I, Clone

In I, Clone, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, presents his Three Laws of Cloning (in the style of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics) and argues against cloning restrictions:

If cloning produces genetic monstrosities that render it impractical as another form of fertility enhancement, then it will not be necessary to ban it, because no one will use it. If cloning does work, however, there is no reason to forbid it, because the three common reasons given for implementing restrictions are myths. I call them the Identical Personhood Myth, the Playing God Myth, and the Human Rights and Dignity Myth.

Al Qaeda Training Manual

Sometimes I wonder how fascinating information sneaks past me (and the public at large). The US Department of Justice has published excerpts from an Al Qaeda Training Manual on the net:

The attached manual was located by the Manchester (England) Metropolitan Police during a search of an Al Qaeda member's home. The manual was found in a computer file described as "the military series" related to the "Declaration of Jihad." The manual was translated into English and was introduced earlier this year at the embassy bombing trial in New York. The Department is only providing the following selected text from the manual because it does not want to aid in educating terrorists or encourage further acts of terrorism.

It's an eerie mix of Islamist rhetoric, fascinating espionage anecdotes from throughout history, and no-nonsense rules of thumb for waging Jihad.

Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us About the Future of Conflict

In Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us About the Future of Conflict, Stephen Biddle (writing in 1996) explains that no one factor (e.g. superior Coalition technology or inferior Iraqi morale) clearly explains the amazing outcome of the (first) Gulf War:

In less than six weeks, 795,000 Coalition troops destroyed a defending Iraqi army of hundreds of thousands, losing only 240 attackers. This loss rate of fewer than one fatality per 3,000 soldiers was less than one tenth of the Israelis' loss rate in either the 1967 Six-Day War or the Bekaa Valley campaign in 1982, less than one twentieth of the Germans' in their blitzkriegs against Poland or France in 1939-40, and about one one-thousandth of the U.S. Marines' in the invasion of Tarawa in 1943.

Some of Iraq's tactical shortcomings:

First, Iraqi defensive positions were very poorly prepared. The "Saddam line" at the Saudi border was haphazard at best (although given the poor quality of its conscript garrison, it is unclear how significant this was). More important for the outcome, the Republican Guard blocking positions were no better Western armies dig their fighting positions into the earth below grade, and hide the soil removed in excavation. The Guard, on the other hand, simply piled sand into loose berms, or mounds, on the surface of the ground around combat vehicles and infantry positions. This gave away the defenders' locations from literally thousands of meters away, as the berms were the only distinctive feature of an otherwise flat landscape, without providing any real protection against the fire this inevitably drew. Loose piles of sand cannot stop modern high-velocity tank rounds. In fact, they barely slow them down. U.S. crews in 73 Pasting reported seeing 120 mm tank rounds pass through Iraqi berms, through the Iraqi armored vehicle behind the berm, and off into the distance. No U.S. tank crew would leave itself so exposed.
[...]
Second, the Republican Guard failed to coordinate the efforts of the different arms at its disposal. In particular, artillery support was almost wholly absent, both in defense against American assaults and in support of the Guard's own counterattacks. The Iraqis made some attempt to direct artillery against the advancing Americans, but proved unable either to adjust fire against moving targets (a difficult task) or even to deliver fire in mass against fixed points as Americans moved past them (an easier job).
[...]
Third, Iraqi covering forces systematically failed to alert their main defenses of the U.S. approach, allowing even Republican Guard units to be taken completely by surprise. Going back at least as far as World War I, all Western armies have used covering forces — whether observation posts, forward reconnaissance screens, or delaying positions — to provide warning to the main defenses that they are about to be attacked. Ideally, these covering forces serve other functions as well (such as stripping away the opponent's recon elements, slowing the attacker's movement, or channeling the assault), but the minimum function they must perform is to notify the main defense of an attacker's approach. This is not difficult. A one-word radio message is enough to sound the alarm. Even less can work if commanders agree in advance that failure to check in at specified times will be taken as warning of attack. The brevity of the message makes it virtually impossible to jam; the procedural backup of interpreting silence as warning means that even a dead observer can provide an alert.

Biddle's analyis — including computer simulations — shows that avoiding those blunders could have neutralized many of the Coalition's otherwise overwhelming advantages.

Arab Gateway: Romanization of Arabic

If you've been reading about Osama bin Laden and Usama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Al Quaida, you may be wondering why no one can agree on how to spell Arabic words in our Roman alphabet. I found an article, Arab Gateway: Romanization of Arabic, discussing this topic. It starts with a brief discussion of Lawrence's random spelling — which, by coincidence, I had just read about last night, in the preface to The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

In 1926, when T E Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") sent his 130,000-word manuscript of Revolt in the Desert to be typeset, a sharp-eyed proof-reader spotted that it was "full of inconsistencies in the spelling of proper names".

Among other things, the proof-reader noted that "Jeddah" alternated with "Jidda" throughout the book, while a man whose name began as Sherif Abd el Mayin later became el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayin and le Muyein.

Lawrence refused to change the spellings.

"Arabic names," he replied, "won't go into English, exactly, for their consonants are not the same as ours, and their vowels, like ours, vary from district to district."

Frankly, I can't imagine spelling the same word differently within my own manuscript.

The first problem in transcribing from the Arabic alphabet to the Roman alphabet is a problem for transcribing any language into the Roman alphabet: multiple European languages use the Roman alphabet, all differently. Thus, "Shaheen" and "Chahine" can both represent the same Arabic name as written by an English speaker and a French speaker.

The second problem is that not all Arabic speakers pronounce Arabic words the same. Pronunciations differ from region to region. Which pronunciation to you choose as the basis for your phonetic spelling?

The transcription can also go letter by letter (in what linguists call "transliteration"):

A different approach is to start with Arabic words in their written form and transcribe (or "Romanise") them by replacing individual Arabic letters with corresponding letters from the Roman alphabet. This sounds simple but is actually very difficult. For example:

• Only eight Arabic letters have a clear equivalent in the Roman alphabet: B, F, K, L, M, N, R, and Z.
• Arabic has two distinct consonants that approximate to the sound of S. The same applies to D, H and T.
• There are two glottal sounds that do not obviously correspond to any Roman letter.

