Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Martha's Mania
Once upon a time, two people who grew incredibly bored of life as postgraduate students came together with a similar distaste for very very silly things like glowsticks and whistles at a rave party. After many wasted hours, they decided to stop talking and start writing. Or typing. Whatever. So they started a blog together. And somewhere in between, the leech was born into this blog. But sooner or later, graduation came. Martha got a successful job, and Clyde got nothing. Clyde got needy and Martha got busy. So they divorced and Clyde got custody of the Leech. Not wanting to provide a broken home for the leech, the two moved to this very place.
Still, it's good to see our estranged blogger well and alive at Martha Mania. Martha, we are adopting you as our sister blog.
Still, it's good to see our estranged blogger well and alive at Martha Mania. Martha, we are adopting you as our sister blog.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Please don't photograph shitty public transport
The Guardian's been getting lots of references lately from your friendly bastards here at BoE. Not wanting this blog to be labelled as a "mirror" blog of the Guardian website, I can't help but credit the good ol' chaps there for receiving and posting lots of good clips lately particularly of police behaviour caught on civilian camera. Inverse surveillance as they say. Clearly the effects of this sudden online growth of documentation seems a distant relative to those observed moments before the death of Rovian politics.
Today the Guardian reports another peculiar case of the upstanding Met police deleting two tourists' holiday photos in London. Seriously, you can't make this sh*t up.
It really depends on whether you value the physical integrity of your brain or your sense of hearing.
Today the Guardian reports another peculiar case of the upstanding Met police deleting two tourists' holiday photos in London. Seriously, you can't make this sh*t up.
Like most visitors to London, Klaus Matzka and his teenage son Loris took several photographs of some of the city's sights, including the famous red double-decker buses. More unusually perhaps, they also took pictures of the Vauxhall bus station, which Matzka regards as "modern sculpture".
But the tourists have said they had to return home to Vienna without their holiday pictures after two policemen forced them to delete the photographs from their cameras in the name of preventing terrorism.
Matkza, a 69-year-old retired television cameraman with a taste for modern architecture, was told that photographing anything to do with transport was "strictly forbidden". The policemen also recorded the pair's details, including passport numbers and hotel addresses.
In a letter in today's Guardian, Matzka wrote: "I understand the need for some sensitivity in an era of terrorism, but isn't it naive to think terrorism can be prevented by terrorising tourists?"
The Metropolitan police said it was investigating the allegations.
In a telephone interview from his home in Vienna, Matka said: "I've never had these experiences anywhere, never in the world, not even in Communist countries."
- From the Guardian
You can trust my experience when I say that tourists, who have any positive impression left of this country when passing through immigration's prozac'd officers, might usually be expected to take a number of photos whilst in their visiting country. Particularly outdoors. Particularly with some sort of infrastructure in the background. In fact, it may come as a shocker to the officer to discover EVERYTHING is on Google these days.
Of course now Klaus says he is turned off from ever returning to the UK. Just what the economy and tourism industry needs right now... fewer tourists! The offcers did a fantastic job at protecting the citizens from terrorism whilst proving what the best idiot fashion is as such.
It really depends on whether you value the physical integrity of your brain or your sense of hearing.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Dogs: A perfect defence
At a time when journalists should be scrutinising whimsical matters such as Barack Obama’s hypocritical stance towards Guantanamo B - Bagram Airbase, the US President has taken his British critics out of the equation by purchasing a mutt. The rapturous attention generated by the unveiling of Bo followed on seamlessly from the well-deserved props Obama received for his handling of his first hostage crisis to make it a good few days for him and help sweep some of the more depressing news under the carpet.
In fact, judging from ITN’s fawning reaction to the important news in its broadcasts last night it seems this nation of pet lovers is going to give an even easier ride to the man carrying George W. Bush’s Pooper Scooper now that he has a dog-shaped shield. If the biggest bastards around can look vaguely endearing with a pet trailing them then I’m sure that our friend Barack could get away with the next wayward drone attack in Pakistan if he has Bo perched on his lap with a longing look to accompany his statement that the civilian deaths were an unfortunate but necessarily bearable element in the war on terrorism.
Megalomania? Polonium? Take your slander elsewhere, I only see good in this Russian bear’s soul.
Oi, Churchill. Britain might have considered calling off the war after seeing this charming image.
A pet walrus would have suited our Gordon and injected some much needed grey into his soul. But he didn’t buy one, and that’s why he’s struggling. 
It's Barney!! Oh, President Bush, how could we possibly have disliked you?
Pity you couldn’t keep all your pets on a leash.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the dog is the one with all the self-control.
Dogs are so adorable that you just can't bear to lie to their faces, especially when they want to play. Just ask the guests in Abu Ghraib...
At a time when journalists should be scrutinising whimsical matters such as Barack Obama’s hypocritical stance towards Guantanamo B - Bagram Airbase, the US President has taken his British critics out of the equation by purchasing a mutt. The rapturous attention generated by the unveiling of Bo followed on seamlessly from the well-deserved props Obama received for his handling of his first hostage crisis to make it a good few days for him and help sweep some of the more depressing news under the carpet.
In fact, judging from ITN’s fawning reaction to the important news in its broadcasts last night it seems this nation of pet lovers is going to give an even easier ride to the man carrying George W. Bush’s Pooper Scooper now that he has a dog-shaped shield. If the biggest bastards around can look vaguely endearing with a pet trailing them then I’m sure that our friend Barack could get away with the next wayward drone attack in Pakistan if he has Bo perched on his lap with a longing look to accompany his statement that the civilian deaths were an unfortunate but necessarily bearable element in the war on terrorism.
Megalomania? Polonium? Take your slander elsewhere, I only see good in this Russian bear’s soul. 
Oi, Churchill. Britain might have considered calling off the war after seeing this charming image.
A pet walrus would have suited our Gordon and injected some much needed grey into his soul. But he didn’t buy one, and that’s why he’s struggling. 
It's Barney!! Oh, President Bush, how could we possibly have disliked you?
Pity you couldn’t keep all your pets on a leash.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the dog is the one with all the self-control.
Dogs are so adorable that you just can't bear to lie to their faces, especially when they want to play. Just ask the guests in Abu Ghraib...
...or Bagram's detention centre:
"During his transfer to Bagram, Adel Hamad says that he was beaten at the airport and thrown to the ground. At Bagram, dogs were set upon him whilst watching soldiers laughed."
Who wouldn't laugh? Dogs are fun!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
This gadfly is becoming an attack dog
I demand the same from Tomasky. Smacking down Republicans that unduly criticise the president he admires so much still produces a bit of a buzz, and when these guys act the goat they still need egg on their faces. But this rather unproductive pursuit is almost a week-in week-out process for our Michael, with examples here, here, here, here and here. Not to mention here. And here. And this adorable yet ultimately pointless example here. It’s easy to beat Fox News or Dick Cheney from up high now that they are relegated to the status of yapping mutts biting the ankles of power, and while I still need to occasionally pinch myself to remind myself that these guys are out of power, Tomasky should bear in mind that all their angry rants in the Murdoch press put together aren’t going to bring the GOP back to power, at least for nearly two whole years. Keeping Obama on course is a much more pressing concern than paying those tipped onto history’s rubbish pile more attention than they deserve. By the way, here too.
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But Tomasky won't be the guy I can rely on to keep those who now find themselves with the power think again before abusing it because he's coming from a totally different angle from the leftist Guardian readership and the more progressive American left. Two recent cringeworthy posts raised my attention to this fact. A few days ago Tomasky put the frankly weird question to his readers of whose view of the world is closer to reality. On the one hand, Noam Chomsky, who opposed the Afghan and Iraqi bombathons from the start, is highly critical of the poverty and inequalities unchecked capitalism brings, advocates an independent Palestinian state to stand alongside Israel, despised both Reagan and the USSR, supports the right of Latin Americans to pick their own leaders without external ‘guidance’, fears the effects of anthropogenic global warming, wants a ban on nuclear weapons and believes that the tactics in the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘war on terror’ are not only immoral, but are making both problems infinitely worse. And on the other hand, Dick Cheney. Positioning yourself dead centre between these two individuals surely places you in the centre-right bracket in America; expanding the sample of opinion to the whole world propels you beyond the status of unreasonable lunatic.
Then there was the rather startling question about why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, a baffling ‘let them eat cake moment’ from a journalist who had previously seemed a personable type to me, but who clearly has far less of a clue about the lives of blue collar Palestinians than he does blue collar Americans. It is one thing to recommend that Palestinian activists adopt a form of passive resistance against Israeli crimes, it is quite another to claim that this isn’t currently happening. Non-violent resistance, from rebuilding demolished homes to protesting the wall to exploring links between Palestinians and Israelis is going on up and down the West Bank and it is absolutely not their fault that the feckless media doesn’t pick this up. Maybe he means that one inspirational leader should come forward, like a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela or a Rosa Parks. But these individuals all operated within a vast framework of activists and are only isolated from their cohorts for special distinction by those for whom people’s history is too complex and needs to be reduced to a few high profile individuals. Going to at-Tuwani or Bi’lin and reporting on the non-violent response to provocations that even I think justify a concentrated dose of force to stop would represent a good day’s work for a s
erious journalist.
