European astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system, adding evidence to the theory that the universe has many places where life could develop. Scientists using the European Southern Observatory telescope didn't find any planets quite the size of Earth, or any that seemed habitable or even unusual. But their announcement increased the number of planets discovered outside the solar system to more than 400. Six of the newly found planets are several times bigger than Earth, increasing the population of so-called super-Earths by more than thirty percent. Most planets discovered so far are far bigger, Jupiter-sized or even larger. Two of the newly discovered planets were as small as five times the size of Earth and one was up to five times larger than Jupiter.Rico says he knows why there are no photos, but it's shame nonetheless...
Astronomer Stephane Udry of the University of Geneva said the results support the theory that planet formation is common, especially around the most common types of stars. "I'm pretty confident that there are Earth-like planets everywhere," Udry said in a news briefing from a conference in Portugal. "Nature doesn't like a vacuum. If there is space to put a planet there, there will be a planet there."
What astronomers said is especially exciting is that about forty percent of sun-like stars have planets that are closer to being Earth-sized than the size of Jupiter. Jupiter's mass is more than 300 times that of Earth's.
Depending on definitions of the size of super-Earths, the discovery suggests that planets that have a mass similar to Earth's are "extraordinarily commonplace", said Alan Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He was not part of the European team. "The universe must indeed be crowded with habitable worlds."
Boss said finding 32 planets at once is a record, "and it really shows that the Europeans have taken the lead" in finding planets outside the solar system.
The discoveries were made by the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, which is an attachment to the European observatory telescope in Chile that looks for slight wobbles in a star's movements. Those changes would be made by the tug of a planet's gravity on the star. There are no photos of these planets.
20 October 2009
A lot of other places out there
The AP has a story by Seth Borenstein about science fact outrunning science fiction:
Good riddance
Director Roman Polanski has lost an appeal to be freed from a Swiss prison ahead of his possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a thirteen-year-old girl.Rico says that'll teach him to think he's untouchable...
The Swiss Criminal Court today said that releasing Polanski on bail or under house arrest posed a high risk of flight.
The ruling represents another setback for the 76-year-old filmmaker, who is considered a convicted felon and a fugitive by authorities in Los Angeles.
The court said Polanski can appeal the verdict to Switzerland's highest tribunal. He can also continue attempts to persuade the Swiss Justice Ministry to release him.
Polanski was arrested on 26 September as he arrived in Zurich to receive an award from a film festival.
Whacking on Vince
Remember when Vince Vaughn was so money? A long, lean panther in a shiny suit padding through L.A.'s late-night lounge scene stalking beautiful babies? You could sense the uncertainty behind the swagger; the waver behind the cocky wink. The sarcasm that slipped sideways through a half smile was sly, knowing and a shade fearful.
It was 1996 when Swingers came along. The film would be the first to define Vaughn for most of us and he would come to embody its vision of retro hip. Other careers would be helped by the film, but for Vaughn it would turn out to be star-making material. Like a lot of people, I fell hard for the promise of Vaughn. Could he develop depth and finesse to match the roguish charm in the way of Paul Newman? Would he stretch beyond the comedy in stunning fashion as Bill Murray has? Or figure out how to mine a darker, damaged side as Michael Keaton does? Or would he settle for Chevy Chasing his way through life, collecting cash while he can? Reading the tea leaves of the thirty movies he's been in over the thirteen years since Swingers, frankly, it doesn't look good for artistic promise beating out money in the bank.
Vaughn has gone from intriguing to repetitive. The $63 million-plus that the mediocre Couples Retreat has made in its first two weeks will only make matters worse. Hollywood has a bad habit of confusing money with quality.
I hate that about Hollywood.
Whadja expect from the greedy bastards?
The Washington Post has the story by Tomoeh Murakami Tse:
Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives. The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits four percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.Rico says he sure as shit didn't get a four percent boost in his pay...
Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.
Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services chief executive Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.
"You would have thought that this would be the moment when everyone said, 'Okay, the perks have got to stop, at least while we're indebted to the government,'" said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library. "But that didn't happen." This year may turn out to be different. In June, the Treasury Department prohibited companies receiving bailout funds from reimbursing senior executives for their personal tax payments.
In the meantime, Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration official assigned to set pay for top executives at seven of the companies receiving the most help, plans to curtail perks such as country club fees when he rules on compensation later this month, according to people familiar with the matter. Perks worth more than $25,000 are getting particular scrutiny from Feinberg.
On average, the chief executives at 29 of the largest public financial companies that have taken bailout funds received perks and benefits worth more than $380,000 in 2008, according to compensation figures included in annual proxy statements and supplied by Equilar, a compensation data services firm. Individually, about half the banks increased their fringe benefits to the top executives. The figures do not include relocation costs and related taxes, typically one-time fees that can skew year-over-year comparisons.
In contrast to the four percent average increase in perks and benefits at these companies, the average awarded to top executives at non-financial companies in the Fortune 100 declined by more than seven percent over the same period, according to Equilar.
Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups" (when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits) represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass. "These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card really rubs people the wrong way, but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."
Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.
Still, some companies that have taken away perks are making it up to executives by boosting their pay. SunTrust Banks eliminated most executive perks in 2008, including financial planning services, club memberships and payment of taxes on the perks, according to a corporate filing. But the bank also noted that "base pay increases were made in 2008 to offset this reduction in perks."
A spokesman for SunTrust, a recipient of $4.9 billion in government funds, said in an e-mail that the bank seeks to "maintain an executive compensation framework that is competitive, appropriate and consistent with industry practice, and we periodically make adjustments in line with that goal."
Corporations have long defended perks as necessary for attracting and retaining talented executives. They also say some perks— corporate jets and chauffeured drivers, for example— are provided for security and to ensure that executives can work efficiently. In fact, it is not uncommon for companies to mandate that their chief executive use the corporate jet and car for all travel.
American Express is one such company. Last year, it provided its chief executive, Kenneth I. Chenault, with $415,000 in corporate jet travel for personal reasons, as well as $201,000 for a home security system and $46,000 for security during personal trips. A spokesperson for American Express declined to comment. The company's proxy statement says it eliminated tax gross-ups as of 2008.
