Misblog

Originally Published July 13, 2007; Updated and Republished August 12, 2008:

God is not Great, by Christopher Hitchens should be on every American high school library shelve, in multiple copies. The book should be on every high school reading list, at all grade levels. Additionally, American high school English and religion teachers should consider incorporating the book into their curriculum for grade levels above sophomore. Hitchen’s begins with a hard hitting “stream of consciousness” assessment of religion’s impact on humanity after asserting that:

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“The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his [presumably her, too] certainty belongs to the infancy of our species.”

Hitchens then goes on to pummel major monotheistic religions and religious doctrinaire and the religious. He pauses to invite the faithful to unchain their minds. Mindlessly (or perhaps mockingly) offering, without logic, his personal guarantee that they'll feel better if they do? During this pause he empathizes with those he has implored to unchain their minds by offering his efforts to unchain his mind from Marxist dogma – he says he's still working on it but feels better. After this short pause the pummeling resumes.

If Hitchens’ goal is to lessen or eliminate humanities dependence on religious dogma and doctrinaire (a worthwhile goal) designating the faithful as infant species and thereafter pummeling them does not seem like an optimal strategy? If the faithful are, as asserted, infant species then offering what all infants need, concrete guidance, seems like a more optimal strategy¹. Human infants will not respond well or become free-thinkers via pummeling.

-----notes-----

1. One can certainly appreciate a free-thinker’s frustration when, for example, you observe a group of top 2008 presidential candidates move, in unison, away from Rudy Giuliani because the auditorium lights audio flicker simultaneous with remarks by Giuliani which others interpreted as possibly offending god! As if their omniscience, omnipotent, omnipresent god might mistakenly hit them while striking at Giuliani for his perceived “god offending remark” - this from our future wannabe leaders! (UPDATED: the youtube clip can be viewed here.)

• UPDATED 08/12/2008 Or fourteen cases involving sexual abuse by 10 different priests and two relate to the Rev. Daniel J. McCormack, who pleaded guilty last year to charges he abused five children.- AP, Settlements reached in Chicago clergy abuse cases
• UPDATED 03/12/2008 Or the Roman Catholic priest Athanase Seromba participating in the Rwandan genocide—Seromba ordered bulldozers to level a church, burying alive the Rwandan's hiding therein and ordered extremist gunmen to shoot any Tutsis who tried to flee the bulldozing. (AFP, UN war crimes court sentences Rwandan priest to life)
• UPDATED 02/02/2008 Or the Roman Catholic nun Sister Norma Giannini jailed for abusing young boys - NYT, Wisconsin: Nun Jailed for Sexual Abuse
• UPDATED 12/04/2007 Or the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, that settled for $37 million to compensate 156 victims of sexual abuse by clergy - NYT, Diocese in Iowa Settles With Abuse Victims for $37 Million
• UPDATED 11/19/2007 Or the dozen or so Roman Catholic priests in Alaska, who sexually molested over a hundred Alaska Natives children - AP, $50M Priest Abuse Deal Reached in Alaska
• UPDATED 10/10/2007 Or the Argentine Roman Catholic priest, Christian von Wernich, who participated in seven murders, 31 cases of torture, and 42 kidnappings - NYT, Argentine Priest Receives Life Sentence in ‘Dirty War’ Killings
• UPDATED 08/25/2007 Or that Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego files for bankruptcy to avoid 42 (and counting) priest sex abuse cases. Fortunately, the bankruptcy judge has order the trials to proceed notwithstanding the diocese's bankruptcy filing. (see NYT, Church Abuse Trials Ordered in San Diego)
• UPDATED 07/14/2007 Or that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, on the eve of trial, will settle 500 clergy abuse cases for $600 $660 million dollars (read story here).

Originally Published March 26, 2007; Updated and Republished July 29, 2008 to include the apology by the United States House of Representatives:

Britain’s Tony Blair places the Atlantic Slave Trade among history's most shameful enterprises. He expressed deep sorrow and regret for Britain’s role in the enterprise1. These statements from the enslaving nations are welcome, long overdue, and necessary but they are not sufficient. It is the current and ongoing obligation of every nation that participated in this most shameful of enterprises to demonstrate to itself and the world that it has contributed back to the enslaved population an amount equal to or greater than the amount gained from the enslavement.