Slightly off topic, it should be added that the passive resistance that has come from Palestinians is brave in another respect: time is running out for them. The West Bank is being eaten away by the construction of settlements that vastly reduce the scope for an independent Palestine, especially those building a ring around East Jerusalem, which is sought by Palestinians and the majority of the world’s population, the international consensus, as its future capital. The penalty for time lapsing without successful results in Gaza is mortal: malnourishment and sickness. The lack of reporting on this peaceful resistance therefore could be said to be assisting the criminal acts of an Israeli military command that relies on the demonisation of Palestinians for the success of its operations.
Mind you, like his presidential pick, Tomasky still comes out with the odd beauty and still makes the odd thought provoking post, plus his audience interaction is as good as any Guardianista. I hold his coverage of US reaction to other issues, like the financial crisis and the gay rights ruling in Iowa, in high regard because it has a strong degree of analysis accompanying it. But I think Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch would groan in dismay at this bout of strangeness.
To sustain productivity and my interest, die-hard Republican bashers who now find themselves peering down on their foes from the seat of US power would do well to explore the following, still relevant, avenues in their columns:
1. Investigating how criminal proceedings could be brought against Republicans from the Bush era for authorising torture.
2. Learning from mistakes made by the previous government that Obama and co. should avoid repeating (*cough* Afghanistan).
3. Exposing Republicans that actually are still in power and are abusing their office.
4. Shaming Republicans for any support of bloodthirsty soul mates that are in office, such as Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
5. Legitimising the more regular use of impeachment proceedings for abuse of office so we never get eight years of unchecked criminal behaviour again.
6. Facilitating Glenn Beck’s descent into total, utter meltdown. OK, maybe watching these unhinged little twerps squirm in the face of change is fun after all.
Come on Michael. You used to be cool. You could have been a contender. For god's sake stop feeding the animals.
Repeating the ground rules for a post like this can’t hurt. I loathe the US Republican party. And I think that while Barack Obama is not going to oversee the sort of foreign policy I want my country to unquestioningly hitch a ride on, he is a standup guy with some common sense and a medium-sized broom to sweep away select fractions of the colossal mess his predecessors made. With that in mind, today’s query is why The Guardian is still giving so much prominence to someone who these days is serving as little more than Obama’s attack dog. Michael Tomasky provided a useful function in opposition to Bush’s legions of the undead, pointing out their callous stupidity in a likeable fashion. But now that these Republicans are vanquished and forced to sit and watch from the peanut gallery his new job doesn’t seem to extend beyond loyally shielding Obama from their sour booing and hissing – that is when he isn’t lording it over their scattered remains or seemingly settling scores with fellow commentators that have got on his wick. Wouldn’t readers benefit from at least a bit of constructive criticism of the new administration? Don’t expect too much of that. I might pine for the old Tomasky back, but he hasn't changed. Just the world around him.
Tomasky popped up on my radar in the run up to the election. He wanted Obama to win and he despised the tactics and policies of John McCain, not to mention his newly-hatched litter of self-harming sidekicks. It was evident he was a centre-left Democrat with many liberal principles and core values to his name, and therefore a fellow traveller in opposition to the horrors that the previous eight years had spawned. He remains a decent enough chap, with enlightened (i.e. correct) views on the environment and civil liberties and possesses a sensible take on the projection of American power abroad. But increasingly I find myself parting ways with him because of where we find ourselves after the election. His horse has crossed the finishing line, whereas I’m not entirely sure which one is my horse, let alone how well he or she is doing.
Where we can share joy is that the GOP horse has been roughly escorted from the track and shot. It is an oddity that, if you somehow managed to shut out the full extent of the horror of the world around you, being in opposition to Bush (Blair-bashing comes with nuances that make it a marginally more complicated pursuit) was an often warm, frequently unifying experience. By 2005, probably earlier, you could strike up a conversation with a stranger and be confident that there was a one in a million chance that you would offend them, even fail to endear yourself slightly to them, with a contemptuous remark at the expense of the blundering gangster chimp soiling the White House furniture. I would be handed yummy chocolate biscuits by nice folk I’d never met before at anti-war and global justice actions. Solace from the latest bout of sabre rattling against Iran or faffing about with people’s civil rights could be found in websites like Democratic Underground, whose hilariously spiteful sniping in its weekly ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ knocked these cowboy Republicans off their horses so we could jump up and down on them and rub their faces in the mud with the vindictive spite they had all but been asking for. We knew that by next week these haughty bastards would have doggedly clambered back on the horse, but when one went down and stayed down, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz come to mind, it was a victory that the whole lot of us, the Democrats, Greens, anarchists, hippies, socialists, trade unionists, Quakers, non-interventionists, Bill Clinton supporters, John Edwards advocates, Chomsky readers, Michael Moore fans, Maoists, dwarves, ewoks, hobbits, even moderate Republicans, could savour together. If 4 November 2008 could have been played on a continuous loop then the bliss and harmony it radiated could have made us happy in our nirvana of collective triumph for all time.
The fractional distillation of this blob of anti-Bushism, as with any coalition of the dissatisfied and disgusted, came immediately as some of our celebrating collective were united with what they wanted. For Democrats the goal of the revolution was limited to a return to the status quo anti, also known as the Clinton years, also known as the decade that saw the bombing of four countries (Iraq and Afghanistan among them). The collective euphoria of the 2006 House election had already proved to be the departure point for many Democrats, who proceeded to do little or nothing with their new power to hold Bush and Cheney to account for their malfeasance and even aided GOP efforts to entrench the USA deeper into Iraq, thus alienating previous ally Ciny Sheehan. And in the 2008 electoral campaign Democratic Underground repeated its 2004 inclusion of Ralph Nader in their ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ for having the nerve to run for President against their party. Er, ha...great guys, I laughed when you put Bill O'Reilly through the shredder, but this aint so funny... maybe I'm not your target audience after all. Never mind that Nader is a hero for more than just some fancy speeches and that great swathes of his principles have more in common with the aspirations of the majority of Americans than those of his Democratic counterparts, or that moving to escape a tightly regimented duopoly could further progressive politics. The blackmail from these chuckleheads was clear: vote for this man and America gets McCain.
Where we can share joy is that the GOP horse has been roughly escorted from the track and shot. It is an oddity that, if you somehow managed to shut out the full extent of the horror of the world around you, being in opposition to Bush (Blair-bashing comes with nuances that make it a marginally more complicated pursuit) was an often warm, frequently unifying experience. By 2005, probably earlier, you could strike up a conversation with a stranger and be confident that there was a one in a million chance that you would offend them, even fail to endear yourself slightly to them, with a contemptuous remark at the expense of the blundering gangster chimp soiling the White House furniture. I would be handed yummy chocolate biscuits by nice folk I’d never met before at anti-war and global justice actions. Solace from the latest bout of sabre rattling against Iran or faffing about with people’s civil rights could be found in websites like Democratic Underground, whose hilariously spiteful sniping in its weekly ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ knocked these cowboy Republicans off their horses so we could jump up and down on them and rub their faces in the mud with the vindictive spite they had all but been asking for. We knew that by next week these haughty bastards would have doggedly clambered back on the horse, but when one went down and stayed down, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz come to mind, it was a victory that the whole lot of us, the Democrats, Greens, anarchists, hippies, socialists, trade unionists, Quakers, non-interventionists, Bill Clinton supporters, John Edwards advocates, Chomsky readers, Michael Moore fans, Maoists, dwarves, ewoks, hobbits, even moderate Republicans, could savour together. If 4 November 2008 could have been played on a continuous loop then the bliss and harmony it radiated could have made us happy in our nirvana of collective triumph for all time.
The fractional distillation of this blob of anti-Bushism, as with any coalition of the dissatisfied and disgusted, came immediately as some of our celebrating collective were united with what they wanted. For Democrats the goal of the revolution was limited to a return to the status quo anti, also known as the Clinton years, also known as the decade that saw the bombing of four countries (Iraq and Afghanistan among them). The collective euphoria of the 2006 House election had already proved to be the departure point for many Democrats, who proceeded to do little or nothing with their new power to hold Bush and Cheney to account for their malfeasance and even aided GOP efforts to entrench the USA deeper into Iraq, thus alienating previous ally Ciny Sheehan. And in the 2008 electoral campaign Democratic Underground repeated its 2004 inclusion of Ralph Nader in their ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ for having the nerve to run for President against their party. Er, ha...great guys, I laughed when you put Bill O'Reilly through the shredder, but this aint so funny... maybe I'm not your target audience after all. Never mind that Nader is a hero for more than just some fancy speeches and that great swathes of his principles have more in common with the aspirations of the majority of Americans than those of his Democratic counterparts, or that moving to escape a tightly regimented duopoly could further progressive politics. The blackmail from these chuckleheads was clear: vote for this man and America gets McCain.
