No answer is also an answer.

Conditions: Sunny.


"Don't be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily."


Gonzales Takes A Walk.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, he of the faltering memory and "questionable" morals, has decided he can takes no more, and has quit his post. Ahhhh, memories.

Remember the time Gonzales said that the U.S. Constitution doesn't actually recognize habeas corpus, relating to the English principle of fair trial that dates back to 1215?

"There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution," Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 18. He did acknowledge, however, that there was "a prohibition against taking it away."

Gonzales's bizarre remark left Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a former federal prosecutor and the panel's ranking Republican, sputtering in disbelief.

"Wait a minute," Specter interjected. "The Constitution says you can't take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there's a rebellion or invasion?"

Gonzales continued, "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended" except in cases of rebellion or invasion.

"You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense," Specter responded

Ah, fun times. But the best memory would I guess be Gonzales effectively giving Bush the go ahead to have captured prisoners tortured. To clarify, the Attorney General of the United States of America telling the President that it's A-OK to torture people.

His legal advice to the president was that torture is a legitimate option, because Bush's self-defined "war on terror" wiped out all prior legal restraint and in particular "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners."

Gonzales' infamous memo to the president from Jan. 25, 2002, also rendered obsolete, among other constitutional safeguards, the division of powers that provides a congressional check on the executive branch. According to Gonzales' professional judgment, the president was no longer bound to observe the 1996 War Crimes Act, which allows criminal prosecution of Americans for violating the Geneva Conventions and for "outrages upon personal dignity." According to that law, both the president and his attorney general potentially would be subject to severe penalties, including death, for the systematic torture they authorized.

No wonder Bush needed to appoint Gonzales as attorney general, lest some enterprising Justice Department lawyer dare expose the criminality emanating from the White House. Not a fanciful concern, given that we have since learned that the previous attorney general, John Ashcroft, had serious reservations about breaking the laws protecting fundamental human rights. Indeed, the most clarifying moment of Gonzales' government service was his nighttime visit to Ashcroft's hospital bed, where the then-White House counsel failed to deceive an ailing Ashcroft into authorizing an extension of government surveillance. Ashcroft refused and was protected from further harassment only by the intervention of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The problem presented by Ashcroft's display of legal integrity was eliminated when Bush gave his job to Gonzales.

Ah, my. Fare thee well, Alberto. Let's end this with President Bush's words to the departing Alberto

"It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons"

- Truthout.org



"You think you lost your horse? Who knows, he may bring a whole new herd back to you someday."



Lone Bush.

So with all these resignations, is president Bush becoming more and more isolated in the ultimate seat of power? A recent press conference told the tale:

The President was en route to neighbouring New Mexico for a fundraising drive, but a comment on the stunning news was obviously required. Bush duly obliged, praising Gonzales for virtues that had escaped most of the rest of us, and accusing his political opponents of baselessly hounding a noble man from office. But the setting said more about the true circumstances of this latest eviction from the President's inner circle than any words from Bush's lips.

No reverentially smiling aides were at his shoulder. In the background, perhaps 30 or 40 yards away, was the familiar olive-green and white Presidential helicopter, the words "United States of America" painted on its side. At the foot of the steps stood two marines in dress uniform, rigidly at attention, their faces betraying not the slightest expression. In the distance was the tiny figure of another military officer as he monitored proceedings. But that was it. For the rest there was just flat grey Tarmac beaten by the sun, and a vast sky stretching away to the endlessly flat horizon of central Texas. Mr Bush, truly, was a man alone.
[...]

Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington, DC, hit the nail on the head yesterday. Bush, he told The Washington Post, "is not an intellectually grounded president, but a personally grounded president. Personal relationships are everything to him, and loyalty and trust are paramount. There's no secure anchor for him any more."

Seen in this light, his long refusal to accept the resignation of Gonzales, and those angry words on the asphalt at Waco, make perfect sense. Cynics will see the delay in getting rid of the Attorney General (a step long urged even by Congressional Republicans as well as Democrats) as a last effort to maintain a firewall between the White House and the various investigations into the warrantless post 9/11 domestic wire-tapping programme, the politically motivated sackings last year of eight federal prosecutors that threaten to consume the final chapter of his presidency.

