tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72006958848210436782024-02-20T02:04:32.046-05:00ThatsNotHistoryHistorical Context For Current Eventsthatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-10660130885314935772016-05-14T14:29:00.003-04:002016-05-14T14:30:32.344-04:00Contemporary politics notHistorySomething I've been seeing a lot in discussions about the current election is one form or anther of the statement that Hillary Clinton is a corporate-backed warmonger who would be dangerous for America, both in terms of her economic agenda and as military hawk who would drag the US into unnecessary foreign wars.<br />
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I'll start with the "corporate backed." There are two bases given for this claim. The first is that, having accepted money from Goldman Sachs to give speeches, she has been bought and paid for by that corporation. Here is <a href="http://citizenuprising.com/hillary-clintons-speaking-fees-2013-2015/">the complete list of paid speeches she gave from 2013 to 2015</a>. There are a lot of them and she made a lot of money. It's a pretty common career move for retired politicians, and yet, somehow, when those ex-politicians are male, they are never called on it. The organizations she gave speeches to included, among others, the American Camping Association, the Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women, the Commercial Women Real Estate Network, the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association, several entertainment companies, the World Affairs Council of Oregon, some health care firms, several Jewish organizations, and only one speech each to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The one that sticks out for me, though, is Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd, LLP, a law firm that specializes in class action lawsuits, including lawsuits against Wall Street firms. Is she in their pocket as well as Wall Street's? Because that would be quite the trick. She made speeches to make money, and it is well documented that a lot of those speaker's fees went right into charitable foundations. That's working to make a difference in the world, not selling your soul<br />
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The second basis for the claim that she is "corporate backed" is the amount of money contributed to her campaign by "Wall Street." The origin of most versions of this claim is a <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000019&cycle=Career">compilation by Open Secrets of all of her campaign donations over her entire career</a>. This data has been used to create memes like this one:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.dailykos.com/images/158003/story_image/HILLY-V-BERNIE-DONORS.png?1438898746" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/158003/story_image/HILLY-V-BERNIE-DONORS.png?1438898746" height="314" width="320" /></a></div>
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There are several significant problems with this data. The first is that it is incomplete. It is supposed to include the organizations with the largest total contributions to all of her campaigns over her entire career, but it's missing some key players. Looking at the <a href="http://www.fec.gov/press/press2008/2008indexp/2008iebycandidate.pdf">FEC filings from her last run for president, in 2008</a>, it turns out that there are a number of union contributions that are significantly larger than anything on this list. For example, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees gave $2.3 million and the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education gave $1.7 million. Others who would bump the Wall Street corporations off that list include MoveOn.org, which gave $1.1 million and Planned Parenthood, which gave $1.8 million. So the list is not, in fact, the largest cumulative donors, but a cherry-picked sample that served the purposes of Open Secret. The second problem is that none of these donations came from the actual corporations listed, rather the money came from individuals associated with those corporations. This includes shareholders, employees, and family members of employees. The kid who works in the mailroom's mom counts. So does everyone who happens to have a connection to that sector who benefitted from her work when she was the junior senator from New York, which includes everyone in New York city or state who was affected by 9/11. So do all of the mid-level employees who don't get bonuses, but have high enough salaries that they have investment portfolios and are also well-enough informed to know that the stock market does better under Democratic presidents than it does under Republican ones. The assumption that individuals with ties to corporation will all, in lockstep, support candidates that serve the corporation with no other concerns is a dehumanizing stereotype that has no bearing on the reality of American politics.<br />
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As for warmonger, she voted for pretty much the same military actions that her opponent, Bernie Sanders, did with only one exception. That exception? John Kerry and John Edwards both voted the same way on the initial Iraq War resolution. Did anyone call them out as warmongers when they ran for office? It certainly wasn't part of the national discussion; it seems that is it only women who are held to that standard. On the other hand, she also has a strong record of peace-mongering. She brokered the cease-fire between Israel and Gaza, helped negotiate the elimination of chemical weapons from the Syrian conflict, and did most of the work on the Iran agreement (Kerry sealed the deal and is getting all the credit, but he and others involved are on the record that she got it started, got the parties to the table, and got the outlines of the deal set before he took over). While she has supported military action, she has always advocated for making all efforts at diplomacy first and has quite a few runs on the board making the world safer through negotiation.<br />
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There are plenty of valid reasons to either support or oppose Hillary Clinton's campaign for president. There are far too many invalid, notHistory ones out there. They need to be stopped.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-77978828055765384422015-11-20T13:02:00.003-05:002015-11-20T19:22:38.458-05:00The World News Daily has published <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/bomb-mecca-off-the-face-of-the-earth/">a piece by Burt Prelutsky</a> that argues that, in order to stop the terrorist threat of ISIS, we need to <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we "remove ISIS from the face of the earth, hopefully as a joint effort with every other nation it has threatened or attacked, and that we then bomb Mecca off the face of the earth, not concerning ourselves in the least with collateral damage, letting the Muslims know once and for all that our God is far more powerful and, yes, vengeful than their own puny deity." He explains that, "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It’s harsh, but they’ve been asking for it for over 1,400 years, and it’s time they got it."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So let's take a little look at exactly how "they've been asking for it." Starting 1,400 years ago, which would be when Muhammad still lived in Mecca and was only annoying his neighbors by preaching against the immorality of the ruling clans. Really, you have to go a bit forward in time before you can argue any sort of interaction at all between the Islamic and Christian communities, much less one that constituted "asking for it." </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I suppose you could start with the Umayyad Caliphates conquest of Byzantine Egypt in the 640s, as it was the first violent contact, it was roughly 1,400 years ago and the Byzantine Empire was technically Christian. Except that the Umayyad's went to Egypt on the invitation of the head of the Coptic Church, who begged the Umayyad's to free them from the tyranny of the Catholic Byzantines. As non-Catholic Christians living in a Catholic empire, the Copts were subjected to brutal forms of discrimination. It's hard to see how saving one group of Christians from discrimination by another group of Christians counts as "asking for it."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helmet" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In fact, you really need to get to the Crusades before you can find any examples of Islamic aggression against Christianity as a religion or a civilization. And not even the First Crusade. No, it wasn't until the aftermath of the Second Crusade that any sort of anti-Christian ideas came into play.</span><br />
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See, in 1160, the Crusades were going pretty well for the Christians. They had control over Jerusalem and there were several prosperous and stable Crusader states in the Holy Land. That prosperity came from trade with the neighboring Islamic states, each of which had individually accepted the new political reality and treated the Christian states as they would any other neighbor. But in 1161, one Reginald of Chatillon-sur-Marne gathered a bunch of disillusioned Crusaders together and started attacking Muslim villages. They were upset that the Christian Crusader states had made treaties with the Islamic States and established peaceful relations instead of engaging in perpetual warfare. Reggie was imprisoned for his crimes, but when he was eventually released, he re-formed his band and started attacking pilgrims on the way to Mecca and eventually Mecca itself.<br />
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In response to these actions, and the Crusader States' failure to stop them, the Islamic world finally stopped seeing the Crusades as run of the mill acts of military conquest and began to see them as part of a religious movement that defined Christians and Christianity as an existential threat to Islam. The separate Islamic states put aside their quarrels with each other and united against the Crusaders under the leadership of Salah-al-Din. His recapturing of Jerusalem and defeat of Richard the Lionheart marked the end of the Crusaders' success in the Middle East and the beginning of the still ongoing mistrust between the two religions.<br />
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The idea that attacking Mecca would crush the Islamic spirit and prove the greatness of the Christian deity failed rather spectacularly 950 years ago. Instead of crushing the opposition, it united them in a cause that would endure for centuries. Believing that it would somehow work today is nothistory.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-28325707743632612182015-03-19T19:19:00.000-04:002015-03-19T19:33:41.152-04:00Marching into nonhistoryI've really enjoyed all the coverage of the Selma anniversary and am looking forward to more civil rights movement anniversaries coming up. But I've also been disturbed by one aspect of how they've been presented: all the images and events have centered entirely around the African-American roles and experiences. I'm not suggesting we should minimize the very real risks and sacrifices and efforts that African-Americans took on as part of that movement, or diminish their accomplishments, but neither am I comfortable with writing out the roles that white people played in that movement.<br />
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The story of African-Americans standing up and fighting for the basic rights that this country stands for is an important one. Portraying it purely as a story of black against white is both dishonest and detrimental. It's a story of an America that is and has been completely divided along racial lines, and it's not true. Remembering that there were a lot of white people who stood up and supported the African-American protesters of the 1950s and 1960s, marched alongside them and took those same risks, some of them dying for that cause, that is a story of an America that is bigger than racial difference, that is based on shared values and a common belief in the promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people. It is a hopeful story, and it is true.<br />
