brainsnorkel.com

As seen in recent comments on an excellent Intel Dump post.

An illuminating exchange between US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace during a press briefing.

Q: And General Pace, what guidance do you have for your military commanders over there as to what to do if — like when General Horst found this Interior Ministry jail?

GEN. PACE: It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it. As an example of how to do it if you don’t see it happening but you’re told about it is exactly what happened a couple weeks ago. There’s a report from an Iraqi to a U.S. commander that there was possibility of inhumane treatment in a particular facility. That U.S. commander got together with his Iraqi counterparts. They went together to the facility, found what they found, reported it to the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi government has taken ownership of that problem and is investigating it. So they did exactly what they should have done.

SEC. RUMSFELD: But I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.

GEN. PACE: If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it.

Damn straight.

On the weekend I learned that journalists in this country have been informed that there is a certain term that is considered bias, and will not be taken lightly by the Federal Government if it is used in reporting.

The term?

“Our troops.”

Apparently, we’re not to be allowed to think of Australian Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan or Iraq as “our troops.”

This is uncorroberated, but it’s interesting to see that we’re so coy about our commitment.

My home Internet access is via Optus Cable. For a long time, Optus Cable has been a speed champion in Australian ISPs with downlink speeds that sometimes approach 6.5Mb/s. The only problem with the service is the anaemic 128kb/s uplink speed. This poor uplink speed is significant if you’re running certain types of forbidden “server,” multiple VoIP lines, or if you spend hours uploading your family photographs to Flickr.

This week, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Optus were increasing the uplink speed to 256kb/s. I browsed the Whirlpool forums to discover what people were using to test their speed, and whether the change had been rolled out. I tested my speed after resetting my cable modem and found that my uplink speed was still a very constant 128kb/s.

I browsed further and found that some Optus Cable customers were complaining that some areas had not been upgraded to the new speed, but this was often disputed. There was even a post from someone in the same area and same “exchange” as me who had recorded the new uplink speed.

I went to bed cursing Optus for singling me out for a lower quality of service. I slept fitfully.

Quality of service…. Quality of service… wooooOOooooo…

I awoke an hour later, realising what the problem was.

My Linksys WRT54G has been flashed with Sveasoft firmware. One of the reasons I did this was for the ability to prioritize certain types of application traffic. In the router configuration web pages this is called Quality of Service or QoS. Part of the process of configuring QoS is setting the uplink speed limit, so that the QoS feature knows when to start dropping low priority packets in favour of higher priority traffic. I changed this setting from 128kb/s to 256kb/s and sighed loudly.

I tested that uplink speed was increased, slapped myself in the head, and went back to sleep.

Senator Amanda Vanstone.

Setting aside her previous atrocities that include defending the previous Minister for Immigration from his ministerial responsibilities, and that she is a minister in a government that has been using meaningless security initiatives and fabricating security issues for their own ends (c.f. Tampa), I’m becoming much more impressed by Amanda Vanstone:

“To be tactful about these things, a lot of what we do is to make people feel better as opposed to actually achieve an outcome”
[...]
“Sometimes we can get a little bit cynical,” she said. “I think cynicism is another word for real, actually.
[...]
“And with the current focus on terrorism, which I don’t seek to make light of, but I think we should keep our perspective on these things, we tend to get a bit cynical.”

Ms Vanstone continued in her speech to a South Australian Rotary gathering lamenting the state of toast no-knife policy adopted by airlines:

“I don’t know if any of you travel that much and have the pleasure of trying to cut soggy toast with a plastic knife, which from my experience is not very reliable,” she said.

“But we have this (no knives policy), of course, because we’re worried about terrorists getting on planes and grabbing knives and doing bad things with them.

“But has it ever occurred to you that you just smash your wine glass and jump at someone, grab the top of their head and put it to their carotid artery and ask anything? And believe me, you will have their attention.”

There were apparently a few more thoughts that she hadn’t articulated publicly since her last conversation with the Prime Emporer about Australia’s new clothes:

I asked him if I was able to get on a plane with an HB pencil, which you are able to, and I further asked him if I went down and came and grabbed him by the front of the head and stabbed the HB pencil into your eyeball and wiggled it around down to your brain area, do you think you’d be focusing? He’s thinking, she’s gone mad again.

No. He’s thinking “I wonder if that’s covered in the Code of Ministerial Conduct?” or “What if we banned the supply of pencils to anyone with a history of fantasizing about giving Prime Ministers lobotomies with them?”

