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.

Counting You Out, Like a Mathematician

Conditions: Sunny and warm.


The Same, But Different.

While we wait for General Petraeus's report on Iraq, President Bush is still trying to get people to see things his way. His latest move: comparing Iraq to Vietnam.

On Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, Bush will tell members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that "then, as now, people argued that the real problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end," according to speech excerpts released Tuesday by the White House.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush will say.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president will say.

The president will also make the argument that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam, according to the excerpts.
- Cnn.com

You know, this is both enormously frustrating, and possibly holding elements of truth. Both were wars that didn't actually need to be fought, and both have turned into quagmires, and both did/will likely descend into even more chaos if and when the American forces pull out. Also, "the terrorists" have to be seeing this as a big black eye to the Americans anyway.

A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans -- 64 percent -- now oppose the Iraq war, and 72 percent say that even if Petraeus reports progress, it won't change their opinion.

The poll also found a great deal of skepticism about the report; 53 percent said they do not trust Petraeus to give an accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq.

Well, whatever happens I'm sure Bush can rely on Karl Rove to.... Oh No!!



The More Things Are Changed...

So, with the constant rain of death and destruction unleashed upon Iraq every day, is the American mission to bring democracy to the Arabs under any strain at all? Well, yes.

Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.

A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration's stated goals of the war.

But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been.

"Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future," said Brig. Gen. John "Mick" Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war's major battlegrounds.

The comments reflect a practicality common among Western diplomats and officials trying to win hearts and minds in the Middle East and other non-Western countries where democracy isn't a tradition. - Cnn.com

So. We attack Iraq, destroy the government, execute the military strongman, get enveloped in a quagmire, destroy the infrastructure, and then ...appoint another military strongman in order to get out!!! I think I need to lie down for a bit.


Insurgents Have The Power in Iraq, Literally.

And how's the rebuilding phase of the American invasion going, you ask? Swimmingly, if you're an insurgent.

BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 — Armed groups increasingly control the antiquated switching stations that channel electricity around Iraq, the electricity minister said Wednesday.

That is dividing the national grid into fiefs that, he said, often refuse to share electricity generated locally with Baghdad and other power-starved areas in the center of Iraq.

The development adds to existing electricity problems in Baghdad, which has been struggling to provide power for more than a few hours a day because insurgents regularly blow up the towers that carry power lines into the city.

The government lost the ability to control the grid centrally after the American-led invasion in 2003, when looters destroyed electrical dispatch centers, the minister, Karim Wahid, said in a news briefing attended also by United States military officials.
- NYTimes.com

You know, when the military can't even sort out the power stations, let alone anything else, it's a bit more than just a black eye. I mean, when did the actual war end, like a few months at most after it started, and still the electricity is off for most of the time?



Iraq War, by the Soldiers.

A poignant article here at the New York Times, authored by a bunch of actively serving soldiers. I've heard that apparently one of these authors, shortly after writing this piece, was killed by an insurgent.



Calm Like A Bomb.

In a move to make airport security even more paranoid, indifferent and Orwellian, a new tactic is being employed: people. People who are "specially trained", and look for body language and facial expressions that indicate a terrorist amongst the crowd. Sigh.

The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant.

They're called Behavior Detection Officers, and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month. He described them as "a wonderful tool to be able to identify and do risk management prior to somebody coming into the airport or approaching the crowded checkpoint."
[...]

At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls "micro-expressions." Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they're associated with deception.

Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny.

A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler's going. If more alarms go off, officers will "refer" the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning.
- mcclatchydc.com

Gee, people at an airport showing sings of tension, fear, stress, disgust or anger? Unheard of! Everyone knows airports are the most calmest places on earth, where everyone is happy and everything is perfectly fine. And clean. I think we can safely get rid of the metal detectors and guard dogs. Simply looking at peoples faces is a far better and fairer way of figuring out who's carrying a bomb, or a spatula.

...Imbeciles.



In Soviet Russia, You Screw System.

The governor of Ulyanovsk, a region about 550 miles east of Moscow, has decreed September 12th to be a day of procreation, with couples being given the day off work and urged to go home and procreate. With each other.

Russia, with one-seventh of Earth's land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. With a low birth rate and a high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s.

In his state-of-the-nation address last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia's birth rate, including cash incentives to families that have more than one child.

Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov has added an element of fun to the national campaign.

