Concerning the "Downing Street Memos", it looks like our British friends didn't learn a thing watching Dan Rather crash and burn on Blogosphere Prime Time.

The eight memos - all labeled "secret" or "confidential" - were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

What bothers me at the moment is that if you read the above article, the title of the AP news story is "Memos Show British Concern Over Iraq Plans".

The quote that offhandedly mentions the destruction of the originals in favor of a hand typed copy isn't even newsworthy enough to make the beginning of the story.

If it weren't for my persual of alternative sources for news and commentary, such as Babalu Blog, I would never know.

I suppose that would make the AP quite happy. After all, the news is accurate, even if the source is potentially fake.

Fake, but accurate.

Moonbats.

In a fascinating article in the LA Times, researcher Sandra Witelson reveals some most interesting findings about the human brain. A professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Dr. Witelson has what amounts to the largest collection of human brains in the world.

You should read the whole article; every bit of it is interesting. For a quick distillation, however, one of the major themes is that there are very visible differences between men and women... to the point where it is possible to tell a person's sex by the brain alone.

Men and women appear to use different parts of the brain to encode memories, sense emotions, recognize faces, solve certain problems and make decisions. Indeed, when men and women of similar intelligence and aptitude perform equally well, their brains appear to go about it differently, as if nature had separate blueprints, researchers at UC Irvine reported this year.

"If you find that men and women have fundamentally different brain architectures while still accomplishing the same things," said neuroscientist Richard Haier, who conducted the study, "this challenges the assumption that all human brains are fundamentally the same."

Yet, for the most part, scientists have been unable to document such patterns conclusively.

No one, however, had scrutinized as many brains as Witelson.

I'm sure that in certain circles the well worn questions of hardwired behavior and aptitudes are sure to be invigorated.

...but I'm also sure that you don't need a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience to tell you that men and women think differently. :)

I wonder how far this vein of knowledge will progress.

I'm reminded of Gattica, a fairly bad movie that was difficult to sit through but still asked some excellent questions... and made a powerful statement about not letting someone else's view of your capabilities limit you.

I read a tangential article today about a controversial medicine that is being tested. It was somewhat of a failure when tested against a racially diverse test group, but when tested on a strictly black group it worked marvelously.

Studies have suggested that blacks tend to have lower levels of nitric oxide, and researchers noticed during studies in the 1980s that the drug combination, while appearing to offer no benefit in the general population, may be useful among black patients. A follow-up study involving 1,050 patients who identified themselves as African American was stopped early and released in November when it concluded that the drug significantly improved the quality of life, reduced the likelihood of being hospitalized by 39 percent and cut the chance of dying by 43 percent.

The Washington Post referred to the drug testing as "racial tailoring".

I hope that the social activists allow this kind of science to progress; there are a lot of things that I am sure that we can accomplish if we aren't afraid to recognize that we are all different: male, female, black, white, whatever. I don't think it's a good idea to, in the name of equality, blind ourselves to the fact that we aren't all the same.

Different is not by definition better, and my weaknesses and foibles exist whether I admit to them or not. I'm sure that this is true for all of us. :)

A polite tip of the hat to Professor Bainbridge.

This is a very touching and poignant piece written by RDC, a military Intelligence Officer in Iraq at the moment.

You'll want to read the whole thing... and then thank RDC, the men and women like him who are defending our liberty as we go about our presently comfortable lives.

Trust. Trusting someone here can get you killed, yet it is who we as Americans are. We are an open and trusting society. We have our share of faults, just watch the news, our detractors are all too willing, and ready to broadcast our shortcomings. So be it. We are Americans, we rise above it, and no matter what the media portrays on television or on radio we rise above it. No matter how much our allies proclaim our actions to be unjust, and how they will not support this or any other unilateral US action. We rise above it, and when they call us we are there.

Read the entire piece.

Polite tip of the hat to Baldilocks.

Linda stays on target this Tuesday with another call to examine Kerry's 180.

Come on John. The Globe says the records you authorized to be released were pretty much the same ones they already had. The Navy said they had over 100 pages they could not release without your authorization.

Inquiring minds want to know, John, what type of discharge did you get, John, and how did that discharge change after Carter pardoned all draft dodgers and traitors to this country?

It's been twenty-five days since you said you signed it John Kerry, twenty-five days since you said we could see it. We want to see it, John. Where is your 180?? Show it to us.

Beldar demands that the Globe, having received the 180 and accompanying documents, should make them available online.

The Boston Globe should immediately post all the records, and the signed Standard Form 180, as .pdf scans on their website.

Captain Ed spells it out in detail.

Michael Kranish, who wrote unquestioning articles about Kerry's service in Viet Name before and during the presidential campaign, proclaims that the release vindicates Kerry -- but even Kranish can't add up why Kerry kept the file secret...

