Deep Throat 2005

What a Tangled Web We Weave . . .
. . . when first we practice to deceive!

Scooter Libby was Deep Throat but Judith Miller is the
Deeper Throat found in the crucible of spin.

QuickSand

The current political climate has the consistency of a mixture, of fact and fiction, that is like quicksand.

The truth is, most "quicksand" is either deep mud, a quaking bog, or just spongy ground. However, one can get stuck in any of these just as easily!

Quicksand has always been more myth than science to writers of fiction. Beyond that, it was even described as "round grains of sand" by no less than the Encyclopedia Britianica many years after the Army Corps of Engineers had conclusively identifed its nature as a phenomena rather than a substance in and of itself.

But like all myths, its "working" definition lies in the nature of its context. And today, that context in the realm of truth and justice, remains mythical at best.

SCHADENFREUDE

Schadenfreude \SHAHD-n-froy-duh\, noun:

A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.

The historian Peter Gay -- who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics -- has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."
--Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin." New York Times, February 5, 2000.

Often the people Emily Piper (Pi) met in Mendocino wanted to hear these terrible stories, the personal disasters, or they quoted them back to her from what they'd read, with a certain glitter in their eyes -- giving Pi the chance to wonder again as she once had in a Wittgenstein seminar why there wasn't a word in English for Schadenfreude, that very human pleasure taken in other people's misery.
--Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch.

If self-replicating e-commerce baby tycoons get on your nerves, it's schadenfreude time. It's true that the Nasdaq rebounded after its staggering loss Tuesday. Nonetheless, what AP described as "the most volatile day ever for U.S. stocks" left a distinctly bearish aftertaste.
--"Market Motion Sickness." The Industry Standard's Media Grok, April 5, 2000.

Storm Signals

The Hurricane Flags and Gale Pennants are used to indicate various severe storm warnings.

The larger size Hurricane Flags are used to indicate that a Hurricane Warning (74+ mph Winds) is in effect. They are manufactured from high tensile strength heavyweight nylon.

This is the leading commercial flag used by the United States Coast Guard and other marine installations.

The red flags are complete with a white canvas header and grommets. The seams are double stitched for minimum wind damage. However, no flag is designed to survive a Category 5 storm.

The pictured twin Red Hurricane Flags are 36" x 36" with Black Square Centers.

Vietnam Redux

Gore Vidal said it best, to wit: "To spread, especially destructively: [disinformation]...that even now continues to metastasize...to such a degree that myth threatens to overthrow history."

The more things change, the more things remain the same!!!! Call it what you want, friendly fire or fratricide, I witnessed this repeatedly in Vietnam.

:::This is dé•jà vu all over again:::

Vietnam War Progeny

• In the 1950's the United States Department of Defense became interested in using Depleted Uranium metal in weapons because of its extremely dense, pyrophoric qualities and because it was cheap and available in huge quantities.

• It is now given practically free of charge to the military and arms manufacturers and is used both as tank armor, and in armor-piercing shells known for depleted uranium penetration.

• Over 15 countries are known to have depleted uranium weapons in their military arsenals - U.K., U.S., France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, and Taiwan - with depleted uranium rapidly spreading to other countries.

• Depleted Uranium was first used in the Vietnam War; then on a large scale in military combat during the 1991 Gulf War, and has since been used in Bosnia in 1995, the Balkans war of 1999, and the current Iraqi War.
  

• The Rainbow Herbicides were used by the U.S. during the Vietnam War to defoliate the hiding places of the Viet Cong (VC) guerillas and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars.

• The most infamous herbicide used was called Agent Orange. The steel drums in which the herbicide was transported were color-coded with an orange stripe. Other colors such as Blue, White, Purple and Pink, were used to designate different herbicide formulations.

• The largest volume of herbicide was applied from the air by C-123 "Provider" twin-engine aircraft. This air spray program was code named Operation Ranch Hand.

• Herbicides were also used around the perimeters of fire bases to keep the concertina wire clear of vegetation, providing an open view for sentries on guard duty.

