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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
How Widely Is Occam's Razor Internalized? At Bible study the other night, I was explaining about Occam's Razor, and how not just science, but our entire culture has internalized the idea that an explanation of a phenomenon should discard any assumptions that are not required. This is such a fundamental part of Western thought that everyone immediately understood it and agreed with it--but with the exception of my wife, none of the people present had heard of it. (And before you make any assumptions: a big chunk of the room are college graduates, including a couple of other engineers.) It suddenly struck me as I was discussing its significance to how science deals with the question of the supernatural that perhaps part of the problem that we are having with the Muslim world's bizarre conspiracy theories is that Occam's Razor, the product of an English Franciscan friar named William of Occam, is a very Western concept. Let's say that you need to explain the poverty of the Muslim world (even in nations sitting on, and exporting vast quantities of oil). If just a few countries that, in the eyes of the Muslim world, are dominated by Jews, had made the leap from medieval to modern, then it might be plausible to see Jews as a factor in that leap. (The rational person might ask, "Maybe Jews have helped the West make the leap--not that they are conspiring against Muslims.") But many other societies have either made, or are starting to make the transition from Third World to First World, such as Japan (already there), Singapore (already there), and India (starting the great leap). Applying Occam's Razor would cause you to say, "Maybe it isn't all an elaborate Jewish conspiracy. Do we really need this assumption to explain our poverty?" In general, the really great conspiracy theories rely on denying the validity of Occam's Razor. For example, the "Bush arranged to put explosives into the World Trade Center towers to have an excuse to go to war against Iraq" conspiracy is a strong argument for application of Occam's Razor. As I have pointed out in the past, the simplest explanation--that a wealthy fanatic who had declared war on the U.S. in 1998, and had already engaged in multiple terrorist attacks on U.S. interests--is a lot more plausible than the left's favored explanation. Their vast conspiracy would have required silence from dozens of demolition experts planting explosives, dozens to hundreds of military officers who would have known what really happened, and hundreds of civil engineers, who have studied the engineering aspects of the collapse. Which is simpler? Even where there have been criminal actions by the government, it makes a lot more sense to understand these as negligent or irresponsible behavior that was then covered up to hide criminal liability. Which is more likely the cause of the fire at Waco? 1. The FBI fails to consider that pumping the building full of CS and methylene chloride (which burns nicely) increases the fire hazard. They ram parts of the building with their tanks, which knocks over kerosene lanterns and candles (which had been used for lighting after the FBI cut off the power), and probably at least some of the Molotov cocktails that had been made by the Branch Davidians that morning. These set fire to spilled kerosene and the hay bales that the Branch Davidians had set up in the building as bullet stops. The holes in the building, in the words of the former Dallas fire chief interviewed in Waco: The Rules of Engagement, act like opening the flue in a pot-bellied stove. 2. The FBI intentionally sets fire to the building for the purpose of exterminating everyone inside? (Yes, I know about the incendiary ferret round that my friend Dave Hardy found in the evidence room, but that was one such incendiary round, and if the FBI was evil enough to intentionally set fire to the place, I can't believe that they were stupid enough to intentionally use and leave an incendiary round where it could be recovered.) Look for the simpler explanation, which is usually stupidity, negligence, and carelessness, because the alternative explanation of conspiracy requires evil intelligence. (There might well be conspiracies to cover up stupidity after the fact, but that's just human nature, "I didn't do it! It was Johnny's fault!") I'm sorry, but I don't see much evidence of intelligence on this planet. Friday, September 22, 2006
The Things People Do To Run For Public Office This certainly takes the cake for weird: Marvin “Pro-Life” Richardson has now officially changed his name – to just “Pro-Life.” Richardson went to court yesterday in Gem County and got the change approved. Now, he said, he has no first name – just the last name of “Pro-Life.” It won’t change how he appears on the ballot in his Constitution Party candidacy for governor this year, however. Richardson already is certified for the ballot as Marvin Richardson, and ballots already are being printed.You know, I can understand someone being "pro-life." I'm sympathetic to their concerns, although I think a bit more work persuading a large majority of this would be more worthwhile first. But changing your name to "Pro-Life" is...a bit odd. Labels: abortion My Daughter Is Working On Her Master's in Social Work... So of course, she's gotten all liberal squishy, such as this recent blog entry about Wal-Mart's new experiment: Amazing Wal-mart!Somehow, I don't think this is quite what her very, very liberal social work professors were hoping for! Just think: if Wal-Mart (with their enormous market power) starts selling generic drugs for $4 a prescription what this will do for the poorest Americans. I'm expecting many of the liberal Wal-Mart haters to suffer cataclysmic head popping. Would they rather the poor be better off? Or Wal-Mart go under? I find myself thinking of R. W. Grant's poem, "The