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SPIEGEL Interview with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev 'Oil and Gas Is Our Drug'
SPIEGEL: Mr. President, you are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with other world leaders in Berlin. Where were you on Nov. 9, 1989?
Dmitry Medvedev: I don't remember, but I still recall very precisely how suddenly our lives changed. I was a teaching assistant at the University of St. Petersburg at the time, and I realized that this development would affect not only the Germans, but all of Europe and, ultimately, also the destiny of our country. The Scorpions' hit "Wind of Change" became an anthem of the times. The Berlin Wall was a symbol of the division of the continent, and the fall of the Wall united us again. Some of our hopes from back then have been fulfilled, others have not.
SPIEGEL: The fall of the Wall made former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a respected figure in Germany and throughout the West. How would you judge his historical accomplishments?
Medvedev: As the head of state, it is not my place to pass judgment on my predecessors. Germany and other European countries give Gorbachev credit for the fall of the Iron Curtain. There are differences in opinion about his accomplishments for our country. The collapse of the Soviet Union occurred during his term in office. A great many Russians have the feeling that they lost their country back then, and they hold him responsible for this. Whether or not this is justifiable is something for historians to decide.
Photo Gallery: Medvedev's Russia
SPIEGEL: Your predecessor Vladimir Putin was not so reserved in his remarks. He called the collapse of the USSR "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
Medvedev: He didn't connect this with the name Gorbachev, so in that sense he was as reserved as I am. The collapse shocked everyone who lived in the Soviet Union, regardless of whether they perceived the disintegration of the state as a personal catastrophe or as a consequence of the rule of the Bolsheviks. And it was really very dramatic: A people who had been united for decades -- and in some cases for centuries -- suddenly found itself in different countries again. Contacts with family and relatives were cut off.
SPIEGEL: It was certainly a tragedy, but was it really the greatest?
Medvedev: In my opinion, World War II was no less of a catastrophe. Tens of millions of people were killed. And wasn't the Russian Revolution of 1917 also a catastrophe? It sparked a civil war where friends and relatives shot at each other. The collapse of the Soviet Union certainly ranks among the most dramatic events of the 20th century, but it didn't have such bloody consequences.
SPIEGEL: A few days ago, you pointed out in a video message posted on the Internet that "millions of people died as a result of terror" in the Soviet Union before the war, but 90 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds knew practically nothing about this. What does this say about the state of Russian society, when you, as president, have to remind your citizens that Josef Stalin was a mass murderer?
Medvedev: Every historical figure is revered by some and rejected by others, and this holds true for Stalin as well. In my blog, I clearly defined Stalin's deeds as crimes. Fifty million Russians regularly access the Internet -- over a third of the Russian population. Thousands have responded. Some wrote that the head of state has finally taken a clear stance on the oppression and on Stalin. Others, on the other hand, refused to accept my views. They wrote that our country has Stalin to thank for its developed economy and free social services, and they said that there was virtually no crime under his leadership. They said that today's Russian leaders should first of all try to match those achievements.
SPIEGEL: That doesn't sound very flattering for you.
Medvedev: The government has to be honest and clearly recognize events about which historians are unanimous. As a lawyer I can also tell you that the liquidation of an enormous number of Soviet citizens -- no matter what the pretexts -- was a crime. This also explains why there can be no rehabilitation of the people who were involved.
SPIEGEL: We believe that only once the people have collectively recognized that Stalin was a dictator can there be talk of a mature society.
Medvedev: Ever since perestroika, I and many of my fellow countrymen have taken a critical view of Stalin. This is due to Gorbachev and those politicians who led the country at the time. They had the courage to publish documents that cast a shadow on the government and the Communist Party. There are still older individuals as well as young people with left-wing political views who believe that Stalin's role was completely positive, but they are in the minority.
SPIEGEL: The post-Soviet legacy also includes relations to other former Soviet republics. In accordance with your instructions, there is currently no Russian ambassador in Ukraine, and you are regularly engaged in disputes with Belarus. Why do you constantly try to solve problems with your neighbors with strong-arm tactics?
Medvedev: Are there no problems between EU countries? Germany also has problems with its neighbors. We are therefore no exception.
SPIEGEL: To say that an ambassador will only be sent when another country's president has been toppled -- that's really a pretty unique stance in Europe.
Medvedev: Many things are unique in this world. All of these difficulties have been created by just one man -- the current president of Ukraine. He is guided by anti-Russian ideas, and no compromises can be achieved with him. Everything that he has done over the past four years has been aimed at disrupting bilateral relations. He has breached economic agreements, he tries to rewrite history and he has expelled a number of Russian diplomats from the country. That was an unfriendly act that requires a robust reaction. Presidential elections will soon be held in Ukraine. I sincerely hope that politicians will come to power there who are more pragmatic in their approach to Russia. Then there will be a Russian ambassador in Kiev again.
SPIEGEL: That sounds as if the conflict between Ukraine and Russia could take a dramatic turn.
Medvedev: There is no conflict between our countries. Our peoples are brothers, linked by close relations and solid economic ties. Despite the crisis, we trade goods worth billions of dollars.
SPIEGEL: But are we in for a new round of the annual natural gas war?
Medvedev: A few days ago, Ukraine informed us that it had no funds to pay for our natural gas, despite the fact that, after the conflict in January, we had agreed on the rules of the game and that, if they were in financial difficulties, they would seek loans early enough -- or we would only deliver if Ukraine paid in advance. But there is an election campaign in Kiev, where everyone is trying to politically outsmart everyone else. I wish Ukraine stability and the capacity to act. Then cooperation will be easier for Russia and the EU.
'We Are Still in the Process of Building a Modern Civil Society'
SPIEGEL: The 18 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union actually constitute a relatively short period of time. In a recent article, you described the state of Russian society as being characterized by economic backwardness, deep-seated corruption, the people's unquestioning belief in authority, and a tendency to blame all problems on foreign countries. Perhaps Russia should not always point an accusing finger at others?
Medvedev: We are still in the process of building a modern civil society. Eighteen years ago, we were naïve and many expectations proved to be an illusion. From the political leadership all the way down to local administrations, we are hampered by corruption and a cumbersome bureaucracy. But today we are more mature, we now know better how our country should look and what place it is entitled to.
Photo Gallery: Medvedev's Russia
SPIEGEL: But is Russia really more mature? Your interior minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, declared in good old Soviet style that he intended to eliminate corruption within a month.
Medvedev: I would hope that the interior minister has a clear idea of how to combat corruption. This certainly cannot be achieved in one month. I also think that he only meant the most grievous offenses in his ministry. Rooting out corruption will keep us busy for years. It also exists elsewhere, but in our country it has taken on particularly repugnant forms. Corruption already existed under the czars and during the Soviet era -- it was just more hidden. Stalin reduced it to a minimum. We have already talked about the means that he used. In 1991, when the political and economic changes began, corruption flourished. Greater freedoms always entail advantages and disadvantages. Civil servants got an opportunity to gain control of cash flows -- they take bribes and personally buy into businesses.
SPIEGEL: How do you intend to effectively combat this scourge?
Medvedev: We have now passed laws that have never existed in the thousand-year history of Russia. We have established a presidential council to combat corruption, and I have called on our civil servants to disclose their income and the income of their family members. They are complying with this now, although they are not particularly pleased.
SPIEGEL: Democracy and the rule of law are also measures of a society's maturity. How far along has your country come in this respect, considering that there were once again quite obvious cases of fraud during the municipal elections in October? And considering all the unsolved murder cases, such as the assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya?
Medvedev: You are asking the wrong question. The case of Politkovskaya was thoroughly investigated. I spoke about this with the director of the investigative agency a few days ago.
SPIEGEL: The defendants were acquitted in court.
Medvedev: The investigators are absolutely convinced that their interpretation of events is correct and that they have done everything possible to clear up this crime. The case will go to court again. This is common in criminal proceedings. It does not mean that no investigation took place. The court merely found the arguments of the defense more convincing. That is its right. It is simply not true when you say that the case was not investigated.
SPIEGEL: Let us repeat it once again: There has not been a single final conviction in connection with the many spectacular murders that been committed recently.
Medvedev: Give me other cases. Nullum crimen sine lege, no crime without a law: I can only comment on concrete cases.
SPIEGEL: What about journalist Anastasia Baburova, who was shot and killed in January together with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov on the streets of Moscow? Or human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, who was abducted in July in Chechnya, and executed the very same day with a number of shots to the head?
Medvedev: Investigations are ongoing in the case of Estemirova. The investigation of the murders of Markelov and Baburova has led to the arrest of two suspects.
SPIEGEL: And the elections in October? In a number of Moscow districts, by the end of the election day, voter turnout had shot up to 90 percent, which is significantly higher than the average for Moscow.
