I currently blog politically/policywise at Obsidian Wings.
Scroll down for Amygdala archives! You know you want to. [Temporarily rather borked, along with rest of template.]
Amygdala's endorsements are below my favorite quotations! Keep scrolling!
Amygdala will move to an entirely new and far better blog template ASAP, aka RSN, aka incrementally/badly punctuated evolution.
Tagging posts, posts by category, next/previous post indicators, and other post-2003 design innovations are incrementally being tweaked/kludged/melting.
Above email address currently deprecated! Use gary underscore farber at yahoodotcom, pliz! Sanely free of McCarthyite calling anyone a traitor since 2001!
Commenting Rules: Only comments that are courteous and respectful of other commenters will be allowed. Period.
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You must either open a Google/Blogger.com/Gmail Account, or sign into comments at the bottom of any post with OpenID, LiveJournal, Typepad, Wordpress, AIM account, or whatever ID/handle available to use. Hey, I don't design Blogger's software: sorry!
Posting a spam-type URL will be grounds for deletion.
Comments on posts over 21 days old are now moderated, and it may take me a long while to notice and allow them.
I've a long record in editorial work in book and magazine publishing, starting 1974, a variety of other work experience, but have been, since 2001, recurringly housebound with insanely painful sporadic and unpredictably variable gout and edema, and in the past, other ailments; the future? The Great Unknown: isn't it for all of us?
I'm currently couch-surfingly sort of homeless, house/cat-sitting, now extended through [latest is actually February], not on any government aid yet (or mostly ever), generally in constant major chronic pain from gout and edema, which variably leaves me unable to walk, including just standing, but sometimes is better, and is freaking unpredictable at present; I'm currently supported mostly by your blog donations/subscriptions; you can help me. I prefer to spread out the load, and lessen it from the few who have been doing more than their fair share for too long.
Thanks for any understanding and support. I know it's difficult to understand. And things will change. They always change.
I'm sometimes available to some degree as a paid writer, editor, researcher, or proofreader. I'm sometimes available as a fill-in Guest Blogger at mid-to-high-traffic blogs that fit my knowledge set.
If you like my blog, and would like to help me continue to afford food and prescriptions, or simply enjoy my blogging and writing, and would like to support it --
you are welcome to do so via the PayPal buttons.
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"The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include With ease, and you beside"
-- Emily Dickinson
"We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport."
-- Barbara Jordan
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule --
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
"The only completely consistent people are the dead."
-- Aldous Huxley
"I have had my solutions for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
-- Karl F. Gauss
"Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire,
the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind;
and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise
the improvements of social life."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."
-- Edward Gibbon
"There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify
the evils, of the present times."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority.
They show disrespect for elders and they
love to chatter instead of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize
their teachers."
-- Socrates
"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments."
-- Sidney Hook
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect
disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest
and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
"Faced with the choice of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the
land, we chose a Jewish state without all the land."
-- David Ben-Gurion
"...the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him
an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing,
with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess
and conform to it;[...] that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty....
-- Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson
"We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices,
intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to
improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation;
a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most
tiresome arguments against ideas is that their 'tendency' is to some dire condition --
to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all."
-- Louis Menand
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
-- Dante Alighieri
"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
-- Henry B. Adams
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
-- Anatole France
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke
"Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business or mining or botany or journalism or epistemology;
it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual, and esthetic inheritance of the race we have come to
understand and control ourselves as well as the external world; that we have chosen the best as our associates both in spirit
and the flesh; that we have learned to add courtesy to culture, wisdom to knowledge, and forgiveness to understanding."
-- Will Durant
"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is
but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest
winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
-- Herman Melville
"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon,
but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without
being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept."
-- Will Durant
"When you write, you’re trying to transpose what you’re thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music."
-- Louis Menand
"Sex is a continuum."
-- Gore Vidal
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802.
"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible,
and in many things leave one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity in many matters, and
man suffers from this almost congenital disease that he will not give in when once a controversy is started, and
after he is heated he regards as absolutely true that which he began to sponsor quite casually...."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
"Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve?"
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814
"We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort,
are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true,
the 'objectively' line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore 'Trotskyism is Fascism'. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated.
This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions."
-- George Orwell, "As I Please," Tribune, 8 December 1944
"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?"
-- "Aaron Altman," Broadcast News
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
-- Lewis Thomas
"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?"
-- Cicero
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
-- Samuel Johnson, Life Of Johnson
"Very well, what did my critics say in attacking my character? I must read out their affidavit, so to speak, as though they were my legal accusers: Socrates is guilty of criminal meddling, in that he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example."
-- Socrates, via Plato, The Republic
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The term, then, is obviously a relative one; my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, & someone else's ignorance."
