Discovery Blog

The prosperity of recent years has boosted some former Rust Belt cities, such as Indianapolis, into a new league of 21st century successes. Chicago probably wins first prize for progress in the Middle West, while Detroit remains a hard luck story and Cleveland is still struggling.

My first trip back to Indy in maybe 16 years just ended with an exit through a crowded, outmoded airport that is about to be replaced at a whole new site. The Hoosier Dome that was new when I lived briefly in Indianapolis in 1989-90 is also slated for demolition and the new retractable roof stadium to replace it already is under construction.

But the big surprise is downtown's busy shopping and office core, once the reason for such choice sobriquets as "Indianoplace" and "Naptown." It seems to me that construction in the past two decades has nearly doubled the square footage of Indiana's capital city while adding entertainment and conventions as a whole new focus. Retail activity was dying out in the years after urban renewal nearly destroyed the periphery of downtown and left the hub itself a daytime-only government and office complex; but now city heart has revived. A skybridge-connected mall was thronged this past weekend, as was a new Nordstrom store. Unfortunately, the exterior, ground level for the Nordstrom store is a brutalist design that would be better suited to a riot zone, not street-friendly Indianapolis. (What were they thinking?)

At one point a block of the city's many fine early 20th century ten story masonry buildings was gutted to make way for new construction. But the handsome facades were first removed, repaired and then placed back when the interior works were finished. It is not the ideal option for historic preservation, but here it works well to retain the character of the old city. Indianapolis' downtown coheres in various styles and eras.

The economy of Indiana is suffering job losses, along with neighboring Ohio and Michigan (a one-state recession), largely because of the benighted mismanagement of America's automotive leaders these past decades. Manufacturing generally is down. But Governor Mitch Daniels and an aggressive economic development team has helped bring in replacements--Toyota and Honda, notably--that soon should help take up the slack. The current ethanol fad is helping the state, too, as farmers (the Indianapolis Star reports) are planting more corn than at any time since World War II.

Public education is a problem in Indianapolis, as in other urban areas. But a couple of miles from the downtown, in the company of philanthropist Don Roskowski, I visited a two year old charter school that gave me great hope for the future. The school's design and all its policies are aimed at personalizing the education of the students and helping them feel safe in identifying with the school, not with some peer group. The key, of course, is state legislation that allows charter schools in the first place, even if it doesn't adequately fund them in comparison with other public schools. A great many more charter schools could help realize the goal of sustainable development in Indianapolis and cities like it.

On a balmy Friday night tour, back downtown and at nearby Massachusetts Avenue, I witnessed the new scene of city night life--mostly wholesome evenings-out for young people and families at restaurants, the vibrant theaters and movie houses and stores--that put me in mind of the new "city place" constructions in Florida's boomtowns. Only this was not an attempt to create New Urbanist pleasures from scratch, but revival and extension of an existing, one time Old Urban success. As a result, the heart of Indianapolis has an air of authenticity and continuity that good historic areas of big cities, as opposed to shopping centers, can boast. Here you see horse-drawn carriages roam, teens gather in Indiana University and Purdue sweatshirts to watch each other at the central monument circle, while outdoor diners bask in early spring warmth.

The old Gothic revival Columbia Club that was a Republican hangout for over a hundred years now is "integrated" with Democrats, ever since the latter's favorite, the Athletic Club, burned. You can get very good food there, but also at any of the numerous and interesting new restaurants nearby. Great lodging at exceedingly reasonable prices (compared to either Coast or Chicago) can be had at such new establishments as Hilton's "Conrad" hotel, where the service is almost over-the-top friendly. (I paid $179 a night on a "conference rate" arranged by the Indy-centered Liberty Fund.) There is even an Indiana wine festival coming up in town. That really stuns me!

On a Saturday morning the downtown is lively again, this time with teams of kids and parents going to a soccer tournament, people attending a convention and early shoppers. Friends who were about to leave Indianapolis a few years ago and retire in the West say, why go? Where else is living so easy and inexpensive? Houses are priced at half the cost in Seattle or Washington, D.C. And with the savings you can take off for a warm climate in the winter without any financial stretch.

Now the long term financial prospects look good, too, and with that, a commitment to civilized life.

You don't have to be a Hoosier to appreciate Indiana. I wish more states were like it.

It sounds like such a nice idea and it really does appear useful at first, but Wikipedia turns out to have a fatal flaw: While you can edit material on its listings, malicious persons can change it at their leisure. Worse, some editor you can't find is able to sabotage even the best efforts to make corrections.

That has happened to Discovery Institute thanks to an editor who calls himself "FeloniousMonk" (get it? it's a pun on the great jazzman Theloniuus Monk). The pen name is shared by a number of people on the Internet, so this one clearly is in hiding. But he doesn't shirk from making sure that a factually untruthful picture of Discovery Institute is posted on Wikipedia, no matter how we try to correct it.

But we are not the only ones complaining. I notice most recently that the scientist Douglas Hofstadter, author of "Godel, Escher, Bach," among other things, has this exchange with an interviewer (Deborah Solomon) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine:

(Q) "Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired many students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence."
(A) "I have no interest in artificial intelligence. The entry is filled with inaccuracies, and it kind of depresses me."
(Q) "So, fix it."
(A) "The next day someone will fix it back."

Moral: you can't trust anything on Wikipedia. Felonies against the truth don't get prosecuted there.

This Just In: A Rasmussen poll shows that 25% of visitors found errors on Wikipedia. Imagine how high the number would be if they polled people mentioned in Wikipedia items. Sinbad (the entertainer) was amused recently to read on Wikipedia that he was dead!

Unlike World War II, when Americans were asked to sacrifice a great deal in support of the war effort—think rationing, rubber and scrap metal drives and the iconic image of “Rosie the Riveter”—the War on Terror has demanded little in the way of citizen involvement. In fact, given the country’s cultural obsession with Anna Nicole Smith and American Idol, one would be hard-pressed to know we’re at war at all. As a result—and not surprisingly—few individuals or corporations have gone out of their way to directly contribute to American military success (or if they have, did not receive coverage in the media for doing so.) One notable and poignant example—highlighted in this Associated Press article—is the recent commitment by IBM to provide $45 million worth of Arabic-English translation software to the Pentagon to better facilitate communication between American soldiers and Iraqi citizens.

According to the report—which appeared on page A13 of The Seattle Times—the offer came about as a result of an explosion in Iraq that gravely wounded the son of an IBM sales specialist. The story eventually made its way to IBM Chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano, who contacted President Bush directly offering the software at no charge to the Department of Defense. Of course this being America, the offer is under review by attorneys seeking to ensure the legality of the donation!

That hurdle notwithstanding, IBM is to be commended for its leadership and for recognizing that its corporate success is intricately connected with a successful outcome to the war—one that would undoubtedly result in greater global stability. It also creates an incentive for other companies to consider ways in which they can contribute to the war effort—not for any potential financial gain, but for love of country. That’s what characterized the citizens who gave of themselves in World War II, and it’s something that is sorely needed today.

As for the soldier who was injured in that terrible explosion, presently recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center, he’s delighted. While acknowledging that the software would not have prevented his own injuries he commented, “Communicating with the locals is difficult. This technology that IBM is going to offer is really going to help.”

I hope to read many more of these stories in the months and years ahead—hopefully closer to the front page of the newspaper.

What is frightening about Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria to engage in pretend diplomacy was not the gall of it, not the silly posturing or the ineptitude of it, not the way it embarrassed the Israeli government as well as our own and and not even the way it brought a smile to America’s enemies. No, the truly scary thing is how little the US media condemned this partisan stunt.

We have only one governmental head at a time and the Speaker of the House isn’t it. A confused official American message oversees damages all of us, not just the individual who happens to be president at the time. The Washington Post, on this kind of issue anyhow, is making plain, but regrettably uncommon, sense. Click here to read the editorial.

