Bright Hall http://brighthall.aol.com Bright Hall http://brighthall.aol.com/media/feedlogo.gif Bright Hall http://brighthall.aol.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/No Handshakes Allowed, Mr. President!http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/21/no-handshakes-allowed-mr-president/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/21/no-handshakes-allowed-mr-president/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/21/no-handshakes-allowed-mr-president/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The president of the United States may be the most powerful person in the world, but there are still things he's not allowed to do -- like trade stocks while knowing insider information, or throw Naked Thursday dinner parties at the White House.

Now, add to those taboos shaking hands with leaders of certain countries.

It was only recently at the G-20 summit that Barack Obama was "bending his tall frame" to the king of Saudi Arabia. But on Friday, Obama shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

As the fair and balanced network Fox News objectively told us in a headline, "Handshake With Obama Belies Chavez's Contempt for America."

And Dick Cheney, who like Santa Claus apparently has a list of things that are naughty and nice, told that same award-wanting news network that the handshake "was not helpful."

The Angler added, "I think you have to be very careful. The world outside there, both our friends and our foes, will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they think they're dealing with a weak president or one who is not going to stand up and aggressively defend America's interests."

So there you have it, Obama. Be very careful. Next time a foreign leader who says bad things about the United States reaches out his hand to extend diplomatic politeness, you know what to do.

The snub.

There are several ways to effectively perform a snub. The first, and most obvious, is to ignore the outstretched hand of the anti-American figurehead. You stand there, and you say something nice, like, "Nice to see you." If it gets awkward, take a drink of whatever's in the glass you should always be carrying for situations like this.

But this is the Venezuelan president, the man who Fox News kindly reminds us called the United States four years ago the most "murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world." A simple snub won't do; you need finesse. Take one out of the junior-high playbook and reach out to shake Big Hugo's hand, then spike it up in the air and comb it past the back of your head, exclaiming, "Psyche!"

Another good phrase to yell is, "Not!!"

If he tries it again, use the King Cobra: Stare him down until his hand starts twitching, then jut your head and torso forward abruptly and pull it back. Give out a, "What?!"

That'll teach Chavez not to call capitalism "the devil."

Update: Jimmy Fallon and I evidently share a sense of humor (view the April 20 monologue).

 

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]]>Matt Negrin2009-04-21T02:15:00+00:00Espionage: Iran's New Word for, 'We Got Nothing'http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/19/espionage-irans-new-word-for-we-got-nothing/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/19/espionage-irans-new-word-for-we-got-nothing/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/19/espionage-irans-new-word-for-we-got-nothing/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

It's difficult to take a country's court system seriously when it convicts defendants in secret trials. It also doesn't help when the president of that country is a Holocaust denier and suspected terrorist. And it really doesn't look professional to accuse the defendant -- a journalist -- of "espionage" without providing a single piece of real evidence.

But such is the perplexing case of Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American reporter who was convicted of spying by Iran's shady court this week. The prosecutors accused the 31-year-old journalist of passing along secret information to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Spying is a pretty serious career choice, not to mention time-consuming. For Saberi to successfully spy on the Iranian government, she would have to maintain a cover, make contacts and stay under the radar for most of the six years that she's lived in the country (at least, according to the Spy Museum tour I took in D.C.).

So if suspected spy Saberi was supposed to lay low, why was she filing dozens of stories each month for news organizations like the BBC, NPR and Fox? In June 2007, she was on the front line in Tehran when Iranians burned down gas stations in opposition to fuel rationing. And she was on the scene when the Islamic country banned women from soccer games the year before, too.

Either Roxana Saberi is a terrible spy, or she's not a spy at all.

That might explain why the Iranian government first arrested her on the charge of buying a bottle of wine. They continued to hold her by claiming that she wasn't a real journalist like she claimed because she didn't have press credentials. Well, that's true -- because Iran's government had revoked her press pass in 2006.

But maybe the Iranian government does have a case after all. As revealed by a simple Google search that I can only imagine is the sole tool Iran's prosecutors used, Saberi told the U.S. government two years ago detailed information about Iranian weapons. Prepare for damning evidence:

Specifically, she mentioned "missiles that are hard to track with radar, super-fast torpedoes recently tested in war games, and other domestically produced weapons" in addition to its "tanks, armoried personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane."

But when I say that Saberi told the U.S. government about those weapons, I mean that she told anyone who was listening to NPR -- or even Iran, which was boasting its weapons as part of its annual Army Day Parade when she reported that story. So scratch that line of argument.

