Biting The Metaphor.

Conditions: Ominously Cloudy.


Fish In A Barrel.

Well, it turns out that the problem with signing up poor people to mortgages was that they feel the financial pinch a lot quicker than the middle-incomers do, and they don't have any other fat to trim. So if you suddenly jack up the repayment rates they simply can't afford to keep up. And now these huge financial packages, made up of complicated percentages of many many mortgages wrapped together, split apart and traded back and forth through financial institutions around the world, start to pop, little by little. Like rotten apples developing randomly in the middle of apple barrels, poisoning the lot. And now the apple traders have stopped trading barrels, because they no longer trust the barrels they're buying anymore, and it's too complicated to open the barrels and figure out which are rotten, and which are not. So what happens when the civilisation as we know it is based on apple traders buying and selling apple barrels, and suddenly they don't want to trade any more barrels? The government decides to buy all of them, with our money.

Wait, we're buying what now? Pure debt? But I don't want to buy debt.

President Bush said Wednesday that lawmakers risk a cascade of wiped-out retirement savings, rising home foreclosures, lost jobs and closed businesses if they fail to act on a massive financial rescue plan. "Our entire economy is in danger," he said. "Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic, and a distressing scenario would unfold," Bush said in a 12-minute prime-time address delivered from the White House East Room that he hoped would help rescue his tough-sell bailout package. "Ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession."

Said Bush: "We must not let this happen."

The unprecedented $700 billion bailout, which the Bush administration asked Congress last weekend to approve before it adjourns, is meeting with deep skepticism, especially from conservatives in Bush's own Republican Party who are revolting at the high price tag and massive private-sector intervention by government. Though there is general agreement that something must be done to address the spiraling economic problems, Bush has been forced to accept changes almost daily, based on demands from the Right and Left.

- alternet.org/

So, not only is the seeming solution to the world's problems is for the people to just buy them, but members of congress seem to doubt even that will work. Some are even saying it's a betrayal of the principles of capitalism and America herself.

Markets made moderate gains Thursday on news that congressional leaders had agreed in principle to a bailout plan for troubled firms on Wall street. But a White House meeting later in the day highlighted work that still needs to be done to reach a final agreement. Mike O'Sullivan reports, there is some skepticism in Congress over the plan and also among average Americans.

Key members of Congress announced Thursday they had agreed to the broad outlines of a $700 billion rescue package for failing financial companies, but several congressional Republicans cast doubt on the agreement after a White House meeting late in the afternoon. The meeting included President Bush, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, Republican nominee John McCain, and leaders of both parties in Congress.

Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate banking committee, emerged from the meeting saying there is no agreement, and other fiscal conservatives in the president's Republican party are reported to be resisting the deal.

- voanews.com/

So, wait a minute. On one side we have calm, soothing tones that reassure us that this will work, while on the other side we have angry people saying publicly that it will not. It's not like this is a horse stuck in a ditch, this is 700 Billion dollars, and quite possibly the decisive moment in whether we tumble into a depression or not. What in hell is going on?

Despite unprecedented calls for quick action, the White House's $700 billion plan to rescue the financial industry appeared to fall apart late Thursday, less than 12 hours after a market-soothing deal seemed likely. A convergence of financial concerns, presidential politics and partisan rancor created an unexpected Washington drama with the nation's economic future hanging in the balance.

House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank, D-Mass., accused House Republicans of refusing to negotiate in good faith and told President Bush "to go to work" to find GOP votes needed to pass the plan. At one point Thursday, a somber Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson kneeled before Democrats at the White House while urging them not to publicly criticize Republicans — and risk sending the financial markets plunging. Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee John McCain issued a statement acknowledging that a bipartisan White House meeting he appeared to have sought to help showcase his leadership skills on the economy had devolved into a "contentious shouting match."

Financial markets had shot up midday Thursday when leading lawmakers from both parties announced they had reached an agreement in principle after nearly a week of talks on the Bush administration's plan aimed at restoring chaotic financial markets and easing an escalating credit crunch.

But the good feelings seemed to evaporate about the time a new player entered the fray: McCain, who a day earlier had dramatically announced he was suspending his presidential campaign to return to Washington to help end the financial crisis. Conservative House Republicans distanced themselves from the bipartisan agreement and promoted an alternative they said would put taxpayers' money at less risk.

- usatoday.com/

Politics! That's the key. Of course there's more going on that what we can see. This isn't just about fat cats trying to keep themselves neck-deep in hookers and blow, this is about being seen as a hero, coming to save the economy. I guess it's like bomb squad members trying to figure out which wire to cut while looking cool for the T.V. cameras. And what can be more photogenic than a presidential candidate?