The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.
- Denverpost.com

I'm not convinced. Do we really need more people, or just take better care of the ones we have? I realise we all have a certain tax burden that would become worse with less people to lift it, but surely the examples of Angelina Jolie and Madonna show us that if it's kids you want, you don't have to wait 9 months to get them. This is the nineties, you can get them already broken in!



Summer Slate Season Scoreboard.

So, who's the winner of the summer movie blockbuster financial tally?

# Title Gross to Date Listed Budget

1 Spider-Man 3 $336,436,184 $258,000,000
2 Shrek the Third $321,012,359 $160,000,000
3 Pirates3 $307,592,347 $300,000,000
4 Transformers $303,719,648 $150,000,000
5 Harry Potter $273,600,922 $150,000,000

- Chud.com

So, the answer apparently is Spidey 3. Unless you base it on budgets and net profit. One thing's for sure, I know who the losers are of the 07 Summer movie season.

And I suspect you do too.



Google Now Wants The Universe, Too.

Google, authors of the popular online map feature Google Earth, have now turned their servers upwards in search of more things to photomap.

Yesterday it announced a new service which allows computer users to tour space and watch the stars from the comfort of their living rooms. Google Sky, developed with some of the world's leading observatories, lets surfers tour a virtual cosmos at will.

The service is an add-on to Google Earth, the virtual geography program which lets users access a computerised 3D map of the planet. Surfers who download the new Sky application will be able to look to the heavens from any point on Earth.

The service allows them to zoom through more than 200m galaxies and take a detailed tour around 100m individual solar systems. "You can flip up and see the constellations and search for stars, galaxies, nebulae and fly through space inside Google Earth," said Google spokesman Jason Chuck.
- The Guardian

While this is probably a cool idea, I worry that storing these types of things on servers may give industrialists more room to light-pollute us away from our earth-based telescopes. I mean, why squint through an eyepiece into a sky full of cloud and blackness when you can relax in front of the big screen and look at pretty (but static) pictures?


Globe Of Death. And Light.

I have many nightmare scenarios, bad things that could suddenly occur in normal situations, and one of them concerns light bulbs. Light bulbs are globes of glass, and in order to put one in it's socket it's necessary to exert force on the glass with one's fingers. A long held fear of mine is that the glass could break under the pressure and sever a finger.

But that's impossible, right? The glass is stronger than normal glass, treated so that it couldn't possibly break. Well guess what happened yesterday? I'm screwing in one of these new large light bulbs, and I give it a final twist to make sure it's tight, and it literally explodes in my hand. Pieces of razor sharp glass everywhere. My finger was gashed and everything. Totally nuts. I don't know whether to retreat to my armored bunker, or buy a lottery ticket.


Line Up.

Here's a treat, it's a graphic showing all known bodies in the solar system greater than 200 miles wide. No points for guessing the top ten, but the smaller asteroids are interesting.

Wheeeeee.

Film review: Breach

So, what do you do when you want to tell the true story of an American Double Agent who worked at the highest levels of the FBI, was selling secrets to the Russians for decades, but everything he did is classified? Well apparently, you simply focus on the last few days of the investigation, and treat the lead character as a total blank wall. If it does nothing else, Breach teaches us that if you can't tell the truth then at least make up a really interesting lie, instead of just spending a few hours going "Um."

There's no shortage of talent here, either. The actors and actresses are all top notch (even Ryan Phillipe), and the setting is very realistic. Unfortunately, it's also very dull (though in a realistic way). I'm not being shallow. A good spy film doesn't have to have car chases and shootouts on grimy rain-soaked streets, I would have accepted a dramatic spy film, with the focus on what the spy is doing to try and stay ahead of the feds, and the strain it takes on him and his family, but we don't even get that. Instead, Chris Cooper portrays a man who says one thing and (according to the feds), apparently does something else. Ryan plays a form of cat and mouse with the guy as a new secretary who's actually spying on the spy himself. But it's all a bit undercooked.

I mean, why would a staunchly patriotic church-going Republican FBI career man start selling secrets (some of which almost certainly got people killed) to the Russians? It's the primary question one would ask of this film, and it's the glaring omission that this movie runs aground upon. They either can't or don't want to explain why, or they don't know. Either reason is unacceptable, and essentially makes the whole film a waste of time. Half a bug out of Five.




End Transmission.

A-Choo!

Conditions: Clearing. In my head.


Who's The Latest Rat Off The Sinking Ship?