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In all the recent publicity, I haven't seen one public image MLK during the Selma to Montgomery march that wasn't cropped to cut out the white participants. These are the images I wanted to see, but didn't:<br />
<img src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/130117191909-mills-mlk-march-story-top.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.440396.1421620467!/image/3425433780.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_640/3425433780.jpg" /><br />
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<img alt="Abernathy_Children_on_front_line_leading" src="http://www.commdiginews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Abernathy_Children_on_front_line_leading_the_SELMA_TO_MONTGOMERY_MARCH_for_the_RIGHT_TO_VOTE.jpg" height="271" width="400" /><br />
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And then there's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/accidentaltalmudist/photos/a.281229641972168.59006.227905913971208/786412644787196/?type=1">this</a> guy:<br />
<img height="400" src="https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11076259_786412644787196_3897948813676185916_n.jpg?oh=6e5bca14a951a4cce61f9130ee41014f&oe=55B31F04" width="400" /><br />
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There's nothing wrong with a community celebrating their own successes. But when they make the exclusion of the allies who helped them win their battles intrinsic to the narrative of those successes, they are practicing nothistory.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-31977073044644242212014-03-12T14:06:00.002-04:002014-03-12T14:07:56.318-04:00The Notevolution of Blondness (Ukrainian edition)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
An article published in Science on March 10<sup>th</sup>, 2014, explains how
the attractiveness of blond hair pushed human evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old theory was that, having moved to
colder climes where dark pigment wasn’t necessary to protect from the sun,
Europeans gradually evolved lighter skin, hair and eye color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This new theory states that, while that had
some impact, there was a big evolutionary jump in the last 6000 to 8000 years,
so big that it can only be explained by other forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The authors “speculate” that the switch to
farming, with less animal consumption and therefore less vitamin D, created an
evolutionary pressure for lighter skin to enable more efficient vitamin D
production.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that only explains skin
color, not hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, they suggest, is
explained by the lust-inducing impact of blondness. Here are the key points of
the study (full article <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/03/new-diet-sexual-attraction-may-have-spurred-europeans-lighter-skin">here</a>):<br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">… [A] team led by Mark Thomas, an
evolutionary geneticist at University College London, extracted DNA from 63
skeletons previously found at archaeological sites in modern-day Ukraine and
surrounding areas. The researchers were able to sequence three pigmentation-related
genes from 48 of the skeletons, dated between 6500 and 4000 years old … These
three genes, like all pigmentation genes, come in numerous variants that lead
to different shades of skin, hair, and eye color.</i><br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">By comparing the variants of these
genes in the ancient skeletons with those in 60 modern-day Ukrainians, as well
as a larger sample of 246 modern genomes from the surrounding region, the team
found that the frequency of variants related to lighter skin and hair, as well
as blue eyes, increased significantly between the ancient and modern
populations… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, while the prehistoric
Ukrainians had apparently evolved relatively lighter skin and hair, and a
higher frequency of blue eyes, in the time since their ancestors had left
Africa, the data suggested that they were not done evolving. To further test
this conclusion, the team performed computer simulations designed to
distinguish between natural selection and “genetic drift,” a change in the
frequency of genetic variants due just to chance. These tests—which take into
account ancient population sizes and the rate at which genetic alterations
occur, and can determine whether genetic drift alone can account for the speed
of evolutionary changes—showed that the pigmentation genes were still
undergoing strong natural selection after 5000 years ago; indeed, the selection
pressure was as great as that for other genes known to be very strongly
selected in humans, such as those involved in the ability to digest lactose and
protection against malaria.</i><br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The signs of selection are indeed
persuasive,” Rocha says. By using ancient DNA, he says, the team was able to
“provide direct evidence” that “strong positive selection was the likely
driver” of the changes in pigmentation profiles…</i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As for the trend toward lighter
colored hair and blue eyes, Thomas and his co-workers suggest that may be due
to sexual attraction—what in evolutionary terms is called sexual selection. If
so, then the originally rare males or females with light hair and blue eyes
might have been attractive to the opposite sex and so had more offspring; this
kind of sexual preference for individuals with unusual appearances has been
confirmed in other animals, such as guppies. </i><br />
<br />
I’m not questioning the science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
not questioning the validity of evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s the speculations and suggestions that strike me as nothistory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Based on two data points, separated in time by 6000 plus years, the
scientist have determined the rate of evolutionary change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All well and good, IF you have an unchanging
population, such that evolution is the only factor affecting genetic changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is the Ukraine, not an isolated
island immune from outside forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we
need to talk about migration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between
the 8<sup>th</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> centuries BCE, the area absorbed both
Greek and Iranian populations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 3rd
and 4<sup>th</sup> centuries CE it was the Goths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 5<sup>th</sup> century brought the Huns,
the 9<sup>th</sup> century the Khazars, and the 12<sup>th</sup> and 13<sup>th</sup>
centuries brought Mongols.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So there’s a
lot of change to the gene pool between the early population in the study, who
lived in 8500-6000 BCE, and the later, contemporary one.<br />
<br />
Did any of these migrants bring in genes for lighter pigmentation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, the Iranians (also referred to as Caucasians)
certainly did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, one of those
Iranian groups, the Sarmations, was described this way by a Roman historian: "Nearly
all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty, their hair is somewhat yellow,
their eyes are frighteningly fierce." <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another option is the Goths, who moved to the
Ukraine from Scandinavia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is some
argument as to whether they originated in Scandinavia or had moved there from
some other place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing we do know
about human history, however, is that co-location means interbreeding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Goths spent any time at all in
Scandinavia, they would have brought a healthy dose of those Northern,
sun-deprived, pigment-deficient genes with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
With all due respect, I’d like to suggest that the signs for selection are
not, in fact, persuasive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The signs that
the scientists can’t tell that their apples are oranges, however, are.<br />
<br />
As for the idea that sexual attraction accounts for the increased prevalence
of blondness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never mind that they can't cite any evidence that, among humans, those considered more attractive at any
particular point in history have had more children than those who aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s just try to remember that human mating
behavior is somewhat more complex than that of guppies.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, in homage to Bill Maher, I’d like to suggest a new
rule: Scientists aren’t allowed to publish historical interpretations of their
work without first consulting with actual historians.</div>
thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-33696744133988547452012-10-28T18:47:00.001-04:002012-10-28T18:53:10.862-04:00I'm seeing a lot of discussion of the possible impact of Hurricane Sandy on voter turn-out. I have yet to hear any comment on the potential impact on voter preferences of the experience of Sandy. As I see it, there are two ways this could help the Obama campaign:
<i> </i><br />
<br />
1) Pushing climate change and environmental issues higher on voters' priority lists and/or pushing voters off the climate change fence onto the side of science.<br />
<br />
2) Reminding people that, when times get tough, they don't actually want small government, they want a competent FEMA and an actively engaged president. Obama's meeting with FEMA, DOE, etc. and his statement today was well calibrated to emphasize that message.<br />
<br />
I can't think of any ways this could play into the Romney message, but I might be missing something.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-43328685841530877212012-03-25T18:51:00.001-04:002012-03-26T08:21:35.828-04:00The HCR notUnprecedented MandateThe basic arguments against the constitutionality of the health care reform are that the individual mandate is unprecedented in forcing individuals to buy something and that it goes against the intent of the founders. So, for example, Allen West in <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/23/why-obamacare-is-bad-for-americas-health/">The Washington Times</a> stated that, “The 2012 Supreme Court must determine whether the Founders had any intention of mandating the behavior of private enterprises and individuals. To me, the answer is obvious: absolutely not.” Likewise, <a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/paul-gigot-juan-williams-debate-constitutionality-of-hcr">Paul Gigot argued that</a>, “the Affordable Care Act represents the first time Congress has required Americans to purchase a product. "I do think the question is novel enough -- the compelling of commerce by the federal government."”<br />
<br />
There’s been a lot of comment in the past few days on the applicability of the 1792 Second Militia Act, everywhere from the <a href="http://www.law.yale.edu/news/15183.htm">Yale Law School News and Events page</a> to <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-health-insurance-mandate-doesnt-compare-militia-act-221300957.html">Yahoo News</a>. That was the law, passed by the second Congress and signed by President Washington, that mandated that all able-bodied men purchase muskets for the purpose of being ready and able to serve in the militia if called. That would seem to answer both questions rather conclusively, but for those who see too many differences between an obligation to be prepared to serve in the nation’s defense and buying health insurance, there is another, more relevant precedent.<br />
<br />
