Quote for the day

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

   Carl Sagan

Remembering Belsen

The London News-Telegraph has an excellent story on an interview with Lieutenant Randall, who is still alive and kicking. Here's an excerpt:

After 30 minutes alone in Belsen, Randall and his driver were joined by another SAS Jeep carrying the squadron commander, Major John Tonkin, and his squadron Sergeant-Major, Reg Seekings, an SAS veteran of North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. ''Seekings was a very tough man,'' Randall says. ''He had been with the regiment almost since it was formed and had been an army boxing champion when in the Guards.''

As the four SAS men stood looking at this pitiful and horrifying sight, they were approached by Josef Kramer, the camp commandant, and a woman in a dark blue uniform. "Kramer introduced himself and the woman, Irma Grese, responsible for the female prisoners, and to our astonishment offered us a guided tour of the camp,'' says Randall. ''We followed them. We pushed open the door of one of the huts and were overpowered by the stench. Emaciated figures peered out at us, in fear and surprise, from the rows of bunks. Lying among them, on the same bunks, were dead bodies.''

As they came out of one of the huts, the four men saw a camp guard using the butt of his rifle to beat up a prisoner. "Reg Seekings turned to John Tonkin, and asked permission to intervene and teach the guard a lesson.'' This was granted without hesitation. ''So Reg went over and hit the guard in the face. He got up and was then knocked out by another punch to the head. Then Tonkin ordered Kramer and Grese into the guardroom, and said, "We are now in charge, not you, and any guard who attempts to treat a prisoner with brutality will be punished."

It's infuriating enough for me, but it must be particularly horrible for men like this when modern "liberals" compare our soldiers in Iraq to the Nazis...

Sandmonkey

I ran across the Sandmonkey blog while doing some Googling, and right from its slogan it caught my attention:

Rantings of a Sandmonkey

Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off.

I was researching what the Michael Moore crowd were thinking now about the "Bush invaded Iraq to get the oil" theory. Sandmonkey has an interesting post on the matter; an exerpt:

Ok, here is the flaw in the "It was all done for oil" argument: The math doesn't add up. This war has cost the US over 175 Billion dollars and is projected to end up costing more then 500 Billion dollars over the next 2 years . No matter how big the Iraqi oil reserves are, there isn’t an economical way to sell enough of it for the next 10 years to just cover this cost and breakeven right now. Even if they increased the production to make up more money, the increased supply to a constant demand would bring the price of oil down, which brings you back to slot 1. If this was for oil, and to make money off of it for the "imperialist good of America", then it is the dumbest economical plan in existence. It would’ve been cheaper and less controversial to get the Oil through the UN Oil for Food program, which in case you didn’t know, had US companies as the #1 purchaser of Iraqi Oil. So let’s say this again and see if you get it: The US didn’t have to invade Iraq to get its Oil, cause they already were getting it cheap and hell of a lot cheaper then it costs right now. Not to mention, the Iraq oil money, will be needed for the reconstruction of Iraq. You think the Iraqis would let you just steal their oil and be ok with it? Right! Cause they are such docile toothless puppies.

As for the re-election, let's be honest, the Iraq war was Bush's weakest point up to the election. It was his most vulnerable side at the time, cause let's face it, back then it wasn't going very well. There was no Iraqi election or democratically elected Iraqi government. Just a US death toll. Yeah, Bush went to a highly expensive war that caused daily US death toll and divided a nation cause it would secure his re-election. Right! That makes perfect sense!

Not to mention, another War? With what Troops? The majority of the infantry is in Iraq and they are the ones who you need for ground control( that's why Iran and Syria support the insurgency with financing and agents; cause as long as the Americans are in Iraq, they are not in Iran or Syria). Not to mention, who would approve of another war while this one is still going on? You think the American people can take another War right now? You think anyone on both the left or the right would be for it? And with what money? How would they finance such a war anyway? Grr, I hate stupid people who say stupid illogical shit like that without thinking first.

Who'd have suspected more commonsense from a sandmonkey than from Michael Moore?

Owl update

Yesterday I told you how we discovered this nesting Great Horned Owl. This morning, I returned with the great morning light in a completely clear sky, and the "big gun": my 1280mm stabilized telephoto lens and tripod. The picture at right is one of the resulting pictures; I'm quite pleased with it.

Click on the picture for a very large view.

