The President’s Iraq war is lost.

...

Every one of the proposals coming from outside the real Administration starts from the assumption that its policy has failed. ... [B]etween the President’s resolve to persist in folly and the public’s instinct to be rid of Iraq there is a range of choices that could prevent the disaster from inflicting permanent damage on American interests. This kind of clear, rational thought is less heartless -- even, in the end, less defeatist -- than willful blindness.

That would make a great Democrat bumper sticker, wouldn't it? "Clinton '08: Less heartless than willful blindess"

On a related note, over the weekend I ran across Joan Didion's Political Fictions, which I now see was listed as one of Amazon.com's Best of 2001. It caught my eye after having read her most recent NYRB piece on Cheney.

Alternative Realities | George Packer in The New Yorker

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

The relevant section from Section 9 of Article 1 of the Constitution:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases

Rather belatedly, the Army attempts to clear up some recent FUD (widely reported, including here) about SINCGARS.

US servicemembers can use the SINCGARS radio system with confidence.

Recent media articles [about Hezbollah's use of Iranian technology to defeat SINCGARS security] are wrong.

The Israelis do not use the US SINCGARS system, but rather they use another frequency-hopping technology.

"These articles lead people to think that SINCGARS is vulnerable, and that this technology is available to bad guys. This is not the case. The Israelis do not have SINCGARS radios. They have another frequency-hopping radio that does not have the US frequency-hopping algorithm, does not use the US communications security devices and does not use the US transmission security devices. All three provide robust protection for US SINCGARS."

It may still be safe, but it is certainly getting old, as this concluding remark, to his fellow soliders in the field, makes clear:

Bowden noted that he has been working on SINCGARS since the 1980s and can answer any questions about it.

SINCGARS Radio System Remains Secure

CBGB’S shuts down this weekend.

It was a private world. We dreamed it up. It flowered out of our imaginations.

How often do you get to do that?

CBGB’s was like a big playhouse, site of conspiracies, orgies, delirium, refuge, boredom, meanness, jealousy, kindness, but most of all youth.

God loves CBGB’s.

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School

ROME, Oct. 13 — Gillo Pontecorvo, the Italian filmmaker who explored terrorism and torture in colonial Algeria in the powerful and influential 1965 classic, “The Battle of Algiers,” died here on Thursday. He was 86.

Gillo Pontecorvo, 86, Director of ‘Battle of Algiers,’ Dies

I posted this because of the recent CNN article recommended by others on MemeStreams.

Like Chris Rock’s character in the similar (and similarly disappointing) “Head of State,” Tom is meant to be honest and fearless, offering a welcome antidote to the usual timid, hypocritical candidate-speak. He serves up some pretty shocking stuff, boldly coming out in favor of environmental protection and improved education, while pointing out that politics is dominated by “special interests,” that Americans are sick of bitter partisanship, and that you can’t tell the two major parties apart anyway.

Unlike the television satirists whose cachet he tries to bogart, Tom is careful never to address the actual issues that provide the content and context of contemporary political argument.

Instead the movie is all about process: about the machinery of celebrity and also about voting machines.

Ms. Linney, bless her, insists on acting, which she is very good at but which is pretty much irrelevant here.

'Man of the Year': 'a spoonful of cold mashed potatoes'

abaddon wrote:

So this movie was great, its easily one of the best I've seen in a few years...its by the same guy who made Memento and I think it actually has a stronger story...check it out...

I second the recommendation; this is a film worth seeing. I can't go so far as to say it's among the top five (or ten) of the best in recent years -- but then again I see a lot of films.

Following

The larger problem is that terrorism has created an atmosphere in which no official wants to be the one who gives a visa to an Al Qaeda operative, while there is no professional price for barring a professor with unpopular ideas or for making a graduate student miss a semester of school.

Don't blame me! It isn't my fault! I told the front office not to let him in! That's what I said. And I said that three years ago. Yes, I did. You should talk to the front office.

The United States should grant Tariq Ramadan a visa, not because he has an inalienable right to one but in the interest of the national good. The continuing effort to keep him out is a strategic mistake, and it shows a depressingly familiar failure on the part of the Administration to grasp the nature of the conflict with Islamist radicalism.

A strategy based on prevention is likely to prolong that which is to be prevented, or at least the infrastructure of prevention. (If the CIA could have avoided the collapse of the Soviet Union, would they?)

How many years of zero domestic attacks are required before we can declare victory?

How many violent extremsists does it take to justify a "war"?

In a twist on Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three come together against my name, there am I against them."

KEEP OUT | George Packer in The New Yorker

... a growing number of Americans do not believe in the theory of evolution ... religious fundamentalism, inadequate science education, and partisan political maneuvering ... Even Ann Coulter ...

A furious row [over] highly controversial research purporting to demonstrate telepathy and life after death ... "I would rather be descended from an ape than a bishop."

... mind read by a sensor net that monitors brain activity while music is played ... the brains of musically-trained children respond to music in a different way to those of the untrained children, but also that the training improves their memory as well ...

... humans put most of their cerebral cortex to good use, even while dozing.
... ingesting just two poppy seed bagels may produce a positive result for opiates on a drug screen.

... a restraint on free expression we can live with ... taboos on the subject of global warming ...
What am I not supposed to know? ... trafficking in fake science ...

... the nimbus-haired New Yorker reporter ... a pathological fixation on writing in rhetorical questions?

... we have to stick together against the provincialism of the East ... body parts, bad dreams, readouts, breakdowns ...

Kramer, while chief art critic of the Times, was seated next to Woody Allen, who asked Kramer if he felt embarrassed when he ran into artists whose work he had attacked. "No," Kramer retorted, "I expect them to be embarrassed for doing bad work."

[the emergence of GM wine] ... dabbling with high-tech chemical analysis ... tweak the grape juice while it ferments ... "biodynamic" -- a sort of hyper-organic designation that means the vintner relies on such things as lunar cycles and planetary alignment rather than chemistry ... powerful software to generate taste recommendations on how to tweak the wine ... to land top scores from leading critics ...

... a pet stroller, a lot of soul-searching, racks, racks, and more racks; "Rack me!" ..... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

On both occasions, I had a hard time not telling the free advice givers to get lost, or something less printable along the same lines. There is no set form for grief, and no “right” way to express it.

There seems to be an expectation that, after a great loss, we will progress systematically through the well-known stages of grief. It is wrong, we are told, to jump to anger — or to wallow too long in this stage before moving toward acceptance.

But I was, and am, angry.

I presume that many a psychiatrist and New Age minister would point out that by keeping busy we avoid “healthy” grieving. To hell with that; the void left by our loss is just too deep. For now, focusing on what we do for one another is the only consolation we can find.

Compare and contrast.

Good Grief, by Amitai Etzioni