Falling into the East River

Conditions: Sunny and warm. Ahhhhh.


Biggest Story of the Century?

You'd think something as white hot as the White House being in defiance of Congress would be the lead story on American news channels. But thanks to the continuing wacky antics of pop starlets, I guess America has other things on it's mind. Still, some people are calling this the biggest story of the century. That's worth something, right?

On Friday the WH told Congress it will order the Justice Department to disregard Congress if it tries to hold recalcitrant Administration officials in contempt, even though Congress has every right under the Constitution to expect the Department of Justice to enforce Congressional subpoenas. We need to be very clear about what this latest WH defiance means: the White House believes the Justice Department does not have an obligation to uphold the law on behalf of the Congress of the United States; instead, DoJ exists solely as a legal arm to shield the President and his staff from all efforts to hold them accountable under the law. Of course, the Attorney General, a man without honor or sense of his legal obligations to the American people, will do nothing to overturn the WH capture of America’s Justice Department.

As the New York Times lead editorial recognized Sunday, the Bush White House is now in complete and open defiance of all lawful Congressional efforts to hold the executive accountable for misconduct and possible crimes committed by members of the White House staff. Just as Bush claimed he had an inherent right to disregard Congressional statutes (e.g., FISA, the Geneva Conventions, signing statements) and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, or to cover up WH complicity in crimes (via commuting Scooter Libby’s prison term), the President is now claiming he can ignore any Congressional oversight of White House misconduct. - Firedoglake.com

It's always struck me how the general American 'public' seem only to respond to the big obvious things, and less so to the long-developing and complicated things. So anyone wanting to create an uproar needs to find a simple short and 'fresh' phrase to generate any useful outrage. Simply talking about how Bush is instigating a constitutional crisis just isn't going to get the job done.



Prodigal Son Returns?

It might, finally, be starting to happen. Here is an article from the current U.S ambassador to the U.N that lays out a pretty strong case for the U.N taking the lead in dealing with the existential mess that is Iraq itself, and the unease in the the region.

The United Nations possesses certain comparative advantages for undertaking complex internal and regional mediation efforts; it can also help internationalize the effort to stabilize the country.
[...]

To do this work, the United Nations will need additional political, financial, logistical and security support from states with interests in the region. In addition, the coalition will need to maintain forces in Iraq to build on the initial positive security results of our new strategy in Iraq, and to work with the United Nations to ensure that the coalition’s military strategy supports the internal and regional mediation efforts. The United States recognizes its responsibilities and is prepared to do its part.

While reasonable people can differ on whether the coalition should have intervened against Saddam Hussein’s regime, it is clear at this point that the future of Iraq will have a profound effect on the region and, in turn, on peace and stability in the world. The United States endorses Mr. Ban’s call for an expanded United Nations role in Iraq to help Iraq become a peaceful, stable country — one that will be a responsible partner in the international community and a force for moderation in the region. - NYTimes.com

At first, this is pretty damned galling considering what happened in 2003. You know, where the U.S dismissed the U.N as an impotent debating chamber and declared an illegal war on another sovereign country. It is a fact of the realpolitick world that we have now come around to this point, where the U.S recognizes the shit it is in and is prepared to go back to the U.N for help. And the U.N will eventually help, because it is (still) in everyone's best interests for this to happen.


And how does the fundamental U.S right-wingers, who hate and fear the U.N and truly believe America is winning in Iraq, react to this, you ask? Badly. Check out a take on this from FamilySecurityMatters.org. Witness if you will the triple-backflip required to write this bit:

It seems clear that we have Al Qaeda and rogue Baathist insurgents on the run in Iraq. We are chasing them from one after another of their safe havens. Why, then, is the administration calling for handing the fight to the U.N.?
[...]
If, by some chance, the situation in Iraq stabilizes and the Iraqi government survives, who will be given the credit? I think we all know the answer to that. We can hear the commentators saying that the U.N. will have “saved” the U.S. in Iraq.

Terrorism! Challenges! Homeland! Global! Moms and kids! Looking toward the future!

This website scares me.


Searching For The God Particle

Here is something interesting, It's to do with the balance of the particles that make up the universe. See? Riveting.

Earlier this summer, the physics world was jolted by a rumor that a team of scientists from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, in Batavia, Ill., had found a bump in their data that might be a legendary particle that has haunted physicists for a generation. It is known colloquially as the Higgs boson and sometimes grandly as the “God particle.” According to the Standard Model that has ruled physics for 30 years, the Higgs endows elementary particles in the universe with mass.
[...]

