Continuing Evidence That Voters Are Not To Be Trusted

On page 50 of this Pew Institute Poll, only 23% of Americans surveyed correctly identified Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia. I bet most of those were Russian immigrants, too.

On pp. 57-58:

• Only 52% correctly stated that Great Britain posseses nuclear weapons.
• Only 38% correctly stated that France posesses nuclear weapons.
• Only 48% correctly stated that Israel posesses nuclear weapons.
• 44% think that Japan has them.

and...

• 21% didn't know if Russia has them. Russia! Who has some 20,000 nukes... ...RUSSIA!!

That's it. No more voting in the United States. It's bad enough that we put the civil liberties of homosexuals up to a vote, but to trust people this patently stupid to elect a competent government is reckless.

A Holiday Message

To creationists everywhere:

The World's Stupidest Biochem Major

From the Wall Street Journal:

AMES, Iowa -- With a magician's flourish, Thomas Ingebritsen pulled six mousetraps from a shopping bag and handed them out to students in his "God and Science" seminar. At his instruction, they removed one component -- either the spring, hammer or holding bar -- from each mousetrap. They then tested the traps, which all failed to snap.

"Is the mousetrap irreducibly complex?" the Iowa State University molecular biologist asked the class.

"Yes, definitely," said Jason Mueller, a junior biochemistry major wearing a cross around his neck.

That's the answer Mr. Ingebritsen was looking for. He was using the mousetrap to support the antievolution doctrine known as intelligent design. Like a mousetrap, the associate professor suggested, living cells are "irreducibly complex" -- they can't fulfill their functions without all of their parts. Hence, they could not have evolved bit by bit through natural selection but must have been devised by a creator.

On a certain level, I find this utterly demoralizing: An adult college student of the sciences calling a moustrap irreducibly complex, such that he makes the absurd conclusion that the moustrap proves that a designer invented the universe - simply because he has a damn cross around his neck. Since Blogger kicks people off for violent speech, I'll keep my verbal response to this appalling miscarraige of reason quiet. Actually, the mousetrap could be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch. It is important, however, to clarify the nature of irreducible complexity, and what, if anything, we can deduce from it.

A system's state of irreducible complexity is not evidence of design, it is evidence of irreducible complexity. If a system stops functioning when you take Behe's tweezer to it and remove a single part, that simply means that that part was necessary. Even if you remove every component one at a time and find them all to be necessary, that is not evidence of design - it only illustrates one of two things: 1) that the pieces are interdependant, and you have not yet explored the effects of removing combinations of parts, or 2) that the system has reached a state of elegance and efficiency where it has shed its unnecessary parts. In both conclusions, it is the result that one expects from a process of iterative evolution. I am still dumbfounded as to how any of this is lost on the IDers. Actually, I'm not - it's lost on them because recognition such simple logic would prevent the introduction of the supernatural into scientific inquiry.

Dear readers, please read my previous post for catharsis, and this final quote from an otherwise bleak article:

Ms. West and other honors students will have a chance to hear the opposing viewpoint next semester. Counter-programming against Mr. Ingebritsen, three faculty members are preparing a seminar titled: "The Nature of Science: Why the Overwhelming Consensus of Science is that Intelligent Design is not Good Science."

I just don't feel the moral vigor to lambaste the idiot biochem major and his idiot teacher right now, so I'll reprint talkorigins.org's stock answer to their wrongheaded, predetermined conclusion: (link on sidebar)

Response:

1. Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:
   
   
   • deletion of parts
     
   • addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
     
   • change of function
     
   • addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
     
   • gradual modification of parts
     
   All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).
   
   Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied; irreducibility is no obstacle to its formation (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996).
   
   
2. Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.
   
   
3. Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.
   
   
4. Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
   
   
   
   • The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
     
   • The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
     
   • In spite of the complexity of Behe's protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
     
   • The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.
     

