Recently, Dick Cheney has given two speeches where he complained about the criticism the administration has been receiving for the “flawed” (read: false) intelligence that was presented as true in the lead up to the war in Iraq. He has said that lawmakers have made the, “most dishonest and reprehensible charges,” and that these are, “cynical and pernicious falsehoods.’

Shall we look at the charges and the way in which the rebut is being presented by Bush, Cheney, et al? First of all, as we now know from some excellent investigative reporting in the Los Angeles Times, the administration was warned that the intelligence that they were using to promote the case for war was faulty at best. The source of this intelligence, named “Curveball” by German Intelligence (was there ever a more appropriate moniker?), was not regarded as reliable. The Germans were shocked to see Curveball’s lies in Bush’s State of the Union speech and repeated in Colin Powell’s presentation before the U.N.

Second, we can now see that those who spoke the truth to power (e.g. Paul O’Neil, Richard Clark) found their personal and professional reputations trashed. The administration sought to relegate them to the dustbin of history. But, they (and others like them) are rising, like Lazarus, from the “dead.” Their words ring true and the Administration are having to put on their backup shoes and distort some more. Of course it won’t work, but, God love ‘em, they’re trying. Dick and W are slicker than deer guts on a gate post, and about as appealing. (more…)

Okay. It’s over but for the remains. No matter how little I try to eat each year, I waddle away from the table. I always swear that I’ll never do that again, knowing full well that in a year I’ll do the same damn thing. This year I felt particular pangs of conscience. There are, again, too many starving people in the world for me to eat the Thanksgiving meal without wondering how many our feast could feed.

Each year the turkey that we purchase gets smaller and smaller. No more the 25 lbs. behemoths. I’ve definitely said good bye Toms and hello to Hens. Yet, there’s still too much. The spirits don’t eat as much as I think they will. They still hover about me as I fix the meal. They critique and bemoan. They harp on and inveigle. Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same without them. Though I’d be willing to give it a go. (more…)

All rights girls and boys; it’s time for another lesson in statistics. Remember, statistics are a wonderful tool, but only if you know how to interpret them. You can’t depend on the interpretation by news writers. People who write the articles accompanying stats, for the most part, aren’t statisticians. So, you should be aware of a few fundamental things first.

As I said the other day, the best polls are the large well-funded polls. These polls besides having the best-trained folks running them, they can afford a decent size sample (≈1,000 to 1,500 respondents). There’s one more thing to be considered: if these people get it wrong, it’s noticed by everyone and the poll is not trusted the next time. Don’t believe me? Do you remember the VNS exit poll that predicted that Al Gore had won the 2000 election? The VNS no longer exists.

Another thing I mentioned was history effects. This graph shows how history effects have affected George W. Bush’s approval ratings. Approval ratings are subtle things. When Bill Clinton was impeached, people said that they didn’t trust him on a personal level. But the public never felt that Bill couldn’t do his job. Clinton’s approval ratings never dipped far below 50%. (more…)

Let me set the scene: it’s a brisk spring day in Paris. The HB and I are at the Museé d’Orsay. For many reasons, it’s our favourite museum. It’s more than the contents, though that can’t be beat. It has an incredible collection of modern art especially the Impressionists.

It’s more than the structure: it was a railway station that has been converted magically into a light-filled ode to art. It’s impossible to describe the feeling of entering the building. Its long central hall has rooms filled with treasures off to each side. At the far end there is an exhibit for the child in each of us: miniatures of the great buildings of Paris, including a cut-away of the Paris Opera. The best though is the exhibit in the floor under glass of the Opera district of Paris with Haussmann’s boulevards in their full glory. Adults react to this model in reverential awe. Children always get it right, they start walking all over the glass. They treat this Lilliputian Paris as the fun thing it’s meant to be.

It’s more than the ambience: from the huge railway clocks to the wonderful restaurants, it’s a welcoming palace of art. There is one restaurant, on the quay-side of the museum; that is moderately priced and serves excellent food. This is where my story begins.

We had a wonderful meal. I had an outstanding Potage Crecy (a creamy carrot soup). We were well-sated when we strolled back out to the museum. Then, nature called. “Need to ‘spend a penny’” I said. HB and I aimed for the loo. These particular conveniences were located down a narrow hall and across from one another. (more…)

I’ve never had any patience for holiday drunks. Drinkers were a part of my growing up. I suppose they were functioning alcoholics, but no one ever called them that. Being around these souses, I learned, by the time I grew up, to avoid people with certain traits that would lead to drunkenness. My patience with the self-pitying drunk has been non-existent. What I especially had no time for was the drunk who started on that long holiday spiral downward.

