Signs in my neighborhood

Gives you some idea of the local demographic and economic conditions (or at least what the people behind these signs believe it to be).

Ayaan Hirsi Ali receives Goldwater Award

Last night Einzige and I attended the Goldwater Institute's award dinner for Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, where she was given the 2007 Goldwater Award for her work in support of freedom, in defense of women against the oppression they face in Islamic countries. Copies of her autobiographical book, Infidel, were given to each table and I obtained the copy at our table since most everyone at the table had already read it and no one accepted my challenge to fight for it.

It was a rainy night and it was a huge event, with about 800 attendees. It took me about 25 minutes to get from the entrance of the Phoenician to the event venue, where I later heard that valets parked 400 cars for the event. It seemed as if the Phoenician wasn't used to hosting an event of that size, which can't possibly be true.

I was extremely surprised to see that the schedule for the event included an *invocation*. I have attended multiple Goldwater events in the past (such as the screening of "Mr. Conservative"), but this was the first time I had been to one that included a prayer. I noted at the table that it seemed disrespectful in the extreme that an event honoring an atheist would begin with a prayer. The prayer itself was an ecumenical, non-sectarian "meditation" (as the individual who spoke referred to it) of the sort likely to be as offensive to hardcore Christians as it is to atheists for its failure to appeal to Jesus Christ, but it was still a public verbal appeal to an imaginary being for his approval and support. It reminded me a little bit of the "Agnostic's Prayer" in Roger Zelazny's book Creatures of Light and Darkness, which goes like this (p. 40):

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you [a man about to die in a "suicide show" who the speaker has put his hand upon the head of] be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

And I continue to fail to understand why Christians cannot abide by Matthew 6:5-7.

The dinner at the event was phenomenal, though portions were small (filet mignon was the main course). Steve Forbes gave a keynote speech which was well done; it was primarily a recounting of some of the basic principles necessary for economic freedom, such as the importance of the rule of law and a system of stable property rights. Regarding property rights, I was pleased that he commented on a survey of businesses and property in Egypt that found that most businesses and buildings were illegal under the country's laws, and noted that this is common throughout the world. Having recently read Robert Neuwirth's excellent book Shadow Cities, I'm aware that over a billion people in the world live in squatter cities where they are illegally occupying land and often develop their own informal property rights that are not legally enforceable but tend to be respected within their own communities. Countries which manage to give some kind of enforceable title to such people can dramatically unlock wealth and improve their conditions.

The part of Forbes' talk which most caught my attention, however, was his discussion of the current mortgage crisis. He stated that this is a mere blip, so long as the government doesn't overreact. He claimed that there is perhaps $400-$500 billion in losses hiding in securitized mortgage packages, which should be easy for the market to take since that's the amount lost in a bad day on the stock market. The concern is that government or bankers will overreact and withdraw liquidity from everyone (rather than just bad risks) at a time when it is needed. In my opinion, Forbes understates the risks because he repeatedly assumed that the problem exists only within subprime loans, which is already demonstrably false. American Home Mortgage of Tucson, which filed for bankruptcy in August, did not originate subprime loans at all, only "Alt-A" loans, which fall between prime and subprime. The root of the problem has been people of all levels of credit risk using their homes as ATMs who are now underwater, and in particular those using adjustable rate mortgages. This article from someone inside the mortgage industry sets out a worst-case scenario that I think is far more plausible than Forbes' rosy picture, which fails to account for the cascading effects of foreclosures, bankruptcies, and loss of real estate jobs on the broader consumer-driven economy. But in any case, he predicts that the mortgage crisis will be over before the end of 2008, so by this time next year we will know who is right.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's talk was actually an interview conducted by Darcy Olsen, the president of the Goldwater Institute, who asked her a series of questions about growing up in Somalia, her subsequent life, what motivated her to escape Islamic fundamentalism and her arranged marriage, and so forth. She was well-spoken (especially for a non-native speaker of English) and charming, and told of being inspired by works of fiction about individual freedom while living in a community that emphasized submission to family, tribe, and nation. Her sources of inspiration were all secular, of course, though surprisingly included Barbara Cartland romance novels and Nancy Drew mysteries as well as books like Huckleberry Finn.

