Topic du jour - Swine Flu

The latest news, as far as I know:

• The first confirmed US fatality from swine flu.
  "A 22-month-old child from Mexico who was taken to Houston, Texas, for medical treatment is the first confirmed U.S. fatality from swine flu, health authorities said Wednesday.
  "The toddler was not a U.S. citizen, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Houston Department of Health and Human Services, adding she could provide no other details."
• First officially confirmed fatality in Mexico
  "The first officially confirmed fatality from the disease occurred April 13. Maria Adela Gutierrez died in the southern city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name.
  "Gutierrez was a door-to-door census-taker for the tax board, meaning she could have had contact with scores of people at her most contagious point, before being hospitalized."
  
  Also, from the same article, the beginnings (?) and a town that has been complaining since March:
  "With the death toll climbing, Mexican authorities at the center of an international swine flu epidemic struggled Monday to piece together its lethal march, with attention focusing on a 4-year-old boy and a pig farm.
  "The boy, who survived the illness, has emerged as Mexico's earliest known case of the never-before-seen virus, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said Monday. It provides an important clue to the unique strain's path."
  
  "In Perote, residents of the hamlet known as La Gloria have complained since mid-March that contamination from the pig farm was tainting their water and causing respiratory infections. In one demonstration in early April, they carried signs with pictures of pigs crossed out with an X and the word "peligro" -- danger. Residents told reporters at the time that more than half the town's 3,000 inhabitants were sick and that three children under the age of 2 had died."

But, there's an alternative explanation offered in the article:

The infection may have started with a migrant farmer who returned from work in the U.S. and gave the disease to his wife, who in turn passed it on to other women in the community.

Remember, you can't get swine flu from eating pork products, and Israel flip-flopped on the Kosher label [initially saying "swine flu" was not a Kosher name, they encouraged the term "Mexican flu." After diplomats expressed some misgivings, Israel reversed course and "deems 'swine flu' kosher after all".].

For more information and background, I encourage you to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Key Facts About Swine Influenza (Swine Flu)".

The Land of No Smiles

See photos from a photographer who posed as a businessman and traveled to North Korea.
From Foreign Policy: The Land of No Smiles

Renowned documentary photographer Tomas van Houtryve entered North Korea by posing as a businessman looking to open a chocolate factory. Despite 24-hour surveillance by North Korean minders, he took arresting photographs of Pyongyang and its people—images rarely captured and even more rarely distributed in the West. They show stark glimmers of everyday life in the world’s last gulag.

Weekend Reads: 04/25/2009

DoD
Their Government at Work: (Chinese?) Hackers Steal terabytes worth of information from the U.S. relating to the new Joint Strike Fighter

President Obama
The President's Bad Move regarding Banking Executives

President Obama did the political equivalent of asking his mother-in-law how much he owed her for Thanksgiving dinner — and moved the discussion away from social responsibility, and into the pay-for-effort market, where the negotiations for spoils now dominate the discourse.

Interrogation Methods
Much media of late has been discussing the recently declassified and released memos relating to the issue of "harsh interrogation techniques," and the U.S. use of waterboarding on individuals who planned the 9/11 attacks. Below are some key resources that have been released. Take some time to get familiar with the actual source material; then perhaps we'll have a discussion here of what the reports say vs. what the media reports vs. public perception vs. your opinion. Or something like that.

• “Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody” (263 pp.), compiled by the Senate Armed Services Committee in November but only released in April, may be found HERE.
• “Communist Control Techniques” (124 pp.), written by the CIA in 1956 and originally classified as Secret, may be found HERE. (This is the report cited in “In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use” (New York Times) available HERE.)
• An analysis of harsh interrogation technique legal rationale as prepared by the U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence available HERE.

Some suggested commentary on this issue:
Wall Street Journal Article

After analyzing the memos, David Rivkin and Lee Casey concluded in The Wall Street Journal, "The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from 'green lighting' torture--or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees--the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation."

The Heritage Foundation Article

Set the record straight; publish all key memos.

