Living in fearful silence

The removal of "Fitna": Official LiveLeak statement.

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly affect the safety of some staff members, Liveleak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.

This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.

Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture. We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

We've been here before, haven't we?

Note: I came across the above statement via Poligazette.com which carried a link to the LiveLeak page hosting Wilders' video. Poligazette's website account has now been suspended.

Update
After several hours, Poligazette is back - they're not sure what happened.

Update
A couple of days later and Poligazette still aren't sure what the problem was - a glitch at their INS, maybe.

Friday roundabout

At Samizdata: A libertarian law enforcement official [sounds of head-scratching] is having qualms about his work.

How did they build Stonehenge? One man thinks he knows; Faith in Honest Doubt has the video.

Norm Geras defends the right not to vote: I don't and won't vote, so I'm pleased to see that liberty defended.

Via Clive Davis: The Olympic Torch - "one of Hitler’s most pervasive legacies"?

And finally,

Good news from Joe Katzman at Winds of Change: every episode of "South Park" is now available online - free of charge.

That's the Netherlands

This video, posted yesterday on LiveLeak, seems to me to be a considered response to a thorny issue.

"Very rarely has a film sparked off as much pre-release controversy as 'Fitna, the movie', by Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Even before anyone has seen it, 'Fitna' has the world asking questions. Questions about the man who made it and his motives. Questions about the country he lives in, and its government - which issues warnings about the film but does nothing to stop it. And questions about the position of Muslims in The Netherlands. The central character in this film is also struggling with these questions, and decides to travel to The Netherlands in search of answers."

Wilders has an ugly agenda and a limited following. Support freedom of speech not discriminatory social policies.

Recurring issue

[Originally posted two years ago today]

SPIKED ON SPEECH

Brendan O'Neill at Spiked (yes, I know, it's Living Marxism in drag) has some thoughts on last Saturday's March for Free Expression.

An extract:

Saturday's rally reminded me of the dangers of defining free speech legalistically. Some seemed to see freedom of speech as something that the authorities must protect and promote, when to my mind freedom of speech means the authorities butting out of our conversations and correspondence, and all of us having the right to say, write, think and hear what we want without state intervention. At one stage Tatchell called on Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair to protect people from the 'intimidation' of religious fundamentalists. Five minutes later the organisers announced, to loud boos, that a protester's placard had been confiscated by the cops because it reproduced one of those silly Danish cartoons. But perhaps the police were simply protecting Muslims from the 'intimidation' of their secular critics? If you give the police an inch of moral authority on the free speech issue, they will take a mile of liberties. That's the cops for you.

Indeed it is and, true to form, the police have now summonsed the lone protester who displayed the cartoons.

What do I think of free speech in Europe? It would be a nice idea.

British comedy

That Mitchell and Webb Look

Under extreme duress

What can I say? They made me do it. After all, I'm only their father. You don't understand the power they have over me. How could I refuse? And, if I'm going to have to do it, I may as well do it now, today. After all, Friday, as I understand it, is the traditional day for (I can hardly bring myself to say it), the day of the week usually reserved for [swallows pride - nearly chokes] cat blogging.

LEAVE NOW! You know what's coming next. Too late, you've already seen it, haven't you?



He was a stray (the one on the right), he'd been living rough for a couple of years, the boys took pity on him, started feeding him scraps, enticing him in with saucers of milk. What was I supposed to do? I don't have a heart of stone.

That's all I'm going to say; the subject is closed. Permanently.

Right, back to business. Nothing more to see here. Let's just move on. Pretend it never happened.

Ethnicity and identity

What Naftali said.

And I say that as a German-American immigrant to England whose mother’s family were free-thinking Irish Catholics who grew up in a largely Jewish community.

Golden memories

With the Beijing Olympics approaching, I find myself thinking back to the most thrilling moments from past Games. Three Olympic gold medal performances really stand out for me: two Americans from Mexico '68 and a young Russian girl at the Munich Olympics in '72.

We were in England at the time of the Mexico City Games. I was 8 years old and we watched the BBC's black and white coverage of the event on my grandparents' old Decca set. I can remember pleading with Mom to let me stay up to watch some of the events - the time difference meant that many of them were broadcast late in the evening and some went on into the early hours of the morning.

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, I can now watch those events in color, whenever I want. So...

First, Bob Beamon's extraordinary leap in the long jump. His first jump in the finals effectively ended the competition - Beamon leapt 29 feet 2 1/2 inches, beating the previous world record by an amazing 21 and 3/4 inches, a record that would stand until 1991.

Then, footage of Dick Fosbury demonstrating his revolutionary new technique in the high jump, winning gold and setting a new Olympic record of 7 feet 4 1/4 inches.

And so to Munich '72 and a different sport - gymnastics. Olga Korbut, a young Russian gymnast making her Olympic debut, won four medals that year - a gold for her (thrilling and technically brilliant) beam exercise, a team gold and a silver medal on the asymmetric bars. But it was her gold winning performance in the floor exercise that really captivated the crowd.

Watching that performance again, and hearing the delight of the commentator as she performs her routine, brought it all back to me - she was a Russian, we were in the middle of the Cold War and she was representing the enemy, but everyone was rooting for her. She didn't disappoint.

It really is a delight to watch.

Thursday roundabout

Tarek Heggy at Winds of Change on religious education in Egypt.

Via Instapundit: Internet Scofflaw on propaganda fever in Iraq.

Oliver Kamm opposes the noisy coalition intent on silencing Tony Blair.

Zoe Brain fighting ignorance and callous disregard on the discussion boards.

Ophelia Benson on the parents who let a child die because of their faith.

And finally,

I was wrong.

I got mail

This from Mac, who couldn't wait until she got home:

A classic “have your say” from the Grauniad posted in response to a reasonably sensible, tho’ rather pointless article on anger:

“I believe that most anger comes from frustration, either in sex; problems at work, pressure from wives. Most driving accidents will be caused in the morning due to arguments between husbands and wives. In the evening caused by problems in the work place.”

Thank you for sharing your belief Mr V.A., unsullied as it is by any evidence whatsoever.

Yep, some people just love pressing the "What I reckon" button.

[Link opens video from the BBC sketch show "That Mitchell and Webb Look"]

The roots of culture

One of the books on my wish list:

The Psychological Foundations of Culture: Edited by Mark Schaller and Christian S. Crandall.

Most other investigations into "cultural psychology" have focused on the impact that culture has on the psychology of the individual. The focus of this book is the reverse.

The authors show how questions about the origins and evolution of culture can be fruitfully answered through rigorous and creative examination of fundamental characteristics of human cognition, motivation, and social interaction. They review recent theory and research that, in many different ways, points to the influence of basic psychological processes on the collective structures that define cultures. These processes operate in all sorts of different populations, ranging from very small interacting groups to grand-scale masses of people occupying the same demographic or geographic category. The cultural effects--often unintended--of individuals' thoughts and actions are demonstrated in a wide variety of customs, ritualized practices, and shared mythologies: for example, religious beliefs, moral standards, rules for the allocation of resources, norms for the acceptable expression of aggression, gender stereotypes, and scientific values.