GMAC said it had stopped using its corporate aircraft altogether after receiving a federal bailout in late 2008 and that de Molina, its chief executive, had declined a year-end bonus for 2008. He did receive a nearly $6 million award earlier in the year, however, and GMAC covered the taxes due on that bonus.
De Molina, a former executive at Bank of America who arrived at GMAC in 2007 and became its chief executive in April 2008, was "instrumental in leading the company through an incredibly challenging period and successfully executed a series of actions to stabilize the company," said Gina Proia, a company spokeswoman.
CIT, which cut its staff by 22 percent in 2008, declined to comment. Representatives for Comerica did not return phone calls.
19 October 2009
Peaceful, for a change
Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.
President Mohammed Nasheed and thirteen other government officials submerged and took their seats at a table on the sea floor, twenty feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training.
With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average seven feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.
"What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world," Nasheed said.
As bubbles floated up from their face masks, the president, vice president, cabinet secretary, and eleven ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. The issue has taken on urgency ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen. At that meeting, countries will negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, with the goal of cutting the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Wealthy nations want broad emissions cuts from all countries, while poorer ones say industrialized countries should carry most of the burden.
Dozens of Maldives soldiers guarded the event Saturday, but the only intruders were groupers and other fish. Nasheed had already announced plans for a fund to buy a new homeland for his people if the 1,192 low-lying coral islands are submerged. He has promised to make the Maldives, with a population of 350,000, the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade. "We have to get the message across by being more imaginative, more creative and so this is what we are doing," he said in an interview on a boat en route to the dive site. Nasheed, who has emerged as a key, and colorful, voice on climate change, is a certified diver, but the others had to take diving lessons in recent weeks. Three ministers missed the underwater meeting because two were not given medical permission and another was abroad.
The other front in the war
The Associated Press has an article by Ishtiaq Mahsud about the fighting inside Pakistan with al-Qaeda and the Taliban:
Troops fought militants on three fronts and fighter jets bombed insurgent positions Monday, as Pakistan pressed ahead with its assault on an al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border.
The army and the Taliban have each claimed early victories in South Waziristan, a mountainous tribal region that Islamist extremists use as a base to plot attacks on the Pakistani state, Western troops in Afghanistan and targets in the West.
The fighting took place as U.S. Central Command chief David Petraeus met Pakistan's prime minister and army chief in the capital. Senator John Kerry also met political and military leaders to try and ease tensions over an American aid bill that has caused a rift between the army and Pakistan's civilian government.
The offensive in South Waziristan is seen as Pakistan's most crucial yet against militants that are in control of a large swath of its northwest close to the Afghan border. The insurgents have beaten back its troops there three times since 2004.
Intelligence officials said fighting was going on Monday close to Jandola, Razmak, and Wana, three towns where the army had bases. Jets were making bombing runs in the Ladha and Makeen areas, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media on the record.
The army said Sunday that sixty militants and six soldiers have been killed since the offensive began Saturday. Intelligence officials said eight more militants were killed Monday as they advanced on troops in the Khaisur area.
It is nearly impossible to independently verify what is going on in South Waziristan because the army is blocking access to it and surrounding towns. The Taliban claimed Sunday to have inflicted "heavy casualties" and pushed advancing soldiers back into their bases.
The military offensive is focused on eliminating Pakistani Taliban militants linked to the Mehsud tribe, who control roughly 1,275 square miles (3,310 square kilometers) of territory, or about half of South Waziristan. They are blamed for eighty percent of the suicide attacks that have battered Pakistan over the last three years, including five major attacks over the last two weeks. Part of the strategy involves striking deals with other militant groups and tribes in the region to ensure they support the fight, or at least stay neutral.
Some 30,000 troops are up against an estimated 10,000 Pakistani militants and about 1,500 foreign fighters. As many as 150,000 civilians — possibly more — have left in recent months after the army made clear it was planning an assault, but some 350,000 people may be left in the region. Authorities say that up to 200,000 people may flee in the coming days, but don't expect to have to house them in camps because most have relatives in the region.
"The situation in Waziristan is getting worse and worse every day," said Haji Sherzad Mehsud as he lined up for aid. Accounts from residents and those fleeing Sunday suggested militant resistance was far tougher than in the Swat Valley, another northwest region where insurgents were overpowered earlier this year. Officials have said they envisage the operation will last two months, when winter weather will make fighting difficult.
The U.S. has rushed to send equipment, such as night-vision goggles, to aid the offensive.
No details were released about meetings attended by Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Senator Kerry. Kerry is the co-sponsor of a bill signed by President Barack Obama last week that gives $1.5 billion annually over five years for economic and social programs. The government supports the bill, but the army has complained that some of the aid comes with strings attached that amount to American meddling in security affairs.
Also Monday, police said they had arrested a man identified as the head of the Pakistani Taliban in the southern city of Karachi along with three other alleged militants in connection with a foiled attempt to attack an oil terminal last month. Police officer Waseem Ahmed identified the alleged Karachi Taliban head as Akhtar Zaman. He and the other suspects were arrested in a raid on a building in the western part of the city. Wearing women's burqas, three suspected militants killed a security guard as they tried to enter the oil terminal last month, but fled as police arrived.
At least they'll be obvious when we shoot them
Midway through a propaganda video released last month by a group calling itself the German Taliban, a surprise guest made an appearance: a cleanshaven, muscular gunman sporting the alias Abu Ibrahim the American. The gunman did not speak, but wore military fatigues and waved his rifle as subtitles identified him as an American. The video contained a stream of threats against Germany if it did not withdraw its troops from the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. Although the American's part in the film lasted only a few seconds, it has alarmed German and U.S. intelligence officials, who are still puzzling over his background, his real identity and how he became involved with the terrorist group.Click here for the rest.
U.S. and European counterterrorism officials say a rising number of Western recruits, including Americans, are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend paramilitary training camps. The flow of recruits has continued unabated, officials said, in spite of an intensified campaign over the past year by the CIA to eliminate al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in drone missile attacks.
Since January, at least thirty recruits from Germany have traveled to Pakistan for training, according to German security sources. About ten people, though not necessarily the same individuals, have returned to Germany this year, fueling concerns that fresh plots are in the works against European targets.
