At last it's time to go Up North

Later this afternoon I'm going up to northern Minnesota, specifically the North Shore where my parents have a funky little cottage. We'll be gone until Friday afternoon, so don't expect any updates for a while.

Photos of flooding incident

Here are some exciting pictures of the situation at 1511 Grand Ave. early this morning. I am releasing these to the local media for use, but I would really like to be credited as "Dan Feidt / HongPong.com". I am a resident of #15 at 1511 Grand. After WCCO interviewed me in the morning, Channel 5 and Channel 9 came through around lunchtime! Those camera guys in the last photo were from 5 and 9. The woman in the reflective red vest was from the red Cross, offering us shelter.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Abby's room got the worst of it. Mattress and many furnishings soaked.

Ankle forces a downshift

Hey all, well now it's August and I am sort of bedded up with a busted ankle. I was messing around on Saturday night and twisted it pretty well. It swelled right up but I thought it would wear off pretty quickly. Unfortunately, by Monday night my whole foot was club-shaped, kind of purple on the side. Bending the foot on the straight-ahead axis works all right, but side-to-side and turning are not good.

So today I went into the clinic and got some X-rays. No bone fractures and I can hobble around on it. So they gave me a brace. The doc advised a few Advil every day for a week and it would be all right. Then I asked, hmm, what about a little Vicodin?

And so Vicodin was had. These dog days of August will be a little hazier. I think they'll probably be updates tomorrow since even walking a couple blocks sucks right now.

In the meantime, VH1's Best Week Ever has random facts about Jews according to Mel Gibson.

This was from the Apocalypto trailer, a single frame of madness.
We all know he's fuckin crazy. Anyway... We here at HongPong.com have been on his case for a while.

Alright time to get movin again: Bob Saget, Tourette's Guy; NSA research on social networking

One of the things about taking a break on the site is that you're not sure where to get going again. Now that I am opening up the content to more things, I'm thinking about how to streamline the content while sticking to some general direction in the site's form. Random content is part of the appeal, but more focus - or rather a more clear set of foci - would make the site a lot more enjoyable for all.

At the same time I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time working on it, especially in the nice summer with a more full-time job starting up next week. So there's a balance to be found...

Or a bunch of randomness.

The HBO show Entourage would be far less watchable without Jeremy Piven as Ari Gold, the fanatical agent. Fortunately someone did an Ari clip video. Some guest stars have been excellent, in particular Bob Saget's turn as a brothel-crazed bong smoking Bob Saget.

Saget's career also blew up a bit with this odd music video that went around a while ago. Jamie Kennedy and George Lucas roll on the strip with Saget.

Fuck Colgate - free Crest Whitestrips!!! Won't make you feel like a piece of shit!!

Which brings us to TourettesGuy, a strange man with his own set of online videos, wherein he misses a shot in pool, screams and shouts "Bob Saget!!"

And of course, "Don't talk shit about Total!" and the new one, Tit Dirt. A major crowd favorite.

Cartoon Network is throwing free Adult Swim shows up including a new Venture Brothers. Venture Brothers is hit-or-miss but this one was entertaining (link only temporary)

The quasi-anarchist-subversive site Disinfo notes that

'New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.

It is interesting that the Pentagon itself is taking over all these functions. They are already combing my phone records, high school GPA's for recruiting, all kinds of things. On the other hand, Disinfo is an entity on MySpace. BlackListedNews has some interesting stuff, but they're on Myspace too..... Even Alex Jones is on MySpace, yet he says:

...the purpose of this profile is to test the censorship of MySpace--primarily based upon political content... I disagree with the censorship and control of MySpace, which is only one step away from China's Internet policy where anything critical of the government is kept from dissident eyes.

The flick A Scanner Darkly even has a myspace page... and Alex Jones is in the movie:

This is all getting much too circular...

Software notes: Civilization IV for Mac has just been released. Sweet. Also if you need an OS X timer program (my new/old oven doesn't have one), Chimoo Timer is your best free bet.

Settling into a messy situation

I moved into Omar's apartment. Omar is at a place called The Jalouise Plantation in St. Lucia for a couple months, since his dad works there. He'll be at the U in a master's program this fall.

As for me, my life is pretty much a mess right now and I'm trying to get it cleaned up. I promise some useful updates later. Fortunately work won't really start next week because of the holiday, so I've got a while to get things cleaned up.

No time for updates...

...at the moment, because I am doing some data entry work for a campaign for Hennepin County Commissioner. Susan Segal is an attorney in the Hennepin County attorney's office, who is running for Gail Dorfman's seat in Hennepin. Dorfman, in turn, is now running for Congress in retiring Martin Sabo's current seat.

So it is kind of a DFL daisy-chain effect. Only if Dorfman wins the nomination, against such heavyweights as State Rep. Keith Ellison, can Segal's campaign go forward. However, as I enter delegates into our fancy Drupal-based content and contact management system, I see that she's got quite a bit of delegate support already locked in, provided Dorfman makes it to the next round. Interesting stuff.

I really promise to dish up some goodies on Hookergate and other stuff later, famous blogger last words.... But sweetly enough, old GOP hand Ed Rollins suggested that around 15 (mostly?) Republican congressmen could get snared into Hookergate and indicted. And that would make it truly a great summer.

TomMahm; Copperfield Loses Not a Cent; Lots More Stadiums Seats to Put Butts In; I Have a Cat!

TomMahm, Copperfield Loses Not a Cent, Lots More Stadiums Seats to Put Butts In, I Have a Cat!

The above is an untouched photograph of the view West towards the Tucson mountains from my front yard on a weekday evening. The bar on the left was frequented by Jack Kerouac, I am told.

Introducing: Strega Nona

Abby and I have adopted Strega here, which is to say, Strega's owner forfeited his right to own her through gross negligence and she chose to reside with us instead. She is currently in heat, which has been a treat, as she begins yowling at five in the morning and gets louder until ten or so. Come Friday morning, entering into estrus will forever be a thing of the past for Strega, which is win-win for everyone. Mating screams and the demented rubbing exercises that accompany them notwithstanding, this is a very cool cat- gentle and loving without being needy, small, athletic and quite beautiful, she's ["Smitten Kitten" joke redacted- ed.]

I'm an illusionist!
David Copperfield was robbed at gunpoint in West Palm Beach Sunday night, and managed to convince the three teenage thieves holding a gun six inches from his face that he did not have any on him by performing his "reverse pickpocket" trick and pulling out his pant pockets in from of them without relinquishing possession of his scrilla and celly. He called the cops and the kids were busted "within minutes," and then magically transformed into a scale model of the Gateway Arch in a cloud of smoke. I kid, Mr. Kotkin (his real name), smoke machines are for hacks, of course! In related news, David Blaine is going to perform his next stunt, where he will be dangled from his toes while wearing the Shroud of Turin over a vat of warm marmalade, in New York City. The reason for the change of venue (he spent 44 days in a box starving himself in London two years ago) was the inhospitality of the British, who went so far as to dangle cheeseburgers from RC helicopters to torture him. So, in summary, David Blaine is a baby and David Copperfield belongs in her Majesty's Secret Service. Remember, not only did he fool the thieves and keep the cash, but we still don't know the trick, preserving his Alliance certification.

I don't even know what my point is here, other than that these guys is crazy...

Stadiums for Everyone!
Well, the VIkings' stadium deal is still in its infancy, but the Gophers and Twins are crowning as we speak. Though the Senate shifted around the Gopher stadium plans a bit, (removing the student fee and nixing TCF Bank's $35 naming rights contribution) it is still on track at the very same moment that a Twins stadium bill's passing is looking all but inevitable. I think we can probably call all three of these projects likely, which is exciting news. The Cities had to spruce up their sports infrastructure a bit both for the purposes of major events like the NCAA tournament and the Super Bowl and to, y'know, retain their teams in an era of bazillion dollar excesses on major sports venues. The price tag? $790 million for the Vikes, $522 million for the Twinkies (half a bill and no retractable roof?) and $248 million for Goldie to go toe-to-toe with the newer stadii of the Big 10; silly money, to be sure, but the resulting facilities, and the possibility of Hennepin County pursuing its imagined urban village in the footprint of the Huhuhu Metrodome, make the deal(s) too good to pass up. FYI- The Representative sleeping through the meeting on the allocation of a half a billion dollars is Representive David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake).

Briefly noted on this fine Tuesday: I am busy, but at least I am leaving town

I feel very much obliged to write something about the entering the fourth (fourth!) year of the Iraq war, seeing as how our side was pretty much right about the likely problems and eventual sectarian breakdown of the country. However, that is hardly any comfort to anyone, since it's everyone's national disaster.

Since March 10, 2003, when the post-high-school version of this site was inaugurated from my sophomore Dupre single, this has been pretty much the loose axiom:

There is something wrong. There is a war about to go underway which will kill thousands without just cause. People must object to the unilateral, hasty, and unjustified conflict. We have to get the word out and the Internet is an exceedingly valuable tool for this. There should be several news and opinion links a day as we go forward into what Thomas Friedman is already calling "World War III."

Well, I would say that this website has scored pretty well, in terms of exposing the conspiracy of War Lies, rationalized annihilation, the vile agendas of radical right-wing Zionists, the humorous hypocrisies of the War on Drugs, and other assorted favorite topics. While these have been gratifying to share, it is not always a productive element connecting me to the real world rushing past me.

Either way, over the last few days my calcified and generally unsatisfying order of priorities in my life has been shaken, but I think in a good way. I have to take some actions to get rid of really negative and contemptuous facets of my own life. My birthday is in less than two months, and I feel that this year of my life has mostly been one of waiting for things to happen, unhappily. Part of that was due to being under an indictment for many months, which put me in a bit of a Scooter Libby/Abramoff frame of mind.

But January/February/March 2006 have been a kind of continuous slouch that has provided no real benefit. Seasonal Existential Horror Disorder is a deeply-rooted problem at these latitudes. I need to get into another line of work. I have to take my own fool problems head-on because no one else will.

What does that mean for the website? Oh well, i don't really know. Thanks for sticking with us over the last few years. I think I at least ought to put up a tip jar or something to cover the technical expenses.

We will remain vigilant, resolved, ever watchful for Psychological Operations, information operations, the men in the military-industrial complex stealing money from our wallets and eating the government, messianic and eschatological structures of political thought, humorous tidbits and technological wizardry, the many benefits of open-source software, the nature of fourth-generation warfare, the corrupt state of American partisan politics in the 21st century, the glories of atheism, and the latest words from the friends who follow this website from half a world away.

I am going to hang out with Mordred in Tucson during March 27-April 3rd. I have never felt the need to get out of town so badly as now.

What's the score, Sam?

Hey all, things have been a little sparse here lately. It's damn early and I am just wrapping up the PIM Morning Report, which is quite a pain in the ass to deal with at 7 AM, but at least I have a nearly omniscient view of what is happening around Minnesota. I really promise that The Big Score will be up later today. Also some weeks ago, I promised Mordred a proper explanation of why I did not want to post the famous 'Mohammed bombhead' picture.

Also there have been some Turks around the site, and they are worth responding to. So there is a pile of goodies to deal with. Stand by folks, it's not a snow day anymore.

Too much drama in the LBC; or I could have had my own Zapruder film

I'm going to toss in some brief bits, but first I have to tell about the recent dicey situation over here by Loring Park. Last week, as many students were milling around the Minneapolis Community / Technical College across the street, some people in a red compact rolled up off Hennepin. According to one anonymous local known as Papa Smurf who witnessed the event, suddenly a number of guys jumped out and started shooting at a group of people on the south end of the parking lot, as portrayed in a somewhat garish way here, from my living room window:

The targets took cover behind cars in the lot (there were more at the time), and the assassins sped off east down Spruce, towards Loring Park. If only I hadn't been working in St. Paul, I might have seen it from my window.

Papa Smurf said that one person was left limping around with an apparent gunshot to the leg, while most everyone else hid until the police showed up less than 5 minutes later. It was not featured on the news.

I told this to a friend, expecting some sort of 'oh wow.' Instead she was like, "Well they shot up the Tires Plus next to my house last night." You just can't impress some people.

Jane Cat, by the way, is fine now. The right ear healed up quite nicely.

On with the miscellaneous: DailySixer presents a sweet Reservoir Dogs poster and a Live Action Simpsons intro.

Alison and I got back to our East Metro roots at White Bear Lake's BearTown Lounge on Highway 61 for some really good cheeseburgers and $1 second beers in Happy Hour. The place is full of sculpted polar bears. This is exactly why East Metro beats the tar out of Edina and the West Metro.

Mordred sent over rrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnhhhh.blogspot.com, which is a Chewbacca spoof blog, inserting Chewy into such internet pop culture icons as the famous Gary Busey mugshot. Also has a myspace profile. Kind of a sublime exercise in whatever art form this is.

Chewy has a link to mchammer.blogspot.com, wherein MC Hammer has apparently learned how to upload low-quality photos from his Sidekick camera-phone. It seems this is authentic, it looks like him. And, I can't believe I am saying this, MC Hammer is audio blogging.

The Agonist has a really sweet new website now geared up. For organized international news it really rocks. The new NewsWire thing is sweet. Right now, top story is NeoCon allies desert Bush over Iraq, such as William Buckley, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Perle, Andrew Sullivan, George Will. Well fuck you guys. Thanks for joining the regularly scheduled disaster. I hope you hate yourselves.

Sketchy Narcotics conspiracies: NarcoNews.com is featuring, as always, lots of controversial stuff on the drug war. Today we find some of the corrupt Democrat flip side. As with most things of this nature, take it with your grains of salt. Catherine Austin Fitts is someone I would classify as from the same general sector of the infowars as Michael Ruppert (they're tight). So check out Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits: Part IV: The Clinton Years: Progressives for Private Prisons, HUD’s Corrupt Role in Centralizing Debt and Corporate Dirty Tricks.

Scooter your ass to jail:
Along the same lines as attempted homicides outside, the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust is pretty fucking great. Because nothing says freedom like outing a CIA agent, to intimidate the Washington bureaucracy into silence over the fake intelligence. Good times. And thanks for providing a list of evildoers such as Francis Fukuyama, Steve Forbes and Evil Emperor James Woolsey. And also apparently Dennis Ross. When the revolution comes, your crew will be first against the wall.

Quick batch of commentary & headlines: U.S. stuck with few options in Iraq. Preventing Iraq's disintegration. Outlook worsens in Afghanistan.

PENTAGON DISMISSES US TROOP POLL Thursday, March 02, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

The Pentagon has dismissed a poll's finding that 72 per cent of United States troops in Iraq believe the US should pull out within a year or less. "It shouldn't surprise anybody that a deployed soldier would rather be at home than deployed, even when they believe what they are doing is important and vital work," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The poll by Le Moyne College and Zogby International found that only 23 per cent believed US troops should stay in Iraq "as long as it takes," as US President George W. Bush has insisted.

As If There Were No Tomorrow: Sunnis Leaving Iraq by the adventuresome and indefatigable Iraqi journalist/blogger Khalid Jarrar. Juan Cole: Iraq's worst week -- and Bush's. Deep troubles as Iraq tries to form a new government. Al Ahram: The myth of civil war.

Subtle Irony Department: [via This Modern World and Under the Same Sun]: CommonDreams:

Two Iraqi women whose husbands and children were killed by US troops during the Iraq war have been refused entry into the United States for a speaking tour. The women were invited to the US for peace events surrounding international women’s by the human rights group Global Exchange and the women’s peace group CODEPINK.

In a piece of painful irony, the reason given for the rejection was that the women don’t have enough family in Iraq to prove that they’ll return to the country.

DKos: White House hunting down truth-tellers.
This is what happens when you pay too much of your credit card bill: Pay too much and you could raise the alarm:

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

Nothing left to say.

Kirby Puckett

This is belated:

Kirby Puckett
1960-2006

Considering the bandwagon jumping that has accompanied the passing of Kirby Puckett, I must lay claim to my rightful place in the pantheon of those who would honor him. I was nine years old when Kirby led the Twins to victory in what is widely considered the best World Series ever played. As anyone who lived within a 250-mile radius of Minneapolis that season knows, Kirby was... in a word... Jesus. Not on a scale seen more than a handful of times in major league sports, Kirby Puckett was a figure of such sterling reputation and staggering popularity that, as many hack journalists have been quick to point out, he probably could not exist in the modern, post-A-Rod contract, Pacers brawl, Barry Bonds era. To anyone growing up in the region, his status was a given, a sort of agreed-upon point of faith: Kirby Puckett is inherently and intrinsically good. His lovability factor was high- 5'8" tall, 210 pounds, he was a tiny boulder of a man capable of moving quickly and rather gracelessly, stubby twig legs and barrel body chugging along. His personal problems have tarnished his public image, but does little to diminish his power as an icon for several generations, whose psychic connection to him was formed during his years of hard work and spectacular play. Every article I've read since his passing has focused on the home run in Game 6, but it's the catch that made that home run possible that dominated my memory. It was always Kirby's defense that delighted the most, as he looked at his most Kirby when his entirely unconventional body was fully in motion- his vertical leap was basketball big and his timing was usually dead nuts on, allowing him to grab balls a foot and a half past the outfield fence in a motion that, for him, was quite graceful, practiced and nonchalant. His work ethic always impressed but, I think, the attachment I (we) had with him had more to do with the fact that he made it look like fun. Bye, Kirby.

Technorati Tags: Sports

Las Vegas: Or, the Reason They Want to Blow Us Up

By the time you read this, it is already way too late for it to do you any good...

Vegas, baby!
Hell yeah, man- fucking Vegas!
Dude, I didn't go to bed 'till like two in the afternoon yesterday!
We went out to this club and there were, like, so many fine-ass chicks there!

I have always been a little confused as to why it was the city of New York that was attacked close to half a decade ago. Its position as the leading financial city in the Western world, the preponderance of media outlets, the density and the target were all perfectly chosen, if one wanted to attack the second most offensive and decadent Gomorrah inside the boundaries of the Great Satan. The best choice, one would think, the city for which the most amount of psychic justice would be rendered by its obliteration, is Las Vegas, right? 24 hours of raucous crowds, serious intoxication, non-stop entertainment and beautiful people- how can this not be the best symbolic target against the forces of smut and decadence in the war of ideologies?

Because you'd just kill this guy like eleventy million times.

I was never privy to the predecessor of the modern Vegas- I can only hope that it was truly the den of sin and iniquity it has been portrayed as. What I have seen is the cutting edge in the giant industry of shopping/gambling/hotel/theater/restaurant conglomerates: looming indoor cities containing labyrinths of paths along which one can do almost nothing else but lose money while one travels from rip-off to rip-off. There are small children all over the gaming floor, running around while Mommy grabs a cocktail. Stripping and prostitution is alluded to but not seen beyond the cards handed out on Las Vegas Boulevard and the wives of men in the High Stakes poker rooms. The tone is decidedly mall-ish, a familiar form of egalitarian commerce, no one person's money greener than another's, no one expected to dress up beyond their comfort. The proles mill about in even the nicer casinos, pulling handles on penny slots for hours at a time in order to hang out somewhere other than the Motel 8 with a shuttle to the strip- plus, they serve free booze on the casino floor, and they won't even get mad if you don't tip. In all, the experience is closer to that of a calf being fatted for slaughter than a rapacious animal on the loose for money and snatch. One of the overwhelming points of similitude between the polyglot group of visitors to Vegas is, indeed, large, slack, protruding stomachs, testaments to years of the sloth of convenience.