Other works in the same vein can be found on the Centre for Evolutionary Psychology's reading list.

Spotlight on Bangladesh

Bangladesh's military government is stepping up its harassment of Salah Choudhury, the Dhaka newspaper editor charged with sedition in 2004.

According to the Wall Street Journal, following a raid on his newspaper's offices, Choudhury has now also been charged with treason, blasphemy and espionage.

His real "crime" was to advocate for peaceful relations between Muslims and Jews in the Mideast and to call attention to the radical Islamist threat within Bangladesh. Pressure from the U.S. helped lead to his release on bail in April 2005, although the charges have not been dropped.

Now Dhaka is ratcheting up the pressure. On March 18, more than a dozen members of the government's Rapid Action Battalion stormed Mr. Choudhury's newspaper offices in Dhaka at gunpoint. After "discovering" illegal drugs in Mr. Choudhury's desk drawer, the RAB blindfolded Mr. Choudhury and a colleague and carted them to headquarters. There, Mr. Choudhury tells us, his interrogators accused him of being a "Zionist spy" and beat his colleague, Mahboob Ar Rahman, a 57-year-old man who had to seek medical treatment.

Here's one of the articles that got Choudhury into trouble. According to the WSJ, he is undeterred. Following his release, he has returned to work and is likely to continue his campaign.

Good luck to him.

School crossing

My boys don't complain about having to walk to school each day. But if they ever do, I was planning on telling them how lucky they are - their grandfather and his brother had to ride two-up and bareback for miles to get to and from school (shades of the Four Yorkshiremen, I know).

Now, instead, I think I'd just point them to this story from the BBC:

A South African village is demanding that a bridge be built across a crocodile-infested river to stop children swimming it to get to school. Students as young as seven have been making the crossing for two months since the community's boat was stolen.

"There are about 70 households on that side of the river but there are no buses and no-one owns a car," a Kwazulu-Natal local councillor said. To cross safely would require a 20km (12 miles) detour to get to the school.

Hosting terrorists

According to Brian Krebs on the Washington Post's computer security blog: Network Solutions, the internet hosting service that blocked access to Geert Wilders' Fitna website in response to complaints, has been providing services to Hizbollah:

NetworkSolutions on Monday pulled the plug on Hizbollah.org, one of the official Web sites of Hezbollah, a political and paramilitary group in Lebanon. NetworkSolutions spokeswoman Susan Wade confirmed that the company suspended the domain in response to numerous complaints, and to findings that the site violated the company's acceptable use policy. As noted in the comments for this post, Hezbollah is rather prominently included under the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. FTOs are designated under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and under that law it is illegal "for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide 'material support or resources' to a designated FTO." So, complaint or no, NetworkSolutions would appear to have been in violation of that law until it terminated its contract with Hizbollah.

I hope they throw the book at them.

Blogger mayhem

That was weird.

When I opened my blog this morning, I found a video from YouTube (which I'd tried, and failed, to post here two days ago) had somehow become the top post. And not just one copy of it, but three!

Normal service has now been resumed.

Wednesday roundabout

Good news: One of Michael Totten's reports from Iraq has unexpected consequences.

Jonathan Quong at Normblog argues for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

Via Samizdata: the latest development in suborbital flight.

Understanding Obama: Cobb has some thoughts.

David T at Harry's Place is questioning Britain's anti-jihadist strategy.

And finally,

The Fractal Theory Of Canada: reproduced at Language Log.

The Little Duke

Palace secret revealed after Duke of Edinburgh (3'6") and Madame Sarkozy (even smaller) are inadvertently photographed with normal size people.

Starved of ideas

Philip Stott at A Hot Topic takes the British government to task for failing to address the issue of food security in its National Security Strategy.

[T]he desperate needs to keep food production ahead of population growth; to face up to diversifying food demands, especially in the developing world; to balance the fierce competition for land, from biofuels, from conservation, and from development; and to grasp the structural changes inherent in agricultural economics are abundantly clear. These all have historical precedents, and they remain at the heart of human survival.

[According to the Financial Times:] “Most governments now agree that the astounding surge in food prices last year - the cost of food rose almost 40 per cent globally, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, and has continued to rise this year - is structural, meaning that prices will not retreat to former levels. This is because newly wealthy consumers in countries such as China and India, who can increasingly afford to improve their diets, as well as the biofuels industry, are expected to maintain a rapacious demand for basic food commodities such as wheat, corn and soyabeans.”

And things are only going to get worse. Let's hope the government starts giving this issue the attention it deserves.

Ancient hatred

Something my mother said some time ago keeps coming back to me. We were talking about the 7/7 bombings in London and I mentioned that a lot of commenators where concerned there might be a backlash against Muslims in the UK. She looked at me like I was stupid.

"Oh, George" she said, in a voice weary with age and bitter experience, "You don't know the English like I do. They'll go after the Jews before they'd even think to trouble the Muslims."

I dismissed it at the time. But I'm beginning to think maybe she wasn't far wrong.

Controversial criticism

The BBC reports:

A Muslim scholar involved in high-level dialogue with the Vatican has denounced the Pope's baptism on Saturday of a prominent Italian Muslim convert.

It's a provocation, supposedly. That's pretty much par for the course, but what I found interesting was this bit:

The Egyptian-born Italian TV and newspaper commentator has been an outspoken critic of Islamist militancy and a strong supporter of Israel.

He says such controversial views and his conversion to Christianity have provoked threats on his life, and he is now protected by a police escort.

I know the BBC regards support for Israel as somehow outlandish (that's just the way they are) but criticism of Islamist militancy is now controversial?

Who knew?

Hillary's moment

Mixing Memory (one of my favorite science blogs) is Defending Hillary Clinton From a Memory Researcher's Perspective.

Since it became clear that Clinton's story wasn't accurate, bloggers and the mainstream media have been taking her to task, and understandably so. If you're telling a story that's supposed to demonstrate your experience with dangerous foreign policy situations, and it turns out the story isn't really true, you're going to hear about it. But I think it's unfair to accuse Clinton of lying. Don't get me wrong, I think all politicians lie, and I'm no fan of Clinton (I voted for her opponent in my state's primary), but this appears to be a pretty straightforward failure of memory to me, and I'd bet a lot of money that source monitoring has its dirty little hand in it.

I'll go with that. But it's not really a defense Hillary can effectively deploy in the political arena: "I'm not a liar, I just have memory lapses" doesn't sound good coming from a presidential candidate.

At the movies

Richard Dawkins doesn't usually post movie reviews to his website but he makes an exception for "Expelled!", an artless propaganda piece from the supporters of Intelligent Design.

What a shoddy, second-rate piece of work. A favourite joke among the film-making community is the 'Lord Privy Seal'. Amateurs and novices in the making of documentaries can't resist illustrating every significant word in the commentary by cutting to a picture of it. The Lord Privy Seal is an antiquated title in Britain's heraldic tradition. The joke imagines a low-grade film director who illustrates it by cutting to a picture of a Lord, then a privy, and then a seal. Mathis' film is positively barking with Lord Privy Seals. We get an otherwise pointless cut to Nikita Krushchev hammering the table (to illustrate something like 'emotional outburst'). There are similarly clunking and artless cuts to a guillotine, fist fights, and above all to the Berlin wall and Nazi gas chambers and concentration camps.

