Hope, Change, ...Cutbacks.

Conditions: Warm, Nice.


Peace In Our Time?

Don't look at it too hard, 'less you scare it away, but I think some sense is finally starting to come regarding the ridiculous plans to set up missile defense systems in Europe. What is this I'm feeling? Is it ...hope?

Russia yesterday offered a broad gesture of conciliation to the Obama White House, suggesting that it was shelving plans to deploy nuclear-capable missiles close to the Polish border.

In a short statement that drew a welcome from Nato and eager anticipation of some sort of detente after years of Moscow-Washington confrontation, officials said that the Kremlin's plans to station short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, the small Russian exclave on the Baltic, had been "suspended".

The move follows President Barack Obama's decision to review the Pentagon's contentious missile defence system in central Europe, they added.

- guardian.co.uk/

So strange. It's almost as if the American President is acting in a reasonable and intelligent way, and his actions are therefore being responded to in rational and intelligent ways. Great Scott, is this how things used to work, BB?

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk appeared optimistic yesterday that Russia would drop plans to deploy short-range ballistic missiles near his nation's border, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 28).

Moscow last year said it would field the Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad in response to Bush administration efforts to deploy missile shield elements in Poland and the Czech Republic. This week, though, it appeared to back away from that threat, possibly as an olive branch to new U.S. President Barack Obama.

After meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Tusk said: "I have the impression that after this conversation -- and it's actually a bit more than an impression -- Russia is not especially in favor of the move."

"There's no reason to talk about the issue of Iskander missiles as an issue which will have a negative outcome for us. On the contrary, on this issue things could go in the right direction," Tusk said (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 29).

Some analysts have suggested that Obama could pursue improved relations with Russia, making European missile defenses less relevant, the International Herald Tribune reported yesterday.

"You could argue that if the U.S. and Russia did really improve relations, then there might be less of a need for the missile defense system," said Alexander Smolar, head of the Warsaw-based Stefan Batory Foundation.

- globalsecuritynewswire.org/

Yes. One could argue that, if one were being, I don't know, rational and not, what's the word, a douche? Turns out peace seems more of an option when you're not working all the time to point missiles at each other. Huh.

You know, I hate to look a gift horse in the x-ray, I really do, but I can't help but wonder if there's any other reason that also explains why these great military powers suddenly aren't quite so keen to start building giant underground missile-launching bunkers across central Europe. Anybody?

Later, at the Davos economic forum, Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, hinted at a readiness for some form of rapprochement when he indicated that Russia was not interested in engaging in a new arms race with the Obama administration. "Militarisation does not help solve problems," he said. "We are against spending more money on military efforts."

- guardian.co.uk/

Ah. Right, the whole worldwide economic crash thing. Yes, it turns out that not only is building military installations to point missiles at Allies a stupid thing to do, it's also really expensive. Peace through rationality and poverty. I'll take it any way I can get it.




Cartoon O' the Week.

- Oliphant

- Peace out.

Pulling The Smoke Over Your Eyes

Conditions: Sweltering.


Smoking The Screen.

Day by day, week after week we saw it on the news. The explosion over the skies of Palestine following by bright white streaks of smoke falling toward the ground. Everyone knew it was white phosphorous, a substance that causes horrific burns on contact with the skin and is banned by international law. The loophole lies in the allowance of white phosphorus to be used as a smokescreen for troop movements. So what's the difference?

According to senior IDF officers, quoted today in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the Israeli military made use of two different types of phosphorus munitions.

The first, they insisted, was contained in 155mm artillery shells, and contained "almost no phosphorus" except for a trace to ignite the smoke screen.

The second munitions, at the centre of the inquiry by Col Alkalai, are standard phosphorus shells - both 88mm and 120mm - fired from mortars.

About 200 of these shells were fired during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and of these - say the IDF - 180 were fired on Hamas fighters and rocket launch crews in northern Gaza.

Alkalai is investigating the circumstances in which the remaining 20 shells were fired, amid compelling evidence on the ground that phosphorus munitions were involved in the attack on a UN warehouse and a UN school.

The mortar system is guided by GPS and according to Israel a failure of the targeting system may have been responsible for civilian deaths. However, critics point out the same explanation was used for mis-targeting deaths in Beit Hanoun in Gaza in 2006.

The brigade's officers, however, added that the shells were fired only at places that had been positively identified as sources of enemy fire.

But surely if the weapon is banned from actually being used as a weapon it wouldn't matter the Israeli forces were trying to fire it only on sources of enemy fire? Ah, well that depends on how you interpret Israeli's legal situation concerning the various international agreements. Consider:

The use of phosphorus as an incendiary weapon as it now appears to have been used against Hamas fighters - as opposed to a smoke screen - is covered by the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons to which Israel in not a signatory.