Just six years later, in 1798, then president John Adams signed An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen that required, among other things, that private individuals who wanted to take employment as sailors on merchant ships buy health insurance. Unlike the Militia Acts, this had very specific mechanism for collection and specified penalties for failure (namely, not getting a job). <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/">Rick Ungar</a> reported on this in Forbes over a year ago, in an article that answers every critique I’ve seen about the applicability of the Militia Act. If you missed it the first time around, it’s well worth a look now.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-82778236606248924842012-03-12T14:37:00.000-04:002012-03-12T14:37:29.341-04:00notPersonhoodThere is a move in my state (Virginia) to try for the <a href="http://wholeworldinhishands.com/world/personhood_amendment.html">Personhood Amendment to the state constitution</a>. This has me thinking about some of the implications of fetus-personhood, and the more I do, the less I think that it's supporters have thought things through.<br />
<br />
For example, could a fetus-person donate to a political campaign? Vote? Open a bank account? And would a fetus-person have the same legal rights as a corporate person, namely, to enter into and enforce contracts? Children don't have these rights, but the Personhood Amendments don't define fetuses as children. Hmmm. I guess all the personhood-states are going to have to tinker with the definition of a fetus-person to differentiate it from other kinds of persons. But, if you take away some rights from fetus-persons, what other rights could they lose? <br />
<br />
The case of children is illustrative. Western society started, back in Roman times, with the notion of children as property of their fathers or guardians. There wasn't much change until the 19th century, when the first real rights were granted to children as individuals separate from their parents in the forms of compulsory education and child labor laws, innovations that conservatives, then and now, decry as unnecessary intrusions of the state into familial life. Since then, there have been numerous debates and developments in children's rights, in the US most notably over health and welfare issues. To create a new category of fetus-persons, protected from their parents by the state would open up a similarly complex set of issues that would not be resolved quickly or easily, and that would undermine fundamental conservative principles. <br />
<br />
If the state has a declared interest in the well-being of the fetus-person, can pregnant women smoke? Drink? Can the neighbors play loud music? Fetuses are far more vulnerable to toxins, which greatly increase the risk of miscarriage; would fetus-personhood create a higher burden on industry to maintain environmental standards? On food manufacturers to limit additives in foods consumed by pregnant women? All of these questions would be raised, and probably litigated. Have the supporters of these measures considered these <strike>possibilities</strike>probabilities? Besides the ones who are lawyers; I'm sure they are well aware of what a huge financial bonanza this would be to the legal profession.<br />
<br />
Then there's the issue of taxes. The fetus-person would, arguably, be a resident. If the personhood-states determine that they are, somehow, legal, then under the US tax code, they could be claimed as a dependents by their mothers. Every expectant mom in a personhood-state gets a tax deduction! Even with the current makeup of the bench, I can't see the Supreme Court allowing individual states to define an entirely new category of federal tax deductions. At the very least, the definition of personhood would have to be modified to 'personhood for the purposes of' something or other, which would fundamentally undermine the premise that the fetal-person's rights should ever be considered equal to those of a full citizen.<br />
<br />
Which brings up the question of fetus-person citizenship. We can answer that one. In the US, one of the ways we define persons is by whether or not they are US citizens. We grant citizenship in three ways:<br />
1) By birth to a parent who is a US citizen,<br />
2) by birth on US soil, or<br />
3) by naturalization.<br />
A fetus-person, not having been born, would be ineligible for methods one and two, and thus not inherently a citizen. <br />
<br />
This has some interesting implications. Every pregnant woman in a personhood-state would be harboring an illegal alien and subject to prosecution. To avoid this without amending the US Constitution, all those fetuses would have to be naturalized, a process they could, arguably, be eligible for as immediate relatives of US citizens. This process is, of course, the responsibility of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, a federal agency. In 2010, around 675,000 applications for naturalization were processed, but it jumps around a lot - the highest number in the last decade was over a million in 2008. There are <a href="http://www.americanpregnancy.org/main/statistics.html">about six million pregnancies in the US each year</a>, with just under two million of those ending in miscarriages. Even leaving out the miscarriages, that would, at the very least, quintuple the workload for naturalization services, requiring a significant expansion in the workforce. That being the federal workforce, you understand. Not to mention the trouble the states would have dealing with what to do with their growing illegal-fetus-aliens during the six months it takes USCIS to process each of these requests.<br />
<br />
Far more likely is that the federal government would decide that USCIS will not accept naturalization requests for pre-born future-citizens. In that case, personhood-states would simply have to revise their immigration laws to accommodate large populations of temporary, illegal-fetus-aliens by defining them as some other category, like 'future citizens'. But, any fetus that can reasonably expect to be born on US soil is a future citizen. It would be very tricky to write that definition in a way that did not automatically grant temporary immunity from deportation for all pregnant women.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-10504057483724099532012-02-08T16:23:00.000-05:002012-02-08T16:23:14.868-05:00notmarriage history<blockquote>Mitt Romney: I agree with 3,000 years of recorded history. I disagree with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman. I will support an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution to make that expressly clear. Of course, basic civil rights and appropriate benefits must be available to people in nontraditional relationships, but marriage is a special institution between a man and a woman, and our constitution and laws should reflect that.<br />
<br />
Newt Gingrich: The sacrament of marriage is based on a man and a woman, has been for 3,000 years, is at the core of our civilization and is worth protecting and upholding.<br />
<br />
Rick Santorum: The Ninth Circuit decision yesterday said that marriage — if you believe in traditional marriage — the only reason that you can possibly believe that is because you are a bigot ... Your belief of marriage between a man and a woman is purely irrational based on hatred and bigotry. That’s what they just wrote. Four thousand years of human history. Irrational hatred and bigotry toward a group of people is the only reason you can be for marriage between a man and a woman.”</blockquote><br />
<br />
I usually start with the easy shots and work my way up to the more complicated stuff, but this time there is no complexity.<br />
<br />
It is flat out not true that, for 3,000 years or 4,000 years, marriage has been between a (fully adult) man and a (fully adult) woman. There have been many child brides, and <a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2010/02/26/marriage/">still are some today</a>, but there have been child grooms as well, most famously Ptolemy XIII, who married his older sister (by 7 or 8 years, depending on the source) Cleopatra (yes, <b>that</b> Cleopatra) when he was just 10. <br />
<br />
It is flat out not true that, for 3,000 years, marriage has been between a (singular) man and a (singular) woman. Polygamy, the marriage of a man to more than one woman, was common in the ancient world and was widely practiced by Mormons in the US not that long ago. Mitt Romney’s own great-something’th-grandfather <a href="http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2221ae7bd2f86efbb82aeecca4d59cc4 ">fled to Mexico in 1884 to avoid US legal restrictions on polygamy</a>. Polyandry, the marriage of a woman to more than one man, has been less common, but has existed in in a number of times and places, including the present day in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada.<br />
<br />
It is likewise not true that marriage was, throughout recorded human history, either based on or between a man and a woman. Historically, marriage has most often been a matter between families or communities, negotiated and settled between parents, heads of households, or village elders. <br />
<br />
And finally, it is flat out not true that marriage has been either a “special institution” or a sacrament for 3,000 years, particularly as the word 'sacrament' only applies to Christian practices and Christianity hasn't been around that long. In fact, in the early Christian church, marriage wasn't sacred at all, it was a private, civil matter and priests were forbidden from performing marriage ceremonies. This policy was not reversed until the 11th century.<br />
<br />
Some days, it's just too easy.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-6598606416784923562012-01-25T20:19:00.000-05:002012-01-25T20:19:58.618-05:00notstatisticsRick Santorum's response to the SOTU speech included this gem:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college. The indoctrination that occurs at American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America — and it is indoctrination...As you know, 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it. And I bet you there are people in this room who give money to colleges and universities who are undermining the very principles of our country every single day by indoctrinating kids in left-wing ideology. And you continue to give to these colleges and universities. Let me have a suggestion: Stop it!</blockquote><br />
He doesn't cite any evidence for that 62% figure, but I'm willing to believe that, once upon a time, someone did a survey of "faith convictions" of incoming freshmen versus graduating seniors. The real question is, did anyone do a comparable survey of entering freshman-aged non-college attenders and graduating senior-aged non-college attenders? An entering college freshman is typically 17-18 years old. A graduating senior is typically 21-22 years old. It is a critical transition time, from being a teenager to a young adult, from being your parents' child to being your own person, from dependence to independence. How many teenagers with a faith conviction become young adults without one, regardless of their educational experience? Without that information, that 62% is notstatistics.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-71560136655433759762012-01-22T17:36:00.002-05:002012-01-30T14:03:37.847-05:00Keystone confusionSo the Republicans are going to take another shot at forcing through the Keystone pipeline project. The arguments for the pipeline are pretty popular ones. Here are a few examples:<br />
<br />
According to <a href=”http://news.investors.com/Article/598185/201201181847/pipeline-decision-purely-political.htm”> Investors Business Daily</a>: The 1,700-mile TransCanada Keystone crude oil pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast is a no-brainer. Canada's oil sands are the largest source of crude oil outside the Middle East and the 700,000 barrels of black gold per day the pipeline would bring would mean hundreds of thousands of new jobs, lower gasoline prices, less U.S. dependence on Mideast oil and hundreds of millions of dollars in increased revenues for the states.<br />
<br />
<a href=”http://oilandenergyinvestor.com/2012/01/ultimate-fate-of-keystone-pipeline/”> Oil and Energy Investor</a> says that : [Keystone] represents a new North American-centered initiative to lessen reliance on Middle Eastern imports and would create thousands of new jobs.<br />
<br />
