54 Good Reasons

Why we had to go into Iraq.

The first 53 are detailed in this document, courtesy of USAID.

Since the Saddam Hussein regime was overthrown in May, 270 mass graves have been reported. By mid-January, 2004, the number of confirmed sites climbed to fifty-three. Some graves hold a few dozen bodies, their arms lashed together and the bullet holes in the backs of skulls testimony to their execution. Other graves go on for hundreds of meters, densely packed with thousands of bodies.

The 54th is from an e-mail sent by a friend of mine in Israel. It's so that no-one has to hear a radio broadcast like this ever again.

Thanks to TCP reader Ronnie Schreiber, here is a translation:

We all recognize that signal that we have just heard. This is a genuine alert. There is a missile attack on Israel. All Isreali residents should immediately put on their gas masks and should go into their sealed rooms and place their families in the room. The room should be sealed with rags and with adhesive tape. As is known and recognized, stop your normal activities, check on your children and put on their gas masks in the correct manner, and continue to listen to us. This is a genuine alert, a missile attack on Israel and we will have more details as they come in… To review procedures in the sealed room, do not sit near exterior walls or walls adjacent to the exterior walls. Stay near the interior walls. Don’t face the exterior walls. Sit on the floor…If you have a family check on your children, make sure you have the key to the lock so you can lock the door, and proceed to your sealed room. This message will be repeated in Russian.

Beagle Found!

<satire>
At least, according to one report found via Google News. And it looks like sabotage by the Americans.

The Americans, wishing to avoid the ignominy of the British upstaging their Mars lander missions have been under suspicion for some time by the British Beagle 2 team and a chance discovery of a pile of empty Budweiser beer cans outside the Jodrell Bank fence, was the first clue in their dastardly plot.
[...]
Tony Blair is said to be fuming at the Americans, because he was promised that there would be no transatlantic intereference in this mission, unlike the previous 33 British attempts at putting a man on the moon.

</satire>

From the Universe Next Door...

A Book Review.

A Revolution in International Affairs

A quiet but crucially important revolution is occurring in International Affairs. Long-standing principles are being rapidly eroded. But you can't understand what the situation was in the 20th century, how we got there, where we are going and why, without examining history, and especially European history. This is mainly a story about Wars, thereby illustrating the (partial) truth in Mao's maxim : "Power grows out of the barrel of a gun". It's a long story, not easily condensed. Please bear with me, as I'm doing a bit of a Den Beste here.

It's been a long-standing principle that a respect for National Sovereignty is the best guarantee for keeping the peace. One country's Government should not "Interfere in the Internal Affairs" of another. No matter how odious matters may be in a neighbouring state, as long as borders were not violated, no International Law was broken. No military intervention was legal.

There are some good reasons for the adoptation of this principle: different states often have different and incompatible religious beliefs. Whether in Islam or Christianity, Sunni or Shia, Protestant or Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist, Communist or Capitalist, National Socialism or Socialist Democracy. The European 30 Years War of the 17th century showed what could happen when Religious War broke out. There was a backlash, and it was in the 18th century, that formal Rules of War were codified. The vast majority of a nation's populace was hardly aware that one bunch of soldiers replaced another bunch in some province or other. War was "the Sport of Kings", where a border principality or two might change hands now and then, but with little disruption to daily life, and remarkably few casualties to the professional soldiers. It was in everybody's interest - everybody who counted, ie those with wealth and power, anyway - to keep the system going "as was". The stately pavane of often bloodless manouver and counter-manouver during the 7 years war was the result.

The Napoleonic Wars on the other hand (and in one view, they started in 1776 in the USA) were wars of Ideology. On one hand, a Democratic state (that in France soon devolved into a bloodthirsty Oligarchy, then a radical modern state under a Military Dictatorship), on the other, the same old gang of Monarchs, some totally under Parliament's thumb (the UK) , some completely Autocratic (Russia), and many somewhere in-between. Napoleon swept away the old mini-feudalities and customs-posts every 5 miles, instituted a code of laws throughout Europe, and basically founded a European Union some 200 years before the current one.

He also sent hit-squads to assassinate emigres overseas, expanded and institutionalised the old monarchist Secret Police to liquidate opponents at home, set relatives in positions of power throughout the Empire, and tore up international treaties whenever it suited him. Wherever the Grande Armee went, it had to "live off the land". Any province it passed through two or more times in a year was reduced to a howling desert, occupied only by the corpses of the starved inhabitants. Other, less modern armies, were compelled to have an expensive, slow baggage-train that contained food, not just ammunition, so the cost more and were at a great disadvantage when it came to mobility.

After Napoleon had been finally defeated, the Congress of Vienna not only re-drew the map of Europe, but set in concrete the "old order" of the previous century. War as the "Sport of Kings" could still occur ( and did, notably in the minor wars that unified Germany - along with border provinces of Austria, France, Poland, and Denmark - under a Prussian Emperor ). Growing Alliances between major European powers meant that War became more and more costly, and therefore less and less likely. But any War would be a catastrophe, and the whole brittle edifice crashed in the bloodbath of World War I. (Which was Actually World War III, as the 7 Years War and Napoleonic Wars had action in more continents than did World War I, but I digress. )

Bear with me, I'm getting there.

Where was I... Oh yes, The Great War. The War To End All Wars.

This started as an old-fashioned Monarchic war, but soon evolved into a Religious one. Germans started fighting for King and Emperor, but soon fought for a "Place in the Sun", a slice of the colonial cake that had been unjustly denied them by the powers-that-were. It was only when Germany invaded Belgium (with whom the UK had a treaty) that the UK became involved in the Fracas. Soon a battle for "Plucky Little Belgium" became a battle against the Beastly Hun, no respecter of Neutrals. France fought to regain Alsace-Lorraine (and French pride), Russia fought to justify Russia's suzerainty as representative of all Slavs, the USA joined in because of general German obnoxiousness and I'm digressing again.