However, Israel also is obliged under the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law to give due care to protecting the civilian population when deciding on appropriate military targeting and response to hostile fire, particularly in heavily built up areas with a strict prohibition on the use of indiscriminate force.

- truthout.org/

Presumably this is the same due care and protection that America gave to the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq when they bombed the crap out of those countries. So essentially if Israel is tweaking the rules a little bit it really is in the full-shadow of America not just breaking the rules but tearing them up and throwing them away. If Israel are guilty of war crimes then it's a small matter compared to the war crimes America must be guilty of. And how many people think the dead Afghanis or Iraqis are ever going to have their day in court?

So is it open season on civilians, now? Are they now officially fodder, to be shot up and wheeled past cameras into hospitals nonstop on the nightly news, 24/7? Is this how our wars are now allowed to be run? I realise it was always thus, I'm just pointing out there used to be a sense of outrage that went along with the sadness over civilians getting caught in the crossfire. These days, the sadness remains, but the outrage seems to have been worn out.



Satirical News Headline O' The Week.





Uh, guys? Guys?





Film Review: Frost Nixon

Once in a while you'll get a film that's based on a play, but it's more rare to have a film that's based on a play, that's based on a television interview. Such is the case here, where Ron Howard has brought us the story of the famous Frost Nixon tapes. The focus is on telling the story of how lightweight TV presenter David Frost got a chance to interview infamous ex-president Ricard Nixon. And it would actually be an interesting story, if it wasn't for two important points. Point the first: We already know the interview happens, so any suspense over it not happening is moot. And two: Frost's financial problems are moot as well, since we know the interviews end up hugely successful. So we have a film where the first half is all this drama about stuff that we already know is going to get worked out. Not a good start.

The second half is where things get interesting, Frank Langella plays Richard Nixon, and plays him well. He's a canny, twisted, fearsome old man who knows the limelight is behind him, but won't accept it. He dominates the young Frost in the early going, and the interviews are portrayed like a boxing match, with David finally knuckling down and hitting back hard in the final Watergate round. It's over far too briefly, because frankly this is where the whole point of the film lays. Frost pins Nixon down to the failings of his adminstration, to his own mistakes and to how the American people need to see him acknoldege them, drawing out the moment where Nixon faces his failings publically.

Of course, this is really all about President Bush. This all happened back in the seventies, nobody cares anymore - not enough for a big Hollywood movie to get made, that's why the actual interviews are brushed over - so we can get to the sweet spot of a President being humbled and forced to admit his wrongs. This isn't about Nixon, this is simply another way for us to get another shot at the still-defiant and unapologetic George W. Bush for his calamitous and terrible eight-year reign. And it's ultimately flawed, because it's over for Nixon. He was never prosecuted, he lived out his remaining years quietly, which was a form of punishment to the man who, as he says, still had the fires burning in his belly. No one can believe the same of President Bush, who never really seemed all that engaged in the Presidency even when he was in the middle of it, and certainly won't get suckered into a damning interview in his retired years with some T.V flack. Ultimately, Frost Nixon comes across as fake. From famous actors doing to-camera interviews pretending to be real people, to the effort to set everything including the wallpaper as 70's-sleek, to the polite smalltalk Frost and Nixon make to each other whenever they meet, this whole thing is cheap, fast, nasty and pointless. It's a reflection of where we are now more than where we were then. And we're in a very dark place. At least people cared about the Presidency when Nixon was damaging it. Two Klieg lights out of Five.


- Peace out.

Undermining Small Miracles

Conditions: Warm, Muggy.


Requiem For (A) Neocon.



Well, that just about wraps it up for Bush. And his legacy lies behind him, reduced to rubble, wreathed in smoke. But what of his beliefs, that particular brand of conservatism he embodied that became so dominant in his term, the neoconservatives? They had such high ideas, and such high opinions of themselves, but with pretty much every adventure they embarked upon ending in ruin, the end of Bush should really also mark the end of his ideals, no?

Of course, neocons were thought extinct after the Reagan years, only to come roaring back after 9/11. That overriding spirit of fear and anger brought the ultra-hardline reactionary neocon mindset bubbling to the surface once more, like a movie bad guy who's been knocked off a pier, only to coming leaping out of the water to clutch at the hero yet again. Sadly, instead of calmly evaluating the options, the American people embraced the "new" neocon spirit of Can-kickass, who wanted some foreign ass kicked, and kicked hard. So now, with Bush nearly behind us, and even with the policies of intimidation and warfare revealed as the obvious stupid and wasteful tactics they always have been, are we really stupid enough to think that old fearful mindset is gone for good this time?

