Later On

Greenwald has a good column—as usual—and (also as usual) I detected no narcissism, but I did detect a quite obvious stench of stupidity issuing from David Gregory in this exchange included in the column:

. . . White House adviser David Axelrod was on Meet the Press this weekend and tried — with total futility — to explain to David Gregory the concept of holding someone accountable, which is ostensibly the crux of Gregory’s job.  Leave aside the obvious question of whether the White House is actually doing any of the things Axelrod claims they’re doing concerning BP; observe Gregory’s complete inability even to understand the concept of arms-length, verification-based accountability (h/t Stuart Zechman):

MR. GREGORY: You were quoted this week saying this isn’t a very sympathetic figure, Tony Hayward.

MR. AXELROD: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: Does the president trust this guy?

MR. AXELROD: Well, look, it’s not a matter of who — we, we — it’s not a matter of trust. We have to verify what they’re doing, we have to stay on them, and we have from the beginning. That’s why we want this escrow account. I’m not here to, to make judgments about any individual’s character, but we do know that they have pecuniary interests that may be in conflict with, with the interests of, of our interests, and we…

MR. GREGORY: But, but let –but…

MR. AXELROD: …need to make sure that the interests of people in the Gulf are protected. That is what our job is.

MR. GREGORY: But this is a straightforward question. If you are in partnership with somebody — and make no mistake, the government is in partnership with BP to get this problem solved — does the, does the president of the United States trust the man on the other end who is leading this operation?

MR. AXELROD: Our, our mission here is to hold them accountable in, in every appropriate way, and that is what we’re going to do. I, I’m not — I don’t consider them a, a, a partner, I don’t consider them — they’re not social friends, they’re not — I’m not looking to make judgments about their soul. I just want to make sure that they do what they’re required to do.

MR. GREGORY: Do you trust them to get the job done? Yes, no or maybe?

MR. AXELROD: We’re going to make sure they get the job done.

MR. GREGORY: But it doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of faith there at the moment.

MR. AXELROD: Well, our job is to hold them accountable, David, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Axelrod is explaining exactly what the media is supposed to do concerning political officials if they are going to fulfill the function they like to pretend they have, and Gregory is simply incapable even of understanding what’s being explained.  It’s as though it’s a completely foreign concept that he’s never encountered or thought about before.  As Zechman put it in an email to me: . . .

Doesn’t it strike you that Gregory is an amazingly stupid person? Nice hair, of course, but still…

Interesting report of multiple problems at Blackwater (aka Xe) and for Erik Prince.

Interesting story by Patrick Martin in the Globe and Mail:

Two weeks ago, she was virtually unknown. But after travelling aboard the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara, on which nine Turkish citizens were killed when Israeli commandos stormed the boat, Hanin Zoaby, a 41-year-old, first-term Knesset member, has become the most hated person in Israel.

As an Arab Israeli, she also has found herself at the centre of a new political force with which Israel will have to contend.

Accused of treason for supporting the Free-Gaza movement, forbidden by the courts to leave the country for 45 days, Ms. Zoaby was attacked, physically, when she spoke in the Knesset last week to explain her decision to join the flotilla of ships hoping to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She said she viewed her action on behalf of 1.5 million “prisoners” in Gaza as a kind of “mitzvah,” a Hebrew term for a religious good deed. The reference only made her Jewish assailants angrier.

On Sunday, Israel proposed that a three-man internal inquiry probe its bloody attack on the flotilla two weeks ago, and that it be headed by a retired Israeli judge and two high-ranking foreign observers, including a Canadian.

Ms. Zoaby has been labelled an enemy, and a supporter of terrorists. Yet the unmarried, Western-dressed Muslim woman hails from one of Israel’s high-profile Arab families, one that has counted a high court judge, a mayor of Nazareth, a long-serving Knesset member and a deputy cabinet minister among its members.

To many in the Knesset today, Ms. Zoaby’s transgression, like that of the four other Arab Israelis who joined the flotilla, is unforgivable. A Knesset committee has recommended the removal of many of Ms. Zoaby’s parliamentary privileges, including her immunity from prosecution and her diplomatic passport. The Interior Minister, leader of Israel’s Ultra Orthodox Shas Party, has asked whether her Israeli citizenship can legally be revoked…

Continue reading.

