charging the canvas

Saturday, July 27, 2002

A chat with the real Dude that The Big Lebowski is based on

Turns out he's the guy who got the Coen Bros. a distribution deal for Blood Simple.
What did they take from the real Dude to make the movie Dude?

Some of the references like the Seattle Seven stuff were true, but like any good writers they used lots of artistic license, so, you know, I wasn't the road manager for Metallica. But the body language they got 100 percent. Jeff got that. And then my daughter walked in and saw the one-sheet of the poster I have in my office and she was like, "Geez, Dad, how'd they get all your clothes? Did they borrow your clothes?"

7:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Rant on cell phone etiquette that has no teeth as far as I'm concerned
You can't say you didn't see it coming, and you know you brought it upon yourselves. Technology gave you an inch and the fact that your mama didn't teach you any manners prompted you to take a mile. You've made it so that truly good drivers are afraid to get in their cars; people don't want to go to the movies or public gatherings; and the average guy can't even go get groceries without being subjected to the details of some stranger's pathetic freakin' life story.

[...]

RULE #3. If you talk on a cell phone in a grocery (or department) store, you're an idiot and must accept it when people subsequently treat you like an idiot.

You're going to the grocery store to buy something. Go in the store and buy it. Leave the phone in the car. Cut the umbilical cord, you pus-oozing loser. It'll only be a couple minutes. Then, when you get out to the car, if you've got the shakes, call one of your phone buddies who also has no life and exists only to talk on the phone (mostly about how they have no life). After you're done, hang up the phone and drive home, where you can get right back on the phone again and tell everybody about your drive home from the grocery store.

7:01 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The new House Report on Intelligence says nothing new, recommends expanding exemptions from the FOIA, and leaves reform to the White House

The whole M.O. of the intelligence network in the US is questionable and always has been (Truman said the founding of the CIA was his administration's biggest mistake).

But the last paragraph is a zinger:
There is a grand tradition of congressional publications on intelligence, from the Church Committee reports of 1975-76 to the 1996 HPSCI report "IC21: Intelligence Community in the 21st Century," that are so rich in content and analytical insight that they serve as educational resources long after their pages have yellowed and their bindings cracked.

Unfortunately, the new HPSCI subcommittee report on U.S. intelligence deficiencies related to the September 11 attacks is not in the same category, judging from the unclassified summary of the report that was released this week. It provides no new information of significance and its recommendations are banal and poorly written.

Thus, "The summary finding regarding CIA is that CIA needs to institutionalize its sharp reorientation toward going on the offensive against terrorism" (italicized in the original).

Perhaps the investigation's most important conclusion was offered by Rep. Saxby Chambliss at a July 17 press briefing: "This [i.e. September 11] was such a closely held, compartmentalized act of devastation that was carried out by the terrorist community [sic] that we don't know of any way it could have been prevented." [my emphasis]

6:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

BigFruit and the Fruit Nazis may put an end to backyard citrus
The legal battle pits homeowners seeking to protect their much-beloved source of fresh fruit and shade against state officials seeking to protect Florida's $9 billion citrus industry ? second only to tourism.

[...]

More than 603,000 backyard citrus trees have already been destroyed, and residents are complaining about what they say are Gestapo-like tactics employed by chainsaw- wielding work crews sometimes escorted onto private property by sheriff's deputies. Some Floridians have taken to calling them "fruit Nazis."

"They came with two sheriff's deputies. They said if you don't step aside we will handcuff you and take you to jail," says John Haire, of Fort Lauderdale, one of several residents challenging the eradication program in court.

[...]

"We estimate the annual impact of living with canker at $343 million a year," says Ken Keck of Florida Citrus Mutual, the state's largest citrus growers' association. Canker causes brown and yellow blotches on citrus leaves and fruit rind, according to experts. It is spread primarily by wind-driven rain. It poses no threat to human health, nor does it damage the taste or quality of the fruit - other than its outward appearance, these experts say.

6:33 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Hawala -- the underground money-exchange system used by terrorists and shady businessmen alike -- is ancient and very hard to stop and prosecute
Even with substantial antiterrorist legislation to regulate financial transfers, hawala is still legal in the US. As a result, many local police don't know what it is, or don't consider it worth investigating.

"Prior to Sept. 11, nobody in the West took hawala seriously," says Harjit Sandhu, a former Indian policeman and now a financial crimes and terrorism expert on the panel of advisers to the United Nations Security Council. "After Sept. 11, things are changing, but then again, after every major terrorist attack the bureaucracies all talk of lessons learned, and after a few days, everything goes back to square one."