-- H. W. Fowler
"Rules exist for good reasons, and in any art form the beginner must learn them and understand what they are for, then follow them for quite a while. A visual artist, pianist, dancer, fiction writer, all beginning artists are in the same boat here: learn the rules, understand them, follow them. It's called an apprenticeship. A mediocre artist never stops following the rules, slavishly follows guidelines, and seldom rises above mediocrity. An accomplished artist internalizes the rules to the point where they don't have to be consciously considered. After you've put in the time it takes to learn to swim, you never stop to think: now I move my arm, kick, raise my head, breathe. You just do it. The accomplished artist knows what the rules mean, how to use them, dodge them, ignore them altogether, or break them. This may be a wholly unconscious process of assimilation, one never articulated, but it has taken place."
-- Kate Wilhelm
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed."
-- Albert Einstein
"The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual."
-- Franz Kafka, Aphorisms
"All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
-- Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you."
-- Nicholas Klein, May, 1919, to the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (misattributed to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1914 & variants).
"Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it."
-- Lecture IX, John Henry Cardinal Newman
“Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for.”
-- John Henry Cardinal Newman
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
-- James Madison
"Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency."
-- Napoleon I of France.
"The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only."
-- Napoleon I of France.
"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."
-- On the subject of torture, in a letter to Louis Alexandre Berthier (11 November 1798), published in Correspondance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol. V, No. 3606, p. 128
"All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible."
-- George Santayana, Dialogues in Limbo (1926)
"American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism."
-- George Santayana, Character and Opinion in the United States, (1920)
"If you should put even a little on a little, and should do this often, soon this too would become big."
-- Hesiod, Work And Days
"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
-- Eugene V. Debs
"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
"Remember, Robin: evil is a pretty bad thing."
-- Batman
Gary Farber is now a licensed Quintuple Super-Sekrit Multi-dimensional Master Pundit.
He does not always refer to himself in the third person.
He is presently single.
The gefilte fish is dead. Donate via the donation button on the top left or I'll shoot this cutepanda. Don't you lovepandas?
Current Total # of Donations Since 2002: 1181
Subscribers to date at $5/month: 98 sign-ups; 67 cancellations; Total= 21
Supporter subscribers to date at $25/month: 16 sign-ups; 10 cancellation; Total= 6
Patron subscribers to date at $50/month: 20 sign-ups; 13 cancellations; Total= 7
...writer[s] I find myself checking out repeatedly when I'm in the mood to play follow-the-links. They're not all people I agree with all the time, or even most of the time, but I've found them all to be thoughtful writers, and that's the important thing, or should be.
-- Tom Tomorrow
"Gary Farber is a gentleman, a scholar and one of the gems of the blogosphere."
-- Steve Hynd, Newshoggers.com
Gary Farber is your one-man internet as always, with posts on every article there is.
-- Fafnir
Guessing that Gary is ignorant of anything that has ever been written down is, in my experience, unwise.
Just saying.
-- Hilzoy
I read Amygdala...with regularity, as do all sensible websurfers.
-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Okay, he is annoying, but he still posts a lot of good stuff.
-- Avedon Carol, The Sideshow
Amygdala - So much stuff it reminds Unqualified Offerings that UO sometimes thinks of Gary Farber as "the liberal Instapundit." -- Jim Henley
...the thoughtful and highly intelligent Gary Farber... My first reaction was that I definitely need to appease Gary Farber of Amygdala, one of the geniuses of our age.
-- Brad deLong
Gary is a perceptive, intelligent, nice guy. Some of the stuff he comes up with is insightful, witty, and stimulating. And sometimes he manages to make me groan.
-- Charlie Stross
I bow before the shrillitudinousness of Gary Farber, who has been blogging like a fiend.
-- Ted Barlow, Crooked Timber
Favorite.... [...] ...all great stuff. [...] Gary Farber should never be without readers.
-- Ogged
I usually read you and Patrick several times a day, and I always get something from them. You've got great links, intellectually honest commentary, and a sense of humor. What's not to like?
-- Ted Barlow
One of my issues with many poli-blogs is the dickhead tone so many bloggers affect to express their sense of righteous indignation. Gary Farber's thoughtful leftie takes on the world stand in sharp contrast with the usual rhetorical bullying. Plus, he likes "Pogo," which clearly attests to his unassaultable good taste.
-- oakhaus.com
The only trouble with reading Amygdala is that it makes me feel like such a slacker. That Man Farber's a linking, posting, commenting machine, I tell you!
-- John Robinson, Sore Eyes
Jaysus. I saw him do something like this before, on a thread about Israel. It was pretty brutal. It's like watching one of those old WWF wrestlers grab an opponent's
face and grind away until the guy starts crying. I mean that in a nice & admiring way, you know.