Links:

TalkOrigins Archive. n.d. Irreducible complexity and Michael Behe. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

References:

1. Aharoni, A., L. Gaidukov, O. Khersonsky, S. McQ. Gould, C. Roodveldt and D. S. Tawfik. 2004. The 'evolvability' of promiscuous protein functions. Nature Genetics [Epub Nov. 28 ahead of print]
   
2. Dujon, B. et al. 2004. Genome evolution in yeasts. Nature 430: 35-44.
   
3. Hooper, S. D. and O. G. Berg. 2003. On the nature of gene innovation: Duplication patterns in microbial genomes. Molecular Biololgy and Evolution 20(6): 945-954.
   
4. Lynch, M. and J. S. Conery. 2000. The evolutionary fate and consequences of duplicate genes. Science 290: 1151-1155. See also Pennisi, E., 2000. Twinned genes live life in the fast lane. Science 290: 1065-1066.
   
5. Meléndez-Hevia, Enrique, Thomas G. Waddell and Marta Cascante. 1996. The puzzle of the Krebs citric acid cycle: Assembling the pieces of chemically feasible reactions, and opportunism in the design of metabolic pathways during evolution. Journal of Molecular Evolution 43(3): 293-303.
   
6. Muller, Hermann J. 1918. Genetic variability, twin hybrids and constant hybrids, in a case of balanced lethal factors. Genetics 3: 422-499. http://www.genetics.org/content/vol3/issue5/index.shtml
   
7. Muller, H. J. 1939. Reversibility in evolution considered from the standpoint of genetics. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 14: 261-280.
   
8. Pennisi, Elizabeth. 2001. Genome duplications: The stuff of evolution? Science 294: 2458-2460.
   
9. Ussery, David. 1999. A biochemist's response to "The biochemical challenge to evolution". Bios 70: 40-45. http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/Behe.html
   

"Irreducible Complexity"

I love this book. I've loved it since I bought it in 2002. It's called "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. He invented Mathematica. He was a child prodigy, publishing his first paper on particle physics at age 15, going on to acquire a Ph.D. from Caltech when he was just 20, and proceeding quickly to important results in quantum field theory and cosmology. Stephen Wolfram is undoubtedly one of the smartest people on the planet. I also love his thoughts on clarity and modesty:

There is a common style of understated scientific writing to which I was once a devoted subscriber. But at some point I discovered that more significant results are usually incomprehensible if presented in this style. For unless one has a realistic understanding of how important something is, it is very difficult to place or absorb it. And so in writing this book I have chosen to explain straightforwardly the importance I believe my various results have. Perhaps I might avoid some criticism by a greater display of modesty, but the cost would be a drastic reduction in clarity.

I bring him up because his massive work entitled "A New Kind of Science" demonstrates that a seemingly "irreducibly complex" system can be the result of a set of very simple laws. I haven't posted about it on this weblog before, but in the interests of thoroughness, I feel it's necessary to do so. Below is an excerpt of a comment I made in an ongoing war I'm personally waging at an Intelligent Design blog:

It's not a matter of saying that there is not a possibility of a designer at the very, very beginning of the universe's life. There are many varied and possible models and theories of how and if a big bang occurred, but our human knowledge does not, at this point, extend that far into the past. Deists can agree with that much. But, after that point, the things that [the previous commenter calls] the building blocks of life were able to evolve, and for a mathematical demonstration, you can see Stephen Wolfram's tome "A New Kind of Science" which I heartily recommend.

http://www.wolframscience.com/thebook.html

The book literally illustrates that simple programs can produce extraordinarily varied, and what in retropsect appear to be completely random, results. For example, the model at

http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-27
and
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-28
and, most importantly, what it produces at
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-30

Some regularities are evident, particularly on the left. But even after all these steps there are no signs of overall regularity - and indeed even continuing for a million steps many aspects of the pattern obtained seem perfectly random according to standard mathematical and statistical tests.

