Dean's World

I am a bit late in posting this, as the actual date was on Dec 29th, but I just wanted to note the 115th anniversary of the massacre of Wounded Knee.

The Wounded Knee Massacre was the last major armed conflict between the Great Sioux Nation and the United States of America, and was later described as a "massacre" in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. On December 29, 1890, the cavalry troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry opened fire...against a surrounded encampment of Minneconjou Lakota Sioux, while cavalry troops were disarming them. Since the very thorough disarmament had almost been completed, the Sioux fought back using their hands, weapons from cavalry casualties, or weapons recovered from the stacks of seized weapons. 153 largely disarmed Sioux were killed during the chaotic conflict, as well as 25 cavalrymen deaths largely from friendly fire. An unknown number of the approximately 150 unaccounted for Sioux died from exposure after fleeing the chaos.

No nation is innocent upon this earth, as long as nations are ruled by the passions of men. Let us accept with humility the lessons of the past so that the ambitions of the future - not just for America, but for the world - are realized with the full potential of human freedom rather than an illusion.

Dream, but remember. Not with guilt, but with sobriety.

So, are you online tonight too?

What I want to see in '06 - now on display at the Pirate King.

Happy New Year readers, fans, and assorted hanger's on...

John Weidner, who's always good, has some thoughts.

Kate notes a positive development in China: regularly deepening disillusionment with the communist party.

Let's hope that translates to disillusionment even among those running that decrepit institution...

Ed Driscoll notes a woman who recently married her pet dolphin.

This isn't the first I've read about something like this. It is, unfortunately, one of the first things people bring up when they bring up the whole idea of gay marriage, and is why a lot of us think that gays need to be going after the legal and civil protections they want without demanding that the word "marriage" be associated with it--because stories like this are, like it or not, what most people think of when they hear about altering the definition of marriage. Why not sidestep such pointless debates and simply concentrate on issues of simple fairness and justice without muddying the waters over a word that some people hold as sacred?

So the Canadians are having an election next month, but from what I can see of the latest polls, I'm not sure why they're bothering exactly. It looks like they'll likely wind up with the same results as the last elections. Of course there may be subtleties to the Parliamentary rules that I'm not understanding, but it looks likely that the elections will result in the same basic configuration as before. I suppose the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois are hoping to make gains, and I suppose the Tories are praying they can make a miracle happen, but...

I see the Justice Department is opening a probe on the treacherous snakes who blew the cover off a top secret national security operation.

I hope they show no mercy.

I'll be stuck working tonight. I'll be at the office while the clock strikes midnight. Won't get to kiss my wife or sons. That's all right, I'll do it virtually.

Will anyone else be up and about online? I'll be online when 2006 rolls in East coast, Central, Mountain, and Pacific times. I hope some of you will join me in a little party in the comments, or maybe even exchange IM addresses so we can chat. Why not? I prefer Yahoo chat but I can do MSN or AIM too....

Ah: I see the Justice Department is opening an investigation to find and prosecute the people who leaked classified national security programs.

Good. I hope they catch them and punish them severely.

(Via The Queen.)

Bob Krumm says please start impeachment proceedings against Bush--pretty please with sugar?

I think he's right. It's kind of fun watching lunatic fringe righties and lefties falling in line with the idea, too. The Pat Buchanan-Michael Moore-Barbra Streisand-Bob Barr axis of morons should have their say. What the heck. Let's begin the proceedings as the first order of business in January!

(Am I the only one who notes the irony that George W. Bush came out publicly against impeaching President Clinton, and then when they did it anyway strongly condemned them for it? Makes you wonder what's wrong with the MoveOn.org crowd.)

So, other than possibly jonesing for the return of Galactica just like me (one week from tonight bay-be!) what might you happen to be up to this fine evening?

Yes another end of year list. Deal with it: there's less than 2 days left.

What were some of the biggest disappointments of 2005? Here are a few of mine.

1. The hard Left's takeover of the Democratic Party. What has happened to the party of Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson? As a lifelong Democrat who voted for Mondale for chrissakes I can't understand how centerists like Dick Gephardt are forced into retirement while the likes of Barbara Boxer and Howard Dean drive from fundraiser to fundraiser in limousines.

2. Bin Laden's rotting corpse wasn't dug up from Tora Bora and paraded in front of cameras. While I don't think it would matter one wit to our success in the GWOT, there's something visceral about seeing the stinking corpse of that SOB after what happened on a cloudless day in September 4 years ago.

3. Drift of the Bush Administration (ended in Nov). While the Blogosphere rose to the challenge to support efforts in Iraq, the Administration seemed content to do nothing to counter the anti-war propaganda. Was Rove medicated?

4. The mainstream media. Similar to the way I feel about the Democrats, I can only shake my head and wonder what the heck has happened to the likes of the Washington Post, LA and NY Times. I thought the era of Yellow Journalism died a century ago. Given the repeated falsehoods and twisted history spouted by these "news" organizations, they should consider registering themselves as the propaganda wing of the Democrats. What Liberal Bias? How about the imagined flushing of the Koran story? You know, the one that resulted in people actually dying?

5. New Orleans residents - Not to blame the victim here, but any Floridian will tell you that you have to take care of yourself, especially for the first 48-72 hours after a hurricane. More importantly, it's your job to have the political and strategic organizations in place to distribute the help once it's on the way. It's one thing to "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die", it's another thing to whine about your situation the next day.

6. The NFL Eagles - As a fan, seeing them play like a team of zombies straight out of a George Romero flick at the Superbowl in February and then completely falling apart 7 months later is just... well, sad. The fans deserved better than what we got this Fall. If anyone knows a decent quarterback that needs a job, please call Andy Reid.

7. Network TV - I don't watch it anymore so I can't be disappointed with any of the shows I've missed. I gave up on ER last Spring, and even Scrubs jumped the shark last season.

8. Celebreality TV - If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out VH-1. While watching Ozzie sleepwalk through daily life was fun for a while, now we have every possible iteration of celebs you've never heard of doing anything in front of a camera. And you thought C-Span was boring...

