Dean's World

6:34pm Eastern--go!

Because there is no substitute for first hand testimonials, and because blogs often fall prey to vaporous threads in which people are accused of not knowing how to distinguish between reality and apparition, I decided to post three testimonials per day from the comments section at the petition against the Mother's Act, starting at the beginning of the nearly 1,000 (and counting) signatures.

I am posting only those that contain personal, direct testimonials, in hopes of transcending denial and obfuscation. I invite and encourage any possible interpretations of what we will be reading, but please think it through first because we are all responsible for our action and in-action:

1. Signatory #5

Feb 15, 2008, CAMILLE MILKE, New Mexico

My name is Camille Milke, my daughter's name is Sarina Angel. I lost her to suicide 110 days ago. She was the victim of Suicide-Causing Anti-Depressants. Her nurse practitioner prescribed my 95lb., 21 year old daughter an arsenal of six different Anti-Depressant and Anti-Anxiety pills all within a ten day period of time. My daughter is dead because of the FDA, Drug Companies, Psychiatrists, many in the political arena and all of these so called professionals. The Mother's Act must NEVER pass, many more will die; including those not even born yet. Please check out my website at COPESfoundation.com , read and educate yourselves on the dangers of psychotropic drugs, they are not safe for "anyone", especially pregnant woman and postpartum women.

2. Signatory # 21:Feb 16, 2008, John Beard, California

In memory of my beloved son Daniel Roy Beard who took his life while under the influence of these horrific mind altering drugs I sign this petition with much sorrow in my heart and an empty hole in my own soul for the remainder of my own life.

3. Signatory #31:

Feb 16, 2008, James Torlakson, California

My daughter, Elizabeth Torlakson, was KILLED by her antidepressant via SSRI INDUCED suicide. The Mothers Act (or any other such effort) encourages the use these leathal drugs and is not only irresponsible, but MURDEROUS. For details concerning Elizabeth's death see: www.elizabethtorlakson.org and www.jamestorlakson.com (Elizabeth botton on left side). Sincerely, James Torlakson, Elizabeth's father

I am simply amazed.

Effective.

A fascinating look at America's growing strategic ties with India.

This must be cultural suicide on our part. About a third of their population is Muslim, and they recently had a Muslim president!!!!!!1!1!!!

My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq — and the potential consequences for our national security — are great.
...
What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made.
...
And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq.

After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday.

Now that he's won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he's still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won't spend any of the money in the meantime.
...
I met the most amazing marine in Fallujah - Gunny William Gibson from Pryor, Oklahoma - his friends call him Spanky. Gunny Gibson lost his entire leg after an Iraqi sniper fired a round through his knee in Ramadi in 2006 - May 16, 2006 - just 19 months ago. He is the first full leg amputee to be returned to the fight - redeployed as an active marine. This Gunny had been in the marines for 18 years - that is who he is. He said all he wanted to do was get back into the fight. He said returning to Iraq was his first step back to feeling like he was a marine again. He runs half marathons with his prosthetic and it was when he swam in a race from Alcatraz and ended up at the feet of General Mattis out in California. As he emerged from the water General Mattis asked him what he could do for him - he said, “Sir, send me back to Iraq.”

"...and he's talking to me very low, under the chatter, and what he said was 'Every morning I wake up, and I feel like I'm pushing a little girl out of the way of a bus. And I pick her up, and I bring her to the other side of the road, and I've saved that little girl,' he said, 'every day I feel like that.' And in fact that is what s happening there. I can't tell you--"

Ann Althouse notes a raving anti-Catholic loonie who's appeared alongside John McCain, and wonders why he isn't denouncing the guy. While the guy is clearly of the standard anti-Catholic bible-only fundie mold that every Catholic is intimately familiar with, to be honest I really don't care if McCain denounces the turd or not. Politics is an institution that virtually requires you to accept endorsements and support from people who make you squirm. Most Catholics know perfectly well that they are not welcome in the Republican party and have always been viewed with contempt by its establishment, and that it's not likely to change. They'll vote for an honorable man like McCain, and just shrug that he's seen in the presence of one of those "the Pope is the Whore of Babylon/the bishops of the Catholic church are in cahoots to destroy our freedom" bullsh*t that's so common.

I also note that Glenn Greenwald is completely distorting what Althouse says, again. Big shock eh? He'd be an embarrassment to the left wing establishment in the blogosphere, if they were capable of being embarrassed. I guess some of them probably are.

By the way, I don't agree with everything the Catholic League does, but they have a good defense of their own past history on these and related issues.

Iron Man Exclusive Trailer HD

Add to My Profile | More Videos

I love Robert Downey. I can hardly wait.

