McCain Report – July 7th 2008

This McCain Report is primarily concerning the words from Pheisty Blog – who puts the McCain situation in perspective.

In her article, Pheisty Thoughts: Patriotism, July 6^th 2008, she writes …

Two days ago, while we were busy celebrating our freedom, the Presidential candidates’ handlers and strategists were busy thinking of ways to use ‘patriotism’ to their advantage. When I woke up this morning, I had an email in my inbox from the John McCain camp:

My Friends,
I am often asked why I want to be President of the United States. And my answer is that I believe in the greatness of this nation as a beacon of goodwill throughout the world. I believe each and every one of us has a duty to serve a cause greater than our own self-interest.
I’ve spent my life in service to my country, and I’ve spent my life putting my country first.
When I was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from 1967 to 1973, I was given the option to come home early because my father was an admiral in the U.S. Navy. I refused to go, because I put my country first.
I am convinced that every challenge I have confronted during my years of serving our country and its ideals, has made me better able to lead our country as president. I am humbly asking for your support today so that I may be so fortunate as to serve our country a little while longer.
As President of the United States I will always put my country first, I want to promise you that. You can count on me because it is what I have done my entire life. As your Republican candidate for president, I have an enormous sense of responsibility and duty. That’s why I am not in the habit of making promises to my country that I do not intend to keep. But I cannot win this election alone – I need your help right now. Please follow this link to show your support and make a generous contribution of $2,300, $1,000, $500, $250, $100 or even $25 right away.
If I am so fortunate to be elected to our nation’s highest office, I give you my word that I will always put the needs of country above my own. I will always put my country first because I don’t seek the office out of a sense of entitlement. I owe America more than she has ever owed me.
Sincerely,
John McCain
P.S. When I was offered a chance to go home early from prison camp in North Vietnam, I put my country first, and I’ve been putting my country first in life ever since. I believe that the challenges I have faced in service to my country have better prepared me to lead our country as President. But I cannot win this election alone, I need your help. Will you join my campaign today by making a generous donation of $25 or more today? Thank you for your support.

Recreation of Ancient Beer Brewing by Archaeologists

For the beer consumers, this article might be of interest:

Brewing Tradition Existed in Ireland as far back as 2500 BC: Study …

Two archaeologists, who made the headlines worldwide last year after they suggested that one of the most common archaeological monuments in the Irish landscape might have been used for brewing a Bronze Age Beer, will discuss their research at the World Archaeological Congress ‘Fringe’ at UCD next month. Billy Quinn and Declan Moore, two archaeologists with Moore Archaeological & Environmental Services (Moore Group) in Galway, will demonstrate the experiments they conducted at the enigmatic site, fulacht fiadh.
The archaeologist duo believes that an extensive brewing tradition existed in Ireland as far back as 2500 BC. …
“The tradition of brewing in Ireland has a long history, we think that the fulacht may have been used as a kitchen sink, for cooking, dying, many uses, but that a primary use was the brewing of ale,” pr-inside.com quoted Quinn as saying. With a view to investigating their theory, the two researchers set out to recreate the process. They used an old wooden trough filled with water and added heated stones. After achieving an optimum temperature of 60 to 70 degrees Celsius, the researchers began to add milled barley, and after about 45 minutes simply baled the final product into fermentation vessels. The researchers added natural wild flavourings taking care to avoid anything toxic or hallucinogenic, and later added yeast after cooling the vessels in a bath of cold water for several hours.
“Including the leftover liquid we could easily have produced up to 300 litres of this most basic ale,” said Moore. The researchers said that the results of their experiments suggested that the process of brewing ale in a fulacht using hot rock technology was a simple process, and that to produce the ale took only a few hours, followed by a few-days wait to allow for fermentation. Although Quinn and Moore’s theory is based solely on circumstantial and experimental evidence, both researchers believe that a primary use of the fulacht fiadh was for brewing beer. [ANI]

Further Reading:

A History of Brewing – Brew Arizona
American Brewing History – BeerHistory.com
Making Beer in Ancient Egypt – MNSU
History of Beer – Wikipedia
Brewing Through the Ages – Plum Creek Marketing
Bitter Root Brewing Beer History – bitterrootbrewing.com
The Barbarian’s Beverage – Book/Amazon.com
Ancient Brewing – Ancient History

"Fourth of July in Wonderland" by Ken Renner

Guest writer and commentator, Ken Renner, Tennessee, submits the following article [Subject material presented is not necessarily the opinion or agreement of essay presented, all or in part; highlighted links in blue are provided by KAL]:

The past week had a sort of Alice in Wonderland quality to it, at least in the news. Just when it seemed one outrage could not be topped, another came along to top it. Lewis Carroll could not have made this stuff up if he tried.

