..for people who enjoy a little food with their suffering. From 1974.

“Pigeon research will not stand still; if we do not experiment, other powers will.”

(here)

“This reminds me of a friend of mine who’s house was the target for a grenade attack a few days ago (we thank God, no one was hurt) just because he works to build this country with the coalition. He said “Ok, I’m ready to leave this job, but those who attacked my house, what are they going to offer as an alternative? They just want to see everyone paralyzed with fear and hate”.” (here)

Now this is helpful - a cartoon guide to US Federal Spectrum Policy.

Via Andrew Case at Transterrestrial Musings.

Fjords. I love Fjords.

Should Wolfowitz go? Phil Carter of Intel Dump has a post on Congress’s grilling of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, where he is torn in to from all angles.

Sen. Hillary Clinton on Wolfowitz - “You come before this committee . . . having seriously undermined your credibility over a number of years now,” she said. “When it comes to making estimates or predictions about what will occur in Iraq, and what will be the costs in lives and money, . . . you have made numerous predictions, time and time again, that have turned out to be untrue and were based on faulty assumptions.”

Sen. Jack Reed from Rhode Island - “What I’ve heard from you is dissembling and avoidance of answers, lack of knowledge, pleading process — legal process.”

I think Wolfowitz should resign, but not for the reasons that Phil relates. Post-war planning was wanting, but not a complete failure. WMD have been found, but not in a media-friendly format. I think Wolfowitz should play the role of sacrificial lamb. Elevated beyond his real importance as the arcetypical ‘evil neo-con’ by the left, his resignation have only minor significance to the administration but his propaganda value would be high.

A public resignation would not be enough to calm the fervor of those who opposed the war, but it would indicate how seriously the administration is taking the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Now this is a nice photo (here)

From the comfort of your own home you can read the public submissions to the Senate Select Committee on the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States of America. So far there are three hundred and one.

While they make for fascinating browsing, it does not follow that they are all particularily inciteful. Number 250 (PDF), by a Mr Patrick Hansen reads, in its entirety,

“don’t sign the USFTA”

At least it’s a small download. And it doesn’t fill up valuable archival space. In fact, they could probably cut down the excess paper to a 1×3 inch scrap, then file it away for future historians to mull over.

Mr Hansen didn’t even bother to spell out “United States” and “Free Trade Agreement.” While he liberally used capital letters for his acronym, he did not deem to use one to start his sentance. Perhaps this was not the complete sentence? Perhaps there is a second piece of paper which lies to the left, reading “Simon Says…”?

Most of them oppose the FTA. I guess when you support something, you just couldn’t be bother writing letters. The corrollary of free speech is the freedom not to speak. (Except, of course, elections)

EDITED for go-back-to-school-hippy grammatical error

It is the smallest questions in life which, while not receiving much attention, unite humanity together. And it is scientists and medical experts like these to whom we owe the greatest appreciation.

“To test their hypothesis, the scientists studied 16 male subjects in private suites, free of time cues, for 29 days. Instead of keeping to a 24-hour day, researchers scheduled the subjects to live on a 42.85–hour day (28.57-hour wake episodes), simulating the duration of extended wakefulness commonly encountered by doctors, and military and emergency services personnel. The extended day was also designed to disrupt the subjects’ circadian system while maximizing the effects of the homeostatic push for sleep.

Following a randomized, double-blind protocol, subjects received either one caffeine pill, containing 0.3 mg per kilogram of body weight, roughly the equivalent of two ounces of coffee, or an identical-looking placebo. They took the pills upon waking and then once every hour. The goal of the steady dosing was to progressively build up caffeine levels in a way that would coincide with—and ultimately, counteract—the progressive push of the homeostatic system, which grows stronger the longer a subject stays awake.”

How to maximize the return from caffeine (and other stimulants)

I’m not going to change my coffee intake - I relish my kamikaze defence against sleeping. But it is comforting to know that if I wanted to efficiently drink coffee, someone could give me quantitative advice on how to do so.

Now this is art history in action: Via 2blowhards.com, New York University’s Grey Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition, Counter Culture: Parisian Cabarets and the Avant-Garde, 1875-1905. Most interesting is the Incoherants’ movement.

“Two months earlier, as a challenge to academic art, Lévy had organized a show of “drawings made by people who don’t know how to draw.” Lévy’s October proto-happening included professional artists who poked fun at the art establishment and produced “incohérent” works using a variety of peculiar and everyday found materials, for example, sculptures made from bread and cheese. One entry, a group painting by six artists, anticipated the collaborative efforts of the Surrealists some forty years later. The most provocative work was the first documented monochrome painting by the poet Paul Bilhaud and entitled Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night.” (here)

This is Negros Fighting in a Cellar at Night (1897)

Ignoring the rather crude and casual racism, this destructive art predates surrealism by at least 30 years. And, as Friedrich from 2blowhards points out, it just seems more fun. (not the racism, the other parts) And you must see the comparision between Duchamp’s LHOOQ and Batilles’ Mona Lisa With A Pipe.

This reminds me why I wanted to study art history in the first place.