Panglossian Notes

The parsing of Miss Upton.

The Youtube clip of Miss Teen America, Lauren Caitlin Upton, for any that haven't yet seen it:

and a hardcopy of the answer via Language Log taken a little seriously (and here too):

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and I believe that our education like such as South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should... our education over here in the U.S should help the U.S or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future."

Finally, a picture of the Powerset result of parsing the statement:

Technorati Tags: Chaos, Search machines, Writers

Who is the toady here?

Marc Lynch has been having one of those strange moments when the world seems just a bit topsy-turvy:

Bush meeting with Sattar Abu Risha, Anbar (as published in dozens of Arab papers)

"It's kind of lost in the shuffle of the coming battle over the various Iraq reports, but I find myself morbidly fascinated by the photos and reports which have circulated in the Iraqi press about Bush's meeting in Anbar with the controversial head of the Anbar Salvation Council Sattar Abu Risha. The pictures themselves speak volumes: look at Bush's shit-eating grin and Abu Risha's detached contempt, and figure out which is the supplicant in this scenario."

Technorati Tags: Iraq, POTUS aka the Decider, World Affairs

Something I'd missed: "Gotcha! Canuck Sub "Sinks" Brit Carrier" or lost in Borges's library?

Via a usual convoluted series of clips and double clips, meandering lazily through various web-pages, an interesting tidbit or is that "timbit".

It started here:

1 - French Politics: The Labor Market Again

2 - Dani Rodrik's weblog: Are labor market rigidities responsible for Europe's unemployment?

3 - Dani Rodrik's weblog: France and globalization

4 - Dani Rodrik's weblog: Why do good economists publish in the WSJ editorial page?

5 - Ezra Klein: The incremental scam

6 - Dymaxion World: Look who's evil now!

7 - Lawyers, Guns and Money: Fear the Canadian Menace

8 - The Yorkshire Ranter

9 - Danger Room - Wired Blogs

and ended here:

10 - Gotcha Posted by Bill Sweetman at 8/29/2007 8:02 PM

Underscoring the threat posed by non-nuclear submarines, the Canadian navy has released a photo taken through the periscope of HMCS Corner Brook, one of the service's four Victoria-class SSKs.






That's the British carrier HMS Illustrious, one of the Royal Navy's key warships. “The picture represents hard evidence that the submarine was well within attack parameters and would have been successful in an attack,” comments Commander Luc Cassivi, commander Submarine Division in Halifax.

That is to say, had Corner Brook been a hostile, rather than a participant in NATO's exercise Noble Mariner, taking place in the North Sea and Baltic in May, "Lusty" would have been a matter of seconds away from taking a Mk 48 heavyweight torpedo in what British naval folk technically describe as the Khyber Pass.





This came after the RN had issued a press release praising the ship's ability to dominate the battlespace. It is doubly ironic in that Corner Brook is the former HMS Ursula, one of four Upholder-class SSKs built at great trouble and expense by the UK and then sold to Canada when the UK government decided to standardize on nuclear boats.






Credits: Canadian navy, Rick Anthony, Royal Australian Navy

Technorati Tags: blogging, Canada, Curiosity, Lists, Military, My Interest, reading, Really stupid

Canada's Harper, APEC, climate policy - yawn.

Jeffrey Simpson's commentary on the prime minister in this morning's Globe & Mail summed up how I think about Mr. Harper and his party's global warming and foreign policy - i.e. both are bankrupt.

I do think, also, that the final paragraph of the commentary Simpson is out of place. We have a long way to go under Harper before we stop being a laughingstock.

I got a bit of Harper's speech on cpac but I've found I cannot watch the man even though his "dresser" seems to have turned him out in reasonably presentable fashion. [Hey how much are we taxpayers actually paying Harpers flunky dress coordinator any ways, eh.] We he speaks to me he is unconvincing and I can't help the thoughts that he is insincere and actually lying to me.

