WhirledView

Wildlife by LiveCam

by CKR

Want to watch eagles and grizzly bears? Goldfish?

National Geographic has a webcam set up on the McNeil River in Alaska. The grizzlies are pulling salmon out of the stream. When I looked, there were a couple of seagulls waiting for their scraps, too. From 1 to 5 pm Alaska time (one hour earlier than Pacific), a ranger manipulates the camera for the best shots.

The eagles are in Maine, brought to you by the Biodiversity Research Institute. The camera is on a nest, where I didn't see any action, but they have archived images.

Both sites have blogs. The National Geographic bear blog runs excruciatingly slowly. I couldn't get it to load in any reasonable time. The eagle blog is written by three wildlife biologists and works better. It's quite informative, and it looks like they'll answer your questions.

And the Los Angeles Times's GoldfishCam is still operating. One of the goldfish has died, but the other still is perky in Los Angeles river water, which, if it hasn't been replaced, is probably pretty much like any other water, having been oxygenated and run through the filter for 149 days or so.

What the House Approved

by CKR

It appears that I may have been a bit too pessimistic in my estimate of what the House of Representatives passed the other day on the nuclear deal with India.

According to an op-ed by A. Gopalakrishnan, a former head of the Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, in today's Asian Age (sorry, no link), the amendments that were affixed in committee remain in the approved bill. What were not added were amendments offered from the floor.

Gopalakrishnan offers a concern that India's parliament will be too pleased with the misleading news that these amendments were defeated.

This spreads the false and comfortable feeling that the legislation as it stands today is benign to India, and all the negative clauses which the Indian critics of the deal have worried about have been eliminated. The truth is far from it! It is only few of the additional amendments brought forth in the last few days , to further tighten the noose around India’s neck, which have been defeated --- ALL the original restrictions and demands placed on India through HR 5682, as submitted to the House, stay intact . Thus, the linkage to Iran in defining Indian good behaviour, the denial of the multi-path nuclear fuel supply guarantee which the PM had promised to Parliament , the total disregard for reciprocity of actions , the mandatory need for India to co-operate and collaborate with the US on the FMCT, fully participating in the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Australia Group, and the Wassennaar Arrangement, etc. are still very much a part of the passed legislation.

He argues that the Indian Parliament must make clear to the United States that anything beyond the 2005 agreement is unacceptable, but he stops short of advocating that it be rejected when it comes time for Parliament to vote.

There is no wisdom in waiting for the US "to complete their legislative process", because it is high time that the US administration is openly warned that the Parliament & the people of India strongly oppose the specific inserts in these bills which go beyond the July 18, 2005 agreement between the two governments.

I should have been going back to the original documents, too, but I just haven't had time.

Photos of Rupert Pole

by CKR

We're getting a fair number of Google hits looking for photos of Rupert Pole. I put his obituary up on WhirledView Choice, and I assume that's where they're coming from.

So for all my fellow Anais Nin fans, here's the LA Times obituary (12/31/06: Unfortunately this link has rotted, but you might want to try the LA Times archives, to which it now goes, if you don't mind paying. The article was dated 26 July 2006), with two photos of Rupert and Anais (you have to click on the upper one to see them). I can't find any others on the Web, but there is one in Dierdre Bair's biography of Anais, and there are a couple in The Erotic Life of Anais Nin, by Noel Riley Fitch, including Hugo and Rupert meeting for the first time.

Good-looking guy.

Update: In case you haven't found it yet, here's anaisnin.com, a site maintained by some of her friends.

Further Update: More about their house in Silver Lake.

Two Cheers for Engineers!

by CKR

Well, that was easy. I think. I’ve installed all my programs (applications?), set up my e-mail, and everything seems to be working. I’ve uploaded some photos from my camera. The 20-inch screen is lovely, and the computer is noticeably faster than the old one.

The 29 July Economist celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the pc. But computers have come a longer way than that. I first learned to program on an IBM 650. No, not that one, the one before, the one with a magnetic drum memory. [Oh, dear, I do love the internet! That link is to Columbia University, whose IBM 650 was the one I programmed. SOAP (Symbolic Optimal Assembly Program, one step up from machine language) and all!]

