Grave Danger From Scientific Illiteracy

I quote from the picture above: "In the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan, the gravest danger may well be from the spent nuclear fuel at the damage Fukushima Daichi power plant."[Emphasis mine].

Huh. I thought the gravest danger facing the Japanese was the killing of 20,000 or so of their nationals from the tsunami and zero from complications from the nuclear power plants. I also thought that the total exposure from the radiation, which according to a Harvey Mudd professor, is less than that of flying.

You know what that means? Down with flying! Bananas also have radiation! Down with them, too! Dosage be damned! I had better be careful. I could well start a movement over at Pitzer to ban bananas.

Pitzer College -- where else? -- is holding a viewing of a fear-mongering masquerading as science on April 4, at 7:00 PM in Benson Auditorium.

Whither Syria?

Here's my Big Peace op-ed from yesterday on Syria's instability.


When the Hezbollah and Hamas supporting Professor Bassam Frangieh brought Syrian ambassador to America Imad Moustapha to Claremont McKenna College’s campus in 2009, a student in the Arabic program asked, in all seriousness, what America could do to help Syria promote world peace. (This question was, of course, after Bassam Frangieh instructed his students to serenade Moustapha with singing from the Koran.)

I thought I’d take this opportunity to help out our new Syrian friends. They are our “new” friends because Obama, in one of the first acts of his presidency, renewed diplomatic relations with Syria.  Then as now Syria was very much a part of what John Bolton called “Beyond the Axis of Evil” in May 2002, but President Obama was going to be different. Why, he was going to sit down and talk with the Syrians!

In any event, having eaten Syrian food once, I seem to have as much power as President Obama when it comes to getting the Syrians to listen. For those wondering, Libya was on John Bolton’s list, too, but President Bush removed it when Libya, noticing the toppling of Saddam Hussein, dismantled its own nuclear weapons program unilaterally in late 2003 – much good that did now that cruise missiles are raining down upon it. Syria, by contrast, moved along with its own nuclear weapons program, which thanks to the N. Koreans had proceeded along and thanks to the Israelis, was destroyed in 2007. Obama still extended diplomatic relations.

The lesson for the Middle East tyrants then is pretty clear when dealing with liberal presidents: Build nukes and kill your own citizens – unless the French say you can’t. If you do kill your own civilians, expect us to give you a verystrong talking to – we might even write a letter complaining about your decision to arrest two Americans.

That is, unless you have absolutely no interest to us, have given up your nuclear weapons program, stopped supporting terrorism, and compensated victims of your past terrorist acts. In that case, you will be bombed. It’s how we now say thanks in America. Unlike President Bush who spent over a year trying to persuade Congress about attacking Iraq, we won’t give you advance warning so you can move all of your money and WMDs into another country.

I know that I should cut the Syrian ambassador some slack. After all, he’s a blogger, too! But I won’t. Bloggers don’t let bloggers execute civilians. Still, he is in my Google reader. That’s where I found this little ditty: “For us in Syria, the fall of Husni Mubarak signifies the fall of the Camp David regime. Or let’s hope this would be the case.”

He might be right. The Camp David accords were what kept the peace between Egypt and Israel. With them gone, at least one Egyptian moderate – and a possible future prime minister – says that Egypt’s relations with Israel won’t be so friendly anymore. It might require a “rethinking” — which in the Middle East is almost never a good sign.

I wonder, if Syria falls, will that signal the preeminence of Iran? With Syria as the subtle knife that helps fund the Iranian attack on Israel, why not cut out the middle men?

(NOT a) Pitzer Student Pleads No Contest, With Update

A comment helpfully notes: For the record, 2 p.m. March 30: A previous version of this post said Hughes attended Pitzer College. He applied to the school in 2010 but was not accepted, a spokeswoman for Pitzer said. 

Well, that's the last time I trust the L.A. Times... Of course it tells us a lot that he applied to Pitzer...

Cameron Hughes, Pitzer student

It's spring time, baby, and you know what that means! Protesting!   Well, looks like Pitzer student Cameron Hughes, who describes himself as a libertarian-socialist -- whatever that means -- on Facebook, took things a little too far. What was Hughes protesting do you ask? Why the police shooting a knife-wielding immigrant in self-defense!  The Los Angeles Times reports about it here:

A Los Angeles man could receive jail time for pelting a police vehicle with a plastic water bottle during protests related to the fatal police shooting of a Guatemalan [illegal] immigrant, city prosecutors said Tuesday.

The sentence handed down by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Yvette Verastegui came after Cameron Hughes entered a no contest plea Tuesday to throwing an object at a vehicle.


Hughes must choose between spending a month in county jail or working on a Caltrans crew. He also  received two years formal diversion, city prosecutors said.


If he completes the terms of his sentence within two years and has no new arrests, the charges will be reduced to an infraction.


....


Hughes, an 18-year-old Pitzer College student, was arrested in connection with a smaller gathering the next night. During the unrest, Hughes was observed wearing a bandanna over his face and throwing a plastic bottle at a police vehicle, city prosecutors said.

You mean like this bandanna?

The caption for the photo reads: "[D]on't give them their freedom, because they're not going to give you yours. death to the fascists, power to the people."


Looks like the People just laid down the law on Hughes.