Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 958

The U.S.'s Proof of a Syrian Army Chemical Attack Is an Intercepted Call

Here's why the U.S. is so sure that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government was behind a deadly chemical attack on August 21: U.S. intelligence listened in on a phone call between a Syrian Ministry of Defense official and someone at the country's chemical defense unit. That call, according to a report at Foreign Policy, is more or less why the U.S. is certain that Assad's government bears responsibility for the massacre near Damascus.

Based on the evidence, the U.S. is all but certain to take some course of limited military retaliation against the Syrian army for the chemical attacks carried out in Syria. While President Obama is still officially considering his options, there's little evidence to suggest that the U.S. will continue to stick solely to a diplomatic approach towards the country. 

Previous reports have indicated that the U.S. was relying in part on intercepted communications relating to the chemical attack in their assessment. According to CNN, an intelligence report on Syria, planned for public release in the coming days, will include intercepted intelligence along with forensic information. That report is being compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and could be released by Thursday. Rumors of an intercepted phone call have circulated picked up widely by the conservative press for days after the German magazine Focus spoke to an anonymous Israeli intelligence official, who claims that the intercepted phone call comes from intelligence gathered by one of their elite units. Foreign Policy, however, specifies that U.S. intelligence overheard the call.  

But as Foreign Policy's report explains, the call's content doesn't answer many questions still out there about the Assad regime's culpability here: 

 Was the attack on August 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? "It's unclear where control lies," one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. "Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?" 

Nor are U.S. analysts sure of the Syrian military's rationale for launching the strike -- if it had a rationale at all. ... "We don't know exactly why it happened," the intelligence official added. "We just know it was pretty fucking stupid."

But the U.S. hasn't promised to answer every question about the chemical attack before announcing a response: as Secretary of State John Kerry laid out on Monday, the burden of proof as far as the government is concerned seems to be directed toward whether the attack happened, and whether Assad's government is somehow responsible. Now that the U.S. believes their case is strong enough on both parts, their response quickly approaches. 

Meanwhile, there's a less-clear outlook for the effectiveness of any military retaliation against Syria, which everyone is assuming at this point will be along the lines of a "surgical" air strike. Among those with doubts? The leaders of the opposition's Free Syrian Army, who point out that the group hasn't even received the weapons Obama promised to send their way months ago. Opposition leaders also worry that anything less than a major military show of force from the U.S. could leave the Syrian regime in a great position to gain more support within the country, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

       

U.S. Tops the List of Countries That Want to Know What You Do on Facebook

Today, Facebook has more than 1 billion active users worldwide, spanning 70 languages and 210 countries. But no country cares as much about what those users are doing as the United States does, according to a new report from the social-media network.

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Although 75 percent of Facebook users live outside the U.S., the country tops the list of governments that request user data. In just the first half of 2013, the U.S. government, including both local and national security law enforcement, made between 11,000 and 12,000 requests for between 20,000 and 21,000 users' information. Facebook was required by law to disclose the data in 79 percent of these requests, the report states.

Indonesia, the country with the second-largest number of users, doesn't appear on this report. India, the third largest, made 3,245 requests covering 4,144 users. For India, Facebook complied half the time. Of course, the U.S. is also the country with the largest number of Facebook users in the world, which can skew the numbers.

Facebook disclosed data for 68 percent of the 1,975 requests for 2,337 users made by the U.K., which put in the second-highest number of requests behind the U.S. In third was Germany with 1,886 and a compliance rate of 37 percent. Russia made just one request, which was denied.

While other digital giants such as Google and Twitter have previously published reports on government requests in the name of transparency, this is the first time Facebook is releasing such numbers.

Facebook has proved useful in aiding investigations without the use of legal pressure. One example is the New York Police Department, which conducts regular canvasses of the network. One Brooklyn precinct credits these searches, made possible by some criminals' lack of privacy settings, with helping officers collect 199 illegal firearms last year.

But when law enforcement does request private, personal data, Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch says that the social-media network doesn't offer up user data as soon as government officials come calling. "We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests," Stretch writes in the report. "When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name."

But sometimes, it stands to reason, Facebook may give up more than just their users' names. What that information is remains to be seen—Stretch promised the report isn't the last of its kind, and future ones will include more information about the nature of the requests. And pulling user information is easy enough, even for the users themselves. In 2010, the website rolled out a feature that allowed users to download a zip file of their profiles consisting of HTML files of their walls, event histories, messages, lists of friends, and images.

In the past five years, a database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center to track suspected terrorists added 335,000 names, for a total of 875,000. The list includes thousands of Americans. How many of them use Facebook?

       

The State Department Will Send Someone to North Korea to Rescue Kenneth Bae

For the first time in two years, the State Department is sending an official representative to North Korea in an attempt to broker the release of jailed American citizen Kenneth Bae. Bob King, the special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, will make the trip on Friday. He'll ask the country for a pardon in Bae's case. 

In a statement, the State Department said:

"Ambassador King will request the DPRK pardon Mr. Bae and grant him special amnesty on humanitarian grounds so that he can be reunited with his family and seek medical treatment." 

In July, there were (false) rumors that Jimmy Carter would go to the country, more or less for the same reason. Bae is an American who's been in North Korea's prisons since November. In April, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for "hostile acts" against the country. Before his arrest, Bae was a tour operator and an evangelical missionary. The North Korean government, among other things, has accused Bae of propagating materials in what it believes to be a Christian conspiracy to take over the country. His mission work apparently focused on helping homeless children in the border region near South Korea, whom he also photographed. North Korea wouldn't like that: the pictures were likely of some of the many starving children there. 

According to Bae's family, his health is failing in North Korea. Although the AP reports that Bae was recently hospitalized, the North Korean government wanted the world to know in May that the American is incarcerated in a "special prison," whatever that means (though given the 44-year-old's failing health, one might speculate that the conditions are not conducive to healthy living, at the very least). Until then, most had presumed that Bae was headed to one of the country's run-of-the-mill labor camps. 

King's last trip to North Korea, which included a similar mission, was successful. In 2011, American missionary Eddie Jung came home to the U.S. with King from North Korea. He was freed on humanitarian grounds after requests from the U.S. delegation to the country. 

       

Robert Christgau Is Writing a Memoir, Enjoys Porn

Robert Christgau, the notoriously grumpy self-appointed Dean of American Rock Critics, may soon be on the receiving end of some scowling critic's snark. A literary critic, for that matter. After more than 45 years in the music writing business, Christgau is writing a memoir. 

Never one for social media, Christgau revealed the news rather indirectly (as is his style) and lengthily (as is not). He snuck it into a piece about two other memoirs—Fugs member Ed Sanders's Fug You and science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany's The Motion of Light in Water—for the Barnes and Noble Review. Here's the big reveal:

I've been reading a lot of memoirs lately, for two reasons. The first is the glut of rockbooks written by boomer musicians with time on their hands for boomer fans with memories deteriorating. The second is that I'm writing a memoir of my own, and always immerse in work that might clarify the project at hand.

The "project at hand" is not really clarified in any greater detail. But Christgau's thoughts on memoirs in general are. He is characteristically cranky, which is no surprise, and thinks they should contain more sex, which maybe is. Also, he likes porn:

Two things about memoirs often annoy me: they go on too much about the nature of memory and there's not enough sex in them. Memory is indeed unreliable; memory does oft support alternate, nay, contradictory narratives; memory speaks loud and ineffable to our mortal selves' longing for an immortality that would drive us nuts if it proved our fate. Got it. As for sex, it's not because I like pornography, which I do, and which performs its arousal function quite well with no outside help. Nor is it because I'm nosy, which I am, and aren't you? It's because in my experience sex and the love that generally comes with it—a big qualification, I know, but even memoirists  who've had a lot more loveless sex than I have either include sex in their primary love relationships or should explain why they don't—plays a determinative role in most lives.

These are, of course, problems he is tackling in his own book, which finds him butting heads with the "logic of discretion" and realizing he does not have the right to violate anyone else's privacy. Admiring Delany's book, he writes, "I hope I can write as well about the women I've loved."

Indeed, let's hope he writes about them more tactfully than he albums he did not.  

       

When Political Props Outlast Their Usefulness

Every once in a while an American citizen is plucked from obscurity and held up as the perfect embodiment of the political moment. These citizens are used as props by politicians, made into household names, and then, when the moment passes, are promptly discarded. But a small hitch in this noble tradition is that the newly-semi-famous citizens do not let go of their fame just because they are no longer useful. This kind of political celebrity has a long tail.

