Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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...but I don't think I trust the Active Sport peach cobbler.
The food may still taste like road kill. But if a new program from the U.S. Army works out, GIs' rations won't smell quite so bad. The Natick Soldier Center is working on a project to make rations more palatable to grunts by embedding savory aromas into the food's packaging. If the food smells better, the thinking goes, the soldiers will be more likely to eat their MREs, or Meals, Ready to Eat, and will be better able to carry out their grueling tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The effort -- tongue-pleasingly titled Active Package Olfaction to Increase Soldier Acceptance of Field Rations* -- could ultimately affect more than soldiers' appetites, however. Smells have been known to influence people's perception, energy and ability to learn. This project might be the beginning of a military foray into aromatherapy.
*APOISAFR - It's like they named it after me.
McSweeneys: The Bombay Palace All-You-Can-Eat Buffet: A Postcolonial Perspective
Absolutely nothing at all, huh, Dick?
From the 2000 Vice Presidential debate:
SEN LIBERMAN: [...] And I'm pleased to say - see Dick, from the newspapers, that you're better off than you were eight years ago, too. (Laughter.)
MR. CHENEY: And most of it -
SEN. LIEBERMAN: (Chuckles.)
MR. CHENEY: And I -- I can tell you, Joe, that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: (Laughing.) (Inaudible.)
(Laughter, applause.)
Laughter, Laughter, all right. Har-de-f***ing-har-har.
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to newly available documents.
The size and scope of the government contracts awarded to Halliburton in connection with the war in Iraq are significantly greater than was previously disclosed and demonstrate the U.S. military's increasing reliance on for-profit corporations to run its logistical operations. Independent experts estimate that as much as one-third of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is going to independent contractors.
The lying started well before these jackasses (weren't) elected.
"We have essentially humanised the yeast," says Tillman Gerngross, GlycoFi's chief scientist. "It is the first time a fungal organism has been able to secrete a human glycoprotein with complex human glycosylation."
...and it's coming out the back of my head.
Then, he fell off the ladder face-first and onto the drill, which went through his right eye and out his skull, just above his right ear. According to Ben, doctors told him the drill pushed his brain aside, rather than impaling it, which could have caused further - and most likely vastly more extensive - damage.
[...]
Corrin Keck, a friend of Ron's, said other than loss of sight in his right eye, she has not seen any major effects. "At this point, we haven't noticed any problems with his motor skills and speech."
Holy crap.
Just go read.
snif snif.
I grew up a white kid in a black world in Durham, NC. Ma & Pa G. were colonists of sorts from out West and the Deep South, respectively, and the African American community accepted us and I rarely felt out-of-place growing up. I know I've heard Dr. King's 'I Have a Dream' a thousand times. Hell, in grade school we spent more time learning about George Washington Carver than we spent learning about the Father of our Country and February was always fun because we had assemblies with special speakers, musicians, and yes...preachers every day.
But each time I reread I Have a Dream I'm awestruck. Awestruck by the immensity of the distance come and by the immensity of the distance yet to go.
Apparently, the new standard is that the lies don't even have to be remotely feasible, just pronounceable.
President Bush's campaign -- expected to dwarf Democratic hopefuls by raising $200 million or more for the primaries, with no GOP rival -- is appealing for donations by portraying Bush as a fund-raising underdog who won't have enough cash to defend himself against Democratic attacks.
"Democrats and their allies will have more money to spend attacking the president during the nomination battle than we will have to defend him," campaign chairman Marc Racicot wrote in the fund-raising e-mail sent Wednesday night. "If you need more convincing the president needs your help, consider what the Democrats are saying. The race is just starting, but their rhetoric is already red-hot." (emphasis added)
Okay, the notion that the man who has broken every single fundraising record there is, who belongs to the party with a massive fundraising advantage to begin with, could possibly have less money than the Democrats is crazy enough. Between the middle of May and the end of June, Bush raised $35 million; the nearest democrat, John Kerry, raised $16 million from January to June.
But hey, we all know the GOP is fabulously bad with numbers, so that's no surprise. This however, is something new: if your opponent won't lie about you, then just make up the craziest shit you possibly can and accuse them of saying it anyhow.
Racicot's e-mail attributes quotes to several Democratic presidential hopefuls criticizing Bush. Among them, Racicot says former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean stated that Bush might suspend the 2004 election, called Bush "reckless" and "despicable," compared him to the Taliban and said Bush was trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare, public schools and public services. "This ugly, overheated rhetoric shows Democrats will say anything and stop at nothing to defeat this president," Racicot wrote. (emphasis added)
Asked if the comments attributed to Dean were accurate, Dean spokeswoman Tricia Enright was incredulous. "Compared him to the Taliban? Absolutely not. Suspend the 2004 election? What is that about?" Enright asked. "He said his (Bush's) tax policies were reckless. Obviously all this was taken out of context."
Taken out of context? Sounds to me like it was made up out of whole cloth. Now that the rules are clear, I guess I can go ahead and reveal that just last week I heard Dick Cheney say that he had photos of Richard Gephardt banging high schoolers at a kegger with the Church of Satan and that Joe Lieberman drinks the blood of Gentile babies. Yep, he said it right on Oprah.
Sigh.
Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and his Republican rival Haley Barbour said Mississippi would take the Ten Commandments monument that was removed Wednesday from a public area of the Alabama Supreme Court building. The separate statements were issued within minutes of each other, and it's unclear which was written first.
[...]
"Tell Judge Moore, who is a hero to so many of us, that if they don't want the monument in Alabama, we want it in Mississippi," Barbour said. "I'll send a truck over today to pick it up, if they'll let me have it for the Governor's Mansion."
