July 2004 – Page 3 – a crank's progress

the coup that wasn’t?

IHT: Saddam’s people are winning the war: The transfer of sovereignty to the new Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi is a charade that will play itself out over the next weeks and months, and with tragic consequences. Allawi’s government, hand-picked by the United States from the ranks of anti-Saddam expatriates, lacks not only a constituency inside Iraq but also legitimacy in the eyes of many ordinary Iraqi citizens. The truth is that there never was a significant people-based opposition movement inside Iraq for the Bush administration to call on to form a government to replace Saddam. It is why the United States has instead been forced to rely on the services of individuals tainted by their association with foreign intelligence services, or drawn from opposition parties heavily infiltrated by agents of Saddam’s former security services…. The more the United States props up Allawi, the more discredited he will become in the eyes of the Iraqi people – all of which creates yet more opportunities for the Iraqi resistance to exploit.

Scott Ritter, UN weapons inspector in Iraq, analyzes the current situation in Iraq from the perspective of someone who spent some time there. The bottomline?

IHT: Saddam’s people are winning the war:

The transfer of sovereignty to the new Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi is a charade that will play itself out over the next weeks and months, and with tragic consequences. Allawi’s government, hand-picked by the United States from the ranks of anti-Saddam expatriates, lacks not only a constituency inside Iraq but also legitimacy in the eyes of many ordinary Iraqi citizens.

The truth is that there never was a significant people-based opposition movement inside Iraq for the Bush administration to call on to form a government to replace Saddam. It is why the United States has instead been forced to rely on the services of individuals tainted by their association with foreign intelligence services, or drawn from opposition parties heavily infiltrated by agents of Saddam’s former security services.

Regardless of the number of troops the United States puts on the ground or how long they stay there, Allawi’s government is doomed to fail. The more it fails, the more it will have to rely on the United States to prop it up. The more the United States props up Allawi, the more discredited he will become in the eyes of the Iraqi people – all of which creates yet more opportunities for the Iraqi resistance to exploit.

And the more American troops will be targets for the resistance and the US homeland a target for attacks from jihadists or other dangerous types.

not that it’s related to the heat, but we could see auroras

SpaceWeather.com — News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids: AURORA ALERT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) swept past Earth earlier today (1000 UT, July 22nd) and, although it did not spark auroras right away, solar wind conditions in the wake of the CME are increasingly favorable for a geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers in, e.g., Canada and northern-tier US states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Washington should be alert for auroras tonight.

SpaceWeather.com — News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids:

AURORA ALERT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) swept past Earth earlier today (1000 UT, July 22nd) and, although it did not spark auroras right away, solar wind conditions in the wake of the CME are increasingly favorable for a geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers in, e.g., Canada and northern-tier US states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Washington should be alert for auroras tonight.

It’s hot here right now, 90 degrees hot, which might not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but here in the un-air conditioned Pacific Northwest, it’s really uncomfortable. So the possibility of seeing the aurora might make up for it. I don’t know if I see anything from my house, but perhaps some local folks will grab a picture or two. From what I can tell, film picks them up more readily than the naked eye: you might have an image without realizing it. Take a look at the gallery linked above and see what they say.

he said it

“My Beef With Big Media” by Ted Turner: In the media, as in any industry, big corporations play a vital role, but so do small, emerging ones…. They know they can’t compete by imitating the big guys–they have to innovate, so they’re less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas. They are quicker to seize on new technologies and new product ideas. They steal market share from the big companies, spurring them to adopt new approaches. This process promotes competition, which leads to higher product and service quality, more jobs, and greater wealth.

“My Beef With Big Media” by Ted Turner:

In the media, as in any industry, big corporations play a vital role, but so do small, emerging ones. When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can’t compete by imitating the big guys–they have to innovate, so they’re less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas. They are quicker to seize on new technologies and new product ideas. They steal market share from the big companies, spurring them to adopt new approaches. This process promotes competition, which leads to higher product and service quality, more jobs, and greater wealth. It’s called capitalism.

Interesting summary of the recent history of broadcasting and how the innovative environment that brought us 24 hour news might be a thing of the past. His comments about short-term focussed businesses and the link between size and aversion to risk go far beyond the media industry: we see it everywhere.

