Rock Me, Amadeus

May 6, 2009 – 11:07 pm

Our friend G. Orcalimbo Jones, during the course of his radio show last Friday, tipped off his listeners to a marvelous Internet resource: a compendious archive of live recordings from the glory days of the old Fillmore and the King Biscuit Flower Hour. It’s called Wolfgang’s Vault, and you can find it here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General, Music and Recording | Comments (6)

Worlds In Collision

May 5, 2009 – 11:24 pm

There was a brief item in the Times today about a court ruling against one James Corbett, a California schoolteacher who, it was ruled, violated the Establishment Clause by dismissing creationism in class as “religious, superstitious nonsense”. This offended the sensibilities of a student of his, Chad Farnan, who sought legal remedy, and got it from judge James Selna, of the U. S. District Court, Central District of California.

I wonder what sort of precedent this will be. While creationism may or may not be, depending on your definition of the word, superstitious religious nonsense, it certainly qualifies as religious nonsense, and it is a pity that a schoolteacher, whose job it is to educate our children, can’t say so.

According to the article, prior decisions have interpreted the Establishment Clause as “prohibiting government employees from displaying religious hostility.” It does seem that Mr. Corbett had some (understandable) difficulty concealing his scorn for this bizarrely persistent mind-virus, and I wonder whether the ruling would have been the same if he had simply explained, in a matter-of-fact way, that creationism is an incorrect account of the history of life. If Mr. Corbett, who is a history teacher, just launched into an insulting screed apropos of nothing, I suppose the kid might have a case (and it seems he did).

But I wonder also if there is, in principle, any limitation on this view of religious protection. If a major religion made comparably daffy claims in other areas — if it were to insist that George Washington was Japanese, for instance, or that an iron bar will float in chicken soup, or that the sun rises each day in Ronkonkoma and sets in Easton, PA — would they have to be “respected” in this way too?

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science, Religion | Comments (6)

Deliverance

May 5, 2009 – 10:37 am

In an update to yesterday’s story, CNN is now reporting that the hapless Samantha Orobator will not face the death penalty after all, because she is pregnant. She became pregnant while in custody, which for a 20-year-old British woman facing capital charges in a Laotian prison probably does not mean that she fell in love and wanted to start a family. One would have to imagine that someone raped her, and it is grimly ironic that he may have saved her life by doing so.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (1)

The Wrong Place

May 4, 2009 – 11:15 am

CNN is reporting a troubling story from Laos, where a 20-year-old British woman is facing possible execution by firing squad. She is charged with drug trafficking, and is alleged to have been caught in possession of heroin at Wattay airport:

Samantha Orobator “is facing death by firing squad for drug trafficking,” said Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve, a London-based human rights group.

Orobator, 20, was arrested on August 5, said Khenthong Nuanthasing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman.

She was alleged to have been carrying just over half a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroin, Reprieve lawyer Anna Morris told CNN by phone from Vientiane, the Laotian capital. “For that amount of heroin the sentence is normally the death penalty,” she said.

Apparently Ms. Orobator has also become pregnant while in custody; one suspects that this is, perhaps, not voluntary family planning.

It’s hard to know what to say about this sad story. If the charges are accurate, then Ms. Orobator’s foolishness in attempting such a thing seems almost Darwinian in scale, though good judgment at age 20 is exceedingly rare. One has to imagine, though, given the venue and circumstances, that there is probably much more to the story (women are often victims of various forms of deceit or coercion in such cases). In any event, execution certainly seems cruelly harsh.

One particularly disturbing aspect of this item is that American readers apparently still need to be told that a kilogram is about 2.2 pounds.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

A Leaky Vessel

May 2, 2009 – 3:50 pm

Today’s news carries a story about the motion picture industry’s seemingly intractable difficulties with illegal file-sharing. This is the same affliction that brought down the record business (and forced your humble correspondent to abdicate his career as a big-shot recording engineer and get a real job), although for the movie industry it is perhaps even more worrisome, as the cost of high-end movie-making has always been higher than that of record-making — more so now, perhaps, than ever.

A lot of clever people have tried to solve this problem, but so far without success; the real problem is that these industries have gone from producing easily protected physical objects (LPs, reels of film) to producing weightless and infinitely fungible packets of information. The only hope (and it is a faint and most likely futile one) lies not with technological advances, but moral and social change — as expressed, in the item linked above, by the director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America, one John Malcolm:

If a person is a true movie lover, they will want to respect the art, the artists and the countless people behind the scenes who make the magic happen, Malcolm said.

And no true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge. I used to be one of the people who “make the magic happen” myself; now I’m writing code for a living. If this forlorn hope is what the industry is counting on, they’d better brace for impact.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (6)

Work That Beak

May 1, 2009 – 10:13 am

The news has been chock-full of exciting and interesting items lately. Today we learn that Harvard researchers, after careful study of video clips of Snowball the Cockatoo, have concluded that we humans are not the only species capable of rhythmic movement. (Indeed, this precious gift does not even extend to all members of our own species, as anyone will know who has ever listened to a roomful of white people clapping along with the band.)