What is important is that the Victors in 1918 examined the cause of the war - and decided it was all Germany's fault. Which it was (though Austria was to blame too). Bismark's strategy of unification and consolidation through diplomacy (where he could) or short, victorious wars (where he couldn't) had been abandoned in favour of a "Might Makes Right" philosophy.

Such mass slaughter, such a gehenna must have been the result of some monstrous evil. So it was thought, and so it was. The Evil was determined to be the concept that one Nation-State had attacked another, with no valid reason. This was the new touchstone: the doctrine of National Sovereignty, which had been evolving over the centuries, reached its final form. Within its own borders, a nation was safe from outside intervention. No country could interfere with another's "Internal Affairs". No act was forbidden - provided only that borders were respected. Religous disputes between nations would no longer cause Warfare in all its horror, it was a sort of universal "Freedom of Speech" for all nations. In theory, they could enslave half the population, or set up extermination factories to process minority groups into soot, soap and ashes with no legal problems. Of course, no-one would actually do such things, would they?

The first stirings of Trans-Nationalism - a Religion like any other - can be seen in Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" speech at the end of the war (though a Marxist could point with some justification to the Comintern as well.).

That emerging Superpower, the USA turned in on itself in an orgy of navel-gazing Isolationism, abandoning Wilson's orphan child, the League of Nations. But the universal ( OK, European - at this point in History, White Folks were the only ones who counted ) revulsion against the Great War was such that a number of nations swore solemnly that they would "Study War No More", at least in squabbles amongst themselves. The Treaty of Locarno established a Permanent Court of International Justice. But the final fruit of World War I was the Kellogg-Briand Pact, where (eventually) no less than 62 nations agreed to Outlaw war as a means of state policy (at least in dealing with squabbles amongst themselves).

It's effectiveness can be judged by the fact that amongst the first signatories were Germany and Poland.

But one thing it did do, was to formally enshrine in International Law the concept of the Crime Against Peace. To quote from the charter of the United Nations,

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,

and then also adds

or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The first part of that clause was used to hang senior German leaders at Nuremberg. The fact that they'd massacred some 6 million Jews was merely aggravating cuircumstance, it wasn't actually illegal (except insasmuch as the Victors made up the law as they went along). And that says something for the moral bankrupcy of the "Peace at any price" brigade, so strong between the two world wars. Legally, up until Nuremberg, it was all "purely an Internal Affair" and nobody's business but the Germans.

It's said that Queen Victoria refused assent to a Law against Lesbianism, as she considered it impossible that such a thing could exist. Similarly, it can be argued that the fact that there was no actual law against the Holocaust (except Ex Post facto) was purely because the people writing up the Kellogg-Briand pact couldn't conceive of, say, Auschwitz.

If so, I can hardly blame them. I drove around Hohne in Germany, I could never bring myself to visit Belsen. I'm not superstitious, but the whole area gave me a case of the screaming abdabs, something Awful and EVIL had happened nearby. Worse, the feeling overcame me long before I knew exactly where I was, the first time I explored the area.

Regardless of whether the Law existed in an unwritten or written form before 1933, or whether the Nuremberg Tribunal were trying to cloak Justice with the shabby mantle of Law after the fact, Nuremberg did establish that Genocide wasn't just immoral, it was illegal.

To see how well that has worked, just look at the ongoing trial of Slobadan Milosovic. Or the non-trial of Pol Pot.

The Kludge to amend the doctrine of National Sovereignty was supposed to be that second clause of the UN charter. The one about "...or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.", along with Article 43 of Chapter 7 of the UN charter. Some relevant sections: First, the Nod to national Sovereignty in Chapter 1:

7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.

Now the Teeth in Chapter 7, article 43:

1. All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.
2. Such agreement or agreements shall govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided.
3. The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded between the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.

Have you noticed something? The complete absence of Black Helicopters? Where is the Multinational army, big enough to take on any opponent and win, that's supposed to be at the disposal of the UN Security Council? The fact is, that not one single soldier has ever been provided exclusively for the UNSC under this article. All "Blue-Helmet" UN forces are provided on an ad-hoc basis, and responsible to their national authority, not the UNSC.

The UN was supposed to not merely provide the teeth to enforce Justice, it was supposed to decide what Justice was, to avoid Religious Warfare and doctrinal differences (rather than truly moral ones) sparking warfare. The bar was set fairly low -- as I've blogged about before. But the UN has failed in its obligations.

Now we come to one of the defining moments of history : 9/11.

Before that date, it was reasonable to get by with the old 1920's world tarted up. Yes, millions died in various genocides here and there, but they were usually non-Whites, so didn't really count to most (Western) people. As long as no borders were crossed, everything was fine. It was best expressed by Swedish premier Olaf Palme who said (after the not-exactly-terrific Vietnamese had kicked the posterior off the incomparably-more-odious Khmer Rouge):

"the fact that the auto-genocide has ended in Cambodia is probably good for the Cambodian people, but one can never excuse an intervention in a neighbouring country".

Read that again. Such Racist, Eurocentric callousness is beyond comprehension.

That was, in fact, the world we lived in, pre 9/11. I didn't realise it at the time. My moral sense had a blind spot, an area where I just didn't think about things too much, it was all too hard, and the existing system was working adequately, and getting better all the time.

But then, Al Qaeda showed that you didn't need a national army to wage war across borders. 9/11 was no "regrettable incident", it was an act of war. The US, purely out of self-defence, can no longer turn a blind eye to hard problems, nor sit around wishing that Article 43 had meant something (and that the Security Council was trustworthy enough to ensure it wasn't misused).