Incredible Bread Machine," which imagines how liberals would punish someone who figured out how to get rich by making bread so efficiently that it cost a penny a loaf. Saul Cornell Is Suddenly No Longer a Partisan on Gun Control At least, that's what this editorial from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune claims: First, a calming caveat: Saul Cornell doesn't want to take away your guns. He's neither antigun nor progun. He really isn't a gun guy at all. His thing is history.Any of you who are familiar with Professor Cornell's work can start the insane giggling right now--yeah, he's not really on one side or the other, nor is he trying to disarm the masses. Now, the editorial raises some good points, one of which is that gun regulation was pretty common when the Second Amendment was written: "As long as we've had guns in America," says Cornell, "we've had gun regulation." In fact, the Second Amendment's chief purpose is to assure such regulation. Without it, the founders feared, anarchy might take hold.I'm hoping that they misquoted Cornell. The Second Amendment was not passed out of fear of anarchy. The Constitution was adopted at least partly out of concern that a stronger central government was needed, but the Second Amendment gave no new power to the federal government concerning the organizing of militias. The Constitution already granted federal authority in this area. Art. I, sec. 8 gave Congress authority: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;The Second Amendment grants no more authority to the federal government. At best (and this is the argument that gun control advocates such as Professor Cornell used to make), the Second Amendment grants authority to the states to maintain state militias. There is no argument ever advanced through the courts or at the time of its adoption that claimed the Second Amendment gave any more power to the federal government. "It would have been impossible to muster the militia without a scheme of regulation," says Cornell -- and the early Americans had one. "Muster rolls" kept track of militia members and their firearms. And every hamlet in the land had its own de facto gun registrar: the local gunsmith, who knew every gun and gun-owner in town.Ah, no. Muster rolls kept track of who was a member of the militia, and to the extent that militia members obeyed the law requiring them to own a military weapon, I guess you could say it "kept track" of their firearms. But other than the requirement to own one musket, firelock, or rifle (depending on the year, and whether the 1792 or 1803 Militia Act was in play), the muster rolls didn't tell you if militia members also owned a hunting weapon, a pocket pistol, or even a cannon. If you weren't a militia member, these muster rolls had no such effect. Remember that most Americans were not members of the militia; boys and men over 45 weren't militia members; non-citizens weren't members; free blacks weren't members of the militia (except, oddly enough, in North Carolina, which ignored federal law on this); women weren't in the militia. We know that all of these non-militia members owned guns. To claim that every town had a "de facto gun registrar" is just wishful thinking. Most towns had a gunsmith, but guns were quite simple back then. There were people who probably never went to a gunsmith. There was no way that Cornell's supposed "de facto gun registrar" could have used his knowledge to confiscate guns. There's one right the Second Amendment wasn't written to confer: an entitlement to take up arms against the government. "The founding fathers drew a distinction between a well-regulated militia, which operates under the authority of the state, and an armed mob," says Cornell. History couldn't be clearer about this point: "Once you have constitutional government," Cornell points out, "you have no right of revolution anymore."Why, then, did New Hampshire's 1784 state constitution include a right to revolution? [Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance ag ainst arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. Now, it is true that if you rise in rebellion against the government, you can't expect them to say, "Oh, that's okay," but in practice, the relatively mild punishments handed out to the participants in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 was at least partly because the Framers recognized that even when in the wrong, it was best to err on the side of too little punishment, not too much. As Jefferson wrote concerning Shay's Rebellion in 1786: "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion [Shays's Rebellion]. The people cannot be all, and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country ever before existed a century and a half without a rebellion. And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms! The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."It just gets more and more "alternate universe" the deeper I read: What Cornell wishes people would understand is that our tradition of gun ownership grew up alongside gun regulation. When this country was young, Cornell notes, the Second Amendment created a climate in which "gun ownership wasn't driven by antipathy toward the government or one's neighbors. It was part of an ethic that knit the community together and bound it to government."Uh, no. Gun ownership was driven largely by the desire to kill and eat cute furry little creatures. The various militia laws existed because the government wanted the population armed for the defense of the government--and the experience of the Revolution demonstrated that the population needed to be armed for defense from the government. Now, I'm going to quote from an obscure political trouble maker of the time that Professor Cornell has apparently never heard of before, but if he opens his wallet, he'll find a picture of this radical, anti-government sort: An energetic national militia is