Later On

Politicians on the Right regularly fulminate and denounce certain actions of President Obama. The question always is: are they serious, or are they just trying for cheap political shots. One way to tell: if President Bush did quite similar things and those same politicians seemed quite accepting of Bush’s actions. Two recent examples:

First, from the Center for American Progress in an email:

This past Wednesday, U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell — who successfully brokered peace in Northern Ireland — suggested to a PBS host that the United States could "withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel" as one tool to pressure the Israelis to seriously engage in peace efforts. Mitchell’s remarks have sparks an "uproar" among the Israeli right, which has been intransigent on the issues of settlement expansion and the economic blockade of Gaza. Additionally, a group of American senators — John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), John Barrasso (R-WY), and John Thune (R-SD) — appeared at a press conference in Jerusalem and slammed Mitchell’s openness to using all available tools to forge a Middle East peace. Lieberman said that "any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel to the negotiating table by denying Israel support, will not pass the Congress of the United States." McCain said that "this type of pressure would not be helpful ‘and I don’t agree with it.’" What right-wing critics of Mitchell’s suggestion do not acknowledge is that threatening to freeze loan guarantees is hardly unique to the Obama administration. In fact, the last time such a threat was made was under President George W. Bush. In 2003, Bush made the explicit threat to withhold loan guarantees from the Israelis due to the expansion of their "security fence" deep into Palestinian territory. Bush’s father went even further. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush briefly cut off loan guarantees to the Israeli government over their settlement policies, successfully forcing "Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir … to attend the Madrid Peace Conference." As the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss notes, threatening to suspend aid to Israel "is the only thing likely to change Israel’s behavior."

Second, Faiz Shakir at ThinkProgress (videos at the link):

In their eagerness to place blame on President Obama for the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack, Republicans have argued that the president waited too long to talk publicly about the matter. Karl Rove began the assault by complaining that Obama waited “72 hours before” addressing the American public. RNC Chairman Michael Steele and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani have piled on with a similar criticism.

Liz Cheney’s neoconservative political attack organization, Keep America Safe, is out with a new ad titled “100 hours.” Replete with images of Obama golfing, the ad — which imitates the TV show 24 — ends with the question, “How long did it take you to realize the system failed?”.

Of course, while Obama wasn’t speaking publicly about the terrorist incident, he was directing an immediate federal response.

Moreover, as Huffington Post’s Sam Stein documented, President Bush didn’t utter a single word about shoe bomber Richard Reid’s terrorist attack for six days, whereupon he simply said that he was “grateful for the flight attendant’s response, as I’m sure the passengers on that airplane.”

On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos confronted Cheney about her hypocritical attack. “As many Democrats and others have pointed out, President Bush waited I think six days before doing much about Richard Reid, the shoe bomber,” he noted. Cheney evaded the question entirely, pretending not to hear it. “The point of that ad,” she said, “was this notion that you cannot win a war if you’re treating it as sort of an inconvenient sidelight.”

This sort of thing is completely non-serious and shows how little interest the GOP has in responsible governance.

In an email from the Center for American Progress:

Last week, the Center for American Progress joined with the American Immigration Council to release a study by University of California at Los Angeles professor Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda that showed that comprehensive immigration reform with a path to legalization for the nation’s undocumented immigrants could generate a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) over 10 years. The report predicts the costs and benefits of three different scenarios: the mass expulsion of undocumented workers, a temporary worker program without legalization, and comprehensive immigration reform that includes a legalization program and a legal flow of future workers. Of the three policy options, Hinojosa asserts that immigration reform is the only approach that would both generate a gain in GDP and boost the wages of all categories of workers. President Obama’s current focus is, understandably, "jobs, jobs, jobs." However, Hinojosa’s findings show that the issues of immigration and the economy are far from mutually exclusive. While anti-immigrant groups use anecdotal evidence to erroneously claim that legalization would be disastrous for the American worker, passing comprehensive immigration reform would not only strengthen the labor market, it would promote needed economic growth. Polling released yesterday additionally shows that 66 percent of voters support a program that requires undocumented immigrants to register, meet certain requirements, and become legal taxpayers on their way to becoming full U.S. citizens.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve noted, I’m using Joe’s Goals as a checklist for my fitness project. Getting to see a list of the activities "due" on any day, and to check them off as I complete them, is both a memory aid and a motivator. I just added a weekly "pick up the apartment" task that will get me read for the fortnightly visit by the cleaning ladies (and in the middle make the living room nicer for me and Megs).

