The House of David

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Excommunicate Kerry already

John F Kerry was among those who repudiated the value of unborn life. Any such life, even taken against its parents' will. Which, I hasten to add, is Kerry's perogative; but he also claims to be Catholic, and sometimes Jewish.

It's all moot now, though, because Kerry has proven he does not meet the scriptural requirements of either one. The Jews don't have a priesthood any more, sadly; but the Catholics do, and every now and again the priesthood stands up for the faith's own stated doctrines. What's taking them so long in this case?

posted by Zimri on 16:55 | link |

Monday, March 29, 2004

The ancient value of the unborn

I just visited two sites, each of which linked to Allen Brill's blog "The Right Christians"; again, a blog I had never read before. One was from yet another blog I'd never read before: "The Buck Starts Here", who's now being Instalanched. The other was from one of my daily fixes, Protein Wisdom, who is no fan of TRC.

Anyway, in light of the recent Senate vote, TRC gave us the "Obscure Bible passage of the day":

"When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman's husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." Exodus 21:22-25 (NRSV)

Brill points out "The facts could hardly be more on point for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act." True, that. I applaud this man for giving us a relevant Scripture quote.

But Brill also claims that whether the Torah is claiming the fetus is human or not is "complex and ultimately, inconclusive". Begging his pardon, that is only because he is asking the wrong question of this passage. The Torah isn't about human rights, but human obligations. That is why it is called "Torah" - "Law" - and not "Bill of Rights". The Torah cannot apply to creatures unable to comply with it (or else we would be prosecuting wolves for eating wild boars!). The Torah applies to us sentient humans: in this case, whether we have a right to kill the fetus.

The Torah makes three points here that are relevant to believing Jews (and Christians and Muslims). First is that the fetus has value ~~of a human baby~~ (which is not the same as "human rights"!). Second is that the person who harms one ought to pay a penalty. Third - and here be the controversy - this penalty ought to be such that will satisfy the bereft household.

The pericope associates the ruling with the lex talionis. Now, the lex talionis typically kicks in when there has been personal damage done, up to murder; hence "life for life" even here. Since that law only limits revenge attacks, rather than ending them, the ancients had as of Torah-time already attempted to replace that system with what we Anglo-Saxons call the weregeld, literally "man-money". Some judge would weigh the victim's value to society, the heinousness of the crime, and the ability of the murderer to pay; come up with a suitably ruinous fine; and get that thug to pony up - to someone. Therefore: the Torah treats the fetus as a type of ~~baby~~valuable for the household.

The Torah decided that the legal father stands in for said household. This is because the Torah assumes that the father and mother are the most aggrieved parties, after the baby; and, in good Bronze Age fashion, that the father is in the best position to use the money in the service of his house. This Torah passage therefore must assume that the woman is married and that the baby is the husband's. (This has other implications for the pro/antiabortion debate, which are irrelevant here...)

Since we no longer live in the Bronze Age, we satisfy the berieved with means other than eye-for-eye or Weregeld. We have a justice system, which takes into account society's interest in keeping criminals from committing more crimes. Those of us who hope to have children just plain don't want to put up with those who are willing and able to murder the babes of pregnant women.

The Torah and the UVVA agree that the fetus has value; and that those who would harm it ought to be punished ~~as if it were a full-term baby~~. Whether you believe the fetus is a person, or just a possession of a household, is not relevant to either. Brill is right that the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is a modern version of Exodus 21:22-25. ~~No person who opposes this Act may call himself a Jew or Christian in honesty.~~

UPDATE 11/8/2009: I was wrong. The UVVA is a Christian overreaction to the passage and alien to the intent of the Torah. Read this.

Labels: abortion, antiquity, apology, religion

posted by Zimri on 18:21 | link |

Monday, March 22, 2004

Rationalism and race

The blog "Who Lights the Fires", which I had never read before, has posted on Anti-Rationalism. You should read that now; it is good, and I haven't anything to add to it. I'm instead going to riff on a throwaway comment within it:

One of the reasons that Left and Right don't work as the actual divisive line is that you can find as almost many instances of stubbornly antirational thought and dogmatic thinking on the right as one can on the left. At the risk of laying myself open to flaming, SSM and race are two areas that bring out the dogmatic on both sides. Ditto for Religion. You can also find it in the hardcore libertarian and independant political camps. It's a worldview, not a Party.

I'm not sure if he intended the order: first, same-sex marriage (if that is what he meant by "SSM"); second, race; and third, religion. Even the order is a matter of perspective. I haven't let SSM bother me, because I can't see how what a couple of dudes do in another state has any impact on my day-by-day doings. And my attitude to religion is on par to my attitude toward Star Trek: it's evidently not true; on the one hand the cheesy sets and occasional bright spots make it fun to watch; on the other hand I don't want Ricardo Montalban fanatics interrupting history classes, demanding the truth about 1996 and the Eugenics Wars, didn't you ever watch Space Seed?

Race, though, matters to me; because I have one. I'm mongrel European/ Central Asian/ Jewish, which averages to the "White" side, by our terms. As you guessed by the preceding sentence, I don't have "White Pride". I don't have "White guilt", either. I often think that since I'm a mongrel, and since a lot of other White folk are too, that the whole "race" thing can go take a running jump.

But then I notice something else. I may not be wholly Western but I'm very much Northern. I'd have to dig back to the late Roman Empire before I could find any ancestors that I'm pretty sure hailed from the Mediterranean. Not all people set their civilisational recent-past / ancient-world dividing lines in the High Middle Ages, like I do for my lineage(s). Some people started out from China and Africa. And others started out from Spain. These people are going to have a completely different set of cultural references.

What if I did end up in a minority position, in a place where the majority populace hailed from another culture? If I did not act like everyone else, I suspect I'd be discriminated against. I'm in an officially colour-blind society: great - what is it getting me, now? I would then have to choose: accept my (low) status, move elsewhere, or adapt. Like Blacks and Whites have been doing in Miami.

Not all my White "brothers and sisters" would move or adapt. I have a sinking feeling that those who remained, and sank to the bottom rungs of the social ladder, would sour on the idea of "colour-blindness". They'd start thinking that hey, maybe this affirmative-action thing wasn't such a bad idea after all. "Why give up our culture." If we haven't got anything else, then why not nurture a grievance...

