Devastating ‘Get Your War On’ sequence from last week. This guy is a national treasure.

Media face difficult call on reporters in war zone: ‘Defense Department officials have launched a quiet campaign in recent weeks to clear reporters out of Baghdad, issuing warnings that suggest an Iraqi conflict would be far more intense than the 1991 gulf war.

“If your template is Desert Storm, you’ve got to imagine something much, much different,” Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters recently. “I think that I would just be very, very careful about how you do your business. It’s not going to be like 1991.” ‘ Chicago Tribune

Air Force Base Authorizes ‘deadly Force’ Against Trespassing Protesters: “Security forces at Vandenberg Air Force Base are allowed to use “deadly force” in some cases if any anti-war demonstrators infiltrate the military complex, officials said.

Some anti-war activists have announced plans to trespass in hopes of disturbing Vandenberg’s mission and to vandalize sensitive equipment they believe helps the war effort.” Tampa Bay Online Are we headed for an early Kent State scenario in resistance to the Iraq War?

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When you say “black box”, the crash data recorder retrieved after airline disasters immediately comes to mind.

So, it may come as a surprise to learn that millions of cars and trucks are also equipped with a similar device imbedded (sic) deep in the airbag module. Boston Channel

There has been a lot of talk about mobile phone safety, but it has largely focused on distraction while driving as well as the possibility that cell phone use might cause health problems.

But now there’s another reason to be concerned. Mobile phones in Japan and Europe have been linked to harassment and sexual exploitation of both children and adults. — Larry Magid, PCAnswer

Cashier’s checks, Iraqi plea add two new flavors to old story: Two new flavors of the age-old Nigerian e-mail scam are making the rounds, and at least one of them appears to be gaining traction. Hundreds of victims have recently fallen for a variation that plays upon people’s misunderstanding about how bank cashier’s checks work. Meanwhile, other scammers are trying to take advantage of heightened interest in Iraq, posing as frightened Iraqis trying to move money out of that country before hostilities begin. The scam also took a deadly turn last month, when a victim in the Czech Republic allegedly shot and killed a Nigerian diplomat after losing his life savings to the scam. MSNBC

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Paul Krugman: Aboard the U.S.S. Caine, it was the business with the strawberries that finally convinced the doubters that something was amiss with the captain. Is foreign policy George W. Bush’s quart of strawberries?

Over the past few weeks there has been an epidemic of epiphanies. There’s a long list of pundits who previously supported Bush’s policy on Iraq but have publicly changed their minds. None of them quarrel with the goal; who wouldn’t want to see Saddam Hussein overthrown? But they are finally realizing that Mr. Bush is the wrong man to do the job. And more people than you would think. NY Times op-ed

There are a lot worse things in country music than your wife leaving you or your dog dying. There’s stations not playing your music because you done gone and said some things against the president. CNN

With a force only one-third the size of the one that liberated Kuwait 12 years ago, U.S. commanders poised to attack Iraq have been given a far more ambitious mission: March hundreds of miles to Baghdad, neutralize the Iraqi military, overthrow President Saddam Hussein and then prevent a country the size of California from disintegrating into chaos.

(…)

The aspects of the operation that most worry planners here, and Pentagon insiders and experts in the United States, are the emphasis on lightning, simultaneous operations that could result in “friendly fire” incidents; the dependence on a 350-mile supply line; and the heavy reliance on Special Operations troops behind enemy lines. Overhanging the entire operation is the prospect that Iraq could use chemical or biological weapons. The other major fear is that U.S. forces could be bogged down in an urban battle that could turn Baghdad into a modern Stalingrad — a possibility that has resulted in some troops here being issued battle axes and battering rams. Washington Post

During the past week, WHO has received reports of more than 150 new suspected cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), an atypical pneumonia for which cause has not yet been determined. Reports to date have been received from Canada, China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Early today, an ill passenger and companions who travelled from New York, United States, and who landed in Frankfurt, Germany were removed from their flight and taken to hospital isolation…

There is presently no recommendation for people to restrict travel to any destination. However in response to enquiries from governments, airlines, physicians and travellers, WHO is now offering guidance for travellers, airline crew and airlines.

US policy could threaten international trade, aides warn: “In a break from years of unwavering public faith in the United States, top officials at the World Trade Organization are worried that the Bush administration’s go-it-alone policy is threatening international trade.

In the normally closed, clubby world of the WTO, envoys and officials said they feared that American moves within the organization and toward a war in Iraq would weaken respect for international rules and lead to serious practical consequence for the world economy and business.” IHT

“A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document.” LA Times

[free registration required; if you don’t want to register, view the article at truthout instead]

Sent from a friend: “What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment,

it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person who left us

almost unnoticed last week: Larry La Prise, the man who wrote “The Hokey

Pokey”, who died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his

family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in, and then

the trouble started.” [thanks, Abby!]

Bring Them Home Now! “Bring Them Home Now is a network of concerned Americans who wish to protect our men and women in uniform. We believe that the proposed war on Iraq is unnecessary and immoral. Under such circumstances the only way to be pro-soldier is to be anti-war.”

Help get the

billboard put up.

How to talk to your children about the Elizabeth Smart case

Silent Soldiers on a silver screen

Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream

Unpaid actors of the mystery

The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free

And what’s this got to do with me

I declare the war is over

It’s over, it’s over

Drums are drizzling on a grain of sand

Fading rhythms of a fading land

Prove your courage in the proud parade

Trust your leaders where mistakes are almost never made

And they’re afraid that I’m afraid

I’m afraid the war is over

It’s over, it’s over

Angry artists painting angry signs

Use their vision just to blind the blind

Poisoned players of a grizzly game

One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame

Pardon me if I refrain

I declare the war is over

It’s over, it’s over

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride

Serve your country in her suicide

Find the flags so you can wave goodbye

But just before the end even treason might be worth a try

This country is to young to die

I declare the war is over

It’s over, it’s over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn

And they’re whistling marches as they mow the lawn

And the gargoyles only sit and grieve

The gypsy fortune teller told me that we’d been deceived

You only are what you believe

I believe the war is over

It’s over, it’s over.