[image error]The most famous of these citizens right now is George Zimmerman, who was acquitted this summer of second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was held up by many conservatives as a victim of the "civil rights industry," someone attacked by a liberal lynch mob that cries racism where none exists. But now that his trial is over, Zimmerman is not, as Salon's Joan Walsh pleads, going to "go away." He toured a gun factory. His brother Robert gave interviews to Fox News and The Daily Caller saying President Obama was showing a double standard by commenting on Martin's death but not on the death of a white guy who was shot by black teenagers. On Monday, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Zimmerman's lawyers plan to file a motion requesting the state of Florida pay $200,000 and $300,000 of Zimmerman's legal fees. Since Zimmerman was acquitted, Florida law requires the state to pay all legal fees but the cost of his lawyer. Florida agencies have already spent $902,000 to try Zimmerman, meaning that if his lawyers file the motion and it's successful, the total cost to the state will be well over $1 million.

"I’m sorry, America, we’re stuck with the Zimmermans," Walsh writes. "They won’t go away." Looking at past everymen elevated to such political heights, she's right. Let's check in with some of our favorites.

[image error]Everyman: Tuffy Gessling

Occupation: Rodeo clown

Discovery: At a Missouri State Fair rodeo on August 10, Gessling wore an Obama mask while another rodeo clown made comments like, "We’re gonna smoke Obama!" and "He’s going to getcha, getcha, getcha!" Gessling pretended to put a broomstick in his anus. The video went viral, people said it was racist, Missouri politicians condemned the act, and Gessling was banned for life by the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association. 

What he stood for: The Oppressive PC Police. Gessling defenders celebrate him as a victim of the liberal PC police who are the truly intolerant ones trying to destroy the First Amendment. "Liberals want to bronco bust dissent. But Texans value speech, even if it’s speech they don't agree with," Texas Rep. Steve Stockman said. They want to crush dissent by isolating and polarizing anyone who questions Obama, even if it's a rodeo clown with a harmless gag." The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan said "a classy Obama move" would be to issue a press release saying he loves free speech and thinks Gessling shouldn't be fired.

Where is he now? Gessling is still telling his story. On Monday, he told KCTV5 that he got five death threats. "I've had one lady spit in my face — called me a dirty name, spit in my face and walked off," Gessling said. "I've had somebody threaten to run me over. One of them wanted to burn the house down." He said it was a joke, and not racist: "I don't care what color somebody is." And he thinks it's a symbol of a bigger problem: "I actually think that a lot of people have lost their ability to laugh." He's inviting politicians to see his act, including the one he made fun of. "If President Obama turns out, I would be honored to shake his hand," he said.

[image error]Everywoman: Carrie Prejean

Occupation: Beauty queen

Discovery: In the April 2009 Miss USA pageant, Prejean, competing as Miss California, was asked whether the U.S. should legalize gay marriage. She said no, calling it "opposite marriage." California pageant officials pressured Prejean to apologize, but she refused. 

What she stood for: Evangelical Resilience in the Face of the Intolerant Liberal PC Police. Prejean spoke the Liberty University convocation in 2009. She got a book deal out of her answer, a memoir titled, Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks. It was published a mere seven months after the controversy; Fox News' Sean Hannity wrote the forward. "I have never felt more exposed, alone, and vulnerable in my life," she wrote, explaining how she felt the moment she was asked a question on a political topic at a beauty pageant. "I was being dared — in front of the entire world — to give a candid answer to a serious question. I knew if I told the truth, I would lose all that I was competing for: the crown, the luxury apartment in New York City, the large salary — everything that went with the Miss USA title." But she gained so much more! 

But the publicity was a mixed bag. She walked off the set of Larry King Live when the host asked her about her settlement with pageant officials, and an erotic video she starred in was released.

Where is she now? Prejean is the rare case that seems to have settled into domestic bliss. She married football player Kyle Boller, who has retired. They had a baby in 2011. In September, they sold their Del Mar, California home for $2.35 million, $200,000 less than they paid for it in November 2010, according to the San Diego Union Tribune. Every once in a while, she's used as an example of liberal intolerance. An op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in August 2012 named Prejean as an example of "the hostility, contempt and even outright bullying directed at those who oppose same-sex marriage has exploded in recent years."

[image error]Everyman: Joe the Plumber

Occupation: Plumber

Discovery: In October 2012, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher met then-Sen. Barack Obama on the presidential campaign trail and asked, "I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year... Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?" Obama said a bunch of stuff about tax rates and concluded, "I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody." John McCain dubbed him Joe the Plumber and mentioned him a whole bunch of times in the final presidential debate. Thus a meme was born.

