I live in Toulouse, France where the time now is:
01:02
Contacting Me
I get many hundreds of e-mail messages per day and my inbox is becoming increasingly useless to me. So, if you write to me, don't count on an answer unless we know each other really well, or your communication is short and clear. Oh, I'm very friendly and approachable, but I don't have hours enough in my day to read everything.
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Everything I've written here is dedicated to the Public Domain.
The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair use. Thus, overall, this weblog could best be described as being: Primarily Public Domain.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe. [ Information | 2006-10-22 18:57 | 6 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Just a test of video in my blog. But I like this one. It is from YouTube. It is a clip from Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders), 1964 Jean-Luc Godard movie. A typical Nouvelle Vague film. I don't remember if I've seen it. Anyway, the original soundtrack, which was a guy talking, is replaced with the song "Dance with Me" by a group also called "Nouvelle Vague", with Melanie Pain singing. Seems like it belongs with the clip. Btw, the girl in the movie clip is Anna Karina, who happens to be Danish. The dance they're dancing is the Madison. [ Culture | 2006-10-22 19:38 | 13 comments | PermaLink ] More >
It used to be that to attract attention to a message you'd make it bigger, more colorful, more important-sounding. "Danger, don't touch the electrical wires!"
But advertising started to mess that up. Gradually, the most attention-grabbing, big, colorful, attractive messages are simply the ones that want to sell you something, but that aren't important at all.
Then there was spam. When I get a message that says "Important, Urgent" in the subject line, and its priority is set to high, and it has an attachment, I can pretty much just click the spam button right away. The messages that most try to grab my attention are most likely the ones that I'd least want to see.
But it is horrible for good communication. We get used to specifically ignoring the loudest messages. We sort of reverse our instinctive filters. We no longer see the banner ads on web pages, particularly because they're big and colorful, centrally placed, and moving.
What if somebody actually has something to say? How should they get my attention?
Now, recently, I seem to get a lot of junk messages to my ICQ instant messenger account. Some of it spam, but most of it from people who find me listed. I can't seem to find out how to turn that off. Most of them will try something like "hi" or "hello". Which used to mean "hi" or "hello", i.e. a friendly way of starting a conversation. But I don't want a conversation with some teenager in China who wants to practice speaking English. So, I click the block button right away and close the window. That's what it has come to. Somebody says "hello" and I press the button for the hidden trap door right away, without even checking who it is.
If it is somebody I actually know, I don't click 'block', but if they start off with "hi, how are you?", I probably won't answer. Maybe not polite, but I have little interest in starting up a string of small talk messages, to find out if there possibly might be something you want to say. I'm busy.
I suppose, if you actually have something to say to me, don't say "hi". Don't send me an urgent message. Don't make it high priority. Don't print it on a colorful billboard. I don't know what I should advice you to do, then, other than say what you actually have to say in the first five words. Or I'll already have forgotten about you.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy hearing from my friends, and I enjoy new friends. You don't have to have anything fantastic to say. But please say it, and without adding to the noise.
Are we maybe evolving into being able to recognize meaning more quickly, and quickly filtering out stuff that doesn't have meaning? Without being misled by loudness, colorfulness, apparent friendlyness, or stated importance. That could eventually be a good thing, even though it is annoying.
Notice the opposite phenomenon too. The stuff that actually is important to you is often hidden away. Legalese, for example. You start using some new piece of software and it has a long agreement you supposedly agree to when you start using it. Which deliberately has been written to make you not read it, and if you do, to make you not understand what you agree to, while still make it possible to later claim that you did agree to it.
American TV ads illustrate it perfectly well. The ad spends 28 seconds setting a mood, presenting you with a vision in color and sound and compelling speech, engaging your emotions and your imagination. And in the last 2 seconds they rattle off the things you really need to know at 10 times the speed. "Causes irreversible liver damage in test animals. Illegal where prohibited. Not suitable for people under 18, over 60, if who're pregnant, if who have allergies. Made of formaldehyde, refined sugar, enriched uranium, genetically modified lifeforms with unknown properties, by slave workers in a third world nation."