—Phil Ochs (1968)

The day the war starts, organizers vow to shut down financial districts — and even infiltrate a key U.S. Air Force base. Salon

“The Cassini spacecraft has photographed an extraordinary dark cloud on Jupiter twice as big as Earth itself.” NASA

to break out—not in Iraq, but in the Bush administration. I’m wondering what’s going through Colin Powell’s mind. The secretary of State is looking pretty grim these days, like a man going through the motions.” MSNBC

“If you choose to use herbal supplements, how can you reap the benefits they offer without risking your health and wasting your money? Ask yourself these questions… [more].” A thoughtful list of criteria on which to base your assessment of potential health claims of herbal supplements. PersonalHealthZone

Boycott Brand America “from the moment the war begins and to the best of my ability until the empire learns to listen.” AdBusters [Buy French?? — FmH]

The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: “Who cares.. ..They’ve been warned.”

“The constantly updated catalogue

of Entrances to Hell in and around the UK.” [via bOing bOing]

The US Supreme Court stops what would have been the 300th execution since the death penalty was restored.  BBC News

Sorting out the hawks and doves in the presidential field: When it comes to war in Iraq, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates are all over the map. Howard Dean is against war in Iraq but in favor of considering war in North Korea. Bob Graham is against attacking Iraq unless we also attack Hamas. John Kerry is in favor of war if it works out but against it if it doesn’t. It’s gotten to where you can’t tell the players without a score card. So, here’s a score card. We’ve checked out the candidates’ positions on four key questions and three congressional votes, and we’ve ranked them in order of hawkishness, from most to least.. — William Saletan and Avi Zenilman, Slate

From Danklife: “FmH is first up against the wall when the shiny black boots go marching.”

…a fool to have thought he would be an equal partner in the second American century? Merrie Olde England joins Rumsfeld’s ‘Old Europe’, relegated to the dustbin of history? Guardian/UK editorial

even if Iraqis dance in the streets. One woman was in the Bali bombing, her boyfriend blown to bits. One mother had three sons at the front in the Gulf. One woman’s husband was a human shield at an Iraqi oil installation – would Blair promise not to bomb him? He writhed. An Iraqi victim of Saddam begged him not to attack her people. Worst of all, one mother lost her only child in the World Trade Centre and could not bear any other mother to suffer her agony. Their vehemence left him with a hunted air, his eyes flickering here and there, looking for escape. What’s more, against all the rules of balance, Trevor McDonald himself weighed in with “Aren’t you just Bush’s poodle?” questions. It was unfair and impossible. The war arguments are finely balanced – moral cause claimed by both sides – yet Downing Street is on the back foot every day now.Platitudes are crashing all around them, old diplomatic certainties among the broken crockery. Everyone is flying blind and now the British prime minister is at the mercy of a swindling old arms-dealing poseur in the Elysée, and even worse, the power-crazed global bullies in the White House. Guardian/UK

I love French Fries and won’t call them anything else (even though they were invented in Belgium). I eat Camembert and Roquefort, and I can’t do without French bread (because without French bread there would be no poor boys). I love Bordeaux, Sauternes, Cognac, Armagnac and Calvados. Bring on the P�rigord truffles and foie gras d’oie with gingerbread pain perdu (which is, of course, French toast!) and a cinnamon-caramel-fig sauce… yum yum yum). I have French doors in my house. I like to French kiss. I enjoy the sound of the French horn (although it’s properly called the “Horn in F”). Yep, I love the French, rude waiters and all. They can keep Jerry Lewis and that whole not-bathing thing, though. Looka!

I’m in total accord, Chuck, except with the part about Jerry Lewis.

Editor & Publisher generates a list of questions that “should have” been asked at Dubya’s press conference last Thursday. As if there’s a ghost of a chance there would have been anything other than a rote, evasive non-answer. He, indeed, was asked questions equally probing, calling for equal candor; for example, I counted four ways reporters posed essentially the same question to him about why the rest of the world thinks he’s so wrong if he thinks he’s so right, to paraphrase. Junior just wasn’t up to answering that one either. Perhaps it was the drugs.

Paul Krugman puts his money where his mouth is. With war looming, it’s time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I’m terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

From a fiscal point of view the impending war is a lose-lose proposition. If it goes badly, the resulting mess will be a disaster for the budget. If it goes well, administration officials have made it clear that they will use any bump in the polls to ram through more big tax cuts, which will also be a disaster for the budget. Either way, the tide of red ink will keep on rising. NY Times

“After more than a million years of computation by more than 4 million computers worldwide, the SETI@home screensaver that crunches data in search of intelligent signals from space has produced a list of candidate radio sources that deserve a second look.

Three members of the SETI@home team will head to Puerto Rico this month to point the Arecibo radio telescope at up to 150 spots identified as the source of possible signals from intelligent civilizations.” spaceref.com

Massive salary dispute threatens future of the show. “Lawyers don’t say things like this, but I’ll say it: He can’t win; he’s just dead; he is dead, he just won’t lie down.” NY Times

“A site dedicated to fiction and film depicting the end of the world, apocalypse and nuclear war. Plague, famine, drought and war all feature….. Populations decimated, survivors struggling to re-build after the apocalyptic event…” Study up now, be the most prepared on your block (and, no, this isn’t Tom Ridge’s site).

10 most dangerous intersections in the U.S. Also, search for the dangerous intersections near you.

Blair may find it politically impossible to commit UK military to the US-led offensive on Iraq. CBS News (Well, there’s always the Spanish!)

House cafeterias change names for ‘french fries’ and ‘french toast’. Much blinked to already; others lampoon this because of the waste of money, but more simply it is an embarrassment to come from the same country. CNN

“Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the world’s most determined peace activists, is imploring Pope John Paul II to go to Baghdad as he is the “only person on earth who can stop this war” in Iraq. (see below)

Caldicott has organized a letter writing and e-mail petition, urging people around the world to write to the 82-year-old Pope asking him to travel to Baghdad and stay there until peace has been achieved.” CommonDreams

There’s more: “Deepak Chopra… proposed Wednesday that the Pope, the Dalai Lama and himself serve as human shields to avoid bombing in Iraq and to rid the world of Saddam Hussein.” GoMemphis

“The first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international unity.” Times of London [thanks, walker]

over Iraq war plans Reuters

“Men who are fanatical about cars identify vehicles using the same brain circuitry used to recognise faces, new research shows.” New Scientist

I’ve often suspected that car designers, consciously or unconsciously, evoke facial expressions in the front end design of car models — or is it just my confused neurological processing?

