Gore / Carbon sink

A Question for Mr. Gore:

So, by now we've all heard about Gore's gigantic house, and his likewise gigantic electrical bill. (If you haven't, see here and its supporting links). The defense is, essentially, that Gore is "carbon neutral" by using services that plant trees for him, offsetting his power usage.

So my question is: What about this?

Although the United States and Canada produce a substantial amount of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, a new study contends that the North American continent is a net carbon sink whose vegetation may be absorbing the entire annual emissions of the two countries.... Fan attributes the North American sink to four factors:

* U.S. forests are being replenished, in part by new methods of feeding livestock brought on by a growing demand for meat. For example, during the last century hogs and cattle were permitted to wander the mountainous areas of the eastern United States. Today, however, such animals are restricted to concentrated areas like feed lots.

* Air in the Northern Hemisphere is rich in nitrogen (a plant food), thanks to the area’s industry and agriculture. Science reported in 1992 that nitrogen fertilization was stimulating European forests in the same manner and surmised that China and tropical rain forests were sure to follow this trend.

* Increased amounts of CO2 increase photosynthesis and water-use efficiency.

* Satellite data indicate a lengthening of the growing season in the highest latitudes.

The last one is ironic: global warming from greenhouse gases yields longer growing seasons for agriculture, which in theory reduce global warming by greenhouse gases.

But as to the larger question: if North America is a carbon sink, does that mean we can just carry on like this forever? If it's good enough for Al Gore, why shouldn't we do just as we like also? We're planting trees too -- lots of them.

VCDL Update

Update on the Manassas Story:

VCDL has posted a lot of pictures and video from the event mentioned yesterday. You can also read some members' writeups. They've got a page with links to all that here.

I wish we had a VCDL in Georgia. I may have to look into starting one...

The Old Model Army:

The Belmont Club has been worrying about the anonymity of the terrorists and ethnic cleansers in southern Thailand. The Thai Army has admitted for years that it has no real knowledge about who is behind the increasingly powerful insurgency, or the murders growing in frequency as well as number. Wretchard speaks especially here but also here to the problem. He then says, "But the anonymity that the International Herald Tribune describes is only partial. Much is known about some of those who are causing the trouble. The International Crisis Group has listed out the known insurgent groups."

Yes, and there are several. Some of them -- most notably PULO, the Pattani United Liberation Organization -- even claim to speak for the insurgency. But why would you believe that they do, besides that they say so? The truth is, most of the statements supposedly from the organization are from retired leaders of an older insurgency, now living in Europe.

Wretchard wonders what the "goal" of the insurgency is. Let me suggest a model. I can't prove it, any more than anyone else can. But see if it doesn't make some pieces click into place.

In southern Arizona in the 1880s, there was a band of American outlaws. They lived mostly out of the saddle, and made their living originally in raiding the Mexican settlements in Sonora. The cross-border crime and violence got so bad that the Mexican government constructed three new forts on the border, and used its army to close that border to traffic that wasn't of verified legality. (This story, in addition to being background to the model I'm about to offer, is of some interest to another current debate).

Once the border was effectively closed, the outlaws turned to crime within the United States, both rustling and stage-coach robbing among other adventures. From Texas to San Francisco, the frontier wondered at their exploits and demanded action to stop them. The threat to the Wells, Fargo shipments, in particular, was almost existential to the southern Arizona silver mines. Wells, Fargo was the only service in the area willing to insure transported goods against theft. If they stopped carrying the silver, there would be little point in mining it.

As a result, a lot of attention was focused on this band, which was widely called "the Cowboys." The famous Earp brothers, Deputy US Marshals, were only some of those involved in trying to understand and to stop them.

I will here quote from Casey Tefertiller's Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend, p. 111.

More complicated, however, was that no one really quite understood whether or not the cowboys were organized or knew who served as their real leaders. At various times, Old Man Clanton, George Turner, Ike Clanton, John Ringo, and Curley Bill [Brocious] were all identified as the leaders. Wells, Fargo officials said in March of 1882 that the cowboys were a gang of about seventy-five under the leadership of Ike Clanton. At about the same time, Virgil Earp told the Examiner that there had been about two hundred cowboys, but fifty had been killed, and they were under Ringo's leadership. Thornotn, the Galeyville hotel manager and friend of Curley Bill, probably had the bset understanding of the group when he said: "The cowboys have no chief, nor do they run in gangs, as is generally supposed. Curly Bill... has no gang, and since his last partner shot him... Bill don't take well to partners. No, sir, the 'cowboys' don't herd together in droves, but come and go about their own personal business wherever they desire to go."