The average Vegas visitor looks more like this
than they do like George Clooney. In the three
days that I was there, I saw t-shirts that said "Eat
My Taco", "I [Heart] Vagina", "Just Add Wine" and
"A Gold Digger; Like A Prostitute, But Smarter"
That being said, this particular gentleman is, of
course, amazing to behold.

This selfsame sloth seems to be prowling almost every region of America, culling a very special strata of society and sending it to Vegas. Give me your tired, your indebted, your chattering classes longing to be on TV, the sloth commands! Give me morbidly obese alcoholics with advanced adult onset diabetes and bring lots of motorized scooters for them to use. Add world-class buffet facilities and free drinks so long as they're gambling! Give me every numbnuts frat boy who ever liked a Vince Vaughn movie and, while you're at it, why not throw in the real Vince Vaughn- bloated, boozy schmuck son-of-a-bitchs are always welcome. Why not, sloth says, have a city so devoid of imagination and originality that anyone can have fun, dropping money into slot machines while they sipping gratis yard long-margaritas? Here can be the realization of the banality of evil, the obliterating force of pointless, useless commerce in the hands of marketing majors and retail chain executives. And, to rub a palm full of sea salt in the open would, let's try to make it look like Venice and Paris and New York City so that it melts your mind with its hopeless bric-a-brac junkiness, its disposable gloom and dulling redundancy.

This will probably not fool you. If it does, there is a Carrot Top concert over at the MGM.

There it is, as well- the truth. Vegas is hard to hate as it is awfully banal, an indoor megaplex full of devices and activities with which to pass time for a fee. Far from being aghast at the depravity of the place, one wonders how its reputation for bad behavior has survived; It is clean and well-staffed, with courteous service employees and good security. It is family-oriented and plays host to a staggering number of major conventions. It is rather boring. Far from its baccanalian reputation, Vegas is just a great place to be separated from your cash. Maybe the reason Vegas hasn't been attacked is simple: Osama's been there (for a War on Freedom Industry Annual) and after losing, like, a zillion games of craps on the floor, went up stairs and drank two Chivas Regal bottles out of the minibar and then fell asleep on top of the covers in his clothes and woke up in time to pack up and go, and he doesn't remember much except all the blinking lights and the noise of the casino floor, the ceaseless blip-bloop of electronic slot machines.

Zzz...

Technorati Tags: hating freedom

Внимание! The Russian (spam) is coming!!!

Ironically enough, earlier today I was playing Call of Duty, a WWII first-person shooter game which takes you through a few classic parts of the war, from the perspective of a Brit and a Soviet soldier. I just got to the Stalingrad levels, full of fog, rubble and snipers. Good stuff. And I just got some returned spam, as some Russian is forging "thwart.net" emails to other Russians. But it looks like a hell of a deal!

I have used the Dashboard translator to illuminate some of what it means. The Russian advertising industry is probably baroque and sinister in really amusing ways.

Внимание! ДО 31 МАРТА КУРС ДОЛЛАРА $ 1 = 3 РУБля!!!
Attention! UNTIL 31 MARCH THE EXCHANGE VALUE OF DOLLAR I 1 = 3 RUBLES!!!

Рекламно Агентство «RBA MEDIA» проводит распродажу собственных рекламных площадей и предлагает Вам организовать эффективную рекламную кампанию, а именно – разместить рекламу в издания на уникальных условиях:

Advertising agency "RBA MEDIA" is conducted the sale of its own advertising areas and proposes to you it organized effective advertising operating period, namely - it placed advertisement into the publications on the unique conditions:

ВАША РЕКЛАМНАЯ КАМПАНИЯ ПО ЦЕНЕ $ 1 = 3 РУБЛЯ!
YOUR ADVERTISING OPERATING PERIOD ON THE PRICE I 1 = 3 RUBLES!

Данный курс действует на размещение рекламы любого объема в любых номерах изданий 2006 года на страницах журналов, участвующих в акции при оплате не менее 3-х публикаций до 31.03.06 г. Кроме того, каждый рекламодатель данной акции получает бесплатную полугодовую подписку на издание с собственной рекламой.

This course acts on the arrangement of the advertisement of any capacity in any numbers of the publications 2006 on the pages of the periodicals, which participate in the action with the payment not less 3rd publications to 31.03.06 g. furthermore, each sponsor of this action is obtained free half year subscription to the publication with his own advertisement.

Звоните: 8-909-630-3868
и Вы получите уникальную рекламу кампанию за минимальные деньги!
Стоимость рекламы в журналах, участвующих в данной акции:
and you will receive unique advertisement operating period for the minimum money!
Cost of advertisement in the periodicals, which participate in this:

[And there are several items like this:]
Журнал «АВТО - ОБОЗРЕНИЕ»
Официальная стоимость рекламы:
1/16 полосы - $ 600
Стоимость рекламы во время акции:
1/16 полоса - 1.800 руб.

Periodical "IS AUTO- - REVIEW" the official cost of the advertisement:
1/16 strips - i 600 cost of advertisement during the action: 1/16
strip - 1.800 rub.

I have to say that Russian is probably the coolest looking language.

Grass

Introducing: Squarehead Bunny

Whassup sweet babies, just wanted to rap a-choo awhile

"It's hip to be square- proven fact, proven fact- and here I am. Haha, just kidding- say, how you doin' today? Having fun? Having fun just being young, just being yourselves and being young and yeah, yeah. Me too, man, me too- maybe I don't look like I'm on top of the world, but you know, sometimes we have bad days. Sometimes we have good days, too, y'know. The ball bounces our way. The toast hits the ground jelly-up, haha. Haha."

"Hey man, guess what? Well, I was out in the yard this morning just, y'know, doing whatever, and man... You ain't even gonna believe this man, but guess what I found? Grass. Grass, man, grass, just a whole big 'ol lawn full of it. And I'm like, Rock'N'Roll- cool, y'know, just too cool, man, got all this grass, too much to even know what to do with it. So I lwent to town on it, man, just ate the horse snot out of that grass. Man, it was dee-licious and dee-lightful, this grass, and I just got all I could get."

"Man, fuck this carrot"

"See, when I was growing up, we didn't have no grass, man- neighborhood was in the city, but real tight, man, real uptight. Out in the yard, y'know, whatever goes, but man oh man, in my neighborhood you couldn't squeeze out one single little, perfect sphere without everyone in the row of cages knowing 'bout it. Man, if I had had some grass, maybe then... Anyway, didn't get no grass growing up, just trying it for the first time..."

"Imma tell you something- you my friend, and you ain't never need to ask me for any grass- k? 'Cause I'm your friend, you get however much grass you want- hell, got a whole yard full of it. Yessir, just as much grass as you want. None of that hard pellet stuff or that dry, crushed up stuff, just good fresh grass, finest I've ever seen."

"Munch, munch, nawmean? Munch munch, muthafuckas... Fucking munch..."

"So I'm watching this new Woody Allen movie, and I'm like, asides from the big 'ol chest booty on this blond, why am I watching this? I'd had like four and half pounds of grass before this, like for real, because I think I am gonna love this movie, but naw, just some guy who keep getting away with everything. No bunny wanna go watch a movie about some guy not getting chased around or nothin'- just walking around watching him not get caught for stuff he did... Man, all I wanted to do the whole time was just get back home to the lawn, nawmean? Munch munch..."

Turin 2006

Who's up for some motherfucking Olympic Games?

U.S.A... U.S.A... U.S.A...

Any takers?

Not me, and I would actually watch downhill skiing voluntarily if it were on the rest of the year. During the Olympics, though, with Bob Costas' reassuring voice punctuating the proceedings with international inanities, I just can't be bothered to slog through the coverage of sports like these:

I don't know if I am just jaded or if I no longer able to muster the proper pavlovian response asked of once every two years. The Olympics are supposed to be accompanied by a cold rush of patriotism and allow one to sweat out one's nationalistic demons by projecting one's hostility towards France upon their third-string skeleton rider (racer?) and wishing for his quick and effortless dispatch at the hands of a crack American squad (minus their best member- steroids). I can't get too worked up this year, though. For reasons ranging from Bode Miller's diplomatic ineptitude and general dickishness to the location (Turin? Whatever happened to the hustle and bustle of, say, Lillehamer? or Salt Lake City?) I just cannot muster the necessary amount of patriotic zeal. With the exception of wanting to see a couple of Minnesota girls hit the slalom course (Kristina Koznick and Lindsey Kildow) and Miller fall, I don't have much riding on this game emotionally. But does anyone? Outside of this little charade once every four years, does anyone, and I mean anyone, go to Skeleton events? Speed Skating? Luge? Where did these sports even come from, and who could possibly support themselves off the ticket sales? Who are these athletes and who taught them how to Luge? I don't remember that unit in gym class. Are there just teams of stern, grandfatherly Eastern Europeans who stake out key sledding hills and, upon seeing a bright young man in a cap and mittens deftly weave his way down the bumpy run and to the bottom, sidles up to him and tells him of his own days sledding, and how sledding led to luge and, if it hadn't been for his knee, but, well, you wouldn't want to hear about that...

As for figure skating, let's face it- it's the only aspect of the Winter Games anyone gives two shits about, and it's not even a sport. This is not to say that it is not an athletic endeavor requiring thousands of hours of diligent, painful study, but it is not a sport in the traditional manner. Sports derive from war games, and thus speed, strength, endurance and an ability to drive past or score on one's opponent are easily-comprehended goals. Whipping about on metal blades for the express purpose of spinning in the air and waving your arms around emotively is a more difficult-to-grasp skill on the bloody fields of Agincourt or Thermopylae. For some reason, it strikes a spider-vein in the female population of America and, despite the fact that your average American woman has never laced up a pair of skates and breathes heavily at the top of the stairs, several days of couch time are dedicated to watching starving children perform circus tricks on skates for the glory of their nation. Does the skater above look like she is capable of dealing a fatal blow? Even the curlers look more dangerous- at least they have sticks and rocks.

The worst part, of course, is the Maurie Povitch sob stories that accompany each athlete. Divorce, poverty, instability, scabies, arterial sclerosis and painful long-term surgical treatments haunt the pasts of these brave young Americans who, being between the ages of sixteen and thirty, have had a lot more time on their hands to grapple with their demons than I feel I might have time for if I were training six hours a day to compete in the zenith of human sport. Last night they appeared, young and vital-looking, and gave no hint of the physical and emotional ravishing they have endured. Somewhere in a US Olympic training facility, thousands of portraits stamped "B.Hallward" sit in protective sleeves. It is not the manipulation aspect that bothers me, particularly- I have grown weary and become acceptant of constant and intrusive media manipulation- it is the banality of the event that must be sensationalized through the hyberbolic tales of woe that gets to me. The endless seven minute sequences of sports you don't care about spliced in with Bob Costas' studio presence and those little athlete vignettes that always start and finish with the athlete, in their gear, looking brave and heroic in the face of such stiff competition and such long odds. Something along these lines:

Some Douchebag With Skis Had Sad Childhood, NBC Reports...

Dragging Down the Discourse of HongPong

Hello, readers.

I am here to make a terrible confession. I have to admit to something, before shame eats away at me like salt-laced plow-snow on the rocker panels of a '74 Dart. I am totally, ridiculously, blindingly head-over-hells in lurve with NBC's The Biggest Loser.

For those of you unfamiliar with the program, NBC finds dangerously obese Americans who share a desire to lose weight. Competing either individually or in (generally) couples or family teams, these contestants are physically-trained within an inch of their lives for ten days, whilst learning about healthy eating and whatnot. After the ten days, they are weighed, and a preliminary prize (tonight, in a 'dream wedding' themed episode, a lavish honeymoon) is given. After that, they are turned loose and return to their hometowns to do all the work themselves without trainer supervision for something like six months. Aided by numerous sepia sequences bip-bopping gooey melodies in the background, we the viewers get to see the remarkable transformation in the lives of these people as they transition from prize hog to deflated balloon. Sometimes the fat dissolves to reveal beautiful, picturesque individuals and sometimes they look like trolls in wet gunney sacks, but their delight is always evident- the patina of exploitation just cannot dull the shine these people accrue through months of grueling physical labor.

And what labor it is- a good quarter of the show is the workout sessions of these individuals, pockmarked nodes of fat wriggling about under the voluminous skin of the heifer-human hybrid huffing it through another hill climb. Now is the time to feel smug, before the hard work and restraint force you to reconsider your wicked ways and sympathize- nay, connect, with the rapidly-dimishing men and women on the picture box. Muscles and smiles and puppies and special "surprise" visits from the telegenic and intellectually unintimidating personal trainers are harnessed together for a kind of tearjerker deathray, a combination of so many instinctual cultural cues that all Americans are rendered powerless to resist. In the face of such an authentic forgery of actual human emotions, one's eyes well up as quickly as if one had been pepper sprayed. With the twin voyeuristic urges of pleasure and pain sated, the show maintains your interest with the siren song of an eventual, winner-takes-$50,000 weigh-in.

I needn't tell you that I am practically salivating by the time the two tubby teams tilt the scales at the final weigh-in, aprons of lard disappeared from their body and tingling with anticipation. Sometimes the contestants are hardly recognizable by the end, having lost as much as 94 pounds and 30+% of their body mass. The rising strings, the transformation tale of grit and determination and a high tolerance for public humiliation, all in the name of fifty thousand bucks and half column in next week's People- Fat Ass Not So Fat, Anymore- Thinks America Cares About Her Life. The story is pure Horatio Algier, the kind of inspirational influence that has driven American efforts to expand our minds and extend our abilities to their furthest- so long as there's cash in it. When I see those whittled figures take to the stage and weigh in like steer at the 4-H show, I too dream of one day being obese enough to qualify as a contestant on a fat farm TV show. It is a dream I think we all can share, having a major network pay for us to undo thirty years of neglecting our bodies and stuffing our faces, possibly even rewarding us with large cash prizes at the end. In exchange for my dignity, I would snigger at the sucker's deal I was giving them in exchange for my fifteen minutes, a home gym, and thousands in specialists' bills.

God Bless America for having an endless supply of the morbidly obese. Without the Calorie-Industrial Complex, none of this would possible. Fifty years of research have gone into creating the starchy, fatty, greasy cuisine that is the real star in this drama. When one thinks of all the poor, urban populations that this food was tested on before it was deemed worthy of more widespread distribution, the dedication of company's like RJR Nabisco is all too evident. Outside of the watchful eyes of horizontally-organized global conglomerates, a show like The Biggest Loser mightn't even be possible.

"You have won the battle of the bulge, and that makes you the biggest loser."

Oh, and the host who says that is a little porky herself- I'm just saying, special "biggest host" episode?

Shady business

Ok ok, things have been slack around here. I need to make sure the rest of my life is working out properly, first of all. And that means there's a lot of work that needs to be done. So I will have some nice updates very soon, and I am sorry there aren't any rich pickins up right now.

Go to Antiwar.com if you want the rundown these days. People keep asking me what is the deal with Iran and Pakistan right now. That's an excellent question, and the million-dollar one for 2006. There is a big difference between threat perception and actual strategy right now.

It's all about propping up the US dollar and making sure there's a steady stream of petrodollars. In a nutshell, that's what I think ought to be looked at right now.

I promise something logical very soon. But first, Dan's disordered life needs to cohere, dammit!

I need to develop Nicotine Enhanced Espresso Drinks; Buy My Art!

Recently I have decided to open my heart and allow you fine people of the earth to purchase pieces of my soul. This is a small sample of what I produce. I can do custom pieces for a reasonable commission. Also, I believe I am being poisoned by the cigarettes I roll with the pages from the back of old books. I was discussing my new habit with my friend Yuriel Leggovich, and he seemed to believe that any piece of paper which I would find in my garage probably comes complete with bleach, mildew, and a number of other tantalizingly deadly chemicals. I've been weighing this consideration against the number of well known poisons in conventional cigarettes and still haven't come to a conclusion as to whether or not mine are worse. Either way, I would rather just go out and buy some pharmaceutical nicotine, and mix it in with some espresso and forever consume it that way. It seems like a more pleasant way to induce a heart attack. Still, my only problem is money. Seeing as it costs about $50 for a box of nicotine pills, I am currently screwed, also, running low on Captain Black tobacco. So please buy my art. If any of the above incompletes perk your aesthetic curiosities, simply inquire to unitedmind@gmail.com

Technorati Tags: Art, Artist, Drawing, Gallery, Original, Painting, Prints, Purchase, Retail

Monstrous Toothache; Good Day, Commander Belcher

My face hurts. Shocking as it may be, I still haven't had my wisdom teeth pulled. Perhaps I have some superstition that I will be less wise when they get yanked.

My left jaw is all swollen up, which gives me a profile more like Dolph Lundgren or something. The wisdom teeth are very impacted, and I fear that at least one has gotten infected in its core.

This started bothering me right on New Year's Eve. On the first I called the dentist to set an appointment and they informed me that it would be referred to oral surgery specialists, who would have to get back to me in a week or two. My file seems to have finally reached the oral surgeons, so I should be able to get the operation very soon.

A final note, as I don't know if I can sum up the energy to write a lot more today. Why does all this pointless spam arrive?

From: bostjh@0733.com
Subject: Kathleen
Date: January 17, 2006 12:47:45 PM CST
To: harlan@e.thwart.net
Reply-To: bostjh@0733.com

Good day, commander,
Belcher
Bye

Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher

Fist Fights, Sysiphus, and the Rest

[And now a brief word from the chairman. He's not the only one who seems to be in transition these days... --dan]

The new year has been a slow steady climb toward some point of singularity off in the infinite distance of my life. I moved back from Colorado to resume a broken relationship with a very attractive young girl who seems to have a die hard lock on my heart. However, events from the hellish year of our lord, known as 2005, have caused us to unravel in a most undesirable fashion; However, I've managed to pass off my neurosis to my sister and have acquired a new found optimism about the approaching Eschaton. We are doing a bit better, as friends, and I have high hopes for the next couple months. Just so long as I don't resume my tripping binges I should be able to maintain a head on my ego. As words and circumstance accumulate, I've discovered that reality is far more malleable than previously thought. Still though, I seem to be treading through this river upstream, inch by inch and moment by moment. Getting nowhere fast.

Today my problems at home came to head, resulting in me punching my loving father in the temple. I feel bad about it, but on the other hand it was a near primordial reaction. In the midst of a heated argument over the usual nothing of family matters. I launched myself across the kitchen to find something. He standing in the way assumed I was attacking him and grabbed my shirt. My gut instinct these days when something of that nature occurs is to start beating the shit out of the person's face. Why? Because during my time in Colorado I have been attacked my two Crusties, a nazi, and a fat kid. I managed to survive each incident by the sheer luck that my cousin is a very strong violent kid wielding Nanchaku! Anyway, so I've developed a sort of instinctual reaction to punch any threat directly in the temple. As a result I hit my dad! Fucked up. I felt terrible almost immediately, but still being in fight mode, I threw him off me, and ran for the door.