-- Fontana Labs, Unfogged
We read you Gary Farber! We read you all the time! Its just that we are lazy with our blogroll. We are so very very lazy. We are always the last ones to the party but we always have snazzy bow ties.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber you are a genius of mad scientist proportions. I will bet there are like huge brains growin in jars all over your house.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber is the hardest working man in show blog business. He's like a young Gene Hackman blogging with his hair on fire, or something.
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Gary Farber only has two blogging modes: not at all, and 20 billion interesting posts a day [...] someone on the interweb whose opinions I can trust....
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Isn't Gary a cracking blogger, apropos of nothing in particular?
-- Alison Scott
Gary Farber takes me to task, in a way befitting the gentleman he is.
-- Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
My friend Gary Farber at Amygdala is the sort of liberal for whom I happily give three cheers. [...] Damned incisive blogging....
-- Midwest Conservative Journal
If I ever start a paper, Clueless writes the foreign affairs column, Layne handles the city beat, Welch has the roving-reporter job, Tom Tomorrow runs the comic section (which carries Treacher, of course). MediaMinded runs the slots - that's the type of editor I want as the last line of defense. InstantMan runs the edit page - and you can forget about your Ivins and Wills and Friedmans and Teepens on the edit page - it's all Blair, VodkaP, C. Johnson, Aspara, Farber, Galt, and a dozen other worthies, with Justin 'I am smoking in such a provocative fashion' Raimondo tossed in for balance and comic relief.
Who wouldn't buy that paper? Who wouldn't want to read it? Who wouldn't climb over their mother to be in it?
-- James Lileks
I do appreciate your role and the role of Amygdala as a pioneering effort in the integration of fanwriters with social conscience into the larger blogosphere of social conscience.
-- Lenny Bailes
Every single post in that part of Amygdala visible on my screen is either funny or bracing or important. Is it always like this? -- Natalie Solent
People I've known and still miss include Isaac Asimov, rich brown, Charles Burbee, F. M. "Buzz" Busby, Terry Carr, A. Vincent Clarke, Bob Doyle, George Alec Effinger, Abi Frost,
Bill & Sherry Fesselmeyer, George Flynn, John Milo "Mike" Ford. John Foyster, Mike Glicksohn, Jay Haldeman, Neith Hammond (Asenath Katrina Hammond)/DominEditrix , Chuch Harris, Mike Hinge, Lee Hoffman, Terry Hughes, Damon Knight, Ross Pavlac, Bruce Pelz, Elmer Perdue, Tom Perry,
Larry Propp, Bill Rotsler, Art Saha, Bob Shaw, Martin Smith, Harry Stubbs, Bob Tucker, Harry Warner, Jr., Jack Williamson, Walter A. Willis, Susan Wood, Kate Worley, and Roger Zelazny.
It's just a start, it only gets longer, many are unintentionally left out.
And She of whom I must write someday.
Social media is very distracting from blogging. So is real life social activity. So is severe clinical recurring depression, panic and anxiety disorders.
My apologies.
I'm still here. I'm still intending to get back to blogging Real Soon Now. Trying to work on the depression and forming new habits to get back in the blogging groove.
A very important to me friend of mine -- not me -- with solid copyeditingexperience is looking for immediate freelance or permanent or temporary copyediting or proofreading work of any sort, either by mail/shipping, or locally in the Bay Area. CV upon request.
She's also available at present for any sort of office work in the Bay Area, or other work suitable to someone with some mobility disabilities and chronic pain issues.
Please write me at gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com with any questions if you have any leads. Thanks immensely for your help.
Yes, I hope to be back to blogging regularly, or even semi-regularly, in the near future.
ADDENDUM:I've understandably lost a lot of subscribers in the last year and particularly the last six months, and money is pretty tight again. If anyone optimistically would feel like subscribing, or donating, now would be a good time again. I do hope to start repaying with more writing again soon.
Additionally, I'll give half or more of any donations in the next month to a friend who right now has a major crisis paying rent for the month; that's as much a huge motivation in my asking.
Thanks for any consideration.
UPDATE, July 19th, 2011: my friend is still looking for any work, including any Bay Area general office/admin, or retail work; write me at gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com with any info re possible work locally or freelance by mail. And, yes, new or renewed subscriptions, and donations, would be wonderful: thanks to any who can help!
UPDATE, August 4th, 2011. Yes, I intend to get back to posting; I'm momentarily focusing on working on some life-problems, and I appreciate your patience and faith that I'm not disappearing.
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO FREEZE AND BE UTTERLY SILENT
The Fourth Amendment continues to be onion-peeled into nothingness. KENTUCKY v. KING puts another nail in the coffin as police gain the right to kick in your door simply because they hear movement within your dwelling.
