One hopes that this news report from the UK is wildly inaccurate:

The National Children’s Bureau… has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

…

[The report] alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can “recognise different people in their lives”. 

The world has gone fucking mad.

When reading this article at Foreign Policy, one gets the sense that the author is mostly correct in criticizing the military’s apparent mania for developing absurdly expensive “toys”, but I don’t think she takes it far enough.  Her argument seems to be that many of the technologies that the military chooses to invest in (hypersonic aircraft, for instance) may, in the future, turn out to have been expensive endeavors with no real practical value, while more down-to-earth needs, such as defending against dirty bombs or researching alternative energy sources, fall by the wayside. Her point is probably correct — the history of military R&D (or pretty much any R&D, for that matter) is strewn with examples of failed experiments, research dead-ends, and money-sinks that, in the end, have no useful or tangible product.

The real problem is not that we’re investing in science fiction technology, it’s that we’re spending money on it to the exclusion of more mundane technology that, while less sexy, is nevertheless the backbone of any strong military.

(more…)

 If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you might’ve heard about the controversial case before a Canadian “Human Rights Commission” regarding Mark Steyn’s infamous Maclean’s article, which is an excerpt from his book, “America Alone.” While I’m not necessarily a fan of Steyn or his thesis, which I find to be rather too histrionic, the fact that one of Canada’s most prominent journalists, as well as one of its oldest publications, being marched up in front of some “human rights” troika for the “crime” of essentially hurting some peoples’ feelings discomforts me, to say the very least.

After all, regardless of what one might think of buffoons like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore — or even outright racist scumbags like David Irving — here in the United States, people are for the most part free to say whatever they please in whatever forum will let them speak.

This article, published in the New York Times, muses upon the idea of whether or not the Canadian model, which effectively prohibits “hate speech” is perhaps, in some ways preferable to the American one, in which “newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minorities and religions — even false, provocative or hateful things — without legal consequence.” It cites legal scholars who are quick to put “respect” and avoiding “distress” before freedom, the argument being that some speech is simply “too dangerous” to allow.

Such a position is, I fear, even more dangerous to the values of a democratic society than any “hate speech” ever could be. In a perversion of Voltaire, “hate speech” laws seem to say “I disapprove of what you have to say, so I shall revoke your right to say it.” Opening the door for ever greater government control over what we can and cannot say in order to protect the “right” to not be offended is to test the law of unintended consequences.

There is a George Orwell quote that I am fond of: “Liberty, if it means anything at all, is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Those in favor of “hate speech” laws would do well to take it to heart. Being subjected to a racist tirade, suffering a homophobic rant, or being the target of any of what might be called “hate speech” cannot be anything but degrading, offensive, and hurtful.

It also should not be anything but legal. Otherwise, we’ve cashiered our liberty for the illusion of tolerance.

[EDIT]

Reason has a post up today about the same subject that’s worth reading. I also encourage people to read the links that Olly posted in the comments section.

Henry Allingham, one of the three survivors of World War I still alive in Britain, has just had his 112th birthday. A founding member of the RAF and a veteran of the battles of Jutland, the Somme, and Ypres, Mr. Allingham’s longevity is, by his own admission, the product of years of “cigarettes, whisky and wild women”.

The Commentator salutes Mr. Allingham as an example for us all.

The NASA spacecraft Phoenix landed on Mars today, completing a 9 month journey to the red planet. NASA technicians and scientists were elated at the success of the landing. Historically, only a third of Mars landing missions have been successful, with the other portion failing due to miscalculations, crash landings, or unknown loss of contact. The lander used a powered descent, the first to do so since Viking 1 and 2 in 1976.

Initial pictures show the planet to be in the exact same condition as we last observed it when Opportunity and Spirit landed in 2003. Let me reiterate: Mars is exactly the same as it was 5 years ago. Once again, millions of taxpayers’ dollars were spent towards a mission to Mars that will most likely accomplish a fraction of its initial goals and still manage to excite all the astronomers and scientists at NASA.

Phoenix, designed to look for water and other signs of habitability, is the 5th successful NASA mission to land on Mars. NASA collaborated with the University of Arizona to design and carry the $325 million project. Earlier today, Phoenix landed in the arctic areas of Mars, and will be digging into the ground with a robotic arm to a whopping depth of 0.5 meters below the Martian surface. Pictures are streaming back by the hundreds, and can be viewed here.

Let me start this post by stating that I am a firm believer in the theory of anthopogenic global warming.

I’m a bit more sketchy on the currently prevalent trend of trying to tie everything into global warming and generally trying to frighten the public into supporting certain political movements. We’ve been told repeatedly that there is a strong link between global warming and the intensity (and, depending on who’s doing the talking, the frequency) of hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons worldwide.

A new study, however, disputes that, claiming that there will, in fact, be a decrease in the number of hurricanes though there may be a “modest” increase (~1-2%) in the power of such events. Of course, the devil’s in the details, and climate change models are only that — models. Some models give weight to certain factors and others do not, and they all have their failings. Only the most dishonest scientist would tell you that his model is definitive.

