POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

What’s Going On in the Blago Retrial?

Our good friend and reporter from Chicago, Tom Bennett, has been following the trial closely. What's interesting this time (even more interesting than last time), is who Fitzgerald and company aren't calling to testify. After the mistrial, I'd noted that Fitzy was trying very hard surgically to limit the scope of the investigation. This time, he introduced an in limine motion to prevent the trial including such people as . . . get this . . . whoever from his office leaked to the Chicago papers that Blago was under investigation and wiretapped regarding the attempted sale of Obama's Senate seat.

As opposed to, say, Judith Miller.

That tip-off prevented Blago from making an appointment for cash deal with Jesse Jackson, Jr. or anyone else . . . such as Valerie Jarrett. Remember that on getting wind of the investigation, Obama quickly decided to appoint her to the White House staff, where she appears to have more clout than Rahm did.

There's more background there, too, regarding Obama and his posse and what appears to be Fitzy's maneuvering and information management on their behalf.

Latest testimony regarding Jesse Jackson, Jr. was covered a few days ago at the Sun-Times, here. Naturally, none of this stuff is of any interest to the national media.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Vermont-Related Stuff, Mostly

I'm not going to unfold my disgust at Disney's move to trademark "SEAL Team 6." I figure I ought to leave that to Bob.

After a couple of nice days last week, including Friday and some of Saturday, with clear skies and highs reaching the low- to mid-sixties, rain settled in. The skies lowered down to where they cover the tops of some of the closer hills around here, only a few hundred feet higher than the 500 or 600 foot elevation I suppose Monkton's at. Probably peaked at about 52 degrees, today.

Driving up to Burlington to pick Aidan up from a school trip this evening in the gloaming, there were a few spots along the way where the rising waters of wetlands are threatening to cover the roads. Yesterday, I wanted to go to a mushrooming spot that I know of in a gorge, because the steepness of the slope prevented the area from being logged the last go-round, and I was searching for morels, which are often associated with decaying elms. The road sign said ROAD CLOSED on one end, but I knew that on the other it said ROAD CLOSED TO THROUGH TRAFFIC, which is Vermontese for CAUTION. I went down the hill about half a mile, the road running parallel to the gorge, and found that there was in fact a section that was entirely washed out. There's been a big pile of gravel at the other side, the bottom, for over a month now. I guess it's not an urgent matter to the road crews, still dealing with the effects of the major spring melt and subsequent rains. I had to back up a half a mile, there not being any good place to execute a 10-point turn.

I'm headed to Snake Mountain, south and a little west of here tomorrow. The reason I'm going is that there are still some live elms there. In fact, the live elms of Vermont may be the key to restoring elms in the US. You certainly know that in the first decade of the 20th century, the beetles that carried Dutch elm disease arrived in Massachusetts in a shipment of furniture from the Netherlands. They spread to destroy almost all the live elms in the US. Now, American elms are tetraploids, genetically speaking. Polyploidy often gives plants an advantage, but not in this case. It was rumored that there was such a thing as a diploid elm, and triploid crosses. The diploid elms were found here, with the greatest concentration, for whatever reason, on Snake Mountain.

Today, I walked into the woods in one of my regular stalking places, a typical Vermont forest. Which is to say, like most of the wooded land in the state, it was clear-cut twice. The first great cutting helped fuel building in the then-burgeoning cities of the Northeast. Much of the land in Vermont is pretty hardscrabble, and that opened it up for sheep grazing. There are some Vermont parklands where the trees date to after the first clear-cut, but not many. I think a lot of the second clear-cut was pulped or charcoaled, or just used as firewood.

I was getting shut out in there, and had decided to head for the car, because it had gotten so humid from the downpour that I could hardly see through my glasses, when I encountered a large mushroom. I thought, that's a hen-of-the-woods. Then I thought, it can't be, in May. I picked as much as would fit into the basket I'd brought, and researched it when I got home. It's what's known as a Black-Staining Polypore. It's young enough that I think I can use all of it (they tend to get woodier and tougher when they're older). Well, I can't find any recipes, but I figure I'll make a mushroom stock out of it, once it gets dry enough to clean. There are no Northeast polypores that are poisonous, so I figure it's worth a try.

I love it when people photograph mushrooms in situ.

Hmmm. Saw a fire newt and a dark-feathered hummingbird today, too. But I'm looking forward to this weekend, when the rain's finally supposed to end and the temps to get into the seventies. Supposed to be nice next week, too. That will give the lowlanders downstream some time to dry out.

Out walking today, I realized that you can sing the lyrics to the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coop" to the tune of Neil Young's "Welfare Mothers (Make Better Lovers)," which is odd but strangely satisfying.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Mini-Ace of Spades Discovered in Indonesia; Small Band of Eco-Criminals Populated Americas

Because it's SCIENCE!

A team led by a Texas A&M University anthropologist has discovered a group of primates not seen alive in 85 years. The pygmy tarsiers, furry Furby-like, or gremlin-looking, creatures about the size of a small mouse and weighing less than two ounces, have not been observed since they were last collected for a museum in 1921.

Several scientists believed they were extinct until two Indonesian scientists trapping rats in the highlands of Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed a pygmy tarsier in 2000.

Bury My Heart at Asian Land-Bridge, by Pleistocene Beaver:

Professor Hey, of Rutgers University, was quoted in Live Science as saying his method favoured 'actual genetic data over estimates used in previous calculations'.

He said: 'The estimated effective size of the founding population for the New World is about 70 individuals.'

Archeological evidence supports his calculation that the initial settlement of North America occurred between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago.

He said: 'The beauty of the new methodology is that it uses actual DNA sequences collected from Asian peoples and Native Americans, an approach that can provide a detailed portrait of historical populations.

In honor of Huckabee dropping out (I'm looking at you, Romney), the Ford Huckster, the first "Woody," designed for travelling salesmen to show off their wares: china, kitchenware, brushes . . . whatever.*

Apparently, the term didn't have it's negative connotations at the time, though I think the development of those might have preceded Huckabee.

I love the lozenge window. I think I read somewhere that they had "isinglass windows that could roll right down," in case of a change in the weather.

* It could be fitted out with a midget stripper pole.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Newt Gingrich Gives Pat Buchanan Competition

Strikes early to nail down his 1.5% core demographic: idiots.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Syrian-Venezuelan Alleged Drug Kingpin Extradited from Colombia

Borderland Beat, where you'll get all the news J-Nap wants to suppress:

Colombia's extradition of alleged cocaine kingpin Walid Makled has Venezuelans asking about the huge payments he claims to have made to close associates of President Hugo Chavez and opposition leaders are demanding answers.

The allegations, lingering doubts and inquiries about millions of dollars in payments purportedly made to government officials and military officers has prompted the independent media to nickname him "Venezuela's Deep Throat."

Opposition leaders are asking if Chavez was aware of alleged dirty dealings, how Makled amassed a fortune estimated at roughly $1 billion in a decade, if investigators will try to answer the questions and whether any officials will ever go to trial.

*******

Makled has said in multiple interviews that he paid military and civilian officials in Venezuela for government favors, including a major warehouse concession at the port of Puerto Cabello, which is also a key conduit for drug shipments by sea.

According to Makled, he handed out about $1 million in payoffs monthly to approximately 40 senior Venezuelan military officials, including generals, colonels and majors.

Makled said in a recent TV interview that he had videos proving Venezuela's ruling elite is deeply involved in cocaine trafficking. He said he would disclose only to U.S. prosecutors the videos and other "conclusive evidence" of drug corruption in Chavez's inner circle.

He was captured late last year on a US warrant, but Colombia's president decided to extradite him to Venezuela rather than the US because he's wanted on murder charges there, whereas in the US it's just the drug trafficking.

Touchingly, Makled seems to think that the Present Administration has an interest in uncovering rank corruption in Venezuela. Had the US really had deep interest in this guy, I think he'd be coming here, but Obama likes to show dictators that he's a guy of consequence by treating them according to his whims.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Evil Vizier Jafar and His Nasty Aflac Duck Parrot Spellbind Ahmadinejad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came under new pressure Sunday, as an influential cleric charged that he has been “bewitched” by a controversial senior aide and key lawmakers renewed their impeachment threat.

Ahmadinejad is behaving “unnaturally” and needs to be “saved,” Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a former supporter of the president, told the weekly Shoma magazine.

The cleric said Ahmadinejad’s top adviser, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has used has hypnotism, spells or charms to take control of Iran’s elected leader. “I am almost certain that he has been bewitched,” Yazdi said.

Still . . . gotta be better than Dick Sargent.

Tangentially related: The Danish Navy rescued 16 Iranian hostages in a firefight with Somali pirates, yesterday. Four Somalis were killed. Last month, the Danes rescued a Pakistani crew.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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I’ll Say He Was a Vulgarian!

Cleanup in aisle 4:

A knife-wielding man attacked a [sic] Mills-Westley in a supermarket, eventually cutting off her head and running away with it, government officials in Tenerife said Friday.

The man entered a shopping center in the town of Arona, in the Cristianos area of Tenerife, and stole a knife from the supermarket before attacking the apparent stranger, a central government spokeswoman said.

Shopping center security guards were alerted and chased the man, subduing him until police arrived.

The man, whom national police in Tenerife identified as a Bulgarian, was apparently known in the shopping area, the government spokeswoman said.

Huh. No name on the alleged perp?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Alanson B. Long, Updated; Isaac’s Storm; Nicholson Baker on Pacifism

My earlier post on Dartmouth students and alums who'd been murdered mentioned at the top A.B. Long, who after his service in the Civil War went to New Orleans to practice law, was appointed District Attorney, and slain in his office in 1871. Joe Malchow of Dartblog cross posted it at my request, since I thought it likely to get more interest from his readers, and one of them, Janet Hix emailed me to let me know of documents related to his first encounters with Louisiana in 1862.

