Growing Gap Between Field and Pentagon

In the president's Tuesday speech to rally the nation behind the continuing operations in Iraq, he reiterated his frequent claim that his generals in the Pentagon tell him the US has enough troops on the ground to achieve the president's goals. After the speech, Senator Biden said he had talked to commanders in the field in Iraq who overwhelmingly said they did not have enough troops on the ground.

Last week I linked to Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek summary of the current state of affairs in Iraq. Zakaria relates stories of the US Army engaging in nation building excercise, ignoring Secretary Rumsfeld's policy that they not.

These two examples illustrate quite clearly a growing gap in the military leadership between the desk jockeys in Washington, driven by politics and abstract ideology, and the troops in the field, driven by the realities of living in a hot zone. That is disturbing to me. It means the leadership behind the war effort is not all reading from the same playbook and ultimately suggests something of a breakdown in the quality and ability of that leadership. I fear this will be one of the president's legacies that will take years to fix.

Coalition for Darfur: Conflicting Priorities

This week's Coalition for Darfur post discusses the conflicting priorities the different parties have.

For more than two years, the international community has done little to stop the violence in Darfur or provide security to the millions of displaced victims. And the closer one follows the world's response to this crisis, the clearer the conflicting priorities of the major actors (the US, the AU, the ICC and the UN) become.

The US is hesitant or unwilling to confront Khartoum because of CIA ties to the regime, and the desire to preserve the prestige garnered by helping end the civil war in sourthern Sudan. The International Criminal Court is new and trying to find its way. The AU has lofty ambitions for itself but lacks the power and influence to translate those ambitions to reality. The UN is stricken by internal conflict. None of this leads to effective confrontation of Sudan's genocide.

Pickpocket Putin

Too funny:

Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring, but was it a generous gift or a very expensive international misunderstanding?

Following a meeting of American business executives and Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg on Saturday, Kraft showed the ring to Putin — who tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, said Russian news reports.

A Timetable for Withdrawal from Iraq

Think Progress lists some quotes from then Texas Governor George Bush demanding a timetable and explanation of an exit strategy from President Clinton during the Kosovo war. Today, of course, President Bush opposes the idea of setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. As I've commented on before, the president's pre-presidency criteria for deciding to go to war were

1. Is it in our vital national interest?
2. Was the mission clearly defined?
3. Are the troops prepared, from both a morale, equipment, and training point of view, to win?
4. Is there an exit strategy?

The Iraq war met few of these criteria, if any. The only one that can be argued to have been met is the preparedness of the troops. Even there, only the morale and training points can be argued; that the troops have been poorly equipped for the occupation has been well documented. So the president violated every principle he supposedly had to go to war in Iraq. Are we really surprised that he violated his demand for a timetable on extraction?

Having said that, I actually agree with the president's view. Er, his current view. Setting a timetable is not a good idea. Having a well-defined exit strategy in which we clearly define our goals and set the criteria by which we may identify completion of those goals, is crucial. The president hasn't ever done that. Setting a timetable does not help achieve our goals, whatever they are. Now, if those goals cannot be achieved, we should just get out. What we should be demanding from the president instead of some arbitrary timetable is the well defined exit strategy. As the president himself said, "Victory means exit strategy, and it'’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is." He's right.

Interestingly, in the big quote from Bush in my previous post, he talks about not meeting recruitment goals, ill equipped troops, and the military being overextended. In his 2000 debate with Gore, this was a bad thing. By going to Iraq, he's helped create or exacerbate these very conditions.

Duration of the War

A lot of Bush bashers will make a lot of noise about Rumsfeld's recent assertion that no one should try to predict when Iraq will end, bringing up pre-war quotes saying the war would last weeks. This is something that's bothered me for a while. The war ended over two years ago when organized Iraqi military resistance ended. Rumsfeld and company were right that the war would not last 6 months. It is the post-war occupation of Iraq that has lasted years, not the war. What this does demonstrate yet again is that the administration only thought about the war. No thought was given to what would happen afterward. Along with the promise of a quick war was the expectation that the troops would be coming home shortly after it ended. These guys didn't have the insight to realize they might have to work after the war's end. Be that as it may, it is incorrect to criticize Rumsfeld's prediction that the war would last weeks, not months.

The Good News and Bad News in Iraq

Fareed Zakaria has a nice piece on the current state of affairs in Iraq. Nice quote:

The vacuum is being filled by the U.S. Army, which has been building bridges and schools, securing neighborhoods and power plants and, yes, adjudicating claims between Turkomans and Kurds. It is doing these things because someone has to. Secretary Rumsfeld has long argued that American troops should never engage in nation building, leaving that to locals. But while we waited for Iraqis to do it, chaos broke out and terror reigned. So the Army on the ground has ignored Rumsfeld's ideology and has simply made things work. (It's a good rule of thumb for the future.)

Yes, it's usually a good idea to ignore the guidance of any bumbling buffoon, even if he is the Secretary of Defense or even a President.

Dr. Tom Cruise

Having never even played a doctor on TV, Tom Cruise is out spouting off on psychiatric drugs. First he went after Brooke Shields for taking anti-depressant medication after suffering from post-partum depression. Then last Friday, he had a testy interview on the Today show when host Matt Lauer suggested that Ritalin, a drug to treat attention deficit disorder, is helpful to some people. Cruise angrily accused Lauer of not knowing what he is talking about. Cruise will probably face a firestorm of criticism for that. But here's the thing: he's not totally off his rocker, at least as far as the ADD drugs go. The simple fact is that no one really understands what ADD and ADHD are, and no one really understands how the medications work.

Don't believe me? An ADHD support and information site states, "The exact origin of ADHD is unknown." A chemical imbalance in the brain is suspected to be one of multiple possible causes. If the doctors don't understand the disorder, how is it to be treated? Strattera is the latest medication developed to treat ADHD. According to Dr. Vincent Iannelli,

It is thought to be 'a potent inhibitor of the presynaptic norepinephrine transporter,' which causes more norepinehrine to be available to increase attention and control hyperactivity and impulsivity. Like the stimulants [e.g. Ritalin], it is not yet known exactly how Strattera works though.

(emphasis mine) So, the doctors are prescribing medication whose operations they do not understand to treat a disorder they do not understand in a way they do not understand. All they know is that the behavior of many kids with ADHD changes when they take the drug.

While one cannot deny that drugs such as Strattera and Ritalin have induced positive behavioral changes in some children, is it really so crazy to raise questions about prescribing a drug when the doctors don't really even know what the drug does, let alone how it treats the disorder being treated? Cruise will get mocked and slammed for this, but he is right to raise questions.

(Please note that depression is totally distinct from ADHD and these comments are specific to ADHD. Cruise is off his rocker when he talks depression, an illness well understood by doctors.)

Gas Prices

Just thought I would point out that while we Americans are complaining about our high gas prices, Germans are paying 1.25 Euros per liter which translates to about $6 per gallon. (Linked article is in German. Sorry.)

Homeowners Say Goodbye

Homeowners can say goodbye to the notion that their property rights mean something. In a decision released today,

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.

So, basically, if the city decides they need to build a strip mall where your house stands, your permission to tear down your house and build it is not required. Interestingly, it is the liberal wing of the court, typically expected to stand up for the little guy, in the majority and the conservatives, typically expected to stand up for business, who dissented.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Arguing with Signposts has a sampling of reaction.

Indian Food Recipes

Glenn Reynolds points his readers to this Indian food recipe blog. Being a lover of Indian food, which I don't get too much of since my family can't handle too much taste in their food, I will too.

Security Trust Fund Surplus

So the GOP now wants to use the annual surplus in the social security trust fund to fund their vision of personal/private/label-of-the-week accounts. But I thought there was no trust fund? Isn't that what the president argued before? Didn't he once say explicitly, "There is no trust fund -- just IOUs."? So, the GOP wants to use the non-existent surplus of a non-existent fund to fund accounts. Or are they admitting the president was full of it (he certainly has that in surplus)?

The Last Throes

Several months ago, I linked to the Iraq Coalition Casualties site. At the time, their statistics showed that casualties in Iraq were on the downswing. Well, now that the insurgency is in its last throes, according to the administration, the May and June rates show a dramatic jump up to nearly three dead Americans per day, a rate comparable to the worst period since war's end. Plus the death rate for Iraqis has shot up considerably in May (8.7 dead per day) and June (11.2 dead per day) over previous months (6.7 per day in March and April, 3.3 per day in January and February). Thank God the death will be ending soon, eh?