There will no doubt be members of the left, further down the line than I, let alone Tomasky, that feel that Obama’s election halted the cause of progress in America and globally by killing stone dead the rage that motivated so many to get up do something. These people will hope I choke to death on those chocolate biscuits because I’m not totally convinced by such a view. I do believe, though, that the overwhelmingly positive reception he received, and the relief at who he isn't, could reduce the will of the public and press to hold him to account like they did Bush. It was therefore amazing to see one of Obama’s most vocal cheerleaders, Keith Olbermann, using his show to say this.
I demand the same from Tomasky. Smacking down Republicans that unduly criticise the president he admires so much still produces a bit of a buzz, and when these guys act the goat they still need egg on their faces. But this rather unproductive pursuit is almost a week-in week-out process for our Michael, with examples here, here, here, here and here. Not to mention here. And here. And this adorable yet ultimately pointless example here. It’s easy to beat Fox News or Dick Cheney from up high now that they are relegated to the status of yapping mutts biting the ankles of power, and while I still need to occasionally pinch myself to remind myself that these guys are out of power, Tomasky should bear in mind that all their angry rants in the Murdoch press put together aren’t going to bring the GOP back to power, at least for nearly two whole years. Keeping Obama on course is a much more pressing concern than paying those tipped onto history’s rubbish pile more attention than they deserve. By the way, here too.
.jpg)
But Tomasky won't be the guy I can rely on to keep those who now find themselves with the power think again before abusing it because he's coming from a totally different angle from the leftist Guardian readership and the more progressive American left. Two recent cringeworthy posts raised my attention to this fact. A few days ago Tomasky put the frankly weird question to his readers of whose view of the world is closer to reality. On the one hand, Noam Chomsky, who opposed the Afghan and Iraqi bombathons from the start, is highly critical of the poverty and inequalities unchecked capitalism brings, advocates an independent Palestinian state to stand alongside Israel, despised both Reagan and the USSR, supports the right of Latin Americans to pick their own leaders without external ‘guidance’, fears the effects of anthropogenic global warming, wants a ban on nuclear weapons and believes that the tactics in the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘war on terror’ are not only immoral, but are making both problems infinitely worse. And on the other hand, Dick Cheney. Positioning yourself dead centre between these two individuals surely places you in the centre-right bracket in America; expanding the sample of opinion to the whole world propels you beyond the status of unreasonable lunatic.
Then there was the rather startling question about why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, a baffling ‘let them eat cake moment’ from a journalist who had previously seemed a personable type to me, but who clearly has far less of a clue about the lives of blue collar Palestinians than he does blue collar Americans. It is one thing to recommend that Palestinian activists adopt a form of passive resistance against Israeli crimes, it is quite another to claim that this isn’t currently happening. Non-violent resistance, from rebuilding demolished homes to protesting the wall to exploring links between Palestinians and Israelis is going on up and down the West Bank and it is absolutely not their fault that the feckless media doesn’t pick this up. Maybe he means that one inspirational leader should come forward, like a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela or a Rosa Parks. But these individuals all operated within a vast framework of activists and are only isolated from their cohorts for special distinction by those for whom people’s history is too complex and needs to be reduced to a few high profile individuals. Going to at-Tuwani or Bi’lin and reporting on the non-violent response to provocations that even I think justify a concentrated dose of force to stop would represent a good day’s work for a s
erious journalist.Slightly off topic, it should be added that the passive resistance that has come from Palestinians is brave in another respect: time is running out for them. The West Bank is being eaten away by the construction of settlements that vastly reduce the scope for an independent Palestine, especially those building a ring around East Jerusalem, which is sought by Palestinians and the majority of the world’s population, the international consensus, as its future capital. The penalty for time lapsing without successful results in Gaza is mortal: malnourishment and sickness. The lack of reporting on this peaceful resistance therefore could be said to be assisting the criminal acts of an Israeli military command that relies on the demonisation of Palestinians for the success of its operations.
Mind you, like his presidential pick, Tomasky still comes out with the odd beauty and still makes the odd thought provoking post, plus his audience interaction is as good as any Guardianista. I hold his coverage of US reaction to other issues, like the financial crisis and the gay rights ruling in Iowa, in high regard because it has a strong degree of analysis accompanying it. But I think Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch would groan in dismay at this bout of strangeness.
To sustain productivity and my interest, die-hard Republican bashers who now find themselves peering down on their foes from the seat of US power would do well to explore the following, still relevant, avenues in their columns:
1. Investigating how criminal proceedings could be brought against Republicans from the Bush era for authorising torture.
2. Learning from mistakes made by the previous government that Obama and co. should avoid repeating (*cough* Afghanistan).
3. Exposing Republicans that actually are still in power and are abusing their office.
4. Shaming Republicans for any support of bloodthirsty soul mates that are in office, such as Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
5. Legitimising the more regular use of impeachment proceedings for abuse of office so we never get eight years of unchecked criminal behaviour again.
6. Facilitating Glenn Beck’s descent into total, utter meltdown. OK, maybe watching these unhinged little twerps squirm in the face of change is fun after all.
Come on Michael. You used to be cool. You could have been a contender. For god's sake stop feeding the animals.
Stinging the police
Pretty much the definitive article on the talking points emerging from the police-assisted death of Ian Tomlinson from Guardian Jill-of-all-trades, Marina Hyde. It was this much sneered-at paper that first got hold of the breakthrough footage, thus burning a path through the thick fog of deferential nonsense that Britain's self-satisfied tabloids burped out, seemingly having learned nothing at all from the case of Jean Charles de Menezes. I flirted with the idea of concocting my own sluggish post on the matter, but when someone expresses themselves as exquisitely as the Anti-Phillips there really is little need.
Pretty much the definitive article on the talking points emerging from the police-assisted death of Ian Tomlinson from Guardian Jill-of-all-trades, Marina Hyde. It was this much sneered-at paper that first got hold of the breakthrough footage, thus burning a path through the thick fog of deferential nonsense that Britain's self-satisfied tabloids burped out, seemingly having learned nothing at all from the case of Jean Charles de Menezes. I flirted with the idea of concocting my own sluggish post on the matter, but when someone expresses themselves as exquisitely as the Anti-Phillips there really is little need.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Posts that are lists: Pirate radio
Hostage crisis! Well not anymore, admittedly. But those Somali pirates did it again, temporarily snatching control of a container ship with American nationals on board. Yet another foreign policy challenge for Barack ‘some change, mostly the same’ Obama (zing…).
Somalia's universally despised pirates. Sure, you guys can steal, but who does your PR?
Piracy in Somalia initially seems like one of the clearer-cut issues in global affairs today: these guys are pirates, pirates are dangerous criminals, ergo these guys must be dangerous criminals. But those that have dug a bit deeper offer a different perspective, and I get the impression that the motives for piracy around Somalia are more numerous and multi-layered than just extortion. One might also question just how outraged the world’s superpowers, first degree blackmailers
and plunderers of the resources of the developing world, are entitled to be about this locally-concentrated robbery.
Whatever their motivation, financial, environmental or otherwise, one thing that unites pirates is their campy yet endearing theme music. Heaven knows why we romanticise this bloodthirsty practice, but I bet these kickass tunes have something to do with it.
1. "Salty Dog" and "Seven Deadly Sins" by Flogging Molly
Professional that I am, I've stuck two songs in one entry. Shambolic Celtic punk, with extra points for the raucous use of traditional instruments and swearing. Authenticity counts here, and I have it on good authority that the pirates of yore used the word 'bollocks' quite liberally. These songs are also concise, a key factor in ‘Pirates’ by Emerson Lake and Palmer, longer than both of these put together, not getting into my list.
2. "You are a Pirate" by LazyTown
A bit unsettling, this. LazyTown is a kid’s show from Iceland, whose storylines revolve around some young girl, who dyes her hair for cutesy appeal rather than punk-rock reasons. While this isn’t the rugged, volcanic eruption of bloodthirst one might wish for from a seafaring nation with good death metal credentials, this is a charming ramshackle number, only spoilt by the jarring and excessively cutesy interjections of the unfortunately non-punk kid. No swearing or pillage in sight. It seems authenticity doesn't count here after all.
3. "The Trumpet Hornpipe"
Better know as the theme to Captain Pugwash, by Tom Edmundson and Philip Lane. I never watched this show until I saw a clip recently (immediately becoming despondent at the confirmation that there really was no ‘Master Bates’ or ‘Seaman Staines’). The only thing I did know beforehand was this jaunty accordion theme song, which would endear me even to a one-legged mass murderer attempting to gouge my eyes out.
Hostage crisis! Well not anymore, admittedly. But those Somali pirates did it again, temporarily snatching control of a container ship with American nationals on board. Yet another foreign policy challenge for Barack ‘some change, mostly the same’ Obama (zing…).