Medvedev: In my view, the elections were conducted in an orderly fashion, which doesn't mean that they were perfect. In Moscow and other cities there were numerous complaints. I have spoken with the heads of the parties. We have agreed that all complaints shall be handled in court. But it is important that all parliamentary parties agree that the final result of the elections accurately reflects, in an overall sense, the balance of power in the country. All the parliamentary groups have suggested that election procedures be improved. I will reflect on this and submit my proposals for improving the electoral system in a message to the nation in the near future.
SPIEGEL: That may be encouraging, but we are more concerned about a climate in which officials find it necessary to give election results a helping hand in the first place. We are thinking primarily of the results of the ruling party, United Russia.
Medvedev: It is the leading political force in our country, but it was also dissatisfied with the results on a number of counts. When an official, out of sympathy for a political party, attempts to help it during elections, he is committing a crime, which is punishable according to our penal code. I think that a number of the proceedings currently being launched by the parties will result in administrative or judicial convictions.
SPIEGEL: In a recent article that you wrote entitled "Go, Russia," you spoke of your country's "humiliating" economic "backwardness." Why hasn't Russia managed to overcome its dependency on natural resources in the time since the end of the Soviet Union?
Medvedev: Because people quickly get addicted to drugs. Trading gas and oil is our drug. People can't get enough of it, even when prices are going through the roof. Five years ago, who could have imagined an oil price of $150 a barrel? Trading in natural resources is easy, it leads to the illusion of economic stability. Money flows in -- considerable sums of money. Acute problems can be effectively resolved with it. You don't need any economic reforms; you don't need to deal with diversifying production. We could rid ourselves of this lethargy if we would only learn the right lessons from the crisis.
SPIEGEL: This doesn't appear to be happening, which is precisely why many Russians are scoffing at their president's criticism of the state of the nation. They see too wide a gap between expectations and reality.
Medvedev: I do in fact have the feeling that many are sitting back again and waiting for more mega-profits. This might go well for a while. But making no money available for investments in industry and agriculture is leading our country nowhere. And this despite the fact that the energy sector experiences revolutions at regular intervals and no one knows whether we will need the same quantities of oil and gas in 2050 as we do today.
SPIEGEL: Since your country has not made progress in modernizing the economy, it has been particularly hard hit by the crisis. This is normally blamed on the government. In such situations, former Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin always dismissed the prime minister.
Medvedev: Our economy's dependency on natural resources did not arise during Putin's term as president, but rather 40 years ago. It will take a long time to change that. Take a look at a map of Russia, acquaint yourselves with our balance of trade and our export surpluses, take into consideration what social obligations we have -- and then look at how much tax revenue we generate through oil and gas. Then you will understand everything. And, finally, over the past 10 years, the government has not once been dismissed for failing to fulfill its duties.
'Our Values Are the Same as Yours'
SPIEGEL: Let's talk about your relationship to Putin. It remains a mystery how Russia's president and its prime minister relate to each other. Are you pursuing a dual strategy to support the current system? Putin appeals to the traditionally minded sectors of society, and you appeal to the liberal minority and the West?
Medvedev: There is certainly no doubt that our tandem works smoothly. And this despite the fact that there had been many predictions that we would soon have a falling-out. Of course we each have our own ideas and styles. Under no circumstances would I want us to eventually resemble the aging Politburo leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who always wore exactly the same coats and the same hats when they climbed up the steps of Lenin's Mausoleum, so that it was impossible to tell Leonard Brezhnev from (prominent Politburo member) Mikhail Suslov.
Photo Gallery: Medvedev's Russia
SPIEGEL: Putin's recent comment about the next presidential election greatly astonished many in the West. When asked which of you will stand for election, he said that the two of you would "sit down and reach an agreement" regarding what happens in 2012. Former President Gorbachev was shocked. He said that if an agreement was to be reached with anyone, it would have to be with the electorate. But the people apparently don't play a role any more.
Medvedev: I would recommend that Mr. Gorbachev take a closer look at Putin's words. He merely said that if Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev are still attractive to the people as political figures at the time of the next presidential election, then we will sit down and decide which of us will stand for election -- so that we don't impede each other. He did not maintain that we would decide among ourselves who would be the next president. That would of course be ridiculous.
SPIEGEL: In the meantime, there are enough political challenges. On Dec. 5 the START treaty on arms control will expire. US President Barack Obama is already dreaming of a world without nuclear weapons. Did he speak with you about how he wants to achieve this objective?
Medvedev: Who else should do it, if not us? The greatest nuclear potential is currently in the hands of Russia and the US. If we don't address this, there will be no disarmament. We have recently moved at quite a brisk pace, also because the new administration in Washington has made this issue a top priority -- in contrast to its predecessor, which appeared to be totally uninterested in strategic disarmament. Now we have every opportunity to agree on lower thresholds and define monitoring measures. At the end of the year, we could sign a legally binding document.
SPIEGEL: The ground-breaking role of Moscow and Washington won't be enough.
Medvedev: Correct, other nuclear powers show no signs of such an attitude. Even our close European partners don't share this attitude -- you can imagine who I mean.
SPIEGEL: This could only be France and the UK.
Medvedev: Emerging nuclear powers show even less understanding, particularly those that illegally attempt to acquire nuclear technologies. And then there are countries that won't admit that they have nuclear weapons, but won't deny it, either. We have to think of ways that we can convince everyone to renounce nuclear weapons.
SPIEGEL: You are familiar with the West's fears of a nuclear-armed Iran. How will Russia act in this case? To what extent do you intend to accommodate Tehran with arms deliveries and the pursuit of its nuclear energy program?
Medvedev: Iran has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, under the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- there is no objection to that. The country must only respect the applicable regulations; it cannot attempt to conceal any facilities. The discovery of the new plant at Qom is alarming. It is also surprising that this information has only now been made public. Should the negotiations on enriching Iran's uranium for peaceful purposes prove successful, we would be happy to take part in this program.
SPIEGEL: And if not?
Medvedev: Theoretically, all options would still be on the table. I have spoken with Obama in New York about this. I don't want it all to end with sanctions. But if things don't move forward, such a scenario cannot be ruled out.
SPIEGEL: What about the Russian arms deliveries?
Medvedev: We will only deliver arms that serve defensive purposes, no offensive weapons.
SPIEGEL: Do you see a danger that the West in Afghanistan could suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union, which, after nine years of war and 15,000 military casualties, withdrew its troops from the Hindu Kush in 1989?
Medvedev: Yes, I do. If the Western alliance cannot help Afghanistan to establish a functioning state, there will never be stability, no matter how many foreign troops are dispatched there. The fact that Hamid Karzai has now been recognized as the elected president creates additional stability. I am not talking about the course of events during the election, partly because, following the discussion of our electoral system, I don't want to criticize any other country. But I cannot let this pass without one comment. Our American colleagues have hailed elections in Afghanistan and Iraq as a triumph of democracy. If that is the case, then I ask that they acknowledge the elections in Russia accordingly.
SPIEGEL: Mr. President, at the beginning of this interview you said that, since the fall of the Wall, many of your hopes and those of your fellow countrymen have been fulfilled, others have not. Which ones were you referring to?
Medvedev: I have already mentioned the positive things. But it has not been possible to redefine Russia's place in Europe. After the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, we were hoping for a higher degree of integration. But what have we received? None of the things that we were assured, namely that NATO would not expand endlessly eastwards and our interests would be continuously taken into consideration. NATO remains a military bloc whose missiles are pointed towards Russian territory. By contrast, we would like to see a new European security order.
SPIEGEL: Although no one really knows exactly what you mean by this.
Medvedev: It is about creating a new platform where NATO and non-NATO members can debate their most pressing problems. I don't want this to be a counterweight to NATO. But we need a universal mechanism to resolve differences of opinion within Europe. The conflict with Georgia showed how fragile our security is. This was a European conflict.
SPIEGEL: Today Europe is first and foremost a community of values, with democracy and human rights at the top of the list. Russia's future role in Europe also depends on how important these values are in your country.
Medvedev: Our values are the same as yours. I don't see any major differences in terms of freedom and human rights, especially in comparison to the new EU member states. When it comes to political culture and economic development, they are not one iota better -- but they are small, and they talk about how many threats they have to live with
SPIEGEL: ... you are referring now to Poland and the Baltic republics.
Medvedev: The difference between them and Russia is that we are big, very big, and that we possess nuclear weapons. It is totally wrong to say: "Here is the united Europe, where democracy has already been achieved, and there is the ominous, uneducated Russia, which we cannot yet allow into Europe."
SPIEGEL: That sounds very bitter.
Medvedev: Is Russia the only country asking for investments? You are the ones who wanted -- or want -- to work with us on Opel, the Wadan shipyards and other projects. This means that our business agendas are actually the same, and our economies are highly intertwined. So what separates us? Practically nothing, I hope.
SPIEGEL: Mr. President, thank you for this interview.


