Conspiracy Theories

People love conspiracy theories.  They make up and passionately defend theories about events that have patently obvious explanations.  Like the moon landings.  The obvious explanation being that they happened exactly as they appeared.  Like 9/11.  What more explanation does one need than the evidence provided on live TV at the time?  Was there a cover-up?  I'm sure there was.  But like the cover-ups surrounding JFK's assassination, they were designed to hide incompetence beforehand, panic at the time, and rash actions afterwards.  The granddaddy of all conspiracy theories is creationism.  How can something  so important as me come about by chance?

Conspiracy theories are the modern, socially acceptable form of superstition.  Studies have shown that the less control people have over their environment, the more prone they are to superstition.  This should not be a surprise because superstition is a positive (though undesirable) behavior.  The human mind making sense of the world and seeking patterns creates artifacts.  Superstitions are the artifacts.  Their presence has nothing to do with intelligence.  They are due to lack of information, societal conformity and economy of effort.  Most people don't spend time learning about or understanding things they don't need to.  Most of the exceptions only learn or understand extra stuff that they are interested in.

Scratch the surface of anyone's understanding of the world and you will find lots of magical thinking.  How does your TV work?  How about the Internet you are using to access this post?  They just work, and we don't need to understand the details if we don't want to.  But importantly, we have a kind of story at the back of our minds about how these things work.  That's the societal narrative.  A shared set of short-hand explanations.  When these explanations are grounded in evidence we call it science.  When grounded in belief, we call it faith.  When grounded in prejudice or ignorance, or nothing at all, we call it superstition.  What all these share is a desire to discern cause and effect.  A need to describe the structure of the world and the individual's place in it.

When the explanation for extraordinary events is inconsistent with people's life experience, they look for a new pattern that is more consistent.  Not a bad thing on the face of it.  But a lot of events are random or chaotic.  Despite their importance, they were unanticipated because nobody thought they could ever happen.  For example, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.  There are people who look at the evidence available before the event and conclude that the powers that be must have known.  The evidence of impending attack went from suggestive a few weeks beforehand to persuasive a few days before to conclusive within an hour of the attack.  Yet it was a total surprise.   The idea that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbour on that sunny Sunday morning never entered the heads of those in Hawaii until the funny looking planes dropped bombs that really went off.  Since a Japanese attack was an idea that never formed, all the evidence that is so obvious in retrospect was dismissed or misinterpreted.

Unfortunately, if you want to believe that governments are on top of things, that things should work as they are supposed to, such failures are problematic.  The Japanese shouldn't be able to sneak a fleet within striking distance of Hawaii undetected.  A loser like Lee Oswald shouldn't be able to kill JFK with a cheap mail-order rifle.  An avowed enemy of America like Osama bin Laden shouldn't be able to use the US air travel system to stage devastating attacks.  But these events happened.  Conspiracy theory bridges the gap.  Roosevelt knew, but wanted the US in the war.  JFK was killed by Castro, or the Mob, or Lyndon Johnson.  The World Trade Center was blown up, not destroyed by an airplane.  Because little things and little men shouldn't be able to cause big events.  Big events need big causes.  This proportionality is ingrained.  It comes from early life experience and is an essential understanding of how the world works.  So when the world doesn't work the way its supposed to, we fill in the blanks necessary to make it appear as if it does.  But ascribing events to the evil eye, or curses, or black cats is declasse.  The need remains, but the traditional methods are unavailable.  We make up new ones.

Nobody is immune to magical thinking.  We routinely blame cancer on luck or lifestyle.  In fact, virtually every human over the age of 70 either has or will get cancer.  Its almost universal.  No matter how enlightened we imagine ourselves, people in 200 years will wonder at our astounding ignorance.  Its no wonder then, that conspiracy theories proliferate.  They are part of human nature.  They will be around as long as we are.

Pix

Apropos of nothing, here is a map of Slovenia.  The country became independent in 1991 and has a population of 2 million.

Fun Facts To Know And Share

Iceland has the highest per-capita consumption of Coca-Cola in the world.

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A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
Paul Erdo
via Gabriel Robins

Canada Should Leave Afghanistan

      Photo: DND
The Afghan war is lost.  We can't win, and the British, at least, are willing to admit it .  Nobody has successfully subjugated the Pashtun in more than 400 years.  To beat one would-be conqueror after another, they've used exactly the same strategy.  Wear down the enemy until they are too tired or too weak to continue.  Not only does it work every time, its working now .  In addition, the Taliban enjoy some support from parts of the Pakistani government.  To a certain extent, we are fighting a proxy war against Pakistan.

