Archive for May, 2007

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Marines in Kuwait

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

This bare bones press release from the US 5th Fleet (in the Persian Gulf / Arabian Sea) makes me cock my head like a curious dog: what’s that noise I hear? Is it a barkable noise?

Kuwait – The USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6)(BHR) offloaded the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) here May 25-28.

The four-day offload included the departure of more than 2,200 Sailors and Marines from BHR, USS Denver (LPD 9) and USS Rushmore (LSD 47). The offload also included 300,000 pounds of equipment and heavy artillery and the MEU’s Aviation Combat Element.

Offload is a peculiar word. It implies this getting 2,200 fighting troops ashore was not just an exercise, after which they are coming back. On the other hand they were not “disembarked,” as though to some other destination. Maybe they are all repairing and painting schools in Kuwait and the 300,000 pounds of equipment is paint, ladders and tarps, but somehow I don’t think so.

What are these offloaded marines going to be doing, for how long, after they have trained so hard?

“The Marines have used every second of their time and every inch of this ship to prepare for this moment,” said Martin. “I am more than confident that their time ashore will be productive and successful. We look forward to the onload when their mission is completed, but for now the strike group will carry out our maritime operations mission in support of the theater commander.”

Curious minds want to know….

Posted in Middle East, War | No Comments »

Designs for Life

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

The NY Times Tuesday Science section pointed us to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Center and a current exhibition called Design for the other 90%.

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises

Q drum

The Q Drum - to get water from one place to another…

KickStart is another organization, devoted to getting projects like these to people who need them.

Worth a while looking around the sites, appreciating the small scale innovation going on. Worth supporting….

Posted in General, Science & Technology | No Comments »

Solar Concentrate

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Solar concentrator

“The basic idea [of Concentrated Solar Power] is to arrange mirrors so that they concentrate sunlight into a relatively small area and then use the resulting heat to raise steam to drive turbines and generators, just like a conventional power station. Direct sunlight is needed and CSP works best when sunshine is plentiful, as it is in hot deserts. In those kinds of conditions, CSP is currently the most cost-effective way of capturing solar energy but this might change in the future with further developments in photovoltaics (PV).”


The Oil Drum

Posted in Science & Technology | No Comments »

Enhanced Interrogation

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

The phrase “Verschärfte Vernehmung” is German for “enhanced interrogation”. Other translations include “intensified interrogation” or “sharpened interrogation”. It’s a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court.

Andrew Sullivan has come a long long way since his early support for the Bush War. Worth reading in its entirety

Posted in Torture | No Comments »

FOX Debate: Kucinich, Gravel and Biden

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Look, I know a lot of you admire Dennis Kucinich. I have a pocket of it myself. But when asked why he doesn’t get more respect and more of a following from his natural constituents, the reasoning he demonstrates in explaining why he will be on the FAUX Debate sort of explains it all.

Chris Bowers: MyDD

Posted in Democrats, Media | No Comments »

Narrative Style

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

“A COKE AND A SMILE: As we’ve told you, the game has never been clearer. When it comes to presidential coverage, the mainstream press corps is now a Republican entity. They create “hero tales” for Republican hopefuls—and “demon tales” for the Dems. Even a mediocre Republican like Fred Thompson gets hero tales from the Post (and from Hardball). But if you’re a Dem, the rules are reversed. Al Gore has won an Oscar; been nominated for a Nobel; and has seen his brilliant film change the world’s discussion of warming. But so what? At the Post and the Times he’s still too f*cking fat. At the Post, he’s still just too annoying.”

This is a sampler from Bob Somerby’s dissection of the day — of Matthews, Milbank, Gerth.

Spend a while.

Posted in Media | No Comments »

Lyin’ Lou Dobbs

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

What a fine thing to read hanging high on the first business page of the NY Times. Dave Leonhardt does a take-down of Lyin’ Lou Dobbs and the 3,000 illegal immigrants with leprosy in 3 years theme he has been roaring for a while.

I have been somewhat taken aback about how shameless he has been during the whole dispute, so I spent some time reading transcripts from old episodes of “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” The way he handled leprosy, it turns out, is not all that unusual.

