major party bases like it or not, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be unbeatable.)

Major-General Smedley D. Butler: Common Sense (November 1935) I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force---the Marine Corps.