Simpson's commentary is worth reading. Me, I think sometime, Harper is counting on screwing over Ontario's manufacturing base so in aggregate the country can accomplish something under the fools game "intensity" targets.

As I indicated in a chart in an earlier post the only real way "intensity" targets have an impact is when output is constantly declining. In that earlier note I also wondered why the Harper government wasn't actually trying to convince me and other Canadian citizens that his Bush adopted policy would actually be effective - other than, of course, the usual taking point bromides.

Finally before the copy of Simpson's commentary, a short interview (mp3) of Elizabeth May on ABCs Late Night Live. Here's the introduction on the ABC webpage

Canadian politics has a low profile in Australia. As with so much else in North America, it is the events, attitudes and policies emanating from the USA that dominate. Canada's conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, will address the Australian parliament next week. He has been compared to John Howard, and like his Australian host, Stephen Harper could be facing a difficult election. Phillip speaks with leader of the Canadian Greens Party, Elizabeth May, about the Canadian political landscape.

Now Jeffrey:

The Sydney nudge: How green is my Harper

SYDNEY -- It takes some getting used to hearing Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the world stage claiming that Canada must be a "world leader" in combatting climate change.

We remember, after all, his skepticism about climate change as opposition leader. We recall his questioning of the science of global warming, his criticism of the Liberals' ineffectual measures as being too ambitious, his warnings about the disastrous effects on the Canadian economy.

We read his party's platform, Stand Up for Canada, with its two measly sentences about climate change, compared with seven pages about cleaning up corruption in government. And we cannot forget his first, halting efforts to construct a climate-change approach, efforts that only got serious when the hot breath of public opinion toughened his policy.

His audience of business leaders at the APEC summit yesterday likely knew nothing of Mr. Harper's belated conversion to the cause. Nor did they know that the measures his government contemplates, although much better than anything Liberal governments tried, will still allow emissions to rise.

Mr. Harper claimed yesterday his policies would stabilize emissions by 2010 and start reducing them thereafter until they fell by at least 50 per cent by 2050.

Independent studies of the Conservative policies suggest the contrary. The simulations of Simon Fraser University's Mark Jaccard, whose model has been used by the federal government for years, show emissions rising by more than 100 million tonnes between now and 2050, instead of falling by almost 400 million tonnes, as they must do to reach the 50-per-cent reduction target.

The Conservative policies will fail because they do not put a high enough price on carbon and other greenhouse-gas emissions. Without that pricing, long-term adjustments will not be large enough to produce the reductions Mr. Harper pretends.

Partisan as always, even on foreign soil, Mr. Harper could not resist criticizing the failure of Liberal policies, an accurate critique but one best left for domestic debate rather than the international stage. In particular, he chastised the Liberals for being "unwilling to tell the public that reducing carbon emissions must entail real economic costs in the short term." True enough, but Mr. Harper's government hasn't outlined those costs, either, apart from acknowledging that "reducing carbon emissions imposes costs in the short term."

It is a fine objective to suggest Canada should become a "clean energy superpower," an improvement on the previous slogan about Canada's being an "energy superpower." But the Harper government's policies will not achieve that objective, especially with an anticipated tripling or quadrupling of oil from the tar sands, each barrel of which takes two to three times as much energy to extract as conventional oil.

The APEC audience, of course, knew little or none of this. And they would not have made sense of another Harper claim: that his government has restored "Canada's stature and influence on the world stage." What's happening on the sidelines of APEC gives the lie to that assertion, as do the cuts already made and those forthcoming to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

One of APEC's purposes is to allow leaders to meet bilaterally. Of those gathered in Sydney, Mr. Harper is meeting only two (apart from the host, Australian Prime Minister John Howard), from Peru and New Zealand.

Mr. Harper has recently met the leaders of the United States, Mexico, Japan and Chile. But to travel to Australia to meet only the leaders of Peru and New Zealand, two of APEC's smallest members, doesn't say much about Canada's "stature and influence on the world stage."