Karl Rove, known as Bush's Brain, or the Architect of Evil, the Sultan of Suck, Devil in a Blue Suit, MC Rove, the beltway pounder, the er, announces his resignation this week from the White House. Quoth Rove:

"It seems the right time to start thinking about the next chapter in our family's life," Rove said, his voice breaking. "It's not been an easy decision."
[...]

Bush said Rove "is movin' on down the road," and added, "I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit." - Cnn.com

Aww, isn't that delightful? But the storm continues to ...approach the white house, Rove resignation or no.

Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the firings of some U.S. attorneys, but the White House said Rove, as an "immediate adviser" to the president, cannot be ordered to testify.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's chairman, issued a statement following Rove's announcement saying Rove has "acted as if he was above the law."

Leahy added, "There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelops Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House."

I think the saddest part is that this guy isn't really leaving for any of the mistakes he's had a hand in, he's just leaving because he's tired of it all. Think of it as kinda like a murderer going on vacation. Happy trails, Karl.


P.S: Why the neocons won't miss Rove: Counterpunch.org



Cheney Invests In Collapse?

As far as investing goes, I think the best principle is to find out what the experts invest in, and follow suit. It's not courageous, but at least it's not stupid. So, the question becomes, what are the people with fingers in the pies investing in? Like, say, industrialist-in-charge VP Dick Cheney?

Wouldn't you like to know where Dick Cheney puts his money? Then you'd know whether his "deficits don't matter" claim is just baloney or not.

Well, as it turns out, Kiplinger Magazine ran an article based on Cheney's financial disclosure statement and, sure enough, found out that the VP is lying to the American people for the umpteenth time. Deficits do matter and Cheney has invested his money accordingly.

The article is called "Cheney's betting on bad news" and provides an account of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in "a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation."

Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in "Old Europe". As Blackburn sagely notes, "Not all bad news' is bad for everybody." - Counterpunch,org

A lot of economic people note how badly the American economy has been doing for the last umpteen years, now with this discovery you have to think the leaders of the nation are saying one thing, and doing the opposite. Again. The sad part is that this won't make the slightest bit of difference.



This Is Your Mind. This Is Your Mind Blown.

Over in Germany, a pair of physicists are claiming to have broken the speed of light, despite the technical setback of that not actually being possible, according to the so-called experts. Well, who's laughing now? Ha ha ha, her her.

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
advertisement

The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
[...]

The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.
- Telegraph.co.uk

This is pretty awesome stuff. And I'd like to relate here how I just knew the theory of relativity was horse-hockey. I knew it!



The Road Not Taken.

Believe it or not, but on occasion someone will come up with a cool idea for a movie, and Hollywood doesn't make it! I know, it's crazy, but apparently true. Cracked.com has come up with a list of the best films not made, and some of the ideas are interesting. Others are horrific. See for yourself.

10 most awesome movies not made. - Cracked.com




Man v Wild v Fake?

A popular show on the discovery channel, Man Vs Wild, features ex-military and all around cool guy Bear Grylls being dumped somewhere in the wild, where he has to make his way back to civilisation any way he can, without getting killed. Although even that would probably make for great television. It could be on a mountain, in a desert, in a jungle, in the arctic, anywhere, and all he's got is a knife, a water bottle and a flint. Now, the first thing that should strike you here is that this is a T.V show, complete with cameras, editing and music. And since cameras don't yet hover on their own, a cameraman has to come along. A fact Bear himself points out at various times. This is a terrific show, with Bear coming across as very personable, smart and resourceful. He teaches you various tricks about survival, and demonstrates a few things that might make you applaud, throw up, or both. (An example: while surviving in Africa, he comes across a Zebra carcass after a pride of lions have had their fill. He enthusiastically rips into it, hacking off bits of meat that he eats there and then, and then keeps some for later. Sheesh. And that's just one small example. There's also talk of him eating eyeballs and urine...)

Anyone like this is going to attract detractors, and scuttlebutt going around the web is that this show is faked. There's talk of hotel visits, of hidden lifejackets, and careful editing. Here's an example:

Now as far as I'm concerned, I think people are being petty. There's no question from anyone that Bear is really going through the nasty stuff that he's portraying (recent episode in the rain forest had him unable to start a fire (with flint), so he stuffed his shirt with grass, and shivered.) Maybe the documentary people need special shots and things that force them to come back later and shoot certain things again, maybe extra things are done to emphasize a point, but overall I have a lot of respect for this show ands the people behind it, and consider the detractors to be a bunch of fat lazy idiots. Go Bear!