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Regular readers know that I get very excited when I see signs that more and more people are realizing that the real fiscal problem is big government. Even if the sound analysis comes from foreigners or international bureaucracies.
Deficits and debt are bad, to be sure, but they are best understood as symptoms of the underlying disease of excessive spending.
With that in mind, we have two cartoons that correctly identify the real threat to America's future.
Here's Lisa Benson showing the President enjoying a dance with his first love at the inaugural.
And here's a Jerry Holbert cartoon capturing the rapacious appetite of a bloated public sector and the impact on society.
As you can see here and here, it's quite similar to the theme used with great effectiveness by Eric Allie.
Except Holbert seems to emphasize deliberate destructiveness, rather than the blundering incompetence in the Allie cartoons.
But the net effect is still the same. Big government is counter-productive government.

subset: commoncrawl


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Mind-Blowing Time Lapse Video
Timelapse Montage from Mike Flores on Vimeo.
Have you ever had a dream where clouds or planets suddenly start moving rapidly through the sky? This absolutely astonishing time-lapse montage by Mike Flores will make that dreamscape seem like a reality. The piece evokes something familiar with the haunting and the strange. Fitting, too, that the music is a piece called "Dream is Collapsing" from the film Inception.
There's time-lapse photography and then there's this video. Two completely different classes of creation. The effects are absolutely stunning. Except for one thing … can someone tell me what is up with the cars?
[Via Geek.com]


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The slides for my ALA Midwinter presentation on subject maps (which I described in a previous post) are now online. (Yes, I'm playing around with BePress's Selected Works.) You can also find links to the presentation, a white paper, and demos, from our library lab's subject maps page.
I'm afraid it's only the slides (no notes) but I'll be happy to answer questions or take suggestions. I'm hoping to spend a fair bit of time this semester on subject maps applications for our catalog and digital library architecture, and I'm very interested in seeing how much we can do with them.
During the presentation, someone asked "What do you do when you have more than one subject ontology/thesaurus?" I addressed this question in a talk I gave at last spring's DLF forum (slides here, though some pictures show up dark). In short, I see four basic strategies one can take. (Warning: What follows has more technical abbrevations and shorthand than my usual posts here, but I've provided some explanatory links, and can go into more detail and explanation in later posts if there's interest.) The four strategies are:
- Throw all the terms in together, and hope for the best. Sounds like a recipe for chaos, but it is cheap, and may work when users look for both kinds of terms. Ultimately, you'd like to relate the terms somehow (and automated tools may be able to help you find popular terms that are isolated from other terms, so you can relate them to other terms).
- Normalize to a preferred ontology. This may be a good way to go, for instance, when you have a big, controlled ontology you want to use, and a small, less controlled one that doesn't get much use. The terms in the less controlled ontology can be added as aliases for terms in the controlled ontology, or can be rewritten to fit in with the main ontology.
- Make multiple subject maps, link them in appropriate places. This may be appropriate when your maps tend to support different research communities (e.g. MeSH for medical research vs. LCSH for general scholarship), or different kinds of search activities (e.g. folksonomies for current peer awareness vs. LCSH for back-literature searches). In some cases, such as for MeSH and LCSH, existing crosswalks exist that can be used for links between maps.
- Build a multi-ontology subject map. This can be challenging, but may be appropriate where you have different collections described through different ontologies that people are likely to want to explore in tandem; for example, a set of books on a particular era of history described in LCSH along with a set of photographs of the same era described in TGM. It can get a bit tricky when the two ontologies have different names for the same concept, though, or identical names that refer to two different concepts.
I hope to try out some of these strategies as we develop subject maps at Penn. (Our Franklin catalog has many subject entries in LCSH and MeSH, for example; and we also have uncontrolled tags that PennTags users assign to items in our catalog. I'd like to see if we can let users browse in useful ways across all three topical spaces.) I'll post here about any interesting new visible developments and demos.


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Prophet Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints are back in the news again, this time with another indictment relating to statutory rape. In El Dorado, the town outside the Yearning For Zion ranch, Jeffs and four other FLDS members have been charged with felony sexual abuse, and a fifth was indicted for failing to report child abuse, the AP reports. One of the followers is also facing a charge of bigamy but surprisingly, the bigamist is not Jeffs, though grand juries have been shown pictures of Jeffs fondling and kissing three of his alleged underage "spiritual" wives. (Although he has not been hit with bigamy charges yet, Jeffs isn't off the hook for those disturbing photos. CNN reports that DNA tests have been run to determine whether Jeffs is the father of the children born to the very young girls Jeffs is smooching in those pictures.)
If you'll recall, Jeffs is already serving a jail sentence for being an accomplice to rape, and since his incarceration in Utah, there have been rumblings of a new prophet being anointed. Merrill Jessop, the former husband of Carolyn Jessop, who wrote the anti-FLDS memoir Escape about her awful experiences as Merrill's umpteenth wife and the tyranny of Jeffs' reign. A change in leadership could definitely be a positive, as Carolyn Jessop wrote in her book that things in the sect were much more reasonable before the power-hungry Jeffs came to lead the FLDS.
Texas Grand Jury Indicts Polygamist Sect Members [AP]
Sect Leader Jeffs Charged With Child Sex Assault [CNN]
A New Prophet for the Polygamists? [Time]
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Earlier: Big Love
Please Do Not Cry For Those Poor Polygamist Wives, Fox News


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by hilzoy
As has been noted in comments, we haven't written about the this story:
"In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies. (...)
Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
The Principals also approved interrogations that combined different methods, pushing the limits of international law and even the Justice Department's own legal approval in the 2002 memo, sources told ABC News. (...)
A year later, amidst the outcry over unrelated abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the controversial 2002 legal memo, which gave formal legal authorization for the CIA interrogation program of the top al Qaeda suspects, leaked to the press. A new senior official in the Justice Department, Jack Goldsmith, withdrew the legal memo -- the Golden Shield -- that authorized the program.
But the CIA had captured a new al Qaeda suspect in Asia. Sources said CIA officials that summer returned to the Principals Committee for approval to continue using certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it.""
For my part, I was torn. On the one hand, I wanted to write about it. On the other, I wasn't sure what to say. It doesn't particularly surprise me to learn that Cheney et al signed off on torture, and I do not, myself, regard the fact that they signed off on specific interrogation plans, as opposed to general policies allowing plans like those, as all that significant. (It might be significant legally, but not morally. Policy makers have an obligation to consider the specific ways in which policies they approve might be implemented.) The one minor surprise was how big a role Rice seems to have played, both as the chair of these meetings and in particular decisions ("This is your baby. Go do it.")
On the third hand, while I can toss off little posts about, say, Michael Medved's silly article while I'm here in Pakistan (read article, stop laughing, run searches on "Guantanamo" etc., publish results), I'm really not in a position to write anything that requires genuine reflection. And this clearly does. Members of this administration, at the most senior levels, have approved of torture. This might not be news, but I think it is never, never a good idea to lose one's capacity to be outraged by it.
One of the great dangers of the Bush administration is that it will permanently alter our sense of what is possible or acceptable. You can see an analog of this when people say things like: Bush won't be able to do X, or: he will have to do Y, where these statements do not refer to physical necessity or impossibility. (E.g., if memory serves, when the surge began, some Republicans said: if it doesn't work, Bush will have to withdraw.) The sense in which people who say such things think that Bush "has to" or "can't" do something or other is just that there are certain things we do not believe that any President would do, and others we think he must do. There are lines we assume he would never cross.
But this administration does not recognize the existence of any such lines. They do not "have to" withdraw just because none of their plans have worked, the army is breaking, and the war has next to no popular support. They would "have to" withdraw only if someone put a gun to their collective heads and forced them to. They do not "have to" obey the law or the Constitution: they will only if they are literally compelled to. Likewise, they do not "have to" respect even the most basic principles of decency and humanity, even when obligated to do so by US law and treaties we have signed, which are, according to the Constitution, the law of the land. Neither moral suasion nor legal obligation seem to matter to them. The only sense in which they "have to" do anything is the sense involving physical necessity.
It would be a catastrophe if we lost our sense that there are certain things that our government just cannot do, where "cannot" means something more than physical impossibility. Imagine the possibilities: we normally think that the President "cannot" just shoot his political opponents. But surely in one sense he can, at least if he's a decent shot. Maybe he couldn't do it without being thrown in jail. But that's not right: surely in one sense he "can" bribe the judges, suborn perjury, impose martial law, or do something else to get himself off the hook. Do we really want to go down this road? I don't.
The Bush administration threatens us with the catastrophe of losing our sense that there are things the government cannot do every time they do one of those things. I never, ever want to go along with their redefinition of what is possible, which is why I refuse to stop being outraged when something like this happens. (It's also why saying: hey, why are you still surprised? is beside the point. I'm not.)
But I really couldn't think what I could say that would do justice to this, sitting on the other side of the world, and trying to do my thinking in tiny snatches of time. So all I'll say is: it is an outrage, and we should never lose sight of that fact, or become inured to it.