Yep, I've seen the trailer - it's a stinker.

The release of the movie indicates a change of tack by the ID crowd. Having re-clothed Creationism in an attempt to circumvent the constitutional restrictions on religious education in schools, they lost the battle to have ID taught alongside Darwinism in science classes and have now started portraying the teaching of ID as a free speech issue, claiming their supporters are being persecuted and excluded by evil Darwinists.

It won't work, guys. Give it up!

Meet the Clampetts

While I was searching through the archives for that old promo pic of an F-117, I remembered this photograph, taken in New Mexico the following year.

We were visiting Cloudcroft (pop. 749) and, after we'd eaten our vittles and strolled around some, we decided the only thing left to do was to mosey into the offices of the Western Foto Company and get our picture taken like respectable folk.


[Click photo for larger image]

Of course, that's not Mac's normal facial expression you see there. That's just how she looks when someone unexpectedly drapes roadkill over her shoulder.

Auntie’s bloomers

If you're interested in following the machinations of the BBC’s online news editors as they twist and turn in response to righteous criticism from bloggers and informed readers, you might like to read through this post at Monkey Tennis Centre about the BBC’s coverage of one of President Bush’s recent speeches.

It’s a long post but worth the read - trying to clearly demonstrate an example of media bias often requires a level of detail which might at first glance seem inappropriate, not to say obsessive.

Having said that, I think MTC may be overestimating the quality of journalism at the BBC when he suggests (in regard to the BBC’s initially distorted coverage of the speech): “The journalists who edited the report knew exactly what they were doing.”

Unfortunately, it has become glaringly obvious over the past five years that some journalists at the BBC don’t have the slightest clue what they’re doing. They make so many mistakes (even when reporting on events in British history) and oftentimes, it’s difficult to tell the difference between compound error and calculated bias.

Also, I have to say, I think it’s a good thing when the BBC amends its online content to correct an error, even if they don’t own up to it. The BBC’s stance when it gets found out is pretty clear: amend the story but don’t acknowledge the fact and never, ever apologize.

George Senior

Writing that last post made me think of my father's experience of war - he was a platoon first sergeant in the US Army Rangers.

He didn't feature in the Normandy landings - he was spared the horrors of Omaha Beach - by that time, he was already a POW.

The Rangers' role at Pointe du Hoc is widely remembered; few remember Cisterna, the rigours of Stalag IIB and the depredations of the Death March.

My father died on April 11, 1992. Not being religious, I don't say a prayer for him on the anniversary of his death, I read a poem. I like to think he'd appreciate that.

The 4,000

As the American death toll in Iraq reaches four thousand, the New York Times looks at Six of the Fallen, in Words They Sent Home.

Back in 2003, I said we needed to get the job done and bring our people safely home. But four thousand of them won't ever be coming home and many times that number have returned from Iraq with debilitating injuries.

Some people will use these numbers to assert that the cost of the war has been too high and that we need to disengage, others will argue that we need to stay the course to ensure they did not die in vain.

I know it is too much too ask that we conduct such arguments somewhere other than over the bodies of our dead - the issue is too important and the cost in human lives (American and Iraqi) is, of course, a major consideration.

Nevertheless, irrespective of your attitude towards the war, I'd ask you to take some time out from politics today and give some thought to those who have given their lives in the service of their country. Some thought also, to the wives and husbands they left behind, to the children who will grow up without them and to their parents who have lost something dearer to them than life itself.

Their sacrifice humbles us all.

Tuesday roundabout

The geometry of sin: Zoe Brain has an angle on it.

Republicans and stem cell research: Chris Muir sees a link.

Hill and Bill: The Wonder Years - photo available here.

Pootergeek picks up on a snippet from the NUT conference.

Spiral thingy lightning bolt! Arnold Zwicky explains it at Language Log.

And finally,

Are you having problems with purple energy? Or perhaps your energy isn't purple enough. Whichever it is, Depleted Cranium has the product for you.

Strange days indeed

Damn these meds! I've had insomnia so bad for so many days now that, sitting here at four in the morning, I can't figure out whether I've stayed up too late or woken up too early. Either way, the news just keeps getting stranger.

For example: These observations on the effects of climate change from James "Gaia" Lovelock (via Dave Price at Dean's World).

By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris. As far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position.
[...]
China will be uninhabitable. So I think the Chinese will go to Africa. They are already there, preparing a new continent - the Chinese industrialists who claim to be out there mining minerals are just there on a pretext of preparing for the big move.

This is not science fiction.

No, it's not science fiction. I'm not sure what you'd call it, but it sounds demented.

Robot pack mule

Via Harry's Place: Video of BigDog - an advanced quadruped robot - one of the latest developments from Boston Dynamics.

Impressive and kind of scary.

Facing the nightmare

DANGER ROOM examines our threat response capability:

How you deal with a rampaging five-hundred-foot monster in a crowded urban area? Now that Cloverfield has opened in the UK, it's time for DANGER ROOM to go to the movies and consider this utterly vital question.
[...]
Cloverfield has been described as a 'reimagining' of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms – both use Coney Island – but the monster is tougher to deal with, shrugging off all sorts of modern weaponry. The reason, as I see it, is fairly simple: the kit simply isn't designed for this sort of target.

Read on.

A hundred lines

I must finish editing a post before I hit the publish button.
I must finish editing a post before I hit the publish button.
I must finish editing a post before I hit the publish button.
etc etc etc

Supra et Ultra

The last black bird has flown the Otero County skies.



The Air Force has retired the last of the F-117A "Stealth Fighters" in service at Holloman Air Force Base. They will be replaced by the new F-22A Raptor. The Nighthawks aren't being scrapped, they've been sent to the boneyard at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada - they'll be ready if we need them again.

The Lockheed Nighthawk was designed in the late 1970s and first entered service in 1983. It's a reliable and deadly effective airplane, but it was getting old - it's slow and it was wearing out.

During a visit to Holloman in 2000, I was honored to be given a tour of "The Canyon" where the F-117s were kept - each in its own hangar, the Stars and Stripes hung vertically overhead (even had my picture taken with one of them) - it was some sight. I was impressed by the professionalism of the people who worked to maintain them and grateful that they took the time to show me around.

I know a lot of people thought it was an ugly bird; I always thought it was beautiful. It will be missed.

More (than enough) politics

Pejman Yousefzadeh's word for the day is "internecine", describing the struggle between Clinton and Obama.

Is it too late to ask Jed Bartlet to run?

Bridging the divide

Over at Dean’s World, I left a comment to this post, where I said, on the issue of race in America:

We’re still a nation in denial - to a large extent we’ve accepted the sins of our past but continue to be wilfully blind about how that past continues to shape the present and constrains all our futures.

I also repeated what I said in a post here - that some people may understand the experiences that might lead Pastor Wright to use such fiery anti-American rhetoric in his speeches.

