MG Caldwell: The violence continues against security forces and innocent Iraqis during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Traditionally this is a time of great celebration; it has, instead, been a period of increased violence, not just this year, but during the past two years as well. The violence is indeed disheartening.

In Baghdad alone, we've seen a 22 percent increase in attacks during the first three weeks of Ramadan, as compared to the three weeks preceding Ramadan.

In Baghdad, Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence.

Hopefully Spc. Ziegler will appreciate my linking directly to the MNF web site.

MG Caldwell: 'The violence is indeed disheartening'

Earlier this week, I received some pushback after recommending an article from American Heritage which lamented:

The most disappointing realization about the war in Iraq is how little we care.

I think today's NYT statistics say something about where the public's mind is right now:

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1. Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day

I'll offer you the first paragraph:

IN her thigh-highs and ruby miniskirt, Little Red Riding Hood does not appear to be en route to her grandmother’s house. And Goldilocks, in a snug bodice and platform heels, gives the impression she has been sleeping in everyone’s bed. There is a witch wearing little more than a Laker Girl uniform, a fairy who appears to shop at Victoria’s Secret and a cowgirl with a skirt the size of a tea towel.

You'll have to click through for the photos. (These costumes put that Tattoo Freak thing to shame ... They're talking more about the "Hot Hot Hot" category over at PartyCity, where you'll find such gems as "Corrections Officer", "Gold Digger", and "Mile High Captain".)

Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day - New York Times

When Congress passed the McCain amendment last fall banning cruel treatment, CIA interrogators reportedly stopped working. Vice President Cheney had sought an exemption for the CIA -- but didn't get one. The administration apparently pushed the interrogators hard to resume their tactics, saying these techniques were still legal, but the CIA refused.

It seems the agency had learned an important lesson: ... secret, contorted legal opinions don't provide any real protection to CIA officers.

So the CIA demanded "clarity" -- from Congress.

If a CIA interrogator is indicted after this administration leaves office, it will not matter whether keeping a naked prisoner standing for 40 straight hours shocks Dick Cheney. It will matter whether it shocks the court.

This brings us back to the HRW op-ed in the Post last month.

Interrogators Beware

About 20 percent of the audience of “Lost” has gone missing since last year, even though the show has suffered no discernible decline in quality.

Idiosyncratic and Personal, PC Edges TV

International Business Machines said yesterday that its third-quarter net income soared on robust software sales, a business helped by $4 billion in acquisitions this year.

Acquisitions Lift Earnings 47% at IBM

This article is kind of weak, but there are a few news bits in it.

With the arrival of its PlayStation 3 less than a month away, Sony is embarking on a worldwide marketing campaign that will collide directly with an equally ambitious effort by Microsoft. And both will face a challenge from the Nintendo Wii.

Sony’s console will go on sale in the United States on Nov. 17, followed two days later by the Wii. The PlayStation 3’s base price will be $499, compared with $299 for the Xbox 360 and $249 for the Wii. Sony’s console, both the basic version and a $599 premium model, will be able to play high-resolution DVD’s in the BluRay format that Sony is promoting. The Xbox 360 has a comparable ability for another format, HD-DVD, but only as a $200 add-on.

Battleground for Consoles Moves Online

The United States Army was planning to maintain current troop levels in Iraq through 2010, and to replace its advertising slogan, “An Army of One,” with a new slogan, “Army Strong.”

A Virginia couple were trying to give back their fifteen-year-old adopted son, who turned out to be a sexual predator. “They just told me he was hyperactive,” said the boy's mother.

A Minnesota school principal resigned after shooting two orphaned kittens on school property.

Dubai's ruling family was sued for enslaving children as camel jockeys.

Thousands of Indian villagers fled their homes in order to avoid a herd of rampaging elephants. “The elephants,” said a forestry official, “are out to avenge.”

Apparently this vengeance goes both ways. Contrast that last item with this story from Science in 1998 (subscription required for full text):

Survival Test for Kenya's Wildlife

Two years ago, while working in Kenya's Amboseli National Park, elephant expert Joyce Poole encountered a gang of 28 Maasai tribesmen. Adorned in bright red shukas and carrying spears, the men told Poole they were out to avenge the loss of a fellow Maasai gored to death by an elephant. The vigilantes were out to get the attention of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), too: "They told me they were going to kill 1000 elephants that day," Poole recalls.

You know what they say about the memory of an elephant.

I predict that Chan-wook Park's next vengeance trilogy will feature elephants and tribal peoples. In the first film, set in Africa, the elephants will face off against the Maasi; the second will be set in India, in the vicinity of Betla National Park; and the third, in Asia, perhaps near Park's home of Korea.

Weekly Review for 17 October 2006 | Harper's

Anyone who has ever taught at a college or university must have had this experience.

You’re in the middle of something that you do every day: standing at a lectern in a dusty room, for example, lecturing to a roomful of teen-agers above whom hang almost visible clouds of hormones; or running a seminar, hoping to find the question that will make people talk even though it’s spring and no one has done the reading; or sitting in a department meeting as your colleagues act out their various professional identities, the Russian historians spreading gloom, the Germanists accidentally taking Poland, the Asianists grumbling about Western ignorance and lack of civility, and the Americanists expressing surprise at the idea that the world has other continents.

Suddenly, you find yourself wondering, how you can possibly be doing this.

The Nutty Professors | The New Yorker

After having been neglected for most of the twentieth century, the subject of consciousness has become fashionable. Amazon lists 3,865 books under "consciousness," a number of them new releases of the last year or two. What exactly is the problem of consciousness, and why exactly is it so difficult, if not impossible, for us to agree on a solution to it?

...

There are lots of explanations in science and philosophy that are not in the form of equations. In fact, equations are rather rare in biology. Think of the germ theory of disease or the theory of evolution. What we are interested in, in these cases, are causal mechanisms, not equations. What causes disease symptoms? What is the causal account of the evolution of human and animal species from simpler forms of life? And now, what causes consciousness?

Minding the Brain, by John Searle

When Europeans hear the words “America”, “religion” and “family values”, they think of brimstone preachers raging against unconventional domestic arrangements. They often forget the more positive role American churches play in nurturing conventional families.

What is striking, though, is the gulf between the fertility rate in the United States and other rich countries.

The fertility rate in Italy and Spain is [such that] without immigration, the number of Spaniards and Italians would halve in 42 years.

Can America cope with a relentlessly expanding population?

Whereas in the EU by 2050 there will be fewer than two adults of working age for every person over 65, the proportion in America will be less scary, at almost three to one. The problems of growth, says Mr Klineberg, are easier to deal with than the problems of decline.

If demography is destiny, [the world] will not have to find out what a Chinese hyperpower looks like: the fertility rate in China is only 1.7, and there are almost no immigrants.

Now we are 300,000,000