The Cool Blue Blog

Daily Dish

Ponder this: A Washington Post poll says "nearly six in 10 -- 58 percent -- said the United States should keep its military forces in Iraq rather than withdraw them, a proportion that has not changed in seven months" and "56 percent of the country now believes that the cost of the conflict in Iraq outweighs the benefits". Additionally, 53% say they approve of the way that Bush is handling the War against "terrorism". I can find no information regarding their sampling methodology so all I can do for now is point this out and say "Hmmmmmm."

Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi held meetings with supporters of Saddam Hussein's former regime now backing a violent insurgency against his interim government. "We are seeing a line of division between insurgents and terrorists," he said. Now that's a page torn right from the Marines' Small Wars Manual. He also said the "insurgents" were attempting to forment a civil war, to prevent elections there, which is exactly the game plan Zarqawi laid out in his letter to OBL. The game is set and the pieces are in play. But there are other players. And the stakes are high.

Bahrain has it's own trade deal with the US separate from the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Saudi's don't like it one bit. “Our message to the world is one of openness, peace and a constructive partnership,” the Bahraini monarch told the opening session. Now that Egypt and Israel also have trade arrangements with the US, the Saudi's must be feeling, squeezed. Thr Saudi's see their power and influence slipping. And al Qaeda ain't helping matters much.

The United States has welcomed the European Union's announcement that it will next year begin negotiating Turkey's possible future membership in the union.

Police arrested six suspected Islamic militants in Lahore, hoping they could provide clues about a Libyan al-Qaida operative.

Fighting has resumed between troops loyal to the Congolese Government and dissident units.

Testimony accuses Abu Bakar Bashir of being the Chief of al Qaeda's Southwest Asian wing.

Despite the Governments crackdown, the number of Iranian blogs are increasing. Blame Viral Freedom and Spirit of America.

B-52s Love shack burns down. No more glitter on the mattress.

A Vodka pipeline is discovered.

Rachel has a gift for the troops. Humina humina....

Three indispensable tools on the operating room tray: a scalpel, sutures, and a video game controller.

An anonymous donor dropped a rare, gold 1901 Liberty coin into a Salvation Army red kettle.

Moose are attacking the laundry in Norway.

AFP's strangest stories of 2004.

The Rhetoric of Unreason

Some have taken a study published by Cornell University regarding Americans attitudes towards Muslims and are holding it up as a harbinger of future public policy. They quote a sentence from the second paragraph of the summary which reads:

In all, about 44 percent said they believe that some curtailment of civil liberties is necessary for Muslim Americans.

Now what's interesting about this is that this particular sentence belies what is stated previously in the paragraph. When we read the whole thing, we find that

• About 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government
• 26 percent said they think that mosques should be closely monitored by U.S. law enforcement agencies
• 29 percent agreed that undercover law enforcement agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations, in order to keep tabs on their activities and fund raising
• About 22 percent said the federal government should profile citizens as potential threats based on the fact that they are Muslim or have Middle Eastern heritage.

So based on the above, the reality is that 27% of the people polled believe that the civil rights of Muslim American should be curtailed. While this is disturbing, not only is this not a majority, it is far less than the 44% claimed in the subsequent sentence so it is not even "almost half the population".

Now these same folks seem to believe that just the fact of this poll is

1. indicative of why the President won re-election
2. indicative of a movement towards "Naziism" by the Administration.

The wording of the Cornell report reflects more about the authors political leanings than it says about the results of the survey

To the preparers of this report, infiltrating "civic and volunteer organizations...to keep watch on their activities and fundraising" is a violation of civil rights. I don't think the Supreme Court would agree. And given that Islamist "terrorist" organizations have recruited from Mosques and raised money through charities, it does not seem unreasonable to do this. In fact, the much ballyhooed 9-11 Commission report cited the lack of infiltration of terrorist organizations as a defecit in Intelligence gathering. And given that this commission and it's report was vigorously embraced by the Democrats in Congress, it hardly stands as an example of a strictly "partisan" concern.

The Preparers of this report also seem to believe that monitoring the Internet is an invasion of Muslim civil rights, disregarding, I suppose that people all over the world use the 'net, not just Muslims. And given that "terrorist" organizations use the internet to communicate, and further given that there is no Constitutional "expectation of privacy" in the public forum that is the net, there certainly are not civil liberties at stake here either.

