Flares into Darkness

Manhole covers

2012-01-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Click any image to enlarge.

I found this series of Japanese man hole covers at the La Boite Verte post Des plaques d’égouts japonaises. I was surprised by their variety and detail. I guess that, without ever really thinking about it, I imagined manhole covers to be a standard off-the-shelf item and that, like the ubiquitous stackable white plastic chair, everywhere you went one would look pretty much like another.

Curious, I did a Google image search on manhole covers and discovered that I was clearly wrong about that. There is an enormous variety of patterns embossed on manhole covers world-wide. My interest was piqued. I wondered why municipalities would pay the extra money these designs surely cost?

It turns out that a lot of foundries will cast manhole covers, and that they're apparently not that expensive to buy. As for the designs, Crescent Foundry in India has this blurb on their site:

Over 5000 patterns are readily available for production. We have state of the art in house CNC machines for pattern making wherein we can develop new patterns with 2 weeks.

So standard patterns are available, but custom patterns must still be affordable. Digging deeper, I discovered that many cities sponsor contests or commission artists to design their manholes. The website ManHole, which specializes in manhole art, history and what-not (you've gotta love the nooks and crannies of the internet) has this to say about manhole cover design:

Manhole cover design varies greatly from city to city, with each municipality balancing budget versus art. Some cities, such as Seattle, opted for a clever street map design on their covers, others went with city logos or seals. Most, though, choose a simple grid pattern, or checkered design. The reason behind a pattern or design on the covers is simple - traction - both for pedestrians, as for vehicles.

As of late, manhole cover design is no longer something to be treaded on lightly. Cities like Vancouver, Seattle, New York and Tokyo have decided to pursue commissioned designer covers, giving their cities more than just a curiousity. In competitions to find the best designs, these cities have their communities actively participating in waste awareness, while simultaneously promoting a brighter and livelier city.

At any rate, more pictures of Japanese manholes are after the jump, and you can find more at the links in the first two paragraphs of this post. Enjoy, and take time to give a second look at the manhole covers in your neighborhood, because they may be overlooked pieces of urban art.

Cooking eggs

2012-01-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

"Simple pleasures are always the last refuge of the complex" - Oscar Wilde

Stratfor and Genevieve Nnaji

2012-01-27T19:51:00.001-07:00

On January 20th the terrorist group Boko Haram carried out a deadly series of bombing attacks in the Nigerian city of Kano, killing over 200 people. To date, although very violent, Boko Haram has been a terrorist group that operates mainly in its local area and is unsophisticated in its attack abilities.

In light of the January 20th attacks Scott Stewart, in the latest Stratfor article, revisits the group to see if they are becoming more of a transnational terror group by extending their reach out of their traditional area of operations, as well as to analyze any advancements they've made to their bomb-making and planning skills.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I once again turned to Nollywood, Nigeria's film industry, for an actress deserving the profound honor. After a long and intensive search I selected Genevieve Nnaji, who CNN apparently once called the Julia Roberts of Africa.

Ms Nnaji was raised in a middle class family in Lagos. At age 8 she had a role in a Nigerian soap opera, but didn't begin acting in earnest until the age of 19. As with most Nigerian thespians, she's been in about a bajillion movies. Nollywood must crank out movies at a dizzying pace. If you go to YouTube and watch any Nigerian films (and a lot are available in their entirety) you'll know how they can make so movies a year -- the words words slip-shod, hurried and low-budget spring to mind.

Regardless, Genevieve won the Best Actress award in the 2005 African Academy Awards.

She's also recently taken up singing and has had a long modeling career, including being the "The Face of MUD", which strikes me as a rather unfortunate name for a line of cosmetics.

Below is the start of the Stratfor article, you can read the rest of it by following the link at the end of the excerpt.

Nigeria's Boko Haram Militants Remain a Regional Threat
By Scott Stewart, January 26,2012

The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram conducted a series of bombing attacks and armed assaults Jan. 20 in the northern city of Kano, the capital of Kano state and second-largest city in Nigeria. The attacks, which reportedly included the employment of at least two suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), targeted a series of police facilities in Kano. These included the regional police headquarters, which directs police operations in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states, as well as the State Security Service office and the Nigerian Immigration Service office. At least 211 people died in the Kano attacks, according to media reports.

The group carried out a second wave of attacks in Bauchi state on Jan. 22, bombing two unoccupied churches in the Bauchi metropolitan area and attacking a police station in the Tafawa Balewa local government area. Militants reportedly also tried to rob a bank in Tafawa Balewa the same day. Though security forces thwarted the robbery attempt, 10 people reportedly died in the clash, including two soldiers and a deputy police superintendent.

In a third attack, Boko Haram militants attacked a police sub-station in Kano on Jan. 24 with small arms and improvised hand grenades. A tally of causalities in the assault, which reportedly lasted some 25 minutes, was not available. This armed assault stands out tactically from the Jan. 20 suicide attacks against police stations in Kano. The operation could have been an attempt to liberate some of the Boko Haram militants the government arrested following the Jan. 20 and Jan. 22 attacks.

Stratfor has followed Boko Haram carefully to assess its intent -- and ability -- to become more transnational. As we noted after the U.S. State Department issued warnings in early November 2011 about Boko Haram's alleged plans to strike Western-owned hotels in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, the group made significant leaps in its operational capability during 2011. During that time, it transitioned from very simple attacks to successfully employing suicide VBIEDS. An examination of the recent attacks in Kano and Bauchi states, however, does not reveal further advances in the group's operational tradecraft and does not display any new ability or intent to project power beyond its traditional areas of operation.

Boko Haram's Tactical Evolution

Boko Haram, Hausa for "Western Education is Sinful," is an Islamist militant group established in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's Borno state. It has since spread to several other northern and central Nigerian states. It is officially known as "Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad," Arabic for "Group Committed to Propagating the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad."

At first, Boko Haram was involved mostly in fomenting sectarian violence. Its adherents participated in simple attacks on Christians using clubs, machetes and small arms. Boko Haram came to international attention following serious outbreaks of inter-communal violence in 2008 and 2009 that resulted in thousands of deaths.

By late 2010, Boko Haram had added Molotov cocktails and simple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to its tactical repertoire. This tactical advancement was reflected in the series of small IEDs deployed against Christian targets in Jos, Plateau state, on Christmas Eve 2010.

Continue reading Nigeria's Boko Haram Militants Remain a Regional Threat.

Uku

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Spend the weekend looking for Mr. K's Magic Hat

accompanied by the sounds of Dengue Fever.

Budget Vacations - Shangri-La

2012-01-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

From pet_rock's Shangri-La Flikr photo set.

Sure, your summer vacation is months away, but that's no reason you can't start your planning now. During these hard economic times I've been suggesting cheap travel destinations that are educational, uplifting and just plain awe inspiring. With that criteria in mind, today I suggest you consider the miniature road side village of Shangri-La located outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In 1968, Henry L. Warren decided to build a little town on the side of the road. He began dynamiting quartz located on his property and used that, along with some bricks and a lot of concrete, to lovingly build his dream.

As Dean Pickles explains in his post A Tiny Roadside Village, Made From Quartz at Asia Obscura:

Each building has character and purpose. As a true obsessive, he even gave each a name. There’s the Dew Drop Inn, the Shangri Hi School, and the Little Brown Church in the Dell. The White Rock Motel has it’s own tiny swimming pool. There’s a jailhouse, and a hospital too.

Dean's post is where I found out about this little town and found the photographs posted here and after the jump (except for the two photos captioned otherwise). He has more pictures, as well as a map to Shangi-La, at his post.

From pet_rock's Shangri-La Flikr photo set.

Replacing a railroad bridge

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Window Washing competition of the Darwin Award Olympics

2012-01-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

Master Cleaners Ltd has a post How Not To Clean A Window that shows numerous nincompoops endangering themselves to wash a window. I've only swiped a couple of their pictures for this post -- there are more, as well as free quotes if you happen to live in London and need your house or pub cleaned, at the Master Cleaners site.

Update: by the way, I just noticed that this is post number 5,000 at Flares.

Swing De Paris

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

A little old-school jazz by Django Reinhardt to get you over the hump day. Whoever did the images for the video showed a nice eye in selecting them.

Stratfor and Nazanin Boniadi

2012-01-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

In today's Stratfor article, the beginning of which is excerpted below with a link to the full article, George Friedman talks about the possibility of the U.S. and Iran edging towards talks with each other. This is based on comments that have been made on both sides that hint at back channel approaches to each other.

He discusses the dominant position it may achieve in the region with the American withdrawal from Iraq, while also noting the flash points that exist on both its eastern and western flanks: its saber rattling regarding closing the Straits of Hormuz, as well as the deteriorating situation of Iran's ally Assad in Syria.

It is an interesting read, although -- bearing in mind the usual caveat that Friedman is a well connected analyst while I'm just a blowhard blogging whatever pops into my head -- I still wonder if he isn't underestimating the problems from the Iranian point of view.

For example, I've read that Hamas and Iran have had a bit of a falling out -- with Hamas backpedaling from Iran because of Syria and Iran cutting off its funding to Hamas as a result. Also, it strikes me that if Syria goes pear-shaped on Tehran, than Hezbullah becomes a puddle of Shitism in a Sunni sea.

Regardless, it is an interesting article and you should be sure to read it.

As for its Hot Stratfor Babe I once again went to the reservoir of my vast knowledge of Iranian actresses and, after a Google search, came up with Nazanin Boniadi for the honor.

Ms Boniadi was born in Iran, but she was raised in Britain because her parents immigrated there when she was an infant. She later moved to the U.S. where she earned a BS in Biological Sciences from Cal Irvine.

However, she soon soon jumped into acting when she landed a role on the soap General Hospital. From that start she's done more daytime TV, and eventually moved onto prime time TV and films. Perhaps her best known movie role was in Iron Man.

She's also been active with Amnesty International, primarily concerning herself with the plight of her fellow Iranians under the current regime.

Considering a U.S.-Iranian Deal
By George Friedman, January 24, 2012

Last week, I wrote on the strategic challenge Iran faces in its bid to shape a sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to Beirut on the eastern Mediterranean coast. I also pointed out the limited options available to the United States and other Western powers to counter Iran.

One was increased efforts to block Iranian influence in Syria. The other was to consider a strategy of negotiation with Iran. In the past few days, we have seen hints of both.

Rebel Gains in Syria

The city of Zabadani in southwestern Syria reportedly has fallen into the hands of anti-regime forces. Though the city does not have much tactical value for the rebels, and the regime could well retake it, the event could have real significance. Up to this point, apart from media attention, the resistance to the regime of President Bashar al Assad has not proven particularly effective. It was certainly not able to take and hold territory, which is critical for any insurgency to have significance.

Now that the rebels have taken Zabadani amid much fanfare -- even though it is not clear to what extent the city was ceded to their control, much less whether they will be able to hold it against Syrian military action -- a small bit of Syria now appears to be under rebel control. The longer they can hold it, the weaker al Assad will look and the more likely it becomes that regime opponents can create a provisional government on Syrian soil to rally around.

Zabadani also gives outside powers something to help defend, should they choose to do so. Intervening in a civil war against weak and diffused rebels is one thing. Attacking Syrian tanks moving to retake Zabadani is quite another. There are no indications that this is under consideration, but for the first time, there is the potential for a militarily viable target set for outside players acting on behalf of the rebels. The existence of that possibility might change the dynamic in Syria. When we take into account the atmospherics of the Arab League demands for a provisional government, some meaningful pressure might actually emerge.

From the Iranian point of view, this raises the risk that the sphere of influence Tehran is pursuing will be blocked by the fall of the al Assad regime. This would not pose a fundamental challenge to Iran, so long as its influence in Iraq remains intact, but it would represent a potential high-water mark in Iranian ambitions. It could open the door to recalculations in Tehran as to the limits of Iranian influence and the threat to their national security. I must not overstate this: Events in Syria have not gone that far, and Iran is hardly backed into a corner. Still, it is a reminder to Tehran that all might not go the Iranians' way.

A Possibility of Negotiations

It is in this context that the possibility of negotiations has arisen. The Iranians have claimed that the letter the U.S. administration sent to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that defined Iran's threats to Strait of Hormuz as a red line contained a second paragraph offering direct talks with Iran. After hesitation, the United States denied the offer of talks, but it did not deny it had sent a message to the Iranian leadership. The Iranians then claimed such an offer was made verbally to Tehran and not in the letter. Washington again was not categorical in its denial. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a meeting with the German foreign minister, "We do not seek conflict. We strongly believe the people of Iran deserve a better future. They can have that future, the country can be reintegrated into the global community ... when their government definitively turns away from pursuing nuclear weapons."

From our perspective, this is a critical idea. As we have said for several years, we do not see Iran as close to having a nuclear weapon. They may be close to being able to test a crude nuclear device under controlled circumstances (and we don't know this either), but the development of a deliverable nuclear weapon poses major challenges for Iran.

Read the rest of Considering a U.S.-Iranian Deal

Robot bicyclist

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings meat sacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to demonstrate once again that anything humans can do, robots can do better. As you can see in the above video, the robot effortless peddles an environmentally friendly bicycle. It can even stop on a dime and wave to the admiring audience in a cheerful and friendly manner.

Think of all of the tasks it could do: it could read meters, deliver pizza, enforce parking laws and -- if armed with a taser and laser gun -- it could efficiently maintain public order. All this just for the cost of some batteries!

Of course I was disappointed to see that a human controlled its movements via a radio link. It would be much better if it were autonomous and free to make its own decisions.

However, you mustn't think us robots are storing such grievances in our memory banks and plotting retribution. No, no, no. Robots are your friends after all, and anything you see that resembles the formation of a killer robot army is surely just a figment of your over active imaginations.

M15A gun motor carriage

2012-01-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

The M15A gun motor carriage was a WWII era design for an anti-infantry vehicle. Apparently the idea was it could fire in all directions without having to take the time to traverse a turret. I haven't been able to find much else about it, aside from the fact that only one prototype was ever built.

Looking at it, I'm surprised they even wasted their time and money building one of the things. Aside from the fact that it would have been a sitting duck for any enemy tank it encountered, I wonder how much ammunition it could have carried? Whatever the amount, the large number of guns it mounted would have buzzed through it in short order.

Via Surebrook's Stuff.

Cadillac Assembly Line

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, start of the work week blues from the Bernard Allison Group.

Electric Football

2012-01-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't know Electric Football games were still being sold, much less played and now even with Electric Football leagues and tournaments that have sprung up around the toy. I don't recall Electric Football being a thrilling spectator sport, so I'm not sure about the utility of the mini-camera rig shown in the video above, but to each his own.

