My Kid Could Have Written That

How many pairs of glasses does it take to watch a movie these days, anyway? Going in, I hoped previews would still be playing, because we were late. But when I saw the intentionally blurred double-vision images on the screen, I knew we were in to it already. I tried to watch without the glasses, but that was impossible. I had to keep them on and cope with the artificial feeling of paper cutouts set at varying distances in front of me, like the layered images in a Viewmaster or targets at the shooting range. You could tell that everything in the frame had a discrete distance classification: there would be the foreground image, like maybe some seed pods lazily floating; then the middle-ground images, like maybe the characters in the scene; and then the background, which was usually a single flat plane like a normal movie. I would have preferred the whole movie to be on a single plane so that I would not have been thinking about the 3-D effect. When someone in the seats ahead of us got up to go to the bathroom, he looked like he, too, was a part of the movie. Indeed, some objects in the movie looked closer than the real people in front of me, and this makes me think of combining live-action with 3-D cinema. Let’s remake Rocky Horror so that it blends better with its simultaneous re-enactors.

I heard that this is the movie James Cameron had wanted to make since he was 14. I believe it. With a planet called “Pandora” and the precious metal called “unobtainium,” it seems like he wrote it more like when he was 4 and did not revise it since. The alien Na’vi are portrayed with the same lack of nuance, with obvious elements of African and Native American hunting, dance, spirituality, and medicine mixed to achieve generic foreign-ness. If you wondered where banal world music comes from, it is probably James Cameron’s Pandora.

A friend said it would have helped to see some kind of exchange in the alien society -- a place where they are gambling, or paying taxes. “Like the cantina in Star Wars!” Svetx said. Indeed. The basic grit and grind of life. As it stands, you think the Na’vi do nothing but pay homage to nature and hunt, hardly a believable or even interesting existence.

People are marveling at the special effects, but wasn’t the flying more exciting in the Superman movies of the ’70’s? The battle more exciting at the end of Star Wars episode IV? Who can forget the quick character development of showing each fighter pilot in his cockpit talking on his intercom?

In more recent history, I remember almost being moved to tears by two awesome movie battles: The battle on the fields of Pelennor in Return of the King, for all its orchestration couched in desperation and forboding; and the middle of The Incredibles where it showed the family working together with all its awesome powers unleashed. There was nothing so satisfying in Avatar.

There is one thing I do admire about this movie, and that is it’s own paradoxical nature. It is the feel-good blockbuster of this holiday season. But what we feel good about is the pagan nature-creatures triumphing over a U.S. military that is essentially working for a large corporation. Anyone who has looked at a newspaper headline in recent years surely can’t miss the parallel to U.S. involvement in the Middle East. I expect this movie to draw fire from war supporters as well as fundamentalist Christians. Looking on the Internet now though, I can’t find scathing reviews from a Christian website. If anyone finds one, please let me know. If there really are none, then maybe the Christian Right does not notice the connections to our foreign policy, or doesn’t think this is what our foreign policy amounts to. In that case, in a seasonal action blockbuster, what’s not to like?

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The Bible Does Not Mention Sex Videos Either

Carrie Prejean is saying thatbreast implants are not un-Christian because the Bible does not mention them at all, and thus, they are not forbidden.

Now, I don't claim to be a Christian. And I'm no Bible expert. But I think it's safe to say that another thing the Bible does not mention is sex videos. So why is Prejean claiming she made her sex video before her conversion to Christianity? (Her then-boyfriend counters that it was made after her conversion.) If it's not mentioned in the Bible, then, like implants, it's not forbidden. And it's not like God isn't watching anyway, sex video or not!

But back to those implants. While the Bible does not mention them specifically, Timothy 2:9 - 2:11 from Bible Wiki says "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." I would not call breast implants modest or associate them with shamefacedness; and with a price of $4000 to $10,000, I would call them "costly array." On the other hand, the next passage in Timothy says, "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve." This could be taken to mean that, since beauty pageant officials forced Prejean to get the implants, that she was obeying this authority of a man.

Interpretations aside, I think we all know exactly what breast implants are for: enhancement of sex appeal for personal gain. While some Christians claim that another aspect of sexuality, homosexuality, is a choice, I think we can all agree that breast implants are a choice. In fact, Prejean says it's a personal choice. So I say to Prejean: St. Anthony the Abbot gave up all his personal possessions; for you, the path to wisdom lies in giving up your breast implants.

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The Ocean

Sit back and relax. Here is one big 8 minute wild track of the ocean, composed of several smaller clips recorded for possible use in Todd Tinkham's Southland of the Heart.

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Choppers!

Two Blackhawk helicopters fly over the beach during shooting of the final scenes of Todd Tinkham's Southland of the Heart.

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Three Relations

There were the big grocery stores, like Harris-Teeter, with all their food (except for produce) in packages. Then came Whole Foods where bulk food is in bins and you package it yourself. Then came Trader Joe's which is like the bulk food aisle at Whole Foods, but the food is pre-packaged for you.

There was classic literature where morals and basic tenets espousing God and patriotism were expressed; then there was modernism where long-held beliefs did not necessarily prevail, and post-modernism which broke structures into pieces and played with them. Then there came Stephen Colbert who uses the elements of post-modernism to reconstruct a classical character espousing God, morals, and patriotism again.

There was art that depicted, as drawing or painting on flat surfaces, 3-dimensional images; and there were 3-dimensional sculptures made of flat paper. Then there was Picasso whose work looks like he took pieces of paper from 3-D sculptures and glued them back onto a single plane, bringing renewed flatness to what had once been 3-dimensional.

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Did you hear about Sarah Palin's new treatise on values?

It's called "Gouging Roe." Honk!

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To the Guy on Facebook Worried about Islamofascism:

Your rant was right out of the playbook for right-wing demagoguery. I had not known a Facebook wall comment could run so long. I can scroll my screen for several pages before reaching its end. Here's just a sample:

. . . Political "solutions" are only temporary and only give the jihadis time to regroup for another attack. 1400 years of islamic history prove this. The koran tells them it is acceptable under islamic law to break treaties when to their advantage. The command to spread islam by all means, including murder trumps all in islamic law and thought.

So the only choices we have are to keep trying to help those in Afghanistan who say they want a reformation for the purpose of instilling western democratic values in hopes that our values will change the thought patterns of those muslims, and maybe even have them reject islam, or pull all our people out and bomb every islamofascist base that shows up on our radar. If the liberal "infidels" we protect by doing this don't understand the need for such bombings, tell them to shut up and be glad we are protecting them. . . .