And this passage reminded me of the hearings we had here at the University of Washington and a news director on one of the panels insisting he had never been pressured to censor his coverage:

In early 2003, the Pew Research Center found that 72 percent of Americans had heard “nothing at all” about the proposed FCC rule changes. Why? One never knows for sure, but it must have been clear to news directors that the more they covered this issue, the harder it would be for their corporate bosses to get the policy result they wanted.

At the time, I thought, if you’ve never felt that pressure, perhaps you’re self-censoring effectively enough already.

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it

[IP] A washingtonpost.com article from: spaf@acm.org: On Dec. 8, 1941, the Signals Intelligence elements of the U.S. government were in a quandary. How could Pearl Harbor have occurred, given their spectacular success in breaking Japan’s top diplomatic code? The answer was simple: In their zeal to succeed in the diplomatic arena, they had failed to place enough emphasis on Japanese naval traffic, the one source that could have given some warning of the attack. Although they are more than a half-century old, Pearl Harbor’s lessons are relevant today. Indeed, given the current debate about the role of intelligence in assessing Iraq’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and in disasters such as that of Sept. 11, 2001, history compels us to ask if we are once again allowing technological success to blind us to an emerging threat.

[IP] A washingtonpost.com article from: spaf@acm.org:

On Dec. 8, 1941, the Signals Intelligence elements of the U.S. government were in a quandary. How could Pearl Harbor have occurred, given their spectacular success in breaking Japan’s top diplomatic code? The answer was simple: In their zeal to succeed in the diplomatic arena, they had failed to place enough emphasis on Japanese naval traffic, the one source that could have given some warning of the attack.

Although they are more than a half-century old, Pearl Harbor’s lessons are relevant today. Indeed, given the current debate about the role of intelligence in assessing Iraq’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and in disasters such as that of Sept. 11, 2001, history compels us to ask if we are once again allowing technological success to blind us to an emerging threat.

So the Sept 11 report is out and we can all learn about the “failure of imagination” that led to the attacks. It seems to be a nuanced conclusion: we know that the idea of airliners as missiles had been discussed and watched for 5 years earlier. In the run-up to the report, the hearings, testimony, and analysis, I’m persuaded that Bush administration’s neglect of the tactics laid out and successfully pursued by the Clinton administration (yes, I know there were attacks on US forces overseas, but I can’t equate them with the the domestic attacks and anyone who does is an idiot) opened the door for the Sept 11 attacks.

I don’t think a “failure of imagination” is accurate. I think an overactive imagination, one that saw WMDs all over Iraq, that saw Ahmed Chalabi as an honest broker, that assumed the people of Iraq would welcome the troops as liberators, that saw the overthrow of Saddam as the calalyst for a democratic domino effect through the Middle East, is more to blame.

Two Americas: where are you?

Whiskey Bar: Building a Bridge to the 19th Century

It’s funny to see the Journal suddenly decide that the “Two Americas” merits front-page coverage – much less an implicit admission that the growing gap between rich and not rich is an economic problem in and of itself. Last year, when the paper noted the same trend, it was with a completely neutral sigh of relief that the “recovery” was finally on track.

Long (as Billmon posts usually are) but informative post on the “Two Americas” with some historical perspective and analysis. The trade-offs between the Old Deal and the New Deal are interesting: never learned that stuff in my college econ classes.

All told, real wages dropped 17% between 1972 and 1992. I’ve often wondered what the political fallout would have been if that same decline had been administered the old-fashioned way – through direct pay cuts by employers instead of the gradual, indirect erosion of inflation. Who knows? Instead of Ronald Reagan, we might have gotten an American Lenin.

17%?

freecycling

No, nothing about bikes or anything strenuous. I discovered the joy of freecycling, giving away stuff to anyone who can use it, with no expenses and no hassle. I read about it in Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools newsletter last week and someone mentioned while we were watching our kids at swimming lessons: I looked into it, dug into the Tomb of Obsolete Electronics and put an old but still good 35mm Point and Shoot camera up for grabs. Not 10 minutes later, it was gone.

