On superhuman powers and religion

A quote from S.N. Balagangadhara's "The Heathen In His Blindness..."

Does Spiro really have no theory? Could his conviction that religion is
a cultural universal have its roots elsewhere? I have suggested that religion
is the background framework. In that case, the ‘consensual’ definition must express the vengeance that a theory will take for being oblivious to its presence. Reconsider Spiro’s claim (1966: 91):

Since ‘religion’ is a term with historically rooted meanings, a definition must satisfy not only the criterion of cross-cultural applicability but also the criterion of intra-cultural intuitivity; at the least it should not be counter-intuitive. For me, therefore, any definition of ‘religion’ which does not include, as a key variable, the belief in superhuman…beings who have power to help or harm men is counter-intuitive.

Now it is a matter of established consensus that the Hindus worship trees, serpents, various animals (cow, monkey, and condor), images and idols. Are we to consider these people religious? It all depends, one may want to retort, whether or not Hindus consider the animals as “superhuman beings that have the power to help or harm men”.

In non-trivial ways, animals can help or harm human beings, but Spiro does not probably have this in mind. The problem might well be about the belief states of the Hindus: do they believe that animals are ‘superhuman’ beings?

This is a question about the hierarchy of life on earth. Humans are at the summit of ‘creation’ and animals are well below them in the ladder of life constituting the ‘infra’ or ‘sub-human’ species. Consequently, and only because of it, can gods be ‘super-human’.

Cultures do exist which recognise the differences between species, but do not recognise any hierarchy of life on earth. Even if human life is a desirable form of life, or even as a privileged form of existence, this does not imply that either goal or direction is attributed to the emergence and ‘evolution’ of life. One such culture is India and, in fact, one of the problems of the Christian missionaries with the Brahmins had to do precisely with this issue, as Rogerius (1651: 110) records it:

Hier toe an zijn sy niet te brenghen datse souden toe-staen dat een Mensch, de Beesten overtreffe, end dat den Mensch een edelder Creatuere zy, dan de Beesten, om dat hy met een voortreffelijcker Ziele zy begaeft. VVant soo ghy dat haer voor hout, sy sullen segghen, dat oock dierghelijcke Zielen de Beesten hebben. Indien ghy dit wilt betuygen door de werckingen van de redelijcke Ziele, die in den Mensch, ende niet in de Beesten, haer vertoont: soo heb je tot antwoort te verwachten…dat de reden, waerom de Beesten niet soo wel reden, ende verstant, voor den dagh en brengen, ende soo wel als de Menschen, en spreken, zijn, om datse gheen Lichaem en hebben ghekregen, dat bequaem is, om de qualiteyten van haer Ziele te voorschijn te brengen…

[You cannot make them admit that Man outstrips the beasts and that he is a nobler creature than the animals because he has a superior soul. If you try to remonstrate with them on this, they would say, animals also have a similar kind of Soul. If you try to demonstrate this by the workings of the rational soul, which is evident in Man and not in the beasts: you may expect an answer…that the reason why the animals do not exhibit the kind of rationality and understanding that human beings can show, why they cannot speak as man does, is because they are not given a body capable of exhibiting the qualities of their soul…]

In other words, to the Christians, Man was/is at the summit of creation. To the Hindus, it was/is not so. Where does this take us with respect to Spiro’s definition? His definition cannot be ‘useful’ to us unless we presuppose at least some amount of (suitably diluted) Christian theology: gods are superhuman, which is why they are worshipped; humans are at the top of the hierarchy of life with animals well below them, and so on.

This ‘minimal’ definition, which appears reasonable, merely expresses a linguistic and historical intuition of a religious culture: how could a religion not acknowledge the existence of ‘superhuman’ powers? This is a secularised theology, as far from ‘science’ as anything could possibly be.

PS: to add to the confusion, if I understand it correctly, moksha is available only to humans, not to animals or to devas.

PPS: The logical possibilities are:


1. Balu is wrong, and Hindus believe animals have superhuman powers.
2. Hindus worship beings that have no superhuman powers.
3. What Hindus do appears similar to, but in reality is very different from Christian worship. In general, conflating rituals or an attitude of reverence with worship is a mistake.

#3 is the most interesting - it raises the question - just what is it that Hindus are doing? (Please be careful with the words "worship", "scriptures", "holy" used there, they are loaded words and may obscure instead of help understand.)

Feelin' Groovy

Today, if someone pushed me from the fifth floor, I'd be singing happily on the way down. Not sure why I feel so light-hearted, I haven't

- attained moksha
- fallen in love
- published a viable theory of everything
- won a lottery

or any such thing. There's nothing special happening this weekend either. None of the piles of boring but necessary stuff to do has evaporated.

Come to think of it, except for the first item in my list, I should feel some resentment on being pushed, because it would interrupt the many interesting things left to do. But I wouldn't, I'd be waving a cheery farewell.

Strange. I think as I grow older, my power of introspection diminishes, my intentions, motivations are increasingly a mystery to me.

Enjoying it while it lasts :)

dkos: Things That Are Not Torture

A Hunter diary.

The United States does not torture. This has been definitively stated at all levels of government, including by the President of the United States. The United States may perform techniques of enhanced interrogation; it may engage in coercion; it may inflict suffering akin to that experienced at the moment of death; it does not, however, torture. The United States clearly follows the Geneva Conventions in all circumstances in which it has deemed the Geneva Conventions to apply. The United States unambiguously follows its own laws regarding the rights of prisoners in all instances in which the United States has deemed those prisoners to have rights. It does not treat prisoners in a cruel or inhumane fashion. The Vice President of the United States has explicitly endorsed the legality and reasonable nature of this technique.

The United States may have enhanced interrogation techniques, borrowing methods of methodical drowning used by the Khmer Rouge, the Spanish Inquisitors, and various others that populate the cruelest edges of history.

But we are the United States, and that is the difference: the United States does not torture.

Diwali 2007

Our Rangoli:

Estimating the Size of the Revolution

The American political system is rotten to the core. The confirmation by the Senate of Mukasey to the post of the Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer in the United States is simply an example that is exceptionally easy to understand; there is nothing unusual about it in any other way.

The Senate has abandoned its Constitutional Duty of Advice and Consent, and replaced it with Abdicate and Capitulate. To quote the New York Times editorial:

[Mukasey] was simply asked if, as a general matter, waterboarding is illegal.

It was not a difficult question. Waterboarding is specifically banned by the Army Field Manual, and it is plainly illegal under the federal Anti-Torture Act, federal assault statutes, the Detainee Treatment Act, the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. It is hard to see how any nominee worthy of the position of attorney general could fail to answer “yes.”.......

....Democrats have done precious little to avoid the kind of spectacle the world saw last week: the Senate giving the job of attorney general, chief law enforcement officer in the world’s oldest democracy, to a man who does not even have the integrity to take a stand against torture.

What is needed to stem the rot?

The Republicans in the Senate all have to be voted out. I include Lieberman in their number. Replaced by whom, though? One of the two key enablers of the Mukasey confirmation is Senator Chuck Schumer (NY) who is the chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee! He has to go. Diane Feinstein (CA) has to go. The Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has to go. What about the Democratic Presidential hopefuls in the Senate? None of them showed any leadership in trying to block this nomination, or even to force a clarification of Mukasey's stand on torture (a group of distinguished career intelligence officers who are appalled by waterboarding even as they are keenly aware of the practical necessities of their job suggested to the Senate leaders that Mukasey be given a full briefing in private before continuing with the nomination). As it turned out, they didn't even vote. That means Clinton, Biden, Obama, Dodd should be shown the door.

This is just one issue, isn't it?, etc.