What Moral Equivalence?

By PHK

I’ve been skeptical for some time that the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers by Hezbollah which precipitated the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon simply arose out of the blue. Why? Because relations in the Middle East normally don’t work that way. Until Wednesday, however, I had not read anything to make me question Israel’s claim and the conventional wisdom that Hezbollah was the provocateur. Then I found excerpts from reports of meetings in Lebanon in February 2006 by three retired American diplomats that indicated things may not be as they appear – at least as they are portrayed by the Bush administration in the U.S. media.

Here is how Eugene Bird, one of those three former U.S. diplomats and President of the Center for the National Interest, characterized discussions Ambassadors Edward Peck, Robert Keeley, and he had in Lebanon last February: "While in Lebanon we met with the president, the prime minister and Nasrallah (Hesbollah’s leader in Lebanon). All three emphasized the following three points: Israel had not fully withdrawn from Lebanese territory -- this is separate from the Shebaa Farms issue. There are three areas of just a few thousand square feet, but they are military positions.

"Second, they emphasized that Israel has not given a map to thousands of landmines it left in Lebanon as it was supposed to do. These mines regularly kill people. Third, they emphasized the abduction of three Lebanese who were taken from Lebanese territory by Israel. I asked Nasrallah what he would do about these people. He said that there was only one way to free them, and that was to capture Israeli soldiers. What Hezbollah is doing may seem to be foolish, especially in the short term, but we need to understand the facts involved.

So was Hezbollah upping the ante and spoiling for a fight as the Israeli and US government claim – or was it simply playing the next round of an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth game of quid pro quo that permeates Middle Eastern politics, religion and culture?

There’s another report worth considering too. According to both AP and AFP, the two IDF soldiers taken prisoner by Hezbollah were captured on the Lebanese side of the border in the area of Aitaa al-Chaab, where an Israeli unit had penetrated in mid-morning. Joshua Frank describes this in detail on www.antiwar.com

Meanwhile, Back in Congress...Updated 7/28/06

by CKR

The waivers for the United States to supply India with nuclear technology were passed by the House of Representatives, clean as a hound's tooth of those nasty amendments that might have required India to act more or less as the rest of the world does relative to weapon-making.

Remaining hurdles are a Senate vote, scheduled for September, and the requirement of developing inspection procedures with the International Atomic Energy Agency that will be acceptable to the Nuclear Suppliers' Group.

Aljazeera

Times of India

Washington Post (Reuters)

New York Times

And that's not all. Hearings on John Bolton's nomination as UN ambassador begin today.

Update: The New York Times says it was lobbying that defeated any desire to maintain the NPT.

Why Jane Harmon voted against the bill.

"Behind Embassy Walls": A Book Review Essay

By PHK

Brandon Grove’s “Behind Embassy Walls: the Life and Times of an American Diplomat” is an autobiography that intertwines the professional, the personal and the instructional. This book is special not only because it includes all three elements, but also because of the uniqueness of Grove’s diplomatic career. A warning: Grove’s experience in no way resembles the career patterns of today’s, or even yesterday’s aspiring American Foreign Service Officers. Not only are those years and times long gone, but also the Foreign Service – its rules, regulations and attitudes towards its employees as well as their attitudes towards it - are sadly different from what they once were.

Grove writes of his experiences in the service of his country at home and abroad over a 35 year span that took place, for the most part, during the Cold War. He entered the career service in the mid-1950s – in the shadow of McCarthyism which had torn the service apart. He left in 1994 soon after the Cold War ended and shortly before the career Foreign Service was hammered again - this time through a series of budget-directed cut-backs as a result of an un-traveled and foreign affairs ignorant Republican Congress dominated by the isolationist Jesse Helms as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Clinton White House with other priorities. Grove is lucky. He never had to experience a 28 percent budget cut and a 25 percent reduction of personnel in a single year. He left just in time.

