Later On

James Fallows describes how he has  achieved a

… completely machine-independent computing life. I have three computers I use interchangeably — desktop and two laptops –  and (with a few minor exceptions that I’ll note) I no longer have to worry about which laptop I should take to a downtown office or on a trip, or which machine has the "current" version of a file. Conceptually this sounds banal and so-last-year. In reality I’ve found it surprisingly stress-reducing never to have to think about where my info "is," since it’s wherever I want it to be. And I think I’ve learned the right way to combine SugarSync and DropBox.

Via Open Culture:

Megs ponders her next move.

Now that I know the boar-brush secret—spend at least 30 seconds by the clock loading the brush with soap—I had to try it again, this time on a non-tallow soap. I worked up lather to load the brush for around 20 seconds (and discovered that my default time with this brush was probably 5 seconds) and I got two good passes before returning to the bowl to refresh the brush. Possibly if I’d loaded the brush a little longer it may have lasted better, but I’m betting that tallow soaps work best with boar. More experimentation coming.

Three passes with the iKon bulldog open comb, a splash of Classik, and I’m ready for Pilates. (I already did 21 minutes on the Nordic, and I’m almost at the end of Robinson Crusoe.)

I’m about half through Casino Jack and the United States of Money on Netflix Watch Instantly, and I can’t put it down, as it were. It plays like a Greek tragedy in modern dress, and it’s all real and the photos and action shots are the real people. And what a bunch of scams they ran! And what incredibly sleazy sociopaths!

I recommend this one highly. I put it in the queue because I knew it was good and something I should watch, but I procrastinated because I didn’t get that it would be like watching Godfather in a political setting.

Thanks to SC via The Wife:

Via Open Culture:

I believe that the US, particularly the GOP, is headed in a very wrong direction that will exacerbate the decline of the US and its promise. Read any of the following:

After Taking Big Sugar Money, Florida Ag. Commissioner Adam Putnam Seeks To Halt Soda Ban In Schools

Obstruction-Obsessed McConnell To Democrats: If You ‘Think It’s Bad Now, Wait Till Next Year’

Fox News’ Shep Smith Shames Coburn For Blocking 9/11 Bill: ‘This Is The Senator’ Blocking ‘Necessary Funding’

Ground Zero Workers Visit Coburn’s Office To Beg Him To Lift Hold On 9/11 First Responders Bill

McConnell Tries And Fails To Undermine Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal In Last Ditch Effort

Conservatives Freak Out Over Mild Net Neutrality Laws: ‘It’s Total Government Control Of The Internet’

The stupidity and misinformation that the GOP brings to our national discourse would be a disgrace, but people in this country really do not seem to care any more. And the Obama Administration is systematic, deliberate, and determined in its efforts to bring down parts of the Bill of Rights.

As I continue through this program, the amount of mystery surrounding my interactions with food continues to diminish.

When I first began, my weight seemed to go up and down mysteriously, unconnected from my diet. I was keeping track in the food journal, and some days I would lose a little, some days a lot, and some days I would gain. It was extremely weird. But I continued to keep the journal and meet with the counselors and of course discovered the leaks: unjournaled food intake.

Once the leaks ended—and that also put paid to my having a bite of this or that save at meals or the two snacks—that mystery seemed to go away: the weight loss (or, alas, gain) was much more obviously tied to my eating.

Next was the discovery of the meal template: the static meal skeleton of 4 oz protein, 1/2 cup starch, and vegetable. With that in mind, planning a meal—and I really have to plan only lunch and dinner—became easy. And another mystery started to fade: the mysterious dishes and bags in the refrigerator. Before I discovered the meal skeleton, I just bought food that looked interesting and tasty and figured that somehow I could work it into a meal. But now I know what a meal needs, so those are the things I buy, and the refrigerator is now filled with things that I bought with a specific use in mind: I know what’s there, and I know how I’ll use it.

Of course, now I’ve discovered that there’s too much there, but I’m counting my meals now: the MOH (meals on hand) count I carry in my mind, so when I go to the grocery store I will not overbuy. And what I buy will fit into specific meals in a specific way.

More control, less mystery.

UPDATE: On reflecting on this, I think that what I was experiencing was not mystery but confusion.