This all might have been obvious, I should have thought, after a moment’s reflection upon the many rhythmic patterns and complexities of birdsong, but the boffins must be more thorough than we laypersons, I suppose. At any rate, it appears the blessing of natural rhythm is shared by “14 types of parrot species and one elephant”. (I am not sure what a “type of species” is, but that must be a very proud elephant, and the envy of his chums.)

The story also informs us that one “Alex, an African grey parrot”, particularly enjoys dancing to drum tracks, but this veers, I think, dangerously close to invidious stereotyping, and we won’t dwell on it.

You can see Snowball cutting a rug (well, the back of a chair, actually) here, and read the story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (4)

Naming Convention

April 30, 2009 – 11:48 pm

It seems the pork industry is not at all pleased with the term “swine flu”. I agree it is hardly a mellifluous name, but their objection is more practical than aesthetic; apparently they are concerned that it is depressing their market, even though you won’t catch the disease from eating pork. Given how poorly informed most people are about most things, they’re probably right.

We had already learned that two other groups who rarely see eye to eye about anything — Jews and Muslims — also dislike the name; they both have an skittish aversion to pigs, which they consider unclean and are forbidden to eat. (That nobody anywhere has suggested that swine flu is in fact clean, or should be eaten, least of all by them, doesn’t seem to matter; they simply don’t want to hear any talk at all of matters porcine, or be reminded that there even are such things as pigs, it seems.)

According to this news item, the pork-packers, giving up on educating the public as to the undiminished safety and nutritiousness of their scrumptious product, are taking another tack: they are trying to convince us that the term is actually a misnomer, and that this new flu has nothing to do with pigs at all:

“This flu is being called something that it isn’t, and it’s hurting our entire industry,” said Dave Warner, communications director for the National Pork Producers Council. “It is not a ‘swine’ flu, and people need to stop calling it that … they’re ruining people’s lives.”

This is audacious nonsense, of course: pigs are indeed a vector for this form of influenza, just as birds were for the “avian flu” a little while back — but you have to admire the industry’s feisty attitude, and that they are not about to be bullied around by mere facts. I expect they are actually well aware that the name is not just a capricious inaccuracy, and has a sturdy connection to the truth of the matter, but, as Mark Twain said, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

As several commenters have suggested, it’s time we had a “Name That Flu” contest. The pork producers have already offered an alternative:

Minnesota is the nation’s third-largest pig farming state, and its health experts said Wednesday they would be calling the illness “H1N1 novel flu” going forward.

” ‘Swine flu’ gives a connotation that really it shouldn’t have, and makes people wonder about eating pork,” said Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Sanne Magnan.

The European Union has followed suit.

“In order not to have a negative effect on our industry, especially under this crisis situation, we decided to call it ‘novel flu’ from now on,” said Androulla Vassiliou, the European commissioner for health.

The “novel flu”? That won’t do at all: the publishing industry is already up in arms about it.

Any ideas?

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

Politics Makes Estranged Bedfellows

April 30, 2009 – 10:33 am

We note that women in Kenya have decided to exert political pressure on a fractious and argumentative coalition government by organizing a nationwide sex strike.

The “soft power” of women is often overlooked in the political and strategic calculation of powerful men, but as I have mentioned elsewhere, if properly organized, a Ghandi-style female satyagraha could be, I think, one of the world’s most effective armaments against fundamentalist oppression.

Read the story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (5)

42

April 29, 2009 – 11:39 am

An item in the news today inquires as to the secret of a happy marriage. Well, I’ve been happily married since 1982, and have some thoughts on the subject.

A married couple are like two moving parts that must operate together, in constant contact, as a working machine. Unlike manufactured parts, however, they are somewhat irregularly shaped, and when they are brought together there is, inevitably, friction.

This can have two outcomes: either the parts are so mismatched as to be incompatible, interact destructively, and the apparatus flies apart, or, over time, the continuous engagement of the two parts smooths away the irregularites, and the machine settles into harmonious and productive operation.

The less friction, the better chance that the parts will manage, over time, gradually to reshape themselves to one another. How then, to provide the necessary lubrication? If there is a single piece of advice I’d give married couples, it is this: choose your battles.

There will always be disagreements: about home, money, travel, friends, food, entertainment, recreation, and a thousand other things. If you want your marriage to last, identify, sincerely and frugally, those things that really, really matter to you — the essential things that you would never be able to give up, or change about yourself, without deep and lingering resentment — and stand up for them. If you can do this honestly, in a spirit of love and generosity, the list will be short. Your spouse’s will be too. This list is also different for each of us, so no one-size-fits-all advice column can tell you what it contains. You have to figure it out for yourself, and it isn’t always easy.

