03 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
France has countless bodies dedicated to helping immigrants - a High Council for Integration, a Directorate for Populations and Migrations, several regional commissions for the insertion of immigrants, and so on.
Despite this, France's integration policy has failed, the Court of Accounts, a government watchdog, concluded last year.
Or in other words when cracks start appearing you try papering them over rather than fixing the cause. And if one layer of paper doesn't work you add another, and another... and somehow while doing this you completely fail to see what is in front of your nose. The ghettos are crime-ridden no go areas where the laws of the land are unenforced and where the police dear to tread and because the ghettos have this reputation for criminality no one outside trusts those who live there, thus condemning all those who live there for the lawlessness of a few.During one class she asked them where they came from and the replies were "Tunisia" or "Morocco". The (French) teacher apparently laughed at that and said "no no really they are all French even many of their parents were born in France".
That laughing off of a clear statement of alienation within second or third generation immigrants is precisely what I mean when I say that the elites won't listen to what they are being told. Oh and of course they don't listen when they are told that immigrants can't get jobs because of racist French people not hiring them either - a statement which is also undoubtedly mostly true. The French pass lots of laws banning discrimination but rarely seem to actually enforce them.France's governments have also done the PC thing. The headscarf ban was a Sarkozy idea and was a radical departure from the usual modus operandi. And the French government/media have absolutely ignored evidence that integration hasn't worked, such as the lack of intermarriage, such as the lack of self-identification amongst many (though many may not be most) and so on. The absolute worst thing that elites have done is build these social housing complexes, put people in them and then ignored the entirely predictable consequences of the fact that these become slums in short order and are places far removed from where jobs might be found.It's not an intefada. I'm an Australian SF author temporarily living in Paris; sadly I don't have my own blog (yet), but I'm writing a freelance article on liberte-cherie, the French libertarian organisation (www.liberte-cherie.com). I'm no expert, but I'm learning some things.
The problem in France is not the same as in the UK or the Netherlands. There, there's been an overdose of PC multi culturalism... but American critics are wrong to assign that to France. France HAS insisted on integration, as seen by the controversial ban on headscarves in French schools. And most French muslims do consider themselves French, to varying degrees, and Islamic extremism is pretty small thing here (there was far more protest against the headscarf ban outside of France than inside). So it's not an intefada.
There's just no damn jobs. White college grads can't get jobs, what hope do immigrants from regions with bad schools have? I think this is more like the LA Rodney King riots -- there's people there who want the French dream, just as in LA people wanted the American dream, but they just don't see it when they look around, and they resent the fact enormously. They can't change schools to get a better education because the government says you have to go to the school where you live, and they live where they do because of the zoning laws... which I'm no expert about, but I do know that the government owns 30 percent of all housing in France, and poor immigrants basically live where they're told. The government tries to give them everything and does it extremely badly, there's no upward mobility, and it doesn't breed a happy community. Religion exacerbates the feeling of exclusion, I'm sure, but the rioting seems mostly driven by economics and bad social policy.
So yeah, it's a stupid French government problem, but not the one some American critics are ascribing... however attractive it might be to do so.
03 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
04 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
04 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
This week [Sarkozy] has been forced over and again onto the back foot over the charge that he is provoking the violence in the suburbs through his uncompromising use of language.
On Tuesday it seemed that he was being manoeuvred out of the government front line, as Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin took questions on the crisis in the National Assembly - with Mr Sarkozy sitting beside him.
And at the weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday, it was President Jacques Chirac who delivered the veiled rebuke - saying that "the absence of dialogue could lead to a dangerous situation".
The interesting thing is that l'Escroc, Vile Pin & their media sycophants seem to think that conciliation (a.k.a. spineless appeasement) is popular with the French public, and that the immigrants can be fobbed off with yet another political talking shop and dialogue instead of any actual concrete action:For Mr Chirac and his protege Mr de Villepin, the crisis has brought out their deepest instincts for conciliation and compromise.