All this makes it very hard to know whether two names are, in fact, the same name — and it makes it very hard to look anything up in an electronic archive!

The Cosmopolitan Illusion

In The Cosmopolitan Illusion, Lee Harris weighs patriotism against cosmopolitanism. In the process, he describes how the Roman system transcended family or clan:

Families and kin can clearly work well together, but the source of their cohesion is simultaneously the source of their weakness: Either one is a member of the family or the tribe or else one is not. If not, you never will be, and you know it. But this law does not apply to societies in which the primary unit is a group able to work together — a team, and not the family. This, according to Livy's account, is how we are to understand the secret of Rome's initial rise to greatness: It was made up of people who could work together precisely because family could not and did not matter to them. This meant that they were free to organize and cooperate without the structural tensions that arise when there are a number of different families, each vying for positions of prestige, prominence, and power, and leading in their contentious train all sorts of juvenile rabble-rousers.

Comparing America to Rome and Iraq to Scythia is left as an exercise for the reader.

The New Missionaries

In The New Missionaries, Adam Garfinkle compares modern democratizers to 19th-century missionaries and explains the hurdles to democratizing Arab nations:

In different degrees, Arab societies lack three prerequisites for democracy: the belief that the source of political authority is intrinsic to society; a concept of majority rule; and the acceptance of all citizens' equality before the law. Without the first, the idea of pluralism — and the legitimacy of a "loyal opposition" — cannot exist. Without the second, the idea of elections as a means to form a government is incomprehensible. Without the third, a polity can be neither free nor liberal as those terms are understood in the west.

Before Launch, Global Network Collects Data for Missile's Path

Shades of Ender's Game? From Before Launch, Global Network Collects Data for Missile's Path:

More than 300 missiles were fired in a huge barrage last Friday. An officer who was in the Strike Center then described a tense but businesslike atmosphere, with planners staring at screens, outwardly oblivious to the havoc they were wreaking far away. "It was surreal, because it was no different than exercises that we've practiced again and again," he said. "Hours later, you take a step back and see the video and see the hits coming in Baghdad and you realize it was real."

A Growing Threat to Troops In Iraq: Sleep Deprivation

For a "macho" organization of gung-ho soldiers, our military can be surprisingly scientific about something like sleep deprivation. "Powering through it" has consequences. From A Growing Threat to Troops In Iraq: Sleep Deprivation:

For warriors operating in highly charged situations with weapons, trouble in processing cognitive information can lead to deadly miscalculations. Research shows that for every 24 hours that a person goes without sleep, about 25% of that person's ability to effectively process such data is lost. This becomes especially critical for troop commanders or fighter pilots who must rapidly size up a situation and craft a response.
[...]
For now, military researchers say the best way to combat fatigue on the battlefield is the power nap. Two hours is optimal, but even 45 minutes has proven beneficial. This tends to work better for ground troops, who can operate in shifts and crash out on a mat. Caffeinated drinks also help improve alertness.

Sounds like college.

Pilots operating in cramped cockpits don't have as much latitude. "There's no coffeepot in there or place to stow stuff" like power bars or energy drinks, says Dr. Caldwell. "We tend to stay away from the herbal sort of products."

Instead, prior to each mission they fly, pilots see a service physician who can dispense dextroamphetamines, a form of "speed." Studies have shown that such drugs enable a sleep-deprived pilot to fly as well as a well-rested one, while those without a pharmacological boost often fell asleep at the controls. So far, Dr. Caldwell says, there is no clinical evidence that pilots taking speed are more prone to error, as was suggested after two American pilots who had used the drugs killed four Canadian soldiers accidentally in Afghanistan last year.

Again, sounds like college. OK, OK, not like my college experience — I stuck to soft drinks — but certainly nothing unusual for students in the 1960's, when "pep pills" were considered fairly benign.

Early in this war, nonpilots made a push to get some of the "go pills" for themselves. "Everybody thought they were the magic answer to making guys work around the clock," said a doctor at a Marine air base near the Iraqi border that is home to helicopter pilots. Ultimately, they were turned down.

I can see plenty of potential for use and abuse amongst ground troops. In many cases, I'm sure, both caffeine and amphetamines make you feel better now by putting you deeper and deeper into sleep debt — debt that you have to pay off sooner or later.

Initiation Ceremonies

In Initiation Ceremonies, Den Beste draws an analogy between hazing and protesting a popular war though unpopular means:

It's been noted that there is a rising tide of antiwar protests in the US and in Europe, and it's also been noted by many that some of the signs and slogans they're using vary from brainless to idiotic to outright vile. In some cases the demonstrators are doing things which are virtually guaranteed to cause nearly everyone outside the movement to have negative reactions. (For example, the recent protests in San Francisco which involved deliberately interrupting traffic, or ejecting various unpleasant bodily fluids in public places.)

The most obvious theory is that by doing this these people hope to influence the more general public to their point of view politically, but given that it's equally obvious that it's been a notable failure, and indeed in many cases has been causing general animosity, there's also been much speculation that those responsible for these demonstrations are unwise, or stupid, or deluded.

But even if these demonstrations have had little political effect at all, or outright negative effect, on the public as a whole, it also has the effect of making those in the movement itself particularly dedicated to the cause. There's little practical difference between wearing weird robes and dancing and chanting on a street corner, and having a vomit-in at City Hall.

America: an Empire in Denial

America: an Empire in Denial examines the good and bad elements of the British Empire:

When the British governed a country — even when they only influenced its government by flexing their military and financial muscles — there were certain distinctive features of their own society that they tended to disseminate. A list of the more important of these would run as follows:

1. The English language
2. English forms of land tenure
3. Scottish and English banking
4. The Common Law
5. Protestantism
6. Team sports
7. The limited or "night watchman" state
8. Representative assemblies
9. The idea of liberty

The last of these is perhaps the most important because it remains the most distinctive feature of the empire — the thing that sets it apart from its continental European rivals.