Follow-up on the baby that was kicked out: the raptor rescue folks arrived (a little grumpy, 'cause they took a wrong turn and ended up 25 miles or so in the wrong direction!) and picked up our little lost owl. This morning they called us up to let us know that the little guy is doing fine — especially after eating five mice! Once he's fledged and has learned to hunt and eat on his own, they're planning to release him right where they picked him up, on our friends place...

Steyn on the CIA and Iraq

Mark Steyn's latest column is dripping with contempt — in Mark's inimitable style, of course — for the CIA and its attempts to manipulate the politics of post-war Iraq. Here's a taste to whet your appetite:

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the glass in Iraq is three-quarters full, which is why stories on the subject are buried so deep in the paper they might as well be in Sandy's gusset. Saddam's old prison state is now the first Arab country with a non-Arab head of state: a Kurd, Jalal Talabani. When you're trying to make sense of the bewildering array of Iraqi politicians who prospered in the January elections, a good rule of thumb is: Chances are they're guys who've been stiffed by the CIA. President-to-be Talabani fell out with them a decade ago, when they pulled the plug on a U.S.-backed insurrection at 48 hours' notice and failed to pay the late cancellation fee. Talabani was part of the Kurdish delegation that had a ''secret'' meeting with CIA honchos in April 2002, in which the drollest exchange came when the Kurds expressed skepticism as to whether the officials present really represented the U.S. government.

And who can blame them for wondering? The CIA, as I wrote a couple of years back, now functions in the same relation to President Bush as Pakistan's ISI does to General Musharraf. In both cases, before the chief executive makes a routine request of his intelligence agency, he has to figure out whether they're going to use it as an opportunity to set him up, and if so how. For Musharraf, the problem is the significant faction in the ISI that would like to kill him. Fortunately for Bush, if anyone at the CIA launched a plot to kill him, they'd probably take out G. W. Bish, who runs a feed store in Idaho.

I wonder if anyone has warned Mr. Bish of the danger he's in? At the very least, he ought to change his middle initial...

Significant others

Big Al's girl lets you know. A taste:

#41 When I got sad when I thought of all the times that I was able to just pick up the phone and call him when he was stateside.
#42 When I got used to things always being up in the air - and when I could fully appreciate that oxymoron known as "military planning".
#43 When I started watching the Army movies that he has me order him off of Netflix just so I could marinate in the military way of doing things.
#44 When I started re-reading his old letters just because.
#45 When I started memorizing the names of the guys that he is with in Iraq and referring to them by rank.
#46 When I made this blog.
#47 When someone "dissing" the military will make every hair on my head stand up on end!
#48 When the word "Hooah" became part of my daily vocabulary.
#49 When I realized that I have come up with almost 50 ways of how deployment has taken over my life!!

Big Al is a lucky guy...

Iraqi perspective

This very moving post ends with this:

Some shortsighted people doubt the outcome of this day and think that it's not suitable to announce it a success but we say to them:You're free to think whatever you like, we got on the train, but you’re standing still.

I will save the effort of explaining to them what they missed because several years from now when Iraq becomes a beacon of civilization in the region you will find out the truth solid and clear but unfortunately I'm positive that they won't admit it and they will try to find another funeral to practice the only hobby they're good at; whining and weeping.So today we're offering a last chance to choose between joining the real world and joining Muqtada and Harith Al-Dhari.

Go and chant with them, condemn democracy and march against freedom if you like but don't forget that those thugs represent no one but themselves. They rejected democracy from the beginning and missed the chance of joining the greatest election of our time.And don't forget that millions of Iraqis had also rejected those fanatics when the people marched to the boxes ignoring the threats and "fatwas"

Those who really represent me and my people are the men and women we voted for and put our trust in; men like Ibrahim Al-Jafari and Jalal Talbani who are grateful for the nations that helped Iraq in the darkest times and freed its people when our "brothers" ignored us and silently watched the Ba'ath murder and torture our people and more worse, gave the Ba'ath a hand more than once.

These are the people who represent us now; they promise us freedom and prosperity and I intend to trust them and believe them as long as they prove to be honest to us but I will never listen to those who want to bring back the rule of the dark ages.

Finally, I would like to say it again and say it loud:Thank you our liberators.

Thanks, Mohammed...