Judging by some of the views expressed by other commenters, I got the impression that I might have been misunderstood. So I want to set out my thoughts here, as much to explore my own thinking on the matter as to clarify my position to anyone who might be reading.

----

We can condemn Jeremiah Wright for his views and equally we can question Obama’s relationship with the man and what that means in terms of Obama’s views and/or his integrity. Personally, I think he’s damaged his credibility and compromised what, for many of his supporters, seems to have been the promise of his candidacy.

In speaking of understanding, I wasn’t trying to defend the actions and opinions of either Wright or Obama, nor was I seeking to offer some historical justification for what one commenter called “black rage”. I’m pleased to see that people are able to recognize and condemn racist attitudes, wherever they come from.

And yet there is, I believe, a need for understanding, an understanding that the views Wright expressed (wrong as they are) are not uncommon in certain sections of American society – some people I know well hold views (on AIDS, on drugs, and on black redemption) that are not dissimilar to Wright’s. I don’t think anyone has a duty to understand or tolerate such views. But I do think that issues around race distort our society and damage us as a nation. Wright’s preaching seems to have won over the hearts and minds of quite a large congregation. His views are not unique and the traction they have is not insignificant – understanding why that is so might go some way towards helping us win some of those people back.

If other people don’t think that’s a good thing then I guess we’re not on the same page.

A small quibble

The BBC is reporting the death of Neil Aspinall, a childhood friend of Paul McCartney and one-time manager of Apple Corps. Strange that the Beeb should headline the story:

Beatles' guru Neil Aspinall dies

In what way was he the Beatles' guru? I don't think Aspinall was in the business of marketing idiosyncratic knowledge. Of course, these days, when BBC journalists use a word, it means just what they choose it to mean, neither more nor less - rather confusing for the rest of us, though.

Meanwhile, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi must be spinning in his grave.


Not Neil Aspinall with The Beatles, Bangor 1967

Update
The headline has been changed, it now reads: "Beatles' ally Neil Aspinall dies". Nice to see them responding to a little bit of feedback. No, not from me, I'm sure they'll have got e-mails from all over about that headline.

Faith in education

From the BBC:

Head teachers should allow imams, rabbis and priests to offer religious instruction to pupils in all state schools, teachers' leaders have said.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said the move would be a way to reunite divided communities. The NUT said parents had a right to have specific schooling in their own faith, if that was what they wanted. But having children taught at different faith-based schools had led to community breakdown in some areas.

Offering pupils some instruction in their own faith could reduce the demand for faith schools, said NUT General Secretary Steve Sinnott.

This is a bad idea on so many levels that it's difficult to know where to start in criticizing it.

The idea that faith-based schools have led to community breakdown is a new one on me. I went to a faith school over thirty years ago, I don't remember anyone arguing back then that they were breaking down communities. What's changed?

And if parents have a right to "specific schooling in their own faith", that can't just mean imams, rabbis and priests, can it? What about Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Scientologists, Spiritualists, Shintoists, Baha'is, Taoists, Zoroastrians and the rest? The list goes on and on. (Do Satanists have children?) And what about the agnostics and the atheists - don't they have any rights here?

The British education system is overstretched and under-resourced, class sizes are a national scandal and literacy and numeracy are major problems. Money spent on religious teaching will divert resources away from infrastructure spending and the teaching of basic skills.

Is that a good idea? God, no.

Pardon my French

I haven't visited Un Swissroll for a while but going there today, I notice that François Brutsch has a review of the XO up at Domaine Public. I think he likes it.

Already in use in Nigeria, Brazil and Thailand, bought by the governments of Uruguay and Peru for their schools and set for distribution in Mongolia, Afghanistan, Haiti and Rwanda - the XO is destined to rank as a masterpiece of design, on a par with the Apple Macintosh and the CFF station clock: the dream of "a $100 dollar computer" for the children of the Third World has arrived.

That's my translation, so I can't really vouch for its accuracy. Still, if your French is as bad as (or indeed, worse than) mine*, François' prose is robust enough to survive automatic translation.

[* I'm forced to tell any Francophone who, momentarily dazzled by my masterful deployment of a stock phrase or two, compliments me on my command of the language: Ah, oui. Je parle français très bien, mais je comprends rien.]

War on Terror

The board game.



The boys bought it for me for Christmas but we haven't played it yet. Maybe we'll get a chance to play it tomorrow (it's a public holiday here). It's not that we haven't had the opportunity before, it's just that when it's games time we usually go for a Cheapass game: The Great Brain Robbery is the current favorite, but Kill Doctor Lucky comes a close second.

The film that wasn't there

From the BBC:

A website that a Dutch right-wing politician was planning to use to release a film expected to be fiercely critical of Islam has been suspended.

The US hosting service, Network Solutions, said it was investigating complaints that it may have breached guidelines on hate language.

Interesting, since according to Little Green Footballs (emphasis added):

[M]ajor internet registrar Network Solutions has apparently suspended the web site of Dutch MP Geert Wilders—before he posted anything.

It's difficult to see how the content of the site could contravene Network Solutions' conditions of use if there was no content.

Which leads me to consider a startling possibility - perhaps there is no Fitna movie. Maybe Wilders has been promoting a project that doesn't exist. As the howls of protest have grown louder and louder, the proposed release of the film has been repeatedly delayed - so maybe it's not such an outlandish suggestion.

According to the text on this UK based website:

It should be fairly obvious by now that there is no "Fitna" movie. No movie to insult Islam or Muslims or anyone else for that matter. The month of April is upon us, we all know the month of April starts with the 1st April and that day is famous for (practical) jokes.

Holland might not be considered as a country with a great sense of humour but ever once in awhile even in Holland they crack a joke. So, bottom line; if you are here to find the Famous Fitna movie I guess you have been had !!!

On the other hand, if you are worried about how much unrest the rumour of a 15 minute movie about Islam can create, maybe it is time to identify and deal with the issues at hand.

Broken dreams

When I was young we never really talked much about racism as such. Mostly we used words like prejudice and discrimination. Then, as now, you could find people who were prejudiced against all sorts of people: black people, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, gays.

In my family we divided people who were prejudiced into one of two camps, they were either ignorant or bigoted. The difference being that the ignorant people didn’t like black people, Jews, Catholics, immigrants and gays, whereas the bigots hated them and thought of them as inferior and unworthy of civil rights. Of course if you were on the receiving end, the distinction didn’t matter much, the behaviour was the same.

Except there was a difference, generally speaking the ignorant had arrived at their views by absorbing them from their parents and peers. Their views were the kind of conventional un-wisdom that gets handed down from generation to generation.

If they were intelligent ignorants you could talk to them, discuss things and maybe, just maybe, sometimes get them to understand that their views were irrational, based on myths and stereotypes and just plain wrong. Of course most times, even if you could get these people to agree with you, they would still end the conversation by saying “I don’t care, I just don’t like them”.

In contrast, it was never worth trying to discuss things with a bigot. If talking with the ignorant would sometimes make me feel sad that otherwise decent people could hold such ugly views, conversing with a bigot just used to make me angry. They held to hate for hate’s sake alone and nothing would budge them.