Al-Qaida message aids Iraq

From Al-Qaida message aids Iraq:

NBC News has obtained a copy of a message from the al-Qaida terrorist network to Muslims in Iraq, a message that is, in effect, a military playbook on how to defeat Americans.
[...]
In what amounts to a military playbook, Al-Adel lays out lessons learned fighting Americans in Afghanistan, and claims "victory over the U.S. [in Iraq] is very possible ... easy beyond the imagination" and depends on "depleting, exhausting and terrorizing the enemy."

I have to ask, exactly what lessons did Al Qaeda learn in Afghanistan?

He advises Iraqi Muslims to fight in small groups trained in "reconnaissance, traps and raiding operations," and to mount rocket launchers on pickup trucks.

But he reveals that in Afghanistan, al-Qaida's secret weapon was not the ever present pickup truck, but a Toyota Corolla — a passenger car — filled with bombs and shoulder-fired missiles.

"The enemy did not notice we were using them, and most were not directly targeted," Al-Adel claims.

US Navy Marine Mammal History Page

The US Navy Marine Mammal History Page refers to its trained dolphins and sea lions as "systems":

Mk 4 is a dolphin mine searching system that detects and marks locations of mines moored off the ocean bottom. It is capable of shipboard forward deployment to support post-amphibious operations.

Mk 5 is a sea lion exercise mine recovery system that locates pingered training mines. The sea lions can locate these mines to depths of 1000 feet and attach a grabber device for recovery.

Mk 6 is a dolphin swimmer and diver detection system that can detect and mark the location of an intruder. This system was used in Vietnam in 1970-71 and the Persian Gulf in 1987-88.

Mk 7 is a dolphin mine searching system that detects and marks the location of mines on the ocean bottom. This system is also capable of shipboard forward deployment to support post-amphibious assaults.

The Middle Seat

The Middle Seat regularly covers the airline industry. This installment tackles taxes and air travel:

The federal tax on cigarettes is 9%, yet the federal government taxes an airline ticket at 7.5%, plus a $3 federal tax on each flight segment, plus a $2.50 per segment security charge. Then there are international arrival and departure taxes of $13.20 each way, a $6 immigration fee, and that's before local airports get to add passenger facility charges of up to $4.50 per boarding.

To be sure, airlines and airline passengers need to pay for many of the services they use. But much of what they are paying for now goes beyond air service. Airport security now is a national security issue — we don't want airplanes used as weapons of mass destruction.

Power tool

Power tool describes the Tomahawk cruise missile and how it has changed warfare:

The idea that going to war carries a near-certain risk that thousands of your own soldiers will die; the idea that mass civilian casualties on the enemy's side are inevitable, or that whole societies must inevitably be obliterated in targeting their leaderships; the idea that wars are massive, all-or-nothing undertakings between entire peoples that cannot be entered into lightly or with limited commitment: all would tumble — in the strategic thinking of America's military planners, if not always in reality — in the era that began with the San Clemente test. It reached its fullest expression on Wednesday night in Baghdad, when around 40 Tomahawks, fired from battleships in the Persian Gulf, rained down on "leadership targets".
[...]
The new symbol [of the American military] is 21in in diameter, 18ft long, weighs 2,650lbs, has a range of 690 miles, costs $600,00 and is packed with circuit boards manufactured at a secret facility run by Raytheon, the defence contractor, outside Phoenix, Arizona. Since its debut, claims of its accuracy - it is now capable, the air force says, of guiding itself past obstacles and around corners to within 7m of a pre-programmed target - have prompted breathlessness among the media. It can hit "a target the size of a mailbox with almost as much accuracy as the postal service," Fortune magazine declared, as early as 1990.
[...]
"During the second world war, an average B-17 bomb during a bombing run missed its target by some 2,300ft," Warden told General Norman Schwarzkopf and the then defence secretary Dick Cheney, according to David Halberstam's book War in a Time of Peace. "Therefore, if you wanted a 90% probability of hitting a particular target, you had to drop some 9,000 bombs. That required a bombing run of 1,000 bombers and placed 1,000 men at risk. By contrast, with the new weaponry, one plane flown by one man with one bomb could have the same probability." And Tomahawks, it seemed, could do similarly well without even that risk.

Mary Beard on Cleopatra

Mary Beard tries to uncover the truth about Cleopatra, starting from the end:

Cleopatra's last public appearance in the city of Rome was in the form of a wax model, complete with model asp, carried in the victory parade of Octavian in 29BC. Octavian — a bloodthirsty ideologue in the civil wars — was by then well on his way to reinventing himself as Rome's benevolent autocrat, its first (and almost only) 'good' Emperor, Augustus. Three days of triumphal procession through the streets of the capital — to mark his victories over an assortment of Northern barbarians, over Mark Antony's forces at the battle of Actium and finally over Egypt itself — were to draw a line under civil war and inaugurate the new regime. Along with the wagonloads of booty, the placards blazoning the names of massacred tribes and annihilated cities, the hordes of bedraggled, defeated troops, the prize exhibit in the procession — walking in chains just in front of the triumphant general's chariot — was to have been Queen Cleopatra herself.

Cleopatra had other ideas, however. She had presumably witnessed Roman triumphs during her stay in Rome as Julius Caesar's amant en titre and well understood their techniques of humiliation. She would also have known that the most dangerous and distinguished of Rome's victims never reached the end of the procession: they were put to death in the Forum, just as the general began his ascent of the Capitoline Hill to offer sacrifice at the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. She pre-empted the humiliation by suicide — either by means of her trademark asp (which, as the symbol of Egyptian monarchy, turned her death into a defiant assertion of her royal power) or, as some ancient writers thought, thanks to some more mundane poison. "I will not be triumphed over," Livy has her declare.

