The Highest Stakes
OK, this time they've gone too far.

John Poindexter, the man who brought you Iran-Contra and Total Information Awareness (remember the "All-Seeing Eye" post from a few months ago), is at it again. This time, his organization, DARPA, which is sounding more and more like Marvel Comics' A.I.M. every day, has developed the Policy Analysis Market, a futures market where investors can buy contracts to predict the likelihood of events like a terrorist attack, assassination, or a military coup in the Middle East. The argument is that futures markets are good predictive instruments and it would be a way by which they could act preemptively.

Needless to say, members of Congress share my disgust.

New Power Generation

New Power Generation

In this month's issue of Discover magazine, Bill Gross, inventor and founder of Idealab, talks about a new method of solar power generation. Instead of using photovoltaics like the flat panels we are used to, it uses a relatively simple combination of mirrors that focus heat on an engine in the center containing pistons powered by the heated air. The mirrors track the sun throughout the day, ensuring a constant power level. The real beauty of the invention is that they have nearly reached their goal efficiency cost of one dollar per watt, at which point the quarter kilowatt device can actually be cost-effective for businesses and homes that want to reduce costs or add power to the grid. Unfortunately, the Discover article isn't available on-line, but the web site of the Idealab spinoff, Energy Innovations is. Discover does have several links to more information about the underlying technology. If this radical and inexpensive approach bears out, this device could radically alter our approach to power generation, especially in power-hungry yet sunny areas like southern California.

Dollar for Dollar
Monday, Vice-President Cheney is expected to raise roughly a quarter of a million dollars for Bush/Cheney 2004 after a bunch of folks in South Carolina pay $2,000 per head to eat lunch in the same room with him.

Starting last night, Howard Dean is challenging his supporters to match that through the same small contributions they've been making all along. They're hoping to match the Cheney luncheon, dollar for dollar, by Monday at midnight.

At the moment I'm making this post (see the timestamp), they've already raised over $110,000 in less than 12 hours. So, feel free to jump on the bandwagon by clicking the link above.

And, in case you're still undecided, check out this post from Gov. Dean's blog, where he outlines in gory details everything that I said in "The King's English" post below: Bush's actual policies are the exact opposite of what he says to the public in speeches and press conferences.

The Plumbers would be proud
Man, the hits just keep on coming today.

So, Joseph Wilson was the last American ambassador to Iraq and lauded as a war hero by Bush 1.0 after the Gulf War. Apparently, he was recruited to investigate the claims about Iraq's desire for Niger's yellowcake. He recently came forward to proclaim as much and to say that he debunked this evidence for the U.S. months before the war.

Days after this revelation, unnamed White House officials revealed to Robert Novak that Wilson's wife is an undercover CIA agent, which he then proceeds to report, including her full name, in his syndicated column.

Now, Mr. & Mrs. Wilson will neither confirm nor deny this, but, if it's true, the White House blew the cover of one of their own intelligence operatives. You've all seen Mission: Impossible. You know how bad it is when someone named on the Non-Official Cover, or NOC, list is exposed. This woman's life could be in danger.

Is this incompetance? Payback? Or are they making examples of them?

Incidentally, I'd just like to say that the only reason why I know about this is because I read it on Howard Dean's blog.

The Royal Flush
There are at least two senior Iraqi officials who voluntarily surrendered to coalition forces at the end of the war, namely Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and scientist Amir Saadi. One would think that these two guys would know where the Iraqi WMDs are hidden, or, at least, whether they had them or not.

They want to cooperate. They want to talk.

So why is the coalition keeping them on ice in the make-shift prison at the Bagdad Airport?

Unless Bush & Co. don't like they story they're telling....

Most Terrifyingly Appropriate TV Quote of the Day


"It's happening...... again."


- The mysterious Giant, warning FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper that a new murder, reminiscent of previous killings, had just occured in Twin Peaks.

Dr. David Kelly, a former UN weapons inspector who may or may not have been a source for the BBC on reports that Tony Blair's government had "sexed up" reports of Iraq's WMD capabilities, was just found dead three days after testifying in front of a Foreign Affairs committee. The committee had given him five days to consider his next round of testimony. No cause of death has been determined.

Irony abounds. Just last night, I watched a little indie thriller called Interview With The Assassin, about a old man who claims to be the 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll who actually killed Kennedy. The DVD details all the people associated with the assassination who died under mysterious circumstances in the following decade.

Word of advice to George Tenet: try not to end up like your predecessor, William Casey, did during the Iran-Contra Affair.

The Last of the First
It's occurred to me that the Bush family is, in many ways, kind of a Bizarro-version of The Kennedy family. Of course, All egalitarian, political families of all persuasions scare me a little. Remember, this is America: aristocracy = bad. However, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think JFK, RFK, and, finally Ted Kennedy, didn't have something real to say about how to make this country better. But, then again, the other problem with dynasties: Too much power leads to corruption, hatred, and death. Especially if the next guy is more ruthless.

