Going cold turkey for Thanksgiving

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m going to the country for Thanksgiving, to a house where there’s no TV and no internet. That means I’ll probably be offline for about two days, starting Wednesday afternoon.

Of course, I might be able to sneak out to an internet cafe to get my fix, or visit the home of another friend with wifi. And who knows, maybe some random guest will come equipped with an iPhone.

Am I addicted, or what?

I’ve written quite a few posts today for you to savor over the holiday, along with your turkey. A very Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Obama, Churchill, and finishing the job: compare and contrast

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s enough to make you weep.

During Obama’s announcement that soon he’ll be making an announcement about the number of troops in Afghanistan, he said:

After eight years ”” some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done ”” it is my intention to finish the job.

It’s got the usual (and apparently irresistible) element of Bush-bashing, as well as the usual avoidance of any mention of so archaic a notion as victory. But that phrase—“finish the job”—rang a small and distant bell with me. It echoed a famous Churchill speech during the time when America had not yet entered WWII, but Britain was fully occupied in fighting it.

So I listened to an excerpt from Churchill’s speech. The differences are profound, as one might expect, and I’m not just talking about the famous Churchillian voice. The British PM is talking about resolve, as he often did, and conveying it most effectively (not to mention poetically). This is exactly and precisely what Obama lacks, although it’s not the only thing he lacks.

Here it is:

Give us the tools and we will finish the job said Churchill, speaking to the US about war supplies. Note that he talks of “we,” the British nation, rather than himself. Note, also, that he is asking for the tools, but Obama is the one who’s been denying his own generals the tools (in terms of troops and the supplies that go with them) these long—and supposedly very important—months in Afghanistan, while he decided which job it was that he actually wanted to finish.

From Roosevelt’s letter on the subject, a quote from a Longfellow poem:


Sail on, Oh Ship of State!
Sail on, Oh Union strong and great.
Humanity with all its fears
With all the hope of future years
Is hanging breathless on thy fate.

[NOTE: In a related item, I note that in the ten short months (they just seem long) he’s been in office, President Obama has managed to damage relations with Great Britain to a greater extent than any previous president since George Washington and James Madison were at war with it. Now the British defense secretary, Bob Ainsworth, has publicly criticized Obama’s indecision on Afghanistan, saying that it has affected the British public’s support for the mission.]

Wanting to believe in miracles: the case of Rom Houben

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you’ve probably all heard the remarkable case of Rom Houben, the young man trapped in a paralyzed body for 23 years, unable to communicate and thought to be in a vegetative state. Recent brain scans indicated much more activity inside his mind than anyone had dreamed, and now he’s communicating complex ideas about what he’d been thinking and feeling all these years.

It’s a wonderful story, and we’d all like to believe it’s true—that Houben has come back to the land of the living and communicating, and can now tell his loving parents that he felt “blessed with my family.”

Trouble is, I don’t think it’s true.

Let me explain. I was touched by the news when I first heard it, and eager for more details. But when I looked at this video, just a few seconds of watching the way Houben communicates gave me the sinking feeling that this was another example of the extremely suspect technique known as facilitated communication.

Facilitated communication was thought to be a big breakthrough in the field of autism. But it turned out, for the most part (with a tiny number of exceptions) to be a product of hope and nothing more.

Here is some information from the Amazing Randi about how it works:

I cannot understand how anyone, professional medical person or layman, can continue to believe that the farce known as “Facilitated Communication” [FC] represents anything other than a fantasy that was begun back in 1977, when an Australian woman named Rosemary Crossley came up with the idea that autistic persons could express their thoughts via a keyboard when their hand was “supported” by what she called a “facilitator.” In 1989, Douglas Biklen, a sociologist and professor of special education at Syracuse University, eagerly took up her cause, and as a result vast sums were donated to SU by friends and family members of autism victims – money that was simply wasted in futile “research.”