Secretive U.S. ‘counter – disinformation’ office back

A Cold War-era office with a shadowy name and a colorful history of exposing Soviet deceptions is back in business, this time watching Iraq.

The Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team’s moniker is more impressive than its budget. It’s a crew of two toiling in anonymity at the State Department, writing reports they are prohibited by law from disseminating to the U.S. public.

The operation has challenged some fantastic claims over the years — a U.S. military lab invented AIDS, rich Americans kidnapped foreign babies for their organs, the CIA plotted to kill Pope John Paul II.

Since the office reopened in October, it’s been responding to Iraqi claims about America, which tend to be more plausible and sometimes remain in dispute. Salon

On this day in 1923, James Joyce wrote to his patron, Harriet Weaver, that he had just begun “Work in Progress,” the book which would become Finnegans Wake sixteen years later:

“Can’t hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can’t hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffeying waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won’t moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia’s daughter-sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who were Shem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now! Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!” Today in Literature

Use of veto by permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: French President President Jacques Chirac said Monday that France was prepared to veto the U.S.-backed resolution on Iraq if necessary, joining Russia in saying it would vote against giving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a March 17 deadline to disarm. Chirac, the most determined opponent of authorizing war, seemed to kill the chance the U.S-backed ultimatum would pass, saying his country, which has veto power in the Security Council, would vote against any resolution leading to war. The six undecided members of the U.N. Security Council weighed delaying a deadline for Iraqi compliance to April 17, a month later than demanded in a U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution, diplomats said on Monday. Russian Foreign Minster Igor Ivanov said his country would vote against the U.S. and British resolution in its current form, but left open the possibility of approving an ammended proposal. Britain would consider a compromise U.N. resolution that extends an ultimatum to Hussein beyond the March 17 deadline already proposed, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman said Monday. Columbia Newsblaster summary

full of juicy tidbits.

Could you stand listening to this? (scroll down)

(A)s the country braces for war, some liberal Democrats in Congress are preparing to introduce articles of impeachment against Bush and perhaps members of his Cabinet, according to lawmakers and congressional aides.

At least one senior House Democrat has produced a draft impeachment resolution. It accuses Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft of more than a dozen “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including bombing civilians in Afghanistan and constitutional violations in the domestic war on terrorism. National Review

by Francis A. Boyle, professor of law, University of Illinois School of Law. CounterPunch

Reviewed: The Philosopher’s Dog

by Raimond Gaita: “Stephen Law enjoys Raimond Gaita’s attempt to get inside the heads of animals.” Guardian/UK

Let me put it succinctly: I don’t think serious education is possible in America. Anything you touch in the annals of knowledge is a foe of this system of commerce and profit, run amok. The only education that can be permitted is if it acculturates to the status quo, as happens in the expensive schools, or if it produces people to police and enforce the status quo, as in the state school where I teach. Significantly, at my school, which is a third-tier university, servicing working-class, first-generation college graduates who enter lower-etchelon jobs in the civil service, education, or middle management, the favored academic concentrations are communications, criminal justice, and social work–basically how to mystify, cage, and control the masses. Democratic Underground

Daniel Dennett tells

…a story you probably haven’t heard, about how a team of American researchers inadvertently introduced a virus into a third world country they were studying. They were experts in their field, and they had the best intentions; they thought they were helping the people they were studying, but in fact they had never really seriously considered whether what they were doing might have ill effects. It had not occurred to them that a side-effect of their research might be damaging to the fragile ecology of the country they were studying. The virus they introduced had some dire effects indeed: it raised infant mortality rates, led to a general decline in the health and wellbeing of women and children, and, perhaps worst of all, indirectly undermined the only effective political force for democracy in the country, strengthening the hand of the traditional despot who ruled the nation. These American researchers had something to answer for, surely, but when confronted with the devastation they had wrought, their response was frustrating, to say the least: they still thought that what they were doing was, all things considered, in the interests of the people, and declared that the standards by which this so-called devastation was being measured were simply not appropriate.

These researchers were not biologists intent on introducing new strains of rice, nor were they agri-business chemists testing new pesticides, or doctors trying out vaccines that couldn’t legally be tested in the U.S.A. They were postmodernist science critics and other multiculturalists who were arguing, in the course of their professional researches on the culture and traditional “science” of this country, that Western science was just one among many equally valid narratives, not to be “privileged” in its competition with native traditions which other researchers–biologists, chemists, doctors and others–were eager to supplant. The virus they introduced was not a macromolecule but a meme (a replicating idea): the idea that science was a “colonial” imposition, not a worthy substitute for the practices and beliefs that had carried the third-world country to its current condition. Butterflies and Wheels

Hottest new headset for your cellular phone.

Mizuko Ito takes a look at the keitai generation in Japanese society, where we see perhaps the highest penetration of mobile media capability and reliance and with it, “sweeping changes to how we coordinate, communicate and share information.” I was led to this piece via bOing bOing, which led with the observation that leaving your phone at home is “the new taboo.” Instant mobile availability has also changed the dynamics of meeting-making; the appointment appears to be becoming a thing of the past. No one calls anyone’s home numbers anymore either, leading to a sense of parents’ losing control over their children’s social contacts. Interestingly, one “knocks before entering”, i.e. sends a text message asking if the recipient is available to talk on the phone before the intrusion of a sudden phone call (I wish my wife learned to do that sometimes…). Being in persistent contact with one’s intimates means a person has a “portable virtual peer space” with them at all times, changing the parameters of privacy and anonymity profoundly. Online Journalism Review

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh writes in The New Yorker about Richard Perle, suggesting politely he might have a conflict of interest between his role as a primary defense department advisor and proponent of the current war fever on the one hand and his being a principal partner in a venture capital firm called Trireme Partners which was formed to capitalize on fear of terrorism by investing in goods and services of value to homeland security and defense. In response, Perle says that Hersh is “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.” IMHO, Hersh ought to take it as a compliment…

[I’ve received this a number of times already via email. — FmH]

Here is a one question multiple choice test.

In the answer you will find the

value of bombing Iraq.