Afterward, I stood in line to get my book signed, and had a chance to speak to her directly. Although I thought of asking her what she thought of being honored at an event that opened with a prayer, our brief exchange went something like this:

JL: Have you heard of the Internet Infidels?
AHA: No. (She smiles.)
JL: It's at infidels.org, it is a group critical of religion. Are you familiar with Ibn Warraq? [I had also meant to mention Internet Infidels supporter Taslima Nasrin, but couldn't remember her last name.]
AHA: Yes.
JL: Some of his material is published there, though it mostly focuses on Christianity, since it's a bigger source of problems in this country.
AHA: I think I would disagree that Christianity is a bigger problem than Islam in this country.
JL: It's Christianity that has control of the government here.

And then I stepped away with my book, and joined the long line at valet parking right behind Barry Goldwater, Jr. I tipped my valet with a $20, which he seemed very pleased to receive, and then thought that I should have said "this is a tip from an atheist," since I saw several other people (not Goldwater) apparently fail to tip at all, even though they were more elegantly dressed and driving vehicles several times the price of mine.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali seems to be focused exclusively on Islam--not surprising given her history. Several of her answers were somewhat defensive of Christianity (no doubt appealing to her audience), at least by comparison to Islam, much like her response to me above. Yet the Bible contains teachings very similar to the Koran in regard to calling for the death of unbelievers, the subjection of women, slavery, and so forth--the difference is that there are fewer who endorse those teachings, perhaps in part because Christianity has gone through a Reformation while Islam has not.

UPDATE: Note that Wikipedia reports that Hirsi Ali has admitted to falsifying some information in her application for asylum in the Netherlands (specifically her name, date of birth, and claim to have spent time in refugee camps on the border of Somalia and Kenya), and her family disputes her account of her forced marriage, though Hirsi Ali has provided letters from family members (including her father) to the New York Times which substantiate her account. It was the exposure of her fabrications on her asylum application that led her to step down as a Member of the Dutch Parliament and led to Rita Verdonk saying that her Dutch nationality was therefore invalid, which was subsequently overridden by vote of Parliament.

This blog post quotes from a Reason magazine interview of Hirsi Ali that shows that she is somewhat extreme and illiberal in her position regarding Islam, as well as having some unusual ideas about Christianity (e.g., she thinks Catholics have a conception of God where there is no hell). One commenter at the Reason blog compared her to Ann Coulter. This post critiques her understanding of Islam as overly simplistic, like confusing all of Christianity with its most extreme fundamentalist varieties.

UPDATE (February 20, 2008): I've just finished reading Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel, and I highly recommend it. Contrary to my statement above, it wasn't the "exposure of her fabrications on her asylum application that led her to step down" as an MP; she had been open with many people, including the press, about having used the name Ali instead of Magan on her asylum application and claiming to be a refugee from Somalia instead of a resident of Kenya fleeing a forced marriage to a Canadian.

UPDATE (May 5, 2024): Since at least November of 2023, Hirsi Ali now identifies as a Christian, which for her seems to be a cultural stance not grounded in any reasons for believing Christianity to be true.

False confessions from torture produced Iraq WMD claims

It turns out that part of the intelligence case for Iraq WMD claims and a concern about al-Qaeda trying to obtain them was the result of false confessions extracted via waterboarding and hypothermia treatment.

UPDATE (January 27, 2010): The CIA operative, John Kiriakou, who claimed in the media that Zubaydah produced accurate intelligence information as a result of waterboarding has now retracted the claim in his new book. He gave accurate information before waterboarding, and, as Andrew Sullivan points out in the link above, inaccurate information as a result of waterboarding.