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It is not enough to say the economic gains from slavery are uncertain or the commingled gains cannot be traced with sufficient certainty or there is no enslaved population to receive payment. The burden of proof is on the enslaving nations, not the enslaved.

It is not the enslaved that must be freed it's their enslavers. Acknowledging the enslavement and returning ALL benefits gained from that enslavement is the beginning of freedom for the enslaver nations.

Those interested in the Atlantic Slave Trade figures may want to look at David Eltis', Economic growth and the ending of the transatlantic slave trade.

Web:

• UPDATED 07/29/2008 UPI, House resolution apologizes for slavery
  The resolution passed today by the United States House of Representatives on voice vote in part reads:

  "Whereas millions of Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and the 13 American colonies from 1619 through 1865; ...

  Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

  (1) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow;

  (2) apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and

  (3) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future."

  See HRES 194 IH for the entire text of resolution.

• UPDATED 04/12/2007 Lawmakers in US state North Carolina formally apologize for "brutality of slavery". North Carolina becomes the latest state to issue an apology for it slavery past. Like all other “apologizers”, North Carolina has an ongoing duty to demonstrate to itself and the world that it has contributed back to the enslaved population an amount equal to or greater than the amount gained from their enslavement.

  It is not enough to apologize and say "No individual is responsible for this,...".

• Slave trade shameful, Blair says

-----notes-----

1. Britain was one of the first great powers to use military force to impede the Atlantic Slave Trade.

The Three Trillion Dollar War is a book format of a paper published by economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and government budget-finance policy wonk Linda J. Bilmes. Their original paper provoked quite a few comments and the book addresses those comments while updating the original paper1. The current operating war costs of $800 billion dollars exceed the original $50 billion dollar estimate by more than a factor of 10! At the current dollar burn-rate of $16 billion dollars per month the original estimate would barely cover three months operating costs of war!

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When you add in the future costs and interest on the entirely borrowed money you get the conservative and staggering estimate for a Three Trillion Dollar War!

If we were originally chasing down 50,000 terrorists that works out to $60,000,000 per terrorist—guess who wins if Bush's War continues.

The Three Trillion Dollar War is a must read book for those trying to understand the potential magnitude of the costs for Bush's disastrous, discretionary, and preemptory war:

-----notes-----

1. The book also makes 18 recommendations aimed at ensuring we do not have a repeat of the catastrophic Iraq debacle in the future.

The Open Net Initiative (ONI) has consolidated five years of nation-state Internet censorship and surveillance research into a recently published book, Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering. Access Denied significantly advances our ongoing discussion of methods for reducing global Internet IP packet friction, particularly at national borders and their virtual gateways. Access Denied has published an excellent first approximation of relative indexes for nation-state censorship and surveillance.1

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Access Denied focuses on the technology of IP packet impediment, but ultimately nation-state sponsored packet friction is the manifestation of symptoms for a widespread illness—the inability of the nation-state to understand, mediate, and resolve conflicts as virtual boundaries elide national boundaries—treatment begins by recognizing the symptoms.

ONI’s, Access Denied has begun the important work of documenting the developing symptoms of this serious pandemic illness—an essential read for everyone working² or planning to work treating the symptoms of nation-state Internet censorship and surveillance!

Res: The Open Net Initiative (ONI)

-----notes-----

1. When the second edition is published its editors will help readers and improve readability by differentiating between regimes and regimens.

It will help readers distinguish the dictatorial regimes from the oppressive IP censorship and surveillance regimens they implement.

2. For example the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, H.R. 275, has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives.

It aims to increase online freedom of expression and decrease nation-state coercion of multi-national entities.