I personally investigated this matter. In March of 1992 I was contacted by Dr. Anne M. Donnellan, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who asked if I would be willing to participate in an investigation of FC as used with autistic children. I was already familiar with FC, and suggested to her that I felt the researchers were perhaps under the influence of the Clever Hans Effect [CHE], also known as the “ideomotor effect,” in which the trainer – the facilitator in this case – was unconsciously transmitting the information to the autistic child. This possibility was emphatically denied by Dr. Donnellan, and I was assured that every care had been taken to ensure that the CHE was not in operation…

My tests of autistic children at the University of Wisconsin-Madison clearly showed that FC was simply a tragic farce…

The “facilitated communication” process consists of the “facilitator” actually holding the hand of the subject over the keyboard, moving the hand to the key, then drawing the hand back from the keyboard! This very intimate participatory action lends itself very easily to transferring the intended information to the computer screen. In the video you have just viewed, it is very evident that (a) the “facilitator” is looking directly at the keyboard and the screen, and (b) is moving the subject’s hand. The video editing is also biased, giving angles that line up the head of the subject with the screen, as if the subject were watching the screen.

This man in the msnbc.com piece is not seeing the screen. He is not aware of what is going on. He is an unknowing victim of these charlatans. A simple test – such as that done on October 19th, 1993, in a Frontline (PBS) documentary highlighting these concerns, “Prisoners of Silence,” would prove that FC is a total fraud. This powerful and comprehensive program proved that FC was a delusion.

The reason I immediately recognized what was probably happening with Mr. Houben is that I had seen that Frontline documentary when it had first aired. It was so dramatic and memorable, disturbing yet convincing and ultimately tragic, that I never forgot it. I disagree with Randi on one point: I believe that neither the facilitators nor the experimenters were charlatans, exactly, because they did not know the truth until the experiments revealed it—they believed, too, because they wanted so badly to be able to reach these children. The movements of the facilitators are quite subtle and unconscious, the whole thing working somewhat like the old-fashioned Ouija board.

What’s really going on with Rom Houben? Evidence indicates that he does have more ability to communicate and think than originally believed: for example, he can tap his foot yes and no in answer to some simple questions, and his brain scans indicate some sort of activity. So he has probably retained the ability to communicate in a basic way, but the articulate sentences he supposedly generates through the facilitated computer are extremely suspect, and are probably generated by the hopeful mind of the facilitator, whether she knows it or not. This could be tested rather easily, by asking him a question to which he would be expected to know the answer but about which the facilitator would be expected to know nothing.

One of the most interesting things about this case, if my theory turns out to be correct (and here is another observor who shares it), is how eager people are to be fooled, if they really want to believe, and how ignorant the world (both the physicians and the journalists) still is about the perils of facilitated communication.

I had the advantage of having seen the Frontline documentary. But I wouldn’t have thought that to be necessary. One look at the videotape of Houben and his helper should have at least raised questions in the minds of observers.

Credit where credit’s due: Michelle Obama’s gown

The New Neo Posted on by

Nag, nag, nag, that’s all I seem to do with President Obama these days (not that he listens to me, but still).

In the meantime, Michelle Obama hasn’t been on my radar screen much, although nearly a year ago I did take notice of the fact that the gown she wore to the inaugural ball really didn’t suit her at all. Too frilly girly-girly for a tall and statuesque woman. What’s more, being a helpful sort, I even suggested a more elegant alternative.

Well, even though President Obama obviously isn’t taking my advice, maybe the First Lady is, because I’m happy to report that last night she wore a flattering evening gown, more on the order of the one I’d originally recommended:

michellegown.jpg

It’s a relief to be able to say something positive about one of the Obamas, even if it’s only about a topic as trivial as a ball gown.

Obama’s on a roll—downhill

The New Neo Posted on by

Indications are that President Obama is sliding downward in the public’s estimation. For the first time, for example, all the polls show his approval rating falling below 50% (here’s the NY Times’s spin on that). Just as significantly, all but his most die-hard journalistic supporters (and even some of them) are expressing doubts about him.

