The Lone Elm

Showdown Time?

This morning the London Times reports that Israel is prepared to use small nuclear warheads to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment capabilities.  Because of the underground fortifications that protects the Iranian complex, this will require special "bunker-busting" types of bombs. The Times has more on the nature of such a mission.  Ralph Peters makes a pretty good case that Bush has tapped a Navy man for the Middle East CentCom position because of the Iranian issues.  A sidebar to the Peters commentary notes that ships from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia are all steaming towards the Middle East to beef up our force there. There is more on the buildup at Debkafile.  Jules Crittenden points out the domestic division of opinion, and concludes that if we withdraw now, as Ms. Pelosi and Sen. Reid recommend, "I predict a dark age, in which brutal second-rate powers such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea do what they choose to whom they choose without restraint. An age of modern warlords, with no over-arching, feared power to keep them in check. We can watch the sick man that is Europe slowly succumb. We can watch small free nations try to fend for themselves. We can await the inevitable nuclear crisis."  And of course, Israel faces potential destruction.  There is no choice but to try to get Iraq stabilized, fortify our friends and try to back Iran off.

Basque Music

Last night we were treated to an unusual concert of choral and orchestral Basque music at the Putney School.  In addition, there was a folk dance just before intermission, and the audience got to sing along at the end!  The music is complicated in rhythm and harmonics, and lush, rich and dynamic.  The group did a very credible job. This is certainly a type of music that is not played or sung much in the United States, so it was a very interesting evening.

Composers included J.C. Arriaga, who evidently was born exactly 50 years after Mozart, Jesus Guridi, and Lorenzo Ondarra.  Amazon has recordings for Arriaga and Guridi.

Some general background and links (not all of which work) on Basque music can be found at Buber's Basque Page: Music.  There I found the tune and words for one of the Christmas songs that was done last night - "Hator, Hator" or "Ator, Ator".

A link from Buber's takes one to a fascinating group, Xarnege, that plays the music that merges the music of Gascony and the Basque Country (click on the door to get into the web site).  To get a flavor for their music go to the MP3 tab.  I tried out the  song titled  Sorlekuaren minez which starts out with voice and a drone of some sort, and then ends with a perky dance tune.  Their CD is titled Gaueko lan musika - Musica de contrabanda (Pyrene-2004).

Of a completely different nature is another link of Buber's to recordings that an American made in 1940 of songs sung by Basques living in California.  These are now held by the Library of Congress and can be listened to on the internet. A search in Amazon for Basque music shows that there are also Alan Lomax recordings in Basque Country from the early 1950's - one is for Navarre and the another is for Biscay and Guipozca.

6,000 BC Tsunami

Power Line refers us to a story about scientists' conclusions of the impacts of the eruption of Mt Etna  some 8,000 years ago.  The huge, resulting tsunami wreaked havoc across the Mediterranean  Sea and Northern Africa.  A video is on the entry showing the wave action.  Very cool!  Interesting comment line on Power Line as well.  Other info at Science Daily and an overview of volcanic activity in the Mediterranean in Time Europe.

Litvinenko Poisoning

This morning, the Times of London is reporting that Litvinenko's guest for sushi dinner the evening of December 1, is suffering significant pulonium poisoning.  The amatuer sleuths are going wild, and have some very interesting analysis.  TRex at Firedoglake discusses what it would take to deliver the pulonium; bottom line is that this is a method requiring considerable sophistication. Also really interesting is Larisa Alexandrovna's idea that the pulonium might have been delivered via cigarettes. AJ Strata thinks this is a "botched nuclear contraband effort."  If the pulonium was being brought into Britain, what did the conspirators plan to do with it?  Wretchard at Belmont Club (see comment interchange) suggests that the intent was to engage in a mass poisoning (looks like they had plenty of material for that!).   The additional commentary is also interesting.  Litvenko had recently converted to Islam and appeared to be quite wealthy.  Wretchard's conclusion is pretty depressing:

"Effectively we've just stumbled on a new weapons system with absolutely wonderful properties in the realm of terrorist warfare. I'm going to speculate that the bulk supplies are under positive control in Russia. They won't let the merchandise out until its ready to be used. It will be delivered just in time for the same reason nukes are kept under strict control until they are ready to be used. Even murder has logic.

But since any reasonable mass radioactive poisoning scenario will be effectively the equivalent of a unclaimed small tactical nuke or dirty bomb, the incident reveals our lack of a doctrine to deal with such threats. And if thousands of kids were poisoned with polonium tomorrow, would Blair nuke Russia? Or Pakistan? Would Pelosi even countenance the suggestion? Not as far as I can see.

We are in a war for our lives, whatever alternate universe certain people think they live in. And as Karen Carpenter said, "we only just begun"."

Trojan Horse Video

I love YouTube. This video done in Australia really hits my funny bone and made me laugh.

Election Reflections

Well, while I am disappointed, I can't say I am surprised about the electorate's decision to send the Republicans a message, with the result that the Democrats now control both the House and the Senate.  However, I think it would be a big mistake for the liberal arm of the Democratic party to think that it now has carte blanche to implement its radical policies.  The key reason that the Democratic party gained control is because they put up moderate candidates.  The most obvious rejection of the moonbat wing of the party was the resounding decision of Connecticut voters to send Joe Lieberman back to the Senate, despite his running as an Independent.  And Lieberman claims that he intends to remain a Democrat, presumably to counterbalance the more whacky aspects of his party's inclinations.