to be regarded as the capital security of a free republic, and not a standing army, forming a distinct class in the community.President Washington wrote that in 1790, arguing that a standing army was "hostile to the principles of liberty" and the militia was the only safe alternative. Why? Because Whig political philosophy taught that standing armies followed the orders of the government, not necessarily of the people; militias were the people, and were therefore safer than a standing army. The militia's primary function was external defense--but the alternative, a professional standing army, was dangerous, and the purpose of the militia was to keep the government afraid of the people. I don't know how Professor Cornell could have read much of the primary or secondary sources on this question, Washington's writings, the debates in the 5th and 6th Congresses about enlarging the standing army, books such as Kohn's Eagle and Sword--and missed this important theme. Republicans in 1798 saw the standing army as an instrument of political oppression. Representative Albert Gallatin observed that proponents of this enlarged standing army "speak not only of the danger of an invasion, but of the danger of a revolution—-of an oversetting of the Government...” Gallatin suggested that the enlarged standing army would be used in response to "fictitious conspiracies, pop-gun plots, and every other party artifice which has been practiced in England." Representative Joseph McDowell argued that the army proposed would "answer the like purposes to which a similar force had been raised in England and Ireland. And what have they been used for there but to suppress political opinion? The military force is there riding over the people, and dragging husbands and fathers from their wives and children to prison, merely because they have taken the liberty to think." [Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2nd sess., 1736, 1744-5, 1760.] That's it: Professor Cornell is visiting us from a parallel universe, where Whig political thought never developed, and no one in the Revolutionary and early Republic periods ever feared governmental oppression. Labels: gun rights I'm Not Happy About This Compromise I haven't been entirely comfortable with "waterboarding" as an interrogation technique--most of the other techniques that the White House wanted allowed don't seem to qualify as "torture" by my standards. Even the Red Hot Chili Peppers' music! But this compromise, at least the way that Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) described it on The O'Reilly Report last night, bothers me, because according to Sen. Cornyn, the actual list of lawful techniques will probably be kept secret. These are frightening and fearful times, and there are actions that our government may need to take in life-threatening circumstances when confronting dangerous fanatics that I would not want to see use in civilian life. But this I can assure you: the list of what those techniques are should be publicly known. I want to know how far our government is going to extract information. I don't buy Sen. Cornyn's argument that keeping this secret makes it easier to put al-Qaeda operatives off-guard. Waterboarding bothers me--the distinction between that a torture seems highly subjective. I think every American should be prepared to say, "No, I think that's going too far" or "Red Hot Chili Peppers, sure, but no, not Barry Manilow!" But if I don't know what is on the menu of available techniques, I can't form an opinion about whether the interrogation techniques have gone too far. Weird My wife is teaching English composition at Boise State this semester, much to her pleasure--and suddenly, several weeks into the semester, she has picked up another section--and this is where it gets weird. The department can't find the adjunct who was teaching that other section, and has missed a week's worth of classes. They've left messages repeatedly--no response. We've encouraged the department to contact the police, and see if they have any record of this adjunct being in a car crash, or a crime victim. It is a bit strange to have someone stop showing up to teach classes, and be impossible to contact. Small World? Or Just a Small Town? My wife and I went to dinner at El Durango in Horseshoe Bend this evening--and the waitress recognized me from my blog. I'm like, almost a celebrity here! I've Escaped The Galleys I've shipped back the changes. This is very demanding work. I found two paragraphs duplicated in a couple of chapters that had to be excised--they made sense in one place, and quite a bit less in another. There were lots of places where I and my editors missed that "or" and "of" aren't interchangeable. In another place, I had somehow dropped a critical phrase detailing the average value of guns in Connecticut probate inventories. The publishing software they use imported Microsoft Word--but where Word uses specific characters for 1/4 and 1/2, there was now a question mark. Lots of little details--and I discovered that I referred to Georgia's law mandating being armed at church as passed in 1750. No, it was actually passed in 1770. I only caught that mistake because I was emailing someone a link to the document, and I notice that I had the date wrong in my book. One more pass to make sure that repagination didn't screw up page references, and I think we're done! Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Sentenced to the Galleys No, I'm not talking about that scene in Ben-Hur. The galleys (which are the typeset pages that the publisher goes to print from), have arrived, and I'm working my way through them. I'm a little disappointed at how many errors ended up in them--almost like the import from Word to whatever program they use isn't very accurate. The 1/4 symbol that Word uses for that fraction--turned into a question mark. A few footnotes on pictures seem to have disappeared. The page reference links that Word has, that automatically update your references to other pages? Those were lost, so I am havin to update those page numbers by hand. Mostly, however, what I am finding are minor typos, and a few places where I suspect that I scrambled something in Word, and I am just now noticing it. For example, a couple of paragraphs that are present, identically, in two different chapters. I'm hoping that this doesn't complicate getting this to print, since it will screw up the page reference links ("see page nnn"). Dark Star As Epistemology Teaching Aid My wife and I are leading a Bible study right now concerning evolution, creation, Intelligent Design, and related issues. We are trying to give everyone enough of a grounding in these subjects to understand how evolutionary theory ended up in the driver's seat; the limitations of scientific theory; that there are a variety of different Christian perspectives (theistic evolutionists, such as Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute), Old Earth Creationists (such as astrophysicist turned evangelist Dr. Hugh Ross), Young Earth Creationists, and biologists and biochemists who are Intelligent Design advocates. We are also trying to get everyone to understand that when scientists reject supernatural explanations, it doesn't mean that they are denying the existence of God--they are arguing that you can't construct scientific theories (which are, after all, suppose to enable prediction of events) with an "M" for "miracle" in a formula. The discussion will get more excited in the next few weeks, as we discuss the problems of translating yom, the Hebrew word that is usually rendered as "day" in translations of Genesis--but actually has quite a range of meanings, not just "twenty four hours." Anyway, this evening, to get everyone thinking about epistemology--the study of how we know what we know--I showed the climatic sequence from Dark Star. If you've never seen this film--which was John Carpenter's directorial debut--you should. It was originally a 65 minute student film, and when you look at the special effects, it does show. But it is still screamingly funny--especially the sequence at the end, where one of the humans attempts to reason with a "smart bomb," raising doubts about how much we can trust our senses to arrive at truth. (Oh, and of course, it has the best country & western outer space song ever written. Okay, the only country & western outer space song ever written.) Oh, and the smart bomb's eventual reaction leads me to Romans chapter 1:21-23: For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.... Labels: intelligent design Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Banning Thin Fashion Models Over at Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Volokh is arguing that the proposals in Britain to follow Madrid's example in banning thin fashion models is the wrong solution, likening it to the Soviet model of everything that was permitted was mandatory. I agree that this is probably not the right way to solve the problem--but the problem is real. Guys, spend some time reading women's fashion magazines, like Glamour. You will see a contradictory mixture of articles about the dangers of bulimia and anorexia and ads filled with these anorexic fashion models. You will read articles about the importance of women having good self-esteem--and ads that promote the idea that every woman is ugly unless she buys this dress, or these shoes, or wears this perfume. If there is a single message that I wish our culture could get across to young women it is this: the vast majority of teenaged gals, unless they are very overweight, or frighteningly underweight, are attractive to guys their age. Young ladies can enhance their appearance with appropriate grooming, and good choices of clothing. Good skin care will do wonders for your skin's health and your appearance; the use of spatulas for make-up application is almost always a mistake. A small number of teenaged women may have appearance peculiarities that call for tasteful use of make-up to draw attention away from too large a nose, or some similar unfortunate feature, but these are the exception. Fashion magazines exist to make young women insecure about their looks--so that their advertisers can sell them stuff that they don't need. It is part of a free market, no doubt, but that is hardly something of which to be proud. The Politics of the Professoriate This article in Inside Higher Education reports that a new study suggests that the political imbalance in the academy isn't as severe as everyone assumes: To read the reports that have appeared for a few years now, it’s easier to find an ivory-billed woodpecker than a Republican on a college campus. Studies have compared party registrations of various college faculties, views of members of various disciplines, and political leanings generally. Conservative pundits and David Horowitz have had a field day with these studies, saying that they show a major problem with ideological imbalance in higher education.I don't find it hard to believe that there has been a shift towards the middle of the road among younger academics. I can certainly see it among the historians (both professors and grad students) that I know who are under 40--there are a lot of them that seem primarily to be pursuing truth, not Political Correctness. This does not mean that the younger historians are conservatives, but the rigidly doctrinaire approach to "scholarly" work that defines much of the Vietnam Generation of historians (Michael Bellesiles, Ward Churchill) seems to be less common. Still, when you ask academics to define themselves as "liberal" or "conservative," these labels reflect relative positions, not absolute ones. Law professors that I know who define themselves as "right of center" also argue that sex with animals should be legal, and gay marriage should be implemented by the legislatures, not the