the True Nature of Reality

New computer

Light blogging today as I have to assemble a new computer.

I will just take the opportunity to suggest (again!) that you go to Spirit of America and donate to help our soldiers (and the Liberty Alliance!). A dollar here goes a long, long way.

More later.

Fuel economy and magical thinking

There's lots of talk of a gas tax these days, and more talk of "forcing" auto manufacturers to increase fuel economy - especially for those horrid SUVs!

Ironically, often such talk is from people who are on the side of liberty in the war. The fact that they never see the incongruity tickles me.

First let me talk about the gas tax. Any reason put forth in favor of this applies just as strongly to oil itself. We import a lot more oil for non-automotive use than for gasoline. So a gas tax, as opposed to an oil tax, rests more heavily on motorists, and also must be at a much higher rate to have the same effect. To add insult to injury, a gas tax merely distorts the oil market. Oil will tend to flow into non-gasoline uses. That's how you get silliness like corn-fed ethanol. Or spending a few thousand in high tech fuel efficiency in your new car to save a few hundred dollars on gas over the life of the vehicle.

Think that's extreme? Let's do a little math. Assume a car that gets 30 MPG, is driven for 100k miles, and gas at $2.00 a gallon. Total fuel cost, $6,667. Now, by government fiat, require 10% better fuel economy, which will not be inexpensive. 33 MPG yields a fuel cost of $6,060. $607 over, what, 5 years? That's if you drive a LOT, and in that case why would you be complaining about excessive resource use? For most folks we're talking about under $100 a year saved.

For that $100 a year, you were probably required to take a vehicle significantly smaller, lighter, less crashworthy, less roomy, and more expensive to maintain, all else being equal. To say nothing of the higher purchase price, and hence higher down payment, interest payments, tax, title, and insurance.

Maybe that ends up being a good deal for you. Maybe it's not. My point is, that fuel economy increase wasn't free. It cost you real, significant dollars, whether that expenditure made economic sense or not. At the macro level, it diverted resources away from other areas of our economy where they might have done much more good. Those areas were, in effect, penalized. And citizens like myself, who don't drive much, are also penalized. My commute is less than 5 miles round trip. A 15 gallon tank of gas lasts me three weeks. Any idea how long it would take me to amortize that 10% gain in fuel economy?

Now, it may well be that for reasons of national security, stewardship of the Earth, desire to save resources for coming generations, or any number of laudable goals, we might want to reduce our use of oil. In that case we should tax oil, not gasoline, and we should not attempt to legislate engineering solutions at all.

I myself might argue that oil should be heavily taxed in order to reflect it's replacement cost - and by that I mean the many-million year incubation period. When we're out, we're out. Putting aside energy expended to drive our fat behinds around, where does plastic come from? Or synthetic fabric? Or fertilizer? Or solvents, paints, coatings? Lubricants? Or literally millions of products? Oil. There are other sources of energy. There are no replacement raw materials for these items. You could easily argue that oil is simply too valuable to burn and its price should reflect that.

But tax gasoline in a fit of pique at SUV drivers and leave oil untaxed? Pshaw, that's wacky! :)

If we're serious in our concern for oil we should go full-tilt on breeder reactors and try and eliminate the use of oil for fuel - not by fiat but by making alternatives cheaper. That would have the delicious side-effect of pulling the rug out from under the oilachracies. How do you get that to happen? You pass laws to remove non-safety restrictions on the siting and building of nuke plants. You pass laws to restrict lawsuits against same. You fund breeder and fusion research. You tax oil (not gasoline!), but not so much as to make us uncompetitive in the world economy. You let the market work out the rest.

This is now pretty long, and it's my bedtime, so the magical thinking part will have to wait 'til tomorrow.

UPDATE
I forgot to mention that this post was inspired by one of Roger Simon's, Do You Know Your Wife's Car? Needless to say, I disagree with Roger on this one, except for his comments on Kerry. :)

Why the French lost - and we will win

What am I talking about? The decline and fall, the loss, of the French empire in Indochina and North Africa.