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Liars Have A Constitutional Right To Free Speech
June 29 (Bloomberg) — Lost in the hoopla over the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act is a fascinating and important free-speech decision that is one of the oddest in the already strange history of the First Amendment.
The case, Alvarez v. United States, was all about lies. The first sentence of Justice Anthony Kennedy's plurality opinion is an instant classic: "Lying was his habit."
This is a substantial understatement. Xavier Alvarez was a fabulist straight out of Mark Twain. He "lied when he said that he played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings and that he once married a starlet from Mexico." When newly elected to the local water board in Claremont, California, Alvarez falsely told his new colleagues that he was a retired Marine who had received the Medal of Honor after being wounded repeatedly by the same aggressor.
This last lie was unlike the others. It violated the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which made it a crime to lie about decorations received in military service. It was already a crime to lie about military service in order to defraud the government or private person of some gain. The Stolen Valor Act criminalized the mere act of lying about military decorations, full stop. No intention to defraud was required.
Alvarez seems not to have sought to gain anything by his lie other than esteem. This made him a perfect test case for a question that previously tormented no one but law professors and their students: Does the right to free speech extend to lying for no otherwise unlawful gain?
On the surface, the issue might seem straightforward. With the possible exception of Justice Hugo Black, who liked to say that "Congress shall make no law" really meant no law at all, no Supreme Court justice has ever believed free speech to be absolute. At times, the court has said that certain kinds of speech — such as obscenity, libel and the ill-defined "fighting words" — deserve no protection whatsoever. Although that categorical approach has faded from the court's jurisprudence, the justices still believe that speech must have some value to merit protection under the First Amendment.
What value inheres in lies about simple matters of fact? What good could possibly come of Alvarez telling people that he risked his life for his country when he did no such thing?
Three justices — Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — said the answer was, "none." There was no reason, they said, to stop Congress from criminalizing lies about military service.
The other six justices disagreed. In oral arguments, it had sounded as though a majority might uphold the law. But in two separate opinions, neither commanding a majority of five, the justices tried their best to explain what was so useful about lying.
The job wasn't easy. Alvarez's lawyers, as well as some academics who had filed briefs as friends of the court, had urged the most brazen logic of all, one that Twain himself could only have admired: Lying is a necessary and valuable component of the self-presentation in which we all engage.
The trouble with this argument isn't only that it turns Jay Gatsby into the archetypal American. (He already is.) It's that our meritocratic culture is obsessed with sussing out the lies that people slip into their accounts of themselves. From the MIT dean of admissions to the Yale football coach to the chief executive officer of Yahoo!, we have seen multiple examples of the public shaming of the "genus: white liar, species: resume- padder."
That left the justices scrambling to explain just what was wrong with the law. Kennedy, in his plurality opinion, pointed out that it covered not only public statements but also whispered conversations in the home. Yet, as Alito rejoined, this observation simply showed the law was too broad — not that the prohibition had no value.
Kennedy also invoked the danger of a chilling effect on legitimate speech. Here, too, the argument was weak: Presumably the only person who would be chilled by the law was one who self-consciously intended to lie about his military record, not the octogenarian struggling to remember how many Purple Hearts he had earned in Korea.
Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, went a bit further. He said that social lies are valuable "where they may prevent embarrassment, protect privacy, shield a person from prejudice, provide the sick with comfort, or preserve a child's innocence." He added that public lies could "stop a panic or otherwise preserve calm in the face of danger." And, former law professor that he is, Breyer invoked the Socratic method, in which, he claimed, "examination of a false statement (even if made deliberately to mislead) can promote a form of thought that ultimately helps realize the truth."
None of these arguments really addresses the Alvarez case. The bride is always beautiful, said the rabbis of the Talmud. And it is heartwarming for little Virginia still to believe in Santa Claus. These are matters of opinion and myth, not fact. Public lies about imminent disaster are the product of a paternalistic past and today would lose the teller his job. Socrates, for his part, was playing a complex philosophical game — and the Athenians condemned him to death for his dangerously corrupting truths, not his misleading statements, which were mostly in the form of questions anyway.
Breyer didn't mention Stephen Colbert. But he did invoke the famous assertion of John Stuart (Mill) that falsehoods in debate promote the truth through their "collision with error." This might be closer to the right answer. Rooting out those who lie about military commendations should make us consider publicly the extraordinary debt we owe to those who risk or give their lives and merit the real thing.
We don't need to tolerate the liar. In a free society, however, maybe we have to shoulder the burden of condemning him ourselves — instead of lazily trusting the government to do something about it.
(Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University and the author of "Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices," is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)


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Secretary Locke and U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy Highlight New York Project Bringing Jobs and Economic Development to the Region
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke joined U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy today in Malta, New York to hear from executives at GlobalFoundries, one of the world's largest independent semiconductor foundries. Locke and Murphy highlighted the impact GlobalFoundries has had on economic development in New York's Tech Valley and heard firsthand about the company's progress on the development of its new factory – the largest project of its kind in the United States.
The Fab 8 project is the result of a public-private partnership and will create thousands of jobs in the local community and throughout New York state. The factory will be the most advanced semiconductor fabrication plant in the world, helping to position the United States as a leader in the technology-based economy.
Founded in 2009, GlobalFoundries is creating good-paying jobs in New York through the construction and development of its new facility. The company is also committed to growing U.S. exports, a key component of President Obama's National Export Initiative, which aims to double U.S. exports over the next five years in support of several million American jobs.


