Panglossian Notes

Serious yard sale bargain?

I wonder what this guy on I65, in Birmingham AL - it must be a guy drivin right? - tells the family when he gets home with this serious bargain from a yard sale, eh?

The picture is from hayleygrimes flickr site via Bretta's (from the del.liciou.us blog) del.liciou.us category creatures.

Technorati Tags: The Mission, The Plan

Jane Mayer

Since late Thursday evening I've been struggling to figure out what has gone wrong with the method I use to dynamically populate the sidebars of this blog site.

This struggle coincided with my finishing Jane Mayer's new book The Dark Side ( when I last looked it was 9th on Amazon USs site. Good, very good.).

The scripting problems I'm having with accessing and displaying certain of my Del.icio.us tags has been annoying for any number of reasons: it's humid outside and not pleasant to be staring at code, Del.icio.us support seems to me to be none existent, I'm pissed that a trivial but very useful method of keeping my blogging world straight for the past 18 months seems now in chaos.

There was however a very good side to the snafu with my, likely, awful coding of simple scripts.

I calmed down a little from my weeks reading, actually more frenzied margin note writing and post-it placing than reading, eh.

I had read some of Jane Mayer's earlier pieces in the New Yorker about the mess the US has immersed themselves in regarding particular aspects of the silly - it really is black Monty Pythonish now isn't it?- "war-on-terror" but her book pulls all the pieces together into a clear and quite absorbing story.

It also seems to go that extra mile, now required in our Western World, the mystical "free-world" really, where facts are only viewed from a partisan state of mind.

There are villains and quasi-heros (seems US heros, now, all ride off into the horizon to good paying secure futures) within the "right-side" of the political spectrum who Mz Mayer documents. The quasi-heros partly, I suspect, to ensure a "fair & balanced" assessment of the mess. The last sentence is not meant to sound cynical, though it does and I know it.

So, Jane Mayer was on Bill Moyers last night, but only interesting sort of. I've listened to her speak on a number of US radio shows now and I think the youtube of her, the day her new book was published, with Steve Clemons is still the best i.e. it provides, if you are not going to read the book, the most succinct précis of what has happened over the last 7 years to the US.

As an outsider I'm still trying to gauge how to view the monstrous and bestially morass the US seems  to have fallen into under Bush 43. As a Republic with "exceptionalism", relative to the rest of us, there is a key problem after Bush: there are no real "checks & balances".  The mainstay of the US uniqueness and the insurance against tyranny are gone. So what's "exceptional" now? I hope maybe something. But no one talks about it. It would be such a loss of 200 years to one group of anti-democratic, paranoid, chicken hawk authoritarians. Unfortunately I think this has happened and I don't believe an Obama, or any messiah type, even a secular one, can turn back the clock for the US.

Everything now is good intentions and concern for a myth of national security. Sorry I think they are lost.

Technorati Tags: Authoritarians, Stupidity, Terrorism?, Thugs, Torture vs good intentions, Torture, yes just torture, Useful idiots?, VP, War criminals?

Is George Dubya Batman?

Following up on Dana Steves' review of The Dark Knight in Slate, Travis Daub at Foreign Policy agrees with her that "... the movie seems to arrive at much the same conclusion about Batman as Americans have about Bush: Thanks to this guy, we're well and thoroughly screwed."

To cinch the conclusion, Travis charts a comparison of key characteristics between "The Caped Crusader" and Dubya. And, yes, George is his doppelgänger in key elements, at least.  Check his brilliant chart for yourself.

Technorati Tags: Batman, Brilliant analysis, Sarcasm? I wonder., Soothing? maybe, eh!, The Caped Crusader

Yo, Blair - "you goin or stayin?"

I saw this short article in First Post this morning: Will Blair quit his hopeless Mideast task?.

"The Middle East grapevine is buzzing with rumours that Tony Blair is ready to step down from his post as envoy of the so-called Quartet - the US, UN, European Union and Russia - engaged in the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Appointed with great fanfare last summer, Blair is said to have become increasingly frustrated by the unwillingness of either side to make the concessions required for any breakthrough. Although the official line remains that there is still a chance of a deal being struck before President Bush leaves office at the end of the year, it is widely accepted in diplomatic circles that the US 'road map' intended to guide the parties towards a lasting settlement is effectively dead and buried.

Philip Jacobson
The First Post
July 21, 2008

Likely just some opportunistic speculation, as I've yet to find any mention of the rumour on any other MSM news sites. I expect the MSM are all busy little beavers with Obama's grand tour of the foreign places and some small coverage of Gordo's jaunt to Iraq and now, today, over to Israel to pay his obligated homage.

