James Hunt retrospective part 1 of 3

and part 2 and part 3. What, no part 3? Sorry, I can't seem to find it.

Well, here's this interview with Hunt from back in the day(from 1973, while still a comparative f1 neophyte. He won the World Championship in '76, and retired in '79.)

Space:1999 (1975 intro)

I remember, when I was 11 years old, watching the ads, probably including this one, on TV in San Antonio and looking forward to it because it I thought it looked exciting and interesting. Then when channel 12 finally started showing it and I finally got a chance to see it, I thought it was excessively cerebral and uninvolving, and, well, boring. Looking at this old "cold open" ad I realize how cheesy and ridiculous it must seem to a modern audience. If it no longer looks exciting and interesting to me I can only imagine how an 11 year old today might regard it.

bicycling fun

via salon.com

The ghost of Fred Marriott and other things...

Polish folk instrument sees revival
(01:47) Report
Apr 30 - A Polish artisan has reconstructed the prototype of a cord instrument used in the Middle Ages, but long since disappeared.

Proof of massive sea monster:(02:13) Rough Cut; Peter Parker reports.
Apr 3 - Just 800 miles (1287 km) from the North Pole, paleontologists believe they have found the fossilized remains of a massive sea monster that lived 150 million years ago.
Predator X -- a new species of a Pliosaur -- is said to have been the most dangerous creature to have lived under water. The creature was about 50 feet (15 meters) long, had a head ten feet (3 meters) long and jaws armed with teeth the size of cucumbers.

Dr. Jorn Hurum, and his team of paleontologists discovered Predator X in northern Norway last October and says the new species of a Pliosaur was more fearsome in power than the land-based Tyrannosaurus Rex.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. JORN HURUM, PALEONTOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF NORWAY

Cucumbers?



Steam car races toward record
(01:59) Report; Stuart McDill reports.

Apr. 24 - A British team is looking to beat a 103-year-old speed record with their steam powered car.

Ian Tomlinson: just passing through, 1 April 2009

also, from the Guardian, "G20 fatality: How police view of Ian Tomlinson death changed"



cross posted at Dead Horse.

More from Jim Rogers

More from Jim Rogers, this time sans bowtie:
"Britain & America have no clothes", part 1 of 3.

And, Part 2 and part 3.

I don't entirely agree with Rogers' views. For example, I think the massive US debt going forward means we do need to raise taxes on the wealthy to prevent stimulus-oriented public spending from causing inflation, and to prevent panicking foreign banks contemplating a possible collapse of the dollar.

In part two Rogers says, of the creditor-debtor relationship between China and the US, that

"it's the first time in history that an undeveloped nation financed a developed nation."

I don't know about that-- it seems to me that Europe and the US forced undeveloped nations to finance their growth, through the economic plunder of colonialism. But having said all that, there's still a lot of value to what he offers, and I think his misgivings about the bank bailouts are apt.

(Of course, as with any would-be economic sage-slash-teevee-talking head, it's useful to keep in mind how they might benefit or be hurt by different policies the government may take. This of course applies to Rogers, as well as Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan, etc. It's very much to Rogers credit that he readily talks about his investment in Asia in this regard.)

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Wednesday 17 Dec 2008

from "The BBC at work - Points of View, 1962", and...

the "FKN news" vs. Oliver Stone

from Elbert Ventura, Slate, "Why Hollywood Keeps Insisting That Bush Is Lovable":

The general intent of these depictions has been to cut Bush down to size, but there's an argument to be made that pop culture has not been up to the task of representing this president's momentous tenure. Our image of Bush via the movies has been stunted—he's a goofball, a bumbler, an amiable frat boy. In the days before 9/11, Iraq, and Katrina, that irreverent caricature may have sufficed. But just this summer we were subjected to the sight of Harold and Kumar toking up giddily with W.—this from a movie with the word Guantanamo in its title. As the weight of his eight years becomes fully felt in the slumping present, the question needs to be asked: Is Bush the buffoon the best Hollywood can do?