Anyway, let me get off my allegorical soapbox. The elder statesman of the Left stll has some gas in his tank. And he's dousing the President with it. Enjoy.

The Comforter?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is actively involved in buying AIDS vaccines for Africa. But the laws that govern patents and intellectual property that keep African nations from buying cheaper, generic versions of these vaccines are also the same laws that protect Microsoft's international patents on things like Windows & Office.

Alterior motives, anyone?

Greg Palast seems to think so. If you skip over all the stuff about Tony Blair on Palast's blog, you can see what he's getting at.

Shock & Awe, Incorporated
So, when the Cold War ended, nations around the world began to reduce the size of their military, which meant there was a glut of guys skilled in things that they couldn't talk about in polite conversations that suddenly found themselves without jobs. But, as we all know, military budgets are inflated, and there are things that the government does for a dollar that the private sector can do for 10 cents.

Enter the next generation of mercenaries: Corporations that offer military services for hire, everything from operations and security to special ops and intelligence. Very profitable.

The problem is, since these guys aren't actually soldiers representing a given government, they're not subject to the Geneva convention or any of the presumed rules of engagement. Moreover, most of the places they're sent aren't exactly governed by the rule of law. Imagine the temptations available when you enter a ravaged nation with the physical prowess of the United States Military, with the burden of the law to check your behavior.

See what writer P.W. Singer had to say about all this on NPR as he plugged his new book: "Corporate Warriors".

The King's English
So, please, indulge my stream of consciousness rif for a moment.....

I'm a writer. I love words.

I make it a habit of immediately looking up any and all unfamiliar words that I encounter. I dream about, one day, being able to afford to buy my very own, hardbound copies of the Oxford English Dictionary. When I hear Liev Schreiber say that Shakespeare had around a 20,000-word vocabulary, while the average speaker of modern English uses only about 8,000 words, I get jealous.

So, you may begin to grasp one of the many reasons why I loathe George W. Bush.

His "Clear Skies" initiative actually pollutes the air more. The "No Child Left Behind" Act creates an enormous unfunded mandate for state governments that are already suffering through budget crises that will, inevitably, lead to cuts in education programs for children. The "USA Patriot Act" presupposes the treachery of all American citizens by giving the Justice Department dramatically invasive powers that far exceed habeas corpus. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" has, thus far, plunged that country into widescale looting, lawlessness, and chaos. Claiming to be "a uniter, not a divider", Bush has not only escalated the partisan conflicts in the Federal government, but he's also driven away millions of people around the world who had nothing but grace for us after September 11, 2001. And he spouts out words like "freedom", "liberty", and "evil" so liberally and robotically, does anyone in this country still know what they mean?

I think about the lyrics to Lee Greenwood's popular soft rock anthem, "God Bless The USA":
If tomorrow all the things were gone I’d worked for all my life,
And I had to start again with just my children and my wife.
I’d thank my lucky stars to be living here today,
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away.

And I’m proud to be an American where as least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A.


People love this song. But are they actually paying attention to what he's saying? Let me paraphrase:

If I lost my entire nest egg, and my entire family were destitute and homeless, I'd still gladly enlist in the military to go shoot our enemies, because, if nothing else, I've still got my freedom.

But what is "freedom"?

Wasn't "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" intended to have an economic root at it's core? "Taxation without representation" and all that jazz. Are you really free when the Green Berets can beat the crap out of any other military on earth, but you can't, as the President has said, "put food on your family"? Or when you get mercury poisioning from the local power plant, or your children can't read because there aren't enough textbooks or qualified teachers because the states are out of money?

Freedom is not just a pretty flag we wave under expensive pyrotechnics in the middle of summer. Freedom is not the glory of the United States Marine Corps Marching Band. And freedom is certainly not being branded a traitor when you question the actions of a public servant with a dubious electoral mandate.

I love words, and I fear that, among his many transgressions, our President has accelerated the pace by which the language loses it's meaning. When words are meaningless, the keys that allow ideas to unlock the doors to our brains are lost.

Think of all the young black men, filled with anger & frustration over the hand dealt to them, who struggle to say what's on their mind, but who's vocabulary is limited to "bitch", "motherfucker", and "nigga". They writhe and flex and screech on stage because they know something in their hearts, and it's literally pounding on the walls of their bodies, desperately looking for a way out.

Knowledge isn't just power. People suffer in silence. Words can save your life.

This is just the simplest, most basic reason why our nation suffers when the people are uneducated. Let alone being able to understand what your government is doing in your name, or what laws are passed that tell you what you can or cannot do.

This is the price of having a culture that scorns knowledge.

Yesterday, I realized that I could never live long enough to read all the books I want to read, and it made me sad. But it also made me want to squeeze as many as possible into the time that I have.