I’d like to welcome back to our shores Discovery colleague and bon vivant John Wohlstetter, whose “Letter from the Capital” has returned now that Mr. Wohlstetter has returned to the capital himself after a long world tour.

He is piquant and opinionated and resourceful, capable of cultural analysis as well as unsolicited political and military advice. Sometimes he is a bit brusque and sometimes he is even profound. And he reads things I never otherwise would see!

If you are not visiting all of the Discovery blogs this is a good time to learn about them.

I complained yesterday that US media have been reluctant to criticize Speaker Pelosi and her free-lance diplomatic mission to the Middle East. Today, however, USA Today and a column by former Assistant Secretary of State Robert Turner in the Wall Street Journal add new voices to that of the Washington Post editors (see yesterday's post) who are censuring the trip. Especially wrong was Pelosi's friendly demarche to Syria, giving comfort to a terror state that is opposed to the United States in regard to
Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran and just about everything else.

A fact finding trip would have been acceptable; Congressmen do that all the time. But attempting to convey a message that takes issue with current US policy--especially after the President publicly as well as privately discouraged the trip--is not only a blunder, but likely illegal. Robert Turner describes the long history of legislation and court cases that forbid such activity. The precedents go back two hundred years and the Marbury v. Madison case in which the first Chief Justice, John Marshall, opined that diplomatic dealings overseas exclusively are "powers entrusted to the executive."

I am against criminalizing policy differences, which the new Democratic majority in Congress has been doing in many instances. But in this case there is no question that a Speaker of the House does not have legal authority to conduct foreign policy. Period.

Put it another way, if this were a Republican Speaker defying a Democratic president in an overseas diplomatic demarche the US media not only would be tut-tuting the Speaker for bad form, but demanding a Special Counsel and prosecution under existing statutes.

At least USA Today realizes the gravity and makes the point that even though their own views are closer to Pelosi's than to President Bush's, this trip was bad for the country. This is not about Bush. It's about the dignity and effectiveness of the United States.

Our enemies are OUR enemies, not Republican enemies or Bush enemies. Why is that so hard to understand?

*In old-fashioned Islam, "Dhimmis" are useful infidels who are tolerated.

The published letters of Charles Darwin reveal a man who debated about design in a manner that seems “more tolerant and humble” than one encounters in the current debate, says Anthony Barnes in a book review in The Independent (U.K.). It could also be noted that Darwin was treated better by his critics 150 years ago than his followers—the dominant neo-Darwinists—treat their critics today.

Darwin himself obviously thought a lot about religion, but, like his successors, he had what seems like a rather puerile understanding of theology and philosophy. He told the American botanist Asa Gray that Darwin’s own nose, which he considered large and unattractive, was evidence against design. “Will you honestly tell me that the shape of my nose was ordained and guided by an intelligent cause?” he chided Gray.

The existence of what appears to be sub-optimal design a sad argument that cannot be evaluated scientifically. There is nothing in the scientific question of design to suggest that the source of design had to have our particular understanding of optimal design in mind. What appears sub-optimal at one time (the appendix, for example, turns out later to have had serious functionality. Furthermore, considerations of beauty (noses, female girth, etc.) are often products of culture, not science. Flaws in nature, likewise, do not disprove design.

What a shame that Darwin’s faith and his knowledge of philosophy was not up to the quality of his scientific inquiry.

(Cross-posted at Evolution News & Views)

The left that wants to get America out of Iraq instantly has no stomach for getting us into Somalia, of course, and that may explain the relative lack of mainstream media coverage of the dire situation in the latter country. The political right, meanwhile, apparently is oblivious to the stakes or, it seems, doesn’t want to be seen criticizing the Bush Administration when the president is under such pressure on Iraq.

But, simply put, the US needs to put several millions (not tens of millions, but also not billions) of dollars at the disposal of the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu so that the TFG can pay its own troops, feed people and conduct basic public services. We also should be helping to root out the returning Islamist terrorists. Is several hundred million too much to pay? How much will it cost us to have an al Qaeda state installed in the Horn of Africa?