Once outside I decided I needed a cigarette, but had nothing but a small amount of captain black. So I searched the garage and found an old Isaac Asimov book, titled Foundation's Edge. For those unfamiliar with the series, or author. Asimov wrote something like 3,900 books throughout his lifetime. Pretty fucking amazing, and the Foundation series were the coolest. It was about a developed science known as Psychohistory. Manipulating this science was a dead man who put a plan into action known as the Foundation. The purpose was to create senarios in which only one outcome was available. Basically, its like the Modest Mouse song... The universe works on a math equation and it can be manipulated.

Point is, I tore a page out of the back and used it to roll the most perfect cigarette I have EVER smoked. Also, Asimov papers have a very esoteric flavor. Wonderful. Now before I trail into any other boring topics, I'm going to go to bed.

The Cosby Theory and a Meta-Conspiracy Theory — including the Platonic Forms and Iranian intelligence — because nothing's true, and here, everything's permitted

Call the Cave of Shadows the Cave already! As we find ourselves hip-deep in propaganda, it's hard to know where to turn. Such strange web conspiracy theories as the Chappelle Theory briefly amuse us, but these are just the zeitgeist products of an insane time. The Cosby Theory, a follow-on satire of Chappelle Theory, explains the terrible conspiracy of the Cosby Sweaters. (the guys who dreamed up the Chappelle Theory were advised by their lawyers to let everyone know it's totally fake).

Some guy mocked me in the comments, implying I believed that the Chappelle Theory was real. I said that "The site looks good, it tells an exciting tale. In other words it's another well-marketed conspiracy theory thing," and I picked out a quote of Oprah ranting about her infinite power like a Bond villain. I thought it was a well-crafted example of that sort of site, but at no point did I claim it was real, although it prompted me to reflect that Chappelle might have been threatened somewhere along the way, and some of the 'Dark Crusaders' may have negatively reacted to Chappelle. (It was indeed well-marketed. They are now selling Dark Crusaders t-shirts.)

These days, there is a pretty thick distance between what we're presented with, and the Objective Truth that I still suspect exists somewhere. This site has been unafraid to link to raving lunatics, angry Iraqis, neoconservative screeds and gibbering Freemason spotters. I'm not looking over their shoulder, so how can I trust them any differently than, say, Scott McClellan or the Associated Press?

As we learned from such works as The Illuminatus! Trilogy, a conspiracy theory can offer a direct conjecture about a certain set of facts or circumstances, but it can also show an alternate style of linking events and people together.

A goofy conspiracy theory centered on pop culture is a kind of prism that reflects the basic weirdness of our times. When it's executed with style, I'll mention it because its logical form — apart from its literal content — can help induce a bit of a mindfuck, a unit of guerilla ontology to the everyday grind, imploding assumptions.

For example, when I mentioned to my family this crazy Chappelle Theory, they immediately leapt to Oprah's defense. How would Oprah ever threaten anyone?! She's a paragon of sassy afternoon virtue!!"

Aha!" said I, tanked on a bit of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. "Why do you leap to praise her automatically? She's just some billionaire! This silly theory reveals that you have all sorts of biased, programmed instincts to defend the wealthy & powerful, etc etc..."

The point is that we live in an Disinformation Age, and a wobbly conspiracy theory can help show you why Conventional Wisdom is just as shaky. As I have detailed here, we invaded Iraq partly because Iranian intelligence agents fed lurid stories about nuclear weapons through Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress into the Pentagon and the Vice President's office. That's part of the history of our times, and it's pretty damned conspiratorial. It sets the bar for intrigue, I think it's fair to say.

The sources of supposedly 'clean & authoritative information' in our information economy utterly failed to figure this out in time, and they still haven't come clean about it.

I long ago decided that only by monitoring the widest possible spectrum of rhetoric and information can a rough sense or useful 'heuristic' of any given political theater be reached. So I can't be afraid to reflect on what anyone from Charles Krauthammer to Wayne Madsen to DEBKAfile to Hezbollah's Al Manar is talking about. You can't achieve more intellectual accuracy by boycotting Mother Jones.

When yet another slickly executed Conspiracy Theory tale comes along, as they always do, I'll often toss it up here because it shows that the Dominant Narrative and Tacit Assumptions are often just as ridiculous. The battle for perceptions runs deep these days; the war is between your ears and behind your eyes.

The issue of Information Warfare is going to be a hot one next year, but we ought to take it all with a sense of good humor and a strong drug regimen to keep our minds limber, as the Dude put it.

To some extent, all political rhetoric rests on gestures toward phantasmic workings, a secret esoteric logic — either hidden actors, or Principles such as Freedom arranged by that mysterious Other 'Calling from beyond the Stars' for Dear Leader. As Ariel Sharon put it recently, "You see things from here [as PM] that you don't see from there [an outsider]." This is the 'appeal to authority' argument, and the Authorities cash out the fallacy as far as they can.

Plato spelled out this basic political principle for us in the Allegory of the Caves, when he said that only the select can reach the World of True Forms, while the rest would just watch projections. He meant that a good leader better be able to dream up some fine-sounding esoteric Forms to tell the tribe at the campfire. An objectively false 'conspiracy' can still illustrate how these grand Authoritative and Legitimate Sources are just a couple notches up from the tribal shaman.

Botox is the new charmed skull on a stick, the Brookings Institution is nothing but the 21st century's beard-stroking witch doctor.

Of course, as an atheist I must consider all spiritual appeals as possibly having this basic political purpose at their core, even if part of the intention is self-deception, rather than purely manipulating the audience.

Again we must return to the words of Hasan i Sabah, the leader of the Assassins. "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted." Surely, Karl Rove is his truest disciple, and I'll set the ideological filters for my site's content accordingly.

Disgruntled Regression

<Chairman Mao has a holiday report from the field for us. He is out in Colorado where his employer periodically accuses him of stealing (then find the cash in the office). We will have some other folks checking in soon as well.--Dan>

The season of seasons is here. Wintertime holidays. Thousands of people, who stay dormant within their houses for most of the year, flood the streets and shopping malls. Causing far more crime and mayhem than they're worth. Who are these people, you ask? They are your weird neighbors who never say hello and watch you from their windows. Or more often they are the millions of MTV drones who occupy what we conscious people call the 'Dead Zones.'

Little pockets of dense, stupid thought spread like a plague across the United States. Usually found around high schools and colleges. The people stuck in these daily routines of refusing to think wind up doing nothing more than sitting around watching tv, and maybe getting high, snorting Vicodin.

They see commercials advertising Christmas, making fun of Channukah, whatever. Sooner or later they will dare to set a foot outside to see what the fuss is all about. Inevitably making it no further than a few blocks before they collide with something at sixty miles an hour and blame it on 'black ice.'

However, despite the odds, some of these terrors on culture actually manage to make it to their destination, somehow... This is when the real problems start. If you have ever worked in retail you can probably identify the incompetent without even blinking. They wander around aimlessly and touch everything, refusing to read signs and accidently stealing merchandise. Oh well, happy holidays...

Post-Holiday Situation: world's still jumbled, the cat is watching. "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

This was an excellent holiday weekend for me, caught up with lots of people, found out who is far-flung and to where. I will not gossip about the details, but I feel like I'm properly in touch with most of my circles of friends nowadays, which makes me feel much more comfortable in my skin.

Drunk fun with the office copy machine -- who has to fix it afterwards?

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The hit parade continues. More via Booman Tribune and DKos. The details are ugly and incriminating.

Tony Blair is going to pieces.

Smokin in the coal mine: Peter Gartrell wrote a story carried in quite a few papers about a program to get coal miners to quit smoking. Their lungs must be in terrible shape anyway...

Air Power in Iraq: Sudden talk that the US will withdraw ground forces and perhaps grant Iraqis the power to call in airstrikes, as Sy Hersh put in the New Yorker put it (as covered by the Guardian, Stygius, DailyKos - with terrifying bits from a CNN Hersh interview, and as always Juan Cole). Bush is having some messianic visions again, but hey, at least Ahmadi-Nejad is too.

More headline chunks: US says Iraq insurgents can be 'part of solution': US 're-evaluates' its position after initially expressed dissatisfaction with Cairo meeting statement 'right of people to resistance'. Juan Cole talks about what the insurgents told the CIA in Cairo.

In the broader context, Bush really did want al-Jazeera gone when he purportedly suggested bombing it. Crazed old neo-con Frank Gaffney approves of bombing al Jazeera. And Michael Jackson blames the Jews for his money woes.

Interesting site: DefenseTech. With regards to the Syria thing, UN chief: Arab leaders worried Syria could become the next Iraq. 19 different UAVs operate in Iraq, but how many can solve the situation? On the plus side, a UAV to deliver medical supplies has been invented.

Zarqawi-Goldstein, part 239: the great terrorist is a cartoon character. It was doubted last year. And Marshall puts a bit in on that. Less skeptical, the Zarqawi dilemma.

The Pentagon said that White Phosphorus was a chemical weapon, when Saddam was using it. How ironic. (this is the declassified doc) JawaReport on Iraq Gun Porn: Which Guns Suck, Which Guns Rock. The Rummy-Blitzer exchange is amazing.

This is sort of funny. The Weekly Standard is going to save the day and prove that Saddam had WMDs and was in fact, Osama's boyfriend. Good work. Daou gives us the ten major pro-war fallacies in case we forgot.

For the obsessively detail oriented, Lesser Neocons of L'Affaire Plame (featuring our man 'Clean Break' Wurmser). Fortunately I merely skimmed it. Raimondo cackles about the Feast of Scandal for Thanksgiving.

Raimondo also pokes around the waters of anti-Semitism that apparently are now getting somehow spun towards Chris Matthews -- as an excuse for Scooter leaking him Valerie Plame's name. I am not sure this makes sense. However, Raimondo adds that Wilson once said the following:

"The real agenda in all of this of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum that was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90's which was called, 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm.' And what it is – cut to the quick – is if you take out some of these countries, some of these governments that are antagonistic to Israel then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions upon the Palestinian people – whatever those terms and conditions might be. In other words, the road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad and Damascus. Maybe Tehran. And maybe Cairo and maybe Tripoli if these guys actually have their way. Rather than going through Jerusalem."

So the anti-Clean Break Conspiracy was also anti-Semitic, which legitimatized leaking Plame's name?

Crazed Mercenaries and their video cameras: There is apparently some creepy video of Iraqi civilian cars getting blown up by the good folks at Aegis Defence Services, a privatized military firm set up Lt Col Tim Spicer -- the former director of Sandline International, a defunct company that used to sell arms to the guys in Sierra Leone, along the shadier side of geopolitics. AegisIraq.co.uk was the site the video was on. (CSM on the story)

There is of course pretty much no congressional oversight of the vast mercenary army in Iraq. (more on Aegis, Sandline and Executive Outcomes - here's even more!) The more one thinks about private armies, the more it seems like an amazingly self-reinforcing arrangement. Capitalism-squared, you might say.

Kurt Vonnegut said that terrorist die for their own self-respect. That is fairly insightful, but of course draws flack from much wiser keyboard commandos.

"What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back. Peace wasn't restored in Vietnam until we got kicked out. Everything's quiet there now."
There's a long pause before Vonnegut speaks again: "It is sweet and noble - sweet and honourable I guess it is - to die for what you believe in."
....I ask one more question: "But terrorists believe in twisted religious things, don't they? So surely that can't be right?"
"Well, they're dying for their own self-respect," Vonnegut fires back. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's [like] your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."
There's another long pause and Vonnegut's eyes suggest his mind has wandered off somewhere. Then, suddenly, he turns back to me and says: "It must be an amazing high."

The CIA wants Dr. Phil's tactics for Guantanamo. Well, maybe it's an improvement.

The UK Ministry of Defense complains that farmers are shining lights at their Apache helicopters around Dorset -- and they think this could could cause a crash. Huh.

Iran Spring?? (Foreign Policy) Realists Tighten Grip as Talks Open with Iran by Jim Lobe. Why bother getting into the gory details? But I will say that Lobe is really an excellent source on this stuff & the neo-cons. Basically the point is that the neo-cons have been discredited, and the 'realists' are getting the upper hand finally.

Washington's growing reliance on and support for regional diplomacy marks a serious setback to neo-conservatives who, long before the Iraq war, had championed the unilateral imposition of a Pax Americana in the Middle East that would put an end to what in their view constituted the chief threats to Israel's security -- Arab nationalism and Iranian theocracy.

Now, two and a half years after invading Iraq to put that peace into place, the administration finds itself seeking the support of both forces, just as the realists had warned.

Check out this huge statement that Iran purchased in the NY Times. In particular that they haven't started a war of aggression against their neighbors in 250 years. I think that the way that various parties have managed the ethnic groups on the periphery was not exactly polite over that time... either way the demonization will continue.

BBC: Doubts grow over US Afghan strategy.

Internet hug transmission: Scientists in Singapore are developing a way to 'transmit hugs' over the Internet through vibrating jackets.

The Drunkard's Guide to Poker. What if hackers ruled the world? New Firefox. Something in the ocean goes Boing.

Big Bang in Israel: It's very big news that Sharon has decided to quit the Likud Party and go for elections. Alongside this, there is a younger leftist in charge of the Labor Party now, so suddenly the meanest part of the Israeli right-wing -- the faction that opposed even the Gaza pullout -- will likely find itself without any power in the next Israeli government.

Let me press all these Haaretz headlines together into one mush. 11 Israelis injured, at least 4 Hezbollah gunmen killed in failed kidnap attempt. Hezbollah releases video footage of [last] Monday's fighting. PM to offer PA independence for security. Eyeing Likud leadership, Mofaz, Shalom lambaste Netanyahu. Israel maintains its strategic advantage, says Jaffee Center. Poll: 25% of settlers east of fence prepared to leave homes.

Oh Sharon: graphic from excellent Haartez article. "Sharon knows the Likud was not a done deal." Palestinians hopeful after political volcano. Analysis / Where politics and security meet: A very interesting bit about when Israeli internal politics and the Hezbollah thing collide in real-time. Sharon aides: PM planning far-reaching diplomatic initiatives. Ariel Sharon's new faction is a one-term party.

Settlers throw stones at Palestinian homes in Hebron. Palestinians reported that settlers cut down 200 olive trees near Nablus. Nothing quite like olive tree-based warfare.

In Israel, it's the end of the Ashkenazi era? Peretz is a Sephardi. But this I thought most interesting:

At the same time, will the end of the era of generals arrive, as well? Will the time come when the top political rank does not originate in the security forces? If the conflict with the Palestinians were to end, the entire agenda would change, and the relative advantage of the generals would be eliminated. Generals would no longer be able to move so easily between the highest echelons of the army, Mossad and Shin Bet, to the political leadership.

This is one of the reasons why the generals are in no rush to end the conflict. They know that one of the most powerful factors influencing the voters is fear. Which is why they try to frighten, to pump up the volume on threats, to brandish the Iranian missiles, to carry out targeted assassinations and to always, but always, keep the finger close to the trigger. Conversely, a civilian leader does not view the other side through the gunsight, and his chances of resolving the conflict are therefore better.

Private prisons are coming to Israel. What could go wrong? The article notes that private prisons are second only to America's high tech sector as a growth industry. A parallel thought:

"Private prisons are not the only reason for this increase, but there is no doubt that their lobbying activity is one of the reasons for the increasing stringency of punishment and the increase in the number of prisoners," says attorney Aviv Wasserman, the head of the human rights division at the Academic College of Law in Ramat Gan, whose petition to the High Court of Justice against the decision to establish a private prison here is still pending.

The UK's Foreign Office and the EU leaked a document harshly critical of expanding Jewish settlements in the Jerusalem area. The EU heads of mission around there believe that all these settlements could radicalize local Palestinians, and indeed likely cause more terrorism to occur. Yet another logical reason that settlements are totally insane. Israel calls the Foreign Office 'unrelentingly pro-Palestinian.' The document, which reflects the views of many European diplomats, specifically bears a lot on the E1 Ma'ale Adumim settlement that I detailed here a while ago.

Russian missiles: You have to love the Russians and their missiles. They have made a new one that can change around in midflight and deploy decoys. Nice.

Wow, Cunningham really knew how to take bribes with gusto. Lots of spreading probes.

Banning foreigners that the Bush Administration doesn't like: Believe it or not, a huge proportion of America's most valuable inhabitants were not born here, nor did they march in an acceptably quiet lock-step with the Nixon, Ford or Reagan Administrations when they got here.

Indeed, a common theme of American history has been blaming foreigners for their weird and subversive politics poisoning our fair landscape, so now we must understand why it was a terrible idea to let the Jews, Italians and Irish in here in the first place.

Nowadays, the Muslims threaten to pray at weird times of day here, and lecture university students on ancient battles and esoteric organizations like the Cult of the Assassins. THIS SHALL NOT STAND. And when the Irish, Hebrews, Muslims, Italians, Chinese and the Cajun French and the Koreans and the Mexicans are all finally gone, we will look around at a desolate land and wonder where all the good restaurants went.

So I heartily approve that the US is banning academics and accusing them of supporting terrorism. If we do not maintain the purity of our precious bodily fluids, then the terrorists win.

(here's a link purporting an Assassin-Al Qaeda conspiracy link, at Rotten.com of all places! Ha! Oh wait, the Assassins were Shi'a, so it's nonsense - but the structure of the secret society is interesting. Nothing's True, everything is permitted :-) )

Move in process

It is coming along. Bill Potter came in from his road trip and he has helped assemble the futon along with Jane Cat. Cat likes to get hair & dander on the shirts of course.

Check this out - this is the view from the fire escape/ porch in back. The building ringed with green is the Target Plaza headquarters. It changes color constantly. Sweet. I will have Internet on Saturday so we'll be coming back with more updates then...

The Dark Crest of Corruption Breaks: DeLay; Franklin/AIPAC GUILTY; "covert propaganda"; Libby nailed for Valerie Plame leak. Feeling Fat & Happy, moving to MPLS.

There have been so many scandals breaking this week that I've really got Intrigue Fatigue:

Frank Luntz, who helped develop the "Contract With America" message that swept Republicans to power in 1994, was on the Hill last week warning the party faithful that they could lose both the House and the Senate in next year's congressional elections.

Har har har... Blogs for Bush darkly rambles about Democrats wishing for civil war. Fortunately, I scored a new apartment at the edge of downtown Minneapolis with Colin Kennedy. The apartment windows are just above the street signs in this photo. It's at Apartment 200, 32 Spruce Place, the "Haverhill Apartments", which is around the Laurel Village area. Basically to get there, you drive up Hennepin past the Minneapolis Community & Technical College and take a left onto Harmon Place, then go a block. It is right there on the first corner in. Not bad!

First, the Covert Propaganda. Let's put that in bold. Covert Propaganda. It is not getting much bounce on the TV news because there is too much going on. But I like it. See AFP or NY Times:

Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

Then, Valerie Plame and the War Propaganda. Meanwhile they started a war based on fabricated propaganda. I think I know which is worse. But they didn't like it when uppity ponks like Joe Wilson tried to deflate some of their more outlandish claims, so they smeared him by outing his wife as a CIA operative, which in their demented cocktail-party worldview somehow was thought to be a good idea. But who did this? Michael Ledeen? (well he quite possibly involved with the Yellowcake forgeries themselves, but...) Joe Wilson wasted no time in insinuating that Karl Rove and I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby were involved, and I had this thing fairly well pegged back in 2003. Nearly two years ago, October 4, 2003, 'Everyone's National Disaster' I said:

The leaker went after Wilson to intimidate anyone else who might attack the Bush folks falsification of war intelligence. Let me offer a prediction about who was probably behind the leak: the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. There have been insiders saying that the bad guy works in the Executive Office Building, where Cheney's people are. If I'm right about this, I definitely win a cookie.