Race is all about groupthink. Your group, if it is ascendant, gets you privilege - and the dirty secret of government is that your right to what you already own is a privilege, secured by State force. If you have thing X, other people don't know or care if you worked hard for it; they just know that you have thing X. If you have privilege or, if you like, "privilege": then you'd like to keep it. If not, then you'd like to take it. Either way, you'd prefer to do so without working for it. That is why people form groups. Gangs. Political parties.

That is why talk about race is anti-rational.

posted by Zimri on 21:57 | link |

Sunday, March 21, 2004

It's Halloween, every day

I've figured it out. The terrorists want to drive us all to the poorhouse, while giving our friends gum infections and stomachaches. How else can you explain this?

UPDATE:

To the dismay of those that stood by, all about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.

(From Spiny Norman)

posted by Zimri on 22:09 | link |

Thursday, March 18, 2004

The reason Christians convert to Islam

So consider what happens when a Prophet comes, promising sects of feuding Christians to "judge between you, and God will bring you all to Him to tell you about what you once disputed". The people can continue bickering over their questionable theology, and holding to the flawed canon that fueled it; or else they can accept the new holy book, and agree to quit discussing the nature of God-The-One.

That is why this new holy book calls itself both a "guidance" and a "mercy" to those who believe. Once you've defined yourself as a "believer", then what you end up believing becomes a bridge of eternal peril, and you'd better have the right answer ready. A Muslim may not be able to follow the Five Pillars, or may disagree with points of practice; but at least his faith is both simple and defensible.

Christianity appeals to people who need to be loved, and Islam appeals to people who need to be commanded. Assuming religious freedom, one's mental state will determine one's religion.

posted by Zimri on 18:30 | link |

The Davidson Crusade

Christians like to say that "we" - meaning, Christians - "are all one in Christ Jesus". But when Christians discuss Trinitarianism - the mathematically preposterous doctrine that God is both three and one - they resort to violence.

The cops say the Davidsons "missed the point" of the Christian movie they'd been watching. I beg to differ. This "Davidson Crusade" is a common fruit of two traits of this religion. First, the founding documents of Trinitarian Christianity don't provide enough information to define "Trinitarianism". Second, Trinitarianism is deadly serious business, because a misstep must end in blaspheming the Holy Spirit. If a position cannot be considered rationally, and the stakes of this position are high enough, then death, submission, or separation are the only possible resolutions.

I'm surprised this even counts as news. Arguments over the nature of the Trinity used to rage all over the Near East for centuries. They're not done with all that to this day: witness Croatia and Serbia.

Christianity will be ever at its own throat, until it dies from this world.

posted by Zimri on 18:02 | link |

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Gibraltar

Gibraltar sits in the strait between Spain and Morocco. Britain owns it. There are a couple of towns on the Moroccan coast; Ceuta and Melilla. Spain owns those.

Morocco wants Ceuta + Melilla, and Spain wants Gibraltar. But then... the very word "Gibraltar" is but a corruption of Jibal Tariq. That is: the "rock of Tariq" in Arabic, not the "rock of Saint George" in English. Gibraltar is part of the dar al-islam just as much as Ceuta + Melilla.

I've been watching this new Spanish prime minister. I don't think he's got the cojones for a fight with Islamic extremists over Ceuta + Melilla. I suspect that if Spain does acquire Gibraltar, Spain will not hold the rock for long.

I suggest that Tony Blair keep this in mind...

posted by Zimri on 23:52 | link |

Notes on the new Blackmoor map

I'm looking at the Blackmoor Map Preview.

I see the new Blackmoor will be retaining the Afridhi forts - Peiwar, Wazir, Sharpur, Orakzai, Khost, and Mahsud - from DA4. These forts weren't even on DA1's map. So the best parts of DA4 - the Afridhi stranglehold over the Duchy of Ten - all that's probably going to stay. (By the way, the fort names are all taken wholesale off sites in Afghanistan / Pakistan. We're talking Great Game here. This DA-style Blackmoor's going to be more topical today than it ever was in the 1990's.)

Also in the west - the Barrier Swamp is taking up more space, the Gargoyle Hills have been shifted to the Empty Lands, and most of those Empty Lands are now taken up with Barrens of Karsh. I must state that those changes are welcome. Past due, in fact. It stretched credulity that those prairies, as designed in the DA series, should have remained Empty for so long. Now we know they're not prairies but wastelands. Who'd want to live there?

Further south, the full extent of the High Hak is no longer shown; which is good, because I never liked those mountains on their southern border. Nothing said "I've run out of ideas" quite like fencing off a section of land that, by cosmic coincidence, follows the straight line of an east-west map. That's no longer a problem.

The Hills of Gor are now level plain - i.e. gone - and the Blasted Woods are smaller (and actually look blasted this time, which is nice). The High Hak now expands into their spot. Now that is a pity. I'd wanted to use the Blasted Woods area for a new barony, so I could fortify Gor and extort tolls on the Gold Road. Ah well, I guess the same applies here - the designer requires a reason why the place hasn't got any towns in it...

I suspect the cartographer made some mistakes. "Archlis" is apparently "Archus", now. Also, the label "The Eastern Hak" is running east-to-west right below Dragonia. Definitely not the Hak I grew up with! The cartographer would have done better to set that label much further south, and to orient it southwest-to-northeast.

All in all, it looks good so far; particularly on the western front.

posted by Zimri on 22:13 | link |

D&D geek news

On my off hours, sometimes I like to escape into the fantasy worlds of Dungeons & Dragons. One example is here: Blackmoor: Home of the Ancients. That site is mostly the home of the "Blackmoor Gazetteer", which was the culmination of about five years (1993-1998) of fantasising about the old D&D setting of "Blackmoor", by Dave Arneson. (Yes, THAT Dave Arneson...)

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Zeitgeist Games, informing me that they are working with Dave Arneson on a new Blackmoor game.