Limbaugh on the Downing Street Memos

You just knew this would be the conservative defense to the Downing Street memos. Rush Limbaugh says

And the reason it didn't interest me is because it was just another one of these ginned up things by the libs, and it looks like it's got some similarities to Bill Burkett and the forged documents of CBS and Rathergate.

I've been wondering why the mainstream media have not been covering these memos too much. This is part of the reason: the media honchos were afraid of getting into another Rathergate mess. USA Today wrote

USA TODAY chose not to publish anything about the memo before today for several reasons, says Jim Cox, the newspaper's senior assignment editor for foreign news. "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source," Cox says. "There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing."

But the Bushies are going to throw that out there to deceive people anyway. The media might as well have just done their jobs.

The Ever Changing Definition of “Mission” In Iraq

Think Progress summarizes the US mission in Iraq. I mean the mission at different times. One of the readers comments

The amazing thing about this is not that Bush says it – it is that so many people buy it. And then vote Republican because Republicans are “decisive.”

Direction of Mainstream Media

Interesting, brief article on why a CNN bureau chief quit.

CNN's former bureau chief in Beijing and Tokyo has acknowledged that she resigned from the cable news network because she "had been growing increasingly frustrated with the direction CNN was going in." In an interview appearing in the current Columbia Journalism Review, Rebecca MacKinnon remarked that she had become aware of a trend toward "less interest in serious news and ... towards more infotainment, from anything but a war zone." She said that as "neither a war correspondent nor an infotainment news bunny," she was forced to reexamine her place at the network, especially after being told things by her superiors like, "Your expertise is getting in the way of doing the kind of stories we want to see on CNN" and "We'd like you to cover the region more like a tourist." MacKinnon said that when she came to the network in 1992, when it was still owned by Ted Turner, it placed heavy emphasis on international stories. "There was this real feeling that if a story mattered, we should cover it. If you had a strong argument to that effect and you could pitch that to Ted Turner, the funds would be there, because he viewed CNN as something other than a product that you just sell on the market for profit maximization. He saw it as something more socially significant than that." All that, she said, changed after the merger with Time Warner, when the attitude became, "if you couldn't justify high ratings with a story, increasingly, they didn't want to spend money on it. Of course, it's hard to know in advance sometimes."

Cover the region like a tourist? The mainstream media is disintegrating under the pressure of ratings. This is not news. But it is interesting to see the decay documented and acknowledged.

Undermanning the Occupation

Andrew Sullivan has this insightful quote from an emailer:

I think that part of the problem in Iraq stems from the Administration's fear that putting more soldiers in country would have made the case for going to war even more difficult. It was hard enough to sell the war on weak evidence of WMDs and Saddam's involvement with the attacks of 9-11. By under-estimating the resources necessary to succeed, they avoided facing their critics and having a plan for a post-war reconstruction. Their goal was to simply get rid of Saddam and hope for the best.

Sullivan himself sums up by saying

We're fighting with one hand tied behind our back - and Rumsfeld tied the knot. We can only hope that our amazing troops and the Iraqis' evident desire for a new future can somehow manage to wrestle victory from the incompetent, self-serving hands of their political masters.

Someone has to start demanding accountability from this administration for its collossal mishandling of the situation in Iraq. I'm just not holding my breath.

Global Warming

I found the abstract of a research paper reporting studies of temperature in the Alps. The researchers find that the temperatures between 800 and 1300 were comparable to today's temperatures. This is one of the big problems I've always had with the global warming theory. The supporter will show graphs indicating the temperature of the Earth (whatever that means) has been rising, and at an increasing rate, in recent decades. This, they say, supports global warming. But showing climatic variation does not prove global warming. We know that the Earth's climate changes over time. These are changes purely driven by natural forces. Global warming requires more than simply showing the "temperature" is increasing. Global warming says the temperature is increasing because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and other causes. Therefore, we have to differentiate climatic variations due to natural changes in solar output or whatever from variations due to greenhouse gases.

A few years ago, I watched an old In Search Of from the 70's warning that climatic variations were indicating a coming ice age.

A “Generational Commitment” in Iraq

In response to Secretary of State Rice's statement that the administration has been up front with the American people that the United States has made a "generational commitment" to Iraq, Think Progress documents adminstration statements prior to the war promising a quick war with troops coming home quickly. After all, we would be greeted as liberators, so what need could there possibly be for a long engagement? Last year, I linked to an article explaining how the most cautious planners in the Pentagon talked of a five-to-six month occupation. Those were the cautious ones. Others were talking about 30-90 days. This hardly translates to a generational commitment.

Well, she didn't actually say human generational commitment. Sugarcane lacebugs and fungus gnats have a linespan of about 30 days. Fleas have a lifespan of 30-90 days. Maybe that's the generational commitment they were thinking of back then.

The Friend of my Enemy...

Some things just defy explanation. The Phelps family is at it again, this time setting up a protest outside the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. Bubblehead has the story. (For those who are fortunately unfamiliar with Phelps, he is a self-described Christian from Kansas who is notorious for picketing funerals and taunting the families of the dead. If the dead person is gay, then the placards are "God hates fags" and the like. Here, it was "Thank God for 9/11" and "America is Doomed." Making fools of themselves and disgracing the Lord is their family business.)

Bubblehead writes this eloquent rebuttal to the nutjobs:

I got to thinking about what kind of country allows people like this to flaunt their unpopular opinions while being protected by the police. The answer, I decided, is only a country that is strong in our democratic beliefs and sense of our own destiny would continue to allow this. Here, at a funeral honoring a hero who had given her life so that people halfway around the world could be free, we saw those charged with protecting the weakest of us, the police, firefighters, and Soldiers, protecting people dedicated to tearing down everything they hold dear. And these people had the strength of character to ignore the asshats trying to ruin this solemn occasion, and concentrate instead on the good of this country: the part of the country that produces heroes like CPL Carrie French.

More Downing Street Memos

More secret memos from inside the British government are providing even more insight into the inner workings of the US efforts to go to war in Iraq. As with previous memos, they merely confirm what many already knew and what all should have known: that despite public proclamations to the contrary, the Bush administration was looking for justification to attack Iraq long before the war actually began. As early as March 2002, one full year before the invasion, then National Security Advisor Condi Rice was enthusiastic about regime change in Iraq.

One thing I find interesting is the role of the British. Throughout these memos, the Blair government expresses considerable doubt about many elements of the Bush administration's analysis and planning. Just some examples:

U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing..For Iraq, "regime change" does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam.

But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW (chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.

In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective... A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point.

So the British doubted the regime change argument, they doubted the WMD argument, and they pointed out the absence of any kind of planning for a post-war occupation, an omission which could (and did) lead to a raging insurgency. With all of these doubts, none of which were ever resolved, the British still ran off to war behind Bush.

I've quoted (perhaps not exactly right) this from Star Wars before: who is the greater fool, the fool or the fool who follows him? I have long admired Tony Blair. I followed British news via Sky News when I lived in Europe and so got to know his government a little bit. But these memos indict the Blair government as much as the Bush administration.

Game Review: Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords

I have recently completed my first run through the PC version of the Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords (KOTOR2) video game. I was and still am a huge fan of the first game, which is one of the best I have ever played, so I awaited the sequel with great anticipation. When I bought the game, I read some reviews and was surprised to find just about every one gave a laundry list of complaints and then 4 out of 5 stars. My review: a lot of complaints, 4 out of 5 stars.

As with any sequel, the game will inevitably be compared with its illustrious predecessor. That explains everyone's complaints. The game is vastly inferior to the first. But compared to other RPG style games, it is still good. The high marks for KOTOR2 are really an indication of just how good KOTOR1 was.

Before getting to the complaints, let's be positive and address the improvements. The gameplay and controls are as in the first game. The combat interface is improved. The player can equip each character with two sets of weapons, and switch between with a single mouse click. This is nice early in the game when you may switch between blasters and swords, but once your character acquires a lightsaber, you won't be switching much if at all. Speaking of lightsabers, there are more components to the saber than can be upgraded--lenses, emitters, and power cells--along with the usual crystals. That makes it more interesting. And the user can assemble basic components at workbenches.

The most important change in gameplay is that the player's interaction with other characters can influence those characters, and many of them can become Jedi if you handle them right. This influence game can be tricky, but it does make the user think a little more about more nuanced dialog choices. But if you mess something up with a character, that character may never speak to you again in the game.

