Okay, I've not posted in a while. Gurp. I'm in New York, out of my element. Without further ado:

A recent Globe editorial is a good little nugget that's helping me catch up with some of the domestic political goings-on. Republicans are having lots of trouble agreeing on a tax-cut plan. Good.

By the way, I've followed Chuck Grassley a little bit and he's a decent guy. Good to remember the not-so-terrible Republicans.

The US military is distributing playing decks to soldiers that bear the likenesses of 55 Iraqis than should be captured or killed on sight. I've got a Saddam Hussein flush. What about you?

deep regret -- intention

A white Republican state representative has helped me to delineate and explicate the nature of the "deep regret" chronic piece in real-time. The legislator, Fred Brummer, said during to another legislator during a House session that an intramural basketball game would be unfair because the Democrats would have all the black legislators. The mics didn't pick up the comment, but a few of those high-jumping, Harlem-globetrotting black legislators did.

Brummer then offered an oh-so sincere apology for his miscue, surely a one-time offense, which included the line, "It certainly was not my intention to be insensitive," which raises the question: When the hell does anyone mean to be insensitive? The whole problem of insensitivity is being ignorant and unthinking, not calculating and evil.

Ohmigod I'm ready to give out the real idiot of the year award. [Not like that fake one to Richard Perle a few days ago.] This is a real one.

The episode starts with a woman from Wisconsin who was misdiagnosed with breast cancer. Some medical folk then removed her breasts, including the nipples. No problem, says Dr Harry Metropol. "She did not lose her life, and with the plastic surgery, she'll have breast reconstruction better than she had before. It won't be National Geographic, hanging to her knees. It'll be nice, firm breasts."

The reps in the state House can't be all that convinced by Metropol's support of caps on damages in medical-malpractice suits.

color -- know your phalluses

Here is a dope comic Eric sent me [this is the second section out of four]. Here's the color: "Some women just haven't gotten used to having a pet Talib around the camp. They've been bitten by a snake, and they're afraid of a rope. I assure you, nobody wants to kill you."

Extra credit for applying this snake/rope metaphor to men.

deep regret -- let's call a spade a diamond

Here's one from a while ago that I wanted to put up on the blog before I forget. It's a good Molly Ivins story about corporate PR. Good quotes, such as, "There was this professor from someplace, and the theme of his talk was that the greenhouse effect is nothing but a scam being advanced by environmental terrorists to destroy business in America."

But the part that seals this story's entry into the annals of "deep regret" is the part about industry lobbies changing their straightforward, meat'n'potatoes names to nice, cuddly ones. "Nuclear Engineering"? No way, that's a thing of the past. They're "U. S. Ecology".

Here in the land of "deep regret", up is down and nucular means happy!

The latest in ethnic cleansing, brought to you by Ariel Sharon and his compassionless conservative supporters. How charming. Israel is now establishing settlements in the Arab part of Jerusalem. They apparently may cut off Arabs from having direct access to the Muslim holy sites.

Slate posted a story highlighting the current ad campaign for the new Hummer.

Key point: "But to think that either Hummer dealers or potential buyers would be somehow embarrassed is to misunderstand the brand. People who drive enormous, angry, military-style vehicles around city streets are never embarrassed. The whole point of the Hummer is a total—and aggressive—disregard for what anyone else thinks."

I think this might be slightly overstating the case, but not by much. The whole SUV mania vs FUV backlash melee is an interesting little microcosm of the libertarian / communitarian split. FUVs use a lot of resources. They are more dangerous for other drivers. [Even more dangerous for the people who drive them.] So is it a public nuisance?

I feel that the people who want government to actively jump in in this kind of situation and try to create a better society through group organization [you might call them "liberals"] too often ignore some of the reasons that people want to drive FUVs, own spring villas, own expensive gadgets, etc. Or maybe they don't acknowledge that there might be multiple reasons. Not every expensive purchase is just to show off. [Or is it? Maybe I'm wrong.] I have bashed FUVs as much as the next liberal but I like being able to see more around me by riding in a tall vehicle. [Of course, the FUV is much like the proverbial soap box in this regard.]