Recall that Presidential Candidate John Kerry repeatedly stated that he preferred to treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue and said on many occasions that he would beef up intelligence to shut down terrorist organizations; measures that would have necessarily included some of the above. I recall that he also championed the Patriot Act (before he was against it). I further can not recall one instance of Sen. Kerry ever meeting with any Muslim group during the campaign whereas there were a number of examples of President Bush doing so both prior to and during the campaign.

We also find in this report that

• 24 percent of Democratic respondents agreed that Muslim Americans should be required to register their whereabouts; and
• 17 percent of independents agreed that Muslim Americans should be required to register their whereabouts

People who characterize themselves as Democrats rarely vote Republican, so we can infer that a good percentage of the above mentioned 24% voted for Kerry. Exit polls also showed that Bush and Kerry split the Independent vote so it's likely that and equal number of the 17% referred to above also voted for Kerry.

Now even if we give some weight to the disturbing report that "27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government" what evidence is there that this will translate into public policy?

None. Nada. Zip.

In fact I would argue that if the President were of a mind to curtail the Civil Rights of Muslims the perfect time would have been right after the 9-11 attacks. Instead, the President made a show of not blaming Muslims living in America.

I would argue that if the President were of a mind to declare martial law and seize power from the other branches of Government (a' la' Hitler) and wage war openly against Islam, the perfect time would have been right after the 9-11 attacks and he would likely have encountered little resistence.

But he didn't and has made no move to do it now.

To say now that this survey, which purports much less than it claims is a precurser to totalitarianism is to my mind, hyperbolie.

And what's worse, the Democratic party has suffered defeat after defeat at the polls because rhetoric like this causes Americans to simply not take them seriously on serious issues.

The Democratic party has suffered, very possibly, irrepairable damage during the previous election cycle as it was seen as embracing rhetoric that is simply at complete odds with what Americans perceive as the truth of the matter. And you can say that they are uninformed, but pointing back to this very report, it turns out the more informed people are, the leary they are of Muslims and their institutions.

The survey also showed a correlation between television news-viewing habits, a respondent's fear level and attitudes toward restrictions on civil liberties for all Americans. Respondents who paid a lot of attention to television news were more likely to favor restrictions on civil liberties, such as greater power for the government to monitor the Internet. Respondents who paid less attention to television news were less likely to support such measures. "The more attention paid to television news, the more you fear terrorism, and you are more likely to favor restrictions on civil liberties," says Nisbet.

"Civil liberties" as defined by the preparers of this report, mind you.

So the facts as presented by this report, I submit, are not something that the Left should be advancing because it indicates that those who are advocating the most liberal interpretation of Civil Liberties are also the one who are least informed.

Hospital Supplies

Iraqi hospital benefits from donations

HAWIJA, Iraq – Medics from Task Force 1-27 Infantry helped improve the healthcare of this city’s main hospital by donating about $35,000 worth of medical supplies on December 6.

The donations included a hand-carried SonoSite ultrasound system, orthopedic limb stabilizers, and also a number of pediatric and intravenous medications that will be used to provide inpatient and outpatient services to the city’s more than 80,000 residents.

“Although the medical staff at the hospital is well trained, the hospital was sorely under-equipped with basic medical equipment and medicine in short supply,” said Maj. Charles Buck, battalion surgeon for Task Force 1-27 Infantry.

The medical clinic had one out-dated ultrasound machine strictly for obstetrics-gynecology use, leaving no ultrasound capability for emergencies, surgical or general imaging use, Buck said.

“The SonoSite ultrasound system will make a world of difference in patient care at this general hospital turned trauma center,” he said.

Daily Dish

At the behest of the EU, Turkey has agreed to launch a process meant to result in a withdrawal of its 30,000 troops from the divided island of Cyprus as a condition for "accension" (I love this term, like becoming a member of the EU is akin to becomming a higher being or something). But there are shennanigans afoot and the temporary President of the EU criticized French and Austrian plans to hold referendums on Turkish membership in the EU, saying such moves could keep Turkey out of the bloc.   "I do not think it's very fair to move the goal posts in the middle of a match." Hey, they are probably taking their cue from Democrat strategists. The Diplomad has some other interesting thoughts regarding Turkey and the EU.

Islamo-fascists hate democracy. Any questions? Meanwhile, al Qaeda seems to be losing their base in Saudi Arabia. But Peter Brookes says we should be careful, because "Osama's new strategy, announced on the same day as planned anti-regime protests in Saudi Arabia, smacks of the plot that successfully brought down the Shah of Iran 25 years ago at the hands of Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini." Meanwhile Arthur Chrenkoff has posted part 17 of his Good News from Iraq roundup.

