For the next week, I will leave comments open, so if you feel like one last hurrah, go for it. I'm sure there will be plenty more blogging projects in our collective futures. I for one plan to blog assiduously my move to Cairo in March — part of my cunning plan to make the Middle East more secular (on average) by moving there. Imagine if we all moved. See?

What is happening in Iraq is not all-out civil war. "Sectarian conflict" may be a bureaucratic sounding bromide but it is more accurate. The violence is being perpetuated by local cells intent on fomenting civil war, be they al Qaeda, Saddamites, local Sunni resistance fighters, or Shia from the slums or within the government. That is quite different to full-scale ethnic cleansing, which is likely should the US pull its troops out.

Consider Britain's withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent, which led to Partition. This resulted in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths. It directly led to several wars, the division of East and West Pakistan into two countries, the tragedy of Kashmir, and in Burma the adoption of a brutal, isolationist regime.

The situation in the Middle East could be just as bad. The papers have hinted at the possibility of an implosion leading to foreign powers fighting proxy wars in Iraq. Now we have specific, concrete reports about Saudi intentions to pursue exactly that, against Shiites in Iraq and against Iran. There was also a news report this week in the FT about the six nations of the Gulf community pooling resources to develop a nuclear bomb to counter Iran.

I supported the US invasion of Iraq. Some of the assumptions that underpinned that have not been bourne out, even if the reasons I cited at the time were valid by themselves. I was wrong; the invasion has been a disaster. But not an unmitigated one; not one without hope. It would take the shameful, hasty withdrawal of America's military presence in Iraq to turn this into an unmitigated disaster.

. . . bracketing putative Gitmo trials with Stalin. . . goes wildly beyond any sane person's idea of constructive criticism.

Well, no doubt Claude is trolling the comments section of "American Conservative", which I came across while browsing Andrew Sullivan. One James Bovard writes therein:

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to prohibit defendant Majid Khan, a former Catonsville, Md. resident who was nabbed in Pakistan, from revealing to anyone -even his defense attorney -the interrogation methods he endured. A Justice Department spokeswoman claimed that letting Khan discuss his interrogation with his lawyer “is inadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified information that is vital to our country’s ability to fight terrorism.” Thus, the feds can use whatever Khan said against him while hiding the methods that made him squeal.

The MCA creates procedural biases akin to a 1938 Moscow show trial. Defense attorneys can “challenge the use of hearsay information obtained through coercive interrogations in distant countries only if they can prove it is unreliable,” the Washington Post noted. But it will be almost impossible to disprove an accusation when a defense lawyer is not allowed to question or perhaps even know who made the charge.

American Conservative's latest issue includes scribblings from such unreliable lefties as Peter Hitchens, Taki, Pat Buchanan and no doubt others of similar weak moral fibre.

Mr Baker knows very well that Mr al-Maliki must fail. Prepare for the spectacle of Uncle Sam the organ-grinder storming from the stage in a huff, shouting abuse at his monkey. Reach for the sick bags as the puppeteer starts throwing punches at his puppet. Weep, as the ventriloquist indicts his dummy.

He summed up the workings and the benefits of free markets with a simple idea: a pencil. Here is Friedman in his own words, taken from a transcript of a TV version of "Free to Choose":

"Look at this lead pencil, there is not a single person in the world who could make this pencil. Remarkable statement? Not at all. The wood from which it's made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the State of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make the steel, it took iron ore.

"This black center, we call it lead but it's really compressed graphite, I am not sure where it comes from but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser, a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the rubber tree isn't even native. It was imported from South America by some businessman with the help of the British government. This brass feral - I haven't the slightest idea where it came from or the yellow paint or the paint that made the black lines - or the glue that holds it together.

"Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil. People who don't speak the same language; who practice different religions; who might hate one another if they ever met. When you go down to the store and buy this pencil, you are, in effect, trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of the time of all of those thousands of people. What brought them together and induced them to cooperate to make this pencil? There was no Commissar sending out orders from some central office. It was the magic of the price system - the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate to make this pencil so that you could have it for a trifling sum.

"That is why the operation of the free market is so essential. Not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more, to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world."

My wife and I checked out the latest from Ghibli in the theater, "Tales from Earthsea". I thought this was going to be another amazement from Hayao Miyazaki, creator of "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle". The quality of animation was about the same but the story was darker and more linear - more like a conventional Western fantasy story. Which is what it is, as I found out looking it up on IMBD: an adaption of Ursula K. Le Guin stories. And Miyazaki didn't direct the movie, it was left to a lieutenant in house Ghibli.