Highly recommended, even if you always remember: the motivation part is not to be ignored.

As you may know, we’re having a big trial out here in California to see whether marriage (as a government, not necessarily religious) will be available to gay couples. I don’t see any reason why not—certainly it doesn’t harm anyone else, but opponents say that if gays are married, traditional marriages will suffer. (OTOH, traditional marriages certainly suffer from the government recognizing divorce, but somehow that seems okay to the pea-brained religious zealots that oppose everything outside their very limited ken.) At any rate, Ted Olsen attacks that notion directly. Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress:

The historic federal trial challenging the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans commenced in California today, focusing on Proposition 8, which state voters approved last year. David Boies and former Bush solicitor general Ted Olson, who argued opposite each other in the Bush v. Gore case, are now arguing together on behalf of the two couples who wished to be married but were denied marriage licenses because of Prop. 8. In his opening statement, Olson, President Bush’s former Solicitor General, went right after common right-wing arguments against marriage equality:

And, as for protecting “traditional marriage,” our opponents “don’t know” how permitting gay and lesbian couples to marry would harm the marriages of opposite-sex couples. Needless to say, guesswork and speculation is not an adequate justification for discrimination. In fact, the evidence will demonstrate affirmatively that permitting loving, deeply committed, couples like the plaintiffs to marry has no impact whatsoever upon the marital relationships of others.

When voters in California were urged to enact Proposition 8, they were encouraged to believe that unless Proposition 8 were enacted, anti-gay religious institutions would be closed, gay activists would overwhelm the will of the heterosexual majority, and that children would be taught that it was “acceptable” for gay men and lesbians to marry. Parents were urged to “protect our children” from that presumably pernicious viewpoint.

At the end of the day, whatever the motives of its Proponents, Proposition 8 enacted an utterly irrational regime to govern entitlement to the fundamental right to marry, consisting now of at least four separate and distinct classes of citizens: (1) heterosexuals, including convicted criminals, substance abusers and sex offenders, who are permitted to marry; (2) 18,000 same-sex couples married between June and November of 2008, who are allowed to remain married but may not remarry if they divorce or are widowed; (3) thousands of same-sex couples who were married in certain other states prior to November of 2008, whose marriages are now valid and recognized in California; and, finally (4) all other same-sex couples in California who, like the Plaintiffs, are prohibited from marrying by Proposition 8.

Today in Newsweek, Olson makes the “conservative case for gay marriage,” stating that “same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize” and saying that arguments against same-sex marriage are “superficially appealing but ultimately false perceptions about our Constitution and its protection of equality and fundamental rights.”

Faiz Shakir at ThinkProgress:

“Republicans are stepping up their effort to block Erroll Southers from becoming head of the Transportation Security Administration,” Politico reports. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has been holding up Southers’ nomination in a political effort “to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union.”

Southers, a counterterrorism expert, is currently working as a senior official for homeland security and intelligence for the police division of Los Angeles World Airports. He is also an associate director of the University of Southern California’s security studies program, has developed and implemented anti-terrorism measures for a variety of public institutions, and wrote a doctoral study on “Predictive Indicators of Homegrown Islamic Terror Cells.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said Southers is “more than qualified” to lead TSA.

Despite Southers’ impressive resume and qualifications, the right wing is intent on playing politics with his nomination. Conservative bloggers and activists have begun mounting a campaign to smear Southers with fallacious attacks. Some examples below:

Right-Wing Attack: “TSA nominee: Global Warming Deserves Parity With War on Terror.” The conservative blog Hot Air highlights Southers’ comment that terrorism “deserves to perhaps have some parity with global warming.” Blogger Ed Morrisey concludes that Southers’ view is “ludicrous.”

Reality: A Pentagon analysis concluded that the long-term security threat of global warming was greater than terrorism, and many security experts agree. The National Intelligence Council assessed the grave threat global warming poses. It could not only fuel further terrorism, but spur mass migration, refugees, poverty, environmental degradation, and pandemics. The CIA is now dedicating resources to analyzing the security implications of climate change.

Right-Wing Attack: “Obama TSA Nominee Erroll Southers Calls Pro-Life Advocates Terrorists in Video.” LifeNews attacks Southers for saying homegrown terrorist groups — particularly white supremacist groups — are “anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented.” Gateway Pundit writes, “This kook rattled off every leftwing nut conspiracy in one interview.”