Up to a point, that may be true. But Bush was above all reluctant to lose an old friend, on whose absolute and unquestioning backing he could rely. Gonzales had been with him since Texas statehouse times, first as lawyer to Bush the Governor, then as Texas Secretary of State, and finally as a Justice on the state's supreme court. In 1996 it was Gonzales who got the future president out of jury duty for a drunk-driving case, that would have surely brought to light Bush's DUI conviction from two decades before. In the event it did become public knowledge on the very eve of the 2000 election, and almost cost Bush victory.

- Truthout.org

Of course, Condi Rice and (Vice) President Cheney remain, but as the article points out, a huge number of cronies and advisers have fallen from the Bush train, still with over 1 and a half years to go. Hopefully though isolated Bush might not do as much damage as surrounded-by-cronies Bush did.


"Your destiny lies before you. Choose wisely."



Aieeeee!! Iran is... Doing Something!

Iran wants nuclear power. I think that much is obvious. It wants nuclear reactors powering it's cities, and nuclear missiles protecting it from America. And why not, really, given past events? America is as jittery as ever about this, and recent reports from the IAEA has got them all panicky again, for like the fifth time today.

VIENNA, Aug. 30 — Iran is expanding its nuclear program in defiance of United Nations’ resolutions, even as it has promised to answer questions about an array of suspicious nuclear activities in the past, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday.

The assessment by the nuclear agency states that Iran is now simultaneously operating nearly 2,000 centrifuges, the machines that produce enriched uranium, at its vast underground facility at Natanz, an increase of several hundred machines from three months ago. More than 650 additional centrifuges are being tested or are under construction, the agency said.

But the program is running at well below capacity, raising questions about whether Iran is facing technical difficulties or has made a political decision to move more slowly in producing enriched uranium, which can be used to produce electricity or fuel bombs.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said his own calculations, based on the report’s data, suggested that Iran was operating its centrifuges at as little as 10 percent of their potential.

“That’s very low — and we don’t know why,” he said. The agency’s report seemed to focus less on highlighting Iran’s shortcomings than on praising a detailed “timetable” reached with Iran to resolve various issues, including past violations of its treaty obligations.

- NYTimes.com

Yes, so it's the standard shouting and saber-rattling show we've all seen before. Iran could be about to Kill You and Everyone You Love, or they might just be constructing a power system for the future. We don't know, but can you take that chance?...



"Knowledge is that which is acquired by learning. Wisdom is knowing what to do with it."



When the Levee Breaks.

Can you believe it's been two whole years since Hurricane Katrina knocked New Orleans off it's feet? Man, where has the time gone. I suppose the residents of that city have put all that behind them ages a... oh, holy crap...

On Wednesday, protesters planned to march from the obliterated Lower 9th Ward to Congo Square, where slaves were once allowed to celebrate their culture. Accompanied by brass bands, they will again try to spread their message that the government has failed to help people return.

"People are angry and they want to send a message to politicians that they want them to do more and do it faster," said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, a Baptist pastor and community activist. "Nobody's going to be partying."

At New Orleans' Charity Hospital, a 21-story limestone hospital adorned with allegorical reliefs, public officials will attend a somber groundbreaking for a victims' memorial and mausoleum that will house the remains of more than 100 victims who have still not been identified.

"It's an emotional time. You relive what happened and you remember how scattered everyone is now. There are relationships now that are completely over," said Robert Smallwood, a local writer. "The city has been dying this slow death. In New Orleans, you can't escape it. It's bad news everyday."

- Truthout.org

So two years, or (365*2) days later, they're going to build a mausoleum to house the remaining dead people who they can't identify, and massive parts of the city are still in ruins? Really? This isn't in like Iraq or something, this is actually in the USA, right?

Harry Shearer's New Orleans anniversary coverage.



"All your hard work will soon pay off."



Flash: Empty Space in Space.




Space, it is said, is big. Really big. And filled mostly with nothing. But humans, being the annoyingly pedantic creatures that they are, concentrate on the actual things that sit amidst all the nothing, and therefore see the universe as full of things. Things like dust, mostly. And rocks. So it is with a bit of shock that astronomers recently discovered an enormous blank spot in space. Not a black hole, a blank spot. An enormous region of literally nothing. In space, of all places.

The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday.
[...]

"This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void," said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. "It's not clear that we have the right word yet ... This is too much of a surprise."

This void sits roughly 5 to 10 billion light years away, and is seriously freaking out the astronomers.

It could also be a statistical freak of nature, but that's probably less likely than a giant void, said James Condon, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He wasn't part of Rudnick's team but is following up on the research.

