Cheney’s old firm on shaky ground. ‘A Texas energy giant finds itself on the financial ropes despite spending years currying favor with Washington. Nevertheless, the company can still claim a special friend in the White House.

Enron? Nope. This would be Dallas’ ailing Halliburton Co., whose former chief executive is Vice President Dick Cheney.’ San Francisco Chronicle

Important Seymour Hersh story on a secret Pakistani airlift of 5000 or so Pakistani nationals and other non-Afghani fighters for the Taliban trapped in the Northern Alliance siege of Kunduz. The US assented to, or even assisted in, this evacuation after stalling on surrender negotiations. General Musharraf persuaded the US that his slender hold on power in Pakistan would be jeopardized if his people came home in body bags. Reportedly, the US was supposed to have, but has never gotten, access to interrogate those evacuated.

India, whose intelligence service is the source of this story, is incensed but wary of offending the US with a public denunciation. Diplomatic notes of protest to the US and the UK have reportedly been ignored. Indian intelligence is convinced that many of the airlifted fighters will be encouraged to infiltrate into the ongoing Kashmiri conflict; Musharraf cannot afford to have them remain in Pakistan.

Hersh quotes sources who feel that India’s enraged “jilted lover syndrome” over this and other evidence of the Bush Administration’s decision to make Pakistan its chief ally in the Afghanistan war has contributed to the escalation of Indian-Pakistani belligerency in the wake of the December 13th attack on the Parliament Building. The precariousness of the standoff between these two hairtrigger nuclear powers grows daily.

India’s grievances—over the Pakistani airlift, the continuing terrorism in Kashmir, and Musharraf’s new status with Washington—however heartfelt, may mean little when it comes to effecting a dramatic change of American policy in South Asia. India’s democracy and its tradition of civilian control over the military make it less of a foreign-policy priority than Pakistan. The Bush Administration has put its prestige, and American aid money, behind Musharraf, in the gamble—thus far successful—that he will continue to move Pakistan, and its nuclear arsenal, away from fundamentalism. The goal is to stop nuclear terrorism as well as political terrorism. It’s a tall order, and missteps are inevitable. Nonetheless, the White House remains optimistic. An Administration official told me that, given the complications of today’s politics, he still believed that Musharraf was the best Pakistani leader the Indians could hope for, whether they recognize it or not. “After him, they could only get something worse.” The New Yorker

The First Six Months of George W. Bush: “Whatever your beliefs, know what your president is doing.”

A new group blog from the estimable provocateur Dr. Menlo, American Samizdat, themed so: “underground word lines especially needed by progit-heavy U.S.” It will include contributions from invited participants including “Fred Pyen of Metascene, Andrew Aab of gmtPlus9, Kirsten Anderson (founder, owner and curator of Seattle’s first and best alternative art gallery, the Roq La Rue), Brooke Biggs (formerly purveyor of the Bush Files over at Mother Jones, who now does the highly recommended Bittershack)…”, that ol’ Bushwacker Fred Lapides, Adam Rice from randomWalks, Mark Woods of wood s lot, and Jim of jimwich. RU Sirius was invited too, but no sign of him yet…

I’m honored to have been among the invitees, and may post there from time to time. Dr. Menlo astutely reassured me in the invitation letter that he doesn’t intend this to take any more time than my preexisting weblogging activities — that would be like blood from a stone — but that I might get extra mileage from time to time from posting some of the items from FmH on issues that particularly incense me.

Brain disease shaped Boléro

Brain disease influenced Ravel’s last compositions including his Boléro, say researchers. Orchestral timbres came to dominate his late music at the expense of melodic complexity because the left half of his brain deteriorated, they suggest. Timbre is mainly the province of the brain’s right hemisphere.

French composer Maurice Ravel suffered from a mysterious progressive dementia from about 1927 when he was 52 years old. He gradually lost the ability to speak, write and play the piano. He composed his last work in 1932, and gave his last performance in 1933. He died in December 1937.