Reality: A Homeland Security report published last August warned right-wing extremists, “specifically the white supremacist and militia movements,” may “include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion.” Subsequently, the report was vindicated by acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists and anti-abortion crusaders.

Right-Wing Attack: “TSA nominee in 2008: Alliances with Israel, France make us subject to terror attack.” The Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso takes issue with Southers’ observation the U.S. alliance with “countries that are seen by groups, by al Qaeda, as infidels” may subject us to greater risk of attack. “So Southers is a hack leftist and a fool,” the conservative blog Powerline writes.

Reality: Consider the words of Osama bin Laden. In 1996, the terrorist leader complained of the “iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance” and called for raising “the banner of Jihad against the American-Zionist alliance occupying the sanctities of Islam.” In 2008, he reiterated his hateful screed: “We shall continue the fight, Allah willing, against the Israelis and their allies.”

In their desperation to smear Southers, the right is grasping at straws.

From Make My Mood:

Finally my right knee seems to be okay. I still get an occasional twinge, depending on the angle of stress, but then I get that with my left knee as well, so I figure the right knee is well. It at least is in as good a shape as the left.

I imagine that knee health will improve as my weight continues to drop.

I can’t wait to see this:

This recipe by Mark Bittman looks delicious:

Farfalle with Gorgonzola, Arugula and Cherry Tomatoes

Yield 3 to 6 servings
Time 30 minutes

Buy a creamy piece of cheese that will ultimately melt into the pasta, and a variety with strong flavor: blue d’Auvergne, Maytag blue, good Roquefort or mature Stilton are all good substitutes for Gorgonzola. Because you turn the sauce into the pasta over heat, slightly undercook the pasta at first.

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup half-and-half, cream or milk
• 1 cup crumbled Gorgonzola or other good blue cheese
• 1 pound farfalle or other pasta
• 2 cups arugula trimmed of very thick stems, washed, dried and chopped
• 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
• Freshly grated Parmesan to taste, optional

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. In a small saucepan gently warm the half-and-half and Gorgonzola just until cheese melts a bit and mixture becomes thick; chunky is O.K.

2. When water boils, cook pasta until it is just tender but not mushy. Drain and return to pot over low heat.

3. Stir in Gorgonzola sauce along with arugula, tomatoes and a healthy dose of black pepper. Stir to combine, taste and add salt, if necessary, then serve immediately, with grated Parmesan if you like.

Interesting idea reported by Paul Rodgers and Richard Alleyne in the Telegraph:

The new substance could have the added bonus of being "switched off" instantaneously with a pill, to allow drinkers to drive home or return to work.

The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of wellbeing and relaxation.

But unlike alcohol its does not affect other parts of the brain that control mood swings and lead to addiction. It is also much easier to flush out of the body.

Finally because it is much more focused in its effects, it can also be switched off with an antidote, leaving the drinker immediately sober.

The new alcohol is being developed by a team at Imperial College London, led by Professor David Nutt, Britain’s top drugs expert who was recently sacked as a government adviser for his comments about cannabis and ecstasy.

He envisions a world in which people could drink without getting drunk, he said.

No matter how many glasses they had, they would remain in that pleasant state of mild inebriation and at the end of an evening out, revellers could pop a sober-up pill that would let them drive home.

Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one.

Thousands of candidate benzos are already known to science. He said it is just a matter of identifying the closest match and then, if necessary, tailoring it to fit society’s needs.

Ideally, like alcohol, it should be tasteless and colourless, leaving those characteristics to the drink it’s in.

Eventually it would be used to replace the alcohol content in beer, wine and spirits and the recovered ethanol (the chemical name for alcohol) could be sold as fuel.

Professor Nutt believes that the new drug, which would need licensing, could have a dramatic effect on society and improve the nation’s health…

Continue reading to learn about problems with regulators.

The Emperor + Honeybee Spa Amber = terrific lather!

Edwin Jagger ivory-handled Chatsworth + Polsilver blade = terrific shave!

Jade East aftershave = ready for the prom!

