Ex-FBI official says he's 'Deep Throat'
Magazine quotes him as saying he was 'doing his duty'
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:23 p.m. ET May 31, 2005
W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the "Deep Throat" source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday.
'"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told John D. O'Connor, the author of Vanity Fair's exclusive that appears in its July issue.
Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif., reportedly gave O'Connor permission to disclose his identity.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Headless Goat
DEPT. OF FOREIGN RELATIONS
THE BORAT DOCTRINE
Issue of 2004-09-20Posted 2004-09-13
Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, wants to clear up a few misconceptions about his country. Women are not kept in cages. The national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum. “Khrum” is not the word for testicles.
These falsehoods, and many others, have been spread by Borat, a character on “Da Ali G Show,” which recently finished its second season on HBO. Like Ali G, Borat is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian who specializes in prank interviews. As Borat, Cohen has told a dating service that he is looking for a girl with “plow experience,” persuaded a meeting of Oklahoma City officials to observe a ten-minute silence in memory of the (fictitious) Tishnik Massacre, and, most notably, led a country-and-Western bar in a sing-along of “In My Country There Is Problem,” whose chorus goes: “Throw the Jew down the well / So my country can be free / You must grab him by his horns / Then we have a big party.”
It was partly Borat’s casual but relentless anti-Semitism that led Vassilenko to object publicly, in a letter to The Hill, a Washington weekly. (In real life, Cohen is an observant Jew, but the Anti-Defamation League also condemned him, arguing that “the irony may have been lost on some of the audience.”) “He says things that make people think that Kazakhstan really is a backward country,” Vassilenko said last week from his office in Washington. In Borat’s Kazakhstan, Jews attack people with their claws, and “Dirty Jew” is a popular film. But the real Kazakhstan has long embraced its thriving Jewish community, according to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and earlier this month the country dedicated the largest synagogue in Central Asia. “The President of the country came down, as well as the chief rabbi of Israel,” Vassilenko said. “There were all kinds of rabbis from around the world, and a New Yorker. He was not a rabbi, but you might be interested to know the name. The name is Ronald Lauder.”
Vassilenko is also chagrined at Borat’s portrayal of women in Kazakh society, epitomized by his claim that “in Kazakhstan we say, ‘God, man, horse, dog, then woman, then rat.’ ” Vassilenko said, “I don’t think our women like that, not to mention the men. We have women ministers, women judges, businesspeople.” Nor should Borat have been appalled, as he was in one episode, to learn that American women can vote. American and Kazakh women both got the vote, Vassilenko pointed out, on August 26, 1920.
It turns out that almost nothing about Borat’s Kazakhstan withstands scrutiny. Borat doesn’t look like an ethnic Kazakh. His Kazakh words “resemble some gibberish Polish,” Vassilenko said. And, while Borat has claimed that “in Kazakhstan the favorite hobbies are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis,” Vassilenko concedes only the first and the last. Archery is “not prominent,” he said, and statistics show that the Kazakh sexual-assault rate is far lower than the United States’. (That may be because the crime is more likely to go unreported.)
So what is the national sport of Kazakhstan? “The most known ones are wrestling and all kinds of sports that try people in how they master horses,” Vassilenko said. “Kazakhs were traditional nomads, so there are various sports like horse races. Another horseback sport is called something like Catch a—what is name?—Catch a Bride. And that is that a group of young guys race to get a bride, and she races away from them and they have to catch her while she fends them off with a whip.” This sport does not result in actual matrimony—just a kiss.
According to Borat, a Kazakh man gets a wife by buying a woman from her father for fifteen gallons of insecticide. Vassilenko disputes this, too: “The men propose marriage with engagement rings.” There is an old tradition—“maybe a hundred years ago,” Vassilenko said—of men kidnapping their brides, but he claims that the practice is virtually obsolete. Also, he said, “If you want to do it for fun, you can do that,” but the woman has to be in on it.
Travel guides mention a Kazakh sport called kokpar, a precursor of polo. When Vassilenko was asked about it, he hesitated, then explained, “That’s the one where a goat, a dead goat”—a headless dead goat—“is, um, being held as a sort of a prize. And then one rider has it, and he has to run away with it from others who seek to catch it and snatch it from him.” And then they have a party.