I spent enough time on my facebook response to you that I'm putting it here too:

On the other hand, our very presence in Afghanistan brings some monetary flow to the Taliban:

http://enduringamerica.com/2009/10/07/afghanistan-as-us-increases-troops-pentagon-aid-flows-to-taliban/

And a bridge we have built aids the opium trade:

http://www.newser.com/story/63045/us-built-bridge-supports-afghan-drug-trade.html

I know that bridge and business building in Afghanistan are very well intended, but my point is, we don't foresee unintended consequences.

Also consider, as Steve said, leaders of two factions of Taliban, Hekmatyar and Haqqani, were once allies of the CIA in fighting communism. During Charlie Wilson's war, the U.S. also fomented fundamentalism in the Middle East because religion was seen as a deterrent to communism. Nowadays, we borrow from a communist country, China, which, in fact, fought against us by proxy in Vietnam, in order to fight jihadism. Does that make sense?

Continuing the cycle of aiding, now, our future enemies, it is suspected (and likely true to some extent, I say) that Taliban fighters have gone through military training provided for Afghan forces by the U.S. and Nato:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175116

I sincerely thank David's cousins for doing the hardest and most risky work of serving in our military. My criticism is for our policy makers who are certainly not working as hard as our soldiers, but should be. After fighting two wars in the Middle East for longer than we fought in WWII, the only thing that is certain is that you and I will have to pay for it.

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This Came Out Pretty Well

I dig working with the coaches. Bobby Bowden's voice alone makes me want to take up football so I can play for him, and Coach Cutcliff is very amiable and natural on camera.

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Attack of the Blurry Cell Phone Pictures

Over a year ago Svetx and I walked on the Brooklyn Bridge at night. I had just gotten my first cell phone with a camera, so I went nuts. Now the memory allocated by Alltel for my pictures is nearly full, so I have to put them somewhere. So, I give you, the Brooklyn Bridge by Night.

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My Critique by a Moore

Back on 2005, I attended an artists' colony, the Vermont Studio Center, for a month. They have their regular residents like me, most of whom pay all or 2/3 of their way; and featured residents who are paid by the colony to critique the regulars' work and give talks and hold conferences. As I described in two earlier posts, I was there while Lorrie Moore was there. This post is a self-indulgent description of what happened in my one-on-one critiquing session with Moore. I had sent this only to family when it happened, but now, with readership of my blog at a low ebb, partly because of my lack of posting lately, I figure it's okay to toot my horn a little. I'm putting up these three posts about Moore on the occasion of her release of her newest novel, A Gate at the Stairs.

Visiting writers here meet with us residents in the living room of what they call Mason House, the domain for the writers, though it is not where most of us live or work. The living room is filled with bookshelves and books I have not read, surroundings I found rather daunting until I happened to spot the Philip K. Dick title in the ranks. Still, it was a Dick I have not read.

I went into the foyer and heard the prior person’s conference still in progress, so I went back out to the porch and waited like the piano students on our front porch when I was a kid, and my mom was teaching lessons in our living room.

The writer before me came out, and I went in. Lorrie Moore was sitting at the end of the long conference table gleaming with reflected light from the window behind her. The papers in front of her I recognized as the copy of "Back to the Old Ladies" I had sent in late May. I had not even sat down when she said, “This is a real story, and you are a real writer.”

I said, “Well thank you!” I sat.

“The only thing is . . .” she said. She said the beginning was confusing. Where was Roxanne? In her hotel room or in the desert? I should clear that up. And when did the narrator meet Roxanne’s mother? The same night he danced with her the first time?

“You may have to be flatfooted with the facts. Don’t be afraid to state them plainly,” Moore said.

Then came a harder issue.

“The narrator is in love with Roxanne,” she said. “There has to be more to her to warrant his attentions. More than just her dance moves and her tush, which are beautifully described. She needs to say a little more . . .”

This will be hard to deal with. I have no idea what Roxanne has to say other than what she's already said in the story.

“Do you do this?” she said. “This dance stuff? I was reading, and these details were so alive, I said ‘Wow, he must really do this. . .’”

I said I do.

“This is almost there,” she said. “Almost ready for publication.”

It is revision number 10! How far do I have to go? But alright.

She asked me what I do. Am I in school? So I told her the quick spiel: Audio for video . . . have done substitute teaching, do teach at a community college . . . Durham . . . physics . . . stubborn . . . Duke . . . Batman . . . screenplays . . . short stories . . . present day. (“Batman has a special place in my heart,” I told her. “Really?” she said, smiling.)

“Well, you really understand the form,” she said. “And who are you reading?”

I said that for the past year, I have been reading a lot of, well, um, her. “You,” I said.

She looked away. She had also not really relished someone’s bringing up her collection “Self-Help” as a “must read” for writers, during the group craft talk she gave last Friday. In response, she had said, “No, not Self-Help.”

I named Bernard Malamud as someone whose stories I’m reading now. And Larry Brown, whom I always have to mention, to see what sort of reaction I get.

“Oh, poor guy, he just died too!” she said.

Yes, around Thanksgiving last year.

“He wasn’t old?” she said. No. I said he probably had high blood pressure though. She said she had met him and found him to be a really nice guy. I said I had met him too, and also found him really nice.

I asked if she had read Brown’s stuff, and she said, only a little. I said I liked these fairly straightforward writers like Malamud, Brown, Chekhov. They state things fairly plainly. I said I had tried to write a poetic story this past year, and it had not come together yet, and was also not very well written. Brown was really encouraging to me because, when I would be hung up trying to say something in an impressive way, I would tell myself, “Just tell the damn story,” which I think is what Brown pretty much did too.

She nodded.

She suggested I read Updike’s collected stories, but not the novels, and Alice Munro’s “Lives of Girls and Women.”

I said, “I don’t know what to say about these people who have collections of, like, 200 stories. I’m lucky if I can write one per year, and at that, it still may not come out right.”

She said Updike has not had anything else to do all his life. She said he keeps writing about his childhood and certain recurring subjects. But the good thing about that, for him, is that he is able to perfect stories about his subjects. “I might be reading, say, the fourth story about this, but I say, ‘this one is perfect.’”

She said quality is more important that quantity. She didn’t seem worried about my slow pace.