This is just one easy to understand issue. But it is symptomatic of a pattern of behavior of this Senate. The Democratic Senators have perfected the "oppose but are powerless to stop Bush" charade. They artfully register their opposition only when that opposition is bound to fail. E.g., they will not even attempt to block a bad bill or nomination in committee or filibuster it on the floor; they just want their pious vote "against" recorded. Glenn Greenwald describes the game quite well.

The size of the revolution

Virtually all of the current Senate has to face their accountability moment. Will it, can it happen? Not immediately of course, but over the next three election cycles. Since the answer from any sane observer is no, most will likely not even face serious challengers, then expect that the rot will simply continue to grow.

___

PS: Desi links to a great cartoon

Fawke You, Washington!

(The title is from a comment by a freeper.)

Congressman Ron Paul, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, broke GOP online fund raising records on Guy Fawkes Day, by raising about $4.2 million.

Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the British Parliament, but today he is given a different meaning; he is taken as a reminder

It is not the People who should fear the Government, but rather the Government which should fear the People.

Ron Paul is an old-style conservative, anti-war, anti-interventionism, for limited constitutional government and for fiscal responsibility, contra the neo-cons. He also has some antediluvian positions.

The Republican establishment would like Ron Paul to go away. From the left, Glenn Greenwald opines on the Ron Paul phenomenon:

The Paul campaign is now a bona fide phenomenon of real significance, and it is difficult to see this as anything other than a very positive development.

There are, relatively speaking, very few people who agree with most of Paul's policy positions. In fact, a large portion of Americans -- perhaps most -- will find something in his litany of beliefs with which they not only disagree, but vehemently so. Paul has a coherent political world-view and states his positions clearly and unapologetically, without hedges, and that approach naturally ensures greater disagreement than the form of please-everyone obfuscation which drives most candidates.......

.....So there is at least something in Paul's worldview for most people to strongly dislike, even hate, if they are so inclined. Yet that apparent political liability is really what accounts for the passion his campaign is generating: it is a campaign that defies and despises conventional and deeply entrenched Beltway assumptions about our political discourse and about what kind of country this is supposed to be.

While Barack Obama toys with the rhetoric of challenging conventional wisdom, Paul's campaign -- for better or worse -- actually does so, and does so in an extremely serious, thoughtful and coherent way. And there are a lot of people who, more than any specific policy positions, are hungry for a political movement which operates outside of our rotted political establishment and which fearlessly rejects its pieties, even if they disagree with some or even many of its particulars.

and

Perhaps most importantly, Paul is the only serious candidate aggressively challenging America's addiction to ruling the world through superior military force and acting as an empire -- not by contesting specific policies (such as the Iraq War) but by calling into question the unexamined root premises of these policies, the ideology that is defining our role in the world.

The Atlantic, 1946, on Pakistan

1946 article on India, Pakistan

Sampler

When Congress ministries took office in seven out of eleven provinces in 1937, Moslem Leaguers (who had polled only 4.6 per cent of the total Moslem vote) were denied any share in the spoils of office. Moslem League propagandists have represented this situation as a denial of their legitimate rights, and as proof of a Hindu determination to dominate India. Tactically, it may have been unwise of Congress, but under a party system of government it is difficult to see how it could have done otherwise. Congress did not refuse office to Moslems as such, but to Moslems who were not members of Congress.

For Congress is not, as League followers claim, a Hindu organization. The Hindu Mahasabha is the party of orthodox Hindus. Congress is, and always has been, open to Moslems, and has a notable Moslem president, the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Mr. Asaf Ali is another Moslem member of the Working Committee. To expect Congress to present ministerial offices to its political rivals is as if the British Labor Party, after its recent overwhelming victory, should be invited to give Cabinet posts to members of the insignificant Independent Labor Party, which had opposed it at the polls.

How many nations in India?

The experience of one election convinced Jinnah that his party could never hope to enjoy a ruling majority. In 1940 he accordingly resurrected the theory of Pakistan, claiming that Hindus and Moslems are two separate nations.

Before 1940 no one outside the Moslems, and few among them, took Pakistan seriously, but by persistent advocation in season and out, Jinnah has made of it the central issue before India today. He has made of the League a real political party, and in the recent elections to the Central Legislative Assembly it won all the Mohammedan seats (30), polling 86.6 per cent of the total Moslem votes. These elections were based on the extremely restricted franchise of the 1919 Act, and the total number of votes cast was only 586,647, representing almost exclusively the propertied classes.

In the provincial elections now taking place, with an electorate of over 30 millions, the League is unlikely to repeat its 100 per cent success, but there is little doubt that it will gain a decisive majority of Moslem votes for a policy of Pakistan.

The real problem starts from this point the League is pledged not to make the new Constitution work unless it starts from the basic assumption of Pakistan. There must be not one but two constitution-making bodies, says Jinnah -one for Hindustan and one for Pakistan. Hindus naturally are not willing to submit, in advance of the elections, to the dictation of a minority.

Allegations of corrupt practices and official interference have been made by the League and Congress in the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. Doubtless many are true. The greatest curse of Indian political and administrative life is corruption running like a putrefying streak from top to bottom. Election returns from the North-West Frontier Province show, however, that the majority of Moslems in their traditional home are opposed to the vivisection of India.

Jinnah wrecked the Simla Conference - called by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell -in July, 1945. He can wreck the elections. All he has to do is to stall, and the longer he stalls, the stronger he grows.

Quotables

Things that tickled me:

...he had a personal philosophy of Manifest Destiny in which a higher power had already made his choices for him. By virtue of him choosing A over B, A was right. This outlook made him reckless, or a Muslim, and he wasn't that, that's for sure.

Hocus Potus - a novel by Malcolm MacPherson

Neoconazis

(Via CIP) Andrew Sullivan points out that the neocons are making precisely the same arguments in defense of torture that the US rejected and condemned the guilty to death in the case of the Nazis.

Officials write to the Senate about the AG nominee

Via dkos, from No Quarter:

Mukasey Nomination: Letter from Intelligence, Military, Diplomatic & Law Enforcement Professionals

PREFACE:

A group of distinguished intelligence and military officers, diplomats, and law enforcement professionals delivered an urgent message this morning to the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling on them to hold the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey until he takes a clear position on the legality of waterboarding.

Their message strongly endorses the view of former judge advocates general that waterboarding "is inhumane, is torture, is illegal.” The intelligence veterans added it is also a notoriously unreliable way to acquire accurate information.

They noted that the factors cited by the president and Mukasey as obstacles to his giving an opinion on waterboarding can be easily solved by briefing Mukasey on waterboarding and on C.I.A. interrogation methods.

The intelligence veterans noted that during their careers they frequently had to walk a thin line between morality and expediency, all the while doing their best to abide by the values the majority of Americans have held in common over the years. They appealed to Senators Pat Leahy and Arlen Specter to rise to the occasion and discharge their responsibility to defend those same values.

THE MEMORANDUM FOLLOWS. OF NOTE: YOU MAY REPRINT THIS MEMORANDUM AT ANY BLOG OR SITE, IN FULL, AND WITH PROPER ATTRIBUTION AND A LINK BACK TO No Quarter.

===============================

MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman and Ranking Member Senate Committee on the Judiciary

FROM: Former U.S. Intelligence Officers

SUBJECT: Nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General

Dear Senators Leahy and Specter,

Values that are extremely important to us as former intelligence officers are at stake in your committee’s confirmation deliberations on Judge Michael Mukasey. With hundreds of years of service in sensitive national security activities behind us, we are deeply concerned that your committee may move his nomination to the full Senate without insisting that Mukasey declare himself on whether he believes the practice of waterboarding is legal.

We feel this more acutely than most others, for in our careers we have frequently had to navigate the delicate balance between morality and expediency, all the while doing our best to abide by the values the vast majority of Americans hold in common. We therefore believe we have a particular moral obligation to speak out. We can say it no better than four retired judge advocates general (two admirals and two generals) who wrote you over the weekend, saying: “Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.”

Judge Mukasey’s refusal to comment on waterboarding, on grounds that it would be “irresponsible” to provide “an uninformed legal opinion based on hypothetical facts and circumstances,” raises serious questions. There is nothing hypothetical or secret about the fact that waterboarding was used by U.S. intelligence officers as an interrogation technique before the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004. But after Alberto Gonzales became attorney general in February 2005, Justice reportedly issued a secret memo authorizing harsh physical and psychological tactics, including waterboarding, which were approved for use in combination. A presidential executive order of July 20, 2007 authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques” that had been banned for use by the U.S. Army. Although the White House announced that the order provides “clear rules” to govern treatment of detainees, the rules are classified, so defense attorneys, judges, juries — and even nominee Mukasey — can be prevented from viewing them.

Those are some of the “facts and circumstances.” They are not hypothetical; and there are simple ways for Judge Mukasey to become informed, which we propose below.

Last Thursday, President George W. Bush told reporters it was unfair to ask Mukasey about interrogation techniques about which he had not been briefed.

“He doesn’t know whether we use that technique [waterboarding] or not,” the president said. Judge Mukasey wrote much the same in his October 30 letter, explaining that he was unable to give an opinion on the legality of waterboarding because he doesn't know whether it is being used: “I have not been made aware of the details of any interrogation program to the extent that any such program may be classified and thus do not know what techniques may be involved in any such program.” Whether or not the practice is currently in use by U.S. intelligence, it should in fact be easy for him to respond. All he need do is find out what waterboarding is and then decide whether he considers it legal.

The conundrum created to justify the nominee’s silence on this key issue is a synthetic one. It is within your power to resolve it readily. If Mukasey continues to drag his feet, you need only to facilitate a classified briefing for him on waterboarding and the C.I.A. interrogation program. He will then be able to render an informed legal opinion. We strongly suggest that you sit in on any such briefing and that you invite the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to take part as well. Receiving the same briefing at the same time (and, ideally, having it taped) should enhance the likelihood of candor and make it possible for all to be — and to stay — on the same page on this delicate issue.

If the White House refuses to allow such a briefing, your committee must, in our opinion, put a hold on Mukasey’s nomination. We are aware that the president warned last week that it will be either Mukasey as our attorney general or no one. So be it. It is time to stand up for what is right and require from the Executive the information necessary for the Senate to function responsibly and effectively. It would seem essential not to approve a nominee who has already made clear he is reluctant to ask questions of the White House. How can a person with that attitude even be proposed to be our chief law enforcement officer?

We strongly urge that you not send Mukasey’s nomination to the full Senate before he makes clear his view on waterboarding. Otherwise, there is considerable risk of continued use of the officially sanctioned torture techniques that have corrupted our intelligence services, knocked our military off the high moral ground, severely damaged our country’s standing in the world, and exposed U.S. military and intelligence people to similar treatment when captured or kidnapped. One would think that Judge Mukasey would want to be briefed on these secret interrogation techniques and to clarify where he stands.

The most likely explanation for Mukasey’s reticence is his concern that, should his conscience require him to condemn waterboarding, this could cause extreme embarrassment and even legal jeopardy for senior officials this time not just for the so-called “bad apples” at the bottom of the barrel. We believe it very important that the Senate not acquiesce in his silence—and certainly not if, as seems the case, he is more concerned about protecting senior officials than he is in enforcing the law and the Constitution.

It is important to get beyond shadowboxing on this key issue. In our view, condoning Mukasey’s evasiveness would mean ignoring fundamental American values and the Senate’s constitutional prerogative of advice and consent.

At stake in your committee and this nomination are questions of legality, morality, and our country’s values. And these are our primary concerns as well. As professional intelligence officers, however, we must point to a supreme irony—namely, that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation practices are ineffective tools for eliciting reliable information. Our own experience dovetails well with that of U.S. Army intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. John Kimmons, who told a Pentagon press conference on September 6, 2006: “No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that.”

Speaking out so precisely and unequivocally took uncommon courage, because Kimmons knew that just across the Potomac President Bush would be taking quite a different line at a press conference scheduled to begin as soon as Kimmons finished his. At the White House press conference focusing on interrogation techniques, the president touted the success that the C.I.A. was having in extracting information from detainees by using an “alternative set of procedures.” He said these procedures had to be “tough,” in order to deal with particularly recalcitrant detainees who “had received training on how to resist interrogation” and had “stopped talking.”

The Undersigned
(Official duties refer to former government work.)

Brent Cavan
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

Ray Close
Directorate of Operations, CIA for 26 years—22 of them overseas; former Chief of Station, Saudi Arabia

Ed Costello
Counter-espionage, FBI

Michael Dennehy
Supervisory Special Agent for 32 years, FBI; U.S. Marine Corps for three years

Rosemary Dew
Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI

Philip Giraldi
Operations officer and counter-terrorist specialist, Directorate of Operations, CIA

Michael Grimaldi
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Federal law enforcement officer

Mel Goodman
Division Chief, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Professor, National Defense University; Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy

Larry Johnson
Intelligence analysis and operations officer, CIA; Deputy Director, Office of Counter Terrorism, Department of State

Richard Kovar
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, CIA: Editor, Studies In Intelligence

Charlotte Lang
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

W. Patrick Lang
U.S. Army Colonel, Special Forces, Vietnam; Professor, U.S. Military Academy, West Point; Defense Intelligence Officer for Middle East, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); founding director, Defense HUMINT Service

Lynne Larkin
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA; counterintelligence; coordination among intelligence and crime prevention agencies; CIA policy coordination staff ensuring adherence to law in operations

Steve Lee
Intelligence Analyst for terrorism, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

Jon S. Lipsky
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

David MacMichael
Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA; History professor; Veteran, U.S. Marines (Korea)

Tom Maertens
Foreign Service Officer and Intelligence Analyst, Department of State; Deputy Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Department of State; National Security Council (NSC) Director for Non-Proliferation

James Marcinkowski
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA by way of U.S. Navy

Mary McCarthy
National Intelligence Officer for Warning; Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council

Ray McGovern
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; morning briefer, The President’s Daily Brief; chair of National Intelligence Estimates; Co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Sam Provance
U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst, Germany and Iraq (Abu Ghraib); Whistleblower

Coleen Rowley
Special Agent and attorney, FBI; Whistleblower on the negligence that facilitated the attacks of 9/11.

Joseph Wilson
Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Ambassador and Director of Africa, National Security Council.

Valerie Plame Wilson
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations

Brutality

I stupidly turned on the radio this morning (NEVER a good way to start the day!) to an Anne Garrels' story from Iraq. I'll link to it later, whenever it appears on the NPR web-site.

You'll understand what I mean, when I tell you that Garrels informs us that regular US military personnel were in tears describing to her the brutality of US Special Forces (towards Iraqis).

PS: Here's the link to the NPR story.

Mathematics cannot substitute for ethics

Multi-billion dollar losses at big banks are making the news these days.

Big name investment bankers assembled dubious mortgage loans into securities, the ratings companies gave these products investment grade ratings, and investers purchased this blessed junk.

No doubt these will all claim good faith effort and take refuge in the excuse of the failure of their mathematical models of risk. But the models were premised on eternally rising housing prices, which is an absurd assumption. You don't need any sophisticated quant analyst to tell you that.

It seems very clear to me that the lure of ringing up immediate transactions and making a profit in the short term greatly outweigh the long-term well-being of the bank for its employees, CEO downwards. Presumably they make their bonuses and are out doing something else when the whole thing blows up.

Just how bad they were is outlined in this dailykos story.

