A little New York Times reading this morning:

With all the furor about the Bush administration’s preoccupation with Iraq’s nonexistent ‘weapons of mass destruction’, and with Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, let us not forget that the major proponent of WMD in our time has been the U.S. One of the most egregious historical legacies of the Bush administration will be its reversal of the world’s nuclear stability. Now we learn that it will be announcing this week a major step forward in the building of the first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. continuing its single-minded destabilization of the ‘arms race’. Yes, the new weapon would not add to, but replace, existing nuclear armaments, but as an untested and, some say, risky hybrid incorporating elements from competing designs it will require costly refurbishment of the nation’s entire nuclear weapons manufacturing edifice and seems likely — probably by design — to force an end to the U.S. moratorium on nuclear weapons testing to make sure the new design works. As with most of its follies these days, the administration insults our intelligence, justifying this boondoggle by invoking the War on Terror® — that it is necessary to make our arsenal more secure from theft by terrorists. (Are we now to believe that assurances about the last generation’s nuclear security measures were lies?)

…and We Might Not. Now I’m a psychiatrist, and sometimes I even call myself a neuropsychiatrist, but don’t waste my time with this pitifully reductionist take on an act of heroism:

And especially when you are going to end up with a conclusion acknowledging how little you’ve really ‘explained’:

Dr. Ronald Pies’ sensitive reflection on a patient’s humble gift to her psychiatrist. (New York Times )

Utterly fascinating feature about a new Japanese fad and what it says about the essence of play. I got this from kottke’s assemblage of his best links of the year.

Far too little outrage was inspired by Saddam Hussein’s hanging. (New York Times ) Despite the heinousness of his crimes, his execution should have inspired widespread repugnance from the civilized world (as the invasion of Iraq should have in the first place). Mockery that his trial was, he will never stand trial for his major crimes against humanity. Insult was added to injury by setting the killing on the eve of Id al-Adha. All in all, this is entirely in the spirit of unilateralism by the US and its Iraqi puppets, and its historical significance is likely to be an inflammatory one.

This is a reprise and an amplification of a New Year’s Day post from FmH in years past:

Years ago, the Boston Globe ran a January 1st article compiling folkloric beliefs about what to do, what to eat, etc. on New Year’s Day to bring good fortune for the year to come. I’ve regretted since — I usually think of it around once a year (grin) — not clipping out and saving the article. Especially since we’ve had children, I’m interested in enduring traditions that go beyond getting drunk [although some comment that this is a profound enactment of the interdigitation of chaos and order appropriate to the New Year’s celebration — FmH], watching the bowl games and making resolutions.

A web search brought me this, less elaborate than what I recall from the Globe but to the same point. It is weighted toward eating traditions, which is odd because, unlike most other major holidays, the celebration of New Year’s in 21st century America does not seem to be centered at all around thinking about what we eat (except in the sense of the traditional weight-loss resolutions!) and certainly not around a festive meal. But…

“Traditionally, it was thought that one could affect the luck they would have throughout the coming year by what they did or ate on the first day of the year. For that reason, it has become common for folks to celebrate the first few minutes of a brand new year in the company of family and friends. Parties often last into the middle of the night after the ringing in of a new year. It was once believed that the first visitor on New Year’s Day would bring either good luck or bad luck the rest of the year. It was particularly lucky if that visitor happened to be a tall dark-haired man.

“Traditional New Year foods are also thought to bring luck. Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring is good luck, because it symbolizes “coming full circle,” completing a year’s cycle. For that reason, the Dutch believe that eating donuts on New Year’s Day will bring good fortune.

“Many parts of the U.S. celebrate the new year by consuming black-eyed peas. These legumes are typically accompanied by either hog jowls or ham. Black-eyed peas and other legumes have been considered good luck in many cultures. The hog, and thus its meat, is considered lucky because it symbolizes prosperity. Cabbage is another ‘good luck’ vegetable that is consumed on New Year’s Day by many. Cabbage leaves are also considered a sign of prosperity, being representative of paper currency. In some regions, rice is a lucky food that is eaten on New Year’s Day.”