So, now, if we actually got really good at ignoring the loud distractions, and noticing what really is being said, and maybe what isn't being said, that wouldn't be too bad. But it ain't easy. A great deal of our input isn't communication, but pretends to be, and isn't information, but pretends to be. It needs to be descrambled and decoded and color-adjusted, to find the signal, to find out what really is going on, so I can decide what actually is important to me, and what I should or shouldn't do about it. Which most likely isn't at all what I'm being told most clearly. The loud clear stuff is the noise. The scrambled small print and almost invisible cues is the message. [ Information | 2006-10-20 23:16 | 6 comments | PermaLink ] More >
When Buckminster Fuller was asked by "Who's Who�" to write a one-sentence statement of his life objectives on the model of de Tocqueville’s 152-word "aphoristic declaration", this is what he wrote:
Acutely aware of our beings' limitations and acknowledging the infinite mystery of the a priori universe into which we are born, but nevertheless searching for a conscious means of hopefully competent participation by humanity in its own evolutionary trending while employing only the unique advantages inhering exclusively to the individual who takes and maintains the economic initiative in the face of the formidable physical capital and credit advantages of the massive corporations and political states and deliberately avoiding political ties and tactics while endeavoring by experiments and explorations to excite individuals’ awareness and realization of humanity’s higher potentials I seek through Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science and its reductions to physical practices to reform the environment instead of trying to reform men being intent thereby to accomplish prototyped capabilities of doing more with less whereby in turn the wealth augmenting prospects of such design science regenerations will induce their spontaneous and economically successful industrial proliferation by world around services’ managements all of which chain reaction provoking events will both permit and induce all humanity to realize full lasting economic and physical success plus enjoyment of all the Earth without one individual interfering with or being advantaged at the expense of another.
Cool. I'd like to be able to write a sentence about myself like that, but I'd need to work on that a bit. [ Inspiration | 2006-10-19 17:58 | 2 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Yesterday I had a root canal without anesthesia. French dentists work a little differently than American ones. Oh, didn't hurt too badly.
Anyway, strangely I feel like putting out a couple of blog posts, despite that I'm super busy. Most of my days in the next couple of months I'm going to this continuing education consultant thing at an engineering school here. Which means I suddenly need to squeeze my otherwise full day into a few hours in the evening, and go to bed early. But that of course gives the opportunity for organizing my time a bit better, and choosing which things actually are important. [ Diary | 2006-10-18 19:56 | 3 comments | PermaLink ] More >
I have many friends who're great fans of Richard Dawkins. I'm not. I think he's .. well, I'll quote David Weinberger
I'm an agnostic, but I find Richard Dawkins an embarrassment for my side, so to speak.
In his interview at Salon (either subscribe or watch an ad), conducted by Steve Paulson, the British biologist goes through his highly marketable outrage about religion. But, while he thinks he's arguing against all "Abrahamic" religions, he's in fact arguing against one branch of one religion. He seems to have not the slightest idea that not all religions think of faith as he characterizes it, and some "Abrahamic" religions don't really much care about faith in the first place.
He has not done his homework. He does not recognize differences in the phenomena he's studying. He is being a crappy scientist. And he's stirring up hatred and misunderstanding...exactly what he accuses Religion of doing.
He ought to shut up for a while and go hang out with a variety of religious folks. Field work, Richard, field work! ...
Dawkins seems just as religious to me as those which he imagines to oppose. A fundamentalist. Firm, unshakable belief, without bothering to ever verify anything. A bad representative for science.
