Cheney fallacy: insurgents' wishes

From the Washington Post, one week before the 2006 elections:

Cheney, meanwhile, said in an interview with Fox News that he thinks insurgents in Iraq are timing their attacks to influence the U.S. elections.

"It's my belief that they're very sensitive of the fact that we've got an election scheduled," he said. Cheney said the insurgents believe "they can break the will of the American people," and "that's what they're trying to do."

Hmmm... Let's assume that these are, in fact, the intentions of the insurgents. Does this mean that the party in power should automatically be given a pass, and always win, just because some terror group, somewhere, is acting up?

This reminds me of how commentators in the US read the election of the socialist governmment in Spain, shortly after the Madrid train bombing attack, as a capitulation to Islamic terror. The actual cause-and-effect was not so simple: the Conservative Government in power panicked when the attacks happened and immediately blamed the wrong group, ETA, and even claimed to have proof of it. The Spanish voters punished this and drove them out of office.

Going back to the implication that the terrorists want the Republicans to lose: Actually, the contrary might be true: there seems to be evidence that Al-Qaeda, in 2004, was not rooting for the Bush ticket to lose, and hence the appearance of a bin Laden video late in the campaign. Of course, this does not mean that Kerry deserved to win just because of this (if true): the point is that the terrorist's wishes should not be factored so simplistically into an election!

Cheney: "We were not in Iraq"

This one comes courtesy of Dick Cheney, from his Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention:

I know some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway. As President Bush has said, the hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse.

This argument has often been used when the President or vice-President are asked whether Iraq might not be making terrorism worse. But it is not, in fact, a valid argument: just because there was terrorism before the invasion - even very bad terrorism, as in 9-11 - this does not mean that the invasion might not have been ill-conceived, ill-executed, and possibly made terrorism worse.

Fascinatingly enough, the argument does manage to change the subject back to 9-11, while simultaneously highlighting the fact that there was no connection between 9-11 and Iraq.

And then, finally, to the "we were not in Iraq" line: Others have pointed out that this premise is, in fact, not quite true either. On 9-11, the US was enforcing a no-fly zone on two thirds of the country of Iraq, bombing assorted targets in the other third, and had been enforcing sanctions for a decade after the Gulf War ended. Not exactly the same as "not being there."

Switched to blogger beta

Looks like I joined blogger at a time of turmoil for the system. Now I am switching to blogger beta---hopefully, this will fix some publication problems. With the new label feature, now I will be able to separate out the main topics, which is good.

The WSJ: More Flawed Logic

Andrew Sullivan's blog brought to my attention this editorial about the Mark Foley scandal:

But in today's politically correct culture, it's easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails. Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for Mr. Hastert's head are the same voices who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts' decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where's Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one?

This argument rests on several incorrect premises, including two deeply offensive ones: First, that liberals who espouse tolerance for "private lifestyle choices" would not generally distinguish these from the predation and abuse of underage boys.

Second, the remark about the Boy Scouts shows that the editorial board believes that gay men are somehow the only ones likely to abuse their charges. Alas, it is patently clear that heterosexual men are equally likely to commit hideous abuses. A small percentage of each, at that - though any percentage that is not zero is too large, no matter what the orientation of the abuser might be.

Flawed Logic: Presidential Press Conference, Sept. 2006

In a September 2006 press conference, President Bush pushed for approval of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which authorized "robust interrogation procedures", among other things. While the bill was being negotiated, Colin Powell, former Secretary of State (and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), wrote a public letter warning against re-interpreting the provisions of the Geneva Convention. So the first question was this:

Press Conference of the President: "Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. If a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State feels this way, don't you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you're following a flawed strategy?

THE PRESIDENT: If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic. I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective, Terry.

I'd respectfully submit that there are at least 3 flawed arguments in this response:

One could start by commenting on the obvious: the answer had nothing to do with the question! Powell's letter did not make a comparison between those two. Nor did the question imply one. Bush simply changed the subject, adding a red herring that attributed an inflammatory position to the opponent.

We can probably tag this answer as a combination of two techniques: the straw-man argument ("there are some who say that we should not fight the terrorists but send them to therapy instead..."---example courtesy of Karl Rove) and projection ("when did you stop beating your wife?").