Leaders are tripping over themselves to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is spending seven days in Australia. But Mr. Harper, perhaps reflecting on the strained embarrassment of their stony meeting at the previous APEC gathering, hasn't got a meeting with him. Or with the leaders of Russia, Indonesia, South Korea or any of the Southeast Asian countries.

Still, charity demands a recognition that Mr. Harper has moved dramatically on climate change. In the last campaign, he pooh-poohed the Kyoto Protocol, ratified under the Liberals but opposed by the Conservatives, saying Canada needed a "made-in-Canada" approach.

Now, Mr. Harper urges a "new, universal, climate-change protocol for the post-2012 era" and pledges that "Canada will do everything in its power to help develop a new, all-inclusive framework."

What a change those words represent when compared with the fumbling, incoherent position Mr. Harper's hapless first environment minister, Rona Ambrose, was forced to take at a climate-change conference that Canada chaired in Bonn.

The shift from Canada as climate-change obstacle and laughingstock to belatedly becoming a constructive player in future international negotiations can only be welcomed.

Technorati Tags: Canadian, Global Warming Policy, joke?

The Booker sorry the Man Booker.

Ah the Booker, started by a publisher to pump up sales but it has, hasn't it, evolved into something more. Yes, I say.

Good reading but you can also be the judge.

The long list for 2007:

1 - Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
2 - Self Help by Edward Docx (Picador)
3 - The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
4 - The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
5 - The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (Sceptre)
6 - Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
7 - Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Viking)
8 - On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
9 - What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn (Tindal Street)
10 - Consolation by Michael Redhill (William Heinemann)
11 - Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)
12 - Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon)
13 - Winnie & Wolf by A.N.Wilson (Hutchinson)

The short list for 2007:

1 - Darkmans by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)
2 - The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
3 - The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
4 - Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
5 - On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
6 - Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)

The bookies are favouring the New Zealander Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip.

Of course there are shit-loads of other good, interesting, and some great books out there, not Bookererd. I always look for them, do you?

Whatever, eh?

Here is a link to my favourite really digested take on the Booker short list mentioned above, just in case you'd like to get a very quick and short feel for the novels.

Technorati Tags: great stuff, reading, The Booker

Are you thinking "while waiting for Petraeus"? (update)

Paul Krugman's NY Times column (a new link to the article via Commondreams.org), this morning, titled "Take a Stand", has 5 points US Democrats should bear in mind while questioning General Petraeus who will be sitting at the witness table in front of them next week.

First, no independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down. ... So how can the military be claiming otherwise? Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths (not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs are excluded, and ... “if a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian. If it went through the front, it’s criminal.” So the number of dead is down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.

Oh, and by the way: Baghdad is undergoing ethnic cleansing... When a Sunni enclave is eliminated and the death toll in that district falls because there’s nobody left to kill, that counts as progress by the Pentagon’s metric.

Second, Gen. Petraeus has a history of making wildly overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be convenient for his political masters.

I’ve written before about the op-ed article Gen. Petraeus published six weeks before the 2004 election, claiming “tangible progress” in Iraq. ...

Third, any plan that depends on the White House recognizing reality is an idle fantasy. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, on Tuesday Mr. Bush told Australia’s deputy prime minister that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq. Enough said.

Fourth, the lesson of the past six years is that Republicans will accuse Democrats of being unpatriotic no matter what the Democrats do. ...

Finally, the public hates this war and wants to see it ended. Voters are exasperated with the Democrats ... because they don’t see Congress doing anything to stop the war.

I'm thinking Krugman's fear of what the Democrats will actually do maybe preordained:

Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus’s uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won’t ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they’ll desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops, if he feels like it.

But, if the Sun doesn't rise in the East tomorrow morning, could it be an omen?

Technorati Tags: Beckett, Iraq, Military, New York Times, Politicians

Canada noticed finally? APEC fiasco? No, no, no, it's just the Chaser.

The APEC security blockard was tested this morning by The Chaser. I wonder what the Manic Times might have up their sleeves. The down-under security types however don't seem to have much of a sense of humor about their own - inadequacies?