I've been watching Southern Thailand for several years and in some detail, and I wonder if that isn't the model. I wonder if it isn't "terrorist groups" or even gangs, but a loose collection of like-minded people, two or three of whom get together once in a while and kill some Buddhists. Or ten or twenty of whom get together once and again and rob someplace, while laying ambush for the police on likely pursuit routes.

That last is a degree of sophistication that suggests organization. But it doesn't take much organization. I've just suggested it to you, and if you decided to set up an insurgency, you'd probably remember that I suggested it. That doesn't mean we're organized together; and if you once did it that way and it was reported in the press, a third person thinking the same way would say, "Right, that worked well. I should do that when I rob the train."

Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group has pointed to some evidence of Bangladeshi folks in some of the bigger acts; a few such would be all it takes to start passing the ideas among a community of young outlaws. A few people passing hints, making contact where they can, would be all it took.

That would account for the anonymity, and also for the difficulty that intelligence services have had in penetrating the insurgent groups. A setup like this would be less easy to penetrate than the old cellular system employed by the PIRA and others.

So, what if this is right? What if you've got a loose group of young Muslims who, instead of rustling or robbing stages, have decided to murder a Buddhist here and there when they have a chance? Is that more, or less worrisome than an organized insurgency? Why?

It suggests a goal, by the way: ethnic cleansing. Any greater goal would require more organization than they appear to feel necessary; and there is no obvious financial motive. It appears to be a simple desire to rid their own personal world of non-Muslims.

Think about that for a bit, and see if it doesn't fit. It may open some doors in understanding the conflict.

NoVA meets VCDL

NoVA meets VCDL:

A while back, a group of gun owners were having dinner in a pizza joint in Manassas, VA. As required by VA law, when dining in a restaurant which serves alcohol, they had their firearms openly displayed.

Somebody called the cops and reported a bunch of armed men eating dinner, and said the guns made him "uncomfortable." The cops apparently harrassed the dinner party, and then went to the manager of the restaurant to get him to ask them to leave so they, the cops, could throw out the gun-owning diners.

No one was arrested because no laws had been broken by anyone. But the cops got what they wanted -- a chance to show that, if you carry a gun, legally or not, you'll be in trouble with the police.

Last night, the gun owners gave their reply.

More than a hundred members of the Virginia Citizens' Defense League showed up at the Manassas city council meeting to protest the action and demand the officers be disciplined. Speakers from the organization held the floor for one and a half hours -- video will apparently be available soon -- to explain the virtues of gun ownership and gun rights, and to demand that people exercising those rights be treated with respect.

According to the VCDL page, "The Mayor led off by saying that he could not remember ever seeing such a large crowd for **anything** they had done before!"

Good job.

Kilcullen "Marathon" Post

Kilcullen "Marathon" Post at Small Wars Journal

At the SWJ blog, LTC Kilcullen has a good post on the "Baghdad Marathon." This was interesting in light of our recent discussion of victory and time in Iraq.

In comments to my post, Grim rightly pointed out that how long an "insurgency" last is sometimes a matter of opinion - depending on whether, say, you count intense IRA campaigns punctuated by years of peace (and preparation) as one long insurgency or a series of discrete ones (and whether you include those periods of preparation as part of the insurgency). I suggested that the most problematic groups in Iraq, "offensive" Sunni militias and AQIZ, couldn't afford to lengthen their lifespan by lying low for a while, because their ability to make Iraq look like a "failed state" relies on their ability to keep up the violence year after year, continuously from the beginning.

On that minor point, if Kilcullen is right, the enemy seems to agree with me:

"By shifting our approach away from directly hunting down insurgents, and towards protecting the population, we have undercut their influence – they know it, and their options are to flee, wait us out, or come into the open to contest control of the neighborhoods. The fact that some are coming into the open suggests they realize that waiting us out is not an option. It also makes the job of finding the enemy far easier. This is encouraging, as long as we can protect the people."

That doesn't give me hope for quick victory - and the title of his post, "The Iraq Marathon," suggests that it doesn't do that for him either. I still think 15 years is more realistic than 5. (And I still welcome thoughts on improving my estimate.)

