Real World Update

I've been doing a lot of stuff lately, but it seems that all I usually post are links to news stories. So here's what's been up.

A couple of weeks ago it seemed prudent to paint some new paintings to show along with the old ones still out at the McKenzie-Mueller Winery in Carneros, where I played with Tom Overton last Saturday and Sunday.

Although no one bought any paintings, everyone seemed to like them, and I did pass out a bunch of cards. Here's what the paintings look like:

This is a view of Miliken Peak from near the McKenzie-Mueller Winery.


This is Sonoma Mt. from Stage Gulch Road, just towards Sonoma from Petaluma.




This is a view of Mt. Veeder, from the lawn right in front of the winery.

I had so much fun painting these that I once again wonder why in the world I don't paint more.

Playing on Battery Power

It was also a blast playing music with Tom. We had so much fun that we played straight through from noon to 4pm each day, except for when we had to move inside when it started to rain Saturday. For the first time, we both did the gig using battery power for our amps. Unshackled from wall outlets! A wonderful feeling. We each had a battery, sold for jump starting a car. I got mine at Costco. I have a 200 watt inverter (a Powerstar POW200) that was part of a package deal when I got my digital camera five years (and 18,000+ photos) ago, and I used my small Ibanez bass amp for bass and my new (used - thank you, craislist!) Roland Cube Monitor for my backup vocals. Tom ran both his guitar and his vocals through his Ibanez guitar amp, which I think he plugged directly into his battery. Four hours straight seemed to be near the limit of what this setup could handle, but it worked fine. Both our batteries read "empty" when we finished, but after a quick charge Saturday night they were ready to go Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Bonnie's been raising silkworms. But more on that later.

A Congressman from Hell

I'm trying to finish some paintings for a show and music thing tomorrow at the McKenzie-Mueller Winery. In the background I can hear a conference on Extraordinary Rendition and Relations with Europe on CSpan-2. At this moment the esteemed Congressman from California Dana Rohrabacher is railing against some ignorant Italian diplomat who brought up the completely irrelevant concept of using legal means to fight crime, using as an example the Italian fight against the Mafia. Dana correctly pointed out that this is completely different, since when the magic word "terrorism" is invoked all bets are off, all laws are moot, might makes right, and the "Rule of Law" is just a silly anachronism best left in kindergarten with other childish ideas. I mean, laws and constitutions are just fine up until they really mean something, until there's some sort of cost or inconvenience involved, and then, well forget it! Don't these foreigners know what it means to face terror, by cracky?

Or something like that. I can't swear it's a direct quote. But that's what he meant.

The blind ignorance shown daily by Americans in authority should be enough to make us all ashamed.

Some thought about Iran that bear repeating

I'm sorry. I can't stop blogging. I keep running into thing that need to be posted. This is from last August.

Joshua Michael Marshal at TalkingPointsMemo.com:

(August 30, 2006 -- 10:01 AM EDT)

The Iran debate has really become rather surreal. You have the "Islamofascist" locution jumping from the fever swamps of rightwing punditry into the mouth of the President of the United States. You have the Secretary of Defense issuing dire warnings of another Munich. These things are being done by the exact same people who, four years ago, were utterly dismissive of claims that invading Iraq was likely to serve Iranian interests better than American ones. Indeed, you have the exact same people who two years ago were assuring us that it made sense to commit American blood and treasure to fight Sunni insurgents on behalf of Iranian-backed Shiite militias now saying we need to commit more blood and treasure in Iraq to stop . . . Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

You have Richard Cohen, who backed the Iraq War and came to regret it, turning around and saying it's time to party like it's 1938. Meanwhile, this entire view of the world has, as best I can tell, no relationship whatsoever to reality.

Via Kevin Drum, David Ignatius is in Iran and reports that though "you might expect that Tehran would feel like a garrison town" it's actually surprisingly relaxed. But why might you expect that Teheran would feel like a garrison town? Well, you would if you've been following the media's dubious, highly-spun coverage of the issue. But you wouldn't if you asked yourself some basic questions. For example, if Iran is preparing to mount a Hitler-style bid for world domination they must be engaged in a big military build-up, right? But there is no such build up. Maybe there's no need for a build-up because the Iranian military is already so vast and mighty? Well, no. Iran has a defense budget of about $6 billion a year.

