CNN.com - Bush falls on bike ride - May 22, 2004
The picture of Bush post-bike fall, boarding his plane, is the only one I've seen that doesn't make my teeth itch. He actually looks like a human being.
He was on a 17 mile back country ride. One suspects this is not his first outing on a bike, but this is the first anyone's heard of it. Bike riding is "fey" and suspect in Texan culture, and in southern culture in general. I doubt that many Bush voters have been on a bicycle as an adult.
So this is actually interesting. Interesting because Bush turns out to have a minor dark secret, and interesting that his campaign decided to go public now. It wasn't staged, but I suspect Rove is on the lookout for anything that "humanizes" a (legitimately) demonized figure. Bush's base is so solid it won't hurt to expose more some predilections that the Bush base might consider peculiar or worrisome.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Iran wins the Nobel Prize of Spycraft
New York City - World News
I'm sure Iran provided great Intel on the individuals they needed to eliminate. Old, old civilizations are very good at the great game, and Persia is among the very oldest. Americans, it appears, are naifs.
Next we'll realize that Syria also excels at spycraft.
Eventually someone will chase down France's involvement. Did they try to warn the US that Iran was playing us for a fool? I suspect they might have, and that they were ignored. Same goes for the AEA -- I bet they were concerned about what Chalabi was up to.
Does Rumsfeld ever wonder where he went wrong? Nyah.
... Chalabi had long been the favorite of the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Intelligence sources say Chalabi himself has passed on sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians.
Patrick Lang, former director of the intelligence agency's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues in the intelligence community that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. 'They [the Iranians] knew exactly what we were up to,' he said.
He described it [Iran's black op] as 'one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history.'
'I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work,' he said.
An intelligence agency spokesman would not discuss questions about his agency's internal conclusions about the alleged Iranian operation. But he said some of its information had been helpful to the U.S. 'Some of the information was great, especially as it pertained to arresting high value targets and on force protection issues,' he said. 'And some of the information wasn't so great.
...n 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq's nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave UN nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about Iraq's program. Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, teamed up with Chalabi after his escape.
The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched uranium in the bomb's core, were almost flawless, according to Andrew Cockburn's recent account of the event in the political newsletter CounterPunch.
But the inspectors were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the techinical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.
And the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents were fraudulent.'
I'm sure Iran provided great Intel on the individuals they needed to eliminate. Old, old civilizations are very good at the great game, and Persia is among the very oldest. Americans, it appears, are naifs.
Next we'll realize that Syria also excels at spycraft.
Eventually someone will chase down France's involvement. Did they try to warn the US that Iran was playing us for a fool? I suspect they might have, and that they were ignored. Same goes for the AEA -- I bet they were concerned about what Chalabi was up to.
Does Rumsfeld ever wonder where he went wrong? Nyah.
Chalabi -- you can't buy allies like this ...
CBS News | Ahmad Chalabi's Fall From Grace | May 21, 2004 20:25:02
I bet CBS doesn't get any questions at the next Bush news conference.
Presumably Chalabi blew the cover on US spies in Iran.
So what's with 60 Minutes? Are these guys planning to go into new careers?
Senior U.S. officials have told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Chalabi has been passing highly classified U.S. intelligence to Iran. The evidence shows that Chalabi personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, 'get Americans killed.' The evidence is said to be 'rock solid.'
On Friday, Stahl reported that senior intelligence officials stress the information Ahmad Chalibi is alleged to have passed on to Iran is of such a seriously sensitive nature, the result of full disclosure could be highly damaging to U.S. security. The information involves secrets that were held by only a handful of very senior U.S. officials, says Stahl.
Meanwhile, Stahl reports that 'grave concerns' about the true nature of Chalabi's relationship with Iran started after the U.S. obtained 'undeniable intelligence' that Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence, a 'nefarious figure from the dark side of the regime - an individual with a direct hand in covert operations directed against the United States.'
I bet CBS doesn't get any questions at the next Bush news conference.
Presumably Chalabi blew the cover on US spies in Iran.
So what's with 60 Minutes? Are these guys planning to go into new careers?
Opera and Theater post-Iraq
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: May 16, 2004 - May 22, 2004 Archives
Satire from the Onion, plays about Abu Ghraib, opera on Chalabi. Bush is doing far more for the arts than the "liberal" NEA ever could.
Chalabi entered MIT at age 16 and has a PhD in math. He's also drawn to intrigue, manipulation and power. He out-IQs Cheney, Bush et al by at least 30 points. What an extraordinary character. Kudos to Iran for a double hitter -- removing their great enemy in Iraq and helping the US shoot itself in the foot, knee and abdomen.
Who could miss the duet between Chalabi and Ali Khamenei in which the dark secret is revealed or Richard Perle's haunting, despairing aria at the beginning of the final act, in which this hawk of hawks, friend of Israel, swordsman against terror, and deacon in the high church of moral clarity confronts the shattering truth that he's played the cat's paw for what the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to this just-released article from Newsday, has determined was (horribile dictu!) actually a front for Iranian intelligence.
Satire from the Onion, plays about Abu Ghraib, opera on Chalabi. Bush is doing far more for the arts than the "liberal" NEA ever could.
Chalabi entered MIT at age 16 and has a PhD in math. He's also drawn to intrigue, manipulation and power. He out-IQs Cheney, Bush et al by at least 30 points. What an extraordinary character. Kudos to Iran for a double hitter -- removing their great enemy in Iraq and helping the US shoot itself in the foot, knee and abdomen.
Friday, May 21, 2004
In an internet world, it's easy to get sloppy with information
Body Glove Technology Accessories
I had to track down the manufacturer's site to learn that body glove cell phone covers come with a belt clip. The generic description, provided by the manufacturer, omits that key informaton.
I had to track down the manufacturer's site to learn that body glove cell phone covers come with a belt clip. The generic description, provided by the manufacturer, omits that key informaton.
Implantable RFIDs for nightclub VIPs
Boing Boing: Implantable RFIDs for nightclub VIPs
I wonder if this is true, but it will happen for real sooner or later. Kids, with their odd aesthetics, will go first.
I used to defend privacy, but it was a losing fight. Now I'm a charter member of the 'Transparent Society'. Next will come my chip. Although maybe I'm too old ...
Club kids who want VIP status at the popular Baja Beach Club in Barcelona can now get implanted with a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. For 25 euro, customers can have an Applied Digital Solutions VeriChip, the size of a grain of rice, injected into his or her upper arm. Makes it easier to run a tab.
I wonder if this is true, but it will happen for real sooner or later. Kids, with their odd aesthetics, will go first.
I used to defend privacy, but it was a losing fight. Now I'm a charter member of the 'Transparent Society'. Next will come my chip. Although maybe I'm too old ...
ABCNEWS.com : U.N. Officials Bribed by Saddam?
ABCNEWS.com : U.N. Officials Bribed by Saddam?
The article makes a plausible case for severe wrongdoing by senior UN officials, but it also lists those who received contracts from a range of nations.
It's an interesting list, especially the French, Russian, and Indonesian members.
The inquiries into the United Nations Oil-for-Food program result from the release in January of a list of 270 individuals, companies and institutions that allegedly received lucrative oil contracts from Saddam Hussein's former regime in return for political support.
The list was published by an Iraqi independent newspaper which claimed the document was discovered in the files of the former Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad.
Oil vouchers were allegedly given either as gifts or as payment for goods imported into Iraq in violation of the U.N. sanctions.
The following are the names of some of those listed as receiving Iraqi oil contracts (amounts are in millions of barrels of oil) ...
The article makes a plausible case for severe wrongdoing by senior UN officials, but it also lists those who received contracts from a range of nations.
It's an interesting list, especially the French, Russian, and Indonesian members.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
What do a Pekingese and Husky have in common? They're both close to wolves.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Pooch breeds identified by genes: "The Sharpei, Pekingese, Shih Tzu and Siberian Husky all showed the closest genetic relationship to the wolf ancestor of dogs."
A Pekingese???
A Pekingese???
DeLong's daily torture report
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004): Today's Torture Report"
All I can do, other than campaign against Bush, is to keep reading the stories and point to them. Now the questions being raised:
1. What happened to the Iraqi scientists that were captured and never released? It seems likely they were tortured. Do some fear the stories living men would tell?
2. The torture of "high value targets" descibed in the Denver Post goes well beyond the descriptions in the Atlantic of last year. It sounds as though the results were sometimes fatal.
Campone. Rumsfeld. Cheney. Bush.
All I can do, other than campaign against Bush, is to keep reading the stories and point to them. Now the questions being raised:
1. What happened to the Iraqi scientists that were captured and never released? It seems likely they were tortured. Do some fear the stories living men would tell?
2. The torture of "high value targets" descibed in the Denver Post goes well beyond the descriptions in the Atlantic of last year. It sounds as though the results were sometimes fatal.
Campone. Rumsfeld. Cheney. Bush.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
A bit further down the road ...
The Onion | U.S. To Fight Terror With Terror
At least our current regime supports satirists.
WASHINGTON, DC—In a response to recent acts of extreme violence against Americans in Iraq and mounting criticism of U.S. military policy at home, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the government's new strategy of fighting terror with terror Monday.
"Look, in order to catch a rat, you gotta think like one," Rumsfeld said in a grainy and degraded videotape message filmed at an unknown location and released to CNN Monday. "We've been pussy-footing around the war on terrorism for years. All that time, the answer was right in front of us: In order to wipe out terror around the globe, once and for all, we've gotta beat them at their own game."