And, yes, what he argues against is just a particular subset of the subjects of religion and spirituality and concepts of supreme beings and higher intelligences. He argues against this guy with the white beard who supposedly has created the universe. Which is certainly the easiest target, like arguing against Santa Claus or the Tooth Faery. The mistake he makes is that he lumps all the other stuff in with it, and acts like he somehow has proven that there's no higher intelligence in the universe, merely by pointing out that the guy-with-the-white-beard thing is a little silly and improbable. It is a little childish, and as far as scientific methodology is concerned a completely inane approach, and I'm surprised that so many otherwise intelligent people regard him as such a hero.
In the interview there, Dawkins admits that science has no clue what consciousness is. Doesn't seem very scientific to then jump to the conclusion that the universe of course doesn't have any. [ Knowledge | 2006-10-18 20:16 | 10 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Who is it that gets together in mobs and hunts down, tortures and kills people who are different from them? Who is it that teaches modesty, courtesy, and generositv but lives in depravity, rudeness, and greed? Who is it that can gather together the time, energy and money to murder millions and destroy cities for the sake of a flag, deity, or economic system? Not weirdoes, not kooks or cranks or nuts. It's the "Normal" people who do those things.
It's the "Normal" people who believe there's only one "real world" and it's the one THEY'RE living in. It's the "Normal" people who kill each other over differences in that reality, and if someone can't trick themselves into ignoring the millions of inconsistencies or can't gloss over the gaping flaws in that reality-construct, or can't even pretend convincingly that they believe that flimsy and self-contradictory world is ALL TRUE, rather than have their own illusory stability undermined or accept that other ways of thinking and seeing might be valid, the "Normal" people imprison those "mentally ill," and experimentally destroy their personalities by use of drugs, electroconvulsion, and brain surgery.
I haven't been online much recently, because we moved houses. And still no success on getting our new internet connection working.
But, hey, I've better capture a bit of the magic of moving to a new place, while it is still fresh. You know, when you go to an unfamiliar area, your eyes are more open. After some months you might just get used to it, and take it for granted, and you don't pay much attention.
The old landlord was selling the house we were renting, and the contract was up, so it was time to move. That was all somewhat more trouble than we had imagined. I guess we had some luck 3 years ago, getting our house deal worked out within a couple of days, without any significant obstacles, other than my very sketchy ability to speak French at the time. This time there was a mountain of paperwork being in the way, and it took a while to work out.
We're now in a town called Ramonville, which is still in the suburbs of Toulouse. A little further from the center of town, but not much. Around 10km from the old place.
The house seemed at first rather mysterious to us. It is a big old house on a hill, and it looked quite a bit like the Bates Motel in Psycho. Particularly when the real estate agent explained that some parts of house would be locked off and reserved for the owner. To store furniture, he said. We imagined that if one walked in there, one would find his dead mother sitting in a rocking chair, or something along those lines.
As it turned out, the owner is a very nice fellow, and the first thing he did was to show us what was in the locked rooms, so we didn't have to be concerned, and he even left the keys. And it wasn't all that far off. It used to be his childhood home, until like 20 years ago. And it wasn't really that there was furniture storage, but rather that those rooms had been left pretty much as they were, because he hadn't felt like getting around to sorting them out. Like, at the ground floor there's an appartment where his uncle used to live. An uncle who was a catholic priest who had travelled a lot. The place is stocked from floor to ceiling with his archives, books, pictures, travel reports, etc. And it was left like he left it when he died. There's still papers on his desk, cigarette butts in the ashtray, and a bottle of brandy in the closet. Anyway, it isn't really scarey, but rather peaceful.
At the top of the three floors there were rooms that were rented out to students. Also left just as they were. Not so much of a personal feeling to them, but again, nothing to worry about. And it all leaves lots of room for us.
There's a large garden full of fruit trees, and with room for a large vegetable garden. It even has its own well, to deal with the frequent water rationing in the summer here. Btw, I still don't get exactly how that can work. We're on a hill, around 50 meters above the town itself. And yet a 13 meter well will reach the water level. I guess the water follows the hills.