World History 101 – Mid-term exam

This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question (so you better

get it right!) Here’s a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed

since >the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum:

China 1945-46

Korea 1950-53

China 1950-53

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-60

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Peru 1965

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991-99

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

———————————————-

NOW HERE IS THE QUESTION:

In how many of these instances did a FREE government, respectful of

human rights, occur as a direct result? Choose one of the following:

(a) 0

(b) zero

(c) none

(d) not a one

(e) a whole number between -1 and +1

Addendum: A reader quibbles with me:

“Eliot, I think you’re slipping. First of all, like every e-chain letter I have ever received, this one is not true, or it at least leaves out as much as it leaves in. I think. In particular, I don’t think we ever bombed Nicaragua–we did support the Contras, but I don’t think we ever bombed the place. In Grenada, Reagan’s ridiculous interference amounted to the removal of our med students, and the local strong man. Panama? I think it was a democracy, and remained so. Yugoslavia? It’s more democratic than it was.

I agree with your intent, but feel it is incumbent on us to try to tell the truth. Even if the truth is complicated. This makes us better than our opponents.”

He’s right; I’m guilty of intent, but should not be distorting in its service. Here, perhaps abit more precise, is what Molly Ivins said in a similar vein this week:

In the more potentially disastrous category of “What happens when we win?” the numbers are not good. Of the 20 regime changes forced by U.S. military action in the last century, only five produced democracies; and of the five unilateral actions, only one produced a democracy — Panama. Afghanistan, the closest proximate case, is not looking good beyond Kabul.

You Say War Crimes

‘ “Whether I hate Saddam or not, and I’m not saying I do,” one man told me quietly during my recent trip to Iraq, “I hate America – the government, not the people – for what it did and is going to do to our children.”

His is not a lone voice. The vast majority of the Iraqi people I spoke to believe the United States committed war crimes during the last Gulf war in 1991 by using depleted uranium (DU) weapons deliberately to cause cancer and inflict birth defects for generations to come.’ — Terry Allen, New Scientist [via AlterNet]

Maureen Dowd: The Xanax Cowboy:

You might sum up the president’s call to war Thursday night as “Message: I scare.”

As he rolls up to America’s first pre-emptive invasion, bouncing from motive to motive, Mr. Bush is trying to sound rational, not rash. Determined not to be petulant, he seemed tranquilized.

But the Xanax cowboy made it clear that Saddam is going to pay for 9/11. Even if the fiendish Iraqi dictator was not involved with Al Qaeda, he has supported “Al Qaeda-type organizations,” as the president fudged, or “Al Qaeda types” or “a terrorist network like Al Qaeda.”

We are scared of the world now, and the world is scared of us. (It’s really scary to think we are even scaring Russia and China.)

She goes on:

It still confuses many Americans that, in a world full of vicious slimeballs, we’re about to bomb one that didn’t attack us on 9/11 (like Osama); that isn’t intercepting our planes (like North Korea); that isn’t financing Al Qaeda (like Saudi Arabia); that isn’t home to Osama and his lieutenants (like Pakistan); that isn’t a host body for terrorists (like Iran, Lebanon and Syria). NY Times op-ed

Saying No to War. Not that it matters to the Cabal, and it certainly is a day late and a dollar short, but the Paper of Record comes out against the war. Citing the evidence of Iraqi cooperation with the inspection process under duress, the editorial notes,

“By adding hundreds of additional inspectors, using the threat of force to give them a free hand and maintaining the option of attacking Iraq if it tries to shake free of a smothering inspection program, the United States could obtain much of what it was originally hoping to achieve.. Had Mr. Bush managed the showdown with Iraq in a more measured manner, he would now be in a position to rally the U.N. behind that bigger, tougher inspection program, declare victory and take most of the troops home.”

Of course, this takes at face value that it is disarming an imminent threat that Bush seeks in Iraq; the Times does know better. It acknowledges that Bush’s demand for regime change paints him into a corner where he cannot accept Saddam’s compliance under duress, although the tone of the editorial suggests it thinks this was an indication of Bush’s lack of skill rather than what is more likely, that it is with full intent. Bush’s only mistake may be that he is not craftier at hiding his intent.

Similarly, The Times notes dysadministration waffling on the rationale for the invasion among

• self-defense against imminent danger (which the Times dismisses),
  
• Iraq’s refusal to obey UN orders to disarm (an argument that obviously cannot be made when the UN itself believes disarmament is occurring),
  
• and the transformation of Iraq into a showplace democracy that will inspire the rest of the Middle East to follow suit (a notion so ridiculous that it is not worth the column inches the Times spends addressing it).
  

Again, it appears that the Times takes this waffling simply as an indication of confused thinking and lack of clarity to our intent rather than simply an ineptitude about what the dysadministration tells us when it can’t fully disclose what it is really after in Iraq. Will we ever see a NY Times editorial with a headline like “If You’re Going to Lie to Us, Mr. President, At Least Get Your Story Straight”?

The piece concludes by citing the longterm damage to our alliances and the irreparable weakening of the United Nations. No mention is made of several other important important potential consequences. Pity; when midtown Manhattan is taken out by the next massive terrorist backlash against this latest US arrogance, the New York Times might no longer be there to remind Bush that it was his fault.

Court Reverses Ruling on Jane Akre’s rBGH Suit:

Accepting a defense rejected by three other Florida state judges on at least six separate motions, a Florida appeals court has reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information.

In a six-page written decision released February 14, the court essentially ruled the journalist never stated a valid whistle- blower claim because, they ruled, it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

Now there’s a court that knows what it is talking about. It doesn’t usrprise me, but is to their shame, that the lower courts had ruled differently. We have freedom of the press, yes — if you own the medium. Let this be a lesson to anyone who gets their news from Fox in particular and — I shudder to go with the larger generalization — the mass media at all…

Denny Henke, from the Memphis Digital Arts Cooperative, starts weblogging. Welcome in, Denny. Give him a look.

The trouble with weblogs: “People used to worry about the government compiling a database of everything they knew about you and everything you did. But who’d have thought we’d be so keen to keep updating our own entries?” — Dave Green, co-editor of the irreverent technology weekly Need To Know, Guardian/UK

Blogging’s Killer App. wholelottanothing

or a Just War?