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A symphony is a long-form composition, a collection of musical ideas tied together by shared themes and motifs. The composer weaves melodies and harmonies over the span of several movements, knitting them into a sprawling, cohesive whole. That vision is then realized by an orchestra, led by a conductor.
In a lot of ways, Jonathan Blow's upcoming game The Witness is a game design symphony. That may sound grandiose, but I don't mean it in a bland, broad sense. This game is a tightly built set of puzzles and designs, all interlocking and building on one another into a grand finale that ties everything together. The design is the symphony. The game is the orchestra. And you, the player, are the conductor.
Last week during the Game Developers Conference, I had a chance to meet with Blow for a few minutes to take a look at The Witness. I should say here that I'll be talking a bit about the game and how it works; I know that there are those of you who'd like to go into it completely fresh, and if that's you, consider this a spoiler warning.
Sounds simple, right? It is not.
Last week's meeting was far too short to get any sort of sense of this game, but fortunately I'd already played it for a couple of uninterrupted hours at Blow's sparse studio in Emeryville last spring, so I'm already familiar with how the game works.
Around that same time, Stephen Totilo had a hands-on time with the game and was similarly impressed with the richness of the game's design.
The Witness is somewhat like the classic adventure game Myst, at least on the surface. Players wander an unpopulated island, solving puzzles and solving the mystery of where they are and why. But it's actually much more than Myst—the puzzles in The Witness all relate to one another, and are an expression of Blow's distinctive approach to unified, cohesive design.
When speaking with Stephen last year, Blow said that he was inspired by Myst, but also by the non-existent games that could have been inspired by Myst but weren't.
From Stephen's article, starting with a quote from Blow:
"It's like there's some really fucking awesome game like Myst that nobody ever made because it was filled with all of these illogical puzzles and stuff, right?"
I didn't follow. He was inspired by an imaginary game?
"I can picture in my head what that game would be," he said. "I'm letting that inspire me. I'm not saying [The Witness] is that game either but this is sort of like if those games… if, instead of people making a thousand shitty Myst clones, they actually successfully improved the genre over time. This would be inspired by those. But as it stands, actually, a lot of those games are an anti-inspiration." He explained that the successors of Myst were full of obscure puzzles and confusing graphics that made it hard to determine what was a puzzle and what wasn't. They played by strange rules.
The Witness' rules may seem strange at first, but as you play, they are revealed to be highly logical. Every puzzle represents a motif of sorts—the puzzles are all start as small grids on a blue monitor, and each one requires tracing lines in a certain pattern around a grid. Sounds simple, right? It is not.
The monitors serve as a jumping-off point for more involved, elaborate puzzles. In other words, each one represents an opening design motif that is part of a grander piece. Solving any given puzzle means figuring out its rules—in one, you may have to trace the lines to cover dark spots on the grid. In another, you may have to trace the outline of an object in the background. Once you've determined each puzzle's rules, it becomes clearer and clearer how it fits together with the other puzzles surrounding it.
Each of these puzzles represents a motif. Each area of the island is a movement. They island itself is the symphony. Back when I played last year, I found myself solving a series of connected puzzles while standing on a large mechanical structure. Each time I solved a puzzle, the structure would move and rearrange itself. It wasn't until later, when Blow turned on no-clipping mode and flew me around the level, that I realized what I'd missed. The structure itself was a reflection of the puzzles I'd been solving, and its final solution required me to fit its pieces together in a way that mirrored its component parts.
The island of The Witness is shrouded in mystery, but that's not an accident or the result of lazy design. Everything here is of a piece, and it's all building toward a finale that incorporates aspects of the entire experience that leads up to it. Blow didn't show me how the game ends; to do that would be to rob the experience of much of its meaning. The catharsis provided by The Witness' finale won't be due to some character-based revelation or some epic boss encounter. Its catharsis will come from a culmination of the design ideas put forth and explored in the game leading up to that point.
The Witness isn't the first game to take this approach, but its one of the purest. Even a Zelda game, which follows a similar format to the one I just described, feels a bit noisy next to The Witness. Where Zelda games give you multiple tools to solve each puzzle, The Witness gives you none—the puzzles are the game, and you have only one point of contact with which to manipulate them (almost like a conductor's baton, now that I think about it.)
The Witness lives and breathes in its puzzles, and as a result feels more composed. So when I step back and consider it, I can't help but be reminded of a symphony. While many famous symphonic finales introduce new-sounding melodic themes, those themes are usually based in part on the motifs that have preceded them. The finale is where a composer weaves together the motifs he or she has established in the preceding movements, creating a fully realized climax to the work. And hey, because this is Kotaku Melodic, let me show you what I'm talking about by sharing one of my favorite symphonic finales of all time:
Shostakovich's fifth symphony is an astonishing creation, a roiling mix of stabbing violin lines, eerie and beautiful woodwind melodies, and crushing, oppressive brass. It was written as a protest against the tyranny of Stalin's regime, and its musical motifs bear that out. The opening violin motif from the first movement (with which many are familiar) ends with three As, repeated by the violins.
Those "A"s feature throughout the symphony, until finally reaching a resolution during the crashing section at 9:15 in the video above. Notice how the violins are playing that "A," over and over. The minute you hear it, you can't un-hear it—it's weird, right? We have the huge brass, the crushing russian bear, playing this triumphant melody over the constant screams of the violins.
That screaming note was an echo of the screams of the people, crushed beneath the unstoppable brass anthems of Stalin's regime.
That jarring, repeated "A" was no accident. When he composed this symphony, Shostakovich had been in trouble with the state for the subversive nature of some of his work, notably his opera Lady MacBeth of the Mtsensk District. He was in a very real danger of being labeled an enemy of the state, and his fifth symphony was to be his return to favor. And it was—it was hailed as a great Russian symphony by those in power. But the public understood what he was really saying, they knew what that shrieking "A" represented. That screaming note was an echo of the screams of the people, crushed beneath the unstoppable brass anthems of Stalin's regime.
That's just one (particularly dramatic) example of how a symphony ties its themes together to make a statement. And while The Witness does not appear to aspire to anything as outwardly grand as a cry of rebellion against an oppressive government, it remains remarkable how thoroughly it explores its mechanical themes.
Structure and form, discipline and growth, theme and variation—this is the stuff of great musical composition and great game design. So many games allow for out-of-place mechanics, odd boss battles, and formula-breaking finale levels that deviate hugely from their design up to that point.
Games like Geist, the first couple of Assassin's Creed games, Uncharted 2, Halo and Halo 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution—all jettisoned the systems they had developed in order to change things up for the finale, rather than ending in a manner that felt in tune with the rest of the game. That approach isn't always a bad thing, but often those kinds of games can feel like a heavy metal performance dropped at the end of an orchestral symphony—they may be kind of cool on their own, but they hurt the cohesiveness of the broader work.
Blow's The Witness is an ambitious game, not in its scale but in the tightly wrought depth of its design. Blow and his team are now completing the art, squashing bugs, and preparing for release. He's not yet sure which platforms it will be released on, but I hope to see it on the iPad as well as the PC. The puzzles would lend themselves splendidly to a touch-screen interface.
The Witness represents an unusually focused stab at creating a game design symphony, a collection of puzzles and interlocking systems that layer and build until the final notes are ringing out and the work is complete. It's a symphony I plan to attend on opening night.