"We tried playing fair," Rumsfeld continued. "But how can you play by the rules when your opponent doesn't even know the rules? You don't bring a knife to a gunfight. That's just the way it is, folks. It's a dog-eat-dog world."
On the seven-minute tape, Rumsfeld is joined by counter-terrorist leaders Vice-President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft, each seated on folding chairs in front of an American flag. Ashcroft described some tactics the government currently uses—pre-dawn assaults on civilian targets and subjecting potential stateside traitors to psychological intimidation—as a "small step in the right direction."
"I can't really say what we have planned for the future," Rumsfeld said. "As terrorists, fear and uncertainty will be our best weapons. Let me just say that the gloves are off. It is inevitable that indiscriminate attacks will be carried out, and innocents will lose their lives, but the end will justify the means...
At least our current regime supports satirists.
The creator as a careless child ... or a malfunctioning copy machine ..
The Big Lab Experiment - Was our universe created by design? By Jim Holt (Slate)
Jim Holt writes the "Egghead" column for Slate. He also writes for The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine.
These ideas have been brewing in various circles for at least 10 years, and I'm sure there are historical antecedents. I think this is in the "blind watchmaker" category, as in Votaire and Spinoza and others but definitely not Einstein. See also an oddly related recent post of mine.
This is the first time, however, I've come across the idea that such a creator might embed messages in the fundamental constants. Perhaps if one peered long enough into the cosmic background radiation the message might emerge. Psychoactive agents and temporally reversed vinyl could be helpful.
Holt (the author) and Linde (the physicist) are writing with ironic humor. I wager, however, that they are quite serious. Our universe used to seem superficially complex, but potentially internally sensible and aesthetically pleasing. Those were the glory days of Einstein. Now it is hard to deny that the universe looks profoundly absurd and weird.
Linde is demanding too much of the likely creator, however. If in one generation a hacker physicist can create a universe, then a few short generations later it will be, perhaps literally, child's play. If it can be done at all, it will be done be entities noble and decadent, grave and frivolous, by entities who might spend a lifetime contemplating a single creation, or by entities who might spew out half-baked concoctions by whim or worse.
As to who our creator most likely resembles, we need only ask -- which sort of entity would create more universes? The grave, serious and responsible, or the absent minded and frivolous child? Or perhaps, a defective machine spewing out trillions of copies of a single template.
Whichever is the most prolific, that is our most likely creator.
Jim Holt writes the "Egghead" column for Slate. He also writes for The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine.
Was our universe created? That is, was it brought into being by an entity with a mind? ...
... To get a better understanding of this matter, I thought it might be wise to consult the man who has done more than anyone else to explain how our universe got going. His name is Andrei Linde, and he is a physicist at Stanford University. ...
... Among the many curious implications of Linde's theory, one stands out for our present purposes: It doesn't take all that much to create a universe. Resources on a cosmic scale are not required...
"When I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like ours started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter," Linde told me in his Russian-accented English when I reached him by phone at Stanford. "That's enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions and billions of galaxies we see around us. It looks like cheating, but that's how the inflation theory works—all the matter in the universe gets created from the negative energy of the gravitational field. So, what's to stop us from creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!"
... then Linde thought of another channel of communication between creator and creation—the only one possible, as far as he could tell. The creator, by manipulating the cosmic seed in the right way, has the power to ordain certain physical parameters of the universe he ushers into being. So says the theory. He can determine, for example, what the numerical ratio of the electron's mass to the proton's will be. Such ratios, called constants of nature, look like arbitrary numbers to us: There is no obvious reason they should take one value rather than another. (Why, for instance, is the strength of gravity in our universe determined by a number with the digits 6673?) But the creator, by fixing certain values for these dozens of constants, could write a subtle message into the very structure of the universe. And, as Linde hastened to point out, such a message would be legible only to physicists.
"You might take this all as a joke," he said, "but perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may be the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird. On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker."
These ideas have been brewing in various circles for at least 10 years, and I'm sure there are historical antecedents. I think this is in the "blind watchmaker" category, as in Votaire and Spinoza and others but definitely not Einstein. See also an oddly related recent post of mine.
This is the first time, however, I've come across the idea that such a creator might embed messages in the fundamental constants. Perhaps if one peered long enough into the cosmic background radiation the message might emerge. Psychoactive agents and temporally reversed vinyl could be helpful.
Holt (the author) and Linde (the physicist) are writing with ironic humor. I wager, however, that they are quite serious. Our universe used to seem superficially complex, but potentially internally sensible and aesthetically pleasing. Those were the glory days of Einstein. Now it is hard to deny that the universe looks profoundly absurd and weird.
