CBS today fired four staffers after an independent study found that they had a 'myopic zeal' to put forward those dubious National Guard documents detailing Bush's service.

It's interesting to me that this issue has resulted in the end of five careers (including Dan Rather's), but the Nigerian Yellowcake forgery fallout only resulted in Valarie Plame getting outed as a CIA operative, an incident seemingly perpetrated by two White House officials, and which still hasn't been fully investigated or persecuted.

Comments? (7)

With the news that CNN is letting Tucker Carlson go, and likely shelving the show Crossfire, it's clear that Jon Stewart has the attention of 'big media,' no matter how much he professes to deal only in fake news.

CNN's US CEO Jonathan Klein, when asked about any influence from the well-publicised spat between Stewart and Carlson on Crossfire last October, Klein told AP, "I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp."

Despite running a 'fake news' show, Stewart has been championing a movement against politics-as-entertainment in the non-fake media, claiming that balanced news 'hurts America' and that just because there are two sides to an issue doesn't mean both deserve equal time and equal weight.

Appearing on his own program, "The Daily Show," the day after the tiff with Carlson, Jon told his audience, "They said I wasn't being funny. And I said to them, 'I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.'"

Not for much longer, apparently. Thank you, CNN.

Comments? (8)

Photos and stories of twenty injured Iraq war veterans

It's easy to forget that for each of the 1250 US soldiers who have been killed in Iraq, there are several times more who come back missing limbs, blind, paralyzed, or with metal shards that have torn through their brain. As amazing as the pictures are, the stories these people tell about their own actions and mindsets are even more stunning. I'm really surprised this got sponsorship, but I'm very glad it did.

Comments? (5)

I'm just stunned. But life goes on. Pray that this can't happen again. With significant gains in the house and the senate, who's to say the next constitutional target won't be the 22nd amendment.

Wow. Um... Yeah, that's all I've got right now. Wow, and not the good kind.

Comments? (27)

Everything's coming together. I'll be the first to say it, and weather the pummeling of those who are still wringing hands. This election is sewn up. It's in the bag. It's in our bag.

Every way that polls can break are breaking to the Democratic side. From the traditional shift of the undecided voters to the incumbancy, to the larger turnouts favoring the party of the younger generation to the tracking polls and battlegrounds. Barring a morning surprise announcement, this time tomorrow even the lawyers will realize the jig is up and it's time to come home.

Okay, okay, in the morning I'll go outside, turn around three times and spit, but that's in the morning. Right after that I'll go vote, so I can claim a little bit of the victory for myself.

Comments? (9)

Here we are, 24 hours from the General Election, and despite an unexpected appearance from Osama, neither candidate has dropped a bomb in the last couple weeks. The weekly 'hot point' issues like the missing Al Qa Qaa explosives and Sinclair's airing of 'Stolen Honor' have been spun by the candidates and hung out to dry by the media. While presidential elections have often been plagued by the dreaded 'October Surprise,' times aren't what they were four years ago, and the campaigns may be adapting.

Four years ago, the average media cycle took around two days to take hold. The time from an incident or anouncement to media's pickup of the event, to transmission to the public through the nightly news or daily paper would usually take a full day, with second-order meta-commentary about what the event means and how we should feel about it not coming down for another two or three days. Actual public opinion change is strongest after a general concensus is made and it could take four days to a week for an incident's aftermath to fully manifest itself in polling numbers.

Over the past four years the way people get and disseminate new information has shifted dramatically. A reasonably large percentage of the public is online at work or at home during the day, and can find out new developments within hours of their occurance. When important news breaks, these wired readers are quick to spread word through IM, email, cellphones, or a shout over the cube wall. While media's incidence-to-opinion period has dropped from several days to several hours, the public's ability to propogate news quickly has grown at an even faster rate.

With the presidential race closer than any since 1916, it doesn't take a big surge to put either candidate over the top, and while the media opinion of any large announcement is hard to predict, the snap first-impression of the public is far more ascertainable, both due to focus testing and because it's more deterministic, where media opinion is more chaotic with a small number of influencers' opinions changing others until a concensus (or conventional wisdom) is discovered and reported.

Since the need is so small, and the safest way to influence the voters is by using the media as a reporting mechanism instead of a mechanism of commentary, it seems that the weapon of choice for this election is the November Surprise, most likely the 'Election Morning' surprise. A large and urgent announcement, not directly related to the presidential race, made immediately after the morning radio talkshows have gone off the air in the Central time zone (the vital races are in Central and Eastern and every hour is critical) between 11am and 12pm Eastern time, would likely be heard by 30% of voters before they have gone to the polls. Depending on the nature of the announcement, it could cause a significant sway in undecideds, possibly enough to turn a state or two.

The veracity of the claim wouldn't be known until after the election is completed. While claiming that Osama has been captured would be difficult to defend against when the truth came out a few days later, saying that several dozen people were killed in a stronghold where he was believed to be hiding out ("more information to come as we get it!") is more plausable, accomplishes much the same effect, and is easier for the administration to distance themselves from after the fact, when he turns out to still be alive.

To protect against a snap-backfire -- a media which includes along with their first report an opinion that this may be an election tactic -- the announcement's timing would have to seem plausably uncontrollable, so the above Osama scenario would be more difficult to pull off. In light of last week's Osama video it becomes more plausable, however, when the CIA claims that their intel on his location is related either to information contained with the video, or a retracing of the path by which the video came in to U.S. hands.

One thing is certain, however; such a 'November Surprise' scenario could not be taken by Kerry, since his duties don't have the scope that would allow for a 'breaking news' level announcement that is not directly related to the election.

The other possibility is a replay of Spain's pre-election bombings, though I doubt it, since it's unclear who such an attack would benefit. It's possible that Osama's timing of his video was to test the waters. If the video pushed Kerry up a point or two, then an attack would be likely to increase that margin. The scenario is reversed if the video helped Bush. Who Osama would prefer in the white house is an open question, though most people hold their own opinions, which coincidentally are almost always that he wants whoever they aren't planning on voting for.

I hope there isn't a November Surprise, though I'd bet that even in the absence of an administration announcement, other groups will try for one.

Comments? (5)

Well, I'm a Kevin Fox, but if you're from the Chicago area and this is the first time you've come to the site, I'm probably not the Kevin Fox you're looking for.

Seems another Kevin Fox has been arrested under suspicion of murdering his 3 year old daughter, in a story that's gotten quite a lot of media attention, at least according to Google News.