Somalia's universally despised pirates. Sure, you guys can steal, but who does your PR?Piracy in Somalia initially seems like one of the clearer-cut issues in global affairs today: these guys are pirates, pirates are dangerous criminals, ergo these guys must be dangerous criminals. But those that have dug a bit deeper offer a different perspective, and I get the impression that the motives for piracy around Somalia are more numerous and multi-layered than just extortion. One might also question just how outraged the world’s superpowers, first degree blackmailers
and plunderers of the resources of the developing world, are entitled to be about this locally-concentrated robbery.Whatever their motivation, financial, environmental or otherwise, one thing that unites pirates is their campy yet endearing theme music. Heaven knows why we romanticise this bloodthirsty practice, but I bet these kickass tunes have something to do with it.
1. "Salty Dog" and "Seven Deadly Sins" by Flogging Molly
Professional that I am, I've stuck two songs in one entry. Shambolic Celtic punk, with extra points for the raucous use of traditional instruments and swearing. Authenticity counts here, and I have it on good authority that the pirates of yore used the word 'bollocks' quite liberally. These songs are also concise, a key factor in ‘Pirates’ by Emerson Lake and Palmer, longer than both of these put together, not getting into my list.
2. "You are a Pirate" by LazyTown
A bit unsettling, this. LazyTown is a kid’s show from Iceland, whose storylines revolve around some young girl, who dyes her hair for cutesy appeal rather than punk-rock reasons. While this isn’t the rugged, volcanic eruption of bloodthirst one might wish for from a seafaring nation with good death metal credentials, this is a charming ramshackle number, only spoilt by the jarring and excessively cutesy interjections of the unfortunately non-punk kid. No swearing or pillage in sight. It seems authenticity doesn't count here after all.
3. "The Trumpet Hornpipe"
Better know as the theme to Captain Pugwash, by Tom Edmundson and Philip Lane. I never watched this show until I saw a clip recently (immediately becoming despondent at the confirmation that there really was no ‘Master Bates’ or ‘Seaman Staines’). The only thing I did know beforehand was this jaunty accordion theme song, which would endear me even to a one-legged mass murderer attempting to gouge my eyes out.
Captain Pugwash: Somali pirates could benefit from learning the secret of this individual's inexplicable popularity. And if they have ridiculous comedy names they could even join his crew.
4. "Pirate song" by Mitch Benn
The only song in the list specifically about Somali pirates, this is from Radio 4’s satirical Now Show. The comedy lyrics are great but I will also admit that the cheesy guitar motif is a guilty pleasure. Mitch Benn has come up with the goods numerous times before and his anti-BNP number is a particular delight.
5. "Homo Pirates" by Matt Mulholland
Proving what I never thought I'd need to prove: pirates aren't just for kids. An edgy comedy number from New Zealand, this tackles the thorny dilemma that a hormonally-charged crew will inevitably need to confront when stuck in the middle of nowhere. The chorus goes: "Homo pirates, Homo pirates, Homo pirates, Trying to bury their treasure in your ass” and therefore requires no further comment. Despite absorbing the best/worst that 'South Park' has to offer, this short spurt of crudity is only the second most offensive song on this list from the Southern Hemisphere.
6. "Jolly Roger" by Adam and the Ants
Well why don’t YOU try compiling a list of pirate songs then? Not the most enjoyable song on the list, this is basically the same theme they would later churn out with ‘Stand and Deliver’. Except on water. Gives pirates a bad name...
7. "Pieces of 8ight" by Captain Bogg and Salty
Piracy meets education, with by now predictably bloodless results. Perhaps if Jack Black had been unavailable as a substitute teacher in the 'School of Rock' we would have got something like this instead. It really goes off the scale for camp and all in all is rather charming, if a bit creepy. In fact, a flotilla of Somali pirates edging up to my tanker with this song blaring out of their speakers would scare the hell out of me.
8. "Cat 'O Nine Tails" by L7
There’s no evidence at all that this is about pirates and the camp value is minimal, but it gets a mention for referencing the Royal Navy’s preferred form of punishment in its title. And L7’s, ahem, ‘alternative’, behaviour shows that they know more about raising hell than anyone else on this list, the bunch of fakers.
9. "Wolves of the Sea" by Pirates of the Sea
The Latvian entry for Eurovision last year, these guys were robbed by a remarkably dull Russian effort, the same Timbaland-produced sludge that the new Chris Cornell is now crucifying his fans with, in one of rock's weirdest career mutations. In stark contrast, 'Wolves of the Sea' is chirpy, energetic and, after a reworking by Scotland’s Alestorm, thoroughly metalled-up too.
10. "Hot Potato" by The Wiggles
Ugh. Watching pirates in action is never pretty, as demonstrated by Johnny Depp and, with considerably more brevity, here by this Aussie outfit. The plunder in question here is spaghetti and potatoes, yet the pirate villain just pussyfoots around and never grows the necessary balls to seize what he wants by force, in what should have been a bloodcurling, frenzied orgy of sticky red death. Truly hideous.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
How Not to Be A Racist
So, an Iranian, caucasian, black and asian walk into a sports store. The Iranian already has the black person to agree to pose for a poster ad for a sports product all four of them are selling, but wants a caucasian to model as well so their ad doesn't appear to come from an ethnic minority sportswear club. All hell ensues in a sudden influx of political correctness.
"How can we say that? I am gobsmacked we can say that. I am offended. If I had a child and someone said: 'Sorry, you can't go in my ad campaign because you're black,' I'd kick off,"" says the 24-year old horse-faced caucasian way up in her saddle on her politically correct high horse.
The Iranian replies, "I'm Iranian, so I can say whatever I want!".
Bitch fight ensues, wrecking havoc and chaos, causing thousands of pounds worth of damages to the store. Whilst the caucasian and Iranian woman pull at each other's hair and tear at each other's faces over the correct number of coloured persons that should be allowed in an advertisement, the black and asian apathetically watch on, but totally agreeing they would want at least one white person on their poster so their product does not look like it comes from the ethnic minority sportswear club (because the first rule of ethnic minority sportswear club is you do not speak about ethnic minority sportswear club.) The black woman expresses this 'racial consent', which of course goes unheeded in the midst of the now bloodlusted cat fight. Meeeow!
After permanently disfiguring and crippling the Iranian in front of horrified bystanders, the caucasian proudly says of her distaste for the Iranian's racial insensitivity, "What sort of place do you think this is?!! We're not in bloody Vietnam!"
Sometimes irony tastes so much better than racial equality.
Sacha Baron Cohen modelling one of the many products available from the ethnic minority sportswear club.
PS: If you're still wondering, this joke was adapted, only slightly, from a reality show on the BBC. The morals of the story however still remain very very much the same.
"How can we say that? I am gobsmacked we can say that. I am offended. If I had a child and someone said: 'Sorry, you can't go in my ad campaign because you're black,' I'd kick off,"" says the 24-year old horse-faced caucasian way up in her saddle on her politically correct high horse.
The Iranian replies, "I'm Iranian, so I can say whatever I want!".
Bitch fight ensues, wrecking havoc and chaos, causing thousands of pounds worth of damages to the store. Whilst the caucasian and Iranian woman pull at each other's hair and tear at each other's faces over the correct number of coloured persons that should be allowed in an advertisement, the black and asian apathetically watch on, but totally agreeing they would want at least one white person on their poster so their product does not look like it comes from the ethnic minority sportswear club (because the first rule of ethnic minority sportswear club is you do not speak about ethnic minority sportswear club.) The black woman expresses this 'racial consent', which of course goes unheeded in the midst of the now bloodlusted cat fight. Meeeow!
After permanently disfiguring and crippling the Iranian in front of horrified bystanders, the caucasian proudly says of her distaste for the Iranian's racial insensitivity, "What sort of place do you think this is?!! We're not in bloody Vietnam!"
Sometimes irony tastes so much better than racial equality.
Sacha Baron Cohen modelling one of the many products available from the ethnic minority sportswear club.PS: If you're still wondering, this joke was adapted, only slightly, from a reality show on the BBC. The morals of the story however still remain very very much the same.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Religulous
I've been listening to to Bill Maher's podcasts for some time now since last year. There's plenty of political commentary from a diverse range of guests on his show with some usually fantastic comedy/parody thrown in between. I managed to see one of Bill's latest offerings, this time on religion, a documentary called Religulous. It's an insightful and fresh take on religion; preaching an I-don't-know philosophy in contrast with Richard Dawkins' more militant approach. The agnostic message is delivered without snobbery and in the form of a man genuinely looking for answers, but still aggressively challenging the way religious people view their beliefs. It's the first that any take on the war against religion has been perfectly aligned with my own views. But the ultimate message; if there is one thing agnostics can agree with Dawkins on, is that there is little room left, and even less time, for religion's impact on the world today.