In the absence of a World Policeman both incorruptible and powerful, the US had to turn Vigilante. It gathered up a Posse of nations that could see the writing on the wall (or more cynically, decided that the US's coat-tails were a great place to be), and took action in Afghanistan.

Iraq was in some ways a far more "legal" war - it was in violation of a number of binding UN resolutions, including ones authorising forced cmpliance, but even if it hadn't of been, it was a clear and present danger as a "safe haven" for extra-territorial covert attack. Acts of war committed by stealth, and implasuibly deniable. Trans-border Terrorism.

I distrust Vigilante Justice. Much as I like a lot of Americans personally, and there's much to admire in their system of Government, it's by no means perfect. Had there been any credible alternative, I would have been against any US-dominated action. But there is no credible alternative: we must either trust the US system (which gives me a queasy feeling), or a gaggle of Kleptocrats and petty-Despots. That's an easy choice to make. If the worst comes to the worst, the US is vulnerable to Gandhi's tactics. But so far, they've done pretty well. "Dubya" has genuinely liberated 50 million people, more than anyone since FDR and Churchill. But, and this is a big But, what aout the next administration? Or the one after that? The whole world is at the mercy of that rag-tag mixture of all creeds and colours, ranging from the rational to the dotty, that is the US voting public. Not perfect, not nerely perfect, but vastly better than any of the alternatives, especially the one labelled "Do Nothing".

The Revolution in International affairs is the abandonment of National Sovereignty as an Impenetrable defence against Righteous Retribution. A line on a map no longer defines where justice must stop and watch helplessly. It was planned back in the 40's that the Enforcer be the UNSC, but that hasn't worked out. Instead we have a loose coalition dominated (so far) by the US, one that may become formalised in the near-future.

OK, it took a long time to get there, sorry about that. But had I not simplified things to the point of distortion (and perhaps a bit beyond) it would have been much longer.

Background Articles :

Representing the Old Order
John Pilger : The Crime Commited in Our Name

And the New (and I'd have to say, Improved)
Dr Robert Horvath : Sovereignty can't protect mass killers

Untold Stories of the Cold War #349

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

When Vladimir Petrov, a Russian intelligence officer, walked out of the Soviet embassy and defected to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation in April 1954, Dick Woolcott and Bill Morrison were very junior diplomats in our embassy in Moscow. Woolcott was 26 and Morrison 25. Moscow was their first posting. They held the rank of third secretaries and in the foreign service you don't get any lower.
[...]
Woolcott would later write: "When the first classified cable came in from Canberra [to the Australian embassy in Moscow] foreshadowing the Petrovs' defection, Morrison and I decoded it with the old time-consuming 'one time pad' system. As we laboriously worked our way through and the gist of the message became clear, I said: 'One of us will be out of here in a fortnight. The Russians will reciprocate. They always do.' "

Morrison disagreed. "If we're expelled, I'll drop my daks in Red Square," he said. "You're on," said Woolcott.

Woolcott was right. Within days the Soviet government gave the entire Australian mission of three diplomats, an administrative officer and their wives 48 hours to leave the country, though they were then held virtual hostage for three weeks until all members of the Soviet embassy in Canberra and their dependants had boarded a ship at Fremantle to return home.

However, before the Australian diplomats eventually were allowed to leave Moscow by train, Morrison honoured his boast. He had a taxi take him to Red Square and while, apparently, guards began running towards them, he dropped his trousers and "mooned" the Kremlin before jumping back into the cab and roaring away, his driver having already been given a huge tip.

Morrison ever after was known among colleagues as a man who had trouble with his trousers.

I thought that was a reasonable response to being given the Bum's Rush....

A very special breed

It takes a very special kind of person to become a successful paramedic.

Today's interesting URL is the blog of a paramedic, or in Strine, an Ambo.

Case in point : please read the post about A Paramedic's Worst Nightmare.
Now read this follow-up.

See what I mean about "a very special kind of person"?

He also has a low sense of humour.

What is a Jew?

It's distressing that in this day and age, a definition for Jew should be needed. But please read Normblog to find out why.

Apropos of nothing-at-all, I should be doing some work for UNESCO in the next few days. The pay is pathetic, but I feel more than a trace of guilt for taking any of their money at all. You see, UNESCO - the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, is like a particularly loyal guide dog, infested with worms and other parasites. Few UN organisations are more corrupt. At a guess, my impression is that of every $1.00 pumped in to the organisation, perhaps 3c actually gets spent on something worthwhile, rather than champage-swilling soires for the Nomenklatura. Or worse, anti-Democratic, anti-Western or anti-Semitic agitprop.

But oh, what that 3c buys! Like other UN organisations such as the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation), the WHO (World Health Organisation), and the ILO (International Labour Organisation), UNESCO does a lot of good behind the scenes - despite being parasitised almost to the point of mortality. One of the things people highly critical of the UN ( like myself ) often forget is just how much good is done by its various organs, outside the glare of publicity.

The money's already been allocated, and frankly, after 3 months without an income, I could use it. But what I can do is give them value-for-money by doing rather more work than I'm being paid for. I can't make up for all the Kleptocratic tapeworms that infest the entire structure, but I'm egotistical enough to think that maybe I can make up for one of them. "It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness", and this particular project is highly worthwhile in its own right, no matter who the sponsor.

In the 60's, one of the presents lavished on me as a kid by my Uncle Ted was a UNESCO book called 700 Science Experiments for Everyone. From a review:

At the end of World War II, the newly formed United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), noting the shortage of textbooks and teaching materials throughout much of the world, commissioned a book that would allow teachers to devise laboratory experiments with the most common of materials--candles, balls of paper, saucers, odd strands of twine. UNESCO's report grew into this fine and highly useful collection of experiments in the biological, geological, and atmospheric sciences. The experiments illustrate relatively simple facts--how static electricity can be concentrated, how liquids change to gases, how water is purified by passing through charcoal--with only minimal interpretation.

