Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, photographed in 2007.

But this small related detail in the Bakersfield Californian follow-up was absurd enough on its own.

Following the missing person report, the doctor’s family consulted a psychic who couldn’t feel the doctor’s presence, according to Wayne Wallace, a private investigator. He said he was consulted by the family Saturday to look into Kotarac’s disappearance.

I don’t fault the family doing whatever it could out of desperation. But this psychic’s credentials should be reevaluated, if he/she didn’t help in cracking the case. It’s not clear what “couldn’t feel the doctor’s presence” means. Did the psychic rightly detect that Dr. Kotarac was no longer with the living? Or was the psychic just giving an untestable answer, which would cover everything from Kotarac’s death to her taking a spontaneous trip to Malibu or being kidnapped by Bigfoot.

Psychic-patronizing friends of mine tell me that a psychic can’t be bothered with predicting concrete yet unknown facts…or else, why would a good psychic be begging for $2 a palm read when he/she could win the Powerball? It’s about feeling “energy” (even so, it seems that at least some facts should be basic for a psychic to predict: one of my friends had her session recorded, and the psychic asked if she was an only child…something that just about any dolt could divine after a 30-second Q&A of non-direct questions about her childhood).

OK, but if you’re a psychic who can’t detect the “energy” from the sheer horror of someone dying in a chimney (as a result of a fit of jealous love and rage)…what would you say, you do here?

The classic bedbug strain that all newly caught bugs are compared against is a colony originally from Fort Dix, N.J., that a researcher kept alive for 30 years by letting it feed on him.

But Stephen A. Kells, a University of Minnesota entomologist, said he “prefers not to play with that risk.”

He feeds his bugs expired blood-bank blood through parafilm, which he describes as “waxy Saran Wrap.”

Coby Schal of North Carolina State said he formerly used condoms filled with rabbit blood, but switched to parafilm because his condom budget raised eyebrows with university auditors.

For headquarters staff, war consists largely of the endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information. Even one tiny flaw in a slide can halt a general’s thought processes as abruptly as a computer system’s blue screen of death.

The ability to brief well is, therefore, a critical skill. It is important to note that skill in briefing resides in how you say it. It doesn’t matter so much what you say or even if you are speaking Klingon.

And then, tragicomedy:

The CUA consists of a series of PowerPoint slides describing the events of the previous 12 hours. Briefers explain each slide by reading from a written statement in a tone not unlike that of a congressman caught in a tryst with an escort. The CUA slides only change when a new commander arrives or the war ends.

The commander’s immediate subordinates, usually one- and two-star generals, listen to the CUA in a semi-comatose state. Each briefer has approximately 1 or 2 minutes to impart either information or misinformation. Usually they don’t do either. Fortunately, none of the information provided makes an indelible impact on any of the generals.

One important task of the IJC is to share information to the ISAF commander, his staff and to all the regional commands. This information is delivered as PowerPoint slides in e-mail at the flow rate of a fire hose. Standard operating procedure is to send everything that you have. Volume is considered the equivalent of quality.

What made the 61-year-old reservist, who served in both current theaters of war, go off the ranch in such a brilliant manner? According to Wired, Sellin tried giving his higher-ups constructive criticism, including “proven organizational methodologies,” but was ignored (even though, Wired notes, he delivered it using a 5-slide PowerPoint). His PowerPoint rant, though, got attention.

Sellin had been opining frequently for UPI; it’s amazing he lasted this long (it may be that PowerPoint and its use in the military has gotten a lot of ridicule lately). Many of his columns complain about operational inefficency and bureaucratic idiocy. On June 24, he wondered if a military mental health test was “just a Pentagon public relations exercise to pretend that ‘something is being done’” and stated that “on face value it appears to be not only a waste of taxpayer’s money but a total waste of time for the deploying soldiers and the CRC staff.” His ripping on PowerPoint started as early as July 15, when he wrote that “command briefings become nothing more than the same updated Power Point slides presenting data about daily operations“

And back in June 15, he gave a impolitic assessment of (presumably) the Obama administration, in comments that make Gen. McChrystal look as obedient as a bootlicking middle-manager:

Far too many in Washington appear to be, not only dangerously out-of-touch with the sentiments and values of the American people but also laughably incompetent in accomplishing anything beyond rhetoric and self-aggrandizement.