So if it's nearly impossible to make the case that Saberi is a spy, why did Iran charge her with "espionage?" Aren't there other serious crimes to commit against the Iranian government, like celebrating Passover, or acknowledging the Holocaust, or buying a bottle of wine? According to Saberi's father, the charges were so ludicrous that she had to be "tricked" into confessing.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that she's "deeply disappointed" in the ruling. I'm going to have to agree -- disappointed in the lack of creativity on Iran's part.

 

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]]>Matt Negrin2009-04-19T08:51:00+00:00North Korea Detains Two American Journalistshttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/31/north-korea-detains-two-american-journalists-for-diplomatic-bla/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/31/north-korea-detains-two-american-journalists-for-diplomatic-bla/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/31/north-korea-detains-two-american-journalists-for-diplomatic-bla/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Two American journalists face five to ten years' detention in a North Korean labor camp after being seized by border guards and charged with "illegal entry" and carrying out "hostile" activities, according to a Reporters Sans Frontièrs (Reporters Without Borders) report dated March 31.

RSF, an international organization advocating and monitoring freedom of the press, reports that the journalists were near the Chinese border with North Korea investigating the smuggling of North Korean women into China for sale. RSF cites multiple anonymous sources that suspect that the American journalists were on the Chinese side of the Tumen River when North Korean border guards crossed into China to capture them on March 17, which contradicts North Korea's assertion and refutes their jurisdiction.

Euna Lee (pictured, left) and Laura Ling (pictured, right), of the San Francisco-based Current TV Web site, a media outlet chaired by former Vice President Al Gore, are detained in North Korea while their guide, an ethnic Korean with Chinese citizenship, is detained in China. A fourth member of the group arrested in the incident, cameraman Mitch Koss, was detained in China then deported.

RSF calls the detention of the two American journalists by North Korea "diplomatic blackmail," timed conspicuously around the scheduled missile launch to send a satellite into orbit, which some -- including Japan and the United States -- are concerned will be a test of long-range missiles capable of carrying warheads.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-31T23:39:00+00:00Brits to Teach Twitter and Wikipedia In Schoolshttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/28/brits-to-teach-tots-twitter-and-wikipedia-instead-of-world-war-i/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/28/brits-to-teach-tots-twitter-and-wikipedia-instead-of-world-war-i/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/28/brits-to-teach-tots-twitter-and-wikipedia-instead-of-world-war-i/#commentsFiled under: , ,

An anticipated report announcing changes in elementary school curriculum in England will add the study of Wikipedia and Twitter while allowing schools to opt out of teaching the Victorian era or World War II, which are taught extensively in secondary education.

Former Office for Standards in Education chief Sir Jim Rose assessed the existing British primary education curriculum and prioritized the study of blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as "sources of information and forms of communication," according to The Guardian, which the BBC cites as breaking the story.

In The Guardian's article, head of education of Britain's National Union of Teachers, John Bangs, comments that "computer skills and keyboard skills seem to be as important as handwriting in [Rose's report]. Traditional books and written texts are downplayed in response to web-based learning."

Ironically, Wikipedia cites a Guardian article published in the past five years which cites a librarian and Internet consultant, Philip Bradley, stating that "theoretically, [Wikipedia] is a lovely idea, but practically, I wouldn't use it and I'm not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like [Wikipedia], all that goes out the window."

That is, Wikipedia cites the latter Guardian article until any given person on the entire planet omits (knowingly or not) the citation from the Wikipedia wiki page about itself, throwing the link to the quote about throwing credibility out the window, out the window.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-28T01:03:00+00:00Japan, Without Steroids, Is Baseball's Besthttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/24/japan-without-steroids-is-baseballs-best/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/24/japan-without-steroids-is-baseballs-best/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/24/japan-without-steroids-is-baseballs-best/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

TOKYO -- At 6 feet 3 inches, and only 169 pounds, right-hander Hisashu Iwakuma kept the Koreans at the plate for most of the game.

On the offensive side of Japan's lineup and earning his spot as the championship's hero was Ichiro, who at 5 feet 9 inches and 160 pounds drove in two runs with an up-the-middle line drive after a patient, samurai-like at-bat.

There is no denying that Japan is likely the skinniest baseball team not only to win the World Baseball Classic (twice in a row), but probably to even play in it. Coming from a country whose main foods are noodles and fish, most of these players would probably scoff at the notion that injecting their bodies with steroids would make them better athletes.

