When a black hole burps ...

The New York Times > Science > Space & Cosmos > Songs of the Galaxies, and What They Mean

The most recent outburst, they estimated, was about 11 million years ago and was the equivalent of about 10 million supernova explosions.

This black hole sits in M87, a nearby galaxy. If the black hole at the center of our galaxy were to output the energy of 10 million supernovae ...

Lessons on the slippery nature of intelligence information: WMDs, Iraq and yellowcake uranium

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: August 01, 2004 - August 07, 2004 Archives

...The US has long known that the Italians had the forged documents in their possession at least as early as the beginning of 2002. And what we've uncovered is that at the same time Italian intelligence operatives were surreptitiously funnelling copies of the documents to this document peddler with the knowledge that he would sell them to other intelligence services and likely to members of the Italian press.

Now, a few more notes on the ‘security consultant’. The Financial Times story said that he “had a record of extortion and deception and had been convicted by a Rome court in 1985 and later arrested at least twice.” Several of the particulars here are incorrect. But he does have a criminal record. And I’m told by a very reliable source that he is now trying to sell his the detailed version of his story to members of the British press for 30,000 euros. Whether he's successful in doing so we'll probably find out in the next few days.

We already have his account. And needless to say, we didn’t pay him. But it’s reasonable to ask how trustworthy his account is since he seems to be someone of rather less than spotless integrity. The answer is that we’ve confirmed the key details of the story I outlined above independently.

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The Niger yellowcake documents MAY have been authored by Italian intelligence, then funneled via an active "asset" who was supposed to be "inactive" to a shady information broker who passed them on the British intelligence ...

Ok.

Maybe we have the wrong people running intelligence services in the west.

Our latest terror alert -- based on 2-3 year old research?

The New York Times > Washington > The Overview: Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say

Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.

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Ooookaaay. This data was obtained prior to the 9/11 attack?

I'm sure that it suggests some very professional research, but why go to organge alert now? If only I had even an iota of confidence in GWB ...

The credit reporting industry: dysfunctional and without hope

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Spending: How to Mend a Credit Report That's Not Really Broken

'What we have is an industry that has completely run amok and is continuing to publish inaccurate information that harms consumers and does so without giving consumers an adequate remedy,' said Ian Lyngklip, a lawyer in Detroit who is representing Mr. Graham. 'Every one of these cases is like taking a little day excursion into the twilight zone.'

Lawyers and consumer advocates say the system is overwhelmed. Rather than truly investigating complaints, they say, the big credit bureaus make only cursory checks...

In June, U.S. PIRG, the Washington lobbying office for state Public Interest Research Groups, released a survey showing that 80 percent of credit reports had mistakes; one in four had errors serious enough that credit could be denied.

Complicating matters, lawyers say, collection agencies increasingly place even questionable debts on credit reports.

... Consumers should be sure to find lawyers familiar with the laws. Mr. Graham said he found his lawyer by going to the Web site of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

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The reporting agencies are in a competive environment. They are punished when they omit a problem from a credit report, they are not punished for falsely including a non-existent problem. QED -- everything else follows from these incentives.

Many of the post-911 proposals for population surveillance have even fewer safeguards than the credit reporting industry.

Billions of our dollars lost to fraud in the CPA (Iraq)

INTEL DUMP - Home: ".... fraud, waste and abuse were the norm - rather than the exception - in the disbursement of funds by the agency charged with the post-war administration of Iraq. The management of funds was so bad that nearly 27 separate criminal inquiries were launched, and potentially billions in U.S. taxpayer money was wasted."

The economics of mercenaries: the cost of war is rising

Dispatches From Fallujah - Why would anyone volunteer to be an infantryman? By Owen West

Paying civilians to play soldier makes no sense. Today the United States employs between 7,000 and 17,000 civilians in infantry roles. The pay is extraordinary, hovering between $500 per day and $1,000 per day for everything from site security (for government compounds throughout Iraq) to convoy/company security to personal security (for dignitaries). This money comes tax-free in a combat zone. There are four problems here: morale deflation, gross monetary waste, tactical confusion, and direct competition for a tiny talent pool.

