The origins of humanity is a subject that has fascinated me since I was a child. And ever since I started to try and keep up with the dizzying pace of discoveries about who our ancestors were and other mysteries of our species, I have been interested in reading about the great debates that have roiled the scientific community regarding how we got to be who we are; tool making hominids who can think, reason, plan for the future, and create wondrous pieces of art that represent the pinnacle of evolutionary achievement on this planet.

But how did we get from a point that evolutionary biologists believe could have been 8 million years ago when our species separated from other apes and where we began the long, tortuous journey to who we are today?

One of the major milestones in that journey occurred when for some mysterious reason, our ancestors stood up and took the first tentative steps that freed their hands to do other things. This was an extraordinary long process that could have begun as long as 5 million years ago. The reasons why have been the source of some of the most fascinating speculation in science. Did the climate change the landscape from a tree-choked jungle to grassy Savannah which would have forced our ancestors to move quickly across the vast expanses of grassland in our search for the fruit and fodder that made up our diet at the time? An upright walker would have had an advantage because the broiling sun and searing heat (it was much warmer back then) would have been much harder on a creature that walked on all fours. Less of the body is exposed when walking upright thus allowing for more efficient cooling.

Or perhaps it was a combination of environment and mutation with evolution gradually favoring creatures whose pelvic structure allowed for longer and longer periods of upright walking. Over several thousand generations, it is conceivable that these barely noticeable changes would have added up to an ancestor who could walk as we do.

It is extremely unlikely that our distant ancestors just got up and started to walk one day. The radical differences between human locomotion and how chimps and other Great Apes move prove that there must have been several interim means of getting around – not quite walking the way we do but not moving about on all fours.

What we’re sure of is that by 3.2 million years ago, that evolutionary change led to a 3 foot tall female hominid whose pelvic structure and leg bones allowed for what we would most certainly recognize today as walking upright. Her name is Lucy. She was discovered in Ethiopia by a team of archeologists led by Dr. Donald Johanson. Other ancient hominids have been found in an ancient river bed near an open wound in the earth’s crust known as Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. The gorge has been a godsend to archaeologists because some long ago cataclysmic earthquake split the ground in such a way as to reveal how the earth looked millions of years ago. Walking around the gorge is like walking in the footprints of our earliest ancestors.

The discovery of Lucy back in the early 1970’s ignited a debate that rages to this day; what kind of a “walker” was she?

Dan Gebo believes that if we could go back millions of years and see hominids, the early, small-brained humans from which modern humans inherited the ability to move around on two legs, we would see some pretty peculiar styles of walking.

The hominid nicknamed “Lucy,” a 3 1/2-foot-tall adult female who lived in what is now Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago, tired easily and would have had to run at a dead trot to keep up with a strolling modern human. And Australopithecus robustus, a toothy, dim, broad-faced early human that went extinct 1.4 million years ago, was hopelessly knock-kneed.

But these walks, however imperfect, were the most important steps ever taken for humankind, said Gebo, a Northern Illinois University anthropologist and co-author of a new study of the biomechanics of early human locomotion.

A. Robustus was an interesting fellow in that he lived during a time of enormous environmental stress on the hominid population. The habitat for our ancestors was probably changing into near desert conditions and Robustus – a little larger than we are with a much smaller brain – was nevertheless able to survive by eating extraordinarily tough roots and probably equally hard to chew tubers. He was able to do this with a jaw twice as massive as our own and molars the size of quarters.

But what about Lucy?

Current thinking is that the first hominids to use two legs had feet similar to those of modern humans and therefore walked in the same way. Gebo and Schwartz say hominids’ foot anatomy evolved in subtle but significant ways over millions of years before they walked like modern humans.

The duo came to their conclusions, which some of their colleagues do not entirely accept, after reassessing the hominid fossil record, comparing them to modern humans and apes.

“I study how animals move,” said Gebo. “I want to know the exact sequence of changes leading to bipedalism. What happens first? Do we lose the graspable big toe of apes, or do we get long legs or a different pelvic structure first?”

Gebo is convinced that Lucy would have had a hard time keeping up with modern humans:

Australopithecus afarensis, a fossil nicknamed Lucy when 40 percent of her skeleton was found intact in Ethiopia in 1974, in life was a wimp compared to humans in terms of standing for long periods or walking long distances, said Gebo.

She had the same bones in her feet as modern humans. The difference is that many of the human foot bones are fused, but not Lucy’s. She had to rely on muscle to stabilize the bones for efficient walking and standing, causing her fatigue humans don’t experience.

“Lucy had a sort of kiddie-stride, because her legs were so short,” said Gebo. “It’s like comparing the horse versus the pig stride. Pigs can move just as fast, but they have to move their legs much faster. Horses are great long-distance runners, but pigs are not.”

Other scientists have pointed out that Lucy may also have been much more unsteady on her feet given that her sense of balance was probably not quite as developed as ours. Her inner ear mechanism could have been vastly inferior to our own thus causing her to walk with her legs much farther apart to maintain balance over long distances.

So if Lucy was able to stand up, why wasn’t she capable of making tools? This is one of the biggest mysteries of all because as it turns out, there are other factors that speak to tool making not the least of which is the old adage “necessity is the mother of invention.”

As long as we were berry eaters, there was no real need for tools. But when environmental factors put pressures on our food supply, it is possible that we became hunters but more likely scavengers, eating the dead carcasses of other animals. This increase in protein in the diet has been the subject of fierce debate because some scientists believe that eating more meat meant growing a bigger brain. The bigger the brain the larger the head. The larger the head, the bigger the female pelvis would have to be to allow for babies to be born. And the larger pelvis led to more efficient walking. The better walkers would become good runners which increased our skills as scavenger/hunters. Leading to more protein in the diet and the circle continues.

Controversial, but fascinating.

The work being done by Dr. Gebo and others in this field is revealing in that for the first time in our history, we are looking at some of the deepest mysteries as to how we evolved to become modern humans. The answers will not come in our lifetimes. Nor will the end of the questions for that matter. But it is the process of discovery itself that contributes to our understanding of what makes us human.

And that’s a quest I’m sure to enjoy for as long as I’m alive.

“I’ll live to see you – all of you – hung from the highest yardarm in the British fleet.”
(Captain William Bligh from the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty)

It’s mutiny I tell you, mutiny!

With Curtis doing his best imitation of Fletcher Christian, the gang at CTU does what it has to do to prevent the assassination of the Suburovs and the President’s wife.

But were they right?

The thing about mutinies – whether they be on the high seas or in the offices of a government counter-terrorism unit – is that there are two sides to every insurrection. There is much to be said against usurping the authority of the person in charge in a crisis situation just as there is a good case to be made that the Fat Hobbit cracked under the stress of the moment. In the case of the HMS Bounty, the British Navy sent a frigate to fetch back the mutineers in Tahiti where they had settled after making a new home for themselves. Most of the crew who took part in the revolt got away but 10 crewmen were hauled back to England, tried in an Admiralty Court, and three were found guilty and hung. Bligh himself was court martialed (after returning to England following an heroic 1500 mile voyage with 18 crewmen in a raft) and was eventually acquitted.

In CTU’s case, McGill’s abrasiveness and his myopia that prevented him from seeing the threat to the motorcade was exacerbated by his recognition that several members of his staff were doing something behind his back. It could be argued that he brought the conspiracy on himself by ordering Jack back to CTU headquarters but remember, he was acting under President Jellyfish’s orders. In short, the CTU conspiracy was probably necessary but I doubt a jury would see it that way. The gang should have swallowed their doubts and played ball with the Hobbit. He was the only one with the big picture and for all they knew, was doing the right thing. At the very least, they never gave him the benefit of that doubt which made their effort to overthrow him seem more about personality than it actually was.

If I were Audrey, Fat Geek Edgar, Chloe, and Curtis, I’d get myself a crackerjack lawyer and be prepared for the worst. Unless they can prove that the Fat Hobbit was as loony as a June bug when they relieved him, they may live to regret their little re-enactment of Mutiny on the Bounty.

SUMMARY

When last we left the quivering mass of jello who passes himself off as President of the United States, he was making a deal with the terrorists not to release the nerve gas on American soil in exchange for passing along the route of the Russian President’s motorcade. Being enormously pleased with himself at his cave in to the jihadists, Jellyfish speculates how they can turn the assassination of the Russian President into a political plus.

That is, until he finds out that Nutzo Martha took it upon herself to try and make her husband do the right thing by climbing into the limo with the Suburovs. Furious, he calls his wife and orders her out of the car. Martha, despite her fear, hangs in there, still believing that somewhere in that pusillanimous pile of dog crap and silly putty, a President is aching to get out.

Can’t wait for their first face to face moment when she gets back to the ranch. I feel another “Chief Brody moment” coming on. Only this time, I hope she closes her fist when she hits him.

Back at CTU, Audrey widens the conspiracy against the Hobbit by pulling Fat Geek Edgar into it. While Audrey and Chloe try to hack Omicron’s mainframe in order to insert a cover story for Jack so he can see Henderson, the lovestruck Edgar returns to his station to cover for Chloe.

The Hobbit, in the meantime, continues his descent into Mount Doom, breathing fire and snorting like an oliphant. He fires a cute girl who was just doing her job (and who also may be another mole) and threatens to sack Edgar because he sticks up for her. Noticing the absence of Chloe, he starts his search for the missing strawberries .

Jack enters Omicron using his fake identity expertly inserted by Chloe who employs some of her renowned geek magic. He is there to see an old friend, Chris Henderson. I’m informed by one of my expert commenters JPD that Henderson was a character in Season 1 who was accused by Jack of selling secrets to defense contractors. We know from past experience that once a bad guy, always a bad guy so we’re prepared to hate Henderson even if he is played by one of the greatest characters ever invented, Buckaroo Banzai. A scientist, rockstar, and humanitarian Banzai (played by Peter Weller) was also the star of his own comic book and had a fan club “The Blue Blazer Irregulars.”

Gotta love him.

Jack makes it into Omicron and, after getting Audrey to help him get rid of Henderson’s receptionist (whose shirt was just a little too tight, don’t ya think? ) creeps into the office only to have Buckaroo Banzai taser him into unconsciousness.

How did Buckeroo know that it was Jack coming to see him? By Jove, someone must have called and told him! Indeed, after doing a song and dance with Jack, pretending to help him, Mr. Banzai locks Jack in a bunker with a very large bomb. As he is leaving the bunker, he is on the phone with a female whose voice is slightly distorted so that we can’t ID her? Is it Kerri, the woman fired by the Hobbit? Is it – dare I say it – Audrey? Please recall that the chip Nathanson gave to Jack before he died was formatted to be read only by DoD hardrives. And who works for DoD?

The daughter of the Secretary of Defense, Jack’s former lover, and the woman with the ugliest nose in Christendom, Audrey Raines.

The Hobbit’s troubles start to mount as Fat Geek Edgar illegally wiretaps the terrorists and discovers that they’re about to attack the motorcade. (The terrorists are in this country and have every right to an expectation of privacy. Intercepting their plans to kill 35 people and start an international incident that might lead to a world war takes second place to protecting their constitutional rights, even if they are foreigners. Do I make myself clear?)

Dismissing the report in his maniacal focus on finding the nerve gas, the Hobbit starts to worry Curtis. And the CTU agent, being a man of action, starts to look at Lynn not as a cute, chubby little Shireling but more like a cave troll who is out of control.

Waylaying Curtis in the hallway, Audrey starts a typical watercooler conversation with the burly agent…you know, let’s overthrow the tyrant Lynn and bring back Bill who is still languishing in exile in the holding room. Curtis promises to think about “Section 112” (which all Star Trek fans are familiar with as the club that Enterprise doctors hold over their captains when they start to go off the rails) while Audrey goes to plot the denouement to the conspiracy – hacking the Fat Hobbit’s computer account to warn the Secret Service about the imminent attack on the motorcade.