This is from Fortune magazine, quoted there:

In the spring of 2006, Goldman assembled 8,274 second-mortgage loans originated by Fremont Investment & Loan, Long Beach Mortgage Co., and assorted other players. More than a third of the loans were in California, then a hot market. It was a run-of-the-mill deal, one of the 916 residential mortgage-backed issues totaling $592 billion that were sold last year.

The average equity that the second-mortgage borrowers had in their homes was 0.71%. (No, that's not a misprint - the average loan-to-value of the issue's borrowers was 99.29%.)

It gets even hinkier. Some 58% of the loans were no-documentation or low-documentation. This means that although 98% of the borrowers said they were occupying the homes they were borrowing on - "owner-occupied" loans are considered less risky than loans to speculators - no one knows if that was true. And no one knows whether borrowers' incomes or assets bore any serious relationship to what they told the mortgage lenders.

....

In this case, Goldman sliced the $494 million of second mortgages into 13 separate tranches. The $336 million of top tranches - named cleverly A-1, A-2, and A-3 - carried the lowest interest rates and the least risk. The $123 million of intermediate tranches - M (for mezzanine) 1 through 7 - are next in line to get paid and carry progressively higher interest rates.

Finally, Goldman sold two non-investment-grade tranches [and kept one more, the riskiest, as its fee for the deal}

(...)

Even though the individual loans in GSAMP looked like financial toxic waste, 68% of the issue, or $336 million, was rated AAA by both agencies - as secure as U.S. Treasury bonds. Another $123 million, 25% of the issue, was rated investment grade, at levels from AA to BBB--.

Thus, a total of 93% was rated investment grade. That's despite the fact that this issue is backed by second mortgages of dubious quality on homes in which the borrowers (most of whose income and financial assertions weren't vetted by anyone) had less than 1% equity and on which GSAMP couldn't effectively foreclose.

The Need to Innovate

The energy to run a technological civilization and the resiliency of the environment to man's activities are in deep depletion. If we do not want the majority of humanity to live in great material deprivation and misery, we need to do things differently. Sometimes even Thomas Friedman is worth quoting in this regard:

Why should you care what they’re driving in Delhi? Here’s why: The cost of your cellphone is a lot cheaper today because India took that little Western invention and innovated around it so it is now affordable to Indians who make only $2 a day. India has become a giant platform for inventing cheap scale solutions to big problems. If it applied itself to green mass transit solutions for countries with exploding middle classes, it would be a gift for itself and the world.

To do that it must leapfrog. If India just innovates in cheap cars alone, its future will be gridlocked and polluted. But an India that makes itself the leader in both cheap cars and clean mass mobility is an India that will be healthier and wealthier. It will also be an India that gives us cheap answers to big problems — rather than cheap copies of our worst habits.

The Surge in Iraq

The current trend line in Iraq for casualties is pointed downwards. The trend could be real, i.e., not equivalent to some of the previous downturns in violence. It could be because of the surge - the efforts of General Petraeus and his men. It could be for a variety of other reasons.

Is it real? Only time will tell.

The graphic whose small version is below is from icasualties.org.

Miaculpa Cartoons

This is my collection of links to cartoons linked to by Diane(Desi) at miaculpa.blogspot.com.
Oct 31
High Explosive
Oct 27
Alien?
Oct 24
'publican attack dogs
Kettle and Pot
Oct 21
Employment of last resort
Bush's New Middle East
Oct 20
Darth Cheney
Oct 19
President Jeffrey saves the world
Oct 18
Won't retire
Oct 15
Nobel reaction

Piano Music Reco

The Scarlatti Piano Sonatas played by Yevgeny Sudbin meets with my (mere listener) total approval.

Free Market Rules!

Since the unregulated free market is supposed to be the best of all possible ways of organizing an economy, why is this NYT article, Chinese Chemicals Flow Unchecked to Market written as a matter of concern rather than congratulations?

Any Libertarians around?

Dodd makes a speech

Senator Dodd (on the badly flawed FISA bill):


Mr. President, for six years, this President has demonstrated time and time again that he doesn’t respect the role of Congress nor does he respect the rule of law.

Every six years as United States Senators we take the oath office to uphold the Constitution. Our colleagues on the House side take that oath every two years. That is important.

For six years this President has used scare tactics to prevent the Congress from reining in his abuse of authority. A case and point is the current direction this body appears to be headed as we prepare to reform and extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Many of the unprecedented rollbacks to the rule of law by this Administration have been made in the name of national security.

The Bush Administration has relentlessly focused our nation’s resources and manpower on a war of choice in Iraq. That ill conceived war has broken our military, squandered resources and emboldened our enemies.

The President’s wholesale disregard of the rule of law has compounded the damage done in Iraq and has made our nation less secure and as a direct consequence of these acts, we are less secure, more vulnerable and more isolated in the world.

Consider the scandal at Abu Ghraib – where Iraqi prisoners were subjected to inhumane and humiliating acts by U.S. personnel charged with guarding them.

Consider Guantanamo Bay. Rather than helping to protect the nation, the prisons at Guantanamo Bay have instead become the very symbol for our weakened moral standing in the world.

Consider the secret prisons run by the CIA and the practice of extraordinary rendition that allows them to evade U.S. law regarding torture.

Consider the shameful actions of our outgoing Attorney General who politicized prosecutions – who was more committed to serving the President who appointed him than the laws he had sworn to uphold.

And consider, of course, the Military Commissions Act – a law that allows evidence obtained through torture to be admitted into evidence.

It denies individuals the right to counsel.

It denies them the right to invoke the Geneva Conventions.

And it denies them the single most important and effective safeguard of liberty man has known – the right of habeas corpus, permitting prisoners to be brought before a court to determine whether their detainment is lawful.

Warrantless wiretapping, torture – the list goes on.

Each of these policies share two things in common.

First, they have weakened our ability to prosecute the global war on terrorism – if for no other reason than they have made it harder, if not impossible, to build the international support and cooperation we need to fight it.

And second, each has only been possible because Congress has not been able to stop this President’s unprecedented expansion of executive power, although some in this body have tried.

Whether or not these policies were explicitly authorized is beside the point. In every instance, Congress has been unable to hold this Administration to account for violating the rule of law and our Constitution. In each instance, Republicans in the Congress have prevented this body from telling this Administration that “a state of war is not a blank check.”

And those aren’t my words, Mr. President – those are the words of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who was nominated by Ronald Reagan.

And today, it appears that we are prepared to consider the proposed renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – a law that in whatever form it eventually takes will almost certainly permit the Bush Administration to broadly eavesdrop on American citizens.

Legislation, as currently drafted, that would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that helped this Administration violate the civil liberties of Americans and the law of this country.

Mr. President while it may be true that the proposed legislation is an improvement on existing law, it remains fundamentally flawed because it fails to protect the privacy rights of Americans or hold the Executive or the private sector accountable if they choose to ignore the law.

That is why I will not stand on the floor of the United States Senate and be silent about the direction we are headed.

It is time to say “no more.”

No more trampling our Constitution.

No more excusing those who violate the rule of law.

These are our principles.

They have been around at least since the Magna Carta.

They are enduring.

What they are not is temporary. And what we do not do in a time where our country is at risk is abandon them.

My father was Executive Trial Counsel at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals during 1945 and 1946.

What America accomplished at those historic trials wasn’t a foregone conclusion. It took courage – when Stalin and even a leader as great and noble as Winston Churchill wanted to simply execute the Nazi leaders, we didn’t back down from our belief that these men—as terrible as they were—ought to have a trial.

We did not give in to vengeance.

As then, the issue before us today is the same.

Does America stand for all that is still right with our world? Or do we retreat in fear?

Do we stand for justice that secures America? Or do we act out of vengeance that weakens us?

Mr. President, I am well aware that this issue is seen as political. I believe that Democrats were elected to strengthen the nation – elected to restore our standing in the world.