My biggest complaint about KOTOR1 is that the game had a cap for character development at level 20. And that was the combination of the level achieved on Taris, i.e. before becoming a Jedi, with the levels achieved as a Jedi. Given that one could spend a lot of time and gain a lot of experience on Taris, this cap restricted just how much one could do as a Jedi. In fact, the user was effectively encouraged to rush through Taris as fast as possible, gaining as little experience as possible, so save the level ups for after becoming a Jedi. KOTOR2 removes this cap. First of all, the main character is a Jedi to begin with. And the character can level up as much as possible. So this is a major improvement.

Now the complaints. Where to start? What I loved most about KOTOR1 was the story. The main story was interesting in itself, but each of the supporting characters also had their own personal stories and the more time one spent with them, the more one learned. In this game, the story is virtually non-existent, and in the end I really don't understand it. Rather than chasing down star maps, the main mission for the game is to track down some hidden Jedi masters. Why? I'm not really sure. Something about getting them back together to smoke out the enemy. But they are in hiding to begin with because getting together smokes out the enemy, and that's a bad thing. And when you finally get them together, all they want to do is strip you of your Jedi powers, because you are a wound in the Force who could spell the end of the Force. I gather in the dark side game, you actually fight the masters you have assembled.

And the characters have basically no story. You might learn a little bit about a character in order to turn them into Jedi, but that's about all.

Some planets in the game seem totally unfinished. Nar Shadaa is especially bad here. Quests pop up in the journal that make no sense. In a pazaak den, I meet a droid who plays very bad pazaak. OK. Now I have a quest. What does the quest say? I met a droid who plays very bad pazaak. It makes no sense. Then there are quests you can't finish. I meet a woman who is looking for a pilot and a pilot who is looking for a job. I have two quests, to provide what each needs. Obvious answer: hook the two up. Can't do it. (I've only played once, so there may be a solution to that one, but I couldn't find it.) On Malachor V near the end of the game, I looked at the map which identified locations like a meditation chamber in non-existent places. It's like they had the idea to put a meditation chamber there, but didn't and never removed the indicator from the map.

Another way some levels seem unfinished is that scenes appear in the game that make no sense. For example, on Malachor V, the game brings up a confrontation between Mira and Hanharr. Why? Does Mira somehow factor into what will happen next in the level? No. Mira wins the battle and then is never seen again. So why move away from the main character for this battle when it serves no purpose? Again, I bet there was idea earlier in the game development that something would emerge from that scene. Maybe Mira would be captured and I would have to free her. But then that plot line got dropped but the battle remained.

I have read that LucasArts gave Obsidian only 12 months to develop the game, which would explain the sense of incompleteness.

The game is buggy, even with the latest patch. I played on a PC, and admittedly mine is not a top of the line gaming machine. In fact, it is at the low end of requirements. So I expect issues, but still, some of the bugs were ridiculous. On multiple occasions, I had to restart from an earlier saved game because something got stuck. For example, on Onderon there is a big battle in the throne room of the palace. Somehow I got the game into a state where the battle was not finished, but I could not fight anyone so there was no way to get it finished. Elsewhere, I had to fight Darth Nihilious three times to see how the fight ended. His death should trigger a cut scene, but the game kept hanging at that point with a black screen and the sound of lightsabers doing battle. Finally, I hit the quick save button, and got the game back with Nihilious considered dead, but still standing there.

Back to game play, it takes forever to get a lightsaber. As I said, the character is a Jedi from the very beginning of the game, so you always have force powers. But it took me something like 15 hours of gameplay through multiple planets before I got the lightsaber.

So, with all those complaints, why would I give the game a high score. Compared to other RPGs I have played, it is still an excellent game. It is addictive and grabs one's imagination much more than other top RPGs like Champions of Norrath. For that reason, I will give the game a high score. I just wish Obsidian had had more time to put together a better, more complete game. You can't rush some things.

Coalition for Darfur: The Future of Darfur

This week's Coalition for Darfur post points out other long-standing humanitarian crises taking place elsewhere in Africa.

There can be no doubt that, relatively speaking, the crisis in Darfur has generated a fair amount of attention. Journalists, human rights experts and bloggers have poured a lot of energy into raising awareness of the genocide and the 400,000 lives it has taken. Unfortunately, this focus on Darfur only highlights the lack of attention being paid to other, arguably even more horrific, crises in Africa.

...

Darfur is an anomaly only to the extent that it has managed to generate a significant amount of coverage and global attention. But if the world does not act soon to address this genocide in Sudan, is it all but inevitable that it too will eventually evolve into years-long, seemingly intractable conflict such as those found in Uganda and Congo.

The developed world has shamefully neglected Africa for far too long.

Movie Review: Be Cool

I saw Be Cool the other night on DVD. It is the sequel to the 90's hit Get Shorty. Let's cut right to the chase. The film stinks. There are isolated moments of humor, but that's it. I won't even bother with a plot synopsis. All you need to know is it stinks.

I suspect that may have actually been intentional, an example of what passes for cleverness in the movie. The film opens with Chili Palmer talking with a friend. Palmer was seen making the movie Get Leo at the end of Get Shorty. Get Leo is Get Shorty in the Get Shorty universe. Get it? The film was a hit, so he had to make a sequel. The sequel was really bad, so bad that Palmer wants out of the movie business. So, humorously, they made the real sequel to the real Get Shorty just as bad as the imaginary sequel to the imaginary Get Shorty. Aren't you rolling in the aisle at the ingenuity? They made a really bad movie! Har, har.

There are other examples of in-jokes passing as cleverness. In the same opening scene, Palmer talks about the requirements for a PG-13 movie. They will only allow the F-word to be used once. Palmer immediately uses the F-word, then it never shows up again. Har, har. Rocker Steven Tyler shows up and proudly declares that he is a singer who has never appeared in a movie, and won't start now. Har, har. Hilarity ensues.

It is a measure of how bad the film is that none of the few highlights involve any of the prominent actors in the cast. Travolta, Thurman, Vaughn, Keitel, and even Cedric the Entertainer are wasted. The highlights come from action star and former wrestler The Rock and rapper Andre 3000, a.k.a. Outkast. The Rock gives an outrageous turn as a gay enforcer for Vaughn's gangster-wannabe who dreams of being an actor and/or singer. He has made a hilarious music video singing the country song "You're Not Woman Enough to Take My Man" and in the end appears as an exuberant dancer at a music awards show. Elsewhere, I have described The Rock as the successor to Schwarzenegger because of his facility with comedy as well as action. Here he gets the opportunity to really ham it up, and takes full advantage. Andre 3000 plays a gansta rapper who is hilariously incompetent at anything involving gangsta. After some mishaps with a pistol, he tosses it down in disgust and tells his crew that they shouldn't even bother giving him one.

So a pro wrestler and a rapper outshine the likes of John Travolta, Uma Thurman, and Harvey Keitel. That's how bad the movie is.

Magic Pee Theory

Andrew Sullivan writes

Maybe I should get this off my chest. I don't believe the military's account of how a Koran got splattered by a guard's urine. The reason is not that I have completely lost trust in the military's credibility (although I have a lot less faith than I did a couple of years ago, and that goes for Pat Tilman's parents as well). It's that the story, in its face, seems like something obviously made up. We are supposed to believe that a guard was relieving himself outside near the open window of a cell. His pee was allegedly carried by a gust of wind, which somehow managed to guide the pee around and into an open window, where the Koran and a detainee were unfortunately placed. I mean: come off it. They have no latrines? There are ground-level open windows for prisoners? Our military is so high-tech that their pee can now turn corners? Maybe someone out there can help me understand this story better. Have I missed something? Or is this as laughable on its face as it appears to be?

(emphasis mine) Hmm. The JFK assassination brought us the magic bullet theory. Now we have the magic piss theory. Will wonders never cease? I can almost imagine what the Seinfeld spoof of this would be.

Renewing the Patriot Act

Several key provisions of the Patriot Act, which expanded law enforcement power in the aftermath of 9/11, are due to expire at the end of the year. The president is pushing for Congress to renew those provisions, arguing that they have helped make the US safer from terrorists. But one of the problems in the Patriot Act, apart from questions about civil liberties, is that the powers granted to law enforcement are not strictly constrained to terrorist investigation. In 2003, the FBI used the Patriot Act to get information on a strip club owner in Las Vegas as part of a corruption investigation. The Drug Policy Alliance cites a "report by internal investigators at the Justice Department allegedly identifies dozens of cases where drug violations, credit card fraud and bank theft crimes have been investigated and prosecuted under the PATRIOT Act." The Free Expression Policy Project reports that hundreds of libraries across the nation had reported contacts from FBI agents, some of which the Justice Department admits were for "ordinary criminal cases rather than national security cases."

