ginandtacos.com - shut up and drink the gin

SO THAT'S WHAT "PEER REVIEWED" MEANS!

Just a couple of quick notes today due to spending most of Tuesday night celebrating my birth. First, if you're an academic (or any person who likes the rush of superiority that accompanies reading about creationists) please spend 5 minutes reading this. A blogger with some time on his hands accepts a Discovery Institute spokeswoman's challenge: "Maybe you should check out some of the peer-reviewed ID research." It turns out, to absolutely no one's surprise, that their idea of "peer review" is either A) "scientists" employed by the Discovery Institute itself and B) real academics...with PhDs in fields totally unrelated to the hard sciences. It might be a good idea to let the readers know that authors like "Dr. John A. Campbell, PhD" is a professor of communications at the University of Memphis. I can't wait to finish my Political Science PhD so I can start writing biology textbooks too.

Second, take a quick glance at this piece of news. Not only can you work up a healthy chuckle over the fact that our high-ranking military officers are being guarded by foreign private security firms, but take a moment to enjoy the fact that we have a Brigadier General named Jeffrey Dorko. I'm pretty sure I'd also submerge myself in a world of show-off masculinity and pomp if my name was Dorko.

ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 8: FALSE PRECISION

Mt. Everest, when first accurately measured by modern scientific equipment, was exactly 29,000 feet tall (the mean of recorded heights from 6 different measuring techniques). Assuming no one would believe that they actually measured it if they reported such a round figure, scientists called it 29,002 feet. The first figure was completely accurate but suffered from the fact that it sounded like an estimation. Being able to say that it is "exactly" 29,002 feet makes it sound so much more precise.

People are impressed by numbers. Numbers create the impression that an author has done "research" and possibly even math. Numbers that smack of tremendous precision are a common and often flawed form of argument. Consider two examples: one crude and easy to spot, another much more subtle and relevant.

One great example lies in the way countries report their oil reserves. A dirty secret among the Oil Will Last Forever crowd is that most of the world's major producers self-report their reserves and, like Iran or Saudi Arabia, refuse to allow outside verification of their fantastic claims. A cheap, lame way to cover for their hyperbole is to release incredibly precise figures to create the impression that they have very detailed measures. Note Venezuela's figures on this Department of Energy list. Rather than the correct answer of "about 80 bbl" they report figures of 79.721 and 80.012 bbl in separate reports. Not a single engineer on the planet would claim to be able to measure the exact number of barrels of oil in the ground so accurately - especially since Venezuela includes wildly unpredictable tar sands among its reserves. "About 80 bbl" really sounds like they're making it up; 80.012, which is every bit as fabricated, is intended to preempt skepticism.

Public opinion polls are another terrific example of false precision. The media give statistics that imply (but never explicitly state) that they have measured some public sentiment very precisely. Of course, no news organization is irresponsible enough to omit the margin of error (among other fine print) at the bottom of the poll. But they certainly don't do much to emphasize it. Instea they state exact figures when any measurement with a margin of error is really a range. Consider the caveat from the following recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll (via pollingreport.com)

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Oct. 23-24, 2007. N=303 Republican voters nationwide. MoE ± 6.

Plus or minus six percent. That's a range of 12%. Yet the figures are reported without that crucial bit of information included. Therefore you get something like this:

Rudy Giuliani 31
Fred Thompson 17
John McCain 12
Mitt Romney 7
Mike Huckabee 5
Duncan Hunter 3
Tom Tancredo 2
Ron Paul 1
Other 2
Unsure 16
Wouldn't vote 4

Wow, Rudy looks like he has a massive lead, and Fred Thompson is a clear second. Right? Well, here's the correct interpretation, which is the range represented by the green bars here (plus and minus 6% around the reported figure):

The correct interpretation shows that, while Giuliani is in 1st place no matter how the data are sliced, any one of five different responses (Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Thompson, or Don't Know) could be second. The accuracy of polling data is intimately tied to the number of "don't know/undecided" responses, and once the MOE is taken into account that could be as high as 22% here - nearly one in four respondents. So this is a really accurate picture of the GOP primary as long as you don't care about who's in 2nd through 6th place. Or about the quarter of the electorate who have yet to make up their minds. Maybe they'll make Opinion Dynamics' job easier by distributing themselves exactly according to the "precise" poll numbers reported here.

Lying with numbers is so easy that it's almost remarkable when they're used to tell the truth.

(PS: I'm officially 29 today, showing no signs of mellowing with age)

KURDLED DIPLOMACY

True or false: the Kurds are the largest single ethnic group on Earth that do not have a country of their own.

That statement, of course, is true. Most people have no idea who or what the Kurds are, as they have no PR machine or deeply concerned Hollywood spokespeople encouraging the world to help them out. From the Bush administration's perspective the Kurds are in a position so precarious that it sums up Operation Iraqi Clusterfuck perfectly.

The Kurds were the "human rights" piece of the pre-2003 We Must Invade argument. Sadaam Hussein had a long, unpleasant history of trying to exterminate the restless Kurdish settlements in the northwest ("Kurdistan" comprises parts of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq) including the use of chemical weapons. So imagine how stupid we'd look if, for example, we started encouraging the Iraqi "government" to use its armed forces (read: ours) to suppress uppity Kurdish regions. Ha. Wow, that would be pretty hilarious.