Most people, however, aren’t scientists, and both sides of the global warming debate have a vested interest in supporting whichever model “proves” their side is “right”. So expect to see this study adopted by global warming skeptics as evidence that global warming is rubbish (or at least not anthropogenic) with the same zeal that past studies have been utilized by environmental groups to advance their agenda.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is to distrust anyone in the global warming debate who claims that such-and-such study “proves” a damned thing. Chances are that most partisans on both sides have probably never really looked at any of the science or bothered to learn much further than what Al Gore said in “An Inconvenient Truth”. Sadly, the issue has long since passed into the hands of those who’re just informed enough to use “global warming” and every study that comes out about it as a cudgel with which to batter their political foes rather than treating it as an important scientific question. Much like the results of the anti-nuclear hysteria of decades past, I fear that the current atmosphere of partisanship re: global warming will eventually leave us in a much worse position than we are today.

Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-born American writer and speaker, will be on campus Thursday, May 22, 7-9 p.m. in Lillis 282. Darwish is the author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror. She has a rather atypical perspective on the issue, so regardless of one’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, this should an interesting lecture to say the least.

The event will be hosted by the College Republicans. For more information, check the Facebook event.

Okay, so I’m not a big fan of Barack Obama (and his dick of a handler not letting the Commentator through the press line last night didn’t help score any points, but I’ll let CJ post about that…). I don’t think he’s the best choice for President, and I don’t like the messianic everything-to-everyone posturing of his campaign. As far as I’m concerned, there are tons of perfectly legitimate criticisms of the man. Nevertheless, I’m beyond tired of all the drummed-up “controversies” that keep cropping up every couple of weeks or so on right-leaning blogs. Until now, the most idiotic of these was the Case of the Missing Flag Lapel Pin. Heinous!

Alas, after dragging my hung-over self out of bed this morning to check my usual blogs, I see that not one but two silly new stories are making the rounds. First off, evidently Senator Obama mis-spoke during a speech up in Beaverton and said that he’d visited 57 states.The horror! How can he not even know how many states there are in the Union he wants to lead?! How such a dolt could ever be considered qualified for the Presidency is impossible to imagine.

Second, scholars of history are savaging the benighted Senator for suggesting that he would consider meeting with unfriendly heads of state, in the tradition of other American Presidents like FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. Evidently FDR and Truman meeting with Stalin doesn’t count, despite the fact that the United States had been staunchly anti-Soviet from the very start, because we were both fighting Nazi Germany at the time. Citing Kennedy’s meetings with Khruschev is also apparently off-limits because um… Kennedy had more experience in politics than Obama does… or something. And never mind Nixon going to China or Reagan meeting with Gorbachev. None of that matters, you see,  because Senator Obama clearly needs a history lesson, otherwise he’ll end up just like poor old Neville Chamberlain.

Jack Kelly ends his post on Real Clear Politics thusly: “The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling.” I couldn’t agree more, chum.

According to an article in Macworld, a newly released study conducted by Nemertes Research Group indicates that “a flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by 2010.”

This internet slow-down is something the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) has been predicting for several years. Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the IIA agrees, saying the study gives “good, hard, unique data” on the IIA concerns about network capacity. He went on to state, “Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year.”

What does this mean to you, loyal OC readers? Not only will it become painstakingly difficult to read the OC blog, but it’ll also seriously impede your ability to view porn online.

Are videos of Miley Cyrus in concert really worth their bandwidth if it means missing a busty blonde in action?

“Video has unleashed an explosion of Internet content,” Mehlman said.

I guess the question is, what type of “explosion” would you like to unleash in 2010?

In Sean Jin’s post about Zach Besaraba’s characterization of the furor over Tibet amounting to little more than “propaganda with the aim of maintaining US imperialism (for his part, Besaraba makes an attempt to clarify his position in the comments section), I suggested that the “anti-imperialism” crowd (substitute “anti-war”, if you like) has little time to waste on protesting against “imperialism” on the part of anyone besides the United States and Israel.

Well, I’m glad to say that in a letter to the editor of the Eugene Weekly, Pete Mandrapa has proven me wrong, taking China to task for its “deplorable” “actions” in Tibet. Indeed, “some human rights activists’ calls for the boycott of Beijing Olympics and disruption of the Olympic torch travels across the globe”, he says, are “understandable. Good for Pete Mandrava for joining the ranks of the decent left and unequivocally condeming totalitarian aggression wherever he sees it.

But wait! What’s this?

Not satisfied to merely take a principled stand against Chinese imperialism, Mandrapa cites actual horrors like Abu Ghraib alongside such hoary old chestnuts as the “hundreds of thousands of Iraqis” “slaughtered” by American troops (la resistance presumably murders civilians for a higher cause) and the “physical destruction” of that country to argue that as awful as the annexation and decades-long Chinese occupation of Tibet might be it isn’t nearly as bad as the American invasion of Iraq. Evidently, Mr. Mandrapa doesn’t spend much time reading the news, since the only way his comparison would really hold is if the Tibetian “resistance” was butchering mourners with suicide bombs and the Chinese military was working with the UN to restore habitat for oppressed minority populations as well as repairing decaying infrastructure and opening schools.

