Heaping Burning Coals

Proverbs 25:21-22 reads:

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.

Paul quotes the proverb in Romans 12:20. Two interpretations of these passages are often given. One is the literal English reading: being kind to one's enemies is a more poignant revenge than being vengeful. The other interpretation is that heaping burning coals on someone's head is a good thing; apparently people carried coals (in a container) on their heads from place to place so they could light a fire when they got there. This interpretation makes much better sense in the context and spirit of the passages. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has apparently been taking the latter interpretation to heart. His well-considered response to Pat Robertson's moronic assassination innuendo is to heap heating oil on the heads of America's poor. Reuters reports:

The offer, made after populist Chavez held talks with U.S. civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, would represent 10 percent of the 660,000 bpd of refined products processed by Citgo. The deals would cut consumer costs by direct sales... "We are going to direct as much as 10 percent of the production, that means 66,000 barrels, without intermediaries, to poor communities, hospitals, religious communities, schools," Chavez told reporters at a press conference.

All we can say is, Thanks Hugo, and keep up the good work. Hat tip to Drudge.

The Sellout Pays Off

As you've noticed, InstantReplay sold out to the Man this spring, putting up Google Ads . IR earned its first $100 through July, and if the money keeps piling up, we'll keep the ads. You can contribute to the InstantReplay Bandwidth Fund by (a) just visiting the site often and (b) it can add up quite quickly.

Introducing: Educating Holly

My MAL buddy Holly Jordan has a new journal, devoted (for now) to her search for a graduate school. I look forward to following this inside-look at a process that I've recently gained some personal experience in.

On an unrelated note, I now have a mailing address in Roch Vegas:

Chops
University of Rochester
CPU Box 274776
Rochester NY 14627-4776

Heavan and Humanism

Alan Wolfe of Boston College penned a worth-reading piece for today's Wall Street Journal. Rick Warren of "The Purpose Driven Life" is leading a massive mission to Rwanda, a country near to my heart. Wolfe looks into the meaning of this gesture:

Historians are likely to pinpoint Mr. Warren's trip to Rwanda as the moment when conservative evangelical Protestantism made questions of social justice central to its concerns. Given his huge wealthy Orange County congregation, Rick Warren could have become satisfied with his national success and ignored problems abroad. Instead he has chosen to make issues of global poverty central to his ministry and for that he deserves his identification by Time magazine as one of the most important evangelicals in America... My single greatest fear is that Mr. Warren and his followers will draw huge and enthusiastic crowds to their rallies, convert numerous souls to Christ and then leave when they discover that, for all their efforts, a country like Rwanda faces political and social problems beyond the reach of even the most earnest and popular humanitarian efforts. In short, there is a limit to the good that can be done until such countries alter the basic structure of their societies, eliminating corruption, curbing the abuse of power, setting up an independent judiciary and allowing a free press.

An additional concern is that Warren's original invitation came from President Paul Kagame, who is a strongman at best and a dictator at worst. I was in Rwanda during their last elections, and the only thing "free and fair" was the range of action permitted to the police in stiffling any opposition. Does this mean Warren and others should stop? By no means. But he (and Wolfe) should remember that a saved soul is not always free from poverty or oppression, nor is an affluent and free soul always saved. Yet these facts should not dim the efforts of either evangelists or humanists, or, in Warren's case, those who strive to be both.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Sorry for the lack of posting - I'm turning to face the strain of Math Camp (and subsequent grad classes), and my time is running wild trying to recover from breaking my cell phone, which I now must admit dependence on. I'm also adjusting to not having an income - with grad school, I certainly ain't gonna be a richer man - and not having easy classes. If I'm gonna stick around here, I'm gonna have to be a different man, at least as far as studying goes, because I've been left up to my neck in math, which is eminently immune to my consultations. But I did find some good radio stations in Rochester yesterday, and finally got my room in order, so I can focus on work instead of chaos. Hopefully I'll have more thoughts next week, but for now all I can leave you with is that while a uniformally continuous function does not have to have a constant slope, it must have a bounded derivative. Apologies to David Bowie.

Free-For-All 2008: Something Old, Something New

The best news article of this month’s presidential pretension is Mother Jones’ Diddly Awards. My favorite was the anecdote about Condi Rice, whose rumored presidential ambitions simply won't die:

Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State), who experienced a moment of candor when a Russian radio interviewer asked if she would run in 2008. "Da," replied Rice, who speaks fluent Russian, before adding, "Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet!"