As if somewhat proving this point, Japan firmly manhandled the United States in the semifinals, 9-4, like a horde of miniature players overtaking a country that boasts baseball as its national pastime. But in truth, there is no country that loves baseball more than Japan.

At the crack of Ichiro's swinging bat as it drove the ball into center field, bringing two runs home in the top of the 10th inning yesterday, the room full of some 40-odd Japanese students I was in erupted in riotous cheers. "Pressure's on, Korea!" one student yelled.

That scene was being repeated all across Japan, in ramen shops, bars, offices and even train stations with televisions tuned to the most important baseball game of the next four years. For the same reason that Japanese (and Korean) fans constantly chant and cheer during games despite the score, these citizens -- young and old, employed and retired -- were glued to the screen itching for a win for Japan. Call it a form of conformist nationalism if you want, but it sure sells ThunderStix.

The final score was 5-3, but it might as well have been 55-0.

Japan's history with Korea stems back much further than baseball, and emotions still broil from Japan's occupation of its Asian neighbor during World War II, when it forced thousands of Korean women into sexual slavery. A win for Japan in the WBC championship game means more than a trophy and an after party in the locker room, and more than bragging rights until 2013. It means asserting dominance over a country that may never get a true, genuine apology from the Japanese government for what happened more than 60 years ago.

But that history doesn't show on the surface. Yesterday, it was all about Yu Darvish's blown save and salvaged win, Ichiro's game-winning shot and the tears and champagne that flowed in both San Diego and Tokyo.

 

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]]>Matt Negrin2009-03-24T09:14:00+00:00Cheney and Obama Debate Policies on TV, A Week Aparthttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/22/cheney-and-obama-debate-policies-on-tv-week-apart/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/22/cheney-and-obama-debate-policies-on-tv-week-apart/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/22/cheney-and-obama-debate-policies-on-tv-week-apart/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

President Barack Obama will respond to policy critiques from former Vice President Dick Cheney in televised interviews aired a week apart.

During Cheney's March 15 appearance on CNN's State of the Nation he stated that "When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what [the Obama administration is] doing, closing Guantanamo and so forth... they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that's required, that concept of military threat that is essential if you're going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks."

During Obama's Sunday night appearance on CBS' 60 Minutes he will respond to Cheney's criticism: "How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment," according to a CBS release from Saturday.

Regarding the changing of anti-American sentiment through policy, Hamas Chairman Khaled Mashal told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper that "a new language toward [the Middle East region] is coming from President Obama. The challenge for everybody is for this to be the prelude for a genuine change in U.S. and European policies. Regarding an official opening toward Hamas, it's a matter of time," as reported by Reuters on Sunday.

Mashal, a political leader of the Palestinian militant party that has governed Gaza since 2007, was referring to Obama's video message for Nowruz, the March 21 new year celebration observed in regions of the former Persian empire, including Iran and Afghanistan.

In Obama's message to Islamic nations, the president specifically addressed Iran: "The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right, but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create."

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly responded to Obama's Nowruz message with more reservation than Mashal, but he added that Iran wants the U.S. to "take concrete steps toward decreasing tension."

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-22T14:00:00+00:00U.S. Nuclear Sub Rammed Vessel, Caused Oil Spillhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/22/u-s-nuclear-sub-rammed-vessel-caused-oil-spill/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/22/u-s-nuclear-sub-rammed-vessel-caused-oil-spill/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/22/u-s-nuclear-sub-rammed-vessel-caused-oil-spill/#commentsFiled under: ,

An American nuclear submarine collided with another U.S. Navy vessel which spilled 25,000 gallons of oil into a strait in the Persian Gulf before dawn on Friday.

Fifteen of the 110 sailors aboard the USS Hartford, the Los Angeles class attack submarine, were injured. The Hartford also made international headlines in 2003 when it ran aground near Italy. Aside from the ruptured fuel tank, no injuries were reported aboard the USS New Orleans (pictured), the transport vessel struck by the Hartford, which was submerged at the time of the collision.

This is the second collision in the Strait of Hormuz involving an American nuclear submarine in the past two years. In January of 2007, the USS Newport News, another Los Angeles class attack submarine, collided with a Japanese oil tanker, causing a hull breach. Although there were no injuries in that collision, the commander of the Newport News was relieved of duty.

The Strait of Hormuz is 34 miles wide at its narrowest point. The New Orleans, the larger of the two vessels involved in the recent collision, is only 684 feet long.

