The Nation

I saw this interesting article on The Nation in which they interview 50 American veterans of the present Iraq war about what it is like on the ground. True, they did source a lot of their blokes from anti-war veterans groups, but first of all those make a lot of sense and second, their stories are unbelievably believable.

Alden Pyle

Bush citing The Quiet American as an argument for staying in Iraq is one of the strangest things I've ever heard in one of his speeches. I can only assume that neither he nor his speech-writers have read it, because the attempt at turn-around just doesn't make sense. The Alden Pyle character is the type of naive, reckless, good-intentioned American personified by many neoconservatives today. The specific quote Bush uses about "better motives" applies perfectly to this administration. His attempt to reference that book and its message is just plain bizarre.

Tony Law

We caught comedian Tony Law last night at The Old Rope and he was really hilarious. I'd actualy never heard of him, but we intend to catch his proper show, Revenge of the Dog of Time, at the Gilded Balloon.

I really like the idea of the Old Rope too. Some of the performances don't work, but that's part of the deal - it's a chance for performers to try out new material, and you get a glimpse of the process that's pretty fascinating to me.

Festival Tips

If anyone has seen something at the festival and highly recommends it, leave details in the comments. I'd be curious to see what others have discovered out there.

So far I've seen Amsterdam Comedy Collective, which I recommend, if only for starring comedian (I think his name is Leeuw). Best Western by Rich Hall was good but pretty dark humour. I don't recommend Belly of a Drunk Piano. It was meant to be a tribute to Tom Waits but was more like someone apeing him.

Rove Resigns

Karl Rove will quit at the end of August.

Giles Wareing

I had somehow missed noticing until today that Tim Dowling has a novel out. He's one of my favourite Guardian writers and is brilliant and funny, so it could be great.

More OpenMoko

A review/preview from The Economist.

Blondie...

is performing live outside my window.

openmoko

Anyone have experience with this yet? I'm intrigued.

From Zero to Hero

In the Seattle P-I:

During a last-call stroll through Pioneer Square early Sunday morning, Seattle's top law dog helped break up a sidewalk fight between a bar patron and a man in an eagle suit.

Lt. Kenneth Hicks, shift commander at the precinct that includes Pioneer Square, was leading Kerlikowske on a closing-time tour of the club district when the senior officers witnessed a man-on-eagle fracas, according to police documents.

The officers watched as a 30-year-old Seattle man shoved the eagle to the curb and then stomped on the costumed man's back as the eagle's costumed confederate -- a man dressed as a beaver -- looked on.

Canada and the Arctic

This is an interesting piece about Canada's response to encroachment from the US and Russia on their Northern-most territory.

Cool Sun

Skeptics of the idea that global warming is a man-made phenomenon often claim that the sun is simply entering a period of increased activity and that our carbon dioxide emissions have little or no effect on matters. Not so, according to new research presented to the Royal Society:

But a new analysis of data on the sun's output in the last 25 years of the 20th century has firmly put the notion to rest. The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

The solar hypothesis was championed publicly in March by the controversial Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

The programme has been heavily criticised for distorting scientific data to fit the sceptic argument and Carl Wunsch, a professor of physical oceanography at MIT who featured in the programme, later said that he was "totally misled" by the film makers and that his comments were "completely misrepresented".

The new analysis is designed to counter the main alternative scientific argument put forward by the programme - that solar activity may be to blame for global warming.

"The temperature record is simply not consistent with any of the solar forcings that people are talking about," said lead author Mike Lockwood at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Terror

Ruaridh Nicoll::

Then, yesterday, came a march through Glasgow to show that the entire country stands against the attacks. Muslims particularly rallied under the banner 'Scotland United Against Terror'. George Square saw 1,200 people turn up.

It was lucky it was a rally for Scotland against terrorism because across town 1,300 police officers - note the numbers - were gathering to marshal an estimated 12,000 Orange Lodge marchers making their way to Blythwood Square for the County Grand Orange Parade.

What's Right for America

This bit of a Byron York WaPo piece struck me:

So the commutation won no more than tepid approval from the base. And it certainly didn't offset the terrible damage the president did to himself during the immigration debate by backing a bill that would have put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. Many conservatives are still hopping mad over the president's description of the bill's opponents as people who "don't want to do what's right for America."