She asked what I’m working on now, and I said I was doing a totally new story, plus there was always the one from this past year which I might be salvageable, who knows.

We were together only 20 minutes or so, and our conversation seemed to be coming to a close. She put her incognito celebrity sunglasses on and we stood.

She asked what I had studied in college.

“Wow, physics,” she said. “I don’t meet many physics majors who are writers. A few, but not that many.”

I said, I think we are concerned with mysticism and how the world works. These are similar traits in writing and physics.

Heading out the door into the sunny, crystal clear day, she said her father had studied chemistry and dropped out in grad school. “He had to get a job and went into corporate America,” she said. “He told me once that he had gone into chemistry because his sister had married a chemist, and his grandmother (or mother? Or Moore’s grandmother? I forget) had loved this son-in-law so much, and kept talking about how he was a chemist. So her father had gone into chemistry himself “to win his mother’s(?) love,” Moore said, making a sweeping gesture.

She was heading up the hill. I asked her if she would sign books at the reading, and she said, “Sure, sure.” I told her, thanks for the writing she was doing. “You’re really funny,” I said. She gave a dismissive wave and turned away. “And really dark,” I said. “As you know.” She glanced back one more time, and was gone.

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Watching for Big Algae Oil Production

This past summer there were announcements of expected large-scale algae oil production. I'm watching for follow-up to see if any of these companies are actually making their predicted flow. So far, no confirmation.

One announcement was from CEHMM, a New Mexico non-profit research firm, that planned to have a "large scale demonstration algae farm" in full operation by September 1. No news on whether this is actually happening.

Solix Biofuels has also begun a large-scale demonstration algae farm in Colorado in cooperation with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. This was expected to be fully operating by late summer. There is no further news on this. One intriguing thing about algae farming is that it can (and should) be done on non-arable land such as the bad land that tends to compose Native American reservations. If Native Americans can create jobs and make profits selling fuel, as they might demonstrate they can in this endeavor, then this would be a healthy turn for them and the rest of our country.

There was also the agreement between SunEco Energy and J.B. Hunt Transportation (a large trucking company whose name you see often on the panels of 18-wheelers) for SunEco to provide algae-grown fuel oil to blend with petroleum Diesel for us in trucks. SunEco claims to be already producing "barrels," rather than "beakers" of algae oil each day. Let's hope this contract comes to fruition.

All three of the above algae companies use open-air ponds for algae production. This is generally the cheapest kind of algae farm to build, but it is likely to have the lowest yield of oil per acre, in part because of the inefficient use of space and the inability to use genetically designed algae. Only native algae can be used in the open ponds.

The U.S. Air Force and Navy have expressed interest in biofuels grown in the U.S. because of the promise of a secure energy supply. They don't want their planes and ships grounded if the Middle East decides not to sell us fuel for plans and ships to use in bombing the Middle East. Toward this end, the Navy has purhcased 20,000 gallons of algae-derived Diesel fuel (and 40,000 gallons of fuel made from camelina weeds) from Solazyme, an algae company that has not fully explained its process, but is known to grow its algae in closed containers using starchy bio-waste to feed the algae.

My current favorite algae company, Origin Oil, has released production models for growing algae oil using its technology (press release here, pdf of presentation here). Like Solazyme, Origin Oil grows algae in closed containers, but Origin claims to have made some creative advances. Their process of quantum fracturing creates tiny bubbles of CO2 and other nutrients to facilitate delivery to the algae cells; also, this quantum fracturing of CO2 aids in cracking the algae cells open to release the oil. According to the company, this method of getting the oil out of the algae greatly cheapens the otherwise very expensive process of getting oil out of algae by pressing it.

Origin Oil's presentation has two proposals: one just for growing algae oil, and another for growing oil while simultaneously using the algae to treat wastewater. The first model shows little profit and, thus, is probably not feasible at this time. The second model shows a more favorable 20% profit. Also note the need for "free energy" in both models in the form of heat. This energy could come along with concentrated CO2 in the form of power plant emissions. So, look for Origin Oil's technology to be first used in cleaning smokestack emissions and/or wastewater, and producing oil as a by-product.

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The Craft Talk

This post and the previous one are old emails I sent out in the summer of 2005 when I was at an art colony, and writer Lorrie Moore was also there. The colony organized a "craft talk" with us writers and Moore, in the dining room of one of the houses there, with all of us at the long table.

On the subject of writing about one’s family members, but being worried about what they might think, Moore said that she was recently at a conference with lots of other famous writers, including David Sedaris and Rick Moody, and they all said that none of their family members read their stuff -- not their siblings, or parents, and certainly not their children. “Children, thank goodness, are never interested in what a parent is writing.”

Someone in our group asked, “What about spouses?”

Moore said, “Hmm, well. I guess I didn’t include spouses as family.”

Frank asked her if the Center director had picked her up from the airport on his bicycle the night before.

“No,” she said, “But I think I offended him. He was telling me about these famous quotes that he has put up around his office -- things from Kant, and Thoreau, and so on like that, and I said, ‘What, no Judy Garland?’ I think he took offense at that. I was just trying to make a joke.”

I was waiting for Frank to try to embarrass me. At one point, our group sort of broke up in laughter, and Frank joined in with an artificial “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Moore noticed this. “Oh, that,” she said, looking straight at him through the commotion. “Well, that was more of a scream,” she said, very seriously.

Frank said, “No, I was saying that, because it follows from something he said.” He pointed at me.

But by then, we had all moved on.

Humor in writing had to come up. Someone asked her how to include humor in work. Moore said that some people have spent their lives looking at things a funny way, and in their writing, they find they can make connections like that as well. “But I have a problem with being silly,” she said. “I have to work to keep that in check.”

Really? So what we get in her published work is silliness in check?

What writers does she recommend that we read? Alice Munro, among others. There is a strong Grace Paley contingent here, and someone in the room named her, but Moore said, “Oh, maybe. I used to be, really. But not as much any more.”

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It's Like I Remembered It

We knew to look for humor and darkness all at once, and it was there in the first sentence. "Winter came early, catching the songbirds off guard." Since Lorrie Moore's reading in 2005 at the Vermont Studio Center where I spent a month, I've been quoting that first line to people. If I recall correctly, her new novel was past deadline then. Now it's over four years later than that, and finally it has come out. I've read some portions on Amazon and found the first sentence to be the same. And the business about 9/11 in the first chapter, which was not mentioned by the NPR reviewer (making me fear it had been taken out) was still there. So it is as I remembered it . . . the part she read, at least.

