Mt. Baker is back, friends. Yes, me and somes bros (dudes you ride with are bros) shredded up some secret hikable lines at the mecca. It was foot-deep. Rocks, drops, trees, and holes. Yes, we shredded the gnar. I broke the LCD screen of my camera riding with it in my breast pocket, but it still takes pix like what you see here. Small price to pay for these turns.
30 December 2005
27 December 2005
The Hold Steady
I want to like the first Hold Steady album I'm checking out, "Separation Sunday". All the bands I've ever really loved grew on me -- they weren't always love at first site. The singer reminds me uncannily of the older brother of one of my best friends from high school. The voice of Bob Mould, speaking the words Elvis Costello never wrote, with Soul Asylum and the Replacements filling in as the backing band. With that combo, how can I not want to love them? The talking thing doesn't really work all the time for me, but when it works, it's quite brilliant, as found on "Your Hoodrat Friend". Sample lyric from that great tune: "because it burns being broke and it hurts to be heartbroken but always being both must be a drag."
Unwarranted Complaints?
RE: unwarranted Complaints. Only former Bush I and Reagan soldiers would have the chutzpah to declare public outrage about domestic spying "the only thing outrageous" about the whole issue.
The major points:
1. The Bush administration has lost its credibility due to the many claims it has made since 9/11 that have proved to be, at best, false, and at worst, nihilistic fabrication by demented idealogues.
2. The Bush Administration (and Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Casey claim) claims it needs to be able to "act on information" instantly, without the need to wait for FISA approval. The problem is that since the Administration has proved so adept at "producing" information without any oversight by seasoned experts (the White House Iraq Group comes to mind), they have lost the faith of the American people that are capable of conducting intelligence gather activity.
3. Intelligence gathering is important, but it is hard and doesn't produce concrete measurable results. Or if it does, it's top secret, which in this Administration usually means money changed hands. There are some really basic things we can do to GUARANTEE an increase in safety and security that all of us can see with our own eyes, like imposing security requirements on chemical manufacturers. I've been ranting on this point for months, and it was highly ironic that right next to Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Casey's article was the NYT editorial saying, "Time For Chemical Plant Security."
Conclusion: arguing about the legality of domestic spying, or the seemingly endless need for more executive power, is to miss the point: the Administration has no integrity, they have a poor track record with regards to intelligence, both in gathering it and using it, and they are neglecting other far more tangible problems that can increase security right now. Therefore, the reason many of us are upset is that we remain convinced that the Bush Administration is more interested in furthering its own need for power to satisfy whatever strange vision they have for the world, than in protecting us from attack. This Administration has repeatedly shown it is more interested in grand, sweeping, ideologically-driven gestures than in pragmatic governance; it has repeatedly shown it contempt for expert analysis, and has consistently acted against the advice of grown-ups. And the American taxpayer is footing the bill while Dick and Rummy's big adventure goes "uh-oh". The apologists need to realize that they don't understand the conversation taking place. Of course, at the end of the day, I think the real conversation boils down to "Fuck you you fucking fuck!"
"No, fuck YOU you fucking FUCK FUCK."
WHIG: " THIS is what Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's wartime chief of staff, was talking about last week when he publicly chastised the ''Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal'' for sowing potential disaster in Iraq, North Korea and Iran. It's this cabal that in 2002 pushed for much of the bogus W.M.D. evidence that ended up in Mr. Powell's now infamous February 2003 presentation to the U.N. It's this cabal whose propaganda was sold by the war's unannounced marketing arm, the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, in which both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove served in the second half of 2002. One of WHIG's goals, successfully realized, was to turn up the heat on Congress so it would rush to pass a resolution authorizing war in the politically advantageous month just before the midterm election."
The letter I wrote to the times (which they never publish) went like this:
To the Editor:
I don't think Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Casey understand why people are upset
about recent revelations of the NSA's domestic spying. They say,
"even the administration's sternest critics do not deny the compelling
need to collect intelligence." It's not about whether there's a
compelling need. It's about priorities and a failed track record.
Right now, the Administration is prioritizing spying over taking more
tangible steps -- with a guarantee of results, unlike spying -- to
protect Americans. More tangible things like (as noted in that day's
editorial) protecting chemical plants, ports, public transit, etc. As
for the White House track record, this Administration has a lousy one
when it comes to intelligence. At best, they have proven incompetent
when it comes to procuring and analyzing intelligence effectively. At
worst, the zeal for information led to a doomed war that was poorly
planned and poorly executed.
Based on this track record, I fail to see why we should let the
President have even more leeway when it comes to spying. Without
safeguards to prevent J. Edgar Hoover-style political subterfuge,
domestic spying is a very dangerous and corruptible responsibility --
one that I highly doubt this Administration is capable of maintaining.
This Administration needs adult supervision, and going through a
process with some inclination toward transparency might make it easier
to sell the idea of Democracy to an understandably sceptical crowd.
The major points:
1. The Bush administration has lost its credibility due to the many claims it has made since 9/11 that have proved to be, at best, false, and at worst, nihilistic fabrication by demented idealogues.
2. The Bush Administration (and Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Casey claim) claims it needs to be able to "act on information" instantly, without the need to wait for FISA approval. The problem is that since the Administration has proved so adept at "producing" information without any oversight by seasoned experts (the White House Iraq Group comes to mind), they have lost the faith of the American people that are capable of conducting intelligence gather activity.
3. Intelligence gathering is important, but it is hard and doesn't produce concrete measurable results. Or if it does, it's top secret, which in this Administration usually means money changed hands. There are some really basic things we can do to GUARANTEE an increase in safety and security that all of us can see with our own eyes, like imposing security requirements on chemical manufacturers. I've been ranting on this point for months, and it was highly ironic that right next to Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Casey's article was the NYT editorial saying, "Time For Chemical Plant Security."
Conclusion: arguing about the legality of domestic spying, or the seemingly endless need for more executive power, is to miss the point: the Administration has no integrity, they have a poor track record with regards to intelligence, both in gathering it and using it, and they are neglecting other far more tangible problems that can increase security right now. Therefore, the reason many of us are upset is that we remain convinced that the Bush Administration is more interested in furthering its own need for power to satisfy whatever strange vision they have for the world, than in protecting us from attack. This Administration has repeatedly shown it is more interested in grand, sweeping, ideologically-driven gestures than in pragmatic governance; it has repeatedly shown it contempt for expert analysis, and has consistently acted against the advice of grown-ups. And the American taxpayer is footing the bill while Dick and Rummy's big adventure goes "uh-oh". The apologists need to realize that they don't understand the conversation taking place. Of course, at the end of the day, I think the real conversation boils down to "Fuck you you fucking fuck!"
"No, fuck YOU you fucking FUCK FUCK."
WHIG: " THIS is what Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's wartime chief of staff, was talking about last week when he publicly chastised the ''Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal'' for sowing potential disaster in Iraq, North Korea and Iran. It's this cabal that in 2002 pushed for much of the bogus W.M.D. evidence that ended up in Mr. Powell's now infamous February 2003 presentation to the U.N. It's this cabal whose propaganda was sold by the war's unannounced marketing arm, the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, in which both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove served in the second half of 2002. One of WHIG's goals, successfully realized, was to turn up the heat on Congress so it would rush to pass a resolution authorizing war in the politically advantageous month just before the midterm election."
The letter I wrote to the times (which they never publish) went like this:
To the Editor:
I don't think Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Casey understand why people are upset
about recent revelations of the NSA's domestic spying. They say,
"even the administration's sternest critics do not deny the compelling
need to collect intelligence." It's not about whether there's a
compelling need. It's about priorities and a failed track record.
