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Saturday, February 23, 2002
I was listening to BBC World Report early this morning, and yesterday seems to have been a very busy day in the world of rebel factions.
First, the US announced that it will be doing everything it can legally do to aid Columbia in fighting the FARC. Columbia invaded the FARC safe area agreed to by treaty several years ago.
The rebel leader of Angola, who has been fighting the government since Angola was created in 1975 is reported to have been killed. A popular guerilla leader in East Timor stepped forward to run in the election one day before the deadline. He is running against the appointed leader, who isn't very popular, and so is expected to win by huge margins. Ironically, he has many times spoken out against guerilla leaders entering politics.
In Sri Lanka, the Tigers have signed a permanent ceasefire with provisions for full normalization of trade and daily life.
In Madagascar the winner of last fall's election declared himself president to a throng of hundreds of thousands. The official government announced that this was unconstitutional because he did not win the election by full majority and a runoff election is necessary so they would ignore it. Of course, the government also passed laws before the last election which were unconstitutional, and there are accusations that the incumbent stuffed ballot boxes, and still lost. The government also declared a 'state of necessity' basically a state of emergency, most say to suppress the massive protests that have gone on every weekday for the past several weeks.
On science front, I categorically disproved the fallacy that all people remove alcohol from their systems at a rate of one drink per hour. Thursday night I went to Denton to socialize and from 9 PM to 2AM ended up drinking 6 cups and 3 bottles of beer. It turned out the cups were quarts, so I had the equivalent of 19 drinks. The one drink per hour rule meant that I should have sobered up at 4PM, and I was definitely sober by noon.
I'm off to Austin celebrate Pierre's birthday and eat at Salt Lick. Have fun in Greensboro, Jeremy.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 2/23/2002
Friday, February 22, 2002
I'm about to get on a plane for the first time since last may. I guess I'll find out how much things have really changed. I'm checking no luggage. My carry-on is a 6 dollar gym bag with an american flag decal and the letters U.S.A. directly beneath. I have a round trip ticket. I'm a white boy in a hawaiian shirt. I think I probably won't get stopped and searched, but we'll see.
.: posted by Jeremy 2/22/2002
Thursday, February 21, 2002
Well, while we're all posting like crazy, I guess I'll throw in my 34 cents.
First, Ellen is back in Bolivia, and is safe and happy. Not much news from that area, though.
Second, as an interesting aside to the Saudis' wacky-ass beliefs, I should point out that several years ago the Italian Supreme Court or Parliament, I forget which, ruled that you couldn't rape a woman wearing jeans, because the jeans were too hard to get off. In other words, anytime you had sex with a woman wearing jeans, it was automatically consensual, even if you had to knock her out first.
Here's a review of John Q claiming that it's a worthless piece of alarmist garbage. Having read the review, but having seen the movie, I'm inclined to agree.
The FARC, I believe, can be defined as a terrorist group and as a revolutionary army. It has regular soldiers who fight regular battles, and in that respect it can be viewed as a regular military organization. However, it also uses terrorist tactics like kidnapping, assassination, and bombing. A large part of its operations are financed by drug trafficking, but the same could be said of the DEA, so I kind of feel like that's neither here nor there. As far as that goes, the Columbian government relies on both its military and an extremely violent paramilitary group whose name I forget. The paramilitary group fights even dirtier than the FARC, and is also funded in large part by the drug trade.
The interesting thing about Afghanistan is that it really is (or was) an enormous producer of heroin. Until last summer, I regularly read that the Northern Alliance was supporting itself through poppy cultivation and refinement. Then there was Sept. 11, and suddenly the Taliban was the world's number one supplier of all things poppy-related, and the Northern Alliance was our ally. What's the truth? The only thing I can say for sure is that everytime I see pictures of Afghanistan, the south is a bone-dry desert, and the north is all grassland. Interestingly, Devin points out that in 2000, the Taliban produced 70% of the world's opium, but that in 2001 they'd mostly irradicated its use. Also in 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power. Sometimes I wonder if the war on drugs is actually just a war to control the drug industry.
After a decade of military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the supplier of 70% of the world's opium, as well as the raw materials for heroin production in the US.
.: posted by andy 2/21/2002
The Saudis throw women in jail for accusing a man of rape if she can't provide 4 male eyewitnesses. So I guess if you're a woman in Saudi Arabia, and you have to be raped, get raped by your brother in law, claim he forced the "relationship" on you, and be happy that he's getting 100 times more lashes than you. Am I really all that wrong to think that the only responsible thing we can do with Saudi Arabia is invade? We might not be a glistening utopian anarcho-syndicous-commune, but I think our society's style has a serious leg-up on these guys.
.: posted by Jeremy 2/21/2002
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Anybody heard from Ellen in the past few days? Is she in Bolivia, and if so, is she okay?
Watching TV last night, I found an interesting dichotomy in a block of advertising. First was an ad for John Q, a movie about a father who can't afford life-saving surgery for his son, so he takes a hospital hostage and demands that they treat his son. One of the bylines was something about strong fatherly instinct. The next ad was one of those theantidrug.com 'drug users support terrorism' bits.