The further north one travels in the British Isles, the more the year-end festivities focus on New Year’s. The Scottish observance of Hogmanay has many elements of warming heart and hearth, welcoming strangers and making a good beginning:

“Three cornered biscuits called hogmanays are eaten. Other special foods are: wine, ginger cordial, cheese, bread, shortbread, oatcake, carol or carl cake, currant loaf, and a pastry called scones. After sunset people collect juniper and water to purify the home. Divining rituals are done according to the directions of the winds, which are assigned their own colors. First Footing:The first person who comes to the door on midnight New Year’s Eve should be a dark-haired or dark-complected man with gifts for luck. Seeing a cat, dog, woman, red-head or beggar is unlucky. The person brings a gift (handsel) of coal or whiskey to ensure prosperity in the New Year. Mummer’s Plays are also performed. The actors called the White Boys of Yule are all dressed in white, except for one dressed as the devil in black. It is bad luck to engage in marriage proposals, break glass, spin flax, sweep or carry out rubbish on New Year’s Eve.”

Here’s why we clink our glasses when we drink our New Year’s toasts, no matter where we are. Of course, sometimes the midnight cacophony is louder than just clinking glassware, to create a ‘devil-chasing din’.

In Georgia, eat black eyed peas and turnip greens on New Year’s Day for luck and prosperity in the year to come, supposedly because they symbolize coppers and currency. Hoppin’ John, a concoction of peas, onion, bacon and rice, is also a southern New Year’s tradition, as is wearing yellow to find true love (in Peru, yellow underwear, apparently!) or carrying silver for prosperity. In some instances, a dollar bill is thrown in with the other ingredients of the New Year’s meal to bring prosperity. In Greece, there is a traditional New Year’s Day sweetbread with a silver coin baked into it. All guests get a slice of the bread and whoever receives the slice with the coin is destined for good fortune for the year. At Italian tables, lentils, oranges and olives are served. The lentils, looking like coins, will bring prosperity; the oranges are for love; and the olives, symbolic of the wealth of the land, represent good fortune for the year to come.

A New Year’s meal in Norway also includes dried cod, “lutefisk.” The Pennsylvania Dutch make sure to include sauerkraut in their holiday meal, also for prosperity.

In Spain, you would cram twelve grapes in your mouth at midnight, one each time the clock chimed, for good luck for the twelve months to come. The U. S. version of this custom, for some reason, involves standing on a chair as you pop the grapes. In Denmark, jumping off a chair at the stroke of midnight signifies leaping into the New Year. In Rio, you would be plunging into the sea en masse at midnight, wearing white and bearing offerings.

In China, papercuttings of red paper are hung in the windows to scare away evil spirits who might enter the house and bring misfortune. In Thailand, one pours fragrant water over the hands of elders on New Year’s Day to show them respect.

Elsewhere: pancakes for the New Year’s breakfast in France; banging on friends’ doors in Denmark to “smash in” the New Year; going in the front door and out the back door at midnight in Ireland; making sure the first person through your door in the New Year in Scotland is a tall dark haired visitor. Water out the window at midnight in Puerto Rico rids the home of evil spirits. Cleanse your soul in Japan at the New Year by listening to a gong tolling 108 times, one for every sin. It is Swiss good luck to let a drop of cream fall on the floor on New Year’s Day.

Some history; documentation of observance of the new year dates back at least 4000 years to the Babylonians, who also made the first new year’s resolutions (reportedly voews to return borrowed farm equipment were very popular), although their holiday was observed at the vernal equinox. The Babylonian festivities lasted eleven days, each day with its own particular mode of celebration. The traditional Persian Norouz festival of spring continues to be considered the advent of the new year among Persians, Kurds and other peoples throughout Central Asia, and dates back at least 3000 years, deeply rooted in Zooastrian traditions.Modern Bahá’í’s celebrate Norouz (“Naw Ruz”) as the end of a Nineteen Day Fast. Rosh Hashanah (“head of the year”), the Jewish New Year, the first day of the lunar month of Tishri, falls between September and early October. Muslim New Year is the first day of Muharram, and Chinese New Year falls between Jan. 10th and Feb. 19th of the Gregorian calendar.