Karl Rove Note

"Decision to Release Interrogation Memos"
Read the documents provided below. "You'll be reassured about the precautions the Bush administration took to guarantee compliance with the federal prohibition on torture. You might even characterize its diligence as overcautious."

Blast from the Past
I think I mentioned in a different setting that we had recently watched some "old" movies, like Red Dawn, Hackers, and War Games. In War Games, if you recall, the kid hacks WOPR, plays a game--which turns out to be a DoD simulation, which nearly starts a nuclear war. Obviously there's more to the story (but I won't ruin it for you--go rent it), but it must have been a scary proposition for that time (as well as now) that someone could hack a government system and trick the U.S. into launching nuclear weapons based on false information. Well, you may not know that this nearly happened, for real.
Back in 1980, the U.S. "detected" nuclear missiles launched from submarines. B-52 bombers had their engines running, land-based missile crews were put on high alert, and the Pacific Command airborne command took off, to prepare to pass messages to U.S. warships. Although THIS REPORT doesn't say we actually got to the point where someone had to push the button, like "Leo's"

ASIDE:(I love how the stuff we watch is so related. The reluctant Air Force officer, John Spencer, in the movie later plays Leo in "The West Wing" TV series. Now, we watch a show with "Josh" from "The West Wing".)

dilemma in War Games. However, can you imagine coming that close to retaliating to a perceived nuclear launch, only to find out that there was a computer glitch?

Weekend Reads: 04/11/2009

Photo Gallery: Past and Present - The Queen of England with our U.S. Presidents

Op-Ed: Rove Says Obama "Keeping Score"

Op-Ed: Obama's Unreality Tour

The Courts: Judge "Angrily Throws Out [Sen. Ted] Stevens Corruption Verdict"

Video: Barney Frank Argues With Harvard Student

Homeland Security: Chinese, Russian Spies Penetrate U.S. Energy Grid

Homeland Security: Chinese Firms, False Companies, and Iran - Obtaining Nuclear Materials Through U.S. Banks (HERE, HERE, and HERE)

Homeland Security: Pilot Enters U.S. Airspace, Followed for Hours, Attempts Suicide by Fighter Plane

Business: Do As I'm Doing - Canadian Government Backs Warranties for GM, Chrysler

Do You Know Who's Advising Your President?

The Senate will meet to decide whether or not to confirm Harold Koh as Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State (DOS).

His nomination to this post has stirred quite the tempest in the blogosphere, HERE is just one example [a quite good one, I might add] of someone questioning Koh's suitability as the DOS Legal Adviser.

Koh caught my attention when he became the nominee for this position, and I recalled that I had read some of his articles for a paper I wrote relating to International Law. I was pretty sure I had argued against some of his positions in my paper [I'll have to dig it out and post it HERE], but my objections for the paper pale in comparison to Ed Whelan's (above) and to others (below).

Thanks to my RSS subscription to The Volokh Conspiracy, I learned about THIS post from Julian Ku, a Professor of Law at Hofstra University and former student of Koh.

Ku provides a list of "Ten Questions for Legal Advisor-Nominee Harold Hongju Koh." Here are a few of the questions:

• One your predecessors, William Taft, argued that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was legal under international law and offered a number of legal opinions to that effect during his tenure. Do you agree with his interpretation of international law governing the use of force in Iraq?
• You have argued in your writings that transnational legal processes can and should be used to develop and eventually “bring international law home” to have binding force within the U.S. legal system. Do you think it is appropriate as Legal Advisor to support such efforts to use litigation to incorporate international legal norms within U.S. law?
• According to newspaper reports, the U.S. government has been engaged in the use of covert military attacks in at least seven different countries, as part of the “global war on terrorism.” These attacks have included missile attacks in Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan. Such attacks, by U.S. Special Forces, were authorized by President Bush. Do you believe these attacks are lawful, under U.S. and international law?
• Recently, universal jurisdiction has been invoked in Spain to potentially prosecute six officials from the Bush administration for giving legal advice that allegedly sanctioned torture. Universal jurisdiction has also been the basis for or potential prosecutions of Israeli officials involved in military operations in the Gaza Strip. Given your past advocacy of transnational legal processes and the invocation of universal jurisdiction in the United States under the Alien Tort Statute, do you believe it is appropriate for Spain to open that investigation into U.S. officials? At what point would it be appropriate for the United States to protest such an investigation?

