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Lambert read it in The Guardian and I heard about it on the BBC: the complete works of Charles Darwin on-line, everything, including the notebooks, not just the printed works.

Most people are blissfully ignorant of Kazakhstan, once a Republic within the Soviet Union. Space fans might have picked up on the fact that Russian space launches and recoveries take place in Kazakhstan, or maybe you came across it in a crossword puzzle as one of the three Eurasian countries, Russia and Turkey are the other two.

Then a British comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen, created the character of Borat Sagdiev [Борат Сагдиев], a fake Kazakhstani journalist, and the government of Kazakhstan became really upset at the image of the country that was being displayed on British and American television sets.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev was so annoyed, that he filed diplomatic protests with both the US and the UK. Mr. Nazarbayev is attempting to convince the world that Kazakhstan is a stable, modern country ready to take its place among the community of nations.

So one of the last things you want when you are trying to avoid being the butt of jokes around the world is have your central bank misspell the word “bank” on the new bills they just printed.

If you look at this image of a 2000 tenge note [$15.63, 128 tenge = $1 US], you will see “БАНКI” printed on the left side. The new notes have “БАНҚI” printed on them. Non-Kazakhi wouldn’t notice the difference, but there is a pronunciation difference between the Қ and the K. When transliterated into the Latin alphabet the Қ is rendered as Q, while the K is just a K.

Compared to the other Turkic former Republics, the government of Kazakhstan is sane and free. Well, Ludwig of Bavaria was sane compared to the leader of Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan would make Nazi Germany look like Berkeley.

When NASA created this patch for its Mars mission, I thought is was a cute cultural reference, but I was warned that the Shrubbery was about to go “Daffy.”

Back in 1967 we signed The Outer Space Treaty that made the militarization of space a big no-no. Space was to be used for peaceful purposes, not an alternate arena for war.

Via Shakespeare’s Sister I have found out that the Shrubbery has unilaterally decided that he can ignore that treaty.

According to the BBC article, US adopts tough new space policy, he authorized this change in August, but the policy was not released until now.

No consultation with anyone, he just did it.

Normally I would ignore this sort of thing, but Watertiger, Norbizness, and Clif are all reporting that a guy named “Sanitarium”, or something close, who thinks he is a US Senator from Pennsylvania, is claiming that a couple of “Hobbits” are on their way to the middle of US to have a ring re-sized or repaired.

This “Sanitarium” guy seems to think that while NSA is tied up watching terrorists in the Middle East, the real threat is in the US, something like that.

It’s a confused story from a confused man, who has read too many fantasy novels. Next they’ll be telling us that an old money Connecticut Yankee decided to run as a Republican by sounding like LBJ and buying the same breed of dog as FDR.

[I’ve moved this post up as I’ve added more links.]

Attaturk and I are not alone in being unhappy with this new law:

In blogroll order: Lisa, Kevin Hayden, Mustang Bobby, Flame821, Chicago Dyke, Watertiger, Christy, Scout, Digby, Swopa, Mary, Paul the Spud, Pat Lang, TBogg, Maru, and Steve Bates are also unhappy campers.

Update: Avedon posted a little later, and Charles has a post with a link to Keith Olbermann interviewing Jonathan Turley about the death of the Bill of Rights.

Don’t miss Juan Cole, lettres de cachet and the Borg in the same post.

From Google for BlogSpot sites:

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From Blogger Status: Everything’s fine.

Laura Rozen was wondering about the connections between Curt Weldon and the Italian corporation, Finmeccanica SpA. It’s quite straight-forward.

His daughter Kim needed a job, so he convinced the Finmeccanica subsidiary, Agusta/Westland to build a plant in his congressional district to bid on the new contract for a replacement for the Marine One presidential helicopters.

After they agreed, he used his position as the vice-chair of the House Armed Services Committee to push the Agusta/Westland bid to the detriment of the American company, Sikorsky.

After they won the bid for 23 helicopters worth billions of dollars, Agusta/Westland gave his daughter a job.

What’s wrong with a father helping his kids get employment opportunities?