HIHK IV

Horses, IV:

About a week ago, we got in a whole new shipment of horses from Wisconsin. They were fuzzy beasts, with the shaggy winter coat you'd need up Wisconsin way if you were in an open field. They apparently never had shoes, not any of them, because I spent the better part of last week helping the farrier get them fixed up. One of them in particular, named Sherlock, really does not like to have his feet messed with. Even now that he has shoes on, you have to rope him three different ways to clean his back feet, and he still tries to get you.

They were at one point or another broken to riding, but, ah, not all of it stuck with them all the way down to Georgia. We train horses both for Western trail riding and various English sports, and so we have several trainers who work with the animals. Our top dressage trainer got bucked right off the new mare last week, which is always hilarious as long as nobody really gets hurt.

And then there's Romeo:



This one was a diamond in the rough. Once we clipped off his coat, we found a very charming, patient horse who can go straight to a canter from a walk. He's not quite as brave as some horses, but he's easy and willing and friendly.

And he's a handsome beast, too.



Yeah, I figured that if I wanted some pictures of Romeo for you, I'd better get them up in a hurry. I don't expect he'll be around real long.

By the way, that vest in the picture is from Coronado Leather. They're famous because they were the ones who came up with the idea of building concealed holsters into the vest. I use that vest for camping and hiking, because it's like a cuirass against briars and thorns and brush. It's not ideal for trail riding because it's not cut right for the saddle, but they make some that are. They also make leather jackets, for those of you who want a full-sized bomber or something similar.

The thing holds up beautifully with little effort. I carry my short-barrled Ruger New Model Vaquero .45 in it, and it retains the revolver just fine when the horse is at the canter.

My point is that Coronado's stuff is good kit, for those of you who like to adventure in the backcountry.

Overheard

Overheard at Grim's Hall:

The wee wife suggests I join a hunting club:

"And it's possible that, at a hunting club, you'd find someone you'd really li... enj... could tolerate!"

RF on Pak

Richard Fernandez on the Pak-Afghan Border Problem:

The founder of the Belmont Club has an analysis piece up today at PJM. It points, again, to the problem we face in dealing with non-state actors: they use the state system as cover. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have found a place where, for diplomatic reasons and reasons of stability, the Coalition will not enter -- so they rest there in relative safety. Iran, meanwhile, is able to use American desire to avoid conflict -- including our own Congress' defiance -- to give safety and security to bad actors it wants to encourage in Iraq.

This is a situation that cannot work to our benefit. If we want to see anything good, we'll have to change the plan here.

AP Horsewhip

Breaking News: Associated Press Needs to be Horsewhipped:

So, I assume you all saw today's top story from the AP, titled, "Americans underestimate Iraqi death toll." The lede says:

Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

So. After almost four years of telling Americans the precise number of Americans killed in every single news story, every single day, the AP has the gall to run a story claiming that Americans' awareness of that number suggests self-centeredness and inattention.

Does anyone believe that, if there had been the same obsessive focus on the number of Iraqi dead within the media, there would be the same result?

By the way, just how many Iraqi civilian dead are there? The story says:

Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.

Well, in 2004 the Lancet estimated a hundred thousand; and in 2006 they estimated 655,000. President Bush, last I heard, had the number at thirty thousand.

So, which number are you going to remember -- the one that you see in the newspaper every single day, or the one you've heard vague reports of once in a while, with every number widely different?

Next story: many Americans can precisely recall their own telephone number, but woefully misremember their dentist's.

Cloned Cows and Puzzlement

Cloned Cows and Puzzlement

Today I ran across this story, saying that Dean Foods (which owns Land O'Lakes) will not accept milk from cloned cows. Now, I can understand why the company's doing it - they're responding to opinion polls. The customers don't want it, so they won't take it.

What I don't understand is why anybody would care if his milk came from a cloned cow. It's still a cow. It's still milk. Can anyone help me to understand?

Uh-oh

Uh-oh:

We may be in trouble:

Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the tools to hunt small mammals -- the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans.

Chilean blogger FayerWayer has the right take on this. We'd best be getting ready, boys.

Heh - Vets

A Good Story:

CDR Salamanader has the sort of tale I'm always happy to hear.

Mrs. Z on McCain

Mrs. Chuck on McCain:

Over at Chuck Z's place, his wife has posted a little memory of hers from when Chuck was in the hospital with the injuries he suffered in Iraq. Apparently John McCain stopped by:

I had a lot of respect for the man... then I met him.

