Doctor Who is Back!!

I grew up watching the British Sci-Fi series Doctor Who on Public television. The show was axed from BBC's programming in 1989. It has been announced that the show is going to return to BBC. You can read more about it here. I just hope the new episodes will be made available in the United States.

Douglas Adams, famous for his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently series, is one of my favorite authors. He also wrote the screenplays for a few Doctor Who stories. They are The Pirate Planet, City of Death, and Shada. Unfortunately Shada was never completed. However, a flash animation version of the episode has been created and you can stream it from the BBC website. The animated version features the voices of Lalla Ward who played the character Romana in the original series and Paul McGann who played the Doctor Who's eight incarnation in the 1996 television movie.

UPDATE: Arts writer and Comedy Critic Brian Logan writes for the Guardian on what needs to happen for the return of Doctor Who to televison to be successfull. "If the return of Doctor Who is to be a success, then it needs to bring back a little piece of the 1960s with it. It's not that the oft-cited wobbly sets should be recreated. (And they're not always wobbly - you should watch The Robots of Death!) It's the spirit of wobbliness, the primacy of imagination over special effects, that counts." For the full article go here.

Framing the Dems

A new article by George Lakoff from American Prospect Magazine.

Framing the Dems
How conservatives control political debate and how progressives can take it back
George Lakoff

On the day that George W. Bush took office, the words "tax relief" started appearing in White House communiqués. Think for a minute about the word relief. In order for there to be relief, there has to be a blameless, afflicted person with whom we identify and whose affliction has been imposed by some external cause. Relief is the taking away of the pain or harm, thanks to some reliever.

This is an example of what cognitive linguists call a "frame." It is a mental structure that we use in thinking. All words are defined relative to frames. The relief frame is an instance of a more general rescue scenario in which there is a hero (the reliever), a victim (the afflicted), a crime (the affliction), a villain (the cause of affliction) and a rescue (the relief). The hero is inherently good, the villain is evil and the victim after the rescue owes gratitude to the hero.

The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. It presupposes a conceptual metaphor: Taxes are an affliction, proponents of taxes are the causes of affliction (the villains), the taxpayer is the afflicted (the victim) and the proponents of tax relief are the heroes who deserve the taxpayers' gratitude. Those who oppose tax relief are bad guys who want to keep relief from the victim of the affliction, the taxpayer.

Every time the phrase tax relief is used, and heard or read by millions of people, this view of taxation as an affliction and conservatives as heroes gets reinforced.

The phrase has become so ubiquitous that I've even found it in speeches and press releases by Democratic officials -- unconsciously reinforcing a view of the economy that is anathema to everything progressives believe. The Republicans understand framing; Democrats don't.

When I teach framing in Cognitive Science 101, I start with an exercise. I give my students a directive: "Don't think of an elephant." It can't be done, of course, and that's the point. In order not to think of an elephant, you have to think of an elephant. The word elephant evokes an image and a frame. If you negate the frame, you still activate the frame. Richard Nixon never took Cognitive Science 101. When he said, "I am not a crook," he made everybody think of him as a crook.

If you have been framed, the only response is to reframe. But you can't do it in a sound bite unless an appropriate progressive language has been built up in advance. Conservatives have worked for decades and spent billions on their think tanks to establish their frames, create the right language, and get the language and the frames they evoke accepted. It has taken them awhile to establish the metaphors of taxation as a burden, an affliction and an unfair punishment -- all of which require "relief." They have also, over decades, built up the frame in which the wealthy create jobs, and giving them more wealth creates more jobs.

Taxes look very different when framed from a progressive point of view. As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, taxes are the price of civilization. They are what you pay to live in America -- your dues -- to have democracy, opportunity and access to all the infrastructure that previous taxpayers have built up and made available to you: highways, the Internet, weather reports, parks, the stock market, scientific research, Social Security, rural electrification, communications satellites, and on and on. If you belong to America, you pay a membership fee and you get all that infrastructure plus government services: flood control, air-traffic control, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and so on.