Confirming the rumored bump would confirm a profound conjecture about how nature works, cementing into place the last missing piece of the so-called Standard Model and perhaps pointing the way to a deeper theory that could answer questions the current model leaves open — such as why the universe is full of matter but not antimatter — a New World of physics.
[...]

“A bump is going to happen somewhere,” said Dr. Dorigo, who added that determining the significance of these bumps was the hardest part of the process to explain to the general public. To physicists, the gold standard for a discovery is what they call a “5-sigma” bump, where sigma is a measure of bumpiness known as a standard deviation. A bump that high means that the odds are less than 1 in 3.5 million that it was produced by chance. - NYTimes.com

There is also a political side to this search, in that the American institution doing the research is about to be out gunned by a new enormous European CERN collider that's just been completed. Funny how science works.



Trouble at NASA

Did we know that there's an ongoing strike at the Kennedy Space Center between the shuttle contractor, and the machinists union? Well it may well not be related, but NASA has confirmed an apparent act of sabotage of a piece of computer equipment for transferring data intended for the International Space Station that was due to be taken up in the next Shuttle flight.

Someone intentionally damaged a computer intended for the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday.

The computer had no command and control or navigation functions, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations.

The damage would not have affected the astronauts, he said.

The shuttle Endeavour is supposed to take the computer to the space station after its August 7 launch.

The computer is to be installed in the U.S. laboratory to monitor sensors on the space station's truss.

"It will be repaired, and it will fly on this flight," Gerstenmaier said.
[...]

"The damage is very obvious. It's easy to detect. It's not a mystery to us," he said, according to AP. - CNN.com

Seriously, what's with NASA these days?



Another Google Earth Trip!

Pack your bags, we're off around the world, again! This time the emphasis is on funny and weird stuff, from all over. Boarding at PCWorld.com





Laughing Like There's Something Funny.

They're listed as 'Bad metaphors from stupid student essays', and the rumor is that they're actually all made up deliberately stupid. And they're all actually similes. But I don't care. These are funny as hell, enjoy. A sample lies below.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.


The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can.


They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.


John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

And the rest are here.



End transmission.

Playing for A TV

Conditions: Warmer. Slightly.


Cold War Diplomacy Returns

The British government was last night bracing itself for an inevitable diplomatic backlash after expelling four Russian intelligence officers in protest at the Kremlin's refusal to hand over the prime suspect in the polonium-210 poisoning affair.

In an attempt to underline the government's anger and alarm over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the Foreign Office announced it was ceasing cooperation with Moscow on a range of issues, starting with the imposition of restrictions on visas issued to Russian officials seeking to visit the UK. - The Guardian

I understand why the Russians had the guy killed, I guess. What I can't understand is why the method was as messy and as obvious as it was. Traceable radioactive poison that affected a lot of other people, and caused a very public and lingering death. This is not how things were done in the cold war. The nature of the murder 'weapon' means it was not an amateur effort, but the use of it was very sloppy.

This whole drama centers down on Britain wanting to publicly punish someone for running around London with radioactive poisons, and Russia wanting to cover up exactly who did it and therefore why. Russia cannot afford to have someone on the stand talking about who killed Litvinenko, and why, and London is determined to pin the Russians against the wall. Neither side is going to blink, so I guess we'll just have to wait until things eventually calm down again. As Simon Taylor writes:

Russia in the final year of Putin's regime is clearly going to be a troublesome, bullying country as its chauvinist president attempts to prepare the international ground for his successor. He will thrive on western antagonism. When he goes too far, as over Litvinenko, he must be countered emphatically. But "post-communism" is a far cry from democracy, and will be so for decades. The west has time on its side and a historical affinity with its old adversary. Pointlessly rubbing salt into Russia's wounds is not in its interest, and therefore makes no sense.

Military Occup... I mean, "Intervention."

So, in the abstract and public failure of Iraq, that haunts the news still like some familiar ghost that keeps freaking us out, but won't go away, the question must be asked: can military intervention actually work?

Professor Paul Collier, the director of Oxford's centre for the study of African economics, has just published an important book entitled The Bottom Billion, in which he argues that western troops can be indispensable to salvaging a collapsing society. He recognises that, post Iraq, it has become very hard to gain consent for this to happen. But he cites Sierra Leone as an example of a British military intervention which really worked, and won the lasting gratitude of the country's people.

Collier explores the plight of some 58 countries, inhabited by the poorest one-sixth of the world's inhabitants - "stuck in a train that is rolling slowly backward downhill". He is sceptical about much currently done for them by the outside world. Military intervention can at best, of course, only create a foundation for reconstruction, though without it nothing else may be possible. The efforts of NGOs, he says brutally, often represent populist action of a kind that pleases donors, rather than promises lasting good: "Popular thinking on development is fogged by lazy images." He singles out Christian Aid for special scorn.
[...]

