Salon reviews the Assassin's Gate

It took us over 10 years to fully realize we'd messed up very badly in Vietnam. Iraq took about two years. I guess that's progress. I doubt our victims are impressed.

Salon.com Books | The road to hell

Most of the American left lined up against the war in Iraq. But some did not. Among the liberal intellectuals who supported the invasion was George Packer, a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book, 'The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq,' proves that holding strong opinions about a subject does not prevent a journalist of integrity from reporting the truth, even if it flies in the face of what he had believed. 'The Assassins' Gate' is almost certain to stand as the most comprehensive journalistic account of the greatest foreign-policy debacle in U.S. history.

A funny thing happened to Packer: He went to Iraq. Reporting is a solvent that dissolves illusions quickly if one has an open mind, and Packer brought that and much more. His first-rate reporting from occupied Iraq, and his superb work covering the corridors of power in Washington, offers an extraordinarily wide-ranging portrait of the Iraq war, from its genesis in neoconservative think tanks to its catastrophic execution to its devastating effects on ordinary Americans and Iraqis. Anthony Shadid, in 'Darkness Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War,' offers a deeper portrait of the Iraqi people, but he does not have Packer's majestic scope. 'The Assassins' Gate' is the best book yet about the Iraq war...

...The dangerous absurdity of this scheme (elements of which appeared in a later book by Perle and Bush speechwriter David Frum, modestly titled "An End to Evil") did not prevent it from being accepted by high officials of the Bush administration. "A few weeks before the start of the Iraq War, a State Department official described for me what he called the 'everybody move over one theory': Israel would annex the occupied territories, the Palestinians would get Jordan, and the Jordanian Hashemites would be restored to the throne of Iraq," Packer writes. The neocons were out-Likuding the Likud: Even Ariel Sharon had long abandoned his beloved "Jordan is Palestine" idea. That Douglas Feith, one of the ideologues who subscribed to such lunatic plans (the departing Colin Powell denounced Feith to President Bush as "a card-carrying member of the Likud") was in charge of planning for Iraq is almost beyond belief...

I trusted Tony Blair. My mistake. Greatest debacle in US history is a high standard. There's the Philipines for example. Time will tell whether Bush made the greatest error, or only 2nd or 3rd greatest.

Evolution in action: email worms keep getting smarter

I wonder how the creationists explain the evolution of email social engineering schemes? This was the most clever I've encountered yet. The German mail header, the grammatical errors, the explanation, the story about the zipped image -- all designed to lull the recipient into a trusting state. The only mistake is the To line, which looks like a glitch in the worm:

From: ingey@gmx.de
Subject: I've got your mail on my account!
Date: October 6, 2005 3:01:30 AM CDT
To: User@counter11.sextracker.com

hello,
First I must say, my English is very very bad! Sorry about this.

Ok, I've got an email in my box, but this email is not for me, because,,, I'm not the recipient! The recipient are YOU !!!

This must be an email provider error, but I don't know!
I have made a Screenshot about this mail and saved in a zipped jpeg graphic file for you.


ok then,
bye

There's constant experimentation and variation in these infected emails. If something succeeds, then its emulated and extended. The To: line glitch above will be revised. I find this example of real-time natural selection quite remarkable.

I did try opening the zip (on my Mac of course, I figured the risk was about zero). The Mac wouldn't open the corrupted zip file. On a PC it would probably initiate the infection.

The National Review - a sober conservative publication - 1957

DeLong extracts this lovely gem from the archives of the National Review, a conservative rag much beloved in the Bush administration.

Brad DeLong's Website: From National Review's Archives - 1957

... The central question that emerges--and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal--is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is by no means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes', and intends to assert its own.

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numberical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.

Presumably the National Review has changed a bit since then, but I bet that 50 years from now, assuming anyone is reading anything, their writings of today will look just as asinine.

The vast gap between action and insight - US homeowner edition

The gap between action and insight is a fundamental tenet of anthropology and of sociology. When you ask someone what they do, or why they do what they do, their honest responses are often contradictory or nonsensical. The anthropologist's task is to understand the fundamental cause for behavior and to reconcile that with the stated explanation.

Nowadays economists wrestle with this topic. DeLong provides a delightful example:

Brad DeLong's Website: What Do Homeowners Expect

Its fair to observe (as a commentor did at Matrix) that 'only 10% said their spending had increased with the value of real estate, yet 50% had taken out loans against their equity. Is there a contradiction here?'

That's more than a contradiction; Its the entire underlying premise for why I believe a) Real Estate has been the key driver to the US economy; and 2) why so many people -- professionals included -- do not have a firm grasp on the underlying economy.

If the respondents were self-aware and rational, then at least 50% (more, since spending may increase even if one doesn't take out an equity loan) would have answered that real estate values had increaed their spending. That awareness gap is very human, but also worrisome.

