Saturday, April 05, 2003 Little Red Hen By Diana Hsieh @ 10:28 PM For some strange reason, I've had the story of the Little Red Hen in my head over the past few days. One day as the Little Red Hen was scratching in a field, she found a grain of wheat. "This wheat should be planted," she said. "Who will plant this grain of wheat ?" "Not I," said the Duck. "Not I," said the Cat. "Not I," said the Dog. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. Soon the wheat grew to be tall and yellow. "The wheat is ripe," said the Little Red Hen. "Who will cut the wheat ?" "Not I," said the Duck. "Not I," said the Cat. "Not I," said the Dog. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. When the wheat was cut, the Little Red Hen said, "Who will thresh this wheat?" "Not I," said the Duck. "Not I," said the Cat. "Not I," said the Dog. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hen.' And she did. When the wheat was all threshed, the Little Red Hen said, "Who'll take this wheat to the mill?" "Not I," said the Duck. "Not I," said the Cat. "Not I," said the Dog. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. She took the wheat to the mill and had it ground into flour. Then she said, "Who will make this flour into bread ?" "Not I," said the, Duck. "Not I," said the Cat. "Not I," said the Dog. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. She made and baked the bread. Then she said, "Who will eat this bread?" "Oh! I will," said the Duck. "And I will," said the Cat. "And I will," said the Dog. "No, no!" said the Little Red Hen. "I will do that." And she did. Hmmm, now this little fable wouldn't have anything to do with the recent demands of countries who vigorously opposed the war in Iraq to be involved in the reconstruction of Iraq, now would it? Nah... Link / Noodles / Trackback Friday, April 04, 2003 Iraqi Strategy By Diana Hsieh @ 10:26 PM According to this Fox News report, Saddam's regime uses "a combination of fixed sites and mobile vans in attempts to keep television signals intact." That explains why we haven't been able to keep the propaganda off the air for any significant stretch of time. So Saddam seems to have spent far more time ensuring the continual flow of propaganda than preparing his military for battle. On the surface, such a strategy seems completely idiotic. We are, after all, in a battle of bullets -- not of imagery. Then again, the Iraqi military never had a chance against our superior firepower. Keeping people in fear of Saddam's continued rule, however, has proven to be an obstacle in the war, albeit a temporary and minor one. And of course, such fear is only sustained with a steady diet of propaganda from Iraqi television. Link / Noodles / Trackback Vulgarity By Diana Hsieh @ 8:46 PM Winds of Change shows us the effectiveness of a bit of well-placed vulgarity with this story: To nobodys surprise there were protestors today in DC, they attempted to disrupt the metro system and block the Key Bridge, a leading artery into DC from Northern Virginia. I got hosed twice because I come in from NoVA on the metro and it is raining hard which makes traffic worse any way. My commute was long and arduous and only caused further resentment for protestors... Anyway, I'll get to the point. I got off my train in Rosslyn because I had to use the bathroom and the train was moving quite slowly. When I was getting back on the train, there were protestors on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protestor offered her a pamphlet, she politely declined. The young protestor put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a guesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, "Ma'am, don't you care about the children of Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said: "Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth your country. And if you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it." I'm glad to report that loud applause broke out among the onlookers and the young protestor was at a total loss for words. Oh, and did I fail to mention how much more effective vulgarity is when coming from the lips of an elderly woman? Link / Noodles / Trackback Cable News By Diana Hsieh @ 5:14 PM Who has the upper hand in the cable news coverage? Well, it's not CNN. Link / Noodles / Trackback Thursday, April 03, 2003 Objectivity By Diana Hsieh @ 8:39 AM Robert Campbell is generously attempting to mail out Objectivity Vol. 3 No. 1 published by Enlightenment, which is now defunct... but he has no subscriber list yet. So if you did subscribe, please drop him a note to robertlcampbell@earthlink.net. He'll send you your copy pronto. Link / Noodles / Trackback Wednesday, April 02, 2003 The Psychology of Authority By Diana Hsieh @ 8:25 AM The news coverage of the Elizabeth Smart case been completely overshadowed by the war. Nevertheless, the question of why she didn't attempt to escape (and even seemed to resist rescue) is an interesting one from a psychological perspective. The best explanation I've run across was posted on the Nathaniel Branden Forum by Mike Lee. He was kind enough to let me repost it. I don't have specific knowledge of the case, but I was raised Mormon, lived in Salt Lake City for several years, and I've known several of these Mormon fundamentalist/polygamist crazies--they're thick on the ground there. They frequently seek young teenage girls as wives, carrying on a tradition practiced from the time of Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon church in 1830. Smith used to get revelations commanding church members to hand over their teenage daughters to him for plural marriage. Elizabeth Smart isn't the first girl in Utah (even this year) to be told that