A Conversation with James D. Watson

Watson, co-discoverer of DNA's double-helix structure, is known for his...outspoken opinions. In A Conversation with James D. Watson, he shares some of them:

I think there's something in me of that same weakness that is so apparent in [tennis champion] John McEnroe. I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense!
[...]
I think they're so contentious that the state shouldn't enter in. Yes, I would just stay out of it, the way it should stay out of abortion. Reproductive decisions should be made by women, not the state.

I mean, cloning now is the issue. But the first clone is not like the first nuclear bomb going off. It's not going to hurt anyone!

If your health were lousy and your wife's health were lousy, and [the genetic illness] were in both your families, maybe you'd like to have a child who was healthy. I know a famous French scientist who never had children because there was madness in his family. He didn't want to take a chance on more madness. That's what I mean. Cloning might mean you would know there wasn't going to be any more madness. I think the paramount concern should be the rights of the family, as opposed to the rights of the state.

People say, "Well, these would be designer babies," and I say, "Well, what's wrong with designer clothes?" If you could just say, "My baby's not going to have asthma," wouldn't that be nice? What's wrong with therapeutic cloning? Who's being hurt?

There's a mysticism about life. It's very understandable, if you're not a scientist, that you just can't quite see how it could all be molecules, and how you could start with this and end up with human consciousness and our complexity. Since we still don't know how the brain works, people say that we don't have it right. All we can say is, we don't think there's any spirit in a bacterium.

I remember when [physicist] Dick Feynman and I got identical letters back in 1964 from a California rabbi asking about our spiritual beliefs. I think Dick just wrote back that he had none. I was more polite because I wasn't Jewish [and didn't want to offend the rabbi], but I think that Dick could say what he thought. The problem in the United States is, it's not socially acceptable to be against god. Can religion ever be bad? That's not to be discussed. But in Europe it can be.

Well, hush my mouth

In Well, hush my mouth, conservative MP, Boris Johnson, describes his sparring session with the New York Times editor handling his piece:

"Booris," said Tobin, "we love it! Everybody loves it. But we have, uh, a few issues of political correctness that I have to go through with you."
[...]
I had said something to the effect that you don't make international law by giving new squash courts to the President of Guinea. This now read "the President of Chile". Come again? I said. Qué?

"Uh, Boris," said Tobin, "it's just easier in principle if we don't say anything deprecatory about a black African country, and since Guinea and Chile are both members of the UN Security Council, and since it doesn't affect your point, we would like to say Chile."
[...]
So I began the piece with the words, "Gee, thanks, guys," and Tobin wanted those words removed. For the life of me, I couldn't see why.
[...]
"OK, Booris, I'll tell you what the problem is. Our problem is that 'Gee' is an abbreviation for Jesus. For a century this has been a Jewish-owned paper, and we have to be extremely sensitive about anything that might offend Christian sensibilities.

"We can say 'God', 'God' is fine, but we have to be very careful about anything that involves the name of the Lord and Saviour."

"Jesus H. Christ," I said, "this is insane. This is utterly insane. I really think we ought to try to get that one in...."

The Jewel of Africa

There's no end to the sad stories coming out of Africa. From The Jewel of Africa:

Southern Rhodesia had fine and functioning railways, good roads; its towns were policed and clean. It could grow anything, tropical fruit like pineapples, mangoes, bananas, plantains, pawpaws, passion fruit, temperate fruits like apples, peaches, plums. The staple food, maize, grew like a weed and fed surrounding countries as well. Peanuts, sunflowers, cotton, the millets and small grains that used to be staple foods before maize, flourished. Minerals: gold, chromium, asbestos, platinum, and rich coalfields. The dammed Zambezi River created the Kariba Lake, which fed electricity north and south. A paradise, and not only for the whites. The blacks did well, too, at least physically. Not politically: it was a police state and a harsh one. When the blacks rebelled and won their war in 1979 they looked forward to a plenty and competence that existed nowhere else in Africa, not even in South Africa, which was bedeviled by its many mutually hostile tribes and its vast shantytowns. But paradise has to have a superstructure, an infrastructure, and by now it is going, going — almost gone.

One man is associated with the calamity, Robert Mugabe.

The victims of the witch hunt history would rather forget

I definitely recall a college humanities course that "educated" me on witch hunts and patriarchy. Here's another take. From the victims of the witch hunt history would rather forget:

Between 1450 and 1750, approximately 110,000 people were tried for witchcraft in Europe and America, of whom 60,000 were executed; the trendy name for this persecution is the "witch craze". Towards the end of the 20th century, historians fell on these statistics in their own form of witch craze, and came away with the sort of neat and provocative theories that give history a bad name. The witch hunts were produced by mass hallucinations, economic insecurity, early modern state-building or religious fundamentalism. Take your pick.

The hypotheses were mutually incompatible, but they usually made room for one central assumption. The witch craze was directed against women, and therefore expressed misogyny and patriarchy. Feminist historians pioneered this approach, then the usual suspects jumped on board: Margaret Murray, Barbara Ehrenreich and Andrea Dworkin. In all this, an inconvenient detail was overlooked. Between a fifth and a quarter of those executed for witchcraft were men. This is not news to historians; they just don't want to know about it.

Past Viral Infection Linked to Multiple Sclerosis

This isn't good news for anyone who's had a bad bout of mono. From Past Viral Infection Linked to Multiple Sclerosis:

New study findings provide further evidence that infection with Epstein-Barr virus, which can cause mononucleosis, may increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life.

Investigators discovered that people with the highest levels of antibodies linked to Epstein-Barr — possibly indicating a history of severe infection — were more than thirty times as likely to develop MS later in life than those with the fewest antibodies.
[...]
Epstein-Barr is an extremely common type of herpes virus, with more than 90 percent of the population in countries like the U.S. and U.K. estimated to have been infected at some point.

Bio-battery runs on shots of vodka

Bio-battery runs on shots of vodka:

An enzyme-catalysed battery has been created that could one day run cell phones and laptop computers on shots of vodka.

