Later On

While Obama has his Justice Department putting in prison whistleblowers who expose government scandals that Obama would rather keep secret, he continues to protect the murderers and torturers in his administration. Andy Worthington has a long post on the topic:

Sometimes the truth is so sickening that no one in a position of authority — senior government officials, lawmakers, the mainstream media — wants to go anywhere near it.

This appears to be the case with the deaths of three men at Guantánamo on June 9, 2006. According to the official version of events, Salah Ahmed al-Salami (also identified as Ali Abdullah Ahmed), a 37-year old Yemeni, Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, a 30-year old Saudi, and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, a Saudi who was just 17 when he was seized in Afghanistan, died by hanging themselves, in what Guantánamo’s then-Commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, described as an act of “asymmetric warfare.”

Adm. Harris was, appropriately, censured for describing as an act of warfare the deaths of three men, held for over four years without charge or trial, but although his comments — and those of Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, who described the men’s deaths as a “good PR move” — were despicable, it was true that all three men had been implacably opposed to the regime at Guantánamo, and that each had expressed their opposition to it — and their solidarity with their fellow prisoners — through resistance, by enduring painful months of force-feeding as three of the prison’s most persistent hunger strikers, and by raising their fellow prisoners’ spirits as accomplished singers of nasheeds (Islamic songs).

Former prisoners cast doubt on the suicide story

In a statement issued just after the announcement of the deaths in June 2006, nine British ex-prisoners recalled the men’s indefatigable spirit, and cast doubt on the US military’s claims that they had committed suicide:

The prisoners in Guantánamo knew Manei al-Otaibi [Mani al-Utaybi] as someone who recited the Qur’an and poetry with a beautiful voice. He was of high moral character and was loved and respected amongst the prisoners, as was Yasser. They both came from wealthy backgrounds and had everything to live for.

They were often involved in protests and hunger strikes, which meant that they were always given “level four” statuses. That means the only items they would be allowed in the cell were a mat, and a blanket (only at night). They didn’t have toilet paper, let alone bed sheets that could be easily constructed into a noose, or even a pen and paper with which to write a suicide note.

A more detailed analysis was provided by one of the nine British ex-prisoners, Tarek Dergoul, who wrote:

I knew them personally, so I can judge well their frame of mind. Their iman (belief in God) was very strong, there was high morale and it comes as a complete shock to my system when it is said to me that they could have committed suicide. I was with them for a long period of time, and it never even came into our mind the thought of committing suicide. We were always far too busy constructing some form of hunger strike or non-cooperation strike, to even register the thought of suicide. It is quite simply ridiculous. When we were not in isolation for our continued protests we were in the regular blocks planning our next move.

Dergoul also provided further descriptions of two of the men and their state of mind, explaining that Yasser al-Zahrani and Manei al-Otaibi “would be the first amongst all others to stand up for our rights and the rights of others.”

He added that al-Zahrani was “a beautiful brother,” who had memorized the entire Qur’an, and “was softly spoken and had a very nice voice. He used to sing nasheeds for us and all the brothers loved him as he was always optimistic. He would sing morale-boosting nasheeds for the other detainees nearby to him. He was very well known to everyone in the camp.”

He also explained that al-Zahrani had “participated in all the hunger strikes and non-cooperation strikes,” which, he added, “include[d] not speaking in interrogation and also not standing for any immoral behavior (such as being sexually harassed or watching the Qur’an being desecrated).” Non-cooperation, he pointed out, “would result in punishment,” and al-Zahrani “ended up doing a lot of time in isolation simply due to the fact that he would never allow for an injustice to take place before him without being defiant for the sake of our rights,” but he “had so much determination, will-power and morale that it is ridiculous to think he could have taken his own life.”

Writing about Manei al-Otaibi, Dergoul described him as “another beautiful brother,” who was “extremely funny,” and explained that, like al-Zahrani, he “used to recite poetry — in fact this was the thing he was best known for — and he also used to sing nasheeds for us.” He added:

I stayed beside Manei for three weeks inside the regular blocks, and that is when he told me about his wealthy family and his previous life and how he used to get up to no good as people do when they are young. It was also during those three weeks that he taught me tajweed (the science of reciting the Qur’an correctly). By the end of that time we had shared with one another our inner most thoughts. I consider it an insult and I am sure that his family finds it equally offensive, to suggest that he would stoop to the level of taking his own life.