The United States spends over 50 times more than that. But perhaps comparisons to the USA are misleading. Lets compare our would-be regional hegemon to its neighbors. Well, Israel spends $9.6 billion and Saudi Arabia spends $25.2 billion. Pakistan, immediately adjacent to Iran and nuclear armed, actually has engaged in a recent defense buildup. What kind of quest for hegemony is Iran supposed to be on? Ignorant American pundits and television personalities may be unaware of these facts, but surely Iranian military and intelligence officials have noticed that Iran has no capacity whatsoever to conquer the region.

Meanwhile, the freaky and unpredictable Iranian regime has actually been in power for a very long time. Since before I was born. The regime is not only long-entrenched, but quite corrupt. Mightn't this lead you think it's being run by reasonably comfortable men who enjoy the fruits of power, intend to stay in power, and know a thing or two about maintaining their power rather than by irrational lunatics who've been waiting in the wings for 27 years preparing to spring their bid for world domination upon us without first having acquired so much as a single modern tank?

And then there's the small matter that our purported would-be Hitlers in Teheran were trying to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the United States as recently as 2003. Their proposal was rejected by the Bush administration. Not rejected, I remind you, because the Bushies found the details of the proposal inadequate and Teheran refused to compromise further. No! It was rejected without any effort at negotiation because, at the time, the administration was busy threatening to overthrow the government of Iran as the second or third item in an ambitious plan to overthrow every government in the region.

So, here's Iran. Outgunned by its two leading religio-ideological antagonists, Israel and Saudi Arabia, in the region. One immediate neighbor is Pakistan, with a larger population base and a nuclear arsenal. Another immediate neighbor, Afghanistan, is occupied by soldiers under the command of an American president who has spurned peace offers and threatened to overthrow the Iranian government. A second immediate neighbor, Iraq, is occupied by a larger number of soldiers from the same country. The Iranian military's equipment is outdated and essentially incapable of mounting offensive operations. So Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Under the circumstances, wouldn't you? Don't you think a little deterrence capability would serve the country well under those circumstances?

I'm sorry to have gone on at such great length here, and a little nervous about stepping outside the "sensible" zone with my commentary on this topic, but somebody needs to call bull$#*t on the prevailing elite consensus about Iran. Of course it would be better to find a way to persuade, cajole, whatever Iran out of going nuclear -- the spread of nuclear weapons is, as such, bad for the USA. But there's no need -- absolutely no need -- for this atmosphere of panic and paranoia.

-- Matthew Yglesias

Big Aqus Cafe Fun and a Busy Day

Two days ago this extremely fun event occurred:

The show itself was as much fun as the handful of rehearsals we had, which were all hilarious.

(one minute of YouTube of the show is here.)

Pamela and Gary are both very talented singers and musicians, and the overflow crowd had a great time. I did a couple of tunes myself, which is pretty unusual. The real strength of the group, I'd say, is our three part harmony, the quality of which amazed even me.

The future? We're slated to make a brief appearance at a local fundraiser on June 2. Other than that, there are no other plans. Pamela has two other bands, and Gary plays with everyone in the area.

I had a very busy day Saturday. Up and to the cafe by 9am (I'm seldom awake before 9am on a Saturday!) and playing 10am until noon, and then helping Gary and his wife Peg pack up the equipment, just in time for a torrential downpour. Then rehearsing with Al Haas and his son for an upcoming Farmer's Market gig Saturday, June 30, until about 4pm. Brief stop to gather my wits, and then a cruise over to Napa to see some folks I'd only heard about, a cowboy (and cowgirl) band. I'd met one of the singers at a friend's house, and when I told her about the Aqus gig she said she couldn't make it because she had this private party to play with her band. Sean Allen, a great Napa guitarist who was playing lap steel with them, persuaded me to sit in for a tune or two on his Telecaster. Fun. Then it was off to meet with Gordon Lustig and a friend of his for dinner and a show. Dinner turned out to be at Piccolino's in Napa, where Gordon often plays, watching Bobby Simmons, whom I hadn't seen in months. Then we attended an Adrian Legg concert at Copia. How was it? It was about two hours long, all in what looked like open D tuning. That's a lot of one tuning.

A fun fun day. Now I'm tired.

Sub-millimeter wave news - portable clothes-penetrating viewers closer to deployment

A combination of digital signal processing and old fashioned analog phase shifting...