I believe we were elected to ensure that this nation adheres to the rule of law and to stop this Administration’s assault on the Constitution.

But the rule of law is not the provenance of any one political party – but of every American who has been safer because of it.

Mr. President, I know this bill hasn’t even been reported out of the Judiciary Committee yet.

But I am here today because if I have learned anything in my 26 years in this body—particularly during the last 7 years—it is that if you wait until the end to voice your concerns, you will have waited too long. That is why I have written to the Majority Leader informing him that I will object to any effort to bring this legislation to the Senate floor for consideration.

I hope that Senator Leahy is able to remove this language – he is a dear friend and I know his respect for the rule of law runs deep.

But if he cannot, I am prepared to filibuster this bill.

President Bush is right about one thing: this debate is about security. But not in the way he imagines.

He believes we have to give up certain rights to be safe.

I believe the choice between moral authority and security is a false choice.

I believe it is precisely when you stand up and protect your rights that you become stronger, not weaker.

The damage that was done to our country on 9/11 was stunning. It changed the world forever.

But when you start diminishing our rights as a people, you compound that tragedy. You cannot protect America in the long run if you fail to protect our Constitution. It is that simple.

Mr. President, history will likely judge this President harshly for his war of choice and for fighting it with a disregard for our most cherished principles.

But history is about tomorrow. We must act today to stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law.

Mr. President, this is the moment. At long last, let us rise to it.

Canon 200mm f/1.8

The Canon 200mm f/1.8 is an old lens, no longer manufactured, no longer supported (as far as I know). There is news that Canon is developing a 200mm f/2 lens.

Some incredibly lovely shots by the old lens can be found here (at least for now). The long focal length and wide aperture are essential ingredients of these photographs. (The photographer's skill, the subject and recording medium are other essential ingredients, to be sure.) Be sure to go beyond Page 1.

Until the annoucement of the new lens, the extinct version of the lens was trading reportedly for as much as $4000.

A Trading Proposition

I'm not sure why, but I find this to be very funny: (all of the following is an excerpt)

THIS APPEARED ON CRAIG’S LIST… I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy… I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City… Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board?... I dated a business man who makes average around 200–250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right?... Here are my questions specifically:… What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my feelings… Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village… How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY. Please hold your insults – I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them – in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

Well, she got an answer:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.

Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to "buy you" (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage… I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

Unstated but assumed in all of this is what philosopher D. C. Stove, in his book of the same name, would call a Darwinian Fairy Tale, the fairy tale here being that because there is a theoretical evolutionary basis for rich men to pursue beautiful women, they must in fact follow this course.

Bush, Rumsfeld implicated in torture

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/23/145542/57

A US vision of a Middle East

Iran is a major obstacle to the U.S. vision of a Middle East, Rice says.







Via miaculpa.blogspot.com

Song

Original


My apologies to those who don't know Hindi. I can't translate.

Guess who is in the news?

As per sitemeter, this blog has been receiving a number of hits from Pakistan, all based on searches for Ijaz/Ejaz Shah.

This blog posting and this one produced the hits.

I was wondering why, until I saw this by B. Raman: Bin Laden's Former Handling Officer Was In Charge of Benazir's Security - International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 288

Another Garba picture

The dancers were visibly reacting to the camera in my hands, and my niece N took the camera, (correctly, as it turned out) pointing out that they would not notice as much the camera in the hands of another young woman. Here is one of the results:



#7 in the previous post is also likely by my niece.

A Keeper

This essay on Bush versus History is a keeper.

The plan for governance in “post-Saddam Iraq” does not exist, all discussion of it having been paralyzed by a bitter dispute between officials in the Pentagon, State Department, and CIA that the President will never resolve. The Iraqi “civil society” that he tells Aznar is “relatively strong” will soon be decimated by the prolonged looting and chaos that follows on the entry of American troops into Baghdad. The “good bureaucracy” he boasts about in Iraq will shortly be destroyed by a radical de-Baathification ordered by the American proconsul that he almost certainly never approved. The Iraqi army that he decides in early March will be retained and used for reconstruction will instead be peremptorily dissolved, to catastrophic effect.

If these radical departures from the President’s chosen plan have dampened his optimism and faith — or indeed have even led him to try to discover what happened — there is no evidence of it. When Bush’s latest biographer, Robert Draper, asked him why the Iraqi army had not been kept intact, as the President had decided it should be, Bush replied, “Yeah, I can’t remember. I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’”

The Decline and Fall of the New York Times

But the Times made one more mistake -- one which it alone could make, and which I think ultimately led to yesterday's meltdown. Most newspapers adopted the always dangerous strategy of trying to become more like one's competitors rather than establishing the defensible position of being even more true to oneself. Like most newspapers, the Times decided to become more timely, more hip, and more judgmental than the electronic media -- when it should have become better reported, more objective, and better written; professionalism being the one arena where the new competitors would have a hard time competing. - Michael S Malone, How the New York Times Fell Apart.

This is something I have long believed. The only problem is that perhaps there isn't enough of a market for a better reported, more objective, better written newspaper with high standards of professionalism. This being a country where professionals for whom English is a second language write better than the natives; a country that reelected George W Bush, a country that made Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly into stars.

Neither professionalism nor competence is a value for the majority, and there in lies the real story of the NYT's decline.

Road Sign, Holmdel, New Jersey

The Spirit of Dance

The Indian Culture Society of New Jersey held a series of Navaratri Garba dances at the Dunn Sports Center, Elizabeth High School. Rediff.com pictures of the event are here.
My few pictures are here.

I felt disoriented when I entered the indoor stadium turned dance room:



It is not just the women that were dressed in vibrant colors. While many guys had come in jeans and tee-shirt, some of them did not disappoint. Little children shared in the fun.











The spirit of dance:

Pictures from the East Brunswick Festival

September 16th a fair/festival was held on the grounds of the East Brunswick library. Some pictures from there:

Why America is in Iraq

The whole of Retd. Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski's speech should be read.

If not, read below:

In the second half of 2002, a total of 27 different reasons were given by the administration or by Congresspersons as to why we needed to go into Iraq as soon as possible. I know this because a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wrote her senior honors thesis entitled "Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002." Devon Largio did a detailed analysis identifying 23 different reasons put forth by the administration, and 4 more put forth by various congressmen in the run up to war.

....

Today, we generally understand that we were lied to by the Pentagon, and by our government. These lies were repeated and often expanded upon by politicians and our media in 2002 and for several years after the invasion. Suggestions by politicians and media outlets that the truth was actually somewhat different were met by scorn, and accusations of sleeping with the enemy. And we all fell in line, and marched in unison.

There were of course, real reasons for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There might even be 27 real reasons. But I know of three.

One reason has to do with enhancing our military-basing posture in the region. We had been very dissatisfied with our relations with Saudi Arabia, particularly the restrictions on our basing. There was dissatisfaction from the people of Saudi Arabia, and thus the troubled monarchy. So we were looking for alternate strategic locations beyond Kuwait, beyond Qatar, to secure something we had been searching for since the days of Carter – to secure the energy lines of communication in the region. Bases in Iraq, then, were very important – that is, if you hold that is America’s role in the world. And Saddam Hussein was not about to invite us in.

A major reason for the invasion, and the urgency of it, is that sanctions and containment had worked, and over the years, almost too well. They had become counterproductive. Many companies around the world were preparing to do business with Iraq in anticipation of a lifting of sanctions. But the U.S. and the U.K. had been bombing northern and southern Iraq since 1991. So it was very unlikely that we would be in any kind of position to gain significant contracts in any post-sanctions Iraq. And those sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit.