Even so, let's examine the straw man argument more closely: One could point out that the American people, compassionate and decent as they might be, are not the same thing as the American government. I am sure that many Americans would not approve of the "interrogation techniques" the bill espouses --- that is, if they could find out what those techniques actually are.

One might also ask, what peoples would not like to think of themselves as "good and decent"?

Finally, it might be true that there is, in fact, no comparison; but even if we grant that the terrorists are orders of magnitude more despicable, this does not automatically mean that what the bill proposes is automatically moral and good.

The headline in many newspapers the next day was something like: "Bush accuses critics of using flawed logic"---without any actual analysis of the argument, or lack thereof. One step closer to Paul Krugman's observation, that if W said that the earth was flat, the headline would be, "Shape of the Earth: Views Differ".

Keith Olberman focused on the line: "It is unaccceptable to think ...". This being an impromptu answer, I would play down the significance of this unfortunate prefix. However, the larger point is this: perhaps we should think, if only a little, about what the moral basis is, and whether currrent methods and approaches are appropriate?

In the context of Powell's statement, given Powell's experience, and his role in this very same administration, perhaps some thinking and nuance would be called for. I wonder if Powell has publicly reacted to this exchange?

Positives and negatives: The President's Oct. 25 Press Conference

This morning, got to listen to the President's speech/press conference on Iraq while getting my new suit altered by a tailor who, let's just say, did not have good things to say about it. Let this be the ocassion then for the first posting on the subject of Politics, and the first in a series of discussions of George W. Bush's rethoric.

From the prepared remarks:

Press Conference by the President: "Over the past three years I have often addressed the American people to explain developments in Iraq. Some of these developments were encouraging, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the elections in which 12 million Iraqis defied the terrorists and voted for a free future, and the demise of the brutal terrorist Zarqawi. Other developments were not encouraging, such as the bombing of the U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad, the fact that we did not find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and the continued loss of some of America's finest sons and daughters."

What strikes me here is the inclusion of "the fact that we did not find stockpiles of [WMD]" on this list of negatives. Putting aside the fact that WMD's were used as one of the main excuses for the invasion, wouldn't the absence of WMDs actually be a *good* thing, specially when compared to the other two items on the "negatives" list? Most of the harm caused by the absence of WMDs would be to the credibility and reputations of those who chose to launch this war based on that particular pretext. Can this compare to the harm caused by the other two?

On Negative Movie Reviews

Speaking of New York Times reviews: when you write a negative one, you should be extra-careful and check all the accusations you impugn the movie with. A classic example is the review for "Donnie Darko":

Donnie Darko - Review - Movies - New York Times: "Correction: November 1, 2001, Thursday A film review of ''Donnie Darko'' on Friday referred incorrectly to the age of Duran Duran's song ''Notorious.'' It was released in 1986, not in the 1990's, and was therefore correctly used in the film, which is set in 1988."

Looks like the reviewer was in a particularly unreceptive mood when he wrote up that one, eh? This, for a movie I consider to be quite good---highly recommended.

That said, usually the best movie reviews, and the most fun, are the negative ones, especially when they are fair. Some favorites:

• Pauline Kael on "Dances with Wolves": "Costner has feathers in his hair and feathers in his head."
  
• Anthony Lane's New Yorker review of "Star Wars: Episode III":

  The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith” seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

• Speaking of which: The FlickPhilosopher's review of "The Passion of the Christ":
  

  If you were an extraterrestrial who'd just landed from outer space and knew nothing about the story of Jesus, this film wouldn't teach you a thing, but it might sicken you to see audiences cheering and applauding a relentless, two-hour-long depiction of the brutal torture and murder of a human being.