"Howl's" was set in a Euro-smorgasborg setting - taking styles and architecture from across the continent, from ancient to medieval to Renaissance - in a typically Japanese take on "Europe". I wonder if "Earthsea" was a continuation, a deepening, of that stylistic fetish, but it wasn't quite as effective. In a way it was too European because it was written by one, whereas a "Europe" conceived by Japanese fantasists is something altogether more charming but alien. (Remember the Japanese tourists who need to see a shrink because Paris turned out to have dirty streets and rude waiters.)

Now to the cool stuff.

The plots in both movies are jam packed and complex and philosophical, and yet crammed with great action sequences, cool guns and female cyborgs that are, well, carefully rendered by the team under director Mamoru Oshii. They are based on mangas developed by Masamune Shirow (if that means anything to you). There's definitely some cross-cultural feedback going on, as these films have clearly drawn something from Ridley Scott's "Bladerunner" - which in turn was obviously based on Asian and specifically Japanese forms and sci-fi work. But the film is ahead of its time, at least for Westerners. "This is years before 'The Matrix'", my Asian wife reminded me.

My favorite sequences in both movies are the montages of city life in 30 year's time, set to the same eerie, exotic music. Oshii's imagination seems unbound and we enjoy wallowing in pure cinema. The plots are tightly wound and serious, and the themes - human identity, existence - are explored fundamentally. I wish these movies would just keep going. "Innocence" (which came out in 2004) is, if anything, even deeper and more interesting, while the plot - involving sex androids that murder their customers - plumbs the depths of humanity. But who cares, the visuals are gorgeous, the action is awesome, and the future is drawn with such detail that it's fun just to go along for the ride.

If you like sci-fi, challenging ideas, intellectual movies, action flicks, cool moody cinema, Japanese animation or just looking for something new...check out "Ghost in the Shell" and "Innocence".

Of the 33 Senate races, nine are competitive. They are Maryland (MD), Missouri (MO), Montana (MT), New Jersey (NJ), Ohio (OH), Pennsylvania (PA), Rhode Island (RI), Tennessee (TN) and Virginia (VA). I believe the GOP will win MD, MO, MT, NJ, RI, TN and VA - with a net gain of one seat. At worst I think the GOP could (net) lose two seats in the Senate - that's if RI, MT and MO go the other way. I do not believe the races in NJ and VA are even terribly close at this point - I expect both Kean and Allen to win with at least 53% of the (two-party) vote.

The Democrats need to flip 14 House seats to gain control of the chamber. While polling suggests the party is poised to shift 27 seats, I do not think that will happen. I suspect the Democrats will shift just ten seats, an insufficient number to seize control of the House of Representatives. My anticipated worst case scenario would be a 16 seat loss, which would give the Democrats nominal control.

Comrade Stalin would be very proud of this elegant formulation, cutting off the defence of the latest set of Volksfeinden, as he was never able to quite get over the problem of coerced confessions in his show trials in the 30s. As the WIkipedia on Show Trials explains:

Such trials can exhibit scant regard for the niceties of jurisprudence and even for the letter of the law. Defendants have little real opportunity to justify themselves: they have often signed statements under duress and/or suffered torture prior to appearing in the court-room.

Fantastic stuff. I wonder if they'll be able to get away with it? Further thoughts after the jump.

I finished Ron Suskind's One Percent Doctrine the other day. It's pretty clear that this administration has been up to some fairly un-american stuff in the past few years. Asuming that the US does not descend into dictatorship, will McCain or Giuliani be the Khruschev to Dubya's Stalin when all this is over?

The other major problem with the CIA position on this, as far as I understand it, is that we already know what types of interrogation techniques are used in the GWOT, namely threats to relatives, drugs, stress positions, exposure, sleep deprivation and waterboarding. There are probably a few more. Only the most extremely dim terrorist, likely with ADD, would be surprised to find this stuff out. I also understand that the recent McCain-Graham legislation does indeed limit torture during interrogation to this sort of level; pulling fingernails out, for instance, is off as it causes permanent harm. Merely convincing someone they are about to die (Yes yes! we tried to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge! Now please stop. . .) does not, and is allowed. Is it possible that the CIA really thinks it can keep the terrorists in the dark? Or is it the public it wants to keep all this stuff from?

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

It's that kind of blind, elitist arrogance that will keep them out of power for years to come.

Third, the country hungers for a black president. Not all the country, but enough that, on balance, race would be an asset. It is no accident that when, a decade ago, another attractive, articulate African American with no experience in electoral office went on a book tour, he was met not just with rock-star adulation but with a loud national chorus urging him to run for the presidency.

Which is true - I saw "Departed" last night with my wife. It is a good Scorsese crime flick, with plenty of tough-guy banter, bang-bang and bravado. We both preferred the original but "Departed" is good entertainment, particularly if you haven't seen "Infernal Affairs".