Admittedly, the men’s outlook on life could have changed in the two years following Tarek Dergoul’s release from Guantánamo, but Omar Deghayes, who was still in Guantánamo at the time of their deaths, recently backed up his analysis, describing them as poets with beautiful voices whose spirits were unbroken at the time of their deaths, although he did acknowledge that they had been subjected to severe mistreatment.

Seton Hall Law School demolishes the suicide story

If the profiles above suggest problems with the official suicide story, that is entirely appropriate, as development in the last two years — and particularly in the last six months — have demonstrated. The first of these was the publication, in August 2008, of the official report into the deaths, conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The report — actually, nothing more than a 934-word statement — was presumably intended to be buried under coverage of the Presidential election, and did nothing to address doubts about the official story, but over the next year a colossal archive of documents collected for the investigation was thoroughly analyzed by staff and students at the Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey.

On December 7, 2009, Seton Hall published a 136-page report, “Death in Camp Delta” (PDF), which comprehensively undermined the conclusion of the NCIS investigation. Some of the most important questions asked in the report were: …

Continue reading, there’s lots more. Obama is himself a criminal in that he is flouting the law by protecting these malefactors. The Convention Against Torture, as well as common decency and morality, requires that he investigate the crimes and prosecute those responsible. He doesn’t care, though. He has his hands full going after whistleblowers.

I sure wish we had an aggressive, intelligent, and skeptical press corps instead of low-level sycophants who’ll write anything to get invited to a beach party.

Very interesting. Somehow a video has escaped the hands of the Israelis.

Here’s the story by Robert Mackey in the NY Times:

Iara Lee, a Brazilian-American filmmaker and activist who was shooting a documentary on the flotilla of ships that was intercepted last week on its way to Gaza, has posted one hour of unedited video online that shows the early stages of the Israeli commando raid.

Ms. Lee’s raw video, posted on YouTube on Friday, gives viewers a chance to see the atmosphere on the main ship in the flotilla, the Mavi Marmara, just before and during the raid. The footage was shot over the course of more than one hour, as the camera was turned on and off a few times, but it shows long, uninterrupted stretches of the event. (Please be aware that the video contains graphic images of people who have been badly wounded and may have died.)

Since the camera was on a lower deck of the ship, it also shows but does not give a clear view of the violent confrontation and shootings that took place on the top deck of the ship, after Israeli commandos boarded from a helicopter and met with resistance from passengers on board. But the video, and accompanying audio, will help give a better sense of the timeline of the raid. It also shows clearly the area of the ship where wounded and dying passengers — and soldiers — were brought for medical treatment.

At a news conference at the United Nations on Thursday, where the video was screened for members of the media, Ms. Lee explained that she managed to smuggle out the video by …

Continue reading. At the link is also a 15-minute edited version of the video.

Basically, the police have found a great way to augment their budgets: seizing assets from private citizens. The Economist notes:

He arrived in Houston with $500 in his pocket. A man he met on the Greyhound bus gave him a room until he found his feet. Zaher El-Ali, a Jordanian immigrant, worked hard and built up a small business renovating and selling cars and houses. He is now a proud American citizen. But, ridiculous though it sounds, his truck is in trouble with the law.

Six years ago, he sold a Chevy Silverado to a man who agreed to pay for it in installments. Before the truck was paid off, the buyer was arrested for drunken driving. It was his third such arrest, so he was sent to prison and the police seized the truck. Mr Ali applied to get it back. He pointed out that he still held title to the vehicle, and that since the buyer had stopped making payments on it, he was entitled to reclaim it. But the government refused.

In most states the police can seize property they suspect has been used to commit a crime. Under “civil asset forfeiture” laws, they typically do not have to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that a crime was committed, or even charge anyone with an offence. What is more, the money raised by auctioning seized houses, boats and cars is often used to boost the budgets of the police department that did the seizing. That can mean fancier patrol cars, badass hardware or simply keeping the budget plump in lean times. In one survey 40% of police executives agreed that funds from civil-asset forfeiture were “necessary as a budget supplement”. This conflict of interest has predictable consequences. It spurs the police to pay more attention to cases that are likely to involve seizable assets (such as drug busts) and less attention to other ones. A report from the Institute for Justice, a pressure group, calls it “Policing for Profit”.