Obviously that's probable cause, because noise indicates a crime.
Does that make sense to you? It does to 8 out of 9 members of the Supreme Court.
ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
[...]
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said police officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches by kicking down a door after the occupants of an apartment react to hearing that officers are there by seeming to destroy evidence.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the majority had handed the police an important new tool.
“The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. “In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”
The case, Kentucky v. King, No. 09-1272, arose from a mistake. After seeing a drug deal in a parking lot, police officers in Lexington, Ky., rushed into an apartment complex looking for a suspect who had sold cocaine to an informant.
But the smell of burning marijuana led them to the wrong apartment. After knocking and announcing themselves, they heard sounds from inside the apartment that they said made them fear that evidence was being destroyed. They kicked the door in and found marijuana and cocaine but not the original suspect, who was in a different apartment.
The Kentucky Supreme Court suppressed the evidence, saying that any risk of drugs being destroyed was the result of the decision by the police to knock and announce themselves rather than obtain a warrant.
The United States Supreme Court reversed that decision on Monday, saying the police had acted lawfully and that was all that mattered. The defendant, Hollis D. King, had choices other than destroying evidence, Justice Alito wrote.
He could have chosen not to respond to the knocking in any fashion, Justice Alito wrote. Or he could have come to the door and declined to let the officers enter without a warrant.
“Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame,” Justice Alito wrote.
BLOGGING IS LIKE A SIMILE. Let's try some news and article dumping throughout the day here, eh?
The Amygdala staff has been slack, scattered, and unfocused on posting to this blog; the staffers responsible have been sacked; once again, new staffers for new brain connections!
[...] The Marines under fire were watching streaming video of the battlefield being fed to them by an armed Predator overhead. They saw a number of "hot spots," or infrared images, moving in their direction. Apparently believing that those "hot spots" were the enemy, they called in a Hellfire missile strike from the Predator.
Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and that it halt C.I.A. drone strikes aimed at militants in northwest Pakistan. The request was a sign of the near collapse of cooperation between the two testy allies.
Pakistani and American officials said in interviews that the demand that the United States scale back its presence was the immediate fallout from the arrest in Pakistan of Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. security officer who killed two men in January during what he said was an attempt to rob him.
In all, about 335 American personnel — C.I.A. officers and contractors and Special Operations forces — were being asked to leave the country, said a Pakistani official closely involved in the decision.
It was not clear how many C.I.A. personnel that would leave behind; the total number in Pakistan has not been disclosed. But the cuts demanded by the Pakistanis amounted to 25 to 40 percent of United States Special Operations forces in the country, the officials said. The number also included the removal of all the American contractors used by the C.I.A. in Pakistan.
This is what we call "big news."
It's also, when you read between the lines, leverage, and there will be a trade-off, and you'll have to read between the lines, at best, and look carefully at the right sources, to find information about it when it happens, should said information be findable -- but traces always surface on the internet:
[...] In addition to the withdrawal of all C.I.A. contractors, Pakistan is demanding the removal of C.I.A. operatives involved in “unilateral” assignments like Mr. Davis’s that the Pakistani intelligence agency did not know about, the Pakistani official said.
An American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said without elaborating that the Pakistanis had asked “for more visibility into some things” — presumably the nature of C.I.A. covert operations in the country — “and that request is being talked about.”
Translation: the ISI just pulled the lever to try to get CIA to be as transparent as is possible with ISI in thehall of mirrors.
[...] Clutter exists only when those things exert a mental drag, or get in the way of living, in line with the old Afrikaans proverb, 'Alles wat jy besit vat van jou tyd' — 'Everything you own snatches at your time.'
My information sucking is a tad cluttering, but I declutter for you, my guests.
[...] "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call 'life' that is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run," is how Henry David Thoreau, everyone's favourite 19th-century hut-dwelling minimalist, expressed the sense that owning things constitutes a spiritual burden. He advocated not decluttering, though, so much as simplicity; not throwing things out so much as not acquiring them in the first place. Decluttering can be a step towards greater simplicity. But only if, having thrown off the ballast, you resist accumulating more. Otherwise, you're not really decluttering. You're just keeping the decluttering industry in business.
Your Amygdala declutters information. (Link via Stef.)
I could check the quote, but there would be a cost. Without going to the source, I note that Wikiquotes has it as:
And the cost of a thing it will be remembered is the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it.
-- Journals (1838-1859) (After December 6, 1845.)
Yet more succinctly, I note that:
* It is a great art to saunter.
o April 26, 1841
I must return to more saunter in my blogging.
* For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty faithfully, though I never received one cent for it.
o After February 22, 1846
Thoreau was, as we know, an early blogger. He merely lacked Hellfire missiles.
John McCain has never met a country he wouldn't like to bomb:
[...]
