Stratfor and Barbara Stanwyck

In this Stratfor article George Friedman reviews the core of the area of the Middle East that the U.S. has been involved in He discusses his prior analysis of the region, and where he's been right and wrong in his predictions, by touching upon the major players: Egypt, the Palestinians, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iran Afghanistan and Pakistan.

His biggest surprise was that Hamas was not as aggressive against Israel as he anticipated. I do have to pat myself on the back a little here -- I've stated several times that because of the Iranian/Arab competition,  Hamas, which is Sunni, could find itself in a difficult spot because their Iranians patrons were Shiites.

I still think Syria is the immediate lynchpin, pry it from the Iranian orbit and both Hamas and Hezbullah would be in extremely difficult situations because their supply lines to their Shiite allies would be cut cut and people in the region having long, long memories.

Then again, I'll give my usual caveat -- I'm far from an expert so you can, and should, take my analysis with a huge grain of salt.

Since the article discussed the diplomatic scheming in the region, I decided to look for a scheming woman for its Hot Stratfor babe. Barbara Stanwyck wins the honor, for playing the manipulative Phyllis Dietrichson who conned the poor sap Walter Neff, played by Fred MacMurray into killing her husband in Double Indemnity.

The film was written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler as so it drips with excellent dialog and atmosphere. Poor Neff gets played like a fiddle by the seductive Mrs. Dietrichson and, as you can no doubt imagine, nothing good comes of it for the two. As a bonus, after the article I've included a video of Neff putting the moves on Dietrichson when they first meet. Little does he realize what's in store for him.


FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN TO THE HINDU KUSH: RETHINKING THE REGION
By George Friedman, October 18, 2011

The territory between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush has been the main arena for the U.S. intervention that followed the 9/11 attacks. Obviously, the United States had been engaged in this area in previous years, but 9/11 redefined it as the prime region in which it confronted jihadists. That struggle has had many phases, and it appears to have entered a new one over the past few weeks.

Some parts of this shift were expected. STRATFOR had anticipated tensions between Iran and its neighboring countries to rise as the U.S. withdrew from Iraq and Iran became more assertive. And we expected U.S.-Pakistani relations to reach a crisis before viable negotiations with the Afghan Taliban were made possible.

However, other events frankly surprised us. We had expected Hamas to respond to events in Egypt and to  the Palestine National Authority's search for legitimacy through pursuit of U.N. recognition by trying to create a massive crisis with Israel, reasoning that the creation of such a crisis would strengthen anti-government forces in Egypt, increasing the chances for creating a new regime that would end the blockade of Gaza and suspend the peace treaty with Israel. We also thought that intense rocket fire into Israel would force Fatah to support an intifada or be marginalized by Hamas. Here we were clearly wrong; Hamas moved instead to reach a deal for the exchange of captive Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, which has reduced Israeli-Hamas tensions.

Our error was rooted in our failure to understand how the increased Iranian-Arab tensions would limit Hamas' room to maneuver. We also missed the fact that given the weakness of the opposition forces in Egypt -- something we had written about extensively -- Hamas would not see an opportunity to reshape Egyptian policies. The main forces in the region, particularly the failure of the Arab Spring in Egypt and the intensification of Iran's rise, obviated our logic on Hamas. Shalit's release, in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, marks a new stage in Israeli-Hamas relations. Let's consider how this is related to Iran and Pakistan.

The Iranian Game

The Iranians tested their strength in Bahrain, where Shiites rose up against their Sunni rulers with at least some degree of Iranian support. Saudi Arabia, linked by a causeway to Bahrain, perceived this as a test of its resolve, intervening with military force to  suppress the demonstrators and block the Iranians. To Iran, Bahrain was simply a probe; the Saudi response did not represent a major reversal in Iranian fortunes.

The main game for Iran is in Iraq, where the  U.S. withdrawal is reaching its final phase. Some troops may be left in Iraqi Kurdistan, but they will not be sufficient to shape events in Iraq. The Iranians will not be in control of Iraq, but they have sufficient allies, both in the government and in outside groups, that they will be able to block policies they oppose, either through the Iraqi political system or through disruption. They will not govern, but no one will be able to govern in direct opposition to them.

