Ghosts of Rwanda

The PBS documentary Ghosts of Rwanda does an excellent and gut-wrenching job of describing the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and how little the outside world did to prevent it. The movie is very hard to watch, but worth watching. While film-makers never overtly express an opinion as to who tried to help and who stood in the way on the international scene, we can draw some conclusions. Two people I've generally liked, Kofi Annan and Richard Clarke, don't come off well. Annan, head of UN Peacekeeping at the time, blocked numerous attempts by the hard-charging Canadian general managing UN forces there from taking more active steps to stop the slaughter. Clarke blocked Madeleine Albright's attempt to be slightly more active, and he refused to be interviewed for the show as well, which sounds like an admission of guilt to me. As an American documentary, it appropriately focuses on American inaction, but other countries, especially Belgium, have plenty to answer for as well. I hope that's happening.

I also wanted to recognize the heroism of an unarmed Segalese officer, Captain Mbaye, detailed to the UN team. He used nothing more than charm to negotiate his way through numerous roadblocks manned by crazed murderers, and conducted a completely unauthorized human smuggling operation that saved hundreds of people, while world leaders did nothing. Random mortar fire killed him in the last days of the genocide. More information is here. How he did it and even what he did remains mysterious. He deserves his own movie.

Declassifying versus leaking depends on intent

Juliette Kayyem and Jane Hamsher both pushed the ball forward on whether Bush's apparent command to reveal classified information was legal. Kayyem points out that declassification has to be in the public interest, and the reference to public interest makes it illogical to assume the "declassification" could be for a single member of the public, Judith Miller. Hamsher highlights the apparent lack of documentation that information was declassified. An update to her post points out that the information was apparently deemed classified afterwards.

While some legal experts say the President has the authority to declassify information at will, that doesn't mean Bush actually declassified the information. For reasons of his own (say, to smear someone without leaving his fingerprints on the smear), Bush may have kept the information classified, but commanded that it be leaked. The apparent fact that it was classified afterwards suggests this is what happened. That would make the disclosure illegal.

The twist I take on Kayyem's post is that if information is declassified to the point where a member of the public (Judith Miller) can have it, then it's completely declassified. Because it apparently was classified afterwards, then Bush didn't declassify it - he illegally leaked.

The only legal way out I can see for Bush is to claim he declassified the information and then at some point after the authorization, but before reporters starting asking for it, he or someone else reclassified it. To use this escape route, they need to claim it and prove it - where's the documentation for the reclassification? And it creates even more political problems for them of using governmental secrets for political advantage, and making Clintonian excuses as to why they didn't break the law. Except in Bush's case, it concerns national security.

March 2006 Iraq casualties

(Sorry, missed doing the February report.)

Avg. daily military fatality rate (nearly all of them Americans): 1.06. February was 2.07, January 2.06, and March 2005 was 1.26. Overall average to date is 2.3, down .03 from January. Total US dead as of today: 2343.

Iraqi monthly military/police fatalities: 193. February was 158, January was 189 and March 2005 was 176. Total dead: 4397.

Iraqi monthly civilian fatalities: 901. February was 688, January was 579, and March 2005 was 240. Note that the civilian numbers may be less accurate than others, but could still be useful in determining trends.

Comments: The American death rate has dropped somewhat in the last few months. That doesn't seem to have changed public pessimism - Americans appear to be tired of seeing hundreds of American dead annually as we enter the fourth year of the war.

Either the Iraqi civilian body count is low, or media overplayed the civil strife that resulted from blowing up the Shiite shrine towards the end of February. I recall seeing reports about thousands of deaths in sectarian violence.

9/11 Conspiracy post in progress, and it's not working

One of the many reasons offered to back the claim that 9/11 was a conspiracy is that the buildings fell at or near to a free-fall speed. I suspect the answer is here:

"The buildings did fall quickly - almost (but not exactly) at the same speed as if there was no resistance. Shouldn't the floors below have slowed it down? The huge dynamic loads due to the very large momentum of the upper floors falling were so great that they smashed through the lower floors very quickly. The columns were not designed to carry these huge loads and they provided little resistance."

It would be better to do this mathematically, though.

So we've got:

"A kilogram force,
for instance, is the force exerted by gravity on a mass of 1 kg.