Mitt Romney on religious freedom

Mitt Romney made his long-awaited "JFK-style" speech, which was hoped to alleviate concerns that he would rely on Mormon religious authority as the ultimate authority in making political decisions rather than the Constitution. His statement to that effect was rather weak, however, and he never actually came out and said that he would rely on the Constitution as the ultimate authority for his political decisions. He stated that "I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith." But he did assert that lack of faith was grounds for rejection of a candidate, and made the absurd statement that "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Romney did say (as the Arizona Republic reported, but CNN did not, in the above link) that "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin." Conversely, the Republic failed to report Romney's "freedom requires religion" statement.

For Romney, it is clear that he does not agree with Jefferson, Madison, and the Constitutional Convention that the First Amendment protects the nonbeliever as well as the believer (as is clear from their writings, their actions as president, and from earlier drafts of the First Amendment that were rejected). Instead, his version of the Constitution requires everyone to belong to some religion, whether it's a cult founded by a con artist or an ancient world religion. He thinks that freedom and religion always must coexist, despite thousands of years and millions of people worth of evidence to the contrary. (Though perhaps his "requires" is a moral claim, that in order to be worthwhile or good, those things must come together--in which case I'd agree that religion requires freedom, but not that freedom requires religion.)

The Republic also noted another serious defect in Romney's comprehension of the First Amendment:

At the same time, he decried those who would remove from public life “any acknowledgment of God,” and he said that “during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.”

Such scenes are already welcome in public places, so long as those public places are equally open to religious and secular displays by believer and nonbeliever alike. The only thing that is forbidden is exclusively allowing displays by a particular religion, which of course is what many Christians are actually demanding. For such an exclusive right favoring a particular religion or religion over nonreligion, displays must be on private property. It's a simple and fair concept, but the religious right repeatedly misrepresents it and falsely claims to be oppressed because they aren't given special privileges that no one else has, and whines and complains when something happens like a Hindu giving a prayer before Congress. And nobody has tried to prevent Romney, Giuliani, and the rest of the presidential candidates from their repeated references to God, despite the transparent phoniness of most of their claims to faith. It's clear that most of them are simply signalling to the religious right that they will continue to be granted special preferences, rather than truly displaying what they believe--their records of political expedience and lack of integrity speak more loudly than their words.

With people of such opinions in political power, explicitly willing to deny political freedoms to those who are nonbelievers and grant special privileges to anything calling itself a religion, it should not be surprising that some people will, out of pure expedience and self-defense, take steps to convert atheism into a religion. Yet that should be unnecessary under our Constitution, as a Washington Post editorial on Romney's speech agrees.

UPDATE: DI Fellow John Mark Reynolds comments on and posts the entirety of Romney's speech, which is certainly better than the quotes above would suggest--he does criticize the establishment of religion in the Massachusetts colony, for example: "Today’s generations of Americans have always known religious liberty. Perhaps we forget the long and arduous path our nation’s forbearers took to achieve it. They came here from England to seek freedom of religion. But upon finding it for themselves, they at first denied it to others."

UPDATE: P.Z. Myers and Greg Laden each give their take on Romney's speech. And here's Christopher Hitchens' view.

Christian dating service uses unChristian sales tactics

The "Watchblog" at the Arizona Republic reports on how the local Christian Internet dating site, Equally Yoked Christian Singles in Phoenix, operates:

C[***] P[***] says a sales manager at Equally Yoked Christian Singles in Phoenix blocked her exit, made unauthorized charges on a cutup credit card and told her she would never find a man before the holidays without their help.
P[***], who filed a police report over the incident, says the dating service virtually emptied her bank account to secure a $1,700 membership fee, refused to cancel her contract and demanded that she sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to get a refund.