What he stood for: Small Businessmen Standing Strong Against Socialism. Joe was just a regular guy who wanted to work his way into wealth without Democrats making it impossible with high taxes. He was also a symbol of the white working class.

Where is he now? The plumber had a varied and illustrious career after the 2008 campaign. In 2009, he became a war correspondent for PJ Media and reported from Gaza. He showed up at Tea Party rallies 2010 and protested against unions in Wisconsin in 2011. He also spoke out against anti-puppy mill legislation. In 2012, he ran for Congress in Ohio, releasing a campaign ad that was a near-verbatim quote of an email forward. Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur defeated the plumber by 50 points.

Earlier this year, the plumber launched JoeforAmerica.com, a website with conservative commentary. In February, he gave away an AR-15. On Tuesday, he wrote a post asking if Obama would blame Duck Dynasty "for the disaster he’s created and for the roadblocks preventing him from wreaking additional havoc on America."

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Everywoman: Cindy Sheehan

Occupation: Mom, anti-war activist

Discovery: Cindy Sheehan's son Casey died in the Iraq war in 2004. Sheehan and other families of troops who died met with then-President George W. Bush not long after he died. But in August 2005, Sheehan traveled to Crawford, Texas, to camp outside Bush's ranch and demand a second meeting. That made her famous. Her protest lasted a couple weeks before she announced she'd take her protest national

What she stood for: Everything That Was Wrong with the Iraq War. The way Sheehan framed her protest turned her into a symbol. She didn't call for better care of veterans, or families of the dead, or a different strategy in Iraq. She focused on why the U.S. invaded Iraq in the first place. She told reporters, "I want to ask George Bush: Why did my son die?"

Where is she now? Fame did not suit her. Sheehan slowly squandered the mainstream respectability she had early in her protest years. In 2006, she hugged Hugo Chavez. She ran for Congress in 2008 against then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, because Pelosi hadn't tried to impeach Bush. She lost by 55 points. She was arrested protesting Obama multiple times. In 2011, she declared the death of Osama bin Laden to be a hoax. Last year, she declared she would not pay back taxes to an "immoral" government, which was suing her. On Tuesday, she announced she was running for governor of California.

(Photos by the Associated Press.)

       

Aaron Paul Is Going to Ancient Egypt

Today in show business news: Ridley Scott takes Jesse Pinkman back in time, Demi Lovato is switching teams, and another look at the unfortunate new Carrie remake.

Ridley Scott is continuing casting for his big Jews-leaving-Egypt epic Exodus and, considering he's already cast Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as pharaoh Ramses, he figured he'd keep casting, um, without an eye toward ethnicity, let's say. He's just enlisted Sigourney Weaver to play Ramses's mother, John Turturro as his father, and, perhaps funniest of all, Aaron Paul as Joshua, "the Hebrew slave who leads the people into the promised land after Moses." Ha. OK. It should be interesting to see Paul in that mode, all be-sworded and be-sandaled, yelling mightily in the desert. I suppose he's used to yelling in the desert, but about grubby stuff in Albuquerque, not the liberation of an entire people thousands of years ago. So this should be something. Something new, something different. Something silly? Yes, probably something pretty silly. [Deadline]

Demi Lovato has been cast in a Glee guest arc, we knew this. What we did not know, until today, is that she will be playing the love interest of Naya Rivera's character, Santana. How interesting! A little Disney princess playing a lesbian. Would ever have thought that— Wait, no. Raven-Symonè came out as a real lesbian earlier this summer. And of course Miley Cyrus did a thing on Sunday night that was all sexual. So as far as Disney princesses all grown up, this new rates pretty low, I guess. Ah well. [Vulture]

Here's a sentence you probably never thought you'd read: "Breckin Meyer is establishing himself as an in-demand series creator." Yes. Apparently that has happened. The Franklin & Bash star (gotta love that Franklin & Bash) created the TBS sitcom Men At Work and now he's just gotten a script order from NBC for a show called Thursdays. The new show is about, "a group of male friends and a weekly Thursday guys dinner that has become a tradition in their busy, chaotic lives." Oh. I... See. That sounds... wonderful. A guys dinner. Meanwhile, Men at Work is about "the misadventures of four buddies who work together at a magazine," according to IMDb. So... Breckin Meyer really likes shows about groups of guys hangin' out. That's pretty much exclusively what Breckin Meyer wants to make when it comesTV shows. Fair enough. Different strokes for different folks. Maybe there's a third show in the works? "I'm building a trilogy, or a triptych I guess you could say, all about how men in America hang out. How do men hang out? That's what I'm looking to explore in my work." [Deadline]