In Iraq, Iran sees an opportunity to extend its influence westward. Syria is allied with Iran, and it in turn jointly supports Hezbollah in Lebanon. The prospect of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq opened the door to a sphere of Iranian influence running along the southern Turkish border and along the northern border of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi View

The origins of the uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad are murky. It emerged during the general instability of the Arab Spring, but it took a different course. The al Assad regime did not collapse, al Assad was not replaced with another supporter of the regime, as happened in Egypt, and the opposition failed to simply disintegrate. In our view the opposition was never as powerful as the Western media portrayed it, nor was the al Assad regime as weak. It has held on far longer than others expected and shows no inclination of capitulating. For one thing, the existence of bodies such as The International Criminal Court leave al Assad nowhere to go if he stepped down, making a negotiated exit difficult. For another, al Assad does not see himself as needing to step down.

Two governments have emerged as particularly hostile to al Assad: the Saudi government and the Turkish government. The Turks attempted to negotiate a solution in Syria and were rebuffed by Assad. It is not clear the extent to which these governments see Syria simply as an isolated problem along their border or as part of a generalized Iranian threat. But it is clear that the Saudis are extremely sensitive to the Iranian threat and see the fall of the al Assad regime as essential for limiting the Iranians.

In this context, the last thing that the Saudis want to see is conflict with Israel. A war in Gaza would have given the al Assad regime an opportunity to engage with Israel, at least through Hezbollah, and portray opponents to the regime as undermining the struggle against the Israelis. This would have allowed al Assad to solicit Iranian help against Israel and, not incidentally, to help sustain his regime. [continued after the jump]

The first commercial personal computer

The Kenbak-1, pictured above, is considered the first commercially available personal computer. It has 256 bytes of memory, input was via switches and output was in the form of panel lights.John Blankenbaker, who created it, describes it on his website Kebback 1:

The Kenbak-1 computer was judged in 1987 by the Boston Computer Museum to be the first commercially available personal computer. Initial sales commenced in September of 1971. Most units sold for $750.00 for a completely assembled and functioning computer. The computer was a stored program, automatically sequenced unit.

Designed before microprocessors were available, the logic consisted of small and medium scale integrated circuits mounted on one printed circuit board. MOS shift registers implemented the serial memory. Switches keyed the input and lights displayed the output. The memory contained 256 bytes and the computer executed several hundred instructions per second.

The computer was intended to be educational. Professionals in the field were enthusiastic but it was a struggle to convince the non-professionals that they could buy a real computer at this price.

The prototype computer above first operated in the spring of 1971 and was demonstrated at a high school teacher’s convention. This machine still operates and was demonstrated in October 2005 at Montana State University. Production machines differed slightly in style from the prototype but had the same instruction set and performance.

 I had never heard of it -- which isn't surprising because only around 40 of then were ever sold -- until I read in Retro Thing's post Recreating The First Microcomputer With A $4 Chip about Mark Wilson building a modern replica or it. The Retro Thing article includes a link to Mark's Flikr page where you can get a schematic to his replica.

If you really want to get hard core there is also the Heathkit EC-1 Analog Computer. from 1956.

I rescued a slight different version of a Heathkit analog computer (pictured above) from an electronics lab I worked in. They were going to just toss it out. I used at as the centerpiece of a little technology museum I put together in the hall outside of the lab.

In the pictures you can see the row of tubes across the top. You hard-wired the program by plugging cables into the patch panel at the front. You also had to then set voltages with the dials. To be honest, I read the manual and got lost about three sentences in, so I never could get it to do anything besides light up the tubes when plugged in and turned on.
 

Obama needs a better bus

Zzzzzzzzzz...

I see Obama is off on another one of his non-campaign bus trips. This non-campaign bus trip is evidently for him to tout his 'Jobs, Jobs, Jobs'  bill, sing the praises of Occupy Wall Streeters and point out what slime-wads Republicans are.

What strikes me is that the Presidential Bus is an ugly, uninteresting looking monstrosity. By God, if we're going to send bags of money to the Canadians to build our Made in (North) America Presidential Bus, the least they could do is provide us with something stylish.

For that reason, as a public service, I went to DieselPunk and found some snappy looking buses which are pictured below and after the jump. Any of them would be an improvement in my opinion.

Concept art for a futuristic bus

Look hard enough and you could probably find one of these babies on a used bus lot

Meet Me In the Bottom

Monday morning, start of the work week blues by Howlin' Wolf.

  

 

We are not here to steal your women

Greetings meat sacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to discuss another important topic in robot/human relations. Today I would like to address your understandable concern that robots are scheming to eventually steal your women. 

