Jeanne

Youd never know it
But buddy Im a kind of poet
And Ive got a lot of things I wanna say
And when Im gloomy, you listen to me
Till it's all, all talked away

Well, that's how it goes
And yeah it's passed time to close
So thanks for the cheer
I hope you didn't mind
My bending your ear


For all of the years,
for the laughs, for the tears,
for all the class that you showed
Make it one for my baby
And one more for the road,
that long, long road

A quick historical detour

From the brilliant Gladwell:

The absurdity of such expression games has been wittily explored in the spy novels of Robert Littell and, with particular brio, in Peter Ustinov’s 1956 play, “Romanoff and Juliet.” In the latter, a crafty general is the head of a tiny European country being squabbled over by the United States and the Soviet Union, and is determined to play one off against the other. He tells the U.S. Ambassador that the Soviets have broken the Americans’ secret code. “We know they know our code,” the Ambassador, Moulsworth, replies, beaming. “We only give them things we want them to know.” The general pauses, during which, the play’s stage directions say, “he tries to make head or tail of this intelligence.” Then he crosses the street to the Russian Embassy, where he tells the Soviet Ambassador, Romanoff, “They know you know their code.” Romanoff is unfazed: “We have known for some time that they knew we knew their code. We have acted accordingly—by pretending to be duped.” The general returns to the American Embassy and confronts Moulsworth: “They know you know they know you know.” Moulsworth (genuinely alarmed): “What? Are you sure?”

* * * * *

Cicero, it turned out, was the real thing. At least, we think he was the real thing. The Americans had a spy in the German Embassy in Turkey who learned that a servant was spying in the British Embassy. She told her bosses, who told the British. Just before his death, Stewart Menzies, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service during the war, told an interviewer, “Of course, Cicero was under our control,” meaning that the minute they learned about Cicero they began feeding him false documents. Menzies, it should be pointed out, was a man who spent much of his professional career deceiving other people, and if you had been the wartime head of M.I.6, giving an interview shortly before your death, you probably would say that Cicero was one of yours. Or perhaps, in interviews given shortly before death, people are finally free to tell the truth. Who knows?

In the case of Operation Mincemeat, Germany’s spies told their superiors that something false was actually true (even though, secretly, some of those spies might have known better), and Germany acted on it.

In the case of Cicero, Germany’s spies told their superiors that something was true that may indeed have been true, though maybe wasn’t, or maybe was true for a while and not true for a while, depending on whether you believe the word of someone two decades after the war was over—and in this case Germany didn’t really act on it at all. Looking at that track record, you have to wonder if Germany would have been better off not having any spies at all.

Which pretty much confirms what I have long thought, about most espionage - at least where it passes beyond advanced scouting: once both sides are actively using espionage, it becomes so random as to dependability as to be essentially useless. Not that the intelligence agencies would ever let on that this is the case, even to themselves, naturally.

Oh and this bit I thought marvellous:

The two men coördinated with Dudley Clarke, the head of deception for all the Mediterranean, whom Macintyre describes as “unmarried, nocturnal and allergic to children.” In 1925, Clarke organized a pageant “depicting imperial artillery down the ages, which involved two elephants, thirty-seven guns and ‘fourteen of the biggest Nigerians he could find.’ He loved uniforms, disguises and dressing up.” In 1941, British authorities had to bail him out of a Spanish jail, dressed in “high heels, lipstick, pearls, and a chic cloche hat, his hands, in long opera gloves, demurely folded in his lap. He was not supposed to even be in Spain, but in Egypt.” Macintyre, who has perfect pitch when it comes to matters of British eccentricity, reassures us, “It did his career no long-term damage.”

Good news from all over

Or rather, not too much.