McCain, who insists on visiting Iraq and Afghanistan twice a year, often favors a muscular approach to projecting U.S. military power but is wary of entanglements with no exit strategy. The old aviator, who had both arms repeatedly broken in a Hanoi prison camp, says that experience has “also given me a sense of caution in light of our failure in Vietnam.” While McCain opposed the U.S. military actions in Lebanon and Somalia, he is sympathetic to humanitarian missions—and would even consider sending troops to the war-torn Ivory Coast if someone could “tell me how we stop what’s going on.”
Pressed on when the United States should intervene in other countries, McCain sketches an expansive doctrine that turns on practicality: American forces must be able to “beneficially affect the situation” and avoid “an outcome which would be offensive to our fundamental -principles—whether it’s 1,000 people slaughtered or 8,000…If there’s a massacre or ethnic cleansing and we are able to prevent it, I think the United States should act.”
Tough guy Anthony Cordesman naturally wants to fight. Unsurprisingly, he used to be national security assistant to Senator John McCain.
Cordesman, who has, see previous links, always been deeply wired into the militarist networks of the Washington, D.C. village of talking heads and millionaire journalism, has a (surprise!) widely-quoted piece advocating we (surprise!) go all in.
'You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,' he told the president. 'You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all.' Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of StateRichard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.
Does anyone want to buy Libya, and own it for the next decade?
[...] The rebel army’s nominal leader, Abdul Fattah Younes, a former interior minister and friend of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi whom many rebel leaders distrusted, could offer little explanation for the recent military stumbles, two people with knowledge of the meetings said.
Making matters worse, the men could hardly stand one another. They included Khalifa Heftar, a former general who returned recently from exile in the United States and appointed himself as the rebel field commander, the movement’s leaders said, and Omar el-Hariri, a former political prisoner who occupied the largely ceremonial role of defense minister.
“They behaved like children,” said Fathi Baja, a political science professor who heads the rebel political committee.
Little was accomplished in the meetings, the participants said. When they concluded late last week, Mr. Younes was still the head of the army and Mr. Hariri remained as the defense minister. Only Mr. Heftar, who reportedly refused to work with Mr. Younes, was forced out. On Sunday, though, in a sign that divisions persisted, Mr. Heftar’s son said his father was still an army leader. [....]
On March 29th, Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney told the press gaggle on AF1 that, in essence, he didn't know who the hell these people are, but let's hope for the best:
[...] Q One of NATO’s military leaders testified on the Hill today that there had been signs of al Qaeda seen amongst Libyan rebels. How does that affect the White House thinking on engaging with them?
MR. CARNEY: Well, what I would say is that, as you know, we spend a lot of time looking at the opposition and now meeting with opposition leaders. And the folks who are in London, the people that -- and the leader that Secretary Clinton met in Paris, have made clear what their principles are and we believe that they’re meritorious -- their principles. I think they had a statement today that had some very good language in it that we support.
But that doesn’t mean, obviously, that everyone who opposes Moammar Qaddafi I Libya is someone whose ideals we can support. But beyond that, I don't have any detail about individual members of the opposition.
Q Does it concern you about how much you don't know about the opposition?
MR. CARNEY: Well, what I would say is that we have met with opposition leaders and we're working with them, but as the President said, and as the opposition leaders who put out a statement today said, it’s up to them to decide who their leaders are going to be.
HELLO, GOODBYE: YOU SAY GOODBYE, I SAY GO TO HELL, GLENN BECK
Glenn Beck is leaving Fox News, but not, I'm afraid, leaving us alone.
FOX NEWS AND MERCURY RADIO ARTS ANNOUNCE NEW AGREEMENT
(New York, NY) Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck’s production company, are proud to announce that they will work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties. Glenn intends to transition off of his daily program, the third highest rated in all of cable news, later this year.
[...] Two of the options Mr. Beck has contemplated, according to people who have spoken about it with him, are a partial or wholesale takeover of a cable channel, or an expansion of his subscription video service on the Web.
Reports this week that Joel Cheatwood, a senior Fox News executive, would soon join Mr. Beck’s growing media company, Mercury Radio Arts, were the latest indication that Mr. Beck intended to leave Fox, a unit of the News Corporation, when his contract expired at the end of this year.
Notably, Mr. Beck’s company has been staffing up — making Web shows, some of which have little or nothing to do with Mr. Beck, and charging a monthly subscription for access to the shows.
He's not going away. Frankly, this is part of the not-that-slow collapse of the whole "tv network" paradigm that the internet is forcing. "TV' isn't going away as fast as traditional publishing, which is going away much faster than the traditional music distribution business, but it's circling the drain rapidly with streaming and direct deals for iPads and tablets and phones and all sorts of streaming.