Apple controls the content that it allows on its machines, and Apple doesn’t like a lot of things:

Apple’s crusade to free all owners of iPhones and iPads from the terrible burden of seeing a nude figure is having some comically absurd results. There’s its insistence that a graphic-novel iPad app based on Ulysses remove some tame nudity – while remaining oblivious to the historical ironies. There’s the lampooning that some pranksters engaged in even as Steve Jobs was gushing over the iPhone 4 this week.

But the more examples I see of Apple’s capricious censoring, the less funny it is. Apple not only censored an iPad app based on Ulysses, it blacked out multiple panels in another graphic novel for the iPad based on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The app’s apparent sin: images of two men kissing [a cartoon of two men kissing, for the love of God! – LG].

No, I won’t be buying one of those. Too much solicitous control, like an overprotective mom. I don’t feel that I need that. In fact, I don’t even want it.

This is not what the "War on Drugs" is supposed to be doing. Jim Babka of Downsize DC:

Best-selling author Peter McWilliams died ten years ago today, June 14, 2000.

I remember when I heard the news. I can still feel the sickness and anger that I felt that day.

I didn’t know Peter personally, but I admired him. Some of my colleagues were good friends or acquaintances of his.

Peter was an eloquent champion of limited government and personal freedom. But his life was cut short by the War on Drugs. The federal government denied him the medication he needed to live and thrive.

What he went through, I wouldn’t wish on anyone, let alone my family and friends. But we have it in our power to prevent similar tragedies from happening to others. Please tell Congress to return to the Constitution, and end the insane War on Drugs.

You may copy or borrow from the following letter . . .

Today marks a cruel anniversary in the barbaric history of the War on Drugs. On this day, ten years ago, the federal government caused the death of the best-selling author Peter McWilliams.

Do you know his story?

* In 1996 Peter was diagnosed with cancer and AIDS
* The medications he needed to treat these diseases caused extreme vomiting, and he could not keep them down long enough for them to work
* That same year, Proposition 215 legalized medical marijuana in California
* Under the recommendation of four physicians, Peter started using marijuana.
* The marijuana controlled his nausea, restored his appetite, and allowed his medications to work

Marijuana saved Peter’s life, for the moment. This led him to fund research into medical marijuana and to start a business supplying it to buyer’s cooperatives. The DEA took notice, raided and trashed his home, and even confiscated his computer, which contained the manuscript of his latest book.

Peter was charged with being a "drug kingpin!" And then, he was hamstrung, legally. The federal judge in the case took away his defense, barring any mention of . . .
* California’s medical marijuana law
* his terminal illness
* how medical marijuana allowed him to keep down his medication and prolong his life

While the legal process dragged on, the government prevented Peter from using the marijuana that controlled his nausea. Peter was required to pass drug tests. He complied, even though his life was at risk, because . . .
* Peter’s mother and brother had to put up their homes as collateral to post his bail
* If he failed the test, their homes would have been seized by the government

Peter’s health deteriorated until he died at the age of 50. The vomiting had taken a tremendous toll on his alimentary canal, as well as his heart, and even his teeth. Despite the suffering, he never lost his sense of humor. And the reason I most admired him was that he felt sympathy for his tormentors, rather than rage. [Read this post, which quotes Peter McWilliams. – LG.]

Marijuana saved Peter’s life, but the War on Drugs destroyed it.

Peter’s most noted book was "Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do." It promoted the idea that each person can do whatever they please with their own bodies and property, so long as they don’t interfere with the right of others to do the same. So let me ask you:

* What business is it of yours what people choose to do with their bodies and property?
* Where in the Constitution is the federal government empowered to deny people like Peter McWilliams the medicine they need?

Sadly, Peter wasn’t the only victim of your War on Drugs. He was just one victim among many. The long list of your victims includes . . .