Film Review: Die Hard 4.

You know, money really does ruin everything. A long time ago, some cool guys got together and made Die Hard. And while the film probably wasn't expected to be brilliant, no one told them that so they all put every ounce of effort into making it as good as they could. It wasn't cliched, and it wasn't cheesy, it was an honest attempt at making a genuine film about a regular guy caught in an intense situation. And it worked like gangbusters. The film become so popular that they had to make sequels, which were also very good. And then, that was that. The seasons changed, the studios changed, the public changed, and Die Hard was left to be picked over by the fans on DVD. Everyone should have lived happily ever after, but eventually the new corporate overlords of Hollywood noticed the figures on the various DVD market spreadsheets and realised there was still some profit potential in the long-dormant franchise. So they studied their figures, ran their tests, juggled the numbers and decided to construct a new one, but built to today's standards. Basically, this is like building an ancient pyramid out of plastic.

Die Hard 4 is a cheap, toothless parody of Die Hard 3. McLane essentially just drives around, trying to figure out where the bad guy is, while everyone else tries to get their cellphones to work. The P.G rating ensures that each death scene looks and works much like it does in a cartoon or video game, which probably was the intent for cross-marketing purposes. The effect is a string of seemingly violent sequences that aren't really violent at all, with one exception. Taking away the violence from a sequence where McLane fights and kills someone cheapens the entire thing. I do not cheer for blood, but an action movie has a responsibility to show the effects of the actions that occur. That's how we the audience avoid being emotionally warped: when a character is shot, the actor acts injured, and blood indicates the damage done. When someone is punched, they react so that you can feel the effect of the violence. Cause, and effect. It's simple common sense, and without it the characters feel much like sock puppets, going through the motions with no emotional weight at all.

The one glaring exception is the fight sequence between Maggie Q and Bruce Willis. Again, this is a fight with no actual impact or injury (she comes across as a Terminator. From T3...). However, it's still an elaborate and vicious fight between the two. Perhaps I'm getting old, but the spectacle of a man beating a woman's brains out turned my stomach. I realise she's a bad guy, but I guess my failing is simply being unable to accept that level of violence against a woman, even in a fictional film. A well-earned punch or a shove, like in other movies, can work fine. But this was simply brutal. Willis then spends the rest of the movie gloating to the bad guy over how much he enjoyed killing her. I don't remember McLane being that much of a bastard.

This McLane is old and worn down (not that it's allowed to show - unlike earlier Die Hards, and in the face of the entire point of the character), bitter at being ignored for all the heroics he's done, and angry that his family have abandoned him. It's good fodder, but unfortunately for some reason comes across weakly, as if it's just something to quickly get through before he gets to the next fight sequence. A young hacker sidekick is included, seemingly in order to be the one who connects with the audience. Isn't that meant to be Bruce's job? He never swears. He never smokes. His daughter is used the same way his wife was in the first, but this time it too comes across cheaply. McLane is just a cartoon character this time around, as are everyone else, and the bad guy and the (boring, cliched, tired) computer-hacking-based plot and the action sequences all line up with the theme of emotionless violence and dumb one liners that modern action movies embrace. It's not even directed all that well. How disappointing. One laptop out of five.


Summer Super Blockbuster Death Watch - 2/7



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Boom! Shake the room!

Conditions: Warm and sunny.


Obama Talks the Talk

During the week, reaction to Barack Obama's statement of effectively invading Pakistan if the leaders wouldn't let them get Bin Laden has been decidedly mixed. To those who thought he represented a different thinking model to the George Bush good ol' boy western-caricatured 'dead-or-alive' leader felt betrayed by the statement. And it is a bit galling to hear. Possibly Obama is threatened by Hillary's experience in the White House, and responds to threats about not being tough or experienced by laying down the law, so to speak. Perhaps he's trying to appeal to the lost Republicans who've given up on Bush, but aren't ready to vote for Hillary. Whatever the reasons are, he needs to stick to being down-to-earthly intelligent, and leave the pathetic tough-guy posturing to the Republicans.

So there are hard practicalities here. Can the Pakistan army occupy and subdue the vast tribal territories along the Afghan border? It has never managed to in 60 years. The army is basically Punjabi: the frontier land is alien. The best Islamabad has contrived in peaceful times is a kind of ad hoc devolution which lets the tribes govern themselves. But these aren't peaceful times. Guerrilla cum civil war is one more potential swirl in the growing chaos.