(although on antiwar.com they had it pegged back then too - that was certainly one of my sources) I will award myself a cookie now. A fine headline from the WaPo: "Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer: Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement". And so now they are saying, let's look at bringing in CONSPIRACY charges. Har har (via a happy Billmon)!

A new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.

Naturally folks are drooling over the opportunity to see who in the White House could actually be indicted. Dkos writer DC Poli Sci outlines how back in the Watergate days, the prosecutors wanted to avoid setting a precedent of indicting the President, so fortunately they had bi-partisan support for impeachment, an option not open these days. A very good place to start looking at the matter. An (actual) psychoanalyst looks at Bush's general destructive tendencies - and how he might lash out if Karl Rove et al. are threatened by Fitzgerald's CIA probe:

Why this matters now is the possible reaction of Bush to Fitzgerald's next serious move. My fear is that the inner emptiness in Bush will respond with absolute panic to the potential loss of Rove and his other pals. Panic in a sadist who believes in the apocalypse is something serious about which we all should be worried.

It would be funny if it weren't so obviously alarming. So would Fitzgerald bring charges against Libby? Froomkin in the WaPo has many bits about Miller's Big Secret.

Haaretz: U.S. officials eye possible Assad successors in Syria:

The sources added that senior American officials, in recent conversations with their Israeli counterparts, have expressed interest in Israel's assessments of Assad's possible successors, asking who Israel thought could replace him and still maintain Syria's stability. American officials said that their impression from these conversations was that Israel would prefer to have a weakened Assad, vulnerable to international pressure, remain in power, and is unenthusiastic about the possibility of a regime change in Syria.

The Israelis' impression was that America's main concern is the flow of terrorists into Iraq via Syria, rather than the threat posed by the Syrian-backed Hezbollah organization in Lebanon. But Washington, like Jerusalem, is eagerly awaiting the results of the Hariri investigation, and will not decide what to do about Syria until the findings have been published.

AIPAC Your ass, bitches!!! Funny stuff. Former Pentagon analyst (under Douglas Feith and the Office of Special Plans, part of the time) Larry Franklin is going to plead guilty to passing classified defense intelligence to AIPAC staffers, who in turn passed it along to Israeli intelligence agents at the embassy in Washington. AP story on it:

Rosen, a top lobbyist for Washington-based AIPAC for more than 20 years, and Weissman, the organization's top Iran expert, allegedly disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics, including al-Qaida, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policy in Iran, according to the indictment.

Presumably this means that he could really spill some beans on how AIPAC has operated as an agent of a foreign power (and probably as an espionage channel) while lobbying in DC. Justin Raimondo makes the 'maximalist' case that the Israeli government has, to some extent, been manipulating US policy. I think that "Israel's secret war on the US" goes a ways too far, but we are certainly looking at a serious Rabbit Hole of mysterious proportions. Raimondo puts his favorite pieces together in "AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell":

The chief beneficiaries of the conquest of Iraq, and subsequent threats against both Iran and Syria, have been, in descending order, Israel, Iran, and Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda has used the invasion as a recruiting tool and training ground for its global jihad against the United States. Iran has extended its influence deep into southern Iraq and has penetrated the central government in Baghdad. In the long run, however, Israel benefits the most, as a major Middle Eastern Arab country fragments into at least three pieces and the U.S. military is ineluctably drawn into neighboring countries.
While the U.S. imposes an occupation eerily reminiscent of Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestinian lands and prepares to deal with Israel's enemies in the region, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon makes major incursions into the West Bank, even while supposedly "withdrawing" from Gaza. In the meantime, the political and military bonds between the U.S. and Israel are strengthened, as the two allies present an indissoluble united front against the entire Muslim world.
Except the alliance is far from indissoluble, as the AIPAC spy scandal reveals. The U.S.-Israeli relationship, often described as "special," is rather more ambiguous than is generally recognized, both by Israel's staunchest friends and its most implacable enemies. This has come out in Israel's funneling American military technology to China, and the threat of American sanctions, but was also made manifest earlier by indications that Israel was conducting extensive spying operations in the U.S. prior to 9/11 – suspicions that are considerably strengthened by the AIPAC spy brouhaha.
Israel's secret war against America has so far been conducted in the dark, but the Rosen-Weissman trial will expose these night creatures to the light of day. Blinking and cursing, they'll be confronted with their treason, and, even as they whine that "everybody does it," the story of how and why a cabal of foreign agents came to exert so much influence on the shape of U.S. foreign policy will be told.
In the course of bending American policy to the Israelis' will, they had to compromise the national security of the United States – and that's what tripped them up, in the end.

Again, this is not my basic opinion about the situation, but it ought to be considered. On the flip side, Juan Cole reacts to Raimondo by pointing out that in Washington, it is ALL interest group politics, but when there is no wealthy counter-interest group to given foreign countries (like pro-Likud groups or anti-Castro Cubans) then U.S. policy gets incredibly one-sided and stupid. With the memorable headline "A Government of War Criminals, A Press of Agents Provocateurs, A Bureaucracy of Foreign Spies:"

I wish the argument were more nuanced, and there are many things in it with which I disagree (David Satterfield is likely to have been a relatively innocent bystander in this train wreck, e.g.). But because Raimundo pulls no punches, he forces us to consider the degree to which Congressional foreign policy on the Middle East in particular has become virtually captive to the Zionist lobby (just as US policy toward Cuba is captive to the Cuban-American community and its lobby). He clearly goes too far, but how far should an analyst of this case go? Billmon is almost equally scathing.

One thing must be said, which is that there is no sinister cabal, that all this is just single-interest politics. The American system is one of checks and balances, and takes it for granted that there will be lobbies on both sides of an issue. But because there are no wealthy, organized, well-connected lobbies on the other side of AIPAC or the Cuban-American National Foundation (e.g.), US government policy ends up being unbalanced and often irrational on those issues. And, AIPAC functions as a foreign agent in the US without having to register as such, and some of its major officers clearly have been deeply involved in espionage for Israel for years. The last two points are uncontestable. Is this really a situation that serves the American people? Franklin, the "go-to" man at the Pentagon for then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, was trying to get up a US war against Iran, and was soliciting AIPAC's help. We already know that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has tried as hard as he could to get the US into a war against Tehran. Do the rest of us, who already have one military occupation of a Middle Eastern country we're not comfortable with, have any say at all in this? Don't we need a PAC for Middle East Peace that could begin offsetting AIPAC, the War PAC? If the pro-Israeli lobby or the Israeli prime minister want wars in the Middle East, why don't they fight them themselves? By the way, AIPAC has for several years been attempting to get Congress to pass a law that would put it in charge of the Middle East professors, like myself, and in a position to punish our universities financially if any of us criticize it or Israeli policy. The most dangerous thing about key elements of the Zionist lobby is that they really do want to gut the US First Amendment when it comes to Israeli interests.

I hope everyone who reads this will consider writing their Congressional representatives and senators and asking them to work to see that AIPAC is made to register as the agent of a foreign power, given the repeated pattern whereby it acts as such.

So yeah, Billmon has had a couple things to say about the matter. I also liked this UPI bit "Analysis: Netanyahu: US Opposes? So what?" which talks about Netanyahu's campaign to capture some more settlements as part of his bid to take over the Likud Party. I won't quote it now, but if you want evidence of how an insane racial chauvinist campaigns in favor of territorial expansion, you've got it. On the flip side, reflections about the peace movement in the broader Jewish community.

To hell with Des Moines: Finally the oh so productive 'retail politics' of Iowa and New Hampshire are finished as Dems to Add Contests to 2008 Calendar (via the Kos). So two more states will join IA and NH in the early set of primaries. I hope it's New York and California, or maybe Oregon and Montana. Or Mississippi and Kentucky. Whatever. Anything would be an improvement. Montana governor Brian Schweitzer was named the nation's 2005 "Hot Governor" by Rolling Stone but his story got axed. "'Since Hunter S. Thompson left, Rolling Stone hasn't been worth reading,' Schweitzer said," according to the article.

Able/Danger mystery continues: Newsday writes that the Pentagon had some sorts of leads on lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta before the attack, but the defense intelligence program Able/Danger was shut down and huge amounts of data got deleted. I've got an exciting conspiracy linked below about this, naturally!

Shaffer explained in a telephone interview that although Able/Danger never had knowledge of Atta's whereabouts, it had linked him and several other Al Qaeda suspects to an Egyptian terrorist, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who had been linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later was convicted for conspiring to attack the U.S. Atta arrived in the U.S. some seven years after that bombing. But Shaffer and his attorney, Mark Zaid, emphasize that Able/Danger never knew where Atta was, only that he was connected to Abdel-Rahman and Al Qaeda.

"Not to say they were physically here, but the data led us to believe there was some activity related to the original World Trade Center bombing that these guys were somehow affiliated with," Shaffer said.

...[Senator] Specter sharply criticized the Pentagon for refusing to allow Shaffer, Phillpott, Smith and others who recall seeing the chart to appear and answer the committee's questions. "It looks to me as if it could be obstruction of the committee's activities," the senator said. Specter added that he was especially "dismayed and frustrated" by the committee's inability to hear from Shaffer and Phillpott, whom he described as "two brave military officers [who] have risked their careers to come forward and tell America the truth."

Pentagon to permit testimony: Following the hearing, Specter announced that the Pentagon had agreed to allow Shaffer, Phillpott and three other witnesses to testify in public next month, though a Specter aide said Tuesday that the Pentagon now insisted the hearings be closed.
.....Able/Danger was an experiment in a new kind of warfare, known as "information warfare" or "information dominance." One of the program's missions was to see whether Al Qaeda cells around the world could be identified by sifting huge quantities of publicly available data, a relatively new technique called "data mining."

The data miners used complex software programs, with names like Spire, Parentage and Starlight, that mimic the thought patterns in the human brain while parsing countless bits of information from every available source to find relationships and patterns that otherwise would be invisible.

Weird. Anyway the article also features some classic pre-9/11 bits such as the Phoenix memo and the arrest of Zacharias Mussaoui (so on the day of 9/11, the Minneapolis FBI had Nicholas Berg's email password inside Mussaoui's laptop. Random but interesting......)

War Porn: A very disturbing site called nowthatsfuckedup.com features images sent in by U.S. soldiers of dead people, blown to bits and so forth, from overseas, and this has been characterized as "the new pornography of war" (also The Porn of War at The Nation). Like any incredibly shady site, it's hosted in the Netherlands, so it's unlikely that lawyers can really get to them. It is very disturbing.

It seems like this is part of a very disturbing glorification of violence, using the aesthetic of death to provide meaning -- in other words, a surface manifestation of the inner emotional state that drives wars and murder. In contrast are the (warning: very graphic links) other photo galleries that can be found online that are intended to illustrate the horrors of Iraq, in order to encourage an end to the conflict. And there are those photos of flag-draped coffins coming into Dover Air Force Base in the United States that Bush was always obsessed with hiding from us. (thememoryblog, by the way, is excellent for more news on censored and concealed news like this)

Zarqawi-Goldstein update: I found another story about the ghost-like, eerie quality of how the Abu Musab al Zarqawi figure continues to generate media reports, while everyday Jordanians doubt he's still alive at all. This was by Dahr Jamail, who also has the Iraq casualty photo galleries linked above.

IRAQ MESS - time to grab our marbles and book it: Reuters: "Reuters says US troops obstruct reporting of Iraq." Now they are saying there is ONE fully functional Iraqi battalion. Great. Time to produce some kind of really important strategic benefit by blowing the hell out of some town (Sadah) eight miles from the Syrian border. I'm sure this will produce the same fine effects as the fourth time that the U.S. captured Samarra. Classified documents are talking about withdrawal strategies. "US Generals Now See Virtues of a Smaller Troop Presence in Iraq." as in:

"the generals said the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing terrorists across the Middle East."

The WaPo says that well, Bush is under pressure because Iraq is dissolving, and the Saudis are getting more vocal about noting this in public, which is not their usual style at all:

For all the public confidence, however, the Bush administration in private is nervous about this sensitive last stage, which will establish whether Iraq’s disparate religious and ethnic factions can stay together in a single nation — and whether civil war can be avoided, according to U.S. officials and experts on Iraq.

The administration has come under growing pressure at home and abroad over the past two weeks, with dire warnings from Arab allies and a prominent international group about the looming disintegration of Iraq. In an unusual public rebuke of U.S. policy, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister called a news conference in Washington last week to predict Iraq’s dissolution. He said there is no leadership or momentum to pull Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds back together and prevent a civil war. Other countries have expressed similar concerns in private, according to U.S. and Arab diplomats.

IRAQ Withdrawal Options Summary: Retired Lt. General William Odom adds that the Iraq war was "greatest strategic disaster in United States history". I mentioned Odom's analysis of What's really wrong with 'cutting and running' earlier. Michael Schwartz had a widely read reflection on why immediate withdrawal would be the better option now. Juan Cole's list of ten war demands for Congress, Billmon's sullen yet wise perspective and Robert Dreyfuss' view represent an excellent cross-section of thinking about the options for getting the U.S. away from this sorry vortex. Billmon's view of the War Porn site finally pushed him over the edge about the war, giving him the mental picture of growing, incipient Fascist tendencies in this country:

So I've been promising myself for a while now that I would break cover and at least admit that I'm not sure withdrawing from Iraq is the morally right thing to do, and have deep doubts about the arguments in favor of it.
But something happened on my way to a confession: I came across the Nation article on nonwthatsfuckedup.com, which meant I had to take a good, hard look at the psychopathic side of the American spirit, and consider its implications not just for the war on terrorism and the occupation of Iraq, but its role in the emergence of an authentically fascist movement in American politics, one which feeds on violence and the glorification of violence, and which has found an audience not just in the U.S. military (where I think -- or at least hope -- it's still a relatively small fringe) but in the culture as a whole.
I don't have time at the moment to explain fully why and how this peek at the banality of evil changed my thinking, although I'll try to cover it in a future post. Suffice it to say that my visit to nowthatsfuckedup.com was a reminder of the genocidal skeletons hanging in the American closet. It left me with the conviction -- or at least an intuitive premonition -- that an open-ended war in Iraq (or in the broader Islamic world) will bring nothing but misery and death to them, and creeping (or galloping) authoritarianism to us.

Jim Lobe had an excellent article about whether "Can the US Military Presence Avert Civil War?" This article is required reading. (Also it's worth recalling that Niall Ferguson was at my table when I had lunch with Michael Ledeen):

The growing spectre of a full-scale civil war in Iraq -- and the likelihood that such a conflict will draw in neighbouring states -- has intensified a summer-long debate here over whether and how to withdraw U.S. troops. Some analysts believe that an immediate U.S. withdrawal would make an all-out conflict less likely, while others insist that the U.S. military presence at this point is virtually all there is to prevent the current violence from blowing sky-high, destabilising the region, and sending oil prices into the stratosphere.

The Bush administration continues to insist it will "stay the course" until Iraqi security forces can by themselves contain, if not crush, the ongoing insurgency. But an increasing number of analysts, including some who favoured the 2003 invasion, believe Washington will begin drawing down its 140,000 troops beginning in the first half of next year, if for no other reason than the Republican Party needs to show voters a "light at the end of the tunnel" before the November 2006 elections.

.....In fact, some of these analysts believe that a civil war -- pitting Sunnis against the Kurdish and Shia populations -- has already begun. "A year ago, it was possible to write about the potential for civil war in Iraq," wrote Iraq-war booster Niall Ferguson in the Los Angeles Times. "Today that civil war is well underway," he asserted. While that remains a minority view, the likelihood and imminence of civil war in Iraq is no longer questioned by analysts outside the administration.

Ferguson blames the situation on Washington's failure to deploy a sufficient number of troops in Iraq to crush any insurgency. But a report released Monday by the International Crisis Group (ICG) pointed the finger at the U.S.-sponsored constitutional process, which will culminate in a national plebiscite Oct. 15, as having further alienated Sunnis from the two other major sectarian groups. Barring a major U.S. intervention to ensure that Sunni interests are addressed, according to the report, "Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry", "Iraq is likely to slide toward full-scale civil war and the break-up of the country."
......"We created the civil war when we invaded (Iraq); we can't prevent a civil war by staying," Odom wrote last month in an essay entitled "What's Wrong with Cutting and Running?" He and Bacevich both argued that, instead of creating a vacuum in Iraq that would draw in neighbouring powers, Washington's withdrawal would force neighbours and other great powers -- who have been relegated to the sidelines by the Bush administration's high-handedness -- to form a coalition to ensure a conflict would not get out of hand.

Some of the administration's critics, however, argue that an immediate withdrawal will indeed make things far worse, particularly for Iraqis. "I just cannot understand this sort of argument," wrote University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole on his much-read blog (www.juancole.com). "The U.S. military is killing a lot of Iraqis, but whether it is killing more than would die in a civil war would depend on how many died in a civil war," he wrote. "A million or two could die in a civil war, and that's if the war stays limited to Iraq, which is unlikely."

"A U.S. withdrawal would not cause the Sunnis suddenly to want to give up their major demands; indeed, they might well be emboldened to hit the Shiites harder," wrote Cole, who favours both the withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops and, in the absence of NATO or U.N. peacekeepers, the maintenance of Special Forces and U.S. airpower in the region precisely to prevent sectarian forces from escalating the conflict into a conventional civil war, as in Afghanistan.

Bing West reporting from Fallujah for Slate.com talks about the Emerging Iraqi Army and life in Fallujah in a series of articles. He was a Pentagon official, so the tone is towards "Rah-Rah!!" but it's still well-done. Ah, the Berg/Zarqawi story pops up here too. Anyway. 'C', an anonymous officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, related to Human Rights Watch how he couldn't get those in the chain of command to do anything about widespread torture practices. This quote says it all:

[At FOB Mercury] they said that they had pictures that were similar to what happened at Abu Ghraib, and because they were so similar to what happened at Abu Ghraib, the soldiers destroyed the pictures. They burned them. The exact quote was, “They [the soldiers at Abu Ghraib] were getting in trouble for the same things we were told to do, so we destroyed the pictures.”
....My company commander said, “I see how you can take it that way, but…” he said something like, “remember the honor of the unit is at stake” or something to that effect and “Don’t expect me to go to bat for you on this issue if you take this up,” something to that effect.

"Officials Fear Chaos if Iraqis Vote Down the Constitution". The suspicious sentiment of the moment:

"Nobody will be surprised to lose Anbar, and maybe one other province," one Pentagon official said. "We're not going to lose three."

Juan Cole reflects on the recent war protests and spineless Democrats. Fred Kaplan in Slate writes that the damned Constitution coming down the line in Iraq will be a disaster, and he hopes it's defeated:

The basic fact about Iraqi geography is that the Kurdish north and Shiite south have lots of oil, while the Sunni center does not. Read in this context, the basic fact about the Iraqi Constitution is that it strengthens the north and south, lets them form semiautonomous regions and expand them into super-regions—in short, it lets them dominate the country's politics and economics—while leaving the Sunnis with nearly nothing. It leaves the very faction that needs to be assimilated, if Iraq is to be a secure and viable nation, unassimilated.

