Bleach

A fragment.

I wrote this in response to something elsewhere, and wanted to save it for possible later expansion into something more complete. I figured I might as well park it here. Enjoy or not according to your whim.

...

It is too late for us to fix Clinton's presidency, and all the others before it that were guilty of more or less of the same behavior. I do not single out this administration as unique in their deception, it is just the one that is here, now. My hope, or wish, is that we can turn accountability and transparency into the most significant issues by which candidates are judged.

Neither party is immune to this. Taxes, environmental issues, campaign finance and the influence it has on legislation of all sorts, foreign policy... the list goes on, but these are a few of the many things about which both parties routinely bullshit the public and each other. In order for this to change, the message needs to be sent that we care about these things, that we will not be distracted by juicy but inconsequential scandals, that we demand policy, not politics.

That message needs to be sent to the media, by seeking out and supporting the sources that address these concerns and by ignoring those that don't. It needs to be sent to the politicians, by placing and keeping in office those that tend toward these ideals and removing those that don't. It needs to be sent to everyone around us, by talking seriously about important issues and pointing out the great mistake in believing that we are sufficiently informed by politicians' talking-points the media's short-attention-span versions of the facts.

Do you think this can happen? I don't know, myself. I alternate between hope and despair. I am certain that if it does not happen, if the American people do not intelligently and aggressively assert themselves to correct the state of our political system, things will not stop getting worse. We have a very long way to fall.

Hacking Christ

Portrait of St. Anthony recently smuggled from the Vatican. Artist unknown.

Act Nonchalant

If get just a little bit better at this, and maybe start using a nicer camera, I won't actually have to do anything anymore...

Ho, ho, ho!

I was recently given the opportunity to make a x-mas card from paper and glue and other bits. This is the result. (I never claimed to be artistic!)

click here to see inside or
click here to see what might have happened
if life more closely imitated photoshop.

Would it be too cynical if I were to just send everyone a URL this year?

Just ducky.

Many think that "duck tape" is a misnomer for "duct tape", but this is not true.

Whatever you call it, how long do you think it will be before someone asphyxiates while attempting to follow this advice?

Debunking Topiary

I have been working on an annotation of the State of the Union address, attempting to call out with references all of the rehtoric and misinformation.

Minutes ago, though, I was given this link, that does exactly what I was after, only far more effectively.

I trashed my effort. Read this, follow the links, there is a lot of very valuable information here.

Nuclear Posture: Exaggerated Slouch

Next on the list of things I seem to be the only one freaking out about...

We are radically and rapidly changing our policy regarding nuclear first strike. It is starting to look like a pretty good idea to the current administration, especially against foes who do not have the capability to respond in kind.

We are seeing rationalizations, recriminations, repercussions... and we haven't actually hauled off and used one yet. I know, you think I am overreacting.

Let's see...

The story begins a long time ago, and has many twists and turns. In short, we had a lot of really big nasty nukes that no one wanted to use. MAD, and all of that. There is much history and debate around everything that brought us to the time of the Soviet break up, and I will not try to cover it here. Ample resources exist, should you wish to refresh your memory.

Let me instead begin at the beginning of the end. I'll start in May, 2001, when G. W. gave a speech at the National Defense University. Bush took this opportunity to test market some of the administration's new ideas. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty? We don't need those any more, they're old-school. The big ICBMs? Let's continue to phase those out, and instead really light a fire under the development of smaller nukes that we can actually get away with using. Retaliation? Let's create a magic umbrella that will protect us. This speech was formulated using the standard rhetoric, and there was some reasonable doubt as to whether any of it would really come to pass.

Fast forward through most of a year of debate and further rhetoric, and we have the Congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review. Released to Congress by the Bush administration in January 2002, the NPR calls for new types of nuclear weapons, proposes new roles for their use, and emphasizes a strengthened commitment to building new nuclear weapons. Now it is official. It is policy.

We are going to use our nuclear capability to fight wars, not sit around and gather dust.

There is plenty of insightful commentary on this madness.

On December 11 2002, Donald Rumsfeld sent Bush a memorandum asking for authority to place James Ellis, commander of STRATCOM, in charge of the full range of "strategic" warfare options to combat terrorist states and organizations. In January 2003 Bush approved the proposal.
This means that one entity now makes decisions on deployment of both conventional and nuclear weaponry, in the same context.

There is not much more to say. If you are not disturbed yet, teach me that trick. I'll finish up by referring to the immediate likelihood that we will be cranking it up for real, sometime soon.

I am disturbed.

Depleted what?

Of the various really bad things that hardly anyone seems to be paying attention to, this one is high on the list. Depleted Uranium is an intentionally misleading name for U238. Depleted Uranium is what is left over when U234 and U235 (fissionable material, the kind used in bombs) are removed from naturally occurring uranium. The remaining U238 is still radioactive. It is both chemically and radiologically toxic.