It's going to be different than we've grown used to. For a start, there's more respect for Arneson's wishes. As a corollary, Zeitgeist have agreed to toss most of module DA4 out of the canon. I'd long heard rumblings of Arneson's dissatisfaction with it; on such good authority that I had to warn the readers of that in "start.rtf" of the Gazetteer. As a result, I don't expect the new Blackmoor to look much like "afridhi.rtf" - and much else is likely to digress from the DA style, too.

Accordingly I think it best that I not do any more work on the Blackmoor Gazetteer, or the map, or for that matter the rest of the site. My reasoning goes: first, I hadn't touched it in three years anyway; and second, I don't want to be second-guessing the new Blackmoor Canon.

I'll keep that site and the old Gazetteer up there until I'm asked not to; amazingly, I still haven't been asked not to, and in fact Zeitgeist and Arneson seem to appreciate what I've done so far. I told Zeitgeist they are welcome to use my stuff all they want - as I've said before, it's not "my" stuff so much as a compilation and interpretation of Arneson's stuff.

Count me as one fan who is eagerly awaiting the finished product. Maybe I'll do other sites on the theme after it comes out.

posted by Zimri on 21:36 | link |

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Shame on you, Matt Drudge

For completely ignoring stirrings of freedom in Kurdistan and Iran. I first noticed these events in the NRO Corner. I can understand the mainstream media avoiding it - after all, the good guys might win and then Bush would get a boost (horrors!) - but Drudge?

Subhana Allahu, al-hamdi lahu for blogs. A Small Victory, for example. Peace upon her and upon her favourite camel.

posted by Zimri on 20:20 | link |

Muddle instead of music

When I was posting about the composer Shostakovich, I had some choice things to say about it. Contemporary critics had equally choice things to say about his earlier work:

The listener from the very first minute is stunned by the opera's intentionally unharmonious muddled flow of sounds. Snatches of melody, embryos of musical phrases drown, escape, and once again vanish in rumbling, creaking, and squealing. To follow this 'music' is difficult, to remember it impossible.

So who was this Russian music critic with whom I agreed so closely? Don't ask. Just... don't... ask. And don't click on that link.

On that note, I'm going to bed.

Maybe I'll dream about Vladimir Putin.

posted by Zimri on 00:28 | link |

Monday, March 15, 2004

The perfect against the good

I've posted below, that in my opinion Aznar's folly is what swung the election against him. What I didn't post - although I implied it - is that on Saturday, I considered posting an anti-Aznar endorsement in this blog. (I did however mention something like it in correspondence...)

I am not very forgiving of people claiming to be on my side who let me down. My side is generally Republican, because I'm pro-life and pro-free-trade. But I'm also pro-freedom and pro-reason. When a Republican runs against one or both of the latter two, I get upset. I may even support one of his opponents: Ross Perot in 1992, a Libertarian in 2002, and two(!) Democrats (out of five!) last year.

And as much as I am for reason, in the short term I'm not always reasonable. Over here, that means I often post before I've quite finished thinking. Now, that doesn't always matter: as an example, what Reynolds posted yesterday really was a work in progress, and worked well enough as a summary of two points I was trying to make. But sometimes it does matter. Maybe I would have been upset enough at Aznar to work against his party, however feebly.

We're seeing similar behaviour among those Republicans considering abandoning Bush on account of gay marriage. Suppose Bush lost and Kerry took over. Kerry doesn't mandate gay marriage, but it arises naturally in numerous states. Great news for those who are for it... right? Well: yeah, until the fanclub of suras-4-and-11 go nuke San Francisco; until the Saudis decide it's a good time to jack up prices some more; until a stack of other countries fall to anti-American tyrants - basically, because under Kerry, they'd know they could get away with it. That's a lot to give up for a cause.

I wonder what proportion of the Popular Party's detractors based their vote on Aznar's folly - what proportion felt as I did on Sunday morning. 5% would have swung it. If so, that would amount to one of the most damaging collective hissy fits in history. "A victory for an ideal", indeed. (Some disclosure here: I don't think the Socialists are going to be an improvement over the PP. I think they're going to be a disaster; for America, for the West, for Europe ... and ultimately for Spain.)

In politics, one can't always get what one wants. One has to decide between what one is left with, upon that final ballot on that final Election Day. In American terms, the perfect candidate rarely makes the primaries. You can vote for "just barely good enough" or for "rotten". Life just isn't fair. That is something I, too, have to learn.

posted by Zimri on 20:56 | link |

The "Glass Award" for journalistic ethics

(A concept stolen from Andrew Sullivan; begging his pardon.)

Check out this steaming pile from up Massachusetts-way:

KERRY: "I've been hearing it, I'll tell ya. The news, the coverage in other countries, the news in other places. I've met more leaders who can't go out and say it all publicly, but boy they look at you and say, you gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that. So there is enormous energy out there. Tell them, whereever they can find an American abroad, they can contribute," a reference to donations, prompting laughter from the crowd.

The "reporter" who transcribed it, a Patrick Healy, had originally claimed that the phrase underlined was I've met foreign leaders. This is his rationale for changing it:

Transcribing on the bus in Florida, and again on the plane ride to Tampa, I heard "foreign leaders" rather than "more leaders." Listening to the audio recorder now, in the quiet of my house, I hear "more leaders" and I am certian that "more leaders" is what Senator Kerry said. I am very sorry for this screw-up, and please feel free to hold me accountable to your editors and higher-ups.

Oh no you don't, Patrick. Just because you've caused a little trouble for your partisan masters, doesn't mean you get to re-write history.

"More leaders". In THAT context. Dude. I'm falling off my chair laughing at this. It's that funny.

Here is where the House of David gets to play to its strengths... redaction criticism (o joy!). Let's just explain all this in words even a Florida voter can understand...

Kerry was talking about people abroad, in other countries, who can't say it publicly (so they're not leaders of the Democrats). Kerry was responding to a comment concerning anti-Bush attitudes in more than just the 50 states (the US only has the 50 states) and around outside the states (which, from a stateside perspective, would be classified as "foreign"). Not to mention, that John Frickin' Kerry hasn't said ONE WORD to dispute that he'd said that other, more subversive F-word. Instead, he's been telling us it's "none of our business" who's been praying for his election. (I can only hope it's not the Dear Leader and various Ayatollahs; the context also mentions Europeans and elsewhere.) Kerry all but spelled the word f-o-r-e-i-g-n for us.