Naomi Klein has researched and written many astute articles on our foreign policy in Iraq. One of these, published by Harper’s in September 2003, was called "Baghdad Year Zero." She made a compelling case for the convergence of business interests and a kind of neoconservative free market ideology – and that the invasion and occupation was a clean slate transformation of a command economy into a free trade utopia. Neoconservative ideology does not embrace free trade in the sense that libertarians or Adam Smith might embrace it, but instead prefers significant state involvement in trade, for the good of the nation. However, Klein’s article from 2003 sheds a great deal of light on what we really wanted and intended for Iraq.

Another reason is a uniquely American rationale, and it relates to our currency, and our debt situation. Saddam Hussein decided in November 2000 to sell his Food for Oil program oil sales in euros. The oil sales permitted in that program weren’t very much. But if the sanctions were lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been setting a standard away from, and competing with, US paper.

The U.S. dollar was, and remains, in a sensitive period because we are a major debtor nation now. Our currency is still globally popular, but these days that’s more due to habit than its reliability as a currency backed up by a government that the world trusts not to print boatloads of bills for no productive reason. To the extent that oil, almost the new gold in terms of in-demand commodity reliability, is traded on the euro, global confidence in the dollar and global bank reserve demand for the dollar shifts negatively.

In any case, the first executive order regarding Iraq that Bush signed in May [2003] switched trading on Iraq’s oil back to the dollar.

These, for me are the big three.

QsOTD

Christopher Manion

Ron Paul is right, of course: foreign countries and foreign people are not barbarians, nor are they simpletons who "hate us because we are free." There are millions of intelligent and cultured people in the world who watch what our government does. And they act accordingly. In seven years of occupying the Oval Office, Mr. Bush has not yet learned this simple lesson that any high-school kid who didn’t go to Andover could teach you in ten minutes on the playground.

Karen Kwiatkowski:

What we have done – intentionally or not – is to create an Iraq that today recalls the poorly functioning Ba-ath command economy, after a decade of deadly UN sanctions and periodic American bombing, as a good thing, a lovely memory. Electricity was delivered, water was clean and water systems functional, there weren’t two million internally displaced and another two million refugees in camps in neighboring countries, and people could drive their cars through comfortably mixed neighborhoods to visit, shop, and sell goods – or to visit a museum, library, or park.

As a libertarian, I condemn Iraqi Ba-ath Party socialism, its command economy, its lack of civil liberties and freedom, its crude and warlike dictator who invaded one country after another – first Iran, then Kuwait.

As an American, I am quite simply sick that we have done Saddam Hussein one better in every one of these areas.

Worlds Apart!

From NYT's Metropolitan Diary (perhaps only NJ-ites might appreciate this)

Dear Diary:

I work in a shop near New York University. A month ago, on registration day, a father and his student son came to the store. When they were asked to check their bags, the father seemed surprised and said “They don’t do that where we’re from.”

Expecting he would say they were from a place far from New York, I asked where they lived. The father replied that they were from New Jersey.

When I said that I hadn’t thought New Jersey was that different from New York, the father said: “Oh, yes. We have bears.”

The pair went on to shop and then retrieved their bags. As they turned to leave the store, the father said to his son, “John, you’re in a whole new world.”

Olga Hughes

Fair Game by Jon Swift

Jon Swift is a satirist in the tradition of the original Jonathan Swift, but some things go beyond even his ability to satirize.

Being a conservative means never saying you’re sorry for what other conservatives do. It means justifying the means if you support the ends, whether that involves ruining people’s lives and reputations, invading people’s privacy, violating people’s constitutional rights or torturing them. It means seeing anyone who is not with you 100% as an enemy and seeing every issue as black and white. It means doing whatever is necessary to defeat the enemy even if you sometimes have to violate your own principles to do it and seem like a hypocrite. Being a conservative means scoring political points by going after easy enemies and racking up victories instead of wasting a lot of time with the much harder job of persuading people with the rightness of your cause. It means doing it to them before they do it to us. It means seeing everyone opposed to us, even a 12-year-old boy, as “fair game.” Yes, I am very proud to be a conservative. - "Fair Game"

The context is the battle over S-CHIP, a government program to provide health insurance to children. The President vetoed an expansion of this program. The Democrats chose a 12-year old boy, Graeme Frost, who is a beneficiary of the program to give the Democrats' reply to the President's weekly radio address.

The Frosts' story is that though they are in a way comfortably off - both parents work, they own a house bought way back when housing prices were rational, the children go to good schools - there was no affordable health insurance available to them when both their children were seriously injured in a automobile accident. (The Frosts, we are told, earn a combined $45K a year, and the health insurance that was quoted to them was $1.2K a month). Under Maryland law, which is where the Frosts live, the children were eligible for S-CHIP (the rule was for a family of 4 having income within 200% of the official poverty level or some such).

The Frosts committed at least two cardinal sins, in the eyes of the conservatives. One of them dared criticize the President. Secondly, as a diarist on dkos pointed (sorry, I couldn't find the diary), the Frosts explode the myth that a white American family with all the right values and hard work can make it in America on their own. The reality is that every middle-class family is one serious health emergency away from bankruptcy.

So the conservative attack dogs in the media did a number on the Frosts, and it was so bad that even Jon Swift's unfailing wit did the unthinkable and failed.

The real mood in America

The Congress is intent to bring to a vote a resolution that terms the killing of 1.5 million Armenians around 1915 by the Ottoman Turks as a genocide. Symbolic though it may be, it has made the Turks angry. The Congress is resisting pressure from the President on this. (By Congress, we really mean the leaders of the Democrats.)

Why are Nancy Pelosi and her followers so determined? Because there is a constituency for it. Quote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will determine whether the Foreign Affairs Committee resolution comes to a vote on the House floor. She comes from California, a state with a large Armenian population, and she's on record as favoring the resolution.

Nothing like doing things one's constituency wants (and seemingly principled, too - who wants to be a holocaust denier?) to put some spine into a politician!

What that implies, (and is noted by Frank Rich in today's New York Times) is that there is no constituency that demands with the same energy or influence for, among other things:

- an end to the policy of torture instituted by G.W. Bush
- a restoration of habeas corpus and an end to illegal surveillance

I don't mention other things, like an end to the war in Iraq, because there are powerful forces other than the President who are in opposition.

But surely no one condones torture or the suspension of civil liberties?

Think about it and let it sink in.

In particular, it means that the liberal netroots plus whatever additional civil liberties constituency is out there, collectively has much less influence than Nancy Pelosi's Armenian constituency. Time and again, the very same Congressional Democrats have given Bush and the neocons whatever they want. One would have thought that the same two things that apply in the Armenian case, a constituency and a principle, would be enough to give them the courage to fight.

We haven't taken to heart Ben Franklin's warning:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Americans will countenance anything their government does ,as long as it lets them max. out their credit cards, and allows unscrupulous lenders to give them shady loans. Civil liberties are no good as a collateral for a loan, so who needs them?

Climate news!

Gore and UN panel win Nobel prize
BBC breaking news graphic
Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Gore, 59, was vice-president under Bill Clinton and has since devoted his efforts to environmental campaigning.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change brings together the world's top climate scientists.

The Nobel committee said it wanted to help the world focus on the threat it faced from climate change.

Is he goofy -2?

At the time of the VA Tech shooting, Russel T. Johnson had written

I've written on this subject before, but here it goes again. Every time I point this out, people roll their eyes and act like I'm goofy, but....

These shootings always occur right after a public health crisis, in this case a big pet food recall. The last school shooting, the one at the Amish school, came right after the big ecoli/green onion scare."

There was a school shooting in Ohio on October 10, in which a student injured five and then killed himself. In other news (this item dated October 11, but clearly the problem had occurred well before the 11th, the alert was issued October 9)

OMAHA, Neb. — ConAgra Foods Inc. and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are defending their decision not to recall pot pies linked to a salmonella outbreak, although two East Coast grocery chains made their own choice to pull the product from store shelves Wednesday.