A candidate we can all support!

I've always been fascinated by the drug thalidomide, which proponents of strict controls on drug companies often use as their favorite example of why we absolutely need the strictest possible rules about drugs being released to the general public. I find it fascinating on multiple levels, not least being that it's been over a half-century since that drug was banned and it's still everyone's favorite example.

While I take no strong position one way or the other, I find it fascinating that we're discovering possible positive uses for dangerous drugs. And, in looking at that, I think: shouldn't this serve as a reminder that practically any drug may be useful and practically any drug is dangerous?

A prominent meteorologist and former NASA scientist has gone public with her questions about the global warming movement. Joanne Simpson was chief scientist for meteorology at the Earth Sciences Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Institute. She has authored more than 190 studies. She contends the conventional wisdom that man-made greenhouse gasses are fueling climate change is based almost entirely upon computer models she describes as "frail."

She adds — "One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use. No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas."

I have been upbraided a few times for citing only "anecdotal" evidence on the "link" between SSRIs and violence.

May I ask those people who have expressed that, with a genuine spirit of open dialogue, if they find this collection of cases to be something approaching "proof?"

A Swedish journalist has recently uncovered that the Swedish government suppressed something like 80% of the damning data on SSRI's and suicide. There are a growing number of citizen-driven websites where this data is now being assembled. The Internet is a great tool for the liberation of information our governing powers think we can't handle or shouldn't have.

Some linguists speak of the uselessness of not splitting infinitives. They offer as a counter example the famous "to Boldly Go". And they claim that the rule is a mindless mimicry of infinitives in earlier languages, which are expressed with one word.

I am not so sure that the mimicry is either mindless or useless. And I do not pretend to know why the rule developed.

But at any rate, it seems to me that the rule is rational: I think that in most cases it's wise not to separate an infinitive's components. An adverb or adverbial phrase is notionally dependent on its object. Without the object, an adverb has no concrete meaning in so far as the context of the housing grammatical element (the phrase or clause).

So with a split infinitive and the reader arriving at the adverbial element before its object, the mind does not have anything notionally concrete to hold onto. When the reader, then, moves on to the object, the mind uses the non-concrete data contained in it's memory to define the notionally concrete object, thereby arriving at a more complex concrete idea.

In other words: (non-concrete data = '0'; concrete data = '1'; complex concrete idea = '2')

With a split infinitive, at step one (reading the adverb) the mind stores '0', and at step two (reading the object) he arrives, through adding '0' to '1', at '2'.

With a unified infinitive, at step one (reading the object) the mind stores '1', and at step two (reading the adverbial element) arrives, through adding '1' to '0', at '2'.

Therefore, if one holds, as I do, that it is more taxing on the mind to hold onto non-concrete data ('0') than it is for it to hold onto concrete data ('1')--it follows that unifying the elements of the infinitive is a more efficient way to communicate content, since it either does not require the readers mind to hold onto non-concrete data ('0') or requires it for less time.

To illustrate: The reader's mind being what it is, a writer can get away with "To boldly go". But it would seem more problematic for him to write, "To--boldly and swiftly, eyes frontward and never looking back--go.

"To go boldly and swiftly, eyes frontward and never looking back" is more easily understood.

Accordingly, it would seem logical to place adverbial elements after their respective objects generally; I do not know the rule on that.

Also, it would seem (?) to follow that adjectival elements should follow their respective objects as well. We rarely if ever do that it English, but, interestingly, that is the norm in Hebrew.

The following was added after the original posting:

After looking at the post, it occurred to me that according to the forgoing explanation not splitting infinitives is merely an instance of not placing adverbial elements before their respective objects.

In reality, however, splitting an infinitive is worse than placing (at least) one adverb before its object, as the "to" of the infinitive is at least as non-concrete as the adverb itself. And since, when reading a split infinitive, it takes as least one more step to resolve the non-concrete "to", the mind has to hold onto it for that much longer.

Therefore, splitting an infinitive is, according to this explanation, roughly equivalent to placing two adverbs before their object.

However, if "to" is even less concrete and thus harder to hold onto than an adverb, as I think it is, then splitting an infinitive is worse.

After reading the sample phrases mentioned earlier in the post, it also occurred to me that a split infinitive presents a unique difficulty in combining the language components to render their complex referent: (the 'to' element of the infinitive = '0'; the verb element of the infinitive = '1' ; the adverbial element = '2'; the complex idea = '3')

Resolving "To go boldly" requires the mind to add thusly: '0' + '1' + '2' = '3'. At step two the mind is able to perform '0' + '1', and thereby needs only to hold onto the product. At step three, the mind adds thusly: (presolved product of '0' + '1') + 2 to arrive at '3', the complex idea.