courts. Anywhere outside the academic community, those positions would be considered at least liberal. A bit more useful is this study by Daniel Klein in Critical Review, which instead of asking professors to define themselves as "liberal" or "conservative," asks for their positions on various issues, and then maps the answers onto the various positions. Not surprisingly, they find that professors who call themselves Democrats fit "liberal" pretty well; ditto for professors who call themselves Republicans; they fit "conservative" pretty well. But even the Republicans tend to be pretty skeptical of laissez faire economic policies; professors, regardless of political affiliation, seem to be partial to the government doing things. When it comes to how professors vote, you can really start to see how dramatically atypical the academic community is: We also asked: “To which political party have the candidates you’ve voted for in the past ten years mostly belonged?” The options we offered were Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Republican, and Other, listed in that order horizontally across the page, with checkoff boxes. Of the academic respondents, 962 (79.6 percent) reported voting Democratic, 112 (9.3 percent) reported Republican, 17 (1.4 percent) reported Green, and 13 (1.1 percent) reported Libertarian. Twenty-nine respondents (2.4 percent) checked two or more responses, 16 (1.3 percent) wrote in an “other” party, 17 (1.4 percent) said they cannot or do not vote, and 42 (3.5 percent) did not respond to the question.Hmmm. That means professors vote Democrat (either always or so often that they didn't bother mark multiple responses) more than 8x as often professors vote Republican (again, either always or so often that they didn't bother marking multiple parties). A little political diversity would do a world of good for the academic community in terms of a diversity of ideas. We Keep Getting Accused of Empire... Michael Williams suggests (I think in the style of A Modest Proposal) that we start behaving like one: It's obvious that doing good by freeing gazillions of people from tyranny hasn't won us any points with the world, so I say it's time to stop making friends and start making money, Roman style. Rather than freeing all these people, protecting Europe from commies and Nazis, policing the oceans, and saving Tsunami victims, all gratis, it's time to start extracting tribute from every country that has benefitted from American foreign policy. Here's the tribute menu:A commenters over there named Caethan asks: Do you really want an American Empire?Another responds: We are being accused of it from abroad and from the Kerry, Dean, Reid, Pelosi camp. Why not make it offical and send an invoice? No, We Couldn't Do That Michael Williams is hopping mad about Iran's president coming to New York City to hold press conferences: If we let Ahmadinejad give a press conference in New York City under the protection of the Secret Service, we're going to look like fools in a few years when we're chasing him through the mountains of Pakistan. We should grab this guy as soon as he steps off the plane and throw him in a deep hole at Gitmo.Obviously, we can't do that. It would be a serious violation of international law, treating diplomats like that. I mean, Iran might retaliate by taking over our embassy. Conversion At Swordpoint Pope Benedict is getting a lot of flak about his remarks quoting a Byzantine emperor concerning the evil of Islam's conversion at swordpoint. Chirac, for example, thinks that the Pope is confused: Pope Benedict XVI’s recent remarks about Islam and the prophet Mohammed provoked the first reaction from a western leader; French President Jacques Chirac warned against confusing Islam with a religion with a radical movement.I wish that were the case. Conversion at swordpoint, however, is not a peculiarity of "radical Islamism," or a modern misinterpretation of the Koran. Battlefield conversion at swordpoint has been a fundamental part of Islam from the very beginning, apparently commanded by the Koran's "The Cow" 2:190-1. Significantly, this appears only to justify conversion at swordpoint against current combatants; 2:192: But if they desist, then surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.suggests that Muslims may not force conversion against non-combatants, or those who are no longer combatants. Pretending otherwise may be good politics for Chirac, but it is historically inaccurate. Now, some of you may be saying, "Harrumph! The Pope is complaining about conversion under threat of death?" Oddly enough, while you can find a lot of examples in European history where Jews were given a similar choice, this appears never to have been Church doctrine--quite the contrary. I am almost done reading Benzion Netanyahu's The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, 2nd ed., and he has a very relevant discussion on pages 1012-14 of how proponents of the Spanish Inquisition justified its application to the Jewish converts to Christianity who were supposedly "secret Jews": The orders issued on January 2, 1481, contain three such signals, indicating what the Kings had in mind when they launched their inquisitional project. The most telling of these signals was the Kings' description of how the conversos had become Christians. We refer especially to the clause in that description which says that the conversos (or rather their ancestors) were baptized "without pressure or force" (sin premio ni fuerza). Evidently, this formula came to dispose of the claim that the conversos of 1391 resulted from a death threat and hence were "forced," and that those of 1412-1418 were effected under duress (intolerable pressure) and hence were also forced. Juding by the Kings' declarations, then, all these conversions were voluntary.The reason for this clearly false claim is that [A]n inquisition could deal with heretics and apostates, but the