North Carolina's lottery began today, the last of any East Coast state. This is the worst idea in the long, sordid history of bad ideas. What will happen is this: it will be a huge success at first because everyone will rush out and buy a ticket to see what the fuss is about. Sales will be good, lawmakers will grow complacent, and when that money stops trickling in because the novelty has worn off, what happens is funds that they thought were coming in for education simply won't be there. The program will run in the red, and you know who gets screwed?--the taxpayers.

The rape at a Duke house party made the front page of the New York Times yesterday. I really hope these allegations aren't true, but this thing isn't going away any time soon (DNA testing from every member of the lacrosse team except one is apparently in the lab right now, and should exonerate them according to a letter they wrote to their coaches).

Oh, and UNC renamed where I live so it can feel better about itself. "A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet."

A brief defense of Intelligent Design:

There was an article in the Hill last month by Ben Lundin about how Intelligent Design isn't a science. He got it half right.

Intelligent Design is a philosophical argument against the categories naturalist materialism uses to interpret the world. Science gives two reasons for everything: causal laws (gravity, light waves, etc...) and randomness (the subatomic level). Intelligent Design says that there is one more cause: a rational agent. By design, science isn't meant to catch this third category because of what it assumes about the nature of the world, what "categories" it uses. The movie Contact touches on this "third cause" philosophy. If we got a signal from outer space that listed all prime numbers in sequential order, we wouldn't assume that it either derived from a natural law or from randomness. We would assume that a rational agent created that signal. It would drastically alter our conception of science.

Now that wild tangent #2,435 is done, I just got killed by an 8 a.m. exam. My bed is calling my name, or maybe that's just the sleep deprivation...

George Mason's historic run to the Final Four makes me feel a little bit better about our early loss...



.. and Dook losing always makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.

From Monday's N&O:

"Duke has struggled in recent years with community relations over the behavior of its students. Neighbors have grown weary of loud music and drunken antics. Many have complained that students have no regard for those who live there."

Read the full article about an alleged rape that took place at a party held by the Duke Lacrosse team here

From Outside the Beltway:

Some commonly applied definitions of terrorism:

- “Systematic use of violence, terror, and intimidation to achieve an end.” (Webster’s)

- “The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” (Defense Department)

- “International terrorism is terrorism conducted with the support of a foreign government or organization and / or directed against foreign nationals, institutions or governments.” (State Department)

- “Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” (FBI)

Taheri’s act qualifies under some of those definitions and not under others.

From what we know now, he was acting alone and this was a one-time event. So, it was not “systematic” nor “with the support of” anyone and would not qualify under the Webster’s or State Department definitions. It would, however, seem to fit the DoD and, especially, FBI definitions.

Still, it sounds like the guy is just a less-than-stable loser rather than a calculating jihadist. Indeed, one has to be a complete moron to hit fifteen people with a Jeep with the intent to kill them and somehow manage not to kill anyone. My guess is that he’s a “terrorist” in the same way the looters yelling “Rodney King!” while running down the streets with their television sets were “militants.”

This is a postmodernist argument. Words only have the meaning we ascribe to them, and so to call it terrorism depends on your agreed-upon definition of terrorism. I've changed my mind since my original post. If it is in fact terrorism under some definition which we can all agree, then we owe it to ourselves to call it that. The only way things get better is to address them. But, it still might not actually have been terrorism based on some of those definitions above. I think this incident raises a lot of important questions about what terrorism is, what we all think it to be, especially in a post-9/11, Iraqi War world.

Because if the Pit incident is terrorism, then the isolated nature of the event leads me to believe the War on Terror is a war we can't win unless we obliterate the ideology behind it, which, unfortunately, involves several selective attacks on Islam. Given America's dedication to tolerance and understanding, I don't see such a selective attack as being possible or feasible. The ideology will therefore be allowed to fester indefinitely, and the war on terror will be perpetual, incapable of ever being won.

As I was walking to dinner tonight, two men in a Crown Victoria yelled at me on Stadium Drive.

"Hey white boy, look at that sign."

"What?" I said, not knowing in the slightest what they were talking about.

"Behind you. The sign."

I walked 10 feet to the other side of the tree. There was a sign stapled to it that read:

"You Muslim Savages, Go Home. White Power."