<a href=”http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/01/18/obama-admin-to-reject-keystone-pipeline-project-source/”>Jack Gerard</a>, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, spoke to Fox News Radio about the possibility that, if the pipeline isn’t approved, all that crude will go to China, saying, “It makes the United States more vulnerable to rely on outside sources for our energy.”<br />
<br />
And <a href=”http://energytomorrow.org/blog/mr-president-what-are-you-thinking?gclid=CIaMiuWy4a0CFUHc4Aoden7XmQ#/type/all”>Mark Green</a>, over at EnergyTomorrowBlog upped the ante with this line: “[In] his rejection of the Keystone XL the president is rejecting jobs – 20,000 of them in the pipeline’s construction phase and up to a half-million more over time.” Where did the half-million number come from? He quotes Jack Gerard: “But the Keystone XL pipeline would create 20,000 new U.S. construction-related jobs over the next two years. More importantly, it would help support the creation of half-a-million new jobs by 2035.” There does not seem to be any other source or evidence for this number.<br />
<br />
So, the arguments for the pipeline are:<br />
• It would create thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, half-a-million jobs,<br />
• It would reduce our dependence on “outside sources” of energy, also referred to as Mideast oil,<br />
• And it would lower gasoline prices.<br />
<br />
There are already lots of analyses of those jobs numbers, all of which agree that the reality would be a few thousand jobs for the two years of construction followed by maybe a couple of hundred long-term maintenance jobs. I want to look at the other two arguments, both of which are very effectively and convincingly disproved by a rather interesting source: The corporation proposing to build the pipeline.<br />
<br />
TransCanada Keystone Pipeline GP Ltd. argues that the pipeline will have no impact on imports from the Mideast and would simply displace US imports from Mexico and Venezuela with imports from Canada. (Yes, Mr. Gerard, Canada is an “outside source”.) Not only that, but the sale of Canadian crude to refineries in the Gulf Coast will also displace the refining of US produced crude in those facilities, forcing domestic producers to transport their product over greater distances and thereby increasing the cost of domestic energy supplies. They further state that this will increase the price of gasoline for US consumers. Where do they say all this? In <a href=”http://stopbigoilripoffs.com/documents/keystone-xl-pipeline-application-section-3-supply-and-markets/at_download/file”>their application to the National Energy Board of Canada for a permit to go ahead with the project</a>.<br />
<br />
First, let's tackle the question of our dependence on “outside sources” of energy.<br />
<br />
Let’s just gloss over the fact that Canada actually is a foreign country and accept that ‘foreign’ and 'outside' here are actually code for ‘Arab’. The Gulf Coast refineries are pretty busy, and no one is building new ones, so where do the Canadians think the capacity for processing all their crude is going to come from? Will they be displacing imports from the Middle East? Not so much. Here’s their explanation of where the processing capacity comes from:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Heavy crude runs fell from 2004 to 2007 due to reduced supply of heavy crude, especially from Mexico, as shown in Figure 7. In the first eight months of 2008, heavy crude supplies from Mexico and Venezuela fell another 300,000 B/D (31.8 103m3/d) approximately. Heavy crude imports from other countries increased, but there was a net reduction in heavy crude use of approximately 200,000 B/D (31.8 103m3/d).</blockquote><br />
Their projections show Canadian heavy crude replacing imports from Mexico and Venezuela, leaving the amount of crude from ‘other’ foreign sources unchanged. So there is no anticipated reduction in US dependence on oil from the Mideast, just a switch from Latin American sources to Canadian ones. Net impact on our dependence on “foreign” oil = zero.<br />
<br />
Now onto the question of domestic gasoline prices.<br />
<br />
We'll need some vocabulary for this one:<br />
• USGC = United States Gulf Coast<br />
• PADD = Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts<br />
• PADD II = the Midwest (15 states, from the Canadian border down to Oklahoma and from the Dakotas to Ohio)<br />
• PADD III = the Gulf Coast (6 states)<br />
<br />
Let’s start with a key takeaway from the summary section at the top of the report:<br />
<blockquote>Existing markets for Canadian heavy crude, principally PADD II, are currently oversupplied, resulting in price discounting for Canadian heavy crude oil. Access to the USGC via the Keystone XL Pipeline is expected to strengthen Canadian crude oil pricing in PADD II by removing this oversupply. This is expected to increase the price of heavy crude to the equivalent cost of imported crude. Similarly, if a surplus of light synthetic crude develops in PADD II, the Keystone XL Pipeline would provide an alternate market and therefore help to mitigate a price discount. The resultant increase in the price of heavy crude is estimated to provide an increase in annual revenue to the Canadian producing industry in 2013 of US $2 billion to US $3.9 billion.</blockquote><br />
In other words, the Midwest currently gets cheaper gas because they get their Canadian crude at a discount, based on an excess of crude available in the area. If the pipeline goes through, that excess will disappear and the price of Canadian crude will, therefore, go up, increasing revenues.<br />
<br />
If you look into the more detailed body of the report (developed for Keystone by independent experts), you find that there are a number of projections as to the impact on PADD II, in most of which supplies actually increase. But, the only one that the Keystone management considers is the one that maximizes their revenues. Is this legitimate? Actually, yes. The only variable that affects the supplies to PADD II in these projections is the amount shipped to the Gulf Coast. Since Keystone will control the pipeline that does the shipping, they can choose the scenario that makes them the most money by restricting supplies and raising gas prices for the American Midwest.<br />
<br />
But what happens to the Midwest? They've got that covered: “With lower Canadian deliveries, PADD II refineries would need more domestic crude or other imports to sustain crude runs.” And where does all this crude come from? “The PADD II refineries also use U.S. domestic crudes produced mainly in PADD II, Texas and Louisiana, and they import crudes via pipelines from the USGC.” Unless they have some way of increasing production in their own states, they're going to be piping it in from the Gulf Coast. That's the plan. To pipe Canadian oil all the way South to the Gulf Coast and have Gulf Coast crude be piped North to the Midwest<br />
<br />
Why does any of this make sense? Because <a href=” http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50a/usc_sec_50a_00002406----000-.html”>Title 50a of the US code, section 2406d</a>, bans the export of domestically produced crude. In other words, crude that is pumped out of the ground in the US cannot leave the country in any form. The Gulf Coast refineries can make more money refining Canadian crude piped in from thousands of miles away than they can from crude originating in Texas, because they can export it. <br />
<br />
Today, Canadian crude is piped a relatively short distance to PADD II and most Gulf Coast crude is refined locally. Under the Keystone plan, Canadian crude will get piped to the Gulf Coast and Gulf Coast crude will get piped to PADD II states. That’s a whole lot of unnecessary transportation, which takes energy, making the total energy production less efficient. Nor is the oil in question is destined for US markets. But both Keystone and the Gulf refiners will make more money, while consumers in the American Midwest will pay the price. Not to mention that, with increased energy costs, all the agriculture in the Midwest will become more expensive, raising the cost of food for the whole country.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-8227533404644565112012-01-13T15:20:00.000-05:002012-01-13T15:20:24.475-05:00historical equalityAccording to Rick Santorum, <br />
<blockquote>... America was born great. … What makes the saying on the Great Seal — <em>e pluribus unum</em> — true? Out of many one, what is the one? It is that, that we are a people who are children of God. We are seen as equal. I mean, the idea that all men are created equal, that was unheard of. Women created equal to men? No way! What society did that exist? Rights? Equal? No way. Why was that? Because we are children of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And we were all made in His image.</blockquote><br />
Others have already pointed out the lack of equality in the original Constitution, and the struggles it took to change that. I'd like to address a different point.<br />
<br />
"What society did that exist? Rights? Equal? No way."<br />
<br />
Sorry, Rick, but you are as wrong about world history as you are about our own. Let me introduce you to the ancient Persians, who made equality a cornerstone of their society until religious fundamentalists took over and messed it up for everyone. <br />
<br />
It all started with a guy named Cyrus. Not the first Cyrus, he was okay, but it was the second Cyrus who was The Great. First he built an empire, the big challenge being taking out the Babylonians, the super-power of their time, by finding the one vulnerable porthole in their superfortress and destroying their capital. Seriously, it was a total Star Wars move and he didn't even need the force, just his (one and only, monotheistic) god, Ahura Mazda. While he was there <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/539cyrus1.asp">he set their slaves free and sent them back to their homes</a>. (Your guy Jesus? We're pretty sure his ancestors were part of that group. No telling if the Jews would have survived in Babylon long enough for him to be born if it wasn't for The Great, but if they did, without The Great's help, it's hard to see how they would have managed to make the trip back to Palestine in time to be conquered by the Romans. In which case, Jesus would have been born in Iraq, Paul would have spread the word in Iran and India, and Christianity would have been an Eastern religion. But I digress.)<br />
<br />
The Great didn't earn his name just through conquest, though, he earned it as a ruler, and particularly through law. This one:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8dagzTcnEuEprh00sR8rw0dBv5Xg1Ng4NXZAsj6P7i6_2qbGD" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8dagzTcnEuEprh00sR8rw0dBv5Xg1Ng4NXZAsj6P7i6_2qbGD" /></a></div> That's the original Bill of Rights. Written in Akkadian around 539 BCE, it reads in part:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Now that I put the crown of kingdom of Iran, Babylon, and the nations of the four directions on the head with the help of (Ahura) Mazda, I announce that I will respect the traditions, customs and religions of the nations of my empire and never let any of my governors and subordinates look down on or insult them while I am alive. … I never let anyone oppress any others, and if it occurs , I will take his or her right back and penalize the oppressor. … I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of the others by force or without compensation. … I prevent unpaid, forced labor. … everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other's rights. ..No one could be penalized for his or her relatives' faults. I prevent slavery and my governors and subordinates are obliged to prohibit exchanging men and women as slaves within their own ruling domains. Such traditions should be exterminated the world over.</blockquote><br />
So, freedom of religion and culture, civil liberties, property rights, freedom of movement, and the abolition of slavery. Not too shabby on the equality front.<br />
<br />
But wait! There's more!<br />
<br />
What about women, you ask? Well, truth is we don't know all that much about the condition of women in The Great's empire. In fact, the only records we have that address the status of women are those of the royal court and the (equivalent of the) federal payroll for the capital city. <br />
<br />