So, what particularly interests me is the psychological issues that underlie the voice of the people.  I am particularly impressed with Gagdad Bob's dissection, hat tip to The American Thinker. To quote:

"So a national opinion poll -- including an election -- doesn’t necessarily provide much in the way of objective information about objective circumstances, but subjective data about how it “feels” to be part of a historical group at a particular time. In fact, deMause turns the presidential approval rating on its head. He doesn’t believe that it actually measures approval but disapproval about how effectively or ineffectively a fantasy leader is “containing” the public’s anxiety. Since the group is largely driven by fantasy, it naturally follows that they will look for a leader who can reassure them about the world and diminish their anxiety."

Thus, the public has lost confidence in the administration, including the "leader" -- President Bush.  The President's failure is closely tied to the corruption and failures exhibited by the Congress, and in my view, the President's lack of strong moral leadership to identify such behavior as unacceptable -- note that he was quite able to state the clear moral standard relative to the rogue nations of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and at that point had far stronger support.

Deep, Deep Denial

Sister Toldjah reports on a post at Huffington Post (HuffPo) about what the liberals/Democrats are going to do when they lose in October (again).  The poster attributes the predicted loss to the nefarious and devious conduct of the Republicans, led by the evil Karl Rove (George Bush is too dumb to accomplish an electoral victory).  Well, first, the outcome of the election remains in doubt as we have a couple of weeks to go.  The poster should be out working on getting out the vote and generally working to ensure her party does as well as it can do -- that's the way the system works.  But, even more disturbing is the idea that when the Democrats fail to achieve their goal of winning over both houses is that "If for whatever reason we don’t win back Congress in November the only real answer will be to take to the streets."

Yup, that sure is a mature answer.  These people are in serious denial and, more importantly, are unwilling to take responsibility for their failure to develop a political stance attractive enough to the American people to result in a victory at the polls.  Rather than blame Karl Rove, how about going back and doing some hard thinking about what their party stands for and figuring out how they can win back the confidence of Americans?  That process might force them to try to understand what we all want, which isn't the liberal agenda.

Riehl World View reports: "I had a conversation similar to the one below with a moderate Dem recently, one who has hated the Iraq war since the start. Without selling any ideology, at the end I simply asked them, so come November what is it you are going to do? I detest the war, they said. But the Democrats are going to raise my taxes and they don't even want us spying on these people who want to come here and kill us. I'll be voting Republican in November."  Yes, when sane people get to the ballot box they will vote against the tax-and-spend left, and hope that we can get the Republicans back under control.

The New Editor reports that the author of the HuffPo post is the wife of Norman Lear, hardly someone who is scratching out a living each day on the minimum wage. She and Barbra Streisand can go out and lead a demonstration!

The reader may find it worthwhile to review Dr. Sanity's Psychology 101 posting discussing the various functional and not so functional ways of dealing with life's challenges.

For the myriad of serious questions to consider as you go to vote, see Dan Scott's post at The American Thinker.

Creative Statistics

There have been a couple of interesting analyses of widely reported conclusions that do not stand up to critical statistical analysis. 

The first is in Opinion Journal by Steven E. Moore regarding the widely reported Johns Hopkins study estimate of the death of 655,000 Iraqis since the U.S. invasion.  Mr. Moore explains how these sorts of estimates are done and why the recent John Hopkins analysis simply does not have the qualities to stand up to critical analysis. Definitely worth a careful read.

The second is by Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics.  Mr. Cost explains why the recent polling results do not represent the likely outcome of the election. To quote:  "One of the problems with making estimates like this is that, even when we have strong reasons to expect that the Democrats will pick up 25 seats, there is still a good chance that they will pick up less than 15 seats. The reason is that our estimate - regardless of the solid reasons that inform it - is only a central tendency. We must therefore expect some random variation around it. If we run the same type of election again and again and again - we would find, if we are right, that the average result will indeed be 25 seats. Sometimes, however, more seats will switch; sometimes less seats will switch, including less than 15."  The random variation leads to an expected result less than the popular view.  Fascinating and also worth your attention.

Putney School Pigs

We visited The Sapling at Putney School this weekend, and I wandered over to the small animal barn.  I enjoyed watching the turkeys poking around outside, and then happened onto what can only be described as a "pig-pile."

Korean Nuclear Test Finally Edges Foley Story Out of the Limelight

Unhappily, the North Koreans have proceed with a nuclear bomb test.  See AP report at Yahoo and BBC. The "good" news is that this will finally move the Foley story onto the back burner where it belongs; the "bad" news is that North Korea has a bomb and the capability to shoot it a considerable distance.  See Michelle Malkin for a thorough wrap-up.  Richard Gardner points out the North Korea has violated an international agreement and, in essence taken an illegal action.  Austin Bay discusses the ugly dynamics along the Chinese/North Korean border, and quotes at length from this Times Online story.

To stay up-to-date on this huge story, check out Memeorandum regularly.