Quotations and comments from "Death Zones and Darling Spies" - Seven Years of Vietnam War Reporting by Beverly Deepe Keever
" .. in escalating the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, Kennedy brushed aside the prophetic warning given to him in 1962 by French general Charles de Gaulle: "You will, step by step, be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire."
"These newcomers < > about 6,000 < > nearly tenfold the limit of 685 < > allowed < > under international accords agreed upon on July 21, 1954 .. "
"Also, as the American public was to learn years later, breaching this international agreement was Kenndy's secret order initiating covert operations against North Vietnam and Laos conducted by U.S. Special Forces .."
Beginning in 1961, "U.S. helicopters would go on to fly an amazing number of over thirty-six million{!!!} flights over South Vietnam and North Vietnam."
"Unwilling to support either a Communist takeover of Vietnam or continued French colonial rule, Eisenhower vigorously supported Diem as a third force." "If elections had been held in 1956, Eisenhower is quoted as saying that 80 percent of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh .."
"Calling Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen for the second time, Johnson implored him to intervene again with Nixon < >"'They're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war. < > This is treason." Dirksen responded simply, "I know."" This is regarding Richard Nixon's contacts with the South Vietnamese before the 1968 American election.
"On June 8, 1969, Nixon announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Like a giant yo-yo, U.S. numbers began a free fall, from a peak of 543,000 on March 31, 1969, until on December 31, 1973, "less than 250" U.S. military personnel were assigned in Vietnam."??!!
The last chapter of Beverly Deepe Keever's book is mostly about Pham Xuan An, the author's evidently remarkable "associate and a Communist spy."
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Experimental Blog # 155
Quotations and notes from "Almost Everyone's Guide to Science" - The Universe, Life and Everything by John Gribbin with Mary Gribbin
Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:
" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."
"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."
"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."
Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:
" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."
"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."
"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."
Friday, April 19, 2013
Experimental Blog # 154
Quotations and notes from "Tiger Head, Snake Tails - China Today, How It Got There and Where It Is Heading" by Jonathan Fenby
"Average annual per capita income has soared from 528 yuan at the start of < > the early 1980s to 19,100 in urban areas and 5,900 in the countryside at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century."
"Sixty-five million Chinese travel abroad each year."
"The number of patent applications has risen from 50,000 to 300,000 a year since 2000{again placing China second only to the USA}".
"A Chinese publication has reported that more than fifty billionaires have died of unnatural causes since 2003; of these seventeen committed suicide, fifteen were murdered and fourteen were executed."
"Eighty million Chinese belong to the Communist Party .."{apparently 20% are women}.
Since China has such diversity of climate and terrain, "China contains 30,000 species of plants{compared to 17,000 in all North America}."
"Shanghai < > has constructed the equivalent of 334 Empire State Buildings in fourteen years."
"Religion is officially regulated with five faiths allowed: Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and Daoism - the latter being China's only indigenous creed, with its doctrine of the pursuit of the mystical way, freewheeling belief system and bewildering array of gods and demons .."
"The central bank{of China} estimates that 18,000 officials have skipped abroad in the last two decades, taking a total of more that $120 billion with them."
"Average annual per capita income has soared from 528 yuan at the start of < > the early 1980s to 19,100 in urban areas and 5,900 in the countryside at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century."
"Sixty-five million Chinese travel abroad each year."
"The number of patent applications has risen from 50,000 to 300,000 a year since 2000{again placing China second only to the USA}".
"A Chinese publication has reported that more than fifty billionaires have died of unnatural causes since 2003; of these seventeen committed suicide, fifteen were murdered and fourteen were executed."
"Eighty million Chinese belong to the Communist Party .."{apparently 20% are women}.
Since China has such diversity of climate and terrain, "China contains 30,000 species of plants{compared to 17,000 in all North America}."
"Shanghai < > has constructed the equivalent of 334 Empire State Buildings in fourteen years."
"Religion is officially regulated with five faiths allowed: Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and Daoism - the latter being China's only indigenous creed, with its doctrine of the pursuit of the mystical way, freewheeling belief system and bewildering array of gods and demons .."
"The central bank{of China} estimates that 18,000 officials have skipped abroad in the last two decades, taking a total of more that $120 billion with them."