Obama, for all his experience of growing up in Indonesia, doesn't seem to comprehend how desperate and frail the situation is. Cut off funding and aid to the army? In a trice, that antagonises the only current factor for stability that exists within Pakistan and, worse, increases its radicalisation. The religious right has its sympathisers in uniform too.

Does Obama want to see a huge fighting force turn anti-American overnight? Does he want a general in the presidential palace who vows that Washington is foe not friend? Worst of all, having invaded, his marines under fire halfway up some Waziristan ravine, how does he propose to subdue the very areas that Islamabad itself has never been able to subdue? If you think the Sunni triangle is difficult, then this is simply impossible. Bombing Tehran, by contrast, would be a breeze.
- Comment from the Guardian

Missing Stuff in Iraq

Gee, does this sound familiar? Yes apparently a new government report says that about 190,000 weapons have 'gone missing' in Iraq since 2004. Have they checked the moon?

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
- WashingtonPost

So let me get this straight. Not only did the U.S invade the country illegally, and then essentially allow a civil war to destroy what little infrastructure was left, they've also been inadvertently supplying the terrorists with weapons as well? Gee, is there anything more the U.S can do in the region? Set some oil wells on fire 'by mistake', perhaps? Create a hole in the Ozone layer overhead maybe? Sheesh.


Back to the Future?

Here's two news articles that may answer an old question of old dogs and new tricks. First is a sobering piece by Robert Scheer that contrasts terrorists killing children in Iraq with America bombing children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW2.

Of course, we had our justifications, as terrorists always do. Truman defended his decision to drop the atomic bombs on civilians over the objection of leading atomic scientists on the grounds that it was a necessary military action to save lives by forcing a quick Japanese surrender. He insisted on that imperative despite the objections of top military figures, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who contended that the war would end quickly without dropping the bomb.

The subsequent release of formerly secret documents makes a hash of Truman's rationalization. His White House was fully informed that the Japanese were on the verge of collapse, and their surrender was made all the more likely by the Soviets' imminent entry into the fight.
- Truthout.org

And the next article concerns an anonymous British commander in Afghanistan who is politely asking that the American Special Forces sod off out of his area of operations in the country, because they tend to kill too many civilians.

Other British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area. They also expressed concerns that the Americans' extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban.

An American military spokesman denied that the request for American forces to leave was ever made, either formally or otherwise, or that they had caused most of the casualties. But the episode underlines differences of opinion among NATO and American military forces in Afghanistan on tactics for fighting Taliban insurgents, and concerns among soldiers about the consequences of the high level of civilians being killed in fighting.
[...]

"The Americans are killing and destroying a village just in pursuit of one person," said Mahmadullah, 24, referring to Osama bin Laden. "So now we have understood that the Americans are a curse on us, and they are here just to destroy Afghanistan. They can tell the difference between men and women, children and animals, but they are just killing everyone."
- Truthout.org

So, compare and contrast, as they said back in high school. Compare and contrast.


Galaxies Merging, Without Indicators

Four massive galaxies are colliding in the largest galactic merger ever seen, new observations reveal. The smash-up is shedding light on how the biggest galaxies in the universe form – and why many of them stopped giving birth to stars billions of years ago. - Newscientist.com

Three of the galaxies are the size of the milky way, with the fourth even bigger! That's going to need quite a few tow trucks.


No such thing as Dark Matter?

For years the idea has been that, since galaxies do not have enough matter to keep themselves together, there must be something else that we can't see that stops everything from flying apart, hence: Dark Matter. But a new study is suggesting there might another way of explaining the anomaly without to reverting to Invisible Forces.

Here's the thinking:

Newton's laws of physics explain why our solar system stays together. But the planets are negligible in the overall gravitational scheme, with the Sun being the total ruler and containing 99.86 percent of all the mass.

The same Newtonian physics were long ago applied to galaxies, and the rotation of stars couldn't be explained, so dark matter was invented to make theory work.

But a galaxy is much different than the solar system, Cooperstock explains. The conglomeration of all the matter -- stars, black holes, gas, and dust -- is collectively the source of the galactic gravity. Even a black hole at a galaxy's center typically packs less than 1 percent of the galaxy's overall mass.

