Emma Sky, a Civilian Voice at The Commanding General’s Side in Iraq
Saturday Profile – Emma Sky, a Civilian Voice at Odierno’s Side in Iraq – NYTimes.com
RARELY does the hulking commander of American forces in Iraq meet with Iraqis or go to a news conference without a slight, dark-haired woman standing just a little to one side — as if to give him space, but almost always in his line of sight and within earshot.
The woman is Emma Sky, and she is an unlikely figure in the milieu of the generally strait-laced American military. She is British, 41, a civilian and a onetime opponent of the war, but nevertheless a political adviser, as well as confidante on many policy matters to the American commander, Gen. Ray Odierno….
“When you drop a bomb from the air and it lands on a village and kills all those people and you turn around and say, ‘Oh we didn’t mean to kill the civilians,’ well, who did you think was living in the village?” ~ Emma Sky
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – A homeless man who began shouting at New Yorkers in 1985 said that Oprah Winfrey was the inspiration behind his decision to call it quits in early 2010…
IS GEORGE W. BUSH stupid? It’s a question that occupied a good many minds of all political persuasions during his turbulent eight-year presidency. The strict answer is no. Bush’s IQ score is estimated to be above 120, which suggests an intelligence in the top 10 per cent of the population. But this, surely, does not tell the whole story. Even those sympathetic to the former president have acknowledged that as a thinker and decision-maker he is not all there. Even his loyal speechwriter David Frum called him glib, incurious and “as a result ill-informed”. The political pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough accused him of lacking intellectual depth, claiming that compared with other US presidents whose intellect had been questioned, Bush junior was “in a league by himself”. Bush himself has described his thinking style as “not very analytical”.
How can someone with a high IQ have these kinds of intellectual deficiencies? Put another way, how can a “smart” person act foolishly?
Clever fools: Why a high IQ doesn’t mean you’re smart – life – 02 November 2009 – New Scientist
Why is there “too much of a good thing?” Especially hot pastrami sandwiches? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for good things to be good, and more to be even gooder?
Why do we have an appendix?
There are more…
Feel free to add your own in the comments:
Editorial – A Gift to Credit Card Companies – NYTimes.com
Congress left consumers extremely vulnerable when it gave the credit card industry as long as 15 months to end the deceptive predatory practices outlawed in the spring in the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act. The credit card industry, which clearly wants to make a killing in the Christmas season, used this unnecessarily long grace period to intensify its predations, doubling interest rates on people who pay on time and driving up rates by an industry wide average of about 20 percent.These ravages seemed not to have registered with Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican of Mississippi, who represents the nation’s poorest and most economically vulnerable state. On Wednesday, Mr. Cochran blocked a vote on a bill introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, that would have immediately frozen credit card interest rates and fees…
I see that the Senate Ethics Committee has decided not to punish Roland Burris for misleading statements about his relationship with that psychopathic Illinois governor that got deposed.
What the hell — he’s a politician. Why should he be punished for lying? That’d be like beating your cat for crapping in the sandbox.
I’ve heard it all. Nothing, however, gets me sputtering more than misunderstandings about cockpit automation — the idea that modern aircraft essentially fly themselves, with pilots on hand merely as a backup in case of trouble. “Baby sitting a flying computer” as one smartass letter writer recently put it here on Salon.This is so far from the truth that it’s difficult to get my arms around it and begin to explain how. Baby sitting a computer? Really? I’ll keep that in mind during my next recurrency training and simulator check; the next time I’m weaving around thunderheads over the Amazon; shooting a VOR approach in Africa in a rainstorm at 4 a.m., or setting up for an ILS in blowing snow and a quarter-mile visibility….
Richard Burton: A Regretful Au Revoir – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com
Dick Cavett reminisces about Burton…or, rather, tells a fine tale.
I got this story from my fine actor friend, John Cunningham, who vouches for its total authenticity. I have never gotten a bad vouch from Cunningham….
Almost every time you turn on the television, somebody’s carrying on about the projected trillion-dollar cost of Democratic health-insurance reforms — derived by multiplying the $100 billion yearly cost by 10, and often by ignoring the projected $11 billion yearly savings to the U.S. budget deficit.Pentagon spending this year alone, however, columnist David Sirota points out, is projected at $673 billion, for a 10-year total of $6.73 trillion. That’s assuming costs don’t rise. (Fat chance.) Giving McChrystal the soldiers he wants, along with training and equipping an Afghan army of dubious loyalty, is projected to cost an additional $40 billion to $50 billion each year. Yet nobody’s supposed to ask how anything that happens in that remote land could possibly justify the costs.
Gee, you’d think someone wanted to build a pipeline or something. Oh, yeah, and don’t a lot of people make a lot of money when we’re at war?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, a federal judge ruled late today.
The decision could make the federal government the target of billions of dollars worth of legal claims by more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities that also sustained damages from the water that inundated 80 percent of the city when the levees protecting the low-lying city were breached in several places.
Court: Negligence by U.S. Army Corps Caused Katrina Flooding
Oh, they’ll fight this one tooth and nail, they will!
North America’s Most Brilliant Songbird Begins to Recover
With its gleaming red, blue and green feathers, the painted bunting is often described as the most beautiful migratory songbird in North America.