Whatever one may think of the Patriot Act's value to stopping terrorism, it should be clear that the law has been crafted to grant powers far beyond that goal and should therefore be rewritten to more clearly restrict its provisions to the task it was created for.

Coalition for Darfur: The Slow Reaction

This week's Coalition for Darfur post demonstrates the snail's pace at which what little is being done to address the problems in Darfur is being done.

The big news regarding Darfur this week is that the International Criminal Court has formally announced that it is conducting an investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity in the region.

This investigation is a welcome, if belated step, but one that is also unlikely to have much of an immediate impact on the violence, disease and starvation that plagues the region.

The UN Security Council authorized this investigation nine months ago. It has taken that long just to get the thing started! How long do you think it will take to finish?

MSNBC's White Ho

I guess MSNBC is trying to appeal to a younger, more urban audience. They now nickname their reporters things like The White Ho. (Via Folkbum.)

Science and Religion

The Listless Lawyer writes of the relationship between science and religion:

In particular, requiring religion to yield to science is dumb, because "science" does not interpret itself - what can science tell us about when life begins, for example? Nothing. Science can tell us when the heart starts beating, or when brainwaves are detected, or when the fetus can survive without the mother, but it cannot resolve the conflict between the "right to life" and the "right of the mother to control her own body". These sorts of questions, what might be called questions of "meaning", are never scientific questions.

So religion (at least in the modern Western nations) virtually never conflicts with science, it almost cannot conflict with science, because one’s religion (I am using the term broadly) is generally the framework within which the "facts" of science are interpreted and given meaning. What’s clear, then, is that the word "science" is here being used as a code for "scientism", which is the fetishization of science paired with the moral values and interpretative judgments of secular humanism. That is not a truce between two opposing interpretive strategies, but a victory of one over the other.

So often we are subjected to the myth that science and religion are in conflict. This myth is driven by the fervently religious and by the fervently scientific. But the two deal in different domains that do not overlap. As I wrote before,

Fundamentally, we're comparing apples and oranges. On the question of the origins of the universe of or life on Earth, science looks at the "how" and religion looks at the "who" and the "why." As a Christian, I say God created the universe and created all life on Earth. That statement does not address the question of how He created the universe. Science attempts to provide an explanation of the how.

Sunday Dilbert

This one of the funnier Dilbert's I've seen in a while, from June 5:

NFL 2005, Ridiculously Early Predictions

Welcome to my second annual ridiculously early predictions for the upcoming NFL season. The season will not begin for another three months, so what better time to start getting into what will happen. I will not be so ridiculous as to predict a Super Bowl matchup, but after after addressing each division, I will name the four teams in each conference who will be most likely to make the big game.

As with last year, I must disclose that I am a fan of the Steelers, Patriots, and Packers, though I, as always, try to be as objective as I can. It also helps in understanding some terminology I might use. For example, to describe anything as “Viking-like”, especially a defense, is a derogatory statement.

Let's get to it.

AFC East
As they say, you have to stick with the champs until someone takes them down. The division has been won by New England three of the last four years. The year they didn't win, the Patriots were tied for first but lost the division to the Jets on a tie-breaker. The Patriots have gone 14-2 in the regular season each of the last two seasons, winning the Super Bowl after each. But there are clouds on the New England horizon. After the Super Bowl, the team lost both the offensive and defensive coordinators, men who toil in the shadow of Belichick but who deserve much of the credit for building the Patriot pseudo-dynasty. The offensive coordinator position has not been filled, and Belichick himself, who rose up the coaching ranks on the defensive side of the ball, will help run the offense. Personnel wise, the only real concern will be the possible loss of Tedy Bruschi who has suffered a stroke and had heart surgery in the off-season. Bruschi is one of the core figures of the Patriot defense, and his loss could be damaging.

Age is also an issue with the Patriots, at least on the defensive side of the ball. I realized last year that three of the four starting linebackers—Bruschi, McGinness, and Johnson—are all holdovers from the Parcells era in New England. In the secondary, starting safety Rodney Harrison has been around so long, he started in Super Bowl 29. The team has done a good job staying young on offense, but not so on the defense. This is part of the reason the team has become more offensive recently.

What about the rest of the division? The Bills, who I thought last year would make a run at the division title, made a decent showing late in the season. But the 2005 version will take the field with a first-time starting quarterback one year removed from college. The best case scenario for the Bills is that Losman follows the development path Carson Palmer did last year and start putting things together in the second half of the season after a pretty bad start. The worst case scenario would be to follow the path of most other Bengal quarterbacks.

The Dolphins are starting over with a new coach, but little else. The quarterback problem they have suffered from since Marino retired continues. OK, they got rid of Fiedler, but have not really replaced him. Now Feeley is the starter. Running back? No improvement there either, though there is talk that Ricky Williams will be returning. Certainly, that could be an upgrade. But I believe Williams would still have to serve a suspension, and the fact is the guy hasn't played in a while so I wouldn't expect much more from him than maybe 8 good games. The defense is aging, so they may not be quite the force they have been, even in last year's disaster of a team.

The Jets have been the second banana in the division for a few years. They are good, not great. And nothing has really changed this off-season. I like that they picked up Blaylock from the Chiefs to backup and eventually replace Curtis Martin, who is getting quite long in the tooth. But no other dramatic moves. They should look much like the 10-6 team they were last year.

So, this division should look a lot like it did in 2004, but with Miami being not quite as terrible as they were last year.

AFC North
I totally blew this division last year. This year, the North should be an exciting division to watch. The Steelers ended up with a league best 15-1 record, including a win over New England in the regular season. They were a team hitting on all cylinders, and there have been few serious losses, Kendrell Bell being the biggest name. The big surprise last year, of course, was their new quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. He had an excellent season, helped in large part by a superb supporting cast, before showing his youth in the playoffs. Certainly he should be much better this year as a grizzled 2^nd year player. The only real concern I would have about Pittsburgh is running back. Bettis is getting quite old and Staley is coming off an injury-shortened season. Duce really needs to bear the load this season. If he can, the Steelers should again be one of the top teams in the conference.

Where the division gets fun is in Ohio. The Bengals and Browns have been the doormats of the division for quite a while. Cleveland has had one good season since coming back into the league, and Cincinnati hasn't had a good season since the other George Bush was president. But the Bengals have been knocking on the door of respectability for the last two seasons. Rookie QB Palmer had a rough start, as one would expect, but then began playing like the top overall pick should. Their offense has a lot of weapons, and with Marvin Lewis as head coach, one has to expect their defense to be a presence.

Cleveland is also coached by a former defensive coordinator for a Super Bowl winning team, in this case former Patriot coordinator Romeo Crennel. Crennel is untested as a head coach and, let's face it, does not have much to work with in Cleveland. I like the acquisition of Trent Dilfer. I know he's not highly regarded anywhere, but the guy was the starting QB for a Super Bowl winner, which is more than most highly regarded QBs can claim. I think the Browns could surprise some people. They were a playoff team not too long ago. But 6-10 would fulfill that prediction, so it's not saying much. Romeo will need more time to put a roster together. For now, the Browns will continue their tradition of doormat-hood.

Baltimore just can't seem to get anywhere. The only team in the division with a head coach who came up through the offensive ranks features one of the worst offenses in the conference. QB Boller is just not developing well, perhaps in good part because he doesn't really have anyone to throw to. Running back Jamal Lewis has been great at times (2000 yards just two season ago), but he is coming off a prison term. The Raven defense, which once was considered among the all-time greats, is now old and fading fast. With no offense and a rapidly declining defense, the Ravens will compete with the Browns for the basement. (Cleveland will win that battle. Or is it they will lose the battle?)

So, the North comes down to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. I have to go with the Steelers in that one, but the Bengals will make it interesting.

AFC West
I have to say, I don't know what to make of this division. I've been going with Denver for a while now. But despite their talent, they just don't get it done. They have a very talented offense and seem to have had good defensive players, but something always goes wrong. I don't understand it, but it is what it is. Now, they have transplanted Cleveland's defensive line to Denver, which is not exactly promising.

The Chargers surprised the league last year with their run to the division title. Drew Brees surprised everyone by finally being a good quarterback. Can they do it again? One has to be careful with a team that made a surprise run. Often it turns out to be a fluke. (Witness the 13-3 Bears of a few years ago, whose record far exceeded the talent and ability of the players and coaches.) But one has to like what the Chargers have. Having tasted success, they will work hard for more.

