Is Canonization Near? Yahoo! News

Bin Laden is Back Now, as Defender of Iraq:

“The prospect of a US war against Iraq is already stirring anti-Western resentment in the Middle East, analysts say, and bin Laden’s message appears an attempt to capitalize on that sentiment. Though the Al Qaeda leader has little sympathy for the determinedly secular Saddam Hussein, the enemy of his enemy is his friend.” Christian Science Monitor.

Robert Fisk: Bin Laden is alive. There can be no doubt about it.

“But the questions remain: where on earth is he, and why has he resurfaced now? …It took only a brief flurry of phone calls to the Middle East and south-west Asia for the most impeccable sources to confirm that Osama bin Laden is alive and that it was his gravelly voice that threatens the West in the short monologue first transmitted by the Arab Al-Jazeera television channel…. As usual, “US intelligence” – the heroes of 11 September who heard about Arabs learning to fly but didn’t quite manage to tell us in time – came up with rubbish for the American media. It may be him. It’s probably him. The gravelly voice may mean he’s been hurt. He is speaking fast because he could have been wounded by the Americans.

Untrue…” Independent UK

Experts Say a bin Laden Impostor Could Fool a Lot of People:

“The government’s assessment so far that it cannot be absolutely certain that the audiotape broadcast on Tuesday was recorded by Osama bin Laden does not surprise experts in the field of voice authentication. The science of using computers and linguists to identify individuals by their speech has improved dramatically in the last several years, but still involves considerable guess work and speculation, the experts say.” NY Times

“In past weeks Al Qaeda has relaunched itself,

a rebranding that presages a second phase in its war against the West. The clearest evidence for this shift is in three audiotapes that Al Qaeda has released since the beginning of October from its top leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri.

Most analysts both inside and outside the government believe those tapes to be authentic. On them, the two Qaeda leaders call for a wider war against not only the United States but the West in general, with a wider range of targets. Al Qaeda has chosen war against all “the Crusaders,” not just Americans. The front can be anywhere.

This shift was precipitated by Al Qaeda’s loss of its headquarters in Afghanistan. Deprived of a physical base, Al Qaeda has morphed into something at once less centralized, more widely spread and more virtual than its previous incarnation.” NY Times

Brendan O’Neill: “…how do we account for bin Laden’s boasts about Bali and other attacks?

It seems to me that bin Laden is playing on Western fears about his supposedly powerful position. Rather than coherently or centrally organising such attacks, bin Laden seems to be drawing them together in an attempt to convince us that he has a mission, and the means to carry it out. And where is he getting his ideas? From our obsessive belief that he is behind everything bad that happens around the world and our notion that he is as strong as ever.

It wasn’t bin Laden who first linked the Moscow theatre siege with the Bali nightclub bombing with the Yemen tanker attack with everything else – it was Western politicians and commentators. And it wasn’t bin Laden who first said an attack on Iraq would cause al-Qaeda to rise up and take vengeance (why would he, when al-Qaeda and Iraq hate the sight of each other?) – again it was Western commentators and politicians who floated that idea.

And now bin Laden seems to be weaving these things together in an attempt to frighten us in the West. Our belief that bin Laden is behind everything, combined with our overly panicky reaction to every attack or whisper of an attack, has ended up giving bin Laden the mission he has always lacked. After all, al-Qaeda was the organisation that destroyed the World Trade Centre without ever claiming responsibility for it or explaining why they did it, such was their nihilism and lack of clear war objectives.”

…and Rubik’s Cube to Fish: “National security advisor Condoleezza Rice has presented President Bush with a copy of “War and Peace” to read before his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Reportedly, it was her hope that the classic Tolstoy novel would give Bush a better insight into the complex Russian psyche, in preparation for delicate talks about nuclear arms reduction and the struggle against international terrorism.

Ms. Rice also left a Rubik’s Cube with her pet fish along with orders to complete it while she was away, and left a pad and pencil by the litter box hoping that her cat would come up with a formula for cold fusion.” The Specious Report [via Walker]

Despite the looming Republican majority, Tom Daschle says Democrats can block Alaska oil drilling by filibustering. Shutting off debate would require 60 votes for cloture. Planet Ark

Ghost in the Machine shares a blogiversary with FmH, I recall. Happy third, Kevin, and many happy returns!