Right now, the Administration is prioritizing spying over taking more
tangible steps -- with a guarantee of results, unlike spying -- to
protect Americans. More tangible things like (as noted in that day's
editorial) protecting chemical plants, ports, public transit, etc. As
for the White House track record, this Administration has a lousy one
when it comes to intelligence. At best, they have proven incompetent
when it comes to procuring and analyzing intelligence effectively. At
worst, the zeal for information led to a doomed war that was poorly
planned and poorly executed.
Based on this track record, I fail to see why we should let the
President have even more leeway when it comes to spying. Without
safeguards to prevent J. Edgar Hoover-style political subterfuge,
domestic spying is a very dangerous and corruptible responsibility --
one that I highly doubt this Administration is capable of maintaining.
This Administration needs adult supervision, and going through a
process with some inclination toward transparency might make it easier
to sell the idea of Democracy to an understandably sceptical crowd.
26 December 2005
Unable to Govern at any level
We've witnessed the incompetence of the Bush Administration in many places, from Iraq to Katrina. By appointing cronies and like-minded idealogues into positions of responsibility, the Bush adminstration has created a government that is unable to govern. The latest example comes from decisions made by the Ashcroft Justive Department in 2002 with regards to the size and function of the Board of Immigration. Natually, a New York Times article inspired this diatribe. Quoted text comes from the article unless otherwise indicated.
The Board of Immigration had a large backlog of cases in 2002, so Mr. Ashcroft "hacked off all the liberals," reducing the number of judges on the board to 11 from 23. The net effect, as pointed out in the article, was a massive increase in the number of immigration appeals, which end up in Federal Circuit court. The implication of the article is that since the Board has become stacked with incompetent conservative non-rubber stampers, far more applicants are being forced to appeal their case to even have it reviewed by a person with any qualification to perform such a review. The Board is no longer performing a useful function, as it is denying more applications and not providing and written documentation to explain its decisions, in the name of "expediting" the process, due to a large backlog. This has effectively eliminated the utility and purpose of the board, which is now bueacratic way-station as opposed to a valuable institution. Decisions are now foisted upon Federal judges who actually are compelled to analyze the cases and write opinions. The Board was not performing and useful function, and yet the Justive Department's immigration review office said, "the surge in federal appeals is not related to the board's increased number of decisions [denials], but the rate of appeal."
Classic meaningless Bush-speak. They are saying the rate of appeals is increasing because it is increasing. I.e., our useless incompetence and poor decision making have nothing to do with it. Nothing that happens in any Bush-league office is ever their fault. Nothing is ever explained. No one is ever taken to task. No one is accountable in this Administration. The only thing that matters is mindlessly following the boss' instructions. The immigration judges decisions were described like this: "The tone, the tenor, the disparagement, and the sarcasm of the I.J. [immigration judge] seem more appropriate to a court television show than a federal court proceeding."
This is what you get when the country is being run by a theocratic oligarchy, where the most important leadership positions are filled by incompetent idealogues like Ashcroft or Gonzales. Later today I think I'll draw a chart showing the differences (there are very, very few) between Bush and Osama.
I could go on and on, but the point is that both men are from wealthy backgrounds and believe the ends justifys the means in their psuedo-religious crusade that is really about money and power.
The Board of Immigration had a large backlog of cases in 2002, so Mr. Ashcroft "hacked off all the liberals," reducing the number of judges on the board to 11 from 23. The net effect, as pointed out in the article, was a massive increase in the number of immigration appeals, which end up in Federal Circuit court. The implication of the article is that since the Board has become stacked with incompetent conservative non-rubber stampers, far more applicants are being forced to appeal their case to even have it reviewed by a person with any qualification to perform such a review. The Board is no longer performing a useful function, as it is denying more applications and not providing and written documentation to explain its decisions, in the name of "expediting" the process, due to a large backlog. This has effectively eliminated the utility and purpose of the board, which is now bueacratic way-station as opposed to a valuable institution. Decisions are now foisted upon Federal judges who actually are compelled to analyze the cases and write opinions. The Board was not performing and useful function, and yet the Justive Department's immigration review office said, "the surge in federal appeals is not related to the board's increased number of decisions [denials], but the rate of appeal."
Classic meaningless Bush-speak. They are saying the rate of appeals is increasing because it is increasing. I.e., our useless incompetence and poor decision making have nothing to do with it. Nothing that happens in any Bush-league office is ever their fault. Nothing is ever explained. No one is ever taken to task. No one is accountable in this Administration. The only thing that matters is mindlessly following the boss' instructions. The immigration judges decisions were described like this: "The tone, the tenor, the disparagement, and the sarcasm of the I.J. [immigration judge] seem more appropriate to a court television show than a federal court proceeding."
This is what you get when the country is being run by a theocratic oligarchy, where the most important leadership positions are filled by incompetent idealogues like Ashcroft or Gonzales. Later today I think I'll draw a chart showing the differences (there are very, very few) between Bush and Osama.
| Item | Bush | Osama |
| Comes from a privileged background of oil wealth | X | X |
| Believes they are a messenger of God devliering justice to the infidels | whereby justice = democracy or death | whereby justice = plain old death |
| Flouts international law and the Geneva conventions | X | X |
| Believes civilian casualties are acceptable | Do you know how many Iraqi civilians have died in this conflict? | X |
| Believes you're either with us or against us | X | X |
I could go on and on, but the point is that both men are from wealthy backgrounds and believe the ends justifys the means in their psuedo-religious crusade that is really about money and power.
25 December 2005
It's about the law
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
--Senator Frank Church, 1975
What Bush and his supporters don't seem to understand is that the kerfuffle around domestic spying has nothing to do with its effectiveness. There is no doubt that the NSA is highly qualified to data mine phone and internet communications to look for clues, and that by so doing, they may be able to uncover a terrorist plot. The issue is that it is against the laws of the country to do, as they currently stand. The Administration's rebuttal to this argument, which goes something along the lines of, "yeah but we need to do this," doesn't work. What is the difference between the US and a dictatorship? The rule of law applies here, not the rule of men. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, all seem to have lost sight that if we do not follow the law, and if our government agencies and executors are not held accountable to the law, then we are a lawless nation, no better than a bunch of nomads in the desert. In other words, the terrorists have already started winning.
I also must point out that this whole exercise is drawing crucial attention away from the far more concrete steps that need to be taken to actually protect this country: securing ports, inspecting containers, securing public transit, etc., all things I've mentioned here before. Why is the White House so enamored of spying than actually doing anything resembling concrete action? The flubbed the invasion of Iraq, they failed miserably in post-Katrina recovery efforts, they can't even get the oil flowing in Iraq. They can't protect our cities and their denizens. But they can cut taxes for the rich, cut Medicaid... This is a party that is useless at the art of governing and administering to the needs of their constituents. They are incompetent idealogues, and it is a travesty that only in the last year has the mainstream public begun to catch on that they've been had.
22 December 2005
Letter to Senator Cantwell
Dear Senator Cantwell--
I'm writing to thank you for taking a bold stand on the recent passage of the Defense appropriations bill. It highlights how broken our Congressional appropriations process is. Your colleague Adam Smith was on KUOW this morning talking about this process, and how appropriations are approved without anyone knowing what is actually being approved.
I invite you to take this opportunity to further your courageous stand against special interests and federal handouts to large corporations. I'd like to know what steps you are considering such that Congress can reclaim control over the budget from the military, the White House, special interests, and large corporations.
Democrats must send a bold, concise, and coherent message to voters that they are acting to protect them from special interests and federal largesse to large corporations. This means keeping our own house tidy as well. I'm sure there is a lot of incentive on your part to lobby for whatever pork Washington state is getting via military projects going to Boeing. But ultimately, funding for failed projects like Future Combat Systems amount to backdoor welfare -- if we are only able to create jobs via porky military projects, it means we need to fix the real problem -- job creation in a competitive market.