For one thing, Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants. That’s wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives.

Fictional Lou

My only quibble would be his lede in which he says: “The whole controversy involving Lou Dobbs and leprosy started with a “60 Minutes” segment a few weeks ago.”

The “whole controversy” started when Dobbs began bashing immigrants for joy and ratings. It was finally taken notice of by “those who count” in the 60 Minutes piece and now Dobbs is getting some attention from those other than white supremicists where he is a big favorite. [No links provided. Get 'em yourselves....]


John Amato at Crooks and Liars has a wee follow up, suggesting that the Sunday Talk Shows all have sequels in which the claims made are fact-checked! Wowser, that would be a show worth watching!

Matt Yglesias wonders why Dobbs is being singled out. There are a lot of other liars on teeveee and they are getting a free pass. Lot’s of interesting comments following the post, as well.

I’d just say for myself, pile on when there is opportunity, another may be a long time in coming. Sure Dobbs is sticking up for working class folks, so did Dennis Kearney’s Workingman’s Party in San Francisco in the 1870s. Good, stick up for them. Racist attacks on other workers is not the way to do it.

Posted in Media, Race | No Comments »

Rumsfeld: Serene Ineptitude

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

A new book for you who are steeping yourself in lessons of the current incompetence:

Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy, Andrew Cockburn, Scribner, 247 pages

Here’s a favorable review of a blistering attack on two people you will use to scare your grandchildren into good behavior with: Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

Martin Sieff’s Review

Posted in Bush Administration | No Comments »

World Bank Bingo

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Update below.

Wolfowitz is on his way out. Bush sent his hound dogs out into the bushes and flushed out Robert Zoellick. The rest of the hunting party is whooping and hollering, slapping high-fives. But:

Zoellick was forced out of his presidency of CSIS here in Washington, with the official reason being his too-overt politicking for then-Republican nominee George Bush. In reality, veterans of CSIS during that period will tell you, Zoellick had by that time made himself very unpopular with both the Board and his colleagues for some of the same problems which cropped up at USTR:

He has a terrible temper, he is “prone to tirades” - a daily dump on Japan generally, and its trade ministers specifically, came to be something of a ritual at USTR - and he has been known to keep “enemies lists”.

See Talking Points Memo for more.

For a friendlier view go to Steve Clemons at HuffPo

And back to bad with KOS. Zoellick was an InvadeEmNow partisan….

Update: More on Zoellick from the Independent

“In 1998 he was a signatory to the mission statements of the Project for the New American Century, which called for increased military budgets and the ousting of Saddam.”

Robert Weissman at HuffPo begins with snark but then asks questions of interest regarding the bank itself, and Zoellick’s probable relation to them, e.g.

- Will Zoellick oppose user fees for healthcare?

- Will he support robust public health systems that rely on public providers — not wishful thinking about HMO-style schemes delivering health care in developing countries?

- Will he abandon support for water privatization, which delivers profits to multinationals but raises costs to consumers and decreases quality of service?

Go to Weissman’s post for more questions, and links to supporting material.

Posted in Bush Administration, Economy | No Comments »

More Proof of Idiocy

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

I can’t say the Supreme Courtiers’ latest ruling came as a shock. My reaction is more like the one I have when watching the World’s Dumbest Criminals on TV — like the guy who falls in through the skylight while trying to get in to rob the convenience store and then finds the doors locked so he can’t get out — all caught on video, natch.

The Supreme Court has just ruled that unless you sue your employer for pay discrimination within 180 days of being given that pay, you can’t sue -ever! Never mind that it is extremely hard to find out what your peers are being paid in most companies, and those who persist in trying to find out stand in the way of firing.

The court held on Tuesday that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.


Supreme Courtiers

Fortunately, the ruling seems to be an interpretation of the Civil Rights act, and so Congress could re-work the language to make the ruling moot. Unfortunately, there are enough in Congress who think that since women on the whole are shorter than men they should, on the whole, be paid less.