When religion was created, only God had the capacity to end the world. But now Man does to. Because unfortunately, before Man figured out how to be rational or peaceful, we figured out nuclear weapons, and how to pollute on a catastrophic scale. And if there's one thing I hate more than prophecy, it's self-fulfilling prophecy.
When religion was created, only God had the capacity to end the world. But now Man does to. Because unfortunately, before Man figured out how to be rational or peaceful, we figured out nuclear weapons, and how to pollute on a catastrophic scale. And if there's one thing I hate more than prophecy, it's self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Bill Maher, Religulous.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Child possibly reunited with father, media world despairs
At least I know who I should be feeling sorry for now...
"Madonna faces heartbreak as Mercy's father is found. "
"The singer will be devastated to learn a man claiming to be the three-year-old Malawian child's father wants her to live with him after believing she was dead."
"[...] Madge, 50, suffered [a] devastating blow when a man claiming to be Mercy’s long-lost father came forward."
" If the court in Malawi accepts his paternity claim it is likely to be a major blow to Madonna's adoption bid."
"His determination to care for his daughter leaves Madonna’s hopes of adopting the child in tatters."
At least I know who I should be feeling sorry for now...
"Madonna faces heartbreak as Mercy's father is found. "
"The singer will be devastated to learn a man claiming to be the three-year-old Malawian child's father wants her to live with him after believing she was dead."
"[...] Madge, 50, suffered [a] devastating blow when a man claiming to be Mercy’s long-lost father came forward."
" If the court in Malawi accepts his paternity claim it is likely to be a major blow to Madonna's adoption bid."
"His determination to care for his daughter leaves Madonna’s hopes of adopting the child in tatters."
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Is surging really the best way to undo Afghanistan's artificial food chain?
(Psst: If you hate reading long articles, the short answer is 'no' )
This post references the article: ‘Maladaptive traits in invasive species: in Australia, cane toads are more vulnerable to predatory ants than are native frogs’ in Functional Ecology, written by Georgia Ward-Fear, Gregory P. Brown, Matthew J. Greenlees and Richard Shine, which is not in the public domain. So you can't click on a strategically highlighted word and make it appear. But I have access to it. So there. Page numbers are provided instead.
~ 2. The problem ~
In the 1930s the Australian state of Queensland indeed had a big problem. Its valuable sugar cane was under assault from two destructive species of beetle, the French's Cane Beetle and the Greyback Cane Beetle. Their larvae would feed on the roots and stunt or kill the crop.
In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up its increasingly unpopular satellite government. The United States and its allies reacted with outrage. US President Carter branded it "the greatest threat to peace since the Second World War."
~ 3. The solution to the problem ~
The chosen response to the pestering beetles was the cane toad (bufo marinus), native to Central and South America. Hawaii had imported cane toads for the purpose of pest control and had claimed success. So in 1935 a box of around 100 of the amphibians was delivered from Hawaii to Australia with the aim of repeating this success.
In 1979 President Carter authorised funding for anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan and the subsequent Reagan administration took the ball and ran with it. It sent billions of dollars to the neighbouring Pakistani dictatorship of General Zia al-Huq so that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), its equivalent of the CIA, would then fund Islamist warriors, known as the mujahadeen. It also collaborated with Saudi Arabia to help import foreign fighters into the country. British politicians looking back shouldn't feel too smug either; MI6 were heavily involved too.
Reagan, alongside his partner in Afghanistan's war for freedom: the staggeringly undemocratic Zia al-Haq, who took power in a coup and had his predecessor hung.
~ 4. Promoting the solution to the problem ~
These toads would eat anything and would no doubt eliminate the beetles and save the sugar crop, earning them a place in Australian hearts alongside its other freakish animals, whose very existence makes the debate between evolution and (un)intelligent design that extra bit more bizarre.
Speaking of unintelligent design, President Reagan had great faith in these “freedom fighters”. And what better seal of approval could there be in the 1980s than that of the great man himself?
Idi Amin's, perhaps.
~ 5. Perfecting the solution ~
The toad population was kept in captivity and allowed to swell to 3000 in number. This expanded population was then released into the Australian wild.
The Afghan cause attracted foreign Muslims willing to participate in jihad, and across the Islamic world prisoners were released by governments hopeful they would travel to Afghanistan and meet a sticky end. The CIA also arrived on the scene, to hand these mujahadeen potent Stinger missiles to take down Soviet gunships. In addition it coordinted training in kidnapping and car bombings. “[We created a whole cadre of trained and motivated people who turned against us. It's a classic Frankenstein's monster situation”, an American official later admitted.
~ 6. The problem with the solution ~
To say this plan backfired is an understatement. Soon the imported cane toads would become one of Australia’s greatest menaces and would force upon their hosts an unwelcome demonstration of amphibious blowback.
Among the prisoners released was the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, inside for his involvement in the murder of Anwar as-Sadat. Zawahiri would become al-Qaeda’s key ideologue and team up with Osama bin-Laden, who also made his way to Afghanistan to help run a parallel jihadi programme to the CIA operation. These men were outside US control, but that hardly mattered at the time. The CIA's partners in the ISI had its Islamist biasses and with the knowledge of both the Reagan and Zia administrations, funnelled its money to the most extreme fighters, such as Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, a zealot who threw acid in the eyes of unveiled women and who was on close terms with many of Afghanistan's biggest extremists.
Two friendly young men with a photo of Gulbuddin Hikmatyar
~ 7. The point where the solution becomes a bigger problem than the original problem ~
The toads were ravenous. For virtually every organism apart from the beetles it was hired to dispose of. They ate everything from bird eggs to insects. They also ate the harmless native frogs. Over the past 70 years, more than 100 indigenous species have disappeared or have been pushed to the edge of extinction.
Cane toad killing a native frog. Nature has no Geneva Conventions.
Kabul during the Afghan civil war. Much like the child in King Solomon's ruling, the people that this city belonged to wanted it back in one piece.
After the USSR pulled out various warring factions ripped Afghanistan apart over their varying visions of Afghanistan’s future. Hikmatyar, whose US aid was immediately terminated upon fulfiling his function, began pulverising Kabul with rockets while a bewildering flurry of power struggles, coalitions and defections took place under invariably bloody conditions. The mujahideen no longer had a common purpose and Afghanistan was now flooded with trained killers. In 1996 they were swept aside by an organised new force, the Taliban, a predominantly Pushtun force of Sunni (more specifically Deobandi) Islamists, who managed to seize most of Afghanistan with a degree of support from those desperate for stability.
~ 8. There's no escaping the new problem ~
Australia qualifies as a ‘mega-diverse’ nation, ranked 12th in the world for the range of its flora and fauna. Yet along with the ever present threat of bush fires, the presence of insatiable predators put this diversity in jeopardy. Australia’s isolation only made things more dangerous.
Within the confines of Afghanistan the Taliban implemented a remarkably strict interpretation of Islam. Other religions were banned, women became second class citizens, the Hazara suffered several massacres and Shiites were persecuted.
~ 9. Further problems we can thank the solution for ~
The toads spread across the country and established themselves. While they continued their ecologically-threatening consumption against those species smaller than itself, the poison inside the cane toads made them a deadly threat to any would-be predators, who would just have to learn to leave them alone.
It's safe to say they're both going to die
Opposition was stamped out with extreme brutality, from the public execution of captured Soviet era President Najibullah at the start of their reign to the perfidious al-Qaeda assisted assasination of opposition military commander Ahmed Shah Masood on 9 September 2001. Dissent, which now included such revolutionary acts as educated girls, was driven underground and people lived
in fear.
Taliban, with Soviet era President Najibullah. Comparatively enlightened when it came to the rights of women
~ 10. No problem? ~
The cane toad was largely confined to north-eastern Australia until the 1980s, a problem for Queenslanders but maybe not the rest of the country. But the cane toad soon spread to inhabit a fifth of the country– and began wiping out new species.
Cane toad distribution throughout Australia (invasiveanimals.com)
The Clinton administration largely let the Taliban be, while under Bush the Taliban made substantial gains from a complicated relationship dominated by a Unocal bid to build a strategically routed pipeline project. Even as human rights groups decried the Taliban’s misogynistic policies and the global public watched aghast at the destruction of the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, the Bush administration was financially rewarding their new policy of erradication of the opium poppy. And in mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan.
~ 11. Yes. Problem ~
The increased reach of the expanding cane toad population made it impossible to ignore. It was everybody’s problem now as it pushed from its base in Queensland in a southerly direction. And to the west.
~ 12. The solution to the problems of the solution ~
The cane toad had pushed its luck too far and now had to go. Engineering a virus was considered, but it looks like the latest solution, proposed in the British journal Functional Ecology, is to train meat ants to eat the toads. The meat ant is immune to the cane toads' poison, and with the right encouragement might end their reign of terror.
In its campaign to unseat the Taliban, the Bush administration joined forces with the Northern Alliance, who had been fighting the Taliban from the north of Afghanistan, hopefuly to install a just and peaceful regime in their place (fingers crossed, boys...)