Oh good grief. Here is another trailer for the completely unnecessary Carrie remake, which has our hero smirking about her magical powers and making her bed levitate and all that. It all seems very modern, especially that Chloe Grace Moretz, who just is not right for this part. Neither is Julianne Moore, really. I think we should sit down and have a chat with Julianne Moore's agent, to be honest. And Stephen King's too? Well, I guess he sold these rights years ago, plus he doesn't have the greatest taste in movies. Still. Ugh. But, enough complaining. Watch for yourself and decided. (But decide correctly.)

       

Here's the Seven-Point Plan to Save Microsoft

Yesterday Quartz outlined the reasons for Microsoft’s “lost decade.” But now that CEO Steve Ballmer is on his way out, it’s time to talk about the way forward.

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The web is already full of experienced Microsoft watchers’ opinions. Some of them, like IDC analyst Al Hilwa’s dive into how Microsoft needs to refine its product line, are worth a read. But most miss the more fundamental problem, which is how Microsoft’s failures are a direct expression of its broken management culture. Fortunately, veterans of the firm, speaking on condition of anonymity, were as happy to discuss how to fix that culture as they were to talk about how it got broken in the first place.

1. Be ready to annoy some people

Like the city of Detroit, Microsoft has obligations it’s probably better off without. Bringing in a new CEO is the perfect time for Microsoft to do an accounting of its relationships and figure out whom it needs to alienate in order to refine its strategy—whether developers, resellers, support vendors, or corporations with which it has alliances.

2. Unlock the talent that remains

Despite hemorrhaging senior engineers and executives to competitors, Microsoft is still fairly decent at attracting talent, say my sources. Committed engineers will tolerate a certain amount of friction with management, but the company’s “stack ranking” method, in which the lowest-performing engineer on any given team gets a bad performance review, has to stop. (Sources say this destructive management practice, first outlined by Vanity Fair in 2012, is ongoing.)

Performance reviews are common at big firms, but when they’re aimed at figuring out who isn’t cutting it, they automatically alienate people. One thing Google does much better than Microsoft is to focus on improving employees rather than punishing them.

3. Make the most of an enormous trove of intellectual property

You don’t hear about it much outside the whizz-bang portion of the the technology press corps, but Microsoft Research, the blue-sky research division, is a modern day Bell Labs. Divisions within Microsoft Research, which is spread across six countries and three continents, work on everything from machine learning to the future of human-computer interaction.

The problem with Microsoft Research—and the same was true of the research labs at companies like Bell, Xerox and Kodak—is that it has become too shielded from the need to deliver products that can contribute to Microsoft’s bottom line. As one source put it, Microsoft Research’s current output isn’t “productizable,” and is too focused on how to accomplish an interesting technology once, in a controlled environment, rather than making it suitable for a billion people.

But that may be changing. Software like GeoFlow adds “business intelligence” to Microsoft Excel. In this case, it’s “3-D geospatial and temporal data visualizations,” but Excel 2013 is full of these capabilities. The technology behind GeoFlow was born as a far less business-relevant project, Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope for visualizing astronomy data. Clearly, there are ways to take the work that has been done in Microsoft Research for decades and turn it into things Microsoft’s prodigious sales team can stick a price-tag on.

4. Figure out what the “next Xbox” will be

A good rule of thumb at Microsoft is that the less a product needs to be a part of Windows, the more likely it is to succeed. Windows is historically important to Microsoft, but represents only 22% of the company’s revenue. Yet forcing engineers to route their products through the Windows team and management, has slowed innovation to a crawl. “Every little thing you want to write has to build off of Windows or other existing products,” one software engineer told Vanity Fair. That’s one reason why the Xbox, its gaming console, and the Kinect, the motion-sensing controller for it, succeeded—given license to proceed at their own pace, Microsoft’s engineers can still create products people want.