I was funny back at art colony. I hung with the abstract painters on the porch of the Wolf Kahn building, and they called me a writer. Fours years later I'm still working on the same story I was working on then. I've lost inspiration for it. I just need to get past it to do something else. I do some other random writing and the occasional blog entry and I have this sci-fi idea for something else I'd like to write, but I know that I run out of gas pretty quickly in sci-fi so I have not started.

I was in touch back then. I, and others, ate meals with Lorrie Moore. I have a story that she critiqued, with her notes in the margins. She said it was a real story and it was "almost ready" (to publish). I still don't know what to do with it to make it completely ready. I just don't know.

I like thinking about that summer. On the occasion of her new novel coming out, I'm reprinting an email I sent to friends about the first night Moore showed up at art colony.

The painters and sculptors are wondering what the big deal is. All the writers are leaning close to each other and talking about her. “I went through a phase where I was like, ‘Lorrie Moore, Loorie Moore,’”one says, waving her hands as if in Pentecostal prayer. “And then I was like, ‘Oh, she’s clever, she’s just so clever.’ But then I’ve been reading her again, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, this is good. This is fantastic.’”

“She’s really a dark writer,” says a tall, skinheaded Jewish writer from Boston, the first deep Lorrie Moore fan I really talked to here.

Yes, indeed. One of the very darkest.

“That story with that word repeated for three pages? What is it? ‘Stop’?” he said.

I reminded him that the word is “Ha!” and the story is “Real Estate.”

He went on, “In that story, the guy who lives in the attic, who’s not supposed to be there? His name is Tod. Which is German for death. Death has moved into the house with them.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Frank is a gray-bearded writer, a teacher at a prep school in Connecticut. He always sits at the head of a long table at meal times and holds court. As you carry your tray in, you can see him there and decide whether you want to sit near him for that meal, or far from him. He actually is not much of a Lorrie Moore fan. It’s not that he’s uptight -- he could qualify as “hippie,” in my estimation. It’s just that she is, well, post-hippie -- the generation wallowing in the hippies’ wake, “masturbating and doomed like outlaws,” as she put it.

Frank can’t remember the name of the Moore collection he started reading and did not finish, and he makes fun of my infatuation.

“Are you stalking her?” he said. “I’m going to come to your studio. And if you have enlarged pictures of her tacked up all over, I’m going to be very worried.”

I said I have copies of her books all over my studio which is, by my request, also my bedroom.

“That’s even stranger,” said Frank.

(Lots of the writers here have their studios as their bedrooms. But more than half, by their request, are corralled in little offices surrounding a central room with a laser printer.)

This morning, at breakfast, Frank said to me, “I heard the weatherman on the radio today. He said Lorrie Moore’s sleigh was sighted flying over the Midwest. Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho.”

I said, “No, it’s Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! . . . .”

Frank said, “When she’s around, [Elrond] will have to wear his Depends.”

At mid-afternoon, I was alone in the dining room getting tea. Frank wandered in. “Is she here yet?” he said, looking around.

As some of you know, they have no trays here, so you have to get your plate with your entree, and maybe your drink, set that down, and then go to the salad bar and get that and go back to your seat. And about half the time, the salad bar is more substantial than the gourmet, often vegetarian, entree. (I have done something I never do. I have bought potato chips and onion dip for my room, for Chrissakes) So, at dinner, I was in the stage of fetching my salad, when I saw a newcomer just then taking her seat. There are lots of newcomers each mealtime. Staff members come back from vacations, other residents arrive late. As my gaze passed by this one, I felt a sting like a knife stabbing up my ass. Jesus Lord Mercy. Finish taking that step, yes, that’s right, now take another and continue on your way.

I went back to my seat, which, by chance, was at the head of the long table parallel to Frank’s. So he and I were looking down our respective tables. And directly in my line of sight, facing me at the next table, was this particular newcomer.

I ducked so that another diner was between me and her, and whispered to Courtney “See Lorrie Moore over there? Don’t look.” Courtney was craning her neck all around. She saw, and ducked suddenly, putting her hand over her mouth.

“I have to tell somebody,” she said. “Where’s Elisa?”

Elisa is about half my age and has a published short story collection and a novel contract with Simon and Schuster. I learned this from her, without probing, in the first 4 minutes of knowing her. Later that day, my very cool housemate Daniel said to me, “I met someone with a published short story collection and a novel contract-”

“Elisa” I said, cutting him off. “I know.”

Anyway, Elisa gets kudos for knowing her Lorrie Moore stuff deeply. But she was not in the room right then. I said to Courtney, “You can tell Frank.”

So she got up and went and told Frank. He rose slightly to look over the heads down his table. Courtney and I redoubled our ducking as if to compensate for his indiscretion.

Frank looked at me and nodded, giving somber approval.

Word got around the room. One writer after another was twisting in their chair, looking. We all wanted to talk to her, and nobody did. Courtney, all during the meal, was breathing deeply and fanning herself. She’s dramatic like that.

Elisa finally came in. I wanted us to watch her and see how long it took her to notice. But Courtney went to her, and they were gabbing right behind Lorrie Moore’s back.

Meanwhile, what’s up with the real Lorrie Moore these days?

Her hair is not black, as it appears to be in the black and white photo, but brown. Or maybe it’s colored nowadays. It still swings gayly from the central part, just like in the black and white photo. Her eyes seem bigger in real life, but still slant downward ,sympathetically, toward their outer corners, as if even the most scathing critique she could deliver would not really be so bad. Her eyebrows are thicker than in the photo, “a holdover from the fur trade,” as she wrote of her first person narrator in “Frog Hospital.”

She is older than in the photo, sure, but to use her own words, “In this neck of the woods, she is still the neck of the woods.” She smiled at her tablemates the whole meal, or at least, all the few seconds total I allowed myself to look directly at her. She had the Center director on one side, wearing his bicycle outfit.

“Do you think he came in all sweaty, in his bicycle outfit, on purpose?” said Courtney.

Frank said the same thing later. Later still, we were to learn from her some of what was said at the table. The Center director was telling her about his collection, in his office, of framed quotes from famous people.

"What," Moore said. "No Judy Garland?"

Just as if she were one of us, Moore bussed her own dishes.

More to follow in the blog . . .

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Seriously? O'Reilly Autoparts?

So a new autoparts store has come from the heartland to compete with our "Advance" i.e. "Progressive."