Oakland made the big headlines by acquiring superstar Randy Moss from the Vikings. Randy will feel right at home in Oakland, a team which will feature an explosive offense with a lot of down field passing, and a sieve-like defense. I can't imagine any defensive coordinator in the division getting much sleep this summer with the thought of facing the tandem of Moss and Porter in Oakland. (Oakland's coordinator will not sleep because he has to work with Oakland's defense and try not to embarrass himself.) The Raiders should have one of the best passing offenses in the league this year, but will it be enough? Defense is the key, and they really haven't made too much improvement there as far as players go. Washington and Sapp are still the old-timers starting in the middle of the defensive line.

The Chiefs are another team in the Viking mold: strong offense, revolving door defense. They have been that way for a few years. It worked OK in 2003 when they earned the 2^nd seed in the playoffs, not so well last year when they finished under .500. Unlike Oakland, the Chiefs have picked up a couple of decent to good players for their defense (Surtain, Hall, Bell).

I guess the division comes down to Denver and San Diego. The Chiefs should improve over last year, but not enough to break into double digit wins. The Raiders will stay about the same until they can improve their defense. As I said, I don't know what to make of Denver, so I'll have go with the defending division champs to win it again.

AFC South
The Colts have controlled this division for the last few years. With one of the top offenses around, and a defense that manages to be somewhere in the middle of the pack, this will not change anytime soon. No one else in the division is close. The Colts have shored up their main offensive talent for the foreseeable future. Of course, that comes at the expense of their defense, with something like 70% of the cap going to offense thanks to big contracts to people like Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, and Edggerin James. It has worked so far, with the Colts earning the #3 seed the last two years in the playoffs, before falling to New England. The only team in the league the Colts struggle against is New England. The Colts should again win the division and, as usual, pray someone else takes out the Patriots in the playoffs before they have to face them.

The Jaguars stepped back toward respectability last season. They have been fairly quiet in the off-season, so it's hard to get a read on where they will be next year. They should look much like the 2004 version, though I have high hopes that Leftwich will continue to develop as a quarterback. I really did like Leftwich last year and thought he showed a lot of potential, but the receiving corps needs a significant upgrade. They don't appear to have gotten it.

The Titans will continue their downward spiral. I like Steve McNair, but he hasn't had a truly great season in a while. Frankly, with the declining talent in Tennessee, I think they would be better off developing Billy Volek who has proven to be one of the best backup quarterbacks in the league, one who would start on quite a few teams. As has happened last few years, salary cap constraints forced the team to cut more veterans. It's going to get darker in Nashville before it gets lighter again.

The Texans are still looking for that first winning season. David Carr has developed smoothly at quarterback for the team. They have other weapons on offense, but overall the team is spotty talent-wise. Don't look for dramatic improvement this season. Since they were 7-9 last year, that 8-8 mark is achievable, but not much more.

NFC East
The Eagles have controlled this division for several years now. They have had five straight seasons of 11 or more wins, have won the division titles four years in a row, have appeared in four straight NFC title games (1-3 in those games), and have had the top seed in the NFC playoffs for three straight years. Last year I predicted they would fall, but they didn't. Can they hang on for another year for one more shot? There are problems brewing in Philly. Chemistry is potentially a problem. For years, these guys have been New England South, but now there are problems between T.O. and management, T.O. and McNabb, management and Corey Simon, management and Brian Westbrook, and so on. A QB and WR do not have to be friends to be productive. Look at T.O. and Jeff Garcia in San Francisco. But more generally, an environment seems to be developing there of disenchantment with team management, and that isn't good. In addition to chemistry, one has to wonder when the emotions of four straight promising seasons ending in defeat in a big game will take its toll. Not too many teams can do what the Eagles have the last five years, far fewer can do it for a sixth.

But, if Philly is going to fall, is there anyone to take over? Laugh if you want but I think Washington is going to have a good year. Last year, they had a championship caliber defense. But they struggled on offense with Gibbs sticking far too long with Mark Brunell. The team has decent receivers and Clinton Portis at running back. So if they can get some production out of Ramsey, they should put up some wins. I like Ramsey. I again point out that he is one of only four quarterbacks to have defeated the Patriots the last four years. Even Peyton Manning must be jealous. When Ramsey was put in last year, the 'Skins started putting up some production. Not fantastic production, certainly, but something approaching respectability. With their defense, that's all they need.

Dallas was a real disappointment last year, especially after their turnaround the previous season. The one promising development last year was new running back Julius Jones. The team is old on offense. Drew Bledsoe, Keyshawn Johnson, Terry Glenn. Their passing game is a who's who of mid to late 1990's AFC East with two former Patriots and a former Jet. But defense was ultimately the problem last year. Hence three defensive players drafted in the first 42 picks overall this year, and six of their first seven picks. While that lays a nice foundation for the future, it doesn't help much for 2005. With Jones playing a full season, I expect a little more from the Cowboy offense, but that's about it.

The Giants started off well last year, changed quarterbacks, and fell apart. I was certainly critical of the QB move, but the advantage is that Eli Manning got a lot of experience last year and by the end of the season was starting to look pretty good. But, like the Cowboys, this is an old team. The transition and rebuilding will continue for another couple of seasons, by which time Manning should be competing with his brother for accolades. That's then, this is now. With so many older players, on both sides, expect another long season.

NFC North
Uh, can we skip this one? I've already said what I expect of Minnesota. Are you going to make me repeat myself? Sigh. OK. The Vikings are, on paper, the most improved team in the league. Peter King is already predicting them as the NFC participant in the Super Bowl. Losing Randy Moss, the offense probably won't be quite as dominant as it has been (though I am not convinced of that), but any small decline there is more than compensated by a vast improvement over a defense. In recent years, the term “Viking defense” has been an oxymoron. The ultimate insult to a defense has been to say they play like the Vikings'. This year, they could be a top 10 unit, to go with a top 5 offense. The Vikings have no excuse this year for not competing for a first round bye. And they don't end the season against a team in red!

The Packers have taken this division for three straight years, but that's primarily due to the Vikings' penchant for choking in a major way. The two good things this off-season has brought is that Favre is returning for another go, and his heir-apparent has finally been found in rookie Aaron Rodgers. The bad news is they seem to have lost half their starting lineup. I'm exaggerating, but it's been brutal. The heart of the team these last several years has been the offensive line, and two of the five starters are gone. And they are having contract problems with Javon Walker.

The Lions, who knows. For the third straight year, they used their first draft pick on a wide receiver. They will either have the best young unit out there, or the most ridiculously overrated. With three first round WRs on the field, plus a pretty good running back, Joey Harrington has no excuse. With no real splashes in the off-season, they don't look to be a greatly improved team.

The Bears, ah the Bears. Do they have anything going for them? They drafted a highly regarded running back. Last year, their top quarterback threw for a mere 900 yards. In three games, starter Rex Grossman threw one touchdown. This is not exactly the greatest show on turf. The defense wasn't too bad, only giving up 20.7 points per game (compared to the Vikings 24.7, 26^th in the league, and that with four games against the Bears and Lions). It will be another long year.

NFC West
Get ready to either laugh at my stupidity or marvel at my sagacity. The surprise team of 2005 will be, wait for it, the Arizona Cardinals. Dennis Green loves a deep, attacking offense. His 1998 Viking team set the record for most points in a season. Over the past couple of years, the Cardinals have mined the draft with some outstanding prospects at wide receiver. But last year's majority starter Josh McCown was not exactly Randall Cunningham reborn. This year the Cards will have the perfect QB to complement the receivers and run Green's offense: Kurt Warner. Who is second on that most points in a season list? Warner's 2001 Rams. I know Warner is not held in high esteem anymore. He hasn't had a great season since 2001. He is knocked for being totally immobile and for holding the ball too long, allowing too many sacks and the resulting fumbles. Behind a Giant offensive line, those are problems. Behind a good offensive line, those are strengths, as he showed in St. Louis. Even in NY, he showed his intelligence and ability, though stuck in a ridiculously conservative offense. In Arizona, the training wheels come off again, and he can put the pedal to the metal. And do you think Warner might be just a little motivated at the thought of facing the Rams twice? (Their first two games are against the Giants and the Rams, Warner's previous two employers.) Plus they drafted another well-regarded running back to become the starter. Beyond the offensive fireworks, the Cardinal defense was quite scrappy last year, ranking 12^th in points allowed. So, while Green's 15-1 record in 1998 is a bit out of reach for this team (even New England has only managed 14 wins in a season), look for these guys to take the division.

