I came across this passage to the right on the day that the report of the 9/11 Commission was released. And was interesting to me that my reading of this blurb about the inadequacies of intelligence coincided with a report on perhaps the greatest intelligence failure this country has ever known.

Interestingly here Littell is writing about the problems implicit with the Soviet intelligence services. The speaker, a Soviet agent placed deep in the highest echelon of the CIA, is explaining the relative ease that western societies, because of their openness and freedom, can be penetrated by agents against the fact that their leaders don't get the real intelligence because the information that "gets passed up tends to reinforce misconceptions instead of correcting them."

Doesn't that sounds eerily familiar to what happened that lead us to invade Iraq?

Posted by andrew at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went down to the Stadium Pub down the street to watch two of the final stages of this year’s Tour de France. I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier, but I didn’t. I don’t have OLN, so instead I’ve been following the Tour on the web.

I’ve always been amazed at how close the crowds come to the riders. In many places, fans are right on top of the riders, moving out of the way only at the last minute. I keep thinking, what’s stopping a crazed fan (or a terrorists) from striking a rider or the peloton. Nothing, really. It’s happened before.

In 1975, a drunk fan punched Belgian rider Eddie Merckx during his attempt to win his 6th tour. He was leading and set to win when a Danish fan named Ole Ritter, tired of Merckx's domination, jumped in front of him and punched him in the liver. Merckx, weakened by a blood-thinning medication to ease the pain and a crash later that Tour, stumbled home in second and never was the same.

Watching the cyclists plow through seas of fans as they prgress through the mountain stages makes me wonder how this doesn’t happen year in and year out.

That aside, Lance is simply unbelievable. It was a amazing to watch him dominate a field of the most highly tuned athletes in the world. I hope the stories that are ciculating about his use of performance enhancing drugs turn out to be unfoudned. It would be devastating to all the people have supported him so vigorously all these years.

Posted by andrew at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It all started innocently enough. A comment here. A comment there. But more and more, I'm getting these absurd spam comments and always, for some reason, on ancient posts from my site. The latest, just a few minutes ago, is on a post that I wrote in April of last year.

Is anybody else having this problem? Is there anything I can do to stop it?

I know that there isn't someone manually entering these comments or they would stick them on the most recent posts, so there must be some kind of blog spamming bot to do their little dirty work for them. The absurd part of it how the hell do these people who are behind it convince themselves that spamming a blog is going to be anything but negative for them? As if I'm going to go online to a new pharmacy selling generic Viagra or hawking barely legal porn. Idiots from some "going concern" that is cheapening the value of my blog with their despicable sales methods.

Posted by andrew at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

FOX Sports Net is showing the LIVE from the Turning Stone Casino in upstate New York. It's down to two players, Phil Ivey and John D'Augustino playing for half a million. How long will it last? Who knows, but it's amazing to watch it live despite the less than inspired commentary from Barry Tompkins, Howard Lederer.

John D'Agostino is a 21-year old Mike Piazza look alike who learned poker by playing online. He's a relative novice, but he's playing great especially considering that he's up against Phil Ivey one of the best high stakes players around.

Check it out.

Posted by andrew at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There can no finer book to pick up in the middle of the TV coverage of Binion's WSOP. McManus's tales of how he parlayed his 4G advance from Harper's first to a seat at the WSOP Big Game and then made it all the way to the final table all with the backdrop of the heroin laced/circus sex Ted Binion murder trial. It makes for a compelling read. But it's McManus's literary flourishes, his background as a Catholic altar boy that inform his decision making on so many levels, his references to Dante, Joyce and other literary greats, his reliance on book knowledge from Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier and other poker giants and his ultimate devotion to his family turn what would otherwise be an interesting piece of nonfiction into brilliant literature.

The WSOP is back on ESPN tonight and every Tuesday night at 6PST (check your local listings). The first few weeks of the programming shows the many ganes that lead up the WSOP "Big Game", what, in fact, makes the series a series. It's not as compelling because the stakes are lower and the games can be slightly different variations of poker (i.e. not necessarily Texas Hold 'em), but who cares? It's still great poker action. I know where I'll be at 6pm. Ass firmly glued to the couch with eyes similarly glued to the telly.