After a 30 year decline and extirpation from parts of its U.S. range, the species appears to be recovering. Now scientists at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington are reaching out to citizen scientists to help them confirm this observation and help advance the bird’s survival….
Patriotism in the Age of the Phony – Heather Michon – Open Salon
The rancorous voices are so loud that they are distracting us from the very real dangers that we face. There is a growing sense that we are at the end of the our American Empire. As I’ve said before, I think rumors of our demise are a bit premature, but the signs of stress are everywhere.Our failure, if it comes, isn’t going to be because of geopolitical shifts. We’ve weathered those before. Our fate rests a lot closer to home. Somewhere along the road, we stopped thinking about ourselves as members of a grand democratic experiment, and so our democracy is dying. …
All you hotshots who know how the country should be run — don’t forget to take the immigration test and find out if you can qualify for citizenship. (If you’re under 45, I’m betting 75%. If you’re under 30, I’m betting you flunk.) We’ll take your word for it. After all, if you lie you’re not hurting anyone but yourself, but your ignorance is hurting us all.
…remember: the proof that Iran is a unique, Nazi-like threat is that they allegedly have people in their government that threaten other countries with military attacks. No responsible, civilized country would do that.
Beverage Company Drilling For Whiskey In Antarctica’s Ice
The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whisky that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.
Lack of insurance increased the risk of death following traumatic injury by up to 89%, relative to individuals with commercial insurance, for various subgroups chosen to control for comorbidities, reported Heather Rosen, MD, MPH, of Children’s Hospital Boston, and colleagues.
Rosen and colleagues said such factors as treatment delays, fewer diagnostic tests, and decreased health literacy — all of which may disproportionately affect the uninsured — could have explained the findings. But they also acknowledged limitations in their data that made the findings somewhat uncertain.
The media are all excited about a couple of folks who got nipped on the foot by sharks up in Jupiter the last couple of days. Well, the instant media were. The paper gave it about what it deserves: 6 inches on page 3, section B, a good deal of which was devoted to commentary about how to avoid shark bites during the autumn Menhaden migration down the coast.
Here’s something I wrote about the subject a few years ago. Some things never change.
JAWS… It’s Summer [this also applies to Fall, when the surf's up and the little fish are migrating south], when a young family’s fancy turns to thoughts of vacation and, often, the beach. Invariably, a few get tasted by the big predators that live in our Florida waters.
This subject got some heavy media play in the Summer of 2001, until 9/11 knocked the subject off the front page. That was primarily because one of the first attacks of the season was a particularly grisly one involving a child, who survived and had his arm successfully reattached. [Written in 2002]
I’ve lived in Florida for most of my life. I probably spent more time in the water during my youth than most kids spend in front of the TV nowadays. I was scuba diving back in the days when regulators were mounted on the tank, with two big corrugated hoses running around your head to your mouth — great for getting tangled in almost anything.
Not once have I been threatened by a shark while in the water. I say “while in the water” because, on one memorable occasion, a guy landed one while surf fishing and I made the mistake of trying to drag it back into the water. Fortunately, I used to be faster than a very tired shark.
Florida has the most shark attacks of any area its size in the world, but it also has the most people in the water. Between 1959 and 1990 there were 180 confirmed attacks, with 4 fatalities. Even if you’re one of the unlucky few, your odds of severe injury are pretty small.
During the same period, again in Florida, there were 1,155 people struck by lightning, 313 of whom died. I’m not gonna tell ya that shark attacks don’t happen, but they’re rarely more than a nibble, and they usually happen to people like surfers, who dangle tasty-looking bits in the water as bait. Confirming this is the fact that more than half of the attacks in Florida over the past few years have been in Volusia County. Volusia contains Daytona Beach, is only a short drive from Orlando and its attractions, and has the best surfing on the Florida east coast.
If enough people act like bait, some are gonna catch fish. So here’s how to keep from being bait, courtesy of the shark folks up at the University of Florida, with some added commentary. read more…
Lexington: Farmers v greens | The Economist
Rural Americans are on average poorer than their urban compatriots, and rely more on fossil fuel. Their draughty homes cost more to heat than snug apartments. Their tractors are seldom solar-powered. They cannot ride the subway to work, or haul their hogs by bicycle. Even rural folk whose jobs are not energy-intensive—Mr Wright’s wife, for example, is a telecommuter—must drive miles to the shops, or to visit friends. A study by Michael Cragg and Matthew Kahn found that poor, conservative areas emit more carbon dioxide per head than rich, liberal ones. By an amazing coincidence, the politicians from such areas are much less likely to support carbon curbs.
Drug Makers Raising Prices Before Reform – NYTimes.com
Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.
A priori price-gouging. Gotta love those drug companies. They’re so concerned about everyone’s health.
According to [several studies in the US, Canada and Europe], using a cell phone while driving can be just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated, causing drivers to miss traffic signals and react more slowly to driving conditions. Frighteningly, the NHTSA estimates that more than 100 million U.S. drivers use their cell phone while driving and about 8% of drivers on the roadway at any given daylight moment are either conversing or texting on their cell phone.
– From RandomHistory.com
