Yellow-Bellied Lies

Did US administration officials make (numerous) honest errors in deciding to wage war against Iraq and its alleged "weapons of mass destruction"...?

No.

President Bush claimed "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This was supposedly based on a documented purchasing agreement between the governments of Iraq and Niger. The documents made their way to US Executive Branch officials through unorthodox means, bypassing normal security analysis. The documents were forged. Nobody has been prosecuted (why not?) Among those suggested as being ultimately responsible for the forgeries are agents of the USA, Italy or Israel. We may never know who created them.

We are also expected to believe that the US government was misled into going to war by fabricated intelligence supplied by "Curveball" -- an Iraqi former taxi driver and compulsive liar. Is the US government truly run by such a bunch of idiots, who were fooled into war by mysterious documents and a single con artist? Unlikely!

SOW - Stop Our War

I'm a US citizen surrounded daily by non-Americans. I'm often asked about the actions of the US government. Being reasonably well-informed (and without access to any inner sanctum), it's easy to analyze and discuss strategy.

I'm put in a more difficult position when asked my feelings about Bush/Cheney & associates. To what extent should I be diplomatic? How can I explain my deep patriotism? How can I best describe deep disapproval of assorted policies and their underlying dog-eat-dog (Social Darwinist) neo-con ideology?

The Bush government claims that its national security actions are for the better interests of the American people, and some believe that; others do not. I'm amazed that tens of millions of American's seem fully to support presidential actions many criticize as extreme and sinister. Ultimately, any government treating too many people with contempt will be replaced.

The Bush/Cheney administration has spent huge sums, and accrued large debts. They have invested heavily in building systems with poor future prospects, while diverting funding from health, education, research and human services that would make life markedly better for many. They have mobilized the American people into waging multiple foreign wars on vague & evolving justifications. These assorted wars continue bloodily, without exit strategies, and with poor accountability. Bush & Co. spokespersons have earned a "doubtful" label and should not be trusted. Stop our wars now...

Reopen - New Close

by Genki

The crowd became restless
Then picked up the chant
bareass fool
bareass fool

They blamed that kid begun it
And he brilliantly warmed to the press
But I watched her planting seeds
Then scurry off

bareass fool
bareass fool
It all seems kinda funny
But I seen 'em busting heads

I used to serve their Majesties
And the kiss-arse crowd around 'em
Their riches are real; waste unmeasured
Their sneers make one limp

I lurned a bit there; no-doubt affected
But one day far from the city
The smell of earth and air
I seen my life been wasted

We'd each turned out for pageantry
bareass fool
bareass fool
She coulda been talkin' to me

Now I've restarted modestly
bareass fool
She don't want fame.
Slaughterer retired. I'm re-covered.

The Bicycle Trip

Dr. Albert Hofmann died today, age 102. He was a pioneer scientist. No doubt he worked with stuff that was dangerous - mainly to the status quo. It seems ludicrous that his research focus became so terribly demonized, while research work merrily continued with napalm, land mines, cluster bombs and depleted uranium. But rather than to link weaponry to Hofmann's work, consider instead a form of complex transport, where incautious operation might be dangerous.

Hofmann remembered deeply euphoric moments of when he was a child. Perhaps many of us have such childhood experiences, but they typically fade from memory. Dr. Hofmann's outlook got a jolt on 16 April 1943, when he he was forced to go home early from work at Sandoz Pharmaceutical laboratories; he felt "a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."

He concluded that somehow he'd accidentally absorbed traces of an ergot-derived chemical material he'd been working on, lysergic acid diethylamide.

A few days later on the 19th April, he experimented on himself. "Exercising extreme caution, I began the planned series of experiments with the smallest quantity that could be expected to produce some effect, considering the activity of the ergot alkaloids known at the time: namely, 0.25 mg" (250 micrograms). Surprise surprise. Forty minutes later he noted in his lab journal: "Beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh." He was unable that day to write more, noting later "the altered perceptions were of the
same type as before, only much more intense. I had to struggle to speak intelligibly. I asked my laboratory assistant, who was informed of the self-experiment, to escort me home. We went by bicycle"...

Over the past 65 years there's been great interest in Dr. Hofmann's bicycle trip home. We can now buy posters and pendants commemorating his experience. Most curious!

I'd take a memorial bike trip in Dr. Hofmann's memory, but haven't the proper equipment (and I'd likely get into trouble here in Seoul).

Albert Hofmann later said such experiences changed his life. He'd been surprised: "I had believed there was only one reality, the reality of everyday life. Just one true reality and the rest was imagination and was not real. But ...I entered into realities which were as real and even more real..." An explicit contrast between imagination and multiple realities? Go figure.

Anyhow Albert went on to do much other important medical work; but long from now he'll be remembered as an important explorer. Being active to age 102 is quite nice too. RIP.

Keith D. Witherell, RIP

A friend from school days passed away last week, a few days shy of 50 years of age. It's a long time since last we met. Seeing his obituary and reading of his life generates sadness, recognizes personal mortality, and builds respect.

Keith Witherell managed living well - gathering friends at work, romping with technology, active widely in theatre & music; he was a caring citizen and neighbor building a dynamic family. ...clearly a person who loved living, who took time to breathe deeply and to smile. A person who brightened his creative space.