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The highly anticipated first debate between White House hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama remains in limbo on Friday as Washington legislators clashed over a huge financial sector bailout.

Citing unprecedented Wall Street turmoil, Republican McCain suspended his presidential campaign and called for a postponement of the debate scheduled for Friday night in Mississippi in order to return to Washington to help cope with the financial crisis and spur Congress into approving a deal.

But legislators locked in a series of emergency negotiations Thursday dramatically failed to hammer out the 700-billion-dollar rescue package.

Both of President George W. Bush's would-be successors were in Washington on Thursday, attending unprecedented White House crisis talks on the ailing economy with Bush and top congressional leaders.

They spent the night here ahead of a new round of negotiations set for mid-morning Friday, on Capitol Hill aimed at salvaging what has been described as a national rescue package.

The bailout deal seemed within reach Thursday, according to lawmakers from both sides, but then stalled at the White House negotiations and then was engulfed in new rancor at late-night Congress discussions.

Late Thursday, McCain said he was still optimistic an agreement could be reached Friday, leaving him enough time to make it to Oxford.

"I believe it's very possible that we can get an agreement so that -- in time for me to fly to Mississippi," he told ABC News.

McCain stood accused by angry Democrats of sabotaging a deal so as to salvage his electoral fortunes against Obama, whose poll numbers have risen in recent days on perceptions he would be better at handling an economic crisis.

Obama however pleaded for the frenzy surrounding the White House race to be kept out of the delicate financial talks and said that bipartisan cooperation was vital during the crisis.

"We cannot risk an economic catastrophe," he said in a statement overnight. "This is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem -- this is an American problem. Now, we must find an American solution."

With just 39 days before the November 4 general election, Obama has insisted that the debate -- the first of three scheduled for the remaining weeks of the campaign -- go ahead, arguing it was more important than ever for the two contenders to lay out their case to anxious US voters.

- google.com/

But don't worry, McCain has maverickly changed his mind again, is seemingly back in the race, and both he and Obama will debate today, tonight, just a few hours from now.

Gee, what will they talk about?




Going Back Out Into The Cold.

In news sure to warm the hearts of those of us who miss the good old days of the cold war, The Russian president has announced that they will start building new space and missile weapons, and will put it's armed forces on permanent alert. Wheee!

In a sharp escalation of military rhetoric, Mr Medvedev ordered a wholesale renovation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and told military chiefs to draw up plans to reorganise the armed forces by December.

He said that Russia must modernise its nuclear defences within eight years, including the creation of a “system of air and space defence”.

The announcement puts Russia in a new arms race with the United States, which has infuriated the Kremlin by seeking to establish an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. The US argues that the shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but Russia is convinced that its own security is threatened.

Mr Medvedev told military commanders that “all combat formations must be upgraded to the permanent readiness category” by 2020. He added that Russia would begin “mass production of warships, primarily nuclear cruisers carrying cruise missiles and multi-purpose submarines”.

“A guaranteed nuclear deterrent system for various military and political circumstances must be provided by 2020,” he said after attending military exercises in the southern Urals region of Orenburg.

- timesonline.co.uk/

Do you hear that? That small, high-pitched noise? That is the sound of people in the Pentagon freaking out as they face war on multiple fronts, a crumbling economy, spiraling gas prices, and the old Russian Bear threatening to awake from it's long slumber. I'm sure this will prompt the American government to stop it's ridiculously stupid tactic of setting up missile batteries in old Soviet satellite states and calling them 'defensive', right U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice?

Rice appeared unfazed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's announcement on Friday that Moscow would beef up its nuclear deterrent at a time of heightened tensions with Washington.

Medvedev said Russia would build a space defense system and a new fleet of nuclear submarines by 2020.

"The balance of power in terms of nuclear deterrence is not going to be affected by those measures," Rice declared.

She said the United States has an "extremely capable, robust, broad, and indeed varied nuclear deterrent," adding that Washington would modernize it as necessary.

"That is plenty of insurance against any modernization that Russia might undertake."

- reuters.com/

Ah. It's times like this I wonder if politicians do actually know what is going on.




Film Review: Wall-E

When Pixar first began, they had an idea for a movie. A movie about a desolate future where a sad little robot would toil endlessly, and fall in love. It was an odd idea, one not really all that conductive to blockbuster success so instead they concentrated on making movies about bugs and toys and fish. In the process they became very rich and powerful, and so now they've decided to do their original weird robot movie, Wall-e. So here we are. Pixar films use the traditional Disney formula, a downtrodden something-or-other in a mundane existence will follow his dream and eventually find success. Wall-e does follow this pattern alright, it just does it with the unsettling backdrop of an abandoned and ruined Earth. Wall-e is basically a miniature Johnny-5, complete with endearing twitches and pop-culture references. But before we can really experience this abandoned Earth, or fully appreciate the futile existence he fights against, along comes his redemption.