Grove’s era is, of course, past. But the lessons learned and general observations about the Foreign Service and the State Department that he shares with readers - for the most part – remain valid.

East Germany and Jerusalem

His chapters on East Germany and Jerusalem compel me most. As the Israeli army continues its Lebanon onslaught and Hezbollah returns fire, Grove’s experiences as Consul General in Jerusalem in 1982 when an Israeli-designed peace that threw the PLO out of southern Lebanon and opened the gates to the creation of the far more radical Hamas and Hezbollah remain significant history our current policy makers and the Israelis should take to heart. Right now. Grove’s is a balanced, nuanced view, written through the eyes and pragmatic experience of a professional diplomat not through those of the political protagonists who mangle American foreign policy today and keep the Middle East in flames.

His chapter on East Germany is a far different story from the one on Jerusalem because the former now represents a by-gone era, a non-existent state, and a problem for today’s Germans to resolve - not one that can turn the world upside down. Grove’s relationship with Germany – one that began when he was a schoolboy in Hamburg in the 1930s and covers assignments in the West as well as the East – is core to his being. In the broader context, of course, the U.S.-German relationship during the Cold War anchored American foreign policy in Europe. He describes both.

The story Grove tells about East Germans returning books to the America Haus library in Berlin after a 50 year hiatus due to the erection of the wall in between remains etched in my brain. I will never forget that story originally described even more eloquently in a letter from the USIS officer in charge of the center at the time.

Oh, the people you meet and the places you go

Wednesday Beauty Blogging

by CKR

I'm pretty much set up on my new computer. I just managed to transfer photos from my camera; I need to be in the right mood the first time I do these things. It worked just fine, and the USB port is on the front of this computer, very convenient.

I think we can use some beauty now, so I'll leave the comments at that.

One Thing at a Time

by CKR

The Washington Post and The Guardian reported David Albright’s observations of a new heavy-water reactor being built at Pakistan’s nuclear complex. Now the Washington Post’s Joby Warrick tells us that the Bush administration says it knew about this all along, but didn’t want to tell Congress. Or anyone.

The deal to allow nuclear trade between the United States and India is making its way through Congress and will be debated tomorrow (26 July) in the House of Representatives. India, like Pakistan, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the third nonsigner being Israel.

The joint effort between the United States and Russia to secure Russia’s nuclear materials seems to be breaking down. That’s supposed to be a key part of keeping those materials out of the hands of terrorists.

The Bush administration deals with nuclear matters as it does all foreign policy: one thing at a time. But the world isn’t structured that way: countries have good or bad relations with others besides the United States, and what the United States does can affect those relations.

Here are my—Oink! Oink!—Signing Statements

By PLS

As a red-blooded, authentic, native-born American, I am entitled to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet my god-given life is hemmed in by laws and regulations that give me grief from the time I get up to the time I finally fall asleep.

And—stupid me!—I had been obeying them. I thought the so-called rule of law was a good thing. I figured we were all in it together, each one of us, on an equal basis, so I was meekly paying all my taxes and stopping at red lights and teaching my kids that contracts are a sacred trust.

But little by little I woke up to the fact that George Orwell was right. I was acting like a self-defeating sheep, while the pigs, especially the really big porkers, were throwing their weight around. Oink! Oink!

Fortunately our President showed me the way to freedom, the way to true liberty, and my cup of happiness runneth over. Presented with a law not to his liking, I discovered, George W. Bush brazenly ignored it or reinterpreted it.

After all, what’s the use of being President if you aren’t free to do whatever you damn please? As one of those fancy French kings so famously said, “L’etat—c’est moi! I am the state!”

So this is what I decided: Mr. President, I’m with you. My motto from now on is: “The law–I’m it!”

1. The Tax Code is what I say it is, but I’m not going to evade it stupidly. Just try and catch me —Ya! Ya! Ya! The auditors who know the loopholes have been axed, and I’m not one of those Welfare Queens collectors love to squeeze for pennies.