More Saddam

I missed the later session of the trial but the press reports of the second session today are going to get greater coverage since we have Saddam claiming to be a victim himself.

This passage is quite humorous:

During an argument with a prosecutor, Hussein asked if the U.S. forces would be punished for abusing him and other defendants.

"If the multinational forces are abusing your position, from this platform I ask the coalition forces to turn over all defendants to the Iraqi forces," the prosecutor said. "The treatment will certainly be different from what they suffered from the coalition."

I'm sure the Iraqis would treat Saddam with the respect and dignity he bestowed on his subject during his rule given the chance. (Which is to say he'd be beaten, mutilated, violated, threatened, tortured, humiliated and all that would be before noon prayer the first day, at least if he got what he deserved, the Iraqis might actually not do all that out of a commitment to prove that they are not monsters like Uncle Saddam and his cronies but the temptation would be overwhelming)

The judge didn't take these charges seriously, our government doesn't take these charges seriously, I doubt the Iraqi people take these charges seriously, but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see an OpEd from someone at one of the major U.S. papers take these charges very seriously (I hope I'm wrong).

(and the links (here and here and here) accompanying the WaPo article all seem to be of the 'don't worry, that silly little election really was a defeat for Booosh' variety, and for the picture on their U.S. Fatalities link they chose the youngest looking marine they could find, cause you know this is like a children's crusade and all)

Saddam Hussein Trial (DVR blogging experiment)

1:58AM 21 Dec 05
Just started listening to CNN International's coverage of Saddam Hussein's trial.

Saddam insisting on Noon prayers (despite Judges admonition to continue with trial), and so far attentive, subdued used to describe Saddam

also co defendants UPBEAT

and the coverage tape delayed 'somewhat censored' according to reporter Anish Raman.

I'll update throughout, give impressions.

UPDATE 2:10AM
They just showed Saddam's request for noon prayer and continue with Ali Haj Hussein Al-Haydari's testimony about being stripped naked, threatened with rape and starvation of his village. Plus he mentions many of his family members both men and women who died in prison or due to starvation.

Descriptions of forced 'donations' of money and jewelry (presumably for a 'Palace' fund for poor Uncle Saddam)

UPDATE 2:25AM
Judge questioning witness about his direct experience with the defendants. He testifies to direct contact with many of the co defendants and once with Saddam himself.

Then he continues with naming his 7 brothers killed at by the intelligence services and also mentions that they wouldn't get death certificates or bodies so they couldn't be buried properly.

UPDATE 2:33AM
Mark Ellis, CNNi's expert on International Law mentions Judge preventing defendants from directly questioning witness and Mr. Ellis said this differed from earlier in the trial when he felt that some witnesses were allowed to be questioned by the defendants.

UPDATE 2:38AM
Najib Al-Nuaimi questions witness about his role in the assasination attempt in 1986 [update: 1982 attempt, not 1986, see below] that lead to this decimation of the village. The witness responds that he was only 14 (He's younger than me!) at the time and wasn't involved.

The next line of questioning was did the witness observe any executions, and he answers no, but he saw the evidence of torture and he knew that they didn't come home from jail.

break time, I'll catch up back with what I missed later.

UPDATE 5:41AM Best laid plans..... I fell asleep, and my cable glitched so I'm missing some testimony, and besides I'm no expert, and the running translation is difficult to follow at times to say the least (Arabic strikes me as a language of tales and not testimony, so many required repititions, rote patterns, and florid digressions, at least that's the view from an outsider trying to follow a translator's troubles in translating from the arabesque curlicues of that language to the straight lines of English)

This trial will go on much longer and people better able to put this into perspective will do so.

And the reporting of this report seems fair with what I heard, but a picture (above) reveals a thousand biases, sometimes (they didn't call him defiant, but why not show him as the pathetic, broken, awful, petty, evil, scoundrel he is (also I would guess that more good pictures of Saddam Hussein have been published by AP or Reuters photographers than have been of Pres. George Bush).

UPDATE AGAIN: I mixed up some facts (Al Haydari was describing events from 1982, not 1986 (or he was describing events that happened over many years, but the assasination attempt was from 1982)

If You Can't Get Under It, Maybe You Should Go Over IT

Rep. Henry Waxman (my personal congress-critter) has withdrawn his decades long objection (how the hell does it take 20 years to come to a conclusion that it would be safe to dig a tunnel through there anyway?) to allowing a subway project extending (The Metrorail Red Line) into the Westside.

