A New Term for Intellectual Dishonesty

Secular Knowledge Integration Strategy

How Would You Describe Your Secular Knowledge Integration Strategy?

a) I discard or ignore most secular knowledge

b) I accept most secular knowledge and only discard that which blatantly contradicts Torah

c) I carefully sift secular knowledge to see if it is truly consistent with Torah

d) Other

This is not a parody. It's from a group blog for baalei teshuva -- people who have become Orthodox Jews as opposed to having been born into it.

Is the Surge Working?

Survey of Iraqis says... "NO."

Ezra Klein points to this BBC/ABC poll:

"The United States has increased the number of its forces in Baghdad and surrounding provinces in the past six months. Please tell me if you think this increase of forces has made it better, worse, or had no effect?"

Almost half of those polled want us to leave immediately, while the rest want us to remain for at least a little while:

"How long do you think US and other Coalition forces should remain in Iraq?"

Methodology:

The poll was conducted by D3 Systems and KA Research Ltd for the BBC, ABC News, and NHK of Japan. Some 2,112 Iraqis were questioned in more than 450 neighbourhoods across all the 18 provinces of Iraq between August 17 and August 24, 2007. The margin of error is + or - 2.5%.

Why go by survey data (or trust the GAO assessment or the intelligence assessments) when we can cherry-pick indicators that can kind of make the surge look like it's working, if we really squint? Or better yet, trust Gen Petraeus's attempt to put the best possible face on reality? Or that one blogger, who's in Iraq, and says things are all flowers and apple pie?

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words: Iraq

Via Juan Cole, via Andrew Sullivan.

This chart was generated by the Federal government. (PDF here.)