Physorg.com:

Engineers set new world record in generation of high-frequency submillimeter waves

Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have achieved a new world record in high-frequency submillimeter waves. The record-setting 324-gigahertz frequency was accomplished using a voltage-controlled oscillator in a 90-nanometer complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit, a technology used in chips such as microprocessors.

The signal generator, which produces frequencies nearly 70 percent faster than other CMOS oscillators, paves the way for a new generation of submillimeter devices that could someday be used in high-resolution sensors on spacecraft, and here on Earth in a new class of highly integrated and lightweight imagers that could literally cut through fog and see through clothing fabrics. And because frequency ultimately means bandwidth, "the higher frequency increases the available bandwidth," said M.C. Frank Chang, UCLA professor of electrical engineering, who leads the research team. That greater bandwidth translates into faster communication speeds.

With traditional 90-nanometer CMOS circuit approaches, it is virtually impossible to generate usable submillimeter signals with a frequency higher than about 190 GHz. That's because conventional oscillator circuits are nonlinear systems in which increases in frequency are accompanied by a corresponding loss in gain or efficiency and an increase in noise, making them unsuitable for practical applications.

Chang, who also is director of UCLA Engineering's High Speed Electronics Laboratory, and researchers Daquan Huang and Tim LaRocca skirted the issues using a technological sleight of hand — and some unique analog signal processing.

The researchers first generated a voltage-controlled CMOS oscillator, or CMOS VCO, operating at a fundamental frequency of 81GHz with phase-shifted outputs at 0, 90, 180 and 270
degrees, respectively. By linearly superimposing these four (or quadruple) rectified phase-shifted outputs in real time, they ultimately generated a waveform with a resultant oscillation frequency that is four times the fundamental frequency, or 324 GHz. This new frequency generation method, in principle, has high DC-to-RF conversion efficiency (up to 8 percent) and has low phase noise, comparable to that of the constituent fundamental oscillation signal.

"When you go back to the fundamental math and physics, you find that you can do this and not pay much of a price. That's the beauty of it," Chang said. "If you use digital signal processing, you can synthesize this and synthesize that, but you pay the price for it with a loss of energy."

The measurement test of the 324-GHz signal was conducted by engineers Lorene Samoska and Andy Fung of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which has facilities to test these high-frequency ranges. JPL and NASA are particularly interested in submillimeter technology because submillimeter-range wavelengths are ideal for deep-space remote sensing — there is no atmosphere in space to dampen the signals. Higher frequency signals, in turn, produce higher resolution images. "You can see better," Chang said.

Chang and Huang, in collaboration with JPL colleagues, have jointly applied for government grants to use the technology to design lightweight, low-power and highly integrated signal generators that can produce signals at frequencies up to 600 GHz. Applications for these high-frequency VCOs include imaging systems for both commercial and future space missions.

Creating 600-GHz signals requires a relatively straightforward modification of the circuit — either by increasing the fundamental frequency of the VCO or increasing the number of superimposed oscillator outputs (using eight or 16 instead of four).

"Because the algorithm has been validated, we know that we can achieve these frequencies," Chang says.

For example, if quadruple 85-GHz VCO outputs are used, the resulting output frequency would be 340 GHz. That frequency is something of a Holy Grail to the commercial aerospace industry and the military because it represents a "window" in our atmosphere where there is very little attenuation of submillimeter signals. (Essentially, they are invisible to the air.)

Normally, millimeter-range waves excite the atomic and molecular bonds in water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and other molecules in the atmosphere, and the gases absorb the waves. Signals at 340 GHz, however, "sneak through," Chang said, and can propagate long distances.

"One result is that waves of these frequencies can see through the fog, which is of interest to commercial aerospace companies," he said. Chang estimates that he and his colleagues will be able to produce the 340-GHz signals within the next six months.

Another application of the high-frequency CMOS VCOs of interest to the United States military is in submillimeter wavelength imaging.

"Because the wavelength is submillimeter, you may image through people's clothing," Chang said. "For example, it would be possible to remotely view if some civilian walking up to you has plastic explosives hidden under his coat."

CMOS technology makes future submillimeter-wave devices easily integrated with advanced microprocessors on-chip and can be very lightweight, so these sensors would be portable. "Foot soldiers could backpack them into the battle zone," Chang said.

Source: University of California - Los Angeles

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physorg.com:

Chocolate gives people more of a buzz than passionate kisses: study

"These results really surprised and intrigued us," said psychologist David Lewis, who led a study that recorded brain activity and heart rate from volunteers who tasted pieces of dark chocolate or kissed their partners.