We know court women controlled their own property, which in some cases included extensive estates throughout the empire; they traveled freely, on their own, to visit their properties; they competed with men in athletic events; they sponsored religious rituals on an equal footing to men. And while there weren't any ruling empresses, the second in command throughout the empire (after the emperor himself) was a woman - the ruler's mother - and when he was off fighting wars or otherwise unavailable? She had authority equal to his. <br />
<br />
That payroll record is even more interesting. Women were paid the same as men for the same job classifications except for the very lowest: the women who worked as pack-mules, carrying heavy loads, made less than men who did the same work. But for jobs where brain matter mattered, the pay was the same. And women were found all the way up the payscale, as engineers, managers, and artisans. Also soldiers; there were women in the Persian army throughout the imperial period. The only exception to equal pay was the bonus paid to pregnant women. Oh, and they had paid maternity leave. <br />
<br />
One last point. That bit about, "No one could be penalized for his or her relatives' faults." You might want to discuss that with your church leaders. They could learn a lot from The Great.<br />
<br />
You see, Rick, the ancient Persians were not the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though they were very nice to those children. But they had rights and a better record on tolerance and equality than we do. To pretend otherwise is nothistory.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-47908909213915223572012-01-09T08:41:00.000-05:002012-01-09T08:41:27.265-05:00Recent weather historyNine months ago, April 14-16 2011, a massive tornado outbreak hit the American southeast, killing over 40 people. There were at least 178 separate tornadoes in 16 different US states. Two weeks later, April 25-28, there was an even larger outbreak, with at least 359 tornadoes and 343 deaths. That time, they hit 21 states.<br />
<br />
Both times, South Carolina was on the list of states hit.<br />
<br />
When the candidates head down to SC on Wednesday, they may find voters who care a great deal more about climate change than those in Iowa or New Hampshire, and may not be as willing to support politicians who <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/huntsman-modifies-position-on-climate-change-20111206">flip flop</a>, <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/gingrich-kills-chapter-on-climate-change-in-upcoming-book-20111230">censor books</a>, <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/mitt-romney-flip-flops-on-climate-change/">pretend the evidence isn't clear enough for action</a>, <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/santorum-climate-change-vast-left-wing-conspiracy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Motherjones%2Fmojoblog+%28MotherJones.com+%7C+MoJoBlog%29">obfuscate with accusations of left-wing conspiracies</a>, or <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/skepticquotes.php?s=107">flat out lie</a> on the subject.* It is even possible that experience of extreme weather will have <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/12/severe-weather-global-warming-environment-laws-vote-liberal/1">turned voters liberal on environmental issues</a>. <br />
<br />
I'm stocking up on popcorn for this one.<br />
<br />
<br />
* If you don't feel like following the links, those are (in order): Huntsman, Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, and Paul.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-44685372073462911282011-10-06T18:24:00.000-04:002011-10-07T01:49:03.619-04:00Atlas didn't shrug ...... he shared his talents and our world is more interesting and better engineered for it. He did not hoard his ability, but used it to spark our imaginations and enable the abilities and creativity of others. His career was a celebration of the individual. He will be missed.<br />
<br />
Steve Jobs, 1955-2011thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-531415018300852482011-09-21T16:49:00.000-04:002011-09-21T16:54:19.157-04:00Not the senator from Massachussets, yetI've discussed the principle of the common good, or the common welfare, here a few times - to my mind it is <u>the</u> fundamental underlying principle of the American system, it's what makes it all work. Elizabeth Warren nails it:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/htX2usfqMEs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-46678574282352613032011-09-15T19:52:00.000-04:002011-09-15T20:01:43.119-04:00notGalileo<div class="MsoNormal">I thought that Rick Perry’s comparison of climate change deniers to Galileo would get some traction, as it’s such an obviously ridiculous analogy. As I haven’t seen much discussion of it, maybe it’s not as obvious as I thought. So let’s look at the two in a kind of Madlib, fill-in-the-blank format. I will have to make one small adjustment first: Galileo gets to be the climate scientists, not the climate change deniers.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Once upon a very long time ago, back in the: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l12 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">4th century BCE,</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l12 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">Industrial Revolution,</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">there was a theory. The theory said that: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l8 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;">the sun and the planets rotate around the earth.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l8 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;">the sky is so big that we can keep pumping garbage into our atmosphere without causing any damage.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">It wasn’t a very well-backed theory and a lot of scientists argued with it, but it was popular and a lot of people believed it. They liked believing it. It made them feel: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .5in;">important.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo5; tab-stops: list .5in;">safe.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">There were some problems with this theory, though. Little things like it didn’t match real world observations. So: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l11 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;">epicycles were added to the orbits, to explain away the problems.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l11 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;">cities enacted the first <a href="http://thatsnothistory.blogspot.com/2011/07/thats-notcleanair.html">clean air acts</a>, banning the more obvious smog causing pollutants.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">But this wasn’t enough. So a new theory was developed; it was: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l13 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .5in;">Tycho Brahe’s idea that the other planets rotate around the sun but the sun rotates around the earth.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l13 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list .5in;">the 1970s theory that pollutants would block the sun and cause another ice age.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, this theory didn’t match the real world either. So another theory was found that matched all the real world observations. This theory was called: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list .5in;">the Copernican or heliocentric model</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list .5in;">global warming, though I prefer <a href="http://thatsnothistory.blogspot.com/2011/06/temporary-hiatus.html">climate instability</a></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">and it argued that: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l6 level1 lfo7; tab-stops: list .5in;">the earth and the planets all orbit the sun.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l6 level1 lfo7; tab-stops: list .5in;">pollutants in the atmosphere cause a greenhouse effect where heat is trapped in the atmosphere, slowly warming the planet and disrupting world weather patterns.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">This theory was developed in: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo8; tab-stops: list .5in;">the early 17<sup>th</sup> century</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo8; tab-stops: list .5in;">the late 20<sup>th</sup> and early 21<sup>st</sup> centuries</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">by:</div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l15 level1 lfo9; tab-stops: list .5in;">two renowned scientists named Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l15 level1 lfo9; tab-stops: list .5in;">many well-respected climatologists.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Within a very short period of time, a very strong consensus developed among everyone with any credibility who looked at the data. This time, the theory was right. It matched the real world observations perfectly and, over time, as more evidence came in from: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo10; tab-stops: list .5in;">observations made with the newly invented telescope,</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo10; tab-stops: list .5in;">hundreds of researchers all over the world,</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">the new evidence was a perfect match for the theory. In science, this is the real test. Developing a theory that matches existing observations is great, but to be truly convincing, a theory must predict evidence that has not yet been collected. This theory met that test and convinced everyone who relied on reason and science. But not everyone does. There were still skeptics, people who didn’t like the new theory, people who felt uncomfortable with change and preferred to rely on tradition and faith. Some were ignorant and insecure, but others had self-interested motives to deny the new knowledge. These people were afraid that accepting the reality of the earth’s functioning as a planet would weaken their power base. They privileged their reading of the bible over facts and evidence. They were:</div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo11; tab-stops: list .5in;">the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church,</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo11; tab-stops: list .5in;">the leaders of evangelical Christian movements in the US and politicians who rely on evangelical votes,</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">and they saw this theory as undermining the literal received truth of the bible. Their belief system was, they feared, too frail to survive having so much as one of its myriad of elements challenged. They could have reexamined their understanding of their sacred text (the divine being said the sun rose and set because he was speaking in language his people could understand), they could have used the age-old ‘mysterious ways’ argument to claim that there is no need for faith and science to be in perfect synch (if the divine could allow the Holocaust, a little planetary movement should not be a big stretch). But they didn’t. They made the choice to take an absolutist position and attack science for its audacity in disagreeing with them.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But it’s hard to attack an abstract. So instead they attacked the scientists. They couldn’t reach them all; some they had no jurisdiction over. So they left: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l10 level1 lfo12; tab-stops: list .5in;">Kepler, who was not only in far off Germany but a Protestant</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l10 level1 lfo12; tab-stops: list .5in;">The European, Asian, etc. scientists</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">alone and focused their attacks on those they could hurt. Not right away though. Their first responses were actually encouraging. The first real notice they took of the theory was in: </div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l2 level1 lfo13; tab-stops: list .5in;">1611 when Galileo lectured on the subject in Rome.