Back at the ranch, Jellyfish has finally dissolved after accepting the fact that Martha is probably toast. And in a scene straight out of Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days which tells the story of the last hours of the Nixon Presidency, Logan asks Novik to kneel with him and pray. Nixon did the same thing with Kissinger when he was trying to find the strength to leave the White House. In the case of Jellyfish, the moment came off stilted and out of character, especially for Mike.

At CTU, the unfolding drama of the coup d’etat reaches a peak as the Hobbit finds out what Audrey, Chloe, and Fat Geek Edgar are trying to do behind his back. His triumph in finding the strawberries is shortlived. Arresting the two CTU employees and ordering Audrey out of the building, Lynn suddenly finds his authority evaporating faster than a brace of conies at dinner time when Curtis refuses to comply:

HOBBIT: (To the guards) Why are you hesitating? I gave you and order. NOW DO IT!

GUARD: (Looks at Lynn. Looks at Curtis. Back at Lynn.)

GUARD: (To Curtis) What would you like me to do Mr. Manning?

HOBBIT: What?

CURTIS: Lynn McGill, I’m relieving you under the Capacity Clause of Section 112.

HOBBIT: You will do no such thing.

CURTIS: Take him away.

HOBBIT: You can’t do that! (To guard) He can’t do that. Don’t touch me! This is an unjustifiable usurpation of my authority, you hear me? We’re in the middle of a crisis. (Being led away) There are going to be repercussions! Everyone involved is going to face prosecution!

Being released from custody, Bill takes charge immediately. After reinstating the possible mole Kerri, he informs the Secret Service and the President of the plot on the motorcade. Just in time, Agent Pierce gets the word and orders the motorcade to turn around. Too late! The terrorists attack and despite a direct hit by an RPG, anti-tank missile, the limo and its occupants survive. With Aaron’s help, the attack is thwarted but only just barely. One wonders what Martha and the Suburovs are thinking at this point. Look for the Russian President to put two and two together and blame Jellyfish anyway.

After leaving Jack to die in the bunker, Buckaroo stupidly forgot to lock up the root cellar. What’s that? No root cellar in a top secret, secured bunker? When has that ever stopped our hero?

Of course Jack survives which is very bad news for Henderson who soon will feel the extent of Jack’s wrath.

And Bierko the terrorist calls Jellyfish and tells him once again, that America is on the terrorist’s clock. And time is ticking away.

BODY COUNT

Jack was shut out this week but, good news! I counted 10 dead at the mall but Jack was kind enough to inform us that the actual death toll was 11 so add one more there. Plus, the terrorists took out 2 cops and 2 SS men while Aaron shot one terrorist and immolated the other.

JACK: 12

SHOW: 61

UPDATE

More good news! When what commenter Chris informs us was an anti-tank missile (not an RPG) hits the limo, the Secret Service driver disintegrates! Add one more to the show’s body count.

Also, check out Bogs for Bauer for their brand new Carnival of Bauer featuring the best 24 posts from around the blogosphere.

My weekly 24 update will be slightly delayed this morning due to a late start. Check back around 9:30 for all the penetrating analysis, quirky takes, and bloody details you’ve all come to know and love.

I still like this picture of Jack…

What began as something of a joke on far left websites like Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground has hit the big time as one of the left’s leading lights has jumped on the impeachment bandwagon and started it rolling toward an uncertain future.

Lewis Lapham, the iconoclastic intellectual whose lucid, well written essays and columns have been a source of inspiration and thought provoking debate to two generations of American liberals has written an essay in Harpers Magazine calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

It doesn’t matter that Lapham has chosen to base his decision on the “investigation” of Representative John Conyers, a 121 page screed compiled by the Congressman’s staff that charges George Bush with, as Lapham puts it, “crimes against the American people” for perpetrating the war in Iraq. Lapham’s stature alone assures that more serious, sober minded liberals will begin to examine impeachment as a serious issue and will now most assuredly support it if the Democrats were to win the House in November.

The case that Lapham makes is weak, speculative, and full of holes wide enough that George Bush could drive a 10 ton semi through. After all, much of the “evidence” was heard during Conyer’s quixotic and curious hearings on the war and the “untold story” of 9/11. Lapham summarizes the case:

On December 18 of last year, Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.) introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution inviting it to form “a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” Although buttressed two days previously by the news of the National Security Agency’s illegal surveillance of the American citizenry, the request attracted little or no attention in the press—nothing on television or in the major papers, some scattered applause from the left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on the websites flying the flags of the militant right.

Readers of this site could find rebuttals in the archives to each and every one of those charges (with the possible exception of torture although it may be a stretch to say that the Administration encouraged it to any great degree or countenanced it at all). As I said, it doesn’t matter what evidence Lapham is basing his decision to support impeachment; what matters is that he is influential and that he’s serious.

Dan Riehl is disgusted:

Scratch Harper’s From The List – [t]he list of magazines I’ll ever take seriously, again. What rubbish. As if the majority of America would be interested in anything that idiot Conyers has to say…

Mr. Riehl has a point. In order for there to be impeachment, first one must have a case. Conyers “report” would not be taken seriously anywhere – except a Democratic House. And there’s the rub. If the Democrats take the House in November, they can pretty much do whatever they please up to and including opening impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee. The media circus that would follow would guarantee an end to the President’s influence and would destroy the remainder of his second term.

It would also almost insure a cycle of impeachment inquiries – formal and informal – on every President of either party for the foreseeable future. Coupled with the Republicans sometimes unhinged pursuit of Bill Clinton, if the Democrats figure they can base impeachment on demonstrably false allegations or, as in the case of the War in Iraq, carrying out United States policy of regime change then it’s open season on the presidency. It will hamstring the office as future Presidents may feel constrained to act in the national interest for fear of the Judiciary Committee’s gavel.

While that might appeal to a certain libertarian segment of the population, it first of all was never the intent of the founders to have impeachment act as a hangman’s noose dangling in front of the executive. A brake, yes. But when you have the other party gunning for you the minute you sit down in the Oval Office, I daresay such an atmosphere would have an excellent chance of getting a lot of Americans killed given the kind of war we are fighting. More importantly, the power of the legislative branch would be increased enormously if it was a given that a sitting President from an opposing party would need to walk on egg shells lest his political enemies seize the first suspect decision he makes and turn it into an impeachable offense.