"There is no doubt that chocolate beats kissing hands down when it comes to providing a long-lasting body and brain buzz -- a buzz that, in many cases, lasted four times as long as the most passionate kiss."

While researchers expected chocolate, especially dark chocolate, to raise heart rates, he said, "both the length of this increase together with the powerful effects it had on the mind were something none of us had anticipated."

The 12 volunteers, all aged in their 20s, wore heart monitors and had electrodes attached to their heads as each placed a piece of dark chocolate on the tongue and, without chewing, indicated when it started to melt.

British researchers said Monday they were stunned to discover that people get more of a buzz from eating chocolate than passionately kissing their lovers.

Couples were later invited to kiss each other in the same way as they would do normally.

The study found that -- at the point chocolate melts in the mouth -- all areas of the brain are stimulated far more intensely and for longer than from from kissing.

Chocolate also made the heart beat faster, according to the study supervised by Lewis, a formerly University of Sussex psychologist who now runs a private research company called The Mind Lab.

Some people saw the number of heart beats per minute rise from a resting rate of about 60 to as high as 140. Kissing also made the couples' hearts pound, but not for as long.

Both sexes showed the same responses in the tests.

Larry Johnson puts it in perspective

thanks to Thom Hartmann for bringing this to his listeners' attention...

WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush was "horrified" by the shooting at Virginia Tech university that killed at least 22 people including the suspected gunman and wounded many others, the White House said on Monday.

The federal government was monitoring the situation and while state and local authorities were investigating, federal assets were available if Virginia should request them, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"He was horrified and his immediate reaction was one of deep concern for the families of the victims, the victims themselves, the students, the professors and all of the people of Virginia who have dealt with this shocking incident," she said.

And yet, think about the daily disasters Bush is responsible for. Every day. Day in and day out. Where is his outrage?

Now Do You Understand?

by
Larry C Johnson

Breaking news! At least 22 Virginia Tech students gunned down. Cable news channels are wild with activity as they pump up the coverage a focus on the latest "crisis". The media is commenting that this shooting is overwhelming the local medical facilities. Crisis is in the air. Well, at least it ain't Iraq.

Okay. Big deep breath. This is horrible and this is tragic and this gives us an idea of what it is like to live just one day in Iraq. Consider the following:

04/15/07 Reuters: 19 bodies found in Baghdad on Saturday

Police found the bodies of 19 people in various parts of Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said

04/15/07 Reuters: 20 Iraqi troops and policemen abducted

A group linked to al Qaeda said it abducted 20 Iraqi troops and policemen and demanded the release of all Sunni women held in Iraq's prisons, according to a Web statement

04/15/07 Reuters: 4 killed by suicide bombers in Mosul

Four people, including two Iraqi soldiers, were killed and 16 wounded when two oil trucks driven by suicide bombers exploded outside a military base in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

04/15/07 AP: Suicide bomber kills 5, wounds 11 in northwest Baghdad

a suicide bomber blew himself up on a minibus in northwest Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 11, police and hospital officials said.

04/15/07 AP: 37 die as car bomb hits near Iraq shrine

A car bomb blasted through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines Saturday, killing at least 37 people, police and hospital officials said.

Let's total the score: at least 65 Iraqis dead in four attacks vs. 22 Americans shot at Virginia Tech. Whoops, forgot the 20 kidnapped policemen. Can you imagine?

The next time you hear Dick Cheney or George Bush blame the public attitude regarding Iraq on the media's failure to report "good news", examine carefully our reaction to the shooting at Viginia Tech. Look at our collective shock. Our horrified reaction. The public sorrow. Yet, in truth, this is an exceptional, unusual day in America. It is not our common experience. But we cannot say the same about Iraq.

The people of Iraq are living in a Marquis de Sade version of Groundhog Day. It is like the Bill Murray movie--the same horrible day repeated with some new, bizarre twists--only not funny. Multiple body counts and explosions and shootings are the daily experience of the people of Iraq. They have been living this hell for four years. Just keep that fact in mind as you mourn the deaths of 22 American students slain in Blacksburg, Viginia.

Guest Workers take about being Guest Workers

Here's something to think about.