I officially give up on Seattle. (Which probably means they will go to the Super Bowl.) For all their strengths, they barely managed to win a pathetically weak division last year. The receivers drop everything. Defense makes plays and then gives them back. While not as bad as Minnesota's vaunted defense, the Seattle team still ranked a lowly 22^nd in points allowed. With all their weapons on offense, they gave up more points than they scored. They have picked up some players to address their flaws, and they will contend for the division title again, but I have to give the edge to Arizona there, especially with the Seahawk weakness on defense.

The Rams began their decline last season, and it will continue. The receivers are getting older, Marshall Faulk is no longer the starting running back, and the offensive line just isn't what it used to be. And the defense really hasn't been good since 2001. The Rams are much like the Seahawks: they have a pretty good offense, but a defense that just gives up too many points. They were lucky last year to even make the playoffs, and even luckier to have drawn the equally fortunate Seahawks in the wild-card round. With a stronger Cardinal team this year, they won't be so lucky.

The 49ers look to be on the upswing, so much so that they might get good again by, say, 2009. They now have a quarterback. Just 21 more positions to go to fill out the starting lineup!

NFC South
Anyone who read my weekly predictions last season know what I think of the Falcons. Any offense where the leading rusher is the starting quarterback has two problems: weakness at the running back position, and weakness in the passing game, forcing the quarterback to run so much. One cannot deny what the Falcons have done when Vick has been healthy and starting. Two such seasons, two playoff runs, including last year's appearance in the NFC title game. Running back Warrick Dunn isn't bad. He did actually lead the team last year in the end. (Vick led the stats much of the season, though.) His stats are held down because of Vicks' ability to run. The team desperately needs an upgrade at WR to add some oomph to the passing game. Peerless Price was a very good #2 receiver back in Buffalo, but has not delivered as a #1 in Atlanta. They did use their first round pick on a WR, but he cannot be expected to deliver immediately. Defense, well the stats say they have a pretty strong run defense. But ask Kansas City fans what they think. All in all, the defense is pretty good. The Falcons should make a run at the division title. The franchise has never had back to back winning seasons. That streak should end this year.

But the team I really like is Carolina, again. I had them as one of the top teams in the NFC last year, before a seemingly endless run of injuries decimated the starting lineup. Even with the injuries, the team made an outstanding second half run and was in the playoff hunt until they lost the last game. The Panthers have an outstanding passing game, with Jake Delhomme quickly establishing himself as a top QB. But they did lose last year's top receiver Mushin Muhammed to the Bears. With Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster healthy, the team should have quite a 1-2 punch running the ball, and then add a potent passing game. Two season ago, the Panthers had one of the top defensive lines in the game. Those guys should be healthy this year so look for another outstanding season there. The biggest barrier for the Panthers is that they have never beaten a Falcon team led by a healthy Michael Vick. They came close last year, losing by a field goal in the second matchup, but they will have to step up to that challenge to win the division.

The Bucs look nothing like the Super Bowl team they were just a few years ago. Brian Griese, on this third team, seems to have finally found a home. Gruden seems to specialize in that, turning journeyman Rich Gannon into an MVP-caliber player in Oakland. The team is in full rebuild mode so look for another losing season.

The Saints are a perpetual 8-8 team. They just can't seem to get any better. It's not like they don't have talent. But having a defense that make the Vikings look good is a pretty big part of the problem. This unit ranked dead last in yards allowed last year. With an offense that is just middle of the road, strong on the pass, weak on the run, giving up nearly 400 yards and 25.3 points per game just won't do the job. If it weren't for Aaron Brooks' 3800 yards passing, the team would really be a mess.

Super Bowl
As I said at the beginning, I'm not going to be so bold as to predict a Super Bowl matchup. There are too many things that can go wrong. But like last year, I will pick the four top teams in each conference, one of whom should make the big game.

AFC: Patriots, Colts, Steelers, Chargers
Yes, those are the four teams who won their divisions last year. I think the NFL is stabilizing a bit, in case that wasn't obvious from my analysis. Can the Patriots win three straight Super Bowls? No one ever has, of course. Only two teams have ever even gone to three straight Super Bowls, and both were AFC East teams: Miami in the early 1970's (2-1 in their run) and the Bills in the early 1990's (with a Viking-worthy 0-4 record). Given New England's ability to adapt to any opponent and to take away their strengths, it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. But sooner or later someone will beat them. The Steelers took them down in the regular season last year. With improved experience at QB, there is no reason to believe they couldn't do it again. Plus I thought the Patriots didn't seem as hungry before last year's Super Bowl. They played a sloppy game after a week of somewhat lax practice. My guess is they will win the division and maybe a playoff game, but they will fall this year before the Super Bowl. Given Pittsburgh's balance, they are the likely team to do it. The Colts are too weak on defense and the Chargers are just to inexperienced, and cautious, lacking the killer instinct needed for a champion. I think that's why Schottenheimer, for all his success over the years with the Browns, Chiefs, and now Chargers has never gone to a Super Bowl, and why his former assistants have only one appearance—Pittsburgh's Bill Cowher in 1995—between them.

NFC: Carolina, Minnesota, Washington, Atlanta
As last year, this is the lesser conference. The only two really good teams are likely to be Carolina and Minnesota. Despite predicting the Cardinals to win their division, the weakest in the NFL, I can't bring myself to anoint them a Super Bowl contender. But with Warner leading the offense, who knows. So I bumped the Falcons into the mix. Halloween weekend will be big in the NFC with the Vikings traveling to Carolina. The winner there could well end up with the top seed, and with two top offenses facing two top defenses the game should be one of the highlights of the season.

I See Nothing, Nothing

The Galveston County Daily News reports

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says he found no victims of sweatshops, sex slavery or forced abortions on the Pacific island of Saipan in the mid-1990s. But Carmencita Abad says that’s because DeLay did not want to see them.

DeLay was in Saipan on a trip paid for by Jack Abramoff who "was paid millions by the garment industry and the indebted Saipan government to keep the federal government from forcing the territory to adopt the federal minimum wage or U.S. immigration laws." So, on a trip sponsored indirectly by the garment industry, DeLay claims to have found no evidence the garment industry was doing anything wrong. As John Lennon sang,

Living is easy with eyes closed,
Misunderstanding all you see.

If you close your eyes, you would probably not see the problems either.

Creationist Alternative to Big Bang

I stumbled on the Orion Foundation site recently. The site lays out a creationist "theory" of cosmology as an alternative to the Big Bang. As I have been talking about creationism in the classroom, and recently the ways creationists try to justify their "theories," I thought it would be an interesting exercise to work through what the Orion Foundation is proposing.

In what follows, I assume the reader has something of a working understanding of the Big Bang theory. Not necessarily the detailed physics of the theory, but at least a conceptual understanding. Edward Wright has a good tutorial on the subject, but is fairly detailed.

The Orion site publishes 10 papers that develop and justify their model. These papers, they say, were censored by the scientific community by being removed from a public preprint archive site. I will address each paper and try to summarize the points made therein. Then I will address each. (So if the readers sees something screwy without response, it is because the response will come later.) I will not attempt to address every single point. My intention is not so much to refute Orion's theory, but to study its methodology.

The papers are written by Robert Gentry.

The Theory
Paper 1 is the introduction to all that follows. One of the primary observations in support of the Big Bang theory is that of the 2.73K microwave background radiation. Recent observations have enabled researchers to measure the temperature of the CMB at a redshift of 2.34 and the results are nicely in line with the predictions of the Big Bang model. Gentry claims his model will reproduce these measurements, but with a different explanation for the redshift.

I'll try not to get too detailed at this point, but some explanation is in order. In 1929, Edwin Hubble measured the redshifts of spectra from many nearby galaxies and discovered a relationship between distance and redshift. He also found a lack of blueshifted spectra. Nearly everything except some of the nearest galaxies were reshifted. Interpreting the redshift as resulting from recessional velocity, Hubble concluded all the nearby galaxies were expanding away from the Earth. This, then, becomes one of the foundations of Big Bang, namely that the universe is expanding.

Later, Einstein's equations of general relativity were solved for some special cases (no one can solve them generally) for an expanding spacetime, and derived a relationship between redshift and distance. For small redshifts, which is the domain Hubble explored, these findings reproduced his. Conceptually, this is easy to understand. If we assume that spacetime itself is expanding over time, then distances will gradually increase. So light emitted at a wavelength of 1 cm will later be observed at a longer wavelength. Thus is the light redshifted. The longer the light travels, the more it will be redshifted as it will pick up more of the universal expansion. Therefore, there must be a relationship between redshift and distance.

