North Shore Waves

Barak Obama is the new Lady Di

2009-01-20T14:58:00.001-10:00

Well, it is official - Barak Obama is the new Lady Di.

I am in London today (Jan 20th) and I have been overwhelmed by the fawning by the London media over our new president's inauguration. The celebrity status bestowed on him and the genuine excitement that seems to attend his ascension is palpable. I haven't seen anything like this for many, many years - in fact, since the wedding of Diana to Prince Charles.

Since we often see most clearly through the eyes of others, I am forced to pause and reflect on what this means. I must admit that I have not been a fan of Obama and his political positioning, but this celebrity that Barak Obama enjoys is something that I believe must be considered. I don't suddenly agree with anything that I opposed previously, I now realize that I must come to terms with a level of emotionalism that is gripping parts of our country and our allies. All of this completely changes the political equation.

When an extreme celebrity acts "goofy" most of us excuse the behavior as just eccentric. When a Hollywood celebrity is caught with a gerbil or a prostitute, we think little of it - and still go to the next movie with little thought to the bizarre behavior we know has taken place. If a self-made porn film puts the celebrity in the news for a while, the world excuses it. If that celebrity spends their resources supporting causes on the looney fringe, so what?

The terrifying revelation that I have had is that Barak Obama is an extreme celebrity. There will be no odd sentiment that he can hold, no gerbil, no tryst, no betrayal, no act that will not be excused. There will be no action, regardless of how bizarre, that he can undertake that will not be overlooked. Among his fans, who are legion, he will be able to do virtually anything that chooses - with nary a consequence. (Lady Di lost little esteem despite some quite scandalous activities.) And this is the ominous change in the political equation.

Obama is beyond teflon, he is extreme celebrity embodied.

From Blogs to Mainstream Media

2008-01-25T13:11:00.000-10:00

OK, something is going on. The blogosphere finally started a story that seeped over to the real " mainstream media". Too bad it is just wierd. Cool photo though, eh?

Even Reuters

Big Pipe - 09 Jan, 2008

2008-01-10T08:15:00.000-10:00

Pipeline was amazingly big yesterday (9 Jan, 2008). I went out to watch for an hour or so and shot some photos with my little pocket camera.
I haven't often see Pipe break way out on the third reef. Imagine 5-times head high Pipe as the inside leftovers of some REALLY big waves. Fortunately, my friend Greg showed up as I was leaving with a real camera.
Ahhh, life on the North Shore... I'm going to miss it!

Why you might be sick...

2007-12-01T16:34:00.000-10:00

Now I know why we get sick when we travel.
This clip explains a lot about the "dirty little secrets" that hotels keep. Yechhh...

I think that I will bring my own from now on!

Teapacks

2007-03-01T12:16:00.000-10:00

While I'm on a musical theme... There is a great group, the Teapacks, who have a very interesting video out on YouTube. Once it appeared on the conservative blog circuit (like LGF) it's popularity is only bound to increase.

Today's Guardian talks about Israel's interest in this song.

It was a choice that perhaps owed more to the public mood than to any cute lyrical hook or novel musical riff.
Asked to pick a song for this year's Eurovision song contest, Israelis paid little heed to the eternal Eurovision themes of peace, love and harmony and settled instead for a number about the threat of terrorism and Armageddon called Push the Button.

The track, sung by the Teapacks in English, French and Hebrew, is a peculiar but confident amalgam of eastern sounds, rock and rap.

It was chosen this week as the country's preferred song in a phone-in television show and now the band will go forward to the Eurovision finals in Helsinki in May.

"The world is full of terror, if someone makes an error, he's gonna blow us up to kingdom come," sings Kobi Oz, leader of the Teapacks.

"There are some crazy rulers, they hide and try to fool us, with demonic, technological willingness to harm. They're gonna push the button, push the button."

I'm not sure about you, but I just like Kobi's vest.

National Anthem: Hillary Doesn't Know the Words...

2007-01-28T22:09:00.000-10:00

I was a little surprised to hear Hillary Clinton’s voice singing the national anthem. In the YouTube clip captured here, Hillary becomes audible about 33 seconds into the video. I don’t really mind that she doesn’t sing well – but she doesn’t even know the words.

Notice that at about second 46 instead of singing “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave…,” Clinton says “O say, does OUR star-spangled banner yet wave…”

I would think that she would at least know the first verse…

Lange: Freedom = No Accountability

2007-01-22T20:53:00.000-10:00

Peter Lange, Provost of Duke University and Professor of Political Science, made a very unusual address entitled “Free Speech and Speaking Freely” on January 11, 2007 to the Arts and Sciences Council of his university. Granted that the recent events at Duke embodied in the “Duke Lacrosse” case have caused quite a stir, but the tone and content of Dr. Lange’s address is quite disturbing to me. Apparently, Dr. Lange is troubled by “democratized” communication – those mechanisms that reduce 'the elitism of “publication” and the control of opinion.' He wishes certain groups (i.e., members of the Duke University faculty) to be able to make public statements without being subject to public comment and public criticism. To him, it seems, academician’s freedom of speech is somehow equated with not being held responsible for what is said.

In Dr. Lange’s address he reminds us that 88 members of Duke’s faculty posted a signed advertisement in the Duke Chronicle (the university newspaper) stating their point of view of with regard to recent events (March 2006) on and near their campus in the city of Durham, North Carolina. The impetus for their commentary was the turmoil associated with certain allegations against players on the Duke Lacrosse team. A very thorough history of this turmoil can be found covered by history Professor KC Johnson on his blog relating to the case.

Dr. Lange makes note that “some of our faculty … have been under repeated attacks in personal emails and blogs” precipitated by the message of their controversial ad (captured here). Then he makes his first troubling point:

As we all are aware blogs and email have “democratized” communication; anyone with access to a computer can get in the game as writer or spectator. In many ways this is a very good thing, for it reduces the elitism of “publication” and the control of opinion by opinion “sellers”. Nonetheless, this “democracy” is also permissive of saying almost anything, about almost anyone or anything, using any language, no matter how distasteful, disrespectful or dismissive. We can spread our ideas faster, and without the mediation of others, but we can also control neither their dispersion nor the nature and distribution of reactions to them. In fact, if those reactions distort the account of what we have said, there is likely no way to correct the record for the large number of people who may have secondarily received those distorted interpretations.

While he concedes that, “In many ways this [democratization of communication] is a very good thing” – he then proceeds to lament that it exists. For of this environment where easy transmission of ideas is possible, and where vigorous response to public statements can be heard he says, “I do not believe the extreme of this condition is productive of the best virtues of free speech. It can come to inhibit speaking freely or leave free speech on controversial issues too much to the thick-skinned or insensitive.”

The real argument of Dr. Lange is that some of his faculty should be protected from public denunciation for making controversial (or what I would call inane) statements. He seeks to stem the flood of critical comment.

To me, this is a preposterous position. Dr. Lange must believe that faculty at his esteemed institution are somehow beyond criticism by mere mortals. He seems to believe that faculty status at Duke somehow conveys an elite status that establishes faculty member’s public comments as prima facie truth. What planet did Dr. Lange come from?

As I understand the world, academic credentials certify that one is able to defend a position against criticism. It is that very ability to defend one’s positions that gives the statements of faculty credibility. The inability to defend a position (especially comments made publicly) reveals either an indefensible position, or an intellectual weakness in the defenders.

Here we have Dr. Lange arguing that democratized criticism is somehow stifling “free speech.” I have watched the criticism of the ad signed by this group of 88 faculty – and there is much intellectual criticism of the content. Dr. Lange excuses his defense by focusing on the weakest of the criticism – which we all know to be simple name calling. He ignores legitimate commentary and the unwillingness of the group of 88 to respond to real intellectual criticism.

I, for one, am quite disappointed at the attitude: one of “don’t question us or hold us responsible for defending what we say.” Lange seems to be running interference for these faculty – carrying their water, if you will. “Please leave them alone and don’t criticize,” he seems to say.

Academics must be able to defend their public statements or they should not be called academicians – this has always been the litmus test of worthiness to belong in academe. But I must say, I am less worried about the academic qualifications of these specific 88 faculty members than I am about someone within the academe (Lange) feigning ignorance of the qualifications for belonging in that group.

Seeking to excuse academicians from defending their public statements is indefensible, Lange. Don’t cheapen the profession.

[By the way, I do not think that my own comments, these in particular, should be made under the cover of anonymity. I am Craig M. Allen, Professor of Finance in the School of Business at Brigham Young University - Hawaii.]

Moral Deafness

2006-08-10T12:42:00.000-10:00

There are just some things that require comment.

I wear glasses, so I quite understand that some people are not able to see quite as well others. My hearing is relatively acute, but I know others whose hearing is somewhat impaired. And I know that my sense of smell is just not as well developed as others, because I totally miss odors that some find very objectionable. Why is it, then, that I have such a hard time with a range of people’s insensitivity to moral issues? Let me explain…

There are times that I hear things that others absolutely do not hear. There are frequencies that I hear with very good clarity that others simply miss. We test hearing acuity with audiograms (see this article, for example), and we can chart very well the sound level required for an individual to respond to each sound frequency. These produce interesting graphs called audiograms, such as the one below (for a normal hearing person). The graph essentially measures hearing acuity on one axis and frequency along the other axis. A normal person hears with about the same acuity across a broad range of frequencies.

This other graph (below), however, is for a person with sensorineural hearing loss. You will note that there is a dip in acuity in the higher frequencies – meaning that the person just cannot hear high pitched tones quite as well as lower frequency tones. Speech is made up of a lot of high frequency components (especially the consonants) – so this type of hearing loss often causes people to have difficulty understanding speech. They just hear mumbling or an unintelligible droning.

Since we understand hearing, the mechanics of the ear and nerve conduction of the auditory signals to the brain, we have no difficulty in understanding and diagnosing deficiencies in hearing. It is just a matter of fact. When someone doesn’t hear some sound that we hear, we (and they) just acknowledge that they don’t hear well and they rely on those that do hear. (Either that or they get a corrective device like a hearing aid as a remedy.) We could argue all day long whether a sound existed or not, but we have instruments to detect sound and instruments to detect hearing deficiencies. These are just facts, we deal with them.

We also now understand some of the causes of sensorineural hearing loss. Often this type of hearing loss is induced by exposure to loud noises, like explosions or gun fire. The constant banging of machinery in a factory will also, over time, cause hearing loss like this, as will blasting loud music into the ears. (This means that the iPod generation is probably headed for some hearing loss.)

But, when it comes to moral issues, I still have a very difficult time understanding some people’s inability to detect right from wrong. Sometimes we call it amorality or sometimes ”moral equivalence.” Some just don’t see the difference between two situations – when others of us clearly detect that there is. Some of us clearly feel, “Oh, that’s just not right.” Others see nothing wrong.

This is just the point that I wanted to make with regard to Israel and Hezbollah. Some, it seems are just morally deaf. They are unable to detect clear differences in moral position.

I have difficulty understanding this moral deafness. To those that can perceive the difference – there is without question a dimension of right vs. wrong, of decency vs. depravity, of good vs. evil. The existence of different points along this moral dimension is without doubt for those of us with the slightest bit of moral perception – but those with less (or no) moral acuity would have us believe that there is none because they see none. And they truly may perceive no differences. But simply because one claims that there is no difference because they cannot discriminate carries no weight – it is simply a person acknowledging their lack of perception.

I see this, and it troubles me. How can so many claim that differences of morality do not exist – particularly in the fight between Israel and Hezbollah? Is it the shouting of partisanship that deafens us? Is it some willful denial (the equivalence of closing one’s eyes)? I believe that it is a bit of both.

It is given to man to make moral distinctions and moral judgments. There is a light inside of us that directs us toward good if we will let it. By consciously snuffing out that light that leads to truth and goodness we embrace darkness and (shudder) all that that entails. I am indeed troubled by willful moral deafness and saddened by that resulting from the loss of one’s ability to feel.

The following clip is worth viewing.

MSM Cartoon Offense

2006-02-14T22:54:00.000-10:00

I would be among the first to get annoyed if someone were to lampoon something that I hold sacred – and, apparently, there are Muslims who don’t take kindly to newspapers in the West portraying in any way caricatures of Mohammed. For several days riots have ensued; embassies have been burned; western-based businesses have been looted and ransacked, people have been killed. This, the reaction of the Muslim people to the Danish offense of publishing a few cartoons.

However, the story here isn’t about the Muslim reaction (which most everyone in the West will agree has been excessive and tellingly violent). The story is the reaction by the MSM (Main Stream Media for those of you lacking familiarity with the blogosphere). The story is in their newfound sensitivity and desire “not to offend.”

It is important to point out that several purveyors of news, especially across Europe, have shown solidarity with the Danish media and have published the offensive cartoons (see Michelle Malkin’s commentary here). But most in the U.S. MSM have been deferential to the Muslim sensitivity and kept their silence in this matter – when they have shown absolutely no regard for graver offense to Christiandom. What’s with the double standard?

Andrew Sullivan suggests that the U.S. MSM is giving “Islamo-bullies” a free ride in their new-found reluctance to offend. Why would they do this?

My theory for why this double standard is evident by the U.S. media outlets is a bit different from that espoused by Sullivan (and by others writing on this subject). They suggest that the MSM has caved in to fear – that because of the threat of violence toward them – they refuse to print the cartoons.