"We think this is sufficient to show how serious the threat is," said a senior German counterterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. German security services have been on high alert since last month, when groups affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda issued several videos warning that an attack on German targets was imminent if the government did not bring home its forces from Afghanistan.
There are about 3,800 German troops in the country, the third-largest NATO contingent after those of the United States and Britain. German officials say Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders are trying to exploit domestic opposition in Germany to the war; surveys show that a majority of German voters favor a withdrawal of their soldiers.
The videos all featured German speakers who urged Muslims to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan to join their cause. "They're doing such good business that they are dropping a new video every week or so," said Ronald Sandee, a former Dutch military intelligence officer who serves as research director of the NEFA Foundation, a U.S. group that monitors terrorist networks. "If I were a young Muslim, I'd find them very convincing."
Last week, German officials disclosed that a ten-member cell from Hamburg had left for Pakistan earlier this year. The cell is allegedly led by a German of Syrian descent but also includes ethnic Turks, German converts to Islam, and one member with Afghan roots.
Other European countries are also struggling to keep their citizens from going to Pakistan for paramilitary training. In August, Pakistani officials arrested a group of twelve foreigners headed to North Waziristan, a tribal region near the Afghan border where many of the camps are located. Among those arrested were four Swedes, including Mehdi Ghezali, a former inmate of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Beatings will continue until this sort of thing stops
As people began to doubt Falcon Heene's parents really believed their son was in a homemade helium balloon that was accidentally released, Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden defended the family. But yesterday at a news conference, he said that Falcon's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, had planned the whole thing for two weeks as part of a publicity stunt that they thought would help them land their own reality-television show. "They put on a very good show," he said, "and we bought it." The sheriff refused to say whether someone had confessed, but did state that the part of the story about how Falcon was hiding in the garage the whole time wasn't true, either. Richard and Mayumi Heene could face felony charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and attempting to influence a public official as well as a misdemeanor of making a false report. They could also be billed for the costs of the rescue operation, which involved two National Guard helicopters and even temporarily shut down Denver International Airport. The three boys were "100 percent involved," said the sheriff, but probably won't face charges because of their ages. The Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI will also have to determine whether the couple could face federal charges. One media outlet may have already paid Heene in connection to the scandal, but it was unclear whether it was complicit with the hoax or just put up the money afterward.
18 October 2009
Different than the trailer
For those of us who loved him in The Professional, there's also the added attraction of Marcel, played by Jean Reno.
17 October 2009
Portrait of an artist as an older man
Rico says his friend George Morris is finally getting his due, in this article by Dawn Fallik in the Philadelphia Inquirer:This firefighter turns one person’s fallen tree into another’s cherry salad bowl, sometimes with surprising results.
When George Morris sits down with a block of wood, he might have a plan in mind. But by the time he steps away from the lathe, it doesn't always turn out that way. Different types of wood turn differently. Sometimes there's a knot or a hollow or a curve that calls out to be a bowl or an ornament. "My wife always asks me what I'm making," he says. "I tell her the wood has to speak to me, and that's the truth."
Morris, 59, grew up in Yeadon and originally went to college for law enforcement. College wasn't a good fit, so he started working for a kitchen company, helping install and manufacture cabinets. His first assignment involved learning how to use a broom correctly, a skill he's passed on to his seven grandchildren.
He eventually started his own construction company. But after 25 years, he wanted something different. In high school, Morris had worked as a volunteer firefighter for the Yeadon fire department. In 1993, he was hired full-time. "Every day is different," he says. "You see all the good in people and all the bad things that happen to people."
Still, after a quarter of a century working with your hands, it's hard to put down the craft. With his wife's blessing, he turned their basement into a wood shop. But, Morris said, the only thing construction and woodworking have in common is the splinters. So he had to start at the beginning. First, four years ago, he made a tool handle, basically a spindle. Then, with the help of the DelVal Woodturners club, he started making bowls, boxes, and ornaments. Soon he ran out of space in the house to put them, so he created a website and started selling at local shows.
Most of the wood comes from the chopped-down trees of local neighbors who donate it to the club.
"What's the big deal about making a bowl?" Morris said. "You take a big piece of wood spinning at 500 r.p.m. and shove a sharp instrument toward it. Sometimes it can get exciting; bowls can get embedded in walls and ceilings when it comes off real fast and ends up flying across the room."
And then there are the times when it all comes together. Out comes the cherry bowl with the natural ragged edge, or the walnut platter with carved leaves, or the box with shiny curves, or the Christmas ornament made of cocobola (a Central American hardwood) and ash. The wood tells stories. Sometimes Morris finds lead bullets. Other times cracks appear, which can ruin a whole project.
He has exhibited at several local shows, including the Media Arts Show and at the Perkins Center in Collingswood. Most of his works sell for $40 to $300, but Morris just laughed when asked if he planned to turn his turning into a full-time gig. "If I'm lucky, I may make golf money from when I retire," he said. "But the fellows who are doing it full-time, they've been working at it for 20 years."
Rico says he and the ladyfriend own several Morris pieces; they're all wonderful. Go to his website and spend money.
16 October 2009
So much for New Age technology
An investigation into the deaths of two people who spent up to two hours inside a "sweat lodge" at an Arizona retreat last week has been elevated from an accidental death investigation to a homicide inquiry, Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh told reporters Thursday. Authorities said James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, New York, died Friday at the Angel Valley Resort after spending up to two hours in the sauna-like sweat lodge. Nineteen others were treated for injuries. One person remained hospitalized Thursday in critical condition, Waugh said. The dead and injured were attending a program by self-help author James Arthur Ray, authorities said.Rico says another one died today...
A search warrant was executed Wednesday at the James Ray International offices in Carlsbad, California, the sheriff said. Authorities were attempting to determine whether documents exist on how to construct sweat lodges and on their proper use, as well as documents showing whether participants were advised of the risks of sweat lodges either before or during the program. They also were searching for rosters from past events, Waugh said. Police would not say what, if anything, was found in executing the search warrant. Asked why the deaths have been classified as homicides and the investigation upgraded, Waugh said, "We believe there are indications that it was not accidental, and we feel that there should be some culpability by some individuals." Those individuals could include Ray and possibly others, he said.