I venture to say that this book alone has done far more practical good in making the world a better place than any number of Pundits, Blogs, Commentators or Editorials. It certainly got me interested in Science and matters Scientific, how the Universe is constructed and what it does. UNESCO has since fallen on hard times, but the spirit behind its original ideals is not quite dead. Perhaps in some miniscule way, I may make just a smidgin, a small scintilla of difference, in making that dim, dim spark glow just a little more brightly. And if not, it can't hurt.

In that same spirit of education and enlightenment, I'll mention again the definition of one word : Jew. It may make no difference, but as I said before, it can't hurt.

TROOPS

Or: Star Wars meets COPS. The full movie is a 26 MB Download, but the various parts are only a few meg each - and the best parts are the first 3.

Drink Warning

I've been told by several e-mails that I should have posted the obligatory "Do not drink near keyboard when reading this" caution before my latest Op Ed piece on The Command Post.

The comments on the article report several instances of laughter-induced posterial separation too. You have Been Warned.

Educational Games

These two from Totally Boring, a misnamed site if ever there was one.

A game for Maxwell's Demons. Go ahead, break the second law of Thermodynamics and have fun, too!

Or perhaps this is your type of game?

Wish List

The sets are out of stock, and finances wouldn't permit me buying it anyway.

But have a look at this. (what do you mean, "it's for children"?).

On the other hand, I need another expense like a hole in the head.

Today's Brain Link(s)

Courtesy of Normblog : The Brain in a Vat conundrum. Anyone who's studied Philosophy will get a chuckle out of the numerous "in-jokes", most of which are explained for the Layperson. Worth a read even for the Philosophically Challenged.

The History of the article is also worth a read in its own right.

While searching for a suitable illustration, I happened to come across a Symposium on the Neuro-Ethics of Brain Damage, which although a bit dry in parts, I have a particular interest in. I suffered some neurological damage due to E-II viral Encephalo-Meningitis in my early 20's. (You could tell, right?). But apart from some lingering Aphasia, and a bit of numbness in the extremities, I've got back over 90% of what I'd lost, and most of that within 10 years of the injury. On the other hand, I gained a greatly increased ability to pick up new languages, an ability that had atrophied almost completely before I'd reached my mid-teens (as my school marks in Latin and German can attest to).

I found the section on Neuro-Prosthetics... very disappointing. The last article in Session 3 was all about the problems poised by damage to the Hippocampus. Yet there was nothing about developments that will make the problems moot in the near future. <sarcasm>It's almost as if Computer Scientists, Psychologists, Neuro-Anatomists and Ethicists aren't talking to one another. </sarcasm>

Not exactly surprising. But as I've blogged before, computational developments (at least) are rapid in this area, even if Psychology is still mostly guesswork. We need to start considering this stuff from an ethical viewpoint, and do it PDQ.

Finally, sthe graphic comes from Brainjar.Com, an interesting site containing experiments in advanced HTML. An avowed "learning resource" rather than a "cut'n'paste" site, useful for anyone wanting to know about Document Object Models (DOM) etc. Worth a look for the expert, and even more so for those wanting to become experts.

Last Post for the first Blogger

Alistair Cooke 1908-2004

A Guide to English Pronunciation

From LOL, courtesy of G'day Mate. Priceless.

A Slice of History

Recently, I became aware that the UK Public Record Office was publishing their Medal Records from World War I on the web. The Great War. The War to End All Wars.

The medals concerned events of nearly a century ago now. But I still remember vividly my Grandad talking to me about his experiences during World War I, at a time when I was just a little older than my son, Andrew is today. I was fascinated by his right hand - the thumb was just a stub, and he only had two fingers, quite different from my own.

He told me of his time in Egypt, when the 9th Battalion, Notts and Derbyshire Regiment (Sherwood Foresters) was training up after being formed. Seeing the Sphinx, and the Pyramids. Stories of the Camel Corps ( he wasn't impressed by Camels - riding them without a saddle was incredibly difficult. He mastered the art, but was never comfortable on them.)

As a sniper, he spent most of his time between the lines of trenches, in "No Man's Land", hunting other snipers. Though he told me that his main duty in the Dardenelles was shooting the pottery insulators of the main telegraph line that ran along a ridge nearly a mile behind enemy lines. Every day, the British snipers would take "pot-shots" at it, and every night the Turks would repair it.

When I was a little older, and made an Airfix plastic model of an Albatross DV, he told me the one thing that really terrified him was when he was caught in No Man's Land by a group of exactly these aircraft, all painted with red noses, who used him for target practice. He had nowhere to hide, couldn't run, and had great difficulty shooting back at such fast-moving targets. From later researches, it's quite probable that the one with the red fuselage (who was a particularly good shot) was the infamous Baron Von Richthofen, though Grandad didn't know that when he told me about it. (The Red Baron was all of 25 when he was killed in 1918). His fire was probably more effective than he realised - he must have gotten uncomfortably close to some of them, as they soon went after easier and more worthwhile prey.

That brings me to the Medal Records. So far, only the A-B section is available. There are few advantages to having a surname like "Brain", but this is one case where it was useful. I used the (free) Search Form, then got out my Credit card and paid my three pounds for a download of Grandad's records.

I've made them available free of charge here as a 186k PDF file. Grandad's records are in the bottom-right of the second page.

Grandad must have enlisted as soon as he was old enough, on 9th November, 1914. His first taste of action was at a place called Gallipoli. As a sniper, he went in in the first wave of every landing, to cover the disembarkation of the main force. Then off again, and onto the next one. Naturally, the snipers were also the last out, covering the evacuation.

The 9th battalion (after replacement and reorganisation) was sent to the Western Front, and in August 1916 took part in the Battle of the Somme, and later, Passchendaele.