Well, by this time, there are many, many news outlets around the world who have published these offensive cartoons (most are part of the new, electronic media). Standing up as another potential target when so many have already taken the most vicious of the Muslim attacks would not seem to be such a great risk. So, I suggest that it is not really because of the fear of violence. Instead, I suggest that the U.S. MSM is unwilling to offend Muslims for the same reasons that it is unwilling to offend Democrats. They are allied with them in their fight against western civilization (hence this entry's title says "offense" not "offence").

No, I am not suggesting that the MSM has literally forged an alliance with Islamic forces – but I do propose that the MSM shares a common foe with the Islamo-fascists. Their common enemy is “the establishment” – or the forces that control western civilization. The current Bush-led government is certainly both “the establishment” and the source of agitation to the left-leaning MSM. So, out of convenience, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – at least for the time being.

To many who remember the Vietnam era, the enemy of those days was also “the establishment.” The Charles Reich and the Tom Hayden revolutionaries were always railing on “the establishment” as the source of problems. This was caught up by the progressives of the day and became a rallying cry of the Aquarius generation.

The enemy found in “the establishment” has its roots in Marxism. Marx taught that revolution and the overthrow of the governing bourgeois system (including capitalism) was essential. Trotsky called it the Permanent Revolution and it was absolutely imperative that continuous revolution result in “complete liquidation” of existing power structures.

Just as then (in the Vietnam era), when the progressives saw revolution as the route to the destruction of “the establishment” – progressives now see the onslaught of Islamo-fascism as a route to the same end. This MSM sympathy for the sensitivities of Muslims is nothing more than support for the same old anti-establishment forces of the 60’s.

Yes, the Democrats and the MSM are trying to re-create the 60’s. These were their glory years – when real progress was made toward the destruction of “establishment” forces. No wonder they return to the same memes, this is the same war for Marxism.

Back from Vladivostok

2005-09-12T19:31:00.000-10:00

My wife and I are back from a very interesting trip to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. We were amazed (and enchanted) by the Russian people, but we still don't understand the mindset that dominates the occupants of Vladivostok. We found a beautiful port city, unlike any port we have ever visited. There was not a hint of the typical "international" port accoutrements – not a tattoo parlor nor a foreigner in sight.
Apparently Vladivostok was a closed city, even to other Russians, until quite recently. It is also a rather bleak city - unlike its neighbor Khabarovsk (which is a mere 12 hours away by Siberian rail). Khabarovsk has a vibrancy to it. New money seems to have moved in there as a result of the privatizations of the last two decades. They call these "new Russians" - but they really mean a new burgeoisie. These new Russians bring investment and innovation. Too bad that they also bring strong-arm tactics, cliques (some call them mafia organizations), and ties to the old political class.
I'm not sure where the Russian economy is headed - but the innovation is good. The mafioso aspect is not.

London & the Left's Fixation on Bush

2005-07-07T22:55:00.000-10:00

The Left are fixated on George W. Bush. They can't think of anything else, and since they have given up all other measures of morality there is nothing absolute against which to assess the "goodness" or "badness" of anything but by the effect it has on their nemesis. It seems that every world and domestic event is viewed only through the lens of political consequenses that the event will have on Bush and on Republicans. I find this amazing.

Like the obsessed, the Left have fixated on Bush and try as they might, they cannot resist bringing this topic into every conversation. Even when their obsession leads to bizarre behavior they cannot let it go.

In many respects this reminds me of the fringe of sanity from 30 years ago. If you substitute the phrase "international banks" or "the Illuminati" or even "the Learned Elders of Zion" for the word "Bush" in the Left's demagoguery you might see what I mean. Sure, in one conversation the topic might be somewhat relevant or even interesting - but when you see someone bring the same supposed "cause of evil" up over and over again in every conversation it gets a bit weird. And when someone's entire life revolves around the waxing and waning of that thing's fortune you know that there is something wrong.

Here is an example today dealing with the tragedy in London. The San Francisco Chronicle runs a headline "U.S. Politics: Bush likely to get increased support for Iraq war, at least for now" and, among other things laments (speaking of the tragic attacks on central London by terrorists):

The London terrorist bombings are likely to temporarily strengthen President Bush's hand politically at a critical juncture when public support for the war in Iraq has eroded, but the attacks raise difficult questions over whether that war has made the United States more or less vulnerable to terrorism, analysts said.
...
Something like this reminds people, 'OK, there really is something to worry about out there,' " said Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "At the same time, it didn't happen here."

But then the writer (Carolyn Lochead) goes on to say:

To some extent, the linkage of terror with the Iraq war becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, said Charles Kupchan, a National Security Administration official under President Bill Clinton.

"I think that in the public mind, the attacks will make it easier for Bush to reclaim a certain amount of public support for war in Iraq," Kupchan said. "His ability to link the Iraq war to al Qaeda has proved to be inconsistent with the facts," but "an attack on London will be seen as an attack on the West, requiring that the United States take the offense. And for many that will mean staying the course in Iraq."

Lomperis agreed. "I think what has sustained Bush is that folks out in Peoria essentially do believe in this linkage, and right or not, I think these kinds of attacks only reinforce that foundation to Bush's claim."

The issue to the Left always centers on Bush.

I think the best discussion begins with something raised by Powerline today, where they present a map of jihadist attacks compiled by The Sun, in London. The Sun's article outlines an abridged chronology of when and where Islamic terrorist atrocities have occurred. Their timeline begins with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, and includes incidents in Bali, Kenya, Istanbul, England, Spain and Pakistan.

Still, the noise from the Left centers on Bush, not on the global threat from Islamic terrorists.

By the way, my heart goes out to those whose lives were destroyed or disrupted by the London attacks. We must focus on the enemy in this conflict, not on the Illuminati, I mean not on international banks, er... I mean not on Bush.

Leave it to the Taxi Drivers

2005-07-06T04:52:00.000-10:00

I happen to be in Manila today, and have been fascinated by the rapt attention that all of the taxi drivers devote to the hearings on the Arroyo tapes (see the stories here, here and here.)

I know that most people in the world don't follow Philippine politics (and that is probably a good thing for the mental health of the rest of the world). But the this country is a very important part of the developing world - and a key location in the struggle against islamofascism. But there is an important development there that should certainly cause Americans concern - perhaps as much concern as that given by the Manila taxi drivers.

Aparently Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had a rather "interesting" conversation with the Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcilliano that happened to be caught on tape.

The audiotape reportedly contains the wiretapped recordings showing Arroyo talking to Garcillano about rigging the 2004 presidential polls. Arroyo had apologized earlier this week for what she called a "lapse in judgment" that had her calling an election official, which she did not name, to ask about election results last year. She said her call was meant only to protect her votes.

Of the eight or so taxis that we boarded today during the hearings on this matter, every taxi had the radio tuned to proceedings.
It seems that Ms. Arroyo is being asked to step down by a growing group:

Contacted by the Inquirer, former Senator Raul Roco also said Ms Arroyo had "lost the moral right to govern" and should now step down "for the sake of national unity."

"Can you say that she was a good shepherd?" asked Roco, 63-year-old Alyansa ng Pag-Asa standard-bearer who was the first to concede defeat to Ms Arroyo in the May 2004 presidential race.

"We're not the ones calling for her and her officials to resign. No, they are the ones doing so ... by what they have done. It's finished," said Roco.

"It's pure common sense. The key element for development is honesty. How can people follow you if you're lying?" said Roco.

De Villa, also a former Armed Forces chief of staff and leader of the moderate Reporma Party, announced he was joining calls by non-government organizations seeking the establishment of a "truth commission."

He said the commission should be composed of prominent Filipinos led by former President Corazon Aquino. It would look into the alleged tapped telephone conversation showing Ms Arroyo pressing Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano for a one-million-vote margin.

When asked about the result of these hearings, the taxi drivers all had animated answers. The consensus: Arroyo will be out of office before the end of July.

I have always believed that you can take what the taxi drivers say to the bank. They have their hand on the pulse of a community. So long Ms. Arroyo!

Prosecute the Sun and the Post

2005-05-20T08:47:00.000-10:00

The New York Post is running a front page photo of Saddam Hussein in his underwear (published earlier by The Sun, in London). They also make attempts at comedic references:

The photos offer the first glimpse of the former despot beyond a brief court-appearance last July.

Several parties (e.g., here, and here, for example) have suggested that the release of these photos constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

If this is, in fact, a potential violation of the Geneva Conventions, then the Post should be held to task. I know that the Post often adds a more conservative voice than some of the more liberal papers, but "freedom of the press" does not offer immunity from "war crimes." Even a conservative voice that violates principles of responsible journalism should be pursued with all the enthusiam that would be employed against the more liberal MSM.

I find it amazing that regardless of the breach of ethics, of good taste, or of the Geneva Conventions - the MSM is given a pass. There should be a clamoring by blogs and by the MSM for an investigation into war-crimes violations by the Post and Sun.

We Need an Institutional Mathon

2005-05-11T09:58:00.000-10:00

There seems to be this “thing” going on in Mesa, Arizona that is causing quite a stir. Apparently a group of very prominent local real estate professionals are under serious investigation on all sorts of charges relating to investment funds they have raised.

A former Arizona attorney general who is representing a Mesa firm accused of violating state securities laws said he is trying to work out an agreement on how to recover money for investors who have millions of dollars at stake.

Grant Woods, attorney for Slade Williams & Associates, said he hopes to know today if a deal can be worked out with the Securities Division of the Arizona Corporation Commission on how to proceed with recovering money owed to investors in the Mathon Fund and Mathon Fund I.

Last week a Maricopa County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order closing the investment firm and appointed a receiver to control its assets while the division continues its investigation. The division accused Slade Williams of operating a Ponzi scheme and violating eight provisions of the state securities act, including failing to fully inform investors of the risks they were taking.

According to the commission, the funds used $150 million in investors’ money to provide short-term, high-interest bridge loans to borrowers who needed quick cash but had sufficient collateral to cover the loans if the borrowers should default. The commission said most of the loans were in default and investors instead were paid from income from later investors — the classic Ponzi scheme.

Slade Williams denied the charges and said the vast majority of the investors are supporting the company and its activities. Woods said several key real estate transactions that served as collateral for loans are pending that would provide money to pay off investors. But those deals may be in jeopardy now that the state has moved against the company, he said.

The Mathon Funds and Slade Williams are in the business of “hard money” lending. This end of the lending market is specially tailored for desperate borrowers. The rates the lenders charge for money are extreme, but they also take quite a bit of risk and are willing to move very, very quickly. In a booming market (like Arizona real estate) opportunities sometimes spring into existence and fade over very short time horizons.

Normally a business like Mathon would consist of a small group of well-connected friends who put their personal money up for opportunistic real-estate deals that needed to be closed quickly. Mathon’s problem, it seems, is that they tried to grow beyond the typical small, opportunistic, enclave format and they actually tried to make this into a full-time business. They raised additional capital beyond their own, and they tried to create a steady flow of investment “opportunities.”

The business of opportunistic lending is a very valid one, but it usually takes place in small back room, not within the light of day. Anyone that has seen the fast pace of deals in a booming market knows that lenders who can turn on a dime really can be worth the exorbitant rates that they charge. So the difficulties faced by the Mathon / Slade Williams group isn’t in their primary line of business. Their lending practices (at very high rates) and their lending niche seem both to be reasonably sound.

Mathon / Slade Williams, however, got into trouble with the way that they raised money. They apparently made promises to investors that cause the state to believe that they violated securities laws. The charges, in fact, (see the state’s complaint here) all seem to relate to securities law, and not to the lending side of their business (the T.R.O. is here). The state cites investors who claim they were quoted annual returns of 36%, 75% and even 120% on their investment. Those types of promised returns, apparently, are in and of themselves grounds for securities law scrutiny.

The state, in seeking to minimize the damage associated with the Mathon / Slade Williams group, has shut down their business. They have closed the doors of Mathon and are seeking to liquidate the loans and other assets of the Mathon Funds. But shutting down a business like Mathon is a very tricky matter. It is a bit like a juggler who is juggling several fine-china plates being accused of a crime. If you just snatch the juggler and haul him off to jail, the plates will fall and are guaranteed to break. In this case, the complaint is (at least in part) that the investors (who gave the juggler their plates to juggle) are at risk of not getting their plates back. The state can assure that the investors loose by just shutting Mathon down. They cannot guarantee its success.

In my conversation with one of the principals of Mathon, he was convinced that the Mathon business model is sound and that Mathon can, in fact, produce the types of returns promised – if the state will just let them wind things down. The Mathon principals are very experienced real estate professionals, and they really do know the business of opportunistic lending. They seem to be saying, “Just let us work our magic, and everything will come out OK.”

I personally believe that the state does not have the current investors’ interests as their sole concern. They seem to want to prevent future investors (which they might call future “victims”) from suffering. Consequently, the state will sacrifice much of the salvage opportunity with the current Mathon investors by forcing the existing Mathon Funds to wind down in a disorderly fashion. These loses will cast a pall on the “opportunistic lending” business in general. I think that this is the unfortunate reality.

Experienced “boom” developers know the benefits of opportunistic lenders who can quickly assess risks and turn on a dime. I feel we need an institutional investor that knows the risks inherent in opportunistic lending that will come in and fill this niche. That institutional investor might even be willing to come in and take the position of the Mathon Funds, thereby "rescuing" the current investors. Absent this rescue, extraordinary losses are on the horizon.