Some of the worst foreign policy blunders take place when attention is distracted—in this case, by Iraq. The War Against Terrorists, however, is international. What will it profit us to win in Iraq only to have al Qaeda re-emerge in Somalia?

Where are the presidential candidates on this issue?

The Washington Post, at least, is alert to it.

Our colleague Wesley J. Smith has called to my attention an outstanding article by the noted ethicist Leon Kass in the new issue of Commentary. I commend Wesley's blog and the article by Dr. Kass.

Our friend Karl Zinsmeister is now head of the Domestic Policy Council in the White House, but before that he was editor of The American Enterprise magazine (put out by AEI; it has since metamorphosed into The American), and along the way he did two terrific books on the US military in Iraq where he was embedded for two tours. Karl is a patriot with great observational distance; that is, he is both positive and objective. Before he was asked into the Bush Administration he began a PBS documentary called “The Warriors.” His wife, Ann, has taken over the project along with the director Ed Robbins. The film airs on April 16 (9 p.m. in the East) as part of the “America at the Crossroads” series. Knowing the Zinsmeisters, it should be excellent, so don’t miss it. Click here for more information.

The Economist thinks so. We at Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center think ethanol is worth developing, but that the real savings are to be had in plug in hybrids to conserve fuel and (I would add) nuclear power to produce alternative energy that plug-ins, among others, can employ. Yet these options are not getting the attention and support being paid to ethanol. Neither branch of the federal government is fully engaged yet on either plug-ins or on nuclear.

What we need is a war-time sense of urgency. Oh, I just remembered, there IS a war on and it does have serious energy implications, doesn’t it? So what does it take to make the decision-movers move?

If you had experienced widespread charges of voter fraud (as Washington State did in 2004), you might want to devise ways to improve security. You especially might want to avoid new legislation that would make fraud easier, wouldn’t you? In the last couple of years the state did adopt a statewide voter registration list that helps prevent duplicate voting (voting, say, in Seattle and again in a suburban county). Secretary of State Sam Reed has been in the forefront of such sensible reforms. Both Republican and Democratic country auditors--who manage elections in our state--have been with him on most of the agenda.

But now comes a new legislature (elected in 2006) with the cagey idea of allowing voter registration right up to the moment of voting. That has advantages for the party that thinks that the least-motivated citizens are likely to wind up on its side. It also has advantages for individuals or groups that want to encourage fraud, since there is no time (or software) for officials to check them out.

The bill is largely the lobbying product of the national activist groups Project Vote and Acorn. Country auditors of both parties--whose reputations stand or fall on issues of probity and competence--are united in opposition. Only King County (Seattle) has stayed out of the fight, though that county has had the worst record of voter problems in recent years.

The state’s editorial writers have caught on to the bill and are inveighing against it (see, for example, here and here), But it remains to be seen whether the Democratic majority will push it through anyhow. The current legislative session is about to end and the bill stalled yesterday in the House. If it does pass, the question will be whether Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, will sign such a poor piece of legislation. Her painfully narrow election in 2004 was beset by charges of irregularities, so while a veto would be widely heralded as a good government decision (and help blunt the memories of the '04 controversy), a signature would make certain that the issue of voter fraud remained high on the state agenda as the governor seeks re-election next year.

As a former state Secretary of State myself (1976-'81), this is the kind of nightmare legislation I always feared would get passed some day. I hope the Democrats have the sense to hold back in the House and, if they don't, that the governor has the good judgment to send them a prompt veto.

Am I the only one to think that the estimable New York Times Baghdad Bureau chief, John F. Burns, may hold opinions about the Iraq War that are at variance with the editorial policies of his employer? I have suspected so for some time. Burns’ stories have a texture of close familiarity that are lacking in the ideological emissions from Times Square. Now the Sunday online Times carries a video of an interview that Burns gave the Canadian Broadcast Channel on “The Battle for Baghdad,” and it says several remarkable things.

Click here to watch all three short installments of the video series, "Battle for Baghdad".