It’s not just one event that was the turning point. It’s been an accretion of small things, plus a number of larger things, forming a picture that is becoming more and more difficult to shut out. The Holder/Obama KSM decision was one of these larger things; polls indicate that “only 34 percent of Americans support the decision to try the al-Qaida leaders in a federal district court,” whereas “[s]ixty-four percent said they should be tried by a military commission, as the Bush administration planned to do.”

Ouch! That must sting, particularly the public’s widespread agreement with the policy of the nefarious Bush. Obama can’t blame his predecessor for this one, although the main reason Obama chose a civilian trial for KSM would appear to be the need to have the proceedings be a vehicle for making Bush/Cheney look bad. But it seems that most Americans aren’t buying it, nor should they be.

This might just be the most unpopular decision of Obama’s presidency so far, which makes the poll the most encouraging one I’ve seen in a long time. Is common sense finally going to prevail? Are the scales falling from Americans’ eyes about the nature of the man they elected? Is it clear enough now that he has chosen, for petty political reasons, to compromise America’s security?

But it’s not just the KSM trial, not by a longshot. There is general disillusionment with Obama at home and abroad. People are starting to worry that, if Emperor Obama isn’t exactly naked, it looks as though he may have gone out in his skivvies.

Last weekend’s SNL skit was emblematic of the change. This was no gentle ribbing; it was a really nasty piece of work, with a very hard edge. I wonder what the notoriously thin-skinned Obama will think of it.

Here is more bewilderment and disillusionment about Obama, just one of a host of recent articles by Obama supporters who’ve become deeply disappointed in many aspects of his behavior.

Is the Obama administration turning into a short-lived (a single year instead of a hundred) one-hoss shay? You know, the one that:

“went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.”

For those of us who have never agreed with most of Obama’s policies, and who have long considered him a con and a liar who does not have America’s best interests at heart, the fact that the public is beginning to realize this is good. Let’s hope it’s not too late to reverse the course of the ship of state. But what to do when it increasingly appears that the captain is steering it towards the rocks?

Obama and Afghanistan: for want of 6,000 troops…

The New Neo Posted on by

The buzz is that President Obama will finally announce his Afghanistan decision on December 1, and that the magic number of troops sent will be 34,000.

If so (and I must emphasize that this information is based on anonymous leaks, and therefore suspect), that would represent a compromise between two plans General McCrystal offered. They are the so-called “high-risk” position and the “medium risk” position, based on 20,000 and 40,000 troops, respectively (there was also a “low risk” option of 80,000 extra troops).

If this news turns out to be correct, it will represent Obama’s need to put his own stamp on things. Instead of choosing one of the options his own hand-picked general has suggested, he would be selecting “none of the above,” or rather “somewhere between two of the above.” That way he (supposedly) shows how thoughtful he is, and that he’s the one in control rather than being some sort of puppet of the military. It also would be an attempt to placate his Leftist antiwar base (“see, I sent fewer troops than they asked for”), pay attention to campaign promises that he’d tend to Afghanistan properly, and soothe those on the Right who think he’s not been doing enough.

Will it work? Depends what you mean by “work.”

Will it work in terms of meeting our military objectives in Afghanistan? I haven’t a clue—although I imagine the generals do, and I think they asked for those particular numbers for a reason. Obama’s decision would be neither fish nor fowl. His military knowledge and interest is nil. He famously opposed the surge, for example, and clung tenaciously to that opposition when other surge-opponents had grudgingly admitted the surge’s success.

However, there are good reasons that our founders placed the mantle of Commander-in-Chief, as well as the Cabinet positions that advise a President on war, in civilian hands. Presidents are not meant to merely rubber-stamp military recommendations. But they do need to remember that they appoint military experts for a reason. If Obama’s strategy is really to win in Afghanistan, and if he is dedicated to that task (as his campaign rhetoric indicated, although I found it unconvincing), why would he choose the medium risk option, and then nickel and dime things by shorting McChrystal 6,000 troops? Why not at least send the full 40,000?