9. Celebrities - Contrary to what the Mainstream Media will have you believe, we are at war. While celebrities seem more than willing to call the Administration and the Military on the carpet for every imagined transgression, few have actually gone to Iraq OR Afghanistan (the war they supposedly "support") to entertain the troops.

10. Amnesty International, for changing its mission from promoting human rights to propagandizing the cause of Anti-Americanism. I once belonged to this organization and supported it with time and money. However if you read its press releases and statements, you'd would think that the chief cause of human rights abuses was (drum roll please) the United States. Forget the corruption and Islamism that threatens Civil War in the West Bank and Gaza; ignore the shootings of protestors by the Chinese, or the anti-Christian laws being promulgated in Turkey.

We won't even talk about the human rights abuses in Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria - or the genocide in Sudan. Nope, we'll focus on Guantanamo Bay, and flushed Korans.

I believe in the cause of human rights. I just believe that you can't wish for them to come into being by slapping a bumpersticker on your car. Instead you have to fight for them, kill for them, and sometimes die for them.

2100 GIs have done just that in Iraq. They freed many more people than the letters I wrote to Saddam did back in the 1980s.

*11. (Personal) Lost my father-in-law to cancer, and sister in law is drinking herself to death.

Oh, and to everyone, a very Happy New Year!

Update:

In his essay on realism in Darfur, Christopher Hitchens asks us to consider the horrors that result from peace.

It looks as if the realists have won the day in the matter of Darfur. Or, to phrase it in another way, it looks as if the ethnic cleansers of that province have made good use of the "negotiation" and "mediation" period to complete their self-appointed task. As my friend Johann Hari put it recently in the London Independent: "At last, some good news from Darfur: the genocide in western Sudan is nearly over. There's only one problem—it's drawing to an end only because there are no black people left to cleanse or kill."

...Surely the administration did everything that could have been asked of it. Abandoning any sort of "unilateralism," it pedantically followed the Kofi Annan script of multiparty negotiations and patient diplomacy. It allowed the inspectors more time. It exhausted all avenues short of war and never even threatened the use of force. By the use of sanctions, it kept Sudan "in its box." And it has got exactly what anyone might have predicted for such a strategy. Perhaps that's why there is so little protest. After all, we know that "war is not the answer." And now Sudan has Darfur province in its box. It has taken the land and gotten rid of the people.

Any critique of realism has to begin with a sober assessment of the horrors of peace.

To be sure, this mission has been woefully ineffective from the start. The A.U. force has been deliberately undercut by Khartoum since it was first deployed in summer 2004, with Sudan denying fuel to the African Union for its essential helicopters, blocking A.U. deployments within Darfur, and refusing to allow critical equipment and personnel into the region. For its part, the African Union hasn't committed enough resources or manpower; and key African countries have either reneged on military commitments (South Africa) or deliberately obscured Darfur's terrible realities and Khartoum's responsibility (Nigeria).

But the African Union's decision to hold its January 2006 summit in Sudan provides the strongest evidence yet that the organization has no intention of actually standing up to Khartoum and halting the genocide. Because tradition dictates that the next chair of the African Union be the head of the most recent summit's host country, Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir is now poised to lead the very organization that claims to be seeking an end to the genocide he is orchestrating.

Of the world's ineffective response, Simon Deng, a former Sudanese slave says:

I ask this question as a victim of enslavement in Sudan; I ask it for my fellow Southern Sudanese who are always asking this question. My voice is their voice. We can not stop wondering why no one cares about our fate, why nobody does anything about it. We have been victimized by the Arabs in the name of the ideology of jihad, but no one seems to care. We have endured and are enduring the most systematic destruction of a people since the Nazi Holocaust, but our fate seems largely invisible to the world.

It is very painful to say this, but we Sudanese victims can not avoid uttering the truth, at least among ourselves: we are black, and therefore nobody cares about us. We are the ultimate victims of a global racism that continues even in the new millennium. We also have the great misfortune to be the victims of Arabs who slaughter and enslave us in the name of jihad. And everyone sitting here surely knows that when it comes to the ideology of jihad, open discourse at the Commission for Human Rights is muted. People refuse to speak the truth because no one wishes to be seen as anti-Islamic, especially not at the UN.

The UN has been proven ineffective when faced with a genocidal conflict. The world's institutions have failed so many times before, it's no surprise that they're failing again.

If the world is determined to ignore this horror, and if the wealthy Arab League is determined to inflict it, the Sudanese have one option - use their aid money to hire an independent security force that will defend them. Just as the farmers did in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, where a 16th century Japanese farm community defends itself against a gang of pillaging robbers by hiring mercenary samurai who are willing to defend the settlement in return for food and lodging.

Yes, it's just a movie, but the same tactic recently worked for a group of farmers who were tired of having their arms chopped off by "rebels" in Sierra Leone:

Privately, some diplomats and Africa experts believe that one force — a mercenary army — might be able to contain the rebels' killing sprees in Sierra Leone, because it has done so before. In 1995, rebels drew within 20 miles of Freetown, and the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity and the international conflict resolution experts were all unable to help. In its desperation, the Government of Sierra Leone hired Executive Outcomes, a South African mercenary army founded by apartheid-era South African soldiers but made up mainly of black African soldiers, including Namibians and Angolans.

The company was willing to do what the United Nations cannot: take sides, take casualties, deploy overwhelming force and fire pre-emptively. Executive Outcomes agreed to put down the rebels and restore law and order in return for $15 million and diamond mining concessions. Relying on about 200 soldiers and a helicopter gunship, it nearly succeeded: 300,000 refugees were able to return from squalid camps in neighboring Guinea that were costing the international community $60 million a year. And within a year, the people of Sierra Leone voted in their first presidential election in 28 years.

"Our people have died, lost their limbs, lost their eyes and their properties for these elections," the Sierra Leonian Defense Minister said to me at the time. "If we employ a service to protect our hard-won democracy, why should it be viewed negatively?"