What theologian are you?
A creation of Henderson

I have this uncanny experience with the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Invariably, a given Sunday has got either absolutely nothing that interests me in the least or it’s bursting with interesting pieces. This week it’s the latter:

• Bring It All Back Home: “McVeigh, the sniper — the gulf-war vet seems ready to supplant his Vietnam counterpart. But then maybe the postmodern war has made unstable vets of us all.”
• Fierce Entanglements: “For years, prompted by feminists, the strategy for dealing with domestic violence has been to get the men out of the women’s lives. But that’s not what all women want. How is anyone to understand the toughest love?”
• Preschool Meds: “The first clinical trial examining the effects of generic Ritalin on 3- to 5-year-old subjects raises questions not only about the safety of the drug but also about the ethics of testing on ever younger brains.”
• Who Needs the U.N. Security Council?: “1) The Bush administration, seeking international cover to do what it wants, and 2) everybody else, seeking to rein in the United States. Welcome to the New World Order.”

Jefferson Chase, author of Inciting Laughter: The Development of `Jewish Humor’ in 19th Century German Culture: ‘Does the European Left have a humor problem? “The current issue of Merkur, a highbrow German journal devoted to ”European thought,” explores this ticklish subject. Roughly half of the contributors address the topic of humor and 9/11, and along with the inevitable analyses of American humor after the terrorist attacks, there are a number of well-written polemics excoriating what the authors view as a fundamental hostility within the Islamic world toward Western ideas of fun – and the European Left’s tendency to sidestep or blame the West for this hostility. It’s an intriguing idea, for which the Merkur has gotten good reviews. But can fun really be the crux of a clash of civilizations? Is it worth thinking about humor as the largely metaphoric war on terrorism threatens to prompt a decidedly literal one in the Middle East?

(…)

So here, offered in the spirit of H.L. Mencken, as opposed to Jean Baudrillard, is a bit of advice for opponents of the Bush administration’s stance toward Iraq. The next time you stage a protest or write an article, can the anti-imperialism rhetoric and simply ask, ”Is the United States making itself look ridiculous?” That is the question, I think, which would keep the focus squarely where it belongs: on the enemies of laughter and liberal society whom we have every justification to abhor, belittle, and subdue.” Boston Globe

You can trademark words but not meaning.: ‘…(A)s soon as a phrase — especially a heartfelt and serious one — is uttered, it immediately starts morphing into something else, typically a parodic version of itself. When’s the last time anyone uttered “Ich bin ein Berliner,” “I am not a crook,” or “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” as something other than a punch line? “Let’s roll!” is itself taking on an increasingly curious afterlife as the specifics of 9/11 recede from public memory.

Ironically, it’s the phrase’s official guardians who are transforming “Let’s roll!” into a generalized “lifestyle” statement. Earlier this year, the Todd M. Beamer Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Beamer’s widow, raised eyebrows when it trademarked the slogan, both to control its usage and to raise money for programs that “seek…to equip children experiencing family trauma to make heroic choices every day.” But the foundation has done more than just sell its own “Let’s roll!” paraphernalia as a fund raising tool. It’s pursued a series of odd licensing choices that strain the credulity of even the least cynical observers.’ Reason

“President Bush’s top national security advisers have begun discussing the creation of a new, domestic intelligence agency that would take over responsibility for counterterrorism spying and analysis from the FBI, according to U.S. government officials and intelligence experts.

The high-level debate reflects a widespread concern that the FBI has been unable to transform itself from a law enforcement agency into an intelligence-gathering unit able to detect and thwart terrorist plans in the United States. The FBI has admitted it has not yet completed the cultural sea change necessary to turn its agents into spies, but the creation of a new agency is firmly opposed by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who has said he believes the bureau can do the job.” Washington Post

Well, whaddya know? Tom Daschle makes the most heavily publicized remarks to date from so senior an official about how the Administration may be failing at TWOT (the War-on-Terrorism®), and quick as a bunny the government announces a “spectacular” threat and the capture of a senior al Qaeda operative. Unfortunately, they can’t give those of us who might be a little, ummm, dubious any details. “Officials declined to identify him or where he was captured, but they did say he was one of the top dozen Qaeda operatives, and so was considered a significant catch.” NY Times [And pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. — FmH] Related: White House Defensive After Terror Warnings Arizona Republic

“From 25 to 30 million healthy, middle-aged Americans are at far higher risk than they and their doctors understand them to be, because we’re not taking inflammatory factors into account.” ‘An inexpensive blood test for a protein linked to artery disease may be better than a cholesterol test at predicting a person’s risk for a heart attack or stroke, researchers are reporting today.

