Another unscientific method

To follow-up on the last post here: Politics is creating ever-more creative definitions of science. Yesterday's Boston Globe had this story:

Reading First aims to help young children read through scientifically proven programs, and the department considers it a jewel of No Child Left Behind, Bush's education law. ... In one e-mail, the director told a staff member to come down hard on a company he did not support, according to the report released yesterday by the department's inspector general.

``They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags," the program director wrote, the report says.

(Note: First paragraph actually came later in the story)

To quote our fearless leader:

I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be — a more literate country and a hopefuller country. (January 2001)

Or, more directly: "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

Politics is killing you

The federal government is taking a new tack on scientific evidence, and the tack could be killing you.

Before, it was raising doubt about a "scientific consensus" on issues, as described in "The Republican War on Science." It's not a bad book, even coming from that brother-in-law last Christmas.

More recently, it was industry creating fake "grassroots groups" to spread lies, in efforts to hold off regulation on little things, like things that can kill you.

Today, the Associated Press reports, the federal government may have bowed to political pressure by deferring more stringent health protections, despite the weight of evidence and a near-unanimous recommendation:

Specialists advising the agency had said the science supports tougher standards than the EPA chose. Other air pollution specialists and advocates alleged political tinkering. New England air quality officials said the new rules do not protect public health.

... ``Wherever the science gave us a clear picture, we took clear action," [EPA administrator Stephen Johnson] said. ``There was not complete agreement" by the scientific advisory panel.

But 20 of 22 panel members said the EPA should set tougher standards .

Note carefully, here. 20 of 22 isn't good enough. Apparently, it has to be a large, unanimous panel for the science to be considered firm enough.

Yeah. Or it can let politics creep into picture. You know, politics. Where politicians almost never win more than two-thirds of the vote, or, say, 14 of 22.

What's at stake here? Let's turn back to the AP:

The health-based limits on soot are considered an important part of the Clean Air Act, helping save 15,000 people a year from premature deaths due to heart and lung diseases.

What's a few thousand lives between friends?

Corporate bastards

It's odd, but it takes the BBC and a British newspaper to highlight some unusual problems with the state of speech in America. The authors report on the efforts of groups with discredited positions (Big Tobacco and the anti-global warming crowds) creating front groups and faking the existence of grassroots support or dissent. The story doesn't get really rolling until past the halfway mark, but it's worth a read.

Corporations do some truly wonderful things in this world, and have on the whole made thing much better. This, on the other hand, is clearly an attempt to pervert the dialogue that is so essential to American democracy.

Find the swastika!

No, this isn't some sort of half-assed neo-Nazi posting. MeTheSheeple is just a nerd with too much time on his hands.

This International Herald-Tribune article attempts to explore the clouded history of a Nazi-era swastika made with planted trees in Kyrgystan:

This is the so-called Eki Naryn swastika, a man-made arrangement of trees near the edge of the Himalayas. It is at least 60 years old, according to the region's forestry service, and roughly 600 feet across.

Legend has it that German prisoners of war, pressed into forestry duty after World War II, duped their Soviet guards and planted rows of seedlings in the shape of the emblem Hitler had chosen as his own.

More than 20 years later, the trees rose tall enough to be visible from the village beneath. Only then did the swastika appear, a time-delayed act of defiance by vanquished soldiers marooned in a corner of Stalin's Soviet Union.

MeTheSheepl got a little curious and started looking for it.

IndexMundi, whatever the hell that is, gives the location of this town. Wikimapia offers another way to find the town. 600 feet across should be pretty darned visible (note the scale at the bottom). Can you find the swastika?

Curt cartoons

Browsing Cagle.com, MeTheSheeple went through thirty cartoons about the Iraq war before finding one that was even slightly pro-war -- and that simply suggested that pulling out would spread problems beyond Iraq.

Two 'toons in particular seemed to stand out:
by Kevin Siers of the Charlotte Observer, 9/13

and

John Sherffius, The Daily Camera, 9/11

It'd be much, much better if neither cartoon were true.

Bad editing, part II

Wikipedia's taken some well-deserved beatings, but a local error last night was particularly pathetic.

The online encyclopedia offers an entry on the 2006 Massachusetts races for governor and lieutenant governor. It notes a little-known contender, one John Hawkins, a Socialist write-in candidate who happens to be a black meat packer.

Until last night, Wikipedia had linked the candidate John Hawkins to its sole entry on a man named John Hawkins.

Now, let's compare.

John Hawkins - Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor: a meat cutting worker, Black rights activist, and "promoter of the march on Washington demanding no U.S. intervention in the internal politics of Cuba and Venezuela".[13]

So far so good.

The linked?

Sir John Hawkins (also spelled as John Hawkyns) (Plymouth 1532 – November 12, 1595) was an English shipbuilder, merchant, navigator, and slave trader. ... John Hawkins was probably the first major English slave trader, although some point to John Lok in 1553.

