The beginning of the end in Afghanistan

The US is now shifting its forces to urban areas in Afghanistan. This is not the end of the beginning, this is the beginning of the end.

By this I do not mean to say that redeploying forces must always be a loss, or is leading to defeat. Neither is true. However, the war in Afghanistan, and indeed the foundation of major conflict in Afghanistan for the past 40 or 50 years, is fundamentally based on a split between the rural population, and the urban population.

So long as this clash of cultures is so large, it is questionable whether Afghanistan could be controlled, as a geographic entity, even if the urban population were a majority. Since the rural population is the majority however, a withdrawal from the rural areas means that the Taliban has captured the crucial territory in Afghanistan.

The US and international forces, like the Soviets before them, have regarded girls schools and movie theaters as being bolts of modernity for a modern state. In fact, ANY cultural modernization, however virtuous, that takes place in urban but not rural areas, is a nail in the coffin of the urban government.

If the Taliban constitutes the 'native' faction in the rural and tribal areas, then the war itself will become in addition to a religious crusade, and a war against foreign occupation, also a tribal war.

The Pashtun tribesmen are THE crucial faction, and if they are united against you, you lose Afghanistan.

The political machinations of the Pentagon being what they are, the generals in charge are asking for more troops, in order to "win". In fact, strictly speaking, they are quite correct that they can win with enough troops. The detail being left out, is that Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar have nothing on these bold fellows, provided sufficient numbers of soldiers are provided.

This is not to say that US commanders are incompetent; neither the Mongols or Alexander the Great had much luck in the region, but US political dialog generally requires that American military officers bark patriotically about victory under all circumstances.

At least so far as most of the US military's brass is concerned, the job of the politicians in charge is to look at the size of the bill, and the price in blood to be paid, and call off the game before the losses add up. There are now more Americans fighting in Afghanistan when you include 'contractors' than there were Soviets at the height of their misadventure. Time to hit the road.

The freaky thing is that this Afghanistan adventure is malfunctioning badly enough so that Joe Biden, of all people, can see the problem and is the LEADING advocate of bailing in the Obama administration. I would like to imagine that the sheer brainpower of Obama and Co. has burned through the BS, but when you read the amazingly negative remarks by the Generals in charge of our safari, it seems more likely that the decision makers are getting "foxhole religion". I suspect that the situation is simply bad enough that Biden's characteristic of blurting out anything in his head has made him an advocate of the obvious.

This is probably the last chance for pulling out without having the war be seen as a complete and utter fiasco. The Pakistanis have made sure to maintain their connections with the Taliban for the primary reason that they aren't willing to risk a government in Afghanistan that isn't an ally. There are plenty of secondary reasons as well, not least being many Pakistani's sympathy with the Taliban. What is going to happen this spring, given the clear downward trajectory of the US occupation, is that the Pakistanis are going to either export their highly troublesome religious fanatics, or start packaging them for shipping.

A lot of people in Washington would probably like to drag out a withdrawal, even if they figure that the war is a turkey, but there isn't any way that the US is going to allowed to slowly 'slip off the edge'. If we don't move quick, the Pakistanis are going to push, hoping that the US will kill off as many annoying Pakistani fanatics in Afghanistan as possible. A lot of the old hands at the PSI had made the calculation that the Taliban was coming back at the BEGINNING of the war, and only an idiot would believe anything different now. The thing is, the NON-religious and secular Pakistani officials are going to tend to support the Taliban at this point by sending their armed fanatics, simply because they hope that the US bases will serve as 'roach motels' (they check in, but never check out) for fanatics. The Arab governments played this game with the Soviets, the Pakistanis have done this with India for generations, and there is no earthly way that we are going to be able to convince Pakistan to stop. In fact, there is a fair chance that the Arabs will start up again, if they are not already.

Even if it takes a while for the Pakistanis to arrive, some of our most important anti-Taliban measures are going to explode in our laps, if we are still largely in place by the spring. Many advocates of a continued commitment are advocating that the US pour more effort into training Afghans, to take the place of US troops. This is all very well, but it neglects the questionable loyalty of the new recruits. The Taliban is very happy to have American trained soldiers, as this permits them to understand and counter US combat tactics. Consequently, the Taliban will pay a defecting Afghan soldier a salary larger than he would receive fighting for the government. Afghan warfare is fought by the seasons, and it is very likely that Taliban sympathizers are, as I write this, signing up for Afghan government service, knowing that they will be trained during the winter, and will not have to bear arms against their countrymen. US training should improve the future-Taliban's chances of survival, and collecting a salary during training certainly beats spending the winter in a cave! Come spring however, we can expect many new Afghan soldiers to melt away with the snow.

What the US needs to do now, is to bail out, and do so by cutting some sort of deal that gives us a "chaos" excuse for the eventual collapse. If we do it right, the Pakistanis will want to stop or control a lot of their own Taliban in place, rather than export them as hopeful casualties.

Otherwise, the US will scream about "stopping your crazies" and the Pakistanis will, while shaking us down for equipment, comply somewhat in "taking control" but will leave the door to Afghanistan wide open as THE option of choice for avoiding the thrills of a Pakistani jail. This is such an obvious and well known strategy there that even if the US was somehow able to stop both the central government, and the upper levels of the hard-line intelligence apparatus from using it, thousands of low level officials, soldiers and police would use the scheme for careerist motivations;"well MY district is under control", or to cut down on the chances of being shot or blown up.

Incidentally, I would give fair odds that if the war drags out, we are going to end up seeing some significant tensions with China as a side effect, albeit a very classified side effect (actual reasons for tension hidden). Recall that the Chinese are Pakistan's other major ally, and one that the Chinese cannot afford to lose in any geopolitical sense. Anybody in the Pakistani government that the Americans don't like, is a natural recruit for China. The US has accustomed the political culture of Pakistan to the notion of working with a foreign intelligence service in the CIA. This sort of hidden contact with an ally is regarded more as a political maneuver in Pakistan than as treason and it is likely that the Chinese will take advantage of the situation. With Afghanistan and Pakistan so close, they have every reason to support those Pakistanis who are less affiliated with the US, and frankly even if the US becomes alienated from the Pakistanis altogether, the Chinese win.

Now the Chinese don't actually like Muslim radicals, but Muslim radicals are the largest anti-American faction of note in the world today, and so it makes sense to have them on good terms in a very covert sense. This risk is worth taking for the Chinese for three reasons.

First, KGB type tactics seem like a satisfactory means for the Chinese to deal with foreign terrorists or weirdoes. Using spy tactics is generally going to mean that agents will have to have contact with the targeted group, whether they are terrorists or not. Second, the Uighur separatists, who provide the main risk to China associated with increased terrorist or Muslim extremist activity, are basically under control, so their spies can take more risks. Third, the Americans won't turn over the Uighur's that they have captured, and have Uighur supportive media. This means that the best means for the Chinese to grab dissident Uighurs is to deal with the Muslims that they would run to, rather than to turn to the US, which is nominally in a war with terrorism in general.

I don't think that any of this means that the Chinese will actually take serious Muslim radical supporting steps however. The real reason that there is likely to be tension is that the Americans and signals-intelligence heavy nations tend to believe that people mean what they say. If you think about it, a significant proportion of the words being said at any given point anywhere in the world are likely to be sarcastic, or social lies.