THE BORAT DOCTRINE
Issue of 2004-09-20Posted 2004-09-13
Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, wants to clear up a few misconceptions about his country. Women are not kept in cages. The national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum. “Khrum” is not the word for testicles.
These falsehoods, and many others, have been spread by Borat, a character on “Da Ali G Show,” which recently finished its second season on HBO. Like Ali G, Borat is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian who specializes in prank interviews. As Borat, Cohen has told a dating service that he is looking for a girl with “plow experience,” persuaded a meeting of Oklahoma City officials to observe a ten-minute silence in memory of the (fictitious) Tishnik Massacre, and, most notably, led a country-and-Western bar in a sing-along of “In My Country There Is Problem,” whose chorus goes: “Throw the Jew down the well / So my country can be free / You must grab him by his horns / Then we have a big party.”
It was partly Borat’s casual but relentless anti-Semitism that led Vassilenko to object publicly, in a letter to The Hill, a Washington weekly. (In real life, Cohen is an observant Jew, but the Anti-Defamation League also condemned him, arguing that “the irony may have been lost on some of the audience.”) “He says things that make people think that Kazakhstan really is a backward country,” Vassilenko said last week from his office in Washington. In Borat’s Kazakhstan, Jews attack people with their claws, and “Dirty Jew” is a popular film. But the real Kazakhstan has long embraced its thriving Jewish community, according to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and earlier this month the country dedicated the largest synagogue in Central Asia. “The President of the country came down, as well as the chief rabbi of Israel,” Vassilenko said. “There were all kinds of rabbis from around the world, and a New Yorker. He was not a rabbi, but you might be interested to know the name. The name is Ronald Lauder.”
Vassilenko is also chagrined at Borat’s portrayal of women in Kazakh society, epitomized by his claim that “in Kazakhstan we say, ‘God, man, horse, dog, then woman, then rat.’ ” Vassilenko said, “I don’t think our women like that, not to mention the men. We have women ministers, women judges, businesspeople.” Nor should Borat have been appalled, as he was in one episode, to learn that American women can vote. American and Kazakh women both got the vote, Vassilenko pointed out, on August 26, 1920.
It turns out that almost nothing about Borat’s Kazakhstan withstands scrutiny. Borat doesn’t look like an ethnic Kazakh. His Kazakh words “resemble some gibberish Polish,” Vassilenko said. And, while Borat has claimed that “in Kazakhstan the favorite hobbies are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis,” Vassilenko concedes only the first and the last. Archery is “not prominent,” he said, and statistics show that the Kazakh sexual-assault rate is far lower than the United States’. (That may be because the crime is more likely to go unreported.)
So what is the national sport of Kazakhstan? “The most known ones are wrestling and all kinds of sports that try people in how they master horses,” Vassilenko said. “Kazakhs were traditional nomads, so there are various sports like horse races. Another horseback sport is called something like Catch a—what is name?—Catch a Bride. And that is that a group of young guys race to get a bride, and she races away from them and they have to catch her while she fends them off with a whip.” This sport does not result in actual matrimony—just a kiss.
According to Borat, a Kazakh man gets a wife by buying a woman from her father for fifteen gallons of insecticide. Vassilenko disputes this, too: “The men propose marriage with engagement rings.” There is an old tradition—“maybe a hundred years ago,” Vassilenko said—of men kidnapping their brides, but he claims that the practice is virtually obsolete. Also, he said, “If you want to do it for fun, you can do that,” but the woman has to be in on it.
Travel guides mention a Kazakh sport called kokpar, a precursor of polo. When Vassilenko was asked about it, he hesitated, then explained, “That’s the one where a goat, a dead goat”—a headless dead goat—“is, um, being held as a sort of a prize. And then one rider has it, and he has to run away with it from others who seek to catch it and snatch it from him.” And then they have a party.