Judaizers [those conversos accused of secretly being Jews] were neither heretics nor apostates. Since their parents were forced into Christianity without ever believing in any of its tenets, their infants and small children could not become Christians by being "baptized in the faith of their parents" which was what it had been--i.e., Judaism. Thus, since these children had never been Christians, they could not have deviated from Christianity (i.e., become heretics) or depart from it (and thus turn apostates). Like their parents, they were forced into Christianity and kept in it against their will out of fear, and thus they, too, must be seen as forced converts, who should be outside the inquisition's jurisdiction.Now, Netanyahu points to considerable argument about what constituted force, with Boniface VIII arguing that "forced conversion" meant "only when physical compulsion was applied" (but not, "threat of death"), but also that famed authorities like Isidore of Seville and the Fourth Toledan Council, who recognized conversion under fear of death as forced (and hence forbidden by Christian law)....Netanyahu points to a number of prominent churchmen who shared this view, and points out, [W]ith rare exceptions, all Christian authorities denounced forced conversion and canon law explicitly forbade it.It would appear that forced conversion was contrary to Church doctrine. The Death Worshippers A recurring difference between Islam and the West is that Islam worships death. If you think that I am painting with too broad a brush, consider this recent question of textbooks: As if things weren't crazy enough already in the Middle East, here's the officially sanctioned message in sixth-grade Palestinian textbooks for 11- and 12-year-old kids: "The noble soul has two goals: death and the desire for it."Unfortunately, it isn't just the willingness to die that makes this so dangerous; it is the willingness to kill innocents as part of this death worship cult that threatens the rest of the world. What is just astonishing to me is how the left, and many liberals, just don't get it. They see George Bush as a greater danger than this crowd that wants women banned from learning to read; that doesn't just refuse to let homosexuals get married--it refuses to allow them to live; that makes the most traditional and conservative Christian denominations look like the ACLU with respect to the establishment clause. Sam Harris is a flaming liberal and opponent of all religious beliefs. This recent column in the Los Angeles Times makes a pretty good case that liberals are attempting to commit civilizational suicide: TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, "The End of Faith." In it, I argued that the world's major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization. In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students — from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.There's a lot in this column with which I disagree. He refers to "members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies." While I've met more than a few people over the years whose "end times" beliefs were used to justify all sorts of bizarre and ridiculous positions, this enthusiasm seems to have subsided--at least among Christians that I know. (Some of this was because Hal Lindsey's many books on "end times" turned out to be considerably less prophetic than he thought.) It is a rather strange situation where leftists and many liberals, who should have the most to worry about from the increasing dominance of a fiercely homophobic, male chauvinist, anti-freedom of expression, and religiously intolerant worldview, are clearly more afraid of George Bush and Dick Cheney than they are of our common enemy. Should Lawyers Agree Not To Be Terrorists? I mentioned a few days ago the Ohio ACLU's victory in overturning a law requiring attorneys to swear that they are not terrorists, or involved with a terrorist organization--and why I thought that was a bad idea. One of my regular readers took exception to that, and argued that the government should not be involved in any way in regulating relationships between attorneys and their clients, other than establishing a basic competence of attorneys. A lawyer who is representing a client is an officer of the court. They are obligated by existing laws and the ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility in a number of respects: they agree that they will not knowingly present information that they know to be false; will not knowingly participate in a witness perjuring themselves; and have certain obligations to both their client and the court. (See EC 7-26 through EC 7-28 of the ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibilities for some examples.) There's already a lot of limitations above and beyond requiring "a basic competence" of an attorney. This is an especially serious matter when there is the very real possibility that a defense attorney may inadvertantly come across information that exposes information about anti-terrorist operations. I've read of too many cases where papers got mixed in that weren't supposed to go to opposing counsel. Yes, we shouldn't rely on the defense attorney to be a protection against the prosecution making these sort of mistakes, but neither is there anything wrong with requiring attorneys to not be actively participating in a conspiracy to murder people. Disturbing Information About Polycarbonate Plastic I'm a big fan of plastic--heck, I manufacture goods out of Delrin. I consider the "plastics are going to exterminate us" screeching of the environmentalists to be at best, deranged, and at worst, intentional deception. Still, there are places where I start to be a bit concerned. One of the worst aspects of the Internet is its ability to propagate nonsense at extraordinarily high speed--hence, the now widespread belief that the U.S. government caused 9/11. My mother forwarded me