Other commenters at the blog report similar, though less extreme, experiences:

I feel for this lady, I know from experience what Equally Yoked is like. They used to call me every month or so and literally harass me into coming in for the preliminary meeting. Luckily, I usually so busy I never had time to go in, I am glad I read this article and I will avoid this place like the plague.

and

A friend joined Equally Yoked a couple of years ago and asked me to join with her so we could attend some of their events. I called them and made an appointment. My favorite cousin's wife died, however, the night of the appointment. I called and got Voice Mail to tell them I was too distraught to make the meeting. They called me back at least five times that night leaving increasingly nasty messages about how unprofessional I was cancelling my appointment. It's 18 months later and they finally stopped calling in October. I would never use Equally Yoked.

The Republic notes that Equally Yoked has had eight BBB complaints in the last 36 months, four of which are contract issues, one a billing issue, one a service issue, and one a product issue, at least six of which were not resolved in a way acceptable to the consumer ("The consumer failed to acknowledge acceptance to the BBB" or "BBB determined the company made a reasonable offer to resolve the issues, but the consumer did not accept the offer."). For the BBB, that's good enough for a "satisfactory" record for a company that's an accredited member. That kind of complaint record would certainly make me avoid such a company, however.

Other complaints about Equally Yoked in other locales can be found online at ripoffreport.com.

The service sounds like a Christian version of another dating company that offered services through local offices in major cities at an equally ridiculous price, Great Expectations. That video-based dating service, once shilled for by Harlan Ellison, has received similar complaints about high pressure sales tactics, deceptiveness, and failure to deliver on promises. Equally Yoked has simply taken this concept and applied it to an even more gullible segment of the population than those who think video dating is a good way to meet people--those who think that an organization catering to Christians (and which suggests, but never actually says that it's run by Christians) couldn't possibly rip them off.

The online dating services that charge minimal fees are clearly a much better deal--they have more people participating, they can often be used without cost or at a minimal monthly cost, and they don't have sleazy salespeople pushing you to sign ridiculous contracts. The one potential advantage of the expensive services is that they may perform criminal history checks, credit checks, and checks to make sure their clients are unmarried, but these are also all checks you can obtain on your own online at a much lower cost. And if you're really looking for someone on the basis of membership in a particular religion, wouldn't a church, mosque, or temple of your favored sect be the best place to search?

Hitchens' "Happy Hanukkah" message

Christopher Hitchens gets right to the point with his piece on Hanukkah:

...to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism's bastard child in the shape of Christianity. You might think that masochism could do no more. Except that it always can. Without the precedents of Orthodox Judaism and Roman Christianity, on which it is based and from which it is borrowed, there would be no Islam, either. Every Jew who honors the Hanukkah holiday because it gives his child an excuse to mingle the dreidel with the Christmas tree and the sleigh (neither of these absurd symbols having the least thing to do with Palestine two millenniums past) is celebrating the making of a series of rods for his own back. And this is not just a disaster for the Jews. When the fanatics of Palestine won that victory, and when Judaism repudiated Athens for Jerusalem, the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded.

A similar point is made, in a more tactful way, in Jennifer Michael Hecht's excellent book, Doubt: A History, which she also told on the New York Times' blog last December. She tells the story of how the events that led to the celebration of Hanukkah were a triumph of religious dogmatism and zealotry over secularism. She recommends lighting an extra candle in the memory of Miriam, the Hellenized Jewish woman who thought sacrifice was superstition and was "punished" for striking the temple altar with her sandal, yelling "Wolf, wolf, you have squandered the riches of Israel!"

Dan Smith's critique of Rep. Jane Harman's HR1955

Dan Smith has written a very nice critique of Rep. Jane Harman's attempt to create a new McCarthyism with her HR1955, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act."

UPDATE (July 18, 2009): I must agree with commenter Jack--HR1955/S.1959 doesn't criminalize anything or create any law enforcement powers for the commission that it orders to solicit testimony and write a report. There's nothing in the bill that amends the Homeland Security Act to add any new crimes or enforcement capabilities. No doubt the commission will make legislative recommendations (and I think having such a commission is a bad idea), but this bill itself doesn't do so.

Have things finally peaked?