The problem that he does not address is that - with the notable exception of Sierra Leone - the west has shown itself shockingly incompetent at managing military interventions, whatever the principled case for them. The US army has an especially poor record as a peacekeeping force.

Both the British and Americans are conducting studies on the vital issue of strengthening the civil follow-up to troop commitments abroad. If we have learned one lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that all military deployments are futile unless what follows is done right. Without law and order, electricity, tax collection, and honest administration of school and hospital budgets, no society can advance out of abject poverty. - The Guardian

It seems the most important ingredient in any conflict is common sense. Whether the lack of that is due to a failure of leadership, or on purpose (in that it's easier to "accidentally" knock over a sand castle if you're not paying attention) is hard to say.



Summer Blockbusters Recipe

What are the ingredients that make up today's summer blockbuster? Script? No, not really. Toy potential? Absolutely. Phil Hoad at the Guardian runs down the modern day list here.




The Disappearing Door

The one real problem with cars, other than the pollution thing, is the fact that when you try to get out of them they become momentarily bigger. The door opens outwards, so space also must be found outside of the car to accommodate the door. A rare few overt cars have the doors rotating forward, or swinging upward, and that's all fine and good - but what if the space you park in won't allow doors swinging upward or forward either? Well check this out.



This is a 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII Prototype, normally a thoroughly forgetful luxury car, but look at the modifications Joalto Design Inc did on the doors - They electrically slide underneath the car!! And, it's for sale! Go to eBay.com.
(Be sure to watch the video demonstrating how it works)

P.S: no one bought it. How ...expected.



Bumblebee For Sale

Staying with the international rummage sale that is eBay, this is amazing. Not the item, the potential bidder. The old and busted Camaro used as Bumblebee in the 'hit' 'movie' Transformers is for sale.

Check the questions section:

Q: DOES THIS CAR REALY TURN INTO BUMBLEBEE THE ROBOT? WILL IT DRIVE ITSELF? PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP THANKS! Jul-15-07
A: This car does not transform and will not drive itself. It is a real, drivable car.

...There are no words.




Getting Away From Nothing.

When I go on vacation, I like to take one bag. Just one bag, full generally of clothes and books. That's pretty much it. I figure the point of a vacation is to get away from it all. Meet the family who obviously think the exact opposite.

http://email-junk.com/pictures/luxurious-bus.php

Why yes, that is a luxury car that slides under the camper van. Yeesh.



More Perspective

Another exercise in perspective, this time it's a demonstation of how big an atom is, in relation to the things an atom is made up of.

Free your mind.

And considering that, I'm now feeling a little hollow.


Eye's On You.

Google Earth someday may well become the way in which we interact with our planet. From a bunker. On Mars. Anyway, here's a little ditty about cheating and the internet. Enjoy.

Happy Anniversary



Music Corner

A claymation presentation of The Devil went down to Georgia - by Primus. Brill.






End transmission.

Guy in a hat.

Conditions: Sunny and cold.


Facing facts in Iraqs

A 23 page Global Security Assessment that came out this week by the National Intelligence Council (Collective U.S intelligence top brass) has become the latest argument piece in America between Bush and effectively everyone else. The report:

Cast new uncertainty about the chances of success for President Bush's plan to contain the war through the deployment of an additional 28,000 U.S. troops, mostly in and around Baghdad.

The conclusions also appeared to be bleaker than a White House assessment produced by the top U.S. officials in Baghdad, which found that Iraqi politicians have made satisfactory progress on some of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress in May.

And the whole 'Al Qaida is to blame' thing that Bush likes to lean on?

The new report repeats a January intelligence assessment that the conflict is a "self-sustaining sectarian struggle between Shia and Sunnis" for which al Qaida in Iraq attacks have served as "effective accelerants." - truthout.org

Mmmm, sobering.



Bush's policies claim another victim: McCain

The US senator John McCain was today struggling to keep his White House bid alive after the resignations of his closest aide and other top advisers.

Mr McCain, who mounted a strong challenge for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential race, lost his chief strategist and long-time adviser, John Weaver, and his campaign manager, Terry Nelson, in the latest blow to a faltering effort.
[...]

Once the favourite to win the Republican nomination, Mr McCain has seen his poll ratings slump, mainly because of his strong support for President George Bush on the Iraq war.

