This incident has unfortunately demonstrated that the difficulty in security in India does not stem from a lack of bravery, but from underequipping and probably also insufficient training (which is just another form of equipping, really) of its security forces. These two gentleman were brave enough to hold the line, but they shouldn't have had to rely on bravery alone.

As I described in this earlier post, the major arms distributors -- the U.S., China, and Russia -- didn't attend the original conference and are highly unlikely to be signatories to the treaty. However, as Thomas Nash from the Cluster Munition Coalition points out, getting this many countries to sign on, including NATO members, will help to preclude the use of cluster weapons in future operations:

"What you are going to see is a comprehensive stigmatisation of the weapon," he says.

"You're going to see this weapon becoming a thing of the past."

Lacking its own facilities to decommission these munitions, the United Kingdom has contracted with Nammo Demil to destroy 28 million bomblets. Pleasingly, the bomblets are largely recyclable:

The bomblets are extracted, the fuses are cut off and the copper inners are removed.

The copper, aluminium and other metals are sold for scrap. The packaging for the bomblets is burnt for heating.

This is a hopeful sign for the future.

BBC article

As an aside, I'd appreciate it if there were more overlap between avid support for the second amendment and avid support for the first. After all, the point of the guns is not having guns, but keeping government from becoming an entity independent of and in suppression of the people. The second supports the first, and without the first, there's not much value in the second.

This week, Representative Paul Broun said this:

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

There is, perhaps, some irony in a white guy from Georgia comparing a black man from Illinois to Hitler.

After making the comparison, Broun disingenuously said he wasn't making the comparison. Notably, despite his fears of Obama-lead Brown Shirts marching through our streets, the program Obama is actually suggesting was for an emphasis on overseas, civilian-based security services. In other words, as many of our own officers have noted, and as our allies have observed, the United States military is not a police force. It's not supposed to be. Our soldiers do their best to help with rebuilding and securing Iraq and Afghanistan, but fundamentally, it would be better to have properly trained, nonmilitary personnel handling many of these jobs.

But nonetheless, pandering to what he no doubt views as his core demographic -- whether that's true or not -- Broun has misrepresented our next president's remarks and has chosen to spend his time in scared guy fantasy land, where he can pretend to be Tom Hanks in his own personal Saving Private Ryan.

I'll let my search results just now in looking for Broun's congressional page have the last word:

AOL article

"We're hearing now more talk of additional taxpayer bailouts ... for companies, for corporations, perhaps even states now who may be standing in line with their hands out despite, perhaps, some poor management decisions on their part that helped tank our economy," she said.

"Republicans can help shore [these sectors of the economy] up without getting any more addicted to opium, other people's money. We need to have a rational discussion. What and when is enough enough?"

To that, what can we say except $1.87 of Federal spending into Alaska for each $1 paid in Federal taxes by Alaska.

So there are states standing in line for Federal handouts? Shameful.

CNN article

Now, reportedly spurred on by the disastrous outcome of Georgia's recent attempt to rein in South Ossetia, the two nations involved have signed a new agreement to "facilitate the improvement of the situation in the South Caucasus and establishment of stability and security in the region through a political settlement of the conflict based on the principles and norms of international law and the decisions and documents adopted in this framework". Those are the words of Dmitry Medvedev, who helped broker the agreement.

The government of Azerbaijan is surely very aware of the fate of the last government that challenged one of Russia's pet ethnic groups, and wants to avoid being the next Georgia. At the same time, out-and-out ceding of Nogorno-Karabakh represents a loss of one fifth of Azerbaijan, which also seems unacceptable, especially as it will further disrupt the already discontinuous structure of the country by punching a big hole in the center.

BBC article

So, if abstinence-only is a bust, what can we do?

In a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, Rand researchers Chandra et al find that teens exposed to very high levels of sexual content on television are significantly more likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. Specifically, those in the 90th percentile for amount of sexual content watched on television were twice as likely to end up involved in a pregnancy as those in the 10th percentile. Although this study doesn't show causation, it does point to a potential problem and mirror other concerns about how sexual behavior is modeled in the media.

