|||Hinky|||

Saturday, March 29, 2003

While watching CNN, and the happy heads talking war, normalizing the delays with a coke and a smile I remembered something Henry Kissinger said in the late 1980's to Robyn, the Canadian news caster who anchored the Public television news. Henry used the word "negligible" when talking about the number of deaths resulting from a conflict somewhere in Latin America, or maybe it was Chile (or maybe I don't recall, and I am adding information from a very negative article about Henry in Harpers). Henry was saying the the outcome was good because the "number of deaths was negligible." I repeated it. The folks who I lived with, who were watching with me, repeated it too. Our mouths were open, gaping really. We laughed, a nervous laughter, like little kids learning where fried chicken comes from from and industry expert at Tyson. It became the house joke for at least 8 months. Everything that was in fact not negligible became "negligible," (spoken in your best imitation of Henry's hinky English), as in, hey where the hell are my Corn Flakes? Answer: the amount I barrowed for breakfast before you got up, "was negligible." I still get nervous whenever this hinky word shows up.

Here Henry used the word to make a point click, as he tells the Senate Foriegn Relations Commitee about regional differences the EC and Asia (hey, how may people in government pulled an all nighter with Mao talking politics, right?). And here, is a little history about his associate Carl Kaysen(a fellow professor at Harvard, a Rand strategist, and an advisor to Kennedy on the hinky subject of "graduated" use of nukes.),who may have started the buzz with this hinky word in the first place And here, Nixon's Assistant for International Economic Affairs, Peterson, who may have figured out how to talk to Henry in a persuasive manner when he sent memo No. 179 to Henry on leaving the subject of leaving the gold standard, which would certainly make bookkeeping a "not negligible" issue as he put it, which sounds like an un-hinky point at the time on the face of it.

All this is negligible, compaired to what popped into my head after hearing about the "Iraqi Irregulars" (the street gang in the SUVs who are sneaking the US troops with phoney surrenders) who are forcing Iraq teens out of their houses to fight for Saddam with threats against their families according the the fortunate few who have been able to both get away from the thugs, and surrender to the US-UK forces. I thought of the hinkiest speech ever made in a film, which was scripted by Graham Green; except for this part. This part was pure Orson Wells, as Green has revealed. It's Harry Lime's little talk with his old friend, Holly Martin that's looking relevant with all these not negligible deaths going on (it's starting to look like we need OSHA in there with a Saftey First campaign). Here is that bit from The Third Man, that popped into my head on hearing about the not negligible deaths in Iraq:

MARTINS: Have you ever seen any of your victims?

HARRY: You know, I don't ever feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be
melodramatic. Look down there. Would you feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving
forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped moving, would you really, old
man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to
spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax. It's the only way to save money
nowadays.

MARTINS: A lot of good your money will do you in jail.

HARRY: That jail is in another zone. There's no proof against me, besides you.

MARTINS: I should be pretty easy to get rid of.

HARRY: Pretty easy.

MARTINS: I wouldn't be too sure.

HARRY: I carry a gun. I don't think they'd look for a bullet would after you'd hit that ground.

MARTINS: They have dug up your coffin.

HARRY: And found Harbin? Hmm, pity. Oh, Holly, what fools we are, talking to each other
this way. As though I would do anything to you, or you to me. You're just a little mixed up
about things in general. Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, so why
should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat. I talk about the suckers and the
mugs.

It's the same thing. They have their five year plans, and so have I.

MARTINS: You used to believe in God.

HARRY: I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. The dead
are happier dead. They don't miss much here, poor devils. What do you believe in? Well, if
you ever get Anna out of this mess, be kind to her. You'll find she's worth it. I wish I had asked
you to bring me some of these tablets from home. Holly, I would like to cut you in, old man.
Nobody left in Vienna I can really trust, and we have always done everything together. When
you make up your mind, send me a message. I'll meet you any place, any time. And when we
do meet, old man, it's you I want to see, not the police. Remember that, won't you? Don't be
so gloomy. After all, it's not that awful. Remember what the fellow said. In Italy, for
thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they
produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had
brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that
produce? The cuckoo clock. So long. Holly.

So long, Hinkies (click to see how it ended for Harry Lime).