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l2 level1 lfo13; tab-stops: list .5in;">1989 when Bill McKibben wrote the first popular (rather than abstrusely scientific) account of the evidence.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The most notable responses were:</div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo14; tab-stops: list .5in;">a review of Galileo’s work by Jesuit mathematicians at the <i>Collegio Romano</i>, who granted it certification.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo14; tab-stops: list .5in;">the first President Bush’s promise to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Then they thought about it some more and decided it might be dangerous. They tried to silence the theory by:</div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l14 level1 lfo15; tab-stops: list .5in;">calling Galileo before the Inquisition and instructing him not to "hold, teach or defend" his beliefs; that he continued to hold them was evident to anyone who spoke with him on the matter, but the church left him alone as long as he kept those ideas out of the public sphere -- the original "don't ask don't tell".</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l14 level1 lfo15; tab-stops: list .5in;"><a href="http://environment.about.com/b/2006/10/05/us-senators-seek-investigation-of-bush-attempts-to-silence-scientists-on-global-warming.htm">blocking publication of federally funded research into the impact of climate instability, preventing NOAA and NASA scientists from speaking publicly, and censoring reports and websites</a>.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">When those efforts weren’t enough, they turned to discrediting the scientists by:</div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo16; tab-stops: list .5in;">recalling Galileo to the Inquisition and excommunicating him, not for his belief in science, but for disobeying their gag order.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo16; tab-stops: list .5in;">trolling through their emails looking for evidence of fakery, evidence they didn’t find, but that didn’t stop them from pretending they did.</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Through these measures they manage to obscure the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf">near-universal scientific consensus</a> and convince the gullible that their position was anything other than an attempt to bully the truth into submitting to their political ambitions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s almost as if they’re the same story.</div>thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-51698828728383489702011-09-14T09:29:00.000-04:002011-09-14T09:29:49.031-04:00Fixing nothistory soundsModernity impinges on our awareness in the most historical of sites. This can be good: visiting a medieval city is far more pleasant is the tourism board hasn't gone all out to recreate the pong of untreated sewage and the adults you share the space with have bathed since reaching puberty. The absence of plague-bearing fleas can also be counted as an advantage. But what about sound? There have been many attempts to recreate musical sounds of the past using period instruments in ancient structures. Dr. Damian Murphy, a sound artist and lecturer in the Department of Electronics at the University of York, has recreated the sounds of sites that are no longer intact. You can listen to music as it sounded in Coventry Cathedral before it was destroyed in the Blitz and druidic ritual complete <i>with</i> the resonance created by the once-complete circle of Stonehenge but <i>without</i> the sounds of the nearby highway <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14746589">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Nice rescue of nothistory.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-8530425347471984822011-08-15T09:52:00.000-04:002011-08-15T09:56:13.572-04:00NotSerious campaigingOf the many threads of discourse on the results of the Ames Iowa straw poll, there are two that contradict each other entirely. One is that the straw poll is a poor predictor of success in the nomination game and the other is that Pawlenty had to do well in the straw poll to be viable.<br />
<br />
The first is based on history. While there was a poll in 1979, it was a minor event with low turnout and not repeated soon. So the history of the poll as part of the electoral scene starts in 1987. Since I haven't seen it laid out in full detail anywhere else (it may have been, I just haven't seen it), here's the list of all previous placings versus nomination results (Republican only):<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 480;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"> <td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Year</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">1st</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">2nd</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">3rd</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Nominee</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">1987</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Robertson</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Dole</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">GHWBush</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Bush (3<sup>rd</sup>)</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">1995</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Dole</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Gramm</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Buchanan</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Dole (1<sup>st</sup>)</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">1999</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">GWBush</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Forbes</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Dole</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Bush (1<sup>st</sup>)</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">2007</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Romney</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Huckabee</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.55pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Brownback</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">McCain (10<sup>th</sup>)</div></td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of the four significant Ames Iowa Republican straw polls, in two the winners became the Republican nominee, in one it was the third place candidate, and most recently, the guy who came 10th out of 11 won the nomination. So how does coming in third spell doom for the Pawlenty campaign? Not just third place, but one of only three candidates to break double-digits, putting him significantly ahead of most of the others. <br />
<br />
The claim that he needed to do well in Ames is more than just a talk-show meme; Pawlenty said in no uncertain terms that his campaign "needed some lift" from Ames and that, having not gotten it, his candidacy was no longer viable. He also said his campaign was about getting his record of achievement before the voters. Not about charisma or a vision for America, but getting his record out there. That's a valid strategy, but it's a long-haul strategy. It's going to take time for voters to get past the flash-in-the-pan candidates to see your worth. That is incompatible with a strategy that depends on winning a popularity contest at the first state fair of the campaign season. These are basic realities that any serious politician or handler knows. Which makes me wonder if Pawlenty was ever in it to win. Either he has really, really bad political instincts or it was all a game. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What kind of game? Well, it does occur to me that ex-presidential candidate Pawlenty is a much more bookable speaker than ex-governor Pawlenty. He said himself, his campaign was not about a vision for America, it wasn't even about winning the presidency, it was about getting himself more recognition. Which makes him more marketable.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let's face it, politicians make a hell of a lot less money than the people they hobnob with, especially Republican politicians. Compared to most of the big names in his party, <a href="http://www.gazettenet.com/2011/05/21/pawlenty-to-run-for-president-as-09regular-guy09">he's a relative pauper</a>. Now is the perfect time to start building that fortune: his kids are about to start college and opportunities for Republican speakers are as good as they've ever been. His local party offered him the chance to run for senator, but <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/08/tim-pawlenty-what-next-/1">he's given them a definite no on that</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The way I see it, this all adds up to one thing: He's pulling a Palin, capitalizing on a failed foray into national politics by leaving public service for the service of Mammon. The difference is, he meant to all along. If I was one of his donors, I'd be pretty unhappy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div>thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-1699255774933438962011-08-09T20:25:00.000-04:002011-08-09T20:28:52.490-04:00That's not ... what is that?In my ongoing quest to provide historical context to contemporary issues, I could not possibly allow the latest incarnation of exploratory endeavor to pass without comment. The platform of the <a href="http://www.teainspace.com/">Tea Party in Space</a>* brings to mind a number of important historical precedents. Alexander the Great's independent bid for world domination, taken with the reluctant permission of the Greek city-states, but not their financial backing, comes to mind as an example of the potential of individual initiative. The voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama demonstrate the problems inherent in introducing the heavy hand of government into the quest for knowledge. And yet, there is another precedent that strikes me as more relevant, more apt, more perfectly suited to this topic:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tYjbkRktqIE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
*I must be a sinner, for I covet that teacup.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-8826533947919148552011-08-06T11:41:00.000-04:002011-08-06T11:41:25.203-04:00That's notCommon Law on assaultThere has been an astonishing new development in criminal law, or at least some lawyers are hoping to make it so. The story, as told by a local news show:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oz4RbRq0-Lw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
The part I find appalling is that, after two men opened fire on a Philadelphia bus, aiming at the passengers within, their defense is that they should not be charged with assault because no one was injured.<br />
<br />
What a fascinating legal principle: "No harm, no foul."<br />
<br />
Except that's not how our legal system works. We have a little thing called the Common Law system, based on hundreds of years of precedents, mostly from England. How did that happen? A series of what are known as "reception statutes" were enacted in post-Revolution America. Some were legislative acts, some were court decisions, the rest were written into state constitutions. Here, for example, is the New York one, enacted in 1777:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>[S]uch parts of the common law of England, and of the statute law of England and Great Britain, and of the acts of the legislature of the colony of New York, as together did form the law of the said colony on the 19th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, shall be and continue the law of this State, subject to such alterations and provisions as the legislature of this State shall, from time to time, make concerning the same.</blockquote><br />
By adopting English common law, with the right to make changes as needed, the new states avoided the legislative nightmare of having to create an entirely new legal system. Given that the colonies the states derived from had also followed English common law, this meant they could keep their courts and legal systems as they were. It was a practical decision, but also an ideological one; the newly independent states may no longer be subject to the British crown, but they still saw themselves as culturally and philosophically British. And so, throughout the United States of America today, we still follow the British common law legal system. Oddly enough, the words "no harm, no foul" are not found in that system. Nor has such a clause been added by any American state. Instead there is a legal definition of the term "assault" that goes something like this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact</blockquote><br />