Maybe what I mean is lefties should get a little more in touch with consuming and enjoying. At least progressives are still much better connected with sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll than the conservatives. Now if we could only add money, then we'd dominate access to all the human race's pleasure buttons. But is money a bullshit social-construct pleasure button that we shouldn't worry so much about? This has now become too deeply philosophical for a blog and I'm out.

color -- the sammich

General Tony McPeak getting interviewed by the Oregonian:

Oregonian: "There is an argument here, which is that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological and nuclear know-how . . . that the Iraqi government could give these weapons to somebody that's willing to use them, which could wreak pretty serious consequences on the world. Do you buy that?"

McPeak: "This reminds me of the story about the guy who said, If I had some ham, I'd make a ham sandwich, if I had some bread.

"If (Saddam) has munitions of mass destruction, and a decent and a working relationship with al-Qaida, and al-Qaida can figure out how to deliver it in downtown New York City."

I'm introducing another chronic entry to thinkness. This one's called 'color'. It's just a collection of colorful analogies and metaphors related to news and ideas and anything that interests me. Here's the first:

color -- the sandbox

My father sent me an email explaining this war in Iraq: "Once upon a time a kid lost his cap pistol while playing on the swing. He went looking for it in the sandbox because the light was better there.

"The nation's chief object should be to suppress terrorism such as 9/11. Iraq had no hand in 9/11; its destruction will almost certainly not decrease terrorism. Rather, it will be the planting of dragon's teeth in new ground, e.g., Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country.

"I'm glad there is no draft. I can't imagine anything worse than having my son involved in a war whose calamitous borders resemble the ever expanding universe."

Every once in a while, when I think I'm beginning to feel like I really understand what's going on, I come across an article like this, from a liberal guy at a liberal paper telling me how terrible a man Saddam Hussein is. And I wonder how anyone could be so sure that everything that's happening now is so wrong.

Yes, of course the administration has bad ulterior motives; yes, the diplomacy was terrible; yes, there's little reason to trust when any of them are saying; and yes, it appears likely that Iraq will be abandoned and broken by this adminsitration that cares not a whit for Afghanistan and has so little humility. It appears likely. But maybe Iraq will actually become a sort of normal society after this, where millions of people can achieve some degree of freedom and not be tortured for uttering a ill word against the regime. There is so much hanging in the balance, being settled right now in that country...

To me, it is unseemly to treat this as a political fight in which one knows exactly where one stands. I protested the first day the war started. I thought it would work out badly for Iraq and the world. I feel like the moment now requires not the shrillest opposing voice, but mostly solemnity, coupled with a healthy dose of concern. This isn't just a fight over America's role in the world, or oil, or terrorism -- it's about tens of millions of Iraqis constantly under threat to have their tongues cut off, who have been so beaten down by 23 years of this that most of them have no hope of re-emerging.

I can't shut off the little part in my brain that's hopeful that no more Iraqi women will be raped by the police, and I can't pretend that protesting the government's actions is really that important to me right now.

Slate published a really good story on how it's not surprising that the US is surprised that Iraq's army is using unconventional strategies. During the US military's big war game, they rigged the results so that we would win. The game operators gave the US navy another life after it had been destroyed and prevented the enemy side from using all the strategies at its disposal. Luckily, the Iraqi military's not quite as smart as the guy who ran the enemy side in that war game.

Perhaps the US military only sees what it wants to see: an Iraqi military that will come out into the open and give a "fair" fight, despite being horribly overmatched by American military capability. Just like the civilian neocons pictured Iraq welcoming the US as liberators as shock and awe quickly won the war.

Here's an apt companion story to that one I posted yesterday about the horrors of war. Sample of the happiness:

"Cease fire!" Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

(I believe that expletive was "fucking".)

Also, some writer-types are now starting to address more directly the question of just how bad it is that we're using depleted uranium (DU) in some shells. Where exactly is the line between "weapon of mass destruction" and "shining happy weapon holding hands"? Some of the definition seems to rest on whether the US likes to use it or not. DU is pretty horrendous stuff (and I'm not talking about some fraternity):

"A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in the desert.