I see a lot of expensive batteries going dead across college campuses in the future...

Japanese Technology May Help Islands Reap Pacific's Waters

According to Japanese Technology May Help Islands Reap Pacific's Waters, Saga University has developed a technology that generates power while simultaneously desalinating ocean water for drinking:

The university is preparing to build an experimental power plant off the coast of Palau that brings up cold seawater from the depths of the sea to an evaporator chamber near the ocean surface.

As the water is heated by the surrounding warm surface water, it releases ammonia gas, which then drives the system's power generator, said Yasuyuki Ikegami, deputy director of the Institute of Ocean Energy at Saga University.

Meanwhile, the heated water would be transferred to a separate low-pressure chamber where it boils at a lower temperature, producing steam, which would be condensed and collected as fresh water for human consumption, leaving salt crystals behind.

One experimental system, which produces power but no usable water, is scheduled to be put into use off the coast of India this month, Mr. Ikegami added.

"It works well especially in the western Pacific, where the temperature difference between the ocean's surface and deep seawater is" as much as 43 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. "It is environmentally sound."

U.S. Enlists Dolphins to Aid War Effort

My vote for feel-good war story of the day goes to U.S. Enlists Dolphins to Aid War Effort:

U.S. Navy Captain Mike Tillotson told reporters that three or four dolphins would work from Umm Qasr, using their natural sonar abilities to seek out mines or other explosive devices which Iraqi forces may have planted on the seabed.
[...]
Tillotson said the dolphins were trained not to swim up to mines, but to place a marker a small distance away, minimizing any danger to themselves.

United Press International: Morocco offers US monkeys to detonate mine

I couldn't make this stuff up. From United Press International: Morocco offers US monkeys to detonate mine:

A Moroccan publication accused the government Monday of providing unusual assistance to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq by offering them 2,000 monkeys trained in detonating land mines.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

In The Philosopher of Islamic Terror, Paul Berman makes the case that Islamic theologian Qutb's In the Shade of the Qur'an presents a "powerful philosophy" that guides Al Qaeda. I, naturally, don't see the allure. Here's his take on history (in a nutshell):

In the Muslim fashion, Qutb looked on the teachings of Judaism as being divinely revealed by God to Moses and the other prophets. Judaism instructed man to worship one God and to forswear all others. Judaism instructed man on how to behave in every sphere of life -- how to live a worldly existence that was also a life at one with God. This could be done by obeying a system of divinely mandated laws, the code of Moses. In Qutb's view, however, Judaism withered into what he called ''a system of rigid and lifeless ritual.''

God sent another prophet, though. That prophet, in Qutb's Muslim way of thinking, was Jesus, who proposed a few useful reforms -- lifting some no-longer necessary restrictions in the Jewish dietary code, for example -- and also an admirable new spirituality. But something terrible occurred. The relation between Jesus' followers and the Jews took, in Qutb's view, ''a deplorable course.'' Jesus' followers squabbled with the old-line Jews, and amid the mutual recriminations, Jesus' message ended up being diluted and even perverted. Jesus' disciples and followers were persecuted, which meant that, in their sufferings, the disciples were never able to provide an adequate or systematic exposition of Jesus' message.
[...]
Jesus' disciples and followers, the Christians, emphasized Jesus' divine message of spirituality and love. But they rejected Judaism's legal system, the code of Moses, which regulated every jot and tittle of daily life. Instead, the early Christians imported into Christianity the philosophy of the Greeks -- the belief in a spiritual existence completely separate from physical life, a zone of pure spirit.

In the fourth century of the Christian era, Emperor Constantine converted the Roman Empire to Christianity. But Constantine, in Qutb's interpretation, did this in a spirit of pagan hypocrisy, dominated by scenes of wantonness, half-naked girls, gems and precious metals. Christianity, having abandoned the Mosaic code, could put up no defense. And so, in their horror at Roman morals, the Christians did as best they could and countered the imperial debaucheries with a cult of monastic asceticism.

But this was no good at all. Monastic asceticism stands at odds with the physical quality of human nature. In this manner, in Qutb's view, Christianity lost touch with the physical world. The old code of Moses, with its laws for diet, dress, marriage, sex and everything else, had enfolded the divine and the worldly into a single concept, which was the worship of God. But Christianity divided these things into two, the sacred and the secular. Christianity said, ''Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.'' Christianity put the physical world in one corner and the spiritual world in another corner: Constantine's debauches over here, monastic renunciation over there. In Qutb's view there was a ''hideous schizophrenia'' in this approach to life.

Operation Anglosphere

As Operation Anglosphere points out, the notion of an Anglo Empire — this time an American Empire — is regaining popularity, at least among non-Americans:

''America is the most magnanimous imperial power ever,'' declared Dinesh D'Souza in the Christian Science Monitor in 2002. ''Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets,'' argued Max Boot in a 2001 article for the Weekly Standard titled ''The Case for American Empire.'' In the Wall Street Journal, historian Paul Johnson asserted that the ''answer to terrorism'' is ''colonialism.'' Columnist Mark Steyn, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, has contended that ''imperialism is the answer.''

''People are now coming out of the closet on the word 'empire','' noted Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer. ''The fact is no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of world since the Roman Empire.'' Krauthammer's awe is shared by Harvard human rights scholar Michael Ignatieff, who asked earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine, ''What word but `empire' describes the awesome thing America is becoming?'' While acknowledging that empire may be a ''burden,'' Ignatieff maintained that it has become, ''in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability alike.''

Jeet Heer's article also corrects a common misinterpretation of Kipling's "The White Man's Burden":

Rudyard Kipling's famous imperialist paean, ''The White Man's Burden,'' often mistakenly linked to England's rule over India, was specifically written in 1899 to support Theodore Roosevelt's campaign to extend the American sphere of influence into the Philippines.