When he first walked in I was honored to meet him. He shook my hand and Alice's hand, then walked over to Chuck's bedside. After a lousy 5 minutes or so, the Jerk said (and I quote):

"Well, we all know what we're here for... let's do the photo op."

I voted for McCain in 2000, when he was running against Bush in the primary. I almost certainly won't vote for him ever again, not because of this, but because of his blantant lack of interest in protecting First Amendment rights:

He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt.

Emphasis added. Not exactly what I want to hear from the man charged with enforcing First Amendment protections.

McCain shouldn't bother looking for me to vote for him again, unless and only unless he ends up in the final race with someone even less interested in protecting our rights. Which, sad to say, is possible given the field as it stands.

Milbloggies

Milbloggie Awards:

They're going again. Grim's Hall isn't nominated, and I doubt I'd mention it if we were.

However, our friend Fuzzybear Lioness is nominated, and really wants to win. She even says it will make her smile. I'm sure you all know what Fuzzy does for our injured troops, and so you ought to want to make a fine lady like that smile if you can.

Since it would mean something to her, please vote for her here.

And, since I'm going to the trouble of mentioning it, I'll point out that BlackFive is nominated in a separate category. As one of the BlackFive bloggers, I should probably ask you to vote for us. On the other hand, Michael Yon is up there too, and I wouldn't hold it against anyone for voting his way. He does some outstanding work.

No better companion

No Better Companion:

Ross at The Ministry of Minor Perfidy wanted to share part of the eulogy for his father.

That light scattered and glowed, and I think I have not seen more perfect mornings than those. Dad would quietly slide the canoe into the water, slip in, and paddle into it all, with only the sound of water trickling from wood as he faded into mist. I often saw him come back, but I rarely saw him leave.

There’s an early time for experiences, a less crowded time, and I think Dad had a yearning for paths less occupied. If we look around and see multitudes in comfort, that urge to look elsewhere has truth. As a kid I was too tired from being too energetic to wake up when peace and beauty emerged.

We’ve got a capable family, with lots of doers and shakers, engineers and boat-makers. In some ways I’m like that too, so as a young man and even sometimes as an adult I’d see Dad looking out over the water, or from a balcony, or just at a fire…and I’d wonder what he saw. I’m not an artist so I doubt I’ll ever see it his way, or remember it the same way…but watching Dad watching embers arcing up from the heat of a fire lit sparks in me that persist to this day, that have given me warmth and comfort, to recognize and accept, to appreciate the natural beauty around us all. That’s something we never see unless we stop and look.

When we stop and look we are sometimes enchanted, or even entranced and held there, in a timeless state of contemplation. I know I could not have become the person I am without learning that from him, without being curious about his state of mind in those times, and finding that same place within myself.

I did not know the man, and would not wish to intrude on the grief of his son. I just want to remark on how I was struck by those lines, because of their similarity to an American hero named Francis Parkman. Parkman was described in Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge's work on the subject of great American heroes. Most of their heroes, they noted, were famous for "deeds of war and feats of arms," but Parkman was mentioned for other reasons.

He too was a capable man, trained in chemistry at a time when education was far less usual. He also had an eye for the things of the forest, and the less traveled places, and an eye that saw deeply into things. When at last he grew too ill to carry on his expeditions, grew roses so he could explore horticulture.

Parkman wrote one of my favorite lines, one that perhaps this later gentleman would have enjoyed. "For the student there is, in its season, no better place than the saddle, and no better companion than the rifle or the oar."

That is a worthy and truthful lesson.

Quagmire:

The graphic makes it worthwhile, before you even get to the text.

An American Congress has got itself into a war it can’t win. It is stuck. Can’t move forward, can’t move back. And Congress is starting to take casualties. It doesn’t know which way to turn. It’s a quagmire.

The situation is dire, and congressmen everywhere are increasingly beleaguered. They have been unable to come up with any strategy for success, but more seriously, they haven’t been able to agree on a strategy for failure. One of their leading lights, Rep. John Murtha, has already been reduced to an object of derision and the danger is he will drag more of them down with him.

Congress spent four days … four days! … yammering earnestly, and then cast a strong, uncompromising, forceful non-binding resolution with a self-negating caveat.

He goes on from there.

Another interesting item

Some Good Music:

Another blog I ran across while drifting through those sites is this one, which is devoted to traditional music from Nicaragua. The video/music clips are worth a listen. I thought this simple but dignified piece was excellent.

UPDATE: Also, try "The Black Dance."