Friday's collision occurred just six weeks after British and French nuclear submarines collided in the Atlantic Ocean in early February.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-22T00:01:00+00:00U.S. To Send "Civilian Surge" To Afghanistanhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/19/u-s-to-send-civilian-surge-to-afghanistan/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/19/u-s-to-send-civilian-surge-to-afghanistan/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/19/u-s-to-send-civilian-surge-to-afghanistan/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The Obama administration is finalizing a new focus in the continuing war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan: civility.

While increasing the military personnel deployed in Afghanistan by 17,000 to 55,000 in 2009, the United States also plans to increase the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and other provincial reconstruction teams, or PRTs, by nearly 300, a policy that the Washington Post has called a "civilian surge." Few of the 1,055 existing members of PRTs to date are civilians.

Rather than continuing simply to saturate Afghanistan with U.S. soldiers, the focus on its civil development will include policy reform and instruction from specialists in federal departments of Agriculture and Justice, among others, in effect utilizing the United States government as a public global consulting firm, nation-building the third world, one nation at a time, on U.S. taxpayers' dollars.

This is an attempt to stave off Afghanistan's digression toward the status of a "failed state," as the U.N. has warned in the last few years (pictured: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, left, and Afghanistani President Hamid Karzai).

Afghanistan ranked seventh on 2008's failed state index, having continued to rise since coming in at 11th in 2005.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-19T00:04:00+00:00Former Journalist Wins Presidency, Implicated in Liberal Media Conspiracyhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/17/former-journalist-wins-presidency-implicated-in-liberal-media-c/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/17/former-journalist-wins-presidency-implicated-in-liberal-media-c/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/17/former-journalist-wins-presidency-implicated-in-liberal-media-c/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Former TV news journalist Mauricio Funes (pictured) of the Social-Democrat FMLN party defeated rival presidential candidate Rodrigo Ávila in the first ruling party change in El Salvador in nearly two decades during Sunday's election. Sitting Salvadoran president Antonia Saca of the rival conservative ARENA party was also a former journalist. Incumbent presidents may not run for re-election.

Note: one out of two former journalists to become president of El Salvador in the past decade is conservative.

Would "a rose by any other name still smell so" rebellious?

Fox News' syndicated AP story ran with the headline "Leftist Ex-CNN Reporter Wins El Salvador Presidency."

The Huffington Post's syndication of a Washington Post story ran with the headline "Mauricio Funes Wins El Salvador Election In A First For Leftist Ex-Rebels," while the original Washington Post story ran with the headline "Leftist Declares Victory In El Salvador Election.

Even the BBC ran their story with the headline "Left-Winger Wins El Salvador Poll."

Although Funes represented the FMLN party, which was founded by Marxist guerillas in the Salvadoran civil war that ended in 1991, the AP story states that he is "a moderate plucked from outside the ranks of the rebel-group-turned-political-party," who won with 51 to 49 percent of the votes. How left-of-center can a two percent popular vote victor in a country that hasn't had a non-conservative ruler in nearly two decades be?

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-17T00:02:00+00:00China Worried About Money U.S. Owes Themhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/14/china-worried-about-money-u-s-owes-them/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/14/china-worried-about-money-u-s-owes-them/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/14/china-worried-about-money-u-s-owes-them/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concerns about the increasing U.S. debt and the lasting recession in a news conference on Friday.

Roughly 70 percent of China's $2 trillion foreign exchange reserves are U.S. government loans. China is the biggest holder of the $10.9 trillion U.S. government debt in the world, followed closely by Japan who, along with the United Kingdom share more than 50 percent of it.

"We have lent a massive amount of capital to the United States, and of course we are concerned about the security of our assets," a recent Reuters article quoted Wen as saying on Friday.

"To speak truthfully, I do indeed have some worries. I would like [...] to once again request America to maintain their creditworthiness, keep their promise and guarantee the safety of Chinese assets."

Wen also expressed concern for the key interest rate, which the Federal Reserve bank has held at virtually zero percent for the past three months, which is decreasing the value of China's U.S. bond holdings. The rate dropped from one percent to an unprecedented quarter of one percent on December 16.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-14T16:53:00+00:00Madoff to Plead Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guiltyhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/10/madoff-to-plead-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/10/madoff-to-plead-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/10/madoff-to-plead-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty-guilty/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Bernard Madoff is expected to plead guilty to all 11 criminal charges at his plea proceeding scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday, according to the U.S Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York handling his trial. A plea arrangement has not been reached and therefore none of the charges Madoff faces will be waived.