Posted by andrew at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just in case you don't know or have had you're head buried in the political sand, the Senate is in the progress of debating the FMA, or the Federal Marriage Amendment that would protect marriage from the current assault. Here's how it reads:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.

Here's the problems I have with this:

1) Whether you agree with this issue or not, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not to be trifled with or taken lightly. The one time it was used to curtail the rights of citizens, Amendment XVIII, which created Prohibition in 1919, and we all know what a great success that was, was repealed in 1933 by Amendment XXI. The general rule is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And, apologies to all grammarians, it ain't broke.

2) If you watch CSPAN and you take in the debate from the likes of Rick Santorum from PA or Orrin Hatch from UT or others (Trent from MO or Brownback from KS most notably), you'll get the sense that the institution of marriage in this country is under attack. You'd think that married couples are hunkering down all over this great land in the bunkers waiting to be assailed by legions of homosexuals who are going to rip up their marriage licenses. This is just plain silliness. Go ahead, ask your married friends if they feel threatened and need to be defended. Go ahead. If anything marriage needs to be defended from heterosexuals who get married have a few kids and skip off when things go sour. The next time you hear about a homosexual deadbeat dad, you be sure to let me know.

3) You'll also hear that this is a religious issue. That marriage is a religious institution. It should be obvious to most Americans with a brain, but I'll say it anyway. Not all marriages are religious, many are what we call "civil" and have nothing to do with church or temple or mosque. My sister was married in one of these "civil" arrangements under the rotunda at the San Francisco city hall by the same judge who often appears in the news packages about the FMA. Every time I see him, I think, cool, there's the dude who married my sister, but I digress.

4) The Republicans will say that we can't have laws created by "activist" judges. That would trample on the fundamental right of the people to decide for themselves, so the argument goes. But what is this activist judge business? It means nothing other than a judge that makes rulings that you disagree with. Just like one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, one man's activist judge is another man's jurisprudence giant. When the Bush campaign in 2000 didn't like the decision of the Florida Supreme Court, what were they labeled? An "activist" court, of course. And what was the Massachusetts Supreme labeled when it chose to interpret the state constitution (written by John Adams in 1780 in advance of own federal document, by the way) so as to not discriminate against homosexuals. Again, an "activist" court. Never mind that 6 or the 7 justices on the MA Supreme Court are from the GOP.

5) This and all other family law issues have not just traditionally, but always been a states' rights issue. The Republican party is traditionally, but not always, the party that supports states' rights (Remember, George Bush in the campaign of 2000 "I don't trust government, I trust people") unless states' rights gets in the way of a larger political agenda (e.g. again, remember how campaign 2000 ended). You know what we call this, right?

6) Most of the states, including California, already have their own laws defining marriage as a union between a man a woman. That doesn't make it right. We used to have laws that counted blacks as less than half a person. Was that right? Women didn't get the right to vote until 1920. Was that right? The American League had the DH until, well, shit, they still have the DH, but that doesn't make it right. You'll hear Republicans on the floor of the Senate talking about how this amendment is really about children. What a load of shit. What this is about is bigotry, plain and simple. This is why Dick Cheney in 2000 (though he has since reversed his position) and his wife this year came out against this amendment. They also happen to have a gay daughter and so are more open minded than some of their political brethren.

7) There are not even close to enough votes for the FMA to pass as a law let alone an amendment which requires 2/3 of both houses and 3/4 of all state legislatures. Why bother then? Because it's a political wedge issue. Remember that tone in Washington that was supposed to change with the new administration? Whatever.

You can agree with gays getting married or not. That's your business. But the Senate should not be wasting our valuable time debating this political nonsense when they have far, far more important issues to discuss, like the Designated Hitter Amendment, which I believe is making it's way through committee as I write this.

Posted by andrew at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

You know, like Ralph Nader. Whether you approve of his tactics or not, you have to respect his long and distinguished history of consumer advocacy. Despite all the problems associated with his candidacy in this current election, you have to admire someone who is actually willing to talk about issues that neither of the two major party candidates have any desire to discuss.

