Vox Popoli

Charles Krauthammer begins the martial drumbeat… again:

Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons now being drawn from the 9/11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers to transit through, and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq War critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.

There may be no deus ex machina. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the “Great Satan” will have both nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or pre-emptive strike.

Both of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000 American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away — in Iraq.

Charade. The common wisdom is always a charade. Never forget that. It is looking more and more likely that total war in the region was the plan all along, and that an important part of that plan was to drag the American people into it step by unwilling step. I imagine we will not bother to declare this war, either.

I’m not saying that one can’t make a reasonable case for war with Iran, not at all. But the way in which the administration has gone about manipulating the situation from the start makes it clear that these neoconservative Wilsonian imperialists are the very last people who can be trusted to wage it.

Third of a third. (shakes head)

Some of you might wonder how I obtained the number indicating that governments kill 22 times more people than individual criminals. First, to obtain a maximum murder bodycount for the world, let’s trace the following train of logic.

1. The USA is one of the most violent countries in the world.

2. There were 17,298 murders in the USA in 2000.

3. The USA has 5 percent of the world’s population.

4. 20 times 17,298 is 345,960 murders per year.

5. 100 times 345,960 is 34.6 million, our maximum bodycount.

Remember, this assumes that criminals in populous countries such as France, China and Japan, where the murder rates are as low as 8.8 percent of the USA’s, are as murderous as in the USA. The 20th century government body count, on the other hand, is estimated to be 185 million. So, governments the world over are at least 5.3 times as likely to commit murder as private individuals.

However, this 34.6 million number is far too high. If we substituted the relatively peaceful Japan for the USA as a stand-in for the world average, we’d have a grand total of 3 million murders for the century, which would make governments 56.4 times more lethal. I haven’t spent a lot of time investigating international homicide statistics, but a Google search provides an estimate of 8.4 million global murders for the 20th century, which amounts to a global homicide rate of approximately 1.6 per 100,000 for the century. This is higher than China’s 1.3, much less the United Kingdom’s 0.9 or Japan’s 0.6. Dividing 185 million by 8.4 gives the aforementioned 22/1 ratio.

These are crude approximations, of course, as the number of people on the planet has changed dramatically from 1900 to 2000, Rummel’s numbers for the century only go to 1987, and most countries do not have reliable statistics for most of the period in question. But regardless of whether the correct multiple is 22 or 5.3, it should not be hard to see that strong government is worse than crime.

There is one death penalty I could support. Allowing the government to execute government employees who use the color of the law to commit murder and escape the consequences of their actions. I despise the militarized police, the DEA and the FBI. They are predators far worse than those they claim to be defending Americans against. Law-and-order government cheerleaders tend to be ignorant of the fact that an individual living in the 20th century was 22 times more likely to be murdered by a government employee than by a private criminal. No democidist ever obtained power by promising chaos; they always promise Recht und Ordnung to the foolish and short-sighted.

As soon as DEA agents realized they had killed an innocent Hispanic girl, they began a vigorous damage control effort. They closed the crime scene neighborhood and sent a team of agents to Nelly Villarreal’s house….

With the little girl lost and the community in an uproar, the DEA’s spin machine kicked into high gear. DEA spin doctors alleged Ashley had driven a darkened car without its headlights on, had accelerated toward agents, then backed up to try to hit them, and that agents shot at the car only in self-defense. Other sources floated ludicrous stories implying that Ashley, Danny, and Nelly were fronts for Joey’s alleged coke sales. Pro-DEA sources said Ashley “caused her own death” because she was “driving a car without a driver’s license.”

The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) Homicide Unit, Bexar County District Attorney’s office, and a team of DEA investigators from Washington, DC, began looking into the incident, but lawyers for the Villarreal family, along with journalists and civil liberties groups, say the investigation is being mishandled and carried out with an unreasonable degree of secrecy.

The DEA refuses to comment on the case, other than to disparage Ashley and her family while staunchly defending its agents’ actions.

All in the unholy name of the Drug War. As with Waco, they have to murder the children in order to save them. Since the government always protects its own, however heinous the the crime, it seems that there’s no alternative but private vengeance in matters such as these. I certainly won’t shed a tear if those DEA agents are hunted down, one by one, and exterminated like the insects they are.

