Just when you thought the Middle East was getting normal…

Let me present Susblood Labs, which is manufacturing a combination pen and capsule of preserved pig’s blood, designed to reconstitute in the heat of a suicide bomb and defile the body of the bomber. Apparently this is meant to act as a deterrent to bombers, by keeping them out of heaven.

(I could talk about the basic physics and theology problems with this, but why bother? There’s something delightfully mad about the whole thing.)

EDIT: But wait! There’s more! From the Middle East Media Research Institute, a translation of a fascinating contest showing up on some Islamist websites. Help design a website for a terror group, and get to fire missiles at American troops!

(You know, I really wish I were kidding. It could be that both of these things are bogus… but somehow, I doubt it. The first one, in particular, just seems so appropriate to the mindset that if it’s satire, it’s the most brilliant bloody satire I’ve seen in a while. The latter… well, all sorts of strange things show up on the public fora of terror groups. Most of them are nonsense. But such splendid nonsense! For that one, I think the best commentary came from Dry Bones.)

Published in: on December 13, 2005 at 18:33  Comments (14)  
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Year in Review

A simple little idea: Go to your Calendar and find the first real entry for each month of 2005 (not including memes of course). Post the first line of it in your journal, and that’s your year in review. Mine seems to be a pretty good summary of what I use this blog for…

January: In the past two years, I’ve heard several soldiers say that they dislike civilians questioning the course of the war, since if the soldiers aren’t allowed to do so, why should someone who isn’t even involved?
February: The political philosophy of the Bandar-Log
March: Can anyone point me at a reliable source of information about the activities of frienditto, and if at all possible to their terms of service?
April: My only excuse for this is that I was reading the Heimskringla while really, really sleep-deprived, and woke up with this in my head.
May: Hmm… I haven’t posted anything in here in a while.
June: The desert and Petra were amazing.
July: Looks like Newsweek just came out with their article about the source in the Valerie Plame case, based on what Time magazine decided to hand over to prosecutors.
August: I just got back from a talk given by a friend of mine who’s been out of the country for some time, being a peace activist in the West Bank.
September: Of course! It’s so clear now! The people still in New Orleans are there because they want to be there.
October: President Bush has nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court.
November: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, and supposedly an Evangelical Christian, responded to calls for “Creation Care” (i.e., stewardship of the world) from the National Association of Evangelicals, in an interesting fashion.
December: (I actually haven’t posted at all in December)

Published in: on December 9, 2005 at 18:16  Comments (7)  

Two bits of science

Creativity determines sexual success

Atlantic warm-water currents are weakening

The latter article is actually fairly important.

Published in: on November 30, 2005 at 16:12  Comments (22)  
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A possibly controversial question

I’ve been re-reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, and finding it very thought-provoking; it’s a good book to come back to after a time, and if you haven’t read it (and his more recent book, Collapse) I recommend it highly.

But here’s a question that popped into my head while reading it: (This will probably make a bit more sense to those who have read the book) Why did England successfully invade and colonize India, and not the other way round? I’m curious both about the proximate causes (my lack of Indian history is showing through) and the deeper reasons, if any can be traced back. Diamond’s analysis doesn’t seem to carry over unmodified to this case; India certainly had no shortage of intensive agriculture, nor a late start in developing it, and at times in its history was a large empire. Had the two countries been neighbors, the outcome might have been very different; similarly if they had come into contact a thousand years earlier. Nor was the battle completely one-sided; the Sikhs twice managed to field a very impressive army and pose a real challenge to British domination. Yet despite all of this, the British managed to basically set up shop and run a country many times their size, and hold that empire for over a century; so there must have been some major fundamental asymmetry.

Thoughts?