Former Iraqi Army officers sat around and discussed why they wished that the old Army was still in existence, by Patrick Cockburn:

It was meant to be a moment of reconciliation between the old regime and the new, a gathering of nearly 1,000 former Iraqi army officers and tribal leaders in Baghdad to voice their concerns over today's Iraq. But it did not go as planned.
General after general rose to his feet and raised his voice to shout at the way Iraq was being run and to express his fear of escalating war. "They were fools to break up our great army and form an army of thieves and criminals," said one senior officer. "They are traitors," added another.
.....The meeting, in a heavily guarded hall close to the Tigris, was called by General Wafiq al-Sammarai, a former head of Iraqi military intelligence under Saddam who fled Baghdad in 1994 to join the opposition. He is now military adviser to President Jalal Talabani.
His eloquent call for support for the government in his fight against terrorism did not go down well. He sought to reassure his audience that no attack was planned on the Sunni Arab cities of central Iraq such as Baquba, Samarra and Ramadi, as the Iraqi Defence minister had threatened. He said people had been fleeing the cities but "there will be no attack on you, no use of aircraft, no bombardment by the Americans". The audience was having none of it.
......The meeting was important because the officer corps of the old Iraqi army consider themselves as keeper of the flame of Iraqi nationalism. One of them asked General Sammarai to stop using the American word "general" and use the Arabic word lewa'a instead.
In conversation, the officers made clear that they considered armed resistance to the occupation legitimate. General Sammarai told The Independent that he drew a distinction between terrorists blowing up civilians and nationalist militants fighting US troops.

One of the Senior Fuck-Ups, Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers, is finally retiring to somewhere else that he can pointlessly bomb. Alex Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair bitterly lament the spinelessness of Democrats as they "Sink Deeper into the Ooze." A final bit about the AIPAC == War Party meme today:

For those interested in some of the reasons for this incredible abdication [of Democrats avoiding the recent war protest], we can cite former National Security Agency staffer and muckraker Wayne Madsen who reported two days after the rally that "according to Democratic insiders on Capitol Hill AIPAC put out the word that any member of Congress who appeared at the protest, where some speakers were to represent pro-Palestinian views, would face their political wrath."
Madsen wrote that three members of Congress had been scheduled to speak at the rally ­ McKinney, Woolsey and John Conyers. "Word is that AIPAC will direct its massive campaign to Wolsey's neo-con and pro-Iraq war primary challenger, California state assemblyman Joe Nation, who has strong connections to the RAND corporation."

USS Cole-Wayne Madsen conspiracy time: Meanwhile Wayne Madsen has a new really exciting conspiracy theory involving the famous Israeli art students, John O'Neill, September 11, Douglas Feith and Marc Zell, Able/Danger, Islamic militants in Bosnia, Plame's Brewster Jennings front company, Sibel Edmonds, Michael Chertoff, the USS Cole bombing (actually an Israeli missile, according to Madsen's unnamed CIA source) and the rest. Not worth betting the lunch money on, but a very entertaining counter-narrative about the ideologies and paranoia of our times. Time for Deep Politics, Comrade. But Madsen takes heart with all the breaking scandals, as I do on his site:

After almost five years of incessant outrages by the Bush regime, I have never been more optimistic that the tide may be beginning to turn.

UK Times: "Iraq's Relentless March of Death." Via lies.com (love the banner pic) we get a bit about Statements from the Leaders (via Kevin Drum):

Asked whether the insurgency has worsened, Casey said it has not expanded geographically or numerically, “to the extent we can know that.” But he noted that current “levels of violence are above norms,” exceeding 500 attacks a week. “I’ll tell you that levels of violence are a lagging indicator of success,” he added.

So he is having trouble fully vaulting into lie territory, unlike Rummy. Lies.com also notes that surprisingly, adept liars' brains are built differently - with more white matter and less neurons in the prefrontal cortex.

Boeing and Bell Helicopter have apologized for running an advertisement for the V-22 Osprey aircraft that features soldiers invading a mosque. "It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell... Consider it a gift from above." That's pretty fucked up. Apparently the building in the image says "Muhammed Mosque" in Arabic. Wow. Almost as ill-conceived as the boondoggle Osprey itself.

Abu Ghraib Photo Bomb: We are set for another batch of Abu Ghraib media to be released, much to the chagrin of the Pentagon leadership, who prefer to frame the issue as destabilizing and pointlessly inflammatory media. However, it is also excellent evidence for the American people that the Pentagon leadership does not deserve to keep their jobs, which is obviously the most important thing in the fucking world.

Former CIA dude Ray McGovern notes that the chain of command is constantly ducking responsibility for torturing people and all that. Stories of the 'New Boss' Iraqi security agencies are really scary, such as the story from Khalid Jarrar's detainment that I mentioned a while ago. You can almost taste the insanity and paranoia now generating inside those new Iraqi government agency buildings (actually, like Abu Ghraib, they're the same buildings as Saddam's day).

Paul Craig Roberts summarizes your basic reasons that Bush is stirring up some more wars with Iran and North Korea.

The Misc File: "India loses political credibility in anti-Iran vote" (IPS):

India, a country that aspires to be a superpower in Asia, lost its political credibility among the world's developing nations last week when it voted against Iran at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. 

The headline in a leading Indian national newspaper said it all: "India's shameful vote against Iran." The criticism kept snowballing, as the media, academics and mainstream and left-wing politicians in New Delhi crucified the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for abandoning one of its longtime political and economic allies in Asia.

Well that's enough fun for today. With a little luck, let this post stand as this website's high water mark of charting the World's Sordid Affairs, the sinister inverse point, the final crest of the high and terrible wave we've been on. The opposite of this:

And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting--on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right sort of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Time is on our side. I'm moving to Minneapolis.

Power failure!

Oh how annoying - the power died after a big storm blew through the Twin Cities. It was out for several hours - knocked everyone's plans for the evening down. Dang.

Meanwhile they say that Hurricane Rita is the third most powerful hurricane ever recorded. Nothing is half assed these days, that's for sure... My wishes for the best of luck to the apparent hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in this strange nation of ours...

MiG for Sale; Martial Law scares me; Queen Elizabeth I: "We have quite forgot the fart"; Rove: "there is no real anti-war movement"

One of the side effects of looking at Fark is that you come away with a bunch of links that seem like they should be passed along to everyone. You can get a "mint" condition Mig 21 aircraft for a mere $225,000 on eBay. It would appear this seller has all kinds of weird military hardware, and no, foreigners can't buy. No bids yet.

They are putting USB connections into Volkswagens. What could go wrong? Could I drive by mouse? PC World offers 20 tidbits about tech that manufacturers don't really want you to know about. Overclocking, bad warranties, sucking the Windows registration number out of your computer, hacking cell phones and game consoles, worthless product specs made up for marketing.

Some author is getting rich writing about straight girls going for lesbian hookups. Surely everyone will find this fascinating. Apparently the title alone, "The Straight Girl's Guide to Sleeping with Chicks", was good enough that she got a mountain of cash from Simon & Schuster without having to write a word. Nothing like Insane Homophobes protesting at Rehnquist's funeral (via Dailykos).

Martial Law seems to be in the air. Bush called for expanding the role of the military in disaster situations. William Arkin in the WaPo says that this is Real Bad:

I for one don't want to live in a society where "a moment’s notice" justifies military action that either preempts or usurps civil authority.



What is more, nothing about what happened in New Orleans justifies such a radical move to give the military what bureaucrats call "a lead role" in responding to emergencies.



In the wake of Katrina, the military was standing by awaiting orders, as it should be. The White House and the federal government were for their part either on vacation or out to lunch. The problem wasn’t the lack of resources available. It was leadership, decisiveness, foresight. The problem was commanding and mobilizing the resources, civil and military.

Yeah. For more try this really excellent bit on Social Militarization, characterizing it as a "fascist move." Yeah. So this leads to a unnerving discussion of how Liberal Democracy is not good enough to confront the State of Exception (such as catastrophic disasters), and Social Militarization is offered as a kind of illusory panacea. I need to quote this:

The charismatic leader is indeed historically necessary for successful, final-stage fascist movements (i.e. movements that actually lay claim to political power). But there remains a more fundamental and contemporary pressing facist concern, an earlier stage in which the rhetorical structure of fascism is laid by celebrating (Robert Paxton's recent Anatomy of Fascism is quite good on this point) the necessary failures of liberal democracy to respond to the exigencies of the present day. For four years we have been told that a new type of war must be waged, that new types of laws must be passed (even if those laws short-circuit the freedoms they ostensibly protect), that the old conventions by which we fight illegalities and terrorism must be scrapped in favor of more proactive solutions. In effect, we have been told that the liberal democratic state was simply ill-prepared to handle the threat of terrorism, and so something else, something new, defined by a Bush doctrine and a rethinking of our constitutional protections, would be needed. Now we are told that the liberal state can no longer handle the constant challenges of nature, and that now, again, something new is needed: social militarization.



For the facist movements that eventually came to power in Italy and Germany, and that also surfaced in Spain, Poland, and the majority of countries, the supposed failure of liberal democracy became apparent with the ravages and duration of World War I, the Great War. Its intensity seemed so unfitting civilized society, so anethema to the vision of evolved, Enlightened, European culture. For the fascists, it was evidence that the liberal state was weak, that it lacked the necessary will to power to do right by it citizenry. I fear that history is repeating itself.

Josh Marshall:

You don't repair disorganized or incompetent government by granting it more power. You fix it by making it more organized and more competent. If conservatism can't grasp that point, what is it good for?



As for the military, same difference. The Army clearly has an important role to play in major domestic disasters. And they've been playing it in this case. But what broader role was required exactly?



As I've been saying, repressive governments mix adminsitrative clumsiness and inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies. That's almost always the pattern. The direction the president wants to go in is one in which, in emergencies, the federal government will have trouble moving water into or enabling transportation out of the disaster zone but will be well-equipped to declare martial law on a moment's notice.

Rozen makes a small note on Martial Law and The Agonist as well. For the Pissed Off Old CIA Dude perspective on the insurgency and Katrina, try Larry Johnson and Pat Lang at No Quarter. Katrina cleanup volunteers got routed to a casino. An on the scene report via AmericaBlog. Bush's poll numbers are tanked like hell these days (atrios):

President Bush's vow to rebuild the Gulf Coast did little to help his standing with the public, only 40 percent of whom now approve of his performance in office, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.



Just 41 percent of the 818 adults polled between Friday and Monday said they approved of Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while 57 percent disapproved.



And support for his management of the war in Iraq has dropped to 32 percent, with 67 percent telling pollsters they disapproved of how Bush is prosecuting the conflict.

Frank Rich memorably puts it, "the administration's priority of image over substance is embedded like a cancer in the Katrina relief process." A very good column. Bush might be Losing it altogether and it seems like his inner circle is more tightly sealed than ever before. A DailyKos followup on how Katrina refugees that were previously photographed have fared.

And so Maybe they're feeling Doomed?! (via Americablog) The American Spectator says:

But at this stage of the game, barring some imaginative political moves that bear some resemblance to the Bush Administration circa 2002, Republicans on Capitol Hill and even some longtime Bush team members in various Cabinet level departments say this Administration is done for.



"You run down the list of things we thought we could accomplish and you have to wonder what we thought we were thinking," says a Bush Administration member who joined on in 2001. "You get the impression that we're more than listless. We're sunk."...



Congressional committee sources on both sides of Capitol Hill predict tough slogging on anything of policy consequence. "Social Security is dead as far as my chairman is concerned. So are the tax cuts," says a Ways and Means staffer of Chairman Bill Thomas.



Before hurricane season wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast and in Washington, the thinking was that Thomas was poised to take up a major tax bill that might feature several critical components of the Bush Administration's Social Security reform. Now those plans appear to have dimmed considerably.

Josh Marshall points out that we can Expect Corruption in the Gulf.

If there's nothing else this decade has taught us it is that there was never and never could have been any Iraq War separated from the goals and intentions of those with their foot on the accelerator. Anything else is just a sad delusion. That's why the whole mess is as it is now: fruit of the poison tree.



Same here.



Maybe you want to spend $200 billion on rebuilding the Delta region too. Fine. Something like that will probably be necessary. But don't fool yourself into thinking that what's coming is just a matter of a different chef making the same meal. This will be Iraq all over again, with the same fetid mix of graft, zeal and hubris. Cronyism like you wouldn't believe. Money blown on ideological fantasies and half-baked test-cases.



You could come up with a hundred reasons why that's true. But at root intentions drive all. You'll never separate this operation or its results from the fact that the people in charge see it as a political operation. The use of this money for political purposes, for what amounts to a political campaign, tells you everything you need to know about what's coming.

The Register reports that Google Earth is getting in trouble with governments that don't like to have their military installations available to the everyday web surfer. Lots of fun imagery. Also you can see the Great Area 51 itself in this article. Not bad. Edwards Air Force Base has all kinds of sweet freakin stuff sitting around. (see also Microsoft cloaks area 51 - hah!)

For the serious visitor, consider some classic internet marijuana imagery via i-am-bored.com and fresh99.com. Also weird Japanese condom wrappers.

PottyGate: In a followup to Bush's UN bathroom break, The UK Times offers a roundup of famous bathroom breaks and undiplomatic flatulence.

From emptying of the diplomatic bag to breaking wind before Virgin Queen

By Michael Binyon

THE need to relieve oneself diplomatically has on occasion determined the fate of nations.



The most notorious practitioner of “bladder diplomacy” was the late President Assad, the hardline Syrian President for more than 25 years. Western statesmen visiting his palace were offered juice, water and bountiful cups of coffee while the President lectured them for hours on end. Eventually the visitors cut a deal simply to escape to the lavatory.



Enoch Powell, the late Conservative politician and noted orator, said that politicians should speak with their bladders half full, as it gave a sense of urgency to their speeches. On the other hand, Morarji Desai, Prime Minister of India from 1977 to 1979, drank a pint of his own urine every day. He lived to the age of 99.



.....In the 1960s, President Johnson used to adjourn conversations when the need arose and ask his interlocutors to accompany him to the men’s room. Their embarrassment was a source of great amusement to him. He often recounted a story about “one of the delicate Kennedyites who came into the bathroom with me and then found it utterly impossible to look at me while I sat there on the toilet”. ....



Court etiquette grew stricter over the centuries. Famously, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, was so embarrassed at having broken wind in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I that he voluntarily exiled himself from court for seven years. When he returned, her first words to him were: “We have quite forgot the fart.”

Some RawStory bits: Condoleezza Rice took time out of her busy schedule to threaten Syria and compared Islamic fundamentalists to Marxists. Meanwhile, real intelligence experts say that we are repeating "every mistake we made in Vietnam", adding that the WMD fantasy chase precluded early efforts that might have blunted the strength of the various militant movements in Iraq. And another bit offers a guide to the Roberts nomination and his nomenclature. Framers' intent, activist judges, what do these things really mean?

In Iraq, lots of stuff from the new Iraqi Defense Ministry of Doom has been skimmed off for anti-Sunni hit teams and rambunctious Kurds preparing to seize and probably ethnically cleanse the Kirkuk area. Juan Cole has more about $1,000,000,000 or $2,000,000,000 getting stolen. Something insane happened in the Basra area as undercover British agents got mobbed or something. But either way, Reuters/Yahoo provides a photo of what appears to be a British soldier, consumed by fire, falling off a tank. Juan Cole reports that at least five Baghdad neighborhoods have become controlled by militants:

"The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these neighborhoods and blocked off the streets. Masked gunmen with AKs and other weapons are roaming these areas, announcing that people should stay home. One of my drivers in Amiraya reports that his neighborhood is shut down totally, and even those who need food or provisions are warned not to go out.



The government will respond feebly. It will go into a contested neighborhood, and then just like Fallujah, Ramadi, Tel Afar, the insurgents will flee to take over another area on another day. Bit by bit they are taking over the main parts of Baghdad. The only place we are sure they cannot control is Sadr City, unless of course they want to take on Jaish Mahdy [Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army], and that would be bloody.

Rove, His Remarks and His Memos: A memo to Karl Rove about immigration policy from Lamar Smith of Texas, which accidentally got sent to Democrats, says various creepy things. Rove said a bunch of hilarious things to a retreat when he thought he was really Off the Record, according to the HuffyPost:

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political advisor and deputy White House chief of staff, spoke at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend. Here is what Rove had to say that the press wasn't allowed to report on.
On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...
On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally...
On Bush's Low Poll Numbers: We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don't mean anything...
On Iraq: There has been a big difference in the region. Iraq will transform the Middle East...
On Judy Miller And Plamegate: Judy Miller is in jail for reasons I don't really understand...
On Joe Wilson: Joe Wilson and I attend the same church but Joe goes to the wacky mass...

In attendance at the conference, among others were: Harvey Weinstein, Brad Grey, Michael Eisner, Les Moonves, Tom Freston, Tom Friedman, Bob Novak, Barry Diller, Martha Stewart, Margaret Carlson, Alan Greenspan, Andrea Mitchell, Norman Pearlstein and Walter Isaacson.

Via Defamer and BB, you too can indicate your insane insecurity and adherence to the last throes of the authoritarian gas guzzling bourgeoisie by purchasing a Hummer brand ugly laptop.

Guess what, Congressional Democrats tried to get Downing Street Memo-related documents out of the White House, and they got shot down. I am shocked, just shocked! John Conyers is on it.

Who thought that 9/11 was an enormous opportunity? I try not to get tangled up with Gibberish from Fukuyama about neoconservatism and his weird End of History nonsense. But if you are interested in how Mr. NeoLiberalism is faring these days...

That's all for now..... Wake me up when September Ends.......

Moving on up - to which side??!

Uhm, well I have to move out on Wednesday and nothing has been worked out yet, so it looks like I will take the default option of going back to Hudson for a while. On the plus side that means that the website will probably only go down for a few hours as I drag the server to Wisconsin. On the minus side, well, Hudson really sucks.

Fortunately I made a lot of progress with the apartment search today, so I think I will be back out on my own within a week or so. It will be weird to be in Hudson, it will be weirder to leave St. Paul as school starts for these youngsters.

Life is too weird right now, too weird to find suitable synonyms for weird.

A sudden burst of employment leaves Feidts well placed

A most unusual day. I went to the St. Paul City Hall/Ramsey County Courthouse, a building with incredible, Gotham-like style in the lobby. But our adventure with the Robed branch of government was on the 14th floor.

As most people reading this probably know, I was arrested along with a number of other Macalester students on the evening of my 22nd birthday, May 11, 2005, outside one of the cottages at Mac, in a weird and improbable incident with police from St. Paul, Minneapolis and the freakin airport. I was charged with Obstructing a Legal Process with Force, and my police report is an exciting work of fiction, although for entertainment the report of Mike Dannenburg's 'threatening' clipboard-wielding is a laugh Riot (in the 3rd degree).

I believe these reports are a matter of the public record, and down the line I'll probably post them here on the site.

I can't really get into main details of the incident & our current situation. So now we have three lawyers, and are trying to get the case dismissed. Today we arranged to have another hearing called a Florence hearing, with witnesses (some seniors, for us, and possibly cops, for the city), sometime in early September. Also the judge ordered the prosecution to produce the digital pictures I was taking as I was arrested a week before the hearing. I am eagerly looking forward to getting them back.