That kind of denial won't get her taken off the chatter rankings any time soon. The biggest news this month is that no one has yet been kicked off: the field is getting wider still, not narrower. Also, Senators Frist and Clinton have remained atop their respective columns for a few months now. The new faces include Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee - "the other man from Hope" - as well as Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Barack Obama and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Obama edged his way into the rankings slowly, having been tested but not quite qualifying in previous months. Huckabee dieted his way in: last week he announced that he had lost 100 pounds, making a big news splash. It may not be a presidential moment, but face (and figure?) recognition are always good at this stage. As for Vilsack and Reid, I was simply remiss in not testing them in previous months. If I'm missing any more candidates, please tell me! Besides Huckabee, the other artificially high candidates are Governor Pataki, who announced that he will not run for another term and, as always, those in high-profile positions.

Rank	Candidate	Chatter	Rank Change
R.1	Sen. Bill Frist	1,500	0
R.2	Gov. George Pataki	1,100	+10
R.3	Gov. Mitt Romney	932	0
R.4	Sen. John McCain	751	-2
R.5	Newt Gingrich	387	+6
R.6	Gov. Mike Huckabee	317	new
R.7	Sen. Sam Brownback	314	+1
R.8	Secy. Condoleezza Rice	276	-3
R.9	Gov. Jeb Bush	273	-2
R.10	Sen. George Allen	249	0
R.11	Rudy Giuliani	203	-2
R.12	Sen. Chuck Hagel	173	-6
R.13	V.P. Dick Cheney	158	-9
...............	...............................................	.......................	...............
D.1	Sen. Hillary Clinton	1,920	0
D.2	Sen. John Kerry	663	0
D.3	Gov. Mark Warner	655	+3
D.4	Gov. Tom Vilsack	619	new
D.5	Sen. Harry Reid	468	new
D6	Sen. Evan Bayh	434	-3
D.7	Howard Dean	425	0
D.8	Sen. John Edwards	387	-4
D.9	Gov. Bill Richardson	304	-1
D.10	Sen. Joseph Biden	158	-5
D.11	Sen. Barack Obama	153	new

Notes: The Chatter Rankings are created by searching each candidate's name plus "2008" in the Google News database. This month's tested-but-not-qualifying list is Russ Feingold and Dick Gephardt. Compare this month's results to those of July, June, and May to get an idea of candidate trajectories.

Letters From Math Camp: Day 1

Dear Mom and Dad, I am having fun at Math Camp. Today we learned about logical proofs and sets and functions. Most of it was just notation, though. We had donuts for breakfast and chicken caesar salad for lunch. Now I smell like raw onions. I might have a leftover donut for dinner. Don't worry, once I find my cabin and the store, I'll start eating real food. This morning the bus dropped me off at 5:00. It was still dark. I didn't know where I was going (inasmuch as the depot was in a different location than expected), but thank God I found my bearings and hiked three miles downriver to camp with a full pack. Now I have to hike out to my cabin which is across the river. Besides math, we learned about ID cards, the department, and what there is to do in Roch-Vegas (walk to the library... walk back). The other kids are very nerdy, like me. We talk about things like development theory and time-series analysis and post-doc placement. I think they know a lot more than I do, but I speak English and I know how to order food at a restaurant. One Russian guy asked the lady at Subway if she had "any normal food". I apologized for him and we left. I like Math Camp, but I think I'll be ready to come home by the end of the week. After all, one can only prove that integers are closed over multiplication so many times and still enjoy it. And this camp doesn't have any horses or archery or boats. See you on Friday. Love, - Chops

Lima Beans

Maureen Dowd is back from book leave permanently, so we can all start loving to hate her again. And with good reason; today she elevated the debate over Karen Hughes' role with this gem:

W. thinks so highly of Ms. Hughes, his longtime Texas political nanny, spinner, speechwriter and ghostwriter, that he put his Lima Green Bean, as he called her when she prodded him about the environment, in charge of the critical effort to salvage America's horrendous image in the Islamic world - even though what she knows about Islam could fit in a lima green bean. Why get any Muslims involved in reaching out to Muslims? That would be so matchy.

Incidentally, I have a good reason not to have a Muslim czar for public diplomacy: the U.S. needs to avoid participating in the debate over Islamic theology. Dowd then proceeds to paint an ugly picture of women's rights in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The fundamentalist Taliban is recrudescing in Afghanistan...