My little daughter is very happy with the garden. She will actually now turn off the TV and go and climb trees instead. That's good news. And her new school is just around the corner, so she can even walk there herself.
Now, a little history. This town is called Ramonville because it is named after Raymond IV, one of the counts of Toulouse. It used to be Raymondville, but lost a couple of letters along the way. It was named after him because he had a castle here, called Bellevue. And not just that, but it was on this very hill, roughly just across the street from us.
Today we're right next to a large closed off park and nature preserve called Domaine Latécoère. There's a big wall around it, and there's a chateau there. That's relatively new, though. But it is a little bit mysterious what goes on there and who owns it now, as it has been closed off as long as anybody seems to remember. Anyway, it is called Domaine Latécoère because it used to belong to the Latécoère family. Pierre-George Latécoère had a company that built airplanes in the early decades of the 1900s, and he's quite famous around here. Because some significant pieces of avionic history happened around here. The Montaudran airfield is close by. It was from here that Aeropostale started the first regular flights that transported mail to exotic places like Africa and South America. Latécoère was the guy who built the planes and the airport and ran the company. And his most famous pilot was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. You know, the author of The Little Prince. He flew a great many flights out of Montaudran, and lived in Toulouse for some years. This is all something that Toulousians are quite proud of, as this is still a big center for aerospace. So, many roads, schools, etc. are named after Saint-Exupéry or Latécoère. Including the street we live on and my daughter's school.
It is said that when Charles Lindbergh's son was abducted for ransom in the 30s and subsequently killed, Pierre-Georges Latécoère got very freaked out about it, and that's when he built that big wall around his grounds. Apparently he had in mind to buy all the land between here and the Montaudran airfield, so he never had to leave his home. He didn't quite succeed in that, but he still managed to wall in 10% or so of Ramonville in his park. Which is great to look at across the street. Just a shame that we can't walk around in it.
Anyway, back to Raymond IV. More than 900 years ago, this was the location of his Bellevue castle. Raymond was a powerful man. He ruled all of the south of France, from the Atlantic over including the Cote d'Azur to around where Italy starts today. And the Pyrenées, down into Spain as well. He was richer than the French king and had more armies under his control.
He was also one of the key figures in the first crusade, its leader in many ways. It wasn't his idea, but he provided a majority of the funding and the manpower. The crusade came about because the Byzantine emperor Alexis made an appeal to Pope Urbain II. Jerusalem was controlled by unfriendly powers who no longer allowed christian pilgrims free passage, and something had to be done. And despite that Alexis was extremely rich, he didn't really have the armies at hand to take care of it. So, he asked the Pope. And, apparently Urbain gave one of the most effective motivational speeches in history, and he got a bunch of French noblemen to drop whatever else they were doing and invest their fortunes and their armies into going to Jerusalem to kick out the infidels.
That was all totally insane, of course. But it seemed to make sense for these guys. And, well, I've read the former Toulouse mayor Dominique Baudis' book "Raymond d'Orient", which has Raymond IV as the main figure and hero of the story, and it is based in part on his diaries, so I can see the romantic appeal. But it was a brutal and needless adventure. The crusaders eventually prevailed, against great odds, by being more fanatic and ruthless than the opposing, much bigger, armies. You know, such tricks as bombarding a besieged city with the cut-off heads of their slain soldiers. And, after a few years and 10s of thousands of bodies in their path, they finally conquered Jerusalem, carrying out the greatest bloodbath of all, killing another few 10s of thousands of people.
Raymond refused to become the king of Jerusalem, even though he was the first and obvious choice. But he didn't have in mind coming back to Toulouse either. He picked out the city of Tripoli in what today is Libanon, took over the place and became the Count of Tripoli and built a huge castle, and his descendants ruled there for a few generations.