The Kurds (via the PKK) are a subject that rasies Turkey's blood pressure to almost fatal levels. As most of the Kurdish people live in modern-day Turkey, the two parties have been engaged in a slow, simmering secessionist movement / civil war for the better part of 20 years. And now the Turks are claiming (correctly) that the Kurds are using the free-for-all that is Iraq to plan and supply attacks on Turkey. This practically makes that vein on Turkey's forehead throb. They've announced in no uncertain terms that they will attack and invade Kurdish positions within Iraq if the latter cannot do something to control the situation.

On the one hand, the sheer destabilizing insanity of Turkey invading Iraq is obvious. The U.S. wants nothing more than to avoid that outcome. Iraq can't even govern 12 blocks of Baghdad let alone enforce the sovereignty of its borders. Yet we are not exactly on Turkey's good side these days, what with our resolutions condemning the Armenian genocide that Turkey refuses to acknowledge. You might ask yourself why we give a shit what Turkey thinks given that we don't seem to give a shit what anyone else thinks these days. Well, those planes at Incirlik aren't going to station themselves. Half of our military supply material to Iraq and Afghanistan passes through that base. It's like the Cold War all over again - making decisions to support brutal, repressive governments based on their willingness to host the military facilities with which we surround our enemies and mark our territory all over the world.

So our options are:

ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP

So I'm curious about this film Into the Wild. It does not look good, nor do I particularly want to watch it. But I am interested to see how Christopher McCandless is portrayed. I've always found his story (which I picked up from Krakauer's book of the same name; everything he's written is gold) to be quite interesting, albeit probably not in the same way that most people do.

I overheard some undergraduates talking about it, and of course they were breathlessly admiring what a brave, idealistic Walden-for-the-90s the protagonist was. There is a reason that both the book and the movie will make a ton of money - approximately 90% of America wishes it could abandon reality and run off to live in the middle of nowhere. And golly, this young rich kid from the East Coast did just that!

Let me be (not) the first to say that McCandless was a fucking idiot. He bravely and romantically ran off into the Alaskan wilderness without the slightest idea of how to live off the land. Lacking even a basic understanding of direction or decent topo maps, this genius managed to starve to death (during the summer) 20 miles away from a paved highway that brings National Park tour buses on an hourly basis. Twenty miles of mostly flat terrain can be hiked in about 12 hours by a healthy adult, which McCandless was until he starved himself.

To quote one of the park rangers who has to deal with this retard's legacy:

"I am exposed continually to what I will call the 'McCandless Phenomenon.' People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically nonexistent ... When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament ... Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide."

The book was a best-seller, and it's sad how many mentally challenged copycats it created. I don't know much about the film, but from what I hear ("Oscar buzz" and masturbatory reviews) I can only assume that another generation's worth of suburban white guys are about to dash half-assed into the wilderness to either freeze to death or require rescue...at taxpayer's expense, of course.

ISLAMO-FASCISM: BE AWARE OF IT

Happy Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week! I've been celebrating the same way as most Americans: by asking questions like "Why isn't David Horowitz pumping gas for a living in rural Alabama?"

There are so many things that are idiotic about this spectacle, I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with D-Ho's complete lack of understanding of the term "fascism."

I believe his original intent was simply to combine two words that most people think are bad things. Islamo-Fascism sounded a lot better than Islamo-Herpes. On that end, mission accomplished. Fascism is bad. While it lacks a universally agreed-upon definition, according to folks like Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, Ernst Nolte, Robert Paxton, Juan Cole, and Stanley Payne, fascism is:

(an) authoritarian political ideology that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity through oppression and coercion, usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes.

They argue that fascism is related to, but distinct from, concepts like nationalism, populism, xenophobia, and totalitarianism. Just for kicks, Webster defines it thusly: "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."

Now please tell me, does that sound like Osama bin Laden's philosophy? Or anyone in al Qaeda? Or any Islamic terrorist in the world? Does Horowitz's application of that term to Islamic terrorism make you wonder whether or not he has ever read a book? Yes, truly D-Ho has a magnificent grasp of the nature of terrorism in the Islamic world. Clearly what Osama and his buddies want is intimately tied to a state or national interests. Issues of national identity motivate them. They quite obviously subordinate all other interests for the good of....whatever nation or state they're nationalistic about.

I could go on to point out that schools such as Yale, Harvard, and even Falwell's Liberty University have threatened legal action against Horowitz for claiming that they are participating in his pathetic week of attention-seeking. I could point out the number of schools who were shocked to find out that Horowitz was claiming that they were participating. I could note that the folks over at Blackfive (an excellent albeit very right-wing blog staffed mostly by military folks) mocked his opening event and think he's a total ass clown. I could point out that David Horowitz is a mental infant whose sole purpose is to promote himself and pander to the Republicans that all the other Republicans hate. But pointing out any of that would be redundant, as 5 minutes spent reading his nonsense are plenty to tell you all of this and more.

ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 7: AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT

I'm fascinated by denialism (if you've never been, please visit Denialism Blog), and all denialism is based on two things: manufactured controversies and arguments that affirm the consequent.

Arguments that affirm the consequent infer conditions based on conclusions. This fallacy is easiest to explain by way of example. Quite simply:

If I am having a stroke, my head would hurt.
My head hurts.
Therefore I am having a stroke.

This type of fallacy, as you can see, is patently obvious to most observers who can apply logic to arguments. However, it is rarely as obvious as in the exaggerated example above. Take, for example, something that has the classic dimensions of denialism: the Teach the Controversy "movement." Step one - fabricate controversy where none exists. Step two - let the fallacies roll in a bald effort to lend legitimacy to the argument.

What denialists such as Discovery Institute (the well-funded folks who bring us Teach the Controversy) or the Institute for Historical Review (Holocaust deniers) do is very basic but sufficient to fool the ignorant:

Legitimate scientific theories are supported by scientists.
(Insert theory) is supported by scientists.
Therefore it is a legitimate scientific theory.

Like all truly pernicious logical fallacies, this contains a kernel of truth. That is why it is so deceptive. Obviously, legitimate scientific theories are supported by scientists. But they are also supported by other things (data, research, and testing). Similarly, a denialist theory is supported by "scientists." But they are supported by only a small number of largely-discredited fringe conspiracists. Finding one or two scientists of questionable qualifications who will support a theory does not mean it is a valid one, especially when nothing else in the form of data/evidence support it. Leaping to conclusions based on half-truths and incomplete arguments is fun!

The goal of denialism isn't to be proven correct; it's simply to muddy the waters and create doubt among those who aren't paying too much attention. Like a cheap infomercial seeks credibility by having men in white lab coats stand around, denialists know that plenty of (not-so-bright) people will see an "expert" and infer validity to the argument.

NULL

Sorry folks, no update tonight. My 14 hour day, which featured the political science faculty rejecting my dissertation proposal, did not leave me with time to pick up much news.

Entertain yourself with this link. I have a close friend who swears that the "undecided voter panel" is the highest form of televised comedy, but Fox News undecided voter panels on Republican primary debates take things to another level. Check out the quote about "long memories" of Clinton and "nobody wants to go through that hell again." Yes, remember those nightmare years between 1992 and 2000? Peace, prosperity, and budget surpluses. 2001-2007 has just been so much better. We truly are, to trot out an old campaign slogan, better off now than we were a few years ago.

BEHOLD MY MAGICAL POWERS

While reading Stanley Fish's latest rant about how College Professors Are the Dirty Liberal Enemy, I was struck by two things.

FRISKY FRIDAY

So are you all watching Frisky Dingo? I'm pretty convinced it's the greatest thing ever. The Season 2 plotline - Killface and Xander running against one another for President - culminated with the Haggar Pants (tm) Presidential Debate live from Haggar Pants Arena. Killface's fund-raising plan is codenamed "Operation Meth Nazis." I think more of you need to be watching this. Season 1 is (mostly) available online gratis.

Pardon today's entry. I am preoccupied. The mighty TremFu is buckling down in preparation for the two McLusky shows next weekend. If you live in Bloomington, come. I'm getting older, and that fact requires celebration. Of secondary importance (note sarcasm), I have to defend my dissertation proposal on Monday. Of tertiary importance (no sarcasm), I have to start teaching a course on Monday evening - with 2 hour, 50 minute class periods. Hold on while I swallow my tongue.

Huzzah!

A BRIDGE TOO FAR...FOR SOME REASON

OK. I'm going to try to say this while avoiding, to the greatest possible extent, coming off like I live in a compound in the Bitterroots.

Ann Coulter's latest book (not dignified with link) is in the shitter; for reasons that strike most of us as self-evident, no one's buying it. Under those circumstances it should be absolutely no surprise that Coultergeist's latest tour of the talking head shows would feature some bat-shit insanity. Because really, that's all she is. She's a shameless self-promoter, and her only goal is to one-up herself and think of increasingly idiotic and "shocking" things to say so she can get 10 seconds of attention to plug the Ann Coulter Brand Name. The media, to its eternal shame, enables her. They bring her in under the guise of being a Serious Pundit when they're really just grasping for the same 10-second high of attention that her stupidity brings.

So it is within that context and with an enormous grain of salt that I take the flap over her "Jews should be perfected" rant. It's no different than any other Coulter-on-TV moment. Camera rolls, Ann suggests killing a particular group of people, and cut to commercial. But this one was a little different. All of the sudden, Very Serious Media Types are having earnest "Gosh, has she gone too far?" talks and self-reflective "Gee, are we in some way enabling her by constantly inviting her onto worldwide television?" Even Tucker Carlson is using her as a punching bag and mocking the overpowering stench of desperation that cloaks everything about her. And vacant blow-dried types like Meredith Viera are starting to complain.

My question, and I put this as delicately as possible, is "Why now?" Don't get me wrong, what she said is obviously offensive, racist, and idiotic. But....well, when wasn't she? To be blunt, I find it equally offensive that feet are being put down now that the issue is anti-Semitism. It was OK when she said we should invade every Muslim country, kill their leaders, and forcibly convert them. It was OK when she slandered the 9/11 widows. It was OK when she called John Edwards, Bill Clinton, and every other male Democrat on Earth a queer. It was OK when she said women shouldn't be allowed to vote, everyone at the New York Times should be killed, and so on. None of that precluded a return invite onto the talk shows (several hundred appearances on every network according to Media Matters). But now....apparently she's finally said something offensive.

It's idiotic, and what's worse is that it plays directly into the worst backwoods Aryan Nations-type "theories" about New York, The Media, and The Establishment (which are codewords for Jews, Jews, and Jews, respectively). If Coulter's saga, and what's happening to her at the moment, are indicative of anything it's that talking about converting Jews is apparently far worse and more despicable that advocating genocide against Muslims.

It's good to know that there are limits.

GORE DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: MAY CAUSE FALLACIOUS THINKING

I am phenomenally excited that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not that I think he's all that great; I just love watching the right-wing media have a collective aneurysm over it. Honestly, has anyone really benefited more from this decision that Limbaugh and Hannity? Just think of the hours of pissing/moaning fodder this has created.

Gore has finally ascended into the Clinton-Ted Kennedy-Streisand category of people whose very names make conservatives froth at the mouth. So kudos for that, Al. Just look at what Gore's shiny prize did to the brilliant mind of Iain Kennedy. Blinded by rage, the best this mental infant could do was a banal Guilt by Association fallacy:

Who Else Should Al Gore Share the Prize With? How about that well known peace campaigner Osama Bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore's stance - and that of the Nobel committee - in his September rant from the cave.

I've tried to take in as little of it as possible, but the "This is such a travesty" shit-fits seem to focus largely on three amazingly easy-to-disassemble points.

STUPIDITY VS. AUTHENTICITY

A few years ago (forgive me, I lack a link) the FBI caused a minor flap by announcing that it was easing up on the Ku Klux Klan. Specifically, they no longer planned to devote resources to regular undercover stings, surveillance, and so on. Their rationale - and let's face it, they needed a pretty good one - was simple. At any given KKK rally, they found that somewhere betwen 1/2 and 3/4 of the attendees were either reporters or undercover state/local law enforcement agents. The actual Klansmen were badly outnumbered by impostors looking for A) evidence or B) a snarky story for the kind of newspaper that you pick up free at bars.

While perusing the fantastic Fundies Say the Darndest Things (FSTDT)* or other spectacles of the unhinged like Conservapedia, the KKK anecdote pops into my head pretty often. Conservapedia has "real" content - that is, content written by people who sincerely believe it. I have no doubt about that. But I find it hard to believe that there's not a decent amount of articles contributed by ringers masquerading as Young Earth creationists. It is not hard to imagine, for instance, a bunch of college sophomores sitting around a dorm room late at night and deciding to play "OMG! Let's see how ridiculous an entry we can get accepted!" Members of the Conservapedia community have explicitly blamed this sort of behavior for some of their more outlandish entries. On that, they probably have a point.

With respect to FSTDT, it's tempting to assume that more of the content is "real" because we all know there are plenty of people capable of posting such nonsense around the Internet. But I'd also like to remind you that former ginandtacos author Mike liked to use an online persona called "CultureOfLife" to litter the internet with mock-sincere nuggets of Fundamentalist commentary. Could that account for all of it? No way. But it could account for a good chunk of it.

I don't know about you, but I'd be some combination of depressed and humiliated if I realized that intelligent people writing the dumbest shit they could think of was indistinguishable from my actual belief system. Then again, I suppose that things like shame or reality get in the way among the home-schooled creationist crowd.

*I think this has to be my all-time favorite from that site. And it fits very well with today's post....it's just insane enough to be real, and just ridiculous enough to be fake:

"I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!"

Um....yeah.......

THIS JUST IN: MAN AWESTRUCK BY POTEMKIN VILLAGE

If there's any humor to be found in 4000 dead Americans and untold tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, I'm the kind of person who will find it. Since none of what has happened in Iraq is the slightest bit funny, I have to take my knee-slappers where I can get them. And nothing cracks me up quite as much as "journalists" going on the Department of Defense approved, Army-chapperoned gawking tours in Iraq...and then breathlessly reporting just how swell everything seemed like the obedient stenographers they are.

Victor Davis Hanson, come on down. VDH, as he's known around the frathouse, is a self-described "conservative military historian" affiliated with the Hoover Institute. He's made a long career out of dropping editorials into objective, serious media like the National Review (where he now has a weekly online column). Fine. Good for him. What I don't understand is why newspapers like the Chicago Tribune dignify him with column-inches, as they did with his latest comedy routine on Friday.

Hanson's obliviousness to the fact that he's just been taken on a carefully-coreographed, PR-managed dog/pony show borders on willful ignorance. Can you even imagine writing crap like this for a living? If this column were one of mine, I'd be far too busy punching myself in the face to write another. To wit:

Over the last 90 days, there has been newfound optimism, as Iraqis are at last stepping forward to help Americans secure their country.

Stop me if you've heard that one before.

I spent last week touring outlying areas of Baghdad and American forward operating bases in Anbar and Diyala provinces, talking to Army and Marine combat teams and listening to Iraqi provincial and security officials.