Hinky 3:43 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Totally Orson:http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/27/thethirdman.html

Hinky 11:36 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

We wrote about this before, just can't remember if it was in this blog, or while sleep walking down seventh avenue on the way to the 3 train. You know, before the coffee.

Anyway, it's the Grid.org, a site run by United Devices that can hook you up to research projects being conducted at the Chemstry department at Oxford. Here's the thing, which is very un-hinky: these projects use your computer's excess capacity (which is currently sitting there as you read, like as if you had 80 lbs of lard on your waist just waiting for those Kung Fu lessons that you said were going to sign up for last new year's eve). The Grid has been explain elsewhere, earlier and better than here (see, Wired Magazine here; see, also the Scientific Amercian, which recently explained Grid efforts here and here is a hinky little release on the use of Grid computing to monitor environments from Taiwan, yesterday (it's at the end of this long, unformatted document, so use find and search for the term "ecosystem" to cut to the chase.

The small, fast download frrom Grid.org puts that excess capacity to work over the net as it connects your computer to the Grid; and it computes for various good causes, one example of which you'll find here. Here is the URL: http://www.grid.org/projects/cancer/

Hinky 9:17 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Friday, March 28, 2003

WWE will be offering a pay per view event soon, as Ki Rizdale on Marketwatch reported over NPR tonight, before and after he interviewed Vince McMann the CEO and founder of WWE. Vincent said he was very proud of the whole wrestling entertainment industry, and that it offers a great escape, like a good movie, with certain predictable plots aspects (in other words, it's fixed and so what). His hinky defense of his industry included a reference to the fact that Abe Linclon did a stint as a professional wrestler before he redefined Freedom for the world, as president of the United States.

Well, that's all fine and well, but WWE's stock price is still as hinky as hell. As we reported yesterday, before Vince was invited on NPR to do market support for the stock by promoting the upcoming pay-per-view somewhere soon, WWE has an absurd price to earnings per share ratio of 764 as of yesterday for a company in an industry that has negative growth estimates going out 5 years. Moreover, VIACOM, a large insider holder of the shares, has been liquidating share like it just got back from vacation in Mexico all the way down from 15 dollars. The whole spot was hinky in light of our special attention to WWE yesterday (see below), as a featured company in Hinky's hinkiest companies series, which we update a least 3 times per week.

No mention was made of Steriods.

Hinky 11:40 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

You can hear the hinky callers to the BBC, which offers very good coverage of debates over Iraq and there is the email address of the hostwho will read what you think on air.

Hinky 5:09 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Listening to the hinky callers on the BBC about Iraq, who want to know why the US thinks it is liberating Iraq, when it seems more like Nazi German occupying France durring WWII. Another caller from China doesn't trust Bush, and wants to hear about the need for liberation from the people, not governments. Excellent points, if you ignore Saddam's police state, and his deals to cream profits from Iraqi Oil, a small part of which he uses to buy "para-military" support for his police state (SUVs filled with tough guys who he makes tough guys with a culture of violence and disregard for basic freedoms, and by giving them weapons to use against the people.) It's a hinky war because war is always hinky; but lets get real about who and what Saddam is about. And let's get real about what the US is going to do there, if it "wins" this war to reel in its own Frankenstein.

Now a Jamaican is waxing weepy about the hinky UN, appealing the cold comfort of UN schemes, laws and plans where there is very little regard for any law. Who will enforce UN law; who will enforce any law in a country that uses gas against it's minorities? He say's that he knows nothing about Saddam, but the US is wrong. Well, he is half right.

Hinky 11:58 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Every once in awhile, we get a forward that gives pause, as this one did, this morning:

Powell's Quote

When in England at a fairly large conference,
Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury
if our plans for Iraq were just an example of
Empire building by George Bush.

Powell answered: "Over the years, the
United States has sent many of its fine young men
and women into great peril to fight for freedom
beyond our borders. The only amount of land we
have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those
that did not return."
It became very quiet in the room.

Hinky 8:51 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Weekly initial jobless claims plunged by 25,000 to 402,000 compared to the consensus estimate of a decline of just 1,000, so estimates were off, they were way the hell off, by a hinky x25 times. The Dow did it's part, closing below it's ten day moving average at 8220. And what's the hinky stock today? World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc, (WWE) has a price to earnings per shares outstanding value of 767 with a five year growth prospect of -3.7%. Are there any takers, or will somebody please open a can of whip ass, and give this POS the smack down, like insider VIACOM did as it sold shares from 15 all the way down to 8. WWE trades at 7.69; why?
Our hinky hunch, like with so many of our featured companies; big money has locked the float, until further notice, no matter how bare the King's ass.