A spokesman for Ray said authorities should be focusing on the investigation rather than talking to reporters. "The Sheriff's Department is trying this case in the media," said Howard Bragman, noting that Thursday's news conference was the sheriff's second this week. "There were no additional facts presented today; there were implications. I find words like 'homicide', when they don't have all the facts, inflammatory and inappropriate at this time, and I think they're purposely inflammatory. Let's show as much zeal with the investigation and getting to the facts as they have in trying to tar my client," Bragman said.
The sweat lodge was meant to be a "spiritual awakening" exercise for the participants in the Spiritual Warrior program, Waugh said. A sweat lodge is a dome-like structure covered with tarps and blankets. Hot rocks and water are used to create steam in the enclosed environment. The owners of the resort built the sweat lodge, Waugh said, under Ray's direction. A nurse on Ray's staff was present during the event, police have said.
At least one of those who died was in the back of the structure, Waugh said. Ray was positioned near its door. There were no seats, he said; participants either sat or lay on the floor.
On Tuesday, Ray said he has hired his own investigators to determine what happened at his Arizona retreat, located in a secluded valley twenty minutes from Sedona. "I have no idea what happened. We'll figure it out," Ray said. "I've lost people I love and really care about."
Ray is the author of the best-selling book Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want. Ray, described on his Web site as a "personal success strategist", has appeared on CNN's Larry King Live and the Oprah Winfrey Show, and is featured in the self-empowerment film The Secret.
The use of sweat lodges for spiritual and physical cleansing is a part of several Native American tribes' cultures. A traditional Native American sweat lodge is a small dome-like structure made of willow branches carefully tied together and covered in canvas. Rocks are heated in a nearby fire pit and placed inside the lodge, and water is poured over them to create steam.
Better late than never, apparently
Courtesy of my friend Esha, this admonitory story from CNN.com:
Nationally-syndicated radio host Tom Joyner raised his hand in victory. Nearly a hundred years had passed since his great-uncles, Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin, were wrongfully executed in South Carolina. On Wednesday, a board voted 7-0 to pardon both men, clearing their names in the 1913 killing of a veteran of the Confederate Army. It marked the first time in history that South Carolina has issued a posthumous pardon in a capital murder case.
"It really, really feels good," Joyner told CNN's Don Lemon. Joyner made the journey to Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife, his sons, his brother, and nieces and nephews. When the board announced its decision, they danced, hugged, and kissed. "All of the above," he said.
In the end, it took only about 25 minutes for their pardon, nearly a century in the making.
"It's good for the community. It's good for the nation. Any time that you can repair racism in this country is a step forward," Joyner said. He said the ruling won't bring back his great-uncles, who were electrocuted in 1915. But it does provide closure to his family. "I hope now they rest in peace."
Many who were present were touched by the symbolism and significance of the moment.
"I felt like I was a witness to a historical event. It was pretty exciting around here," said Peter O'Boyle, the chief spokesman for the Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services.
Dwayne Green, an African-American member of the pardon board, said he admired Joyner for seeking the pardon. "He's not only done his family a service, but also the people of South Carolina. There's no statute of limitations on doing the right thing," Green said. "There's so much good that can come out of this public show of mercy."
The unanimous vote, he said, was heartwarming and satisfying. "It's a great opportunity to show how much South Carolina has changed," he said. "While change comes slow, outcomes like this are a positive sign."
Joyner, the host of The Tom Joyner Morning Show, had known nothing of his great-uncles' murder convictions until last year. That's when esteemed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. uncovered Joyner's past as part of the PBS documentary African American Lives 2.
In the documentary, Joyner explained that he never knew why his grandmother left South Carolina. "All I know is she left home and she ended up in Florida and she didn't stay in touch with her people, either," Joyner said.
"Do you know why your grandmother moved away?" Gates said.
"No," Joyner said. "I have no idea." Gates then showed him his great-uncles' death certificates. 'Cause of death: Legal electrocution', it said.
"They electrocuted my..." an astonished Joyner said, unable to finish his sentence.
In that moment, Joyner began the journey that led him to Wednesday's pardon. Gates and legal historian Paul Finkelman aided in the research of his family history, and helped lobby South Carolina to pardon the two Griffin brothers.
It wasn't the first time a pardon had been sought for the men. According to their research, more than 150 citizens of Blackstock, South Carolina, asked the governor at the time for their sentences to be commuted. Many prominent whites in the community, including the mayor and former sheriff of Chester County, came to the defense of the Griffin brothers. "I heard this case, and I don't think I could have given a verdict of guilty," one magistrate wrote.
The Griffin brothers had owned 130 acres in the area and were well-liked in the community. They were convicted of killing John Q. Lewis, a 73-year-old veteran of the Civil War. Lewis was slain in his home on 24 April 1913.
"Only the most profound sense of injustice would have led so many white leaders of the community and ordinary white citizens to publicly support blacks convicted of murdering a white man," Finkelman said in a letter to the Board of Paroles and Pardons. According to Finkelman's research, Lewis, the former Confederate soldier, apparently had an intimate relationship with a married 22-year-old black woman, Anna Davis. Suspicion initially turned to her and her husband after the murder. "It is plausible to believe that the sheriff did not want to pursue Mr. and Mrs. Davis because, if they were tried, it would have led to a scandalous discussion in open court," Finkelman wrote to the pardon board on 2 October 2008.
The investigation later turned to another man, Monk Stevenson, who would ultimately point police to the Griffin brothers and two other black men. Stevenson received a life sentence in exchange. "Stevenson later told a fellow inmate that he had implicated the Griffin brothers because he believed they were wealthy enough to pay for legal counsel, and as such would be acquitted," Finkelman said. The Griffin brothers and the two other men, Nelson Brice and John Crosby, were convicted in a trial that lasted four days. They were electrocuted on 29 September 1915.