Nowadays it seems to me that there aren’t so many ignorant people about as there used to be and the bigots mostly either keep quiet or keep to themselves. But it still seems that race is a big issue in America. Sometimes I think I understand it and sometimes I know I don’t, but it always makes me sad.

I grew up in the Sixties; too young to really understand, I heard the words of Kennedy and King and I watched Neil Armstrong take that giant step. And, in my innocence, I imagined that one day America would be a raceless society and we could all go to the moon.

[First posted July 2003]

Painkillers and Paradise

Large doses of codeine and a shot of Milton. Well, it works for me.

(Let's hope it keeps working; my next surgical assessment is still 10 days away.)

Easter Sunday

The boys have eaten their eggs and, hyped on chocolate, they're now bouncing around the house like a couple of Tiggers.

Mac's gone wild in the kitchen with the ice-cream maker - today's dessert will be homemade blackberry and apple pie with pineapple, peach, coconut and lime ice-cream. Tangy!

And I'm in the study - of use to neither man nor beast - popping painkillers and dawdling through the Prelinger Archives. Check out Dating: The Dos and Don'ts, a Coronet Instructional Film from 1949. It's quaint.

Today's blogging outlook: Light posting with an occasional smattering of bizarre links.

Happy Easter.

Weekend reading

Nonie Darwish in the Huffington Post on the Arab world's treatment of the Palestinians.

Fraser Nelson in the Spectator on British Intelligence and the fight against Al Qaeda in the UK.

Joseph Brean from the National Post on the strange goings-on at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Robin McKie in the Observer: How the myth of food miles hurts the planet.

He said what?

From the Dail Mail: Lord Digby, Labour's Minister for Trade, in a speech Wednesday to an audience of Arab businessmen and diplomats at London's Café Royal:

“We don't care what colour you are, we don't care if we can't pronounce your names and we don't care where your money comes from. We just want you to invest in our country.”

A cunning scam

From Angie Schultz at The Machinery of Night:

A week ago today I got an email from my stepdad that started out like this:

How are you doing today? I am sorry i didn't inform you about my traveling to Africa for a program called "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education"...

"Dad, you scamp!" I thought, "What are you up to now?" Dad is what is known in the vernacular as a card, and so I read along, figuring I'd come to a lame punchline at some point. I thought maybe he'd stumbled across some other fellow with his name who was the kind of do-gooding low-life who trots off to African conferences.

But no. No punchline of any degree of lameness. Instead it's a sad, long-winded (sounds like Dad there) tale of how he stupidly left his dough, credit cards, ID, etc in a taxi and now he's flat busted and is going to be kicked out of his hotel and he's using a library computer and only has thirty minutes and can he have $1300, pronto.

Read on.

Five years on

On the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a number of commentators and some newspapers have asked the question: Knowing what you know now, would you still have supported the invasion?

I have a similar question that could be asked: Knowing what you will know in five years time, would you still be against it?

Both questions are nonsensical to me.

I supported the war (for fairly conventional reasons) and still believe, on the basis of the information available at the time, that it was the right thing to do. Yes, horrendous mistakes were made and the result of those mistakes, compounded by an inability to learn from and quickly correct them, has contributed considerably to the bloody aftermath.

In any case, I supported the war, I do not accept that the invasion was illegal and in the absence of meaningful alternative strategies for achieving and maintaining security in Iraq, I continue to support the presence of American troops.

I am not a big fan of Christopher Hitchens, but (in his recent article for Slate magazine) he asks a question that, while we cannot know the answer to it, should at least give pause for thought: What would a post-Saddam Iraq have looked like without a coalition presence?

Poetry corner

John Cooper Clarke

I'm sure I wasn't the only person surprised to hear John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown" feature at the end of one of The Sopranos episodes. I did wonder what the folks back home would make of it. As E.J. at Loudersoft notes:

Clarke never quite made a name for himself stateside. The reasons are undoubtedly two-fold: firstly, his works are steeped in British cultural references and nomenclature. Secondly, Clarke spent the better part of the 1980’s struggling with his addiction to heroin. Further, according to Wikipedia, Clarke was living and involved with, either romantically or addictively, one-time member of the Velvet Underground Nico.

Clarke’s works (which occasion to remind one of Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Robyn Hitchcock or even Art Brut) while quite brilliant musically and poetically, are not entirely accessible works; the songs come out frequently so avant-garde as to initiate stand-up comedy potential. Having apparently recovered from his addictions sufficiently, Clarke has embraced his humor with dignity and humility as he continues to perform live around England.

There's a link to the audio of "Evidently Chickentown" in E.J.'s post. Those interested in hearing more can check out Clarke's homepage, but it's such a mess of a site that it's difficult to find the gems.

The audios of live performances of "You never see a nipple in the Daily Express" and "I married a monster from outer space" (to be found on this page) are worth a listen. Sadly, I couldn't find an audio link to "Beasley Street" which many people, myself included, regard as Clarke's best work. (Tripe Soup has the words - you'll just have to imagine the delivery).

The Madonna of the Pinks

Bought by the National Gallery in 2004 for £34.88 million, Raphael's Madonna is currently on display at Bristol Museum as part of the National Gallery Touring Exhibition. Mac got to see it in her lunch hour one day last week.

I'm hoping to catch it before it moves on - if I'm well enough to get out of the house.

In a hole

The Jawa Report goes to town on Barack Obama after he refers to his maternal grandmother as a "typical white person".

So, from what I'm hearing, Barack Obama's kinda racist-ish white grandmother is, according to Barack, a "typical white person" who has her kinda racist-ish attitudes "bred into" her as a fundamental part of her whiteness...or something.

Obama's campaign explained later that Barack didn't intend, of course, to imply that ALL white people harbor kinda racist-ish attitudes like his grandmother. Just MOST, I guess.

Now, Barack apparently thinks a "typical white person" is gonna get nervous if she's alone and runs into a black male stranger on the street. Although Barack didn't come out and say it directly, the context of the statement would seem to indicate that he considers this "typical white person" reaction to be kinda racist-ish.

Of course, any female (of any race), walking alone at night, who runs into a male stranger (of any race) and doesn't give at least a passing thought to what intentions that male stranger may harbor, is naive.

Dig up, Obama. Dig up!

Hot and Sour Noodles

I haven't posted a recipe for quite some time, so I thought I might share one of my favorite noodle dishes with you. I cook Chinese food a lot and this side dish is pretty popular in the Junior household. I usually serve it in small portions along with egg fried rice as an accompaniment to the main course, so this recipe should be enough for up to 6 people.

Ingredients
2 tsp cornflour
12 fl oz cold water
6 tbs yellow bean sauce
Few drops of chili oil (depends how hot you like it)
1 tbs light soy sauce
3 tbs rice vinegar
3 tbs sugar
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
½ inch of fresh ginger, finely chopped
3 spring onions, finely sliced
1 tbs of sesame seeds, roasted and lightly crushed
12 oz of fine noodles

Method
Gradually mix the cornflour and water then add the bean sauce, chili oil, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar and sesame oil.

Put the vegetable oil in a wok and heat over a medium heat, add the garlic and ginger and cook for a few seconds (don’t let the garlic brown) then add the spring onions. Cook for one minute then add the cornflour mixture, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Meanwhile, cook the noodles in boiling water, drain, stir in the sauce, add the sesame seeds, toss and serve.