On this day, October 28, 1968, the USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11) towed her magnetometer and cameras over a sunken wreckage two miles below. Two days later the United States Navy declared to the world that the sunken USS Scorpion (SSN 589) had been located. A recently published book, by Ed Offley, Scorpion Down, Basic Books, 2007 provides convincing, compelling, and conclusive primary source accounts that the Mizar’s October 28, 1968 “discovery” was nothing more than an elaborate “cover story”, by senior Navy and government officials, to obfuscate the fact that the wreckage had been located months earlier on June 9, 1968, by the USS Compass Island (EAG 153)1.

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To submarine fiction readers Scorpion Down will read like a submarine thriller that drops depth charge after depth charge until the truth about Scorpion’s sinking is finally forced to surface.

To USS Halibut (SSN 587)² submariners it will read like a detailed x-y grid plot of a target area after years of patient passes in a very dark sea, which finally promises to illuminate the target and enable recovery ... of the truth.

Offley has left many actively pinging transponders on a carefully constructed high probability, narrow confidence band grid of targets. I suspect it will not take 25 more years to recover documentary evidence of the truth about Scorpion's³ sinking.

Map Showing Compass Island's Search Track Beginning June 9, 1968

Web:

• Scorpion Down
• UPDATED Radio WNIA, Scorpion Down, Interview with Ed Offley (mp3)
• UPDATED 10/29/2008 Casualties of the Cold War: in Scorpion Down, veteran correspondent Ed Offley claims the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion was sunk in 1968 by the Soviet Navy.

-----notes-----

1. In the world of intelligence, especially military intelligence, especially superpower military intelligence it is actually very difficult and expensive to slow the relatively short half-life of a secret. Human actions will always belie randomness and thus secrecy, so intelligence officials use cover stories to explain the human non-randomness. Or as John Craven, technical coordinator of the Mizar’s Scorpion search might say: an ideal cover story must always be true and explain every aspect of non-random behavior with respect to the secret(s) being protected.

According to Offley’s compelling case the ultimate secret sought to be protected is that the former USSR intentionally torpedoed and sunk the USS Scorpion, on May 22, 1968 at 1644 (4:44 pm local time) in retaliation for the earlier US sinking of USSR’s K-129 submarine. The cover story used by senior Navy and government officials was intentionally or unintentionally articulated by Craven. Craven maintained and reasserted to Offley that the USS Scorpion sank as a result of an internally exploding torpedo (hot-running torpedo).

Later, when images (Navy and Ballard) of the sunken Scorpion showed no sign of an internal explosion the cover story was tweaked, by the USS Scorpion’s board of inquiry to say that the hot-running torpedo was jettisoned by crew members and then spontaneously locked on and sunk the Scorpion.

Offley conclusively demonstrates that senior Navy and government officials responded to the Scorpion’s sinking within hours of its May 22, 1968 sinking. This fatally torpedoes and sinks the official cover story. The old cover story cannot be tweaked, amended or salvaged, Craven's assertions notwithstanding – it has been fatally and conclusively blasted out of the water.

Offley, having successfully sunk the Scorpion’s cover story goes on to construct a theory of why Navy and government officials covered up the fact that they had begun the Scorpion search within hours not days and located the wreckage within days not months of its sinking. In this effort Offley is less successful. He unnecessarily complicates his theory by weaving in the Walker spy ring, North Korea’s proxy piracy of the spy ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) and Russia’s access to submarine crypto gear, KLB-47, KWR-37, and KW-7.

2. Offley incorrectly associates hull number 575 with the USS Halibut (SSN 587). Submarine hull number 575 belongs to Halibut’s sister ship the USS Seawolf (SSN 575). In Offley’s book the Seawolf was scheduled to participate in upcoming NATO exercises in the then volatile Mediterranean. However, system failures forced Seawolf into the shipyard and Scorpion took her place for the Mediterranean NATO exercise.

As noted above Halibut figures into Offley’s book as the submarine that located the sunken Russian submarine K-129. According to Offley’s book Scorpion was sunk in retaliation for America’s earlier sinking of K-129, which Halibut then located and photographed. The CIA subsequently salvaged the K-129 submarine using the USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193) – remember the manganese nodules cover story?