Well, if you spent the week at American forward operating bases, that puts to rest any questions we might have had about the thoroughness of your research and the objectivity of your sources! I'm surprised that the military gave you such an upbeat impression. I would have thought for sure they'd say "Wow, are we ever fucked in the ear."

On this recent trip to Iraq, I rode on highways that just a few months ago were nearly impossible to navigate without being blown up by improvised explosive devices. Soldiers now train Iraqi security forces as often as they fight terrorists.

So you just hopped in a rental car and drove "the highways" solo because they're so safe, right? Any chance you were in an armored vehicle, defended by a gaggle of heavily-armed Marines? And while the last four years of "training Iraqi security forces" hasn't amounted to a hill of happy horseshit, I'm sure the training you observed will do the trick.

I spent last week touring outlying areas of Baghdad and American forward operating bases in Anbar and Diyala provinces, talking to Army and Marine combat teams and listening to Iraqi provincial and security officials. Whether in various suburbs of Baghdad, or in Baqubah, Ramadi, or Taji, there is a familiar narrative of vastly reduced violence.

I wonder if....nah, there couldn't have been any selection bias regarding which Iraqis the author was allowed to speak with by his military escorts. "Provincial and security officials"....check. Civilians....um, they're not mentioned in the article but I'm sure he spoke to dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe.

If Victor Hanson (and his editors...let's not let them off the hook) honestly can't tell the difference between reporting and what Hanson did, I assume they're the same people who think pro wrestling is real well into adulthood. A reflective person might ask "I know what I saw, but what didn't I see?" after coming back from the DoD Press Junket tour. Then again, one doesn't secure regular gigs at the NRO by being reflective.

NO POLITICS (OR ANYTHING ELSE) FRIDAY

So in what can only be called an unmistakable billboard on the road to old age, I threw my back out on Thursday morning. As in I-am-completely-unable-to-move thrown out. Something tells me I'm going to be paying for playing high school football for the rest of my life.

As enduring stabbing back pain is about as diametrically opposed to a good mood as the human mind can get, I struggle to think of something funny to brighten up the week on No Politics Friday (tm). So I have two quick comments/requests/whatever for the regulars.

First of all, I don't have any pretensions of being Famous on the Internet. 28 long years of real life have taught me that I am an acquired taste. Approximately 1 out of every 500 people I meet will enjoy me. However, I've been trying to spread the gospel of ginandtacos for the last couple of months, and it's given me some sense of purpose (which helps tremendously with my actual for-paychecks work) to know that more than 2 people read this. Those of you who are regular readers, I ask a favor: spread the word. Tell a friend. Or an enemy. And, if something on here really amuses or entertains you, it's very helpful for you to submit it to whomever is doing the Crooks & Liars Blog Roundup for the week. I've gotten a few plugs in there and it's been very beneficial.

Second, any of you who live in Bloomington...I encourage you to come out and celebrate Ed Turning 29 at a guaranteed-to-be-awesome Halloween themed cover show at Fester's on Kirkwood. The date is Saturday, 10/27. My band will be performing a cover set as McLUSKY. It will possibly be the bestest thing ever. It will be packed (although not with people who care that it's my birthday; I could comfortably hold a birthday party in a phone booth) and it will warm my heart if anyone comes out to toast me getting old. Other great bands will be performing cover sets as AT THE DRIVE-IN and THE CURE. Half-priced admission to anyone in costume. Huzzah!

THE "KNOW YOUR REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES" QUIZ!

Maybe it's the teacher in me, or maybe it's the bile on which I gag when I watch videos of the Republican debate the other evening. All I know is that Americans have stunningly little information about politics and I take every chance I can find to educate those around me.

So you think you know politics? Let's see how much you really know about your GOP nominees. We're on the honor system here - no cheating. After all, there are no shortcuts to a thriving democracy anywhere except in Paul Bremer's head. Check your hubris and sharpen your #2 pencils.

TEH LIFELINE

Two separate and unrelated incidents have caused me to think about our friend The Internet a lot more than I usually would (which is to say, x > 0).

ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 6: BAIT & SWITCH

All fallacies of relevance rely on false or misleading analogies. They are the rhetorical version of the classic "bait & switch" sales technique. Start the reader out with something universally approved of or scorned. Then quickly - very quickly, so as not to give the reader time to ask too many questions - switch to something else which bears a superficial resemblance but is not in fact analogous. The "switch" item need only bear a passing resemblance to the original subject; think about the difference between a truly good disguise and a disguise that is sufficient to fool an observer from 20 yards away.

Roger Cohen would make a great comissioned salesman.

In this essay, "The New L-Word," Cohen offers a cornucopia of logical fallacies. But for today let's just focus on the poor analogies and bait/switch games. First:

(Neocons), in the words of leftist commentator and blogger Matthew Yglesias, “believe that America should coercively dominate the world through military force” and “believe in a dogmatic form of American exceptionalism” and “favor the creation of a U.S.-dominated ‘universal empire.’ ”

But the term, in these Walt-Mearsheimered days, often denotes more than that. Neocon, for many, has become shorthand for neocon-Zionist conspiracy, whatever that may be, although probably involving some combination of plans to exploit Iraqi oil, bomb Iran and apply U.S. power to Israel’s benefit.

