The Prosecution's Opening Arguments

I have read reviews of Mr. Bugliosi's book () that lead me to believe that book is worth a read. But given that the [alleged--Ed.] opposition party has declared that they will not pursue any form of prosecution (civil or criminal) of this administration and their high crimes and misdemeanors, I hadn't really pursued it much.

So, it was quite a shock to hear him give this presentation:



I think I might have to give the offices of Senator Clinton and Schumer a call tomorrow.

Too much blood on my hands

Is it really fair that we the men and women of our armed forces go to a foreign land and fight for us, but yet don't provide them the care they need when they return home?

I don't think so. I admit though that even though I've been trying to keep up with information on veterans and the small things that I can do to help, I was shocked to see these numbers:

The VA estimates that every year 6,500 veterans take their own lives. The mental health director for the VA, Ira Katz, said in an e-mail last December that of the 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, four to five of them are under VA care, and 12,000 veterans under VA care are attempting suicide each year.

18 people a day in the United States take their own lives as a direct result of doing what they believed to be their duty to God and country. I cannot account for God, but the tiny fraction of country that I represent just got a wake up call that I need to do more. I am not sure what that is. But I have to do something.

digg story

21 Days Later

I have this evening realized another failure of character on my part.

Being one of those who do believe that an serious pandemic influenza outbreak is on the horizon, as I read this article, I kept finding myself stumbling over something that I realize says more about me than the subject matter. This MedGuru article on a successful trial of a new flu vaccine targeted at the dreaded H5N1 strain of influenza details some good news on the preparatory work that the world of medicine is doing to mitigate the impact a pandemic would have. But, I must admit: it never occurred to me that they would be doing human trials so soon. I found myself stumbling over the term "volunteers":

The vaccine uses a clade 1 strain of H5N1 virus. Total 284 volunteers, aged 18-45 years were administered this vaccine, twice, with a gap of 21 days with and without adjuvant. The trials were conducted in Austria and Singapore.

Now, those who know about the recent work done to better understand flu pandemic of 1918 know that scientists have discovered that those most affected by the virus were healthy people between the age of 18 and 45. To know full well that scientists have compared H5N1 to the Spanish Flu in it's morbidity rate amongst healthier victims, and to then sign up to take 2 injections of (granted, a killed strain) of this virus separated by 21 days of monitoring requires a certain kind of bravery that I sadly don't think I am in possession of.

I would like to personally thank those 248 people and the folks working in the BHL-3 lab with live strains of H5N1 for taking the risks required to save the millions who might be saved should this vaccine prove safe and effective.

Now, before you go posting a comment decrying my use of the phrase "millions" above, let me point you to someone who has written more eloquently than I on the subject of what information is out there about the coming plague and how we all process it. This blogger, focused on the issue of the pandemic, has broken it down quite succinctly in the title of her post: We all make choices.

As she points out, the information is out there. There was news on the subject almost daily when the outbreaks in Asia were coming fast and furious. And now, the information is still there, but the impact of it is deadened by the fact that in reality, it is nearly impossible to determine how bad the outbreak could be until it starts happening. And, as she points out, "we don't know if H5N1 will cause the next pandemic (it may be some other pathogen)". So, in the face of all that uncertainty, yes, it is quite possible to think that those of us, like your humble correspondent, who keep an eye out for news on the subject are just wacko "Flubies". But I don't think we are. I would rather think that we are according to nature all of the respect she is due. And have chosen to be afraid. Very afraid. Yet optimistic.

As David said best in Psalm 139:14: "... I am fearfully and wonderfully made..."

Dirty Pretty Things

This blog is called "Random Musings", so in keeping with the rubric, I am required to bring your attention to this bit of somewhat old, but apparently still valid news:

At elementary schools, kindergartens, and preschools all across Japan, kids are losing themselves making hikaru dorodango, or balls of mud that shine.

As a mediative adult hobby, it sounds worth exploring. It is probably still too early to start our children on it. Maybe in another year or so. Then again, making objects of beauty out of mud resonates with anyone's beliefs about creation.