An owner can usually challenge a seizure by arguing that he did not know his property was being used for criminal purposes. But in 38 out of 50 states, the burden of proof is on him to prove his innocence. In February Texas demanded to know from Mr Ali whether he had asked the buyer about his previous arrests for drunk driving—as if that were a car dealer’s responsibility. It also demanded a sheaf of irrelevant documents, such as Mr Ali’s bank and tax records for the past two years. Mr Ali’s lawyer, Scott Bullock, argues that this is “clearly designed to intimidate” Mr Ali into giving up. Instead, he is suing to have the Texas civil asset forfeiture law struck down.

Civil and criminal asset forfeiture laws are often confused. Criminal forfeiture involves proven criminals. A convicted bank robber may lose his getaway car; a money-launderer may lose the house he bought with his illicit profits. Civil forfeiture is different. No conviction is necessary. If the government suspects that property has been used in the commission of a crime, it files an action against the property itself. This leads to odd case names, such as State of Texas v One 2004 Chevrolet Silverado (Mr Ali’s case) and United States v $10,500.

Even in states where local rules make civil asset forfeiture hard, police can get around that problem by …

Continue reading.

James Fallows, documenting a bit more of the country’s decline: how its highest legislative body is destroying itself:

It’s been just over two weeks since Senator Mitch McConnell, on his own, derailed the planned Senate confirmation of 80-plus federal nominees. This left U.S. embassies vacant and the US embarrassed in those countries, scores of nominees and their families preparing to move but in limbo, various agencies without their Inspector General or Deputy Director — and all because, as McConnell freely said on the Senate floor, he objected to exactly one of the nominations. This nominee, perversely, is unlike most of the others already in his job (Craig Becker, of the National Labor Relations Board), since Barack Obama had given him a recess appointment. McConnell wanted to register his retroactive unhappiness with Becker’s labor-union background by holding up the rest of the seemingly agreed-on nominees.

This is an insane way to do the nation’s business. (I write this having spent the day hearing in Beijing about new energy-efficiency and infrastructure projects here — a setting that concentrates the mind. Yes, yes, despite all of China’s own problems, of governance and otherwise.) If you check out the Senate’s current "executive calendar" you see that the number of pending nominations — those already vetted and approved by committee — continues to back up . The U.S. Constitution reflected a complex balance of interests — majority v. minority, big state v. small, countryside v. city, in those days free states v. slave states. It is inconceivable that the Founders intended what Senate custom and "comity" have recently been warped into: open-ended one-man obstructionism, via "holds" and "objections" to unanimous consent.

In the long run, I don’t know the right way to re-set this majority/minority balance. (My previous best effort here. Among other reports on aspects of the slowdown see this from NPR last year and this from FoxNews.com.) In the short run, the power of public embarrassment needs to be used against individual politicians who recognize so little check on their personal power. This might be a good time to make reservations for Sen. Tom Harkin’s "Living Constitution" lecture at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU next Monday. Two weeks ago Harkin had a memorable real-time colloquy with McConnell about the mass blocking of appointments. The title of his upcoming lecture is promising: "Filibuster Reform: Curbing Abuse to Prevent Minority Tyranny in the Senate."

An article by Scott Shane in the NY Times discusses how Obama, despite his pledge to "look to the future" (and thus not investigate any war crimes, including murder of prisoners, committed under the Bush Administration), is pushing hard to put in prison those whistleblowers who expose government scandals.

I think his actions here are immoral and unethical and unjust and to be heartily condemned. He’s letting torturers and murderers and kidnappers off scot-free, and he brings the full weight of the government down on a person who exposed a scandal. I cannot express my absolute revulsion at this stand. Plus it’s yet another instance of Obama totally breaking a promise (aka lying).

The article begins:

Hired in 2001 by the National Security Agency to help it catch up with the e-mail and cellphone revolution, Thomas A. Drake became convinced that the government’s eavesdroppers were squandering hundreds of millions of dollars on failed programs while ignoring a promising alternative.