Iraq and St. Peter

An American soldier was in St. Peter's square when he spotted something most unexpected: an Iraqi flag. The American (Seeba) made his way over to the flag and discovered a lone Iraqi:

He extended an arm to hug Bashar Behnam, 26, an Iraqi Syriac Catholic from the northern city of Mosul, who claimed to be Iraq's only representative at Friday's funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Seeba's final assignment during a year-long deployment in Iraq was to protect voters in Mosul during national elections in January. Five of his close friends were killed during his unit's deployment in Tikrit and Bajee. But Seeba described it as America's sacrifice for Iraqis to be free.

"When you see this," he said of Behnam's flag, "it makes it definitely worth it." Displaying the Iraqi flag in Vatican City "just lets them know they are getting their freedom, that they don't have to be afraid anymore."

He turned to Behnam and added, "I just hope you're happy with your country and how it's progressed."

"I feel so good, being the only Iraqi here today," Behnam replied, seeming a bit embarrassed by all the attention.

He said he visited the Iraqi Embassy on Thursday and asked if there was a flag that did not have "Allahu akbar" inscribed amid the banner's three green stars. He felt the Arabic inscription would carry too much of an Islamic connotation for such a Christian setting, but it was the only flag available.

He said embassy officials were proud that he was willing to wave it at the pope's funeral. "They were very cooperative," he said.

As he spoke, three Italians approached him to confirm that, indeed, he carried the flag of Iraq. Then they burst into applause.

Read the whole story here. A tip 'o the hat to Chrenkoff for the pointer.

—

Quote for the day

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humour to console him for what he is.

   Francis Bacon

Great Horned Owl

Our friend was mowing her yard (on a tractor — we have big yards out here!) when she spotted a little ball of bloody white fluff in front of her. The blood made her think she'd injured or killed the little thing, but actually it was just a rat that (apparently) momma bird had left for it to eat. The little guy was just fine. Our friend called my wife (the rescuer of all things in distress — especially if they're cute), and she got a towel around it and put it in an animal carrier. The local raptor rescue folks are on the way out here to get it; they'll take good care of it and reintroduce it when it's ready.

That incident led to a search for the nest, which they found in short order. A not very happy momma owl can be seen at right, along with the backside of at least one more fledgling owl (and we saw it move a bit, so it's alive). Debi had our trusty Sibley's Guide to Birds, and she identified it as a Great Horned Owl, southwestern variant. We were a little surprised at how white the fledgling is — but Sibley says there is some variation. The sighting of the nest resulted in a call for me and my telephoto!

Click on the photo for a bigger view.

Viking Crater

With very little fanfare and almost no public recognition, the two Mars Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) recently got funding for 18 more months of Martian exploration. These amazing little robots have been scuttling around on the Martian surface for 15 months already, even though their "design lifetime" was a mere 3 months. Nobody knows if they'll last another 18 months — it would be pretty amazing if they did — but now they've got funding to keep collecting science information as long as they do last.

Click on the photo to get a bigger image...

Army beards

This is the first I'd heard that beards were an issue in Afghanistan. Read the whole column; it's quite interesting. Here's the lead-in:

One of the interesting quirks of Muslim culture generally, and Afghan culture specifically, and Pashtun culture even more specifically, is the emphasis on facial hair. A beard is a sign of manhood, and to be clean-shaven is considered effeminate, unmanly, and is more or less tantamount to an open admission of homosexuality (and not the older man-teenage boy kind, which is tacitly tolerated among the Pashtuns.) The Hazara, an ethnic group in Afghanistan who are descendants of the Mongols who came there with Genghis Khan, had a terrible time under the Taliban partly because many of them couldn't grow beards. They were, by the way, excellent, fiercely loyal soldiers who didn't mind playing a little catch-up now that they were on the side that was on top.

All US soldiers are expected to be clean-shaven, according to AR 670-1, the army regulation covering uniforms and appearance. That created a bit of a problem, since working with the Pashtuns while clean-shaven was a lot like being an undercover cop trying to infiltrate a biker gang while wearing a pink tutu and a lacy top. The powers that be had therefore, reluctantly, grudgingly, and sorrowfully, authorized SF teams working with the Afghans to grow beards. Of course, it being the Army and all, no way was there going to be a clean implementation of a policy that radical. AR 670-1 is the regulation most beloved of a certain kind of Sergeant Major and those who aspire to be a certain kind of Sergeant Major, and for them, allowing SF operators to grow beards was the biggest blow to their perception of what the Army should be since Clinton instituted the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Also, while the senior leadership of the special operations task force endorsed the policy, they were ambivalent about the results, as were many of their subordinates.