And the instructions seem simple enough.

On second thought, maybe I will try this out soon.

Tag Nabbit...

I have so far survived being "tagged". Today that changed, courtesy of Emily (who I am sure has more than two readers).

So, following said instructions, I offer up this from JG Ballard's War Fever, which was sitting in the box next to my desk:

Even so, I have to be careful not to give the game away. I maintain a reasonably kempt appearance, wave from the upstairs windows at Mrs. Johnson and gesture apologetically at the overgrown lawn. She understands -- I have been abandoned by my wife, condemned to the despair of a womanless world.

I won't name names with regards to tagging. But if anyone who reads this has a blog of their own (and you don't make your saving throw), then leave a comment and let me know you've taken up the tag.

Listen Up

Cantinero has published a new post on the HuffingtonPost spin-off 23/6, and with it an new song that captures the current vibe of the Clinton campaign with laser precision.

If it makes the front page of Digg, I can imagine that the conversation about it will be lively, which is why I'm posting the link to the Digg page as well as the directl link to the 236.com page.

A word about terminology here: Normally, I'd cringe at referring to the first viable female candidate for the Oval Office as Little Princess. But since Cantinero is a British fellow and the Brits (like much of the developed world) have a long history of women rulers, I am sure that this is not a sexist slam, but instead a targeted critique of the "funny thing that happened in the way to the inevitable nomination of HRC"

read more | digg story

A Good Cause

As a fan of genre movies, one of the most biting statements I use about a film is to say "that money could have been better spent". But being one who judges movies on how well they do in their genre, and don't hold them up to some gold standard in a completely unrelated area (say comparing Doomsday to Blow-Up to name two films I've seen recently) There aren't very many films I say this about. One that comes to mind most readily is House of the Dead. It was a complete abomination of a film, and I am not saying that about the zombies in the film, I'm talking about the film itself.

At first I thought that the director had a bad script. That maybe the budget ran out during filming and they had to pull some Plan 9 from Outer Space-like actor swaps mid-stream. Then after casting about for a reason that such a monstrosity could exist in the known universe, I discovered the cause: Dr. Uwe Boll. Please don't let the sedate Wikipedia entry fool you: I believe that the man's not quite right. (What other film directors have actually challenged their critics to boxing matches?)

This week, Slashdot and Digg reported the story that Boll has declared that should 1 million people sign a petition, he'll stop making films. Since then, he seems to be characteristically waffling, as Wired reports here. The serious note behind all this is that because of some tax incentives to encourage local film production (his films are financed in Germany), Boll can continue to make films that never do well in the theaters or on DVD and not get fiscally penalized for it.

So the German taxpayers are getting the shaft here, and lesser directors without the kinds of financial connections that Boll has are left out. Granted, there are some who do benefit from it (the crews and actors that he hires) but as this Slashdot comment points out, that's not enough:

As someone who actually works in the film industry, I'm not too quick to complain, since all of his films generally result in people working....

But on the other hand, his films are some of the most cynically exploitive junk you've ever seen. He uses a provision in the German tax code to get tax credits and free money, and uses those to bootstrap foreign distribution pre-sales and video-game tie in deals. In effect, he's made money before he even starts rolling the camera, and so the quality of his film itself is irrelevant as long as it cuts a good trailer, will have a good poster, and has enough "bankable" stars in the project to stimulate box office. It's essentially the Roger Corman model, just without the class and punk authenticity.

That's just wrong. And so I urge you, gentle reader, to take the time and sign the petition here.

Bravo: Lifetime lands the Runway

So, after years of toiling to produce some of the best reality programming for the fashionistas of the world, the Weinstein company's Project Runway will finally be moving from the Bravo network to Lifetime.

I still think that it should replace The Apprentice in that time slot since it's actually an interesting show (not that I watched last season, mind you, I am on a reduced intake diet of television)

Well, all this will happen if NBC's law suit to stop it gets decided in the brother's Weinstein's favor, that is:

The suit asserts Harvey Weinstein, the chief executive of the Weinstein Company, promised NBC that it would have an opportunity to match any offer to the rights of “Project Runway” and that instead, Mr. Weinstein concluded a deal with Lifetime on Feb. 7, even though he continued to negotiate with NBC Universal for two more months.