The answer, of course, is politics. And if Obama does send 34,000 troops, will it “work” in terms of politics? I don’t think so; neither Left nor Right is likely to be placated or fooled by the compromise response, which looks weak and gives neither what they want.

And speaking of weak, Obama’s Hamlet-like vacillation over the last few months only plays well with die-hard supporters. Because the process of making up his mind about Afghanistan took so long, it’s unlikely that Obama’s final decision will be seen by most people as a tough one providing sorely needed leadership. On the contrary, it has made a great many people on both sides very uneasy.

The bottom line, however, is what happens in Afghanistan during the next year or so. If the situation improves there, Obama’s decision, with all its attendant dithering, will seem to have been a brilliant one in retrospect. Remember that, unlike Bush, Obama still has the goodwill of the MSM, who would dearly love to see him have a victory. Therefore, any improvement in Afghanistan will be deemed a success.

[NOTE: The title of this post comes from the nursery rhyme “For Want of a Nail.”]

[ADDENDUM: Ed Morrissey has more to say on the subject.]

The CRU documents: when science becomes politicized, we all suffer

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s been clear for quite some time that the AGW controversy has morphed from a scientific to a religious war—although in this case, it’s the AGW scientists who are the “religious” fanatics. That sort of situation cannot help but spell trouble.

Now, with the public revelation of a raft of previously private CRU documents from the University of East Anglia (UEA), we know that, in their quasi-religious fervor, these scientists may have purposely skewed data, an act which would run counter to the heart of the scientific method to which they supposedly devoted their lives. And apparently, several august scientific journals (such as Nature, one of the most prestigious science publications of them all) trusted them enough to allow them to jealously guard their raw data from prying eyes and prevent the sort of peer-review fact-checking that ought to have occurred as a matter of course.

If true, these acts would constitute a profound betrayal—not only of science, but of us all. The foundation of science, as well as our trust in it, rests on the idea that facts are sacred, and that they come before theories. If the facts don’t fit, you must acquit. In science, there is no principle of allowing lies in the service of “a higher truth.” There can only be truth.

This, of course, is an ideal, and we live in the real world, where scientists are people too. But they should be continually on guard to make sure they follow the ideal as best they can, despite constant temptations to act differently. Politicized science has a long history—in modern times, particularly in Soviet Russia, which the Western world is coming more and more to resemble. That the UEA scientists fell prey to it, especially in the current climate of religious fervor about AGW, is really no surprise. Nor will it be a surprise if the majority of AGW enthusiasts (including the MSM) continue to ignore the inconvenient truth that the science behind AGW has become exceedingly suspect.

[ADDENDUM: How the MSM is covering the scandal (hat tip: commenter “J.J.”).]

Walpin firing update

The New Neo Posted on by

Byron York continues on the Walpin case, even if hardly anyone else is paying attention (something the Obama administration is banking on).

York writes that, just a few hours after Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Darrell Issa had presented a report on their investigation into the Walpin firing, the White House released previously-withheld documents germane to the case. No doubt the timing is a mere coincidence.

Here is some of what is disclosed in the new information:

The new documents support the Republican investigators’ conclusion that the White House’s explanation for Walpin’s dismissal — that it came after the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, unanimously decided that Walpin must go — was in fact a public story cobbled together after Walpin was fired, not before…

Pressed for the reason Walpin was fired, Eisen told House and Senate aides that the White House conducted an “extensive review” of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to dismiss him. According to the new report, Eisen told Congress that “his investigation into the merits of removing Gerald Walpin involved contacting members of the Corporation for National and Community Service [CNCS] board to confirm the existence of a ‘consensus’ in favor of removal.” But Republican investigators later discovered that during that “extensive review,” the White House did not even seek the views of the corporation’s board — the very people whose “consensus” purportedly led to Walpin’s firing.

It goes on. But to anyone who’s been paying attention to this particular story, or to the actions of the Obama administration in general, none of it should come as a surprise.

At the risk of redundancy, let me just ask: can you imagine what the headlines would have been had Bush done this?