Has Lapham gone off a cliff by calling for impeachment? Not hardly. For the left in America these days, there is no cliff to jump off of. As Lapham’s essay proves, they are already in free fall with the bottom of the gorge nowhere in sight.

Really. I’m serious. There’s no other possible explanation for this riotously funny, over the top, idiocy that I predict will be linked to by more right wing bloggers than any story this year so far:

TAKE THE WHITE HOUSE BY STORM - Stop Genocide, Torture and Occupation

U.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign of international criminals.

It is our duty and the duty of the United Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators. Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S. budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity.

If we were being bombed and our journalists were being murdered here in the U.S. by a foreign country’s military, we would hope that the people of that country would stop what they are doing and go to their president’s office and demand that it was stopped. If we were the ones burying thousands and thousands of our family members and watching the destruction of the homes, schools, churches and offices that we had worked for decades to build, we would hope that someone, somewhere would care enough to do something for us. We must stop the criminals in our government NOW. There is no meeting with Congress that is going to change what they are doing. We must put the power of the people into action and stay there until they leave!

Inviting everyone to the White House for a protest rally to show that we do not accept the criminal government, illegal wars and the permanent occupation planned for Iraq and Afghanistan. For Nat Turner, For Martin and Coretta, For all the Torture and Assassination in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and many others – We will not allow the Slave Holders that Still Prevail in this Country to Rule us any longer. Imprisonment and torture based on race, religion, resources or region is no different than the slavery we sought to abolish years ago. The Administration is Criminal and if they will not step down, we must storm in, show them how many of us do not accept a criminal government. How can we stand by and watch them kill our brothers, sisters, journalists and friends for their dollars?

We are calling on all citizens and governments in every country to stand with us. We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate terror in our government. The World Criminal Courts need to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for admitted crimes and known crimes of international scope. The Political Cooperative will put a new, temporary government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity. We need all of you to save U.S. victims and global victims from their ongoing criminal activity. We are calling on the military, police, citizens and religious organizations to stand with us and help us to bring democracy back to the United States and by doing so, free the world from the wrath, occupation, theft, torture, blackmail and assassination by the Criminals in the United States Government. What they have done all over the world is much worse than what Saddam Hussein has done, so why are they not in jail too? They have admitted to international and national crimes, so why have they not been taken to Court too?

The person behind this comedy is Darrow Boggiano. Now, Mr. Boggiano fancies himself something of an activist…or a fantasist. On his website Political Cooperative.Org, he writes this plea for volunteers:

Any amount of time you have to offer is greatly needed! We have over one million subscribers and have a lot of work to do in preparing for upcoming events.

If this guy has one million subscribers anywhere except his overactive imagination, I’ll walk down the middle of Market Street in San Francisco totally naked singing the Internationale. It wouldn’t be pretty, I assure you.

Now just to prove that this fellow is 2 shakes short of a finished martini, here’s what he wrote in tribute to lost comrades who were reporting the “truth” in Iraq and were killed by American soldiers:

The Political Cooperative is a tribute to our recently lost Activists and Journalists who were photographing or reporting the truth of the war (many of whom were killed by U.S. and British Troops), and they include Ossie Davis, Rosa Parks, Paul Wellstone, Bill Rodgers, Terry Lloyd, Paul Moran, Gaby Rado, Kaveh Golestan, Michael Kelly, Kamaran Abd al-Razaq Muhammad, David Bloom, Julio Anguita Parrado, Christian Liebig, Tariq Ayoub, Taras Protsyuk, Jose Couso, Mario Podesta, Veronica Cabrera, Elizabeth Neuffer, Walid Khalifa Hassan al-Dulami, Richard Wild, Jeremy Little, Mazin Dana, Ahmad Shawkat, Ali Abdul Aziz, Ali al-Khatib; and many others.

I wonder what Michael Kelly’s widow thinks of this moonbat using her dead husband’s name to promote his anti-American views?

Mr. Boggiano seems to have sprung up from literally no where. A Google search turned up only a couple of references to him mostly about this upcoming coup d’etat. This leads me to believe that this is a classic CIA destabilization operation carried out by clandestine agents bent on destroying the credibility of the left in the United States.

Simply put, no one can be this stupid. Calling for Amnesty International to take over the government of the United States? Storming the White House in the first place?

It’s a CIA trick, gotta be. If I were Kos or the DU’ers, I would file a FOIA request for all information regarding the government’s involvement in this operation. The credibility of moonbats everywhere is at stake. Just think about it; how can any self respecting conspiracy theorist be tied to this nutjob? Who is going to believe that “Bush lied and people died” if they are lumped in with this wacko?

The funny thing is going to the White House on March 15 and seeing how many people actually show up. Since the time set for the revolution is 12:00 AM, my guess is most of the moonbats will be too drunk or stoned to remember where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to be doing.

Well, at least Mr. Boggiano got what he was after; a lot of attention. Now let’s see what he does with it.

UPDATE

As I suspected, we on the right are going nuts over Mr. Boggiano’s delusion. Top bloggers like Charles Johnson (check out the always hilarious lizardoids in the comments) Ed Morrissey, Rand Simberg and a host of smaller sites are all having a lot of fun at this idiot’s expense. As of 11:30 AM Central there were 14 blogs listed on Technorati linking to the moonbat’s site.

I’m sure it is he who is getting the last laugh, however. By paying him so much attention, he’ll probably be able to raise his ad rates not to mention giving him what he so desparately craves; attention.

The guy is going to be a hero at the DU site by sundown.

Also, Alexandra only has one thing to say…

Sweetness and Light prints the specific law broken by Mr. Boggiano and anyone who conspires with him.

At this rate, the guy will have his own blog at Daily Kos…

Have American reporters, ensconced comfortably in Iraq’s “Green Zone” and relying on stringers and runners to gather information on the chaos that continues in the wake of the Samarra Shrine bombing, been duped by al Qaeda operatives into reporting widespread violence that never happened? How accurate a job can reporters do when chaos reigns and they must rely on second and third hand reports to write their stories?