Soldiers look at security contractors and think: Why the hell is he making eight times my salary for performing the same job? Is the military that pock-marked with overage and inefficiency? Using bottom-up cost-accounting, the military is essentially buying out its most experienced soldiers and luring them out of the active ranks (if Stop-Loss is ever lifted, that is) with rich contracts, even as it desperately seeks new recruits. Worse, it's paying introduction fees to private security companies like Dynacorps and Blackwater for the people it recruited in the first place. How in the world did this happen?

The answer may lie in the marginal recruit. Congress just passed legislation to increase the number of soldiers by 30,000. But the Army is just barely meeting its current recruiting goals. To attract these new hires, the Army will have to come up with a pay structure that lures the 30,000th recruit. The problem is, the military pay structure is so antiquated that if you pay one soldier more money, you pay all soldiers more money. So it's not a question of paying 30,000 recruits. It's a question of paying those 30,000, then upping the pay of the other 1.4 million active members and the other 1.1 million reservists. It's an expensive prospect, this reverse Dutch auction. Perhaps it's cheaper to shift 10,000 infantry jobs over to the privateers, jack up the pay of private contractors, and pay the brokerage fee to the company.

This conclusion still omits the inherent problems created when armed civilians operate in a battlefield controlled by the military. The Blackwater security crew that was ambushed in Fallujah was operating in the Marine Corps zone without their knowledge and specific consent. As a result, Marine plans to systematically build up goodwill in the Sunni Triangle were scrapped. In Abu Ghraib, contractors held sway over soldiers, yet took no responsibility in the aftermath. In sum, contractors operating outside the chain of command clashes with common sense.

This is not to denigrate contractors themselves—they are experienced soldiers who have been there and done that. Which is precisely why we need to keep them in the Army. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. population chooses to become an infantryman. It is a profession—a public expression of commitment—rather than a job. This is a tiny talent pool. We need everyone who heeds the call to carry a rifle working toward a common goal, and the best way to do that is to keep these folks in the government.

How, then, should these elite infantrymen be compensated so that we can attract and retain the best? By revamping the military pay structure. Today the 9-to-5 corporal disbursing pay on some base in Florida earns the same salary as the corporal working 20 hours a day who is on his third deployment in three months. As for elite infantrymen, who we need for special security in war zones, offer them the same pay structure we give today's contractors and then take a look at re-enlistment rates. They'll skyrocket. What's more, the military will pay no brokerage fees and will retain the flexibility to reassign these men as the battlefield shifts. The military needs an escalating, bonus-based pay system that coincides with performance and hardship, not rank and time-in-grade."

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I'd been impressed by the arguments for the fairness of the draft, but Kaplan convinced me a draft would be extraorinarily ineffective. He and Owens agree -- the answer is a LOT more money for active fighters.

How to destroy a nation: assasinate the intelligentsia

Dispatches From Fallujah - Why would anyone volunteer to be an infantryman? By Owen West: "The Viet Cong assassination program destroyed South Vietnam's intelligentsia and put a country on its knees."

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Hundreds of physicians and scholars have been assasinated in Iraq. Someone's been reading the Viet Cong manual.

Dispatches From Fallujah - mercenaries and soldiers

Dispatches From Fallujah - Why would anyone volunteer to be an infantryman? By Owen West: "There's an incubating firestorm of stress that will gut the military if left unchecked, and this—private soldiers earning five to 10 times what the comparable serviceman earns—is one of its fuels."

Dispatches From Fallujah - a series to read

Dispatches From Fallujah - Why would anyone volunteer to be an infantryman? By Owen West

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He's writing a series. Essential reading.

Dept of Homeland Security protects Gates "gifts" to government

Homeland Security works door at Gates' party | CNET News.com

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a 'temporary security zone' earlier this month around Gates' Lake Washington home, saying in a notice published in the Federal Register that the move was necessary to prevent 'terrorism, sabotage or other subversive acts.'

Security zones prevent any person or watercraft from entering the area without explicit government permission. They're normally used to tighten security around military bases and naval facilities, and it's exceedingly rare for them to be erected around a private residence.