Because of course the humans have to be somewhere, and they've sent a dove-like probe to check if the earth is safe for their return. And it's the relationship that develops between the probe, Eve, and Wall-e that is the emotional engine of the film. We already knew that you don't need dialogue to tell a love story. But now Pixar have proven you don't even need organic matter. With Wall-e, Pixar have taken a dejected and abandoned little robot and told a charming love story about him and a ruined earth and fat stupid humans and technology and consumerism run amok.

Unfortunately, Pixar have decided to make this a message movie. And the message is: overconsumption is bad. And walking past the many posters, displays, Big Gulp cups and Wall-e toys to get back to the car park, I found that a bit hypocritical. This is the world we live in, of course, but still. If the principle of the thing is the big message inside the theater that we're all being forced to swallow, I don't see why that message shouldn't also apply to the outside world. Ultimately, this is a kids movie. So it is bright and shiny and colourful, and full of loud bright things. It's also short, possibly too short. You get the feeling things got sped up a bit when they realised they were fast approaching the two hour point. But since the film is marketed as something of an abandoned-earth film, it's a bit odd to see that so much of the film is not that. Pixar's legendary focus of details and charm is evident in every frame. It just seems to me that with Wall-E they're trying to fit the round peg of an eccentric abandoned robot who falls in love into the square hole of a big summer kids movie. It's magical, but it doesn't quite fit. Three twitches out of Five.


- Peace out.

The Lonely Path To Isolation.

Conditions: Coldly Warm.


Pickled Profits.

I'll admit to being a tad confused. The week began with stock markets starting to panic and slide downward, and an "artist" who wanted to auction off all his works of "art" amongst great concern from the art dealers that the huge glut of "art" onto the market would drive prices down. But somehow, magically, we end the week with the stock markets soaring upwards and Damien Hirst counting his fresh millions.

Damien Hirst's pickled animals and his other works fetched nearly $200 million at the Beautiful Inside My Head Forever auction at Sotheby's in London. The two-day sale smashed the record for a sale dedicated to one artist, beating by far the 20 million dollars for 88 works by Pablo Picasso sold in 1993 at Sotheby's.

On Monday, his work entitled The Golden Calf, basically a bull in a tank of formaldehyde with gold horns, fetched almost $20 million.

- efluxmedia.com/

Meanwhile...

The most turbulent week in the financial markets in two decades came to a record-breaking close on Friday as some European stock markets saw their biggest ever one-day gains and Wall Street powered higher for a second consecutive day.

It was a dramatic reversal from the first half of the week, when credit markets virtually seized up and stocks around the globe plunged amid mounting fears for the health of the financial system.

Edmund Shing, European equities strategist at BNP Paribas, said: “This week has been completely insane. I have been in the markets for 14 years and I have never seen anything like it.

- ft.com/

I guess the most pressing question is: where the hell is all this money coming from? People moan and complain about how hard times are right now, and giant corporations are falling left and right, but some idiot decides to dump all his pickled meat at the same time and people fall over themselves shelling out millions to snatch it up? And after another week of doom and gloom, the American government announce some crazy (and cloudy) plan to clean up all the secret worldwide debt, and suddenly everyone's shouting 'buy, buy!'? What the hell's going on? If it's that easy, why the hell didn't the government announce this plan years ago? And where is the debt going, anyway? And should we really be rewarding the financial geniuses for running us into the ground in the first place by flushing the stock market upwards yet again? Doesn't this simply teach these people that they can do what they want and, if they fail, they'll get bailed out? Does that work for every industry?

More: Who are these people?



Prudence Requires It.

So, what happens when you ignore a decades-old nuclear arms treaty you signed with the Russians and start developing new nuclear weapons and missile systems? The inevitable happens, as it always does.

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - Russia on Thursday said it test-fired an intercontinental missile designed to avoid detection by missile-defence systems, raising the temperature in a tense stand-off with the West over Georgia.

The Topol RS-12M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia and flew 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) to hit a target on Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east, a military spokesman said.

The test was meant 'to develop equipment for potential combat use against ground-based ballistic missiles,' Alexander Vovk, a spokesman for Russia's strategic nuclear forces, said in televised remarks.
[...]

Russia has been upgrading its Topol missiles in response to US plans to develop a missile-defence shield using ground-based interceptors, analysts said.