God wants her to marry some old guy, and she's not the first to meekly (or eventually) accept her fate. This case is different because her family wasn't in on it, and complained loudly. The Smart family appear to be mainstream Mormons, who repudiate polygamy and consider the fundamentalists an extreme embarrassment to the faith. But Mormon girls are raised to be obedient to patriarchal authority, and I don't find it at all strange that Elizabeth would be easily subverted and subjugated, since she had already been conditioned to this very kind of obedience, and her kidnaper was using the same cues as those used on her in her normal environment (i.e., invocation of priesthood authority, scripture, etc.) The Smart family would be horrified and offended by my analysis, considering it anti-Mormon extremism. Yes, it's anti-Mormon, but I don't think it's extreme. The Smarts appear to be nice people, who admirably kept the pressure on to get their daughter back, held up well under extreme stress, and deserve applause. Their invocations of their faith and their religion as the reason they got her back are ironic, at best, since people familiar with Utah know that their daughter's abduction was religiously-motivated (or at least religiously-justified). The Mormon church, and the Smarts, as sensible Mormons, will try their best to keep a lid on the actual process whereby Elizabeth was pacified and did not try to escape. You'll hear a lot about the Stockholm Syndrome, and they'll try to keep details private. But, sure as hell, whatever brainwashing was done was steeped in Mormonism and a theology and authority that had her 90% brainwashed before she was taken. Very interesting! (Robert Cialdini's amazing book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion has a chapter on the influence exerted by genuine and fake authorities.) Link / Noodles / Trackback Tuesday, April 01, 2003 Happy Birthday! By Diana Hsieh @ 9:57 PM Today is Paul's birthday! (No April Fool's jokes please. He's heard them all... and they aren't funny.) So go over to GeekPress and wish him another excellent year. For the record, Paul is a creaky old 41, while I am still a lithe young 28. I was thinking today that when I met Paul in 1994, I was merely 19... Of course, we didn't date until I asked him out over four years later, and then we were married six months after that. (We're coming up on our 4th year wedding anniversary in May.) I can't imagine life without him! Happy Birthday, Mr. Woo! Link / Noodles / Trackback More on the Law of Suicide Bombing By Diana Hsieh @ 9:29 PM A while back, I posted a question on whether the payment of the families of suicide bombers is a form of murder for hire. Former Arizona prosecutor and current judge Bill Perry was kind enough to send me a detailed reply. In response to his comments, I further asked whether "the family members of the suicide bombers who accept the cash payment for the murder (and who perhaps even encouraged the suicide bomber to commit murder) accomplices in any legal sense." Bill was once again kind enough to reply thusly: I know of no such prosecutions of family members for accepting cash, but I do know of statutes which could apply in Arizona, Federal courts, and perhaps some others. It involves a bit of nose holding for Objectivists and libertarians. This would be a violation of the money laundering statutes. Money laundering includes "...receiving... racketeering proceeds knowing or having reason to know they are the proceeds of an offense." Terrorism is defined as a racketeering offense. The money laundering in the first degree statute (which would be directed at the person directing the act and making the payment) specifically mentions terrorism in a subsection of the statutes. ARS Section 13-2317. Payment for doing drug deals has been included as a racketeering offense, and RICO civil forfeitures have been applied as well as criminal prosecutions. I see no reason this couldn't be applied in the terrorism context. The federal laws are similar to the Arizona laws (they were first). They could be applied to your example. There are a number of crimes that most Objectivists and libertarians would consider to be crimes that are included in racketeering--for example homicide, robbery kidnapping, forgery, theft and terrorism. Most of them are victimless crimes that we do not think should be crimes. ARS Section 13-2301 (4). In a better world the statutes could be modified to cover only those things that should be crimes. Indeed. Link / Noodles / Trackback Monday, March 31, 2003 Honesty By Diana Hsieh @ 9:56 PM In very important American Idol news, Corey Clark has been booted off the show for failing to disclose the fact that he was arrested for beating up his sister and resisting arrest. I'm glad Fox is doing the right thing -- but it's definitely not as great a loss as Frenchie the porn star. Link / Noodles / Trackback Nothing Quite Like... By Diana Hsieh @ 4:17 PM ... a Marine at war with a sense of humor: Umm Qasr is essentially a void now in the daily briefings of the Iraqi disinformation minister. His last mention of Umm Qasr was a vow that it would never fall into the hands of the “pirates” (arrrrrrrgh) and “gangsters” (mama mia!) of the coalition. This is essentially true, in that the coalition is devoid of either. American and British troops did take the city, though, and are in the process of… doing nefarious things like public works projects. There has to be as many aid workers and civil engineers running around the coalition-occupied territory of Southern Iraq as there are fighting troops now. And the last I checked, the pirates of the Caribbean were not especially concerned with the welfare of those they