I have no feeling as to whether the guy did it or not. Being my namesake doesn't mean I'm prejudiced towards him, though I hope he didn't do it if for no other reason than it would lessen the chance of my being stopped at airport security because my name matches that of a suspected murderer.

CAPPS II, the airport security system that causes anyone whose name is similar to that of a 'person of interest'to be flagged for extra security measures or barring from flight, is one thing I would be really happy to see eased or eliminated under a Kerry victory. As it is, I'm selected for security screening when I purchase my ticket less than two weeks in advance, but not in other cases. I'll keep you posted on whether I get screened more frequently on my upcoming flights. It's an interesting test.

Three more days. God, just three more days...

Comments? (5)

Commentspam up the wazoo, a new home, still moving out of an old home, about 300 bites from biting midges (all on the same night on a lonely cove in Baja), a busy and exciting workplace and a blog left neglected.

I think I post so little nowadays because my vision for what Fury should be is becoming so much more concrete, and is so different than what's presently here, that it feels like a step backwards to post.

But then, a step backwards is still more a part of the dance than standing still, and so I'm posting now, and will try to keep it up as I reshape the site behind the curtain.

In other news, despite the upcoming presidential election taking up a huge portion of my personal mindshare for the last year, today was the first time the candidates actually pushed in to my living room, and within 20 minutes of each other. The first was a call from the KErry campaign, encouraging me to vote on Tuesday (like I'd miss it), and the second was the new 'wolves' ad from the Bush campaign. The scariest part of that commercial is that it's playing in California, telling me that they eitehr actually think they have a shot of taking the state, or that they have enough money in their final week that they can blow advertising dollars in decided markets. I don't particularly like either possibility...

Comments? (7)

Apparently this came out three days ago, but I hadn't seen mentioned yet in the press or blogsphere. The Commission on Presidential Debates has finalized the times, places, and formats of the three presidential debates and the one vice-presidential debate.

Of note:

• All of the debates save one are to be conducted at a table with the moderator and the two candidates.
• The remaining debate (second presidential) will be in a 'town hall' environment, where the candidates will be asked questions from the audience, who will consist of St. Loius-area undecided voters as selected by the Gallup polling organization.
• To be eligible for debate participation, a candidate must be eligible for president, be on enough state ballots to provide a mathematical possibility of electoral majority, and have at least 15% of the popular vote as established by an average of five polls from different polling organizations just prior to the candidate announcement deadline (that is to say, unless Nader quintuples his support, it's Kerry and Bush at the table)

To my mind, this debate format favors Bush. He's always stronger speaking in the informal environment that a table-chat affords, and this environment inhibits direct accusations. Try to picture Lloyd Bentsen belittling Dan Quayle, saying "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." while sitting face to face with the person. How powerful would Bush Sr. have sounded saying "Read my lips: 'No New Taxes'" if it had been said from Leno's guest chair instead of standing in front of the flag? A podium fosters the feeling of accountability, of gravitas.

Sitting at a table is humbling; It's everyday; It inhibits the possibility of a powerful soundbyte extolling a vision, and turns the debate into a messier trio crowded around a table where the moderator has a far greater influence on how the audience interprets the show.

A Lincoln-Douglass debate this is not. Larry King, more like.

At any rate, I'm excited to see each candidate given questions from the other, instead of the softballs lobbed their way by sycophants who have to sign pledges of support before they can even get in the auditorium.

Hopefully September and October will now produce some television worth TiVoing.

Comments? (2)

Rachel and I spent the weekend in Las Vegas with her parents and had a blast. Amazingly, this was my fourth trip to Lost Wages in the last calendar year and amazingly I didn't lose my wages. I actually turned a profit!

Las Vegas is truly a different world from the Bay Area. Was it the flashing lights? Nope. The casinos? Un-uh. It was the Kerry commercials on TV every 10 mintues. Hello, swing state! I don't think I've seen a single presidential commercial outside of a news show airing it to comment on it since the primaries ended.

I get riled up enough by the election already. I can't imagine what it would be like with a constant barrage of ads for the next three months.

Comments? (5)

For those of you following online politics, it's been an interesting couple of days between Moveon.org, the Re-elect George Bush site, and Democrats.org. Amidst the harsh language and finger-pointing about Hitler imagery, here's the lowdown:

Last October, Moveon.org sponsored a competition "Bush in 30 Seconds" for ordinary people to create their own commercials critical of the Bush presidency. 1,300 people and groups of people made such films, and the ads were put online for judging. Two of those spots had allusions to Hitler and Nazi Germany.

The Bush campaign and the RNC took great offense to any comparison of Hitler's regime to the current administration, and vocally denounced these two spots. In response, Moveon.org removed the two movies from their site.

Now, eight months later, the front page of the Bush campaign's site features an ad denouncing the 'attack ads' from the Kerry campaign, by showing clips not from the campaign, but from various entries in the Moveon.org competition (including both of the removed Nazi-related ads), a clip of Michael Moore accepting his Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, and other clips completely unaffiliated with the Kerry campaign.

Even more interestingly, the 'Bush in 30 Seconds' competition took place before the primaries, at a time when Moveon.org's own poll, held to determine who they should endorse for the Democratic nomination, overwhelmingly supported Howard Dean. John Kerry took a distant third place behind Dennis Kucinich.

The DNC, seeing the Hitler imagery on the Bush home page, vociferously denounces the Bush campaign for using Nazi imagery, and calls for democrats to sign a petition to get the placement removed while studiously ignoring the fact that the imagery is ostensibly being used as a case example of how Kerry's campaign is one built on negativity and attack ads.

In response, the Bush site modifies the ad on their home page to make it very clear that the clips being shown weren't produced by the Bush campaign, by labeling them as coming 'from moveon.org,' but omitting the fact that the ads weren't created by moveon.org, and that moveon.org took the clips off their site at the Bush campaign's request months ago.

The real shame here is that both sides, filled with very intelligent people, act like they're preaching to idiots who will believe the more sensational voice, and won't look beyond their words. The Republican leaders are happy to point to the ads and say "Look! They're comparing us to Hitler! They're evil!" when they know that the ads weren't created by Moveon, and were quickly pulled. The Democrats on the other hand are saying "Look! They're using imagery of Hitler on their home page! They're evil!" while ignoring the fact that the imagery is being displayed as an example of work created by (presumably) a democrat, and that it was pulled as requested last year, after being on the site alongisde hundreds of other ads for only a few days.

I just watched the episode of The West Wing entitled '20 hours in America' where one of the themes was that the campaign leaders were spending so much effort trying prove they're superior to the other guy, that they don't focus on the actual needs and concerns of real people. Sadly, that's exactly what I feel here, and that neither side is noble nor just, because each is only willing to tell as much of the truth as needed so that they look like the righteous ones.