Musgrove said he would display the monument in the Mississippi Capitol for a week starting Sept. 7 and he hoped other states would take turns showing it. "It is my intent to move this monument to other states to show support for our common Judeo-Christian heritage," Musgrove wrote.
Great. Roy's Holy Boulder is going on tour. It's a rock star now.
Why does it always have to be the South? Year in and year out, the gold medalists in synchronized ridiculousness. Just when California had finally pulled ahead of us, we reach deep down into our collective regional self and find that last bit of energy, of courage, of determination, and WHOOSH! We're watching Larry Flynt and Arnold Schwarzenegger fade to specks in the rear view mirror.
It was a noble and valiant effort, California, but just as Minnesota found out, this is not a sport for amateurs and the season isn't over after just one game. Now step aside and we'll show you what championship-level surreal looks like.
growing around your waist and buttocks, you bulbous burbanite.
Urban Sprawl Makes Americans Fat, Study Finds
U.S. researchers said on Thursday they had quantified the price of living in sprawled-out American communities and weight gain leads the list -- six pounds on average, to be precise.
[...]
"We found that U.S. adults living in sprawling counties weigh more, are more likely to be obese and are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure than are their counterparts in compact counties," Reid Ewing of the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland told reporters.
[...]
The study found that people in far-flung communities walk less for leisure, but this factor did not account for all the weight difference. "It may be as a result of the lower level of physical activity they get as part of their daily lives -- driving to work, driving to school, driving to lunch, basically driving everywhere," Ewing said.
I'd like to see additional work on how bad this sprawl phenomenon is on our spines, too. Car seats are so damn uncomfortable. There are gobs of reasons why compact communities are healthier for us and the planet, but we can compensate for the four-lane fat feature because my guess is that the suburbs is where we'll find more lizards.
PARIS (Reuters) - Exenatide, an experimental diabetes drug derived from lizard saliva, not only controls patients' blood sugar levels but also cuts their weight, its developers said on Monday.
I bet the guys in this bedroom community not too far from me are pretty thin.
If I was standing next to Anna Kournikova, I'd probably have the same goofy look on my face.
Photo from Yahoo News with the caption: "Tennis player Anna Kournikova (L) and Amazon.com Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos applaud at the opening of trading at the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York on August 22, 2003. Bezos and Kournikova are promoting the new Shock Absorber sports bra that will be sold on Amazon."
Good thing they let readers know that Anna is the one on the left. For a second, I thought she had really let herself go.
More from my fave. Go read today's log.
*Intra-Shia politics
[...]Although the August president of the IGC, Ibrahim Jaafari, is a leader of the London branch of al-Da`wa, al-`Anzi seems to deny that Jaafari is in any way representing the party.[...]
*Ahmad Chalabi & Richard Perle
[...]All Perle is doing is criticizing the State Department and the CIA for refusing to work with the corrupt expatriate financier Ahmad Chalabi. [...] Actually, refusing to preside over the coronation of Chalabi, who has no support whatsoever inside Iraq, was among the few things the US got right. The CIA and State called this one.[...]
*Great stats index
-Number of 27 major Iraqi cities where water is dirtier and less often available now than under Saddam: 12 (includes Baghdad, Najaf & Tikrit)
-Cost of providing clean, reliable water to Iraqis: $16 billion.
-Percent by which Saddam's regime outproduced the current American administration in electricity: 28
-Cost of modernizing the electricity grid: $2 billion
-Amount of money Bremer administration in Iraq has left: $10 million
*more
As a matter of fact I suggest you read his log once per day. Bookmark it or just hop over to the 'blogs of note' after visiting apostropher.
You will have a broader and deeper understanding of what's going on in Iraq and the rest of the Mideast than if you don't. Period.
A sign of hope, I hope I hope.
A top State Department official Deputy (Froz: Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage) says Washington is exploring the idea of a multinational force in Iraq that would be led by U.N. officers serving under an American commander.
[...]
The statement marks the first time U.S. officials have said they may be willing to give the United Nations a leadership role in Iraq. Several countries including France, which opposed the U.S. led war in Iraq, have ruled out sending troops to the region unless there is a U.N.- authorized multinational force in place.
Much more with a simple Google News: 'World'.
Please.
The EPA doles out some major goodies today and the headlines read:
EPA Exempts Old Plants from Key Rule -San Jose Mercury-News
New Federal Air Rule Draws Sharp Criticism -Washington Times
New EPA Rule Draws Flak, Smog -Christian Science Monitor
EPA Eases Pollution Rule at Power Plants -Reuters
EPA Sets Clean Air Act Exemptions -MSNBC
and...
New Rule Encourages Plant Modernization??
Huh? That can't be the same sto... Oh.
From our inimitable friends at Fox News.
Afraid of Bias?
Go here to read the rule in full or summary form in PDF for yourself. In the meantime let's look behind the media to who is fighting this out.
From Natural Resources Defense Council, a regular plaintiff in these suits:
NRDC obtained a leaked copy of the final rule, which essentially repeals the "new source review" provision of the Clean Air Act. That provision requires industrial facilities to install modern pollution controls when they make upgrades to plants that increase air pollution. The new final rule would allow facilities to avoid installing pollution controls when they replace equipment -- even if the upgrade increases pollution -- as long as the cost of the replacement did not exceed 20 percent of the cost of what the EPA broadly defines as a "process unit."
[...]
At the same time that the Bush administration has been preparing this new rule, the Department of Justice, state attorneys general, NRDC and other organizations have successfully prosecuted or settled new source review lawsuits that the Clinton administration brought against the 12 owners of the country's oldest, largest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. [...] EPA officials have estimated that if it won all of the enforcement cases involving the 51 plants, it would cut nearly 7 million tons of harmful air pollution annually. That would amount to a 50 percent reduction of air pollution generated by U.S. electric utilities.