• Herbicides were also sprayed along river banks to reduce the number of US casualties in the Brown Water Navy.

Hereditary & Military

You get firewater when you mix your hereditary makeup with a military assignment!

If your DNA is 100% Sicilian...then you're the product of Sicily, an island of southern Italy in the Mediterranean Sea west of the southern end of the Italian peninsula, which has been a Roman province, an Arab emirate and a Norman kingdom. The island reflects all of these rich influences with a wild mix of Baroque, Norman, and Arabic architecture.

The Doric temple at Segesta and the medieval castles of Erice to the WWII battlefields to the picturesque coast of Palermo, and the fishing port of Cefalu -- all reflect the long story of Sicilian history and culture.

Do not forget the cultural positioning of the Sicilian tyrant Hieron in the early 5th century B.C.E., the Greek-colonized city of Catania, and Sicilian emigration to the countries of Morocco and Brazil.

Influences can seen in the Moroccan cities of Marrakech, Casablanca (the largest city), Rabat (the capital) all with visions of ancient, sun-bleached Moorish arches, and the Portuguese-speaking country of Brazil.

Send this future blogging Sicilian to Southeast Asia where he has to confront the Southeast Asia hilltribes of Cambodia near Siem Reap, the former capital of the Khmer empire, and Angkor, one of the foremost architectural wonders of the world; and the guerrilas of the North Vietnamese Army near the Cu Chi Tunnels, and the Parrot's Beak and Fish Hook areas.

The Cu Chi Tunnels complex is approximately 60 kilometers northwest of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), while the Parrot's Beak (Svay Rieng province), is a piece of Cambodian territory which juts deeply between Tay Ninh and Kien Tuong provinces to within 25 kilometers of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), the former Vietnamese capital. Note that the Fish Hook area was in the III Corps Tactical Area Of Responsibility

36th Anniversary

I was there:

• On the Saturday before Labor Day (September 1) 1969, when the IMP#1 computer arrived on the loading dock of Boelter Hall.
• On September 2, 1969 when Dr. Leonard Kleinrock's host computer, at UCLA in Room 3400, became the first node of the Internet as bits began moving between the UCLA host computer and the IMP#1.
• When messages began moving between the machines, the ARPANET and the community that was to become the INTERNET was born.
  

I was drafted:

• Boarded a bus for Ft. Ord on the morning of September 23, 1969 after graduating from UCLA in June 1969.
• Became a LRRP in 1970...actually a U.S. Army Ranger in Cambodia in June 1970

Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol - LRRP; pronounced as Lurp.

THE LuRPs BECOME RANGERS:

On the 1st of January 1969 the LuRPs officially became Rangers when the 75th Infantry (Ranger) was reactivated. This was done to strengthen and centralize the long range patrol assets in Vietnam. Although now termed as Rangers, only those men of the 75th Infantry who had completed the Fort Benning Ranger course could wear the Ranger tab.

During the course of the war LuRPs conducted around 23,000 long range patrols, of this amount two thirds resulted in enemy sightings. LuRPs also accounted for approximately 10,000 enemy KIA through ambushes, sniping, air strikes, and calling in artillery fire (my training speciality).

Autumn Begins (Northern Hemisphere)

Today, the Autumnal Equinox, marks the beginning of shorter days and longer nights.

This is when, because of the motion of the Earth around the Sun and because the Earth is tilted, the Sun crosses over the Earth's equator on its way South.

Table of Autumnal Equinoxes

Year	Date	Time (GMT)
2005	22 September	22:22
2006	23 September	04:02
2007	23 September	09:50
2008	22 September	15:43
2009	22 September	21:18
2010	23 September	03:08

The Autumn Equinox is one of the Four Quarter Days of the year. It marks a major mid-point of two of the seasons - even though Autumn officially starts on this day.

At the equinox, the Sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. In the Northern Hemisphere, before the Autumnal Equinox, the Sun rises and sets more and more to the north, and afterwards, it rises and sets more and more to the South.

New INXS Frontman!