From 3quarksdaily:

More on Guest Workers in the Gulf Coast

DemocracyNow! also has a piece on guest workers across the Gulf Coast. It consists of interviews of Sabu Lal "one Indian guestworker who tried to commit suicide after he was fired", Nestor Vallero a "Mexican guestworker who says his Louisiana employer confiscated his passport and subjected him to humiliating conditions and treatment", and "Saket Soni, spokesman for the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity." Oddly, instead of bringing democracy to the Middle East, the administration seems to have enabled the US to import immigrant labor practices from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

NESTOR VALLERO: [translated] They had told us that they promised $10 an hour, but it turned out when we got here they would only pay us $6.50 an hour. And they threatened us, and they said, “Well, if you don't like it, you can go home.” And when we asked for our passports, they said, “Oh, you want your passport back? Well, I’m only going to give it to you if you’re going to go home.” After all of this, we were just forced to take whatever job they were offering us, because we didn’t have any money to go home or do anything else.

But that wasn't all. They started to discount the cost of our housing from our wage. And we had to pay $1,200 a month for housing. And out of a $300 check that we received for two weeks work, they would take, discount almost $200 off that check. So, they’re really, you know, raking in the profits with our work. It’s really just a money-making scheme, this whole guestworkers program.

I think it's time that we modify the laws. They need to be overhauled, because we’re not the only ones that are suffering from this. There are many, many people who are suffering this injustice. Here in New Orleans, many contractors are paying $13 or $10 an hour to do cleanup work from the Katrina disaster. However, the contractors have figured out that they can import people from other countries and pay them half that to do the cleanup work. So this is really a contradiction. And this is creating tensions, racial tensions between the African Americans who are local to New Orleans and the Latin Americans who are being imported to work here.

Posted by Robin Varghese at 03:13 PM |

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more wonders from the world of science

Lifescience.com:

Exposure to friendly soil bacteria could improve mood by boosting the immune system just as effectively as antidepressant drugs, a new study suggests.

Sanwiching a flash of light between two tones can cause the illusion of two flashes being seen.

More energy comes from the sun in the form of green light than red or blue, and yet green plants reflect this light away. A scientist theorizes that early plants used this green light, and so appeared purple.

an intriguing theory

from Madsen:

April 12, 2007 -- Guest Column:

“S” is for Surge and Synergy!
Between Democrats, Republicans, and Israel…

By Maher Osseiran

Surge as a word has become synonymous with Bush and Baghdad but that does not mean the Democrats are against it.

If we follow the logic of the Bush surge, the milestones, the benchmarks, etc… it all results in a timeline that indicates that Bush would have withdrawn or redeployed the troops from Iraq sometime in 2008, and in order to protect his legacy, he would have achieved or is hoping to achieve something positive and lasting; could it be the single item left from his Iraq agenda, federalism?

If we now look at the war-funding bill passed by the Democrats, Senator Russ Feingold’s latest maneuver excluded, we see a similar timeline; a total redeployment by early 2008.

Could both visions be the same with minor differences in execution?

The answer is yes, since all administrations that preceded George W. Bush were active contributors to the goal of “regime change in Iraq”; all administration since the end of the First Gulf War.

At the end of that war, Bush Sr. decided not to go after Saddam because of one simple reason; there was no substitute for Saddam that would maintain intact the critical balance in that part of the world. This fact should be clear to most who have followed four years of news from Iraq.

If there were a substitute, Bush Sr. would have been in Baghdad in two weeks; he certainly had the manpower in place.

There were two possible but not viable substitutes at the time, the Kurds and the Shiites. The Kurds were fragmented and plagued with infighting. The Shiites in the south got their signals crossed, rushed to stage an uprising, only to be abandoned to die by the tens of thousands by an American administration fearing at the last minute that those Shiites would become an extension of Iran. That occurred right after the First Gulf War.

Bush Sr. decided to keep Saddam on a short leash through the UN sanctions, later zealously enforced by Clinton and Blair, while cultivating a substitute. Clinton contributed, through the efforts of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, by bringing the Kurds together through power sharing and co-operation agreements. Clinton nurtured the Kurds as the substitute and the new ally.

By the time Bush Jr. got in the White House, all was in place for “regime change in Iraq”; Iraq was actually his first choice in retaliation for 9/11. An invasion of Iraq could not be justified at the time, but the minute Saddam attempted to remove the sanctions, he sealed his fate. Regardless of who was in the White House, an invasion of Iraq would have become inevitable, i.e. a war of aggression.

That explains why we do not see much discernable difference between the positions of the leaderships of the Democrats and Republicans. The strategic goal is the same and both sides are in agreement to buy time until early 2008.