I turned to continue walking to Lenoir. One of the men said, "Love your country," then drove off. I felt sick.

There was a protest in the Pit today about the incident on Friday. The protest was designed to get people to start calling what happened in the Pit "what it really was": an act of terrorism.

On the surface, that seemed OK to me. He tried to hurt people to push a political agenda. In the 911 call he placed to turn himself in, Mr. Taheri-azar said he did it to punish the U.S. government for mistreatment of Mulsims around the world. In court today, he said he was going to represent himself with the help of Allah. Quite clearly, his driving a Jeep through the Pit with the intent to injure and kill UNC students was religiously motivated.

Based on the textbook definition of terrorism, this was terrorism. There's not many ways around that.

But, and here's the really big but, what do any of us gain by labeling this an act of terrorism? Is anything gained?

The man sits in jail tonight with 18 felony charges against him. The FBI has a letter he wrote describing why he did it. There are eye-witness accounts linking him to the scene. It is obvious that he is going to spend the rest of his natural life in prison. Justice is being served.

The man acted alone. He wasn't a part of any sleeper cell, he isn't linked to Al Qaeda, he isn't hooked up with some kind of Chapel Hill terrorism underground. He was a recent UNC graduate. He was clearly troubled, missing some key handle of a solid grasp on reality. It doesn't excuse his actions. Nothing could.

And so, even if this is an act of terrorism, which it very well may be, some greater good is served by NOT calling it terrorism. In a post-9/11 world, the very word terrorism has connotations that spark panic, fear, and irrational hatred. Read that last one again. Irrational hatred. Like the two Crown Victoria men with their sign stapled to a UNC tree.

But at the same time, I can't help but wonder if it's a copout not to call it terrorism. If it is terrorism, shouldn't we be hitting this thing head on? Doesn't it make us cowards to sweep it under the carpet because it's easier to deal with, easier to handle, easier to understand. Isn't it easier if we can all believe it was just a sick and twisted individual who didn't fully understand what he was doing, the ideology he was misrepresenting, or the consequences.

But what if he did know. What if it was cold, calculated terrorism. Terrorism, in my mind, only succeeds when it creates the kind of division that I saw today in the Pit. I was so glad when someone threw up their hands and reminded everyone that this was the first day of class since it happened, that the campus was still understandably in mourning, and that anger was the last thing we needed. His words made more sense than anything I've heard about the whole damn thing.

I still don't know what I think. Whether it was terrorism or not. The FBI hasn't charged him yet, but they still could. I don't think enough information is available to make a sound judgment, and for the meantime, everyone's going to keep spinning their wheels with their opinions. It's good though. Expressing opinions is a powerful coping method, and a way in which the community can heal itself.

It's the irrational hatred that really bothers me. If those two men were in fact UNC students, and I have no reason to believe they weren't, for the first time ever, the very first time, I was ashamed to be a Carolina student.

"There's nothing you can do about people like that" and "Two people don't represent a whole campus" aren't enough of a defense. Any amount of sentiment like that, no matter how small, is too much.

I must admit this discussion of global warming has caught me off guard. My usual opinion is that people don’t really care about the environment, especially when debates turn political. Of course we all like fresh air, beautiful forests, and smog-free cities, but when push comes to shove most people would rather have an SUV than a Toyota hybrid. Changes to the environment seem too long term to attract much worry.

Having said that, it seems clear that the environment is warming up. The September 2004 issue of National Geographic contains a series of reports on global warming. The average temperature has increased steadily since the early nineteenth century. And the temperature increases are most extreme at the poles. On Antarctica’s Western Peninsula, for instance, the average temperature has risen by 8.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and 4.5 F degrees for the rest of the year.

At the same time, the five hottest years on record have all occurred in the last decade (1: 1998; 2: 2002; 3: 2003; 4: 2001; 5: 1997). Glaciers are melting, the ocean water is becoming less salty (proving that more fresh water in melting into the oceans), and flowers are blossoming earlier.

The real question, then, is why is this global spike in temperature happening?

Many scientists cited in the National Geographic articles point to the recent rise in carbon dioxide emissions as evidence that humans are affecting the climate in a negative way. They track a steady rise of CO2 emissions (a rise of 100 parts per million) from the 1860s when global industrialization began to the present day. During the same period, the average temperature has risen by over two degrees at the Earth’s poles. According to these scientists, the CO2 produced by our factories, cars, and other industrial activities are greatly affecting the temperature of the planet.