I think Ku asks some valid questions, and that other individuals have legitimate concerns about Koh's role as Legal Adviser.

We'll see how in-depth the Senate questions him, and if any of these questions come up. If your Senator serves on the committee that will question him, you might suggesting that s/he picks one or two to ask...

Some have noted that Koh will only be a legal adviser, and not a policy maker. Oh really? And where was that distinction during the "torture memo" scandal back in 2001/2002? But, I guess you're right: advisers only persuade the policy makers; they don't make any policy themselves... Oh wait, let's see what The New York Times Editorial for March 26, 2009 says. Granted, they're talking about the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that advises the President in legal matters; but I think that aptly compares to the Legal Adviser to the DOS, which advises State Department officials in legal matters:

The Office of Legal Counsel is little known to the public, but it plays an important role in guiding national policy. As the legal adviser to the executive branch, it informs the White House and the agencies about what the law requires — and what it prohibits. The office was thrust into the limelight a few years ago when word leaked out of an O.L.C. torture memo that cleared the way for horrific forms of interrogation.
(emphasis added)

Not a Bow*

* Any by "not a bow," we mean, "indeed, a bow."

In honor of alternate-reality footnotes:

According to an unnamed White House aide, President Obama did not bow to the Saudi leader. I'm not sure who the Obama Administration thinks they can fool; but maybe I need to get my glasses checked.

Watch the video, and tell me what you think:

Liar, liar, pants on fire...

According to an article in today's Washington Post, five OPM investigators have pleaded guilty to falsifying Security Clearance reports.

One investigator admitted he lied in 30 of 67 background investigations [wow!]. Another said he lied in a dozen. Sometimes investigators conducted cursory interviews of just a few minutes, too truncated to gather meaningful information about applicants' potential drug use, associations, foreign travel and loyalty.

"This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed [you think?!]," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellen Chubin Epstein said during the February sentencing of an investigator, the same day two others pleaded guilty in the same District federal courthouse. In court papers in another case, Epstein wrote that such lax investigations "can pose a serious risk to national security."
[interjections my own

Thankfully,

Federal authorities said they do not think that anyone who did not deserve a job or security clearance received one or that investigators intentionally helped people slip through the screening. Instead, law enforcement officials said, the investigators lied about interviews they never conducted because they were overworked, cutting corners, trying to impress their bosses or, in the case of one contractor, seeking to earn more money by racing through the checks.

[emphasis added. So, money was the only motivation behind these lies?]

We'll see where the next few months take us. In the words of Kenneth M. Mead, quoted in the article,

"I am astonished."

When Up Really Means Down*

Stumbled across this post the other day:
"Driving increases* in metro area (* actually decreases)"

Apparently, the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance released a report that stated that "more people drive, while fewer walk, bike and ride public transit."

However, as reported at Greater Greater Washington, this report contained a long footnote explaining that the data actually shows the opposite of the report findings.

Gotta love it.

The GGW.org article states:

Here's the email. The table claims driving increased from 81.3% of trips to 83% between 1994 and 2007/2008. The footnote, however, states that, "The geographical boundaries of the 2007/2008 and 1994 studies differ slightly. When the 1994 boundaries are used for both samples, the 2007/2008 results" show auto use declining to 80.3%.
The actual results from the survey, the Household Travel Study, are very interesting.

Reminds me of some other statemens we're hearing in the news - like how we have no desire to bloat bureaucracy but we're going to hire thousands of new federal employees; or how no lobbyist will work in an Obama White House, but they do.

Yeah, just what I thought. I guess Up really does mean Down these days*.

* [Enter your own footnote in the comments.]

Crossposted at RedState.

