Christopher Hitchens, staunch advocate of The War Against Terror, the War on Iraq and apologist of American "aggressive" interrogation methods has been willing to put his money where his mouth is by undergoing waterboarding himself. His conclusion? It's torture:
You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me.
On the one hand, you've got to give the guy his due for being willing to be waterboarded, to experience firsthand what he has been defending, but on the other hand you don't get the impression he has learned much from this; he isn't going to give up his precious War on Terror that easily. On the gripping hand, the drama of it all also irks. What, he couldn't understand what's so bad about waterboarding just reading about it? I got slightly more respect for Hitchens now for doing this and acknowledging he was wrong, but in the process he has also shown how much of a self-absorbed, macho bullshitter he is, e.g. worying about whether he cracked before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did.
It's a beautiful ad, quite sappy in that earnest American way that makes it alright, but there's one sequence that doesn't fit. Can you find the one
thing that doesn't quite fit with the whole loving the world theme of the ad?
Yup, you guessed it: time for another list of books read. We're now exactly six months into 2008 and I've read exactly seventyfive books. Fortysix of these
were fiction (of which thirtyone were science fiction even), twentynine non-fiction, with history taking hte lion's share of that with nine books. Of last
month's crop, I was most impressed with Hal Duncan's second novel, Ink, as well as Paul Cornell's British Summer Time which I
started with low expectations but which turned out to be pretty good.
Ink -- Hal Duncan
The sequel to Vellum. Less coherent, slightly disappointing in the end but a worthy followup to
Duncan's first novel.
The Later Roman Empire -- Averil Cameron
I've become somewhat obsessed by Late Antiquity and the later Roman Empire this year and this is another book on this subject, focusing on the
fourth century in particular.
Whose Body? -- Dorothy L. Sayers
The first novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. It's not as good as a her later works of course, but still entertaining and with hints at
greatness, though oddly defensive about being a detective novel.
Clouds of Witness -- Dorothy L. Sayers
I thought I reread the entire Lord Peter series --or at least the novels, not being too fond of the short stories-- in order of publication. This
is the second in the series, in which Lord Peter has to save his brother, the Duke of Denver, from the hangman's gallow.
Swiftly -- Adam Roberts
This is Adam Roberts' latest novel, not to be confused with his 2002 collection of the same name, several stories of which have been reworked here.
Sort of a continuation of Swift's novel, Gulliver Travels, it shows the world roughly a century after Gulliver's discovery of the
Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians. I came to this prejudiced against Roberts, due to my experience with several of his earlier works and I can't
say this prejudice has been overcome.
Unnatural Death -- Dorothy L. Sayers
The third novel in the Lord Peter series. Somewhat of a slog to get through, compared to the first two and more interesting for its oblique look at
certain aspects of pre-war England than for the story itself.
British Summer Time -- Paul Cornell
A surprisingly engaging science fiction novel that takes Christianity seriously without being preachy or zealous. It's a rarity in science fiction
to even mention religion, let alone Christianity and usually when it is mentioned, the author has a hidden agenda for doing so (Orson Scott Card is
one persistent offender). Paul Cornell however manages to created characters who are Christians and have it be just one piece of their background,
which is refreshing.
On Late Style -- Edward Said
Said's very last book, completed by one of his students, fittingly examining the way in which late works of artists and philosophers like Beethoven,
Adorno and Jean Genet share a common philosophy, despite their differences. Slightly incoherent due to the circumstances under which it was published.
Europe of the Ancien Regime 1715-1783 -- David Ogg
An old-fashioned, somewhat dated overview of Eighteenth century Europe between the last spasms of the religious wars of the previous centuries and
the start of the age of revolution.
The Big Sleep -- Raymond Chandler
I've never read any Chandler before this, but it was odd to read this, because so much of it has been reworked into cliche by lesser writers.
Righting English That's Gone Dutch -- Joy Burrough - Boenisch
A slim little volume dedicated to show all the common errors and pecularities of style us Dutch make when we write in English. For the most part
it's sensible advice for people who do speak and read English well, but who have less experience writing it, but in some cases the advice given is
dubious or slightly too business orientated to be useful for e.g. blog writing... Nevertheless, no doubt you can find examples of most the errors
listed in this book on this website.
They're often the main reason y'all want to visit Amsterdam: to gawk at the hookers in the Red Light District and to light up a fat old blunt in one of the coffeeshops. Unfortunately your chances to do so are diminishing steadily, as the Amsterdam city council is busy "cleaning up" the Red Light district by buying up properties and chasing away the prostitutes, while from July 1st there will be a nation wide smoking ban for the catering industry. Including coffeeshops.
Which may sound odd, because if there's one place you go to smoke something, it's a coffeeshop, but than the law's intention isn't to harass smokers (smokers may disagree about this), but to protect workers in the catering industry, just like workers in other industries are protected from their smoking co-workers. Coffeeshop or not, standing in secondhand tobacco smoke for eight hours or longer doesn't do much for your health. It seems absurd at first, but since we already acknowledge the dangers of secondhand smoke in other industries, why should coffeeshops be exempt? Saying that the employees had a choice not to work in a coffeeshop isn't good enough; there's a reason governments make worker protection mandatory. If they don't, history shows that workers have no protection and no choice but to accept this.