The classical Roman New Year’s celebration was also in the spring although the calendar went out of synchrony with the sun. January 1st became the first day of the year by proclamation of the Roman Senate in 153 BC, reinforced even more strongly when Julius Caesar established what came to be known as the Julian calendar in 46 BC. The early Christian Church condemned new year’s festivities as pagan but created parallel festivities concurrently. New Year’s Day is still observed as the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision in some denominations. Church opposition to a new year’s observance reasserted itself during the Middle Ages, and Western nations have only celebrated January 1 as a holidy for about the last 400 years. The custom of New Year’s gift exchange among Druidic pagans in 7th century Flanders was deplored by Saint Eligius, who warned them, “[Do not] make vetulas, [little figures of the Old Woman], little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf] at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks [another Yule custom].” (Wikipedia)

The tradition of the New Year’s Baby signifying the new year began with the Greek tradition of parading a baby in a basket during the Dionysian rites celebrating the annual rebirth of that god as a symbol of fertility. The baby was also a symbol of rebirth among early Egyptians. Again, the Church was forced to modify its denunciation of the practice as pagan because of the popularity of the rebirth symbolism, finally allowing its members to cellebrate the new year with a baby although assimilating it to a celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus. The addition of Father Time (the “Old Year”) wearing a sash across his chest withthe previous year on it, and the banner carried or worn by the New Year’s Baby, immigrated from Germany. Interestingly, January 1st is not a legal holiday in Israel, officially because of its historic origins as a Christian feast day.

Auld Lang Syne (literally ‘old long ago’ in the Scottish dialect) is sung or played at the stroke of midnight throughout the English-speaking world (although I prefer George Harrison’s “Ring Out the Old”). Versions of the song have been part of the New Year’s festivities since the 17th century but Robert Burns was inspired to compose a modern rendition, which was published after his death in 1796.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
And here’s a hand, my trusty friend
And gie’s a hand o’ thine
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne

However you’re going to celebrate, my warmest wishes for the year to come… and eat hearty! [thanks to Bruce Umbaugh for research assistance]

Far too little outrage was inspired by Saddam Hussein’s hanging. (New York Times ) Despite the heinousness of his crimes, his execution should have inspired widespread repugnance from the civilized world (as the invasion of Iraq should have in the first place). Mockery that his trial was, he will never stand trial for his major crimes against humanity. Insult was added to injury by setting the killing on the eve of Id al-Adha. All in all, this is entirely in the spirit of unilateralism by the US and its Iraqi puppets, and its historical significance is likely to be an inflammatory one.

“Can social scientists redefine the “war on terror”?” George Packer writes in The New Yorker about a new breed of cultural anthropologists who bring their analysis to bear on the current climate of ‘Islamic insurgency’, arguing that it is not ideology but social networking factors which recruit. “All fifteen Saudi hijackers in the September 11th plot had trouble with their fathers…” The thesis is succinctly put this way: “There are elements in human psychological and social makeup that drive what’s happening. The Islamic bit is secondary. This is human behavior in an Islamic setting. This is not ‘Islamic behavior’.” The social scientists, who are pitching their potential contribution to the ‘global counterinsurgency’ effort, argue the intimate need to understand local social particulars to win the ‘battle for hearts and minds.’ The US is actually serving the insurgents’ purposes by trumpeting a global ‘war on terror’, offering an inherently appealing global cause to new recruits. This is no surprise to those who have long understood how it was the Bush administration’s efforts which gave the Iraqi resistance common cause with the jihadists, or turned ‘al Qaeda’ into a franchised brand name for disparate insurrectionists throughout the Islamic world. The article likens Iraq in the context of the global counterinsurgency effort to Vietnam in the context of the Cold War, of course. The US took a long time to understand that the Cold War was only to a small proportion a military conflict or conflicts and in vast preponderance a propaganda battle.