- forbes.com/

And so here we have it, after all these years, we're back to having Russia and America develop systems designed to take each other out. The global mindset changes from one of wary cooperation to even more wary opposition, and any development we as a group of civilized nations could actually accomplish is gradually smothered toward oblivion yet again.



Stupid Rules.

Cellphones have a lot to answer for, and one of their many problems is that they tend to distract people from more important things. Like driving, for instance. Last week, a train driver in California spent too long with his phone and not enough with his ...stick?, causing an accident that killed 25 people, including him. That's bad enough, but here's the part that really annoys me. See, the company had a rule that didn't allow employees to use phones, a rule that most drivers ignored. So what's the company going to do about it?

Train drivers in California are to be banned from using mobile phones on duty after a crash in Los Angeles last week that killed 25 people. The state's rail regulators said the emergency ruling was a first step to improving railroad safety.

Yes! A ban! Because a ban will do the job, where the rule has failed! The ban comes with a fine, whereas presumably the rule was just so many words on a bit of paper no one looked at anymore. But a fine, that's completely different. Fine's always stop people from doing stupid things.

There is currently no federal law banning train drivers from using mobile phones at work.

Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said the action would "protect the public".

"What we're doing... is just a modest first step in a much larger effort to improve railroad safety."

- bbc.co.uk/

Oh, don't flatter yourself. This isn't modest, it's bullshit pandering to a temporarily-angry public. I'm sure once the dust settles they'll all go back to barely caring what the drivers do as long as they don't ask for a pay rise. And with computers getting faster and cheaper all the times I'm sure even that isn't much of a concern.



Back In The Saddle.

Adding to the woes, North Korea announced it was restarting it's nuclear plant that it's spent the last few months taking apart, as a angry response to America not taking it off the Axis of Evil watch list as a reward for their deactivating the plant in the first place.

In Washington, the United States reacted calmly to the announcement, saying North Korea had not yet made the plant operational.

"They have not got to that point yet. We would urge them not to get to that point," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said when asked about North Korea's statement.

He urged Pyongyang to agree to a mechanism to verify the claims it has made about the extent of its nuclear program.

North Korea, which exploded a nuclear device about two years ago, began to disable Yongbyon in early November as called for in the deal it struck with China, the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Last month, North Korea said it planned to restart Yongbyon because it was angry at Washington for not taking it off its terrorism blacklist. In early September, it made minor but initial moves to restart the plant, U.S. officials said.

Washington has said it will remove Pyongyang from the list once it allows inspectors to verify claims it made about its nuclear arms production. Once removed, the North can better tap into international finance and expand its meager trade.

- reuters.com/

Well, this is disappointing. Does North Korea expect us to just take their word for it. "Yup, plant's all dismantled, no more nukes, you can trust us." I don't think Bush is that naive. Almost, but not quite.



Film Review: The Mummy 3.

I don't know why I keep falling for it. All the signs point to disappointment. The director has moved on. The lead actress has moved on. There's even a sequence involving a bunch of Yeti's for frack's sake. And yet I still get suckered in. Mummy 3 is not the last final gasp of a franchise that Indiana Jones 4 was. Mummy 3 is the badly resurrected, shadow-of-it's-former-self type of sequel. Transplanting to China, we stumble into a story of Jet Li playing an emperor cursed to be imprisoned in Terracotta until Rick and Evey O'Connell come along and set everything going.

Rob Cohen directs the third film, and it seems his one big theme is: Shakycam gooood. And so we shake. We shake a lot. We shake in Shanghai, we shake in Tibet, we shake on the great wall, and we shake in the tomb. I know I've gone over this before, but I really freaking hate the shaky cam, and it kills what little fun and interest is left in the franchise. Brendan Fraser and new-Evey Maria Bello do their best, but the magic is gone, no matter how hard Cohen shakes the wand.

It's not like the previous films were masterpieces, but I felt they had their own style and high points, both of which are far out of the reach of episode 3. I mean, Yeti's, for pete's sake. Yetis. Despite Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh doing their best (always to be savoured), the third mummy film is an altogether tired and lacklustre attempt to make money off a known brand. Half a snowflake out of Five.




- Peace out.

Adventures In Car Stereos.

Conditions: Overcasty.


Choices Illuminate The Chooser.

So, with surprise-veep candidate Sarah Palin still 'wowing' people with her folksy, iron-tipped charm, can we look at this choice as illuminating John McCain's character? What does it say about this guy that from out of nowhere he picks a feisty inexperienced unknown as the potential Vice President of the U.S?

He wanted to choose the pro-abortion-rights Joe Lieberman as his vice president. If he were still a true maverick, he would have done so. But instead he chose partisanship and politics over country.
[...]