Maybe the most outrageous story was broken Wednesday by the New York Times about the training given to our interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. It turns out that the Bush administration decided it would learn from the best. Its course was based almost verbatim on a study done by the US Air Force following the Korean War on techniques the Chinese Communists used to elicit false confessions from American POWs for propaganda use. The study was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War.” An entire class on “enhanced interrogation” was based on a chart showing the coercive effect of techniques like sleep deprivation and prolonged exposure. The only thing changed in the chart was its former title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.” From the Soviet NKVD and KGB to the German Gestapo to the Chinese Communists to America.
What’s wrong with this picture?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Einstein’s Theories Pass Yet Another Test

Albert Einstein is one of the amazing people in world history and has long been commended for his breakthrough theories concerning time, space and the universe; however, some have questioned occasionally, the findings of the master mathematician scientist without success.

Phil Berardelli, Science NOW Daily News, July 3^rd 2008 writes in article Right Again, Einstein …

As if his reputation needed cementing, astronomers have confirmed Albert Einstein’s status as a supergenius once more. Studying a unique pair of pulsars–small and extremely dense leftovers from supernova explosions–researchers have measured an effect that was predicted by Einstein’s 92-year-old general theory of relativity. The result, they report tomorrow in Science, is almost exactly what the famous physicist had foreseen. In Einstein’s relativistic universe, matter curves space and slows down time, and the speed of light remains the only constant. But those are the big effects. The theory of relativity also includes some more esoteric details, one of which is called spin precession. The idea goes like this: Two massive bodies orbiting near each other will warp space enough to disturb the central axis around which both are moving, causing them to begin wobbling just like spinning tops. Strong gravity creates this so-called precession and the more massive the objects, the easier the precession is to observe. It’s not an easy theory to test. Researchers need two very dense objects orbiting very close together, and they have to be able to detect what is going on between them. Black holes are dense, but their event horizons preclude observations. The lack of candidates and telescopic power had frustrated astronomers for years, until the discovery in 2003 of a particular pair of pulsars. These asteroid-sized objects pack sun-like masses, extremely small orbits, and incredibly fast spins. They also emit powerful and ultra-regular radio signals that are easily detectable with Earth-based dishes. Most important in this case, one pulsar eclipses the other briefly every couple of hours. That’s key to detecting precession, because during each eclipse astronomers can determine the precise angle of the radio signal and therefore the pulsar’s wobble over time. …
“It’s bang-on,” says astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Joseph Taylor of Princeton University. “Einstein’s theory passed the test this time,” agrees astrophysicist Fotis Gavriil of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who praises the study’s “amazing high-precision measurement.” So is Einstein’s reputation secure? Says Gavriil, “Only with experiments like this will we know for sure.”

Further Reading:

Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity – CSEP10, UK
Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – Fear of Physics
Einstein’s Big Idea – Nova, PBS
E-mc2 and Black Holes – Athens Academy
New Observations of Black Holes – NASA Science
New Model Simulates Einstein’s Vision of Black Holes – Space.com

The Debate Concerning President Bush’s Authority in National Defense Issues – Wiretapping

Much has been debated concerning the American intelligence agency pertaining to information reported to President GW Bush that included intelligence information from international sources. Those that are against the established authority of the President of the United States under conditions of a declared war in seeking out subversive elements via the FBI and the Homeland Security Department created after the infamous attack upon America. The anti-Bush media source, New York Times, has established a reputation for rhetoric against the policy towards subversive actions and terrorist plans of underground Islamic extremist organizations often disguised as charitable organizations within the continental United States. President GW Bush has done no more than what any presidents have done concerning national security, and the fact that since September 11th, 2001 there has been no acts of terrorism in the United States up to the date of this article.

