Category: observations

Iraq war a detour from the War in Terror?

Some odds and ends . . . .

Bounding the Global War on Terrorism

The author examines three features of the war on terrorism as currently defined and conducted: (1) the administration’s postulation of the terrorist threat, (2) the scope and feasibility of U.S. war aims, and (3) the war’s political, fiscal, and military sustainability. He believes that the war on terrorism–as opposed to the campaign against al-Qaeda–lacks strategic clarity, embraces unrealistic objectives, and may not be sustainable over the long haul. He calls for downsizing the scope of the war on terrorism to reflect concrete U.S. security interests and the limits of American military power.

By coincidence (or else the producer of To the Point reads metaFilter), the author of the report was on the radio today. He suggests that the Iraq campaign has not made the nation any safer and could make it less safe by diverting resources away from homeland security.

Then I found this piece on the Bush Dynasty, how four generations of the family have ties to the oil-rich families of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and how national policy may be formulated more in support of those interests than anything to do with a coherent national policy.

When the U.S. launched a second war against Iraq in 2003 but failed to find weapons of mass destruction that Hussein was purported to have, international polls, especially those by the Washington-based Pew Center, charted a massive growth in anti-Bush and anti-American sentiment in Muslim parts of the world — an obvious boon to terrorist recruitment. Even before the war, some cynics had argued that Iraq was targeted to divert attention from the administration’s failure to catch Osama bin Laden and stop Al Qaeda terrorism.

Bolder critics hinted that George W. Bush had sought to shift attention away from how his family’s ties to the Bin Ladens and to rogue elements in the Middle East had crippled U.S. investigations in the months leading up to 9/11. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that even when Congress released the mid-2003 intelligence reports on the origins of the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration heavily redacted a 28-page section dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments, leading him to conclude, “There seems to be a systematic strategy of coddling and cover-up when it comes to the Saudis.”

There is no evidence to suggest that the events of Sept. 11 could have been prevented or discovered ahead of time had someone other than a Bush been president. But there is certainly enough to suggest that the Bush dynasty’s many decades of entanglement and money-hunting in the Middle East have created a major conflict of interest that deserves to be part of the 2004 political debate. No previous presidency has had anything remotely similar. Not one.

I don’t feel any safer: even if these are unrelated items, it’s an ugly mess. And if they are related, what then?

[Posted with ecto]

is this a question of style or substance?

Former Official Describes Bush as Disengaged

Mr. O’Neill was also quoted in the book as saying that the administration’s decision-making process was so flawed that often top officials had no real sense of what the president wanted them to do, forcing them to act on “little more than hunches about what the president might think.”

Mr. O’Neill said in the CBS interview that the atmosphere was similar during his one-on-one meetings with Mr. Bush.

Speaking of his first meeting with the president, Mr. O’Neill said, “I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage him on.”

He added, “I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening. It was mostly a monologue.”

There is a lot of stuff floating around about former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s comments that the President is a difficult, opaque person to work with:

Former Official Describes Bush as Disengaged

Mr. O’Neill was also quoted in the book as saying that the administration’s decision-making process was so flawed that often top officials had no real sense of what the president wanted them to do, forcing them to act on “little more than hunches about what the president might think.”

Mr. O’Neill said in the CBS interview that the atmosphere was similar during his one-on-one meetings with Mr. Bush.

Speaking of his first meeting with the president, Mr. O’Neill said, “I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage him on.”

He added, “I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening. It was mostly a monologue.”

Time and time again, we hear that we should have successful business people in political office, that the traits and habits that drive success in the market are just what’s needed in government.

Well, here we have the former CEO of Alcoa, a person of undeniable executive caliber saying what works in a successful business doesn’t work within the current administration. The White House is spinning this as a difference in management style but I think there’s more to it than that.

O’Neill also has previous government experience to draw on, and has public service experience dating back 40 years. I doubt very much, given his experience in the Nixon and Ford administrations and his private sector history, that this was a simple difference in working styles

let him speak for himself

My

Jefferson: Nature Wants Information to Be Free

Since many have said that my view of copyright and patent law is childish and held merely because I grew up with Napster and do not write for a living, I thought I’d investigate some more respectable views on the subject. And who better than those of our thoughtful third President, Thomas Jefferson?

Judging from his letter to Isaac McPherson, Jefferson’s thoughts are thus:

Sorry, you’ll have to go to the weblog entry linked above to read on.

My question is, why paraphrase or “modernize” Jefferson’s writing? It’s hardly opaque prose: I think Aaron undermines his case by assuming he can update Jefferson: if we’re to understand his ideas as he expressed them, it would be better to hear them in his voice. And yes, I know there’s a link to the original, and I plan to read it as well.