So, again Hubble's discovery of the relationship between redshift and distance is a key foundation of Big Bang. Unfortunately we cannot independently measure distances to objects much further than those studied by Hubble to verify this relationship out to greater and greater distances/redshifts. Hence the problem of determining the age of the universe.

But key to this is that we interpret the redshift as resulting from cosmological expansion of spacetime. There are other ways of getting redshift. Having the galaxy moving away at some speed (a Doppler redshift) will also redshift the spectrum. Qualitatively, this is really not too different from the expansion understanding. Saying that the space between two objects is expanding is no different than saying the two objects are moving apart. The differences in the details between the two become important at high redshift. Gravity can produce redshifts as well.

In Paper 1, Gentry addresses the question of how to interpret redshift. He proposes the New Redshift Interpretation (NRI) in which "vacuum gravity repulsion causes Hubble-type recession of the galaxies away from" some universal center. Having proposed this, he spends the rest of the paper explaining the two foundational hypotheses of Big Bang: spacetime expansion, and the cosmological principle. (The latter states, essentially, that the Earth-bound observer does not occupy any special place in the universe, that what we observe here is no different than an observer elsewhere in the universe would observe.) He argues that these are assumptions which have not been tested and are fatally flawed.

In Paper 2, Gentry delves more deeply into the question of redshifts and the Big Bang interpretation thereof. He argues again, and in more detail, that this interpretation has not been tested. He also argues that Doppler effects also give a natural explanation for redshift, and is in fact the interpretation Hubble gave when he first studied the redshifts. Gentry points out that even seasoned professionals in the theory confuse the Doppler and expansion interpretations. (Given that, at least to some extent, this is an example of "6 of one, half dozen of the other," that's not too surprising.)

Gentry then discusses the idea of a center to the universe, arguing that Hubble's research proved it. After all, if everything is receding away from the Earth then the Earth must be at or very near the center of the universe.

In Paper 3, Gentry gets into the consequences of cosmological expansion. In particular, if spacetime itself is expanding, how can there be galaxies? Wouldn't this expansion have ripped them apart?

In Paper 4, Gentry addresses another consequence of redshift: energy loss. The energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency, the inverse of the wavelength. So as the wavelength increases, the energy decreases. But conservation of energy requires that this energy go somewhere. Where is it? Particles in motion also have a wavelength (the deBroglie wavelength) which must increase as spacetime expands. That means the particle's energy must be decreasing (lower momentum). Where does the energy go?

In Paper 5, Gentry returns to the expansion redshift to again say such interpretation has never been experimentally justified. The interaction of a photon with gravitational fields is examined and Gentry concludes that photons do not exchange energy with the gravitational field. So there is no gradual increase in wavelength and energy bleeds off.

In Paper 6, Gentry points out the issues arising from a time-variable Hubble "constant." He derives the equation dλ/dt = Hλ − H_eλ_e to describe the change in the wavelength over time, and the parameters with the e subscript are the values at the time of emission. So, the variation of the photon wavelength is dependent on the value of the Hubble constant at the time the photon was emitted. This, in turn, means that photons of the same wavelength will respond to universal expansion differently because if the different values of the Hubble constant at emission.

In Paper 7, Gentry again addresses the issue of a universal center. The spherical symmetry of the Hubble relationship, namely that everything is receding from the Earth, proves the existence of a nearby center. If the Earth were not at or near the center, there would be a dipole component to the distribution of redshift across the sky, i.e. some parts of the sky would show more redshift than other parts. Hubble understood this, but rejected the obvious conclusion, a violation of Ockham's [sic] razor. The distribution of gamma ray bursts in the sky also demonstrate the existence of a nearby center.

In Paper 8, Gentry presents his GENESIS model. I must admit it is not readily obvious what exactly this model is, so I cannot summarize it. (Section 2 of Paper 1 is apparently supposed to provide this summary, but is just a review of how redshifts have been conventionally interpreted.) As near as I can tell indirectly, the universe is pictured as a gigantic spherical cavity bounded by a wall of galaxies. The microwave background radiation is interpreted as gravitationally redshifted blackbody radiation.

The redshifts in galactic spectra are interpreted as arising from Doppler and gravitational effects. Gentry is able to derive observable properties and show that they agree with observation. He also makes some predictions, including the existence of some very high redshift galaxies.

In Paper 9, Gentry lists out the "smoking guns" of his theory. These are the seven key observational points which his theory explains. Much of this is repeated from Paper 8.

In Paper 10, Gentry lists out a laundry list of additional problems with the Big Bang theory.

Analysis
Several things are immediately obvious from this study. First off, there is nothing obviously creationist about this theory. How does visualizing a cavity bounded by a wall of galaxies fit Genesis any better than big bang? According to Paper 10, the creationist element of this theory is that is requires a cosmic center, something the Big Bang outright rejects, and that the Earth is placed near this center. I'll address this again below.

As pointed out before, the common technique to prove creationism is to pick out the flaws of the competition. In Orion's papers, we have eight dedicated to the flaws of Big Bang, and two to the creationist theory. Actually, there is only one since Paper 9 is essentially a repeat of Paper 8. Most, if not all, of the "smoking guns" for GENESIS can also be explained by Big Bang. There are certainly some predictions in the theory, but none have been born out yet.

Beyond that, Gentry makes a lot of circular arguments. For example, in his summary of small fluctuations of the microwave background, he concedes that Big Bang had an explanation as well, but then argues that since he has already invalidated Big Bang, those fluctuations are really proof of his theory and proof that the Big Bang is wrong.

Much is made in this work that Big Bang is based on assumptions which have not been verified. Well, welcome to science. All theories are based on some assumptions. The verification of those assumptions is that they lead to predictions which are born out experimentally. In electromagnetic theory, we assume the existence and certain properties of electrons and then work out predictions which are tested and verified. There is no direct evidence that electrons exist. The evidence is that the theories which govern the behavior of electrons lead to verifiable predictions. So, Gentry is objecting to the way science works. But then, Gentry does the same thing. He makes a big deal that the expansion interpretation of redshift is untested. But so is his Doppler and gravitational interpretation.

And objecting to the Cosmological Principle seems rather strange. The principle is required to do any cosmology. If we cannot assume that whatever we observe would be observed elsewhere in the universe, we cannot do any cosmology, Big Bang or GENESIS or anything else. All we know is what we can observe.

What about the center that Gentry is so proud of? His "proofs" of this center are derived from the spherical symmetry of the universe. That all the galaxies are flying away from the Earth means that there must be a center, right? No. Big Bang argues that, if the universe is infinitely large and the whole thing is expanding, then everything is flying away from everything else. This is the cosmological principle at work. He argues for a center, but I think he's really arguing for an edge to the universe, which is part of his picture. If there is an edge to the universe, then spherical symmetry would indeed require a center and that the Earth be near it. If we were away from the center and closer to the edge, then the sky would not be symmetric. But, if the universe is infinitely large, then spherical symmetry simply requires the cosmological principle.

Now, let us ask the question: is this science and should it be taught in the classroom? GENESIS is a theory which reproduces some results from Big Bang and predicts things that no one else has yet seen. Big Bang makes a lot of other predictions too, such as the relative abundance of hydrogen and helium in the universe, predictions for which GENESIS has no response, at least in the papers discussed here. So, at best, at this time GENESIS provides an alternative explanation for some things Big Bang already explains; no observation has been made which would distinguish the two pictures.

GENESIS is founded on a picture of the cosmos for which there is no justification, other than it can produce Big Bang-like results. (For example, postulating a cavity bounded by galaxies is the cosmic equivalent of an oven which will produce blackbody radiation, which we already know the microwave background to be. Furthermore, this wall of galaxies has fluctuations in temperature, for no apparent reason, which precisely mirror the fluctuations observed in the microwave background.) Big Bang is founded on assumptions, yes, but there are reasons to make those assumptions. The redshifts are assumed to be expansion redshifts because they emerge from solutions to the equations of General Relativity and because we can demonstrate the expected relationship of redshift and distance at short distance. The cosmological principle is required simply to do cosmology.

This point leads to a crucial distinction between Big Bang and GENESIS. The former makes a small number of justifiable assumptions, then proceeds to logically derive all sorts of observable properties of the universe. GENESIS presupposes an entire cosmos whose structure is rigged to produce expected results, then derives a few observable properties. Big Bang requires theoretical work to understand how galaxies form. GENESIS assumes they exist exactly as they are and provides no explanation of how they came to be. Big Bang requires theoretical work to understand how the elements came into being, how stellar engines got lit, etc. GENESIS simply says the elements exist, that stellar engines are running, etc.