On Saturday, I wrote a post about how so many media analysts have been predicting an Iraq civil war almost since the statue of Saddam was toppled. I supplied about a dozen links to stories over the past three years that all said the same thing; civil war was imminent and nothing could be done to stop it.

I feel constrained to point out that this theme is a no brainer. Sectarian tensions were kept tightly under wraps by force when Saddam was in power so it stands to reason that once the tyrant was removed, these tensions would bubble to the surface and spill over into violence as age old hatreds and blood feuds were allowed free reign.

You may recall something very similar happened during the break up of the made-up country of Yugoslavia after the death of Marshall Tito. Yugoslavia was an afterthought, the solution to the intractable problem of what to do with the flotsam and jetsam of the old Hapsburg empire following its collapse after World War I. With Tito’s death, the region exploded as the dictator’s careful power sharing regime among the factions collapsed and old nationalist aspirations came to the fore. The problem of the Balkans is far from being solved and only the presence of UN peacekeepers and NATO troops keeps the lid on sectarian and nationalist violence.

The Iraq “civil war” theme almost immediately became media short hand for the failures of the Bush Administration. It has since become a yardstick to measure the incompetence of the authorities to deal with the daunting set of problems facing the country in the aftermath of the war and in trying to build a strong government based on democratic values. But has the expectation of civil war led to reporters in Iraq swallowing disinformation from al Qaeda cells about horrendous death and destruction across the country that simply doesn’t exist?

Following the destruction of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra, it appeared that predictions of civil war would finally come true. Apparently, sectarian violence exploded across the country as Shia militias – aided and abetted by the Shia dominated police and army – burned Sunni mosques, killed innocent Sunni civilians, and spread death and destruction throughout the country.

I say apparently because there are conflicting reports on just how many mosques have actually been damaged or destroyed, how many people have been killed, and most importantly, how close the country really is to actual civil war. Here’s today’s New York Times:

Sectarian violence appeared to be ebbing across Iraq on Sunday, with more people venturing outside for the first time in days. Nonetheless, Shiite militiamen retained control of some Sunni mosques they had raided, and scattered mayhem left at least 14 people dead, including three American soldiers. At least 227 people have been killed since the shrine bombing.

Please note that number of 227 dead carries with it no authoritative confirmation. The number is not coming from the Iraqi government or the American military. As far as we know, it is the best guess of the reporter. And the reports of “dozens” of Sunni mosques being attacked and damaged is still being reported by AP.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry (which has an interest in downplaying the violence) reported on Saturday a different story. From Iraq the Model:

Mosques attacked/shot at without damage: 21 not 51
Moderately damaged: 6 not 23
Mosques destroyed totally: 1 not 3
Mosques occupied by militias: 1 not 2 (evacuated later).
Civilians killed: 119 not 183

Why the discrepancy?

I think it’s a given that the Interior Ministry is downplaying the violence to some extent. But consider this from Iraqi Bloggers Central: on who carried out the attack on the Shrine and why:

They (al Qaeda) have made it clear since late 2003 or early 2004 that platform number one in their mission is to generate a sectarian civil war in Iraq between Sunni and Shi’a Arabs to drive out the U.S. A war between these parties is also useful to them in that if Shi’a are (or perceived to be) attacking Sunni Arabs, the Return Party (Sunni insurgents) can step in as the Sunnis’ protectors. The great thing about a plot like this is that the perpetrators need no higher goal than chaos for the sake of chaos. It fits with their M.O. (ala Tal Afar). Their propaganda cells can run around spreading false stories about attacks on Sunnis and Sunni mosques, or they can sit back and let Iraqis do it for them. They can put on black pajamas, Iraqi Army uniforms, or come as they are. It doesn’t matter. They can launch attacks indiscriminately on Sunni or Shi’a Iraqis (They don’t care. Either they’re turn-coat deviants or “traitorous apostates”), or they can let Iraqis do it to each other. There is no sense in which blowing up a holy site in Iraq redounds against them. They’ve been sending carbombs and murder-suicide bombers against plenty of mosques up until now. How could this hurt them more?

The point being how much information are we getting first hand? How much information from the Interior Ministry has been confirmed?? How many stories regarding these atrocities have been verified? And as the blogger points out, anyone can dress themselves in army uniforms or in the black, hooded costume of Muktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia. So when the New York Times says that some of these attacks have been carried out by Sadr’s militiamen or elements of the armed forces, can we really take that information at face value?

I don’t envy the job of reporters who have to try and sort all of this out and try to make sense of it. But it seems pretty clear to me that there has been at least some exaggeration of the violence and mayhem. Some of that is the natural result of reporting in a war zone. Some of it is probably disinformation being spread by al Qadea as well as rumor mongering by ordinary Iraqis. And some of it may include some wishful thinking on the part of reporters that the long awaited civil war has finally started.

I would recommend you read a lot of Iraqi blogs to get a sense of what is really happening. The two hours I spent going through about a dozen sites brought me to two conclusions:

1. The violence is serious and people are afraid.

2. No one thinks a civil war is imminent. In fact, almost all believe that the destruction of the Shrine in Samarra has accomplished exactly the opposite of what the perpetrators were hoping for. Instead of a civil war, it has brought the Sunnis and Shias closer together with a firm belief that no outside force like al Qaeda is going to derail what they are trying to build – a democratic, united Iraq.

I doubt very much you’ll see that theme mentioned much in the media over the next few days.

What happens to a society when it makes a conscious, reasoned choice that some of its members – the weakest and least able to defend themselves – don’t deserve to live?

In the classical western societies of Greece and Rome, it was considered the duty of parents to kill their own children if they were considered too weak or sickly to contribute. While we would consider this barbaric today (would we?), the reasons were sound. A deformed or sickly child would be a drain on scarce resources that would be better used to keep the rest of the family alive.

