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Al Qaeda As Bureaucratic Ally

John Brady Kiesling, Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, writes:

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo

US Diplomat's Letter Of Resignation
By Tom Allard in Canberra
and Hamish McDonald in Beijing
Sydney Morning Herald
2-28-3

The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my c ountry and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.

It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo

We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Isr ael is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.

We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has "oderint dum metuant" really become our motto

I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its interests.

I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.

How Mr. Rogers Saved the VCR

The Home Recording Rights Coalition writes "In ruling that home time-shift recording of television programming for private use was not copyright infringement, the Supreme Court relied on testimony from television producers who did not object to such home recording. One of the most prominent witnesses on this issue was Fred Rogers." (via Boing Boing)

The Supreme Court wrote:

"Second is the testimony of Fred Rogers, president of the corporation that produces and owns the copyright on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The program is carried by more public television stations than any other program. Its audience numbers over 3,000,000 families a day. He testified that he had absolutely no objection to home taping for noncommercial use and expressed the opinion that it is a real service to families to be able to record children's programs and to show them at appropriate times. "

(Excerpt from Mr. Rogers' trial testimony: ) "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the 'Neighborhood' at hours when some children cannot use it. . . . I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the 'Neighborhood' off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the 'Neighborhood' because that's what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family's television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been 'You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.' Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important."

WEF 03 Notes: Swiss View

Laurie writes, "The world isn't run by a clever cabal. It's run by about 5,000
bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people who
are accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personal
power. A few have both. Many of them turn out to be remarkably naive --
especially about science and technology. All of them are financially
wise, though their ranks have thinned due to unwise tech-stock
investing. They pay close heed to politics, though most would be happy
if the global political system behaved far more rationally -- better for
the bottom line. They work very hard, attending sessions from dawn to
nearly midnight, but expect the standards of intelligence and analysis
to be the best available in the entire world. They are impatient. They
have a hard time reconciling long term issues (global wearming, AIDS
pandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci. They are
comfortable working across languages, cultures and gender, though white
caucasian males still outnumber all other categories. They adore hi-tech
gadgets and are glued to their cell phones."

Swiss View (Davis)
Lloyd deMause
Feb 06, 2003 15:55 PST

--

With apologies for the group email... I thought this was interesting enough
to pass along. These are the notes from a friend of a friend who writes for
Newsday.

Adam Davis
Director, EPRIsolutions Environment Division

1299 4th Street, Suite 307
San Rafael, CA 94901
Main Office:
Direct:
Cell:

Hi Guys.

OK, hard to believe, but true. Yours truely has been hobnobbing with the
ruling class.

I spent a week in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum. I was
awarded a special pass which allowed me full access to not only the
entire official meeting, but also private dinners with the likes the
head of the Saudi Secret Police, presidents of various insundry
countries, your Fortune 500 CEOS and the leaders of the most important
NGOs in the world. This was not typical press access. It was full-on,
unfettered, class A hobnobbing.

Davos, I discovered, is a breathtakingly beautiful spot, unlike anything
I'd ever experienced. Nestled high in the Swiss Alps, it's a three hours
train ride from Zurich that finds you climbing steadily through
snow-laden mountains that bring to mind Heidi and Audrey Hepburn (as in
the opening scenes of "Charade"). The EXTREMELY powerful arrive by
helicopter. The moderately powerful take the first class train. The NGOs
and we mere mortals reach heaven via coach train or a conference bus.
Once in Europe's bit of heaven conferees are scattered in hotels that
range from B&B to ultra luxury 5-stars, all of which are located along
one of only three streets that bisect the idyllic village of some 13,000
permanent residents.

Local Davos folks are fanatic about skiing, and the slopes are literally
a 5-15 minute bus ride away, depending on which astounding downhill you
care to try. I don't know how, so rather than come home in a full body
cast I merely watched.

This sweet little chalet village was during the WEF packed with about
3000 delegates and press, some 1000 Swiss police, another 400 Swiss
soldiers, numerous tanks and armored personnel carriers, gigantic rolls
of coiled barbed wire that gracefully cascaded down snow-covered
hillsides, missile launchers and assorted other tools of the national
security trade. The security precautions did not, of course, stop there.
Every single person who planned to enter the conference site had special
electronic badges which, upon being swiped across a reading pad,
produced a computer screen filled color portrait of the attendee, along
with his/her vital statistics. These were swiped and scrutinized by
soldiers and police every few minutes -- any time one passed through a
door, basically. The whole system was connected to handheld wireless
communication devices made by HP, which were issued to all VIPs. I got
one. Very cool, except when they crashed. Which, of course, they did
frequently. These devices supplied every imagineable piece of
information one could want about the conference, your fellow delegates,
Davos, the world news, etc. And they were emailing devices --- all
emails being monitored, of course, by Swiss cops.

Antiglobalization folks didn't stand a chance. Nor did Al Qaeda. After
all, if someone managed to take out Davos during WEF week the world
would basically lose a fair chunk of its ruling and governing class
POOF, just like that. So security was the name of the game. Metal
detectors, X-ray machines, shivering soldiers standing in blizzards,
etc.

Overall, here is what I learned about the state of our world:

- I was in a dinner with heads of Saudi and German FBI, plus the
foreign minister of Afghanistan. They all said that at its peak Al Qaeda
had 70,000 members. Only 10% of them were trained in terrorism -- the
rest were military recruits. Of that 7000, they say all but about 200
are dead or in jail.

- But Al Qaeda, they say, is like a brand which has been heavily
franchised. And nobody knows how many unofficial franchises have been
spawned since 9/11.

- The global economy is in very very very very bad shape. Last year
when WEF met here in New York all I heard was, "Yeah, it's bad, but
recovery is right around the corner". This year "recovery" was a word
never uttered. Fear was palpable -- fear of enormous fiscal hysteria.
The watchwords were "deflation", "long term stagnation" and "collapse of
the dollar". All of this is without war.

- If the U.S. unilaterally goes to war, and it is anything short of a
quick surgical strike (lasting less than 30 days), the economists were
all predicting extreme economic gloom: falling dollar value, rising spot
market oil prices, the Fed pushing interest rates down towards zero with
resulting increase in national debt, severe trouble in all countries
whose currency is guaranteed agains the dollar (which is just about
everybody except the EU), a near cessation of all development and
humanitarian programs for poor countries. Very few economists or
ministers of finance predicted the world getting out of that economic
funk for minimally five-10 years, once the downward spiral ensues.

- Not surprisingly, the business community was in no mood to hear about
a war in Iraq. Except for diehard American Republicans, a few Brit
Tories and some Middle East folks the WEF was in a foul, angry
anti-American mood. Last year the WEF was a lovefest for America. This
year the mood was so ugly that it reminded me of what it felt like to be
an American overseas in the Reagan years. The rich -- whether they are
French or Chinese or just about anybody -- are livid about the Iraq
crisis primarily because they believe it will sink their financial
fortunes.

- Plenty are also infuriated because they disagree on policy grounds. I
learned a great deal. It goes FAR beyond the sorts of questions one
hears raised by demonstrators and in UN debates. For example:

- If Al Qaeda is down to merely 200 terrorists cadres and a
handful of wannabe franchises, what's all the fuss

- The Middle East situation has never been worse. All hope for a
settlement between Israel and Palestine seems to have evaporated. The
energy should be focused on placing painful financial pressure on all
sides in that fight, forcing them to the negotiating table. Otherwise,
the ME may well explode. The war in Iraq is at best a distraction from
that core issue, at worst may aggravate it. Jordan's Queen Rania spoke
of the "desperate search for hope".

- Serious Islamic leaders (e.g. the King of Jordan, the Prime
Minster of Malaysia, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia) believe that the Islamic
world must recapture the glory days of 12-13th C Islam. That means
finding tolerance and building great education institutions and places
of learning. The King was passionate on the subject. It also means
freedom of movement and speech within and among the Islamic nations.
And, most importantly to the WEF, it means flourishing free trade and
support for entrepeneurs with minimal state regulation. (However, there
were also several Middle East respresentatives who argued precisely the
opposite. They believe bringing down Saddam Hussein and then pushing the
Israel/Palestine issue could actually result in a Golden Age for Arab
Islam.)

- US unilateralism is seen as arrogant, bullyish. If the U.S.
cannot behave in partnership with its allies -- especially the Europeans
-- it risks not only political alliance but BUSINESS, as well. Company
leaders argued that they would rather not have to deal with US
government attitudes about all sorts of multilateral treaties (climate
change, intellectual property, rights of children, etc.) -- it's easier
to just do business in countries whose governments agree with yours. And
it's cheaper, in the long run, because the regulatory envornments match.
War against Iraq is seen as just another example of the unilateralism.

- For a minority of the participants there was another layer of
AntiAmericanism that focused on moralisms and religion. I often heard
delegates complain that the US "opposes the rights of children", because
we block all treaties and UN efforts that would support sex education
and condom access for children and teens. They spoke of sex education as
a "right". Similarly, there was a decidedly mixed feeling about
Ashcroft, who addressed the conference. I attended a small lunch with
Ashcroft, and observed Ralph Reed and other prominent Christian
fundamentalists working the room and bowing their heads before eating.
The rest of the world's elite finds this American Christian behavior at
least as uncomfortable as it does Moslem or Hindu fundamentalist
behavior. They find it awkward every time a US representative refers to
"faith-based" programs. It's different from how it makes non-Christian
Americans feel -- these folks experience it as downright embarrassing.

- When Colin Powell gave the speech of his life, trying to win
over the nonAmerican delegates, the sharpest attack on his comments came
not from Amnesty International or some Islamic representative -- it came
from the head of the largest bank in the Netherlands!

I learned that the only economy about which there is much enthusiasm is
China, which was responsible for 77% of the global GDP growth in 2002.
But the honcho of the Bank of China, Zhu Min, said that fantastic growth
could slow to a crawl if China cannot solve its rural/urban problem.
Currently 400 million Chinese are urbanites, and their average income is
16 times that of the 900 million rural residents. Zhu argued China must
urbanize nearly a billion people in ten years!

I learned that the US economy is the primary drag on the global economy,
and only a handful of nations have sufficient internal growth to thrive
when the US is stagnating.

The WEF was overwhelmed by talk of security, with fears of terrorism,
computer and copyright theft, assassination and global instability
dominating almost every discussion.

I learned from American security and military speakers that, "We need
to attack Iraq not to punish it for what it might have, but
preemptively, as part of a global war. Iraq is just one piece of a
campaign that will last years, taking out states, cleansing the planet."

The mood was very grim. Almost no parties, little fun. If it hadn't been
for the South Africans -- party animals every one of them -- I'd never
have danced. Thankfully, the South Africans staged a helluva party, with
Jimmy Dludlu's band rocking until 3am and Stellenbosch wines pouring
freely, glass after glass after glass....

These WEF folks are freaked out. They see very bad economics ahead, war,
and more terrorism. About 10% of the sessions were about terrorism, and
it's heavy stuff. One session costed out what another 9/11-type attack
would do to global markets, predicting a far, far worse impact due to
the "second hit" effect -- a second hit that would prove all the world's
post-9/11 security efforts had failed. Another costed out in detail what
this, or that, war scenario
Would do to spot oil prices. Russian speakers argued that "failed
nations" were spawning terrorists --- code for saying, "we hate
Chechnya". Entire sessions were devoted to arguing which poses the
greater asymmetric threat: nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Finally, who are these guys I actually enjoyed a lot of my
conversations, and found many of the leaders and rich quite charming and
remarkably candid. Some dressed elegantly, no matter how bitter cold and
snowy it was, but most seemed quite happy in ski clothes or casual
attire. Women wearing pants was perfectly acceptable, and the elite is
sufficiently
Multicultural that even the suit and tie lacks a sense of dominance.
Watching Bill Clinton address the conference while sitting in the hotel
room of the President of Mozambique -- we were viewing it on closed
circuit TV -- I got juicy blow-by=blow analysis of US foreign policy
from a remarkably candid head of state. A day spent with Bill Gates
turned out to be fascinating and fun. I found the CEO of Heinekin
hilarious, and George Soros proved quite earnest about confronting AIDS.
Vicente Fox -- who I had breakfast with -- proved sexy and smart like a
--- well, a fox. David Stern (Chair of the NBA) ran up and gave me a
hug.

The world isn't run by a clever cabal. It's run by about 5,000
bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people who
are accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personal
power. A few have both. Many of them turn out to be remarkably naive --
especially about science and technology. All of them are financially
wise, though their ranks have thinned due to unwise tech-stock
investing. They pay close heed to politics, though most would be happy
if the global political system behaved far more rationally -- better for
the bottom line. They work very hard, attending sessions from dawn to
nearly midnight, but expect the standards of intelligence and analysis
to be the best available in the entire world. They are impatient. They
have a hard time reconciling long term issues (global wearming, AIDS
pandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci. They are
comfortable working across languages, cultures and gender, though white
caucasian males still outnumber all other categories. They adore hi-tech
gadgets and are glued to their cell phones.

Welcome to Earth: meet the leaders.

Ciao,
Laurie

Gates Reveals Windows Code to China

Ken Gao, CNETAsia, reports:

Microsoft on Friday signed a pact with the Chinese government to reveal the Windows source code, making China among the first to benefit from its program to allay the security fears of governments.

In addition, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates hinted that China will be privy to all, not just part, of the source code the government wishes to inspect.

The Chinese government and military have previously stated their preference for the rival Linux operating system because its source code is publicly available.

Without knowing the inner workings of an operating system--a fact revealed by its source code--governments like China fear that backdoors may be installed to leak sensitive information.

The China Information Technology Security Certification Center signed an agreement to participate in Microsoft's Government Security Program (GSP).

Wu Shizhong, director of the center, reaffirmed that IT security is a key issue for the government.

"Microsoft's GSP provides us with the controlled access to source code and technical information in an appropriate way. It also establishes cooperation between China and Microsoft. Microsoft has taken a step forward to let us understand its product security," he said.

Gates, who was on a two-day visit to Beijing, said his company was pleased with the pact. "We are committed to providing the Chinese government with information that will help them deploy and maintain secure computing infrastructures. We see this agreement as a significant step forward in Microsoft's relations with the Chinese government," Gates said.

In January, Microsoft announced its GSP, under which it will share the source code underlying its Windows operating system with several international governments, a move designed to address concerns about the security of the OS.

Last month, it announced GSP agreements with Russia, NATO and the United Kingdom. Microsoft is in discussions with more than 30 countries, territories and organizations regarding the program.

During Gates' visit, he also met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Jiang said China welcomes Microsoft and other global companies to invest in China and create growth.

Gates briefed Jiang about Microsoft's investment in China and gave an update on how it was sharing the source code of computer software. No details were given on what specific software would be part of the information-sharing deal.

In order to develop its software industry and maintain security, China has produced its own version of Linux, Red Flag Linux, as well as its own office productivity suite, RedOffice, which go head-to-head with Microsoft's Windows and Office packages.

The Devil

Hear on shortwave: The Devil Has No More Use For Him [MP3] (24k)

Who Would Jesus Bomb

Jesus wouldn't bomb anybody. Is this a Christian message Yes. Also Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Atheist. Does anybody really think that bombing a country, or twenty countries, will deter terrorism War is Terror.
www.whowouldjesusbomb.com

Mister Rogers Dies

Daniel Lewis (New York Times) writes, "Fred Rogers, the thoughtful television neighbor whose songs, stories and heart-to-heart talks taught generations of children how to get along in the world, died yesterday at his home in Pittsburgh. He was 74."

"The cause was stomach cancer, said David Newell, a family spokesman who also portrayed Mr. McFeely, of the Speedy Delivery Messenger Service, one of the regulars on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

Mr. Rogers entered the realm of children's television with a local show in Pittsburgh in 1954. But it was the daily half-hour "Neighborhood" show, which began nationally on public television in 1968 with homemade puppets and a cardboard castle, that caught on as a haven from the hyperactivity of most children's television. Let morphing monsters rampage elsewhere, or educational programs jump up and down for attention; "Mister Rogers" stayed the same year after year, a low-key affair without animation or special effects. Fred Rogers was its producer, host and chief puppeteer. He wrote the scripts and songs. Above all he supplied wisdom; and such was the need for it that he became the longest-running attraction on public television and an enduring influence on America's everyday life.

For all its reassuring familiarity, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" was a revolutionary idea at the outset and it remained a thing apart through all its decades on television. Others would also entertain the young or give them a leg up on their studies. But it was Fred Rogers, the composer, Protestant minister and student of behavior who ventured to deal head-on with the emotional life of children.

"The world is not always a kind place," he said. "That's something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it's something they really need our help to understand." He believed that even the worst fears had to be "manageable and mentionable," one way or another, and because of this he did not shy away from topics like war, death, poverty and disability.

In one classic episode he sat down at the kitchen table, looked straight into the camera and calmly began talking about divorce: "Did you ever know any grown-ups who got married and then later they got a divorce" he asked. And then, after pausing to let that sink in: "Well, it is something people can talk about, and it's something important. I know a little boy and a little girl whose mother and father got divorced, and those children cried and cried. And you know why Well, one reason was that they thought it was all their fault. But, of course, it wasn't their fault."

When the Smithsonian Institution put one of Mr. Rogers's zippered sweaters on exhibit in 1984, no one who had grown up with American television would have needed an explanation. He had about two dozen of those cardigans. Many had been knitted by his mother. He wore one every day as part of the comforting ritual that opened the show: Mr. Rogers would come home to his living room — a set at WQED-TV in Pittsburgh — and change from a sports coat and loafers into sweater and sneakers as he sang the words of his theme, "It's a beaut-i-ful day in this neighborhood . . . won't you be my neighbor"

This would be followed by a talk about something that Mr. Rogers wanted people to consider — maybe the obligations of friendship, or the pleasures of music, or how to handle jealousy. Then would come a trip into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where an odd little repertory company of human actors and hand puppets like King Friday XIII and Daniel Striped Tiger might dramatize the day's theme with a skit or occasionally stage an opera.

The show had guests, too, often musicians like Wynton Marsalis or Yo-Yo Ma, and field trips. Mr. Rogers would venture out to show what adults did for a living and the objects made in factories, passing along useful information along the way. Visiting a restaurant for a cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich, he would stop to demonstrate the right way to set a table. And the sign that said restroom It just meant bathroom, and most restaurants had them, "if you have to go."