The charges against Madoff, with their maximum penalties, are as follows:

Charge One: securities fraud; 20 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Two: investment advisor fraud; five years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Three: mail fraud; 20 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Four: wire fraud; 20 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Five: international money laundering to promote fraud in the sale of securities, mail fraud, wire fraud, and theft from an employee benefit plan; 20 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Six: international money laundering to conceal the proceeds of fraud in the sale of securities, mail fraud, wire fraud and theft from an employee benefit plan; 20 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Seven: money laundering; 10 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Eight: making false statements; five years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Nine: perjury; five years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Ten: making a false filing with the SEC; 20 years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

Charge Eleven: theft from an employee benefit plan; five years' imprisonment with three years' probation.

The total maximum term of imprisonment for the charges to which Madoff is expected to plead guilty is 150 years. He is 70.

Additionally, for the crimes Madoff has been committing since "at least" the 1980s, he must forfeit $170.8 billion in assets.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-10T23:18:00+00:00U.S. and Russia To Stop Iran Nuke Developmenthttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/04/u-s-and-russia-to-stop-iran-nuke-development/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/04/u-s-and-russia-to-stop-iran-nuke-development/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/04/u-s-and-russia-to-stop-iran-nuke-development/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The New York Times and The Washington Post both reported on Tuesday that Washington and Moscow are negotiating a joint opposition against Tehran's nuclear program. The catch is that if Iran is kept from breaching their nuclear non-proliferation agreement, the new missile defense system in Europe, supported by the U.S., will not be completed as it will be deemed no longer necessary.

U.S. President Barack Obama sent a letter of proposal, hand-delivered in mid-February although Russian President Dimitry Medvedev (pictured) has not formally responded. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to discuss missile defense with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a meeting in Geneva on Saturday.

One might note that The Times positioned their article above the fold on page A1 while The Post tucked their story on page A02.

One might also note that the day following the election of Barack Obama as president, Medvedev threatened to station short-range missiles along Russia's western border if the U.S. continued developing the missile defense system. Later in the day, after having issued the threat, Medvedev sent Obama a congratulation via telegram.

Also, this just in: the Cold War ended two decades ago.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-03-04T00:14:00+00:00Chinese Cops Fire Upon Monk On Fire, Reports Sayhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/28/chinese-cops-fire-upon-monk-on-fire-reports-say/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/28/chinese-cops-fire-upon-monk-on-fire-reports-say/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/28/chinese-cops-fire-upon-monk-on-fire-reports-say/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The BBC reported a violent incident among Tibetan monks in the southwestern Sichuan province on Friday. Tibetans told the AFP that a monk had been shot by police while the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, only reports that the monk had collapsed before being taken to a hospital, but all parties agree that the monk had doused himself with gasoline and had set himself on fire.

Although their meeting on the third day of the Tibetan New Year, February 27, had been banned by Chinese authorities, 1,000 Tibetan monks met in the town of Aba. The burning monk at the center of attention has been identified as Tapey, who allegedly waved a Tibetan flag and shouted slogans of some kind before the immolation attempt.

To quote the BBC article: "It is extremely difficult to independently confirm any information coming out of Tibetan areas," especially extremely peculiar reports like a burning man being shot before being extinguished.

The 50th anniversary of the day Tibet's Dalai Lama (pictured) fled in exile will be March 31 so keep an eye out for more information extremely difficult to independently confirm, and don't play with matches.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-02-28T15:33:00+00:00C.I.A. Nervous About Recession Warhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/27/c-i-a-nervous-about-recession-war/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/27/c-i-a-nervous-about-recession-war/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/27/c-i-a-nervous-about-recession-war/#commentsFiled under: , ,

A careful New York Times reader would have come across a very curious morsel of information in the fifth paragraph of a short story on page A11 of Feb. 26's edition, "C.I.A. Pakistan Campaign Is Working, Director Says."

The article is ostensibly about the newly appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta (pictured), and his unclassified, quotable, printable remarks about drone aircraft and missile strikes in Pakistan and the recent peculiar Pakistani government negotiations in the North-West Frontier Province, which hosts the Swat Valley Taliban haven.

However, the alarming fifth paragraph reads "[Panetta] also said that the spy agency had begun producing a daily report to the White House about the world financial crisis - another sign that American intelligence agencies are increasingly nervous about how it could affect global security."

That is, the likelihood of an international security breach (i.e. war, somewhere, some way, somehow) because of the global recession is high enough that the C.I.A. briefs the White House Cabinet not on a monthly or weekly but daily basis about what has changed since the last briefing, 24 hours ago.