What about America’s world standing if we don’t go to war after such a great deployment of military forces in the region? The heartfelt sympathy and friendship offered to America after the 9/11 attacks, even from formerly antagonistic regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral and domineering policies have brought international trust in our country to its lowest level in memory. American stature will surely decline further if we launch a war in clear defiance of the United Nations. But to use the presence and threat of our military power to force Iraq’s compliance with all United Nations resolutions. — Jimmy Carter, NY Times

On the subject of North Korea, there are two groups of people in Washington today: People who are terrified, and people who aren’t paying attention. Unfortunately, the latter category seems to include the president of the United States. — Peter Beinart, The New Republic

Related: Pyongyang: We’ll put a torch to New York:

North Korea would launch a ballistic missile attack on the United States if Washington made a pre-emptive strike against the communist state’s nuclear facility, the man described as Pyongyang’s “unofficial spokesman” claimed yesterday.

Kim Myong-chol, who has links to the Stalinist regime, told reporters in Tokyo that a US strike on the nuclear facility at Yongbyon “means nuclear war”. Sydney Morning Herald

Also: North Korean Fliers Said to Have Sought Hostages:

The North Korean fighter jets that intercepted an unarmed American spy plane over the Sea of Japan last weekend were trying to force the aircraft to land in North Korea and seize its crew, a senior defense official said today.

One of the four North Korean MIG’s came within 50 feet of the American plane, an Air Force RC-135S Cobra Ball aircraft, and the pilot made internationally recognized hand signals to the American flight crew to follow him, presumably back to his home base, the official said. NY Times

Paul Krugman asks, ‘Why does our president condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has ‘oderint dum metuant’ really become our motto?” So reads the resignation letter of John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat who recently left the Foreign Service in protest against Bush administration policy.

“Oderint dum metuant” translates, roughly, as “Let them hate as long as they fear.” It was a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Caligula, and may seem over the top as a description of current U.S. policy. But this week’s crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations – a crisis that has been almost ignored north of the border – suggests that it is a perfect description of President George W. Bush’s attitude toward the world.’ NY Times op-ed [via IHT]

“American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul — reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa’ida operatives.” Independent/UK

“reveal(ing) further details of its plans to explore the Moon – the first unmanned probe could be launched by 2005, say officials. They also hinted that the motivation for the missions is to mine the Moon’s resources.

The lunar program, named Chang’e after a legend about a fairy that visits the moon, would be in three phases. First an orbiter would be sent to the Moon, followed by a lander, and then finally a sample return craft.” New Scientist

“Google, properly leveraged, has more intrusion potential than any hacking tool,” said hacker Adrian Lamo, who recently sounded the alarm.

The hacks are made possible by Web-enabled databases. Because database-management tools use canned templates to present data on the Web, typing specific phrases into Internet search tools often leads a user directly to those templated pages. Wired

Martin Amis: “The first war of the Age of Proliferation will not be an oil-grab so much as an expression of pure power.” Guardian/UK

An action alert from the International Rivers Network: “The Icelandic government plans to construct a large hydropower project in Iceland’s Eastern Highlands, one of Europe’s largest remaining wilderness areas, in order to supply power to a US aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa. The “Kahranjukar Project” involves building miles of roads, boring a series of tunnels, diverting dozens of rivers to create 3 reservoirs and erect nine dams, including one that is 630 feet — Europe’s highest.” CorpWatch.org

“Iraq said on Sunday chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix might visit Baghdad on March 17, a deadline proposed by the United States and Britain for Iraq to disarm or face military action.” MSNBC

Powell Says U.S. in Striking Distance of Iraq Vote. ABC.

“A devastating new weapon will be part of the US’s massive assault on Iraq. …(I)ts use is likely to destroy civilian lives in their thousands.” Opendemocracy Read this thoughtfully and figure out what you think about explosives that have a blast as devastating as a tactical nuclear weapon although without the firestorm or the radiation. Some claim they are ‘humane’; for example, there would be no barriers to the invading army sweeping in with medics to attend to the casualties immediately, unlike in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then, of course, there’s the argument that they will spare lives overall if they are effective armour-killers and bring the war to a more rapid close (as they said about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan as well). Of course, you would have to buy several premises to accept the use of these things — that the war is legitimate in the first place; and that we might otherwise have to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman: A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse… (abstract):

“Many lay persons and professionals believe that child sexual abuse (CSA) causes intense harm, regardless of gender, pervasively in the general population. The authors examined this belief by reviewing 59 studies based on college samples. Meta-analyses revealed that students with CSA were, on average, slightly less well adjusted than controls. However, this poorer adjustment could not be attributed to CSA because family environment (FE) was consistently confounded with CSA, FE explained considerably more adjustment variance than CSA, and CSA-adjustment relations generally became nonsignificant when studies controlled for FE. Self-reported reactions to and effects from CSA indicated that negative effects were neither pervasive nor typically intense, and that men reacted much less negatively than women. The college data were completely consistent with data from national samples. Basic beliefs about CSA in the general population were not supported.”

This 1998 study in Psychological Monitor was so scientifically-correct-politically-incorrect that it unleashed a firestorm, which can be followed online for your edification. A Congressional resolution condemned the research and was decried by eminent social psychologist Carol Tavris here (“Congress and clinicians may feel a spasm of righteousness by condemning scientific findings they dislike, but their actions will do little or nothing to reduce the actual abuse of children”) and here (‘Perhaps the researchers’ most inflammatory finding, however, was that not all experiences of child-adult sexual contact have equally emotional consequences nor can they be lumped together as “abuse.” Being molested at the age of 5 is not comparable to choosing to have sex at 15. Indeed, the researchers found that two-thirds of males who, as children or teenagers, had had sexual experiences with adults did not react negatively.’) The latter is a point I have made repeatedly about the zeal with which inexperienced overzealous clinicians label anything untoward in their patients’ early experiences — real or suggested — as abuse and avow it qualifies the patient for the wastebasket diagnosis of PTSD and explains most of their adult psychological distress, with disastrous clinical consequences for treatment. Tavris: “The article by Rind and his colleagues, however, has upset two powerful constituencies: religious fundamentalists and other conservatives who think this research endorses pedophilia and homosexuality, and psychotherapists who believe that all sexual experiences in childhood inevitably cause lifelong psychological harm.” [Are you getting bored with this repeated tirade from me? I make it over and over again; it is one of my pet peeves in behavioral science… — FmH]

More recently, in Mind Games: Psychological Warfare Between Therapists and Scientists, Tavris has continued to evoke controversy by expanding on her observations of a rift between scientists and clinicians within psychology . She makes a related point, again one with which I resonate — that the unregulated nature of calling oneself a “psychotherapist” and the public’s confusion between that term and the term “psychologist” wreaks havoc:

For the public, however, the word “psychologist” has only one meaning: psychotherapist. It is true that clinical psychologists practice therapy, but many psychologists are not clinicians, and most therapists are not clinical psychologists. The word “psychotherapist” is completely unregulated. It includes people who have advanced training in psychology, along with those who get a “certification” in some therapeutic specialty; clinical social workers; marriage, family, and child counselors; psychoanalysts and psychiatrists; and countless others who have no training in anything. Starting tomorrow, I could package and market my own highly effective approach, Chocolate Immersion Therapy, and offer a weekend workshop to train neophytes ($395, chocolate included). I could carry out any kind of unvalidated, cockamamie therapy I wanted, and I would not be guilty of a single crime. Unless I described myself as a psychologist. Chronicle of Higher Education

Part of the problem is that society increasingly turns for advice to “mental health professionals” without understanding that they have come by their pronouncements by the same fallible mix of selective experience, prejudice, doctrinaire adherence to a particular theoretical school or treatment philosophy, and confirmation bias (selectively noticing and valuing evidence in accord with one’s assumptions and discounting or ignoring that in conflict) that operates in other fields. Tavris lists a number of important “widely accepted claims promulgated by therapists are based on subjective clinical opinions and have been resoundingly disproved by empirical research conducted by psychological scientists”:

• Low self-esteem causes aggressiveness, drug use, prejudice, and low achievement.

• Abused children almost inevitably become abusive parents, causing a “cycle of abuse.”

• Therapy is beneficial for most survivors of disasters, especially if intervention is rapid.

• Memory works like a tape recorder, clicking on at the moment of birth; memories can be accurately retrieved through hypnosis, dream analysis, or other therapeutic methods.

• Traumatic experiences, particularly of a sexual nature, are typically “repressed” from memory, or split off from consciousness through “dissociation.”

• The way that parents treat a child in the first five years (three years) (one year) (five minutes) of life is crucial to the child’s later intellectual and emotional success.
  

The increasing split between systematically thinking intellectually rigorous psychological science and pseudoscientific psychotherapeutic hysteria played out in epidemic form in the ’80’s with the “repressed memory”, “multiple personality disorder”, and “rampant sexual abuse of children in daycare centers” furors, all of which have turned out to be spurious. I would also add the “Satanic ritual abuse” folly to that list; maybe Tavris considers that too ridiculous to dignify with discussion.

All three epidemics were fomented and perpetuated by the mistaken beliefs of psychotherapists: that “children never lie about sexual abuse”; that childhood trauma causes the personality to “split” into several or even thousands of identities; that if you don’t remember being sexually abused in childhood, that’s evidence that you were; that it is possible to be raped by your father every day for 16 years and to “repress” the memory until it is “uncovered” in therapy; that hypnosis, dream analysis, and free association of fantasies are reliable methods of “uncovering” accurate memories. (On the contrary, such techniques have been shown to increase confabulation, imagination, and memory errors, while inflating the belief that the retrieved memories are accurate.) The epidemics began to subside as a result of the painstaking research of psychological scientists.

Tavris finds the roots of the increasing divergence in the training of psychotherapists outside academic institutions. I have long made the point that the public is not aware that their mental health is at the mercy of market forces unwilling to pay for necessarily more expensive practitioners who come from adequate training backgrounds. She largely ignores these market forces as the context for the crisis — although commenting that there are “too many economic and institutional supports for (the schism)” — but otherwise nicely defines it. She is not naive about the promise of science with a capital ‘S’ but clearly articulates its value in psychology:

It is not that I believe that science gives us ultimate truths about human behavior, while clinical insight is always foolish and wrong. Rather, I worry that when psychotherapists fail to keep up with basic research on matters on which they are advising their clients; when they fail to learn which methods are most appropriate for which disorders, and which might be harmful; when they fail to understand their own biases of perception and do not learn how to correct them; when they fail to test their own ideas empirically before running off to promote new therapies or wild claims — then their clients and the larger public pay the price of their ignorance.

That last phrase deserves to be underscored — ” their clients and the larger public pay the price of their ignorance.” Moreover, the pity is that they never realize it.

She goes on:

The scientific method is designed to help investigators overcome the most entrenched human cognitive habit: the confirmation bias, the tendency to notice and remember evidence that confirms our beliefs or decisions, and to ignore, dismiss, or forget evidence that is discrepant. That’s why we are all inclined to stick to a hypothesis we believe in. Science is one way of forcing us, kicking and screaming if necessary, to modify our views. Most scientists regard a central, if not defining, characteristic of the scientific method to be what Karl Popper called “the principle of falsifiability”: For a theory to be scientific, it must be falsifiable — you can’t show me just those observations that confirm it, but also those that might show it to be wrong, false. If you can twist any result of your research into a confirmation of your hypothesis, you aren’t thinking scientifically. For that reason, many of Freud’s notions were unfalsifiable. If analysts saw evidence of “castration anxiety” in their male patients, that confirmed Freud’s theory of its universality; if analysts didn’t see it, Freud wrote, they lacked observational skills and were just too blind or stubborn to see it. With that way of thinking, there is no way to disconfirm the belief in castration anxiety.

Yet many psychotherapists perpetuate ideas based only on confirming cases — the people they see in therapy — and do not consider the disconfirming cases. The popular belief in “the cycle of abuse” rests on cases of abusive parents who turn up in jail or therapy and who report that they were themselves victims of abuse as children.

Essentially, many inadequately-trained therapists may lack a necessary skepticism the scientific method teaches and which is imbued only by rigorous training to overcome quite ingrained and natural biases of thought.

The clinicians’ defense is that the way they benefit clients is by helping them make sense of their life experience. In a sort of nihilistic way, the “narrative truth” in which they enlist their patients is different, sophisticated clinicians know, than “historical truth”, but it works. Therapists are not detectives bound to a legalistic standard of evidence-based proof, they argue. But, in a narrow sense the real world does intrude, and the “truth” of what has been discovered in psychotherapy does come into play in legal proceedings. In a broader sense, Tavris wants us to understand that this is not just some irrelevant internal dispute between factions of an academic discipline.