Your work on environmental issues shows that not only do you care about the environment, but that you see the business potential of green energy. It is inevitable that the entire country will need to go green if the human race is to avoid extinction. Therefore, we ought to be at the forefront of all the business to be done providing the country with expertise, manufacturing, technology, etc. Maybe I am just advocating for pork that is more beneficial to tax payers, delivering higher value than something so odious as Future Combat Systems.
I can not resist the temptation to mention that it is shameful that FCS is going to cost taxpayers upwards of $1 trillion dollars, while failing to deliver results. Actually, the Pentagon is happy to admit that FCS is a flop, but it somehow keeps getting more funding. Meanwhile, troops in Iraq are still missing adequate armor, vehicles are getting junked from heavy use, recruitment is down, etc.
Please continue to lead the charge. It is embarrassing and somewhat outrageous that Democrats have not been able to wage an effective attack against the endless litany of egregious Republican behavior, from stealing (Abramoff), lying (WMD), spying, bribing, gerrymandering, etc. Please don't pull a Hillary and shoot for the middle of the road. Please tell it like it is.
Thanks
Steve Shapero
I'm writing to thank you for taking a bold stand on the recent passage of the Defense appropriations bill. It highlights how broken our Congressional appropriations process is. Your colleague Adam Smith was on KUOW this morning talking about this process, and how appropriations are approved without anyone knowing what is actually being approved.
I invite you to take this opportunity to further your courageous stand against special interests and federal handouts to large corporations. I'd like to know what steps you are considering such that Congress can reclaim control over the budget from the military, the White House, special interests, and large corporations.
Democrats must send a bold, concise, and coherent message to voters that they are acting to protect them from special interests and federal largesse to large corporations. This means keeping our own house tidy as well. I'm sure there is a lot of incentive on your part to lobby for whatever pork Washington state is getting via military projects going to Boeing. But ultimately, funding for failed projects like Future Combat Systems amount to backdoor welfare -- if we are only able to create jobs via porky military projects, it means we need to fix the real problem -- job creation in a competitive market.
Your work on environmental issues shows that not only do you care about the environment, but that you see the business potential of green energy. It is inevitable that the entire country will need to go green if the human race is to avoid extinction. Therefore, we ought to be at the forefront of all the business to be done providing the country with expertise, manufacturing, technology, etc. Maybe I am just advocating for pork that is more beneficial to tax payers, delivering higher value than something so odious as Future Combat Systems.
I can not resist the temptation to mention that it is shameful that FCS is going to cost taxpayers upwards of $1 trillion dollars, while failing to deliver results. Actually, the Pentagon is happy to admit that FCS is a flop, but it somehow keeps getting more funding. Meanwhile, troops in Iraq are still missing adequate armor, vehicles are getting junked from heavy use, recruitment is down, etc.
Please continue to lead the charge. It is embarrassing and somewhat outrageous that Democrats have not been able to wage an effective attack against the endless litany of egregious Republican behavior, from stealing (Abramoff), lying (WMD), spying, bribing, gerrymandering, etc. Please don't pull a Hillary and shoot for the middle of the road. Please tell it like it is.
Thanks
Steve Shapero
18 December 2005
The Joggers Rule, and some positive ideas for progression
First things first, you NEED to get this album now. It's also available on the iTunes Music store as well. It's by the Joggers, I heard them on KEXP. It sounds like members of Q and not U and Rodan decided to get together and make a brilliant album. It has the loose feel and messy sound of the former with just enough of the form and complexity of the latter to keep you hooked. Speaking of hooks, it's got plenty of pop hooks, lurking behind some unexpected corner, keeping me listening. Gotta have hooks. | |
NYT article of the day: Matt Bai suggest that much as GM's ossification as a 20th century industrial giant mirrors the ossification of the Democratic party. The latter's inability to offer much-needed change to sacred cow programs like social security is in synch with GM's inability to design a car that people want to buy despite the writing on the wall. Both are stuck in the previous century's rigid bueacratic mindset and have not embraced business 2.0 like Wal*Mart has. Like it or hate it, the world has changed. Deal or become irrelevant. | |
The endless chicanery, lying, and cheating of the Republican party should have the Dems (or please dear God a third party) winning every local election, but I don't think anyone's noticed that the GOP is Business 2.0 and the rest of them aren't. They are results oriented, and responsive to customers. That's why Bill O'Reilly talks about Christmas to show he's Christian, instead of donating all his wealth to the starving children of the world or calling attention to massacres. Thanks to Thomas Friedman for making the point so much more elequently than I have been able to do thus far. While all these assholes are clawing their way to the top of the holier-than-thou heap, they are the least Christian amongst us. | |
Bob Herbert also outlines a much more polite list of White House sins. |
Spying is more fun than working
Summary: Why is the White House so obsessed with spying on Americans, when the real reason the 9/11 attackers succeeded in slipping through our borders were:
1. Poor communication between different government agencies?
2. The administration consistently ignored warnings by top security advisors of the threat Osama posed
3. The administration wanted to go to war in Iraq, part neo-con fantasy and part oil grab.
Spying is the least of our worries. The present illegal and unconstitutional spying game has yet to produce any tangible results. The US has failed to foil any real terrorist attacks, while the administration relentlessly tells bald-faced lies about their efficacy.
"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law [Patriot Act] for a single moment," Mr. Bush said forcefully. Yet with the current spy imbroglio, the Administration has once again shown its patent disregard for the law in its search to fulfill its paranoid fantasies. Alberto Gonzales, the infamous torture apologist and current attorney General, claims that the spying and prying provisions of the USA Patriot Act include safeguards -- but what good are they if the Administration feels it is their perogative to ignore the legal process -- which is already a rubber stamp secret court that does nothing but provide a paper trail.
In the meantime, what have we done to secure our ports? Secure our public transit systems? Secure freight train lines (like the 2nd Ave. elevated track that routinely transports chemicals less than a mile from the US Capital building), protect us from chemical attacks, provide adequate support for rapid responders (anyone remember the Katrina fiasco)?
Why is it SO important to be able to spy if there is no concrete action taken to protect us from threats? Of course, the biggest step to protect our country would be to sever ties with repressive terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia, and to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil from unfriendly nations -- whatever we can't get from Canada or Mexico, we should do without.
Says Bush about the illegal domestic spying program: "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country." Right. Because they didn't know we were trying to listen in before.
In the meantime, our borders are run by incompetents. My fiancee was held at the border for 2 hours because they thought she was illegally living in America. She produced her lease, a bank statement with her name on it, her address in Vancouver, her Canadian passport. The border guards called me to confirm that she didn't live with me. In the meantime, these people are totally untrained when it comes to anything important. And they are not provided with effective watch lists -- the single most powerful tool that can prevent terrorists from illegally entering the US. The 9/11 commission has been hammering this point home. But Bush wants to spy rather then implement an effective policy to stop terrorism. Spying is more fun, because you might catch Marion Barry smoking crack again, or crackpot left wingers like me will be easier to harass at the next WTO rally.
To summarize again even more succinctly, our country is being run into the ground by the useless pet projects of elected officials, while the barn doors are wide open.
We are living in an America where there's a debate about torture, we operate secret prisons, we abuse and occasionally murder inmates, we hold people in jail without trial, we murder innocents in our above-board legal system, an administration that is "pro life" unless you're on death row (and who cares if you're guilty or not), we have prisoners who don't know what they are accused of, where rampant corruption means doling out government contracts to friends of Bush while the Republicans gut Medicaid and Medicare, while they strangle those programs they offer a prescription drug benefit plan where the price can't be negotiated. This isn't laissez-faire capitalism, it's donnez-moi.