the following email concerning health risks associated with certain plastics, and asked if it was true--and surprisingly enough, there seems to be considerable truth to it: In June, San Francisco banned the manufacturing, sale, and distribution of child-care products and toys containing certain phthalates and bisphenol A, both hormone-disrupting chemicals found in some plastics that are thought to interfere with childhood development. The European Union has similar bans on phthalates.Snopes.com didn't have anything about this--but I found a number of at least plausible sources that confirm that bisphenol A is indeed closely related to estrogen, and that while there is controversy about whether the amount of it that leaches out of plastics is a hazard to humans, it is clear that in large doses, it is a real hazard. This recent press release from Indiana University is pretty disturbing: BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Bisphenol A, a common industrial chemical claimed to speed the growth of human breast and ovarian cancers, retains its carcinogenic properties even after being modified by body processes, report Indiana University and University of California at Berkeley scientists in the Aug. 28th issue of Chemistry & Biology, a Cell Press journal.The press release emphasizes that they don't know that this actually takes places in the body--but that it certainly can take place. Now, the bisphenol A industry claims that recent studies show that low doses aren't a health risk. They might well be right; for some chemicals, there is a threshold below which the body seems to do quite well at dealing with it, and above that threshold, the body can't. A good example is alcohol. A blood alcohol level of .50% is lethal; a blood alcohol level of .05% is not; a blood alcohol level of .01% could probably be sustained indefinitely without damage. Still, even if the vast majority of people are at no risk from typical levels of bisphenol A exposure, there are going to be some people whose exposure will be much higher, because of increased leaching caused by highly acidic water, repeated cycles of boiling water in bisphenol A containing plastics--or infants, who might be at substantially higher risk because of their small body size, and their developmental stage. The bisphenol A industry claims that a Dutch suggests that the risk is minimal: A common claim is that high levels of bisphenol A migrate from polycarbonate bottles, in particular from old bottles that have been used repeatedly. In 2005, this claim was examined by the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority in a study that measured migration from 22 new baby bottles (representing 14 brands) and 20 old baby bottles (representing 11 brands).(3) The old bottles had been used for up to three years in households under typical conditions including microwave heating, boiling before use and dishwashing. Consistent with many other studies, no migration of bisphenol A was detected from the new bottles. Significantly, trace migration levels were detected in only three of the old bottles. Contrary to what is commonly claimed, these results indicate that typical use of polycarbonate bottles does not lead to extensive migration.Sorry, but that's not good for me. I might be prepared to accept these figures for polycarbonate water bottles used by adults, but babies? I think it would be very wise to stay away from polycarbonate baby bottles. This article from the University of Missouri is a bit more alarmist in tone--perhaps too much so, but it does make me a bit concerned about the use of polycarbonate for anything that involves food: Since their landmark findings in 1997 on low-dosage effects of Bisphenol A (BPA) on mice, vom Saal and Wade Welshons, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia, have labored to warn the public and government agencies of the dangers associated with the prevalent chemical that is used in many plastic products, including baby bottles, food-storage containers and toys.UPDATE: Joe Huffman at The View From North Central Idaho blogged yesterday that Greenpeace Netherlands found that...how to be discreet about this...toys commonly used only by adults (and not even most adults) have also been shown to be strong in phthalates, which are also "linked to hormone and reproductive disturbances." Monday, September 18, 2006
Polishing Aluminum I've been experimenting with using aluminum for some of the parts of the ScopeRoller line that are currently made of Delrin, a black plastic. To be honest, without actually machining every surface, Delrin just never looks that good. I was hoping that switching to aluminum for some of the plates involved would let me produce something that looks a bit nicer. As I've mentioned in the past, aluminum is slightly stronger (in tensile strength) than a piece of Delrin of the same weight. (The Delrin is half the density, so you need about a 1/4" piece of Delrin to get the same strength as 1/8" aluminum.) The aluminum is far stiffer, however. So I tried to replace a 1/2" piece of Delrin in one of these parts with 1/4" aluminum. There's no question that from a strength and stiffness point of view, the aluminum is superior. It is harder to machine, of course. I've been using a type of woodworking tool to excavate a .75" diameter .125" deep hole in the Delrin--and while it made the cut in aluminum, I wouldn't expect to see these tools last very long on aluminum. I would have to replace this with a .75" end mill instead. The biggest problem, however, is finish. To get what I consider an attractive, mirror finish, turns out to be an enormous amount of work! I started using a belt sander with #150 sandpaper. Then #220 sandpaper. Then #400. Then #800. Then #1500. Then I put a polishing tool into the drill press, with some Mother's Mag Polish. In places the results are indeed, mirror shiny--what I was trying to get. But the core problem is identical