As The New York Times reported last Tuesday, Palin was sloppily vetted, at best. McCain operatives and some of their press surrogates responded to this revelation by trying to discredit The Times article. After all, The Washington Post had cited McCain aides (including his campaign manager, Rick Davis) last weekend to assure us that Palin had a 'full vetting process.' She had been subjected to 'an F.B.I. background check,' we were told, and 'the McCain camp had reviewed everything it could find on her.'

The Times had it right. The McCain campaign's claims of a 'full vetting process' for Palin were as much a lie as the biographical details they've invented for her. There was no F.B.I. background check. The Times found no evidence that a McCain representative spoke to anyone in the State Legislature or business community. Nor did anyone talk to the fired state public safety commissioner at the center of the Palin ethics investigation. No McCain researcher even bothered to consult the relevant back issues of the Wasilla paper. Apparently when McCain said in June that his vice presidential vetting process was basically 'a Google,' he wasn't joking.

This is a roll of the dice beyond even Bill Clinton's imagination. 'Often my haste is a mistake,' McCain conceded in his 2002 memoir, 'but I live with the consequences without complaint.' Well, maybe it's fine if he wants to live with the consequences, but what about his country? Should the unexamined Palin prove unfit to serve at the pinnacle of American power, it will be too late for the rest of us to complain.

We've already seen where such visceral decision-making by McCain can lead. In October 2001, he speculated that Saddam Hussein might have been behind the anthrax attacks in America. That same month he out-Cheneyed Cheney in his repeated public insistence that Iraq had a role in 9/11 - even after both American and foreign intelligence services found that unlikely. He was similarly rash in his reading of the supposed evidence of Saddam's W.M.D. and in his estimate of the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. (McCain told MSNBC in late 2001 that we could do with fewer than 100,000.) It wasn't until months after 'Mission Accomplished' that he called for more American forces to be tossed into the bloodbath. The whole fiasco might have been prevented had he listened to those like Gen. Eric Shinseki who faulted the Rumsfeld war plan from the start.

In other words, McCain's hasty vetting of Palin was all too reminiscent of his grave dereliction of due diligence on the war. He has been no less hasty in implying that we might somehow ride to the military rescue of Georgia ('Today, we are all Georgians') or in reaffirming as late as December 2007 that the crumbling anti-democratic regime of Pervez Musharraf deserved 'the benefit of the doubt' even as it was enabling the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. McCain's blanket endorsement of Bush administration policy in Pakistan could have consequences for years to come.

- truthout.org/

So, firstly it seems McCain's image as a maverick who will do what he thinks is best, regardless of whether his party agrees, hasn't even survived the V.P-picking stage of his candidacy. And secondly, going with Palin shows that while mavericks may be exciting to watch on movie screens, or read about in books, when it's a real person who's mavericky decisions have to be lived with by everyone else, pretty soon all that impulsiveness that seemed charming becomes wildly unsettling at best, disastrous at worst.



Examining The Peace.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth (too much), but peace seems to be settling onto Iraq like a big fluffy blanket. Therefore in political circles it's now time to stop distancing one's self from the war, and start taking credit for it. W Bush, and W McCain in particular have nominated the surge as the reason Iraq is now 'pacified.. But is it? Bob Woodward's latest book (focusing on the Iraqi spying the CIA has been up to) goes into some detail about the end of the Iraq war.

The American troop 'surge' of 2007 when 30,000 additional U.S. troops were sent to Iraq to pursue more aggressive tactics was not the main reason for the fall in violence in Iraq over the last sixteen months says Mr. Woodward in The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008.

Instead he claims that "ground breaking" new covert techniques enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials to find, target and kill insurgent leaders in rebel groups, particularly in al-Qa'ida in Iraq. In its summary of Mr. Woodward's book, to be published on Monday, the Washington Post, of which he is associate editor, says he does not reveal the code names of this assassination campaign because of national security concerns.

The origin and degree of success of the 'surge' is politically important in the U.S. presidential election because the Republican candidate John McCain says that he was an early advocate of the strategy and it has brought the U.S. close to military victory.

Denying this, Mr Woodward concludes that there were four factors leading to the reduction in violence in Iraq: covert operations, troop reinforcements, the decision by the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to restrain his Mehdi Army militia, and the rise of the Awakening Movement in the Sunni community opposing al-Qa'ida in Iraq.

There certainly was an increase in assassinations of Sunni rebel leaders in early 2007 timed to coincide with the beginning of the "surge." But the weakening of al-Qa'ida came primarily because al-Qa'ida alienated the Sunni by trying to take full control of the anti-American resistance and also provoked a sectarian war with the Shia in which the Sunni were largely defeated.