1 kgf = (1 kg)(9.8 m/s^2) = 9.8 Newtons"

And kinetic energy from a falling object:

KE = (mass x velocity2)/2 or 1/2 mv2 (KE measured in joules)

And:

newtons multiplied by meters equal joules

So if I divide the KE by the distance the object has fallen in meters, I should get the dynamic load in newtons exerted by the object on the thing it hit, which I could then compare the static load exerted by the object on the support? Seems like it should work, but what do I know.

So using simplified numbers, let's pretend that stories 99-110 of the World Trade Center weighed 1 kilogram (don't like that? okay, we're just discussing failure of a tiny vertical cross section weighing a total of one kilo). A plane hits floor 98, impact blows away fire insulation, fire weakens (doesn't melt) steel, steel buckles, floor collapses, and now floors 98-110 collapse and fall 3 meters to floor 97. Floor 98 collapsed when its strength diminished below the force exerted by 1 kilo, or 9.8 newtons. What's the force that will be exerted by slightly over 1 kilo after a 3 meter fall?

I need to know the velocity, dammit. Now I'm tired of this. Found a calculator, here. It says the KE is 29.4 joules. Divide by 3 and you get 9.8 newtons. Dammit again, I'm defeated by the conservation of energy - I must be just measuring transfer between potential energy and kinetic energy. So how do you derive and compare static versus dynamic loads?

UPDATE: People in the comments are doing a much better job with this than I did.

The Reasonable Libertarian approach to polygamy

There's been a lot of blogosphere hand-wringing over polygamy lately, occasioned by some polygamy-themed TV show I don't feel a need to see called "Big Love." Much of the hand-wringing comes from people who embrace the libertarian arguments for gay marriage, and then have problems applying the same principles to polygamy.

The non-libertarian perspective is oppressive, while the hard-core libertarian is unrealistic. The Reasonable Libertarian approach is better - we agree that adults should control their destinies, but accept a transitional period where young adults assume their autonomy over time, and don't acquire full rights until the end.

So:

1. No one under the age of 25 can be in a polygamous marriage.

2. Everyone in a marriage must consent (or be divorced) before an additional person is added.

3. Economic benefits from society (like survivor benefits from Social Security) are given to only one person or are divided proportionally among a person's spouses.

The age limit and consent provisions would prevent much of the exploitation we see with polygamy, and dividing economic benefits would stop it from being unfair to the rest of society. Yes, there will be some 25 year olds who will enter exploitative relationships, but at that age one can say it was much more of a choice than for an 18-year old.

I expect in modern societies with modern education, modern life spans, and modern divorce rates, the specter of countless "unmarriageable males" who can't find a wife and degenerate into warlike behavior is also unlikely.

Is this really so hard?

P.S. Krakauer's book on Mormon fundamentalists and polygamy, Under the Banner of Heaven, is excellent.

Mom, the criminal

Email from my mother:

We have a plot. From Sister Ann, who spoke to us last week, we get an undocumented worker to attend a church dinner or one at our home, everyone who comes brings a dish, we feed the worker, then all go to the police and confess. That is, if the Sensenbrenner law passes. Many of us in the church have been writing, faxing, phoning our lawmakers and Bush. A legislative aide told us 2 weeks ago that representatives pay more attention to volume of mail than to polls. So we need to get the volume up.

Love,
Mom

I guess the "persecuted Christian" meme on the right might finally have some validity to it.

Located at last! The elusive, conservative science blogger!

Several months ago, I was given a quest to find a science blogger who also expressed conservative politics. I found nothing, and while I vaguely remembered some dinosaur-themed blog, I couldn't nail that one down either. No more.

Meet the conservative science blog,

Deinonychus antirrhopus

Well, that's done. Happy, Kevin?

I better kick him before he's gone

Washingtonpost.com's new hard core right-wing blogger, Ben Domenech of the group blog Redstate.org, appears to have a plagiarism problem. I assume he's not going to last for very long. No response to the plagiarism accusation on his blog yet, just some partial retractions of other mistakes.

So before he's gone, can I just mention that Redstate bloggers denied global warming, and then never replied to my challenge to bet over it? I suppose I should also say it was his fellow bloggers putting out the nonsense, but I don't notice him refuting them either.