The fate of the vanishing American middle-class

The American middle class is vanishing:

The Big Picture: Top of the Top

To review: The Middle class is getting squeezed by outsourcing, decreasing industrial sector, increasing energy prices, weak personal income gains, non-commodity inflation, the worst savings rate ever, all the while accumulating massive debt, both personal and governmental. The good news is their tax burden has fallen, albeit at 1/10 the rate of the wealthiest Americans....

..."Other data show that among major world economies, the United States in recent years has had the third-greatest disparity in incomes between the very top and everyone else. Only Mexico and Russia, among major economies, have greater disparity."

I've seen other economists refer to the American middle-class as a post-war phenomenon, meaning it was an artifact of WW II rather than a stable feature of the US economy. I don't think, however, that's true in all weathy nations.

So why does anyone but the wealthy vote for George Bush? As near as I can tell about 70% of his base vote for religious reasons, 5% vote because they expect to gain economically, and 25% made a big mistake. That's oddly reassuring, it means that 75% of Bush's base voted rationally (if someone believes Bush is God's messenger, it would be intensely irrational not to vote for him).

How will this all turn out? I think we're too aged a nation to for 1960s style upheaval, but I do think it will be interesting to see how a socialist/green party does in the next election.

Hikers who disappear in the wilderness

Solo hikers going off-trail in the wilderness are vulnerable to disappearing. Some are never found:

NYT: Lost in the Beartooth Mountains

...Hiking in true wilderness on trails with a companion is mildly risky -- probably comparable to bicycle commuting. Hiking off trail with a companion is risky -- maybe more like motorcycle touring or parachuting. Hiking off trail alone in rugged country is very risky -- I'd guess comparable to hang gliding or mountain climbing with companions. That doesn't mean people shouldn't do it, but it's important that they understand and weigh risks appropriately. In Brian's case the decision of the BC government to remove hiker logs from the trailheads made his solo off-trail hike even more risky than he could have planned on

Google socks Microsoft -- a big bet on OpenOffice and open file formats

RED HERRING | Sun and Google announce a seemingly dull agreement to sponsor a portion of each other's products.

Hah.

This is huge. Sun has nothing to offer Google except OpenOffice. This is a huge shot by Google against Microsoft's core business. Google is saying "mess with us and we'll destroy your lifeline". Microsoft needs to feed off the Office trough, Google has now declared that OpenOffice will be a very serious contender -- even in the US marketplace.

The immediate big winner is the OpenOffice file format. I'll be switching my Mac over to a wordprocessor that uses that file format -- NeoOffice/J (but I need to test the file format interoperability first!).

Why I hate science - Bicyles are bad for men

The concerns about bicycles saddles producing nerve damage and male impotence really started in the mid-90s. My grad school biomedical engineering project proposal was for a saddle that measured pressure points. Nonetheless, I hoped the problem would turn out to be overrated.

Not so. Traditional bike seats are bad for many men, and fancy saddles don't necessarily help:

Serious Riders, Your Bicycle Seat May Affect Your Love Life - New York Times
...Dr. Schrader advocates saddles that do not have noses. After finding that traditional saddles reduced the quality of nighttime erections in young policemen who patrol on bicycles, he has persuaded scores of officers in several cities to use noseless seats and is now studying the officers' sexual function over six months.

If Dr. Schrader is seeking funding, I suspect he'd find a lot of donors from the bicycling world. He need only put up an Amazon donation link ...

Quicksand really can trap people

I had the definite impression that Quicksand's treachery was a Hollywood fantasy. Not quite so. True, one does not sink into the pit -- but neither is it at all easy to get out.

The Truth About Quicksand Is Beginning to Sink In - New York Times

... Sand grains in quicksand are usually loosely packed, with the clay acting as a fragile gel holding the grains together.

Hit with sudden force from, say, a hapless victim, the quicksand gel turns to liquid. Then salt causes clay particles to stick to one another instead of the sand grains, with the result that a victim ends up surrounded by densely packed sand.

The force needed to pull out a person immersed in quicksand is about the same needed to lift a car, Dr. Bonn said. The trick for escaping is to slowly wiggle the feet and legs, allowing water to flow in. People float in quicksand so it is also impossible to sink all the way in, but quicksand usually forms at river estuaries, so a captive could drown at high tide.

Now you know how to escape.

Only in the movies

20 Things That Only Happen In Movies - Nostalgia Central: "33. All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach to armpit level on a woman but only up to the waist of the man lying beside her."

Breeding dogs for longer lifespans

The female offspring of a Poodle cross?

Google Groups : rec.pets.dogs.health

Abramoff and the mystery of the murdered casino owner

Before the inmates took over the asylum, they used to rant about black helicopters ferrying cocaine to Clinton's underground world government headquarters in Arkansas.