Attaturk, posting at Eschaton, has a picture of the Goat Ropers of the Crapulence: Cronyism, Hubris, Incompetence, and Corruption. He mistakenly thought they were their more famous cousins, the Horsemen. The fifth Goat Roper, Clueless was buying new boots and couldn’t be bothered showing up for the picture.

You have to wonder if the Cold War was worth the effort when an American government passes a law to establish a new GULag. The Shrubbery keeps trying to convince people he is the new FDR or Churchill, but he has been following the path of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili almost from the beginning.

Early this morning on the BBC they had a discussion with Ian Bremmer that covered the same ground as Dr. Bremmer’s earlier BBC interview on Newsnight about his book, The J Curve.

On the official site for The J Curve is the promotional blurb:

American policymakers have long sought to meet international challenges and manage threats to U.S. national interests with a simple formula: engage your friends and isolate your enemies. Weighing their options, those states still debating whether to adopt the role of friend or foe will choose profitable cooperation over damaging confrontation.

So the theory goes.

The J curve reveals why this approach has never yielded positive results. It is a tool designed to help us understand how the world’s political decision-makers make choices – and why nations rise and fall. It demonstrates why and how the U.S. can re-imagine its foreign policy.

The “curve” shows the relationship between stability and openness for a dozen countries around the world and why any move from a stable, repressive regime to an open society will almost invariably result in a period of chaos which should be planned for in advance.

The “0 for 3” is the “batting average” for the Shrubbery on the War on Terror™, Iraq and Afghanistan. As the man says “this approach has never yielded positive results.”

While looking for The J Curve, I came across the Davies J-curve Revisited, a piece by Michael H. Glantz from June 27, 2003. It makes for interesting reading.

Oh, I’m sorry, “no one could have imagined” any of what has happened.

From CNN, in Iraq: Coalition deaths hit 3,000

The combined death toll includes 2,759 U.S. troops and seven American civilian contractors of the military.

Other coalition deaths include 119 British, 32 Italians, 18 Ukrainians, 17 Poles, 13 Bulgarians, and 11 Spaniards, as well as service members from Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Fiji, Holland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, Salvador, Slovakia, and Thailand.

Welcome to the three hundred millionth American.

Listen to the story here.

When you hear someone, anyone, say: the Constitution is not a suicide pact, look out because they want to grab power.

When you read statements expressing this thought, like this from The Hill:

“None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former judge and close ally of the president who sits on the Judiciary Committee.

know that the individual does not believe in the Constitution of the United States.

As Barbara Ehrenreich points out in an article she wrote for The New York Times, the Declaration of Independence was, most definitely in the minds of those who signed it, a suicide pact. Those men were all subject to hanging for treason by signing the document.

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This is really tiresome, and it never goes away. Expecting anyone to put up with the “slings and arrows of outrageous” rightwingers 24-7-365 without responding is well beyond the pale. I would recommend that in the future when he comments on Miss Noonan, Mr. Wolcott should refrain from saying: “Now put a sock in it and flake off.”

Miss Noonan no doubt has a lavender scented Irish linen handkerchief with hand-crocheted pansies in the bottom of the left sleeve of her cardigan that would be much more appropriate than a sock. Consider that the sock might have once been worn by Mr. Reagan and the shock might be too much for her.

Mr. Greenwald in his article, The virtues of passion and anger, notes a number of violations of good manners that might increase one’s blood pressure and notes the good purposes to which that extra energy might be put.

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Echidne conducts a guided tour of the methodology they used for the study, and it is very standard stuff without any trickery or cherry-picking. The confidence level of 95% reflects that it isn’t all that the researchers might have wished for, but it is the best that can be expected under the existing conditions in Iraq.

Dave Johnson covers another major misunderstanding: the report doesn’t say that the US killed all of these people directly. It states the death rate before the invasion and the death rate since the invasion. Anyone who thinks you can have an invasion, a complete break down in law, an insurgency, and, now, a civil war without the death rate showing a significant increase needs their meds adjusted.

When you destroy the electrical grid, the water and sewage systems, the medical care system, law enforcement, and there’s a guerrilla war going on, more people are going to die than in a stable society, even if that society is repressive.

Thinks about it: if the medical system worked, fewer of those sick or injured would die; if the water and sewage systems worked, there would be less disease; if the criminal justice system worked, there would be fewer murders.