The news articles make it clear that these were candid statements to Rotary members, and that had the Minister known that there was a journalist in the audience, she would not have been so forthright. What a shame that Australians who are not Rotary members can’t be treated like grown ups.

But, the greatly encouraging news for me is that she has obviously had frank discussions with the Prime Minister about how spurious some of the counter-terrorism measures have been since 2001. Perhaps cabinet isn’t entirely full of sycophants who want a piece of the AU$1 billion per year in additional security spending for their constituents. It’s almost like she’s been reading Schneier’s blog, or perhaps even Beyond Fear:

Senator Vanstone said the reaction when an angry driver smashed his four-wheel-drive vehicle through the doors of Parliament House showed how policy was made.

She said bollards were suddenly placed in front of the building to stop the same attack and further “national embarrassment”.

Labor has called for the sacking of Amanda Vanstone over this. If it’s inevitable that the next Prime Minister will be a Liberal, then I’d like her to be that next Prime Minister. I’m calling for her promotion.

link and link.

Pragmatic World of Warcraft players keep a mule character or two for cheap extra storage space. Guilds usually maintain a few mule characters for stockpiling reagents, quest items, communal cash and spare loot too. The problem with having a stable of mules is that you can’t remember what they have in stock without logging them on and rifling through their gear.

Using a combination of a nice WoW addon, and a one line bash script that will make your eyes bleed, myphatlewt.sh can export your bank content to a text file.

Google rolled out their Analytics project two days ago. I think I jumped on the bandwagon about an hour after the initial press releases.

My verdict? So far, as many sites have noted, it isn’t working yet.

This failure is remarkable for Google. My impression is that they generally have smooth launches.

I’ve done what I can to try and isolate any potential problems. I’ve double-checked that I’ve installed the Javascript according to Google’s directions.

There’s nothing left for me to do but contine “waiting for data” while Google plays whack-a-mole with teething problems.

Surprising perhaps, but Brainsnorkel does not have an urgent need for web traffic analysis. Customers who used to pay money to Urchin for this service are probably not feeling so magnanimous.

** Update: The message is still showing as “waiting” but you can click on and view reports now. Yay! **

** Update2: The message is still showing as “waiting” and there are stats available, but the most recent data is 24-48 hours old. **

On Radio National this morning I discovered that there exists an Australasian Bottled Water Institute Inc.

While half-awake, I had a double-whammy of absurdity as I listened to someone from that peak body testifying at an inquiry into the relationship between tooth decay and bottled water.

I understand there are potentially serious public health issues, but I was really sympathising with the ABWI representative when he asked if water bottlers would be required to put laxatives in their products if NSW had a problem with constipation.

I was only half awake, so I’m not sure who was holding the hearings (it might have been the NSW Parliament), who was speaking, or why. I’ll see if AM has transcripts up later.

Update: The person I heard was (*ahem*) Tony Gentile, head of the ABWI. And the quote was:

“We don’t believe that our beverages should be used as medicine, they are refreshment beverages. If you believe that the vast majority of the NSW population is constipated, would you get us to add a laxative to the water?” he said.

Spurious, but funny.

Quite right too.

WSJ editorial board comes out for torture. I wish I had 100 WSJ subscriptions to cancel. Appalling and history’s scum. I will never post another WSJ story here. Ever. Even their website outreach guy sends me about 3 emails a day with their stories. Save it for the the pro-torture media. Can we get the WSJ advertisers to sign off on the next batch of Abu Ghraib photos to be released? Maybe there are particular techniques they’d like to weigh in on? Yes on humiliating and degrading, no on organ failure? Yes on child rape and using guard dogs on detainees, no on holding the chain of command responsible? Yes on gulags in Eastern Europe? I’d like to hear the advertisers weigh in on what they think seems reasonable and how they’d like to be associated with the forthcoming releases.

Update: Rereading this editorial, the content is so awful, but it’s written in that typical let’s be reasonable, contrary to what you’ve been hearing and taught at church, the kind of torture we’re doing is really the only way to win the war. Honestly, this one should be saved for the history books, like those photos of lynching, about a low point in American history. The WSJ editors should truly be ashamed of themselves. And I hope the advertisers are ashamed of their association with such views that do not befit a first world country, or a democracy.

