Rebane's Ruminations

Reverend Bayes and the Muslim

George Rebane

The Ft Hood shootings have left me shocked, saddened, and dismayed.  But perhaps not in the way most of the country is reacting to this terrible news tonight from Texas.  What is now known is that Major Malik Nadal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, methodically opened fire with two handguns in a troop processing hall where he killed twelve soldiers and wounded 31 more before being shot himself.  He will survive.

It took some hours for the Army and media to reveal that the Major was a Muslim, during which hours the man’s name was known but not revealed.  Then it came to light that the killer (I don’t have to use any of this ‘alleged’ stuff to belabor the known and verified) was born and raised here in an American Muslim family.  He was commissioned through the Virginia Tech ROTC program and seemed to all outside observers to be flying hot, true, and normal in the progress of his Army career.   Normal, that is, until he began to voice Islamic sentiments to his colleagues about American foreign policy and military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And then he decided to sacrifice himself as the assassin of unsuspecting innocents he had sworn to defend with his life.

How do I chew and digest all this information in light of what I have learned, and what has been reported to us about the resurgence of radicalized militant Islam and its global objectives?  I must look at it through the only lens I have.  For good or ill, I am a child, student, and defender of western civilization.  It’s in my double helix.

I also spent my turn manning the ramparts of our country (First Lieutenant, Artillery, retired), and then more years designing its weapons of war.  This experience has made a lasting impression on me and others similarly blessed.  It served to grind my lens.

The Reverend Thomas Bayes (1702 - 1761) is best remembered for giving mankind the means to correctly incorporate new and uncertain observations/knowledge into an existing belief system.  Today the Bayes Theorem underpins everything from moon landings, GPS, medical technology, worldwide communications, financial investments, internet search, optimal emergency response strategies, genetic engineering, interpretation of data, diagnostics, automated reasoning (artificial intelligence), and more areas than can be enumerated here.  Without Bayes, we would not recognize our world.

Bayesian analysis also supports enquiries into such problems as ‘given the data from the Ft Hood shootings, how should we deal with Muslims in our military?’  Unfortunately, our culture has now weaned itself of both the will and wisdom to address defense of culture issues.  We cannot even formulate the question for a discussion in the public media.  It is simply out of the new bounds we have set for ourselves.

Consider this, Major Hasan had no other distinguishing attributes that may have predicted his killing spree, save that he was a discontent Muslim in an advanced 21st century culture, the very existence of which gives lie to most of Islam’s deepest teachings.

Islam is undoubtedly the world’s most powerful religion or belief system.  What other religion today can motivate so many of its adherents to willingly sacrifice themselves with utter finality in the practice of terror against anyone not sharing their specific beliefs?  What is your negotiating basis with someone whose reward is not of this world?  Christians don’t have a leg to stand on, and secular humanists – especially of the politically correct stripe – don’t even understand the problem.

So, here was an American military officer who had taken the most solemn and serious oath to defend his homeland against all enemies, and who appeared engaged in perfectly normal activities that fulfilled that oath.  And then, without warning, he violates that oath in the most terrible and egregious manner.  Is there any possible defense against the recurrence of this scenario?

Depending on what utility we assign to a successful defense, the Reverend Bayes would counsel that we can indeed defend ourselves, not with certainty, but close enough for government work.  But the parade of spread-eagled, white-haired grandmothers at our airport security checkpoints testifies that the good Reverend’s legacy is banished from such enquires, let alone applications, in today’s America.

Our politics will not allow us a reasonable defense.  But docking more freedoms and liberties of the whole, in order to defend against the few, is our government’s forte.  As the perfect trifecta - it addresses the problem, makes everyone aware that government is out there defending us, and quietly ratchets back freedoms that prepare us for the brave new world.  We never even think to look behind the curtain.

Obamacare - The Other Side

George Rebane

The White House, Congress, MSM, and the foreign press are touting the long awaited arrival of socialized healthcare in the United States.  The Pelosi bill is now on the floor of the House ready for a vote.  Pelosi Health Care Bill Summary is another view of this legislation by the House Republican Conference that summarizes the bill in 30 pages.  Before quietly capitulating, it’s at least worth perusing.  Hat tip to a RR reader for sending me this.

Got Vaccine (Yet)?

George Rebane

‘Don’t get sick’, that is how the liberals in Congress dismiss the conservative proposed alternatives to Obamacare.  But that same advice should be given to all of us trying to avoid the ongoing swine flu epidemic.  Getting vaccinated is a problem, because our country doesn’t have a timely supply of enough vaccine.  I discussed why this is so (here) but am still puzzled as to why no one wants to talk about the recent history of on-shore vaccine manufacturing.  It is a clear example of how government puts its own welfare, comfort, and security above and ahead of its citizens.  Always has, always will.

Instead, the diversionary news items fill the airwaves.  We are told of ‘old technologies’, ‘bad batches’, and ‘frustrated’ politicians.  The real problem is that bad laws and policies were made about the nation’s emergency healthcare.  After they were implemented, and when the mistakes became apparent, instead of making corrections, everyone got real quiet hoping that the problem would never come.  Well, the problem came and now it’s CYA time on the hustings.

What makes revelation of our inadequate vaccine manufacturing capacity so explosive is that its cost in American lives is completely computable.  Every passing week without a large-scale vaccination program underway increases the known mortality count.  And that count can be laid at the feet of identifiable agents and agencies.  Talk about fully functional death committees already in place and working.

 

Today in our own Nevada County, the Public Health Department tells us that supplies are “extremely limited”, but it has received a “small initial shipment” of the H1N1 vaccine.  It is dispensing this according to CDC guidelines with no one above 8th grade in the general population getting the vaccine (see figure).  Since the PHD has no knowledge of when additional or adequate supplies will be forthcoming, it simply does not talk about it.  So the question continues to go begging.

We are reminded that this is an example of the healthcare tragedy now hanging over us all as our government prepares to force Obamacare on the nation.  And even if you stay healthy, the economic ruin it will unleash on the land will make you sick.  But that’s another untold story.

Placing My Lance

George Rebane

A post-American president sees the job of President of the United States as a stepping stone to higher office.

“And you would place your lance where?”  my friend and blogging partner Russ Steele (NC MediaWatch) asked me in a recent email exchange.  I had taken to task his reporting of the latest piece of hard science and data analysis that had been placed in the public record through conferences, technical papers, and numerous websites contradicting global warmists.  I didn’t criticize his presentation of the technical conclusions, but focused on the fundamental strategy of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) catastrophe skeptics of whom I am one.

I just don’t think that putting all efforts in science-based counter arguments is the correct strategy.  Wasting no crisis, AGW is the celebrated cause and the perfect storm to usher in worldwide collectivism.  It is the culminating argument that the most hindered intellects everywhere can understand and answer correctly – ‘do you want to be free and cause an end to life as we know it, or do you want to work together (under state control) so that we can save the earth?’.  Gore, Obama, and the one-world socialists, are correct that debate is over; their ‘science’ has won because the people don’t understand science, they understand slogans.

But that reality doesn’t mean that these radical left elitists want us skeptics (to them ‘deniers’) to quit tilting at their carefully constructed windmills (see picture).  On the contrary, the more busy we are in shoring up the scientific arguments countering AGW, the less energy and resources we have left for the part of the battle that still matters.  Please don’t misunderstand here.  I believe the work that both scientists and bloggers (i.e. Anthony Watts, Russ Steele, and others) are doing to expose the holes in AGW ‘science’ is important and should continue.  But that effort, being necessary to counter global collectivism, does not mean that it is also sufficient to achieve success.