For everything else, give way lovingly, cheerfully, and entirely without anger. You’ve already decided that these are the things that don’t really matter; they are certainly worth nowhere near as much as the happiness of a solid and loving marriage.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (5)

Specter Takes A Swim

April 28, 2009 – 1:00 pm

This is rather a big deal: Senator Arlen Specter has crossed the aisle, and is now a Democrat. This leaves the foundering GOP with its decks even more conspicuously awash, and gives the ruling party the 60-seat, unfilibusterable majority they have been struggling to gain. I hope they use it wisely.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Déjà  Flu

April 27, 2009 – 10:36 pm

For those of us “of a certain age”, this swine flu outbreak (which is all over the news just now: see here, here, and here) is something of a madeleine, awakening memories that carry us all the way back to 1976, and the brief and forgettable presidency of Gerald R. Ford.

It was a strange and dreary time, the middle 1970’s: after the paroxysms and upheavals of the 60’s, and the agonies of Vietnam and Watergate, the nation was spent. The economy, enervated by “stagflation”, gasped for air; the major cities lay crime-ridden and bankrupt; and a rudderless popular culture drifted from fad to mindless fad, with the fashion industry, evidently relieved of all fealty to beauty, good taste, or even fundamental human dignity, creating monstrosities that still, even three decades later, evoke a frisson of horror. Ahead lay Son of Sam, the Hee Haw Honeys, and disco.

At the helm was Mr. Ford, a placid draft-horse of a man, who probably lives on in most people’s memories wearing a “Whip Inflation Now” button and bumping his head on something. In 1976, with an election looming and a wish, no doubt, to demonstrate dynamic leadership, he seized upon the death from influenza of a young Army man at Fort Dix as an occasion for decisive action. Mr. Ford, announcing an impending Swine Flu epidemic on the scale of the Black Death, began an aggressive, and enormously costly, national vaccination campaign. To his credit, the epidemic never materialized, but more than a few people seemed to die from the inoculations themselves. In the end the whole affair was judged, perhaps unfairly, to have been a colossal fiasco, and in November the nation showed Mr. Ford the door, preferring instead to order up four years of Jimmy Carter.

You can read the whole story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (9)

Renewed Interest In Self-Interest

April 27, 2009 – 2:29 pm

According to today’s news, it appears Objectivism’s star is ascending lately, with sales of Ayn Rand’s books up sharply. Readers taking an interest in Randian thought should visit The Maverick Philosopher, where Dr. William Vallicella has for some time now been conducting a searching examination of Rand and her followers. Note also this post over at Mangan’s, in which we learn that Objectivists are not always so objective.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy | Comments (1)

Waka Waka Waka

April 26, 2009 – 11:12 pm

For those of you who have never clicked on the “why waka waka?” link on our sidebar, this site takes its name not from Pac-Man or Fozzie Bear, but from the lyrics to the song Coffin For Head Of State, by the great Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti. Here’s a clip of the song. If you’d like to know more (and learn the song’s sad story) click the link.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Give Him A Great Big Hand

April 26, 2009 – 11:05 pm

Today’s conversation piece at CNN is this comical item, in which an Idaho man seeks a pigeon credulous enough to pay U.S currency for an approximately hand-shaped arrangement of rocks. According to the vendor, one Paul Grayhek, what makes this such a desirable item is that it is a calling-card left in his Coeur d’Alene backyard by none other than God Almighty Himself. (It looks like a rather unexceptional basaltic “trap-rock” formation to me, but what do I know.)

The beauty part, as far as Mr. Grayhek is concerned, is that any prospective buyer (and even taking into consideration the target demographic, it is staggering to imagine that such a dim little fish is indeed swimming around out there somewhere, waiting to be hooked) will not be allowed to cart off the Hand Of God, but must be content to take ownership in situ. We read:

The buyer will “basically be buying the rights, complete and exclusive rights” to the rock, including literary and movie rights, according to Grayhek.

Literary and movie rights! Get me Nicholas Cage’s agent.

By Malcolm | Posted in Religion | Comments (2)

Things Fall Apart

April 24, 2009 – 10:56 pm
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Fall of Pakistan

According to this item at CNN, the Pakistani government is reporting that the Taliban have completely withdrawn from their recent conquests in the Buner province near Islamabad. This is absurd, of course, as no advancing army would willingly abandon territory they have won except as a tactical feint, and given that Pakistan has seen fit so far only to send a ragtag band of poorly trained men to confront the insurgency in Buner, such a move would make no sense.

It seems, rather, that they have simply established control, garrisoned the area with local sympathists, and withdrawn their mobile fighters so as to coalesce their masse de manoeuvre for actions elsewhere, in keeping with a strategy of general disruption. We read:

A Pakistani government official said Friday that the insurgents had completely withdrawn from the district by the end of the week, but a human rights group said people in Buner were reporting that local Taliban remained in the district.

And senior U.S. officials cautioned that any withdrawal by the Taliban was likely meaningless and that the fundamentalist group now holds large areas of the country with the government seemingly unable to stop them.

“We’re certainly moving closer to the tipping point,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on NBC’s “Today” show Friday.

Indeed we are. I am, frankly, surprised how little attention this is getting; it is by far the direst crisis unfolding in the world right now. In the next few days and weeks it is going to get worse, not better, and despite what Fareed Zakaria says, it is very difficult to see just who is going to stop them from getting their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Even if the media still, for the most part, see this as a below-the-fold item, you can be certain that the military do not, and I’m guessing that things are getting very busy in Afghanistan right about now.