The medal records show that Grandad was eventually discharged due to grave wounds on 14th December, 1918 (Hence the award of the Silver War Badge). Much of his right arm and hand had been blown off, his lungs had been damaged by Mustard Gas and Chlorine over the years (and had lost a pir of boots, burnt by a shell that fell between his feet...but didn't detonate), and his torso was full of shrapnel. He'd still sometimes find one or two bits in his bed as late as the 60's, and a piece eventually worked its way into his heart and killed him shortly after I last saw him.

The odds of anyone enlisting in 1914, seeing action on the front line, and surviving nearly intact were slim. The odds of anyone on the front line surviving the entire war from 1914 through to 1918 mostly whole were astronomical. The odds of surviving Gallipoli, and the Somme, and Passchendaele, and being shot at by the Red Baron... beggar the imagination. Yet had he not, my Father wouldn't have been born, and thus neither would I, nor my son Andrew.

Which gives me pause.

"Liberty" University

At first, I thought their Code of Conduct was a parody. But looking through the website, and examining the HTML source, it looks very much as if it's for real.

A selection of offences and penalties :
4 Reprimands + Written Warning

• Improper personal contact (anything beyond hand-holding)
• Improper sign out
• Music code violation

6 Reprimands + $35 Fine

• Attendance at a dance
• Possession and/or use of tobacco

12 Reprimands + $70 Fine (less previously paid fines)

• Attendance at, possession or viewing of, an "R," "NC-17" or "X"-rated movie
• Participation in an unauthorized petition or demonstration

18 Reprimands + $100 Fine (regardless of previously paid fines) + 18 hours Disciplinary Community Service + 50% Scholarship Reduction

• Association with those consuming alcohol
• Sexual misconduct and/or any state of undress

30 Reprimands + $150 Fine (regardless of previously paid fines) + 30 hours Disciplinary Community Service + possible Administrative Withdrawal and/or possible 100% Scholarship Reduction. NOTE: For each accumulation of six (6) or more reprimands after 30, an additional $150 fine will be assessed.

• Failure of three (3) Christian/Community Services without reconciliation
• Non-participation/disruption/non-compliance (possible removal/exclusion from campus)
• Refusal to submit to an Alco-Sensor test and/or drug test

Anyone in Academe reading this post who has trouble with unruly students - just refer them to this site, and tell them to thank their lucky stars. To paraphrase Arthur Dent, "This is some strange new meaning of the word 'Liberty' which I wasn't previously aware of.

Still, anyone who goes to this place should know what to expect.

Hamas - in their own words

Over at The Command Post, they've reprinted an article of mine about Hamas. In order to understand the organisation, you have only to read their charter. Scary stuff, especially if you're Jewish, or a Rotarian. (Rotarian ? - just go read it. These people are "reality challenged")

Pilger's Verbosity Explained

Today's Brain Link : From the ABC comes this headline :

Big mouths linked to small brains : research

Maybe Pigs really are Flying

From a previous post of December 20, The Tragedy of Transnationalism :

Can the UN be salvaged? I really hope so, but I´m not confident any more. Maybe 3rd Time´s the charm, and we should start with something less ambitious than the UN. Something where a broad adherence to the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms is required for membership, with continuous review. Something with Teeth to enforce those principles on Tyrannies, yet the flexibility to tolerate minor differences of doctrine - Gay Marriage, Capital Punishment, Gun or Drug Availability, that sort of thing.

Initial members: US, UK, Poland, Spain, Australia?

Maybe the Tragedy of Transnationalism will turn into a Triumph.

Maybe Pigs will Fly.

We can but hope.

Now have a look at this article dated March 19 from the National Journal :

In 1996, a private group called the United Nations Association of the United States of America floated the idea of a caucus solely for democracies. With 120 or so nations (out of 191 U.N. members), such a caucus could serve as a powerful counterweight to the traditional caucuses.

Late in the second Clinton administration, with a push from the State Department, the democracies began to organize. In 2000, 106 democracies gathered for the first meeting of an informal group they called the Community of Democracies. It had no permanent staff or formal powers, but it did produce an endorsement, in principle, of a democracy caucus at the U.N., a stance that the community reaffirmed in a second meeting in 2002 and, most recently, at a U.N. meeting last fall.
[...]
Predictions are risky, but where you see an acorn, it is not crazy to foresee an oak. With a little light and water, the democracy caucus will inevitably grow. In time -- you heard it first here -- it may overshadow the U.N.

In New York, gaining leverage at the U.N. serves the interests of America and all of the other democracies. In Washington, a democracy caucus appeals to conservatives who want America to influence the U.N., and it appeals to liberals who want the U.N. to influence America. "It's a way, in my opinion, of preserving the United Nations as a valuable institution, so it does not follow the path of the League of Nations," says Max M. Kampelman, who was a senior diplomat in the Carter and Reagan administrations.

Guess that makes me a mildly Conservative Liberal. Or a very Liberal Conservative.

But consider the long-term potential. By the time the Community of Democracies becomes strong enough to act coherently inside the U.N., it will also be strong enough to act coherently outside the U.N. It will contain most of the world's countries, including most of the strong ones. It will be unencumbered by the vetoes of tin-pot tyrannies. As it gains confidence and skill, it will attract money and authority. It may sprout an aid budget, a relief program, a peacekeeping arm, perhaps treaty powers.

In other words, the Community of Democracies may begin as a voice within the U.N. but go on to become a competitor to the U.N. Perhaps -- one can dream -- it may someday be the U.N.'s successor.

"United Nations" is an oxymoron. Democracies and dictatorships are mongoose and cobra, with no real hope of uniting except opportunistically. But a community of democracies -- that might just work. It already works in NATO and the E.U. The new community is a fledgling, but many readers of this article may live to see it soar.

What's that going overhead now? And do I hear the faint sound of Oinking?