IDC analyst Al Hilwa has suggested that Microsoft’s next Xbox could simply be a $99 “Xbox lite” designed to compete with Google and Apple’s set-top boxes, by offering similar capabilities, such as media streaming and casual games. But whatever it is, whether it’s another go at making tablets after the disastrous Surface RT tablet, a watch, or something else entirely, it’s going to be a high-risk venture. Ballmer was neither the technical nor the product genius Microsoft needed in order to create new categories of products consistently, as Apple, Amazon or Google do. Hopefully the next CEO will be.

5. Continue becoming the Apple of enterprise software

Microsoft is growing fastest in the “enterprise” market of software and services for business, which represented $22.4 billion of Microsoft’s $80 billion in revenue for the most recent fiscal year (pdf). Successes in this area include Azure, Microsoft’s competitor to Amazon’s cloud services, which is already producing $1 billion a year in revenue. And the web-based SharePoint system for managing documents within a company is a $2 billion-a-year business, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

Microsoft needs to put more effort into the enterprise market, and emphasize both to investors and the public that Microsoft, like IBM, is about solving customer’s problems, not selling specific products. Arguably, the company is already the “Apple of enterprise,” in the sense that it’s creating unique products for enterprises that nobody else is, such as SharePoint. In this area at least it’s unambiguously succeeding.

6. Split into multiple companies

In 2001, Microsoft’s monopolistic practices (bundling its Internet Explorer browser with Windows) prompted US antitrust regulators to propose breaking the company up, though they relented in the end. So it’s ironic that a breakup is now the subject of serious discussion among Microsoft watchers. Only this time, it would be about making Microsoft’s various divisions leaner and more competitive.

This could also allow productive mergers. For example, Microsoft’s mobile division could merge with Finland’s Nokia, which is the biggest manufacturer of smartphones running on Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. It could then kill off Nokia’s shrinking and fragmented ”feature” (i.e., non-smart) phone business, and instead focus on the Windows phones, which are actually quite good.

Independent Microsoft fiefdoms would also be less hampered by each other’s interests. For example, there is no version of Microsoft Office for Android-based tablets and the iPad, because that might hurt demand for Microsoft’s own Windows-based tablets. But since Windows has only a tiny share of the tablet market, that basically dooms Office to irrelevance except on personal computers—the market for which is shrinking. So the Office division needs more autonomy just to ensure its own survival.

7. And the one thing Microsoft mustn’t do…

In the past I’ve written that Microsoft should abandon the consumer market, where it’s failing. Many Microsoft investors say the same. But my sources said otherwise. They argue that the dominance of Windows on the computers people use at home has long been Microsoft’s main advantage in convincing executives and IT buyers to use the company’s enterprise systems.

Fortunately, not abandoning the consumer could be as simple as undoing some of the more radical recent changes to Windows that have put customers off, and making it more like its old self, “Start” button and all. Microsoft must also keep working on Windows Phone; it’s a good (if late) product and it can at least take a solid third place behind Apple’s iPhone and the myriad devices running Google’s Android OS.

Ultimately, Microsoft doesn’t need to be “saved” so much as re-configured, so that it can continue to grow rather than coasting on the fact that so many companies still use old Windows-based systems. Finding a CEO who can rebuild the company won’t be easy, especially because the one C-level executive who has most recently accomplished a successful re-think of his giant tech company’s core strategy probably doesn’t want the job.

       

Rick Perry Is Going to Iowa

Rick Perry became the latest politician to announce an Iowa appearance on Tuesday, which means that the Texas governor is now on the list of politicians who are (maybe!) courting a run for president in 2016. Because as everybody knows, that's the only reason politicians with national name-recognition go to Iowa. Perry will be the guest speaker at the Polk County Republicans’ fall dinner in November.

Governor Rick Perry to be the speaker at the Robb Kelley Fall Dinner on November 7th. Tickets available... http://t.co/r6S0VCZjmK

— Polk County GOP (@PolkGOP) August 27, 2013

Even though it's 2013, and not 2015 or 2016, when one would expect to see hopefuls from the presidency make their way to the state, Perry is just one of many GOP hopefuls already planning appearances in Iowa. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have already been there, along with Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Scott Brown, and Mike Huckabee. Over among the Democrats, both Joe Biden and Howard Dean announced Iowa plans over the summer.

I guess you have to give him marks for persistence. RT @politicalwire Gov. Rick Perry heads to Iowa this fall http://t.co/ufqzUwsnTt …

— John Cassidy (@TNYJohnCassidy) August 27, 2013

Meanwhile, Peter King is hinting all over the place about a 2016 run, though he's focused his primary state visits on New Hampshire.