All very distracting, of course, right when we need it the least. Almost as distracting as last summer’s Olympics, in fact: interested observers might want to keep an eye on the Caucasus.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (5)

This Thing Of Darkness

April 23, 2009 – 6:56 pm

In today’s Times is an article about who should be directing the plays of August Wilson. Apparently Mr. Wilson, whose plays chronicled the lives of black people in America, felt that only black directors should be in charge of productions of his work. We read:

In life, the playwright August Wilson had an all-but-official rule: No white directors for major productions of his work, which was one reason that a film was never made from his 10 plays about African-American life in the 20th century. “Fences,’ one of the two awarded the Pulitzer Prize, foundered in Hollywood because of his insistence on a black director.

Yet in the years since Wilson died in 2005, an increasing number of white directors have staged his plays, and last week came a milestone: “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,’ which opened on April 16, is the first Broadway revival of a Wilson play since his death and the first ever on Broadway with a white director, the Tony Award-winning Bartlett Sher.

The selection of Mr. Sher by the producer, Lincoln Center Theater, has prompted concern and even outrage among some black directors, who say this production represents a lost opportunity for a black director, for whom few opportunities exist on Broadway or at major regional theaters.

I quite understand why Mr. Wilson would have felt the way he did, and am inclined to agree that he ought to have his way. I do want to ask, though: does this acknowledgment of the plainly evident natural fact that race is a trait-group that can still matter to people mean that there is ever, also, a legitimate place for “outrage” when the colors are reversed?

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (3)

Careful What You Wish For

April 23, 2009 – 2:48 pm

As a PC user and programmer, I’ve had to listen for many years now to hipper-than-thou Mac users telling me how their favorite machines are simply better. Sure, Macs are beautifully designed, with a pleasing integration of hardware and software. But they are also more expensive, and there is a great deal of software for which Mac versions simply don’t exist.

But what really singes my drawers is when Mac users start telling me about how much safer they are. These Bohemian sorts imagine, in their technical naiveté, that this is due to the edgy, creative cleverness of the system’s design, when in fact it is simply because hackers haven’t bothered to focus their energies on a system that is run by only a small percentage of computer users, and an even tinier — utterly negligible, really — percentage of businesses. Apple, with their irritating “PC vs. Mac” commercials, have been nibbling away at this market, but have so far done so while staying, for the most part, under the hackers’ radar.

So it is not without a small, and I hope, forgivable, measure of Schadenfreude that I read this news item, about a new piece of malicious “botnet” software that explicitly targets Macs.

Welcome to the big time, kids.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (18)

The Widening Gyre

April 23, 2009 – 2:29 pm
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Fall of Pakistan

The situation in Pakistan, which we commented on yesterday, continues to deteriorate, and appears to be creating broader alarm. Today Fareed Zakaria, interviewed by CNN, gave a grim assessment:

CNN: Beyond their proximity to the capital, what makes this such a dire situation?
Zakaria: Well, I read that the spokesman for the Taliban told The Associated Press this week that the Taliban would protect Osama bin Laden if he, or any of his brethren, wanted to come into the Swat Valley. The doomsday scenario here is the militants take power in Pakistan, get control of the estimated 100 nuclear warheads that the country currently has and share their new “toys” with al Qaeda. That is highly, highly unlikely, but what is possible is spiraling chaos in the country, which would create more “badlands” in which terror cells can operate more freely.

Mr. Zakaria says that the nuclear scenario he adumbrates is “highly, highly unlikely”. I’m not nearly so confident, and I suspect he isn’t either.

What should be done?

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (1)

Shades Of Night Descending

April 22, 2009 – 11:18 am
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Fall of Pakistan

It should come as no surprise to any that the Taliban, emboldened by its defeat of the moribund government of Pakistan over control of the valley of Swat, now seeks to seize the initiative in its campaign to impose its totalitarian and sadistic Islamic theocracy upon the entire nation.

Last week the architect of the Red Mosque uprising, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was released from detention and immediately gave a speech in Islamabad calling for the overthrow of the secular system and its replacement with Shari’a law; next the new masters of Swat have lost no time in casting away all remnants of civilized law in the conquered region. In a live broadcast, the Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammed announced that there will henceforward be no more appeals of Shari’a verdicts to the state courts. In effect Swat is now entirely isolated from civilization, and its Taliban captors have a free hand to subjugate and brutalize its hapless citizenry, and to impose upon them the odious and wicked religious barbarism that is the object of their ruthless and unrelenting jihad.

Now, in today’s news, we learn that the Taliban — capitalizing upon their gathering momentum, as any good tacticians would — have begun advancing into neighboring provinces. Such are the wages of appeasement.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (2)

Nobody’s Friend Is Nobody’s Fool

April 21, 2009 – 4:19 pm

There are those of us who would prefer that our president not seem quite so eager to be pals with absolutely everyone. The spectacle of Mr. Obama schmoozing gaily yesterday with the grotesque Venezuelan strongman Hugo ChÁ¡vez — a man who is no friend of our nation or culture, and who has missed no opportunity to slander and defame the United States while working to consolidate his fascist dictatorship — was particularly troubling.