* terminally ill patients for whom marijuana (or some other illegal drug) could ease pain and nausea
* people with psychological problems for whom now-illegal drugs could help calm them or clear their minds
* young people whose futures are ruined not because of drugs, but because of a "criminal" record
* innocent adults and children on our streets, in Mexico, and across the world caught in drug turf warfare
* innocent victims of no-knock SWAT raids and asset forfeiture
* young people who get hooked on drugs precisely because, unlike legal drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol, they’re available to be bought and sold on the streets and school grounds

The United States leads the world in incarceration rates, mostly because of non-violent, consensual crimes like drug possession. Apparently President Obama wants even more people in prison. He wants increased funding for interdiction, law enforcement, and the continuation of bloody drug wars across the border.

I suggest you do something else. Read and learn from Peter’s books – especially "Nobody’s Business." And then put an end to this stupid, immoral, and unconstitutional War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs is another disappointment from President Obama.

I guess until the ocean waves are moving up Broadway in NYC. Brad Johnson has this story in ThinkProgress:

Last week, 47 senators launched a failed assault on science, supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers the public health and welfare. The EPA finding was based on decades of science, synthesized during the Bush administration by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Change Program. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the leading denier in the Senate of the threat of climate change, justified his vote for the Murkowski resolution by claiming the science is just a United Nations conspiracy:

“We all know now that the IPCC, which is the United Nations, their science has all been debunked.” [Americans for Prosperity event, 6/9/10]

“The Climategate scandal forced open the inner sanctums of the IPCC, and the public finally saw the political science the body had produced.” [Senate floor, 6/11/10]

This weekend, catastrophic rainfall devastated Oklahoma with floods, leading “authorities to declare a state of emergency in 59 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties”:

Oklahoma City Micronet (OKCNET) reports that a rainfall observation of 10.21″ in OKC has exceeded the 1-in-500 year rainfall total for a 12 hour period. Moreover, the 9 inches that fell in 6 hours meets the requirements for a 1 in 500 year flood event.

Evacuations are under way in some Oklahoma City neighborhoods, Mayor Mick Cornett said Monday. People there are dealing with vicious flash-flooding and scattered power outages as more thunderstorms head their way. The National Weather Service said almost 10 inches of rain fell between 2 and 11 a.m.

The IPCC report, which Inhofe says is a sham, warned of the coming floods caused by the rise in global temperatures:

Over the 20th century, based on changes in sea surface temperatures, it is estimated that atmospheric water vapour increased by about 5% in the atmosphere over the oceans. Because precipitation comes mainly from weather systems that feed on the water vapour stored in the atmosphere, this has generally increased precipitation intensity and the risk of heavy rain and snow events. Basic theory, climate model simulations and empirical evidence all confirm that warmer climates, owing to increased water vapour, lead to more intense precipitation events even when the total annual precipitation is reduced slightly, and with prospects for even stronger events when the overall precipitation amounts increase. The warmer climate therefore increases risks of both drought − where it is not raining − and floods − where it is − but at different times and/or places.

“Heavy downpours are now twice as frequent as they were a century ago,” the U.S. Global Change report states. “Projected changes in long-term climate and more frequent extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, and heavy rainfall will affect many aspects of life in the Great Plains.”

I had always assumed that James Bond’s preference for a vodka Martini, “shaken, not stirred,” was Fleming’s way of showing how Bond flouts convention: vodka instead of gin, shaken instead of stirred. It seems that I was wrong: the shaking is because of the vodka. New Scientist explains:

In our quest to establish the difference between a shaken and a stirred martini, we published a reply from Anna Collins of Washington DC (8 May). She informed us that Bond ordered his martinis shaken so that the ice helped to dissipate any oil left over from the manufacture of vodka from potatoes – the base vegetable for many vodkas at the time Ian Fleming was writing the James Bond novels. Anna added that with the rise of higher-quality grain vodkas this method of preparation has become unnecessary. One reader decided to check out whether this really was the case – Ed

• Anna Collins is correct, according to our blind trial. We bought two bottles of vodka, one grain, the other potato-based. First we tasted the vodkas. In the blind trial all six people in our sample said the potato vodka was oily, and the grain vodka wasn’t. Then we made two vodka martinis using the potato vodka. One was stirred with ice, the other shaken with ice. The difference was quite distinct and in a blind tasting every one of the six drinkers characterised the shaken martini as being much less oily. But the martini had to be consumed quickly. If left to settle for 5 minutes or so, the shaken martini became oily again.