Similarly, resolving "boldly going" requires the mind to add thusly: '1' + '2' = '3'

Resolving "to boldly go", however, requires the mind to add '0' + '1' + '2' = '3', but receives the data in the order of '0' + '2' + '1' = '3'. So not only must the mind hold onto '0' + '2' as separate data entities until step three, at step three it must rearrange the data into '0' + '1' + '2' to arrive at '3'.

A sudden death to my newly developed enthusiasm for Obama who apparently supported the "Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act" bill.

Via Vera Sharav, Association For Human Research Protection:

The bill, HR 20, incorporating S. 1375, is promoted as "The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act" ostensibly to combat postpartum depression. The bill would authorize "screening" and "treating" women deemed "depressed" after giving birth. The bill's covert intent is to INCREASE use of SSRI antidepressants and antipsychotics.

What's scary is that HR 20, authorizing appropriations for fiscal years 2008-2010, has already passed the House with ne'er any resistance!

Instead, a grass roots crusader against HR 20, has stepped up to the plate:

Amy Philo, a mother who became homicidally psychotic following ingestion of Zoloft prescribed by a psychiatrist who kept increasing the dose to frightening ill effects.

Her experience led her to found Children and Adults Against Drugging America

- www.chaada.org

See her story and videos on YouTube:

and

Sign the petition to stop the "Mothers Act" which will benefit the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, but cause great harm to American women, children and their families.

(Later tonight I will try to make active links out of all those.)

I forwarded this to a few dozen friends and contacts, with this note:

Researching SSRI's for my next book, I came across this:

Please watch it. Once you have, I don't think you will need my prodding to sign the petition and join the human chain to stop this insanity.

(I am sorry to learn that Mr. Obama lent his name to this malevolent bill.)

I don't think, personally, this country is facing any greater threat right now than the threat of the pharmaceutical industry's constant desecration of all human freedoms, starting in utero.

With respect and thanks for your time--

Celia

good news, we won:

''Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America, Afghanistan and the free world its first victory in the war on terror,'' Mr. Bush said. ''Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world.''

John McCain's Afghanistan strategy:

Our military recommitment to Afghanistan must begin with greater troop contributions by NATO members and an end to the limitations that hinder their combat operations. We should intensify our training of the Afghan national army, including inviting Afghanistan to join NATO's Partnership for Peace to institutionalize our train and equip programs. We must expand our police training programs, provide greater resources for judicial reforms, and work with our partners to boost reconstruction. The international community should set benchmarks for Afghan governance and hold the government to them. We must also strike a new deal with Pakistan that ends the sanctuaries for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters on Pakistani territory. We will not succeed in Afghanistan if our enemies enjoy safe havens, where they will also threaten Pakistan's own ability to ward off an internal Islamist challenge as well as its neighbor's.

Discuss.

Provincial elections are of especially pressing importance because it is anticipated that they will create a political outlet for the Sunni leaders who previously boycotted the political process and/or engaged in insurgency, yet who have since allied with the US and Iraqi government against al Qaeda in Iraq. The Awakening tribal alliance based in Ramadi probably will dominate provincial balloting, as its politicians are generally considered more representative of the Sunni population than the Iraqi Accord Front.

In addition, provincial elections will shape the ongoing power struggle between ISCI and the Sadrist Movement in southern Iraq. The Sadrists boycotted regional elections in 2005 and now want to challenge ISCI power through the ballot box, while ISCI wants to consolidate its current regional dominance through dramatic decentralization outlined in any final version of the Provincial Powers Act.

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
...
The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis.

There are thousands of scientists all over the world who spend their entire professional lives examining that data.

Steven Pinker is an professor of psychology in MIT's department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences. In 1994 he wrote the following in the pages of The New Republic:

Language is a human instinct. All societies have complex language, and everywhere the languages use the same kinds of grammatical machinery like nouns, verbs, auxiliaries, and agreement. All normal children develop language without conscious effort or formal lessons, and by the age of three they speak in fluent grammatical sentences, outperforming the most sophisticated computers. Brain damage or congenital conditions can make a person a linguistic savant while severely retarded, or unable to speak normally despite high intelligence. All this has led many scientists, beginning with the linguist Noam Chomsky in the late 1950's, to conclude that there are specialized circuits in the human brain, and perhaps specialized genes, that create the gift of articulate speech.