However, I am not sure that social science substantially informed our Cold War struggle either. I was a student of ethnography and cultural anthropology in the early ’70’s before I went to medical school and became a psychiatrist; the article helped me to understand in a new way the relationship between the growing irrelevance of cultural anthropology and our defeat in Vietnam. No administration has ever embraced one of the corollaries of the light that cultural relativism can bring to bear on our understanding of ideological battles — that, if not a Manichaean battle between Good and Evil, the superiority of either side is all relative, all in the eye of the beholder. There may actually be less to choose between the two sides than the ideologues would have us believe; it is inherent that we demonize the opponent in protracted conflicts, as we did in the Cold War and are doing again. The jaded secret agent literary genre so well represented by Le Carré and, currently The Good Shepherd (although the Matt Damon character never seems to get the message despite the ongoing tutorial he is receiving from his Soviet adversary), reflected this relativistic, amoral moral calculus best. So, although I suppose it represents semantic progress to call what is happening now a global counterinsurgency struggle rather than a global war on terror (WoT®), I am troubled that this new anthropological insight seems to be being pitched as an improvement to our propaganda battle rather than helping us disengage from — and transcend — the fray.

Although Packer tries hard to read between the lines, social scientists who want to consult to the administration are of course averse to criticizing their potential bosses. There are indeed several statements in the piece to the effect that there are no prospects for a new mindset until Bush is out of office — as if anyone had any doubts on that score. It is not surprising that Bush thinks like that — let’s start, for example, with the fact that his alcoholism reflects a cognitive style in large proportion based on the effort to reduce diverse and nuanced problems to one one-size-fits-all solution. IMHO, the more important contribution social scientists could make would be to understand how such a rigid worldview as Bush’s could ever have become dominant and been allowed, unchallenged, to make such a dismal global mess of things.

This 403 — Web Page Not Found — page is a clever collection of pointers to post-apocalyptic films and books (a genre I used to think was fiction). I don’t even recall what page I was looking for when I was redirected to this.

For personal reasons I can’t go into here, FmH will be on indefinite hiatus. I’m not yet prepared to say that I am hanging up my keyboard but I can’t say when, if, I will resume posting. Readers who would like to be updated on any changes in the status of FmH can write me at “FmH at gelwan dot com” with the subject line “FmH updates” and I will add your name to a list of those I keep informed. I’m sorry I just can’t elaborate further at this point, despite the esteem and appreciation in which I continue to hold my readers.

For personal reasons I can’t go into here, FmH will be on indefinite hiatus. I’m not yet prepared to say that I am hanging up my keyboard but I can’t say when, if, I will resume posting. Readers who would like to be updated on any changes in the status of FmH can write me at “FmH at gelwan dot com” with the subject line “FmH updates” and I will add your name to a list of those I keep informed. I’m sorry I just can’t elaborate further at this point, despite the esteem and appreciation in which I continue to hold my readers.

I will be away from the computer, in parts unknown, and not posting until September. I hope FmHers enjoy the rest of your summer! Thanks for your continued readership.

I will be away from the computer, in parts unknown, and not posting until September. I hope FmHers enjoy the rest of your summer! Thanks for your continued readership.

FDA approves viruses as food additive. They will supposedly kill most of the bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses. (CNN)

Sad reflection on the treatment of the Maori that, despite as many towns in which this street name exists, only one town council is acknowledging and fixing the problem…

Here’s a question I just posted to “Ask MetaFilter” about a minor, but vexing, problem I have. It is sometimes maddening to be a nonprogrammer and know how simple this would be to solve if I could write trivial code. FmH readers are welcome to take a stab at this one too…

Best advertising use of squid yet [requires Flash]

Claims for alternative and complementary remedies in healthcare have always been undercut by the fact that, whatever they are, they are not shown effective in double blind placebo-controlled studies, the touchstone of clinical research. Adherents have often reached to outlandish and tortured explanations of why the failure of empirical validation is irrelevant, often using quasi-mystical pseudoscientific applications of quantum uncertainty. Here we learn that, because of quantum entanglement, the placebo and the active treatment get enmeshed, as do the observer/investigator and the experimental subjects. So there is no such thing as either placebo-controlled or double-blind, Virginia. (Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine – 12(3):271)

