World's not gonna end just yet, Chicxulub willing...

I loved P.J. O'Rourke's book All the Trouble in the World , and this Wired article is more in that same vein:

Religious zealots hardly have a monopoly on apocalyptic thinking. Consider
some of the environmental cataclysms that so many experts promised were
inevitable. Best-selling economist Robert Heilbroner in 1974: “The outlook for
man, I believe, is painful, difficult, perhaps desperate, and the hope that can
be held out for his future prospects seem to be very slim indeed.” Or
best-selling ecologist Paul Ehrlich in 1968: “The battle to feed all of humanity
is over. In the 1970s ["and 1980s" was added in a later edition] the world will
undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in
spite of any crash programs embarked on now … nothing can prevent a substantial
increase in the world death rate.” Or Jimmy Carter in a televised speech in
1977: “We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by
the end of the next decade.”

Predictions of global famine and the end of oil in the 1970s proved
just as wrong as end-of-the-world forecasts from millennialist priests. Yet
there is no sign that experts are becoming more cautious about apocalyptic
promises. If anything, the rhetoric has ramped up in recent years. Echoing the
Mayan calendar folk, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday
Clock one minute closer to midnight at the start of 2012, commenting: “The
global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent
catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere.”

I particularly like Ridley's description of humanity as a "moving target" and strongly encourage you to read the whole article.

A lack of historical (even recent) perspective bedevils efforts to compete with the hectoring Luddites who would hold us back. The "climate change" crowd for example will ignore all "inconvenient" information which would detract from their agenda of dismantling our technological society. Points of No Return are routinely passed without undue incident, increasingly destructive weather events are taken out of context of the development which has occur ed in that area since the last "worst" hurricane, flood, tornado, etc.

I'm picking on the Warmists again, but in this case it's because they encompass all of the goals of Greenpeace, The Club of Rome and all the rest of them, e.g. there are too many people, and bundle that with the dogma of CO2 as the worst thing since dioxin. The problem with all of these people is that they only have influence in First World countries, places where the birth rate has already plummeted, in most cases below replacement rate and what industry that remains has cleaned up far past where it was even during the Acid Rain era of the 1980s.

The hope of this planet to absorb the ongoing population growth of the Third world and the pollution of the Second is the technological base of the First. Technological advances require prosperity, prosperity requires not being straightjacketed by red tape and excessive taxation. If the world does end due to something less catastrophic than the sun exploding, it will probably be something that sufficiently advanced tech and production capacity could have at least mitigated.

There are PLENTY of "world-ending" bolide (asteroid) impact examples to choose from, so let's take the Cretaceous dinosaur killer as a case study. As things stand, one of these comes our way we're fucked; what could change the odds? Enter Planetary Resources, or other private sector asteroid mining outfit. Yay! Capitalism will save us all out of the goodness of its' altruism, right?

Of course not. What they would however do in their self interest is develop the means to get to asteroids whipping around our system and then take them apart. The tech to do that will also include a highly motivated system to find and track NEOs, the essential first step in averting a bolide catastrophe. In warfare it's "Find, fix, strike" and the principles apply here too.

It is an inescapable fact that motivated people accomplish much more than plodding clock punchers, and the best way to motivate most people is money. Making money off of asteroid mining will require the same tech that one would need to have a chance of averting a major asteroid strike. It may also require large thermonuclear devices, currently held as a monopoly by governments, so there is certainly room for Public and Private to work together here.

None of this matters to the malcontent misanthropes who would have us all living in huts, and then complain about all of the trees we cut down to build and heat them. Well fuck them; the rest of us would like to avoid the "nasty brutish and short" lives of our ancestors and we need to fight those idiots to keep things moving forward. After all, if Mankind is to survive

For all but a brief moment near the dawn of history, the word 'ship'
will mean simply - 'spaceship.' (Arthur C. Clarke)

Mamelukes out, stupid politics in (as always)

I saw this coming but I hoped to be wrong, and "here we go" as said previously. The Army could still stand up and run a counter-coup against Mursi, but the moral is to the material as three is to one. All of the moral (morale) is on the side of the Brotherhood, the Army seems to have lost its' mojo.