In India, on the other hand, hawala is a major violation of foreign- exchange laws, punishable by decades in prison. It's also extremely pervasive, police sources say ? even rich businessmen and powerful politicians use it for taking bribes or shielding their assets from taxation.

"In India, it's been used to pay for insurgency in Kashmir, and Al Qaeda has used it in order to send money to those jokers in Pakistan," says Jyoti Trehan, inspector general for the Punjab Armed Police and India's top expert on underground banking. "It's certainly not in the interest of my country to encourage hawala.... But for politicians and criminals, it's a handy tool."

In India alone, according to Interpol intelligence sources, the size of the hawala could be nearly 40 percent of India's gross domestic product. In 1998, the latest figures available, the amount of money in India's hawala system was estimated at $680 billion, roughly the size of Canada's entire economy.
Which is an indication of how pointless it will be to try to attack the terrorist issue by "following the money." You can find out who some agents are, maybe even turn them. But the system has survived since the Silk Road days, and you won't stop it now -- no matter how high tech you get.

3:48 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The public surveillance channel in a North Carolina seniors complex is must see TV
Installed last year as a security measure, Channel 13, an unusual closed-circuit TV system, has become a "must see" reality show for the residents of this port city's biggest senior-housing project. (Call it "Real World, Senior Edition.") While women check out "Biscuit," the dancing octogenarian, the men have spotted drug dealers or prostitutes coming into the building after hours. Result: a kaffeeklatsch of gossip and voyeurism.

Although "public-surveillance channels" are used in some high-rises in New York and Chicago, Solomon Towers may be the only retirement home in the country to employ such a system. Now, as other institutions consider similar technology to help people feel safe, the debate over this type of "public surveillance" is whether its subjects will soon have to endure Big Brother's newest incarnation: the little old lady down the hall.

3:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

shrub & co spent nearly $14mil on the FLA recount including fees to Enron and Halliburton for jet rentals

Gore spent $3.4mil.

2:31 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Netcasters may have a ghost of a chance
One day before Congress adjourned for its summer break, several lawmakers introduced a bill that would let small Internet broadcasters defer royalty payments that could drive them out of business.

The measure would give small "Webcasters" a new lease on life by allowing them to defer royalty payments to musicians and recording companies until a new round of negotiations begins next year.

But the bill must advance quickly as Congress has only one more month of activity scheduled before the fall elections.

Contact your reps here.

1:11 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Whitley Strieber's Dreamland series has had a couple good segments in the last month

Peter Levenda talking about his new book Unholy Alliance: History of the Nazi Involvement with the Occult and Richard Dolan on his UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup 1941 - 1973.

Here's the link to the list, just click on the yellow icons at the left. The Levenda show will be deleted this weekend, so jump on it -- they are only up for a month after broadcast. His segment takes up over 2 hours of the June 22nd show, while the Dolan is 75 mins.

In the latter show, Strieber mentions that his uncle Col. Edward Strieber was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB when the Roswell debris arrived, and that his account of what happened formed the basis for Strieber's Majestic, which certainly was a convincing version of what happened. Strieber said on the show that he hadn't talked of this before, but I found evidence that he did mention it in passing in a couple interviews, just doing a cursory googlesearch.

12:45 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, July 26, 2002

Americans being prepared for martial law [Undernews]

10:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The mysterious hum people have noticed in Taos NM and Kokomo IN has also been disturbing people in Victoria BC (Canada) since '96.

1:05 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Bill Clinton, Vince Foster and other Arkansans may have been in on some appalling deal selling tainted blood collected in Arkansas prisons to Canada and Europe in the 80s

I'm way behind on this, since it's received NO press in the US I guess. Up to 5000 Canadian kids were fatally infected with HIV and hepatitis.

OK, I've had enough for now.

12:50 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Disney's R & D chief has been summoned to the Dark Halls of the NSA to be head of research

Eric Haseltine claims to be inspired by 9/11 to do his part (making the world safe for ~~new theme parks~~ democracy), but he previously spent 13 years at Hughes Aircraft, a major defense contractor.

This new synergy between Hollywood and Washington just makes me so . . .proud.

12:40 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

In Vancouver, Mounties are posing as squeegee beggars at intersections to pin $40 fines on drivers who aren't wearing seat belts [via Undernews]

O Canada . . .

12:23 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Bill to make it harder to wipe out consumer debt when declaring bankruptcy will probably become law next month

This turns another screw on the average citizen, on top of the millions small investors have already lost on the market.

This is basically for the benefit of banks that issue credit cards. The installment plan middle-class consumer dream of the corporate liberalism of the 20th century is becoming the indentured servitude of the 21st. Though that's been happening for a while, this will be an unheard of acceleration.