“Caroline has helpfully decreed that the name of the recent quasi-terrorist non-event is The Exploding Shampoo Plot. It’s a fine memorable descriptive name. Everyone should use it.” (Making Light)

The study, authored by Bruce Dohrenwend from Columbia University and associates, and published in Science, cross-referenced veterans’ combat records against claims of disability, based on data the Veterans’ Administration had collected to search for fraudulent claims. There has long been a sense that the reported prevalence of PTSD in Vietnam veterans was implausibly high. Some studies place the rate above 30% despite the fact that only an extimated 15% of Vietnam-era veterans saw frontline combat. The new study estimates the overall prevalence rate at around 19% instead. It agrees with earlier studies estimating that half of diagnosed PTSD sufferers remain disabled by their symptoms.

However, for several reasons we should not leap to the conclusion that the overdiagnosis was the fault of exaggerated or fraudulent claims, although I am sure that veterans’ anger at their abandonment by American society upon their return certainly fueled an attitude in some of exploiting the disability system. It is ridiculous to say that war traumatizes only those who saw grunt combat. This first of ‘modern wars’ did not have conventional front lines or easy ways of distinguishing enemy combatants from civilians (as in Iraq). As the study authors point out in rejecting the idea that veterans have consistently exaggerated their claims, there was broad traumatic exposure to ambushes and shellings as well as treating casualties. Also, this was the first war with a high degree of efficient depersonalized remote-control killing by carpet bombing, which traumatizes participants and observers in a different but often no less profound way. As in the Iraqi action, a widespread sense of cynical disaffection and betrayal by their country came with the realization that the war was based on disingenuous intentions and lies and that the soldiers were cannon fodder for immoral and misguided old men.

But there are other reasons that previous estimates about the prevalence of PTSD have been inflated. First of all, as readers of FmH have heard me opine before, the label is often applied in a fast and loose manner rather than diagnosed by rigorous criteria. There really is a disease state that arises from exposure to overwhelming trauma threatening one’s survival or bodily integrity or that of those around you, with lasting psychological and physiological damage and substantial resulting impairment of functioning, sometimes for the rest of the sufferer’s life. But it takes an experience outside the pale of what can reasonably be expected in human experience, and outside of the stress parameters our nervous systems evolved to cope with. It does not happen after any ol’ upsetting experience. So I place the fault for the overdiagnosis of PTSD as much on the shoulders of naive and unsystematic practitioners as I do with exaggerating complainants (whether we are talking about combat trauma or alleged sexual abuse victims, the other segment of the society with epidemic PTSD diagnosis rates). Dohrenwend’s group applied tight criteria in making the diagnosis, which I favor. Furthermore, the study also, quite rightly, excluded trauma disability claims in veterans which originated with events prior or subsequent to their military service, e.g. devastating auto accidents etc.

Of course there are implications from this study for the estimated rates of combat trauma with which Iraq veterans will come home, and planning for mental health services for them. Despite my pet peeve about ‘formal’ PTSD being overdiagnosed in modern American mental health practice, the numbers of those returning from the Middle East who will be psychically devastated and their ability to function in civilian society impaired will be more extensive, not less, than the services the Veterans’ Administration has planned to provide. The debate over the legitimacy and extent of the PTSD diagnosis should not mislead us into thinking that only those with ‘official’ PTSD need services. Let us hope the sophists do not use this study to justify withholding any chances of recovery and resumption of civilian functioning to tens of thousands of decommissioned soldiers returning from the Middle Eastern actions.

Ghost Riding the Whip: “…leaving the wheel of a moving car and walking, running, or dancing beside it….” (ABC News)

New York Times news analysis: “The fate of the cease-fire may lie in whether the Lebanese regard the conflict as a victory or blame Hezbollah for the destruction.” And which do you suppose is more likely? Here is an interactive map of the toll of the war day-by-day.