We are living in a dysfunctional America where the Executive branch is incompetent for the task of governing and where the legislative branch is completely in the thrall of lobbyist handouts, soaking in the fat of junkets and pork. Our democracy is in a state of utter shambles. And we have the CHTUZPAH to try to export democracy. It's pathetic. It's absurd. We are the laughing stock of the world. A bunch of fat, ignorant fools who don't believe in evolution, who shoot first and ask questions last... We are ungovernable --
Despite spending more per capita than any other nation on health care, we have a life expectancy that is shorter than Costa Rica's. Our government is unable to solve any problem except how to cram more pork into the budget for bridges to nowhere and future combat weapons -- when our military, were it the case that there were any more conventional wars to be fought (which there are not) -- can squash any country like a grape.
The administration buries its head whenever it is confronted by truth, they don't believe in evolution, they don't believe in global warming, all they believe in is greed and profit, stealing from tax-payers for their personal enrichment. And yet no one has seriously tried to impeach the biggest crooks ever to sit in the White House. These guys make Nixon seem like Mr. fucking Rogers. We are fucked and I am angry about it.
1. Poor communication between different government agencies?
2. The administration consistently ignored warnings by top security advisors of the threat Osama posed
3. The administration wanted to go to war in Iraq, part neo-con fantasy and part oil grab.
Spying is the least of our worries. The present illegal and unconstitutional spying game has yet to produce any tangible results. The US has failed to foil any real terrorist attacks, while the administration relentlessly tells bald-faced lies about their efficacy.
"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law [Patriot Act] for a single moment," Mr. Bush said forcefully. Yet with the current spy imbroglio, the Administration has once again shown its patent disregard for the law in its search to fulfill its paranoid fantasies. Alberto Gonzales, the infamous torture apologist and current attorney General, claims that the spying and prying provisions of the USA Patriot Act include safeguards -- but what good are they if the Administration feels it is their perogative to ignore the legal process -- which is already a rubber stamp secret court that does nothing but provide a paper trail.
In the meantime, what have we done to secure our ports? Secure our public transit systems? Secure freight train lines (like the 2nd Ave. elevated track that routinely transports chemicals less than a mile from the US Capital building), protect us from chemical attacks, provide adequate support for rapid responders (anyone remember the Katrina fiasco)?
Why is it SO important to be able to spy if there is no concrete action taken to protect us from threats? Of course, the biggest step to protect our country would be to sever ties with repressive terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia, and to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil from unfriendly nations -- whatever we can't get from Canada or Mexico, we should do without.
Says Bush about the illegal domestic spying program: "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country." Right. Because they didn't know we were trying to listen in before.
In the meantime, our borders are run by incompetents. My fiancee was held at the border for 2 hours because they thought she was illegally living in America. She produced her lease, a bank statement with her name on it, her address in Vancouver, her Canadian passport. The border guards called me to confirm that she didn't live with me. In the meantime, these people are totally untrained when it comes to anything important. And they are not provided with effective watch lists -- the single most powerful tool that can prevent terrorists from illegally entering the US. The 9/11 commission has been hammering this point home. But Bush wants to spy rather then implement an effective policy to stop terrorism. Spying is more fun, because you might catch Marion Barry smoking crack again, or crackpot left wingers like me will be easier to harass at the next WTO rally.
To summarize again even more succinctly, our country is being run into the ground by the useless pet projects of elected officials, while the barn doors are wide open.
We are living in an America where there's a debate about torture, we operate secret prisons, we abuse and occasionally murder inmates, we hold people in jail without trial, we murder innocents in our above-board legal system, an administration that is "pro life" unless you're on death row (and who cares if you're guilty or not), we have prisoners who don't know what they are accused of, where rampant corruption means doling out government contracts to friends of Bush while the Republicans gut Medicaid and Medicare, while they strangle those programs they offer a prescription drug benefit plan where the price can't be negotiated. This isn't laissez-faire capitalism, it's donnez-moi.
We are living in a dysfunctional America where the Executive branch is incompetent for the task of governing and where the legislative branch is completely in the thrall of lobbyist handouts, soaking in the fat of junkets and pork. Our democracy is in a state of utter shambles. And we have the CHTUZPAH to try to export democracy. It's pathetic. It's absurd. We are the laughing stock of the world. A bunch of fat, ignorant fools who don't believe in evolution, who shoot first and ask questions last... We are ungovernable --
Despite spending more per capita than any other nation on health care, we have a life expectancy that is shorter than Costa Rica's. Our government is unable to solve any problem except how to cram more pork into the budget for bridges to nowhere and future combat weapons -- when our military, were it the case that there were any more conventional wars to be fought (which there are not) -- can squash any country like a grape.
The administration buries its head whenever it is confronted by truth, they don't believe in evolution, they don't believe in global warming, all they believe in is greed and profit, stealing from tax-payers for their personal enrichment. And yet no one has seriously tried to impeach the biggest crooks ever to sit in the White House. These guys make Nixon seem like Mr. fucking Rogers. We are fucked and I am angry about it.
Christmas Photos are up
Go check 'em out. Xmas at the Soho, Vancouver, 2005... featuring the McGill class of '96, still going strong after all these years. How many of us actuall graduated in '96?
11 December 2005
Syriana
This movie's wonderful story line that is not entirely fictional is that the CIA is taking orders from the oil companies to rig Middle East politics in their favor. Learn more at http://www.participate.net/oilchange.
08 December 2005
There once was a time when there was no distinction between the study of philosophy and the study of science. I read this letter to the editor in the NYT:
The crime of the century is that professors in Philosophy departments take philosophy too seriously. There really is critical thinking, and then there is the history of critical thought. Most Philosophy curriculums are neither: they are just an overview of how someone else thought, and you are marked on your ability to regurgitate someone else's ideas, rather than to engage in a truly critical manner and come up with your own. Exegesis rather than analysis.
That is why I am glad I studied Michel Foucault so in-depth. He turns Western thought, western institutions, and more or less everything we hold to be sacred, on its head. When I got my Dad to read "The Foucault Reader", he asked me, "They're teaching you this in school?" He couldn't believe it, because it was so incendiary, and so cleverly deconstructed the bureaucratic factory of regurgitation that encompasses most universities. I could go on and on about how awesome Foucault is, but the point is that by studying Foucault, you learn to look at things sideways. You don't learn how to think critically. It can't be taught. You have to do it.
Foucault doesn't pontificate. He walks you down the alleyways of his mind, of his thought. He takes you on a walk, and at the end of the walk, you realize you have grasped an incredibly interesting idea. It then becomes possible to apply this technique, which he calls genealogy, to almost anything. You learn to look behind the curtain of almost anything.
One of the great weaknesses of Science and Scientists is that they are amongst the least capable of critical thought. In the sense that they are only capable of using the language and tools (the apparatus perhaps) of Science. They don't realize that they are playing a language game, or a game of truth, as Lyotard might put it. The game has rules and a winner. Which is not to disqualify the fact that "you can blow things up with physics," as my Dad used to say. Yes, you can. The game of truth played by physics is real and has a real impact and effect in the world. But it has no morality or ethics, and it does not provide a mode of thought that is useful for anything other than "blowing things up."
Nicholas Kristof has been consistently writing about the poor quality of the American mind is leading to the decline of the empire. I couldn't agree more. But I think as much as need to foster a climate of technical innovation for its own sake -- outside of the useless future weapons systems and other fantasy robot war game toys -- we need to foster an environment of thought, period. If Americans had any kind of critical faculty, we would not have the Government we have. Actually, you would probably have something like what we have in Seattle: a bunch of smart people bitching and moaning while nothing gets done.