David Kocieniewski in the NY Times:

The New Jersey Legislature approved a measure on Monday that would make the state the first in the region and the 14th in the nation to legalize the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

The measure, passed on the final day of the legislative session, would allow patients diagnosed with severe illnesses like cancer, AIDS, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis to have access to marijuana distributed through state-monitored dispensaries.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign it into law before leaving office next Tuesday. Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie, speaking at a press conference on Monday before the vote, reiterated his support for legalizing the medical use of marijuana as long as the final bill contained safeguards to ensure that it did not end up encouraging the recreational use of the drug.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton, said the New Jersey law would be the most restrictive in the nation because it would only permit doctors to prescribe it for a list of serious chronic illnesses. The legislation would also forbid patients from growing their own marijuana and using it in public, and it would regulate the drug under the strict conditions used to track the distribution of medically prescribed opiates like Oxycontin and morphine.

“I truly believe this will become a model for other states because it balances the compassionate use of medical marijuana while limiting the number of ailments that a physician can prescribe it for,” said Mr. Gusciora, who sponsored the bill…

Continue reading.

On the advice of my ISP tech support, I requested an IP outside their firewall. This will prevent the disconnections every couple of hours when their firewall reboots itself. (I would think they would fix that, but apparently not—it’s been going on for months.) Then I found that I had somehow entered a password for the admin function on my router but I didn’t know the password, so I had to call the router people. We did a hardware reset, then of course had to restore everything.

And then in restoring the wireless WEP password (10 hex digits), the damn thing kept saying my password (10 digits) was too short. Thus another call to TrendNet. It turns out that you MUST use IE for at least this setting—Firefox would not do the job.

All in all, 4 calls to TrendNet. I will say that they are extraordinarily courteous and helpful, and once we sorted out the software problems, it all works. At last.

James Fallows is more optimistic than I. Here’s his article in the latest Atlantic Monthly (and at the link is a video interview with him):

Since coming back to the United States after three years away in China, I have been asking experts around the country whether America is finally going to hell. The question is partly a joke. One look at the comforts and abundance of American life—even during a recession, even with all the people who are suffering or left out—can make it seem silly to ask about anything except the secrets of the country’s success. Here is the sort of thing you notice anew after being in India or China, the two rising powers of the day: there is still so much nature, and so much space, available for each person on American soil. Room on the streets and sidewalks, big lawns around the houses, trees to walk under, wildflowers at the edge of town—yes, despite the sprawl and overbuilding. A few days after moving from our apartment in Beijing, I awoke to find a mother deer and two fawns in the front yard of our house in Washington, barely three miles from the White House. I know that deer are a modern pest, but the contrast with blighted urban China, in which even pigeons are scarce, was difficult to ignore.

And the people! The typical American I see in an office building or shopping mall, stout or slim, gives off countless unconscious signs—hair, skin, teeth, height—of having grown up in a society of taken-for-granted sanitation, vaccination, ample protein, and overall public health. I have learned not to bore people with my expressions of amazement at the array of food in ordinary grocery stores, the size and newness of cars on the street, the splendor of the physical plant for universities, museums, sports stadiums. And honestly, by now I’ve almost stopped noticing. But if this is “decline,” it is from a level that most of the world still envies.

The idea of “finally” going to hell is a modest joke too. Through the entirety of my conscious life, America has been on the brink of ruination, or so we have heard, from the launch of Sputnik through whatever is the latest indication of national falling apart or falling behind. Pick a year over the past half century, and I will supply an indicator of what at the time seemed a major turning point for the worse. The first oil shocks and gas-station lines in peacetime history; the first presidential resignation ever; assassinations and riots; failing schools; failing industries; polarized politics; vulgarized culture; polluted air and water; divisive and inconclusive wars. It all seemed so terrible, during a period defined in retrospect as a time of unquestioned American strength. “Through the 1970s, people seemed ready to conclude that the world was coming to an end at the drop of a hat,” Rick Perlstein, the author of Nixonland, told me. “Thomas Jefferson was probably sure the country was going to hell when John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts,” said Gary Hart, the former Democratic senator and presidential candidate. “And Adams was sure it was going to hell when Thomas Jefferson was elected president.”

But the question wasn’t simply a joke. Through the final year I spent in China, in which the collapse of the U.S. financial system was blamed for half the bad things happening in that country, I got used to hearing sentences that began “With U.S. power on the wane …” or “In a post-American world …” From Australia I have just received an invitation similar to many others I have heard about. The conveners began, “We would like to develop a session we have tentatively titled ‘America: In Decline?’” I also heard from Chinese and other foreigners who look at America with an analytic eye and find it wanting. Just as the material bounty of America is more dramatic on return to the country, so are areas of backwardness or erosion you do not notice unless you’ve been somewhere else: …

Continue reading.