But when you read about language in the popular press, you get a very different picture. Johnny can't construct a grammatical sentence. As educational standards decline and pop culture disseminates the inarticulate ravings and unintelligible patois of surfers, rock stars, and valley girls, we are turning into a nation of functional illiterates: misusing hopefully, confusing lie and lay, treating bummer as a sentence, letting our participles dangle. English itself will steadily decay unless we get back to basics and start to respect our language again.

What is behind this contradiction? If language is as instinctive to humans as dam-building is to beavers, if every 3-year-old is a grammatical genius, if the design of syntax is coded in our DNA and wired into our brains, why, you might wonder, is the English language in such a mess? Why does the average American sound like a gibbering fool every time he opens his mouth or puts pen to paper?

It's worth considering that when we send children to school, we start teaching them to read and write. We don't set about teaching them to speak and listen, because they already do that quite well. Written language is not an innate skill, and until quite recently the vast majority of human beings were not literate. But speaking? Illiterate people have been inventing wildly complex languages since the dawn of history (and likely well before). Children often speak quite well before they can control their bowels.

Pinker also writes:

So there is no contradiction, after all, in saying that every normal person can speak grammatically (in the sense of systematically) and ungrammatically (in the sense of nonprescriptively), just as there is no contradiction in saying that a taxi obeys the laws of physics but breaks the laws of Massachusetts. But still, this raises a question. Someone, somewhere, must be making decisions about "correct English" for the rest of us. Who? There is no English Language Academy, and this is just as well; the purpose of the Académie Française is to amuse journalists from other countries with bitterly-argued decisions that the French gaily ignore. Nor was there any English Language Constitutional Conference at the beginning of time. The legislators of "correct English," in fact, are an informal network of copy-editors, dictionary usage panelists, style manual writers, English teachers, essayists, and pundits. Their authority, they claim, comes from their dedication to implementing standards that have served the language well in the past, especially in the prose of its finest writers, and that maximize its clarity, logic, consistency, elegance, precision, stability, and expressive range. William Safire, who writes the weekly column "On Language" for the New York Times Magazine, calls himself a "language maven," from the Yiddish word meaning expert, and this gives us a convenient label for the entire group.

To whom I say: Maven, shmaven! Kibbitzers and nudniks is more like it. For here are the remarkable facts. Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago and have perpetuated themselves ever since. For as long as they have existed, speakers have flouted them, spawning identical plaints about the imminent decline of the language century after century. All the best writers in English have been among the flagrant flouters. The rules conform neither to logic nor tradition, and if they were ever followed they would force writers into fuzzy, clumsy, wordy, ambiguous, incomprehensible prose, in which certain thoughts are not expressible at all. Indeed, most of the "ignorant errors" these rules are supposed to correct display an elegant logic and an acute sensitivity to the grammatical texture of the language, to which the mavens are oblivious.

Before commenting further, I suggest you read the whole thing.

Pinker explores this and much else in his delightful book, The Language Instinct. And no, I don't think he's right about everything, but I do think he's right about practically everything in this essay. (And, having read it, and some other books on linguistics, I have to say I found this essay a scream.)

The Boston Globe recently discussed Fathers & Families' shared parenting bill at great length in their editorial A fair role for fathers. While the Globe did not endorse the bill, the editorial essentially agrees with the main arguments behind shared parenting--to learn more, click here.

I don't know if anybody else caught it or thought of it, but I thought this paragraph from the Boston Globe editorial was particularly annoying. The Globe wrote:

"Charles Kindregan, a law professor at Suffolk University, soundly argues that a presumption of joint legal and physical custody could handcuff judges who should be free to consider the best interests of children on a case-by-case basis. 'You don't need a presumption when you have facts,' Kindregan says. The relevant facts include children's age, temperament, emotional development, and medical needs, as well as how parents get along and how far apart parents live from each other. A judge looking at an infant will have to make very different decisions than a judge looking at a teenage boy."

In case anybody missed it, what he said is code for "Dad can see the infant maybe an hour or two a week if he's lucky, and if mom allows it. However, we may be more solicitous of dad's time when his boy is a teenager. Of course, by then the boy will already be damaged from growing up without a father, but it's okay for dad to spend real time with the boy, as long as mom is not unhappy about it, and as long as they still live within 1,000 miles of each other."

The most irritating part of this is the presumption that an infant needs only its mother, not its father. From time to time I get letters from mothers of infant children who are outraged that the fathers want to see the children and — gasp — want to spend some time with the infants in their own homes.

I have been the primary caregiver for my daughter, now almost 10 years old, from the time she was six weeks old. Those first few years home all alone with her, before she went to preschool, were the greatest years of my life. She and I shared everything together, and we were as happy and close as any two people could ever be.