Now the costs are far more than they would have been 20 years ago, and the construction likely to take at least a decade if not more.

But, given that the DARPA funded research into developing the WALRUS should be completed by 2015 might not studying the possibility of going over the city with mass transit blimps make more sense than tunnelling under a seismically active, methane gas filled tar pit?

(added bonus, one of the winning contract bidders is Tarzana based Aeros (the other winner was behemoth LockheedMartin (page 22 of the Corporate overview shows a picture of their concept of a WALRUS dwarving 5 C-5s parked next to it!)))

(There's also this future tech possible alternative to subways that should be considered before digging more tunnels at astronomical cost)

Selfish!

Kobe's stat line tonight against the Dallas Mavericks. (He didn't play in the fourth quarter)
Minutes 33
FG-A 18-31
FT-A 22-25
3P-A 4-10
Off 3
Reb 8
Assists 0!
Steals 3
TO 2
Blocks 0
PF 3
Total Points 62!!!!!!!! (Career High, Season High, top Laker ever not named Baylor, Chamberlain or West) (At the end of 3 quarters Kobe Bryant 62 points, Dallas Mavericks 61 points)

UPDATE: They changed the stat line slightly from 2 offensive rebounds to 3. Also just to mention his 62 was high for the season for any player, and his 30 in the 3rd quarter has been rarely eclipsed (The Iceman owns the NBA record of 33 in a quarter)

UPDATE, Part Deux: I was joking about the selfish remark, Kobe's performance was magnificent, this jerk was being serious (I think, and his whole piece is behind a paid subscription link, but a few people at the LATimes Laker's blog have excerpted some bits)

Friday Funk Lyrics, 16 December 2005

More Friday funk lyrics, and again going with the PFunk thang. The song "The Silent Boatman" originally appeared on the Osmium album (with all things PFunk, the song can be found on multiple albums in multiple versions).

More gospel than funk, it's got what you need for those days when mortality weighs on your mind. (lyrics from here, I changed one line, I changed 'All men descend into earth at the very same depth' to 'All men descend into earth at the very same death', that's what I hear when listening to the song, so I'm sticking to my version)

It is said that when we leave this world
If we have suffered we will be saved
So I'll lift up my head, whoever I am
What I cannot do here, there's a place that I can

I'm waiting for the silent boatman
To ferry me across the unknown waters

In this life, though I've tried
Many things couldn't be
Closed minds with faces looking down onto me
Parting means grief, but only for those left
All men descend into earth at the very same death

I'm waiting for the silent boatman
To ferry me across the unknown waters

I wonder if in death, man at last can love man
Stripped of all life's gifts to him
No ego to remain
When you reach Jordan's bank, there's no money, power or fame
No third or second class, the fare is all the same

I'm waiting for the silent boatman (silent boatman)
To ferry me across the unknown waters (unknown waters)

Don't even THINK about Come Knockin'

Teri Hatcher won her libel case I referenced earlier.

As she has been exonerated by British courts, then the libel against her MUST have been just that, libel.

That the bar for proving libel is far, far, far, far, lower there than here probably had nothing to do with her suing in Albion rather than in the good ol' USA.

So in summation, Teri Hatcher's Hippie Van is a Rockin' free zone. Don't you ever forget it.

This holiday is becoming too commercial.

This holiday is becoming too commercial.

(Once the war on Christmas is over, will a war on this holiday be far behind?)

But is it ART?

I have no idea what she is talking about.

The Pixar movies are not just popular art, they are people-pleasing popular art that recycles fairly familiar conventions - the animated equivalent of Hollywood comedies of the 1930's and 40's, which means plots with good guys, bad guys and funny guys (and occasionally girls), with lots of action thrown in. Their urge toward conformity stands out starkly if you put them beside such subversive television cartoons as "South Park" or the venerable "Simpsons," which, in addition to satire, offers some of the most innovative and unsettling color in any art form at the moment.

Yes the Pixar films are more 'conventional' and family friendly than either The Simpsons or South Park, but what the hell does she mean by, "which, in addition to satire, offers some of the most innovative and unsettling color in any art form at the moment."

That sentence befuddles me.

For one thing, Simpsons is so inferior to South Park at the moment that I'd hesitate to mention them in the same sentence anymore. You might as well say, 'both Family Circus and Boondocks bring a new reality to modern day comic strips'.