A previous War and Piece post helps set the scene:

I was in a torture chamber once, in the basement of a police station in Kosovo days after it was abandoned by Serb forces defeated by Nato. It was hideous as you would imagine. The British soldiers who were with me were equally shocked. A lot of the instruments and interrogation drugs I saw there also suggest they were not designed to cause organ failure or death in their victims, just pain and terror, as Mr. Cheney and his office mates suggest is what they are going for in terms of legal wiggle room. And like Mr. Cheney and his office mates, Mr. Milosevic and his Serb troops didn’t seem to overly concern themselves with the Geneva conventions, until it was a bit late. Having laid my eyes on what such a scene looks like, I just associate such activities with the forces of not only the pathological and depraved, but those who are headed for defeat. If you’ve seen it, you realize in a way that’s hard to explain, it’s the tactics of the losers. If Cheney and his office mates haven’t had the experience, perhaps they should. And I really don’t think it’s inconceivable that the remote possibility of the Hague may lie in some of their futures. Things change fast when they do, as history shows, and they could find their current willing protectors eventually chucked from office, and a whole new climate at home and abroad.

One of the most intriguing US political stories in the last few years is the Plame affair. I’m not going to write a long synopsis here, as newspapers and blogs have it well covered.

Instead, here is my short synopsis.

Last week, on The Plame Affair: Joe Wilson travelled to Niger at the request of the Administration to check the veracity of one of the sources of information used to justify the invasion of Iraq - a document showing that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake. Wilson established that the material was a crude forgery and reported back. His findings were ignored, and he doesn’t like being ignored. So Wilson wrote an Op-Ed about what he had found on his trip, embarrassing the Administration. Allegedly, Administration officials retaliated against him by encouraging journalists to write that his wife - Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) - was a covert operative at the CIA, and had used her position to send him on a boondoggle… to Niger. One journalist wrote such a story and the CIA referred the story to the Department of Justice for investigation because leaking the identity of covert CIA staff to someone without apropriate clearance is a crime.

Scooter Libby was recently indicted by a grand jury on charges relating to the leak. In the text of the indictment it is clear that Libby, Karl Rove, and others in the Administration, are still of intense interest to investigators.

The grand jury investigation has provided some interesting sideshows: Sending Judith Miller to jail for refusing to testify, infuriating journalists by not leaking as freely as Kenneth Starr and boring journalists to death at a press conference by making an epic baseball analogy.

None of these sideshows have been quite as interesting as the one that Digby throws light on.

Two interesting neocon operatives - Lt. General Tom McInerney (ret) and Maj. General Paul Vallely, USA (ret) - have recently “remembered” that they met Joseph Wilson in a FOX green room in 2002 where they allege he told them that his wife was a CIA spy. It seems they’re making the case that Joseph Wilson wanted to jeopardise his wife’s life and those of all of her colleagues in a secret front organization, and that this idea that she was covert was a crock. They also appear to be making the case that Joseph Wilson was so eager to share this information with them, he was able to travel in time and space to be with them.

Digby tries to determine how fair and balanced these two characters’ evidence might be, first by looking at a review of a book they wrote Endgame: The Blueprint For Victory in The War On Terror:

As the authors would have it, North Korea must dismantle its nuclear program or face U.S. invasion. Syria, unless it stops supporting terrorism and coughs up the Iraqi WMDs the authors say it’s hiding, should also be invaded. Saudi Arabia should be nudged toward a diversified economy and political reform, but if Islamic radicals take over, it too must be invaded. Iran, too big to invade, should be slapped with an embargo and naval blockade[...]

Then, he looks at some of their earlier work:

But that’s not General Vallely’s claim to fame. He is known for a paper he wrote with a military intelligence officer named Michael Aquino in the late 1980’s called From PSYOP to Mindwar: The Psychology of Victory. Aquino is also the founder of a Satanic cult called “The Temple of Set” which has had many run-ins with the law regarding satanic pedophile rings on military bases. I still kid you not. You can find a copy of this paper on the Temple web-site. He founded the cult in the mid-1970’s more than a decade before he wrote this paper with our friend Vallely. I’m not big on guilt by association — but really.

And the money quote from the paper? The future is like Scanners meets King Arthur meets 1984:

In its strategic context, MindWar must reach out to friends, enemies, and neutrals alike across the globe - neither through primitive “battlefield” leaflets and loudspeakers of PSYOP nor through the weak, imprecise, and narrow effort of psychotronics - but through the media possessed by the United States which have the capabilities to reach virtually all people on the face of the Earth. These media are, of course, the electronic media — television and radio. State of the art developments in satellite communication, video recording techniques, and laser and optical transmission of broadcasts made possible a penetration of the minds of the worlds such as would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Like the sword Excalibur, we have but to reach out and seize this tool; and it can transform the world for us if we have the courage and the integrity to civilization with it. If we do not accept Excalibur, then we relinquish our ability to inspire foreign cultures with our morality. If they then desire moralities unsatisfactory to us, we have no choice but to fight them on a more brutish level.