Israel has agreed to release 170 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill offering to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak with whom a new trade deal was implemented along with the US. Hamas may give peace a chance too.

It's been a while since the Dish has updated the situation facing the French in the Ivory Coast. But it seems that once again Ivory Coasters ask for US help as an honest broker even though France and the UN are right there. In country. Huh.

More gay marriage problems this time from New York. What looked like a revolution early in the year, now looks like a, well, failed revolution... Some simply could not let this take it's natural course, and now have likely set their own cause back a good generation.

President Bush has been named "Person of the Year" by Time Magazine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sissy has the real story here and here.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Muligande said that the government is likely to withdraw its troops in the Congo  if the international community takes control of disarming the rebels there. What international community are they talking about? The UN couldn't disarm a fly. Not to mention its conduct in the Congo has been despicable thus far.

French hospital workers worry about security in the aftermath of the double murder in which a nurse's decapitated head was left on top of a television in the patients' day room. French police are still investigating and the murder weapon, thought by police to be a heavy sword or machete, has still not been found.

The leader of Philippine Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf may have been killed in a raid by military helicopters in southern Mindanao province last month.

The Hobbit Hole project

Car Talk's favorite confessions.

Japan's "Dim Crims" of 2004

The New York restaurant that serves meals in bed.

Rough Men

Rough Men

by Russ Vaughn

“Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men

stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” George Orwell

With a nod to the Mudville Gazette for the quote

There’s a character trait that’s decided by fate

Comes “sadly” to many, far too faint, far too late.

They won’t face the aggressor, stand up to his ire

They have not the will to fight his fire with fire.

So they bend over backwards to see all sides as fair,

Till they’re faced with dragon breath fire in their hair.

Like our brethren in France, who’d know better than we,

Yet seem never to learn, seem doomed never to see.

Yes, it seems there are some who’re determined by fate,

To possess not the courage to step up to the plate,

Who shrink from all threat because nothing’s worth war.

But how can they know lest they’ve been there before?

Thank God some have courage, the will, yes, the grace,

To stand for the shirkers, stand strong in their place.

Thank God we have stalwarts who’ll stand for us all,

Who will rise to the challenge at their nation’s call.

The faint-hearted, who fear, whose reaction is flight,

Have no comprehension of those who will fight.

To hide their own trepidation they attempt to demean

The rough men, who defend them, as barbaric, obscene.

Yet these rough men stand ready, hard weapons to hand,

To put placaters behind them, draw a line in the sand,

To preserve for the peaceniks what they won’t defend,

So their own unearned freedom won’t perish, won’t end.

To appeasers, rough men are coarse government tools.

To rough men, appeasers are dumb delusional fools.

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327^th Parachute Infantry Regiment

101^st Airborne Division

Vietnam 65-66

Daily Dish

During a summit in Brussels the EU stated that a comprehensive Middle East peace must include Syria and Lebanon and called for Syria to pull it's troops out of the occupied country. But is that enough if Syria is still pulling the political strings there? Regardless, Syria does seem to be responding to some extent and it is cool that the EU actually recognizes that Lebanon is the real occupied territory in the region. But Hezbollah, a Syrian supported terrorist group still operates freely in Lebanon and has it's headquaters in Syria. The US declared the pro-Hezbollah television station Al-Manar a terrorist organization, and the French followed suit by banning the station from broadcasting into France. Now "Lebanon" wants to take "reprisals" against France and the US for doing so. I wonder what they have in mind?

After declaring that they were happy no blood had been spilled when they retook the former Haitian President's residence from armed "insurgents", UN troops retreated yesterday from attacks in several provincial towns perpetrated by members of the same group. UN officials could not be reached for comment. Meanwhile in Jenin dozens of gun-toting Palestinian militants marched into a U.N. ceremony to dedicate new homes for families whose houses were destroyed by the Israeli military — a sign of the authority gunmen still hold in this West Bank town as well as a sign of UN impotence to do anything about it.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said economic growth could exceed nine percent this year and foreign direct investment could top $60 billion.

Hospital workers arriving for the Saturday morning shift in Pau, France found two bodies in the geriatric psychiatry ward of the main hospital and the head of a decapitated woman was left perched on a television set.

Militants attack two of the holiest cities in Shia Islam and al Qaeda urges attacks on the Saudi oil industry.

The Sudanese government has agreed on to stop military operations in Darfur and has asked the African Union to request that rebels do the same, says British ambassador William Patey. Yeah, well, we've heard that before.