And spare me the forgiveness lectures. Forgiveness is for those who repent, not those who insist that they were justified in their crimes and slur the murdered dead.

I have been outspoken in the past about my opposition to women in the military. I have, however, decided that my position was completely incorrect due to new details regarding the facts of women’s service in the military of which I was previously unaware. I apologize for my inappropriate male insensitivity, and furthermore, would also like to declare my support for a women’s draft.

Courtesy of Jonah Goldberg:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan “Be All You Can Be,” but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers’ dime.

The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction and nose jobs for free — something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills.

Ellis writes:

“Besides, the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics completely negates the Anthropic Principle and is currently more accepted by physicists than the Copenhagen Interpretation.”

Ah yes, those many worlds, for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence. I love how “scientists” so quickly resort to fantasy in order to escape the logical conclusions of science. Oh, but it’s more accepted by physicists, is it? I always understood science to be driven by replicable experiments, not opinion polls.

The significant word, of course, is “currently”. The same was true of the once-current state of archeology, which “proved” the Bible wasn’t true thanks to the historical absence of the Hittites and Assyrians – both peoples have since been found – and with the advent of Intelligent Design the secular faithful are now desperately cooking up untested theories, (otherwise known as hypotheses, first steps not to be confused with the whole of the method), which are then, ironically, blindly cited by the ignorant as proof of their non-belief. When a physicist demonstrates the existence of another world and his demonstration is replicated by others, I’ll take these arguments seriously. Otherwise, it’s not science, it’s just science fiction.

And here I thought it was the religious nuts who were supposed to be into baseless superstition. As of today, there is more evidence for God than there is for “many worlds”. And as for me, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that both exist outside our space-time continuum.

Remember how “scientists” such as Freud once convinced several generations that religion was unhealthy? Decades later, actual scientific studies demonstrated that quite the opposite was true. Christianity has nothing to fear from science, only those addicted to their dogma need worry. And that holds true for the atheist as well the Christian.

Mr. Farah writes:

In a way I would never have imagined possible, the news media have allowed themselves to be led by the Democrats’ disinformation campaign to the point where they have forgotten the story.

Pardon me, but the story remains Sandy Berger’s inexplicable actions. Why did he do it? Which papers did he pilfer? What was he trying to conceal? Whom was he trying to protect?

I hope the Justice Department is focused on these questions like a laser beam, but I sincerely doubt it. It’s been nine months and no FBI agent has even interviewed Berger yet. What’s that about? He should have been indicted, tried and convicted by now.

Sandy Berger is a lowly member of the bi-factional ruling party. Nothing will come of this, any more than one of the king’s courtiers would be punished for raping a peasant lass back in the day. There is no Law, there are only legal weapons wielded against the masses to keep them in their place.

I don’t know how anyone who pays any attention to the political process can think that there’s a genuine conflict between the heavy hitters of the Democratic-Republican Party. The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is far more convincing. Of course, it has the advantage of being genuine.

Okay, I just turned it in and I’m still laughing. I have the feeling that I’m going to be receiving some seriously irate emails on Monday. Any big fans of The Factor here?

I’m just curious… no reason….

Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack. At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called “stereotypical” behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane. “No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack,” an air marshal said. Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.

“It’s happening, and it’s a sad state of affairs,” a pilot said. A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

Not that I’ll be flying anytime soon, but here’s what I would recommend. If a group of Middle Eastern men start playing the bathroom game, round up a few weightlifters, ex-jocks and any other guys who look as if they can handle themselves. Then simply block off the bathrooms in precisely the same manner that the Arabs were. If a flight attendant complains, tell her that you understand that she may not be able to discriminate, but not being an employee, you and the boys are not bound by airline policy, and since she’s already demonstrated that the crew obviously has no intention of enforcing a no-loitering rules, you’re not going to pay attention to it either.

Better to get a lecture at your destination than never make it there. Is that discrimination? Sure it is. Deal with it. When blue-eyed Swedish blondes start committing terrorist acts around the world, we’ll hassle them too.