Mr McCain restated his support for Mr Bush's "surge" strategy in a speech in the Senate yesterday, saying the US military was "making progress". The Arizona senator, who has just returned from Iraq, plans to give another speech on the war in New Hampshire on Friday. - The Guardian

You know, I doubt his loss of popularity is really due to the fact that McCain is pro-surge, I think what the problem is, is that McCain keeps telling people that progress is being made in Iraq, and that Bush has any kind of strategy. People are getting rightly (cynical) about Iraq, so cheerleading for it is a bad move.



Fashion Industry to ...take a stand? Strike a pose? Nothing to it.

I know you were concerned. The Model Health Inquiry, set up due to concerns over the health of models at London's fashion week last year, has decided that using children is bad, and that not eating is possibly something to be concerned about.

But the panel, headed by Labour peer Lady Kingsmill and made up of health specialists and fashion industry insiders, including designers Giles Deacon and Betty Jackson, has stopped short of trying to enforce rigorous measures to weigh models or test their body mass index (BMI) before they are allowed on the catwalk. - guardian.co.uk

Well, I'm glad we have some priorities right, at least.



Don't fence me in.

In the latest missive from the Mars/Venus war, the women of Pamplona are demanding their own version of the infamous (and stupid) bull run, only with cows instead of bulls. Why, you ask?

A student website, www.estudiln.net, set the ball rolling with its campaign "Cows want to run" which asks for a separate encierro, as the bull-runs are known, where only women are allowed to take part.

Women have been allowed to take part in the San Fermin bull-running for some years but they still represent a tiny minority of the thousands of runners who attempt to dodge 600-kilo bulls along an 800-metre course through the streets of Pamplona.

The students say it's only logical that women should have their own bull-run. - news.ninemsn.com.au

Oh, yes, 'logical'. The main event is open to both sexes, so therefore ipso facto it's then logical for women to have their own.


Head's in the dirt.

In Detroit, Reverend Wendell Anthony of the NAACP is to hold a funeral for the 'N' word. 'Nationalism'? I wish. No, this is not a joke.

Anthony, president of the civil rights organization's Detroit branch, said members and supporters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will conduct services and a "eulogy" for the racial slur. The mock funeral will be held during the NAACP national convention July 7-12 in Detroit, he said.

"We are committed to ending hate — word and talk," Anthony said. "It doesn't do anyone any good, whether it's a journalist on TV or a rapper on the radio." - usatoday.com

I have two questions. One, how can you bury a word? Especially one no-one is allowed to say? (Does the casket get blurred out?) And Two, ...is everyone freaking insane? How is this supposed to help anything? Is this an intelligent form of debate over race relations, or a cheap publicity stunt?

Yes that's a trick question.




Feed the hungry

Is there anything more annoying than lazy cannibals? First you have the whole 'eating people' thing, which is enough to keep one up at nights, but now they're making you put the food right in their mouth..

DailyFreeGames - Cannibal Control



Innovative ideas for suicide

Because sometimes it's fun to see what others have thought up.





Hey, pssst.

Hey you! Wanna see something cool?

How about a short behind-the-scenes clip from Indy4?
Indy Arrives




Peace out.

Less than meets the eye.

Conditions: Cold.


Bush commutes Scooter's sentence

Do you believe this?

WASHINGTON -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will not be going to jail for lying in the CIA leak probe after all.

Libby was so close to being imprisoned that last Wednesday he was assigned inmate number 28301-016.

But in a highly unusual and controversial move, President George W. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month sentence after an appellate panel Monday rejected Libby's request to delay the start of his jail time while he appealed his March jury conviction. - Newsday.com

As many have now pointed out, but it bears repeating, Paris Hilton actually ended up serving more jail time than Scooter did.

So, what's the real damage here? What effects could Bush's commutation have? Joe Wilson, the husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, warned

that the message of the commutation might lead to fewer people being willing to risk their lives as covert CIA operatives. - truthout.org

So, the damage that Bush has done by commuting a buddy could well cripple what little human intelligence gathering the US government has in current sensitive areas. That's certainly not going to help anything.


Snapshot

Quick, while you've got a minute, go dump out your pockets onto your scanner and send the image here. You know, for kids. Just keep your eyes closed.



Faceyourpockets.com




CD Hole Art

For years, CD's have had holes in them. And for years, people who make labels for CD's have had to work around this problem. The center of your product, the middle of the label is a hole. That is an issue. Generally, the best approach has been to ignore it, to shape artwork and text around the hole without acknowledging the hole itself. Well, a bunch of guys have actually come up with some artwork that actually emphasizes the hole, uses it as a part of the label. Brilliant.





iamboredr.com




Uh guys, the sculpture's walking away.

This guy could be brilliant. Or, he could be an evil genius. It's a little difficult to tell. Watch his creations here:

Glumbert.com




The iPhone dissected

So, you've just bought the it-object of the year, what do you do with it? Why, take it to pieces of course. Duh.