Mr. Obama is right to set a more gracious and diplomatic tone after eight years of pugnacious Bush-era swagger, but he seems at times almost eager to usher the United States down from its place at the summit of world leadership. To address as friends or peers nations that are neither is a serious mistake. There are ruthless men in the world — Messrs. ChÁ¡vez, Putin, and Ahmadinejad, to name a few — who will see such blithe and undiscriminating amiability as a sign of weakness. Which is what it is.

Political analyst Gloria Borger articulates these concerns well in an online opinion piece published today. Read it here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (7)

Exit, Pursued By A Bear

April 21, 2009 – 10:29 am

Today, according to this item, is Talk Like Shakespeare Day (i’faith, I had no idea). However, the clay-brained, knotty-pated flirt-gill who composed the headline for the link at CNN’s main page needs some remedial instruction, methinks. The text says, imperatively, “Speaketh Boldly on ‘Talk Like Shakespeare Day’” — but “speaketh” (and the ‘-eth’ suffix generally) is only an appropriate form for the third person, according to the Columbia Guide to Standard American English, which advises us to “use it correctly or not at all”.

I suppose, in a more generous mood, I might have borne it with a patient shrug, but suff’rance is not the badge of my tribe.

[Update: We get results, it seems; the headline has been corrected, and now says “Unleash thy inner bard”.]

By Malcolm | Posted in Language | Comments (6)

Next They’ll Want Health Care

April 20, 2009 – 5:29 pm

CNN is abuzz with interesting items today. Here’s one: former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell is convinced that the US government is covering up the truth about extraterrestrial aliens, and claims that “there really is no doubt we are being visited”.

To have a bona-fide NASA astronaut making such assertions certainly lends a little gravitas to the we’re-not-alone camp, although according to this Wikipedia entry, Edgar Mitchell is not exactly a hard-nosed skeptic when it comes to fringe science and matters of the paranormal.

Anyway, they report, you decide. Story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (74)

The Weight Of Opprobrium

April 20, 2009 – 2:25 pm

When a political movement seeks to control behavior, an important first step is customarily to stigmatize the practice in question as morally offensive. For example, during the First World War, when criticism of the Wilson administration’s policies was suppressed by harsh restrictions of the press, it was common to hear calls for severe punishment, all the way up to execution, for dissenting voices. Likewise, nowadays one must be prepared to face vicious ad hominem attacks if one dares to express skepticism regarding prevailing political orthodoxies concerning multiculturalism, religious “tolerance”, race relations, global warming, etc.

One area where the net has been tightening lately has been obesity; where once it was merely awkward and embarrassing to be fat, in recent years it has come to be seen more and more as a moral weakness. Till now the stigmatization of the corpulent has had to do with health-care costs and a general Puritanism regarding physical fitness, but now a powerful new moral weapon is being brought to bear: it has been determined that being fat contributes to global warming.

This inspired move should provide ample political leverage for progressive social engineers to really get to work. Though we no longer, in these enlightened times, operate debtor’s prisons — after all, personal debt is now the government’s responsibility — dieter’s prisons may not be far off.

Learn more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (3)

Stephen Hawking Hospitalized

April 20, 2009 – 12:22 pm

We note with alarm that Dr. Stephen Hawking is, apparently, gravely ill, and has been taken to a Cambridge hospital.

Dr. Hawking, the extraordinarily gifted mathematician, physicist and cosmologist who holds the same Lucasian Chair of Mathematics previously occupied by such luminaries as Isaac Newton and Charles Babbage, has battled motor neuron disease for decades, and has in recent years been almost entirely “locked in”: unable to speak, and barely able to move any part of his body at all. It is, indeed, quite remarkable — some would say miraculous — that he has lived so long with a disease that usually claims its victims’ lives in a few short years.

We understand that Dr. Hawking’s hospitalization is due to a chest infection; his prognosis is sure to be complicated by his condition. More details will surely be forthcoming shortly.

By Malcolm | Posted in Science | Comments (2)

Fast Forward

April 19, 2009 – 6:48 pm

I’ve written a few posts lately about Ray Kurzweil’s notion of an impending technological “Singularity“, a sort of “omega point” at which exponentially accelerating technological trends will converge, with world-changing effect.

Now Dr. Kurzweil and several others have founded, at NASA’s Ames Research Center, an institution called the Singularity University (modeled on the International Space University), which aims, according to its mission statement, to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.”

As it happens, the Singularity University’s executive director is my friend Salim Ismail, who was a co-founder of PubSub Concepts, a “prospective-search” startup where I worked from mid-2004 until its catastrophic implosion in June of 2006. Salim is one of those people who always seem to be involved in something “edgy” and interesting, and this latest venture is certainly no exception.

