Good News from Iraq

Omar, at Iraq the Model, has posted some very positive and optimistic news about the results of the recent operations in Baquba, and the changes he's seeing in Iraqis. An excerpt:

The results so far have been astounding, and please allow me to say that I'm proud of the change in attitude many of my fellow Iraqis are showing. Even if numbers don't suggest so because the change is happening but it will take time-perhaps beyond September-before this change will show in numbers.
A nation is not a corporation and when we deal with a nation we are dealing with a society; a mass of people with ever changing hearts and minds and that's why numbers alone can't be enough to assess the situation—thoughtful insight and looking at the bigger image are also required.

This is more optimistic than Omar has sounded in months, which I'll take as very good news indeed. The details in the rest of his post are fascinating -- don't miss it!

War

An interesting and sobering report from Michael Totten, in which this quote from a returning visitor (for five months) to Israel appears:

Everyone knows there is a war coming.

As Michael elaborates, "the street" in Israel sees five enemies, each of which seems likely to attack Israel sometime soon -- perhaps even next month.

Michael Totten is a consistently reliable voice from Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel; his site is worth visiting frequently for straight-up, level-headed reporting from the region. I'm assuming that's what you're interested in, of course.

Update:

Much more from Spook86 at In From The Cold, including more links and some quotes from John Bolton.

Quote of the Day

From Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom, as witty as always, commenting on Elizabeth Edwards' leveraging of the Ann Coulter kerfuffle to raise funds for her husband's (aka "SilkyBoy") campaign:

This country needs leadership. And nothing says leadership more than having your wife run interference for your campaign in order to butch it up a bit.

Thanks, Jeff, for my morning chuckle...

Botany Photo of the Day

I recently discovered the Botany Photo of the Day email list, a free service of the University of British Columbia's Botanical Gardens. It's a delightful and simple email list that sends a link to an interesting new botanical photo each day. I joined it to get the wildflower photos, but all of them have been interesting. Today's photo (at right) was of a slime mold from Kansas, Stemonitis.

The main web site is here; the subscription form is in the upper right hand corner.

Pandora's Box

Wouldn't you just love to have a radio station that played only the music you like? Even better -- how about 20, 50, 100, or 500 radio stations, one for each mood you're in or atmosphere you want?

I just discovered a web site that does a remarkably good job at doing exactly that: Pandora.

As I write this post, I'm listening to a piano piece by George Winston (a modern jazz pianist). A few hours ago, I created my own George Winston radio channel; it plays only songs that are similar to those that George Winston plays. Every song played is one that I enjoyed, and is pleasant for me to work while listening to. Something like half of the songs I heard were new to me, by artists I'd never heard of (but my radios station told me who they were!). I love this radio station!

What did I have to do to create it? Here's exactly what I did: I typed (get ready now, this is really complicated and challenging) "George Winston". Oh, and then I clicked on the button. That's it!

Did I mention that this web site is free? There is a subscription service, which looks very useful if you want to download music into your iPod, cell phone, or similar "on the go device" -- but the basic service, playing on your personal computer, is absolutely free.

Amazing!

Gaydar

The current issue of New York magazine has a fascinating article on the observed biological differences between gay men and straight men. A gay reporter (David France) researched and wrote the article after observing that most people -- gay or straight -- were able to effortlessly identify gay men, a skill popularly called "Gaydar" (a pun on "radar", if you don't get it).

This is not a subject I've ever read much about, so all but one of the biological differences caught me by surprise. For example:

As he recruited experiment subjects, Lippa scanned the passing scalps, some shaved clean, some piled in colorful tresses. “It’s like a kind of art. You look at the back of people’s heads, and it’s literally like a vector field,” he says. “We assume that whatever causes people to be right-handed or left-handed is also causing hair whorl. The theory we’re testing is that there’s a common gene responsible for both.” And that gene might be a marker for sexual orientation. So, as part of his study, he has swabbed the inside cheek of his subjects. It will be months before that DNA testing is complete.

I was surprised at how many people quickly agreed to lend five minutes of their pride celebration to science. “If I could tell my mother it’s a gene, she would be so happy,” said one, Scott Quesada, 42, who sat in a chair for Lippa’s inspection.

“Classic counterclockwise whorl,” the researcher pronounced, snapping a photo.

Quesada, who is right-handed and seemed to have a typically masculinized finger-length ratio, was impressed. “I didn’t know I had a whorl at all,” he said.

By the end of the two-day festival, Lippa had gathered survey data from more than 50 short-haired men and photographed their pates (women were excluded because their hairstyles, even at the pride festival, were too long for simple determination; crewcuts are the ideal Rorschach, he explains). About 23 percent had counterclockwise hair whorls. In the general population, that figure is 8 percent.

Gay men are three times more likely to have a counterclockwise hair whorl than straight men. There has long been a belief or suspicion amongst many straight people that gay men choose to be homosexual, rather than there being some biological cause for for their homosexuality. The hair whorl evidence (along with the other kinds of biological evidence covered in the article) is very difficult to square with the notion of homosexuality being a choice. It lends great credence to the (now) consensus of science: that homosexuality is derived from a biological predisposition. In other words, homosexuals are born as homosexuals; homosexuality is not acquired by choice or nurture.

The author weaves in many related topics, from the consequences of brutal suppression on Gaydar to the social implications of this research. It's a very interesting read -- so go read the whole thing!