[...]
The same companies that are currently being prosecuted for new source review violations are major contributors to the Republican Party and had easy access to Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force. For example, the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group comprising the power plant defendants in the Justice Department new source review cases, had at least 14 contacts with the Cheney task force and contributed nearly $600,000 to the Republican Party from 1999 to 2002.
From Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Trust, also a (less-frequent) plaintiff, via Tom Paine:
The Bush proposal triggered a firestorm of criticism, including from (Froz: soon to be the new EPA Administrator, pending confirmation) Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt's director of air quality, Rich Sprott. At an April 1 EPA hearing on the proposal, Sprott called it a "disastrous approach to managing air quality" and said it would create a "train wreck" that would be virtually impossible to enforce. (Sprott may not have understood that's exactly what the Bush White House and its power company friends want.)
From The American Lung Association, who I don't know if have ever taken part in a CAA suit, but who I know are advocates and lobbyists:
The American Lung Association strongly opposes the rule issued today by the Environmental Protection Agency that will roll back key provisions of the Clean Air Act, called New Source Review. The Environmental Protection Agency's decision is the latest in a series of steps that undermine large parts of the most effective environmental law in the United States.
And from the other side, for fairness and balance, of course.
From EPA
The changes we are making in this rule will provide industrial facilities and power plants with the regulatory certainty they need,” said Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko. “This rule will result in safer, more efficient operation of these facilities and, in the case of power plants, more reliable operations that are environmentally sound and provide more affordable energy.
[...]
In today’s action EPA is finalizing changes to the definition of “equipment replacement” under NSR. These changes were proposed in December 2002. EPA opened a 120 day comment period and held five public hearings across the country to ensure ample opportunity for public comment on the proposed changes. EPA received over 150,000 written comments and heard from over 450 individuals who participated in the public hearings. After reviewing the comments, EPA decided to move forward to finalize part of the proposed rule.
Froz: ", Anyway!"
Hey, maybe I could do Bill O'Reilly's job.
From Edison Electric Institute (The Electric Utility Trade Group) not on their website, however, even under press releases; Only as a Yahoo news bit (from which they're the submitter and the source). Like Yahoo has reporters...Puh-leeze. Cut the crap and quit hiding your PR as journalism.
Kuhn (Thomas R., President of EEI) noted that for the past several years, power companies have faced an uncertain and sometimes hostile regulatory environment in which even the most routine power plant maintenance practices or efficiency improvements are called into question. "We are pleased that electric companies will be able to get on with doing the job they do best -- generating the electricity that powers our economy and way of life," Kuhn said.
Froz: Mnmn, An amazing story. Wait. No, It isn't. You stank then and you stink now and you'll always stink.
Hey! I'm getting better at this! Bill, buddy, let me intern.
Ahh, back to the, um, "journalists":
From Fox News
"We're going to really, I think, create certainty going forward for industrial facilities, by spelling out what specific replacement is exempt," Horinko said. Supporters of the rule add that efficiency gains from plant upgrades will benefit the environment while also ensuring that electricity gets to its end. [...] The new rule, supported by the electricity utilities and oil industries, allows manufacturers, chemical plants and pulp and paper mills to modernize a fifth at a time.
Who needs a "Ministry of Information" when you have guys like this?
Not only does red wine contain a life-extending chemical, apparently frequent masturbation prevents prostate cancer, chocolate prevents heart disease and cigarettes stop bullets. Oh mighty death, how I mock thee.
Today's word of the day from wordsmith.org:
dasypygal (da-si-PYE-gul) adjective
Having hairy buttocks.
[From Greek dasy- (hairy, dense) + pyge (buttocks).]
A related word is dasymeter, an instrument for measuring the..., no, not that, rather the density of gases. Another related word is callipygian, having a beautiful behind.
Rory McCarthy returns to Baghdad after two months and finds that even the optimists there are losing heart.
A wave of fury and despair among Iraqis has drowned out the few voices that filled me with hope. Those of my Iraqi friends who clung resolutely to their optimistic dreams are finally losing heart. They shrug their shoulders and begin to list the unrelenting failures of the new Iraq.
It is not that the power supply has still not improved. It has worsened. Four months after television screens across the world showed the victorious toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdous Square, power cuts are more frequent, not less. In many Baghdad homes the water that flows from the taps is brackish and undrinkable. Water treatment plants, short of electricity and poisoned by their own rusting pipes, are failing.
[...]
Two months ago eager aid workers were arriving in droves, filling empty hotel rooms and beginning dozens of long overdue projects. After last week's bombing at the UN headquarters in eastern Baghdad, those same young people are hurrying to leave. Many UN staff, some deeply traumatised by what they have suffered, have already gone.
At the weekend the Red Cross, an organisation with a reputation for enduring the riskiest of environments, from Afghanistan to Chechnya, announced it would drastically reduce its staffing. Yesterday Oxfam pulled out too.
So to help deal with the steadily crumbling security situation, we're starting to recruit the old Mukhabarat sadists into our service. Charming. Bet that goes over really well with all those liberated Iraqis.
Well, how 'bout that?
Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives. Mr Dyke said on Sunday that everyone would in future be able to download BBC radio and TV programmes from the internet. The service, the BBC Creative Archive, would be free and available to everyone, as long as they were not intending to use the material for commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added.
"The BBC probably has the best television library in the world," said Mr Dyke, who was speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival. "Up until now this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn't been an effective mechanism for distribution. But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that. For the first time there is an easy and affordable way of making this treasure trove of BBC content available to all."