The Banquet and generic brand chicken and turkey pot pies made by ConAgra have been linked to at least 139 cases of salmonella in 30 states. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 20 people have been hospitalized, but so far no deaths have been linked to the pot pies.

Consumers have been warned not to eat the pot pies while officials investigate, and ConAgra is offering refunds.

ConAgra spokeswoman Stephanie Childs said the Omaha-based company decided with USDA officials that the consumer alert issued Tuesday {Oct 9} would more appropriate than a recall.

"From the consumer perspective, there's not much difference," Childs said.

But unlike with a recall, the pot pies remain available in many stores.

Contempt of Court

That is what one feels about the current Supreme Court.

So do I!

Such a worthless, spineless pusillanimous set of elected officials, I've never witnessed in my life; in the history books maybe those folks in the Weimar Republic?

Like Cenk Uygur, I too Officially Give Up On The Democrats.

PS: Glenn Greenwald raises faint hopes.

The God We Don't Want

Swami Dayananda Saraswati, in his commentary on the Gita:

If ...He is the author of the world, the one from whom everything has come, then ultimately He is the author of all the people in the world. Why, then, has He placed some people in elevated positions and others in lowly positions?...And if He is responsible, He must certainly have a problem - the blemish of partiality.

Why else would He put a silver spoon in the mouth of one person...and not even a plastic one in the mouth of still others?

If this question cannot be asked and answered, why bother about God at all? It is not enough to say "The differences among people are all according to God's wish and He should not be questioned." This double justification simply means that God does whatever He does and because He is God, no one can question Him. Well, He may be God, but I am the sufferer....

What kind of God is this, that sits above us somewhere, having a wonderful life, where some unfortunate person has to inch along the ground because he or she is lame? And if God must make a crippled person, the least He could do is put the person in America where motorized wheelchairs are readily available. Even this much He does not do for the person! How can we look at such differences and say that God is justified in all that He does. What kind of justification is this?

Further I am told that, not only has God made me, but He has also said I must follow Him. Someone else tells me. The least God could do is come and tell me Himself. Then this would all mean something to me. In fact God should tell everyone.

Instead, someone else tells us that God told him and then asked him to tell us. If God wants me to know this, why does He not tell me Himself. Also another person sometimes comes along, saying that God told him that what He told the first person earlier is no longer current and what we are now going to hear is the latest word from God!

This kind of God is someone we would all be better off without, in fact. If God is something that is to be established, the concept should be a rational one, at least. What is unreasonable cannot be accepted.

An amazing statistic

history_mom , in a comment on pandagon

...statistically the first year of a child’s life is the period when most marriages end...

Totally shocking, makes me doubt the existence of civilization.

________

PS:
1. We could say that the above is a snapshot of a society in transition, not a permanent state of affairs. One would devoutly hope so!

2. We could say that the above is not a problem to be solved at all. IMO, no pre-industrial society could have survived such a chronic problem. In the modern world, indeed, government is being asked to take up the slack:
Amanda Marcotte:

...we need federally subsidized day care, more worker protections for working mothers, better maternal leave (and maybe even mandatory paternal leave), more flex time at work, and less social stigma on motherhood.

3. Religion and tradition served to hold these types of things in check; but they've been discarded as superstition. Also is argued that the American religious actually have more divorces than atheists. This seems to be based on the work of George Barna. A good critique of Barna is available here. Please read through the entire series of posts.

Perhaps more on this later.

A rejoinder to Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul (and now candidate for Presidency), March 2005:

The notion that an all-powerful, centralized state should provide monolithic solutions to the ethical dilemmas of our times is not only misguided, but also contrary to our Constitution. Remember, federalism was established to allow decentralized, local decision-making by states. Yet modern America seeks a federal solution for every perceived societal ill, ignoring constitutional limits on government. The result is a federal state that increasingly makes all-or-nothing decisions that alienate large segments of the population.

This federalization of social issues, often championed by conservatives, has not created a pro-life culture, however. It simply has prevented the 50 states from enacting laws that more closely reflect the views of their citizens....

The idea that the centralized state should provide solutions to the ethical dilemmas of our time arose from slavery and, in the modern era, from the segregation and deeply ingrained racism of the country. The "decentralized, local decision-making" states were the reactionary culprits in these stories. The states have not exactly been beacons of liberty, freedom and the right to happiness.

'toons

She collects 'toons.

My favorite is the fourth one.

Starburst

Via Darksyde on dkos, this Hubble picture of the starburst cluster in NGC 3603.

"Merely" 20,000 light years away.

The Root of Loneliness

Swami Dayananda Saraswati in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita had this to say:

Every society has false values and these false values are taught; they grow upon you. When, for instance, the society thinks that to be single means to be lonely, this particular thinking seeps into everyone's psyche. In fact, being single has nothing whatsoever to do with being lonely. A person is lonely when he or she is not understood by another person. Thus, if you want to be understood, you will be lonely. You can be lonely in the midst of a million people. You can live in a house with twenty people and still be lonely, especially if you sit in a corner thinking that no one likes or understands you.

Observation!

Paul Krugman in today's NYT:

Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.

By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.

Wall Street, on your health

NYCEve has a great diary at dkos.

In which world does Thomas Friedman live?

Six years later and only because the number of business visitors to the US is down ("Only the U.S. is losing traveler volume among major countries, which is unheard of in today’s world"), Thomas Friedman, NYT columnist and billionaire, finally gets some inkling -

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

He should really say - "I was catastrophically wrong for most the last six years. I resign my job as pundit. The America I believe in does not condone persistent failure."

Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry

Sept 22 - an overcast, drizzly day, only by evening was there somewhat of a clearing up. Snapshot taken from the Staten Island Ferry, cropped and resized for the web.
Exposure:
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Exposure: 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 24 mm (Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS)
ISO Speed: 3200

More as a memento of a pleasant day than anything else. Also to express some amazement at what the camera is capable of. The lens is as wide open as possible and the shutter speed is as slow as possible (on the deck of a boat). The ISO is cranked to the impressive maximum that the Canon 5D is capable of.



PS: As Rajan points out in the comments, the Image Stabilization (IS) built in the lens is crucial.

Two Impressive Rants

Arthur Silber: Excerpts:

Let it be noted that, if and when World War III destroys much of the world and the comfortable, ignorance-ridden lives of many Americans, neither the Democrats nor their defenders should look to any remotely civilized person for forgiveness. It will not be forthcoming......

........I note that murder, chaos, devastation and human suffering on an ungraspable scale are what the U.S. governing class wants. Is it what you want? For many Americans, the answer is: Yes. Yes, it is.

God damn all such people to hell.

You have to hand it to the Washington Democrats and those commentators and bloggers who continue to shill for them. The Democrats count on the American public and their lobotomized lapdogs not to remember significant events from one week to the next -- and the Democrats' enablers willingly render themselves deaf, dumb and blind. The Democrats first put on a phony show of aggressively questioning Petraeus and doubting his propagandistic claims, and very shortly thereafter they rely on Petraeus's lies to set the stage for World War III.

I almost admire the Democrats' defenders in a certain way. The Democrats stab them deep in the gut and, while the knife is disemboweling them, the Democrats continue to lie in their agony-ridden faces -- and the victims still tell these bastards they will continue to support them. This collection of subhumans give sado-masochists a bad name. The commitment to cruelty, self-abasement and self-humiliation is all but perfect. It's no wonder they can regard one genocide after another with equanimity. It appears none of these people has a conscience any longer to be troubled in the smallest degree.

Karen Kwiatkovski: Excerpt:

It’s over. The faithful and the hopeful may carry the corpse of the American republic, hoping that it can be brought back into normality, into life, and into power. I am afraid these nurturers will not survive the present reality of imperialism.