As for Patrick's alternative, more leaders... more leaders than what? That's not even relevant.

Bugger off, Patrick; save it for your movie and book deals, so I can hurry up and ignore them.

posted by Zimri on 19:53 | link |

Saudi war

OPEC have raised their oil prices to record levels.

The American Thinker believes, and documents, that oil prices are a Saudi weapon. An Adam Seimenski at the Deutsche Bank asserts, by contrast, that the Saudis want Bush to win - but does not document this claim, beyond saying that Kerry has promised a harder line. Yeah, yeah, and Clinton promised a harder line against China in 1992. No-one believes the "Vietnam Veterans Against The War" poster-boy will cash the checks his mouth is writing - not even, especially not even, his supporters.

The previous oil-price record was set in May 2001. That was soon after George W Bush barely won, and we'd just got into a tiff with China - and the exact month Senator James Jeffords switched parties (okay, "left one party and caucused with the other" - spare me the semantics). We were also facing a stock bubble bust and an economic decline. I seem to remember that something else happened later that year.

As of now, Bush is struggling, the wars drag on, and there's Spain to worry about. Such a coincidence that prices are up now.

It certainly adds credence to the American Thinker's idea. I think we can now use oil prices as an index to what Saudi Arabia believes it can get away with, relative to the US.

posted by Zimri on 00:23 | link |

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Who's next

A couple years back, al-Qaida hit a French tanker. I posted that this was a symbolic reversal of Battle of Poitiers. In that line, the next targets seemed clear to me: Vienna, Rome, Poland (if they can reach it) ... and Spain. Debka agrees, except that instead of Poland it substitutes Turkey.

Razib at Gene Expression reminds me that Spain is the odd country in the list. Since I am European, I based my list on mediaeval Islam's European frontiers. Razib has run a contrary list based on Islam's past centres of greatness. This list naturally includes Spain, but also Sicily and Gujarat.

posted by Zimri on 23:58 | link |

The new religion

Since I'd read my Lee Harris, I've long since reached the conclusion that al-Qaida had ceased to be an organisation. The Madrid bombing did not come from Osama bin Laden. It was a copycat attack. Bin Laden knew his Islam backward and forward; the thugs of Madrid knew little of Islam outside the Qur'an. Bin Laden has been out of the picture for years in any case. All he did here was inspire the bloody thing.

Al-Qaida is the new world religion. It is part of Islam now, but only insofar as early Mormonism was part of Christianity. It threatens to draw millions of converts. Most will hail from the Islamic faith, but many more will be converts from nihilism and Marxism to nominal "Islam". I expect these believers will use public displays of Islamic ritual and piety to cover their tracks.

posted by Zimri on 23:39 | link |

Why blame ETA?

My post below made a number of assertions of vast scope: that (1) Aznar had focused on ETA too quickly, (2) it was DAMN stupid of him, and (3) it lost him the election. As a side effect, it assumed Aznar had done it as a smokescreen (since updated into the memory hole).

Corsair has updated his original post, calling me out on that last aspect of it (yay! comments trolling works!):

What some people seem to be saying is that Aznar's party didn't want it to be Al Qaeda attacking due to his support for Bush. He would rather it was homegrown ETA which wasn't connected to Iraq. I initially looked at it another way. As soon as they cameout saying it was ETA and not Al Qaeda, I assumed they were covering for the Muslims. Remember Bush and his "Islam is a religion of peace" nonsense in the White House days after our own attacks? In our case it was to keep the natives peaceful and not go running down to the local 7-11 and attack Apu. In Spain's case it appeared to me to be more French-style appeasement. "Don't say bad things about the Islamics or they might get all 'splody on us and start killing more."

(Remember, bloggers, if you give into the trolls, the trolls will have won! Okay, okay, that was in poor taste...)

I guess now is the time to explain myself. I note Corsair and I have already agreed over whether Aznar's fall is bad for the West (it is), and whether Aznar could have avoided it (he could). What is at stake here, is whether it was all due to Rightish overreach (henceforth the "Corsair#1 Proposal"), or to Leftish pandering ("Corsair#2", Corsair's own opinion).

If Corsair#2 had been the reason - that Aznar was trying to make nicey-nicey with the Iqtal-al-Andalus crowd - then we'd expect Aznar to have said instead, "well, we haven't yet done this investigation; we've got various leads" and also "no commente, senor" or whatever-it-is in Spanish. Then he could have said, "don't blame your Muslim or Basque neighbour, he's only trying to get by just like you". Note that in this case, Aznar would have done the right thing, whatever his motives. Talk about win-win!

By contrast, consider Corsair#1. On that logic, ETA's involvement would have justified Aznar's anti-ETA work (which was actually rather effective, until ETA started visiting the Near East to see how the pros did it). Aznar's party (Aznar wasn't personally running) would have gotten the push to keep plugging away at it.

In light of the above, I think it most likely that Corsair#1 is the reason Aznar made his mistake. I think that Aznar was hoping the bombing wasn't connected with Iraq.

UPDATE: I've changed these posts a lot already. I emailed Glenn Reynolds, and he clicked on that post like a panther. Much faster than I could change/fix it. So he's got the original, raw-data, "Real Deal". So... er... don't think of the original post as an unformed, uninformed, slapped-together bit of Internet trolling... think of it as a "work in progress"! Yeah!

Anyway, I thank Glenn for the Instalanche (tm). He says "I suppose we'll find out" - I'm guessing, in general: who committed the crime of 3/11, what were the motives of the Spanish electorate today, and what (as in, WTF?!) Aznar was thinking. Indeed.

posted by Zimri on 20:52 | link |

What the Iberians think

For an antidote to the whining and whinging of the Bushies, here is a Catalan take, in English. (He also writes in one of the Latinate Iberian languages, I'm not sure which. Spanish or Catalan or some Aragonian dialect.)

posted by Zimri on 20:27 | link |

Head spinning

There's a LOT of commentary to wade through tonight... Spain's was the most important election since the East European / Nicaraguan elections of the early 1990's. More important than Mexico 2000; more important than Taiwan's; much more important than those of Germany, France, and Britain. I can only compare it with Venezuela and Chavez.

posted by Zimri on 19:49 | link |

The wages of deceit

In Spain, the anti-Aznar party won. Corsair calls it a capitulation to the forces of darkness along the lines of the movie High Noon.