The White House under Obama is busy drawing up how they will illegally imprison people for so long as the government wants without charges or evidence or due process. What is this country becoming? We had a perfectly good legal system with Constitutional protections, and now we are systematically destroying it. The terrorists won big time. Dafna Linzer in Pro Publica:

The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

Nearly two years after Obama’s pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo, more inmates there are formally facing the prospect of lifelong detention and fewer are facing charges than the day Obama was elected.

That is in part because Congress has made it difficult to move detainees to the United States for trial. But it also stems from the president’s embrace of indefinite detention and his assertion that the congressional authorization for military force, passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks, allows for such detention.

After taking office, the Obama administration reviewed the detainee population at Guantanamo Bay and chose 48 prisoners for indefinite detention. Officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that number will likely increase in coming months as some detainees are moved from a transfer category to a continued detention category…

Continue reading.

Another little lesson in personal food management: Last night I was thinking about the meal template (4 oz protein, 1/2 cup starch, vegetables) and how it serves as the underlying skeleton to any meal, when I realized that I could count the meals I have on hand in the fridge just by counting protein servings. For example, I had bought the 14-oz steak and cut it into three 4.7-oz servings, of which I had eaten one. So I had two meals on hand right there. The total:

2 – the two pieces of steak that are left
1 – the 4 oz remaining of the poached shrimp
1 – the remaining 5.5 oz duck breast half
2 – a turkey thigh I had bought to roast
2 – the leftover broccoli soup (with chicken and wheat): at least two meals
6 – poached chicken breast

14 meals (lunch or dinner) = 7 days

Obviously, it’s not only possible to count and track MOH (meals on hand), it seems like the only way to buy food appropriately so that you don’t run out on the one hand or discard food that’s gone bad on the other.

The same goes with starch, which might take the form of cooked grain or rice, potatoes, winter squash, and so on: by looking at the number of 1/2-cup servings you can easily count the number of meals involved. (In fact, with my weight-loss diet, I serve myself three meals from a cup of starch, not two.)

This was just posted on Amazon:

[5 stars] Dollar for dollar the best money I’ve ever spent, December 20, 2010

By cosmicmes

This review is from: Leisureguy’s Guide to Gourmet Shaving, Fourth Edition: Shaving Made Enjoyable (Paperback)

I’ve been shaving for over 35 years now. Back in March of 2010 I started to re-order my Gillette Fusion blades which give me sometimes, 2 shaves. My reward for paying for all that “modern technology” has been ingrown hairs, razor burn, and dread of shaving (never mind the cost). Anyway, I started seeing reviews on the Fusion blades (on Amazon) urging men to jump to double-edged blades. I had nothing to lose, right? I bought some well-reviewed shaving equipment and took the plunge. The results were less than spectacular. Just when I started to go back to Gillette I espied Michael Ham’s book. Well, the more often I re-read sections of his book the better my shaving experience became. And my skin, which was always inflamed with ingrown hairs and rash now looks twenty years younger. If I could go back in time,say thirty plus years ago, knowing what I know now, I would gladly pay $1000.00 for the book. Seriously. Oh, and if perchance Mr. Ham ever reads this review, it’s too late, no thousand bucks, but you have my deepest appreciation!

For you guys that want to save a lot of money by shaving with double-edged blades the learning curve is much more shallow if you carefully read this book. For men tortured with shaving problems, I can almost promise that this book will help you as it did me.

Not too late to order it as a New Year’s gift.

Look familiar? Gavin Groom pointed out in a comment on yesterday’s shave that the problem might be that I spent insufficient time loading the brush with soap. He suggested brushing the soap vigorously for a full minute. I started, but after 26 seconds decided that I probably had enough soap—and that yesterday I had spent about 5 seconds doing this: not nearly enough time.

And Gavin was right: plenty of lather in the brush for all three passes. And a very fine shave with the Gillette Fat Boy holding a Swedish Gillette blade. A splash of New York, and I’m ready to lose another pound.

Greenwald:

In The New York Times today, Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins expose very sensitive classified government secrets — and not just routine secrets, but high-level, imminent planning for American covert military action in a foreign country:

Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out militants there.

The proposal, described by American officials in Washington and Afghanistan, would escalate military activities inside Pakistan, where the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash.

The plan has not yet been approved, but military and political leaders say a renewed sense of urgency has taken hold, as the deadline approaches for the Obama administration to begin withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan.

America’s clandestine war in Pakistan has for the most part been carried out by armed drones operated by the C.I.A. . . . But interviews in recent weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.

