perfidy

Michael Totten writes about recent Islamist attacks on Buddhist monks in Thailand. (Totten linked to a post on Totally Whacked, and his post has a dead link to a story. But I found another one.) He makes this comment about the murders:

It's not because Buddhist monks are "colonialist oppressors," nor is it because Buddhists drive the engine of corporate globalization. And it's not because Thailand is a superpower that deserves to be brought to heel. Thai Buddhists don't need to ask "why do they hate us?" It's because Buddhists are "infidels." And that's that.

A commenter on that post had this to say:

Whoever thinks hatred of America and Israel in the ME is about "the Occupation" is a total idiot. It's about Jihad. This is a war that has been raging since the 7th century when the muslim hordes burst out of the Arabian peninsula and captured and converted the Christian provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Antioch, etc., invaded Persia and swept across North Africa towards my beloved Spain. Only in the 17th century were they finally stopped at the gates of Vienna itself. Osama knows what this war is about, and he's been trying to tell us. But we insist it's about U.S. "policies". What a bunch of Liberal claptrap. Why don't we take Osama and the extremists at their word? To them this is a Jihad, and has been since the 7th century. The Crusades was merely an attempt to roll them back, and they're still pissed about it. Why do you think they still call us "crusaders"? Get with the program people. This has little or nothing to do with U.S. "policies" and "oil". This is a civilizational conflict that has raged across the centuries and will continue to do so.

Our policies did not create 9/11. If bad American foreign policy were the root cause of terrorism, why have we not been plagued with sixty years of suicide attacks from the Japanese? We handled them rather roughly in the Second World War, even dropped a couple nukes on them. It is condescending to imagine that another's actions are solely determined by your own. We need to take the terrorists and their supporters at their word, and not ask why they hate us. They've told us why.

Gaze in wonder at the stupidest patent I have seen in quite a while. I've been with pair.com since '95 or so. From the beginning, they've offered "vanity domains" of the form vanity.pair.com. In addition you've been able to form domains such as whatever.soletta.com since the very beginning.

This is a patent for that naming strategy. It was filed in 1999, many, many years after this technique was first used, publicly. Even the slightest level of real patent examination or search would have revealed this. The patent's owners are now vigorously suing various entities. They were stupid, though -- they're apparently going after the big guys first. This patent will be invalidated, and their initial victims have the resources to ensure that it will happen.

They should have gone after the little guys first, 'cause they don't have the resources to fight. But...isn't the patent system supposed to be in place to protect those little guys? Not any more, it isn't. The patent system is a pseudo-monopolistic mechanism used by lawyers and large companies to bludgeon away competition from small companies, or to extort from their earnings.

Litigation around patents creates inefficiencies in our economy; these are growing rather exponentially. We are shooting ourselves in the foot with these stupid IP laws. It has to stop, or we're going to lose yet another competitive advantage...

Ya think? The Detroit Free Press has the best precis on the sordid issue:

Cleveland: Indians minor leaguer Kazuhito Tadano is asking for forgiveness for his appearance in a gay porn video in which he engaged in a homosexual act. Tadano took part in the video three years ago as a college student. "All of us have made mistakes in our lives," Tadano said, reading a statement in English. "Hopefully, you learn from them and move on." Shunned by Japanese baseball teams, the 23-year-old pitcher signed with the Indians last March. They think he can make their club this spring. Through an interpreter, Tadano added: "I'm not gay. I'd like to clear that fact up right now."

Well, I'm glad that's all straightened out. So to speak. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a couple articles on the subject as well. It just never ends when you're a Cleveland fan. Well, he may be a straight gay porn star pitcher, but at least he's our straight gay porn star pitcher.

Long posted along Korea's 38th parallel, America's 2nd Infantry Division has kept watch over the volatile Demilitarized Zone. Forward elements of the division harbor no illusions about their role in a new Korean conflagration, planning to act as a "trip-wire" to delay the invading North long enough for the rest of the country to enact its defense plans. For decades overpaid policy-type smart people have credited the 2IDs Korean presence as the cornerstone of a credible deterrent to North Korea, with the added benefit of being really irritating to China.

So we shouldn't be at all surprised that, as part of the continuing effort to refine and improve not only the peninsula's defense posture, but the American Fighting Man, lap dancing at clubs frequented by 2ID soldiers will be prohibited.