Do they ever expect liberals to shop there? I hear O'Reilly fuses don't fit in the usual sockets because they are too SHORT. Honk! And their radiator fluid needs to be changed more frequently because of the SETTLEMENT! And you have to be extra careful not to overinflate your tires so they don't BLOVIATE. And they don't believe in lithium. Those fruity, psychiatrist-prescribed batteries have nothing on good ol' lead acid discipline.

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Neither Victory Nor Defeat

Just danger and damage are what bomb specialists experience in The Hurt Locker. It's like video production in the sense that you go somewhere with a certain amount of equipment packed into a van, you don't know what you are going to face, and the job might turn out to be a lot crazier than you thought. And when it's over, normal life seems relatively pointless. Of course, in war, the danger, adrenaline rush, need to release anxiety later, and disassociation from normal American life are a million times greater.

While Svetx disliked the use of slow-mo in one shot at the end, I welcomed the movie's tendency toward understatement in several respects. Like Full Metal Jacket, it kept a detached distance from characters and concentrated on circumstances instead of emotions. Like a good European movie, it did not try to tell the audience what to think. Each scene did not lead to the next in the literal sense of Hollywood flicks where it's too clear what is going to happen. Instead we get what I think are very realistic portrayals of aspects of a soldier's life: giddy optimism in approaching a new bomb to be diffused; raw acknowledgment that in the next instant, he could be toast; and the rough carousing later in the barracks. (I've never been in a war nor even in the military, so you could question my judgment on this.) In the end, what each soldier has is a personal experience. He goes over there, survives or dies, and comes home. There is neither victory parade nor shameful defeat.

Next time some politician starts saying we need to go to war in another country, the real question is, do we want to engage in a counterinsurgency lasting many years and leading to the establishment of a government that is what its own people make it, not what we dream of for them, and likely not worth our money and lives?

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The Housemate Sessions go Mellow

I edited four more of Housemate D's songs today. They are very mellow. I'll just put up two of them here.

For other installments in The Housemate Sessions, click my Music subject.

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First Instance of "Large-Scale" Algae Farm

Solix Biofuels, a long time member of my algae watchlist, inoculated their newly-completed algae ponds with microalgae on July 16. Production of algae oil should be in full-swing by the end of summer. They predict they will produce 3,000 gallons of oil per acre by the end of this year. This is the first time I know of that the phrase "large scale" has been applied to an algae farm demonstration.

Another company, the non-profit CEHMM in New Mexico, plans to start selling algae oil off its own open-air pond on September 1.

These developments, along with recent advances by Origin Oil and Exxon's announcement of their $600 million investment in algae farming in partnership with geneticist Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics means things are moving along for this source of second-generation biofuel. Stay tuned!

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This Takes All The Fun Out Of It

. . . but also saps credibility of Exxon-funded climate change deniers.

Though they have worked through the American Enterprise Institute to fund global warming doubters, spent $16 million between 1998 and 2005 at the AEI and other organizations on such propaganda (see previous link), and still fund global warming doubters after stating in 2008 that they would cut such funding, these goons have now announced that they will sink $600 million into algae research for growing fuel oil. Apparently, they have been investigating alternative energy in private for years. After considering many possibilities, they have decided that algae is the best course to pursue. And this $600 million commitment, if it is true, sure does outweigh their denials of the need for alternative fuels.

Update: Business Week has an article describing Exxon's attitude on this.

Maybe it was this pressure from the Rockefellers and other shareholders that caused Exxon to change its tack.

In this new venture, Exxon is working with Craig Venter who genetically engineers algae for optimal oil production, and has even created algae that secretes its oil so that the oil does not need to be harvested from the cells.

So I guess I gotta add Exxon to my algae watchlist. The climate is changing indeed!

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Palin Reality TV: I Called It!

I first suggested a Palin reality TV show back on 11/17/08 in a comment on this post at the former Mudflats location. Now Levi Johnston has mentioned it. You know it would be huge. It's all she ever wanted anyway. And I called it. Most of politics is thinly veiled reality TV, attracting narcissists with no shame. The veil is thinnest of all with Palin.

So how about some show title suggestions:

Trailin' Palin
Much Ado about the Shrew
No Taxes, Just Taxidermy
Tantrums and Tangents: The Calculus of Raising Trig
Speaking in Tongues
The Maverick Matriarch

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China Could Kick Our Butts in Algae

. . . if we don't get our act together. China is investing heavily in algae farms, powered by wind, to sequestrate their voluminous CO2 emissions. I was just saying the other day that wind could power algae farms in southwestern United States. I've also said that I think a lot of the elements for successful algae farming do exist -- someone just needs to bring them together for the right kind of farm. If China beats us on this thing, I'm gonna be seriously pissed.

Like nearly all algae ventures, China's is in development stages and is a few years away from commercial production. So they are not necessarily way ahead of us.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Bill from the last entry wants to make sure his own government is not funding algae farming. I'm gonna guess he doesn't mind his government having funded installing the third most corrupt government in the world in Iraq because that's serious patriotic wartime freedom stuff. So maybe he won't mind if our own Pentagon gets into algae farming. After all, tanks and jets need fuel too!

The closest thing our country has to a commercially operating algae farm, that I know of, is this farm run by the state-funded Center for Excellence in Hazardous Materials Management in New Mexico. They bill this as a commercial demonstration farm. I presume this means that, while every algae company has a small bioreactor that demonstrates their process, this farm will demonstrate it on a larger, more commercial scale. It's due to start production in September, and I'm looking forward to it.

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Algae Exec Stuffs Fox News' Willard

I have not been following Cody Willard, but he looks to me like another failed attempt, like Tucker Carlson, to make conservatism look youthful and cool while actually being just a whining chump.

So here's this short segment from Fox News' Happy Hour (also viewable off this page) where they introduce algae, "that same stuff you try to keep off the inside of your fish tank," as some funky new kind of energy source -- as if they have not already had a bald algae executive on their show.

There is a lot in the video. The CEO of Origin Oil, Riggs Eckelberry, says that getting oil out of algae is ten times more expensive than getting it out of a seed. I had not known of this drastic discrepancy. It is probably a big reason why algae is not already a source of fuel oil. But Eckelberry claims that his company has found a new way to extract oil that cuts this cost significantly.

