Mohammed at Iraq The Model has an encouraging story of a trip to the southern part of Iraq:
The point behind all these pictures and stories I mentioned is that the people started to speak out and express their feelings and here we
Limited Blogging
We’re getting ready to load up the truck and move to Florida, so lots of things to do around the house for the next few days. Maybe Andrew will pick up the slack, if he has time.
Creationists
My wife’s boss (a biologist) got a book in her inbox a couple of days ago put out by the North Dakota Bible Society – the grandiosely titled Evolution Cruncher. Apparently someone mailed these to all the biology faculty at the university of Maryland. I had a brief look through last night. I’ve been exposed to creationist literature before, so I sort of knew what to expect. I was nonetheless surprised by how blatantly dishonest this book is. I guess it’s been a while since I read anything by young earth creationists, so my memory had faded somewhat. Take a look at the site. It’s scary that these guys are a significant political constituency in some parts of the country.
I should clarify that I’m not hostile to all creationists – there are sincere and honest people who are creationists. I am, however, extremely hostile to blatant manipulative liars, which the North Dakota Bible Society apparently are.
The Myth of Fingerprints
Danyel Fisher has a good post on fingerprints and false positives. He doubts the guilt of the Oregon man being held in the Madrid bombings case based on fingerprint evidence – only time will tell for sure, but he does make an excellent point that “…if you are “one in a million,” there are 293 of you in the USA…” False positives will become more and more problematic as more people are fingerprinted. One thing Danyel doesn’t discuss, but which is extremely important, is that the resulting false positives will be believed accurate with a high degree of confidence, making it much harder to convince authorities that they are indeed false positives.
Also worth checking out is the paper linked to at the end of Danyel’s piece: On the Individuality of Fingerprints (pdf).
For What It’s Worth
I’ve had several people find their way to this site today with searches on variants of “Berg Decapitation Beheading Video etc.”
Not a single one came searching for information on Abu Ghraib.
Those stupid people. They won’t let their betters tell them what’s news.
[Update at 4:30 PM PDT]
Here’s a weird one–“Arab locust beheading”
[Update on Friday afternoon]
Brian Linse disagrees.
In a sense he makes my point. There probably are many people looking for this item merely for the dubious pleasure of watching a snuff film, but the fact remains that demand for it is relatively high because the same news outlets that couldn’t wait to show us pornography that reflected badly on the administration remain unwilling to show something that might arouse “the American street.”
For What It’s Worth
I’ve had several people find their way to this site today with searches on variants of “Berg Decapitation Beheading Video etc.”
Not a single one came searching for information on Abu Ghraib.
Those stupid people. They won’t let their betters tell them what’s news.
[Update at 4:30 PM PDT]
Here’s a weird one–“Arab locust beheading”
[Update on Friday afternoon]
Brian Linse disagrees.
In a sense he makes my point. There probably are many people looking for this item merely for the dubious pleasure of watching a snuff film, but the fact remains that demand for it is relatively high because the same news outlets that couldn’t wait to show us pornography that reflected badly on the administration remain unwilling to show something that might arouse “the American street.”
For What It’s Worth
I’ve had several people find their way to this site today with searches on variants of “Berg Decapitation Beheading Video etc.”
Not a single one came searching for information on Abu Ghraib.
Those stupid people. They won’t let their betters tell them what’s news.
[Update at 4:30 PM PDT]
Here’s a weird one–“Arab locust beheading”
[Update on Friday afternoon]
Brian Linse disagrees.
In a sense he makes my point. There probably are many people looking for this item merely for the dubious pleasure of watching a snuff film, but the fact remains that demand for it is relatively high because the same news outlets that couldn’t wait to show us pornography that reflected badly on the administration remain unwilling to show something that might arouse “the American street.”
Two Thirds Of The Way There
SpaceShipOne flew to over two hundred thousand feet today. In a sense, as Jim Oberg points out (via Alan Boyle, and by the way, congratulations on the second anniversary of Cosmic Log), at that altitude, it could be said to be the first private manned vehicle to fly into space.
It’s looking more and more like that insurance company that funded the X-Prize is going to lose the bet, but I’m still hoping for an upset for the prize by some upstart.
“The War That Dare Not Speak Its Name”
Andrew McCarthy says something that I’ve been saying since the beginning–that we aren’t at war with “terror.”
Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. It is the most sinister, brutal, inhumane method of our age. But it is nonetheless just that: a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified
“The War That Dare Not Speak Its Name”
Andrew McCarthy says something that I’ve been saying since the beginning–that we aren’t at war with “terror.”
Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. It is the most sinister, brutal, inhumane method of our age. But it is nonetheless just that: a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified