Dean's World

Welcome to the Asian Cup edition of Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts of the week from Iraqi and Afghan bloggers. The topic of the week, as you might expect was the triumph of the Iraqi national soccer team in the Asia Cup competition. The graphic above was stolen borrowed from Baghdad Connect.

Iraqi bloggers, living in Iraq and ex-patriates both, are ecstatic at the victory. The following have posted on the subject:

Asterism
24 Steps to Liberty
Sunshine
Great Baghdad has an excellent post
Hammorabi hasn't been blogging about anything else lately
Zeyad has a round-up of Iraqis celebrating all over the world
Cesar of Pentra
Iraq the Model
IraqPundit
Last of Iraqis
Nabil
neurotic iraqi wife
No Pain No Gain speculates on the larger picture
Treasure of Baghdad interweaves the victory with the story of Sameer.
Lots of picture of the team and various celebrations.

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

Ellison said he was particularly impressed watching Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, U.S. commander in the Anbar province, greeting people with "as-salama aleikum," meaning peace be upon you.

"And they would respond back with smiles and waves," Ellison said. "I don't want to overplay it. There were no flowers. There was no clapping. There was no parade. But there was a general level of respect and calm that I thought was good."
...
McNerney, the California congressman, also said he saw signs of progress in Ramadi and was impressed by Petraeus, who argued in favor of giving President Bush's troop surge strategy time to work.

by George L Gabor Miklos PhD and Phillip John Baird MD PhD

Patients rarely die from a primary tumor

Problems arise when a cancer spreads (metastasizes) to another part of the body and destroys a vital organ (20-23). In breast cancer, it is not the lump that is the killer, it is the cells that leave that lump and spread to the brain and bones, for example, eventually replacing a vital organ with tumor tissue. Ninety percent of the deaths from cancer are due to the spread of these maverick cells that develop the capacity to leave home and embark on a journey throughout the body. If a primary tumor is diagnosed before any of its cells have left and the tumor is surgically removed, the patient is completely cured. This is the only cure that exists; removal of a primary tumor before any of its cells have moved to other parts of the body.

Facts and figures from the American Cancer Society

An estimated 560,000 US citizens will die from cancer in 2007 (www.cancer.org). The five largest categories of deaths will be; lung cancer, (160,000), colorectal (53,000), breast (41,000), pancreas (33,000) and prostate (27,000). Most cancers will occur in individuals 55 years or older. Deaths from childhood cancers, between the ages of 0 and 14, are relatively rare, estimated to be 1,500.

Facts and figures from the National Cancer Institute

The latest figures from the NCI’s publicly accessible databases reveal the relative 5 year survival of patients with various metastatic cancers over the 30 year period, 1973 to 2004 (seer.cancer.gov):

survival with metastatic breast cancer improved from 19 to 23 percent.
survival with metastatic colorectal cancer improved from 6 to 9 percent.
survival with metastatic prostate cancer improved from 28 to 34 percent.
survival with metastatic lung cancer improved from 1 to 2 percent.

(Editor's note: these figures gathered over more than three decades amount to this: they can claim a "100% improvement" on lung cancer by improving survivability from 1% to 2%, and "a 50% increase in survival from colorectal cancer" breathlessly in press reports when they went from 6 to 9% improvement. This after multiple decades and tens of billions of dollars. That's how the gullible press, government-paid bureaucrats, and corporate spin-doctors actually express things. --Dean)

The improvements in survival are less than 0.2 percent per year, a miniscule change. Dr Jane Weeks, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center provides clinical candour; A surprisingly high proportion of patients with metastatic solid tumors don’t realize that there is no chance for cure. I’ve wondered how many patients in exactly that situation have been shocked to learn otherwise from the coverage about Elizabeth Edwards (17).

The truth is that all metastatic cancers are incurable despite the enormous sums of money poured into research and drug development, as well as the large amounts of chemotherapy, radiation and new drugs that have been poured into patients (24,25).

Some patients do respond to blockbuster drugs. Increased survival times, however, are of the order of months, not years. Side effects are common and the quality of life is dreadful. Approximately ten percent of breast cancer patients who receive Herceptin, for example, develop cardiac toxicity, while another thirty percent develop metastases to the brain (26).

Different cancers respond differently to chemotherapy and radiation

There are hundreds of different types of cancer that have been carefully classified by pathologists (www.afip.org). Each differs in its aggressiveness to spread and its resistance to drugs.

A common misconception is that if one type of cancer can be cured, so can all others. The case of Lance Armstrong, who was cured of testicular cancer, is believed to be generalizable to other cancers. However, cancer is a variety of types. Thus testicular cancer encompasses seminoma, embryonal carcinoma, teratoma and choriocarcinoma. Seminomas are generally slow growing, whereas non-seminomas tend to spread more quickly. Grade 1 seminomas are sensitive to both chemotherapy and radiation therapy and if detected early enough and treated, over ninety percent of patients are alive after 5 years and hence are considered to be cured (27).

In contrast, other cancers, such as colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer and melanomas of the skin are intrinsically resistant to radiation and chemotherapy. Less than five percent of patients with pancreatic cancer are alive after five years.

Blockbuster drugs

The effectiveness of anticancer drugs is measured in two major ways. The most accurate is Median Overall Survival, the time by which half the patients have died from disease. The other is Progression-Free Survival, which essentially measures how long after drug treatment the cancer begins to grow again. This is a subjective measurement since it involves estimating tumor size by scans. Given these two methods, how do the various drugs perform?

THE CHICAGO DRUG SHOW

The annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology is the premier forum in which upcoming cancer treatments are presented. It is the cancer equivalent of the Detroit Auto show. New drugs are exhibited by all the pharmaceutical firms and media and stock market analysts report on the upcoming drug pipeline. This year’s meeting was attended by 30,000 oncologists, researchers and drug and biotechnology company representatives. What progress emerged on cancer cures?

The 2007 progress report

Nexavar: Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals reported on a new use for their drug Nexavar. In combination with chemotherapy, Nexavar boosted median overall survival of liver cancer patients by 2.8 months. This improvement was described in Forbes as a breakthrough liver cancer treatment (14) and by Dr Llovet of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York city as "a new reference standard for systemic therapy of liver cancer patients after thirty years of research and more than 100 randomized controlled trials performed" (14). Surely after thirty years, innumerable clinical trials, billions of dollars invested and an increased median survival time of 2.8 months, the use of the word "breakthrough" is absurd.

Axitinib: Pfizer reported that their drug Axitinib plus chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer boosted median overall survival by 1.3 months compared to chemotherapy alone. When used for metastatic breast cancer, Axitinib plus chemotherapy boosted progression-free survival by 1.2 months compared to chemotherapy alone. However, along with this extra 5 weeks of life, there were common adverse events such as nausea, fatigue, proteinuria, stomatitis/mucositis, hypertension, diarrhea and neutropenia. Further risks are documented in Pfizers Annual Report Forms, 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K.

Erbitux. ImClone Systems and Bristol-Myers Squibb provided data on Erbitux for head and neck cancer, the results being highlighted in BusinessWeek. Erbitux plus a chemotherapeutic regimen boosted median overall survival for head and neck cancer patients by 2.7 months compared to chemotherapy alone.

Avastin. The Wall Street Journal reported on data released by Genentech on the drug Avastin (28). Avastin plus interferon boosted progression-free survival for kidney cancer by 4.8 months compared to interferon alone. In addition, Avastin plus a chemotherapeutic regimen for advanced forms of lung cancer boosted median progression-free survival by 6 weeks compared to chemotherapy alone.

Herceptin. The New York Times reported on concerns with the allocation of patients to receive Herceptin, which is held to be the paragon of personalized medicine in breast cancer (29).

Women with breast cancer are classified into two groups on the basis of molecular tests involving a gene called HER2. The groups are termed HER2-positive and HER2-negative. Only HER2-positive patients usually receive Herceptin, as the drug is thought to have little benefit for the HER2-negative group. However, it was reported that some women experienced a benefit irrespective of their HER2 status, indicating that Herceptin may be being incorrectly targeted to these two groups (29).

These findings left some doctors incredulous and confused as to what treatments to now apply to their breast cancer patients. "Here we are, 10 years into it and we don’t know how to test for it," said Dr Marc Citron, an oncologist from Lake Success, New York (29).

The main message to emerge from this prestigious forum is that specific drugs in combination with chemotherapeutic regimens do extend median survival for a period varying from weeks to months. However, these figures apply to a population of patients, not to an individual. One patient may survive for years, whereas another is gone after a few weeks. Currently there is no accurate way by which a doctor can predict an outcome for a particular patient.

(Next up: "The cancer cells that leave home have extra DNA capabilities." --Dean)

[This post deleted due to apparently innacurate information.]

I'm getting pretty annoyed when I read Media criticism of the blogosphere calling it an echo chamber - especially in a science magazine that never questions Global Warming orthodoxy or fails to fawn over a liberal politician like Al Gore.

What echo chamber? The one where Aziz, Ali, Kevin D, Dean, Matoko, Michael Demmons, Ron and I all agree on anything? Read my take here.

Yes. So argues a paper by Islamic Lawyer Dr. Fadel entitled, The Theological and Ethical Roots of Public Reason in Islamic Law, summarized by Salahudin.

In other words, Muslims can affirm living within liberal democracy without sacrificing their spiritual principles or orthodox Islamic Law. Normally people think that for a Muslim to live in a liberal democracy means that he/she has to change orthodox Islam, or become "less Muslim." As Salahudin's summary says:

His article argues that the doctrine of liberalism as enshrined in the concepts of democracy and pluralism, is compatible with the basic Islamic axioms and therefore a devout Muslim can live in a society with such a framework. (emphasis added).

Remember, when reading the piece it does not provide how Muslims can change theocracies into liberal democracies; it argues how being a Muslim in a liberal democracy is compatible with orthodox Islamic sources. Ghazali, the fount of orthodox Islamic learning, and 'Ashari theology, the heart of orthodox Islam, are both revealed to have spaces within them to make them consistent with liberal democracy.

I agree with Salahudin, the best part of the paper is when Fadel goes into the old orthodox sources and subjects them to a critical analysis. By the way, Salahudin considers himself an "apostate."

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
...
In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.
...
But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.
...
But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

I have a new litmus test for the Dem Presidential candidates - they must promise not to have Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollock in their administration.

by George L Gabor Miklos PhD and Phillip John Baird MD PhD

Statement

George L Gabor Miklos and Phillip John Baird are Director and CEO, respectively, of Secure Genetics and Integrated Diagnostic Pathology. The former is a molecular genetics-based data evaluation company, the latter a clinical diagnostic pathology company. Neither is affiliated with, nor receives any monetary compensation, gifts or other payments in lieu, from pharmaceutical companies, government funding bodies or private institutions in the cancer or drug development areas.

In the movie A Few Good Men, there is a heated exchange between the military characters portrayed by Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, an exchange which is relevant to the War on Cancer.

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!

The distinction between answers and truth is perfectly illustrated in the cancer arena where competing interests form a volatile mix. The patients want cures, the media want stories, the researchers want grants, politicians want votes, the doctors want to save lives and the pharmaceutical companies want to sell drugs.

The War on Cancer has become a global industry where fact and fiction have become indistinguishable and where the truth often goes missing. Some truths are airbrushed out, leaving doctors to deal with the fears and financial predicament of their patients. What do the front lines in cancer treatment and management really look like?

To better appreciate them, we attempt to provide the latest facts. The medical ones can be checked at the National Cancer Institute, (http://seer.cancer.gov), the American Cancer Society, (www.cancer.org), the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, (www.afip.org) and in the referenced scientific articles. The business figures are from The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, CNNMoney and pharmaceutical companies.

THE FRONT LINES OF CANCER

The patients

Dina Rabinovitch, author of Take off your party dress; when life’s too busy for breast cancer, reveals the day to day traumas of a breast cancer patient with an advanced form of the disease (1). The cancer has spread to other organs and her third different drug treatment is underway. It began with chemotherapy and intravenous doses of the blockbuster drug Herceptin (2) and when the cancer returned, Omnitarg was prescribed. Now the regimen is; five pills per day of the latest miracle drug Tykerb, plus eight daily tablets of the chemotherapeutic agent Xeloda every two weeks out of three, plus two morphine tablets and a diclofenac every morning and evening.

She states bluntly; "My cancer keeps recurring. Nobody can tell me why. I did the genetic screening and I don’t, apparently, carry the faulty genes. So angry and increasingly so cynical about these doctors in whom I have to put complete trust."

The costs of anticancer drugs

In 2007, the costs per patient for major anticancer drugs were summarized in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (3). If used for a full year, the two blockbusters, Herceptin for breast cancer and Avastin for lung cancer, would cost $36,000 and $106,000, respectively. For colorectal cancer, Erbitux and Vectibix would cost $120,000 and $96,000, respectively, while for breast cancer Tykerb would amount to $35,000. Cancer drugs represent 40% of all Medicare drug expenditures.

These skyrocketing costs place doctors in the position of having to advise their patients about whether the clinical benefits are worth the financial burden. Nearly a third of them report discomfort in telling patients about costs and another 20% do not consider it to be their role. Many physicians say they are not health policy persons and just want to do the best job for the patient (3).

Physicians are trained to save lives and have little time to evaluate the effectiveness of a blockbuster drug or genetic test. Furthermore, cancer genetics has moved so rapidly that most doctors do not have the specialist molecular and statistical knowledge to make informed decisions about molecular tests, the clinical claims of which are usually overstated and often have little validity (4-8).

Patient time and incentives

The director of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Dr Peter Eisenberg, states that the system does not value a doctor’s time with patients (9). The system also provides incentives to prescribe drugs with the highest profit margins and many doctors follow the money, after all, oncology is a business (10). Dr Richard Deyo of the University of Washington points out that; there are plenty of patients for whom there’s little hope, who are terminally ill, whom chemotherapy is not going to help, who get chemotherapy (11). What choice do oncologists have? By ending treatment the doctor would be acknowledging that hope is gone. Treatments therefore go ahead.

Pharmaceutical sales

In 2006, the breast anticancer drug Herceptin and the colorectal anticancer drug Avastin generated $2.6 and $1.7 billion in sales, while Erbitux generated $1.1 billion in the colorectal market. Worldwide, anticancer drug sales are expected to rise nearly 20% per year through 2010 to reach between $60 and $70 billion (12). All large pharmaceutical companies strive to produce new anticancer drugs. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, predicts it will launch five new anticancer drugs in the next three years (13).

The media

The public’s desperation for cancer cures distorts its perceptions of breakthroughs and miracle drugs. With headlines such as "Breakthrough liver cancer treatment found" (14) and the spectacular but completely incorrect, "US scientists have cracked the entire genetic code of breast and colon cancers, offering new treatment hope" (15), it is a wonder that oncology wards are not completely deserted. Unfortunately they are working at full capacity. Breakthroughs have become totally devalued and are accepted uncritically by the public, charitable organizations, politicians and the media.

The fascination with cancer cures is illustrated by the media’s attention to celebrities. In the 1970s it was Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller with breast cancer. In the 1990s, it was General Norman Schwarzkopf and Time magazine Man of the Year Andy Grove, both with prostate cancer. Currently it’s Elizabeth Edwards whose breast cancer has spread to the bone marrow and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, whose colorectal cancer has spread to the liver. Snow’s message is that "...a lot of conditions... are now curable or people are racing toward cures" (16). Celebrities serve as pillars of hope, but their comprehension of cancer cures conflicts with clinical reality. Cancers that have spread are quite unlike diabetes and heart conditions where people live for decades by taking fairly harmless drugs (17).

Governmental institutions

Far away from the frontlines of the War on Cancer, the directors of various institutions vigorously defend the progress in curing cancer. No matter how implausible, almost anything is said to attract more funding. The previous director of the National Cancer Institute, Andrew von Eschenbach, outlined an extraordinary goal; eliminating death and suffering from cancer by 2015 (18). This statement was so misleading that senior scientists were aghast at such overt distortions of scientific reality (19). It is also a very dangerous statement as it provides false hope to patients. Some cancer sufferers, believing it to be true that death and suffering from cancer will be eliminated by 2015, could delay seeking treatment in the hope that a pill will soon be available to cure their cancer.

When it’s all said and done, where are all the promised cancer cures since Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law on the 23rd of December 1971?

In terms of the fiery exchange that began this essay, do we wish to face the truth, or not? The choice is an intensely personal one. If readers prefer not to know the facts, they should read no further.

(Part II, "Do Not Listen to What They Say — Go See," should appear tomorrow. --Dean)

In the comments on Dave Schuler's post in this thread, Mikeca says:

I am skeptical that we will ever know the truth about Scott Beauchamp story. The only way we could ever know the truth is if Scott Beauchamp were to confess that he made the stories up or some of the other people involved were to confess that the stories were true. I think it is unlikely either of those will happen, so I suspect we will never really know.

This deserves treatment on the "front page." A number of commenters jumped right on this, mocking the concept that seemed to be in play here — "what, really, is truth"? Indeed, it is the idea that "everyone has his own truth" that makes mass murderers "freedom fighters" and Nobel Prize winners.

But while this is true, that is not the real problem with this formulation. It's not the "what is truth" fallacy. It's the "we can never know anythig without video tape" fallacy, or the "you can't prove a negative" fallacy. (To some extent these are related to the entire phony amateur atheist mindset about the religious, but I digress.)

There is very, very little we know in this life from direct evidence, i.e., first-hand observation. We move on by marshaling enough proof in one direction or another to convince us, usually more or less at the level of what lawyers call a preponderence of the evidence, i.e., "more likely than not."

I don't "know," for example, that Dwight Eisenhower didn't marry Eva Braun, and I can "never really know that he didn't" in the most literal sense of the words. But there's not a shred of proof that he did; anyone who said that he did is almost certainly a flake; and everyone else in a position to know would swear that he didn't. Do I still "not really know"?

(By the way, as I mentioned in the comments earlier in the chain, I think this is the real reason for TNR's recklessness here.)

We must get this straight, because "we'll never really know" is the stuff of which the looniest, and most damaging, conspiracy theories are made. Not only that: This false reasoning stands between us and the ability of reasonable people with different views to discuss any issues whatsoever. If we can't agree on basic facts, premised on a decent respect for human experience, all dialog is meaningless, isn't it?

I can't bear it. I must use the Hidden Text of Shame.

This New York Times article on the current sorry state of cancer treatment seems like a good kickoff to the cancer article I promised but did not deliver due to personal matters last week. Tomorrow I will begin to post the series as promised. For starters, I publish here the references for the article, so that as pieces appear people can through links see the references for themselves:

REFERENCES

Here also are the titles to the various article sections, just to whet your appetite:

THE FRONT LINES OF CANCER
The patients
The costs of anticancer drugs
Patient time and incentives
Pharmaceutical sales
The media
Governmental institutions

DO NOT LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY -- GO SEE.
Patients rarely die from a primary tumor
Facts and figures from the American Cancer Society
Facts and figures from the National Cancer Institute
Different cancers respond differently to chemotherapy and radiation
Blockbuster drugs

THE CHICAGO DRUG SHOW
The 2007 progress report

THE CANCER CELLS THAT LEAVE HOME HAVE EXTRA DNA CAPABILITIES
Normal cells
Cancer cells
The danger lies in the diversity within a cancer cell population
The cancer cells that leave home have increased informational diversity
Most cells in a primary tumor never leave

DRUG RESISTANCE AND THE RETURN OF CANCER
Normal cells are inflexible in a crisis
Cancer cells have additional flexibility in a crisis
How different is drug resistance in each person?
Handling the truth

NEW FRONTIER OR YET ANOTHER UNFULFILLED PROMISE?
Personalized treatment for the individual patient
DNA profiling
Single letter mutations
Drug combinations
The reality of massively disrupted DNA contents

THE EARLIEST STAGES OF CANCER
Once four DNA copies are attained, all hell breaks loose
The mutationists
The BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genes

CANCERGATE
Finding all the mutations in all cancers
The fatal flaw
Cancer genes
The Delusionists and the Spin Doctors
The clinical deliverables: patients are still waiting…and waiting…and waiting

THE HOPE

FAILURE IS NOT A CRIME. FAILURE TO LEARN FROM FAILURE IS.

BAGHDAD - Tens of thousands of Iraqis from the Shiite south to the Kurdish-dominated north poured into the usually treacherous streets Sunday to celebrate a rare moment of joy and unity when the national team won Asia's most prestigious soccer tournament.

The revelers spanning the country's sectarian and ethnic divisions danced, sang and waved flags and posters of the team after Iraq beat three-time champion Saudi Arabia 1-0 to take the Asian Cup.
...
"We are celebrating because this team represents all Iraqi sects," said Awas Khalid, one of the thousands of Kurds who celebrated the win in the city of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdish north, where secessionist sentiment has been on the rise.

"This team is for everyone," Khalid said, as revelers around him waved Iraqi and Kurdish flags and chanted "Baghdad is victorious" in Arabic instead of their native Kurdish language.
...
Al-Maliki later issued a statement on the team's win in flowery Arabic.

"There is a big difference between The Lions of the Two Rivers who struggle to put a smile on the faces of their people and those who work in dark corners strewing death and sorrow in the paths of innocent people. We are proud of you. You deserve all our love and respect," it said.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, ordered an additional $10,000 reward for the players and twice that for Sunday's goal scorer Younis Mahmoud, a Sunni Arab, who scored on a pass from Mulla Mohammed, the team's only Kurdish player.

I've been re-watching the Godfather series of movies this weekend. They really are quite timeless, especially the first two. I find it interesting how practically every gangster movie or TV series since the first Godfather film shows its influence.

I'm also often struck by how obvious it is that, at least as portrayed in these movies, the Mafia operates pretty much exactly like the noble classes did during the medieval and especially feudal eras in Europe. Indeed, they seem a much more realistic portrayal of the way things were during those historic eras than much of what you see in so much popular fiction about barons and knights and dukes and princes and whatnot.

I made a bet with a friend back in the late 1990s or so that video gaming would eventually become a professional sport within ten years. It's beginning to look like I'm gonna win that bet.

The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not everyone is entitled to his own facts.”

Consider. In his article in TNR, “Shock Troops”, “Scott Thomas”, now revealed to be Scott Thomas Beauchamp, described the mocking of a woman soldier or contractor in Iraq who was disfigured by an IED, the desecration of the remains of Iraqi children by U. S. soldiers, and a U. S. soldier deliberately running over dogs with his Bradley in an Iraqi city.

On the other hand the senior non-commissioned officer in Beauchamp's unit categorically denied Beauchamp's assertions and characterized the conduct of the soldiers under his command as “consistently honorable”.

Here's another example (which I commented on yesterday). The Telegraph reported extremely harsh feelings between Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U. S. general in Iraq. Here's a quote from the cited article:

At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: "I can't deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you."

But on the other hand Col. Steve Boylan, MNF-1 CG Public Affairs Officer, replied in an email

Gen Petraeus and the Prime Minister have never had a stand-up shouting match, and only once has Gen Petraeus even raised his voice. This is a totally fabricated story, and you should have sought a comment from me, at the least to validate the information from your so-called aides as sources.

Gen Petraeus has never stated or even hinted at a "stormy relationship." Saying that they do not pull punches is very different from stormy. That means they have very frank, open and perhaps direct conversations based on what is at stake here and what is needed and should be expected from both.

Senator Moynihan was wrong: in the future everything will be true for 15 minutes.

As I noted yesterday these stories are bound to be accepted or rejected as suits the preconceived notions of the listeners but I don't think it's enough to leave it at that. There are ways of evaluating testimony, of considering the relative likelihood of conflicting statements. All too frequently the sole refutation I hear is about the motives of those making the utterances.

This is, indeed, a way of evaluating the likelihood of a statement but it's an extremely weak method, indeed, a fallacy, the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy. While it's prudent to consider the interests of the person making the statement in evaluating it's likelihood, those interests are not dispositive. That's the fallacy.

There are other things to consider. Is this a first-hand report? Hearsay? More distant yet? What are the characters and histories of those making the claims?

In the case of the Telegraph report there are no named sources. This itself should cause us to view the report skeptically. We have no way of knowing whether the source actually has first-hand knowledge or what his or her history or character are.

It's been noted in support of the Telegraph's version of facts that the Associated Press has repeated the story reported by the Telegraph. Since the Telegraph story relies on unnamed sources, we have no way of determining whether the AP story corroborates the Telegraph story or merely repeats it. It provides litle or no additional weight to the original report.

Unfortunately, because the conflicting reports, regardless of their veracity or credibility, will be taken as gospel by partisans with conflicting views, the harm has already been done. The stories will be added to the enormous mound of truths, half-truths, and fabrications that support your side.

Go!

(8:26pm Eastern)

SFC McElroy,

I’m not in the habit of answering these email’s. It would be far too many. I appreciate all the support from home and I can assure you that not a single word of this was true. We’ve been fighting this fight for quite some time. Numerous soldiers within my unit have served on several deployments and this is my third year as a First Sergeant in this unit. My soldiers conduct is consistently honorable. This soldier has other underlining issues which I’m sure will come out in the course of the investigation. No one at any of the post we live at or frequent, remotely fit the descriptions of any of the persons depicted in this young man’s fairy tale. I can’t and won’t divulge any information regarding this soldier, but I do sincerely appreciate all the support from the people back home. Again, this young man has a vivid imagination and I promise you that this by no means reflects the truth of what is happening here. I’m currently serving with the best America has to offer. I have worked and fought closely with every soldier within my company and they are consummate professionals in an area most people can’t fathom. I’m proud of my soldiers and would gladly give my life for any one of them. Please continue to keep them with you in your prayers and thank God that we have these courageous men willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, Americans, and the people of this struggling nation.

Sincerely,

1SG Hatley

I just picked up a new game: Sins of a Solar Empire. Since I'm willing to pre-order, they're giving me access to the Beta. Which is true of most games, but at least Sins is upfront about this...

Anyway: There's a disclaimer on the Beta, something like "Warning, this game is BETA, it may not be fun yet"

I've not spent much time with the game; actually building the computer capable of running it has been a higher priority for me. Nonetheless, it's a Stardock game, so I'm willing to give it a shot. Take a look here...

The first priority is to get as many soldiers into battle as quickly as possible, Dubik said.

"What you can't produce at the same time ... (is) leaders. So you end up with units with about half the number of leaders they really need," he said, referring, for example, to unit leaders such as captains, majors and lieutenant colonels. "But that's sufficient. It's not ideal, but it's sufficient."

More broadly, Dubik said he was pleased with the rate of progress in building Iraq's defenses. He praised the Ministry of Interior in particular for taking steps to weed out officers with sectarian agendas.

He steered away from questions about the likely duration of the U.S. troop buildup, but made clear that he sees Iraq's movement toward stability as a long-term project. He said emphatically that he believes the troop buildup, with its more aggressive approach to fighting the insurgency, needs to continue.

"If it stops today, we would give the initiative back to our enemies — al-Qaida and other extremists," he said. "It was fought over and died for and there's no reason to give it back right now."

You kill an idea by creating a better idea.

7:25pm Eastern: Go.

Scott and I had a civil, pleasant email conversation about the atmosphere of political debate, and he mentioned that he blamed the media in part for the rancor. I disagree. I think its more that political debate has become stultified by straitjackets of thought rather than genuine inquiry. In other words, talking points and stereotype. This is needed in some part because of simple information overload; the political space has so much data in it that if we don't rely on some mental shortcuts, we will never be able to really move forward. But that lends itself to abuse as well.

There are a number of right-wing frames that I fundamentally disagree with yet which are mainstream here at DW; likewise I am sure there are similar ones at liberal sites that pass under my radar. However, this acts as a deterrent to me in participation; the accusations of BDS that I attracted in previous posts were really a symptom of how deeply these frames are embedded in right-wing discourse; so much so that any challenge to them must be met with ferocious character assassination.

An example, I think that the question of whether our occupation of Iraq is a net positive or a net negative for a. Iraq and b. US national security is simply a function of HOW the occupation is managed. Hence I critique the occupation and am tolerant of views that desire withdrawal because I recognize them as based on the opinion that the management is poor - leading to net negative effect. (I still am unsure whether I agree).

This is unavoidably interpreted by a right-leaning audience (such as at DW) as wanting America to fail, to some sort of racism towards Iraqis, to Americaphobia, to irrational BDS. That's the gulf filled with broken shards of glass across which I and Ali and a few others have to pull ourselves. Frankly, Ali's aggressive approach is one I admire, because at least he makes no apologies for what he is doing: forcing people to question and think - and more importantly, defend. After all, my approach - humility, defensive - earned me zero benefit of the doubt. So why not respond in kind and go for the jugular?

Now I understand that a rational conservative might look at what I typed above and say, "well, I will give you credit for being a rational liberal; the problem is not your thought process, but rather your data inputs. You are drawing wrong conclusions because you have bad information." and thus, blame the media. But the axiom that the "MSM" is out to sabotage America - or yes, even that the MSM has an inherent bias that tends to be critical of war and hostile to conservative thought - is again a right-wing stereotype/straightjacket of the type I describe above. (ironically liberals at dkos have an identical straitjacket, that the MSM is hostile to liberal thought and has inherent bias that supports war). I reject both because my rational observation is that neither is true. And in fact if you exclude all the pundit class, and look at the nuts and bolts reporting from both abroad and at home, its actually very good. NPR and PBS in particular are excellent. If anything I would say that the media has done a superb job of putting the facts as they are in front of us and I still very much trust and believe in the mechanism of journalism - editors, rules about sources, etc - because they are very much alive and performing.

Journalism is like democracy. Its a shitty system but everything else is worse. And damn it, it works, but only if the environment is right.

So no, I don't blame the media for the partisan divide. I think its more that we are overloaded. The only solution is Thoreau: simplify, simplify. And that's what i am doing.

From the Telegraph:

The Beatles' performance of All You Need Is Love for the world's first-ever, live satellite transmission in 1967 drew condemnation from viewers who said the performance had dragged Britain's good name through the mud.

Amazing, isn't it that even that late, people were still dissing the Beatles? Even after the Queen gave them MBEs for helping the economy...

It looks as though the story of Polywell Fusion receiving funding from the state of California reported earlier by Dave Price may be a false alarm. From Talk Polywell:

UPDATE: I got a call back from Bill Maile in the Governor's office. He spoke with the Governor's policy advisors, and in brief, the story is false. This is the first anyone in the Governor's office has even heard of the idea.

He is going to do some research to try and find out the source of the story. Hopefully he'll have better luck reaching somebody at nextenergynews than I have; the site lists no name or phone number, and is registered through domainsbyproxy.com. But maybe a Governor's office carries enough weight to shake loose some real contact information from them. We'll see... He promised to call me again within two hours, and when he does, I'll let you know what he found.

Meanwhile, remember, you got the truth here first — disappointing truth though it is.

Hat tip: M. Simon

One of the nicer birthday gifts I got was the Orthodox Study Bible.

I also recently got some cool gifts from Mark Parr and Martin Shoemaker. I'll have more to post about them later, but I'm geeked about both.

Thanks everyone for the nice birthday gifts.

41. I made it! Heh.

Is that what you're looking for from the Washington Post, take-no-prisoners conservatives? Well, that's what Fred's getting. Strange new respect, plus paradox... nuance, even... all the things the New Reagan was not supposed to threaten.

Are any of us reconsidering our decision to devour our best shot?

The New York Times, bleeding both money and relevance, is phasing in and out of consciousness -- now reliving the glory days of East Coast liberalism and urging the incoming Democrats (did someone say overconfidence?) to pack the Supreme Court as soon as they get the chance, just as in days of old; now issuing junk bonds; now wildly seeking an online revenue model that holds out any hope for survival.

Sad, but in a way, it gives one hope. The end, surely, is near; the Times's suffering will soon come to an end. Meanwhile, however, keep away from those teeth.

Just out of curiosity I visited my state's registered sex offender database. Lo and behold I found that there is a registered sex offender living in my neighborhood - not next door - but close enough.

According to the US Department of Justice the guy has a 30-53% chance of re-offending in four years. The article discusses how the statistics are all over the place when it comes to establishing the recidivism rate, mainly because the label "sex offender" is an overly broad term.

The guy is considered by the State to be at moderate risk. Still, I'm not happy to hear that he lives nearby.

Here's a site that maps them out and covers all 50 states. Feel lucky?

I think I agree with this.

If you go party in Vegas, and say you bring 8 girls with you to a club, and you're the only guy, you, because you are a guy, have to pay the $50 — yes, $50 — cover at a place like Caesar's Palace. Women don't have to pay anything.

I think that's gotta violate SOMETHING.

It looks like CAIR is going to ignore the proposed law granting protection to citizens who report suspicious behavior and sue them anyway. CAIR evidently uploaded this video to You Tube in which it's director says as much in this Tucker Carlson interview.

They evidently want the word to get around - at least among the people who actually watch You Tube. Given that this is happening at the same time cheeses are being found with cell phones strapped to them, and I'd say it won't be long before we get to test America's tolerance for the organization.

Hattip: LGF

First of all, like I assured when everyone (not just on this blog) was playing gotcha with me, Gomaa has (re)affirmed his Newsweek ruling on apostasy. Will Dhimmi Watch, LDF, and the usual characters pick this up?

It is not an easy discussion all this Islamic Law stuff and I had to take the day off from blogging to evaluate it.

I have done so and my article appears in Guardian UK's Comment is Free, entitled Islam's Organic Liberalism.

A lot of fodder for discussion for the political theorists here.

I'm not putting an excerpt in case the "we don't read after the first sentence posse" shows up. The title should be enough incentive, frankly.

I have the full text at The Razor of a New Scientist article about why conspiracy theories are popular.

It's a pretty superficial take on them, and misses a major point - that people tend to believe that extraordinary people and events must be caused by equally extraordinary people and actions. Princess Di can't be killed in a drunk driving crash; that's the same thing that kills 17,000 Americans each year. How could such an extraordinary person die in such an ordinary event?

But it's worth reading nonetheless.

Got a bunch of e-mails this morning about a radio program today (9am Eastern) on male victims of domestic violence. This is the Al Roney program on 810 WGY out of Albany New York. They have streaming audio here

Their call-in number is 1-800-825-5949

Here's the backstory:
Last year during the elections Congressman John Sweeney's wife, Gayle called the police on John claiming domestic violence. He lost the election, and this year John filed for a divorce stating that he is the victim of DV and obtained a restraining order against his wife. His wife has now been moved in with "friends" along with body guards, even though there is evidence (including photos of bruises and bite marks and a police report) shows that John was the victim of DV.

More from the Albany Times-Union here.

I suspect the truth of the matter, as it usually does, lies somewhere in between. We talk about male victims, we talk about female victims, but if there was ever an apolitical, objective study done, I'm sure what they'd find is that situations of mutual abuse, with couples resorting to violence against each other, would far outnumber the obvious, clear-cut cases where there is a definite victim, and an abuser.

Ohio. Glenn Reynolds: "I don't like the outcome, but it's probably right on the law." (I think what he means is he doesn't like the law.)

See my butt? See those alligators? Yeah, they're all over it.

Sorry to be cryptic, but there it is. I don't talk about my professional life in detail on this blog.

In any case: was that YouTube Presidential debate stupid or what?

Yes, it has been a tad quiet here, so much so that I feel obligated to actually write some filler so the page will move down a little, relying on my famous wit and my excellent typing skills. Plus, of course, Ron Paul.

Dean is on vacation, still, it seems. We haven't heard much from him since his promise of a groundbreaking series of posts about something involving medicine. And the rest of us are poor substitutes. There is some talk among some contributors that we may resort to cat-blogging.

For my part, I have to admit I have been very busy blogging — in other places, mostly.

Two weeks ago I guest-blogged at Overlawyered. That was fun, for sure. But it was dumb of me to agree to do it that week when I had some major paper to produce in my real life job. It was an H-E-double-hockeysticks couple of weeks, because I felt obligated to keep blogging at my own blog — well, my two of 'em — plus here from time to time.