A very small version of the Rule 30 cellular automaton. Notice the regularity on the left, and the complexity and apparent randomness on the right. See http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-30 for a clearer view, and http://www.wolframscience.com/downloads/basicimages.html for the rule set.

This model demonstrates that extraordinarily complex results - even statistically random ones - can be rendered from extraordinarily simple rules. C'est la vie. The universe is guided by sets of elegantly simple and concise laws including gravity and such varied forces, that when they interact they bear a startling array of diversity from planets to black holes to atoms and everything in between.

Finding those simple rules are an integral component of science, and to remove those goals is to limit and effectively end scientific inquiry. Einstein said that his goal of a unified theory is something that could be explained to a child, something that could fit on a t-shirt. The rubric below the illustration of rule 30 on page 27 of the links I posted fits those criteria well. I look in amazement at what it produces on page 30.

How many steps has the universe undergone since the execution of those primitive rules billions of years ago, rules which may very well be the results of even more basic laws? The fact that the variety of the results is baffling to our human brains does not mean that such laws cannot be discovered in time through the nexus of tenacity, perspecasity and inspiration.

The truth is detectable. How dare so-called "scientists" stand in the way of this most noble of pursuits by trying to impede its progress through criticizing that which we have necessarily not yet answered. These are small minds which have designed a similarly small God, and I have no use for them.

Take That, William Jennings Bryan!

There is a God! And, verily, He has revealed His existence by removing Himself from Dover biology classes. Christen, ätzet diesen Tag In Metall und Marmorsteine! Christians, etch ye now this day both in bronze and stones of marble! Sing his praises in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, for this is indeed a glorious victory for for all that is right and just.

What could bring this humble blogger such visceral joy and dopamine-inducing relief in these uncertain times? On Tuesday, November 8, voters in Dover, PA voted out all eight school board officials who were up for re-election and supported the teaching of Intelligent Design. Fired! Unbound from the shackles of the public employ!

It was a close election:

Unofficial election results showed that just 288 votes separated the first- and last-place finishers among all 16 candidates, with the top eight vote-getters garnering seats on the board. One of the eight incumbents unseated, David Napieskie, for example, was ousted by just 26 votes.

The victors, though, are magnanimous:

But as a board, "we would all have to meet and decide what we would do as a team," Dapp said. "Our first step is to hear what the judge [in the Intelligent Design statute challenge] says."

And in the end, good triumphed over evil religious agendas. This is such a relief... I still don't think that voters right now are to be trusted with important things like facts and truth, but in this case the majority made the right decision, if only by a very slim majority, and there are mentions of a defective voting machine. But the results are conclusive, and Intelligent Design has been dealt a significant blow. Are the tides turning? They'd better be...

Kathy Martin, you're next!

Calvin & Hobbes

Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff.
Calvin: Oh.
Dad: That’s why the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don’t the people get burned up?
Dad: No, the sun goes out as it sets. That’s why it is dark at night.
Calvin: Doesn’t the sun crush the whole state when it lands?
Dad: Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun’s just about the same size.

If it's good enough for ID, it's good enough for me!

Socialism Creating Terrorists

John van Heyking has an outstanding guest commentary posted at the Ashbrook Center entitled The Riots of Ramadan. He poses that Tocqueville's nightmare of an impotent welfare state crushed under its unfulfillable promises has come to fruition, and the result of the French nanny-state is the what we've seen the past two weeks. Some important quotes follow, but it's worth your time to read it in its entirety:

For instance, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's longstanding economic policy has been to use the state to provide jobs while setting up trade barriers to protect French companies. Of course, this policy is self-contradictory and typifies the sclerosis of the French political class and perhaps of the Fifth Republic itself. With unemployment at ten percent for non-immigrants, the French economy is too sluggish and dragged down by the welfare state to generate jobs.