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Experimental Blog # 153
Quotations from "Chinese Characters - Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land", edited by Angilee Shah and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Forward by Panaj Mishra
Here are a few quotations from 3 of the 18 contributors, 10 men and 8 women, who compose this anthology.
From Panaj Mishra:
"...the word "capitalism" scarcely describes an economic system in which a one-party state controls the major banks and companies and regulates the movement of capital. < > China has surely also adopted commonplace Western practices such as the privatization and truncating of public services, deunionization, and the fragmenting and lumpenization of urban working classes."
From Jeffrey Wasserstrom:
"It is true that China is still run by a Communist Party ... It is a Communist Party, however, that has stopped celebrating class struggle < > that the pursuit of a "harmonious society" is what China's leaders today talk about most .."
From Angilee Shah:
" ...China's economic rise is{quoting Adam Hersh} "the most rapid socioecnomic transformation in the history of human civilization."
"Some five hundred million people have been raised out of poverty since the 1980s .."
"China today is a place of great diversity and incredible people who are living through an unprecedented time."
Here are a few quotations from 3 of the 18 contributors, 10 men and 8 women, who compose this anthology.
From Panaj Mishra:
"...the word "capitalism" scarcely describes an economic system in which a one-party state controls the major banks and companies and regulates the movement of capital. < > China has surely also adopted commonplace Western practices such as the privatization and truncating of public services, deunionization, and the fragmenting and lumpenization of urban working classes."
From Jeffrey Wasserstrom:
"It is true that China is still run by a Communist Party ... It is a Communist Party, however, that has stopped celebrating class struggle < > that the pursuit of a "harmonious society" is what China's leaders today talk about most .."
From Angilee Shah:
" ...China's economic rise is{quoting Adam Hersh} "the most rapid socioecnomic transformation in the history of human civilization."
"Some five hundred million people have been raised out of poverty since the 1980s .."
"China today is a place of great diversity and incredible people who are living through an unprecedented time."
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Experimental Blog # 152
Quotations and notes from "The Terror Factory" - Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson
"A Senate oversight committee found in 1975 the FBI had 1,500 informants. In 1980.., 2,800 ...Six years later .. 6,000 .." Today, after the Moslem{Muslim} terrorist attacks on 9/11, the FBI has an "official roster" of 15,000 informants. The author, Trevor Aaronson, writes that the FBI has a "vast army of spies, located in every community in the United States with enough Muslims to support a mosque.."
"The FBI currently spends $3 billion annually to hunt an enemy that is largely of its own creation."
"According to government and federal court records, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than 500 terrorism defendants since 9/11."
"Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn't face off against an informant weren't directely involved with terrorism at all, but were .. small-time criminals with distant links to terrorists overseas."
"Of the 508 cases, I could count on one hand the number of actual terrorists .."
This is a very provocative book on a very controversial subject.
"A Senate oversight committee found in 1975 the FBI had 1,500 informants. In 1980.., 2,800 ...Six years later .. 6,000 .." Today, after the Moslem{Muslim} terrorist attacks on 9/11, the FBI has an "official roster" of 15,000 informants. The author, Trevor Aaronson, writes that the FBI has a "vast army of spies, located in every community in the United States with enough Muslims to support a mosque.."
"The FBI currently spends $3 billion annually to hunt an enemy that is largely of its own creation."
"According to government and federal court records, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than 500 terrorism defendants since 9/11."
"Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn't face off against an informant weren't directely involved with terrorism at all, but were .. small-time criminals with distant links to terrorists overseas."
"Of the 508 cases, I could count on one hand the number of actual terrorists .."
This is a very provocative book on a very controversial subject.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Experimental Blog # 151
Comments on "The Terror Courts" - Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay by Jess Bravin
President George W. Bush created the Special Military Commission by executive order in November of 2001 to deal with the captured foreign terrorists after the 9/11 attacks on America. It seems that neither he nor his administration had any confidence in the existing American judicial system.
The "offshore" commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was authorized to use what might be called "torture lite" to obtain confessions and other useful information. The prisoners were not to be tortured to death or physically injured. It seems that they had to be in such condition that, after a day or two of rest, they could be brought into the courtroom and not appear to be injured or abused. Numerous times the author also mentions the "clandestine network" of CIA prisons that are secretly located in foreign countries, but not much seems to be known about what transpired in these places.