And, finally, most reviews of "The Matrix III". I could barely stand part II, so I skipped the thrid one. But this did not prevent me from enjoying the reviews. Here's a sampler, gathered from the Rotten Tomatoes collection of Matrix III reviews:

1. The only feeling generated by The Matrix Revolutions is the cold, annoying notion that a large amount of your time has been wasted. Thank God (or Neo) it's over. (Philadelphia Weekly)
2. Among its casualties is the benefit of the doubt that a few deluded types (myself included) gave The Matrix Reloaded (USA Today).
3. The scariest moment in the movie was when it intimated that there might yet be another episode (Yahoo movie mom).
4. As the buffed, multi-coloured and almost uniformly self-important denizens of the besieged underworld city of Zion madly prepare themselves for the assault by the machines whose power they have threatened, you half expect bazooka packing Jar Jar Binks to run by (Toronto Star).
5. At the risk of understatement, The Matrix Revolutions sucks. (Rolling Stone)
6. Third 'Matrix' installment is revolting, dumb. (SF examiner headline)
7. The resolution of the machine/human war is preposterous, there's not a semblance of a story, and the dialogue sounds like it was written by George Lucas.
8. Great line: "Everything that has a beginning has an end." Thank goodness.
9. I'm so stunned and bewildered that I can't even manage to be angry. The first stage of grief is denial, after all: I'll just pretend that The Matrix Revolutions never happened.
10. About the only good thing about it is that it (hopefully) means this will be the last we'll see of Neo and company for a long time.
11. What happened to the Wachowskis? Can they have regressed this far?
    
    
    Their debut film, "Bound," was a deliciously twisted, intelligently adult thriller. "The Matrix" made clever use of one extraordinary science fiction idea and lots of great fight scenes. "The Matrix Reloaded" barely passed muster on the fight scenes alone, and now the childish "The Matrix Revolutions" offers ... nothing. (Combustible celluloid)
    
    
    
12. Everything that has a beginning has an end. But unfortunately, Hollywood's new money-making scheme of making two movies out of one shows no sign of slackening. What is the Matrix?, the first film asked. This film answers that. The Matrix is the marketing software that encourages movies like this to be made. And it must be disabled.
    (Newark Star Ledger)
    

My own take: the best parts of "The Matrix" were in the first movie, when "real-life" and "matrix" blended, and one was not sure what was real. It was spooky and mysterious, and the possibilities were endless for a sequel grounded in "the real world". All that mystery disappeared in the second half of movie #1.

I had a lot of fun watching The Matrix pt. 1 in the theater, though. It was a good example of a "good performance" for a movie: each showing can be different, depending on how the audience reacts. (This also made some of Stanford's flicks great fun, even when the movie was not that good.) I still remember a woman sitting in the row ahead of us, who laughed her head off every time some mumbo-jumbo about Artificial Intelligence was mentioned in the movie. She probably worked in AI.

Movie: The Science of Sleep

On the evening when this Blog was created, we went to see "The Science of Sleep". It had potential, but the plot did not gel for me. Perhaps this looseness with the plot was intentional, but it did not make for as pleasant a movie watching experience as it should have been, based on the talent of the creative team involved. Lots of low-budget, funky/creative "special effects" a-la previous Michel Gondry videos, though.

From Gondry, I liked "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" better---and thought that "David Chappelle's Block Party" was great, though that was in great part thanks to Chappelle and the music.

The New York Times reviewer liked "The Science of Sleep" more than I did.

One image that stays with me is Gael, with his hands swollen, running around his office. It reminded me of the lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" :
"When I was a child, I had a fever // My hands felt just like two balloons."

Is this one of those feelings that are a common universal experience, but somehow has an actual a physiological basis?

Other candidates: When you fall at the end of a dream, and wake up; the feeling of being awake but unable to move when waking up from sleep, as if a heavy weight is holding you down... There's probably something physical going on in the body and the central nervous system that causes these sensations, yielding similar results in most people.

And why is it that one is more likely to have nightmares or intense dreams after eating a big steak?

First post

Nancy and Adam have convinced me to finally start this blog!

When thinking of a name (Nancy suggested "Our Values, Ourselves", jokingly, of course), Adam commented on the number of the table we were sitting at, in the excellent Maharaja restaurant in the East side of Madison, Wisconsin: table 17. A perfect number since its digits add up to 8, Nancy said. A prime number, said I. Sounds promising.

Unfortunately, the name "Table17" is taken (by an empty blog, it seems), so this is table-17 for the time being. Let's see how it goes. You, dear reader, will find out what it's about as we go along (so will I). Enjoy!