The current Mathon investors and the professionals at Mathon may be the short-term loosers. The loss has been exacerbated by the state in its zeal to protect future victims. But, the long-term loser will be the boom-driven developers who have come to need these opportunistic lenders.

It looks like a lake...

2005-05-10T07:18:00.000-10:00

Chun's 10 May, 2005

Chun's looks like a lake today (but note that one poor soul is out waiting for a miracle). Yep, its flat, no waves... it may be a good day to hit Shark's Cove, though, and snorkel. There are some lava tubes and caves at Shark's Cove that are fun to swim through. I like to think of these tubes as being of two categories - fun ones and scary ones.

The fun ones are those that you can swim down to, swim through and get back up for air in 30-45 seconds. The scary ones are those that take a minute and a half or more. I don't know why we do the scary ones. I really get the willies even thinking about it. But, when you are out with friends and even other old guys (like my Surfing Buddy who is also over 50) and want some fun, we just give in to peer pressure...

My 18 year old daughter, who is on the Kahuku High swim team and the women's water polo team, well, she also taunts me. "Come on, Dad!" she says - and then darts for a cave opening. When we finally pop our heads up through a hole gasping for breath, there is that nervous giggle. Maybe she knows that she is in better shape than I am and that what is a challenge to her might be considered "life threatening" to me (well, it feels like it).

I remember my first cave, though. It was a dive from outside the cove back into "the Blue Room." I had never gone through a cave before, and I was just snorkeling around with my wife. We happened to run into one of my old students and his wife who were walking around out on the reef shelf where it is rocky and dry in all but really high tides. We were in the water and my student says, "You should go through that cave there to the Blue Room." He pointed out where the cave entrance was, and told me that it wasn't too far. Well, I thought that I could go in far enough to see how far away the cave was, and then I could turn and swim back out if it was too far.

I dove down about 6 feet and looked into the cave (which seemed large enough to turn around in). As I started into the cave, it was erie. The water got darker and darker, then just as I was starting to get a bit nervous, I saw the water getting lighter just ahead. As I swam toward the light I really had to exert myself more than I had imagined. But, I emerged into this small cave that opened on one side to the air. I thought is was so cool. After catching my breath I turned and headed back out into the open sea. As I started from the cave, though, I could see the lighter water from the outside cave entrance even as I started my swim from the cave. So, going back out wasn't nearly as nerve-wracking as going in the first time. I think it is always easy to swim toward light. It is scary to swim into darkness.

One of the scariest caves I've done requires that you swim down to an opening about 35 feet below the surface. You swim straight in for about 20 feet, then hit a wall and have to swim down another 6 feet or so. The water is nearly pitch dark here, but you go by feel. Then you swim under this ledge for another 6 feet or so, and the cave opens up a bit more. Once the cave starts to open up, you can see that just 20-30 feet ahead there is a faint light in the water You swim for that, and a hole opens up that is about 6-8 feet across. It doesn't have straight sides but goes mostly straight up for 40 feet or so. When you you come up to the surface the hole you are in is say, 8-10 feet across and are in the middle of a big shelf - maybe 60 feet from the ocean. When the waves are really big it is sort of a blow hole. But, you can always feel the surge if there are any waves at all... It seems really scary to swim that one. It takes me way more than a minute to swim the whole thing. Fortunately there is another way in and out that is only down 10-15 feet and goes out in another direction. That other way out even has a little "rest-stop" cave that you can come up in and catch your breath if you don't want to swim the whole way in one breath.

Well, maybe diving will be fun. It is only possible when the waves are small on the North Shore...

Chun's Reef Rocks

2005-05-02T15:18:00.000-10:00

All who read this probably know by now that Chun's Reef is one of my favorite surfing spots.

Well, today was one of those spectacular days when the crowd was small (4-5 other surfers) and the waves were unbelievably nice. Sets were a bit over head high, and with no one to fight with for waves, everbody caught all they could handle. I surfed my 9'3" Robert August Wingnut special - it's such a fun board.

As for me, I surfed my fill, and then to cap things off caught some white water on the paddle in and saved myself about 300+ yards of paddling. I paddled 20 yards more and was in the little sandy channel near the point. I didn't even have to clamber over the reef or the rocks near the shore.

It was a really great day.

$2 Currency Problem

2005-04-11T01:09:00.000-10:00

Thanks to Mike Bolesta (of Best Buy fame - if you read the following article) I am once again interested in $2 bills.

It seems that Mike thought he would express his chagrin to Best Buy after a purchase gone awry, and got a bit of jail time.

PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta’s place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher’s car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta’s idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.

For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.

Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.

Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he’s handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.

Have a nice day, Mike.

Several sources have picked up on this thread, most notably Slashdot. There, a long debate leads me to believe that it is Best Buy that violated the law. It seems that there is a requirement for all establishments to accept legal tender for the settlement of debts.

You can check this out on the "urban legend" dimension too. It appears to be true from the normally reliable Snopes (where they also report another "urban legend" about a similar incident at Taco Bell). This must be a fairly fun way to pay bills.

However, the most interesting item in this vein is even a bit more bizzare.

Apparently even Steve Wozniak seems to have had a laugh or two using the "real" $2 bill gag. It seems Woz has taken the gag a bit further than most, though. He likes to use sheets of $2 bills that he buys and has perforated into a gummed pad. Thank heavens that someone thinks a bit out of the box!

I love to see the glee with which these people pay their bills. I haven't felt excited to pay anybody anything for quite some time!

Lack of Blogging

2005-04-06T09:04:00.000-10:00

There has been a lack of blogging here on the North Shore. A few of the reasons might be the end of the semester, the campus politics, a looming court case, a new project, etc.
Regardless, the topics I would have written about include Terri Schiavo, the continuing Kofi Anan scandal (and I mean that he is a scandal in and of himself), and the Pope.
I can sum up the positions quite easily though. There is a huge difference between the legal system and what we would normally call "justice" The law has very little to do with moral positions and the "right" thing to do (That's for Terri's case). Asking an organization to "investigate" itself (the Volker task) is naive - believing what they say about themselves is stupid. There are just too many willing, stupid people filling the airwaves. When you add politics (as in the congressional investigation) you can assure yourself that there will be very little resemblance to fact in the final report. Finally, the Pope was a well respected voice for many devout followers of Christianity. He lent his name and his life to causes that attempted to spread greater goodness and righteousness in the world. For this he deserves our respect.
There, I have at least recorded my positions - I just haven't fleshed out any arguments. Maybe as time permits... but the world seems to move on and on.

Ask the Iraqis

2005-03-21T01:03:00.000-10:00

One of the most significant opinions about the war in Iraq (was it worth it?) is addressed in a post by Austin Bay. The diplomatic tiff between Iraq and Jordan (they are witdrawing their embassy staff) is the first sign that Iraq itself really thinks that it deserves peace - not the pseudo peace sought after by the withdraw-at-any-cost crowd, but the peace afforded by law and order. The Iraqi electorate has been protesting the celebration in Jordan of the suicide bomber of Hilla who killed 125 Iraqis. This newly vocal electorate is demanding that its neighbors stop supporting (celebrating and abetting) the terrorists who indiscriminantly kill them. Finally, a country in the region that is esposing civilized values. Why does is it so difficult to see that celebrating the wanton massacre of innocent civilians is evil?

There is one other post by Austin Bay that also gives hope. He quotes Husayn Uthman, an Iraqi, who argues that their country is immeasurably better off now, with Saddam gone.

I am sheltered in Iraq, but I know how the world feels, how people have come to either love or hate Bush, as though he is the emobdiement of this war. As though this war is part of Bush, they forget the over twenty million Iraqis, they forget the Middle Easterners, they forget the average person on the street, the average man with the average dream.

Ask him if it was worth it. Ask him what is different. Ask him if he would go through it again, go ahead ask him, ask me, many of you have.

Now I answer you, I answer you on behalf of myself, and my countrymen. I dont care what your news tells you, what your television and newspapers say, this is how we feel. Despite all that has happened. Despite all the hurt, the pain, blood, sweat and tears. These two years have given us hope we never had.

Hope, that is what this war has given the Iraqi people.

The anti-war crowd still persists in railing against the war - mainly for the huge sacrifices that it has exacted from both our country and from Iraq. But just one opionion like that of Husayn Uthman requires that we examine our perspective.

Remember the line penned by Thomas Paine, "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods." The Iraqis and our own troops know the dearness of freedom.

Waimea Bay Again...

2005-03-08T07:47:00.000-10:00

Waimea Bay Breaks Again

Kurt, at Surfline, tells us that the new NW swell that hit last night is 18-20 ft., with an occasional set near 22 ft.

Over the weekend my wife took me to the Big Island for a little change of scenery. My Surfing Buddy and his wife also came along, and we stayed in Volcano City. We hiked out to see some new lava flows, plus we drove around to Naalehu and had some of the best tamales I've ever had in my life. It is always amazing to see the majesty of nature, and the Big Island is one of those incredible places.

Gee, its great to be here in Hawaii.

Roper and The Loss of Shame

2005-03-06T23:02:00.000-10:00

I fear that Justice Anthony Kennedy has lost all sense of shame (see George Will, Armstrong Williams, Jeff Jacoby, David Limbaugh, Mark Alexander, Rich Tucker).

There is usually a tether that binds each of us to institutions of our society; to our nation, to our city of birth, to our friends from our youth, or to our family. We so much value these ties that bind us to our roots that we go out of our way to avoid disgrace - particularly if such disgrace would be found out by our parents (or children), by our old school mates, or by "those back home." Kennedy, it seems, feels no more sense of belonging to this imperfect society of mere mortals. He has now transcended our realm of existence.

As much as I really disagree with most of what he writes, Pete Hamill once wrote a very quotable paragraph or two:

The sense of shame is a kind of cement in any decent society. The fear of shame reminds each of us that some things must not be done. You don't become a criminal because you would bring shame to your family. You don't employ muscle against the weak. You don't beat up women or prey on the old. You don't father children and then abandon them. You don't cheat or swindle because exposure would coat you with the tar of shame. You don't preach high ideals and live a lie.

But it's clear that we are now awash in shamelessness. It's clear that the sense of shame needs to be revived and the shameless held to account.

Pete Hamill, in this piece, was writing about his liberal cause du jour. But, he was dead-right when he mentions that shame is useful as it prevents us from stepping too far out of line. Justice Anthony Kennedy seems to have broken all ties to the "conservative" loyalties of his youth and now appears to feel no shame whatsoever as he sets himself up to be some reincarnation of Lycurgus the lawgiver.

Just like the self-indulgent alchoholic who feels no shame as he looks up from the gutter in his drunken state of vomit-covered filth, Justice Kennedy appears to have no remorse for his bald grab for power over our legislative system. He must have broken free from his connection to our system of jurisprudence based on constitutionality and precedent (and loved by we mere mortals). It seems from Roper vs. Simmons (see also this post) that he is intoxicated with his own feelings of self importance and feels little need to justify his assertions of constitutional obligations by referencing our actual constitution. Apparently to him, his opinion of what constitutes international opinion and "evolving standards of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society" trump the actual constitution and the express will of legislatures.

As Kennedy has allowed himself to think his personal opinion of right and wrong trumps his sworn duty to uphold the constitution, he proves himself to be caught up in a eurphoric state of power. He and four other like-minded "liberal thinkers" are able to usurp power over the express will of elected state officials and the juries that try the sad cases involving minors and murder. What is incredible is that Kennedy's grab for power over the legislative branch is done without an ounce of apparent shame. Kennedy doesn't resort to constitutional arguments, he doesn't feel he has to do so. Instead, it is self-focused, as if his views of right and wrong supercede those of all other humans.

I for one am ashamed that we have allowed our supreme court to think that they can legislate from the bench.

Kofi and U.N. Snake Oil

2005-02-24T05:24:00.000-10:00

Kofi Annan recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "The U.N. needs to be reformed, but it still performs a crucial function."
This is an amazingly self-serving statement from the head of an organization that he admits:

Yet I am the first to admit that real and troubling failures--ethical lapses and lax management--have been brought to light. I am determined, with the help of member states, to carry through the management reforms which are clearly called for by Mr. Volcker's findings.

Even more shocking are widespread cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of minors by peacekeepers and U.N. officials in the Congo and other African countries. Both the U.N. Secretariat and the member states have been too slow to realize the extent of this problem, take effective measures to end it, and punish the culprits. But we are now doing so, and I am determined to see it through.

Kofi acknowledges that under his watch there have been some very significant "ethical lapses" (involving people, like, hmmm..., like himself and his family), and "lax management" (again involving people, like, hmmm..., like himself). Yet, Kofi begs us to still rely on the U.N.

Kofi does point out that after the recent tsunami, "...when all involved came together in Jakarta to plan and coordinate the multinational effort, everyone, including the U.S., agreed that the U.N. should take the lead." He points out that it does have some uses (however far they may be from the U.N.'s original charter).

I find this analogous to a snake oil saleman who is confronted with the fact that his "remedy for what ails you" product 1) doesn't work as purported, 2) is actually poisonous, having killed several local people, and 3) is extraordinarily lucrative for the seller. Upon being confronted with these facts, the seller says, "But you can use it to remove tarnish from your silver... Don't take this wonderful product off of the market!"