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A Patriarch Calls on Soldiers in the Soviet Army Not to Shed Blood
On August 19, 1991, Soviet KGB and party hard-liners returned from their dachas and summer vacations to Moscow, determined to suppress the democratic movement born when Boris Yeltsin had been elected president of the Russian Republic just two months earlier.... The junta, led by Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB, seized television and radio stations and, with the majestic music of Swan Lake as background, announced on the airwaves that it had formed a "State Emergency Committee" and was "taking supreme power in the USSR."
Earlier on the previous evening of August 18, just before 5:00 p.m., it had taken captive, in the government dacha in Yalta on the Black Sea, the president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. His chief of staff played the Judas, accompanied by Politburo member Oleg Shenin and a small clutch of party myrmidons. They demanded he either sign a decree declaring a state of emergency or resign. Courageously, Gorbachev refused to do either. Nevertheless, the traitors confiscated the codes needed to launch the Soviet nuclear arsenal and confined him and his family to house arrest. He was now nowhere to be seen.
The KGB plotters made just one mistake: they missed taking prisoner Boris Yeltsin....
With Gorbachev safely tucked away at Yalta, the plotters wrestled with the problem of Yeltsin, now holed up in the Russian Parliament, a multistory office building called the "Russian White House." He and his staff still had access to fax and telephone, and later to radio and television. He summoned the ordinary citizens of Moscow to defend the democracy that is, his election that had just been born. He stood on one of the tanks at 1:00 p.m., August 19, audaciously defying the junta. In a few hours, a loudspeaker announced to the Muscovites forming human shields around the building that ten of the tanks had gone over to the defenders of the Russian White House.
Yeltsin used the media to make a tough speech claiming that elements of three divisions of the troops sent to storm and occupy the Parliament had crossed over and were now supporting him. Then the elite Alpha Unit, paratroopers commanded by General Alexander Lebed, a hero of Afghanistan, refused to storm the White House. Yeltsin spoke from a podium where now Major General Kobiets stood in full uniform, acknowledging Yeltsin's pronouncement that he had been appointed the new defense minister. The defection of just ten tanks had pulled the thumb out of the KGB's dike, and the momentum was sucking others up the chain of command over to Yeltsin's side.
But the outcome was still very much in doubt. Yes, the rings of human shields around the Russian Parliament were increasing by the hour. But the defenders had ten tanks, whereas the party and the KGB commanded whole armored divisions. If they attacked, thousands would die in the carnage.
Yeltsin fully expected a bloodbath and tried to get help....
Yeltisn appealed to the new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the former Aleksey Ridiger, who had been elected in June the previous year by a meeting of bishops. He had taken the official name of Aleksy II. Yeltsin's words went out over the national radio, defying the junta's orders to silence him:
"The tragic events that have occurred throughout the night made me turn to you, to reach the nation through you.
"There is lawlessness inside the country a group of corrupt Party members has organized an anti-constitutional revolution. Essentially, a state of emergency has been declared inside the country due to the extreme gravity of the situation, and the laws and constitution of the USSR and of the sovereign republics of the Union have been grossly violated.
"It is no coincidence that these events have taken place on the eve of the signing of a new Union Treaty, which would have paved the way to freedom, democracy, and progress and a resolution of the recent crisis.
"Our State has been violated and along with it the newly emerging democracy, and freedom of choice for the electorate. There is once again the shadow of disorder and chaos hanging over our country.
"At this moment of tragedy for our Fatherland I turn to you, calling on your authority among all religious confessions and believers. The influence of the Church in our society is too great for the Church to stand aside during these events. This duty is directly related to the Church's mission, to which you have dedicated your life: serving people, caring for their hearts and souls. The Church, which has suffered through the times of totalitarianism, may once again experience disorder and lawlessness.
"All believers, the Russian nation, and all Russia await your word!"
They did not have long to wait. Within hours of this appeal, the patriarch demonstrated that he would not remain a bystander but would throw the full weight of his position as patriarch against the coup.
On August 19, as the tanks moved ominously into their staging area in Red Square, Aleksy was physically only yards away (see figure 1.1). Inside the redbrick walls of the Kremlin, he was presiding at the liturgy of the Feast of the Transfiguration in the Cathedral of the Assumption (Uspensky Sobor), not only the oldest cathedral within the Kremlin but also the most important Orthodox church in Russia, having been begun in 132628 at the behest of Metropolitan Peter, whose move of the Orthodox see from Kiev to Moscow ended Kiev's status as the center of the faith. Still unfinished, it collapsed in 1472. As with other Kremin cathedrals, architects imported from Italy, in part from the Ticino (an area in northern Italy and southern Switzerland), rebuilt it in its present form.
During the service Aleksy said nothing about the outside events but made an interesting change in the closing litany. Instead of remembering the "authorities" and "the army" as was customary, he prayed "for our country protected by God and its people."
Then he took a momentous decision. On August 20, only a day after Yeltsin's appeal to him, Aleksy faxed to the country and to selected sites around the world an "announcement" (zayavlenie), which challenged the junta's legality. Aleksy had already identified this as the key weakness of the coup:
"This situation [i.e., the departure of Gorbachev from power, and his disappearance] is troubling the consciences of millions of our fellow citizens, who are concerned about the legality of the newly formed State Emergency Committee. . . . In this connection we declare that it is essential that we hear without delay the voice of President Gorbachev and learn his attitude toward the events that have just taken place."
Notably, the patriarch made no mention of Yeltsin. Instead, he referred to Gorbachev, a reformer with whom he believed the church could do business, the same attitude once expressed by Margaret Thatcher. Now Aleksy repaid the ROC's debts to Gorbachev's reforms by calling for Gorbachev to be allowed to speak to the country. But this would not be the limit of his help.
The remainder of Aleksy's "announcement" demonstrated his political savvy: "We hope that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR will give careful consideration to what has taken place and will take decisive measures to bring about the stabilization of the situation in the country." That is, he called politely for action from the top government body in the country, notably not the party apparatus.
Next, he sought to isolate the plotters from two other national institutions, the church and the army:
"We call upon all parts of the Russian Orthodox Church, the whole of our people, and particularly our army at this critical moment for our nation to show support and not to permit the shedding of fraternal blood. We raise the heartfelt prayer to our Lord and summon all true believers in our Church to join this prayer begging Him to dispense peace to the peoples of our land so that they can in future build their homeland in accordance with freedom of choice and the accepted norms of morality and law."
Again, the patriarch touched delicately on the Achilles' heel of the coup, as he alluded to the "accepted norms of morality and law." Yeltsin had begun his radio appeal to the patriarch by referring to "lawlessness." Now the patriarch was reiterating the same idea to the nation, but associating legality with a "heartfelt prayer to our Lord" studded with the familiar language of the peace campaign "peace" and "freedom" turned back on the KGB.
-- an extract from the first chapter of Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia by John Garrard & Carol Garrard (Princeton Universoty Press)
* * *
St. Cosmas of Aetolia, who toured occupied Greece around 1750 establishing schools, gives us the price of heaven. Starting with perfect love, he says:
"If you want to find perfect love, go sell all your belongings, give them to the poor, go where you find a master and become a slave. Can you do this and be perfect?
"You say this is too heavy? Then do something else. Don't sell yourself as a slave. Just sell your belongings and give them all to the poor. Can you do it? Or do you find this too heavy a task?"
"All right, you cannot give away all your belongings. Then give half, or a third, or a fifth. Is even this too heavy? Then give one tenth. Can you do that? Is it still too heavy?
"How about this. Don't sell yourself as slave. Don't give a penny to the poor. Only do this. Don't take your poor brother's coat, don't take his bread, don't persecute him, don't eat him alive. If you don't want to do him any good, at least do him no harm. Just leave him alone. Is this also too heavy?"
"You say you want to be saved. But how? How can we be saved if everything we are called to do is too heavy? We descend and descend until there is no place further down. God is merciful, yes, but he also has an iron rod."
-- St. Cosmas of Aetolia
The only prominent public figure to condemn the [anti-semetic] pogroms [during the civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution] openly and unequivocally was the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Tikhon.
-- Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Harville Press, 1994)
"The Fools Theodore and Nicholas lived in Novgorod. A great bridge joined two sections of the city, Torgova and Sofia. On this bridge many horrible fights broke out between the rival families of either side of the river. The bishop often had to rush to the bridge and put a stop to the violence. Then the Holy Fools Theodore and Nicholas began to fight on the bridge, to demonstrate, as only Fools can, the stupidity of violence. Theodore would not let Nicholas cross over, and vice versa. Then a nobleman invited Theodore to cross over and visit him. And Theodore, after much begging, agreed. He crossed over, and suddenly Nicholas appeared. Nicholas chased Theodore along the bank of the Volkhov River, then Theodore ran right onto the river. Nicholas rushed into a nearby garden and grabbed a head of cabbage, and then he too ran onto the river. And Nick hurled the cabbage at Ted. Many people witnessed this event. And Blessed Nicholas was given the name 'Kochanov' meaning 'cabbage head'."
In 1944, the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko's mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They were among those who witnessed a procession of twenty-thousand German war prisoners marching through the streets of Moscow:
The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police. The crowd was mostly women -- Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick, and with thin hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.
At last we saw it. The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebian victors.
"They smell of perfume, the bastards," someone in the crowd said with hatred. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.
All at once something happened to them. They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent -- the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.
Then I saw an elderly women in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman's shoulder, saying, "Let me through." There must have been something about her that made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now from every side women were running toward the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.
-- A Precocious Autobiography, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Collins, London


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Karen Huff Klein, a bus monitor for the Greece School District in Greece, N.Y., is receiving an outpouring of support after a ten-minute video of her enduring vicious bullying while watching over students on a bus ride home was uploaded to YouTube.
WARNING: The above video contains explicit language and may be upsetting.
After the footage surfaced, Reddit user razorsheldon posted a call to arms in support of the school official who was brought to tears by the group of children.
From Reddit:
Now, as awful as this was, there was a silver lining in not only the universal condemnation of the actions of these kids, but also in a call for support for this poor woman.
Her name is Karen Klein, and if you are so compelled, please feel free to reach out to offer support. She has been a widow for 17 years, has lived in the same town she grew up in and is about to have her 50th high school reunion in the same school district, and deserves so much better than the actions shown by those in this video. Let's show her that there are still good people out there...
In the disturbing video, the children can be heard yelling at Klein, calling her an "ugly fat ass" and telling the widow, "you don't have a family because they all killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."
Now, under pressure from the local community, the Greece School District and Greece Police Department are launching investigations into the incident, telling WHEC-TV that the children involved will "face disciplinary action."
The Reddit call to arms has generated many comments showing support, including one that summarized a local radio show's admiration at Klein's lack of response. The call to arms also included an email address in case users wanted to reach out to Klein.
Klein Talks on 'Fox and Friends':
Other school bullying incidents:
School Bullying Incidents