But, back to Ramonville. The reason this is related is that Raymond took off on his crusade in 1096 exactly from his Bellevue castle across the street here. He brought with him around 10000 people. 1000 or so knights on horses, their supporting servants, and a bunch of other people from Toulouse just chose to walk along. And we're talking about walking all the way, which took a while. Anyway, this is where those crazy folks walked. Straight down from the hill from here, the street is still called "Chemin des Croisés", you know, the path of the crusaders. Raymond took his money with him, and his best people, leaving his not very capable son in charge of a very cash-strapped empire. Which eventually fell permanently into the hands of the French crown some hundred years later, after a later Raymond didn't leave any male heirs.
None of that has much to do with living in Ramonville today, of course, but it is always fun to explore a little history. Now it is a fairly small town of 12000 people, best known for having the technical university close by, and various aerospace companies. It is rather green, close to open fields and forested areas. It is close to the Garonne river and the Canal du Midi (going from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean) goes straight through it. It is close enough to Toulouse that it will have a metro station some time next year, which will make it somewhat easier to get to town. [ Diary | 2006-09-27 09:27 | 4 comments | PermaLink ] More >
So, I've had this problem getting my internet connection to work in our new house. We're staying with the same provider which is called Free. They're the biggest, and provide an excellent package for little money. When it works, that is. Their technical support isn't easy to get through. In principle our line was all activated on the 11th. Except for that it doesn't work. I've tried all the plugs and dug through the house for any possible kind of phone outlet, but no success. So, I'll have to wait for somebody to actually come and look at the wiring in the house, which will take another couple of weeks.
And, well, my life grinds to a halt without a connection. OK, mainly my work. But it drives me crazy when I can't get on. So, in these last couple of weeks I've shuffled my computer around to various friends' houses and offices, plugging into their connections. Which was very nice, and allowed to me to cover some basic things and do my e-mail, etc. But not really to actually make progress.
I tend to shy away from asking anybody for anything. Sort of a personal issue of mine. I have to be very lost before I reluctantly will ask somebody for directions. So, I had internet connection at friends' houses recently more because they offered it, and insisted that it was no problem, rather than because I actually asked them.
But yesterday I got myself together and passed around a letter to all my neighbors, explaining the situation. See, I had noticed that somebody had a WiFi connection which seemed usable, if I only had their password. So, I was trying to locate who it was, to pursuade them to share.
Didn't take much persuasion, though. It is something I've noticed often in France. If you lay out your situation and your problem in some detail, lots of people will find it both logical and "normal" to help solve it. Of course even more so when you run into some nice people who aren't just being polite.
I had passed around letters to five neighbors. Within an hour or so I had had three of them on the phone. The first one apologized that they didn't even have a computer, so they're sorry, they can't help, but if there's anything else we need, don't hesitate to ask.
The second neighbor said he'd come by in an hour, and "we'll find a solution".
The third caller was actually the house with the wifi connection I noticed. And he said, yes, of course we can use his connection, go right ahead!
So, now I was almost getting too much help. Neighbor #2 came by first. His suggestion was to string a cable over to his house. And he's in the computer hardware business, and has his garage full of equipment anyway, and he'd be perfectly comfortable with that.
I say thank you very much, but I've better check out the WiFi thing first, as it would be less of a hassle if that would work. So, I visit Neighbor #3, who happily gives me his passwords and codes. He didn't know overly much about it, though, so he wasn't quite sure what was what. Two visits later, and several cups of coffee, I can't seem to get any of them to work. So, despite his offer that I could just take his laptop with me and work on that, I go back to Neighbor #2, to take him up on his proposal.
He offers to drive me to town to his favorite supplier, we acquire an 80m ethernet cable, and I string it up. So, now there's a cable going out my window, around the house, over the hedge, through his bushes and into his back window. And, voila, I have Internet. And he didn't even allow me to pay for the cable yet.