- alternet.org/

So bear this in mind when politicians talk about the surge: it was only a small part of the reason why eventually Al Queda in Iraq were beat down, and other parts of the reason included the current religious segregation of the entire country, covert ops and Al-Queda getting greedy. Try drawing campaign slogans for that. McCain 08: Because the bad guys are probably as fallible as we are!

Despite strong evidence to the contrary, it has become established conventional wisdom among mainstream Washington journalists that the "surge" was the singular reason for the recent decline in Iraq's violence. It's also agreed that McCain deserves great credit for pushing the "surge" idea early.

Barack Obama has been repeatedly chastised -- even badgered -- for opposing the "surge." His attempts to refocus the debate more broadly on the wisdom of invading Iraq in the first place are rudely rejected by Big Media interviewers.

The latest example came during an ABC News "This Week" interview on Sept. 7 when George Stephanopoulos demanded of Obama: "How do you escape the logic that ... John McCain was right about the surge?"

When Obama responded that he didn't understand "why people are so focused on what has happened in the last year and a half and not on the previous five," Stephanopoulos cut him off, saying "Granted, you think you made the right decision about going in, but about the surge?"

In other words, the big-name journalists don't want a discussion about the decision to illegally invade Iraq under false pretenses in 2003 (presumably because they almost all were cheering the invasion on), but instead they want the debate to center entirely on their latest false assumption, that the "surge" has virtually won the war.

- alternet.org/

I guess in the world of television, there simply isn't time to go into a detailed analysis of why something has happened. People may change the channel, and that is more dangerous than mis-information. I'll put $20 bucks on the table right now that says 20 years from now the Iraq war will be seen as a huge American success.

Does it show I'm not much of a gambler?




Still Waiting On That Whole Anthrax-Killer Thing.

Despite waiting a month, the F.B.I still hasn't really proven that Bruce Irvins, a U.S army scientist, was the anthrax-killer. Is anyone curious about that?

In a letter sent Friday to Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee said that "important and lingering questions remain that are crucial for you to address, especially since there will never be a trial to examine the facts of the case."

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, committed suicide in July, and Mr. Mueller is likely to face demands for additional answers about the anthrax case when he appears before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on Sept. 16 and 17.
[...]

Meanwhile, new details of the investigation, revealed in recent interviews, raised questions about when the bureau focused on Dr. Ivins as the likely perpetrator and how solid its evidence was.

In April 2007, after the mailed anthrax was genetically linked to Dr. Ivins's laboratory and after he was questioned about late-night work in the laboratory before the letters were mailed, prosecutors sent Dr. Ivins a formal letter saying he was "not a target" of the investigation. And only a week before Dr. Ivins died did agents first take a mouth swab to collect a DNA sample, officials said.

Justice Department officials, who said in early August that the investigation was likely to be closed formally within days or weeks, now say it is likely to remain open for three to six more months. In the meantime, agents are continuing to conduct interviews with acquaintances of Dr. Ivins and are examining computers he used, seeking information that could strengthen the case.

So, despite the guy being dead, and there not going to be a trial, the F.B.I is still going to spend months building a case?

Officials also acknowledged that they did not have a single, definitive piece of evidence indisputably proving that Dr. Ivins mailed the letters - no confession, no trace of his DNA on the letters, no security camera recording the mailings in Princeton, N.J.

But they said the case consisted of a powerfully persuasive accumulation of incriminating details. Dr. Vahid Majidi, head of the F.B.I.'s weapons of mass destruction directorate, said the accumulation of evidence against Dr. Ivins was overwhelming: his oversight of the anthrax supply, his night hours, his mental problems and his habit of driving to far-off locations at night to mail anonymous packages.

- truthout.org/

Ahhh, circumstantial evidence, how I wish you could fill the hole in my heart. - I mean, the case. The hole in the case.




Film Review: Taken.

Liam Neeson stars in this film about a retired government agent who's daughter is kidnapped while on a trip to Paris and sold into prostitution. Of course he goes after her and proceeds to torture and kill his way through various brothels, slave markets and prostitute halfway houses in his quest to get her back. I'm assuming they asked Harrison Ford first, since this is his kind of role, but who it's really suited for is Kiefer Sutherland. This really feels like a simplified adventure for Jack Bauer.

There's no context for this film. The motives and pressures for the various bad guys are completely ignored. They are just fodder to be tracked down, quickly interrogated (if they're lucky) and then dispatched. This film has absolutely no qualms about torture, innocent casualties, or mass execution. How many does Liam kill in his rush to save his daughter? 20? 30? With all the shaky camera, it's hard to tell.