The test, for the substance, C-reactive protein, may help identify people who have an increased risk even though they do not have high cholesterol. About half of the people with heart disease have normal cholesterol levels, a finding that has led many researchers to suspect that other factors must play a role in cardiovascular disease.’ The large study, reported in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, showed that high CRP levels correlated much better with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality than the lipid studies on which we currently rely.

Many researchers think chronic inflammation plays a major part in artery disease, heart attacks and strokes. Inflammation inside arteries is thought to contribute to heart attacks and strokes by causing cholesterol deposits in the artery walls to rupture and bleed. Blood clots then form, blocking the vessels and cutting off the blood supply to portions of the heart or brain.

C-reactive protein, Dr. Topol said, “is a window into the process of arterial inflammation, a very important insight that we otherwise can’t get.”

Yet, it is unclear yet if lowering a concerning CRP level will decrease cardiovascular risks. NY Times

The show is an only slightly fictionalized version of Mr. David’s real life in Los Angeles. Most of the dialogue is improvised, adding a cinéma vérité flavor to the show.

As on “Seinfeld,” the NBC show Mr. David created with Jerry Seinfeld in 1990, Larry and his sidekicks are mostly idle, self-absorbed and argumentative. But this show is even more uncensored, veined with the pessimism, loony narcissism and political incorrectness that are at the core of Mr. David’s comedy…

Mr. David, 55, a former stand-up comic best known for lashing out at inattentive audiences, is now the critics’ darling, an auteur whose creativity has not yet reached its peak.

His comedy is stripped of all sentimentality, which is part of its subversive appeal. When Larry’s mother is dying, his father does not inform him, saying his mother didn’t want to “bother” him while he was shooting a film in New York with Mr. Scorsese. He is shocked, but quickly realizes he can use his mother’s death as an excuse to avoid bores, cancel a dinner party and persuade his wife to have sex. NY Times

The article suggests that Larry David’s growing popularity may be a coattails phenomenon, as the show follows The Sopranos in HBO’s Sunday evening schedule. I’ve seen this thing a few times and, interestingly, I think it shares something with the latter beyond a timeslot. While most of the critics writing about the attraction of The Sopranos take the obligatory moral stand at the outset that, of course, they don’t find the characters appealing, I think that the more complicated challenge of watching this show is that, for some (or many), Tony Soprano at least is a sympathetic character. [There; I’ve said it. — FmH] One can even relate to his venality. The viewer ‘s dissonant experience of principled abhorrence clashing with likeability makes for interesting viewing, and I have had a similar experience in finding Larry David appealingly, preposterously hilarious while his preoccupations and lifestyle empty and morally vacuous. I wouldn’t take the parallels too far (in case you want to quibble with me), but it struck me suddenly. [Now Seinfeld, on the other hand, which I’ll admit I only watched perhaps twice or three times in total, was empty and meaningless without any appealing characters, IMHO. And it wasn’t funny. — FmH] As a psychiatrist, much of my initial interest in The Sopranos arose from the well-depicted psychotherapy plotline interwoven into it. Wouldn’t it be interesting to be a fly on the wall in Larry David’s shrink’s office too?

Two cases of plague at a New York City hospital turned out not to be bioterrorism, but they provided an opportunity to test how the city health system would handle an intentional attack.

The good news: Doctors say the system worked.

Hospital staff and health officials applied lessons from last year’s anthrax attacks to diagnose and treat the two patients quickly — and to prevent unnecessary public fear over the obscure disease.

The bubonic plague cases, diagnosed in a New Mexico couple who showed up at Beth Israel Medical Center on Nov. 5, were the first in New York City in at least a century.

“This was scary. Even the doctors had never seen a case,” said Dr. Beth Raucher, an epidemiologist at Beth Israel Medical Center, where the two patients were treated. “But everybody did what they had to do.” Reuters Health

“A customer in an international hamburger chain outlet in western Sweden lost his appetite when he discovered the restaurant’s toilet seats were being washed in its dishwasher alongside the kitchen utensils.

The man noticed on a visit to the bathroom in the restaurant in Arvika, Sweden, that all the toilet seats had been removed.

When he asked staff about the missing seats, an employee took them out of a dishwasher where they had been cleaned together with trays and kitchen utensils, the Swedish TT news agency reported on Thursday, quoting the regional newspaper…

The employee tried to reassure the customer by saying that the freshly washed toilet seat would be warm and pleasant to sit on.” Reuters Oddly Enough