Canada entered Afghanistan as a part of our obligations under NATO.  I agreed with our intervention at the time, and still think it was the right thing to do.  However, no matter our international obligations, we cannot honorably ask our soldiers to die in a war we know can't be won.  This war can't be won.  Possibly it could have been in 2002 or 2003, but not anymore.  Canada should withdraw our troops, first to their bases, and then home.

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Mount Everest Maria Stenzel National Geographic

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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.
Yogi Berra
via Gabriel Robins

President Toxic

      George Bush channels Philip II of Spain
There is a category of leader that is beyond bad.  Beyond incompetent, dishonest, or any of the other faults usually attributed to politicians.  These are the toxic leaders.  People so bad that their countries suffer for years and sometimes centuries as a result of their follies.  Such an exalted club must by definition have few members.  Most would-be toxic leaders fail, die or are deposed before they can do real damage.  It is rare that someone so bad can get into a position of unaccountable power and keep it long enough to have a real impact.

Among Western leaders, I'd nominate Phillip II of Spain, Nicholas II of Russia, Wilhelm II of Germany, Nero and Adolf Hitler.  I'm not familiar enough with Middle East, South or East Asian history to pick out their candidates.  Numerous others are close, but were saved by chance, death, outside circumstances or great successors.  I'd put Napoleon, Alexander III of Russia, Stalin, Edward II of England, James Buchanan (USA), Herbert Hoover (USA), John of England, Charles I of England, Charles IV of France, Louis XVI of France and most Hapsburgs in this category.  John of England, for example was a terrible king, but the lasting impact of his rule was the Magna Carta, a net positive.  Stalin, on the other hand, would be a shoo-in if you consider his performance from 1922 to 1941.  But winning WW2 and casting the Soviet Union as a superpower changed the game. Obviously, there is a lot of room for argument here, but its a start.

Its dangerous to write history too soon after the fact.  Things that look important at the time are sometimes less so afterwards.  For example, the 1969 moon landing did not prove to be the turning point in human history thought at the time.  Apollo 8's photographs of the earth from moon orbit actually had more impact than anything else accomplished by the US space program.  And things that didn't register on the contemporary radar can have profound effects.  HIV became a global epidemic in the 1970's without causing a ripple.

It is with these caveats that I consider George Bush.  Before the current economic crisis, I had thought that by definition, Buchanan had to be the worst US President because he failed to prevent civil war.  But George Bush has raised his game, and the stakes of his failure.  He is a bit like Phillip II who took potentially the richest and most powerful country in Europe and turned her into a backwater for 400 years.  Through greed, corruption, arrogance and stunning incompetence, George Bush has taken the richest and most powerful country in history to the brink of disaster.  On any index the US is worse off now than in 2000.  Life expectancy is lower, child mortality is up, income is lower, and debt far higher.  Drug use has increased dramatically while the US has put 25% of all the worlds convicts behind bars.  The US Army is breaking under the load of two un-winnable and staggeringly expensive wars.  US strategic position has suffered enormously under the Bush administration, leaving the US unable to get its way in many important issues.  Domestically, the US has seen a dangerous and corrupting outsourcing of critical government functions to the private sector.  Billions have been thrown into the black hole of "security", leaving Americans less flexible, less secure, and less able to compete with other countries.  The rule of law has been widely subverted with consequences yet to be fully appreciated.  A full accounting of illegal activities by the Bush Administration will probably take many years. The whole thing has been paid for with borrowed money, and the creditors are getting edgy.

Despite this damning record, Bush may yet be saved from toxicity by circumstance or succession.  His follies may not have lasting damage, or Obama could turn things around.  After all, Buchanan doesn't make the toxic list because of Lincoln.  Edward II doesn't make it because of Edward III.  Nevertheless, George Bush will be remembered for a long time.  Few have ever held such power.  Few have abused it so thoroughly.  Fewer still have used it to bring a great country to its knees.
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Note: The US electorate are saved full blame because Bush stole both the 2000 and 2004 elections.  That's a controversial claim, but I think when we know everything that happened in Ohio in 2004, the claim will be confirmed.

The Other Election

Stephan Dion, Liberal Party Leader
There is actually an election happening here in Canada.  You wouldn't know it from this blog.  That doesn't mean its uninteresting.  Parliamentary elections are usually a lot more action packed than the interminable US type.  For the non-Canadians, there are five important parties.  That's right, five.  From left to right, The Green Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party.  Despite the number of parties, the spectrum they cover is well within the footprint of the US Democratic Party.  There is no real equivalent to the US Republican party.  The joke in 2004 was that Kerry could never have been elected here either.  He was way too right wing.  Even so, there are elements in the Conservative Party that would like to move the country a lot farther to the right.