Below, the worst of Glenn Beck, but why he's not stupid about media. Laugh and weep.
WHAT IS BEST IN ACADEMIC FREEDOM, CRONON? NOT TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES
The current attempt by the radical "conservative" Republican Party of Wisconsin, which is so typical of the national and other state Republican Party leadership, has met a roadblock.
But a reminder of what the philosophy of the GOP is, here:
It's still April 1st on the Left Coast for another two hours and five minutes (when I started this post; an hour and ten minutes when I finished), no matter what date you read above this post.
Some foolish links are in order!
So, out of order!
Japan is on everyone's mind, but we need to remember than it's not all doom and gloom, and yet in the spirit of helping:
There's nothing bloggers like better than catching out the New York Times in embarrassing goofs!
I'm sorry I missed that press conference.
And srsly, nothing could be better news for bloggers than the NY Times digital subscriptions! Why?
Can I still access NYTimes.com articles through Facebook, Twitter, search engines or my blog?
Yes. We encourage links from Facebook, Twitter, search engines, blogs and social media. When you visit NYTimes.com through a link from one of these channels, that article (or video, slide show, etc.) will count toward your monthly limit of 20 free articles, but you will still be able to view it even if you've already read your 20 free articles.
So just read a blog to get your New York Times fix! How hard is that?
Meanwhile if you haven't heard of self-published fiction writerJacqueline Howett, here is how not to become a world famous author!
[...] In 1991, Cronon completed a book entitled Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, which examines Chicago 's relationship to its rural hinterland during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1991, it was awarded the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for the best literary work of non-fiction published during the preceding year; in 1992, it won the Bancroft Prize for the best work of American history published during the previous year, and was also one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in History; and in 1993, it received the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the Forest History Society for the best book of environmental and conservation history published during the preceding two years.
[...]
In July 1992, Cronon became the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison after having served for more than a decade as a member of the Yale History Department. In 2003, he was also named Vilas [pronounced "Vy-lus"] Research Professor at UW-Madison, the university’s most distinguished chaired professorship.
Cronon has been President of the American Society for Environmental History, and serves as general editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series for the University of Washington Press. [...] He has served on the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society since 1995, and on the National Board of the Trust for Public Land since 2003. He has been elected President of the American Historical Association for 2011-12.
Born September 11, 1954, in New Haven , Connecticut, Cronon received his B.A. (1976) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He holds an M.A. (1979), M.Phil. (1980), and Ph.D. (1990) from Yale, and a D.Phil. (1981) from Oxford University. Cronon has been a Rhodes Scholar, Danforth Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and MacArthur Fellow; has won prizes for his teaching at both Yale and Wisconsin; in 1999 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society' and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Mike Glicksohn was possibly the second most famous letter of comment writer to fanzines in all of fanzine fan history, after HarryWarner, Jr.
Mike was a writer, a publisher, a personality, a math teacher, a good man, a great fan, beloved by many, friend to even more.
141 High Park Avenue, Toronto, is an address I'll never forget, I saw it so many times. Later Mike wrote from 508 Windermere Avenue, and earlier from 35 Willard St., and 267 St. George St., all famous fan addresses.
Although in early days, giants such as Rick Sneary reigned, for the Sixties and Seventies and longer, it was Glicksohn who took the mantle of Warner as letter writer to almost all fanzines.
His own primary fanzine, done with fellow Hugo-winner, both together, and on her own, was Energumen.
It was one of the most deserving Hugo-winning zines ever. The .pdfs can't begin to show the quality of production. Mike was one of the most meticulous of publishers, in every detail from that beautiful 24-lb blue bond paper, to doing one of the most beautifully illustrated and graphically well-designed fanzines ever, finding and publishing, many for the first time, some of the best fan artists, later pros, ever published, including more or less discovering Tim Kirk, Alicia Austin, James Shull, George Barr, Derek Carter, and so many more, including Connie (Reich) Faddis, Alexis Gilliland, Mike Gilbert, the list goes on on and on.
He published Jack Gaughn, to whom the first issue in February of 1970 was dedicated, and a fold-out centerpiece of art was included, as well as that first cover. Many illos of that issue were by the great Alicia Austin. His longtime great friend, Joe Haldeman, also managed to have a letter in the first issue.
Jay Kinney, Bill Rotlser (of course!), Phil Foglio, Bernie Zuber, Jeff Schalles, Arthur Thomson (ATom), and many others were among the numerous artists Mike published so immaculately.
The writers he and Susan Wood (Glicksohn) published won Best Fan Writer Hugos, their artists, Best Fan Artist Hugos.
The Friends of Genre Convention (FOGcon) is a literary-themed San Francisco SF/F con in the tradition of Wiscon and Readercon. Each year we’ll focus on a new theme in speculative fiction and invite Honored Guests ranging from writers to scientists to artists. We will build community, exchange ideas, and share our love for the literature of imagination.