...Kranish then goes on to describe several commendations and memos of praise. Interestingly, though, Kranish remains silent on several points of controversy that the secrecy of the files helped stoke. Namely, Kranish doesn't mention anything about Kerry's discharge, and why it took him until 1978 to get it, while he quit serving in 1972. He doesn't mention any assignment or attachment to an intelligence unit that would corroborate his later explanations of Christmas In Cambodia or gun-running to the Khmer Rouge. Kranish also doesn't reveal anything about the timeline of events or command assignments that would answer whether he tried to steal part of Tedd Peck's service record in order to provide cover for David Alston to lie about their time together during the political campaign.

MMmmmmmmmm. Here are some products you might want to try out at home:

Contra Cafe

After overthrowing the Communist regime installed by the Sandanistas (with President Reagan's support) these Freedom Fighters are now coffee growers. 5% of Contra Cafe revenues are donated to the Freedom Alliance Support the Troops Campaign, to aid wounded U.S. service members as they recover in military hospitals across the country. 50% of the profits go back into their communities, and every pound of coffee bought from the farmers is paid for above Fair Trade value.

Star Spangled Ice Cream

"A trio of politicos has closed the conservative-liberal ice cream gap with the debut of Star Spangled Ice Cream." - Washington Times

"Even butterfat is partisan now. 3 self-described 'members of the right wing conspiracy' loved Ben & Jerry's but hated... 'wacko left wing causes'." - New York Times

"Try a bowl of 'I Hate The French Vanilla'." - Weekly Standard

10% of profits go to organizations that support the men and women of the US Armed Forces - organizations like The Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarship aid to the children of soldiers who were killed or seriously wounded in the line of duty.

The article might be over a month old, but parts of it caught my eye. Myself, I love the "idea" of the United Nations, but am sorely disappointed in the reality I see today.

From "On Being Disliked"

The United Nations has sadly become a creepy organization. Its General Assembly is full of cutthroat regimes. The Human Rights Commission has had members like Vietnam and Sudan, regimes that at recess must fight over bragging rights to which of the two killed more of their own people. The U.N. has a singular propensity to find flawed men to be secretary-general - a Kurt Waldheim, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or Kofi Annan. Blue-helmeted peace-keepers, we learn, are as likely to commit as prevent crimes; and the only thing constant about such troops is that they will never go first into harm's way in Serbia, Kosovo, the Congo, or Dafur to stop genocide. Even worse, the U.N. has proved to be a terrible bully, an unforgivable sin for a self-proclaimed protector of the weak and innocent - loud false charges against Israel for its presence in the West Bank, not a peep about China in Tibet; tough talk about Palestinian rights, far less about offending Arabs over Darfur. So U.N. anti-Americanism is a glowing radiation badge, proof of exposure to toxicity.

A bit pointed, surely, but interesting points they are. The UN had recently reaffirmed its lack of teeth when it refused to do anything about its own violated sanctions. Soon, the reasons why France, Russia and China objected so sternly became transparent.

From "Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal"

The scam worked through a process of kickbacks. Hussein would sell oil at the low market price, which naturally attracted many investors who wanted to re-sell the oil at higher price. Hussein chose those with whom he would do business and those people in turn would give Hussein a slice of the profits. Accordingly, the money earmarked for the humanitarian needs of Iraqis went instead to whatever Hussein wanted. Hussein used some of this money to buy political influence in the Security Council and secretariat. Some of Hussein's biggest business partners were from China, France and Russia.

On the humanitarian side, Hussein would overpay for goods and the supplier would then kick back some of that money to Hussein. Consequently, the corruption involved in the program led Iraqis to receive only a fraction of the humanitarian supplies intended for them.

By 2002, the US and UK put contracts on hold as a result of concerns over covert Iraqi weapons programs and corruption over oil-for-food. However, the U.S. and U.K. did little about the corruption. Annan retained complete control of processing humanitarian goods and he approved all of the humanitarian contracts, many of which were over-priced. This program might have continued indefinitely if not for the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. It is likely that oil-for-food corruption led to three Security Council permanent members voting against deposing of Hussein.

How to we deal with this? How do we reconcile the ideals that we strove for when we helped create the United Nations… with what we have today?

From "Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal"

The U.N. has used diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecutions. There is such a tradition of secrecy in the U.N. that it is hard to achieve reform. The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Negroponte, was not assertive enough in the U.N.

It appears that this is exactly what the Bush administration is setting out to do by nominating John Bolton as our US Ambassador to the United Nations.

From the Washington Post

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced the nomination, alluded to Bolton's reputation when she noted that "some of our best ambassadors" to the United Nations have been those with "the strongest voices," such as Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Bolton would replace John C. Danforth, who resigned after barely six months as ambassador. An aide to Rice, calling the appointment a "Nixon goes to China" move, said the secretary recommended Bolton to Bush several weeks ago. Rice told reporters Bolton was selected "because he knows how to get things done."

Another card that we are good at playing: Money. After all, a great portion of UN activity is, ironically, donated by the American taxpayer.

From the World Peace Herald

"The option of withholding money immediately sets you off from all of your allies in this fight," Mark Malloch Brown, Mr. Annan's recently appointed chief of staff, told a House International Relations Committee hearing.

"It would be seen as the United States once again acting alone," he said.

But several lawmakers expressed unhappiness with the United Nations' cooperation in the Iraq oil-for-food program, a $65 billion humanitarian program that has become the largest financial scandal in the body's history.