Peter Simmons, London, UK

This is intriguing. Joe Conason in Salon:

Libertarian ideology rejects most of the modern regulatory systems that protect consumers, because everyone should be responsible for determining whether the hamburger contains E. coli on his own. But does that do-it-yourself dogma apply to the regulation of medicine, too? If you’re Dr. Rand Paul, practicing ophthalmologist, the answer is emphatically yes.

According to an amusing story in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal, the Kentucky Republican Senate candidate bills himself as a "board-certified" physician even though he is not actually certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology — the only recognized body that certifies doctors in his specialty.

Paul’s only certification was provided instead by something called the National Board of Ophthalmology, which is very convenient because he operates that organization himself. As the Courier-Journal explains drily, the American Board of Ophthalmology, which maintains a fully staffed headquarters in Philadelphia, has existed for roughly a century and currently lists about 16,000 doctors on its rolls. (Most hospitals and insurance companies strongly prefer doctors who are board-certified because certification indicates that they have kept up with changes in technology, best practices and so on.) The National Board of Ophthalmology has existed since 1999, when Paul "founded" it, lists no more than seven doctors, and its address is a post-office box in Bowling Green, Ky. He had claimed to be certified by both boards, but Courier-Journal reporter Joseph Gerth quickly discovered that claim was false.

When Gerth tried to ask Paul why he claims to be board-certified when he isn’t and why he set up the National Board of Ophthalmology, the candidate stonewalled:

"I’m not going to go through all that right now," Paul said while at the Great Eastern National Gun Day Show and JAG Military Show, in Louisville. Asked when he would talk, Paul said: "Uh, you know, never … What does this have to do with our election?"

Gerth replied in his column in Sunday’s Courier-Journal, after Paul’s campaign manager said he would only answer questions in writing. His explanation is pithy and his questions seem almost too reasonable:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Gentlemens Refinery makes some very nice products, and their Standard shaving cream is a high-class product: great softening lather and a mild fragrance. The Plisson Chinese Grey worked up the lather, and then the Gillette Fat Boy with a Swedish Gillette blade removed that and the stubble: three easy passes, a splash of Pashana, and I am ready for the day.

The whole interview is worth reading. Just one exchange from it:

Q. You’ve been critical of the Washington DC press corps — especially the folks who cover the White House — for their cozy, self-serving relationship with powerful sources. Do you have any ideas for remedying this situation? If you were DC Bureau Chief at The New York Times, how would you cover official Washington?

When I began writing about politics, I believed that applying pressure, shame, and the like to our national journalists could help influence behavior in a positive way.  I no longer think that.  Our national media isn’t subservient to political power because of the behavior or personality attributes of any particular journalists — at least not primarily.  The real problem is structural and cultural.  The largest corporations which own the largest media outlets need to maintain a positive, constructive relationship with the government — as the corporate-government axis grows, that relationship becomes increasingly important — so the last thing they want to do is antagonize political power.

Journalists who work for the largest media outlets are nothing more than corporate employees — no different than the Accounting Manager or Sales Representative in a non-media division.  All people who work in large corporations know what is expected of them, know what can advance or undermine their careers.  There’s just no incentive for corporate journalists  to be hostile or even adversarial to the powerful; the opposite is true:  their career incentives are for them to be as friendly as possible.  There are all sorts of other, frequently noted reasons why our major journalists are largely so subservient to political power:  that’s how lazy journalists secure access and thus "scoops"; corporations in general tend to hire people whose instincts are to please and accommodate authority rather than work against it; journalists now reside in the same socioeconomic circle and celebrity culture as the politicians they cover, etc. etc.  But ultimately, corporate ownership of the largest media outlets means there are structural impediments to an adversarial press corps.

