The Razor

A moment in time:
The Kid playing Tony Hawk’s Underground while Dad builds his 1970 Topps Baseball set. Social Distortion comes on, “Mommy’s Little Monster” and both sing along.

Yale Remains Silent Over Taliban Admission
Job Disappearances
Girl’s Day in Japan: Hina Matsuri
Fired! By Annabelle Gurwitch
What did you learn today?
A Return to Isolationism
The Left’s Halliburton
Legalized Extortion – Using Disability for Monetary Gain
Disband the CIA

The AAAS has resources supporting Evolution and its defense against Intelligent Design. It’s nice to have a cache of intellectual ammo nearby when you find yourself ambushed by ID’ers and Creationists. Stop by the AAAS and get “locked and loaded”. Thanks to Aetiology.

Last night I read an article in the April edition of Discover Magazine (sorry, can’t link to it – they still have the March issue up as current) that said that due to the physiology of the eye, humans cannot see color in dim light.

Which made me wonder: What does Space look like to astronauts?

Do they see white dots salted across the blackness of space, or do they discern any color to it at all?

If the latter, I’d be bummed. Considering how wide the spectrum of light is, and our limits to a small sliver of that spectrum, I’d say we got a raw deal.

Anyone know? Just wondering…

M 2-9, credit
Are we blind to the beauty of this nebula?

Another dictator bites the dust.
Next… Fidel?

Harvey Bialy got into a bit of a tussle with Tara Smith, a scientist from Iowa at her blog Aetiology. It’s a pretty interesting site – kind of leftish but pretty orthodox otherwise. It’s fun being a Republican amateur scientist with my own opinions. On the fence about HIV and AIDs yet a die-hard Darwinist to the Death. A Catholic- sympathizing atheist (or should that be Catholic sympathizing-atheist?) who aspires to Buddhism, but just can’t sit still long enough for enlightenment (he says, sipping his 5th cup of coffee).

Overall a blog worth watching…

PS: Aetiology is the archaic of etiology which is the study of causation. Pretty cool name for a science blog if you ask me.

I have added a new category, Iran, because I believe that we are heading towards a resolution with this nation – which has been at war with us since 1979. I now believe that we will strike back – the only question is when and how.

StrategyPage reports that there is a significant divide between the ruling elite and the people of Iran. The question becomes: How do you remove the former without alienating the latter?

I suppose we are going to find out over the coming months.

I’ve grown up following the AIDS epidemic. In the early 1980’s I recall reading about it when it was still called HTLV. Later one of my friends was so afraid of the disease he “changed” his sexual orientation. Another did not and later died from the disease. Jeff was a bit of a flamer, but he was smart and had a wicked sense of humor that I miss.

In Africa I saw what they called “Slims” – and one of my trackers there, a young Kitongwe by the name of Luhembe, ended up dying from it. Luhembe saved me from getting mugged in Mugambo – a large village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika – back in Nov 1994. While he was a bit of a “lady’s man” he didn’t deserve a death sentence.

So I feel that I have a bit of a grudge with this disease. I want to see the back of it. I want it put down completely – not just controlled. It has killed way too many people for no reason.

So why, after 25 years am I on the fence when it comes to the HIV hypothesis?

Let me be clear: Something killed Jeff Peters way before his time. Something killed Luhembe. They are both dead from something. I’m just not convinced that it’s HIV that killed them.

I’ve read most of Duesberg’s book, and I have viewed Maggiore’s DVD and corresponded with Bialy. I have come to the conclusion that these people aren’t wackos: they are pretty smart people who come from different backgrounds but all have reached the same conclusion: HIV does NOT cause AIDS.

When I first heard about the “AIDS Denialists” it was on the BBC Worldservice while I was in Africa, on a show that mentioned that Thabo Mbeki – future President of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s hand-picked successor – questioned the HIV-AIDS hypothesis. I remember thinking “Great, South Africa is going to elect a looney as president.”

Well it turns out I disagree a lot with President Mbeki – especially with his support of Zimbabwe Dictator Robert Mugabe. But he might be right about HIV having nothing to do with AIDS.

Being on the fence about an issue isn’t easy. It’s not a stable position – so how have I managed it for so long? Mostly from my own weakness: I don’t understand all the arguments – both pro and con. This failure to understand then creates a deep suspicion or distrust in my “gut” – one that can only be convinced through careful examination and understanding of the evidence and arguments.

To answer my question in the title of this piece: I don’t know.

When I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.