In a statement, NBC said “NBC Universal has continuing rights related to ‘Project Runway,’ including a right of first refusal to future cycles of the series, which the Weinstein Company unfortunately has refused to honor.”

My (obligatory) response to this is to say that in network programming, NBC: sometimes you're in. And then, you're out.

The Wages of War

No matter what you thought about whether we should have gone into Iraq or not, at this point, it has become clear that the cost of the war in lives and dollars has exceeded any of the estimates given by the architects of the conflict.

Specifically, with the number of US war dead over 4,000 and the number of wounded a factor of 10 greater than that, it is time for our nation to start thinking about how we are all going to pitch in to help the families of those who went to fight. Unfortunately, each day that these brave men and women continue to spend in Iraq reduces our nation's ability to provide them with the types of benefits that they will need to be able to recover any semblance of normalcy in their lives upon their return home.

Robert Reich touched upon this tangentially in his most recent post on his blog. Not only are we damaging our ability to provide for our soldiers, we are also losing our ability to provide for those they left behind. Dr. Reich's analysis is short and to the point:

The war is a terribly inefficient stimulus to the US economy. A dollar spent on repairing a bridge in Iraq doesn’t have nearly the multiplier effect on our economy as a dollar spent repairing a bridge here in the United States.

More to the point – and here’s what Americans need to understand – a dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar we do not have to spend here, not only repairing our own bridges, roads, and water and sewage systems, but also giving Americans access to health insurance and children access to good schools, fully funding Social Security and Medicare, investing adequately in non-carbon based energy sources and green technologies, and borrowing less from abroad. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the real economic cost of the Iraqi War doesn’t show up in the business cycle, and it's not responsible for the current recession. The real economic cost will show up years from now in a standard of living that for most Americans will be significantly lower than we might otherwise have enjoyed.

That's for those of us not dealing with a life-changing wound received in the line of fire. And those of us not dealing with the tragic loss of a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a father or a mother to the chaos that is the "Iraqi theater of operations".

So what can you or I do about it? First, check this list and go and find out if your state's senators and congress folk have signed on to support the new GI Bill by clicking here.

Then go take a look at some of the stories shared by the soldiers at the IAVA web site.




They've earned it.

On the Governor

This song by The Frames best sums up how I'm feeling:

FRAMES lyrics

No surprise here...

I took this online quiz a while ago, and hadn't posted the results.

Given that my choice for Democratic Party nominee might be viewed as some as showing a particular gender bias, I submit this now to establish my bona fides...

The link to take the test yourself is at the bottom.

You Are 98% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Notes on some music

On Friday, I got upstairs to my office a few minutes later than I should have because I had to sit and listen to the rest of The Last Town Chorus's version of Modern Love. If you've not heard it, you can listen and watch the music video on YouTube here. I never knew this song of Bowie's would benefit so much from some steel guitar, but it does.

Elizabeth and I have this running joke that Norah Jones' sole claim to fame is that she can sing anyone's song slower than the original artist can. At first blush, this rendition brings one close to that, but something about the delivery keeps it from being lame.

Another album for me to buy, thanks to the wonderful South By Southwest festival bit torrent file. You can get your copy by following the link.

The Magical Fruit

This flash "game" is just too random and fun.

[Thanks Digg, for pointing Eliel this way--Ed.]

Technorati Tags: Random Musing

Better Never Late

On July 8th, The New York Times finally published an editorial piece that unequivocally calls for US withdrawal from the war. It can be found here. I agree with their detailed analysis of what needs to be done and the risks involved. But it is the right thing to do.

The only bone I have to pick with them is from this passage snuck in after declaring that it's time to withdraw:

Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward. [Emphasis Eliel's--Ed.]

