A great career awaits:

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Iraqi information minister may still be alive. According to the report, he's tried to turn himself in to US forces, but they don't think he's important enough to arrest.

Derbyshire:

John Derbyshire's column today is remarkable on several occasions. Here are two, but the whole column--indeed, the whole body of his political writings--deserves reading when leisure permits:

It is easy to think of very large and disastrous social consequences that have followed from private sexual activity. There is, for example, the great explosion of illegitimacy that followed the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and that has wreaked such havoc on our society. There is also the dreadful AIDS epidemic, spread in the USA mainly by private sexual activity, which has killed tens of thousands of people. There is of course a great deal more to be said on both these topics, and room for plenty of opinions about the proper scope and authority of the state in these things. I am only pointing out that the proposition: "Society at large has no legitimate interest in citizens' private sexual activities" is so obviously false as to be, well, infantile. And yet, amazing to say, a lot of grown-up people seem to believe it.

And the second:

The Santorum business brought to the fore an outfit called "The Human Rights Campaign." You would never know from its name that this is a homosexualist lobbying organization. I have no problem with HRC's existence � homosexuals have as much right to organize and lobby as the rest of us � but I do have a problem with that name � viz., it's dishonest. The name of an organization ought to give some clue as to what the organization is for. Why don't they call themselves "The Homosexual Rights Campaign," or "The Campaign for Tolerance of Alternative Sexuality," or something like that? If they want to be a little more in-your-face, they could go for something with a defiant or humorous twist: "The Sodomite Sodality," perhaps. Don't they understand that this straining at bland respectability just makes them look shifty?

Readers, I have decided to launch a movement for the legalization of dog meat as a marketable foodstuff. My movement will be named: "The Campaign for Truth, Justice, Harmony and Peace." Everyone OK with that?

Al Qaeda in Iraq:

A terrorist is captured in western Iraq. Administration officials quickly point out that they don't know if he had any connection to the Iraqi government. I'm always amazed by how cautious the Bush administration is with its pronouncements, in view of their public image as outrageous cowboys.

A Mythic Day:

...in the Corner. Thanks to them for these links, one to a magnificient archaeological find that may be the tomb of Gilgamesh. Also, there is a link to this article on dragons.

Caves in Afghanistan:

U.S. Special Forces find 80 metric tons of high explosives and 124 metric tons of small arms ammunition hidden in Afghan caves. But that's not all:

Earlier this month, Romanian soldiers discovered thousands of rockets and more than 1 million rounds of ammunition in what the US military then described as the largest weapons cache discovered by US-led forces in Afghanistan.

The find near Qalat, capital of southern Zabul province, included 3,000 107mm rockets, 250,000 rounds of 12.7mm machinegun ammunition, about 1 million rounds of small arms ammunition and other ammunition and mines.

Afghan forces earlier this month also discovered about 18 caves full of ammunition and weapons near Maimana.

Each cave was 15 metres by five metres by four metres high, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said when he announced the finds.

Those weapons appeared to have been stockpiled during Afghanistan's 1992-1996 civil war, however, not a Taliban or Al Qaeda arsenal.

US special forces also uncovered six smaller caches of weapons including 400 107mm rockets and machineguns in the Madr valley north-east of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.

Link via the Agonist.

Now I know what to get as a wedding gift:

Minnesota passes a "shall-issue" law on concealed firearms. Maybe I'll spring for a pistol for Kevin, my sister's suitor.

The "Ban that Polarized a Nation":

Foxhunting in Scotland. Really, though, outright banning of traditional liberties should always polarize a nation--preferably into the camp in favor of voting out the scoundrels who did it, and camp composed of only the scoundrels themselves.

Great, if true:

Mugabe to step down?

Progressing right back...

Earlier this week, I said:

Progressive--I like that. Let's progress right on past the wasteland of modernism, exactly by returning to the old values of classical liberalism. It was, after all, the classical liberal who first propounded the idea that all men were created equal, and that some rights were endowed inalienably.

From The Nation, an article by William Grider:

ROLLING BACK THE 20th CENTURY

...The movement's grand ambition--one can no longer say grandiose--is to roll back the twentieth century, quite literally. That is, defenestrate the federal government and reduce its scale and powers to a level well below what it was before the New Deal's centralization. With that accomplished, movement conservatives envision a restored society in which the prevailing values and power relationships resemble the America that existed around 1900, when William McKinley was President.

I'm not aware of being part of any movement, but it sounds like I may have some allies out there. If they want to stop at 1900, though, they're pulling up short. I say we keep right on rolling to, say, 1787. If we get to pick our period of values and power relationships, I'll take the Washington administration.

PBR Watch:

My grandfather's beer, and my favorite American beer, has apparently reached the apex of coolness. Jonah Goldberg of NRO mentions it today, and even links to the PBR Homepage. Always did like the stuff--good to see it getting its due.

Mr. Powell blows smoke:

Today's NY Times article on the DPRK negotiations includes this gem from Colin Powell:

Mr. Powell said the North Koreans had not threatened during the talks to begin testing nuclear weapons. They never "used the word test," he said.

Did they use the word "is"? Or was it just that we can say they didn't use the word "test," as the statements were written in Korean?