If a Chinese intelligence officer is trying to pick up a Pakistani government official who wants to export the local radicals, one of the most obvious means of sucking up is to say that he is right, flattering him, and encouraging him to do what you can tell he wants to do anyway. The Americans pick this up, and flatter themselves with the notion that one, they are being plotted against, and two, the reason that an unwinnable counterinsurgency is being lost is that someone big is "actually" doing it.

I suspect that most high governmental officials anywhere in the world are used to disbelieving a lot of what is said to them, but signals intelligence allows a person to get 'drunk' on secrets and truths. What you pick up spying isn't magically true.

Incidentally, Chinese intelligence officers are likely to take advantage of the eavesdropping as an additional recruiting tool. If the Chinese say, in communications that they know will be intercepted, that particular figures are either working with them, or simply have particular anti-American attitudes, then the US protective reaction towards those Pakistanis becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Tactical gamesmanship of this sort is likely to be seized upon by people looking for a "good" and less humiliating reason for loosing a guerrilla war, and also by the traditionally anti-China faction. Just another potential/likely side-effect when you keep digging your problem deeper. Keep it simple, and bail.

When the government outsources the blame, not the responsibility

Blackwater, the 'mercenary' or security contractor firm is in the news again, with new allegations emerging from a wrongful death lawsuit in Virginia. 'The Nation' magazine, familiar to most politically minded American liberals, has been focusing on the case, and has released the most recent affidavits containing the most shocking allegations.

Unless you are very committed to every action of the late Bush administration, the idea that something foul could emerge from the Iraq war will scarcely come as a surprise, but if you have followed the course of the war closely, then it must also be noted that the simple political party narratives that classify Bush and the Republicans as being for the war, and the Democrats as being against it, are too simple. Bush and Co. wanted the war, and the Republicans backed him up, but most of the Democrats in Congress voted to authorize the war, and they have continued to provide crucial backing for a conflict that otherwise would have been brought to a halt. This sort of complexity is not limited to the start of the war. It is simple enough to say that Blackwater is a brutal organization, but is the simple party-line characterization of The Nation accurate?

Let's take a closer look at the Blackwater allegations. The main thrust of the allegations, unsurprisingly (the company is being sued by Iraqis for wrongful death) is that Blackwater recklessly shot down innocent Iraqis. The new affidavits add a lot more however. According to these assertions, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater;

- Views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic Faith around the globe (John Doe #2 ).

- Is a gunrunner, smuggling illegal weapons into Iraq to sell.

- Had his men use "illegal" weapons on Iraqis, against the will of the US government who hired him (John Doe #2 ).

- Threatened to kill Americans who told on him(John Doe #1 and #2 ).

- Actually did kill Americans who told on him.

If all these things are true, as depicted, then Erik Price and Blackwater are monsters, right! Let's take a closer look at the evidence as described.

The Christian Crusader accusation.

Prince "intentionally deployed certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis". The specific example, "Many of these men used call-signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the crusades." Executives would "openly speak of going to Iraq to lay Hajiis out on cardboard". "Mr. Prince's employees consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs such as 'ragheads' and 'Hajiis'.(John Doe#2 )

It is possible that the accusation against Prince is true as depicted; he is purportedly very religious, and a Christian, but if he is a religious warrior, there is a big problem with the examples as laid out.

This is not necessarily a desirable thing of course, but virtually all combatants in a war quickly resort to nicknames for the enemy. Allied forces in World Wars One and Two would use such terms as,‘Jerry’ and ‘Fritz’ for example, but the use of purportedly common names for the enemy is generally regarded as MORE offensive than other nicknames in Iraq or Afghanistan, because of the fact that Iraqis and Afghans who are on "our" side are equally likely to possess these same names.

The grammatically dubious sobriquet 'Hajii' is fairly comparable to the terms 'Boche' or ‘Heinie' however, and it is difficult to say that calling someone a ‘Kraut or a ‘Hun’ is a vast improvement on "Raghead". The use of any of these terms is extraordinarily common in their respective wars, and means very little; least of all indicating a religious fanatic.

In fact, the "Crusader" terminology reflects uncomplimentary IRAQI and Afghan slang as much as it does American propensities of any sort. Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly religiously motivated ones, tend to use the "Crusader" term to describe Americans, and as is common, those called by a term adopt it as a gesture of defiance. The term "Yankee" was not used in a complimenary manner by the British and Tories in the Revolutionary war, by Southerners in the Civil War (and indeed ever afterward), or by South Americans and Mexicans, but many a "Yankee" refuses to flinch at the term.

WW1 poster

Flatteringly ferocious terms like "Devil Dogs"(to describe the US Marines) supposedly had an enemy origin, and it is not much of a surprise that the similarly ferocious 'Crusader' terminology would stick. In fact, the next generation of US artillery was to be termed the "Crusader" (the system has been canceled for technical/expense reasons).XM2001 Crusader

More specific evidence of 'Crusader' terminology's uncomplimentary origins may be found in common embroidered morale patches worn by soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "Pork-eating Crusader" patch for example, bears witness both to the the "Crusader" terminology, and the cultural distaste for pigs found in Iraq. Since pork consumption is religiously unclean throughout the region, many a Westerner's meal seems repulsive to most locals. There is no great surprise in this; few in North America would look at a person sitting down to dog meat (sometimes consumed in Korea) or for that matter horse (consumed in Western nations like Belgium) as if the meal didn't matter, or was only a personal preference without hygienic implications, but the backlash-motivated embrace of the negative terminology is so common that any accusations of actual religious warfare need serious proof of a sort not found in that affidavit.

more common defiant patches

There is another big reason that the Knights Templar are likely to be referenced besides religious fanaticism. To the dismay of the literary world and film buffs alike, Dan Browns horrible "Da Vinci Code" books and films, which reference the Knights Templar extensively, are very popular. "Literary" or film references to any and all ferocious warriors in material of this sort, up to, and including "The Terminator" or factions in the "Star Wars" movies are very common in the military. The comic-inspired film "300" for example, has triggered a rash of Spartan themed patches and slogans.

Next there is the matter of "illegal weapons". The affidavit of John Doe #1 accuses a Blackwater contractor of shooting at a car with an M249, generally known as a SAW, for squad automatic weapon.

This, the affidavit claims, is an "illegal" weapon, because all shots fired on behalf of the State Department are "to be fired with a M4


or a pistol." Similarly affidavit #2 claims that Prince gave his men "unauthorized" grenades and grenade launchers. What is the significance of these accusations? Well Blackwater is not a mercenary group paid to attack Iraqis. Blackwater is paid to guard State Department diplomats and officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Now it is easy to make a case that bodyguards should normally use light weapons that are unlikely to harm innocent people. The M249 is a light machine gun, and fully automatic (pull the trigger and the gun keeps firing a string of shots until you let go of the trigger or run out of ammunition), thus being a heavier and more hazardous weapon (to those downrange) than say, a pistol. Grenades are naturally somewhat indiscriminate. The accusation is thus that Blackwater was using excessive force, and so the lawsuit alleges, should pay for it.