Dean Baker, an economist, in an email:

How Do You Talk About the Deficits Without Mentioning the Wars and The Housing Crash?

In the real world this would be difficult, but not on NPR. Morning Edition had a lengthy segment on the deficit with David Walker, the president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an organization founded by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire Wall Street investment banker and Commerce Department secretary in the Nixon Administration. Walker was allowed to give his account without any alternative perspectives.

Walker explained the shift from the large surpluses at the end of the Clinton era to the deficits the country is now seeing without reference to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iraq that have already added more than $1 trillion to the debt, the housing crash which has increased the debt by more than $1 trillion in 2009 alone, and the stock market crash which through the country into recession in 2001 and cost the country more than $500 billion in capital gains tax revenue.

While these developments explain the vast majority of the deterioration in the budget situation in the last decade, they were not mentioned once by either Walker or the reporter conducting the interview. Instead, Walker blamed an irresponsible Congress that allowed the money to burn a hole in its pocket. Even if it does not fit reality, this story fits with Mr. Walker’s political agenda of creating a special commission that will issue a proposal to cut the deficit that is fast-tracked so that it does not follow normal congressional procedures.

It is especially worth noting the failure to mention the impact of both the stock and housing bubbles. There were economists who warned of these bubbles and the damage that would be caused by their collapse. NPR almost never allowed their views to be presented to their listeners. Even now that the collapse of the housing bubble has given the country the worse downturn since the Great Depression, NPR is still relying almost exclusively on economists who could not see these bubbles and continues to ignore those who understood the economy.

It is also worth noting Walker’s repeated references to "foreign creditors." This may appeal to xenophobic sentiments, but it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The government’s financial situation would not be qualitatively different if all our creditors were domestic. (In this country, investors are free to put their money in other countries. If domestic investors lose confidence in the U.S. government, presumably they would put their money elsewhere, just like foreign creditors.) The foreign debt is determined by the trade deficit, which is in turn a function of the over-valued dollar, neither of which were mentioned in this segment.

Dan Colman at Open Culture:

For the past two years, Stanford has been rolling out a series of courses (collectively called Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum) that gives you a baseline knowledge for thinking intelligently about modern physics. The sequence, which moves from Isaac Newton, to Albert Einstein’s work on the general and special theories of relativity, to black holes and string theory, comes out of Stanford’s Continuing Studies program (my day job). And the courses are all taught by Leonard Susskind, an important physicist who has engaged in a long running “Black Hole War” with Stephen Hawking. The final course, Statistical Mechanics, has now been posted on YouTube, and you can also find it on iTunes in video. The rest of the courses can be accessed immediately below. (The courses also appear in the Physics section of our collection of Free Courses.) Six courses. Roughly 120 hours of content. A comprehensive tour of modern physics. All in video. All free. Beat that.

Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum

• Classical Mechanics (Fall 2007) iTunes YouTube
• Quantum Mechanics (Winter 2008) iTunes YouTube
• Special Relativity (Spring 2008) iTunes YouTube
• Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (Fall 2009) iTunes YouTube
• Cosmology (Winter 2009) iTunes YouTube
• Statistical Mechanics (Spring 2009) iTunes YouTube

PS If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you should consider checking out Prof. Susskind’s new course.  It takes a yearlong look at new revolutions in Particle Physics, and how important theories will be tested by the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. His second course in the series begins next week. Learn more here.

It begins:

My Uncle Bob from Portland sent me a big package full of family histories that I found on my desk this morning when I came in to do Sunday Brunch.

Uncle Bob is a retired Oregon Supreme Court judge and a 9th Circuit federal judge. Bob and I have had a cautious relationship for some time….as you can imagine a federal judge would have with a nephew who is clearly missing some important neurotransmitters….. and whose impulse control somehow gets lost in the wash.

Uncle Bob is six months younger than my Mom….and both of them are supposedly retired, but it is very difficult to tell how. Mom still teaches ESL three days a week, is a California Senior Senator, drives for Meals on Wheels three days a week, and runs the senior lunches at the Community Center in the Valley. Also she drives "old people’ to their doctors appointments, and takes them to lunch. Uncle Bob still tried more than 60 cases last year….and is the kind of Oregon Republican who wrote the opinion that upheld the Oregon "Right to Die" law…..in the face of a conservative shit storm. I won’t say how old they are….but it is very probable that the first movies they saw as kids were in black and white…..and silent.