We deserve better than this from our campaigns, regardless of who you favor.

Comments? (15)

When a president sixteen years out of office dies we put his casket out for all to honor, first at the Presidential Library and now in the Capiton Rotunda where his body will stay for three days as tens of thousands of people will visit and pay their respects. Thousands of photos will flood the media for days.

On the other side of the world, when a soldier dies in Iraq nobody is permitted to take pictures of the casket under the rationale that it violates the privacy of the grieving family, even if the family explicitly gives their consent.

This photo honors a patriot

This photo commits a crime

Maybe there should be a checkbox on the enlistment form:

[ ] If I am killed in the line of duty, I would prefer the media not take pictures of my casket on its journey home.

Comments? (40)

A freelance journalist from the UK flies to Los Angeles to do an article for the Guardian, and ends up with a very different story when she is imprisoned for 26 hours and deported for not having a little-known journalist visa.

The idea of deporting someone for not having the proper paperwork is annoying, though not reprehensible, but her experiences of being treated like a criminal are terribly worrisome. Is this the cost of promoting democracy around the world? What happens when immigration officials tag webloggers as de-facto journalists?

Comments? (17)

I forgot. Was it Cory Doctorow who's doing high-level consulting for the campaign, or someone else? If you know, please comment or email, thanks!

Comments? (9)

I was going to post this, but Ray already did. Last week Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) accepted an honorary doctorate from William & Mary. This is his speech to the graduating class.

Comments? (7)

The many stages of my cool day (elapsed time: 15 minutes):

• My friend (and my best friend's sweetie) Paul got offered a job here at Google!
• The Gmail team had a small a one month anniversary (mensiversary) party!
• Al Gore showed up at the end to say 'hi'!
• I got to shake his hand!
• I gave him a Randompixel camera!
• He took a picture of Sergey and handed it to him!
• Sergey asked me, "You're a part of this Randompixel thing? I saw that and it looks neat"!

Oh yeah, and there was cake. :-)

Comments? (26)

I want Kerry to win more than anything, which is why the following is so frustrating: A few weeks ago I got my first ever piece of real, physical political correspondence from the Kerry campaign. The first sentence reads, "All our hard work and determination -- all the energy and enthusiasm that you and so many other dedicated people have brought to our campaign -- are finally paying off."

Are?! Admittedly, this is a difficult sentence, since 'all our pennies are shiny' but in that case, 'our pennies' is plural. In the above case, "our hard work and determination" is singular, and the modifier 'all' doesn't group together many disparate items, but rather refers to the grand sum of a single item, as in 'all our work was for naught,' as opposed to 'all our work were for naught.'

Ugh. I hope part of my campaign contribution goes to a proofreader. In a battle like the one running for the next six months, it's stupid to miss points for something like this.

Update: Thanks to Andrew, for convincing me that the letter was correct after all. Hard work and determination are two individual things, so 'all' groups them together, making the total plural.

<Gilda>Nevermind!</Gilda>

Comments? (28)

Putting aside the saga of Diane Feinstein's strong support for a new flag-burning amendment, and her lack of consideration of the views of her constituancy, I figured out what really bugs me about such an amendment.

What happens if the amendment is passed, and someone breaks the law? How do we feel about federal prisoners incarcarated for burning a flag in defiance of the government? A State that imprisions its citizens for burning a flag is a State one step closer to Orwell.

Comments? (11)

SFGate has a fascinating article on the Medicare press materials given to television stations by the Bush administration. The packages come readymade with cheering actors portraying reporters witnessing the signing of the bill, and scripts for 'real' reporters to use when introducing pre-prepared news segments from 'field reporters' who are actually actors using scripts provided by the government, portraying reporters while interviewing administration officials.

This comes at the same time that the Republican National Committee is sending hundreds of threatening letters to TV stations fraudulently threatening that they're violating campaign finance law if they accept money to air comemrcials from MoveOn.org.

Comments? (8)

Paul Davies makes an interesting case for a realistic mission to Mars: Make it a one-way trip (NYT registration required).

It wouldn't be the first time explorers have gone on to new lands without expectation of coming back, and the potential gain is significant. Unlike the Moon, Mars can provide a sustainable habitat, with minimal supplies sent from Earth each time the 2.2-year window opens up.

Further, if we start with a crew of four, and add more people as the colony proves its viability, then this concept starts to look less and less like a suicide mission, and more like colonization.

Sure, there are tons of problems, not the least of which is that so far 20 of the 36 craft sent to Mars have failed en-route, which makes gambling on the bi-annual resupply from Earth a harrowing and possibly deadly game, but improving the reliability of the one-way trips is infinitely easier than trying to engineer a round-trip with current technologies.

Comments? (17)

As a follow-up to last month's heated discussion of Bush-Machiavelli comparisons, I'm posting an excerpted interview transcript from Diane Sawyer's interview of George Bush last night.

In it, Bush is repeatedly asked to elaborate on the discrepancy between his pre-war assertions about Saddam's chemical and nuclear capabilities, and he repeatedly dodges the question. When directly asked whether attacking Iraq was justified based on the actual evidence, Bush asks if there's a difference between a power that wants weapons of mass destruction and a power that already has them, and says that post-9/11, both need to be dealt with. "The man is a danger, so we got rid of him." He repeatedly asserted that his actions were justified because "the world is better off because we got rid of him."

This, to me, is the ends justifying the means.

Let the railing begin.

Comments? (13)

Reason #448 of why Google is a fun place to work: Celebrity drop-ins. Last week Al Gore stopped by for lunch. About a month ago Howard Dean came to talk with us. Before that Jimmy Carter and Gwenyth Paltrow stopped by (individually, not together).

About 10 minutes ago Clinton stopped by. I suppose it was planned in advance, but the buzz ran through the building about 5 minutes before he came.

(If I'd known I'd have a better camera than my T616 phonecam)

He shook hands and I'm certain that if there were babies present, he would have kissed them. Anyhow, nifty Tuesday and a good distraction while waiting for my car.

Update (3:15pm): As it turns out, I have verified that there was a baby there and that she did get a kiss on the cheek. (Thanks for the scoop, Kerah!)

Update (4:35pm): Was Clinton's visit leaked to the press? Or maybe to The Onion? Judge for yourself: Clinton Googles Himself

Comments? (7)

From Bush's interview with The Sun (the only one-on-one interview the President has granted all year, and not to a US paper):

"Presidents and Prime Ministers should never worry about how they are viewed in short-term history. I think in terms of long-term history.

