Starting Over

So here I am having my first cup of coffee in the first new week of 2009. Here I am. Surveying the same old world in a brand new year. Oh, sure, we're going to have some milestones. Make some history. But we do that every year, one way or another, and it never really seems to make a significant difference. All those historic changes and achievements and advances seem, in spite of the intense and concerted efforts of those who bring them about, to be in the end random, ineffective flashes of light that never really illuminate a path forward. Too like the lightning which ceases to be ere one can say it lightens, as a famous Elizabethan blogger once posted.

And thus, Stevie Guide. I see now that this is my sacred obligation - to shine like a shaft of golden light while all around is darkness. Or at least to keep enough fairy dust in the air to cast some lasting shadows.

The question you are probably asking yourself is "why me?" Fair enough. But what you should really be asking is "why you?" Think about that for a moment while I formulate the answer. Why should I (by whom I mean you) listen to you (that is to say, me?)

Why? Because I am not an expert. Allow me to explain. And then to sum up. A few days ago, I was involved in a silly debate in the comments section of another blog which shall rename nameless because I am here to promote my own blog, not Eschaton. Besides, Duncan is an expert and so I can't recommend paying him any mind. The point is, one of the regulars (not even a troll) claimed that circumcision would be an effective means to battle AIDS in a high risk population (which I took to mean "Africa.") There is, of course, no definition of the word "effective" that would make this hypothesis even remotely true, but the commenter (who shall remain nameless here because I ridiculed him enough at the nameless blog) linked to some statistics^* from the CDC and NIH indicating a reduced probability of transmission of STDs in circumcised men and then asked a very reasonable question: Whom should he believe, scientific experts at two of the most respected health organizations in the world, or some guy commenting anonymously on a blog under the name "dirk gently" (that is to say, once again, me.)

The answer is obvious.

No? Well, think about this. About six years ago, the experts told us all that the nation of Iraq had to be stopped. Iraq had a highly trained standing army of Republican Guard as vicious and powerful as the Sarduakar (another fictional army , coincidentally commanded by the emporer Shaddam), unmanned aerial drones capable of spying on American soil, biological and chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction, and a nuclear program on the verge of turning the western hemisphere into a single boiling mushroom cloud. Not to mention, Saddam Hussein was secretly training his sworn enemies, the Al Queda terrorists, and had been personally involved in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

These experts included the United States Secretary of Defence, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Vice President, President, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and of course Bill Krystol. Experts and organizations that had unprecedented and unsurpassed access to information, facts, statistics and analysis with which to prove their points and justify their actions. On the other hand were mopes like me who insisted that none of the experts' assumptions or conclusions made the slightest bit of sense. Mopes who looked at the vial of talcum powder presented by the United States Freaking Secretary Of State as evidence of Iraq's anthrax program and said "Hey, it's just talcum powder!" Anonymous amateur analysts armed only with logic and a lack of personal agenda.

Whom should one believe?

Anyway, the point of all this ramble is that had Stevie Guide been available six years ago, hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved. Hundreds of billions of dollars. So I apologize. And I'll try to do better from here on in. Now, I can't promise that every post will potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, or civilization as we know it. But I will make the same promise that Senator Al Franken makes - everything will be the truth, except for the jokes. In fact, I'll do Al one better: some of the jokes will be true, too.

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* I can post links, too. Click the circumcision picture.