Take a closer look, and the matter is less clear however. The "authorized" M4 comes in several versions. Some of these are "semi-automatic" meaning that every time the trigger is pulled, the gun fires one shot. Civilians can own guns like this in some nations, and advocates of gun control often play on the term semi-automatic to suggest that the weapon is particularly dangerous. In fact, this is nothing special, and the old Webley revolver seen in the picture above essentially behaves in the same way, although the term "double action" is used to describe it, instead of "semi-automatic". With either system, when you pull the trigger, one shot is fired. The Webley was in use throughout the British empire from the 1880's, and a modern semi-automatic rifle or pistol still behaves in essentially the same way.

Blackwater was not assigned semi-automatic rifles however, but rather was given "selective fire" or "fully-automatic" M-4s. There is a switch on the side of the rifle that allows you to select how many shots will be fired when the trigger is pulled, either one, three (on some versions) or continuous fire until the ammunition runs out (the type used by Blackwater and many militaries). The M4 in other words, can act like a machine-gun. This is a true "assault-rifle" and contrary to some propagandistic abuse of the terminology in North America, this sort of rifle has never been generally permitted to civilians in the US.

There are a couple of differences between what is usually called an assault rifle and what is usually called a machine gun. The first is that a machine gun usually has a barrel that can be changed quickly, when it overheats. This allows a machine gun that has enough ammunition and some spare parts to fire more or less indefinately. The second is that a machine gun often, but by no means always uses a larger bullet than an assault rifle. If a machine gun and an assault rifle both use the same size (this is usually referred to as caliber) of ammunition, and both are fired on their fully automatic setting (rat-a-tat-tat) the machine gun will usually be much more accurate because the machine gun is bigger, heavier, and less thrown about by recoil. The M249 and the M4 both use the same ammunition, 5.56 mm NATO (second from the right in the picture above). Both weapons would be fired on the full-auto setting in the convoy-protection/ car-chase situations that Blackwater is being criticized for. If Blackwater was using a .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine gun (firing the largest cartridge on the far left), and using it against orders, it would be easy to say that this was a comparatively excessive use of force. The .50 caliber can fire through most anything that you see on a normal city block, and as .50 caliber bullets are difficult to stop, you are likely to end up firing through the block, whatever your intentions.

The complaint however, is that instead of using a light gun that will bounce about and scatter shots around the neighborhood, Blackwater used a gun with enough weight to put the same bullets where they are pointed. So if not a procedural excess, is the matter a procedural violation? Well supposedly the State Department didn't authorize the machine gun. Is this true?

There are many security companies around the globe who use ex-policemen and the like, as bodyguards. The State Department did not choose one of these comparatively low-profile companies however, but instead decided to go with a company that sells the services of Navy SEALs, and special forces soldiers.

Based on their experiences guarding the State Department employees, Blackwater decided to design and build a vehicle appropriate for their job. Look at this vehicle and decide whether the client that wants it would prefer to rely on concealment, or firepower. There is a ringmount on top of this vehicle for a machine gun (up to .50 caliber). Surely the State Department could not know about such a company using a machine gun!

Blackwater has also been operating "armed helicopters", as hired by the US government in Iraq. Here is a standard file photo of one of the Blackwater helicopters.
Lo and behold, cradled in the arms of the man in the rear seat, a machine gun! These Blackwater helicopters are one of the more common sights in Baghdad, (and they fly low). Some secret eh? But lets say that somehow the State Department failed to recognize a machine gun. How many people would fail to recognize a GRENADE? Who exactly would fail to notice if the guy next to them was USING grenades?

The "illegal" weapons accusations continue.

"Mr. Prince obtained illegal ammunition from an American company named LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis."

So what is illegal ammunition anyway? Well according to the Hague convention of 1899 militaries are forbidden to do things like drop explosives from balloons, use poison gas, and use bullets that flatten easily in the human body, i.e. "dum-dum" bullets. If a bullet expands or breaks up when it hits flesh, this creates a more severe wound. Hunters use bullets of this type to kill the animals that they shoot quickly, and prevent them from suffering, but a hunter is supposed to shoot only if he or she has a 'clean shot' and will be certain to kill the animal, rather than mangle it. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that the target can shoot back, soldiers are less particular about blazing away. Bullets of this sort are thus forbidden in warfare to reduce the number of mutilating wounds.

Such rules are not applied to all situations however. Most police for example, specifically use expanding ammunition of this type. This is partly because police are only supposed to use their guns to protect someone (meaning that it is important to inflict a wound on the targeted person or animal which will incapacitate them as quickly as possible) and also because such a bullet is less likely to "overpenetrate". If a policeman must shoot someone to protect life, then this means that other people are likely to be nearby. If a bullet shoots through a "bad guy" or shoots through walls easily, then innocent people are likely to be injured.

Hostage rescue and anti-terrorist teams are likely to use bullets that not only expand, but which break into small pieces (frangible ammunition) because all of the police concerns with rapid incapacitation and shoot-through are more severe. A bullet can pass through a hostage-taker and hit a hostage, a terrorist could trigger a bomb if not stopped right away, and a bullet that goes through walls can depressurize an airplane.

LeMas bullets are a variation of the frangible bullet type. The LeMas bullet is supposed to penetrate very hard material like armor plate well, but turn to powder when it hits something comparatively soft, like a person, wood or wallboard. Whether the LeMas ammunition actually performs as advertised is quite controversial, and the nature of that performance is equally controversial, albeit with a different crowd, (the LeMas "blended-metal" ammunition supposedly can reduce a significant chunk of the targeted person to mush) . There is no question however but that this is not legal ammunition for the military to use in conventional warfare.

The problem is that Blackwater was not hired to invade Iraq, and kill their soldiers, but was hired to protect American diplomats there from suicide bombers and the like. Though the terminology is widely accepted internationally, it is factually dubious to describe all of the Iraqi insurgents as terrorists not subject to the laws of war. It is fairly difficult to say that police or anti-terrorist ammunition may not be used to stop a suicide bomber from driving a car bomb into a diplomat however, and this is precisely the problem that Blackwater faced. If it performed as promised, the LeMas ammunition should penetrate a truck or car bomber's vehicle and stop him before he would be able to complete his attack. Stray bullets would potentially be less damaging to civilians in their homes however, insofar as the special ammunition does not penetrate wood and wallboard.

Did the government know about this ammunition, or know about Blackwater using it. Well for years Blackwater invited military journalists and special forces troops, and government secret agents of all types to their training ranges for yearly trials of the latest special equipment on the market. Here is one of a number of articles about the LeMas ammunition in the Armed Forces Journal as part of their yearly coverage of the "Shootout at Blackwater". To put it one way, with publicity like this, I have a "bridge investment" for the person who thinks that the LeMas ammunition was "unauthorized".

The illegal weapons allegations continue, but they still sound odd to the knowledgeable.

John Doe #2 "Mr. Prince generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade. Using his various companies, he (Prince) procured, and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed-off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers through unlawful channels of distribution. For example, Mr. Prince and his employees arranged for the weapons to be polywrapped and smuggled into Iraq on Mr. Prince's private planes which operated under the name Presidential airlines. "

Firstly, what the heck is a " sawed-off semi-automatic machine gun with silencer". A machine gun is by definition fully automatic, not semi-automatic. If a machine gun is semi-automatic, it fires one shot for every time that you pull the trigger, just like the old revolver mentioned earlier, and such a gun is legal to own in the US. If it is "sawed-off" then legally it is a short-barreled rifle, and requires a permit, but is not necessarily unlawful. A silencer also requires a permit in the US, although not in many other parts of the world. Clearly there are some questions regarding the factual accuracy of the affidavit, particularly given that Blackwater has the very special sort of government authorization to possess most any gun. To return to the poorly-described mystery weapon however, most likely this accusation actually refers to a short-barreled submachine gun with a silencer like this MP-5.