12:11 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Mark Bruzonsky 10 min. real audio on the Mid East

The webpage opens with the player embedded and running, though you can stop it or play it separately.

He figures with the economy tanking, shrub & co have nothing to lose by starting the war on Iraq before the elections. And that Sharon is waiting for that to really bring the hammer down on the Palestinians.

IMO: This won't be like the '90-'91 War. This will be regional and encourage terrorism by disaffected Arabs against states that participate.

Who benefits? Defense contractors and their investors. People for whom terror and fear are tools for control.

But in the long run, the chaos and cost of the conflict will backfire on the perpetrators.

Things are going to get pretty ugly and weird.

11:50 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

MusicMobsters would be able to maliciously hack P2P systems that share their copyrighted songs under a proposed bill

Another chapter in the sorry saga of a dinosaur's decline.
"Online piracy undermines the growth of legitimate music sites and hurts all consumers in the long run. Every dollar lost to piracy is a dollar that cannot be invested in fresh, new artists we have all come to expect and enjoy," said [RIAA CEO Hilary] Rosen.
Got . . . to reach . . . the toi--

8:18 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"I always thought it was good for you. I never thought there was anything wrong with it". . .riiiiiight

Fat Americans are suing fast food chains for "knowingly serving meals that cause obesity and disease."

Talk about overlawyered. . .

It does indicate that the ghost of a perception that this stuff is bad for you is flickering acros the national consciousness. And you know the millions that have been spent shoving this stuff down peoples' throats, and acting like french fries have some edifying value. So it's just karma.

6:28 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Comments

Enetation was slowing the loading process, so I junked it. Maybe it's just this template, or the UK address, I dunno.

Anyway, something will be up soon. Not that I get more than a couple comments a month, but they're always welcome.

Til then you can contact me at the email address at the "Contact" link at left.

6:19 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Abdeljabbar Adwan of the Lebanese Daily Star on why Arafat was chosen by the US and Israel to begin with

Undernews ran the below excerpt on the 18th, it's so important I had to quote it.
Arafat did not develop his current personality traits and modus operandi during the past decade. He was the same before. Israel knew that, counted on it and sought to take advantage of it. The same can be said of the Americans and Europeans. They thought Arafat's autocratic, unaccountable and underhand style was an asset that would enable him to assert his sole control and foist concessions on his people. They provided him with financial aid, knowing full well where and how it would be spent. Israel too contributed to the financial corruption by depositing Palestinian customs revenues in private accounts in Israeli banks. The bulk of international aid was meanwhile used to meet the payrolls of the bloated security services to enhance the president's power and Israel's protection.

So why all this belated outrage now? The real joke is when Israel accuses the Europeans of having supported Palestinian "terror" by providing aid that ended up in the hands of the Arafat's Fatah Movement. Israel used to divert Palestinian customs revenues the tax paid by Palestinian workers and the VAT charged on Israeli goods sold to the Palestinians, to the PA via bank accounts held by individuals. Moreover, trade in basic commodities flour, cement, petrol, gas, building materials was placed in the hands of people who were given a monopoly on importing these goods from or via Israel. They could thus control the price charged for them locally, and thereby made enormous profits. These individuals were the president's men and cronies, and a share of their profits was transferred to Fatah's coffers. The movement's men and activities needed funding, and the PA could not afford to provide it all, so it came via Israel as everyone was fully aware.

The plan, of course, was for Fatah to eclipse opposition movements like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. No one imagined that events would take such a turn that it would end up competing with them. In short, the Israelis, Americans and Europeans did not do business with Arafat because he was a democrat, but because of his authoritarianism and his presumed ability to stifle opposition, make political concessions and protect the Israelis. When he performed those functions by acting high-handedly and repressively and circumventing institutions especially the elected Palestinian Legislative Council and when corruption was on full display, none of his current critics endorsed the Palestinian public's criticisms of him.

Israel's support for Arafat and his circle went a long way toward silencing the West about how the opinions of ordinary Palestinians were being ignored. Few cared about the criticisms they were making of the PA, whether for serving Israel's designs, or over its financial and administrative corruption and the autocratic way it was run. No foreign government protested the absence of the rule of the law or the kangaroo courts. That in turn undermined the Palestinians' capacity to change the bitter reality.

10:26 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

A Big "Howdy Pardner!" to all the government folks who've visited my humble blog.

Partial List:

FAA
Defense Mapping Agency
Marine Corps Center for Design and Programming Activity
SSG/SIN at Vandenberg AFB
Department of Defense
Naval Intellligence
Gilat Satcom (Israel)

Thanks for keeping my numbers up.