I just wish there was a way I could infect more people with my bibliophilism. I think they'd be less tolerant of the madness.

OK. Enough rambling....

Spacious Skies
So, I have good news and I have bad news.

Bad News
President Bush introduced legislation called the "Clear Skies Inititiative" to congress back in February, and it's now going through hearings in the House & Senate. It's billed as a revision to the Clean Air Act of 1970 that intended to reduce air pollution, but, the reality is that it actually increases the amount of toxins that power plants are allowed to introduce into the atmosphere. And it doesn't even get into the fact that the President has altered EPA regulations so that old polluting power plants that receive upgrades no longer need to be reviewed for environmental safety after receiving new equipment.

Good News
Not content to just run a campaign to help him become the next President of the United States, Howard Dean is now seeking to use his new-found political supporters as a grass-roots lobby group. His campaign is encouraging everyone on their ever-growing network to sign a petition to the White House demanding them to stop the Clear Skies Initiative.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but this sounds unprecedented to me. I've NEVER heard of a candidate pushing his supporters to get directly involved in the legislative process.

Granted, for a president who says he thinks making policy decisions based on public opinion is as distasteful as listening to a focus group, a doubt a petition alone will sway our commander-in-chief. But, somehow, I doubt that this is the end of it. Brilliant.

Ministry of Information
Maybe Jayson Blair was just following the example of his peers, huh?

I must admit that the world that Greg Palast is conjuring in his writing is profoundly frightening. If he's right, the national media is colluding with the Bush administration to intentionally lie to the public about world events to justify a grossly imperialist policy.

Now, I know some of you are laughing. After all, isn't this what I've been saying about Iraq all along?

True. True. But it's one thing to fudge, hint, & misdirect about Iraq being in a WMD-ladden bed with Al Qaeda. It's another thing entirely to say that a democratically elected head of state, in this case Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, has "resigned", when, in reality, he'd been bound, gagged, and kidnapped at gunpoint by a radical militia seeking to overthrow his government.

Did I mention that Venezuela is one of America's biggest oil suppliers? Is there a pattern forming here?

The Elephant In The Room
While Nine Democrats via for attention and Presidential credibility in the public eye, General Wesley Clark waits. And watches.

Here's what he has to say about Bush. And his comments regarding Condolezza Rice are chilling.

"A" for Effort
Well, I think MSNBC has hit it on the head. You can probably split the American electorate in half.

There are those who are political junkies, on both side of the aisle, who devour every tidbit of news out of the nation's capital and make their voting decisions based on their own interpretation of the President's performance.

And then there are those who've long since conceded that the daily workings of our democracy isn't something they either can or should follow in much depth. They make their voting decisions based on how the President makes them feel. Policy complexities be damned.

Now, arguments can be made that both are equally valid ways to pick a President.

But, of course, one of those arguments would be utterly false.

After all, there are plenty of con men who can make you feel like the Queen of Sheba while their sending you to an unmarked plot in the Potter's Field. Ignorance is only bliss while you still have a roof over your heads.

The problem with representative government is that it only works if the electorate is actually paying attention to what their representatives are doing in their name. Otherwise, how is it different from a monarchy? In the three-branch system of government established in the Constitution, the people themselves are the ultimate check on government power. Isn't it time we used it?

Watching The Watchmen
So, if the government is going to keep a close eye on you to see if you're the next John Walker Lindh, then these jolly fellas at MIT think it's all good and dandy for you to keep an eye on them to see if they're going to become the next Nixon Administration.

Total Information Awareness?

Meet GOVERNMENT Information Awareness.

Here's a website where, not only can you get information about public officials, you can actually POST whatever it is that you know about these government officials as well. So, if you're Trent Lott's secret octaroon love-child, you don't have to wait for the Washington Post to find you.

Of course, the creators of GIA say they have no intention of editing or censoring anything that anyone has to post, so lots of madcap antics will ensue.

Venom
So, remember a few days ago, when I said Alan Moore is one of the most prolific and influential comic book writers in the world?

He also happens to be a complete madman.

How can I make such a harsh judgement, you may ask? Well, for starters, rather than have a run-of-the-mill midlife crisis when he turned 40, the man decided to declare himself the sorcery-wielding servant of his own, personal Serpent-God.

I think that reaches the threshold of madness in my book.

But, consequentially, as a madman, his writing is always entertaining. Here, he turns his rapier wit to the history of Iraq and the West on page 14 of "Arthur" magazine.

Scathing.

Where No Man Has Gone Before
Well, they're one year off the mark that Arthur C. Clarke set in his Space Odyssey sequel, but NASA is pressing ahead with their plan to develop a nuclear-powered space vehicle to search for the possibilities of life on Jupiter's icy moons. If the unmanned craft leaves on schedule in the year 2011, given projected technology, it will still take 7 years to get there, but the scientific benefits of simply building the thing are off the charts.

Submitted for your nerd-gasmic pleasure.