Author: Gil

So I was at Home Despot this evening, looking for a timer for my hall lamp and a spud bar. Because I lead an interesting life, alright?

Anyway, while looking for the timer, I noticed a display of carbon monoxide detectors. I thought, “Well, since I have that wood-burning stove in the new house, I should really get one of these detectors.”

I picked one up and saw it was $49.97. Immediately, I started looking at the other ones on display, to see if there was a cheaper model. Blame instinct, blame my parents, blame my cheap ethnic stereotype, etc.

And I thought, “Yeah, when it comes to an invisible, odorless gas that’ll kill you within minutes, it’s always smart to cut corners . . .”

Literary theory: “Most people outgrow it when they stop feeling insecure or threatened.”

Read on.

Yes, David Kay’s report on intelligence failures re: WMDs in Iraq is harsh. But it’s not as if mistakes like this are unheard of in the intelligence community. Anyone who wants to treat the whole issue as an opportunity to bash the White House ought to sit down and read Intelligence Wars, a collection of essays/reviews by Thomas Powers.

In particular, the chapter “Soviet Intentions and Capabilities” yields the following money quote:

“Our answer,” said Sherman Kent, [chairman of the CIA’s Board of National Estimates], “is to say nothing is going to happen in the foreseeable future, and say it in the most alarming way possible.”

The history of intel/cointel is a map of misreadings, to misapply Harold Bloom. Just because you think the president is an ignoramus doesn’t mean that this particular instance of misreading was malicious. After all, he did run on the least interventionist platform in 75 years.

A one-time gay porn actor blackballed from the Japanese leagues? Just read. My favorite part is that the player who gets quoted is named Grady Sizemore. Was Woody Everhard busy?

Gregg Easterbrook writes about the death of Captain Kangaroo much better than I ever could.

I’m off to Las Vegas for the Informex conference. If you need to find me, I’ll be staying at the obsidian pyramid that’s shooting a laser beam two miles into space.

I’ve had two Vegas trips so far, and they’ve left me with the belief that the city is actually an alien theme park of planet Earth. Which helps explain both the laser beam AND the proximity to Area 51.

While there, I’m hoping to take a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. And maybe I’ll go catch this guy, too.

In the UK, the Guardian discusses how and why the market for Ecstasy has collapsed. My favorite quote:

“[Ecstasy] lay undisturbed until the 1950s, when the CIA picked it up for a few desultory animal tests in its search for a truth serum. How the agency’s interrogators planned to determine that their dogs were telling the truth is unclear, but whatever they saw did not impress, and MDMA never officially made it to human trials.”

Read on.

From the NYTimes:

“A large part of the European left spent a large part of the 20th century hating the United States not because it had economic inequality or Jim Crow but because it did not have show trials, labor camps and the other appurtenances of ‘actually existing socialism.'”

It’s my birthday! On this day in 1971, I was putting my mom through hell for the first time: two weeks late, 24 inches tall, 10 lbs. & six oz.!

Much love to everyone who neglected to send a card on time, and just a little more to those who did send their cards in time (both of you have the first initial of V, which must have some Pynchonesque significance).

Happy birthday to K., who celebrates this day too.

Best wishes to Smadley, my associate editor at the day job, who runs in her first half-marathon today to benefit leukemia research.