P.S. If you don't have chili oil, you can use a red chili pepper instead - deseeded and finely chopped, fry it up with the garlic and ginger. For a fuller, more authentic flavor: if you can get hold of a jar of Ma Po sauce, substitute a table-spoon of that for the chili oil.

Political note: ABC has recipes for John McCain's Ribs and Obama Family Chili but nothing from Hillary Clinton - not even her chocolate-chip cookies.

More Remington

Following on from this post, David Apatoff at Illustration Art has a picture-filled post featuring some of Remington's most luminous works.

Friday roundabout

Zoe Brain follows up on a report from PZ Myers that he's been banned from watching a creationist movie.

Clive Davis on the decline of the British curry house.

Is Global Warming sloppy science? Roy Spencer thinks so, and says so at Watts Up with That.

Snarksmith's Michael Weiss takes a pop at John McCain for embracing "backwater religious hucksters".

The good people of Venezuela are generously subsidizing London bus fares; Samizdata's Michael Jennings isn't grateful.

And finally,

A bit of monkey business: Essays & Effluvia explains how the stock market works.

Chinese games

Via Normblog: In September of last year, two Chinese human rights activists, Teng Biao and Hu Jia, issued the following open letter calling for the international community to examine the reality behind China's promise to improve human rights in the run up to the 2008 Olympics.

The Real China and the Olympics

On July 13th 2001, when Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese government promised the world it would improve China’s human rights record. In June 2004, Beijing announced its Olympic Games slogan, “One World, One Dream.” From their inception in 1896, the modern Olympic Games have always had as their mission the promotion of human dignity and world peace. China and the world expected to see the Olympic Games bring political progress to the country. Is Beijing keeping its promises? Is China improving its human rights record?

When you come to the Olympic Games in Beijing, you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. You will see the truth, but not the whole truth, just as you see only the tip of an iceberg. You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.

We are going to tell you the truth about China. We believe that for anyone who wishes to avoid a disgraceful Olympics, knowing the truth is the first step.

You can read the rest here.

Three months after the letter was published, Hu Jia was arrested by the Chinese authorities and is now on trial for “incitement to subvert state power”.

Lawrence Donegan at the Guardian's Sportblog takes up the story.

Close encounter

Twenty years ago:

Saturday morning after a late night out and I'm lying in bed dozing when there's a knock at the door. Ignore it. No, there it is again, insistent knocking. Dressing hastily, I rush downstairs, open the door and find a middle-aged couple standing on the doorstep smiling at me.

"Have you heard the good news?"

Wow! I'm still half asleep but... Wow! I'm thinking something momentous must have happened if total strangers are knocking on my door to tell me about it. So, I lean out into the street looking for signs of commotion and general rejoicing but there's no one else about.

"No. What's happened?" (I was thinking maybe Thatcher had died or something.)

"Jehovah God is going to rid the world of wickedness; only the Righteous will be saved."

"Oh. Listen," I said "if that's the 'good news', you better come in and have a cup of tea."

And they did, of course, they did.

The next week, they came back with their "supervisor" - I don't think they were trying to convert me, they were just curious. Of course, the head honcho rumbled me straight away: Inquisitive Rationalist - I'd asked too many questions.

I haven't been visited since. I think they must have put some secret mark on my door - a sign for other Witnesses to stay away. Still, I like to think I planted a seed.

Brick art

Reflection by Nathan Sawaya August 2006

From The Art of the Brick:

"Some artists use paint, others bronze – But for Nathan Sawaya he chooses to build his awe-inspiring art out of toy building blocks. LEGO® bricks to be exact.

With more than 1.5 million colored bricks in his New York studio, Sawaya’s sculptures take many forms."

An exhibition of Sawaya's work Architecture of the Imagination: The Lure of the LEGO® Brick is currently on display at the Stamford Museum, Connecticut, until August 18.

Critical perspective

Dale at Faith in Honest Doubt puts the critics of "fundamentalist" atheists straight on a few points:

The hideous depredations of Abu Ghraib, Guantanimo, and the rest don't come from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or even Christopher Hitchens, but from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and General Sanchez. These are Christians, not book-peddling atheists, behind these actually-occurring atrocities.

The 9/11 highjackers were acting from faith in god, not killing thousands fresh from reading Michel Onfray. Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and assorted Danish newspaper editors and cartoonists live under the threat of death for expressing the wrong opinions about god, not about Dan Dennett's books.

Strange that it's necessary to point these things out - but it is.

YouthTube

The boys' current YouTube favorites.

From my 13 year-old (who assures me it's hilarious): Harry Potter and the love that dare not speak its name.

From Spud (who's 10): He loved the TV ads for Cillit Bang so the Kitchen Gun spoof really cracks him up.

From both of them (and under duress): A cat playing the piano.

Headlining for dummies

Darn it! I thought I'd come up with the most ludicrous headline of the week but then "the most hated woman in Britain" goes and does something stupid and The Sun gives us:

MUCCA CHUKSA CUPPA WATER OVER MACCA'S LAWYER SHACKA

British tabloid journalism at its best. Or worst.

[Will I get an e-mail about the title of this post?]

The best of British

The Wardman Wire hosts Britblog Roundup #161.

The Philadelphia story

Yes, it was a good speech - the man is a consummate orator. And, on the issue of race in America, he told it like it is - he didn't pull any punches or attempt to sweeten the pill but addressed the issues head-on. And he did so with the calm dignity that has become his hallmark.

It might even have been a great speech had Obama only been concerned with the abstract and not the particular. But it was necessary that he deal with the controversy surrounding Pastor Wright and his membership of Trinity Church. Yet even here Obama turned the issue to his advantage. In saying he repudiated Wright's controversial ideas but could not and would not disown the man himself, he chose to separate the personal from the political and cast himself as someone ready to accept, acknowledge and forgive the failings of a man he has come to regard as part of his family.

And yet some nagging doubts remain.

Was it necessary (or indeed seemly) for him to "throw grandma under the bus" as some commentators have phrased it?

And, while we may understand the experiences that could lead Wright to use such fiery anti-American rhetoric in his sermons, it is difficult to regard his appointment as an adviser to the Obama campaign as anything other than a serious error of judgement.

British weather

(It's Venice but you get the picture)

Steele boots Obama

Uncomfortable reading: Shelby Steele in today's Wall Street Journal.

What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking. He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?

But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness. Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred.

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

The New York Times reports that Obama is planning to address the issue of race in America in a speech today in Philadelphia.

It had better be a good one.

Modern Britain

POLICE PROBE GLOVE PUPPET IN RACE ABUSE SCANDAL

Pickled Politics has the details. The Daily Mail has pictures.

Dazed and confused

Wide awake at 4 in the morning: these Zapain tablets are playing hell with my sleep pattern.

Posting may well be light to non-existent tomorrow. Erm..., today.

China and Tibet

How long do you have to be part of an empire before you lose the right to national self-determination? Tim Worstall would like to know.