Here is a person sadly missed.

ABC of Checks & Balances for America

The United States of America was founded on key concepts defined by the Constitution and its laws. One of the most important has required checks and balances between the Legislative, Judiciary and the Executive branches of government. In times when America had much less money and resources, time and effort was spent with developing these valuable systems of checks and balances -- because government is doing a job for the people, oversight is important, and because justice is more than a simply a declaration by one asshole, however clever or lovable.

Toyota's Corporate Image

In Japan twenty years ago I worked on a large "Corporate Citizenship" consulting project for Toyota. They took careful note of our extensive findings, and many were adopted. (That was my first such project for a major multinational, and a nice earner!)

Now Toyota is getting into trouble. A recent news article by Haider Rizvi explains: (link) "Toyota is now the world’s largest automaker in terms of net worth, revenue and profits... the company has built its green image around the well-known Prius, [but] hybrid sales tell only a small part of their story. Toyota's reliance on the 14-mile-per-gallon (mpg) Tundra pickup truck and other so-called "gas guzzlers" has held the company’s fleet-wide fuel efficiency down to levels below what they were several decades ago."

Toyota is one of many automakers reportedly lobbying the US government to roll-back plans for stricter fuel efficiency. Toyota is also using its muscle to develop & invest in cleaner energy technologies... Their conundrum as successful market leader is being much more of a target than when simply one of many manufacturers. Toyota needs to effectively position itself as environmentally-friendly, and to follow-through with its marketing. They ultimately direct their own image, as:
unclean
obscene
or green

Swiftboating - Scum Tactic Revisited

"I saw a guy with three Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross turned into a weak, wimpy, lying coward, in order to make sure that a weak, wimpy, lying coward who went to Margaritaville instead of the Mekong Delta during the Sixties could be portrayed as some sort of macho tough guy, and thus steal another four years in the White House."
-- Prof. David Michael Green

I know little about the Hon. John Kerry. Yet I believe that partisan mud thrown by Swiftboaters instead stained the military and its commendation system. Yes, attention was deflected from weaknesses in President George W. Bush, but at great cost.

Non-violent = disloyal = fired

Open letter to Cal State East Bay University
Office of the President

Here in far-off South Korea it has come to my attention that employees of California State University East Bay must sign a loyalty oath for employment, and that Marianne Kearney-Brown was recently fired for wishing to make modifications to the text of that oath.

She'd worked successfully for some weeks in her job, and agreed to sign a modified text promising to nonviolently support and defend the U.S. and state Constitutions, but was still fired. The job she was doing was not law enforcement, but teaching remedial mathematics.

Her faith as a Quaker (Society of Friends member) precludes her from taking up arms. She is 50 years old.

Perhaps I do not know the entire story, but the story as repeated here (and around the world) smacks of blind loyalty, foolish bureaucracy, and / or odd censorship. I hope this is a wrongful dismissal that quickly can be rectified.

----------------------
Incident reported in SF Chronicle:
http://tinyurl.com/38w8kx
----------------------
Cal State East Bay sent me a letter (5 March, in response to agitation) justifying the dismissal.
----------------------
A few days later, she got her job back!

Teaching Democracy

The USA and its political leadership need a lesson in democracy. Stupidly, many Americans have been led to believe that we can teach democracy to the rest of the world; but practices in the USA are clearly crippled.

The democratic process and voting is a serious thing - the basis for government legitimacy. Anti-democratic efforts should be greatly minimized. There is no reasonable excuse that voters be turned away from polling stations and not allowed to vote. Use of indelible inks and simple video cameras can assure that all eligible are allowed to vote (while those trying to vote multiple times or who are truly ineligible can be found out). It is a more serious issue when political operatives seek to somehow falsely disenfranchise voters. If lessons in democracy or neutral international observers or strong penalties for election-rigging might help, we need to make it happen. Cases of people being illegitimately turned away at the polls must be severely punished.

Political discourse is important. Recently, Presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich was barred from the Nevada Presidential Debate. He was first invited & scheduled to appear, then uninvited, supposedly to focus on the top three candidates. This decision was made by a broadcasting corporation, MSNBC (subsidiary of General Electric Corporation). Such corporate pre-screening of this Presidential candidate was wrong.

But the other three candidates / suckers, Clinton, Edwards and Obama, accepted the situation. Perhaps simply hoping to narrow the field, they let supposed personal benefits undermine the democratic process. This was wrong. The Las Vegas debate did not involve a need for great haste or a strict limit on debaters - the Democratic nomination is many months from now, and the Presidential election is more than ten months away. Each of these candidates has sufficient time to get their points across. What this teaches is that these three people and their advisory panels are willing to cut corners to gain power. In this case none properly represented democracy. So sad.

All involved may be unrepentant now, but what if their candidacy, products or services were ignored by the citizenry?

TortuR-R-US

The USA merrily greets the rest of the world with the threat of torture. Don't get involved with anti-US activities.

The secret anti-terror apparatus snaps up suspects, tortures them, and imprisons them indefinitely without trial. The Bush Administration claims "enhanced interrogation techniques" are not torture; well, don't become invited to their suspect 'hospitality'...

Perhaps 'the media is the message'
= the message is fear