~ 13. Potential pitfalls and problems with the solution to the problems with the previous solution ~
The meat ants have a reputation for aggression, making them ideal killers. The hope is that they will eradicate the cane toads without harming the long-suffering frogs.
However, the Northern Alliance themselves had a diverse but consistent track record of extreme brutality, most of it directed at each other. Members in the alliance included Masood’s Jamiat forces, responsible for abduction and murder of Hazara civilians; the legendarily savage Pushtun Gul Agha Sherzai; the Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum, famous for tying opponents to tank tracks; Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, who coordinated a massacre in the Kabul neighbourhood of Afshar; and Abdul Karim Khalili’s Wahdat faction, found by HRW to have wilfully killed civilians by firing indisciminately into Kabul in its battle against Sayyaf’s Ittihad faction. The Afghan women’s rights group RAWA declared they were fundamentalists, little better than the Taliban. By now it should be of little surprise that many of these individuals found their way into the next government, with Khalili a star pupil, becoming one of the two vice-Presidents.
~ 14. The solution to the problems with the new solution: ignore the problem (it worked so well the last time...) ~
“Might this be a mismatch between the invader and its newly invaded range, whereby the morphology, locomotor ability and/or behaviour of cane toads renders them vulnerable to a predator that poses little danger to native anurans?” p.1
RAWA condemned the aid given to the Northern Alliance. But the protests of this group that had battled for women’s rights for over twenty years was drowned out by the invading powers’ sudden interest in the rights of Afghan women and renewed insistence that they knew what was best for its population.
~ 15. The solution takes effect. No more problems? ~
“Could we exploit the vulnerability of these invasive toads to predatory ants, as a means to reduce toad populations in Australia?” p.9
The combination of massive US military power and the Northern Alliance ensured that the Taliban were quickly routed and presumed gone for good. A government under friend of the CIA and self-proclaimed puppet, Hamid Karzai, was established and Afghanistan was stabilised as much as a passive media required before Iraq became the world’s new worthy cause.
It's safe to say only one thing's gong to die here
~ 16. More wishful thinking about solutions to the problems that originated from the solution to the problem ~
“Fundamentally, predatory meat ants posed little danger to most of the native frogs we tested because the frogs are nocturnally active whereas the ants are primarily diurnal. Outside their activity period, frogs typically remain well-hidden. Thus, during times of ant activity (by day), frogs were safely ensconced in vegetation or shelters where ants (as open-habitat specialists) were unlikely to penetrate. In cases where ants and frogs came into contact, frogs generally moved away (often into the water, a safe refuge against ants) and thus, were unlikely to allow ants to approach close enough to attack. If seized, the native frogs were able to escape by leaping away” pp.7-8
Gambling always seems less profligate when you use someone else's money.
In many areas of Afghanistan sharia law was not eliminated. The war dragged on and the Taliban, along with other, more extreme Islamists, made a resurgence to escalate a war that has again sent civilians ducking for cover. The Obama administration expressed its dissatisfaction with Karzai’s stewardship, implying they would tinker with the government structure so as to bypass a man increasingly seen as a relic from the Bush era. Karzai, for his part, recently oversaw legislation that effectively permitted spousal rape, as a fundamentalist administration cemented itself to once again betray the aspirations of Afghans. Afghanistan is enveloped in a health crisis and the foreign intervention is massively unpopular, especially due to NATO airstrikes and their predictable civilian casualties.
~ 17. Predictable problems with the solution to the previous problems that had been created by the solution to problems previous to those ~
And when the ants get out of control, what then? A surge of course!
In late March Obama announced plans for a surge in Afghanistan to quell the high levels of violence in a country that had been declared liberated by early 2002, having capitulated to the maddeningly peristent and prominent view that such a strategy was a success in what was actually a thoroughly ethnically cleansed Iraq in 2007. He also initiated the funding and armament of local militias, the “Afghan Protection Force”, drawing from the unemployed in Wardak province. Middle East expert Juan Cole’s response: “You wonder how long it will be before the Karzai government is engaged in firefights with them”
~ 18. Reconsidering how we choose our solutions ~
From The Guardian:
"Professor Ian Lowe, an environmental scientist at Griffith University in Queensland, and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the search for a magical biological bullet was absurd.'The delusion that you can have effective biological control still seems very strong in Australia. People talk about managing environmental systems as if it's no more complex than managing a jam factory. We should have learned from the cane toad that the cure is often worse than the disease,' he said.”
Afghanistan has been conquered and reconquered again and again, yet has resisted all attempts to be taught what is best for it, from the USSR's satellite PDPA government to the mujahadeen to the Taliban to the Northern Alliance. And now a surge. People will still insist that things are better now that the Taliban are out of power, but picking between these regimes is as much use as picking your favourite flavour of poison. The people of Afghanistan don't want poison at all.
NATO’s European contingent has baulked at the idea of sending more forces to Afghanistan to stabilise a situation that is getting wildly out of control, and Obama’s switch of focus from Iraq to Afghanistan has prompted speculation that this will be his very own disastrous foreign military endeavour. Any solution that fails to address grievances and power imbalances in Afghanistan, and that involves dumping a new set of saviours on its people without consulting them will not only fail, but create new forms of misery. Mother nature herself teaches us this.
THE END
References for the cane toad project (and good luck with that) came from:
Georgia Ward-Fear, Gregory P. Brown, Matthew J. Greenlees, Richard Shine, 'Maladaptive traits in invasive species: in Australia, cane toads are more vulnerable to predatory ants than are native frogs', Functional Ecology, March 2009, published online on 31 March 2009
(Psst: If you hate reading long articles, the short answer is 'no' )
This post references the article: ‘Maladaptive traits in invasive species: in Australia, cane toads are more vulnerable to predatory ants than are native frogs’ in Functional Ecology, written by Georgia Ward-Fear, Gregory P. Brown, Matthew J. Greenlees and Richard Shine, which is not in the public domain. So you can't click on a strategically highlighted word and make it appear. But I have access to it. So there. Page numbers are provided instead.
~ 1. Synopsis ~
NATO is preparing Afghanistan to swallow a cow to swallow a fox that swallowed a bird that swallowed a spider. Afghanistan generally vomits up any medication that it is force fed. The patient is increasingly coughing up blood. We hear that nothing its self-appointed doctors do can possibly make it any worse. Except it can. And repeatedly has. Remember the hazards of outsourced pest control. Remember the toads. The toads....
NATO is preparing Afghanistan to swallow a cow to swallow a fox that swallowed a bird that swallowed a spider. Afghanistan generally vomits up any medication that it is force fed. The patient is increasingly coughing up blood. We hear that nothing its self-appointed doctors do can possibly make it any worse. Except it can. And repeatedly has. Remember the hazards of outsourced pest control. Remember the toads. The toads....
~ 2. The problem ~
In the 1930s the Australian state of Queensland indeed had a big problem. Its valuable sugar cane was under assault from two destructive species of beetle, the French's Cane Beetle and the Greyback Cane Beetle. Their larvae would feed on the roots and stunt or kill the crop.
In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up its increasingly unpopular satellite government. The United States and its allies reacted with outrage. US President Carter branded it "the greatest threat to peace since the Second World War."
~ 3. The solution to the problem ~
The chosen response to the pestering beetles was the cane toad (bufo marinus), native to Central and South America. Hawaii had imported cane toads for the purpose of pest control and had claimed success. So in 1935 a box of around 100 of the amphibians was delivered from Hawaii to Australia with the aim of repeating this success.
In 1979 President Carter authorised funding for anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan and the subsequent Reagan administration took the ball and ran with it. It sent billions of dollars to the neighbouring Pakistani dictatorship of General Zia al-Huq so that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), its equivalent of the CIA, would then fund Islamist warriors, known as the mujahadeen. It also collaborated with Saudi Arabia to help import foreign fighters into the country. British politicians looking back shouldn't feel too smug either; MI6 were heavily involved too.
Reagan, alongside his partner in Afghanistan's war for freedom: the staggeringly undemocratic Zia al-Haq, who took power in a coup and had his predecessor hung.
~ 4. Promoting the solution to the problem ~
These toads would eat anything and would no doubt eliminate the beetles and save the sugar crop, earning them a place in Australian hearts alongside its other freakish animals, whose very existence makes the debate between evolution and (un)intelligent design that extra bit more bizarre.
Speaking of unintelligent design, President Reagan had great faith in these “freedom fighters”. And what better seal of approval could there be in the 1980s than that of the great man himself?
Idi Amin's, perhaps.
~ 5. Perfecting the solution ~
The toad population was kept in captivity and allowed to swell to 3000 in number. This expanded population was then released into the Australian wild.
The Afghan cause attracted foreign Muslims willing to participate in jihad, and across the Islamic world prisoners were released by governments hopeful they would travel to Afghanistan and meet a sticky end. The CIA also arrived on the scene, to hand these mujahadeen potent Stinger missiles to take down Soviet gunships. In addition it coordinted training in kidnapping and car bombings. “[We created a whole cadre of trained and motivated people who turned against us. It's a classic Frankenstein's monster situation”, an American official later admitted.