Commentary By Jarrod Hayes, UK Citizen Journalist

Editor’s Note: The following is a commentary submitted by an LPJ reader, Jarrod Hayes, (constitutional constructivist) Oxford, UK, author/publisher of Echoes of Thoughts Unsaid, which I thought I would present here as a brief essay. Jarrod is the commentator who substantiates his points in comments concerning my article. The sentences emboldened are what another commentator made and Jarrod is pointing out the absurdity of the statements (intellectually). Rarely do I post an article from the comments section, in fact, this is the first time. I insist that an essay be submitted to my editor’s email address for posting as an article. And, of course, posting does not mean that I agree with any or all of anything submitted. I posted this commentary because it was important to see how background research works best before writing or commenting. The links are provided by me, as a professional courtesy to Jarrod. It is difficult to comment with special annotations until WordPress installs a menu that will help commentators add embolden without using html language, and knowing them, this will be forthcoming considering the wonderful things they have done to improve blogs at WordPress. With the explanations and plugging done, I present to you the essay commentary of Jarrod Hayes [edited]:

To give a point of reference for my argument, I’ll include the relevant section from the essay:
Most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII)

[Jarrod proclaims] I find this absurd. That suggests that the air raid drills, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the threat of complete nuclear annihilation were less of an existential threat. For that matter, the author is explicitly arguing that Hitler, a man who demonstrated no limits to his geopolitical ambition or his willingness to use force and violence to achieve those ambitions, was a lesser threat. I think that argument requires a lot of support in order to hold up, and the author just doesn’t do the job.

> Many will say September 11, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us: [series of attacks]

[Jarrod proclaims] These attacks can largely be considered acts of terrorism, but lumping them together is misleading. The 1979 hostage crisis was an outgrowth of US policy in Iran dating to the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953. Moreover, all the hostages made it out alive. The Pan Am bombing was the act of a state, in that case Libya, as an act of asymmetric warfare. Gaddafi is not in league with al Qaeda and never has been.

>Why were we attacked? Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms

[Jarrod proclaims] This is stupid. It doesn’t make any sense to say anyone attacks anyone else because the attacker ‘envies’ the defender’s freedom. As for the other two rationales, these are aspects of neorealist International Relations theory that argues that global power is a zero sum situation and that the growth of power or wealth by one state results in the loss of power and wealth of another, resulting in the domination of the latter by the former. There are strong empirical and theoretical reasons to doubt such explanations have much validity. The conflict with Islamic terrorism is one of ideology, not money or power.

> So who are we at war with? There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists

[Jarrod proclaims] This kind of mentality sets perfectly reasonable Muslims on edge, for good reason. The conflict is with terrorism. Period. It doesn’t matter what flavor the terrorism comes in. Would the United States be less threatened by Christian terrorists? The bombing of the Oklahoma City Murrah building suggests the answer is no. While I’m on this point, I’ll address the use of war terminology. To call this a war is a mischaracterization of profound scope. It is intended to mobilize the U.S. domestic public, but past that point, it is useless. Wait, even on that point it is useless. War is not a state of being in which democracy operates very well. The norms that underpin democracy are non-violent conflict resolution, rule of law, compromise. In a state of war, most if not all of these norms are suspended. Democracy fails. So, calling the conflict with terrorists war does us a grievous harm domestically. Internationally, the ramifications are even more dire. Other states, the leaders and populaces we have to work with to deal with the threat, see it as an American overreaction and dismiss the policy efforts that come out of the U.S. Most of Europe as well as Japan (to a lesser extent) have dealt with terrorism for years. Spain has ETA, Italy had the Red Brigades, Germany had the Red Army Faction, the U.K. had the IRA. These states know terrorism in a way that Americans do not. Look at the reaction in London after the July 7th bombings. Travel on public transportation soon returned to normal. Granted the attacks against the U.S. were bigger in scope, but you see none of the hysteria in Europe that you see in the U.S. Even among the ‘enemy,’ the use of the war concept does us a tremendous disservice. The ideology of Islamic terrorists, the current concern, emphasizes that the inductees are jihadists, holy warriors going to war against an unholy enemy. By calling the conflict with terrorists a war, the United States gives legitimacy to leaders in al Qaeda or whatever (fill in the blank) Islamic extremist group. They get to point to the United States and say ‘look, we really are at war, even they agree with us.’ Fundamentally, terrorists are not warriors, they are criminals. Talking about them, and treating them as such, denies them an important component of ideological validation. That means not calling it ‘war’ and that means trying terrorist suspects in court like any other criminal not in military tribunals. Look at the success Indonesia has had adopting the criminal approach. In the largest Muslim country in the world, terrorism, while a problem, does not pose an existential threat.

>What losing really means is: We would no longer be the premier country in the world.

[Jarrod proclaims] Wow. This boggles the mind. Terrorism is a tactic of asymmetric warfare. Organizations use it when they can’t compete tank to tank or airplane to airplane against their opponent. Terrorism is not a mechanism for denying any state its ‘premier’ status. Only we can do that, and we are actually doing quite a good job. The war in Iraq, justified under the cover of the ‘War on Terror’ has denied the United States precious treasure and life. The dissembling leading up to the war has discredited the United States all over the world, and the voluntary use of force against a state posing no direct threat to the United States has belied U.S. commitments to international peace and order. Citizenry in many sober states have or continue to see the United States and the principle threat to world peace. The treasure spent in Iraq comes at the expense of operations in Afghanistan, international aid, and domestic priorities (education and infrastructure in particular). The power of the United States has been its ability to generate ideas and enjoy them in the comparative freedom of a liberal democracy. It was the idea of the West that seduced Gorbachev and brought down the Soviet Union, not the guns of the West. Terrorism has not denied the U.S. its prestige, America has done that itself.

> We would, of course, have no future support from other nations, for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see; we are impotent and cannot help them.

[Jarrod proclaims] It should be clear by now what is wrong with this statement. We don’t have the support of other nations precisely because our current course of action is so antithetical to how they perceive the problem. We see it as a military issue; they see it as a criminal issue. Our reaction inflames societies, making it necessary for states that truly want to address the problem to disassociate themselves from the U.S. in order to get traction.

> They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn’t matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do will be done. Spain is finished.

[Jarrod proclaims] Spain pulled out of Iraq because it was never the will of the public to be there in the first place. The right of center prime minister at the time Jose Maria Aznar got Spain involved in Iraq even though the public opposed Spanish participation. When the March 11 bombings occurred, Aznar lost the election because he lied to the public, blaming the bombings on ETA. When the public, rightfully angry about being deceived, voted in the left of center Zapatero, he pulled Spanish troops because 1) that was part of his campaign platform and 2) because that was what the public had pretty much wanted all along. Aznar did not lose because of the bombing; he lost because he lied about the bombing.

> If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can’t stop the Muslim terrorists, how could anyone else?

[Jarrod proclaims] This is great. Only the U.S. can keep the spineless peoples of the world from being blackmailed by terrorists. IF the U.S. fails in its solitary mission to oppose terrorists, all the scared peoples will crawl into the corner and submit to the evil bogeymen. Absurd. Once again, I would remind the author that the people of Europe in particular have been dealing with terrorism for far longer than American have. This mentality is in large part a product of how shielded (naïve?) Americans have been.

> Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war! For the duration, we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed… Political Correctness, and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.

[Jarrod proclaims] This gets at precisely the point I made before. Using the war framing, all manner of civil liberties restrictions can be justified. Only this isn’t a war, not in the traditional (or indeed any meaningful) sense. Terrorists will always around, because fundamentally they are criminals who seek to operate outside the bounds of normal society (defined by adherence to basic democratic norms, so no, Goth rockers do not operate outside the bounds of normal society). Just as criminals will always be around, so too will be terrorists. This logic leads to the destruction of the very society it claims to defend. The result, surprise, is that the terrorists do truly win, long before they kill very many people (relatively speaking). The conflict with terrorism is fundamentally one of ideology, and it is on those terms that we must focus our attention. Surely, there is a place for physical action, but the real ‘battle’ is over which worldview is the most appealing, the one that promises a (short) life of noble holy warfare or the one that promises a fulfilling life of freedom and self-realization. If we restrict our rights, we simply reveal ourselves to be hypocrites, undermining our ideological message to the point of impotence. The author’s contention here is nothing less that malicious ‘friendly’ fire.

> And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type of enemy fighters, who recently were burning Americans, and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq. And still more recently, the same type of enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of American prisoners they held.

[Jarrod proclaims] It probably comes as a shock to the author that not all terrorists are alike. They don’t fight for the same reasons, or with the same goals. Lumping them all together is about as useful as talking about all ‘Westerners.’ Other than respect for democratic norms, is there much in common between an Appalachia trailer park denizen and a Parisian? Not much. Same goes for terrorists. Some in Iraq fight because they are Islamic nutballs. Some fight because they were in power and now they aren’t. Some fight because they weren’t in power and now they want to make sure they will be. Three different motives requiring at least a little bit of nuance to deal with them.

> The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense.