A new battle over same-sex marriage is taking place in California -- as a trial court in San Francisco begins hearings on the constitutionality of the state's ban on gay marriage.

"I wrote and approved the now more than 1,000 letters sent to family members and next of kin of each of the servicemen and women killed in military action. While I have not individually signed each one, in the interest of ensuring expeditious contact with grieving family members, I have directed that in the future I sign each letter." OK....and this was a big deal....why? Oh yeah, lots of people don't like Rumsfeld.

Iraq, Supreme Court filibuster and Social Security will define what it means to be a Democrat

A meteor in Jakarta?

Fat Lady calls Naked Chef 'whore' over Sainsbury's salmon

The Star Wars Christmas album. "What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas (When He Already Owns A Comb)?"

Protestors use octopus cannons to assault a MacDonalds in Southern France. Oh the humanity. Where's PETA when you need 'em?

Feng Qian is crowned Miss Artificial Beauty in China. Is she a robot? No.....

Gay sensitivity will be a requirement for all Toronto police officers and the Toronto force will have to pay $350,000 to a group of lesbian complainants as the fallout continues from a raid on a lesbian bathhouse four years ago. "Complainants alleged their feelings of violation and intimidation were akin to being strip-searched". Being naked while violating the law is the fault of the police, how?

Shaping History

Olson: ‘Troops help shape history’

By Master Sgt. Terry Anderson

    BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- It’s been more than a month since citizens of Afghanistan cast their first vote for democracy in the country’s 5,000 year history. Experts predicted insurgents would disrupt the elections with ‘spectacular attacks’ against civilian and coalition targets -- attacks that never occurred.

    The top operational commander on the ground in Afghanistan said Soldiers deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom have a lot to be proud of, but not to discount the resilience of the enemy.

    “I don’t think we should underestimate what’s left of al-Qaeda,” said Maj. Gen. Eric T. Olson, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76 and the 25th Infantry Division (Light).

    “The al-Qaeda itself is still a viable organization. In some instances, they may be more dangerous because of their need to launch some kind of high visibility success which may cause some to revert to desperate acts.”

    Olson said attacks against the coalition are up, but the attacks are being resolved in favor of the coalition. 

    One constant threat against Soldiers is improvised explosive devices. An IED attack near Deh Rahwod took the life of two Soldiers and wounded one from 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment on Nov. 24. Olson said each loss affects him profoundly, but that the mission must go on.

    “I have deep emotion when we lose a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine over here,” Olson said. “I feel disappointed that there wasn’t something we could have done differently that would have saved a life. In some cases I can point to something and if we had done it differently, we’d still have some of those folks here. But you can’t dwell on that.”

    When millions of citizens voted in the first ever presidential elections Oct. 9, it was a landmark day in Afghan history. Interim President Hamid Karzai won in a landslide, and was inaugurated Dec. 7.

    The Afghan government is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in the spring of 2005. Despite most of the media focusing on the insurgency in Iraq, Olson said the American people know troops deployed to Afghanistan helped shape history.

    “If you asked someone in the streets of America about the Afghan war in terms of specifics, they probably couldn’t tell you,” Olson said.

    “If you asked them if they knew we had troops over here or asked them if what the troops are doing over here is important, they would say yes, and that’s enough for me.”
   

Daily Dish

Cuba and America are having a Christmas display war. A few days ago the US Embassy in Havana unveiled it's Christams display the centrepiece of which shows Santa soaring into the sky in his reindeer-drawn sleigh underneath his image is the number 75, a reference to the number of Cuban dissidents jailed in April last year for terms of up to 28 years. Castro was furious and overnight, his minions erected a billboard emblazoned with photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a "Made in the USA" stamp.

UN Peacekeepers in Haiti, led by a Brazilian contingent, retook the former Presidents residence from former Aristide supporters after failing to defend it a few days ago. United Nations spokesman Damian Onses-Cardona said the UN "had to resort to force but we rejoice that this operation was conducted without any loss of blood. Nobody is injured, nobody's hurt." It also seems nobody was arrested.

The US has cancelled $4.1 billion in Iraqi debt owed to the US. Meanwhile the US put the Hezbollah television station al-Manar on its list of terrorist organizations.

Bush calls on Moderates to assert themselves in Congress and Rumsfeld gets some Republican support.

A judge halts the recount in Washington state because ballots were all of a sudden mysteriously showing up in Democratic counties.

Japan and South Korea meet to decide on History. Accuracy is less important than good international relations, I suppose.