Mmmmmmm, Peppermint
Peppermint, cinnamon lower drivers' frustration, increase alertness
The scent of peppermint or cinnamon in a vehicle might make driving less frustrating and keep drivers more alert behind the wheel. That's according to the results of a recent study led by Dr. Bryan Raudenbush, an associate professor of psychology at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.V. According to the study, drivers demonstrated decreased levels of frustration, anxiety and fatigue when exposed to peppermint and cinnamon scents. The study also revealed that drivers were more alert.
I will have to test this theory. Have you ever noticed cinnamon bathroom sprays just make the room smell like....well....
The scent of peppermint or cinnamon in a vehicle might make driving less frustrating and keep drivers more alert behind the wheel. That's according to the results of a recent study led by Dr. Bryan Raudenbush, an associate professor of psychology at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.V. According to the study, drivers demonstrated decreased levels of frustration, anxiety and fatigue when exposed to peppermint and cinnamon scents. The study also revealed that drivers were more alert.
I will have to test this theory. Have you ever noticed cinnamon bathroom sprays just make the room smell like....well....
Not my Governor!
Pathetic litany of a bungled election
By CHI-DOOH LISPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER
I once thought there was a glittery silver lining in all the controversy over counting and recounting after last November's gubernatorial election. The tiny leads for Dino Rossi in the first two counts, and the razor-thin edge for Christine Gregoire in the final recount, proved, it seemed, the adage that every vote counts.
Wasn't this a great real-life civics lesson? How could anyone say that they wouldn't bother voting because it did not matter? But the lesson lost its punch over the past six months. What appeared to be a healthy and robust electoral system has been gradually bled to anemic stupor by incremental disclosures of staggering incompetence in the King County elections department. Behold the pathetic chronological litany:
Dec. 12-13 -- King County Councilman Larry Phillips discovers his name on a list of 561 (later raised to 573) absentee voters whose ballots were rejected because their signatures were not logged into the computer.
Dec. 14 -- 22 ballots are found sitting in counting machines, uncounted.
Dec. 17 -- 150 more mistakenly rejected ballots are found. Elections workers explain that they were in trays overlooked because they were under other trays.
Jan. 5 -- An unknown number of provisional ballots (later set at 348) are found to have been mistakenly counted.
Jan. 7 -- 22 dead people are discovered to have votes recorded in their names.
Jan. 11 -- More than 1,800 more votes are recorded than voters who cast ballots.
Jan. 20 -- An unknown number of federal ballots (issued overseas and allowing straight party preference vote) are rejected, in violation of both federal law and King County policy.
Jan. 23 -- first public disclosure that an unknown number of convicted felons voted.
March 12 -- 40 provisional voters are identified as having cast more than one vote; considerably more provisional ballots were put through counting machines than previously acknowledged.
March 15 -- 660 more provisional ballots were counted mistakenly.
April 2 -- 87 more absentee ballots (later increased to 95) are discovered uncounted. These were actually found a week earlier, but not publicly acknowledged until a snooping reporter asked the right question.
April 5 -- Four election workers are put on leave for mishandling absentee ballots for a special levy election in Renton. Problems included mailings to absentee voters that did not enclose ballots.
April 26 -- A deposition transcript is released, in which King County elections chief Dean Logan discloses (1) another 125 provisional ballots were mistakenly counted; (2) 122 provisional ballots from unregistered voters were counted; (3) 208 absentee ballots set aside for signature verification were forgotten and not counted.
May 19 -- Absentee ballot supervisor admits under oath that (1) she collaborated with her boss to file a false report showing all absentee ballots were accounted for; (2) at least 566 valid absentee ballots were not included in the counts because it was mistakenly believed no signatures were on file.
The trial that began this week in Chelan County Superior Court may disclose irregularities in other counties, but King County stands alone in bungling this election. This is not fraud, as the Republicans claim, but mind-boggling ineptitude. The claim by county elections officials that they performed with 99.8 percent accuracy rings badly off-tune when Gregoire's margin of victory statewide required the system to be 99.999 percent accurate. Space shuttles and tight races have this in common: the error tolerance is minuscule.
No doubt there are many elections workers in King County who toiled long and hard hours trying to do their job properly and conscientiously. They, and the 900,000 of us who voted in King County last November, were betrayed by the indifference or callous disregard of duty by other election workers.