The decision to expand American military activity in Pakistan, which would almost certainly have to be approved by President Obama himself, would amount to the opening of a new front in the nine-year-old war, which has grown increasingly unpopular among Americans. . . . [O]ne senior American officer said, “We’ve never been as close as we are now to getting the go-ahead to go across.”

The officials who described the proposal and the intelligence operations declined to be identified by name discussing classified information.

Often in debates over the legitimacy of publishing classified information, the one example typically cited as the classic case of where publication of secrets is wrong is "imminent troop movements."  Even many defenders of leaks will concede it is wrong for newspapers to divulge such information.  That "troop-movement" example serves the same role as the "screaming-fire-in-a-crowded-theater" example does in free speech debates:  it’s the example everyone is supposed to concede illustrates the limits on the liberty in question.   While the ground operations in Pakistan revealed by the NYT today don’t quite reach that level — since there is not yet final presidential authorization for it — these revelations by the NYT come quite close to that:  "an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas."

Indeed, the NYT reporters several times acknowledge that public awareness of these operations could trigger serious harm ("inside Pakistan, [] the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash").  Note, too, that Mazzetti and Filkins did not acquire these government secrets by just passively sitting around and having them delivered out of the blue.  To the contrary:  they interviewed multiple officials both in Washington and in Afghanistan, offered several of them anonymity to induce them to reveal secrets, and even provoked officials to provide detailed accounts of past secret actions in Pakistan, including CIA-directed attacks by Afghans inside that country.  Indeed, Mazzetti told me this morning:  "We’ve been working on this for a little while. . . . It’s been slow going.  The release of the AfPak review gave a timeliness to the story, but this has been in the works for several weeks."

In my view, the NYT article represents exactly the kind of secret information journalists ought to be revealing; it’s a pure expression of why the First Amendment guarantees a free press.  There are few things more damaging to basic democratic values than having the government conduct or escalate a secret war beyond public debate or even awareness.  By exposing these classified plans, Mazzetti and Filkins did exactly what good journalists ought to do:  inform the public about important actions taken or being considered by their government which the government is attempting to conceal.

Moreover, the Obama administration has a history of deceiving the public about secret wars.  Recently revealed WikiLeaks cables demonstrated that it was the U.S. — not Yemen — which launched a December, 2009 air strike in that country which killed dozens of civilians; that was a covert war action about which the U.S. State Department actively misled the public, and was exposed only by WikiLeaks cables.  Worse, it was The Nation‘s Jeremy Scahill who first reported back in 2009 that the CIA was directing ground operations in Pakistan using both Special Forces and Blackwater operatives:  only to be smeared by the Obama State Department which deceitfully dismissed his report as "entirely false," only for recently released WikiLeaks cables to confirm that what Scahill reported was exactly true.  These kinds of leaks are the only way for the public to learn about the secret wars the Obama administration is conducting and actively hiding from the public.

The question that emerges from all of this is obvious, but also critical for those who believe Wikileaks and Julian Assange should be prosecuted for the classified information they have published:  should the NYT editors and reporters who just spilled America’s secrets to the world be criminally prosecuted as well?  After all, WikiLeaks has only exposed past conduct, and never — like the NYT just did — published imminent covert military plans.  Moreover, WikiLeaks has never published "top secret" material, unlike what the NYT has done many times in the past (the NSA program, the SWIFT banking program) and what they quite possibly did here as well.  Mazzetti this morning said in response to my question about that:  "not sure on the classification, although I think all of the special operations activity is usually given Top Secret designation."

Does Dianne Feinstein believe that Mazzetti, Filkins and their editors should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act?  Do Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell believe these two reporters are "high-tech terrorists?"  Is Eric Holder going to boast about the aggressive actions his DOJ is taking to criminally investigate the NYT for these disclosures? 

After all, which WikiLeaks disclosure has ever helped the Taliban and Al Qaeda as much as announcing that the U.S. intends escalated ground operations in Pakistan?  How can the acts of WikiLeaks and the NYT possibly be distinguished?  Last week, Rachel Maddow was on David Letterman’s show, laughed when Letterman denounced Assange as "creepy," and — while expressing concerns both that the U.S. Government over-classifies and doesn’t safeguard its secrets with sufficient care — disparaged WikiLeaks this way:  . . .

Continue reading.