In many ways, the 2008 election represented a direct repudiation of the neo-con style of foreign policy based on military-centred, unilateralist overreaching.

At first sight, the incoming Obama administration appears to be the polar opposite of neo-conservatism.

Its instincts are multilateralist, being committed, for example, to adhering to the Kyoto Protocol and to international agreements like the Geneva Convention.

It places a high priority on diplomacy, with President-elect Obama being open to direct talks with long-ignored countries like Iran and Cuba. Defense Secretary Gates, who is remaining in office, has made it clear that he regards military intervention as the genuinely last option.

Furthermore, the financial meltdown and the drains of the Iraq and Afghan wars have chipped away at the pre-eminence of US power. It is difficult to argue today that the US enjoys a unipolar advantage.

The safest bet, therefore, is that we can bid adieu to the neo-cons and leave their role to be adjudicated by history.

They themselves argue that they form part of the mainstream of American history. It seems more likely that they will come to be seen as an aberration.

Oh, come now. Yes Obama being elected in the first place is a sign the American people are putting down their security blankets. But we're not really that gullible any more, right?

Two things may change this. First, the flipside of neo-conservatism is what might be called neo-humanitarianism. This is the idea that US military power should be used to intervene on the ground in crises like the Rwandan genocide or in Darfur.

Some Obama officials, for example Susan Rice at the UN, will be making this case. All indications are that the Obama administration will be cautious but, if not, US unilateral military deployment may be back on the global agenda.

Secondly, the Obama administration faces unsettled business on Iran.

The neo-cons are arguing that Iran is the defining issue for US foreign policy and that, short of an abandonment by Tehran of its apparent nuclear weapons program, the US must use force.

- bbc.co.uk/

And while so far Obama's made all the right noises about being diplomatic and engaging towards Iran, and at the moment everyone thinks the neocons are jerks, and they've slunk back into the darkness, let's not forget how good they are at lying deep in the murky water, out of immediate view, watching, waiting, and carrying a big stick. As long as America continues to fear everything, the neocons will always have a home, deep in the cold dark places Americans don't like to think about, ready to spring forth again the next time America is endangered by Johnny Foreigner.



Theories Sought For Universe FM.

The boffins at the Goddard Space Flight Center discovered an all-pervading radio static that seems to emanate from each corner of the universe back in 2006. New theories for what caused and is causing this signal are still being sought. Is it feedback from the big bang? A signal from another dimension? God's clock radio? Or something more mysterious?

The signal manifests itself as a puzzling excess at certain frequencies of a fog of microwaves that permeates the cosmos and is probably left over from the Big Bang itself. It suggests that something is pumping large amounts of extra energy — about six times more than can be accounted for by all the galaxies known and unknown — into the universe.
[...]

In an interview, four papers submitted to the Astrophysical Journal and a press conference Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif., Dr. Kogut and his colleagues stressed that they do not really know where the signal comes from and they hope that theorists will take up the quest. They have been careful mainly to explain what the signal is not, namely distant galaxies or decaying particles of exotic dark matter.

- www.nytimes.com/

It could be ancient black holes, or something to do with Dark Matter, but isn't it really the not-knowing that makes it all so much fun? Do we really want this particular mystery solved? Can't the universe have a few secrets left to itself? Must we strip every last shred of allure from everything?



Film Review: The Spirit

Comic Book legend Frank Miller got a taste for direction on Sin City, and with The Spirit he's thrown off the training wheels but stayed in the same playground. With a similar visual technique, The Spirit tells the rather odd tale of a cop killed in the line of duty who is brought back to life and made practically invulnerable thanks to a mad coroner played by none other than Sam Jackson, who has invented a immortality formula that's in need of a guinea pig. Finding it works on the dead cop, he takes it himself, and so you have two opposing forces. The cop, calling himself The Spirit, and the coroner, who calls himself Octopus.

Of course it takes a while to explain all that, and the film comes across as distinctly odd as it goes about it. The Spirit is kind of Dick Tracy meets Superman, and the specter of invulnerable characters wailing on each other is as boring as ever. But The Octopus is after an artifact that will make him a God, somehow, and so he has to find a way to kill Spirit first. For his part, The Spirit is for some reason a total cad when it comes to women, who can't keep their hands off him, while pining after his long lost love, who's back in town and after an artifact of her own.