Lovely. Chalk one up for the virtues of public broadcasting.
UPDATE (1:20 am): Paul Boutin discusses some of the technical aspects of this at Slate. And linked from that page: I had no idea you need a license to watch television in the United Kingdom. You can be fined up to £1,000, they say they catch up to 1200 people a day watching unlicensed television, and get this:
Our detection equipment will track down your TV
The fact that our enquiry officers are now so well equipped with the latest technology means that there is virtually no way to avoid detection.
How our detector vans can catch out licence evaders
We can detect a TV in use, in any area. That's because every TV contains a component called the 'local oscillator', which emits a signal when the television is switched on. It's this signal that the equipment on our vans picks up.
But, what if you live in a block of flats or a house without road access? Well if this is the case our enquiry officer can simply use one of our hand-held scanners. Measuring both direction and strength of signal, they make it easy for us to locate television sets in hard to reach places.
Are you kidding me? My goodness.
'Scuse me?! That's a new one on me. But if this Joseph Wilson outing Karl Rove as Robert Novak's 'Senior Administration Source' story turns out true, it's a MAJOR move on the offensive. And I can't imagine CIA folk don't "choose their words carefully". I also don't imagine they take to kindly to having one of their own "outed".
Ambassador Wilson (2d hand, from 4 sources):
"At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."
I've seen references via Calpundit and Mark Kleiman
Gotta keep digging on this one.
Heh heh. Frog-marched. Heh heh.
Update before I even hit save; quote is about 2/3 down through the transcript.
Heh heh. Frog-marched. Heh heh.
Update 7:45 AM Wed: After finally being able to watch the video (sound card out at the other computer) I would say Wilson doesn't seem to be accusing Rove directly, more stating that he thinks Rove knows who the source is and would love to see him asked by some MiB. But the quote is slam on target; good job, Natasha. here is the long video; "frog marched" quote is at about 3/4 of the way through it. cross reference your status with the transcript linked above.
All this is tea-leaf reading to some extent, but...
Heh heh. Frog marched. Heh heh. Karl Rove. Heh heh.
UPDATE 9/6 11:30 AM:
This link should be taken with several tablespoons of salt. I have no independent verification of it anywhere, but because of the crazy amount of traffic from Googles about Rove, Wilson and the humorous 'Frog Marching' that we're getting I'll put it up anyway. I'm keen to see if anything appears in the Washington Post from the supposed affadavit. There is a linking of Rove to a supposed family member named Roverer who helped build concentration camps in Europe earlier this century. When folks start flying 'Nazi!' accusations around, I get skeptical. When and if this starts to emerge more clearly, I will take this out of the apostropher archives and make a new post.
Heh heh. "Frog Marched!". Heh heh.
Wilson has announced that he will have his private attorneys petition the Department of Justice demanding that Roverer a/k/a Karl Rove be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identity Protection Act .
The investigation held thus far by the State Department's Internal Security (ISD) has stated that Rove did indeed leak the information out about the Ambassador's wife, CIA agent Valerie Wilson, to the Washington Post. Apparently they have an affidavit from the reporter he leaked it to.
But Meanwhile...
As long as you're here, why don't you take your boots off, sit a spell and peruse the this that thusly is, was and becomes apostropher. I'm froz gobo and he's the apostropher. Wrap your head around that one, why don't ya. Aside from oblique political vista, dissecting and tangential warblogging, and distinctive middle eastern commentary, you'll find just about anything under the sun - and far away from it, too - when you visit.
It can be hard to put on a graph and impossible to quantify at times, but there's nothing on the web quite like it.
Sometimes we just can't help but rant.
Enjoy your visit, drop us a line in the comments, and check out our favorite links in the side bar. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.
More dead American Soldiers since Flyboy-in-Chief said "Mission Accomplished" than before he did.
On Tuesday, a soldier was killed in an attack on a military convoy near Baghdad, bringing the death toll since May 1 -- when U.S. President George W. Bush declared major combat operations over -- to 139.
Between March 20, when the war began, and May 1, 138 U.S. service members died, according to the U.S. military.
And Billmon has a good look at some "revisionist history" going on right under our noses.
You tell 'em, Maddie!
In an opinion piece published in the September/October 2003 issue of the scholarly journal Foreign Affairs, Albright also accused the Bush administration of blundering by invading Iraq before Afghanistan was truly stabilised, Osama bin Laden had been caught and his al-Qaeda network smashed.
"I remain convinced that had Al Gore been elected president (Froz: Um, he was, kinda), and had the attacks of September 11 still happened, the United States and NATO would have gone to war in Afghanistan together, then deployed forces all around that country and stayed to rebuild it," she wrote.
Thanks, Ralph
This makes me so angry that I shake.
An 8-year-old autistic boy who died at a prayer service where church members tried to heal him of "spirits" was suffocated, the medical examiner's office said Monday. Terrance Cottrell went to a prayer service Friday with his mother, who prayed over him with a pastor and other church members. By the time the two-hour service was over, Terrance was dead. The official cause of death is mechanical asphyxia due to external chest compression, meaning Terrance was suffocated. The death has been ruled a homicide.
That's enough to make me red-faced, spitting mad. Here's where I tip over the edge into inchoate rage.
Asked whether church members could have confused Terrance's autism with evil spirits, [Head Pastor] David Hemphill said no. "It wasn't confused," he told CNN. "I know what I'm talking about." Hemphill said Terrance "had spirits in him," and church members simply asked God to "deliver him."
