Wednesday, March 11, 2009

THE STONING OF GEORGE GALLOWAY'S EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE MISSION TO GAZA IS NOT ABOUT GAZA BUT IRAN?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

Daniel, these are not well-considered comments.

First, you are totally inconsistent.

You quote Mubarak as though he were a fair and impartial authority in these matters.

President Mubarak is a dictator, one of decades standing, and he has some very large interests in supporting American policies, about $2 billion a year in keeping-the-peace payoffs for a start.

At the same time, you always have been a defender of Israel's de rigueur
position that Hamas - a truly democratic organization - is a terrible bunch of beasts.

And, as we know from other times, you promote the also de rigueur position about the great blessings of democracy in Israel.

Mubarak is little more than a thug, but he is a peaceful thug towards Israel so I guess that makes his opinion worthy?

As to Haaretz, quoting Israelis on anything having to do with Gaza, or Iran for that matter, is rather like quoting a South African paper in the heyday of apartheid on events in a Bantustan. The view is utterly predictable.

I object strenuously to your calling George Galloway a "blustering fool" if only because it so clearly untrue.

Galloway has a piercing intelligence, and he is, without a doubt, the most remarkable orator in Britain today.

His mission on this delivery of assistance to a people left shattered by three weeks of bombardment is not something to make light of.

How do you know, Daniel, that the stone-throwers were not Israeli agents? My God, we have boundless precedents for such activity and worse.

If the stone throwers were indeed Egyptians, then it is certain they were not acting, as we used to put it during the Cold War, spontaneously.

Spontaneous displays do not happen in Mubarak's Egypt, as I'm sure you well know.

So, I’m sorry to say, I don't find even a shred of honest analysis in your words here, but then you are riding your favorite hobby horse again, aren’t you?



CHINA'S LOCK-DOWN OF TIBET IS TELLING?

POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

No, it is this editorial that is telling.

It forcefully brings home the fact that its writer does not understand the situation in China.

China is a land of great ethnic diversity. No government there can afford to have groups making inordinate demands and creating unrest, which is exactly what the original crack-down in Tibet was in response to.

Tibet has been part of China for many centuries. It enjoyed a brief, brief period of a degree of independence.

Most critics of China are not even aware of this history.

I don't know about the editorial writer, but I vividly remember Detroit being "locked down" with armed forces killing something like 44 rioters in the street and marching around with bayonets.

I also remember a large part of Los Angeles being locked down and more than 20 people being shot by armed forces in the street.

The same for a portion of Chicago.

Oh, and I'd like to see what happens to people who organize a party to give back the Hawaiian Islands or New Mexico or Texas. Believe me, the terror laws would be applied swiftly.

China has done nothing - absolutely nothing - you would not see in the United States under similar circumstances.





MANY AMERICANS CONFUSE TIBET WITH SHANGRI-LA

FRUM TAKES ON LIMBAUGH BUT IS ANYTHING BUT A HERO HIMSELF

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

Rush Limbaugh is one of the ugliest phenomena in American politics, perhaps only exceeded by Ann Coulter.

But the group from which David Frum has made his living for years is the group that has used and rewarded Limbaugh for his years of service as America's Lord Haw Haw.

David has some very dark marks against his own name, some of which you will find discussed in this article I wrote some years ago.

He is anything but a hero.

http://chuckmanotherchoiceofwords.blogspot.com/search/label/CHUCKMAN%20ARTICLE%3A%20SICK%20PUPPIES%20-%20OR%20THE%20DANGEROUS%20DELUSIONS%20OF%20NEO-CONS





VILLAIN? HE DEFINITELY QUALIFIES



BUT HERO? I DON'T THINK SO - ACTUALLY THEY DESERVE EACH OTHER: TWO RIGHT-WING PORKERS PAID BY THE POUND OF WORDS

NEWLY DISCOVERED PORTRAIT: RALEIGH OR SHAKESPEARE?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TELEGRAPH

It remains a fair question.

The portrait has the good looks we would expect from an actor, Shakespeare's first calling.

But then Raleigh was one of Elizabeth's most prominent courtiers, and we know that group only included handsome men. Elizabeth was picky about brains and looks.

The eyes indicate intelligence, but Raleigh too was an exceptionally intelligent man.

If the sonnets are to be believed, Shakespeare was gay, and I have to say the face in this portrait does not appear to be that of a gay man, although one certainly cannot always tell such things.

The beautiful clothing in the portrait - actually the finest portion of the painting - would be what you expect in one of Elizabeth's courtiers. They used to outdo each other in trying to impress at court.

Shakespeare's theater work had undoubtedly made him a man of some means, but I'm not sure this made him so well-off that he could wear such finery. Then again, people undoubtedly wore their "Sunday best" for such portraits.

The other doubt in my mind is Shakespeare's status in the early 17th century. Theater was not a completely respectable business as it is today. Would a prominent theater person have a portrait commissioned?

On the other hand, this does not seem to me the face of a man of action, and that was what Raleigh was in spades.

But even if the portrait were to be Shakespeare's, that leaves completely unsettled the matter of whether he wrote the plays or provided a cover for someone else.





WHO IS HE?