Whether a glass-edged utopia or a steampunk hell, the city plays a central role in many works of speculative fiction. It can be an arena for conflicts between cultures, a center of learning or vice, a court of power and corruption. In its gutters and government buildings, the city reveals the values a society claims and those it actually honors. Because the city is open to everyone, it’s a place where new things can happen. No wonder it is such a rich topic for so many writers.
“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”
Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today [February 25th -- gf]:
“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’
[...] This is not a budget issue! This is a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE! [...] Mr. Walker! [...] We know pretty well now who you work for! [applause] Let me tell you who WE work for! [points to self and police emblem] We work for all of these people! [applause] We are not here, Mr. Walker, to do your bidding! We are here to do their bidding! [...] Mr. Walker, this not your House! This is all of our House! [camera pans 360°]
I want to give this officer a big fat kiss on the mouth.
The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. He then segued into Republicans’ budget proposal.
Prosecutors said they will indict Jared Lee Loughner on more federal charges by March 9, a court order said Thursday. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said in the order that he expects a trial to begin before Sept. 20. Loughner, 22, is the alleged gunman in the Jan. 8 shooting that authorities call an assassination attempt on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
[...] Six were killed and 13 wounded in the attack on a constituent meet-and-greet at a Northwest Side grocery store. Giffords remains in a Houston rehab facility, recovering from her wounds.
Georgia Congressman Paul Broun had best not hold town meetings on Obsidian Wings.
But Republican Georgia Congressman Paul Broun lets it pass without a word and:
[...] Broun’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed that the question was indeed, who is going to shoot Obama? “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” she said.
We wouldn't just move on, if we noticed that here.
But it's okay if you're merely a Republican Congressional Representative.
Here's another one that could be tough for Sharron Angle to explain away: In an interview in January, Angle appeared to float the possibility of armed insurrection if "this Congress keeps going the way it is."
I'm not kidding. In an interview she gave to a right-wing talk show host, Angle approvingly quoted Thomas Jefferson saying it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years -- and said that if Congress keeps it up, people may find themselves resorting to "Second Amendment remedies."
What's more, the talk show host she spoke to tells me he doesn't have any doubt that she was floating the possibility of armed insurrection as a valid response if Congress continues along its current course.
Asked by the host, Lars Larson of Portland, Oregon, where she stands on Second Amendment issues, Angle replied:
You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.
I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.
Larson says Angle was floating the possibility of armed insurrection if Congress keeps it up under Reid et al.
Is that really Scott Walker? [Update: Yep.] A New York-based alt-news editor says he got through to the embattled Wisconsin governor on the phone Tuesday by posing as right-wing financier David Koch...then had a far-ranging 20-minute conversation about the collective bargaining protests. According to the audio, Walker told him:
That statehouse GOPers were plotting to hold Democratic senators' pay until they returned to vote on the controversial union-busting bill.
That Walker was looking to nail Dems on ethics violations if they took meals or lodging from union supporters.
That he'd take "Koch" up on this offer: "[O]nce you crush these bastards I'll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time."
Wisconsin remains the main battleground for the broader assault on worker’s rights. But elsewhere in the Big Ten states and across the country, these battles have moved forward. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich is pushing pretty much the exact same bill as Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Known as SB 5, the bill would strip collective bargaining rights from Ohio public employees.
Appearances matter. To control information is to control. "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a popular saying that will cause anyone who sells books or works in publishing to ROFl ("roll on the floor laughing"), because it's exactly what people do, though no one wants to admit to doing it. It's always someone else.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak unleashed an unprecedented and systematic attack on international media today as his supporters assaulted reporters in the streets while security forces began obstructing and detaining journalists covering the unrest that threatens to topple his government.
In the past 24 hours alone, CPJ has recorded 30 detentions, 26 assaults, and eight instances of equipment having been seized. In addition, plainclothes and uniformed agents reportedly entered at least two hotels used by international journalists to confiscate press equipment. On Wednesday, CPJ documented numerous earlier assaults, detentions, and confiscations. Mubarak forces have attacked the very breadth of global journalism: Their targets have included Egyptians and other Arab journalists, Russian and U.S. reporters, Europeans and South Americans.
[...]
Government officials, pro-government journalists, and commentators loyal to Mubarak have for the past two days been engaged in a systematic campaign to present foreigners, and particularly foreign journalists, as spies. CPJ has documented at least seven instances on state-owned television or on private stations owned by businessmen loyal to Mubarak in which individuals described elaborate foreign plots to destabilize Egypt that centered on foreign provocateurs, including journalists. In several instances, they were described as "Israeli spies." In one instance, a woman whose face was obscured "confessed" to having been trained by "Americans and Israelis." She went on to say that the alleged training took place in Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based.
