We Should Live - Ben Bateman

My six-year-old son wanted to know the difference between a slogan and a motto, and this prompted some etymological research:

‘Slogan’ comes from Gaelic ’sluagh-gairn’, meaning a battle cry used by Scottish Highlanders or Irish.  So a slogan is designed to inspire momentary passion, but it doesn’t need to be particularly profound.  American examples would be “Remember the Alamo,” “Remember the Maine,” “Never again” (referring to the Holocaust), or the more modern “Let’s roll” (referring to terrorism).  They are or were laden heavily with emotion, but they don’t actually carry much meaning in themselves.  You have to know the story behind them.

‘Motto’ comes from a Latin word for muttering or grunting.  One source indicates that it referred to the words written on a heraldric design, and that’s consistent with the broader consensus that a motto in current usage is a guiding principle, goal, or ideal.

The global-warming scaremongers experienced a setback recently when NASA admitted to an error in its data on temperatures in the continental United States. Mark Steyn explains:

The “hottest year on record” is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top Ten altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century—2000, 2002, 2003, 2004—plummeted even lower down the Hot One Hundred. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and Oughts has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America’s Top Ten hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone’s ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn’t have a word to say about it.

And yet we survived.

So why is 1998 no longer America’s record-breaker? Because a very diligent fellow called Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.org labored long and hard to prove there was a bug in NASA’s handling of the raw data. He then notified the scientists responsible, and received an acknowledgment that the mistake was an “oversight” that would be corrected in the next “data refresh.” The reply was almost as cool as the revised chart listings.

Who is this man who understands American climate data so much better than NASA? Well, he’s not even American: He’s Canadian. Just another immigrant doing the jobs Americans won’t do, even when they’re federal public servants with unlimited budgets? No. Mr. McIntyre lives in Toronto. But the data smelled wrong to him, he found the error, and NASA has now corrected its findings—albeit without the fanfare that accompanied the hottest-year-on-record hysteria of almost a decade ago. Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, but, when it comes to global warming, the experts prefer to stick the thermometer where the sun don’t shine.

We will probably never really know whether this was malicious or accidental, but it hardly matters. The keeping quiet about it is most certainly intentional. And that silence is further proof, if any were needed, that global warming and most other eco-fears are primarily political in nature, and only secondarily scientific—if at all.

Theories abound as to why so many people are eager to peddle eco-scares like global warming, and why those stories appeal to so many people. On the seller’s side there is certainly some profit incentive, e.g. NASA knows that it’ll receive more government money if it provides support for global warming. But I don’t think profit alone adequately explains it. A desire for power is probably also a big factor. Not necessarily power in a political sense, but also the interpersonal power of being able to terrify people, and thereby make them eager to believe and do whatever you say. This is why eco-scaremongering’s natural home is on the Left, along with all the other groups that hope to seize power and wield it over the nation.

On the buyer’s side, Mark Steyn has a reasonable theory on why people are so eager to scare themselves with these types of stories. After recounting the recent debunking of the New Republic’s lurid tale of war atrocities, Steyn concludes:

As Pogo said, way back in the 1971 Earth Day edition of a then famous comic strip, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Even when we don’t do anything: In the post-imperial age, powerful nations no longer have to invade and kill. Simply by driving a Chevy Suburban, we can make the oceans rise and wipe the distant Maldive Islands off the face of the earth. This is a kind of malignant narcissism so ingrained it’s now taught in our grade schools. Which may be why, even when The New Republic’s diarist goes to Iraq and meets the real enemy, he still assumes it’s us.

UPDATE: Drudge has picked up the story, so it’s going to get some general circulation.  And the Washington Times reports on the following headline from the Washington Post, Nov. 2, 1922: “Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.”

Last month’s immigration bill was defeated, but there are no signs that the political classes learned their lesson. Contrary to what that bill’s supporters said during that debate, enforcing our immigration laws wouldn’t be particularly difficult—if we really wanted to enforce them. Every other country on Earth manages it somehow. US Rep. Marsha Blackburn explains on NRO today what a serious effort at immigration enforcement would look like:

Some prominent financial institutions, most notably Bank of America, are consciously exploiting loopholes in federal money-laundering law and “gray areas” within IRS regulations to allow illegal immigrants access to credit cards and loans. Despite intense media pressure and citizen backlash, these institutions continue this practice to this day, without repercussion.