But never mind all that. This is the Eugene Weekly we’re talking about, and high rhetoric (not to mention high drama) is de rigueur.

Expect this meme to become increasingly common as the Olympic trials draw ever nearer. When moral equivalence is the name of the game, it’s safer to suggest that perhaps American athletes should be barred from competing than it is to risk your activist cred by looking like you’re siding with the neo-con imperialists. China might be bad, but the U.S. is always worse.

[edit]

A similar dodge, this time from The Guardian.

I saw this on Facebook this morning, in a note by Zach Basaraba from the MCC. Basaraba is the same person that ridiculed Meili Yu for being “Culturally Incompetent”, amongst other things.

“Is the current Chinese occupation of Tibet just imperialism, or is the “Free Tibet” campaign just propaganda with the aim of maintaining US imperialism and an elite monarchy in the region (Considering the Dalai Llama is funded by the US Government and was essentially a puppet state of Chieftain rule)?”

Does the MCC really want someone like this representing them? Wow. Their logic has become so twisted that advocating for human rights is now maintaining US imperialism. These people’s hate for America is so strong that they’d rather advocate for CHINESE rule in Tibet.

But it makes sense for the MCC to do so, because after all, in the United States, here they do execute people and bill their families for the bullet used. And they march practitioners of Falun Gong throughout the street before lining them up on a wall and shooting them in the back of the head. And they censor Internet sites and perform late-term abortions on women that violate the one-child policy.

Wait, did I get something wrong here?

Charlton Heston is dead today at 84. Due to the nature of Alzheimers disease, the obit writers have had plenty of time to choose their words carefully when giving the great actor and longtime NRA president his due propers.  “Ultimate Movie Star,” says the WaPo, “An Epic Life” purrs ABC News, “Larger Than Life” cries MSNBC in a frenzy.  Even Michael Moore put Chucks photo on his website. Hell, even Al Jazeera called the guy an “All American Hero,”  although this may not have been meant as a compliment.  Of course, the last thing Chuck needed was another compliment. “I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses,” said Heston once. “If that doesn’t create an ego problem, nothing does.”

Heston’s courage in politics matched his heroic onscreen personae, standing up for the second amendment in its least popular hours. Although demonized by the left for his service to the NRA, Heston was one of the first Hollywood actors to march for civil rights in the 1960’s. Ultimately, his greatest legacy is his films. From The Ten Commandments to Planet of The Apes, from A Touch of Evil to Soylent Green, his performances projected a sense of determination, presence and heroism which will likely never be matched.

Ah, the Internet - a wonderful creation that allows unsound information to be spread to millions of gullible users. “Zeitgeist: The Movie” is the latest piece of flashy drivel to capture the imaginations of stupid people everywhere. Available to watch for free, the film is making its way across the Internet faster than you can say “nonsense on stilts.” In fact, today is apparently “Zeitgeist Day”; the movie is being screened all around the world, including on campus. Here’s part of the Zeitgeist Day manifesto, as lifted from the website:

The greatest fraud of our time is the social conditioning that leads us as individuals to operate out of our own personal self-interest and nothing more. Material, poverty, war, genocide, manipulation, crime and corruption are the results. The removal of the grand illusion known as “separation” is the true ‘activism,’ as everything else is a mere result of the consequential ‘elitism’ inherent in the need for self-perpetuation. [Blah, blah blah. Corporatism, religion.] The revolution is now.

The film is a hodgepodge of various conspiracy theories divided into three parts - Christianity, 9/11 and the international banking system. These parts that are ostensibly connected in an “everything’s connected” kind of way, but since I couldn’t make heads or tails of the “big message,” I’ll address each part separately. (more…)

Communism might not be over, but the man who has been in power for as long as most of our parents can remember said early this morning, “I will not aspire nor accept - I repeat I will not aspire or accept - the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief.” That was, obviously, Fidel Castro.

The newly elected Cuban Parliament will meet this Sunday and will choose the new council of state, including the president. Since he grasped power in 1959, his brother Raul, who is years his junior, has been positioned to take over the presidency.

So what new foreign policy cackles has Castro — a rather irrelevant dictator by modern standards, frankly — raised in his last few months as el Presidente? Surprisingly, he’s raised a few.

Fidel and U.S.presidential hopeful John McCain have been in a back-and-forth verbal battle over Cuba’s involvement in the torture of U.S. POWs during the Vietnam War. Earlier this month Fidel wrote an article in the Granma, the newspaper of the Central Committe of the Cuban Communist Party, that denied McCain’s accusations, calling them unethical. Fidel attacked him further saying: “The commandments of the religion you practice prohibit lying.” McCain responded with the whole “to respond is to dignify, and I will not dignify” bit. He says this is a matter of record which is not up for debate. It seems odd that Fidel would choose to comment on these allegations now, but I wouldn’t put it past Hillary’s strategists, if she has anymore left that is.