Ok, what else is happening right now? The Olympics (London 2012) wrapped up yesterday without anything blowing up, so I'll count that as a win for our side. Syria is dragging out longer than Libya did earlier this year/last year which shows you what a difference it makes not having a major power (Ok, the USA) throwing in on one side. It's turning into a three or four-sided proxy war with the CIA arming some of the rebels, the Saudis et al arming the Islamist ones, Iran backing the Assad regime and the Turks worrying about the increasingly autonomous-looking Kurdish area along their border.

Closer to home, the low and high points of Canadian politics there will soon be a Provincial election in Quebec, and the Parti Quebecois (PQ) is promising to crack down on the use of English in Quebec. There are regressive forces everywhere so we can only hope that the PQ don't get back in, but we've heard this tune before and survived.

Also with Canadian news, this time with an international bent, the Europeans are trying to get us to pony up cash to bail out their poor relations. PM Harper is so far holding firm on the "no" to that and I hope that line is maintained. I see no reason whatsoever that anyone, let alone countries with no direct connection to the "Eurozone" should spend their taxpayers' money bailing out people who couldn't be bothered to balance a budget.

I thought I had more on all of this, and certainly if I was discussing all of this with people I'd have more to say, but I'm not so I don't. So There.

Better the devil you know...

Completely and totally predictable, inevitable even:

"There were always Christians in Qusayr -- there were around 10,000 before the war," says Leila, the matriarch of the Khouri clan. Currently, 11 members of the clan are sharing two rooms. They include the grandmother, grandfather, three daughters, one husband and five children. "Despite the fact that many of our husbands had jobs in the civil service, we still got along well with the rebels during the first months of the insurgency." The rebels left the Christians alone. The Christians, meanwhile, were keen to preserve their neutrality in the escalating power struggle. But the situation began deteriorating last summer, Leila says, murmuring a bit more before going silent.

"We're too frightened to talk," her daughter Rim explained, before mustering the courage to continue. "Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us," she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. "They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away," she says. "We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed."

This is about Syria of course, but it can be any Muslim-majority country anywhere in the world as soon as the non-Muslim minorities lose protection. Assad, being from a religious minority himself was the only protection the Christians, Alawis and Druze had from the influx of Salafist idiots who pop up like mushrooms as soon as repressive but stable regimes start falling. Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, now Syria are seeing the same pattern as al Queda and others rush to exploit the ensuing power vacuums resultant from the respective regime changes.

Solutions? Bullets and Hellfires again I'm afraid, as there is no reasoning with fanatics. The Americans will grease the skids for the jihadis as they have since Iran in 1979 with lamentably predictable results for anyone who doesn't want to live in a dystopian throwback to the imagined "golden age of Islam" of the 6-7th C; in practical terms "the Stone Age" as mentioned in the linked Spiegel article.

I previously suggested setting up border enclaves for the Christians and Druze, and the Golan Heights would serve this purpose well. If Israel will offer citizenship to any non-Muslims who want to re-settle there, they will have a chance to do-over the South Lebanon buffer zone to protect themselves from Hezbollah and whatever Syria metastasizes to post-Assad. It also would strengthen Israel's de-facto annexation of Golan, and in the zero-sum world of the Middle East that which makes Israel stronger makes worse groups (pretty much everyone in the immediate neighbourhood) weaker.

Of course I don't know anything about Muslims so it's all paranoid right-wing fantasy that they drive out everyone who won't knuckle under to them, right? Sorry Genie, the real world isn't what they teach in school these days (if it ever was, to be fair) and Anglo-Saxon males and/or the USA are not the authors of all the ills of the world.

And the Truth shall see you fired

First of all, unless I name somebody specifically I am talking in generalities about groups of people. Groups of people are stupid, and anything I say about them may not apply to individual members of those groups.

Secondly, I will not deny "inconvenient" truth and I will admit when I have been PROVEN wrong. I will not roll over to group think or political correctness, but the real world has ways of putting the screws to you to at least shut you up. With that intro I will wade into this "Wired" article about elements of the US armed forces and Islam.

FACT: "Islam" means "submission", in this case to the will of Allah as promulgated by a certain Mohammad in the 6th Century AD.

FACT: "People of the Book" e.g. Christians and Jews (ha!) have limited rights in Islamic society, such as being subject to the jizya, or poll tax and a proscription on building or even repairing churches or synagogues. All of these restrictions are calculated to make it more attractive for you to convert. If you're a straight-out "pagan" it's simply conversion, slavery or death.

It's in the book, I'm not making it up. If all of this sounds like how you'd like to live, feel free to move to some Muslim country and enjoy. You might want to look into the local interpretation of Sharia before you move though...

