CDarwin

I don't really understand what you're trying to say. Or rather where you're getting what you're trying to say. There's circular reasoning if I've ever seen it. "Iran might give nukes to terrorists because North Korea has given nukes to Iran and Syria and they might give nukes to terrorists." I know you were saying that North Korea is proliferatory too, but it just stuck me funny. I've never said Iran being nuclear was a good thing. I want fewer countries to be nuclear. I just don't know where the policy of "no nuclear weapons for Iran deuce all else" can lead but war. Maybe that's where the US has to go. The world was a very different place 50+ years ago. You can't think that Cold War policy with countries like Iran is current or effective any more. Nuclear proliferation isn't a matter of grand geopolitical goals anymore. Its much more decentralized and easier. It wasn't difficult (and didn't involve dealing with Iran at all) to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons when they had no where to get them from (the Soviet Union hated them as much as we did) and were busy with a war with Iraq anyway. Those conditions don't exist anymore. For the first time, any way you look at, the solution to this crisis is going to have to directly involve Iran. We seem to be in a mutual position. Well, it's fine. My mental intent didn't link the two as any sort of political commentary but if that's how it came out. I don't really think McCain is beating in war drums, either, by the way. He's being an idealist which has a history (and a place) in American foreign policy. Here, though, he's going to end up offending newly proud countries that we need to work with us, and that hurts a lot of the America's other idealist goals.

I meant to post this a while ago, but I forgot and then I was busy and blahdeblah. Basically, while the media was watching Bill Clinton get red in the face and harping on flag pins and crazy ministers, John McCain was talking about rebooting the Cold War (exaggeration, but not by much). Fareed Zakaria wrote a good column about it in the Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/134317 To quote: Responses? Reflections? I was on a bus coming back from Nashville when McCain's referenced speech was on and the troglodytes who were my fellow passengers insisted on watching SportsCenter so I didn't get to see it. I'm going to watch it on YouTube now. Here's one blog critical of the article: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2008/04/us_foreign_policy_in_the_post-bush_era/ I'm not quite sure where the author gets his bit about Russia being "let into" the G8 because they couldn't get Yeltsin to go away. From what I could find, Russian officials were invited to come to the 1994 summit and it was officially brought in as a Clinton initiative.

Then they'd rebuild it and be a lot more pissed off the next time and with a population lit on fire by nationalism. Honestly I think striking at Iran's nuclear facilities alone might be the worst of all options. If that's what you mean by "it."

I disagree with the neoconservative take on Iran and the view on policy neoconservative philosophy is fostering... Am I not allowed to do that? Neoconservativism isn't some abstract label for "hawks." Its a specific way of looking at international relations, one that has been historically influential on the current generation of policy makers, that I find wanting in the case of Iran. No, I'm saying that we shouldn't be as focused on keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as on fostering an Iran which wouldn't feel the need to act irresponsibly with it since a nuclear Iran is more-or-less inevitable. If stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is your paramount policy goal, then there's not much choice but a war and the sooner the better. That's my point. The US wasn't controlled by religious zealots when it dropped the bomb either. And again I have to point to North Korea. If any country is run by zealots, it's that one. Yet Seoul and Tokyo remain in tact. In the modern geopolitical environment, the question isn't "do I really want to use this nuclear weapon." It's "do I want to commit suicide today" because both the Pakistanis and North Koreans now and the Iranians in the future would know that any use of nuclear weapons on their part would mean their pretty quick destruction. The US wouldn't even have to use nuclear weapons on Iran to completely obliterate its army. But how do you do that without a war?

Or just opening up. If we don't act like we're the enemy of Iran then that's literally half the battle. Invite Iranian students to US universities. Stop treating the Iranian government like a bunch of spoiled children (even if they act like it). That just spits in the face of the Iranian people. Strengthen trade ties and investment, even. There are reformist elements in Iran that we can work with if we show some good will, but we've got a lot of time to make up that was lost by the needless rhetorical excesses of the past few years. There's a place for principled stands and there's a place for actually working to achieve something. That said, I would agree that US military presence in the Middle East could probably be brought down. It would have to be a case-by-case thing. If withdrawing troops from Saudi Arabia would cause it to collapse that's certainly not worth it just to improve relations with Iran. I think Israel's a bigger long-term issue anyway. There's not going to be an ideal situation in the Middle East until that mess is 'settled,' whatever that will mean.