Neurologists have puzzled over his illness ever since. Nature

Gravity leaps into quantum world: ‘Far from falling smoothly, objects moving under gravity do so in lurching, quantum leaps, a French experiment has revealed. The finding confirms that gravity, like the Universe’s three other fundamental forces, can have a quantum effect.’ Nature

Stephen Metcalf: Little Darlin’ – Wes Anderson, the sequel to Quentin Tarantino — ‘Too much creative control too soon equals too little self-control, a hothouse delight in one’s own talent.’ Slate

Consumers fight back against new protected CDs — ‘All across the world, people are dropping newly purchased $17 CDs into their CD-ROM drives and freaking out. In some cases, the CD won’t play at all in their computers. In other instances, the CD cannot be ripped into digital files for use on MP3 players. And sometimes, the CD will play only with Windows Media Player.

For people who have grown accustomed to using their PC to play CDs, this is tantamount to fraud. In some countries, these so-called protected CDs have labels on them so that computer users know which ones to avoid. However, this is not the case in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom. The music industry’s head-on collision with technology has never been a thing of beauty, but I think that selling people CDs that are effectively broken has to be a new low…

Thanks to a site called Fat Chuck’s, irate consumers are compiling their specific knowledge of protected CDs (Chuck calls them corrupted ) into a database. You can search and browse the database as well as send in reports of the corrupted discs you buy so that others won’t make the same mistake. Even better, Fat Chuck–whoever he is–tries to verify the comments that people make, so you’re not just getting feedback from people who don’t like the CDs they buy for other reasons.’ CNet

The Hidden Suffering of the Psychopath: ‘… the psychopath has the image of a cold, heartless, inhuman being. But do all psychopaths show a complete lack of normal emotional capacities and empathy? Like healthy people, many psychopaths love their parents, spouse, children and pets in their own way, but have difficulty loving and trusting the rest of the world. Furthermore, psychopaths do suffer emotionally as a consequence of separation, divorce, death of a beloved person or dissatisfaction with their own deviant behavior.’ Psychiatric Times

E. Fuller Torrey, MD: The year neurology almost took over psychiatry:

In December 1880, the emerging profession of neurology almost absorbed psychiatry, which had established itself four decades earlier. The final confrontation was the culmination of an extremely bitter three-year battle, and the outcome was very much in doubt as representatives of each side prepared to testify before the New York State Senate Investigative Committee on Asylum Management. One possible outcome would be the recommendation that neurologists be given administrative control of the state asylums and, effectively, of psychiatry. Other states watched New York’s battle closely and seemed likely to follow its lead.

The Urge to Punish Cheats: Not Just Human, but Selfless. ‘In the ferocity of the public outcry, and the demand from even those with no personal stake in the Enron collapse that “justice” be done, some scientists see a vivid example of humanity’s evolved and deep-seated hatred of the Cheat. The Cheat is the transgressor of fair play, the violator of accepted norms, the sneak who smiles with Chiclet teeth while ladling from the community till.’ NY Times

Ethical Reporting ‘Journalists have long been accused of wielding power without responsibility. But a group of more than 200 UK-based editors, writers, producers and reporters have spent the last year acting on the Primo Levi principle: “If not us, who? If not now, when?” Together they have produced a book, Reporting the World, a guide to “ethical reporting” in times of conflict.’ MediaChannel

Write here, write now: “Soon you’ll be able to post a message in the air wherever you go. Bennett Daviss explores a weird new way to keep in touch:

… Pinning messages in mid-air, using the location’s Global Positioning System (GPS) reference, could become the next craze in communications. The messages are not actually kept in the air: they’re stored on an Internet page. But that page’s Web address is linked to coordinates on the Earth’s surface, rather than a person or organisation. As you move about, a GPS receiver in your mobile phone or PDA will check to see if a message has been posted on the website for that particular spot. If you’re in luck a snippet of info-left as text or a voice recording by someone who passed there previously-will pop up on your screen or be whispered into your earpiece.” New Scientist

“President Bush’s war Cabinet is drawing up a secret plan to topple Saddam Hussein as soon as six months from now.

A new Afghanistan-style strategy is being finalized to use Iraqi freedom fighters, backed by U.S. military forces, … a Bush administration adviser is reported to have said.

The adviser is quoted as saying that a “general consensus” has emerged among members of Bush’s inner circle that the dictator must be ousted.” New York Post […bastion of responsible journalism. -FmH]

Notes from a Blogger Pro demo at the Weblogger Interest Group meeting in Mountain View. This won’t mean much to those of you who don’t use Blogger, but I’m salivating.