Have a look here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Science, Technology | Comments (1)

Drug-Induced Dementia

April 17, 2009 – 4:26 pm

When President Obama won election last fall, many of us thought that his victory might lead, at long last, to a re-evaluation of our nation’s endless, obsessive, futile, puritanical and ruinously costly “war on drugs”. Alas, it appears that this insane policy, which perpetuates the enormous black market and resulting drug-cartel violence that have effectively turned Mexico into a failed state, is not going anywhere soon; we see that Mr. Obama has now announced his intention to “crack down on drug use in our cities and towns.”

The naive opinions of well-intentioned pundits notwithstanding, this is an enormously stubborn, paternalistic and foolish attitude, and I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Obama for publicly endorsing it: as the Harvard economist Jeffery Miron argued in this cogent essay, it is past time for the “war on drugs” to end. I hope Mr. Obama comes to his senses; he will probably need some prodding.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (4)

Sky Show

April 17, 2009 – 2:49 pm

If you enjoy this sort of thing, there will be rather a spiffy celestial display on Wednesday morning. Details here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (1)

Pwned

April 17, 2009 – 10:51 am

From today’s New York Times: a remarkable account of a dramatic nighttime encounter between US troops and Taliban fighters. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (3)

That And This From Info Diss

April 17, 2009 – 10:25 am

For those who like to keep an ear to the ground, Information Dissemination, as always, offers some noteworthy items.

First, it’s beginning to look like al-Qaeda may be putting the squeeze on Somali pirates. And big things may be afoot once again in the Caucasus; it looks like Russia is mobilizing.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (2)

Radical Cheek

April 17, 2009 – 10:06 am
This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Fall of Pakistan

The collapse of secular government in Pakistan continues apace; the jihadist cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, imprisoned for his role in the uprising and siege at the Red Mosque, was freed on Thursday by that nation’s Supreme Court.

At CNN we read:

Addressing Friday prayers in the battle-scarred mosque, Aziz said he was willing to see more blood spilled for his cause.

“My only son was killed for this great mission of Islam,” he told a capacity crowd at the mosque. “If I had 100 sons, I would ask them to die for Islam.”

Aziz was arrested after the Pakistani government laid siege to the mosque in July 2007 to crack down on its efforts to promote Taliban-style sharia law. He was seized while trying to sneak away disguised with a women’s burqa.

He was held under house arrest until Pakistan’s Supreme Court allowed his release late Thursday. It was the latest in a series of concessions by the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to Islamist militants.

I doubt this man has 100 sons, but for however many he has got, I hope he gets his wish. Story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (8)

Calling A Spade A Topsoil Redistributor

April 16, 2009 – 2:19 pm

With a hat tip to Norman Geras, here’s a fine essay by Joe Queenan on the “euphemism treadmill” that is now affecting what used to be called the “War On Terror”.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (3)

KÄ“s Off

April 16, 2009 – 1:15 pm

There appears to be a bit of friction between the US Army and some of its Sikh recruits about whether the soldiers should be allowed to maintain the turban, uncut hair and beard that are emblematic of their faith.

This is likely to be cast as a rights issue, but it is of course nothing of the sort; there is no “right” to serve in the military. The question, then, is whether the Army’s interest in regulating matters of hair and dress — for the sake of both safety and uniformity — trumps any question of religious discrimination, and whether it is in the Army’s interest to make exceptions for certain groups.

My inclination is usually to side with the organization in cases like this; for example, the lowering of physical-strength standards for firefighters so as to admit more women has always seemed to me a triumph of ideology over practical reality. It is the Army’s business to decide how best to maintain an optimal fighting force; if, for example, I were to insist that if hired as a soldier I must be allowed to wear a thong, sunbonnet, and rollerblades into battle, I would quite rightly be told to look for work elsewhere. In my mind, religious strictures are no different: if your religion requires something that is incompatible with the way the Army works, you are free not to join.

The question, then is whether the value of having Sikhs in the Army exceeds the drawbacks of bending the rules to accommodate them, and this is an empirical question for the DoD to settle. In this case, though, the answer might indeed be yes: the Sikhs have a long and distinguished martial tradition, and if they can get a helmet on it may well make sense to allow them to serve.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (7)

Fourth Out

April 15, 2009 – 11:40 pm

For those of you who take an interest in our national pastime: a rare baseball oddity occurred this past Sunday, and our former skipper, Joe Torre, was at the heart of it. Read about it here, and watch the video here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (3)

The Sixth Sense

April 15, 2009 – 11:14 pm

It’s late, and I have been distracted, as often happens, by a conversation at another website — this time an engaging thread at our friend Deogolwulf’s lair on the subject of consciousness and materialism. So for tonight, here’s a glimpse, from this year’s TED conference, of some very clever engineering.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

This Just In

April 14, 2009 – 2:40 pm

The boffins at the University of California have just alerted us that use of Twitter may imperil our moral faculties. Apparently the problem is that no sooner has the popular messaging service delivered to us a 140-character synopsis of some calamity than another “tweet” comes along, driving the old one from our consciousness before we “can fully digest the anguish and suffering.”

