Author: N.Z. Bear

The man who for many years was the real person behind Slate’s Today’s Papers has died in a scuba accident.

This is being widely reported elsewhere, but I feel the obligation to comment and note Shuger’s passing. As for many in the blogosphere, for me Slate was required reading for years. Even during the dark Interregnum of Slate’s flirtation with a subscription model, there was one feature that was still reliably available to the unwashed masses: Today’s Papers.

It was (and still is), an excellent feature; a tribute to the idea that length does not guarantee quality, and that often in brevity lies brilliance. As Kinsley notes in his remembrance, Shuger demonstrated an admirable talent to turn what could have been a deadly dull list of facts and citations into one of Slate’s most readable features.

I did not know the man, but I knew his work. And even with that tenous connection, I can say with assurance that he will be missed.

Jay Manifold thinks folks who find conservative Christians’ alliance with repressive Islamic regimes repugnant need to down.

I suppose he’d have to include me in that category, although I would stipulate that I am perfectly calm, if slightly disgusted.

Jay responds to those who have raised an eyebrow at the alliance as follows:

A group led by Mormons and including evangelicals and conservative Catholics, all allying themselves with conservative Muslims, at first glance seems like either 1) cats and dogs living together or 2) some kind of evil octopus (long post; skip to the 4th paragraph from the end if you want). It is neither… when Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute says, “We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends,” he is making perfect sense, however unpleasant some of us might regard the goals of such an alliance.

The NYTimes and Adrienne Germaine (and Abe Foxman) should calm down. And so should Glenn when he says things like: “Perhaps the ‘Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute’ should focus its attentions a bit closer to home.” If they’re serious about pursuing their goals, they’ll focus their attentions anywhere they have to. The sooner the rest of us appreciate that, the faster the American atmosphere of peaceful ideological discord will spread.

Jay seems to be making the classic error of a man who has created a map of the land, and therefore assumes that his map describes everything that there is to know about the territory. He provides a nice explanation based on set theory, pointing out that the effectiveness of intersecting sets such as these “will depend on their ability to: assume nothing; identify any intersection of their interests; evaluate whether the relevant conditional probability is high enough to make mutual efforts worthwhile; and proceed accordingly.”

Well, yes. Sure. But the point that Glenn and myself and others were making wasn’t that it didn’t make sense from a purely self-interested viewpoint for the Christian groups to make this kind of alliance. The point was that it was morally questionable for them to do so due to the highly repugnant nature of the other ‘set’. It might well be the most pragmatic course in the world for these groups to accomplish their goals; I don’t think anyone is arguing that. But these groups have a habit of positioning themselves as paragons of virtue and morality. Last time I checked, morality quite often involved doing the right thing, as opposed to the expedient thing. So it’s a bit odd for these allegedly moral groups to be making such a — dare I say it? — deal with the Devil.

Not to mention the odd contradiction inherent in, as a central point in a post extoling the virtues of peaceful ideological discord, telling people to “calm down” for the crime of, well, peacefully stating their ideological discord. We weren’t threatening to pipe-bomb their houses or anything, honest…

Do you think they can afford his speaker’s fee?

More Hitchens-related goodness this morning. It seems Kissinger may be facing an extradition request to Chile:

Henry Kissinger may face extradition proceedings in connection with the role of the United States in the 1973 military coup in Chile.

The former US secretary of state is wanted for questioning as a witness in the investigation into the events surrounding the overthrow of the socialist president, Salvador Allende, by General Augusto Pinochet…

Chile’s Judge Juan Guzman is so frustrated by the lack of cooperation by Mr Kissinger that he is now considering an extradition request to force him to come to Chile and testify in connection with the death of the American film-maker and journalist Charles Horman, who was killed by the military days after the coup.

If your reaction to this is “ha-what?” , a reasonable place to start to understand the case being made against Dr. Henry is Hitchens’ Kissinger archive page. He’s been chasing Kissinger for years, and I’m sure this news will give him, as he is fond of saying, “a little holiday in his heart”.

Christopher Hitchens, Call Your Office

Hitch has been saying all along that the true war to be fought is against irrationality and religious extremism — in whatever form it takes. He’s been fighting it for years, and has recently welcomed President Bush to at least part of the fight.