They mean "many Americans" for ever-decreasing values of "many" by my understanding. Here's an article from almost two years ago that shows what I mean:

Right now, the polls suggest a similar move. 13% want us to send more troops (the McCain position), 28% want us to muddle on as we are now, 23% want us to withdraw some of our boys, and 33% want a full pullout. For those keeping score at home, that means 41% want to continue this fight and 56% want to end it. [With "right now" being August 25th, 2005--Ed.]

Literary Theory and Software design

Some wonder how the 'twain came to meet for me. I used to joke that both computers and cultures both need programming, so there you go.

Now, a new book (reviewed here) has appeared that puts into better terms that notion:

This concept of 'process expression' is, he says, a common thread running through the various disciplines of computer science. "A logic circuit is an expression of a logical process; an architecture is an expression of a continuously acting process to interpret symbolically expressed processes; a program is a symbolic expression of a process; a programming language is an environment within which to create symbolic process expression; a compiler is an expression of a process that translates between symbolic process expressions in different languages; an operating system is an expression of a process that manages the interpretation of other process expressions; any application is an expression of the application process."

It does not take much work to replace those pairs of concepts with equivalent cultural components: architecture becomes language, a program becomes a signifier or ritual, a programming language a culture, etc.

Serendipity

[From 6/26/07--Ed]

So last night, I stayed up later that I should reading the exciting climax to the first full-fledged Science Fiction book I've read in a long time. [A review of which can be found on Eliel's Book Blog here--Ed]

And lo and behold, I go to do a search on Google, and my quotation block has this gem from George Carlin on it

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

How random is that? Sometimes I wonder whether I am the recipient of a special extra lifetime supply of synchronicity, or whether in my desire to know more about the world around me, I expose myself to enough stuff from different area that the coincidental repetition of themes seems like Something Else™

An energy solution that's not corny

I am not a fan of corn-based ethanol. I think the "ethanol cure" to dependence on foreign oil is a sham of a hoax being perpetrated on the public by the farm lobby. As you can see from the two sides presented in this NCPA article, agribusiness folks are sold on the value of ethanol, while a cui bono-asking policy-analyst's distillation of the issue leaves them unconvinced.

The bottom line is that ethanol requires petroleum fuels to produce and transport. And by some measures, it requires more energy to make than it produces when burned in an internal combustion engine. And if you were to take away the farm subsidies, the cost of it would be greater than that of some of other alternative sources of energy.

So I am very happy to hear about a solution to the energy problem that still uses plant fuel but does so in a smarter way. This brief Scientific American article describes the process:

A recipe for fuel: take the carbohydrates like starch and cellulose that make up the majority of plants. Use enzymes to break them down into fructose, the sugar found in fruits and honey. Mix this fructose with salt water and hydrochloric acid. Add a solvent—in this case butanol also derived from plant matter—to protect the resulting hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from reacting with the water, then extract it. This versatile molecule can be used to create plastic polymers or other chemicals. And by the way, adding a copper-coated ruthenium catalyst can also convert the HMF to DMF (2,5-dimethylfuran), a fuel that provides more energy than ethanol.

So, here's a potential fuel that's more stable than ethanol (which means lower transport costs as it could be shipped via pipeline, unlike ethanol), made from crops and providing more power per unit of measure than ethanol. That's a win.

Another plus to this research is the careful approach that the developers of this technology are using. Cognizant of the MTBE fiasco, they are moving cautiously and want to evaluate the environmental impact of their product before producing it in quantity. Nice move.

Technorati Tags: Nature, Politics

A curvy necked stalker...

As I sit here on the lawn updating the old blog, [Naturally, Eliel is sans camera--Ed], there's a beautiful specimen of Great Blue Heron strolling around our pond.

I imagine it's hunting frog for dinner.

Our pond can spare some, so I wish this bird some happy eating.