to what happens when you grind a telescope mirror--you have work your way down through the various sizes of grit very slowly. The transition from #220 to #400 was probably too abrupt, and ditto for #400 to #800. Maybe I stick with Delrin for this. Thanks For All The Kind Words About Biscuit A number of you have lost dogs over the last few months, and understand the hurt. We are fortunate that Dr. Durland, her vet, played very straight with us about the situation. He warned us that while there were heroic measures that could be taken--an MRI to make sure that a disc failure in her spinal column was the cause of the paralysis, and several thousand dollars for surgery to try and correct it--but he thought it was most unlikely that she would ever walk again. Sad to say, from the stories that some of you have related, there are vets who are prepared to take absurd measures to save the life of an animal, at truly breathtaking costs. There comes a moment with every animal where you have say, "Enough." Not only are the costs astonishing, but any sort of surgery involves pain and recovery. I've never been comfortable with bull fighting, dog fighting, and other forms of intentional cruelty imposed on animals. It isn't a great deal more justifiable if it is motivated by the desire to "save" an animal that is dying. Things You Take For Granted With a Dog 1. If you spill anything edible on the floor, it won't require a full cleaning operation to remove it. My wife used to claim that we should have named our dog "Hoover." I was making black cherry Jell-O today, and some splashed out of the bowl onto the floor. Biscuit would have waiting, patiently, while I made it, in the hopes that something, anything, would fall into her grasp. 2. Dogs aren't a perfect substitute for an alarm system, but I will say that the chances of anyone even approaching the house without going into a barking frenzy were pretty small. By listening carefully to the different styles of bark, I was able to tell pretty quickly if Biscuit was simply confused, nervous, or saw a small animal outside. If she saw a human outside, it was a ferocious bark. It's a Small World--Or I'm Too Famous! A couple of Fridays ago, my wife and I went out to dinner at El Durango, the finest restaurant in Horseshoe Bend. (We've eaten in all three, so it isn't difficult to make that statement with some level of certainty.) At another table was a couple a bit older than us, with some 20somethings and their kids. The first thing that I noticed was the older man was wearing a Star of David. Now, in most of America, this is not remarkable. In rural Idaho, well, it stands out. When I looked more closely, it appeared that there was a cross entwined into that Star of David. Again, in many parts of America, this would not be terribly surprising. One of our pastors in California was a Jewish convert to Christianity, and there have been Jewish Christians in a couple of other churches we've attended on the coast. In rural Idaho, this is even more of an oddity. The second time that I noticed this party, the older man had gone out to his car, and brought in a laptop. Why, I was wondering, would anyone bother to do this? The third time that I noticed them, the older man came over to introduce himself. "I went to the car to check your website, and make sure that it really was you." This isn't the first time that a stranger has come up to introduce himself because of my blogging. It turns out that the wife runs Armed Females of America, so we had a lovely conversation in the outdoor patio. At least I'm not attracting stalkers! Wikipedia Didn't Knuckle Under Unlike Google, Microsoft, and other corporations who are intent on proving the truth of Lenin's claim that "the capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them," Wikipedia isn't knuckling under to what used to be called Red China, but is really, more Black (as in Fascist) China today: The founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written by its users, has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries. My Daughter Thought That I Didn't Like Animals Because I Resisted Getting a Dog But no, it is because I get too attached to them. A week ago Saturday our Australian cattle dog Biscuit was limping and crying. We took her into the emergency animal clinic, and they thought it was a ligament tear on her right rear knee. They gave her some morphine for the pain, and an oral opiate that we gave her for several days--and it helped. Within two days, she was walking on all four legs again, and by the time she finished that medicine yesterday morning, she was back to her old self.  This morning, she was limping on the left hind leg, and whining again. Then, she started defecating in the house--not typical for her. I took her down to the animal hospital, thinking that perhaps she had favored her left hind leg during the time that her right hind leg was in pain--and perhaps another dose of pain killers would get her through this. She's eleven years old, and I wasn't keen on spending lots of money and putting her through the suffering of recovering from surgery since she probably only has a couple of years left, anyway. By the time I reached the vet, she was not walking on either hind leg. Dr. Durland tells us that she is paralyzed and incapable of feeling any thing in the back half of her body, and there is no realistic chance of recovery. I am a lot more broken up about having to give the euthanasia order than I thought I would be. I don't think I'll be blogging or working for the rest of the day. Blog Formatting Problems Several readers tell me that in the last week or so, my blog hasn't been fitting onto the screen when using Safari on Macintosh. I don't know exactly what I changed in the settings, but as a first guess, I am changing the table column width used for the postings from 600 pixel to 300 pixels. Please let me know if this improves your situation. |