Much of the Western press called it an African success story. The foreign diplomats and Sierra Leonians I spoke to at the time said the country owed its stability to Executive Outcomes. Nevertheless the international community and particularly the International Monetary Fund thought it unseemly and too costly for the fledgling democracy to be so dependent on mercenaries. Three months after the mercenaries left, the country, defenseless, collapsed into terror. A year ago, the Nigerians, with some technical support from a British-based private military company called Sandline, staged a counter-assault, ousted the rebels and reinstated Mr. Kabbah.

Now we're back to square one, and some international diplomats are talking about negotiating with the rebels. President Kabbah is understandably skeptical. Executive Outcomes recently disbanded as a corporate entity, but Mr. Kabbah has been consulting with Sandline.

The United States does not want to endorse such a mission publicly, fearing that to do so would send a signal that the West lacks the political will to resolve the problem and that the world's institutions have failed. Sadly, that is exactly what is happening.

But if the United States, the Western powers and the United Nations are unwilling to fight, should they prevent others from doing so? One obvious problem is that private armies conjure up images of bloodthirsty soldiers of fortune accountable to no nation-state and no international laws, fighting for the highest bidder.

Yet as long as the major powers choose not to act in places like Sierra Leone and as long as Africa has no equivalent of NATO, private armies will continue to be in demand in much the same way that security businesses are in the United States. The Clinton Administration has even contracted out some of its own retired generals through a company called Military Professional Resources Inc. to provide training to the Croatian and now the Bosnian army.

I realize a lot of you won't be here over the weekend (traffic typically drops to half normal on weekends, especially holiday weekends) so I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy new year. I hope 2005 was a good year for you, and that 2006 will be an even better one.

I made predictions a couple of years ago for 2004 and for 2003. Looking back, they weren't bad predictions at all. So what the heck, I'll make some predictions for 2006:

1) U.S. Democrats will finally wise up, realize they need an agenda that goes beyond attacking Bush and looking weak on national defense, come up with a coherent agenda, and make credible gains in the House and Senate elections (we can hope, can't we?)

2) Castro finally dies. With his cult of personality finally broken, it becomes obvious after a few scary weeks that major positive changes will be in the works for that poor island nation.

3) The first synthetic microorganism is demonstrated in a lab, and the first multipurpose humanoid industrial robots go on sale.

4) Wireless internet becomes increasingly competitive with wired services like DSL and cable modems in major urban areas.

5) It will become increasingly obvious that our biggest diplomatic challenges are Syria and Iran. Speculation that Saddam removed some of his famous WMDs to Syria before the invasion will start to look more and more credible.

6) Despite some scary moments and some disappointments, democracy will make significant, undeniable if halting steps in the Arab world.

Anyone else want to make some predictions?

Update: Larry's got some predictions.

Congratulations to the Green family.

Ah this is always fun: Paul Burgess lists some of his favorite words. I like them all.

Some of my favorite words:

"fluoresce"

"impregnate"

"fulminate"

"eschew"

"fantabulous" (a wonderful neologism)

"bombastic"

"skew"

"ontogeny"

Things are looking worse than ever for Hwang Woo-suk. It looks like the journal Science will withdraw his team's 2005 paper on human cloning, and may withdraw their 2004 paper as well, both of which were hailed as major advances.

This is an embarrassment not just to the field but to the journal and to the biotech profession in general. A growing concern in many areas of research, but particularly the biological sciences, has been that scientists have become so obsessed with headlines and money they're not doing the work they're supposed to do as diligently as they should, and the old tradition of others independently verifying a scientist's work by attempting to duplicate their results has become less popular than it once was.

Unlike some I don't think this means everything's wrong, but I've heard more than one real scientist, as well as educated layman, complain that the field has gotten too money and fame-obsessed, too quick off the mark with bold claims, with too much at stake in either success or failure for all involved, and real science itself winds up sufering.

This is a robot named Hubo. He's not a toy. He's been built by a South Korean group called the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Hubo weighs 55 kilograms and walks upright. He has voice recognition and voice synthesis, and hand articulation. I've had trouble finding video of him, but here's some video of Hubo using sign language. You can read more about Hubo here on Gizmodo.

Better-known than Hubo is probably Asimo from Honda:

He's been in the works the longest and has gotten the most exposure. He can not only walk, he can run, climb stairs, balance on one foot, talk, recognize individual voices and faces, and manipulate objects, all independently. Honda next year (that means 2006) plans to sell at least 100 copies for use in industry to do things like act as a receptionist and handle basic office drudgery.

For some amazing videos of Asimo in action, click here to see Honda's video clip collection. As you watch, contemplate: this isn't something that's wired to a human or has a human stuffed inside. This is an autonomous robot. He's not experimental, he's simply a prototype of a product that will soon be in production.

Then there's Sony's Qrio:

Qrio is closer to a toy since he's much smaller and doesn't seem to have the finger articulation of Hubo or Asimo. But just look at these amazing videos of Qrio in action. The thing can hop, balance on one leg, dance, throw a ball, catch a ball, follow motion, and even stand itself back up if knocked over. It's capable of doing all these things autonomously. More on Qrio on Sony's web site.

Now contemplate this: these things are going to be on sale soon. Yes, for ridiculously high prices. But given the law of accelerating returns, we should expect to see the prices plummet even while the capabilities of these things get more advanced.

By 2020 or so we'll have computers which are as complex as the human brain. That doesn't mean they'll work like human brains, but they'll be orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we have now, with far better advances in voice recognition, speech recognition, and so on.

The future is amazing to contemplate. This isn't geeky sci-fi stuff anymore. These are real-world phenomena that we are watching evolve in real life.

Update: Oh I totally forgot to mention this story about a laboratory robot that has demonstrated traits of self-awareness. No kidding. Check it out.

The Democrats and the Left, in their amnesia, and as beneficiaries of the very policies they suddenly abhor, now mention al Qaeda very little and Islamic fascism hardly at all. Apparently due to the success of George Bush at keeping the United States secure, he, not Osama bin Laden, can now more often be the target of a relieved Left
...
On the eve of the war, had anyone predicted that Saddam would be toppled in three weeks, and two-and-a-half-years later, 11 million Iraqis would turn out to vote in their third election — at a cost of some 2100 war dead — he would have been dismissed as unhinged. But that is exactly what has happened. And the reaction? Democratic firebrands are now talking of impeachment.
...
Few Americans remember that nearly 750 Americans were killed in a single day in a training exercise for D-Day

Researchers at the University of British Columbia, led by geneticist Craig Venter, are currently working on creating the first entirely artificial, human-designed lifeform.

Of course they haven't done it yet, and it will be just a simple microbe. But the interesting fact is that very few people doubt they'll be able to accomplish this, because so much has been learned in the last decade or so. The ability to manipulate strings of DNA, RNA, amino acids, and so on has become that advanced.

One of the points that Ray Kurzweil makes in The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology is that most technologies developed over the last century have been on an exponential growth curve, not a linear one. What this means is that we double our knowledge or capabilities every few years, and continually halve the prices it takes for us to use those capabilities. One of the things that's most noticeable about such exponential growth is that they don't look all that impressive when they start.

Here's an old, classic example: let's say you do me some service, and I offer you a reward and ask you what you want. You come to me and say, I have a chessboard here. That's 64 squares. Why don't you pay me by putting one penny on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, 16 on the fifth, and so on, until the board is filled up?

Look at how that exponential growth pattern looks. For the first 8 squares, it grows fast but it's still not a lot of money: 1 cent, 2 cents, 4 cents, 8 cents, 16 cents, 32 cents, 64 cents, 128 cents. So by the time we hit the 8th square, we're up to $1.28, plus 64 cents, 32 cents, and so on. Basically we're up to two bucks and change.

But keep going... 256 cents, 512 cents, 1,204 cents. Whoah, what happened? We're up over 12 bucks? But keep going... 2,048 cents, 4,096 cents, 8,192 cents, 16,384, 32,768, 65,536 cents... we've only gone to 16 iterations and we're up to $655 and change! Finish out the 64 iterations of such growth, and the number will be in the trillions of dollars.

Many, many technologies--computers, the internet, portable phones, robotics, genetics and biotechnology in general, have all been on exponential growth curves for some time now. We went from the Internet barely being on anyone's radar screens in the early 1990s, to being almost ubiquitous today. Same with portable phones, which went from rare curiosities to being simply everywhere. We've gone from mapping the human genome over a period of many years, to quickly mapping numerous genomes in periods of months or less, and are now looking at writing whole new genomes and creating life in a laboratory.

The next decade is going to bring spectacular advancements. The next two, more spectacular still.

There's something incredibly cool about Amazon: people buy you stuff from your wish list, and it just shows up at your door. This has happened to me every day this week. The latest two were Albert King's Wednesday Night in San Francisco: Recorded Live at the Fillmore Auditorium, which by total coincidence arrived on Wednesday from long-time Dean's World commenter DSmith, and then on Thursday came Albert King's Thursday Night in San Francisco: Recorded Live at the Fillmore Auditorium from Julie K. Thank you both!

These are exceptional recordings. Anyone who was ever a Stevie Ray Vaughan fan should listen to them; if you do you'll realize immediately that Stevie's greatest influence wasn't Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton, it was Albert King. By far. And why not? King was magnificent. His style was very simple, he didn't have the monster chops that some guitarists did, but his ability to wring an incredible amount of emotion out of a single note, a single ferocious bend, was unparalleled. He wasn't the fastest, or the most diverse, but he had, as they say, "the touch."

It still bugs me that so many people in the black community have all but completely forgotten about the blues, taking absolutely no interest in it. A lot of thse old recordings are so ripe for the picking, too, for using in modern hip-hop records. Well one day someone will rediscover this treasure trove.

The Powerblogs server recently crashed and was restored. Somehow during the restore process, a TON of old materials got re-posted, some of it MONTHS old, many of them things that had already appeared once. Some were in state of half-completion and still full of typos and such. Some were nothing but URLs that I'd just been saving for reference. I'm pretty annoyed by this, but now some people have left extensive comments to some of these re-posted items so I'd feel bad just to nuke them. But I'm trying to clean this mess up now....

My friend Kevin recently showed me an Ann coulter column about Kwanzaa. Now, I'm well-known for hating this lady; I reluctantly admit to finding her occasionally funny, but I mostly find her just obnoxious and irresponsible. She goes out of her way to take the most outrageous and negative thing she can think to say about almost any subject she touches, and isn't above a little intellectual dishonesty while she's doing it. Thus she says pretty much what I expected her to say about Kwanzaa: that it was made up by black radicals in the '60s with some rather goofy beliefs, that some of them had ties to violent groups, and that some of the principles of Kwanzaa were the same ones espoused by terrorist groups.

What she doesn't tell you, however, is what those infamous seven principles actually are, in English:

* Umoja (Unity)
* Kujichagulia (Self-determination)
* Ujima (Collective work and responsibility)
* Ujamaa (Cooperative economics)
* Nia (Purpose)
* Kuumba (Creativity)
* Imani (Faith)

Yes, so a terrorist group called the Symbianese Liberation Army wrote these as their ideals. Does that make them bad ideals? The Ku Klux Klan, when it was first formed, set three main principles for its organization:

* First: To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the violent and the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of the Confederate soldiers.

* Second: To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States

* Third: To aid and assist in the execution of all constitutional laws, and to protect the people from unlawful

Tell me, were any of those bad principles? If I took a set of principles just like that as my own today, would you assume I'm a Klansman?

Yes, Kwanzaa's a made-up holiday. Yes those who originated it had some questionable values--and they also repudiated radicalism and violence later in life.

So if you don't want to celebrate it, don't. But what is the purpose of flaming people who do celebrate it? What good end does that serve? What nefarious things are we putting in children's brains to teach them to honor African heritage, or to honor ideas like self-determination, cooperation, creativity, and so on?

When Christians first began celebrating Christmas, it was an entirely made-up holiday. The earliest celebration of Christmas wasn't until about 200 years after Christ had died. The Romans had a holiday called Saturnalia, honoring the god Saturn with feasting, drinking, and gift exchanges. The Romans wanted a Christian holiday to coincide with their traditional pagan holiday, so they decided then and there it would be Christ's birthday. We actually have no idea when Christ was born, although it almost certainly wasn't December 25!

So, does anyone plan to stop celebrating Christmas now that they know that? Would it further crush you to learn that both Christmas trees and hot cross buns were also once pagan symbols that got transplanted onto Christmas?

Some Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on a different date than the 25th. Do you try to take that away from them? The Irish get St. Patrick's day. The Poles in New York and Chicago (but not, oddly enough, Detroit) still celebrate Casimir Pulaski day every year. Italians still celebrate Columbus Day. Texans love to celebrate Texas Independence Day. They're all "made up" holidays. Who. Freakin'. Cares?

The holiday's values seem very wholesome and generous to me. The founders of the holiday have renounced some of the radicalism that tinged it in the past, and now say it's a holiday that anyone is welcome to celebrate and learn from. So is it really all that important that we crap on it? Why?

The Vatican has issued a strong condemnation of anti-Darwinists.

In the meantime, others contemplate a vise strategy.

As a non-theist and a believer in Darwin (indeed, I'm a big fan of the entire field of evolutionary psychology), I have often been aghast at the fact that almost no one on my side seems to agree that most of the arguments over the supposed dangers of "Intelligent Design Theory" are not only foolish, but highly counterproductive and at times downright destructive.

Now along comes Michael Balter. He is a correspondent for Science Magazine, and serves as one of their chief sources on archaeology and human evolution. (For those who don't know, Science is one of the two most prestigious peer-reviewed journals in the world, the other being Nature, put out by our buddy Harvey Bialy's friends).

In writing on the "Intelligent Design" controversy, Balter asks a simple question:

"Could it be that the theory of evolution's judicially sanctioned monopoly in the classroom has backfired?"

If I said anymore I'd be gilding the lilly. Please click here to read Intelligent design and evolution, let's have a debate!

I invite you to leave your comments in response to Balter here, and I will bring them to his attention. However, while I shouldn't have to say this, I will:

If you leave a comment which makes it obvious that you have not clicked the above link and read Baltar's (quite short and quite eloquent) piece, I will not only delete your comment, but I will also press the secret button that only certain bloggers are given which blasts you with a 1.21 gigawatt thunderbolt right through your monitor screen. You have been warned!

Interesting take on moral arguments about the war.

I'm in the middle of reading Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. I'm a skeptic by nature so when I heard about this book, at first it just sounded like overblown crankery, some kind of weird cult-y nonsense that overhyped the technological future. But as I heard more and more about it, the more interesting it got. So when Dave Price sent me the book for Christmas (thanks Dave!) I figured I had to read it.

So far what's impressing me about this book is not that it "blows me away" as the saying goes, but rather, just how nuts-and-bolts pragmatic and straightforward the man's reasoning is, and how well he backs up his arguments. He also explains very well what he means by "the singularity," noting that the word existed before black holes and simply meant something you couldn't see past. It's when a mathematical function essentially goes to infinity or otherwise behaves in a way that's difficult to understand.

What Kurzweil means by "the singularity" in terms of humanity and technology is that we will reach a point where technology has become so advanced, we today can no longer comprehend just how vast and far-reaching the changes will be--and he believes that this point will have arrived by no later than the middle of this century, if not sooner.

I'm still not finished with the book but at this point I'm convinced Kurzweil's no crank. I think what crystallized that for me was when I watched these videos of Asimo, the humanoid robot built by Honda. I suggest clicking the link and watching the videos, and contemplating the fact that Honda is actually making plans to mass produce these things and sell them as office assistants. Even if it's a few years before they're widely available, the fact is that it's only a few years. And just think about how much more advanced that little creature is going to get with continued research.

Kurzweil notes that in technology area after technology area, growth has been on an exponential path for over a century, and that trend is only accelerating in areas like computing, robotics, and biotechnology. If the growth stays on exponential curves that have typified the last 100 years, we will have computers which are as complex as the human brain within 15 years. They'll be wildly expensive supercomputers, but they'll be as complex as the human mind... and give it another ten years or so, and such computers will be ubiquitous and affordable by almost anybody. (Of course there's the question of how to write software for such a thing--but Kurzweil answers that too.)

Meanwhile, if we continue to learn at the same rate as we have about biotechnology, soon we'll be able to replace almost any organ, rework someone's biochemistry almost any way we want to, invent whole new organisms, or even directly enhance the human brain with implants.

The point at which all of these things are not just possible, but actually become commonplace is what Kurzweil calls "the singularity"--it's the point where all our technologies become so advanced that it profoundly questions all our notions of what it is to be human, and will change societ in ways we can only vaguely guess at.

And this is coming soon. Short of a major disaster it probably cannot be stopped.

I was glad to read recently that Jonathan Fishbein, the physician who blew the whistle on gross scientific misconduct and outright fraud by National Institutes of Health AIDS research in Africa was recently vindicated in court.

Kudos especially to Senator Chuck Grassley for championing Fishbein's cause.

Now that Fishbein's back, it should be interesting to see if the matter ends here, or if we get to explore just how deep the rabbit hole goes...

Dan Riehl notes that the Austrian government has funded some anti-American art--and he's got some photos.

To be honest, while there was a time when this would have offended me, now it amuses me. Anti-Americanism is ubiquitous among Europeans of course. But as an American I have come to view the Europeans with contempt. What can you say about such sad creatures, with their defense of fascists like Saddam and communists like Castro, their effete and self-indulgent culture, their nonexistant work ethic, their dysfunctional economic systems, their rampant colonialism far worse than our own, and their general attitude of appeasement toward terrorism? It's all quite contemptible. Since I view them with contempt, I'm not particularly moved when I see them being contemptuous toward us. We basically have no need for their pathetic approval, and no reason to care whatsoever about their even more pathetic (and incredibly childish) disapproval.

I am grateful for those Europeans who aren't such stuck up, reactionary, freedom-hating toads, mind you. But I otherwise no longer give a damn what the Euroweenies think. I wonder what it is the Brits were even thinking when they were debating the idea of unifying with that dessicated old continent. You'd think they'd want better company than that.

I'm glad to see others in the blogosphere noticing Battlestar Galactica.

"Most of you probably think this entry has got to be a joke. The rest of you have actually watched the show." — James Poniewozik, Time's TV critic, in explaining why he picked it as the best television show of the year.

"...may very well be the best show on TV and is certainly the most philosophical...." --Virginia Postrel. Newsweek also called it the best show on television. Not best Science Fiction show, best show period.

It's been so many years since I actually jonesed for a show, waiting obsessively for each new episode like a kid waiting for Christmas. This one is worth it.

By the way, a big thanks to Dave Price for sending me a copy of the Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0 boxed set. Way cool. And what with Season 2.5 starting just a week from tomorrow, I'm like a kid at Christmas.

By the way, I understand you can now order the series an episode at a time through Apple's iTunes. If you're curious about the show, I suggest downloading the first episode of the series, entitled "33." You don't need the miniseries before it. If that show doesn't hook you, nothing will....

If you tried to get to Dean's World at all yesterday you probably noticed we were down for most of it.

If you're reading this you obviously know we're back.

We've lost everything posted yesterday.

Hopefully the Powerblogs folks will take measures to make sure a failure this catastrophic doesn't happen again for anything short of a natural disaster.

Rudy Giuliani recently wrote this NYT op-ed in support of the Patriot Act (reprinted here at American Future.net):

It is simply false to claim, as some of its critics do, that this bill does not respond to concerns about civil liberties. The four-year extension of the Patriot Act, as passed by the House, would not only reauthorize the expiring provisions - allowing our Joint Terrorism Task Force, National Counterterrorism Center and Terrorist Screening Center to continue their work uninterrupted - it would also make a number of common-sense clarifications and add dozens of additional civil liberties safeguards.

Concerns have been raised about the so-called library records provision; the bill adds safeguards. The same is true for roving wiretaps, "sneak and peek" searches and access to counsel and courts, as well as many others concerns raised by groups like the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Given these improvements, there is simply no compelling argument for going backward in the fight against terrorism. Perhaps a reminder is in order. The bipartisan 9/11 commission described a vivid example of how the old ways hurt us. In the summer of 2001, an F.B.I. agent investigating two individuals we now know were hijackers on Sept. 11 asked to share information with another team of agents. This request was refused because of the wall. The agent’s response was tragically prescient: "Someday, someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective."

How quickly we forget.

GIULIANI: Yesterday the Senate failed to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, as a Democratic-led filibuster prevented a vote.

YANNONE: The name of the act is USA PATRIOT Act. The first two words are acronyms.

GIULIANI: I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.

YANNONE: Provisions of the act violate the Constitution.

GIULIANI: The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work.

YANNONE: The attacks of September 11, 2001, made clear that at least three buildings of the World Trade Center could be wired and charged for demolition without anyone noticing.

Enemies like this are another reason why Rudy can't lose.

They say that Rudolph is the most-famous Reindeer. But my favorite is the second-most famous. You know, the one everyone hears about but never remembers? Her name is Olive. She's the other famous reindeer. She was kind of cruel but ultimately redeemable.

What, you don't remember Olive? She's right there in that great song!

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts of the week from Iraqi and Afghani bloggers. This week we've Christmas greetings, commentary on the Iraqi elections, and gas price hikes.

The main topic in the Iraqi blogosphere has been the elections. Truth Teller of A Citizen of Mosul is convinced that there was widespread fraud. There certainly have been widespread reports of irregularities but whether these allegations will turn out to be systematic fraud isn't clear yet. Najma of A Star From Mosul is writing about potential fraud, too. Her post includes pictures of demonstrations against the election results. An Average Iraqi comments on the fraud allegations and also notes that the price of gasoline has been tripled. Black Eagle of Free Iraq is surprised by the election results but still hopeful:

The Iraqian people approve thier self three times during this year... The first one was in the first election in January 2005 and in the vote on Consititution in October,15,2005 and finally in the last election in December, 15 , 2005 .... They choose the persons that they think they are good for leading the Iraq in the next four years......

There was cheating in the last election and there were many errors but no one try to solve the problem or try to know the causes of these errors ....

I was hoping that Dr. Alawi may take a large number of voters but because of the cheating Dr. Alawi took less than theDesired

Now, the tone of Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian..etc is getting louder in spite of all the useless slogans about: “we are a united country” “we are not like other nations”..

Now we’ve got our PM with his mesmerizing speech, strong charisma and the kind smile which are enough to convince most of the naive Shia especially when he is blessed by AlSistani, Ayatollah in earth and heaven.

AlJa’fari is clearly taking control of most of the departments and suppressing others rights by different professional ways.. I see him the most cunning man in the scene now, much more dangerous than Saddam, the one who will set the fire among different sects in the Iraqi society and lead Iraq to the civil war.

A leading figure from the Accord Front told al-Sabah on condition of anonymity that the Front is asking for ten seats to be reallocated from the UIA to them in return for pulling back the Front’s objections to the results, al-Sabah’s report mention that Talabani is pushing in this direction too. Meanwhile the Front is also looking forward to getting a good share in the compensatory seats; the results of which were expected to be announced yesterday but the announcement was delayed by the election commission for fear that they could aggravate the crisis if the results didn’t appeal to either party.

[…]

It is believed that who-gets-the-interior-and-defense-ministries is a key point in solving the dispute and the suggestion present now is that the men who should handle these tow ministries must be non-partisan or from a party that has no militias.

After the liberation we though that we will stop "fighting" for our rights and we will start to participate in building democracy in Iraq but it seems that another four years of "fierce war" is coming and this time its just to stay who we are and not to melt in the "Sunni-Shia" environment I think we need a second miracle now, the Americans granted us the first one and broke our chains to set us free, now we need the second miracle not to put them back.

Many of the Iraqi bloggers have wished up a Merry Christmas. The best post on the subject is from Hammorabi who cites the passages in the Qu'ran on the birth of Jesus. The Qu'ranic nativity narrative is somewhat different than the canonical nativity narratives but conform pretty closely to the gospels circulating in Arabia in Mohammed's time. This is the part that I like the best:

Then, We sent after them Our Messengers, and We sent Isa - son of Maryam, and gave him the Injeel (Gospel). And We ordained in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy.