That was pretty much all that happened downtown today. After things wrapped up, Andrew from Computer Zone Consulting called me up, and it sounds like I have finally got some more web developing projects to do.

I went out to see the family in Hudson this afternoon, because my dad got the job he was after at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MN today. My sister Sasha just started at the Hudson Target store. My brother Johnny 'Cakes' is a counselor at YMCA Camp Warren right now, and my mom looks after a space at Abigail Page Antiques in downtown Hudson.

As far as I can tell, this is the first time that the entire Feidt family has been employed at once. Suddenly that horrible Abyss we call the Bush Economy seems a little further off.

So when I get back from this evening with the family I discover that Sarah Janecek of the ol' Politics in Minnesota gig has left me an exciting message that I've got some work to do. In one day I shift from itinerant Selby dweller to dual employment, and my dad is set with a salary again (and a bit of a raise). It has been a most excellent day, and I must sign off to get some rest, because it seems like things may gear up Real Well tomorrow.

'Creed' singer tricked into trying to get some at the Gainesville Denny's (with arms wide open)

The story has quickly made the rounds that the incredibly lame lead singer of Creed (Scott Stapp is his name, I forgot) was tricked by some kids into going to a Denny's in Gainesville, Florida, in a desperate attempt to fulfill an airport bar booty call.

Anyway, so the guy who was so spiritually affected by The Passion of the Christ is now hightailing it to Gainesville to tag a piece of ass he met in an airport bar. And he's having his ghettotastic hootchie skanky Jersey girl sleaze of a sister drive him. Yes, Creed is making his sister drive him to the Gainesville Denny's for a booty call.

So this group from the party makes it over to Denny's, strategically choosing places all around the Denny's so that we can watch what goes down. It's 3am on a Friday, so of course the place is packed with drunk kids getting out of the bars, who have no idea what they're about to be in for. Jeanine, Heather, and I all have prime seating-- we're directly next to the booth with the girl who has been talking to Creed, as well as her 5 friends who are all in on the joke and have been planning extra embarrassing things to do to him. The girl who is keeping track of him via cell phone convos lets me know that Creed has been in fine form so far tonight. Here is how one of the conversations went:

Creed: "Do you have an acoustic guitar with you in Gainesville?"
Her: "Um, yeah."
Creed: "Good, maybe you can help me write my new hit single!"
Me, after hearing the story: "I applaud your ability not to vomit at that."

The photos are here, and we have a few further details about receipts for a GF's boob job, his fondness for cocaine, and drunken behavior on the plane.

1. He met my friend in an airport bar IN Orlando. He was kicked out of the bar for drinking too much and later kicked off of his plane for being disorderly. He, being completely self absorbed, didn't stop to think that the girl he met in the airport bar might, just might, have boarded a plane already. When he called my cell phone, thinking it was her, he couldn't understand why "she" was not still in Orlando. That's where the fun began.

2. He did not leave after being punk'd at Denny's. It was not until the following morning did he realize he had been tricked. He made me and my friend drive him to where the girl supposedly lived to look for her (his ego was hurt THAT badly.)

3. Someone followed us from Denny's (an ACTUAL fan of his) and Scott had him make purchase of some cocaine for him. I, thinking I could rob him, invited him back up to my apartment. His sister got a hotel room after being angry all night...apparently she was much smarter than he. All I got the chance to take was his boarding pass from his Miami to Orlando flight, some of his klonopin, three copies of checks his girlfriend had written from his account -2 for plastic surgery centers in South Florida and one for their Cingular Wireless account, and a song book he had scribbled some instrumental instructions in.
He ended up staying up all night doing coke, making up listening to his fucking HORRIBLE cd, and walking around in his underware claiming that coke makes him "so horny".

4. He had a prescription to Lexapro (an antidepressant) in his bag.

5. He was the most annoying self centered troll man I have ever met in my life.

6. My friend (my roommate) is actually mad at me for punking him. Everyone on this list should reply here stating why she has no reason in the world to be mad. Scott Stapp is a fucking bitch.

I don't usually get into celebrity gossip blather, but an ad hoc Creed entrapment is just too damn good to pass up. Amazing.

Jane Cat takes a summertime adventure

Our feline housemate, Jane, vaulted through my busted bedroom screen sometime this morning, and went off the back porch into the great Merriam Park Unknown.

We put food on the back porch, in the hopes it will eventually return. How weird, I had a vision of an escaping cat yesterday... it's been plotting around that busted screen for a while, I can't say I'm surprised.

I only hope that the cat learned enough about cars from watching Selby Avenue from the porch. Oh Jane, where art thou, meow?

Apathy gives way to old connections: Simcity, Nate Foote, Bobby Hartzell

When things seem like they are drifting beyond control, time and again I've gone back to SimCity, and the last couple days has been no exception. I think I've worked it out of my system now, while expanding the good ol' metro area of Eschatology up to 650,000 Sims.

Two of the gool ol boys got in touch with me yesterday, Bobby Hartzell and the long-lost Nashville Rambler Nate Foote. They're both doing all right. Bobby is taking classes at Northland College in Ashland, while Nate manages a Ben & Jerry's down in Nashville. Nate wants to come up to the twin cities soon, as well he should.

In other news... well King Fahd died, as we all know. That wasn't a huge surprise and succession wasn't a problem, but it will be soon enough. Things between the Sudairis and the Faisals will probably go horribly wrong, as the rest of Saudi Arabia wishes they had a better slice of the oil revenue.

Iraq is a twisted disaster, shocking. The deadline for the constitution drafting is supposed to be August 15, but we'll see how well that goes.

So for me, the SimCity's pretty much done, and I've got to get back on developing the new Hongpong.com. It really is getting pretty close, but now I've got to focus on finishing it. In turn, the new website will be very important for finding a job as a web designer.

I'll have more news stuff later, today or tomorrow. But now I've got to go work out at the Y and perhaps shoot pool with Bobby and Arthur like the old days.

No ordinary Friday; I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like

Nevermind. The cat is observing matters from the kitchen, we are waiting for the weekend to start. Crushingly ordinary.

On the plus side I accomplished some useful PHP coding after 2 AM, which as usual is the most insightful time for these sorts of things. Right now I am trying to get a news aggregator type program put together, which will take posts from other blogs & news sources, and recombine them in order by date, so I can put together specialized subject news pages. It seems to work so far: http://wp.hongpong.com/agg-test.php.

I succeeded in importing all the stories from this HongPong site into the new one, but there are still some anomalies to be worked out (and I want to get rid of another 50% of the comment spam), so it's not quite ready yet.

I am trying to determine the best way to organize the new operation, and I have settled on making a few top-level categories, while stuffing the usual things - Iraq, Israel-Palestine, War on Terror - into subcategories, so that these posts don't wash out everything on the front page. Here is the topic layout so far:

Topics

• Uncategorized (36)
• geo (3)

• Iraq (168)
• Israel-Palestine (93)
• Afghanistan (20)
• Iran (1)
• War on Terror (114)

• politics (1)

• Military-Industrial Complex (57)
• Minnesota (37)
• Tracking Election Irregularities (21)
• Campaign 2004 (66)
• News (62)

• tech (3)

• hongpong-meta (1)
• Open Source (9)

• words (1)

• Books (6)
• Quotes (13)
• Mac Weekly (16)
• Usual Nonsense (29)
• tidbits (1)

• kulturny (1)

• Music (14)
• Macalester College (31)
• Movies (11)
• Media (44)

• photo (2)
• humor (22)

Another CIA guy, Pat Lang, started a blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, and he even put up some novel he wrote. Good for him.

Disturbing stuff about that "Over There" series on FX. Ok that's all for now. It's a really nice day, I want to go ride my bike. Syd Barrett knew it well. (Album: Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 1967):

I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings
And things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I've got a cloak it's a bit of a joke.
There's a tear up the front. It's red and black.
I've had it for months.
If you think it could look good, then I guess it should.
...
I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house.
I don't know why I call him Gerald.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
...
I've got a clan of gingerbread men.
Here a man, there a man, lots of gingerbread men.
Take a couple if you wish. They're on the dish.

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.

I know a room full of musical tunes.
Some rhyme, some ching, most of them are clockwork.
Let's go into the other room and make them work.

E-mail officially changes to dan.feidt AT gmail.com

Right now I'm listening to the new Murs & Slug album, Felt 2: A Tribute to Lisa Bonet. Not bad.

I finally got around to changing the email address on this page to my new email address, dan.feidt AT gmail.com.

Also I'll note that I had a few glasses of Diet Dr. Pepper the other night in honor of Elizabeth Severance's six-month trip to London. Have fun Sev!!!

In other news I am working on a bit for the Politics in Minnesota newsletter based on the piece I put in the Mac Weekly about interviewing the Minnesota Legislature.

Then I really really really need to have this damn Job thing sort itself out. Augh.

Global Frequency hits the camp notes

[enter classic Radiohead theme] In a Chinatown alley, ex-cop finds body sliced in half. All your elements fall into place: the classic diner, Blade Runner's rainy neon, bullets stopping in midair, "Gigawatts!!", hacking the NSA, the plucky Ensign Ro from late Star Trek: The Next Generation, Soviet telepathy researchers, the blonde quantum physicist, a red sports car, a kung fu fight in a government lobby, a shower scene, reference to the Fortean Times, and a top notch HollywoodOS. Venetian blinds and your other comic-style noir visuals...

"Everybody knows that the agencies supposed to protect us never talk to each other. So some of the best, scariest intelligence agents solved the problem. Now they spy on the spies. They get all the pieces, they put them together and they stop whatever's coming, whatever the cost.... You are needed. I am needed. You never know who's on the Global Frequency."

So its a lot like Google.

Miranda Zero: "Don't eat the Kung Pao chicken, Barry, It's mine... Hang up on me, and I will kill your entire family!"

A leaked television series pilot that never got on the air has been making the rounds on BitTorrent the last few days. The live-action show, Global Frequency, is based on a comic book series (and the pilot was based on the Bombhead issue).

Supposedly, it leaked out of the Warner Brothers television studio, after they declined to pick up the series for production. They didn't want to put down $2 million for yet another sci-fi series that would barely pick up viewers. Also, there apparently were executives getting moved around the studio, causing them to back off new projects. But I kind of suspect over-enthusiastic producers have cajoled the network lawyers into letting them introduce a show about a decentralized spy agency over BitTorrent. It would be a very sharp marketing strategy.

Read this post by one of the producers and tell me that isn't what's going on.

The show immediately sparked discussion and seems to have been well-received. In an era of crappy sci fi offerings, this little pilot was surprisingly fun and well-executed. It's a pretty good follow-up to Mulder and Scully, but this time they aren't working for the evil FBI conspiracy. There's a lot more comic-book-style visual flourish, although I think the gloominess was provided by shooting in Canada. The special effects, while cartoonish in their intent, were very well done.

The video is quite high quality, although it is very dark.... but it all happens at night, anyway.

The writing has the geeky, at times clumsy, ironic edge to it that we haven't really seen done well since Hercules. Exploding sunglasses. And a nod to the Blues Brothers with a police car flying through the air. And the part where coins spontaneously jump off a counter and roll away... About the only thing missing was some white doves in slow motion. But there is plenty of slow motion. The command center is a wall of LCDs in a Diablo-like basement.

Best line: "I'm not melted."

BoingBoing had something along these lines recently: "Future of TV: Piracy will save production."

Warren Ellis was involved with making the comics. I wish DiePunyHumans.com was working. For more on the comic, globalfrequency.org.

Technorati Tags: globalfrequency

Space Opera as Theology, Tom Cruise and Militant Scientology

A major topic of discussion this weekend at Fort Selby was the apparent psychotic eruption and messianic anti-psychiatry crusade that Tom Cruise has embarked upon.

This prompted me to explain to everyone about Xenu, the great galactic overlord of Scientology. For now the Time Has Come to Reveal Difficult Truths about the origins of all these damn thetans on HongPong.com. The Wikipedia Xenu entry is fabulous. According to WikiPedia, psychiatry was said to some sort of role in Xenu's genocide. And the Dianetics volcano is supposed to represent the whole episode. You can see L. Ron Hubbard's real handwriting (or here). Behold:

The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.

One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.

In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.

An ex-scientologist pointed out in an interesting claim about judging it as a religion, "Why would the Xenu story be more ridiculous than Moïse splitting the red sea in two, Jesus being born from a virgin, Mohammed raising to the sky on a ball of fire, or Christians eating wafers and drinking red wine while the minister mumbles about the body of Christ?" Well, that's why I'm an atheist.

The scientific analysis of OT III at Operation Calmbake, an anti-Scientology operation. Meanwhile, this story is quite horrible. "Space Opera as Theology." They've been picking on people using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Church sent its agents into the WTC site.

And so now Cruise says that psychiatrists are ruining our children with Ritalin and such. Sometimes I fear the same, but how can exorcising invisible aliens from your body provide a viable alternative? He went totally crazy on the Today show with Matt Lauer, and Lauer was a real good sport about it. Massive internet threads are the result. Interesting stuff about Scientology and its tentacles in Hollywood. I didn't realize Beck was one. Kirstie Alley, yes.

Global Frequency hits the camp notes

[enter classic Radiohead theme] In a Chinatown alley, ex-cop finds body sliced in half. All your elements fall into place: the classic diner, Blade Runner's rainy neon, bullets stopping in midair, "Gigawatts!!", hacking the NSA, the plucky Ensign Ro from late Star Trek: The Next Generation, Soviet telepathy researchers, the blonde quantum physicist, a red sports car, a kung fu fight in a government lobby, a shower scene, reference to the Fortean Times, and a top notch HollywoodOS. Venetian blinds and your other comic-style noir visuals...

"Everybody knows that the agencies supposed to protect us never talk to each other. So some of the best, scariest intelligence agents solved the problem. Now they spy on the spies. They get all the pieces, they put them together and they stop whatever's coming, whatever the cost.... You are needed. I am needed. You never know who's on the Global Frequency."

So its a lot like Google.

Miranda Zero: "Don't eat the Kung Pao chicken, Barry, It's mine... Hang up on me, and I will kill your entire family!"

A leaked television series pilot that never got on the air has been making the rounds on BitTorrent the last few days. The live-action show, Global Frequency, is based on a comic book series (and the pilot was based on the Bombhead issue).

Supposedly, it leaked out of the Warner Brothers television studio, after they declined to pick up the series for production. They didn't want to put down $2 million for yet another sci-fi series that would barely pick up viewers. Also, there apparently were executives getting moved around the studio, causing them to back off new projects. But I kind of suspect over-enthusiastic producers have cajoled the network lawyers into letting them introduce a show about a decentralized spy agency over BitTorrent. It would be a very sharp marketing strategy.

Read this post by one of the producers and tell me that isn't what's going on.

The show immediately sparked discussion and seems to have been well-received. In an era of crappy sci fi offerings, this little pilot was surprisingly fun and well-executed. It's a pretty good follow-up to Mulder and Scully, but this time they aren't working for the evil FBI conspiracy. There's a lot more comic-book-style visual flourish, although I think the gloominess was provided by shooting in Canada. The special effects, while cartoonish in their intent, were very well done.

The video is quite high quality, although it is very dark.... but it all happens at night, anyway.

The writing has the geeky, at times clumsy, ironic edge to it that we haven't really seen done well since Hercules. Exploding sunglasses. And a nod to the Blues Brothers with a police car flying through the air. And the part where coins spontaneously jump off a counter and roll away... About the only thing missing was some white doves in slow motion. But there is plenty of slow motion. The command center is a wall of LCDs in a Diablo-like basement.

Best line: "I'm not melted."

BoingBoing had something along these lines recently: "Future of TV: Piracy will save production."

Warren Ellis was involved with making the comics. I wish DiePunyHumans.com was working. For more on the comic, globalfrequency.org.

Technorati Tags: globalfrequency

System halt approaches

It is nearly time to relocate into 1630 Selby. Kennedy is gone for the week, visiting family, and Alison has already moved out, so it is eerily quiet at both ends. My stuff is more than half-packed up. I bid an ambivalent farewell to dowdy plaid shirts that stuck with me far longer than they should have, and threw away old notes and bits of paper, signifying elements of the trail over the last four years.

The server may go down for a while here, and may take some time to come back. Hopefully quickly.

Many objects found in the room, a mapbook of Paris, cards and CDs, photos from the war protests and London. The Hongpong.com Gentoo Linux server, a Pentium 4 Dell Dimension that has performed admirably since I got it from Dan Schned's brother Alex last summer, has faced the challenge of websurfers from the CIA and thousands of virus attacks with great stamina and more importantly, almost unshakeable stability. The server will go down after 42 days in operation. Not bad, but not as good as its all-time record of 111 days.

The electrical problems in my room (bet you didn't know the Uninterruptible Power Supply was grounded by a wire I installed) never blew up the computers, and the dust from all the shit in here didn't quite kill me.

The room was sort of an overgrown projection of my personality, hodgepodge with sprinklings of conspiracy, David's crazy art, wires and components, Rhymesayers stickers, burnt matches, post-its and printouts, critical theory readings and Poli Sci books scooped from the free table, a bookcase topped by Marx, half the Illuminatus trilogy, scribblings and bizarre charts taped to the walls. Many a long night hunched over the computer, following hyperlinks into arcane trivia until three or four in the morning. I tried real hard to "Get it" even though all too often I felt totally disconnected, hostile to the America outside.

Those days are over now... there were fun times, strange times. Someone once claimed that the center of the universe passed through the corner where the TV used to be. For some reason, I tended to believe it.

Elvis Presley, Nazis, (dis)information freedom and whatnot

Vanity, disinformation and rumors get picked up and passed around and our BS filters get sidestepped by the sourcing of the information. Take this Elvis Presley = Nazi idea that circulated lately. Another example of the perils of the information age:

Almost 28 years after his death, fans of the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, can now see their icon in a radically different light; that as a Nazi.

The legend is seen wearing a Nazi cap and giving a Nazi salute in some pictures taken from a grainy half-hour home cine film.

The pictures, believed to be from the sixties, were taken during a boat trip with friends and have surfaced at the same time as Presley's ex-wife Priscilla released his home movies.

"I was given it ages ago, I think when I used to own a bar. But I had never watched it. It wasn't until I found it in the loft that I decided to. When I did I was shocked," Mark Vernon, who owns the tape, was quoted as saying.

The story still appears on News.com.au, an Australian site, FemaleFirst.co.uk, ContactMusic.com. Originally the British tabloid Sun propagated the story but of course the Sun's Elvis page has expired. The counter-story comes from Elvis-express.com, which is filing a complaint with the UK's Press Complaints Commission.

The other horror would be blogebrity.com, an agglomeration of big shots or something like that. So when I first visit I get the bloviating post:

While the majority of the emails we've received have been something along the lines of:

I love it....this is so much fun; I'm glad somebody finally did this, etc.

There have been a few of these:

You suck. Your list sucks and you suck and people should ONLY talk about blogs in the way I WANT THEM TO. Shame on you. Oh....and you didn't put me on your list. You suck and I hate you.

Just a clue to the haters--your whining is more transparent than a glob of used Neutrogena. But please, do keep it up....your sour grapes are like a glass of Opus One to us.

Speaking of which, I do think it's time for an eye-opener.