Recursive : see Recursive

An immensely useful URL : One Look - a Search Engine of Dictionaries. Find out the definitions of a word given in all major on-line dictionaries. Invaluable if you want to find out how English As She Is Spoke differs from country to country.

As an exercise for non-Australian readers, try using it to have a look at what the (Australian) Macquarie Dictionary has to say about the word "root". For Australian readers, use it to find out what the word means in the rest of the world.

Yeti, Penguins and Orcas

Today's interesting URL comes courtesy of BlackTriangle.Org, a site primarily about the responsible use and manufacture of medication. It also very rarely has some political content, though what there is is always cogent and pithy.

But apart from enlightening me as to what "Rhinotillexomania" (never know when that word might come in handy) means, there's a link to Yeti Sports.

"Medical Authorities warn that playing these games is highly addictive."

Or, as The Scotsman says,

It terms of addictiveness it makes crack cocaine look like chamomile tea.

There. You have been warned. Now to see if I can better my score of 398.1....

Wankology

As opposed to multiculturalism, this is Wankology.

Australia's multiculturalism is being celebrated across the country today, with a variety of events to mark 'Harmony Day'.
Thousands of people have been taking part in events including beachside citizenship ceremonies and street festivals.
The event began in 1999 to promote cohesion and harmony in diverse communities - 23 per cent of Australia's current population was born overseas.
The Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Gary Hardgrave, says the day is gaining significance as more Australians realise the need to work together regardless of their background.
[...]
Mr Hardgrave says the celebration of national Harmony Day plays an important part in promoting racial tolerance.
He says integration creates a win-win situation for everyone.
"Integration simply means you bring who you are to the business of Australia," Mr Hardgrave said.
"This country is attractive to people who have come from all around the world to be here, to live here."
Mr Hardgrave encourages everyone to wear orange and participate in community events to help promote a feeling of belonging.

Trendoid Happy-Feely "Harmony Days" and Politicians urging the wearing of orange clothing. Ye Gods, you can't make stuff like this up.

A Slice of Canberra

I don't treat this blog as a Diary. Perhaps there are people who are interested in my daily life, but the Blog's "mission statement" is "Intermittent postings from Canberra, Australia on Software Development, Space, Politics, and Interesting URLs. And of course, Brains...".

So file this one under "Canberra, Australia".

Today we attended a Church fete.

The denomination was Presbyterian, not that that matters very much: my wife and son are Catholic, and I'm Agnostic with a tendency to commit Buddhism.

The Canberra City Pipes and Drums played "leaving Rhu Vaternish", "Amazing Grace", "Waltzing Matilda", "Scottish Soldier" and "Bound for South Australia" - then did some Jazz Improvisation on "A Londonderry Air" and various Irish jigs and reels.

Food consumed by us included Vietnamese Spring Rolls, Szechuan Spring Rolls, Mango and Strawberry/Apple Ice Cream, Hot Dogs, Chocolate Milkshakes, Steak Sandwiches, and Singapore Noodles (with Indonesian chilli Ketjap and Japanese Shoyu).

We managed to pick up some great mixed-citrus marmalade, but missed out on the Dundee cake.

Andrew had a great time at the 9-hole Novelty Golf green, playing several rounds. He spent too long there, the Jumping Castle was packed away before he got to it. Oh well, next year.

Despite it being late March, and thus into Autumn, it was a fine, sunny day. A bit too sunny, every child was wearing a hat due to UV from the depleted Ozone layer. Andrew's was a Soviet-pattern tropical Giggle Hat I picked up from a Russki deserter in Bremen, Germany around 1990, made in Tashkent.

That's a slice of life in March 2004, here in Australia. I suppose some would call it "Multiculturalism", but to us it's just... normal. The way we are.

Missed by that much...

From New Scientist via A Voyage to Arcturus :

An asteroid the size of a small office building will make the closest approach ever recorded to the Earth on Thursday evening

Discovered just two days ago by an automated telescope scanning the sky for near-Earth objects, asteroid 2004 FH will miss the planet by a mere 40,000 kilometres, just over a tenth of the distance to the Moon.
[...]
At roughly 30 metres in size, 2004 FH is too small to cause widespread damage should it hit the Earth. It would be more likely explode in the air, releasing about a megaton of energy. However, that energy should dissipate harmlessly if the blast is high enough above the surface.

Or, if not, it's the equivalent of one of the largest H-bombs in existence today (though bigger ones have been in service in the past).

Jay Manifold does a few back-of-the-envelope calculations on his blog, and gets the answer of 1.1 Megatonnes assuming a specific gravity of 2. If it's Nickel-Iron (as many meteors are) then it's more like 10. In either case, you wouldn't want one to come down in your vicinity.

Does anyone else think that being able to detect these things a bit earlier than 2 days before they're in the neighbourhood might be a good idea?

A.E.Brain - a short Eulogy

No, not for me. Nor for my son Andrew (thank God!). For my Uncle, Dr Alfred E. Brain, who I've just got the word died on the 13th, a few days before my birthday.

I'll always remember him as the provider of California Redwood play-blocks, when I was about Andrew's age. And a "Think-A-Dot" toy at age 7 or so, that first got me interested in computing. I couldn't fathom it out at the time, but 10 years later (and half a world away), when I was introduced to Flip-Flops and simple Arithmetic Logic Units at University, I instantly picked up the concepts.

But he was no mere provider of goodies from a distance. Though as he lived in Santa Cruz, California, while I was in Berkshire, England, we didn't get to see him much. In the 60's, he was busy at Stanford Research International, working on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.

Before then, he'd been working on Perceptrons, in particular MINOS I, widely regarded as the first successful attempt at rudimentary AI (Artificial Intelligence).