~ 6. The problem with the solution ~
To say this plan backfired is an understatement. Soon the imported cane toads would become one of Australia’s greatest menaces and would force upon their hosts an unwelcome demonstration of amphibious blowback.
Among the prisoners released was the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, inside for his involvement in the murder of Anwar as-Sadat. Zawahiri would become al-Qaeda’s key ideologue and team up with Osama bin-Laden, who also made his way to Afghanistan to help run a parallel jihadi programme to the CIA operation. These men were outside US control, but that hardly mattered at the time. The CIA's partners in the ISI had its Islamist biasses and with the knowledge of both the Reagan and Zia administrations, funnelled its money to the most extreme fighters, such as Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, a zealot who threw acid in the eyes of unveiled women and who was on close terms with many of Afghanistan's biggest extremists.
Two friendly young men with a photo of Gulbuddin Hikmatyar
~ 7. The point where the solution becomes a bigger problem than the original problem ~
The toads were ravenous. For virtually every organism apart from the beetles it was hired to dispose of. They ate everything from bird eggs to insects. They also ate the harmless native frogs. Over the past 70 years, more than 100 indigenous species have disappeared or have been pushed to the edge of extinction.
Cane toad killing a native frog. Nature has no Geneva Conventions.
Kabul during the Afghan civil war. Much like the child in King Solomon's ruling, the people that this city belonged to wanted it back in one piece.
After the USSR pulled out various warring factions ripped Afghanistan apart over their varying visions of Afghanistan’s future. Hikmatyar, whose US aid was immediately terminated upon fulfiling his function, began pulverising Kabul with rockets while a bewildering flurry of power struggles, coalitions and defections took place under invariably bloody conditions. The mujahideen no longer had a common purpose and Afghanistan was now flooded with trained killers. In 1996 they were swept aside by an organised new force, the Taliban, a predominantly Pushtun force of Sunni (more specifically Deobandi) Islamists, who managed to seize most of Afghanistan with a degree of support from those desperate for stability.
~ 8. There's no escaping the new problem ~
Australia qualifies as a ‘mega-diverse’ nation, ranked 12th in the world for the range of its flora and fauna. Yet along with the ever present threat of bush fires, the presence of insatiable predators put this diversity in jeopardy. Australia’s isolation only made things more dangerous.
Within the confines of Afghanistan the Taliban implemented a remarkably strict interpretation of Islam. Other religions were banned, women became second class citizens, the Hazara suffered several massacres and Shiites were persecuted.
~ 9. Further problems we can thank the solution for ~
The toads spread across the country and established themselves. While they continued their ecologically-threatening consumption against those species smaller than itself, the poison inside the cane toads made them a deadly threat to any would-be predators, who would just have to learn to leave them alone.
It's safe to say they're both going to die
Opposition was stamped out with extreme brutality, from the public execution of captured Soviet era President Najibullah at the start of their reign to the perfidious al-Qaeda assisted assasination of opposition military commander Ahmed Shah Masood on 9 September 2001. Dissent, which now included such revolutionary acts as educated girls, was driven underground and people lived
in fear.
Taliban, with Soviet era President Najibullah. Comparatively enlightened when it came to the rights of women
~ 10. No problem? ~
The cane toad was largely confined to north-eastern Australia until the 1980s, a problem for Queenslanders but maybe not the rest of the country. But the cane toad soon spread to inhabit a fifth of the country– and began wiping out new species.
Cane toad distribution throughout Australia (invasiveanimals.com)
The Clinton administration largely let the Taliban be, while under Bush the Taliban made substantial gains from a complicated relationship dominated by a Unocal bid to build a strategically routed pipeline project. Even as human rights groups decried the Taliban’s misogynistic policies and the global public watched aghast at the destruction of the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, the Bush administration was financially rewarding their new policy of erradication of the opium poppy. And in mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan.
~ 11. Yes. Problem ~
The increased reach of the expanding cane toad population made it impossible to ignore. It was everybody’s problem now as it pushed from its base in Queensland in a southerly direction. And to the west.
~ 12. The solution to the problems of the solution ~
The cane toad had pushed its luck too far and now had to go. Engineering a virus was considered, but it looks like the latest solution, proposed in the British journal Functional Ecology, is to train meat ants to eat the toads. The meat ant is immune to the cane toads' poison, and with the right encouragement might end their reign of terror.
In its campaign to unseat the Taliban, the Bush administration joined forces with the Northern Alliance, who had been fighting the Taliban from the north of Afghanistan, hopefuly to install a just and peaceful regime in their place (fingers crossed, boys...)
~ 13. Potential pitfalls and problems with the solution to the problems with the previous solution ~
The meat ants have a reputation for aggression, making them ideal killers. The hope is that they will eradicate the cane toads without harming the long-suffering frogs.
However, the Northern Alliance themselves had a diverse but consistent track record of extreme brutality, most of it directed at each other. Members in the alliance included Masood’s Jamiat forces, responsible for abduction and murder of Hazara civilians; the legendarily savage Pushtun Gul Agha Sherzai; the Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum, famous for tying opponents to tank tracks; Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, who coordinated a massacre in the Kabul neighbourhood of Afshar; and Abdul Karim Khalili’s Wahdat faction, found by HRW to have wilfully killed civilians by firing indisciminately into Kabul in its battle against Sayyaf’s Ittihad faction. The Afghan women’s rights group RAWA declared they were fundamentalists, little better than the Taliban. By now it should be of little surprise that many of these individuals found their way into the next government, with Khalili a star pupil, becoming one of the two vice-Presidents.
~ 14. The solution to the problems with the new solution: ignore the problem (it worked so well the last time...) ~
“Might this be a mismatch between the invader and its newly invaded range, whereby the morphology, locomotor ability and/or behaviour of cane toads renders them vulnerable to a predator that poses little danger to native anurans?” p.1
RAWA condemned the aid given to the Northern Alliance. But the protests of this group that had battled for women’s rights for over twenty years was drowned out by the invading powers’ sudden interest in the rights of Afghan women and renewed insistence that they knew what was best for its population.
~ 15. The solution takes effect. No more problems? ~
“Could we exploit the vulnerability of these invasive toads to predatory ants, as a means to reduce toad populations in Australia?” p.9
The combination of massive US military power and the Northern Alliance ensured that the Taliban were quickly routed and presumed gone for good. A government under friend of the CIA and self-proclaimed puppet, Hamid Karzai, was established and Afghanistan was stabilised as much as a passive media required before Iraq became the world’s new worthy cause.
It's safe to say only one thing's gong to die here
~ 16. More wishful thinking about solutions to the problems that originated from the solution to the problem ~
“Fundamentally, predatory meat ants posed little danger to most of the native frogs we tested because the frogs are nocturnally active whereas the ants are primarily diurnal. Outside their activity period, frogs typically remain well-hidden. Thus, during times of ant activity (by day), frogs were safely ensconced in vegetation or shelters where ants (as open-habitat specialists) were unlikely to penetrate. In cases where ants and frogs came into contact, frogs generally moved away (often into the water, a safe refuge against ants) and thus, were unlikely to allow ants to approach close enough to attack. If seized, the native frogs were able to escape by leaping away” pp.7-8
Gambling always seems less profligate when you use someone else's money.
In many areas of Afghanistan sharia law was not eliminated. The war dragged on and the Taliban, along with other, more extreme Islamists, made a resurgence to escalate a war that has again sent civilians ducking for cover. The Obama administration expressed its dissatisfaction with Karzai’s stewardship, implying they would tinker with the government structure so as to bypass a man increasingly seen as a relic from the Bush era. Karzai, for his part, recently oversaw legislation that effectively permitted spousal rape, as a fundamentalist administration cemented itself to once again betray the aspirations of Afghans. Afghanistan is enveloped in a health crisis and the foreign intervention is massively unpopular, especially due to NATO airstrikes and their predictable civilian casualties.
~ 17. Predictable problems with the solution to the previous problems that had been created by the solution to problems previous to those ~
And when the ants get out of control, what then? A surge of course!
In late March Obama announced plans for a surge in Afghanistan to quell the high levels of violence in a country that had been declared liberated by early 2002, having capitulated to the maddeningly peristent and prominent view that such a strategy was a success in what was actually a thoroughly ethnically cleansed Iraq in 2007. He also initiated the funding and armament of local militias, the “Afghan Protection Force”, drawing from the unemployed in Wardak province. Middle East expert Juan Cole’s response: “You wonder how long it will be before the Karzai government is engaged in firefights with them”
~ 18. Reconsidering how we choose our solutions ~
From The Guardian:
"Professor Ian Lowe, an environmental scientist at Griffith University in Queensland, and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the search for a magical biological bullet was absurd.'The delusion that you can have effective biological control still seems very strong in Australia. People talk about managing environmental systems as if it's no more complex than managing a jam factory. We should have learned from the cane toad that the cure is often worse than the disease,' he said.”