He took his concerns everywhere inside the secret world: to his bosses, to the agency’s inspector general, to the Defense Department’s inspector general and to the Congressional intelligence committees. But he felt his message was not getting through.

So he contacted a reporter for The Baltimore Sun.

Today, because of that decision, Mr. Drake, 53, a veteran intelligence bureaucrat who collected early computers, faces years in prison on 10 felony charges involving the mishandling of classified information and obstruction of justice.

The indictment of Mr. Drake was the latest evidence that the Obama administration is proving more aggressive than the Bush administration in seeking to punish unauthorized leaks. [Because the Obama administration is MUCH more interested in keeping things secret than the Bush administration, despite Obama's promises of "transparency"---another lie/broken promise. – LG]

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.

Mr. Drake was charged in April; in May, an F.B.I. translator was sentenced to 20 months in prison for providing classified documents to a blogger; this week, the Pentagon confirmed the arrest of a 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst suspected of passing a classified video of an American military helicopter shooting Baghdad civilians to the Web site Wikileaks.org. [Unmentioned: there was no reason to classify the video: it reveals nothing of national security. It was classified because it was embarrassing to the Army, and that is not a valid reason. – LG]

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has renewed a subpoena in a case involving an alleged leak of classified information on a bungled attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program that was described in “State of War,” a 2006 book by James Risen. The author is a reporter for The New York Times. And several press disclosures since Mr. Obama took office have been referred to the Justice Department for investigation, officials said, though it is uncertain whether they will result in criminal cases.

As secret programs proliferated after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush administration officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, were outspoken in denouncing press disclosures about the C.I.A.’s secret prisons and brutal interrogation techniques, and the security agency’s eavesdropping inside the United States without warrants. [I say thank God that these things were revealed. We do NOT need a government totally devoted to secrecy; the people of the US must know what is being done in their name. – LG]

In fact, Mr. Drake initially drew the attention of investigators because the government believed he might have been a source for the December 2005 article in The Times that revealed the wiretapping program.

Describing for the first time the scale of the Bush administration’s hunt for the sources of The Times article, former officials say 5 prosecutors and 25 F.B.I. agents were assigned to the case. The homes of three other security agency employees and a Congressional aide were searched before investigators raided Mr. Drake’s suburban house in November 2007. By then, a series of articles by Siobhan Gorman in The Baltimore Sun had quoted N.S.A. insiders about the agency’s billion-dollar struggles to remake its lagging technology, and panicky intelligence bosses spoke of a “culture of leaking.”

Though the inquiries began under President Bush, it has fallen to Mr. Obama and his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., to decide whether to prosecute. They have shown no hesitation, even though Mr. Drake is not accused of disclosing the N.S.A.’s most contentious program, that of eavesdropping without warrants. [However, they do draw the line at investigating murder, torture, and kidnapping committed by Federal employees---those things are apparently okay in their view---which makes one wonder what is still going on in that area. We do still have the secret prison at Bagram, where unknown things are done to suspects. – LG]

The Drake case epitomizes the politically charged debate over secrecy and democracy in a capital where the watchdog press is an institution even older than the spy bureaucracy, and where every White House makes its own calculated disclosures of classified information to reporters…

Continue reading. This whole thing is an enormous stain on the Obama presidency. And it will get worse, because Obama shows no remorse, no hesitation, and no sign that he will change course.

I know I said no politics, but this is simply insane:

This past Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) delivered a wide-ranging speech at an Orthodox Union event in Washington, D.C. The senator’s lecture touched on areas such as Iran’s nuclear program, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and several domestic policy issues.

During one point of his speech, Schumer turned his attention to the situation in Gaza. He told the audience that the “Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution,” and also that “they don’t believe in the Torah, in David.” He went on to say “you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay.”