Good neighbors for sure. In France one has no guarantee one will even ever meet one's neighbors, as people tend to be very private. But one can be lucky, or actually have a good excuse for presenting them with a problem to solve. So, I'm glad I asked. [ Diary | 2006-09-27 10:50 | 6 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Wow, very cool! The Democracy Player from the Participatory Culture Foundation. It's a desktop application for watching free, open source TV. Kind of like iTunes, but for free stuff only. And better, really. Lots of channels, which essentially are PodCast channels. I.e. often amateurs that produce a weekly, daily, or occasional video show, which is freely available. Or some public broadcasting shows, and various other sources. All free, and all stuff that you wouldn't necessarily see on TV. Quality varies, but there's lots of choice.
The application does most of the work for you to make it really simple. You can subscribe for channels to be automatically downloaded, or you can browse around and pick things to watch. The content gets downloaded by BitTorrent. It gets played by the open source VLC media player, or other media players you might have installed. All of which means you can watch pretty much any format without worrying about it. The video just shows up within the Democracy Player, and you can blow it up to fullscreen if you want.
This is close to being able to change the broadcasting world altogether. I mean, if there were enough content here, I might not feel like watching normal TV at all. There isn't quite, but there's lots, and great stuff there. Diggnation, a regular show for computer nerds, similar to Screen Savers. Democracy Now, great regular PBS show with news. Popular podcast shows like RocketBoom. Etc, etc.
If it is this easy, all we need is enough variety to emerge and enough natural selection to take place in order to no longer need traditional media. Well, some distance to go. No traditional sitcoms, feature length movies worth watching, and real current news reports is still not very easy for a bunch of scattered amateurs to come up with. [ Culture | 2006-07-26 00:51 | 5 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Dave Pollard at How to Save the World, about the difference between the business done by big profit-for-shareholders driven companies, and that done by small, networked "natural" corporations that do things that actually need to be done.
Hierarchical Corporation's Offerings: Advantages to the Customer
Natural Enterprise's Offerings:
Advantages to the Customer
Recognized, popular brand (a salve for low self-esteem)
Low price (possible because of massive government subsidies and favours like 'free' trade agreements)
Efficiency (as long as your needs are standard)
Personal relationship (knowledge, trust, partnership, friendship, even love)
Customization (really have it your way)
Local just-in-time service (responsiveness)
Superior innovation
Low pressure (since supplier is not dependent on growth for survival)
Reciprocality (mutuality, flexible pricing)
No corporatist costs to pass on (huge management salaries, huge margins to achieve 20%+ ROI demanded by shareholders, massive advertising, marketing, transportation and packaging costs)
Resilience (reliability in the face of economic or other crises, due to superior improvisational capacity and focus on effectiveness rather than more vulnerable efficiency)
Quality and durability (no crap from indifferent Chinese factories)
Appeal to altruism (supplier is good to its people, its community, its environment, and good for the local economy)
Or, summarized well here:
Large, multinational, hierarchical corporations are not designed to provide customer service. They are designed to maximize margin and profit for senior executives and major corporate shareholders, by charging the customer as much as possible and giving them as little as possible. Under their charter (and under threat of dismissal or legal charges if they defy it) they can do nothing else; they are tied to this model of operation and decision-making. Worse, they have to grow each year or die. The model is inherently unsustainable, and Fortune 500 companies all, inevitably, crash and burn.
All Natural Enterprises need to do is focus on meeting customers' evolving unmet needs effectively. Talk to anyone who is buying from a small business with no growth aspirations, instead of from a 'competing' large hierarchical corporation, and in so many words they will tell you that is why. The chart at the top of this page summarizes the 10 enormous advantages a Natural Enterprise has over a hierarchical corporation, when it ignores all the absurd conventional wisdom (about growth, external financing, advertising, huge risk, endless struggle, the need to do everything yourself etc.) and just focuses on meeting customers' evolving unmet needs effectively.
As my book explains, doing this takes a lot of work, but it is low-risk, low-stress, low-cost, joyful work. It is the antithesis of what most people do (even those who should know better) when they actually start to establish their own business.