That’s why I no longer think the goal is to reform the existing establishment media but, rather, to create an alternative to it, a competitor to it, that will perform the functions it refuses to perform.  We’re always going to need large media outlets.  An entity as powerful and sprawling as the Federal Government can only be investigated and checked by media institutions with substantial resources.  We need a corporation like The Washington Post which can pay Dana Priest to do nothing for months but work on a single story concerning CIA black sites or conditions at Walter Reed.  And there are good journalists doing real adversarial work at these large media outlets.  But I see blogs and other alternative media sites as using technology to supplement what those media outlets do and performing the functions they fail to perform.

I think his analysis is spot-on, and another way that the culture of capitalism is opposed to democracy: businesses need ever-increasing profits, and if people really believe in democracy and are active, they are apt to stymie business in one way or another (e.g., safety regulations, environmental protections (when businesses usually treat environmental damage, no matter how extensive, as an external expense). So businesses do not like democracies all that much—in the same way they don’t like unions. A business wants to hold all the power in the room. The role of the people is simply to earn money and send it to the corporations by buying what the corporations want to sell.

Interesting points in this Steve Benen post:

About a month ago, the lead story at The New Republic had a provocative headline: "Is Dick Cheney To Blame for the Oil Spill? Signs Point to Yes." The fairly brief piece raised some important points, which still tend to go overlooked, including the fact that the Deepwater Horizon rig did not have a remote-control acoustic shutoff switch, routinely used by rigs elsewhere, because Cheney’s secretive energy task force decided the $500,000 price tag was too great a burden on BP.

Major media outlets have generally been reluctant to dwell on Bush/Cheney administration failures and how they relate to the oil spill disaster, but the fact that Cheney has received at least a modicum of blame should have been enough to inspire the former V.P. to schedule a few media interviews.

Indeed, what usually happens in a case like this is predictable — Cheney faces criticism, Cheney calls Politico and/or Fox News, Politico and/or Fox News run lengthy pieces with scathing Cheney quotes attacking the U.S. leadership, run without scrutiny or fact-checking.

But Ravi Somaiya notes that we just haven’t heard much from the former vice president lately, even after some limited public criticism.

Frank Rich, in The New York Times, pointed out that the Interior Department degenerated into a "cesspool of corruption," under Bush and Cheney, and that the pair bequeathed Obama "a Minerals Management Service as broken as the Bush-Cheney FEMA exposed by Katrina."

His ears ringing with the cries of "Cheney’s Katrina," a title many are striving to bestow on the gulf oil spill, one might expect the former VP to convene journalists for a speech, like he did in May last year at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute to talk about national security…. The closest we have this time is Liz Cheney, Dick’s daughter, arguing with Arianna Huffington on ABC’s This Week.

We wondered why. Are the claims too substantial to refute? Is Cheney so incensed that he cannot trust himself to speak? Or, conversely, is he perhaps so sanguine about the entire issue that he doesn’t feel it merits comment?

Cheney’s bound to pop up one of these days, attacking the nation’s elected leaders for something or another, though his silence of late is kind of interesting.

But I’d just add that of all the possible explanations for Cheney’s absence from the political stage, there’s simply no way the claims being "too substantial to refute" is part of the explanation. This guy has manufactured his own twisted reality for years; there’s no reason to think now would be any different.

The United States was founded with high ideals. Gradually, we’ve been losing those, and this latest decision by the Supreme Court grinds a few more ideals into the dirt. Greenwald:

The Supreme Court today denied a petition of review from Maher Arar, the Canadian and Syrian citizen who was abducted by the U.S. Government at a stopover at JFK Airport when returning to Canada in 2002, held incommunicado for two weeks, and then rendered to Syria, where he spent the next 10 months being tortured, even though — as everyone acknowledges — he was guilty of absolutely nothing.  Arar sued the U.S. Government for what was done to him, and last November, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of his lawsuit on the ground that courts have no right to interfere in these decisions of the Executive Branch.  That was the decision which the U.S. Supreme Court let stand today, ending Arar’s attempt to be compensated for what was done to him.