John Paul the Great

Those amongst my readers who know me well know that I am not a religious man. Further, they may know that I have some particular antipathy toward the Roman Catholic church — based, I hasten to explain, on my reading of the church's history and not at all on any personal experience.

Nonetheless, I find a great deal to admire about Karol Wojtyla, the man who became a priest and eventually Pope John Paul II. Much of the commentary I've read since his death, while full of the expected adulation, missed the mark in terms of what I found admirable about the man. This column, by Joseph Bottum (writing in the Weekly Standard) is directly on point from my perspective. An excerpt describing the incident that first caused me to express admiration for any Pope:

And yet, however weak the Communist edifice may have been in actuality, it still seemed formidable, and the pope was at the center of the cyclone that blew it down. The KGB's Yuri Andropov foresaw what John Paul II would be, warning the Politburo in Moscow of impending disaster in the first months after the Polish cardinal became pope. Figures from Mikhail Gorbachev to Henry Kissinger have looked back on their careers and judged that the nonviolent dissolution of the Communist dictatorships would not have happened without John Paul II.

"How many divisions has the pope?" Stalin famously sneered. As it happens, with John Paul II, we have an answer. At the end of 1980, worried by the Polish government's inability to control the independent labor union Solidarity, the Russians prepared an invasion "to save socialist Poland." Fifteen divisions — twelve Soviet, two Czech, and one East German — were to cross the border in an initial attack, with nine more Soviet divisions following the next day. On December 7, Brzezinski called from the White House to tell John Paul II what American satellite photos showed about troop movements along the Polish border, and on December 16 the pope wrote Leonid Brezhnev a stern letter, invoking against the Soviets the guarantees of sovereignty that the Soviets themselves had inserted in the Helsinki Final Act (as a way, they thought, of ensuring the Communists' permanent domination of Eastern Europe). Already caught in the Afghanistan debacle and fearing an even greater loss of international prestige and good will, Brezhnev ordered the troops home. Twenty-four divisions, and John Paul II faced them down.

Do yourself a favor and savor the whole column, slowly and carefully...

An Iraqi perspective

Today Mahdy Ali Lafta is the head of the Iraqi Teacher's Union, an educational activist. His story provides an interesting glimpse of how an Iraqi views the transformation of Iraq. Also interesting is that this article is from the Guardian, a British newspaper that isn't exactly known for reporting good news from Iraq. The article ends:

Which brings us to a difficult question. Is Iraq better now than under Saddam? "Certainly," replies Mr Lafta. "But the people of Iraq did not want the war. Which nation would want to see itself occupied with no sovereignty or freedom? But it was Saddam who brought this upon us.

"The Iraqis should not be made victims again by the occupation. Iraq has become a subject of international debate. It is open to the world to see. We fought Saddam Hussein and many died, now we want to build our nation. Where better to start but with our schools and universities? We need solidarity for that."

He pauses, then adds: "We should focus on the good news too. The heroic acts of the civil society, of men and women who work hard and sometimes pay the highest price. Of the teachers who continued to teach through those years, and those who want to help rebuild the country now. That's worth telling."

Before our interview Mr Lafta had wandered around an exhibition of Spitting Image puppets in the Guardian's newsroom. He was transfixed by the image of Saddam, grotesquely out of proportion and all the more recognisable for it, nestled among sketches of Lady Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Osama Bin Laden.

Reflecting on it, Mr Lafta shivers. "He's the beast, and even an insult to the beast doesn't destroy the fear of that beast. I look at that and I think of mass graves and atrocities and for me, someone who loves teaching, I think of the damage to education."

"All those feelings, but I also feel happy that he can be depicted like that. That it's allowed. The rest look like saints compared with him."

I can't help but wonder why the U.S. liberals have so much trouble with stories like this. Some that I have spoken with seem to be focused on the fact that it was a war (spoken in tones that imply the obvious evil of it) that brought this good thing, so therefore it cannot possibly be justified. Others seem to be focused on the fact that these stories repudiate firmly held liberal beliefs and make some conservative positions look, well, good and effective — and therefore these stories must either be false or else examples of the shining exceptions plucked out of the muck by conservatives. What puzzles me most of all is that this denial, the liberal averting of the eyes, takes place no matter how credible the source of the information.

There are a few exceptions to this, of course. Some liberals have, however reluctantly, been recognizing that through some mysterious means they don't understand the American policies, led by President Bush, have accomplished some very good things indeed. But I'd feel a lot more comfortable about the sanity of my liberal countrymen if this was a more common reaction than it is...