More on Morgellons , the ‘internet syndrome’ about which I wrote a derisive piece in May. This caught my attention:

I suspected that Leitao’s vested interest in the condition might have aspects other than the quest for scientific truth, and so it seems does her board.

The article also has some discussion suggesting that forensic lab analysis of the strange fibers, which sufferers report sprout from their skin in the condition, do not match any common fibrous materials. This stands at odds with other sources I have reviewed, as I mentioned in the May post.

“Homegrown U.K. terror is a growing threat, multicultural ‘tolerance’ can’t combat it, and the war in Iraq will only make it worse.” — Andrew Brown (Salon)

And: Inside the Iraqi Forces Fiasco: “The U.S. effort to train Iraqi forces — and bring our troops home — is mired in bureaucratic mismanagement, inept recruits and astonishing shortages of equipment.” (Salon)

Eat turmuric, avoid Alzheimers. I love curry; I may be doing my brain alot of good. On the other hand, I have hayfever; my brain may be in trouble. (New Scientist)

Seymour Hersh on the real reasons for US support of the Israeli air war. Essentially, given that Iran has helped Hezbollah with underground munitions installations and ‘hardening’ of targets, this may be a practice run for the US preemptive strike on Iranian buried weapons complexes, Hersh says. And all evidence indicates that the plans for this strike on Hezbollah were drawn up, with US knowledge, support and probably assistance, long before the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers which sparked off the conflict.

The dysadministration feels they will advance both its simple-mindedly conceived goal of democratization in the Middle East and the TWoT® (timeless war on terror). There have been cross-border incidents before; the kidnapping of the soldiers just happened at the right time, which also seems to have had some relationship to Hamas’ inching closer to resuming terrorist activity, feeling that their transition to a legitimate political force was not going well and that they were losing standing with the Palestinian people.

A major bombing campaign targeting Lebanese civilian infrastructure was supposed to turn the Lebanese Sunnis and Christians against Hezbollah, an idea similar to one US scenario for an air war against Iran. Interestingly, Hersh notes, the war in Kosovo was closely studied as a model for their Lebanon scenario as well.

Intelligence about Israel and Hezbollah, according to Hersh’s sources, is being ‘manhandled’ in the same way that the Bush administration distorted pre-war intelligence about Iraq to suit its preordained purposes. The strength of Hezbollah’s resistance, and the miscalculation of its resources, may or may not be a setback for US neocon hopes against Iran. More likely, the lesson, like all other recent lessons, will never be grasped by the hardliners. There is evidence that Cheney believes the war against Hezbollah is working and should not be halted. In the post-Iraq era, however, as Hersh’s article ends, one cannot avoid considerably less unanimity of outlook, and more fractiousness, either within the US administration, between the US and Blair’s UK, or within Blair’s government. This parallels a similar process within Israeli debate. (The New Yorker)

The article cites research suggesting that a high proportion of so-called ‘sinus headache’ sufferers may really have migraines. If migraines are more common than recognized, is there a spectrum of severity from the utterly disabling attacks which most of us understand as migraines to something in the milder, merely inconveniencing, range, akin to a common tension headache? I know that the vast majority of the chronically depressed women, especially the personality-disordered ones, I see in my psychiatric practice, no matter what the severity or frequency of their headaches, have either been diagnosed with migraines or adopt that label themselves. Should there be a severity criterion for diagnosing someone with a migraine?

Do human intestinal microorganisms make their hosts fat? (New York Times Magazine)

“Homegrown U.K. terror is a growing threat, multicultural ‘tolerance’ can’t combat it, and the war in Iraq will only make it worse.” — Andrew Brown (Salon)

And: Inside the Iraqi Forces Fiasco: “The U.S. effort to train Iraqi forces — and bring our troops home — is mired in bureaucratic mismanagement, inept recruits and astonishing shortages of equipment.” (Salon)

Start out by wondering if our universe could be a membrane floating in higher dimensional space and repeatedly smashing into a neighboring universe. Go from there. I favor no. 10 as the explanation for much I have experienced of the universe. (New Scientist)

If the scheme emanated from the UK, why are the US and the EU cancelling flights into Heathrow??