This work was discontinued almost entirely due to one very influential paper by Marvin Minsky (one of the Gods of Computer Science) in 1969, which showed that single-layer Perceptrons had fundamental limitations. Alas, Minsky didn't realise that multi-layer Perceptrons - Neural Nets - had no such limitations. The funding dried up, and it wasn't until the 90's that research on Neural Nets resumed, research that continues today. In fact, virtually all AI is now done using Neural Nets. We lost 20 years.

I can't give many details about my Uncle's work in the 40's and 50's, as he couldn't talk about it. During World War II, he was engaged in Electronic Warfare research and development at the University of Manchester, and that work's still classified. It may have been on the Monika tail-warning radar, but given his later career, was more probably work on ULTRA. After the war, he emigrated to the USA, and was involved in research on automated recognition of interesting things on recon photographs, which led to his work on Perceptrons. The US had a number of recon programs before the U-2 AQUATONE spyplane, usually involving balloon-borne cameras ( e.g. the WS-119L GENETRIX ) that took literally millions of metres of film over semi-random areas of the USSR. To manually go through every frame, looking for items of interest was infeasible, it had to be automated.

As an aside, the earlier Project MOGUL caused the most famous UFO incident ever recorded - the "Roswell Flying Saucer Crash". Though there's no convincing some people.

In the 70's, Uncle Ted ( as I knew him ) was still working on visual recognition, co-authoring a famous paper on the subject with Nizam and Duda ( Nizam77). And in the 80's, after retiring at 65 ( a near-fatal heart attack followed by a triple bypass encouraged him to slow down a bit), he returned to England and married his childhood sweetheart!

Like me, he had a few problems due to his name, and field of study. At least one article was rejected by the Scientific American as they thought a paper on An Electronic Brain by A.E.Brain was a hoax...

I last saw him in 1990 - when he met Carmel for the first time. His house in Market Raizen was full of clocks, as he'd got more than a passing interest in Horology. (He was moderately well known known in Horological circles for some papers on the history of the Waltham company). Also there was an electronic dog (which barked when anyone went near the front door), and his garden was filled with electronic Mole-Scarers.

His mind was as sharp as ever to the last, but his body let him down. Increasingly frail over the last few years, he still managed to write the odd article or two, the last one on Global Warming. Had his body not let him down, no doubt he would be blogging. But it was not to be.

If there is anything to this Afterlife and Religious bit, then no doubt he and my dad (his younger brother) are out there "Drowning Worms" or whatever the celestial equivalent is. Though I rather think they might be giving the Almighty a bit of a hand in the Engineering of the Universe.

In any event, Andrew's going to hear a lot more about this other A.E.Brain. He could do a lot worse than to be like him.

Another Cultural Treasure

A synoptic guide to every Doctor Who episode.

Pandora's Box

I recently found out that some of my words are being immortalised in the US Library of Congress Minerva Web Archive. Both the Iraq page and the Global War on Terror page at The Command Post have been deemed by God-knows-who as being of sufficient cultural and historical significance to be worth keeping. I contribute in a small way to both, so my words have perforce been included.

That led me to thinking about Australia's equivalent: the Pandora archive run by the National Library of Australia. I wondered what the heck they kept, and how was it decided what was worth keeping.

So I did a search on "Iraq & Saddam". The results, frankly, astonished me. A result worthy of the Misistry of Truth.

Of the 4638 hits, I reviewed the first 1000. Of these, approximately 300+ were political anyalysis and commentary. Of that 300+, I found 2 that were neutral, neither pro- nor anti- war, but dispassionate analysis of alternatives. The rest were all anti-Bush, anti-War, anti-American.

I'm willing to admit that there are plausible arguments against the Iraq War. But if future Historians primary sources are so selectively filtered, leaving the inescapable impression that there was absolutely no pro-War support whatsoever... then that's re-writing history by omission. Whether the war was right or wrong is arguable. Or arguably arguable. That editorial articles exist in support of it is not a matter of opinion, but of fact.

But all the National Library has kept in the way of Op-Eds on the subject are issue after issue of the World Socialist Web Site ( Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International ), and carefully selected Anti-Bush articles from the notoriously anti-War Sydney Morning Herald and its companion paper, The Age. Margot Kingston and Mike Carlton, yes. Miranda Devine, Mark Steyn or Tim Blair, no.

Not quite true : there's the occasional article from other sources, but they all have the same, relentless theme. (Interestingly, that last article has an Ad saying "Are you the next Phillip Adams?", advertising for columnists. As revealing as if a paper in the 30's asked "Are you the next Josef Goebbels?" - though that's highly unfair to him). (And yes, that last sentence was deliberately ambiguous, I never let fairness interfere with a pithy witicism.)

I have no complaints about the selection of news stories. When it comes to selections of straight reports, there appears to be no trace of significant bias. They even include an article from the Review, a publication of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). Much of the rest is from the ABC, which on straight news reporting is pretty good.

But warbloggers and anti-Saddam editors are unpeople. Vapourised. There's DoubleplusGoodThink only.

Now I've got to figure out what to do about it. How to convince the hardworking and dedicated professionals at the National Library that there's a problem, without sounding like some sort of Crank with a political Axe to grind. It would be a lot easier if I disagreed with the tenor of the missing bits. And no, I'm not being sarcastic, the people at the National Library do an excellent job given their financial constraints, and try their hardest to be objective. I've met some of them in the course of my profession. Destroyers, Submarines, Satellites, Helicopters, Laser Eye Surgery, Health Care Systems, Libraries ... all grist to the Software Engtineer's mill. As Robert Heinlein said, "Specilaisation is for Insects".

The Prediction Market

Jim Dunnigan's Strategy Page is probably the best single source on the Internet for Miscellaneous Military Matters. In many ways, it's the Military equivalent of Aviation Week and Space Technology ( known by the cognoscenti and literati as Aviation Leak).