The overall galaxy's gravity "feeds its own motion ... unlike the case of the solar system," Cooperstock told SPACE.com.

- Space.com

Well, it is fun to see Science once again throw down an idol. (Seriously, is Dark Matter the "religion" of Astronomers?)


And Finally






End transmission.

Kasey the Dog

May you forever run through sunny fields.

Being struck by the sight

Conditions: Warm and Overcast.


All is ...Normal.

So, the state of California handed over a bunch of voting machines, complete with operating manuals and source codes, to a bunch of computer hackers to see if the machines were safe to, you know, count votes. Wanna guess what happened?

State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.

The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,'' said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state.
[...]

"All information available to the secretary of state was made available to the testers,'' including operating manuals, software and source codes usually kept secret by the voting machine companies, said Matt Bishop, UC Davis computer science professor who led the "red team" hacking effort, said in his summary of the results.
- SFGate.com

So guess what they proved? That's right, absolutely nothing. By giving difficult-to-get materials to the hacker team, they provided the pro-machine people an excuse as to why the machines failed, while still being able to say that the machines did in fact fail. So the whole vulnerable foundation of democracy thing: still an issue, like six years after first concerns sprung up. Way to go.



Russia Stakes a Claim. And a Floor.

Pretending that it's like the 15th century, Russian explorers (armed with underwater submarines) planted a titanium flag on the sea floor underneath the North pole. Which the west has treated as if the Russians are staking claim to the oil and natural gas there.

The expedition, covered intensely by Russian news organizations and state-controlled television, mixed high-seas adventure with the Russian tradition of polar exploration, but it was also an openly choreographed publicity stunt.

Inside the first of the minisubmarines to reach the sea floor were two members of Russia's lower house of Parliament, one of whom, Artur Chilingarov, had led the expedition to seek evidence reinforcing Russia's claim over the largely uncharted domain.

That claim, which has no current legal standing, rests on a Russian assertion that the seabed under the pole, called the Lomonosov Ridge, is an extension of Russia's continental shelf, and thus is Russian territory.

Russia submitted its claim in 2001 to an international commission, which has thus far ruled that the available data is not sufficient to support it. But Russia has pressed on. - IHT.Com

It's really no different to what any other country is trying to do these days. As the natural resources our civilisation runs on start to dry up, the likelihood is that this kind of thing will become commonplace. Let's pop some corn and see what happens next.



You Are There.

Here's an artist's rendering of what our Milky Way might look like if we were in another galaxy and looking at it. Of course if we were, we may well not actually have eyes that could 'look' at things in the sense that we have now. And of course then the Milky Way would mean nothing to us because as far as we're concerned it's just a bunch of rocks. But anyway, it's a neat painting.

It's full of ...stuff.




Schwarzeneggar!

Happy birthday to the governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sixty years old today. And to celebrate, natives on Skull Island tossed him a blonde...

- David Letterman

Nietzsche Family Circus




"The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote. Refresh the page to see a new comic"

Uh, okay.



Trailer Hell

Due to time constraints, instead of describing it myself, I'll let you read the description at CHUD. It sounds like fun.

Chud.com - Trailer Hell.



Music Corner

Time for a little fun. This is what they should play at political rallies. And my funeral.

People can no longer cover their eyes
If this disturbs you
Then walk away
You will remember the night you were struck by the sight of
TEN-THOUSAND FISTS IN THE AIR!!

Film Review: The Simpson's Movie

As you'd expect, the problem with the Simpson's as a movie is that it's been a TV show for 18 years, everything has already been done. And the characters pointing out that everything has already been done, has also been done. As has the criticism of paying for something you've been getting for free: Homer himself points that out to us in the opening moments. So as long as you accept that this isn't going to be anything new, in fact this is going to be much like putting on a comfortable old pair of shoes, then you should enjoy yourself. The plot is wacky, the jokes are funny and each family member gets enough time to come across genuinely. What is surprising for a moment is the lack of supporting characters, considering how much they appear in the TV show, and how good they usually are. But it does make sense that the movie would focus on the family.

What you can see, though, are the moments where they've had a joke, and then extra writers and animators have come in and "punched up" the joke for movie audiences. The animation is of a very 'good' quality as well, such as it is. Overall, a not-disappointing time at the theater, even if it's a bit odd. Three Korean animators out of Five.


Super Summer Blockbuster Holiday Death Count Watch - 2/6



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