Kofi doesn't understand - we are realizing that we have been bilked by the U.N. We were sold a bill of goods; we were promised that it would promote world peace and help eliminate hegemony. Instead, it promotes destabilizing, anti-democratic and anti-freedom producing forces. It encourages hegemony and totalitarian states. (But it is good as a relief agency.)

Kofi, your organization is snake oil, dangerous snake oil at that.

Light and Small Towns

2005-02-15T19:27:00.000-10:00

There seems to be something about the distinction between darkness and light. Some activities flourish only in darkness, other activities flourish best in the light.

When 'we' lived predominantly in small communities (this is the figurative 'we' of our American heritage) everybody seemed to know everything about everyone else. The close-knit social fabric was supplemented by gossip channels to ensure that very few things remained secret or hidden. As our society moved from small-town America to more urban living, isolation and anonymity increased, gossip channels were interrupted and consequently more and more of people's lives fell out of public view. With anonymity came an increase in "acts of darkness" - or an increase in those activities that would be shameful if detected or widely known, an increase in actions shameful if seen, but that seemed to be alright if the identity of the doer were not known.

We have all seen the caricatured versions of hooded or masked groups of vigilantes or thugs; those who think that by shielding their identity they can get away with acts that would be unacceptable to society. Acts of darkness flourish when the doer thinks they are not known.

This is a bit like the attendees at masked balls of a bygone era. The masks conferred a sort of ambiguity about who the actor might be - and so actions at masked balls became more ribald and provocative. As long as there was plausible deniability about the identity of a person at the ball, the doer might "get away" with things that society might otherwise reject.

The larger our cities become, and the more anonymous we become, the greater the risk that we will act as if our actions are all done in the cover of darkness. In the anonymity of being a faceless New York commuter we lack friendliness - we become abrupt in our dealings with others. When our friends and spouses don't see us, we even say exactly what we think, regardless of how rude or inappropriate.

As we consider some of the scandals that have recently brought down celebrated people (e.g., Eason Jordan), we find that it is their actions that they 'think' are private that ultimately do them in. It is, as well, their actions attempting to keep those acts 'under wraps' that compound their problems. As Michelle Malkin asks of Eason Jordan:

What about the videotape? Will he ask the World Economic Forum to release the tape to help clear the air and remove the unfair tarnish?

Our friend Eason was destroyed, in part, by his refusal to shed light on his actions. Ask Richard Nixon..., a cover-up only compounds problems. It is when we allow a part of us to develop that cannot stand the light of day that we really get into destructive trouble.

Sure, we all have our faults, but it is not our faults per se that usually destroy us. They may hold us back, but they don't usually rip apart our career and bring ruin. No, destruction more often comes from a combination of things. If we allow a part of our persona to develop in the dark, a part that only flourishes in darkness, then we enhance the likelihood that light is our enemy. If we have 'dark' secrets that haunt our lives then we become enemies of light. We become the adversary of scrutiny, the target of the small-town gossip, of the investigative journalist, of the rabid bloggers. We become enemies to all those forces that bring light to otherwise dark acts.

Aksel Sandemose wrote a great novel about life in a small Swedish city. Everyone knew almost everything about everyone else. This created a law, the "Jantelavn" or the informal law of Jante, that, among other things stated that "We know you, we know where you grew up and who you are." This 'law,' on one hand, makes certain that no one gets "too big for their britches" - but at the same time it reminds us that others are always watching.

Our best defense against destruction by light is to keep in check the development of our character. If we notice that parts of our lives need to remain hidden for us to be comfortable, then we are probably doing things that we ought not.

Rather than attempting to keep signficant parts of our lives free from scrutiny, we should concentrate more on changing our nature. We should clean up the soiled spots of our character and of our lives - not just rely on darkness to hide the unsightly blemishes.

Light and small-town scrutiny are really stimuli for improving our nature. If we can live so that we bear investigation, so that we can stand the heat of light shined on all that we do, then we have employed the best defense against destruction. We can say, "Bring on the light... I am not ashamed."

Destruction by light is only a threat to those with a dark nature. Too bad Eason - you really needed to go.

Jon Mozo

2005-02-14T17:33:00.000-10:00

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of that great underwater / surf photographer Jon Mozo. He was apparently carried into the reef at Ehukai Beach (Pipeline) and died of head injuries. The Honolulu Advertizer carries this article but it barely communicates the feelings of the North Shore community and the university.

Baker said yesterday was one of those "pristine, perfect kind of photo and surfing days." The surf at Pipeline was not especially big, he said, but the swell was out of the west "and as any North Shore lifeguard can tell you, when you have an extreme west swell you have an extremely strong current and it's very easy to get dragged into a shallow area off the reef.

"He probably found himself caught in the face of a wave, and with the power of these west swells it may have dragged him up and over the face of the wave and flipped him into the shallow water. He would have hit the reef, which at best has 5 feet of water."

This vignette of his life perhaps says it better:

Jon went to BYU Hawaii and developed a talent for picture taking while working at the Polynesian Cultural Center, where he met his wife and studied her Maori culture. He left Hawaii in 1994 and took a job in San Diego doing photofinishing. Six months later he moved out to the east coast where he worked for a number of labs and studios in the Baltimore and DC areas. After two years of gaining invaluable experience, and sacrificing much island living, Jon moved back to Hawaii. With these new experiences and knowledge, he anxiously started his own photography business in 1996.

He leaves a wife and four children, and an entire community of admirers.
Twelve years ago Jon escaped a shark attack at Goat Island yet continued to love the water.
Jon's passing is felt by the entire community. He was known as a good husband and father, a great underwater photographer and an all around good man.
Aloha Jon.

German State Coerces Young Women into Prostitution

2005-01-31T13:34:00.000-10:00

Now this will be an interesting topic to follow. The Telegraph reports that a German woman will loose her unemployment benefits if she does not accept work as a prostitute.

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit.

Apparently, the legalization of prostitution in Germany has some unintended consequences - the coercion of women into the sex trade.

Now I may be old fashioned, but state-sanctioned coercion like this sounds criminal. This is what happens when the state tries to move away from a moral foundation for law.

Faith-Based Theatrics of the Left

2005-01-29T01:03:00.000-10:00

An interesting idea is floating around in the blogosphere. There is a refinement of something that I toyed with a few months back, but failed to articulate fully.

At the time, I saw the leftist ideology as a form of religion – based on a faith that was more reliant on internal feelings than on any physical reality. Communism has consistently failed, yet there are still ardent communists, etc.

Well the argument has recently been articulated a bit more clearly now. Joe Katzman in his piece entitled “ACTIVISM'S ONANIST FANTASY IDEOLOGY” makes some very interesting points. (By the way, I had to look up one word in the title of his article in a dictionary to understand exactly what he was saying. But now I get it…)

Al Qaeda may not be the only ones out there with a fantasy ideology (pace, Lee Harris), and another version of same may explain quite a bit about modern American politics and the decline of the Democratic Party. If you see activism as the default mode of politics, goes this thesis, you shouldn't be surprised when it leads to anti-intellectualism, tolerance of extremists, retreat into fantasy, and a self-defeating kind of partisanship designed to make people feel better about themselves rather than produce meaningful change.

This rather interesting thesis links modern ultra-left politics with terrorism on a very surprising dimension. As Katzman’s arguments (and those of Harris he cites) point out, the ultra-left tactics of in-your-face activism, and the oft-times bizarre combinations of disparate ideas linked together in “hate-Bush” rallies – these acts of “theatre” usually have less to do with convincing the un-persuaded or with making converts to a cause (which would be a legitimate political objective) than they have to do with the theatrical nature of the acts themselves.

The activist is less concerned with persuasion and making convincing arguments than with demonstrating the extremity of their own conviction. Katzman and Harris argue that these theatrics are acts of fantasy – that the doers of these theatrical deeds are doing them to satisfy a need, a need to act out a fantasy within the doers themselves. They argue that a fantasy of self-importance is enhanced when an extremist demonstrates in a disruptive way.

I think that there is a bit more to it than this. I see these activist disruptions (or acts of self-immolation by terrorists) more as testimonials than just fantasy. The more extreme the action, or the more self-destructive the result, the more the doer of the act highlights the depth of their belief in that thing they are proclaiming. The protester that is arrested says, “See, I am willing to be arrested for my belief.” The terrorist says, “See, I am willing to die for my belief.” These are just various degrees of proclaiming a deeply held belief.

But, that is all that they are doing – expressing a belief. There is no argument of logic that can be digested or considered – only faith. Activism is not a way of arguing rationally, it is only a way of expressing extreme belief.

That is precisely why politics of the extreme left are exactly like a religion. These politics are not arguable in the dimension of logic or reason – they are simply felt to be true.

These “extreme testaments” of the activist and the terrorist are similar. They inevitably rail against the status quo, against the system that exists, and testify of an alternative path to happiness.

Those that believe most fiercely that there is another way, that the status quo is evil or wrong, are naturally drawn together. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The extremist lover of trees and forests that sees modern industrialized society as the enemy to his garden utopia assails the status quo. At the same time, the terrorist who seeks a totalitarian religious state where modern industrialized society is the enemy – he also assails the status quo. These two, the extremist and the terrorist, share a common foe – the status quo. They are linked in their fight against a common enemy.

In there inability to argue and persuade by logic, both the extremist and the terrorist resort to testimony. “Please believe as I do,” they scream with their audacious acts of theatre. “See how deeply I feel,” they proclaim with their actions.

The less able they are to persuade with logic, and the more helpless they become in effecting changes in the status quo, the more dramatically they resort to testimony. That becomes the only outlet for their zealous beliefs.

Consequently, there is only one direction ahead as I see it. As capitalism and conservatism march forward as a ideologies based on empirical success in government and based on logical arguments of what is philosophically justifiable, the loony left will be increasingly marginalized and will abandon all pretense of civil discourse. In turn, the more the extreme elements of the left are marginalized, the more audacious they will become in their “acts of testimony,” the more virulent they will become in acts against the status quo, and the more linked that these groups will become with the other “anti-status quo” players such as the terrorists. The extreme left and the terrorists will merge into a single force seeking the destruction of the current capitalist system.

As the Democrats swing to the left to include these fringe groups that hate the current capitalist system, they will embrace with more open arms the enemies of our state. Just wait and see – this war on terrorism will be more and more openly opposed by the left.

And yes, I still think that modern liberalism is nothing more than a religion – it can only thrive where a deep faith in its principles pushes out logic and invites acts of testimony, acts of desperate theatrical desperation.

A Crowded Pipe

2005-01-22T17:26:00.000-10:00

Yes, even Pipe draws a crowd...

Note the crowd at Pipe...

There is nothing that will draw a crowd like an announcement on Surfline that says:

High Surf Advisory is posted. New WNW Swell built overnight and should peak later today near the Triple Overhead range. Conditions are improving - still kinda bumpy & lumpy - but definitely rideable now.

You would think that a surfcam shot of a crowd like this would keep them away - but it doesn't.

It looks like LA...

For some reason shots like this remind me of some L.A. beach. (I count somewhere near 30 people out at one break.) This shouldn't happen in paradise- but then again it is Saturday and all of the town crowd wants to surf. Oh well, the weekend will soon be over.

Ivasov's Revelations

2005-01-21T23:03:00.000-10:00

There have been precious few articles covering the Hague trial of Slobodan Milosevic. One reason for that may be that it is not going well for the prosecution (and for the mainstream media who it turns out were puppets of the Clinton administration).

I have tried to keep up with the transcripts of testimony and follow some of the arguments of the case (these can be accessed here).

For an example of the problems faced by the prosecution, on 23 November, 2004 Judge Robinson noted that the facts presented in the testimony of Russian General Leonid Gregori Ivasov (the “top” of the Russian military pyramid overseeing Yugoslavia, intelligence activities relating to the Kosovo uprising, and the U.S./NATO negotiations and response) suggest that much of the prosecution’s case is based on information that is “not objective” (see page 33734).

Apparently, there are evidence and testimony to the fact that overt U.S. support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was a known mafia-like terrorist organization with links to al Qaeda (see page 33710) began as early as 1997(see page 33690). The U.S. was actively preparing for the destruction of Yugoslavia with the build up of military capability and materiel. Furthermore, the testimony points to early development (1997) of an information war (i.e., psychological and media war) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by the U.S. well in advance of the outright NATO attack in March of 1999 (see page 33712).

In fact, the evidence and testimony suggest that the human rights abuses touted by the western media were more a product of KLA and NATO actions than by Serbian actions, and that these “planned” human rights abuses (i.e., the massive refugee flows) were part of the intended pre-combat activities that would legitimize the long-planned actions of the U.S. under the Clinton administration. The Verification Mission which was ostensibly designed to monitor the situation between the Serbs and the Kosovars apparently ended up as a biased propaganda tool used to provide a “smokescreen” for the U.S. preparations for aggression (see page 33719).

The disturbing aspects of these revelations are 1) Under the last Democratic administration we strategized with, trained and fought on the side of a Muslim terrorist/mafia organization (an ally of al Qaeda) and facilitated their overthrow of a sovereign (although pariah) government; 2) The mainstream media were 100% complicit in promoting the administration’s false characterization of the human rights abuses taking place; 3) The U.N. sanctions, the Rambouillet negotiations and its associated agreements were intended by the U.N. and the U.S. to be confrontational and unacceptable to the Yugoslavian government; and 4) The intended outcome all along (as negotiated by Madeline Albright with the KLA) was the establishment of an independent Kosovo leading to a “greater Albania” – just as warned against by the Yugoslav government.