Banks have the option of accepting a range of documents to verify a customer’s proof of identity under current law. And yet, operating within the letter but outside the spirit of the law, certain banks are choosing to allow anyone with an “individual taxpayer identification number” (ITIN) and an additional government-issued form of identification to apply for a credit card or loan.

The catch is that this second form of identification is often the matricula consular, issued by Mexico, and frequently counterfeited and easily obtained on the black market. Without ever having produced a Social Security number, passport, visa, or credit history, an applicant can simply maintain a $500 balance in a checking account for three months for the bank to issue a credit card.

Just as with terrorism, the heart of the serious solution is in the financial system. On terrorism, where the government is serious, some subtle changes to our banking laws have caused our foreign enemies some serious headaches. But on immigration, where our government is not serious, Bank of America welcomes illegal aliens with open arms, and our government looks the other way.

UPDATE: Another article on NRO today points to another simple change in regulations that could have a dramatic effect on illegal immigration:  The Social Security Administration (SSA) already knows which employers hire large numbers of illegal immigrants, because those employers must submit social security numbers under which to pay employment taxes on their illegal alien employees.  These employers scoff at immigration law, but they take the tax laws much more seriously. (more…)

Anyone who follows the stock market has heard about the subprime mortgage problems that have sparked several panics in the past few months.  Thomas Sowell points out on NRO that government restrictions on building are at the root of the subprime problem.  He points to the recent rise of risky income-only mortgages, which were less than 10% of mortgages in 2002, and by 2006 that figure had risen to 31%.  In the San Francisco area, that figure is 66%.

Why so many of these concentrated around San Francisco?  Sowell thinks it’s partly due to skyrocketing housing prices in that area, which in turn result from severe government restrictions on building.

He also points out that the Community Reinvestment Act allows politicians to pressure lenders to make riskier loans.  I remember seeing a spate of stories along those lines a few years ago: Evil banks were refusing to lend at good rates for mortgages in poor minority neighborhoods, no doubt due to their seething and irrational racism.  This 1999 article from the Cato Institute claims that the Clinton administration was aggressive in enforcing the CRA.  It makes me wonder if our current stock market woes could be one last bit of the Clinton legacy catching up to us.

The Duggar family of Little Rock, Arakansas just gave birth to its 17th child.  Mom is hoping for more.

It’s a quirky family, financially well-off, very Christian, kids are all home-schooled.  All the children’s names start with the letter ‘J’.  By itself, it’s just a human-interest story for a slow news day.

The interesting part is the liberal reaction.  The San Francisco Post has a long comments page on this story, and skimming through it reminded me of just how small and vicious most liberals are.  In the first ten comments, you can find 1) the Duggars being called ridiculous, immoral, selfish, and destructive, 2) a prediction that some of the children will grow up to be serial killers, 3) the mother is called a “human bakery” and mocked for her haircut, 4) a prediction that the children are doomed to a lifetime of agony, poverty, disease, unhappiness, and failure, and 5) a statement that the Duggars “should have been sterilized long ago.”  In later pages you can find some conservatives mocking the “pro-choice” liberals for their hypocrisy in opposing choices that lead to live babies.  And the best are some honest principled liberals who say that they don’t like it, but it’s a free country.
Adam Graham has a roundup of similar reactions from liberal bloggers. (more…)

Professor Volokh links to a study that finds no effect from abstinence education.  This sparks a predictable argument in his comments section over sexual morality and public education, with both sides assuming that this study “proves” that abstinence education doesn’t work.  It makes me wish that more people had a basic statistics education.

I’m always confused by a study that loudly announces “no difference” as the result of an experiment, as if that were a meaningful result.  In the experimental design class that I had to take to major in Psychology, I learned that the point of an experiment is to disprove the null hypothesis, which assumes that there is no meaningful difference between the groups.

If you disprove the null hypothesis, then you really have something.  You’ve demonstrated that the differences between the groups are probably due to something more than random noise.  But if you fail to disprove the null hypothesis, then you’ve failed to prove anything.  It’s really, really easy to fail to disprove the null hypothesis: Just run a lousy experiment.  If you have a lousy design or a lousy method, then you’re almost guaranteed to fail to reject the null hypothesis.