Dan Colman at Open Culture:

Earlier this week, Sweden’s public television service, SVT (akin to PBS and the BBC), released a one hour documentary chronicling the history of WikiLeaks, starting with its early leaks of Scientology documents and ending with its recent release of American diplomatic cables. Since July, SVT reporters have followed WikiLeaks, traveling near and far to interview WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other top members of the whistleblowing organization, some of who have since left the embattled internet site. All in all, a decent introduction to Wikileaks and its controversial mission.

It sure seems like it in terms of the policies that embrace and the policies they reject. Rachel Slajda reports at TPM Muckraker:

On Thursday night, hours before passing the tax cut compromise, House Republicans thwarted a bill that aimed to protect girls around the world from being coerced into child marriage. They opposed it because, they claimed, it might fund abortions.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), was blindsided. After the Child Marriage Protection Act passed the Senate with zero objection on Dec. 1 — a rare feat these days — it didn’t seem like there was much to worry about.

But just before the vote began, Republican leadership blasted out a "whip alert" to GOP staffers with a message: Vote no. The alert claimed the bill cost too much and that a competing bill, introduced just the day before, would be better.

"There are also concerns that funding will be directed to NGOs that promote and perform abortion and efforts to combat child marriage could be usurped as a way to overturn pro-life laws," the alert read.

And so the bill, which needed a two-thirds vote to pass under the suspended rules, failed. Even some congressmen who sponsored the bill voted no.

McCollum, along with human rights organizations and the State Department, believes that child marriage is a form of child abuse that includes sexual abuse, domestic violence and slavery.

The text of the bill does not mention abortion, contraception or family planning. Instead, it directs the president to make preventing child marriage a priority, especially in countries where more than 40 percent of girls under the age of 18 are married. The ways to do that, according to the bill: support educating communities on the dangers and health effects of child marriage, keep young girls in school, support female mentoring programs and make sure girls have access to health care services. . .

Continue reading.

I’m not going to try it, but here it is:

I’m reading a fascinating book: William H. McNeil’s The Pursuit of Power: Technology, armed force, and society since A.D. 1000. From the book:

Mere numbers, however, do not tell the tale. The French army that drove the English out of Normandy and Guienne, 1450-53, did so by bringing heavy artillery pieces to bear on castle walls, one after another, whereupon previously formidable defense came crumbling down in a matter of hours, if the garrison did not prefer to surrender. A century of rapid development of cannon design lay behind this dramatic demonstration of the power gunpowder weapons had attained.

From the very beginning, the explosive suddenness with which a gun discharged somehow fascinated European rulers and artisans. The effort they put into building early guns far exceeded their effectiveness, since for more than a century after 1326, catapults continued to surpass anything a gun could do, except when it came to making noise. Yet this did not check experimentation.

He has a footnote, “Sexual symbolism presumably attached itself to guns from the beginning, and perhaps goes far to explain European artisans’ and rulers’ irrational investment in early firearms… Yet even if this sort of psychological resonance explains otherwise unintelligible behavior, it does not explain why Europeans were especially susceptible. The character of western Europe’s political institutions and the militaristic habits of urban dwellers who manufactured (and paid for) the new guns seem necessary factors in converting psychological drives from mere fantasy into hard metal…”

1326 is mentioned because that is the year of the earliest European drawing showing a gun, reproduced in the book. Interestingly, the earliest Chinese drawing showing a gun dates from 1332, and it’s more or less the same drawing: a vase-shaped cannon with an arrow-shaped projectile.

This is a terrible story. At the link is the video of the mother’s murder. Tim Johnson reports for McClatchy:

A mother campaigning to bring the confessed killer of her 16-year-old daughter to justice was herself gunned down Thursday night in view of a closed circuit television camera, leaving images that shocked Mexicans over the impunity of the killers.

The murder of Marisela Escobedo unfolded Thursday night on the sidewalk in front of the governor’s palace in the capital of Chihuahua state.

Escobedo, a retired nurse, was at a protest booth in the main plaza across the street demanding that the man who confessed to killing her daughter and dismembering her body in 2008 be hunted down.

A closed-circuit camera captured the 20 seconds or so at 8:10 p.m. when a man got out of a white Volkswagen Jetta and approached Escobedo in the square. Frightened by him, Escobedo ran across the street, dodging busy traffic, the assailant only footsteps behind her. He shot her with a 9mm pistol in the head at the entrance to the governor’s palace.