CANADA'S MISSION IS FAILING IN AFGHANISTAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

I don't know what else was ever expected.

Of course, the truth is nothing was legitimately expected because this entire enterprise showed no genuine planning or forethought.

The original American invasion was stupid and pointless, pure vengeance with no clear purpose.

The Taleban were not responsible for 9/11, but the U.S. was thirsting for blood and so the country had to be invaded.

Since then they've killed thousands and thousands of innocent people and bombed the crap out of this poor country, all while claiming they are improving it.

They've committed war crimes, including complicity in the savage killing of several thousand prisoners.

Our joining in on the basis of "owing one to the Pentagon" could result only in the costly, pointless operation in which we are now engaged.

Yes, the odd poll says people are glad for us, but all that means is that in such a poor, backward country people are glad to get whatever they can free from foreign soldiers.

Also polls cannot possibly reflect the population there since no one is going to poll the Taleban or many remote villages.





AMERICA DELIVERS ANOTHER LOAD FOR DEMOCRACY

IS INTELLIGENCE HERITABLE?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

There is a lot of confused thinking around this subject. In the U.S., I.Q. tests in the public schools were done away with years ago. The reason: the tests consistently showed below average performance for black children.

I do think the word “race” is so contaminated from history that it must to be avoided, but we can accurately speak of groups in so far as the members of a group share a bundle of characteristics from thousands of years of common history and adaptation to various places and conditions.

The I.Q. test is an imperfect concept, of course, but we know to a certainty that the test has a certain degree of predictive ability for certain types of success. The very term “intelligence” itself is imperfect, leading to many vaguely defined concepts including the hazy idea of multiple intelligences coming from an educator at Harvard

Of course, all statements about various groups’ performance in these tests are statistical in nature. They do not necessarily apply to any given individual.

No one of good sense prejudges anyone's abilities from color or ethnicity, but we know the groupings inaccurately called race include many general characteristics other than skin color. For example, Caucasians, Blacks, and Asians are all known to suffer in different statistical patterns from various diseases and conditions. Patterns in the incidence of everything from heart disease to diabetes are quite different. Why would we expect it be any different with characteristics of the body’s most complex organ, the brain? Is such knowledge to be cast aside in the name of political correctness?

Millions of IQ tests in the U.S. – from public schools and armed forces enlistment - do show fairly dramatically that there are differences between groups. When you have millions of observations for any phenomenon, you know you are dealing with something real.

These millions of tests show 'Caucasians' with a mean IQ of about 100, 'Blacks' with a mean IQ of 85, and 'Asians' (and Ashkenazi Jews) with a mean score in the range of 107-115.

IQ tests only certain skills, skills around problem-solving and mathematical reasoning. There are many other human skills not captured by the scores.

But life experience in many countries does tend to confirm that the specific skills measured by IQ are important in a number of careers. Business, finance, and science are notable for high numbers of Jews and Asians and low numbers of Blacks. We find this pattern in country after country. It is not prejudice to observe it.

The abilities measured by IQ - the abilities to solve certain kinds of problems and math skills – surely contribute directly to these easily observable results.

We see a much smaller presence of black people in these fields, and it cannot be sensibly argued that this is owing to prejudice. Opportunities to go to any school are today wonderfully open in all qualified in advanced countries.

Now, look at the sports field. American football, baseball, basketball are virtually dominated by blacks (who constitute 13% of the population) owing to their innate athletic skills and strength. The same for professional boxing.

Why should these observations cause vituperation?

These are not arguments for prejudice or racism. They are arguments for better dealing with many social problems.

There is an unfortunate syndrome of black behaviors we see consistently demonstrated in country after country - Britain, United States, Canada, South Africa, Jamaica, and many others.

These include having children early, absentee fathers, dropping out of school in large numbers, attraction to gangs and violence, and lack of economic success on average.

At the other extreme of human experience, what do we see in the behavior of Asians and Jews? Putting off having children, almost always finishing school, strong bonds from fathers for children, much less violent activity, and remarkable economic success in free countries.

You can't deal properly with any problem when you pretend it doesn't exist.

We test for a multitude of things against which people do not argue.

We test everything from pulse and blood pressure to agility and speed. We test the efficient working of various internal organs. We test artistic ability. We test acquired knowledge. We test driving skills. We test sight.

Why does this one test, whose meaning really is limited to certain kinds of problem solving, raise so much heat?

We know that there are vast differences in results just within any one group. Are these differences imaginary or culturally induced? There is no basis for saying that.

So why, when a comparison between groups is made, does the test become worthless, biased, culturally contaminated, and a host of other pejorative adjectives?

We all see regularly, with our own eyes, people who are clever at what they do and people who are barely able to function. These are the extremes, but everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum.

What is the least odd or prejudiced in saying there are differences between groups if the empirical results warrant the statement?

Prisoners are routinely tested for IQ as one component of understanding their actions and for their rehabilitation. Criminals do tend to have lower intelligence, as well as many mental illnesses. Labs regularly test for IQ in studies to determine the effects of chemicals or new drugs. Scientists typically put study results of, say, the impact of certain chemicals on children in terms of how many I.Q. points are lost.

This is a topic society is going to have to deal with eventually.