The article goes on to explain how unit leaders decided to define lap dancing. Associated research ultimately concluded that dancers are "typically of the opposite sex", and lap dances are often "done at close quarters". Leadership then took measures to ensure that no one could possibly enjoy any of it.

That's right kids. It's not more range time, or language study, or PT, or ROK liasons, the SOFA agreements, or the KATUSA program that needs improvement. It's eliminating simulated copulation that will really give us the edge over the commies.

Upon prodding from Nat at I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, who is an avowed and active partisan on behalf of Wesley Clark, I hereby endorse my choice for the next President of the United States, Ronnie James Dio. Dio is the only candidate to truly address the issues important to working-class America, and the only one truly qualified. To wit:

• Has experience managing large organizations
• Extensive public speaking and diplomacy experience
• The only candidate to know first-hand what drugs can do to our youth
• Slayed the dragon
• The only candidate who has had to put aside a political career to feed his family
• Can rock out and sing really fucking high

Visit his website, dioforamerica.com and see what he has to say on the issues.

• On health care: advocates universal healthcare to all: "No more forms and working shit jobs while sick"
• On gay marriage: "Rob Halford wants it, so it's cool with me."

I hereby cast my support behind the only candidate that can not only beat Bush, but vanquish him with silver sword in hand over a bitchen guitar solo from Vivien Campbell, Ronnie James Dio. 

Well, it looks like Kerry slaughtered Dean, Dean doesn't realize it, Clark and Edwards are altogether too happy given the implications of Vince Lombardi's aphorism, "2nd place is the first loser" (though Clark is currently edgin Edwards slightly) and Lieberman should be throwing in the towel - he didn't even clear double digits.

In surprising news, Kucinich got 2%, and Sharpton got 0%. The alien vote must have turned out in force to put Kucinich that close to victory, and as for the Don King of Democratic politics, Bejus Pundit said it best:

Sharpton got more of the vote than he deserved, IMHO. Should have been in the negatives.

James at Outside the Beltway has a good round up of the night's events.

Now that that's over, we can begin obsessing over South Carolina and the other primaries just around the corner. What blew my mind is this:

Ballot	Overall	White (58%)	Black (42%)
Clark	14%	19%	7%
Dean	9%	10%	8%
Edwards	21%	22%	19%
Kerry	17%	20%	13%
Kucinich	1%	1%	1%
Lieberman	5%	8%	1%
Sharpton	15%	6%	27%
Undecided	18%	14%	24%

Sharpton, who as I mentioned is the Don King of Democratic politics (thanks, Johno) is getting 15% of the support, and is third in that race. This is insupportable. I saw an interview with the good reverend (Crap! Now I have to wash my mouth out. Comedy is not pretty.) and he stated that his explicit aim was to gather enough delegates to play a kingmaker role in the nomination process, or at the very least to bend the Democratic platform to his will. Don't say he didn't warn you. It still sickens me that he has any, any credibility whatsoever.

But, if Edwards wins as projected, its a three way race as I don't see Clark pulling off any big upsets.

A couple of notes on the Winds of Change comment thread:

1. Note to the Rest of the Planet: Make sure nobody gives Telenko the controls for the spaceship. He seems to think that letting your enemy know that you intend his annihilation and the death of his entire culture, is an excellent tactic in the era of the superempowered angry man. Yeah, right. What we exactly need, in these circumstances, is an open declaration of war against an entire people. Tactically, it's plain stupid. If you're going to kill somebody, you just do it. You don't let'em know it's coming.

2. Gabriel, my SUV comment was simply intended as an observation. I intend no disrespect or arrogance by it, although comments containing those words are often written with that intention. Rather, I simply seek to juxtapose our lifestyle with that of others around the world. Hell, I'm more or less in _favor_ of the nice suburban lifestyle, if that's your thing. It's not mine. I'd like to see the environmental impacts of it lessened, and I'd like to see those SUVs in the driveways be hybrids, but those are attribute problems, not fundamental disagreements with lifestyle. I go out to my suburban friends' houses, and I marvel. ;) My biggest beef with suburbs is, frankly the #$^@%$%@ traffic jams that get created because zoning commissions are bought and paid for by developers...but that's a whole different post. :)

3. Katzman and I have been down this path before (http://old.perfidy.org/comments.php?id=P1231_0_1_0_C), and somehow I suspect this sand will show footprints again.