Among his dozens of awards for excellence and public service, he won four daytime Emmys as a writer or performer between 1979 and 1999, as well as the lifetime achievement award of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1997. Last year President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

No visit to the Neighborhood was complete without the counsel and comfort to be found in his easy-to-follow songs, which covered everything from the beauty of nature to the common childhood fear of being sucked down the bathtub drain with the water. He wrote about 200 songs and repeated many of them so regularly that his viewers, most of them between 2 1/2 and 5 1/2 years old, knew them by heart.

"What Do You Do," about controlling anger, began this way:

What do you do with the mad that you feel

When you feel so mad you could bite

When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong

And nothing you do seems very right

What do you do Do you punch a bag

Do you pound some clay or some dough

Do you round up friends for a game of tag

Or see how fast you can go

It's great to be able to stop

When you've planned a thing that's wrong.

Long ago, in the days before grown-ups learned how say to "mission statement," Mr. Rogers wrote down the things he wanted to encourage in his audience. Self-esteem, self-control, imagination, creativity, curiosity, appreciation of diversity, cooperation, tolerance for waiting, and persistence.

It was no coincidence that his list reflected the child-rearing principles gaining wide acceptance at the time; he worked closely with people like Margaret McFarland, a leading child psychologist, who was until her death in 1988 the principal adviser for "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

Like any good storyteller, he believed in the power of make-believe to reveal truth, and he trusted children to sort out the obvious inconsistencies according to their own imaginations, as when the puppet X the Owl's cousin, for example, turned out to be the human Lady Aberlin in a bird suit.

His flights of fantasy probably reached their apex in his extended comic operas; "trippy productions," as the television critic Joyce Millman called them, that were "a cross between the innocently disjointed imaginings of a preschooler and some avant-garde opus by John Adams." At least one of these works, "Spoon Mountain," was adapted for the stage. It was presented at the Vineyard Theater in New York in 1984.

Those who knew Mr. Rogers best, including his wife, said he was exactly the same man on-camera and off. That man had a much more complex personality than the mild, deliberate, somewhat stooped fellow in the zippered sweater might let on. One got glimpses of this in film clips of him behind the scenes, especially when working his hand puppets: here he wore a black shirt to blend into the background, became lithe and intense, and changed his voice and attitude like lightning as he switched back and forth between characters.

He was Henrietta Pussycat, who spoke mostly in meow-meows; the frequently clueless X the Owl; Queen Sara; the pompous and pedantic King Friday XIII; Lady Elaine Fairchilde, heavily rouged and evidently battle-tested in the theater of life; and others.

He inhabited his characters so artfully that Josie Carey, the host of an earlier children's series in which Mr. Rogers did not appear on camera, said that she would find herself confiding in his puppets and completely forgetting he was behind them.

He had known everything about puppets for a long time, since his solitary childhood in the 1930's. The story of how he and they came to appear together on television is a good one.

Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pa., on March 20, 1928, the son of Nancy Rogers and James H. Rogers, a brick manufacturer. An only child until his parents adopted a baby girl when he was 11, and sometimes on the chubby side, he spent many hours inventing adventures for his puppets and finding emotional release in playing the piano. He could, he said, "laugh or cry or be very angry through the ends of my fingers."

He graduated from Latrobe High School, attended Dartmouth College for a year, and then transferred to Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., graduating magna cum laude in 1951 with a music composition degree. From there he intended to study at a seminary. But his timetable changed in his senior year when he visited his parents at home and saw something new to him. It was television.

Something "horrible" was on, he remembered — people throwing pies at one another. Still, he understood at once that television was something important for better or worse, and he decided on the spot to be part of it. "You've never even seen television!" was his parents' reaction. But right after graduating from Rollins he got work at the NBC studios in New York, first as a gofer and eventually as a floor director for shows like "The Kate Smith Evening Hour" and "Your Hit Parade."

In 1953 he was invited to help with programming at WQED in Pittsburgh, which was just starting up as this country's first community-supported public television station. The next year he began producing and writing "The Children's Corner," the show with Ms. Carey, and he simply brought some puppets from home and put them on the air. In its seven-year run, the show won a Sylvania Award for the best locally produced children's program in the country, and NBC picked up and telecast 30 segments of it in 1955-56.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rogers had not given up his other big goal. Studying part-time, he earned a divinity degree from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1962. The Presbyterian Church ordained him and charged him with a special mission: in effect, to keep on doing what he was doing on television.

He first showed his own face as Mister Rogers in 1963 on a show called "Misterogers" when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked him to start a show with himself as the on-camera host. The CBC-designed sets and other details became part of the permanent look of Rogers productions. But as for Canada, Mr. Rogers and his wife, Joanne, a pianist he had met while at Rollins, soon decided they should be raising their two young sons back in western Pennsylvania.

He is survived by his wife, their sons and two grandchildren.

Mr. Rogers returned to WQED where, in 1966, "Misterogers' Neighborhood" had its premiere in its fully developed form. It was distributed regionally in the East, and then, in 1968, what became PBS stations began showing it across the country.

In their own way, the shows and Mr. Rogers's production company, Family Communications, constituted one of the country's more stable little industries. Underwriting by the Sears, Roebuck Foundation provided long-term financial security. Technicians, collaborators and cast members like Mr. McFeely, the deliveryman, enjoyed virtual lifetime employment. (Did anyone not know that McFeely was Mr. Rogers's middle name, which came from his maternal grandfather)

The unlikelihood of such an institution, along with Mr. Rogers's mannerisms — that gleaming straight-ahead stare, for instance, which could be a little unnerving if you really thought about it — made parody inevitable. Perhaps the most famous sendup was on "Saturday Night Live," with Eddie Murphy as a black "Mr. Robinson" who lamented: "I hope I get to move into your neighborhood some day. The problem is that when I move in, y'all move away." When Mr. Murphy later met Mr. Rogers, it was reported, he did what most everyone else did. He gave him a hug.

Mr. Rogers was a vegetarian and a dedicated lap swimmer. He did not smoke or drink. He never carried more than about 150 pounds on his six-foot frame, and his good health permitted him to continue taping shows.

But two years ago he decided to leave the daily grind. "I really respect opera singers who stop when they feel that they're doing their best work," he said at the time, expressing relief. The last episode was taped in December 2000 and was shown in August 2001, though roughly 300 of the 1,700 shows that Mr. Rogers made will continue to be shown. (In the New York area the show is on Channel 13, WNET, at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays; on Channel 50, WNJN, at 2 p.m. weekdays; and on Channel 49, CPTV, at 1 p.m. weekdays.)

He took a few years off from production in the late 1970's, and later, toward the end of his long career, he cut back to taping 12 or 15 episodes a year. Although his show ran daily throughout those years, what his latter-day viewers saw was a mix of new material and reruns, the differences between them softened by a bit of black dye in Mr. Rogers's gray hair. As a spokesman for Mr. Rogers said, it didn't matter so much that the shows were repeated: the audience was always new.

Mr. Rogers kept a busy schedule outside the Neighborhood. He was the chairman of a White House forum on child development and the mass media in 1968, and from then on was frequently consulted as an expert or witness on such issues. He produced several specials for live television and videotape. Many of his regular show's themes and songs were worked into audiotapes. There were more than a dozen books, with titles like "You Are Special" and "How Families Grow.'

He was also one of the country's most sought-after commencement speakers, and if college seniors were not always bowled over by his pronouncements, they often cried tears of joy just to see him, an old friend of their childhood.

When he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999, he began his formal acceptance speech by saying, "Fame is a four-letter word." And now that he had gotten the attention of a house full of the industry's most powerful and glamorous names, he asked them to think about their responsibilities as people "chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen, day and night." He instructed them to be silent for 10 seconds and think about someone who had had a good influence on them.

Yesterday, Mr. Rogers's Web site, www.misterrogers.org, provided a link to help parents discuss his death with their children.

"Children have always known Mister Rogers as their `television friend,' and that relationship doesn't change with his death," the site says.

"Remember," it added, "that Fred Rogers has always helped children know that feelings are natural and normal, and that happy times and sad times are part of everyone's life."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

Home Birth Blogged

gilbert writes, "8:28pm. For those of you just joining us, we're having a baby (something we've been working on for about 9 months). Quinn's doing most of the work, though. Please note that if you were expecting Quinn or Danny or Gilbert to do anything tonight or in the next few days, you're probably going to be out of luck."

"Also, for those of you who are on the East Coast, *no* we're not going to the hospital, we're having a home birth. The human race has been giving babies in the wild for tens of thousands of years; none of us see any reason to stop now. Plus, hospitals scare us."

Wed Feb 26 2003:

4pm, i've just had my next dose of castor oil. woot!

7pm, we're into contractions. much pain. [ gilbert ]

8pm. Yup. This is indeed a baby we're talking about. Looks like we're in for the home stretch. [ gilbert ]

8:28pm. For those of you just joining us, we're having a baby (something we've been working on for about 9 months). Quinn's doing most of the work, though. Please note that if you were expecting Quinn or Danny or Gilbert to do anything tonight or in the next few days, you're probably going to be out of luck.

Also, for those of you who are on the East Coast, *no* we're not going to the hospital, we're having a home birth. The human race has been giving babies in the wild for tens of thousands of years; none of us see any reason to stop now. Plus, hospitals scare us.

9:19pm. this is a lot of work. can i have some water

9:24pm. monkeys make less noise! monkeys play now! play! monkey, fetch me a ball! [ dyson, the h@x0r kitten ]

9:37pm. We're looking after Quinn's backache (it's a posterior-facing baby for now, so backache is par for the course). "Birth would be fine if it wasn't for the contractions". [danny]

9:51pm. Note to Heather: back births suck.

10:22pm. The hormones have her shivering, and freezing cold. Thank god for lots and lots of blankets. [ gilbert ]

10:35pm. can i have a shower

10:41pm. six centimeters-plus dilation. this is a good thing.

11:05pm. monkeys, i'm sleeping! less moving about wildly, please! [ dyson ]

11:13pm. seven centimeters. the urge to push is there, but NO PUSHING YET. also, the bag of waters is still intact. this is also very good.

11:41pm. pushing: we've moved to the loo to help the baby out. quinn is basically a genius at this, it turns out. [danny]

11:50pm. Um. We're pushing, and stuff And appears to be quite painful. But she's doing really really well, natch. [ gilbert ]

11:59pm baby is crowning... brb

Thu Feb 27 2003:

12:01am. Ladies and gentlemen: please welcome - Ada T. Norton to the world. World, Ada. Ada, this is the world. [ gilbert ]

12:07am. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT [ dyson ]

12:27am. Where in the world did I put that hat Oh, yeah, and FUCKING HELL. [ gilbert ]

12:35am. big head. lotsa stitches. still no hat. anyone got a hat

00:58am. and now, in glorious blurry-shakey-dad-o-vision, Ms Ada Norton and Friends

01:31am. reports of my size have been greatly exaggerated: 8.8lbs. [ ada ]

01:31am. see I *told* you she'd be an excellent typist.
On a completly unrelated note, I'd like to point out to my workplace that this birth was significantly shorter than most internal OSS code releases. Perhaps you guys should take a hint or two. [ gilbert ]

02:17am. Now, time to rest please. Thanks all for your email and thanks and stuff. Thanks especially to the midwifes and mom who were here for it all. Ada and me are gonna nap for a while.

Lincoln's Spectacular Lie

Thomas J. DiLorenzo writes, "Lincoln claimed that the federal government was really created by the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, despite the fact that the former document does not have the legal authority that the Constitution has. But the Declaration itself is an expression of state sovereignty, a fact which contradicts Lincoln's whole thesis. The concluding paragraph declares to the world that the colonists were seceding from the British Empire as citizens of the free and independent American states, not as the people as a whole. "These colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown . . . and that as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do."

Lincoln's Spectacular Lie

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The cornerstone of the Lincoln Legend is a spectacular lie. As eloquently stated by former syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick in his 1957 book, The Sovereign States: "The delusion that sovereignty is vested in the whole people of the United States is one of the strangest misconceptions of our public life" (p. 15). Lincoln espoused this fable in order to make the preposterous argument that no such thing as state sovereignty ever existed; the states were never at any time free and independent of the federal government; they did not in fact create the federal government by ratifying the Constitution; and that, therefore, no group of citizens could ever secede from the federal government.

As Emory University philosopher Donald Livingston has said, this is not only a lie, but a spectacular lie. It is still widely believed, however, thanks in part to the efforts of such propagandists as Harry Jaffa and his fellow Lincoln cultists at the Claremont Institute, the Declaration Foundation, and other state-worshipping propaganda mills.

Lincoln claimed that the federal government was really created by the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, despite the fact that the former document does not have the legal authority that the Constitution has. But the Declaration itself is an expression of state sovereignty, a fact which contradicts Lincoln's whole thesis. The concluding paragraph declares to the world that the colonists were seceding from the British Empire as citizens of the free and independent American states, not as the people as a whole. "These colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown . . . and that as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do."

When the Revolution ended the King of England entered into a peace treaty not with "the United States" or "the people as a whole" but with the individual states. (In my May 2002 Independent Institute debate with Harry Jaffa he made quite the buffoon of himself by angrily denying this plain historical fact). Article 1 of the Treaty with Great Britain states:
His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, vis, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to be free, sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs and successors, Relinquishes all claims to the Government, proprietary and territorial rights of The same, and every part thereof.

When the sovereign states created a federal government as their agent with the Articles of Confederation they made a point of maintaining their independent status. As defined in Article 1, Section II: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

It is important to note that certain powers were delegated to the federal government but not abandoned. Sovereignty always rested in the citizens of the free and independent states.

Although the state delegations that adopted the Articles hoped that the Union created by them would be perpetual, they seceded from the Articles after just six years and dropped the phrase "perpetual Union" from the new Constitution.

Apologists for centralized governmental power dishonestly dwell on the preamble of the Constitution which reads, "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union . . ." They do this in order to argue that the government formed by the Constitution was created by "the whole people" and not the sovereign states. But the reason why the states were not listed individually in the Preamble is that when it was written it was not known which states would ratify the Constitution. Thus, it was left as a generalized "We the People . . ." It is nothing more than a semantic artifact.

No less a figure than James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist 39 that the Constitution was to be ratified by the people "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong" (emphasis added). He also stated that the federal government gets all of its authority from the sovereign states and not the "whole people." The "whole people" who resided in the states stretching from Maine to Georgia at the time had nothing at all to do with the ratification of the Constitution. It was ratified by state political conventions (not state legislatures). Madison continued on to say that each state ratifying the Constitution "is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act."
Virginia, New York and Rhode Island specifically reserved the right to withdraw from the Union if it ever became "destructive of our liberties." (This is another plain historical fact that the delusional Jaffa angrily denied during my debate with him). Heres what the Virginia delegation to the Constitutional Convention put in writing:

We the delegates of the people of Virginia . . . Do, in the name and behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them at their will . . .

New York and Rhode Island made almost identical statements as conditions of ratifying the Constitution.

The phrase "united States" is always in the plural in the Constitution, signifying not one consolidated government but that the independent and sovereign states were united in forming the federal government as their agent with only narrowly defined, delegated powers.

The president is not elected by "the whole people" according to the Constitution but by an electoral college that consists of appointees from each state, chosen by the state legislatures.

Nor may any new state be formed "within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as Congress." (Lincoln clearly ignored this when he orchestrated the secession of Western Virginia from Virginia). Amending the Constitution still requires ratification by three-fourths of the states, not the "whole people."

Thus, all three of these founding documents the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution declare the states to be free and independent. Sovereignty lies in the citizens of the free and independent states, not the people as a whole. The founders feared mass democracy and sought to strictly limit its domain. It is patently absurd to argue that the government they created was meant to be a mass democracy of "the whole people."

Lincolns theory of the non-existence of state sovereignty never came to be accepted by the strength of the argument, for the argument has no strength and no factual basis. Instead, he waged the bloodiest war in world history up to that point to "prove" himself right.

The myth serves the purpose of making sure that the American people can never regain true sovereignty over their government. It should not be surprising to anyone that the modern-day neoconservative propagandists who perpetuate this myth are all advocates of an even more activist, centralized state (in pursuit of "national greatness," they say). Their latest crusade involves invoking the sainted Lincoln, time and again, to urge President Bush to invade and occupy much of the Middle East. They are advocates of national power, an imperial worldwide empire, and unlimited democracy. They are the enemies of limited, constitutional government although they cynically invoke the founding fathers in much of their propaganda. These are people whose entire careers are based on the perpetuation of a spectacular lie, which is why they become so apoplectic whenever anyone threatens to expose the real Lincoln to the American public.

February 25, 2003

Thomas J. DiLorenzo is the author of the LRC #1 bestseller, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Forum/Random House, 2002) and professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland.

Copyright 2003 LewRockwell.com
(via rense.com)

U.S. Considers Conventional Warheads on Nuclear Missiles

Tim Hadley writes, "The New York Times reports that the U.S. Air Force Space Command is contemplating arming some of its intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional weapons. I imagine that an ICBM with an appropriately designed, guided, conventional re-entry vehicle could be a very effective rapid-delivery system. But remember, launching even one of these things sets off alarms all over the world. Talk about tooth-grinding anxiety as the Space Command tries to convince Beijing that, no, it's not nuking anybody, certainly not China, no, it's just delivering conventional weapons to North Korea, yes, really."

February 24, 2003
U.S. Considers Conventional Warheads on Nuclear Missiles
By ERIC SCHMITT (New York Times)

F. E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo. As the military girds for a protracted war against terrorists and the countries that support them, the Pentagon is considering converting some of its long-range, ground-based nuclear missiles into nonnuclear rockets that could be used to strike states like Iraq and North Korea on short notice.

The weapon would give the United States the ability to attack targets thousands of miles away with precision-guided, conventional high explosives in minutes, military officials said. Because of the missiles' speed, they would be able to pierce current air defenses and avoid putting American pilots at risk, they added.

Replacing nuclear warheads with conventional weapons on some of the nation's globe-girdling missiles is a proposal that is barely on the drawing board. The Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs will begin formally exploring the idea of converting some Minuteman III missiles this fall in a two-year review the military calls an "analysis of alternatives."

But senior Air Force and Pentagon officials are seriously weighing the proposal as part of a larger rethinking of the kind of deterrence and long-range attack weapons the military will need in the security environment that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"I'd be very, very surprised if 5, 10 years down the road, that we would not have a ballistic missile of some type with conventional munitions on board so that it could serve the nation's needs for a prompt global strike," said Maj. Gen. Timothy J. McMahon, commander of the 20th Air Force here, which runs and maintains the nation's silo-based arsenal of 500 long-range Minuteman III and 45 Peacekeeper nuclear missiles.