On Tuesday I took Cat to the hospital, to (as it turns out) get a biopsy of her cervix - she's been having abnormal pap smears for a couple of years, and the viral infection (some version of HPV) has apparently taken a serious turn. From what the doctor said, they're expecting to find a 'pre-cancerous' lesion, which should be removable via a LEEP operation - a fairly minor outpatient procedure, we're told. Well, far better to have it treated and removed before it turns into a cancer, I guess.

Which, parenthetically, just made me goggle in abhorred wonder at all the nutcase parents in the US who are vowing and declaring never to let their teenage daughters be innoculated against HPV, despite its effect at reducing cervical cancer. The basis for this seems to officially be that being innoculated against a sex-born virus will just encourage them to have sex, and if they only have sex with the one man they ever marry, they will be in no danger of contracting HPV.

Which may be true, IF their husband has never had sex with anyone at all ever, either. And assuming they never divorce and remarry, or - heaven forbid - have an affair while married.

In fact, as far as I can detect, the real reason for this refusal is a far more visceral patriarchal reaction of 'Eewww, lady-parts, yukky!'  .... which actually pretty much describes the reaction of these nuts to most female-related issues.

Enough hypocrisy and rank deception to choke a hippo, really.

Oh, and speaking of hypocrisy, we have this little fiasco in Louisiana at the moment too: Experts now estimate that five times more oil has been spilling into the water from that oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana than they thought before:

Okay. Here's how much they estimated was leaking before this evening: 42,000 gallons a day.
Five times that amount means approximately 210,000 gallons a day have been leaking into the Gulf.
If this spill continues unabated for two months — and that seems to be the most likely time frame at this point — we're talking about 12.6 million gallons.
Exxon Valdez? That was 10.8 million.
Enjoy your evening.

Really not funny

One of the things that makes me most nervous about this country is the truly catastrophic consequences of serious illness here - getting cancer, or anything that requires serious expensive treatment, is often a quick route to bankruptcy, and frequently a guarantee of an unnecessary death once your resources do run out.

The idea of relying on private enterprise to 'insure' your health care always struck me as pretty dubious, and after encountering it at close range, and hearing a few of the many many many horror stories about how this has resulted in its victims being purged from the books once they start costing money, rather than just coughing up their cash, this has just been reinforced for me, over and over and over.

I mean, the NHS in England was pretty shoddy and embarassing at times, by NZ public health standards, but that was more or less in keeping with the English attitude to service, labour, and ... well everything to be honest. At least it was cheap, tho - something like 5% of GDP, compared to the 14% of GDP that the American system swallows (although to be fair I think that should be noted as 10% of GDP spent of health care and another 4% spent on health care insurance companies).

However, the occasional callousness and dirtyness of the NHS is as nothing compared to the utter barbarity of things like this:

One after another, shortly after a diagnosis of breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled. First there was Yenny Hsu, who lived and worked in Los Angeles. Later, Robin Beaton, a registered nurse from Texas. And then, most recently, there was Patricia Relling, a successful art gallery owner and interior designer from Louisville, Kentucky.
None of the women knew about the others. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders -- more than any other health insurance company in the United States.
The women all paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.
They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.
Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.
That tens of thousands of Americans lost their health insurance shortly after being diagnosed with life-threatening, expensive medical conditions has been well documented by law enforcement agencies, state regulators and a congressional committee. Insurance companies have used the practice, known as "rescission," for years. And a congressional committee last year said WellPoint was one of the worst offenders.
But WellPoint also has specifically targeted women with breast cancer for aggressive investigation with the intent to cancel their policies, federal investigators told Reuters. The revelation is especially striking for a company whose CEO and president, Angela Braly, has earned plaudits for how her company improved the medical care and treatment of other policyholders with breast cancer.