That was the year Farragut took the City, and Long's regiment was one of the first to arrive. His first name was Alanson. He was appointed Provost, with responsibility for maintaining relations between the occupying Army and the citizens. He was among the soldiers who were in some perplexity regarding just how to deal with the slave issue--many were flocking to his position, and the enlisted seemed to think that it was their job to liberate them. But that wasn't really the policy of the Army of the Potomac at the time, and he wanted guidance. On advice of the Provost General, he issued a circular outlining in cursory terms just how the Army was to behave in relation to slaves and their masters.

At any rate, this is how Long became involved in Louisiana matters. I can imagine myself railing at the pusillanimity of the Lincoln Administration over the policies on my blog, had I or any existed at the time.

Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency for the Republicans after Grant at the price of an end to "Reconstruction," or "carpetbagging" if one was a Democrat. Jim Crow and local vigilantism were part of the price. I mentioned in that post that New Orleans and Galveston became during that time the locations where the Italian Mafia got its start in the US. It would be interesting to know whether this was true also of, say, Brazil and Argentina.

I also read Erik Larsen's Isaac's Storm, yesterday, dealing with the September 8, 1900 hurricane that razed Galveston. It's very good. Not as good as Devil in the White City, perhaps. There's one major loose thread, and there's a bit too much banging on the hubris of turn-of-the-century Americans and their institutions, which it holds accountable for the tragedy of errors that led to such a catastrophic loss of life.

One interesting note regards the territorial jockeying of France, Spain and Great Britain prior to the Spanish Cession of 1819. Spanish naval forces were preparing an assault on Pensacola, then held by the Brits, when a hurricane destroyed and/or dispersed most of the fleet that they'd assembled for the purpose. It seems the Spaniards could never catch a break with the weather, when it came to the Brits. Columbus' fourth and last voyage to the New World, his most fascinating in many respects, also gets a mention.

If there's one message that comes across (between the lines) from the relation of the US to the great European imperial powers at the time, it's that apart from its willingness to suffer for the sake of sovereignty, America's security was coextensive with its ability to place its material resources at the disposal of technological innovation and what would later come to be known as the military-industrial complex. Clara Barton's difficulties in delivering relief supplies in the aftermath of the storm and the criticism from some quarters that she was an ineffectual publicity seeker certainly recalls a lot of blogging I've read over the years.

Mary also brought from work a March issue of Harper's, in which Nicholson Baker trots out a bunch of incoherent arguments about how the hard-core pacifists of the Second World War (in particular) were right about everything. The argument is that prior to Pearl Harbor, most Americans, recalling WWI, were rightly in the pacifist camp, but that the government and newspapers stirred up nationalistic impulses on the strength of that attack to bring the US into the war. Hitler, according to this analysis, stepped up his persecution and liquidation of the Jews in response to the US entering the war, and it's partially our fault that so many of them perished.

Yes, that's really the argument. He's obliged to note that Hitler actually had a couple of his death camps operating at the time of the US's Declaration of War, on what he seems to believe was an experimental basis. Whether the crank-down on the liquidation plans, which had been part of Hitler's mad vision for decades, could have been partly an expression of frustration with the bog-down of Operation Barbarossa, Baker seems never to consider. His assertion is in effect that Hitler was holding European Jewry hostage, and that a negotiated peace could have prevented him going ahead with his plans.

If that were true, then the corollary would be that, if you are an aspiring dictator, it is a very good idea to take control of some ethnic and/or religious minority as an insurance policy. Had there been no No-Fly Zone in Iraq, for example, that gave the Kurds the chance to organize Saddam could have used them as a bargaining chip to ensure that his expansionist ambitions wouldn't be thwarted.

Revisionist historians argue that most Americans at the time believed that Hitler was behind the attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently declared war on the US, but that that that was not so and that FDR and company ginned up war fever over false allegations (aka, "lied into war"). Set that aside, though, and consider the argument that every time a nation declared war on Hitler's Reich, it strengthened his position with the German people. Must that always be so of every dictatorship? Baker points to the mass incineration of civilians in Cologne and Dresden and the flattening of Monte Cassino in Italy as examples of Allied atrocities, though buzzbombs had been raining down on London from the French coast for a while prior to the US entering the war. It is certainly sad that civilians died. It is certainly a shame that the great cathedrals in Cologne and Dresden were destroyed by Allied bombs, and that Monte Cassino was flattened and that a great painting cycle was lost in Latvia (these are all examples that he provides), but what would those things have meant, anyway, to those who had access to them, had Hitler's design to replace Western civilization with a bizarre syncretic pan-Arianism succeeded? And why does Baker think that Hitler, had he secured his empire, would not have proceeded leisurely to liquidate each and every Jew in it? Would his Parkinson's have prevented it?

I mean, as long as we're supposing.

Ah, well. Perhaps there would have been more ABBAs had we accepted "humiliation with honor." How does one say, "The Reich's Got Talent!" in German?

Ass.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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