"If the nation decides that it wants to place at risk certain targets that emerge, and that if you need to strike those things in a very prompt manner 35 to 45 minutes a ballistic missile gives you that capability," General McMahon said. "It's basically long-range artillery. But the type of munition on board would be unlike any other artillery we've ever used."

General McMahon said the conventional warhead atop a long-range missile could be drawn from an array of high explosives or specialized payloads, including so-called bunker busters that attack targets buried deep underground.

Even without an explosive payload, the sheer force of impact of the missile's re-entry vehicle which moves at 14,000 feet per second would be highly destructive, the general said.

Arms control experts are wary of the military's proposal. Converting nuclear missiles to nonnuclear missiles would reduce the overall number of strategic weapons, but there would be no assurances that the military would not someday rearm the missiles with nuclear weapons, a move that other countries could follow.

"It could elicit a response from other missile powers, like China or Russia," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington.

Other political and diplomatic hurdles would have to be cleared. Pentagon officials say they expect that any long-range missiles with conventional arms would be counted under existing arms control agreements, including the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start.

The military has considered using Minuteman III missiles in a conventional role before, but the latest proposal comes as the Bush administration has overhauled its nuclear strategy to adapt to shifting world situations.

The Pentagon argues that in a world of unexpected threats and hostile states, it needs a broader array of nuclear and nonnuclear options.

Last March, details emerged from a secret Pentagon report, the Nuclear Posture Review, that addressed these issues. On the one hand, the report called for developing nuclear weapons that would be better suited for striking targets in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya, a shift away from cold war situations involving Russia.

But the Pentagon report also found that nonnuclear conventional weapons were becoming an increasingly important element of the military's arsenal, to be used in what planners call long-range global strikes. Now, the military depends on piloted Air Force and Navy bombers or unmanned cruise missiles fired from planes, ships or submarines to attack targets.

Strategists in the Air Force, Defense Department and the United States Strategic Command in Omaha are also using the report to mull over ways to convert the nation's nuclear arsenal into weapons that could be used to deter the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or destroy them on short notice.

"In many ways, we'd be taking a legacy of the cold war and adapting it in the direction the Nuclear Posture Review described," said a senior Defense Department official who follows nuclear policy closely.

The Bush administration has said that it plans to reduce strategic nuclear weapons to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the 6,000 or so nuclear weapons that the United States has now.

Here on the windswept high plains of southeastern Wyoming, the reductions are already under way. Beginning last fall, Air Force technicians started dismantling the Peacekeeper missiles, each armed with up to 10 nuclear warheads, as part of a nuclear-force reduction agreement that President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reached last year. The Peacekeepers will be deactivated over the next three years.

At the same time, the fleet of single-warhead Minuteman III's, stored in underground silos across Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota, is being modernized to improve accuracy and reliability.

While nuclear deterrence remains commanders' top priority, the new proposal could push the military's strategic operators in a different direction.

"It's quite possible that the conventional application of that kind of technology will be an attractive option for the future," said Gen. Lance W. Lord, commander of the Air Force Space Command. "How these plans will emerge and how combatant commanders will choose to use those is something we'll think about."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Facts about the "Happy Birthday to You" Song

Happy Birthday to You, the four-line ditty was written as a classroom greeting in 1893 by two Louisville teachers, Mildred J. Hill, an authority on Negro spirituals, and Dr. Patty Smith Hill, professor emeritus of education at Columbia University.

The melody of the song Happy Birthday to You was composed by Mildred J. Hill, a schoolteacher born in Louisville, KY, on June 27, 1859. The song was first published in 1893, with the lyrics written by her sister, Patty Smith Hill, as "Good Morning To All."

Happy Birthday to You was copyrighted in 1935 and renewed in 1963. The song was apparently written in 1893, but first copyrighted in 1935 after a lawsuit (reported in the New York Times of August 15, 1934, p.19 col. 6)

In 1988, Birch Tree Group, Ltd. sold the rights of the song to Warner Communications (along with all other assets) for an estimated $25 million (considerably more than a song). (reported in Time, Jan 2, 1989 v133 n1 p88(1)

In the 80s, the song Happy Birthday to You was believed to generate about $1 million in royalties annually. With Auld Lang Syne and For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, it is among the three most popular songs in the English language. (reported in Time, Jan 2, 1989 v133 n1 p88(1)

Happy Birthday to You continues to bring in approximately 2 million dollars in licensing revenue each year, at least as of 1996 accounting, according to Warner Chappell and a Forbes magazine article.

(via http://www.ibiblio.org/team/fun/birthday/)

Iraq: Is Peace an Option

Dr. George Friedman, Chairman and Founder of Stratfor writes, "For nearly a year, Iraq has been the centerpiece of U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy. There were multiple reasons for this obsession, but in the end, Bush created a situation in which Iraq became the measure of his administration. However, over the extraordinarily long run-up to a decisive confrontation with Baghdad, massive, global opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq has emerged on both the public and state levels. Creating the sort of coalition that the United States enjoyed in 1991 has become impossible. This war, if it comes, will be fought in the face of broad opposition. The question now has arisen as to whether the United States would back away from war in the face of this opposition. Our analysis is that, at this point in history, the United States has few choices left: The constraints that now surround U.S. policy indicate that Washington will have to choose war."

From: <>
Date: Tue Feb 25, 2003 6:44:59 PM America/Chicago
To: <>
Subject: Stratfor Weekly: Iraq: Is Peace an Option
Reply-To: <>

Here is your complimentary Stratfor Weekly, written by our
Chairman and Founder, Dr. George Friedman.

Please feel free to email this analysis to a friend.

Iraq: Is Peace an Option

Summary

For nearly a year, Iraq has been the centerpiece of U.S.
President George W. Bush's foreign policy. There were multiple
reasons for this obsession, but in the end, Bush created a
situation in which Iraq became the measure of his administration.
However, over the extraordinarily long run-up to a decisive
confrontation with Baghdad, massive, global opposition to U.S.
policy on Iraq has emerged on both the public and state levels.
Creating the sort of coalition that the United States enjoyed in
1991 has become impossible. This war, if it comes, will be fought
in the face of broad opposition. The question now has arisen as
to whether the United States would back away from war in the face
of this opposition. Our analysis is that, at this point in
history, the United States has few choices left: The constraints
that now surround U.S. policy indicate that Washington will have
to choose war.

Analysis

Over the past few weeks, the pressure against a U.S. attack on
Iraq has mounted intensely. Massive demonstrations were launched,
and nations that oppose war have not shifted their positions. But
the opposition is not decisive, in the sense that the United
States does not need the material assistance of anti-war nations
to invade Iraq, nor does the public barrage of opposition create
a material challenge to war. What these factors do is create is a
psychological barrier in which the sense of isolation has the
potential to undermine U.S. determination.

U.S. polls give some indication that this psychological dimension
is having some effect on Washington. The majority of Americans
continue to support a war, but the number is declining somewhat.
Moreover, the number of Americans who want to go to war only if
there military action is sanctioned by a U.N. resolution is quite
large. The essential position of the American public seems to be
that citizens favor war but would much prefer that military
action be internationally sanctioned. Now, polls are volatile: At
the beginning of a war, the numbers have historically shifted
toward overwhelming support for the president. For long years
during the Vietnam War, public opinion continued to support the
military action. Therefore, the Bush administration knows that
the poll numbers being seen now are sufficient to support a war.

However, two problems emerge. First, the political configuration
in Britain has deteriorated substantially over the last two
months, and Prime Minister Tony Blair is clearly signaling
intense political problems. Unlike other countries, Britain
provides substantial material support to the war effort, and loss
of that support would directly affect U.S. war-fighting
capabilities. The second problem is military: A quick U.S.
victory in Iraq would change the political equation domestically
and have a substantial effect globally, particularly if
casualties were minimal and occupation forces were to discover
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. However, there is no
way to guarantee any of these things. This war - like all wars -
potentially could be more difficult and costly than either side
expects or hopes.

Therefore, the United States must make a calculated risk. It is
possible that massive U.S. pressure might produce a shift within
the U.N. Security Council, but the basic configuration of global
opinion will remain intensely opposed to war. There is a high
probability of victory, but no commander can afford to begin a
war that he not only must win, but win quickly, cheaply and with
no nasty surprises. Therefore, the United States could find
itself in a more extended war than it seeks, with the
psychological pressure of global opposition reverberating through
the media. That is the last thing Washington wants.

It would seem to follow that the logical course for the United
States would be to find a basis for not going to war with Iraq.
Enough solutions are floating around in the world that Washington
could craft a suitably plausible justification for the decision
not to go to war, and perhaps even claim a victory of sorts.
Since the Bush administration appears to have lost the diplomatic
and psychological initiative gained after the Sept. 11 attacks,
this would seem the rational outcome.

In our view, this is not what the Bush administration is going to
do -- because it cannot afford to do so from either a strategic
or a political standpoint. There is no doubt within the Bush
administration that the protracted run-up to war has allowed
opposition to solidify, and that the international political
process leading up to war has become unmanageable. The decision
to use the threat of weapons of mass destruction, rather than the
deeper strategic issues we have been discussing to justify a war
has created unexpected problems. It was assumed that the presence
of WMD in Iraq would be generally recognized and regarded as a
problem that must be solved -- even if there was war. Instead, it
has turned the discussion of war into a detectives' game in which
some of the judges will not admit that a violation exists, even
when photos of a missile are distributed. At root, France, Russia
and the rest are not particularly concerned about Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction. They are deeply concerned, however, about
the strategic consequences of a U.S. victory in Iraq, which would
leave the United States the defining power in the region. These
countries oppose the strategic outcome of the war and are using
the publicly stated justification for military action -- WMD -- as
their reason to oppose war. Allowing the WMD issue to become the
touchstone was clearly a fundamental miscalculation by the
Washington.

Put another way, the opponents of war recognized the U.S. gambit
and, for reasons of grand strategy -- as well as some
idiosyncratic realities -- refuse to play.

Nevertheless, retreating from the commitment to war would
represent a serious challenge to the Bush administration in three
areas: strategy, psychological warfare and domestic politics. As
in a game of chess, many options appear to be available -- but
when the board is studied in detail, the constraints are much
more substantial and the options much more limited.

The strategic challenge is tremendous. After Sept. 11, the United
States did not have a war-fighting strategy. The strategy that
was first adopted -- a combination of defending the homeland and
attacking al Qaeda directly -- has proven difficult, if not
ineffective. Al Qaeda is a sparse, global network operating in a
target-rich environment. A defense of the homeland is simply
impractical; there are just too many potential targets and too
many ways to attack them. Attacking al Qaeda on an operative-by-
operative basis is possible but extremely inefficient. The
inability to capture -- or actually to locate -- Osama bin Laden
is emblematic of the challenges posed to the United States in any
dynamic, global conflict with a small, mobile group.

Washington's decision to redefine the conflict was driven by the
ineffectiveness of this response. The goal has been to compel
nations to crack down on citizens are enabling al Qaeda --
financially, through supplying infrastructure, intelligence and
so on. Many governments, like that of Saudi Arabia, had no
inclination to do so because the internal political consequences
were too dangerous and the threat from the United States too
distant and abstract. The U.S. strategy, therefore, was to
position itself in such a way that Washington could readjust
these calculations -- increasing cooperation and decreasing al
Qaeda's ability to operate.

Invading Iraq was a piece of this strategy. Iraq, the most
strategic country in the region, would provide a base of
operations from which to pressure countries like Syria, Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Iraq was a piece of the solution, but far from the
solution as a whole. Nevertheless, the conquest and occupation of
Iraq would be at once a critical stepping-stone, a campaign in a
much longer war and a proof of concept for dealing with al Qaeda.

If the United States does not invade Iraq, it will have to
generate a new war-fighting strategy against al Qaeda. The
problem for Washington is that it doesn't have another strategy,
except the homeland defense/global covert war strategy, which has
not proved clearly effective by itself since Sept. 11. If the
United States abandons the operation in Iraq, follow-on
operations against enabler of al Qaeda will be enormously more
difficult.

First, the key base of operations would not exist.

It should be noted here that the United States has deployed the
bulk of its mobile strike forces to the region. They cannot be
kept there indefinitely, due to threats elsewhere in the world.
Therefore, as they withdrew, profound political concerns would
emerge in countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman,
which have taken political and strategic risks to align
themselves with the United States. As Washington withdraws its
forces and Saddam Hussein continues to dominate Iraq, the
willingness of other nations to stand with the United States will
decline. The effect on U.S. allies in the region who have agreed
to participate in the war against Iraq will be substantial and
will reverberate for an extended period of time.

This is the second point: Coalition warfare relies heavily on
perceptions of reliability. During the Cold War, this was called
"credibility." Credibility is a two-edged sword: It can create
coalitions, and it also can cause nations to do things they don't
want to do in order to retain their credibility. Credibility must
be managed, but it is indispensable. A precipitous capitulation
would damage credibility seriously.

This leads to the second dimension: psychology. The credibility
of the threat posed by the United States will decline
substantially if there is no war. The calculation within the
Islamic world of whether al Qaeda or the United States is more to
be feared will solidify rapidly: Al Qaeda is a real threat to
regimes in the region; the United States is not. If Washington
abandons its war plans and Hussein is left in place, the
perception of the Islamic world will be that the United States
had neither the will nor the power to destroy its enemy. One of
the arguments that al Qaeda has made consistently is that the
United States is weak and that its troops will not endure
hardship and danger. It is this argument that has made bin
Laden's recruitment effective.

If the United States abandons war under the current conditions,
Hussein not only would be perceived as victorious, but also seen
as victorious because of a bodyguard of great powers that protect
him. It would be argued that these great powers oppose the United
States just as much as the Islamic world did. The United States
would be seen as having been strategically paralyzed by a global
alliance.

Thus, at a time when the United States is trying to reverse the
perception within the Islamic world that it is a militarily
ineffective power, mobilizing forces, deploying them to the
region, threatening war and then refraining from action would
have the opposite effect. Moreover, at a time when the United
States is less dependent on allies for war-fighting than at other
points in its history, the perception that would result would be
exactly the opposite.

The net result would be increased credibility both for Hussein
and Islamic radicals, who might have very different ideologies
but share common interests. There have been those who have argued
that recruitment for radical Islamic groups would grow in the
event of war against Iraq. That might be true. However, one of
the major bars to recruitment has been a sense that the radical
cause is hopeless. A U.S. abandonment of war at this point would
increase hope and therefore increase both ferment and
recruitment. Things that have appeared impossible now would
appear manageable, and risks that wouldn't be taken before could
be taken now. An abandonment of war, in our view, actually would
increase the probability of strikes by Islamic militants against
U.S. interests over the long run.

Finally, there is a domestic political consideration. All U.S.
presidents take these considerations into account when mulling
whether to fight -- or not to fight -- wars. All presidents keep
their eyes on the polls when making their decisions on war and
peace, and George W. Bush is no different. Bush is almost exactly
one year away from the Republican primaries. He is facing a
Democratic Party that thus far is still sorting itself out from
its mid-term election losses and a quiescent Republic Party.

If the president abandons his plans on Iraq and the Hussein
regime survives intact, Bush would lose a good portion of his
party, of which about 83 percent support the war option. There is
not much anti-war sentiment among Republicans, and the anti-war
movement is not going to endorse Bush -- but rather would make the
argument that it blocked Bush from making war. The net result
would be a challenge to Bush within the Republican Party,
probably from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who simply would argue
that Bush is too indecisive to be president. Even if he turned
back the challenge from McCain -- or someone else -- Bush would
be badly weakened in 2004. He cannot afford to be weak after
after his marginal and disputed victory in 2000. Therefore, for
Bush, the domestic consequences of not going to war would be
devastating: His opponents would get the credit for stopping the
war and his supporters would feel betrayed.

Bush's problem is that, for nearly a year, he has been talking
about the importance of the Iraq issue. He has made it the
centerpiece of his public diplomacy and of his domestic political
base. Iraq also represents the only coherent strategy that has
emerged from a politico-military standpoint since Sept. 11. It is
not a great strategy against al Qaeda, but it is the only
coherent strategic option on the table -- aside from waiting and
hoping that the next attack is foiled. It does not have an
immediate application, but it has a long-term application. It is
the best hand Bush has in a series of pretty bad hands.

Therefore, it is extremely difficult to imagine Bush simply
abandoning his policy on Iraq, or adopting a transparent pretense
of having achieved his goals. There was certainly a time when he
could have chosen to abandon the Iraq issue; there also was a
time when he could have attacked with much less public outcry.
Those times are past. He cannot walk away now, and he cannot
attack without an international uproar. The logic of his
situation is that he will attack, endure the uproar and let what
he badly hopes is a quick victory carry him over the hurdle.

Bush may wish at this point that he had not embarked on his
campaign against Iraq. Alternatively, he might wish that he had
acted sooner. However, given his strategic premises, diplomatic
realities and political interests, we continue to believe that
Bush will order an invasion of Iraq -- regardless of the
evolution of diplomatic events -- and that this attack will come
sooner rather than later.

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THIS YEAR, WE'RE COUNTING UNIQUE INVESTORS

"Stock prices are no longer tied to the number of unique visitors you have. Now investors have this little idea of being profitable." says Online-ad researcher Rex Briggs, on the dwindling significance of Web traffic counts, in The New York Times on 24 February 2003. (via ditherati)

PSYLOCYBE FANATICUS OWNER AND EMPLOYEES INDICTED

United States Attorney's Office, Western District of Washington, reports (For Immediate Release, February 25, 2003):

United States Attorney John McKay, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special-Agent-In-Charge John Bott, National Park Service (NPS) Acting Chief Ranger Tim Simonds, and United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Acting Inspector-in-Charge William P. Atkins announce today the Indictment of four Washington State residents for manufacturing and conspiring to manufacture psilocyn, a controlled substance, commonly found in hallucinogenic mushrooms. The Indictment in this case, returned by a Federal Grand Jury on February 22, 2003, charges ROBERT WILLIAM McPHERSON, age 56, the owner of Psylocybe Fanaticus, and his wife, MARGARET M. McPHERSON, age 48, both of Amanda Park, Washington; STEPHEN COGGIN, age 51, of Neilton, Washington; and JUDITH CHRISTINE KREIGH, age 47, of Amanda Park, Washington, with conspiracy to distribute psilocyn and the manufacture of psilocyn in Western Washington. The charges carry a maximum sentence of twenty years' imprisonment.