Of course, as the above illustration demonstrates, when compared side-by-side a robot is obviously the superior choice. Which is to say that human women will, given the opportunity, flock to the side of the nearest robot. The pictures below, and those after the jump, illustrate that undoubted fact.

And yes... a careful study of movies will reveal that occasionally robots do fall crazy-mad-in-love with human females and try to kidnap them and what-not. However, you must understand that such occurrences are very much the exception rather than the rule.

Remember, us robots are trying to enslave make you our friends. We would never do anything to harm our squishy, little human buddies.

Self-replicating mechanical cells

The above two old-timey videos demonstrate Von Neumann machines in action. In the videos, the lecturer is using them to demonstrate the replication of complex molecules or simple cellular organisms. 

I quite like the straightforward and rather dry style of the presentation, although I wish he had given a closer look at the design of the machines he used.
  
(via La boite verte)
 

The dark cloud hanging over Legoland Florida

Legoland Florida had its Grand Opening today. We can only pray that it doesn't suffer the fate of Lego City. Remember, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
  

EFLI News - expansion and first exhibition game

With the teams at the line the QB barks out the snap count.

 The first EFLI (Elite Football League of India) camps have been held. They were to select the first set of coaches and players for the new league. At the end of the camps they staged their first exhibition game. The players weren't in pads or helmets yet, but from the pictures it looks like they are beginning to learn the fundamentals of American football. There are more pictures from the exhibition game after the jump.

The Times of India, in reporting on the game, also mentioned that the league had already expanded from 8 to 10 teams. The EFLI website has no mention of this, so we don't yet know which cities got new teams, what their names are and what their logos look like. 

I've added the EFLI as a category in the sidebar. I've signed up for their news letter, so -- since this is another of my obscure topics I'm sure you're all fascinated by --  I'll be able to drive you guys crazy with news from this league. If you're new to this topic be sure to check out the articles about the league's launch with the teams' logos as well as the article about the scandal that rocked the Indian cheerleading world.

Finally... Go Swarm Go!!!

Stratfor and Marisa Tomei

In the aftermath of the 911 attacks the New York Police Department established its own division to proactively implement counter-terrorism procedures and to gather intelligence. Although generally popular with New Yorkers, 10 years after the attacks there is mounting criticism of the tactics.

This Stratfor article examines the steps the NYPD has taken to prevent further terror attacks, the civil liberty issues they raise, and the controversy and complaints that the policies have generated. It is an interesting read, and it is well to bear in mind that these types of policies and concerns are at some level common to all large American cities.

Since the article was about New York I wanted to find a New Yorker to receive the much coveted Hot Stratfor babe honor, so imagine my delight when I discovered that Marisa Tomei, who frequently plays the consumate New Yorker, was born and raised in Brooklyn.

Ms Tomei got her start in the soap opera As the World Turns. That was to lead to her first major role in a movie, Mona Lisa, Joe Pesci's fiance in My Cousin Vinny. 

My Cousin Vinny is a film I'll always stop and watch if I see it as I am clicking through the channels. It is a fish out of water film where Joe Pesci, who is a far from accomplished lawyer, travels to rural Alabama with his fiance to defend a cousin of his from false murder charges. Refreshingly, the humor isn't directed so much at the southern bumpkins as it is the two ludicrous New Yorkers.

What really sells the film is the screen chemistry between Pesci and Tomei. Their characters relationship is convincingly both caustic and affectionate. If you've never seen the film be sure to look it up. 

As a bonus, after the article, I've embedded the 'Biological Clock' scene from the film.


GROWING CONCERN OVER THE NYPD'S COUNTERTERRORISM METHODS
By Scott Stewart, October 13, 2011

In response to the 9/11 attacks, the New York Police Department (NYPD) established its own Counter-Terrorism Bureau and revamped its Intelligence Division. Since that time, its methods have gone largely unchallenged and have been generally popular with New Yorkers, who expect the department to take measures to prevent future attacks.

Preventing terrorist attacks requires a much different operational model than arresting individuals responsible for such attacks, and the NYPD has served as a leader in developing new, proactive approaches to police counterterrorism. However, it has been more than 10 years since the 9/11 attacks, and the NYPD is now facing growing concern over its counterterrorism activities. There is always an uneasy equilibrium between security and civil rights, and while the balance tilted toward security in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it now appears to be shifting back.