Piggy banks for Pain

An interesting article from a member of the Cato Institute on Medical Savings Accounts and their effect on his own recent need for urgent care. As usual, I am almost sold on the Libertarian agenda here. The shortcoming for me of mandating MSA's for everyone is the very issue that the author brings up but brushes aside: not everyone knows how to negotiate the best deal in health care. And in his case, he did not need emergency care, just urgent care. I am pretty sure if I were in pain, I wouldn't take the time to price shop. I guess like his friend the marine, I too am a wimp.

Caught a Bug....

A virus.

A music virus.

I got it from my Childhood Bud. He said

But I'm not going to be the only one stuck with this song in my head.

and he wasn't kidding.

So here I am, instead of being asleep, I am placing an order for the album Back to Black - Amy Winehouse, on which that forsaken hellspawn of a catchy song appears.

For those of you curious about how Ms. Winehouse's live performance compares to her studio work, it does so favourably as this YouTube video of the same song shows.

Truth and Reconciliation

Imagine a press conference on the lawn of the White House where the President of the United States stands up and says the following:

Yes, my position on fighting in Iraq has turned 180 degrees from four years ago. I thought then that fighting in Iraq was the best way to defeat Islamist terrorism. After four years of observing it, and its actual empowerment of Islamist terrorism, I've changed my mind.

It seems that this will never happen. But it has for self-avowed small-c conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. If you are not a regular reader of the Daily Dish, I recommend you become one.

Mr. Sullivan ends his posting (titled Busted) with a most compelling quotation that I wish someone from the White House press corp would ask the President at their next opportunity:

But as Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?"

Technorati Tags: Politics

Nutopia

Meg Lee Chin's song Nutopia (which I got as part of the huge bittorrent file published by the SXSW festival organizers in 2005) is one of those songs that I don't listen to very often any more [Let's just say it went through a period of "high rotation" when Eliel first discovered it--Ed.], but every time I do, I am blown away by how much it captures the current state of affairs for "my generation"

When you open with these lines:

I saw the best minds of my generation
running on empty
Superglued to the TV
Dreaming of prosperity
talking incessantly
saying nothing

It's hard to not get a good idea of where she stands on commercial culture. One of my favorite lines skewering the gliterati is this one:

Flashing memberships to clubs so exclusive
nobody belongs

If you can stand industrial music, this one's worth a listen.

Technorati Tags: Music, Random Musing

Byrne down in the house

The Post-Talking Heads incarnation of the Artist continually known as David Byrne has long had a predilection towards South American music.

His years spent South of the Border have paid off: I just listened to "I Wish" which you can find on Salon.com right here. It's great. Combining the best sounds of early Talking Heads with the odd instrumentation that Salon credits to Brazilian country music.

I love it!

[Editor's note: Eliel would like to thank a fellow music nerd for reminding him to talk about what he's listening too these days]

Technorati Tags: Music

It's time to MoveOn

No matter which solution you favor for the war in Iraq, it is pretty clear that with the changing primary schedule, voters who want to get to know where candidates stand on this issue (and others) need to start getting involved in the election cycle early.

MoveOn.Org is hosing a Virtual Town Hall meeting and have invited all the candidates from the Democratic Party to take and answer questions submitted by MoveOn.Org members. If you'd like to attend one of these meetings in your area, follow this link.

Unfortunately for me, I will be traveling to and fro to the airport that day, so I won't be able to attend. But if you do, please let me know what you learned and if it helped you make up your mind about the candidates.

Technorati Tags: Politics

Saw Seen

While the family is away, I am catching up on some non-family-friendly movie viewing.

Saw was the Netflix delivery for Friday night.

This is the review I submitted to Netflix:

Unlike a lot of the crop of horror movies released of late, Saw harkens back to the old days of Horror movies that were not slasher films.

Don't get me wrong, this movie contains plenty of disturbing imagery. It fits squarely in the "horror" genre, not "suspense".

Having said that, the reason I liked the film is that it is more a study of people than of ways that people die, like a lot of new horror. Instead of the focus being on how many gallons of blood the director can use per scene, we're instead forced to consider the ugly questions of what a person would be willing to do to save themselves or their families.

Would you kill a stranger to save your own life?