The government's policy of housing these immigrants in public housing projects compounds the problem. Americans will be familiar with the "projects" that originated with Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs and with the various criminal and social pathologies they created. The lack of private ownership and the lack of self-respect that accompanies it produce the conditions for these rioters. Nicholas Sarkozy was criticized for labeling the rioters "scums" because he was supposedly insensitive to the problems caused by their unemployment. To his mind, they are scums because they destroy their own communities. The press has interviewed several shop-owners whose shops were attacked and who agree with Sarkozy. However, in another sense they are not destroying their own communities because their communities are not their own. This is why one local community leader explained that the ideals of the French Revolution — liberty, equality, and fraternity — have not trickled down to them. With no sense of ownership of their own communities, the rioters view themselves as dependents or wards of the state. The projects were meant to enable immigrant populations to practice self-government — Tocqueville's civil associations. Amir Taheri compares this system to the "millet" system of the old Ottoman Empire where Christian and Jewish communities ran their own affairs under the more-or-less tolerant umbrella of Islamic officialdom. However, with rioters pelting their own imams with rocks, it is clear that they reject even this level of association with the broader French culture. Therefore, the "root causes" argument once again fails to account for their lack of pride in themselves. The essence of mass man, that is to say those who lack a sense of their own personality, gets enacted through such acts of violence. The violence might "express" desperation, anger, or lack of self-ownership, but it has no strategic or political goal. Villepin's attempts to engage in "dialogue" with the rioters might constitute salutary window-dressing of a benevolent government policy, but it is at best a stop-gap measure that has come too late because his government was too timid in stamping out the violence.

[...]

For [Olivier] Roy, political Islam is very much a modern phenomenon because it is driven by masses of displaced or deterritorialized Muslims who have left their traditions and are searching for an "essential" Islam. Roy notices a strongly individualistic streak among them. For instance, he observes that 9/11 bomber Mohammad Atta's suicide note contained significantly more references to himself than to Allah, which he takes signifies a modern obsession with the self. The rioters are indeed Islamists, as evidenced by their frequent chant, "Allahou Akbar!" — "God is great!" Of course, it is difficult if not impossible to identify the "essence" of a 1,500 year old tradition. Ironically, Islamists do what Westerners do when the latter express their "Orientalism" in reducing that complex tradition to a few slogans such as, "Islam is a religion of peace" and "Islam is a religion of war." Islamists paradoxically, and perversely, treat themselves as "the Other" in reducing their own tradition to some kind of "pure Islam." Doing so enables them to identify (and destroy) those deemed apostate but also because Muslims can no longer take their religion for granted as something connected with the soil. Their traditions have been uprooted over the past several generations, which contributes to a radicalized sense of identity politics.

More from "The Religion of Peace"

It doesn't matter, I don't care anymore. I'm going to go ahead and confuse governments and people, at least where they espouse the same hateful religion. Read on, in amazement (from jihadwatch.org):

Iranian state television has broadcast a cartoon that glorifies suicide bombings against Israelis, depicting a young boy blowing himself up after being told: "Go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine."

[...]

The cartoon, one of a series shown by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on "Jerusalem Day" nine days ago, presents the actions of a boy who kills himself to strike back against Israelis as a noble example for children to follow. The cartoon follows the story of Abd who dies in a suicide attack. More professionally produced and graphic than previous Iranian propaganda aimed at children, the cartoon appears to be part of a campaign led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to elevate the issue of the destruction of Israel. The day before the cartoon was shown, he declared at a World Without Zionism conference: "This stain of disgrace [Israel] will be wiped off the face of the world - and this is attainable."...

Why do we tolerate this? Why do we live on the same planet as these, um, "people?" "People" who teach their young to kill others. "People" who brainwash and pollute their youth through children's television. "People" who hold "World Without Zionism" conferences. "People" who declare "This stain of disgrace [Israel] will be wiped off the face of the world - and this is attainable." These things are not "people" - they are monsters, and need to be executed en masse.