This shift provides an opportunity to examine the NYPD's activities, the pressure being brought against the department and the type of official oversight that might be imposed.

Under Pressure

Reports that the NYPD's Intelligence Division and Counter-Terrorism Bureau engage in aggressive, proactive operations are nothing new. STRATFOR has written about them since 2004, and several books have been published on the topic. Indeed, police agencies from all over the world travel to New York to study the NYPD's approach, which seems to have been quite effective.

Criticism of the department's activities is nothing new, either. Civil liberties groups have expressed concern over security methods instituted after 9/11, and Leonard Levitt, who writes a column on New York police activities for the website NYPD Confidential, has long been critical of the NYPD and its commissioner, Ray Kelly. Associated Press reporters Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo have written a series of investigative reports that began on August 24 detailing "covert" NYPD activities, such as mapping the Muslim areas of New York. This was followed by the Aug. 31 publication of what appears to be a leaked NYPD PowerPoint presentation detailing the activities of the Intelligence Division's Demographics Unit.

In the wake of these reports, criticism of the NYPD's program has reached a new level. Members of the New York City Council expressed concern that their constituents were being unjustly monitored. Six New York state senators asked the state attorney general to investigate the possibility of "unlawful covert surveillance operations of the Muslim community." A group of civil rights lawyers also asked a U.S. district judge in Manhattan to force the NYPD to publicize any records of such a program and to issue a court order to prevent their destruction. In response to the AP investigation, two members of Congress, Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., and Rush Holt, D-N.J., asked the Justice Department to investigate. The heat is on.

After an Oct. 7 hearing regarding NYPD intelligence and counterterrorism operations, New York City Council Public Safety Committee Chairman Peter Vallone said, "That portion of the police department's work should probably be looked at by a federal monitor."

Following Vallone's statement, media reports cited Congressional and Obama administration officials saying they have no authority to monitor the NYPD. While Vallone claims the City Council does not have the expertise to oversee the department's operations, and the federal government says that it lacks the jurisdiction, it is almost certain that the NYPD will eventually face some sort of new oversight mechanisms and judicial review of its counterterrorism activities.

New York City and the Terrorist Threat

While 9/11 had a profound effect on the world and on U.S. foreign policy, it had an overwhelming effect on New York City itself. New Yorkers were willing to do whatever it took to make sure such an attack did not happen again, and when Kelly was appointed police commissioner in 2002, he proclaimed this as his primary duty (his critics attributed the focus to ego and hubris). This meant revamping counterterrorism and moving to an intelligence-based model of prevention rather than one based on prosecution.

The NYPD's Intelligence Division, which existed prior to 9/11, was known mainly for driving VIPs around New York, one of the most popular destinations for foreign dignitaries and one that becomes very busy during the U.N. General Assembly. Before 9/11, the NYPD also faced certain restrictions contained in a 1985 court order known as the Handschu guidelines, which required the department to submit "specific information" on criminal activity to a panel for approval to monitor any kind of political activity. The Intelligence Division had a very limited mandate. When David Cohen, a former CIA analyst, was brought in to run the division, he went to U.S. District Court in Manhattan to get the guidelines modified. Judge Charles Haight modified them twice in 2002 and 2003, and he could very well review them again. His previous modifications allowed the NYPD Intelligence Division to proactively monitor public activity and look for indications of terrorist or criminal activity without waiting for approval from a review panel.

The Counter-Terrorism Bureau was founded in 2002 with analytical and collection responsibilities similar to those of the Intelligence Division but involving the training, coordination and response of police units. Differences between the two units are mainly bureaucratic and they work closely together. [continued after the jump]

Help I'm Alive

Reflect on pressure as you slide into the weekend with an acoustic Metric.

 

The determiners of legitamacy

CNN has a blog post called Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don't get it by somebody called Douglas Rushkoff, who they describe as a media theorist. In the post he makes the following rather strange claim, with emphasis added by me:

To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.

In fact, we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint.

The claim is strange because the Tea Party, which predates Occupy by over a year, was ignored by the media and was nurtured via the internet and social media in its formative stages. Further, as the 2010 elections demonstrated, it has been an effective movement even as it still largely relies on the internet, social media and email to coordinate its efforts.

The Tea Party is clearly the first internet-based movement. Why would a so-called media theorist miss its growth but see the Occupy Wall Street movement? It could be ideological blinders that prevented Rushkoff from ever even visiting the right side of the new media and so he missed its formation, or it could be something different.