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.

Mudville Gazette has a damning set of quotations.

But I have a more simple, more obviously damning piece of evidence: they will always put the words "our side" and "the enemy" in scare-quotes.

Then they'll whine about how criticism of the working press is an attack on the First Amendment--even though most of them have obviously not read it. Then, they'll suggest that being on the side of our valiant warriors in the field is "touting the Bush line." Then they'll whine about how awful it is that we hate them so much.

Poor babies. [Spit!]

But let me reprint that wonderful amendment here:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now let me say something that every Journalism major should hear, but rarely does: Criticism of your work is not a threat to the first amendment. Criticism of your work is the very essence of the first amendment. Oh, and by the way, you guys suck, because most of you make it obvious that you are not on our side.

And "our side" does not mean "Bush's side." If you think it does, you're just a clueless a**hole. And isn't it wonderful that the First Amendment allows me to say so?

Apparently, some people aren't black enough so they just don't matter.

It reminds me of Congressman Harold Ford Jr., the millionaire politician's son who went to the very best private schools in Washington D.C. and had his wealthy parents send him to the best schools in the country. Yet he had the audacity to say, without apology on national TV, "I personally benefitted from Affirmative Action."

Yeah. That's what the so-called "liberals" have to say about poverty and suffering: "If you're black, you're automatically a victim. Anyone else, you're just a rich b***ard and we don't give a damn about you."

Racist elitist scumbags and traitors to the whole idea of liberalism that they are.

(Hat tip: Seawitch.)

"This is one of the year's best films." -- Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

"Peter Jackson's King Kong is the most thrilling, soulful monster picture ever made. At last, it can be said without irony — I laughed, I cried." -- Jami Bernard, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Serkis' contribution truly is something we've never seen, an entirely new category of computer-enhanced acting. With not a word of dialogue, he brings to life a close cousin to man with whom we can empathize, yet is never too human-like." -- Colin Covert, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

"You've seen it all before but most assuredly never like this." -- Ty Burr, BOSTON GLOBE

"They don't really make movies like this anymore; I don't know if they ever did." -- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL

"At three hours, seven minutes and jam-packed with larger-than-life action sequences — this film is as big as Kong himself. You'll get your money's worth." -- Ross Anthony, HOLLYWOOD REPORT CARD

"In a word, Jackson's King Kong is spectacular, awesome, phenomenal and breathtaking. OK, so I can't boil it down to one word." -- Paul Clinton CNN.COM

"Too big for its own good, too pure of heart to diminish, brawling, magnificent, heroic and flawed: That's King Kong, and that's King Kong." -- Amy Biancolli, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

"Remakes simply don't get any more respectful — or more inspired — than this." -- William Arnold, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

"Kong is not without its serious flaws, but sometimes you just have to throw your hands up in the air, wave them like you just don't care, scream at the top of your lungs and just go with the rollercoaster ride, that's what this film is." -- Michelle Alexandria, ECLIPSE MAGAZINE

"Jackson balances these tender moments with slam-bang action sequences the likes of which haven't been seen since Jurassic Park or Titanic — and surpasses them." -- Jeffrey M. Anderson, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

"If it receives no other award, it virtually demands recognition for its screenplay--a spectacular that takes us to a very unexpected region of the heart." -- Jules Brenner (FC), CINEMA SIGNALS

"A sensational performance by Naomi Watts as the beauty who makes even a truly fierce beast beautiful just by loving him." — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

"More than just homage or a Valentine to the original. Jackson is a romantic and is playing Don Juan with the RKO classic, to the audience and the outright joy of filmmaking." -- Erik Childress, EFILMCRITIC.COM

"A marvelous entertainment, a great big thumping movie-movie that stands beside, all the while honoring, the greatness of the original." — Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS

"This is what it means to go to the theater and watch a big movie made with love, care, and intelligence." -- Jeffrey Chen, WINDOW TO THE MOVIES

"Oooh Ahh AHHH AHHHHH! AHHHH!!!!! Plus Naomi Watts and Andy Sirkis should both be nominated for Oscars. You don't agree? OOH AHH! AHHH! AHHH!! AAAHHHH!!! ---Dean Esmay, Dean's World

(More reviews right here. Meanwhile, go see it, and then tell me what you think about it.)

Update: Check out all the cool movie stuff right here at the oficial movie site.

The latest Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Multiple Mentality.

Well the Esmay household went to see King Kong. It was all that and a bag of chips.

It should be seen on the big screen to be fully appreciated. I cannot imagine how it could have been improved. It was a masterpiece.

Got a few neat presents for Christmas:

Ulysses S. Grant: Personal Memoirs. Thanks very much to Tony Z. I'm already several chapters in. Grant was a remarkably good writer; most 19th century writers tended to write rather dense stuff I find hard to read, but Grant, probably due to his military background, wrote remarkably straightforward, uncluttered prose without a lot of jargon or unnecessary flourishes. The result is remarkable. I almost feel like I could drop him a line and surely he'd respond. I'm only three chapters in, but just reading his view of the Mexican-American war is fascinating.

Civilization IV. Rosemary and I loved Civilization III, but to be honest so far I'm not all that thrilled with Civ IV. For one thing I'm frustrated by some of the combat mechanics, which don't make sense. For another, I can't seem to figure out how to change production on a city--if I accidentally click and choose the wrong thing there seems to be no way to change production. This is very frustrating. Maybe I'll figure it out.

His Dark Materials Trilogy. I long ago lost interest in fantasy literature--I couldn't get into Harry Potter even though I tried--but this series is controversial because it's considered critical of Christian theology, almost like the anti-C.S. Lewis. Yet the books are very popular. I'll be interested to see if they're up to the hype. Thanks, Jerry.

How did you all make out?

Although he was sometimes annoying, I always did like Senator Bob Kerrey. Austin Bay had a pretty good interview with Bob Kerrey on Iraq. Gee, guess what? He's not a whiny defeatist either. I wish there were more like him in his party these days.