I’ve written in detail several times about Arar’s case, including in November when the appellate court upheld dismissal of his lawsuit; see here for how extreme his treatment has been at the hands of the U.S. Government, which was most responsible for his harrowing nightmare and then spent years fighting to deny him any remedy for what was done.  I won’t reiterate those points here, as everything I have to say about the Supreme Court’s actions today was said in that November post (read the last part of that post, where I excerpted the court’s description of what was done to Arar).  But I do want to highlight one aspect of this episode:

Just compare how the American and Canadian Governments responded to what everyone agrees was this horrific injustice.  The Canadians, who cooperated with the U.S. in Arar’s abduction, conducted a sweeping investigation of what happened, and then publicly “issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured,” and made clear he had done absolutely nothing wrong.  Then, Canada’s Prime Minister personally and publicly apologized to Arar, and announced that Canada would compensate him with a payment of $ 8.5 million.

By stark contrast, the U.S. Government, which played a far more active role in his abduction and rendition to Syria, has never apologized to Arar (though individual members of Congress have).  It has never clearly acknowledged wrongdoing (the only time it even hinted at this was when Condoleezza Rice called U.S. conduct in this case “imperfect” — you think? — and generously added: “We do not think this case was handled as it should have been”).  In fact, it continuously did the opposite of providing accountability:  in response to Arar’s efforts to seek damages from the U.S. Government, the U.S. raised — under two successive administrations — a slew of technical arguments to persuade American courts not to hear his case at all, including the argument that what was done to Arar involved “state secrets” that prevented a judicial adjudication of his claims.  The U.S. even continued to ban Arar from entering the U.S. long after it was acknowledged that he had done nothing wrong, thus preventing him for years from appearing before Congress or in the U.S. to talk about what was done to him.  Indeed, after the Bush administration spent years arguing that courts were barred from hearing Arar’s case on the ground of “state secrets,” the Obama administration embraced those same arguments and then urged the Supreme Court not to hear his appeal.

As the Center for Constitutional Rights pointed out today:

The Obama administration could have settled the case, recognizing the wrongs done to Mr. Arar as Canada has done. . . . Yet the Obama administration chose to come to the defense of Bush administration officials, arguing that even if they conspired to send Maher Arar to torture, they should not be held accountable by the judiciary.

So congratulations to the U.S. for winning the right to wrongfully abduct people and send them to their torture with total impunity.  What a ringing statement about our country’s willingness to right the wrongs it commits and to provide access to our courts to those whose lives we devastate with our behavior.  Andrew Sullivan today referred to “the cult of the inerrant leader”:  the inability and refusal of our political class to acknowledge wrongdoing, apologize for it, and be held accountable.  The Maher Arar case is a pathological illustration of that syndrome.

This is a true miscarriage of justice and flaunts US arrogance to the world. People should remember that what goes around comes around.

People being hurt, the environment badly damaged, local economies destroyed—none of that bothers Big Business in the least, especially if they can either escape paying altogether or paying just a tiny, tiny fraction of their profit. Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress:

To demonstrate that it’s responsibly taking care of the oil spill and listening to public complaints, BP has touted the fact that it has set up call centers to handle the response. However, one of the operators at the BP Call Center in West Houston has revealed that she and the other 100 employees are just PR props; BP isn’t actually doing anything with the thousands of calls it receives:

“We take all your information and then we have nothing to give them, nothing to give them,” said Janice.

Janice said calls about the oil disaster are non-stop and that operators are just warm bodies on the other end of the phone.

“We’re a diversion to stop them from really getting to the corporate office, to the big people,” said Janice. … Because the operators believe the calls never get past them, some don’t even bother taking notes.

Watch it:

BP told KHOU in Houston that it has received “more than 200,000 phone messages from the Call Center in Houston,” but it couldn’t “say just what percentage of calls is returned.”

CAP Senior Fellow Tom Kenworthy and the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson have written that “[f]ederal agencies, not BP, should handle spill response hotlines for volunteers,technology ideas, affected wildlife, and others. Full call records need to be logged with incident reports and technology ideas presented publicly on dynamic websites.” (HT:Raw Story)

Rather busy this morning.

Exercise: I did do stretching, and I did all the kettlebell exercises in the beginner routine, just not so many as the routine specifies. But I did enough to convince me that it’s feasible, provided I don’t push myself. I’ll try the complete routine on Thursday.