Wow, someone call a lawyer, I think I just got whiplash from the speed with which we went from relatively mainstream criticism of neoconservatism to whacko Zionist conspiracy nuts. Boy, those two things sure are similar. According to whom? Why, according to "many," of course. And let's skip the rich irony of referring to Mr. Yglesias as "leftist commentator" in an editorial about the folly of applying blanket labels as epithets. Wait. There's more:

Beyond that, neocon has morphed into an all-purpose insult for anyone who still believes that American power is inextricable from global stability and still thinks the muscular anti-totalitarian U.S. interventionism that brought down Slobodan Milosevic has a place, and still argues, like Christopher Hitchens, that ousting Saddam Hussein put the United States “on the right side of history.”

(...)Liberal interventionists, if you recall, were people like myself for whom the sight in the 1990s of hundreds of thousands of European Muslims processed through Serbian concentration camps, or killed in them, left little doubt of the merits, indeed the necessity, of U.S. military action in the name of the human dignity that only open societies afford. Without such action in Bosnia and Kosovo, Europe would not be at peace today.

(...)Baghdad is closer to Sarajevo than the left has allowed.

(...)Kouchner, a socialist, is now French foreign minister — hardly a sign the credo’s dead. He, in turn, is close to Richard Holbrooke, who brought peace to Bosnia and may be secretary of state in a Hillary Clinton administration.

DO YOU GET IT YET? DID YOU GET IT? HMM? Cohen is approximately as subtle as an Oliver Stone film in the last half of his essay. He's ostensibly talking about the current perception of neocons, and how Iraq has turned that ideology into an insult. B-B-But....Mr. Cohen, why is hardly any of your discussion about Iraq? Why do you bring up Bosnia half-a-dozen times?

Why, because Bosnia and Iraq are virtually the same thing!! They're so similar, in fact, that Roger Cohen can just avoid Iraq altogether and talk about that Bosnia thing which most Americans hardly remember and even fewer understand. Nevermind the fact that the situation in the Balkans was so complex that even PhDs who have made careers out of studying it struggle to grasp it; in Cohen's world, it was a simple morality play, and intervening (on, um, someone's behalf....whoever the Good Guys were) was so obviously right that we can toss it in conversations as a straw man as easily as "the Holocaust" or "Communism."

In reality, the situations in Bosnia and Iraq bear almost no resemblance beyond fitting into the vague category of Places Upon Which American Ordinance Has Fallen and In Which Our Troops Have Died. He starts with Bosnia and strongly implies (or, in places, asserts explicitly) that intervention in that conflict was quite obviously a good thing. And then the quick switch - intervention was a good thing in Bosnia, therefore it is a good thing in Iraq.

It's quite amazing, the depths to which even papers like the New York Times will sink. They give column space to dreck like this for the sole purpose of precluding allegations of bias. Nevermind if said columnist is thunderingly ignorant or can't make an argument to save his soul - the important thing is having someone who will talk about how great of an idea the Iraq War is on a bi-weekly basis.

(h/t Non-Sequitur)

FAILING

A couple of months ago I discussed my discovery of the secret to understanding Jonah Goldberg. If you don't care to read it again, it is essentially that Goldberg does not exist and his column output is written by a loose team of college Republicans selected at random. I based that idea on the fact that Goldberg's writing bears an extremely suspicious resemblance to that of a college sophomore (and I'm exposed to plenty of that).

I may be on to something. Phyllis Schlafly (who is, in case you're not familiar, one of the most profoundly ignorant shrews alive and the founder of Conservapedia) wrote a gold nugget of wisdom recently making vague, all-encompassing-yet-nonspecific criticisms against English departments in American colleges. Her opus is entitled "Advice to College Students: Don't Major in English." If only they'd let me write the obvious rejoinder "Advice to College Students: Don't Take Advice from People Who Think the Earth is 6000 Years Old."

In the spirit of my Goldberg-is-a-Sophomore post, please direct your attention to this outstanding post entitled "Phyllis Schlafly Wouldn't Pass My Composition Class" by Evil Bender, an English grad student who has probably suffered even more undergrad essays than me. I know not all of you have, have had, or will have the experience of teaching America's youth at some point, but I heartily recommend reading editorials (or, as we make the middle schoolers call them, Persuasive Essays) with one question in the back of your mind: If a student in a basic Intro-to-Anything course handed me this essay, what grade would it receive? Let me tell you, I don't come across too many that would pass.

Schlafly would get a pity D and a large, red note about coming to see me in my office hours. Of course, she'd never do that. She'd just piss and moan about how she got a D because her professors are all liberals on a crusade to punish her. I mean, why learn to write when you can just bitch to David Horowitz and be reassured that you are One Heroic Victim?

NO POLITICS, BUT PLENTY OF SHAME

No sooner did I get done insulting a large portion of humanity's musical tastes yesterday than I felt a little guilt. Only a little. But enough to give the world a reason to make fun of me in return.