And another thing, both South Park and Simpsons are limited animation shows (South Park is more limited, yet also more innovative) that aren't particularly special from a visual perspective. On both those shows content is king. Likewise visually the Pixar films can be stunning, but what all six movies have going for them that other computer animated films have lacked has been story, story, story, and performance, performance, performance. They hire the best voices for the characters, not just some star they hope to trot out for talk shows. And despite following 'convention' as Ms. Smith says in her article, each film has hit the right notes at the right time and are dedicated to being internally consistent, entertaining, and enjoyable as whatever tension in the story is resolved.

And I can't help but notice that the writer for the NYT is somewhat dismissive towards what I believe has been by far the best Pixar film so far (and the only one to be explicitly anti-PC), The Incredibles (it's the only one that made my list, anyway).

I should be happy that they give this exhibit a serious review in the art section and don't poo-poo it as much as they could have. But, I disagree with many of the conclusions she draws about Pixar and the films they have produced so far. Sounds like a fascinating exhibit though.

I'm also amazed that no distrubition deal has been made yet, Disney and Pixar have been good for each other, I don't think Pixar can match Disney's distrubition and recently (Chicken Little, yucch) has demonstrated it can't match Pixar's product (even if the box office was decent). They need each other, they should just admit it and get back in their dysfunctional relationship again.

(Cars looks like another winner, by the way)

Domo Arigato, Walmart shoppers.

This news about luxury fruit buyers in China suggests that the trade deficit between the U.S. and China has fueled a level of affluence which is leading to some interesting buying habits.

Also this article suggests that a couple of things might be at work here. The affluent Chinese might be looking towards Japan for clues on how to remain Asian and yet still be 'cultured'. The decades of totalitarian communist rule left the older generation with brutish and rude manners. That the most popular charm school in Shanghai is run by a Japanese women shouldn't be surprising then.

The L.A. Times months back spun an article about the same woman differently. They emphasized the generational difference in the behavior of the Shanghai elite and that the older one's wouldn't be caught dead being taught by a Japanese woman whereas the younger one's assumed that anyone Chinese wouldn't know what they were talking about when it came to etiquitte so being Japanese was an advantage.

The same thing might be going on with these apple growers. All this new wealth in China requires expression. And what better way to express wealth than spending $100 dollars on a piece of fruit.

Maybe the monied elite with their taste for Japanese fineries will rein in the militirasts from too much sabre rattling with regards to their neighbor. Trade generally is a stabilizing factor in international relationships.

Even though the Chinese are by far the older culture, the disruption caused by 'The Great Leap Forward' has severed many of the connections to that past so copying the master copiers from the Land of the Rising Sun might be the most efficient way for Chinese people to connect back to their 'Chinese-ness'.

(This is all idle speculation, feel free to rip it apart)

Tightrope walking

The reporter covering this story and the scientests interviewed all seem to be engaged in a very careful balancing act.

On the one hand they downplay the significance of their finding as it's just one of many traits in the human genome that have been identified recently and from a survival standpoint it's a very minor one.

However, the politics of this (assuming manipulation would be possible in the future) are huge.

Manipulation of the human genome is a matter of when, not if (at least if SciFi authors like Peter Hamilton are prophetic as well as entertaining).

I think that once real genetic advantages such as disease resistance, intelligence, and athleticism are programmed into people's DNA from birth, that those paying for the service will want two things in addition, an obvious sign of this status, and the likelihood that these traits would be dominant and therefore readily inheritable (that way you are not only paying for your future infant's competitive advantage, but all of your descendents as well). And you'd want visual evidence of this advantage to help your offspring when it comes time for them to find mates.

I think it will be something spectacular and showy like blue, green or lavender skin. (Maybe that's why Capt. Kirk never had problems, all those green and blue babes he bedded were venereal disease proof).

