don't call me Shirley

[asimplechord]

:( Dropped J at the airport on my way to work. We were unable to cling as desired b/c a stern member of the security force was directing people to parking spots and ordering them on as fast as possible.

:( Also said goodbye to Aaron for the week, as he's got meetings in Austin until Friday. I am tempted to see if there's anyone playing Emo's or Stubb's that I'd like to see this week, and drive out to stay with him. I can work on figures and writing the experimental section of the paper from anywhere, right? Why, labwork?

:/ It is supposed to hit 79F today? With 95% humidity. UGH. This is November. It is Not Right.

:) Butch Walker and Brendon Urie quoting Leslie Nielsen jokes at each other on twitter? A+ distraction while sitting stuck in traffic.

:) PSA: Restrepo is going to air on the National Geographic Channel tonight at 9pm Eastern time.

? Anyone else paging through the WikiLeaks cables? I guess I'm just a cynic, but I assumed that diplomats were collecting intelligence anyway, as a part of their job? Maybe not to the extent that these documents reveal, but at least superficially.

I was interested in the cable from Tegucigalpa in 2009 that said flat-out that the coup was illegal and unconstitutional. Nice to see that we say that, and then go on to do absolutely nothing to support the legally elected leader.

Also, all this talk about how it's damaging for US diplomacy to have supposedly confidential documents leaked, exposing private opinions and conversations. If it was an official govt cable? Not private. And I suppose I feel that, you know, if the govt is embarrassed about what it's done or doesn't want citizens to know what it's doing in their name, then maybe that's a sign that the govt shouldn't be doing it? (Apparently the Guardian's opinion is not far off.) But my desire for transparency is clearly naive, so. Eh. I doubt I'll have the patience to continue to browse the cables themselves as more are leaked.



*sigh*

Got coffee.

Science to do. I'm on it.

Comments

[byandby.livejournal.com]

Anyone else paging through the WikiLeaks cables? I guess I'm just a cynic, but I assumed that diplomats were collecting intelligence anyway, as a part of their job? Maybe not to the extent that these documents reveal, but at least superficially.

That were my thoughts as well. I thought that this was typical...it was the elephant in the room - you knew it was there but you didn't talk about it.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

Purely as a matter of state-craft, haven't countries always spied on each other? I guess it's just the scale of it - DNA samples and such? - that's a surprise to me.

[escherzo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, with some of what's been leaked it amazes me that they're going "THIS ORGANIZATION IS TERRORIST-ISH FOR RELEASING THESE" (apparently there's someone in the govt trying to get them declared as foreign terrorists) despite the fact that it wouldn't be a problem if they hadn't done fucked up things to begin with.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

Do as the govt *says*, not as it *does*, I guess. Mostly I'm wondering if this will make any difference whatsoever other than make some countries (like Yemen and Saudi Arabia, most prominently) own their hypocrisy. I sincerely doubt it.

[escherzo.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking no. Government is definitely playing it up to be a terrible and horrible thing this time around (as per usual) but honestly I haven't seen anything too shocking yet.