Condi Rice’s State Department seems… well, feckless is one word that leaps to mind. Via Schneier on Security (who wonders whether the laptops were encrypted), this report in Congressional Quarterly by Jeff Stein:

Hundreds of employee laptops are unaccounted for at the U.S. Department of State, which conducts delicate, often secret, diplomatic relations with foreign countries, an internal audit has found.

As many as 400 of the unaccounted for laptops belong to the department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, according to officials familiar with the findings.

The program provides counterterrorism training and equipment, including laptops, to foreign police, intelligence and security forces.

Ironically, the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program is administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), which is responsible for the security of the department’s computer networks and sensitive equipment, including laptops, among other duties. It also protects foreign diplomats during visits here.

DS officials have been urgently dispatching vans around the bureau’s Washington-area offices to collect and register employee laptops, said department sources who could not speak on the record for fear of being fired.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spencer Ackerman is writing a series on the counterinsurgency in Iraq:

The Rise of the Counterinsurgents.
Part One: The Colonels and ‘The Matrix’
Part Two: A Famous Enigma
Part Three: Petraeus’ Ascension
Part Four: The Insurgent as Counterinsurgent

Part Five, just published, is the profile of Petraeus, titled King David.

ThinkProgress:

In an “unusual foray into foreign policy” yesterday, First Lady Laura Bush admonished the Burmese government for its “inept” response to the recent cyclone that killed over 20,000 people. The First Lady heaped particularly harsh criticisms on the Burmese government for not adequately warning residents about the incoming storm:

It’s troubling many of the Burmese people learned of this impending disaster only when foreign outlets such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America sounded the alarm. Although they were aware of the threat, Burma’s state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s path.

Watch it:

In fact, equally harsh criticism could be leveled at President Bush. As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005, Bush was on vacation, and the White House ignored warnings about the dangers ahead:

2001: FEMA ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as “among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.”

Two days before landfall: Federal officials told the White House “that the city’s levees might be overtopped or breached.” Bush later famously said “nobody could have predicted” the breaches.

Hours before landfall: Federal officials warned the White House that flooding “could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months.”

Laura Bush added, “I hope that the military will realize they have to accept aid from everybody they can possibly accept it from.” The White House, however, turned down aid from other countries offering to help after Katrina:

Turned down foreign aid: After Katrina, the administration rejected many “allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars,” the Washington Post reported. The most common responses: “sent letter of thanks” and “will keep offer on hand.”

“The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta’s failure to meet its people’s basic needs,” she concluded. Yet the Bush administration has also turned its back on the hurricane survivors:

Undermined workers: President Bush issued an order in 2005 suspending application of the Bacon-Davis Act, allowing contractors to pay less than prevailing wages in Katrina-damaged areas.

Toxic trailers: FEMA “suppressed warnings” about levels of formaldehyde in FEMA-provided trailers to Katrina refugees.

Laura Bush’s Katrina amnesia went unchallenged by the press corps, who instead proceeded to ask about daughter Jenna’s upcoming wedding.

UpdateDan Froomkin notes “Laura Bush’s Disastrous Diplomacy.”

The effort to suppress voting voter fraud in Indiana is bearing fruit—indeed, it’s so powerful it has worked backward in time: no voting fraud at any polling place has been reported for years and years. (Voting fraud happens with absentee ballots—or voting machines.) Today:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn’t get one but came to the precinct anyway.