9:43 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Native American "Shadow Wolves" track drug smugglers along the Southwest border

Great idea -- too bad it's in the service of something so moronic and harmful.

1:48 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

'Course the Supreme Court will back up Bush -- after all, they put him in office
William Rehnquist, chief justice of the United States, on June 15 gave a speech before a gathering of federal judges in which he condoned the suppression of democratic rights in wartime.

Rehnquist told a national judicial conference in Virginia, "One is reminded of the latin maxim, inter arma silent leges. In times of war, the laws are silent."

The Supreme Court justice said he was offering "only a historical perspective," but his choice of topic and what he had to say about it were obviously intended to bolster the Bush administration's attack on constitutional guarantees of free speech, assembly, privacy and due process, which is being carried out under the cover of the government's "war on terrorism."

11:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

U.S. Defeated in Bid to Block UN Anti-Torture Pact

I don't see how allowing UN torture monitors into state prisons is going to jeopardize anyone's rights. I just don't see the New World Order here. And the only countries against it are those who've recently been accused of rights abuses.

How does that make us look?

11:05 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

For Nick Drake fans

Here's a transcript of him rambling into a tape recorder in '68. And here's the blogger's (leptard) even better commentary.
What I found eerie wasn't just one thing you could pin down. Part of it involves hearing That Voice, cultured, a product of Marlborough public school and Cambridge, speaking instead of singing, rambling into a tape recorder partly for the sheer novelty of it. (Not many people had tape recorders in their homes in the late sixties.) But a big part of it is the picture he paints: darkness, roads, pianos, trees. Talk of sleep and night and dawn. And a couple of times something breaks through: 'the truth, the lies, the pain', 'the essence of the romantic': the unexpected sight of a green tree. It's a look into that other world Drake often lived in, the world we see glimpses of in his songs. If you don't like him, that world is an airy - fairy place far removed from the one we know, we who live by the chime of the city clock. If you do like him and his music, and that number is increasing all the time (hello to the beautiful Finnish girl I met last week), the world he sings about is a very real place: the world of truth and emotions, gentleness and a sort of melancholy wonder. And trees, beautiful green trees. Extremely pleasant trees in fact. So pleasant that everyday life is hard to bear by comparison. [via sex and sunshine]

12:47 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

shrub and the Texas Ranger stadium land grab
When Asia had its economic crisis in 1997-98, Americans properly trashed its "crony capitalism." But we suffer from the same affliction ourselves, and President Bush will not address the issue seriously because cronyism has been his way of life ? the Bushes call it loyalty.

I have a stack of court documents from Arlington that portray the "sordid and shocking tale" of the Rangers stadium, as one lawsuit puts it. Essentially, Mr. Bush and the owners' group he led bullied and misled the city into raising taxes to build a $200 million stadium that in effect would be handed over to the Rangers. As part of the deal, the city would even confiscate land from private owners so that the Rangers owners could engage in real estate speculation.

"It was a $200 million transfer to Bush and Rangers owners," complains Jim Runzheimer, an anti-tax campaigner in Arlington.
This is referred to in the graphic post below.

10:24 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

American Justice 2002

Arianna Huffington on the curious fact that a joint will land you in jail for sure, while stealing millions from taxpayers won't.

10:02 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

A graphic of shrub's connections with Harken, the bin Laden family, the Carlyle group, BCCI etc.

9:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Peruvian ex-President Fujimori pressured 200,000 indigenous people into being sterilized

9:03 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Former Village Voice New Music critic Tom Johnson's collected reviews are available in pdf or Word here

The period between 1972-1982 was when I was discovering people like Eno, Glass, Reich and Jon Hassell. Tom Johnson's columns in the Voice were a good place to start, especially since most of these composers performed in New York.

If you're discovering minimal composers now, it might be a good place for you to start too.

12:10 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Some folks missed the Cold War so much they've created a new one -- and aren't afraid to say so
One soldier asked how long the United States would be in Afghanistan. Wolfowitz said he was pleased with the progress the U.S. coalition had made against al Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, but also compared the war on terrorism to the Cold War.

"It's going to be a long struggle," Wolfowitz said. "Maybe not as long as the Cold War, but it doesn't hurt to think about the Cold War.

11:31 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Asians have a grave interest in the US
And thus the dead are immigrating. Each year, hundreds of deceased Chinese and Koreans are arriving on American shores, principally in such metropolitan areas as Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area and the Flushing section of Queens in New York, where Asian immigrants are flourishing.