"I set big goals. And I know what we’re doing is going to have a positive effect on this world."

In other words, the ends justify the means.

Comments? (35)

California State Senator Jackie Speier last week spoke out regarding identity theft, loudly decrying Google as "an invitation to identiy thieves" for making it easy for people armed with just a phone number to find out someone's name and address.

From Speier's web site:

Speier explained that if a stranger enters your home phone number in the Google website, the search engine will produce a home address as well as a map.

Speier noted, "If this stranger knows where you live, he can steal your mail and be well on his way to getting credit cards in your name. Having your phone number listed on Google is an invitation to identity thieves."

Several others on the web have been quick to note that there are many other ways to get a name and address given a telephone number, but so far everyone seems to have missed the greater point: If an identity thief wants to get the holy grail of a name, address, and telephone number, they don't need Google, Yahoo, or even a reverse-lookup telephone book.

I wonder what Speier would do if she realized that ordinary telephone books routinely list all three. After all, if you're looking to steal someone's identity, wouldn't you be far more likely to already have a name or an address and want to find the phone number? Who picks phone numbers at random, trying to harvest an identity, when they deliver a book full of match sets to your door for free every year?

Google as an invitation to identity thieves? Please.

Comments? (9)

Sam, I read your open memo at the Proteron site today, and it left me with questions.

I've been an avid Mac user since I got my 128K Mac in 1984. As a former helpline staffer at the Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, writer for MacWEEK Magazine, marketing assistant for Dantz Development, and software developer for Casady & Greene, I completely understand the plight of "the little guy", but in this particular example I feel that your venom is unwarranted.

Your open memo is based on the claim, reiterated on the LiteSwitch X home page, that "LiteSwitch X was the original application switcher for the Mac OS". This is both 'disappointing' and 'dishonest'. The first application switcher for the Mac OS was "Switcher" written by Andy Hertzfeld (with special thanks given to John Markoff and Bud Tribble) while under the employ of Apple Computer in 1985. Apple pioneered the technology you're claiming they pilfered, and they did it when the Mac OS was barely one year old. Over the intervening 18 years countless "little guys," Proteron among them, have come out with application switchers building on Apple's foundation. Surprisingly, very few gave any credit to Andy, John, Bud or Apple for the original innovation.

While I agree that Sherlock likely crossed the line in replicating Watson functionality, I don't feel the same sympathy for Proteron. On the aforementioned LiteSwitchX page you scream in 48-point letters (using Apple's corporate font, no less), "Dear Apple: You forgot some important features" in OS X 10.2. Beneath this accusation you simultaneously berate Apple for remembering them in OS X 10.3. I'd suggest not using the 'gloat' and 'sympathy' cards at the same time. They tend to cancel each other out.

LiteSwitch X is a very elegant product, but it has clearly borrowed more core functionality from those applications that came before it than it adds to the table. As long as LiteSwitch doesn't violate patents and look-and-feel copyrights that's fine, but it's poor form to cry foul when someone does the same to you. If, on the other hand, you feel that Apple has impinged on your intellectual property rights then I would suggest pursuing legal action against them. Writing an 'open memo to Steve' that you know will go unanswered seems to me to be little more than a 'mouse who roared' ploy for attention.

I noticed that you've recently released LiteSwitch X 2.1 with support for Panther. I wish you the utmost success with it.

Comments? (27)

The average cash transaction results in 4.7 coins being returned in change. It's all about the denominations. A research scientist took this to heart and work out solutions. The most obvious is to ditch the penny, but since that might never happen (the penny has some big backers) adding an 18-cent piece might be the next best thing.

Comments? (10)

The New York Times did an impressive flash presentation of geographic variables in today's recall vote. I particularly like the distribution chart of how often a given candidate's name appears on the first page of the ballot.

Comments? (3)

If you're in California, dear god, please vote.

Comments? (22)

Here's an interesting article which, if true, has amazing implications for the recall. According to the author. Arnold was involved in hotel-room meetings with Enron execs two years ago, planning steps necessary to vanquish an $8 billion lawsuit filed by Bustamente against Enron for unfair business practices.

Read, comment, and pass on, if you please.

Comments? (7)

So the recall's a huge mess, and my guess is that the recall will be approved, Arnold will be elected, and the next morning signatures will start being collected for the next recall. After all, he'll win with about 35% of the vote, and less than 3% of eligible voters need to sign a petition to start this whole mess again.

Still, thanks to Ariana, we get a little entertainment out of it (flash, sound, quasi-unsafe for work).

Comments? (5)

Here's a random thought: If the circuit court upholds their decision to postpone the recall election because the punch-card ballots that would otherwise have to be used in several counties disenfranchise many voters, what does that say about current elected officials?

If holding an election next month with this machinery is so disenfranchising as to be illegal, then doesn't that throw the legality of every democratic election performed using these machines into doubt? How could it be important enough to psotpone the recall election for 6 months, but not be important enough to force a revote for every current elected position?

Must.. leave... can of worms.. alone! Lets just get the election over with, so the media can refocus on internationa policy and the presidential race.

Comments? (14)

Okay, browsing through the list of gubernatorial candidates is not the most efficient use of one's time, but it can be funny following a random link to a random candidate's web site.

Task for this evening: Create a 'random California governor's web site' redirector link.

Comments? (8)

Britney Spears gets front page billing for a stage-kiss with Madonna. For all the attention you'd think she was having her baby. Apparently though, Papa don't preach.

Johnny Depp speaks against the US, saying it's a "dumb puppy with big teeth"* and, after backlash, has to recant.

Meanwhile, girlkissy Britney swears she wouldn't kiss a girl again, unless it was Madonna. Then she goes on to wax political, saying, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that."

Heaven forbid we should think twice about politi-media fabrications like the Jessica Lynch story.

Comments? (8)

So, with the California recall just a month away, I wonder: If the recall vote doesn't pass, will they publicize the results of the candidacy vote? That is, if we vote to not have a recall, will they tell us who would have won if the recall had been approved?

Comments? (8)

I'm sure most of you have at least heard about the scheduled California Recall vote. The Democratic leadership is trying to make sure there are no Democrats on the slate of gubernatorial replacements, because an all-Republican menu will make people more likely to vote against the recall, but my question is: if the Republican vote will be so spread out amongst the many Republicans running, is there anything legally stopping Davis from throwing his own hat into the election ring?

The front-running Republican candidate will likely garner only 20% of the vote, while it's probable that over 40% will be against the recall in the first place. Why not put Davis on the ballot of 'replacements' such that even if the recall effort gets a majority vote, those voting against the recall can also vote to put Davis back in if the recall vote passes?