Also, Vodkapundit links to an Al Jazeera English video of the unrest and Chinese reaction to it.

1968 and all that

The year was 1968 and, worldwide, there was revolution in the air. But when John Hoyland attacked John Lennon's politics in a radical paper, he didn't expect the fiery Beatle to rise to the bait.

I'm not sure what it is about this Guardian piece from John Hoyland concerning his correspondence with John Lennon that gets my goat. It's not because I'm a Lennon fan - yes, I like his music but he was, in many ways, politically naive and he gave his support to a number of causes I find objectionable - Angela Davis being a case in point. So no, it's not that.

And it's not that Hoyland sounds so pompously self-important about his role in the events of 1968 - though he does.

I think maybe it's because, forty years on, Hoyland shows absolutely no insight - he's obviously still inordinately proud of having been a useful idiot all those years ago.

Here's the then student John Hoyland writing in a Keele University magazine:

In order to change the world, we've got to understand what's wrong with the world. And then - destroy it. Ruthlessly. This is not cruelty or madness. It is one of the most passionate forms of love. Because what we're fighting is suffering, oppression, humiliation - the immense toll of unhappiness caused by capitalism.

Since then, Hoyland says "I like to think I shifted my position as well to one that was a little less naively and narrowly political."

A "little"? Really?

The Wright thing

Armed Liberal has a post up about Obama and Wright that's worth reading, as are the comments that follow - this one, from Michael Totten, struck a chord with me:

As recently as last week I said I won't vote for Obama, but that I like him anyway. I cannot say that anymore.

He's either a cynic (per Yglesias), an idiot for not figuring this out after two decades, or a paranoid racist nutjob.

I suspect Yglesias is correct, but that right there is enough to change my opinion of him forever.

This scandal (and it really is a scandal) strikes right at the heart of what made him appealing to so many people, including me.

Looks like Clinton's prayers have been answered; this one could run and run.

Reading science

I don't read much fiction (it's all made up, you know) but I do read a lot and I appreciate good writing. On that basis, here are three "popular science" paperbacks I strongly recommend to anyone with more than a passing interest in physics, mathematics or evolution:

The Magic Furnace by Marcus Chown;

Imagining Numbers: (Particularly the Square Root of Minus Fifteen) by Barry Mazur;

In the Blink of an Eye: How Vision Kick-started the Big Bang of Evolution by Andrew Parker.

By the way, that last one is a must for anyone who's been engaged in debate by Creationists who can't understand how something as complex as the eye could ever have evolved. If they only knew.

Family life

After one of my comments (on Lord Goldsmith's proposal that schoolchildren swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen) is quoted in the Sunday Times, No 1 Son offers his congratulations: "That's great, Dad! Now you can say you've been 'published' - time to quit while you're ahead."

Daughters. I should have had daughters.

Then again, maybe not:

"Daughters. They're a mess no matter how you look at 'em. A headache 'til they get married - if they get married - and after that they get worse. Either they leave their husbands and come back with four kids and move into your guest room or the husband loses his job and the whole caboodle comes back. Or else they're so homely that you can't get rid of them at all and they hang around the house like Spanish moss and shame you into an early grave."

Well, that's Officer Kockenlocker's take on it anyhow.

Weekend reading

Kenan Malik on the failures of multiculturalism.

Us and Them: Jerry Muller on the enduring power of ethnic nationalism.

Dead man walking: Geert Wilders' speech to the Dutch parliament.

From Democratiya: Simon Cottee on The Rot of the Western Left.

Frederic Remington (1861-1909)

It is well known that John Ford (that arch mythologist of the Old West) based the screenplays for his Cavalry Trilogy on the works of James Warner Bellah. Perhaps less well known is that the look of all three movies owes a lot to Frederic Remington.



In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Ford acknowledged Remington's influence: "I like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. I tried to copy the Remington style there - you can't copy him one hundred percent - but at least I tried to get in his color and movement, and I think I succeeded partly."*



[* Quoted in Edward Buscombe's Painting the Legend: Frederic Remington and the Western]

Discoloring the working class

I never ever thought I'd say this, but I agree with Seumas Milne.

[T]he BBC's decision to commission a series of programmes about the marginalisation of the working class in New Labour's Britain should have been a rare opportunity to shine a light on the heart of modern life. Instead, under the banner of "The White Season", the programmes have been focused entirely on the impact of immigration and race on the white working class, as if it were some sort of anthropological study of an endangered tribe.

The message was unmistakeably clear in the series trailer, where a shaven-headed man's face is blacked up with writing by brown hands over the words: "Is white working-class Britain becoming invisible?" White working people were being written out of the script, we were given to understand, and multiculturalism and migration were to blame. But in reality, it is the working class as a whole, white and non-white, that has been weakened and marginalised in the past two decades. By identifying the problems of the country's most disadvantaged communities as being about race rather than class, the BBC has reinforced stereotypes and played to the toxic agenda of the British National Party.

I don't deserve him

"So what are you going to do with your gap year, son? Work? Travel? Volunteering? What's that? You're going to make videos of freaky chin-eyed creatures for BBC3! Is there any future in that?"

"You'll see, Dad - one day my chin will be famous!"

Mamet reborn

After cognitive dissonance gets the better of him, David Mamet comes out in Village Voice as No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'.

Has he seen the light or turned to the dark side?

The Clinton machine

Hillary is toast and she knows it - she just won't admit it. Why?

Dale at Faith in Honest Doubt asks the same question and (in the comments) offers the only answer that makes any sense.

And it ain't pretty.

Kite aerial photography

Not something I've ever thought about before but what a great way to take pictures - hitch your camera to a kite, fly and shoot.

Of course, there are some thorny technical issues involved but there's a whole slew of online resources available - if you're interested then KAPER E-magazine is a good place to start.

As well as offering tips, links and technical information, KAPER has a number of gallery pages that are worth checking out - I especially liked this collection from Chun-Yen Chang.

Worthless lives

Via Normblog: From an article in the Economist:

[S]o big is counter-terrorism spending and so limited is terrorism's economic impact that, even if 30 attacks like the London bombings of July 2005 were prevented each year, the benefits would still be lower than the costs.

So, if I've got this right, the Economist is suggesting that there are enormous benefits to be gained from reducing spending on counter-terrorism even if this were to result in thousands of deaths from terrorist attacks.

Of course, as Norm points out, the Economist's figures only hold up if you assume that a human life has no value.

This is Phun

It's a 2D physics sandbox.

Phun is a Master of Science Thesis by Computing Science student Emil Ernerfeldt for supervisor Kenneth Bodin at VRLab, Umeå University. The solver is based on work by Claude Lacoursière.

Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction.

Download it from Phun

Panel games

Marcus Brigstocke writing in the Independent on his home's "£100,000 eco-makeover":

I am getting my [solar] panels in from a Chinese plant, the only one in the world with a really solid eco-record for making them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world:

The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.

This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.

In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.

[Hat tip: Tim Blair]

Ukrainian Army footwear

It's a hot topic at Manolo’s Shoe Blog.

Fallon gone

So, the head of U.S. Central Command, Admiral William "Fox" Fallon has resigned following a lengthy profile by Thomas Barnett published in Esquire magazine.