"The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.

"A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused fingers."

This is the best article I've seen yet describing the war. Humanizing, brutal, and absolutely petrifying.

This must come as a surprise to Richard Perle -- increasingly looking like idiot of the year -- who predicted that the role of the US ground forces would be "taking down names, ranks, and serial numbers" because they would be surrendering and ditching Saddam so quickly.

Btw, there's another really good post at Talkingpointsmemo from some unnamed former diplomat.

Enron Smackdown

FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee, released a study last week showing that Enron and other energy traders really did manipulate the energy market during Cali's 2001 energy crisis. Apparently, some municipal power companies also got into the act. Barbara Boxer is pissed that FERC awarded the state only about as much money as it already owes the power suppliers. I'd go so far as to say 'hella' pissed, as they say in the Bay. Cali, like Tupac, against the world.

Is there a new Atlantic alliance forming?

NYT: "Seals Clear Mines in Vital Harbor"
San Jose Mercury News: "Dolphins help Navy clear mines from harbor"

It's sorta a cute picture if you can get over the mines and war part: loveable cetaceans cavorting in the warm Persian Gulf waters. ['Course, PETA must be dropping a blowhole over this.]

first blip #1

Yesterday while at a conference I saw the delineation of a very useful distinction that will form the basis of my first "first blip" -- it's a new department I'm making. This department [the second -- the first was "deep regret"] is about identifying a new thought that has come into the world, or at least my world. It has just shown up on the radar and I'm going to keep track of them in first blip. I'm only going to follow and catalog interesting ideas, for obvious reasons.

The astute observation at the conference was the distinction between "generational" and "maturational" changes. That is, is a particular difference between a young person now and an older person now attributable to differences between the times when they grew up, or to changes that happen in a person as they get older?

Old people don't like hiphop. Young people do. Will young people stop liking hiphop as they get older? Or will the expectations on older people change as the set of old people become repopulated with people who grew up during the 70s/80s?

Old people don't like rollercoasters. Young people do. You get the idea.

This isn't an idea that I saw for the first time yesterday; I have found myself wondering about age differences many times and posing that question. But seeing the distinction again, expressed succinctly as a choice between two words, makes it a much easier question to probe. It used to be that I would have to launch into a long-winded explanation of age-based differences. Now I expect to just say "generational or maturational?"

One interesting note: while it isn't a whole new idea, this simple distinction has made it so much more easy to address this split that it will really facilitate this kind of discussion and the continued flow of ideas related to the distinction. Perhaps there's a sort of tipping point to the facility with which you can discuss a particular topic. By breaking down a seemingly inconsequential barrier, you can move from one side of the tipping point to the other. Sort of like compressing music files by a factor of 10 [mp3] passed a tipping point and made it easy and popular to trade those files online.

[Is that another first blip right there? Nah, not specific enough. I expect there to be a lot of internal debate about what exactly the definition is. Doesn't feel right, it's not right.]

deep regret #1

This is the story that convinced me I would eventually launch some kind of catalog of this one particularly heinous type of insult to the human race as well as to Truth, as a sort of Platonic ideal.

Essentially, a PR guy at Bertelsmann helped bury a story revealing that the German company didn't resist the Nazis, as it had insisted for decades, but rather published some of the reich's twisted fascist literature. He did this by pulling some strings with the head of a German television company that had been supporting the investigation. The despicable flack acknowledged as much in this great WSJ article:

"I did what a spokesman has to do in that kind of situation," says Mr. Harnischfeger, who now runs an independent media-consulting company. "It was emergency PR. One could argue that tactically it was a success."

Grrrr... This makes me furious every time I read it. It's the canonical example of what I'm highlighting with "deep regret".

Grrrr...

Okay, I'm going to launch a whole shiny new part of my blog now. It's called "the chronic". In thinking about making a blog, I realized that there are a few types of posts that I would be making fairly often. the chronic is a bunch of departments that will hold those common threads in my web commentary. Hopefully, it'll lend additional direction to my observation and thinking. "Form is meaning", they say. We'll see.