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,’” Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. “You have to remember that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Dana Milbank has a good article on the waning days of the Bush Administration. It begins:

Dispatches from the twilight of a presidency:

7:13 a.m.: The South Lawn. President Bush, determined to dispel doubts about his relevance, grants an early-morning interview to Robin Roberts of ABC News’s “Good Morning America.” Joined by the first lady, he fields hard-hitting questions about . . . the White House grounds. “It’s a beautiful place,” the president discloses. “In the spring, the flowers are fantastic. In the fall, the — it’s just such a — kind of a place that’s so fresh. In the winter, of course, it’s got a lot of snow. [Laughter.] Summer is real hot, but it’s — we love it out here. It’s beautiful.”
* * *
7:58 a.m.: By e-mail, the White House Communications Office sends out its “Morning Update.” It lists two events on Bush’s schedule for the entire day: a “Social Dinner in Honor of Cinco de Mayo” and, an hour later, post-dinner entertainment. To react to the main news of the day — thousands of deaths from the cyclone in Burma — Bush sends his wife out to make a statement. She criticizes the Burmese government for its failure “to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s path” and “to meet its people’s basic needs.” Reporters, too tactful to draw parallels to New Orleans, quiz her instead about daughter Jenna’s wedding, and the names of future grandchildren. “George and Georgia, Georgina, Georgette,” the first lady says.
* * *
12:39 p.m.: The White House Briefing Room. On the podium, the understudy to the understudy to the substitute to the understudy to Bush’s first White House press secretary is giving a sparsely attended briefing on what he knows about Burma blocking relief efforts (”I am not aware of that report”), about the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to a Burmese dissident (”no announcements at this point”), and about word that the Saudi crown prince is dying (”I have not seen those reports”). The news of the day thus dispensed with, the questioning turns to why West Point allows its graduates to play pro football immediately but the Naval Academy does not.
* * *

Read the rest of this entry »

Fascinating article. Read the whole thing. It begins:

In the Gospel of Matthew, it doesn’t take long for the author to show his readers two different sides of Jesus Christ. One minute Jesus is sitting on a mountain, delivering a powerful sermon to a presumably rapt audience: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth….Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” But just five chapters later, Jesus, again preaching to his apostles, changes his tune. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” he says. “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” That’s quite a change from the sandal-wearing, peace-loving hippie we’ve come to expect.

If even Jesus could be divisive, what can be expected of the sinners who call themselves his followers? And how about his contemporary American disciples, who sport anonymous Internet handles and spend their days trolling blogs dedicated to the disparagement of other faiths? What about those who insist that Jesus himself have a stronger voice in the U.S. Congress?

As a reporter covering religion at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the last four years, I’ve been a witness to attitudes and language on my beat that would make veteran political reporters cringe. Even the blog I wrote for the paper, The God Beat, became such a target for corrosive, hateful comments that I was forced to shut it down.

Good news that the experiment panned out and the data were recovered, bad news that this sort of experiment won’t be done because NASA loves its space station and wants to send a person to Mars. Here’s the story, which begins:

Researchers have finally published the results of data recovered from a cracked and singed hard drive that fell to Earth in the debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia, which broke up during reentry on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crew members.

The hard drive contained data from the CVX-2 (Critical Viscosity of Xenon) experiment, designed to study the way xenon gas flows in microgravity. The findings, published this April in the journal Physical Review E, confirmed that when stirred vigorously, xenon exhibits a sudden change in viscosity known as shear thinning. The same effect allows whipped cream and ketchup to go from flowing smoothly like liquids to holding their shapes like solids.

Although the CVX-2 results may not change anyone’s life, Robert “Bobby” Berg, the lead investigator for CVX-2 and a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., says the publication caps a 20-year research project that has occupied his thoughts daily since 2003. “It was a load off my shoulders to finally get it published,” says the 52-year-old researcher.

Continue reading.

But, interestingly, this one is brought against the contractors, not the US government. So perhaps this one can go to trial instead of being quashed by the Bush Administration. Here’s the story:

An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months.

Emad al-Janabi’s federal lawsuit, filed Monday in Los Angeles, claims that employees of CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame and kept him naked and handcuffed in his cell beginning in September 2003.

Also named as a defendant is CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, known as “Big Steve.” The suit claims he directed some of the torture tactics.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some interesting books on the list—take a look.