Comments at Lawyers Guns and Money

Posted in Economy, Supreme Court | No Comments »

National Security Directive

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

Quite a few five-alarm e-mails have arrived in my in box regarding a National Security Directive signed without much notice by President Bush on May 9. The sirens were screaming power grab, dictatorship on the way! Given our much abused sense of trust in our leaders the signing looked like it could be pretty bad news. Josh Marshall had some of his investigators look into the matter, and found there is less than there might be. Not even the ACLU is worried.

The consensus amongst experts seems to be that the directive, aimed at establishing “continuity of government” after a major disaster, is not new nor does the policy seem to expand executive power.

In fact, Mike German, the policy counsel to the ACLU’s Washington office told me (Laura McGann) that an executive continuity plan actually might “not be that bad of an idea.”

Executive power expert, NYU law professor David Golove, also sent me an email saying the directive didn’t appear to be a power grab.

National Security Presidential Directive 51 or Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 is posted here. Have a look.

Presidential directives outlining how the executive branch will remain intact in the event of an emergency have been around since the Cold War. The directive posted this month is the first to be made public, to the best of German’s recollection. (A description of Clinton’s continuity directive is available here.) German called the release a positive sign, but said he urges the release of all previous directives so we can get a real sense of what has changed.

TPMMuckraker

Does this lay the issue to rest? Not completely. Even if this NSD is not any different than the one Clinton signed (see complete article) the signers certainly are very dangerously different. However, it does seem some deep breathing is in order for those who believe the trap has been sprung and the barbed wire is rolling down the streets.

Posted in Bush Administration | No Comments »

Cyber Attacks

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

In a good follow-up to articles several weeks ago about cyber warfare, the NY Times has a lengthy piece about Estonia and the near shut down of its electronic services.

The bulk of the cyberassaults used a technique known as a distributed denial-of-service attack. By bombarding the country’s Web sites with data, attackers can clog not only the country’s servers, but also its routers and switches, the specialized devices that direct traffic on the network.

To magnify the assault, the hackers infiltrated computers around the world with software known as bots, and banded them together in networks to perform these incursions. The computers become unwitting foot soldiers, or “zombies,” in a cyberattack.

In one case, the attackers sent a single huge burst of data to measure the capacity of the network. Then, hours later, data from multiple sources flowed into the system, rapidly reaching the upper limit of the routers and switches.

Estonia Cyber Attacks

There isn’t much an ordinary reader can do about these developments except to be aware that life can be slowed to a crawl for unspecified periods of time. Banks can close; gas stations can be unable to accept credit cards; transportation grids can go to manual. Don’t drive on empty and hide some cash. Keep good walking shoes in the trunk of your car. Elementary earth-quake preparedness is a good beginning. The effect on the infrastructure of cyber disruption is somewhat the same.

If you are a computer user you need to pay as much attention to its contents as you do to personal grooming. The “bots” referred to in the article are lurking on computers around the world. Ordinary good computer practices should keep you from being part of the assault but a significant portion of people I know aren’t so scrupulous. I’ll bet an hours worth of consulting that before too long it will be a misdemeanor if “bots” are found on your computer….

Posted in General | No Comments »

Presidential Polls

Monday, May 28th, 2007

I went to Golden Gate Fields today to watch the ponies run. Number 9 in the 8th race started out late, caught up and thrillingly led, then faded, coming in at Show. So these polls of presidentials strike me. What on earth do we know on any given day about what will be in months to come? That being said, we do take an interest in what is being expressed here — not so much for showing a lead or a falling behind for the expression of interest measured in those with their eyes glued to the glasses.

Democrat Barack Obama is the top 2008 presidential contender in the United States, according to a poll by Zogby International. At least 46 per cent of respondents would support the Illinois senator in head-to-head contests against four prospective Republican nominees.


Obama Leads All Repubs

Posted in Presidential 2008 | No Comments »

Carriers in Persian Gulf Bomb Iraq

Monday, May 28th, 2007

As most of you know, there are two US super carriers and one smaller carrier filled with marines in the Persian Gulf. The electronic scuttlebutt is that a serious game of chicken is in the works between the Ahmadinejad wing of the Iranian government and the Cheney wing of the American government, with the US Ships as the US offering. Mebe so. Meanwhile, there are actual strikes being sent from at least one of the carriers to Iraq.