Image Conscious

In Image Conscious: The fall of CNN, and what it means for the war, Reason web editor, Tim Cavanaugh, explains how Al Jazeera is providing better coverage of the war in Iraq than CNN:

I can't think of a single instance over the past few days where the coverage from Jazeera's people traveling with American forces was not more exciting and compelling than anything on CNN, the BBC or MSNBC (I have no access to Fox News in my current location, but given that network's bloviation-rich, content-poor coverage of the war in Afghanistan, I'm not expecting great things). Yesterday morning, during the firefight in Umm Qasr, CNN broadcast a stationary camera shot of the long standoff, while pompous anchorman Aaron Brown warned viewers that they might accidentally see some unpleasantness�the unstructured environment of a live broadcast being presumably too dangerous for the network's childlike viewers. Jazeera by comparison had a cameraman who was physically closer to the Marines on the front of the battle, and got closer footage of the operation. There have been similar performances in the fighting at Nasiriyah, and in showing the details of logistics for American forces in the field. Alone among the news networks, Jazeera gives you the impression there is a war going on, rather than a series of press conferences.
[...]
In short, if you are not watching Al Jazeera (and if you have a satellite dish you've got no excuse), you are not getting anything close to full coverage of this war.

Commando force poised to track and kill Saddam

I don't know if this is news, but it's about Delta Force: Commando force poised to track and kill Saddam

Armed with high-tech weapons, night-vision goggles and pictures of their targets, small teams of Delta Force commandos will soon descend on the outskirts of Baghdad to begin the most anticipated mission of the war: capturing or killing Saddam Hussein.

The Future of War -- John Hillen

In The Future of War — John Hillen, former Army captain Hillen explains that big, toe-to-toe wars aren't the norm for our military:

In terms of military culture, we like to think that Desert Storm and World War II are the norm, and that peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and the backstreet brawling in Mogadishu are the exceptions. But it's really quite the opposite. The United States has used military force overseas over 200 times since the birth of this nation. And we've only been in five declared wars. We've only had another five, perhaps, that fit the classic definition of a war. And yet, from those rare instances where we fight those types of wars — the type we saw in World War II or Korea or Desert Storm — those are the ones on which we base military culture — the values and the traditions of the service.

The Future of War -- Dick Cheney

In The Future of War — Dick Cheney, Mr. Cheney brings up the new demographics of our professional armed forces:

It's also true that a large part of our force is married. They have families. I keep running into what people call the birthday problem. The first time somebody said that to me, I said, "What do you mean, the birthday problem?" He was an active duty officer. He said, "The third time you miss your kids' birthdays in a year because you're deployed, you begin to wonder about whether or not you ought to re-enlist."

Why Arabs Lose Wars

In Why Arabs Lose Wars, de Atkine points out that "Arabs husband information and hold it especially tightly"; sharing your expertise only makes you less valuable:

On one occasion, an American mobile training team working with armor in Egypt at long last received the operators' manuals that had laboriously been translated into Arabic. The American trainers took the newly minted manuals straight to the tank park and distributed them to the tank crews. Right behind them, the company commander, a graduate of the armor school at Fort Knox and specialized courses at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds ordnance school, promptly collected the manuals from those crews. Questioned why he did this, the commander said that there was no point in giving them to the drivers because enlisted men could not read. In point of fact, he did not want enlisted men to have an independent source of knowledge. Being the only person who could explain the fire control instrumentation or bore sight artillery weapons brought prestige and attention.

Once you've seen footage of children in Islamic schools rocking back and forth, memorizing passages of the Koran, this part makes more sense:

Because the Arab educational system is predicated on rote memorization, officers have a phenomenal ability to commit vast amounts of knowledge to memory. The learning system tends to consist of on-high lectures, with students taking voluminous notes and being examined on what they were told. (It also has interesting implications for a foreign instructor, whose credibility, for example, is diminished if he must resort to a book.)

And the biggest difference between western military culture and Arab military culture is that western militaries rely on strong non-commissioned officer corps empowered to make decisions:

Decisions are highly centralized, made at a very high level and rarely delegated. Rarely does an officer make a critical decision on his own; instead, he prefers the safe course of being identified as industrious, intelligent, loyal — and compliant. Bringing attention to oneself as an innovator or someone prone to making unilateral decisions is a recipe for trouble. As in civilian life, conforming is the overwhelming societal norm; the nail that stands up gets hammered down. Decisions are made and delivered from on high, with very little lateral communication. Orders and information flow from top to bottom; they are not to be reinterpreted, amended, or modified in any way.

Past Mideast Invasions Faced Unexpected Perils

Past Mideast Invasions Faced Unexpected Perils presents an eerie parallel between Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Bush's invasion of Iraq:

"Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion," said Napoleon as he entered Cairo. "Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to restore your rights!"

The Arrogant Empire

In The Arrogant Empire, Fareed Zakaria explains that Americans felt vulnerable after 9-11, but "the rest of the world saw something quite different":

Yet after 9-11, the rest of the world saw something quite different. They saw a country that was hit by terrorism, as some of them had been, but that was able to respond on a scale that was almost unimaginable. Suddenly terrorism was the world's chief priority, and every country had to reorient its foreign policy accordingly. Pakistan had actively supported the Taliban for years; within months it became that regime's sworn enemy. Washington announced that it would increase its defense budget by almost $50 billion, a sum greater than the total annual defense budget of Britain or Germany. A few months later it toppled a regime 6,000 miles away — almost entirely from the air — in Afghanistan, a country where the British and Soviet empires were bogged down at the peak of their power.

And here's some evidence that America has become the world power:

It is now clear that the current era can really have only one name, the unipolar world — an age with only one global power. America's position today is unprecedented. A hundred years ago, Britain was a superpower, ruling a quarter of the globe's population. But it was still only the second or third richest country in the world and one among many strong military powers. The crucial measure of military might in the early 20th century was naval power, and Britain ruled the waves with a fleet as large as the next two navies put together. By contrast, the United States will spend as much next year on defense as the rest of the world put together (yes, all 191 countries). And it will do so devoting 4 percent of its GDP, a low level by postwar standards.