While insisting on the need for a return to "Republican" order, they pepper their comments with calls for "mutual respect" between communities - and the prime minister has even promised yet another "action plan" to tackle the underlying social problems.
In fact I think they are utterly, utterly wrong and that Sarko is going to come out of this mess in a far more healthy position. As the BBC points out Sarko does in fact have a real plan:But for Mr Sarkozy, who is Mr de Villepin's probable rival in France's 2007 presidential race, this is the same old "langue de bois" - or cant - that got France into the mess in the first place.
Ever proud of his willingness to "call a cat a cat", he refuses to disown his now famous comments that crime-ridden neighbourhoods should be "cleaned with a powerhose" and that the rioters are "racaille" - rabble.
Instead he calls for zero tolerance towards the gang-leaders and drug-lords who he blames for taking over the worst-hit areas and a boosted presence for riot police.
This would be counterbalanced in the longer-term by a policy of positive discrimination to help young French Arabs out of their depressing ghettoes.
Of course the BBC also makes it quite clear that the French media is not exactly highlighting part two (positive discrimination) of the Sarko plan and thus attempting to paint Sarko as "Rambo". The BBC says that this is unpopular:Even if a majority believe hardline measures to be necessary to quell the disturbances, most French also have hot-wired into them a deep sense of social justice.
They expect a certain tone from their leaders - one that recognises there may be an "issue" at stake, and "underlying causes" to be tackled. They actually quite like the "langue de bois".
So for once, Mr Sarkozy finds that his tough-talking is out of kilter with the national mood, which urgently wants a return to quiet and knows that the best way of getting it is if the government makes the right kind of gestures.
I do not think that this is correct. The French general public may indeed want the "underlying causes to be tackled" but I don't think they are quite stupid enough to think that a presidential talking shop will in fact tackle said underlying causes and I really don't think that either they or the rioters believe that "the right kind of gestures" will solve anything.Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has ambitions to be president, has not been much help. He called the rioters "scum" and said the answer was zero tolerance of crime. A better answer would involve job opportunities, decent housing and good education for these new citizens.
<Sarcasm>What can you expect from dumb New Yorkers?<Sarcasm>04 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
04 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
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05 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
France isn't France anymore; it's a cog in the United States of Europe European Economic Community European Union. The entire continent is sans frontières, and humans need frontiers -- boundaries, walls, fences, divisions between this nation and the other.
For the immigrants who fled Algeria for France, and even more so for their children who grew up in atomized "Eurabia," the only meaning they can access is the one they or their parents left behind; around them they find only a moral, religious, and nationalistic vacuum. As we Republicans have said many times about the Democrats, you can't fight Something with Nothing; that is even truer for faith-based immigrants in the faithless wasteland of today's Europe, where the only acceptable belief is nihilism.
...
We understand the concept of Americanism, even if we argue about what it encompasses; but I don't believe the French even have the word, let alone the concept of, Francism. How would it differ from Netherlandism, Belgism, or Italianism? America had the advantage of always being defined by a philosophy, an ideology, a creed, rather than the blind chance of people living near each other who happened to speak the same tongue. We have weathered the changes brought by the technology-shrunken world much better than has Western Europe.
I'm sorry to say that Dafydd appears to have fallen for the EU elitists propaganda. While the governing elite may like to think there is no border and that we are all Europeans today I don't think the majority of the citizens of Europe, even amongst the young and most brainwashed, would agree. Whether you call it Francism or something else France most certainly has a national identity and French people consider themselves to be French not European. Indeed in some ways the problem with the EU is that the population is still nationalist and considers (for example) that a British company buying a French one as an insult to Gallic pride rather than an internal transaction in the European state (and let me state clearly that the same applies to practically every country in the EU).07 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
07 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
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08 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
08 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
BEARDED Muslim activists have been wading into the night-time mayhem of the housing estates, megaphone in hand, and addressing the rioters “in the name of Allah”.