Refer to the Saturday, August 20, 2005 posting of The Maginot Mind!



Tuesday night, September 20th, INXS, the multi-platinum rock band revealed their new lead singer to the world. The announcement was made during the finale of the electrifying summer TV series, "Rock Star: INXS."

The new vocalist, J.D. Fortune, will join the band in the studio to immediately begin work on SWITCH, their first new album in eight years. The highly anticipated record is scheduled for a November 29th release and will be produced by Guy Chambers (Robbie Williams). A worldwide tour will follow.

Over the course of their 25-year-career, INXS has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and scored #1 hits on 4 different continents. They've racked up 23 UK hits, 17 U.S. Billboard hits (7 of which were top 10), 33 Australian hits and 6 consecutive top ten UK and US albums. They've performed over 4,000 live shows for more than 25 million people in almost 50 countries.

The upcoming album will be the group's first since the death of frontman Michael Hutchence in a hotel room on November 22, 1997.

THIS HAPPENED TO THE WHITE RABBIT!

Jefferson Airplane's :::White Rabbit:::

"One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen softly dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the doormouse said:
'Feed your Head
Feed your Head!'"

Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls

Absolutely beautiful...the world's wonder. A lot of water after record rainfall!

Hint: Lower Yosemite Falls Trail

This short, paved trail leads to an observation area at the base of Lower Yosemite Falls.

It begins from the Lower Yosemite Falls parking lot, which is shuttle stop number seven. The trail leads a quarter mile northwestward from the parking area to the falls. It takes approximately 20 minutes round trip and is accessible for individuals using wheelchairs and strollers. At the end of the trail you'll find impressive views of both the upper and lower falls.

Directions from Arch Rock Entrance:

Follow Highway 140 into the park. Bear right as the road to Yosemite Village forks and drive past the Yosemite Chapel. Bear left following the fork toward Yosemite Village and Visitor Center. Turn left on to Northside Drive, continuing 3/4 miles to the Lower Yosemite Falls parking lot, shuttle stop number seven.

Déjà Vu all over again September 15, 2024

The renowned photographer Ansel Adams snapped his ethereal picture "Autumn Moon: the High Sierra From Glacier Point" at 7:03 p.m. on September 15, 1948.

"Autumn Moon:" depicts a gauzy moon hanging in the darkening sky above the jagged peaks of the Clark Range.

In 1994, "forensic astronomers," at Texas State University and led by astrophysicist Donald Olson, pinpointed the moment that Ansel Adams shot his famous photograph of the moon rising over Half Dome in Yosemite Valley after poring through celestial history, plotting lunar phases, building a special computer program, and calculating shadow angles.

Thus, utilizing the same type of information, a second picture of "Autumn Moon" was taken last Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 7:03 p.m.

A third picture will be added to this posting when the next exact moment occurs in nineteen years at 7:03 p.m. on September 15, 2024.

Best Reunion - Summer of 1985

The city of Lakewood, California voted on March 9, 1954 to incorporate their brand new community. The effective date of incorporation was April 16, 1954. Thus, Lakewood (population 71,316) became a city in the largest incorporation in history.

Lakewood High School began in the mid-1950’s, and today is the 40th Reunion of the Class of 1965.

Oligarchy and Correct Pronunciation

ol•i•gar•chy ( l -gär key , l -)
n. pl. ol•i•gar•chies
1.
a. Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.
b. Those making up such a government.
2. A state governed by a few persons.

Read and comment on this article; and also learn to pronounce oligarchy and thus avoid being the Midwest wannabee football player turned Southern California wannabee football coach turned Orange County wannabee high school history teacher who can’t pronounce for sh**!

The Gambit

1. An opening in chess in which a minor piece, or pieces, usually a pawn, is offered in exchange for a favorable position.
2. A maneuver, stratagem, or ploy, especially one used at an initial stage.
3. A remark intended to open a conversation.

After 9/11 (World Trade Center terrorism), New York thought that the world must stop for them since they were the center of the universe. However, after 8/29 (Hurricane Katrina)…they still do!