In other words, our Twitter stream might look like this:

Tiffany: OMG the new Jonas Bros vid is so freakin awesome (3:17 p.m.)

CAmanpour: Massive flooding, suicide bombings, Ebola outbreak complicate asteroid-impact relief efforts in Darfur (3:19 p.m.)

Jimbo: Hey, I’m gonna go get a beer down at the Baby Doll — anybody comin’?… (3:20 p.m.)

I can see their point: a few seconds before I might have fully digested the moral dimensions of Ms. Amanpour’s entry, I’ve already started thinking about heading off to have a brew with my buddy Jim.

This is nothing new, however; I imagine people made the same glum predictions once upon a time about newspapers (and then telegraphs, radio, TV, etc.). The sad fact is that our moral apparatus, designed to bind human groups at the scale of families, tribes, and villages, is entirely inadequate to encompass all the woes of the world, even if we were to spend the better part of an hour trying.

We read:

New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain’s “moral compass” to process and could harm young people’s emotional development. … “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,” said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

I quite agree that there is a problem here, but I hardly think it has only just arisen with the advent of Twitter. Before I even arrive at my office each day, my survey of the morning paper has already brought to my cognitive doorstep a ghastly summary of tragedy and misfortune affecting thousands or millions of people. Does Ms. Immordino-Yang imagine that by the time I sit down to begin the day’s toil I have, thanks to the comparatively glacial tempo of the newsprint medium, “fully experienced” an appropriate bouquet of emotions about the “psychological states” of entire populations of suffering wretches?

No, the moral erosion lamented in this article — an inevitable consequence of global communication — has been proceeding apace for centuries. Twitter, providing a useful modern convenience, simply makes it available to the increasing number of people who lack the attention-span for television.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Technology | Comments (5)

Ars Schlonga, Vita Brevis

April 13, 2009 – 10:43 pm

We note with sadness the untimely death, at 56, of adult-film star Marilyn Chambers — who rose, as readers of a certain age will remember, to national celebrity back in 1972 when it was revealed that the star of the movie Behind the Green Door was also the familiar face on the front of the Ivory Snow (“99 and 44/100% pure!”) laundry-soap box.

(I expected for years afterward that some waggish porn impresario would shoot a sequel, set in an Indian restaurant, to be called Behind The Tandoor, but it was not to be.)

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Submission

April 13, 2009 – 10:04 pm

In case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about the Taliban’s victory over the Pakistani government in the northwestern valley of Swat, President Zardari today formalized his nation’s abject surrender with a signed document.

This means that the imposition of the Taliban’s barbaric totalitarian theocracy, a central feature of which is the sexually perverted and grotesquely sadistic repression and enslavement of women, may now proceed with the government’s official blessing.

Perhaps “victory over the Pakistani government” misrepresents the facts: in the minds of a great many Pakistanis, and of many in the Pakistani military and intelligence forces, this is no defeat at all, but a battle won.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs, Jihad | Comments (2)

Never Quit

April 12, 2009 – 3:49 pm

The US Navy SEALs have rescued Captain Phillips. He jumped overboard for a second time, and the SEALs (probably, according to my sources, with their “ears on the lifeboat’s hull” and using Drager rebreathers to avoid showing bubbles) shot and killed the pirates in the lifeboat before they could recapture him as they did before.

The situation, in which a ragtag band of men in a lifeboat brought the mighty US military to a days-long standoff, has been a stark example of the difficulty of such asymmetrical engagements. As Galrahn at Information Dissemination explained it a few days ago:

To give some sense of the situation, the USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) is powerful enough of a warship that it could sink every ship in that entire region, destroy every single pirate facility associated with the clan of hijackers involved in the current incident, and blow every aircraft in that region out of the sky.

But this incredibly powerful warship has very few options when the choices don’t include blowing up a specific target. Our restrictive policy that limits the rules of engagement is not compatible with the US Navy technologies that are designed by requirement to blow stuff up. If we are unwilling to adjust our policy to align them with the capabilities of our existing technologies, the US Navy must develop technologies that better align with the policies of our nations leaders. This would, in theory, be part of developing a realistic littoral strategy for surface warfare that addresses littoral challenges during BOTH peacetime and wartime. Surface Warfare is in dire need of new ideas, and the evidence suggests better leadership, or more guidance from leadership, might be needed as well.

Perhaps the game in these waters is changing. Readers who have been following this topic will probably find this article, by one “Herschel Smith”, interesting.

By all accounts Richard Phillips, who offered himself to the pirates in exchange for his crew, and whose spirit remained indomitable throughout his ordeal, is a truly remarkable man, and an authentic American hero. His defiance and resolve in the face of unimaginable adversity should be an example and inspiration for us all.

[Correction: It appears that it was snipers aboard the Bainbridge, not SEALs in the water, who took out the pirates. Each one was, according to DOD, shot in the head.]