Interestingly, the wealthy benefit disproportionately from the American infrastructure. The Securities and Exchange Commission creates honest stock markets. Most of the judicial system is used for corporate law. Drugs developed with National Institutes of Health funding can be patented for private profit. Chemical companies hire scientists trained under National Science Foundation grants. Airlines hire pilots trained by the Air Force. The beef industry grazes its cattle cheaply on public lands. The more wealth you accumulate using what the dues payers have provided, the greater the debt you owe to those who have made your wealth possible. That is the logic of progressive taxation.

No entrepreneur makes it on his own in America. The American infrastructure makes entrepreneurship possible, and others have put it in place. If you've made a bundle, you owe a bundle. The least painful way to repay your debt to the nation is posthumously, through the inheritance tax.

Those who don't pay their dues are turning their backs on our country. American corporations registering abroad to avoid taxes are deserting our nation when their estimated $70 billion in dues and service payments are badly needed, for schools and for rescuing our state and local governments.

Reframing takes awhile, but it won't happen if we don't start. The place to begin is by understanding how progressives and conservatives think. In 1994, I dutifully read the "Contract with America" and found myself unable to comprehend how conservative views formed a coherent set of political positions. What, I asked myself, did opposition to abortion have to do with the flat tax? What did the flat tax have to do with opposition to environmental regulations? What did defense of gun ownership have to do with tort reform? Or tort reform with opposition to affirmative action? And what did all of the above have to do with family values? Moreover, why do conservatives and progressives talk past one another, not with one another?

The answer is that there are distinct conservative and progressive worldviews. The two groups simply see the world in different ways. As a cognitive scientist, I've found in my research that these political worldviews can be understood as opposing models of an ideal family -- a strict father family and a nurturant parent family. These family models come with moral systems, which in turn provide the deep framing of all political issues.

The Strict Father Family
In this view, the world is a dangerous and difficult place, there is tangible evil in the world and children have to be made good. To stand up to evil, one must be morally strong -- disciplined.

The father's job is to protect and support the family. His moral duty is to teach his children right from wrong. Physical discipline in childhood will develop the internal discipline adults need to be moral people and to succeed. The child's duty is to obey. Punishment is required to balance the moral books. If you do wrong, there must be a consequence.

The strict father, as moral authority, is responsible for controlling the women of the family, especially in matters of sexuality and reproduction.

Children are to become self-reliant through discipline and the pursuit of self-interest. Pursuit of self-interest is moral: If everybody pursues his own self-interest, the self-interest of all will be maximized.

Without competition, people would not have to develop discipline and so would not become moral beings. Worldly success is an indicator of sufficient moral strength; lack of success suggests lack of sufficient discipline. Those who are not successful should not be coddled; they should be forced to acquire self-discipline.

When this view is translated into politics, the government becomes the strict father whose job for the country is to support (maximize overall wealth) and protect (maximize military and political strength). The citizens are children of two kinds: the mature, disciplined, self-reliant ones who should not be meddled with and the whining, undisciplined, dependent ones who should never be coddled.

This means (among other things) favoring those who control corporate wealth and power (those seen as the best people) over those who are victims (those seen as morally weak). It means removing government regulations, which get in the way of those who are disciplined. Nature is seen as a resource to be exploited. One-way communication translates into government secrecy. The highest moral value is to preserve and extend the domain of strict morality itself, which translates into bringing the values of strict father morality into every aspect of life, both public and private, domestic and foreign.

America is seen as more moral than other nations and hence more deserving of power; it has earned the right to be hegemonic and must never yield its sovereignty, or its overwhelming military and economic power. The role of government, then, is to protect the country and its interests, to promote maximally unimpeded economic activity, and maintain order and discipline.

