Requiem for Mr. Nemes

Nemo (AKA: Nemophila, Nemes, Crazy Cat)

Goodbye sweet kitty. Goodbye Nemo.

World traveler, camper extraordinaire, able to hunt down wild birds while tethered to a post by a 6-foot leash, or jump 6 feet straight up from a standing start, or hold his own while roughhousing with a grown man, or follow spoken English instructions, or run pell-mell in a loop through the house, and through it all, tolerate never being free to roam the outdoors on his own. Baby Blue Eyes is gone, but not forgotten.

Of mice or men?

The state of genetic literacy in the United States is abysmal. The vast majority (68 percent) of 1484 U.S. respondents do not know that humans share more than half of their genes with mice. Roughly the same proportion of Americans (60 percent) do not agree that humans evolved from earlier species of animals:


Unfortunately, another question, addressing the similarity between humans and chimps, was too poorly written for any conclusions to be drawn, because among those answering ‘false’ would be those who believe humans have either more, or a lot less, than half of their DNA in common with chimpanzees.

Three of the survey questions (n=1484):

“More than half of human genes are identical to those of mice.” (True)
True: 32 % Not sure: 47 % False: 21 %

“Human beings have somewhat less than half of the DNA in common with chimpanzees.” (False)
True: 15 % Not sure: 48 % False: 38 %

“Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” (True)
True: 40 % Not sure: 21 % False: 39 %

When genetic ignorance is the rule, it is not surprising that evolution would be taken as something to either believe in, or not, based upon one’s faith, because what else do the respondents have to go on?

There is a danger when belief and “feeling” are substituted for thinking and facts while addressing questions that examine the nature of reality. When faith is perceived as superior to reason, and ignorance is widespread, the Dark Ages cannot be far off.
__________________________
Miller, et al., Science, v313, p765-766
Supplementary on-line material: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/313/5788/765/DC1/1

All war is terrorism

“Thousands of so-called bomblets, smaller than a hand grenade but far more deadly, have turned homes, schools and even hospitals in southern Lebanon into virtual minefields...” NYTimes, 19 August 2006

Photo: http://www.aeronautics.ru/clusterbombdetonation01.jpg

The intent of all warfare is to destroy every semblance of normal life for the enemy.

The intent of all terrorism is to destroy every semblance of normal life for the enemy.

The tools of warfare are bombs and other explosives, wielded by one side against the other.

The tools of terrorism are bombs and other explosives, wielded by one side against the other.

The victims of warfare are civilians and non-civilians—men, women, and children—and all infrastructure that serves them.

The victims of terrorism are civilians and non-civilians—men, women, and children—and all infrastructure that serves them.

The results of warfare are death, suffering, destruction, both of those targeted and of those merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The results of terrorism are death, suffering, destruction, both of those targeted and of those merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Warfare is directed by war-planners and funded with the resources of one population against another.

Terrorism is directed by terror-planners and funded with the resources of one population against another.

The only differences between war and terrorism are that war pretends to be civilized and constrained by international agreements intended to reduce harm to civilian non-combatants, when the vast bulk of the casualties are in fact civilian non-combatants; and, in war, the bombs are far larger and deadlier, and they have incomparably larger resources to draw upon.

Terrorism, in contrast, makes little or no pretense of precise targeting, aiming instead for mass casualties of whatever sort.

But, there is little difference between the two in terms of results and overall intent, and in fact, most modern warfare as actually practiced is more similar than different, when compared to terrorism. Modern warfare is by far the “winner” in terms of the magnitude of suffering it can deliver.

Ultimately, a bomb is a bomb is a bomb, and life and limb are destroyed no matter its source. Whether the bomb is delivered by a body wearing it, or is a left-over bomblet from a cluster bomb, the results are the same. And regardless of what religionists of any faith decree, no good and just god would sanction such mayhem as that being dealt to the little children unlucky enough to be blown to bits by a bomb, no matter its origin.

Preëmption, the sequel

Seymour Hersh, in “Watching Lebanon—Washington’s Interests in Israel’s War” (New Yorker):

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground. […]

Cheney’s office supported the Israeli plan, as did Elliott Abrams, a deputy national-security adviser, according to several former and current officials. (A spokesman for the N.S.C. denied that Abrams had done so.) They believed that Israel should move quickly in its air war against Hezbollah. A former [U.S.] intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later—the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.’ ” […]

The crisis will really start at the end of August, the [former] diplomat [said], “when the Iranians”—under a United Nations deadline to stop uranium enrichment—“will say no.”

What sort of pithy commentary can one add to this?

“Between hell and reason”

It was 61 years ago today:

“Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments–a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.”
- Albert Camus, August 8, 1945

Hiroshima, August 1945: In a city of 350,000 more than 200,000 died.


Meanwhile, our modern moral calculus drifts ever further away from reason when the leaders of nations allow the killing of their own civilians so that they feel free to proceed apace with their targeting of enemy civilians, Geneva Conventions be damned:

“[According] to some U.S. military analysts…Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they’re being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.”
- Thomas Ricks, reporter for The Washington Post, on CNN’s Reliable Sources, August 6, 2006
(hat tip to Jeff Huber of Pen and Sword)

This is no sort of “moral equivalency,” but only the most dangerous sort of immorality. Declaring your own citizens expendable, in exchange for the “morally equivalent” right to kill others is only a descent into a philosophical hell of your own creation. It is only one more babystep to declare all of your own citizens, or anyone at all, to be expendable, on any terms of your choosing, when in fact, you do not have that right at all.