Just so it's all in one place. In October 2001, the lab received unauthorized shipments of anthrax. In August 2002, two Los Alamos employees are put on administrative leave for abusing expense accounts. The lab says they took $2,500. A watchdog group says it's more like $900,000. From July 2001 to October 2002, two more employees pilfer TV monitors, CB radios, GPS navigators, picnic table, gas grill, lawn chair and dozens of hunting knives they bought through the lab. That got the attention of the Albequerque DA. Finally, in January 2003, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham made sure that John Brown, director of Los Alamos, stepped down. He was replaced by Navy Vice Admiral Pete Nanos. Two weeks later, investigators hired by the University of California (which operates the lab for the government) were fired, probably because they talked with outside investigators about $2.7 million in pilfered items and expense abuses. LANL promptly lost a laptop containing designs for nuclear weapons. Joke's on LANL: the two investigators have since been called back. Is that everything? Today, Congress starts hearings on this debacle. Watch it at work!
Cost of Common Colds at $40 billion each year in U.S.
In further proof that statistics don't mean a thing without context, University of Michigan Health System released a study indicating that the common cold costs the US economy $40 billion a year. http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=5512 http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2003/cold.htm
Los Alamos National Lab: More Trouble
Los Alamos National Laboratory is in trouble again. The world's most important nuclear research facility, and birthplace of the atom bomb, was broken into -- not by a crack team of commandos, but a Wired reporter with a torn Achille's tendon. Now, in addition to the camping gear bought on their credit card, the LANL has to explain how this reporter was able to enter the "secure" Technical Area 33. They'll have to think quickly: Congressional hearings on mismanagement at Los Alamos start tomorrow.
Deconstructing Iraq Policy
John B. Judis has a piece in the otherwise infuriating American Prospect in which he reverse-engineers the Bush Administration's Iraq policy.
You Don’t Want What You Want
The concept of "choice" is complicated, entwined in personal desires, social strictures, and the law. What happens when personal desire reigns supreme? Who's most worried about this? It's not philosophers. It's economists.
Sanford Dole, the “Sugar King”
If you'd like to know more about how the Kingdom of Hawaii became the Territory of Hawaii, the University of Hawaii has an excellent collection of primary sources. The Dole fruit and sugar fortune had not a little to do with it. A church here in Brooklyn has a saying: "Our missionaries went to Hawaii to do good, and they did very well."
Al Queda Meeting Notes
The Smoking Gun has some odd documents showing the meeting minutes of the birth of Al Queda. They come out of some case of a charity group that was raising money for Al Queda. It's chilling to see this petty and bureaucratic beginning to this group. Members had to pledge to be early-rising and obedient and they were only supposed to take members who had good references, good manners and were good listeners. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bifladen1.html The Smoking Gun also has Al Queda's terror manual. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/jihadmanual.html
General Wesley Clark
Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, was on Meet the Press last week, and had some fascinating ideas about how a war on terrorism and rogue nations should be fought. Will he run on the Democratic ticket? Maybe. I hope so -- it would be nice to see some foreign policy backbone on the ticket. Mickey Kaus, of course, hates him. The New Republic, for reasons I don't fully comprehend, hates him even more. Their biggest beef? He doesn't want a war to kill a lot of people, and he's suspiciously like Colin Powell. Conspicuous by its absence: an alternate policy. Sour grapes for TNR.
Message in a Craig’s List Bottle
I thought I was over my paralyzing high-school crush on you. I am not.
Kenneth M. Pollack
He wrote The Threatenting Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. Pay attention to his editorials in the New York Times and his interview with Talking Points Memo.
