Let's run the numbers

Oh, for the love of god... Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is attempting to surrender to US forces, according to a London-based Arabic newspaper. But Al-Sharq al-Awsat says the Americans have refused to arrest Mr Sahhaf - who became a familiar face during the war with his upbeat assessments of Iraqi military "successes" - because he does not appear on their "most wanted" list of 55 former regime officials. An Iraqi Kurdish official told the newspaper that Mr Sahhaf was staying at his aunt's house in Baghdad, and was under surveillance by US forces. Link That's gotta suck. You're the spokeman for the most powerful man in your country, your countries version of Ari Fleischer, then your world is turned upside-down. You have to move in with your family. OK, maybe its because your apartment building was bombed, and not because you lost your job. And you're so unpopular, you can't even get arrested!

Mr. Personality? I promised myself I wouldn't say anything about this. But, goddamnit, Monica Lewinsky? What were they thinking? What was she thinking? Obviously not thinking about "I would give anything to get my anonymity back." Of course, at this point, anonymity is out forever. May as well make money off of it. It just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. This may be a poor choice of words. I do find it mildly interesting that she's on Fox. No, I'm not going there.

Self-Abuse No, not in that way, get your minds out of the gutter. I worked out with a trainer tonight. Perhaps that accounts for my testosterone-charged mood. Now at home sipping a well-earned glass of scotch. Mrs. Datanerd prepared me a wonderful dinner with garlic greens and beef stir-fried. Sometimes life is very good. Here's a link to a FoodBlog that looks interesting. What, you don't know what garlic greens are? They're the beginning of garlic bulbs, harvested in the springtime before they form the bulb. Sort of look like green onions. Very tasty. Look at your gourmet or ethnic markets, or farmers markets. We found them at a Korean grocery store, Han Ah Reum . One of many wonderful vegetables we've found there, like sweet potato shoots, snow pea tops, and baby bok choy. Sometimes I think I may be more qualified to host a cooking show or critique restaurants than do political or economic commentary.

WMD? Apparently not. I'm not sure how much damage this will do to the administration's credibility. It's pretty much shot with me. At this point, I don't think we will ever find any appreciable amount of chemical weapons. I used to think that, yes, Saddam Hussein's a very bad man, and should be ousted. I just didn't trust this administration to not "fuck it up completely, totally, and utterly". So, what should we do now? Simple. Build democratic institutions, education, health care, public sanitation. Get the bureaucracy working again. Give the Ba'ath party a sponge Ba'ath (I slay myself!) and get the career civil servants back in their offices officiating. Impose a constitution separating church and state, outlawing military except for self-defense, and giving them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The biggest problem is that we don't have an emperor already existing there to sell it to the people...

Excuse me, are you clinically insane? Atrios has a link on his blog to Wolf Blitzer's CNN page , and his latest unscientific poll. The question of the day: Should the United States consider launching a pre-emptive strike against North Korea? The North Koreans have built tunnels under the DMZ, without us finding out for years. They managed to reprocess enough plutonium from when they defueled Yongbyon in the mid 1990's, without us knowing they were reprocessing. Even now, we do not know how many bombs they have, if they have any at all. Our spy satellites are formidable, but they cannot see underground. And you still want to launch a preemtive strike? Where do you hit? With what? And how do you know you got it? We have a big problem with intelligence when it comes to North Korea. There are not enough people in this country who speak Korean. If you are going to launch a preemptive strike, you have to make damn sure you get all of the weapons. If you didn...

What I try not to be I try not to be an ultracrepidarian . Unlike some others in the blogoverse. Have a good weekend.

Those zany Finns I've been doing too much with serious topics. Here's something just for fun, for the numbers geek in everyone. Alkulukuja Paskova Karhu. This is Finnish for something, well, just go see it.

And then there were three North Korean negotiators told U.S. officials in Beijing that the communist nation has nuclear weapons and threatened to export them or conduct a "physical demonstration," U.S. officials said today. The Washington Post, April 24, 2003 Just saw this. Not sure what to make of it. I'm wondering if it is just typical high-toned rhetoric, or a genuine threat to pop off a nuke in the Sea of Japan. One thing we have seen from this, is that they have not backed down at all. The current talks are not multilateral, they are bilateral with the Chinese providing hosting and a fig leaf so the Bush administration can say the talks were multilateral including regional stakeholders. They could be lying about nuclear weapons, to try to avoid the preemptive strike against them. I don't think we want to take that chance, and I am sure it isn't necessary. We have to keep the lines of communication open. Drop the hostile rhetoric, and make ...