This should not be so addictive. Block falling streams of sand, salt, water and oil by building walls, planting plants, sowing fire, etc. I was clearly among that class of little boys who loved building dams across little streams in the woods or rivulets of draining water in the streets after rainstorms; this is the net version. File in the major net timewasters dept.

The powerful skill set that is eye contact. (Smart Money)

Update:

Debunked?

John Rogers is a TV and filmwriter, standup comic and former bartender. His comments on Dershowitz come with the authority of having served him at a Harvard Square restaurant (now defunct and sorely missed by me and my family). A lengthy anecdote about a Saudi prince which precedes this conclusion explains the epithet.

The neocons’ next war: Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon that the Lebanese conflict is being supported by US provision of signal intelligence to Israel as part of the neocon proxy war on Iran and Syria, emanating as it does from the office of the vice-president-in-chief. The ineffectual and bumbling Condoleezza Rice has been ‘briefed’ on these activities but, as of her first big international crisis as secretary of state, is already marginalized because of neocon opposition to her intentions to pursue diplomatic as opposed to interventionist options regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Blumenthal says. He is certainly one of those who sees evidence that the neocon shadow government continues to dictate US foreign policy. I am not sure, however, that Rice started to arouse neocon ire by proposing to negotiate with Iran. It is more likely that the choice of an ineffectual bumbler to head the State Dept. was engineered from the first — as it was in Bush’s first term with Powell and, indeed, as it was in the choice of Cheney’s running mate in the first place in the lead-up to 2000.

Meanwhile: others find the Lebanese war to be the first trumpet blast of Armageddon. Can apocalyptic vision be driving US encouragement of our Israeli proxies? After all, the other wing of the rabid right, along with the craven neocons, are the evangelicals. But, by and large, the born-again wing of the Republican constituency is being played for patsies by the men who believe in doing their damndest during their first and only life.

The famous notebook maker shows pages from the notebooks of the famous.

I highlighted Watada’s case here awhile ago. As FmH readers know, I feel publicizing the war resistance among the military is crucially important. Forward this to those you know in the service, or post it where they might see it.

Stop those witches’ knickers flapping: Discussion of various approaches to cutting use of plastic shopping bags in Europe. Evocative title. (Guardian.UK)

Did I miss something? Here is a Der Spiegel report on an incident at a nuclear plant in Forsmark, Sweden last week triggered by an electrical short. A power outage compounded by the failure of two out of four backup generators ultimately led to the closure of the plant (and, as a “precautionary measure”, half the nuclear plants in Sweden) in what plant workers described to Swedish media as a near-meltdown. Assessments call it the worst nuclear mishap since Chernobyl. Did this get any coverage at the time in the US press? If not, why not?

Could this be a career-ending mistake? While we hear from time to time about a surgeon removing the wrong kidney or amputating the contralateral limb, the argument from symmetry makes those simpler errors to understand. Misidentifying the organ, though??

Bruce Sterling in Wired on the threat of the “two technologies that have shaped the life I lead today”:

His concern about ‘stateless aliens’ and ‘stage 4 warfare’ —

— is, somewhat paradoxically and, one might say inexplicably, counterbalanced by faith that we can ‘outthink the marauders’ and think of ways to reintegrate the Vandals.

Israel agrees to 48-hour suspension of bombing. (Yahoo! News)

<a href=”http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2” title=””>Suspension over. (ABC News)

Israel agrees to 48-hour suspension of bombing. (Yahoo! News)

<a href=”http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2” title=””>Suspension over. (ABC News)

Or is it? Opposed in principle to the practices of the Coca Cola Corp. but compelled by their customers who crave the real thing, the managers of an alternative cinema in Bristol are on a quest to replicate the recipe themselves. (Guardian.UK)

In last month’s “Medlogs controversy” here, the anonymous commenter contrasted my printing of lengthy excerpts from the New York Times with his/her ‘true’ journalism. Apart from the fact that (a) commentary is not journalism; and (b) the commenter betrayed her/his lack of understanding that excerpting and logging is one of the original traditional forms of weblogging, a news story like this one illustrates potently how some stand on their own without need for fatuous pseudo-punditry and that I have served the purpose I intend merely by pointing you to them.