No but seriously, I'm actually in a good mood, and I think that critical engagement is one of the keys to innovation and survival. An example of how I use my critical faculty at work, as I started mentioning above, is in the selection of something called a design pattern. You have to have what is essentially a philosophical discussion where you evaluate the merits of different ideas. You then marshal the well-known and proven ideas into your own argument, or implementation. You might use the Factory pattern, but you will still have many choices to make about the specific nuts and bolts of your implementation. A lot of your decisions will be driven by your goals, one of which is almost always, "can someone else (including myself in 6 months) understand what I'm doing here?" Code can be easily read and understood even if it is deep or complex, just like Foucault's writing.
Apparently philosophers love perl. I think the reason is that perl is a language construction kit. It provides you with very expressive and easy to use tools -- hashes and arrays, basically -- and lets you do all kinds of cool things with them in the manner that appeals to your sensibilities. Eventually you come to find that a little order in the world is good, and you move towards python or ruby. Just as one might start with Derida or Deleuze for the fireworks and lack of rules, but graduate to Foucault once you actually want to make something.
"[E]ven before we know to what extent something like Marxism or psychoanalysis is analogous to a scientific practice in its day-to-day operations, in its rules of construction, in the concepts it uses, we should be asking the question, asking ourselves about the aspiration to power that is inherent in the claim to being a science. " --Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended
Addendum
My co-worker has pointed out that all I was trying to say was that I was trained in the art of rhetoric.
And I thought to myself, thank God I studied Philosophy. When my boss asks me to write some code that solves a problem, I have to engage with the problem. It is critical thinking as discussed by Mr. Mills above.To the Editor:
Re "The Hubris of the Humanities" (column, Dec. 6):
Nicholas D. Kristof correctly argues that Americans need a better diet of science to meet the complexities of civilization. His argument rests on a division between a liberal arts education and one based on science. But one domain that encompasses both, and Americans desperately need, is critical thinking.
Critical thinking skills include knowing how to solve and represent problems, make decisions, evaluate arguments and reason about everyday and scientific topics. They also include having knowledge of the mind, monitoring our understanding and most important, knowing when to think critically.
Unfortunately, only a few universities offer courses in critical thinking and probably even fewer secondary schools. Having Shakespeare and biology under your belt are both important, but applying critical thinking skills to any content is the most effective path to desired outcomes and an enlightened citizenship.
Keith Millis
Shorewood, Ill., Dec. 6, 2005
The crime of the century is that professors in Philosophy departments take philosophy too seriously. There really is critical thinking, and then there is the history of critical thought. Most Philosophy curriculums are neither: they are just an overview of how someone else thought, and you are marked on your ability to regurgitate someone else's ideas, rather than to engage in a truly critical manner and come up with your own. Exegesis rather than analysis.
That is why I am glad I studied Michel Foucault so in-depth. He turns Western thought, western institutions, and more or less everything we hold to be sacred, on its head. When I got my Dad to read "The Foucault Reader", he asked me, "They're teaching you this in school?" He couldn't believe it, because it was so incendiary, and so cleverly deconstructed the bureaucratic factory of regurgitation that encompasses most universities. I could go on and on about how awesome Foucault is, but the point is that by studying Foucault, you learn to look at things sideways. You don't learn how to think critically. It can't be taught. You have to do it.
Foucault doesn't pontificate. He walks you down the alleyways of his mind, of his thought. He takes you on a walk, and at the end of the walk, you realize you have grasped an incredibly interesting idea. It then becomes possible to apply this technique, which he calls genealogy, to almost anything. You learn to look behind the curtain of almost anything.
One of the great weaknesses of Science and Scientists is that they are amongst the least capable of critical thought. In the sense that they are only capable of using the language and tools (the apparatus perhaps) of Science. They don't realize that they are playing a language game, or a game of truth, as Lyotard might put it. The game has rules and a winner. Which is not to disqualify the fact that "you can blow things up with physics," as my Dad used to say. Yes, you can. The game of truth played by physics is real and has a real impact and effect in the world. But it has no morality or ethics, and it does not provide a mode of thought that is useful for anything other than "blowing things up."
Nicholas Kristof has been consistently writing about the poor quality of the American mind is leading to the decline of the empire. I couldn't agree more. But I think as much as need to foster a climate of technical innovation for its own sake -- outside of the useless future weapons systems and other fantasy robot war game toys -- we need to foster an environment of thought, period. If Americans had any kind of critical faculty, we would not have the Government we have. Actually, you would probably have something like what we have in Seattle: a bunch of smart people bitching and moaning while nothing gets done.
No but seriously, I'm actually in a good mood, and I think that critical engagement is one of the keys to innovation and survival. An example of how I use my critical faculty at work, as I started mentioning above, is in the selection of something called a design pattern. You have to have what is essentially a philosophical discussion where you evaluate the merits of different ideas. You then marshal the well-known and proven ideas into your own argument, or implementation. You might use the Factory pattern, but you will still have many choices to make about the specific nuts and bolts of your implementation. A lot of your decisions will be driven by your goals, one of which is almost always, "can someone else (including myself in 6 months) understand what I'm doing here?" Code can be easily read and understood even if it is deep or complex, just like Foucault's writing.
Apparently philosophers love perl. I think the reason is that perl is a language construction kit. It provides you with very expressive and easy to use tools -- hashes and arrays, basically -- and lets you do all kinds of cool things with them in the manner that appeals to your sensibilities. Eventually you come to find that a little order in the world is good, and you move towards python or ruby. Just as one might start with Derida or Deleuze for the fireworks and lack of rules, but graduate to Foucault once you actually want to make something.
"[E]ven before we know to what extent something like Marxism or psychoanalysis is analogous to a scientific practice in its day-to-day operations, in its rules of construction, in the concepts it uses, we should be asking the question, asking ourselves about the aspiration to power that is inherent in the claim to being a science. " --Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended
Addendum
My co-worker has pointed out that all I was trying to say was that I was trained in the art of rhetoric.
jesus it's weird. observing young people when you're older is sure a lot different than when you're the young person. i was out at the baltic room last night to see my buddy dj, and my anthropological findings … well i guess they really aren't that surprising. all the kids belonged to the "regurgiate 80's fashion and music but with a contemporary twist" tribe. the music was a slightly updated variation of the repetitive music i used to dj. the clarity with which i could see people unsure of themselves defining themselves by their tribal affiliation, and broadcasting it to the world via their dress and choice of music… it's so funny, i was once them! i thought i was so cool, cutting edge, and original. i was really just good at sporting a costume ;). wow. i should blog this.
conversation was started by this article.
conversation was started by this article.
07 December 2005
Why are American corporations so timid when it comes to demanding a solution to our broken health care system? GM is going out of business because it a) makes crappy products no one wants and b) can't afford to pay the health insurance costs of its employees.
From Paul Krugman, NYT, Nov. 25th, 2005
"According to A. T. Kearney, last year General Motors spent $1,500 per vehicle on health care. By contrast, Toyota spent only $201 per vehicle in North America, and $97 in Japan. If the United States had national health insurance, G.M. would be in much better shape than it is. Verizon is profitable, but Ivan G. Seidenberg sees problems ahead.
From Paul Krugman, NYT, Nov. 25th, 2005
"According to A. T. Kearney, last year General Motors spent $1,500 per vehicle on health care. By contrast, Toyota spent only $201 per vehicle in North America, and $97 in Japan. If the United States had national health insurance, G.M. would be in much better shape than it is.