This is clearly bad for America in the short term. There goes our strongest Spanish-speaking ally; expect more problems on our southern border.

But while we are talking about the short term, remember this: Mr Anzar loudly leapt to the conclusion it was ETA (in the name of no God; alone; no associate to it), at the very onset of the investigation. Evidence soon mounted that this was done by al-Qaida sympathisers, starting with public announcements from the terrorists themselves. Aznar simply couldn't hide it all, much as he tried at the beginning; when the arrests finally did come, they came too late. Given Aznar's stake in making it look non-Iraq-related, he acted exactly as if he were manipulating a tragedy for political advantage. And whatever his motives, he did it in the most clumsy manner I have seen in years.

Worse, by going off on that tangent, Aznar impeded the investigation. That means: even from a pro-War perspective, he was ineffective at prosecuting the European front of it. That is unforgivable.

The voters punished him for his sins. Justly. "Capitulation" doesn't even come into it. Yes there were some terrorist appeasers and sympathisers voting for the Socialists, but I bet the majority of anti-Aznarites feel as I do.

It is a defeat for America, but a victory for the ideal of truth in government. A pity the two should be on opposite sides, but in this case at least it wasn't Bush's fault.

UPDATE: This post is no longer for whether I think Aznar did manipulate the tragedy. For that, see my later post further up.

posted by Zimri on 19:17 | link |

Thy brother's bloods

[Before I start, I'd just like to take some time to credit those who inspired the latest post. It came out of a loud, drunken conversation (well, on my end - I hadn't had dinner) with fellow bloggers last Thursday. Go check out the sites for Irfan and Victory (are those cool names or what?). I'd promised to blog this then, but I was too busy on Friday and I couldn't remember anything on time on Saturday.]

In the Jewish commentary on Torah called Mishnah, the book Sanhedrin 4:5 reads as follows -

Concerning Cain who slew his brother, we have found that it is said concerning him, 'The voice of thy brother's bloods crieth.' He saith not 'Thy brother's blood' but 'Thy brother's bloods' -- his blood and the blood of his descendents. On this account was Adam created alone to teach thee that everyone who destroyeth one soul out of Israel, the Scripture reckoneth it unto him as if had destroyed the whole world, and everyone who preserveth alive one soul out of Israel, the Scripture reckoneth it unto him as if he had preserved alive the whole world.

The Qur'an's surat al-Maidah verse 32 (5:32) did not repeat this understanding of Qabil and Habil, but instead referred to it. (It also, confusingly, merges it with the expanded version of "Cain and Abel" found in Jewish legend - in this case, Pirqey Rabbi Eliezer.) The sura assumed the reader would have read Sanhedrin or at least known its argument.

Mishnah Sanhedrin's case is similar to the case C.S. Lewis propounded in The Abolition of Man. This essay builds on the assumption that the living and adult generation has always held great power over the generations to come. The movie The Butterfly Effect is another example of a study on the theme of the present's tyranny over the future.

Both The Abolition of Man and The Butterfly Effect understand that the greatest and final power is the power to create life and to bring death. As it is written in Torah: when one proposes to "shed blood", one is not shedding blood but bloods. The killer is forever erasing a life's contribution to humanity (good or bad): both his potential offspring, and his potential effect on his peers.

Sura 5:32 used this interpretation not to abolish the death penalty but to justify it, against those who wage war on the Islamic community. I submit that despite its distracting digression into Jewish legend, this was not an example of "Qur'anic incoherence". The sura understood what it was proposing. The sura - which considers itself the word of Allah - grants authority to the alladhîna amanû to arbitrate the Butterfly Effect. It believes that there are people so villainous that the world would be a better place without them, without their influence, and without their children. On those assumptions, the sura permits the Muslim ruler to judge between bloodlines and possibilities.

Surat al-Maidah agrees with C.S. Lewis: this power must devolve to the State. But then the State will have that power. Is the state more righteous than Allah?

Those who believe in the state's right to enforce capital punishment, and those who believe in the woman's right to choose, should know what it is they advocate.

posted by Zimri on 10:28 | link |

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Hostile work environment

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is famously biased Left-ward. It turns out that one of their alumnae, Susan Lindauer, turned out to be on Saddam Hussein's payroll too.

The first aspect that strikes me is the career arc. From Fortune to the SPI to Carol Moseley-Braun's staff to ... Saddam Hussein. Why do the Primal Scream lyrics "driftin'... driftin'..." keep running through my mind, I wonder.

I'm interested in what Lindauer's neighbour meant by "she lives in a fantasy world". What sort of fantasy, I wonder?

Another is that the SPI's newsroom culture is seeing its "journalists" drift so easily between reporting and politics. But the SPI is still an impartial news source, right? It's just that the Democratic Party is so obviously the mainstream choice today.

I submit that these dots are connectible. These way-out-Leftists enter into their insular little cliques, loudly denouncing HalliburtonCheneySharonWolfowitz over their lattés, and then finally someone decides to do something about it.

Perhaps the editor of the SPI needs to take a good look at his employees, and think to himself how he can improve his newsroom culture toward more openmindedness.

posted by Zimri on 17:23 | link |

Basques and Arabs

The Basques, and not the Arabs, were responsible for the mediaeval death of Roland. These days the Basques and Arabs are being contrarily blamed for a more modern outrage against the defenders of the West.

I don't have enough information to lend an opinion on this particular event. I do know that even leaving this aside, both Basques and Arabs both have a lot to answer for: and not just their terrorists, but those who continue to lend them support and excuses.

UPDATE 3/14: Dan Darling has a report on ETA and al-Qaida synchronicity.

posted by Zimri on 17:12 | link |

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Iraq and Alabama

Steven den Beste, in the course of fisking Kerry, writes:

Creating a single democratic nation out of three major ethnic factions and numerous tribes, some of whom have been violently opposed to one another intermittently for centuries, and including members of two religious sects each of which categorizes the other as heretical, is a monumentally tough problem, and there's no guarantee it will work. But it would be impossible if any major group in Iraq didn't want it to happen. As Kerry himself says, it cannot be imposed on them.
But they do want it to happen...