The key elements here are intent and apprehension of harm. The video shows a bunch of very scared people running and ducking, and in one case crawling under a seat. That pretty much covers apprehension. As for intent, aiming a gun at someone and pulling the trigger satisfies that condition. <br />
<br />
There has been a great deal of abuse of the rule of law in the U.S. in recent years, most notably in areas where massive harm has gone unpunished. Notions like "too big to fail" and <a hre="http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/5805234-474/editorial-suburban-brat-gets-rich-mans-justice.html" href="">the need for restitution does outweigh the need for prison</a> corrupt our justice system. They replace the notion of justice with harm minimization, a dubious concept in principle and even more dubious in execution. But creating new definitions of criminal acts based on wishful thinking is not yet the common law for the common people, only the super-rich.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-57574519546268777262011-08-04T11:34:00.000-04:002011-08-09T20:32:44.169-04:00Really notInsane<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Is Anders Behring Breivik insane? I have no idea. But I’ve heard the comment, several times now, that he must be because only the insane would imagine that a terrorist attack could garner support for their cause, rather than the other way around. That’s nothistory.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are plenty of examples of terrorist acts that have worked against the intention of the perpetrator. Timothy McVeigh’s attack on the Alfred P. Murragh Building in Oklahoma City created sympathy for the federal civil service rather than the anti-government uprising he hoped for. But there are also examples where terrorists have gotten exactly what they wanted. Here are a few:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1181 Reginald de Chatillon-sur-Marne was unhappy with the fact that the Crusader states had signed treaties and settled into peaceful co-existence with their Islamic neighbors. Not satisfied with possession of Jerusalem, he believed that all Muslims were agents of the Devil and that all good Christians should do everything in their power to eliminate the scourge of Islam from the earth. So he got some followers and attacked a caravan of pilgrims on their way to Mecca. The next year he attacked a ship full of similarly intentioned Muslims. The problem for the Crusaders was that their entire mission had been founded on anti-Muslim propaganda, albeit most of it based on falsified information. To denounce Reggie would require admitting that their own cause was false. The atrocities themselves horrified the Islamic world, but it was the unwillingness of the Crusaders to do or say anything about them that convinced Saladin and his allies that the treaties were nothing but stalling tactics and that the Christians were, in truth, not reliable regional partners but their avowed enemies. The Islamic world united behind Saladin and retook Jerusalem, which in turn ignited the third and some subsequent Crusades (the ones aimed at the Islamic world, that is; not the ones against Christians of non-papist inclinations). A stable, amicable relationship was successfully turned into years of bloody warfare by the acts of a single terrorist leader. The heads of the Crusader states played into Reginald’s hands by allowing the perception that they sanctioned his actions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1932 The two major parties took 93% of the vote in the Japanese election, the militarists being relegated to an invisible portion of the “other”. Three months later, an attack by junior naval officers in Tokyo left the prime minister dead. The officers surrendered and turned their trial into a platform for their political views, the first major presentation of the expansionist, emperor-worshiping position. The young, handsome, passionate officers’ willingness to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs garnered massive public support. Petitions begging for leniency were signed in blood by hundreds of thousands of people. To appease the newly energized pro-military forces, the new government was led, not by the head of the parliamentary party in the majority, but by military leadership which immediately recognized the territorial gains in Manchuria, legitimizing the army’s adventurism, and increased the navy’s budget. The next election, in 1936, proved that the support was personal, not political, as the militarists still couldn’t break double digits or gain a single seat in the parliament, so the ideologues in the military did it all again with another terrorist attack that overturned the results of another election. The militarization of Japan in the 1930s happened despite elections in which over 90% of the population consistently voted against expansion (the same results occurred in 1939 as well), because the government responded to terrorism with appeasement, with precisely the same results Chamberlain got over on the next continent.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">2001 Is there anyone who doubts that the Al-Qaeda terrorists who took down the Twin Towers in New York got exactly what they wanted? A decade ago, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in every country that takes polls had positive feelings towards the U.S. Today, the U.S. is seen, at best, as untrustworthy and erratic, at worst as an outright enemy. A decade ago, Muslim Americans were broadly accepted as part of the melting pot. Today, there is a growing anti-Muslim industry that is prominent in the public discourse and making inroads into our government. The terrorists wanted to turn Christians and Muslims against each other. As horrified as we were by their actions, we gave them exactly what they wanted. They succeeded, not because they were smarter than McVeigh or their cause was more just, but because we let them. We played into their hands.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So far the Norwegians are not playing into Behring Breivik’s hands or trying to appease his co-believers. So far, all accounts indicate, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-02/norway-hate-attacks-make-anti-islam-taboo-cause-as-labor-surges.html">the backlash is promoting the Labor Party</a> he was trying to overthrow. But that doesn’t make him crazy for thinking it might have gone the other way.</div>thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-68643766638995580342011-07-31T17:35:00.000-04:002011-07-31T17:38:57.864-04:00Sorry, Bill, Christians are not necessarily pacifistsI had thought that Bill O'Reilly would be quickly shown the error of his ways when he argued that Anders Behring-Breivik could not be Christian because, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/26/bill-oreilly-media-breivik-christian_n_909498.html">No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder</a>. Apparently <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/y-quin-reads-bill-oreilly-breivik-chris">not so much</a>; he's still arguing that Christianity is a peaceful religion. So, for anyone who is unclear on the concept, he is a brief chronology of some of the highlights of Christian murders throughout history:<br />
<br />
313 Edict of Milan - Christianity is legalized in the Roman Empire. Eusebius and Lactantius call for vengeance on those who have persecuted Christians, the latter declaring that, "[God's] fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken asunder by him." Almost immediately pagan temples start being looted and destroyed, a process that would be repeated regularly for over a century. Some contemporary sources claim that pagans were slaughtered during these acts, others deny it.<br />
<br />
333 The first decree calling for capital punishment for heretics, in this case anyone found in possession of texts declared heretical. Followed in 346 by capital punishment for anyone who visits a pagan temple and in 356 with capital punishment for anyone practicing paganism anywhere, including their own homes.<br />
<br />
415 A Christian mob led by monks in Alexandria attacks Hypatia, a renowned philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, dragging her through the streets to a church where they murder her. Her school and students relocate to Greece to escape further persecution.<br />
<br />
532 Riots in Constantinople that started over a sporting rivalry turn political. Justinian orders the execution of rioters; 30,000 unarmed civilians are slaughtered.<br />
<br />
<br />
782 Charlemagne orders 4500 Saxons beheaded for returning to pagan belief after their coerced conversion to Christianity. <br />
<br />
<br />
1095-6 Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land stopped off to massacre Jews in Mainz, Cologne and other towns along the way. In 1099, they massacred over 60,000 people in Jerusalem.<br />
<br />
<br />
1189 Richard I of England punished Jewish leaders for daring to try to attend his coronation (though he seems to have kept the gifts they brought). The rumor that he ordered the death of all Jews led to massacres in both London and York in which unknown numbers of Jews were beaten to death and burned alive.<br />
<br />
<br />
1191 Richard topped that with the mass execution of Muslim prisoners in Acre. Philip of France, who had captured them and left them in the care of Conrad of Montferrat, had negotiated terms for their release, but Richard couldn't be bothered.<br />
<br />
<br />
1209-1229 In the Albigensian Crusade, Cathars of Southern France who refused to convert to Catholicism were burned at the stake.<br />
<br />
<br />
1234 The people of the town of Steding, Germany refused to accept the power of the Roman Church. At the request of the local Bishop, Pope Gregory IX declared yet another crusade in which between 5000 and 11,000 men, women and children were slaughtered.<br />
<br />
1456 In the aftermath of the Battle of Belgrade, 25,000 Turks were slaughtered by Hungarian forces. <br />
<br />
1502 Vasco de Gama had the hands, ears and noses cut off of 800 sailors and passengers of a merchant vessel, then had them tied up, their teeth knocked in, and what was left of them burned alive. Their crime? Arriving at a city that had offended him. Most of the "great" explorers limited their massacres to the inhabitants of port cities.<br />
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1631 During the Thirty Years War (which didn't last 30 years), between 20,000 and 40,000 residents of the city of Magdeburg were slaughtered after the city was taken.<br />
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Tudor England heretic burning. Witch hunts. The Inquisitions. The slaughter of Native Americans by white Christians. The Holocaust. There's a lot more, but I think the point is made.<br />
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The denial of the pacifist nature of Christianity and justification of violence began soon after the legalization of the faith. These arguments relied on both the text of the New Testament and arguments about the natural order of society.<br />
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354-430 Saint Augustine: "If the Christian Religion forbade war altogether, those (soldiers) who sought salutary advice in the Gospel would rather have been counseled to cast aside their arms and to give up soldiering altogether. On the contrary, they were told: 'Do violence to no man ... and be content with your pay' (Luke, 3:14). If he commanded them to be content with their pay, he did not forbid soldiering." AND "The natural order conducive to pease among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority."<br />