Santorum has said he is considering candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election. On September 11, 2009, Santorum spoke to a group of Catholic leaders in Orlando, Florida. He told the leaders, "I hate to be calculating, but I see that 2012 is not just throwing somebody out to be eaten, but it's a real opportunity for success." He also scheduled appearances with political non-profit organizations that took place in Iowa on October 1, 2009.
Santorum re-iterated his consideration of a 2012 run in a e-mail and letter sent on January 15, 2010 to supporters of his Political Action Committee saying, "After talking it over with my wife Karen and our kids – I am considering putting my name in for the 2012 presidential race. I'm convinced that conservatives need a candidate who will not only stand up for our views, but who can articulate a conservative vision for our country's future," Santorum also writes. "And right now, I just don't see anyone stepping up to the plate. I have no great burning desire to be president, but I have a burning desire to have a different president of the United States."
The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world
Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.
IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY. Amygdala's management apologizes for the lack of cut-tags, obsolete template, and real posts since October. (LookbackatOctober!)
Except: frak, the archives are hosed, too. Plus I have to learn the more recent Blogger editor, as well as Typepad. And more. Work proceeding incrementally.
New template ASAP! But no promises as to when RSN happens!
Stuff intervened. Blockages are now being unblocked.
The staffers have again been fired and replaced. Some momentary place-holders; I cheat:
Home ER. Meds, blood, yrs's worth indigent med services, illegal pics, vids, chat with PIO, fixed 3 hospital things (maybe), gave $.25 to 5 homeless, helped sev. patients, SIEU-bonded, enjoyed BART 3-card monte pro, eyeballed shill, inclued them, mail sort, fed cats at 5; said hi, SEK.
Enjoyed spotting shills since at least 7 years old; grew up in Brooklyn, riding subway. Haven't had a chance to spot and observe since at least 1999. Terrific nostalgia, and I love to Sherlock. Obvious!
The ObWi Bay Area Bloggers & Bullsh*t League of Earth = ObBABBLE's second meeting is hereby announced.
WHO: This is an open gathering; anyone reading this is invited. In actuality, the main connector is that I can get you to read this. You are invited. You.
You may know me from: blogs. Science fiction fandom. Publishing. My writing. Anywhere. You are invited.
You may be a reader of blogs, and that's all. You are invited.
You may be a member of the Bay Area science fiction community, or want to be. You are invited.
You may simply be interested in political discussion, or talk about sf, or tech, or gadgets, or anything smart. You simply may enjoy meeting people who may be congenial and interesting. You are invited.
If you read this: you are invited. You are encouraged to pass this along to anyone you think interested, and to repost this information as you like; letting me know, though, would be nice.
5600 College Ave, Oakland,
CA 94618
Ph: (510) 658-2026
WHEN: Saturday, January 15th, 2010, 1 p.m. until we're done.
PURPOSE: Socializing, meeting each other, fun. Flame wars dampened with beverages and cheer.
QUESTIONS: put comments on this thread at Amygdala or Obsidian Wings, or Facebook; if necessary, email gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com.
Name of group still likely to change, as is everything else.
Frequency to start will be monthly, but subject to further detail and change of location/time; possibilities of every other weekend subgroups may occur, or may not.
Further notices are intended to be issued at least monthly, at least one week before the next meeting, preferably two weeks. (Ha!I have a rich fantasy life.)
This is an open gathering: you are encouraged to bring interesting people who might be interested.
Feel free to copy and repost this message, but if you do so, it's helpful to say so in public comments, or email gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com, so I'll have some idea how many more people might show up.
The first meeting had 9 people, including myself, and one person seen only by me. This means 7 people not me. This is not a huge and overwhelming gathering. This second meeting may be smaller, now that people have met me. We might have only me and two others. We may have more. Come and find out along with me. Don't be intimidated. But it's all up to you. No obligation whatever, obviously.
Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G'Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to publish in the event of his death; the last revisions to it were made in July.
Andy was a wonderful person: decent, honorable, generous, principled, courageous, sweet, and very funny. The world has a horrible hole in it that nothing can fill. I'm glad Andy -- generous as always -- wrote something for me to publish now, since I have no words at all. Beyond: Andy, I will miss you.
My thoughts are with his wife, his parents, and his brother and sister.
As mine also always are, every day.
I think of Wes, Andrew's father.
I think of Nancy, Andrew's mother.
I think of Amanda, Andrew's wife. I think of Eric, known as "Enrak" when he was commenting on blogs, primarily Andrew's.
I've met them all.
I think of Corrine, Eric's wife, and writing by her I read via Wes, and now I'll think of Catherine, Andrew's sister.