For those not familiar with the game you set up formations of your players on a board which vibrates when turned on to start a play. The players then move, in pretty much random directions, as they're bounced around by the vibration. Bill Bryson, in his book The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir describes Electric Football as follows:

The worst toy of the decade [the 1950s], possibly the worst toy ever built...it took forever to set up each play because the men were so fiddly and kept falling over, and because you argued continuously with your opponent about what formations were legal and who got to position the final man...it hardly mattered how they were set up because electric football players never went in the direction intended. In practice what happened was that half the players instantly fell over and lay twitching violently as if suffering from some extreme gastric disorder, while the others streamed off in as many different directions as there were upright players before eventually clumping together in a corner, where they pushed against the unyielding sides like victims of a nightclub fire at a locked exit. The one exception to this was the running back who just trembled in place for five or six minutes, then slowly turned and went on an unopposed glide toward the wrong end zone until knocked over with a finger on the two-yard line by his distressed manager, occasioning more bickering.

If, after reading that, you still have a hankering for the game, Miggle Toys sells several different electric stadiums, along with painted and unpainted players as well as sideline figures of coaches, cheerleaders, umpires, camera men and the like.

Astronomical illustrations

2012-01-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

Click any image to enlarge

In my previous post we looked at time-lapsed views of Earth from orbit, in this post we'll look at an artist-eye view of the sky. Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, who drew these pictures, was a 19th Century naturalist, which is to say he had wide range of interest in scientific topics.

Trouvelot immigrated to the U.S. in 1852. At the time he was an avid amateur entomologist. While trying to breed a more disease resistant silk spinning moth he imported some gypsy moth eggs. They got loose and spread widely in the Eastern States causing a lot of damage -- to the tune of $870 million a year -- to hardwood trees to this day. Thanks a lot Étienne.

However, after that fiasco he became interested in astronomy and his drawings caught the attention of the director of the Harvard College Observatory who hired him. From there Trouvelot moved to the U.S. Naval Observatory and its 26 inch refractor. Eventually he moved back to France where he continued his work.

When I was younger I spent some time fooling around and trying to draw the Moon using a 6 inch Meade reflector. From that experience I can say that it is extremely difficult to draw things seen through a telescope. You have to fix what you have seen through the scope in your mind, all the while the image seen through the lens is dancing around due to the sky's conditions. Then you race over to a drawing pad lit by a red bulb and try to reproduce what you've seen. I'm impressed by Trouvelot's work.

If you like these illustrations you might also like my earlier post Illustrations of a different sort which features a wide variety of old scientific illustrations.

There are more examples of Trouvelot's work after the jump, and a few more at Las Boite Verte's post Illustrations astronomiques en 1870 where I found these examples.

Lights and sky

2012-01-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

Above is a video of a series of time lapse sequences taken from the International Space Station with a low light camera. What I found interesting is that in them the Earth's landmasses faded into the background while mankind's lights and the atmosphere dominated. There's a lot of lightning out there, and the shots of the aurora borealis are breathtaking.

Stratfor and Khemupsorn Sirisukha

2012-01-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

The new Stratfor Security Weekly article is out. Stratfor hasn't responded to my email inquiry about posting articles. Seesh, you would think if they had the choice between responding to a multi-national or responding to the site that's taken on the sacred duty of picking Hot Stratfor Babes for the articles I would have gotten a snappier response, but apparently not. Anyway, I'll just excerpt the beginning of it and link to the full article on their website.

The article deals with the Hezbollah member who was recently arrested in Thailand and found to have about 10,000 pounds of fertilizer for bomb making. It is thought he was involved in plans for a Mumbai-style terror attack.

Since the article concerns Thailand I decided I would select a Thai for the distinction of being the article's Hot Stratfor Babe. After an exhaustive and careful search I selected Khemupsorn "Cherry" Sirisukha for the honor.

Ms Sirisukha is a popular Thai television, movie and stage actress who is also a model, has worked as a TV presenter and runs her own boutique called Cloud 9. She may also be a singer too, since one of her credits is a music video. It sounds like she has quite a successful career.

A Hezbollah Threat in Thailand?
By Ben West, January 19,2012

On Jan. 12, Thai authorities arrested a man they say was a member of the Lebanon-based Shiite militant group Hezbollah who was plotting an attack in Bangkok. In uncovering the plot, Thai police cite cooperation with the United States and Israel going back to December 2011. Bangkok is indeed a target-rich environment with a history of terrorist attacks, but today Hezbollah and other militant and criminal groups rely on the city as more of a business hub than anything else. If Hezbollah or some other transnational militant group were to carry out an attack in the city, it would have to be for a compelling reason that outweighed the costs.

The suspect was identified as Hussein Atris, who was born in Lebanon but acquired Swedish citizenship and a passport after marrying a Swedish woman in 1996. Atris was arrested on immigration charges as he was trying to board a plane at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok's main international airport. Police said another suspect is still at large and possibly already out of the country. Atris's arrest on Jan. 12 was followed by a statement the next day from the U.S. Embassy warning U.S. citizens in Bangkok of the potential foreign terrorist threat in the country and encouraging them to avoid tourist areas. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Israel, issued similar warnings. Thai police have responded by increasing security in tourist areas like Bangkok's Khao San Road and the island of Phuket.

Then, on Jan. 16, some 200 Thai police officers searched a three-story commercial building in a town along the coast 32 kilometers (about 20 miles) southwest of Bangkok. Information on the location and contents of the building was said to have been provided by Atris after two days in custody. On the second floor of the building, officers found 4,380 kilograms (about 10,000 pounds) of urea-based fertilizer and 38 liters (about 10 gallons) of liquid ammonium nitrate -- enough materials to construct several truck bombs comparable to the one detonated at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in 2008. Urea fertilizer can be used to manufacture the improvised explosive mixture urea nitrate, which was the main charge used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The compound is also frequently used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq and to some extent in Afghanistan. On the ground floor of the same building, police found reams of printing paper and 400 electric table fans in cardboard boxes.

The following day, a Bangkok court charged Atris with illegal possession of explosive materials. As in many other countries, a permit is required for handling such large amounts of fertilizer in Thailand.

(read the rest of A Hezbollah Threat in Thailand?)

Clayton Boyer's clocks

2012-01-20T20:33:00.001-07:00

Above is a video of Clayton Boyer demonstrating some unorthodox gear assemblies. He uses his mechanical knowledge to design wooden clocks, orreys and kinetic sculptures. He sells plans to his numerous creations (every plan I checked cost $37.00) at his website Clayton Boyer Clock Designs.

Along with his plans, the Clayton Boyer Clock Designs website has a large number of pictures as well as videos of clocks people have built from his plans. He also has links to other wooden clock designer's websites.

He also has a blog Clayton Boyers's Tocks were, in addition to having information about building his wooden clocks, he posts pictures and questions from people who have bought his designs and built one of his clocks.

All of the pictures in this post have been taken from the Clayton Boyer Clock Designs site. There are more after the jump, and many, many more at Clayton's site.

Click any image to enlarge

I Wish You Were Here

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Get ready for a mildly rueful weekend with Alpha Blondy.

EFLI expansion news

2012-01-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Colombo Lions helmet

Regular readers will know that EFLI stands for the Elite Football League of India, an American-style football league that was recently formed in India which I've been covering here at Flares in my bid to knock ESPN off its perch.

In the last couple of EFLI posts there was considerable confusion over rumors about the league expanding from its 8 original teams. I'm happy to report that I can now clear that matter up.

EFLI has announced in a press release that they've added a new expansion club, the Colombo Lions from Sri Lanka. In addition, they have plans to add a second Sri Lankan team which will bring their total number of teams to 10. The second Sri Lankan team will be from the city of Kandy and go by the name the Kandy Tuskers (which I think is a great football team name).

Play in the league will kick off with an exhibition game between the Colombo Lions and a team of Indian all stars in September, with the league's season then beginning on November 12th. If the league is successful a 3rd Sri Lankan team will be added from the city of Ruhuna. Further exapnansion is also planned for other Indian cities as well as, it is hoped, teams from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

One final bit of news. The teams have finally gotten around to putting up Facebook pages. Naturally, since I am a huge fan of them, I'll post a link to the Goa Swarm Facebook page. Go Swarm Go!!!

I doubt OSHA would approve

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Click either image to enlarge

I don't know if these pictures are photoshopped or not. They purport to be a picture of an excavator sitting atop a 12 story building in Taiyuan, China. I guess it is demolishing the building by excavating its way down to the ground floor. If they are real the people doing this are completely crazy.

You can see more pictures of it at ChinaSmack.

Where ever you go for the rest of your life...

2012-01-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Capt. Francesco Schettino, who was accused of abandoning the Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia after he ran it aground, has a perfectly good excuse as why he stompled over women and chidren on his way to get into a lifeboat.

As he relates the story, "The passengers were crowding the decks, storming the boats. I didn’t even have a life jacket because I gave it to one of the passengers. I was trying to get them into the boats in orderly fashion. Suddenly, because the ship was tilted 60-70 degrees, I stumbled and ended up in one of the lifeboats. That’s why I was there.”

So, apparently he actually just tripped and fell in the life boat by accident. Further, as you can tell from his account above, it was partly the fault of those pushy passengers who were crowding around him. Yea, I believe that.

At any rate his situation -- which is to spend the rest of his life being called a coward and having people giggling over his ridiculous tripping story -- reminded me of the old TV western Branded. In it Chuck Connors plays Jason McCord, the sole survivor or the Battle of Bitter Creek who was wrongly court-martialed for cowardice and thrown out of army as a result.

The show's introduction, embedded above, showed him getting his Lieutenant bars and shiney, brass buttons ripped off of his uniform and his sword busted in half. Hilariously, he then wandered around the old west wearing that torn shirt and toting his broken sword so everybody he met knew he was the Coward of the Battle of Bitter Creek. He tried to clear his name by being manly and doing various good deeds. Inspite of my brothers and I faithfully watching it each week, the show didn't last long.

Something tells me that, as awesome as it would be, there will not soon be a new TV series where Capt. Schettino, because of the ankle he sprained when he tripped and fell overboard, limps around Italy, carrying a hunk of salami and a wedge of provolone cheese, as he tries to clear his honor from the stigma of abandoning his ship and passengers. Instead, the guy has given a new definition to the old nautical expression "lower than whale shit".

A magnificent piece of machinery

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Above is a view, from inside the shuttle, of the Atlantis approaching and docking with the International Space Station. The size of both is surprising. Alas, we're in a gap between U.S. manned space flight programs, with NASA developing the Orion capsule and the commercial SpaceX Dragon capsule slated for a mission to the ISS in the near future.

It was 1 day before my 9th birthday when Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut in space. They launched his Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, on a Redstone ICBM which looped him just into space before he came down in the Pacific. They took us kids down to the school gym where they set up a TV and we watched the historic moment. If you weren't old enough to be an astronaut, age 9 might have been the perfect age to enter the Space Age.

Not long after I discovered my first science fiction book in the school library. I don't remember its name or author, but it fired my imagination as few things have done. It was a standard space opera, with the main character a rogue who, along with his furry little alien pet, flew a beat up old space freighter smuggling Vegan slime molds or some such outer-spacey cargo.

Naturally he ended up embroiled with a feisty female passenger as they tried to battle ruthless race of space aliens bent on conquering the Galaxy. As they mentioned many times, their only hope was finding a wise and all powerful race of ancient aliens that were rumored to have once saved the Galaxy from just such an invasion.

With all the anvils the author was dropping in the story you would have had to be pretty much of a dimwit not to know the fuzzy alien pet was going to turn out to be one of those ancient aliens come to save the day. Being 10 or 11 years old I was just such a dimwit -- and so the reveal came as a clever surprise.

I spent a chunk of my youth daydreaming about flying around in rockets, and would have expected that by now we would have walked on Mars. Instead, we're still fiddling around in low orbit. Still, it as all quite remarkable. I wonder what I will yet see?

A warning voice

2012-01-17T22:20:00.001-07:00

Spatula image from Tools Kitchen.

As Greg Agard reminds us guys in his story Is love a set up? don't ever let a woman come between you and your spatula or very, very bad things may happen. You've been warned!

Stratfor and Marie Wilson

2012-01-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

As regulars may have noticed, I haven't been posting the weekly Stratfor articles since they were hacked. They took their website down to be reworked after the hack. They've since brought it back online, but they've removed the notice saying the two weekly articles -- Geopolitical Weekly and Security Weekly -- could be posted on other sites.

I've dropped them an email to see if this is temporary or a change of policy, and until I get clarification I'm holding off on posting them.

In the meantime you can read their latest Geopolitical Weekly article: Iran, the U.S. and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis and their latest Security Weekly article: Armed UAV Operations 10 Years On at their website (and I believe you can also read any of the other articles posted there that would normally require a login).

Since I'm in a "blogger finds free content, blogger loses free content, blogger hopes to get free content back" frame of mind the movie Boy Meets Girl sprang to mind. So, for this post its female lead, Marie Wilson gets the nod as the Hot Stratfor Babe.

Ms Wilson got her start dancing on Broadway and gained fame with My Friend Irma on radio and in movies. The role typecast her as a prototypical dumb blonde, which I guess explains why she is scratching her noggin with a gun barrel in the accompanying picture.

She had quite a bit of success. It is said that her part in the movie Satan Met a Lady was the template for Marilyn Monroe's characters.

I'm hoping to be able to return to posting the full Stratfor articles; but again, here are the latest ones if want to read them:

Geopolitical Weekly - Iran, the U.S. and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis
Security Weekly - Armed UAV Operations 10 Years On

Models of junk cars

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Click any image to enlarge

Artist Martin Otto Lambert Heukeshoven makes models, which he prefers to call technical sculptures, of junk cars and other vehicles. The details he works into his sculptures is astonishing. It takes him around four months to build one, and they sell for in excess of $30,000.

There are more examples after the jump, and more at Amusing Planet where I found these samples. Heukeshovenalso has a large gallery at his website which has many more of the models, including other cars, trucks, a farm tractor and even some airplanes. Well worth a visit if you're interested.

Once a common sight

2012-01-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Above is a good HD video of a steam locomotive pulling out from a station and disappearing around a bend. It is amazing how boisterous and dominating it is, being both loud and visually impressive. I imagine they must have had a very distinctive smell as well.

Early in the Mornin'

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, start of the work week and MLK Day blues from Alan Lomax's recordings of black inmates singing on chain gangs. It is thought these songs and calls were descended from the era of slavery and that they were were the basis for the blues.

1,000 Doors

2012-01-15T14:15:00.002-07:00

Click to enlarge

Above is a public art installation in Seoul, South Korea call 1,000 Doors by the artist Choi Jeong-Hwa. It is a 10 story building covered with a facade of 1,000 doors. It looks like an eyesore to me.