Invasion and forced regime change is certainly one way to change the internal political climate in Iran. It may have other negative consequences that would make it undesirable but that's another issue that I'm not seeking to debate here. My point is that A) the neoconservative view of Iranian nuclear ambitions based on ideology is inadequate because it ignores all its other much more potent security and nationalistic motives and B) US policy should perhaps be more focused on encouraging an Iran which won't use nuclear weapons than on preventing an Iran which has nuclear weapons. You seem to leap ahead of my logic sometimes and assume a raving liberal undertone where there needn't be one. Well who wouldn't support that? Reform at least. Although one wonders how aggressive this regime really is when the one war they've fought was started by another actor and led to no territorial gains. The most bona-fide aggressive regime in the Middle East in terms of territory conquered is probably the one that already has nuclear capability (Israel).

Right, right. And that's what's going to depend on the internal political climate in Iran.

My father is a Bill O'Reilly fan and I'm occasionally subjected to moments of his nightly monument to himself as I transit from the computer room to other parts of the house. A night or two ago, he was hosting Dick Morris and I heard a snippet of the conversation that struck me. Dick Morris claimed that the only way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was to change the regime (and criticized Obama for being naive for want to talk to them et cetera et cetera). Perhaps this my bias but that just rang in my ears like typical neoconservative tripe. It's Dr. Evil reasoning. Ahmedinijad is a dictator/religious zealot, dictators/religious zealots naturally want super-powerful weapons to use against Good and Truth, thus no dictator = no nukes. Simple! But the significant majority of nuclear weapons are in the hands of Western democracies, so obviously Commies and nutjobs aren't the only ones who love their big red buttons. If you look at the world from Iran's perspective for a moment, you can see why it might have some of the same reasons for wanting a nuclear weapon as France. It borders one nuclear power, is in close proximity to two more, is surrounded on two other borders by countries occupied by the world's second largest nuclear power which is also openly hostile toward it, and shares the Middle East with yet another nuclear power even more hostile toward it. Historically this is exactly why countries get nuclear weapons: Because they're afraid of other nations with nuclear weapons. Compound this with staunch nationalism and notions of ancient grandeur and you should have every expectation that a country like Iran would seek to put itself on par with its neighbors. A nuclear Iran seems pretty much inevitable to me. The only thing we can hope to affect is the political climate in the country once it develops it's bomb. But what do you think? EDIT: Sorry the poll is so limited, I was rushed. In fact, just ignore it. It's not really relevant. Where I had in my head I was going with this never quite materialized.

Not just lava flows. Ash falls work just as well.

Well, Portland is on the coast.

I don't think the difficulty was ever really with whites. It was with "whites" which is media-code for working-class-especially-southern-and-Appalachian-whites. The whiskey-on-a-Saturday-prayin'-on-a-Sunday crowd. Hicks, if you will. Hillbillies, rednecks, good-ol-boys. Lynard Skynard fans. I don't believe the Oregonians fit that demographic block, at least in stereotype. When I think of the Pacific northwest I picture Starbucks, salmon, and domestic terrorists (and I don't think they vote).

I've started a modest collection of vintage (60s-70s, before they stopped calling themselves Creationists) Creationist literature and its amusing how little their arguments change.

There was an article about the Creation Science Museum in the Metropulse that I found today. The guy's science isn't perfect, but if you'll disregard the one local reference you might get a chuckle out of it. It's a pretty good guide to what you'd expect too. http://www.metropulse.com/news/2008/may/14/thou-shalt-not-touch-exhibits/

At my high school, biology involved coloring and I hate coloring. Physics involves math, so chuck it out the window. So from easiest to hardest it was probably chemistry, biology, physics. As a subject I find biology easier, however, so reverse that with chemistry as you see fit. But I'm not a math guy and you seem to be, CrazyCo, so I suppose this is the inverse of what you should want. If I might make an off the wall and probably irrelevant comment, it seems like the better a math or physics class the easier it should be (to those who try), while the better a biology or history or social science class is the harder it should be (because it makes you think). It's easy to make a hard Calculus class or an easy American History, but the inverse seems somewhat rarer. But perhaps that's just me.

Maybe something else other than the gun scared the dog. Or maybe its just a crazy dog. Anecdotes like this are way too minimal to base something a sweeping as a the presence of abstract thought in dogs on.