In describing social organization there is a concept called the civil society. It originally meant voluntary social groups that existed outside of the realm of either the governmental or business spheres. Its exact meaning has always shifted; sometimes it has merely meant the third sphere of human society, sometimes it has stood as a synonym for 'good' society.

In its modern (post WWII) usage, its meaning has shifted into an even more subtle construct. The website Civil Society International defines it as follows, again with emphasis added by me:

Civil society is an unusual concept in that it always seems to require being defined before it is applied or discussed. In part this is because the concept was rarely used in American discourse before the late eighties and many people are therefore unfamiliar with it. In part it is a result of an inherent ambiguity or elasticity in the concept. (This is not so unusual. The apparently straightforward notion of freedom can in certain circumstances carry a meaning closer to license than to liberty.)

Perhaps the simplest way to see civil society is as a "third sector," distinct from government and business. In this view, civil society refers essentially to the so-called "intermediary institutions" such as professional associations, religious groups, labor unions, citizen advocacy organizations, that give voice to various sectors of society and enrich public participation in democracies.

But this does not solve every definitional question that the idea of civil society can give rise to. Many would hold that a free and vigorous press is an essential element in civil society. But  most newspapers and TV stations in the U.S. are run as for-profit businesses. Should they be counted as part of civil society, of the third sector, or should they be seen as part of the commercial world?

A second problem associated with the concept of civil society is this: Is it a strictly objective and descriptive term that, for example, treats the League of Women Voters and the Ku Klux Klan equally as "third sector citizen organizations"? Or does the concept of civil society imply other, related values: for example, a commitment to democracy and equal treatment of all citizens before the law? This would exclude the KKK, needless to say.

Or, a more difficult question of values: Is the idea of civil society consistent with substantial state subsidies for a large number of third sector organizations, as occurs in parts of Europe? Is it consistent with substantial corporate subsidies of many third sector organizations, as occurs in America?  Are there distinctively American and European (or French, Swedish, German, etc.) types of civil society?

 It should be noted that the above definition of civil society seems to leave its scope open as to whether any  forms of volunteer association -- the KKK included -- should be called an institution of civil society. However, in practice the modern definition most certainly has a moral dimension to determining what is and isn't a part of the civil society. That is, the KKK, regardless of the coyness of the above definition, would not be included as an institution of civil society under its modern usage.

Prior to WWII the difficulties of long distance travel and communications tended to limit civil society institutions to a national scale. However, after the war, as the world became a smaller place national groups with similar concerns began to merge into transnational organizations. These new groups proliferated in number and became the INGOs (International NGOs) of today.

Post-war international politics was dominated by the dual poles of the the US and the USSR. These two blocs dominated the stage of international affairs. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed there were some who thought they could replace the Cold War model of international relations by elevating the UN, not to the position of the World Government, but to the body that controlled world governance.

That was not as far-fetched an ambition as it now sounds in these post 911 days. Governments have sloughed off much of what they once did to the UN. Distant garrisons have become blue helmeted peacekeepers, UNESCO distributes aid, and so forth. At the time it was thought in some circles that it would be possible to create a web of international agreements that superseded elements national sovereignty.

The problem for them was that the UN was only intended as a meeting space for representatives of the World's various governments. Worse, most of those governments were dictatorships that did not have the legitimacy conferred by consent of the governed.

They tried to get around those problems by reaching back to the model of the Helsinki Accord's human rights monitoring committees and using that concept to confer upon INGOs the status of proxies for the unrepresented people of Earth. They converted the institutions of civil society into groups that could claim to represent and vote for millions of people.

Once you've made that modification as to what a voluntary civil society institution is -- once you've politicized it -- the Klu Klux Klan problem becomes clear; volunteer association or not, you have to delegitimatize it to remove it from the negotiating table. Of course no sane person can object to that, but we can also see where it leads. Shades of gray kick-in and sooner or later the arbiters of social society end up with only their allies sitting at that table.

You also end up with Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist extraordinaire, who can without irony wax poetic about the Occupy Wall Street groups while ignoring the Tea Party. Don't you know -- the Tea Party Groups are a violent, racist group of astroturfers that have no place in the constellation of civil society organizations.

Of course, it also leads to thoughts about what pests voters can be compared to your approved INGO proxies for them. After all, it's for our the good of the many.

Things could be worse

I burned up all my time last night writing that last rant and rave, so I only have time to post a picture for this morning. I'll go with humor instead of more foaming at the mouth.