Will They Fight?

In Will They Fight?, Stuart Herrington, a retired Army counterintelligence officer, recounts what interrogated Iraqi officers said after the first Gulf War:

"Saddam," one general remarked bitterly, "never wore muddy boots." The man had no training or skills as a soldier. Saddam, several observed, had no respect for his generals, other than a few in his trusted inner circle. One general recalled wryly, "Only selected Republican Guard commanders had any warning that Kuwait was to be invaded. Most of us learned of the operation from the television news."

See Men Shredded, Then Say You Don't Back War

In See Men Shredded, Then Say You Don't Back War, Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley, starts with an account of Iraqi men being dropped into a shredding machine:

There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders.

This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from Indict — the organisation I chair — to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks.

I won't quote what they did to Iraqi women.

Bars Go Dry on British Warships Ahead of War

I'm not too surprised that the British navy allows drinking on a daily basis. From Bars Go Dry on British Warships Ahead of War:

Unlike American warships, which are dry, British ships have full-functioning bars for officers and a three-can-a-day beer allowance for enlisted sailors.

This I do find odd though; they subsidize liquor:

The tax-free tipple is a bargain -- a glass of brandy on board the flagship carrier Ark Royal costs a mere 13 pence (20 U.S. cents).

Tales of the Tyrant

The Atlantic has published an interesting article on Saddam Hussein by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down: Tales of the Tyrant. This passage about Saddam's oldest son, Uday, and the Iraqi Olympic team caught my eye:

Raed Ahmed was an Olympic weightlifter who carried the Iraqi flag during the opening ceremonies of the Atlanta games, in 1996. "Uday was head of the Olympic Committee, and all sports in Iraq," Ahmed told me early this year, in his home in a suburb of Detroit. "During training camp he would closely monitor all the athletes, keeping in touch with the trainers and pushing them to push the athletes harder. If he's unhappy with the results, he will throw the trainers and even the athletes into a prison he keeps inside the Olympic Committee building. If you make a promise of a certain result, and fail to achieve it in competition, then the punishment is a special prison where they torture people. Some of the athletes started to quit when Uday took over, including many who were the best in their sports. They just decided it was not worth it. Others, like me, loved their sports, and success can be a stepping-stone in Iraq to better things, like a nice car, a nice home, a career. I always managed to avoid being punished. I was careful never to promise anything that I couldn't deliver. I would always say that there was a strong possibility that I would be beaten. Then, when I won, Uday was so happy."

PM: More than the fate of the Iraqi regime at stake

Despite the fact that Tony Blair considers himself a student of Bill Clinton, I find him credible — something I could never say of his slick mentor. PM: More than the fate of the Iraqi regime at stake gives the text of his recent speech on Iraq, and I enjoyed (if that's the right word) this passage:

From December 1998 to December 2002, no UN inspector was allowed to inspect anything in Iraq. For four years, not a thing. What changed his mind? The threat of force. From December to January and then from January through to February, concessions were made. What changed his mind?

The threat of force.

And what makes him now issue invitations to the inspectors, discover documents he said he never had, produce evidence of weapons supposed to be non-existent, destroy missiles he said he would keep? The imminence of force.

The only persuasive power to which he responds is 250,000 allied troops on his doorstep.
And yet when that fact is so obvious that it is staring us in the face, we are told that any Resolution that authorises force will be vetoed.

Not just opposed. Vetoed. Blocked.

Pandemic

In Pandemic, Dan Beste brings up an interesting point about influenza:

One of the dirty little secrets in infectious disease research is that most new strains of flu come from China. It doesn't get talked about much because there really isn't much that can be done about it.

It turns out that they emerge as the result of genetic crosses between human flu and avian flu, which is mostly a disease of geese and ducks. But humans don't easily get avian flu, and birds don't easily get human influenza. However, pigs can get both quite easily, and if a given pig is infected with both simultaneously, then it's possible for one of its cells to have both kinds of viruses inside at the same time, merrily hijacking the cell's mechanisms to make more viruses. In that case, there's a chance of genetic mixing.

So it turns out that this is most likely to happen in places where humans, geese or ducks, and swine all live in close proximity in relatively primitive and unclean conditions, and that turns out to mean China's collectivized farms. Similar conditions exist elsewhere but they're much less common. More modern industrialized livestock farming, such as is practiced in the US, isn't susceptible to this risk.

Popular Weight Loss Supplement May Damage DNA

Popular Weight Loss Supplement May Damage DNA reports a scary discovery:

Chromium picolinate, a popular supplement marketed as building muscle and promoting weight loss, may damage DNA, a new study shows.

Consumption of the supplement led to lethal genetic mutations and sterility in fruit flies, according to a study published in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[..]
To answer this question, Vincent and his colleagues raised four generations of fruit flies on a medium containing chromium picolinate.

In each generation, 20 percent to 30 percent fewer flies reached adulthood among the group fed chromium picolinate, compared to those not given the supplement.

In another experiment, the researchers fed chromium picolinate only to the male flies. "Then we looked at the effect of that on the flies' grandchildren," Vincent said. "Two generations removed there were very high rates of mutations."

Fortunately, I doubt many life-extension enthusiasts are fruit flies eating their bodyweight in chromium picolinate daily.

Action Film Trailer Generator

OK, this is too much fun: the Action Film Trailer Generator. Some samples:

In a cursed kingdom of madness, in an age of hopelessness, a dancer combats terrorism.
In a godless universe, in a time of danger, a secretary and a spy quest for hope and oppose lawlessness.
In a lost universe, in an era of sin, an armorer and a bounty hunter battle terrorism.
In an infernal world, four acrobats and a tomb-robber seek a mystic artifact.
In an ominous empire, in a time of wonder, six assassins quest for love and fight terrorism.

Bridget Fonda to Wed Danny Elfman

This headline caused a serious double-take: Bridget Fonda to Wed Danny Elfman. Here's what it says:

Bridget Fonda won't be a single white female much longer — she's engaged to film composer Danny Elfman.