From this perspective, conservative policies cohere and make sense as instances of strict father morality. Social programs give people things they haven't earned, promoting dependency and lack of discipline, and are therefore immoral. The good people -- those who have become self-reliant through discipline and pursuit of self-interest -- deserve their wealth as a reward. Rewarding people who are doing the right thing is moral. Taxing them is punishment, an affliction, and is therefore immoral. Girls who get pregnant through illicit sex must face the consequences of their actions and bear the child. They become responsible for the child, and social programs for pre- and postnatal care just make them dependent. Guns are how the strict father protects his family from the dangers in the world. Environmental regulations get in the way of the good people, the disciplined ones pursuing their own self-interest. Nature, being lower on the moral hierarchy, is there to serve man as a resource. The Endangered Species Act gets in the way of people fulfilling their interests and is therefore immoral; people making money are more important than owls surviving as a species. And just as a strict father would never give up his authority, so a strong moral nation such as the United States should never give up its sovereignty to lesser authorities. It's a neatly tied-up package.

Conservative think tanks have done their job, working out such details and articulating them effectively. Many liberals are still largely unaware of their own moral system. Yet progressives have one.

The Nurturant Parent Family
It is assumed that the world should be a nurturant place. The job of parents is to nurture their children and raise their children to be nurturers. To be a nurturer you have to be empathetic and responsible (for yourself and others). Empathy and responsibility have many implications: Responsibility implies protection, competence, education, hard work and social connectedness; empathy requires freedom, fairness and honesty, two-way communication, a fulfilled life (unhappy, unfulfilled people are less likely to want others to be happy) and restitution rather than retribution to balance the moral books. Social responsibility requires cooperation and community building over competition. In the place of specific strict rules, there is a general "ethics of care" that says, "Help, don't harm." To be of good character is to be empathetic and responsible, in all of the above ways. Empathy and responsibility are the central values, implying other values: freedom, protection, fairness, cooperation, open communication, competence, happiness, mutual respect and restitution as opposed to retribution.

In this view, the job of government is to care for, serve and protect the population (especially those who are helpless), to guarantee democracy (the equal sharing of political power), to promote the well-being of all and to ensure fairness for all. The economy should be a means to these moral ends. There should be openness in government. Nature is seen as a source of nurture to be respected and preserved. Empathy and responsibility are to be promoted in every area of life, public and private. Art and education are parts of self-fulfillment and therefore moral necessities.

Progressive policies grow from progressive morality. Unfortunately, much of Democratic policy making has been issue by issue and program oriented, and thus doesn't show an overall picture with a moral vision. But, intuitively, progressive policy making is organized into five implicit categories that define both a progressive culture and a progressive form of government, and encompass all progressive policies. Those categories are:

Safety. Post-September 11, it includes secure harbors, industrial facilities and cities. It also includes safe neighborhoods (community policing) and schools (gun control); safe water, air and food (a poison-free environment); safety on the job; and products safe to use. Safety implies health -- health care for all, pre- and postnatal care for children, a focus on wellness and preventive care, and care for the elderly (Medicare, Social Security and so on).

Freedom. Civil liberties must be both protected and extended. The individual issues include gay rights, affirmative action, women's rights and so on, but the moral issue is freedom. That includes freedom of motherhood -- the freedom of a woman to decide whether, when and with whom. It excludes state control of pregnancy. For there to be freedom, the media must be open to all. The airwaves must be kept public, and media monopolies (Murdoch, Clear Channel) broken up.

A Moral Economy. Prosperity is for everybody. Government makes investments, and those investments should reflect the overall public good. Corporate reform is necessary for a more ethical business environment. That means honest bookkeeping (e.g., no free environmental dumping), no poisoning of people and the environment and no exploitation of labor (living wages, safe workplaces, no intimidation). Corporations are chartered by and accountable to the public. Instead of maximizing only shareholder profits, corporations should be chartered to maximize stakeholder well-being, where shareholders, employees, communities and the environment are all recognized and represented on corporate boards.