The only thing worse that I could imagine a parent having to go through than murdering their own child would be if the State, against their most devout wishes, did the job for them:

The parents of Charlotte Wyatt have been told that doctors are to be allowed to let their profoundly ill baby daughter die if they feel it is in her best interests. A High Court judge yesterday lifted a previous ruling that she should always be resuscitated, on the grounds that the two-year-old was now on a “downward rather than an upward trend”.

Mr Justice Hedley heard an emergency application from doctors treating her that she had developed an aggressive chest infection and was unlikely to survive any moves to keep her alive.

“Medical evidence speaks with one voice, that ventilation simply will not achieve the end for which no doubt the parents would wish,” he said. Charlotte’s condition was said to be “deteriorating” last night. Her mother, Debbie, 24, from Portsmouth, still believes that if her daughter were ventilated she would recover.

But Mr Justice Hedley said there had been a “very significant deterioration in Charlotte’s condition”. It is the fifth time he has had to make a ruling about Charlotte’s treatment.

Doctors at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, had previously argued that her life was so intolerable that if her condition worsened they should be allowed to withhold treatment. Charlotte suffers from severe lung, brain and kidney damage. But her condition improved so much that last October the judge removed a ruling allowing doctors to let her die.

Her condition improved to the point last October that she was able to go home for a couple of weeks and live with her parents without any assistance from medical personnel. The child then developed a chest cold and has been re-hospitalized, a place where parents would normally expect doctors to act as healers and not Angels of Death.

But this is 21st century Europe. And the socialized medical systems that look upon humans as numbers on a chart rather than living, breathing, laughing, cuddling, thinking beings simply can’t tolerate an individual hogging more than their fair share of medical resources to stay alive. Best put the beast down, pat the parents on the head, and tell them to run along and not bother them with their silly notions of parental love and responsibility.

Welcome to the Brave New World.

I wish I could say I was surprised by this kind of thing but ever since it was revealed a year ago that Doctors in Holland had developed procedures for terminating the lives of infants who they considered unworthy of expending the time and resources in trying to save, this kind of outrage is simply the next logical step in the dehumanization of society’s fringe players, those who the godlike purveyors of medical wisdom have determined would be better off dead.

John Hinderaker’s words written at the time the Groningen story broke still haunt me:

“For most of my life, I thought that philosophers could generate intellectual systems, independent of religious belief, that would, on a strictly rational basis, reproduce all of the essentials of the 20th century system that has worked well for this country. I no longer believe that to be the case. It seems appallingly clear, now, that the secular path—the road that has been taken by the Netherlands and almost all of western Europe—leads inexorably to the view that men and women are cattle, and the only reasonable approach is to appoint a committee of wise men to decide when it is time for them to die.”

In actuality, the Groningen Protocols as they became known, were not a set of guidelines designed to help in the decision making process to end an infants life. The Protocols were written to keep doctors out of jail. They were developed by lawyers so that doctors could stay one step ahead of the prosecutor in cases where children up to 12 years old were determined (in consultation with parents) to be either “incurable” or whose “quality of life” was such that they didn’t deserve to live.

Not that there would be much chance of a doctor anywhere in the socialized health care paradise of Europe being clapped in irons for not wasting medical resources on marginal, helpless human beings. It used to be that doctors were lionized for saving lives. Now they’re feted for saving money.

Those of us who argued during what became the Terri Schiavo circus that we were witnessing a “slippery slope” where against the wishes of a loved one, a human life could be terminated were called all sorts of names by those on the other side. “Hysterics” and “religious nuts” were two of the milder epithets directed against those of us who saw the fight to save Terri as a fight to preserve the dignity and value of all human life. Since then, I have come to see many arguments made by those on the other side as heartfelt and sincere as mine.

However, in the end, I thought that their biggest blind spot was in the probablity that it was a short step from Terri’s situation to what we are witnessing in Britain right now; the efforts by the medical community to take it upon themselves to decide – against the heartfelt wishes of a loving parent – to terminate the life of someone who, while gravely ill, nevertheless has battled courageously, clinging to life against all the odds.

The fact that many two year olds would have succumbed already is proof that whatever spark of humanity in this child, whatever level of awareness, whatever glimmer of understanding exists in the damaged brain of this little girl, it is directed toward a fierce, unbending determination to live. For that reason alone, she deserves every opportunity to do so.

My friend Raven, a medical professional who works with the profoundly disabled, is someone I always turn to on issues like this. Raven’s practical experience in dealing with all the end-of-life issues raised by Charlotte’s case as well as others gives her a special kind of authority that demands our attention. Commenting on remarks written by Charlotte’s mother (she has a website here) about what she’s been told by the doctors, Raven cuts to the heart of the matter:

Have to be allowed to die”- what a statement. Is this humane? Has this child asked to be “allowed” to die? Disabled children get sick more often than non-disabled, but that is not an excuse for state sanctioned murder. I have to wonder, as I always do, is this more about the costs associated with “maintaining” a life that so many deem not worthy of living.

[...]

Society should be ashamed. Ashamed that this barbaric policy is considered progressive.

I challenge everyone to go visit a child who has disabilites. Visit for awhile and tell me: Does this human being need to die? Is this human being’s life SO bad, so awful, that we must end this life? Are we so sure we KNOW what a quality life is that we can determine that another human has to die? Or should die? I’ve worked with thousands of these kids and I can say, without any hesitation, that every single child had a life worth living; they laugh, they smile, they cry, they touch, they communicate (not always with a voice, but they communicate). They learn to compensate for their disabilities and it’s amazing to watch how they manage. Often these kids grow up to be so much stronger, emotionally, than any of us could ever hope to be. And they don’t live with horrid pain and discomfort. THAT is such a LIE. And every doctor knows it. Charlotte deserves to live.

Read Raven’s entire article. She has, without a doubt, the most unique perspective on these issues I’ve seen.

How have we reached the point where a case like Charlotte’s is possible? Here are some thoughts I had on the Groningen Protocols and how it is only going to get easier to throw away human beings as if they were worthless bags of bones:

If the purpose of these protocols is mainly to keep doctors who practice euthanasia out of jail, who then speaks for the little ones? Who would stand up to a parent and say “There’s no reason to euthanize your child, the condition is treatable. Yes, it will cause problems and inconvenience in your life but this is what you signed on for when you decided to become a parent.”