Why does this matter? In the Gulf War, the U.S. fired almost a million DU rounds, leaving a battlefield littered with 1,400 wrecked radioactive Iraqi tanks, crawled over by victorious GI's who were breathing in contaminated dust. We have dumped tons of this stuff on various countries, poisoning them for all inhabitants for generations to come, and are preparing to deliver the biggest load ever in just the first few days of the conflict with Iraq. This is a WMD by any definition. As always I ask, why isn't everyone talking about it?

*sigh* I don't know. Read on for the this and that of DU.

Why we like it...
A DU round, is made from the leftover U238. The killing punch comes from the solid depleted uranium metal rod or jacket in the shells, bombs, warheads, and bullets. The DU is extremely dense (1.7 times denser than lead), conveying a lot of kinetic energy to penetrate armor. Further, U238 is a natural pyrophoric material - it flashes to a superheated cloud on impact. All of this allows DU weapons to cut through conventional armor like the proverbial hot knife through butter. We also make extensive use of U238 as armor on our own vehicles, rendering them much more resistant to more traditional armor piercing weapons. Neat, huh?

Why it really sucks...
The DOD is fond of explaining that U238 is about .7 times as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. No problem, right? Well, if it was encountered in concentrations equal and forms similar to that of naturally occurring uranium, this would be true. In reality though, there are several factors that make DU extremely nasty to friend, foe, and civilian alike.

Sitting in a DU armored vehicle next to a rack of DU projectiles is arguably not really a problem. The problems start with the fighting. When a U238 round hits a hard target, a significant portion of the U238 payload is aerosolized. The same thing happens when U238 armored vehicles burn. These aerosolized particles can be inhaled, and ingested. They are borne away on the wind and remain in the environment for a very long time. We now have a heavy metal and a source of destructive radiation in one, nicely prepared for introduction into our systems.

This is really bad stuff. It is a WMD that can continue to inflict harm for generations after it is deployed. We like it a lot.

Tell your neighbor.

Only the best intentions.

If the media tells us what to think, who tells them?
The answer to this question is not simple. There is no secret society of overlords or cabal of merciless tyrants. No single tightly knit group can be trotted out to take the blame.
The problem, though, exists. Everybody understands this, right?
No one claiming to pay attention would suggest that the news we get is not filtered and biased according to some very specific agendas.
That is what I thought. But apparently not. People with whom I talk keep patiently explaining that there is no great insidious plot to control public opinion.
I'm just taking this stuff a little bit too far.

Well. Ignoring for a moment the straw man of "great insidious plot", let's talk a short walk through some of the more documented instances of news agency "self-censorship".

Follow me...

The biggie here is CNN, Ted Turner's all propaganda network. The most famous memos date back to late 2001, when CNN wanted to make darn sure its reporters knew what side they were on.

There are plenty of examples elsewhere, too. On an October 10, 2002 conference call with national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, executives from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN reportedly acceded to her "suggestion" that any future taped statements from Al Quaida be "abridged," and any potentially "inflammatory" language removed before broadcast. After failing to successfully pressure Al Jazeera into easing up on its irresponsible reporting of all sides of the issue, Condy went after those who know on which side their bread is buttered.

I tend to give the reporters, even the talking heads, the benefit of the doubt. I figure that if you are going to get worked up, do it over oppressive top-down policy enabled by the vast conglomerates that are our "media outlets". Others are not so generous.

I don't really have anywhere to go with this. The issue is too big to accomplish anything meaningful with a blog entry. There is good journalism out there. Some of it is even American. There are lots of ideas about what to do now.

In the end, this is just a rant, and a rambling one at that. I would just like the problem to be recognized.

There is no "great insidious plot". There is a great insidious reluctance to seek truth and understanding. If we are not seeking it, there is no profit in providing it. Who should be trotted out to take the blame? You. Me.

I am going to be using this blog, among other things, to do my part. With any luck I will get better at it. I hope I am only out of practice. In the worst case, I have to believe that rambling is better than silence.

Ramble on.

Come to think of it...

While still horrified by the promise of more and better govt. control of information, let's remember just how successful these tactics have been. I am constantly freaked out by how many Amercians are either simply not aware of what happend during the end of gulf war pt1, or stand in firm denial of the evidence.

War. Media. Propaganda. Huh?

If you look for the truth we will shoot you.

random filler

Devin wants content, and I have nothing to say. Since, however, I often regurgitate things said by others, I might as well do that here. So begins an intermitant stream of random things...

"The problem is that I don't think that there is a team of economists locked away in the basement of the whitehouse crunching numbers, and saying, "this is the best way to spend $300 billion." Rather it seems a lot more like Karl Rove said, "I dunno George, seems like we know a lot of people who pay dividend taxes..." - said by Jelly on plastic.com