Alabama Judge Ashley McKathan's decision to embroider the ten commandments on his judicial robes is causing a stir.

Helicopters are called in to stop a brawl at a Catholic school

Canada will supply a CF-18 Hornet interceptor fighter escort to Santa.

Bathing suit illusions.

Urged by her professor to "do something useful", a British mathematician has made a crochet model of chaos.

The Blind Watchmaker

Where d'you get those peepers

       

---

       

Dawkins, Richard, Where d'you get those peepers?., Vol. 8, New Statesman & Society, 06-16-1995, pp 29.

       

---

Creationism has enduring appeal, and the reason is not far to seek. It is not, at least for most of the people I encounter, because of a commitment to the literal truth of Genesis or some other tribal origin story. Rather, it is that people discover for themselves the beauty and complexity of the living world and conclude that it "obviously" must have been designed. Those creationists who recognise that Darwinian evolution provides at least some sort of alternative to their scriptural theory often resort to a slightly more sophisticated objection. They deny the possibility of evolutionary intermediates. "X must have been designed by a Creator," people say, "because half an X would not work at all. All the parts of X must have been put together simultaneously; they could not have evolved gradually."

Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an eye?" Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye, which is already better than 48 per cent, and the difference is significant. A more ponderous show of weight seems to lie behind the inevitable supplementary: "Speaking as a physicist, I cannot believe that there has been enough time for an organ as complicated as the eye to have evolved from nothing. Do you really think there has been enough time?" Both questions stem from the Argument from Personal Incredulity. Audiences nevertheless appreciate an answer, and I have usually fallen back on the sheer magnitude of geological time.

It now appears that the shattering enormity of geological time is a steam hammer to crack a peanut. A recent study by a pair of Swedish scientists, Dan Nilson and Susanne Pelger, suggests that a ludicrously small fraction of that time would have been plenty. When one says "the" eye, by the way, one implicitly means the vertebrate eye, but serviceable image-forming eyes have evolved between 40 and 60 times, independently from scratch, in many different invertebrate groups. Among these 40-plus independent evolutions, at least nine distinct design principles have been discovered, including pinhole eyes, two kinds of camera-lens eyes, curved-reflector ("satellite dish") eyes, and several kinds of compound eyes. Nilsson and Pelger have concentrated on camera eyes with lenses, such as are well developed in vertebrates and octopuses.

Daily Dish

The British government warned Britons on Thursday against all but essential travel to Indonesia now and during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Saudi security forces thwarted planned protest marches in the kingdom's two main cities, deploying in force in the capital Riyadh and arresting at least a dozen people in Jeddah.

Chinese Defence Minister Gen Cao Gangchuan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz met to discuss defence cooperation. China and Pakistan.

Pissed at their own incompetence, UN troops and Haitian police have surrounded the abandoned home of ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which has been occupied by former soldiers. Meanwhile in the Congo, there are reports that U.N. peacekeepers threatened U.N. investigators investigating allegations of sexual misconduct and sought to bribe witnesses to change incriminating testimony. Will anyone be held accountable for these atrocities?

Shoring up Social Security for the wave of retiring baby boomers is a top priority at President Bush's economic summit taking place at the White House.

A growing rift between Hamas and Islamic Jihad has led to a break in cooperation between the two groups, and is threatening to lead to an all-out clash between them, according to a leading Hamas preacher who recently slammed Jihad for trying to outmuscle Hamas. Oh goody, maybe they'll all kill each other and everyone else can go about the business of being constructive. Sharon is optimistic

For the first time since his capture a year ago, Saddam Hussein met lawyers. With luck, Allah is next. And while the UN battles sex scandles, Haitian thugs, Oil-for-Food investigators, etc, they don't have the time or the guts to help with the first Democratic elections in an Arab country, Iraq. Iraqis themselves are very much looking forward to elections and want them with or without the UNs help.

The US is accused of tying to undermine the Kyoto principles. The Diplomad gives us a peek at the high level of discussion ongoing concerning Glow-ball Vorming among the Europeans. It seems that attempting to achieve the impossible is fine so long as its at the expense of Europe's economic rivals.

Hospital pins hope on Yoda.

"Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating."

A Moroccan-Dutch man changed his decision to name his new daughter "Jihad" after officials at the Moroccan consulate objected.

An armed robber stole a new patrol car, crashed it into a ditch, then broke into a woman's home and fell asleep on her couch. Bein' a criminal is tiring.

"Gimme the money or I'll beat you with my walker!"

Service union struggles to improve working conditions for Santas and elves.