Submachine guns fire pistol bullets, but are more controllable and accurate than a pistol, plus they have the ability to fire fully automatically, like a machine gun.

The affidavit claims however, that Prince is smuggling SEMI-AUTOMATIC submachine guns into Iraq to SELL. Now there are a couple of big problems with this story. First, semi-auto submachine guns are an inferior weapon in the arms trade. The very same MP-5 above is generally held to be the best submachine gun in the world...... in its fully automatic version.

In any case even if Iraqis were not bothered by the lack of full-auto capabilities, the MP-5 is not some American exclusive. The gun is designed and manufactured in Germany, but the maker has licensed manufacture to, amongst other nations, Iran, Pakistan, Mexico, Sudan, and Turkey. It would be easier to smuggle weapons from the vast majority of these nations than the US, and the product would be superior to the semi-auto only version permitted to US civilians.

Maybe it is the silencer that is key? You can walk into a store in a number of European nations and buy a silencer without a license, very much unlike the US, because the silencer is regarded as a device to cut down on nuisance noise and protect hearing. American silencers are also very expensive for what its worth.

Moreover, if Prince was selling American weapons illicitly on the black market in Iraq, then US soldiers would likely encounter some, capture them, and trace the serial numbers. Would Prince be stupid enough to risk going to a 'very special' sort of jail for "assistance to terrorists"? In a world full of superior and cheaper weapons, would this sort of scheme actually be practical?

There are several more likely explanations.

1. The affidavit is completely inaccurate.

2. The affidavit is falsely suggesting that Prince is involved in the "arms trade" when in fact he was sending his (legally acquired) weapons to his employees for their bodyguard work. The US government is aware of this even if the Iraqi government hasn't formally approved.

3. Prince and Blackwater are transporting weapons for the CIA or another US government agency.

At this point, it is worth taking a look at the quality of John Doe #2's affidavit, and The Nation's reporting on it. John Doe #2 does not confine himself to claims that Erik Prince is a religious warrior, war criminal, and arms smuggler; no there is SEX, not just violence.

"Mr. Prince's North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and and sex ring which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince's top executives."

Now wife-swapping would seem to be a poor fit for a maniacally religious crusader. I am not foolish enough to say that such hypocrisy is out of the question, or even less likely however. To continue:

This sex ring ended up causing so many disputes amongst Mr. Prince's executives that Mr. Prince directed his employee Joseph Schmidt to investigate and prepare a report.

Now according to the scenario as laid out by John Doe #2, our villain Mr. Prince is not a participant in a "wife-swapping sex-ring" but asked for a report on one that is disrupting his business.

In other words, this supposed "sex-ring", by definition a bunch of swingers more or less opposed to sexual jealousy, in fact is so quarrelsome, that they attract the hostile attention of their notoriously religious boss.

Ask yourself, which seems more realistic, a real "wife-swapping sex-ring", or a handful of office affairs and related quarrels that trigger both a report for the blue-nose boss, and lurid rumors spread by a certain type of rumormonger.

Now ABC news was happy to mention these salacious accusations. This has the whiff of tabloid journalism about it, but frankly, the full coverage also means that the viewer or reader is likely to take all the accusations with a grain or two of salt.

By contrast, The Nation is happy to report on every accusation of violence, but fails to mention the gossipy (note that the supposed "wife-swapping sex-ring" is quite irrelevant to either shootings in Iraq or blameworthy behavior from Erik Prince) tone of the affidavit. You notice if you read both affidavits, but many people will not. What The Nation does mention is worth calling attention to and takes on new significance however.

The Nation cannot independently verify the identities of the two individuals (the John Does), their roles at Blackwater or what motivated them to provide sworn testimony in these civil cases.

Now none of this is not to say that I dismiss the core of the wrongful death lawsuit in its assertion that Blackwater was trigger-happy and careless with the lives of Iraqis.

The overall public concern, and blame, focussed on Blackwater are not necessarily in proportion to the reality of Iraq however. Affidavit #1 emphasizes, for the needs of the court case, the fact that after blazing away at some supposed threat (likely a dubiously defined threat, but a threat) that the Blackwater personnel did not stop to see if someone was wounded and needed medical attention.

Does anyone really suppose that the State Department officials, or anyone else in the US government for that matter, would want to stop and check in this scenario however, given that the whole goal of the convoy was to escape the (commonly repeated) roadside bombs, suicide car bombs, RPG attacks and machine gun strafing that characterizes the Iraq occupation. The US military does not stop its convoys under these circumstances; why should Blackwater, with a dedicated VIP protection role? For that matter, imagine that you, the reader, in whatever competency you possess, were sent to Iraq as a consultant. If you had bodyguards who fired at a perceived attacker, would you want the vehicle to stop and "check out" the situation, rather than carry you immediately to safety?

This sounds very callous, and uncaring of the safety of Iraqis of course, but any other way of thinking about it denies the reality of occupation. To put it a different way, try and devise a plan whereby a foreign nation may occupy your own, and do so despite the efforts of tens of thousands of your countrymen who are willing to risk their own, and their family's deaths. Now take that plan, and modify it, so that the foreign occupation forces take the sort of risks that you would be willing to take as an occupier, rather than the occupied. Does your new occupation plan sound brutal?

So much of the criticism and finger pointing around Blackwater and similar groups pretends that working officially for the government is indicative of some vast distinction in the quality of the personnel involved. While it is worth noting that the Blackwater employees are virtually all ex-soldiers (usually ELITE ex-soldiers), I am willing to presuppose for the purposes of argument, that private contractors might be more brutal than government officials in a given role.

Look at what the role of the Blackwater contractors really is however. They are bodyguards. The military is trying to suppress people fighting against foreign occupation. Which role is more brutal?

Bank guards in most nations around the globe are, I believe often armed, and normally private employees, and it is probably likely that they will have less restraint than a decent policeman of a given nation. How often do you hear about bank guard brutality however? If the area is lawless enough that you do hear about bank guard brutality, does anyone suppose that the police are better? It is a lot easier to protect a few discrete people, places or objects, than it is to control a hostile nation. A lot of additional brutality follows the need or desire to control and change the behavior of a population.

Certainly the Blackwater guards can be described as trigger happy, but they are not the only ones. Here in an official report two years back, the military acknowledges a full year of civilian shootings; more than one a day. These are the shootings that were acknowledged. Most all of those Blackwater contractors were in the military before. Does anyone think that they only started covering up shootings AFTER they became bodyguards?

PZ Myers posts about the Blackwater 'goon squad' and 'killers for hire'. Andrew Sullivan points darkly to the mindset behind Blackwater. Blackwater may be a goon squad, but I can find you a very large unit that is a hell of a lot worse. They may work for the government, but the mindset of these "patriotic" goevernment workers is a LOT worse than that of Erik Prince, at least when you adjust for the likely hyperbole and rumormongering of John Doe #2. Read these two articles and tell me about how scary mercenaries are.