It's not my place to tell anyone not to run for president. That is Nader's business. But what purpose is he serving? If he really wants to affect some change, bring his agenda to the fore and make a difference in the national debate, he'd be far better served by running for Congress. In the legislature, he might be a small cog in large law-making body and not be able to fashion debate and the direction of the country were he president, but a) he's never going to be president and b) even one legislator can make a massive difference in close votes and c) he would do far more to advance the cause of third parties.

Getting trounced in a national election, getting barred from national debate, meanwhile accepting money and political support from groups who's only desire is to prop up a candidate that will take votes away from the party most closely aligned with your own beliefs doesn't do anybody any good.

Posted by andrew at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

When I was listening to General Richard Cody or some other member of the Joint Chiefs talking about the need to call up these musicians after being questioned by a Democatic congressman (thank you, CSPAN), I couldn't believe the answer.

The bands are being stressed quite a bit. They do an awful lot of burial services.

Thankfully, we're not having that many funerals in this unfortunate war (most are for WWII vets). I wonder what the hell the Army did during WWI when we had battles where over a million soldiers (from each side) were killed? Comparatively the war in Iraq is a picnic. However, if we can't prosecute the "War on Terror" without 15 previously discharged band members, we're in a lot of trouble.

WE'RE NOT ON A MISSION FROM GOD

Posted by andrew at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay pleaded not guilty today to 11 criminal charges related to the company's 2001 collapse into bankruptcy. Lay was released on a $500,000 bond. In a related move, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Lay in a civil complaint that seeks more than $90 million. (from CNN)

It's about time, isn't it?

Posted by andrew at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I grew up in the city. There were county fairs, of course, but they were so far away and in such a horribly hot and smoggy place (Pomona) that I never once went. And what's a County Fair when you live closer to Disneyland and Magic Mountain?

I went to my first county fair, San Mateo, back in 2002, with my brother and sister. San Mateo isn't excatly Iowa, it's right smack in the middle of Silicon Valley, but they still had pigs and chickens and that 4-H jazz. They also had the comedian Gallagher as the main act. There he was smashing watermelons for the blue-haired set audience of less than 500 people. It was pretty pathetic.

So this past monday when I went to the Alameda County Fair in Pleaston, I didn't exactly have great expectations. It was just a diversion. In amongst the questionably attired indivuduals, the disgusting array of overpriced junk foods and cras commercialism, there were a few gems.

The best of the lot was definitely the All-Alaskan Racing Pigs. How could not like racing pigs? Just look at them. They are adorable.

Posted by andrew at 01:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forget Farenheit 9/11, if you want to see a fascinating, unbiased documentary about how America got involved in the war with Iraq check out Frontline's "The War Behind Closed Doors". The movie takes a hard look at "the people, the events, the major statements, and the internal policy battles in the development of the Bush Doctrine" specificially vis a vis Iraq and the Neo-Conservatives that helped forge the policy that led us to war. It should be interesting to anyone no matter what your political affiliation is.

This is just one of almost 40 films that you can view online at the Frontline website.

Posted by andrew at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't really think poker is a sport, but that's not going to stop me from being glued to the TV tonight when ESPN debuts the 2004 World Series of Poker with back-to-back episodes starting at 6pm PST. I watch poker for the drama, for the players, the personalities, and for the psychology. It's still as fascinating to me for all those reasons as it was when I when I first started watching it on TV here and there years ago.

My only wish about the programming is that it would be live. It should be live. It could be live. It sucks that you can go online and find out the winner. It takes much of the drama out of the event. There's not doubt about it, tape delay sucks.

Posted by andrew at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wave Spinner ride from the Alameda County Fair, Pleasanton, California.
1 second @ 6.7 ISO100. Handheld. 9:39PM.

Posted by andrew at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it's on now. It's in full swing with the Prologue and 2 Stages down. Lance Armstrong is in great position in the top 3 and has a fantastic chance to become the first 6 time winner of the TdF. If you want to follow the race and Lance as he makes his way across the French countryside and up and over the Alps, you can watch it on OLN or check out one of the best blogs I have come across.