It's been on the cards for some time. Gareth Porter suggested back in September that Fallon's relationship with General Petraeus has been somewhat problematic:

In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

And Fallon's relationship with the Bush administration hasn't been rosy either - he seemed ever ready to portray himself as the only person who could stop the U.S. going to war with Iran.

Barnett's article in Esquire (despite Fallon's recent efforts to distance himself from it) was the final straw.

Whatever one's opinion of Fallon and the wisdom of attacking Iran, the perception that he was openly undermining American policy in the region made his position increasingly untenable. As Jeff Huber commented the day before Fallon resigned:

[I]t scares the living shit out of me that an admiral who's supposed to be a general is most likely dictating foreign policy to elected officials in our executive and legislative branches who are supposed to dictate foreign policy to him.

He had to go.

Political dignity

Iowahawk on the Eliot Spitzer affair:

At a hastily scheduled morning press conference at the headquarters of New York's exclusive Emperors Club prostitution ring, high priced call girl "Kristen" announced that she would temporarily step aside in the wake of charges that she had engaged in sex with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

"I made a serious mistake and betrayed the trust of my co-workers, my many clients, and my pimps," she said in a quiet voice cracking with emotion. "I will be taking a leave of absence to earn their forgiveness, and redeem myself in the eyes of the entire expensive whore community."

[Via Winds of Change]

Give that man a cigar

Gene at Harry's Place becomes an apologist for the Costa Rican regime.

Sixty years of peace, prosperity, democracy, civil liberties and political rights, universal health care and high rates of adult literacy.

Yes, but at what cost?

New Labour's transformation

Statements like this one from John Hutton, the Labour government's Secretary of State for Business, no longer surprise:

"Rather than questioning whether huge salaries are morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country - to climb without limits."

Though I am reminded of the closing lines of an old fairy story:

No question, now what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Altruism and evolution

Norman Geras wondering about altruism and instinct:

So I wonder how much point there is in trying to explain altruism on the basis of our instincts when, whatever findings you might come up with in this regard, one of the kinds of reason people will have for acting altruistically will be non-instinctive; it will have to do with moral principles or teachings, with things that have been learned. I'm not saying that such considerations will suffice in explanation, but they have an important part.

Yes, but in a different subject area (Psychology, History, Politics) so I can't see how such considerations somehow lessen the point of theories that attempt to explain the development of altruistic behaviour in human species.

From an evolutionary standpoint, and with a perspective of millions of years, moral principles, religious teachings and the shared narratives of the actors involved just don't figure.

Lileks nails it

You know, when I said "3:10 to Yuma" was highly entertaining, this is (of course) what I meant:

I expected Russell Crowe being Rogueish and Christian Bale looking Grimly Determined, and that’s what it was. It was also preposterous, and made me miss “Deadwood” very much. I’d been warned that it “falls apart” in the end, and that’s true, in the sense that a Kleenex tissue “falls apart” when hit with a high-pressure water hose. The final scenes would have been more credible if Ninjas rode into town on giant ostriches and killed everyone with light sabers.

Yep.

Time's past

While searching for corroboration of a story I'd read somewhere or other that the name of Low Freight in Arkansas was a corruption of L'eau Froide (the original French name for the place) I found it in this article from Time Magazine dated April 1945.

I didn't know Time had put all its archives online (including the covers) - they go right back to 1923.

That's some resource!

Torturing democracy

The New York Times reports that President Bush has, as expected, vetoed Congress's attempt to ban the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA.

Section 327 of the proposed Intelligence Authorization Act would have limited the intelligence agency's interrogation methods by requiring that they comply with the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. This would have effectively ruled out a range of practices including the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and electric shocks.

The Senate’s majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Mr. Bush disregarded the advice of military commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, who argued that the military’s interrogation techniques were effective and that the use of any others could create risks for any future American prisoners of war.

“He has rejected the Army field manual’s recognition that such horrific tactics elicit unreliable information, put U.S. troops at risk and undermine our counterinsurgency efforts,” Mr. Reid said in a statement.

The Washington Weekly (which devotes its current issue to essays criticizing such practices) says it for me:

It was a profound moral and strategic mistake for the United States to abandon long-standing policies of humane treatment of enemy captives. We should return to the rule of law and cease all forms of torture, with no exceptions for any agency.

Slavery days

Some people will not be surprised to hear that one of Boris Johnson's ancestors was involved in the slave trade (the Guardian reports on the story here).

What may come as a surprise is that his ancestor was not a slave trader but a slave:

'I am the proud offspring of Turkish immigrants. I want you to know that my great-great-grandmother was a slave, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Livingstone. She was a Circassian slave [from a region in southern Russia], and she was sold: my great-great-grandfather literally purchased her.'

On a side note: the Guardian's description of white slavery (at the bottom of the quoted article) employs a curious turn of phrase when it says (emphasis added):

Around half a million Circassians ended up in Turkey, where many of the women entered the white slave trade. They were seen as more prestigious than Africans, also enslaved by the Turks, but a report in the London Post in 1856 recorded that the market had become so swamped that 'never, perhaps, at any time was white human flesh so cheap'.

"Entered the slave trade" makes it sound voluntary.

Just to be clear: slave traders entered the slave trade, the victims entered slavery.

Dumb and dumber

I'm late getting to this, I know, but I've only just come across this Telegraph report from early February:

A fifth of British teenagers believe Sir Winston Churchill was a fictional character, while many think Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and Eleanor Rigby were real, a survey shows.

To tell you the truth, I wouldn't be surprised if their teachers were just as ignorant - we've had a couple of experiences.

As American as...

From the Chicago Tribune's review of "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food," by New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee.

[T]here are about 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., "more than the number of McDonald's, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined," Chinese food might be our national cuisine. "Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie," she writes. "But ask yourself. How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?"

Gary Gygax RIP

[Click picture for larger image]

From xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Meet Dale

Dale Smith, who blogs at Faith in Honest Doubt, is the subject of this week's Normblog profile.

Minn Heima

Icelandic band Sigur Rós have taken over YouTube - just for the day.

YouTube [today] will be taken over by the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, whose feature-length documentary "Heima" will be offered for streaming in its entirety. The rest of the page will feature the band's selections of the 10 best entries in its "Minn Heima" competition, which asked fans to create their own version of the film -- which features the band performing in far-flung locales in their home country of Iceland.

Interesting - I didn't think Iceland was big enough to have 'far-flung' places.

Suspect photo

The Guardian reports that Spain has dropped extradition proceedings against former Guantanamo detainees Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes on the basis that they are not fit to stand trial.

I'm not going to comment on the case. What I find fascinating is that every time I see a photograph of Omar Deghayes in the press it's this one:



It's a very old picture but I imagine its use serves a purpose: it elicits the viewer's sympathy - "what a nice young man, how innocent, how harmless".

But, of course, Deghayes hasn't looked like that for quite some time (how could he, he's 38 years old). Here's a more recent photograph:



I'm not saying he looks guilty, I'm just saying he's not the cute, fresh-faced kid he used to be.

For some reason, the Guardian doesn't want you to know that.