They see America not only as a land of opportunity, but also as a vast hereafter, with wide-open fields perfect for honoring the dead with prodigious grave sites designed within the principles of feng shui for the free flow of energy.

11:25 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Life in prison for "malicious hackers". . .

If the Cyber Security Enhancement Act is signed into law, which looks likely. Not that there shouldn't be a law against it. That just seems like overkill, and the weight behind it is the SoftwareRacketeers and the "T" word.

Just feels like an excuse for more rights slipping away, under the radar.

11:18 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Well, if you have to have an archbishop of canterbury. . .
Britain on Tuesday named Rowan Williams, a Welsh churchman outspokenly in favor of gay clergy and women priests and opposed to Western militarism, to be the new spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans.

[...]

Though he has no hesitancy in voicing opinions considered provocative, he is thought of as a unifying and inspirational presence within the church because of his mild, scholarly manner, his willingness to listen to opponents and his acceptance of the notion that radical change takes time.

A self-confessed youthful "peacenik" who was once arrested for reading psalms on the runway of a U.S. air base in Britain, the bearded cleric has more recently castigated the United States for withdrawing from environmental treaties, criticized the bombing of Afghanistan as "morally tainted" and said that any invasion of Iraq would be "immoral and illegal."

Earlier this year, he signed an open letter to the government denouncing any military strike on Iraq, arguing that "eradicating the dangers posed by malevolent dictators and terrorists can only be achieved by tackling the root causes of the disputes."

10:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The Inevitable Police State
"It's going to be overused and abused, especially with people so nervous as it is," said Freeman, 45, who hauls produce cross-country. "You're going to have people running every which way looking for terrorists and their 15 minutes of glory."

Freeman's concerns were echoed by a slew of privacy-minded groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and legislators from both sides of the ideological divide last week, perhaps signaling that Americans want some limits on governmental intrusion despite the new threats from abroad. [thanks to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me's Peter Sagal for the anagram] I'm a stasi you're a stasi we're a stasi too

3:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Hi-tech "out-of-harm's-way" precision bombing in Afghanistan kills hundreds of civilians

But you knew that. . .

3:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Living-wage movement takes root across nation
The concept has been around since at least the early 1990s, but never before has it affected so many workers in so many cities and counties across the USA. Even though some economists estimate that fewer than 1% of employees in living-wage communities are covered, those on both sides of the issue agree that tens of thousands of workers are receiving higher pay because of the initiative.

The once-fledgling movement is making major inroads. More than 80 communities, including Boston, Baltimore, Detroit and Chicago have laws requiring government contractors and some other employers to pay workers more. The patchwork of legislation is circumventing the $5.15 federal minimum wage, and supporters are setting their sights on statewide wage hikes, as well.

The drive for a living wage is arguably the most successful organizing tool and rallying point for labor unions in decades. The cause is helping revitalize the labor movement, which for years has struggled just to hold onto membership and benefit gains.
Just like the environmental effects of industry and health care, these issues will not go away. And they will get harder and more expensive to fix the longer it takes.

And if big business doesn't want to be targeted -- and politicians don't want to be voted out of office -- they need to get with the program. This isn't about isms or disposable income to boost the economy (though that will be an effect) -- it's about human rights.

And "living wage" means $13.50/hr, even outside cities.

8:16 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Shocked, Shocked File: Dick Cheney's albatross Halliburton stands to make a tidy profit from The Terror War

I know this is old, but it needs to be emphasized.
From building cells for detainees at Guant�namo Bay in Cuba to feeding American troops in Uzbekistan, the Pentagon is increasingly relying on a unit of Halliburton called KBR, sometimes referred to as Kellogg Brown & Root.

Although the unit has been building projects all over the world for the federal government for decades, the attacks of Sept. 11 have led to significant additional business. KBR is the exclusive logistics supplier for both the Navy and the Army, providing services like cooking, construction, power generation and fuel transportation. The contract recently won from the Army is for 10 years and has no lid on costs, the only logistical arrangement by the Army without an estimated cost.

The government business has been well timed for Halliburton, whose stock price has tumbled almost two-thirds in the last year because of concerns about its asbestos liabilities, sagging profits in its energy business and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into its accounting practices back when Vice President Dick Cheney ran the company. The government contracts, which the company said Mr. Cheney played no role in helping Halliburton win, either while he led the company or after he left, offer the prospect of a long and steady cash flow that impresses financial analysts.

12:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

US health care: you don't get what you pay for.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a study author and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard, noted: "We pay the world's highest health care taxes. But much of the money is squandered. The wealthy get tax breaks. And HMOs and drug companies pocket billions in profits at the taxpayers' expense. But politicians claim we can't afford universal coverage. Every other developed nation has national health insurance. We already pay for it, but we don't get it." [from Undernews -- and see link for Physicians for a National Health Program under "Activism" at right]

12:24 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

This is rich: the Cardinal of Mexico City has equated the American media's coverage of the Catholic sex scandal with "attacks under Hitler...and Nero."

Aside from the rather obvious fact that the Church brought this on itself. . .

Considering the Church's record of collusion with the Nazis and the suggestion by Abelard Reuchelin that Christianity was largely the invention of the remarkably well-connected Piso family, all I can say is: "And isn't it ironic?"

As Phil Dick once said, the Roman Empire never fell -- it just went underground. Til recently, at least...

12:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, July 22, 2002

Life in upheaval

Posting may be erratic for awhile (again) due to them changes.

9:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Robert Rotberg's Ending Autocracy, Enabling Democracy looks like an excellent introduction to sub-Saharan Africa today
In "Ending Autocracy," he has compiled 229 of his pieces from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, the New Republic, and other journals. He has added summaries and some new analysis in order to educate an American public woefully ignorant of Africa's recent history and to offer policy solutions to experts on how to "achieve justice, peace, and improving standards of living" for the region.

These are, obviously, not easy tasks, especially for what is one of the world's most unfortunate places. But Rotberg brings remarkable fluency and erudition to the project. His essays cover an impressive range of topics, from the long battles against entrenched white rule in Rhodesia and South Africa, to the civil war in Angola, to a careful analysis of the misguided economic policies of resource-rich Zambia, which, since independence, have turned it from one of Africa's most promising countries to one of the worst off. Along the way, the reader is treated to acutely drawn sketches of local leaders such as Malawi's Hastings Banda, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda, and Kenya's Daniel arap Moi.

For someone working in a field known for its left-wing leanings, Rotberg's writing is refreshingly free of liberal pieties. For example, while he was always quick to criticize the Reagan administration for its cozy engagement of apartheid South Africa, he is equally hard on the muddled socialism that caused so much economic wreckage in the region, and he pillories local leaders for their autocratic excesses.

4:20 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The use of microbes as tools to improve the human environment is right out of a Sterling novel, and it's happening now

It also blurs the line between humans and their environment, doesn't it?

4:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Cops for ending drug prohibition

ahhh. . .What would an undercover narcotics veteran of 26 years know about the effectiveness of drug policy anyway?

. . .

9:57 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Deciphering the schizophrenic Israeli polls
URI AVNERY, DAILY STAR, BEIRUT - Israel is the only state in the world that has a population of 200 percent. And that's a fact. Public opinion polls show that it has two simultaneous majorities. One is peace-loving, the other supports extreme nationalism. At the present time, it looks like this: In every public opinion poll there is a large majority that supports the prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Sharon wants, of course, to enlarge the settlements, intensify the war against the Palestinians, eliminate their leader, Yasser Arafat, postpone a permanent solution and refuse any peace negotiations until unattainable conditions are met. Anyone who supports him must be a radical right-winger. But the very same public opinion polls also show that a majority agrees to withdraw from (almost) all the Occupied Territories, dismantle (almost) all settlements and accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in return for peace . . . Together with those who were against both proposals, this totaled 200 percent. Statisticians and sociologists examined, researched, shook their collective heads, shrugged their shoulders, raised both hands and thought: a crazy people. Doesn't know what it wants. Mixed up. Schizophrenic. Suffering from a split personality.But the people were not mad at all. The professors just did not know how to read the polls.

What the public tried to say was: If it were possible to drive out all the Arabs, that would be wonderful. If it's impossible, let's get the hell out of there. Why? For a simple reason: The one thing that unifies almost all Jewish Israelis is the wish to live in a state where there are only Jews. If we could achieve such a state in all the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, OK. If not, let's leave the Occupied Territories. Not "land for peace," but "withdrawal for the sake of safeguarding a homogeneous Jewish state." This is the majority opinion, and there is, indeed, only one majority.

Some call this "racist." Some call it "nationalist." Some say that this is "apartheid." But this attitude is rooted in the fact that for thousands of years, Jews have lived as a religious-ethnic community dispersed throughout the world and often suffered cruel persecution, especially in the Christian world. They have developed a ghetto mentality. They want to live among themselves, separated from others, surrounded by a high fence. Zionism wanted to achieve this by establishing a state where Jews would live together without Gentiles. Even the presence of a considerable minority the Arab citizens in Israel creates severe mental stress. For most Israelis, the ideal situation would be a state without a single non-Jewish citizen. The presence of foreign workers does not bother anybody; it is temporary, and they are devoid of any rights. [via Undernews]
Somehow I just don't think this is going to happen.