No, nothing about bikes or anything strenuous. I discovered the joy of freecycling, giving away stuff to anyone who can use it, with no expenses and no hassle.

I read about it in Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools newsletter last week and someone mentioned it while we were watching our kids at swimming lessons. When I got home, I looked into it, dug into the Tomb of Obsolete Electronics and put an old but still good 35mm Point and Shoot camera up for grabs. Not 10 minutes later, it was gone.

What’s cool about this is the buzz you get, not unlike making a purchasing score . . . . you’re hooking someone up with something they want and you don’t. In the case of the camera, the lucky winner told me she had never had a camera before: it’s so much better to let her have it than to try and make a couple of bucks on eBay.

I’ve got more stuff to clean out (an old camcorder and an old digital camera, some old laptop accessories, maybe an outgrown kids bike), and I’ll look for stuff I might want as well (I just missed a couple of strawberry pots yesterday).

It’s fun to just read through the listings and see what people are interested in putting up: someone mentioned today he had gotten a 74 VW bus from FreeCycle, and I saw an old International TravelAll provoke a flurry of email this week. Interestingly, you can’t bid. You get there first or if the donor wants, you make your case.

If you want to play, the understood rule is to put something up as OFFERED before posting a WANTED losting, kind of a karmic thing.

Good luck.

cell phone hell

So this cellphone number portability is supposed to be a good thing, and having tired of my service provider, I decided to see what kind of deal I could find. Seems I can get two phones from T-Mobile [no, the lack of a link is not an accident], sign up for similar service to what I have *and* get $250 back in rebates.

Twist my arm, but not too hard: I’ll take it.

Continue reading “cell phone hell”

free iPod?

Seen on a mailing list: My friend has found a catch in that free iPod giveaway you’ve been seeing. He just got his and now I too want one for when I bike to work. You just sign up for a trial offer (AOL, eBay, etc.) and then cancel before your trial period is up…. Once you have five friends do the same you get a free iPod. It’s close to a pyramid scheme, but not quite since you don’t have to put any money into it.

Seen on a mailing list:

My friend has found a catch in that free iPod giveaway you’ve been seeing. He just got his and now I too want one for when I bike to work. You just sign up for a trial offer (AOL, eBay, etc.) and then cancel before your trial period is up. This way you won’t be charged anything. Once you have five friends do the same you get a free iPod. It’s close to a pyramid scheme, but not quite since you don’t have to put any money into it. Catch this loophole before everyone else does.

Or you could just go to Duke University . . . .

TheyWorkforYou.US?

TheyWorkForYou.com: Is your MP working for you in the UK’s Parliament?: We’re really keen for others to use both our code and the data feeds we make available to make the UK’s Parliament more accessible. Most notably, we’ve recently published the source code for the front and back end of TheyWorkForYou.com . . .

TheyWorkForYou.com: Is your MP working for you in the UK’s Parliament?:

We’re really keen for others to use both our code and the data feeds we make available to make the UK’s Parliament more accessible. Most notably, we’ve recently published the source code for the front and back end of TheyWorkForYou.com . . .

Is anyone working in a similar accountability project for US congressional members? This seems like it offers a good headstart . . . .

one man’s struggle to put food on his family

Brother, Can You Spare A Job?: “Following in the footsteps of the early propaganda cartoons of Disney, Fleischer, and Chuck Jones, this original, fully-animated look at the underbelly of Bush’s economy juxtaposes a depression-era style with modern-day political rhetoric. Originally a “Best Animation” finalist in MoveOn.org’s “Bush in 30 Seconds” contest, the commercial spot has been expanded to a seven minute short cartoon that tells the rest of the story of Melvin McBean and his family’s struggle to make ends meet in Bush’s economy.

Brother, Can You Spare A Job?:

“Following in the footsteps of the early propaganda cartoons of Disney, Fleischer, and Chuck Jones, this original, fully-animated look at the underbelly of Bush’s economy juxtaposes a depression-era style with modern-day political rhetoric.

Originally a “Best Animation” finalist in MoveOn.org’s “Bush in 30 Seconds” contest, the commercial spot has been expanded to a seven minute short cartoon that tells the rest of the story of Melvin McBean and his family’s struggle to make ends meet in Bush’s economy. “