When it comes to investing, I’ve learned that I’m a strategist, not a tactician. My inability to pull the trigger and cut my losses when a trade loses 20 percent in the first two days means that even though some 75 percent of my short-term trades are positive, I lose overall.

Strategically, on the other hand, I’ve done quite well. I just sold off a two-year position in an equity that, in combination with currency appreciation, turned in a very nice 236 percent return. Its sister position, despite a nominal decline, still managed a 22.4 percent return. Not bad at all. And going into gold at 270 didn’t hurt either. So, let’s talk strategy.

The conventional wisdom has it that this is just another summer swoon, and that the markets will rise into the election. That’s possible, to be sure, as I am no prognosticator. My errant predictions of 15 months ago should suffice to prove otherwise. But, as there seems to be a certain amount of interest, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the current situation.

What I got wrong, I think, was partially due to my failure to think the Elliott Wave concept all the way through. The people at EWI tend to look closer at the charts than at the calendar, and I never stopped to consider the following basic point: If Intermediate Wave (1) took 640 trading days from March 2000 to October 2002, how could anyone expect Wave (2) to be complete in March 2003. That’s six months, about 125 trading days, far too short to be a reasonable countertrend to a 640-day wave. It is, in fact, close to the MINIMUM possible time-relationship at 19 percent. Based on the historical averages, projecting a 1280-day countertrend wave would have been as reasonable.

Is it possible that we have now seen the top of Wave (2)? The March 5th high for the S&P 500 this year marks 402 trading days from the end of Wave (1), or 62.8 percent of the time. In those 402 days, it rebounded back up to 75 percent of its peak. The QQQ hit its high earlier, on January 20th, marking 322 days of rally, which means that it rebounded to 32 percent (from 16 percent) in half of Wave (1)’s time.

We are told that Wave (3) is usually the big one, but for the sake of conservative argument, let’s assume that it is identical in length and performance to Wave (1). This would bring us to expect a bottom at the end of July 2006, with the S&P 500 at 580, the Dow at 6800 and the QQQ at 6.50. Sound impossible? I don’t think anyone expected to see the Cubes under twenty only two-and-a-half years after it hit 120 either.

If we did see the crest of Wave (2) a few months back, then we can compare how the decline so far compares to our expected down wave. In the case of the S&P 500, it’s declined 9.4 percent in 14.5 percent of our projected 640 days. The QQQ has declined 13.3 percent in 20 percent of the time. This could indicate a) nothing if I’m off-base, or, if I’m strategically correct, b) the speed of the decline is going to pick up pace at some point in the relatively near future.

The SPX/VIX ratio tends to support the latter theory. Small crashes of 20 percent in a month have tended to take place when this ratio is in excess of 80. Yesterday, when the morning rally peaked, that ratio hit 80.24 for the third time since June 23rd. Technicians will have no doubt noted that the three major equity markets have all now broken through the support of their 200-day moving averages for the first time since April 14, 2003.

In any case, time will tell.

“I want to report that I think I have solved a major problem in theoretical physics,” announced [Stephen] Hawking as he described his solution to the black hole information paradox.

This paradox, ironically, stems from Hawking’s own work. In the 1970s he proved that black holes lose mass by emitting radiation and eventually evaporate altogether. But this conflicted with the laws of quantum physics, which state that information about what fell into the black hole can never be completely wiped out. Hawking previously argued that the intense gravitational fields inside the black hole were unravelling the laws of quantum mechanics, possibly sending the information shooting off into other universes. Now he thinks the information simply leaks out back into our own Universe.

Hawking explains the implications. “I’m sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes.

And, incidentally, there’s no reason to believe those other universes exist, as much as those made uncomfortable by the Anthropic Principle might wish them to. This isn’t to say that they don’t, only that there’s less scientific evidence for other universes than there is for intelligent design.

Speaking of science fiction, here’s one of my reader’s peeves. A new principle is no sooner discovered/conceived when the intrepid hero can suddenly use it to leap around all space and time, or create a weapon from it. When has the move from the conceptual to the practical ever taken place in time measured in months, much less minutes?