So. Use the comments to answer the following questions: What's the most embarassing CD in your current collection? More importantly, what's the lamest/most embarassing thing you listen to semi-regularly? As you might expect, I'll lead the way by humiliating myself first.

In all honesty, I tend to throw CDs on eBay/Half.com pretty quickly if I do not listen to them. I have a couple hundred taking up space as it is; I have no room for those that can't pull their weight. A detailed perusal of my (large, alphabetized) collection didn't turn up anything mind-blowingly awful. No itinerant copies of Please Hammer Don't Hurt'em or any Vanilla Ice. I think the winner has to be the copy of Smash by The Offspring, which I would guess I purchased in 1994 and for some reason have not discarded. This oversight is likely due to the fact that it is utterly worthless on the used market.

Now, don't think I'm letting myself off the hook that easily. My collection goes beyond CDs to the tune of about 250 GB of mp3s. And no, I've never paid for a single one. Why? Cause fuck'em, that's why.

The most humiliating thing I listen to with any regularity is Iowa by Slipknot. Seriously. I listen to it pretty regularly when I'm boxing (along with other "god do I want to punch something" classics like Reign in Blood and Pass the Flask). Ignoring, as I choose to, all the stupid shit about that band (masks, fake blood, legions of 14 year-old fans) it's actually a really good metal album. The drummer-plus-two-percussionists thing...well, I play the damn drums. I'm a sucker for it. If I could stomach death metal Cookie Monster Vocals (and trust me, I can't) I'd probably also list Poland's finest metal band Behemoth and their classic Demigod. But once every few months is all Ed can handle of that.

In no way am I proud of this. I needed to be taken down a peg.

ORIENTALISM

No, not the study of Asia and the far east. The Edward Said kind. Actually, I think this best sums up what I am about to say.

This past weekend in Bloomington was something called the Lotus Festival, which is an annual world music extravaganza. It is one of the largest of its kind. Lots of people get really excited about it. I question their motives. I see a bunch of middle- to upper-class white people trying their earnest best to Appreciate Other Cultures like good liberal bohemian intellectuals, no matter how painful it might be.

Americans have narrow, provincial tastes in music. Much of what we like is crap. Much of what is popular in the rest of the world - maybe even extremely popular - is unknown here. It is as easy as it is tempting to attribute this to American ignorance and closed-mindedness. I have little doubt that we are an ignorant and closed-minded people. What I do doubt is that this is a suitable explanation for the obscurity of world music in the U.S.

I am reminded of a very good Simpsons joke from a very bad (recent, of course) episode. On NPR, "Banjologist" Stefan Whitmore discusses the dying art of Peruvian banjo music. When the host asks why the art form is dying, Whitmore replies (after a short demonstration on his banjo) that, "Frankly it's just not very good." Sometimes I find myself wondering if that's a good point.

Now, put down your lynching accessories. I am not saying that all "world" music is bad. Read that again if necessary. I'm sure a lot of it, even that which I find incredibly unlistenable, is objectively very good. People have different tastes. We can all accept that.

The reason I hate "world music" and things like Lotus Festival has more to do with the spectators than the performers. Heavy doses of Othering usually don't put me in a jovial mood. I feel like a lot of people are there watching something that might not even be any good just to get their Multi-Culti merit badge for the week. Apparently getting falling-down drunk or higher than Jesus to listen to Afro-Cuban Whateverthefuck is proof of one's worth as an individual (as opposed to the other 51 weekends of the year spent getting falling-down drunk or higher than Jesus to listen to that one dude from the Allman Brothers Band). The rest of the world might even be playing an elaborate joke on us - sending us their version of Clay Aiken and laughing their asses off as NPR listeners solemnly appreciate it - and the unwitting crowds would look no different.

As I do every year, I tried to expose myself to some of the Fest and it did not work out well. Ten minutes of the Ghanaian Female Doumbek-Banging and Ululating Troupe or whatever the fuck I was listening to was enough. I decided that I simply do not enjoy That Sort of Thing. I'm sure there are other people who do - but I wonder how many of those people were the ones packed close to the stage to make a public show of their Support and Appreciation for the Other Half and their Cultures. No matter how much they claim to, I refuse to believe that so many midwestern college kids really like listening to an hour of tuvan throat-singing. Sure, it's amazing. So is the range of most opera singers, and that doesn't mean many people want to watch an hour of it.

Of course, anyone I might accuse of this would disagree stridently. No one admits to being a shameless status seeker or an insincere cultural voyeur. But if all these people like Rai so fucking much, why do they head back to the car after the show and turn up the Yo La Tengo for the ride home? Why do I fail to hear Rai or encounter anyone talking about it for the other 363 days of the year? I guess it's only worth appreciating in public where those hot hippies from your anthro class can see you in all your sensitive glory.

SOMETIMES THE JOKES WRITE THEMSELVES

Hopefully you've seen this story by now, and if not then let this be a quick summary:

Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians."

And she also accused Britain of "dismantling" the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon.

The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month.

Big deal, right? High-ranking member of the Bush foreign policy apparatus is completely ignorant, racist, and generally grasps world affairs at the level of an average 7th-grader. And now the punchline. This is Debra Cagan:

Nazi symbols make great pendants!