So the Taliban was bad... but we shouldn't have helped the Northern Alliance overthrow it... because it might come back. Dowd offers no proof that the "recrudescent" Taliban has done anything substantial against women and she utterly igores the vast strides made for women's rights in Afghanistan.

...and women's groups in Iraq are terrified that the new constitution will cut women's rights to a Saudiesque level.

Again, the "it was better under Saddam" argument. Dowd would prefer the certainty of universal oppression to the possibility of gender oppression.

The back-to-burka trend has been widely reported throughout Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, and young women activists told The Los Angeles Times that their mothers had more freedom in the 60's. Najla Ubeidi, a lawyer in the Iraqi Women's League, agreed: "During the 1960's, there was a real belief in improving women's conditions. We could wear what we liked, go out when we liked, return home when we liked, and people would judge us by the way we behaved."

A large percentage of American women would also report having exercised a great deal more freedom in the 1960's as well. What's more, remember that Saddam didn't come to power until 1979, something Dowd seems to hope her readers will forget. What really proves that Dowd's lima bean of Middle Eastern knowledge is no larger than Hughes' or anyone else's is her ignorance of the region-wide "back-to-the-burka" movement that has indeed occurred since the 1960's. A quick history lesson: Arab women's rights blossomed in the 1920's, about the same time nationalism was first appearing, and while the British and French were still firmly in control. After Arab nationalism ran its course (the death knell was the 1973 October War), Arabs - men and women alike - joined what would be called a "revival" if it occurred in Christianity. In a twist of sociology that western feminists like Dowd find hard to imagine, the re-donning of the headscarf by a large portion of Egyptian and other Arab women was self-motivated. It was a status thing: the richest and most pious women wore it, so those who wanted to appear rich and pious began wearing it again, and back it came. A few Arab men require their wives to wear scarves, but most women do it voluntarily and may choose to doff it for outings in more Westernized parts of town. It is considered extremely rude to ask a woman about her veil-wearing habits. I have not been to Iraq, nor have I read any proper scholarship on Islamic trends among the Shi'ites, so I am not qualified to write specifically about the extent, nature, or motivation of Islamic revivalists there. Most western journalism on the topic is, like Dowd's piece, motivated by concerns other than descriptive sociology, and tends to give a superficial look at Iraqi life. But for Dowd to ignore the entire body of scholarship and experience on modern Islam vis-a-vis women in writing her piece shows that her knowledge of Islam exceeds only her desire to be fair-minded. It's good to have you back, Maureen.

The Right-Wing Media

The Washington Post is generally even-handed in its editorial content, but today is a banner day for conservatives, and most of the pieces are worth reading.

• The lead editorial is an unabashed taking-to-the-woodshed of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who plumbed new depths in abortion politics with their television ad attacking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Tellingly, even the NARAL spokeswoman won't stand by the claims of the ad.
• The second editorial is a big boost for the administration, praising America's much-greater-than-warranted contributions to relief in the Darfur crisis. Besides America and the North Sea nations, very little has been contributed, most notably by the Arab states (who should care very deeply about Sudan) and the Chinese (who profit from Sudanese oil). With all the America-bashing we've grown accustomed to, it's nice to hear someone else called onto the carpet for a change. More importantly, the Post concludes by quoting Joseph Britt: "We've heard a lot since Sept. 11, 2001, about how Arabs feel humiliated, ashamed, resentful at being regarded by the West as inferior in some way... Perhaps it is time to say plainly that the way to earn respect is through deeds worthy of respect." Indeed.
• On the opinion side, Henry Kissinger has a lengthy piece on strategy in Iraq as it compares to Vietnam. The most notable things about the article were (a) Kissinger's detailed grasp of the nuances of conflict, (b) a conservative being willing to compare Vietnam and Iraq at length, (c) Kissinger's ability to spin Vietnam as an American victory. This last notwithstanding, it had never previously occurred to me to look at the military aspect of Vietnam. Like Iraq, the conflict was so politicized that it seems tactics must have been irrelevant. And yet it is inescapable that the ultimate political judgment, especially in hindsight, was decided on the field of battle. My conclusion: anyone who wants to be able to talk intelligently about the Iraq conflict should read Kissinger's piece.
• In last place is a boneheaded sop to liberals. Eugene Robinson complains about the over-coverage on cable news of stories on lost white women. He correctly deduces that the driving force is ratings, not newsroom bias, and that [white] America still sees minorities as "the Other", and does not identify with them. He does not think to identify the equal attitude among minorities: that they do not identify with whites. As long as blacks and Hispanics hold themselves out as "different" and maintain that whites cannot understand their American experience, we'll believe them. Compare that to modern Asian immigration: Asians identify with the majority, and in response are considered, after a generation or two, one of "Us".