My lifelong friend (assuming that life begins, not at 40, but at 24) has asked for information about recumbent trikes. I found this article, which reviews several trikes and has some good links. It includes this note:

Recumbent tricycles are available in two configurations, tadpole trikes (two wheels in front) and delta trikes (two wheels in back). Tadpole trikes tend to seat the rider lower and more aerodynamically, and they usually have a wider gear range. The delta design seats the rider a little higher and allows the rider’s heels to slide back under the leading edge of the seat, which makes sitting down and getting up very easy. Delta trikes also tend to have a shorter turning radius.

There’s a user group, Recumbent Trike Rider, which offers reviews by users, sales of pre-owned trikes, and more. The ‘BentRider forum has a list of threads on trikes—useful information, but observe the date of the post: the information may be old.

BikeMania offers a bespoke tadpole recumbent—very good if you are exceptionally large or small. It’s $1080.

Triton has several delta recumbents (the Triton Pro) available from Amazon for $400 that claim to fit people up to 6′3″. UPDATE: Just got an email from a knowledgeable rider: “Don’t even think about a $400 recumbent—they’re too complex, and too much of a limited production item. Anything at that price point will be pretty cheaply built.”

Greenspeed has quite a few models—mouse over the model numbers to see the various photos. They’re in Australia but have US dealers. They are pricey but apparently quite good.

Cool Tools has a positive review of the Sun EZ-3 trike from 2005. The Sun Web site today has quite a few different recumbent trikes, but their site is all flash, presumably because they don’t want people to link to any of their products. They do have a dealer locator that identifies many dealers in, for example, Ohio.

The Bicycle Man, an independent vendor in Alfred Station NY has an informative site, which includes the following:

Tadpole trikes have two front wheels that steer. They have one rear wheel, which is driven by the pedals. They usually have under seat steering (USS). These trikes tend to be lower, smaller, lighter, faster, sportier, harder to get into and out of, and more expensive than the Delta trikes. They are typically less maneuverable at low speeds; often more stable at higher speeds and are usually better for more serious distance riders.

Delta trikes have one wheel in front that does the steering. They usually drive one of the rear wheels; a few delta trikes drive both rear wheels. One-wheel drive delta trikes pull to one side when accelerating and climbing which can be annoying. The less expensive Delta trikes usually have over seat steering (OSS.) They are usually higher, easier to get into and out of, larger, heavier, slower, and less sporty. The least expensive recumbent trikes are Delta trikes.

My biases unveiled:

• I prefer disk brakes; they are typically more powerful than drum brakes.
• I prefer USS steering because I find it more relaxing.
• I prefer indirect steering; I find it less touchy at higher speeds.

Everyone has his own set of preferences, and your preferences may vary. Only test riding will tell.

Our measurement methods: Unless noted otherwise weights on our trike pages are measured on our hanging digital scale. We believe it is accurate. At least one manufacturer told us they use a bathroom scale, (others seem to guess.) Most manufacturers are a pound or two optimistic.

Turning circles are outside to outside. You need this much space to turn around. We measured this with the handlebars set up for our comfort. On some trikes you can adjust the handlebars for a smaller turning circle if you prefer, but we didn’t in making these measurements.

Tadpole trikes we typically stock:
Catrike, Greenspeed, Hp Velo, Sun, Trice, WizWheelz

Delta trikes we typically stock:
Haluzak Triumf, Hase, Sun

Tadpole Trikes we order:
Organic Engines

Do any of you have experience and/or opinions regarding recumbent trikes?

UPDATE: Interesting article here.

