by Victor Davis Hanson Pajamas Media January 19, 2010
It’s the Lying, Stupid?
“Lie” is a rather harsh word; the noun and its verb form leave little to context or extenuating circumstances. So I use it sparingly.
But I know no other word for President Obama’s long string of “misstatements,” especially the blatant ones about closing Guantanamo within a year of his inauguration or serially declaring that he would insist on healthcare debate airing live on C-SPAN.
Let Us Count the Ways
1) The bait and switch lies.
2) The “noble” lies.
3) Tactical Lies.
4) The Deadline Lies.
The Catalysts for Such Prevarications?
1) Habit.
2) Morality.
3) Squaring Circles.
4) Personal Confusion.
But what is taking Obama down below 50% approval is mostly a public awareness that they elected a deeply cynical man, who either cannot or will not speak the truth or keep his promises (note the Nixonian resonance in “perfectly clear about…”). In fact, it is worse than that — in the postmodern world of Barack Obama there is no truth per se, just competing narratives privileged by the relative degree of power behind them and the relative perceived moral intent involved.
In sum, the thinking goes, we need to gather more information, then work harder to connect the dots.
Those impulses are understandable, but they miss the most important problem. From studying many individual cases, and conducting detailed post-mortems of US intelligence failures in the cases of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, I have found that many common assumptions about why our intelligence fails are misguided.
Open Source On the Table
The problems with our intelligence system aren’t primarily problems with information. They are problems with how we think.
(Associated Press Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LYON, France_Interpol has seen no proof so far that terror groups like al-Qaida are profiting from big-money ransoms paid out to pirates operating off eastern Africa, the international police group's No. 2 said Tuesday.
Jean-Michel Louboutin spoke to The Associated Press as Interpol opened a closed-door, two-day conference at its Lyon headquarters on tackling the money trail in piracy.
Interpol will create a task force to crack down on maritime piracy “in all its facets,” said Interpol Secretary-General Ronald K. Noble in a statement Tuesday. It did not elaborate.
Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People
Featuring more than 100 contemporary design products and systems–safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls–that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world's biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways–for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of “stuff creators.” Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action,
Amazon Page
Design for the Other 90%
Of the world s total population of 6.5 billion, 90%, have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% explores more than thirty projects which reflect the growing movement among designers, engineers, students and professors, architects, and social entrepreneurs to design low-cost solutions for this other 90%. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition on view at the Smithsonian s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Design for the Other 90% highlights a wide variety of design innovations that address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the world s poor and marginalized.
Amazon Page
Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises
The greatest humanitarian challenge we face today is that of providing shelter. Currently one in seven people lives in a slum or refugee camp, and more than 3,000,000,000 people–nearly half the world's population–do not have access to clean water or adequate sanitation. The physical design of our homes, neighborhoods and communities shapes every aspect of our lives. Yet too often architects are desperately needed in the places where they can least be afforded. Edited by Architecture for Humanity and now in its third printing, Design Like You Give a Damn is a compendium of innovative projects from around the world that demonstrate the power of design to improve lives. The first book to bring the best of humanitarian architecture and design to the printed page, Design Like You Give a Damn offers a history of the movement toward socially conscious design, and showcases more than 80 contemporary solutions to such urgent needs as basic shelter, healthcare, education and access to clean water, energy and sanitation.
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.
Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”?
If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I'm just saying: Not how I roll.
You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings — just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