Then, instead of asking how this relates to the "food vs. fuel" problem with biofuels, or energy security, or global warming, Cody Willard (you wonder if his name was derived from William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody to evoke connotations of the wild west and Ronald Reagan in the susceptible minds of conservatives) wants to make sure he's not paying for it with his taxes.

Eckelberry says his company is not government subsidized. It is just a technology company that wants to sell products to algae growers. It's the algae growers that can and do receive some government subsidies. Willard balks at this, and Eckelberry reminds him that traditional oil companies have received government subsidies too. Willard balks at this too. (And I balk at this, but do any of us really know what the world would look like if there were no government subsidies for anything? Ideologue's projections are always over simplified.)

Wild Bill Cody says, "Google didn't need help. Twitter didn't need help."

Eckelberry shuts him down with, "Who created the Internet?"

Ka-blam.

Also, twice in the segment, Willard says, "It's penny stock. Don't buy it just because you saw it on our show." I can understand not wanting to buy in to the algae sector just yet. But I'm not sure that penny stock in a company with possibly one of the major keys to success for this industry deserves such an emphatic "don't buy" statement either.

And then Willard asks if he can cook with the oil from algae. As if this has not been brought up before in every algae discussion . . . as if people are not already stealing used cooking oil from restaurants to turn into biofuel . . . what a doof.

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Night, On our Porch

At night the insects are like maracas intent on torture, and the sound of traffic looms close, as if the interstate has sidled up the hill like a snake. You can hear frogs too, and at least one quick owl's shriek.

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First, the Bad News

Greenfuels Technologies is the first algae company I've been following to bite the dust. They had been running some promising demonstrations at fossil fuel burning power plants, including the Redhawk plant in Arizona and Big Cajun II in Louisiana, showing how CO2 emissions can be diverted through algae incubators and recycled into oil which could be made into transportation fuels.

This letter from their then-CEO describes some of the problems they were facing in 2007. The algae incubators at the Redhawk plant produced algae more quickly than expected, and the algae was not harvested fast enough. This lead to overpopulation of algae which cut off sunlight in the incubator and killed the algae. The incubator was shut down for retooling. Another technical problem was that their new harvesting technology was found to be twice as expensive as initially projected.

It now looks like Arizona Public Service, which owns the Redhawk plant, will continue its own efforts to recycle CO2 using algae.

Greenfuels had also been working on an algae incubator to recycle gases from a cement-making plant in Spain.

The troubles at Greenfuels are probably just a hint of the challenges being faced by many algae startups around the world. Algae evangelists like me (evalgelists?) make blog postings that celebrate algae as the cure for the world's energy problems. But if algae is so great, then what's the holdup? Or is it too good to be true?

For one thing, algae is not attracting venture capital yet. This article recognizes the potential in algae but says that algae growing technology does not promise to yield profits soon enough to warrant venture capital investment at this time.

This report from the Algae Biofuels World Summit touches on many other difficulties involved in growing algae, removing water from it, and extracting oil. There is the debate of whether to grow it in open ponds or in enclosed incubators -- one speaker favors open ponds because he says none of the prototype enclosed incubators run by the various algae startups would work on a commercial scale. But, with open ponds, there is the problem of water evaporation, and the report goes on to say that this, rather than land availability, is the most limiting factor in large-scale algae production.

Other challenges facing the algae industry are genetically engineering algae strains that produce optimal yield; working with the government to develop means of regulating this hybrid industrial and agricultural business; and finding the best ways to separate algae from water and oil from algae in the harvesting stage.

And while one might think the current economic stimulus package might benefit the algae industry, the problem is that there are no shovel-ready algae projects. So this round of stimulus might contribute nothing to algae.

The good news is that algae research is indeed progressing. Origin Oil claims to have a very efficient way to distribute nutrients to algae in the growing stage without agitating the algae (agitation apparently slows algae growth), and an inexpensive way to extract oil in the harvesting stage using electromagnetic waves and pH adjustment of the water. The algae cells are cracked open and their oil floats to the top of a settling chamber, water remains in the middle, and broken algae mass collects at the bottom.

And, in New Mexico, the Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management expects to be producing algae oil commercially, on a small scale, by September 1. They will be growing their algae in open ponds and hope to produce 5,000 gallons of oil per acre per year. One quote in the article says that, on 5,000 acres, the 25 million gallons produced could provide half of the Diesel fuel needed by that state in one year. Probably these optimistic projections will not be reached, but if the project can demonstrate feasibility in algae farming, that will mean a lot. It will also create 165 well-paying high-tech jobs. This is the only algae project I know of expecting to produce oil for sale regularly in the near future.

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I Said It First

Paul Krugman cites Barney Frank identifying Weaponized Keynesianism. But at the end of this post back in February, I had the idea before either of them.

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Will Physics Ever Leave Me Alone?

I did magnetic resonance imaging as part of my advanced lab course twenty years ago. I remember having a terrible time with the math, but everything else about the experiment I had forgotten. So I’ve had to check on Wikipedia to remind myself of the basics.

Protons are little electric charges, and they are spinning. This spinning is like electric current moving in a loop of wire. We probably all played with electromagnets in elementary school and saw that an electric current in a wire produces a magnetic field around the wire. So, like a loop of wire, a proton is a tiny electromagnet.

In an MRI machine, a magnetic field is applied to a person’s body. As we know from playing with magnets, when one magnet comes near another, it can cause the other magnet to move and align itself a certain way. So, the protons in the body align themselves with the constant magnetic field. Think of them as lining up like soldiers in perfect formation.

Then, additional magnetic fields are applied to the body. This changes the orientation of the protons (or makes some of the soldiers move out of place a little bit). When these additional magnetic fields are switched off, the protons realign themselves according to the constant magnetic field (like soldiers scrambling to get back into proper place again). As they realign themselves, they release electromagnetic radiation that can be measured by the machine. Protons of different tissues take different amounts of time to realign, so by measuring how long the realignment takes in different places, a picture of varying types of tissue can be formed.

I had only a vague idea of how this would work when the doctor sent me for an MRI as a last ditch effort to find the cause of my symptoms. A distant softly shifting curtain had hung in the background of my head all my life. Sometimes it would be closer, but never was bothersome. But recently I’ve become surrounded by a field of insects. At worst, it’s high summer activity; at best, it’s warm mid-September when there’s just one or two left in the grass, the last holdouts for mating before winter.