Wouldn't taxpayer-financed health insurance amount to a subsidy to the auto industry? Not really. Because most Americans believe that their fellow citizens are entitled to health care, and because our political system acts, however imperfectly, on that belief, tying health insurance to employment distorts the economy: it systematically discourages the creation of good jobs, the type of jobs that come with good benefits. And somebody ends up paying for health care anyway.
In fact, many of the health care expenses G.M. will save by slashing employment will simply be pushed off onto taxpayers. Some former G.M. families will end up receiving Medicaid. Others will receive uncompensated care -- for example, at emergency rooms -- which ends up being paid for either by taxpayers or by those with insurance.
Moreover, G.M.'s health care costs are so high in part because of the inefficiency of America's fragmented health care system. We spend far more per person on medical care than countries with national health insurance, while getting worse results."
Verizon just announced that they too are cutting benefits:
"Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telephone company, said yesterday that it would freeze the guaranteed pension plan covering 50,000 of its managers and expand their 401(k) plans instead.
In freezing the plan, the company will pay workers the benefits they have already earned but will not let them build additional benefits.
Verizon said that it would also contribute less to the health care benefits of the managers when they retire. Over all, the company hopes to save about $3 billion over the next decade by taking the steps."
Rather than bang on Congress' door demanding a solution, they are just cutting costs. And Congress, rather than identifying an opportunity to create a rallying cry (Democrats, hello, anyone home?) for fixing health care, is saying nothing and doing nothing. They'd rather spend a trillion dollars on remote control robot soldiers, cut taxes for the rich, engage in self-serving political theater, and otherwise guarantee our empire's rapid decline.
06 December 2005
If I had my way, I would be the public editor for the New York Times, the publication with which I have this bizare one-way dialogue. Today's rants:
"Treating Internet Addiction": This letter cracks me up. I love how when you sit at a computer all day to crank out code and make somebody else rich, it's called "work," and when you're having fun, it has to be categorized as some kind of addiction with a treatment available -- preferably one involving prescription drugs, no doubt. Reminds me of that joke we used to tell each other: "Prozac makes you want to work and not have sex, weed makes you want to have sex and not work, which one's legal?" The guy who wrote the letter is also owner of SMARTguard, which just has weener written all over it.
I'm experiencing my traditional 2 hour post meal sugar crash which is mellowing me out. I'd like to just go to bed now, but I figure that's a sure way to wake up at 2am and have to fart around for 2 hours before falling back asleep. Anyway, the one other thing that is making me angry today is this article. I could solve the budget crisis in the US in seconds: kill the "future combat systems" and the "joint strike fighter aircraft". Look at the chart in this article: look at how much money we spend on the military. I don't want an army. I want health care, roads, public transit, schools, and spending on r&d. On top of that, our troops in Iraq don't have armor, their gear is getting torn to shreds in the field, and the Air Force and Navy suggest cutting troops so they can pay for their toys. All of this crap is really about is defense contractors bilking tax payers for crap that doesn't work. Or worse, Congressional representatives forcing useless programs down the Pentagon's throat to bring tax dollars to their home distrcits.
Almost 50% of the Budget of the United States goes to the military: check out this analysis.
"In addition, the Future Combat program depends on unacceptably expensive technologies so experimental that the Army is having trouble making them work. So far, 52 of the system's 53 crucial technologies remain unproven, including any workable plan for making tanks light enough to airlift. Meanwhile, projected costs for just the first phase of the program have soared as high as $145 billion, not counting another $25 billion for the communications network that will make it function. That kind of money cannot be found without cutting into more pressing defense needs. Lawmakers, including traditional Republican supporters of Pentagon spending, are rightly beginning to ask hard questions." If you have TimesSelect... click here.
By TIM WEINER (NYT) 755 words
Published: April 1, 2005
"A new report by the Government Accountability Office warned yesterday that the costs of the Pentagon's arsenal could soar by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.
By TIM WEINER (NYT) 965 words
Published: July 9, 1996
During and after the Persian Gulf war, the Pentagon dramatically oversold the effectiveness of its most expensive high-tech aircraft and missiles, the most thorough independent study to date has found.
"Treating Internet Addiction": This letter cracks me up. I love how when you sit at a computer all day to crank out code and make somebody else rich, it's called "work," and when you're having fun, it has to be categorized as some kind of addiction with a treatment available -- preferably one involving prescription drugs, no doubt. Reminds me of that joke we used to tell each other: "Prozac makes you want to work and not have sex, weed makes you want to have sex and not work, which one's legal?" The guy who wrote the letter is also owner of SMARTguard, which just has weener written all over it.
I'm experiencing my traditional 2 hour post meal sugar crash which is mellowing me out. I'd like to just go to bed now, but I figure that's a sure way to wake up at 2am and have to fart around for 2 hours before falling back asleep. Anyway, the one other thing that is making me angry today is this article. I could solve the budget crisis in the US in seconds: kill the "future combat systems" and the "joint strike fighter aircraft". Look at the chart in this article: look at how much money we spend on the military. I don't want an army. I want health care, roads, public transit, schools, and spending on r&d. On top of that, our troops in Iraq don't have armor, their gear is getting torn to shreds in the field, and the Air Force and Navy suggest cutting troops so they can pay for their toys. All of this crap is really about is defense contractors bilking tax payers for crap that doesn't work. Or worse, Congressional representatives forcing useless programs down the Pentagon's throat to bring tax dollars to their home distrcits.
Almost 50% of the Budget of the United States goes to the military: check out this analysis.
"In addition, the Future Combat program depends on unacceptably expensive technologies so experimental that the Army is having trouble making them work. So far, 52 of the system's 53 crucial technologies remain unproven, including any workable plan for making tanks light enough to airlift. Meanwhile, projected costs for just the first phase of the program have soared as high as $145 billion, not counting another $25 billion for the communications network that will make it function. That kind of money cannot be found without cutting into more pressing defense needs. Lawmakers, including traditional Republican supporters of Pentagon spending, are rightly beginning to ask hard questions." If you have TimesSelect... click here.
Report Says Pentagon Spending on Weapons to Soar |
"A new report by the Government Accountability Office warned yesterday that the costs of the Pentagon's arsenal could soar by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.
The Pentagon has said it is building more than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of at least $1.3 trillion. But the Pentagon generally understates the time and money spent on weapons programs by 20 to 50 percent, the new report said.
A survey of 26 major weapons systems showed cost overruns of $42.7 billion, or 41.9 percent, in their research and development phase.
Last year, the overall projected cost for those same 26 systems rose $68.6 billion, or 14.3 percent, to $548.9 billion, from $480.3 billion in the last 12 months.
A wider assessment of 54 major weapons systems showed that a majority are costing more and taking longer to develop than planned.
While Defense Department officials questioned details of some assessments of the major weapons systems, they did not dispute the report's overall conclusions."
ASSHOLES. That's all I have to say about it. $1.3 trillion freakin dollars. You could do a lot with that other than flush it down the toilet on weapons that will never work.
Here's an article from 1996 about the large discrepency between the Pentagon's public claims about their success rate with advanced weapons versus what the Government Accounting Office found in an independent audit. Remember, this is from 1996.
SMART' WEAPONS WERE OVERRATED, STUDY CONCLUDES |
During and after the Persian Gulf war, the Pentagon dramatically oversold the effectiveness of its most expensive high-tech aircraft and missiles, the most thorough independent study to date has found.
The Pentagon and its principal military contractors made claims for the pinpoint precision of their most impressive new weapons -- the Stealth fighter jet, the Tomahawk land-attack missile and laser-guided "smart bombs" -- that "were overstated, misleading, inconsistent with the best available data, or unverifiable," the study by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office found.
The accounting office concluded that new, costly "smart" weapons systems did not necessarily perform better in the Persian Gulf war than old-fashioned, cheaper "dumb" ones. It called into question the wisdom of the military's plans to depend increasingly on weapons that extend the state of the art of war at a cost of tens of billions of dollars.