I saw this firsthand in that Experimental Design class, because it required us to design and conduct our own experiment.  Well over half the class could not disprove the null hypothesis, and it usually wasn’t because there was no difference between the groups.  It was because they allowed too much random noise to seep into their results.

Suppose that you want to determine whether noise A is different from noise B.  So you line up some subjects and have them listen to the noises.  And none of the subjects can tell a difference.  Does that prove that there’s no difference between A and B?  No!  There are plenty of alternative explanations: 1) Your subjects are deaf.  2) You conducted your experiment outside in a windstorm.  3) You unconsciously pressured your subjects not to notice the difference because that’s the result you wanted.

To summarize, as my Psych prof loved to repeat: Failing to disprove the null hypothesis does not prove the null hypothesis.

Mark Steyn explains “libel chill”:

[L]et us turn to a fascinating book called “Alms for Jihad: Charity And Terrorism in the Islamic World,” by J. Millard Burr, a former USAID relief coordinator, and the scholar Robert O Collins. Can’t find it in your local Barnes & Noble? Never mind, let’s go to Amazon. Everything’s available there. And sure enough, you’ll come through to the “Alms for Jihad” page and find a smattering of approving reviews from respectably torpid publications: “The most comprehensive look at the web of Islamic charities that have financed conflicts all around the world,” according to Canada’s Globe And Mail, which is like the New York Times but without the jokes.

Unfortunately, if you then try to buy “Alms for Jihad,” you discover that the book is “Currently unavailable. We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.” Hang on, it was only published last year. At Amazon, items are either shipped within 24 hours or, if a little more specialized, within four to six weeks, but not many books from 2006 are entirely unavailable with no restock in sight.

Well, let us cross the ocean, thousands of miles from the Amazon warehouse, to the High Court in London. Last week, the Cambridge University Press agreed to recall all unsold copies of “Alms for Jihad” and pulp them. In addition, it has asked hundreds of libraries around the world to remove the volume from their shelves. This highly unusual action was accompanied by a letter to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, in care of his English lawyers, explaining their reasons:

“Throughout the book there are serious and defamatory allegations about yourself and your family, alleging support for terrorism through your businesses, family and charities, and directly.

“As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your family, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false.”

Steyn then goes on to explain that Sheikh Khalid is personal banker to the Saudi royal family, and he plays a major role in spreading global jihad, especially through a charity that funded Osama bin Laden.

So why would the Cambridge University Press, one of the most respected publishers on the planet, absolve Khalid bin Mahfouz, his family, his businesses and his charities to a degree that neither (to pluck at random) the U.S., French, Albanian, Swiss and Pakistani governments would be prepared to do?

Because English libel law overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff. And like many other big-shot Saudis, Sheikh Mahfouz has become very adept at using foreign courts to silence American authors – in effect, using distant jurisdictions to nullify the First Amendment. He may be a wronged man, but his use of what the British call “libel chill” is designed not to vindicate his good name but to shut down the discussion, which is why Cambridge University Press made no serious attempt to mount a defense. He’s one of the richest men on the planet, and they’re an academic publisher with very small profit margins. But, even if you’ve got a bestseller, your pockets are unlikely to be deep enough: “House Of Saud, House Of Bush” did boffo biz with the anti-Bush crowd in America, but there’s no British edition – because Sheikh Mahfouz had indicated he was prepared to spend what it takes to challenge it in court, and Random House decided it wasn’t worth it. (more…)

I’ve been wondering how this word could have two such different meanings: The more common is the picture on skin; the less common is a drumbeat used as a military signal.

In this case, the two meanings come from completely different origins.  The picture on the skin comes from Polynesian tatau, possibly an onomatopoeia for “tap tap,” i.e. the tapping of the tattooing instrument on the skin.  This sense first entered the language in the writings of the explorer Captain James Cook in 1769.

The drumbeat sense of ‘tattoo’ comes from the Dutch phrase ‘tap toe,’ meaning “taps shut.”  This 17th century phrase referred to the signal that police gave telling the local bars that it was time for them to shut their taps, or stop serving drinks for the night.  This merged with the same “tap tap” onomatopoeia that the Polynesians had observed, and thus broadened to include military signals generally, especially those that involve 1) a drum (”tap tap”) or 2) retiring for the night (”taps shut”).