It's an odd film. It's got the stylish violence that Sin City had in spades, but the tone is very different. It's light hearted, sort of casual, hard-boiled cliche. I'm not sure if it was meant to be, but the Nazi scene in particular was absolutely hilarious. The cast is pretty impressive, the performances are pretty good (albeit with there not really being much for the women to actually do), and while there's not really a lot happening here under the surface, guy wants thing in order to do X, other guy wants to stop him, you can see that everyone is trying really hard. You're just never sure if the film is meant to be like this, or if it's all gotten mixed up somehow. Perhaps some comic book knowledge would've helped. Three Ooofs out of Five.


And Finally.




- Peace out

Praying For A Window Seat

Conditions: Smokingly Warm.


Good News On The Market.

Some say that America, if not the world, is in a recession. Well don't tell that to the arms dealers, who've had yet another very, very good year. According to the latest version of the Congressional Research Service's annual arms transfer report, US arms agreements increased from the 2006 levels, reestablishing the U.S at the top of the arms-suppling nations, thwarting Russia who had snatched the crown for a year. Take that you commies!

Global arms sales totaled nearly $60 billion in 2007, an increase of 9.2 percent from 2006 values. The United States was again the world's most dominant arms exporter, making $24.8 billion (41.5 percent) of all global arms agreements. Although Russia maintained its second place position in overall sales, its new arms agreements were valued at $10.4 billion (17.3 percent), a decrease from its $14.3 billion in 2006. The United Kingdom held the third spot for new global arms agreements in 2007, with $9.8 billion, more than doubling its $4.1 billion total in 2006. Together, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom made up 75.2 percent of global arms agreements.

Global arms deliveries fell in 2007, to $31 billion, down from $33.6 billion. The United States was also the largest deliverer of arms worldwide, responsible for over 41 percent of global arms deliveries with approximately $12.8 billion (41.3 percent). Russia was second with $4.7 billion, and the United Kingdom was third, with 2.6 billion. These three top countries were responsible for over $20 billion in global arms deliveries (64.8 percent).

And where are all these arms going, you may demand?

According to the report, the developing world accounted for 70.5 percent of new arms transfer agreements in 2007. Arms transfer agreements with the developing world totaled over $42 billion, an increase from the 2006 total of $38.1 billion. The United States was the largest arms trading partner with the developing world with new arms agreements in 2007 reaching $12.2 billion (28.8 percent of all agreements with the developing world). The United Kingdom made the second most arms deals with the developing world, with $9.8 billion (23.2 percent) and Russia was third with $9.7 billion (23 percent).

- truthout.org/

So, really, it may have been a year of difficulty, stress and hardship, but at least the hard working men and women, and children, associated with the global arms sales have been keeping themselves and each other busy. It's these kinds of business success stories that can inspire us all, and will help pull us out of our economic problems. Or, grind us out of our economic problems. Onward to victory!



Faith In Advertising.

British comedy writer Ariane Sherine has waged an interesting and successful campaign to get a spiritual message onto the side of London buses. But not the normal kind of spiritual message. See, she was inspired after seeing a message on a bus saying that non Christians were in for an eternity in hell.

Sherine, who was raised a Christian but is now an atheist, found this intensely off-putting: Didn't nearly a quarter of Britons describe themselves as non-believers in the most recent census? Didn't more people regularly attend cricket matches than religious services? Where was the atheists' alternate vision of “Live free, die unbothered”?

So Sherine started a campaign to get the atheist word out – and received such a staggering response that, beginning this week, 800 buses across Britain will be carrying the slogan: “There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

You'd think that would be the end of it, but you'd be ignoring the faithful, who never met a cloud that didn't have a silver lining, and the officials, who have a rule for everything.

Saying God “probably” doesn't exist seems an inexcusable waffling in some quarters. “Probably” doesn't hold a votive candle to soaring Gothic spires, incense, and the promise, however irrational, of paradise undying. Or, as philosopher and God-denier A.C. Grayling, who supports the campaign but dislikes the equivocation, put it: “If one wished to cite a better example of insidiousness, pusillanimity, timidity and absurdity, you'd be hard-pressed.”

So why didn't the atheists hold the power of their un-convictions and just say “There's no God”? It turns out that the word “probably” was required by the regulatory body that looks after Britain's bus advertising, which insisted the slogan needed to acknowledge “a grey area” with regard to the presence of the Almighty. Bring on Monty Python!

- theglobeandmail.com/

So there you go. God might or might not exist, but the same can't be said for advertising on the side of London buses.



Bonus Round: Musings About War In Gaza.

Stirring article here at Truthout.org about the latest invasion of Gaza by the Israeli military.