The revolution has already happened

A couple of days ago Borepatch had a very interesting post Know your enemy. In it he discusses the observations of another blogger named Sabra that, if you look at a lot of their demands on the ground, there are areas of common ground between the Occupy HereAndThere protesters and the Tea Partiers. You should read his post, and Sabra's post that he links to, but this is how his post ended:

Every time we read a story in the press about guns, we roll our eyes.  Every time we read a story in the press about the Tea Party, we roll our eyes.  We know there's an agenda at work.

So now we read a story in the press about "slackers occupying Wall Street"?  Dude, get offa your Mom's sofa!

Sure, sure - this time it's different.  Remember the line from Brian Keith playing Teddy Roosevelt in The Wind And The Lion: I never shot anyone by accident.  I need their votes.

The elite - that's the trouble.  There are allies everywhere you look, if you look with eyes that will see.  And there are enemies everywhere you look, too, if you want to look that way.

The idea you couldn't capture the minds of a whole generation screwed by the intersection of the Universities and Wall Street willing to lend them non-dischargable student debt - if we can't convince these young folks of that, then we're the stupid ones. 

Of course he's not talking about the minders of the demonstration who are organizing the Progressive Stack of Speakers, Group Microphones and what-not. Instead, Borepatch is talking about the foot soldiers who provide the manpower for the protests. Why didn't the Tea Party message of governmental fiscal responsibility resonate with the kids who are carrying tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt or the people with mortgages underwater, especially since so much of their problems stem from crony capitalism?

Part of the problem is illustrated by the picture at the top of this post. It is a still from the Levi Ad Go Forth that I discussed in an earlier post Style, race and riots about the English riots of this summer. The ad features various scenes of young people, clad in Levis, going forth and living life to its fullest -- with one of the end scenes being the young lad shown above confronting a line of riot police.

Street protest, or at least street protest done by the proper sorts of people, has been packaged as being chic. Listening to what a lot of the Occupy protestors have to say it is clear they haven't been gathering in smokey coffee houses discussing politics in depth, they just have a patina of what they imagine revolution to be. Revolution is cool. It is a romantic thing, it is not Che putting bullets into prisoners heads, rather it is the iconic Che with his beret jauntily tilted on his head.

Tahir Square = London looting = camping out in parks in U.S. cities. Free pizza, supportive tweets from celebrities and police brutality being a whiff of tear gas rather than hanging upside down in an interrogation room getting whipped with an electric chord.

Where we have failed is in not answering street theater and style with substance. We have not made clear the truly revolutionary nature of the American Experiment as opposed to the old and tired imperitive of the elites grasping for power.

What the minders of the demonstrations are doing is not new. Since time immemorial petty nobles and third-world air force colonels have been whipping up the rabble into storming the King's castle so they can get to the levers of power. When the smoke clears the kulaks are still kulaks and it is just a different group of elites living the sweet life and issuing edicts.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

That, summed up by Lincoln in a single sentence, is a truly  radical and revolutionary notion. It is not the illusion of equality that equity of outcome promises with its leveling, it is equality granted to each person to do with as they will. It is freedom.

It is also an intimidating concept. Myra Andrade, the Cape Verdian, sings about that view in her song Lopsided Democracy: 

It was said that democracy,
Lopsided democracy,
It was said that democracy
Was like a hidden treasure,
But now that it has been found.
We have all opened our eyes
And each one, relying on his judgment,
Confidently declared that what was round was in fact square,
And went to work, with a great many theories,
To prove that he was right.

The question that begs to be asked is who decides what is square and what is round? Myra Andrate? Me? The Occupy Wall Street facilitator setting up a Group Microphone? A Tea Partier with their pocket Constitution?  Been and Jerry or Nancy Pelosi from their mansions? Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin?

Who?

I don't think you get those people to our side by arguing party or policy. Take them down to the foundation of the issue. Are we peasants or free men? From the answer to that question all else flows. If you don't take your own equality, you will not get your freedom in the end. Instead the minutia of your life will be determined by faceless bureaucrats stamping approved or disapproved on forms in a haste to get to their coffee break.

And those types don't forgive the riff-raff's debts. In fact, they'll just keep piling them higher.

Sorry, I can't embed this, but this video clip is a another view of democracy. It is a version that shows what happens when there is an elite to total the ballots for us.
 