Published in: on November 29, 2005 at 13:12  Comments (24)  
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Back in the USSR…

Well, at least something in the news feels familiar… twenty or thirty years out of date, but familiar. Plus ça change, plus la même chose…

Published in: on November 23, 2005 at 10:42  Comments (4)  
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A wolf in sheep’s clothing

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, and supposedly an Evangelical Christian, responded to calls for “Creation Care” (i.e., stewardship of the world) from the National Association of Evangelicals, in an interesting fashion: (Source article)

Mr. Inhofe said the vast majority of the nation’s evangelical groups would oppose global warming legislation as inconsistent with a conservative agenda that also includes opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. He said the National Evangelical Association had been “led down a liberal path” by environmentalists and others who have convinced the group that issues like poverty and the environment are worth their efforts.

This is a fascinating little statement: it’s probably the most concise summary I’ve ever seen of how certain individuals have decided to preach doctrines completely at odds with everything Jesus ever preached, up to and including some pretty vile doctrines, (poverty is not worth Christians’ efforts?!) under the rather thin excuse of “real conservatives don’t believe in this!”

Just a reminder to my Christian friends that just because someone calls himself an Evangelical and a conservative doesn’t mean he actually believes in something you’d want to associate yourself with…

Published in: on November 7, 2005 at 10:45  Comments (6)  
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From :

Which historic general are you?

Published in: on October 28, 2005 at 22:04  Comments (6)  

Middle East Roundup

It’s been a while since I wrote a detailed political post, and what with it being a relatively calm time in the news, I figured it might be a good time to pull out the political crystal ball and try to make some projections for things to come, and things to watch out for. I’ll be keeping this one focused on international politics, especially the Middle East; (since that’s where I actually know enough to have something useful to say) and so this post should be taken as analysis, sometimes conjecture, and sometimes opinion, rather than as a record of fact.

As usual, comments and discussion are welcomed!

Eenie meenie, jelly beanie, the spirits are about to speak!

Published in: on October 28, 2005 at 20:39  Comments (14)  
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Middle East quickies

US to detail who paid bribes in Iraq oil sales: This is actually a pretty interesting report that’s about to come out. If you wondered why France was so opposed to the Iraq war, it has everything to do with what’s going to come out in this document, and very little to do with them having an opinion, or really even caring, about the wisdom of the war itself. (I’ve been waiting for this one for a little while – it’s interesting stuff. And I can promise you that major French companies don’t engage in this sort of large-scale operation without the full knowledge and consent of the government)

President Ahmadinejad of Iran calls for anihilation of Israel: Just in case anyone forgot during the past couple of years, Iran – specifically its hard-liner government, which is back in full control after the last election – is not your friend. In fact, it’s safe to say that this government considers itself to be your enemy, and would quite happily kill you if it got a chance. (That’s “you” referring to anyone living in the US, Israel, and probably the UK. Well, and several other places, too.)

Oh yes, and they have intermediate-range ballistic missiles and are working on nuclear weapons.

(Coming soon: A more detailed Middle-East Roundup which I started writing on the flight home. There’s a lot to say right now)

Published in: on October 26, 2005 at 18:45  Comments (2)  
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Wise words from our President

Administration’s Tone Signals a Longer, Broader Iraq Conflict (NYT)

No shit? I’d almost be tempted to ascribe this to, oh, reading the newspaper for once, instead of trusting the same people who started a problem to keep you apprised of its status.

Well, at least we can be grateful for the remarkable feat of infrastructure our administration has pulled off: creating the largest, most sophisticated terrorist training facility in recorded history, complete with daily live-target practice, and capable of handling tens of thousands (maybe more!) of trainees at a time. The price may be a bit high – something in the ballpark of $100B and a few thousand American soldiers’ lives, to say nothing of the number of Iraqi civilians caught in the crossfire – but if you really want to create an effective, well-trained and well-equipped enemy, there’s just no substitute for a large country, out-of-the-way for us but centrally located for them, with no functioning government and a steady American military presence just large enough to draw fire but nowhere near large enough to actually stabilize things.

Published in: on October 17, 2005 at 00:18  Comments (4)  
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