A close and hard-fought election should be an exhilarating exercise in democracy.
But the 2004 governor's race leaves us all with a sour taste in our mouths. Regardless of official and certified results, even sanctioned by the courts, we will never know who really had the most votes.
We saw in the 2000 presidential election how a very close race tainted by controversy resulted in deepened and embittered partisan division. Partisan rancor plagues us more than ever at a time when the issues and the people cry out for bipartisan solutions. The civics lesson is reduced to this: Every vote does count, if it's counted. Hope and pray that every vote that shouldn't count is not counted.
I'll have to file a police report that the silver lining from the 2004 governor's race was stolen.
By CHI-DOOH LISPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER
I once thought there was a glittery silver lining in all the controversy over counting and recounting after last November's gubernatorial election. The tiny leads for Dino Rossi in the first two counts, and the razor-thin edge for Christine Gregoire in the final recount, proved, it seemed, the adage that every vote counts.
Wasn't this a great real-life civics lesson? How could anyone say that they wouldn't bother voting because it did not matter? But the lesson lost its punch over the past six months. What appeared to be a healthy and robust electoral system has been gradually bled to anemic stupor by incremental disclosures of staggering incompetence in the King County elections department. Behold the pathetic chronological litany:
Dec. 12-13 -- King County Councilman Larry Phillips discovers his name on a list of 561 (later raised to 573) absentee voters whose ballots were rejected because their signatures were not logged into the computer.
Dec. 14 -- 22 ballots are found sitting in counting machines, uncounted.
Dec. 17 -- 150 more mistakenly rejected ballots are found. Elections workers explain that they were in trays overlooked because they were under other trays.
Jan. 5 -- An unknown number of provisional ballots (later set at 348) are found to have been mistakenly counted.
Jan. 7 -- 22 dead people are discovered to have votes recorded in their names.
Jan. 11 -- More than 1,800 more votes are recorded than voters who cast ballots.
Jan. 20 -- An unknown number of federal ballots (issued overseas and allowing straight party preference vote) are rejected, in violation of both federal law and King County policy.
Jan. 23 -- first public disclosure that an unknown number of convicted felons voted.
March 12 -- 40 provisional voters are identified as having cast more than one vote; considerably more provisional ballots were put through counting machines than previously acknowledged.
March 15 -- 660 more provisional ballots were counted mistakenly.
April 2 -- 87 more absentee ballots (later increased to 95) are discovered uncounted. These were actually found a week earlier, but not publicly acknowledged until a snooping reporter asked the right question.
April 5 -- Four election workers are put on leave for mishandling absentee ballots for a special levy election in Renton. Problems included mailings to absentee voters that did not enclose ballots.
April 26 -- A deposition transcript is released, in which King County elections chief Dean Logan discloses (1) another 125 provisional ballots were mistakenly counted; (2) 122 provisional ballots from unregistered voters were counted; (3) 208 absentee ballots set aside for signature verification were forgotten and not counted.
May 19 -- Absentee ballot supervisor admits under oath that (1) she collaborated with her boss to file a false report showing all absentee ballots were accounted for; (2) at least 566 valid absentee ballots were not included in the counts because it was mistakenly believed no signatures were on file.
The trial that began this week in Chelan County Superior Court may disclose irregularities in other counties, but King County stands alone in bungling this election. This is not fraud, as the Republicans claim, but mind-boggling ineptitude. The claim by county elections officials that they performed with 99.8 percent accuracy rings badly off-tune when Gregoire's margin of victory statewide required the system to be 99.999 percent accurate. Space shuttles and tight races have this in common: the error tolerance is minuscule.
No doubt there are many elections workers in King County who toiled long and hard hours trying to do their job properly and conscientiously. They, and the 900,000 of us who voted in King County last November, were betrayed by the indifference or callous disregard of duty by other election workers.
A close and hard-fought election should be an exhilarating exercise in democracy.
But the 2004 governor's race leaves us all with a sour taste in our mouths. Regardless of official and certified results, even sanctioned by the courts, we will never know who really had the most votes.