Now those same inmates are making this type of conspiracy theory respectable. Abramoff's former business partner, and alleged co-conspirator, has an undeniably suspicious association with the gangland murder of a Florida casino owner:

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: September 25, 2005 - October 01, 2005 Archives

Just to refresh everyone's memory about what happened last week, three reputed mob soldiers were arrested in Florida for the February 2001 gangland-style murder of Gus Boulis, founder and one-time owner of Sun Cruz, the Florida casino boat line. Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan muscled Boulis into selling them Sun Cruz. And it is for fraud in that acquisition that both were indicted last month.

... It's also been a matter of public record for more than four years that around the time of Boulis's murder, for no clear reason, Kidan paid roughly a quarter million dollars to one of those three men now under indictment for the crime.

...That money did not come out of Kidan's pocket. He may have authorized the payments. But those checks came from Sun Cruz itself, the company Kidan and Abramoff then co-owned.

... Abramoff and Kidan were in pretty close and regular contact in how they used Sun Cruz's money for the DC lobbying operations. At a minimum Abramoff might be able to shed some light on whether there is some innocent explanation for the money that went to the guy who's been indicted for Boulis's murder...

Shock -- American government is corrupt

Newsweek notices shocking news - our government is very, very corrupt.

Tom DeLay's House of Shame - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com

...Thus began what historians will regard as the single most corrupt decade in the long and colorful history of the House of Representatives. Come on, you say. How about all those years when congressmen accepted cash in the House chamber and then staggered onto the floor drunk? Yes, special interests have bought off members of Congress at least since Daniel Webster took his seat while on the payroll of a bank. And yes, Congress over the years has seen dozens of sex scandals and dozens of members brought low by financial improprieties. But never before has the leadership of the House been hijacked by a small band of extremists bent on building a ruthless shakedown machine, lining the pockets of their richest constituents and rolling back popular protections for ordinary people. These folks borrow like banana republics and spend like Tip O'Neill on speed...

I don't know if this the most corrupt decade ever for american government -- the 19th century had some pretty rough spots. I'd be ok with the most corrupt it at least 100 years.

I don't think the Senate is much better, it's just a lot smarter. I have not forgotten that about 8-10 years ago a number of excellent politicians gave up on the House and Senate because they thought it was getting too corrupt.

We need to address such corruption with a reform administration -- something like Teddy Roosevelt's reform movement. I just hope we can dig out of the hole we, the voters, have created. (I personally voted for Gore and Kerry -- of course. I pale when I think how much better our situation would be if either had been President.)

What Creationists cliam - a compendium

This is a formidable piece of work. Mark Isaac has built an ontology (classification really) of the claims of creationists -- organized by headings such as 'ethics', 'argument form authority' etc.

For each argument he provides a concise and devastating refutation (with contributors acknowledged).

I'd no idea that creationists had such a large and diverse set of attacks. Most are so silly that a rationalist would't reallly register them -- but Isaac avoids that trap. He treats each claim seriously -- and dispenses with it.

Thank you Mark Isaac.

Sprawl - the Minnesota version

Twin Cities SE Metro Area: South of 169, East of 35W

Wow. Today our family drove about 30 miles east and south of Saint Paul for an Apple Orchard outing. It's been a few years since we last did that trip; the transformation of the region is stunning.

Where once was rolling farmland and a few small towns, now there's endless mushroom houses being built. "Executive" estates and more "modest" vast homes -- costing 500K to well over 1 million dollars. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them -- across an area that's probably over 500 square miles. There's nothing in the metro area to slow this type of sprawl -- the Twin Cities has no natural boundaries. Maybe one day it will run into the Rocky Mountains.

It looked miserable. We'll miss the orchards -- their days are numbered.

Recently, during a walk through the desolate Atlanta downtown, a particularly persistent panhandler told me that the Twin Cities had more millionaires per capita than any other metro area. I figured he was exagerrating, but these developments give me pause. These are homes for millionaires with rather unremarkable taste -- but evidently there are no lack of such.

One has to assume such a massive concentration of wealth will elect enough politicians to build the highways they'll need* -- but I wonder if the Twin Cities will really cooperate. If not the as yet unbuilt suburban highways will run aground south of the cities -- and the millionaires will be spending hours in their cars. Yech. What a strange way to spend money.

Perhaps the market for personal flying machines will "take off" ...

* The population density isn't all that high in the developments, but they will draw in higher density population in the flatlands. It's the plebian neighbors that will clog the roads.

Update 10/3: A colleague tells me the Savage, Prior Lake, 169 region is among the top five most rapidly developing areas in the nation. So in the peak of a housing craze, this is one of the frothiest bubbles. Thinking more about the traffic problems, all I can figure is either these folks don't have to work or they're combining generational transfers (inheritances) with massive loans to make the initial downpayment, and then paying off the rest in the sweat equity of time spent in traffic. In other words, they're not as wealthy as their homes.