Disturbing on so many levels.

These guys need to be given a lot more airtime. I’m sure Joseph Wilson’s lawyers are eager to hear more of their theories.

Maurice Sendak is a great writer. I love Where the Wild Things Are a lot more than my kids do.

If you enjoy his work then this NPR interview is well worth a listen.

Written by Jessica

The first time, I was eager. Nervous, but keen, I’d heard a lot about it. The build up was tantalizing, the promise of rewards beyond my dreams soon to be fulfilled. I had the protection, I’d made the moves and I was ready.

Alas, my fumblings with the cross city tunnel were not to be consummated. Yep, I missed it, or it missed me, depending on your viewpoint. And now I hear the motorists are ‘dodging it’. Well, bugger me. ‘Dodging’ it didn’t enter the equation. I would have loved to ‘dodge it’. I just couldn’t find it.

That first time, I approached from the east. I’d organised my e-tag and checked the maps but within a nano second, found myself on South Dowling Street, moving at snail’s pace towards Cleveland Street. How did that happen? Still, I knew that nirvana was nearby. I got back on the bike and turned around. I could do this. After one more failed attempt, and another pep talk and u-turn, I finally got excited. I got from Anzac Parade to the Eastern Distributor, via a few obscure roundabouts and minor streets. There was no welcoming party, no signage, no street names, but I had made it. Heart racing, I sped up to 80 km.

The tease! I knew it couldn’t last. In a flash I saw, too late, the chosen lanes moving underground. I had failed to move far enough over and found myself crawling up South Dowling Street once more. Again, I didn’t see the signs. Where were they? Was this relationship just in my head? I longed for an affirmation, some reciprocity. I couldn’t go on. I needed a break. The back streets, old haunts, beckoned.

Our next date was better planned. I had a partner and suggested a threesome. This time, we made it to the tunnel. We were soaring. In fact, we got so carried away we missed the exit and came out at the Domain, instead of the Anzac Bridge. We were told later that we should have taken the Kings Cross exit (for the Western Suburbs?) I knew then that the tunnel was playing hardball.

With courage waning, I next approached from the west. Over the Anzac Bridge, I saw a sign, a billet doux. It winked and pointed. At the last minute, I got cold feet and moved one lane too far. Too late, I saw my error but even at 60km, I couldn’t make amends. I found myself in the bus lane heading into the city. Concrete barriers on either side, I was helpless and left to stew behind a bus with a few minutes to kill before trundling off to pick up its load.

The tunnel stood me up again on the way home. I’m not sure I even made an entrance that time. I emerged, blinking, at William Street. I’ve since been told I was probably only in the Eastern Distributor tunnel all along, which smacks of subterfuge and trickery.

I’m not sure how much I spent so far on this relationship. With petrol at a premium and those tolls where we’ve connected but not climaxed, it’s been adding up. I’m turning into a conspiracy theorist. Have the tunnel operators entered into an alliance with beach residents to fleece us, but keep us out at the same time?

I might have guessed that it could never work. Trying it on with that side of town was always going to end badly. But I’m in too deep. Like a lover scorned, I have lost all pride and become obsessive. I can’t stop now. I will find a path. Cleveland Street is for losers.

It seems that “specific intelligence and police information this week [...] gives cause for serious concern about a potential terrorist threat” and needs to be addressed with an urgent change to anti-terrorism legislation in the Australian Parliament.

The amendment allows authorities to act in regard to a terrorst act that is not able to be specifically identified. The current act only allows authorities to act in regard to a specific terrorist act because of use of the word “the” rather than “a” in the act. The “specific intelligence” can’t be too specific if it requires a change to the legislation to be less specific to a particular act of terrorism.

In general, and without reading the rest of the existing act, it sounds like an amendment most people would support. So why do we need this much fanfare?

The urgency and character of this amendment indicates, according to my inner bush-lawyer, that we should be elevated to at least “High” on the four-level Australian Counter-Terrorism Alert Level:

The four-level system defines the levels of alert as:

• Low - terrorist attack is not expected
• Medium - terrorist attack could occur
• High - terrorist attack is likely
• Extreme - terrorist attack is imminent or has occurred

The system was not introduced as a reaction to any particular threat, rather a sensible arrangement to inform national preparation and planning and to provide greater flexibility for responses.

I guess the paradox is, having identified a likely terrorist attack, law enforcement would be signaling defeat if the alert level were ever raised.

Better to recall the Senate than mess with counter-terrorism processes.