Poor Tony it must be lonely in his Israeli palace with none really caring. Oh well, it gives him more time to count up his potential fortune from various per diems or whatever from Yale and those speech, eh, and those mad money gifts from JP Morgan, Zurich, etc.(?) etc.(?) ... . Of course, he may also be working furiously away on his autobiography, or is it just to be selected memories. This could, for a time, keep him amused as he contemplates Jesus or transubstantiation or other faith-based puzzles in the sandy insane asylum a.k.a. the ME.

As a quick verification of the rumours that have the ME abuzz, I checked around for any other stories recently on Tony and found this human interest piece, by Lesley White, on him a couple of Sunday's ago in TimesOnLine:"Tony Blair's second coming". This has to be a sure sign that Tony boy is about to go. Why do I say this, because I've noticed a causal correlation between retrospective MSM pieces about public or semi-public figures just before they either: die, retire or get kick-out. As I said it's a causal link so I'm not going to try to substantiate it here.

I particularly liked these 2 paragraphs from the Timesonline article- so intimate, eh:

"To reach Tony’s terrace, where he receives a stream of supplicants, I pass through his bedroom, which is chaotic – a pair of trousers dumped on a stack of newspapers, a Waitrose plastic bag, rumpled sheets, old coffee cups.

In an anteroom next door stands a treadmill, a bench press and an exercise mat – all used daily. We eat lunch under huge parasols, overlooking east Jerusalem’s temples and mosques, the trickle of water irrigating potted plants. Waiters bring fish and roasted vegetables, but Blair takes three bites and stops. He is careful about health, especially since his arrhythmia, which is now in check but likely to return as the years pass.

Tony's second coming
Timesonline
July 6, 2008

Remember him meeting Arnold back in the summer of 2006, when Israel was bombing the bejesus out of Lebanon, and his feverish response to Cherie about the privilege:

“I rang up my wife, and she asked me, 'How do you feel about being there with Arnold Schwarzenegger?' ” Blair said. “I actually felt acute body envy.”

I wonder if Tony isn't worried about his arrhythmia but just trying to fix that pouchy body of his:

Technorati Tags: Blair, Confusing?, photo-journalism, Sarcasm

Quick update on the post below: US enforcing toothpaste quotas

I just ran across this fun note at CounterPunch by David Lindorff which is also helping improve my getting through this hot and humid day, laughing of course:

The Absurd and Destructive War on Terror

I Was a Victim of the TSA

A good start to a hot Saturday - US enforcing toothpaste quotas & roadside bilingual tests (ha ha ha, I think)

Yes, a good start to what seems will be another hot and humid day.

First I read Barnett Rubin's short note "War on Terror Madness" which closes with his telling of an adventure at LaGuardia airport security in NYC on his way to DC to brief military types about the current Afghan complexities:

"THEY CONFISCATED MY TOOTHPASTE!

Yes, I had a tube of toothpaste (Sensodyne) in a regulation one-quart clear plastic bag which I dutifully took out of my bag and placed in the grey plastic bin along with my jacket (required at the conference) and my loafers (special flying shoes). My computer was in another bin. When I got to the other side the TSA employee was eyeing my toothpaste suspiciously. He turned it over and peered through the sealed clear plastic bag.

"You can't take this on. This is 4 ounces, and the limit is 3.5 ounces."

I didn't say anything. Probably they will have toothpaste at the conference center. But it's good to know that at least one part of the War on Terror is being implemented flawlessly.

War on Terror Madness
Barnett Rubin
July 17, 2008

Then this truly hilarious report in the TO Star: Trucker fined $500 for failing roadside English test

Seems a certain Manuel Castillo, a 50 year old onion trucker from California, nationality unknown or unreported, was stopped in Alabama state by a local trooper who administered the US federally mandated bilingual test for truckers.

Señor Castillo, I presume, failed the test and was fined $500 before being sent on his way back to California to pick up more onions so Alabamans won't have to be like the Israelites wandering around for 40 years, was it, and longing for some of those Egyptian onions, eh.

So air travel between NYC and Washington has been saved from a toothpaste threat and roads are safe as hell in Alabama.

Excellent, I guess.

Technorati Tags: Bilang anyone?, Outside view, Security, Safe & sound?, Silly, Terrorism?, USA

Another short update: Pathetic little worm

A short update to 2 earlier notes ( A & B ) on the new book "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer

Via Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, Jane Mayer's response to Professor Seligman's denial of any complicity in the Bush Administrations trip into the underworld.

An aside: Whenever I have to remind myself of the absurdity of a moral (?) government stooping to torture - enough, eh, with the nonsense unspeak phrase "enhanced interrogating methods" christ I thought PC crap was dead - I read Vladimir Bukovsky's essay "Torture's Long Shadow". I particularly like the Stalin joke with which he start's his essay:

One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in his desk and called off the search. "But, Comrade Stalin," stammered Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it."