Of course, the real opportunity here is for an independent or Green Party candidate to step in, collecting all the Left Wing votes while the Right Wing votes get squandered against a bevy of would-be kings.

Welcome back to California.

Comments? (12)

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote, in Good Omens, "Civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism."

Judging by the United Nations, that may be a generous estimate.

Comments? (16)

Am I the only person who, watching Bush's speech from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln yesterday (where he arrived by fighter jet landing on the deck of the ship, which was returning to its home port of San Diego, flanked by its battle group), was reminded of Zaphod Beeblebrox's introduction in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

To quote (sorry for the looong quote, but it's worthwhile until the Adams Estate asks me to take it down):

The boat sped on across the water. It would be some time before it reached its destination because Damogran is such an inconveniently arranged planet. It consists of nothing but middling to large desert islands separated by very pretty but annoyingly wide stretches of ocean.

[...]

The boat zipped and skipped across the sea, the sea that lay between the main islands of the only archipelago of any useful size on the whole planet. Zaphod Beeblebrox was on his way from the tiny spaceport on Easter Island (the name was an entirely meaningless coincidence --- in Galacticspeke, easter means small flat and light brown) to the Heart of Gold island, which by another meaningless coincidence was called France.

[...]

Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippy, good timer, (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.

President?

No one had gone bananas, not in that way at least.

Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli: he was the ideal Presidency fodder. <footnote 1>

What they completely failed to understand was why Zaphod was doing it.

He banked sharply, shooting a wild wall of water at the sun.

Today was the day; today was the day when they would realize what Zaphod had been up to. Today was what Zaphod Beeblebrox's Presidency was all about. Today was also his two hundredth birthday, but that was just another meaningless coincidence.

As he skipped his boat across the seas of Damogran he smiled quietly to himself about what a wonderful exciting day it was going to be. He relaxed and spread his two arms lazily across the seat back. He steered with an extra arm he'd recently fitted just beneath his right one to help improve his ski-boxing.

``Hey,'' he cooed to himself, ``you're a real cool boy you.'' But his nerves sang a song shriller than a dog whistle.

The island of France was about twenty miles long, five miles across the middle, sandy and crescent shaped. In fact it seemed to exist not so much as an island in its own right as simply a means of defining the sweep and curve of a huge bay. This impression was heightened by the fact that the inner coastline of the crescent consisted almost entirely of steep cliffs. From the top of the cliff the land sloped slowly down five miles to the opposite shore.

On top of the cliffs stood a reception committee.

It consisted in large part of the engineers and researchers who had built the Heart of Gold --- mostly humanoid, but here and there were a few reptiloid atomineers, two or three green slyph-like maximegalacticans, an octopoid physucturalist or two and a Hooloovoo (a Hooloovoo is a super-intelligent shade of the color blue). All except the Hooloovoo were resplendent in their multi-colored ceremonial lab coats; the Hooloovoo had been temporarily refracted into a free standing prism for the occasion.

There was a mood of immense excitement thrilling through all of them. Together and between them they had gone to and beyond the furthest limits of physical laws, restructured the fundamental fabric of matter, strained, twisted and broken the laws of possibility and impossibility, but still the greatest excitement of all seemed to be to meet a man with an orange sash round his neck. (An orange sash was what the President of the Galaxy traditionally wore.) It might not even have made much difference to them if they'd known exactly how much power the President of the Galaxy actually wielded: none at all. Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.

Zaphod Beeblebrox was amazingly good at his job.

The crowd gasped, dazzled by sun and seamanship, as the Presidential speedboat zipped round the headland into the bay. It flashed and shone as it came skating over the sea in wide skidding turns.

In fact it didn't need to touch the water at all, because it was supported on a hazy cushion of ionized atoms --- but just for effect it was fitted with thin finblades which could be lowered into the water. They slashed sheets of water hissing into the air, carved deep gashes into the sea which swayed crazily and sank back foaming into the boat's wake as it careered across the bay.

Zaphod loved effect: it was what he was best at.

He twisted the wheel sharply, the boat slewed round in a wild scything skid beneath the cliff face and dropped to rest lightly on the rocking waves.

Within seconds he ran out onto the deck and waved and grinned at over three billion people. The three billion people weren't actually there, but they watched his every gesture through the eyes of a small robot tri-D camera which hovered obsequiously in the air nearby. The antics of the President always made amazingly popular tri-D; that's what they were for.

He grinned again. Three billion and six people didn't know it, but today would be a bigger antic than anyone had bargained for.

The robot camera homed in for a close up on the more popular of his two heads and he waved again. He was roughly humanoid in appearance except for the extra head and third arm. His fair tousled hair stuck out in random directions, his blue eyes glinted with something completely unidentifiable, and his chins were almost always unshaven.

A twenty-foot-high transparent globe floated next to his boat, rolling and bobbing, glistening in the brilliant sun. Inside it floated a wide semi-circular sofa upholstered in glorious red leather: the more the globe bobbed and rolled, the more the sofa stayed perfectly still, steady as an upholstered rock. Again, all done for effect as much as anything.

Zaphod stepped through the wall of the globe and relaxed on the sofa. He spread his two arms lazily along the back and with the third brushed some dust off his knee. His heads looked about, smiling; he put his feet up. At any moment, he thought, he might scream.

Water boiled up beneath the bubble, it seethed and spouted. The bubble surged into the air, bobbing and rolling on the water spout. Up, up it climbed, throwing stilts of light at the cliff. Up it surged on the jet, the water falling from beneath it, crashing back into the sea hundreds of feet below.

Zaphod smiled, picturing himself.

A thoroughly ridiculous form of transport, but a thoroughly beautiful one.

At the top of the cliff the globe wavered for a moment, tipped on to a railed ramp, rolled down it to a small concave platform and riddled to a halt.

To tremendous applause Zaphod Beeblebrox stepped out of the bubble, his orange sash blazing in the light.

The President of the Galaxy had arrived.

He waited for the applause to die down, then raised his hands in greeting.

``Hi,'' he said.

Douglas Adams, you are a prophet and you will be missed.

Comments? (69)

Jeb Bush tells NRA that they're responsible for his brother being in office: "The sound of our guns is the sound of freedom!"

It's easy to confuse our country with the third world when major entertainment networks actively promote pro-war rallies while prohibiting their stations from publicizing anti-war gatherings, and ban and villify artists who come out against the war.