If the history of the 20'th (and many other) century can tell us anything, it is that people working for the government, and people purportedly working for the good of the public are capable of killing people on a scale that private gain does not justify.

If the history of the past ten or so years tells us anything, it is that a good deal of the public in the English speaking world is quite willing to tolerate trigger happy behavior in government officials with a lot less provocation than the car bombs, RPGs, and IEDs of Baghdad.

Amadou Bailo Diallo, Bronx NYC, USA unarmed, shot 41 times by four policemen, policemen bearing the holy authorization of government title, acquitted.

Sean Bell incident, Queens NYC USA, three men, unarmed, at a wedding party, fired upon 50 times by five policemen, one of the three men, killed, policemen bearing the holy authorization of government title, acquitted.

Jean Charles de Menezes, London UK, unarmed, shot 8 times, 7 times in the head, policemen bearing the holy authorization of government title, never charged.

Etc., etc., etc.................

The "fire shower of nuclear retaliation", and North Korean strategy.

A recent statement in North Korea's main newspaper Rodong Sinmun is potentially interesting for what it reveals about their nuclear strategy.

The north Koreans were responding, in typically bellicose fashion, to the US announcement that it was extending its 'nuclear umbrella' to cover South Korea. Short exempts of the North Korean article can be found all over the web, but when scanning the news on the subject quickly, one relatively short article I found
from a fairly obscure source included enough of the North Korean statement to potentially reveal something interesting about their nuclear strategy. Virtually everyone mentioned the "fire shower of nuclear retaliation", but what most of the articles leave out the following words "all over South Korea."

This statement is a fairly strong indication that nuclear weapon targeting in North Korea definitely includes South Korea of course, but this may well indicate that their nuclear targeting may be focused MOSTLY on South Korea, rather than on South Korean allies like the US or Japan.

Fireball from Minor Scale test immediately after detonation. This was a conventional (non-nuclear) test using only high explosives, and it was above, rather than below ground, but the scale is similar to the latest (2009) North Korean test (yield estemated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). Note the F-4 Phantom aircraft in the foreground for scale.

We have to realize that North Korea targeting the South cannot be regarded as a completely foregone conclusion, because the North regards the South as part of their own nation, and fallout from any such strike would most certainly affect them.

Now the North Korean military and government are composed of very hard men, and it is unsurprising that they would be willing to accept the damage, but they are also a nation with a strong propaganda focus as well, and the possibility of being nuked by the North certainly has the possibility of alienating otherwise sympathetic South Koreans.

The sword of propaganda is double-edged in this case, because the possibility of nuclear war also might encourage South Koreans to make additional concessions to the North, but even so, it is doubtful that the North would risk the negative consequences unless they meant what they said. The North Korean ideology is more patriotic and focused on uniting the nation than it is communist and committed to international socialism, and such a strategy would not fit well with an idle threat to nuke your "own" people and land.

North Koria's Ballistic missiles "RODONG"(=NODONG), "TAEPODONG-1" and "TAEPODONG-2"

The REASON that this strategy would be adopted is most likely, technical. Even though North Korea has nuclear weapons, it most likely lacks the ability to place them on ICBM's (missiles). Considering the level (technical or numerical) of North Korean air-power, they could not rely on bomber delivery to far off locations, as the US Strategic Air Command did in the 1950's. It is fairly likely however, that a bomb could be dropped on the South, right across the border.

While technical limitations are likely to have been the most decisive, it is also likely the strategy is based in no small part on the idea that a limited, rather than total, nuclear war scenario is the most desirable. Communist nuclear thinking around the globe never truly embraced mutually assured destruction, and it would not seem especially wise for North Korea to be an exception, at least so long as North Korea lacks nuclear parity (technically unlikely). In the event of a war breaking out on the Korean peninsula, were the North to be pushed to use a nuke locally, the chances that international intervention (especially by China or Russia) would force a truce, would logically be higher, than if San Diego, Maui, or Tokyo were to be vitrified.

Thus the most likely scenario is that North Korean weapons are first, last-ditch solutions to a lost war, and also coming a close second, a deterrent to nuclear attack, which would be most likely to occur if North Korea was WINNING a war with the South, and looked likely to take over the entire nation.

To some degree, this should be reassuring to Americans, Japanese, or other US allies, but it is also very clear that reducing hostilities with North Korea is desirable. Long-extended hostilities will tend to tilt North Korean nuclear strategy further and further towards retaliation; bringing the war TO hated enemies, rather than resorting to targeting that nearly attacks oneself.

If you never had it in the first place..........

Megan McArdle at the Atlantic has written an interesting post on the developing (or perhaps ossifying) dogma in the Democratic party that holds that good and universal health care will not only be good for the people that have it, but will also be cheaper. This "have your cake and eat it too" notion may be, as she points out, reasonably compared to the notorious "Voodoo economics" of the Laffer curve. There is one way that medical costs might well (unfortunately) end up being controlled however.

A very large percentage of these national health care systems around the globe (and most developed-world health care systems are substantially nationalized) negotiate low costs for medications because drug companies take cost-of-additional-production + profit as a basis for pricing drugs sold to national systems. Cost of research and development is commonly not included in the price or at least is not included fully, and national health systems are able to enforce this preferential pricing, which externalizes the cost of developing medicines, by not making available all of the medicines on the market.

The structural reluctance of a national health care system to add new drugs to the national formulary is countered by observation of the success of a given medicine ELSEWHERE. It is difficult to deny medication and treatments that are well demonstrated to be useful and effective in another nation, but such a system naturally tends towards stasis, and is quite dependent on external benchmarking of medical quality for PARTICULAR treatments. Low-cost but high-quality treatment in unitary health care systems is thus quite dependent on non-unitary health care elsewhere.

The United States has been, for many years the non-unitary market of choice, and indeed is the market of choice for drugs and medical devices altogether. Medical research and development efforts around the globe, including in unitary markets, will generally take for granted that any drug or medical device that is effective and improved is likely to repay its research costs if it is approved in the US. Comparisons between the US and a unitary health care system will naturally cause American health care to seem thoroughly overpriced, because a unitary system that takes the natural and obvious steps to control drug costs becomes a free rider on the research, development, and effectiveness evaluation of other nations. The US, due to lack of comprehensive coverage, is not a great standard bearer for quality medicine when all the people who lack coverage (or who lack good coverage) are included, but the role of the US medical system in determining which TREATMENTS work, is vital.

If something changes in the US to interfere with the new-medicine introduction cycle however, then everything changes everywhere. Where in the world, if not in the US, will new, and likely expensive medications or treatments be offered the chance to demonstrate their effectiveness?

The nightmare scenario would thus be that the US would adopt an 'off the rack' national health care model that would seek out preferential pricing, and which would not allow new drugs into the national formulary until they had a well established record on the market. This scenario would create a sort of 'lockout' with the formulary systems of the world excluding all or most new drug introductions, and preventing new medications from proving themselves.

In fact, a Canadian or British unitary and single-payer system is not required to squelch medical development however. Even if EVERY new drug were allowed, but allowed with a delay, then drugmakers would have less time when they would be able to recoup their costs (which includes costs for drug development that did not pan out) before the opportunity to do so was truncated by patent expiration. A limited trial period when drugs would see a limited introduction would likewise slice into the period when a drugmaker is protected by patent monopoly.