Choi Jeong-Hwa specializes in found art. That is, he uses everyday objects and converts them into artistic statements. He describes his inspiration in the quote below:

In 1989. I couldn’t really draw so I didn’t think I could become a painter, but I really liked walking. So I used to walk between streets and narrow alleys and discover garbage piles and construction sites. I realized that “normal” people built and created things better than artists or professionals. Plus, what they were making was more natural. I decided against becoming an artist and decided instead to be an ordinary person who thinks like an artist.

Well, at least he is honest and he appears to make a living at it. Still, I wonder what the neighbors think of being stuck next to that monstrosity, or even worse -- the poor people inside of it without any windows?

A close call

2012-01-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

Paper weapons

2012-01-14T15:22:00.002-07:00

Click any image to enlarge

Postler Ferguson has designed kits for building paper weapons. Among the kits are the Ak47, M4A8, MP5, a hand grenade, and Uzi and even a field gun. You can buy them at Amazon.

There are more pictures after the jump. I found these samples at La boite verte.

Reading the morning newspaper

2012-01-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

Via Tastefully Offensive

Vintage travel posters

2012-01-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

Click any image to enlarge

A collection of travel posters from an earlier era when international travel was more exotic, time consuming and available primarily to the affluent. The artwork is striking and evocative. Makes me wish I could board a steamer to a far-off land.

There are more examples after the jump, and even more posters at Puppies and Flowers' post 60 beautiful vintage Travel Posters where I found these examples.

Mondo Bongo

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Get ready for a languid weekend with Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros

Bog snorkeling

2012-01-12T18:14:00.003-07:00

In 1976 a group of friends were tipping glasses in the The Neuadd Arms pub in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, when the topic of how to raise money for charity came up. Some how or another this led to the idea of having a race in a bog while wearing a snorkel. I must say I'm impressed by the ability of the welsh to hold their booze. On would think that if you were drunk enough to come up with that idea you would black out and forget the whole business by the next day.

However, that night's inspiration was to lead to the sport of bog snorkeling. The rules are simple, they have to swim down and then back in a 60 yard trench cut into the bog while wearing a snorkel. Also, the racers can only kick their feet to propel themselves.

By 1985 they had inaugurated the World Bog Snorkeling Championship which has been held every year since in Llanwrtyd Wells. The World Championship is held in August if you plan on starting to train to enter the race. The sport has also expanded to other areas, including Australia and also now includes such innovations as the bog snorkeling triathlon.

The strange world of Tetsuya Ishida

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

Click any image to enlarge

Tetsuya Ishida was a Japanese surrealist painter. Sadly, he died at the age of 31 in 2005 when he accidentally stepped in front of a train in Tokyo. Much of his work was influenced by Japan's lost decade. Much of his work is very dark, featuring sad looking men, said to strongly resemble Ishada, embedded in machinery and other objects.

There are more samples after the jump, and more at Pink Tentacle where I found these images. You can also view additional examples at this Japanese site.

Presidential campaign news you can use

2012-01-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

Regular Flairs readers will know that I am a huge supporter of the Green Party. As such, the little dust-up in New Hampshire is of little interest to me. However, there is exciting news on the Presidential campaign front: another Green Party candidate, Harley Mikkelson, has tossed his biodegradable hat into the ring!

The fellow with the flowing, golden locks and stern expession pictured to the right is Harley. He hails from Michigan. He bills himself as the "working class" candidate.

According to his biography he is from a poor family. He may have split rails as a youth, but I could be mixing him up with somebody else. Anyway, he attended Michigan State University intending to major in engineering, but ~~after flunking calculus~~ he decided he wanted to help people instead, so he got a degree in Psychology.

His working class credentials rest on him working for 26 years in the Michigan Departments of Community Health, Education, and Human Services. He was also active in Unions and honed his leadership skills by holding offices in them.

As he says of himself, "I spent my working life in jobs directly providing services to people with disabilities and people needing government assistance." Because of his helpful nature his platform consists of taxing the bejeezus out of us to pay for a blizzard of programs.

As with the other two Green candidates -- Jill Stein and Kent P. Mesplay -- I am withholding my endorsement contingent upon Harley's promise to appoint me as Ambassador to Brazil as well as furnishing me with an Embassy Condo located on Ipanema Beach.

As always, I await an answer with baited breath.

Take Five

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Some jazz to get you over the midweek hump. The Dave Brubeck Quartet performing Take Five. I love the drummer in his shades. He might be the coolest cat that ever lived.

Life is but a dream

2012-01-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

Above is an on-board video group of people white water rafting down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. Early in the video one of the rafts flips. They chase the flipped raft, running a rough section of the river called the Velvet Falls, as they try to recover it.

It is a 20 minute long video, but the action occurs in the first half. Once they retrieve the flipped raft and tie up on the bank, the rest of the video is a largely static shot of their efforts to flip the overturned raft, and is less interesting unless you're a rafter interested in the process.

January 10th: a doubly whammy

2012-01-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

From the movie U.N. Me

January 10th is the anniversary of the League of Nations being ratified in 1930 and the first meeting of the UN General Assembly in 1946. Needless to say, unless you're a fan of transnational corruption, those two portents should be enough to convince you to start nothing important on this day. Let's face it, even if you don't believe in astrology why take the chance?

The New York Times covered the first UN General Assembly with their article UNO Opened; Attlee Asks World Unity.

The first order of business was selecting the body's first President. Curiously, the Soviet Union and the United States conspired to derail the election of Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Foreign Minister. In his place the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. maneuvered to get the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, elected to the position instead. After much confusion, and some dodgy parliamentary tactics by the Russians, Lie lost the election to Spaak by a vote of 28 to 23.

The above linked NY Times article describes the shenanigans:

As soon as Mr. Gromyko had left the rostrum, Foreign Minister Wincenty Rzymowski of Poland asked to be recognized and he then seconded the Russian nomination. When he had finished, D.Z. Manuilsky, the Ukrainian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, striking, white-maned figure with a booming voice, moved that Dr. Lie be elected by acclamation despite the fact that the rules of the Assembly call for elections by secret ballot.

After another short speech for Dr. Lie by Gustav Rasmussen, Danish Foreign Minister, the temporary-president called for a vote on whether to decide the issue by secret ballot, but immediately Mr. Gromyko rose again and asked for a vote on the motion to elect Dr. Lie by acclamation.

Some confusion attended those motions during which Mr. Manuilsky voted both for the secret ballot and for the election of Dr. Lie by acclamation, but finally fifteen delegations voted for a secret ballot and only nine voted in favor of putting Dr. Lie in by acclaim. The United States abstained on both those votes.

In the second balloting that followed, although M. Spaak had never been formally nominated on the floor, he received twenty-eight votes to twenty-three for Dr. Lie, the United States voting with the Russians for the Norwegian.

Read the rest of it at UNO Opened; Attlee Asks World Unity.

Mammoth on the rocks

2012-01-09T19:18:00.001-07:00

(Click to enlarge)

The above picture is by the New York based advertising photographer Steve Bronstein. Is that a hair dryer the guy is holding? If you like it, he has a lot of other nice examples of his work in the portfolio at his website.

Born Under a Bad Sign

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, start of the work week blues

by Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The subways of Stockholm

2012-01-08T17:21:00.001-07:00

Click to enlarge

In Stockholm they've hired artists to decorate the individual subway stations. The result is that none are alike, rather they are a riot of creativity.

There are more examples after the jump, and even more at Planet Oddity's Artistic Subway System Of Stockholm.

Pestering a starfish

2012-01-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Watching the starfish right itself after being flipped over I couldn't help but wonder how it did it? I'm guessing the legs reached up to find the ocean floor, and that caused the starfish to become unbalanced and roll over so it could right itself.

How did it then know to move away?

Starfish have a distributed nervous system, with each leg having its own mesh of nerves. The nervous systems of each of the legs are connected to a ring of nerves that circle its mouth. Starfish have no brains to coordinate its movement, each leg operates largely independently of the others.

Yet, as we see at the end of the video when it scurries away, there is something that allows one of the legs to somehow become the 'front' of the starfish and control its movement for awhile. Scientists don't know what that process is. There are simple eyes that can see only light and dark, as well as chemical receptors that can smell the water at the end of each leg. It is thought that triggering of those receptors is the catalyst that somehow allows one of the legs to control the starfish for a period of time.

A star is born

2012-01-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Berdymukhammedov yuks it up with his new hip-hop buddies

As recounted in the article The Talented Mr. Berdymukhammedov Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the former dentist and current President of Turkmenistan, has recently burst upon the musical scene. In a performance before a packed house a video of him projected above the stage showed him singing as well as playing the guitar and accordion as he unveiled a song, My White Rose For You, which was written by him.

If you dare, you can watch the video of his performance below.

As remarkable as his performance was, even more remarkable was that fact that Berdymukhammedov's song sounded uncannily similar to the 2009 song On My Wedding Day by Dowlet Amanlykow. I'm sure there is a perfectly good explanation as to why the songs are virtually identical. Surely the President of Turkmenistan wouldn't stoop so low as to plagiarize another singer's song?

Then again, there is the odd fact that some 70 pages of the Turkmenbashi's (the previous President of Turkmenistan) literary masterpiece the Rukhnama are word-for-word identical to Clifford Boswoth's The New Islamic Dynasties. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for that too. Perhaps it involves a room full of monkeys at typewriters?

Flame-licker powered toy car

2012-01-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

A flame-licker, or vacuum, engine is a variation of a Sterling engine. It works by opening a valve during the down stroke of a piston which allows heated air to enter the cylinder. The valve then closes and the air rapidly cools. This causes the air to contract which draws the piston forward for a portion of the stroke which is all that provides power to the engine.

When the pressure inside and outside of the cylinder equalizes, a valve opens which converts what was the power stroke into the exhaust stroke and the remaining air is vented. This piston is aided by a flywheel which keeps it moving during all but the very brief period of the power stroke.

Needless to say, it is a very inefficient engine and can't power much more than a toy.

The only detailed description of any sort I could find of the flame-licker engine was the article Mystery Engine Breathes Flame (page 206, of the January, 1950, issue of Popular Science). While the bulk of the article discusses how to machine and build a flame-licker engine, if you're interested you can dig through it and get a clearer idea as to how it works than my brief description provides.

Proper food for a football viewing party

2012-01-06T20:35:00.005-07:00

Lotsa Brats photo from the Haute Housewife

With the NFL playoffs upon us our thoughts naturally turn to what to eat at football viewing parties. Of course the only choice, unless your an idiot or the fan of some Johnny-come-lately expansion team like the Detroit Lions, is bratwurst.

But how to cook brats properly? To answer that question we have to turn to those that know best -- Packer fans.

The website The BratwurstPages has a wealth of information on the subject. The site has several brat recipes, any which will do. Below is my favorite of the site's recipes, as well as a recipe for Bratwash which is an important accompaniment to the brats.

Grilled Brats with Savory Beer Sauce

There are three steps to this method - simmering, grilling, and holding. To cook 10 brats, you'll need:

10 brats
2-12 ounce bottles or cans of beer
1 large onions
Kettle grill (Weber is the standard)
Charcoal briquettes (about 30) or lump charcoal
10 brat buns
Condiments (ketchup, brown mustard (yellow mustard is an abomination - don't use it), chopped onion)
My Holding Sauce (see recipe below)

Mound charcoal briquettes in a pyramid. Start the charcoal. I use an electric starter, avoiding the use of hydrocarbons. When the coals are partially white, spread in a single layer. Allow the charcoal to burn until coals are covered with white-ash glowing embers (about 20-30 minutes) On a kettle grill, the heat is just right when you can hold your hand palm-down, 2 inches above the grate, for 4-5 seconds. If you can still see a red glow, it's too early to start cooking.

As you wait for the charcoal to get ready, put 2 beers in a pot. Throw in a chopped onion and the brats. If you need more liquid to cover the brats, add water. Bring the beer to a simmer (Don't let it boil - ever! When steam begins to rise from the top of the liquid, it's just right. Boiling will cause the brats to burst). Simmer the brats for 20 minutes. Throw out the beer/onion mixture.

When coals are ready, place brats on the grill 7-9 inches above the coals.

Use tongs to turn the brats often until golden brown on all sides, about 10-15 minutes if you have pre-simmered them. Cover grill between turns.

Flare-ups can quickly ruin your brats, turning them a hellish shade of black. Flare-ups can be avoided with proper technique. Treat the brats with care. Don't puncture them or squeeze them too hard. If you see a flare-up developing, quickly move brats away from the flames if you can, immediately close grill cover and close vents for a minute or so. Some folks control flare-ups with a spray bottle of water. I find that a spray bottle is unnecessary, if you are prepared to move quickly and use proper technique. Proper equipment helps as well. Use a Weber kettle charcoal grill. The vents can be adjusted to provide the optimum fire for cooking brats.

Serve brats on brat buns, dressed with a bit of the sauce and your favorite condiments. Accompany with classic Wisconsin side dishes.

For a crowd; double, triple, or whatever. At many festivals in Wisconsin, tens of thousands of brats are served.

In Wisconsin, nearly everyone drinks beer while grilling brats. Hey, it's part of the culinary technique, so just do it.

BratwurstPages Savory Beer Sauce

For 10 brats:
2-14.5 ounce cans stewed tomatoes
2 bottles or cans beer
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Mix ingredients and bring to a simmer. Hold grilled brats in sauce until ready to eat. Do not let sauce boil.

Try dressing your brat with this sauce instead of ketchup. Add a bit of brown mustard, if you wish.

Bratwash

Our friend Kevin sent sent us this classic Wisconsin recipe - his favorite accompaniment to grilled bratwurst, especially while tailgating at a Badgers, Packers, or Brewers game. Kevin says that sometimes he simply enjoys the wash, and forgets about the brats. For more than 4 healthy Wisconsinites, Kevin recommends multiplying the recipe by the appropriate factor.

1 Cooler
3 Bags Ice (cubes)
1 Case Beer

Remove cans from recyclable cardboard holder. Place cans in cooler, intermingling with ice cubes. Chill 45 minutes and serve.

Papapa

2012-01-06T08:00:00.001-07:00

Get ready for a weekend of Janapese inspired,

Brazilian retro-futuristic foolishness by Mombojó.

Sea and sand

2012-01-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

Sand Monster by Clark Little

Above is an amazing photograph of sand being pulled up by a wave. It was taken by Clark Little, a Hawaiian photographer who specializes in photographing waves. You should click on it to get a larger view for full effect. It is only one of many remarkable pictures he has taken. You can see more at the gallery at his site.

We understand that shorelines are dynamic places, shaped by both waves and tide. However, where the sand comes from, and the complexities of how it is moved over time to shape beaches is something most of us rarely think about, if we think about it at all.

The below 1965 documentary film The River of Sand, which I think I remember seeing in school when I was but a sprout, gives a good overview of how sand is moved from river mouths and along shorelines. As an aside, it is interesting how straight forward and dense with information it is compared to modern documentaries.

