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I have a new way to tell if someone is really reading my blog. This has happened a couple of times in the past few days. Someone will come up to me and say "I love your blog." I then tell them, "oh, thank you very much, what do you think about Memeorandum?"

All too often they get a blank stare on their face. But the ones who have something to say about Memeorandum always start an interesting conversation.

Oh, if you are learning about Memeorandum for the first time, you need to follow it several times a day (I average about 15 checks of it a day and it rarely doesn't bring me new stuff). You also need to visit the Preferences link on the top right and click on all that stuff.

Anyway, sorry that I am fawning over it so much. It's just changed my life, that's all.

This week, Hughes embarked on her first trip as undersecretary. Her initial statement resembled an elementary school presentation: "You might want to know why the countries. Egypt is of course the most populous Arab country ... Saudi Arabia is our second stop. It's obviously an important place in Islam and the keeper of its two holiest sites ... Turkey is also a country that encompasses people of many different backgrounds and beliefs, yet has the -- is proud of the saying that 'all are Turks.'"

Hughes appeared to be one of the pilgrims satirized by Mark Twain in his 1869 book, "Innocents Abroad," about his trip on "The Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion." "None of us had ever been anywhere before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a wild novelty to us ... We always took care to make it understood that we were Americans -- Americans!"

UNDER SECRETARY HUGHES: We're going to be visiting, as you know, three unique and very important countries, three countries we have a very strong partnership with one of them. We also face very significant public diplomacy challenges in one of them. One of my missions is to go to listen. I hope to listen, to seek to understand, to show respect. Listening is a two way street, and so I hope that those people I meet will also return that open spirit and be willing to listen. I'm going to take a lot of questions, I'm going to participate in a lot of give and take and I hope they'll be willing to listen to my discussion (inaudible).

[...]

I just wanted to talk a little bit to answer your questions about, kind of, my approach. As I said I view this trip as the beginning of a new dialogue that is very much people driven -- public diplomacy is people-driven and it's policy driven, because our policies affect people's lives. I don't see this as a matter of opinion polls or public relations, I see this as a matter of policy. That's really what drew me to public service in the first place. When I first decided to leave reporting and go to the political process it was because I realized that the decisions made in the political process made a very real difference peoples lives. So when I talk about people I'm talking about policies, I'm talking about our policies and the impact they have on people. I think that's what we've got to focus on here. I also -- I go as an official of the United States government, but I'm also a mom, a working mom, and so I hope that I could help, in some places, put a human face on America's public policy.

[...]

... just one of the points that we're going to make as we meet with people is, is talk about our American story and how it's a collective story that's written by individuals. We all have unique stories to tell. My own background as a granddaughter of a Pennsylvania coal miner and a Kentucky railroad worker. Dina, of course came here from Egypt, and we're very proud that our first stop in Egypt we're going to be taking someone who I think Egypt is very proud of Dina, the fact that she emigrated from Egypt as a young child, and has risen to the highest levels of our American government, and that's a wonderful American story.

Karima has her own American story. She is the daughter of a Palestinian father and a German mother and I'm sure that Bill has some part of an American story, although I haven't heard it yet (laughter) I'm sure he will be glad to share it with you. He currently lives in Wisconsin and I don't know what his family roots are.

Hughes' simple, sincere and unadorned language is pellucid in revealing the administration's inner mind. Her ideas on terrorism and its solution are straightforward. "Terrorists," she said in Egypt at the start of her trip, "their policies force young people, other people's daughters and sons, to strap on bombs and blow themselves up." Somehow, magically, these evildoers coerce the young to commit suicide. If only they would understand us, the tensions would dissolve. "Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans' lives," she said. When an Egyptian opposition leader inquired why President Bush mentions God in his speeches, she asked him "whether he was aware that previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our Constitution cites 'one nation under God.' He said, 'Well, never mind.'"

With these well-meaning arguments, Hughes has provided the exact proof for what Osama bin Laden has claimed about American motives. "It is stunning ... the extent [to which] Hughes is helping bin Laden," Robert Pape told me. Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who has conducted the most extensive research into the backgrounds and motives of suicide terrorists, is the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," and recently briefed the Pentagon and the National Counterterrorism Center. "If you set out to help bin Laden," he said, "you could not have done it better than Hughes."

Pape's research debunks the view that suicide terrorism is the natural byproduct of Islamic fundamentalism or some "Islamo-fascist" ideological strain independent of certain highly specific circumstances. "Of the key conditions that lead to suicide terrorism in particular, there must be, first, the presence of foreign combat forces on the territory that the terrorists prize. The second condition is a religious difference between the combat forces and the local community. The religious difference matters in that it enables terrorist leaders to paint foreign forces as being driven by religious goals. If you read Osama's speeches, they begin with descriptions of the U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, driven by our religious goals, and that it is our religious purpose that must confronted. That argument is incredibly powerful not only to religious Muslims but secular Muslims. Everything Hughes says makes their case."

Ms. Hughes promised to take what she learned from hearing dissenting views back to Washington. She was struck, she said, when a Turkish official told her to try to imagine the situation of Iraq, a next-door neighbor, sliding into possible civil war and engulfing Turkey from the perspective of "the common Turk."

"I will be sure to bring that message back to President Bush when I get back to Washington," she said.