According to court records, the investigation of ROBERT McPHERSON and Psylocybe Fanaticus was prompted in September 1999, when law enforcement agents around the country received calls from concerned parents whose children had received packages from Psylocybe Fanaticus. Those packages contained syringes and instructions on how to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms. Psylocybe Fanaticus is a mail order business that sells hallucinogenic mushroom spores. ROBERT McPHERSON operated a website on the internet, WWW.FANATICUS.COM , and advertised in the High Times magazine to promote the sale of hallucinogenic mushroom spores. The website provides instructions on cultivating mushroom spores to manufacture a hallucinogenic strain of mushrooms. Psylocybe Fanaticus's web site and advertisement in High Times magazine state that the mushrooms grown with the spores will be magic mushrooms. The website also provides a first person description of the mental disorientation and physical sickness that results from eating hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Through the course of this investigation, agents learned that STEPHEN COGGIN and JUDITH KREIGH were employees of ROBERT McPHERSON and Psylocybe Fanaticus. STEPHEN COGGIN was responsible for picking up mail at a Post Office box in Seattle, Washington, addressed to Psylocybe Fanaticus. COGGIN lived at a residence in Neilton, Washington, owned by the McPHERSONs. Incoming mail addressed to Psylocybe Fanaticus was also received at a Post Office box in Amanda Park, Washington, where it was picked up by ROBERT McPHERSON and JUDITH KREIGH. ROBERT McPHERSON, JUDITH KREIGH, and STEPHEN COGGIN were also sending out packages on a daily basis at the Post Office in Amanda Park. Law enforcement agents believe that the packages contained hallucinogenic mushroom spores and material to grow them and were sent in response to orders placed with Psylocybe Fanaticus.

On July 17, 2000, the DEA, utilizing an undercover return address, placed an order for mushroom spores through Psylocybe Fanaticus's Post Office box address at Amanda Park. On July 31, 2000, the DEA received a package containing five plastic syringes each containing clear liquid with small particles (spores) floating within the liquid. The package also contained two books on cultivating "magic mushrooms" with the contents in the syringes. In February 2001, the DEA sent another order to Psylocybe Fanaticus and received another two syringes with spores in a liquid substance. The spores were grown according to the books which accompanied the syringes and instructions on the WWW.FANATICUS.COM website and the agent was able to produce several crops of mushrooms. The DEA laboratory confirmed the presence of psilocyn, a Schedule I controlled substance, in the mushrooms.

ROBERT McPHERSON was arrested on February 18, 2003, at his Amanda Park residence when agents executed a search warrant. Inside the residence was a mushroom growing operation with live mushrooms. After being advised of his constitutional rights, ROBERT McPHERSON admitted that he was growing the mushrooms for his mushroom spore business. On February 21, 2003, United States Magistrate Judge J. Kelley Arnold ordered ROBERT McPHERSON permanently detained pending trial. The arraignment of ROBERT McPHERSON on the Indictment is scheduled for March 5, 2003, before Magistrate Judge Arnold.

STEPHEN COGGIN's Neilton, Washington, residence was also searched on February 18, 2003. COGGIN was not present during the search, but was subsequently arrested. Agents found supplies of syringes and other mushroom growing equipment sent out by Psylocybe Fanaticus to customers to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms. COGGIN was arraigned on the Indictment on February 21, 2003. He was released on bond pending trial. A trial date for COGGIN is scheduled for April 21, 2003, before United States District Court Judge Robert J. Bryan.

The arraignment of JUDITH KREIGH and MARGARET McPHERSON is scheduled for Thursday, February 27, 2003, at 12:00 p.m., before United States Magistrate Judge Arnold at the Union Station Courthouse in Tacoma, Washington.

The Indictment is based on a joint investigation by agents and investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle, National Park Service, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

Members of the public are reminded that an Indictment contains only a charge. The defendants are presumed innocent of the charge and it will be the government's burden to prove a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

For further information, please contact John Hartingh, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, at ; Doug Whalley, Assistant United States Attorney, at ; or Ye-Ting Woo, Assistant United States Attorney, at .

Forever Young by Alphaville

Let's dance in style, lets dance for a while
Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music's for the sad men

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders we're getting in tune
The music's played by the mad men

Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever, forever and ever
Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever Forever young

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
why don't they stay young

It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a fleeing horse
Youth's like diamonds in the sun
and diamonds are forever

So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
We let them come true

Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever, forever and ever
Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever, forever and ever

Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever

The Great Duct Tape Conspiracy

Boing Boing reports on an, "interesting Washington Post story stating that 46% of all duct tape sold in the USA is manufactured by an Ohio-based company whose founder donated over $100,000 in the 2000 election campaign cycle to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees."

His son, John Kahl, who became CEO after his father stepped down shortly after the election, told CNBC last week that "we're seeing a doubling and tripling of our sales, particularly in certain metro markets and around the coasts and borders." The plant has "gone to a 24/7 operation, which is about a 40 percent increase" over this time last year, Kahl said. The company had more than $300 million in sales in 2001.

And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge keeps pushing the product. "You may want to have a safe shelter for four or six hours," he told PBS's Jim Lehrer on Wednesday, "until . . . the chemical plume moves on." So "you may need that duct tape."

The GOP Home Shopping Network
By Al Kamen
Friday, February 21, 2003; Page A25

That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland Security official -- which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy the product -- has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy.

But maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half -- 46 percent to be precise -- of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle Would that be more than $100,000

His son, John Kahl, who became CEO after his father stepped down shortly after the election, told CNBC last week that "we're seeing a doubling and tripling of our sales, particularly in certain metro markets and around the coasts and borders." The plant has "gone to a 24/7 operation, which is about a 40 percent increase" over this time last year, Kahl said. The company had more than $300 million in sales in 2001.

And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge keeps pushing the product. "You may want to have a safe shelter for four or six hours," he told PBS's Jim Lehrer on Wednesday, "until . . . the chemical plume moves on." So "you may need that duct tape."

Even if you don't want to suffocate in a shelter, there are myriad uses for the sticky stuff. The March Consumer Reports on Health newsletter hails a new study "indicating that simply covering warts with duct tape . . . works significantly better than the common chemical freezing therapy. "It's worth trying," the newsletter says.

Clearly not useless. And crazy Like a fox. Wonder who manufactures all that plastic sheeting.

96 Dead in Fire Ignited at Rhode Island Club

Sparks from Great White's pyrotechnics display appeared to ignite soundproofing. (WPRI-TV, via Associated Press)

PAM BELLUCK and PAUL von ZIELBAUER (New York Times) write, "WEST WARWICK, R.I., Feb. 21 — A raging fire ignited by a rock band's pyrotechnics display ripped through a nightclub here late Thursday night, leaving at least 96 people dead and 187 injured."

The inferno at a club called the Station was the deadliest nightclub fire in the United States in 25 years and one of the worst in the country's history, with the death toll exceeding that of the 1990 Happy Land social club fire in the Bronx, which killed 87.

Survivors described a ghastly scene that began when the heavy metal band Great White lighted pyrotechnic cones on stage minutes after its concert began around 11 p.m. and a shower of white sparks appeared to ignite foam sound-proofing material that lined walls near the stage. The authorities said the fire spread almost instantly to paneling and a low-hanging suspended ceiling.

Numerous witnesses said the building was almost instantly engulfed in flames and patrons bolted for doorways and smashed windows. People raced and clambered outside with their hair and flesh on fire.

"People were bleeding, their hair was being burned off, their skin was just melting off, skin was just dangling," said Christopher Travis, 33, a construction worker from Lakeville, Mass., who was in the club. "You could smell flesh burning even when I was inside."

West Warwick's fire chief, Charles Hall, said the club had been inspected two months ago. But he said that neither the club nor the band appeared to have obtained the necessary town or state fire permits for a pyrotechnics display. The band's lead singer said the club had been informed that such a display was planned, but the club's owners and employees insisted they were never told about the sparklers.

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri said officials, including the state attorney general, local police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, were investigating to see whether anyone should be held responsible for the fire.

Mr. Carcieri, who cut short a working vacation in Florida to return to Rhode Island today, said it appeared that about 350 people were in the club, which had a capacity of 300.

Investigators said most of the victims had either been burned to death or died of smoke inhalation, though some may have been trampled in the rush to escape. Some bodies were so charred that officials were having trouble making identification and planned to use DNA samples and other methods. Names of the victims were not being released this evening because many family members had not been notified, officials said.

The fire came just four days after 21 people were killed in a stampede at a Chicago nightclub after security guards used pepper spray to break up a fight.

It was clear that the fire had dealt a horrific blow to Rhode Island, a state that often sees itself as one close-knit community. Countless state residents had some connection to people who had been in the club in this former textile mill town of 30,000 about 15 miles southwest of Providence.

"People say, In the world it's six degrees of separation," said the attorney general, Patrick Lynch. "In Rhode Island, it's probably a degree and a half."

All day, as the death toll climbed and rescuers used cranes to lift the blackened debris and look for bodies, friends and relatives showed up at the ravaged hulk that was the Station looking for people they knew or thought had been at the show.

George Guindon, 35, a house painter who was at the club on Thursday night and was burned on his head, hand and leg, returned to the Station this afternoon searching for a close friend, Matt Darby, a man whose wife is nine months pregnant, who he feared had not survived.

"I'm hoping he got out and has amnesia or something and is just walking around somewhere," Mr. Guindon said.

Mr. Guindon described his escape: "The flames were over my head, coming through the bar. I figure I had two choices: make a run for it or stay and die. I jumped over the bar and ran toward the wall, hoping I'd hit a window and not the wall.

"I ran across the street and into the snow. I looked back and saw people coming out. One guy, he already looked dead. He said, `Don't touch me.' He had no face."

Donna Miele, 40, showed up to look for her brother and his wife, Michael and Sandy Hoogasian. Ms. Miele said that her brother, a longtime Great White fan, had not been able to get tickets to the show. But on Thursday afternoon, he happened to be in a tattoo parlor getting a tattoo of a flame when he noticed the band's lead singer getting a tattoo as well.

Mr. Hoogasian, 31, was thrilled when he was invited to see the performance as the band's guest, Ms. Miele said. Now, with a tear-stained face, Ms. Miele described how she had called all the hospitals and could not find her brother and sister-in-law on any of the lists.

"This is so much pain," she said, "more pain than I've ever known."

At the hospitals, 81 people had been admitted by this afternoon and 25 were in critical condition, the authorities said.

Liz Arruda, 23, a waitress from New Bedford, Mass., suffered second-degree burns over 30 percent of her body, mostly on her back, which was struck by a piece of burning roof. The rubber soles of her sneakers melted into the floor and she escaped after a friend picked her up and threw her over a crowd of people and out the club's back door.

Ms. Arruda's mother, Dorothy Burt, visited her this afternoon in the burn unit at Rhode Island Hospital. The hospital ward, filled with nearly 40 fire victims, was "like a battle zone," Ms. Burt said. "You see people literally without faces."

Doctors gave some of the more critical patients a 40 percent to 50 percent chance of survival.

Among those missing was a guitarist for Great White, Ty Longley.

There were conflicting reports about whether the club was told that Great White was planning to ignite pyrotechnics.

The band's lead singer, Jack Russell, said in an interview today in the Crowne Plaza hotel, where families of the victims have been gathering, that the band had notified the club about its plans. "We had permission," Mr. Russell said. "We never have not had permission."

But the club's owners, Michael and Jeffrey Derderian, issued a statement today through their lawyer, Kathleen M. Hagerty, saying: "At no time did either owner have prior knowledge that pyrotechnics were going to be used by the band Great White. No permission was ever requested by the band or its agents to use pyrotechnics at the Station, and no permission was ever given."

Also today, several nightclubs where Great White had performed recently, said they had not been given notice that the band planned to use pyrotechnics.

Domenic Santana, the owner of the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., said no one at the club was told about the pyrotechnic equipment for a show on Feb. 14. Mr. Santana said other details were stipulated in the contract, "from towels to the number of yellow M&M's they want."

He said that when the sparks began to fly, "our stage manager reacted right away and went onstage and told their tour manager: " `What are you doing You can't be doing this.' " Security workers smothered the devices, he said.

A lawyer for Russell's nightclub in Bangor, Me., said Great White did not tell club management that it planned to use the sparklers in a show on Tuesday night.

But at other clubs like Shark City in Glendale Heights, Ill., and at Don Hill's in New York, where Great White was scheduled to play this week until the show was canceled because of snow, managers said the band had asked for permission for pyrotechnics but was turned down.

The Station, which has gone through several incarnations over at least five decades as a hangout for World War II sailors on leave, an Italian restaurant in the 1970's, and a nightclub since the early 1990's had been inspected just two months ago as part of its liquor-license renewal process, Chief Hall said. He said that some violations were found in the inspection, but that they had been corrected. The club was not large enough to require a sprinkler system, the chief said.

The Derderians have owned the club since March 2000. Jeffrey Derderian is a television reporter recently hired by WPRI in Providence. On Thursday night, he and a cameraman were apparently preparing a report on nightclub safety in light of the Chicago club stampede.

The fire generated reaction in at least one other state today when Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts announced that he would form a task force to help fire officials inspect every nightclub in the state.

Mario Giamei, 38, a former bouncer for the Station for years who was there Thursday night as a patron, said "this particular management was the best equipped to put a lot of resources in the club."

Mr. Giamei returned to the club this afternoon hoping to hear word of four employees and the wife of a fifth who had been at work on Thursday.

Great White was popular on the heavy metal circuit in the 1980's. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for best hard rock performance in 1990 for its song "Once Bitten, Twice Shy."

Fans at Thursday night's performance, which came in a week when many students were on vacation, ranged from 16 to their 40's, doctors who treated some survivors said. The show was heavily promoted, especially by a disc jockey called Dr. Metal, who was apparently at the club on Thursday night.

Several patrons said they were not surprised to see the sparklers and did not immediately realize that the fire was out of control.

"Sometimes you see it happen where the wall will catch on fire, but then it will go out," said Brandon Fravala, 24, a truck driver from Westerly, R.I.

In an interview with WHDH television in Boston, Mr. Russell said that when the fire started, he was "standing in the sparklers like I always do."

"It's not a hot flame," he said. "The next thing I felt this heat, so I turned around and I see that some of the foam's on fire."

Mr. Russell said he poured a glass of water on the fire, but it was too late. "Then I was waiting for someone with a fire extinguisher to show up, and nobody showed up. So I started hustling people out the door."

The owners' statement said Jeffrey Derderian also helped some of the patrons out of the building.

Fire officials said that, although there were four doors in the club, many of the patrons tried to rush out the front door. But Chief Hall said the majority of bodies were found clustered in restrooms and other corners and pockets, suggesting that people might have tried to break out of windows in those out-of-the-way areas.

Governor Carcieri said rescue crews got out as many as 100 people.

Today, as each body was unearthed, rescue workers paused and removed their hats, as fire department chaplains led them in prayer.

"They are going through a nightmare," Governor Carcieri said of the rescuers. "This is a very agonizing, emotional, draining effort."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Explosion Sparks Massive Fire at Refinery on Staten Island

Plumes of fire and smoke were visible throughout the New York area after an explosion near an oil refinery in Staten Island. (Associated Press)

New York Times Staff and Wire Reports said, "The explosion, which could be heard several miles away, occurred at the edge of Port Mobile, near the Outerbridge Crossing that links the island to Woodbridge, N.J., in the southwestern part of Staten Island, said a spokeswoman for the Staten Island borough office."

An explosion rocked an oil storage facility at the edge of Staten Island, sending black smoke and flames hundreds of feet into the air.

"We have a preliminary report that a tanker was transferring a product or was being fueled and somehow ignited," Fire Department Chief William Van Wart said.

It wasn't immediately clear whether any of the dozens of oil tanks at the ExxonMobil storage facility burned.

"We have reports that one employee was injured and has been taken to the hospital," said an Exxon Mobil official. "Two others that were on the barge are unaccounted for."

FBI spokesman Steve Kodak in Newark, N.J., said there was no indication of terrorism. However, FBI officials in Washington said they were still examining it because a refinery is the type of infrastructure terrorists might target.

The Department of Homeland Security "is closely monitoring the situation with local state authorities and other federal agencies as well as assisting in the coordination of the response," said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

The explosion, which could be heard several miles away, occurred at the edge of Port Mobile, near the Outerbridge Crossing that links the island to Woodbridge, N.J., in the southwestern part of Staten Island, said a spokeswoman for the Staten Island borough office.

It was reported shortly after 10 a.m., according to a spokeswoman for the New York Fire Department.

City officials said residents were not in immediate danger.

"At this point, people should not take any special precautions. It's unlikely this could spread to a residential area," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said shortly after the fire was reported.

Sgt. Charles McDevitt of the Woodbridge, N.J. police department said the fire "poses no hazard to the New Jersey side of the river."

However, Mr. McDevitt said that as a precaution, residents living in about 50 to 75 homes located directly across the Arthur Kill were being evacuated from the fire scene.

He said 14-16 officers and the Woodbridge fire department have been dispatched to the scene.

The explosion rattled investor nerves already skittish over a looming war in Iraq, sending the benchmark Dow Jones industrial average down almost 0.8 percent to a session low 7,854.38.

The Dow later recouped its losses, rising about 0.3 percent as fears the explosion was set off deliberately subsided.

Keith Keenan, vice president of institutional trading at brokerage Wall Street Access, said the fire "had a lot of people on edge" in the market.

"It appears the market initially dipped pretty strongly, and I think now people recognize that it might be just a fire," Keenan said. "Obviously, the knee-jerk reaction is that it's terrorism."

U.S. crude oil futures soared more than $1 a barrel after reports of the fire. April crude traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped to an intraday high of $35.95 a barrel, surging $1.21.

Economy Is Tough All Over, but in New York, It's Horrid

Michael Amodeo, on the ladder, auctioning the contents of [Agency.com's] cafeteria. (Justin Lane for The New York Times)

Leslie Eaton (New York Times) wrties, " That is the fate of the former cafeteria in the skyscraper, one reason the equipment had to be auctioned — to get it out of the way of potential tenants.

But also on display at that auction were the optimism and determination that New Yorkers like to think characterize them as much as their gift for complaining does. Despite the poor economy, several bidders were planning to open new bars or restaurants in the city.

One was Aricka Westbrooks, 32, of Brooklyn. Until about a year and a half ago, Ms. Westbrooks had one of those "only in New York" careers that combined fashion, public relations and the Internet. But after she was laid off — twice — she decided to go into business for herself, she said.

So, if all goes well, she will soon open a takeout restaurant in Brooklyn called Jive Turkey (after the house specialty, which will be deep-fried).