The devastation of New Orleans is no longer on their radar screen. This tells me they are a very provincial bunch. That is, they are petty, lacking tolerance and breadth of view. This limit of perspective is narrow-minded and self-centered. Just like I said...provincial!

I’m just wondering if this is where the provincial (New York City) meets the bucolic (New Orleans)?

New Orleans has an alternative newsweekly, the Gambit Weekly, one of the 124 non-daily free circulation papers in North America. Therefore, because of this blogger's emphasis on tolerance and refined politeness - The Maginot Mind will today spotlight the Gambit Weekly.

“The Big One!”

What would President George W. Bush say to the survivors of a California earthquake? For the answer, email this blogger.

Just like Orville and Wilbur Wright asked, “can you fly 13 inches off the ground?" Oops...wrong post...rewind...


In the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, approximately 3000 people died in the quake and subsequent fires.

The next big one will occur along the San Andreas Fault Zone!

A Magnitude 8 Earthquake needs a very long fault which means that it will occur at the San Andreas Fault.

A fault length of 250 miles is needed for a magnitude 8 earthquake. The next big one will be an earthquake that begins at the epicenter with a tear that rips down the fault. It will travel 2 miles per second...therefore, it will travel down a 250 mile fault in 125 seconds (2 minutes).

Obviously, since it’s such a large area...all forms of aid will have to come from farther away. We can predict the consequences, but not when it will happen. The Big One is inevitable, the disaster is not. We have choices to make to reduce that likelihood.

THE MAGINOT MINE

Maginot line (mazh-uh-noh, maj-uh-noh)

A chain of defensive fortifications built by France on its eastern border between World War I and World War II. The Maginot line was designed to stop any future invasion by Germany, but it was never completed. In World War II, the Germans conquered France by going around the Maginot line to the north.

The expression Maginot mentality refers to any military strategy that is exclusively defensive and therefore flawed. It also refers to military planning that is aimed at the past. This way of thinking is sometimes referred to as “fighting the last war.”

N.B. It's this Maginot Mindset that is currently giving us and our computer networks an illusion of security as we fight cyberterrorism!

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Unless…we can get it into our collective minds that we are a United States of America, not a black or white America, nor a red or blue America…then Humpty Dumpty no more.

And if money and honor continue to hopelessly collide, black and white continue to spar, regional and national power structures continue to point fingers, then the faultlines of race, gender, ethnicity, and class will never go away…then Humpty Dumpty no more.

Anniversary – 4 & 64 Years Later

Today is the fourth anniversary at Ground Zero when a passenger airplane first hit the North Tower, and the sixty-fourth anniversary of the groundbreaking construction of the Pentagon.

The terrible specter of WW II galvanized the American will to complete the Pentagon in sixteen months, but the chimera of terrorist attacks has galvanized no such similar effort at Ground Zero.

Now with the fallout of Hurricane Katrina, and the ebb and flow of Katrina politics, hopefully the American people will finally demand an efficient government that is free of pork and spin. The following posting and comments allude to a reading list which could be a good place to start.

Pink or White Noise?

The blogosphere dissonance and cacophony of postings and comments is discordant, loud, harsh, strident, confusing, and disagreeable.


In today's example, the posting 2005 = 1/1965? is thoughtful but elicits some clueless commentary; while other postings have links to the racist thoughts of P. Diddy.

Tic Tac Toe

War games are currently scheduled to take place in Congress as there are two (x, o) vacancies on the Supreme Court.

The Tic Tac Toe Model, of our Supreme Court, is a zero sum game which can be gleaned from many of their decisions.

Ergo, 'nine justices with lifetime appointments' is a failed model because the only winning move is not to play!

What hell hath the Libertarian wrought?

lib·er·tar·i·an ( P )Pronunciation - (lbr-târ-n)
n.

1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
2. One who believes in free will.