UPDATE 2: Josh sent a highly informative email. I quote with his permission:

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A decade managing bike shops tells me one thing: Most bike shops hate recumbents. Part of the reason is that ‘bent riders tend toward, um, quirky. Bigger factor is the bikes themselves–because there’s no standardization, they can be a beast to work on. Frequently the designs seem rather half-baked, like an industrial accident involving a lawn chair and a large cache of miscellaneous bike parts. The drivetrains are inevitably rather labored, with a huge expanse of chain, and multiple idler wheels to maintain tension. Add to this the fact that they’re physically awkward to move and store…

Don’t want to scare your friend off, but I would try to point him toward a specialist shop, one that carries more than one line of recumbents. Most shops *can* get ‘bents, but it’s not their strongest point. Specialist shops will offer a selection, be more knowledgeable, and possibly more patient. As always, you’re setting yourself up for a long-term relationship with the shop, so a specialist is doubly important. Large metropolitan areas usually have a recumbent rider’s group–it’s a good place to start.

Now to the nuts and bolts…As you’ve seen, there’s a huge range of product. Don’t even think about a $400 recumbent–they’re too complex, and too much of a limited production item. Anything at that price point will be pretty cheaply built. The real question is…what does your friend want from the bike? Just to get his toes wet, or does he want a high-tech, high-dollar machine? There are some very expensive, super-quality recumbents available–just as finely crafted as high-end bicycles, and in just as many material choices (steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, titanium…) I suspect these makers would craft bespoke three wheelers on request. Lightning bikes makes some very nice titanium recumbents. Think 5 grand and up. Does he want a racy bike that happens to accommodate some physical limitations, or does he just want a comfortable ride?

A few other random ‘bent factors:

Remember, you’re likely to be much closer to the ground, and visibility will be limited around cars or even conventional bikes. Some folks find this very off-putting.

The wheels are frequently of different diameter–this means carrying multiple types of spare tubes. Too, tires choices may be limited, especially in the 20″ size common for front wheels.

Don’t plan on disaster, but remember to be patient with repairs and accessories. Because they’re such oddballs, your dealer will proabbly have to order parts.

If I haven’t dissuaded your friend (not my goal,) he should go to a specialist dealer. Don’t know of any in your area, but here’s a website for Maryland’s College Park Bikes–one of the nation’s premier oddball bike vendors. Larry (the owner) is really into it, so he may have resources on the Left coast:

http://www.bike123.com/

Your friend may do well to consider a regular trike, which typically have very upright (back-friendly) seating. He’d probably gain much of the comfort with the upright seating, and he’d be way ahead in terms of servicing (as well as storing) his mount. I’d recommend either going low end, with the classic Worksman trike–http://www.worksman.com/alt.html

Or going custom, perhaps from the UK’s venerable Bob Jackson, who make a specialty of custom racing and touring trikes: http://www.bobjacksoncycles.co.uk/factory.php

Very interesting profile of a chef and his work and his fight against cancer.

This is terrible. Write your Representative — and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, too. Report is by Mike Lillis in the Washington Independent.

After stealing headlines earlier in the year, the showdown between the White House and House Democrats over the renewal of controversial domestic spying legislation has faded from public debate. (In a nutshell, the administration wants to protect the phone companies from lawsuits for their role in providing the government with client information without judicial oversight — something the Senate approved but the House has thus far rejected.)

But now comes word from the American Civil Liberties Union that House Democrats may be crafting a deal with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) to move a compromise bill. Rockefeller was one of the most vocal supporters of retroactive immunity for phone companies, which leaves groups like the ACLU spooked that any deal pushed by the West Virginian would include such a provision.

ACLU is already beating its drum of disapproval:

Make no mistake: any “compromise” that is acceptable to Senator Rockefeller and the President will undoubtedly let lawbreakers off the hook and seriously put at risk — or even end — lawsuits that may be the only way to get to the bottom of crimes that were committed by phone companies and Bush administration officials.

ACLU is urging its members to urge House leaders not to cave. And you thought it was safe to get back on the phone.

Well, maybe. But among them I bet you’ll find some that would be useful for you. Take a look.

Take a look at Theoi.com.

Welcome to the Theoi Project, a site exploring Greek mythology and the gods in classical literature and art. The aim of the project is to provide a comprehensive, free reference guide to the gods (theoi), spirits (daimones), fabulous creatures (theres) and heroes of ancient Greek mythology and religion.