I then did the stretching, which I’d omitted for three days. But last night I was standing in the dining room and suddenly felt as though my shoulders were about to close over my chest—that’s hyperbole, but certainly my shoulders did feel incredibly hunched forward (probably from sitting at the computer). I swung my arms in vertical circles at my side and threw my shoulders back until I was comfortable again, and this morning I was back at stretching, particularly lying on my back on top of the foam cylinder. I’d never felt that before, so I assume the stretching on the cylinder is having at least the effect of my becoming able to tell when my shoulders are out of position. (Fortunately, the kettlebell is excellent for shoulders.)

I went to my planning session at my diet center. Now I have more options, and I’m taking full advantage. I did confess to a Saturday night excess: all week long I’d been noting how much I felt impelled to eat (a bite or two—at a time) after dinner, but under the plan, after dinner you might have an apple or a bowl of berries (if you didn’t have that as a before-dinner snack), but nothing else.

I first went and got all the salad greens from the fridge, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar, and at that. Then a piece of string cheese and a Ry Krisp cracker (this is a standard snack). Then a Ry Krisp rubbed with butter and a boiled egg. Later a string cheese and an apple. Then a string cheese and a Ry Krisp. Then (I think) just a string cheese.

In other words, I went berserk, and my weight didn’t do so well today. But at least I kept to the standard snacks, though I ate too much, and I avoided oil.

That was Saturday (and I wasn’t able to enter all that into my food journal until today). But last night (Sunday), it was as if that final burst sort of burned out the impulse to eat after dinner. At least last evening I was fine after dinner and didn’t even want anything.

Maybe it was one of those internal fights: my conscious mind trying to beat some sense into an unconscious urge—after conquering it for a few nights, it rears up and shows me who’s boss, but then retires, satisfied. (I hope.) It’s like when you tell a kid to stop bouncing a ball against the house: quite a few kids have to bounce one or two more times before they quit, just to demonstrate their independence. That’s what it felt like with this. We’ll see for sure tonight.

My session went quite well. Now that my lean body mass has been accurately measured, a diet plan (in terms of servings of oil, starch, protein, veggies, and such has been worked out. I also purchased the initial post-plan maintenance: Once I reach target weight, I continue going for 8 weeks as post-program maintenance (Maintenance I), and after that go to an annual maintenance (Maintenance II), which brings a handsome reimbursement at the end of the year if you’ve maintained within 5 lbs of your goal.

Then to Whole Foods where I stocked up on veggies: radicchio, collards, yellow bell pepper, apples, asparagus, baby broccoli, celery: the salads are getting more interesting. I gave up on fresh green beans and am now buying frozen chopped: much easier and faster. I also got more eggs, though I think I’ll return to having cooked oats (oat groats) for breakfast, probably with one boiled egg.

Things are going pretty well, all told.

Dean Baker:

I often think it’s too bad that Social Security isn’t a private company. If it were, it could sue Marketplace Radio for libel for this sort of reporting. Does Marketplace’s host have any idea what she is talking about when she says: "Social Security is in such a sorry state"? According to the Congressional Budget Office the program can pay all benefits for the next 34 years with no changes whatsoever and even after that can pay more than 75 percent of benefits indefinitely. The program is in much better shape in this respect that it was in the 40s, 50s, 60s, or 70s. So what on earth is this person talking about? Can Marketplace Radio pay all its expenses for the next 34 years?

Marketplace’s expert then tells us that Social Security will probably be means-tested. This idea is extremely unpopular among both the public and policy experts, so it would be interesting to know the basis for this assessment. She also recommends raising the retirement age, apparently unaware of the fact that the retirement age has already been raised to 67. She also is apparently unaware of the fact that the vast majority of the huge baby boom cohort has almost nothing saved for retirement and therefore will be almost entirely dependent on Social Security.

My two copies of the Gillette UK Aristocrat #22 have come to a sad state regarding their plating:

Originally rhodium flashing was used. Rhodium, though, does not tarnish, so these have had something else done to the finish. It’s likely that the original plating was quite thin: rhodium is enormously expensive. Perhaps when that plating was worn, something else was applied, something that tarnishes.

At any rate, I’m sending these off to SafetyRazors.co.uk, which does offer nickel replating on a small scale. I think a good nickel plate is preferable to what I have now. When they return, I’ll provide both before (the above) and after photos.