My point for a long time with regard to the atrocities committed by US forces in Iraq has been that the influences, if not the direct orders, shaping them emanate from the top, by intention, despite insidious efforts from the right to portray each of the burgeoning number of such events as attributable to some ‘rogue’ soldiers who snapped, or who were sociopaths to begin with. Draw your own conclusions. And, please, by all means, shoot the messenger once you have done so!

The fabulous furry Freakonomics brothers said:

While testosterone can be an aid in training, it is not a night-before performance enhancer, and it is much more useful in sports performance requiring explosive bursts of energy rather than the endurance challenges of the Tour de France. If Landis’ impetuous use of an illegal drug after his disastrous performance in the prior stage had been the explanation of his comeback, I would have expected him to use something like epoeitin instead. And as for the comparison with Bode Miller, Landis drank in despair, he says, for one night when he thought he was washed up. Miller’s debauchery was part of his training regimen, it seems, and one reason for his performance deficits. Why, then, is testosterone among the banned substances, one commenter to this post asks. For part of the answer, listen to the interviews with the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency and tell me if there doesn’t seem to be a veneer of religious zeaoltry and missionary zeal there. [thanks, walker]

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This is a movement spurred by civic organizations mostly concerned with — shudder! — declining consumption of US goods and declining tourist revenue, it seems. Instead of diverting the rest of the world from their largely accurate perceptions of US policy — selfish, unilateral, swaggering and exploitive — and the behavior and values of the ‘ugly Americans’ — boorish, materialistic, ignorant and xenophobic — these civic groups should be expending their effort on regime change and culture change at home. Otherwise, it is more of the same — attempting to bully the rest of the world into doing it our way, to meet our selfish ends!

Extraordinary Russian experiments suggest that many other characteristics of domesticated animals — physical characteristics such as changes in coloration, rolled tails and differences in skull shape — come along if all you breed for is ‘tameness’, i.e. tolerance of humans. This work, which has been done in foxes and rats, seems to hold across species. A relatively small number of genes — or perhaps even one — may control the traits associated with domestication. And the factor linking all this may be the embryonic neural crest, a structure which is the source of cells that will form the face, skull, pigment, elements of the nervous system and the adrenal glands, which control stress hormone release and aspects of the fight or flight reaction. If you select for animals with less constitutional fear, they may be able to see humans as social collaborators instead; they may appear ‘smarter’ than their wild forebears. It is not outlandish to speculate that selecting for tame animals is selecting for underdevelopment, or delayed development, of the neural crest.

And… there are some suggestions that humans are self-selecting themselves for domestic attributes, which may bear some genetic and embryonic similarity (although you would not know it if you look at the state of disharmony and belligerency in the world…) (New York Times via abby)

Does anyone remember the witty and clever 1980 film by Alain Resnais, Mon Uncle d’Amerique? Resnais made it as a collaboration with French biologist Henri Laborit and an homage to his theories about the ways in which the conditions of civilized life inherently conflict with our human nature. Some of the most hilarious moments of the film, in which Resnais jumpcuts from the dilemmas the main characters face to analogous vignettes with lab rats in their cages, upon which Laborit expounds, suggest that the central problem of modernity is the demand that the fight or flight reaction be inhibited. The highly original pathos of the film, and Resnais’ and Laborit’s compassion for their characters, is framed through this lens. But if we are, as the new research leads one to speculate, auto-domesticated, perhaps we ought not to be the objects of Laborit’s sympathetic gaze after all. Perhaps, instead, we should be pitied for having the spunk bred out of us altogether.

Leaked Memo: Coal Industry Coordinating Propaganda Blitz Attacking Global Warming Science (Think Progress)

Or: What has become of the Che icon? (The Sun)