Ultimately, Saw is a movie not about dying, but instead about what we would do to live. And unfortunately, the glimpse that it provides into the choices that some people make is the truly terrifying aspect of this movie.

To expand a little: lately, when I watch a horror movie (The Descent being the other recent entry) what I find myself being horrified by is probably not what a majority of moviegoers find scary (since the majority of the audience of these films is that prized 18-24 demographic, from what I hear): to wit, the loss of one's family.

The final scene of the opening sequence of The Descent in which the protagonist loses her family in a flash, scared me more than the claustrophobic cave-ins did later on in the film. And the same for Saw. The idea of someone sneaking into your home and terrorizing your children while you're not their is much more frightening to me than being chained to a pole in a subterranean bathroom.

Not easy watching. But if you're looking for something scary to watch, I can recommend these two movies.

High and Low

THe most common refrain I hear myself asking when I hear about appearences of impropriety in the Bush administration is one echoed in this article that appeared in Salon News a few weeks ago:

"You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told me. "How high does it go?"

The issue this time are reports that wounded veterans are being re-deployed to Iraq after having their medical conditions "reviewed" by administrators who seem willing to write off serious conditions without any kind of thorough examination of the soldier's condition. To top it all off, soldiers being redeployed in the fashion are apparently feeling that their ability to speak publicly about their issues is at risk:

Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.

Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way" Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This is pathetic. It is bad." [Emphasis Eliel's--Ed.]

These are our nations wounded warriors. People who have taken the step of not just saying they stand for America, but actually putting their boots on and going to stand for America fighting a war that never should have been fought. If our nation is defined by how we treat our most vulnerable, perhaps I (along with the soldier I quote from the article) am asking the wrong question. Perhaps the question is not "how high does it go", but instead "how low can it go"?

Between this and the debacle at Walter Reed (which Veteran's groups will tell you is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to how wounded veterans are treated) including a shortage of critical mental health services that could have been life saving for some who came home from the war and took their own lives, it is clear that we as a nation are not doing enough to care for the men and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq in bad shape.

The good news is that groups like IAVA are making strides in getting congress to fill their role of oversight of the executive branch and mandating better rules for treatment of veterans. Click here if you want to help urge your Senator to do their job.

This nation needs lots of healing. Supporting our veterans is a non-partisan issue: Let's start with making sure that those who got hurt wearing our flag on their arms get the help they need. To do anything less would be to sink even lower than we already are now.

Technorati Tags: More on this later, Politics

Foggy, but far from the bottom

What a great day to finally feel like I've recovered my health. After having to go home sick from work on Wednesday, and basically sleeping until mid-day Friday, I woke up to a beautiful gray morning today.

The fog was thick and surrounded our house with a heavy gray mist. Visibility was probably a hundred yards or so. It was so humid that the 30 degree weather felt warmer than it was.

This is a view from our pond:



I love living in the country.

Technorati Tags: Nature, Home

The New New Thing

Andrew Sullivan points out this poll that shows that the Democratic party (at least at this point in the cycle) would be better off having Barak Obama as their candidate.

It's interesting to see how the "mainstream" candidates Clinton and Edwards are not polling well against their Republican rivals. I have to say that this makes sense to me. Since she seems to find herself unable to come out and admit that she was wrong on the vote granting President Bush authority to go to war with Iraq, I am finding it harder and harder to believe that she is viable candidate for the Democratic party.

Edwards on the other hand has the problem of not having any attention paid him by the media as the viable contender that he could be. Which of course makes it harder for him to be a viable contender.

So, those with baggage are not doing well, but the NKOTB (no, not that one! This one) seems to be hold his own. Oh well. It is so early in the election cycle that I am hard pressed to pay attention, but with the primary schedule moving up, it seems like it's time to start paying attention. So, more on this subject later.

Technorati Tags: More on this later, Politics

the key to this season of 24...

is to be found in this article on Salon about our Extraordinary Rendition Program:

The rendition teams are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful. They are the men who went into Baghdad before the bombs and into Afghanistan before the army. If they didn't do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks. Perhaps the Bush administration deliberately created a gray area on renditions. [Emphasis Eliel's--Ed.]

