January 26, 2006
Diebold News
Democrats in Alaska want Diebold to turn over raw vote data. Diebold refuses, saying it belongs to a private company and can't be made public. So this is what it's come down to, I suppose: the privatization of 'democracy' under a dictator. See also this very important story by Susan Pynchon on a recent demonstration of the Harri Hursti Hack to Florida election officials. The money quote:
"However, the Hursti hack is individually significant because the flaw it exposed is a planned vulnerability in the system, not something that is accidentally there. It had to be PUT there (programmed) on purpose."
For more on Diebold see the Wiki.
An American Treasure
I have no idea what Gore Vidal's personal faith is all about – or whether he even thinks he has one – but I have no doubt that whatever is up there speaks through him. Gore Vidal is the real deal. This essay, like just about everything he writes, is both inspired and prophetic.
January 23, 2006
Broadband
Not enough people anymore, everybody being brainwashed by neo-classical 'free-market' economics, pay attention to the helpful and necessary economic activity that the state, and often only the state, can undertake. A prime example is broadband. In the Washington Monthly Robert McChesney and John Podesta sketch out why broadband is critical for 21st century economic growth and how seriously the US is falling behind the rest of the world. They also make a number of sensible policy recommendations, which, I would add, obviously must wait for a different configuration of political forces in Washington DC.
The Mayor of Tehran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's President and former Mayor of Tehran, is an unusual cat. I offered my gloss on why he may be willing to participate in a boat-rocking exercise with Nixon's intellectual offspring, but until this evening hadn't seen a comparable analysis of his domestic political acumen. Tim Porteous, who has worked for both the BBC and Her Majesty's Government, recently returned from Iran and warns not to underestimate Ahmadinejad. It's the best – and only – example of this sort of thing I've seen, and I'm surprised it hasn't been widely linked elsewhere (or linked at all, yet, so far as I can tell).
January 22, 2006
On a Personal Note
Usually I go for a phlebotomy about every four-five weeks at a Red Cross station at a local hospital (see the FAQ for why). They're there normally two days a week but this month they unexpectedly took two weeks out of their schedule, thus throwing me squarely into iron-overload territory. My body has turned, temporarily, into a giant petri dish. I've been hugely sick all weekend. Have only eaten a grilled cheese sandwich and a handful of olives in over two days. I'll try some plain white rice tonight...
Come hell or high water, though, I will try to make it downtown tomorrow for an interview with a currently serving senior administration official. A very decent guy who will shed some more light on topical subjects. I've already got a second interview recorded on file to pair this one with, so should have a new podcast ready by the end of the week.
Oh, and I'm scheduled for the phlebotomy this Thursday, after which things should get back to normal.
January 20, 2006
Don't Rock the Boat
One wonders why Iran is being so belligerent. David Ignatius does. So do I. The difference is that I don't think the Iranians are either (1) the new Nazis, or (2) otherwise insane. I seem to recall learning about something at the University of Chicago called "mutually assured destruction", a subset of game theory. People have won Nobel Prizes in Economics for their work on this... Anyhow, a number of US Presidents, Nixon among them, were considered by the game theory crowd to have been exceedingly clever at 'rocking the boat' such that the other side thought you might be nuts and actually willing to start a thermonuclear war. 'Rocking the boat.' Well, maybe the Iranians think – to switch metaphors – that they've got us by the short and curlies and are making the point. It's a possibility.
January 19, 2006
The Lost Bureau
For many years after WWII the European Bureau ruled the State Department. At some point – I've forgotten my history here, but I think it was in the 1970s – there was an in-house revolt and the European Bureau ceded a great deal of its power to others (there are twenty Assistant Secretaries of State who head up Bureaus but depending how you wish to score it there are about 30 Bureau-equivalents these days, being the main organizational units at State). EUR remained, nevertheless, primus inter pares. Now Condi is further downgrading EUR, floating away from the US understanding of the post-WWII world into some kind of Manichean nightmare of empowered third world terrorists. It's inside baseball, sure, but what it means in practical terms is that your diplomatic service is losing more of its edge.
January 18, 2006
A Commonsense Comment on Iran
Every once in a while I see a comment I completely agree with. This is one of them. I never can keep straight Simon Tisdall or Simon Jenkins, and the Guardian may even have a third Simon somewhere. If I remember correctly I've corresponded occasionally with the first two – it's the second who wrote this excellent piece.
January 16, 2006
Oh Would Some Power...
It was one of those squibs that jumps out at you – I'd missed it a few days earlier, it hadn't shown up in any of my RSS feeds, nor had it been linked by any of the usual sites. Idle curiosity in a Google news search turned it up as an item from Sunday last: "UK Cleared Nuclear Cargo to Iran." What the heck?