So right off the bat they are indulging their own egos in the mailbox. This one's destined to be a classic. On the other hand this site declared that blogging has finally passed a critical peak, from which it will roll downhill:

Blogging Jumps Shark, Becomes Trucker Hat
Following the recent whirlwind of blog hype including Nick Denton's love affair with the New York Times, his pie to the face at the Radar Magazine party, the launch of Blogebrity, Jason Calacanis' three million micro-blogs, a sudden explosion of branded character blogs and "all marketers should blog" blog conferences, it's now official. Rick Bruner and I, today, declare blogging to have gone the way of the trucker hat. In celebration of this sacred event, May 20, 2005, you can pick up your memorial, Nick Denton Trucker Hat over at Cafe Press.

That is too bad. HongPong.dyndns.org ran on a hacked-together Mac Linux server in the fall of 2000, when "blog" had not yet become soggy label to spill from the mouths of those grinning chicks on CNN... Before Hugh Hewitt and Scott Johnson appropriated something thought up by far more clever people.

So it is sorely tempting to pull the plug on HongPong.com now that the living situation is changing. Either that or some sort of drastic redesign, something overwrought and bombastic, like a John Williams score.

Elvis might be a Nazi but Jim Morrison is alive, according to rodeoswest.com. Why the hell not? I guess it reinforces my point that there is very little truth to latch onto. "FlashNews" tells us something:

Filmmaker Claims Jim Morrison Is Alive In Oregon
NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) – Here’s news that will light the fire of Jim Morrison fans: A filmmaker claims The Doors’ frontman is alive and raising horses on a ranch in southern Oregon. Rodeo photographer Gerald Pitts insists Morrison didn’t die in July of 1971 and he has current photographs and film footage of the rocker to prove it.

Pitts, who met Morrison in 1998, says the rocker staged his death because of a French conspiracy to kill him, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix with narcotics because they were all Vietnam war protestors. These days, Morrison isn’t the drug user he once was, although Pitts says when he goes over to Jim’s house he’ll “maybe have an occasional beer.”

Now Pitts claims that Morrison is announcing he’s alive, in part, to promote his recent agreement to star in a rodeo shoot-out movie based on events that actually happened to Pitts.

Yet another reason to leave this country, as Arun would put it.

In other random news an online tool called Tor provides anonymity in Internet use, and was originally developed by the Navy. It is becoming popular among government and other such types... Mysterious. But the EFF supports it, so it must be good. Sort of similar to this sourceforge project called ANts, Freenet, (Freenet-china.org looks interesting) and MUTE are all anonymizing systems--that is, they shield a user's IP number and data using layers of encryption. A major problem, for say, your software pirate or Chinese dissident, is making sure the IP can't be traced to you as you engage in things. Centralized servers are another weak point, and other technologies such as our beloved BitTorrent are getting "distributed tracker" features put into their clients. Tor sounds promising, then:

The Naval Research Lab began developing the system in 1996 but handed the code over to Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson, two Boston-based programmers, in 2002. The system was designed as part of a program called onion routing, in which data is passed randomly through a distributed network of servers three times, with layers of security protecting the data, like an onion.
Dingledine and Mathewson rewrote the code to make it easier to use and developed a client program so that users could send data from their desktops.
"It's been really obscure until now and hard to use," said Chris Palmer, EFF's technology manager. "(Before) it was just a research prototype for geeks. But now the onion routing idea is finally ready for prime time."
Dingledine and Mathewson made the code open source so that users could examine it to find bugs and to make certain that the system did only what it was supposed to do and nothing more.
The two programmers wanted to guard against a problem that arose in 2003 when users of another open-source anonymizer system -- called JAP, for Java Anonymous Proxy -- discovered that its German developers had placed a backdoor in the system to record traffic to one server. The developers... said they were forced to install a "crime detection function" by court order.
Law enforcement authorities have long had an uneasy and ambivalent relationship with anonymizer services. On the one hand, such services allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to hide their own identity while conducting investigations and gathering intelligence. But they also make it harder for authorities to track the activities and correspondence of criminals and terrorists.
Anonymizer services can help protect whistleblowers and political activists from exposure. They can help users circumvent surfing restrictions placed on students and workers by school administrators and employers. And they can prevent websites from tracking users and knowing where they're located. The downside is that anonymizer services can aid with corporate espionage.
....Tor builds an incremental encrypted connection that involves three separate keys through three servers on the network. The connection is built one server at a time so that each server knows only the identity of the server that preceded it and the server that follows it. None of the servers knows the entire path the data took.

So I guess my ultimate point is that technology is offering solutions for freedom, as well as coercion. Disinformation, however, is something that only our brains seem capable of swatting away, and it's an uphill battle.

Misc:

Look at this sweet

Robot Hand. More Koran desecration rumors. "60 Minutes Wednesday" gets cancelled, y'all can't keep telling us about insane prisons....

Television newsmagazines in general have been suffering in the ratings. There was some speculation that one of ABC's newsmagazines might be canceled, but both "20/20" and "Primetime Live" were included on the schedule announced Tuesday.

"The mood in the country right now tends to favor escape," Heyward said. "There's a lot of grim news out there. In prime time, when people are looking to be entertained as well as informed, a drama or a reality show is tough competition. The thing about reality shows is they offer the same appeal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, but it's all a game. There's a happy ending."

Tech: Microsoft used Apple G5's to demo their Xbox games at the recent E3 conference. That's right, Apples run the Xbox software somehow... Check out ImageSavant.com: this is what the Apple spinning ball should look like.

A Really Quite Ironic Twist

A Summary: Straight from the Rambling Periphery to the Talkative Core
On Wednesday I quit Computer Zone Consulting and suspended my job at the library because I got a paid internship with an organization putting together a huge directory of the politicians in the state of Minnesota. This has chomped up all my time, and I won't have nearly the time to write on the site for probably about a month. Therefore some of those in Hongistan could perhaps offer a few tidbits to help keep us goin? And is it possible that Dan is working for.... a Republican??!!? More below...

An offer of 'Big Propz':
First of all, megadittoes to Nick for his quite clear and not at all spin-laden look at the social security mess. It does sound like a Ponzi scheme designed to help financial industry insiders shift giant mountains of government cash around to generate the appearance of prosperity, another great step forward in the Faith-Based Economy of the 21st Century.

In the field of major news, things have abruptly changed for me this week. Unexpectedly, last Friday Peter Gartrell got me a job with Politics in Minnesota, an organization which publishes a directory of all the legislators and key officers in the state. My job, which I've chosen to accept, is to go around and interview about a third of the state legislature, so that I can write their updated profiles for this term. It is a very challenging project, and the deadline is rolling around obscenely quickly.

On Wednesday I talked with a bunch of Republican representatives, and I was surprised to find that they were strong supporters of renewable energy, new state rail transit solutions and other kinds of policies that I think are quite important. It's a very new sort of thing for me, to say the least. I have had improbable talks with quite a few Republicans in my day, but I've never had to deal with multiple (R) representatives in a mere afternoon. Here, I'm trying my best to be professional about the whole undertaking, but it helps that I've been sort of indifferent to most of state politics for quite a while. Not reading the Star Tribune daily for a while really tamped it down...

Not a Likely Situation for Dan:
Well, the really ironic twist is that the publisher of this political Directory is one Sarah Janecek, a Republican lobbyist who's widely known and heard from in state media. She has only been around a little bit this week due to a business trip, but she is definitely one of the most interesting and informed people around these parts that I've ever dealt with. She's been telling some folks that Peter and I are her "Macalester liberal interns," which greatly amused some Senate Republicans. However, keep in mind that the whole operation has bi-partisan leadership, as associate publishers Blois Olson and David Erickson are DFLers.

So we've sort of been slotted into this little ideological gap where things look quite different than before. Essentially my role is first to prod the legislators into talking about themselves, their accomplishments in the last term, their policy interests and what they want to look at in this next term. As you might imagine, it is not insanely hard to get them to talk about themselves. Then I've got to write up or adjust the "analysis" section of their profile from last year, and send it in to get edited. I was a little nervous to get started on this, but my schedule has gone mad.

I've got to write stuff that reflects what the legislators want to see in the book, their basic story and situation as they see it, and has some kind of interesting zing to it. This does not require me to have an opinion about whether or not I support their positions. Just roughly 2,500 characters of text that would help illustrate to the interested everyday Joe just who their elected officials really are.

It does require me to get up ridiculously early in the morning. Real early. Ouch. It also eats up most of my time. As luck would have it, Arthur Cheng showed up in town during my first day running around the State Capitol. A shrewd operator in the field of economics is just who I need to help me sort it out at the beginning. So now I'm off to the races.....

Oh by the way, the Supreme Court o' the U.S. itself finally scratched the Hudson casino. Thank God.

Because of all this new internship stuff, I just can't spend much time working on posts here. It's too bad, I was hoping to put out some interesting information and weird links that I've linked to in the HongWiki, but haven't had the time nor inclination to further organize. Go to "Recent Changes" in there, and look at the various date entries like "8 January 2005." I guarantee you will find something interesting, though not necessarily truthful.

A Call to Rambling on the Internet:
So again I want to thank Nick for putting some excellent stuff together, but now I want to ask some other folks if they are interested in writing some guest posts for Shits and Giggles. Namely folks like A. Henry "Big Sky" Tweeten, Dan "what's all this now" Schwartz, Kellen "I live in Kirk 911, isn't that disconcerting in a postmodern apocalypse kind of way" Anfinson and the Gerberuses.

Of course there are a lot of other people who might be reading (or not), but those are just the cats that spring to mind right now. I am hoping we can get a few things going. I'm not even hoping for longer pieces of writing. Just a few paragraphs on the DNC race or what you've been hearing about lately would be extremely welcome.

In a final tidbit, something went a little weird with the date setting on the HongPong.com server over the last week or so. It kept setting back to 1901, although I don't quite know why, and haven't had the time to figure it out. I rebooted the server after a quite good 111 days of uptime, with a load average of 1.84 / 1.28 / 1.17. What does load average mean? Something to do with idle cycles in the user and system space. (the numbers tell how busy the computer was while serving Hongpong.com to the CIA, Pakistani spammers and whatever strange digital alter-egos of sketchy global characters happened to trip into here). Anyhow, with a reboot the date seems to be sticking to correctness.

The return of Cheng-diggity

Now it's official: Arthur Cheng is returning from his circuit around Asia and will be in the twin cities until this Thursday, when he will jet back to University of Puget Sound. He's been on the tour of Hong Kong, Beijing and Thailand, and will no doubt regale us with tales of the Orient. There shall have to be a party.

Hustling and bustling

Sorry I haven't been able to update much lately. I am essentially in the final couple weeks of class at the University and my final project for Electronic Art class is still coming together here. Ahhh heck.......

"Day After Tomorrow" brings MoveOn troopz--the apocalypse next door

Emmerich's disaster movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' has opened today at the Grandview next door. There are people, I think from MoveOn.org, hanging around talking with people.

Sometimes I ask people coming out of the movies what they think. And sometimes as we chillin on the front porch we overhear their opinions anyway. This one may be interesting.

In news of the server, Jess gave me some old floppy disks and I am making the boot disk necessary right now. The Linux box may be ready to roll tomorrow. Unfortunately, I have to erase the whole HD in order to get the stupid Compaq diagnostic partition on there. Ugh. Stay tuned on that.

Civilization by the fingernails

On Saturday afternoon, I wandered around by the river, followed some of the paths on the hillsides between the Mississippi and the east River Road. There is a waterfall in a steep limestone valley, where the road bends around, between Marshall and Summit avenues. The whole area is covered with trails up and down the hills, with outcroppings, micro canyons with cracked mud. Across, on the Minneapolis side, dudes were fishing. I walked up the River Road, past Marshall and into Minneapolis.

The crowd changes and everyone is wearing shaggier clothes, mysterious winos climb out of the park that has a boardwalk placed atop the river shore. I go further, towards the Melrose four-point megalithic student apartment complex. At least it complements the industrial plastic packaging facility next door, which has its own railroad car full of raw polymer goo—or whatever it was.

There are a lot of students moving things around today, and so it is yet again the time for comings and goings. I didn't go to graduation today because I felt stressed out about dealing with all the people, after all the weird stuff going on, and the various rifts that have formed around people at Macalester and the world as a whole. It is a shitty thing for my friends who are graduating, but I needed to get away for a little while and not hear anyone else's voice.

I have not written much here in a while, for the most part since finals started, and this last week of saying my seasonal goodbyes to friends that are winging it out of the Twin Cities for the summer. For some incalculable reason, Andy Tweeten has elected to ride out the national elections in Montana—until November—a sacrifice which only a hearty denizen of Big Sky like A. Henry could possibly handle. Apparently it is still snowing around there. Tell us when spring starts!! Then drink a six pack just in time to put your parka back on.

Arun Muthiah has also winged it to colder climes. He is in Australia somewhere, and might end up working at a swank hotel on the Gold Coast. This is much more pleasant in June and July than Oman. And yet will another country of white people really solve anything?

One of my professors is returning to Afghanistan this summer, and this is pretty exciting but ever so slightly alarming, because we all know how smoothly things work out over there.

There are a lot of people that are cycling home for a few weeks, until June, then coming around again, more than last year. That should be lots of fun.

In other news a couple friends are thinking of new ideas for websites and such. I am uncertain what might come of it, but I am happy to have a little time for such new ideas, if they can be prevented from sinking in that thick, crushing July haze, which this year promises to be thicker than usual...

---

What I'm trying to address is that the whole symbolic logic of the world is swinging around right in front of us now.

It's a heart of darkness revealed and a grandiose, expanding theater of horror, where one obscene image after another chases grainy beheadings through a rippling poppy field of raving militant ex-officers who want to crush everything.

The lunatics have their hands on all the levers of power and words don't fit together like they used to. In the summer, it is hard to keep thinking along the same lines as before.

---

After a huge thunderstorm blew through this week, I darted off to drive around with Arun and look at how the whole river valley, and all the buildings, were bathed in a golden light. There were only a handful of cars, and the sky roiled with soft, rippling clouds arcing behind the storm, dark and receding on the eastern horizon. The sun sliced golden through heavy, roiled evening air. I dodged around the fallen trees, tossed branches and garbage bins strewing the roads.

As we came around to the northwest side of downtown Minneapolis, the glass towers glinted as if made of shining limestone under the dark sky. We drove into downtown, then along the Lake of the Isles as the sun finally came down. Minneapolitans were impressed, taking pictures. (I had no camera).

Finally, after the sun set, a chocolate ice cream cone at Sebastian Joe's, where I used to go when I was very little, living in Minneapolis. As we stood outside a man talked with his inaudible friend in a green compact.

"How are can we say we're liberating the people when we're killing them? Sixty percent of the people in that prison were innocent. How is that freedom?"

All my cynicism has been repaid a thousandfold, but is it gratifying?

Hahaaa, the war is a shameful disaster, as I suspected! What a bunch of cretins, now they've been laid low!!! Moral superiority r00t3d!! [Dance on ashes]

What a horrible idea. This turn of events does not bring me much gratification. Rumsfeld is an evil man, plain to see for all, now. At least things like that have been made clear.

So make no mistake, please. I am filled with anger and confusion about these turns of events. I am shamed that all the little kids in this country have to face these pictures of sexual humiliation, where my generation got the cracking of Berlin Wall, and those in between just had the dirty Clinton stuff.

This whole field of torture, this surreal complex of shame and sadomasochism was supposedly carried out by a half-dozen mountain hayseeds. No, As Sy Hersh peels back a third layer on the Onion of Hell, he says that a special operation was tasked with coercing War on Terror targets with a number of techniques, including sexual humiliation (and perhaps blackmail tied to the photos).

I had my suspicions. When I posted a link to this report on the suspicious deaths of Afghan prisoners from the Guardian last March, it felt oddly out of place with the narrative they gave us. Now it looks like one of the first icebergs spotted.

This whole stream has set off a 'logik bomb' in American identity, while already parts of Washington are trying to steam along again, and the rest of the world looks on with puzzlement and fear.

I went wandering around because the symbolic logic that underpins American 'moral authority,' hegemony, soft power, whatever you want to call the attractive force that binds together a system of rule, all of it has been supercharged by the flipping images and dozens of deaths—of poor Iraqi Shiites, a huge chunk of the population—spilling out, hitting holy sites, setting one Iraqi against another.

It seems that the environment of torture spilled out of the norms created by the Bush administration's War on Terror policies, as desperation and a failure of intelligence last year led the army to start abusing Iraqi they picked up for intelligence tidbits. The confusion of ends and goals spirals ever further, eroding our very ability to deal with reality.

Fortunately, everyone wants to get plastic surgery now, as the television commands!

What we claimed as The Order is vanishing, but life rolls on, albeit at higher gasoline prices. I rode the bus back along University on a Saturday afternoon, and people still existed, they haven't been wiped away by the confusion that spreads every day.

Apparently, that was the 'reality check' I was looking for. It is too damn easy to be a college student and get swallowed up in the bubble world of Macalester, something that the seniors always like to observe... and I am a senior now. Where did normality go?? Was it on the bus?

It's the damn summer. Grit your teeth. Get serious. Either the collapse is coming, or it isn't. Either Bush's administration bends and crumbles, or it whiplashes all over, civil war, Arabs, Christians, Jews, Pashtuns, Chechens, nukes, oil, heroin. Goddesses of greed and avarice in the sky. Merchants of war fill the cracks. Profits for the madmen of all sides...

Oh, I forgot. On my birthday they declared sanctions on Syria. Brilliant.

Friday of fridays

Friday is the day of cleaning my room and everything else.... Hooray for being 21. It is a time to listen and drive around, not write.

A fine birthday

Well May 11 has finally come--it's my 21st birthday, and we had a great party at 32 Wheeler last night. I can't believe I made it this far, and I am sort of at a loss for words these days.

The world has changed so much since I turned 20, so much since 19 or 18. Who would have thought it?

I'm going off to have dinner with the family now. I must try not to think about the dogs of war that Mr Hersh published, try very hard.

Sorry for lack of posts

Again let me say that I am very sorry that I haven't had time to post anything on the site, but I am working on my term papers and really don't have the time. Also for some reason my back really hurts and it makes it a bitch to use the keyboard.

Seymour Hersh is an American hero.

My major paper is on privatized military firms and the news is all over TV tonight--thanks in part to Mr Hersh--that private military firm personnel mainly working for CACI have been implicated in ordering MPs to torture prisoners. This alongside all the Blackwater stuff..... It is pretty damn shocking.

Last semester I was writing a critical theory paper about the war in Iraq in December, and the very day I'd set entirely aside to write it was the day they captured Saddam Hussein. This paper has been unfolding a little more smoothly but wouldn't you know it I keep finding these awesome primary sources like the comprehensive CPA analysis below. Dang nabbit!

I will be posting the paper when its finished, as it's turning out fairly well.

*sniff*

I have a nasty cold this holiday weekend. Spent all day sitting around feeling immobile but we watched 26 Grams on DVD from Blockbuster. Viacom sure loads those DVDs with tons of ads that you can't fast forward over because they are a giant EvilCorp out to usurp your God-given right to skip over garbage!