I resisted the urge to put Pastor in quotes up there. This guy is in no way a "man of the cloth," whatever that means; he's an ignorant charlatan and a murderer that shouldn't see one more day as a free man. I seem to read a story like this about once a year, and each time I just feel more furious than the time before. The case has been ruled a homicide. They better damn well prosecute it to the full extent of the law. I know this is intemperate, but screw freedom of religion. Fat lot of good that freedom did for Terrance Cottrell. When your god leads you to asphyxiate eight-year-olds, that isn't religion. It's psychosis.
As you might expect, Dwight Meredith at Politics, Law, and Autism has some things to say about this case. And you'd better believe he's angry, too.
...be quite certain to which commandments the lord thy god doth refer.
Here's a short but entertaining article from the San Francisco Chronicle's religion writer about the confusion surrounding exactly how many commandments there are (somewhere between 10 and 29) and what they actually command.
Froz does a good job with the pros and cons of Wesley Clark in the post below this one, so I won't do much elaborating here. But if you haven't read the Esquire article on Clark, I recommend you go do it now. Any doubts I had previously were answered. For my money (though admittedly, that ain't much money), this is THE guy.
I've been hesitantly supportive of Edwards to this point, mostly because I think he matches up with Bush better than anybody else in the field (sorry, Dean supporters - I like him and he is doing vitally important things for the Democratic Party, but he is at best a 50/50 shot against Bush, and this election is too important to take that gamble). But Wesley Clark ought to be president regardless of who else is running. As Digby says, "Wesley Clark isn’t just smart. He's brilliant. Overachieving Clinton-brilliant."
Before any of you gag on that statement, there is plenty to criticize Clinton for, but gray matter just isn't one of them. If you think you could beat Clinton in a policy debate, you probably think you could beat that Japanese guy in a hotdog eating contest, too. Trust me, you can't do either one and you'd just get hurt trying.
Anyhow, back on topic. The fact that Dean is the front-runner in the Democratic race and that no clear opponent has emerged has been taken as a sign of strength from the Dean camp. Unfortunately, I think it is more an indicator of the weakness of the field overall. Clark wouldn't just beat Bush, he would embarrass him throughout the campaign. Just try and imagine those debates without shooting coffee out of your nose. Moreover, I believe that a Clark candidacy would have serious coattails. He'd deliver several close Senate races to the D column - especially in the South - and I seriously doubt that any of the other candidates have that sort of pull.
Sure, I realize that the Esquire article is something of a puff piece, and the writer is more than a little enamored with the general. But read it and tell me that you aren't a little inspired. Clark is the real thing, an honest-to-god American hero with security bona fides unequalled anywhere. More importantly, he knows how to fight back, and to smile calmly while he's doing it. I know that Dean appeals to the anger of many Democrats, but anger plays well in primaries, and horribly in general elections. The Rove machine will find it all too easy to needle Dean until he explodes with something intemperate that will become a slam-dunk campaign commercial for Bush.
If he decides not to run, then I guess I'm back to Edwards, though I have doubts that he can win the nomination and I have even bigger doubts that either Erskine Bowles or Dan Blue could keep that Senate seat in the Democratic column (sigh). But should Clark's announcement come, I think the other Dems in the field ought to start clearing the deck and coalescing behind him. Clark will clean Bush's clock and, I suspect, reshape the very landscape of American politics.
UPDATE (12:22 pm): Amy Sullivan in the Washington Monthly on how Wesley Clark can win despite the late start.
The Democratic Presidential field may very well get a little shook up "by labor day" or "in a week or two" or "by the end of the month" or "in and around Baghdad and points north, south, east and west somewhat” or…wait… wrong story.
Anyway.
Maybe General (retired) Clark will run and maybe he won’t run, but just in case, who will gravitate to him and what does that mean? He’ll obviously get the kind of candidate honeymoon that would make Ah-nold jealous, being a highly visible "blow-dried Napoleon" and all. (Froz: Swish! 3 points!). Honeymoons don’t last forever, however; at least I have much more faith in his mastery of the issues than the Terminator’s. But the kind of impact he’ll have on the Demcratic Primary RACE could be interesting, largely because of people who can’t vote in the Democratic Primary.
Nixon’s Southern Strategy started 40 years ago. Many, if not most, but certainly not all, of those conservatives have gone ahead and changed their registration to Rep. A decorated soldier boy with the second sweetest flavor of Southern drawls (to North Carolina’s, of course – see John Edwards) will get regardfully raised eyebrows from many of these folk and there’s nothing Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh can do about it. That’s a real American over there; he’s a soldier.
But he’s still got to get the Democratic operatives and base to swoon if he’s to get the nod in Boston in July. I'm about as straight as they come, but as I told the Apostropher Prime a few weeks ago in conversation: Hell, those broad shoulders and confident, caring eyes even make me feel a little tingly. A pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, progressive-taxation and global warming-concerned (Froz: I’ve given up on ushering the political discourse towards the scientifically correct “global climate change”) guy with the ability to rub the chickenhawks’ lack of foreign policy credentials in their faces is a Democrat’s wet dream, right?
Or is it?
The word on Clark’s stance on the domestic issues seems to be soundbites selected by drafters, not the draftee himself. They are universally regurgitated, given a slight slant dependant on the particular drafting organization’s prevailing tendencies, and remarkably short on specifics in terms of policy agenda. Does he have electability written all over him, though. That smile... Talk to me.
Unfortunately, with that electability come some strange bedfellows.
We can lead by example. We can show our character. In 1980 and 1984, a group of Democrats had the courage to elect a Republican President, to help stir our country from its slumber. In a way, that small group, by putting their consciences ahead of their party affiliations, and by turning the tide of two elections, gave us an American President who restored our credibility in the eyes of the world. We have the opportunity to show the same courage and strength of character in this election; we have the opportunity to be this era’s Reagan Democrats.