If we needed any further convincing, a WaPo link via InstaGuy :

UNITED NATIONS — Conservative U.S. Christian organizations have joined forces with Islamic governments to halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for gays, women and children at United Nations conferences.

The new alliance, which coalesced during the past year, has received a major boost from the Bush administration, which appointed antiabortion activists to key positions on U.S. delegations to U.N. conferences on global economic and social policy.

But it has been largely galvanized by conservative Christians who have set aside their doctrinal differences, cemented ties with the Vatican and cultivated fresh links with a powerful bloc of more than 50 moderate and hard-line Islamic governments, including Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Iran.

We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends,” said Austin Ruse, founder and president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes conservative values at U.N. social conferences. “We have realized that without countries like Sudan, abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document.”

It is said that you can judge a man by his enemies. Sometimes, you can judge them by their allies, too.

I Don’t Like Monday(s)

Sigh. You just can’t make this level of corporate stupidity up. The consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which apparently got tired of people not understanding why they should be capitalizing letters in the middle of word, is changing its name to “Monday”.

Apparently, Saturday, Sunday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday and Tuesday were all taken.

From :

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp WHAT MONDAY MEANS

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Monday is a fresh start, a positive
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp attitude, part of everyone’s life.

From the far-too-gentle Michele Cantara, Gartner Group analyst:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp”I think they were looking for the name to convey change and a new start, and while it does that, I think it has some negative connotations.”

You think so, do you?

I guess I have to put a disclaimer here that I work for a company that sometimes competes with the-company-soon-to-be-known-as-Monday. And we have a much better name.

One final thought: Aren’t they going to have some problems leveraging any sort of copyright or trademark rights on the name “Monday” ? And I’m going to guess that Bob Geldof isn’t going to be writing their corporate jingle…

Update: Amish Tech Support has the definitive analogy for PwC’s unique naming decision.

Update on Palestinian Shooting Analysis

raised some interesting points in an email to myself and Michael Kielsky raising some doubt on some of Michael’s analysis of the shooting I reference below. They’ve now taken the discussion onto their respective blogs: Michael has an update here which paraphrases AL’s points, and I’d expect AL himself to have some additional info on his blog soon (he’s distracted with Father’s Day festivities at the moment, I believe).

Keep an eye on their blogs, and stay tuned…

Okay, you may think I’m just assuaging my deep feelings of guilt for getting PhotoDude’s hopes up (he was in the Top-20 of the blogosphere yesterday, but is way further down with the corrected run today), but I think I satisfied my urge for repentance with the last post.

But here I am again, and I’m going to tell you again: visit PhotoDude’s site.

I was foolishly unaware of his page until today, so I’ve spent a bit of time browsing around and I’m very impressed. He’s got beautiful photography, excellent political commentary & news, and even well-selected quotes. I stand (well, sit, really) in awe.

All together now: one, two, three —- “Awwwwwww!”.

Really though. Go visit. You’ll find cool stuff.

Wow. A very interesting on declarations of war from PhotoDude (who coincidentally I owe something to since he got thoroughly screwed by the re-do of the Ecosystem numbers today).

We’ve heard a lot of noise about how some folks think this isn’t really a war, and other folks think that we really have to formally declare war for it to really be a war.

Well turns out, there’s a strong argument to be made that we already have. And it’s being made by…. a Democrat! Check out the Dude for the details…

OK, the Ecosystem is fixed now. Sorry for the confusion. The problem was that I have a step in the process where I filter out links that a weblog has to itself ; I missed that step in yesterday’s run, so everyone’s totals were higher than they should have been. A big thanks to Jeff over at Wisdom for drawing my attention to the error.

Sigh. I’d really like to fully automate this process; this will become easier after I complete the move to the new domain, as I’ll have full access to UNIX scripting capabilities. And incidentally: if any script gurus out there like this project and want to help, I’d be thrilled to get a helping hand. I can provide a full design of exactly what needs to happen, and you can use Perl, shell scripts or whatever other weapon of choice you like to implement it. There will be no money, but on your deathbed, you will receive eternal conciousness.