Jack and Graeme Bauer are cut from the same cloth. The difference is that Jack found an official state-sanctioned outlet for his sociopathic tendencies, while Graeme seems to have tried to sublimate his urges into his suburban family, but has (based on his appearances in previous seasons) not been very successful in curbing his need for more adrenaline.

Zen and the art of Trainspotting

[Updated 1/22/2007 9:19PM EST to link to definition of Trainspotting--Ed.]

Now that I am a commuter, I have been accused by Elizabeth of becoming Train-spotter.

She's probably right. But it stems from that need to normalize the daily trek into something automatic and regular so that I am not faced each day with thinking "oh my, I am going to be on the train for two hours this morning". So, when things fall out of the ordinary, it's noticeable. Today, for example, we've just arrived at the Croton-Harmon train station at 6:54, when we should have been here by 6:43.

This means that we'll probably be held outside Penn Station this morning since we'll run into Metro North traffic since we're off schedule.

Being a train-spotter is an exercise in futility though, because there's really nothing to be done now that I know this except to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Technorati Tags: Random Musing

A pox for an epoch

A confluence of news regarding the dangers posed by the coming flu season. A good summary of the problems to be had with the H5N1 strain of avian flu can be found here at Time Magazine.

The picture is not pretty.

It seems that the outbreaks from the 2006 flu season are being repeated again this year but with a larger geographic footprint. Outbreaks of avian influenza have hit all the usual places as well as spreading to Africa and more nations along the Pacific rim.

The scary part is that it seems at least one strain is starting to show resistance to the "old standby" cure for the flu: Tamiflu. This article has all the details about the various discoveries of Tamiflu-resistant strains. Specifically:

Two patients who recently died of H5N1 avian influenza in Egypt had a strain of the virus that was moderately resistant to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today, but the finding has not prompted new health advisories.

The reason for no new health advisories that the method by which the flu is transmitted between avian and human hosts seems to require fairly close contact with the birds and does not yet seem transmittable from human to human. The article also highlights one of the problems with eradicating the sources of the virus in their animal hosts:

The Egyptian woman reported today as a new H5N1 patient was admitted to a hospital Jan 11 after having given birth on Jan 2, IRIN reported. She initially denied contact with poultry, but WHO spokesman Hassan el-Bushra told IRIN that ducks and pigeons were found in her home and chickens had died nearby. [Emphasis Eliel's--ed.]

Anyone in these countries admitting to being in contact with sick poultry faces the prospect of having those in authority arrive at their homes and euthanize their entire flocks in an effort to eradicate those carrying the influenza virus. For many of these people, that would mean either a loss of their livelihood or their family's sustenance. It is easy for us in the west to criticize and wonder aloud about the influezna-eradication efforts in these countries because we don't have to weigh the risks between our families having food on the table against that of contracting a dangerous flu virus.

The bad news for us though is that a recent study has given more weight to the suspicion that the method of transmission for the great flu pandemic of 1918 was through an avian vector that then mutated into a version capable of spreading via human to human transmission. A brief summary of the study can be found here. The danger is that H5N1 might follow in this viruses footsteps and become the kind of killer that the 1918 flu was.

But, there's some worse news from that article that I should share. [If you clicked on the link to read that article, and if you've been a regular reader of Eliel's blog, you will probably know what is coming next--Ed.]

While I commend the people who performed the study for determining once and for all how it was that the 1918 strain of the flu managed to kill so many, I cannot help but be shocked and appalled (again) that scientists have taken to re-creating viruses from gene strands obtained from those long-dead. It's kind of telling that

[t]he study "proves the 1918 virus was indeed different from all of the other flu viruses we know of," says Kawaoka, a professor in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, and at the University of Tokyo.

But now, this unique strain of influenza virus exists again.

Real smart going.

Technorati Tags: H5N1, Pandemic

Keep Hope Alive?