Another fact before I jump into the deep end here: most major religions contain all sorts of barbaric old-school ideas which have no place in a modern educated and advanced society. What sets Islam apart is the "mission from God" to make the entire world Submit to it. Again, in the book(s).

Old news of course and a well-trod path here at AotF. However there is an institutional policy in many Western governments to suppress the facts as they relate to Islam and its' (and by extension its' followers) intentions.

A threat can be defined by both intention and capability. If someone intends you harm but is a quadriplegic with no influence, they are not a threat. Intention with capability is always a threat, and 1.4 billion or so self-identified people who to some extent or another think that everyone else is wrong and should convert or else could indeed be considered a threat to, well, everyone else.

Of course, most people are not particularly hard-core about what they believe and Muslims are no exception. For this reason I consider that some of the tactics discussed are a bit extreme under present conditions, e.g. using Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki as historical precedents for dealing with Mecca and Medina.

This was of course within the context of an exercise specifically designed to get people talking about what's really out there instead of the "see-no-Islam" policy of the US government. It's not the first time I've seen the idea of nuking Mecca and it won't be the last. It's a fantastically bad idea under anything less than an apocalyptic Jihad-Gotterdammerung against everyone else, where you'd better be prepared to kill over 1 billion people to neutralize that threat.

The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance, and some simple immigration policy changes could defend SUPERIOR Western civilization (yes, I said it) against creeping Islamicization of our Protestant Work-Ethic-derived societies. It doesn't mean accept nobody from Muslim countries, just screen them effectively for their willingness and ability to adapt to the way we do things. For the record this precept applies to everyone else too; what we need to screen out are ALL of the extremists.

Islam as a religion, even more so as an ideology, is a threat to human progress. Hell, organized religion in general is, but nothing else is so violent about it these days. People don't critique Islam because idiots threaten to kill them for "heresy" (and these are not mere threats), or less lethally they can be fired or demoted by panicky PC types. I read through the .pdf I linked to and nothing there is untrue, as inflammatory as some of it may be. If your only defence against an idea is to suppress it, guess what; you're in the wrong, not the people stirring things up.

The only way to deal with "true believers" of any stripe is to kill them. Avoidably killing a lot of other people while doing it though is both morally unacceptable and counter-productive. Accordingly the current assassination-by-drone-and-Spec Ops squaddies is the best maintenance policy, keeping the leadership off-balance and surgically removing the most pressing problem children. No nukes required, and even bringing that up undermines your message, allowing you to be written off as a crank. On the other hand if it ever comes to that, well, at least somebody is thinking about how to do it.

The enemy of the friend of my enemy is my friend, right?

Right at the top of this blog is my rationale for its' existence, and here is a classic case of refusing to learn from history:

On his campaign website, Romney criticizes Obama for reaching out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past but stops short of calling for any direct action to force Assad from power such as directly arming the opposition, as his surrogates like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are demanding, or establishing "safe zones" for the Syrian opposition, as many of his campaign's foreign policy advisors are calling for.

Romney's official position (or lack thereof) makes more sense to me than McCain's idea since we've been down this road before and McCain should know better. I have yet to see any realistic assessment of what may come out of Syria's "civil war" that will be a distinct improvement for the USA or anyone else whose interests jive with mine. I am reminded of a similar situation in the 1980s when it was decided (in concert with the Saudis) to arm people resisting someone we didn't like, and that has been biting the West in the ass ever since.

Yes, Afghanistan. Syria is a train wreck mishmash of people who don't get along, and a lot of them don't like "us" either. The CIA is involved again, oh happy day, "vetting" who they give weapons to. Assad is using attack helicopters now; will the CIA decide to hand out some Stingers again to help the rebels?

More recent and likely more analogous is Iraq. The Yanks didn't like Saddam (not much to like, for sure) so they regime-changed his ass. Let's look at how that worked out: nearly 40,000 Coalition (mostly American) casualties (Blood) and somewhere around $2 Trillion in financial cost (Treasure). This makes no mention of Iraqi casualties, the "cleansing" of the few remaining Christians in Baghdad, internal and external displacement of Sunnis and widespread destruction of infrastructure. All of that got the Americans none of the oil revenue (enter: China) that might have underwritten giving the Iraqis a "better" government.