The reason for the 'Gates Residence Security Zone,' which locked down all of Lake Washington south of the Highway 520 bridge and stayed in effect for two days, was a private party the Microsoft billionaire threw on July 18.

Gates had invited over members of the National Governors Association, who were in Seattle for their annual conference. Microsoft also wrote a check for $150,000 to be an 'emerald' sponsor of the NGA meeting, which about 30 governors attended.

Among the NGA meeting attendees: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, both former governors, as well as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Gates' homestead is approximately 48,000 square feet with a garage that reportedly accommodates 30 cars.

The NGA is an influential lobby group that often takes positions on topics important to Microsoft, like antitrust, Internet taxes and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) regulations.

For instance, the NGA opposes extending a now-lapsed moratorium on Internet access taxes, which had prevented states from taxing services like MSN Broadband. The NGA also insists that states should have the power to tax and regulate VoIP services, an idea that Microsoft opposes.

The Coast Guard, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, takes 'temporary security zones' seriously. Last year, an appeals court upheld the convictions of two men for ignoring warnings from Coast Guard officials in an inflatable boat to stay out of a secure area near a Navy firing range.

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Nice party I'm sure.

Points to the New Republic - they called the July surprise

Faughnan's Notes: The New Republic Prediction

This source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: 'The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington.'... according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that 'it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

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Pakistan delivered, arresting a HVT 10 days before Kerry's speech then announcing the arrest hours before the speech. I'd thought the New Republic was going too far when they made those claims.

Stalemate in Anbar -- waiting for the order to withdraw ... or to partition

In the face of stubborn insurgency, troops scale back Anbar patrols

RAMADI, Iraq - After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area.

Most U.S. Army officers interviewed this week said the patrols in and around the province's capital, Ramadi - home to many Iraqi military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein - have stopped largely because the soldiers and commanders there were tired of being shot at by insurgents who've refused to back down under heavy American military pressure.

Asked for comment, officials from the Marine battalion in Ramadi - which makes up about one-fifth of the forces there - provided a 21-year-old corporal, who confirmed that the Marines have discontinued patrols, but said it was because of the hand-over of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.

While American officials in Ramadi wouldn't provide exact figures for the change in numbers of patrols, there's obviously been a significant drop.

After losing dozens of men to a "voiceless, faceless mass of people" with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.

"They cannot militarily overwhelm us, but we cannot deliver a knockout blow, either," he said. "It creates a form of stalemate."

In the wreckage of the security situation, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city, and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don't overrun the province in the same way that they've seized the region's most infamous town, Fallujah.

"Since Ramadi is the seat of the governate, we worry that if they could unsettle the government center here they could destabilize the al Anbar province," said Capt. Joe Jasper, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade.

The apparent failure of a long line of Army and Marine units to bring peace to the province, which makes up about 40 percent of Iraq's landmass, will be a major challenge for Iraq's new government and could prove to be a tipping point for the nation as a whole. Increasingly, Iraq is a place in which cities or part of cities have been taken over by insurgents and radicals.

U.S. officers in Ramadi openly acknowledge that the Iraqi security force trained to take over the hunt for insurgents, the national guard, has become a site-protection service that so far is incapable and unwilling to conduct offensive operations.

When the governor of Anbar left town last month, the head of the national guard, who since has been replaced, took part in an attempt to overthrow him. National guardsmen in town have refused to go on patrols either alone or with the Americans. The 2,886 national guardsmen in Ramadi so far have detained just one person.

To show how operations in Anbar have changed, Jasper sketched a map on a piece of paper.

Pointing to a neighborhood outside the town of Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi, he said, "We've lost a lot of Marines there and we don't ever go in anymore. If they want it that bad, they can have it."

And then to a spot on the western edge of Fallujah: "We find that if we don't go there, they won't shoot us."

Marine Cpl. Charles Laversdorf, who works in his battalion's intelligence unit, said the Marines averaged just five raids a month and no longer were running any patrols other than those to observation posts.

The sharp reduction in patrols flies in the face of comments made recently by a top military official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Any insurgent that ... somehow thinks that after June 28 we'll be pulling back into base camps will be disappointed," he said. "This is a long-term program of handing over responsibility. ... It's not going to take days nor weeks, it's going to be months and years."