More fodder for TOTUS

From The Washington Times website, contributor Joseph Curl writes "In France, Obama takes no questions from French" (my emphasis below):

President Obama held a much ballyhooed town hall in Strasbourg, France, on Friday, touted by the White House as an outreach to Europeans on the second leg of the president's "listening" tour.

But the first person he called on was an American -- and the third, too. By the end of the hourlong session, not a single French citizen got to ask the U.S. president a question.

In all, Obama took just five questions from the thousands of people packed into a sports arena after delivering a lengthy speech read from a teleprompter. And the query topics were on the light side; one asked about the expected acquisition of a family dog, another about whether "you regret to have run for presidency."

The president had opened his remarks by saying he had come to "take some questions."

Have at it, TOTUS.

Give the Queen a Present

In light of the Obama's presenting the Queen with an iPod "loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as songs and accessories," states the New York Times. But they neglected to mention the best parts:

• Photos from President Obama's Inauguration
• Audio of then-state senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
• Audio of President Obama 2009 Inauguration Address

The Heritage Foundation held called "Give the Queen of England a New Present." Asking their readers questions like these ("Putting aside the fact that this gift very well could’ve been bought at the Duty Free shop at Heathrow Airport, it raises so many other questions. Does the Queen already own an iPod, given they have been widely and cheaply available for nearly a decade? [...] What do these symbolic gifts from the Obamas tell us about how they view the world and diplomacy?), Heritage offered a prize (not an iPod!) for the best gift suggestion.

The winners (they chose two, one each for a funny and thoughful gift) suggested the following:

“The Smithsonian has the original plaster molds of Abraham Lincoln’s hands from the day after his inauguration – customary at the time. The right hand is swollen from all his handshakes and is demonstrated in the casting. I suggest a mounted bronze copy of the pair of hands as the gift. It would be a reminder of the courage of leadership which the Queen and England has demonstrated as well as a reminder of the freedoms fought and died for.”

“President Obama could give the Queen GM since he has already given the Italians Chrysler.”

Some honorable mentions also made the results, HERE.

Other suggestions can be found HERE.

What would you have given the Queen?

The ODNI in the news

A report from the Inspector General relating to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) titled "Critical Intelligence Community Management Challenges" was recently release, amid some fanfare and lambasting.

According to the AFP, "US spy agencies are still hamstrung by the same turf battles and financial mismanagement that led to massive intelligence failures revealed by the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war, an internal report has found."

And the New York Times reports, "The report, by the inspector general, was the most detailed account to date of problems that bedevil America’s intelligence agencies more than four years after Congress and President George W. Bush created the director’s office to overcome weaknesses exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks."

Here's how some other people have summarized its contents:

Ongoing turf battles between intelligence agencies and a bloated bureaucracy point to key failings within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, says a report by its inspector general. And a survey found a majority of its employees “were unable to articulate a clear understanding” of its mission, roles and responsibilities," the IG says.

Chief deficiencies cited in report were "poor integration and barriers to information sharing," but there are other major findings in here related to financial management, acquisition oversight, etc.

The Director of National Intelligence has failed to exercise adequate leadership of the Intelligence Community (IC), which continues to suffer from poor integration, unjustified barriers to information sharing, and other defects, according to a remarkably critical November 2008 report of the Office of the DNI (ODNI) Inspector General that was released [recently].

The unclassified report, which is only 16 pages long, is available through the New York Times HERE, or through the Federation of American Scientists HERE, although I'm sure you can find it other places.

The report identifies the following as the most critical management challenges to the DNI:

1. Strengthening leadership and governance.
2. Accelerating progress in driving IC information sharing.
3. Removing impediments to IC collaboration and integration.
4. Improving financial management and acquisition oversight.
5. Resolving major legal issues.

Since I've been on a law kick recently (scroll through my shared items), and (most) everyone is encouraging me to prepare to go to law school, I was most interested by the fifth section pertaining to "major legal issues."