So the Pope has an Ipod now – supposedly loaded with classical music and Vatican Radio broadcasts. Of course the first thing the Pontiff did was strip that stuff out and add some of his own favorite tunes. Here’s part of his playlist:

Rammstein – “Sehnsucht”
Einsterzende Neubauten – “Haus der Luge”
Kraftwerk – “Computer World”
Nina Hagen – “Nunsexmonkrock” (a guilty pleasure of His Eminence)
Brave Combo – “Kick Ass Polkas” (hey, he’s German okay? It’s in the blood – just like the need to invade Poland.)

I’m used to being in the minority when it comes to issues in life. I’ve always been a non-conformist, a free thinker, and loner in life. It is who I am, and it has taken me years to become comfortable with the fact that I will never blend in.

Supporting the reconstruction of Iraq is one of those positions that puts me in the minority. I really believe in what we have done – and are doing in Iraq. I truly believe that in five, ten years down the road the majority opinion will be that we did a good thing in Iraq. Success, after all, has many fathers – failure none – and the current nay-saying we regularly hear in the MSM will be long forgotten.

But I’m human. It’s nice occasionally to hear that I am not alone, that others are like me. No, they are better than me because they are seeing events first hand instead of from behind a computer or TV screen 8,000 miles away.

Ralph Peters from the NY Post writes:

AS I head home after far too short a stay with our wonderful soldiers, I can only offer Post readers my honest assessment:

Serious problems remain. No question about it. We’ll hear more bad news (some of it may even be true). But from my heart I believe that the odds are improving that, decades from now, we’ll look back and see that our sacrifices were worth it. I found Baghdad a city of hope, its citizens determined not to be ruled by terrorists, fanatics, militias or thieves.

We are doing the right thing.

Nor do I say this lightly. I just learned that the son of an old friend was seriously wounded in Iraq and evacuated to a military hospital in Germany (the latest news I have is that the young man will make a complete recovery – let’s pray that it’s so).

This is a gigantic struggle for indescribably high stakes. We’re trying to help a failing civilization rescue itself, to lift a vast region out of the grip of terror and fanaticism, and to make this troubled world safer for our own citizens. Don’t let anyone tell you we’re failing in Iraq.

The future remains undecided, but the last few weeks may have been a decisive turning point – against our enemies. Iraqis, military and civilian, stood up for their own country, for reason, for peace.

What more could we ask?

Indeed.

I was going to post today about my dream of an Al-Qaeda attack on the Oscars similar to the Chechen attack at the Russian Theater, where liberals like Michael Moore and George Clooney were forced to watch their Jewish friends herded into a group and machine gunned before their very eyes. I wanted to make the point that Hollywood’s support of terrorism is suicidal – that the Jews, women and gays that dominate movies would be the first one silenced if Islamic terrorists succeeded in establishing the New Caliphate.

Then I thought about the money they receive for doing what hundreds of thousands of struggling actors would do for nothing, and I simply shut down.

Fuck them because I just don’t care.

I don’t care who they sleep with, what their politics is, what they wear or what they think. I just don’t care about them at all. I don’t even watch their crappy movies since what I like doesn’t get nominated for Oscars and George Clooney doesn’t star in them.

If Al-Qaeda wants them, they can have them. The Taliban can march into West Hollywood and chase out the movie stars, porn stars, hookers and other assorted human detritus like some kind of human wave of safari ants on the march – with all the cockroaches and dung beetles fleeing for their lives before them.

It would be interesting to see the Taliban take over Hollywood though…

Broke Back Mountain 2 – Two gay cowboys are lashed together to a horse, then a wall is toppled on them crushing them to shouts of Allahu Akbar!

Desperate Housewives – The Movie – One of the five housewives is put to death in her son’s soccer stadium after she is raped by her sister’s husband. The Other Four try to live normal lives, but struggle to do so under Sharia Law which prevents them from leaving their homes unaccompanied by a man/boy and driving.

Munich – As told by the Palestinian freedom fighters who machine gunned Zionist pigs, and the Germans who looked the other way to let them escape. Their martyrdom by the Zionist enemy and his later remorse only shows the strength of the Islamic cause and the mortal weakness of the Jewish heart.

Wait a minute…

3/20/06 Update: Penraker’s thoughts on the controversy.

So Yale has a former member of the Taliban regime as a student.

Six years later, even after 9/11, the Yale community represents the world turned upside down. Beth Nisson, a senior, writes that Mr. Rahmatullah’s admission to Yale “should serve as a model for American higher education.” Della Sentilles, the co-author of a feminist blog at Yale, insists one can’t be judgmental about the Taliban. “As a white American feminist, I do not feel comfortable making statements or judgments about other cultures, especially statements that suggest one culture is more sexist and repressive than another,” she writes. “American feminism is often linked to and manipulated by the state in order to further its own imperialist ends.”