A tip 'o the hat to Chrenkoff for the pointer to this story...

Apology privilege

TigerHawk proposes that an apology privilege be created in law, so that one could apologize to someone who felt wronged without admitting culpability under the law. TigerHawk says:

The problem, of course, is that the law burdens contrition with a significant legal cost. If you apologize, you can and will increase your liability, because the apology will be converted into evidence of culpability rather than civility. If you don't express your sorrow to an injured person, though, you both coursen our society and increase the chance that the person will become a plaintiff against you. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. This is a ridiculous Hobson's choice, all to preserve the very dubious probative value of the apology.

Why is an apology of dubious probative value? Because in the absence of legal considerations, people apologize or express contrition or sorrow in all sorts of circumstances when they do not believe that they are actually culpable. They may do so because they want to help the victim, or because it is their habit stressful situations, or because their parents taught them to acknowledge the suffering of others. The fact of an apology in the moment of crisis or grief proves next to nothing, so justice does not benefit very much by making the apology available to the plaintiff's case.

The apology privilege, however, should extend beyond doctors to all potential defendants. As I wrote last time,

"It seems to me that we would benefit tremendously if corporations, CEOs, negligent neighbors, the local streets and sanitation department, the police, the school system, managers of playgrounds and athletic programs and the manufacturers of lawn darts all had the ability to apologize without fear that their sincere expression of remorse will expand their liability."

I also believe that there would be tremendous political power in a national apology privilege. Other than the trial bar, who could publicly object? What politician is going to vote against "saying you're sorry"? The benefits — a society in which people felt free to express their sorrow — would so outweigh the costs that every state in the country should adopt this legislation.

I don't doubt that there are an interesting number of cases where an apology would have headed off a lawsuit. And I also have no doubt that anger is a significant piece of the motivation for many, perhaps most, lawsuits. But I am very skeptical that something as simple as an apology would magically make very much litigation disappear.

A couple of reasons for my skepticism:

1. Even if someone is angry, and even if that anger was part of what motivated the lawsuit, there are still many cases where a genuine and unredressed (in the absence of litigation) harm was done. For instance, suppose the deliveryman drives his heavy truck across my yard, knocking down my fence, injuring my dog, and destroying some landscaping. I'll certainly feel better about it if the deliveryman and his company apologizes to me for the incident, but if they're not forthcoming with appropriate damages and nothing I say seems to convince them they should — well, then, I'm likely to sue them to recover my damages. Even though I got an apology.

2. Even if the law says that apologizing will not have legal ramifications, many people (I have no idea what percentage, though) simply will not apologize anyway. Most people have run into one of these stubbornly unapologetic types during their lives. Their motto seems to be "I'm right, whether I'm right or wrong." It doesn't matter one bit what the facts of the matter are, they still believe they're right, or justified, or both — and I can't imagine anything so wimpy as the lack of penalty forcing them to cough up an apology. They'd rather gouge out their eyeballs first.

So color me a skeptic. But I still like the idea, because a little more civility and a few less lawsuits is a winner no matter how you cut it. I just don't think it will be the panacea that TigerHawk thinks it will...

Quote for the day

Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.

   Aristotle

Iraqi democracy

Publius Pundit has a great post about yesterday's selection of an Iraqi prime minister and the early workings of the Iraqi democratic process. It's very encouraging...give it a read!

Terrorist scorecard

This scorecard is the best collection of information I've seen on the state of the war on al Qaeda. I learned quite a bit just scanning down the scorecard, and following some of the links provided. In particular, I was a little surprised to see just how much progress we've actually made — the strategy of "Iraq the al Qaeda meatgrinder" appears to be working quite well.

On the other hand, the scorecard makes it clear that we have a lot more work to do...

Predictions

This site is running a "futures market" (currently a game only, with no real money changing hands) for various political and military issues. For example, current futures include whether any of the Minutemen volunteers currently patrolling our border in Arizona will be injured or killed by Mexican troops, or whether the next Pope will be from the former Soviet Eastern Bloc. Because there isn't any real money on the table, I'm a little suspicious of this, but...their claimed accuracy rate to date (they've been running over a year) is very high, and the results are all openly posted. Interesting, at the least. At the best, the players may be predominantly well-informed and reasoning people, and their collective opinion (as expressed in the results of this game) may in fact be a good predictor...

Sideways galaxy

From Astronomy Picture of the Day. Click on the picture for a larger view.