Joyner says he urges all African-Americans to explore their pasts, no matter how difficult that journey may be. "You can look at your ancestor struggles of the past and be encouraged. If they can go through what they went through, you can do much better," he said. His journey is continuing. He wants to know even more about his great-uncles: what happened to their land, how they made the community better, what made them so well-liked by whites in segregated South Carolina. "Until we can repair some of the deeds of the past, we can't really look forward," he said.
Civil War for the day
The bridge at Bull Run in March of 1862, photographed by George Barnard & James Gibson.
15 October 2009
Sometimes stupid is funny
Okay, it's not for everyone, but Rico says it was a lot funnier than he feared it was going to be. The problem is, it's only about half a degree off reality, and that's what makes it so sadly funny.
Climate change is a bitch
According to an article by the BBC, "the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer within the next twenty years. Much of the decrease will be happening within the next ten years. 'That means you'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean,' Peter Wadhams, who has been studying arctic ice since the 1960s, said. Although that would translate into quicker shipping routes and easier access to oil and gas reserves, Wadhams also warned it could have disastrous consequences for the planet."
Rico says we're into uncharted (warning: bad pun ahead) waters here. No one knows what's really going to happen when the Arctic melts; hide and watch. (And if you live on the Maldives, learn to swim...)
Rico says we're into uncharted (warning: bad pun ahead) waters here. No one knows what's really going to happen when the Arctic melts; hide and watch. (And if you live on the Maldives, learn to swim...)
Bummer
According to an on-line article in Slate:
The Dow looks like a bubble ready to pop. For the first time since October of last year, the Dow Jones industrial average surpassed the 10,000 mark yesterday. The benchmark index has been on a rapidfire increase lately as it has gained a whopping 53 percent in a mere seven months. But long-term measures suggest the stock market is "in a new bubble", and it's likely that it will move below and above the 10,000 mark for several years to come. That would hardly be a rare occurrence. As the Wall Street Journal points out, the Dow has moved above the 10,000 mark 25 times before. According to one estimate, the "reasonable valuation" for the Dow today would be a bit more than 7,800.
Rico says he will take it, thank you
According to The Washington Post, the Social Security Administration is planning to announce today that there will be no cost-of-living increase next year for the first time since 1975, when such adjustments became automatic. Why? Inflation has been negative this year. As a result, Obama wants Congress to award around 57 million seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans a one-time $250 check to help some of the most vulnerable Americans deal with the recession. The check would amount to around two percent of the annual benefit for the average retiree receiving Social Security benefits, and would also go to Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, veterans, and government and railroad retirees. The plan is expected to cost about $13 billion, and critics are bound to say it's merely a component of a second stimulus plan that the administration wants to pass without calling it that. Indeed, supporters of the idea openly talked about how the $250 payments would help not only Social Security recipients but also the economy as a whole.
Another little-known conflict
Rico says that would be the mini-war between the French and the Italians, over a little misunderstanding, according to The Times:
When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents, in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified. Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by NATO forces in Afghanistan.
What the grieving nation did not know was that, in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taliban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.
US intelligence officials were flabbergasted when they found out, through intercepted telephone conversations, that the Italians had also been buying off militants, notably in Herat province in the far west. In June of 2008, several weeks before the ambush, the US Ambassador in Rome made a démarche, or diplomatic protest, to the Berlusconi Government over allegations concerning the tactic. However, a number of high-ranking officers in Nato have told The Times that payments were subsequently discovered to have been made in the Sarobi area as well.
Western officials say that because the French knew nothing of the payments they made a catastrophically incorrect threat assessment. “One cannot be too doctrinaire about these things,” a senior NATO officer in Kabul said. “It might well make sense to buy off local groups and use non-violence to keep violence down. But it is madness to do so and not inform your allies.”
On 18 August, a month after the Italian force departed, a lightly-armed French patrol moved into the mountains north of Sarobi town, in the district of the same name, forty miles east of Kabul. They had little reason to suspect that they were walking into the costliest battle for the French in a quarter of a century.
Operating in an arc of territory north and east of the Afghan capital, the French apparently believed that they were serving in a relatively benign district. The Italians they had replaced in July had suffered only one combat death in the previous year. For months the NATO headquarters in Kabul had praised Italian reconstruction projects under way around Sarobi. When an estimated 170 insurgents ambushed the force in the Uzbin Valley the upshot was a disaster. “They took us by surprise,” one French troop commander said after the attack.
A NATO post-operations assessment would sharply criticise the French force for its lack of preparation. “They went in with two platoons [approximately 60 men],” said one senior Nato officer. “They had no heavy weapons, no pre-arranged air support, no artillery support, and not enough radios.”
Had it not been for the chance presence of some US special forces in the area who were able to call in air support for them, they would have been in an even worse situation. “The French were carrying just two medium machine guns and 100 rounds of ammunition per man. They were asking for trouble and the insurgents managed to get among them.”
A force from the 8th Marine Parachute Regiment took an hour and a half to reach the French over the mountains. “We couldn’t see the enemy and we didn’t know how many of them there were,” said another French officer. “After twenty minutes we started coming under fire from the rear. We were surrounded.” The force was trapped until airstrikes forced the insurgents to retreat the next morning. By then ten French soldiers were dead and 21 injured.
The French public were appalled when it emerged that many of the dead had been mutilated by the insurgents— a mixed force including Taliban members and fighters from Hizb e-Islami.
A few weeks later French journalists photographed insurgents carrying French assault rifles and wearing French army flak jackets, helmets and, in one case, a dead soldier’s watch.
Two Western military officials in Kabul confirmed that intelligence briefings after the ambush said that the French troops had believed they were moving through a benign area— one which the Italian military had been keen to show off to the media as a successful example of a “hearts and minds” operation.
Another NATO source confirmed the allegations of Italian money going to insurgents. “The Italian intelligence service made the payments, it wasn’t the Italian Army,” he said. “It was payments of tens of thousands of dollars regularly to individual insurgent commanders. It was to stop Italian casualties that would cause political difficulties at home.”
When six Italian troops were killed in a bombing in Kabul last month it resulted in a national outpouring of grief and demands for troops to be withdrawn. The NATO source added that US intelligence became aware of the payments. “The Italians never acknowledged it, even though there was intercepted telephone traffic on the subject,” said the source. “The démarche was the result. It was not publicised because it would have caused a diplomatic nightmare. We found out about the Sarobi payments later.”