Linde is demanding too much of the likely creator, however. If in one generation a hacker physicist can create a universe, then a few short generations later it will be, perhaps literally, child's play. If it can be done at all, it will be done be entities noble and decadent, grave and frivolous, by entities who might spend a lifetime contemplating a single creation, or by entities who might spew out half-baked concoctions by whim or worse.
As to who our creator most likely resembles, we need only ask -- which sort of entity would create more universes? The grave, serious and responsible, or the absent minded and frivolous child? Or perhaps, a defective machine spewing out trillions of copies of a single template.
Whichever is the most prolific, that is our most likely creator.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
United Press International: Army, CIA want torture truths exposed
United Press International: Army, CIA want torture truths exposed
Dishonor may not mean much to Bush and Rumsfeld, but it means a lot to the US army.
... Over the past weekend and into this week, devastating new allegations have emerged putting Stephen Cambone, the first Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, firmly in the crosshairs and bringing a new wave of allegations cascading down on the head of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when he scarcely had time to catch his breath from the previous ones.
Even worse for Rumsfeld and his coterie of neo-conservative true believers who have run the Pentagon for the past 3½ years, three major institutions in the Washington power structure have decided that after almost a full presidential term of being treated with contempt and abuse by them, it's payback time.
Those three institutions are: The United States Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and the old, relatively moderate but highly experienced Republican leadership in the United States Senate.
None of those groups is chopped liver: Taken together they comprise a devastating Grand Slam.
Dishonor may not mean much to Bush and Rumsfeld, but it means a lot to the US army.
Kaplan: the scandal has legs
Locked in Abu Ghraib - The prison scandal keeps getting worse for the Bush administration. By Fred Kaplan
Lewinski taught us a scandal with sex had legs. This is a porn, torture, spy, lie, and snuff scandal.
Clinton gave us an extramarital affair.
Bush gave us this.
I think historians will have to award the prize to GWB.
... Third, Seymour Hersh seems to be on his hottest roll as an investigative reporter in 30 years, and the editors of every major U.S. daily newspaper aren't going to stand for it. "We're having our lunch handed to us by a weekly magazine!" one can imagine them shouting in their morning meetings. Scoops and counterscoops will be the order of the day.
All of these hound-hunts will be fueled by the extraordinary levels of internecine feuding that have marked this administration for years. Until recently, Rumsfeld, with White House assistance, has quelled dissenters, but the already-rattling lid is almost certain to blow off soon. As has been noted, Secretary of State Colin Powell, tiring of his good-soldier routine, is attacking his adversaries in the White House and Pentagon with eyebrow-raising openness. Hersh's story states that Rumsfeld's secret operation stemmed from his "longstanding desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the CIA." Hersh's sources—many of them identified as intelligence officials—seem to be spilling, in part, to wrest back control. Uniformed military officers, who have long disliked Rumsfeld and his E-Ring crew for a lot of reasons, are also speaking out. Hersh and Newsweek both report that senior officers from the Judge Advocate General's Corps went berserk when they found out about Rumsfeld's secret operation, to the point of taking their concerns to the New York Bar Association's committee on international human rights.
The knives are out all over Washington—lots of knives, unsheathed and sharpened in many different backroom parlors, for many motives and many throats. In short, this story is not going away.
Lewinski taught us a scandal with sex had legs. This is a porn, torture, spy, lie, and snuff scandal.
Clinton gave us an extramarital affair.
Bush gave us this.
I think historians will have to award the prize to GWB.
Monday, May 17, 2004
IQ and Presidential Preference - an extraordinary correlation
UPDATE 5/24/04: The Economist was taken in by this hoax, and so was I. Ok, so I did start to wonder how the heck anyone would try to measure IQ at a state level. I assumed they were extrapolating based on SAT scores.
The Economist did put up some proxy measures for IQ, these showed no correlation with voting patterns.
My apologies to Mississipppi.
Economist.com | The electoral week
The Economist reprints a chart from "IQ and the Wealth of Nations". Of the 10 "smartest" states, 9 voted for Gore (NH, tied w/ Maryland for #7, voted for Bush). The average IQ of these states is 103 to 113. (Connecticut is the "smartest".)
Of the 10 least gifted states, 10/10 voted for Bush. Mississippi came in last with an average IQ of 85.
That's one hell of a correlaton. It suggests that the "swing states" have an average IQ of about 100.
The Economist did put up some proxy measures for IQ, these showed no correlation with voting patterns.
My apologies to Mississipppi.
Economist.com | The electoral week
The Economist reprints a chart from "IQ and the Wealth of Nations". Of the 10 "smartest" states, 9 voted for Gore (NH, tied w/ Maryland for #7, voted for Bush). The average IQ of these states is 103 to 113. (Connecticut is the "smartest".)
Of the 10 least gifted states, 10/10 voted for Bush. Mississippi came in last with an average IQ of 85.
That's one hell of a correlaton. It suggests that the "swing states" have an average IQ of about 100.
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