~When the levee broke~

When Rome burned…when New Orleans flooded…

When Rome burned in about 64 C.E., it was rumored that the decadent emperor Nero had set the fire himself, to clear land for a new palace. Facing an enraged populace, he blamed the fire on the Christians, multiplying the anger towards them exponentially. To satisfy the public, he had hundreds of Christians torn apart by lions and burned at the stake.

Not much has changed since 64 C.E. as we see today the incompetence from the bottom-up to the top-down! The finger pointing with everyone playing the blame game as the bureaucratic spinning of stories gains traction in the hope that something might stick as fact and masquerade as truth.

After the initial hurricane warnings on Thursday, August 25, The Maginot Mind has an eyewitness account by a member of the Coast Guard who patrolled the streets of New Orleans, until the day before Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc, and witnessed people ignoring the dire warnings as they partied in their homes…just like before Rome burned.

Eye of Katrina

Day 9

Hurricane Katrina...in her wake, what is left is a hurricane diaspora of evacuees, not refugees.

She turned out to be more than a mere gale or a tempest in a teapot, but a tempest in our nations' collective mind.

Katrina, a severe tropical cyclone, had a whirlwind fling with America's southern coastal waters and let's hope that she will not be forgotten by history.

Labor Day Holiday

Newsflash: In honor of the Labor holiday - to add value, generate the needed tax revenues, and rebuild the economy along the coastal regions of

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that were obliterated by Hurricane Katrina, gaming interests have been authorized to provide gambling on the oil tanker named after Dr. Condoleezza "Condi" Rice, (born November 14, 1954), the second United States Secretary of State in the administration of President George W. Bush...not.

In Memoriam

William Hubbs Rehnquist (1924-2005)

American jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1972-1986) and was appointed chief justice in 1986.

Is this an epitaph or sour grapes...you be the judge!

Noah's Ark

Genesis 28:3 (New International Version) - "May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples."

Genesis 8:4 (King James Version) - "And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat."

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the American ship of state is not doing very well!

Please note the hysterical rantings at The Huffington Post as expressed in the 343+ comments (read: emotions) to the words of a spoiled and racist rapper.

This blogger is taking the high ground, and recognizing the humanitarian efforts of my son’s best friend who in the United States Coast Guard and stationed in the Dante's Inferno area of the Gulf coast and New Orleans, Louisiana which suffered the wrath of Hurricane Katrina on Monday, August 29th

Rather than finger pointing, and racist rantings...our country would be better served by staying calm and rational. Citizens of the United States would be better served by the following:

Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Noah's Ark

1. Don't miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Listen to your inner calls, no matter how strange. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit. Someone may ask you to do something really big.
5. Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.
6. Build your future on high ground.
7. For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
8. Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
9. When you're stressed, float a while.
10. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
11. No matter the storm, there's always a rainbow waiting.

¥ € $

N.B. For comparison, see The Maginot Mind archives (Sunday, August 21, 2005 – “Economic Primer”).

Market Close – Thursday September 01, 2005
Major U.S. Indexes		Close
Dow Industries		10,459.63
NASDAQ Composite		2,147.90
S&P 500		1221.59
U.S. Treasuries		Current Yield
5-Year Note		3.84%
10-Year Note		4.04%
30-Year bond		4.31%
Monetary Units
Nation	Currencies		Dollar (1U.S. $=)
Japan	Yen ¥		109.81
European Union	Euro €		0.8008
United Kingdom	U.K. £		0.5456
Switzerland	Swiss Franc		1.2354
Canada	Canadian Dollar		1.1833
Mexico	Mexican Peso		10.7403
China	Renminbi Yuan		approx. 8.1042
Vietnam	đồng(₫) (VND)		approx. 15,858
Notes
Nations that trade in Euros: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain.
Source: AFAF databases

The $64,000 Question / $64,000 Challenge

AFAF are recursive initials for whom?

Or..is it a recursive acronym which is an acronym (or occasionally, a backronym) which refers to itself in the expression for which it stands? If so, what does it stand for?

Hint: It is neither “Afaf,” which is a feminine Arabic name which means “chastity,” nor the Air Force Assistance Fund, nor the AFA Foundation which is a division of the American Family Association.