4. Katzman points out that "We need to understand the agents and actors feeding the mindset", while in the sentences before, indicating that we do NOT need to gain knowledge of the bombers themselves. Give me a break. In any sufficiently complex system, there are relationships between all parts. The agents and actors in this case are both within and without the Palestinian society. It would not surprise me to learn that some of the bombers are not from the territories; that would fit the patterns we see there. Why would we artificially restrict ourselves in analyzing this problem? To formulate strategy against the masterminds, we must understand how their techniques of control apply to those who are vulnerable (bombers). We must understand the sources of that vulnerability. It is all of one system; the interior political, exterior political, interior psychological, and exterior psychological. The men who have most affected history, have effected change that has given us our peaceful lives and the opportunity to have an SUV in the driveway, have been those who were able to avoid conflicts, turn disadvantage to advantage, conduct the most difficult and unpopular diplomacies...and even then, war is at times a necessary failure. We all do well to remember that.

5. The viral, memetic capabilities of Islam's usurpation by power-hungry, theocratical apologists for tribalism have never really been deliberately confronted by an adequate opposing force. Our cultural memes dominate at the levels of personal desire and freedom, the commerce level, and on many others. Why, then, have they been so unsuccessful in defeating or subverting Manji's "Desert Islam" at the spiritual and populist level? Non-religious forces (economics, tradition, pride) are at work in a complex system, defeating our implicit attempts in this area. Social memes represent the _aggregate_ of what we all do, what we all think, all our contacts, formal and informal, with the opposing entity. Within such an intricately related system, butterflies matter...some of our butterflies better not have shiny red buttons. They'll make a mess of the roost.

The Federal Government is closing early today, for fear of evil weather. Thus, I am homeward bound. I leave you with this thought: is it better to have the million plus federal workers go home spread out out over several hours - risking the tail end Charlie's exposure to an ice storm; or send them all home at once, overloading a metro system which is already running at as low as 50% capacity on some lines due to ice on the rails?

You be the judge.

Just when you think that the light of inquiry still exists in the world, and that rational, probing discussion still holds a place, Katzman at Winds of Blame steps out of his cave bearing his weighty log of truth via blunt force, grunts out dramatic oversimplifications, then shakes his log vigorously for good measure.

A procedural note: I'd appreciate it if you could make an effort to get the name of our blog right; the Ministry of Minor Perfidy is really Buckethead's and Johno's. I'm just an occasional writer. I promise to try and get "Winds Of Change" right from now on.

Where to start? The insults? Nope...I usually try to stay a little bit above that. Although, in the case of the comments on that particular thread, I did fire away at commenter Mary. My specific reason for doing so was in hope that she'd do exactly what she did do: Revert back to a factual discussion. She did so, laid out her position much more crisply, and provided references. "Ah!" I thought to myself, "this is exactly what I'd hoped for." I was not arguing a particular side...Mary's view and my own are actually very close. What I argue against is the ridiculous reductionism that applies to arguments rendered in heated, emotionally involved exchanges.

Katzman, apparently in search of non-existent support for his cowboy attitude, completely ignores the latter half of the comment thread, in which discussion resumed at an intelligible level. I am forced to wonder if he and I are from parellel universes, where dictionaries just don't have the same things written in them.

It has become distressingly apparent to me that I need to work through my meanings from first principles. I offer the following dictionary definitions; my use of the word "understanding" is a use of meaning one (1.), and not meaning four (4.).

con·done ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-dn) tr.v. con·doned, con·don·ing, con·dones

To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure. 

un·der·stand ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ndr-stnd) v. un·der·stood, (-std) un·der·stand·ing, un·der·stands v. tr. 

1. To perceive and comprehend the nature and significance of; grasp. See Synonyms at apprehend. 

2. To know thoroughly by close contact or long experience with: That teacher understands children. 

3.1. To grasp or comprehend the meaning intended or expressed by (another): They have trouble with English, but I can understand them. 

3.2. To comprehend the language, sounds, form, or symbols of. 

4. To know and be tolerant or sympathetic toward: I can understand your point of view even though I disagree with it. 

5. To learn indirectly, as by hearsay: I understand his departure was unexpected. 

6. To infer: Am I to understand you are staying the night? 

7. To accept (something) as an agreed fact: It is understood that the fee will be 50 dollars. 

8. To supply or add (words or a meaning, for example) mentally.

When I said "I can objectively understand the factors that lead to an action I do not agree with", I hope my meaning is now less opaque.