What you're actually talking about is Multiregionalism vs. Out of Africa. These are two models for the emergence of anatomically modern humans, i.e. Homo sapiens, our species proper. Out-of-Africans propose that H. sapiens evolved exclusively in Africa and then spread out across the world replacing the other 'human' (hominid) species already on the continents of Europe (Neanderthals) and Asia (H. erectus) respectively. Multiregionalism proposes that modern humans involved in situ from populations of H. erectus in Africa, Asia, and Europe (sometimes including the Neanderthals, sometimes not) that interbred along the way. It cites as evidence similarities between modern Asians and Asian Homo erectus mostly. The weight of the genetic evidence supports of Out of Africa, but it's not infallible. Considering, however, the great antiquity of H. sapiens that have been found in Africa, the overly complex nature of Multiregionalism, and its basis in anatomical traits that have other explanations I and most anthropologists tend to reject it. It's fairly popular in China though for nationalistic reasons.

Why the dictionary says it! It must be the Natural Order of Things! "Marriages" exist in so many different forms in so many different cultures and on so many different bases, that definition is wrong on almost every point. This is the point where we, as a culture, have to decide if it would be better for us to change and innovate or better to stick with the "way things have been." It's more rational and reasonable to change, I would advance, but maybe continuity is more important. But I should note that "Marriage is between a man and a woman" is in itself a relatively new standard in our society. Not too long ago "Marriage was between a man and a woman of the same race."

And undermine all sorts of free trade efforts and hurt poor people all over the world. There's a nasty protectionist streak in the Democratic Party that needs to go if it is to ba a party of leadership in the future.

I read about Lula and Miguel Nicolelis's initiative to build science centers through the country for research and education and what-not in the Scientific American. That sounded pretty neat.

I live in America. Does that count? Or more specifically I live in the American South. Surely that counts. Y'all.

True. If you're not affecting the distribution of genes in a population in any significant way then evolution couldn't care less about you.

Yeah, I should be writing a paper about Nazis right now. Intentionalism vs. Functionalism. Oh, it wouldn't. I'm just saying. I like being pedantic, sorry.

That's not the scientific convention, as far as I know. Sexual selection is natural selection directly for reproductive fitness. Natural selection can also select indirectly for reproductive fitness by selecting traits that increase the ability to commit resources to baby-making. At the end of the day, though, if you're not reproducing, evolution couldn't care less about you. Perhaps the terminology doesn't work as I thought it did.

I'm still really not sure if it's the case that there really is no non-kin cooperation among chimpanzees. They live in large, non-kin groups, after all, and they cooperate an awful lot. Males hunt together, females watch each other's children. Female bonobos (who in any group are almost certainly non-kin as female apes leave their natal group at maturity) even cooperate politically in the fairly complicated task of keeping the males from dominating them. If this whole theory rests on the premise that there is no significant non-kin cooperation among other apes, then its got some pretty shaky foundations. I know there are primatologists who would argue with you until foamy in mouth over that. Here's just one abstract that I came across on Google that seems to be written by just such a primatologist: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0611449104v1?etoc Or perhaps just more prestige (read: reproductive success). In hunter-gather societies today (imperfect analogue though they are) resource distribution is pretty even. What is uneven is how many mates members of the group with higher or lower prestige take.

Democracy evolved organically in Western Europe. It also took a thousand years. I'm not sure it can truly make a repeat performance in any country outside of that cultural context without some level of imposition and without showing some cracks and needing some particular maintenance. In Turkey that means a liberal but coup-happy army. In much of the world it involves a lot of corruption. The imposition comes generally from the global order which is predominantly Western, capitalist, and democratic. That doesn't mean that every nation can be a perfect Western capitalist democracy without some cultural accommodation first, though. I don't know that I'm really arguing with you here with either of these comments. I'm just thinking aloud here. Or rather in type. Right, then a regime can't carry out the one thing that keeps it in power and fails. But consider how long Cuba's hung around without significant outside funding. I'm not talking about during the Cold War, then they got boatloads (literally, haha) of Soviet money. I'm talking about the 18 years since the tap went dry. That's a long time for a country people are braving an ocean on shipping palettes to get away from. Talking about armament was a good point. Sometimes people don't need to be economically empowered; plain old military empowerment will do. You see that a lot in history and I would absolutely agree its an important factor in the development of more participatory systems of government. Obviously I'm generalizing. Sometimes governments are just incompetent and lose power that way, and sometimes it will be to a group that brings about a democracy. You might consider what I'm talking about an ideal regime.