It seems that last August a truck carrying 1,000 Kg. of Zirconium Silicate, from the UK bound for Iran, was stopped by Bulgarian customs at the Turkish border. The compound is used with nuclear reactor fuel rods and can also be used in warheads. The Bulgarians inform the British mission in Sophia, which informs London on September 7. After a two month investigation London lets the shipment proceed, as the purity of the compound was slightly (very slightly) less than the trigger on export controls.
January 15, 2006
Blair Moves to Tap MP's Calls
I'm sure the Prince of Pennsylvania Avenue is green with envy over this one. Think carefully: how long before we follow the British example?
Open Letter to The Guardian
Reply to the Protest to The Guardian Over Its "Correction" to Emma Brockes's Interview With Noam Chomsky
Sir,
When The Guardian published its formal "Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian and Noam Chomsky" on November 17, we found it inadequate in that Emma Brockes's denigrating portrait of Prof. Chomsky seemed to us from the beginning to be a deliberate effort to smear both Prof. Chomsky and Ms. Diana Johnstone over issues related to the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Nevertheless, we were willing to accept The Guardian's original "Corrections and clarifications," as both Prof. Chomsky and Ms. Johnstone themselves had accepted it (more or less). So it was with dismay that we read that The Guardian had chosen to reopen this case ("Open Door: The readers' editor on ...a complaint about a controversial correction," Ian Mayes, December 12). When we took the time to study at least one of the actual complaints that had reached The Guardian prior to this decision ("Protest to The Guardian Over 'Correction' to Noam Chomsky Interview," December 8), we felt compelled to urge those responsible to use their common sense and not let this sad affair go any further.
January 13, 2006
Venezuela Goes Open Source
An interesting article in Salon today, by Andrew Leonard (subscription or ad viewing required). Note particularly Hugo Chavez' concern with security. The Chinese, for similar reasons, have long led the way in government use of open source and continue to implement new initiatives. This is all of a piece with countries moving away from American economic infrastructure, including away from the dollar.
January 8, 2006
The Liberties of the Subject
By Werther*
The overwhelming balance of recorded history has been marked by despotism. When homo sapiens sapiens transitioned from hunter gatherer to agriculturalist, he gained literacy, solid dwellings, and other accoutrements of what is commonly considered civilization. But he experienced a sharp decline in personal liberty.
The reasons for this are commonsensical. Disputes between tribes of hunter gatherers could be resolved by one or the other simply pulling up stakes and relocating to a new territory, there being few material impedimenta to prevent them. A settled agricultural existence, on the other hand, implied permanent villages, granaries, and land boundaries to be defended against depredation. The need for defenses implied a national security state. Agricultural surpluses not only necessitated armed defense, but allowed a division of labor leading to policemen, soldiers, bureaucrats, and tax assessors, the latter of whom would confiscate a percentage of the harvest.
January 3, 2006
Bush Military Support Slumps
While it isn't a huge drop, this Military Times magazine poll is another straw in the wind. Widely reported elsewhere, for example, by AFP, but hard to find on MT's own site – I wonder why? It's more a trend tracking number than a scientific poll: note particularly the disclaimer cited in the article, respondents were "on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the military population." In other words, support for Bush among regular enlisted personnel would be lower.
What I wish they'd do, but of course they won't, is break responses down by religious affiliation. In particular I'd like to see how much difference exists, if any, between evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, and Catholics (which covers probably 95% of military personnel).
In a related vein, for those who missed it, Grant Doty's Op-ed in the Post last Friday is worth taking a look at. For a young Lt. Col. in the Army to step up and say "I'm a soldier, not a spy," as in 'I'm not spying on my fellow Americans,' takes guts. We need more like him but my guess is he's going to be feeling the heat...
Thanks to the Propaganda Remix Project for the cool art!
January 2, 2006
Defending the Dollar
Nowadays, most western economists practice a sort of religious tomfoolery. They take a theory which posits the supremacy of greed, force it onto uncooperative facts, then issue Delphic pronouncements that bless unregulated, hot international capital. We've become so accustomed to this patter that we sometimes let it fill the public space and neglect to make obvious connections the theory prefers to ignore – connections understood only too well by those at the top of the heap.
Case in point: recent reports that the US is considering attacking Iran. Der Spiegel and UPI say the US is seriously getting ready. Former Agency analysts Bill and Kathleen Christison agree. Another left-leaning writer, James Petras, sketches out further details. All the above take government statements at face value, e.g., that the motives behind a US attack would be to halt Iran's nuclear program. None consider critical economic factors which may well be the larger driving force.