So this morning I wrote that I had hope that maybe this coming election cycle would not be as partisan and nasty as the last few have been.

And at 2:45PM, the Washington Post proved me wrong:

With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn't have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes.

The man just announced his exploratory committee yesterday, and today we're talking attack ads?

Technorati Tags: Politics

Run Obama Run

Good article on Salon.com about Mr. Obama can be found here.

And when Larry told me that Obama had announced yesterday, I replied "you mean Osama"? Because of this CNN "gaffe".

And the drum beat in the press starting to Arabic-bait the candidate by pointing out over and over that his middle name is Hussein. From the same RawStory article:

Initially, a variety of news organizations and pundits began pointing out that Obama's middle name was "Hussein," given to him by his father who was born and raised a Muslim. In early November, Chris Matthews on MSNBC suggested that the "Hussein" moniker will "be interesting down the road." Republican pundits and strategists then began referring to Obama's middle name more pointedly. [Emphasis Eliel's --ed]

It's going to be a long two 22 months. Chances are this election cycle will be partisan and maiming to our psyches, but let's at least hope that our country will start down the road of healing from the last 6 years of this administration's policies.

All the Rage

I just found out that Music.Download.Com has 17 of NWA's best tracks available for free streaming. It seems that today is history day for me. For reasons I won't elaborate on since it's almost bed-time, today has been all about remembering the 80's for me. I posted a brief tribute to the album on the review page.

Before I sign off to nod off, I should just state that if you're into music, and want to be legit in acquiring and sampling new stuff, there's no better destination than the aforementioned site. I don't know how C-Net does it, but they've been able to consistently get "sampler" tracks from some of the best artists that ClearChannel stations will never play.

[One last note, NWA's album is in no way suitable for listening to if you are offended by the profane--Ed.]

Technorati Tags: Music, Nostalgia, More on this later

A Rescuer down under

As most have already heard, earlier this week, a man suffered a seizure and collapsed onto the subway tracks. He was rescued by a complete stranger who jumped down onto the tracks and got the two of them between the rails and into a shallow ditch that allowed the arriving train to pass over them.

Both men survived the experience. The reporting on this has been far and wide, but the one I thought worth linking to raised the question that's been in the back of my head since I heard about this story: would I have done the same?

Mr Autrey has repeatedly said that what he did is what he would expect anyone to do:

Mr. Autrey refused medical help, because, he said, nothing was wrong. He did visit Mr. Hollopeter in the hospital before heading to his night shift. “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help,” Mr. Autrey said. “I did what I felt was right.”

I hope never to find out if I have his strength. If I do have to find out, I pray that somewhere in me I still have the kind of compassion for others that it would take to make that leap.

Secret Agent

So it seems that the isotope that killed the former Soviet Spy Alexander Litvinenko has been identified. As reported by New Scientist here:

Litvinenko's death at the age of 43 from heart failure in a London hospital last Thursday was linked to traces of polonium-210 found in his urine by the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA). An inquest into his death is due to open later this week.

The interesting thing about this is that the choice of weapon is an almost certain indicator that whomever it was that killed this man had access to nuclear programs in 1 of 3 countries that used the isotope as a component for nuclear weapons [That would be the US, the UK, and Russia--ed].

And given the isotopes short half-life, one can rule out that this is some random attack perpetrated by someone who found some of this stuff on a shelf:

Other experts point out that, since its half-life is 138 days, the polonium-210 was probably made in the recent past. "It would become less usable as years went by and after five years would be useless," says Philip Day, an environmental radiochemist from the University of Manchester.

The Independent is reporting on the fact that some UK ministers are now starting to come out of the closet with their concerns about the involvement of Putin's government in this issue. Some off-the-record assertions have been made that Russian agents were the ones who carried out the poisoning.

Some security sources in Britain suspect that Russian agents - or a rogue element within the country's security services - were behind Mr Litvinenko's death.

Of course, these are all speculations. Those of you who read the Wikipedia article on Litvinenko that I linked to above will see that the Soviet era spy agencies have only one documented instance of killing a defector outside of the country.