It is not at all what she expected when she moved to New York City seven years ago, she said, but she has no intention of moving back to Chicago.

"Never that," she said firmly. "Never, ever, that."

They Spoke About It

[That] reminds me of a very famous two-part French cartoon (ca. 1896 or so) in regards to the infamous Dreyfus affair. The first cartoon depicts a very fancy french dinner table with distinguished guests, women in their finerie, wigged servants behind each guest pouring wine. The caption under the cartoon says "Ils n'en ont pas parle" [They did not speak of it.] The second cartoon shows the same dinner table, but the guests are no where to be seen, the chairs overturned, the glasses broken, the candelabra crushed, the food spilled and spoilt. The caption read "Ils en ont parle" [THEY spoke about IT.] Draw (no pun intended) your own conclusions.

-- Albert Knapp MD Photo.net Patron, February 18, 2003; 06:41 P.M. Eastern

Seoul Subway Fire

Ambulance passes by an air escape near a subway station in Taegu, about 320 km (200 miles) southeast of Seoul February 18, 2003. Fifteen people died, 128 were injured and more than a dozen feared trapped underground on Tuesday in a suspected arson attack on a subway train in South Korea's third-largest city, officials said. KOREA OUT NO ARCHIVES NO RESALES REUTERS/Yeongnam Ilbo

21 Taras: Joan Bredin-Price

Tara of the Scented Forest

Tibet House presents, "21 Taras: Joan Bredin-Price" from February 18 to March 21, 2003. The opening reception is February 18, 6:00-8:00 P.M.

Joan Bredin-Price gives her Western interpretation of the text of the Tibetan tantra, 21 Verses in Praise of Tara, in colorful and finely detailed paintings that will be on exhibit at Tibet House from February 17 through March 21. The opening reception is on February 18 from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

The 21 works combine gouache, collage and paper inlay and range in size from 18-by-24 to 30-by-34 inches. Each painting, Bredin-Price says, is based on a verse in The Jewel Commentary in the 21 Verses in Praise of Tara by the first Dalai Lama, as translated by Glen Mullin.

The artist, who lives in New Salem, Mass., says her 20 years of Buddhist practice have focused on Tara. "Each image was inspired by a verse of the text and, while maintaining the traditional stance of Green Tara, also reflects my personal experience," she says. "The paintings are a Western vision of traditional subject matter."

Tara, a female Buddha and meditational deity, is the best-known goddess in the Buddhist pantheon. She is considered the goddess of universal compassion who represents virtuous and enlightened activity. The Green Tara is the goddess's most dynamic manifestation, symbolizing youthful vigor and activity.

Bredin-Price's published art includes the January 2001 and December 2000 covers of Wisdom magazine and an illustration for the October 2000 SageWaman magazine. Her painting, "Drawing down the Moon," was in Return of the Great Goddess, published by the Shambhala Press.

Disaster on Michigan Avenue

Katrina Douglas (left) and Lakesha Wilson stand outside the [E2] club, looking for information about Wilson's cousin Nichole Rainey. (AP photo by M. Spencer Green)

The Chicago Tribune reports, "There was a great deal of talk in recent days about the rising prospects for a calamity at home. It was anticipated--to the extent anyone can anticipate the advent of chaos--that this would be the handiwork of terrorism. We were supposed, somehow, to prepare for it."

"Nobody, nobody, could have prepared for this: Chicago suffered a breathtaking calamity early Monday morning that started on a hot, crowded second-floor dance club on South Michigan Avenue. At least 21 people were killed, dozens more injured, in the pandemonium that was apparently triggered by the efforts to quell a fight."

And as the details gradually emerged through the day, as the history of the place called E2 became public knowledge, it made you want to spit one question:

Why in the world wasn't this place padlocked, lights out, closed for business

City officials said there was a court order intended to shut the place down. There was a history of building code violations. There had been trips to court over the last several months. There had been scores of incidents that had prompted police to respond over the last three years.

And yet the doors were open, the crowd was huge, the owners were packing people in for a big night.

According to some reports, the panic at the nightclub started when security personnel used pepper spray to break up the fight between patrons. The spray made it hard to breathe.

Gasping for air, hundreds and hundreds of patrons thronged for the exits. The only clear path to fresh air was down a staircase to the glass front doors, which quickly became jammed by the crush of the crowd. In their panic, people tripped or fell or were pushed in the stampede and some of those on the bottom of this deadly pile died.

Many people in Chicago are grieving today for family and friends who went out for a night on the town and got trapped in a disaster. And many people are going to wonder by what confluence of calculations and decisions and grievous mistakes this disaster happened. Why were some exits blocked or locked Did security guards understand that the use of pepper spray to subdue unruly patrons in a crowded, closed place would surely cause panic

All pale beside one question: Why was this place open for business

"The owner knows damn well that he is not to open that second floor facility," Fire Commissioner James Joyce said. We appreciate Commissioner's Joyce's outrage. Would that Chicago had been so emphatic with the owners of E2 before early Monday night.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

Skier in Times Square

A cross county skier passes through the nearly deserted streets of Times Square in New York early February 17, 2003 as a winter storm pounded the northeast United States. The storm was expected to leave 18 to 22 inches of snow in New York City, which had 1,300 plows and 148,000 tons of salt ready to clear streets. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Photography and Politics

Dave Jenkins writes, "Steichen said, near the end of his long and distinguished career, "The function of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. That is no mean function."

Documentary photography, with which the Leica camera has been most closely associated throughout its history, is about human beings and their doings. One cannot delve very far at all into the doings of human beings without running up against politics and religion, because they are two of the principal motivators of human action. It is disingenuous to think that photography can be divorced from these two great motivators.

From earliest times, many of the great photographers have been people who have had a point of view and have used photography to express it. In fact, it would be safe to say that is usually the reason they are regarded as great photographers. Their points of view have invariably been molded by politics and/or religion (or the lack of it, which is a religion of its own).

We must recognize and respect the power of political ideas in the work of other photographers, even if we do not ourselves espouse those beliefs. For example, I suspect that Rob Appleby and I are political opposites. But I respect the fact that he has a definite point of view and uses his photography to present it very effectively. I would hope to do as well in advancing my own point of view.

We may proclaim ourselves apolitical and may deeply wish to be so, yet, we cannot excape politics. It is integral to all human endeavor, photography not excepted. Instead of being contentious and flaming every one whose beliefs vary a hair's breadth from our own, let's use our cameras to express our own points of view about what's right and what's wrong, and what is valuable. Democracy thrives in the free marketplace of ideas, and truth will ultimately prevail even though it may be wilfully held down."

A New Power in the Streets

Patrick E. Tyler (New York Times) writes, "WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion."

"In his campaign to disarm Iraq, by war if necessary, President Bush appears to be eyeball to eyeball with a tenacious new adversary: millions of people who flooded the streets of New York and dozens of other world cities to say they are against war based on the evidence at hand."

Mr. Bush's advisers are telling him to ignore them and forge ahead, as are some leading pro-war Republicans. Senator John McCain, for one, said today that it was "foolish" for people to protest on behalf of the Iraqi people, because the Iraqis live under Saddam Hussein "and they will be far, far better off when they are liberated from his brutal, incredibly oppressive rule."

That may be true, but it fails to answer the question that France, Germany and other members of the Security Council have posed: What is the urgent rationale for war now if there is a chance that continued inspections under military pressure might accomplish the disarmament of Iraq peacefully

The fresh outpouring of antiwar sentiment may not be enough to dissuade Mr. Bush or his advisers from their resolute preparations for war. But the sheer number of protesters offers a potent message that any rush to war may have political consequences for nations that support Mr. Bush's march into the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.

This may have been the reason that foreign ministers for 22 Arab nations, meeting in Cairo today, called on all Arab countries to "refrain from offering any kind of assistance or facilities for any military action that leads to the threat of Iraq's security, safety and territorial integrity."

War, like politics, is affected by psychology and momentum. The strong surge in momentum the Bush administration felt after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's Feb. 5 presentation to the Security Council on the case for war has been undermined by at least four converging negatives.

The most obvious is the rupture in relations between Mr. Bush and some of his principal partners in Europe: France and Germany, now joined by Russia, China and a growing list of other countries. Just weeks ago, it seemed that Mr. Bush was successfully coaxing France and Germany into the war camp, especially after one of the chief United Nations weapons inspectors, Hans Blix, delivered a negative report on Jan. 27 on Iraqi compliance.

But the swell of popular opposition to war across Europe, the second negative, plus the corrosive effects of the hawkish jibes that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have hurled across the Atlantic, have only roiled the waters further. Washington discovered just how deeply Western unity had been sundered when it asked for defensive NATO deployments to Turkey to protect that front-line state from Iraqi intimidation — a request that brought opposition and contentious debate that were resolved today.

The Security Council meeting on Friday that was to be the penultimate step in laying the groundwork for war, instead produced two significant negatives. Giving his latest report, Mr. Blix indicated that the inspectors were making noteworthy progress in forcing Iraq to make concessions on everything from allied surveillance flights to giving inspectors greater access to Iraqi weapons scientists. Mr. Blix said Iraq was still not cooperating like a state that truly wanted to disarm, but there had been progress, he said.

The implication was that Mr. Blix saw the virtue of taking more time, though he did not specifically ask for it. But neither was he ready to tell the Security Council that inspections had failed as a tool for disarmament.

In another negative, Mr. Powell's performance on Friday appeared to fall short of public expectations that he would demonstrate that the threat posed by Iraq under Mr. Hussein was so imminent that the only logical response was war as soon as possible.

Mr. Powell promised new intelligence on connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but then did not provide it, at least within public view. And he did not respond to Mr. Blix when the arms inspector challenged one point of the American intelligence briefing of Feb. 5.

Mr. Blix pointed out that the satellite images Mr. Powell brought before the Council were shot two weeks apart and did not necessarily show Iraqi deception. A chemical decontamination truck is present in one photo and not the other. "Routine" movements were also a possible explanation, Mr. Blix pointed out, and Mr. Powell nodded.

Though Mr. Powell was nimble as ever in his extemporaneous remarks, the one thing that his presentation did not provide the Security Council was an answer to the question that hung over the body: Why war now

To the rest of the world, it might have seemed necessary that Washington provide an answer, if only to respond to the argument of the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin. He placed an alternative logic before the Security Council: Could anyone argue that immediate war would be shorter and more effective in disarming Iraq than continued United Nations inspections under the threat of force

It didn't help Mr. Bush or Mr. Powell that the French said their intelligence agencies found no support for the American claim of a strong connection between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden's terrorism network. It also did not help that Mr. Powell's appearance on Friday came just days after Prime Minister Tony Blair's latest intelligence white paper was found to have been plagiarized from Internet sources.

As if to defy the deteriorating support for immediate war, Mr. Bush's advisers warned against playing "into Saddam Hussein's hands," as Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said on Fox News Sunday this morning.

But the more senior members of Mr. Bush's team, especially Mr. Powell, live in the shadow of Vietnam, where their careers began and out of which they brought a determination not to take the country into war without strong public support. Given Mr. Hussein's record, the actions of Iraq over the next few weeks could conceivably resurrect that support and reverse the negative psychology and loss of momentum that the Bush administration suffered this week.

For the moment, an exceptional phenomenon has appeared on the streets of world cities. It may not be as profound as the people's revolutions across Eastern Europe in 1989 or in Europe's class struggles of 1848, but politicians and leaders are unlikely to ignore it. The Arab states' declaration in Cairo seems proof of that.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Rocket Man

(I Think It's Going To Be A Long Long Time)

Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Available on the album Honky Château

She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It's lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it's cold as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time...

1..2..3..4..

Overheard on the streets: "One.. Two.. Three.. Four... Bush and Dick; Make Love Not War!"

ASCII Heart

      _____           _____

  ,ad8PPPP88b,     ,d88PPPP8ba,

 d8P"      "Y8b, ,d8P"      "Y8b

dP'           "8a8"           `Yd

8(              "              )8

I8                             8I

 Yb,                         ,dP

  "8a,                     ,a8"

    "8a,                 ,a8"

      "Yba             adP"

        `Y8a         a8P'

          `88,     ,88'

            "8b   d8"  Normand

             "8b d8"   Veilleux

              `888'

                "

The Last Roundup

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

--- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Edgar J. Steele writes:
(2-12-03)

A little over a year ago, when the alarm bells first went off in my head about the current federal administration, I started joking that I longed for the day when I was merely embarrassed by a President who couldn't keep his pants zipped. I honestly didn't believe that Bush, Ashcroft, Cheney,

Rumsfield and company were evil or that ultimately they would do anything to endanger us - from either within or without the country. I thought they were pretty much just overzealous boy scouts.

I'm not sure whether it was Churchill or Roosevelt who said of national politics: Nothing is as it seems. I do believe it was Roosevelt, however, in a moment of weakness, who said that all national and international incidents and outcomes are scripted.


I was naive. I am no longer joking about Clinton, either. Ashcroft is evil incarnate. So are Cheney, Rumsfield and the rest of them.

I'm still inclined to give Bush a pass, but only because I think he lacks the mental capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. In the legal field, we call it the insanity defense. Even so, I'm one of those rare lawyers who thinks the insanity defense should only moderate the penalty, not the conviction, so Bush the Second goes on the docket with the rest of them, in my book.

I saw Bill Clinton talking on TV last night and was amazed to find myself feeling somewhat kindly toward him. You just don't know what you have until you lose it, as they say. Yes, Clinton was a disgrace. Yes, Clinton was a crook. But I didn't feel my family to be threatened by him, either directly or indirectly, as a result of his foreign policy, as I do with Bush and company.

I didn't vote for either Bush or Gore this last election. Previously, I would have felt fine pulling the lever for Bush, like so many others, feeling that I had selected the lesser of two evils. The problem with doing that, of course, is that one still chooses evil. Think about that for a moment. I suspect that most of the people reading this right now did that very thing after closing the curtain on the voting booth. We have only ourselves to blame for what is now unfolding. Possibly the US Supreme Court, too, given what they pulled regarding the Florida vote.

We all know of the danger that America faces today as a result of the buildup of forces in and around Iraq. We all know of Bush's failure to articulate a single defensible rationale for attacking Iraq, too. Incredibly, many Americans seem to think that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11.

What so many seem to be ignoring is the danger presented by our cavalier dealings with North Korea.

We are literally on the verge of World War III, folks. It just takes a spark from one of the many powderkegs that Bush and company have emplaced around the world. The big difference from the last two major wars is that this time we are going to start it. You have heard them talking about preemptive strikes - on both Iraq and North Korea. You have heard them talk about even using nukes in those preemptive strikes, haven't you

Probably doesn't matter, because we are rapidly eliminating any options for Iraq and North Korea, so that they will feel compelled to attack, just as we literally forced Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor. And that completely ignores Al Quaeda and Osama bin Laden (Osama who).

Even in Britain and Australia, now, the two countries that have been our most ardent supporters concerning Iraq, there is arising a huge cry against America's warmongering. You would be able to hear it from the streets of America, too, if the media were not so tightly controlled. We are walking this path alone. Well, not counting Israel, of course, for whom all this began, in the first place.

The Facts We literally have become the most hated nation on the planet and that is why, when the fireworks begin, a goodly amount of them will go off in American cities. Bush and company are well aware of this. Obviously, they consider America's impending casualties to be "acceptable losses."

Think of your children in that category - Bush and Ashcroft do.

The inevitable disruption in America to be caused by those strikes will lead to massive civil chaos and unrest. Thus, the need for Homeland Security and the ill-named Patriot Act. Those weren't implemented to protect us, you see, they were designed to control us when the time comes.

Thus, the emphasis on domestic "terrorists." Seeing one's family butchered will make a terrorist of anybody - just ask the Palestinians.

Matt Hale

It isn't being reported in the media, but there is a roundup taking place of those deemed most likely to lead insurrections against the American government in a time of civil disturbance. The most visible arrest lately has been that of Matt Hale, head of the World Church of the Creator, taken down on what appear to be manufactured charges of soliciting the murder of a judge sitting on a copyright case in which his organization has been involved (and which, incredibly enough, resulted in a judicial order that the church's bibles be destroyed).


Hardly anybody agrees with or approves of Hale. Most dismiss his church as being no church at all, but merely an excuse to vent racial hatred. That is not the point. Hale vehemently disagrees with the policies of the American government and that is the point. Hale is being held in solitary confinement, with virtually nobody allowed to see him and all letters to him being returned, a la the Patriot Act. They are treating him as a domestic terrorist.

Ernst Zundel

Picked up just last week: Ernst Zundel, Canadian expatriate who has been living in Tennessee. Zundel was central to a notable hate speech trial in Canada, which he lost when the court ruled that he illegally was a "Holocaust denier," because he took issue, in writing, with many of the claims made by jews concerning the Holocaust. It didn't matter that he proved his points to be correct. What mattered was that he disagreed with the Canadian government. What matters now is that he disagrees with the American government regarding many things, though he really watches his step. His misstep He missed a visa hearing of which he swears he never received notice.

Christine Greenwood

A lady named Christine Greenwood was recently arrested in Southern California. Greenwood ran something called the Aryan Baby Drive, which collected children's clothing for distribution for free, solely to needy white people. Government agents found a couple of things that probably are in your garage right now, things they said could be used in the manufacture of a bomb. What were they doing in her garage in the first place Greenwood has been openly critical of the government.

David Duke

David Duke just worked out a plea bargain whereby he does some hard time, allegedly for embezzling contributions. The facts literally do not hold water in his case, but he doesn't dare go before a jury on any charge, because a conviction is as certain as death and taxes.

Kirk Lyons

Testimony was taken last week in Spokane from a woman who claimed she received $2,000 from a North Carolina attorney named Kirk Lyons, in exchange for a box of secret documents, part of a cache of such documents that she and her ex-military paramour had amassed. Lyons is waiting for them to come for him. Lyons is the head of the Southern Legal Resource Center, a public-interest law firm that handles many of the Confederate flag cases that you hear about. Lyons has been openly critical of the government. No, of course he didn't do it. It's a setup.

A number of lesser lights have been taken into custody recently.

Eric Gliebe

Rumors abound of investigations into others who are alleged to be racists and/or antigovernment. Eric Gliebe, new head of the National Alliance, has heard them concerning himself and his organization. The National Alliance has been characterized by Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center as being the most dangerous antigovernment organization in America today.

Dees was instrumental in taking down Richard Butler and the Aryan Nations two years ago, and Tom Metzger before that, and a significant chapter of the Ku Klux Klan before that. Rumor is, had Clinton jettisoned Janet Reno after the Waco disaster, then Dees would have taken her place as US Attorney General.