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1225-1274 Thomas Aquinas quoted Augustine at length in his own arguments for Christian violence, but made some additional points as well: "As the care of the common weal is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common weal of the city, kingdom or province subject to them. And just as it is lawful for them to have recourse to the sword in defending that common weal against internal disturbances, when they punish evil-doers, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 13:4): 'He Beareth not the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil'; so too it is their business to have recourse to the sword of war in defending the common weal against external enemies." In other words, the state is permitted to commit acts of violence by taking on the role of God's minister. As for private persons, if they "have recourse to the sword by the authority of the sovereign ... through zeal for justice, and by the authority, so to speak, of God, is not to 'take the sword', but to use it as commissioned by another, wherefore it does not deserve punishment."<br />
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1483-1586 Martin Luther originally argued that only defensive wars were justifiable, but in 1529 called for a war of aggression against the Turks. Like Augustine, he argued that the New Testament validates soldiering as a "legitimate and godly calling," and made the obvious connection that this could only be true if war is likewise a legitimate act. Like both Augustine and Aquinas, he assumes that the state itself is an agent of God's will, and so justifies only fighting for the state, never against it.<br />
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In the case of Anders Behring-Breivik, then, there is no question of whether a Christian can commit mass murder. Christian states and individuals have done so consistently since the religion first became powerful enough to have that ability.<br />
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There is, however, a theological question. Now that our rulers are no longer divinely appointed (to the extent that they ever were), is it a sin for a Christian to commit violence against a secular state which does not represent the will of God?<br />
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But theology is not history and I am not a theologian. But then, neither is Bill O'Reilly.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-9310958122853858682011-07-29T12:18:00.000-04:002011-07-29T12:30:10.865-04:00That's not the general welfare<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thom Hartmann from Russia Today did my job for me. A bit of historical perspective on the current debt ceiling debate and the centrality in our constitution, as intended by the founding fathers, of the responsibility of the government to provide for the general welfare. He gets a bit preachy in the last minute, but the history is solid and important:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZMXxQqGB7U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-32283024627634003932011-07-19T16:31:00.000-04:002011-07-19T16:31:25.087-04:00That's notCleanAir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The image below is a magnified cross-section of exterior wall paint from a London house, built in 1705. This particular house was painted rather often, on average every 4.2 years, providing a 300 year long regular record of paint types, weathering, etc. A lovely find for a material culture specialist. It also provides a rather graphic visual of the impact of environmental policy. As nicely noted for us by <a href="http://patrickbaty.co.uk/2010/10/18/history-seen-in-300-years-of-paint/">Patrick Baty</a>, it shows how the British Clean Air Act of 1956 ended a 250-year pattern of soot and industrial pollutant accumulation, visible as dark lines between the layers (marked by the 4th text-box down on the right-hand side):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPEGl_uzBcEaNhXGOogKJkmjCXrdkDG6s68IOnAD1wLZPi8_YQ7PLpD0HHvSxQEMflUYyTTd2FCLwlqkJJodVc_tUyYeFvIyqo1PUHFN6yiSlvoDED3cOTmD_D3vuzGAsMvakN1UsVefPY/s1600/300-Years-sml.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPEGl_uzBcEaNhXGOogKJkmjCXrdkDG6s68IOnAD1wLZPi8_YQ7PLpD0HHvSxQEMflUYyTTd2FCLwlqkJJodVc_tUyYeFvIyqo1PUHFN6yiSlvoDED3cOTmD_D3vuzGAsMvakN1UsVefPY/s640/300-Years-sml.jpg" width="443" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://patrickbaty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/300-Years-sml.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
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All that filth, gone. Filth that stuck to everything it touched. Filth that used to get in people's lungs and on their skin. Filth that covered crops and feed and livestock in the fields and was consumed in every meal. Today's air-borne pollutants are less visible, but they just as surely accumulate on surfaces, whether of buildings or human bodies or food sources.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-24462247647111662762011-07-14T13:41:00.000-04:002011-07-14T13:41:18.865-04:00That's notDemocracy in the US, but it is in the UKIn <a href="http://thatsnothistory.blogspot.com/2011/04/thats-not-free-market.html">a previous post</a>, I wrote about how the idea of a free market, as created by Adam Smith, is actually supposed to work, as opposed to the politically motivated, wildly distorted image so common in recent public discussion. That post was on the economy. Smith's argument, however, contains a principle that extends far beyond economic matters. This one:<br />
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<blockquote>Smith argued that justice includes “protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it” </blockquote><br />
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In other words, there are lines that even the rich and powerful are not supposed to be able to cross. We used to know that in America. In 1911, John D. Rockefeller himself, the richest man in the world, the first billionaire, and possibly the richest man in world history, was cut down to size by the Supreme Court decision in <i><b>Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, </b></i>when his oversized monolith of an oil company was broken into dozens of smaller entities forced into competition under the Sherman Anti-trust Act. In the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, for the first time a member of a president's cabinet, one of the most powerful political figures in the country, the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, went to jail and the power of the U.S. Congress to compel witnesses in corruption investigations was established. In the Watergate scandal, a presidency was lost and multiple high-ranking members of the executive went to jail because Congress and the overwhelming public opinion of the people demanded punishment for any public official so arrogant as to believe they could violate the civil rights of American citizens.<br />
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But truth and justice are no longer the American way. <br />
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In the last decade, Americans, both the people and the leadership, sat back and watched as constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure and the right of habeus corpus were trampled and felt no outrage. In the last decade, Americans sat back and watched as elderly people lost the retirement savings they'd spent their lives working for because of illegal activities and felt no outrage. Americans still sit back and watch as homes were taken away from people who had made every one of their payments by agencies not legally entitled to the ownership of their mortgages and felt no outrage. I could go on. But I'd rather look at what's happening in England right now.<br />
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The British, both the people and the leadership, found out that the privacy of three children was violated and the country exploded. This clip from parliament is wonderful:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/_Am5FaXdDj8/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_Am5FaXdDj8&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_Am5FaXdDj8&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><br />
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That's the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Milliband, asking Prime Minister David Cameron to take down Rupert Murdoch's News of the World. NotW is the primary media support and a key financial support of the Liberal Party that Cameron belongs to. It's like if someone had asked George W. Bush to take down Fox News during his administration. And Cameron agrees unequivically. The only argument is how to go about it and whether the Labour Party can make the Liberal's wear the blame.<br />
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That's how American politics used to work. That kind of belief, that at the end of the day, no matter how big a corporation and how valuable it is to a political party, the role of government is to serve the people not the money, is what is supposed to make a democratically elected political leader better than a dictator. That sense of outrage, spilling over from the people to the government, is what we like to call participatory politics. If the people don't care about their rights and don't believe that their government should be held responsible for protecting them from what Justice Douglas called <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_v._Columbia_Steel_Company/Dissent_Douglas">the problem of bigness</a>, what's the point of a democracy?<br />
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Our history is full of examples of how democracy is supposed to function, of corruption prosecuted, of big fish being cut down to size, of the people caring enough about what's right and just to hold our elected officials responsible. It's time to go back to school and study our history to see how that works. Or just turn on the news and watch the Brits get it right.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200695884821043678.post-57299183530643339252011-06-22T11:30:00.000-04:002011-06-22T11:30:36.687-04:00temporary hiatusThat's Not History is on temporary hiatus for an in-depth, personal investigation of the U.S. medical system. Your regularly scheduled nothistory should resume soonish (I hope).<br />
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In the meantime, two thoughts for the day.<br />
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1. Jon Stewart has world historian envy. How cool is that? It's like we're the new rocket scientists. Which would mean I would trump my dad, who used to be a rocket scientist. <br />
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2. We need a new name for the weird stuff going on with the weather.<br />
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Global warming sounds soothing. It's like we've put our poor, beleaguered planet on a comfy couch, wrapped in a soft blanket, in front of a roaring fire, with a cup of hot chocolate. Awwww. And what's the opposite of global warming? Global cooling. What, we're trying to bring on another ice age? Who wants that?<br />
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Climate change is confusing. Change is good, right? Especially if you're a progressive or lib'rul. So how come the left is against change and the right is for it? Too confusing, change the channel. Oh, and those programs they have to stop climate change, like that cappy tradey thing? What exactly are we capping and trading, huh? It wouldn't happen to be AMERICAN JOBS, would it? We've heard how those trade agreements go and we don't need any more of those, no sirree bob.<br />
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I propose: Climate instability.<br />
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No one likes instability. Economic instability means being out of work and the in-laws moving in with you because they've lost their retirement savings; no one wants that. Unstable people are scary, like crazy Uncle Harry who no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving just in case he's off his meds; no one likes them either. And the cure for climate instability is climate stabilization. All you have to do is look out your window or watch the news to know something's going wrong with the weather, and fixing that sounds like a darned good idea. Let's stabilize that sucker.thatsnothistoryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110917693817717046noreply@blogger.com0