The only downside to it was that I worked in the evenings and my little girl would cry herself to sleep every night because she missed me and I was not there. I still believe that one reason my daughter and I are so close are those special years we had together.

The Globe editorial and the expert it quotes are wrong--there is absolutely no reason why a father should be kept away from his baby or toddler, even if mom and dad are separated.

[Note: If you or someone you love is faced with a divorce or needs help with child custody, child support, false accusations, Parental Alienation, or other family law or criminal law matters, ask Glenn for help by clicking here.]

Okay, for real this time: here is the final installment of Bill Ardolino's excellent series on Iraqi politics.

They're still my favorite band.

*Update*: Oh, for those who keep insisting that the current incarnation of the band isn't that good, I give you a solo from Derek Trucks, who's one of the few guitarists alive who can make the hair stand up on the back of my neck:

White men, forever demonized, are the critical swing constituency this year.

I see that something called "National Grammar Day" is coming up, and (via Instapundit) I found this delightful rant by a linguist on why grammarians are all wet. I agree with every word of it.

Grammarians know nothing of importance about the English language. They are worse than useless, they are actually destructive, ruining perfectly good communications and promoting an artificial language that does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist, and which they themselves don't even speak.

Until the world's English departments get together and learn what the linguists have learned over the last 100 years about the actual English language and its many variations, they'll continue to make students of all ages miserable while contributing very little toward the goal of clear writing and speaking.

I'm stunned by the news that William F. Buckley Jr. has died.

I no longer consider myself a conservative, but Buckley taught me respect for the intellectual legacy of conservatism--a legacy he himself was a big part in establishing. I read his National Review faithfully every two weeks for over 10 years, and learned quite a bit of what I know about politics from it. It would be no exaggeration to say that there was no discernible conservative intellectual movement without him.

I got a letter from him once, in response to a note I sent him. I wish I'd kept it. I lost it, much like I lost a letter I got once from Ronald Reagan.

Réquiem æternam dona ei,
Dómine.
Et lux perpétua lúceat ei.
Requiéscat in pace.
Amen

More here.

The fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica will premier April 4th. Because of the recent writer's strike production ceased on the final nine episodes. Come next month production will resume on those nine.

I've heard this video has been around for awhile but I never heard of it so I want to show it to everyone here. It's a five minute look at what is to come in April. Keep in mind that all the footage you see is only from the first 11 episodes of this season. Of course, a spoiler warning is attached. If you absolutely don't want to know anything about this next season don't watch. Having watched it myself not much is revealed we don't already know. Most of it is footage I've never seen but what it reveals has been revealed at other times in other places.

Enjoy.

"What has he done to wear so many scars? Has he changed the course of rivers? Has he polluted the moon and stars?"--Bob Dylan

Background: I've covered the Clara Harris "Murder by Mercedes" case extensively, both in the Houston Chronicle, on the radio, and in this blog. As I've previously noted, Clara Harris repeatedly ran over David Harris as David's daughter sat in the front seat, begging Clara not to kill her father.

In my co-authored column Suppose roles had been reversed in Harris case--Murdered dad deserves sympathy being shown Clara (Houston Chronicle, 1/27/07), I explained:

"Harris, her attorneys and her supporters have been largely successful in concealing the true nature of Clara's crime. Whereas Clara has successfully portrayed herself as the innocent victim of a philandering husband, in reality David Harris was killed while trying to exit a bad and possibly abusive marriage. Clara's defenders also ignore the fact that considerable evidence was presented that Clara--who played the crying, betrayed wife--was also having an affair at the end of their marriage.

"While many see the Clara Harris case as one of love and betrayal, it is in fact a garden-variety domestic homicide. Clara Harris is no better than high-profile wife-killer Scott Peterson. Perhaps Clara is even worse — at least Peterson spared us the crocodile tears."

To learn more about the case, see my columns In Defense of David Harris (LewRockwell.com, 3/4/03) and Convicted Murderess Can Get Custody but Decent Fathers Can't (Houston Chronicle, 9/19/03), or click here.

I've previously noted the way the media has disparaged David Harris despite the fact that he was by all accounts a good father and a decent man. At the time of the civil trial in January 2007, I wrote:

"Of the 354 news stories covering the wrongful death trial that are indexed on Google News, 233 refer to David Harris as Clara Harris’ 'cheating husband.' Not one mentions the phrase 'domestic violence.'"

Were the genders reversed, would we see headlines saying "Man Kills Cheating Wife"? I doubt it.