Terrible lawprof commentary on NPR, and a blogging note

National Public Radio this morning had a terrible commentary by law professor Douglas Kmiec on the wiretapping issue, and I thought it was terrible even before I realized he was a conservative prof.

The first thing that struck me was his saying it was inappropriate for Congress to bring up extreme hypothetical examples. A basic tool of legal analysis is to use hypothetical examples, and "fighting the hypothetical" is a classic mistake for law students in their first-ever classes. If your legal principle can't handle hypothetical examples at all levels you intend to apply it, that means there's something wrong with your principle. If your legal principle is butting up against other legal principles, that's fine - acknowledge the potential conflict and draw boundaries as best you can. In Bush's case, he isn't acknowledging any countervailing principle to stand up to the "unitary executive power," so he has even less excuse - if you take an extreme position, let's see you defend it.

Second was his saying that he purposefully gave a vague answer to a vague question, leaving it to his congressional audience to think about nuances. You're the expert, man, you provide the nuance and use it to demonstrate what legal principles are in play.

Third was telling Congress to ignore the majority opinion in a Supreme Court case examining executive power and listen to the concurring opinion instead. Majority opinion = the law, while concurring opinion = not the law.

Fourth was his emphasis on the concurring opinion statement that they shouldn't examine hypotheticals. That MIGHT be reasonable advice to a court that's supposed to limit itself to a particular case or controversy, but it's ridiculous to apply it to a Congress that's supposed to set broad policy covering a range of issues.

Fifth, and the only overtly political issue, was his saying Congress and the President need to show mutual resolve. It was Bush that refused to seek Congressional authorization for his wiretapping, and given what over-broad latitude he's being allowed now, his inaction must be because he wanted no real oversight at all. In other words, Kmiec is lecturing to the wrong side on the issue of working together.

Very unimpressive, but probably the best that the pro-wiretappers could come up with.

And now my completely different note - I haven't been blogging much lately. My interest ebbs and flows between blogging myself and commenting on other peoples' blogs, and I've also been busy. I'm very glad and grateful that some folks want to hear what I've got to say. I do expect to blog from time to time, but at a reduced rate, so you might want to use an RSS feed as a more efficient way to see if I've posted instead of checking the website itself. Regardless, thanks for stopping by!

Am I just another Fred Hutchison? What would Richard Lindzen say?

Fred Hutchison is an idiot (no, that's not enough to answer the first question posed above) who thinks he's smarter than Darwin AND Einstein, and also thinks he's disproven the scientific consensus on global warming. But when I read his incredibly smarmy replay of how he supposedly out-debated scientists defending Einstein and global warming, I thought I saw a little of myself in his style. (I didn't bother reading the Einstein stuff; the global warming stuff was beyond ridiculous, and Belette refutes him here.)

The overlap between me and my man Fred comes in the form of Richard Lindzen, one of a very small number of respected climatologists that disagree with the consensus position on global warming. I have to concede from the outset that Lindzen knows more than I do about climate, and can even understand better than I can whatever comes out in the form of new research. Who am I to say that Lindzen is wrong? This is a relevant question to more people than just me - how is a high school graduate supposed to judge a Creationist lecturer who has a Master's degree in Biology?

This might not be too relevant to the science bloggers on my blogroll - they ARE the experts in their field. The rest of us need to consider it though.

I think there are several ways to judge someone with superior knowledge without being another Fred:

• Judge the debate, not the analysis. While I can't refute Lindzen, Real Climate can. Even with just amateur knowledge of the issues, I think RC has nailed Lindzen to a post. While a little knowledge may be dangerous, a little more on top of that could be helpful. With that much, you can figure out who won the argument. For what it's worth, this is how the adversarial legal model works - judges aren't expected to become experts in the trial issues, but rather to know enough to judge which of the two expert lawyers at trial is correct.

• A strong consensus means something - if 4 out 5 dentists recommend sugarless gum, do you go and stuff sugar into your mouth or not? Maybe that one single dentist or one climatologist is right, but the odds aren't looking good, and meanwhile we have to make a decision. This may not be a purely scientific response, but the real question is about what policy recommendations to make - do we teach Creationism in schools this year? Do we increase the gas tax? An expert consensus suggests which way to lean on these questions, and Lindzen is far outside of the mainstream.

