Wake Me When It's Over

I am a few chapters in to James Risen's, "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War."  Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.  There's the story of Dennis Montgomery who conned DoD and the CIA with software that could detect and decode messages from Al Qaeda hidden in Al Jezeera's bottom-of-the-screen logo displayed during their broadcasts.  Montgomery literally got rich by watching TV.  All he needed was a big screen television, a computer, and a few credulous connections within Nevada and DC.  No one could make this stuff up.  Members of Team Montgomery included the aptly-named Congressman Jerry Lewis.  Did all these clowns use Scott Joplin ring tones?   

When the first set of deals soured, Montgomery found a new billionaire sugar-momma who made a connection to Jack Kemp and, through him, to the White House.  Surprisingly, one of Cheney's aides was the only person in Washington who demanded source code for evaluation before diverting a palette of C-notes out of the river of money that flowed from the NJ Fed to Baghdad and into Montgomery's bank account.  The software also failed the Israeli's sniff test.

For those of you under 50, Kemp was a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Republican Congressman, Housing Secretary, and failed VP candidate in 1996.  He was a member of the fancy-schmancy, private, Wyoming ski resort owned by the billionaire sugar-momma and her soon-to-be ex-husband.  Dennis Montgomery best skill was finding a mark within that exclusive realm, where money and connections far exceed intellect and facts.   

Blame the Victim: Cancer Edition

H disclosed to my wife that he is committing slow suicide – or not – by treating his prostate cancer with diet.  A naturopathic fraud cured H's wife of some long term ailment.  Obviously, the naturopath is the best choice for treating the prostate cancer that H may or may not be there.  H is certain of the diagnosis and certain that the diet is beneficial.  I am the skeptic.  Diagnosis and follow-up were based entirely on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests and measurements of "liver function."  

PSA tests don't work. It was a good idea that failed. High rates of false positives and false negatives. The K-Y jellied gloved hand digital exam is the most reliable screening test available.

My wife asked H about the naturopath's success rate with prostate cancer.  Oh to be a shameless fraud! Diet-based cancer cures are just like abstinence-only contraception. H explained that the method succeeds for people who are 100% faithful to the regimen. The treatment can't fail the patient; but the patient can fail the treatment. (I need to translate that into Latin.) Blame the victim.  We learned all about that scam when another friend died after treating his prostate cancer with tanker loads of carrot juice plus cabbage juice chasers.  After the cancer killed him, his wife found a hidden Spam stash.  Aha! She just knew he had been cheating on his diet.  And, there was the evidence.  I wonder if his death certificate reads "cancer" or "Spam."

H's wife elaborated on the healthy diet theory to my wife.  The naturopath believes that good food crucial to good health.  But, don't cancer cells benefit just as much -- if not more -- from nutrition?  What is the saying, "Feed a cold and starve a fever" or vice versa or "Feed a cold and starve a cancer."

Back in the Saddle, Again

OMG.  Over a year since the last post!  You would think I took a vow of silence.  But, you would be wrong.  You might even think I devoted myself to 365+ days of non-stop golf.  But, you would be wrong, although I award extra credit to those kind thoughts.  Instead, the real answer is a combination of too much work and slow writing.  My post topics transit quickly from current events to history before I hit "PUBLISH."  Maybe I can stick with a Jewish New Year resolution to more frequent, brief blog posts.  Why not?

My wife printed a NY Time Magazine article from July 28 titled, "Why Do Americans Stink at Math?"  I got through half a dozen paragraphs.  Make math interesting.  Get students to investigate ideas instead of droning at them and assigning repetitive homework.  Yeah.  So?  The educational stench covers all topics.  English, history, science.  Even in our sports-obsessed culture, phys ed is short shrifted.  Foreign languages, art, music?  Feh.

Which bring's me to Paul Krugman's latest theme expressed in his NYT columns and blog that explores the mystery of the unrepentant.  Why is it, he ponders in a repeating excess of  spilled electrons, that economists whose ideas failed miserably post-2008 continue to defend those ideas against Terabytes of data?  PK has it wrong.  People rarely change their minds about anything. Most ideas and opinions are simple prejudices: limbic beliefs based on nonsensical pre-conceptions. Intellectual arguments are ineffectual tools.  We are emotional beings, and emotion trumps intellect every time.

Syria

The United States might blow things up and kill people from a distance in Syria because Assad bin Assad, a cruel wretched son of a cruel wretch, added sarin to the misery of Syrian's civil war.  The only correct thing to do, is indict Assad for war crimes and haul him off to The Hague for trial.  Removing him, though, gives too much advantage to the Islamic fundamentalist component of the rebellion.  What we want, is a true, democratic revolt that will overthrow the current regime and install a non-sectarian representative government with participation by all ethnicities and sects, and includes equal rights for women.  Zero chance for that.  Americans think they are looking through a window, but are really squinting at a mirror.  We think that rebellion against a dictator means replacing cruelty with fairness.  In Syria, as anyone who knows the area would have predicted, the battle segments to Shia, Sunni, Alawite, plus a few other groups.  Nothing Assad could do -- either good or bad -- is sufficient incentive for people to change allegiance.  We did not learn from Iraq where expected anti-Saddam fervor became Shia vs Sunni vs Kurds because it always was.

Back to Work

Writing again after an unexpectedly long hiatus.  Blame the day job.  No.  That's not true.  Blame the wingnuts.  Yes, they are demoralizing.  But, more importantly, they keep changing the landscape faster that I -- who writes slowly -- can keep up.  Call it the inverse dichotomy paradox.  The original Aristotlean paradox says that no one can reach a destination because first, you must get half-way there, then half of the half, and so on, with each increment half of the one before which, a couple of thousand years before Newton, seemed like a genuine constraint.  The inverse case has nutters moving twice as far from reality with each new step.  Try to respond cogently to one piece of conservative nonsense and, by the time I am ready to hit the "Publish" button, my writing is now off-target from the newest craziness.  Think of whack-a-mole played against mutant vermin that grow and grow and grow. 

The NRA is a Terrorist Organization

The National Rifle Association is a terrorist organization.  It is complicit in the murder and maiming of thousands of Americans every year.  The Association, despite its overwhelming political agenda, calls itself a charity and has 501(c)3 status.  Unbelievable.  The NRA, its leadership, and, yes, its members must face the reality of their murderous legacy.

The Emperor's New Clothes

The biggest problem with living the big lie is that just one lone defector can crash the whole enterprise.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie demolished years of Republican party propaganda in just three days.  The man who was keynote speaker at this year's Republican National Convention praised his party's biggest worstest scariest awfullest demon multiple times and received warm praise from the President in return.  The two walked together through some of the worst damaged parts of New Jersey.  Romney must be on the floor in one of his mansions kicking his feet and chewing the antique, hand-knotted Persian carpet.  Fox and Friends needed a complete hard reboot following their morning video interview with Christie and Heckuvajob Brownie, in trying to find some reason for bashing Obama, instead showed himself to be too stupid to know how stupid he is.  The Republicans are so nusto crazy extreme these days, that just one man doing his job honestly and honorably appears, in contrast, like Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone.