Likelihood of Success

Ron Coleman’s pretty good blog

Slaughtering Jews is one thing…

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 15, 2007

But being mean to animals — why, that’s downright offensive!

Animal rights group PETA said on Wednesday it would protest to a Hamas-run TV channel after a clip from a program showing animals being abused appeared on YouTube, prompting scores of complaints from viewers worldwide.

“It’s shocking and sickening,” said Martin Mersereau, manager of the domestic animal abuse division of U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Someone should do something about those — those — Hamases.

Posted in O Mores! | 2 Comments »

Growth of religion among scientists

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 14, 2007

Religion among the overeducated grows and grows. We’ve already talked about the Church of Global Warming; it is the high fundamentalism of the true unreality-based community. And there is more: As long as you don’t call it religion, they’ll believe any version of the Hand of God coming out of the heavens to shake and bake Creation — so long as it’s not called Creationism:

Recent probes inside comets show it is overwhelmingly likely that life began in space, according to a new paper by Cardiff University scientists….

The Cardiff team suggests that radioactive elements can keep water in liquid form in comet interiors for millions of years, making them potentially ideal “incubators” for early life. They also point out that the billions of comets in our solar system and across the galaxy contain far more clay than the early Earth did. The researchers calculate the odds of life starting on Earth rather than inside a comet at one trillion trillion (10 to the power of 24) to one against.

Professor Wickramasinghe said: “The findings of the comet missions, which surprised many, strengthen the argument for panspermia. We now have a mechanism for how it could have happened.”

(Via Insty.) Now we can sleep at night! We can admit the preposterousness of the suggestion that life spontaneously began and then, after a few tough winters, turned into Albert Einstein, Merv Griffin and Alex Rodriguez on this lonely sphere, because we have an alternative “scientific” explanation: It “could have happened,” see, that life came to earth on magic flying incubator rocks, which are uh-infinity old.

How do “radioactive elements … keep[ing] water in liquid form in comet interiors for millions of years… mak[es] them potentially ideal ‘incubators’ for early life.” (“Potentially”?)

One theory for the origins of life proposes that clay particles acted as a catalyst, converting simple organic molecules into more complex structures.

I am not a good enough clay physicist to tackle that one. In all seriousness, it is fascinating. But, in reality, it really answers nothing, both literally and philosophically. How anyone could live in this world and experience it, and any of the people in it, and believe they are merely bouncing molecules happily pounding out civilization, beauty and love — much less suggest the sophomoric, doper-type fantasy that Creation is really some dude’s computer game — is, to me, an assertion of faith over reason and intellect; a muting of the music of nature and the soul that is about as depressing as you can get.

Posted in Faith and Works, Nuvo-Techno | 15 Comments »

Maybe there’s a second set somewhere at the Rose Law Firm

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 14, 2007

The Los Angeles Times says pretty much all the archives involving presumptive presidential heir Hillary Rodham Clinton’s work while on the White House staff are inaccessible till at least after the 2008 elections.

How convenient. Judicial Watch is suing the National Archive, which ignored its 2006 FOIA request. Now that is one to watch — and it’s a race against time. And who knows what else.

Posted in Oppression | 1 Comment »

Star turn

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 14, 2007

Der Spiegel reports on the thing everyone in Europe — and on the coasts of this continent — wants to ignore:  Success in Iraq.

Now, look.  What’s the purpose of having a blog if I’m going to just link to the same things Instapundit does?  Well, a few thoughts:

  1. He doesn’t have a comments section (can you just imagine?!) .  So there’s nowhere else to riff on these things.
  2. Glenn gets tons of great links from all over.  More than he can even use.  But the ones he does use, well, they’re not used up.
  3. Maybe some people actually do read this blog and don’t read Instapundit.                               Well, it’s not completely impossible!
  4. I have friends here who like to discuss these things, and whether or not they read Instapundit, some of them — like Ara Rubyan — have had a lot to say about the conclusive failure of the Iraq policy and the impossibility of it ever getting anything but worse.  And I’d like to hear from them.

Is that good enough?

Posted in Orient, Stragety | 5 Comments »

Dueling peaces

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 13, 2007

Michelle Malkin has an interview with my friend Robert Spencer about his new book, provocatively titled (to say the least) Religion of Peace: Why Christianity is and Islam Isn’t.

Yes, that is pretty provocative. From what I gather, the thesis is that the theology of Christianity, as opposed to the actions of its (long ago, mainly) adherents, is fundamentally not only unwarlike, but downright peaceful.

But is turning the other cheek really so “peaceful”? I wonder if he factors in the pacifistic — and, hence, violence- and war-encouraging — aspects of modern day Christianity? I believe pacificism is amoral; peacefulness to a fault. But I think I’ll take it over either Crusaders or Jihadists.

Posted in Faith and Works, Past is prologue | 1 Comment »

E-Z does it

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 10, 2007

The AP has a story about how E-Z Pass records have been used to trip up philanderers and criminals by destroying alibis and creating records of who was where, when.  I was wondering how long until the reporter paid the toll and quoted the ACLU, and here it was:

Some worry that using those records for other purposes is a violation of drivers’ privacy.