Now that Harris is back in the news (she's suing her criminal defense attorney--to learn more, see my blog post 'Murder by Mercedes' Killer Clara Harris Whining Again), we once again see the bias on domestic violence. As evidenced by the screen shot above, most news outlets' headlines are again disparaging and dehumanizing David Harris by referring to him simply as "Cheating Spouse."

Barack Obama's movement is now 1 million people strong. That is a mighty achievement, one that the the wizened Trippi foretold would come to pass. Only O-B-Won was enough of a Jedi master to pull it off, though.

William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82 - Yahoo! News

Author and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. has died at age 82.

His assistant Linda Bridges says Buckley died Wednesday morning at his home in Stamford, Conn. She says he had been ill with emphysema and was found dead by his cook.

An interesting look at attempts to find dark matter.

Interesting question though: what if there is no dark matter? The entire story seems to assume it's there to be found.

Jonah Goldberg quotes a proud terrorist, and goes on to make some other interesting points.

(Via Glenn.)

The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

My latest is up at Guardian about a major initiative among Indian Muslims. I look at the positives and shortcomings.

Interesting, to say the least. WSJ article attached. This reminds me of the time that villagers beat up the Taliban for messing with the local drag queens.

I have more about it at Jewcy, as I try to link it to some other positive developments as well as address some shortcomings.

It seems appropriate to announce this here first. Friends to the End is the book that sent me off on a path I’d never imagined.

When I first started writing it in late 1999, my main intention was to write something a bit unusual; a book that wasn’t appearing in the dozens by different authors under different titles in every bookstore in the country.

I began writing this book about a male victim of domestic violence, under the same misapprehensions that most people held at the time, and still hold today: that there is the same help available for male victims as there is for women. All anyone in this kind of situation need do is pick up a phone and help will surely come.

I don’t know why I didn’t know better. After all, I’d been working with and around the social services in my community for over a decade at the time. Yet, when I began searching the internet for the agencies that provided services for male victims, so I could be sure to have my facts straight, I found that these agencies did not exist. Not only did they not exist, some of the women-only agencies were quite put out with me that I should even ask about such services.

Once I did find a good resource, I had to practically re-write the book from the ground up, as the original manuscript was based on ideas that were simply impossible in the real world.

I have to admit I never tried very hard to find a “traditional” publisher, as I’m a citizen of cyberspace through and through. So it happened that the book was published in e-book format by two different publishers – but not until now in hard copy.

People have been nudging me for some time to do this, not the least of whom is Jan Brown, Executive Editor of the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men & Women. She’s always felt that Friends is an approachable book on the subject, that needs to be available to the general public. Yes, it is fiction, but I’ve been assured by male victims themselves that everything that happens in the book has happened to one or more of them, too.

You’ll probably think that it’s pricey for a paperback, and I suppose that’s true, but I’ve priced it so that DAHMW can make some cash from the proceeds. You see, every dime above costs is going straight to DAHMW. Not a percentage, not a portion, but the whole thing. If you're not familiar with DAHMW, it is the only agency with a national reach that provides direct client services for male victims of domestic violence.

If you really can’t afford the paperback, it’s available in download form for $5, and DAHMW still gets a nice donation.

BTW, I've got a couple of new websites going, too!

"More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"

sheesh. that guy's rhetoric is so vacuous and empty. And he doesn't even have any foreign policy experience at all. Plus, what's with the whole pessimism about America thing? Make America great again? So America isn't great now, huh Mr Hope and Change?

Stephen Hayes, a writer for the conservative The Weekly Standard, has a must-read article that compares Barak Obama quite favorably to Ronald Reagan.

If you're inclined to believe in conspiracies I suppose you could suggest this is an attempt to alienate Obama from his most fervent supporters on the left, but I somehow doubt many of them are regularly reading the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. And it seems a pretty insightful analysis to me, suggesting that Obama is much more versed on the issues than his opponents give him credit for and that his real gift is in how well he packages ideas while causing his opponents to misunderestimate him.

*Update*: By coincidence(?), Hayes has a piece in The Weekly Standard itself comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter. But what's striking about it is that it mostly strikes the same chords: that a message of hope and optimism that was criticized for being short on substance is what allowed Carter to win in 1976.

I've been thinking the same thing. You know, for most of my lifetime it's seemed that the guy most likely to win a Presidential election is the guy who smiled the most and had the most positive demeanor. If that rule generally holds true, Senator McCain is toast if he's running against Obama and doesn't change his style.

You people suck, you know that?

Holy cow, they can now tell where you drank water from by analyzing your hair.

Former Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro has published a defense of the concept of superdelegates, and a rebuttal to claim that primary winners are really the voice of the grassroots of the Democratic party.

Since she helped create the position of superdelegate back in the early 1980s, it's no surprise that she's got a good handle on the arguments in favor of them.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.

The above is a popular traditional English version of what is known as the Lord's Prayer. It has been translated into hundreds of languages, and is probably the best known and most often repeated prayer in the Christian religion. I've even known some Jews who use it.

I had a deacon in church recently point out something interesting about the line, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." I'd always thought of those as two separate statements, as in, "God should forgive me, and I should forgive others." But the language is actually stronger than that: it's asking God to forgive us to the same extent that we forgive others. If you can't forgive others, you can't expect God to forgive you. It's not two separate statements on forgiveness, it's one statement: forgive me as I forgive others.

It's not always easy, following things like this.

Michael Totten has another essay up - plus one scary as hell video.

It's a bit frustrating that voices like Michael's aren't getting more widespread exposure. I think part of this is the way in which the political blogsphere is so divided. MJT doesn't blog on any lefty blogs or post announcements of his essays at DailyKos, so its really only the right-sided audience that gets exposed. Here at DW is about as far left as his work gets exposed to.

I do not blame the media, though. Since I actually subscribe to feeds from major media sources I see plenty of evidence that the changing realities in Iraq are being faithfully reported. Indie journalists like Totten have their roots in the blogsphere, but its they who need to reach towards the mass media, not the other way around. Part of that is to cross-pollinate their work to areas where it might not be intuitively obvious, such as leftwing communities.

I speak form experience - my dailykos diary gets troll rated half the time, too. And yet there are voices there, members of that community, who are receptive. Do we prefer the status quo or is Iraq important enough that we should seek to persuade? MJT and Michael Yon both are compelling, articulate and courageous men whose work is not easily dismissed.

Ideally what I would like to see would be MJT at Phil Carter's Intel Dump as a guest blogger. The cross pollination that would result form that would truly be beneficial to the debate, and linking to that from left sites would increase the idea-penetration and persuasiveness of the point of view that Michael argues for so vividly with his journalism.

Senator Clinton, obviously hoping to capitalize on her Democratic opponent's weaknesses, has begun blasting Senator Obama on foreign policy.

I'm not a neutral observer since I agree with her, but it's interesting to watch anyway.

Michael Totten subbing for The Professor points out this piece by Soeren Kern. In it Kern discusses how the announcement of Kosovar independence has played out in Europe. In general those countries that don't have separatist movements have supported it, while those that do - like Spain - haven't.

The US moved quickly to support Kosovo; too quickly if you ask me. I think it was a bad mistake and can't figure out why we did it other than to back the EU. War is looking like a distinct possibility there, and I doubt the soldiers will be coming from Brussels.

When did supporting separatism become foreign policy? And how far does it go? When the northern territory of Kosovo secedes and joins Serbia, how will we react? When the Albanian enclaves within that territory secede from the seceding territory of a seceding state, how will we react? If the Serbian neighborhoods within the Albanian enclaves... Well, you get the idea.

Serbia had been Westernizing, and the quick recognition of Kosovo has derailed this process. Instead of moving towards Europe, they are moving back towards Russia - their traditional ally. Kosovo could have declared independence, but there is no reason why we had to recognize it.

man, it's harder and harder to get into a good scrap around here. I'm scanning threads but every time someone says something I want to really tear into, I realize that its someone like Scott or Martin who I then immediately think, "oh wait they probably meant THIS and not THAT based on their past history of being eminently reasonable chaps" and then all the fire is gone. Its like there isn't anything juicy to disagree about. Its all the same "well, I see what you mean but i disagree I guess" crap. Whatever happened to the good ol days where we could slag each other off as being unpatriotic evil unprincipled scumbags?

I blame the Obamenon.

Quoted:

Looming over all of American history--but particularly the country's formative years--is the Biblical figure of Adam, the only person, according to the West's major religions, to have lived unburdened by what came before him. As literary critic R.W.B. Lewis wrote in 1955, in his wonderful book The American Adam, early generations of Americans became captivated by the idea that they could create a future without reference to the past. The revolutionaries who fought for America's independence saw themselves as breaking not only with the Old World but with history itself. "The case and circumstances of America present themselves as in the beginning of a world," Thomas Paine wrote in 1792. Thomas Jefferson believed the new nation should regularly renew itself, arguing that, if necessary, "[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed ... with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But, as Lewis explains, it was after the War of 1812--after the United States had finally cut loose from Great Britain and other foreign entanglements--that the notion of a country unbound from the constraints of history really began to take root. Democratic Review--the magazine of a nineteenth-century progressive movement known as Young America--captured this sentiment in 1839, when it editorialized, "[O]ur national birth was the beginning of a new history ... which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only."