Just F.Y.I.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-02-27T00:18:00+00:00Pakistani Villagers To Receive 30,000 Rifleshttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/22/pakistani-villagers-to-receive-30-000-rifles/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/22/pakistani-villagers-to-receive-30-000-rifles/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/22/pakistani-villagers-to-receive-30-000-rifles/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The chief minister of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province announced on Sunday that 30,000 rifles will be freely distributed to villagers.

On Monday, Feb. 16, the Pakistani government had announced an appeasement of Swat Valley Taliban, promising to impose Islamic law in the North West Frontier Province if fighting ceases in the region.

It is uncertain, however, if handing out 30,000 weapons to locals, creating yet another militia, will effectively discourage violence from the Taliban, or just add to the number of guns from which bullets can fly.

The firearms had been seized from "terrorists and anti-state elements," according to the province's chief minister, Haider Khan Hoti.

So naturally, terrorists and anti-state elements who have had 30,000 of their weapons taken from them, only to see the weapons handed over to villagers, have no interest in retrieving their weapons, to use them once again in terrorist and anti-state attacks. Inserting thousands of weapons into one of the most volatile of regions in the world, naturally, could only lead to less violence.

Lock and load for peace!

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-02-22T17:35:00+00:00Beer in Vending Machines -- What Drinking Age?http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/21/beer-in-vending-machines-what-drinking-age/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/21/beer-in-vending-machines-what-drinking-age/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/21/beer-in-vending-machines-what-drinking-age/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Animated disagreement between coworkers is a venerable tradition often denied to Bright Hall's far-flung, break room-less staff. Advise & Dissent is an attempt to fix that. Click here for past debates.

The idea behind lowering the U.S. drinking age to 18 is that it will let police focus on enforcing more serious crimes, while simultaneously removing the stigma of consuming alcohol among the underage. One consequence, however, could be that waves and waves of newly legal drinkers will endanger their lives and others by being careless.

But look around the world.

The United States is one of just a few countries with a drinking age as high as 21 years old. Some of the oldest countries in the world have lower drinking ages -- and higher expectations for youth.

Take Japan, where I've been studying for almost two months now. Next to every other soda and potato chip vending machine on the corner is a similar display for different brands of beer and cigarettes. The country's drinking age is officially 20, but practically it's anyone with 230 yen (about $2.50). There is very little police enforcement, and no laws forbidding public consumption, although it happens rarely. The reason is because there is a high moral and social expectation that most people will be responsible.

In France, the heart of the world's wine community, the legal age is 16, and the same goes for Germany, Indonesia, Denmark, Italy and a variety of African countries.

What about Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand? No drinking age whatsoever, which is actually common in a lot of smaller countries and islands in Europe and Asia.

India is the only country that restricts alcohol in some areas to those who aren't at least 25, the highest drinking age in the world. In Pakistan, Iran and Libya, among others, alcohol is actually illegal.

Just a handful of other countries have the same requirement as the United States, at 21: Armenia, Egypt and some islands near Australia.

So why is the land of the free nearly alone in this category? Its immediate neighbors are less restrictive: Canada's age is 19, while Mexico's is 18, the most common around the world.

But most of these countries didn't set their ages in the teens for the same reason that many advocates want to in the United States, most notably the Amethyst Initiative, a group of college presidents who say lowering the drinking age to 18 will be more effective than simply imposing "abstinence" education. The university chiefs say they have their students' health in their best interests, and that lowering the drinking age will constructively change their Animal House behavior.

Obviously a chief concern is drunken driving. In the United States, more than 13,000 people died in drunk-driving accidents in 2006. That alarming figure has triggered interest groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving to call for greater enforcement, and also oppose the Amethyst plan.

Yet in France, where the drinking age is 16, there were only 1,241 alcohol-related deaths on the streets in 2007. In Canada (19 to drink), about 1,000 die because of drunken driving every year. In Japan, fewer than 500 people a year die in motor accidents involving alcohol, even given the country's strict DUI enforcement.

Would lowering the U.S. drinking age be productive as long as teenagers are responsible? And if so, how do communities and the authorities guarantee better alcohol education? It seems that most college students either know someone or know a friend of someone who died in a drunk-driving crash. Anecdotal evidence is almost more powerful than the figure of 13,000 people each year getting in fatal crashes.

It's unlikely that the drinking age will change anytime soon, despite the United States' high age requirement compared to the rest of the world. There's just too much at risk.