Hinky 9:47 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

It was all right and good, when nations wanted to junk the idea of national sovereignty in exchange for free trade, and economic shock therapies, and open boarders. Nobody complained too loud about the kind of governments that the global free trade was propping up, even as massacres where being reported. I mean, there were no protests in Time Square about lives lost in Africa, Bosinia-Serbia or the Middle East, or the dozens of places where Amnesty International do their accounting for the dead and near dead (click for Amnesty.org).

But today, we have a “die-in” in nyc at Rock center (click to see). And “Russ Forster, a filmmaker from Chicago, said, ‘People are willing to risk life and limb, sitting in the middle of Fifth Avenue. I think that's a pretty strong statement.’” We recong that hinky Russ, being a guy from Chicago who likes to watch is in a good position to endorse the action, as a film-maker and all; just as so many of our nation's leading high school graduates who have become Hollywood stars are well suited to influence International relations, including Babs Streisand, Cher, Sean Penn, Ed Asner, and Martin Sheen.

The “Die-in” protestors for their part are making what Russ from Chicago sees as a strong statement against “war profiteering,” that is taking place, which is not just regular old profiteering; as if profiteering is something that has not been taking place in that place in the first place, as if the UN’s hinky 70 million dollar per day oil for food deal with Iraq was not a cocked hat on a crooked head, and as if it was just fine when Russ was barrowing pop's SUV to haul his film equipment around the South Side on his way to film something "real". Oh hell no, oil was flowing out, via hinky German, French, Russian, Italian, and yes, Haliburton’s Cayman Island subsidiary, and food was flowing in, as Saddam was creaming profits from the oil trade, killing Kurds, and Shiites, and Iranians, with his hinky Police state and there was nothing to lay your ass down on fifth avenue about, right? I mean, even if you saw Saddam’s son, buying a new 80,000 dollar watch in a Trump Tower (300/ square foot) watch store nearby, with money creamed by Saddamned from Iraqi oil, why would you object to that, right?

America leads a hinky world, and having lain with big dogs everywhere, certainly has fleas. But all that is old news, like Ralph Nader for President. Saddam is America's Frankenstein: he knows it, we know it, the French know it, and April Galespi knew it. There is a chance to fire him, and end a police state in Iraq. Where is the margin in these hinky “die ins”? If you think America made this mess, than who better to fix it?

Hinky 1:58 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Maybe I am hinky; maybe it's not fair to keep keep harping on a murdering despot whose regime has killed, tourtured, raped, pillaged more muslims than any world leader (and yet wants to lead muslims into battle). But his cash flow so as hinky as his rap; and here is a link that lays it out.

So, is someone with a sign asks you what this war is for, tell them about 70 million dollars per day, which is what Saddam's oil proceeds are; which is a hell of a lot more than the cost of his hinky police state, his hinky nuke trades, his hinky oil and his hinky DVD collection of Hollywood spy movies. Saddam is a middle man (along with his hinky French, Russian, German, Chinese and American partners) that the world can't afford not to cut out.

To repeat: Saddam is worth more than 2 billion dollars.

Hinky 10:58 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Monday, March 24, 2003

What's hinky? I mean what beside the blow hard Saddam, running the old man on the mountain routine on his people and the world. Here is a little information from Amnesty International about this sucker's way of doing things durring peace time, which is why we agree to Hunter Thompson on occasions like these, who said: "when the going gets tough, the weird turn pro." This, in light of what Saddam does:
Torture victims in Iraq have been blindfolded, stripped of their clothes and suspended from their wrists for long hours. Electric shocks have been used on various parts of their bodies, including the genitals, ears, the tongue and fingers. Victims have described to Amnesty International how they have been beaten with canes, whips, hosepipe or metal rods and how they have been suspended for hours from either a rotating fan in the ceiling or from a horizontal pole often in contorted positions as electric shocks were applied repeatedly on their bodies. Some victims had been forced to watch others, including their own relatives or family members, being tortured in front of them.