New York’s senior senator explained that the current Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip — which is causing a humanitarian crisis there — is not only justified because it keeps weapons out of the Palestinian territory, but also because it shows the Palestinians living there that “when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement.” Summing up his feelings, Schumer emphasized the need to “to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go”:

SCHUMER: The Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution. More do than before, but a majority still do not. Their fundamental view is, the Europeans treated the Jews badly and gave them our land — this is Palestinian thinking [...] They don’t believe in the Torah, in David [...] You have to force them to say Israel is here to stay. The boycott of Gaza to me has another purpose — obviously the first purpose is to prevent Hamas from getting weapons by which they will use to hurt Israel — but the second is actually to show the Palestinians that when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement. When there’s total war against Israel, which Hamas wages, they’re going to get nowhere. And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.

Watch it:

Schumer is simply factually incorrect that the “majority” of Palestinians refuse to accept a two-state solution. Recent polling has found that 74 percent of the Palestinian population wants to see a two-state solution with an Israeli and Palestinian state side by side. It is also the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and there is evidence that Gaza’s Hamas rulers may be compelled to support such a solution as well.

As for the senator’s comments on economic strangulation making “sense” to produce better leadership in Gaza, they are as offensive as they are wrong. Schumer believes it is logical to economically harm the civilian population of Gaza — where 44 percent of the people under the age of 14 — for freely voting in an election the U.S. supported, then undermined, in order to change the territory’s government. The reality is that its leadership has only become further radicalized and entrenched as a result of the embargo. (HT: Mondoweiss)

I meant to use my other Aristocrat open-comb #22, but got mixed up—hey, it’s early out here—so used again the #66, this time with a brand new Swedish Gillette blade, which improved the shave. The lather from J.M. Fraser’s Mosswood shaving cream, worked up with the G.B. Kent BK4, was quite lovely and fragrant, and three passes later, after rinsing and drying my face, I splashed on a good glug of Booster Mosswood as a finish. Feeling good!

Next week, the other #22 and also my Aristocrat Junior.

Steve Benen:

Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) ran into a little trouble when he told reporters that BP and Americans taxpayers should both "take full responsibility" when it comes to covering the oil spill disaster. Boehner backpedaled soon after, and by the end of the day, his office had a new line: "Not a dime of taxpayer money should be used to clean up [BP's] mess."

That wasn’t the line Boehner initially took, but why quibble? He ended up with the right position on the issue.

Well, sort of. There’s currently a liability cap that limits the burden on BP. Republicans have fought to protect that cap, increasing the likelihood that the public would pick up at least some of the tab on spill-related damages.

If Boehner doesn’t want a single dime of taxpayer money going to clean up BP’s mess, then Dems should be able to count on his support on lifting the cap, right?

As it happens, there exists a legislative vehicle for accomplishing this. Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey is pushing a measure in the House that would lift the liability cap on oil companies — and ensure that it applies retroactively to BP. This proposal originated in the Senate, courtesy of Robert Mendendez.

Boehner’s office has not said whether he’s willing to support any specific means for ensuring that BP is held liable. In a sense, Boehner’s position on this doesn’t have any real-world consequences — only political ones. Many expect the Holt measure to pass the House with or without the GOP leadership’s support.

But Dems think that if Boehner doesn’t ultimately back it, or hedges, it will hand them a potent political weapon, enabling them to bludgeon Republicans as stooges for Big Oil.

Indeed, the bludgeon efforts are already underway. A reporter asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) this morning about Boehner stated intention to kick changes to the liability law down the road. She replied, "Is that when he said that the taxpayer should be paying for it? Was that the same speech? When he said BP and the taxpayer should be footing the bill? … I disagree."

Also this morning, the DCCC launched a new website, Boehner BP Bailout.com, insisting that Boehner "has sided with the US Chamber of Commerce in declaring that US taxpayers should be hit with the bill to help clean up Big Oil giant BP’s spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

I suspect Boehner could make all of this go away if he announced his support for lifting the liability cap, just as Democrats have proposed. I also suspect Boehner, beholden to the oil industry and its lobbyists, won’t even consider such a move

I sent quite a few of my most lightly used brushes (boar and badger) to Razor Emporium to sell, and he has them up now. Take a look. Some of the boar brushes never got used at all.

So the guy was imprisoned for 8 years (and doubtless tortured). But, thanks to Obama and Holder, the persons responsible for his illegal captivity will go free, and he himself will be denied the ability to sue the US government for damages. Our government thinks that they can do what they want to people and never answer. And why? Because Obama promised and Holder is happy to obey.