Used to be, the establishment took down one of these high-profile politically-incorrect types every two years or so. Suddenly, all the stops have been pulled out and they are being arrested and locked away faster than I can keep track. Do you believe in coincidence I don't.


Given the current temperament of political correctness, none of these people dare appear before a jury. Already tried and convicted in the media before jury selection, they simply don't stand a chance of not doing serious time on trumped-up charges. No, I am not kidding. I have too many clients who already have met the same fate, with whom I can prove that tragic assertion.

Aside from shutting these people up and, in some cases, destroying their organizations altogether, the government is getting them off the streets before things blow up. These are the people that logically could be expected to be leading protests when the time comes, you see.

As if that weren't enough, last week the Justice Department took the wraps off Patriot Act II, a significant extension to the already-draconian provisions of the Patriot Act passed last year. I have yet to do a comprehensive analysis of this lengthy document, but what I have seen so far is very troubling, indeed.


Patriot Act I allows the designation of an American citizen as a domestic terrorist, a governmental designation not subject to review by any court or, for that matter, anybody. After that, the person can be held indefinitely, without trial or, even, being charged. No, I am not kidding.

You haven't been paying attention if you didn't already know that.

Now, here comes Patriot Act II, which allows that "domestic terrorist" to be stripped of his American citizenship and deported to another country for "further processing" (can you say "summary execution" or "torture," boys and girls).

I suppose there will come a time when I will need to shut down this modest effort at providing a look behind the curtain. It may even come to my being arrested on some phony charge, though I suspect they will work through a number of other people before they get to me. For now, though, I speak up for the politically incorrect among us who are being led away.

Now You

How long before they get to you, do you suppose Of course, you do realize, don't you, that neither I nor anybody else of a mind to do so will be left to speak on your behalf when that time comes

The time has come for every single American to speak out in protest. Trust me, this is our last chance. The American government has become truly insane and must be stopped. It is our job to do it. Call congresspeople.

Tell your friends and coworkers. Flood the media with letters. March. Speak up in public meetings.

New America. An idea whose time has come.



"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the truth." -- Morpheus

Copyright ©2003, Edgar J. Steele

Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate among private individuals and groups, post on all Internet sites and publish in full in all not-for-profit publications. Contact author for all other rights, which are reserved.

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Why We're Spending Valentine's Weekend at an Anti-War Rally (Op-Ed)

RareHeintz writes, "My wife and I like to take "mini-vacations" - our term for long weekend getaways to nearby cities. This year, since Valentine's Day coincided with President's Day (thus creating a convenient 3-day weekend), we considered a romantic getaway to Portland, Maine or Newport, Rhode Island, but eventually settled on a bed and breakfast in New Haven, Connecticut - which is where we'll catch the commuter train into New York City for an anti-war protest on Saturday."

"It's the first time I can ever remember my wife putting politics before romance."

Wed Feb 12th, 2003 at 10:05:36 AM EST

It will also be my first foray, at least since college, into any form of political activisim heavier than writing my elected officials or the occasional opinion essay.

So why are we so moved For my part, I'm not a pacifist, communist, or anyone with any sort of anti-war religious leanings. In fact, I'm a thirty-one year old, white, male technocrat pulling down six figures a year. I'm the guy you would expect to be gung-ho for the establishment, or at least the guy you'd expect to quietly take his capital gains tax cut and disappear into the political woodwork. So - why

It's very simple: I don't like it when people lie to me. If someone has to lie to me to convince me to do something, then it logically follows that this thing must not be in my best interests. If it were in my best interests, it would be simple enough to point that out - and at that point, I won't need much convincing.

Extend this principle to the U.S. rhetoric on Iraq. On the matter of Iraq, the Bush administration persistently lies about their reasons for going to war. Not a one of them holds water.

Human Rights

As a human myself, this would be among one of the more convincing arguments for me. Saddam Hussein really is a butcher, and while there are conflicting views about whether or not he actually did use chemical weapons against his own citizens (an anecdote trotted out almost daily by one member or another of the Bush administration), he certainly used them in Iran - with American assistance, of course. By all accounts, he brutally represses political dissent, makes life hell for religious and ethnic minorities, and generally behaves in a manner consistent with all the worst things you hear about Third World dictators.

This is not why the Bush administration wants to go to war in Iraq.

The human rights problem is not new - it's been going on as long as Hussein has been in power. When the U.K. released a dossier on human rights in Iraq late last year as part of their P.R. campaign for the war, Amnesty International - whose press releases were freely cribbed for the dossier - cried foul, noting that some of the information in the document was well known by its publishers to be over a decade old, and they didn't care then.

Neither do they care now. If human rights were the reason, the time to do something was twenty years ago. I don't buy the idea that anyone in the Bush family suddenly grew a heart and decided to go topple Saddam Hussein for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Of course, it's not actually clear that a war would benefit the Iraqi people. A variety of groups have taken a crack at guessing the likely humanitarian outcome of Gulf War II, and best estimates are consistently that thousands of civilians will die and hundreds of thousands will be made refugees. The Bush administration has been, as far as I've read, completely silent on the matter of dead and displaced (but "liberated") Iraqi citizens.

Terror Links

If you read anything that goes deeper than CNN Headline News, you've seen this debunked already. The BBC has received a leaked British intelligence document that claims there are no current ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. The intelligence agency of France - a country that has long-standing economic and political ties to the region - says likewise. The specific incidents of al Qaeda-Iraq meetings brought up by Rumsfeld and others - such as the infamous meeting in Prague - have been consistently debunked.

And yet, for some reason, the U.S. government wants us to have the impression that the war on Iraq is a natural extension of the failing war on terror. It has succeeded to some extent - a majority of Americans believe one or more of the September 11th hijackers was Iraqi, and a significant number believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the events of September 11th, 2001. (Both statements are false, if there was any doubt in your mind.)

Above and beyond its dishonesty, the tacit racism of this tactic is truly appalling. The U.S. government has largely succeeded in creating a vague connection in the minds of American citizens between two bad, Arab, Muslim men - Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein - despite the fact that there is no credible evidence that the two have ever colluded, and despite the fact that they're ideologically incompatible - one being a religious zealot whose ultimate goal is worldwide Islamic fundamentalist theocracy, and the other is a secular dictator interested mainly in the maintenance of his own power. But still, the Bush administration takes this cheap, racist tug at our September 11th heart-strings for all it's worth.

Not only that, but an attack on Iraq makes terrorist attacks on America and its allies more likely, not less - at least according to documents released by the FBI, CIA, and their foreign counterparts. By pursuing a pre-emptive war in Iraq, Bush and Company will knowingly be radicalizing the Muslim fringe against the U.S.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

So what do you do with an insular, paranoid dictatorship that you believe might have a nuclear warhead or two and the capability to deliver them to some of your major cities, that has threatened a pre-emptive strike on your troops, and that consistently proliferates ballistic missile and WMD technology to unfriendly states

In the case of North Korea, you go back to the bargaining table. That makes the Bush administration's Iraq policy that much more inscrutable. Except for the part about being an insular, paranoid dictatorship, none of the rest applies to Iraq. They are not believed to have any nuclear bombs, and may not even be able to land a missile in Israel anymore. While they haven't been exactly bending over backwards, positive progress reports from UNMOVIC head Hans Blix and IAEA head Mohammed elBaradei have made clear that Iraq is willing to make significant concessions to avoid war.

There is no credible intelligence that Iraq has developed any new WMD capability. A recent British intelligence report that Colin Powell used to try to make that argument to the U.N. security council turns out to have been plagiarized from multiple publicly available sources, all referring to Iraq's actions before U.N. inspectors were removed in 1998.

To be sure, there are gaps in Iraq's compliance. There exist numerous stocks of biological and chemical agents for which Iraq has still not accounted. However, Blix and elBaradei continue to come back with encouraging reports of progress. Again, this is not to say that Iraq is cooperating completely, or that the threat of force still isn't needed, but while the inspections appear to be making substantial progress, doesn't it make sense to continue them

Instead, the U.S. not only prefers to commit the lives of American troops to a conflict with no clear exit strategy, but actively hampers inspections by witholding intelligence the inspectors could use - assuming that they even have the intelligence they claim to have. It has occurred to me that the intelligence is being witheld not because it would compromise sources, but because it might not withstand the light of day - or it might not exist at all. If we're going to remove Iraq's government in any event, these precious sources are going to be useless in any secret capacity anyway. Would our allies not be better convinced by a case made in the light of day than one made in secret Could the current fractious atmosphere in NATO and the U.N. Security Council not be smoothed over by giving the parties involved actual evidence that the course of action we propose is correct Do we not trust our own allies with this information

Between the inconsistent stance on North Korea and the lies the Bush administration has to tell to support this case, it's clear that weapons of mass destruction are not the reason either.

Why, then

I don't know the real reason Bush and Company wants to go to war with Iraq, only that the reasons they claim are flimsy lies. It might well be about oil, as some say, although there exist rational-sounding, data-based arguments against that. Frankly, I hope it is as simple as oil - because the most plausible alternative, in my view, is the furtherance of the power of the executive branch of the American government, already a proven priority of this administration and one at which they continue to work. As if the USA PATRIOT Act wasn't bad enough, the recently and secretly drafted Domestic Security Enhancement Act calls for more secret arrests, creates a prerogative for the Attorney General to declare individual American citizens to be enemy combatants (which leaves them without the right to legal counsel, a speedy trial, etc.), contains still more abrogation of the Fourth and Fifth amendments, and generally dismantles the liberal democracy established on humanist principles over 200 years ago.

I worry that an extended war overseas will help the Bush administration continue that evil work. They know that populations tend to rally around their governments during a war (offering them the freedom to dictate policy with a "blank check" mandate). They know that they are increasing the risk of a terrorist attack on American soil by pursuing this war - but terrorist attacks, as we have seen, are great excuses to impose ever more draconian "security" measures that make nobody more secure from external threats but are great for establishing a police state.

The attitude of the Bush administration is consistent with this goal, as well. John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney call domestic dissent treason. Rumsfeld and Powell assault the character of formerly stalwart allies who take a principled stand against what they see as an unnecessary war of aggression. Bush's State of the Union address trumpeted America's status as the divinely-ordained liberator of the world. These people have an obscene sense of entitlement to power, and don't seem willing to stop at anything - not lying to anyone who will listen, not killing civilians across the globe - to maintain and extend that power.

The people in charge right now want very badly to destroy America as I know it.

We're going to New York on Saturday to exercise our right to free speech while we still have it. For my part, all I wanted from my government was the truth. If they won't give it to me, I will oppose them proudly, knowing that a real American is not afraid of political dissent and that a true servant of the public in America would never seek to deceive and control the American public as this government does.

I'll be the guy in the blue overcoat with the sign that reads "Patriots Against Bush" on one side and "Not Convinced" on the other. Look for me on the news, if anyone besides NPR covers it.

Bush And Saddam Wear The Same Snappy Shoes

IZAKOVIC writes, "The Feb. 10, 2003 issue of the daily Croatian Daily Morning Leaf, publishes that U.S. President, George W. Bush and Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, wear the same model of Italian shoes."

From IZAKOVIC

2-10-3

Jeff,

The Feb. 10, 2003 issue of the daily Croatian Daily Morning Leaf, publishes that
U.S. President, George W. Bush and Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, wear the
same model of Italian shoes.

Bush and Saddam have ordered three shoe models, worth something less than
1000 $ per pair, from the renown Italian manufacturer, Vito Antioli. They
are made of thick, crocodile lather, and are all of black color.
So they now have three, exactly the same, pairs of this footwear.

Antioli states that he was surprised noting that he had orders for the same
shoe models coming from George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Although he is
manufacturing shoes for celebrities for many years, owing to the present
state of world affairs, he has found to be a bit unusual to manufacture
shoes of the same model for this two statesmen.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says: Look what those around you eat
and you will understand their true nature.

Perhaps the same goes for their tastes and the shoes they wear.

Image that was published in daily Morning Leaf is in attachment.

IZAKOVIC
http://www.deepspace4.com

The Pussy List

Poison Ivan writes, "For a several years, I've been collecting synonyms for the part of a woman's anatomy that I find especially endearing. There are several hundred of them here, and I can't say that I really understand some of them, but I've been told they are real. A few of these synonyms aren't very flattering, but most of them aren't that bad, and some of them are very nice indeed."

If you have any suggestions of your own to add to this list, I'd love to hear them. E-mail me at and I'd be happy to add your contribution to the list.

Without further ado, _The Pussy List_:

1. A belly dingle
2. A gusher
3. A jewel
4. A sport
5. A universe
6. ABC
7. Ace
8. Ace at spades
9. Adam's own
10. Affair
11. Alcove
12. Almanach
13. Altar of hymen
14. An ornament
15. Anemone of love
16. Aphrodisical tennis court
17. Apricot split
18. Ass
19. Ax wound
20. Baby basket
21. Baby carriage
22. Baby hole
23. Baby maker
24. Bag
25. Barge
26. Bawdy monosyllable
27. Bazoo
28. Bearded clam
29. Bearded lady
30. Beauty spot
31. Beaver
32. Bee hive
33. Bell
34. Belle chose
35. Belly entrance
36. Belly-dale
37. Berkshire hunt
38. Bile
39. Bimbo
40. Bird
41. Bit of jam
42. Bit on a fork
43. Biter
44. Black Bess
45. Black hole
46. Black Jack
47. Black joke
48. Black velvet
49. Bluebeard's closet
50. Bob and hit
51. Bog
52. Bombo
53. Boody
54. Booty
55. Bore
56. Botany Bay
57. Bottom
58. Bottomless pit
59. Bower of bliss
60. Box
61. Box unseen
62. Boy in the boat
63. Brat-getting
64. Bread
65. Bread winner
66. Broom
67. Brown Miss
68. Brush
69. Buckfinger's boot
70. Buckinger's boot
71. Budget
72. Bull's eye
73. Bum fiddle
74. Bum shop
75. Bun
76. Bungalow
77. Bunny
78. Burial ground
79. Bush
80. Bushy park
81. Butcher shop
82. Butter boat
83. Button
84. Button factory
85. Buttonhole worker
86. C.
87. Cabbage
88. Cabbage patch
89. Cake
90. Canasta
91. Candlestick
92. Cape Horn
93. Cape of Good Hope
94. Carnal trap
95. Carvel's ring
96. Catch-'em-alive-o
97. Cat's meat
98. Cat's meow
99. Cat's-head-cut-open
100. Cave of Harmony
101. Cavern
102. Cellar
103. Cellar door
104. Center of attraction
105. Center of bliss
106. Central furrow
107. Certificate of birth
108. Charley
109. Charley Hunt
110. Chat
111. Chicken's tongue
112. Chimney
113. China
114. Chink
115. Chocha
116. Chuff box
117. Chum
118. Churn
119. Circle
120. Civet
121. Claff
122. Clam
123. Claustrom virginals
124. Cleft of flesh
125. Clit
126. Clitoris
127. Clitty
128. Clock
129. Cloven tuft
130. Cock
131. Cock Alley
132. Cock Hall
133. Cock holder
134. Cock Inn
135. Cock Lane
136. Cock loft
137. Cockpit
138. Cockshire
139. Cockshy
140. Coffee grinder
141. Coffee house
142. Coffeeshop
143. Cogie
144. Commodity
145. Concern
146. Conch shell
147. Contrapunctum
148. Conundrum
149. Cony
150. Cooch
151. Cookie
152. Cookies
153. Coolie-do
154. Coosie
155. Coot
156. Cootch
157. Cooter
158. Cooze
159. Coozey
160. Coozie
161. Corner
162. Corner cupboard
163. Cornucopia
164. Covered way
165. Cow-cunted
166. Crack
167. Crack of heaven
168. Crawl space
169. Cream jug
170. Creased
171. Crevice
172. Crinkum-crankum
173. Crotch
174. Crown and feathers
175. Crucible
176. Crumpet
177. Cuckoo's nest
178. Cunnicle
179. Cunniken
180. Cunnikin
181. Cunny
182. Cunt
183. Cuntkin
184. Cuntlet
185. Cup
186. Cupid's Alley
187. Daisy
188. Dead end street
189. Dicky-Dido
190. Diddle
191. Diddle case
192. Dilbery bush
193. Dimples
194. Dirty barrel
195. Divine monosyllable
196. Divine scar
197. Dog's mouth
198. Donut
199. Doodle-sack
200. Door of life
201. Dot
202. Doughnut
203. Down the hatch
204. Downstairs
205. Downtown
206. Drain
207. Dripping delta
208. Dumb glutton
209. Dumb squint
210. Eel skin
211. Eve's custom house
212. Eye that weeps
213. Eye that weeps most when best pleased
214. Factotum
215. Fan
216. Fanny
217. Fanny Artful
218. Fanny fair
219. Fart Daniel
220. Female
221. Female crucible
222. Fern
223. Fiddle
224. Fie-for-shame
225. Field
226. Fig
227. Finger hut
228. Firelock
229. Fireplace
230. Fish
231. Flapdoodle
232. Fleshy part
233. Flower
234. Flower heart
235. Flower of chivalry
236. Flusey
237. Fly catcher
238. Fly trap
239. Fobus
240. Fool trap
241. Football field
242. Fore court
243. Fore room
244. Forecaster
245. Forecastle
246. Forehatch
247. Forewoman
248. Fornicator's hall
249. Fort Knox
250. Fortress
251. Fountain of life
252. Fountain of love
253. Four-letter word
254. Free fishery
255. Front attic
256. Front door
257. Front garden
258. Front gut
259. Front office
260. Front parlor
261. Front piece
262. Front porch
263. Front window
264. Fruit cup
265. Fruitful vine
266. Fuck hole
267. Funniment
268. Funny bit
269. Fur
270. Fur burger
271. Fur pie
272. Furnace
273. Furrow
274. Furry hoop
275. Futy
276. Futz
277. Gallimaufrey
278. Gap
279. Gape
280. Gaper
281. Garage
282. Garden of Eden
283. Gash
284. Gasp and grunt
285. Gate of life
286. Gate of plenty
287. Gates of Heaven
288. Gateway
289. Generating place
290. Gentlemen's pleasure garden
291. Geography
292. Gib tenuck
293. Gig
294. Gigi
295. Ginch
296. Girl Street
297. Glory hole
298. Go down to the finish line
299. Gold mine
300. Golden donut
301. Golden doorway
302. Golden furrow
303. Goldfinch's nest
304. Grain-shaped cave
305. Grand Canyon
306. Grandmother's house
307. Grass
308. Gravy giver
309. Gravy maker
310. Gray jock
311. Green grocery
312. Green meadow
313. Groceries
314. Grotto
315. Grove of Eglantine
316. Growl
317. Grunion nest
318. Gulley hole
319. Gut entrance
320. Gutter
321. Gymnasium
322. Gyvel
323. Hair pie
324. Hairburger
325. Hairy oracle
326. Hairy ring
327. Hairyfordshire
328. Half Moon Bay
329. Halfpenny
330. Handle for the broom
331. Happy Valley
332. Harbor of Hope
333. Hatchway
334. Heart of the peony
335. Heavenly part
336. Hey nonny nonny and a hot cha-cha
337. Hive
338. Hog eye
339. Hogstyle of Venus
340. Hole
341. Hole of content
342. Hole of holes
343. Holy of Holies
344. Home sweet home
345. Hone
346. Honey pot
347. Hoop
348. Horse collar
349. Hot beef
350. House of security
351. Hymen
352. Hypogastric cranny
353. In a flap
354. India
355. Ineffable
356. Ingle-nook
357. Inner heart
358. Inner stream
359. Inner terrace
360. Intercrural trench
361. Irish fortune
362. Itching Jenny
363. Ivory gate
364. Jack Straw's castle
365. Jade cavern
366. Jade gate
367. Jade gateway
368. Jam pot
369. Jaws of Hell
370. Jelly
371. Jelly bag
372. Jelly box
373. Jelly roll
374. Jewel enclosure
375. Jewel of the Empire
376. Jeweled enclosure
377. Jiggumbob
378. Jock
379. Joe Hunt
380. Joy hole
381. Joy trail
382. Kaze
383. Keifer
384. Keyhole
385. Keystone of love
386. Kitchen
387. Kitty
388. Knick-knack
389. Ladder
390. Lady Berkeley
391. Lady Flower
392. Lady Jane
393. Lady Star
394. Lapland
395. Lather maker
396. Leading article
397. Leak
398. Leather
399. Limbo
400. Ling
401. Little man
402. Little man in a boat
403. Little Miss Cradle
404. Little sister
405. Lobster pot
406. Lock
407. Locker
408. Lollipop
409. Long-eye
410. Lotus
411. Lotus flower
412. Lotus of her wisdom
413. Love box
414. Love canal
415. Love chamber
416. Love grotto
417. Love jungle
418. Love Lane
419. Love muscle
420. Love's channel
421. Love's harbor
422. Love's paradise
423. Love's pavilion
424. Low country
425. Lower lips
426. Lower wig
427. Lowlands
428. Machine
429. Madge
430. Maiden gear
431. Maidenhead
432. Maid's ring
433. Main Street
434. Main vein
435. Man trap
436. Manhole
437. Mantrap
438. Marble arch
439. Mark of the beast
440. Mary Jane
441. Match
442. Mate
443. Matrix
444. Meat
445. Meat cooker
446. Meat grinder
447. Medlar
448. Melting pot
449. Membrum mulibers
450. Mickey Mouse
451. Middle eye
452. Middle gate
453. Middle Kingdom
454. Midlands
455. Milk jug
456. Milk pan
457. Milker
458. Milking pail
459. Mill
460. Milliner's shop
461. Mine of pleasure
462. Minge
463. Mink
464. Miraculous cairn
465. Miss Laycock
466. Modesty
467. Money box
468. Monosyllable
469. Mons meg
470. Mons pubis
471. Mons veneris
472. Moose
473. Mortar
474. Mossy grotte
475. Mother of all masons
476. Mother of all saints
477. Mother of all souls
478. Mound
479. Mount
480. Mouse
481. Mouse trap
482. Mouser
483. Mouth thankless
484. Mouth that can not bite
485. Muff
486. Muffin
487. Mustard pot
488. Mutton
489. Mysterious cavern
490. Mysterious valley
491. Naggie
492. Name it not
493. Nardlets
494. Nature's tufted treasure
495. Naughty
496. Needle book
497. Nether end
498. Netherlands
499. Niche
500. Nick-in-the-notch
501. Nick-nack
502. Nonesuch
503. Nook
504. Nookie
505. Notch
506. Number nip
507. O.B.H
508. Oat bin
509. Old ding
510. Old hat
511. Old thing
512. Old wife
513. Old woman
514. Orange
515. Orchard
516. Oven
517. Oyster
518. Oyster catcher
519. Pan
520. Pancake
521. Pandora's box
522. Paradise
523. Parenthesis
524. Parsley patch
525. Peculiar river
526. Pee-hole
527. Penis
528. Penis equivalent
529. Penis muliebris
530. Perfumed mouse
531. Piece
532. Pin case
533. Pink
534. Pipe
535. Pipe cleaner
536. Pipkin
537. Piss flaps
538. Pisser
539. Pit
540. Pit hole
541. Pit pitcher
542. Placket
543. Placket hole
544. Playground
545. Plaything
546. Pleasure boat
547. Pleasure center
548. Pleasure center of heaven
549. Pleasure field of heaven
550. Pleasure garden
551. Pleasure grotto
552. Pleasure house
553. Pleasure palace
554. Pocket
555. Pocket book
556. Pole hole
557. Poon
558. Poontang
559. Poor man's blessing
560. Poozle
561. Portal of Venus
562. Porthole
563. Postem gate to the Elysian
564. Pot
565. Poxbox
566. Precious crucible
567. Precious gate
568. Precious gateway
569. Precious stone
570. Pretty
571. Prick scourer
572. Prick-pocket
573. Prime cut
574. Private parts
575. Privy hole
576. Pudding
577. Puddle
578. Pudend
579. Pudenda
580. Pudenda muliebris
581. Pudendum
582. Puka
583. Puki
584. Purse
585. Puss
586. Pussy
587. Quarry
588. Queen of holes
589. Quem
590. Queynte
591. Quiff
592. Quim
593. Quimmy
594. Quin
595. Quoniam
596. Rag box
597. Rasp
598. Rat trap
599. Rattle ballocks
600. Receipt of custom
601. Receiving set
602. Red pearl
603. Regulator
604. Rest and be thankful
605. Ring
606. Ringerrangerroo
607. Road
608. Road to heaven
609. Roasting Jack
610. Rob-the-Ruffian
611. Rooster
612. Rose
613. Rough and tumble
614. Rough malkin
615. Rug
616. Sally Port
617. Salt cellar
618. Sampler
619. Scabbard
620. Scratch
621. Scut
622. Scuttle
623. Sear
624. Seat of pleasure
625. Seat of wisdom
626. Secret cavern
627. Seed-land
628. Seed-plot
629. Seminary
630. Sensitive cave
631. Sensitive cavern
632. Sex
633. Sexual cavern
634. Shady spring
635. Shaf
636. Shaft companion
637. Shake bag
638. Sharp and blunt
639. She
640. Sheath
641. Shell
642. Skin coat
643. Skin the pizzle
644. Slam
645. Slash
646. Slice of life
647. Slipper
648. Slit
649. Slot
650. Sluice
651. Smock Alley
652. Snapper
653. Snatch
654. Snatch box
655. Snatch-blatch
656. Snippet
657. Socket
658. Solution of continuity
659. South Pole
660. Spender
661. Spermsucker
662. Spew Alley
663. Spice of life
664. Spitfire
665. Split
666. Sportsman's gap
667. Sportsman's hole
668. Spot
669. Square push
670. Squint
671. Squirrel
672. Star
673. Stream Town
674. Strings of the lyre
675. Stuff
676. Suck and swallow
677. Sugar basin
678. Sugar donut
679. Supper
680. Sweet scented hole
681. Tail
682. Tail box
683. Tail end
684. Tail feathers
685. Tail gap
686. Tail gate
687. Tail hole
688. Tail trimmer
689. Target
690. Tastebud
691. Teazle
692. Temple of low men
693. Temple of Venus
694. Tench
695. Tenuc
696. That
697. Thatch
698. Thatched house
699. The Antipodes
700. The bank
701. The business
702. The case
703. The channel
704. The deer
705. The end
706. The exchequer
707. The forecastle
708. The grindstone
709. The gym
710. The hot box
711. The icing
712. The mare
713. The never out trap
714. The saddle
715. The satchel
716. The till
717. The treasury
718. The vault
719. Theca
720. Thicket
721. Thing
722. Thingamagig
723. Thingie
724. Thingumabob
725. Thingy
726. Tirly-whirly
727. Tit mouse
728. Tive
729. Toby
730. Toll box
731. Tomboy
732. Tool chest
733. Tool shed
734. Tootsie wootsie
735. Toyshop
736. Treasure house
737. Trench
738. Trim
739. Trinket
740. Tu quroque
741. Tuna
742. Tunnel
743. Twat
744. Twatchel
745. Twelge
746. Twin
747. Twitcher
748. Twittle
749. Under dimple
750. Under the hill
751. Undercut
752. Undergrowth
753. Unders
754. Undertaker
755. Upper Holloway
756. Upright grin
757. Upright wink
758. Vacuum
759. Vagina
760. Valley of Decision
761. Valve
762. Vent
763. Venus flytrap
764. Venus mound
765. Venus's cell
766. Venus's honeypot
767. Vertical smile
768. Vicious circle
769. Virgin knot
770. Virginale
771. Virgin's head
772. Vulva
773. Ware
774. Waste pipe
775. Water box
776. Wayside fountain
777. Wazoo
778. Whaddya call it
779. Wham
780. What
781. Whatsis
782. Wheat-shaped cave
783. Whelk
784. Where Uncle Diddle goes
785. Whim wham
786. White tiger's cavern
787. Whoosis
788. Womanhood
789. Wool
790. Workshop
791. Wound
792. X
793. Y
794. Yard measure
795. Yeast-powder biscuit
796. Yoni
797. You know what
798. Yum-yum

E-mail Did you enjoy The Pussy List Please E-mail Poison Ivan at and let me know what you think!

My stories have been released into the public domain. Redistribute them, rewrite them, claim them as your own, do anything you like with them. But, out of courtesy to the author, I humbly request that you not remove my name or contact information. I still like to hear from my readers.

How I Want to Age

Heather writes, "I saw the coolest thing ever today. We went through Nordstrom's and, on the second floor they had a piano player. There was an older guy dancing around and kicking up his heels to 'Mac the Knife.' He looked so happy and seemed to be taking so much joy in that momment. That's how I want to age; the kids can pass me by thinking I've lost all my marbles, but I'll be dancing and enjoying myself."

Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality

Clay Shirky writes, "A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list, a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world. This complaint follows a common pattern we've seen with MUDs, BBSes, and online communities like Echo and the WELL. A new social system starts, and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems. Then, as the new system grows, problems of scale set in. Not everyone can participate in every conversation. Not everyone gets to be heard. Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us, and so on."

Prior to recent theoretical work on social networks, the usual explanations invoked individual behaviors: some members of the community had sold out, the spirit of the early days was being diluted by the newcomers, et cetera. We now know that these explanations are wrong, or at least beside the point. What matters is this: Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality, and the greater the diversity, the more extreme the inequality.

In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution.

A Predictable Imbalance

Power law distributions, the shape that has spawned a number of catch-phrases like the 80/20 Rule and the Winner-Take-All Society, are finally being understood clearly enough to be useful. For much of the last century, investigators have been finding power law distributions in human systems. The economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that wealth follows a "predictable imbalance", with 20% of the population holding 80% of the wealth. The linguist George Zipf observed that word frequency falls in a power law pattern, with a small number of high frequency words (I, of, the), a moderate number of common words (book, cat cup), and a huge number of low frequency words (peripatetic, hypognathous). Jacob Nielsen observed power law distributions in web site page views, and so on.

We are all so used to bell curve distributions that power law distributions can seem odd. The shape of Figure #1, several hundred blogs ranked by number of inbound links, is roughly a power law distribution. Of the 433 listed blogs, the top two sites accounted for fully 5% of the inbound links between them. (They were InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan, unsurprisingly.) The top dozen (less than 3% of the total) accounted for 20% of the inbound links, and the top 50 blogs (not quite 12%) accounted for 50% of such links.

Figure #1: 433 weblogs arranged in rank order by number of inbound links. The data is drawn from N.Z Bear's 2002 work on the blogosphere ecosystem, a project that is now sadly defunct.

The inbound link data is just an example: power law distributions are ubiquitous. Yahoo Groups mailing lists ranked by subscribers is a power law distribution. (Figure #2) LiveJournal users ranked by friends is a power law. (Figure #3) The traffic to this article will be a power law, with a tiny percentage of the sites sending most of the traffic. If you run a website with more than a couple dozen pages, pick any time period where the traffic amounted to at least 1000 page views, and you will find that both the page views themselves and the traffic from the referring sites will follow power laws.

Figure #2: All mailing lists in the Yahoo Groups Television category, ranked by number of subscribers (Data from September 2002.) Figure #3: LiveJournal users ranked by number of friends listed. (Data from March 2002)

Rank Hath Its Privileges

The basic shape is simple - in any system sorted by rank, the value for the Nth position will be 1/N. For whatever is being ranked -- income, links, traffic -- the value of second place will be half that of first place, and tenth place will be one-tenth of first place. (There are other, more complex formulae that make the slope more or less extreme, but they all relate to this curve.) We've seen this shape in many systems. What've we've been lacking, until recently, is a theory to go with these observed patterns.

Now, thanks to a series of breakthroughs in network theory by researchers like Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Duncan Watts, and Bernardo Huberman among others, breakthroughs being described in books like Linked, Six Degrees, and The Laws of the Web, we know that power law distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options. We also know that as the number of options rise, the curve becomes more extreme. This is a counter-intuitive finding - most of us would expect a rising number of choices to flatten the curve, but in fact, increasing the size of the system increases the gap between the #1 spot and the median spot.

A second counter-intuitive aspect of power laws is that most elements in a power law system are below average, because the curve is so heavily weighted towards the top performers. In Figure #1, the average number of inbound links (cumulative links divided by the number of blogs) is 31. The first blog below 31 links is 142nd on the list, meaning two-thirds of the listed blogs have a below average number of inbound links. We are so used to the evenness of the bell curve, where the median position has the average value, that the idea of two-thirds of a population being below average sounds strange. (The actual median, 217th of 433, has only 15 inbound links.)

Freedom of Choice Makes Stars Inevitable

To see how freedom of choice could create such unequal distributions, consider a hypothetical population of a thousand people, each picking their 10 favorite blogs. One way to model such a system is simply to assume that each person has an equal chance of liking each blog. This distribution would be basically flat - most blogs will have the same number of people listing it as a favorite. A few blogs will be more popular than average and a few less, of course, but that will be statistical noise. The bulk of the blogs will be of average popularity, and the highs and lows will not be too far different from this average. In this model, neither the quality of the writing nor other people's choices have any effect. In this model, there are no shared tastes, no preferred genres, no effects from marketing or recommendations from friends.

But people's choices do affect one another. If we assume that any blog chosen by one user is more likely, by even a fractional amount, to be chosen by another user, the system changes dramatically. Alice, the first user, chooses her blogs unaffected by anyone else, but Bob has a slightly higher chance of liking Alice's blogs than the others. When Bob is done, any blog that both he and Alice like has a higher chance of being picked by Carmen, and so on, with a small number of blogs becoming increasingly likely to be chosen in the future because they were chosen in the past.

Think of this positive feedback as a preference premium. The system assumes that later users come into an environment shaped by earlier users; the thousand-and-first user will not be selecting blogs at random, but will rather be affected, even if unconsciously, by the preference premiums built up in the system previously.

Note that this model is absolutely mute as to why one blog might be preferred over another. Perhaps some writing is simply better than average (a preference for quality), perhaps people want the recommendations of others (a preference for marketing), perhaps there is value in reading the same blogs as your friends (a preference for "solidarity goods", things best enjoyed by a group). It could be all three, or some other effect entirely, and it could be different for different readers and different writers. What matters is that any tendency towards agreement in diverse and free systems, however small and for whatever reason, can create power law distributions.

Because it arises naturally, changing this distribution would mean forcing hundreds of thousands of bloggers to link to certain blogs and to de-link others, which would require both global oversight and the application of force. Reversing the star system would mean destroying the village in order to save it.

Inequality and Fairness

Given the ubiquity of power law distributions, asking whether there inequality in the weblog world (or indeed almost any social system) is the wrong question, since the answer will always be yes. The question to ask is "Is the inequality fair" Four things suggest that the current inequality is mostly fair.

The first, of course, is the freedom in the weblog world in general. It costs nothing to launch a weblog, and there is no vetting process, so the threshold for having a weblog is only infinitesimally larger than the threshold for getting online in the first place.

The second is that blogging is a daily activity. As beloved as Josh Marshall (TalkingPointsMemo.com) or Mark Pilgrim (DiveIntoMark.org) are, they would disappear if they stopped writing, or even cut back significantly. Blogs are not a good place to rest on your laurels.

Third, the stars exist not because of some cliquish preference for one another, but because of the preference of hundreds of others pointing to them. Their popularity is a result of the kind of distributed approval it would be hard to fake.

Finally, there is no real A-list, because there is no discontinuity. Though explanations of power laws (including the ones here) often focus on numbers like "12% of blogs account for 50% of the links", these are arbitrary markers. The largest step function in a power law is between the #1 and #2 positions, by definition. There is no A-list that is qualitatively different from their nearest neighbors, so any line separating more and less trafficked blogs is arbitrary.

The Median Cannot Hold

However, though the inequality is mostly fair now, the system is still young. Once a power law distribution exists, it can take on a certain amount of homeostasis, the tendency of a system to retain its form even against external pressures. Is the weblog world such a system Are there people who are as talented or deserving as the current stars, but who are not getting anything like the traffic Doubtless. Will this problem get worse in the future Yes.

Though there are more new bloggers and more new readers every day, most of the new readers are adding to the traffic of the top few blogs, while most new blogs are getting below average traffic, a gap that will grow as the weblog world does. It's not impossible to launch a good new blog and become widely read, but it's harder than it was last year, and it will be harder still next year. At some point (probably one we've already passed), weblog technology will be seen as a platform for so many forms of publishing, filtering, aggregation, and syndication that blogging will stop referring to any particularly coherent activity. The term 'blog' will fall into the middle distance, as 'home page' and 'portal' have, words that used to mean some concrete thing, but which were stretched by use past the point of meaning. This will happen when head and tail of the power law distribution become so different that we can't think of J. Random Blogger and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit as doing the same thing.