More than 124 U.S. troops have died in Anbar since President Bush declared major combat operations over in Iraq on May 1, 2003.

Between the 1st Brigade's 4,000 soldiers, who arrived in Ramadi last September, and a battalion of 1,000 Marines, who came in February, more than 80 have been killed and more than 450 injured.

Since the hand-over of sovereignty June 28, 25 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Fifteen of them were in Anbar.

The numbers grow more striking at smaller unit levels.

Capt. Mike Taylor, for example, commands a company of men in nearby Khaldiya. Out of his 76 troops, 18 now have purple hearts, awarded for combat wounds.

The Marines' Echo company, with 185 soldiers, has had 22 killed.

"There's a possibility that we'll say we'll protect the government and keep travel routes open, and for the rest of them, to hell with 'em," said Neemeyer, the intelligence officer. "To a certain degree we've already done it; we've reduced our presence."

Neemeyer continued: "I'm sure they are beating their chests and saying they drove us out, but what have they driven us out of? Rural farmland that's not tactically important. ... If they want to call that victory, that's fine."

Looking up at a map on the wall, Neemeyer flicked his laser pointer across a large piece of land between Ramadi and Fallujah. "We don't go into that area anymore," he said. "Why go there when all that happens is we get hit?"

The U.S. military has poured about $18 million into reconstruction projects in Ramadi, but Neemeyer said the projects hadn't done much in the way of winning people over.

"The only way to stomp out the insurgency of the mind," he said, "would be to kill the entire population."

The commander of one of the local national guard battalions, Col. Adnan Allawi, said he thought the security situation in Ramadi and Anbar in general would only get worse.

"If the Americans stay here, the same thing that happened in Fallujah will happen in Ramadi," he said. "If the situation stays the way it is now, the Americans will begin losing one city after the next."

Residents in Ramadi had long said the U.S. military underestimated the resolve of fighters in the area. Also, residents said, soldiers made community support for the resistance stronger with each cultural misstep, such as brusque house raids and cultural slights toward important tribal sheiks.

Many of those interviewed in Ramadi recently said they'd welcome a Fallujah-like rule by insurgents.

Bashar Hamid, a stationery store owner, said "only the mujahedeen (holy warriors) can provide stability."

Muhanad Muhammed, a pharmacist, agreed: "The Americans misbehave ... that's why I do not blame the mujahedeen when they attack them."

Capt. John Mountford, who oversees a central command office in Ramadi for local police, national guard and U.S. military officials, said that in retrospect the military should've paid more attention to what the Iraqis were saying.

"We should have worked with the tribal leaders earlier," he said. "I just wonder what would have happened if we had worked a little more with the locals."

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Wreckage is a good description. It sounds like the marines there are in a holding pattern, expecting a call to withdraw or a decision to partition Iraq. I have always thought that Rumsfeld and Cheney planned to partition Iraq; they need only hang on until no other approach is possible. The Sunni will get Anbar, but Anbar lacks oil.

Don Walters: the unknown hero of the Private Lynch story

The New York Times > Opinion > Kristof: Unbearable Emptiness

SALEM, Ore. — Ever since a group of Iraqis told me last year about seeing a redheaded American soldier who was captured, held naked and then executed, I've been haunted by the question of his identity.

The first clues were in Nasiriya, Iraq, where in the aftermath of the war I interviewed the doctors and hospital staff who had cared for Pfc. Jessica Lynch. They said that the Pentagon had exaggerated the drama of her rescue, but what I could never put out of my mind was their tale of another American, whose name they never knew.

Abdul Hadi, an ambulance driver, tried to pick up a male American P.O.W. being held by Saddam Fedayeen. The American, he said, had been stripped naked and handcuffed, but he was allowed to smoke a cigarette while under guard....

The hospital staff said the guards refused to give up the American and threatened the ambulance crew with guns and grenades. So the ambulance retreated - and several hours later, the same P.O.W. was brought to the hospital as a corpse, shot dead.

.... I heard about Sgt. Donald Walters. He was a cook who vanished in the same firefight in which Jessica Lynch was captured, and his body was later recovered in Nasiriya....