[Posted with ecto 0.1.8.1]

war is a racket

War Is A Racket – Major General Smedley Butler

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.

We must take the profit out of war.

We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

Strong stuff, indeed, and consider the source: a two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and Marine Corps general. Hardly a pantywaist . . .

The excerpt is from the end of the 4th and penultimate chapter: the whole “book” won’t take long to read, but it’s quite informative.

And then you’ll be ready to read Twain’s War Prayer.
Continue reading “war is a racket”

gosh, and here I was worried about my job prospects

Humanity always adapts to challenges.  We wil just adapt to this, right?

Absolutely.  Just most of us [90% or so] won’t be here.

According to this site, (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/), finding paying work is the least of my problems.

The premise of this is that oil production is a bell curve and we just passed the peak, meaning there will never again be as much oil-derived energy as there just was. More and more of us, less and less of the energy that makes modern technological life possible.

Yeah, it sounds way too extreme to be believable, but I’m not sure the facts of the matter would be on the nightly news: paranoid, but not without reason, perhaps.

I can believe most of what he says about the crippling effects of an oil shortage: we are dependent on oil for more than just gasoline, after all. I don’t know if most people realize how well the food chain is greased with petrochemicals.

I do have some problems with the precipitous drop-off in resources and the resulting die-off (going from 6 billion to 500 million is a big drop): by his own admission, he’s a 25 year old recent law school grad, not a geologist or in some other field that would suggest a grasp of the science and engineering that would back up this theory.

File this under “one more inchoate fear vector.”

the job search

Working on hammering my resume into a more targeted form for a specific job: could be a perfect fit. A half-time gig at the UW, benefits, and working on a publication I actually looked forward to seeing every couple of weeks (it seemed to come out on the paycycle). I even got the Mystery Photo once.

[crossing fingers, though it makes it hard to type]

now playing: Everything in It’s Right Place from the album Kid A by Radiohead

[Posted with ecto 0.1.8.1]

pinhole camera exposure calculator/design tool

PinholeCalc is a handy little utility that can be used to find the f-stop, optimum focal length, optimum pinhole diameter, and common exposure times based on film speed of a pinhole camera. A field of view calculator is also included. This program should handle just about all mathematical aspects of building and using a pinhole camera. The art is up to you!

very cool: found this link from pinhole.cz, mentioned a couple of days ago.

MT misfeature reflects on ecto (and Kung-Log)

2. I have noticed that I cannot post something as ‘Draft’. Even if the selection is ‘Draft’, it ends up ‘Published’ on the site.

You may have noticed that the entry does, however, not show up on your site, right? It is the way MovableType works. I quote from the MT source:

In 2.1 we changed the behavior of the $publish flag. Previously,
it was used to determine the post status. That was a bad idea.
So now entries added through XML-RPC are always set to publish,
*unless* the user has set "NoPublishMeansDraft 1" in mt.cfg, which
enables the old behavior.
So, if you want a draft to be a draft, add
    NoPublishMeansDraft 1
to your mt.cfg configuration file.

That’s just . . . . weird. There are three states: draft, publish, and neither one nor t’other.

[Posted with ecto]

fish burritos, just like mamacita never made

Our love of fish burritos from Taco Del Mar required some experimentation in the kitchen this afternoon. As much as we like ’em, we can’t always splash out on them for a family of four, given the financial situation. So we took up the challenge to make our own.

As the saying goes, the secret’s in the sauce, in this case, the “white sauce” that Taco Del Mar uses (perhaps other places do too).

Here’s the assembly instructions we used (this would make 4 reasonable-sized burritos):

  1. burrito, natch (your choice of flavor/color/variety)
  2. beans (red, black, refried: I heated (the contents of) a 15 oz can of black beans in the microwave)
  3. cheese, 1 cup
  4. fish, 1 piece per
  5. shredded cabbage, 1-2 cups
  6. salsa, choose your octane level, about a tablespoon or two
  7. white sauce, tablespoon or so

For the fish, we used some leftover frozen fish “tenders,” smaller than a filet, about the length and breadth of a large finger.

For the white sauce, my Skilled Assistant unearthed some ideas on the Interweb and we improvised, as follows:

  • 1/4 cup mayo
  • 1/4 cup yogurt
  • 1/4 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/4 tsp oregano
  • cayenne, to taste
  • lime juice, enough to “make it runny”

The yogurt and mayo can be fat-free: I think their main contribution is texture and consistency.

So there you have it: roll, wrap, and eat.