I couldn’t understand what it was about the holidays that caused people to drop to the bottom of a bottle and not crawl out until after the New Year. After all, didn’t we all have dysfunctional families? Why the holiday bender?

Now, however, I am beginning to understand this yearly phenom a little better. As a matter of fact the thought of settling down to the holiday dinner with my nearest and dearest shakes me to the core and I want to reach for the gin bottle.

It isn’t the pressure of the actual meal. I’ve learned how to do any holiday meal with the least amount of effort possible. It isn’t fear of displeasure with my cooking. My turkey stuffing is famous near and far, and when my kids aren’t around I can put in all the nuts I want. My cranberry sauce is gone before the meal is over no matter how much I make. It isn’t the company. I can invite whom I want these days; I have no “required” guests anymore. (more…)

The HB got me to laughing yesterday. We were walking up the stairs and he mentioned Liz Taylor’s nose. Why would that make me laugh? Well, it’s another Mummy story.

When I was growing up, Mummy would often say, “Your nose is just like Elizabeth Taylor’s. As a matter of fact if your eyes hadn’t turned colour, you’d be taken for her.” Her attitude about my eye colour was that it was an act of defiance for me to let them change colour. Yes, Mummy was delusional. But my nose is my only feature that I am pleased with. I never believed her, quite about Liz Taylor’s nose. But, in the back of my mind I had always wondered. Then, one day I had the chance to see if anyone else believed it. (more…)

I have been reading some fanciful tales about presidential approval ratings lately. On the right end of the political spectrum, their collective memories are betraying their prejudices. The claim, to paraphrase, is that Bush’s poll numbers aren’t any worse than Clinton’s were. Ergo: Bush is not truly sliding into the cellar. He’s merely in a little slump.

Facts are such stubborn things. They have this inconvenient way of interfering with what we choose to believe. First of all, you will need to understand something about polls and polling. The most reliable polls are the big ones. Why? Because they have the resources to do have a large sample and to do it properly. They also have trained people working for them who don’t try to skew either the questions or the results. How can I say this? If you’re a pollster and you skew your results, you will be discarded like yesterday’s newspaper: It’s bottom of the birdcage time. (more…)

I’d like to think that I’m a sophisticated kind of person, but there are things that just get me where I live and there’s not a thing sophisticated about them. I can do the puppy thing and the baby thing; but the best (or worst) of things-that-makes-me-whimper are WPA murals.

I first discovered one in the Hollywood High School library that had once been the auditorium. It had a WPA mural that depicted the history of the theatre. It was very fanciful in its chronicle from Greek amphitheatres to motion picture studios.

Later, I found another WPA mural in the dining room of the Natural History Museum in downtown Los Angeles, California. This particular mural portrayed the history of eating from cave dwellers to modern days. My favourite character in that mural was King Henry VIII. He had a big bone in his hand and was gnawing away at it. No flatware for those Tudors. When last in Los Angeles I was disappointed to find that some troglodyte(s) had completely covered the mural. (more…)

Now you’ll remember my friend who went to Mexico and met up with Montezuma, and his revenge. Well, I had another bud who actually tried to change history, his own.

My friend, Dick, grew up in a time when there was still a draft. A real military draft, not just registering and forget about it like now. Dick was about to get drafted out of college and so he joined the Air Force. He figured that would keep him out of the trenches. Unfortunately, for him, world events intervened and he was sent to Korea. Not knowing how long the conflict in Korea would go on, Dick decided that he had to find a way home. (more…)

If you like to rush through museums, you don’t want to go with me. I have been known to plunk myself down in any museum and let the world go by while I look at a painting or sculpture. I’ve also been known to get emotional: the first time I saw Van Gogh’s “Sunflower’s” at the National Gallery in London, I wept. Yeah, hard-arsed Anon wept. Ya wanna get in my face about it?

So, today, whilst I was looking at my digital Hopper collection, I started to think again about the painting here. It’s titled, “Soir Bleu.” The obvious focal point is Pierrot. Not only is he in the centre, and his colouring forces our eyes to him; but most of the people in the painting are looking at him. (more…)