Note that the point is not necessarily "sex bad," but rather "sex portrayal bad." If you catalog the sexual material you've been exposed to on television recently, how much of it involves the use of safer sex items (e.g. condoms) and sexual interactions between healthy, long-term adult couples, and how much of it involves wild, seemingly spur-of-the-moment sex between people who don't really know each other? In the wake of a recent proposal to alter how sex education is done in England, much discussion ensued about how lower teen pregnancy rates in many Western European countries probably have a lot to do with open, healthy discussion of sexuality between teens and their parents -- giving the teens good models to work from.

He thinks the real problem is cultural - teens wanting to lose their virginity fast and sociable girls having nothing to lose by getting pregnant.

Professor van Loon says in Holland parents are more likely to spend time talking to their children and the emphasis is more on the romantic side of sex.

Rand summary of the study

A lot of my friends in the USA are posting things like, "If you don't plan to vote today, PLEASE vote. Every vote is important. Just vote."

If you do vote, you'll probably just ruin it for the rest of us.

I recommend watching through to the end, where Dr. Snyderman refuses to back down when Matt Lauer suggests that the belief that vaccines cause autism is "controversial." As Dr. Snyderman correctly points out, it is not controversial -- the evidence says that vaccines do not cause autism, no matter how many people believe that in the absence of any evidence. Much more can be found on this topic elsewhere, but the short version is that those who promote the idea of vaccines causing autism have moved the goalposts several times to accommodate their beliefs, even as the evidence remains the same.

The suggestion that there's some kind of vast "vaccine industry" at work manipulating results is especially noxious, as vaccines are notoriously poor money-making propositions for a pharma firm (wouldn't you rather make an erectile dysfunction drug and make serious bank?). And, as infectious disease doctor Mark Crislip points out, if it was all about the money, you'd let these epidemic diseases run wild. After all, why get paid once to vaccinate some kid for polio when you can hook them in for a lifetime of expensive care once it paralyzes them?

Obviously, that "logic" is not at work in the real world, where pediatricians encourage vaccinations precisely because these childhood diseases are so devastating.

Dr. Snyderman is arguing from evidence, evidence for the safety and efficacy of vaccines, evidence that keeps popping up in well-designed research studies, including this one from a former proponent of the autism-MMR vaccine link, who actually tested her ideas and found that there was no support for that association.

It's been suggested that vaccines are the single most important discovery of modern medical science. It makes little sense to trade those in for pandemic disease and a life of hardship.

The Today Show article

The concept of a progressive tax is labeled, in dire terms, as socialist, even though those who are being sold on the idea of avoiding this "spreading of wealth" are often those who benefit the most from it.

But wait. Let's put aside all ideas of reappropriating wealth in society for the moment, and consider something else.

We are at war.

Two years ago, I took a look at the American history of taxation during war. At the time, George Bush was pushing for his faith-based tax cuts -- I call it "faith-based" not as a dig at religion, but because there's no empirical basis for believing that cutting taxes, especially cutting them for the already wealthy, will actually promote the wellbeing of the economy in general. More to the point, however, cutting taxes in the middle of a war seemed like a bad idea, so I went and looked at the history (again, see the link).

During World War II, the marginal tax rate went as high as 94%. That is, the wealthiest of Americans had the upper portion of their earnings almost completely taxed. During the Korean war, that rate went as high as 87%.

Now that we're at war again -- and it's a big one, with hundreds of thousands of troops committed across multiple fronts -- our highest marginal tax rate is 33%. At the same time, our military is falling behind in fixing and replacing equipment as we attempt to fight a massive war "on the cheap." Nonetheless, a number of Republican senators blocked a proposal to put aside more funding for military reset in July of last year.

What's going on here? Are we so afraid of supporting ourselves as a group that we can't put aside funding to fight a multiple-front war? Are we that much worse than our forebears, that we can't pay more in a time of need?