Much of our current leadership seem less committed to addressing critical national security issues than pursuing political agendas dedicated solely to the perpetuation of personal power and privilege.

They persist despite the knowledge that their inaction may ultimately weaken the country. It is a degree of selfishness that defies description.

Sigh.

The most interesting insights to me were how board games are so popular in Germany that major media review them with the same seriousness as they do movies and books. And, that Germany’s post-WW2 revulsion towards violence affects their board game industry, so much that “Risk” risked being banned for fear that it would inspire another Hitler among the youth. They ended up getting past the censors by having players “liberate” opponents’ territories, rather than conquer them.

Back when I was in college, a lot of my dormmates played the game (it was an engineering/science dorm…) nightly. I avoided it because there didn’t appear to be any battleships or ICBMs and was more interested in Counterstrike anyway. But it sounds like a pretty legit game, sans armies. I bought the $4.99 iPhone app today.

Ralph Nader in the 1970s; Julian Assange in 2008

In retrospect: I used the rightfully-maligned practice of putting a question in a headline to state something which is just pure speculation. I don’t mean to speculate (the rape case has since been dropped, but the molestation charges haven’t), but was more interested in how just about anything Assange-related, particularly in this timeframe, should be judged deliberately. I think the headline here pushes the pendulum past being neutral and into pro-Assange territory, which isn’t justified. He may be targeted by powerful people as Nader was. But as a respected underdog crusader, he also benefits slightly from having the kind of benefit of the doubt that was not so quickly afforded to a powerful crusader like Al Gore (or Bill Clinton, for that matter). If he wanted to, he could do a few bad things and then blame a shadowy conspiracy, and many people would be quick to believe him.

Update: The BBC reports that the prosecutor’s office has cancelled an arrest warrant on Assange, saying the rape charge has no merit (not clear on the molestation charge). A clunky conspiracy setup, if it was a conspiracy. If the charges were legit, it’s possible they were just dropped by the accuser. Fast news cycle across the Atlantic. (Gawker has a translation of a Swedish interview with the accusers, who say Assange took relationships with them into non-consensual territory. The New York Times reports that the reversal happened because the prosecutor who works the Saturday shift saw things differently than the Friday prosecutor. Also, Assange said to the Swedish paper he works for that he had been warned about “sex traps.”

The Saturday news of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange being charged with rape and molestation in Sweden seems so, well, curiously timed (today’s WSJ has a story on prosecutors trying to figure out ways to snare him) that I couldn’t avoid remembering the senator-dead-hooker scene in “Godfather II”. If the charges were actually something dreamed up by an intelligence agency, it makes you sad for the state of psyops today, apparently having no flair in terms of subtlety or creativity.

It’s hard not to be skeptical when, back in the 60s, General Motors reportedly tried to ensnare Ralph Nader – then crusading for auto safety – by trying to seduce him…at a Safeway grocery store:

For years it was Ralph Nader against General Motors, who went so far as to hire private detectives to discredit him. They sent a prostitute to try to seduce him at a food counter at Safeway’s but he turned her away. So the gumshoes tried to prove he was homosexual but were caught as they tried to follow him into Congress. The scandal made Mr Nader into a hero overnight. The car makers were forced to introduce seat belts, and ultimately air bags.

The Wikileaks blog has issued an official denial:

On Saturday 21st of August, we have been made aware of rape allegations made against Julian Assange, founder of this project and one of our spokespeople.

We are deeply concerned about the seriousness of these allegations. We the people behind WikiLeaks think highly of Julian and and he has our full support.

While Julian is focusing on his defenses and clearing his name, WikiLeaks will be continuing its regular operations.

I think it’s a big distraction, a grand distraction from the real issues… To me it should have been a grand opportunity, and you really touched on the opportunity, because it’s really a property rights issue, and who owns the property? And it’s also a civil liberties issue. It’s a freedom of speech issue… Property rights and civil rights are one and the same… drives the neo-cons nuts… I don’t believe for a minute that the, quote, religion of Islam is our enemy.