• Examine the experts for sincerity. Some years ago I attended a lecture by Steve Schneider where he showed a graph depicting top climatogists' "uncertainty range" for projected temperature changes. All of them had large uncertainty ranges, except for Lindzen. That unwarranted confidence completely undermined him in my eyes. The RC post linked above also showed arguments that Lindzen must have known and ignored in his presentations. If someone is hiding something, it's because his argument is weak.

All the above requires some knowledge of the field, but I think it's enough to allow an amateur to judge between experts. And, Dr. Lindzen, if you think I'm still just another Fred, please feel free to bet me over it.

Abortion different from ending pregnancy

William Saletan has an interesting Op-Ed in today's Washington Post, arguing that technology is making first-trimester abortions increasingly easy, while making people more ethically-troubled about second-trimester abortions. He suggests the great abortion debate could be mostly resolved by easy access to contraception and early-abortion methods, while later abortions become discouraged and rare.

I agree that the physical similarity of an older fetus to a baby will increasingly make a distinction in people's minds about the ethics of abortion in those cases, although what I think should really matter is brain function and development, not body shape. Technology could take this issue one step further though.

Saletan writes about how medical advances have pushed fetal viability to ever-earlier stages. A point he doesn't touch on is how this could ultimately solve the infringement of bodily autonomy, where women are forced to remain pregnant for the sake of the fetus. I think the day won't be that far away when women can end (abort) their pregnancies any time after the first twelve weeks without killing the fetus. Women then would retain bodily autonomy, but lose the right to kill the fetus after the fetus reaches a level of development where it's considered to have some innate moral value.

So the end result would have legalized abortion in the first trimester, and women would also have the right thereafter to end their pregnancy at any time, but not to kill the fetus. I expect this solution would have plenty of problems, not least of which is the expense and failure rate of the new technology, but it might be a significant improvement over the present.

My nod to the 911 conspiracy theories

Among some of my friends, I'm the right wing conservative, because I don't think Bush and other top US officials purposefully caused the collapse of the Twin Towers. So far, the conspiracy arguments haven't persuaded me. A good rundown (from the wikipedia neutralish point of view) of the conspiracy theories is here.

The conspiracy theories often consider the 911 Commission to be part of a coverup. I've thought the 911 Commission did a good job of explaining what happened and making recommendations, but I've disliked its unwillingness to assign blame. My earlier thought was that Clinton clearly did a better job at fighting terrorism than Bush, so the Dems on the Commission could have gone after Bush, but they didn't just so they could achieve unanimity on recommendations.

My nod to conspiracy theories takes things one step further. Even if Clinton did more than Bush, he wasn't perfect. The 911 Commission could have been protecting Democrats as well as Republicans when it refused to assign blame.

As for other evidence in support of a conspiracy, there are some open issues still, but none of the claims have convinced me.

Arrgh! Which herd do I follow mindlessly?

I'm a normally-enthusiastic member of the "Bush Is Beyond Horrible" herd, which is quite upset over the whole Dubai Port World proposal to operate American ports. But my personal herd of blogs on the left (side of this website) think it's a feeding frenzy without a real security issue. I have no intention of thinking for myself (way too late for me to start doing that), so which herd do I follow?

This may be a Rorsach Test of attitudes toward globalization - those who consider globalization to be innately wrong are going to oppose it. As someone who's cautiously pro-trade, I guess I can stop right there and choose the "it's a freeding frenzy" perspective. If the antis can provide reasonable scenarios where the proposal would actually harm security, though, I might be forced to think. So far, I haven't heard any.

UPDATE: Okay, this says the port operators are also involved with security, so maybe it could be a problem. This media controversy could use some well-developed information. (Via Same Facts.)

I take tests

Economics test #1: I passed this one, so apparently I understand the simple version of "opportunity cost." I remember something from undergrad after all.

Economics test #2: Failed this one, and it's especially annoying because the author didn't give an answer. It's about differentiating between fair trade coffee farming and free range chicken farming. I think Johan has the answer in the comments, if it matters.