Whoops, forgot again: I’m not the Dali Lama. Well, maybe you’ll get a permanent link or something.

Anyway, as one additional step to help those folks who are puzzled as to why they are where they are on the list, I’m publishing the raw list of links in a zipped ASCII text file here. Please don’t click on it unless you are really trying to debug; I’m starting to run high on bandwidth this month. But if you are genuinely trying to figure out why you are where you are, check the list and it’ll give you a place to start. The file simply shows source weblog in the first column, and destination weblog in the second column for each link.

Sorry again…

Argh. I’ve just discovered an error in this week’s run of the Ecosystem. Repairs are in progress; for now, don’t go paying off any bets based on the results as shown…

Larry Kestenbaum dropped me an email in regards to his thoughts on my comments on anonymity in N.Z. Bear Name FAQ, and I encouraged him to post them on his blog, as I suspected others might be interested in our exchange.

So he did, and now it’s my turn to reply back.

Larry describes his own experience in public life, in which he came up through local politics and then early online communities, establishing a widely-known presence in each. The choice whether to remain anonymous was essentially made for him, as obviously an elected official doesn’t really have an option to not be known.

And of his early online experiences, he says: “Speaking out under my own name, background, and reputation also means I’m taken more seriously.’

I think Larry is correct: sometimes, the force of your opinions and statements on the web is reinforced if you have a credible real-life background to back them up.

This is not surprising, but I’m not entirely sure that’s always a good thing. Because it can dilute one of the nicest things about the web conversations: the fact that you are judged, first and foremost, on the ideas you convey. “On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog,” and all that. Or, indeed, a bear.

I will admit, in writing pseudonymously, there is a certain appeal to me in the idea that when I write an opinion piece, because people essentially have no context at all of who I am, my piece will be judged solely on its merits and its logic. If it makes sense, then people will (I hope) consider its ideas carefully; if it doesn’t, then they won’t be fooled by any credentials I wave around in their face.

On the other hand, background and context certainly do play a part even on the web, and it makes sense that they should. Devout readers of this site know that I’m a software development manager, which I’ve mentioned in context at least once or twice, I believe, when I was talking about issues that related to that field — in other words, I stated my credentials so folks would be aware I knew what I was talking about.

I have noticed, however, that the blogosphere in general (or at least, warbloggerland ) seems to look slightly askance and folks who do maintain an pseudonym. Which I find interesting; I’ve never quite understood the rationale for that (apparent) disapproval. In the discussions of the war, and of the course ahead for our nation, I find a particularly good example of a subject that background and experience should play very little part in judging ones opinions. Barring any actual counterterrorism experts who happen to be blogging, I think the opinion of a soccer mom in Maryland (back to those soccer moms) about what tradeoffs are legitmate to make between security and freedom (for example) is exactly as important to me as the opinion of a pro journalist whose been covering military affairs for a decade.

And that may point to the answer, for me, at least: when you are attempting to provide facts; to convince someone that your statements are logically and in some sense, scientifically or historically accurate — then your background and training may play a reasonable part in your readers’ judgement of whether to accept your assertions. But in the case of pure opinion; of stating your thoughts on what is right vs. wrong; what is “best” for our society in more general senses — in that case, I think the ideals of democracy say that all opinions bear equal consideration — whether they are stated with a name attached, or anonymously.

Michael Kielsky a lot more than I do about guns, and more to the point, bullets.

And apparently, he knows more than some Palestinians and some American journalists.

Michael’s piece provides a nicely fact-based analysis of the shooting of one Palestinian boy, who claimed his wound was inflicted by an Israeli soldier with an M-16. Analysis of the bullet itself and the boys wound, however, seem to disprove that possibility.

Check it out; you’ll probably learn something.

As promised, the Ecosystem has been updated. Changes this week include:

– About 40 new blogs have been added, bringing the total tracked up to around 250

– Added indicators on the Ecosystem list to track each blog’s change in ranking from last week

I still have not tracked down the problem where some blogs do not appear to get scanned correctly for links, so you will still see some listed with 0 outbound links that should have some; sorry. Anyone willing to debug this problem (on their own blog or others) is encouraged to do so; I’d be happy to have some help. And on a more general note: if you believe your blog is listed incorrectly, please feel free to contact me and complain, but please: do as much investigation and debugging on your own as possible, and provide me with as specific information as you can about what links you think are being missed. And please do not send me mail unless you’ve read my posts about exactly how the system works and are comfortable you understand it.

