Cuz We Said So

Saddam Hussein is Dead

Fox News Channel say Al Arabiya is reporting that  Saddam Hussein is dead, hanged minutes ago in Baghdad. FNC is working on official confirmation.

More details from Al Arabiya... Saddam was executed between 5:30 and 6:00 am, Baghdad time.  There were still and video cameras present to document the event.  Celebrations are now underway in Sadr city.

Sic semper tyrannis indeed. 

UPDATE: Captain Ed says, "Unfortunately, no, although it's certainly an appealing thought."  Well, it's good to have goals.

Mort Kondrake on Saddam's Transfer to the Iraqis

On FNC a few minutes ago: "I hope we transfer Saddam to the Iraqis at the foot of the gallows, with lots of video cameras on, because--he and his henchmen stole billions of dollars.  ...How many millions does it take to bribe someone in the Iraqi interior ministry to spirit him away, or pass him a cyanide pill..."  That had occurred to me as well; it wouldn't be the first escape, unfortunately.

Jonah Goldberg on Rosie v. Donald

My thoughts exactly:  “Is there any way we could get them to battle to the death?“

Airport Insecurity

Ah, the death of our cherished illusions:

France has been rocked by its own version of the Anglo-Saxon journalist trick of by-passing airport security after a television crew was able to smuggle explosives onto Air France and Delta Air Lines flights.

The investigative journalism series Pièces à Conviction ("evidence") is airing a film made by undercover reporter Laurent Richard tonight on airport security. In it Richard, accompanied by security expert Christophe Naudin, is reportedly filmed on board an Air France Airbus A320 family aircraft to Nice carrying de-activated Semtex explosive and a detonator in his hand baggage.

On a second occasion, the pair carried two utility knives, similar to those used by the 11 September 2001 hijackers, aboard a Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 bound for New York JF Kennedy airport. The television footage reportedly shows security staff looking away as the weapons show clearly on x-ray screeners.

Reaction in France has been damning, with commentators in newspapers and television urging an immediate review of security measures at French airports.

Unfortunately—and believe me, I think it's really unfortunate, since I fly almost every week—this is nothing new.  There has been repeated confirmation since the formation of the TSA that airport security is ineffective when tested, and I see no reason to think this will change until after another successful attack on aviation.

Effective security screening is very difficult if its possible at all, and both more expensive and time consuming than it appears anyone currently involved is willing to provide.  Meanwhile, we’ve gone back to sleep, and the focus is once again on making screening convenient, not effective.

Susan and Joseph Trento, authors of Unsafe at any Altitude, were on the Glenn Beck programs back in October, and Joseph Trento offered this:

We’ve spent billions and billions on a new federal agency that just doesn’t work; it’s totally ineffective.  Internal testing by TSA’s own screening cops, the people who actually police their own screeners, show they’re about half as effective as the old private screeners.

…Once top level source in TSA told us the whole TSA system is basically eye candy.  It was designed to make us all feel good, and feel like there was security in place, but none of it’s real security.

The formation of the TSA was a ill-conceived idea born of partisan in-fighting and a Congress that wanted to appear to be “doing something”, no matter how stupid or useless, in the wake of 9/11.  As it stands, I think airline screening is a deterent and a reassurance to the flying public, nothing more.  Thanks go to the press, as usual, for being intent on undermining even that small value.

(Laurent Richard link via DefenseTech.)

Nifong Accused of Misconduct by NC Bar

According to the AP, the North Carolina bar has filed ethics charges against Mike Nifong, the DA in the Duke lacrosse case.  (Via Drudge.)

Hussein Family Reunion

NBC is reporting Saddam Hussein may spend New Year’s Eve with his sons:

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, sentenced to death for his role in 148 killings in 1982, will have his sentence carried out by Sunday, NBC News reported Thursday. According to a U.S. military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, Saddam will be hanged before the start of the Eid religious holiday, which begins this Sunday.  The hanging could take place as early as Friday, NBC’s Richard Engel reported.

I have, in the past, described myself unseriously as a “death penalty enthusiast,” because there are some crimes for which I believe death is the only just consequence.  There is, however, the separate, important, and often hotly contested question of whether a given legal system (or any legal system) can determine guilt with sufficient accuracy to allow the just administration of this ultimate punishment.In the case of the new Iraqi government, I have little faith that it can be trusted to do much of anything, let alone fairly try its most notorious prisoner.  It appears to be struggling, ineffective in many ways and awash in corruption and sectarian prejudice.  It is therefore difficult to feel good about the judgements that come out of its largely untested judiciary.  On the other hand, Saddam’s complicity in monstrous crimes is so well documented at this point that I wouldn’t have been bothered much if he had simply been summarily executed.  It will be interesting to see if the verdict is carried out as soon as NBC is hearing.

Minimum Argument

Russell:

We've discussed the concept of minimum wages here, how they are perhaps bad (if you hate the poor) or good (if you don't).

Really? The way I remember it, we've actually discussed whether minimum wages are perhaps bad (if you have nothing against the poor) or good (if you want to feel good about yourself while hurting some of them)?  I kid, I kid.

Okay, well.  Unfortunately, verifying the economics of the minimum wage experimentally is difficult, and its made more difficult still because the issue is so highly politicized. If the conventional economic model applies, however, the basic question is this: is it good public policy to fire the least qualified, least employable low income workers and put the money you save toward bringing the wages of the workers still employed up to the new minimum wage?

How would you study, anyway?

Scott Adams: “I have to think that of all the tests you could fail, a gender test would be the most embarrassing.”

Was This Post Predestined?

For those of you just joining us, Russell and I have been discussing the contention by Scott Adams (and assorted philosophers, over the years) that there is no such thing as free will.  Russell replied to Adams' argument here, and said, among other things:

To say that the choice of getting out of bed is a function of those algorithms is precisely the same thing as saying it is a function of free will. The will is the algorithm!

I think Adams is defining "free will" as the ability to choose a path inconsistent with the predestination of the universe. I don't agree. I think that the thing we think of as free will is part of the predestination of the universe.

I suspect that part of why people argue so bitterly against Adams’ premise is that the definition Russell is proposing is somehow ultimately unsatisfying.  After all, if Adams is right, every decision you've ever made, every thought you've ever had, every word in your every conversation, right down to the timing of the pauses between the words, was determined entirely by either the position and velocity of the matter in the universe billions of years before you were born, the random variations introduced by quantum mechanics, or both—and by nothing else.  Every other factor that appears to contribute to your decisions actually falls within the scope of these two controlling factors. 

Without taking a position on whether Adams is right, since I remain without an opinion one way or the other, how would labeling the decisions made under those constraints be different from, for example, saying that a dropped basketball exercises free will when it chooses to bounce?  Certainly we, unlike a basketball, are conscious*, but under Adams' model, what we consciously decide was as predetermined at the beginning of time as everything else in the universe.  We contribute no more to the outcome of our decisions, or any part of our lives, then the ball contributes to where it comes to rest.  How could calling that "free will" not render the term meaningless?

————
*I propose we stipulate for the sake of argument that basketballs are not, in fact, conscious, and that we are.

Merry Christmas from Cuz We Said So!!

Happy holidays, from our families to yours...