I have said this before and I'll reiterate it today. I think the coverage in the US of this incredible race is pathetic. It was awful before Lance and it's just plain disturbing now. I understand that it's happening in Europe. And I understand that people in this country don't have the patience to watch the entire event. But we deserve more than a hour a day on some obscure cable channel that most people (including me) don't even get.

It would be bad enough if this country didn't have a dog in the fight. The event is still an amazing, coloful celebration of sport. But Lance Armstrong is the 5-time defending champ. 5 TIME. It's time for us to step up and put the whole damn thing on TV. ESPN? Too busy putting on repeats of the World Series of Poker and the Nathan's hot dog eating contest. Hopefully one day they will get their priorities straightened out.

Good luck, Lance.

Posted by andrew at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tonight about 8:45, when the sun was setting and darkness started to fall on Walnut Creek, we drove up into the mountains west of here to Grizzly Peak in the heights above Oakland and Berkeley to (try to) watch the fireworks up and down the San Francisco Bay. From up there in the mountains, you can normally see from Marin in the north all the way down the SF peninsula to Mountain View.

But the fog had rolled in. The whole bay was blanketed in white. It was so thick you couldn't even see the Golden Gate or the Oakland Bay Bridge. You couldn't see anything but a few lights down on the peninsula, maybe Redwood City or Foster City. Looking at the fireworks was like being in an airplane above an electrical storm. We could see flashes of light in the clouds, but that was about it. It sucked. We had to settle for watching fireworks on CNN and a hearing a few firecrackers courtesy of the neighbors which scared the cats silly.

Posted by andrew at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I don't care who you are or what you do, but you can't help be impressed by the images that are coming back from Cassini. They are awesome. They are beautiful. They are also very expensive.

If you think your digital camera is expensive, it's nothing compared to what we spend on these interstellar photographic missions. I'm not saying it's not worth it. At some level, we have a responsibility to explore our world, it's just something to think about.

Posted by andrew at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally saw F911 this week and I've had some time to reflect on it so here it goes. The film brought up a number of emotions and when I sat in the theatre watching it, I was supremely uncomfortable. The opening scene about the 2000 presidential election opened up old wounds. I can remember driving home from work on election day. I was driving up the 101 to Burlingame listening to NPR report that Gore had taken Florida. That settled it essentially, the election was over. But by the time I got into my apartment, the situation had changed.

Now I'm not a Democrat or Republican. I'm a independent moderate. I had wanted John McCain to win the election and still think we'd be far better off with the Arizona Senator in the White House than any of the 3 choices that the we had in early November 2000. I wasn't a gigantic Gore fan, but I was decidedly anti-Bush.

Then there's the scene in the movie with all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus offering protests against election fraud in Florida presided over with grace by Al Gore in his role as VP and President of the Senate, and it makes you realize once again what a different country we would be now if the Democrats had won office.

But that's not what bothered me about the movie, it just set the tone. What really disturbed me were two scenes, not about the Saudis or the Bush family connection to the bin Ladens, not the lying about the war in Iraq, not Bush sitting in the Florida classroom not knowing or comprehending what to do, not that members of Congress don’t read bills they vote for, not the lengthy presidential vacations, not anything except Bush speaking in 1992 vis a vis his role with the Harkin Oil company about his access to the White House and the scene where the two Marines are out recruiting in the worst part of one of the worst cities in America.

The interview which Bush gave in 1992 is greatly disturbing because it shows his tendency towards an abuse of power. You could just see this young, immature kid successful only because of his connections to power, taking huge advantage of a situation that very few of us will ever have. Inside the smirk that came with the remark was the sum total of the incurious, won’t take responsibility for anything, lazy individual who is now the President of the United States.

The scene with the Marine recruiters sweeping the poor suburbs of Flint, Michigan for warm bodies was chilling. It would be one thing if we were diligently prosecuting a war against the people who attacked us, but we’re not. We’re engaged in a diversion of questionable expedience to keep the American people on edge in an effort to support a war of indefinite length. This ongoing war requires soldiers. At the same time we’re sending young Americans off to fight, we’re finding soldiers not amongst America’s elite, not even in the families of the Middle Class that politicians like to talk about, but amongst the poor, the destitute, the lowest of the low of American society. There is something fundamentally wrong about that.