Yes, I've still got the PATRIOT act stuff simmering, and something else about the Digital Milleneum Copyright Act. Give me some time, I'm now focused on North Korea.

North Korea Now North Korea is admitting it has nuclear weapons. Hate to say it, I'm not all that surprised. For all of those who want to make a minor investment in a great book, pick up The Two Koreas by Don Oberdorfer. This is a fantastic study of the "modern history" of the Korean Penninsula. Took me a month and some to finish, because it is so loaded with information, but it is well worth the read. While they don't mention where they got the fissile material for their bomb, Oberdorfer relates how, before they let in the inspectors originally, they defueled the Yongbyon reactor and moved around enough material to make it impossible to determine if reprocessing and extraction of plutonium had occured. There was a guess, if I recall, that they could have extracted enough plutonium to make between 2 and 4 bombs. I think we know what they did with that material. I'll even go out on a limb here, and say they probably have two bombs. If they had t...

Now you can e-mail the Datanerd too Added an e-mail address. We'll see how long this lasts. One, I'm curious as to whether anybody's reading this. Second, I'll probably leave it up only so long as I'm not inundated with spam suggesting I need to enhance my manhood and get out of debt quick. My debt load is manageable, thank you, and my manhood is nobody's business except Mrs. Datanerd. I've got a couple of posts and commentaries coming along concerning the PATRIOT act and such. I'll try to work on them tonight with my faster computer.

Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and us Josh Marshall has some interesting ideas about the geopolitical effects of our Iraqi adventure, in regards to our continuing relationship with Saudi Arabia. Basically, now that we have access to the enormous Iraqi oil reserves, we can squeeze Saudi Arabia a lot harder on its home-grown terrorists. Makes you wonder if that's what the plan was all along. This is troubling on a number of levels.

System upgrade is complete My home computer has been jazzed up, from a P2/400 to an Athlon XP 1800+ and accompanying parts. Not a bad afternoons work. Hopefully it will make me work four times as fast.

Mrs. Datanerd is angry Looters at Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities pillaged and, perhaps, destroyed an archive of more than 100,000 cuneiform clay tablets -- a unique and priceless trove of ancient Mesopotamian writings that included the "Sippar Library," the oldest library ever found intact on its original shelves. Experts described the archive as the world's least-studied large collection of cuneiform -- the oldest known writing on Earth -- a record that covers every aspect of Mesopotamian life over more than 3,000 years. The texts resided in numbered boxes each containing as many as 400 3-inch-by-2-inch tablets. The Sippar Library, discovered in 1986 at a well-known neo-Babylonian site near Baghdad, was one of the archive's crown jewels. Dating from the sixth century B.C., it comprised only about 800 tablets, but it included hymns, prayers, lamentations, bits of epics, glossaries, astronomical and scientific texts, missing pieces of a flood legend ...

Money for nothing The local Fox affiliate is reporting finding in Iraq 2 foot by 2 by 2 boxes each with $4 million dollars, totalling $320 million dollars. So, maybe the embedded reporter program is keeping our people honest, in addition to the other good effects. I don't thing I would put a few bundles in my pockets. But I wouldn't tell my squadmates not to. I couldn't do it.

Oh dear... Hesiod has a very interesting and mildly troubling post about the possibility of domestic terrorism this weekend. April 19, 2003 is the 10th anniversary of the storming of the Branch Davidian compound, and the 8th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. I'll probably do what I planned on doing this weekend anyway, which is staying in and rebuilding my home PC. Stay safe, y'all. Found via Atrios .

Uncertainty and Economic Growth I refinanced my mortgage yesterday. In between signing papers, the title attorney saw my profession listed as "Economist" and asked me what I thought about the economy. I stuck with my simplified "Well, manufacturing is doing poorly, but people seem to still be buying things, so I'm not sure" explanation. But on the way home, I got to thinking more about how the economy got to where it is, and perhaps what it would take to get it running again. We had a hell of a run during the 1990's. Pretty much from 1993 until 2001 the economy just wouldn't stop. Then in 2001, the economy faltered. September 11th was another blow to it. Since then, to use another metaphor, it seems like we're up to the axles in mud and not able to get any traction to get out of the quagmire of low investment, low hiring, and low growth. One thing that we can point to during much of the roaring nineties is a relatively consistent gover...

This is funny. You know this guy had a gun to his head. Makes it easier to make pronouncements with a straight face. Wonder where he'll turn up next? Will Ari Fleischer be out of a job in a few weeks?

I know it was done with the best of intentions, but please be careful with those IAEA seals. link

Good evening. New blog here. Watching a Frontline special about North Korea on PBS. I have an affection for Korea, having spent a semester in Seoul.