The Girl Crush

Jennifer 8. Lee unleashed the term "man date" onto the unsuspecting social lexicon on April 10th. Her article, reprinted here, will give her a few years of dinner-party faux fame and a lifetime of resentment from men who don't like their guy-time to come anywhere near the word "date". Now, however, an equal and opposite term has touched down, also in the NYTimes Style section. Stephanie Rosenbloom introduces the world to the "girl crush", a grotesque melange of admiration and attachment that grown women apparently feel toward one another on occasion. A girl crush goes beyond the understandable admiration of meeting someone you wish you were like; it is similar, social scientists say, to a romantic crush, though it lacks sexual overtones. A crush may blossom into a friendship, or (like a romantic crush) it may simply weird out the object of this effete emotional diarrhea. Girl crush. Just saying it makes me want to throw up in my mouth.

Palestinian Dreams Unfulfilled, MCDXLIII

Palestinians in Jenin once wanted the whole land west of the Jordan. Then they just wanted the 1967 borders. Then they just wanted a sandwich. The longstanding Palestinian dream to build the longest sandwich in the world ended yesterday in ignomy. Haaretz reports:

"We were planning to add the mortadella and stuffing at the last minute to rule out any possibility of rotting," chef Ahmed Nazzal told Reuters. "There must be a conspiracy against us by other competitors."

The current sandwich-length record holders are Portuguese. Who knew Portugal was part of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy?

Iranians Hate Cute Aquatic Mammals

The New York Times headline reads: Seals Are Removed at Nuclear Site in Iran. After getting over the homophonic hilarity, the article is worthy of serious consideration. Iran's nuclear capabilities may be the foremost challenge to world peace in the coming decades. This is not merely Farsiphobia (farsifobia? pharsiphobia?), because Iran's nuclear program is likely to have a domino effect across its region. If Iran does build weapons - or even comes close to doing so - it will spur Saudi Arabia and other competitors for regional leadership to follow suit, much as Pakistan's nukes have been an added impetus to Iran's nuclear ambitions. And if you think the Middle East can't get any worse than it's been, think again. Nuclear politics was a focus for many around the world during the Cold War, and rightly so. The efforts of the previous generation are seen in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. In the current era, however, more and more leaders of mid-level powers are adopting the 2004 Red Sox motto: "Why Not Us?" And indeed, a few (India, Pakistan, Israel) have already succeeded in gaining nukes, and others (Iraq, North Korea, Iran) are or have been well on their way to nuclear armament. But is this really such a bad thing? After all, many strategists see nuclear weapons as primarily defensive: no nation would use them offensively, they say, because that would bring the whole world down on its head, but they serve as an amply deterrent defense against rogue neighbors. But in today's world, who needs nukes? The days of competing superpowers are over; the new paradigm is states v. non-states, and nukes are a one-way weapon inasmuch as they can only be used against states. Thus, in the current climate, developing nukes signals that you see yourself on the side of the non-state actors and against the rest of the world's states. The circumstantial evidence strengthens this hypothesis, as the powers currently pursuing nukes are those most at odds with the rest of the world - Iran and North Korea. Robert Mugabe would probably be buying nukes as well, if Zimbabwe could afford them. So what should the international community do? The Post evaded this question in yesterday's surprisingly aggressive editorial, concluding intelligently (and obviously) that the U.S. and Europe should act in unison on the issue, but not recommending a specific course. Israel might pull another Osirak, but they now have much more to lose in terms of credibility than they did in 1981. A U.S.-led or -sanctioned raid would be a public diplomacy disaster, proving to conspiracy theorists from Kandahar to Casablanca that the U.S. is indeed bent on conquering their entire region. The best raid agent might actually be a post-occupation Iraqi government, which would be the only other Shi'ite government in the world, and a neighbor with a great deal to lose from Iranian nuclear power. Today's post is dedicated to my new Persian friend with whom I spent time this morning, and who will probably disagree with me quite heartily.