It would be pretty easy for the US to draw up a couple of fences dividing the place into thirds, and then to bug out. But that would be bad for Iraq. First there would be the bickering over where the fence goes, but I'm going to neglect that. The real problems would occur later. Partition would result in the Sunni and Kurds being shut out of the Persian Gulf. Those people need Iraq to remain whole. As for the Shi'a, if they let the Kurds go, then the first thing the Kurds would likely do is to build a few big ol' dams across the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Shia would also lose out on such things as Kurds offer in trade - like the oil of Mosul.

Iraq's situation is not too unlike that of Alabama and Mississippi. Those states, too, are designed to follow the course of rivers flowing down from low-level mountains. The folks in upstate have little enough in common with the lowland areas. What the upland and lowland Alabamans share most in common, is that they are not at all like the folk of the "cotton belt" between them - which is majority African American.

The Republican Congress, had they wished, could have refused the Southern states' very right of existence as of 1865 or so. They could have decided to let the South in county by county. In that case, it is likely that the Deep Southern states would have re-entered the Union in vastly different forms, of which at least one could be assured to elect Republicans into office for the foreseeable future.

The electoral map of 2000 shows the lingering political divisions of Alabama and neighbours. "Red" means "Democrat" now and "Republican" as of 1865.

Had the Republican Congress chosen to repartition the Deep South, there would have been no segregation and no Jim Crow - there would instead have been mass exile from new state Whitelily to new state Blackrose. Think Rosewood played out dozens, hundreds of times. But again, I'm going to neglect all that, and think a few years afterward.

The folk up Appalachia-way would find out they had to pay "reparations tariffs" to get their product down the Mississippi. They don't dare take the direct route south through the "cotton belt". The lowlanders meanwhile end up a backwater; because the upstate Whites can't reach them, and the Blacks and for that matter the rest of the world skirt them in favour of the Mississippi. Soon, this or that faction starts agitating for independence again. "They don't share our values." "They don't know what it's like down here."

It was wise of the nineteenth-century Congresses to hold Alabama together. Much as Alabamans have hated each other in the past, they have needed each other more.

I suspect that is true of Iraq, too.

posted by Zimri on 23:33 | link |

Akamai

My connexion's been slow, so I ran a DOS "netstat" - it pulled up a couple of instances of "akamaitechnologies.net" connecting to me.

I didn't ask for Akamai so I suspected "hacker". Fortunately this post on Akamai set me straight.

Seems innocuous. Wish I'd known before, though.

posted by Zimri on 23:07 | link |

Jayson Blair tells the truth

I was no more responsible for their resignations than Gavrilo Princip, the man who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, was responsible for starting World War I. I knew the groundwork for their resignations had been set long before I began fabricating stories, but it was hard, as the catalyst, not to take responsibility for the entire situation.

From the review, Seven Faces of Jayson Blair. Go read.

posted by Zimri on 22:45 | link |

al-Anfal

Al-Anfal - "The Spoils", as in "spoils of victory" - is a loaded term in the Near East. It refers to the eighth sura in the 'Uthmanic Qur'an. It also refers to the Kurdish genocide of 1988, in which Saddam wiped out Kurdish villages and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Military codenames often betray the mindset behind the planner. For instance, Hitler's "Operation Barbarossa" against Russia refers to Frederic Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, and also sounds a little like "barbaros Rossiye" / "barbarous Russia" / whatever it is in German. Saddam likewise chose his term carefully.

The Surat al-Anfal preaches above all to "fear fitneh (8:25)". "Fitneh" is "civil war" in Arabic; it is often applied to the wars between 'Ali's party and the Muslim majority, such as the one 656-661 CE which finally killed 'Ali and installed Mu'awiya. By calling his campaign al-Anfal, Saddam declared that the Kurds were inciting civil war. Fitneh will last until the Muslims are united (8:73).

The believer must "fight them until there is no more fitneh (8:39)". It exhorts the believer to "make ready against them all you can of power (8:60)" - no chemical warhead convention here. "Possessions and children" count as fitneh (8:28) where they keep the believer from helping the cause.

The sura reminds the believer to be on guard against treachery (8:38,62,71). And there is one ancient way of ensuring none left to betray you: "it is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he has made a great slaughter in the land (8:67)". To take prisoners is but "the good of this world, but Allah desires the Hereafter". Taking prisoners is in fact a sin (8:68).

There is one particular sign that unbelievers demand: "if this is indeed the truth from you, then rain down stones on us from the sky, or bring on us a painful torment! (8:32)". Saddam certainly obliged them: he made sure to bomb these defenseless villagers into their cellars for hours, before bringing on the gas.

Shall we condemn Saddam for following the word of God and the example of His Prophet?

Ah, forget it. I've been studying the Koran for over a year, and I have yet to read a more repulsive set of literature than the Anfal / Tawbah duet. Perhaps it were better if the Dar al-Islam admitted that surat al-Anfal was not the product of either God or Muhammad, but simply the scribblings of a seventh-century maniac and liar. Or perhaps al-Anfal was only meant for its time. Fine. Either way, it should have been burnt before word of it ever left the desert. No sane or good man could ever follow a Prophet - or God - who committed his people to al-Anfal.

When Saddam Hussein is executed, it should be with the surat al-Anfal hung around his neck (17:13). In pigskin, natch.

posted by Zimri on 21:31 | link |

Candy for Leon

Tomorrow is "Candy For Leon Day": from Amish Tech Support. I think he's referring to the death of Abu Abbas, the brave shahîd who pushed a wheelchair-bound man off a ship back in 1985, during a hijacking.

There's an Arab tradition where they hand out sweets on days of celebration. To them their deeds... to us ours, lô?

UPDATE: I bought a dozen doughnuts. I didn't tell anyone why. :^D

posted by Zimri on 21:12 | link |

Friday, March 05, 2004

Sin and evil in Islam

The distinction between sin and evil is a central part of Islam, at least since sura 4 (quoted on the Dome of the Rock). Verse 4:31 reads: "if you avoid the great (kabâ-ira) of what is forbidden you, we will omit your sins (nukaffir �ankum sayyi-âtikum)". 4:31 contains a tension between two words for �sin�: a kabâ-ir which must be avoided or else nothing will be forgiven, and a sayyi-â which can be forgiven. If they mean the same, then avoiding kabâ-ir would result in no sayyi-âtin to forgive, and 4:31 would be pointless.