The bottom quarter of our workforce does absolutely essential work for the economy (caring for children, cleaning houses, producing agriculture, cooking, day laboring and so on). Its members have earned the right to living wages and health care. But the economy is so structured that they cannot be fairly compensated all the time by those who pay their salaries. The economy as a whole should decently compensate those who hold it up. Bill Clinton captured this idea when he declared that people who work hard and play by the rules shouldn't be poor. That validated an ethic of work, but also of community and nurturance.

Global Cooperation. The United States should function as a good world citizen, maximizing cooperation with other governments, not just seeking to maximize its wealth and military power. That means recognizing the same moral values internationally as domestically. An ethical foreign policy means the inclusion of issues previously left out: women's rights and education, children's rights, labor issues, poverty and hunger, the global environment and global health. Many of these concerns are now addressed through global civil society -- international organizations dedicated to peacekeeping and nation building. As the Iraq debacle shows, this worldview is not naive; it is a more effective brand of realism.

The Future. Progressive values center on our children's future -- their education, their health, their prosperity, the environment they will inherit and the global situation they will find themselves in. That is the moral perspective. The issues include everything from education (teacher salaries, class size, diversity) to the federal deficit (will they be burdened with our debt?) to global warming and the extinction of species (will there still be elephants and bananas?) to health (will their bodies be poisoned as a result of our policies, and will there be health care for them?). Securing that future is central to our values.

These are the central themes of a progressive politics that comes out of progressive values. That is an important point. A progressive vision must cut across the usual program and interest-group categories. What we need are strategic initiatives that change many things at once. For example, the New Apollo Program -- an investment of hundreds of billions over 10 years in alternative energy development (solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen) is also a jobs program, a foreign-policy issue (freedom from dependence on Middle East oil), a health issue (clean air and water, many fewer poisons in our bodies) and an ecology issue (cleans up pollution, addresses global warming). Corporate reform is another such strategic initiative.

Promoting a Progressive Frame
To articulate these themes and strategic initiatives, using government as an instrument of common purpose, we have to set aside petty local interests, work together and emphasize what unites us. Defeating radical conservatism gives us a negative impetus, but we will not succeed without a positive vision and cooperation.

An unfortunate aspect of recent progressive politics is the focus on coalitions rather than on movements. Coalitions are based on common self-interest. They are often necessary but they are usually short term, come apart readily and are hard to maintain. Labor-environment coalitions, for example, have been less than successful. And electoral coalitions with different interest-based messages for different voting blocks have left the Democrats without a general moral vision. Movements, on the other hand, are based on shared values, values that define who we are. They have a better chance of being broad-based and lasting. In short, progressives need to be thinking in terms of a broad-based progressive-values movement, not in terms of issue coalitions.

It is also time to stop thinking in terms of market segments. An awful lot of voters vote Democratic because of who they are, because they have progressive values of one kind or another -- not just because they are union members or soccer moms. Voters vote their identities and their values far more than their self-interests.

People are complicated. They are not all 100 percent conservative or progressive. Everyone in this society has both the strict and nurturant models, either actively or passively -- actively if they live by those values, passively if they can understand a story, movie or TV show based on those values. Most voters have a politics defined almost exclusively by one active moral worldview.

There are certain numbers of liberals and conservatives, of course, who are just not going to be swayed. The exact numbers are subject to debate, but from talking informally to professionals and making my own best guesses, I estimate that roughly 35 percent to 39 percent of voters overwhelmingly favor the progressive-Democratic moral worldview while another 35 percent to 38 percent of voters overwhelmingly favor the conservative-Republican moral worldview.

The swing voters -- roughly 25 percent to 30 percent -- have both worldviews and use them actively in different parts of their lives. They may be strict in the office and nurturant at home. Many blue-collar workers are strict at home and nurturant in their union politics. I have academic colleagues who are strict in the classroom and nurturant in their politics.