You can skip this next part if you're filled by that much filler. Here I write about my last couple of weeks of blogging. It's entirely self-indulgent, Ron Paul, but I need to kind of get it out, I think.

As noted in the last comments to Ali's last post, maybe not so fast on the freedom of religion stuff?

Cairo: Egypt’s top cleric yesterday denied in a statement that he had said a Muslim can give up his faith without punishment.

Ali Goma’a, the mufti of Egypt, was quoted as saying in a posting on a Washington Post-Newsweek forum that Muslims are free to change their faith and this is a matter between an individual and God.

“What I actually said is that Islam prohibits a Muslim from changing his religion and that apostasy is a crime, which must be punished,” Goma’a said.

Oh, that's what you said! Got to check the battery in my ear trumpet.

This is not meant as a poke in Ali's eye. It looks like the poke is not just on him.

UPDATE: Ali says no. I mean, yes. He says Who's on First. And he says he has it from horse's mouth.

This is, after all, what Ali and Aziz and Dean have been saying all along. Now they're catching on: Suicide bombings are not a good way to get what you want, in the long run.

If only our own leadership could also be taught.

Egypt's highest Islamic authority has now joined one of the top Pakistani clerics and declared that there is no death penalty for apostasy. Muslims can leave Islam without fear of death penalty (once rulings like this are turned into law). So postscript 2 of my post.

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts of the week from Iraqi and Afghan bloggers. I think that this week's is a particularly fine CotL. This week we've got troubles for Iraqi doctors, re-branding the Taliban, spreading propaganda, and much more.

Take a look at this post (with pictures) of an Afghan picnic from Afghan Lord. Even more important are his observations about the Taliban's moves to re-brand itself as an organization of national liberation.

SunLeaf reports that the former king of Afghanistan has died.

3eeraqimedic links to a video that's apparently making the rounds. Check out the lyrics. Good use of the new media for spreading a point-of-view. Too bad there's not something that is to Internet/new media as Voice of America was to radio.

Baghdad Connect says that Iraqis need to get a grip:

It is a choice that we need to make; do we carry on with this war on terror and keep on cleaning up the feces behind the superpowers or to heed to reasoning and become a self-determined, Mesopotamian-constitutionalized nation?

Roads to Iraq comments on the alliance of the various Iraqi insurgency groups that was reported in the Guardian last week.

Emotions… is not impressed with the new Iraqi National Guard while chikitita isn't happy about the Iraqi Army unit barracksed in her neighborhood.

Great Baghdad comments on sectarian warfare, Iraqi politics, and oil.

Hammorabi posts on the targetting of Iraqi doctors. He doesn't offer any explanations of why that might be other than to blame the Brits and Americans. Meanwhile, Sheko Mako reflects on life as an Iraqi doctor.

Omar of ITM explains why he hasn't been posting much lately.

Pay special attention to Last of Iraqis's post about his home being searched by American soldiers.

neurotic iraqi wife posts on returning to Baghdad.

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

Oh My God.

I just got word that Plunge, aka Scott Evensen, one of the founders of Operation Give, once a frequent Dean's World commenter, and a sometime blogger of his own (mostly about Korea), has passed away at age 39.

I can't tell you how horrible this feels, especially because we exchanged many emails and helped coordinate the early Operation Give stuff by phone and email, and also personal discussions in email and on blogs. I'm even doubly kicking myself because I can't find the link to his old Blogspot blog.

He had emailed me about a year ago and told me he had heart problems and had to stop blogging and all other non-essential activity. I remember loving reading about his times in Korea and his lovely Korean wife and their beautiful children. And when I talked to him on the phone a couple of times he was such a sweet, gentle soul.

The last few weeks I've been thinking about him and having dreams about him--literally--telling me I needed to call him or write him. Selfishly, I got caught up in my own personal family dramas and health crises and employment nonsense and all of that, and kept putting it off and putting it off. Honestly, I wonder if I wasn't missing something God was telling me. I feel horrible. It's not like we were best buds or anything--we never met--but we had a certain spiritual kinship and dammit, we did something good together with Paul Holton and a few other volunteers.

Scott Evensen, I'm so sorry I didn't at least call when I had the chance. I miss you buddy.

*Update*: Plunge's blog is still here. And he was a much, much better blogger than he ever thought he was.

Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury got very angry with me last year in a way that surprised me, but I never held it against him. He's recently experienced an unimaginably painful tragedy. Please send him your condolences. He's one of the longest-running and best bloggers out there, and was an early inspiration to me when I first started in Movable Type.

(Thanks for the heads-up, Michael J.)

Or, "ever again" -- on the eve of the Ninth of Av.

I was watching Daryl Hall being interviewed by Neil Cavuto on Fox News, and he mentioned how music had changed starting in the 80's, through the 90's until now.

We're on the downside of this decade, and we still haven't figured out what to call it.

What should we call it? The Zeroes? Sounds like a new wave band. The Naughts? Too English. The Millennium decade? Too long. We need something short, like the 70's, 80's and 90's.

I think we should come to a consensus before the Teens get here...

The legacy of slavery and racism isn’t the reason, economist Thomas Sowell has long argued. That legacy didn’t stop blacks from raising themselves up after Emancipation. By World War I, Sowell’s data show, northern blacks scored higher on armed-forces tests than southern whites. After World War II and the GI Bill, blac