I cannot speak for the Shi'a take on this - but in Sunni-world, the scholars have preserved ahadith in which Muhammad explains it. al-Bukh�ri, volume 8 hadith 840, claims that the people interrupted Muhammad after he proclaimed 4:31, and asked him what those �major� sins could be that might not be omitted later; Muhammad then related seven of them. They include sorcery, murder done illegally (the death penalty and blood feuds are permitted), and associating others with God (Christianity?).

Forgiveness of sins is central to what Allah al-Rahman, God the Merciful, does for His people - in sura 4's Islam as in Catholicism. So those conspiracy-theorists in the book "Abuse Your Illusions", who have been babbling that Mohammed Atta could not have done 9/11, on the grounds that his last letter asked God to forgive him - please refer to 3:195 and sura 47; the Qur'an promises forgiveness there, too.

Just not for the evil people.

posted by Zimri on 21:16 | link |

Sin and evil

Andrew Sullivan commits micro-aggression, and relates it to Catholicism. Catholicism draws a line between a "venial" sin, and a "mortal" sin. I presume that a venial sin may be atoned for with a few Ave Mariae, and that a mortal sin requires actual work.

I prefer to contrast between sin and evil.

I met someone once who had burnt down his neighbourhood crackhouse. Four years in the clink for arson, for him. His sin was anger and impatience. And he could have killed somebody; or burnt down the whole neighbourhood. But you know, I would be inclined to forgive him that...

But there was one time I was on IRC, and someone came in telling of his biological son's stepfather - this man had literally shaken a two-year-old to death.

That's why some nations have instituted death penalties. In that respect, Texas is an Islamic state...

posted by Zimri on 21:16 | link |

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

The genesis of marriage

Cal Thomas alleges that marriage starts at Genesis:

The idea of marriage did not originate in San Francisco or Massachusetts or even with the Founders. Like it or not, it came from the book of Genesis, where, after the fall of man, God said, "A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). Homosexuals may become "one flesh" in their own eyes but not in a biblical sense, no matter how many Scriptural heretics with degrees from seminaries that are mostly schools of unbelief are trotted out.

Oh, I'll be glad to tell you how much I "like it or not", you Scriptural ignoramus...

By a fundamentalist reading of Scripture, Genesis was revealed with the rest of the Torah in 1200 BCE or so. By the documentary hypothesis, Genesis 2:24 was part of the "Book of J", which also includes Genesis 29:15-35; in which case, Genesis 2:24 arises a few centuries later. At any rate we are agreed that Genesis 2:24 and 29:15-35 shared a book as of 800 BCE or so. Let us, for the sake of argument, drag it back to 1300 BCE in the Late Bronze Age.

Marriages were around for millennia before Genesis, and for centuries afterward in cultures completely ignorant of that book. According to Cal Thomas's literal words, a Chinese wedding has no validity. Hindu couples are living in sin. Atheists who were brought up in the "Genesis culture" but who no longer believe in it, I suppose he considers apostate.

Genesis did not invent marriage, and did not even invent the Near Eastern Semitic religious justification for it.

No. What Genesis did provide to the holy people, was a religious justification for plural marriage. Remember Genesis 29:15-35? Show me again where God condemns Jacob (by name!) for his bigamy and concubinage.

Thomas cited Jefferson, I note as an aside; and I also note that you don't have to Google far to get the Jeffersonian take on Genesis.

posted by Zimri on 18:05 | link |

The politics of sexual unease

Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg posts a letter on the usefulness of the decadent and perverse. The first half of it runs as follows:

Prager expresses the idea that fighting religious extremism and secular extremism are two sides of the same war, but he misses an important point of how they reinforce each other. When a secular government legitimizes behaviors that even the not very religious non-extremists consider decadent and perverse, it allows the extremists and opponents of secular government to claim the high ground and gather support. It demonstrates that secular government can be a danger to their society and culture. While many on the left want to portray Islamic anti-Americanism as economic, but anyone paying attention knows that it is sexual. They oppose promiscuity and decadent sexual behavior,

On that note, we bring you the column of the week from Dr Adams. He starts off repeating what the local decadents have been showing at UNC. Having made his prurient readership good and queasy, he then proposes to hold a "morals week" on the same week as "gay pride week".

Obviously his "morals week" is a cheap political stunt. He could hold a morals-awareness week at any time of the year, one which even a homosexual, or anyone else not actively evil, could sign onto. He could even have proposed a "traditional family week" if that was what his aim was. That would have at least have been honest.

Adams's "morals week" proposal is not about morals. It's about his morals. And it's about making these morals superior to any other morals, however the unbeliever might feel about it (to coin a phrase, so to speak). Adams is lying for his own political advantage. Again.

Here is your case study, for "claim[ing] the high ground" to "gather support" for one's cause. Is his end really the happiness and intellectual improvement of UNC's students? Given his previous stances on, say, modern science, I think I am within bounds to question his motives, here.

SEQUEL 3/4/2004: Where Adams trolls for anal pr0n!

posted by Zimri on 17:46 | link |

The Green Mountain Entity

Atlas just shrugged in Killington. The state's takers are running scared.

Go on, Vermonters! Take back your state - New Hampshire!

posted by Zimri on 17:25 | link |

Passion

Aziz would die for Kerbala.

I am not Shi'a. I do not think that Shi'a doctrines or practices are worth dying for. If these men, women, and children had died during a demonstration to bring about Imamist rule - I would not be of those who objected, except to the deaths of the children. (And a la'nat for those who bring children to a riot.)

However: these people did not die for the cause of tyranny. They died for the right to visit a place sacred to them.

Again, I do not think Shi'ism is worth dying for. But the freedom to be Shi'ite - or Sunni, Assyrian, or - dare I say it - Jew: that is worth it. That is worth everything.