- Peace out.

Happy New Who Gives A Damn.

Conditions: Overcast.


Is It All Built On Sand?

Bernard Madoff, for forty years, has been a respected investment broker on Wall Street. His Investment Securities company in Manhattan was known all around the world. And it has now been revealed as possibly the world's biggest ripoff. A 50 billion dollar black hole. That's nine zeros, son. How is this even possible?

Madoff told the FBI he had been running a "giant Ponzi scheme", a classic pyramid fraud. Instead of investing the money, as claimed, he was using cash from new investors to pay existing ones. As investigators rummage through Madoff's office, they have found numerous sets of accounts, ones showing the real flows in and out of his business, and ones which were shown to clients. They believe it is more than 20 years since he began managing other people's money, initially to generate business for the long-standing stockbroking business he founded in 1960 with $5,000 he made as a Long Island lifeguard. His first lie, his first fraudulent book entry, remains unknown.

By the end, the scale of the deception was staggering - it is little wonder Madoff's lawyers are reportedly mulling an insanity defence. Each month, investors got a complicated statement showing lists of blue-chip companies that Madoff had traded using a "sophisticated" formula, and each month it showed a tidy profit totalling double-digit annual returns almost every year. These statements were fake and more than a few Wall Street professionals admitted to being mystified as to how Madoff managed this miracle-grow performance.

- truthout.org/

Well, frankly, this is how Wall Street really works. You trust people and companies and somehow the wheels turn and the dials flicker and gradually you make money. And some people are somehow able to make more money than others. Surely there are controls, or tells that monitor what these funds are really doing?

Boston - His repeated warnings that Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff was running a giant Ponzi scheme have cast Harry Markopolos as an unheeded prophet.

But people who know or worked with Markopolos say it wasn't prescience that helped him foresee the collapse of Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud. Instead, they say diligence and a strong moral sense drove his quixotic, nine-year quest to alert regulators about Madoff.
[...]

Markopolos waged a remarkable battle to uncover fraud at Madoff's operation, sounding the alarm back in 1999 and continuing with his warnings all through this decade. The government never acted, Madoff continued his ways, and people lost billions.

Markopolos reached his conclusion with the help of mathematicians like Dan diBartolomeo, whose analysis of the Madoff's methods in 1999 helped fuel Markopolos' suspicions.

"People should have seen the writing on the wall," diBartolomeo said.
[...]

Researching Madoff's numbers, using data the firm distributed to prospective investors, diBartolomeo concluded within hours that it was impossible for Madoff to get the returns he reported while using the strategy he said he used.

"As the market goes up and down, this strategy should have done a little better or a little worse, just like everybody else," he said. "Instead, it appeared to be indifferent as to whether the market went up or down. They made money all the time."

- truthout.org/

And he's not the only one: With the collapse of Madoff's scheme there's a whole bunch of prophets crawling out of the woodwork to talk about how they were right all along. So how come nobody did any investigating back before it all crashed down? Is every investment scheme just a pyramid scam? Is the stockmarket just a giant pile of air? Is that why no one listened to these whistleblowers? And is that why the Bush administration was so desperate to shove 800 billion dollars of taxpayer money into it before Christmas to keep it standing upright? Here's a thought for the new year: exactly how real is the ground our entire economy is built on?




Film Review: No Country For Old Men.

There's some hard truths to be faced in this world. The good guys usually don't win. The bad guys usually don't get what's coming to them. Things generally don't turn out for the best. It's rough, spend twenty minutes watching CNN and you can tell that. Which is why I like movies, they generally create a world in which things happen the right way, even if they start off the wrong way. But not all the time, and No Country for Old Men is one of those times. This film tells the slightly convoluted tale of good people getting dragged down into the messed up world of bad people. It's set down in Texas, made to look even more barren and hopeless than usual.

There is no comfort here. The 'good' characters struggle, but always in vain. The film has a plot, but it is mostly driven by the character played by Javier Bardem, a meciless hired killer tracking down a case of money and killing anyone in the way. He's chasing the resourceful but ultimately outmatched Josh Brolin, and is somewhat being chased by the exhausted lawman played by Tommy Lee Jones, who's heart just isn't in it anymore. The moral of the story is that true bad guys do things that the good guys struggle to understand, let alone stop or even solve. And ultimately the lesson is that it's all hopeless.

I think what it really comes down to is the simple fact that I do not enjoy the lesson that this film is teaching. I appreciate the message, much as I appreciate the means. - This is a well made and acted film. But ultimately movies are for hope, not hopelessness. Two bullets out of Five.


- Peace out