Michael Doyle in McClatchy:

A federal judge has forcefully put Yemeni citizen Mohammed Mohammed Hassan Odaini on the path to freedom after eight years of incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In a 36-page opinion formally released Thursday, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. called Odaini’s continued detention "unlawful" and said he’d "emphatically" grant Odaini’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

The ruling issued secretly last month but published Thursday sets the 26-year-old Odaini up for potential release, though when and where he’ll go remains unclear. The ruling also represents the latest defeat for U.S. officials in their efforts to keep Guantanamo detainees behind bars.

"(U.S.) officials kept a young man from Yemen in detention in Cuba from age eighteen to age twenty-six," Kennedy wrote. "They have prevented him from seeing his family and denied him the opportunity to complete his studies and embark on a career."

Pointedly, Kennedy added that "the evidence before the court shows that holding Odaini in custody at such great cost to him has done nothing to make the United States more secure."

Kennedy’s ruling brings to 36 the number of Guantanamo Bay detainees who have successfully challenged their detentions through U.S. court proceedings. Over the Bush administration’s objections, a divided Supreme Court two years granted the Guantanamo detainees the right to file habeas corpus challenges…

Continue reading. I sure would like to know why Obama is so protective of those who commit serious crimes in their government service, but so wrathful toward those who expose government wrong-doing.

Headline:

Congress takes long weekend, lets jobless benefits hang

Here’s the story. Senators don’t care. They’ve made their pile.

Interesting:

It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower

by Michela Wrong

A review by Benjamin Moser

The situation Michela Wrong describes in It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower (Harper, $25.99) is both absurd and upsetting, because one suspects that her book is so urgent and important that almost nobody will read it. It is the third installment of Wrong’s epic trilogy of modern Africa, which includes a book on Mobutu’s Zaire and an unforgettable recounting of the travails of Eritrea. It’s Our Turn to Eat opens with the unexpected arrival at Wrong’s London apartment of the charismatic chief of Kenya’s anti-corruption authority, John Githongo. Wrong had known him distantly from her work covering Africa for the Financial Times, and the story she recounts, ranging from the disaster of British colonial rule in Kenya to its disappointing existence as an independent state, focuses above all on corruption, the one evil she, like John Githongo, sees as the source of almost every other African problem.

Githongo arrived at Wrong’s flat bearing cargo dangerous to many powerful people: the tapes he had secretly made of his discussions with Kenya’s leading authorities about his investigations into the country’s endemic sleaze, the very affliction that the new president, Mwai Kibaki, was elected to stamp out. With this massive payload, Wrong sets us up for a grand finale that never comes: as we root for Githongo to use his carefully catalogued recordings to take down the crooks who have kept Kenya tribally Balkanized and economically Sicilianized, we begin to realize that catharsis isn’t coming, that the system is stronger than this courageous and patriotic man; and that instead, as one revelation after the other is buried by a seedy judiciary and ignored by international donors too busy with "the big picture" to notice that the country is collapsing, Kenya nears the edge of a precipice. When it careens over that edge, in the form of the devastating race riots that followed Kibaki’s "reelection" at the end of 2007, the very idea of Kenya — the postcolonial hope that large and diverse societies could develop the political and economic institutions that would offer their peoples genuine freedom in the modern world–seemed doomed. The existence of people like Githongo shows that these promises may yet be redeemed, but only if they are willing to keep up their dangerous and unequal struggle.

Benjamin Moser is a contributing editor of Harper’s magazine and the author of Why This World.

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Joe Conason at Salon:

Other than Al Gore – or perhaps Barack Obama – there are few major American politicians who speak out more passionately about global warming and the need to change our civilization’s energy economy than Bill Clinton. His concern dates back before the unanimous rejection of the first Kyoto treaty by the U.S. Senate – which he had endorsed as president — and he has devoted the  resources of the Clinton Foundation to reducing carbon emissions and saving forests around the world.