“When you’re marketed for this new convenience, you may not realize there are these types of costs,” said Nicole Ozer of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

Surprisingly tame.  It sounds like she’s saying the problem is in the disclosure of the rather obvious fact that E-Z Pay tracks your tolls in its “marketing,” but if she’s claiming the violation of some fundamental right, that didn’t make it into the article.  Not only that, the story balanced that though with this sensible quote, from none other than our old friend Bob Barr:

Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia turned Libertarian and privacy rights advocate, said people who want to protect their privacy shouldn’t use electronic toll systems.

That’s the difference between a “civil libertarian” and a “libertarian,” I guess.   Score one for the latter kind.

Posted in Americana | 5 Comments »

Taking a good point too far

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 10, 2007

Anonymous blogger Let Freedom Ring (via Glenn) does a great job pinning down the weasely awfulness of the despicable Rep. John Murtha, the convenient veteran who condemned two marines involved in the Haditha killings before any but the most preliminary investigation had been made or charges brought. Now that they have been all but cleared, he has no comment. As LFR writes:

Murtha’s staffer is essentially taking an indefensible position because Rep. Murtha has repeatedly made irresponsible and indefensible statements about these Marines. This highlights an obvious double standard on Murtha’s behalf. He didn’t think twice about making these unfounded accusations while the initial NCIS investigation was being conducted but he won’t say a word now when two of the men he accused of cold-blooded murder have been totally exonerated.

Fair enough. It’s a shame that LFR runs off the rails shortly thereafter, however, spreading legal disinformation to wit:

As I’ve stated before, his accusations were made before charges had been filed against any of these Marines is a clear violation of their due process rights. Similarly, he violated their right to a fair trial. To top that off, he attempted to have them presumed guilty instead of giving them the benefit of being presumed innocent.

But there is no due process right not to have a Congressman call you names. There is almost certainly no right to a fair trial violated by that same behavior. And “attempt[ing] to have them presumed guilty” is, similarly, just a silly, meaningless formulation. Congressmen, columnists and bloggers don’t have to presume innocence. Only juries and judges do.

This is a good political point, and so me nice first-hand reporting, by what seems to be a good (and popular) blog. Actually, a terrific one. Not a very good legal point, though. Actually, a very bad one. Maybe that’s why he or she is anonymous. I’d still rather have Let Freedom Ring covering my back than John Murtha, whose name we would just as soon forget.

Posted in Lex scripta, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »

InstaPundit of the ages

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 8, 2007

InstaPundit is six years old this week — Glenn shows what the blog looked like then. 

Obvious observation:  He wrote more then.  He was like… a pundit.

 

Now he’s more like a master linker.  Okay, the master linker.  I frankly can’t imagine how he gets it done.  But perhaps we’ve lost something?  In any event, happy blogiversary, Glenn.

Posted in Blogophilia | Leave a Comment »

Goodbye, Harry

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 7, 2007

I’m on my little vacation (as a self-employed professional, it’s very little indeed; but at least I am in a different place from where I hpdhcover.jpgusually am, and getting a little sun and fresh air) and I just had the opportunity to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I liked it a lot, was very touched at a number of junctures, and feel that I was well treated by the author.

I am not a literary critic, so I am not going write a review. But here are my “bullet point” thoughts, which I throw out into the ether on the explicit premise that millions await my verdict on the last Harry Potter book, howsoever telegraphically expressed:

The series is, above all, about love. Not hardly romantic love, though more so the love among friends. But mainly it is about the love that flows from parent to child and, perhaps, from surrogate parent to child. The vehicle for the expression of love in the series is loyalty. Now, one can be loyal without love, and perhaps one can even love without excelling at loyalty; but here the true test of love is not passion, or ecstasy, or warm fuzzy feelings, but loyalty — and the sacrifice that in turn is what loyalty demands. Voldemort, of course, epitomizes the antithesis of loyalty.

We see, indeed, that loyalty is only tested, and only rendered meaningful, by self-sacrifice, a negation of the self for others; indeed this is the absolute moral and the basis of salvation at the end. This is a very Judeo-Christian message, if not the Judeo-Christian message, and all the more a shame that poorly-ground religionists condemn the books. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Ars Longa | 6 Comments »

Failing upward

Posted by Ron Coleman on August 6, 2007

So these masters of the universe — the “private equity” boys — take over Chrysler, and what do they do? They hire the guy who blew it at Home Depot to run the company.

I find this comforting, because from time to time I am disappointed with certain aspects of my professional career.  Then I realize what a huge racket it is.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t, usually, rewards for excellence, and penalties for lackluster performance.  But at a certain point, it’s pretty clear that nothing really matters and to a large extent the goodies really are doled out — contrary to what we were taught in the Economics Department at college — arbitrarily, or worse.

So be it.  Maybe it’s not really, so much, “me” after all.  That doesn’t excuse one from making the effort, but it provides a little comfort.  Unless, that is, you own Chrysler stock.

Posted in Americana, Gelt | 1 Comment »

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