If your blog is not listed here, please don’t take offense: I am now basically only adding blogs that folks explicitly request to be added. So if there’s anybody that I’ve linked to within my blog who expected to get added but didn’t; sorry. I’ll hopefully be implementing a more automated system for requesting to be added when we make the move to the new domain, which will reduce headaches for all involved. (Bottom line: if you aren’t listed and want to be, me an email, and to make my life really easy, use the subject line “ADD TO ECOSYSTEM”.)

And finally, the Hall of Link Sluttage remains named as such — for now. If you have an opinion on whether it should stay that way, then go vote on the poll in the left nav bar — the next update will probably include the final decision to keep the name or find a new one.

Enjoy, folks!

Why we will win: a brief recap

We will win because:

Their women in oppression and fear. Our women are free and joyous.

This is what they think a football stadium is for. This is what we think a football stadium is for.

Their society produces no weapons that can possibly harm us. They are reduced to stealing our own tools to use against us.

They believe all wisdom comes from a single book, and pleasure is weakness. We have a national anthem based on a song about drinking and sex.

Our civilians defeated their trained killers in 109 minutes.

They said they would “teach us a lesson“. They were the ones who got schooled.

Bruce Hill and Prof. Reynolds say that we need not hate our enemies in this war.

Indeed, we should pity them.

In case your wondering, no, I haven’t forgotten about the Blogosphere Ecosystem. Expect an update over the weekend, at the latest.

And while we’re on the subject of upcoming updates: The Truth Laid Bear will be moving to its own domain name, and off of Blogspot, sometime over the next week or so. The move will also include a complete site redesign, which hopefully will spiff up the look of things around here a bit. So for those of you who have (kindly) put permament links to me on your pages, consider this a “heads up” that a move is in the works…

Next Stop: Alpha Centauri

This from Prof R on a potential (real) warp drive reminded me of a subject I’ve been meaning to post on for a while: anti-matter !

Yeah, I’m the kinda guy who thinks things like “I really should post about anti-matter soon.” Learn to live with it; otherwise hey, the back button’s right at the top of the screen, buddy.

There’s an occupational hazard of being a devout science-fiction reader. Which is that in your mind, you build up a collection of technologies and milestones which exist in a a grey area where you have to stop and think: “Is that real yet? Or did I just read that in Baxter’s latest?”

The problem is worse if you focus on writers who actually do good science (see the Creative Dream Team if you’re looking for a list). Growing up on Heinlein, I continually had to remind myself that no, we don’t have rejuvination treatments for life extension yet, and no, there is not a former prison colony called Luna City on the moon.

Anyway, to get to the point: anti-matter has been floating in that bucket in my mind for years. But recently, doing some research, I stumbled across the fact that not only is anti-matter real (which I knew); not only has it actually been produced (which I suspected), but folks have actually got legitimate designs for spacecraft to be driven by it (which I had no idea).

The good folks at the Antimatter Space Propulsion group at Penn State University have developed designs for not one, but two different potential antimatter propulsion drives.

The first method is known as antiproton-catalyzed microfission/fusion (ACMF), uses very very very tiny amounts of antimatter to generate energy sufficient to trigger a fission reaction. This minimizes the amount of actual antimatter required as fuel — which is the major problem with any of these concepts, as our capacity to generate antimatter is very limited — and will be for some time. The Penn State team has designed not just the drive, but a spacecraft to use it, dubbed ICAN-II. It is shown in the top-right picture above, and the full description can be found in this PDF file.

So what could you do with ICAN-II? How about a manned mission to Mars? ICAN-II would allow a mission to be be launched in a window that occurs every two years for a 90-day round trip to Mars, with a 30-day stay at the planet itself. Feel like a longer drive? Try Jupiter: ICAN-II will get you there and back in eighteen months, and give you 90 days to enjoy the sites while you’re there. Really need to get away from it all? Pluto is a mere three year (one-way) trip away.