It's a long, bloody, tragic story on both sides, but the end result was that the French were first soundly thrashed militarily in Indochina (Vietnam), which we were then unlucky enough to inherit, and then routed from Algeria by Arab terrorists. It's part of modern history that has greatly impacted America, and yet is little known here, I think.

Wretchard puts many things into perspective, as per usual, in his comments on same in No More Groupement Mobile 100s

A generation obsessed with Vietnam was blind to the fact that the Algerian war provided a far more powerful model of offensive action against the West than Indochina. It was always impossible for Giap to transport his coolies and NVA regiments overseas, but it was clearly feasible, indeed only a matter of time before the Arabs extended their operations overseas. And extend it they did. The methods of assassination, terrorism, intimidation and political warfare rapidly became internationalized, reaching Europe as early as 1972 during the Munich Olympics. It took easy root in the secret societies of the Middle East and spread outward from there. When radical Islamism found its confidence in Afghanistan and its money in Saudi Arabia, it found its weapon in terrorism: the Arab Way of War. From the very beginning the plan of campaign was never strictly military. It was always politico-military, tuned to the internal weaknesses of the Western enemy. The French had been understandably evicted from Indochina by being militarily beaten by the Vietnamese. But the French had been ousted from Algeria -- part of Metropolitan France -- despite beating the FLN; that was the lesson and legacy of Algeria.

...

Osama draws confidence from his belief that the new Arab Way of War has never been defeated, not in Algeria, Soviet Afghanistan nor in Somalia. The possible withdrawal of Honduras, the Dominican Republic and perhaps Thailand from Iraq truly shows the power of his methods. Most conventional military establishments are simply incapable of surviving on the terrorist battlefield, their armed men no better than civilians. But the withdrawals solve nothing. Radical Islamists know there is no reason in principle why they cannot follow retreating European forces to their home ground and rout them there, where they will if anything be more hamstrung, using the immense Islamic immigrant communities as their base. For the first time in 600 years, Western Europe stands before an Oriental enemy it cannot defeat on the battlefield. The commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, Lt. General John Vines contrasted the GWOT to Vietnam. This, he says, is a "national war for our survival as a nation". Europe knows this too but are subconsciously already beaten.

Ok, so that's the bad news.

Here's the good news.

The sole obstacles to the wave of darkness are the Anglosphere -- and ironically for the Europeans -- Israel. The strongest proof against the irresistibility of terrorism is Israel, which is often dented, but never seriously hurt by Arab Way of warfare. Indeed, at each clash the terrorists whine at being unfairly worsted because the Israelis have shown themselves capable of dealing out punishment an order of magnitude greater than they suffer. Israel is particularly irksome because it diminishes the psychological aura the Islamists work so hard to achieve. How can terrorism plausibly defeat America if it cannot beat a handful of Jews?

An excellent point. I don't see America proper ever being really cowed by all this. We're a tough people at core and will do whatever needs to be done to secure our homeland. If we have to have fleets of ambulances, and citizens taking turns guarding the streets, most folks with concealed carry - yes, that could happen here, Leftist cringing notwithstanding. If there's one thing about Leftists, they're not one bit ashamed to turn to the gun when they are personally threatened.

Israel's response to terror reminds me of my own initial desired response to 9/11: don't change anything in our daily lives. Rebuild the Towers exactly the same. Spend the smallest amount of time and energy decency allows on mourning. Continue to laugh and be free and do all the things Osama so hates. NOTHING would give Osama the finger more than that. Nothing. It would have been a huge victory for the West if we had done that

At the same time we should engage in all-out war against the enemy. We should change his world. We should make him change his society. We have done medium-well on that front, but there have been large gaps in our seriousness on various issues. I fear and dread that we will not really wake up until we take a major hit.

But that we will awake I have no doubt. We will triumph eventually. The only question is how long and how hard we make it.

BBC reporters get "impartiality training"

Ya gotta love this one.

The BBC is sending reporters to "impartiality training".

BBC reporters are receiving training in impartial journalism following criticisms made by the Hutton Report into the death of Dr David Kelly.

The 'impartiality seminars' aim to encourage reporters and producers at BBC News to think outside of the 'left-leaning liberal' mentality traditionally associated with the corporation.