It also seems that the heroism originally attributed to Private Lynch may actually have been Sergeant Walters's. Iraqi radio intercepts had described a blond U.S. soldier fighting tenaciously, and the Army this year awarded him a posthumous Silver Star in implicit acknowledgment that he was probably that soldier.

The citation reads: "His actions and selfless courage under fire resulted in saving lives of several other members of the convoy" - perhaps including Private Lynch. His cover fire allowed fellow soldiers to escape, while he remained alone in a hostile city; when he ran out of ammunition, he ran but was captured....

Sergeant Walters left three children, then 9 months, 6 years and 8 years old. A veteran of the first gulf war, he had re-enlisted out of patriotism after 9/11...

...When hawks say that the Iraq war was worth the price, they should remember that that price is measured in the lives of people like Don Walters, forever young, forever heroes, forever gone.

Why the French are skinnier ...

BBC NEWS | Health | How the French manage to stay slim

American researchers from Pennsylvania University recently spent some time researching why the French remain so much slimmer than Americans. After intensive study, they came to a remarkable conclusion.

It was because the French ate less.

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The lazy reaction would be to mock a study that produced a seemingly obvious conclusion, yet the rest of this pop article makes clear that the conclusion was not necessarily obvious. The French diet is not noteably low fat, nor is it an Atkins diet -- if anything it's carbohydrate heavy. Meals seem large enough at first sight. It turns out that the individual meal components may be high calorie, but portion sizes are often quite small. Snack intake is also relatively limited. The net effect is limited caloric intake.

I suspect a study of New Yorkers, who are quite a bit slimmer than we midwesterners, would produce a similar result.

This does not explain French lifespans, which are relatively long considering their tobacco use. That's still an interesting research topic. Is it genetic drift, or consumption of anti-aging ingredients in red wine? Noone knows.

The primary lessons is that obesity is NOT an inevitable consequence of prosperity. It is possible that we will develop cultural adaptations to abundance, as the French have, that will lessen obesity. It would also help if cities and suburbs were to facilitate physical activity through light rail, walking and bicycling paths, parks, sidewalks, etc.

Electoral fraud in America -- it works just like buying elections

The New York Times > Opinion > Krugman: Fear of Fraud

This year, Florida again hired a private company - Accenture, which recently got a homeland security contract worth up to $10 billion - to prepare a felon list. Remembering 2000, journalists sought copies. State officials stonewalled, but a judge eventually ordered the list released.

The Miami Herald quickly discovered that 2,100 citizens who had been granted clemency, restoring their voting rights, were nonetheless on the banned-voter list. Then The Sarasota Herald-Tribune discovered that only 61 of more than 47,000 supposed felons were Hispanic. So the list would have wrongly disenfranchised many legitimate African-American voters, while wrongly enfranchising many Hispanic felons. It escaped nobody's attention that in Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.

After first denying any systematic problem, state officials declared it an innocent mistake. They told Accenture to match a list of registered voters to a list of felons, flagging anyone whose name, date of birth and race was the same on both lists. They didn't realize, they said, that this would automatically miss felons who identified themselves as Hispanic because that category exists on voter rolls but not in state criminal records.

But employees of a company that prepared earlier felon lists say that they repeatedly warned state election officials about that very problem.

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In my industry (health care IT) we work with matching problems all the time. Accenture's matching rule was incompetent; they probably spent about 30 minutes designing and testing it. I suspect the work was a bit of a "freebie", done in gratitude for that 10 billion dollar contract. They wouldn't even have had to deliberately bias their work, all they would have to do is not pay attention and then bias the testing towards their employer's primary concerns. Mistakes that favored Democrats would get caught, mistakes that favored their Republican employers would be missed.

It's the same way political donations corrupt the political process. Direct quid-pro-quo bribes happen quite often, but the big effect is ensuring the "right" person gets the money to buy voters. The "right" person will, by virtue of the beliefs for which they were selected, vote the "right" way.

Now I'm worried. I can see why Kerry is assembling an outstanding legal team to supervise our elections. Too bad the Supremes have already demonstrated the power of assembling the "right" people.

Thank you, Miami Herald and Sarasota Herald-Tribune!