But don’t worry, it’ll be easier next time. And the next. Until there are so many “special cases” and “unique situations” that it will be difficult to differentiate between killing for mercy and killing for convenience. In the end, it doesn’t matter much does it? The people affected are just as dead.

I am open to opposing views on this case. I really would like someone to tell me that I’m being hysterical by talking about “slippery slopes.” I really hope someone can explain why what is happening to Charlotte is a good and necessary thing.

Maybe after telling me, you could look Charlotte’s mother in the eye and tell her the same thing.

One thing I’ve discovered about bloggers is that many if not most of them have a fondness for language. Some of the most inventive invective and ribald retorts can be found on blogs of both sides of the political spectrum. This is why we read them. Blogs are entertainment for the mind as well as nourishment for the soul and to deny that the interesting turn of a phrase or juxtaposition of metaphors doesn’t gladden the heart and cause the spirit to soar is to deny the reason most of us read in the first place.

But that same talent and inspiration can also be used in ways that degrade and debilitate the meaning of words themselves while at the same time, revealing the scribbler to be ignorant of the facility of language and oblivious to specific definitions that have come about as a result of more than 300 years of modern English language usage.

It is said that language can be an inexact medium of communication. This is true insofar as many people misuse words both deliberately and in ignorance. As for the former, there has been a movement afoot for more than 30 years that sees definitional language as a form of tyranny, that words themselves are binders that tie the user to an archaic pre-modern set of concepts wedded to the idea of white, Anglo-Saxon, male dominance. These post-modernists decided to pull the rug out from underneath the New Critics by claiming that instead of concentrating on text (or the language itself) to glean meaning from the written word, one should instead throw context to the four winds and substitute referential formulations that are anti-subjective hence, free of the biases inherent in a language created and maintained by white males.

As for the latter reason – ignorance – I quote that great American philosopher Forrest Gump who wisely said “Stupid is as stupid does.”

This tug of war over language and its meanings is not some exercise in academic obscurantism. It is of vital necessity because those who seek to free language from some imagined tyranny have instead made it infinitely more difficult to communicate. They having succeeded in grafting some of their ideas about meanings onto the tree of general usage. The damage this has done to political discourse in this country has been superficial so far but threatens to make debate on any number of issues impossible because important concepts are being defined in entirely different ways by people of different ideological stripes.

To wit: Recently several writers have accused me of being a “racist.” The context is unimportant except to note that they are accusing me with this nauseating epithet not because of any comments about someone from a different race. Indeed, this is the crux of my argument because I am being accused of being a racist against a group from my own race – the Arabs.

The online American Heritage Dictionary defines “racism” and “racist” thusly:

rac·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

racist adj. & n.

The races of man are in a constant state of flux but even today, we see three highly delineated groupings of human beings based largely on color but also on other factors. For instance:

Caucasoids. 1,000 million people with variable skin colour; white-dark brown. Hair variable, never woolly, body hair often thick. Lips tend to be thin. Three subdivisions exist, the Nordic, the Mediterranean and the Alpine.

The Nordic group are often tall, blonde and narrow headed – Scandinavia, Baltic, Germany, France, Britain The Mediterranean group (Southern France, Spain, Italy and oddly, Wales Egyptians, Semites, Persians, Afghans and some Indians. Lighter in body build, dark and narrow headed. The Alpine group extends from the Mediterranean to Asia. Broad headed, square jaws, olive skin, brown hair.

In other words, Arabs (belonging mostly to the “Semite” subgroup but also could be “Egyptian” and a small group of Indo-European peoples who reside in areas of Afghanistan) are more closely related to the French than they are any of the Negroid populations further south in Africa or Mongoloids to the east. To say that I am a racist because I hate the Arabs is like saying I’m a racist because I hate Italians.

But don’t try and tell this to the purveyors of political double-talk – not when there are points to be made by using the term “racist” in order to delegitimize your opponent’s arguments. It has now become second nature to the racialists (people who traffic in the use of race and issues of race to illegitimately take a superior moral position in argument) to bandy about the epithet in public discourse doing damage to both discursive conversation and the general sensibilities of the public with regard to the use of language.

This usage does not impress me nor does it faze me – no more than any other imbecilic argument made by people who are generally uninformed about other things. It does however gall me that the English language is being hijacked by a bunch of what R. Emmett Tyrell referred to as “dirty necked galoots.” And that is where my name calling critics have gotten my goat.

So to all who wish to call me a racist, I would consider it a favor if instead you substituted the more accurate pejorative “bigot.”

At least then, I’ll understand what you’re talking about.

UPDATE

Kender has similar thoughts and complaints.

BULLWINKLE: Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

ROCKY: Again?

BULLWINKLE: Nothin’ up my sleeve. (riiiiiiiip!) Presto!

LION: ROAR!

ROCKY: Wrong hat.

BULLWINKLE: I take a size 7 1/2.

Bullwinkle tried that trick about 10 times but was never able to master it. He pulled everything but a rabbit out of that hat, proving if nothing else that he was bound and determined to make that rabbit appear despite being wrong so often in the past.

For some reason, Bullwinkle’s efforts in this regard reminded me of media coverage over the last 3 years of the Iraq Civil War.

What’s that you say? You mean to tell me that there hasn’t been an Iraq Civil War? You’d never know it by reading what the “experts” have been saying over the past several years, including our own State Department, the CIA, and all of those wise and prescient “analysts” so beloved by the media.

Here’s a random listing of articles from “experts” telling us that the Iraq Civil War was imminent or that it had already started.