This is what the tolerance and appeasement of the thugs and dictators in the UN has gotten us: an untenable situation. It's escalated beyond politics, and now we are headed for an unavoidable world war. Thank you very much, UN! You've certainly done your job well! What a way to prevent war: Feed the monster, maybe he'll like us! Their diplomacy of socialism and impotence has failed miserably. If it had worked, or was working, the US wouldn't have responded to this threat by electing someone like GW who, while probably ill-equipped to be the leader of the free world, will at very least not back down from these savages and their eschatological rhetoric. At least, that's why I voted for him. Self-hating, blame-America-first liberals have brought us to this point, and it is becoming increasingly clearer that we've passed a point of no return with the Islamic world.

Let's hear it for the UN!

"Blame Bush for France"

Some excerpts from Rush's show today - I'm glad that 22 million people listening to him are hearing this, because the left will blame the terrorist insurgency in France on Bush.

... You know who runs Somalia: warlords like Mohammed Farrah Aideed Sahib Skyhook, he of Mogadishu fame. That's who these "pirates" are. They are not insurgents in Iraq, they are terrorists, they are Islamic terrorists, and they are being recruited from all over by Iran and Syria, and yet, Bush can't be right. You have to understand what a guiding principle this is for the American left, which includes the Democratic Party in the media. Bush cannot be right. So what's happening in Paris is just a young bunch of ruffians, just a young bunch of street thugs who are of course trapped in their poverty and have no hope and have no future and are lashing out because in France you have the haves and the have-nots, which of course is a joke because in France you've got nothing but pure socialism. You don't have to work to get benefits. You can if you want to but it doesn't make any difference. You have very high minimum wage, and if you don't have a minimum wage job you'll have a pretty high benefit unemployment rate, and benefit. France threw its lot behind socialism long, long time ago with the mistaken belief that the finer elements of humanity would rise to the cream of the crop and the surface and we would all find experimental ways to get along with one another in our differences yet side by side and so forth, and it stems from the liberal arrogance. The liberal arrogance is that there will be no enemies of liberals because liberals have the ability to make everybody appreciate and love them and be in awe of them. Liberals, that's why they always think they can appease their enemies.

"Why, they won't want to attack us, why, they will want us to help them rule the world, because we're the smart people, we are the good people." And it's just amazing to me when you look at world history, and you find the number of liberal socialist appeasers who have been profoundly embarrassed time and time and time again, you talk about people who are stupid rather than the brilliant elites they think they are, they do not learn from one experience or two or a dozen.

[...]

[What do Liberals think of] The Soviet Union? Why, it would have just worked if we hadn't had corrupt people in there. If we hadn't had corrupt people, the Soviet Union would have worked. Socialism, it's clearly the best for everybody, because it doesn't choose winners. Everybody is equal. Yeah, equally miserable! So this thing in Paris, I think it's a little too soon in France to know where it's going to go, but the signs are ominous if you ask me. The signs of this are really ominous because does anybody think the French can really put out this fire by themselves? Does anybody think they will? I don't. Well, I take that back. There are certain ways they could do it, and those are even worse than not-- (interruption) They're going to call in the military? Oh, the French are talking about calling in the military. Okay, they're talking about calling in the military, and they'll keep talking about calling in the military. If they ever do call in the military, they're call in Lawrence of Arabia, the French Foreign Legion. Call them in there to do something and then after whatever they do they'll apologize for it and give half the country over to the people that they just creamed and say, "Please forgive us," or whatever.