One thing that's busted about my form right now is how you use the chronic. It's pretty janky. I'll upgrade it sometime soon when I learn some more html.

The first department is "deep regret". It's about the disingenuousness of marketing and media manipulation and how it drives me totally fucking crazy. The name comes from one phrase that I've noticed pops up quite routinely in press releases and public statements from various people/corporations who have messed up in some regard. Remarkably often, they say, "We deeply regret if we caused, blah blah..." It's just a good example of words that mean absolutely nothing but are tossed out to affect the world of images and media and perceptions. Totally vapid stupidity. And lies.

I was also thinking of naming this chronic "the odor of mendacity", after one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies. I reserve the right to change it in the future if I grow disenchanted with "deep regret". Of course, I reserve that right for all of this blog. Sorta goes without saying.

Remember that part of Die Hard when our hero Sgt John McClane -- beaten nearly to a pulp, feet shredded by glass shards -- finally gets face-to-face with international man of terrorism Hans Gruber? McClane is perfectly ready to shoot Hans so full of lead he'll use his dick for a pencil. But there's one problem: Hans has a hostage -- who so happens to be one Ms McClane [wife, not mom]. So what does John do? Take a shot at Hans, trusting in his heroic marksmanship? No, of course not, even though his aim would surely have been true if he had decided to. [It's nice to have a sympathetic screenwriter.] He puts down the gun because any sane person who likes to think of himself as "the good guy" can't take shots at the bad guy and put the innocent as risk. This is, of course, not limited to Die Hard, but is rather a classic action-movie dynamic. Anybody can tell you that's the way it's gotta go.

So why are people so blind to recognizing this dynamic out in the world? Specifically, why is it hard for Americans, who know their action movies damn well, to apply this to Iraq?

The US is currently mired in one of these similar situations. I recently came across this account. Essentially, this MSNBC reporter in Iraq is really pissed that the Iraqi army fights dirty -- fake surrender, civilian clothes, hiding in civilian areas, etc. The reporter is with the troops and sees Marines getting killed because of these dirty strategies and is, for obvious reasons, very affected.

This is a widely-held perspective in the US, particularly while "our boys" are in the thick of it. Sgt Stryker says the MSNBC guy looks as though he wants to say, "Why can't we blow up that mosque, if they're killing Marines?" We've got to get to realizing that Saddam is thoroughly twisted and maniacal and there's no way that's ever going to change. He's also got a big group of guys that have agreed to enthusiastically follow his sick directions. And there's some larger group that doesn't really agree but will do his bidding as long as the die-hard loyalists are threatening to kill them if they disobey. The US has to accept this and realize that it's not going to change. If we want to keep thinking of ourselves as "the good guys", we have to do whatever we can to diminish the threats to civilians, even if it would mean exposing ourselves to greater risk. Moreover, we must realize even before starting a war like this that Saddam is a psychopath and will use tactics like this during a war. When deciding to go to war, we should already make up our minds how we will respond to this situation, even if the Iraqi tactics are "unfair".

This isn't the first time this dynamic has emerged; it has existed for some time in the US' Iraq policy. Back in the 1990's, the US-led sanctions put us in a position where we were similarly threatening civilians [Ms McClane] in order to get at the Iraqi leadership [Hans]. Our decision in that case was clear: Let 'er rip and pull the trigger till it goes "click". All through the 90s, we helped impose an embargo on Iraq that led to the deaths of many thousands of civilians in order to diminish the Iraqi military's ability to make NBC [nucular, biological, chemical] weapons. That was a vicious decision with terrible consequences. I never thought I'd say this, but the American leaders better bone up on their Die Hard and learn to be a little less brutal.

In that movie, truly the apotheosis of action flickness, McClane had duct taped an extra gun to the back of his neck, knowing that he would have to gallantly drop his rifle when he squared off with a terrorist who had taken a hostage. Perhaps the US will learn to consistently come up with some clever strategies rather than just blowing away the hostage and villain both. If not, we'll just have to suck up the extra risk. That's what being the good guy's all about. [Also, McClane turns out to be quite prescient: Not only did he pack extra heat -- always a good move -- but he was keyed in on duct tape's importance in the War on Terrorism a good 15 years before everyone else.]