Independently I have issue with two features of this ad. First, an AK-47 costs a hell of a lot more than $250. A sportster SK costs at least $250. Second, it doesn't take a safe house ($6000), a fake passport($2000), explosives($1200), etc. to be a terrorist. The most realistic thing listed in the ad was boxcutter($2). Plus, instead of committing a severely enforced felony like drug trafficking or distribution, why wouldn't they just use credit card fraud and shoplifting to fund and supply their enterprise?
But I digress. Back to the dichotomy. On one hand, a father who takes over a hospital and holds patients and staff hostage is a hero, while a college student that smokes marijuana is a traitor and enemy of the US and freedom(coz, after all, the US of A is the embodiment of freedom). Wow. Sounds like Nixon.
Checking out antidrug.com, I found a cybersquatter. Going to theantidrug.com, I found beautiful propaganda talking about how in 2000, the Taliban produced 70% of the world's opium. It must've slipped by them that in 2001 they'd mostly irradicated its use.
And, where is the line between revolutionary and terrorist? If I had to make one, I'd say revolutionaries have specific goals and fight for certain changes, targeting members of government, including law-enforcement and military. Terrorists attack the citizenry, and have as a goal, at least in part, disruption of 'way of life'. There would probably be some popular support component for revolutionaries as well. There are also reactionaries in the mix, like Timmy McVeigh. But I don't know the real definition.
The reason I ask is FARC is listed as a terrorist organization. Aren't they a revolutionary group? Also, if Islamic Jihad suicide bombers blow up city busses, that's terrorism, but when some other group in Palistine attacks occupying Isreali troops, is that self defense, terrorism, or revolutionary action?
And on the entertainment front, Death to Smoochy looks like it's going to be a good movie, and a different kind of role for Robin Williams.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 2/20/2002
Funny that no one posted for five days, then three of us post within a few hours.
While I'm posting, can I just say that it looks like the "gloves are off" (to quote somebody from the Israeli government) in Israel. I don't think Arafat was encouraging violence before. For a long time I think he was actually trying to stop it, but that effort was doomed considering the multiple fanatic groups in Palestine and Israel's ultra-provocative attacks on Palestinian infrastructure. Arafat now says the Palestinians will continue to fight, which I guess means that he's either declaring war, or has realized he can't stop it. It doesn't seem like Hamas could launch Qassam-2s if the Palestinian Authority wasn't giving tacit support, unless Israel has completely destroyed the Authority's ability to function.
I'm always a big one for some kind of Israeli conspiracy to completely eliminate the Palestinians, but this article brought me back to reality. As much as the Israeli public wants to spill Palestinian blood, they're also tired of this ceaseless conflict, and apparently doubt that Sharon has any plan other than to hit the Palestinians harder than they hit the Israelis. It also makes the point that the latest attacks have been focusing more an more on real strategic and tactical targets (a tank, a checkpoint, etc.), which changes the conflict from a Palestinian war to destroy the Israeli state to a Palestinian war to end a meaningless and useless Israeli occupation.
Giddyup.
.: posted by andy 2/20/2002
It's been my experience that the best way to stop overuse of the company-all email list is to abuse it. At USWeb we had a few fingerpointer business types that would guarantee at least 2 junk all emails a day. Four of us picked up a message that one sent out and turned it into a 25 email thread, reply all'd; and the next day the all list was disabled. Not so much 'The best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it', as 'The best way to get rid of a stupid freedom is to exercise it'.
Oh, and I had a rant that I wrote yesterday, but blogger was down, so I guess I'll post it later.
.: posted by Grand Inquisitor Fnord Moco 2/20/2002
The IT guy at drkoop was also kind of like that. He apparently did something with electronics for the Air Force. His cube was full of pictures of SR-71s and whatnot. He was also your typical Type-A ex-military personality, well-known for sending out emails criticizing the large-scale waste/theft going on at the company. And also for asking our CEO the hard questions at company lunches (ie, "Why don't we concentrate more on revenue?" and "Exactly how much money do we have left, and what is our current burn rate?"). Eventually he sent out a company-wide email criticizing our 30 Vice Presidents of overspending on tech gadgets like blackberries, cell-phones, the newest Dell and Sony laptops, etc. Although he didn't specifically say the Vice Presidents were frivolously wasting money, he made it clear that that was who he was talking about. That email came out, followed an hour and a half later by one of those messages saying the sender wished to recall that email, followed an hour later by an apology email, followed by rumors that he'd been canned, followed by an official anouncement from the CEO that the tech guy had decided to leave the company.
While I always felt that that tech guy was kind of a loose cannon, I'll also be the first to admit that he was right.
.: posted by andy 2/20/2002
The "facilities manager" at my company is a 60ish year old former Marine. Whenever somebody does something dumb, he likes to send out emails to the entire company to ridicule the anonymous moron. This is an email he just sent:
I just discovered an empty coffee decanter, with the warmer still on, resulting in burned coffee residue, which creates the aroma of burned coffee in the lunch area. The guilty party needs everyone's help in locating his/her head. Please place an emergency call to the nearest proctologist.
Makes me think of Full Metal Jacket.
.: posted by Jeremy 2/20/2002
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