I must admit I haven't seen "W." Nevertheless, the ads on tv for it and the snippets on Slate and elsewhere make it look like it's pretty dreadful, like a film that was made by somebody who wouldn't allow the director of Natural Born Killers on the set.

I'm reminded a little of the SNL sketches with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and their supposedly eviscerating take on politics, in which overly broad smiles are supposed to indicate insincerity and, in recognizing this, we're supposed to admire their daring and roll on the floor with hyperventilating glee. I suppose the reason US popular culture has failed, thus far, to really take on the GWB era with satirical teeth is because such satire would have to address our collective complicity.

Anyway, somewhat coincidentally, I also chanced upon Deek Jackson and the (not-worksafe) FKN News recently, which in its coarse, overbroad way is a nice corrective to lame old Oliver Stone and his huggable George, jnr:


1.AMERICAN DREAM-DELUSION DEBT & DEATH




2. MORONS OVERRUN THE EARTH



correction: Deek, not Derek.

Triumph 2000

This is a 1949 Triumph 2000 roadster, a slightly more powerful version of the Triumph 1800 that preceded it. According to our wiki friends at Wikipedia, contemporary road tests of the 1800 and the 2000 indicated the clear superiority of the larger T2000 engine, as it could rocket off the line up to 60mph in under 28 seconds, whereas the 1800 required a little over 34 seconds to do so, and the 1800 could maintain a top speed of 75mph, while the 2000 could do 80.

Nevertheless I suspect that imposing a "hotrodcentric" preoccupation with acceleration numbers is probably missing the point with these cars, as they look truly charming. I also imagine they're a joy to drive on a sunny day in the country, especially if you're not afraid of a nonsynchro gearbox.

Voytek the bear

An amazing story from the BBC:

A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland - after fighting in World War II. The bear - named Voytek - was adopted in the Middle East by Polish troops in 1943, becoming much more than a mascot. The large animal even helped their armed forces to carry ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino. Voytek - known as the Soldier Bear - later lived near Hutton in the Borders and ended his days at Edinburgh Zoo. He was found wandering in the hills of Iran by Polish soldiers in 1943. They adopted him and as he grew he was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds. When Polish forces were deployed to Europe the only way to take the bear with them was to "enlist" him. So he was given a name, rank and number and took part in the Italian campaign. He saw action at Monte Cassino before being billeted - along with about 3,000 other Polish troops - at the army camp in the Scottish Borders. The soldiers who were stationed with him say that he was easy to get along with. "He was just like a dog - nobody was scared of him," said Polish veteran Augustyn Karolewski, who still lives near the site of the camp. "He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man."

Operation Ajax at 54

image via globalsecurity.org

In spite of his once having been chosen Time's man of the year, I'll bet most Americans don't know who Mohamed Mossadeq was. Likewise, I imagine most Americans don't know that British intelligence and our CIA overthrew Mr. Mossadeq after he nationalized Iran's oil companies and kicked BP out(the nerve!), forcing him out of office on August 19th, 1953, after he was democratically elected two years earlier, putting the Shah in his place.

Of course, given the general mendacity and sheer horribleness of most popular American news outlets, I can't entirely blame most Americans for being mystified by the question-- "why do they hate us?"

from wikipedia's entry on Operation Ajax:

The leader of Operation Ajax was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior CIA officer, and grandson of the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. While formal leadership was vested in Kermit Roosevelt, the project was designed and executed by Donald Wilber, a career CIA agent and acclaimed author of books on Iran, Afghanistan and Ceylon.

The CIA operation centered around having the increasingly impotent Shah dismiss the powerful Prime Minister Mossadegh and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans after careful examination for his likeliness to be anti-Soviet.

The BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the code word to start the coup.[1]

Despite the high-level coordination and planning, the coup d'etat briefly faltered, and the Shah fled Iran. After a short exile in Italy, however, the Shah was brought back again, this time through follow-up CIA operations, which were successful. Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mossadegh. The deposed Mossadegh was arrested, given what some have alleged to have been a show trial, and condemned to death. The Shah commuted this sentence to solitary confinement for three years in a military prison, followed by house arrest for life.