And this needs to be pointed out often:
There is no 'open market' or 'free market'. We live in the most tightly-controlled oligopolistic economy in history. These oligopolies buy politicians (and hence subsidies and favours), corner supply, buy up competitors to eliminate competition, and blanket the media with an unprecedented and relentless flood of propaganda called 'advertising'. We don't want to compete in that market, and we don't want to 'expand'. Growth is unsustainable, period. What we do instead is outmaneuver. We're better off starting businesses wherever there is a significant, researched, evolved unmet customer need that we have the competencies, knowledge and resources to fill. Every sector, every market has lots of them.
So, the anti-dote is to find unmet needs and meet them better and more efficiently than a large uncaring corporation can. Do that in every area, and network well. [ Organization | 2006-07-23 12:34 | 6 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Lt. Ehren Watada is an American army officer who has refused to be deployed to Iraq based on the war being illegal. Which he's right about, of course. But he's now being court-martialed. Does he have a chance? Probably, as his case is very well founded, and he's a patriotic model soldier, who speaks well for himself, and he has a lot of support. You're not likely to see much of it in mainstream media, but that can easily change. The Nation:
On July 5 the US Army brought charges against First Lieut. Ehren Watada, an infantry officer stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, who has refused to deploy to Iraq with his unit because he believes the war there is illegal. Watada faces up to eight years in jail and a dishonorable discharge. But in trying the 28-year-old officer, the Army is really putting itself, the Iraq War and the Bush Administration on trial.
At the June 7 press conference announcing his decision, Watada argued that the Administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq was "manifestly illegal" because it "violates our democratic system of checks and balances. It usurps international treaties and conventions that by virtue of the Constitution become American law." Watada also said, "As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order."
His refusal to deploy was an act of courage. It was also the product of profound reflection on taking personal responsibility for halting the US government's careening course toward authoritarianism and criminality--and of the legal justification for such acts of responsibility.
Or, see this article, with a video statement from Watada. Or a site with a lot more suporting material.
Being legally and morally right is not enough, unfortunately, as there are powerful forces opposed to letting him get away with it. But, luckily, the U.S. Supreme Court isn't entirely corrupt:
Watada's most crucial legal claims were corroborated June 29 by the US Supreme Court, in what Duke University law professor Walter Dellinger calls "the most important decision on presidential power ever."
In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court rebuked the Bush Administration not only for the Guantánamo tribunals but also for the entire view of executive power the Administration used to justify them. In a 5-to-3 decision, the Court ruled that the President cannot act contrary to "limitations that Congress has, in proper exercise of its own war powers, placed on his powers." That's just what Watada said about Bush's policy two weeks before: "It violates the Constitution and the War Powers Act that limits the President in his role as Commander in Chief from using the armed forces in any way he sees fit."
The ruling also supports Watada's claim that the Administration is breaking international law. It found the President's conduct illegal because it violated international treaties--specifically, the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. This has ramifications far beyond Guantánamo: It means the government must obey the provisions of the Geneva Conventions--such as the ban on cruel and degrading treatment and the obligation of an occupying power to protect civilians. And it solidifies the incorporation of other treaties--notably, the UN Charter, with its ban on military aggression--into US law. (For a more extended discussion of the implications of the Hamdan decision for the Watada case, see our essay, Hamdan and Watada, on WarCrimesWatch.com.)
But the Supreme Court doesn't have its own police force. So, like in other cases where it is the government that is the criminal, it will be the concerted actions of the public that is likely to determine the outcome. [ News | 2006-07-22 12:45 | 1 comment | PermaLink ] More >
Yesterday I needed to make an important payment, with money I had in my U.S. account. Without thinking it through very well, I decided that the fastest way of getting the money over here was Western Union. "Money in Minutes", you know. Had I thought it through better, I'd have realized that the easiest thing is just to ask my bank to increase my cash advance limit, and then take them out in an ATM. As I'd have to use the same cash advance limit to make a Western Union payment. But I didn't think that through at first.