Afghanistan has been conquered and reconquered again and again, yet has resisted all attempts to be taught what is best for it, from the USSR's satellite PDPA government to the mujahadeen to the Taliban to the Northern Alliance. And now a surge. People will still insist that things are better now that the Taliban are out of power, but picking between these regimes is as much use as picking your favourite flavour of poison. The people of Afghanistan don't want poison at all.
NATO’s European contingent has baulked at the idea of sending more forces to Afghanistan to stabilise a situation that is getting wildly out of control, and Obama’s switch of focus from Iraq to Afghanistan has prompted speculation that this will be his very own disastrous foreign military endeavour. Any solution that fails to address grievances and power imbalances in Afghanistan, and that involves dumping a new set of saviours on its people without consulting them will not only fail, but create new forms of misery. Mother nature herself teaches us this.
THE END
References for the cane toad project (and good luck with that) came from:
Georgia Ward-Fear, Gregory P. Brown, Matthew J. Greenlees, Richard Shine, 'Maladaptive traits in invasive species: in Australia, cane toads are more vulnerable to predatory ants than are native frogs', Functional Ecology, March 2009, published online on 31 March 2009
Friday, April 03, 2009
No Mercy
By Madonna
Guest contributor and Empress of Kabbalah; Missionary to Malawi
Give me the child. And then I'll consider letting your people live
Curses! Foiled again. But not for long. I’ll get that child one way or another. I’ll even go to the Supreme Court to get what I need. That girl is mine and nobody in Malawi will stop me.
If only Guy and his cheeky chappy mockney gangsta henchmen were still around to help with my plan – they’d teach that pathetic judge and his court some respect, maybe shove him in a car boot and slam his head until he relents. But Guy got too close. He knew too much. He had to go. I'll just have to rely on the pack of mindless lawyers again to get what's mine.
I don’t know why those jerks are so hostile down there. Sure I was a special exception and got fast-tracked so I could adopt Malawian sprog number one. And sure he has forgotten his native language, culture and who his dad is due to his new life. And sure those so-called experts think that orphans should spend their childhood with their extended families rather than being jetted around the globe. They might come to hate me for my persistence. If only they knew what was right under their noses…
Maybe they suspect something – no, impossible. They can’t possibly know the real truth. That one of these kids is - has to be – yes, it must be this one – the chosen one. Only this child knows the location of the mysterious Lost Valley of Kabababababalla, entrance to the Tunnel of Idoyoga, gateway to the secret of eternal youth. And it’s mine, ALL MINE. I’ve given a shitload to help Malawi and all I ask for in return is that they hand me the keymaster.
Those other fools will never find it – Cher will be 100 percent plastic before she discovers the identity of the keymaster. Angelina Jolie is digging in all the wrong places and will have green tatoos all over her withered body by the time she realises. And don’t get me started on those Scientologist nutjobs. No, the secret prophecy in my 'Kaballah for Dummies' handbook explicitly said that the map to everlasting life was located in the brain of a Malawian child. For a moment I suspected Dan Brown knew the truth, but he has spent the last 10 years staring at Renaissance paintings, searching for ladyboys and is now well off the pace. He is no threat to my plans.
By Madonna
Guest contributor and Empress of Kabbalah; Missionary to Malawi
Give me the child. And then I'll consider letting your people live
Curses! Foiled again. But not for long. I’ll get that child one way or another. I’ll even go to the Supreme Court to get what I need. That girl is mine and nobody in Malawi will stop me.
If only Guy and his cheeky chappy mockney gangsta henchmen were still around to help with my plan – they’d teach that pathetic judge and his court some respect, maybe shove him in a car boot and slam his head until he relents. But Guy got too close. He knew too much. He had to go. I'll just have to rely on the pack of mindless lawyers again to get what's mine.
I don’t know why those jerks are so hostile down there. Sure I was a special exception and got fast-tracked so I could adopt Malawian sprog number one. And sure he has forgotten his native language, culture and who his dad is due to his new life. And sure those so-called experts think that orphans should spend their childhood with their extended families rather than being jetted around the globe. They might come to hate me for my persistence. If only they knew what was right under their noses…
Maybe they suspect something – no, impossible. They can’t possibly know the real truth. That one of these kids is - has to be – yes, it must be this one – the chosen one. Only this child knows the location of the mysterious Lost Valley of Kabababababalla, entrance to the Tunnel of Idoyoga, gateway to the secret of eternal youth. And it’s mine, ALL MINE. I’ve given a shitload to help Malawi and all I ask for in return is that they hand me the keymaster.
Those other fools will never find it – Cher will be 100 percent plastic before she discovers the identity of the keymaster. Angelina Jolie is digging in all the wrong places and will have green tatoos all over her withered body by the time she realises. And don’t get me started on those Scientologist nutjobs. No, the secret prophecy in my 'Kaballah for Dummies' handbook explicitly said that the map to everlasting life was located in the brain of a Malawian child. For a moment I suspected Dan Brown knew the truth, but he has spent the last 10 years staring at Renaissance paintings, searching for ladyboys and is now well off the pace. He is no threat to my plans.
Above: Virgin with child. Possibly the least appropriate image imaginable for this post.
That first kid I adopted didn't help. He knew nothing, well, except how to bring balance to the force and defeat the Sith, but that’s of no use to me. I’ll get through every child in Malawi if necessary. I will find the keymaster. I will be young and beautiful forever. I will be dancing in lycra until the end of time. Bring it on Malawi. You can resist, but your children belong to me now. They are MINE, ALL MINE!! BUAHAHAHAhahahahaha!!!
(cue: thunderclaps and lightning )
Note: This contribution has been heavily edited for tabloid purposes.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Lions on Parade
Duncan Campbell ponders the consequences of kettling the G20 demonstrations:
Granted it was unfortunate that yesterday's 4,000 strong protest resulted in the death of one protester, and vandalism of a Royal Bank of Scotland office, Campbell is determined not to confuse the line between civil disobedience and unlawful acts in order to provide a careful observation of what repercussions kettling tactics have on civil liberties of the citizens. He remarks that a) the decision of law lords to allow kettling essentially negates a peaceful protest's right to march, b) kettling had held a majority of the people against their will to leave the area and disperse regardless of intention, and c) police had taken photos and personal information including addresses from persons unknowing that they had a right not to provide this, but risked being detained for longer in the pen if they failed to co-operate.
Protesters who had wanted to demonstrate against the British banking system and capitalism in general, but who had also wanted to protest about climate change or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan elsewhere in the capital, were hemmed in.
Officers forming a wall of fluorescent yellow told those who wanted to leave the area and were puzzled that they could not: "Don't ask us, ask the gaffer."
The area became a public lavatory as people unable to move away used the entrances to Bank underground station as a urinal.
In nearby Bishopsgate, at the Climate Change camp, the same policy of containment was used until later into the night and this morning.
This is a strategy called the "kettle", which sees protesters herded into an area and kept there for hours. Its stated aim is to contain a protest in a small area so it does not spread.
Granted it was unfortunate that yesterday's 4,000 strong protest resulted in the death of one protester, and vandalism of a Royal Bank of Scotland office, Campbell is determined not to confuse the line between civil disobedience and unlawful acts in order to provide a careful observation of what repercussions kettling tactics have on civil liberties of the citizens. He remarks that a) the decision of law lords to allow kettling essentially negates a peaceful protest's right to march, b) kettling had held a majority of the people against their will to leave the area and disperse regardless of intention, and c) police had taken photos and personal information including addresses from persons unknowing that they had a right not to provide this, but risked being detained for longer in the pen if they failed to co-operate.
v
K is for Kettling. A protester wears his displeasure of the Man.
Reader comments to Campbell's article makes for an almost interesting read on its own. It almost appears that Britain's most flagrant cynism has made an appearance amongst majority of comments that have sympathy for neither protesters nor police and government, with an ocassional apathetic citizen who's just happy that disruption was minimal so others could go about their working lives. One claims this legalised strategy is a deterrent to future protesters who will fear entrapment for much longer periods than their intended stay. This however, must surely be the final sentiment of a culmination of authoritarian acts that suddenly reminds me of a familiar nanny state. DNA databases, CCTV, ID cards will look like a cheap sacrifice of civil liberties if kettling becomes an effective deterrent. Whilst the former are a sacrifice of privacy, the latter is a sacrifice of freedom that can never be equal. Fear as a tool of control should never be understimated even in totalitarian and authoritarian countries that have laws up to the hilt, which are completely complementary to each other in maintaining order. I am completely for a strong police presence at any public demonstration and safety should always be the primary responsibility of all involved. However, it seems to boil down once again to Benjamin Franklin's sentiment that those who value temporary safety over essential freedom, certainly deserve neither safety nor freedom.K is for Kettling. A protester wears his displeasure of the Man.They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells... - RATM
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