It's nice to see the Bush family so concerned about the Bill of Rights, but while they're busy defending the second amendment, can we also get some attention for the first and fifth? When the president's brother (Not Uday, I mean Jeb) tells millions that the kick of a rifle butt into our shoulder is the manifestation of freedom, I've got to wonder: When we're done touring bits democracy to the world, can we bring them back home please?

Comments? (15)

This NYT story scares the shit out of me.

On the surface, it's only mildly disturbing: The Re-elect Bush campaign has worked it so the GOP nominations are held in New York, starting on September 2nd, 2004 (the latest nomination in GOP history). They freely admit that they hope to use the memorial services occurring in NY a few days later to counterpoint Bush's platform of anti-terrorism and national security. From the article:

The back-to-back events would complete the framework for a general election campaign that is being built around national security and Mr. Bush's role in combatting terrorism, Republicans said. Not incidentally, they said they hoped it would deprive the Democratic nominee of critical news coverage during the opening weeks of the general election campaign.

So the original tactic of using 9/11 as a bridge between the parties has failed now that it's time to run for re-election, and that bridge might be used to let Republican voters walk the chasm to the Democratic camp for different ideas on foreign policy and civil rights.

Sure, that's scary, but I wouldn't expect anything less. What really worries me is this excerpt, which seems right on the ball:

The strategy of starting so late and building the campaign around the events in New York is not without risks. Mr. Bush's advisers said they were wary of being portrayed as exploiting the trauma of Sept. 11, a perception that might be particularly difficult to rebut as Mr. Bush shuttles between political events at Madison Square Garden and memorial services at ground zero.

In addition, Mr. Bush's advisers said they remained worried by the economy's persistent weakness, an issue that could trump national security if the threat from terrorism appeared to recede.

So Bush aides are worried that their re-election campaign could fail if the economy gets worse or if the war on terrorism is successful.

Suddenly FDR's quote, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself" blends worryingly with Alan Sorkin's quote from The American President, "Bob Rumsen is not the least bit interested in solving [the problems of this country]. He is interested in two things, and two things only: Making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

It troubles me that the Bush administration is making plans 18 months in advance for its own survival that are contingent upon it not achieving the goals it has stated are its primary objective for the remainder of the administration.

Comments? (6)

Trust the government to spearhead waterfall design at the expense of usability. They're trying to make governmental data easier for ordinary citizens to find, but their 'three clicks or less' mantra leaves a lot to be desired.

"Three clicks or less" sounds great in meetings and when pitching to corporate schmoes, but it has absolutely nothing to do with usability, beyond ensuring that the final product will have been crippled by a false constraint at the outset.

The joining of several databases into a few unified search databases is laudable, but search has so much to do with how search requests are understood by the system, how different results are given levels of significance, and how those levels are indicated to the user, that the most unified search engine can end up being the worst, unless these factorsare taken into account.

Case in point: Go to 4 out of 5 consumer electroncs sites and search for a product name or part number and you'll receive 23 press releases that mention the product name, and you have to drag through two or three pages of search results before actually getting to the product page. This is a particularly lamentable example because it's clear that users desire product pages over press releases, and they could easily be grouped first, or the result set could even be gathered into piles from different categories so the user can say 'ooh, press releases!' and dive into that subset of the results.

Hopefully, government info is just as structured and easily clustered. They also have the benefit of being able to enforce metadata inclusion, to allow better sorting and grouping of result sets based on meta tags.

Of course, my grousing is based on the PR-speak coming from the project, and I'm assuming that the design will follow the propaganda they're spouting to the press. I just hope the actual designers don't accept the 'three click' mandate as the backbone of design, because just because you can get anywhere in three clicks, if each of those clicks are from a palette of a hundred or a thousand, then usability was gone before click one.

Comments? (61)

I understand this old Chinese curse better now than I ever have. Two weeks ago I was sure that I would be in China right now, with Karen and almost 20 family members and friends of family, but it wasn't to be.

When the news about SARS broke out a week from last Sunday, I was concerned, but not overly so. I was glad that it was still a week until our trip, so that informed analyses would have time to replace sensationalism and we could make an informed choice as to the outcome of our trip.

As the days rolled on, and three cases in Hong Kong became 12, then 50, then 260, I grew more and more concerned. Cases had turned up in Canada, the disease was blossoming in Hanoi, and 12 nations had people with atypical pneumonia, all recent visitors to affected areas, under observation and isolation.

I raised the issue to a few people who were going on the trip, and some were concerned. My cousin, a doctor, assured us that the dangers were minimal, and that if he was taking his one-year-old son along, then it should be clear that in his informed decision there was no substantially increased danger.

Each day I'd check Google News to find out the latest on the virus investigation and spread. On the night before I was supposed to fly to Los Angeles to catch a flight to Tokyo then Beijing the next day, I did a lot of soul searching.

While cases had been cropping out in several areas connected to Hong Kong, the Chinese Ministry of Health claimed that there were no cases in China outside Hong Kong, and released a report about 305 cases (with 5 fatalities) that occurred from November to February in Guangdong province. They claimed that that outbreak was under control, and hadn't spread beyond Guangdong.

Considering that there is more personal traffic between Hong Kong and Beijing and Shanghai than several places with documented cases, it seemed questionable that Mainland China was somehow free from disease.

The New York Times published a piece discussing how infection rates are considered 'state information' and are controlled by the government. In the previous Guangdong outbreak, the government-controlled media was specifically prohibited from broadcasting information about the new disease or its spread. Investigators from the World Health Organization who came to Beijing were not allowed to travel to Guangdong province to conduct their own assessment of the current state of the disease.

...

Backing out of the trip is no small deal. Magnanimously paid for by my uncle, it probably cost about $6,000 per person. Though it sounds like we could get an 80% refund on the last minute cancellations, due to the outbreak and war policies, that's not certain. I had a lot of thinking to do, and family politics, like it or not, would play a major role.

As the infection numbers grew daily, so did my concern. Family members who claimed it was no big deal were still purchasing N95-level face masks for protection on the trip. On Thursday, word came that two people had died of SARS in Beijing. Two cases and two fatalities wouldn't concern me overly much, if not for the knowledge of the extent to which the Ministry attempts to hide this information. Sure enough, it turns out that the doctor in the medical hospital who told the French press about the fatalities was fired the next day.