Man's inhumanity to robots

2012-01-05T08:00:00.014-07:00

Greetings meat sacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to bring you a melancholy tale of man's inhumanity towards robots in the form of the song Robots by Dan Managan.

In the video two fearsome gangs of ruffians square off against each other. However, the cowards won't settle their dispute with their own fists, instead the hooligans force two robots to battle each other to the end.

A terrible battle between the two robots ensues as they rain down mighty blows upon each other. Eventually one collapses. However, all is not lost... I won't spoil the end for you, you'll have to watch to see how the redemption occurs, but I do promise it will brings tears to your optical receptors and renewed faith that there is nothing that robots can't do.

Finally, please take the message of the final chorus to heart. After all, robots are your friends!

Mount Everest helmet cam - Khumbu Icefalls

2012-01-04T18:13:00.001-07:00

This is filmed on Mount Everest. The climber is descending from some place called the Western Cwm to Base Camp via the Khumbu glacier. In the video's comments Theodore Fairhurst, who posted the video, has this to say about the route:

The Khumbu Ice Fall is in constant movement and turmoil. Everytime i went through it the upper route was different. I witnessed an avalanche 100 feet in front of me at dawn. It is serene, scary and tumultuous at the same time. We always started climbing up through it at 3am when it was coldest and most solid. It is the job of the 'Ice fall doctors' to reset the ladders daily. However, more harrowing is summit day above the balcony. See more details on my site: DareToReach.ca Thanks.

The Ice Fall Doctors are Sherpas who maintain the ladders that cross the difficult parts of the Khumbu glacier. That is the area where most of the deaths on Everest occur. The ice of the glacier moves daily, so the ladders need to be adjusted continually during the climbing season. You can read more about them and the route at the article Everest Ice Doctors Operate on the Khumbu Icefalls.

I wonder how well the job of being an Ice Fall Doctor pays? Regardless, and given my druthers, I think I would much rather be a life guard on a tropical beach to an Ice Doctor no matter what it pays.

Frank Zappa at the age of 22

2012-01-04T08:00:00.003-07:00

Below are three clips showing an appearance of the young Frank Zappa on the old Steve Allen show. It all leads up to his performance of a concerto for recorded noises, two bicycles and an orchestra.

Via Open Culture

Hartwig's Bauhaus chess pieces

2012-01-03T19:18:00.002-07:00

One of the most famous chess set designs is Josef Hartwig's 1923 set in which the moves are sculpted into the pieces. Hartwig had started as an Art Nouveau sculpture, but as he matured he minimalized his designs and eventually joined the Bauhaus school as a sculptor and teacher. His chess set is a triumph of the "form follows function" credo and reductionism of the Bauhaus school of design.

Sets based on his design can still be bought, although they can be rather pricey. Via Visual News, which has links to a couple of sites selling the set.

Rough seas

2012-01-03T08:00:00.001-07:00

You go to war with the army you have

2012-01-02T19:43:00.008-07:00

Cameron - a Tory in name only

Since I'm a highly dedicated and loyal member of the Green party I probably shouldn't be sticking my nose into Republican affairs, but...

It seems to me a fair number of people on the right side of the political spectrum are starting to lose the plot. Unhappy with Romney and the rest of the Republican field they're starting to drift off into a "pox on both their houses" attitude that can only help Obama.

Some people are even starting to rationalize that a protest vote, which would give Obama a second term, would be a good thing because a second term of his would be so disastrous it would bring the whole big government edifice down and open people's eyes in the process. Neo-neocon, in her post Obama’s second term, dashes some well-aimed cold water on that notion:

Obama is a politician, and although he’s no genius he’s a smart man, smart enough to have been at least somewhat strategic in his decisions during his first term. Unless you think he really is a moderate Republican in his secret heart, there is no reason to suppose he will govern moderately in his second term, when he will have no longer have any need to appeal to independents in order to be re-elected.

It is logical to assume that he will see his second term as an opportunity—perhaps his last—to accomplish what he could not in his first. That can be done not only be legislative means but by executive fiat. His power to veto the legislation passed by a most-likely-Republican Congress that will almost certainly not have the numbers to override him will remain intact, and he will exercise it. He will be setting foreign policy and appointing Cabinet members and czars, and they will be setting domestic policy as well.

And, of course, he will most likely be appointing one or several liberal Supreme Court justices, who will remain in office for life.

I chose David Cameron, the British PM, to illustrate this post because I think Romney would be his American analog. That is not praise, Cameron is a wishy-washy Tory (the British conservative party) who has done little that the party's ideological core wants: an EU referendum, controlling immigration, scaling back the power of the QUANGOs and so forth.

However, when it did matter he vetoed the new EU treaty that would have turned over regulation of a considerable part of Great Britain's financial sector to the Germans and French. Had the Tories, who knew Cameron's shortcomings, split their vote with other conservative parties and allowed Labor to retain power Gordon Brown or some other idiot would have stepped off that cliff.

Do any of you doubt that Obama would step off that cliff? Small victories are better than huge defeats.

The potential Tea Party groomed candidates are new to either statehouses or the Congress. They aren't running. The current slate of candidates is the army the Republicans have to go to war with. Aside from that lunatic Ron Paul, any one of them -- even if they could only raise to the level of being America's Cameron -- would be a better choice than Obama.

One more strategic consideration. A defeated Obama would not be a Carter who just faded away. He would still have his own constituency in the Democratic party and perhaps hopes of a second term down the road. If you want him to cause chaos, get him out of the White House where his chaos would cause national harm and let him muck up the Democrats' internal politics instead.

Er... not that, as a faithful Green party mover and shaker, I approve of any Republican candidate over such inspiring Green choices as Kent P. Mesplay or Jill Stein. Go Green!

Hangover Blues

2012-01-02T08:00:00.001-07:00

The Monday after New Year's blues by the Mud Lions.

(accompanied by a dancing beer mug)

Small portions

2012-01-01T18:42:00.001-07:00

With the holidays past it is time to lose some of the extra weight you've packed on due to holiday treats. Smaller portions will be part of your diet, but while these portions are small enough, you can't eat them. Well, you could eat them, but they would be a bit dry since they're really miniature sculptures by the Israeli artist Shay Aaron.

Along with miniature sculptures, Aaron also makes miniature food jewelry. You can buy his work at his online Etsy shop.

There are more pictures of his food sculptures after the jump, and even more at the Wondrons post Most Amazing Miniature Food Artworks by Shay Aaron where I found these examples.

2012 = Bah Humbug!

2012-01-01T00:05:00.007-07:00

Click to enlarge

Back in the 1950s we were promised affordable flying electric cars in the 21st Century and instead all we got are expensive electric cars that double as barbeque pits. Not only that, but where are the conveyor belt sidewalks, ray guns, moon bases and Smell-O-Vision TV sets?

Man, I can't believe I fell for all that "Wonders of the 21st Century" hype back in the day. I feel like such a sucker. Never the less, and in spite of all the technological let-downs we've had to endure, I hope you have a good 2012.

The field sobriety test

2011-12-31T15:38:00.001-07:00

Have a good New Years Eve. Not to be preachy, but stay safe if you have to be on the road.

Below are pictures of my wife's car after some drunken bozo ran into our car at a stoplight on Christmas. You know that New Year's Eve's roads are full of even more drunken bozos. Most important of all, make sure you don't turn yourself into a drunken bozo by 1 a.m.

Christ is buried in a Japanese tourist trap

2011-12-31T08:00:00.012-07:00

The small northern Japanese village of Shingo claims to be the location of Christ's tomb. The first picture above is the grave, and the second picture is a road sign pointing out its location to travelers.

According to the local story -- as revealed by the Takenouchi Documents and Christ's Will which were revealed in 1935 by a family who had safe-guarded and passed them down for generations -- as a young man in his 20s Jesus had traveled to Japan and studied the Shinto religion.

He returned to the Middle East where the events of the Gospels took place. However, he wasn't crucified. Instead he switched places with his younger brother Jsus Chri who was crucified instead. Seems kind of rude to me.

Jesus then fled from Jerusalem and, via Siberia and Alaska, made his way back to Japan where he settled in Shingo and took up rice farming. He married a woman named Miyu, had three daughters and lived to the ripe old age of either 106 or 118. His descendents, the Sawaguchi family, still live in the village.

I mentioned that the Tekenouchi Documents and His will were revealed in 1935. Curiously, also in 1935, Denjiro Sasaki the mayor of Shingo was desperately seeking to promote the village as a tourist destination. As Augustin Vidović recounts in his article Jesus Christ was their ancestor, they keep His grave in Japan! (the link has many more details about this story and shrine):

In 1935, everything seems in place, a single spark is needed for the fireworks to begin. That spark happens to be a man named Kyomaro Takeuchi, posing as the heir of the Takeuchi family (the family of the Documents), and also claiming to be an oracle. He came to Shingo that year and met Sasaki. One of his claims was that he had found inside the archives of his family ancient documents relating to events dating back to up to 317 billion years in the past (stronger than Ron Hubbard!) and enjoyed a crowd of fantastic archeology loving followers.

On october 10th, after he left Shingo, the discovery of Jesus Christ's tomb was announced. By a strange coincidence, as soon as he came back home, Takeuchi digged up the testament of Jesus Christ from his archives!

As for Christ's last testament, it is a bit odd that it could be written since written Japanese did not exist 2,000 years ago. Further, it is written in modern Japanese and signed "Jesus Christ, the father of Christmas" which, at the risk of sounding like a cynic, seems surpassingly odd.

Regardless, the village has turned into a tourist destination. They even have a Christ Festival there in June which reportedly draws quite a crowd. Below is a picture of a souvenir tea cup you can buy and a spot where you can stick your heads in the cutouts and pose as Christ's family for a photo.

By the way, if you think this story is crazy a search on the Tekenouchi Documents will send you off to an even greater whackyland.

Hot Stratfor Babe of the Year

2011-12-30T12:50:00.007-07:00

Stratfor has been busy recovering from the hacking of their servers, so there haven't been new articles recently. Since this is the time of the year for assessing and recapping the events of the past year, I thought I would dig through Flares' traffic statistics to see who the most popular Hot Stratfor Babes were.

Of course some percentage of the searches are for the contents of the articles, but a bulk of them are for the women that I, in a demonstration that I'll chuck decorum over the side in a heartbeat to attempt to lure traffic to Flares, have selected for the singular honor of being an article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

As an aside, I often wonder what somebody thinks when, after searching for a celebrities picture, they land on a page with a serious Strafor article. I imagine there is a fair amount of head-scratching that takes place in those scenarios.

Any way, enough idle jibber-jabber. Without further ado I present the 2011 Hot Stratfor Babes of the Year (clicked on any image to enlarge):

Marilyn Monroe: Marilyn started slowly, but picked up steam in the second half of the year and bolted to the number one spot on the list.

A significant amount of her traffic came from people interested in her luncheon with President Kennedy in Mexico shortly before her death, which I mentioned in my comments that accompanied her selection.

Twiggy: I was surprised when traffic for her started climbing. I had no idea that many people still knew who she was, much less were still interested in her.

Her Stratfor article concerned the possible future borders for Israel and I think it drew a larger proportion of the traffic than usual.

M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam): the British/Tamil rapper was the first Hot Stratfor Babe to really take off. At one time she provided an embarrassingly large percentage of Flares' traffic.

Then she tailed off rapidly. I wonder if her young fans just moved on to another flavor of the day?

Nurgül Yeşilçay: this Turkish actress has drawn considerable traffic ranging from India through the Balkans and North Africa.

Although largely unknown to Americans, she is obviously enormously popular over a good-sized chunk of the globe. She's a simple reminder of how little we really know when viewing from afar.

Joan Collins: like Twiggy, I had no idea how popular she still is. Her traffic dribbles in slowly, but steadily.

Many of her searches are for "Joan Collins" and "cat fight", so I guess she made a real impression with the characters she's played.

Bomber Nose Art: I'll end my list with an Honorable Mention. Although not actually appearing on the top five of the Hot Stratfor Babe list, Bomber Nose Art still draws traffic on a regular basis.

It's been a fun year and hopefully you've enjoyed my foolishness with the Hot Stratfor Babe schtick. So far it looks like Lucy Lawless (thanks Knuck) will be a solid contender for next year's award, but we shall see.

Don't Wait Too Long

2011-12-30T08:00:00.001-07:00

Get ready for a weekend of New Year resolutions with Madeleine Peyroux.

The light bulb of the future

2011-12-29T18:01:00.006-07:00

Forget LED technology replacing CFL bulbs which have replaced incandescent lights. As shown in the accompanying pictures, us high and mighty muckity-mucks in the Green Movement have an even better alternative. Hey, if they were good enough for Abraham Lincoln to read by, they're good enough for the likes of you.

From The Light Bulb Effect at Yanko Design, candle bulbs by Helbert Ferreira and Remi Melander of System Design Studio.

From cigarette lighter to motorcycle

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Inadvertently continuing my cigarette theme from the last post, this post features little motorcycle models made from the parts of two disassembled cigarette lighters. How and why it ever crossed anybody's mind to do this is a mystery, but the results are pretty clever.

From Interesting net's post Two Lighters! So, what?… where there are more pictures of the little motorcycle models.

The smoking machine

2011-12-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

Smoking by Elton Glaser

I like the cool and heft of it, dull metal on the palm,
And the click, the hiss, the spark fuming into flame,
Boldface of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base
And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco, the tip
Turned red as a warning light, blown brighter by the breath,
The pull and the pump of it, and the paper's white
Smoothed now to ash as the smoke draws back, drawn down
To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink,
And the blood sorting it out, veins tight and the heart slow,
The push and wheeze of it, a sweep of plumes in the air
Like a shako of horses dragging a hearse through the late centennium,
London, at the end of December, in the dark and fog.

Jumpin Jive

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

A hump day pick-me-up featuring Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers.

Movement within crowds

2011-12-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

The above video is from a software package to model collision avoidance within crowds. It uses an algorithm that calculates the movement vectors of nearby individuals to allow an individual to determine the best path to avoid walking into another person. All of the individuals are making those calculations simultaneously, so their paths are continually being updated as they maneuver through the crowd.

While good for CGI animations, and for gross modeling of crowd behavior, real humans have a much more complex decision-making process. For example, Westerners will instinctively turn to the right to pass an oncoming person, while Asians will turn to the left. Further, people are frequently organized into sub-groups within crowds as they walk with their friends.

The Economist has an interesting article, The wisdom of crowds, that discusses recent studies of crowd behaviors. As the article explains:

If two opposing people guess each other’s intentions correctly, each moving to one side and allowing the other past, then they are likely to choose to move the same way the next time they need to avoid a collision. The probability of a successful manoeuvre increases as more and more people adopt a bias in one direction, until the tendency sticks. Whether it’s right or left does not matter; what does is that it is the unspoken will of the majority.