The scientest interviewed seem to be very careful to suggest that in a small way the rise of light skinned people within two independent population groups in more northerly climes had to do with a confluence of competitive advantage and sexual selection. I think that in the era of real manipulation and not random mutation such a mechanism will be built in (at least if the scientest in charge have any sort of marketing sense)

(I think I abused the phrase 'I think' when commenting on this article, I guess I'm trying to walk a tightrope, also)

Sometimes they make it too easy (and today is a great day, don't forget it)

See the way he walks down the street
Watch the way he shuffles his feet
My, he holds his head up high
When he goes walking by
He's my guy

When he holds my hand I'm so proud
'Cause he's not just one of the crowd
My baby, oh he's the one
To try the things they've never done
Just because of that they say

CHORUS
He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good
He's a rebel and he'll never ever be understood
And just because he doesn't do what everybody else does
That's no reason why I can't give him all my love
He is always good to me, always treats me tenderly
'Cause he's not a rebel, no no no
He's not a rebel, no no no, to me

INSTRUMENTAL

If they don't like him that way, they won't like me after today
I'll be standing right by his side, when they say

CHORUS
He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good
He's a rebel 'cause he never ever does what he should
And just because he doesn't do what everybody else does
That's no reason why we can't share a love
He is always good to me, good to him I'll try to be
'Cause he's not a rebel, no no no
He's not a rebel, no no no, to me
(He's not a rebel, no no no
He's not a rebel, no no no
He's not a rebel, no no no
He's not a rebel, no no no)

Why quote the Crystal's hit from 1962? Maybe this NYT headline had something to do with it. To mangle another quote, I guess 'every mainstream media outlet loves a fascist'.

So far, FNC seems to be cheerleading for today's events, and CNN and MSNBC seem to be trying to ignore them. I'm flipping and could be missing the positive reports being aired on CNN and MSNBC but given past performance somehow I doubt it.

UPDATE: I should have known, I should have known, I should have known.

This post makes no sense whatsoever now. I copied this photo from the article as originally posted. I haven't changed the link, yet the headline has gone from mentioning a lack of REBEL activity to one that more innocuously states "Heavy Sunni Turnout as Iraqis Vote for Parliament". I don't remember the exact wording, but I know I didn't imagine it. My mind wouldn't have leaped immediately to the Crystal's song had they not specifically used the word 'rebel' in the headline. I'm pretty sure that the body of the article has changed too. There were other mentions of the 'rebels', now they are 'insurgents' and 'guerrillas'.

I hadn't considered the possibility that the memory hole was going to be used. I should have known better. The picture has changed, too. The one I copied is much better, the pictures in their slideshow are all much more dour, dingy and 'war torn' looking.

I'm emailing this to the big dogs to see if anyone saved a copy of the original headline and text cause this kind of after the fact changing of wording would be considered amateurish if done by a blogger and is downright malpractice when done by the 'paper of record'.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

"Nijinksy of cunnilingus"

This explains so little and so much at the same time. (Read the whole thing, unless you have a weak stomach)

I'm where chain letters go to die.

I've been tagged by Reader_IAm (I guess she was feeling a bit saucy). This particular game consists of the following;

So, Rules:"The first player of this game starts with the topic 'five weird habits of yourself,' and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says 'You are tagged' (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours."

I'm generally not that interested in myself as a subject (at least on my own blog, in other people's comments I'll talk about myself all day, I should have used that as one of my five)

1. I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (Skippy smooth/Smuckers Grape (keeping it simple)) nearly every day.
2. I'm insensitive. Not just emotionally, but physically. And when I say insensitive, I mean like breaking a leg and not realizing it till the next day insensitive.
3. When eating at a restaurant I generally order a beer from the country the food is from (Thai Beer and food is always good, Can't eat Japanese without Sapporo or Asahi, and there are some surprisingly tasty Indian beers if you go to the right places).
4. I've never met an electronic device (other than TV's and monitors) that I haven't ripped apart (or wanted to rip apart but the idea of bricking something of value occaisonally restrains me) and put back together (and the putting back together doesn't always go so well, I'm not nearly as systematic or careful as most people who compulsively disassemble things usually are)
5. I have noun problems. When speaking, not writing, and only with nouns. "Thingy" often stands in for what I mean, anyone who's known me for awhile usually has an internal translation matrix where they can fairly reliably posit what I meant. Another wiring problem I have is that I am susceptible to spoonerisms (and as my last name ends in 'spoon' that's either appropriate or ironic, I leave that to you to decide).

Now the hard part, who to TAG. I could just let this end here. afterall since this is accelerating out from a single post at 5 to a positive integer each generation within 10 generations you have presumably 9,765,625 people involved and by the 14th generation you have about as many people needing to be tagged as there are live folks on the planet (6,103,515,625). I can trace back this game of tag at least 6 generations (RIA, Pooh, Frankie, Jo, Christine, and beyond that it's behind a password).