Yes, it would be nice to put a stick in the spokes of Iran and by extension Hezbollah by removing Bashar & Co. but would it be worth it in the long term? Doing things half-arsed gives you Libya as it is post-NATO intervention, the full monty gives you Iraq or Afghanistan.

In the bigger picture it's not much of the Americans' concern, as there are plenty of regional powers (esp. Turkey) capable of setting up the "safe areas" or putting the coup de grace to the Assad dynasty. Supporting America's friends at this time is a better use of resources than fighting on behalf of someone who has a better-than-average chance of turning on you later on.

There are plenty of capable friendly-ish countries (Turkey, Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi and Jordan) with skin in this game. Playing this one cagey is appropriate, but Romney needs to be as clear as the circumstances permit about what he is prepared to do about it. After that be prepared to be flexible 'cause things can always change...

Guns don't murder people, a**holes murder people.

There's a lot going on this week, but one of the big international stories is the "Dark Knight" shooting rampage in Aurora Colorado last week. North of the border there was another gang-banger shooting in Scarborough albeit with a smaller body count, but there are important differences between the two ( i.e. lone maniac vs. sloppy and reckless thugs). I'll look at the common element, guns, availability and use thereof.

Gun control comes up as predictably as the sun every time there's a mass shooting, and I see no reason that will change. There are of course many other ways to kill someone besides a gun, and explosives do a very effective job of it either in concert with or without firearms. As a thought experiment I'll come up with a simple way to recreate the Aurora attack (I will not help immortalize that murderer's name) if guns weren't available to him.

The 'perp's apartment was rigged with explosives, so a remote-detonated car bomb was the least risky way to kill and maim a bunch of people. Want something more personal? He could have made a bunch of pipe bombs and gone into the theatres lobbing them into the middle of the crowd. Neither of these scenarios require access to any specialized or highly controlled items or substances and could have done as much or more damage.

My point? You can't ban enough stuff to keep lunatics from flipping out and going on a spree. Likewise, even in places where it is most certainly illegal to be carrying a weapon around nothing can stop someone who has one (legally owned or otherwise) from doing so. It is a matter of near certainty that all of the gang shootings in Toronto (home of very restrictive handgun laws) were perpetrated with illegal firearms.

My answer? Mandatory concealed carry for everyone with a clean record (capable of handling a pistol) might help to cut these things short when they happen. Otherwise, accept that bad things happen and try to minimize the occurrences and/or your exposure. After that, it's all luck to not be in the path of the rare but inevitable acts of entropic violence that will erupt no matter what the "authorities" try to do to prevent it.

Allies of Inconvenience

I read yesterday about the Tuareg in northern Mali splitting with the al-Queda shitheads who have hijacked their independence campaign, but I can't find the article online so you'll have to take my word for it. It should be easy to verify if you take the time, but in any event events with the Caliphate Clowns are following their now historical pattern.

They come in, ban everything even remotely fun, smash anything that looks like someone put some effort into making it (idolatry!) and piss everyone off. This was done in Afghanistan (Taliban) Iraq (al Queda) and to some extent wherever the Islamic hardcases reach critical mass (Saudi does a reasonable approximation). The program doesn't stop with that however.

In comes the "pissing everyone off" part, and the Tuareg have now realized what sort of tiger they were riding. The Tuareg are too tough to be "eaten" by the likes of al-Queda (much better men have tried), and the refugees streaming away from the jihadis are also doing their approval polls with their feet. Conditions are being set for the one thing that weakens any sort of insurgency: it gets too strong and concentrated for its' own good.

If you lose your ability to "swim as a fish in the sea of the people" (Mao) the big guns can take you out. The Tuareg rapprochement with the international community and the southern Malians vis a vis their autonomy expectations ("like Quebec" seems to be the new version) sets the stage for somebody (USA?) to come in and kick some al-Queda ass.

The tag "unintended consequences" alludes to the position the Tuareg now find themselves in, but more so to the less proximate cause of the current Mali shenanigans, the West's regime change in Libya. The Tuareg are bandits and have been completely outgunned by the jihads loading up in Libya and rolling over the border to set up another "Islamic Republic". If we now need to go in there and kill the latter we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Libyan Army's arsenal has scattered to the four winds, mostly ending up moving through North Africa to various Salafist organizations. Mali, Egypt, and Gaza, possibly Tunisia and Algeria too will have a lot more guns and bombs, maybe even missiles. I know what needs to be done here and I'm sure I'm not alone, but we'll see who steps in.