Some people, however, think it is vain to blame the sudden increase in temperature on humans. Long-term data show that the earth has repeatedly undergone cycles of warming and cooling every 100,000 years for the last 400,000 years (before that the cycles lasted about 41,000 years). Moreover, during each temperature fluctuation there is a corresponding rise in carbon dioxide emissions. According to these data, temperature changes have (much) more to do with the Earth’s orbit around the sun than human industrialization.

Clearly, there are at least two interpretations about what happening to our planet. The problem, of course, is that we just don’t know enough to blame the situation on one cause. Humans weren’t polluting the air with their horse-drawn SUVs 100,000 years ago, and yet the temperature shot up then just as it has today. At the same time, if the Earth keeps warming up like it is presently, humanity could be in for a steamy situation. So what are we to do?

The 1998 Kyoto Protocol, a UN sponsored meeting, called on the industrialized nations to slash greenhouse admissions. In typical UN fashion, however, the Protocol was biased, lame, and ineffectual. The Protocol asks nations to control their greenhouse emissions based on 1990 data. The problem is that Kyoto sets different (and unfair) targets for each country. The European Union is asked to cut 8% of its emissions; the United States must cut 7%. All of this would significantly impact these countries’ economies through taxes and industrial cleanup. Other countries like Russia and China would feel almost no effect from the treaty, however. Under the treaty, Russia would be required to cut 0% of its emissions, which is no problem considering its economy – and CO2 usages – has dropped significantly since the fall of the USSR in 1991. China, meanwhile, an early signer of the treaty, is under no obligation to cut any of its emissions by any date. So of course they signed the treaty. But how is this fair?

Problems with the Kyoto Treaty are further compounded by the fact that there is no date on when these emissions must be curtailed. Nor is there any punishment for nations that fail to comply with the treaty. Finally, most scientists agree that even if nations complied with the Kyoto standards it is unlikely it would have any major change on the planet (China and India would be producing CO2 admissions while everyone else tries to cut back). Clearly, this treaty is ridiculous. And even our distinguished former president, Bill Clinton, was not foolish enough to send this Protocol to the Congress.

If humans are going to get serious about the environment, therefore, we first need to study the situation better. We’ve got to know what is causing the rise in temperatures. And we’ve got to answer some tough questions: How much economic growth are we willing to give up to stop CO2 emissions? If we stop polluting will that really make a significant difference in the Earth’s temperature? How much of a difference will it make? What will happen if the temperature continues to rise? Are we willing as a planet to sign a treaty limiting CO2 emissions?

Any agreement humans come to must produce a resolution that encompasses all nations. It is foolish to penalize the United States and Europe and leave the Chinese to pollute all they want. Furthermore, a treaty on global warming should have dates when emissions should be reduced, and it should have punishments for nations that do not comply.

Obviously, such an agreement is a long way off. In the meantime, I suspect people will be more concerned with a less serious topic: Does that SUV look better in black or red?

An email from Deb that I felt was appropriate for the blog. Enjoy:

My two cents on global warming:

The severity of last year's hurricane season (and the relative severity of hurricane seasons in our lifetime, as compared with the preceding century) are just small bits of voluminous evidence that climate change is taking place. Whether these changes are caused by humans -- as opposed to natural or divine processes -- is surely a question up for debate. But, whatever is causing it, the icebergs really are melting, and the ozone layer really does have a hole. This year's hurricane season is supposed to be worse than last year's -- particularly on the Carolina coast. Instead of wasting time trying to refute scientific fact, critics of the anti-global warming agenda would better serve us all by attacking the collection of theories that pigeonholes climate trends and links them directly to you and your car.

On the topic of air pollution generally, those who use use terms like "envirofascists" to describe those who advocate clean air and recycling demonstrate nothing but their own immaturity and lack of knowledge. Global warming or not, there's good reason to regulate pollution of the shared air -- individual property rights being one reason and general public health being another. That ought to be enough to satisfy both sides of the political fence. For God's sake, what idiot decided that breathing was going to be a partisan political deate? It used to be, not all that long ago, that Republicans and Democrats could agree on the value of clean air and preserving our natural heritage. What happened?