9:47 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The Lone Liberal
For Harrison, donning the Liberal's outfit is both enlightening and exhilarating. "I'm far more conservative than the Lone Liberal. Michael Harrison is a businessman with interests. The Lone Liberal is solely out for the good of the people. I personally cannot claim to be as open-minded as the Lone Liberal. Whereas I live in the real world, he doesn't have to worry about that."

Despite his name, the Lone Liberal's politics aren't easily pigeonholed. While he's pro-choice, it's only grudgingly, and in a stark departure from most leftists, he's against further gun control laws. The Liberal has even taken Democrats to task, saying their constant criticism of President George W. Bush's every blunder, no matter how small, is petty and smacks of the right wing's treatment of former President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"There are no traditional stances when it comes to the Lone Liberal. 'Liberal' means open-minded. The Liberal understands how many of the trademark liberal stances have given rise to this conservative dominance of talk radio," Harrison said.
Pretty sad, but between this and Phil Donahue, there's at least some diversity of viewpoint on TV. Kind of a dreary situation. The writer makes a good point here though:
Clearly, there's a good reason why conservatives dominate the airwaves: On the whole, right-wingers tend to be blunt, immovably opinionated and argumentative. It's a combination that works well in radio and television's sound-bite environment.

Liberals, on the other hand, tend more toward earnest contemplation and debate, concepts that require more time and attention than broadcast media encourage. Not to mention that the lefties that do make it on right- wing shows tend to be either ineffectual milquetoasts -- think Crossfire's Bill Press -- or sort of weird-looking -- see Fox News Channel host Allen Colmes.
This is partially why it takes a cartoon character to get a reaction from people: if it's not tabloid-simple, they just can't process it.

1:02 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Not-so-glowing review of The Road to Perdition

12:49 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The toxic ubiquity of pthalates
The report, titled "Not Too Pretty: Pthalates, Beauty Products and the FDA," has its basis in a 1999 FDA study of toxins in the general population of the U.S. From a sample of 1,029 people, every one of them tested positive for phthalates in their blood or urine. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control singled out a subgroup of 289 people with a particularly high incidence of phthalates: women of childbearing age. These women were found to have daily exposures of phthalates ranging from 2.5 to 22 times the normal for the rest of the general population, with 5 percent showing levels of 75 percent or higher of the acceptable daily amounts.

[...]

Phthalates have been shown to cause a wide array of health problems, from liver and kidney failure to heart, lung and blood pressure problems. The most worrisome aspect by far is the phthalates' effect on the reproductive development of fetuses and infants, particularly the reproductive tracts of males.

Phthalates are metabolized in humans once ingested or absorbed through the skin. In pregnant women, phthalates pass through the placenta to be absorbed by the fetus. In nursing women, phthalates are found in breast milk, which means infants are ingesting these chemicals as they develop. In male fetuses - - and infants especially -- the phthalates have been shown to cause testicular atrophy and a reduced sperm count, among other serious health problems.
Complete list of products tested so far here.

12:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

I missed this report on the non-issue of environmental laws hampering the military
ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Congressional auditors have reported there is little evidence to back Bush administration claims that environmental laws hamper military training, reports the Associated Press.

Earlier this year, the Bush administration asked Congress to exempt the military from certain environmental laws.

Some military officials contend that laws such as the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the 1973 Endangered Species Act hamper military readiness by encroaching upon areas used for training.

"In fact, most reports show that units have a high state of readiness, and they are largely silent on the issue of encroachment," said the report from the General Accounting Office.
Got this from my periscope.ucg.com Defense News email.

12:25 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, July 21, 2002

Military recruiters harass teens
Lee Woods, 19, is all too familiar with these shenanigans. After enlisting in the Army and then changing his mind, Woods said he was subjected to intense verbal abuse.

"They told me I would be a fucking bum if I didn't join the Army," the Portland teen said. "After I took their verbal abuse, they sent me out in the January cold with no ride home." Woods said he tried to get out of enlisting over the phone, but was told he'd have to come down to the recruitment office to do so, face to face. A recruiter picked him up at his house, drove him to the South Portland office and demanded a reason for changing his mind.

"They just wouldn't give up. I gave them a reason for not enlisting and explained why I didn't want to be a part of the Army, but that wasn't good enough for them. They wanted to humiliate me," said Woods. This is when he said recruiters told him he was a worthless individual and had no future without the Army.