Now am I all pumped up about a candidate that has the enthusiastic support of folks that thought Iran-Contra, El Salvador, and the Afghan Mujahidin (didn’t we see them again recently) “restored our credibility in the eyes of the world” and thought the war on drugs, disregard for our most unfortunate and a legacy of environmental degradation “help(ed) stir our country from its slumber”? Not without two teaspoons of trepidation.
And some of his pals make me a little nervous. From a Salon interview:
I like all the people who are there. I've worked with them before. I was a White House Fellow in the Ford administration when Secretary Rumsfeld was White House chief of staff and later Secretary of Defense, and Dick Cheney was the deputy chief of staff at the White House and later the chief. [Deputy Secretary of Defense] Paul Wolfowitz I've known for many, many years. [Deputy National Security Advisor] Steve Hadley at the White House is an old friend. [Under Secretary of Defense for Policy] Doug Feith I worked with very intensively during the time we negotiated the Dayton Peace Agreement; he was representing the Bosnian Muslims then, along with [Pentagon advisor] Richard Perle. So I like these people a lot. They're not strangers. They're old colleagues.
Not quite so enthralled anymore. But, Mmm, that Uniform… with medals, no less. What was this pretty red one for?
A Clark candidacy will cause several things:
1. Gephart wins Iowa convincingly. “Whew”, as far as he’s concerned.
2. Kerry, without the best “soldier image” in the field gets lost
3. Edwards files papers as a Senate candidate
4. Dean… Damn, where do you start here. Undoubtedly he’s hurt, but the grassroots organization is unlikely to jump ship. The level of deflation it experiences will largely depend on how successful Clark is in winning the spotlight and prolonging the honeymoon. That grassroots organization is exactly what Clark is missing. In a way, these guys really need each other.
5. Lieberman has to play more to the left. No, the recent enviro-kick won’t do it. Good luck, Joe.
6. Karl Rove starts sweating bullets as fast as an AK47 fires them.
And finally, The Democratic Party soul-searching gets a lot more interesting. I guess that’s what primaries are for. Will I change my registration from “Ind” and vote for him in the primary? Maybe. Would I vote for him in November? Certainly. Will that be as Pres or VP? Only he can say.
...but I'm afraid to get more than three feet away from the toilet.
This is the headquarters of Performance Marketing Ltd., one of the world's purveyors of so-called penis-enlargement pills. [...] But don't bank on the promised "three inches." There is no scientific evidence that any pill can enlarge the penis, says Franklin C. Lowe, professor of clinical urology at Columbia University. "If it were legitimate," he says, "I'd be a billionaire." What some customers might get from Performance Marketing's pills is a less-than-sexy dose of bacteria and other contaminants. Commissioned by The Wall Street Journal, Flora Research, San Juan Capistrano, Calif., conducted an independent laboratory analysis of a composite sample of 10 Performance Marketing pills and turned up significant levels of E. coli, yeast, mold, lead and pesticide residues.
The amount of E. coli bacteria - 16,300 colony-forming units per gram - appears to be particularly high, experts say. "I think it's safe to say it has heavy fecal contamination," says Michael Donnenberg, head of the infectious-diseases department at the University of Maryland. Although E. coli won't necessarily make you sick, Dr. Donnenberg says fecal matter, which might have come from animals grazing near herbal ingredients harvested for the pills, is prime breeding ground for all sorts of viruses, parasites and bacteria.
Oh well, back to Plan A, fellas. Or you could just take this guy's approach.
UPDATE (4:24 pm): Ogged at Unfogged one-ups me on this story: "If I've ever implied that you don't get shit for your money when you buy penis enlargement pills, let me say for the record, I was mistaken."
The abysmal morale of American forces in Iraq has been well-documented. There is no clear mission, pinning down a date for the end of their tours is like nailing Jello to a board in a windstorm, and the conditions there are flatly horrific. Recruitment and re-enlistment rates are in a predictable freefall. The strain of being away from their families for a year at a time is unimaginable for us lucky people sitting behind our computers and flipping through cable channels.
Other countries are looking at the situation in Iraq and justifiably telling Washington that there is no way in hell they are plopping their soldiers down in the middle of this debacle. The civilian contractors that Rumsfeld expected to do much of the heavy logistical lifting for this operation are no-shows. Doctors Without Frontiers, the bravest SOBs on the planet (they still maintain a team in Bunia, Congo, for crying out loud), have withdrawn from Basra due to safety concerns. Something has to give, right?
Well, this should help everybody buck up.
For the first time since the all-volunteer Army began in 1973, a significant number of U.S. combat soldiers may have to start serving back-to-back overseas tours of up to a year each in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea, top Army officers say. [...] If the prediction is accurate, as many as 45,000 soldiers would have to double up. Some of the second tours would be for six months, but those in Iraq and Korea could require a second full year during which soldiers would be separated from their families. [...] Commanders are worried that the added tours will lower morale and cause a wave of exits throughout the Army. A key concern is that the deployments will cause an exodus of experienced, mid-career veterans such as sergeants, staff sergeants and captains, who are harder to replace than younger soldiers.
By next fall, Bush may have another truly amazing accomplishment to tack on to his resume: driving the rank-and-file of the military away from the Republican Party. They know who got them into this. And if General Wesley Clark enters the race - as many expect - you could see parts of the officer corps defecting as well. In the meantime, give up one evening out on the town and use the money to send a care package to a soldier (also here and here). It's a tiny sacrifice to us, but nothing you do could mean more to them.