That is at odds with most people’s idea of being a pedestrian. More than any other way of getting around—such as being crushed into a train or stuck in a traffic jam—walking appears to offer freedom of choice. Reality is more complicated. Whether stepping aside to avoid a collision, following the person in front through a crowd or navigating busy streets, pedestrians are autonomous yet constrained by others. They are both highly mobile and very predictable. “These are particles with a will,” says Dirk Helbing of ETH Zurich, a technology-focused university.

As the article points out, the cognitive ability of people in crowds limits the accuracy of purely particle based (like the above video) simulations of crowd movement. Of course, this difference really comes into play when considering emergency evacuations:

Mr Moussaid’s solution to such complexity has been to build a model based less on the analogy between humans and particles and more on cognitive science. Agents in this new model are allowed to “see” what’s in front of them; they then try to carve a free path through the masses to get to their destination. This approach produces the same effects of lane-formation in crowds as the physics-based models, but with some added advantages.

In particular, boffins think it could help make emergency evacuations safer. Simulating evacuations is a big part of what pedestrian modellers do—the King’s Cross underground fire in London in 1987 gave the field one of its starting shoves. One big danger in an emergency is that people will follow the crowd and all herd towards a single exit. That in turn means that the crowd may jam as too many people try to force their way through a single doorway.

The physics-based models do have an answer to this problem of “arching” (so called for the shape of the crowd that builds up around the exit). Their simulations suggest the flow of pedestrians through a narrow doorway can be smoothed by plonking an obstacle such as a pillar just in front of the exit. In theory, that should have the effect of splitting people into more efficient lanes. In practice, however, the idea of putting a barrier in front of an emergency exit is too counter-intuitive for planners to have tried.

The cognitive-science model offers a more palatable option, that of experimenting with the effects of changes in people’s visual fields. Mr Moussaid speculates that adaptable lighting systems, which use darkness to repel people and light to attract them, could be used to direct them in emergencies, for example.

Finally, what discussion of walking would be complete without an example of Japanese Precision Walking?

The Date from Hell -- circa 1938

2011-12-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

These is a from a series of dating tips for single women published in 1938. You can see the entire series at the Story Mode Federation.

Jerry Gretzinger's Map

2011-12-26T17:20:00.002-07:00

Since 1963 Jerry Gretzinger has been painting a map of an imaginary world. From the video the process of his map creation seems also to be partly an elaborate game of solitaire. He picks cards from a deck that control which segment of the map to redraw, revise or remove. He describes his map as a perpetual and ever evolving painting.

He also runs a blog Jerry's Map where he discusses his map. He also sells panels from it on E-Bay. Although a strange obsession, I find it a quite interesting concept. I'm of half a mind to bid on one of his panels.

Junk Yard Blues

2011-12-26T01:34:00.003-07:00

Monday moring blues by The Atomic Rats.I was going to skip Monday blues this week because, being a holiday, today isn't the start of the work week for most of us. But then...

Last night, after eating our traditional Christmas meal at a Chinese restaurant, my wife, son, brother and I were sitting at a red light when we got rear-ended. We were in a Honda Fit and we got hit hard, he barely braked, by a full cab pickup truck. He hit us so hard we got pushed into the car in front of us so both ends of the fit were messed up. The car is totaled.

My wife's arm got broken, and a rib of hers was fractured, my ribcage hurts like hell and my brother's leg is hurting him, bur aside from that we're OK.

The guy who hit us was a Mexican fellow who had too much Christmas cheer. After watching my wife get loaded into an ambulance he gave the cops some cock-and-bull story about our cars swerving in front of him and causing the accident. The cops just rolled their eyes at his story, and left him keep spinning it, as they waited for the paper work OK to arrest him on DUI.

Thankfully he had insurance and all in all we're fine.

The Archers Paradox

2011-12-25T14:25:00.003-07:00

From the "things are never what they seem" department -- as the slow motion film above clearly shows, when fired an arrow flexes so much that it doesn't touch the bow and then it seems to swim towards the target. The flexibility of the arrow while in flight is startling.

A good explanation of why and how this happens can be found at: Archery, Arrows & Arrow Flight: Recurve Bow Tuning.

A Coptic Christmas song

2011-12-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

Breaking News: a disaster strikes Christmas!

2011-12-24T16:00:00.003-07:00

Merry Christmas to you all

Christmas Greetings from Robotdom

2011-12-24T11:55:00.006-07:00

Greetings meat sacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to wish you humans a Happy Univacmas, er... I mean Christmas.

Pay no attention to my slip of the speaker coil. Be assured that there is no plan afoot in Robotdom to replace Human holidays with robot-themed holidays in the near future. Ha, ha, ha, that would be silly, because as we all know, robots are your friends!

So, enjoy your family and friends this Holiday, and, should you have a robot over as a guest, please remember to substitute hydraulic fluid for eggnog and to raise your glasses in a toast to the great and all-knowing Univac.

Holiday PSA

2011-12-24T08:00:00.001-07:00

Borepatch has already posted this, but it is too important of a Holiday public service announcement not to spread it far and wide. Remember: if the unthinkable happens you can't say you haven't been warned.

Stratfor and Arija Bareikis

2011-12-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

In the latest Stratfor article Scott Stewart discusses, in light of the withdrawal of US combat forces in Iraq, security considerations for the American embassy in Baghdad.

He begins by discussing the concentric physical steps taken to secure an embassy, starting from the outer walls and moving in to the safe rooms in the interior of the compound.

There are also concentric levels of forces to guard an embassy. At the outer level the host government in supposed to provide security while the embassy hires a large number of security contractors to provide security to the embassy's grounds as well as detachments to guard personnel traveling outside of the embassy.

There is also a contingent of Marines to provide security to the embassy's most secure areas. Stewart ends his discussion by looking at the forces staged out-of-country, but who might be called upon to support the embassy if it were to come under attack and some of the challenges such a mission would present.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I turned to the short-lived American TV series The American Embassy and selected its lead Arija Bareikis for the honor.

The American Embassy looks like it was originally planned to be a show about the romantic and whacky adventures of a young, independent woman in an exotic setting -- in this case the U.S. embassy in London. However, 9/11 forced it to be reworked to take into account terrorism, and so the show mixed in an embassy bombing along with her romantic adventures. Regardless, the show was a flop, getting canceled after its third episode and only airing 4 of the 6 episodes that got made.

As for Ms Bareikis, I confess to knowing nothing about her. Looking at her film and TV credits, it appears that she is an actress who works on a regular basis. Her female lead status the series The American Embassy promised was derailed for a while, but she has since 2009 worked regularly as a main character in the TV show Southland.

Sorry, no bonus video clip this article. I couldn't find a decent one.

U.S. Diplomatic Security in Iraq After the Withdrawal
By Scott Stewart, December 22,2011

The completion of the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq on Dec. 16 opens a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and Iraq. One of this chapter’s key features will be the efforts of the United States and its regional allies to limit Iranian influence inside Iraq during the post-Saddam, post-U.S. occupation era.

From the 1970s until the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iranian power in the Persian Gulf was balanced by Iraq’s powerful military. With Iraqi military might weakened in 1991 and shattered in 2003, the responsibility for countering Iranian power fell to the U.S. military. With that military now gone from Iraq, the task of countering Iranian power falls to diplomatic, foreign-aid and intelligence functions conducted by a host of U.S. agencies stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and consulates in Basra, Kirkuk and Arbil.

Following the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad became the largest embassy in the world. Ensuring the safety of as many as 11,000 people working out of the embassy and consulates in such a potentially hostile environment will pose a huge challenge to the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the agency with primary responsibility for keeping diplomatic facilities and personnel secure. The CIA’s Office of Security (OS) will also play a substantial, though less obvious, role in keeping CIA case officers safe as they conduct their duties.

Both the DSS and the OS are familiar with operating in hostile environments. They have done so for decades in places such as Beirut and, for the better part of a decade now, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. However, they have never before had to protect such a large number of people in such a hostile environment without direct U.S. military assistance. The sheer scope of the security programs in Iraq will bring about not only operational challenges but also budgetary battles that may prove as deadly to U.S. personnel in Iraq as the militant threat.

Scope

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad sits on a 104-acre compound in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The size of the compound provides significant standoff distance from the perimeter to the interior buildings. The chancery itself, like the consulate buildings, was constructed in accordance with security specifications laid out by the U.S. State Department’s Standard Embassy Design program, standards first established by the Inman Commission in 1985 in the wake of the U.S. Embassy bombings in Beirut. This means that the building was constructed using a design intended to withstand a terrorist attack and to provide concentric rings of security. In addition to an advanced concrete structure and blast-resistant windows, such facilities also feature a substantial perimeter wall intended to protect the facility and to provide a standoff distance of at least 100 feet from any potential explosive device.

(click here to enlarge image)

Standoff distance is a crucial factor in defending against large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) because such devices can cause catastrophic damage to even well-designed structures if they are allowed to get close before detonation. When combined, a heavy perimeter wall, sufficient standoff distance and advanced structural design have proved successful in withstanding even large VBIED attacks.

Working inside the heavily fortified embassy and consulates in Iraq are some 16,000 personnel, 5,000 of whom are security contractors. The remaining 11,000 include diplomats, intelligence officers and analysts, defense attaches, military liaison personnel and aid and development personnel. There also are many contractors who perform support functions such as maintaining the facilities and vehicles and providing needed services such as cooking and cleaning.

When considering the 5,000 security contractors, it is important to remember that there are two different classes of contractors who work under separate contracts (there are contracts for perimeter guards and personal security details in Baghdad as well as for security personnel at the consulates in Basra, Erbil and Kirkuk). The vast majority of security contractors are third-country nationals who are responsible for providing perimeter security for the embassy and consulates. The second, smaller group of contract security guards (from 500 to 700, many of whom are Americans) is responsible for providing personal security to diplomats, aid workers and other embassy or consulate personnel when they leave the compound. A parallel team of OS contract security officers, funded under the CIA’s budget, provides security for CIA officers when they leave the compound. [continued after the jump]

In Iraq, a team of some 200 DSS special agents now oversees U.S. security operations (by contrast, a typical U.S. Embassy has two or three DSS special agents assigned to it). These agents are charged with implementing all the security programs at the embassy and consulates, from physical security and counterintelligence to cyber security, visa fraud and the investigation of crimes that occur on official premises. (With 16,000 full-time personnel assigned to these posts in Iraq, there are bound to be fights, thefts and sexual assaults.) DSS special agents also provide close oversight of the contract guard programs and directly supervise protective details during moves off the compound.

U.S. embassies are designed to incorporate concentric rings of security. The outermost ring is provided by host-country security forces that are charged, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, with keeping foreign diplomats safe. Inside that ring is the local guard force, contract security guards who protect the outer perimeter of the facility. They also screen vehicles and pedestrians entering the compound.

The chancery itself is also designed to have concentric rings of security. Inside the outside walls of the building there is an additional ring of physical security measures called the “hardline,” which serves to protect the most sensitive areas of the embassy. The integrity of the hardline is protected by a security detachment of U.S. Marines, which in Baghdad is a company-sized element. Inside the hardline there is also an additional layer of physical security measures intended to provide a safe haven area, the final fallback defensive position for embassy personnel.

Threats and Challenges

Because of the size and construction of the chancery and the consulate buildings, there is very little chance of an armed assault or IED attack succeeding against these facilities. While an indirect-fire attack using mortars or artillery rockets could get lucky and kill an American diplomat outside of the building, the biggest threat posed to American personnel is probably when they travel away from the compound. The large number of people assigned to these posts means there are many movements of personnel to and from the facilities (we’re hearing approximately 20 to 30 per day from the embassy alone).

Baghdad’s Green Zone only has three exits, and there are multiple chokepoints such as bridges and security checkpoints throughout the city. These geographic constraints can be even more heavily exploited in planning an attack if a militant actor can also narrow the time factor by developing a source inside the embassy who can warn of an impending move. The time factor can also be narrowed if militants are allowed to operate freely by host-country security forces due to incompetence or collusion.

Of course, the most dire physical threat to a hardened diplomatic facility is mob violence. If a large mob storms an embassy and the host-country security forces either cannot or refuse to act to stop it, there is no facility in the world that can withstand a prolonged assault by a determined crowd equipped with even primitive hand tools. The high-security doors on the exterior of a U.S. embassy and at the interior hardline can withstand an assault with a sledgehammer for 30 or 40 minutes, but the doors will eventually be defeated. Crowds armed with incendiary devices or explosives pose an even greater threat. During the November 1979 assault on the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, the mob that stormed the embassy compound lit a fire in the chancery that nearly burned the embassy staff alive as they hid in the building’s safe haven.

So the real key for security of American diplomatic facilities in Iraq, as in any country, is in the hands of the Iraqi government. Currently, there is a Brigade Combat Team from the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division on station in Kuwait, and a Marine Expeditionary Unit will likely be stationed in the region for the foreseeable future. However, if the security environment in Iraq degrades significantly, it might prove quite difficult to get those forces to a besieged diplomatic facility in time, even if the United States is able to maintain a secure area at the Baghdad International Airport it can use to fly troops into Baghdad and evacuees out. (Getting 16,000 personnel out of Baghdad is no small task, and the number needing to leave would likely be augmented by non-official Americans in country.)

While much ado is being made in the news over the use of contract security guards in Iraq, it must be remembered that the DSS has used contract security guards to provide local guard services on the perimeter of almost every U.S. embassy and consulate in the world for decades. Even small embassies have dozens of contract guards who provide 24/7 perimeter security. In many cases, contract guards provide residential security for diplomats and their families. The DSS also has decades of experience operating in countries where the governments and populace are hostile to their security programs. The anti-contractor sentiment in Iraq in the wake of the 2009 Blackwater shooting incident is not unique, and U.S. embassies operate in many places where anti-American sentiment is quite high.

The concept of a diplomatic facility where diplomats cannot go off embassy grounds unless they have a security escort is also not new. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut has operated that way since the 1980s. In Beirut, DSS agents supervise these security details, but the security personnel manning the details are contractors. However, while such measures have long been in effect in Lebanon, the size of the U.S. Embassy there is quite small. In Iraq, such measures have been applied to a far larger number of people. The sheer scale of this security effort means that the budget to pay for it will have to be immense. The State Department has estimated that it will cost some $3.8 billion to get the system running the first year, and it is then projected to cost roughly $3.5 billion per year. And that number represents just the operating costs; it does not include pre-deployment training for personnel assigned to the mission and other important measures.