In Kabul a high-ranking Western intelligence source was scathing. “It’s an utter disgrace,” he said. “NATO in Afghanistan is a fragile enough construct without this lot working behind our backs. The Italians have a hell of a lot to answer for.”
Haji Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder from Sarobi, recalled how a benign environment became hostile overnight. “There were no attacks against the Italians. People said the Italians and Taleban had good relations between them. When the nationality of the forces changed and the French came, there was a big attack on them. We knew the Taliban came to the city and we knew that they didn’t carry out attacks on the Italian troops but we didn’t know why.”
The Italian Defence Ministry referred inquiries to the Prime Minister’s Office. A spokesman said: “The American Ambassador in Rome did not make any formal complaint. He merely asked for information, first from the previous Government and then from the current Government. The allegations were denied and they are totally unfounded.”
The only single malt distillery in the Americas
Rico's father, who travels frequently, discovered this distillery in Nova Scotia.
14 October 2009
The other FIOS
Rico says he discovered that there are Fluids of Indeterminate Origin & Substance at the Fall National. (And, no, you don't want to know...)
Military humor about the Taliban
Courtesy of my friend Rich (who was seriously wounded in Vietnam but obviously retained his sense of humor), this:
You may be Taliban if:
1. You refine heroin for a living, but have a moral objection to beer.
2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and a $5,000 rocket launcher, but can't afford shoes.
3. You have more wives than teeth.
4. You wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider bacon unclean.
5. You think vests come in two styles: bulletproof and suicide.
6. You can't think of anyone you haven't declared jihad against.
7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.
8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.
9. You have nothing against women, and think every man should own at least one.
10. You've always had a crush on your neighbor's goat.
13 October 2009
Lying bastards
If one goes, as Rico has, to the Blogger help system, you discover the completely-truthful instructions on how to post a video to your blog. Alas, it's only true on the previous version of Blogger, and doesn't work for shit on the current version, which has no little 'film strip icon'. There is much discussion of this on their own internal forums, but no resolution.
Rico says all this hoohah is because he has a half-dozen splendid videos (sent to him via email) waiting on his desktop, but he can't upload a one of them...
Civil War for the day (in other places)
Rico says that's because Mr. Trudeau is not running for anything, thus he can speak the truth. (Click the cartoon to make it readable.)
12 October 2009
Simple; make 'em post a bond
The New York Times has another predicament story by James McKinley and Julia Preston:
Eight years after the 11 September terrorist attacks, and despite repeated mandates from Congress, the United States still has no reliable system for verifying that foreign visitors have left the country. New concern was focused on that security loophole last week, when Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a nineteen-year-old Jordanian who had overstayed his tourist visa, was accused in court of plotting to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.Rico says they let him go on 11 September? Classic... Also, anyone who helped him stay in this country should be indicted for facilitating a conspiracy. But this could all be solved by making anyone wanting to come to this country post a bond beforehand; a million dollars oughta do it. (What? That discriminates against poor people? Who the fuck wants to let poor people into the country anyway?)
Last year alone, 2.9 million foreign visitors on temporary visas like Mr. Smadi’s entered the country but never officially left, immigration officials said. While officials say they have no way to confirm it, they suspect that several hundred thousand of them overstayed their visas.
Overall, officials said, about forty percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States came on legal visas and overstayed.
Mr. Smadi’s case has brought renewed calls from both parties in Congress for Department of Homeland Security officials to complete a universal electronic exit monitoring system. Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said the Smadi case “points to a real need for an entry and exit system if we are serious about reducing illegal immigration”. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration, said he would try to steer money from the economic stimulus program to build an exit monitoring system.
Since the 11 September attacks, immigration authorities, with more than $1 billion from Congress, have greatly improved and expanded their systems to monitor foreigners when they arrive. But despite several Congressional authorizations, there are no biometric inspections or a systematic follow-up to confirm that foreign visitors have departed.
Homeland Security officials caution that universal exit monitoring is a daunting and costly goal, mainly because of the nation’s long and busy land borders, with more than one million crossings every day. The wrong exit plan, they said, could clog trade, disrupt border cities, and overwhelm immigration agencies with information they could not effectively use.
Since 2004, homeland security officials have put systems in place to check all foreigners as they arrive, whether by air, sea, or land. Customs officers now take fingerprints and digital photographs of visitors from most countries, instantly comparing them against law enforcement watch list databases. (Canadians and Mexicans with special border-crossing cards are exempt from those checks.)
But homeland security officials said that a series of pilot programs since 2004 had failed to yield an exit monitoring system that would work for the whole nation. They have not yet found technology to support speedy exit inspections at land borders. Airlines balked at an effort last year by the Bush administration to make them responsible for taking fingerprints and photographs of departing foreigners. The current system relies on departing foreigners to turn in a paper stub when they leave.
Last year, official figures show, 39 million foreign travelers were admitted on temporary visas like Mr. Smadi’s. Based on the paper stubs, homeland security officials said, they confirmed the departure of 92.5 percent of them. Most of the remaining visitors did depart, officials said, but failed to check out because they did not know how to do so. But more than 200,000 of them are believed to have overstayed intentionally.
Immigration authorities have put in place a separate system for keeping track of foreigners who, unlike Mr. Smadi, come on student visas. That system has proved effective at confirming that the students have stayed in school and do not overstay their visas, officials said.
Immigration analysts said that given the difficulties of enforcing the United States’ vast borders, it remains primarily up to law enforcement officials to thwart terrorism suspects who do not have records that would draw scrutiny before they enter the United States.
“You can’t ask the immigration system to do everything,” said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a research center in Washington, and a former commissioner of the immigration service. “This is an example of how changes in law enforcement priorities and techniques since 11 September actually got to where they should be.”
Mr. Smadi, like many tourists who overstay visas, was able to fade easily into society, and encountered few barriers to starting a life here, according to court documents and people who know him. He enrolled in high school, obtained a California identification card, landed jobs in two states, and rented a string of apartments and houses. He bought at least two used cars, and even procured a handgun and ammunition.