It will be the first marriage for the 39-year-old star of such films as "Single White Female" and "A Simple Plan," and the second for Elfman, the former Oingo Boingo lead singer, People magazine reported in its March 24 issue.

Fonda has been recovering from a back injury she suffered when her car went over an embankment last month on rain-slicked Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Calif.

The actress is part of a performing dynasty that includes father Peter Fonda, aunt Jane Fonda, and the late Henry Fonda, who was her grandfather.

Elfman, 49, is best known for his work on such Tim Burton films as "Batman," "Beetlejuice" "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "Sleepy Hollow." He also composed the theme song for the Fox series "The Simpsons."

No pictures of Danny Elfman — just lots of pictures of Bridget with Dwight Yoakam. Inappropriate, maybe?

Flight Attendant Accused of Spiking Juice

Flight Attendant Accused of Spiking Juice tells a story the evokes outrage — and, perhaps, a teensy bit of understanding too:

A former Northwest Airlines flight attendant was charged with assault for allegedly putting a prescription depressant in a toddler's apple juice to stop her crying on an international flight.
[...]
The girl's mother, Beate Turner, told FBI special agent Terry Booth that Cunningham seemed upset when her 19-month-old daughter became restless and began squirming and crying on the flight. Cunningham offered the apple juice three times before Turner accepted, according to the agent's affidavit. The girl suffered no serious injury.

Turner later noticed the juice was bitter and foamy and had blue and white specks floating in it. Ten days after the flight, she took the juice to University Laboratories in Novi, which confirmed the presence of Xanax, a prescription medication used to treat panic attacks and anxiety, the FBI said.
[...]
Cunningham also has been charged with importing more than 100 tablets of a non-narcotic controlled substance into the United States on a different flight in October. The tablets included Xanax and Valium.

Hey, haven't you ever wished someone would sedate the crying kid on your flight?

Revenge: What is it good for?

This isn't a new idea, but its irony makes it interesting. As Revenge: What is it good for? points out, warfare grows out of our ability to cooperate:

"Humans developed the ability to model actions before they happen. This means we can plan collective violence. It explains why we have warfare," Dr. Roscoe says. Research on chimps confirms that once you can gang up and launch a surprise attack on outnumbered victims, killing becomes a dramatically more attractive option.

If every fight's one on one, the odds are rarely strongly on your side. Once you can gang up on enemies though, you can expect to win with only minor losses.

Singapore Seeks to Change Boring Image

Singapore always makes me chuckle. Nervously. Now they want to mandate creativity and excitement. From Singapore Seeks to Change Boring Image:

Straight-laced Singapore is urging its young people to figure out what turns them on and help the government make the city-state less boring, a lawmaker said Tuesday.

"I do not believe it is possible to be creative if you do not know how to enjoy yourself," said Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister of State for National Development, as he urged youth to take part in a government-organized street festival.

"We need to reach deep inside ourselves to find out what turns us on," said Balakrishnan, chairman of the government-appointed "Remaking Singapore" committee — a panel tasked with getting public feedback on how to make Singaporeans more lively and artistic.

The specifics are what really make the story though:

Among the events scheduled for the June street festival are graffiti, street wear and inline-skating contests.

Singapore is widely known for its tight controls on media. Cosmopolitan magazine and HBO's television hit "Sex in the City" are banned, along with home satellite TV antennae and even some popular songs deemed too racy.

In recent years, officials have taken small steps to spice up the nightlife, such as allowing some explicit language in plays.

The government may soon allow bar-top dancing and let nightspots stay open 24 hours, instead of closing at 3:00 a.m. as currently required.

Police Nab Boy Torching Goldfish with Flame-thrower

From Police Nab Boy Torching Goldfish with Flame-thrower:

German police apprehended an 11-year-old boy as he torched stolen goldfish with a homemade flame-thrower, police said on Wednesday.

They discovered the boy roasting the fish with a device made from a water pistol, a cigarette lighter and a stolen petrol canister.

Frankly, that 11-year-old boy was simply showing a bit more follow-through than his peers.

Gang Attacks Jail with Bazooka, Frees Inmate

Amazing. From Gang Attacks Jail with Bazooka, Frees Inmate:

A commando-style gang used a bazooka to blow its way into a prison near Paris and free one of the inmates in a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday, officials said.

The gang of four or five men machine-gunned watchtowers at the prison, in Fresnes to the east of the French capital and near Disneyland Paris, before rushing inside to the cell of Antonio Ferrara, who was serving time for organized crime.

"The commando gang entered the high-security section of the prison and gave Antonio Ferrara explosives which allowed him to blow open the bars on the window of his cell," said Christophe Marques, a prison officers' representative from the FO union.

The gang then left together by car. No one was injured.

Television pictures showed a hole blown in a door to the prison and burned out cars lining streets nearby.

Ebola Kills 100 in Congo, Wipes Out Gorillas

As Ebola Kills 100 in Congo, Wipes Out Gorillas points out, it's not just humans dying from Ebola:

The deadly Ebola virus has killed 100 people in the remote forests of Congo Republic and wiped out nearly two-thirds of the gorillas in a reserve.
[...]
"In the sanctuary of about 1,200 gorillas we are now down to just 450 gorillas. We have recorded the disappearance of 600 to 800 gorillas," she said, adding the outbreak could spread to the nearby Odzala park and might then contaminate forests in Gabon.

"If Odzala is also contaminated by the epidemic, that's nearly 20,000 gorillas under threat. That's very serious, catastrophic," she said.

Here's another sad element:

Scientists believe this outbreak was triggered by the consumption of infected monkey meat. Bush meat is a staple among remote forest communities and deemed a delicacy in many cities.
[...]
Despite scientists' efforts to change villagers' eating habits and burial rites, which can involve handling the internal organs of corpses, many believe occult forces are at work.

Four teachers accused of casting a spell to cause the latest Ebola outbreak were stoned and beaten to death in February.