The video shows the killer running back across the street and getting in the waiting car, which pulled away.

The brazen hit of a grieving mother — in the capital of a state renowned for hundreds of murders of women and girls — sparked condemnation from within Mexico and from abroad.

"The death of Marisela adds to the long list of women murdered in Chihuahua," Norma Ledezma, head of Justice for Our Daughters, said through sobs in a telephone interview moments before a Friday march through Chihuahua City.

United Nations human rights delegate for Mexico Javier Hernandez Valencia issued a statement describing the killing as "devastating and causing indignation," and exhorted Mexico to take action to halt "overwhelming violence that looms over women."

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, called Escobedo a "tireless fighter for justice for her daughter, Rubi Marisol Frayre" and said the mother had become emblematic of women fruitlessly seeking justice for murders in Chihuahua state, which borders Texas and New Mexico.

"Once again, the negligence of federal and state authorities to prevent and punish violence against women in Chihuahua has left relatives and human rights organizations to suffer reprisals for their efforts for truth and justice," the group said.

After Escobedo’s daughter disappeared in August 2008, her live-in boyfriend fled the state. Nearly a year later, the mother located the boyfriend, Sergio Rafael Barraza, in nearby Zacatecas state, leading investigators to him. Barraza later confessed and identified the site where he’d buried the girl after killing her.

In April of this year, a three-judge panel acquitted Barraza of the murder despite his confession, freeing him. After complaints from then-Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza, an appeals court overturned the verdict and instated a 50-year jail term.

Prosecutors made little effort to find the fugitive, leaving Escobedo herself to track down him down once again. She did so, and led a law enforcement unit in July to Zacatecas, a state to the southeast. But Barraza escaped again.

Gov. Cesar Duarte, who succeeded Reyes Baeza, told reporters Friday that Barraza had joined the criminal syndicate known as Los Zetas. Duarte said he is "absolutely sure" that Barraza was behind Thursday night’s killing of the mother. . .

Continue reading. It sure seems like a failed state to me.

And rightly so. Thanks to TYD for pointing out this Washington Post story by Dana Hedgpeth:

Before there were full-body scanners, there were puffers.

The Transportation Security Administration spent about $30 million on devices that puffed air on travelers to "sniff" them out for explosives residue. Those machines ended up in warehouses, removed from airports, abandoned as impractical.

The massive push to fix airport security in the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, led to a gold rush in technology contracts for an industry that mushroomed almost overnight. Since it was founded in 2001, the TSA has spent roughly $14 billion in more than 20,900 transactions with dozens of contractors.

In addition to beefing up the fleets of X-ray machines and traditional security systems at airports nationwide, about $8 billion also paid for ambitious new technologies. The agency has spent about $800 million on devices to screen bags and passenger items, including shoes, bottled liquids, casts and prostheses. For next year, it wants more than $1.3 billion for airport screening technologies.

But lawmakers, auditors and national security experts question whether the government is too quick to embrace technology as a solution for basic security problems and whether the TSA has been too eager to write checks for unproven products.

"We always want the best, the latest and greatest technology against terrorists, but that’s not necessarily the smartest way to spend your money and your efforts," said Kip Hawley, who served as the head of the TSA from 2005 until last year. "We see a technology that looks promising, and the temptation is to run to deploy it before we fully understand how it integrates with the multiple layers we already have in place like using a watch list, training officers at every checkpoint to look for suspicious behavior and using some pat-downs."

Some say the fact that the United States hasn’t had another 9/11-level terrorist attack shows that the investment was money well spent.

But government auditors have faulted the TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, for failing to properly test and evaluate technology before spending money on it.

The puffer machines, for example, were an early TSA attempt at improving electronic screening in airport security lines. Designed to dislodge explosive particles by shooting air blasts at passengers, the detectors turned out to be unreliable and expensive to operate. But they were deployed in many airports before the TSA had fully tested them, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The puffers were "deployed even though TSA officials were aware that tests conducted during 2004 and 2005 on earlier [puffer] models suggested they did not demonstrate reliable performance in an airport environment," according to a GAO report from October 2009.

TSA officials told the GAO that they had deployed the puffers to "respond quickly to the threat posed by a suicide bomber" after incidents on Russian airliners in 2004.

The agency stopped buying and deploying the puffer machines to airports in June 2006…

Continue reading. Panicky, hysterical people seem to make bad decisions. Who knew?