Activation of the progressive model among swing voters is done through language -- by using a consistent, conventional language of progressive values. Democrats have been subject to a major fallacy: Voters are lined up left to right according to their views on issues, the thinking goes, and Democrats can get more voters by moving to the right. But the Republicans have not been getting more voters by moving to the left. What they do is stick to their strict ideology and activate their model among swing voters who have both models. They do this by being clear and issuing consistent messages framed in terms of conservative values. The moral is this: Voters are not on a left-to-right line; there is no middle.

Here is a cognitive scientist's advice to progressive Democrats: Articulate your ideals, frame what you believe effectively, say what you believe and say it well, strongly and with moral fervor.

Reframing is telling the truth as we see it -- telling it forcefully, straightforwardly and articulately, with moral conviction and without hesitation. The language must fit the conceptual reframing, a reframing from the perspective of progressive values. It is not just a matter of words, though the right ones are needed to evoke progressive frames.

And stop saying "tax relief."
George Lakoff

Copyright © 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: George Lakoff, "Framing the Dems," The American Prospect vol. 14 no. 8, September 1, 2003. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org.

Cheney Still Telling Lies, Americans are Still Stupid

A Boston Globe article reports that Vice-President Cheney is still claiming there is a link between Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. "We learn more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s," Cheney said, "that it involved training, for example, on [biological and chemical weapons], that Al Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems." It is widely agreed in the intelligence community that these links have been discredited long ago. Cheney is either completely senile or he is lying. Nevertheless, according to the article, 69 percent of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9-11 attacks. Incredible!
In a recent article in the Nation Eric Alterman quotes Arthur Miller in calling this "the power of audacity". Alterman writes:

Rather, to be an honest, objective and fair-minded reporter of the Bush Administration's policies requires pointing out repeatedly and without sentimentality that just about all the men and women responsible for the conduct of this nation's foreign (and many of its domestic) affairs are entirely without personal honor when it comes to the affairs of state. This simply isn't done in respectable journalism, and the Bush people understand that. Arthur Miller, speaking at a Nation Institute dinner last year, termed the willingness to use this kind of knowledge "the power of audacity."

Audacious is just the right word to describe this administration. They blatantly lie to the American people without a second thought. The press and until recently the Democrats have been too spineless to say a word about it. If the American people were at least half literate they would have read that the claims Cheney is making have discredited, but that would be too much effort for this anti-intellectual country of cretins. 69 percent! Still! The American people are stupid and deserve to lose their freedoms. Only problem is it will effect the minority of intelligent cititizens here. The time is rapidly coming where I will need to seriously consider leaving.

Chessgames.com

I heard about a great chess website from one of the players at the Utah Open called Chessgames.com. I had a completely mediocre result at the Open. I beat players rated lower than me and lost to players rated higher than me. I won my games with white and lost my games with black. My final score was 2.5 out of 5 games. The half point came as I took a bye in one round.
Chessgames.com is an online database of about 250,000 games. That isn't that amazing in and of itself but the features on the site are excellent. It has a nice search form to find games or players. You can look at player profiles including win percentage and the openings they most frequently play. The site has also added an openings explorer in which you can look at win, loss, and draw percentages for that a number of opening positions. To say the least it is a very useful site if you don't have a nice chess database program.

Bush Resignation Hailed by World Leaders

Published on Thursday, September 11, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Bush Resignation Hailed by World Leaders
by Greg Palast

The surprise resignation of the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, was hailed by chiefs of state throughout the world. Mr. Bush announced that after, "two years of bloodshed, economic devastation, and spreading fear in America and abroad," he saw no choice but to accept that, "I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I have proven unqualified."

The text of the former President's September 11 address to the nation follows:

"My fellow Americans:

I come to you tonight with a heavy heart. Two years ago today, thousands of innocent Americans were murdered by terrorist maniacs.

In the script I've been handed, I'm now supposed to tell you that America is safer today, and that the world is kinder and nicer and happier, because of I'm such a brilliant general in the War on Terror.

But who are we kidding? Yesterday, Osama released his new hit video. The terrorists are having a picnic ever since I turned over our foreign policy to Saudi Arabia and Exxon-Mobil.

And here's the point in my speech where my handlers would have me tell you about how I've been praying hard, making it sound like I just got off the phone with the Lord. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty darn offensive, downright blasphemous, to drag the Lord's name into every cheap campaign speech and chest-pounding war threat. Osama says he talks to God too. Let's leave Him out of the politics from now on, OK?

Look, in my speech this past Sunday, I used the word "democracy" about 11 times when talking about Iraq. It's democracy Florida-style, I suppose. Except we're not fixing the vote this time . we aren't letting these people vote at all. "Iraqis aren't prepared for democracy." That's what Dick Cheney and Saddam Hussein told me.

So we're blowing 100 billion bucks we don't have to colonize a country we don't want. Rummy tries to explain it to me each morning -- oil this and oil that -- but I just don't see it. And one of our kids dying there every day - where are their parents, anyway? My dad didn't let that happen - he got me out of the service. Didn't I look neat in that fly-boy suit?

And, let me tell you, I just looked at our nation's piggy bank. Uh-oh.

When I arrived, the last guy left me $4 trillion and said, "Be careful with all that cash in this neighborhood." Well, I have to level with you, America: it's all gone. The cupboard's bare and this year alone we blew half a trillion more dollars than we have in our bank account. Man, I can't believe I went through all that dough stone sober.

And what did we get for it? A Fatherland Security Department that's trying to read the labels on everyone's underpants. Think about it, all this Total Information Awareness KGB stuff: two years ago Americans were the victims - but my government has made Americans the suspects. I don't know about you, but this guy Ashcroft scares the bejeezus out of me.

And today I'm told that over nine million Americans are out of work. That's not so bad: I haven't done much work in my lifetime either. But my mama explained to me that not everyone's daddy can lend them an oil well to tide them over.

It's like I can't get anything right. The lights are going out in Ohio and the North Pole is melting. I don't get it. I appointed all those regulators that Ken Lay told me to, and I got rid of all the rules that got in the way of patriotic Polluter-Americans .. and what's the upshot? America the Beautiful is looking like she's had a pretty rough night. Won't be long before the whole country smells like Houston.

And now the stock market's floating face down in the swimming pool -- despite everything I've done for those guys on Wall Street. Even my plan to give every millionaire an extra million seems to have backfired. Greenspam says I've created "business risk." Says I spook investors. But when I asked Greenspam for a solution, all he did was hand me a bag of pretzels.

Hey, I can take a hint. OK, I'm over my head on this one. I look back over these last years, and what have I got to show you for it: two years of bloodshed, economic devastation, and spreading fear in America and abroad.

When I ran for this office, I said the issue was, "character." And just look at the characters around me. I've gotten all their resignations today. And while I've got some character left, here's my own good-bye note too. Let's face it: I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I have proven unqualified. You know it. And I know it.

It's at this point in the speech where I'm supposed to say, "And may God bless America." God better, because Dick Cheney won't. Don't panic: I'm not turning over this sacred office to Mr. Contracts-R-Us.

Instead, I've petitioned the United States Supreme Court to pick a President for us. Those guys picked the last one, why not the next one?

And so, my fellow Americans, you can take this job and .."

Here, Mr. Bush's words became unintelligible. As usual.

Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy'. Subscribe to his writings for Britain's Observer and Guardian newspapers, and view his investigative reports for BBC Television's Newsnight, here.

Geoff Hoon Under Fire

I have always thought Britain was like America, just not as bad. I spent a year there in Graduate school and very much liked the place. So if my little principle is right, and I am right that the justifications given in the US and in Britain for the invasion of Iraq were a pack of lies then we would expect the proverbial shit to hit the fan sooner in Britain. I wouldn't say it has necessarily hit in Britain, but things aren't smelling too good over there. The following story courtesy of The Independent.