And why would someone buy a perfectly good iPhone just to pull it apart, you say? Why, to make money of course:

Turns out that the quick way to make money on an iPhone (outside of Apple and AT&T) wasn't to flip it on eBay. It was, instead, to take it apart and figure out who made the chips inside, then buy shares in those companies.

According to Reuters, "investors flocked to the iPhone's newly unmasked parts makers." Most but not all saw an increase in their share prices. - Guardian.com

And you thought the iPhone was about listening to music and talking to people. Hah.


Film Review: Transformers

Ever since the announcement came out a few years ago that Michael Bay was going to direct the live-action Transformers film, I've felt a sense of dread over what it could mean for Bay's career. He started off full of frantic camera moves, reveling in never letting the camera sit still for a moment, and while you could tell that there was some talent going on with the characters, the story, the cinematography, and the action, oh my stars the action, it was difficult and even annoying to tell because of how jerky the camera was. But over the years and subsequent films, Michael Bay has steadily improved towards an actual straight-up Film Maker, calming down his shots and his editing, while actually getting better with atmosphere and characters. I was actually quite impressed with how solid a film The Island was. So the announcement about Transformers had me concerned. It's just big robots fighting. How can he make a cool story out of that? How can he continue to refine his calm, smooth, cool style in the face of enormous fighting robots?

Well frankly, he can't.

Transformers is everything that's wrong with the modern blockbuster, and more. It's louder than the sound the world would make if it split in two. It's bigger than every other Summer Release put together. And it's shallower than the film over your teeth. But this is no sneak attack by the pg-13 dumb-it-down brigade. Oh no. This one demonstrates proudly how dumb it's going to be from the very start. The most stereotyped voice-over in history proudly describes the beginning of time, the history of the robots and how some special energy cube went missing and ended up on Earth. I seriously thought for a moment it was a rich parody, like the opening of Team America: World Police. But then we're treated to a quick Spielbergian (the producer, natch) coming-of-age opening about a boy getting his first car and wooing the high-school prom queen. And woven in between all this, and then for the last forty minutes: Gigantic Robots Fighting.

This film is not about plot. The plot makes no sense. This film is not about characters. The characters are basically cardboard cutouts (yes, even Shia). In the end, all that's left is the action. It's pure give-them-what-they-want audience cheese. Fine. So be it. While there are some very impressive moments of gigantic robotic carnage, there's also a lot of jarringly bad moments where the robots are somehow stepping/falling/tumbling over and around the panicked humans who are running, ant-like, in circles, firing bullet after bullet at the obviously bullet-proof machines. The interactions on the whole are very good, but it may have been pushed too far or too fast, and there are moments where the C.G.-ness is suddenly apparent. Overall the action sequences are shot and edited too fast, and set so that it's very difficult to see what is happening, and to whom, especially since the robots mostly look alike.

I think it's more entertaining than the other big C.G summer movies (which isn't saying much), and Bay's still shooting an engaging film, it just doesn't really pack a punch, in the *emotional* department. It's the emotions of the characters, and their engagement with our emotions that make any film work, from drama to cartoon to action blockbuster. In the end, and to no-one's surprise, this film is too much computer, not enough human. Too much effect, not enough drama. One collapsed building out of Five.

Summer season blockbuster deathwatch score: 1/5



Epilogue: What's wrong with everyone?

I am overwhelmed by how much everyone loves this movie. What the hell is going on? Well, the general consensus is that it's stupid and shallow, and loud and exciting, so overall that's ok. And there's an awful lot of "Oh it's 'Transformers'. I mean, what were you expecting?" The hell?

Blockbuster movies used to mean quality. Jaws. Raiders of the lost Ark. Aliens. Terminator. Predator. Die Hard. The Matrix. These films are not jokes, they are well crafted, entertaining spectacles with interesting characters, engaging stories, and even a big idea or two to ponder. But things have changed. Transformers is the ultimate expression of the indifference the new generation has towards movies these days. Movies used to mean more than just eye candy, the quality of that entertainment was enriched through the filmmakers struggling to pack as much quality into every part of the story they were trying to tell, from the acting to the setting to the music, every part was refined in building that whole. Transformers is yet another modern-day excercise of an old brand given corporate backing for the purposes of selling raw spectacle in the hopes of massive profits, and nothing more. There's no character, no real peril, nothing but hollow spectacle.

But why does the audience cheer? Because of how disappointing most hollow spectacle has become. In the end, Transformers batters the audience into accepting that something good just happened, even if they couldn't quite see what it was.



End transmission.