Steve Soto sifts through the tidal wave of bad news (for Bush, that is) that combined to make last week the most foreboding of this presidency. Specifically, he is losing to the Democrats now on every single issue, including those that his advisors have always assumed were unlosable. Much of the information comes from the most recent Newsweek poll, which makes nothing so clear as the fact that Americans have finally opened their eyes about Iraq and are starting to ask, "Just what in the hell are we supposed to be doing there?" Rest assured that the figures distressing Karl Rove most are these: 49% of registered voters say Bush should not get a second term (44% say he should) and his approval rating has dropped 18 points since April, to a barely-above-water 53%. Just for comparison, in the days immediately following his impeachment, Bill Clinton had approval ratings ranging from 67 to 73%.
Boo-yah. So much for the "wildly popular" Bush; that's just one more exploding myth. And speaking of exploding myths, one more leg propping up Bush's case for war just got snapped like a twig. Remember that nefarious fleet of drone aircraft that Bush swore was going to sweep over the United States and drop chemicals on us all? Yeah, sure you do. US weapons hunters have just confirmed that the drones are utterly unsuited for any such purposes and moreover, the US Air Force told Bush as much back when he was making the claim. To wit, he and his equally untrustworthy Secretary of State Colin Powell knew full well that this was bullshit, and went right ahead with the LIE all the same.
But the Air Force, which controls most of the American military's UAV fleet, didn't agree with that assessment from the beginning. And analysts at the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said the Air Force view was widely accepted within their ranks as well. Instead, these analysts believed the drones posed no threat to Iraq's neighbors or the United States, officials in Washington and scientists involved in the weapons hunt in Iraq told The Associated Press. The official Air Force intelligence dissent is noted in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs, parts of which were declassified last month as the Bush administration tried to defend its case for war.
"We didn't see there was a very large chance they (UAVs) would be used to attack the continental United States,'' Bob Boyd, director of the Air Force Intelligence Analysis Agency, said in an AP interview. "We didn't see them as a big threat to the homeland.'' Boyd also said there was little evidence to associate Iraq's UAVs with the country's suspected biological weapons program. Facilities weren't in the same location and the programs didn't use the same people. Instead, the Air Force believed Iraq's UAV programs were for reconnaissance, as are most American UAVs. Intelligence on the drones suggested they were not large enough to carry much more than a camera and a video recorder.
The fort is crumbling quickly. Is there any question why the Republican Party is so desperate to push through all this mid-term redistricting? They fear they have hitched their wagon to a horse that's headed to the glue factory - extra-legal shenanigans are the only thing that can save their sorry asses now. You can fool some of the people some of the time, and you can fool the Republican base all of the time (as they stand, fingers in ears, screaming LA LA LA LA LA), but eventually people notice that the emperor has no clothes. I'll bet it's getting pretty cold up there for ol' naked W.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to figure out how to get that mental image out of my head. [shudder]
NY Times: Life-Extending Chemical Is Found in Certain Red Wines
I'd better up my 401(k) contribution.
LA Weekly has an interesting article about the search for a proof of Riemann's Hypothesis - the greatest unsolved math problem in existence, the mathematical Holy Grail. Even stating the hypothesis is a challenge, though in large terms it boils down to proving that prime numbers do have a purely logical distribution.
In essence it links the distribution of prime numbers to a complicated equation called the Riemann Zeta Function. For some values this equation equals zero, and it turns out there are an infinite number of such values, which mathematicians refer to as the "zeros" of the zeta function. Riemann demonstrated that there is a beautiful and unexpected link between these "zeros" and the pattern of the prime numbers.
Each Riemann zero can be represented as a point on something called the complex plane, one of mathematics’ most truly enchanted places. Formed from the intersection of the "real" and the "imaginary" numbers, the complex plane is also where the fabled Mandelbrot Set lives. To his astonishment, Riemann discovered that on this plane the zeta-function zeros seemed to lie in a strict vertical line, which is now called the critical line. Why this might be so is one of the deepest questions in mathematics. It was Riemann’s intuition, his hypothesis, that all the zeta zeros must lie on this line. [apostropher: links not in original passage]
Got it? The article explores some of the work of Andrew Odlyzko, who over the past 25 years has calculated over 30 billion zeta zeros in an attempt to find one outside the critical line. As you might imagine, he is now working with inconceivably large numbers, though he believes if there are any to be found, they would probably exist in ranges well beyond current computational power, as the "wildness" in these zeros increases glacially. But as tends to happen in science, by exploring the apparent randomness to the limits of our observational abilities, a larger metapattern has begun to emerge.
Already Odlyzko’s forays into the stratospheric zone of the Riemann zeros have verified something astonishing. It turns out these zero points are not arranged randomly on the critical line. Mysteriously, they follow the same statistical pattern that physicists have found in some kinds of atomic systems — specifically, what are known as "quantum chaotic systems." Thus, what seems at first a purely abstract discovery has turned up in nature. Nobody has the slightest idea why this might be so. But the revelation suggests the incredible possibility that we might be able to find (or build) a quantum system — perhaps some bizarre kind of atom — that would prove the Riemann Hypothesis. A number of physicists are now working toward that goal.
The interplay between mathematics and the material world has fascinated philosophers and scientists alike. "God ever geometrizes," Plato declared. "All is number," Tierry of Chartres concurred in the Middle Ages. Riemann himself developed his radical non-Euclidean geometry because he was convinced there must be a geometric explanation for the force of gravity. Fifty years after his death, Einstein demonstrated the truth of that insight. The link between Riemann’s zeta zeros and quantum mechanics suggests that understanding these zeros will help to illuminate the deeper mysteries of atoms, molecules and atomic nuclei.
Though Riemann’s Hypothesis was originally stated merely as an aside, it has turned out to be one of the most profound mathematical statements ever uttered. The deeper mathematicians go into it, the more connections they continue to discover. As Sabbagh writes, "The Riemann Zeta Function extends its tentacles into so many branches of mathematics it’s impossible to say where a solution might come from."