Free markets are, by definition, more efficient than government programs which leads to better outcomes for everybody, across the board as incentives always line up in a seamless conjunction:

The cancellation of her health insurance in June 2008 forced Robin Beaton to delay cancer surgery by five months. In that time, the tumor in her breast grew from 2 centimeters to 7 centimeters.
Two months before Beaton's policy was dropped, Patricia Relling also was diagnosed with breast cancer. Anthem Blue Cross of Kentucky, a WellPoint subsidiary, paid the bills for a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.
But the following January, after Relling suffered a life-threatening staph infection requiring two emergency surgeries in three days, Anthem balked and refused to pay more. They soon canceled her insurance entirely.
Unable to afford additional necessary surgeries for nearly 16 months, Relling ended up severely disabled and largely confined to her home. As a result of her crushing medical bills, the once well-to-do businesswoman is now dependent on food stamps.

I suppose one could blame these women for not realizing that all they needed to do was bring a few chickens to their respective oncologists/surgeons in order to get the care they needed, but that wouldn't be nice.

Snark aside, kudos to Murray Waas for covering these stories (see, also, Waas' coverage of a similar scandal involving Assurant and its systematic rescission of HIV-positive customers).

The reference to bringing chickens needs a little explaining - one of the Republican candidates for the US Senate seat in Nevada has publicly recommended reverting to barter (specifically, bringing a chicken in payment) with doctors in order to reduce medical costs. Seriously. When twice offered an opportunity to modify or retract this, she has reiterated and reinforced it. And yes, this happened in 2010, not 1810 (even the Victorians would be ashamed of such naked nuttiness).

Let's see, it cost about $1k for my cardio scan last year: frozen chickens sell for about $5 each, so that would be about 200 chickens - I hope they have some fairly substantial freezers at the hospital. Or I suppose I could bring live ones, which would be less valuable (all that effort slaughtering and plucking), so say 240-300 live chooks? Well I suppose they could use the carparks to pen them up, after all noone will be able to afford an automobile with this system.

Not Funny?

From the Washington Monthly:

Last week, the Georgia House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to consider a Republican proposal to "prohibit the involuntary implantation of microchips in human beings." I'm not entirely sure what the point is -- it's not as if there's been an outbreak of involuntary microchip implantation -- but GOP officials nationwide have a tendency to worry about imaginary threats, so I suppose this shouldn't be too surprising.
The legislative hearing led to remarks from a local woman, who claimed to have personal experience on the matter.

"I'm also one of the people in Georgia who has a microchip," the woman said. Slowly, she began to lead the assembled lawmakers down a path they didn't want to take. [...]
She spoke of the "right to work without being tortured by co-workers who are activating these microchips by using their cell phones and other electronic devices."
She continued. "Microchips are like little beepers. Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission," she said.
It was not funny, and no one laughed.

I'm sorry, I may be calloused and cynical, but I found it laugh-out-loud hilarious, not least that the elected politicians took this seriously.

What century is it, again?

I read this Washington Post article a couple of days ago, and I still haven't managed to really grasp that this is an article from 2010, not 1970:

Tuesday, April 13, 2010; 2:58 PM

A federal judge Tuesday ordered a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregating its schools by grouping African American students into all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county's only majority-white school, the U.S. Justice Department announced.

And just to add to it, there have been letters to the editor and a spattering of web posts and comments defending this as 'part of our local culture', and 'making more sense for the local residents' ... the white ones of course, because they are the ones that matter, I assume.

I mean, seriously, these people still don't get how wrong this is? I should go and see how far away this county is, from the Mississippi county that cancelled their prom/dance rather than letting a lesbian couple attend it (and then snuck around the federal judge's order and their own promises on the dance), as the attitudes obviously dovetail comfortably. (See this article for details)

Edit: the answer would seem to be, the other end of the state, so I guess it's a statewide thing. Ha! if only that were all).

I suppose on the bright side, just when I think Arkansas is irremediable, Mississippi again overtakes it in the race for the bottom.

Patriotism

Is this not awesome?   Harry Potter billionaire J.K. Rowling on why she chooses to continue living in Britain even though she could reduce her tax bill considerably by residing elsewhere:

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s.
....A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.