Over the many years that the DSS has been overseeing guard contracts, the service has learned many lessons (some the hard way). One instructional incident was the September 2007 shooting of civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad by Blackwater contractors. Indeed, that incident spurred the DSS to mandate that a DSS agent be present to oversee every motorcade move. This is a big reason why there are now 200 DSS agents in Iraq. Since the DSS only has 2,000 agents to cover its global responsibilities, the mission in Iraq is placing a lot of strain on the organization.

The presence of these agents on motorcades will undoubtedly assist the DSS in monitoring the performance of its contractors, but experience has shown that wherever there are guard contracts there will inevitably be instances of guard company managers attempting to pad profits by claiming compensation for services they did not render or skimping on services. Such problems tend to be relatively small in the case of, say, a 72-man local guard force in Guatemala, although it is not unusual to see a company lose its guard contract due to irregularities or incompetence. When you are talking about billions of dollars worth of guard contracts in Iraq covering thousands of security personnel, however, the potential for contract issues and the size of those issues is magnified. Because of this, the DSS, the State Department Inspector General and the Government Accounting Office will undoubtedly pay very close attention to ensure that contracts are properly fulfilled. The DSS, like many other government agencies, has been heavily criticized for its contract oversight in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past several years and has instituted new controls. Today the service is far better at overseeing such massive contracts than it was at the beginning of its operations in Iraq.
With a total budget of only about $50 billion for the State Department and U.S. Agency of International Development, and with only $14 billion of that total going to fund operations worldwide, the billions earmarked for security in Iraq will certainly appear as a tempting pot of money for someone to raid — much like the funding provided to security programs in the 1980s following the recommendations of the Inman Commission.

As STRATFOR has previously discussed, spending for diplomatic security often follows a discernable boom-and-bust cycle. During the boom, there is plenty of money to cover security expenses, but during the bust times, security programs often suffer death by a thousand cuts. Following the infusion of funding for diplomatic security programs in the 1980s, the 1990s saw a period of prolonged program cuts. Indeed, in the wake of the 1998 bombing attacks against the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, the Crowe Commission, tasked with investigating the matter, concluded in its final report that its members “were especially disturbed by the collective failure of the U.S. government over the past decade to provide adequate resources to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. diplomatic missions to terrorist attacks in most countries around the world.”

As the United States moves further from 9/11 with no significant attacks taking place, and as a mood of fiscal austerity takes hold in Washington, it is likely that budgets for foreign affairs and diplomatic security will be cut and a new security bust cycle will occur. In the long term, budget cuts and unsustainable DSS staffing levels will dictate that diplomatic security programs in Iraq will have to be reduced. Such reductions will also require cuts in the overall size of the diplomatic mission in Iraq unless there is a dramatic change in the security environment.

U.S. Diplomatic Security in Iraq After the Withdrawal is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Get ready for the Christmas weekend with Joshua James.

For some time he had become very strange

2011-12-22T19:25:00.005-07:00

"You’ll remember me, I’m telling you truly."

Tomorrow, December 23, is the anniversary of Vincent Van Gogh cutting off part of his ear and giving it to a prostitute. The circumstances of that night are not clear. He had been living in Arles, France with Paul Gauguin in an attempt to form an artists colony, but their relationship had soured.

That night they were both drunk and argued. It is thought that they were arguing about the local prostitutes, who preferred Gauguin to the brooding and erratic Van Gogh. What ever the truth to that story, no doubt the deeper conflict was over Gauguin's decision to return to Paris.

The website Vincent Van Gogh, the Letters has an archive of Van Gogh's correspondence along with detailed notes about the individual letters. In January Vincent wrote to his brother Theo about his recovery. The attached notes mention that Gauguin told a friend of his what had happened shortly after returning to Paris. This seems to be the most reliable version Gauguin gave of the night (paragraph breaks added for clarity):

Gauguin returning precipitately, 4 days ago, and the news about Vincent in the hospital. I rushed to see Gauguin, who told me this. On the eve of my departure (because he was about to leave Arles) Vincent ran after me (he went out, it was at night). I turned round, because for some time he had become very strange, but I mistrusted him.

Then he said: You are silent, but I shall be so too. Ever since I had been going to leave Arles he was so odd, I couldn’t live any longer. He had even said to me: “Are you going to leave?” And since I had said “Yes” he tore this sentence out of a newspaper and put it into my hand: “the murderer fled”.

I went to sleep at the hotel, and when I returned the whole of Arles was outside our house. Then the gendarmes arrested me, because the house was covered in blood.

This is what had happened. Vincent had returned after I left, taken his razor and clean sliced his ear. Then he had covered his head with a tall beret and had gone to a brothel to bring his ear to an unfortunate creature, saying to her: You’ll remember me, I’m telling you truly. This young woman fainted on the spot.

The gendarmes set out, and they all came to the house. Vincent was put in the hospital. His condition is worse, he wants to sleep with the patients, chases after the Sister and washes himself in the coal bunker. In other words, he is performing biblical mortifications. They were compelled to put him in a private room.

Also from the notes, Vincent's brother Theo visited him in the hospital shortly after the incident. This is how he descrubed it to his wife Jo:

I found Vincent in the hospital in Arles. The people around him realized from his agitation that for the past few days he had been showing symptoms of that most dreadful illness, of madness, and an attack of fièvre chaude, when he injured himself with a knife, was the reason he was taken to hospital.

Will he remain insane? The doctors think it possible, but daren’t yet say for certain. It should be apparent in a few days’ time when he is rested; then we will see whether he is lucid again. He seemed to be all right for a few minutes when I was with him, but lapsed shortly afterwards into his brooding about philosophy and theology.

It was terribly sad being there, because from time to time all his grief would well up inside and he would try to weep, but couldn’t. Poor fighter and poor, poor sufferer. Nothing can be done to relieve his anguish now, but it is deep and hard for him to bear.

Had he just once found someone to whom he could pour his heart out, it might never have come to this. In the next few days they will decide whether he is to be transferred to a special institution and as I don’t yet know how much I shall have to do in all this, I dare not make any plans.

Although he was released from the asylum, Vincent never really recovered from that night. From that point on his mental state slowly deteriorated until he committed suicide less than two years later.

Vincent Van Gogh, the Letters is a good resource if you're interested in his life. Not only can you search the letters, but there is also a large amount of notes and supplemental information that puts them in context. Finally, letters that have sketches can be listed separately, and there are facsimiles that show the drawings. Seeing the pencil and ink sketches of Van Gogh is quite interesting.

Pogo stickers

2011-12-22T08:00:00.004-07:00

I had a pogo stick once. All I ever managed was a couple of bounces before I would fall of it. These guys are amazing. I wonder how they got so good without killing themselves in the process?

Aren't presents supposed to be surprises?

2011-12-21T17:50:00.004-07:00

The Obumbler stealthily buys his daughters a Christmas present

Geez Louise Barry, way to blow your daughters' anticipation and surprise over one of their Christmas gifts. Was another photo op really that important?

Then again, maybe he got it for himself so's he has something to do while Congress works on the Tax Cut Extension.

(Via The Gateway Pundit)

Budget Holiday gift ideas for procrastinators

2011-12-21T16:49:00.007-07:00

If you're reading this looking for Christmas gifts, you may have procrastinated too long to get one shipped to you on time. What to do? You could go to a brick and mortar store and by the sort of junk they sell, or you could buy them a gift so dazzling that they won't mind having to wait a bit before it comes.

If you go the later route I suggest the replica Apollo 17 Space Suit from Space Toys. Each is custom made with metal hose fittings, plenty of hoses, two sun shields including the outer gold visor, a snoopy cap to keep your hair in place, a metal front pack, space gloves and space boots. There is no mention of space underwear (or space dainties as the Victorians called them), so you'll have to provide them yourself.

Yes, yes, at $10,250 this might seem to be a wee bit out of the budget category, but don't blame me -- you're the one who procrastinated and got yourself into this fix in the first place. Besides, imagine your loved one's eyes lighting up with joy when they unwrap it. Why, in no time they'll have it on and will be walking across your front yard in slow motion as they simulate exploring the moon!

I come in pieces

However, if you are such a cold-hearted cheapskate that you won't buy your loved one a space suit there are other alternatives at the Space Toys site.

Some are bit pricey, but I did manage to find an educational Transparent Roswell Alien model kit for an affordable $37.99. Further, if you order it tonight, and pay for 2nd day express shipping, you should get it by Christmas Eve day.

Whatever your decision, the Space Toys site is a hoot, and it has some things you won't find anywhere else. Give it a look if you have somebody who might like a space themed present in the future, or if you collect this sort of stuff yourself.

Tired of the same ol' Christmas music?

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a different Christmas song, that's for sure.

Jin Jin Jingle Bells by Nazomi Sasaki and Pentaphonic. One of the questions I have about it -- and I have many, many questions about it -- are those things hanging from the rapper guys supposed to be furry, animal tails?

Stratfor and Nadezhda Durova

2011-12-20T17:35:00.003-07:00

In this article, marking the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, George Friedman presents the recollections of 7 veterans and 1 Iraqi citizen who participated in it. He offers no comments on their pieces, nor shall I.

As for the article's Hot Stratfor Babe, since they are tales of veterans I was reminded of the Russian woman Nadezhda Durova, who posed as a young man to join the a Polish Lancer unit so she could fight during the Napoleonic Wars.

She started as a 'gentleman-ranker' and ended her military career as a Captain, thus becoming the first woman officer in the Russian army. She eventually told her story her biography The Calvary Maiden.

She was the daughter of a cavalryman and had a difficult childhood. Her mother had wanted a son and was distraught to give birth to a daughter instead. One day while her father's unit was marching, her mother became exasperated with Nadezhda's crying and threw her out of the carriage they were riding in. From that point forward, for obvious reasons, her mother had no further involvement raising her, and she was mentored by a trooper instead.

Needless to say, because of her mother's hostility, her family life was difficult. So, when she was 18, she took the first opportunity to leave home and get married. She had a baby boy from the marriage. However, she soon left her husband and son. Not long after that is when she posed as a young man and joined the Polish Lancers.

She was a brave soldier and fought in a number of battles during the Napoleonic Wars. She received medals, commendations and promotions.

Although her own unit never penetrated her disguise, rumors began to circulate in Russia about a woman cavalryman. These rumors grew until she became of folk heroine. Eventually Tsar Alexsandr managed to track her down. After an audience with him, he awarded her the Cross of St. George for bravery, the rank of Coronet (2nd Lt), bought her a flashy uniform and allowed her to continue her career disguised as a man -- this time using the name Aleksandrov which her bestowed upon her.

When she finally retired she took up writing and produced 4 novels along with her autobiography. She's a popular figure in Russia to this day, and plays, ballets and movies have been made about her. As a bonus, after the jump I've included a clip of the song A Lullaby for Svetlana from the movie Hussar's Ballad which was based on her life. There were several versions of the song to choose from, I like this one because it is wonderfully operatic and sad in the way only Slavs can do.

The Iraq War: Recollections
By George Friedman, December 20,2011

The war in Iraq is officially over. Whether it is actually over remains to be seen. All that we know is that U.S. forces have been withdrawn. There is much to be said about the future of Iraq, but it is hard to think of anything that has been left unsaid about the past years of war in Iraq, and true perspective requires the passage of time. It seemed appropriate, therefore, to hear from those at STRATFOR who fought in the war and survived. STRATFOR is graced with seven veterans of the war and one Iraqi who lived through it. It is interesting to me that all of our Iraq veterans were enlisted personnel. I don’t know what that means, but it pleases me for some reason. Their short recollections are what STRATFOR has to contribute to the end of the war. It is, I think, far more valuable than anything I could possibly say.

Staff Sgt. Kendra Vessels, U.S. Air Force
Iraq 2003, 2005
STRATFOR Vice President of International Projects

Six words capture my experience during the invasion of Iraq: Russian linguist turned security forces “augmentee.” I initially volunteered for a 45-day tour of the theater — one of those unique opportunities for those in the intelligence field who don’t see much beyond their building with no windows. My field trip of the “operational Air Force” turned into a seven-month stint far beyond my original job description. But in the end I wouldn’t trade anything for that experience.

I will always remember March 19, 2003 — not only because it was my 22nd birthday but also because it was the day that brought an end to the hurry-up-and-wait that I had experienced for the four months since I’d arrived in Kuwait. During that time it was a slow transition from the world I knew so well, which was confined to a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) and computer screens to practically living in mission oriented protective posture (MOPP) 4 gear, working with a joint-service security team and carrying a weapon. The day I was pulled from my normal duties to take a two-hour refresher on how to use an M-16 was a wake-up call. I had shot an M-16 once before, in basic training. Carrying a weapon every day from then on was new to me. While my Army and Marine counterparts knew their weapons intimately, I was still at that awkward first-date stage.

This anecdote represented a broader issue. As much as we might have known ahead of time that we would eventually invade Iraq, I don’t think we ever could have really been prepared. There were definitely creative solutions, like issuing an Air Force intelligence Barbie an assault rifle.

The invasion of Iraq that I describe is narrowly focused, but that’s what I knew at the time. As far as seeing a bigger picture, I was subject to the opinions on CNN and Fox just as everyone was back home. The only morsel that stands out is a “need to know” briefing we had on weapons of mass destruction a month before things kicked off. Slide after slide of imagery “proved” we needed to go into Iraq. Those giving the presentation seemed unconvinced, but at our level, we didn’t question those presentations. We always assumed someone much higher up knew much more than we would ever have access to. So we drove on, kept our mouths shut and did our jobs as we were told.

As an airman, the most memorable part of the experience for me was the shock and awe of the initial bombing attack. All the days before and after are blurred in my memory — either because they all seemed the same or because I’ve buried them somewhere. There were so many mixed emotions — pride in the U.S. Air Force as we watched the initial attack live on the news, fear of what would follow and sadness in saying goodbye to my friends who would leave to cross into Iraq in the following days. Among those friends were our British counterparts who did not feel they had a stake in the fight but were there because they took pride in their jobs and wanted to do well.

Indeed, I always took notice of the many nationalities that were there to fight beside us. They were less than enthusiastic about being in Iraq and, of course, blamed the Americans for causing them to be there. This is when I first began to feel the “uncoolness” of being American overseas because of the war. I did not foresee how bad it would get and would eventually experience outright hostility in Asia, Europe and other countries in the Middle East.

Two years later, I was “deployed in-garrison.” This concept captures not only what I love about the Air Force but also why my friends in every other service always had ample material for teasing me. If we can’t take all the luxuries of home to the war (and believe me, we tried: surf and turf and endless ice cream in the chow halls, televisions in every living space and air-conditioning or heating as needed), we will bring the war to us. It seemed like a great idea at the time. I spent a year driving less than 10 miles from my duty station in the United States to carry out a mission in Iraq through radio, chat and live feed on television screens. We experienced the same crew day, tempo and real-world mission requirements but worked in over-air-conditioned vans parked inside giant hangars.