invaded. And I’m short a parrot, damn it. Or how about this tidbit? Can we stop the postmortems already? Peter Arnett is already declaring this thing a failure on Iraqi television. And that’s a damn shame, because I live my life in constant need of approval from Peter Arnett. Look, I can understand Pete’s need to switch over to a network with more viewership than MSNBC, but come on, I thought the journalist’s credo was “objective,” not “aid and comfort.” The firing of Peter Arnett from multiple jobs was sweet justice indeed. Given his history, I doubt he'll ever work as a TV journalist ever again. Link / Noodles / Trackback Victory! By Diana Hsieh @ 3:34 PM I'm down to 20 messages in my inbox! Hooray! I've been hovering around 100 for months now, despite my weekly clean ups, so this is a real victory. Perhaps I'll get down below 10 next week. That would be astonishing. More likely I'll be up to at least 50. Just remember folks: The best kind of e-mail is good news to which I need not respond. :-) Link / Noodles / Trackback Exciting news! By Diana Hsieh @ 3:06 PM A few days ago, Steve Simpson of the Institute for Justice sent me a copy of his and Dana Berliner's op-ed on the Lawrence vs. Texas sodomy case. It's excellent, as expected. They write: Conservatives, especially, ought to be wary of casting their lot with the states on this issue. If the states can ban purely private conduct between consenting adults, what is to keep them from banning home schooling, for instance, or instituting mandatory preschool, or requiring parents to follow certain nutritional guidelines for their children? Conservatives who condone a process that leads us down this path need to start asking themselves what exactly it is they are trying to conserve. Unfortunately, the left's approach is no better. Where conservatives extol the virtue of state government power when it comes to certain moral or lifestyle issues, the left extols the virtues of government power when it comes to regulations of property and economic affairs. Both sides love government power when it suits their immediate agenda, but both ought to realize that this approach is only as good as one's ability to control a particular legislature. The left ought to recognize that it cannot pick and choose which aspects of individual liberty are beyond government power. Privacy is worth very little if one has no property on which to practice it. The cool part is that Steve described NoodleFood as "one of [his] morning staples." For all I know, he's just buttering me up for the sake of the onslaught of publicity that a mention on NoodleFood inevitably brings. But who cares!?! My blog adores flattery! :-) Link / Noodles / Trackback The Horror of Blimps By Diana Hsieh @ 1:55 PM Take a deep breath. Put down all food and beverages. Sit down securely in your chair. "But why?", you might ask Because I do not want you to hurt yourself or damage your property upon reading this hysterical story on the dangers of indoor radio-controlled blimps. Link / Noodles / Trackback Sunday, March 30, 2003 A Really Big Tent By Diana Hsieh @ 8:26 PM Sometimes, I must admit, life is just too good. Stories of exposing commies just don't get much better than this one. Link / Noodles / Trackback Sadistic Uncle Saddam By Diana Hsieh @ 3:22 PM This commentary was found at the end of an otherwise normal review of the documentary Uncle Saddam: However, Americans, who were led to believe by President George Bush that Iraq would be a cakewalk with 'liberated' Iraqis dancing in the streets to welcome the Anglo-Americans axis troops, are looking askance at reports that the Iraqis are actually holding out. It is evident that the Iraqi people, in their time of crisis, have proven to like Saddam and are now rallying behind him against the US-British aggression. The heroic resistance of the Iraqi people has stunned the West and the Arab world, and all those who believed the battle would end quickly for the benefit of the US and British armies. It is clear that the Iraqi people, whom they wished to liberate, refuse to accept freedom brought to them by the tanks of the occupation forces. Western policy makers miscalculated their strategy and admitted that the time was ripe for Britain and the US to seek an "honorable" solution in the United Nations. I must have missed the "Aggression Against Iraq" banner at the top of the page on my first reading. In any case, perhaps these folks should read Arab News more often, where this startling report appeared: When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq, what we saw was utter chaos. Iraqi men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam." I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food. His answer shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. He said: "There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else." Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq. The people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein. I certainly didn't expect so much resistance and so little uprising by the Iraqi people in this war. But in hindsight, the present situation makes perfect sense. In 1991, we encouraged rebellion... and then allowed Saddam to slaughter and brutalize those who did so. (Wisely I think, we are actively discouraging such rebellion this time around.) And Saddam clearly learned his lesson from 1991, given his present use of the Fedayeen to terrorize the locals into submission -- and into fighting. The Iraqi people are -- and should be -- wary of our invasion until they know we have eliminated the threat from Saddam. Let's hope they need not be wary for long. Link / Noodles / Trackback

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