At FullBooks.com, you’ll find thousands of books in copyable full-text (not PDFs). For you eBook fans.

Consumerism didn’t just happen—it had to be created. This interesting article by Jeffrey Kaplan in Orion explains how it was done. An excerpt:

But despite the apparent tidal wave of new consumer goods and what appeared to be a healthy appetite for their consumption among the well-to-do [in the late 1920's], industrialists were worried. They feared that the frugal habits maintained by most American families would be difficult to break. Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that the industrial capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater than people’s sense that they needed them.

It was this latter concern that led Charles Kettering, director of General Motors Research, to write a 1929 magazine article called “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.” He wasn’t suggesting that manufacturers produce shoddy products. Along with many of his corporate cohorts, he was defining a strategic shift for American industry—from fulfilling basic human needs to creating new ones.

In a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that “the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear. The magazine went on to suggest, “It may be that the world’s needs ultimately will be produced by three days’ work a week.”

Business leaders were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a society no longer centered on the production of goods. For them, the new “labor-saving” machinery presented not a vision of liberation but a threat to their position at the center of power. John E. Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, typified their response when he declared: “I am for everything that will make work happier but against everything that will further subordinate its importance. The emphasis should be put on work—more work and better work.” “Nothing,” he claimed, “breeds radicalism more than unhappiness unless it is leisure.”

Lots of good tips.

Eat Like A Girl went to the Slow Food Market in London and took a lot of photos. If only we had a food market like that here!

Good article by David Axe in the Washington Independent. It begins:

The tiny four-wheeled robot made it halfway to the fist-size bomb before its battery ran out of juice. It was early January 2005 in Baqubah, Iraq, a hotbed of insurgent activity. The Army officers standing at a distance cursed the tiny robot, a 25-pound remote-controlled truck equipped with cameras for investigating suspected explosive devices. The captain who had been steering the so-called “Marcbot,” Scott Holland, tossed aside the remote-control device in frustration and walked right up to the bomb. His staff held their breaths. Holland leaned over the bomb, then kicked it. It was a dud.

Holland’s encounter with the botched bomb and out-of-juice robot is all too common as U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan adopt untried new technologies to defeat evolving insurgent tactics. In previous wars, enemy infantry and artillery attacks claimed the most U.S. lives. Today makeshift bombs are the biggest killer – and robots could be one of the safest means to confront them. If only the robots worked better.

Getting more reliable and capable robots to the troops in Iraq is a possible result of one congressman’s radical plan for the Army. Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), the powerful chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, is seeking to revamp Army technology plans to focus on current wars, rather than looking forward to some projected future threat, as some senior Army officials prefer

For example, one ambitious weapons program that could be killed off soon aims to produce a family of new hybrid-electric armored vehicles and other weapons, all connected by an electronic communications network. The so-called Future Combat Systems, which has cost taxpayers roughly $20 billion so far, has come under fire from the Government Accountability Office for exceeding cost estimates. Other critics say the electronics network is pure fantasy. Still others contend that the new hybrid vehicles – which are still in development and should enter production in 2013 – are modeled on an outdated style of firepower-heavy conventional warfare. But the program, co-managed by Boeing and consultants SAIC, has also produced some smaller technologies, like new bomb-defeating robots, that are clearly useful in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Murtha has proposed adding another $20 billion to FCS research and development this year, in an effort to speed up these more immediately useful technologies. But there’s a caveat: in exchange for the extra cash, the Army might have to cancel the rest of the program.

Continue reading.

ThinkProgress:

Thomas Insel — director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher — said today that “the number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care.” Bloomberg reports:

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.

Based on those figures and established suicide rates for similar patients who commonly develop substance abuse and other complications of post-traumatic stress disorder, “it’s quite possible that the suicides and psychiatric mortality of this war could trump the combat deaths,” Insel said.