But some of us will look directly at the ugly, dangerous and very real empire. We will stare – with little hope but also with little fear – into the face of the FUBAR nation, and then roll up our sleeves and get started on the only life we may honestly live, as internal dissidents. We will no longer pledge allegiance, we will not obey old rules, we will make do and make it up as we go along. Our minds focused on surviving the empire, our talents and creativity unleashed against the state and its fantasist faithful, we will live as if we are free.

This simple prescription will not only make us survivors, but it will gradually cultivate a political landscape for a future of free republics where today we see nascent totalitarianism and bankrupt empire. This prescription was written for us in 1809 by revolutionary war general John Stark. He advised, "Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils."

We face a modern American state more overweening and dictatorial than even King George III could imagine, yet we have no declaration of independence, no privileged elite to demand it, no interested population to read and debate it. This time, our declaration will be made individually, every day, in calm desperate fearlessness, as we simply live free.

American Divorce Rates

The narrative of rising divorce is also completely at odds with counts of divorce certificates, which show the divorce rate as having peaked at 22.8 divorces per 1,000 married couples in 1979 and to have fallen by 2005 to 16.7.
- Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers in the NYT

American Narcissism

Arthur Silber:

THIS IS NOT PRIMARILY, OR MOST IMPORTANTLY, OR IN ANY SIGNIFICANT WAY ABOUT THE MISERABLE, REPELLENT CALCULATIONS OF DOMESTIC POLITICS, OR ABOUT YOU OR ABOUT US, YOU NEUROTICALLY SELF-ABSORBED, IGNORANT DUMB FUCKS.


He quotes Lew Rockwell.
"None Dare Call It Genocide".

The US has unleashed bloodshed in Iraq that is rarely known even in countries we think of as violent and torn by civil strife. It is amazing to think that this has occurred in what was only recently a liberal and civilized country by the region’s standards. This was a country that had a problem with immigration, particularly among the well-educated and talented classes. They went to Iraq because it was the closest Arab proxy to Western-style society that one could find in the area.

It was the US that turned this country into a killing field. Why won’t we face this? Why won't we take responsibility? The reason has to do with this mysterious thing called nationalism, which makes an ideological religion of the nation's wars. We are god-like liberators. They are devil-like terrorists. No amount of data or contrary information seems to make a dent in this irreligious faith. So it is in every country and in all times. Here is the intellectual blindness that war generates.

A Birthday Celebration

A Birthday Celebration in Goa, India.

QOTD

It isn't only -- or even principally -- the "Blue Dogs" which make the "Democratic Congress" nothing but an enabling instrument of the Bush White House and its right-wing policies. Far worse are the establishment-defending, soul-less, belief-less, self-perpetuating "liberal Senators" like Feinstein who render the concept of "opposition party" nothing more than a deceitful illusion. Dianne Feinstein is the drained and Bush-enabling face of the 2007 Democratic Congress.

Must -read Glenn Greenwald

Hunter is good!

Hunter is very good!

miaculpa.blogspot.com

Desi's (Diane Sweet) Greatscat! (miaculpa.blogspot.com) is probably the blog I visit most frequently. One of my private nightmares is that Desi decides to stop blogging one day. What is her power?


Thoughts and intuitions crystallize around words. The Ira Chernus essay that I quoted here led to such a precipitation for me about miaculpa.

Chernus brings up two things - the debate about the war in Iraq avoids the question of whether it is a moral war; and the "support the troops" as used in the discourse is not about supporting real people. Two excerpts to those points follow:

And we can expect both parties, and the media who keep the show going, to abide by an unspoken agreement that one kind of question will never be asked, because the tension it raises might be unbearable: Is it moral for our troops to occupy another country for years, bomb its cities and villages, and kill untold numbers of people halfway across the planet?

"Supporting our troops" is not about helping individual soldiers to live better lives or, for that matter, making their lives safer. It's about supporting a morality play in which the lead actor, "our troops," represents all the virtues that so many believe—or wish they could believe—America possesses, giving us the privilege (and obligation) of directing all that happens on the world stage.

I hope Ira Chernus discovers Desi's blog. Desi hasn't sipped any of the Kool-Aid - miaculpa is a relentless blitz on the right side of precisely these two issues. (If I have a criticism of the blog it is that it moves too fast to have an extended conversation.) Desi posts on the damage the war is wreaking on individuals, Iraqis and Americans alike, pictured and named when possible. The anti-war focus of the blog is rooted in this. "Support the troops" and "the war is wrong" come from the concern for persons, real persons not abstract ones.

I don't know where Desi finds the energy to do this day in and out, but I hope it never flags.

Desi is a voice in a million. Just sayin'.

The Show Must Go On

The great debate about Iraq is not, and never really was, about what we should do in Iraq. No matter how many Iraqis have died or become refugees thanks to the Bush intervention, they remain largely ignored bit players in our central drama, which is, and always was, about what we will make of America. Now, the outcome of that debate is coming more clearly into view and it's not a pretty picture. The compromise the two parties are hammering out on Iraq policy reflects a deeper compromise the public seems to be groping toward on national identity—between who we are in reality (pragmatic, if sidelined, civilians who know a war is badly lost and want to end it) and who we are in our imaginations (heroic soldiers proving our character in the theater of war).

All theater, all storytelling, rests on the power of illusion and the willing suspension of disbelief. Bush and the Republicans have repeatedly given millions of doubters a chance to suspend their post-Vietnam disbelief in traditional tales of American character; the Democrats have given millions of doubters a chance to suspend their disbelief that the will of the people can make any difference whatsoever. The two parties join together to give the whole nation a chance to believe that a fierce debate still rages about whether or not to end the war. That political show we can expect to go on at least until Election Day 2008.

And we can expect both parties, and the media who keep the show going, to abide by an unspoken agreement that one kind of question will never be asked, because the tension it raises might be unbearable: Is it moral for our troops to occupy another country for years, bomb its cities and villages, and kill untold numbers of people halfway across the planet? If the script ever makes room for that question, we'll be able to watch—and participate in—a far more profound debate about the war.

Ira Chernus

Bee's Imaginary Part

I can't put my finger on why I find Bee's Imaginary Part so hilarious!

Globalization

Some 25 million Iraqis - 1 million killed, 2 million refugees - have their fate placed in the hands of about six hundred people in Washington - the President, his Cabinet, the Senate and the Congress.

What principle of accountability? Locality? Democracy? What process of law? sanctions this abomination?

We fool ourselves with our illusions of being civilized.

QOTD

To grasp the Petraeus moment, you really have to re-imagine official Washington as a set of drunks behind the wheels of so many SUVs tearing down a well-populated city avenue -- and all of them are on their cell phones. They hardly notice the bodies bouncing off the fenders. For them, the world is Washington-centered; all interests that matter are American ones. Nothing else exists, not really. Think of this as a form of imperial autism and the Petraeus moment as the way in which the White House and official Washington have, for a brief time, blotted out the world.

From Tom Engelhardt

An Analysis of Bin Laden's Latest

Decoding bin Laden's Latest: An Odd Congruence, a dailykos.com diary is worth a read.

Where are the young concert pianists?

Looking for some classical music recordings to gift to a young relative, I was struck by the fact that most of what is available on the shelves at Borders and Barnes&Noble is old stuff, sometimes way older than the intended recipient.

What was there was Schnabel, Horowitz, Brendel, Kempf, Ashkenazy, Gould, from the 50s, 60s, 70s - you get the picture. My guess is that the big labels are not issuing new recordings rather than there is no exciting young talent, or that classical music is dying.

Presumably there are small labels issuing good CDs - but where to find them?

An Appeal from an American Exiled Gandhian

http://www.lewrockwell.com/knaebel/knaebel10.html

Please read it through.