It remains to be seen. It is getting out of control. Now it's going to spread inside the city limits of Paris, and, you know, all these people who have accepted these promises of tranquility and peace are going to demand something to stop this. And if they're like the liberals and socialists in this country they're going to blame their own government and they're going to blame their own prosperity, going to blame themselves for it rather than the people who are actually committing these crimes. But the press is eager -- depending on what you read -- the press is eager to make sure, "No, no, no, no! This is not Al-Qaeda types. Oh, no, no, no! These are just young kids. These are just young kids buried in their poverty, striving to be noticed, striving to right the social wrongs in an unjust world," blah, blah, blah. This kind of garbage talk that makes me not to throw up, because Bush can't be right. Bush can't be right that there are terrorists all over the world and that they are gradually immigrating to free and open countries in the world for the purposes of raising hell and havoc, oh, no, Bush can't be right about that because, you see, in the construct of the liberal world the terrorists are only terrorists because Bush made them that way. There were no terrorists until Bush became president. When Bush became president, that gave us some terrorists, because they were mad that he stole the election from the Democrats in Florida. Then when Bush was reelected in '04 because the voting machines in Ohio were tampered with, that created more terrorists. Then when Bush went in to Iraq and kicked out the dictator and got rid of the rape rooms and the torture chambers and the mass murders, that created more terrorists. So Bush has created all this terrorism. Now, to follow suit, you almost have to blame Bush for what's happening in Paris, and don't be surprised when that happens.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What are we up to now, 1,400 cars that have been burned in Paris? Oh, it's to 5,000 total, or is it 1,400 for this cycle? Okay, 1,400 this cycle, but 5,000 since the whole phenomenon began. When does that 5,000 predate? Only 12 days ago? I thought the 1,400 was 12 days -- I just read something at BBC, and they said 1,400 in the most recent riotings. Anyway, 1,400, 5,000, we need to start a car fire count just like the media does a body count of American soldiers in Iraq. We need to get gleeful when we get to 1,500 cars, then start counting up to 2,000. If it's 5,000 we get gleeful when it gets up to 5,100, whatever it is. Because I'll tell you what's happening over there. This is not just the burning of Paris and the burning of France, but I will guarantee you, even if these are just ruffled French ruffians, youth, if you will, I guarantee you that there are jihadists all over Europe watching the reaction to this, gauging it, and making plans based on how much easier they think it might be to get away with this kind of thing in certain countries. You can't throw out the fact that France has the third largest Jewish population in the world after Israel and New York. Well, America. But you can't take all these factors out. You know, Brussels and Germany are having these instances. Now, there's some copycats going on out there clearly but you don't know if some of these copycats are made up of the people in the same kind of mind-set, and I think it's a little too risky for all these people to start calling this stuff copycat now, because, remember, folks, the template has set, the news cycle has set. It's all Bush's fault, Bush created terrorists, Bush started terrorism, Bush created them by going to war and opposing them. If the liberals can just win this country back and just run this country and show the terrorists around world we mean them no harm, just like France has been doing all these years. A-hem! A-hem! A-hem, a-hem, a-hem!

Governator

I'm watching Fox 11 News right now, and it's a live, hour-long Q & A with Schwarzenegger and a studio audience about the ballot initiatives coming before California this Tuesday, and he's kicking some serious be-hind. Most of the questions are "Aren't you afraid that this will happen?" and most of his answers are "But that's what is happening right now!" And he's doing an excellent job of demonstrating the need for these changes to a general public audience. "This is why we're sitting in traffic - because we're not spending money on new roads. This is why we're short 35,000 classrooms - because we're not spending money on building new schools. That's why we don't have earthquake-proof hospitals..." etc.

Good for you Arnold. I'm hoping against hope that your propositions pass.

Muslims, Van Gogh and Hollywood

Andrew Sullivan's email of the day for 11-03-05 (emphasis mine):

As you know, Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, Warren Beatty, et al are not filmmakers, they are celebrities. They do not speak for the independent film community. I'm an independent filmmaker, and let me tell you I am horrified by the Van Gogh story. It is as disturbing as it gets. He made a short film about a Muslim woman, and he gets brutally murdered for it? I can't wrap my head around it. I shot a movie with a crew of five in the projects of the South Bronx, and somehow I was not in that kind of danger.

I wish those Hollywood bloviators were not considered representatives of the creative community. They are funded by the studios, meaning they are funded by corporations, just like the people on the right they criticize. So you're hearing it, right now, from a filmmaker living in Hollywood: the Theo Van Gogh murder is a horror, an outrage, and a sin against mankind.