The Razor

Hear that sound?

If you listen closely, you can hear the last gasps and death trumpets of dinosaurs. It is a harsh sound, and one that echoes across the valleys making all creatures look up for an instant and stare.

Yes, the dinosaurs are dying – succombing at last to the rising tide of weasels who eat their eggs and dine on their carcasses – then run off to breed new generations of even more voracious tiny predators.
The list of the species that will soon be extinct reads like a who’s-who list from a bygone age:

The New York Times
The Boston Globe
The Los Angeles Times
Newsweek
CBS News
60 Minutes
ABC News
NBC News
Chicago Tribune
CNN

When history is written, Rathergate will become the asteroid that instigated the change. However the dinosaurs were doomed to fall eventually given the frothy primordial soup of ideas that has filled the oceans since Al Gore invented the internet. Rathergate merely hastened the end of the dinosaurs by creating an opening where the weasels could finally take down an dinosaur directly – without scavenging and quarreling over its leftovers amongst themselves.

The dinosaurs are startled. They are now faced with their own mortality and are struggling to evolve. But they cannot – for the same reason an individual fish cannot suddenly don wings and become a bird. They cannot change their DNA no matter how much they will it.

Instead their energy and creativity will pass along to the weasels and other creatures that take them down and feast on their carcasses. We are already seeing this occur as established columnists start their own blogs or submit posts at established ones.

The dinosaurs are dying, but evolution continues. The weasels are ascendant – for now.

Update 01/14/2005: Given the behavior of both the Indian and Indonesian governments, and the fact that Thai business owners are more worried about Thailand’s image abroad than their dead, it is becoming apparent that those of us in the US care more about what happened than those in the region do. That wipes the last vestiges of guilt away that inspired the post below.

I have been feeling guilty recently about the tsunami of Dec 26, 2004. I have questioned my feelings several times, but the fact remains that as hard as it is to say this, I simply am not moved by the disaster. I am not brought to tears by the pictures, nor am I reflexively reaching for my wallet to shower the region with what little money I have that isn’t owed to Visa.

9-11 moved me. 9-11 shook the very foundations of my belief system, causing many of the illusions I had held on for years to crumble away.

I am not a bad person. I have not given up on caring for others. I donate more than most to charity, and believe that it is my duty to help anyone whom I possibly can help. My conscience twists in my gut until I do what is right when it comes to my fellow man, but this time it has been strangely silent – silent enough to warrant concern.

So what lays behind my instinctive withdrawing from the tsunami relief parade?
1. The scope of the disaster. The disaster is so huge that it has lost much of its humanity in the way that Stalin’s dictum “Kill 5 people and it’s a tragedy; Kill 50,000 and it’s a statistic” holds true.

2. Distance. The Indian ocean is as far away from me – geographically as well as psychologically. I have never been to Indonesia or Thailand, nor have these places ever been high up on my “must visit” list.

3. Racism – NO. I am more troubled by what’s been happening in the Sudan and recent events in Burundi and Rwanda than I am by the tsunami. Skin color therefore does NOT play a role in this lack of…. concern? No, that’s not it. I am very concerned about the people suffering there. It just doesn’t move me.

4. Natural vs man-made disasters. Genocide is man-made; a tsunami is not. Man’s inhumanity to man makes me want to lay the smackdown on the aggressor – no matter what the color of his skin is or where he is. It fires me up and moves me in ways that natural disasters do not.

5. 9-11. I haven’t forgotten that many in Indonesia celebrated the man-made events of that day. I also cannot ignore the fact that many of the people we are helping support al-Qaeda. This fact is conveniently ignored or glossed over by the hope that our aid and help will win hearts and minds over to our side.

Sorry, but history has shown that when it comes to al-Qaeda and Islamic radicals, there is nothing that we can do to win them over. Absolutely nothing. Why? Because we aren’t human in their eyes.