DarkTimes review: Krugman at his (a) best or (b) shrillest, depending on your POV. Paragraph after paragraph of simple statements about corruption in the GOP leadership, cronyism at federal agencies, junk science response to global warming, and so on.

For example: "Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a 33-year-old Wall Street insider with little experience in regulation but close ties to drug firms, was made a deputy commissioner at the F.D.A. in July."

And

"David Safavian is a former associate of Jack Abramoff, the recently indicted lobbyist. Mr. Safavian oversaw U.S. government procurement policy at the White House Office of Management and Budget until his recent arrest."

And

"When Senator James Inhofe, who has called scientific research on global warming 'a gigantic hoax,' called a hearing to attack that research, his star witness was Michael Crichton, the novelist."

And

"James Schmitz, who resigned as the Pentagon's inspector general amid questions about his performance, has been hired as Blackwater's chief operating officer."

A litany of woe. "That's the way it is," concludes Krugman.

Friedman has a thumbsucker on the development of an Iraqi Navy -- there is progress, but then again progress is slow. Sounds like foreign forces (ours and the Brits) will be keeping the oil tankers safe for a while to come.

It’s the 60th anniversary of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which premiered in December, 1945, just a few months after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The goal of the magazine has always been simple, if somewhat ambitious: to save the world by working to minimize the threat of nuclear war. It came out of a time when physicists were central players in questions of international security.

The most famous product of the Bulletin is of course the Doomsday Clock, an iconic image that is far more famous than the magazine itself. The minute hand on the clock moves in response to the perceived danger of imminent global disaster. It’s fascinating to peek back at the timeline for the evolution of the clock, as it bounces back and forth in response to world events.

• 1947: Seven minutes to midnight. Chosen mostly for artistic reasons, apparently. The original conception didn’t include the idea that the clock would actually move to reflect developments in international security.
• 1949: Three minutes to midnight. The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb.
• 1953: Two minutes to midnight. The US and USSR explode hydrogen bombs.
• 1960: Seven minutes to midnight. International cooperation to check the growth of nuclear weapons grows.
• 1963: Twelve minutes to midnight. The US and USSR sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the first international arms-control agreement. (For some reason, the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t seem to have really registered — possibly it came and went too quickly.)
• 1968: Seven minutes to midnight. France and China acquire nuclear weapons; arms stockpiles increase while development aid to developing nations languishes.
• 1969: Ten minutes to midnight. The US Senate ratifies the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• 1972: Twelve minutes to midnight. The US and USSR sign the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I).
• 1974: Nine minutes to midnight. Arms control talks stall; India develops a nuclear weapon.
• 1980: Seven minutes to midnight. Small wars and terrorist activities grow, while arms-control talks remain stuck.
• 1981: Four minutes to midnight. Terrorism and repression of human rights grows, along with conflicts in multiple theaters around the world.
• 1984: Three minutes to midnight. Arms race picks up steam.
• 1988: Six minutes to midnight. The US and USSR sign a treaty limiting intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
• 1990: Ten minutes to midnight. Democracy flourishes in Eastern Europe; Cold War ends!
• 1991: Seventeen minutes to midnight. The clock leaps dramatically backward as the Cold War remains over, and the US and USSR announce signficant cuts in nuclear stockpiles.
• 1995: Fourteen minutes to midnight. Turns out that the peace dividend wasn’t quite what it might have been, as arms spending continues at Cold War levels. Fear grows of proliferation of nuclear weapons from poorly-controled facilities in the former Soviet Union.
• 1998: Nine minutes to midnight. India and Pakistan go public with nuclear weapons.
• 2002: Seven minutes to midnight. The U.S. rejects a series of arms control treaties and announces its withdrawal from the ABM treaty. Significant concerns about proliferation of nuclear weapons to terrorists.

So we’re right back where we started. If you don’t agree with the positioning of the clock as decided upon by the Bulletin’s board, you can always consult the Rapture Index for an alternative take on the imminence of Armageddon.

Recombinics.com reports "H5N1 has clearly evolved and has become markedly more efficient at transmitting among humans, and has done so via recombination," and that, "H5 will clearly be resident in humans worldwide."

Today, an article in the Guardian reports that the UN official in charge of bird flu response efforts warned that "a global influenza pandemic is imminent and will kill up to 150 million people." A World Health Organization said the "best case scenario" would be 7.4 million deaths globally.

Yesterday, the US Senate approved spending $3 billion on anti-viral medications, "including one intended to fight avian flu."

Finland is planning to buy "5.2 million doses of a vaccine against the deadly bird flu, allowing it to protect its entire population."

Boing Boing

Today 2:39:00 PM - by Mark Frauenfelder

In this White House pool report, the President inaugurates a war on gas:

The presidential and vice presidential motorcades departed together in gas-guzzling tandem at 9:51 a.m., arriving at Fort Myer at 9:57 a.m. for the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute and Armed Forces Hail marking retirement of Gen. Richard Myers as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and swearing-in of Gen. Peter Pace (first Marine to hold the job) as his replacement. . . . Cannon fire in honor of Gen. Myers set off at least one car alarm, meaning either the vibration was sufficient to set off the alarm or that our troops had successfully downed a Chevy.

[Reuters]