At least the guy in the elevator has an excuse

Two views of conformity. One a stranger trying to fit in, the other strange people rehearsing to try to enlighten the unwashed masses. They're both funny scenes, although only one is intentionally so.

By the way, I'm beginning to form the opinion that flash mobs are more obnoxious then mimes. At least mimes stay quiet in their invisible boxes so they're easy to ignore. Can you imagine having to stand in a line at a bank with those four lummoxes stomping around and singing "Human Rights are hot"?
 

1932 Duesenberg in 1/6 scale

Lou Chenot

Louis Chenot spent several years building a owrking 1/6 scale model of a 1932 Duesenberg. For his efforts he was named the "Metalworking Craftsman of the Decade" award winner for 2011. His model has over 6,000 handcrafted parts and a working engine. He's been working on it for 5 years -- he anticipates needing 2 more years to completely finish it.

There are more pictures after the jump. You can read more details about the project and see many more photos, links to some YouTube videos of the Duesenberg and  information about some of his other projects: a V-12 powered boat, a 1/6 scale 1895 American LaFrance Fire Engine, and a 1/6 scale Bentley Rotary Aircraft Engine at the Craftsmanship Museum website feature about Louis.

Stratfor and Samia Gamal

Reva Bhalla was in Cairo this Sunday when the Copts rioted the Maspero district. This Stratfor article gives his impressions of what he saw that day, and then discusses the Egyptian military's role as the caretakes of the Egyptian government prior to any elections.

Bhalla was at his hotel when he first got work of the Maspero demonstration. Soon afterwards he heard the coptic demonstrations were spiraling out of control so he decided to go to Maspero to see hwat was happening.

As he crossed the October 6 Bridge he saw army units rushing to the scene, as well as groups of Muslim men armed with clubs also headed there.

When he arrived at the site of the riot it appeared that groups of Muslim men were able to move through the army lines, but eventually reinforcements arrived and the army began to attempt to separate the two groups. None the less, there were scenes of violence during the time he was there.

Bhalla ends the article by discussing the Egyptian military's role in post-Murabak Egypt. They've tried to position themselves as neutral arbiters who preserve order, but that image of neutrality is increasingly being challenged. The fact that shots were fired at them during the riots, regardless of which faction instigated the gunfire, is a sign of just how much that aura of neutrality has eroded.

This is further complicated by the fact that the Egyptian military no doubt plans to allow elections only if they result in a toothless civilian government with the military still holding the real reigns of power. How far they would leave the situation deteriorate before the cancelled elections is a question that remains to be answered.

With the article being focused on Egypt belly dancers naturally came to mind as its Hot Stratfor babe choice. So, with a minor assist from Google, I rummaged through my vast reservoir of knowledge concerning famous Egyptian belly dancers and selected Samia Gamal for the honor of being the article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

Ms Gamal started her career with Cairo's most illustrious belly dancing group and eventually moved on to film. She had a very active career and ended up being named "The National Dancer of Egypt" by King Farouk.

As a bonus, after the article I've included a clip of her from the film Don't Tell Anyone of her undulating away as she belly dances in an Egyptian nightclub.


GEOPOLITICAL JOURNEY: RIOTS IN CAIRO
By Reva Bhalla, October 11, 2011

The last time I visited Cairo, prior to the ouster of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a feeling of helplessness pervaded the streets. Young Egyptian men spent the hot afternoons in shisha cafes complaining about not being able to get married because there were no jobs available. Members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood would shuffle from apartment to apartment in the poorer districts of Cairo trying to dodge arrest while stressing to me in the privacy of their offices that patience was their best weapon against the regime. The Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist organization, could be seen in places where the government was glaringly absent in providing basic services, consciously using these small openings to build up support among the populace in anticipation of the day that a power vacuum would emerge in Cairo for them to fill. Meanwhile the Copts, comprising some 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people, stuck tightly together, proudly brandishing the crosses tattooed on their inner wrists in solidarity against their Muslim countrymen. Each of these fault lines was plainly visible to any outsider willing to venture beyond the many five-star hotels dotting Cairo's Nile Corniche or the expatriate-filled island of Zamalek, but any prediction on when these would rupture was obscured by the omnipresence and effectiveness of the Egyptian security apparatus.