So what's the most interesting or entertaining link you've come across lately?

(Remember, keep it clean, or at least note anything not work-safe. I mention this not to be a prude but because we don't want anyone getting in trouble for innocently clicking on a link that upsets their bosses. Believe it or not I myself recently got in trouble for clicking on a Foamy the Squirrel link at the office, so this is no joke.)

Quoted:

At the Erbil Ministry of Culture's media hall, the Iraqi-Kurdistan Symphony Orchestra has just struck the final chord of the Kurdish national anthem, and the audience — Kurdish Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Turkomens, maybe even an Iraqi Jew or two, all in black ties and gowns — bursts into loud applause, foot-stomping and cheers. It's Christmas Eve in the oldest city in the world, and the city's million-and-some residents are in a pretty good mood. Maybe it's the successful election they had just two weeks ago. symph.jpg

Maybe it's the Christmas cheer of the city's sizeable Christian minority rubbing off on everyone else. Or maybe it's just that Kurdistanis love being Kurdistanis.

This is cool: Uranus has been found to have two more rings and two more moons orbiting it than previously thought. They also say the previously known moons are in different orbital paths than they were in the past, indicating the whole system is more fluid than they thought.

Good news: one of the best of the military bloggers, who quit for a while, is back. Sgt. Hook is blogging again.

Speaking of cool octopus stories, I have long heard the legend of the octopus that would crawl of its tank, crawl into another tank to eat the fish there, and then crawl back to its own tank, mystifying the people who ran the aquarium until catching the animal in the act. I found myself wondering recently if this story is an urban legend, and did some digging. There's surprisingly little on the internet about this, even though a lot of people have heard the story, but here's at least one news story which claims it's true. All other sources I've found indicate that octopuses are indeed well known for crawling out of their cages, anyway.

Along the way of researching it I also found this nifty story on the habit two species of octupus have of walking upright. Check out the videos.

They really are neat creatures.

One of the last of the Doolittle Raiders has died. If you don't know who the Doolittle Raiders were, read this.

Quoted:

Americans are "stingy." This was the accusation hurled at the U.S. almost exactly one year ago today by Jan Egeland, United Nations Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, immediately after the Asian tsunami disaster.

Even by U.N. standards, it was a particularly absurd anti-American slur--although it no doubt expresses the view of many foreign elites, who have come to believe that government is the only true source of goodness and charity. In the weeks and months that followed the tsunami, American citizens dug deep into their wallets, donating some $1.78 billion to the relief effort in Asia--dwarfing the contributions of other developed nations. Since October Americans have also contributed $78 million to assist the casualties of the Pakistan earthquake.

And lest there be any doubt that the Good Samaritan ethic is alive and well in America, consider the latest totals of charitable giving to help the New Orleans victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University announced last week that the total value of private donations in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has reached $3.12 billion, thus "setting what is believed to be a record for a single disaster and recovery effort." This tsunami of aid dollars was donated in just three and a half months.

More astounding still is that this Gulf Coast aid is only a little more than 1/100th of what Americans donate to charities and churches every year.

You can read the rest here.

Today is the traditional day we celebrate Jesus' birth. Well, I have it on good authority that today we also celebrate the birthday of Dean's World contributor Dave Schuler.

Happy birthday guy.

It’s Christmas

Just two years ago on Christmas day, amidst a barrage of mortar shelling, I was loading up a truck with boxes of toys for 250 families, and 800 children, living in what used to be the cells of a torture prison. I drove for several hours before reaching the prison in Kurdish territory near the Turkish border. Hundreds possibly thousands of Kurdish men had been tortured and killed by Saddam’s men within the walls of this cement structure on the outskirts of a small Kurdish city in northern Iraq. The families of these men, now fatherless and husbandless, had moved into the same cells where their loved ones had died. On this a special Christmas day I, with my small band of Iraqi helpers, went from cell to cell and house to house, as we passed out toys to so many wonderful little children. They were all dressed up in their finest clothes, politely awaiting the arrival of Chief Wiggles. I will never forget that day.

The mission of Operation Give is to bring hope and happiness to the deprived people and innocent victims in war-torn countries where the U.S. military operates. Our emphasis will always be on the children’s needs in these arenas. We will provide assistance to the U.S. Military men and women in winning the hearts and minds of the people in these regions where the military is serving, in order to ease their suffering, and prepare them for a brighter future. We will provide our soldiers with the resources they need to perform random, and planned, acts of kindness on behalf of the American people, for the benefit of the very people for which they are fighting.

Now is the time to discover for yourself if you are a giver or a taker. Now is the time to sincerely give of yourself to someone in need. Just look around, there are people in need everywhere you go. Find a way to pay back and to pay forward to those in your life. Pass the spirit along as you create a positive balance in your own personal giving bank account.

Please don’t forget the soldiers who are away from their loved ones during the holidays, guarding your freedoms. Give whatever you can of your time, your money, your thoughts, and your love. Please plan to do something.

Operation Give wants to thank you for all you have done this past year in all of your giving of donations, your items that you have sent to our warehouse for the soldiers and to help the soldiers Win the Peace by helping the kids with school supplies, medical equipment, toys, hygiene items, etc.

Operation Give has been able to send 30 forty foot containers with the help of our shipping partner, FEDex. Six tons of Christmas Stockings for the soldiers will shortly be arriving in Afghanistan Two forty foot containers are in Kuwait on their way to Iraq.

Please continue to help us Support our Soldiers and help them Win the Peace. Operation Give will be letting you know about our new projects for you to be part of and continue our current projects of items for the soldiers, toys, school supplies, medical supplies for the kids, etc.

Chief Wiggles and the small gang of volunteers at Operation Give would like to sincerely wish all of you who have made so many magical things possible this last year a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanks from Chief Wiggles

www.operationgive.org

www.savingbabylon.com

www.chiefwiggles.com

When we share joy with another, we build a bridge---

A bridge of love which spans differences,

misunderstandings, and borders

MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance-- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already-- it had not been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door o