The accounting office analyzes Government programs for Congress. Its secret four-year study of the air war conducted during Operation Desert Storm is the most detailed analysis of its kind to be made public. It used more than one million pieces of information: Defense Department databases compiled for commanders, intelligence reports, after-action analyses and reports from military contractors. The accounting office also interviewed more than 100 Desert Storm pilots, war planners and battlefield commanders.
An unclassified summary of the 250-page secret report is scheduled to be published this week. The report was commissioned in 1992 by Senator David Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat, and Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, to help Congress decide what weapons to buy in the future. The secret report contains facts and figures to buttress the 13-page unclassified summary, which was made available to The New York Times by a Government official familiar with the underlying report.
During the war, Pentagon briefers treated the public to videotapes showing a smart bomb diving down the air shaft of a Baghdad building and told anecdotes about the extraordinary accuracy of Tomahawk missiles. The study concluded that while some of those stories were true, they were not the whole truth.
Nor is this the first time that questions have been raised about praise bestowed upon Pentagon weaponry in the flush of victory after the war.
In 1991, President Bush said the Patriot missile system had been nearly perfect, shooting down 41 out of 42 Iraqi Scud missiles aimed at Israel and Saudi Arabia. Defense Department officials later said that the Patriot was far from perfect, knocking out perhaps 40 percent of the Scuds aimed at Israel and 70 percent of those aimed at Saudi Arabia. Skeptics -- Congressional investigators, Israeli officials and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist -- said the Patriot may not have scored more than one clean hit.
The Pentagon did not dispute the new report's main conclusions. In an April 28 letter to the accounting office, the Defense Department said it "acknowledges the shortcomings" of its precision-guided munitions, the aircraft that carry them, the Tomahawk missiles and the department's ability to assess the effectiveness of its bombing in the gulf war. It said it would deal with those shortcomings by building improved smart weapons, studying whether it has the right mix of weaponry and proposing new ways to find and destroy targets.
American air power overwhelmed the Iraqi military during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and helped win that famous victory. The United States deployed nearly 1,000 combat aircraft and unleashed nearly as many tons of bombs each day as were dropped on Germany and Japan daily during World War II.
But for all their superior technology, pilots often could not tell whether a presumed target was a tank or a truck or whether it already had been destroyed, the report said. Their sensors -- laser, electro-optical and infrared systems -- could not see clearly through clouds, rain, fog, smoke or high humidity, it said.
The sleek black F-117 Stealth fighter jet, despite its high cost and its highly touted ability to get close to a target while evading detection, did not necessarily outperform older, cheaper aircraft. (The fighters cost more than $106 million each in 1990; the plane is different from the B-2 Stealth bomber, which costs more than $2 billion a copy thus far.) The Air Force claimed an 80 percent success rate on bombing runs by the Stealth fighter, but the reality was closer to 40 percent, the report found.
"It is inappropriate, given aircraft use, performance and effectiveness demonstrated in Desert Storm, to characterize higher-cost aircraft as generally more capable than lower-cost aircraft," the summary said.
Nor did smart bombs necessarily deliver the bang for the buck. Only 8 percent of the tonnage of bombs dropped on Iraq were smart bombs. But they accounted for 84 percent of the cost of munitions in the war, the summary said.
"The air campaign data did not validate the purported efficiency or effectiveness of guided munitions, without qualification," the summary said. " 'One-target, one-bomb' efficiency was not achieved."
The cost of smart bombs being built by the Pentagon and planned for the future is now estimated to be more than $58 billion, more than triple what the Government will spend this year on the F.B.I., the war on drugs, immigration control, Customs, Federal courts and prison construction. "The cost of guided munitions," the summary concluded, "and the limitations on their effectiveness demonstrated in Desert Storm need to be addressed by the Department of Defense."
05 December 2005
no place like home
baker is the sickest mountain in the counrry. i finally managed to get up there for some mid-week riding. it reminds me of the difference between going out to a bar or club on the weekend. your favorite spot might be the best in town for hearing your favorite music -- as long as it's a tuesday night. meanwhile, there's lines of bridge and tunnel herbs on friday and saturday... well, baker is the same.
you could call it elitism, but whatever. things are more fun when you're surrounded by your fellow heads, and fellow heads only.
you could call it elitism, but whatever. things are more fun when you're surrounded by your fellow heads, and fellow heads only.
04 December 2005
keebs rips at bowling
we went bowling down at roxbury lanes last night. there was no one there, and pitchers of red hook esb were $9.50. what a deal! there were weird old gamblers, people who just hung out in the windowless bowling alley bar, and high school kids. it was real.
03 December 2005
Everyone needs to see Head On now. It's about two doomed Turkish lovers strugglging with their Turkish identity, family, love, and all other stuff that makes for great entertainment.
02 December 2005
As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.
--Adam Michnik
A return to the rant.
Summary: It was obvious to me that the war in Iraq was a combination of ideological hubris and naked greed. It's been similarly obvious to me that American bureaucrats and news reporters can not envision a world not structured by hierarchy and control, where there is no Microsoft Outlook scheduler dinging when it's time to head down to the conference room for an all-hands meeting.
Details: I was going to write this as a letter to the New York Times, but they never publish my letters so it seems pointless to send off another missive into the void. The good thing about the NYT letter format is that it forces me to attempt to limit my message. This blog imposes no such limitations, so I can even write these meta-commentaries. Yeah, they're boring, ok.
Read this article about the Iraq insurgency. It was obvious to me the moment there was even the slightest murmur about a possible war in Iraq that it was a bad idea. I assumed that any thinking person would see it for what it is and was: a transparently crass bit of nonsense motivated by various ills: neo-con fantasies of world-domination (Rumsfeld, Wolfivitz, Richard Perle, etc.); greedy oil barons (Cheney); greedy military contractor profiteering (Cheney, Randy Cunningham), etc. Half sick profiteering and half absurdist ideology that is essentially a contiuation of the crusades. I'll stop myself there, as I'm sure you can read plenty of whining liberals complaining or ranting about the war. I'm not saying anything new and either you already agree with me or you don't.
I thought instead I'd try and share something that is obvious to me, but maybe it's not so obvious to everyone else. Very little is known about the Iraq "insurgency" other than that a lot of angry militia members will stop at nothing to kill people. First, let's start with the word "insurgency". Right away, this word implies organization. Look it up in your dictionary. You'll find something like this.
An expert from the Rand Corporation is quoted as saying about the insurgency that "They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity." This is classic. First of all, what does it mean to adopt? Generally, it is when an entity consciously chooses something. So our speaker here can not imaging a reality where you don't rationally deliberate amongst a menu of choices and then pick one. Further more, he assumes that the impetus for the non-choice was the need for a structure that assures longevity. This assumes that there is any structure at all to the "insurgency" and that it or its adherents are aware of the value of their "longevity".
Clearly this man can't imagine what it would be like if an army of foreigners whom you hated even more than your sick, twisted, cruel and sinister leader landed in your country and told you that if you follow the rules, you too can have blonde hair, fake tits, and McDonalds, all day every day. Actually, that message of nirvana is not that different from the rewards promised to suicide bombers: a spot in the harem of heaven full of virgins, yours for the deflowering.
I could go on and on deconstructing the writing of the Times and its quotes, but I hope the point is obvious: you can't assume anything about a country and culture about which you know nothing from first-hand experience. It is beyond hubris and imperialism. Further more, and this is true for computer programming or invading countries: you must very carefully scrutinize your assumptions. When your project begins, you must check that your assumptions that you made when planning the project are inline with what's really on the ground.