[NOTE: As for the Grassley/Issa report, it goes into some new details on the allegations against Johnson that IG Walpin was investigating when fired. It indicates that:

…Walpin was in fact fired because of the dispute over St. Hope and concludes that the White House “orchestrated an after-the-fact smear campaign to justify” Walpin’s dismissal.

The report says the [newly revealed] allegations of sexual misconduct and a cover-up “provide important context for Walpin’s insistence that the St. Hope matter should not have been settled without further inquiry.” In light of those allegations, the report says, complaints that Walpin was being too aggressive seem unfounded. “The content of the referral tends to undermine any notion that the [inspector general’s] investigation was driven by inappropriate motives on the part of Walpin,” the report says. “Rather, it appears to have been driven by non-political, career investigators simply following the facts.”

Obama and his Chicago friends: continuing to demonstrate the Chicago Way of doing the government’s business.]

Palin Derangement Sydrome: who else can they hate?

The New Neo Posted on by

Even though Sarah Palin is out of office and has been for some time, she continues to call forth a deep and almost primal rage in her opponents. But why bother with her now, especially if she’s so finished, so washed up, so transparently and manifestly unfit for any position of power?

Some say it’s because the Left is scared of her appeal. I suppose that’s part of it for some of them. But I think that most on the Left sincerely believe they’ve destroyed her, made her a laughing stock, and are now dancing on her grave. So again: why bother?

So I have another theory to explain the rage, and that is this: they don’t have Bush to kick around any more.

Bashing him was good for a while—a long while. But as the distance grows between now and then, between the Obama administration and the end of the Bush administration, it gets harder and harder to stoke the fire of the Two Minutes’ Hate against him.

But Palin? That’s another story. Although BDS lasted most of eight full years and change, and only kept building and building to a crescendo, Palin Derangement Syndrome only began in late August of 2008. Then, after the November 2008 election (barely two months later), she pretty much dropped out of sight. There really hasn’t been nearly enough time to fully vent the accumulated bile and spleen.

There was a small revival of Palin focus at the time of her resignation from the Alaska governorship, an act that put her back in the spotlight. Now comes the book tour. Palin is voluntarily seeking out publicity in conjunction with it, so she is thrusting herself into the public eye all over again, just as the energy of BDS is beginning to fade.

Bush’s post-presidential public appearances have been few and far between, Likewise his statements on policy, or on Obama, or on much of anything else. Jousting with him right now is like fighting a phantom. But liberals and the Left have gotten into the habit of vicious hatred, and they need their fix. The rage is out there and requires a target, and Palin has conveniently emerged from relative obscurity at just the right time and place.

In a nutshell, BDS has morphed into PDS, just in the nick of time.

Obama the betrayer

The New Neo Posted on by

Elizabeth Drew reports that many inside-the-Beltway Obama supporters are angry that Greg Craig was tossed under the bus by this administration, with Obama’s tacit approval and acquiescence while others did the dirty work.

It’s a curiously naive article. The sentence that interested me most in that regard was this:

Yes, we knew, or should have, during the campaign that the supposed idealist Obama had a bit of the Chicago cut-throat in him, but there was little sign that he could be as brutal and heedless of loyalty as he was in the Craig affair.

Query to Elizabeth Drew and whomever else might have thought of Obama that way: ever hear of Alice Palmer? Because if you hadn’t, you failed to complete the initial assignment of your homework on your hero. And if you had, you could not have avoided the immediate realization that Obama’s very first political act had been to brutally double-cross his earliest booster and mentor, and to do it as cold-bloodedly and ruthlessly as any Chicago pol—or mobster.

Here’s what Obama did to Alice Palmer. The lengthy article was first published in the Chicago Tribune on April 3, 2007, and it describes events that occurred (and were common knowledge in Chicago) in 1995-1996. So Drew, Craig and the rest: what’s your excuse?