It's now running (in Beta Test until the beginning of May) a Prediction market. Essentially, you can bet on certain events happening, like Bush being re-elected ( currently 20 Pro, 55 Con ), by buying shares, either pro- or con-. Note that it's in Beta Test, with Test data. Some of which is obviously bogus, as test data usually is.

A swift digression: it's customary to have test data in computer systems being of the right format ( form) but with obviously incorrect values. For example, a client named Michael Mouse, another named Donald Duck, both living in 221B Baker Street, Gotham City, Trantor. Databases are often filled during development with names like Anne O'Namus, Sue Donim, Norm D. Ploom, Clarke Kent, James T Kirk ( of 1701 Enterprise Street), and so on.

The reason for this is simple: you want to make absolutely, positively sure that all test data has been flushed from the system before it goes into operation ( goes "live" ). Should some accidentally remain ( which happens, take my word for it ), you really want to detect the problem as soon as possible. I've acted as an Expert Witness in one case where the data hadn't been flushed, and the data wasn't obviously fake. This caused massive problems in the accounts system, legal obligations to pay GST ( VAT by any other name ) for fictitious purchases, and a mess in general. Live data from and English site had been used to test one in Australia, and I happened to recognise the area codes of the phone numbers as being of the Newbury, Berkshire area, near where I was born. A few checks on the UK Yellow Pages showed that the Company names matched those of firms in that area of the UK, and that no fraud was being perpetrated, merely incompetence on the part of the system's maker.

Hence my preference for "Consolidated Widget Corporation", "Interstellar Master Traders", "Amalgamated Conglobulations Incorporated", "Bourke and Hare Funeral Directors" , "Elizabeth Borden Axes" and other such company names in test data. They stick out like the proverbial sore thumbs if seen on a General Ledger report.

Bob Zangas

I've just got the word that Bob Zangas, a blogger in Iraq, was killed in an ambush on Wednesday.

Lord Macaulay, in "Horatius at the Bridge" wrote:

To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?

Bob Zangas found a better way : he died while helping to heal a nation ravaged and raped by an odious tyranny.

Much that's what is written on the Net is being archived, here and there. It will be a fertile field for historians and Internet Archaelogists in the future, trying to figure out exactly how people lived, and what they thought, in the days around the turn of the Millenium. (And if any of them are reading this fragment from 2004, Hi There!)

Bob Zangas' blog may well live through the ages, a monument to people who put their lives on the line, "just trying to help out". If you're going to die eventually - which at our current level of technology is still the case with everyone - then I can think of no, not better, but more meaningful way of going about it. I just wish he had lived a bit longer, and been able to see his work to a successful conclusion. My sympathies to his family.

Spanish Influenza

It's difficuilt trying to discuss dispassionately the consequences of the Madrid Bombings. Over 200 people have died so far, and over a thousand more have been injured, some merely cut and bruised, others maimed, missing limbs or eyes.

The recent Spanish Election results cast a malign influence on the world. Yet I cannot for the life of me see how this could have been avoided. Lets see how this unhappy state of affairs came about...

In the weeks before the Madrid Massacre, a number of ETA terrorists were caught red-handed transporting explosives for an operation in Madrid.

On February 11th, 2 ETA members were caught by the French trying to smuggle explosives across the border.

On February 29, an ETA van loaded with half a tonne of explosives was detected, and the ETA attack foiled.

Given these facts, the initial Spanish Government reaction - "it's got to be ETA" - is perfectly logical, and reasonable. It may even be correct, though the evidence against that is becoming more and more conclusive every day.

The Spanish Government had been under a lot of pressure from the opposition over the last year, the Spanish joining in the "Coalition of the Willing" was unpopular with the majority of the Spanish electorate. For the Government to blame Al Qaeda could leave them open to charges that Spain had been made a target, that it was somehow "their fault". Worse, it would give the Socialists the opportunity to say the Government was scaremongering, trying to say a Vote for the Socialists was a vote for Al Qaeda, a ploy that the voters would see through instantly, and vote accordingly. Since all the scanty evidence pointed to ETA anyway, no point in opening up a can of worms. They thought.

But evidence - much of it flimsy and, frankly, obviously bogus (like the claim by the same Islamofascist group that said they were responsible for the NE American power blackouts) was released that backed the Al Qaeda theory. Shortly thereafter, some genuine credible evidence was found, culminating in the arrest of 5 suspects with Al Qaeda connections.

The Government lost credibility. They were accused of a whitewash, attempting to use the Madrid Massacres for sordid party political purposes, and the voters expressed their contempt at the ballot box. Had they said from the first that it was Al qaeda (against the evidence) then the charge may have had some justice.

Of course had the government really been attempting a whitewash, it's difficult to believe the arrests wouldn't have been timed for after the election. Evidence about exactly what explosives and detonators were used, and what it probably meant (Spanish explosives, but detonators not used by ETA before, Chemically similar to typical ETA bombs, but in a compressed form they hadn't used before) was released as soon as it was available. But this just confused the situation, it's still not clear exactly whodunnit. We'll find out in the coming weeks and months. It's not impossible that the Socialist government will eventually say "Whada ya know, it actually was ETA after all, with Al Qaeda help". Or possibly Al Qaeda, with ETA help. Never mind, too late now to change the election result.

The problem is that the Socialist government is committed to removing Spanish troops from Iraq. Withdrawing from the Coalition. For the reasons above, the Spanish voters do not appear to me at least to have been cowed into acceeding to Al Qaeda's demands. Yet most blogs write as if they were, and there's not a shred of doubt that Al Qaeda will see this as a great victory, and (and this is the important bit) try to repeat their success elsewhere.

Australia has an election at the end of this year.

Bummer.

Still, if not us, someone else. We're all in this together.

UPDATE : I was going to add a bit more, but Silent Running said exactly what I was going to post, and did it better than I could anyway. Please go read "Lacrimosa".