The two-hour seminars will include discussions about the dangers of not being neutral in reports, and about the nature of impartiality and how to encourage it.

In an e-mail to staff, Richard Sambrook, director of BBC News, told workers that audiences were increasingly sceptical of the service they provided and the challenge was to "restate the case for our journalism and to articulate it in a multi-channel world".

I'll give 'em credit for the thought anyway, and wish 'em luck.

I think it's interesting that it's couched in a sortof multiculturalism: "a multi-channel world". Presenting a radical idea in a comfy context. I guess the message is, yes, there are conservatives out there and they're even human! :)

How effective this will be in countering brainwashing is hard to say.

Hat tip:nzpundit, who only wants to help.

UPDATE:
Tim Blair notes that the new training may not have sunk in yet.

Are moderates losers?

Yeah, I've been a pretty rabid member of the VRWC these last couple of years. But I found Dean Esmay a gentleman at all times, and I thought I'd try and be a nice guy for a change and back the alliance that was going for inclusiveness.

Here's what I get for my troubles:

We're gettin' creamed.

C'MON YOU SLUGGARDS! We need donations here! The Marines need donations here. Don't let those Rough Men in the Fusileers make us look bad.

Is this what it's like being a Moderate?

Where's Joe Gandelman when you need him?

Apologies to Britain

I wanted to take a moment and apologize to the people of Great Britain for the broadcast of photos of Princess Diana's last moments by US broadcast network CBS .

This was a beastly, horrible act. There can be no excuse for it, none whatsoever. CBS has shown themselves to be simply amoral. I am ashamed that this is associated with America in any way.

This is another depressing chapter in the ruin of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Edward R. Murrow is spinning in his grave.

CBS is now owned by Viacom. Viacom owns a number of other cable channels and media companies. I don't know about other folks, but I take a company's behavior into account when I make purchase decisions.

Here are some other properties Viacom owns:

Simon & Schuster
Blockbuster
Paramount Pictures
Spelling Television
Big Ticket Television
King World Productions
MTV
MTV2
Nickelodeon
BET
Nick at Nite
TV Land
NOGGIN
VH1
Spike TV
CMT
Comedy Central
Showtime
The Movie Channel
Flix
Sundance Channel

Source: CJR

It's 4/21! The war has started!

The order has been given! There's no time to lose! We only have a week before the armistice is effective, at 12:01 AM 4/29. We must strike our blows now!

That means get out the checkbook, matey. :)

We can help the Marines in Iraq. And that means helping you and me, because we're all in this together.

The Marines are trying to re-equip 7 independent Iraqi TV stations in the Sunni Triangle, specifically around Fallujah. Al Jazeera and their imitators are the only news coming direct out of the area. Other voices deserve a chance, and can hardly help but to be to our benefit overall. All we ask is a chance to tell our story.

Your donation can help make that happen.

But that was all the unimportant part. The IMPORTANT PART is to beat the other blog nations in the donation war! We've only got a week!

What you need to do, right now, is go here and donate at the Liberty Alliance donation page for Spirit of America. Remember that you have to donate via this link in order for the Liberty Alliance to get credit.

Then, if you have a blog, go here and join the Liberty Alliance!

We need new nukes

That's a terrible, horrible thing to have to say. But there it is.

We need to develop new nuclear weapons. We need low-yield weapons, and deep penetrators. We also need to keep the strategic forces in shape, because China and other unfriendly nation-states are watching.

The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal makes the point in this editorial:

Rethinking Armageddon, the case for new low-yield nukes

The article is about recent recommendations from the Defense Science Board, a highly-respected group within the Pentagon.

Rather, the task force wants to see the U.S. nuclear arsenal expanded to include more precise, lower-yield weapons--especially those that could penetrate targets buried deep underground where conventional weapons can't reach. The idea is to give a President the option of incinerating enemy weapons, leaders and command-and-control systems with as little damage as possible to civilians. Having the option of highly precise nuclear weapons with greatly reduced radioactivity would also make the threat of their use more believable to terrorists contemplating attacks on the U.S. or allies.