Other methods of physical torture described by former victims include the use of Falaqa (beating on the soles of the feet), extinguishing of cigarettes on various parts of the body, extraction of finger nails and toenails and piercing of the hands with an electric drill. Some have been sexually abused and others have had objects, including broken bottles, forced into their anus. In addition to physical torture, detainees have been threatened with rape and subjected to mock execution. They have been placed in cells where they could hear the screams of others being tortured and have been deprived of sleep. Some have stayed in solitary confinement for long periods of time. Detainees have also been threatened with bringing in a female relative, especially the wife or the mother, and raping her in front of the detainee. Some of these threats have been carried out.

It turns out that Amnesty.org has turned out a lot of hinky reading like this over the years on the man of the hour, so as we said: it looks as if like Custer, he's got it coming. Keep this stuff in mind, when you hear him blowing hot air out his back side about what he's going to do when the come for him.

Hinky 10:40 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

What's hinky? The start date on this war might be:

Dec. 24, 2002. 09:37 AM46 Ukrainian, Russian scientists die as plane hits mountain
TEHRAN (AP) — Airport officials say that pilot "carelessness" caused a plane carrying Ukrainian and Russian aerospace scientists to crash in central Iran, killing all 46 people on board, Iran's state radio reported Tuesday.
The Ukrainian An-140 aircraft, flew into a mountainside while preparing to land Monday at an airport near the city of Isfahan, some 400 kilometres south of Tehran.

These scientists were building plane for Iraq.

Hinky 6:13 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Mark Bowden stated in the Atlantic Monthly that: "Saddam likes to watch TV, monitoring the Iraqi stations he controls and also CNN, Sky, al Jazeera, and the BBC. He enjoys movies, particularly those involving intrigue, assassination, and conspiracy—The Day of the Jackal, The Conversation, Enemy of the State. "

Bowden also quoted Saddam from back in 2002, when he was blowing the same hinky and tired rap he is laying on the world right now:

"Today is a day in the Grand Battle, the immortal Mother of All Battles. It is a glorious and a splendid day on the part of the self-respecting people of Iraq and their history, and it is the beginning of the great shame for those who ignited its fire on the other part. It is the first day on which the vast military phase of that battle started. Or rather, it is the first day of that battle, since Allah decreed that the Mother of All Battles continue till this day."
—Saddam Hussein, in a televised address to the Iraqi people, January 17, 2002

Somebody should tell him to stop believing his own bullshit; but that is the trouble with a police state, nobody will tell you the truth about yourself while you are shooting arrows through peoples heads to watch them do a death dance, or having their eyes poked out, or having them electrocuted. (See, Amnesty.org)

I wonder if Saddam liked the bloated Michael Moore's hinky speech at the Academy Rewards last night.

Hinky 9:57 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Sunday, March 23, 2003

So, let's review-- Saddam has been torturing his people, selling oil on the black market and pocketing the money (to the point that he has 2 billion dollars, and according various sources, including to Fortune's lists he is one of the wealthest world leaders), and he may have nukes (which we will call any weapon that can wipe out masses of people in a single stroke). At the very least, he has been trading nukes, as have other countries in the area (Pakistan and India are in the nuke club now). This, all in a region that is red hot, not just in temperature, but in the stress, conflict, tension and broken politics of the region. Who is to blame? Well, how long to you have; you know, start taking notes, and I'll finish letting you know in 2007. And besides: who cares? How getting to the start of all this make things better? Was it when the Brits carved up the region and gave it away? Was it Ike? Was it Isreal? Again, who knows, and who the F cares? Save your grudge for handball, as we say in nyc. Yes, I know, easier said than done.

But this is America, and everyone seems to want to export to America; so Hinky thinks it's only fair that America gets to export things to, like FREEDOM. Oh, you think it's corny? Try the alternative sometime. Click those links to Amnesty.org. So, lesson number one: in America, which is now extending beyond the Maine coastline, we don't really pretend to answer "why," preferring to stick to the question "How". That is how, as in how to stop it, and make it go away.

It won't be pretty, and we hope the US keeps the civilians out of it, by say, setting up a line for surrender; but we think it needs to happen captain. And we hope it starts a trend in the whole region; a trend toward the spread of ideas that started here, but Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Washington and the rest. Does that seem childish? Well, just think of peace and freedom and general liberty without viligence.