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While the vast majority of the current political, cultural, and social events have become increasingly surreal, here's just a few examples of the WTF? society in which we are floundering.
In the wake of the release of the Senate Torture Report ("Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Committee's Study on the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program"), the defensive reactions of some are wandering in the realm of surrealism. There was that, pardon the expression, bimbo on Fox screaming that "America is AWESOME!", there's Dick Cheney calmly and coldly dragging Dubya under the same bus that HOPEFULLY runs down Cheney.
There's surreal hypocrisy, as in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (spit!) stating that there's nothing in the Constitution that prohibits torture. From HuffPost:
"Scalia…said that while there are U.S. laws against torture, nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists. "I don't know what article of the Constitution that would contravene…"
[How did this scumbag get to be a Supreme?]
"In 2008, he used the example of the hidden bomb [ala the fictional Jack Bauer in 24]. "It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn't, I don't know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that," he said."
On the other hand, regarding a real imminent potential crisis situation:
"In January, Scalia seemed less concerned about the safety of residents of Los Angeles when the court heard arguments about whether anonymous tips could justify a traffic stop. Urging the lawyer for two suspects appealing their conviction to stand firm, Scalia suggested that not even information that a carload of terrorists heading to Los Angeles with an atomic bomb would be enough to justify police stopping the car, if the tip came from an anonymous source. "I want you to say, 'Let the car go. Bye-bye, LA,'" Scalia said.
Then there's surreal racism/white privilege in 'law enforcement'. As this Daily Kos diary points out, why aren't vicious white criminals called "thugs"? One particular white Texas criminal who brutally murdered a white prosecutor, the prosecutor's wife, and the assistant prosecutor, was:
"…a felon who had a prior record of burglary and theft. Yet somehow he had amassed a veritable arsenal of weapons as prosecutors during the penalty phase of his trial revealed:
"On Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors assembled the arsenal of weapons found in Williams' storage unit in the courtroom. The guns were displayed on three wooden racks in the middle of the courtroom, 42 handguns in the middle and 22 long guns flanking each side. In front of the racks were boxes of ammunition — thousands of rounds were recovered — and a crossbow. Bullets were loose in bags, as well as still packaged in boxes."
Now let's switch to more palatable surrealism: I ran across this assemblage of '30 surreal photos' while I was clearing out/sorting my emails at work–Wayne had sent me the link in a 2012 email, noting that he liked this photo:
While I found many of the "surreal" photos to be too contrived – I like the ones where a simple alteration of one's perspective reveals a glimpse of other-worldliness (see "Towering", among others) – I agree with Wayne, I love the swallows photo. For more of photographer Keith Williams' bird photos, I highly recommend checking out his gallery – makes a nice palate-cleanser.
This is our daily open thread – go ahead, speak up!


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Dulce de Mora
The weather is defrosting, but I spent Sunday half inside my freezer where I found the nearly forgotten bag of moras. Also called Andean blackberries, moras are a little more tart, firmer, and brighter than the blackberries commonly found in the US. I'd picked them up in an amazing Latin American market in Jackson Heights. Well-stocked with incredible variety but hard to get to, I brought back as much as I could carry. A few months later, I've barely made a dent in the frozen guavas, jarred loroco, or guasca leaves I stockpiled. I was looking to change this and remembered a dessert my friend's mother, Mari Ines, made when she was teaching me how to make ajiaco Bogotano. In the time it took her to finish the ajiaco, she simmered the berries in syrup and served them with queso fresco. After calling Mari Ines for the recipes and ratios, I quickly made it for friends that night. There are so many things I'm looking forward to this summer, but in these in between days, it felt good to take advantage of what I already had. Read more


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HaysMed Hosts Diabetes Symposium 2016 for Health Professionals
HAYS, Kan. (Oct 31, 2016) – Hays Medical Center will host Diabetes Symposium 2016, continuing education program for health professionals, on December 6 from 9:00 am 4:00 pm. The program will be held at the HaysMed Hadley Conference rooms, 2220 Canterbury, Hays, Kansas.
Speakers for the program include Carmen Winder, MS, RCEP, Cardiac Rehab, HaysMed; David Robbins, MD, Endocrinology, University of Kansas Hospital; Andrea Harmony, MS, BS, Clinical Dietitian, HaysMed; Tara Roa, PA-C, CDE, Medical Specialists, HaysMed; and Liz Barron, Clinical Pharmacist, University of Kansas Hospital.
Topics to be covered on diabetes will consist of: physiology of exercise with diabetes, macro and micro vascular complication of diabetes, motivational interviewing techniques with diabetes patents, appropriate insulin based carbohydrate count and identify current medication related to diabetes.
The program is designed for Physicians, PAs, APRN's, Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Social Workers, PTs, OTs, and other interested Healthcare Professionals. All participants are required to complete and sign a "verification of attendance" form. After the program, a certificate of completion will be provided to activity participants based on documentation of actual attendance time.
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of the University of Kansas Medical Center Office of Continuing Medical Education and Hays Medical Center. The University of Kansas Medical Center Office of Continuing Medical Education is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The KU Medical Center Office of Continuing Medical Education designates this live activity for a maximum of 5.5AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
HaysMedicalCenter is approved as a provider of continuing nursing education by the Kansas State Board of Nursing. The course offering is approved for 5.5 contact hour applicable for RN or LPN re-licensure. Kansas State Board of Nursing Approved Provider Number: LT0021-1138.
The Hays Medical Center Respiratory Care Continuing Education Evaluator on behalf of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has approved this program 5.5 CRCE Hours. Providership No. 004
Paperwork will be provided to submit to KOTA and KPTA for credits.
An application has been submitted to ASRT. Approval is pending.
Ellis County EMS is an approved as a provider of continuing education for Emergency Medical Personnel. The course offering is approved for 5.5 contact hour applicable for all EMS recertification. Approved Provider Number: pp5800
The fee is $30 for CAH hospitals and $60 for non HMC Associates. There is no fee for HaysMed, Pawnee Valley Community Hospital and St. Rose Health Center Associates.
To register go to www.haysmed.com/education or call 1 (800) 248-0073 Ext 5500. or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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I don't plan to put anything new up, for reasons explained on the main blog. I was going to link to some mods I'd created that weren't published on modthesims2 or sexysims2 because by that time they were more interested in deleting my posts, but I don't see the point. I've set the record straight. If people want to ignore the truth, that's their problem. They can live blind, if they like. Done and Dusted. I'll leave the rotten pickings to the vultures.
Recent Posts
- Abortion Clinic Mod (Sims 3)
- About
- Forbidden Mods? Who says?
- Hospital Mod (note: not the same as ripped off version)
- How To Mod The Sims 3
- Inteen 3 running on Ambitions.
- Inteen 4 sims 4 Taboo version – Simsual Simcest
- INTEEN for SIMS 4 – teen pregnancy and marriage etc
- Labour Inducer AMB sims 3
- Polygamy (scripted version) Registry Office mod
- Reclamation
- Scripting Tutorial – Sims 3
- Sims 4 Inteen (teen pregnancy/marriage and up)
- Sims 4 Inteen on youtube
- Sims 4 No Jealousy
- Sims 4 Polygamy/Multiple marriages + Inteen
- Sims 4 Teen Woohoo/Pregnancy and Marriage Inteen
- Sims2StyleJealousy Mod (Sims 3)
- SuperScripts mod (which includes Miscarriage Mod)
- The Missing Mods (Get Naked/Preg Control)
- The Sordid filthy ugly truth about Stuart Stanfield (allegedly a convicted paedophile) owner of ModTheSims2
- Miscarriage Mod and more
- A Sims 3 Site
- Abortion Clinic Mod (working with Ambitions)
- Aislee
- Clothing menu mod (Getnaked) working AMB
- Creator of some of the best clothes for Sims 3
- Facebook page (new)
- Give Birth Now (Labour inducer mod AMB) A simple mod to force labour
- LongTermPregnancy10days AMB (with big puddle waterbreak)
- My old toddler skilling mods (they work with Ambitions) These work with Ambitions and increase skilling speed for teaching todders potty, walking, talking by ten.
- Pregnancy Control (working with AMB)
- RockChickSims.Com (For folk who still play Sims 2) Site of the creator of some of the most beautiful sims.
- Twitter @Darkpool_1
- Weather in Sims 3 (Rain and Snow; well, sort of) A post on how you can get weather in Sims 3, before Sims 3 Seasons comes out. :)
- Where to get Teen Maternity Clothes for Sims 3
Where To Get The Mods
- Facebook page (New mods online here) You'll find all my new and old mods here