Talk about sharing a name but nothing else in common!

Bad editing

We started ordering our Christmas gifts last night. It's amazing how much more efficient the online stores have become. Amazon.com is even beating next-day shipping!


In other bits of bad editing, let's look at the math-impaired journalists at the Boston Globe with just one story:

The [rubber] squares are up to three times more expensive than concrete slabs ... (sidebar)

The rubber sidewalks cost about $15 per square foot, compared with about $10 per square foot for concrete ...

.. rubber, which costs about a third more than concrete ...

Some of this can be explained away, as in a case where one number does not include shipping costs. Let's assume the figure for concrete is accurate, at least. Then, for rubber, within the same package, we're facing numbers of

$13

$15

$30

So much for precision journalism.

'New' 9/11 video

On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a couple released their home video from the 36th floor of a near-ish building. It's heart wrenching and stomach churning. You were warned.

Prisoners not of any conscience

The War on Terror continues to be based on values, but they're the wrong, un-American values. It's little surprise that the world's most powerful nation is seen as the world's most abusive. Witness this attack by the White House spokesman:

"There have been some in the Democratic Party who have argued against the Patriot Act, against the terror surveillance program, against Guantanamo. In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda. In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.

Either you're for the prison at Guantanamo, or you're against America and winning the war on terror.

This is the same prison, of course, that was declared a home of torture; the same prison that for a time hosted an American citizen, while the government tried to prevent access to lawyers and legal hearings; the same prison in which compliance with international law is considered "special priveleges"; the same prison where inmates are expected to tell the warden of their sins, because neither side knows.

Besides being morally wrong, this is hurting the War on Terror. Witness today's Boston Globe report:

On the Pakistan side of the border the hatred and mistrust of America are , if anything, more bitter and intense. Here, as in Afghanistan, the search for bin Laden and his allies relies primarily on informants and local alliances. Both are hard to come by.

New enemies, on the other hand, seem born every day.

In a tiny hamlet here, a story is told and retold of the suffering of a local baker, Shah Mohammed, who was imprisoned in Guantanamo. He has become part of the local lore that shapes the image of America as a brutal empire and fuels the hatred that inspires militants.

A native son of the village, Shah Mohammed, was a handsome, outgoing man when he set off in 2000 for Afghanistan and ended up working in a bakery for the Taliban government. He was caught up in the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Taliban in November of 2001, he says, and US forces picked him up near Mazar-e-Sharif . He was hooded, handcuffed, and eventually bundled off to Guantanamo, where, he says, he was stripped, beaten, and tortured. He attempted suicide four times in the year or so he was at Guantanamo, he says.

Eventually, his US captors researched his stated alibis and deemed him no threat. And so he was released, but his mind and spirit were broken, his family says.

In an interview, Mohammed, 26, spoke in disjointed sentences and repeated over and over, ``I am a baker of bread."

His uncle, Han Mohammed, 40, said, ``This is not the same Shah Mohammed that he was before. People are angry. Why did they do this to an innocent man?"

As a small crowd gathered in his tiny grocery store, the uncle fumed, ``Osama [bin Laden] is a hero for Muslims. That is what we believe. . . . America is no hero at all. If America was a hero, it would have helped this man who they harmed."

This is our way of getting aid in finding bin Laden? This is answering the war on terror? This is developing new allies? This is keeping us safe? This is keeping the War on Terror from looking like a war on Islam?

Let's turn back to that White House spokesman:

"There have been some in the Democratic Party who have argued against the Patriot Act, against the terror surveillance program, against Guantanamo. In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda. In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.

argued against the Patriot Act ... Perhaps because portions were ruled illegal? Is it now wrong to disparage unconstitutional laws?

against the terror surveillance program ... Perhaps because it was ruled illegal? Is it now wrong to disparage unconstitutional laws?

against Guantanamo? Perhaps because the United States Supreme Court ruled it illegal as violations of international and military law, and four members of the Supreme Court think it could be unconstitutional? (Read Page 10.) Is it now wrong to disparage illegal and possibly unconstitutional laws?

So, clearly, the White House spokesman's arguments are completely full of shit in re the U.S. Constitution. There have been reports, too, that Bush has argued the Constitution is a "goddamned piece of paper" that shouldn't keep getting in his way.

Let's go back to part of the rest of that White House statement, though:

In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda.

Really? Which people said we shouldn't question and detain al Qaeda? MeTheSheeple is still waiting, eagerly, to see prison sentences for al Qaeda convicts. Instead, we're seeing Afghan bakers getting beaten and a miserable rate of conviction and prison sentences, with the median prison sentence for terror crimes falling under 20 days. Last time we checked, the Bush administration alone does not have the power to decide that everyone it wants to call al Qaeda is really al Qaeda. This isn't the American justice system.