Let me be crystal clear. I judge suicide bombers. Over and over you write that I do not judge, in defiance of the plain meaning of the English language. There is no moral ground here that you occupy, and I do not. But while I judge, I also try to gain understanding, meaning one. By understanding, I do not mean empathy. I am somewhat devoid of true empathy, being hundreds of steps removed from the subject, in cultural and economic circumstance.

The difference between us is this: unlike you, Joe, I seek answers that operate at a level deeper than "psychotic death cult", and "Arafat sucks". Those two answers may be entirely accurate, but they are incomplete. "Psychotic death cult" means what, exactly? What sociological causes and effects underlie it? Are there any means of preventing it? Who has done the good thinking on advancing those means? In the comment thread, Mary usefully provides some references informing us on the origins of terrorist thought.

But, you don't want to have that conversation, because your brain shuts off as soon as someone tries to discuss the psychological factors that contributed to terrorism. To engage in the scientific method we must create hypotheses, test them against the facts, then refine and repeat. Part of that process is confronting ugly realities, and either proving or disproving them.

It's a time-honored method that you don't seem to approve of. Perhaps commenter Mary has brought her freshly reasonable fact-based discourse to the wrong place.

I wrote: "So what could push you over the edge? What within your life could happen that would make you a little crazy, make you lose the civilized veneer? What if that happened; a son or daughter lost, and your anger became uncontrollable?"

Armed Liberal tells us, in the comment thread, that "Ross, if I was in that situation only one thing would occupy my thoughts...how do I win."

When I wrote that, was I referring to an Israeli or a Palestinian? AL thought I was writing from the perspective of an Israeli. Others may have thought the opposite.

An Israeli father, losing a daughter to a bomb in a restaurant, may feel (perhaps must feel) that anger...a Palestinian father, losing a son to the IDF response, will feel that same anger.

I think I know what it's about. You don't like all this mushy talk about feelings. I view the emotions in the situation as a barrier to successful resolution; as such, we must understand them and their effects and formulate solutions that deal with them.

There are two sides to every story. I seek an understanding of both sides of this one (once again, in the sense of meaning one, as I must make that clear). When we engage in angry rhetoric, we devalue the meaning of discourse, and make a solution harder. In short, fightin' words tend to make for more fightin' words, and just plain more fightin'.

Reasonable observers will agree that on both sides of this conflict, the last few years and seen substantial entrenchment, mutual dehumanization, and mutual demonization. This is clear deterioration. Ten and five years ago (in fact for as long as I can remember, before that), the Israeli government made a point of apologizing for accidental deaths in the terroritories. It does so no longer. I say this not in a judgmental sense, but simply to note a fundamental shift in viewpoint. Likewise, on the Palestinian side, a similar hardening has taken place, and has been sadly accompanied by increasing tolerance of the religious nutjobs who pretend to make a difference.

When we, as third parties to the situation, fail to exercise ourselves in reasoned discourse and search for truth, we aggravate the situation. We fail in our role as arbitrators. The first rule of arbitration is to gain the confidence and acceptance of the parties involved. This does not mean neutrality, necessarily. It means legitimacy, as perceived by both sides.

With your "there is no truth except my truth, and I am the messenger of truth" rhetoric and insult of ensuing discussion, you need look no further than any brief history of Islam to understand what happens when periods of discussion are closed. This, in my mind, makes you the "enabler". A fair-sized chunk of the dehumanization and resulting violence in the middle east is due to people like you, who actively preach it.

Here's the short version of this whole post, if it all came out wrong:

1. You don't know a damn thing about me and how I view the world. You seem to have gone out of your way to misread and misrepresent what I've written.
2. Dictionaries are helpful.
3. People telling other people not to talk about something is one of my hot buttons.
4. Unlike Joe Katzman, I believe that there is still hope, and an endgame is possible that does not involve thousands more dead and permanent hatred. I think the Israelis and Palestinians are both people who are stuck in a shitty situation. I think the rest of us need to find a way for them to get out of it.
5. Unlike Katzman, I am not a spectator in a Roman Coliseum, cheering my chosen champion's bloody sword...

I trust my position is sufficiently reformulated. It might give you pause the next time you scream "terrorist" at the man next to you, in response to his wrinkled brow, or his expression of confusion about facts. Somehow, I think it will not.

[wik] Katzman comments, inexplicably repeating the misrepresentations of my viewpoint, ever so carefully expounded upon above...I guess that's life in blog-land.

Citizen Smash gives us the poop on the increasing militarization of space, and the dangers that it may bring.