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Fed Stands Pat: Keeps Stimulus At $85 Billion Per Month
The Federal Reserve Wednesday maintained its quantitative easing program at $85 billion per month to stimulate the U.S. economy and provide liquidity to markets, while also maintaining short-term interest rates.
In its statement, the central bank said, "Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in May suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Labor market conditions have shown further improvement in recent months, on balance, but the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending and business fixed investment advanced, and the housing sector has strengthened further, but fiscal policy is restraining economic growth. "
The Fed added: "Partly reflecting transitory influences, inflation has been running below the Committee's longer-run objective, but longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable."
In the institutional investor community, the "hawks" argued that the Fed should have started to reduce its quantitative easing program this month, saying it artificially depressed interest rates and distorted prices in the stock, bond and commodity markets.
Conversely, the "doves" argued that the Fed should have maintained or even increased its securities purchases at this juncture, saying the program has not only provided vital liquidity to credit markets but also injected much-needed stimulus at a time when fiscal stimulus has been absent because of U.S. and European austerity programs.
Has the Fed's extraordinary monetary stimulus program -- started at the outset of the global financial crisis – succeeded? Many economists and social scientists argue it's too soon to tell, and that the ultimate assessment may depend on one's ideology or perspective.
For conservatives, the Fed's quantitative easing program has underperformed, as it has not produced a robust U.S. economic recovery -- with the current one being the weakest in the post-World War II era.
For liberals and progressives, the Fed's stimulus program has succeeded, as the intervention, combined with a series of other actions, prevented a catastrophe: a refreezing of the credit markets after the Lehman Bros. failure four years ago. Some economists and analysts argue the U.S. and even the global financial system would not have survived if the Fed and its companion central banks -- including the European Central Bank, Bank of England and the Bank of Japan -- had not intervened.
© Copyright IBTimes 2023. All rights reserved.


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Our Bad GUY Best Buy Parody Shirt is perfect for any occasion Birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Valentine's Day, Anniversary, and as everyday gift idea. There is nothing like a thoughtfully chosen funny gift for a Boyfriend, Father, Brother, Uncle, Naphew, Grandfather, Neighbour, Friend to make.
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If you live, as I do, near the suburban New York town of Chappaqua, and if you like the local French bistro, Jardin du Roi, the odds are good you will see former U.S. President Bill Clinton there.
It's a little like seeing a UFO or a unicorn, something you've heard about for years but thought…nah…not in my lifetime.
On our last visit, a few weeks ago, he was sitting at the corner table of this quiet, unpretentious bistro, run by a mid-life career changer named Joe, with two delicious blondes, women somewhere near his age. Knowing the deal, I asked my husband — who spent eight years in the White House Press Corps as a New York Times photographer, and who has met Clinton in that capacity — where's his security detail?
Are there Secret Service agents who look like models?
It's the second time we've seen him there. The first was decidedly odd, as he stood in the very narrow doorway to the restaurant — a large, bulky agent standing visibly a few feet away that time — and held forth to a rapt audience for a long time. His zeal for conversation was legendary when he was in office, but you might expect that of a politician who, in some measure, is always campaigning.
In private life, not so much.
It is a strange, if interesting, moment when you encounter someone so iconic in the flesh. After seeing thousands of images for decades, there they are!
I followed Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip around Canada for two weeks on their 1984 Royal Tour, and the cognitive dissonance was even greater. As a Canadian, I grew up with her image on our coins and stamps and, suddenly, right in front of me, there she was.
Not only was she a living, breathing woman, she was surrounded by an eddying sea of equerries and ladies-in-waiting. Not to mention her security detail, which included a devastatingly handsome Glaswegian in tweed and her bodyguard, a quiet, small man people referred to only as The Detective.
We watched an excellent two-part documentary on Clinton this week, on PBS show, The American Experience; if you ever wanted to know more about this man, or how American politics shape a President once he's in office, I highly recommend it.


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Ferdinand I
Ferdinand I or Ferdinand the Great, d. 1065, Spanish king of Castile (1035–65) and León (1037–65). He inherited Castile from his father, Sancho III of Navarre, conquered León, and took parts of Navarre from his brother García. Ferdinand fought successfully against the Moors and reduced to vassalage the Moorish kings of Zaragoza, Badajoz, Seville, and Toledo. At the Council of Coyanza (1050) he confirmed the laws of Alfonso V and introduced church reforms. He divided his kingdom among his sons: Castile went to Sancho II, León to Alfonso VI, and Galicia to García.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Spanish and Portuguese History: Biographies


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To Englishmen
Written when, in the stress of our terrible war, the English ruling class, with few exceptions, were either coldly indifferent or hostile to the party of freedom. Their attitude was illustrated by caricatures of America, among which was one of a slaveholder and cowhide, with the motto, "Haven't I a right to wallop my nigger?"
You flung your taunt across the wave
We bore it as became us,
Well knowing that the fettered slave
Left friendly lips no option save
To pity or to blame us.
You scoffed our plea. "Mere lack of will,
Not lack of power," you told us
We showed our free-state records; still
You mocked, confounding good and ill,
Slave-haters and slaveholders.
We struck at Slavery; to the verge
Of power and means we checked it;
Lo!–presto, change! its claims you urge,
Send greetings to it o'er the surge,
And comfort and protect it.
But yesterday you scarce could shake,
In slave-abhorring rigor,
Our Northern palms for conscience' sake
To-day you clasp the hands that ache
With "walloping the nigger!"
O Englishmen!–in hope and creed,
In blood and tongue our brothers!
We too are heirs of Runnymede;
And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed
Are not alone our mother's.
"Thicker than water," in one rill
Through centuries of story
Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still
We share with you its good and ill,
The shadow and the glory.
Joint heirs and kinfolk, leagues of wave
Nor length of years can part us
Your right is ours to shrine and grave,
The common freehold of the brave,
The gift of saints and martyrs.
Our very sins and follies teach
Our kindred frail and human
We carp at faults with bitter speech,
The while, for one unshared by each,
We have a score in common.
We bowed the heart, if not the knee,
To England's Queen, God bless her
We praised you when your slaves went free
We seek to unchain ours. Will ye
Join hands with the oppressor?
And is it Christian England cheers
The bruiser, not the bruised?
And must she run, despite the tears
And prayers of eighteen hundred years,
Amuck in Slavery's crusade?
Oh, black disgrace! Oh, shame and loss
Too deep for tongue to phrase on
Tear from your flag its holy cross,
And in your van of battle toss
The pirate's skull-bone blazon!


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|What can you do about deer getting into the garden and eating it?
|Deer are a big problem for gardeners in many areas of the country. While there are a plethora of home and commercial remedies and deterrent methods available, it can be hard to differentiate between them and know the best overall strategy to use.
One group that has been researching deer damage on its property for more than 20 years is the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. The institute?s mission is to create and disseminate information on maintaining healthy ecosystems. Deer browsing is having a detrimental impact not only on gardens, but on forest ecosystems as well.
The Institute has been monitoring deer damage on almost 2000 acres to determine preferred plant species and the effectiveness of various home and commercial products and methods for deterring deer. They've found that deer change their diet seasonally, eating broadleaf evergreens (such as rhododendrons) and conifers in winter, but ignoring them in summer in favor of more succulent plants, such as hydrangeas, weigela, and mock orange.
They've found that scent-based repellents work best when used before browsing begins and when used in abundance to overwhelm an area with a scent. The most effective approach is to combine scent and taste deterrents, however if your area is experiencing a combination of drought, poor tree nut production, and high numbers of deer, you're likely to find deer damage no matter what you do.
For information on controlling deer damage, types of fences to use, and perennial and woody landscape plants least likely to be browsed by deer, go to: Institute of Ecosystem Studies. http://www.ecostudies.org/gard...
The bottom line is that if deer are hungry enough, they'll eat anything and the only guaranteed method is a suitable fence. Good luck!


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Morning Minutes: Sept. 3
Word of the Day
Advise ud-VYZE (verb) To give advice to; counsel; inform, notify; consult, confer - www.merriam-webster.com
Website of the Day
Teachers may not love these rating sites, but students seem to have no problem leaving feedback. Students rate professors on ease, interest, helpfulness and overall quality. Professors from certain colleges are more likely to receive multiple ratings.
Number to Know
7.6 million: Number of workers who hold down more than one job. So-called moonlighters make up 5 percent of the working population. Of these, 4 million work full time at their primary job and part time at their other job. – Census.gov
This Day in History
Sept. 3, 2004: Beslan school hostage crisis: Day 3: The Beslan hostage crisis ends with the deaths of more than 300 people, more than half of which are children.
Today's Featured Birthday
Olympic snowboarder Shaun White (24)
Daily Quote
"God sells us all things at the price of labor." - Leonardo da Vinci