Read the whole article, if you haven’t before. Actually, read it even if you have already read it before, because now that you’ve seen Obama in operation as president, you’ll recognize character traits of his that we’ve become more and more familiar with over time. Elizabeth Drew, Greg Craig (an early and ardent Obama supporter; see this), and anyone else who ever thought that Obama was anything but a cutthroat Chicago pol from the very start would have done well to have read it before they threw their weight behind him, and before his election:

Here are some excerpts (again, I ask you to read the whole thing, because these excerpts merely scratch the surface of what happened). And remember, this was Barack Obama’s maiden voyage, his very first run for political office:

Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.

A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.

One of the candidates he eliminated, long-shot contender Gha-is Askia, now says that Obama’s petition challenges belied his image as a champion of the little guy and crusader for voter rights.

“Why say you’re for a new tomorrow, then do old-style Chicago politics to remove legitimate candidates?” Askia said. “He talks about honor and democracy, but what honor is there in getting rid of every other candidate so you can run scot-free? Why not let the people decide?”…

Asked whether the district’s primary voters were well-served by having only one candidate, Obama smiled and said: “I think they ended up with a very good state senator.”…

Palmer served the district in the Illinois Senate for much of the 1990s. Decades earlier, she was working as a community organizer in the area when Obama was growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia. She risked her safe seat to run for Congress and touted Obama as a suitable successor, according to news accounts and interviews.

But when Palmer got clobbered in that November 1995 special congressional race, her supporters asked Obama to fold his campaign so she could easily retain her state Senate seat.

Obama not only refused to step aside, he filed challenges that nullified Palmer’s hastily gathered nominating petitions, forcing her to withdraw.

“I liked Alice Palmer a lot. I thought she was a good public servant,” Obama said. “It was very awkward. That part of it I wish had played out entirely differently.”

His choice divided veteran Chicago political activists.

“There was friction about the decision he made,” said City Colleges of Chicago professor emeritus Timuel Black, who tried to negotiate with Obama on Palmer’s behalf. “There were deep disagreements.”

Had Palmer survived the petition challenge, Obama would have faced the daunting task of taking on an incumbent senator. Palmer’s elimination marked the first of several fortuitous political moments in Obama’s electoral success: He won the 2004 primary and general elections for U.S. Senate after tough challengers imploded when their messy divorce files were unsealed.

Obama contended that in the case of the 1996 race, in which he routed token opposition in the general election, he was ready to compete in the primary if necessary.

“We actually ran a terrific campaign up until the point we knew that we weren’t going to have to appear on the ballot with anybody,” Obama said. “I mean, we had prepared for it. We had raised money. We had tons of volunteers. There was enormous enthusiasm.”

And he defended his use of ballot maneuvers: “If you can win, you should win and get to work doing the people’s business.”

And here he is now, doing the people’s business once more. Ain’t it wonderful?

Climatology and AGW: who are the hoaxers, who the hoaxed?

The New Neo Posted on by

It is way too early to know whether the just-released emails and other papers purporting to be from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) are real or fake.

If real, they represent a sort of Pentagon Papers-ish revelation, exposing the prominent AGW scientists involved to possible charges of any or all of the following:

…[c]onspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

If fake, they would constitute an anti-AGW hoax of major proportions.

The facts that the files are so voluminous, and that Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed that files there have been hacked into, seem to point more towards the authenticity of the information. But it’s very early yet in this developing story, and we must be careful. Parts may be fake and parts real, and things may not be quite what they seem.

[NOTE: More from Ed Morrissey, who predicts (perhaps correctly) that even if the emails are real, the MSM spin will be that they were wrongly hacked. Wonder if those same people would emphasize that Daniel Ellsberg violated his oath of secrecy when he disclosed the Pentagon Papers to the press? Of course, the Pentagon Papers didn’t actually mean what the press said they did, anyway. Perhaps that will end up being true for the Hadley information as well—both sides of the AGW controversy are very politicized, and that’s one of the reasons it’s been so difficult to wade through the science and attempt to come with the truth.

More here and here.]