"It looks like something to be taken seriously," said Brent Tully, a University of Hawaii astronomer who wasn't part of this research but studies the void closer to Earth.

Tully said astronomers may eventually find a few cosmic structures in the void, but it would still be nearly empty.

Holes in the universe probably occur when the gravity from areas with bigger mass pull matter from less dense areas, Tully said. After 13 billion years "they are losing out in the battle to where there are larger concentrations of matter," he said.

- HuffingtonPost.com

I still suspect this is akin to discovering no water in the middle of the desert, but the scientists have something new to geek over, and any day that keeps them from inventing new ways for us to blow ourselves to kingdom come is a good day, I say.



"The sum of human knowledge is not contained in any one language."




Eat A Cookie, Feel Good.

You might at this point be wondering "Hey, Jones, what's with all the stupid sayings?" Well, I want to share a wonderful form of cookie I discovered this week.

Traditionally, cookies are seen as bad because they make you fat and unhealthy. And that's depressing. But recently I discovered a form of cookie that actually lifts your spirits, should they be low: Fortune Cookies! I'm telling you, the only thing better than munching on a cookie is munching on a cookie that has a wise saying baked into it. Buy yourself a box today, from your local supermarket.

"Your mind is creative, original and alert."

Hey, thanks!




Film Review: The Bourne Ultimatum.

The latter Bourne films are probably the most frustrating films you can ever watch. It's obvious that's there's something of quality going on, the story is intriguing, the actors are pretty good, it even seems exciting, but director Paul Greengrass shakes the camera so freaking much, you simply cannot actually watch the freaking film. You have to dart your eyes around the screen just in order to keep focus on any one thing. Not just the action sequences - everything. Bourne walks down a street. Bourne buys a cup of coffee. Bourne reads from a freaking computer screen. Everything!! It's exhausting, distracting, and supremely annoying.

It's also totally unnecessary. Shaking the camera is a cheap, easy tactic to try and make something more 'dramatic' than it actually is. So if you happen to have a weak action sequence, or some bad actors, you can shake the camera around during the scene to rev it up. These films don't need it, the (terrific) first Bourne film, shot properly, proved that. The story is already interesting, and the actors are all very good. Shaking the camera is like having an earthquake in an art gallery. Frustrating, because the pictures would look better if everything stood still.

Some have said the point of the shaky-cam is to make it feel like you're in the moment. That this is what Bourne himself sees, and feels. I don't know about you, but I've been in a few moments in my time, and I can tell you that when the adrenaline hits and time slows down, everything becomes clearer and more settled. You see what is happening, and focus on it. Logically, Bourne must be able to see clearly in order for him to do the things he does. It's exactly the opposite of what an action sequence, or any sequence really, in a Greengrass film looks like.

You know, thinking about it, shaking the camera is essentially dictating to the audience how they must feel at any given point. It's stuffing the emotion down your throat, rather than allowing you to generate your own emotion. It gives the audience no credit at all as to their ability to react to what they see, it removes that entire part of the equation. Greengrass has decided we're all too stupid to react properly to anything, so he forces the reaction on us. I reject this. I did not come to the theater to have reactions forced on me, I came to see something that would (hopefully) cause me to react in my own way and in my own time. I am a human being, not an emote-O-bot.

Bah. Anyway. The film itself has stripped down to the essentials. Bourne finds out something. Gets chased. Exacts vengeance. Anything extra to that, like say emotion or tone, is now gone. Perhaps it's the effect of Bourne losing his wife, but it makes for a cold, heartless film. This time out he's totally unstoppable. He can walk through a crowd of bad guys and no one sees a thing. He knows exactly what everyone's going to do before they do it. He conjures up access cards and passports out of thin air. He's more machine than man. I think they've gone too far with this aspect. The strength of this franchise was that Bourne was fragile: a damaged weapon that was suddenly scared, alone and unable to remember. But that has now morphed somehow into this focused, calm 'Soldier-Bourne', who simply bounces from stunt to bigger stunt. The hook this time round is that Bourne finally gets to remember. But when it happens, it comes across so ham-fisted, so awkwardly, and without any payoff at all. It's frustrating. I know there's a good film in here somewhere, but I just can't see it. One facial expression out of Five.


And why is this film so blank and devoid? - Interview with ew.com.


More qualified criticisms: - Davidbordwell.net.





End transmission.