“Iraq’s Civil War” Slate (5/2-03)

Beirut Redux The New Republic (5/15/03)

“CIA Officers Warn of Iraq Civil War, Contradicting Bush’s Optimism” Common Dreams, (1/22/04)

“Civil War in Iraq?” Anti-War.Com (7/22/04)

“Possibility of Iraq civil war looms large” China Daily (9/22/04)

“Iraq Edges Toward Civil War” United Press (12/28/04)

“Seymour Hersh: Iraq “Moving Towards Open Civil War” Democracy Now (5/11/05)

“Allawi: This is the Start of Civil War” Times Online (7/10/2005)

“Weekend of slaughter propels Iraq towards all-out civil war” Times Online (7/18-05)

“Undeclared Civil War in Iraq” CBS News (9/26/05)

Iraq Edges (What, again? ed.) Toward Civil War Al Jazeera (10/4/05)

Iraq: Game Over Tom Paine (12/22/05)

It would be hilarious if the subject matter weren’t so serious.

If there’s one thing that the press has yet to realize (and even bloggers who should know better) is that just about every word they’ve ever written can be retrieved with a click of a mouse button. So when we can easily see how many times they’ve cried “wolf!” in the past with regards to an Iraqi civil war, we can begin to examine events in that bloody, tragic country as they really are and not through the prism of bias and stupidity.

Iraq is in trouble. No one with half a brain denies that. The fact that Iraq has been in trouble since the statue of Saddam fell escaped many observers including most of the civilian Pollyannas in the Department of Defense and even some Rebeccas of Sunnybrook Farms in the White House. The forces at work spreading chaos, blood, and sectarian divisions have at times been underestimated and downplayed. This miscalculation has cost both Iraqi and American lives and contributed in no small way to the current state of affairs Iraq finds itself.

The war in Iraq is now not between America on one side and homegrown insurgents and their allies in al Qaeda on the other. The war is between Nihilism and Order. It is between hope and despair. It is between the past and the future. And most assuredly, it is between democracy and tyranny.

We might not particularly like the kind of democracy that Iraq is moving toward. It doesn’t look much like ours and it incorporates some elements of religion that most Americans would find unacceptable. Be that as it may, democracy is not an event, it is a process (HT: Reynolds). And the process, despite the bombings, the murders, the beheadings, the blowing up of mosques, and all the other furies of war that have been unleashed on that benighted country, is moving forward.

It may be moving two steps ahead and one back at a time. And in the end, time itself may work to destroy the fragile hopes and dreams of a people who have suffered through a conflict that features actors who have more at stake than what happens in one tiny corner of Mesopotamia. Make no mistake; both the United States and al Qaeda, as well as most of the other countries in the region, are fighting this war for goals that reach far beyond the sandy expanse of Iraq. This is a war for the future and what shape it will take. In that respect, every nation in the world is affected by what’s happening in Iraq.

It’s always easier to spread chaos than instill order in societies that wish to be free. For that reason, we’ll always be at a disadvantage against our enemies in Iraq. But maybe, just maybe, there is just enough hope in the future among just enough people in Iraq that in the end, it is they who will be able to will a new Iraq into existence. Consider:

• Every single politician of note from all sects and all regions of the country have called for an end to the violence.

• Every prominent religious leader (including the problematic cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) have appealed for calm.

• In the mixed neighborhoods where Shias and Sunnis live side by side, there has been cooperation in protecting each others lives and property. Many Sunni mosques are being guarded by Shias and vice versa.

• Both Sunnis and Shias have begun rebuilding the Shrine in Samarra. This began less than 12 hours after the bombing.

• The same Powerline reader who passed along the rebuilding news, points out that it appears the bombings have had the opposite effect; it has brought Shias and Sunnis together in a unity that was not there before the destruction of the Shrine.

In short, the forces at work to keep a civil war from happening are strong. Are they strong enough?

Only time and circumstance will reveal the answer to that question. But I’m sure of one thing; the people who have so confidently been predicting civil war in Iraq for 3 years haven’t been right yet. Why believe them now?

In a continuing effort to prove that Americans are not anti-Arab Islamaphobes, the government has announced that day to day operations of the passenger rail carrier Amtrak will now be in the hands of a state owned company run by the Palestinian group Hamas.

The deal comes on the heels of an agreement to allow the state owned Dubai Ports World(DPW) to manage ports in the United States.

It is believed that the Hamas-Amtrak deal – worth an estimated $2 billion – will be bankrolled by a consortium of European governments, Russian mobsters, and members of the Saudi Arabian royal family who, it is rumored, joined in on the deal because they were denied toy train sets when they were children.

One unidentified Saudi member of the takeover group speaking on the condition of anonymity said that he couldn’t wait to get in the engineer’s car and “sound the horn of the choo-choo” as the train speeds through the towns and villages of the Midwest.

“This is a dream come true for me and my 41 cousins,” he said. “Do you think I can wear one of those funny little hats while blowing the horn?”

The Department of Transportation dismissed security concerns raised by the deal by saying that DPW, owned by Dubai’s leader Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, has an excellent security record at other ports around the world. A spokesman pointed out that if the government could give such a lucrative and sensitive ports contract to a company whose owner went hunting with Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar, then there was no reason to deny the Amtrak contract to the “alleged terrorists” of Hamas.

“We believe Hamas when they say that they can make the trains run on time,” said a DoT spokesman. “We are informed that they plan to use the Italian management system that proved so successful under Benito Mussolini,” he added.

“And as for security, whose gonna mess with those guys?”

Mussolini, an Italian dictator from 1922-1945 was famous for keeping a tight schedule on Italy’s rail system as well as shooting people who disagreed with him. It is unclear which aspect of the dictator’s rule Hamas is more enamored.

Hamas has already announced several changes, some of which may prove controversial. There are plans to offer discount rates to people wearing suicide vests who promise not to set them off until after disembarking. And a spokesman for Hamas seemed surprised when informed that the company would have to follow US laws regarding equal accommodations.

“No cattle cars for the…um special passengers?” he asked rather plaintively?

Passengers at the Glenview, Illinois Amtrak station seemed unconcerned.

“Anything would be an improvement over the (expletive deleted) mess they have now,” said Walter Raymonds of suburban Mount Prospect. “Maybe they’ll bring back the smoking cars.”

Mary Lewis of Glenview was taking a wait and see attitude. “I’d like to see Amtrak run more professionally, of course,” she said. “But I’d like to wait and see how they redecorate the bathrooms before making any final judgments.”