Blow up the poor
Finally, some real leadership and creative thinking on the problem of homelessness and poverty.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport planned to give 11 boxes of surrendered items to the city's human services department, which will give the unopened bottles of shampoo, toothpaste and other items to homeless shelters, airport spokeswoman Lexie Van Haren said.

Let's see if we can follow this through. We take these bottles away from people boarding planes because they might contain bomb ingredients. Then we feel bad about throwing away perfectly good products, so we donate them to the poor. We know it's safe enough for the poor to use because it's in unopened bottles. We think the products are too dangerous to allow on planes because terrorists can always fix it so that the bottles look unopened. We cannot accept the risk of letting these potentially reactive or explosive chemicals on a plane, but it is an acceptable risk to let the homeless pour these potentially reactive or explosive chemicals on their heads.

Is the conclusion that we can draw from this: a) our leaders harbor murderous intentions toward the poor; b) our leaders care more about appearing wasteful than they do about helping the poor; c) our leaders are completely clueless about the implications of their actions; or d) our leaders' commitment to transportation security is completely bogus. Choose as many as you think apply.

To be fair, this is only one city. Other regions have other approaches.

In Pennsylvania, state officials were considering pulling some discarded items for a state program that resells on eBay any items of value relinquished at airport security checkpoints, said Edward Myslewicz, spokesman for the General Services Department.

That's right, you can pay for the privilege of pouring potentially reactive or explosive chemicals on your head. The horses might be gone, but we can sleep soundly knowing that since then the Department of Homeland Security has firmly nailed that gate shut.

The concept for this post was shamelessly stolen from John at AmericaBlog.

I'm against bad things
Yesterday, Dick Cheney said Lamont's victory in the Connecticut primary would encourage al Qayda. Today, we find out that some maniacs in Britain were caught planning to blow up several trans-Atlantic flights. This tells us two things: Dick Cheney sure knows his terrorists and al Qayda sure works fast. I mean they were able to respoind to the encouraging election signals in mere hours, just like Dick said they would.

Just in case Ann Coulter is among my new readers today (where could they all have come from?), I suppose I should say something here. Ann says in her latest column that Democrats "hate Bush because he is fighting the war on terrorism... They would hate Bernie Sanders if he were fighting a war on terrorism." Before we are all subjected to faux outrage over the failure of liberals to condemn the bad guys, I'll step up to the plate: terrorism is bad. Terrorists are bad. I'm against blowing up thousands of civilians just to make a point. I don't care whether they are in a plane over the Atlantic, in a village in south Lebanon, or on a bus in Tel Aviv, I'm opposed to blowing up non-combatants. I insist that you all stop immediately.

I'm sure that my words will ahve about as much effect on the Coulters of the world as they do on the terrorists and governments of the world.

Local mammoth in the news
A local woolly mammoth may have just jumped in importance according to stories in both Seattle papers this morning.

The mammoth is the central focus of a dig near Selah in the southern part of the state. The dig, now completing its second season, has so far excavated about a third of the mammoth. While mammoth finds aren’t that rare in the northwest, this is one of the most complete ever found in the region, so Dr. Pat Lubinski and his team from Central Washington University (in Ellensburg, about 40 minutes north of the dig) aer being especially careful excavating it.

Last year they dated one of the leg bones of the mammoth at 16,000 years old. The date is what makes it newsworthy today. In the course of uncovering the mammoth this season, they have also uncovered a bison leg and a flake from a stone knife. The most accepted theory for the peopling of the Americas has Stone Age hunters entering the middle of North America 13 - 14 thousand years ago. Pushing that date back another two to three thousand years would be revolutionary.

The standard model of human arrival in the Americas was developed in the first half of the last century using data from geology and archaeology.

Geologists believed that during the ice ages, Alaska was attached to Eastern Siberia because sea level dropped when so much water was locked up in the ice caps. At the same time, Alaska was separated from the rest of North America by those ice caps. Two primary ice sheets covered most of Canada at the peak of the ice ages: the Laurentian, which spread out from Hudson's Bay, and the Cordilleran, which spread out from the western costal mountains. The two met in Alberta, just east of the Rockies. Meanwhile, Alaska was mostly ice free because the costal mountains stopped the precipitation necessary to form glaciers. It was dry, cold grassland.