Hinky 5:46 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

Meanwhile, the man from the east suggests this link to the video of the US solders that Saddam's forces have captured.

I watched it, and I don't think its too too bad. There was not beating or tourture in the tape; just stupid questions, like "why are you here in Iraq." I was hoping one of them would say "for the Schwarma," but it didn't go that way.

Hinky 5:29 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

It's on now; "it's a war" as a US commander just said on my radio. Death on both sides. Risk increase; over half the population of Iraq is children, so holding the US governement's feet to the fire is what every patriot should do, in the spirit of dissent, that extends back to the birth of this Democracy wrapped in a Republic. How, you ask? Click here, to get started reminding the government to tread softly as the kick the shit out of Saddam's hinky government and army of toadies.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is having a party, and everyone with a head full of farts will be watching their every move. On the other hand, there remains a thorn in the feet of the people of Iraq that the UN has left there to fester with their hinky sanctions, and French Oil deals. Here is what Amnesty International, which does not want to war to solve this problem, has to say about it:

Not only have the people of Iraq continued to suffer at their hands of their government - systematic torture, extrajudicial execution, "disappearances", arbitrary detention and unfair trial - they have also borne the brunt of the UN sanctions regime since 1991. Sanctions have jeopardised the right to food, health, education and, in many cases, life of hundreds of thousands of individuals, many of them children. There are claims that the Iraqi regime is deliberately manipulating the sanctions regime for propaganda purposes - but that does not absolve the United Nations Security Council from its own share of the responsibility for failing to heed the calls to lift all sanctions provisions that result in grave violations of the rights of the Iraqi population.

The problem with the UN style solution is the same problem that has starved out the people of Iraq since the last video war. And as for Saddam leading the muslims. Well there is this, from 1999, when he killed the highest ranking muslim authority in Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr. In fact, Saddam had him and his sons killed, as Amnesty explained in 1999:

Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, aged 56, and two of his sons -- Hojjatu al-Islam al-Sayyid Mostafa al-Sadr, aged 34, and al-Sayyid Mu'ammal al-Sadr -- were shot dead by armed men in al-Najaf during the night of 18 February. The bodies were buried on Friday 19 February and the family were said to have been denied a funeral ceremony.

So who you going to call, Ghostbusters?

Hinky 5:24 PM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

The New York Times reports: "Major Cate did not identify the detained soldier or suggest a motive, but military sources described him as a sergeant attached to an engineering unit, an American citizen, and a Muslim convert. He was found in a scud bunker when senior officers took a head count after the attack." So there you have it; no black bag, just a muslim convert with a storm brewing upstairs just below where he parts his hair, who chose the time honored path of traitor, which been punished pretty much the same way thourghout time. And here he is now, awaiting the consiquences we expect, which unlike his hinky action will be pretty straight forward we expect. Looks like Brando was right, but in a different way; "we are the arabs," but we still say, it's the sun.

This thing is starting to make Catch 22 look like a comic book.

Hinky 11:56 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations

This just in, for which we thank the man from the east (but not east of Rome); The BBC reports that a US solder is being held in an attack on a US camp in northern Kuwait, which is so hinky, it makes my eyes cross. Did this guy kook, in the mid day sun over there; or is there a black bag sticking out of this thing? Where the fuck is Waldo in all this?

We recall what Marlon Brando said in The Formula: maybe "We are the Arabs." On the other hand, all bets are off at war time. Maybe it's a rough move, by a private with a history of mental illness, and a chemical imbalance, which was aggrovated by potassium loss via the sweat glands. Nobody cares, the matter at hand is a safer world, freer peoples and cheap gas, and that's it, end of story from which all others branch out until Honda gets that green car market going and until everyone is buring Freedom Fry oil in their fuel tanks (which is very doable right now. The fact is From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank is the first and only book that details all aspects of running diesel engines on vegetable oil. Includes information on biodiesel, the diesel fuel substitute made from new or used vegetable as well as information on running any diesel engine on straight vegetable oil (SVO)). Meanwhile, the world will be watching those those sloppy, and very hinky granades someone pitched in a US tent.

Hinky 12:44 AM

Broadband users: Join the Grid to fight cancer at Grid.org Links for Highly Hinky Recommendations