As to the larger question the author raises about whether fair trade coffee does any good, I think the argument against it is weak - it really is a premium value added that's superior to regular coffee, not just a way to price discriminate. And if you believe the "unfair trade" coffee workers are paid as badly as their employers can get away with already, then the unfair trade employers can't push wages down all that much further when they lose market share to the fair traders. Michael G.'s comment about emphasizing quality production over social conscience might be the best solution, though.

Real world test: Enough with the exploited workers - what about my needs? I own a Toyota Prius, and I "needed" to install an "Electric Vehicle" switch that would keep the gas engine from turning on. This switch is already installed in Priuses sold outside of North America, and somebody figured out how to rewire our Priuses to enable the switch, and posted the instructions on the Internet. I did it without electrocuting myself. The directions said an average person would take two hours to do it; I took about six. Once again, I'm way above average.

Malkin emulating RP Jr.?

Michelle Malkin reprints an argument that climate-induced, rising sea levels are minor problems compared to land subsidence from groundwater depletion. This sounds to me to be very much like Roger Pielke Jr.'s argument that economic growth will be responsible for more hurricane damage than climate change, so we should "decouple" climate change and hurricane concerns.

Relative scale of impacts is fairly close in both cases - RP Jr. uses a 10% increase in damages from hurricanes, and a half-meter sea level rise is maybe 20% of the subsidence in some of the worst areas (Bangkok was terrible when I was there, and it's been over a decade for things to get worse).

I think "decoupling" climate policy from ocean flooding in subsiding cities is as problematic as decoupling it from hurricanes. These ten percent, twenty percent impacts add up (not literally, but in the sense of societal costs), and they all trace back to climate change.

Meanwhile I need to follow up more thoroughly on Roger's reply to my original post, but that might take a while.

FWIW, Michelle Malkin is one of the stranger right wing bloggers. She's famous for insane, anti-immigrant rhetoric, but she can on occasion be reasonable. She dislikes John Lott, for example. I'm not going to try and figure her out....

My one Dick Cheney shotgunning post

1. I think it's unlikely-but-possible that Cheney and Co. thought they could cover up the shooting, and that would help explain their behavior. Next question if this is true: why did they think a coverup might work? Based on past experience? Seems like a legitimate question for Cheney is whether he's ever shot anyone before.

2. I'm not the only one who's noticed that Cheney's shooting victim was more apologetic than Cheney. What my lawyer side noticed is that Cheney acknowledged responsibility for shooting Whittington and said it ruined his day, but Cheney never acknowledged that he screwed up.

3. The only thing left that I can tell is to ask Cheney whether he accepts the victim's apology and forgives him. I guess it depends on whether Cheney believes that Whittington was sufficiently contrite and sincere in his apology.

Taylor v. Brock v. Althouse

Liberal blogger Brad DeLong wrote a scathing critique of Stuart Taylor (scroll to Feb. 11, permalink may have problems), who in turn wrote a scathing critique of the Bush Administration's Guantanamo Bay detainee policy. Taylor says most detainees are likely to be completely innocent people turned in for bounty money. Why did DeLong criticize someone who's criticizing Bush? DeLong points disgustedly to Taylor's many prior statements in support of the Bush Administration torture regime.

Contrast DeLong's reaction to the generally positive reaction David Brock has received for his book, Blinded By the Right, and his work at Media Matters. Brock had done much worse things in support of the Republican smear machine than anything Taylor said, until Brock repented. I think the key difference is that Brock came all the way around, and apologized and disassociated himself from his past. Taylor just ignored that it ever happened.

Then there's Ann Althouse, a supposedly moderate law blogger, who complains that she gets mostly affirmation from the right and mostly criticism from the left. I think she might be getting the Taylor reaction here - so many years of horror from the Bush Administration, and if all she does is an occasional nod of agreement to the left, she should not be surprised at the underwhelming response.

For what it's worth, I'm probably less critical of Taylor than DeLong, and more wary of Brock than most liberals. As for Althouse, I'm not sure her "moderateness" holds up. After seeing her moderate claim repeated yet another time, I scrolled through every post on her front page, several days ago (there were many, many posts). I counted one and one-half moderate/liberal posts. One said racism was a serious issue, and I gave half-credit for a post saying Bill Clinton has good political skills.