Mr. Smadi’s arrest on 24 September for the attempted bombing was not his first encounter with American law enforcement. Two weeks earlier, a sheriff’s deputy in Ellis County, Texas pulled him over for a broken tail light just north of the town of Italy, then arrested him for driving without a license or insurance. When the deputy checked his identity, Mr. Smadi’s name showed up on a watch list by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was already investigating him. But the background check turned up no immigration record. The deputy called the FBI and was told there was no outstanding arrest warrant for Mr. Smadi. So, on the evening of 11 September, Mr. Smadi paid a $550 fine and walked out of the county jail. “There was nothing to indicate to us that this person was currently in the States illegally,” said Chief Deputy Dennis Brearley.
Mr. Smadi had come to the United States from Jordan in early 2007 on a six-month tourist visa, immigration officials say. For a few weeks he stayed in San Jose, California with Hana Elrabodi, a retired Jordanian businessman who knew his family, according to Mr. Elrabodi’s wife, Temina. Though Mr. Smadi was not authorized to work, he found a job at a local restaurant. In late March, Mr. Smadi obtained a California identification card using Mr. Elrabodi’s address.
In October 2007, Mr. Smadi moved into an apartment in Santa Clara, California with his younger brother, Hussein Smadi, and another man he identified as his cousin, according to the manager of the apartment complex, Joe Redzovic. Mr. Smadi took another job, in a falafel restaurant, and in the winter he briefly enrolled at Santa Clara High School.
After a fire gutted his Santa Clara apartment, Mr. Smadi moved to Dallas. Though his visa had expired by April of 2008, he landed a job working behind the counter at Texas Best Smokehouse in Italy, Texas, about 45 miles from Dallas. He rented a bungalow nearby, using his California identification and passing a criminal background check, said his former landlord, David South.
Three months later, Mr. Smadi married one of his co-workers, Rosalinda Duron. They separated in the fall of 2008 after only three months, Ms. Duron said.
Investigators have found no evidence that Mr. Smadi, during his first year in the United States, openly espoused Islamic fundamentalism. Neither have they found any evidence that he received terrorist training abroad or came to the United States intending to commit a terrorist act, said Mark White, a spokesman for the FBI in Dallas. But, by the spring of 2008, he caught the attention of the FBI by posting incendiary remarks about wanting to kill Americans on jihadist websites. Over the summer, he met with agents posing as members of al-Qaeda and planned to bomb the Fountain Place office building in downtown Dallas, according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday.
His arrest on terrorism charges came after he parked a truck that he had been told was carrying explosives in the building’s underground garage, according to court documents. When the FBI later searched his residence, they found a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol and a box of ammunition, along with his passport and the expired visa, court documents show.
Just nuke the nukes
Agreement to open Iran's hidden nuclear complex to inspection has reduced talk of military action and put diplomacy back on track, at least for a while. But even as the U.S. tries to build international pressure, emerging details suggest it might already be too late for an armed strike.Rico says he fails to understand why the nuclear option is considered 'unthinkable'. If it's not unthinkable for them to make one to use on us (and imagine how 9.11 would have been different if they'd had a nuke), why should it be unthinkable for us to use one on them?
Everything about Iran's newly disclosed site near the holy city of Qom complicates the task for the two most likely attackers, the U.S. and Israel. Iranian officials say that's precisely why they built the facility on an elite military base, fortified with steel and concrete, and buried under a mountain.
Less than a week after President Obama revealed the U.S. knew about the site, Iran agreed to open it to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. In a subsequent visit to Tehran, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said inspectors would visit on 25 October.
The Obama administration and its allies are concerned that, despite Tehran's denials, Iran's atomic program masks an effort to build nuclear weapons. Still, Obama has consistently said he favors engagement over confrontation. In part, that reflects a distaste for preemptive military action. But it's also a result of concerns over Iranian retaliation, the strain on a U.S. military force still heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility that such an attack could close the window on political reform inside Iran.
Despite regarding Iran as an existential threat, Israeli officials have indicated they are willing to give diplomacy a chance. However, Obama insists he won't rule out any options, and administration officials say they won't wait forever to find out whether Iran is serious about cooperating.
Military planners in the U.S. and Israel developing contingencies for attacking Iran's nuclear sites have long struggled with a lack of good intelligence, the number and location of the dispersed sites and the distance their forces would have to travel to reach them. Details emerging about the Qom site make their task more difficult, if not almost impossible.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said that any attack could at best delay construction of a bomb, if Iran intends to build one. A military effort to cripple Iran's nuclear program would require dozens of missile strikes, not only on major facilities but on research installations and locations where centrifuges and other equipment are manufactured and stored, according to current and former U.S. officials. It might also require the insertion of troops.
"If you're going to have an effective campaign to go in and throw Iran's nuclear program back years, you're talking about a massive, massive effort," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who was involved in examining such scenarios, and discussed them on condition of anonymity.
The main components of Iran's nuclear program include a uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, a heavy-water reactor at Arak, a uranium-conversion plant at Esfahan and the newly identified site near Qom.
In the past, U.S. spy agencies have struggled in assessing other nations' nuclear programs. In Iraq, the United States learned after the 1991 Persian Gulf War it had missed major signs that Baghdad was pursuing the bomb. Twelve years later, the United States erroneously concluded that the work had resumed, only to discover after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that that assessment was wrong.
The Obama administration has never spelled out what might prompt a U.S. strike, deliberately leaving diplomatic maneuvering room. Nevertheless, former U.S. officials and experts said there are several possible thresholds. Leonard Spector, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, said the U.S. would almost certainly react "if we observe that they are producing highly enriched uranium or were returning to the design and manufacture of actual weapons." Although Iran is already enriching uranium at Natanz, the facility is not configured to deliver bomb-grade material. The IAEA's el-Baradei said in Tehran this month that there was no 'concrete proof' Iran has an ongoing weapons program. U.S. spy agencies believe Iran's work on designing a nuclear warhead was suspended in 2003, although Israeli and British intelligence officials question that conclusion. Some experts believe the United States might choose to hold off on any attack until Iran actually tested a nuclear device.
In one scenario, the United States could carry out a single missile strike on the Qom facility alone— a step that might be easier to defend internationally but would do little to slow Iran's nuclear work.