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (3)

Bücherdämmerung

April 10, 2009 – 7:51 pm

At work today someone mentioned the Amazon Kindle, and a lively chat ensued. The people I work with are, for the most part, highly intelligent and much younger than I — and they generally, and probably correctly, see printed books as increasingly quaint, and ultimately doomed.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Books | Comments (6)

Speciousism

April 10, 2009 – 12:09 pm

The cult-like animal-rights organization PETA, sparing no exertion in its mission to make a laughingstock of itself, continues fearlessly to explore the remotest frontiers of pop-culture idiocy. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Rubbish | Comments (1)

Movers And Shakers

April 9, 2009 – 3:50 pm

The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, is something of a contradiction: though a Republican, he is a committed nanny-stater. A little while back he led an initiative to outlaw the serving of trans-fats in Gotham’s restaurants, and he offered praise for Governor Patterson’s ridiculous and insulting “obesity tax” on soda pop. Now he is on a crusade to exert control in loco parentis over another of Gotham’s dietary choices: the amount of salt we eat.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (7)

Maersk Line Hijacking: Update

April 9, 2009 – 1:39 pm

There are new facts emerging in the Maersk Alabama hijacking. Apparently an 18-man guard detail is aboard, as reported here and here.

Interested observers may also find this item relevant. And as always, InfoDiss is following the story attentively, here, here, and, with informative background analysis, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (8)

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense

April 9, 2009 – 11:00 am

There is a characteristically penetrating conversation underway over at The Maverick Philosopher on the subject of whether mere thoughts can be morally wrong (Bill Vallicella says yes.)

I’m still mulling over the arguments made, and haven’t had time myself to read all of the latest contributions, so am reserving comment for now.

Go and have a look for yourself, here, at an excellent example of why blogging is perhaps, as Bill has argued, the best medium of all for the practice of philosophy.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy | Comments (2)

Big Game

April 8, 2009 – 4:44 pm

Readers have probably heard by now that a US-flagged Maersk ship has been hijacked by Somali pirates. This is surprising, to say the least; it seems odd that a ship of the Maersk line, which provides logistical services to many U.S. government agencies, would be operating in these perilous waters without adequate security, indeed without at least a “loose” naval escort.

There may be more to this story than meets the eye. Stay tuned.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (1)

Make His Day

April 8, 2009 – 2:36 pm

It’ll be Father’s Day before you know it. Problem is, the old man already has all the neckties he needs — and one “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee-mug is probably enough. But don’t despair: find the perfect gift here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Cassandra

April 7, 2009 – 12:38 pm

Gates of Vienna has posted a video of Geert Wilders’ speech to the David Horowitz Freedom Society in Beverly Hills last weekend. Wilders, as you probably know, has been demonized, not only by Islamists, but also by his own government, that of Britain, and well-intentioned but myopic cultural relativists everywhere, for his commitment to the defense of liberty and Western culture in Europe. At least here in America he still can speak his mind without fear of prosecution.

Watch his speech here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (1)

Wrath And Slaughter

April 7, 2009 – 11:09 am

I have for many years held the opinion, shared by many, that Winston Churchill was the greatest prose stylist in the modern history of the English language. That opinion was reinforced the other day when, in search of a historical reference, I took down from my bookshelf The Gathering Storm, the first part of Churchill’s incomparable six-volume History of the Second World War. The book opens with an introductory description, in two magnificent paragraphs, of the aftermath of World War I.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

In God’s Name

April 6, 2009 – 5:14 pm

Recently the crumbling government of Pakistan handed over the valley of Swat to the Taliban. For those of you who were unaware of what the consequences of that surrender would be — or who need reminding that there is abroad in this world a perverse and despicable religious ideology, as vile an abomination of the human spirit as any that has ever befouled the pages of history — the Guardian has now made available a video of a 17-year-old girl being held face-down in the dirt and flogged as she screams and begs for mercy. Her crime? We read:

Reached by phone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging. “She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross,” he said.

The article, with video clip, is here. See also Tunku Vadarajan’s comments in his column at Forbes, here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Jihad | Comments (4)

‘A’ For Audacity

April 6, 2009 – 2:13 pm

We note that a British-owned ship has just been hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. This bears watching: the British, however much their star may have fallen in the world, do not fool around when it comes to matters naval, do not look kindly upon piracy, and will not have forgotten that it wasn’t all that long ago that their command of these waters was absolute.

Those with an interest in this sort of thing should probably check in over at Information Dissemination to see what pops up.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (6)

Great Success!

April 5, 2009 – 5:02 pm

In an important step toward bringing the noble and vitalizing spirit of Juche to faraway worlds, the peaceable space program of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea took a great leap forward today with the launch of a mighty rocket, carrying a glorious payload of prosperity and self-reliance into space.

Meanwhile, the running dog lackeys of bourgeois capitalist imperialism have convened an emergency session of their paper-tiger “Security Council”, which will no doubt issue another of its meaningless “resolutions” for the children of our Dear Leader to ignore.

At a historic moment like this, we should all reflect on the immortal thoughts of our beloved Great Leader:

Let’s take revenge a thousand times on the US imperialist wolves! Let’s create a social impetus for enjoying wearing our national dress!

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (5)