In 2000, the New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, "Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran – November 1952-August 1953." This document describes the planning and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names censored. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The complete CIA document ...[is now available on the web.] The word 'blowback' appeared for the very first time in this document.

[...]
In 2000, then. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted that the coup was a "setback for democratic government" in Iran.[2]

[1]BBC: "a very British coup"

[2]CNN:"U.S. Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran", 04-19-2000.


Of course, speaking of history lessons, it would've been nice if the democrats running for president had made a passing refrence to Mossadeq in the debate this weekend, but perhaps that's expecting too much. A time travel-fantasy-- not 54 years, just a few hours, and me there in the audience, being given a chance to speak(and actually being miked by the teevee networks): I would say, when they failed to see why I wanted them to mention Operation Ajax and Mossadeqh, "but what about timeliness, and relevance?" And I imagine HRC and Obama just staring at me while the crickets chirped. Then after a sufficient pause, they'd go back to talking about why we need to stay in Iraq longer, and their avoidance of reminding people of the "off-the-table" discussion with respect to Iran would have nothing to do with the possible embarassment of the confluence with this particular anniversary, and (the apparently diminishing)possibility that bigshot lefty blogger might mention it. Nothing at all.

Meanwhile-- I've been working, off and on, on a couple of longer pieces, including one on the apparent build-up to war with Iran, which I mean to post in 2 or 3 days.

Incidentally, I didn't know about the BBC's complicity until I worked on this post. The link above also has another audio link to a radio program(-me) about their involvement, which is about 25 minutes long and pretty interesting.

About the BBC's code word: it was used in a sentence in a time check at midnight-- in other words, every midnight the announcer would say, "the time is midnight," except when he gave the signal to start the coup by saying "the time is exactly midnight."

No, it is NOT Hammer time

Vast Left discusses MC Hammer's unfortunate "anti-war" song(via Avedon.):

If MC Hammer can help save our troops with his new video, "Bring Our Brothers Home," why should I quibble?

Well, because it's deeply dishonest.

Still, I agree with the chorus, which is actually pretty catchy:

Bring 'em home
Bring our brothers home
Too much dying
They've been gone too long
People crying
That this war is wrong
Right or wrong, it's time to come home

Also, the endless montage of war footage and flagged-draped caskets is quite moving. How could it not be?

Unfortunately, Hammer has been Hannitized for our mutually assured destruction.

I have to agree with "Vast Left." Hammer has bought in to the idea that domestic criticism of the war is "hating the troops." Another sample:

Man it must be hard
With all the things you're going through
Got the world on your shoulders
Everybody watching you
Keep us all safe
And out the same mouth we hate you.

and Hammer seems to be saying that the problem with the war was just that we stayed there too long:

You did what we needed
In our darkest hour
While our peoples was dyin'
In them burning twin towers
Never before have we seen it like this
The enemies we looking for
Was living in our midst
So we brought it to 'em
And we hit 'em where it hurts
Stuck they heads in the sand and knocked they dicks in the dirt
They know what it is, sir,
Job well done
Now pick up the phone and tell our boys
Come on home.

"Stuck they[sic] heads in the sand and knocked they[sic] dicks in the dirt, They know what it is, sir, Job well done?"

Apparently he's decided to be a racist to boot. Too bad. The title is "Bring Our Brothers Home," and you can look for it if you are determined; but like hell I'll embed the Youtube video here.

I wonder how many people will also decide, years down the road when(and if) the Iraq occupation is finally over, that it was the right thing to do, but we "just stayed over there too long." For all I know it may already be a common sentiment among the blood-n-guts crowd that keeps buying those damn bumper stickers. (If I displayed a bumper sticker that said "I support the troops, except the deranged and sadistic ones," I imagine I'd be compromising my safety, even though it strikes me as a pretty reasonable sentiment. What if I also specified "And I support extensive mental health treatment for the deranged ones?" No, I think it still would be unwise...)