If strikes are ordered, the U.S. has a major military advantage. Iran's air defenses are regarded as rudimentary. Still, the United States would probably use stealth aircraft and employ electronic measures to shut down Iranian radar and surface-to-air missiles.
When Israel attacked a nuclear facility being built in Syria in 2007, the Arab nation's radar was fed false information, preventing the government in Damascus from learning it was under attack until the first bomb fell.
John Wheeler, a former Air Force official, said the U.S. could use cyber warfare to weaken Iranian defenses, disabling the electrical grid and disrupting radio signals and cellphone towers.
One former Defense official said putting teams of Special Operations forces on the ground would improve the accuracy of bombing. Such a ground force could also place explosives at entrances to hidden bunkers, he said. "The SOF guys would be safe for a while," said the official. "They could assure accurate target acquisition."
U.S. officials are developing an array of warheads designed to plunge into the earth and penetrate layers of concrete before being detonated by a delayed-action fuse. The largest penetrator in the military's inventory is the 5,000-pound GBU-28. But much larger munitions, including the 30,000-pound "massive ordnance penetrator," are in development, although experts said early versions might secretly be available. The Air Force also has a bomb 30 feet long that weighs more than 21,000 pounds. Although not a penetrating bomb, it could destroy exterior features, such as entrances, and severely damage a structure's interior. Strikes employing such munitions would probably be successive, with the initial launches focused on entrances and outer defenses, followed by missiles meant to drill deeper into the center of the target. Locating the center would be difficult. Satellite images of the Qom compound show tunnel entrances and vents scattered across a mountaintop, but they reveal little of the layout underneath. "Unless you have good human intelligence, you probably don't have a good idea where inside the mountain the key target is," said a former senior U.S. military intelligence official. Partly for that reason, the official said, "it is possible to construct a facility that is simply beyond reach." Nuclear warheads could destroy even a deeply buried structure, but are an unthinkable option for Washington.
Beyond the obvious diplomatic fallout, military options carry many other risks. An attack could weaken the opposition movement disputing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection in June by uniting conservatives and reformers against a national threat. Or it could give authorities an opportunity to take further action against those seeking more democracy.
If a military strike left even remnants of the program intact, it might well harden Iran's resolve to acquire the bomb— even if it hadn't been pursuing a weapons program before.
U.S. spy agencies have warned that Tehran might retaliate by launching missiles toward Israel; striking U.S. installations in Iraq and Afghanistan; closing off the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil shipments; and carrying out attacks on other continents through the militant group Hezbollah, which it supports.
"The assumption is that they would strike out, unleashing their terrorist clients and using whatever military capabilities they've got," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with classified assessments. "I don't think anybody seriously contemplates that they would say, 'Game over.'"
Turks and Armenians, wolves and wolverines
Slate magazine has a piece on BMW diplomacy:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got her first taste of shuttle diplomacy Saturday, when a deal between Turkey and Armenia that had been in the works for months almost fell apart in the final hours of negotiations. An unspecified "dispute over wording" had Clinton working two cell phones from the back seat of a BMW in Switzerland, where she had come to lend a show of American support to the signing of an historic agreement between the two countries. Turkey and Armenia have long been at odds over Turkey's don't-call-it-genocide attitude regarding the slaughter of Armenians during World War One, and Armenia's squabble with Turkish ally Azerbaijan over an ethnically Armenian area in Azeri territory. Turkey closed its border with Armenia more than fifteen years ago but, under the freshly-inked deal, the two countries will open the border and set up an historic commission to investigate what happened to Turkish Armenians during World War One.Rico says what happened was that, while the world was distracted by the war in Europe, the Turks slaughtered as many Armenians as they could; not owning up to that shows a paucity of big-country attitude. Of course, it took America a hundred years or so to admit the same about our slaughter of the Indians...
Not everywhere, it seems
Rico says it's fascinating to see how much of the world (and where) has no internet...
There, but not
Rico says he would have happily posted this sweet video, if only Blogger hadn't taken video upload off the table, for no apparent reason…
Civil War for the day
11 October 2009
Civil War for the day
10 October 2009
Civil War for the day
09 October 2009
08 October 2009
Wrong again
Dressed in colorful tunics, head scarves, and robes, members of the well-behaved crowd seemed awed and delighted at being able to pray in such a historic spot. Many posed in groups for photos with the Capitol in the background. "What we've done today, you couldn't do in any Muslim country," said Imam Abdul Malik, 42, of Brooklyn, New York, the rally organizer who made a 40-minute address to the crowd. "If you prayed on the palace lawn there, they'd lock you up." Organizers from Dar-ul-Islam, a mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey, had estimated that 50,000 Muslims might show up for the event, and set up a website stating "Our Time Has Come."
Unlamented
After a very un-Apple-like bout with MobileMe, Rico says his subscription is going to run out this month. After finding another place to upload his files, for less money, he's more than willing to let the bastards go… (There was no 'go away and stop bothering me' button, just a 'fuck me now' button or a 'fuck me later' button; when Rico got tired of punching 'fuck me later' every day, he found out what 'fuck me now' meant, unfortunately: the app not only ate the contacts on the iPhone it wasn't recognizing (because of the Mophie external battery, for some reason), it ate the contacts on Rico's G5. A long time later, he's still reconstructing all 500+ contacts…)
Civil War for the day
Standhope Oowatie, aka Stand Watie, a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general in the Confederate army.
07 October 2009
06 October 2009
A fitting send-off
Summer is a good thing in Rio
Rico says he knows where he hopes to be in 2016,
now that Rio's won the Olympics…
now that Rio's won the Olympics…
No helmet, no brains
Rico says that, according to his friend Tex, the only reason she got a ticket was she took her helmet off…
Still sad, if not quite as we thought
The featured crash is the infamous Paul Mantz crash from Flight of the Phoenix, but there are others.
Okay, I'm back
Rico says he was at the North-South Skirmish Association week-long Fall National in Winchester, Virginia, thus no posts.
In the spirit of the Delaware Blues, however, we were not last.
In the spirit of the Delaware Blues, however, we were not last.
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