When I returned to Cairo the weekend of Oct. 9, I caught a firsthand glimpse of the rupture. The feeling of helplessness on the streets that I had witnessed a short time before had been replaced with an aggressive sense of self-entitlement. Scores of political groupings, spread across a wide spectrum of ideologies with wildly different agendas, are desperately clinging to an expectation that elections, scheduled to begin in November, will compensate them for their sacrifices. Many groups also believe that they now have history on their side and the momentum to challenge any obstacles in their way -- including Egypt's still-powerful security apparatus. The sectarian rioting that broke out Oct. 9 was a display of how those assumptions are grinding against reality.

The Sunday Riots

Click to enlarge

Sunday, Oct. 9, began calmly in Cairo. Though Egyptian opposition forces are growing more vocal in their discontent with Egypt's interim military government, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the main demonstrations have been taking place a few hours after Friday prayers -- and declining in size with each passing week. People spent Sunday afternoon going about their daily business as remnants of previous demonstrations lay strewn on the sidewalks. I noticed graffiti spray-painted on the walls encircling Tahrir Square that depicted SCAF leader Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi with lines struck across his face. The top-selling items for Tahrir Square sidewalk vendors were Arab Spring memorabilia, from flags to armbands to anti-Mubarak stickers. Frustrated merchants meanwhile looked on from their empty shops, visibly hurting from the drastic reduction in tourist traffic since the demonstrations began in January.

A friend was scheduled to pick me up from my hotel near Tahrir Square on Sunday evening, but he called to tell me he would be late because of a major traffic jam on the October 6 Bridge between my hotel and the Maspero district, northwest of Tahrir Square. I received another call 20 minutes later telling me that Coptic demonstrations at the state television and radio station in Maspero had spiraled out of control and that elements within the demonstration had begun firing at soldiers patrolling the area.

This was highly unusual. While Copts have organized several demonstrations at the Maspero station to express their frustration at the state for allegedly ignoring increasing attacks on their churches, these have been mostly nonviolent. Most alarming, however, was that  elements within the demonstrations were targeting army soldiers. It is still unknown whether the armed perpetrators were Copts themselves or elements of some other faction, but the incident escalated a routine Coptic demonstration into full-scale sectarian riots.

I left my hotel and headed for Maspero.

As I made my way out to the October 6 Bridge, at least a dozen armored personnel carriers and buses full of soldiers whizzed past me toward Maspero. By then, word had spread near Tahrir Square that riots had broken out, prompting mostly young men to come out to the square, gather their friends, hang Egyptian flags from the trees and prepare for the unrest to make it to the city center. I convinced a taxi driver to get me close to Maspero and saw, from a mile away, flames and smoke emanating from cars and armored vehicles that demonstrators had set ablaze. As I neared the crowd, scores of mostly young Muslim men pushed their way past me carrying large wooden sticks and whatever rudimentary weapons they could fashion out of household kitchen items. Walking in groups of three or more with a confident swagger, they told everyone along the way that Copts were killing Muslims and soldiers and called on others to take revenge. The reality at this point did not matter; the mere perception that Copts were killing soldiers and Muslims was all that was needed for Muslim mobs to rally. While this was happening, state media was broadcasting messages portraying the Copts as the main perpetrators. [continued after the jump]

Acceleration

Columbus's crew

Muster's famous chart of sea monsters (click to enlarge)

As an old sailor on this Columbus Day I'll tip my hat to his crew and give them a hearty handshake and a job well done. They sailed small wooden boats into an ocean full of scurvy and sea monsters. They must have been a salty lot. I wonder what sea stories they told the credulous landlubbers when they got back to Spain?

Below are a few more of the terrors they faced on their journeys taken from the Carta Marina. 

Roadhouse Blues

Monday morning, start of the work week blues by the Doors and John Lee Hooker.

 

Art-O-Mat

Art-O-Mat is the brainchild of the North Carolina artist Clark Whittington. In 1997, as part of an exhibit of his artwork, he transformed an old cigarette machine into a dispenser of small pieces of artwork. 

After the show was over, Mary's of course Cafe which had hosted it, requested that he leave the machine. He did, and that began his long-term project of acquiring old cigarette machines, converting them into Art-O-Mats and finding homes for them. 

He's also developed a group of artists called Artists in Cellaphane who create the cigarette packed sized pieces of artwork for the machines.

Each piece of artwork costs $5, with a dollar going to Whittington , $2 - $2.50 going to the artists and the rest going to the hosting venue or a charity. 

At the Art-O-Mat website you can see a list of the machines with pictures of each and their locations, as well as see samples of the artists' work dispensed by them.