11:11 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Apparently Alan Lomax had a dark side too
The most notorious concerns "Goodnight Irene." Lomax and his father recorded Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter's song first, so when the song needed to be formally copyrighted because the Weavers were about to have a huge hit with it, representatives of the Ledbetter family approached him. Lomax agreed that this copyright should be established. He adamantly refused to take his name off the song, or to surrender income from it, even though Leadbelly's family was impoverished in the wake of his death two years earlier.

Lomax believed folk culture needed guidance from superior beings like himself. Lomax told Bochan what he believed: nothing in poor people's culture truly happened unless someone like him documented it. He hated rock'n'roll--down to instigating the assault against Bob Dylan's sound system at Newport in '65-- because it had no need of mediation by experts like himself.
That completes my unintentional trilogy of posts on Lomax and authenticity. I guess. [the above link is to the Counterpunch home page, where this article is as of now. Look at the left column on the home page for the link after today.]

10:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Fine little piece on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? ST and the cult of authenticity
Americans are always looking for something "real." It's the flipside to our constant impulse to escape the past, to tear down what's old and rotten and replace it with something shiny and new. Even as we pave over our history, we are afflicted with a nagging sense of loss, a longing for connection to things we discarded somewhere along the way. That desire is not a bad thing -- it's what compels us to restore old houses and preserve what we can of our cultural heritage.

There is danger there too, however. The cult of authenticity is founded on false premises. The fetishization of any one cultural form, the enshrinement of any single era -- whether it's the '30s or '40s or '50 or '60s -- clouds our view of ourselves. It fosters a mythological sense of our origins, and it diminishes our ability to understand our own place in history.

[...]

What makes Appalachian music so crucial to American music as a whole is not its "purity" but its dense cross-pollination. For a century before the advent of radio and mass marketed recordings, the mountains were criss-crossed by Scots-Irish musicians, African American singers and pickers, minstrel shows, Eastern European immigrants, and a lot more besides. They all learned, borrowed and stole from each other -- tunes, styles, instruments, lyrics. The belief in some raw, untouched form of music is almost a kind of cultural fascism, a quest for an unpolluted bloodline in a miscegenated world.

10:22 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Ken Adelman on the importance of FBI background checks -- for wasting time and money, and encouraging leaks, that is. . .
As a non-paid member of the Defense Policy Board, I'm now in the middle of what may be my seventh investigation. The board meets every couple of months for a day or two to advise Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. After our first meeting last year, I presumed that all members -- including Henry Kissinger, Dan Quayle, Newt Gingrich, Tom Foley, James Woolsey and a handful of four-star generals -- had been cleared.

Wrong. Board members -- including the former vice president of the United States -- were asked to be re-fingerprinted and cleared anew by government agents. During my interview with a polite agent, I was asked if I had "ever" had contact with "any foreign nationals." I explained that, as a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, yes, I did have contact with foreign nationals. In fact, many of them. Well, could I possibly list all such contacts? When told that would be impossible, the agent moved along. "Where could I locate this Mr. Wolfowitz, whom you listed as a reference?" he asked me.

As these questions suggest, these investigators, lacking knowledge of the candidates' perspective job or even their field of expertise, morph into mere stenographers. All they're told gets scribbled down and shoved into a file for their bosses. Ah, there's the rub. For these bosses eventually include staffers in the administration and Congress, who can leak the juiciest material. Full-field investigations thereby become free-fire zones for jealous job-seekers, bested business competitors, partisan foes, jilted lovers and ex-spouses.

10:07 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

New Information Security Oversight Office director J William Leonard on secrecy policy
"Secrecy is an essential tool in protecting national security... [but] what makes our Nation great is not how well we can make and keep secrets." Rather, "Our ability to share and leverage information is the source of American power and might in the 21st century."

"Oftentimes, the best security is accepting as a given the fact that what you want to protect is or will become known to others -- and planning your operations accordingly."

"I believe that oftentimes we rely on secrecy as a crutch to compensate for shortcomings in other areas such as personnel security, automated information systems controls, and just plain day-to-day management."
Well, I'll be damned. Are you listening Mssrs. Bush and Ashcroft?

9:57 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Doonesbury on WiFi

I'm no expert, but I don't think it's quite this simple. WiFi isn't P2P.

And why isn't Net access free anyway? Or a lot cheaper. . . WiFi is a non-issue as far as I can see, in the sense that few people actually do it, and it's most likely just another step to wider access for everybody.

9:51 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Pain rayguns, strangling gases, and weaponized opiates

The kinder, gentler future of "non-lethal weapons" for ~~controlling dissidents~~ "keeping the peace." [drudge]

8:27 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

charging the canvas

The Link Section