All that’s fine and good, but only weenies just want to stay within our own Solar System. (“The meek shall inherit the Earth… the rest of us are going to the stars.”) And sadly, even ICAN-II doesn’t provide a powerful enough drive to get you to anywhere worth going outside our system before you’re, well, dead.

But no worries: the Penn State folks have got it covered. First, enter AIMstar, a spacecraft based on Antiproton Initiated Microfission/fusion (AIM). This design uses antimatter to spark a fusion reaction, generating a larger specific impulse and enabling longer voyages. It’s not all good news, though: AIMstar is designed as an unmanned craft, and will still take 50 years to get to the Oort cloud (at 10,000 AU).

Future designs, though, could bring Alpha Centauri into reach for manned missions. “Plasma Core” and “Beamed Core” drive designs — which come closer to the direct “antimatter+matter = large boom” design of science fiction, make starships capable of reaching up to 40% of the speed of light feasible — enabling a trip to Alpha Centauri in a long-but-feasible 10 years.

The problem, though, is that beamed core engines require huge amounts of anti-matter: well beyond our production capabilities for at least the next few decades, unless an unforseen breakthrough occurs. The Penn State team provides a throrough review of our (and by our, I mean the planet Earth) anti-matter production capabilities for the near future, which assesses not just the raw mass being produced, but the actual cost (real dollars!) to do so. It also includes a very very spiffy graph, which I reproduce as the final image here, which shows exactly how much antimatter mass is required for various voyages using the different propulsion methods being discussed.

One final thought, which is somewhat of a downer: antimatter is, without exaggeration, the most dangerous substance ever created by man. I think that’s a truism, when you consider that the energy released by a antimatter-matter reaction is near total. And given our current climate of concern around securing nuclear and biological materials… I think you see where I’m going.

The good news is, the quantities of antimatter being produced today are, to my understanding, nowhere near anything that could be used as a weapon. But eventually, they will be. And antimatter weapons come with a particularly nasty attribute: if there’s a nuclear missile coming at you, you can shoot it down with conventional weapons and feel reasonably assured that there won’t be a nuclear reaction.

Not so with antimatter warheads. ‘Cause if you destroy the containment system keeping the antimatter in place with that conventional warhead, there’s going to be a reaction — whether it reacts with the material in the warhead designed for that purpose, or with the ground as it crashes down after your takedown.

Anyway, sorry to end on a depressing note, but we will have to think about a way to produce this stuff without it being an easy target for nutcases, sooner or later.

Trans-orbital antimatter production facilities, anyone?

Final Note: The work done at Penn State has now apparently been taken up by a commercial entity; a company called Positronics Research. The initial website I provided as the first link to the Penn State team’s above is a sub-page of Positronic’s site; however, if you wish to see the actual Penn State page (which appears to be orphaned and no longer being updated) you can view it here.

Final disclaimer: I am not a spaceflight expert by any means, and I have not fact-checked the sources above in any real way. They could, I suppose, be complete nonsense, but I’m assuming that Penn State keeps at least a slight eye on what their professors publish. And it is also worth noting that money has become involved here with the introduction of Positronics Research: which on the one hand suggests that somebody thinks these ideas are credible enough to spend money on, but on the other hand should lead us to consider the information with the skepticism that we view any presentation by someone with a commercial interest at stake. I would, therefore, welcome any pointers to additional info and/or opposing viewpoints on the feasability of the Penn State team’s work, or any other research in this field.

Essay Question (25 points)

Select one (and only one) of the following and defend the position in an essay of no more than 1,000 words:

1) The American Catholic Church stands on the verge of a full-fledged rift with the Vatican, as American Bishops move towards policies that are more open and inclusive of the laity, while the Vatican hierarchy stands firm on the top-down command-and-control structures of the past centuries. Provide specific policy examples, and compare the current crisis with past upheavals in the Church. Extra credit: Outline the conditions that could lead to an American Reformation, in which the Church in the United States fully and completely splits from the Vatican hierarchy, and assess whether such a split would be a positive or negative development for Christianity worldwide.