A paragraph from the document (emphasis mine):

Throughout our work we came across Intelligence Community leaders, operators, and analysts who claimed that they couldn’t do their jobs because of a “legal issue.” These “legal issues” arose in a variety of contexts, ranging from the Intelligence Community’s dealings with U.S. persons to the legality of certain covert actions. And although there are, of course, very real (and necessary) legal restrictions on the Intelligence Community, quite often the cited legal impediments ended up being either myths that overcautious lawyers had never debunked or policy choices swathed in pseudo-legal justifications. Needless to say such confusion about what the law actually requires can seriously hinder the Intelligence Community’s ability to be proactive and innovative.

First, the U.S. persons issue. Much ado was made about the PATRIOT Act, the FISA legislation, and the UK monitoring and storing social network traffic from sites like Facebook. Rightfully so, right? We don't like the idea of Big Brother, and we demand a right to privacy (even though it is not enumerated in the Constitution, but is instead a penumbra). I don't want to go any further with this U.S. persons thing right now; suffice it to say there are limits and/or restrictions as to what information can be collected and stored by government agencies on U.S. persons.

The second thing I found interesting about this paragraph was that, although legal restrictions exist, often the claim that legal reasons prevent analysts from doing their job are (institutional?) myths or pseudo-legal policy choices. I'm sure we've all run across these types of policy choices -- you know, where your organization's policy is that you do X, not because you (legally) have to, but because someone decided that it would be good policy, maybe out of a need to manage potential risk, and there is legal reasoning applied in abstract ways about why it's a good policy ... but it nevertheless falls under the category of a pseudo-legal policy choice. I was trying to think of some examples from previous jobs; if they're not too revealing I might post them here later as updates. Can you think of one?

[UPDATE: Being as vaguely descriptive as possible: Legal "requiring" you to put "disclaimers" on an email going out to a few individuals. The law does not require it; the email would not be illegal without it. But, just in case the email gets forwarded to a million people and your name is on it as the originator and the Federal commission that oversees this activity gets a complaint about the email and decides to investigate and decides to choose to apply a rule to an email that was distributed beyond the intent of the author, ... the organization's policy is to include the disclaimer.]

Last, I'm glad the writers of that paragraph realize that the IC needs to be proactive and innovative.

The report goes on to say, "U.S. persons rules are complicated, differ substantially between agencies, and pose significant impediments to analysts accessing intelligence possessed by other agencies."

Really? You mean to tell me this government rule or regulation is complicated and convoluted? Heaven forbid similar rules exist between different agencies performing the same task of collecting U.S. persons information... Out of the many things this report suggests should be fixed, this is one that I think is both troublesome and important. Troublesome because of the privacy issues; important because of the homeland security issues. And I'm not just talking terrorism here (although I'm sure that's a big part of it), but other homeland security issues like drug trafficking or human trafficking or other issues?
From CNET
From DNI



What do you think?


[update] DNI names new Inspector General, April 3, 2009. While this may look bad, the current DNI wasn't the subject of the November 2008 report. But still, kind of funny.

Talk about a lemon

Wow.
Thought I'd post some snips from this Morning Bell article:

As great of a lawyer, community activist, and law professor as President Obama may have been, when has he ever run any company or come up with a single business plan. Now he’s running General Motors? But Obama didn’t stop at auto company CEO:
No one can deny that our auto industry has made meaningful progress in recent years.

Some of the cars made by American workers are now outperforming the best cars made abroad. In 2008, the North American Car of the Year was a GM. … just in case there are still nagging doubts, let me say it as plainly as I can –- if you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty.

Did we elect a president or a car salesman? Problem is, when we let the government become a market participant, there is no difference. Hence the slew of other incentives Obama threw at the auto industry.

I agree with Heritage and Governor Romney: bankruptcy is the best policy for these automakers.

All your cars are belong to us.

Now the bastion of timeliness, personalized service, and quality known as the Federal government stands behind (and will administer?) your GM warranty. How much is that going to cost us?

What about my Toyota? Sure, it's a foreign auto maker, but Toyota has 13 manufacturing locations in North America and directly employees over 36,000 individuals in the US. I'd like my warranty to be "safer than its ever been" ... Right?

No, not really.
I'd like my government to keep out of corporations, especially to this degree.
White House tour, anyone?
From McClatchy.