Really, Mr. Brown. It is actions taken by the UN and attitudes such as this that Americans lean more and more towards "once again acting alone"

I'll be the first to admit not caring much for Chirac's France, and even avoiding French products when convenient to do so. Still, I love wine, and my heart can't help heaving a huge, sad sigh at the plight of the French Wine industry.

Chateau-Neuf du Pape still remains one of my favorite "whenever" wines, and I have fond memories of touring the vineyard when I was in Avingnon over a decade ago.

...to hear that they are actually pulling up thousands of acres of vines brings no feelings of fevered, patriotic "Ha!".

France's top wine-growing regions are to rip up some 18,000 hectares of prestige vines in the biggest purge of the country's wine industry since the Phylloxera epidemic a century ago.

Faced with over-production and crumbling export sales, Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire valley are to slash output by paying farmers a lump sum to abandon their vineyards.

This was a telling quote as well.

John Worontschak, a wine expert at Four Corners Consulting, said France's wine industry could no longer survive on a mass scale without subsidies. "In France it takes one person to tend two hectares, in Australia one person tends 50 hectares," he said. "The French have had their heads in the sand for a long time. They just thought they had a God-given right to make the world's best wines without trying, as if the wine made itself. In fact they were producing a lot of volatile, oxidised or spoiled wines."

I've always enjoyed a nice varietal. I'm partial to a deep, aromatic Cab Sauv but at times feel like a straight, uncomplicated glass of Syrah. Sangiovese is almost always a hit in my home. It seems to have caught on with the general public as well (who doesn't hear people ordering Merlot at restaurants?) which frustrates the vineyards forced to adhere to the French labeling system, which omits such details.

The Euro / Dollar exchange rate hasn't helped, either.

Roland Feredj, from the CIVB wine council in Bordeaux, denied that there was a quality problem, insisting that French wines were hamstrung by an "absurd" labeling system imposed by the government that few could understand outside France, and by the current exchange rate. "Our prices have gone up 50pc as a result of the euro-dollar rate. It's killing us," he said.

According to a story over at the Telegraph, Saddam is depressed.

Oh, my bleeding heart.

This was interesting to hear from a member of Chirac's own party:

In the first rumblings of a call for the franc to be reinstated, Nicolas Dupont-Aignant, a member of Mr Chirac's ruling UMP party, said: "France, Italy and Germany would be in a better state without the euro. However, I don't believe we should ditch it now.

"But either it is reformed, and the central European Bank kick-starts growth by lowering interest rates and pursuing a more American-style monetary policy, or the euro will explode in mid-air."

From the same article, more interesting words from an English Tory:

Last night, John Redwood, the leading eurosceptic Tory MP, said: "You can't have a single currency without a single government. They are in a mess because they have only done half of it and they are now discovering in a painful way what that means."

Next week will be pretty exciting:

FORT LAUDERDALE -- When President Bush and the top diplomats from 34 Western Hemisphere nations gather here, swarms of security agents will clamp down on the area to ensure they can meet without distractions.

But protesters are arguing that some of the protections for the three-day Organization of American States General Assembly starting Sunday are "draconian" restrictions on their First Amendment rights and will keep them far from the event.

"Convening diplomats will be able to talk about democracy, but they won't get to see it practiced," said Carol Sobel, an attorney for activist groups suing over security efforts.

Personally, wherever the protestors are there are bound to be live video feeds and reporters. I don't think anyone's first ammendment rights are being forsaken here. After all, they don't let picketers into the Oval Office...

This is where the business is being conducted. They deserve enough privacy to conduct it.

Give it a rest.

UPDATE: (6/11/05) Here's a little something for the scrapbook. I was responsible for some server equipment that was located inside of the OAS Inner Perimeter, so I got one of these neat passes. :)

I never used it, but it's still a nice addition to the scrapbook, eh?

I was recently contacted by a friend from high school that I hadn't spoken to in years. In high school she was the only one of our *group* who KNEW what she wanted to BE. After high school she immediately went off to college to become a lawyer. Somehow her vocation took a slight detour...and she decided to become a teacher.

In our recent email correspondence I mentioned that we were beginning homeschooling this year. As a former teacher you might think her response would be shock and/or dismay. Far from it. Having been *in the trenches* for more than 5 years, she has been nothing but encouraging!

I had to share some of her thoughts...

I'm a strong believer in being held accountable for your work - was all for the FCAT (which is a pretty good test, no matter what those lazy teachers complain about - it tests basic skills everyone should have, and I always taught those skills within the context of good literature quite easily; it just takes more prep time - God forbid)... it annoyed me to no end that most of the other teachers would just complain and not even try. State jobs are a funny thing. If they are established by statute, the employee has a constitutional right to it, which means that it is next to impossible to get rid of substandard workers.

Straight from the horse's mouth...no offense intended!

My friend has given up teaching to work in the private sector where her skills and work ethic will be appreciated. She's now working in a law firm and studying to take the Bar in Ohio. I have no doubt she'll pass with flying colors!