Should the Drinking Age Be Changed?

 

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]]>Matt Negrin2009-02-21T00:03:00+00:00These Right-Wingers Make Bush Look Like Naderhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/19/these-right-wingers-make-bush-look-like-nader/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/19/these-right-wingers-make-bush-look-like-nader/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/19/these-right-wingers-make-bush-look-like-nader/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

TOKYO -- Like that pre-calc nerd in high school, Japan doesn't really get out a lot. The government and the people are more concerned with what's happening inside their borders than anything else.

Which helps explain why Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial burial ground for a couple of million war dead including a handful of Japanese war criminals, is a focal point of nationalism.

During World War II, Japan's imperial army led bloody campaigns in China and other parts of Asia, resulting in tens of millions of deaths. Yet a few decades after the island nation surrendered, more than 1,000 soldiers who were charged as war criminals -- including 14 really terrible ones who are called "Class-A" criminals -- were secretly enshrined in the burial ground.

When this became public, China and Korea got pretty angry. Now, every time a Japanese official (like former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi) visits the shrine, East Asia flares up in wars of words. Japan's current leader, Taro Aso, said recently that he is considering a visit.

But that's not the only reason why Yasukuni is controversial. Walk 200 feet to the right of the shrine, and there's the Yushukan, a "history" museum erected by super-conservative, right-wing nationalists who want to set the record straight about Japan's wars -- at least, their version of the record.

Keep in mind that this group openly advocates -- and has succeeded in -- revising school textbooks to omit details such as the fact that during the war, the Japanese used Korean "comfort women" as sex slaves for their soldiers.

So when you think the United States has too many political extremists, think again. Whether they're on the right (like Sean Hannity) or the left (like Bill Maher), none of them have anything on the conservative Uyoku dantai.

It's also important to know that such extreme nationalists, while somewhat influential, are not very popular among most Japanese citizens. They represent a minority of Japanese people who are willing to bend the facts about what happened in one of Japan's darkest chapters. So, enter the Yushukan.

The first thing I saw before I even walked into the museum was a group of right-wingers huddled by their black trucks that bear the old imperial Japanese flag and blast "nationalist" music from loudspeakers. And the first thing I saw inside the museum, near the gift shop, was a row of hundreds of CDs burned with the same type of music.

It's common to hear American politicians defend attacks from their critics by saying that their opponents are practicing "revisionist history," misrepresenting their records. But that phrase has an entirely different and real meaning on the other side of the world.

What's inside the Yushukan is not as important as what's not inside. In 1937, Japan began massacring millions of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, nearly committing genocide. (Japan says its actions were a matter of self-defense.) Yet inside the museum, the only mention of the slaughter is a small panel barely three feet wide that refers to the "China Incident" and makes no mention of any conflict whatsoever.

Similarly conspicuous are the letters written by kamikaze pilots in the hours before they took off on their suicide missions. The letters appear only in Japanese, and the entire display has no English translation. It is one of the few parts of the museum with no English translation whatsoever. A Japanese friend of mine translated a part of one that read, "I'll do my best as one of the Japanese soldiers."

Robert Dujarric, an East Asian expert and former senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, stresses that Yasukuni Shrine is modeled after European values of monarchy and religion, and is really a tribute to Japan's modernization.

"The thing you have to know about Yasukuni is that it's not Japanese," Dujarric told a sociology class as a guest lecturer. The symbolism of honoring the emperor, he said, is a way for nationalists to say to the world, "We died for something."

The shrine and museum are only a small part of Japan. But they represent a significant mindset that still grips at least a few vocal leaders, and they are no doubt on the mind of the Obama administration as Hillary Clinton departs from her trip to Japan. Clinton asked Aso to be the first world leader to visit Barack Obama in the White House, a move that is almost certainly a favor she expects to be returned by committing the isolationist country to contributing more to global issues.

 

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]]>Matt Negrin2009-02-19T07:22:00+00:00Japan's Finance Minister Gets Drunk and Quitshttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/17/japans-finance-minister-gets-drunk-and-quits/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/17/japans-finance-minister-gets-drunk-and-quits/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/17/japans-finance-minister-gets-drunk-and-quits/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

TOKYO -- Imagine how Hillary Clinton feels. On her first trip around the world as secretary of state, she makes her first stop in Japan to promise that the United States will work with the island nation more than ever. She throws in a strong chastisement at North Korea. Then, when she picks up a copy of a newspaper, she finds that news of her arrival has been pushed down by this:

"Japan finance chief quits over alleged drunkenness."