Our aid to Bosnia Muslims did not stop al-Qaeda attacks at Khobar Towers in 1996 and the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. Our arm-twisting of the Israelis during the peace process of 2000 did not stop the attacks on the USS Cole and a year later, 9-11.

Do you honestly believe that showering the Muslim world with aid and money will change their opinion of us?

I do not believe that such a thing is possible until Islam has its own reformation and learns to live alongside the world’s other religions. Until that happens, I am afraid there is nothing we can do to stop their desire for killing us.

And here lies the crux of my detachment from the aid effort. Should another 9-11 happen tomorrow, I’m sure the same people we are helping today will be celebrating our loss of life in the streets.

Am I being too cynical? Too harsh? I wish I could care more – but I just can’t.

I’m not alone when it comes to finding Intelligent Design utter garbage. John Derbyshire does too (link):

By contrast with these meta-topics about which we know nothing—the questions about which may not even have meaning—we know a great deal about the actual mechanisms of natural selection, gene function, inheritance, matter-energy systems, and the early history of the universe; but there are many things we do not fully understand, and the ID-ers wish to plug those gaps by invoking the intervention of a higher intelligence. Working scientists in these fields are much, much more likely to say: “Well, let’s wait and see what a couple more generations of scientific inquiry turn up before we leap to conclusions like that.”

He also calls ID “pure flapdoodle”. I like that. Flapdoodle. Heheheh…

Just a note that I was somehow invited to not just one but two inaugural events celebrating the re-election of Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner. I’m still trying to figure out how this happened – given the facts that

a) I didn’t vote for her.
b) I actively campaigned for her opponent Bill Lee.
c) I have written several letters and op-ed pieces critical of her administration’s deaf ear to outsourcing and providing tax breaks to large companies while ignoring small ones.
d) ... What else am I supposed to do? Burn her in effigy?

Nevertheless I was invited to the inauguration ball in Dover (Black tie optional). I was also invited to a celebration at Bank One’s headquarters (probably celebrating Minner’s support of extortionate credit card rates).

Weird. Well, I had to pass on both events due to family obligations – something that Democrats wouldn’t understand given their hostility to family values. It would have been fun to watch a bunch of small fish in a small pond trying to act like big fish, but honestly, if I want fun I’ll eat dinner with my kid; he won’t care if I use the wrong fork with the salad.

It’s possible that I am still on the roles of the Democratic party since I was slightly active with it immediately after the 2000 election. However, it was a short time, I was young, and 9-11 wiped out the last vestiges of the America-hatred that lays at the core of the Democratic party.

In fact, maybe it’s time I just say the hell with it and join the Republican Party here in DE. They’re the underdogs in this blue-state and I’m used to being one myself. I think I’ll call now…

Washington Times via DGCI

Environmental activists shamelessly try to exploit last week’s earthquake-tsunami catastrophe in hopes of advancing their global-warming and antidevelopment agendas.
Two days after the tragedy, the executive director of Greenpeace U.K. told British newspaper the Independent, “No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree.”

What a moron.

I am a big fan of classic comedy. I could argue and prove that the lamest Three Stooges or Marx Brothers’ routine is still better than anything done by the new crop of comedians ripped out of Saturday Night Live.

One of my favorite comedic scenes is in the Pink Panther when Inspector Clouseau is holding a vacuum cleaner hose in his hands and you see a parrot in a cage. You just know that the parrot is going to somehow end up in the vacuum cleaner, but it takes several minutes of pure unadulerated hilarity before it does.

Genius. Pure absolute genius. Blake Edwards should have committed ritual suicide after directing that movie because nothing he did after it ever came close to matching that level of hilarity.

One of the best comedy routines ever – period – is Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on first” routine (link). Well, here’s a worthy successor brought to you by the lunatic at Democrats Give Conservatives Indigestion via the Pirate-King.

We Take You Now to the Oval Office (link)
George: Condi! Nice to see you. What’s happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That’s what I want to know.
Condi: That’s what I’m telling you.
George: That’s what I’m asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow’s name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
(read the entire thing… )

Dunno if this story got covered outside of the Philly metro area. Here’s a link (reg required – ugh!) to the complete story.