Girls Still Suck

If you remember the blog Girls-Suck, you can credit yourself as a longtime InstantReplay reader. Girls-Suck was a staple of IR's first year, and for old time's sake I went over to see how they're doing. The site has moved to a new location, but girls still, apparently, suck.* One gem they recently linked to is this picture worth a thousand words, which elucidates the difference between men and women. * Incidentally, in my private research, I have not found anything to dispute this conclusion.

Yankee Fans Are Terrorists

In case there wasn`t already ample evidence that New York Yankees fans should not be tolerated outside their natural habitat (the anarchical jungles of the Bronx), it is becoming clear that the London suicide bombers were Yankee fans. The NY Daily News reports:

In the July 7 train and bus attacks that killed 52 people plus the four bombers, one of the terrorists was wearing a New York Yankees cap... In a widely published surveillance photo, captured suspect Ramzi Mohammed is seen wearing a sweat shirt with "New York" on the front as he ran through a London subway station on July 21.

Hat tip to Drudge for the story. The tastelessness is all mine.

If a Revolution Happens In the Desert and Nobody Cares, Does It HAve an International Impact?

Apparently not. Ya go away for a few days, and ya come back and nobody tells ya that the Mauritanian dictator was overthrown! What, you mean you didn't know either? And you really don't care? For the record, Mauritania is a small nation at the western end of the Sahara Desert, on the Atlantic Ocean. Its dicator, Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, was overthrown while he was away attending Saudi King Fahd's funeral. The coup leaders are a military junta, which has vowed to hold elections within two years. (Aren't military juntas so very twentieth century; maybe this is the beginning of a whole new retro fad, complete with summary executions and crocodile tears for "democratic" leaders). According to the BBC, the coup had an impact comparable to a football playoff-game victory:

Following the announcement on national radio, people took to the streets of Nouakchott in celebration, hooting their car horns. "I can hear the cars now and people running in the streets. People are celebrating," resident Hassan Ahmed told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme... Shops immediately shut down and civil servants left their offices.

So the Junta Leaders win in the semifinals, but will face a tough challenge in the final, where they'll face a smack-talking coalition of African Union and U.N. leaders. Whether Annan, Obasanjo and Tandja will back their words up with a strong performance on the field remains to be seen.

Pork For Me

As a Massachusetts cycling advocate, I'm pleased to see that $40 million was appropriated to improve and extend the Commonwealth's bike paths. Terrific: bike paths are generally underfunded and poorly maintained, and benefits of building them accrue to health and neighborhood safety as well as transportation and recreation. But the $40 million was appropriated by Congress. It's just my piece of $286 billion pie divied up among transport projects around the country, very few of which are genuinely interstate in nature. Yet, under the liberally interpreted Interstate Commerce Clause, Congress can give (or withhold) money to local projects anywhere in the USA. This is not, of course, a new means of undermining federalism, but just another trudging step in the same misguided direction that Washington has been going for a century now.

Shebaa Farms

Quite a few new geographic designations have been created in the Middle East to accommodate the lexicon of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some (the Golan Heights, South Lebanon) are sensible, others reflect a new reality (the Gaza Strip, the West Bank), and some, like the Shebaa Farms, are simply absurd. For the uninitiated, the Shebaa Farms are a small sliver of land encompassing fourteen small farms and located along the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Lebanon, on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. According to international lawyers, the land is Syrian, as is the rest of the Golan Heights. However, according to both Syria and Lebanon, the land was freely given to the latter in 1951. This position is maintained by Syria as a way of coopting Lebanon into the Syrian-Israeli conflict. The less-than-reputable World Tribune.com reports today (in a story picked up by Drudge) that Condoleezza Rice is trying to convince Israel to give the piece of land back to Lebanon. Its strategic value is dubious, while its political value is obvious: a peace offering to Lebanon to show goodwill and deflate some of Hezbullah's rhetoric. Given Ariel Sharon's willingness to evacuate Gaza, I assume that the only question in Shebaa is when - not if - Israel should leave. The gesture is so small and inherently meaningless that it will have only a brief impact. Israel is no doubt saving it for the opportune moment, which might well be only when Lebanon is willing to reopen relations with Israel. That day will hopefully come sooner rather than later, and if the two truly reopen relations, it could cause unprecedented growth and good feeling throughout the region.