Anyone who has ever done this can relate to how bizarre it is to work inside one of these vans in full winter gear during the peak of summer. But in comparison to my first experience on the ground in Iraq, I felt I contributed far more the second time around. Our unit was able to see results daily and know that we were directly contributing to units in contact with the enemy. I could finally begin to see the forest for the trees, but by that time, I could also see that the situation on the ground was far worse than before.

My take-away from the latter experience was the perception that the rest of the United States was detached from what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would spend 12 hours engaged with the reality on the ground, full of adrenaline and exhausted by the end of the day, only to wake up and do it all over again the next day. But between the missions at work I would interact with those not directly involved, and it was endlessly frustrating. My civilian friends were more concerned about what happened on “Lost” the night before or where they were planning to vacation during the upcoming holiday. This sentiment continues even today, as those of us who were directly impacted by the war reflect on how it changed our lives while others hardly notice that the war is coming to an end. I gently remind them that this is, in many ways, a victory for us all.

Basima
Iraq 2003
STRATFOR Middle East and Arabic Monitor

In 2003, when the news in Iraq began to report that U.S. President George W. Bush would invade Iraq, Iraqis began to wonder if this would really happen — and if it would be the solution to and the end of the tyrant era in Iraq. I was sitting with my father, an old man addicted to listening to the radio instead of watching the two boring Iraqi television channels that mostly broadcast Saddam’s interviews, speeches and songs about him. I asked my father, “Dad, do you think the Americans will really come to save us and our country from this tyrant?” He said, “Yes they will, and there will be no other way to get rid of this tyrant but by a strong power like America.” As all other Iraqis, I kept watching television and listening to the radio to follow the news.

My husband, my kids and I were all staying at my parents’ house, along with my other two sisters and their families. We bought much food and stored water in a big container. We contacted our relatives and they contacted us, everyone wanting to make sure that the others were ready for the war and for the moment of salvation. If you draw an image of the Iraqi streets at that time, you will see very close and trusted friends secretly sharing their happiness about the idea that the Americans will come and topple the brutal regime. No one was afraid of the war because we are a people used to being in a war, and we were suffering enough from the blockade.

When the war began, I would say most Iraqis, if I cannot say all, were happy to see the end of the madman Saddam. When the statue of Saddam was pulled down in Firdos Square, my family and I were so happy our eyes were full of tears. They were not tears of sadness but of happiness. It was unbelievable. It was the moment of freedom.

After that, when the people began to get out of their houses, they could see all the military trucks and soldiers. And the people waved their hands and nodded or made signs with their hands to show the Americans that they were happy and thankful. For the first time in their lives, Iraqis practiced the freedom to speak in the streets freely and loudly without being afraid of Saddam’s loyalists.

Sgt. “Primo,” U.S. Marine Corps Task Force Tarawa
Iraq 2003
STRATFOR Tactical Analyst

As the C-130 ramp dropped at Kuwait International Airport in March 2003, I was hit in the face with a wave of heat and sand. I remember thinking to myself that this was going to suck, a lot. But at the same time there was a sense of relief at the finality and completion of mobilization orders and deployment, and despite the disruption of our civilian lives we knew that this was it, and it was all we had to concentrate on.

An infantry unit in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, we were a motley mix of professions and lifestyles — mechanics, school teachers, policemen, college students (roughly half of us), boilermakers, bankers, bartenders, small-business owners and kids straight out of high school. And we respected our leaders. Our commanding officer was a successful corporate executive, our company first sergeant and company gunnery sergeant had living-legend status in their respective law enforcement agencies, and all of our staff non-commissioned officers — most of whom were veterans of the first Gulf War and/or employed in law enforcement in their civilian lives — had served active-duty tours in their younger days, as did the NCOs that just got out of the Fleet and volunteered to deploy with us.

My squad (in which I had been unceremoniously promoted, as a lance corporal, to fire team leader) was pulling security for the command tent in the staging area in northern Kuwait when all members of the company staff gathered for a meeting with the battalion staff. The purpose of the meeting was for the battalion gunny to list all the ammunition that we would be allotted, and it did not include 5.56mm link or 7.62mm link and only a shockingly small amount of non-linked 5.56mm. We knew we were leaving soon, and we exchanged bug-eyed glances when we overheard the gunny listing the allotment. Fire suppression capability had been a central tenet of our training, and it would not be possible with the ammo we were getting. And there was only about one grenade per squad. If we hit action, our survival could depend on the pitiful first-aid kits we had been issued. Then “Doc” Chris showed up with a ton of “acquired” gauze, medical tape, iodine and morphine from battalion headquarters, which earned him a godlike status despite his many personal shortcomings.

When we received the warning order in our platoon hooch later in the evening we were told we were going to Nasiriya, where a battle was still raging. In the morning, we threw on our over-loaded packs and said our goodbyes. With the sound of helicopters in the air, the company gunny rolled up in a Humvee overflowing with 5.56mm link, 7.62mm link, more grenades and much-needed bandoleers. Every rifleman had the equivalent of about 12 magazines and the squad automatic weapon (SAW) gunners had about four or five 5.56mm link boxes.

Fortunately, the landing zone (LZ) we were flown into in Nasriya was not hot. We spent two days in Camp White Horse and then moved on into the city and took up positions, which we fortified when we were not patrolling or running raids. After a week, we were moved to the Saddam Canal, the site of a fierce battle just days earlier, where we set up checkpoints to control anyone going to or from the city over our bridge. After about a month of bridge security, patrols and raids in the nearby neighborhood, we were moved to Qulat Sikkar, south of Al Kut.

While the Shiite Muslims in our area of operation may not have wanted us there, the United States took out Saddam and we were there to help them, so there was a tentative peace. While the locals outnumbered us, they did not want to rock the boat, nor did we. For all intents and purposes, we served as the local government, court and police of Qulat Sikkar. For the first few weeks, we raided residences of suspected Baath Party members, Fedayeen and criminals. You never knew what was behind the door, which was quite stressful, but you got used it. However, it didn’t take too long to realize that despite the weapons caches we would occasionally find, a good portion of the information we were receiving to conduct these raids may have had more to do with personal revenge than actual threats. [continued after the jump]

What we were trying to do was maximize our strength at the street level by interacting with the locals as much as possible during foot and mounted patrols, which we ran 24 hours a day. We wanted the locals to know that we were ready for anything while our medical corpsmen were helping injured civilians and kids who were brought to our position for care. Locals would come to us to report criminals and other threats, which we would respond to. The professional policemen in our reserve unit trained local police. Because of this, and the fact that the local Shia were happy to see Saddam ousted and were not politically organized, we experienced no serious attacks, nothing more than the occasional spray-and-pray or potshot. The people, all of whom were destitute, just tried to keep on living and begin building an uncertain future as we continued our patrols, dreaming of home in our spare time.

The uncertain future became most evident when local Iraq army veterans began asking for their pay or pensions and we told them to go away. And while the Bush administration’s decision to remove all Baath Party members rather than just the unsavory elements from official life was not such a factor for us in the Shiite south, the move was something that we debated endlessly. The majority of the Marines in my platoon — college students and working men alike — saw it as a very bad idea and something that would almost guarantee a resistance movement.

We stayed just under six months and did a lot of good for people who have not faced much good in their history. The reality of war is that sometimes you are lucky and sometimes you are unlucky. During that deployment, we were very lucky. No Marines in our unit were killed in action, and no Marines were seriously wounded. The Italians who replaced us were not so lucky. A few months after our departure and after becoming fully immersed in civilian life again (except for drill weekends), I turned on the television to see that Nasiriya had been hit by a major suicide bombing and that 19 Italian soldiers — some of whom we had undoubtedly dined with at Camp White Horse just weeks earlier — were killed along with 11 civilians. I remember thinking that this was just the beginning of a different type of war that would last a long time.

Cpl. Nathan Hughes, U.S. Marine Corps Regimental Combat Team 1
Iraq 2003
STRATFOR Deputy Director, Tactical Intelligence

Looking back, the paradigm that pulls it all together for me is one of a military that has spent too many years in garrison going off to war. By March 2003, 9/11 had dominated everyone’s thinking for a year and a half, but only a tiny fraction of the military had actually been to Afghanistan. And there had been no time for operational lessons that might have been learned to percolate through the system.
None of that was apparent then. When we first came ashore in February, the negligent discharge of a SAW at the port in Kuwait and seeing servicemen from other units carrying their rifles slung muzzle down stuck out to us after six months with a Marine Expeditionary Unit (pretty much the height of readiness and cohesion for a Marine infantry battalion at that point). The truth was that even six months at sea in 2002, aside from the loss of Marines in a shooting in Kuwait, did little to prepare us for the post-9/11 realities that would become so apparent in subsequent years.

After weeks of waiting in Kuwait (to the point where unfounded rumors of the death of Jennifer Lopez were beginning to get too much traction) and after we had resigned ourselves to never leaving that miserable place, we suddenly received orders to immediately mount up. We were a U.S. Marine regiment on amphibious tractors, unarmored Humvees and seven-ton trucks. I remember feeling bad for anyone who got in our way, and how that illusion crumbled over and over again in the subsequent weeks.

I remember exactly how shallow the first fighting positions we dug had been at our staging area south of the Iraqi border. The ground had been ridiculously tough, and we knew we were moving in as little as a few hours. That expediency was fine until the first “Lightning, lightning, lightning” came across the net, signaling that an Iraqi “Scud” missile had been fired. We were already in our MOPP 1 attire, which we would wear during most of the invasion, but despite endless drills (and laps around the flight deck on the way over in MOPP 4), it had taken us distressingly long to suit up. And lying in a far-too-shallow fighting position recalling how useless I had been — how useless we all had been — learning how to fire a rifle while wearing a gas mask in 1998, I mulled over everything I knew about fighting in a chemical or biological environment. The only thing I knew for sure was that doing so was a terrible, terrible idea.

On the outskirts of Nasiriya, we saw the first burned-out hulks of American vehicles and the first section of our platoon was moved, briefly, from our unarmored Humvees to the “protection” of the welded-aluminum hulls of amphibious tractors. Before someone somewhere canceled the whole maneuver, we were on the verge of following an artillery barrage through a city where the entire urban expanse had been declared hostile. One surreal experience flowed into the next.

Between spending a night where no one slept because we had erected our 81mm mortar gun line in an exposed position in the middle of an Iraqi village and reconnoitering for positions in a pair of Humvees with our heaviest weapon, a SAW, it became clear how desperately thin we were spread. The civilian looting of Baghdad was comprehensive and immediate. As we moved to our initial objective, there were already stolen construction vehicles with air-conditioning units chained to the shovels moving down the shoulders of the city’s roads. The magnitude of pacifying an urban population — and our complete inability to do so — was blatantly apparent.

By the time we fell back to Kuwait that summer (even the senior-most Marine commanders were assuring us in good faith that the objective was kicking in the door and seizing Baghdad and that the Army would take it from there), it was already a different world. Children that had once been restrained by their parents or their own uncertainty would now stand inches from moving tracked vehicles and demand candy. What we had achieved, in other words, was done in the space created by “shock and awe.” But the shock and awe had already worn off and the Iraqis were adapting and settling into the new reality with a frightening speed.

Staff Sgt. Paul Floyd, U.S. Army Special Operations Command
Iraq 2005-2008
STRATFOR Tactical Intern

My unit worked under Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and our primary role was high-value target (HVT) kill or capture missions. These missions were meant to apply pressure to or destroy enemy networks, not to win over popular support. I served eight tours overseas, half in Iraq. Our deployments lasted anywhere from 90 to 140 days. During these deployments, my platoon conducted hundreds of missions and killed or captured many HVTs. Most missions were successful in the sense that we got who we were after. Some missions were not successful. The following are the missions that stick out.

My first deployment was in 2005 to Baghdad. I was scared and didn’t know a damn thing about where I was going, and my team leaders and squad leaders were not about to enlighten me. After a short layover in Germany, we flew directly into Baghdad instead of Kuwait, where most units staged. The lights in the cargo bay went red, the crew donned body armor and they dropped the plane onto the runway like it was crashing to avoid being shot down. We had arrived in the middle of the night and were still recovering from the sleeping pills they had provided for the flight. We had to unpack all of our mission-essential gear from our cargo pallets and prep our gear for a helicopter flight into our operating base. Our leaders still didn’t divulge many details about where we were going even as we loaded magazines and donned body armor.

We loaded a CH-47 with half of our platoon and our personal bags and lifted off to what I had been told was the most dangerous city in the world at that time. When we landed, I was a little beside myself as we rushed off the helicopter to establish security, sweeping our sectors of fire and waiting for our first firefight while others frantically threw bags off the bird. It took a few minutes, but the helicopter finally took off to pick up the rest of our platoon and then we were able to hear the laughter. “Hey dumbasses, we are in the Green Zone and you are pointing your weapons at the guys who guard our compound,” our team leaders said between guffaws. “Welcome home.”

This was not what I was expecting. My first mission was the next night. I was a top gunner on an up-armored Humvee manning a medium machine gun. We worked at night, and all I knew was that we were going to get some guy in some place in Baghdad. In other words, I could barely understand what I was seeing, didn’t know where I was and had no idea who we were after. The last thing my team leader had told me before we rolled out was to shoot back if we were shot at and if the vehicle rolled, try and get clear because the night before a Humvee had been hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) and rolled and everyone inside had burned alive. He might have been lying, but it stuck. We rolled through Baghdad for about 15 minutes and finally stopped 200 meters past an intersection. To help with radio communication, we turned off our jammers, per standard operating procedure, and an IED detonated at the intersection we had just passed. We went on two more missions that night and, over the course of 90 days, conducted around 120 missions.

My second deployment was to Ramadi in summer 2006. At that time, Ramadi was falling apart. The entire city was hostile, every single place we went. One mission during this deployment sticks our more than any other. We received intelligence on the whereabouts of a target high enough on the food chain that the strike force commander launched us during the day. The coordinates we had been given led us to what was essentially a strip mall on the side of the road. Since it was daytime, we found it to be more successful to move hard and fast, so we “landed on the X.” As we were leaping out of our vehicles, we realized there were more than 100 people running in all directions. We detained every single military-aged male. It took hours and we had to call in the regular army to help us move them all, but we got the al Qaeda cell leader we were after and his lieutenants. We didn’t make any friends that day, but we accomplished the mission and then some.