If these revelations are anywhere near true, then it is no wonder that the Democrats, the U.N. and “Old Europe” are incensed at the Bush administration; for Bush changed sides in the middle of a war.

Instead of supporting the Muslim revolutionaries in their expansion into Europe (i.e., the Islamic “greater Albanian state”), Bush lashed out. The allies of the Clinton administration (who would occasionally blow up one of our embassies or attack our interests to rally Arab support for their cause) stepped too far over the line. And instead of the Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement of the Democrats, Bush disrupted the tenuous alliances between the U.S., the Arab/Muslim-sympathetic majority in the U.N. and the pseudo-state of Islam.

Just like the young fraternity boy who says, “Whoa! This party is getting a bit too wild for me. I’m leaving!” Bush walked out of the room declaring the Islamic movement just a bit too wild for his taste. This left the compliant Europeans, who had been appeasing the Islamic immigration wave (perhaps to maintain their access to oil), as the only “boys who should have known better” still left at the party with the real rough and rowdy Islamists.

No wonder the Democrats hate Bush. Not only has he had them kicked out of office, but he has disrupted their blind partying with Europe and called their naughty friends on their nasty behavior. He might ruin their whole party.

Religions don't Commit Crimes

2005-01-21T16:38:00.000-10:00

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the Jersey City slaying of Hossam Armanious, the 47-year-old Coptic Christian, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8. See, for example, the article from
New York Newsday.

The headline to that Newsday article is: "Jersey City slaying spurs new wave of anti-Islam bias" - which strikes me as curious for the apparent slant - which slant was almost the subject of this post. However, something even more interesting caught my eye farther down in that article:

Suzanne Loutfy, a Muslim leader of the Egyptian-American Group, asked people not to blame Islam if the killers are found to be Muslim.

"People are so willing to condemn an entire religion," she said. "That's what the big problem is. People commit crimes; religions don't. I hope we can be intelligent enough to separate those two."

(The emphasis in this quote is mine.) I read this final quote and wonder at the hope expressed in the final sentence. It is a very interesting test of intelligence, separating "people" that act from "religion" that encourages people to act in particular ways.

I see the meaning of this as being better examined if we play with the structure of Suzanne Loutfy's key phrase, the one I emphasized. In this particular case it means:

People commit murder, religions don't.

While this statement may be true in a superficial sense (in that religions are a set of intangible ideas that lack the capability of accomplishing anything without the assistance of a human actor), it is at its root false. Many intangible ideas (like hatred, like racial bigotry, like the Nazi political philosophy) impel an actor to do deeds. If those deeds are crimes like murder, then it is pretty clear that we, in fact, do not hold the philosophy blameless. History says that we allocate the blame to both the doer and the impelling philosophy.

So to me, Suzanne Loutfy's hope expressed above, that we can be intelligent enough to separate the people from the philosophy, appears to be in vain. We cannot nor should we totally separate the two.

I hope instead that we can be intelligent enough to examine the motivating philosophy carefully and determine if, in fact, it does share the blame. For centuries certain types of muslims were able to live peaceably with their non-muslim neighbors. But certain versions of this religion, like various sects within the historical Christian community, may have become corrupted.

If the philosophy is not blameless, let us be intelligent enough to recognize so. Let us also be intelligent enough to discern between the poisonous viper and the harmless.

Fox Leans Left

2005-01-17T02:23:00.000-10:00

I am very surprised at the lurch to the left by Fox News. Once the election results came in, Fox seems to have begun trying to cover at least some of the news with much more of the same slant as the rest of the MSM.

Of particular note is the coverage of the war in Iraq and the preparations for elections. While there may be simply a new set of editorial standards, the range of articles now featured by Fox seems to reach squarely into the territory owned by the NYTimes. One recent article about a soldier refusing to return to combat carries the title "Soldier Won't Return to Iraq" and focuses on the concientious objector status claimed by the 10 year veteran. The article is very friendly to the anti-war objections raised by a former combat soldier.

Granted, Fox has had its share of balance in the past - but it has been fairly obvious (at least to its left-most leaning critics) that Fox has traditionally leaned toward support for the Iraqi war and toward support for more conservative issues. (This has been part of Murdoch's genius - attempting to fill a void left gaping by the rest of the MSM.) Fox seems to have recently adopted a new strategy, however.

With the election safely over, Fox has started selecting several articles a week that clearly step over into the typical NYTimes areas of interest that are critical of the U.S. war effort. These left-leaning articles rarely contain earth-shaking or important, breaking news, but rather contain more human interest coverage of individual or world opinion that paints the U.S. in an unfavorable light. There may have been an occasional pander to the left prior to the election - but rarely would Fox choose to run with articles with so much raw, individual opinion against the war effort. Well, those days appear to be gone now.

It would seem that Fox has started to believe that its credo "fair and balanced" means that an occasional below-the-belt cheap shot is essential. And here I thought that fair and balance had to do with analysis of facts. I fear that this pandering will never earn it the respect of the major networks (if that is what they are trying to achieve) - and it will only alienate its base.

There are better ways to show fairness and balance. Those ways usually begin with calling a spade a spade.

Gratitude and the Unexpected

2005-01-05T01:57:00.000-10:00

Gratitude is something often felt in Hawaii. We often give or receive a lei - and we often exchange other gifts - with just the smallest provocation. For each little gift we share a wonderful sensation that we call gratitude. But imagine the feelings that came to Ray K. Yoshioka of the 1957 class at McKinley High School after his class ring was recently returned to him. Apparently, Ray had lost his ring in 1958 at Ala Moana Beach and that is where Capt. Jim Steff of Hickam Air Force Base found it - in the sand out in about 3 feet of water.

"Wow, what a gift," said Yoshioka. "And on Thanksgiving Day!"

Can you imagine how grateful you would feel for such a gift? Can you imagine how you would feel if someone did something this nice and this unexpected for you?

I keep thinking of gratitude and how difficult it is for some people to have that sensation. If you recall, several people have called the U.S. response to the tsunami disaster as stingy. That phrase has been bounced around in the media ever since as some attempt to "beat up" the current administration for their gifts and aid to the ravaged Indian Ocean area.

Why would any gift be regarded as a "stingy" gift? Since a gift is given freely, one might think that any gift would be appreciated. But as I consider the class ring mentioned above - I see that that what makes people most grateful is not just a gift, but an unexpected gift.

I can remember feeling less than grateful, and almost disappointed, once when I received a Christmas gift. I really had expected something else. So, when the gift came, I compared what I received with what I thought I was going to receive. The difference was disappointing. The gift was still a really nice and thoughtful gift, but because I expected something different I didn't feel gratitude. I am truly sorry that the giver saw that in me.

This is the lesson that we can learn when others call our country's gifts "stingy." Their expectations are for something different - larger perhaps, or more grand.

Should we therefore give less - in order to reduce expectations? Should we make it easier for others to see "unexpected" gifts?

I actually think not. The problem is not with the giver of a gift - but with the recipient (or observer) who comes to expect largesse of a certain degree. Just as I am ashamed of my own feelings of ingratitude, those who do not feel grateful for the freely given gifts of others should cringe.

When those who benefit from the largesse of another are ungrateful - and even betray that benefactor - we see the most heinous side of human nature. Dante characterized this sin as the most vile, reserving it for the ninth circle of hell, the deepest and darkest in the pit. (Canto XXXIV of The Inferno)

For now, I am just glad that the expressions of ingratitude were not mine...

By the way, has anyone seen MY high-school class ring? I lost it about a year after I graduated at the beach in California...

Another Giant Swell

2005-01-05T01:27:00.000-10:00

I have no photos, but trust me, this last giant swell has been - well - giant. The west facing beaches (Sunset - Waimea) have been enormous - but too sloppy to ride. As a consequence there has been a lot of activity on the east where these Kona winds are off-shore.

It is really rare to see waves 3+ times overhead at PCCs and Chevrons. Middles was blasted by some really big sets as well- they were clean but unpredictable. There were 5 - 7 people out at virtually every one of the breaks between Hauula and Kahuku - a real crowded scene for this east side. Waves were breaking way out past Goat Island. This was pure wrap surf from the NW swell pummeling the North Shore.

There is a really good photo of last month's Eddie at the Honolulu Advertiser. (Thanks Sherri for the tip!) This has really been a great winter so far for surf. But since we know big waves, we really feel for the thousands that were caught unprepared for the Indian Ocean tsunami. There are few things as terrifying as being whacked around by powerful waves.

Classess begin tomorrow for the new semester. I've gotta get focused!

This Week at the Beach

2004-12-19T16:28:00.000-10:00

Well, as you can imagine, it has been an amazing week at the beach.

This is a tube at the Pipe... Thursday was such a perfect, glassy day. I almost wish I were 25 (or so) years younger. (And I should add a wish that I were a better surfer than I really was at that age - these guys are pros and are just unbelievably good.)

At the RipCurl Pro we would occasionally see riders take off on both Pipe and Backdoor at the same time. This one shows a perfect A-frame wave with riders going both ways.

This shot gives you some perspective of just how close the Pipe breaks to the beach. You literally cannot believe how close this break is to the sand.

This is a Waimea bottom turn from the Eddie. It doesn't do justice to the majesty of these waves.

As you can see, I finished grading papers and spent a bit of time watching the new generation do their thing on the waves. All I can say is, "Wow..."

The Eddie Goes...

2004-12-15T08:20:00.000-10:00

The Eddie Aikau goes today.

Well, the gigantic WNW swell that we have been expecting hit today. It is huge - what more can be said?

I went up to Lai'e point this morning, and the wrap-around surf was unbelievable. Waves were breaking up over the point, the little islands were getting completely covered with surf. There is talk about 50 foot waves hitting the North Shore. And, just so you know, here in Hawaii they measure surf very differently than they do in places like California. A 4 foot wave can be over head...

Well, just to tantalize - I pulled the above picture off of Surfline's webcam for Waimea. They are lined up and ready to go for the Eddie Aikau.

Eddie, you will remember, is the famed local boy - life guard at Waimea, etc. - that was a fearless big wave surfer. Since Eddie died, the local culture has revered him. When it is big, really big, the locals know, "Eddie would go."

Well, today, I am not going (it really is just too crazy for anyone my age to even think about it). But the legends of today are going, and the contest that they hold in remembrance of Eddie - it goes too. I will at least go watch.

Classic Pipe

2004-12-14T05:52:00.000-10:00

Classic Pipeline barrel.

Well, this is the North Shore and these are real waves. Note the drop-in on a wave 3-4 times head high last night about 5:30pm. This is unbelievable stuff - much too big for an old man like me, but oh is it fun to watch.

What is really amazing about the Pipe is that it is just so close to beach. You can literally stroll down from the parking lot (provided there is a space!) and right there in front of you is world class surf. All I had with me was a little point-and-shoot camera - no lenses, nothing. My fellow professor, Greg, brought a 200mm telephoto lens with a real camera. He got some great shots of this - and the Rip Curl Pipeline Pro might go today. There could be some great surfing going on here today.

I still have a two and a half inch stack of papers to grade by Thursday at noon when grades are due, but what a great venue to read... I love this place!

C.S. Lewis

2004-12-01T01:38:00.000-10:00

Chuck Colson writes about the November 29 birthday of C.S. Lewis. Although he was born in 1898, and died 41 years ago, Colson suggests that Lewis saw our day:

Why was Lewis so uncannily prophetic? At first glance he seems an unlikely candidate. He was not a theologian; he was an English professor. What was it that made him such a keen observer of cultural and intellectual trends?

The answer may be somewhat discomfiting to modern evangelicals: One reason is precisely that Lewis was not an evangelical. He was a professor in the academy, with a specialty in medieval literature, which gave him a mental framework shaped by the whole scope of intellectual history and Christian thought. As a result, he was liberated from the narrow confines of the religious views of the day—which meant he was able to analyze and critique them.

In this, Colson strikes the root of a very important problem. It is "the narrow confines of the religious views of the day" that constrains our own understanding of religion. It is, in fact, our misunderstanding of religion that has us now at war with Islamofascism and deeply divided as a nation - the secularists vs. the religious majority.

C.S. Lewis, in his essay “Meditation in a Toolshed” (most recently appearing in Compelling Reason, 1998) illustrates a relevant type of divide that comes from viewing a single phenomenon from two different vantage points. Lewis likens the first experience to looking at a beam of light in his darkened toolshed. He sees the beam and the floating specks of dust illuminated by the light. The floating specks give frame and almost substance to the beam as the beam contrasts with the dark, monochrome shapes within the shed. Lewis characterizes this as looking at the beam.

Lewis contrasts looking at the beam by describing the experience as he looks along the beam. As he steps into the light and looks to the outside, he sees the leaves of trees, patches of blue sky, and even the sun, though it is millions of miles away. By stepping into this beam, he no longer sees the dark shapes of tools in his shed. He no longer even sees the contrast between the beam and the darkness – for all the relevant parts of his experience take place within the lighted beam.

His essay contrasts the two very different types of experiences, looking at something from the outside versus looking along that thing by stepping into it and experiencing it from the inside.

