Some scary reading over at Technology Review, on the democratization of high-tech weaponry. As technology continues to advance, and things like this get cheaper, asymmetric warfare is going to become ever harder to wage. At some point, when fighting an enemy that worships and revels in death, we may have no choice except to give him what he wants, wholesale.
Somebody Pinch Me
A lot of Hollywood stars have actually publicly condemned Hezbollah and Hamas.
What Am I?
Ramesh Ponnuru asks an interesting question:
…what’s the best term to refer both to agnostics and atheists? “Faithless” seems too negative, “bright” too propagandistic. Do agnostics and atheists consider “unbeliever” better than “non-believer,” or vice-versa? When I was agnostic, I didn’t take my own unbelief seriously enough to consider this question.
I’ve never given much thought to the matter, but if one insists on lumping both into the same category, I’d say that “non-theists” seems both accurate and non-pejorative (other than to those to whom not believing in God is an intrinsically bad thing…).
But I think that the distinction between atheists and skeptics is important. The former (based on my experience with them) are as devout, or (actually) more devout, than most theists. They fervently believe (unprovably) that there is no God, and will proselytize endlessly to convert others to their belief. I have no belief, one way or the other, and it would never occur to me to (futilely) attempt to persuade a believer, of either faith, one way or the other.
The Battle Lines
…continue to be more clearly drawn. From the Guardian:
The Salafist movement was under-rated and misunderstood and the reaction to it has been confused. As always, the right is triggerhappy and hostile to free expression; as always, the left never wants to do anything that would hazard its self-righteous sense of moral purity.
These are historic fault lines. The right tolerated fascism in the thirties, the left Soviet Communism in the fifties. Of course these two earlier totalitarian movements were different in nature and our response when it came was not always well judged – the tendency is to think first of the excesses of the right typified by the witch hunts of the odious McCarthy, but we should remember, too, that the Democratic party in the immediate postwar years of Henry Wallace would have abandoned Europe just as the left in the eighties would have left Europe at the mercy of the new Soviet missiles.
The apologists for the Islamo-fascists – an accurate term – leave millions around the world exposed to a less obvious but more insidious barbarism.
Useful Anti-Semitic Idiots
Nelson Ascher writes about anti-semitism by proxie, and the Jihadis’ real agenda:
The Nazis managed to convince millions and millions of Frenchmen and Poles, Belgians, Norwegians etc. and, yes, Brits and Americans that, since they were fighting a common enemy, the Jews, they weren
Splashing Cold Water
…on Ray Kurzweil. Derek Lowe is optimistic, but not that optimistic:
I agree that we can overcome the major diseases. I really do expect to put cancer, heart disease, the major infections, and the degenerative disorders in their place. But do I expect to do it by 20-flipping-19? No. I do not. I should not like to be forced to put a date on when I think we’ll have taken care of the diseases that are responsible for 95% of the mortality in the industrialized world. But I am willing to bet against it happening by 2019, and I will seriously entertain offers from anyone willing to take the other side of that bet.
I hope (as I suspect he does as well) that he’s wrong, but fear he’s right. Still have to exercise and watch the diet. On the other hand, I do think we’ve already made pretty good strides on this front, and they may be sufficient to keep me going until whatever date needed.
Creating Buzz
The book Debunking 9/11 Myths, has its own blog. Lileks reviewed it himself the other day:
I read the entire book. Sane, logical, unemotional, sensible, comprehensive. There: I
This Is Surreal
Hezbollah says they might withdraw as long as the Lebanese army doesn’t mess with their stuff while they’re gone:
Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said.
Amazing.
Capitalism Bubble
Property prices are rising fast in Eastern Europe according to Financial Times:
…property prices in Riga, the Latvian capital, surged by 45.3% in the year to June, following on from a rise of 73.5% in the preceding year, with growth also buoyant in Bulgaria and Estonia. Mr. Bailey [head of residential research at Knight Frank] attributed this to a “levelling up” of prices across Europe, particularly in the former eastern bloc nations that have joined the European Union. “Wage inflation, growing prosperity and access to less constrained mortgage finance have all contributed to rapidly rising prices,” he said.
The same transformation could occur wherever property rights are dim and mortgage rates are high. I am thinking of Jamaica, Lebanon, Mexico, Iraq and many, many other places around the globe. Dollarize (or Euro-ize) the economy, offer subsidized mortgages, low property and capital gains taxes for houses, no rent control and put home improvement shows on TV and we will have a global home boom. These are sitting assets that can be taxed and repossessed. They create a home ownership culture, security of a locked door and a place to hang mosquito netting. $30,000 of cinder block housing for every 4th person on the globe would be $45T. This is the head end of the promise of capitalism with liquid lending.
Is That The Best He Could Do?
Hey, everybody’s got to be good at something:
A number of people have more than 500 arrests in the city of 226,000 people. The record was held by Edward Rooks, who died in 2004, with 652 arrests.