The DPRK has, in the past, signed specific treaties and then broken them immediately. The State Department is now trying to read things into their choice of words in nonbinding negotiations? This is akin to a judge deciding to let a career criminal go unpunished, not because he promised not to rob any more banks, but because, describing his plans to visit the bank next week, he didn't use the word "rob."

Antagonistic?

An offer from the DPRK hinges upon our abandoning our antagonistic policy toward them. What policy would that be? Forswearing war at every opportunity?

Arts & Sciences:

From the beginning of a piece on failed civilizations:

In particular many of the so-called hard scientists such as physicists or biologists, don't consider history to be a science. The situation is even more extreme because, he points out, even historians themselves don't consider history to be a science. Historians don't get training in the scientific methods; they don't get training in statistics; they don't get training in the experimental method or problems of doing experiments on historical subjects; and they'll often say that history is not a science, history is closer to an art.

Historians often say that history is not a science because history is not a science. One of the central problems with modern society is its increasing inability to tell the difference between what is a science, and what isn't. This is directly related to the prestige that has come to be associated with the label of "science" during the 20th century.

In part because of the tremendous material advances brought us by science, the concept of science enjoys considerable standing. The best way to make sure that your ideas are put into practice is to convince others that they are scientific: to say that something is scientific is commonly thought to be the same as saying that it is true beyond the possibility of counterargument. Psychology (from the Greek, psyche-, or "spirit/soul," and -ology, or "study of"), which claims to be the science of the mind, has so convinced the majority of Westerners that it is scientific that a psychologist's testimony alone can strip a man of his freedom, serve as reason not to hire him, or to fire him from a job he already has. A man can be subjected to forced injections of drugs and imprisonment based on nothing more than a psychologist's assessment.

This all rests upon a misunderstanding of just what science is. Science is one kind of inquiry, a particular kind that rests upon two general principles: the method of making no assertions that cannot be tested and falsified; and the complete transparency and open debate of all assertions being made, none of which are ever to be taken as invunerable. Science is indeed a great thing; it is indeed powerful.

It isn't -everything-, though, and it isn't all powerful. There are some endeavors that are not, and can not be, science. History is one of them. So, as it happens, is "psychology," which would be more honestly called philopsyche, after the fashion of philosophy. Anything which involves the working of the human mind isn't and cannot be a science. This is simply because the human mind isn't observable, and therefore, it is not testable. Regardless of how cautiously you design your tests, the fact is that you are simply guessing about the why of a given decision. You can't really observe the process of decision making.

Stripping these so-called "social sciences" of the notion that they are sciences is one of the greatest services we could do for our culture. There is nothing more noble than art, exactly because there is nothing more human than art. We ought to be proud to be performing the arts, practicing the arts. There are too many, though, who are unwilling to compete in a fair and open atmosphere. They wish to hide behind the authority of science, even if they must do so illegitimately.

And they must: science was never about stifiling debate, but always about enforcing it systematically. Psychology, sociology, and the rest do not--as history does--recognize honestly the fact that their methods simply cannot be scientifically tested, cannot be falsified, cannot be proven nor disproven. As such, all of their assertions deserve a healthy scepticism. That scepticism should be the healthier for the fact that these so-called disciplines will not admit the truth about their methods. They are a blight upon our way of thinking, and of conceiving the world.

Still--

This article from the Policy Review deserves special mention.

Arts & Letters Daily:

My favorite of all similar sites, Arts & Letters Daily is one I rarely link to because I'd feel the need to speak to almost every piece. If you don't make a habit of reading it, you might wish to reconsider.

On which topic:

Babbin today:

There were several night missions aimed at capturing Saddam last week. The Marines and spec ops guys searched several caves and tunnels near Tikrit. Some had been recently occupied, but neither Saddam nor his sons were found.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday:

To Saddam, who is surely dead--or soon to be. One almost hopes he is alive, just so he can enjoy a birthday celebration in constant expectation of the arrival of Marine Force Recon.

Libya's chairmanship of the UN Human Rights Commission:

Even Le Monde can't let it go any longer.

Les choses avaient mal commenc�, cette ann�e, avec l'aide regrettable de la France, par l'�lection malencontreuse � la pr�sidence de la repr�sentante de la Libye, et elles se sont mal poursuivies. . . .
Cette commission est devenue une parodie d'elle-m�me et la majorit� des 53 Etats membres se satisfont de cette situation.

My French is what it is, but that's roughly, "Things began badly, this year, with the regrettable aid of France, with the election to the presidency of Libya's representative, and they have continued badly. . . . This commission has become a parody of herself, and the majority of the 53 member-states are satisfied with this situation."

Arab Conspiracy Theories:

From Albawaba.com.

A Compromise?

The White House is said to be backing a bill making it a crime to harm a fetus while assaulting his mother. The NOW has made noises of opposition to the concept, on the grounds that they fear giving legitimacy to the notion that a fetus is a person deserving of legal protections.

Well, we've had this discussion, and it's going nowhere. How about a compromise? Can we just modify the law to double the range of all penalties for violent crimes against pregnant women? If it works well, we can include children under twelve and the elderly in this blanket protection.