Archaeologists discovered that people arrived in the connected land of Eastern Siberia and Alaska, a region they call Beringia, during the last ice age. Until recently, the earliest well-dated sites south of the ice were the Clovis sites of Colorado and New Mexico.

From these bits of data a narrative theory was formed. Hunters from Asia arrrived in Beringia during the last ice age. When the ice age began to end, the seas rose splitting Beringia into Siberia and Alaska. At the same time, the North American ice sheets separated and opened a path through the Yukon and Alberta into the middle of North America. With the advent of radioactive dating after World War Two, it was possible to date the Clovis culture to 11,500 years BC, which seem to fit very nicely with the end of the ice age.

Although generally accepted--you probably learned it in school--the Beringia-Clovis theory has never completely been without critics. Despite looking, archaeologists have never been able to find evidence of people using the ice-free corridor in Alberta. As more dates have come in, it has become unclear whether or not the corridor was open in time for the Clovis hunters. Finally, a number of controversial sites have been excavated over the years that appear to be older than Clovis. The most credible of these is at Monte Verde in southern Chile. The ice free corridor would be completely impossible for anyone before Clovis, so how could the first Americans have arrived if they didn't walk down from Alaska?

In the nineteenth century, writers had no problem answering that question. The first Americans were clearly Egyptians, Phoenicians, Chinese, Africans, Welsh, or the ten lost tribes of Israel who sailed over. None of these theories work to answer the new dating problems as their epic sailing adventures would have occurred too late. That leaves Atlanteans, space aliens, or something new. Despite a hard-core minority holding out for the Atlanteans and space aliens, most archaeologists have opted for the something new category.

Most of the sites older than Clovis have two things in common: they aren't as well dated and they are close to the sea (there are, of course, lots of exceptions). The new theory challenging Clovis looks at the west coast of North America. At the peak of the ice ages the Cordilleran ice sheet reached down toward the Pacific Ocean which was about 600 feet lower than it is now. The ice sheet would have met the sea much as it does in Greenland today, coming down valleys as tongues of ice leaving unglaciated ridges and larger areas near the water.

Some archaeologist believe a costal people might have traveled the length of both Americas living on the wealth of the tidal areas without penetrating the interiors of the continents until they had filled the coast. In this way, It makes sense for Monte Verde to be older than Clovis. The problem in proving this theory is that most of the evidence is on the old coastline 600 feet beneath the Pacific.

This is where the Selah find comes in. If North America was populated from the West Coast by fishermen, the first places that they would have entered would have been places where their skills were still useful. Places like the Columbia River. Selah is about two hundred miles up the Columbia. If the knife flake is 16,000 years old, it will give a big boost to the coastal theory.

However, there is no reason to believe that the knife flake is as old as the mammoth. Just because two things are found next to each other doesn't mean they were put there at the same time.

Lubinski and his team need to do some very careful stratiographic work to date the flake. Even then, it will still be controversial. The best evidence would be to find cut marks on the mammoth bones. When the Clovis sites were being investigated during the last century, several spear points were found with mammoths, but the archaeological community didn't really accept the idea that early Americans killed mammoths until a spear point was found embedded in a mammoth bone in Naco, Arizona in 1952.

We won't know the full story of the Selah mammoth anytime soon. Dr. Lubinski is closing up the dig for the season. He has to get back to Ellensburg and prepare for the fall semester. All winter, he and his students will be going over every bit of evidence that they brought back from Selah. I'll be watching and listening for news.

Pengiuns killed in traffic accident
This is kind of sad.

Texas highway patrol officers carried out one of their strangest rescues after a truck carrying 25 penguins, an octopus and exotic fish overturned.
The unusual load was being transported from Indianapolis Zoo to the Texas tourist attraction Moody Gardens in Galveston when the accident happened.

Four of the penguins and some of the tropical fish died, while the driver and passenger sustained minor injuries.

[...]

One rockhopper penguin died in the crash and a further three gentoo penguins were killed by oncoming traffic.

"The rest of the penguins kind of stayed together in a ditch," he said.

The octopus - who, like the fish, was being transported in a plastic bag - appeared unharmed, officials said.

PZ Myers can relax knowing that the octopus is okay.

Although the situation must have been a bit surreal for the rescuers, it could have been a lot stranger.