Still, beyond the politics…..

Continue reading.

I promised The Eldest I’d blog this. I had cooked two bunches of curly purple winter kale—the extremely dark kale that looks almost black when cooked.

Although cooked, it still had some spring in it (unlike, say, cooked spinach or chard, which goes limp), and when I took the lid off the pot and looked at it, I had an immediate vision of white sesame seeds sprinkled over it with a sesame dressing. The dressing:

1 glug toasted sesame oil
2 glugs plain sesame oil (the toasted has the flavor)
juice of 2 small Meyer lemons  (or regular Lisbon or Eureka lemons)
1 Tbsp agave syrup (I use for sweetening because of high glycemic index—you could use sugar: 1 tsp)
salt
pepper
dash of hot sauce if you want
dash of good soy sauce (e.g., Eden Imported Organic, so good I buy it by the case)

Toss cooked kale with this and with 2 Tbsp white sesame seeds. Yummy.

It occurs to me that some cooked Hiziki would be a good addition. Perhaps I’ll add some to my bean salad.

I am aiming to eat quite low in the glycemic index scale for the next few days, and to that end I made a large black-eyed-pea salad.

I had a black-eyed-pea salad from Whole Foods the other day, which game me the idea. It was tasty, but the beans were not quite done enough—it’s as though they were cooked by time instead of by someone standing over the pot toward the end, tasting a few beans every minute until the beans reached salad perfection. I, of course, did indeed stand over the pot, timing and tasting: 1 minute; 1 minute; hell, 2 minutes; 1 minute; 2 minutes; 1 minute; 1 minute; 1 minute: perfect! Immediate draining and mixing with cold ingredients:

6 slices bacon (roasted last night), chopped
package of frozen corn kernels
the rest of the cooked black barley from last night (barley has v. low glycemic index—and is high in protein)
finely chopped red onion
6 scallions, sliced thinly on the diagonal
6 large cloves garlic, minced
6 green Thai chilies, minced (not too hot, but my head still sweats; I’m adding 4 more)
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
generous amount of my good olive oil (the one I call "my $20 olive oil"—it really is astonishingly good: very sweet)
juice of 3 large Meyer lemons
salt
pepper

That will last me several days and get better and better as I think of things to add—e.g., some black olives, which I’ll toss in now.

I think the US has made a very big and very bad mistake by hiring mercenaries to do some of its fighting. It’s not just the homicides—the whole thing seems designed to avoid modernizing the military. The NY Times editorial:

A federal judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, has provided another compelling argument against the outsourcing of war to gunslingers from the private sector. In throwing out charges against Blackwater agents who killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in September 2007, Judge Urbina highlighted the government’s inability to hold mercenaries accountable for crimes they commit.

Judge Urbina correctly ruled that the government violated the Blackwater agents’ protection against self-incrimination. He sketched an inept prosecution that relied on compelled statements made by the agents to officials of the State Department, who employed the North Carolina security firm to protect convoys and staff in Iraq. That, he said, amounted to a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights.”

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton competed over who would take the toughest line against mercenaries. It is clear that the only way for President Obama to make good on the rhetoric is to get rid of the thousands of private gunmen still deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The killings in Nisour Square were hardly the first misdeeds by hired guns in Iraq, or the last. The army has said contractors from firms like CACI International Inc. were involved in more than a third of the proven incidents of abuse in 2003 and 2004 in the Abu Ghraib prison. Guards from Blackwater — which has renamed itself Xe Services — and other security firms, like Triple Canopy, have been involved in other wanton shootings.

On Jan. 7, two former Blackwater guards were arrested on murder charges stemming from a shooting in Afghanistan last May that left two Afghans dead.

Still, the government has failed to hold armed contractors accountable. When its formal occupation of Iraq ended in 2004, the Bush administration demanded that Baghdad grant legal immunity to private contractors.

Congress has tried to cover such crimes with American law. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act extends civilian law to contractors supporting military operations overseas, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice was broadened in 2006 to cover contractors.

But the government has not prosecuted a single successful case for killings by armed contractors overseas…

Continue reading.