Of her remaining several dozen posts, half or more were apolitical. The rest were either supportive of the Republicans, critical of Democrats, or went on at great length over the horror of the Muslims rioting about the Danish cartoons. While liberals also oppose censorship, the obsession and self-righteousness over the cartoon mess is something I put in the conservative camp. Althouse may have some moderate to liberal views, but they're not a focus of her blog. She might yet make my "Readable Righties" list, but I'll have to think about it.

Bombing Iran is batsh*t crazy

There's a good internal dustup at Same Facts over the wisdom of America's bombing Iran soon or in several years to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. I agree with the "it's batsh*t crazy" faction (this post also pulls together the various arguments and responds to them).

The few points I can add:

• I don't see any strategic or political advantage in the US attacking Iran instead of Israel - the attacking nation will get the majority share of terrorist retribution, so I can see why Israel might want us to do it, but not why we would.
• The major problem with a nuclear Iran isn't that Israel couldn't respond to an overt, Iranian nuclear attack but rather an "unclaimed" nuclear bomb would explode in Israel. There's a way to handle it though. If I were Israel's prime minister, I would right around now use a communication channel to Tehran to tell them that if an Israeli city gets nuked by any unexplained bomb, Israel will pin the blame on Iran with real or fake evidence and retaliate massively. The slight upside from this will be that Iranian secret police will end up helping stop the potential flow of loose nukes from Pakistan or the former soviets.
• My tied-for-best point - we'll be locked into a long-term bombing campaign against Iran if we start. Even assuming that Iran doesn't retaliate with terrorists, I give no chance that they'll abandon their nuclear program. Every five years, we'll have to do it again.
• Other best point - the not-attacking Iran option is the only one that leaves open the possibility that no innocent people die. Not something we should throw away unless we really have no choice.

January 2006 Iraq casualties

Avg. daily military fatality rate (nearly all of them Americans): 2.1. December was 2.16, November was 2.87, and January 2005 was 4.1. Overall average to date is 2.33, same as last month. Total US dead as of today: 2248.

Iraqi monthly military/police fatalities: 194. December was 193, November was 176, and January 2005 was 109. Total dead: 4068.

Iraqi monthly civilian fatalities: 579. December was 344, November was 581, stats begin in March 2005: 240. Note that the civilian numbers may be less accurate than others, but could still be useful in determining trends.

Comments: American and Iraqi military deaths are somewhat low, civilian deaths in the medium-high range. News reports talk about increasing ethnic tensions - maybe groups are attacking each other instead of the authorities? I think we're still waiting to see how political negotiations work out in the new Iraqi parliament - that could change things in either direction, or maybe we'll just continue with the same violent level.

Breaking down the grades for Bush Administration science

Science got a surprising emphasis in yesterday's State of the Union speech by Bush. The President receives some well-deserved kicks from science bloggers, but I think it's useful to split up and grade the administration's general performance so far by category:

Grades:

Use of science in politicized issues (global warming, evolution, etc.): F. I agree with almost everything Chris Mooney has had to say on this subject.

Support for non-politicized science issues (i.e., funding general research): B. This doesn't get as much attention, but under normal circumstances, this would be the most important part of any president's science policy. As far as I know, Bush has mostly avoided interfering as Congress has attempted to increase science funding. This would normally be the most important effect on science 50 years down the line, but we have an abnormal circumstance - Bush's fiddling while the globe warms. That could end up being even more important.

Supporting politicized science: D-plus. Slightly different from the first category - this isn't about using the science but about making that science better. On stem cells he gets an F, on climate change a B-minus (funding for research seems reasonable), endangered species research and Data Quality Act a D to a C.

Space science: C. Same grade I'd give previous administrations - a B for unmanned space science funding, and F for pretending that manned space has anything to do with science. Earlier last year there was an attempt to cut earth observation satellites, which I suspect was intended to slow the accumulating proof of climate change, but that's just a suspicion. Some other shenanigans like a nuclear ion engine to Pluto have been attempted and fought off.

It would be reasonable to reduce every grade by one full letter to reflect how Bush budget deficits will cripple us in the future on all matters, including science funding. As for his promised increases yesterday, I'll wait to see what he submits in terms of funding for the '07 fiscal budget.