Speaking with my cousin (doctor) Thursday night, I heard a few rationalizations as to why the disease wasn't a concern: First, the current risk seems to be equivalent to that of driving in China, an admittedly more hazardous activity than driving in the US. Second, the virus appears to require close contact for transmission, and the large majority of documented transmissions were between relatives or to hospital workers. Third, in response to my concern that we'll be in Shanghai for several days after the virus has a chance to go through an additional four or five incubation cycles, I was told that either the virus is non-contagious enough to be avoidable, or it is virulent enough that it will eventually reach all corners of the globe (like the Spanish Flu of 1917) so it doesn't matter whether exposure happens in China or in my home town.

Most of my family had already made a firm decision to go, and they had put their fears to rest, bolstered by these arguments. I didn't make a significant effort to try and persuade others to the validity of my views, since it was clear that I wouldn't be able to convince others to consider alternate plans at this late date, and trying to would likely only make a tense situation worse.

Having heard the arguments as to why SARS is no big deal, I still had significant reservations. Any infectious risk assessment is based on three factors: How many carriers there are, ease of transmission, and risk groups.

The number of carriers right now in Beijing and Shanghai is unknown. Today the Ministry of Health admitted that their report on the November-February outbreak was incorrect. There were over 600 cases, not 305, and there were at least 31 fatalities, not 5. Meanwhile, the Ministry continues to deny that there is any outbreak in other mainland areas, even though several SARS cases in other countries are in travellers who only visited Shanghai or Beijing. Without government support, we can't hope to know how large the outbreak in Beijing and Shanghai is, or how far it will spread amongst an uninformed populace over two weeks. In the absence of concrete information, I prefer to err on the side of caution.

On transmission vectors, the statement that documented cases of transmission are heavily weighted to personal acquaintances and hospital personnel is misleading at best. Documented cases always favor these groups because they are easier to document. Most cases at this point have no documented transmission vector, so saying that those that are identified tend to be of the type that are easier to identify is a meaningless tautology. As it turns out, as cases are being investigated further, several cases of in-aircraft transmission have been documented, along with the hundreds of cases with no identifiable source. 'Casual contact' is a completely ambiguous term, especially when it seems to cover the contact between a hospital worker and a patient known to be contagious. One patient infected 40 hospital workers in Honk Kong last week, even after it was known that he had a communicable disease. While proximity was certainly a factor in transmission, many of these hospital workers used barrier systems (face masks, gloves) when interacting with the patient, and the fact that they came down with SARS means that the means of transmission goes beyond casual contact.

Lastly is risk groups. Viral infections, especially non-airborne infections, are social diseases, in that they spread through social groups (healthcare workers, families, communities, etc.). As it happens, in the current outbreak, a high percentage of the cases in the last two weeks have been among travellers. Those cases of non-familial and non-hospital transmissions have all taken place within the social group of 'traveller'. People are being infected in hotels and airplanes. This makes some sense because the traveller comes in to contact with so many more people on a given day than someone following their regular daily routine. This localization of infection should be kept in mind when weighing total documented cases against a population in order to estimate risk. In this case, the population of greater Beijing isn't as relevant as the population of travellers in the city.

In the end, it came down to the fact that this is an emerging disease, with an unknown but growing infected population in the areas we were travelling, unknown transmission vector, unknown treatment, in a country that deliberately hides cases of the disease by transferring them to military hospitals and ordering doctors not to discuss them. In 1975, 85,000 Chinese were killed by a broken reservoir, and it went unreported for 23 years. In 1995, China finally revealed that 694 people died in a cinema fire 18 years earlier. Yesterday China announced that the November-February infections in Guangdong Province were 790 with 31 dead, not 305 with 5 dead. Even now they won't allow health officials into the province to assess the situation.

In short, vacations are supposed to be relaxing, and it wouldn't be relaxing to spend two weeks in a land with a rapidly spreading disease and a government rushing to stop the spread of information instead of disease. I believe that there is a middle ground between an epidemic that poses virtually no statistical risk of infection and one that will sweep the entire world. I believe that there are cases where travel to specific areas should be curtailed during times of local epidemics, and I believe that this is one of those times. Within days they'll likely know the causative agent, and soon after a test, and an ideal course of treatment. For now, none of those things is confirmed.

I dearly hope that none of the 20 in the group that went anyhow gets sick. If one of them catches SARS then many likely will. If one gets sick with anything else requiring a visit to a hospital, they'll find an overtaxed system and waiting rooms filled with parents worried about their coughing children (as reported). A stuffed up nose and red eyes is enough to convince ticket agents not to allow a passenger on their flight home.

All in all, I was very much looking forward to the trip, and I hope those that went have a fantastic time. It wasn't right for me and my sensibilities, even if it was for others. I know they'll be happier without a nervous Kevin spreading his paranoia, and I hope that they accept that I had to go my own way.

Throw in the Iraq War and the fact that South Korea moved to Defcon 2, their highest point in 12 years, in concern for a preemptive North Korean strike, and you truly have interesting times.

Comments? (54)

Top ten items on House of Representatives' agenda after renaming French Toast to "Freedom Toast" in the House restuarants:

10. Eat Freedom for breakfast

9. Pass resolution to replace 'deja-vu' with 'woah, buh'

8. Require two-week quarantine for Americans returning from France

7. Blame Canada

6. Mandate that French classes instead teach students to speak English, but in a nasal 'Franch Ahccent'

5. Build bigger Eiffel Tower at the WTC site and call it the 'Freedom Tower'

4. 'Fetchez la vache'

3. Declare July 14th to be 'National Funny Nose Day'

2. Return the Statue of Liberty

1. Ban RU-486

Comments? (7)

Following up on our discussion of John Brady Kiesling and John H. Brown's resignations from the diplomatic corps, I've received a copy of John Brown's resignation letter. While not as eloquently written as Mr. Kiesling's (which may be why the full copy didn't appear in the news outlets) it's still an interesting read.

Comments? (31)

This is really a fascinating article about the Pentagon's view of the purpose of a global superpower (hosted by the U.S. Naval War college) and the whys and whens of international military action. This is the 10,000 foot view of how current international politics relate to the last 50 and the next 50 years.

All the press and public sentiment nowadays relates to the recent past (15 years) and immediate future (10 years). This document goes beyond terrorism and human rights, and looks at geopolitics from the standpoint of economic and sociologic stability of a globalized planet.

The analysis in this document is very, very well thought out, in my opinion, and just as terrifying. The question I'm left with is what is our role in the world? Who gave us the keys and who are we to drive?

Agree or disagree with the moralities presented in this 'plan', it presents a more honest view than the 'of the moment' motives spouted out daily in the chambers of the UN, or the pages of the media.