One of the obvious applications of this for Lewis has to do with religious experience. Lewis contrasts the religious experience as viewed from the outside, by someone detached and looking at the experience, and the religious experience as experienced from within, by someone involved and looking along that beam. The two experiences are remarkably different, just as were his two toolshed experiences.

Lewis’ essay illuminates the type of problems we face today when dealing with these extraordinary religious divides that dominate our current existence. The secularists view the experiences of the religious majority from the outside. They view the beam, they see the effects of the light, but they do not see along the beam. Their encounter with religion is something totally different from what is experienced by those within that light, from those that see along that beam to the brighter world and glimpse the ultimate source of light.

This is equally true of the Islamofascist view of the west and of democracy. They see, from the outside, the specs of dust within the beam. They see the dust and filth upon the floor. They take umbrage at that which is illuminated by democracy’s light. It is naïve of us to presume that they see the brighter world and freedom’s light.

At the same time we have no conception of their experience. Their brand of Islamic hatred must provide them some sort of counterfeit light, some twisted glimpse of a future that they esteem more highly than the deprivations and the poverty of their current plight.

Until we can bridge the disparity of these experiences, we are doomed to religious divides - and to the disruption that these cause to our lives. Perhaps we could at least get a few secularists to step into the light... That at least would be a big improvement.

Dollar Lows against Euros

2004-11-25T01:12:00.000-10:00

Today CBS News reports that the dollar/euro exchange rate has burst through the 1.32 level for the first time. This is big news for people that are traveling to Europe and seek to buy things there. Everything in Europe seems to be getting more and more expensive for dollar-based purchasers. Just a few short years ago I remember when .87 dollars was equivalent to a euro – and things in Europe then seemed cheap to me. But that is not the case anymore.

Many of us are asking why the dollar sinking to such a low value against these foreign currencies. What makes the dollar seem to have such a low value to the rest of the world?
The answer is quite surprising. The U.S. economic numbers that came out just before Thanksgiving were not the reason for the plunge (see this Reuters article). Although these numbers were positive / mixed – the real reason most are citing for the plunging dollar is our soaring current accounts deficit (see this from the BBC). In short, the U.S. is importing more than we export.

By importing more than we export, the U.S. is sending dollars into circulation around the globe. We pay for our imports in dollars – and these dollars end up in foreign economies. But, since consumers in these foreign economies do not use dollars for their day-to-day purchases, these dollars don’t have the same usefulness to them as their own currency.

Because the U.S. economy is so strong right now, our consumers’ level of demand is very high. We like to purchase foreign goods, and so even as the dollar loses its value against these foreign currencies, and even as these foreign goods become more and more expensive to us (in a relative sense) – we keep on purchasing them.

Normally, these dollars would circulate back to the U.S. as foreigners used them to purchase goods from us. As they import U.S. goods, these dollar flows would have a productive use for them.

However, the other economies of the world (Europe in particular) are not nearly as strong and robust as ours. Consequently, their consumers have less disposable income with which to purchase foreign goods. What little they have goes to purchase bread and potatoes (figuratively), all of which are purchased with their own currency, not U.S. dollars. Add to this the unfavorable tariffs that many of the countries have placed on U.S. goods – making them even more expensive, and it is easy to see why these economies are not importing from us. They have more pressing, domestic expenditures to make.

Their weak economies and their tariff structures mean that their spending focus is in their own markets – and tend to be in their own currencies. As we flood their markets with our dollars – their consumers have little use for them – and so they begin to accumulate... These dollars are not as useful to them as their own currency is. So, what dollars they do accumulate, they tend to trade for a pittance in their own currency – just so that they can purchase the basics that they need (so to speak).

Add to this the global turmoil of late. The dollar has become a safe haven in times of global unrest. Consequently, more and more of the U.S. debt is purchased by foreigners seeking safe investment harbors. This flow of cash into our economy adds to our money supply – heating up our economy even more. And, at the same time, more and more of our country’s interest payments are being made to foreigners – adding even more to the flood of dollars flowing out beyond our borders.

In order for the dollar to become stronger, the global economies (and especially the European economies) need to see more growth. And specifically growth that leads them to be able to afford the “exotic” products and services being offer by U.S. producers. Growth for the Europeans can only come if they make some structural changes – change their tax regimes, change their labor and business policies. And these changes will be slow.

Further complicating the process is the fact that our U.S. economy is experiencing huge surges in productivity – especially in the service sector. (See this):

Studies by the McKinsey Global Institute of selected service sector industries suggest that labor productivity in the United States is greater than in France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom by 30 percent in the airline industry, 30 to 40 percent in retail banking, 20 to 50 percent in telecommunications, and 10 to 50 percent in retail selling. In part because the U.S. domestic market for services is so well developed, the United States is the world's leading exporter of business and professional services. The service sector overall contributed a positive $76 billion to net trade in 1999, whereas goods trade was in deficit by about $345 billion.

It is the more mature economies that purchase these sophisticated business and professional services from the U.S.

The share of services in U.S. exports should increase further as the United States' trading partners grow and mature. For example, services account for about 35 percent of U.S. exports to the mature economies of Europe, where the share of services in GDP is about 70 percent; 25 percent of U.S. exports to South and Central America, where the service share of GDP is about 57 percent; but only 18 percent of U.S. exports to China and India, where the service share of GDP is 37 percent.

We buy basic goods from the world – because they are cheap and desirable to us, and the world is buying complex services from us, because we are simply good at providing them. This means that mature and strong economies are some of the best candidates for our best exports (i.e., these services). We buy from poor countries, but only the developed buy from us. These are difficult trends to turn around.

If we want a stronger dollar, then we need to ensure that these other economies grow and hope that they change structurally to allow their consumers to purchase goods (and services) from the U.S. Global peace would help too. But for now, let us look to help Europe's stagnating economies get out of the doldrums.

One Dutchman's View

2004-11-16T01:51:00.000-10:00

A great friend of mine, one who happens to be from Holland, recently opined on the changes in Dutch sentiment over the noteworthy events there. Even Fox is picking up on the groundswell change in Dutch tolerance as the country digests the asassination of Theo van Gogh.

My friend's answer (in his non-native English) to my question about the change in the Dutch view of tolerance is insightful:

Which bring me to your question. As you may remember my thesis will touch upon culture differences and I have studied most there is to know about the subject. I believe I understand why this field of study has not received wider attention in other fields of our societies, yet I am afraid that this state of ignorance is causing lots of unnecessary harm. I furthermore subscribe to ontological relativism, where one assumes that people live in different worlds (realities) and that there are hardly any ways of bridging our differences. This seems amongst other problems to be the case between "western modern societies" and those coming from area's where Muslims live. Muslims - at least great part of them - like the ones coming from northern African countries (Algeria and Morocco notably) have little to no tolerance to other cultures and worst is that they reject the culture they have accepted whilst deciding to live in them.

The murder of Pim Fortuyn and the one on Theo van Gogh have more differences than commonalities. The first one was shot on the day that the polls indicated that his party was going to win elections and that he was going to be the prime minister of Holland. He was murdered though by a Dutch extremist with a background in the environmental movement: a lunatic. The van Gogh killing though was done by a 26 year old Moroccan who - after his mother died of cancer - felt attracted to orthodox extremist or fundamentalist branches of Islam. He killed him in a sacred way (with knifes, cutting his throat, wearing his testimony and accepting that the police would shoot and kill him afterwards. (jihad and the prospect of being received by Mohammed in heaven with 7 virgins).

Theo van Gogh was even for the average Dutch an extreme provocateur. Although this was (barely) acceptable for the average Dutch who advocate tolerance and freedom of speech, it did provoke fundamentalist from all area's of society, but especially the Muslims. In Holland we have 950.000 Muslims, of which according to most recent calculations, 50.000 may be considered extremist. (not even fundamentalist, just extremist). This has been a problem for decades in Holland, leading to social unrest especially in large cities, such as Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and the like, but till Pim Fortuyn, the politicians were not concerned with doing something about it, as it was not done to criticise any minority - especially those with a different colour, race or religion.(this stems to some extent from the Dutch collaborating with the Nazi's in their haunt for Jews) They advocated and cheered our multicultural society and prided themselves with having been able to integrate all these differences. I believe that they now come to realise that this was all a mistake.

I have no idea how on earth they will try to resolve the problems they have created during so many decades of ill policies and leaving things to rotten. I only now that Western world has steep challenges to face on all areas ...

The question remains as to how the normally tolerant Dutch will deal with the upswing in violence involving the pro- or anti-Muslim groups. This certainly has touched off a spirited debate.

The Criminal Circus

2004-11-11T18:03:00.000-10:00

OK, OK... So they finally have announced the death of Arafat.

Now the media circus has begun in earnest. Why all of this fuss over such a petty criminal who maintained an iron grip over an impoverished people? Arafat was probably the main reason that Palestinians have so little today - and yet the MSM celebrates.

It is interesting that the Jerusalem Post mentions Arafat's ill-gotten money so casually. They note that Arafat's wife shook them down for $22 million a year, just so that they could gain access to the billions that Arafat had stashed away.

Abbas and the Palestinian leadership were forced to strike the deal with Suha after she refused to allow them to visit her husband in hospital.

The Palestinian leaders reached the conclusion that it would be better to make a deal with her in order to solve the crisis surrounding Arafat's possessions and secret bank accounts.

According to Palestinian officials, the money that Suha is expected to receive will come from secret accounts held by Arafat and his cronies in various countries. They estimated that at least $4 billion were being held in these secret accounts.

So the things everyone admits about Arafat are:
1. His participation in terrorist activities, his establishment of Fatah and his command to murder the Israeli atheletes in Munich, 1972 (see this or even this list).
2. His theft of money provided by western powers as "aid".
3. His 'authorization' of terrorist attacks by "Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah coordinated together under the umbrella of the 'Nationalist and Islamic Forces,' led by Fatah." (see this).
etc.

Is this the sort of person we should ruefully mourn? Sure, it is sad when anyone passes from this life, - but I just don't understand the pomp and dignity afforded this criminal in his death.

If he were such a good thing for the world, then how many western powers will rejoice in finding a successor for the Palestinian people that might be JUST LIKE ARAFAT?

I think the answer is none... so this circus is criminal in nature.

It's a "Vision" thing...

2004-11-06T16:08:00.000-10:00

For me, the vision that established this great U.S. government was one of individual freedom so that enterprising individuals could survive in a hostile environment. The basic premise of our "American experiment" was a government based on the resourcefulness of an individual locked in struggle. Our pioneer heritage lauded the resourcefulness of the individual in overcoming the challenges of settling a new country. The new government created room for enterprising individuals to all have a say in governance (i.e., democratic principles) - but recognized the opposition of ideas and frailties of man so created ample checks and balances. The American vision was based on individual freedom to make choices in an evironment presumed to be hostile. The hostile forces against which man struggled were specifically viewed to include the environment and other people, to include the government, to include competitive forces, to include other nations. In fact, the American vison was one of a people locked in a struggle even with themselves.

The vision that seems to be espoused by the Left today is quite different. Instead of recognizing man as locked in struggle - and acknowledging the freedoms necessary to succeed in those struggles - the Left presumes that we exist in world without hostilities. They presume that our 'enemies' would be our friends if only we would allow them the chance. They presume that we will all cooperate in a utopian / egalitarian society "to each according to their needs, from each according to their capacity." They presume that criminals are simply a product of an impoverished environment - and that crimes are not really aimed at individuals, but are societal aberrations. The government is our godmother and will benevolently protect us at all times.

This concept of a "struggle-less society" underlies their agenda for change. Eliminate the right to bear arms - as no conflict worthy of violence really exists. Eliminate the economic consequences of indolence or thrift - as we will all happily share what we have. Eliminate acts of war - as all countries are really our friends. There are no struggles to them. "Everything's just fine here, move along." might be their mantra.

Somehow, I just don't see it. How did the concept of man in struggle against a hostile environment get changed to the concept of man at harmony with an idyllic world? Despite the realities of islamofascist violence against us, despite the barrage of crime in the cities, despite the Left's own political vitriol - they continue to belive "Everything's just fine." They espouse an agenda where man is deprived of those freedoms required to succeed against hostilities.

Sir Francis Bacon is purported to have said, "Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true." I think that the vision of the Left is not based on the realities of the world we live in. I prefer the original vision of our country's founders. I see my own struggle to survive.

Ding-Dong - Arafat's Demise

2004-11-04T16:43:00.000-10:00

Tragedy is closely associated with death. There is almost always a friend or a relative or someone near to the deceased who feels bitter pain. Then again, I recall the lilting Wizard of Oz song "Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead" and realize that on rare occasions, and only when a really wicked witch dies, there can be celebration.

Without a doubt, Arafat's wife Suha is among those that feel the particular pain of her husband's demise. In fact, according to at least one report Suha is trying her best to keep her husband alive - but for more selfish reasons than just the pain at departing. Apparently, Arafat didn't transfer to her all of his money yet...

The problem is that Arafat is still the only Palestinian official who can pay the bills. And it is unclear who, if anyone, has access to the estimated $2-3 billion in his personal Swiss bank accounts, according to a report in the current edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. Even his wife is said to be unaware of how to access the funds.