My hopes for the movies is that it will get people taking about the issues Moore raises in the film and get people off their asses and register to vote. You can like or dislike the filmmaker, but that shouldn’t stop you from discussing the merits of our special relationship with the Saudis or whether America deserves a president who works hard. I’ve been watching CNN and FOX and MSNBC, and they almost never talk about the issues in the film. What they do is talk about the politics of the filmmaker and the film’s possible impact on the election. The political right, most notably the fiends at Fox and a folks on the conservative side of Crossfire don’t want a discussion on the merits because they know it raises too many questions they can’t answer. Instead they spend their time discrediting Michael Moore. (Scarborough Country had a piece entitled, “Does Michael Moore Hate America?”, for example).

It’s not my job to defend Michael Moore. I have my problems with the man. I think his films would be greatly enhanced were it not for his egotistical need to insert himself into his own documentaries in inflammatory situations such as reading the Patriot Act over the loud speaker of an ice cream truck to the members of Congress. But you have to hand it to him. He is a political provocateur par excellence. And while members of the Fox All-Stars are arguing over whether his film is a documentary or propaganda, they can’t stop hundred of thousands of people from going to see this film, quite the opposite. The more they discuss. The more they rant and rave. The faster the turnstiles flip.

You know that CNN and ABC and Zogby and just about every other news gathering organization on the planet is going to be doing exit polls. I have no doubt that they will be asking voters if F911 had any effect on their vote. I hope people will say that the movie didn’t swing their decision one way or the other, but it was F911 that inspired them to register to vote for the first time.

Posted by andrew at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This quote is by far and away my favorite on-screen Brando moment. You won't see it on the news featurettes about his life where you'll hear him intone repeatedly that he could have been a contender, or scream for Stella or excoriate someone for coming to him on the day of his daughter's wedding, asking for justice without the courtesy to call him "Godfather". You will hear it if you rent "The Freshman."

After a long period during the 80s where Brando made no films, he came back strong with an Oscar nomination in "A Dry White Season" and then did "The Freshman", a comedy with Matthew Broderick and Bruno Kirby. In this film, he does a brilliant parody of his own Godfather persona. Like Brando himself, the role is pure genius and if you haven't already seen it, you should go out and rent it. You should go out and rent any Brando movie that you haven't seen for that matter.

Posted by andrew at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My new computer from Compaq came this week, way ahead of schedule. It's a far greater machine than my previous notebook, 80GB hard drive, 2.2 GHz Athlon 3400+ processor, DVD+RW built in, 15.4" widescreen, just to name a few feature upgrades. So despite not wanting to ever have to deal with Compaq/HP customer service again, I'm keeping it because I don't want to deal with the hassle of selling and then buying a new notebook. It just seems easier this way.

This PC also has a built in wireless ethernet card, which is really cool. I can take it to the coffee shops around the Bay Area (and there are many) that have WiFi networks and while away the hours on the net. That's pretty sweet. However, I have also discovered that the card picks up and connects me to a WiFi network in the one of the nearby apartments. The signal is "Very Low", but the connection speed which varies from 2 Mbps to 54 Mbps is far faster than dial-up, and I don't have to tie up the phone line while I surf the net.

So the question is, should I feel guilty about leeching onto to someone's WiFi network? It's not like I'm hacking into their PC and poking around their hard drive.

Posted by andrew at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm not exactly sure why I feel this way, but I feel guilty about reading fiction when I could spend the time reading non-fiction. I just picked up I, Robot, to reread the Asimov classic before the movie comes out later this month. For some reason, while I extremely enjoy and appreciate fiction, I feel like in some ways that I'm wasting my time when I could be reading one of the dozens of interesting books out there now about current events or any of a number of histories, biographies or social commentaries that I have on my shelf or available to me in the fantastic public library system here in Contra Costa county. It's not like I'm losing sleep over it or anything, but it is weird that I'm even feeling anything like that at all.

Posted by andrew at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)