Jess Bravin apparently concludes that the Guantanamo military commission was actually much slower to produce results than the established American judicial system would have been. Very few convictions could be obtained because confessions or evidence produced under such allowed conditions could not be upheld. Several prisoners were released for political reasons to England and Australia.
For its own political reasons the administration of President Barak Obama has continued the military commission at Guantanamo Bay. However, substantial changes have been made; for instance, "torture lite" is no longer supposed to be used to obtain evidence or confessions. Besides that the author writes that if prisoners are actually convicted of anything, they seem to receive a more lenient sentence than they would receive from the established American judicial system.
President George W. Bush created the Special Military Commission by executive order in November of 2001 to deal with the captured foreign terrorists after the 9/11 attacks on America. It seems that neither he nor his administration had any confidence in the existing American judicial system.
The "offshore" commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was authorized to use what might be called "torture lite" to obtain confessions and other useful information. The prisoners were not to be tortured to death or physically injured. It seems that they had to be in such condition that, after a day or two of rest, they could be brought into the courtroom and not appear to be injured or abused. Numerous times the author also mentions the "clandestine network" of CIA prisons that are secretly located in foreign countries, but not much seems to be known about what transpired in these places.
Jess Bravin apparently concludes that the Guantanamo military commission was actually much slower to produce results than the established American judicial system would have been. Very few convictions could be obtained because confessions or evidence produced under such allowed conditions could not be upheld. Several prisoners were released for political reasons to England and Australia.
For its own political reasons the administration of President Barak Obama has continued the military commission at Guantanamo Bay. However, substantial changes have been made; for instance, "torture lite" is no longer supposed to be used to obtain evidence or confessions. Besides that the author writes that if prisoners are actually convicted of anything, they seem to receive a more lenient sentence than they would receive from the established American judicial system.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Experimental Blog # 150
Quotations and notes from "The Joy of X" - A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity by Steven Strogatz
"... numbers have lives of their own. ..Even though they exist in our minds, once we decide what we mean by them,..They obey certain laws and have certain properties, .. and ways of combining with one another ...they are eerily reminiscent of atoms and stars, the things of this world ...except that those things exist outside our heads."
"The Babylonians ..numerical system was based on 60 ...Sixty is the smallest number that can be divided evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6{besides 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30}. ..Because of its promiscuous divisibilty, 60 is much more congenial .. for any sort of calculation or measurement that involves cutting things into equal parts"{such as hours or minutes or circles}.
"Quantum mechanics describes real atoms, and hence all of matter, as packets of sine waves. Even at the cosmological scale, sine waves form the seeds of all that exists."!
"...vector calculus is helping to explain how dragonflies, bumblebees, and hummingbirds can fly - something that had long been a mystery to conventional fixed-wing aerodynamics."
"With the notions of divergence and curl ...{Using mathematical maneuvers equivalent to vector calculus} Maxwell's equations .. express" the four fundamental laws of electric and magnetic fields: how electricity and magnetism are related to their sources of charged particles and currents and how they interact over space and time to produce undulating waves.
The laws of probability turn individual randomness into collective regularity.
"... numbers have lives of their own. ..Even though they exist in our minds, once we decide what we mean by them,..They obey certain laws and have certain properties, .. and ways of combining with one another ...they are eerily reminiscent of atoms and stars, the things of this world ...except that those things exist outside our heads."
"The Babylonians ..numerical system was based on 60 ...Sixty is the smallest number that can be divided evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6{besides 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30}. ..Because of its promiscuous divisibilty, 60 is much more congenial .. for any sort of calculation or measurement that involves cutting things into equal parts"{such as hours or minutes or circles}.
"Quantum mechanics describes real atoms, and hence all of matter, as packets of sine waves. Even at the cosmological scale, sine waves form the seeds of all that exists."!
"...vector calculus is helping to explain how dragonflies, bumblebees, and hummingbirds can fly - something that had long been a mystery to conventional fixed-wing aerodynamics."
"With the notions of divergence and curl ...{Using mathematical maneuvers equivalent to vector calculus} Maxwell's equations .. express" the four fundamental laws of electric and magnetic fields: how electricity and magnetism are related to their sources of charged particles and currents and how they interact over space and time to produce undulating waves.
The laws of probability turn individual randomness into collective regularity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)