And that's the problem. With absolutely no context or information about the bad guys, and every action sequence being a riot of shaky-cam as Liam's stunt double smacks yet another "foreign guy" into a wall, or the floor, or his fist, or the wall and then his fist, or the wall, then the floor, then his fist... you start to drift off. I mean, if you can't tell what's going on, and you don't even know who it is who's receiving the latest smackdown, then it's tough to keep paying attention. This is the price of the shakycam. Sure, it makes shooting action sequences quicker, faster and cheaper, but it disconnects all the drama from the scene. And you find yourself thinking, as the various grunts and yelps emanate from what looks like scenes from inside a blender, that while that silvery thing might be a knife that the bad guy is wielding, of course Liam isn't going to come all this way just to get killed by bad guy #18 or bad guy #25, so I'm sure he'll be fine. And he is. This film is an old cliche wrapped up in a new fad. And the daughter was annoying. One karaoke machine out of Five.



- Peace out.

Toiling Without Merit..

Conditions: Sunny.


McCain Jumps On The Non-Bandwagon Bandwagon.

So, how do you combat an opponent who is smart, an inspiring orator, and a personal symbol for his message of hope and change? By bringing in some hope and change of your own. In a surprise move, John McCain has announced his V.P will be a woman, surprise veep candidate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. And seriously, this seems a tad cynical to me. Did John really choose this candidate because she's the best man for the job, or because she'd be "seen" to be the best man for the job, in this current climate of changeinter, or changetumn? Is he pandering to us, we who are so desperate for change we'd actually consider ditching the Republican party and vote for a black man? Gasp! Is this what it comes down to, have the Republicans become so desperate they're willing to offer up their own "minority" candidate just to try and stay in the "change" race? And why Palin? Who is she? How is she more qualified in the woman-politician-minority stakes than Condoleeza Rice, who is not only a woman, but is black, has an oil tanker named after her, and (perhaps more importantly) actually has been an important figure in international affairs over the last eight years? I mean, if these are the tactics then why not go all out?

Vice-presidential candidates are often used by presidential campaigns to criticize the opposing ticket -- so the presidential nominee does not have to descend to the muddier side of politics. However, as Palin wrapped herself in a mythic version of small-town America to emphasize Republican values, she also presented a distorted picture of political realities in the country. Most notable in this regard was her criticism of the media and Washington "elites," even though her party has held the White House for seven-plus years and majorities in Congress until 2006.

"I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment," Palin said. "And I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion; I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people."

Palin portrayed herself as a reformer in Alaskan politics, although independent press accounts in recent days strongly suggest otherwise. Despite an ongoing investigation by Alaska's Legislature into Palin improperly using her office to pressure the state police to fire an officer who divorced her sister, and Palin heading a fundraising committee that accepted unlimited donations for Sen. Ted Stevens, now under federal indictment for corruption, Palin said that she fought and beat "special interests."

"We are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and a servant's heart," she said. "I pledge to all Americans that I will carry myself in this spirit as vice president of the United States. This was the spirit that brought me to the governor's office, when I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau; when I stood up to the special interests, the lobbyists, big oil companies, and the good-old-boys network."

Palin's account of herself as an anti-corruption and anti-spending crusader also included her oft-repeated claim that she opposed building a bridge costing several hundred million dollars to a remote town of 14,000. Press accounts from Alaska note that she supported "the bridge to nowhere" for years, before finally canceling the project as governor.

- alternet.org/

So, is there blood in the water? John McCain is 72 years old. There's a possibility here that, if elected, Sarah Anonymous may well end up the President herself. This point alone is a strike against McCain. Is this the chance the Left-wing attack machine, all coiled up like a long-dormant spring, has been waiting for? Will it now wind itself into action, hammering into the Republican ticket for month after month? Is that how the Democrats will retake the white house?

The Democrats need to be careful about the intensity of their criticism of Sarah Palin.

She may look like an easy target, an appalling lightweight who will send serious voters scurrying to the more substantive Obama-Biden ticket. And the temptation to get on her case probably became greater with Ms. Palin's disclosure Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

But the Democrats should not push this stuff too far. Ms. Palin is a lot more appealing personally than the often testy guy at the top of her ticket. And the inescapable reality is that there are millions of voters who identify with her, and may be quick to resent attacks that they perceive as bullying or overkill.

Here's the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction. She's meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign -- the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions. Willie Horton was a distraction. The chatter about gays, guns and God has been a long-running distraction. And we all remember the Swift-boat campaign.