So if everyone has been dutifully tagging 5 people with this meme then there should be at least (5^6-1)(or 15,624) other people looking for tagees and there have already been [(5^5)+(5^4)+(5^3)+(5^2)+5+1] (or 3906) people tagged (and for each person beyond the password who have been tag the numbers increase by an exponent of the number 5).

I guess another unlisted habit might be the compulsive need to 'do the math' of problems like this. I think that's a pretty rare habit for a non-mathematician/non-statistician (although former accounting data entry clerk).

So as the post indicates, I'm where chain letters go to die and though I'll participate as far as answering, I'll let the weight of those numbers give me an excuse for not tagging anyone else (as by the end of the week if everyone tagged did as they are instructed every living human on the planet would need to become literate, gain access to a computer, start a blog, write a post on this topic, and forward it along. By that time those last folks would then have to figure out a way to forward this meme to ants as despite their tiny size outweigh humans when totalled together so they could probably handle this meme well into the 20s (but probably not past) (but then, the thought of sentience and ants is the stuff of 70s Sci-Fi films (now there's a remake I wouldn't mind so much, it has possibilities that weren't properly explored in the original)).

King Kong (not a review) (No spoilers)

Overheard in the lobby after the film, "She'll never love Jack as much as she did Kong" (said without a trace of irony by an earnest art school grad student looking type)

Damn good popcorn film. Not the greatest film ever. Not a bad film. Like all Peter Jackson films, at heart this film has heart.

That's what sets his big huge epic pictures from say the latest big huge epics produced by Bruckheimer or Lucas or Spielberg.

Jackson likes faces and understands eyes. So many directors seem to have forgotten the simple fact that there is nothing more effective in telling a story or as capabable of expressing complexity than the human face.

Jackson gives Kong a very human face (Andy Serkis is da man) and exceedingly expressive eyes.

The movie's probably too long, (yet it moves just fine), the CGI can be obvious (but always serves the story), and you have to suspend a huge heap of disbelief (but that's what tales by the firelight of the campfire are all about).

This is not a remake for the sake of a quick buck made on the name of some previous work. This was clearly a labor of love meant to use the bones of the original to create a new film that can stand on its own as well as amplify the original. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.



Side note. NOT AGAIN. What the world needs now is NOT another Crockett and Tubbs. Michael Mann himself has decided to rape the memory of his pastel colored cop show. Colin 'I really am bigger than a leprechaun, no really' Farrell and Jamie 'I'm not just an actor, I'm a singer, and did I mention I won an OSCAR' Foxx star. He shot it digital like his last two films (Collateral, Ali) and it might be decent, but at this point I DON"T CARE. Receipts are down in 2005 compared to 2004 and 2006 is shaping up to be worse. Too many sequels, remakes, retreads and slapdash films made to capitalize on a name and not for the sake of telling a story. This does not feel like an original work meant to stand on its own or amplify the original. This looks like a studio desperate for a hit exploiting a title for its recognition value.

They've mined the 50s, 60s and 70s and now turn to the 80s, what remakes will the 90s spawn? (Roseanne the Movie?) (Seinfeld the Movie?) (NYPD Blue?) (ER?) (An Armageddon remake!?!)

A pox on all their houses

(via instapundit)
This short musing from Clive Davis regarding left liberal groupthink amongst 'artistic types' reminds me of a refrain I invariably say when this is brought up.

The reason conservative thinkers and commenters are usually better, more humorous and cogent is because they are constantly exposed to the 'enemy' camp.

You can't get a degree, watch television, go to an exhibition of contemporary art, see a play, go to the movies, etc., etc., without being bombarded with the latest canards from the left.

The left however seem to share habits with young children. When confronted with unpleasant facts their fingers find a way into their ears and they begin chanting 'la, la, la, la, la, I can't hear you, la, la, la, la, la, la, I can't hear you, (repeated ad infinitum))

Why title this post a pox on all their houses?

Well social conservatives aren't much better. They have a habit of demonizing and condemning all opposition to eternal hellfire. The war on videogames (I'm talking to you Jack Thompson) is a good current example.

Marginalizing opposing ideas isn't a way to win an argument or change policy, it's a path that leads towards self marginalization.

Of course I'm gladdened when either of those groups become more marginal

(Here's a raised glass of your favorite intoxicating beverage or substance to a future Moderate/Libertarian majority (and I believe that libertarian and moderate can be fused once enough people realize that the libertarian way IS the moderate way))