Hoon 'misled Iraqi weapons inquiry'
By Gavin Cordon, Whitehall Editor, PA News

10 September 2003

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is facing accusations of giving "misleading" evidence to a Parliamentary inquiry into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it was reported today.

The London Evening Standard said that the Intelligence and Security Committee will find that Mr Hoon withheld evidence from their investigation when it delivers its report tomorrow.

It said that during a private hearing in front of the committee last July, Mr Hoon flatly denied there were concerns among Defence Intelligence Staff about claims made in the Government's dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The Hutton Inquiry into the death of Government weapons expert David Kelly has since heard evidence that two DIS officials registered formal complaints with their superiors about the way intelligence was used in the dossier.

The Evening Standard said that the committee would clear No 10 communications chief Alastair Campbell of charges that he was responsible for "sexing up" the Government's dossier to strengthen the case for war.

While the report will endorse the way the dossier was produced, according to the Evening Standard, it will say that the controversial claim that some Iraqi weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes should not have been included.

But it says that any errors in the dossier were due to honest errors or muddle.

Mr Blair's spokesman said: "The report will be published tomorrow and I do strongly suggest that everyone should wait for the full report.

"It is a very thoughtful, careful report and it's better to judge full reports rather than so called leaks."

When it was put to him that today's Evening Standard report carried a quote from a No. 10 official, the spokesman replied: "I don't recognise that quote, all I will say is we should wait for the full report - and not just out of respect for the work that has been done by the ISC but I think it's always a dangerous exercise to judge reports on leaks.

Mr Blair told the Commons this afternoon that it was "completely untrue" that anyone in Downing Street had put an account of the ISC report into the newspapers. He paid tribute to Mr Hoon, saying that under him British armed forces had won a "magnificent victory" in Iraq.

Mr Blair received the committee's report yesterday but the spokesman refused to comment on how widely it had been circulated within Downing Street.

According to the Evening Standard, Mr Hoon denied knowing of any concerns within DIS about the dossier despite a warning from a senior official that this issue was likely to be raised when he came before the ISC.

It quotes a memo from the deputy chief of defence intelligence Martin Howard, which stated: "The ISC is likely to probe the Secretary of State ... about the process through which members of DIS can express concerns about the misuse of intelligence."

It went on: "How should we respond? Recommendation: that the Secretary of State notes these concerns were fully aired as part of the process of reaching consensus within the DIS and within the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee)."

The ISC was said to have found that Mr Hoon's actions were "misleading" and "unhelpful".

Leaks from the ISC are rare. Unlike normal select committees, it operates within the "ring of secrecy" and reports to the Prime Minister rather than direct to the House of Commons.

Today's disclosures come the day after the report was handed to No 10 and will reinforce the impression that Mr Hoon is being lined up as the political "fall guy" in the Kelly affair.

Tory deputy leader Michael Ancram said No 10 appeared to be "manipulating" the ISC report for its own purposes and called for a leak inquiry.

"Such a leak is a very serious matter. Of all committees, the Intelligence and Security Committee is the only one whose reports have to be vetted, edited and censored by the Prime Minister before publication," he said.

"An urgent investigation must be instituted. Once again, the Downing Street machine appears to be manipulating reports of parliamentary committees."

He added that if the Evening Standard report was correct, it was "very serious" for Mr Hoon.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Menzies Campbell also warned that Mr Hoon's position in the Government was at stake.

"If these reports are true, then it is difficult to see how Mr. Hoon can survive," he said.

The MoD said: "We don't comment on leaks. The final version of the report is published tomorrow."

Last week the Hutton Inquiry heard evidence from his own special adviser that Mr Hoon was present at a meeting in the Ministry of Defence when the plan to confirm the scientist's name to journalists was discussed.

In his evidence to the committee, Mr Hoon had made no mention of the meeting, prompting speculation that he will be summoned back for further questioning when Lord Hutton begins phase two of the inquiry next week.