Che is Unreal

Since I got back from Europe, I have felt oddly unsettled. This weekend I felt exhausted and twitchy, much to the chagrin of those around me. Sorry about that. I am not sure if it is the radical, public disintegration of the President's credibility, the waves of terror attacks sweeping more sectors of the world, writing a report on Richard Perle's wretched book, or the fact that many of my friends are acting weird. Maybe it's the willful collapse of Twin Cities public transit and the disarray caused in the light rail project. Maybe it was finally seeing a NadeRedux voter.

On Friday there was a great hip-hop show at the campus center. It opened with some spoken word from Suheir Hammad, then came Immortal Technique and Jean Grae. I haven't gotten hardly any music lately, so I made a choice and picked up Revolutionary Vol. I and Bootleg of the Bootleg, which I haven't listened to yet. Grae signed my CD to "the really tall guy." I appreciate it!

My only criticism would be on Grae and I.T.'s stage costumes. By some coincidence they both sported Che shirts, while I.T. also wore a military fatigue type hat and pants. I saw Technique at a peace concert benefit with Atmosphere and the Coup last year, just prior to this horrible war. He was also sporting the Che shirt then, if I recall.

Some drunk jackass hollered "cliche" several times. I wasn't sure if I should have decked the guy or argued with him. Our society today whittles down, flattens, the experiences of colonial people and the disenfranchised. From within, looking out at the Che's and Allende's, they cannot look like anything but cartoon characters. If a Latino dares to hold up Che, it can't possibly hold real meaning. Only Sean Hannity's casual dismissal of the whole reality makes sense to them anymore.

The character Fez on That 70s Show is a perfect representation of how the media, FOX in this case, bulldozes the entirety of subjective experience into one friendly, fuzzy, ignorant outsider. Really, I don't see how they could have written an actual South American from the 1970s without bringing forth all the ugly ghosts. Instead, only an unreal Latinoid can fill the role.

If Che is a "cliche," what is "real?" Where does this cultural authority of "the real" begin? Does it have its own cable network?

Last thoughts inside the box

In less than 12 hours I'll be winging it out of this country for the first time in many years. The last time I flew out was Jamaica in high school. Since then, I've driven into Canada and Mexico, which is an entirely appropriate way to learn how the country ends at a line. I've given a lot of attention to what happens elsewhere but i haven't been elsewhere in so long, which is plainly negligent or even hypocritical.

Meanwhile, rumors are flying that Al-Qaeda bombed Madrid in retaliation for Iraq, an entirely reasonable idea when we remember that Al-Qaeda means "the base." So who knows what branches of the base might be involved in bombing European public transportation? There have been bomb threats against French trains, as well. It is safe to say that the security apparatus will be out in full. I haven't flown since 9/11. I'm a little edgy that there might be another incident in London during this season of the unexplained.

Yet that is why it's so important for me to go away for a while. The negative forces on the TV tell us that order is crumbling all around, that The Terror is On Our Doorstep. We Must Cower, they say.

Before Madrid, I saw that the dark thunderclouds of baseless fear and malicious disinformation were finally starting to drift away in this country.

It feels much better to step out when things are finally turning the corner than when the forces of evil blow right on your back. America this spring already seems a safer place with the idea of another four years of Bush Imperium sounding more farcical and remote by the week. Their nasty vision is falling apart.

So with that, let me round up a few key things to look for:

Wait for the good Colonel, Lt Col Karen Kwiatkoski, to start making the rounds on cable TV. The bombshell piece "The New Pentagon Papers" in Salon.com is part of a grand liberal media offensive incorporating Salon.com and the UK's Guardian. Her writings thus far, including the regular column, are an excellent expression of profoundly alarmed everyday conservatism. "Soldier for the Truth: Exposing Bush’s Talking-Points War ." Funny how it sounds like the whole Iraq war (mainly via the Salon piece) was propelled by one Straussian (Mr Shulsky) deploying an array of threatening talking points memos.

There is the unfolding story of the stolen Congressional computer documents.

There is (another) Halliburton investigation.

Juan Cole puts it all too well when he asks: "US Intelligence Follies: Why Haven't Cheney, Feith and Chalabi been Impeached?

Whatever happens on this trip, by the time I return, I'll be changed. It will be a before-vs.-after experience, no matter what happens. And what better moment for the clean break than now?

I might see more clearly these things which puzzle me so. I have to go.

Final flight check

I've been wrapping up all kinds of things before break. This is shaping up to be a fantastic trip. Here are some scattered results of today:

After class today I helped Dan Schned work on the material he is putting together for the Hiawatha Line program, where he interns this semester. He has very exciting giant orthographic aerial photo composites of the Minneapolis-Bloomington route and all sorts of info on the planned corridor developments. I really like to see all these new development plans up close. If it works, then Minneapolis will start to grow up again, not further out.

Unfortunately, they were on schedule to open most of the light rail line in April, but the transit strike prevents drivers from training and the cars from being tested sufficiently. This really makes it hard for the LRT people to keep anything going.

With some time to waste this afternoon, I drove into Minneapolis to look at the rail line, along with a potential extension into the U of M. Both these places would benefit greatly from improved access. I went up to see the VA Hospital stop, as well. I'm not sure if people will enjoy riding in the big tunnel under the airport, though.

This evening, David has been over here adjusting his great artwork for the living room. Now he's adding colored chalk on some of the characters. I will post a photo of this when it's finally completed.

Arun is truly an iconic mack daddy of our times. That is all I can say.

I haven't done much reading about what the hell to do in London. Brits have advised me to ask at the pub.

Also I may try to go somewhere else for a day like Paris or Amsterdam. Wouldn't that be nice?

Sadly I won't have a digital camera to document things. I'll get a PhotoCD made, though.

I am probably going to stay up really late again tonight to adjust myself towards London time--I mean GMT.

Mysterious cigarette spam

Alison sent me this weird spam she got:

I am a single serving friend. The continuation of our species matters more than you can imagine. It is the single most important thing we can do. I want you to hit me as hard as you can. I want you to hit me as hard as you.

Suddenly, he disappeared. I'd seen many of the same things I've seen before. He wanted to know more. I didn't have to say: can we change the meeting from 6 to 11? My kids have a music recital and I dont want to miss it for the world.

Don't do that, the cat pointed out. We're going to regret this, my friend said. My job was to apply the formula. Why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is?

This was a place without the internet, without email, without the rush of business meetings and untapped desires. That could well be the answer. But this was a long road, and should I walk down it, I might never come back. What is the answer? What are we going to do tonight? I asked.
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Last week before spring break and the glass is half full!!!

I am eagerly looking forward to spring break this year. For the first time, I'll fly over the big pond to Europe and hang out with Nick Petersen in London for a week. That's this Friday.

During that time I'll leave the site turned on, and I'll probably find some time to post back to here, but it can't be frequent.

This week, I have several mid-term exams and a giant group paper to contend with, so I can't spend a great deal of time writing here.

On the plus side, I realized that the Apache server which comes with OS X has a built-in Perl module (mod_perl), but deactivated. The Perl module runs the site's Perl code much more quickly than a server without the module. To turn it on I just had to enable it in the configuration files and restart the server. *Bingo*, just like that my site's dynamic stuff runs about 3x-4x faster. It was really necessary, and I only put it off because I was too busy and I thought I would have to go through the mess of recompiling Apache. So far I am using Apple's default Apache server with no problems.

This week I am experimenting with a slick program called ecto which allows me to write entries without using a web browser.

As far as the news is concerned, those new Bush ads are just so marvellous I don't really need to add anything. But imagine if Lincoln or FDR had tried to exploit similar images. This site is run by a legal professor with a spectacular sense of humor. (via the DKos)

The NY Times is running a huge Kerry op-ed blitz today. Maureen Dowd is clearly sugar-coating a nice image of a candidate with rich interests. A DLC totem suggests that "reform" should be Kerry's word of the campaign. A Clinton-Gore poll guru says that Kerry can take Bush on all kinds of issues.

For now, however, only 40 percent of voters think the country is headed in the right direction. According to nearly all public polls, Mr. Kerry is the preferred choice for president, and that prospect may well keep Mr. Kerry from focusing on the larger choice before America. That would be a shame, because voters would respond to such a challenge.

The choice is between an America inspired by John F. Kennedy and one shaped by Ronald Reagan. When the alternatives are framed this way, Americans choose the Kennedy vision by a striking 53 percent to 41 percent. It brings increased support for Democrats among voters from across the political spectrum — in small towns and rural areas, in older blue-collar communities, among low-wage and unmarried women as well as young voters and women with a college degree.

Rather than simply criticizing specific policies of the Bush administration, Mr. Kerry should emphasize the worldview it represents. Mr. Bush favors tax cuts for business and the wealthy as the best way to bring about prosperity. He heralds individualism as the key to a healthy community. In his tenure America has retreated at home before our shared problems, but advanced alone abroad. If Mr. Kerry challenges this worldview, Mr. Bush will be forced to defend it.

For more election news, Electablog is pretty darn good.

There is some weird stuff going on in Afghanistan, as the long-awaited Spring Offensive between the allies and the Taliboid forces (al-Qaeda types, probably ISI people, who knows?) springs into action. Bin Laden may have narrowly avoided a Pakistani raid. US snipers killed a bunch of "suspected Taliban."

I never thought the Republicans were 31337 hax0rs, but apparently they can steal filez and r00t a judicial computer system better than anyone thought. Their head judicial aide apparently helped steal around 4,670 secret Democratic documents. As the trolls on Fox News have been commanded to point out, many memos indicated the D's were working with outside groups to keep conservatives off judicial panels for specific cases, a hoorrrible, oh so hoorrible, infringement of judicial power. Or something like that.

I don't quite understand what D's were legitimately doing, except considering impact the judges will have on cases!!! Bad Democrats! Thinking about the effect of judges!! Bad!

Kerry beats Bush by a few points, 49-43, in Florida!!! Time to purge the voter rolls again!

Many Palestinians killed, including 4 children, in massive Gaza raids supposedly designed to draw militants out. What the hell is the point? Apparently Sharon's credibility with the abused Israeli public is at a new low, so this, like many Sharon initiatives, probably has a wag-the-dog logic to it. There is also word that the Israelis may have been asked by the Bush administration to avoid withdrawing from Gaza before the elections because of the potential instability. Uhm, Israeli occupation ==Bush political power? What? This is worth following.

Finally, at long, long last, the pervasive sense of the everlasting nightmare has softened. Yet now we have VP speculations. Bill Richardson or John Edwards seem good right now. Alison caught the McLaughlin Group this morning and McLaughlin predicted that the search for VP would go for ethnic, not regional, balance. We could do worse than Richardson, a popular southwestern Hispanic governor with tons of executive and international experience. Or on SNL, the skilled Darrell Hammond as Clinton put forth his own VP candidacy. He asked how awesome it would be to have him around again with even less responsibility. He said could put the Vice back in Vice President, although Cheney's done pretty well by that measure.

Ok, so now I will say it. My optimism about the outcome of the election and the future of the country has finally shot above 50%.

The glass is indeed half full.

Hockey Hollywood

I did get on the 5 PM news on Channel 5, remarking how the old theatre had a lot of charm and makes my front yard smell like popcorn 4 times a day.
Since I was already taking pictures (and there are plenty of them) of the movie premiere out there--like a slice of Hollywood coming right to the Danview.

The nice Kare 11 anchor smiled for me but its a little blurry.

The young guys who work at the theater changed the signs over from the "premiere" setup (below) to the new "Miracle/Mystic River" lineup. Lost in Translation has been pulled.

This was the anchor from Duluth. He said funny stuff when he was warming up.

Alison said that her SA--which is the closest, 3 long blocks away, did an absolutely huge amount of business while the premiere blocked off the street for hours tonight.

Her quest for Diet Pepsi sales growth continues. Product has been flying off the shelf and friends have been floozing up the St. Thomas boys to encourage Pepsi! Pepsi! Pepsi!Every employee at the SA in the district that improves Diet Pepsi and Pepsi sale will get an XBox console! We feel this is worth investing in. If you think it would be a good idea to have an XBox at this house, please purchase lots of Pepsi from the SA on Grand and Cleveland. Thank you.

Here is a digital photo of the Daily Show tonight. I'm sorry, Jon, but this is just excellent. The man is out to get 'em. The sequence about the media's new "Teat Offensive," something to top all controversies, as a Fox guy put it. Well, its all a bunch of nonsense... My hat's off to the show for bringing us the one thing which corporate media struggles with: irony.

I'm going to be on the news!!!!! Hockey movie premieres at Grandview!

So I was walking back from lunch and there was a Channel 5 TV crew in front of the theatre. Apparently the new Disney movie about the 1980 USA Hockey team is premiering at the Grandview tonight!!!! This is very exciting. They interviewed me and I said some silly shit about living next door to the theatre. So tune into channel 5... Hollywooood!!!! Ok, perhaps they won't play my clip. It is exciting nonetheless.

Apparently there will be some stars, but not Kurt Russell. Do MN paparazzi exist? (The man from Channel 5 is actually videotaping me, in this picture. Do you see him behind the door?)

To hell with Toast

Note that the snow almost entirely swallows the bus stop bench:


I am fixing someone's iBook right now, which seems to have serious directory corruption. Toast is having a horrible time making a boot CD image to burn. Ugh--this is such annoying garbage. Finally it is working now.... but wait there's more!

I still have to get the network card in the old junker working, I have dubbed the machine "Tarfin" for reasons that a select few of you would know. God I hate how PC hardware works, must be why I avoid the damn things.

Also I am trying to help the Mac Weekly get some sharper headline fonts and maybe something new for the very tired masthead. I'll also try to help them upgrade to new page layout software. These are some of the miscellaneous tasks of the week.

There have been a lot of problems accessing the crucial E Reserves through the library website, off campus. This is such an important system. Now I can't get Chapter 3 of our missing research textbooks, which makes the homework altogether much worse.

I was thinking today about the problem of moving parts in electronics, in this weather. I have micro-hard drives in my iPod, my parents' digital camera, as well as the portable FireWire drive I got for Christmas. All these things need to hover over their disc surfaces at a distance of only a few zillionths of an inch. When I take the iPod outside and it sits in my pocket, it gets colder on the outside pretty quickly, but the inside would stay warmer. Is it inevitable that the heat differences will cause a hard disc platter or arm to bend, and catastrophically collide with the drive surface? The same problem with the digital camera, which has a IBM MicroDrive. The weather is so extreme here, I fear damage is certain with these dramatic swings in temperature.

Nonetheless I couldn't help but take some pictures of all the snow that piled up outside today:

Water heater kaboom

Something has gone wrong with our water heater this morning. Alison took a very cold shower. It's leaking in the basement, which has been very cold lately. The heater is extremely old, from about 1986 if I recall. Water heaters have a lifespan of about 10 years, and the upstairs neighbors' heater just died a couple weeks ago. So much for a hot shower before the Super Bowl. >:-(

Windchill factor negative thirty-five

I was reluctant to leave for work this morning when they said the whole state is around 0 degrees. Here it's 10 F below, with a windchill of -35 F. It is so cold that the Fahrenheit windchill number is nearly down to the Celsius number, -37. On the way to school, my glasses immediately grew a layer of frost from my breath. The lab is extremely quiet this morning...

Winter storm

It hasn't stopped snowing since this morning, and we are all staying put. The roads are surely terrible everywhere, and Cheng Diggity is tryin to get through it..... he just got here and traffic is pretty bad, he says.

There may be a snow emergency tomorrow. Look at St. Paul's official website to get e-mail alerts on snow emergencies.

Update: There is in fact a snow emergency tonight. They towed Sev's car to one of the "connected lots" in St. Paul.

A fine day to sit at the desk

It's the first day of classes and I find myself as usual at the Library computer lab. This semester the support staff (such as me) has to work the desk, which is just as well because Support is very boring when everything is working and we have to sit in Ron's windowless office at $6.50 an hour. At least at the desk we can chat with people and fill up the glorious printers, Jay and Silent Bob.

Peter got back from his Geography expedition to Tunisia, but he refuses to lay out the story until his pictures come back.

Classes this semester look like they will be really entertaining, but it is somewhat up in the air so far. It was snowing like hell on the way to school today, a proper day to sit down here, nice and toasty.

Glorious cleaning day!!!!

Yes the day has finally come for Alison and I to make things look right before the start of the semester. My room is totally messed up-I have been much too lazy to fix it so far. But questions remain: Are we going to chuck the fake plastic tree? What about the weird growing crystal thing next to Buddha atop the TV?
It was snowing like hell earlier. This is no half assed mild January. A lot of people are flying in this weekend, including Alana and Arthur Cheng. w00p w000p!!

Shocks and aftershocks

I am making some progress on this new website idea but it has been slow going with finals. Fortunately that ends Wednesday. Unfortunately I have a TERM PAPER about THE WAR that has been rather disrupted. And it's also due Wednesday.

Here is a screenshot chunk of what I've put together for HongPong.com so far. This information will be strung together and turned into nice chunks of HTML information. I just found out how to import the WHOLE old HongPong.com right into it, but it will be tricky. These notes haven't been filled in for the most part, but pieces are getting added as I come across them. Think of it as sort of a topical filing cabinet with links and groups. Or something... It hasn't totally come together, that's for sure. And hurray, the Neo-cons will all be bright red!

As for the big news yesterday, that about does it for Jihadist Saddam. At the very least, we've got a great super-villain going now. Finally, a bitter and uncertain chapter in this story has closed, and the Baath Party is really finished, as a concentric ring system which made every bit of Iraqi society work backwards, a network of fear and domination which made the nation a house propped up to implode.
For me, the key question is still what happened to those Iraqi buildings, the libraries and the huge government ministries which ran the largest bureaucracy in the middle east. It feels like the loss of all these records was a disaster which not only obliterated so much history, but also rendered almost impossible the process of reconciling the society. (We've focused on bureaucracy, as a system, in contemporary political theory class, which sparks my interest in the day-to-day administration of occupied Iraq).
Unilateral reporter Robert Fisk, April 15, Library books, letters and priceless documents are set ablaze in final chapter of the sacking of Baghdad:

So yesterday was the burning of books. First came the looters, then the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sacking of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives – a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents, including the old royal archives of Iraq – were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment were set ablaze.

Amid the ashes of Iraqi history, I found a file blowing in the wind outside: pages of handwritten letters between the court of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who started the Arab revolt against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad. And the Americans did nothing.... I was holding in my hands the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraq's written history.

But for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then the Koranic library, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased. Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being destroyed?
When I caught sight of the Koranic library burning – there were flames 100 feet high bursting from the windows – I raced to the offices of the occupying power, the US Marines' Civil Affairs Bureau. An officer shouted to a colleague that "this guy says some biblical [sic] library is on fire". I gave the map location, the precise name – in Arabic and English – I said the smoke could be seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasn't an American at the scene – and the flames were shooting 200 feet into the air.

It's a moment in time we sort of chalked off from our understanding of the situation, and this extends down to the daily pattern of life in the country now.

But what is the next move for Saddam? Even in a cell the man still has a power, in no small part the ability, and the will, to tell all about how the Reagan administration helped him with all those well-demonized episodes of genocide and mayhem. There is that. But there is also Osama bin Laden about, and he's no bit player right now. As they cheered everywhere from FOX News to the foxholes to the streets of Iraq, I posted this comment about everyone's favorite evildoer. Yes, Saddam's capture helps things come together, perhaps. But who else benefits?