I figured I'd present the foreclosure notice data a little differently, to make it easier visually to compare it with Maricopa County's median price and sales data. If you're interested in seeing the numbers prior to 2001, check out last month's post. And, by the way, if you somehow found your way to this page via a Google search for "Phoenix foreclosures" or something similar and it's not currently December of 2007, you'd do well to click here so you can see the latest information.

November was yet another record month for notices of trustee's sales in the Phoenix area, with 3543 filed.

Meanwhile, home sales are the lowest they've been since January of 2001. Note that the graph's latest data point is from October, since ARMLS is not quick to update its stats, but I can't imagine that November's numbers are going to be any better, since traditionally it's a slow month, regardless.

Texas Education Agency director of science curriculum fired for announcing Barbara Forrest talk

Chris Comer, the director of science curriculum for the Texas Education Agency, was forced to resign from her position. Her offense? Forwarding an email from the National Center for Science Education announcing a talk by philosopher and intelligent design critic Barbara Forrest, and adding the text "FYI."

The call to fire Comer came from Lizzette Reynolds, formerly at the U.S. Department of Education and former deputy legislative director for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. She wrote in an email to Comer's supervisors that "This is highly inappropriate. I believe this is an offense that calls for termination or, at the very least, reassignment of responsibilities."

The movie "Expelled" makes a big deal about cases like the Sternberg affair, where nobody lost a job or responsibilities, and the denial of tenure to Guillermo Gonzales, whose publication record didn't merit tenure. But here's a case of someone who appears to have actually been removed from her position for sending out an announcement of a talk critical of intelligent design--a subject which the courts have already ruled is unconstitutional to teach in the science classroom. TEA officials claim that Comer was removed for "repeated acts of misconduct and insubordination," which Comer describes as really meaning her concerns about teaching creationism in schools. The Texas Republican Party platform explicitly advocates teaching intelligent design in public schools.

Wesley Elsberry has more about the Comer case at the Austringer blog, where he wonders whether the Discovery Institute will decry Comer's firing, since they've been willing to stretch the facts to complain about cases with far less substance to them:

Will the Discovery Institute come forward to say that the TEA is repressing Ms. Comer’s free speech rights? Will they urge her to become the star of the “Expelled” movie? After all, she did actually lose her job over her stance on evolution in education, as opposed to various people noted as being featured in the film who did not. But the DI is unlikely to do so because Ms. Comer is on the opposite side of the issue from them. They aren’t defending a principle, they are pushing a particular line of propaganda.

I agree with Wesley. The Discovery Institute has a long record of misrepresenting facts (and not just about science) in order to promote its views. I suspect they will either remain silent or try to defend Comer's removal.

Pharyngula also comments on Comer's removal, including the following explanation from Comer's boss:

the forwarding of this event announcement by Ms. Comer, as the Director of Science, from her TEA email account constitutes much more than just sharing information. Ms. Comer's email implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral. Thus, sending this email compromises the agency's role in the TEKS revision process by creating the perception that TEA has a biased position on a subject directly related to the science education TEKS.

As P.Z. Myers comments: "Whoa. The Texas Education Agency is neutral on the subject of teaching good science? It's bad if the TEA takes a position on the subject of science education? Apparently, TEA members are supposed to close their eyes and maximize ignorance before making decisions. I really feel sorry for Texas."

UPDATE (December 2, 2007): And more, from Texas Citizens for Science (via Pharyngula).

UPDATE (December 4, 2007): The New York Times editorializes on this subject.

UPDATE (December 6, 2007): DI Fellow John Mark Reynolds agrees that TEA is in the wrong here.

UPDATE (December 12, 2007): The Society for the Study of Evolution has sent an open letter to "Texas TEA."

UPDATE (December 20, 2007): Glenn Branch has written a nice blog post about his email that cost Comer her job.

UPDATE (July 3, 2008): Chris Comer has filed a lawsuit regarding her termination.

Theists and atheists less depressed than agnostics?

A letter in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine suggests that theism and atheism are both correlated with "fewer reported depressive symptoms than the in-between state of 'existential uncertainty'."