For most national health systems, a delay in introducing a drug to the national formulary causes injury to the extent that such patients as are denied the medication suffer its lack for a few years. This can be lethal to the affected individuals, but their numbers are limited. Due to the crucial role of the US in the global drug market however, the effects of a delay or other market alteration are likely to be more lasting, and could eliminate new treatments altogether.

The Obama administration has put a good deal of emphasis on the creation of an agency that would evaluate the "effectiveness" of particular drugs and treatments, and an agency of this sort could easily provide the justification for excluding new medications, whether it is a government program or private insurance that would actually pull the trigger. If new medical treatments are introduced less and less often, then the costs associated with new medical treatments will drop. It will be hard for people to miss treatments that did not ever exist in the first place.

Wrestling With Religion: What GOP Strategist Steve Schmidt Doesn't Understand

(and why this matters around the world)
Also, a post that must be read entirely to be understood.

Caricature from "Le Rire" regarding a 1905 French law on the separation of Church and State)

John McCain's campaign manager Steve Schmidt made some news of his own the other day with his speech at the Log Cabin Republicans' national convention. The Huffington Post summed it up very well; "Steve Schmidt, McCain Campaign Manager: Religion Could Kill The GOP". Unfortunately the Huffington Post has also, in summing up Schmidt's point, made a better one than Schmidt himself did. To quote;

"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," Schmidt declared. "And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party."

Whatever you think about the policies and beliefs of the Republican Party, this statement is incorrect.

First, in a technical sense, "Christian Democratic" political parties are extraordinarily common throughout the globe, and are frequently dominant in European Union nations. The international organization of Christian democratic parties, the Centrist Democrat International (CDI), is the second largest international political organization in the world (second only to the Socialist International). A majority of of the nations that the average North American would acknowledge as being democratic have extremely strong Christian Democratic parties. There is plenty of reason NOT to want any party with religion embedded directly of course, but nobody should pretend it is impossible.

In the second place, Schmidt's statement about the proper role of religion in politics is logically unsound. This is a pretty strong statement on my part, and such criticism would be unfair if the statement was taken casually, but policy at his level has to treated precisely.

What Schmidt is saying, is that an issue, or proposal that arrives, or is taken into the public sphere, is not to be filtered by religious convictions. Obviously in this context there is no question of Republican positions being formally certified by some specific religious hierarchy. What he is talking about is the religious sensibilities of Republican Party members.

To Schmidt these religious feelings should be ENTIRELY private; they should not influence or veto a proposal. Who however, imagines that a person who is egalitarian, who feels that people should not starve, who feels that everyone should have medical care, or who is a feminist, is NOT going to allow their feelings about what is right, appropriate and ethical, to influence their positions on political issues?

Anyone who claims that their convictions, of whatever type, are not going to influence their position on political issues, either simply doesn't know how to FIND their convictions "with both hands", does not in fact, hold the convictions that they claim to, is LYING, or, worst of all, is "just following orders". Each and every political party is going to have to take the deeply held sensibilities of their members into account.

But why should a liberal, or someone who has never even visited the US think that this point is so important? To be sure, everyone has convictions, a nice and politically pius sentiment, but isn't this fundamentally still a defense of theocratic politics?

In fact, Steve Schmidt's comments indirectly reveal exactly why religion threatens the future of the Republican party, and also why theocratic religious politics are such a problem around the globe. Schmidt asserts that the sequence;

public issue - policy proposal - voter evaluation according to personal convictions & beliefs

is corrupted if the religious convictions of the voter affect his or her REACTION to a policy proposal. This idea is wrongheaded to be sure, but the reaction to these notions is often equally undesirable. The theocrat simply reverses the sequence to;

personal convictions and beliefs - policy proposal - public issue evaluated by political calculation.

Instead of the government AVOIDING policy that offends the convictions of the populace, one gets religious convictions regurgitated ONTO the public, by the government. This theocratic regime tramples upon anyone with divergent beliefs, and the impure vessel of government stains, rots, and fouls what is pure in religion. If the public and if political parties of any nation fall into a false choice between a 'morals-free-zone, and theocratic rule, then that nation or party is in for a very hard time.

Real friends, and real empathy. On mandatory niceness and bullying policies.

I was curious to see how the New York Times article Gossip Girls and Boys Get Lessons in Empathy would be received. I should not have expected much I suppose, since the comments are in fact, moderated, and most responses are favorable of this scheme to the point of being promotional.

One writer argues that the students are likely to become resentful of authority, but this is the only direct attack on the whole scheme. Frankly I doubt that additional resentment is much of a serious concern in that some sort of expectation of "good behavior", however defined, is a universal element of society, and distinctive resentment is most likely when the social expectations are illogical. Empathy and kindness toward others are certainly not illogical. Research projects involving interviews with the elderly and a survey of wheelchair ramps might be resented as extra work, but it is difficult to see how they are more onerous than the other annoying projects that students are tasked with.

There are other very serious problems with the 'forced empathy' schemes however. Take the personalized party sweatshirts for example. At Scarsdale Middle School, the main school featured in the article, it is apparently common for students to give out commemorative sweatshirts at big and significant parties like bar or bat mitzvahs. Popular students are naturally more likely to receive plenty of such invitations, and so, with the goal of combating feelings of exclusion, the Parent Teacher Association, is trying to prevent students from wearing their personalized sweatshirts on the Monday after the big party weekend.

There are a couple of problems with this idea. The obvious one is that not going to the party is plenty of reason to feel excluded, and most students around the United States are able to exclude, or be excluded without the aid of embroidered cue sheets.

A more significant and subtle problem is that this proposal, and many other egalitarian and inclusive social engineering schemes can disrupt the formation of alternate social groups. I cannot comment on the rest of the globe, but in the US at least, most schools have the "popular kids" to be sure, but there are many other social cliques that purport to disdain the social butterflies and the jocks.

Since cliques who hate the popular kids are very often more numerous than the popular kids themselves, it is clear that the complete authenticity of their scorn is often in question. Without a doubt, many members of the less popular cliques would abandon their introverted, nerdy, or acne-spotted comrades for the athletic, the gossipy and the beautiful, but the fact remains that literally millions of students find durable and lasting friendships that are far better tuned to their own personalities and interests than would be the case if they were invited into the most social circles. Artificially linking the so-called unpopular with the popular might well do more to elevate the status of the popular, and lower the status of anyone who is not consumed by socializing, than it would eliminate socially inflicted pain. As students work their way through the high-school system they are forming their own interests, personalities, and identities, and it is crucial that these identities and interests are tailored to the individuals that bear them. Turning a 'band geek', 'chess nerd', or music fanatic into a sycophantic hanger-on, cackling and groveling at the behest of the popular is no improvement.

The superficiality of the PTA focus on sweatshirts also raises notable questions in my mind as to whether formal "empathy" programs and their ilk are going to be better at improving the social lot of less popular students, or whether they will rather, allow socially dominant bullies and snobs to anchor their elevated status with adults. At this point in social history, it is often the case that the 'popular' kids are at best, semi-popular with the society as a whole. Obvious obnoxiousness triggers memories of bullying and contempt endured decades before by adults. Such memories are not so powerful that a teenager may be assured of adult understanding however, and formalized kindness programs seem very likely to provide the socially skilled and popular with all the necessary tools to camouflage their scorn and contempt toward less popular students. Whatever the results, you are likely to see them if you live in an English speaking nation. Anti-bullying schemes have been spreading throughout the English language diaspora nearly as fast as anti-terrorism laws.