It has long been rumoured that Arafat had squirrelled away billions (see FrontPage's article on the IMF's own report):

This report was followed by news that in the period between July 2002 and September 2003, Arafat transferred $11.4 million to his wife, Suha's French bank accounts. But recent information reveals that in 1996, Suha Arafat arrived in Buenos Aires with $30 million in cash that she invested in a business with other Palestinians.

As of August 2002, Arafat's personal holdings also included $500 million of the PLO's money; in all, his holdings were reported at that time, to total $1.3 billion. This money is enough to a) feed 3 million Palestinians for 1 year, b) buy 1,000 mobile intensive care units, c) fund 10 hospitals for a decade, and d) would still leave $585 million to fund other social projects.

The mystery to me is how this man, great in the eyes of far too many, was able to maintain his credibility on the world stage. Arafat was known to have taken money from the mouth of his impoverished people and padded his nest. He, through his radical agenda, encouraged the dismal economic conditions that kept the Palestinian people destitute. Arafat was the greatest enemy that the Palestinians have ever had. Yet they loved him (in a way).

Arafat had the chutzpah to stand up to Israel, to America, and to the Western world. He thumbed his nose at the demands of the West for nearly forty years, and was at every turn reward by the West for doing so. Arafat ignored pleading by the West to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, he ignored their demands that he renounce violence, he ignored their insistance that he negotiate a peaceful settlement with the state he loathed. And at every turn, he was rewarded. He was given fantastic monetary grants - with no controls - from those he spurned (and no expectations, was there ever an investigation into Arafat's corruption?). There were higher expectations on Saddam Hussein than there were on Arafat. He was granted a Nobel peace prize for merely paying lip service to peace. He did nothing to relieve the suffering of his people - yet they loved him for standing up to the world and even more for his being rewarded for his obstinacy. It's like he was one of them and he won the lottery.

Arafat very literally profited from the misery he fostered among his people. He maintained his powerbase by keeping his people destitute and beholden to him.

We shall see if the West really loved Arafat. Will they want another to really take his place? Will his people really want another dictator to assume such absolute control over their plights? Real flattery for Arafat would be the broad acclaim of a successor that would be just like him.

Somehow, I doubt it... [and is that the faint tones of "ding-dong (something)..." I hear in the wind?]

Blogger Traffic Jam Implies Thinking!

2004-11-02T08:50:00.000-10:00

It has been impossible to get on any of the most popular blog sites on this Election Day. Either there has been unprecedented web traffic to these sites as seekers of unfiltered information seek news at its source, or there has been a coordinated attack on the blog sites by some sinister force. (The latter idea sounds just a bit too fantastic to me.)

This furthers the notion that we must examine the "old model" of the way we view the world. An increasing number of people are turning to sources of unfiltered news, for one and only one reason. They think!

They believe that they can sort through raw information to extract better news than they can get by watching/reading the twisted and strained quasi-news sound-bites that are delivered by the main-stream media (MSM for those new to blogging). They think, therefore they trust their own minds more than they trust the media's talking heads.

A thinking electorate is bad for the MSM. It is bad for the political class that has reduced its arguments to cute phrases ("the right to choose"). A thinking electorate will continue to demand more raw information and rely less on the stuff that fills our airwaves.

I am so happy that the wildest dreams of the bloggers have been exceeded. "More Bandwidth!" What a rallying cry for the thinking generation!

Will good surf compromise Hawaiian voter turnout?

2004-11-01T21:52:00.000-10:00

Surf conditions Nov 2, 2004

Is it possible? Will good surf conditions compromise Hawaiian voter turnout? Latest weather conditions seem unlikely to deter voters, but surf conditions are another story.

Let's see how the day develops...

Meanwhile the radio waves have been saturated with both Bush and Kerry ads. Ads are popping up on virtually all stations. Even the ABC affiliate, conservative talk radio at AM 990 has been fair play for the Democratic dollar. This state has certainly become a battle ground.

Local station KWHE (channel 11) is currently having a discussion about the issues (11:00pm, Nov 1, “Don’t Abort Your Vote!”). To listen to the current discussion one would believe that a MAJOR issue is gay marriage. Hawaiians are typically very tolerant of homosexuality and alternate life styles. But the gay marriage debate has been a volatile issue here. If this becomes a referendum on gay marriage the state could tilt toward Bush.

The Democrats have had a lock on the Hawaiian legislature for the last 50 years. The recent election of a Republican Governor, Linda Lingle, has seemed to many a repudiation of the “old” way of doing business here. Saturation level radio ads from the Republican party have hyped this historic Democratic dominance and have attempted to associate it with corruption within the government (which is very believable to most Hawaiians). To the extent that these ads stick, then the state Republicans appear to be the anti-establishment party. The carry-over to the national election may be significant.

[This is cross posted on the Command Post.]

Blogger-Surfer Injured

2004-10-31T13:09:00.000-10:00

Note the Eye Injury

Long boarding has its hazards. Yesterday, as I was taking off on a head-high wave at Chun's some barney who was paddling out decided to bail off and ditch his board rather than duck dive or turn turtle. Good for him - the wave didn't pound him a bit, but bad for me. I was just paddling INTO the wave to catch it, and his board shot up and whacked me in the eye. Only 5 stitches & a few broken bones inside the eye socket. Fortunately my eye is fine (or will be, once I can open my lid again).

Lessons learned:

1. Expect the most stupid actions of everyone around you.
2. People intent on saving themselves think nothing of anyone else.
3. Surfing is the last haven for the non-litigious. Some injuries just happen - forget the lawyers!

The War Has Two Fronts

2004-10-31T07:51:00.000-10:00

Many Americans realize that we are at war, but few see that our war has two fronts. We all know about the war on terrorism - and as hard as this new type of war is to grasp, it is the easier of the two fronts to identify. The more difficult front is our own divisive culture war.

There are many indications that we are involved in a type of civil war. In 1970 Charles A. Reich captured a good forward-looking view of the war in his book The Greening of America:

There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past.

It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions and social structure are changing in consequence. It promises a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. Its ultimate creation will be a new and enduring wholeness and beauty -- a renewed relationship of man to himself, to other men, to society, to nature, and to
the land.

This is the revolution of the new generation. Their protest and rebellion, their culture, clothes, music, drugs, ways of thought, and liberated life-style are not a passing fad or a form of dissent and refusal, nor are they in any sense irrational. The whole emerging pattern, from ideals to campus demonstrations to beads and bell bottoms to the Woodstock Festival, makes sense and is part of a consistent philosophy. It is both necessary and inevitable, and in time it will include not only youth, but all people in America.

The "revolution," as Reich calls it, is the other front of the war we fight. Because the revolutionists, who became visible in the 1960s, are intent on overthrowing the "old order" of values and social mores that characterized the America they despised - they are gleefully observing the more violent front we call the war on terrorism.

Certainly one would not argue that the cultural revolutionists (typified by JFKerry and crew) would personally endorse the violence of the terrorist front. But since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - they can passively rejoice at the damage on traditional America that is inflicted by terrorists.

Some may argue that the cultural revolutionists have nearly finished their work in destroying what once characterized our country. As long as we slumber and allow the enemies of traditional America unfettered access to our homes, our places of worship and our government we traditionalists cannot stand, we can only yield to the approaching flood. Only when we awaken our faculties to see and fight our real adversaries can we begin to stem the tide.

As long as we view either enemy as an amorphous swarm they remain only a nuisance and we their helpless victims. Like ants that pick away at a dying carcass, these enemies can hardly be stopped by swatting one or another individual. It is the nest, the hive, the queens that must be our targets.

Bush placed a name on our enemies in the war on terror and he focused our defence. He was able to put a face and a locus of control on the swarming islamofascist enemies that comprise the violent front of this war. We need a hero to likewise clarify our enemies on the other front - or the light from our country and our traditions will pass as the flame of a candle in the wind.

Napoleon Dynamite

2004-10-22T18:53:00.000-10:00

I know that only a limited audience has seen Napoleon Dynamite. In fact, due to its very limited distribution, only a few really ever will see this film.

I can tell you, though, that I haven't howled with laughter so much in such a dumb film for decade or more. There was the scene in the the old movie The Accidental Tourist, with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, where the William Hurt character is visiting the "family" that alphabetizes their food. When the phone rings, and nobody will answer it - it just made me burst out laughing. That scene, so underplayed and overly true, was one of the funniest, most subtle stabs at humor that I had ever seen. Now that is replaced by Napoleon.

The IMDb review sums up the plot fairly accurately:

"Napoleon Dynamite" is the story of the days and nights of a super geek teenager. Being a geek must be exhausting for him because he looks like he is going to pass out every time he stands up. Napoleon rambles through life. We see him make friends and enemies. Soon Napoleon realizes his mission. He wants to help his new pal Pedro become the class president. All his drawing and dancing skills will come in handy as he tries to make all of their dreams come true.

This is such a subtle, twisted type of humor - that you will know within the first 5 minutes whether you will laugh your heart out, or whether you should stand up and walk out of the theater.

This film is the funniest one star movie you are ever likely to see. I heartily recommend it to all those who crave a good laugh as they get an all too true view of warped lives.

Mid-Terms

2004-10-19T23:26:00.000-10:00

Do the words "mid-term exams" bring terror into your soul? They do to mine. Every school term there is this frenetic burst of activity required of me - no surfing, no leisurely chats with curious students, no time for any serious research, no time for anything fun - this is the time of MID-TERMS.

If you thought that mid-terms brought terror into your life when you were a student, just think about the preparation time and grading time required from the faculty. And this mid-term season I have compounded the problem exponentially.

This year I tried to upgrade my junior-level finance class. I chose a new text and an entirely new course outline. I think that it will be a better course than the last, but oh, what a huge price I am paying. I think that there is a sort of Alzheimer's like affliction that blesses us as academicians. We so easily forget the enormous work associated with bringing forth a new class and even with making changes to an existing class. We somehow let vague lofty ideals about improving the student's education experience grab hold of us - and then we suffer for months. There are new homework assignments to make, new quizzes to create, new grading systems to implement, new learning activities, new exams (Remember? I started this post by moaning about mid-terms). Remind me of this the next time some idealistic thought invades my mind. Remind me of this suffering...

The Soros Short and Lenin

2004-10-17T18:15:00.000-10:00

Some well intentioned do-gooders are really down-right evil. In the pursuit of some theoretical good (which often conveniently includes their own self interest) they destroy that which exists with blatant disregard for the suffering they cause. This was certainly true with Lenin, but George Soros now emerges as our modern-day correlate.

The David Medienkritik blog reveals an emerging thread regarding George Soros' own "do-gooder" philosophy combined with his personal self interests. It is widely publicized that in Dec 2003 Soros had a large short position on the U.S. currencies and has voiced his willingness to invest in an anti-Bush position:

"America, under Bush is a danger to the world," the Hungarian-born financier-slash-liberal philanthropist told the Washington Post on Wednesday. "And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

While this may sound like any other politically active contributor, Soros has a deep rooted obsession against free-market capitalism and a history of going way beyond political contributions to actual currency manipulations (see Krugman's informal notes on this topic).

True, the free-market of capitalism allows speculation against currencies, but Soros has a visceral dislike for capitalism as it is understood by conservatives and by Republicans (see the Rand publication The Crisis of George Soros, which is a chapter of a larger work "Stradling Economics and Politics").

According to Soros, the flaws of capitalism (i.e., market fundamentalism a la Reagan and Thatcher) "lead Soros to predict the imminent disintegration of the global capitalist system, and to assert that '... the global capitalist system will succumb to its own defects.'" These are views consistent with the Democratic viewpoint and with the Left, in general. And these are the parties that hasten the advent of this disintegration.

The 1992 currency adjustment of Great Britain (arguably toward a sustainable equilibrium) and of Thailand in 1997 may have been to Soros personally profitable, but these provided painful benefits to the free market system. Soros, like most of the Left, doesn't feel the pain of forced upon others by his experiments. He continues in his misguided efforts to shape global currency relationships.

His philosophical "experiments" and political views directly affected (perhaps precipitated) the Russian meltdown of 1998 (see the CFR's book review here). Soros, like Lenin, didn't see the painful results of his experiments. He only saw with detached curiosity the effects he wrought on the capitalist system.

In some ways, this is the beauty of the relatively unregulated global currency market - people are free to identify and exploit imbalances in currencies. This is capitalism. It may create pain, but the results of free-market movements tend to be sustainable.

It is Soros' philosophic view, though, and his willingness to "put his money where his mouth is" that makes us suspect that he has more sinister motives. He is one that has more than a simple political desire to see Bush defeated. This is deep-down vitriol against the capitalist system, coupled with a profit motive.

Soros' investments in the Kerry and Democratic agenda, his visceral aversion to the capitalist system, and his short position on the U.S. market - all of these seem consistent with one objective. He seeks to bring down our brand of free-market capitalism. He knows that Kerry would make serious progress on this viscious agenda. That is why he has a short position on America. He is hoping to profit from the destruction of our economic system. That is why he wants Kerry to win.

Does Genocide Matter?

2004-10-15T23:33:00.000-10:00

The January 2004 report by USAID on mass graves in Iraq received scant media attention. (See also this site). At that time, one of the conclusions was:

If these numbers prove accurate, they represent a crime against humanity surpassed only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields in the 1970s, and the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.

Now we know there are more sites still being found:

Mr Kehoe investigated mass graves in the Balkans for five years but those burials mainly involved men of fighting age and the Iraqi finds were quite different, he said.