The Conservatives have a minority government and have broken their own law to call an election early in hopes of getting a majority.  Stephen Harper wants that majority so much you can see his frustration every time he opens his mouth.  Harper isn't a bad Prime Minister, but he's a control freak and a major asshole.  Its only his government's lack of a majority that has kept his more nasty right-wing tendencies in check.  A lot of Canadians are worried about what would happen if he gained his majority.  Unfortunately, the left-wing vote is split between three parties, four in Quebec.

In addition, the not well liked Liberal leader Stephan Dion has stirred a lot of uncertainty with radical environmental plans.  The plans are complicated, not easily explained, and probably expensive.  Sensing a potential electoral setback, his party is not fully supportive of either the leader or his plans.  Rivals had joined the party opportunistically before Dion was chosen leader, and have remained in expectation of another shot at the leadership soon after an election loss.

On the far left, well not that far left, the NDP is being challenged by the emergent Green Party.  We currently have one too many parties on the left as a result. A rationalization would be good for the country.  If the Greens manage to elect anyone, they will be the kingmakers if the result is a minority government.  This kind of thing makes Parliamentary elections potentially a lot more fun than US elections.  Usually not, though.  A Prime Minister with a majority in Parliament wields a lot more power than a US President, but must use it with more finesse.  They are accountable not only to the electorate, but to their party colleagues.  Sitting Prime Ministers have been deposed as a result of party coups.  It doesn't happen often, but it doesn't need to.  The practice is a nice adaptation of Voltaire's famous definition of democracy tempered with the occasional assassination as the best form of government.

Although an admirer of the US system of government, with its elaborate checks and balances, I think the official adoption of a two party system has become a fatal flaw.  Most other well functioning democracies have three main parties.  This helps to keep everyone if not honest, at least on their toes.  Parties can be and are completely wiped out from time to time.  Unlike the leadership assassinations described above, a complete wipe-out is delivered by the voters.  The Conservative Party, for example, was wiped out in 1993.  They went from a majority to just 2 seats.  The Party collapsed and was eventually "merged" with a different right-wing party that took the Conservative name.  That Party was led by Stephen Harper.

Despite Harper's apparent advantage, the election isn't going well.  Numerous blunders have kept them on the defensive.  They've answered with some nasty personal attacks on Dion.  The image above is from one of these commercials.  They really piss me off, and I'm not usually a Liberal supporter.  The ads reveal the nasty side of the Conservatives and give an indication of the approach they will take if they get a majority.
Right now, it looks like the result will be a Conservative minority somewhat larger than they had before the election.  If that's the case, then the real action will start afterwards.  Harper will have to answer to his party for three failures to secure a majority.  Dion will have to fend off rivals smelling blood and the NDP may have to justify its existence.

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The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

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It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Unmatched in cynicism, Talleyrand was nevertheless understood the dirty business of politics better than almost anyone in European history. Were I in the business of politics I'd be hesitant to break any of his dictum for any reason. 

Fun Facts To Know And Share

Top 20 2006 World tourism rankings from Wikipedia

Rank	Country	International tourist arrivals
1	France	79.1 million
2	Spain	58.5 million
3	United States	51.1 million
4	China	49.6 million
5	Italy	41.1 million
6	United Kingdom	30.1 million
7	Germany	23.6 million
8	Mexico	21.4 million
9	Austria	20.3 million
10	Russia	20.2 million
11	Turkey	18.9 million
12	Canada	18.2 million
13	Ukraine	17.6 million[a]
14	Malaysia	17.5 million
14	Hong Kong	15.8 million
15	Poland	15.7 million
16	Greece	14.3 million[a]
17	Thailand	13.9 million
18	Portugal	11.3 million
19	Croatia	11.2 million
20	Netherlands	10.7 million

a = 2005
China would be second with 65.4 million if you include Hong Kong.  On the other hand, its amazing that Hong Kong can accommodate 15.8 million extra people each year

Fun Facts To Know And Share

The estimated population of Saudi Arabia was 27.6 million in 2007.  22 million Saudis and 5.6 million resident foreigners. Most of the population is concentrated along the Red Sea and Persian Gulf coasts.

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University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry Kissinger
via Gabriel Robins
Kissinger may be evil, but he's not stupid.

Henry Fucking Kissinger

     This must have been photoshopped.  There's no other way to get the blood off Kissinger.