American Chess Queen Makes Smithsonian Article

Jennifer Shahade, 2002 US Women's Chess Champion, has made it into the prestigious Smithsonian Magazine. There is a very interesting article about the beautiful 22 year old champion in the August 2003 edition. Take a gander. Also interesting is an article about the author of the Smithsonian Magazine article Paul Hoffman on the Chessbase website.

The Great Hoax

"The great hoax which we are perpetuating every day of our lives is that we are making life easier, more comfortable, more enjoyable, more profitable. We are doing just the contrary. We are making life stale, flat and unprofitable every day in every way. One ugly word covers it all: waste. Our thoughts, our energies, our very lives are being used up to create what is unwise, unnecessary, unhealthy. The stupendous activity which goins on in forest, field, mine and factory never adds up to happiness, contentment, peace of mind, or long life for those engaged in it. Very, very few Americans enjoy the work they are obliged to perform day in and day out. Most of them look upon their work as stultifying and degrading. Few ever find a way out. The vast majority are condemned, just as much as any slave, any convict, any half-wit. The work of the world, as it is so nobly called, is performed by drudges. That so many of them are well-educated only makes the picture that much worse. How little it matters whether one be a lawyer, doctor, preacher, judge, chemist, engineer, teacher or architect. One might just as well have been a hod-carrier, stevedore, bank clerk, ditch digger, gambler or garbage collector. Who really loves what he is doing day in and day out? What holds one to job, trade, profession or pursuit? Inertia. WE are all locked together, as in a vise, feeding on one another, preying on one another. Talk of the insect world, by comparison we resemble their degenerate offspring!"
—From Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller

Geri's Game

On chessbase.com, I found a link to an excellent short animation film by Pixar Studios about an old man playing chess here. This is a great little short film. You will need the quicktime 5 viewer to watch it. You can download the quicktime viewer, if you don't already have it, for free at apple.com.

Democrats Victorious on Estrada

Miguel Estrada, one of Bush's nominees for the appeals court, has asked the president to withdraw his nomination. Estrada in my view and the view of the Senate Democrats that blocked his nomination is a right-wing ideologue. The debate on nominations goes like this. One side says the nominee is a ideologue and the other says he is highly qualified. One side filibusters to stop an inappropriate nominee and the other complains that the minority is blocking the will of the majority. I am happy that Estrada will not be a judge for the appeals court. I am ecstatic about it. I even wrote my Republican Senators in a futile attempt to get them to oppose Estrada's nomination. I am unhappy that selection process for judges is so partisan.

Depp Says U.S. Is Like 'Dumb Puppy,' 'Broken Toy'

I have always thought Johnny Depp was a good actor. I thought he did an excellent job in portraying Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Now I can see he also has political views I like.

The following story courtesy of Reuters.

Wed September 3, 2003 12:45 PM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Hollywood star Johnny Depp said on Wednesday the United States was a stupid, aggressive puppy and he would not live there until the political climate changed.

The 40-year-old actor, who stars in the "Pirates of the Caribbean," told the German news magazine Stern he was happier staying in the south of France with his wife, the French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis, and their two children.

"America is dumb, it's like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive," he said.

"My daughter is four, my boy is one. I'd like them to see America as a toy, a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out," said the star of the off-beat films "Edward Scissorhands" and "Dead Man."

Depp slammed George W. Bush's administration for its criticism of French opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

"I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots," he told Stern.

I am Back

I have decided to post on here again. I took pressure off of myself by deciding to post over at onegoodmove. Once I did that I found myself posting quite often. I may as well post here and just not put pressure on myself to post when I don't feel like it. For the moment I am going to double-post here and at onegoodmove.

Soft Self

"There is no self, if by self we mean some central cognitive essence that makes me who and what I am. In its place there is just the 'soft self': a rough-and-tumble, control-sharing coalition of processes—some neural, some bodily, some technological—and an ongoing drive to tell a story, to paint a picture in which 'I' am the central player."

—From "Natural-Born Cyborgs" by Andy Clark