Quasi-Socratic Dialogues on the Web - Re:The appeal of violence and morbidity (in Death Metal music)

The appeal of violence and morbidity

What is it about death metal (and, I suppose, related things like black metal and the horror genre) that is so appealing? The gory, morbid album art, the nonsensically ghoulish lyrics (see, for example, Suffocation's "Infecting the Crypts," which throws around a lot of morbid imagery while not making any actual sense, lyric-wise), the sinister and impersonal atmosphere of the music... what's so appealing about it?

Sure, if you wanted to, you could make a case for death metal as nihilistic art, or the music of industrial Man facing his own mortality, or blah blah blah. Death metal can be taken seriously when it's done well, but there's no denying that the violence, gore, and other assorted unpleasantness associated with the music serves as a "hook." However seriously this or that band presents the material, whatever artistic aspirations they may have, there's no escaping the impression that these musicians - and fans - dig this stuff on a less intellectual level. It may be art, and it may have something important to say, but the morbidity and violence are appealing on their own.

Why? What do you think?

To say that the appeal of Death Metal is its morbid associations is very much like saying that "THE" reason that a person likes particular music is always because of its lyrics.

If there is any better candidate for a musical genre where the lyrics are NOT the only, or main draw, I should like to know what it is, and if the specific meaning of the lyrics is not necessarily important, why should we assume that gory themes are crucial?

Virtually all of the Metal sub-genres have a distinct sound, and the fact that there are so many Metal sub-genres is testament to the importance of specific audio styles for Metal fans.

Confronting, or embracing mortality, or the simple thrill of morbid topics may well be what draws SOME Death Metal fans to the genre, but for many people, what distinguishes Death Metal from other types is a particularly uncompromising approach to music. Thematically, or musically, Death Metal WILL go there. "There" may titillate and thrill some, and as we all know, will drive away others, but the unbounded quality of the music is crucial in its appeal to most fans.

As to the question of the "intellectual level" that Death Metal is operating on, this is a matter that is hopelessly entangled in "high art" vs. "low art" pretensions. Death Metal is obviously not especially popular in "fine arts" circles, but "nonsensically ghoulish lyrics" could also be described as evocative, atmospheric, and non-literal lyrics, and as such could well be described as being more abstract and intellectual than a love story narrative song. The dark themes of Death Metal are well enough represented in the so called fine arts. Take a look at this description from the Wikipedia article on Francis Bacon, one of the the most important English artists in the 20'th century.

Bacon's artwork is known for its bold, austere, homoerotic and often violent or nightmarish imagery, which typically shows room-bound masculine figures isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds.

Barring "homoerotic" this description would not stand out in
Death Metal. Moreover, neither would much of the art. Take a look at this Bacon, and keep in mind that this is universally accepted as fine art.

British And French Nuclear Sub Collision Could Have Released Radiation

An accident of this sort is an accident all right, but contrary to official claims, is not a simple coincidence. Submarine accidents of this sort (of which there is a long Cold War history) occur when one, or both of the submarines are stalking one another. In playing cat and mouse, one of the submarines may accidentally overtake and collide with another.



Such stalking can be a way of gathering information about the other sub, preparation for war, or simple machismo.



All submarines have a unique acoustic signature, and submarines specialize in detecting such, so it is unlikely that at least one of the subs did not know that the other was an ally. Because of this, the only reason that cat and mouse stalking would be justified, would be as practice for war; a military exercise of sorts.



Naval collisions between nuclear vessels are not an acceptable outcome in an exercise, whether that exercise is officially planned (doubtful) or is informal, and one or both of the submarine captains should be, and are likely to be punished. Both navies are trying to cover up the nature of the accident however, because there is real irresponsibility involved.
About Nuclear Weapons
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Death by a thousand cuts: micropayments and journalism

Wikimedia Commons

Pressed by the economic crisis, weakened newspapers are beginning to crumple, with The Tribune Co. and Minneapolis Star Tribune bankrupt, and the New York Times in hock to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Naturally, this is alarming to those in the media, and commentators are weighing in with schemes to solve the problem.

What is interesting, and probably alarming for those people who like newspapers and journalists, is just how many crucial points these rescuers miss, and not just crucial shortcomings of newspapers (and there are plenty) but crucial points about the proposed solutions themselves. Time Magazine's cover story is as good a place to start as any. In Walter Isaacson's piece How to Save Your Newspaper, he suggests that the solution is micropayments.

The key to attracting online revenue, I think, is to come up with an iTunes-easy method of micropayment. We need something like digital coins or an E-ZPass digital wallet — a one-click system with a really simple interface that will permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge.

The dubious viability of micropayment schemes is not exactly unknown to internet users. Has Isaacson somehow failed to get the message? Apparently not.

Admittedly, the Internet is littered with failed micropayment companies. If you remember Flooz, Beenz, CyberCash, Bitpass, Peppercoin and DigiCash, it's probably because you lost money investing in them. Many tracts and blog entries have been written about how the concept can't work because of bad tech or mental transaction costs.

From the sound of things, he has in fact been burned already by this notion. Surely then Isaacson has a new angle on the subject; a new and reformed micropayment system? Unfortunately not. Isaacson has been burned, but refuses to acknowledge that the stove is hot.

But things have changed. "With newspapers entering bankruptcy even as their audience grows, the threat is not just to the companies that own them, but also to the news itself," wrote the savvy New York Times columnist David Carr last month in a column endorsing the idea of paid content. This creates a necessity that ought to be the mother of invention. In addition, our two most creative digital innovators have shown that a pay-per-drink model can work when it's made easy enough: Steve Jobs got music consumers (of all people) comfortable with the concept of paying 99 cents for a tune instead of Napsterizing an entire industry, and Jeff Bezos with his Kindle showed that consumers would buy electronic versions of books, magazines and newspapers if purchases could be done simply.

It would seem very reasonable to define "bankrupt" as meaning that people do NOT need or want your services enough to pay for them in their current form. "But things have changed" is precisely the sentiment that has brought a form of prosperity to Las Vegas, and the reverse of prosperity to millions of individuals throughout history. To be sure, necessity IS the mother of invention, but invention means CHANGING a mechanism to obtain a result. Needing or wanting are not, as several billion desperately poor people around the globe can tell you, the same as invention.

Not only is this solution illogical, but Isaacson has committed a minor journalistic atrocity by slapping us, yet again, with overly mentioned fads like the iPod and Kindle. Most of the 'Dot Bombs" were popular with somebody, but just HOW popular matters a great deal. It is far from clear that the Kindle for example, can be viewed as a substitute for anything, rather than being an additional income and distribution opportunity, being supplemental just as web advertising is for newspaper publishers, and a convenient means of distribution, just like impulse-buy bookracks at gas stations, druggists, and grocery stores.

Isaacson should note that Steve Jobs and the iPod (which are more significant in music than the Kindles is in publishing) have NOT in fact, stanched the bleeding in the record industry. The public has little enough to worry about in this, because the record industry does not in fact contribute especially much to the content and normally musicians get only a small portion of the income from album sales, but a newspaper publisher is not 95% a groupie hanger-on like a record label.