So, the theory provides nothing new of value over what Big Bang provides. There are no observations yet made that would distinguish the two theories. The vast majority of the scientific community accepts the Big Bang as a working theory. Therefore, the answer to the question about its place in the classroom is no, GENESIS does not have a place in the classroom.

But, is it science? GENESIS starts from a contrived picture, but then appears to proceed fairly logically. (I haven't studied the detailed physics of GENESIS, so do not mistake that statement as something of an endorsement.) It then derives predictions, though nothing really specific. Big Bang said there should be some blackbody radiation at a really low temperature and which would be isotropic across the sky. GENESIS says there should be some very high redshift galaxies, much higher than could arise in a Big Bang universe. You can't take that prediction and do much with it other than look out for one. If a z=10 redshift galaxy is ever observed, does that prove GENESIS? No. It would raise questions about Big Bang, since such a galaxy would be appearing too early in the universe. But there is no reason in GENESIS to expect such a galaxy. It just allows it to exist. Is that science?

As to the scientific flaws Gentry describes, they can all be answered. The point about the change in wavelength requiring a "memory" of the Hubble constant at the time of emission assumes without justification that the Hubble constant is not a constant, but a time-variable parameter. The problem disappears by simply assuming the Hubble constant is a constant. The problem of conservation of energy in expansion is a relativistic effect.

The "vacuum gravity repulsion" Gentry talks about is not so screwy as it sounds. This is really just the cosmological constant Einstein arbitrarily added to general relativity. Recent observations of supernovae have justified that this constant is non-zero and an important part of the universe. Gentry argues that Big Bang did not include this constant, but there is nothing in the theory to demand a vanishing cosmological constant. It was assumed to be zero, but is now believed to be something else. It does not invalidate the Big Bang as Gentry claims.

That is not to say there are not significant scientific issues with Big Bang. There certainly are. So far as I know, no one can make galaxies emerge with clustering on the size scales observed in the time frame allowed. To me, that's long been the Achilles' Heel of Big Bang. The horizon problem requires inflation which in turn requires a perfectly flat universe, which is in conflict with observations. Reconciling observed density with a flat universe requires that the overwhelming majority of matter in the universe be totally undetectable dark matter, whose only purpose is to provide the required density to reconcile with inflation. And, of course, where did the Big Bang itself come from?

But the existence of flaw in the Big Bang does not justify GENESIS.

Embryonic Stem Cells, Without the Embryo

The Washington Post has an interesting article on recent research into embryonic stem cells which may indicate that they can be made without the embryo.

Yet the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.

"That would really get around all the moral and ethical concerns," said James F. Battey, chief of the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health. The techniques under study qualify for federal grant support because embryos are not harmed, he noted. And eventually the work could boost the number of stem cell colonies, or lines, available for study by taxpayer-supported researchers.

So perhaps it is possible to have one's cake and eat it too. We can have the embryonic stem cells without the moral objections.

Flaws in Evolution as Evidence

In a previous post on evolution versus creationism, I wrote

Beyond that, the existence of flaws in evolution does not mean creationism is right. That seems to be the most common line of 'evidence' for intelligent design and creationism: evolution doesn't explain everything, so creationism is supported. (Witness David Berlinski's "defense" of intelligent design.) That's just silly, and demonstrates exactly why these "theories" should not be taught in schools.

Richard Dawkins puts it much better:

The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. "Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?" If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: "Right, then, the alternative theory; 'intelligent design' wins by default."

Notice the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! Notice, too, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist's rejoicing in uncertainty. Today's scientist in America dare not say: "Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I'll have to go to the university library and take a look." No, the moment a scientist said something like that the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: "Weasel frog could only have been designed by God."

Deep Throat

I am too young to have an emotional connection to the Watergate scandal or the recent revelation of the identity of Deep Throat. But as one interested in history, I have followed the story. I don't really understand those who would criticize Felt for what he did. Chuck Colson says Felt should have gone through the chain of command. To whom? Above him was the director of the FBI, a Nixon appointee, then the attorney general, a Nixon stooge, and then Nixon. The guy was pretty far up the chain of command, and no one in that chain had much interest in addressing the role of Nixon and the administration in Watergate and the coverup. Pat Buchanan calls Felt a traitor because he revealed the depths of criminal activity in the White House. Apparently Buchanan, a presidential candidate on multiple occasions, thinks revealing criminal activity is a bad thing. I guess the he feels the president should be entitled to carry out whatever criminal activity he wishes in total privacy. How can a president engage in criminal activity if he has to worry that somebody will tell the press later?

On the question of Deep Throat's motivation for what he did, David Corn writes

Felt was pissed off at the Nixon White House for multiple reasons. He wanted the top slot at the Bureau. He also saw the Nixonites running amok. As John D. O'Connor writes in Vanity Fair, "Felt harbored increasing contempt for this curious crew at the White House, whom he saw as intent on utilizing the Justice Department for their political ends." It probably was difficult for Felt to sort out all his motives. But this is what happens with many whistleblowers. They often are propelled by several reasons. And they are company men (or women) before breaking the rules, customs and norms. Think of Jeffrey Wigand, the real-life tobacco whistleblower marvelously portrayed by Russell Crowe in The Insider.

...

We could use such whistleblowers today--even if they stay undercover.

Indeed. We need more people who will step out and tell the truth and fewer people to slavishly tow the company line in order to protect their careers. Ultimately, regardless of his murky motivations, Felt did the nation a service by exposing the true nature of the president and the administration he ran.

Thermal Depolymerization

Andrew Kantor has a short article, and links to more information, about a process called Thermal Depolymerization.

Thermodepolymerization -- or "thermal depolymerization" -- is a process that converts stuff into oil. And by "stuff" I mean just about anything: garbage, medical waste, animals and animal parts (e.g., cows with mad-cow disease, or offal from chickens that have been made into McNuggets), used computer parts, tires, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum.

Like other interesting nuggets I've linked to (e.g. Global Consciousness), I don't know what if this is something great or a con, but it's interesting. Especially with talk of a looming oil crisis.

Coalition for Darfur: Improvement is in the Eye of the Beholder

This week's Coalition for Darfur post questions UN Secretary General's recent claims that the situation in Darfur is improving, in light of continued reports of the Sudanese government's role in systematic rape and murder in the region. In fairness, I think all Annan is saying is that the situation, which he elsewhere describes in quite dire terms ("hell on Earth" according to USA Today), is not quite as bad now as it has been in the past. That is not the same as saying the situation is good. (If there were 10,000 rapes in January and 8,000 rapes in April, then one could say the situation has improved, though it is still far from good.) Annan writes

In recent months the situation has stabilized, and fewer large-scale crimes have been reported. A massive UN-led humanitarian operation is under way, with over 10,000 humanitarian workers (mostly Sudanese) delivering food, water, shelter and other life-saving relief to up to 1.8 million people. In the areas where AU troops are on the ground their heroic efforts have made a real difference: people are less exposed to predatory violence, many have returned to their villages, and attacks have decreased.

The humanitarian situation is thus undoubtedly better in some areas than it was a year ago, but access remains limited, the harassment of humanitarian workers has increased, and insecurity remains unacceptably high. Hundreds of thousands of war-affected people are still not receiving the help they need, and the AU troops are as yet far too few to deploy throughout the whole vast territory. Relief workers are often harassed by local authorities, and sometimes even attacked, kidnapped or threatened with violence. Nongovernmental relief workers from abroad find it increasingly hard to obtain visas. And trucks delivering aid are hijacked, often by rebels. Early this month two drivers for the World Food Program were killed in separate incidents. As a result, aid does not get through to many of those who most need it.

Part of the reason Annan sees fewer large-scale crimes is that, as I wrote before, organized violence in Darfur has given way to organized starvation and famine. Eric Reeves writes,

Sometime in the summer of 2004 (we will never know precisely when), genocidal destruction in Darfur became more a matter of engineered disease and malnutrition than violent killing. In other words, disease and malnutrition proceeding directly from the consequences of violent attacks on villages, deliberate displacement, and systematic destruction of the means of agricultural production among the targeted non-Arab or African tribal groups became the major killers. Violence may still be the largest source of overall mortality among the approximately 400,000 who have perished... But there came a point within the last year in which ongoing genocide was no longer primarily a result of direct slaughter, but of a cruel attrition.

This all leads to the conclusion that we must take a comprehensive view of Darfur. Mass killing through starvation is little different than mass killing through guns. If we simply look at violence, we will draw a mistakenly optimistic appraisal of what is happening there.