Here's what happened: Japan's economy nearly died this week, shrinking by the most it has since the 1974 oil crisis. To deal with the sobering news, Japan's finance minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, did the opposite: he went out and got plastered (allegedly).

Appearing at a Rome summit last weekend, Nakagawa appeared to fall asleep while on a panel at the conference and had trouble answering reporters' questions -- or even sitting up. Don't worry, it's all on YouTube:



Nakagawa decided the best thing to do is to quit the cabinet. No word yet on where he is now, but I have a few obvious theories.

Politically, Nakagawa's slurred speech (which he blamed on cold medicine) and resignation is a near-fatal blow to an already-crippled prime minister. Taro Aso, Japan's chief executive who loves anime and manga but also has a hard time reading some Japanese characters, saw his approval ratings plummet to below 10 percent this week. His ruling group, the Liberal Democratic Party, may lose power in this year's elections for the first time.

This is how they do things in Japan. If a top official embarrasses himself or the people he represents, he quits out of shame. There are no "I didn't inhale" lines of defense. The public expects immediate accountability; just ask most Japanese people what Nakagawa's buzzed appearance means, and they'll shake their heads slowly and say, "dame, dame," which means, "bad, bad."

Yet don't expect the opposition party -- whom Clinton actually met with while in Japan -- to capture power so easily. Japan has a history of repeatedly disapproving of its leaders while simultaneously reelecting them.

Don't ask me why. Maybe there's something in the water.

 

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]]>Matt Negrin2009-02-17T18:44:00+00:00BBC Confirms Nuclear Sub Collision at Seahttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/16/bbc-confirms-nuclear-sub-collision-at-sea/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/16/bbc-confirms-nuclear-sub-collision-at-sea/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/16/bbc-confirms-nuclear-sub-collision-at-sea/#commentsFiled under: ,

The BBC reported confirmation on Monday that French and British nuclear submarines collided in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Feb. 10, the collision of an American communication satellite and an inactive Russian satellite over Siberia made daily news, but the nuclear submarine collision which occurred on Feb. 6 remained unconfirmed for ten days.

The two submarines, which carry a total of 240 sailors, have been identified as Le Triomphant and HMS Vanguard (pictured), which returned to port on Feb. 14, two days before the collision was confirmed.

Although both vessels have sonar capabilities, BBC defense correspondent Caroline Wyatt attributed the crash to anti-sonar devices being "too effective."

The BBC report quoted the United Kingdom's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament chairperson Kate Hudson stating that "The collision of two submarines, both with nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons on board, could have released vast amounts of radiation and scattered scores of nuclear warheads across the seabed."


Two inanimate objects hit each other in space and we heard about it immediately, but two giant boats full of people and nuclear warheads hit each other in the middle of the ocean and it took a week and a half for international media to confirm that it had happened.

By a rough count, that's two sonar operators, two captains and two countries' presses that fell asleep at the wheel. Or helm, whatever.

The reassurance that neither of the ships' nuclear weapons were active at the time of the collision is, of course, little consolation considering that submarines with sonar also aren't supposed to just accidentally ram right into each other, either. Next nuclear warfare collision might be too little and too late for couldn't have, shouldn't have, wouldn't have.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-02-16T16:47:00+00:00Satellite Crash Due To Inaccurate Datahttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/14/satellite-crash-due-to-inaccurate-data/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/14/satellite-crash-due-to-inaccurate-data/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/14/satellite-crash-due-to-inaccurate-data/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Iridium Satellite, LLC had been given no advanced warning that one of their 66 (make that 65, now) satellites was on a collision course with a Russian military satellite, Kosmos-2251, Tuesday.

The impact of the two satellites in orbit over Siberia created at least 600 identifiable pieces of debris, increasing the likelihood of other crashes with the 18,000 other objects orbiting Earth.

Most astonishing is that the trajectory information available to agencies such as the Center for Space Standards and Innovation tracking orbiting objects projected that the collision of the two satellites was only the 152nd likeliest to occur on Tuesday.

The likeliest crash to occur was a different Russian satellite with debris of another Russian satellite (do you see the trend emerging?) that were estimated to pass within 243 feet of each other.

The Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 satellites were supposed to pass each other 1,729 feet (about a third of a mile) apart. Instead we have infrastructure loss and a new cloud of space junk.

 

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]]>Adam Kirchner2009-02-14T18:29:00+00:00