It was no surprise that when US vassals like Karzai and Uribe were commanded to meet with Sarah Palin, Kissinger turned up as well.  Nothing says "foriegn policy wonk" like rubbing up against Henry Kissinger.  He's like a lucky rabbit's foot for Palin.  Henry doesn't get as much press as he would like these days.  So in that sense he needed the work.  As the saying goes, there's no whore like and old whore.  How he must loathe George Bush and his neo-con cronies with their talk of empire and their utter incompetence. There are so many bad things you can say about Kissinger, but incompetence doesn't quite make the top 10.  Call it a strong 11.  Unlike Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeldt who raised great-power incompetence to a level not seen since the Romanovs.

Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Vietnam War.  A prize he richly deserved.  But only if by peace you mean a futile war of aggression against Cambodia with lots of civilian casualties.  And by deserved you mean that the man had so much blood on his hands, he couldn't hold a pen to endorse the back of his prize money cheque from the Nobel Foundation.  I hope he's still too scared of arrest to visit anywhere in Europe or South America.  England is safe as long as Margaret Thatcher is alive.  But he has to tread carefully elsewhere.  Augusto Pinochet's arrest in Spain scared the bejeezus out of Kissinger and his partners in crime.  There are warrants out for his arrest in multiple countries.  He's guilty of both war crimes and crimes against humanity.  There may have been crimes worse in severity (Bosnia) or in scale (Congo), but none since the second world war equal Kissinger's crimes in terms of cynicism.  Citizens of Chile, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Argentina, Angola and East Timor were denied their freedom or their lives by Kissinger.

Kissinger is the reason why I agree with America's otherwise quaint constitutional provision against foreign-born presidents.  A Bismark wannabe, he ended up more like Metternich.  Any relevance to world affairs is at this point coincidental.  His only use now is as a stick McCain and Obama can use to whack each other.  The great Henry Kissinger is no more useful than an axe handle.  Fitting.  It's how he should be remembered.

Faves: Sandinista

London Calling is considered by many to be among the best albums ever made.  I've always thought their best material was on Sandinista.  Its The Clash's Exile on Main Street, a band at the height of its powers that couldn't stop cranking out fabulous material fueled by unapologetic political sophistication.  I remember hearing the triple album the day it came out in December 1980.  It was amazing.  I've never stopped listening.  Unfortunately, this was the last gasp artistically for The Clash.  Subsequent material was embarrassing, if popular.  But I don't begrudge them selling out, they earned it.  I'll always have Sandinista.

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When I meet a man I ask myself, 'Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?'
Rita Rudner

Boom!

      Reporters watch John McCain's announcement earlier today.

The other shoe just fell.  The McCain campaign is suggesting they reschedule Friday's debate to replace the VP debate.  I just read an interview Sarah Palin did with Katie Couric.  The woman is as free of intelligence as she is filled with ambition.  You could sense Couric's frustration even in the written transcript.  They need to keep Palin as far away from unscripted public interactions as possible.  Thus today's stunt.

Iran War: Monthly Update

The Roosevelt - still Atlantic bound       Photo: US Navy

Long-time readers will be familiar with my claims that the US Military likes to start offensive operations in the dark, i.e. around a new moon.  As the last quarter of the current moon is waning, its time for an update on a potential attack against Iran.

The key question is: where are the carriers?  They need a minimum of two but three would be better.  Last month, it looked like there would be three in the area, at least for a while.  The tip-off was to be the Lincoln.  Would it go home after being relieved by the Reagan, or would it hang around?  It's headed for San Diego and is currently in the Pacific.  The Roosevelt was also scheduled for deployment, and still is.  But it hasn't left the Atlantic.  Those pesky Russian naval vessels visiting Venezuela may be giving the Navy second thoughts.  In any case, a second carrier in the Arabian Sea would be useful for expanded US operations in Afghanistan.  So the appearance of the Roosevelt, sudden or otherwise, is not necessarily cause for alarm.  In any case, current US Navy deployment suggests no all-out attack on Iran is planned during the approaching lunar darkness window.

As alert readers may have already noted, US policymakers have their hands full with other business.  Similarly, Israeli leaders are pre-occupied with political matters.  The temperature of anti-Iran rhetoric has thus cooled considerably in both Washington and Jerusalem.  In addition, the strategic situation has shifted noticeably with Afghanistan and Pakistan taking center stage.  Nobody in their right mind would attribute problems there to the Iranians.  Lastly, an IAEA investigation into a Syrian "reactor" bombed by Israel last year has turned up no evidence of any nuclear activity.  Russia, China and Germany all publicly noted this development.  One can be sure others noted it too, but were too polite to say anything.  This is a major hit to US credibility.  Coming after the Georgian fiasco and war that isn't with Pakistan, enthusiasm among US allies for more adventures is likely thin.  Even if they were enthusiastic, friendly capitals are busy with keeping the US debt contagion out of their banking systems.