It would be Perry's first appearance in the state since the 2012 elections, when the governor's presidential campaign took a nosedive after he failed to name three things. Despite that disaster, Perry already made way for a possible 2016 run earlier this summer by announcing that he wouldn't seek re-election for governor of Texas. That announcement was timed in the midst of increased attention on the state, after state legislator Wendy Davis staged a filibuster of a controversial abortion bill, a measure Perry supported and signed. Perry has already said he's considering running. "That's an option out there," the governor said in response to a question from Fox News on a possible 2016 run. And last week, Perry told Newsmax that a 2016 run was a "very viable option" for him.

       

Teen Inspired by 'Into the Wild' Found Dead in Oregon Forest

An Arizona teenager inspired by the wilderness adventure story of Into the Wild was found dead near an Oregon forest last night after going missing earlier this month. The body of Johnathan Croom, 18, was found just 1,000 feet from his car near Riddle, Oregon, and investigators are looking into the case as a suicide, according to a police statement. 

[image error]Into the Wild, the 1996 book by Jon Krakauer, told the true story of Christopher McCandless, a suburban college graduate who, inspired by the wilderness tales of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau, hitchhiked deep into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless was wholly unprepared for what was to come, and died 100 days later of some combination of starvation and food poisoning. Krakauer's book immortalized McCandless, and a 2007 movie directed by Sean Penn also contributed to his legend.

Croom's father said that the teenager had been actively interested in the Into the Wild story before going missing. "He's been watching the movie a lot," Croom told CNN. "Maybe he said, 'I want to do it.' That's our theory, because he kept talking about the movie."

Croom's father added that he believed the cause of his son's departure was the end of a recent relationship. "He was a young man who had a broken heart and headed out to try to find himself," he told the Associated Press.

But people in the town of Riddle, Oregon, near where Croom's body was found, note that their hometown isn't much of a place to relive that domed adventure. "It's 2½ miles from the major interstate; it's right in town in Riddle," a local man told CNN. "There are houses and people, and it's well-populated, so if he wanted to do an 'Into the Wild,' it wasn't the appropriate place."

Young people have for years idealized McCandless' wanderings: 19-year-old Oklahoma teenager Dustin Self remains missing after venturing into the Oregon woods earlier this year, and others have needed rescuing or died by drowning in attempts to follow McCandless' path. Today, science journalist Steve Silberman felt compelled to reminded people that the Into the Wild journey ended in disaster.

Dear smart, alienated, heartbroken kids: Please remember that "Into the Wild" didn't end well. This is so sad. http://t.co/37phciiVTn

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) August 27, 2013

Into the Wild film poster via Impawards.

       

The Duality of George W. Bush Revealed in His Latest Dog Painting

Two more paintings by former President George W. Bush were revealed this afternoon, putting us closer to having a fuller picture of the artist's output and habits, while providing further evidence for the theory that Bush sees himself in his canine subjects. 

[image error]Someone known only as Guccifer hacked into Bush's email account and has been steadily releasing photos of the president's paintings since Feburary. One depicts two dogs lounging on a patch of green grass together, and the other a cat lazily dangling its limbs over the edge of what looks to be a fridge. This is Bush's third recorded cat picture, and Gawker's Max Read, who has been the source of many Bush paintings, thinks it could signal a shift in the artist's focus towards feline subjects. "May the cat period be as fruitful, as breathtaking, as charged with energy as the 'over 50 dogs,'" Read says, referring to the number of alleged Bush dog paintings in existence. 

[image error]But the new painting of the two dogs is more telling, we'd argue. The Atlantic Wire has made the case that Bush paints so many dogs because he, in fact, represents his thoughts, feelings and insecurities through the dogs he puts to canvas. His latest offering shows two dogs sitting on some grass; one looking bright-eyed and directly at the observer, the other diverting its gaze in shame. These two dogs represent the duality of Bush's modern day identity: the happy-go-lucky, eager to please retiree putting on a straight face for the cameras, and the sad, shameful former president who knows how poorly he performed in office. That burden is massive, and would be a hard one to shake.

The cat, meanwhile, represents the person Bush wants to become. Bush is enjoying life and therapy though art so that some day he will become the care-free, bored, content feline always in arms length of some ice cream. A unified identity at peace with its former lives.