Comments? (7)

I so don't want Fury to become a warblog, but I wold like to point to an editorial critical of the Bush Doctrine that was published in the SFGate today. A highlight:

"Here are the words you will never hear from Dubya: We have won the war on terror. Never will you hear this, because the battle is, by definition, unwinnable; you can't win a war on terror any more than you can win the war against racism, or ignorance, or drugs, or cutesy boy bands or sunlight. Terrorism is as much a concept as a force, an idea as a scattered, well-organized, global network we can't possibly pinpoint."

Yes, the article is designed to enflame people, polarize them one way or the other. At the same time, it underscores my primary anger about our country. Beyond any one action, vote, or invasion, we've become a nation of pre-emptive aggressors who fight because we're scared of what happens if we don't beat people up before they beat us up.

Okay, so if the last warblog post I made was any indication, this will probably get a lot of comments. Go ahead and comment away. I won't be putting as much effort into point-by-point rebuttals to people's vim this time around. I've expressed my opinion well enough.

Comments? (46)

The political world is going to shit. I strongly believe that our top leaders are lying to us, that they have their own agendas that don't mesh with the well being of the nation and the world, and that they realize that since the media won't call them on it, they can make more daring and more glaring lies every day.

My question for the weekend is: If the United States is taking on the role of the World's Policeman, ensuring that the world enjoys the American standards for human rights and freedom, then why do we not listen to what that world is saying?

I say 'we' though every day I feel less and less that 'we' are represented by our government. I'm travelling overseas later this month, and I'm just hoping that people in other countries don't treat me like I agree with what my country is doing ostensibly in my name.

I don't understand why Democratic leaders (or any domestic leaders for that matter) aren't coming out against the way this charade-driven prelude to war is being played out. With less than 50% of Americans saying that they would vote to re-elect Bush if the election were held today without even having an alternative candidate in mind, why don't we hear more from those politicians who better represent our views? Why don't we hear it more vocally from the US media? What little true investigative reporting that's done by US news services is usually printed as 'opinion' or 'editorial.' Bush understands that the first step to controlling the media is to make sure the other guy never gets heard.

We're being bullied. We're being spied upon. We're being lied to, and we're being robbed.

Give the populace a lollipop tax refund and make them pay for it later when 'the other guy' is running the country. Make the government earn less and spend more, call it the price for our liberties and tell us that the best thing we can do for our economy is to buy ourselves a new VCR and look the other way.

How do I raise my own flag, for all the world to see? How can I identify with a nation that feels as I do, led by a government that does not? What is the best way to say that I stand up for the ideals that this country was founded upon, but that I think that those ideals are not represented by the people currently at the nation's helm?

What happens to the United States' credibility if we go it alone and invade Iraq, and not find weapons of mass destruction (other than our own) in the ruins we create? Would our leaders plant them, like crooked cops at a drug bust, or would we blanket our slaughter of the Iraqi people under the guise of their emancipation from tyranny? How will other nations ever again justify allying with us when we collaboratively set the rules for a country's disarmament, then unilaterally say 'fuck it. I don't believe you, but since I can't prove it I'll decimate your infrastructure to be on the safe side'? What does it say when our foreign policy is based on Napoleonic Law, and even France won't stand with us?

We're inches away from strip searches for traffic violations. Our bank account and previous travel activity are already looked at by threat-assessment computers to decide which planes we can fly on, and how often we get searched along the way. And more invasive systems are in the works. American citizens are being held without bail, without charges, and without paperwork or public scrutiny, under the oxymoronic guise of protecting our freedoms. If an American was treated this way by any other nation, it wouldn't be tolerated. But this is America, where our government knows what's best.

Our 'terror alert' scale is designed to tell us when to feel scared (but not why), and when to feel safe (but not for how long). We're told to prepare for ambiguous terrorist threats, then told not to feel fear or overreact as we're instructed in how to walk leisurely away from a nuclear attack.

We're being played as puppets. We're brainwashed into thinking that Iraq and Al Qaeda are the same thing, and that having a missile that can travel 113 miles instead of the proscribed 93 miles is tantamount to possessing smallpox.

Our government has told the world that they're either with us or against us, and if they don't like the way we run the world, well, then they just might be next on our list. This is the same ultimatum that's also being given to the people of our country.

How wrong is it that I fear a repeat election in 2004 more than anything that Iraq, Al Qaeda, or even North Korea could do?

How can we stop this ride? I want to get off.

Comments? (88)

This is a teriffic read. I't s both comforting and worrisome to know that those on the diplomatic front lines see the same problems as I do.

I hope that Political Counselor John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation doesn't just slip under the cover of sensationalism in the next news cycle.

Comments? (68)

A perfect instance of my unsettlement in the state of the world is when one of the RSS feeds I read comes up with a heading, "More War3 stuff" and I immediately assume it's from Daily Kos, a political commentary site I read, instead of Zhaneel, talking about Warcraft III and the new Frozen Throne beta test.

Comments? (6)

Sorry for all the warblogging, but this one caught my eye: Earlier this week the Arab press aired an audio speech purportedly from Bin Laden. Recalling what you read in the press about that speech, did you get a sense that he supported Saddam Hussein?

Several articles, on CNN, the NYT, and other major sites, reported that Bin Laden was supporting Iraq's aggressive military stance (Iraq-the-governmentregime, as Iraq-the-people don't really have a military stance involving biological or chemical weapons). The White House carried this ball, citing it as further evidence that Iraq-the-regime supports the terrorist activities of Al Quaida.

The funny thing is that shortly after the broadcast, MSNBC reported: "At the same time, the message also called on Iraqis to rise up and oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who is a secular leader." This sentence was later downplayed in an edit to the article, and within a day was stricken completely.

Osama is striving for solidarity of the Arab people against the United States; I don't think anyone disputes that. My concern is, given that the seemingly unstoppable Bush War Machine has Iraq in its sights, what is the plan? They'fe talked about ousting Saddam and changing the regime, but to what? Theres a good deal of dispute as to what the Iraqi people think in their hearts. What I haven't heard spoken of is this war's 'win condition'.

Is the conflict over when everyone who's left alive likes us and won't try to build weapons against US interests in the next 10, 20, or 50 years? Is the conflict over when we've bombed their capacities to the point where we can wait another decade before they get close and we have to bomb them again? Is it over when we enthrone someone who has our interests at heart, hoping that they stay our friend, but happy to come back and hit 'reset' again if they don't like us anymore?

But getting back to the bigger point: There seems to be no distinction between Iraq the people and Iraq the government, when such a distinction weakens our own solidarity against them. On the contrary: if Osama says Iraqi people should rise up and take Saddam out of power, then is it smart for us to condemn that, when we've been s