Bush predicts more allied troops in Iraq
Bush said his administration is working with the United Nations to encourage allies to help bring peace to the country. "There will be more foreign troops in Iraq," he said.
Well, I suppose Americans have always preferred their presidents to be optimistic. And talk about optimism in the face of adversity:
Coalition forces in Iraq begin to be deserted by their allies
Mr Straw faces an uphill struggle to convince more countries to take part in coalition-led operations, and the creation of a UN force of "blue helmets" has already been ruled out by both the Americans and the UN.
Poland, which is to take military control of Iraq's central sector, signalled yesterday that it was handing back some territory to US troops, because of the heightened security risk after the bombing of UN headquarters. In Spain, opposition parties called for the withdrawal of the 1,300 troops committed to Iraq for peacekeeping operations, after the death of a naval officer in the attack.
Japan is considering reneging on its commitment to send troops to Iraq to assist in the aftermath of the war. The terrorist focus on soft targets, including the bombing of the UN offices in Baghdad on Tuesday, has led Japan to rethink its commitment of military personnel, while the US is looking for more international forces in Iraq. Japanese official sources said the lack of security in Iraq left a question mark over whether troops would be sent. If they were, it would be next year at the earliest, rather than the anticipated deployment in October.
At some point, though, optimism becomes self-delusi-- Hey look! here come some foreign troops!
Postwar Iraq has become magnet for terrorists
Although the United Nations has pledged to remain in the country, it has pulled out a third of its staff, and other organizations are reassessing their presence. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, whose loans will be essential to rebuilding Iraq's economy, withdrew their personnel this week.
Terrorists find Iraq an easy place to operate. It's a giant ammunition dump, filled with discarded and deadly explosives that are easy pickings for would-be bomb-makers. Saddam spent years building up his weapons arsenal. As the war wound down in April, many Iraqi soldiers just abandoned their guns and ammunition and walked away.
In a country the size of California, no number of soldiers can protect every hospital, hotel, bridge, electrical station, water and oil pipeline, especially from determined suicide attackers. Even if more troops could make a difference, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has refused to send them. Efforts to bring in more international troops have stumbled over the Bush administration's unwillingness to cede control to the United Nations.
If your television has been on during the past week, you already know about the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who placed the 5000+ pound monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court in the middle of the night, then refused to remove it. The other eight justices unanimously agreed that he hadn't a legal leg on which to stand and ordered its removal.
My father's entire side of the family still lives in Alabama, most of them one county over from where this is all transpiring, so I'm somewhat familiar with the state and its politics. Rest assured, those eight justices ain't wild-eyed libruls. Chief Justice Moore, however, remained steadfast in his refusal to uphold the law, as his oath of office, sworn before God, required and thus earned himself a suspension pending an investigation.
"I've been ordered to do something I cannot do. I cannot violate my conscience," he pontificated. Well, guess what, Gomer? You can't be a judge either, then. Them's just the rules. Of course, he hardly needs the gavel now; expect to see him running for elective office very soon. Expect him to win.
I was all set to write something satirical about the judge and the throng of oppressed believers who crowded around their Dixie-flavored Qaaba, but I really don't think I can compete with Tom Burka's wickedly funny job of it, so go give your laughs to him. He's earned them.
In one of the least surprising rulings in many moons, a federal judge denied Fox News Channel's attempt to stop the release of Al Franken's new book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
[Franken] also said he was grateful for the publicity generated by the suit. Publisher Penguin Group added 50,000 copies to the original run of 270,000 after Fox filed suit, and rolled out the book Thursday instead of its planned September release date. "In addition to thanking my own lawyers," Franken said, "I'd like to thank Fox's lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I've ever seen in my life." On Friday, the book was listed at No. 2 on Amazon.com's bestseller list, behind The South Beach Diet.
And just like that, "dumb like a fox" has an entirely new implication.
The flash mob phenomenon, where large groups of people show up unexpectedly at a predetermined location, perform some random act, then disperse to the puzzlement of onlookers, is one of those clever ideas that seems less clever with each iteration. The inevitable skewering parody has arrived, via the priceless mcsweeneys.net. Go get your chuckle on.
UPDATE (August 24, 2:36 pm): Yawn.
Honestly, I don't want anybody to get hurt and and I know that burns totally suck. But as someone who finds cellular phones profoundly annoying and vaguely but undeniably creepy, I'll admit I did have to chuckle at this story.
Scientists say they have identified a deep-sea sponge living in the darkness of tropical ocean waters, which grows thin glass fibres that can transmit light at least as well as industrial fibre optic cables used for telecommunications.
I don't foresee any patent lawsuits by our invertebrate inventors; their plan has nothing to do with cashing in on the latest technology. Turns out the prevailing theory for why these guys do this is that, like most adaptations, there's an ecological relationship. This one's symbiotic:
You scratch my back...
And now the big question: what can be the function of these light gathering and conducting structures? The most obvious idea is that they transmit light to symbiotic green algae for their use in photosynthesis and, indeed, this might be the case in Tethya seychellensis, a tropical sponge where green algae curl in strands around spicules, which radiate out from the interior to the surface.
and I'll scratch yours.
[...] the presence of symbiotic algae (Zoochlorella) that in exchange for having a good place to live, limited light and lots of necessary carbon dioxide, produce carbohydrates that the sponge uses as food.
Just as natural as can be. Why wouldn't you do this if you were a sponge?
I guess it's kinda like us and corn.
This world is too weird for words
And no, I'm no Mystaran bewildered by the fauna of the Hollow Moon