So, no war this month.  Unless something really bad happens in the US next month, it looks like the whole operation is off, at least until after Israeli elections.  After a certain point, it no longer makes sense.

A Red Reality Check

After breathlessly reporting  on the game changing nature of the new Red One 4k digital camera, it only seems fair to report some caveats.  A bunch of rebuttals have been collected on the Red Facts page .
The key points are:

• Red has fudged the resolution numbers.  The tech specs have been polished up by marketing so that an apparent apples to apples comparison with other cameras is misleading.
  
• Extreme compression and interpolation produce noticable blocking and pixillation at full-screen projection.  35mm and high-end HD do not.
  
• There is some resentment in the cinematographer community that Red is using the mainstream tech press to hype the product. 

I've worked in the industry and can attest the cinematographers are a finicky guild.  They don't like being talked down to and they really don't like being told what to use by a director that's fallen for some company's hype.

Fanboys are livid.  Accusations (probably true) that many of the Red Facts facts come from Panavision and/or Sony.  A classic flamewar is developing.  But who cares?

So Red may not be the revolution.  But if not, then someone else soon.  Canon and Nikon are very busy in this realm.  Red may yet have some tricks up its sleeve.

The only other interesting facet of this issue is the continuing marketization of previously non-tech industries.  Marketization is what happens when tech industry marketing and product standards infect non-tech industries. It is a cancerous sub-set of traditional marketing.  Beta products, fudged specs, bleeding edge features adopted across the board, personalization of competition, no guarantees, six month product cycles, complete disregard for customers of previous product cycles, engineered lack of interoperability, expectation of continuing customer upgrades at a pace dictated by the vendor, DRM, Windows Vista.  Its the selling of broken or crippled products as a matter of course.  Everything becomes disposable.  Anything you can't fix with a patch, you throw away.  Microsoft is the best example of this disease, but they didn't invent it and are no more responsible for it perpetuation that HP, IBM or Apple among many others.  Add Red to the list.

Fun Facts To Know And Share

Herbert Hoover, who was the 31st president of the United Stated, turned over all the Federal salary checks he received to charity during the 47 years he was in government

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All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Epic Fail

      Photo: Getty | Chip Somodevilla via Denver Post 

The picture says it all. Two men who let the US Financial system slide into its worst crisis since 1932 have a plan to fix it. Consistent with their scandalous lack of oversight in letting this happen, the plan contains specific measures to ensure there is no oversight of their actions.  How big is the problem?  They don't know.  What will it cost the US taxpayer?  They don't know.  Will their actions inject sufficient liquidity to solve the problem?  They don't know.   What will be the impact on the $?  They don't know.  Is a reverse auction the best way to determine the value of an unmarketable security?  They hope so.  What happens if the package isn't passed?  They don't know, but it will be really, really bad.  Will the same Wall Street types that made billions creating the problem also make billions from cleaning it up?  Now is not the time for recrimination. Apart from their culpability in the crisis, their performance yesterday before the Senate was an epic failure on its own.

In all my years watching US politics, I've never seen an issue that so shattered party lines. There is everything from outright condemnation to strong support, from every corner of the fairly narrow US ideological universe. At the moment, opposition seems to have the upper hand. Opponents are tending to agglomerate around two issues. First are the "its an emergency, trust me" skeptics who remember the disastrous consequences of accepting the same arguments over Iraq. These are mostly Democrats, but include a significant minority of Republicans sick of being told what to do by a now-lame-duck Bush administration. Second are the free-marketers and practical skeptics . They either disagree on principal, or do not agree that the crisis is so dire, or doubt the proposed solution will solve the problem. In all cases, the fundamental problem is that Bush and his appointees have next to zero credibility among lawmakers looking at an election in six weeks.

The odds play is a Democratic compromise version of the legislation will passing next week. But there is so much political maneuvering going on behind the scenes that anything is possible. For example, the Presidential debate Friday evening may have a big impact on Democratic calculations, depending on the outcome.

For political theater junkies, this is the best show since Watergate. But I'm glad I live in Canada and have no $US assets. No matter how this turns out, somebody is going to pay. The weak link is the $US. I can't see any scenario where the $ doesn't get clobbered. The rosiest scenarios (like Bush's) just leave that part out.   Fail.  Epic Fail.  Cosmic Fail.
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Update 3:58PM - Merill Lynch Canada just released an economic report that says Canadian households are just as overextended as US households at their 2005 peak and UK households are today.  They warn that a similar melt-down is possible.  True, but there was never a sub-prime mortgage industry in Canada and the real estate bubble was considerably smaller.  But its worth noting the report after my smug words above.