My Dad had an MRI recently. He talked about it like it was a landmark for old age. The machine broke on his first time in, and he joked that his brainscans had broken it. When good scans were made at a later date, they told him he had the brain of a young person. Who knew someone that irascible could have such a young brain? Seriously, we think it’s all the balance exercising he gets from bike riding and skiing, but who knows. We in our family are lucky in that we preserve pretty well.

The MRI people called to tell me my insurance would not cover it because of my high deductible. I would have to pay the whole $1023. I canceled the appointment and called the doctor back to see if this was really worth it. His nurse said it was his recommendation, but it was up to me. I paced and thought about it. Really, it had been my choice to have a high deductible. It has saved, in the long run, on premiums over the years. I didn’t want to afford this, but I could. I called the MRI people and set up the appointment again.

I had found one first-hand description of an MRI online that said that the machine was loud, so I took earplugs. At the desk, the receptionist asked how much I would like to pay now. I hate spending money -- I’ve joked that I’m no good at making it, but I’m a fiend at saving it. But when I’ve made a decision and it seems there’s no turning back, I feel rather carefree. “The whole snert,” I said. Really, it was less than half of a new wireless system.

Backstage, one nurse stood by while I put my things in a locker. “All I’ve got now is the metal zipper,” I said. The writer of the online description had said that she had disrobed completely, but this nurse said my metal zipper would be fine. I imagined it catching fire, as if in a microwave oven, spontaneous combustion from the crotch.

I moved on wearing still my T-shirt and shorts and Birkenstocks.

There was to be an IV. Uh oh, I had not been prepared for this. Jangle my nuclei all you want, but I’m not cool with needles that stick and then stay there.

The nurse giving the IV said I had good veins and asked if I drink a lot of water.

I thanked her for the compliment and said I needed to keep hearing those right now.

I averted my gaze as the needle went in. But this time, unlike the yearly blood test I get to check TSH levels, the needle stayed. She put in some saline solution, and the point of entry felt eerily cool on the inside, black ink ejected into already murky water by a fleeing octopus. I waited anxiously for the feeling to go away, and it did after a few seconds, but still, something foreign was inside me now.

She said she would leave the IV connector in my arm, and they would use it to add contrast later.

My non IV-ed right hand got my right earplug in fine, but it could hardly get the left one in. I feared my left ear would be unprotected. There I would be, stuck in the machine, making worse the symptoms that got me here. The nurse said I could use my left hand, and the IV did not hurt when bent my arm. I squeezed and rolled the earplug and tried to stick it in correctly before it swelled again, but I kept hitting the wrong angle. I have this problem before going to clubs too. I felt like I was holding things up. Finally the nurse got me a fresh earplug and put it in herself, and it felt pretty good.

I set the locker key on the windowsill and kicked off my Birkenstocks and sat on the table. The nurse who had given me the IV and helped with the earplug now said that I smelled good. “What is that?” she asked.

”Regular Speed Stick,” I said.

“I thought it was cologne,” she said.

“I like those compliments. Keep ‘em coming,” I said.

I lay back and my head fit into a soft wedge in the table. They added some pads on the sides to help keep my head still. Then, from somewhere, a little cage was swung into position over my head, and with a loss of perspective like happened in La Femme Nikita when Nikita jumped down the garbage shoot to escape the rocket and up became sideways, and I saw the nurse’s glasses and smile where there should have been just the tube interior. It was a mirror now positioned over my eyes, so that I could see out of the machine once I was slid in.

A little squeeze bulb went into one hand. I would squeeze this when I couldn’t stand it anymore, as when Christopher Hitchens dropped the metal rods, or Mancow his cow.

They put a pillow under my legs and a blanket over them and slid me in. People talk about the claustrophobia, but the mirror, which gave me sight of the opening and the room beyond, helped greatly. I could see the nurses in the control room.

Then the noises started. I was grateful for the earplugs. There were brief spurts of fierce vibrations of the sort that, if made by your lawn mower, would convince you that something horrible was wrong. There were a few softer squirting sounds. A nurse, speaking through an intercom, announced the length of each test, which was typically 5 to 10 minutes. When the test proper started, the sound would be a constant

DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO

with no variation, for the duration. I imagined my protons snapping to attention and going at-ease, alternately. I wondered when they would start turning into adamantium.

The earplugs kept the noise at bay. I was a little tired because I had not slept well the night before, so lying still was not a problem. And I was no drain on the medical system, for I had paid the old-fashioned way -- with a debit card. Why not enjoy it? I let my mind wander. The symptoms that had lead me there swam around me. Urges to move developed like cumulus clouds in my bones but I let them pass through me. I seemed to lose connection with my limbs. I imagined Svetx beside me as if in a double-MRI-sleeping bag, and it was easy to lie there.

I noticed that the edge of the mirror closer to my forehead was farther from me than the edge closer to my chin. This meant that it was not a mirror, but a prism. I studied its image of the windowsill across the room where I had put my locker key. The position of the box of sanitary wipes on the sill was not reversed, so indeed, this was not a mirror. A mirror would have sufficed, right? So why a prism, which is probably more expensive?

About 2/3 through, they slid me out and put the contrast into my vein. Now, I imagined, I would stand out more clearly in poor light. Take my picture, before it wears off! Or would I appear only in black and white?

I was really very comfortable the whole time. Life outside the MRI machine . . . that was hard. When I was done, I would have to go back to my own freedom of underemployment, which is a molasses of indecision in which I must constantly wade.

The nurses were pleased. I had not moved at all for the whole half hour. They helped me upright and, thinking of my Grandpa who used to say of nurses “Always leave them laughing,” I asked, “Do I have mutant powers now?”

Afterwards, I treated myself to the full buffet at Golden Corrall. If the MRI doesn’t give me mutant powers, surely Golden Corral will.

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Snubbed Again

The Neoneocon rejected one of my comments again, so I am forced to reproduce it from memory on my own site, where it will have far fewer readers.

She was going on about how Iran's current reelection of a hardliner should not be a surprise to anyone and is a slap in the face for Obama's idealistic administration. I wrote back, "Indeed, an antagonistic blowhard being elected president twice in a row is not a surprise at all." Was that offensive? Only if she recognizes Bush in that description, right?

Then I noted that Iran had had two reformist presidents before Ahmadinejad: Rafsanjani and Khatami. (Here Juan Cole gives a brief history of the election of those two, the reformist voters becoming disillusioned and staying home when Ahmadinejad was elected the first time, and now coming out in droves again for this election, which was probably rigged.) I said that Iran electing a reformist is not unlikely at all.