So, I got my bank to make $1000 available, and went to the Western Union website, and ordered the wiring of the money. And it said it had been ordered, but before the money would be available, I'd need to call them to answer some security questions.
Now, it has been a lot in the news recently that Western Union has blocked money transfers for anybody with an Arab name, in some misguided attempt of hindering the funding of terrorists. Which sucks if you're one of the millions of innocent people named Mohammed. But that doesn't really apply to me.
But it turned out that they've implemented a new elaborate security verification scheme. Which consists of asking me questions based on what they've found in the public record about me. They asked me about 10 different multiple-choice questions. They were basically two kinds: 1. giving me a list of domain names and asking if I've registered any of them, and if so which one, or whether I just don't recognize any of them. 2. giving me a list of addresses, and asking me whether I've had any relation to them, and if so what city they're in, chosen from multiple choices, or whether I don't recognize any of them.
I own lots of domains. But yet they gave me several lists of domains I'd never heard of, which I told them. And they gave me lists of addresses I didn't recognize. Except for one, which was an address I used to have a mailbox at, 15 years ago. And then they gave me a list of 5 cities, to identify which one would go with the address. The problem was that my address at East Broadway was in Glendale, California. But the choices were "Los Angeles", "Riverside", "San Bernardino", and a couple more. I explained that to the operator, that there must be some mistake, the address I recognized was in Glendale, and not in any of those, but if I had to choose one of them, the closest would be Los Angeles.
So, then after all 10 questions like that, he informs me that, sorry, but I don't pass the Western Union expanded security requirements. Which, obviously, are screwed up somehow. Essentially they take the kind of stuff that is in one's credit record, or in domain registrations, and if there's anything that happens to be a bit incorrect, or wrong, or one doesn't remember one's address of 15 years ago, one is out of luck.
Now, the problem is also that they already took my money. I.e. they charged a $1000 cash advance from my account when I ordered the money transfer, which registered on my account immediately. And now the guy says he'll cancel the transaction, but that it is no concern of his how and when my bank responds to that.
A call to my bank, after they opened a number of hours later, reveals that all they see is that I spent $1000 with Western Union, and if anything would be reversed, they'd estimate that it might take 2 or 3 business days. Which in itself is ridiculous, of course. If you can do an instant subtraction, you can of course just as easily do an instant addition. But that is often not how banks work. I can spend my money instantly, but if, say, I do a wire transfer between countries, it takes 5-7 business days. There's no good excuse for that, of course. Anyway, in this case the problem is that my $1000 instead of being transferred "in minutes" got locked up for a few days, and I've already spent my maximum cash advance limit for the day, and despite that there were more money in my account, there was no way of getting at them that day. Oh, I could have gone and bought a huge dinner with it, and VISA would have charged it instantly, but that's a different matter.
So, what sucks? Well, Western Union is really cumbersome, has a dysfunctional set of security requirements, and operators who's job it seems to be to give you a hard time, rather than helping you. And if they don't want your transaction, they keep your money for several days more anyway. Which might well be because the banking system sucks. [ Diary | 2006-07-22 14:42 | 246 comments | PermaLink ] More >
Not such a long time ago, in a galaxy south-east of Paris, there was a battle between myth and reality. The Empire really had struck back - at least, in the vision of French photographer Cedric Delsaux.
An award-winner in the newcomers' Bourse du Talent competition, he is keen to preserve the illusion behind his Star Wars-inspired images. R2-D2, Darth and his storm troopers may just have been model toys, superimposed on to shots of Parisian architecture, but that illusion works.
![[Valid RSS]](http://www.newciv.org/pic/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
It used to be that to attract attention to a message you'd make it bigger, more colorful, more important-sounding. "Danger, don't touch the electrical wires!"
I haven't been online much recently, because we moved houses. And still no success on getting our new internet connection working.