or

2) The crisis gripping the Catholic Church will not result in significant reforms, to the detriment of the Church’s hold on its American faithful. Catholicism will wane as a significant power in American spiritual life; membership will plummet as formerly devout Catholics drift away from a Church they no longer trust. The financial base of the Catholicism in the United States will crumble, forcing a significant retreat for the Church, which will be compelled to significantly scale back social programs and other spending both in the United States and worldwide, resulting in a smaller, less worldly institution focused inward on itself.

or

3) A third way will be found, in which satisfactory reforms will be implemented which restore American Catholics faith in the institution of the Church, while simultaneously remaining within the bounds set by the Vatican hierarchy. Describe in detail the steps that must be taken by the American Bishops, the concerned laity in the United States, and the Vatican for such a solution to come to pass, and why you believe such an outcome is feasible. Students successfully addressing this position will likely be asked to follow up with a precise six-week plan to achieve full and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Submit all essays your section lead; exceptional responses will be shared with the class.

And remember: spelling counts.

Blatant Anti-Bear Propoganda

I am shocked — shocked! — at the speciesism on display at the WaPo. Observe columnist Kagan’s otherwise thoughtful analysis of U.S. – Europe differences on how to attack terrorism:

Because of the disparity of power, Americans and Europeans even view threats differently. A person armed only with a knife may decide that a bear prowling the forest is a tolerable danger — trying to kill the bear is riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. But a person with a rifle will likely make a different calculation: Why should he risk being mauled to death if he doesn’t need to?

Excuse me! What is with this killing of bears? Somebody’s getting a terse letter, I’ll tell you.

On a less disturbing note: I’m just not sure I buy this whole Europe-and-America-are-parting ways argument. Yes, Europeans and Americans are viewing the current crisis differently, and Kagan provides good reasons for why this may be so.

But my instinct, at least, is that this is less a fundamental shift than a perceived difference in circumstances.

Europe does not view itself to be directly under threat from the current war. If you doubt this, consider that even now, America is having difficulty remembering that we are under threat. When (fate forbid) a European city loses a few city blocks and a few thousand citizens, and al Qaeda (or some other group) declares the French to be their sworn enemy, the European tune will change. American unilateralism — otherwise known as “could you please come fix our mess again?” — will once again be back in vogue.

And I suspect that underneath it all, there is a current of relief in Europe that America is there to do the nasty things than Europe can’t get its consensual ass together to do itself.

So will we see the support we want from our European allies? Probably not in the ways we truly want, not anytime soon. Will they actively stand in our way? Also probably not.

So the rational approach is to keep doing what we’re doing: charting the course that we think best serves the interest of the United States, and best serves the interest of the world as a whole. Europe will drag its feet at times, but when the chips are truly down, they will come around. And the best way to make that happen is to ensure that our policies are not just self-serving realpolitik, but are genuinely geared at improving the safety and security of the planet. Simply because a policy is blessed by a consensus of gnomes in Brussels or Geneva doesn’t make it moral or just; nor is a policy conceived by a single nation by definition immoral.

If we use the power we have simply to advance U.S. hegemony, then Europe will leave us to struggle alone. But if we choose to lead the fight to defend the security and liberty of the world — Europe will follow. If not the gnomes of Brussels, than the men and women who they claim to serve. My faith in the European elites is slight: but my faith in the people of Europe is strong. If we show them that we’re serious, and that we’re interested in more than our own petty gains, they’ll come on board. Because they know the right side of this fight, even if their bureaucrats don’t.

Wheaton Ass-Kicking Update:

The Truth Laid Bear: Up to on the user rating

WILL WHEATON DOT NET: Holding steady at 4.0382695507488

So Wheaton thinks he’s better than me, huh? Well the numbers say he’s only 0.720087732567 better. And not for long.

Wesley, can you come stand on this transporter pad for a sec? I want to try something…

A brief from David Janes, which I quote in its entirety:

Sweden is modifying its constitution to ban criticism of homosexuality and alternate lifestyles. How if your alternative lifestyle is based on criticizing homosexuality? More seriously, isn’t the point of freedom of speech to be able to adopt and advocate positions that the majority disagrees with?

Yeah. It’s amazing how many people (and legislators) in supposedly enlightened democracies really don’t get that concept.