The real problem with Isaacson's suggestions however, is not in his overenthusiasm for the iPod or Kindle, but is rather in his failure to recognize the lessons that their example presents. The best example is in the most important of the two; iTunes and the iPod. Apple did NOT by any means "permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge." To the contrary, the iPod was successful PRECISELY because they did not permit price variation, but sold all songs at a flat fee (Apple apparently intends to tamper with their model, but the business was built on flat fee).

Looking at iTunes, we also have a big hint as to why past micropayment schemes have not worked well. SOME people are willing to cough up 99 cents for a song, although this is certainly not the only source of music ultimately supplied to iPods. Any song purchased can be listened to again and again, and more importantly, if you pick your songs with foreknowledge, you will WANT to listen to the song repeatedly. This is NOT true of most newspaper articles. Most of the things that micropayments could be used for have been overpriced. To be fair to Isaacson, he is not completely unaware of the problem.

Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for an article or a dime for that day's full edition or $2 for a month's worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough.

This is not exactly a bad analysis, but it isn't enough to work with either. A person buying a newspaper has traditionally expected to be making what is essentially a micropayment that will provide them with a broad selection of current news and entertainment. Nobody was willing to pay for individual articles in the past, and there is no reason to expect that this has changed. A dime for a days access to the paper would not be unreasonable, at least if the buyer can easily download individual articles in handy, can-be-passed-around-freely form, but access would need to be at minimum, access to the entire paper. Everyone who has read newspapers or magazines is used to a headline or title story not being as interesting as expected, and the fact that magazines and newspapers are sold to readers, while tracts are sold only TO proselytizers rather than BY newsstands shows that article by article sales are not a viable business model.

Icelandic Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, Would Be World's First Gay PM

It is probably true that Johanna Sigurdardottir's homosexuality would be more noted and more controversial in the US than it is now in Iceland, but it would be incorrect to suppose that this is the only characteristic that would feature in news coverage of any similar figure in the US.



While former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey attracted nationwide attention almost entirely based on his sexual behavior, his scandal plagued administration was notable for little else. His sexual orientation played a crucial role in a sexual harassment AND corruption scandal,



Sigurdardottir by contrast has distinguished herself as unique in 'standing up for the little guy' and with so long and distinguished a record, of course Icelanders will focus on these characteristics that actually affect them.



We are not confined to idle speculation regarding American tolerance, because the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is Barney Frank, an openly gay congressman. Frank has been reelected several times and holds a coveted chairmanship despite being caught hiring a male prostitute and misusing the power of his office to benefit them. Frank has recently attracted nationwide news coverage because of his role in overseeing the banking system, and the attention has been focused on his job, not his sexual orientation. Sigurdardottir's ascent to Prime Minister is still historic, but a close look would suggest that this ascent has more to do with her hard work and humanitarian efforts than disproportionate tolerance in Icelanders.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Completely mad reasons to support Apple and Mac

So the new online only PC magazine decides to celebrate 25 years of the Mac. This makes a fair amount of sense because the Mac did after all, introduce the GUI to general personal computing, and also because PC Magazine needs all the corporate support that they can get (why do the cynical reasons always come to mind whenever Apple comes up). To make an Apple product look good in PC Magazine, the writers and editorial board write articles describing their wonderful experiences with the Mac. The crazy thing is, the Mac is praised as ACTUALLY WORKING with iTunes!

But here's a great argument for Macs: If you have an iPod or iPhone, you need one. iTunes won't make your Mac run slow or conflict with your database software.

In a seperate article, he details further.

Then in 2002 , my wife got me my first iPod. It "worked" with my homebuilt PCs with FireWire cards, but there was something…lacking. I had to reformat the iPod way too often, and iTunes was a resource hog on the PC. I had to get a Mac so that I could have some stability in my music player. I was back to an Aluminum PowerBook G4, first a 12-inch then a 15-inch. The Intel transition of Macs happened in 2005, and now I carry both operating systems everywhere I go: a MacBook Pro that runs both Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard.

And this is written by no less than the Lead Analyst for the Desktops team at PC Magazine Labs! Even a technical expert, and indeed a technical expert cultivated by tech companies, has to put the term 'worked' in quotation marks when describing iTunes.

Should I mention at this point, that I HATE, HATE, HATE, Quicktime media player and its hellspawn iTunes?

Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0

Quicktime, and what appears to be about a quarter of an operating system that comes with it, is the most invasive program that I have EVER run across, with the PARTIAL exception of pure malware.

People have been wondering lately why Steve Jobs is so emaciated looking. His problem is simple. The poor man simply installed iTunes/Quicktime on a PC while touching the back of the computer, or otherwise making a connection. The body of Steve Jobs is not Apple proprietary, and who would imagine that being made according to God's standards was good enough?

Now all this might be taken to imply that I disparage Apple and the Mac. To the contrary, I think that any system that can inspire loyalty against the prevailing Wintel quasi-monopoly AND inspire loyalty DESPITE functioning so poorly with Wintel products of any sort (I assume that Quicktime and iTunes will work properly on a Mac) , must have something going for it! I must admit to a certain amount of puzzlement as to what exactly this IS, but there must be something.

Any time that I have used a Mac, I have been annoyed by the unique path required to make any adjustment. This is actually praised in the PC Mag Widows vs. Mac point-counterpoint article. To quote "Windows has too many ways to do things". This strikes me as very odd, since virtually everyone has misplaced something at home, and then been forced to spend a disproportionate amount of time hunting for it. I fail to see how replicating the "lost it and I need it NOW" experience is desirable. Perhaps a Mac person out there can tell me what the special ingredient is. Oh, and yeah, I know about Vista.
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0

Vista SUCKS!

Anyway, having complained about Quicktime/Itunes, I should list a couple of programs that might help if they don't work for you. First item is a substitute for Quicktime; the QuickTime Alternative. This program is supposed to be a replacement for Apple's compu-cancer, and it is updated on a regular basis. In the past at least, it did not necessarily work as well as a person would like, but it doesn't have to. It isn't as invasive as the real thing.

The second program that I would recommend, if you want to remove Quicktime from your system would be Revo Uninstaller. QuickTime likes to leave chunks of itself on your system when you remove it, and if you run Revo on a more thorough setting, it helps to strip the invasive, interferes-with-other-programs monster from your system. Running the thorough clean takes time, but it is worth it!

Unfortunately, by the time you detect that you really have a problem, there is a good chance that you will already have tried to uninstall Quicktime, and have discovered that the removal was ineffective. For this problem, you might try CCleaner. This useful utillity will remove garbage of all sorts, not just that left by QuickTime/iTunes, and though I have yet to come across a program that completely undoes the damage of 'Apple's revenge', this will often solve the problem.

Finally, there is an old program that might or might not work; QuickTime Killer. This 2005 era program was designed to stop QuickTime from placing itself in the system tray as an autorun program. As of this writing, you can still download the program, but I have never used it, and for obvious reasons, I do not wish to infect my system to test whether or not it will work with the latest versions of QuickTime. If you are trying to tame QuickTime, but can't remove it, you might try the program.

Since so many people have had problems with Apple's media-invader, I would be very happy to hear any other suggestions, or means of removal. You can of course, put your experiences in the comments, but I also would be happy to publish a guest post if someone wants to write one.