Terrorists will be attacking us with WMD for a long time to come. We must have a viable WMD response. This is not so much to intimidate the terrorists as their host countries. Bin Laden might be tough to find, but we guarantee your capitol city and your Presidential Palace are not. In addition, a nuclear weapon may well be the only way to assuredly destroy an underground WMD laboratory - and that is a capability we must have.

I grew up during the Cold War. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember more vividly the bomb shelter markers all over town, and "Civil Defense" drills in school ("duck & cover, children!"), and the horrible wail of the air raid siren testing. I remember growing up completely convinced that I would not, that indeed the world would not, live to see my 21st birthday.

I thought that was all over, now no more than a memory Today's Youth would find quaint and incomprehensible. Rather than resenting their attitude, I rejoiced in it. How wonderful that Reagan finally slayed the dragon, and freed the world from its tyranny. How wonderful that their adolescent choices will not be colored by the terrible fatalism my generation so often had.

But of course I was overly optimistic. The sign of a Liberal heart? Perhaps.

No, Today's Youth are not growing up with "CD" triangles all over. Well, not yet anyway. Today's Youth are not contemplating the cosmic mystery of a half-hour, 30 minutes. That was how long we would have to live after the Soviet first strike took off, you see, and it presented a common, morbid thought at the time.

Instead, today there are other threats, other horrors. Less well-defined, but does that make them more fearful, or less?

Some of our children were six years old on 9/11. Old enough to be traumatized and to feel the fear and anger of adults, but not old enough to understand. Now they are growing up in the post-9/11 world, the world changed beyond all recognition. Daily they hear of terrorist attacks, suicide vests, car bombs, truck bombs, train bombs, airplanes AS bombs, and worse news yet of terrorists trying to obtain terrible chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. That is what they are growing up into, and it makes me very sad. I imagine, based on my own experience, that it is quite traumatic for them, even though they themselves likely do not realize it. It is their "normal".

Just as my parent's generation had to have the courage to back the Cold War and the buildup of the nuclear arsenal, so must my generation now find the courage to build a new arsenal to defend our children. We don't want to do it, but it has to be done.

Maybe someday, after we've won this war, we won't have to re-tool our nuclear arsenal. I still have hopes, hopes that someday children will think of this as an odd episode in history. And maybe that forlorn and possibly foolish hope marks me as a Liberal-turned-Republican after all.

But we haven't yet won the war, and indeed it won't be over, either way, for a long time. So for now, we need new nukes.

Hat tip: LGF.

Remember

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I've tried for much of the day to think of something appropriate to say.

I can't. What could possibly be appropriate to say? My words dry up and turn to dust in my throat. And yet I cannot remain silent. I cannot.

I can at least say this:

I remember.

Though I was not alive during the Holocaust, I remember. I read many books about it, and about the Nazi takeover in Germany, trying to understand what happened and how it happened. I had to know.

For all that, I thought that this was a study of the past. I thought we had learned our lesson.

But it's clear we have not. Anti-Semitism is not only rising in the world, it's raging.

The West did not fight it last time, not really. And now most of the West seems to be siding with the Jew-haters, just like last time.

But not me. I remember. We will fight. We will never forget.

Am Yisrael Chai!

A Another Canadian willing to see, and say, what America will not

Twice in one day! A strong and forthright piece by George Jonas in the National Post lays out in plain words what America needs to do to win the War On Terror save Western Civilization - and the answer isn't to go all "multilateral".

He lays out 8 points, but let's let the first three stand as a sample:

1. Regard any hostile power that attempts to acquire or develop weapons of mass destruction, or refuses to sign and abide by a non-proliferation agreement, as a belligerent state. Such countries must be exposed to the traditional consequences of belligerency, from blockades to possible invasion.

2. Acknowledge that, while Islam is a great religion, it contains a strain hostile to Western civilization, and recognize that a state of war exists between that particular strain of Islam and the West. This includes all Arab and/or Muslim countries whose governments nurture or tolerate such a hostile strain.

3. Face the fact that terrorism is the chosen tactic of Islamist militants who can't penetrate the defensive perimeters of Western powers from the outside. Face the fact that terrorism depends for its success on fifth columnists; face the fact that Western residents of Arab/Muslim background, along with Arab/Muslim visitors or students, are susceptible to Islamist recruitment as fifth columnists; and face the fact that the loyalty of such residents and visitors cannot be taken for granted.