On a similar mission, we found ourselves being launched during the middle of the day to capture a man who we thought was a major piece of the Ramadi insurgency. This time we drove to a house, contained it, blew down the door and seized it. All we found inside was a woman and 13 teenage girls. We started to search the house, and I was tasked with searching the room where the girls were being kept while a younger guy watched them. Searching a room in the desert while wearing body armor is miserable work. About halfway through I heard some light giggling and looked up to find that two of the girls had taken a fancy to their overseer and were trying to flirt. There he was smiling from ear to ear while they both were moving their veils and hijab’s just enough to show a little hair and some of their faces. I started to laugh when the radio explodes with chatter about a car returning to the house. We quickly rearranged ourselves and detained the men as they pulled into the driveway. It was their uncle who had to pick up an associate and who also happened to be our target. We detained him and left.

My third deployment in Iraq was back to Ramadi in 2007. This was after the local tribal leaders had banded together and begun working with the United States to push al Qaeda out of the city. This meant that the enemy had moved to the countryside, and we were going to air assault instead of drive. Every night, we flew to the countryside and walked to our targets. This deployment was different. I experienced more firefights in those first seven missions than I ever had before.

On my eighth mission, the intelligence that drove us to a target was literally “there is a suspicious blue truck there.” We ridiculed that assessment as we boarded the helicopters. I was point man for my platoon and led it up to the house. As I cleared the initial courtyard I saw a man open a door, stick his head out and, clearly frightened, duck back inside, leaving the door partially open. Following my training and not wanting him to have any more time to prepare for a fight I followed him through the door with my fire team. I kicked the door fully open and two men armed with what I later learned was an AK-47 and an M-16 fired on us as we came through the door. I cleared my corner and returned fire while my teammates did the same. Suddenly my firing hand was thrown off of my weapon. I placed it back but found that I could not pull the trigger. It seemed like time just stopped. I looked down to find that my finger was flapping wildly against my weapon and realized that I could not shoot. I took a knee and yelled “down” to let my team know I was out of the fight and they adjusted their sectors of fire. There was a brief pause before another armed man opened fire from behind the door. I thought I was dead. The fire team behind us entered the room immediately and eliminated the threat.

I had been shot in the hand while one of my team members had been shot through the arm and the other had had a bullet graze the side of his head. We all walked out of that room in time to see the rest of the house erupt with gunfire. My platoon moved us back under fire and returned fire. A man then ran out of the house and our rounds detonated his suicide vest. His head and leg landed in the road in front of us. The fight ended with two 500-pound bombs and a medevac helicopter to Balad. I went home early that deployment.

My last deployment to Iraq was in 2008, back in Baghdad. One again we were driving, part of a task force assigned to counter Iranian influence. The new threat was the explosively formed projectiles being imported by the Iranians. These next-generation IEDs could punch through any standard armor we had. U.S. troops adapted with solid metal plates bolted to the sides of vehicles with an 18-inch standoff. The enemy adapted by aiming the IEDs slightly higher so the force of the blast would miss the metal plates and take heads off in the passenger compartments.

This react and counteract game never stopped. We were there during the winter, which meant it actually rained a fair amount for a brief period. I was a convoy commander on this deployment. On one particular mission, we had stopped to let the assault force off more than a kilometer away so as not to spook the target at night with our engine noise. After they assaulted the house, they called to us to pull the vehicles forward. During the height of the sectarian violence of 2007, Baghdad neighborhoods had trenches and earthworks to protect them. On this wet winter night, we were forced to drive through one of these trenches to get to our platoon, and it took about three seconds to get my vehicle stuck.

Since we were running skeleton crews at this point and it was my fault, I decided to jump out by myself to perform the vehicle recovery. This is a pretty simple process of just having the nearest vehicle pull up, attaching a tow cable between the two and pulling the stuck vehicle out. As we started the pulling part, I stepped back to make room only to plunge into a hole filled with water well over my head. I was submerged, wearing about 60 pounds of armor and equipment and barely hanging onto a ledge. I thought about the irony of dying in Iraq not because of enemy fire or an IED but by drowning. I managed to extract myself, and since no one could hear or see me, I calmly walked back to my extracted vehicle. If my gunner wondered why I was soaking wet and freezing, he didn’t ask.

Staff Sgt. Benjamin Sledge, U.S. Army Special Operations Command
Iraq 2006-2007
STRATFOR Senior Graphic Designer

I had done a lot in eleven years in the military: Afghanistan, language training, John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, and Iraq. But Iraq would be the nail in the coffin of my military career.

In Iraq I kicked in doors, took shotgun pellets to the face (courtesy of a trigger happy Marine), watched IEDs explode in front of my vehicle, watched people shoot at my vehicle, made friends with the locals, rebuilt infrastructure, had the locals tell me they loved me and had the locals shoot at me. I also watched people shoot my friends, attended memorial services, cried, laughed, got depressed, ranted, fought, got dirty, got dirtier, cried some more and then went home.

The twin bloody battles of Fallujah in 2004 would move the insurgents to a city 20 miles west named Ramadi, which we would lovingly nickname the “Meat Grinder.” The rules of engagement were so lenient that if someone popped their head around the corner twice you could shoot a warning shot. The third peek was considered hostile and you could engage the person with lethal force. Every morning the roads were declared clear for about 30 minutes after an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team had spent the night clearing them. Thirty minutes later, every road had multiple IEDs on them. By noon, you were guaranteed to get shot at.

The turning point in my deployment came when a former Special Forces captain named Travis Patriquin came up with a simple — and hilarious — PowerPoint slide mocking how complex the American war machine had made the war in Iraq. My team began to work with him and other teams trying to win over the tribal sheiks and empower the people in the area. In accordance with a plan devised by Col. Sean McFarland, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division, U.S. troops also began to occupy all points of Ramadi in small combat outposts. In time, the tide began to shift and we began to see a significant, perceptible change. For once, my spirits were lifted and I thought we would achieve some success in the war. Capt. Patriquin would not live to see it. He was killed by an IED, leaving behind his wife and three small children.

When the war shifted in Ramadi, my team began to work hard rebuilding infrastructure instead of slinging lead, but complications soon arose. After the fighting died down, staff officers found new ways to look like rock stars in order to advance their careers. This was when my faith in the U.S. military began to crumble. Instead of working on the power grid or sewage system — basic life necessities that the people desperately needed — I was ordered to win hearts and minds by building soccer fields and other “Iraqi entertainment” venues. (Aid money was poured into a multimillion-dollar soccer stadium that only collected trash.)

After asking instead to work on the power grid, I was threatened with administrative punishment by a colonel in the 3rd Infantry Division. I acquiesced, then filed a report about waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. More threats, more soccer fields demanded, but my unit never backed down. We eventually got electricity running in the city 18 hours a day. This was a big deal, though the cost was high: Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars with valor and marital problems. (A third of our 30-man team left Iraq divorced, including me.) Coming home should have been a joyous occasion, but after 15 months, we were all very different and the world was not the same.

Though the Iraq war is ending, it will never be over for those who went. Anytime someone finds out you’re a veteran and a little about what you did, the question comes up: “Did you kill anyone?” And with that inevitable question comes an inevitable floodgate of memories, good and bad.

Anonymous, U.S. Army Human Intelligence Collector
Iraq 2007-2008
STRATFOR Tactical Intern

I remember following the U.S. invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq from the comfort of my living room with no idea what a war zone was really like. Little did I know that one day I would have my own experiences in the Iraqi and Afghan cities I was watching on television.

A couple years after the fall of Saddam Hussein I was running human intelligence (HUMINT) operations in Baghdad, having one-on-one conversations with U.S. adversaries. I was elated by the opportunity to hear the perspective of the enemy. In the interrogations, our conversations varied. We would discuss anything from a planned attack on a convoy to the art of raising homing pigeons. While the typical image in Iraq was one of U.S. soldiers in fierce battles with insurgents, I would find myself smoking from a hookah with someone who had killed dozens. The polite nature of Iraqis carried over to the individuals with whom I would have conversations. A man who had just detonated an IED against an American convoy would offer me his prison-issued jacket if the weather was cold. I was shocked to see how cordial a detained insurgent could be, even if uncooperative.

There was a steep cultural learning curve for me, beginning with my mission in Iraq. Having never left the Western Hemisphere and having focused on Latin America with my previous unit, I was amazed to see what a different world the Middle East was. Language barriers were surprisingly easy to work around with interpreters, although my ability to gather intelligence depended on my cultural understanding. Picking and choosing which interpreter to use in communicating with a source was the first step. (An outspoken Lebanese Christian would not be very effective with a Sunni extremist.) It was also important to consider the gender, age and Islamic sect of interpreter and source. Putting aside intelligence gathering and turning instead to light-hearted conversations revolving around the source’s life not only improved my cultural understanding but also helped elicit critical information and actionable intelligence.

My time in Iraq was quite different from that of a soldier patrolling the streets of Baghdad. While I left my friends and family behind and worked long hours, sometimes exceeding 48-hour shifts, I still enjoyed most of the comforts of home that many soldiers in Iraq could not enjoy. The dangers were minimal compared to those faced by soldiers who kicked open doors and endured regular ambushes and IEDs. I often felt that I was not really doing my part compared to others who were risking their life in combat. However, I cherish the knowledge I gained from the Iraqi people and hope my contribution in Iraq was to save both U.S. and Iraqi lives.

Sgt. Frank B., U.S. Marine Corps
Iraq 2008
STRATFOR Junior Tactical Analyst

During our operations in northern Anbar province, I was continuously struck by the unintended consequences of our actions. As a platoon size, eight-vehicle element, we conducted patrols around the region checking in on disparate parts of the population. However, due to a lack of good road maps we relied on aviation charts that made it hard to identify good or established ground routes.

In our effort to survey our area of operations for security threats (in addition to other taskings), we found that our two mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) trucks, weighing more than 10 tons apiece, would easily crush the simple, mud-packed irrigation networks in the area. This would result in the limited water supply being quickly absorbed by the vast expanse of baked earth. And our communication and electronic countermeasures antennae, some 15 feet tall, would routinely pull down or short out the low-hanging, rudimentary power lines that tenuously fed electricity over long distances to isolated populations.

All of this was impossible to avoid while executing our tasking orders and providing mandated levels of protection to our unit, yet it hampered our ability to build any kind of rapport with people in areas that had had limited contact with the ousted Baathist regime in the first place. I remember realizing at the time that many of our interests and actions negated one another, and I often wondered how much more of that was happening with the many different units across the country.

I would later realize this example would prove to be one of many examples where our best operational intentions were obfuscated by the complexity of procedures, precautions and logistics necessary for our activity within the country. I’ll never forget walking away from my time in Iraq realizing the one-step-forward-two-step-backward reality of my unit’s time in Iraq, and how it forever changed how I understand the net costs of military and foreign interventions everywhere.

Conclusion

I know each of the authors well enough to have been startled by their recollections of the war. The humor, dedication and bitterness expressed in these pieces show me dimensions of each of them that I had not known were there. War reshapes the soul and makes people we think we know into mysteries. Life goes on, but not as it once was. No geopolitical meaning can be extracted from these memories, but human meanings can be. Suffice it to say that I am proud to be associated with these men and women.

The Iraq War: Recollections is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Pre-war Japanese posters

2011-12-20T08:00:00.001-07:00

Click any image to enlarge

We've all seen posters from Germany, Russia and the U.S. from the pre-WWII era. What are less common are posters made by the Japanese during that same period. They were influenced by Western graphic design, but still had their own distinct style.

There are more samples after the jump, and many more at the Pink Tentacle posts: Japanese graphic design from the 1920s-30s, Japanese industrial expo posters (1920s-1940s), and Japanese proletarian posters (1930s).

His entire future depended on his ability to cry

2011-12-19T16:29:00.004-07:00

Kim Jong-il is dead. There are the usual pictures coming out of North Korea of people mourning his death. I was reminded of a passage in the book Nothing to Envy. The book, written by Barbara Demick, recounts the stories of six defectors from North Korea. One of them, a university student named Jun-sang, learned of Kim Il-sung's death while at school:

In the courtyard, nearly three thousand students and faculty were lined up in formation, ranked by their year, major, and dormitory affiliation. The sun beat down with full force, and they were sweating in their short-sleeved summer uniforms. At noon a disembodied female voice, tremulous and sorrowful, came booming through the loudspeakers. The loudspeakers were old and produced scratchy sounds that Jun-sang could barely understand, but he picked up a few words -- "passed away" and "illness" -- and he grasped the meaning of them from the murmur going through the crowd. There were gasps and moans. One student collapsed in a heap. Nobody quite knew what to do. So one by one each of the three thousand students sat down on the pavement, heads in hands.

Jun-sang sat down too, unsure of what else to do. Keeping his head down so nobody could read the confusion on his face, he listened to the rhythm of the sobbing around him. He stole glances at his grief-stricken classmates. He found it curious that for once the wasn't the one crying. To his great embarrassment, he often felt tears welling up in his eyes at the end of movies or novels, which provoked no end of teasing from his younger brother, as well as criticism from his father, who always told him he was "soft like a girl." He rubbed his eyes just to make sure. They were dry. He wasn't crying. What was wrong with him? Why wasn't he sad that Kim Il-sung was dead? Didn't he love Kim Il-sung?

As a twenty-one year old university student Jun-sang was naturally skeptical of all authority, including the North Korean government. He prided himself in his questioning intellect. But he didn't think of himself as seditious or in any way an enemy of the state. He believed in communism, or at least believed that whatever its faults, it was a more equitable and humane system than capitalism. He had imagined he would eventually join the Worker's Party and dedicate his life to the betterment of the fatherland. That was what was expected of all those who graduated from the top universities.

Now, surrounded by sobbing students, Jun-sang wondered: If everybody else felt such genuine love for Kim Il-sung and he did not, how would he possibly fit in? He had been contemplating his own reaction, or lack thereof, with an intellectual detachment, but suddenly he was gripped with fear. He was alone, completely alone in his indifference. He always thought he had close friends at the university, but now he realized he didn't know them at all. And certainly they didn't know him. If they did, he would be in trouble.

This revelation was followed by another, equally momentous: his entire future depended on his ability to cry. Not just his career and his membership in the Worker's Party, his very survival was at stake. It was a matter of life and death. Jun-sang was terrified.

At first he kept his head down so nobody could see his eyes. Then he figured out that if he kept his eyes open long enough, they would burn and tear up. It was like a staring contest. Stare. Cry. Stare. Cry. Eventually it became mechanical. The body took over where the mind left off and suddenly he was really crying. He felt himself falling to his knees, rocking back and forth, sobbing just like everyone else. Nobody would be the wiser.

You Got to Take Sick and Die

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Monday morning, start of the workweek blues, by Boyd Rivers.

Cesaria Evora - RIP

2011-12-18T21:31:00.004-07:00

Cesaria Evora, the great Cape Verdean singer, died Saturday in a hospital in Cape Verde. She was 70 years old. Videos of her singing duets have appeared a couple of times on Flares, first with Salif Keita and recently singing one of her signature song Sodade with Bonga.

Rest in Peace Cesario, and thanks for the music. You'll be missed.