There are too many handguns in the wrong hands in Camden, which had 54 homicides in 2004. But the city is fortunate that one of those guns was in the hands recently of a shop owner named Ngoc Le.

An immigrant from Vietnam, Ngoc Le and his wife, Kelly, run a cell-phone and fishing-supply store in the city. On Dec. 31, they were working in the shop when a man came in and asked to buy a cellular-phone clip.

As Kelly Le turned her back, the man jumped over a counter and grabbed her, holding a knife to her throat. She called out to her husband, who was in another room.

In that room, he kept a licensed .380-caliber revolver in a drawer for protection.

What happened next was captured, on audio and partly on video, by a security camera in the shop.

Ngoc Le, holding his gun, pleaded with the assailant: “I’ll let you go if you let her go.”

But the attacker kept holding the knife to Kelly Le’s throat and threatened, “I’ll kill her.” He moved, with the woman in his grasp, toward another room.

The tense standoff continued. Ngoc Le repeatedly told the assailant that he wouldn’t shoot if the man released his wife. The attacker refused.

Ngoc Le was pointing his gun at the man from four feet away, but the man was using Kelly Le as a shield. At that moment, Kelly Le’s knees buckled, and she slumped in her assailant’s grasp. Ngoc Le saw his opening and fired once, hitting the man in the head, killing him instantly.

Perhaps 20 seconds had elapsed from the time the intruder jumped the counter until he was shot dead.

Ngoc Le’s split-second decision turned out to have significance even beyond saving the life of his wife. DNA tests on the dead man, 32-year-old Antonio Diaz Reyes, proved that Reyes was the serial rapist who had attacked three women since November in broad daylight in Camden’s central business district. He also was suspected of robbing a pharmacy in Camden at knifepoint.

Had this occurred in England, Le would either be dead or his wife raped in front of him. However it happened in New Jersey and one less psycho is walking the streets. Writing as someone who once supported gun control and who has been robbed at gunpoint (for $530 and Playboy Sexy Lingerie 3 at a vid store I once worked at), all I can say is I’m glad we have the 2nd Amendment.

Dean Esmay has made me an offer I can’t refuse.

Visit this link now – to help fill a plane full of tsunami relief.

Dean has some extraordinary posts on the possibility that HIV does not cause AIDS (link). The ramifications are staggering if this argument turns out to be true.

Let’s start with a definition of intelligent design:

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. (Source)

As a recovering alcoholic, I have spent alot of time in church basements. I have also sat and watched people from various religions and philosophies wrestle with terms for God. The use of the term “intelligent cause” reminds me of those struggles. ID proponents can’t use the term God without damaging their scientifific credibility. However their “intelligent cause” can’t be human – since we’re talking about processes that occurred long before we arrived on the scene. That leaves non-human intelligence, which can only be God or alien life.

Oh, oh. It’s Chariots of the Gods all over again….

Pejman Yousefzadeh has an interesting Tech Central Station article that discusses the rise of the blogosphere and the inability of some paid journalists to deal with it. Since I gave serious thought into getting a degree in journalism, it’s nice to know that I didn’t waste my time by getting one.

It seems some Catholic parents out in Costa Mesa CA want to ban two adopted kindergarteners from attending St. John the Baptist school because their parents are two gay men (link to story). Their argument is that the kids should be banned because their parents do not follow church doctrine. The school has refused to do this, and the parents are threatening to take the matter up with the Vatican.

Money quote: “The Rev. Gerald M. Horan, superintendent of diocese schools, said that if Catholic beliefs were strictly adhered to, then children whose parents divorced, used birth control or married outside the church would also have to be banned. “This is the quagmire that the parents’ position represents,” he said. “It’s a slippery slope to go down.””

Doh! Betcha the whining parents didn’t think of that. Besides, I thought that Church doctrine exempted children from the sins of their fathers?