He finishes with this:

8. Terrorist despotism, theocratic or secular, must be confronted; it cannot be accommodated or appeased. Defeating the enemy is the best way to change his mind. Anti-civilizational ruthlessness, Marxist or Muslim, is to Western democracy what Hannibal's Carthage was to Rome. Some 2,000 years ago, Marcus Porcius Cato ended his speeches in the Senate with the words Carthaginem esse delendam -- Carthage must be destroyed. At his press conference this week, even if somewhat more diffidently, President Bush conveyed the same message.

Exactly.

Islamism delenda est

It has come to that, and nothing less will do. Let us begin by stating it clearly.

Before we're done, we're likely going to need to take care of every one of Mr. Jonas' points, so you might as well just Read It All.

Hat Tip: LGF.

We have a problem with Islam

The word keeps getting out

A column in the Toronto Star, of all places, sees Islam clearly.

Michael Coren makes many good arguments, and concludes with this:

It's not about colonization, globalization, Zionism, American dominance or any other clichés. The Muslims themselves are colonizers, having pushed most Christians out of the Middle and near East, once the cradle of the Christian world.

The Ottoman Turks, Muslims all, colonized the region for centuries. Arabs colonized Persians, Assyrians, Kurds and others. The Saudis, sponsors of so much terror, are nobody's victims. They are wealthy beyond belief, and deprive women and minorities of most basic civil rights.

This is something deeper, darker, than an imagined fight against a foreign foe. There is a virus at work. For the sake of the good, law-abiding Muslims of the world -- the majority -- we cannot pretend any longer it's about anything other than what it is: a religion gone mad and gone bad.

Stop the lies, they only make it worse.

And that's the biggest danger with "PC" speech. It won't serve when things get really bad and difficult sayings must be said. The lies only make things worse in the end.

The Leftists have, among many other nonsensical notions, this idea that if you just refuse to look at, talk about, or even think about certain things, they will go away. The world doesn't work that way, and trying to wish it so just builds up the pressure longer and ensures more damage when the explosion comes.

The world has a problem with Islam. Islam has become, or perhaps always was, a toxic belief system. The more clear-headed we can be when thinking and talking about this, the more effective and humane the solution will be.

The risk of nuclear Armageddon has not gone away. If we are to avoid it, we must see and speak clearly.

Hat tip: Tim Blair, via Natalie Solent.

"The New Neutrality"

That's the title of a new piece by Michael Totten over at Tech Central Station

I think Mr. Totten's analysis is essentially correct. One of the side effects of this war has been the creation of a deep cynicism across much of Middle America about Europe, NATO, the UN, and the whole notion of "allies" in general.

Most folks in America used to ignore these entities most of the time. I don't mean that they knew of them but consciously disagreed with them or ignored them. I mean Americans were unconscious of them in their daily lives. When folks did think about them, there were vague feelings of general goodness and admiration.

Not anymore. Now people have had news and discussion of these groups shoved in their face for the last couple of years. Now folks have had reason to look closer and firm up their previous fuzzy feelings. And what have they seen to give them a better picture of what our relationships with Europe, the UN, and NATO have been, and what good they've brought America?

Right. We all know what's been in the news about these groups the last few years, no reason to trot it all out again.

In my opinion, Middle America has drawn conclusions rather like Mr. Totten's. They're still a but fuzzy. But they're firming up. This is just based on talking to people around the watercooler, etc.

I'm not saying I think that's objectively a good thing. I'm ambivalent about that question at the moment. But I think it's happening, and it's inevitable.

My prediction: America will not put real faith in alliances or transnational organizations for a long time. They have proven faithless, and we all watched. Average Americans have drawn their own conclusions. I also think foreign aid and UN funding is going to come in for a lot more opposition. World leaders, make your plans accordingly.

Hat tip: Robert Prather has cogent comments in his post at Insults Unpunished, so read that too.

UPDATE:
The comments on this column at Michael Totten's website are not to be missed. Go Now and read them.