So, smoke 'em if you got them, because tomorrow you will have to do so outside.
Last year, ex-member of parliament Patricia Remak was convicted of benefit fraud, because she claimed wachtgeld for her work as member of parliament when she was already employed as a civil servant at the finance ministry and a member of the provincial states of Noord-Holland. She appealed
this ruling, but was convicted again earlier this year. All these facts can be found in the English Wikipedia article about her, but if you look at the same article on The Dutch Wikipedia, no mention is made of this at all.
How did this happen? Simply because Remak complained to Wikipedia that mentioning her conviction was an invasion of her privacy, the details of her conviction falling under the Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens (WBP), which meant that only with her permission Wikipedia could've mentioned her crimes and conviction. Under the WBP any sort of publication of private data is strictly controlled, and in general can only be used with permission. A criminal record is one example of the sort of data that's protected under the WBP, so Remakr had a case if she was just an ordinary citizen. However, as an ex-member of parliament, who in large part is only noticable for her conviction, the details of her crime and conviction are fair game, as shown by the simple fact that her case was widely reported on in the Dutch papers, not something that happens with every conviction for benefit fraud. It is a bit cheeky if understandable to then object to publication in Wikipedia, because who wants to be known as a benefit cheat forever?
It is disappointing however to see Wikipedia cave in, as by doing so it has been deliberately falsified. At the moment, everybodyknows Remak was a benefit cheat and was convicted for it, but how many people will remember this in five years time? In ten? In a hundred? How many people will take the Wikipedia article at face value and not realise that Remak was not just your average member of parliament, but one shown unworthy of the trust of the voters by committing fraud? And if it's this easy to let Wikipedia remove unpleasant facts about yourself, how many other people and companies will start doing so? An encyclopedia cannot be reliable if unpleasant truths are omitted when people object to them.
Three days ago we finally bought a kitchen, after having spent most of the year looking for one. Yesterday, the shop we bought it at completely
burned down.
Last Wednesday I blogged the case of the socalled lyrical terrorist, who had her conviction for "storing material likely to be of use to terrorists" quashed; the material in question being some fairly ropey, anarchist cookbook style "terrorism manuals". It was another in a long line of dodgy anti-terrorism prosecutions, with lots of media attention and lots of government hype, not justified by the endresults. Every so often another supposed terrorism plot is uncovered, a serious threat averted and it always turn out to be either be no-hoper wannabe-jihadists with no links to real terrorists, mentally disturbed fantasists or just innocent people looking a little bit too Muslim for the Metropolitian Police.
If the suspects are white however, it's another matter. Remember the terrorism case in Burnley two years ago? Probably not, as apart from some mentions in the local paper, few newspapers or news shows deigned to pay attention to it, despite the fact that the people involved had massed a huge arsenal of weapons and such and were talking about the coming racewar. Unlike the heavy-handed prosecution of Muslim terrorism suspects, the government kept quiet about this case, didn't whip the tabloids in a feeding frenzy and let the courts do their job. Last Friday, there was another such case, as a Goole Nazi sympathiser went on trial for making nail bombs, amongst other offences:
A Nazi sympathiser charged with terrorism offences after nail bombs were found at his East Yorkshire home has told a court that he made the devices when he was "just sat around bored".
A jury at Leeds Crown Court heard how police found four home-made nail bombs in a holdall under a bed in 31-year-old Martyn Gilleard's flat in Goole.
Officers also found "potentially lethal" bladed weapons, 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and documents about committing terrorism, including how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death.
Again, little attention has been paid to this trial, a Google news search finding less than twenty news articles on the subject, but you can imagine the hue and cry had this been a Muslim suspect. It's not that I want the same hysteria for this case, it's just that it's so blatantly obvious how the British government atttempts to create a narrative about terrorism, by spotlighting those cases, no matter how weak, that fit the War on Terror and keeping quiet about those that do not. It's easy enough to get the media to cooperate on this, as journalists, not to mention their editors, are lazy and under constant deadline pressure; few go out looking for stories that don't fit pre-determined templates.
As per usual then. Though it doesn't help when the referee gives one Russian a second yellow card only to withdraw it after his linesman
convinces him the ball had gone outside the line, when it hadn't. But on the whole Oranje played its usual overconfident, lazy game.
This is just a place for me to jot down some random thoughts and reactions to the news so I don't have to yell at the television or radio, or mutter to myself whilst reading the news.
Waffle
In which Reinder Dijkhuis, Adam Cuerden, Timm Brand, Geir Strřm and Jeroen Jager talk about comics, music, politics and the impending apocalypse.
Deltoid
A science orientated weblog by Tim Lambert.
Encyclopedia Astronautica
Incredibly cool site about the history of space travel, with lots of info about
the various space programs. Recommended for all spacenuts.
The Loom
A blog of biology and bioscience, written by Carl Zimmer.
Panda's Thumb
On evolutionary theory and the fight against the intelligent design loons
Pharyngula
Science, politics and the intersection between them. By PZ Myers.
Real Climate
A commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists.