Anyway: as I said the other day, our mass media operators seem pretty determined that people don't make connections and don't put the pieces together, and Hammer's view is tailor-made for giving a way for people to unreflectively square the sheer waste of the war with the aims of the once and future war machine. It's not that different, if you stop and think about it, from John Kerry's "message" in 2004 that the problem with the war was that it was prosecuted badly.

It wasn't always this way. Remember when Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won the lead acting Oscars for Coming Home? I'm not saying the Oscars are or ever were a meaningful measure of film art (clearly they're not, and if they ever manage to be it's only coincidentally so), but they are a measure of what the Hollywood elite holds up as valuable, and it's unimaginable that a film like Coming Home, were it made today, would receive that kind of conferred legitimacy. Today Hollywood courts Hillary Clinton and (to a lesser degree) Obama, with their "all options on the table" talk viz-a-viz Iran, and even in the last cycle they wouldn't touch Howard Dean when he still seemed viable in late 2003.

If you want another reason to see Hammer's view as small and mean, consider this, from another era:


(larger image here.) photo courtesy "Rom Tobbi"

(a total of about half a million soldiers died at Gallipoli in a few months' time, roughly half on each side, the British and French, and the Turkish. The custom of sending soldiers' bodies back to their home countries is a comparatively recent development. Incidentally the man who wrote the words fought there too.)

Jean Charles de Menezes

photos:reuters, daily mail(UK) of Charles de Menezes, and his mother Maria.


July 2005,from Wikipedia's entry:

Initially, police falsely claimed that he was wearing bulky clothing, had vaulted the ticket barriers and run from police. The government also issued information that he was staying in the UK illegally. It soon become clear that de Menezes did not vault and run from the police, but police did not correct the misinformation until the correct information was leaked to the press. They later issued an apology, saying that they had mistaken him for a suspect in the previous day's failed bombings and acknowledging that Menezes in fact had no explosives and was unconnected with the attempted bombings.

August 21, 2005, from The Sunday Times,
Executed: "Anatomy of a police killing"

The real story of how an innocent man was shot by police is only now beginning to emerge. Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas investigates the accusations of incompetence and cover-up The day after Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police at Stockwell Underground station, his grieving relatives and one of his closest friends filed into a mortuary to identify his body. They found him covered in a thin sheet and his face, unmarked, was ghostly white.

Gesio de Avila, a friend and fellow worker, looked carefully over the body, confused by de Menezes’s peaceful repose. Where were the wounds from the seven bullets to the head that killed him?

“Every bit of colour had left his face, but apart from that it was normal,” de Avila said last week. “There was a bandage on his head behind his ear and when I looked closer, I realised what had happened. He had been shot several times in the back of the head. It was like he had been killed by bandits.”

wikipedia, cont'd:

...Later, a security agency source said: “This take-out is the signature of a special forces operation. It is not the way the police usually do things. We know members of SO19 have been receiving training from the SAS, but even so, this has special forces written all over it.” [1]

[1] Cusick, James. "A COVER-UP? AND IF SO ... WHY?", Sunday Herald, 21 August 2005. (expired link)

December 2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar was fatally shot at Miami International Airport by two United States of America Federal Air Marshals in similar circumstances.

BBC:"Probe after Miami airport killing"

Investigations have begun after US air marshals on board an American Airlines flight on Wednesday shot and killed a man who started acting suspiciously.

May 11th, 2007, CNN: LONDON, England (AP) --

No disciplinary action will be taken against 11 officers involved in a surveillance operation that ended in the death of a Brazilian man who was mistaken for a terrorist and gunned down in the subway days after the 2005 London transit bombings, a police commission said Friday.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head by Scotland Yard anti-terror officers as he sat on a London subway train July 22, 2005 -- two weeks after four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 commuters on three subway trains and a bus, and a day after a failed set of attacks.

Alvis TE-21

photo: the "mousehole"

Alvis was a British auto manufacturer(1919-1967). The TE-21 was one of their last models, built from 1963-66. Only 348 or 349 TE-21s were made.