Bliss Thermal shaving cream is interesting stuff. It is quite warm as you apply it—it seems to be a reaction with air rather than one’s skin. I didn’t even try to use a brush, but took my Gillette UK Aristocrat Junior Rocket [see comments] with a new Swedish Gillette blade and did a three-pass shave, applying more warm Bliss before each pass. It is indeed nice stuff, and many thanks to Steve of Kafeneio for the sample. I believe the little tube has enough for at least another pass, but probably not another shave.

The shaving cream did a good job, as did the Rocket Aristocrat Jr., and a splash of Alt Innsbruck set me up for my morning kettlebells.

The Aristocrat Jr. looks somewhat like the Rocket, but with a heavier lighter handle. Here are the two side by side:

Click any of these photos to enlarge.

This story in the NY Times by Nina Bernstein is absolutely infuriating. This is something out of Kafka or the Soviet Union. In America, I thought the presumption was of innocence, and the state had to prove guilt. That’s been turned on its head and this couple has to prove innocence.

In their cluttered studio apartment in Astoria, Queens, after nearly 17 years of marriage, Shari Feldman and Inderjit Singh seem like a pair of old shoes — a little the worse for wear but comfortable with each other’s creases.

“Our marriage certificate is so old, it’s yellow,” Ms. Feldman, 51, joked over the Bollywood soundtrack that blared from the TV. “Hey, honey, would you turn that down?”

Yet three petitions and five marriage interviews have failed to convince federal immigration authorities that the couple’s union is not a charade to get a green card for Mr. Singh, 45, a car service driver from India.

Last year, after they reapplied with a new lawyer, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services refused to interrogate them again, citing the conflicting answers they gave four years ago to questions like what Mr. Singh wore at their 1993 wedding and whether he had taken Ms. Feldman out to eat on her last birthday.

The couple may be an extreme case, but they are not alone. As immigration authorities have stepped up efforts to ferret out sham marriages among hundreds of thousands of petitions by United States citizens seeking green cards for their foreign spouses, cases of longtime couples cast into limbo have multiplied.

Petitions by 20,507 citizens were denied in the last fiscal year, or 7.2 percent of the total; of these, only 506 were for fraud, and the rest were for reasons like discrepancies in the couples’ answers or not showing up for an interview…

Continue reading. From later in the story:

From a jumble of documents and photo albums on their king-size bed, they pulled out their joint apartment lease, tax filings and bank statements. But the immigration agency dismissed such documents in its last denial letter, dated Aug. 10, 2009, noting, for example, that the joint account they opened in 1997 showed low balances of $8.11 and $62.15 in two 2008 statements.

The letter concluded that their documents did not outweigh the discrepancies in answers the couple gave at their 2006 interview — like her statement that their rent was $677.17, while he said, “About $700.”

Yeah, that definitely proves they’re not really married. And, BTW, my bank account has from time to time run low, especially earlier in my life. But I’m still a citizen.

Read Kafeneio’s review.

Robert Axelrod wrote a fascinating book with the above title about competing strategies for the Prisoner’s Dilemma. As it turned out, the winning strategy, which goes on to generalize to some extent, is cooperation. Specifically, tit-for-tat: cooperate initially, and thenceforth play according to the other’s previous move: if it was cooperating, cooperate; if it was not, then don’t.

He discusses how cooperating entitles can relatively quickly overwhelm entities that always compete. The short reason is that cooperation results in additive strength, competition does not.

Alfie Kohn also touches on this is his own fascinating book No Contest: The Case Against Competition. It turns out that competition is invariably inferior to cooperation in any real-world situation. (Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes is also fascinating and worth reading.)

In reading the article mentioned in this post, I was struck by how today’s business world and management seem much more hospitable for women than for men. And there are some hints that the reason is that cooperation is carrying the day, and highly competitive behavior (and incentive systems), both beloved by men, do not fit the new corporate and creative model. Competition between corporations still exists, of course, along with quite a bit of cooperation, but competition with the corporation is increasingly seen as a detriment and weakness.

Maybe Axelrod saw the future early.

All books in this post highly recommended.