Bush and his cadre have been calling progressives unpatriotic for 7 years; how many conservatives were willing to stand up and denounce that? Now he trains his rhetoric on them and they're suddenly livid?

2.5 Hours

Colin Powell reminisces:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed that he spent 2.5 hours “vainly trying to persuade President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by U.S. forces. ‘I tried to avoid this war,’ Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. ‘I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.’” In terms of the current situation in Iraq, Powell said: “It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.”

If we believe that, we've also got to believe that he stood in front of the UN and made the case for a war he didn't actually support.

Sick at Sea

Ever wondered what type of people go on those National Review cruises? Read Johann Hari's excellent report from the ship.

Falling Through the Cracks

From Sullivan:

But I grew up with socialized medicine, and I know what a disaster it is. It's coming [to the US], of course. You can feel it. Bush paved the way. The golden era of American medicine and research will soon cede to more and more state control. It will exchange a great deal of its excellence for more access for more people. That's the bargain most democracies make.

The first criticism I'd make is of his claim that it's on its way in the US. I just don't see that happening in the next few years; not even the Democratic candidates are seriously talking about healthcare for all.

The second problem, of course, is his characterization of this as a "golden era" of medicine in the US. Maybe from a research point of view, okay. It's been great for the pharmaceutical industry, that's for sure. But ask the millions of uninsured and underinsured if it feels like a golden era for them. Andrew has lived in the US long enough to know what a disaster healthcare is there if you don't have a lot of money.

Free Speech, Sometimes

Two Supreme Court rulings were handed down today:

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that, when regulating what can be said in a campaign and when it may be said, “the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it.”

In another 5-to-4 ruling involving free speech, the court ruled today against an Alaska high school student, finding that educators can prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use.

Genetic Basis for Tone

Bob Ladd, a linguist here at Edinburgh and a former professor of mine, has been doing some interesting research that's received a write-up in Scientific American:

Two linguists believe they know the genetic underpinnings for these differences. During a study of linguistic and genetic data from 49 distinct populations, the authors discovered a striking correlation between two genes involved in brain development and language tonality. Populations that speak nontonal languages (where the pitch of a spoken word does not affect its meaning) have newer versions of the genes, with mutations that began to appear roughly 37 thousand years ago.
...
Ladd and Dediu compared 24 linguistic features—such as subject-verb word order, passive tense, and rounded vowels—with 981 versions of the two genes found in the 49 populations studied. Most of the language contrasts could be explained by geographic or historical differences. But tone seemed to be inextricably tied to the variations of ASPM and Microcephalin observed by the authors. The mutations were absent in populations that speak tonal languages, but abundant in nontonal speakers.

Torture

Not only is it wrong and ineffective, but there are proven interrogation methods out there which don't rely on physical torture at all:

But some of the experts involved in the interrogation review, called “Educing Information,” say that during World War II, German and Japanese prisoners were effectively questioned without coercion.

“It far outclassed what we’ve done,” said Steven M. Kleinman, a former Air Force interrogator and trainer, who has studied the World War II program of interrogating Germans. The questioners at Fort Hunt, Va., “had graduate degrees in law and philosophy, spoke the language flawlessly,” and prepared for four to six hours for each hour of questioning, said Mr. Kleinman, who wrote two chapters for the December report.

Mr. Kleinman, who worked as an interrogator in Iraq in 2003, called the post-Sept. 11 efforts “amateurish” by comparison to the World War II program, with inexperienced interrogators who worked through interpreters and had little familiarity with the prisoners’ culture.

The Intelligence Science Board study has a chapter on the long history of police interrogations, which it suggests may contain lessons on eliciting accurate confessions. And Mr. Borum, the psychologist, said modern marketing may be a source of relevant insights into how to influence a prisoner’s willingness to provide information.

“We have a whole social science literature on persuasion,” Mr. Borum said. “It’s mostly on how to get a person to buy a certain brand of toothpaste. But it certainly could be useful in improving interrogation.”