Trooper Richard Buchanan said it was the first traffic accident he had ever handled involving penguins, and added that things could have been worse.

"There was another truck full of snakes and alligators that was an hour ahead of them," he said. "So luckily we didn't have to deal with the alligators."

This gives me a great idea for a movie: "Snakes on a Truck." It will be like nothing Hollywood has ever done before.

Update - In a related story, Norway is being invaded by giant commie crabs. This is an invasive species (King Crabs from the Pacific) that is severly damaging the local aquaculture. I, for one, am willing to do my environmental duty by eating as many of these crabs as they want to send me.

QOTD
Mustang Bobby has an excellent question of the day.

You've got $100 of found money. You decide to take a road trip.

• Destination?
  
• Music choices?
  
• Companion?

Go give Bobby your answers and then copy 'em here.

What I want for my birthday
In a little over two weeks, I turn fifty. I won't bother you with all the self pity and examination that goes along with that milestone. Let's talk about what this means to Archy. A few hours ago, someone, I'm pretty sure it was the Farmer, was my 73rd thousandth visitor. I'd like to hit 75 thousand by my birthday. That's not a big goal. Right now, during the vacation season, I'm averaging about 60 hits per day. During busier times of year, I average about 100. To push me up to 2000 hits in two weeks I need to get about 130 hits per day. Or I need some solid links from my neighbors to make up the difference between 60 and 130. One really solid weekday Pharyngula link could do it. Or about four Coturnix links. I only have one request: I don't want the usual gang dropping by five times a day to inflate my numbers; I want honest traffic.

Of course, I must offer something in exchange. In case you haven't noticed, I'm back from my job transition hiatus and offering new content almost every day. I have a new urban legend in the making, beer news, and cheap shots at my social betters. During this vacation season, how many lefty bloggers are actually increasing their posting frequency without mentioning Ned Lamont? I think I'm the only one. Don't check, just take my word for it.

I not only promise to keep up my posting while the others take vacations or slip into Lamontophilia, I promise a major woolly mammoth post some time in the next two weeks! I’ll throw in at least one gratuitous attack on Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh. Who else can promise that? No other blog offers its readers a journalistic cockroach, shrill liberalism, and woolly mammoths. So, come, read Archy, bring your friends, and bring your friends' friends. I'll make it worth your while.

Breaking news
I hear there might be an election somewhere today. I'll look into it and get back to you if I find out anything interesting.

PS - I wonder if Kos knows about this.

A conspiracy of moral equivalence
Over the last week and a half, I've been writing about a conspiracy theory making the rounds on the far right and slowly creeping into bigger trafficked, semi-mainstream news venues (see here, here, here, and here). The theory is that Hezbollah somehow "staged" the massacre of civilians at Qana in order to make Israel look bad. The variations on this narrative range from Hezbollah simply manipulating a genuine tragedy for maximum press effect, to them "improving" a minor event by planting bodies in a collapsed building (they apparently keep a stash of dead bodies just for this purpose), to Hezbollah actually killing their own people because a child is more valuable as a dead martyr than as a live hungry mouth.

The underlying theme of these theories is that the other side is made up of inhuman monsters. Ironically, the purpose of such dehumanization and demonization of the enemy always is to make it easier for our side to cast aside or our humanity and commit genocide. Demonization narratives are never the exclusive property of just one side in a conflict.

Howard Kurtz, among other things is the anchor for the CNN show "Reliable Sources." This exchange is from yesterday's edition.

HOWARD KURTZ: And joining us now... Thomas Ricks, Pentagon reporter for "The Washington Post" and author of the new book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."

Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

As with the Qana massacre, I have no idea what the truth is in this case. I'm not familiar with Ricks, so I don't know how dependable he is or if he has stake in supporting one side or the other in Lebanon. Since he doesn't tell us who his sources are for this information, we can't know if they are dependable or if Ricks is being spun.

However, this is a devastating charge to bring against a country and Kurtz is guilty of the grossest journalistic negligence for not following up on this. Now that the accusation has been allowed to air unchallenged, it will be repeated around the internet and embellished. It's just too useful for too many causes. Some will use it to defend Hezbollah from criticism. Some will use it to demonize Israel or "the Jews." Some will use it to defend US inaction because "all of those people are crazy." Whatever the real story eventually emerges to be (if anything), the story that is out there right now is that the Israeli military let Hezbollah kill Israelis in order to gain sympathy. This is the exact equivalent of the Qana conspiracy and will be just as corrosive to intelligent consideration of the vast problems of the region.