It's about Obama. Read the whole thing.

(Also via Instapundit.)

Holy crap.

A depressing look.

The failures of socialism in its most extreme form could not be laid more plain.

(Via Instapundit.)

...at the latest Nader candidacy.

Bill Ardolino finishes his excellent series on Iraqi politics.

I have little doubt that future generations will view Iraq as the single greatest American foreign policy achievement since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

*Update*: Oops. The series is being extended to five parts. So stay tuned. :-)

Obama gets an unwanted endorsement.

Welp, Ralph Nader is running again. Somehow, I don't see him being a significant factor this time around.

Way early.

I'll stand by my belief that Senator Clinton is not out of the game, but if she loses Texas or Ohio that'll be the end of it.

...at the reaction to the story on Senator McCain and the lobbyist.

I'm still a little mystified by it myself. I read the story carefully a few times and I still don't see what the hubbub is about.

Like so many others right now, I’m wobbling thru what my boss at the library has come to call “The Crud.” Haven’t been able to do much but read and sleep. I’ve been fortunate that I had some good books in the house, and I thought I’d share them.

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Schaeffer

This isn’t nearly as negative as it seems like it’s going to be. In no way is it a hatchet job! I found it had a lot of insight into the way things were in the 1960s, and picked up some odd bits of trivia. For example, did you know there are boarding schools in Switzerland that take children as young as three months?

The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink by Dr. Robert D. Morris

There’s a lot of history here about the evolution of public water systems, which seems like it would be about as interesting as watching lettuce leave, but to my surprise, I got into it right away. Dr. Morris is clearly not just writing for other academics. It’s not all handwringing and woe, either, as he gives some reasonable suggestions for what can be done.

Hope’s Boy – a Memoir by Andrew Bridge

What’s remarkable about this book is that, a someone who spent most of his childhood in foster care, he’s got plenty of opportunities for placing blame and embracing victimhood. He doesn’t do that, though, and the book is a quite matter-of-fact narrative of his early days and how he managed to go to college and make a success of his life. I came away from this book with a lot of respect for this man.

What I’m reading next: Women: Theory and Practice by Bernard Chapin

Bernard is an old buddy from my early days in the men’s movement, and his book has had some good press. I know he can write, so…

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

I saw this guy last week on BookTV, and if he’s half as good a writer as he is a speaker, this should be a good one!

6:27pm Eastern--Go!

I've always loved this skit:

Thank you, Reverend Burgess, you blasphemous heathen. ;-)

Beating up on divorced ("deadbeat") dads makes great politics in the United States, and apparently Russian presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev (pictured) has figured it out. United Press International says:

"Medvedev has also gone hunting for votes with the forensic skill of a U.S. campaign strategist. He has targeted the women's vote by promising to increase child benefits so that the mother of a second child will get a state handout of more than $12,000, and alimony payments will be increased sharply.

"While American strategists talk of 'soccer moms,' Medvedev is appealing to the 'divorced moms.' One Russian child in three is being raised by a divorced mother, but only 12 percent of divorced men pay alimony."

I take it that alimony in Russia largely means child support, as opposed to the US where the two are differentiated. Given Russia's problems with alcoholism and domestic violence, I'm not going to uncritically defend Russian divorced dads, but I strongly suspect that many of those who aren't paying their alimony are poor or unemployed.

During Putin's eight years in office, the Russian economy has done well, largely due to record high prices for oil, gas, and its other natural resources. But the country still has much poverty and a weak manufacturing base. Moreover, many of the marriages in question fell apart during the disastrous 1990s, when even the official poverty rate was 30%.

As I've noted many times, research clearly shows that most American deadbeat dads are poor. I don't imagine it's any different in Russia.

I also question that "only 12 percent of divorced men [in Russia] pay alimony." I don't know where that statistic comes from, but I strongly suspect that it was arrived at simply by doing surveys of divorced women without asking divorced dads. American research shows that divorced women underestimate the amount of child support/alimony they receive, while divorced fathers overstate it. To get an accurate figure, you need to ask both.

BTW, for those who think that it's only feminists or the left who bash dads or are responsible for the family court horrors dads face, I would add that Medvedev hardly fits that description.

The story is "Putin's heir and rival" , by MARTIN WALKER of the UPI.

Dean's World welcomes Glenn Sacks as a front page contributor.

Here's an interesting site that looks at the Democratic nomination fight. It appears to be by folks supporting Senator Clinton, but there's lots of interesting information there.