[Jarrod proclaims] Damn straight. Without the ability, and the right, to both criticize public officials and hold them accountable for their policy decisions, the United States loses the contest with terrorism, no further action required. This is so critical that to suggest otherwise displays a fundamental failure to understand the world beyond the cognition of a retarded sea slug.

> And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal rights for anyone — let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the world.

[Jarrod proclaims] Um, Turkey comes pretty close. Iranian society (not government), particularly the younger generation in urban areas, does too. The author, not surprisingly, paints with entirely too broad a brush. In many cases, many restrictions on liberties and equality, particularly for women, are a product of cultural heritage having little to do with religion.

> If we don’t win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less.

[Jarrod proclaims] According the Snopes.com, this essay was originally written in 2004. France looks pretty good so far, 4 years on.

> Democracies don’t have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece.

[Jarrod proclaims] Does anyone see the irony here? One minute the author is telling us we have to give up our freedoms in a state of war which is ill-defined and thus of indeterminate length, and the next tells us that in fact it is political correctness that denies us our freedoms. He is of course, absolutely correct. Freedoms in democracies are taken piece by piece through the political process, justified by political leaders who use security to justify the theft. However, political correctness has nothing to do with it.

> Let’s quit laughing at and forwarding the jokes and cartoons which denigrate and ridicule our leaders in this war against terror. They are trying to protect the interests and well being of the US and its citizens. Best we support them.

[Jarrod proclaims] Ah, the irony is complete. Conservatives hate government…unless it is a security matter, in which case all criticism is unwarranted and destructive. Obviously, I am arguing the author could not be further from the truth. A historical examination of situations where democracy was lost to autocracy will find that it was in the name of security that the crime occurred. When it comes to security, political leaders need the most scrutiny. The absolute security state requires the centralization of power, the suppression of dissent, the indoctrination of the needs of the state in order to survive. After all, the alternative is death, as security arises in the face of an existential threat. Of course, there are shades of security just short of this extreme, but it is the responsibility of every citizen of a democratic state to hold their leaders in check, to help them resist the siren call of power and prestige that security offers (an oppose them if they do give in). That is a fundamental part of the vision of the founders of the country; how else to explain the fact that only Congress, not the President, may declare war.

Editor’s Note: Since the declaration of war against terrorism was official when it was voted upon by the US Congress, some of the passages in this essay are moot, and the idea that just because this war against a large group of organizations does not constitute one nation or more than one nation as the “Axis of Evil” as President Bush had called it, does not mean that the President doesn’t have the war time authority for certain actions – especially being a world-wide war involving many nations. The major problem in the beginning of this conflagration that spread over the years since inception is that for far too long terrorist acts were treated as a civil criminal matter and not what it truly represents. In that respect, I disagree with Jarrod Hayes, but commend him for an intellectual presentation, and thank him for his contribution to discussion concerning this serious matter.

And to make this complete, I present here a recent article posted at Jarrod’s website entitled Dear Traveler: Stay Away From England …

Dear Traveler,
I am writing this open letter to the internet in an effort to save you from the English. I, as the intrepid servant of humanity have lived here now for a year and can now report that this is not a place you should like to visit. I have lived in a number of place in the United States (Metro Atlanta, Georgia; Boulder, Colorado; Los Angeles, California) and have never had the experience I have had here in Oxford, UK. In the span of a year I have been screamed at (in an effort no doubt to give me a heart attack), had what smelled to be beer sprayed on me, and been shot with what I hope was water from a water gun. All of these events took place as I was traveling alongside a road, minding my business. The offending parties, of course, were in vehicles. In the last incident, the bastards attempted to spray me a second time (but missed, and received choice words from your[s] truly along with the universal middle finger sign of displeasure). So, please my friends go elsewhere in your travels. Scotland perhaps, or Ireland, should you decide to visit the British Isles. But please, avoid England.

Editor’s Note: It should be noted that Scotland, Ireland and Wales folks, for the most part, dislike the antiquated term “British Isles” and refers to Great Britain as the United Kingdom. And, as far as the change in society that brings about such occurrences Jarrod describes, should be addressed as an issue and dealt with. Serving with the British Army while stationed in Turkey, I have never had a negative experience concerning those British military personnel; but in fact, learned more about another culture (I am familiar with UK history being a history fan), as well as several enjoyable evenings at the local pub with British compatriots. Of course, times may change, but I feel the part of society that Mr. Hayes refers to is the modern problem of society that must be dealt with everywhere it occurs.