Incidentally, the whole fracas over the sanctions turned into quite a shitstorm with wild misperceptions and exaggerations on both sides. Reason's article on the affair from last year really nailed the issue, although I don't quite agree with its rather off-hand dismissal with Said and Zinn and them.

Oh, you might say that sometimes the heros do just shoot. True. The Untouchables comes to mind. I seem to remember Clint Eastwood doing that too, sometime. I consider these exceptions. And in these exceptions, the hero never misses. [Again, the sympathetic screenwriter. It's good to be the protagonist.]

TNR's good post on the dynamic scoring thing. I'm ordinarily too bored by financial/economic news to really care too much, and this isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it's just another part of federal policy that's becoming increasingly riddled with bullshit. The administration's handling of the budget is unfathomably bad -- just passing the buck on to whatever poor pres and congress come next.

Air Force One is now, like the House, serving freedom toast. I find it more funny than scary but, then again, my home's not getting bombed by the US...

I don't know why I just made a long, involved post about some economic hoonanny and I doubly don't know why I'd do it again. Actually, this one's short.

I'm just annoyed at the humongous budget deficit [yeah, that again] and the administration's lies surrounding it. And Shrub keeps going around excusing this humongous deficit by saying he hit the trifecta of war, national emergency, and recession. First of all, this is so dumb. War is a national emergency, don't you think? Also, you're starting half the the damn wars, so that shouldn't be an excuse. And he has fiscal estimates -- made by his own party's CBO, with his own party's dynamic scoring scheme -- projecting deficits out until at least 2013. Are you planning on keeping the US in national emergency [includes war, remember] and recession for 10 frickin' years? That's quite a swath of destruction you plan to carve into our country, Mr President. Oh, I guess it makes sense if you count two terms of the Dubya Debacle along with one term of whatever scrub you anoint to follow you.

He also claims that during the campaign he said those were the only conditions under which he'd run a deficit. The only problem is he never said that during the campaign.

A big, steaming pile of mendacity has been coming down the pike for the past couple of months and is just now spilling out of the congressional sewer pipe. The Congressional Budget Office is now using "dynamic scoring" to estimate how various fiscal measures will affect the federal government's bottom line. Dynamic scoring means that the office will consider the various effects down the road from budget maneuvers they make now.

No one would debate that tax cuts will affect the economy and federal revenue down the line in some complicated ways. But everyone will debate exactly how much that effect will be. The CBO used to basically use "static scoring", wherein a $100b tax cut cost $100b. Now, that tax cut could cost $100b or save $100b, depending on how you look at it and massage your formulae. And you can get it to say whatever the hell you want it to.

The new head of the CBO, dynamic-scoring proponent, seems to be a fairly credible fellow. But there's no doubt that moving to dynamic scoring is adding a humongous amount of politics and bullshitting into the budgetary process. Isn't it theoretically possible, for instance, that the administration and Republicans in the Congress would want to use dynamic scoring so as to minimize the appearance of the humongous deficit the federal government's running up? Hmmm??

Conservative pundit types are similarly stoked about the move to dynamic scoring. Should someone tell them that when the CBO is a little friendlier to Democrats that dynamic scoring may show that spending hikes actually save the government money? Or that dynamic scoring just gives wrong results sometimes? Because some of them, like the House budget chair, seem to think that government spending will only have a negative effect on the economy.

Despite the fiddling, the deficit is still there, obvious as a penguin on an ice floe. [?]

Feh. Economics.

Okay, this is my first post here. The maiden voyage of Thinkness. [The blog may very well soon be re-christened if I have nightmares about that being a bad name. It's good enough to start with.]

This blog is going to try to look at questions and issues with a good amount of perspective and connect them together in keen ways. Certainly, a lot of the posts will address political questions, particularly while we are at war. Of course, at this rate we'll be at war for the rest of my -- or at least thinkness' -- life. It will also go at some other topics. Not sure what those will be, but hopefully it will become clear to me at some point.