Among them, Burns suggests that, yes indeed, there is—and apparently was—a tactical alliance between Saddam’s Baathists and al Qaeda and that, further, some two billion dollars of Baathist funds help fund al Qaeda even now.

In the course of three short installments, the interview also indicates that Iraqis, both Sunni and Shia, want the American troops to stay on to help stabilize the country. This is the “only way” that stability can be achieved in Iraq, Burns says. The alternative is a civil war “that will bring in the neighbors,” including not only Iran, but also Saudi Arabia and even Turkey, destabilizing the whole Middle East. If Iraq has a full blown civil war, King Abdullah in Jordan may fall, and if he does, Israel will be in greater danger.

When it comes to the Surge, then, there is “no choice but to try and make it work.” Burns obviously is critical of much of the war and the way it has been waged, but he still comes to the conclusion that the U.S. should not give up.

Such counsel, ladies and gentlemen, is wise, but it is not the wisdom of the editorial page of the New York Times. It is also not the thrust of reporting by the MSM or the political posture of the Democrats in Washington.

Our colleague Wesley J. Smith is perhaps America’s leading critic of the “Animals are People, Too” argument. The proposition is too preposterous to warrant the interest of leading media—at least not yet.

But, as Smith shows, the attack on human exceptionalism is actually organized to undermine the dignity of human life more than to elevate our animal friends. No one doubts that part of our nature is animal or that certain animals are better designed for certain purposes than are human beings. But as Smith would say, So what? Human exceptionalism is so much more.

Click here to read more from Wesley on the chimp paper that the media has been discussing.

Bob Novak’s newsletter carries news that former Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge, who last February endorsed Sen. John McCain for President, is critical of the senator’s recent trip to Baghdad during which McCain said that the Iraq capital is safer now than before. Even the initial coverage of the McCain claim was faulted by the media who made abundantly clear that the candidate’s trip to a Baghdad market was possible only because he was backed by a number of U.S. troops and other military backup. From the Novak newsletter:

In a private conference call with supporters of Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential candidacy, Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge indicated disapproval of the candidate's most recent visit to Baghdad. Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania, questioned whether the Baghdad trip was McCain's idea or came from his staff, and received no clear answer. The criticism in Ridge's tone was clear: a strong supporter of Bush's Iraq policy, Ridge endorsed McCain for President on February 28. McCain has come under fire for saying that Baghdad was safer since the U.S. troop surge and then entering the Iraqi capital under heavy security protection, including about 100 troops and two helicopters.

But overall McCain was right, Baghdad is safer for the average citizen—and for dignitaries, too—than it was before the Surge began. Not long ago a Westerner or a high government official was not safe anywhere outside the Green Zone or the compound of a couple of big hotels, even with troop supprt. Now such a person—e.g., McCain—can go out if he is heavily supported. That, believe it or not, is an improvement.

Ordinary Iraqis lead confined lives, too, though not that confined. Their daily existence is unsafe compared to most big cities on Earth, but not as unsafe as in the recent past. The trend, not the exceptions to it, is the point.

McCain’s statement deserves to be taken in this context.

It is hard to believe, but Iran manages to stoke the fires of Sunni as well as Shia terrorism. One of best informed analysts on terrorism, Yehudit Barsky, reports on it here.

This Just In...See this excellent article by Larry Kelley in Human Events on the rising discontent inside Iran.

A new N.Y. Times/CBS poll on global warming issues shows several interesting numbers, but none so overwhelming as the public support for forcing an increase in fuel efficient cars (92 percent to 6 percent). We here are less interested in forcing the woebegone auto industry to produce such cars as enabling them to do so by using the power of government’s regular large purchases of vehicles to provide a sure market and spur large scale production. Almost nothing would work as fast as plug-in hybrid cars (“PHEVs”) to lower America’s dependence on overseas oil, lower air pollution (regardless of your take on global warming) and save money in the long term. To get costs down, Detroit needs large scale purchases.

So why is the federal government moving so slow?

Discovery’s Cascadia Center holds a national conference at the Microsoft Headquarters Conference Center in Redmond, Washington on May 7.