Ziba Ayeen, a Afghan-American who fled her native land with her family in the 1980s, isn’t amused by such thinking. “The irony of Yale educating an official in a regime that barred women from going to school is too much,” she told me.

Maybe Ziba can lend Della a burqa.

I’m going out on a limb here but this comment got me thinking about the excesses of the Dot Com Era and today’s Google. For those who weren’t paying attention 7 years ago, simply read articles about Google today and you can relive the era when Pets.com, Value America and WebVan were set to change the way we lived and did business.

It didn’t happen then and I don’t see how it’s going to happen now.

Since I DO plan to be around in 5 years, let’s make it as air-tight a prediction as possible.

1. I believe that Google will fail as a company because it will face increased competition in it’s main revenue stream – the Adsense ad server – and it will have to spend serious cash in order to buy access to other revenue streams. While stock buyouts may be used to do this, I believe that those with the best prospects will require cash.

2. Most markets are already saturated with competition. Google will have to either find a completely new market or compete against others. So far it has shown little aptitude for competition – unlike Microsoft which is a true hypercompetitor.

3. Google may be weakened over the next five years to the point that it is purchased by another firm. While Google may still continue to exist, it will not exist in the form predicted by those who view it as unstoppable in the year 2006.

So there, I’m on record. And if I had shorted it’s stock three weeks ago I’d already have enough cash to celebrate this prediction in style. But I didn’t so waaah.

The University of Delaware is all atwitter over learning that one of its own – a physics research assistant and instructor – is an active member of a white supremacist metal band. There have been several stories (I count at least eight) in the local News Journal in an attempt to publicly shame the university into firing the instructor – but so far UD president David Roselle refuses to cave in to the pressure.

In what I can only describe as bizarre, some self-appointed “black community leaders” have now called for the university to provide “separate but equal” classes for those who “do not feel comfortable” with the instructor.

That’s right: 114 years after the Plessy v Ferguson decision, a court decision that several generations of black leaders including Martin Luther King jr himself rightly viewed as subjugating blacks to the white power structure, the current “black community leaders” are calling for it back.

What’s next? Separate water fountains and bath rooms? After all, if minorities are uncomfortable with a Nazi Punk in class, what if they should run into him in a restroom?

Of course the concept could be extended further. Women who feel uncomfortable around men should be allowed to take classes taught by women. And should they feel the need to pray, they should be allowed separate space at the local mosque. And since an unveiled female face can elicit uncontrollable impulses from men, women should be forced to wear burkas to prevent them from exciting men and making them “uncomfortable”.

It’s a slippery slope, so thankfully UD has a president who understands that tolerance means feeling uncomfortable – alot. I just received my lunch from a women wearing a head scarf. It made me feel uncomfortable but so what? I still smiled at her and thanked her for her service.

Tolerance isn’t easy. Tolerance is a wool shirt that you wear because without it it’s every man/ideology/creed for himself and only the most powerful will survive. Tolerance is a two-way street. I’ll tolerate you if and only if you tolerate me. Once that street goes one way, all bets are off and it’s war.

And anyone who thinks that I’m a right winger with racist sympathies should read this first.

That’s what you would think after a week in which the words “Iraq”, “brink” and “Civil War” usually appeared in one sentence. StrategyPage, as usual, has a good take on the issue from the Iraqi perspective:

Iraqis were irked to see the foreign news stories of how Iraq was “on the brink of civil war.” The Sunni Arabs are in no shape to put up a credible resistance in any kind of civil war. The government has more problems with Kurdish and Shia Arab public opinion, which is more inclined to treat the Sunni Arab population a lot more violently than is currently the case. This makes it difficult to rein in the death squads, particularly the ones in the police force, who go out and just kill actual, or suspected, Sunni Arab killers. When it is mentioned that the deceased was formerly a member of one of Saddam’s many police and intelligence outfits, there is no hope of any follow-up investigation. It’s going to take a generation for this hatred, of Saddam’s many victims, and their families, towards the Sunni Arabs who did the dirty work for so long.

A Generation? In a land where the 12th Century competes with yesterday in the minds of its inhabitants?

Let’s put it this way: If the Shi’a and Kurds put their minds to it, there won’t be a Civil War. There will be a Sunni bloodbath – and I’m not sure the USA should intervene if it happens.