"I've been doing grave sites for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this, women and children executed for no apparent reason," he said.

This type of news doesn't get much play these days, but how can we forget these atrocities? How can any person of feeling and compassion feel that this was the "wrong war at the wrong time?" Can anyone honestly say that we haven't done a great service by ridding the world of the regime of Saddam, the Butcher of Baghdad?

Astonishing Vista of Europe

2004-10-14T18:45:00.000-10:00

On occasion I have been known to hike up the neighboring mountains (especially to one of those hidden waterfalls up 4 or 5 miles from the beach). From those steep mountain ridges here on Oahu one can see magnificent vistas - the waves, the sea, little neighboring islands... It is almost overwhelming to see from a distance what is usually only seen from up close. This distance creates a unique perspective for observation and for astonishing insights.

It is from this distance of the islands that I make an astonishing observation. An article cited by lgf from Mark Steyn paints a picture of reality that is terrifying:

’It’s a different kind of war,’ says Kerry. ‘You have to understand it’s not the sands of Iwo Jima.’ That’s true. But Kerry’s mistake is in assuming that because it’s not Iwo Jima, it’s somehow less of a war. Until recently we thought of ‘asymmetrical warfare’ as something the natives did with machetes against the colonialist occupier. But in fact the roles have been reversed. These days, your average Western power — Germany, Canada, Belgium — is utterly incapable of projecting conventional military might to, say, Saudi Arabia or the Pakistani tribal lands. But a dozen young Saudi or Pakistani males with a little cash, some debit cards and the right phone numbers in their address books can project themselves to Frankfurt, Ottawa or Antwerp very easily and to devastating effect. That’s the lesson of 9/11.

What really is terrifying is that the European powers have for so long relied upon NATO and the military strength of the U.S. (and on the economic commitment of the U.S. through NATO), that they have miniaturized their defense and military capabilities. There is not a single western European country with the ability to project military might. Granted, they can join with the U.S. and make a bold stand (as with our true friends, the Brits), but individually they project military impotence. And the likelihood of them coming together to form a united military front, independent of the U.S. is laughably small.

By allowing the U.S. alone to make the military investments of the last several decades, they have cast themselves in a traditionally effeminate role - relying upon the strong, powerful hero to come to their aid. They are totally incapable of playing the traditionally "masculine" role of defender, because they have no strength. They cannot play the role of "alpha-male" in a heirarchichal world because they have willingly conceded the alpha role to the U.S. And now they are overcome with jealousy.

From my distant perspective, it is perfectly understandable why they shrink from conflict, why they would rather talk than act, why they would rather ignore offence and "just try to get along." These are traditional strategies of the weak. And they are weak, and they are vanquished, and they have long-ago conceded the alpha role.

Kerry, and the europhile Democrats are proposing effeminate strategies for the U.S. while the U.S. is the only global superpower. Kerry proposes appeasement and wishes to change from the masculine, Bush approach of projecting might to join the pitiful, helpless, cackling hens of Europe.

Talk about transgendered, and I can finally see it from way over here...

North Shore - First Winter Swell

2004-10-13T18:30:00.000-10:00

Well, the first winter swell really hit today. At Indicators we could see that there was definitely some size. We drove past V-Land, lot's of cars and probably too big. We didn't want to climb the rock wall to see, so we kept going.

We looked at Sunset - way too big (2+ times head high sets, very steep), so we drove past Rubber Duckies - fun looking, but a bit sloppy. Coming around the Bay, we saw PinBalls with a crowd, and went on to Chun's. No one out at Chun's but Jocko's was big and scary (to an old man). We watched one big set come through and just clean out Chun's, so we went on around to Haleiwa. Sure enough, relative calm.

Puena Point had head-high slow rolling waves that were ideal for the geriatric set. There was no wind and the the waves were coming in long slow lines. We caught a few waves, and then my buddy thought he was having a heart attack - no really - so we took the next wave in. Well, no telling what ailed him, but he didn't die on me, so it ended up being a fun day.

We stopped at Pipe for a few minutes and watched on the way back. Every once in a while those trademark barrels made for some hootin' good rides. Well, my days of waves like that are well behind me. Ahhh, it is great to grow old (and fat, and bald) in Hawaii.

The Economics of Terrorism

2004-10-12T09:11:00.000-10:00

William Tucker, over at the American Spectator (read article) speaks of the idiocy of treating the GWOT as a law enforcement issue. He speaks directly to the notion that drug dealers (as mentioned in Kerry's analogy of prostitutes and drug dealers) have an economic incentive for their actions, and terrorists don't:

Islamic terrorists are driven by religion, not money. Their motives are not economic, which is exactly the problem. Poverty and misery are not the underlying cause.

Now this highlights the most disturbing twist in the discussion. Terrorists are not fighting for something better, as we in the west define it. Our current concept of their "self-interest," which thanks to Adam Smith is something that we think we understand, is not something that we can believe they are trying to advance. Their motives cannot be considered "economic" as we understand economics. Their motives are considered outside the bounds of what we normally think of as "rational" thinking.

Some might argue that theirs is a "heavenly economy" in which they attempt to improve their status in the after-life. But this argument is muted by the analysis of the actions of those 19 terrorists of 911. Their final days were not filled with religious piety, but with debauchery. They couldn't have seriously been seeking religious fulfillment while they acted contrary to their religious beliefs. But then again, some people might make extraordinary withdrawals from an account if they expect to make an inordinately large deposit. But, I just don't buy these religious economy arguments. However, I argue that the long-term nature of the religious benefits is not something what is driving their actions.

Instead we have to consider that their motives might really have been governed by something else, something more difficult for us to understand.

We know that under certain circumstances even economic individuals will forego a superior long-term reward for an inferior, but more proximate short-term reward. Almost all of us weight-watchers sacrifice our long-term desire for a sleeker form for the immediate lure of a caloric treat (but only on the rarest of occasions). And what about the reformed alcoholic who "slips" and takes a drink if their guard isn't up? All economic individuals will, under the right circumstances, choose an inferior reward over a superior outcome if the inferior reward is near enough in its realization to overcome the long-term benefits of the alternative.

So what is this inferior but more proximate reward that causes the terrorist to give up life? Or to shed the values of a religion that they do, in fact, know (by reading the Koran)? I believe that the proximate incentive is hate. I believe that these individuals are, in fact, economic - in that they are seeking blood-lust fulfillment of a hate - and this proximate fulfillment of a blood lust somehow weighs superior to their long-term fulfillment of life.

If this is the case, then the terrorists are not "non-economic" individuals. Instead, the long-term value of their "life" is minimal, and the short-term satisfaction of acting on their "hate" must is maximal. That is all. It is a fulfillment of this short-term lust for blood and revenge that drives terrorists. It isn't really religious.

This means that those that benefit from terrorism (the leaders of the Islamic movement), derive their power from minimizing the value of life. By encouraging squalid conditions, by increasingly subjecting "their people" to forms of tyranny, they degrade the human experience. At the same time, they maximize hate, and direct hate toward specific peoples (Jews and Americans). It is this satisfaction of enmity that provides the short-term benefits to terrorists.

So, yes, terrorists are economic. But their economy is foreign to us.

Warm Summer Weather

2004-10-10T22:04:00.000-10:00

Even though it is mid-October, the weather here is warm and summer-like. The Trades aren't really blowing now, so the days seem sticky - almost sweltering. We had some students come over to eat some aebelskiver with us today, and just to stay comfortable we all had to sit on the lanai (patio).

Warm sultry days remind me of the current political climate, which is sweltering in its own right. Each day is long and unpleasant, and even the slightest breeze of good news provides such a feeling of relief. Today, the polls are with Bush. I can hardly wait for these dog-days of the election to end. If things tip towards Kerry, though, I can't imagine how I might feel. Somehow, I just want to believe that everything will fall toward the right.

I surfed yesterday afternoon at Turtle Bay and escaped the heat. It was fun surf, waist to chest high and drawing only the mellowest of crowds. We caught high tide (that was bad) but the crowd (5-8 people, some hotel guests) couldn't have been more pleasant. The only downer of the day was of my own doing. We brought a new recruit, and I lent him my 9' Stewart board. I took off on a wave behind him and then I suppose he panicked when he saw me and/or the wave about to break. Anyhow, he bailed off his/my board shoving it broadside in front of me. I felt the thump of my fin hitting the Stewart and the painful thought, "They're both my boards," went through my mind. The damage ended the session and an otherwise perfect day.

Debate Shebate

2004-10-08T23:40:00.000-10:00

Are there really any undecided voters still out there? I think everybody that has enough intelligence to mark a ballot really has their mind made up already - and all of this blather about being undecided is nothing but self-agrandizement. This posturing is nothing but trying to feel important by self-proclaiming oneself a part of the group that will "determine" the election.
Come on, nobody with half a mind or that is awake is undecided still. If someone really is still undecided - I would contend that they are so out of touch with reality that they almost assuredly will not vote (at least for themselves - maybe their nursing-home caregivers will vote for them, though).
So if there aren't undecided voters, what use are these debates? I don't think these undecided really exist. I think that the debates are more of a showcase for the pundits and for the television news analysts who get yet another opportunity to push their particular candidate.
The debates are a sham. Boycott them!

Chilling Season

2004-10-07T18:50:00.000-10:00

You might have noticed that bkm, the spinswimmer, Jim Geraghty and Stanley Kurtz over at NRO are noticing that there is a chilling climate of fear creeping into this election season. Their observation is based on the somewhat disturbing reports coming in from various places around the country.

We have seen what thugery has done in Venezuela. The popular "revolution" of Chavez has quickly turned into unadulterated totalitarianism. Class envy, and hate fueled his revolution.
Now in our own country we are seeing hate as a driving and motivating political force. The politics of hate is a powerful force to unleash on a democracy. While we have all heard of the brown shirts that emerged as the Nazi hate machine rose to power, how many of us recall the vile hate-politics of Indira Ghandi and her decimation of India? Invoking this force called "hate" may provide some immediate political gains, but at a dear, dear cost.

We have already witnessed the erosion of cordiality and the brushing aside of "politics stopping at the waters edge." This election cycle shows that we are surrounded by campaigns saturated with vitriol, increasing levels of invective (even on foreign soil), and now actual programs of violence against the very symbols of democracy - the campaign office.

Hate is a powerful force, but once unleashed this force obeys no master.

Chun's Reef

2004-10-06T18:34:00.000-10:00

Well, today Chun's Reef was the place for an old long boarder. At noon, there was hardly any wind, the waves were head-plus high and really clean, and the crowd was small and mellow. My entrepreneurial buddy and I took an extended lunch and squeezed in a whole hour and a half of surf.

We drove past Sunset and the point was breaking well over head high; it looked fun, but a bit intimidating for old men, and the swell direction was odd. People were surfing the beach break and way over to the left of the regular point break. Rubber Duckies was almost breaking, but not quite. Chun's, however, was perfect. (They seem to be filming something there, so the crew trucks were taking up half of the parking.)

We paddled out (I had my Robert August/Wingnut 9'3" epoxy board), and joined just 6 other surfers in the line-up. and two were way inside the point break. One of the surfers was a girl, and all were totally mellow. They must have been from the mainland. Waves were plentiful and had enough size to be really, really fun. My buddy caught one of his "most memorable" rides (he gets one of those every few weeks or so). He caught it out on the reef and made it through three sections, all the way into the beach break (where three other kids were surfing).

I got a few rides myself... very, very fun. I love this place!

Liberalism as a religion

2004-10-06T17:26:00.000-10:00

Thanks to Carnival of the Vanities I was belatedly reading Strat and he refers to the cult of Che Guevera worshippers among those he calls liberals. He is baffled by the double standards that necessarily exist when a "do gooder" liberal concerned about, say, human rights at the same time sees the virtue of "a true totalitarian like Che Guevara" (later in the article):

I am completely baffled by Sundance liberals who puff up with justifiable discussion about stopping human rights abuses around the world and then, in the very next breath, extol the virtues of Che Guevara!

It is actually very easy to understand this duality of THINKING. It is similar to that found among the religious. I consider myself a believer in the Judeao-Christian tenet that God created the earth. However, I have no idea exactly how my "feeling" that God created the earth squares with other knowledge I have about evolutionary processes and the long, long development history of the earth. (Well actually, I do - but that is for another post). When you hold religious beliefs - you take them on faith, they don't always square with beliefs based on the real world.

So liberalism is like a religion in that it is based on tenets that don't necessarily have to fit well into real-world facts. Socialism and communism can be utopian (faith) - despite the fact that no real-world instance of communism has ever been anything but totalitarian. Popular revolutionaries can be heros of a noble cause (faith) - despite the fact that they are real-world cruel and despotic autocrats. This world and the other world just don't have to agree.

This makes it ever-so more understandable why liberalism can adopt secular humanism... It's simply a religion.

Posting from the North Shore

2004-10-06T09:54:00.000-10:00

After being a reader for quite some time, I am cautiously venturing into the stormy sea of real blogging. My first several posts will undoubtedly be amaturish and boring, but hopefully I will learn the ropes and be able to make a contribution.
I am, as you might guess, becoming politically active and am increasingly becoming more vocal. I tend to have strong opinions on political, economic and social issues. Please bear with me as I attempt these treacherous waters of the blogosphere.