“Much has been written about America’s scientific illiteracy, but social-scientific illiteracy is just as widespread and in some ways even more pernicious. People can deny evolution or fail to learn basic physics, but such ignorance rarely affects their personal lives. The scientific illiteracy of psychotherapists has torn up families, sent innocent defendants to prison, cost people their jobs and custody of their children, and promoted worthless, even harmful, therapies. A public unable to critically assess psychotherapists’ claims and methods for scientific credibility will be vulnerable to whatever hysterical epidemic comes along next. And in our psychologically oriented culture, there will be many nexts. Some will be benign; some will merely cost money; and some will cost lives.”

By the way, the president of the American Psychological Association, aghast at Tavris’ upbraiding of the profession, has circulated a sputtering, ineffective letter of response which I cannot find online but will point to when I can. He attempts a refutation by claiming that many psychologists are both scientists and clinicians, and that academic psychologists as well as psychotherapists consult on media and public policy issues. He pedantically lectures Tavris on supposed logical fallacies in her argument but, IMHO, ends up hoist by his own petard.

Blix and El-Baradei: Key points of the weapons inspectors’ reports to the UN security council. Guardian/UK

Paul Krugman asks, ‘Why does our president condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has ‘oderint dum metuant’ really become our motto?” So reads the resignation letter of John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat who recently left the Foreign Service in protest against Bush administration policy.

“Oderint dum metuant” translates, roughly, as “Let them hate as long as they fear.” It was a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Caligula, and may seem over the top as a description of current U.S. policy. But this week’s crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations – a crisis that has been almost ignored north of the border – suggests that it is a perfect description of President George W. Bush’s attitude toward the world.’ NY Times op-ed [via IHT]

“Retired nurse Frances Polack has taken an extraordinary measure to ensure doctors do not try to prolong her life against her wishes.” BBC [thanks, Pam!] I work for a hospital whose corporate owners are so risk-averse that, in order never to be exposed to any liability for failing to resuscitate someone who might have been revived, they have made it a matter of policy that their staffs not honor any DNR wishes of patients they admit. The problem is that I work for a hospital whose corporate owners are so intent on filling their beds that their admissions offices do not remember to review that policy with potential patients and families before accepting them for admission. File this away for future reference: never send your loved one to a Universal Health Services, Inc. hospital, at least if they do not wish to be resuscitated…

Larry King asks about oil and gets a George Bush geography lesson Royal Canadian Air Farce [Real Video high-bandwidth; other options here]

The brain is constantly compromising as it pieces together information, often ignoring or downplaying small visual changes in the world that do not fit with its expectations. This process – far from being flawed – shows that the brain functions optimally, say University of Toronto researchers. EurekAlert! Think you see things as they are? Get over it. You’re making it up, essentially, although there’s a germ of truth there…

Psychology professor maps choice-making in the brain

The next time you are frustrated by someone who says, “I’m of two minds about this,” at least you will know why. The latest research conducted by Kip Smith, an assistant professor of psychology at Kansas State University, may be able to explain why people often can’t make up their minds. Smith’s current study focuses on which parts of the brain are used in the decision-making process.

“We’re of at least two minds,” Smith said. “This research shows the brain is not a single entity. There is not a single executive decision-making mechanism there.” EurekAlert!

Origins of Psychopathology — Review: The Phylogenetic and Cultural Basis of Mental Illness by Horacio Fábrega, Jr.:

The common conception of mental illness or psychopathology is that it’s a breakdown or malfunction of the human mind; a very personal problem that some individual must struggle to overcome. While Horacio Fábrega admits this is true on one level, he argues that on another level psychopathology can be seen as a product of evolutionary changes both within the human organism and within the human environment. More surprising to me than this is his claim that psychopathology is not only an end product of the evolutionary process but that psychopathology has actually had (and is still having) an effect on the course of human evolution. Metapsychology Online Book Reviews

Despite its mixed reputation, anger can play a constructive role at home, at work and in the national consciousness, psychologists are finding. APA Monitor

It often gets a bad rap because of its association with violence, but the two are often dissociated. Not only is there anger without violence [I might be considered a prime example; a very angry person, in my own estimation and that of those around me; but nonviolent. — FmH], but much violence occurs without appreciable anger. The values of constructive anger range from facilitating political change to the physiological benefits of diffusing pent-up frustrations in, for example, cardiac patients; suggesting that not being angry enough could be more of a problem.

Anger also plays a powerful and arguably positive role in the workplace and in politics, finds Larissa Tiedens, PhD, of Stanford University. These are arenas, she notes, where anger is often used for status, power, control and strategic purposes rather than for emotional expression.

In these, settings, individuals primed for anger may make more optimistic appraisals and feel an enhanced sense of control. Does this suggest that anger is merely the opiate of the disempowered masses, in a way, and that the sense of control is illusory? Both in a psycholigical and a sociopolitical sense, anger is often posited as the inverse of depression, ‘depression turned outward’. (Depression is also referred to as ‘anger turned inward’.) There is also considerable evidence, especially from the evolutionary psychology sphere, some of which I’ve discussed here in the past, that depression may be, in a sense, a more realistic viewpoint in some situations; that it has been evolutionarily preserved because it is adaptive. One of the leading contender theories suggests that, in making us less less confident and less energetic, it prevents futile actions. So, am I being more than a little bit scurrilous when I suggest that, perhaps, the best position of all is to be angry but passive?

…(S)uch studies have implications for the current “war on terrorism.” They suggest that President Bush’s angry, tough-guy stance may affect public reaction by reducing uncertainty and increasing a sense of control…

However, if the enemy continues to prove elusive, the tactic may prove maladaptive… “At the same time anger effectively provides a sense of certainty and prepares people for action, …it also simplifies their judgment processes and leaves them prone to bias.”

[A .PDF]:

Contemporary suicide terrorists from the Middle East are publicly deemed crazed

cowards bent on senseless destruction who thrive in poverty and ignorance.

Recent research indicates they have no appreciable psychopathology and are as

educated and economically well-off as surrounding populations. A first line of

defense is to get the communities from which suicide attackers stem to stop the

attacks by learning how to minimize the receptivity of mostly ordinary people

to recruiting organizations. — Scott Atran, Science Mar 7 2003: 1534-1539

Interrogating our obsession with risk:

“Why are we so obsessed with risk? From global warming to mobile phones, from crime to child safety, from the business world to the military, precaution and pre-emption have become the buzzwords of our time. We sometimes seem to be organising society around the grandmotherly maxim of ‘better safe than sorry’. What are the consequences of this overbearing concern with risks?