Oh well, what's new.

Just in case you may think that traffic problems where you may live are a problem, especially since everyone is back to school and work post Labour Day, a short news clip on the Sydney traffic lock-down. [The CBD referred to in the video is central business district of Sydney].

Technorati Tags: fun & games down-under, Politicians

Condi, John, George & Janette laugh it up.

Why is it these fools are laughing?

Because they are all winners. They are on the right side of the massive security fences in Sydney and the right side of 50 years old - i.e. they will very likely have expired before the worst effects of global warming hit those on the other side of 50. Such lovely people, eh.

Some Aspirationals unit for a few laughs

Condoleezza Rice, John Howard, George Bush and Janette Howard are seen taking great glee in destroying the normally stunning surroundings of Sydney Harbour as they tour around laughing at all the stunned Aussie shleps on the other side of the 4000 foot security fence needed to protect them. (SWS - Photo [sic AP])

Technorati Tags: Leaders , Really stupid, Shmucks, Stupidity, Torture for those forced to watch

Put everyone on DNA database?

I'm in one of those silly moods and I know it because I'm wondering what sort of world lies just down the road for the type of society (sorry Margaret they do exist) in which I've become comfortable living.

The mood was triggered by reading this article in the Independent headlined:

Top judge: 'Put everyone on DNA database'

The entire UK population and every visitor to the country should be on the national DNA database, a top judge has said.

Lord Justice Sedley told BBC News: "Where we are at the moment is indefensible.

"We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, then your DNA is on permanent record. If you haven't, it isn't... that's broadly the picture."

Sir Stephen Sedley said disproportionate numbers of ethnic minorities get on to the database where there is ethnic profiling going on.

He added: "It also means that a great many people who are walking the streets, and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free".

The Independent
September 5, 2007

Specifically, I'm debating the proposition "the role of Government is to enforce rules laws protect citizens at all cost, whether citizens like it or not!".

I'm hoping Lord Justice Sedley's contention is simply polemical, though he did seem to be aware of the seriousness of his recommendation:

Sir Stephen, one of England's most experienced Appeal Court judges, said expanding the database to cover the whole population had "very serious but manageable implications".

He said everybody's DNA should be on file "for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention".

The Independent
September 5, 2007

Big manageability problems as the database is only to be used to protect against felons, actual or potential, but, and of course, it will be absolutely subject to rigorous restrictions, hmm.

What do you think?

Maybe, the Lord Justice is a tad optimistic about how power and control are used by our governments.

No! Never!

So, in the new world of being able to know who exactly may have been in some place or other, we shed DND where ever we go, should the role of Government be considered as protection at any cost.

1 - Is the individual of any importance any longer?

2 - What does Government protect?

3 - Are mandatory DNA registrations for all individuals, in any jurisdiction necessary, desirable?

4 - Is Utopia just around the corner?

My answers to myself, in my little mental debate, so far are at least:

1 - No the individual isn't important.

2 - It's unclear what Government protects.

3 - No they are not necessary and also not desirable.

4 - Yes, political Utopia is just over the horizon. In fact, I think I see it, now.

Technorati Tags: Democracy, Government?, UK, Utopia

Some APEC debating courtesy the host country

APEC?, courtesy of:

1- University of Sydney

Paul Keating waxing on the organization's founding: APEC and its Pan Pacific Template: Paul Keating (mp3 about 39 minutes long).

2 - Late Night Live (ABC the real one)

Phillip Adams hosting a discussion which addresses recent criticism of APEC's performance as a regional body, the past and future of APEC, (mp3) between:

Alan Gyngell, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy and former foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating,

Gordon G. Chang, Lawyer and author of "The Coming Collapse of China", and

Hadi Soesastro, Executive Director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, Indonesia.

3 -Two print articles

Drafting a better future by Alan Gyngell and

Evergreen APEC's endless death rattle by Sid Astbury.

Technorati Tags: APEC, foreign policy