Canary in the Coalmine

Thursday, 24 May 2007

Flickr Of The Day

Campioni d'Europa
Originally uploaded by Michael2973.

Milan Fans after their team's Champions League Final win over Liverpool. The first goal was a bit lucky but the second was beautifully created and taken.

Will He? Won't He?

Is Al Gore going to run for president? E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post isn't sure. But he is certainly letting rip at the current Executive with their "Assault on Reason"

He [Gore] ascribes the failure to have a full-throated debate on Iraq back in 2002 -- when he spoke out against the looming war, to much nasty jeering from the right -- to the administration's decision to politicize the issue before the midterm elections, but also to "meekness" and "timidity" in both "the legislative branch of government" and in "the press corps."
"A lot of people were afraid of being accused of being unpatriotic," he says. "One of the symptoms of this problem -- the diminishing role for reason, fact and logic -- is that what rushes in to fill the vacuum are extreme partisanship, ideology, fundamentalism and extreme nationalism."

It was certainly almost impossible to speak against the war in 2002, 2003 and later without being 'unpatriotic' and 'against the troops'. Facts were swept aside as they made their own reality. Now, with the majority seeing reason, they can see that the emperor has no clothes.

E.J. Dionne sums up his article with

Gore, to his credit, won't talk about Florida, but I will. Whatever flaws he has, Gore suffered through an extreme injustice with great dignity. His revenge is to have been right about a lot of things: right about the power of the Internet, right about global warming and right about Iraq.

What a tragedy that 2000 result was.

Tuesday, 22 May 2007

Why This Scandal Matters

The NYT in an editorial, explains why it is important to keep the pressure on the White House to sack Gonzales.

The Justice Department is no ordinary agency. Its 93 United States attorney offices, scattered across the country, prosecute federal crimes ranging from public corruption to terrorism. These prosecutors have enormous power: they can wiretap people’s homes, seize property and put people in jail for life. They can destroy businesses, and affect the outcomes of elections. It has always been understood that although they are appointed by a president, usually from his own party, once in office they must operate in a nonpartisan way, and be insulated from outside pressures.

It's no wonder that Karl Rove couldn't stop smiling before the last mid-term elections. He believed that despite the polls showing that the Democrats were well ahead, he had enough partisan US attorneys to suppress the minority vote, enough governors in place to make voting difficult or impossible in 'blue' districts and, who knows, enough electronic voting machines rigged to keep the Republicans in power. He underestimated the size of the swing to the Democratic Party this time and the plan will be even more of the same in 2008.

Hopefully, now this plan is out in the broad light of day, it will not succeed.

Saturday, 19 May 2007

Flickr Of The Day

Norval Church at Sunset (HDR)
Originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

A very nice HDR shot

Classic Countdown

Countdown was a cult afternoon TV programme shown at 4.30pm on weekdays presented by the late Richard Whiteley.

Here is one of the most amazing maths question answers I've seen (the contestant is presented with six numbers and has to use some or all of them once only, to reach the answer, a randomly generated number). How you can work this out in 30 seconds is beyond me.

ps I always had a bit of a 'thing' for Carol Vorderman. Perhaps it was her skill with numbers.

Torture - Official Republican Policy?

With most of the Republican candidates enthusiastically endorsing torture, sorry - enhanced interrogation techniques, with the honourable exception of John McCain, It's worth reading this Op-Ed in the Washington Post in full.

These assertions that "torture works" may reassure a fearful public, but it is a false security. We don't know what's been gained through this fear-driven program. But we do know the consequences.
As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works -- the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real "ticking time bomb" situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of "flexibility" about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone -- the rare exception fast becoming the rule.

The writers are an ex-Commandant of the Marines and an ex-CinC of Central Command so should be listened to.

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.
This is not just a lesson for history. Right now, White House lawyers are working up new rules that will govern what CIA interrogators can do to prisoners in secret. Those rules will set the standard not only for the CIA but also for what kind of treatment captured American soldiers can expect from their captors, now and in future wars. Before the president once again approves a policy of official cruelty, he should reflect on that.

How can it be acceptable for a civilised nation to condone this sort of treatment?