No doubt someone will try to defend Israel by bringing up Churchill's allowing the Luftwaffe to bomb Coventry, even though he had intelligence that would have enabled him to stop them or, at least, to evacuate the population of Coventry. There is considerable question as to whether the Churchill story is even true. Supposing it is, the two cases are not equivalent. The story, as it now stands, is that the Israeli military is allowing Hezbollah to keep long range weapons for the soul purpose of keeping up national support for the war through a constant stream of random civilian casualties. Churchill allowed one set of casualties to happen in order to protect an intelligence secret that was regularly saving far more lives.

If the Coventry story is not true and the Israeli story is, the current events will amount to one of the most callous acts of betrayal in modern history. If the Israeli story is false, then Howard Kurtz will bear a great part of the blame for allowing it to gain a foothold on the internet and to spread. Thanks, Howie.

Friday booze blogging (again)
It just looks like a busy week for beer news. And, with Bush on vacation in Crawford (never a good sign), the Republican Congress offering to let Rumsfeld arrest anyone he wants, unemployment up, and a new war in the Middle East, we could all use some good news, or at least a good beer.

The California beermaker who brought the world He'brew, Miraculous Jewbilation and Genesis Ale has come up with a new brew commemorating the late Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce on the 40th anniversary of his death.

Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. has hit more than 1,000 stores in 25 states in a tribute to Bruce, the ground-breaking comic and social critic who died on August 3, 1966, at age 40.

The beer is made with "obscene amounts of malts and hops," says a statement from Shmaltz Brewing Co., in reference to Bruce's arrests for obscenity in his standup act.

While I can't get the Greenlander beer here, I do think I know of a store that carries Shmaltz Brewing products.

More conspiracy noise
Two weeks ago I wrote about Alan Dershowitz's "reasoned" suggestion that we should consider surrendering the principle that collective punishment is wrong. His argument was that there are degrees of guilt and degrees of innocence, life is very complicated, and it's very hard to tell the guilty from the innocent. Having led us that far he allows us to make the conclusion that he doesn't say out loud. That conclusion is that we shouldn't worry about protecting the innocent in a war zone, just blast a way and assume that most of the people who get in the way of your bullets were sort of guilty anyway.

It should come as no surprise to anyone to find out that he is in complete defense of Israel for the Qana massacre and even finds it a bit annoying that the Israelis feel bad about it and accepted responsibility for the tragedy. What is rather interesting, in a morbid way, is that Deshowitz's exoneration of Israel develops some of the talking points of a mild version of the Qana conspiracy theory.

Hezbollah was using Lebanese children as involuntary human shields--surely a war crime. Hezbollah was preventing civilians--who had been repeatedly warned by Israel to leave the battle zone--from moving out of harm's way. Hezbollah sympathizers were shown on TV defiantly tearing up the Israeli leaflets, as if to say "we're staying" Hezbollah had refused to build bomb shelters for ordinary civilians--only for their own leaders. Hezbollah knew (and Israel didn't) that children were in the so-called safe house. That is why it deliberately used the safe house as a shield behind which to five rockets at Israel. Hezbollah used its rocket launchers as "bait" to induce Israel to fire at them in order to increase the chances that Israel's rocket would misfire and hit the "safe house".

Notice how he states as facts things he cannot possibly know, such as the inner thoughts of Hezbollah leaders. Hezbollah knew there were children in the house and intentionally placed their rocket launchers where they would trick the Israelis into killing the children.

The timeline of the events in Qana is still not clear, but it is very possible that the Hashem and Shalhoub families did not take shelter in the building until after Hezbollah had fired their rockets and moved on. The possibility of this has no place in Deshowitz's narrative. His narrative is part of the classic demonization propaganda ploy (which I described here). The enemy must be utterly ruthless and lacking in recognizable human virtues. Keep in mind that the point of demonization is to justify throwing aside our own humanity to exterminate the enemy completely. But then, ever since Dershowitz began writing about legalizing torture, he has been one of the most dangerous voices calling us to surrender our humanity.