Technorati Tags: Muddling, sadism, The Atlantic, torture

Update: Pathetic little worm

I should have included a link to Scott Horton's "No Comment" blog at Harpers along with the original short note on the "pathetic worm". On his blog Horton asks Jane Mayer, the author of The Dark Side, 6 interesting and probing questions:

Six Questions for Jane Mayer, Author of The Dark Side

Incidentally, Horton's second questions is:

2. You have patiently traced the torture techniques used by the CIA back to two psychologists, James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen—you describe them as ”good looking, clean-cut, polite Mormons”—who reverse-engineered their techniques out of the SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) program used to train U.S. pilots in self-defense. In Dark Side, you identify an approach called “Learned Helplessness” as the model they used, and you note that its author, Prof. Martin Seligman, made a visit to the SERE school and spoke with Mitchell and Jessen as the program was being formed. Seligman is a former president of the American Psychological Association (APA), which is the sole association of health care professionals to buck condemnation of “The Program” and to resist calls that its members not be involved in it. Do you believe that Seligman’s proximity to the torture program helps explain the difficulty that APA has in rejecting it?

The Seligman mentioned in the question is already denying any culpability. He asked Stephen Soldz of the blog Psyche, Science, and Society to post his denial:

"Former APA President Martin Seligman has sent the following comment on last night’s blog posting regarding his possible role in the CIA’s torture program and asked me to post it:

July 14, 2008

The allegation that I “provided assistance in the process” of torture is completely false.

Former APA President Martin Seligman denies involvement in developing CIA tactics
Psyche, Science, and Society
July 14, 2008

Technorati Tags: Paranoia, Politicians, torture

Pathetic little worm?

I've just finished watching the live stream of Jane Mayer at the New America Foundation talking to Steve Clemons about her new book "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals".

Interesting, and another nail in the coffin that will come to be known as the legacy of Bush 43 [something you want to bury and move away from quickly].

The item that came up a number of times during the broadcast was the subject of accountability. As, I would think, every non-American expects; Americans actually know it for a certainty, neither Clemons nor Mayer thinks there will be any accountability.

Americans simply will refuse to recognize that they have in effect become a real live thug state. No US politician, least of all any Democrat, would dare to begin, suggest or effect a process that would question and potentially try the current administration as "war criminals". Republicans, hey are you kidding!

Remember the bad guys, if that is what they are, had good intentions. This was mentioned a number of times by Mayer - they were only trying to protect Americans - there was no criminal intent.

A problem for the Democrats who for some outsiders might think would attempt to clear some of the slime from the country's image is that if there is any trying or investigating to go on about the US disaster it is likely some of them - i.e. current members of congress - would be exposed as complicit in it.

Boy oh boy, eh. Good intentions and fear, wow.

The best line in the whole hour or so was Steve Clemons saying that Alberto Gonzoles comes across in the book as "a pathetic little worm... ".  What an epitaph: Here lies the pathetic little worm. Clemons corrected himself quickly by saying that it seems that is what he is from his reading of the book. Mayer laughed and said something about libel.

Technorati Tags: Fun & Games, Much to do about nothing?, Muddling, Politicians

Has the Canadian Military lost its mind or is it just

seasonally adjusting its view of the Afghanistan troubles?

It is nice to see one of my silliest "biking to work thoughts" actually materialize, maybe?**.

Our glorious, Hillier branded, Canadian Forces, Nutynczyk in this case, have, it seems, run the limited world, the Forces peer at, through special magic Canadian Forces glasses.

So, I guess, everything is, as usual, fine, on track, and proceeding according to THE PLAN when gazing through the only in Canadian eye wear.

Excellent. Me I'm always happy and assured when out senior Forces types, make me feel "real" good, eh. [The MSM, in stories on Nutynczyk's excellent tour around there, didn't mention how many hockey sticks he took over. Is there a problem. Hillier always took millions of hockey sticks, eh. What's up buddy? Are you trying to lower morale?]

This, special magic glasses, Canadian view of that dusty place Afghanistan - an outlier (?) - can result in these strange and, I think, quite entertaining, on a humid Ottawa Sunday afternoon, juxtapose set of headlined stories in the only National paper we have that keeps active on this supposed day of rest - The TO Star (I never look at Lord Tubby's old rag so I don't know if the The National Post is alive or even well on this day or any other.)

___________________________

** Oh, what's one of my crazy riding the bike into work ideas?

Run both people who claim they gain weight in the Winter but lose it in the Spring or Summer and inconvenient news that pops up unseasonably so-to-speak through X-11 to smooth out those unhelpful variations, eh.

Myself being, a-one-day-in-the-year-only-flag-waving Canadian, I actually prefer the Box Jenkins autogressive integrated moving average method i.e. X11ARIMA but that's a technicality

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Chaos, Confusing?, NATO group!, Taliban, Toronto Star