OK. Deep breath. I can't decide if she looks more like:

THE WHORES OF WAR

I don't think that the recent (unwelcome) publicity to which Blackwater USA has been subjected bears much comment. Some things speak for themselves, and it's not as though the rest of us didn't figure out 5 years ago that privatizing national defense to a series of completely unaccountable, secretive companies is questionable. I do, however, think that too little attention has been paid to the fact that Blackwater's founder and principal has strong ties to a number of psychotic Christian fringe groups. Similarly ignored is the fact that Blackwater is only one of a dozen such companies operating in Iraq, and it's actually less shady and deeply involved than some unknown places like Aegis.

Rather than speak at length making really obvious points about accountability, secrecy, and morality, I'll simply say that I find this subject fascinating and it's amazing how pervasive and shady the industry is. I had the good fortune of taking a graduate class taught by the former President of Liberia. It was not a good class, but god how I loved talking to this man about post-colonial Africa's near-constant state of war and flux. To hear him tell it, the stability of most West and Sub-Saharan African regimes had more to do with making sufficient monthly payments to Sandline and EO than indigenous military capabilities or domestic unrest. If you find this as intriguing as I do, I heartily recommend all of the following:

ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 5: IPSE DIXIT

Lately I've been getting a man-sized kick out of the little pearls of wisdom falling out of the textbook "Biology for Christian Schools," which is published by Bob Jones University and is currently the subject of a lengthy, circus-like lawsuit in California. Check out some of the knee-slappers, head-scratchers, and just-flat-out-incorrect highlights from the textbook here and here. It looks like a healthy combination of far-right bumper sticker slogans and stunning ignorance. Thankfully, the courts haven't looked too favorably on unfalsifiable religious ideology masquerading as science. As usual the lawsuit is more about publicity and martyrdom ("Activist judges declare war on Jesus!") than any reasonable expectation of success.

One aspect of the case, and previous ones like it, that amuses me to no end is doing a little research on the "expert witnesses" that creationists trot out to absorb punishment at the hands of actual scientists. That brings us to ipse dixit - the appeal to questionable authority.

Look closely at the California and you'll see the name Michael Behe, a leading "intelligent design" proponent who teaches at Lehigh University. As his written report states, the Christian schools hired him (to the tune of $20,000) as an expert witness in "biology and physics." This is despite the fact that Prof. Behe has absolutely no physics background. I suspect that ID advocates don't understand that physics and biology are two different things.

Behe's resume (starting on p. 58 of the written report) could be that of any one of the hundreds of tenured pariahs and cranks that litter academia. Their research is a joke, they are a joke, and their only recourse is to seek validation from like-minded cranks. Behe may not be able to get his work about irreducible complexity published in "peer-reviewed" or "legitimate" science journals, but he did make National Review's list of top non-fiction books! Oh, and let's not forget the coveted Book of the Year award from Christianity Today. Notice the gap between 1978 and 1995 (when he started publishing creationist nonsense) in his resume? The reason is simply that he failed at being a real academic, so he quit trying and transitioned to the lucrative world of Paid Shilling.

Behe's theory has been disproven through numerous peer-reviewed studies. It is widely ridiculed and considered a poorly-repackaged creationist argument. And please note the last line of the entire report:

Testimony in other cases: In the preceding four years, Kitzmiller vs. Dover

Why is that funny? His testimony in the widely-publicized Kitzmiller case resulted in one of the best, most lengthy, and most brutal intellectual beatdowns ever to flow from our legal system. And for some reason he's bringing it up like a good resume-builder. Among the comments in the 130+ page decision written by George W. Bush-appointed Republican judge John Jones:

"...on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not "good enough." (23:19 (Behe))." (Page 78)

"By defining irreducible complexity in the way that he has, Professor Behe attempts to exclude the phenomenon of exaptation by definitional fiat, ignoring as he does so abundant evidence which refutes his argument. Notably, the NAS has rejected Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity..." (Page 75)

If you're so inclined, you can read all 130 pages of that pimp-slapping here. Needless to say, the court was not impressed by the paid testimony of a failed biologist-turned-pitchman. If I were Behe, I'd demand a lot more than $20,000 per appearance to subject myself to such ridicule. He and his kind are a dime a dozen; they cling to bizarre ideas that are repeatedly disproven and consider their widespread rejection by their peers to be a sign of the righteousness of their crusade toward intellectual martyrdom.

The moral of (my) story here is that creationists are using a very simple, misleading, and transparent logical fallacy by trotting out such "expert witnesses" in the media and in court. They ignore the fact that Michael Behe is completely full of shit and that every word he's ever written has been challenged and contradicted by hard data. Their goal is simple - introduce him as "Professor" Michael Behe and grandly state his awards and accomplishments (don't mention that they're mostly from far-right ID groups, not peer-reviewed academic journals). The presence of such an "expert" with a fancy title is intended to lend weight to and imply intellectual support for the argument. What makes this an appeal to questionable authority, which is distinct from an ordinary appeal to authority, is that this authority is a fraud. Appeals to authority are very often a logical, valid form of argument. Appeals to charlatans and snake-oil merchants, however, are always riddled with logical holes and built on a foundation of quicksand.