The rational choice in support of our national defense right now is to pay more, especially those of us who can afford it. If paying more to armor up our soldiers is socialism, then I guess I'm on board.

Ron Paul -- For those who never got over Ron leaving the Republican primary. However, you might not want to cast your vote here, because Ron Paul has apparently endorsed...

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution party, who believes the Constitution is not just a good idea, but given by divine providence. I'm afraid I can't get behind that, but it's nice to see that Chuck has debated...

Ralph Nader, who is running as the Peace and Freedom candidate, leaving...

Cynthia McKinney as the Green candidate. Note that of the parties on this list, the Greens are by far (to my mind) the most legitimate, having made many gains at the regional and local levels, even if they can't yet crack the presidency. From here, we go on to...

Alan Keyes, here to promote a return to true conservativism. If, on the other hand, you want honest to God real socialism (none of that namby-pamby "normal income taxes" stuff), we have...

James Harris of the Socialist Workers Party. I didn't realize we actually had a Socialist anything party. Finally, we can go to two rather different takes on wild freedom with...

Frank Moore, who advocates universal minimum income and universal healthcare, and...

Bob Barr of the Libertarian party, who doubtless has succeeded entirely on his own with no help from anyone.

Being less facetious, I think there is a legitimate space in the electoral market for parties with relatively sane party lines that nonetheless differ from our two big ones. Of the parties above, I think the Green Party fits that metric. There may well be room for a "true conservative" party in the future as well, whether it occurs by the expelling of the nutters from the current Republican party or the creation of a new third party that doesn't focus on hardline libertarian or religious nuttiness. Sort of a party of ethical accountants, as it were.

Azeem Khan, 27, is one of them. He said: "There are many Muslims who say because of what they've seen in the past eight years they can't bring themselves, in their lifetime, to vote for a Republican.

This is pretty much what I've been saying. By choosing to focus on the narrow slice of the party that is afraid of everything, the Republican leadership is pushing out those who were once attracted either the socially or fiscally conservative history of the party, including Muslims, Latinos, and others.

And why wouldn't they feel alienated by a party leadership that's now pandering to this nonsense?

Polls here suggest 10% of Americans still think Obama is a Muslim.

"We'll be giving them nuclear arms. Next thing you know they'll be attacking us again."

About the only thing that unnamed woman in question got right is that, historically, we have helped fund and arm some of the people who ended up causing us problems, including supporting Saddam Hussein and providing arms to Islamic radicals in Afghanistan. Of course, these things were done when Mr. Obama was in his late teens and early twenties, so I think we'll need to find someone else to blame.

BBC article

It's mildly saddening to watch people decry the concept of supporting your community as "socialist," especially since those same people probably drove to work on an Interstate highway, have a subsidized home loan, use the Internet, and expect to rely on Medicare someday. Yes, the term "socialism" gained an indelible association with totalitarian governments, but guess what -- helping each other is a fundamentally sane and all-American value.

Or to put it another way: I like roads.

You all are free to give back our money and opt out of using these services, but I like paying in to make my country better.

More on Corporal Khan here.

The picture that is referred to in the segment is here.

In testimony before Congress yesterday, Alan expressed his "shock" at investor's lack of self regulation even though it would have been in their long-term best interest:

Greenspan said he was shocked at the banks' inability to self-regulate and blamed over-eager investors for the sub-prime housing meltdown that led to the financial crisis, our correspondent said.

Apparently, our boy Al has never seen an overweight person of any kind (and a good one third of adults in this country are obese). Humans did not evolve in an environment of plenty, or of collaborative financial planning for optimal group outcomes (especially not that second one). We regulate things that can go drastically out of balance specifically because people don't always regulate themselves in their own best interests. Some people are opportunists, others criminals, but most just won't be able to see how their behavior plays into the system as a whole. Certainly, people aren't especially good at self regulating and just deciding not to optimize their own gain.

Faith-based economics is a poor practice, Alan Greenspan's citation of a prior lack of collapse as evidence of success notwithstanding.

BBC article
al Jazeera article