Aircraft from USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) began providing direct support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) May 24.

The aircraft, assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9 and embarked aboard Stennis, will conduct close air power support, shows of force, and reconnaissance missions for ground forces operating in Iraq.

Operation “Iraqi Freedom”

Don’t know exactly where the ships are, but if they’re close enough to send grief to Iraq they’re close enough to Iran.

Posted in Iran, Iraq, War | No Comments »

Iran: All Eyes On

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note reported this on Thursday.

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an “end run strategy” around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney’s team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran’s nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf — which just became significantly larger — as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

Much more of a must read at The Washington Note

Joe Klein at Time, confirms some of Clemon’s report and adds.

Posted in Bush Administration, Iran | No Comments »

Earthweek

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

One of the enjoyable habits of Saturday mornings is to turn to Earthweek, a colored map of the Earth with various icons indicating where interesting/significant natural events have happened in the last week.

Jellyfish Inundations

Recent years of drought in Spain have reduced the flow of rivers into the sea, allowing the jellyfish to move from their usual habitat about 20 miles (30 km) offshore to just off the country’s beaches.

Overfishing of the jellyfish’s natural predators, such as red tuna, has also allowed their numbers to soar, according to professor Josep María Gili, a professor at the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research.

http://www.earthweek.com/

It turns out you don’t have to wait for Saturday. Earthweek is online and you can check in whenever the mood strikes you. Of course, it’s not often happy news you get there. Often surprising, though. Who, besides South Africans would have thought of killer snow storms in Africa?

Freezing temperatures and other wintry conditions were blamed for the death of at least 17 people, mainly in Eastern Cape province.

Posted in Environment | No Comments »

TechTip: Wireless Scouting

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

You’re going on a trip, with your trusty wireless laptop. Where can you find wireless connections? Do a little scouting ahead of time, courtesy of Forbes at http://forbes.anchorfree.com/

Posted in Tech Tip | No Comments »

Global Warming and Marin

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

Very interesting piece in the Marin IJ by Mark Prado.

“A devastating flood sweeps through the Ross Valley on New Year’s Eve 2005. Dead tufted and horned puffins turn up on beaches near Point Reyes earlier this year.

Both could be signs that Marin is beginning to feel the impacts of global warming, experts said Wednesday at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration briefing on climate change.”

Global Warming Signs?

I haven’t found the link to the NOAA report he cites, and have asked him to send it on. In general, www.noaa.gov is a site worth knowing about.

Posted in Climate Change | No Comments »

Farmworker Organizer Beaten To Death

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

The backside of the US farm-labor market is hidden away in the mountains of Northern Mexico. Recruiters in the pay of Manpower of the Americas scour the dirt poor roads for workers to come to North Carolina, itself hired by 650 farmers associated as the North Carolina Growers Association. To get the recruiters’ attention bribes have helped — to the tune of $800 or so, about 100 hours of work at the prevailing wage.

When the Ohio based Farm Labor Organizing Committee announced to the mountain folk they would no longer have to pay the bribes one of the chief organizers was beaten to death in the union offices.

6,000 workers were sent to North Carolina by Manpower of the Americas alone. When the water is sprayed over the cucumbers, strawberries, beans and squash, a lot more dirt than just field dirt is being washed away. In all the yammering from the anti-immigrant right about criminal border jumpers we never hear about the criminal supply chains that keep us in our clean, cheap, healthy produce. This is no way to treat our Guest Workers.

Guest Workers In Bondage

Posted in Labor / Unions, Mexico | No Comments »

Carrier Groups in Persian Gulf

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

Following up on the post of a few days ago, the USS Bon Homme Richard (LHD 6), along with the super carriers USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) have entered the Persian Gulf (not the Arabian Gulf) along with all their supporting guided missile destroyers and cruisers.

Posted in Iran | No Comments »

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