So what of that last bit of the White House spokesman's attack?

In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.

How many tools for winning the war did that baker in Afghanistan bring?

Gitmo goners

Early, MeTheSheeple posted a short bit by John McCain, who argues that we have to be better than them to win the war on terror. MeTheSheeple meant to come back to that, but could never find a way to put it into words adequately enough.

Fortunately, Carl Hiaasen did it perfectly (Miami Herald, free registration required). His conclusions are aptly stated:

Thanks to the bloody debacle in Iraq, our credibility is shot in the volatile Muslim nations, and beyond. Instead of being praised as liberators, we're condemned as arrogant warmongers.

Even if coalition forces bailed out of Baghdad tomorrow, repairing our international image might require decades of delicate diplomacy.

In the meantime, it's futile to present ourselves as the model of a just and civilized society if we throw out our rules of law -- including the presumption of innocence -- when dealing with suspected terrorists.

In theory, what separates us from the monsters we're fighting is a commitment to freedom and human rights. But a model democracy isn't supposed to imprison a person for years without charges or a fair trial. A model democracy isn't supposed to condone beating admissions out of a suspect.

The ranks of al Qaeda are full of truly dangerous people who should be locked up forever, if not executed. The key is to catch the right ones, and prosecute them the right way.

Unfortunately, getting things right has not been a hallmark of this administration's war on terror. Now would be a good time to start, since the whole world is watching.

Iraq war's divides, Part III or IV or something

America is increasingly divided over Iraq, which is presumably driving a great majority of Americans to dislike President George W. Bush's job performance. Yet we're still missing a lot of the war protest songs that marked Vietnam. True, early on were the Dixie Chicks, but they were blasted after attacking Bush directly. Then we recycled some protesters, with Neil Young.

Today, I stumbled upon Country Joe's Web site. Remember Country Joe and the Fish? 'Twas a pretty good band, it was.

Well, Country Joe, it turns out, still writes a mean little protest song or two, like Support The Troops:

Some day soon, don’t know when
We’ll see the wounded women and men
Lining the walls of American streets
Hands out begging for something to eat.

Support the troops
Support the troops

Forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
Wondering "What were we fighting for?"
World War III around the bend
That’s what we get with the George Bush Plan.

Support the troops
Support the troops

Chorus:
Chicken hawk, draft dodging, son Of A Bush
Look at all the damage you did!
American war in the Holy Land
Blood for oil, not in my name!

There are also Iraq variations on the "Fixin' to Die Rag," apparently submitted by fans:

The USA's the worldwide cop,
And evildoers must be stopped.
Saddam's got nukes and poison gas.
Let's go kick him in the ass.
Conquer the land, sell off the oil.
To the victor goes the spoil.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we searching for?
George said it, it must be true.
I believe in W.
And it's five, six, seven,
Tell me who I should hate.
There's no need to wonder why,
'Cause Presidents never lie.

Interesting times we live in, eh?

Idiocy 9/11

"Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise."
-- Bill the Bard

There's several new rounds of idiocy involving the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Both are appalling.

According to a Scripps Howard poll, more than one out of three Americans thinks that America either performed the attacks itself, or allowed them to happen:

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" -- the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet -- quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that it has covered up proof of space aliens.

Just why is it that the tin-foil-hat-crowd is convinced government is completely incompentent, except when it comes to massive, wide-wrought conspiracies? You can't have it both ways. Either government can't buy a toilet seat or ketchup without screwing up, or government can con millions of people easily.

Then again, given the above survey, maybe it's not that hard to con millions of people. Remember how many people -- particularly those who watch FOX News -- thought Iraq had been proven to cause 9/11?

Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
-- Samuel Johnson, 1758

Also via Fark.com, we have the second recent hint of 9/11 idiocy. CBS has already aired the superb documentary simply called "9/11" twice; it's a movie that started by accident, as two French filmmakers tried to document firefighters being trained on the job. Naturally, this offends some people.

Dozens of television stations are already canning the documentary or delaying it, over fears of increased government censorship through FCC fines and other threats. Witness this nice little touch of idiocy:

"This isn't an issue of censorship. It's an issue of responsibility to the public," said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the [American Family Association], which describes itself as a 29-year-old organization that promotes the biblical ethic of decency.

Because, clearly, guys fighting for their lives and those of thousands of people they strive to protect ... must avoid the potty mouth when buildings are falling on them. The group is trying to motivate its three million members to file complaints because the way some people die doesn't fit their interpretation of the Bible.

It's not even an absolute interpretation of the Bible, as this scholar points out the Bible's ... literary ... references to copulation, excrement, genitalia, water sports and the like. So, what say we let the Bible speak for the Bible and the heroes of 9/11 speak for themselves?