America honored a prior Russian request to provide evidence that the K-129 submariners recovered in the salvage operation were given a proper at sea burial. America presented Russian President Boris Yeltsin with photos of the sunken K-129, the at sea burial ceremony, and the flags used during the at sea burial of the recovered K-129 Russian submariners.

3. Another book on the USS Scorpion by Kenneth Sewell and Jerome Preisler, All Hands Down: the true story of the Soviet attack on the USS Scorpion, Simon and Schuster, 2008 is schedule for publication around April 15, 2008 (Sewell is also co-author, with Clint Richmond, of Red Star Rogue: the untold story of a Soviet submarine's nuclear strike attempt on the U.S.).

What submariner, as described in All Hands Down, in the entire US Submarine Force, officer or enlisted, standing an in port 15 hour engineering watch would ever request the below decks watch to wake the captain so he (engineering watch) could take a piss?

Taiwan's (台湾) fifteenth application for membership in the United Nations (UN) has been denied.

Taiwanese president, Chen Shui-bian, said he will seek the Taiwanese people's support for United Nations (联合国) membership in a March 2008 referendum.

Between now and March 2008 both China (中国) and the United States (美国) must cooperate to prevent America's Defense of Taiwan Act (aka Taiwan Relations Act - 台湾关系法) and China's Antisession Law (反分裂国家法) from triggering a war (战争), if, as is likely, Taiwan proceeds with its March 2008 popular referendum.

Longtime United States China hand, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for US-China relations, and Director of the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (San Diego), Susan L. Shirk, has some tips on achieving this in her new and very readable¹ book China: Fragile Superpower.

Web:

• UPDATED 05/29/2008 China and Taiwan to restart talks

• UPDATED 10/10/2007 NYT, Rice Has Sharp Words for Taiwan, as Gates Does for China. Rice and Gates tag team China and Taiwan. Both are poking each other as a result of the world attention brought about by the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games.

  Taiwan thinking it’s a good time to press its case for independence and China its case for one China.

• UPDATED 11/29/2007 NYT, China Explains Decision to Block U.S. Ships. China blocks US ships from docking in Hong Kong to signal displeasure over a recent US meeting with the Dalai Lama and its decision to sell defensive Patriot Missile Systems to Taiwan.
• UPDATED 10/10/2007 NYT, Taiwan Stages Military Parade
• UPDATED 10/10/2007 NYT, China Announces Gains in Air Defense
• UPDATED 10/10/2007 BBC, Taiwan shows off military might
• UPDATED 10/09/2007 NYT, China Promotes Taiwan-Focused Military Officers
• UPDATED 09/29/2007 Chinese top political advisor says China has zero tolerance to "Taiwan Independence"

• UPDATED 09/28/2007 NYT, Taiwan Plans to Produce Missiles Able to Hit China. China has deployed more than 700 missiles (导弹, dăodàn) (primarily DF-11, 东风 - DōngFēng - Easternly Wind) directly across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan.

  A Taiwan cruise missile with a range of 600 miles, carrying a 1,000 pound warhead is an increase over its existing cruise missile capability.

• UPDATED 09/28/2007 U.S. president meets Chinese FM on ties, other issues
• UPDATED 09/24/2007 Chinese, U.S. top diplomats meet on bilateral ties

-----notes-----

1. Those who could not sort out the China or American press reporting on the mid-air collision resulting in the death of a Chinese pilot and the eleven day detention of the American P-3 reconnaissance crew will appreciate the book's clarifications.

Readers will appreciate the fine distinction, which only diplomats and lawyers use, between 歉意 (qianyi – to express regret) and 道歉 (daoqian - to apologize).

We’re going to need a lot of fine distinction to prevent conflict, between the rising superpower and superpower, but patient persistent calm dialog will prevent a “lose-lose” war.

About China:Fragile Superpower Lucian W. Pye said:

"Shirk combines the highest standards of academic scholarship with government experience as the State Department official responsible for U.S. relations with China during the Clinton administration."--Lucian W. Pye, Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec2007--