If I should ever be tested in such a way, I pray I will meet the test with the courage of a Shi'ite.

posted by Zimri on 17:16 | link |

Monday, March 01, 2004

Maturity

I've just read a critique of my posting style:

You are not the type of person who I enjoy conversing with. ... You just seem immature and insecure. You are not a nice person with a different viewpoint who enjoys exchanging views with others you are merely someone with a persecution complex who enjoys trying to stir things up.

After nearly two years of blogging, almost four years of UseNet before that, and two years of AOL chat before that, it's not like I can pretend to be someone I'm not. I have quite the paper trail. The critique that I am reading, is roughly what I should have expected from a generic unsympathetic outsider; which is pretty much any blogger's audience, so I've clearly no case for complaint there.

As far as insecurity / persecution-complexes go, well... yeah. I am afraid of persecution. I am afraid of this society developing in such a way that someone else's religion becomes the dominant faith. I do not have a blasé view of human nature. Pessimism is not a character flaw.

Neither is willingness to publish one's own opinion. And I've found I do that best by stirring things up. I'm mostly about trying to ensure that a source that is credited uncritically, receive the criticisms that I feel the source deserves. I don't think much of Muslim historians' treatment of 'Uthman's murder, for instance. I think that al-Tabari was guilty of scapegoating, that the Shi'a may be giving 'Ali more of a pass than he deserved, and that modern Sunnis shouldn't be so accepting of al-Tabari. I'm choosing this as an example because it was a recent post, and because no-one has complained about my treatment of the issue yet. Stirring things up is why I have a blog. What would be the point of posting something that everyone else already agrees with?

Given the above, such comments like not being a "nice" person who's fun to be around, I can just ignore as subjective. There are people I wouldn't like to be around, either. I am not so insecure that I need to be loved by the likes of them. We can all agree to get along, until someone starts suggesting they interfere with my world.

And as I see it: Playing games with biology classes interferes with medical research. That interferes in my world. Remember what I said about persecution complexes? Next time you wish they'd hurry up and find some new wonder-cure, and you read the paper and find that there aren't enough skilled biologists to do it - you've just been persecuted. You've been Punk'd. The American school system, from Left and Right, is screwing you over; they're not just dragging down someone else's kids, they're not just repressing your family's dreams. Blame the teachers' unions for failing our students; blame the colleges for their rotten structure - and blame the creationists, for making evolution so political.

So I don't like them. It's personal. And those people who jump in to call us secularists the fanatics - they've made it personal, too.

Some people apparently think that a hallmark of maturity is to go to work, to pay your taxes and your astronomical mortgage (or rent), to believe what you want to believe, to grow old and to die. They're wrong. Those are the basics and they are necessary - but - they are not sufficient. To live under that regime alone is not maturity; it is servility.

posted by Zimri on 18:26 | link |

Pointless headline of the week

Matt Drudge links to an article which proves that anti-bacterial soaps don't work on viruses.

Tune into Drudge tomorrow, when he'll link to articles musing over: cannon blasts against hailstorms, hair dryers against bullets, and flu shots against the smallpox virus.

posted by Zimri on 17:51 | link |

Phony tolerance

Say there was a mediaeval-revivalist lay Catholic movement, to take back the Church and to set it back to Aristotelian physics. Some scientist in a field that is not kinetic physics then publishes a book called "Newton's Black Box". This book argues that there really isn't that good of a proof for the solar-centric solar system. It details some (real and imagined) examples of scientific malfeasance. There are also a few phenomena unexplainable by Newtonian physics, such as the discrepancies in Mercury's orbit. He concludes that the whole edifice needs to change in favour of an "intelligent mover" hypothesis. Mel Gibson then comes out and writes articles encouraging students to bring "Newton's Black Box" up in class.

You see from the above that Mel Gibson would have selected his "evidence" carefully. He would have ignored Einstein's 1919 Eclipse, for example. People like me would be calling Gibson a shill for an autocratic faith, and for abusing the name of science.

Or suppose Mel Gibson were to say that there wasn't enough evidence for genocide against the Jews in 1933-45 in western Europe. Hypothetically.

On the face of it, Mel Gibson would be arguing for tolerance, an open mind, and free inquiry. And we who argue against such wilfully-obtuse and cynical methods on behalf of such dark ideals - ah, we are those who are cast as the bigots.

Damn right it makes me angry.

posted by Zimri on 17:24 | link |

Pretence of neutrality

Just a side issue, on people who pretend to be tolerant of both sides, but are really not.

The current example I have in mind concerns the evolution debate. Dembski and Behe claim that "Darwin was wrong", and Adams comes out saying that students should bring it up in class. And people like me hotly dispute the premise, and excoriate Adams for his incitement to disorder.

One could argue that Adams is not inciting disorder; or that he is, but that it is in a worthy cause.

But then we get commenters like Ross Taylor over here, who don't argue the facts one way or another. They pretend aloofness from both sides. But when they comment, they only sneer at the one side. So they get to pose as neutrals for the moderates. And it is impossible to debate someone whose only contribution is "you, David Ross, are a fanatic". What am I supposed to say to that? "No I'm not"? "Yes but at least I'm right"?

I have absolutely no respect for comments like that.

UPDATE: I'm going to put into practice: flame the post, not the poster...

posted by Zimri on 11:23 | link |

Discrimination against theologians

The state has an interest in public education. If the taxpayer's money is paying for a student's education, then the student owes the taxpayer.

Not the other way around.

So it amuses me to see headlines like this one: Supreme Court OKs Discrimination Against Theology Students. You'd think that they'd set up a separate Divinity-School water fountain, about three feet off the ground and dribbling vaguely lead-tasting fluid.

Washington State is Constitutionally free to set up a local / state religion. If that were the case, then the state (and NOT the federal) government would have an interest in researching the jurisprudence of that religion, which we tend to define under the term "theology".

Or, a university could offer religion courses, with the understanding that the student would be researching a given religion, or religion in general, with a view to helping the government research cults, terrorists, foreign influences, and other such dangers to the commonweal.

But that is not the case with this particular handout-hustler in this particular State.

The Supreme Court, to its credit, has elected to enforce the law of Washington State and Washington, DC.

Now, if they could just do that for Mayor Newsom a couple states down...

posted by Zimri on 11:06 | link |