What is so magical about early 2008? Because in late 2007, the issue of federalism in Iraq will be back on the table and it is important till then that a semblance of a functioning democracy in Iraq be preserved; that is why the surge is focused on the seat of government, Baghdad.

Without a functioning democracy, the United States cannot wrestle the legal cover the Kurds need. Federalism would legitimize an independent or semi-independent status worthy of direct U.S. protection and military involvement.

The Kurdish territory would become the American permanent base in the Middle East and would replace or augment Israel.

Israel has been overused by the U.S. and has lost its luster as the most important destabilizing and anti-democracy factor in that region; democracy was never important to the U.S., instability was key. Not that Israel is an innocent by-stander, over the years, a synergy developed and Israel is just as guilty; we should keep in mind that Israel has a significant presence in the Kurdish region and actively involved in training Kurdish forces while AIPAC, Israel’s arm in Washington, is successfully lobbying for more wars.

The Kurdish territory will have the same narrative as Israel. This narrative would be spoon-fed to a naïve American electorate; it will be called Kurdistan, described as a nation that has been wronged throughout history and most recently subjected to the genocidal policies of Saddam, a nation liberated by a benevolent U.S., and endowed with the aura of a constitutional democracy.

Such a utopian vision by both the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties totally ignores that the Iraqis have a vote in this matter.

It is the ability of the Iraqis to read this plan to the most minute of details since the early days of the occupation that helped them undermine it. As of today, Bush Jr. was only supposed to have 5,000 troops left in Iraq; instead, the Iraqis forced him to maintain unsustainable troop levels for four years and forced the recent surge.

The leader of this Iraqi vote is Moqtada Al-Sadr who, after a few missteps early on, has not made a single mistake and was always two steps ahead of Jr.

Jr. tried to force Moqtada’s hand and failed. Moqtada was taunted many times within Iraq in attempts to draw him into a confrontation; he did not bite. Israel attacked Hizballah in Lebanon, with the public blessing and support of the U.S., in order to force Moqtada to come to their aid; Hizballah stood their ground and undermined Jr.’s wishes.

Even an attack on Iran, which most experts agree is dangerous and would not contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions; such an attack would take place only to force a confrontation within Iraq.

Moqtada’s recent call to the Iraqi army to stop helping the U.S. and for the Iraqi people to work together in opposing the occupation, even if heard by a small percentage of Iraqi troops, would be enough to negate the surge.

It is amazing that those who oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East can effectively undermine it with words and demonstrations, both tools of democracy, while the U.S. can only push its policy through the muzzle of a gun.

When Jr. first uttered the word democracy as the main theme of his Iraq policy, I said: “the Iraq war would not be hailed as the war that brought democracy to Iraq; it would be hailed as the war that brought democracy back to the US via Iraq”.

As a longtime supporter of Kurdish rights, I am appalled at how their leadership accepted the role of the new pariah in the Middle East; the new Israel, and an uncertain future for their people.

The only way the Kurds and the rest of Iraqis can avoid future bloodshed and change their path toward prosperity is by scrapping all what the U.S. has done to them and to espouse a reconciliation effort modeled after that of South Africa.

Reference Articles:

Anatomy of a Civil War; a Lebanese Perspective on Iraq…Global Research, June 15, 2005.

The War on Iraq: a Historic Middle East Perspective...Global Research, August 30, 2005.

The Negotiated Exit Strategy from Iraq; at What Cost?…Media Monitors Network, December 15, 2005. Alternate Website

another in an apparently endless series of solar cell breakthroughs

It seems I read every week of some new discovery or technique which improves the operation or efficiency of solar cells by 50%, 100%, 200% or somesuch, only to never hear about it again.

Well, here's another one, only this one supposedly increase the current production of a solar cell 60 times. Yes, that's sixty times.

The voltage is nothing to write home about, but still. That sounds like quite a massive improvement.

The Story within the Story

Within this typical "Bush the Boob" story is a more important story.

Detroit Business Insider

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President

The Detroit News

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Ford President Alan Mulally, right, had to be quick on his feet to make sure President Bush plugged a power cord into the right socket on a Ford hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid.

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?"

Now, here's the point I don't get. Ford showing it's latest cool technological breakthrough, and it turns out to be a car that can be destroyed by plugging in something wrong?

Can you imagine Toyota or Honda making such a design?