Then I reminded the neoneocon that while she's claiming the present Iranian election is a blow to Obama's idealism, wasn't it neocon idealism that said our invasion of Iraq would spread Western style democracy in the Middle East? And isn't it a blow to their ideology that while reformist presidents had been elected in Iran before our invasion, a hardliner has been elected twice since?

What is with these people.

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The TV Rapture

It’s true. It really happened. It was not like judgment day, or the rapture, which never really happen. Analog TV was actually turned off on the announced date, and now, all TV broadcasts will be digital.

Anticipation of this had caused concern for audio people like me. Our wireless systems share the same spectrum of airwaves as TV, and since digital channels use their bands more thoroughly than analog, we expected there to be fewer “cracks” for us to slip in a wireless signal.

Our wireless systems come in “blocks,” with each block being a certain range of frequencies. The range of frequencies for a block overlaps the bands of about 4 TV channels. For a given city, some TV channels will have a broadcast on them, and some will be empty. So, when ordering a new wireless system, the buyer or helpful dealer needs to research what blocks have the fewest TV stations broadcasting in the city where the wireless system will be used. In our area, block 28 of Lectrosonics brand wirelesses used to be the best. But in recent years, more TV stations were put in 28, and 22 became the best, followed by 24, then 27, then 29.

You can use a wireless receiver to scan within its block and show you where the TV broadcasts are. Then, you can set your system to use a frequency that is not already used by a TV station.

Problems arise if you already own wirelesses on a certain block and new TV stations start broadcasting on that block. Your available frequencies are reduced. Also, when traveling to another city, you have to check where that city’s TV stations are and see if your block will work there, or if you need to rent systems on other blocks.

In the all-analog days, even if a block was mostly filled with TV channels, there would be a few empty frequencies at the bottom and top edges of a channel’s range. These were called “guard bands.” An audio recordist forced to use a wireless system on an already crowded block could probably find some open frequencies in these guard bands.

But digital TV uses all the frequencies within its band and leaves no guard bands. We were afraid that the conversion to all-digital would crowd the ariwaves more and leave us fewer options.

But in the past year, as the big analog cut-off approached, people started to realize that when all the analog stations went away, they would not necessarily all be replaced by digital stations. This would mean a net decrease in the number of TV stations we have to compete with. This likelihood was enhanced by the fact that one digital “channel” can carry more than one TV program. So if a station could broadcast 4 programs in the band formerly of 1, then it would do that rather than buy 4 whole different bands. Furthermore, it's a lousy economy anyway where advertising can hardly be sold on the broadcasts that do exist.

On the big cut-off day, June 9, I was reading facebook when one friend announced that her analog TV had gone away, right in the middle of Sarah Palin’s interview with Matt Lauer. It was a shame to her that this was the last thing her TV was ever able to show, but I find it symbolically appropriate.

I wondered, “Are the airwaves clearer on my blocks?” I went to my audio bag and set the receivers to scan, and sure enough, the block 24’s, which had once shown the fully-used bands of at least 2 TV channels, now showed only a few weak spikes. And the block 27’s, which had shown a single TV channel, were empty. Nothing was on them, except for maybe one tiny little weak signal at one end. It was very strange looking at the empty scan. It was like the end of the world, perhaps the rapture after all, with human activity suddenly squelched. Alone at home on a street where everyone else was at work, I could have been the last person on earth.

Now, unless TV networks find a reason to create so many new digital channels that they need to buy up the vacated analog channels, it should actually be easier for audio recordists to find emtpy frequencies.

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Happy Memorial Day

Our housemate sessions produced a song about one Memorial Day. Here it is as composed and performed by Housemate D

And here's another, sort of a gritty ballad

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My Torture Memo

I once worked on a video about an elderly woman known for her civil rights activism. Her husband had been a town mayor and also an activist, but she said that his head was in it more than his heart. He was more of a pragmatist striving for even-handed governance and justice rather than a crusader for a moral cause.

I won't claim to be any kind of effective activist or pragmatist, but I do at least share with the woman's husband a desire to be pragmatic. So, with respect to torture, I'm less interested in the moral issues than the question of whether it gains us more usable information than non-tortuous techniques.

All I can do is stack up the case made by one camp against the case made by the other. There is the claim by Marc Thiessen, for instance, that the plot to attack the Library Tower in Los Angeles was foiled because of information gained through torture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But this article by Timothy Noah cites a fact sheet provided by the Bush White House in 2002 saying the Library Tower plot had been discovered and broken up, and this was before KSM's capture in March of 2003.

Thiessen and Dick Cheney (for example, in his speech yesterday) say the recently released torture memos only tell part of the story, that they don't tell of the useful information that was gained form torture. Maybe, in time, more information shedding light on this will be declassified. But until then, we are lacking specifics.

Meanwhile, there is this detailed account of how Zubaidah gave little information . . . until he was tortured, at which point he provided awealth of information that sent CIA agents scrambling all over the globe spending millions of dollars chasing false leads. And there is this account by Ali Soufan stating that much useful information was gained by traditional interrogations of Zubaidah, while the torture used later backfired in events that are still part of that still classified information Cheney is referring to. Soufan also cites a chronological problem with a torture-defenders' argument: that torture of Zubaidah lead to the capture of Jose Padilla. And yet, Padilla was captured before the torture was approved in August of 2002.

Can the torture defenders make arguments that are not so easily debunked?

Consider also, besides Zubaidah's, the false leads produced by torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Torture of al-Libi yielded much valuable information about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. al-Libi's testimony was inserted into Colin Powell's fateful speech by al-Libby, and the U.S. saddled itself with a six-year-and-counting insurgency consisting of Iraqis who had not been our enemies before that invasion.

So, really, Dick Cheney? Torture has saved hundreds of thousands of lives?

To really determine whether torture works, we would need to see all information gained from torture and determine what percentage was helpful; and compare this to all the information gained from non-torturous techniques and the percentage of that which was helpful. I doubt we'll ever have access to all that information.

With the evidence we do have tilted toward showing torture does not work, why not then err on the side of morality and forbid torture?

5/24 Update: What is a Mancow anyway . . . a giant man-boob? Apparently so. Also, the results of Zubaidah's torture interrogations are more clear than I had thought. Here is Marcy Wheeler explaining what the 9/11 Commission reported of information gained by Zubaidah's torture. In summary, 10 pieces of not-very-useful information were learned from 83 sessions of waterboarding.

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