More interestingly, though, is the comparison between how an American tells the story versus, well, someone else. I'm going to talk about plot details here so if you haven't seen "Departed" but plan to, stop reading. If you don't care but are interested in my cultural take, or if you've already seen either flick, please carry on.

The gist of this part of the story is that Leonardo di Caprio (in the Tony Leung role) is going to be kicked out of the police academy, jailed and sent in under deep cover to infiltrate the local mafia, headed by Jack Nicholson (Eric Tsang's character).

In the HK version, the only person in the world who knows that this man is actually a cop is the police chief, played by Anthony Wong. The two develop a father-son bond, with Wong keeping Tony Leung from going completely nuts. Martin Sheen has this duty in "Departed" but with Mark Wahlberg keeping company. It's not a major role in the movie; once Sheen's character is murdered, Wahlberg disappears.

"Infernal Affairs" is not just about a cop in the mafia, but simultaneously a criminal who has infiltrated the police, played by Andy Lau; both the crime lord and the police chief know each of them has a mole and the movie is a cat-and-mouse between them. Matt Damon plays this guy in the Boston version.

Andy Lau, through guile and sheer luck, survives. Everybody else ends up dead, except for his girlfriend, a government psychiatrist (Kelly Chan/Vera Famiglia), who leaves him out of disgust. Lau's character goes on to be feted, however, as the believed hero who brought the bad guys to justice.

It's a shocking, terrific ending. Among some of the HK action movies I've seen, there is a preference for mawkish endings that aren't so much hard-hitting as they are bathetic. But "Infernal Affairs" worked in part because of its quick editing and fine direction (by Wai Keung-lau and Siu Fai-mak) - and because it was genuinely edgy.

"Departed" is also edgy and full of violence, some of it pretty explicit. But it makes one error. In the very last scene, we realise why Mark Wahlberg's character was created: to come back and assassinate Matt Damon's bad guy.

In other words, Scorsese couldn't handle leaving the bad guy triumphant. Even though all the good guys - Sheen, di Caprio, etc - get wasted, he needed an angel of vengeance to fire the last bullet. So he created one.

I can't say whether this ending is better or worse, but it certainly holds true to Hollywood's insistence on a happy ending, and general inability to swallow real life whole. (Not that "Infernal Affairs" is an exercise in documentary, but you get my drift.)

Regardless of one's preference for endings that give Good justice over Evil, Scorsese's insertion of this extra character plays unexpected havoc along the way. My wife pointed out that, although she liked Leonardo di Caprio's performance, she found his character lacked the empathy with Martin Sheen that gave "Infernal Affairs" its humanity.

Wahlberg keeps getting in the way, running his mouth off, swinging punches. The effect means that Sheen is just di Caprio's boss. Attempts at the fatherly touch fall flat. And it therefore makes di Caprio's situation a little less believable; no one would endure that hell just for a paycheck, but they might out of loyalty to their substitute dad.

Scorsese fluffs some of the details as well. The best scene in "Infernal Affairs", the most powerful punch, is when Eric Tsang's thugs hurl police chief Anthony Wong out the window and he lands on a car in front of Tony Leung. It's an amazing, horrifying surprise, and you feel Leung's sorrow - he is now truly on his own, no one in the world knows that he's not a criminal but an undercover - and he's just lost his patriarch.

Not only is the emotional flow less strong with Sheen's death, but Scorsese gives the surprise away by showing Sheen's falling body.

Finally, Jack Nicholson almost hijacks "Departed" with his performance as...Jack Nicholson. His part has been greatly amplified versus Eric Tsang's pragmatic, quick-thinking gangster. Of course, if Hong Kong had a Nicholson, it would have used him! Eric Tsang doesn't do much for me and I don't find him especially threatening. Nicholson can ooze menace. But he's allowed to have too much time on screen. Fortunately Matt Damon and Leonardo di Caprio are powerful enough to keep the movie planted on them. They're not Michael Keating getting second billing as Batman. And Scorsese is careful to keep the story on track.

On the plus side, Vera Famiglia is good as the shrink/love interest, if for no other reason than by default, as Kelly Chan is not a good actress. This role has also been expanded, although I think some of it came from the HK sequel "Infernal Affairs 2" which developed her role and back-story. It was necessary because Scorsese tells the story from its beginning, whereas "Infernal Affairs" tended towards sometimes-confusing flashbacks, which was probably its weakness. And my wife also found Matt Damon's baddie a little more compelling than Andy Lau, although she's mum on which one she finds cuter...I'm guessing she's more of a Tony Leung lady anyway.

Since the early 1990’s, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses...

Yes, that's right, elephants raping rhinos. And what's the logical consequence of elephants raping rhinos?

Elephino!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to listening to the voice of Satan on my infidelPod.