Which raises profound questions about Clinton’s  dogged campaigning for Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., whose comeback victory in a bitter primary last Tuesday was attributed to his support. Today, Lincoln rewarded him by joining with Republicans in a landmark vote to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. Indeed, Lincoln was one of three conservative Democratic senators (along with Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska) to co-sponsor the resolution authored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Widely regarded as a blatant and mindless political attack on science, the Murkowski-Lincoln resolution is also a rebuke to Clinton and everyone who shares his view that climate change is the most important challenge facing the world in this century…

Continue reading. Blanche Lincoln is, alas, a very, very bad person. Why she runs as a Democrat escapes me. True designation: B. Lincoln (R-Wal-Mart).

Take a look at this fascinating chart:

What is being graphed are the searches on Google for “marijuana legalization”. It seems to have entered the mainstream discourse now, a good sign. Nate Silver of the blog FiveThirtyEight.com (now a part of the NY Times) had a great post in May showing why.

More on the marijuana legalization scene:

Prisons: Marc Emery in Solitary Confinement for Podcast of Prison Phone Call

Law Enforcement: Dog-Killing SWAT Raid Continues to Reverberate in Missouri College Town

Law Enforcement: This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories

Feature: Medical Marijuana Madness in Montana

Editorial: DEA’s “Project Deliverance” Will Undoubtedly Fail to Deliver

I blogged earlier about how I’m observing my behavior. I started doing this quite regularly when I went off my anti-depressant. I wanted to be able to detect changes in my outlook, and such changes are sometimes hard to spot from within, as it were. But in looking at your own behavior objectively, you can generally get some indications of what’s going on.

For example, although I’ve essentially stopped using caffeine at all, early this week I got a nice iced latte: 4 shots. Then a day or two later, I got another, but with 3 shots.

And with that second latte, I definitely felt that I could see a new habit/addiction starting to form. I am not getting iced lattes any more—certainly not as a regular thing.

My nutrition outfit does a body-composition analysis at the beginning (after being a special introductory diet: I started that on Monday and will continue until next Monday, when I am set free to build my meals within weight limits of the various types of foods). The test this morning showed that I had lost 6.5 lbs since beginning. That, of course, is the easy part.

I don’t much like to exercise. However, I just now discovered kettlebells, and I think these might be just the ticket.

The nice thing is that you really can make do with just one kettlebell. For the average guy, the standard kettlebell—1 pood = 16.6 kg = 36.5 lbs—is fine. The average woman might use an 18-lb kettlebell. Note how the workout can be continuous.

Now I’m older and unfit, so I’ve started with a 15-lb kettlebell—and I’m taking it easy. Many different exercises are possible, you can accomplish quite a bit with only 6 exercises.

The interesting thing is that you can tell it’s a good workout, but it’s also fun. I think swinging the kettlebell and also using your entire body (legs, butt, abs, shoulders, etc.) is what accounts for the difference.

If you are interested in fitness, you really should explore these. I got an instructional DVD [link fixed] and a set of kettlebells (5-, 10-, 15-, 20-lb bells) from Amazon and I’m pretty happy with that for now, though I do have a 1-pood kettlebell on the way. I did find Enter the Kettlebell! a useful DVD that shows how to get ready for kettlebell training and the basic exercises. I like his sense of humor; YMMV. The DVD was converted into a book just by providing text (what’s spoken in the DVD) and including still photos. On the whole, the DVD is the better introduction. Caveat: Both book and DVD include many pages at the back/extra tracks on the DVD to do an aggressive sales pitch: a Communist overdosing on capitalism is my interpretation. But these are easily ignored: skip the pages, don’t select the features. I’m now reading Power to the People, and it seems much more substantial—more a true book—than Enter the Kettlebell! for obvious reasons.

UPDATE: If you’re interested, you can start now practicing the stance. Stand barefoot facing a wall, your toes about two inches from the wall. Feet should-width apart, slightly out-turned, arms relaxed in front of you. As you gaze at the wall, slowly squat. Your butt will stick out and your back will arch so that you can continue to face the wall. As you descend in the squat, you’ll notice that your legs can feel the effort. Do this for a few minutes several times a day until you can comfortably squat low enough to touch the ground, facing the wall. Then move closer and continue the practice, until your toes are touching the wall.