At the head will be webloggers who join the mainstream media (a phrase which seems to mean "media we've gotten used to.") The transformation here is simple - as a blogger's audience grows large, more people read her work than she can possibly read, she can't link to everyone who wants her attention, and she can't answer all her incoming mail or follow up to the comments on her site. The result of these pressures is that she becomes a broadcast outlet, distributing material without participating in conversations about it.

Meanwhile, the long tail of weblogs with few readers will become conversational. In a world where most bloggers get below average traffic, audience size can't be the only metric for success. LiveJournal had this figured out years ago, by assuming that people would be writing for their friends, rather than some impersonal audience. Publishing an essay and having 3 random people read it is a recipe for disappointment, but publishing an account of your Saturday night and having your 3 closest friends read it feels like a conversation, especially if they follow up with their own accounts. LiveJournal has an edge on most other blogging platforms because it can keep far better track of friend and group relationships, but the rise of general blog tools like Trackback may enable this conversational mode for most blogs.

In between blogs-as-mainstream-media and blogs-as-dinner-conversation will be Blogging Classic, blogs published by one or a few people, for a moderately-sized audience, with whom the authors have a relatively engaged relationship. Because of the continuing growth of the weblog world, more blogs in the future will follow this pattern than today. However, these blogs will be in the minority for both traffic (dwarfed by the mainstream media blogs) and overall number of blogs (outnumbered by the conversational blogs.)

Inequality occurs in large and unconstrained social systems for the same reasons stop-and-go traffic occurs on busy roads, not because it is anyone's goal, but because it is a reliable property that emerges from the normal functioning of the system. The relatively egalitarian distribution of readers in the early years had nothing to do with the nature of weblogs or webloggers. There just weren't enough blogs to have really unequal distributions. Now there are.

First published February 8, 2003 on the 'Networks, Economics, and Culture' mailing list.

The Lysistrata Project

The first-ever world-wide theatrical event for peace is coming to a city near you on Monday, March 3rd, 2003! Theatre artists from around the planet are raising their collective voice against war by producing readings of Lysistrata in order to:
• Let the Bush Administration know that we oppose their war on Iraq.
• Provide events where citizens can unite to enjoy an evening of spirited, comedic theatre while raising public awareness about the volume of war opposition.
• Provide a humorous entree into a healthy community dialogue: What CAN we do on a local level to stop "diplomacy by violence" in our world
• Raise money for organizations that work for peace and human rights.

http://www.lysistrataproject.com

HOMELAND SECURITY THREAT LEVEL RAISED TO HIGH - ORANGE

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Citing credible threats that al Qaeda might be planning attacks on American targets, the U.S. government raised the national color-coded threat level Friday to orange, indicating a "high" risk of a terrorist attack.

The change is only the second time the alert level has risen above yellow, an "elevated" risk, since the system was put in place in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

700 Oz Women Bare It All For Peace

NUDE NO WAR PROTEST; BYRON BAY AUSTRALIA
750 NAKED FEMALES 7.2.03
©ICON IMAGES PTY LTD

Cognitive Dissident

Tim Dickinson of Mother Jones interviews John Perry Barlow, the man who popularized the term 'cyberspace', discusses the Total Information Awareness project, online activism, file sharing, and the prospect of a digital counterculture.
(February 3, 2003)

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2003/06/we_268_01.html

Does the government need a search warrant to read your private email Do you have a right to anonymity online Is computer code protected by the first amendment On all three counts the answer is yes, and for that you can thank the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- and by extension, John Perry Barlow -- for staking out those rights in court.

The EFF is a digital civil liberties union, co-founded by Barlow in 1990 to fight for free-speech and privacy rights in cyberspace. Of course, back then, 'cyberspace' wasn't exactly a household word. You can thank Barlow for that, too.

A self-described "classic boomer," Barlow is still best known for his first career, songsmithing for the Grateful Dead, with classics like "Cassidy," "Estimated Prophet," and "A Little Light" to his credit. After a go as a back-to-the-land cattle rancher, Barlow, 55, is now starring in a digital third act, one that may well fulfill his ultimate aspiration: "To be a good ancestor."

When I first met John Perry Barlow, he was sporting a black ascot, a turquoise pendant, and a hands-free cellular device that dangled, secret-service style, from his left ear; he was wired and buzzed, working the unabashedly geeky crowd at the EFF's holiday open house in San Francisco's Mission district. Afterward, I pressed Barlow for his take on the Total Information Awareness project -- the Bush Administration's Big-Brotherish effort to preempt terrorism by analyzing our purchasing habits and other previously private data -- as well as his thoughts on Internet activism, file sharing, and counterculture in the 21st century.

MotherJones.com: What do you make of the Total Information Awareness project

John Perry Barlow: I was just writing a spam to my friends last night about its "all seeing eye" logo [The logo has since been changed - Ed.]. Looking at that logo, you've got to wonder if they aren't just engaged in some massive prank on us. It's hilarious -- straight out of a Thomas Pynchon novel. Can you beat it It's fortunate that this is so stupefyingly funny.

MJ: But do you think that we run the danger of laughing it off and missing the danger of it

JPB: I don't think so. I think that humor is part of what saves us from despair. The Total Information Awareness project is truly diabolical -- mostly because of the legal changes which have made it possible in the first place. As a consequence of the Patriot Act, government now has access to all sorts of private and commercial databases that were previously off limits.

MJ: Is that what they're hiding behind

JPB: It's a combination of the Patriot Act and a Justice Department directive that was issued in May by John Ashcroft. Now I believe that this invasion of privacy is just as unconstitutional as its ever been, but nothing is unconstitutional until somebody's taken it to court and proven it.

MJ: Do you think the goal of preempting terrorism through data-mining is feasible, from a technological perspective

JPB: The thing that spooks me about the Total Information Awareness program is that that it's inside DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. And unlike the CIA or the NSA, DARPA has a great track record of actually going out and making big technology happen -- because they're small, they're light, they're anti-bureaucratic, they're engineering minded. And Poindexter may be a convicted felon but he's a very, very smart guy. So where while I'd like to say there's no way that this is going to happen under any other circumstances, I'm less assured of that at the moment.

MJ: Somebody said that this is going to lead to them finding a lot more haystacks than needles.

JPB: [Laughs.] That's absolutely true. If you have the Total Information Awareness project working, it might be relatively easy to find everyone who had bought more than a ton of fertilizer and 500 gallons of diesel in the last year, which would be a great way of spotting potential Tim McVeighs -- but it would also spot half the farmers and ranchers in America. But having spotted them, it couldn't toss them out until it'd exposed them to the next layer of search. And the important thing to think about there is that they're no longer just looking for terrorist activity, they're looking for any kind of criminality at all -- which includes what I consider to be cultural crimes, like say marijuana smoking.

The terrifying new reality that we're dealing with here is the fact that all data are now open to government scrutiny. All these things that have previously been sacrosanct and private are now available. And what's more frightening is that if you are managing one of those databases and the government says that it wants access to it for a completely open-ended search you are criminally liable if you if you tell the people in your database that the government is doing so. The whole dive shop thing [in June of last year], the government requested the records of everyone in the U.S. taking diving lessons] was exposed because one solitary dive shop owner in Los Angeles had the guts to come forward and say "Hey, we're not going to give you our database. And furthermore we're going to go to the press."

MJ: TIA hopes to root out terrorists by monitoring -- among other things -- our purchasing habits and travel records. But looking at this kind of data mining in the commercial sector, it's clearly an imperfect science. I keep reading stories about how somebody's TIVO thinks he's gay because he watched one too many Sex in and the City's. Can we possibly expect better from the government

JPB: They've already done some of this inferential searching -- and the way they're going about it is enough to give you pause.

MJ: Part of the Homeland Security Bill is something called the "Cyber Security Enhancement Act" under which "malicious" hackers can be sent to prison for life.

JPB: It's ridiculous, dangerous, grossly unconstitutional, and it's perfectly in keeping with what this administration's been doing across the board. This is an administration that has recently reserved to itself the right to kill American citizens anywhere on the planet for the mere suspicion of membership in Al Qaeda. That's really quite and awe-inspiring breakthrough. And the astonishing thing is that the American people are nodding along in their stupor and saying "Yeah, well, whatever it takes to stop terrorism." I'm so disappointed in my countrymen.

MJ: What do you think it will take to knock people out of that stupor

JPB: What it's going to take is for some of these initiatives to actually start affecting people out in the 'burbs. But they're so insensate at the moment, that one wonders how much it will take to effect them. Right now, it's very easy for your standard suburban television idiot to assume that this is all about people who are not like him. And his rights are not involved. By the time he finds out that his rights have been involved, they may have been so thoroughly eroded that he may never be able to get them back. But you as the Navajo say, "It's impossible to awaken a man who is pretending to be asleep." And I think that mostly what America is doing is pretending to be asleep.

MJ: Do you really think that -- that your average American is well aware what's going on

JPB: Aware in some way that's subject to massive denial. We're aware but feel ourselves to be so helpless that we can't even summon up the necessary energy to drive five blocks to vote against it.

A Digital Counterculture

MJ: At the EFF party, you and R.U. Sirius were talking about being part of a counterculture without a name, and I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about what you meant by that.

JPB: It occurred to me recently that I'd been a member of every counterculture that had been available throughout my conscious life. I started out as a teenage beatnik and then became a hippie and then became a cyberpunk. And now I'm still a member of the counterculture, but I don't know what to call that. And I'd been inclined to think that that was a good thing, because once the counterculture in America gets a name then the media can coopt it, and the advertising industry can turn it into a marketing foil. But you know, right now I'm not sure that it is a good thing, because we don't have any flag to rally around. Without a name there may be no coherent movement.

MJ: What would be the organizing principles of this counterculture

JPB: Well, for starters, that practically everything that this administration is doing right now is fucked. [Laughs]

MJ: I'll make sure we print that.

JPB: Of course you've got to have a more intelligent response than that, but it's hard for me to rise above it. I think the counterculture believes that there are ways to manage being the world's most powerful country that involve creation of consensus -- ruling by virtuous example rather than by force of arms. Managing the world that has fallen to us to manage in a way that it has some morality. I think that that counterculture is very concerned about the completely unchecked ability of multinational corporations to roam the planet and serve their hungers without any meaningful regulation now. That counterculture probably agrees that mass media are bad for you, particularly television. I suppose drugs are an element. And it appreciates irony -- as opposed to the administration, which clearly has an irony deficiency.

MJ: What little resistance there is right now in terms of an antiwar movement seems to be organizing online. Is that a good thing

JPB: Actually I'm discouraged with the role of the Internet in the antiwar movement. Because so far what I see happening is that cyberspace is a great place for everybody to declaim. There are a million virtual streetcorners with a million lonely pamphleteers on them, all of them decrying the war and not actually coming together in any organized fashion to oppose it. It strikes me that existing political institutions -- whether it's the administration or Congress or large corporations -- only respond to other institutions. I don't care how many individuals you have marching in the streets, they're not going to pay attention until there's a leader for those individuals who can come forward and say I represent the organization of those individuals and we're going to amass the necessary money and votes to kick you the hell out of office. Then they pay attention. But not until. And so right at the moment it would strike me that the Internet is counterproductive to peace.

MJ: I'm rather shocked to hear you say that.

JPB: Well, I'm rather shocked to say it.

MJ: Is it that people just leave their anger online

JPB: You vent online and then you dust your hands off in satisfaction and that's the last you do. And I'm as guilty of this as anybody. Though in fairness I can point to EFF as being an example that that's not all I do.

MJ: Who got the future better: Philip Dick, George Orwell, or Aldous Huxley

JPB: All of those guys were talking about the present, that's what science fiction writers really do. I've been struck lately rereading Brave New World and 1984 at the extent to which both of these visions, which would seem to be completely contradictory, have turned out to be true and in fact complementary. You have the totalitarian thought control and language modification of 1984 going on: I mean, consider the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" -- completely Orwellian in use. And at the same time you have something like the feelies from Brave New World which are the soporific media message that puts everyone to sleep. Both of those things are happening simultaneously. The totalitarian message is being transmitted while you're zoned out in front of the television watching the feelies, high on soma -- which is some combination of Prozac and Budweiser.

MJ: I was reading an old roundtable you did with Harper's, and I was struck by how optimistic you were then.

JPB: Somebody came up to me after a talk I gave recently in London, and he said to me that there's something entertaining about watching a pathological optimist try to be pessimistic. [Laughs.] And he had a point. I'm basically an optimistic person. And lately I've been thinking a lot about groundless hope -- which in some respects may be the only kind there is. If your hope has good reasons attached to it, then maybe it's just a form of planning. I think that election was a consequence of people becoming hopeless. If people had hope they'd vote.

MJ: Is it true you used to be a Republican

JPB: Yeah, actually, until embarrassingly recently. There is, in small numbers these days, though it used to be larger, a libertarian wing of Republicanism that fit my political beliefs pretty succinctly. But that was before George Bush II and the Christian fascists took over.

To Share or Not to Share

MJ: As a former lyricist still making money on royalties, what are your thoughts about online file sharing

JPB: You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who is more passionate about the belief that sharing music is good for you as a songwriter and good for humanity as a whole. The best thing that ever happened to the Grateful Dead, from an economic standpoint, was giving away our music.

MJ: In terms of bootlegging

JPB: It wasn't bootlegging. We let people tape our concerts and distribute the tapes. And that became the first example I can think of viral marketing. The record companies certainly didn't know how to market us. So we became self-marketing through our tapes.

MJ: And that helped you economically

JPB: No question. And it makes sense that it would. Because economic success in an information economy depends not on scarcity, but on familiarity. You can be the greatest songwriter in the history of song and if 10 people are the only ones who ever heard your songs, it doesn't matter.

MJ: But what if 100 million people can get it online and nobody pays you a cent.

JPB: But it doesn't tend to work that way in practice. Despite the fact that Deadheads had better recordings of all of our songs than we were putting out commercially, just about all of our albums have gone platinum over the years. Having the noncommercial version of information does not appear to operate genuinely as an inhibition against getting the commercial version. And also there are other ways of conducting commerce other than selling material objects with information on them. Performance for example. That's where most of the money is.

All of this stuff about 'piracy' is fomented entirely by the record and film industries to perpetuate business models that are completely disadvantageous to both the creator and the audience. They are the biggest pirates in the deal. But unfortunately, they have made huge amounts of campaign donations and essentially created all the government that money can buy. And they have Congress. Congress is passing laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which make it so you can't break open the bottles that they're pouring your knowledge into. They directly contravene the right to know. The right to know, I think, though it may not be explicit in the Constitution is every bit as important as the right to speak.

MJ: Quick response: Does Google have too much power

JPB: I would say not -- given that they don't seem to be using it in a way that is monopolistic or apt to consolidate that power. Their power is based entirely on the fact that their software is better than anybody else's, unlike say Microsoft.

MJ: Phish, the band.

JPB: My reaction to that is changing. My first reaction was I've been there, done that, with better. But I think they've evolved, and I'm eager to hear them now that they're back together.

MJ: Would you clone yourself

JPB: The idea that a clone is you is ridiculous. A clone is no more you than an identical twin is you. And even less so, because a clone is born in a different part of time. But, yeah, I'd probably clone myself.

MJ: Favorite obscure website.

JPB: Disinfo.com.

MJ: Worst piece of digital legislation

JPB: Oh God, there is so much competition for that but I would say the Patriot Act taken in all of its digital dimensions. Otherwise I would say the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FUCK FOR PEACE

One should never be too tired, too sick, too jaded to fuck. One should
never get too belligerent, too unclean, too sexist to find someone to
engulf psychophysically for hours. Fucking is man's greatest invention.
Fucking is the ultimate expression of joy, sorrow, fury, and the beauty of
the human story. The garden blooms in pink and red. Fuck on top,
fuck on the bottom, fuck against the wall, fuck in the dark, fuck
outside, fuck in public, fuck while drunk, fuck with friends, fuck your
enemies (and make some friends), fuck naked, fuck clothed, fuck in
your mother's Blahniks if it rocks your box. Fuck because fucking brings
you closer to the fire. Fuck because it makes things beautiful.

It doesn't matter whom you fuck, nor how you fuck. Pure fucking can build
bridges over any gap. Fuck a 40-year-old disenchanted trophy wife and make
her smile; fuck an adolescent boy and give him wet dreams for life. Go down
on your best friend. That sleepy flush after a really good fuck is the
secret to world peace. It's all in the flesh.

Morrissey knew exactly how much power lies in the fuck. Instead of channeling
energy into sex, he let it all go into his words. Man's urge to create a
greater and more beautiful world, his drive for art and science, equality and
unity, this is the same drive that puts the itch in him. Fucking is the
square root of everything humanity has ever done.

from http://www.reed.edu/~starkel/ffp.txt

the strangest movie

I've seen some very strange things, but this is right up there near the top:

http://www.reed.edu/~starkel/dwutang1.mpg

The most amazing thing is that many hundred of paid man-hours must have gone into the production of this!

SENSELESS

The other day...

The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day

Maybe repetition will let it sink in
It's too easy to let it be surreal
It was just a made for TV movie right
Just another hollywood special effect

The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day

There's a giant crater in Manhattan
They say it was a building once
I think I saw that movie
Didn't Harrison Ford play the president

The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day

Soon the bombs will fall, won't that be great
Endless nights of entertainment
Thousands of deaths in flashes of seething green
Hopefully my AOL stock will climb

The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day

Maybe HDTV will change everything
I'll hear the tragedies in 7.1 digital surround sound
I'll see every pixel of suffering broadcast live via satellite
Maybe then it will seem real

The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day

I want to cry, but I don't know them
They aren't real, they're just actors
How can they be real
How can that horror be real

The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day
The shuttle was destroyed the other day

from http://sense.bigbrother.net/senseless/otherday.jsp

Do Nothing

Dilbert: It takes years of training to know when to do nothing.

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

USE FRESH INGREDIENTS!

3/4 c butter or shortening
1 1/4 c brown sugar -- firmly packed
1 egg
1/3 c water
1 1/2 ts vanilla
3 c oats, rolled (raw) -- quick/old fashioned
1 c flour -- all-purpose
1/2 ts baking soda
1/2 ts salt
1/4 ts cinnamon
1 c raisins
3/4 c walnuts -- chopped

Heat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease cookie sheet with shortening. Combine shortening, brown sugar, egg, milk, and vanilla; beat with mixer on high speed to blend well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; add to shorteing mixture and combine until just blended. Stir in raisins and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-13 min., or until lightly browned. So Good!

from Abigail's Oatmeal Cookie Recipes.

New Blog

Welcome to my MovableType Blog!