We saw in the 2000 presidential election how a very close race tainted by controversy resulted in deepened and embittered partisan division. Partisan rancor plagues us more than ever at a time when the issues and the people cry out for bipartisan solutions. The civics lesson is reduced to this: Every vote does count, if it's counted. Hope and pray that every vote that shouldn't count is not counted.
I'll have to file a police report that the silver lining from the 2004 governor's race was stolen.
Eurocopter
MARIGNANE, France: On May 14th, 2005 at 7h08 (local time), a serial Ecureuil/AStar AS 350 B3 piloted by the Eurocopter X-test pilot Didier Delsalle, landed at 8,850 meters (29,035ft) on the top of the Mount Everest (Kingdom of Nepal). This tremendous achievement breaks the World Record for the highest altitude landing and take-off ever, which sets an ultimate milestone in the History of Aviation. Fabrice Brégier, President and CEO of the Eurocopter Group, world leading helicopter manufacturer, immediately congratulated the pilot and his team for this extraordinary feat. After taking off from its base camp Lukla on May 14th, 2005 at 2,866 meters (9,403ft) Didier Delsalle onboard his Ecureuil AS350B3 reached the top of Mount Everest. As required by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI - International Aeronautical Federation), the aircraft remained landed on ground more than 2 minutes on the top of the world before flying back to Lukla. This feat was renewed the day after.
Fwance
French in disarray as they admit EU treaty vote is lost
By Charles Bremner in Paris and Philip Webster, Political Editor
THE leader of France’s ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday’s referendum on the European constitution will result in a “no” vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.
“The thing is lost,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting. “It will be a little ‘no’ or a big ‘no’,” he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.
Although Europe would be thrown into disarray, the Government would be greatly relieved if M Sarkozy were right. Ministers have privately told The Times that Britain is prepared to ditch its commitment to a referendum if France, or the Netherlands next Wednesday, vote against the constitution. They believe that if the French say “no”, President Chirac will have to declare the constitution dead or promise a renegotiation. Because French voters consider that the treaty has already given too many concessions to Britain, ministers see no likelihood of the Government being able to put a renegotiated treaty to the country.
Tony Blair would instead have to use Britain’s imminent EU presidency to try to save those parts of the constitution that can be enforced without a treaty. That could mean that mechanical changes, such as ending the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, could go through.
The mood of pessimism that descended on the French Government after ten successive polls showing the “no” camp leading was echoed by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, who drafted the constitution. He blamed the failures of the “yes” campaign on the half-heartedness of France’s leaders. “Our current leaders are of course believers in the idea of Europe but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling,” he told a French newspaper. President Chirac will go on television tonight to deliver a last-ditch appeal to his country to resist the temptation to vote “no” and trigger a crisis for the whole European Union.
By Charles Bremner in Paris and Philip Webster, Political Editor
THE leader of France’s ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday’s referendum on the European constitution will result in a “no” vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.
“The thing is lost,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting. “It will be a little ‘no’ or a big ‘no’,” he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.
Although Europe would be thrown into disarray, the Government would be greatly relieved if M Sarkozy were right. Ministers have privately told The Times that Britain is prepared to ditch its commitment to a referendum if France, or the Netherlands next Wednesday, vote against the constitution. They believe that if the French say “no”, President Chirac will have to declare the constitution dead or promise a renegotiation. Because French voters consider that the treaty has already given too many concessions to Britain, ministers see no likelihood of the Government being able to put a renegotiated treaty to the country.
Tony Blair would instead have to use Britain’s imminent EU presidency to try to save those parts of the constitution that can be enforced without a treaty. That could mean that mechanical changes, such as ending the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, could go through.
The mood of pessimism that descended on the French Government after ten successive polls showing the “no” camp leading was echoed by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, who drafted the constitution. He blamed the failures of the “yes” campaign on the half-heartedness of France’s leaders. “Our current leaders are of course believers in the idea of Europe but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling,” he told a French newspaper. President Chirac will go on television tonight to deliver a last-ditch appeal to his country to resist the temptation to vote “no” and trigger a crisis for the whole European Union.
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On Francisco Franco
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