Walker

William Walker:

Here's an article I ran across while looking over some Central American blogs -- The Last American Warlord. William Walker, a native of Tennessee, was shot by firing squad in 1860 after a career as a pirate, adventurer, con man and warlord. It's a piece of history they probably don't teach even in his hometown, but apparently one that our neighbors down south still remember.

It's an interesting read, anyway.

FU Hil

Ah, Clintona:

I wasn't going to mention the Hilary(!) comment about removing the Confederate flag in South Carolina. I mean, they took it off the state house, and put it on a flagpole down on the grounds. But now it's got to go from there too, she says, "in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war."

I wasn't going to mention that, but Army Lawyer at MilBlogs remembers her comments about "withdrawing within 90 days," and wonders about the nexus of those two positions.

"Here," he says, "is a picture of the proposed banner we should all unite under."








Well, it was only "in part" for that reason.

Blame Grim

Howdy All,

First I'd like to say that you can blame this post partly on Grim. I'm taking a course on ethics and he mentioned in the comments section some time ago that philosophical papers would be nice to see.

I find myself wondering if this is Hall material and if it's worth reading without a knowledge of the texts I used (Elements of Moral Philosophy - James Rachels); of course those musings are likely because I am nervous about posting it up for review. Although I would ask that y'all take as many whacks as you feel necessary at it.


Moral Skepticism
The scope of this paper is to explain moral skepticism, provide two arguments supporting it, provide a major objection to each argument, and discuss if one should believe in moral skepticism. Moral skepticism, as defined by Rachels, is the doctrine that there is no such thing as objective moral truth. It is not that we cannot know truth, it is the idea that moral truth simply does not exist.

My first argument for moral skepticism is centered on the idea that if there were any such thing as an objective moral truth in ethics, that we should be able to prove all moral decisions as either good or bad. We cannot prove all moral decisions as either good or bad; therefore, it is impossible to have objective moral truth.
A major objection to this argument would be to attack its soundness. The premise that we cannot prove all moral decisions as either good or bad may not be true.
Regarding goodness, nowhere in Rachels, or this course, has ‘definite proof’ of goodness been defined. If I could find a majority of people who believed that torturing children for fun was morally good, is that a proof? Most of the arguments for what is ‘good’ that Rachels makes can be reduced to the idea that the societal majority defines the goodness and that should be accepted as the logical proof, i.e. the used car-salesman is a shady character who cheats his customers. Nowhere does he provide a logical proof of the good, he merely relies on the outrage of his audience to support his logic.

My final argument for moral skepticism is centered on the idea that it is morally permissible to break many of the already established objective moral standards. Homicide is universally condoned as an immoral act, yet there are instances where homicide is morally justified. Since many of our established moral standards have exceptions, it stands to reason that they all have exceptions and are not objective moral standards.
A major objection to this argument is to attack its validity. I’m not sure that the conclusion follows from the premises, as it discusses an objective moral standard whereas the premises allude to an absolute moral code.

Finally, should we believe in moral skepticism? Frankly, I don’t know. I believe that Rachels makes many good points, but I feel that some of them are flawed. I think that moral skepticism may allow an ‘anything goes’ type of mentality and I see the intuitive truth that we need some objective moral standards to provide social cohesion. However, I find myself leaning towards the Cultural Relativists argument as I don’t feel Rachels has done a good job attacking that argument. His attacks are:
1) We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to our own. I disagree as there is no logical reason why a Cultural Relativist could not practice cultural elitism. Just because he admits they hold there own truth, is no reason to say that allows them to retain and practice those truths. I believe that Rachels may be confusing tolerance and acceptance.

2) We could decide whether our actions are right or wrong just by consulting the standards of our society.
I don’t feel he has proven anything other than his disdain for a Traditional society, traditional in the vein of Mircea Eliade, Julius Evola, Alain de Benoist, etc. Further he overlooks that people consult their society daily as regards moral questions in order to determine if they are in fact good or bad. That Rachels is uncomfortable with the traditional Indian caste system is not enough reason to discount it.

3) The idea of moral progress is called into doubt.
I simply do not agree. Traditional society knows that cultural progress must be approached with some trepidation, but it must also be grown from the cultural traditions itself. Moral progress is not hampered or placed in doubt, it is championed by the Traditional culture albeit slowly and carefully.

So for these reasons, I have left Cultural Relativism as a possibility; but I do not believe that we should follow the path of a true moral skeptic.