For instance, if it is an assumption on your list that "people want and need democracy" and then you show up and they don't know what it is, nor whether they want it, you have a problem with your project and you need to reconsider your plans. The wise man even goes beyond the call and explores the assumptions BEFORE his project is underway. He (or she) might choose to go visit Iraq and learn about its people, its customs, its history, and the many colonial powers that had failed to tame it in the past.
The neo-cons also assume that people want "democracy"; that they know what it is; and that we have a more or less untroubled democracy at home. We have non-competitve elections for most congressional seats, since Republicans gerrymandered election districts throughout the 90's -- and Democrats did the same thing before them, though not quite as crassly. At least they waited every 10 years, unlike the Texans. But that's another story.
The congressional representatives themselves are beholden to special interests and mindless ideology, whether on the left or right (if you have New York Times TimesSelect, read this article). President Bush was elected by the Supreme Court in 2000. The White House and Congress are involved in countless dubious financial arrangements with every company performing contract work for the government, from Katrina clean-up to feeding the troops in Iraq to re-building Iraq's oil infrasctructure. I find myself wondering how anyone on earth can take any of this crap seriously. Who are we to "export" democracy when we have oligarchy at home, when our own government has been taken prisoner.
The real question for me is, does our government more close resemble the government of Nigeria or Saudi Arabia? I think we've managed to outdo both of them, by adopting the oil-driven corruption of the former, and masking it behind the religious fervor of the latter. I can't remember who said it, but "enemies become alike".
Which brings me to another obvious point that no one talks about. Our real enemy is Saudi Arabia. They are the ones who funded the 9/11 terrorists. 19 of those terrorists were Saudis. Their corrupt regime that leaves their people ignorant and impoverished, living like wandering desert nomads while they comingle with prostitutes in Beirut and Monaco and drink Veuve Cliquot. They are sitting on a powder keg of corruption and evil that is going to explode very nastily. Of course, the solution to the problem is not to start a war with them, but to engage with them diplomatically, and take a real moral stand for what's right. You could do something crazy, like stop buying their oil, to send a message. American business interests run the whole oil show down there, and that's the real reason we don't shut it down. Oh yeah, and they are our second largest supplier of oil and petroleum.
The EIA website is actually a fabulous resource. Check out their report on Saudi Arabia.
By the way, in case it wasn't obvious, the implication of the quote at the beginning is that we have safe streets in America, but we're all afraid of getting the Knock from the FBI because we were surfing the Al Jazeera website one time too many.
--Adam Michnik
A return to the rant.
Summary: It was obvious to me that the war in Iraq was a combination of ideological hubris and naked greed. It's been similarly obvious to me that American bureaucrats and news reporters can not envision a world not structured by hierarchy and control, where there is no Microsoft Outlook scheduler dinging when it's time to head down to the conference room for an all-hands meeting.
Details: I was going to write this as a letter to the New York Times, but they never publish my letters so it seems pointless to send off another missive into the void. The good thing about the NYT letter format is that it forces me to attempt to limit my message. This blog imposes no such limitations, so I can even write these meta-commentaries. Yeah, they're boring, ok.
Read this article about the Iraq insurgency. It was obvious to me the moment there was even the slightest murmur about a possible war in Iraq that it was a bad idea. I assumed that any thinking person would see it for what it is and was: a transparently crass bit of nonsense motivated by various ills: neo-con fantasies of world-domination (Rumsfeld, Wolfivitz, Richard Perle, etc.); greedy oil barons (Cheney); greedy military contractor profiteering (Cheney, Randy Cunningham), etc. Half sick profiteering and half absurdist ideology that is essentially a contiuation of the crusades. I'll stop myself there, as I'm sure you can read plenty of whining liberals complaining or ranting about the war. I'm not saying anything new and either you already agree with me or you don't.
I thought instead I'd try and share something that is obvious to me, but maybe it's not so obvious to everyone else. Very little is known about the Iraq "insurgency" other than that a lot of angry militia members will stop at nothing to kill people. First, let's start with the word "insurgency". Right away, this word implies organization. Look it up in your dictionary. You'll find something like this.
An expert from the Rand Corporation is quoted as saying about the insurgency that "They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity." This is classic. First of all, what does it mean to adopt? Generally, it is when an entity consciously chooses something. So our speaker here can not imaging a reality where you don't rationally deliberate amongst a menu of choices and then pick one. Further more, he assumes that the impetus for the non-choice was the need for a structure that assures longevity. This assumes that there is any structure at all to the "insurgency" and that it or its adherents are aware of the value of their "longevity".
Clearly this man can't imagine what it would be like if an army of foreigners whom you hated even more than your sick, twisted, cruel and sinister leader landed in your country and told you that if you follow the rules, you too can have blonde hair, fake tits, and McDonalds, all day every day. Actually, that message of nirvana is not that different from the rewards promised to suicide bombers: a spot in the harem of heaven full of virgins, yours for the deflowering.
I could go on and on deconstructing the writing of the Times and its quotes, but I hope the point is obvious: you can't assume anything about a country and culture about which you know nothing from first-hand experience. It is beyond hubris and imperialism. Further more, and this is true for computer programming or invading countries: you must very carefully scrutinize your assumptions. When your project begins, you must check that your assumptions that you made when planning the project are inline with what's really on the ground.
For instance, if it is an assumption on your list that "people want and need democracy" and then you show up and they don't know what it is, nor whether they want it, you have a problem with your project and you need to reconsider your plans. The wise man even goes beyond the call and explores the assumptions BEFORE his project is underway. He (or she) might choose to go visit Iraq and learn about its people, its customs, its history, and the many colonial powers that had failed to tame it in the past.
The neo-cons also assume that people want "democracy"; that they know what it is; and that we have a more or less untroubled democracy at home. We have non-competitve elections for most congressional seats, since Republicans gerrymandered election districts throughout the 90's -- and Democrats did the same thing before them, though not quite as crassly. At least they waited every 10 years, unlike the Texans. But that's another story.
The congressional representatives themselves are beholden to special interests and mindless ideology, whether on the left or right (if you have New York Times TimesSelect, read this article). President Bush was elected by the Supreme Court in 2000. The White House and Congress are involved in countless dubious financial arrangements with every company performing contract work for the government, from Katrina clean-up to feeding the troops in Iraq to re-building Iraq's oil infrasctructure. I find myself wondering how anyone on earth can take any of this crap seriously. Who are we to "export" democracy when we have oligarchy at home, when our own government has been taken prisoner.
The real question for me is, does our government more close resemble the government of Nigeria or Saudi Arabia? I think we've managed to outdo both of them, by adopting the oil-driven corruption of the former, and masking it behind the religious fervor of the latter. I can't remember who said it, but "enemies become alike".
Which brings me to another obvious point that no one talks about. Our real enemy is Saudi Arabia. They are the ones who funded the 9/11 terrorists. 19 of those terrorists were Saudis. Their corrupt regime that leaves their people ignorant and impoverished, living like wandering desert nomads while they comingle with prostitutes in Beirut and Monaco and drink Veuve Cliquot. They are sitting on a powder keg of corruption and evil that is going to explode very nastily. Of course, the solution to the problem is not to start a war with them, but to engage with them diplomatically, and take a real moral stand for what's right. You could do something crazy, like stop buying their oil, to send a message. American business interests run the whole oil show down there, and that's the real reason we don't shut it down. Oh yeah, and they are our second largest supplier of oil and petroleum.
The EIA website is actually a fabulous resource. Check out their report on Saudi Arabia.
By the way, in case it wasn't obvious, the implication of the quote at the beginning is that we have safe streets in America, but we're all afraid of getting the Knock from the FBI because we were surfing the Al Jazeera website one time too many.
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