UPDATE 2: As I’ve thought about it, I’ve begun to isolate the reasons the kettlebell is so appealing:

1. Full-body exercise, rather than isolated muscles. (This is also why I like the Nordic Track cross-country ski machine.)

2. You can do a continuous workout, moving from one exercise to another, without having to stop and change equipment.

3. You need just one single piece of equipment, one that will not break, wear out, or run down. And no batteries required.

I do notice, though, that all the instructors (in the various books and CDs and YouTube videos I’ve seen) really emphasize technique. Indeed, the whole focus is on technique—and quite understandable when you realize you’re swinging around a cannon ball and doing it wrong could do a lot of damage. This argues for finding a good instructor as you begin—or, if using a DVD, going with a lighter weight until you’re sure of your technique.

UPDATE 3: My flexibility is currently quite poor. Pavel’s book Relax into Stretch, though, is quite good and is helping me improve. It also corrects quite a few wrong ideas I had about stretching, including some that could have caused damage had I followed through. I recommend the book highly. There’s also a companion DVD, which I have not seen.

UPDATE 4:  Check out these:

Kettlebell Fitness Training

Crossfit Kettlebell Workouts

Stretching—the deliberate stretching of tendons and ligaments in a series of exercises—is not new at all, but I’ve never really done from a profound fear of boredom: holding poses for long periods of inactivity would, I thought, stun me senseless.

But now I’m following my trainer’s instructions, and stretching daily. I use Bob Anderson’s famous book, and from that and from my general reading, I know that it’s important to pay meticulous attention to the stretching sensation to (a) ensure that you get enough a stretch to do some good and (b) don’t stretch to the point where you injure yourself.

The result of this meticulous attention, a total focus on the component being stretched and the degree of the stretch, had the interesting effect of removing the sensation of time passing. For some stretches, I set a timer, and when it goes off, it always seems that no time has passed: I was lost in feeling the stretch. And that level of attention is absorbing.

After I brush following dinner, I rinse my mouth with Colgate Peroxyl, a hydrogen-peroxide-based. This requires rinsing for one full minute by the clock. I was fighting boredom during this endless rinse when I remembered the stretching. So I paid meticulous attention to the rinsing that I was doing, feeling the fluid swish over my gums and around my teeth, feeling the tiny bubbles that form it it—and suddenly the time was up.

So then I went into the kitchen to check whether I would have two boiled eggs for breakfast (this week only), and I had but one. I did have a carton of a dozen eggs, still raw, so I decided to boil them. The first step for me is to use the little snap-thing: when you put an egg on it (big end down) and snap, a little pin pierces the shell so that as the egg is boiled, the shell doesn’t crack. It’s (obviously) not difficult, but the process—12 times—is tedious.

But then I thought of the meticulous-attention trick, and I began piercing the eggs and putting them in the pan of water while paying meticulous attention to what I was doing: feeling the slight resistance as I remove the egg from the carton compartment, feeling the slight jump in the egg as the pin hit the shell, maybe even feeling a wave going through the egg’s internal fluid as a result, the waves I could feel in the pan’s water as I put the egg into the pan, the slight sound of the egg striking the pan’s bottom underwater—and before I knew it, I was doing the last egg. I had been totally absorbed by the meticulous attention I was paying, and time passed without noticing—plus I enjoyed the process.

It struck me that I had managed to induce flow (cf. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi). Flow is the state of mind that arises naturally when you are in a situation that provides immediate and on-going feedback and demands your attention—typically an activity that requires about 85% of your capability: if it requires more, one tends to become anxious, and if it requires much less, one tends to become bored. Some examples of activities that induce flow are rock-climbing (on a route that you can do well if you pay attention), wood-carving, and the like. More info from Wikipedia:

Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following ten factors as accompanying an experience of flow:^[3][4]

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.^[5]
2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)
10. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

It’s as though, by increasing the attention I paid to the sensory input involving some activity, I was able to achieve flow even though the task is not at all difficult and did not actually require the meticulous attention I gave it. I don’t think you could do this with tasks that are too difficult, but it does seem that it can work with tasks at the other end of the scale.

This reminds me of the kinds of things Joanna Field discusses in her fascinating book A Life of One’s Own.