- alternet.org/

Ahhh, the old misdirection ploy. Classic Republican tactics, I knew you were there somewhere. Evergreen, always, everlasting.




Walking Out The Clock.

Modern workers today have it tough. Comfy chairs. Air conditioning. Windows. Yessir, folks today have it rough. So rough that many, many office workers get fat because their job requires them to sit on their asses all day and eat junkfood. Those contractual hidden clauses are a killer. Always prepared to make a buck, entrepreneurial health gurus have leapt at an opportunity to get in on the action.

Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist based at the Mayo Clinic, points to sitting as an important culprit of weight gain. His research has found that obese individuals tend to sit two-and-a-half more hours per day than lean people.

So what’s a Downtown office worker to do?

Salo LLC, a professional staffing firm based at 13th Street & Harmon Avenue, has taken Levine’s research to heart and installed over a dozen treadmill desks in its office. The $6,000 setup looks like a standard treadmill that is outfitted with an adjustable countertop. There’s a phone jack for a headset and a computer attached to the table. Employees can pull up their home computer’s desktop right at the walking workstation.



On a Wednesday last month at 9 a.m., treadmills were already in use inside two meeting rooms, and a handful of staff members were using the treadmill desks while typing or talking on the phone. Top walking speeds on the treadmill hit just two miles an hour, but Levine says the simple movement can still burn hundreds of calories in a day.

Ah yes, the old "incorrect answer to the wrong question" play. Let's solve this fatness by yet more distraction! Why have people actually do something positive and constructive, when they can just do something different, yet pointless, instead?

Some people worried that productivity would go down due to the extra distractions, but revenues actually jumped 10 percent in late 2007 during the first three months of the study.

Gee, wonder if that has anything to do with all the attention the bosses and fitness 'experts' are paying the workers, and the shiny new stuff to play with?

In total, the participants lost 156 pounds, 143 of which was body fat. Nine participants who had expressed a desire to lose weight lost an average of 15.4 pounds. The participants also saw a drop in their total cholesterol, with plasma triglycerides dropping an average of 37 percent.

The treadmills didn’t fall out of fashion when the study was over. The office started with four of the treadmill desks, and today the company has invested in 16 of them to cut down on wait times for the next open treadmill. Walkers said writing is a bit challenging on the treadmill, but talking on the phone and using the computer are no-brainers.

Staff member Mark Flaherty said that even the skeptics in the office eventually started using the treadmills. Flaherty himsef participated in the study and lost 20 pounds and 7 percent of his body fat.

“It got me motivated to do other things,” he said, noting that he now works with a personal trainer.

- downtownjournal.com/

Let me tell you something, if your job is so undemanding and easy that you turn into a human whale, and then you have the audacity to want to start exercising while still pretending to work, then perhaps you should do the economy a favour: quit your job and go on welfare. You'll be just as productive on your couch watching TV as you were jogging in front of your P.C, but at least now someone else can use your vacant desk to get some work done.



Film Review: Hellboy2

Well, I liked the first film. I thought it found a nice balance between strange mythology and old-fashioned drama, with characters that were real enough to make you not want to see them killed. Hellboy2 however has somehow lost a bit of that charm. Despite a terrific opening sequence, the film quickly adopts a decidedly goofy tone. This time nothing is really taken all that seriously, and because of that the normally outlandish characters and ludicrous plot come across as even more outlandish, and even more ludicrous. And that's a massive hindrance when it's so very easy to treat each new C.G. character or crazy plot twist with a bewildered laugh.

Despite the odd musical cues and disarmingly humorous asides, the plot has some grit to it. A hidden kingdom of fantastical figures who have control of an unstoppable army and live in respect of a treaty long-forgotten by the humans are taken over by an upstart prince tired of living in exile and seeing the humans slowly destroy the environment we rely on. It's a pretty good idea, and Luke Goss (as he did to similar effect with essentially the exact same character in Blade2), portrays the angry outcast prince well. But if Batman has taught us anything, it's that we need more than just bright colours and loud noises from our comic book properties. The world is changing, and Hellboy, for all his 'look at me, I'm Hellboy' shtick, casts itself too shallow. We need a bit more of the depth personified by what John Hurt brought to the first film, but sadly all Hellboy2 can manage is a suit full of hot air. How fitting.

The effects are marvelous, and most of the action sequences are very good. It's difficult to have a guy fight 100 monsters at once and have it be coherent, but for the most part the shaky camera is left alone. Guillermo Del Toro has a history of making good films out of odd properties, but I think he just didn't have enough to work with for this sequel, which is odd considering the source material. The first film showed that this can work, it just has to be taken seriously. Two C.G monsters out of Five.



- Peace out.