On Friday 9 May 2003, a London conference entitled ‘Panic Attack:

Interrogating Our Obsession with Risk’, produced by the online publication

spiked (www.spiked-online.com) in association with the online publication

Techcentralstation Europe and the Royal Institution of Great Britain, will

bring together an international audience to assess the spread of risk

aversion into ever-more spheres of life. With discussions on everything from children and obesity to the risks of war to business after Enron, the conference will interrogate our obsession with risk – and put the case for a more rational approach to scientific and political issues, and matters of everyday life.”

On the fundamentalism of fatalism and the myth of moderate Islam: Many pundits, both inside and outside the community of immigrant American Islam, have rested their hopes upon us muted ones. They expect us to free global Islam from the Tazirs and Bin Ladens of the religion. Somehow we cows, chewing on the cud of our paranoia-stricken life, have been labeled ‘moderate’ as if we offer a counterweight to the extremists. We don’t. Killing the Buddha [via walker]

Crude arguments: “The ‘war for oil’ line is a simpleton’s theory of international relations.” — Brendan O’Neill, sp!ked

And:

War by the back door: “There is an ‘undeclared war’ in Iraq — between Western elites vying for influence.” — Brendan O’Neill, sp!ked

It explains why we’re going to war, and why we’ll keep going to war: Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an operating theory of the world—and a military strategy to accompany it. Now there’s a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them. Since September 11, 2001, [Thomas P. M. Barnett, U.S. Naval War College], a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now he gives it to you.

Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder. These parts of the world I call the Functioning Core, or Core. But show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap.

Globalization’s “ozone hole” may have been out of sight and out of mind prior to September 11, 2001, but it has been hard to miss ever since. And measuring the reach of globalization is not an academic exercise to an eighteen-year-old marine sinking tent poles on its far side. So where do we schedule the U.S. military’s next round of away games? The pattern that has emerged since the end of the cold war suggests a simple answer: in the Gap.Esquire [via walker]

Internet search giant Google confirmed this week that it closed several security holes that could have allowed hackers to substitute their own musings for any of the over one-million electronic diaries maintained through the popular “Blogger” online publishing tool. The Register Pity; what the hackers had to say might’ve been more interesting than many of the million. Including at FmH?

Via the poised urgency of Jeff Gates’ Life Outtacontext:

Kevin Sites, a CNN reporter in Kuwait, has been sharing personal reflections on the soon-to-be war front with readers of bOingbOing via email. Here’s an excerpt from his latest (read his entire post here):

For most of the journalists here in Kuwait, this is the fear and this is the joke; that for all our technology—our videophones and portable dishes, our Thurayas, and Iridiums and Neras, our digital cameras and laptop editing systems—-we could end up covering this war with wind up film cameras.

It’s on the grapevine that the U.S. Air Force has developed an electro magnetic pulse weapon at Kirtland Air Force that could be used in war against Iraq. The concept is devastating simple; flying over the target area, the military emits a microwave swath, which basically fries the electronics of any appliance or device in its path.

Like a giant switch, when the EMP weapon is flicked on, the lights go out. People, however, are supposedly spared—unless they happened to be wearing a pacemaker or are hooked up to other life sustaining machinery. The EMP weapon does not apparently differentiate between cell phones and hospital respirators.

Be sure to scroll down below this item at Gates’ site for something that has struck me too — the devolution of media depictions of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

“Following a recent FCC decision that could limit competition among broadband providers, publicly owned high-speed access networks may prove a more popular alternative to private ISPs.” Wired News

A Religious Initiative: “Tell President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that Saddam Hussein can be disarmed without war. Speak out now!” Sojourners

by Janna Malamud Smith: a review of a book by a colleague of mine: Sharing the Burdens of Motherhood:

“Children’s security — and women’s equality — will be assured, (Janna Smith argues), only when mothers dare demand that nurturing labors be more fairly supported by society as a whole. What has long held mothers back, Smith worries, is all the protective worry. It will never go away, she says again and again, and no one should hope — or fear — that it will. But for that very reason, it should not be exploited the way it has been. Smith’s mission is to show how that ”visceral, powerful” sense of alarm has been ”continually manipulated, overtly and subtly,” wittingly and unwittingly, by ”experts and authorities of many timbres” — all in the name of helping mothers stay calm. The effect has been to keep them hovering (”metaphorically and often literally”) by the cradle, shouldering more than their share of accountability for children’s fates, when what parents and kids alike really need are more family-friendly policies and public attitudes. By exposing the uses and abuses of maternal anxiety, Smith hopes to help inspire a social movement to rock the boat.” NY Times

Gaspar Noé’s cinematic rape: “The 12 scenes of Irreversible — each shot in a single, semi-improvised take — constitute something of a tour de force. But so would being dragged through the streets by a wire noose. There is something to be said for violence that isn’t stylized and made to seem “fun” — that actually makes you feel like Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971) with your eyes pried open and no cathartic release. It could be argued that this is the only moral way to present violence, so that it hurts.

But there is nothing moral about Irreversible — only sneeringly superior and nihilistic, like Johnny Rotten at his most fatuous. [more] — David Edelstein, Slate

Can we sleep less? “Every year, we need the same amount of sleep, and every year we get less. Since the invention of artificial illumination, sleep has been a bear market.” — David Plotz, Slate

Are conservationists the new conservatives? An interview with Betsy Hartmann. New Scientist

So much for the Bush’s facade of gentility. ‘Syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was relegated to the third row in last night’s East Room event and— if the memory of press corps veterans is accurate — received her first presidential snub.

One reporter who has covered the past six presidents said: “I don’t remember a press conference in which [Mrs. Thomas] didn’t get a question.” ‘ Washington Times

Microsoft promises end to ‘DLL hell’:

“Windows Server 2003 will bring an end to one of the biggest headaches for Windows users and administrators, according to Microsoft. The problem, which relates to Dynamic Link Libraries–software modules that can be shared by several different applications–has become an increasing headache over the years.

Problems typically occur when an application is installed that uses an updated version of a Dynamic Link Library–or DLL–that is already used by another application. If the original application cannot work with the updated DLL, then the user gets an error message; Windows and Windows applications have no notion of DLL version numbers, and so the problem can be difficult to track down.” ZDNet

the only Democratic candidate who could beat Bush today. As Chuck Taggart comments, “Only twenty more months…”