Far from inciting the violence, they have been urging the rioting teenagers to stop destroying property and go home. For the Government, the Muslim mediators have been playing a useful role calming youngsters from the mainly Arab estates who respect their authority far more than that of the police and local officials.
However, the Muslim mentors, who style themselves “big brothers”, are also causing unease in France because they symbolise what many see as a root of the unrest: the isolation of the ethnic Arab and black minorities into ghettos where Muslim law and outlook prevails. There is also a widespread belief — denied by the authorities — that the unrest is being fostered by the Islamists.
This is clearly a problem. Respect for religious authority is one thing but respect for it instead of respect for civil authority is a clear sign that the civil authorities have ceded control to the religious. At present I believe that much of the "protest" is caused by criminals who dislike the possibility of being unable to ply their "trade" because of the proposed increased police presenced that Sarko decreed. Now of course the crooks can't use this as an excuse that will be acceptable to all and thus said criminals may well look to a religious justification for expelling the forces of civil authority. Given the heavily documented racism of said civil authority and the appeasement mentality of l'Escroc and Vile Pin a fast speaking cleric who thought he could benefit from siding with the crooks could well manage to convince the government to do what the US tried first in Fallujah i.e. let the local community police itself officially. Of course we can be completely and utterly certain that the resulting tyranny will be far worse for most of the residents, particularly the female ones, than any racist behaviour by the French police has ever been but no doubt the MSM will gloss over this minor issuette for a good long while and the taxes of the rest of us will be spent maintainin the façade that the communities are peaceful while they indoctrinate the next generation of warriors09 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
If your skin is brown or black in la belle France, you haven't got a chance at a decent life. Now the wretched of the earth have exploded in rage.
...every American who believes in racial equality and human dignity should sympathize with the rioters, not with the effete bigots on the Seine.
and who wroteOut of 16 candidates, the National Front was the second contender to Jacques Chirac in France's 2002 election. And while the second election saw Chirac win with over 82 percent of the vote, it said something pretty stark that Le Pen could even be considered a contender.
So many news stories make it sound like these are immigrants, and they aren't. They are French citizens who have been told repeatedly that they are the problem, that their culture is shameful and should be hidden, that they are unemployable, that they are only good for crumbling housing projects and crime-ridden neighborhoods. That they aren't really a part of France.
The longest piece - recommended by Gregory at the Belgravia Dispatch - is the New Yorker one and, like him, I recommend that it be read in full. It is older than the others, being originally published in August, and thus not talking directly about the riots but it delineates the problems of France excellently and its explanation of the Sarko phenomenon and the fact that Sarko is just the best of a bad lot, not necssarily good by global standards, is very good. However it is I think wrong in one critical area, the economic one:People in London tell you about the bureaucratic absurdities attendant on their buying and refurbishing houses in the South of France—but they are buying, and the French are benefitting. Enormous sums flow into a black market—most of those refurbishments, as with contractors generally, are cash deals—and the French savings rate is incomparably higher than America’s. There is a lot of money at large in this country.
The occupation of southern France by English expats (i.e. people like me) is not in anyway a good thing for the rest of France.The people who benefit from the expat wave are typically the families of aged peasants who sell their fields and decrepit houses to retiring expats who have read "A year in Provence" and dreamed of replicating the experience. The money invested in property purchase drives up average house prices and makes it harder for France's poor to make that critical first jump onto the property ladder. Property on the Riviera is unaffordable even to classical middle-class DINKYs (Double Income No Kids Yet), let alone anyone who is not possessed of a regular salary and the spread of these higher prices means that affordable property is frequently only available in the most rural parts of the country - parts which are lacking in jobs and many urban conveniences.10 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Record company Sony BMG Music Entertainment has been targeted in a class-action lawsuit in California by consumers claiming their computers have been harmed by anti-piracy software on some Sony BMG CDs.
The claim states that Sony BMG's failed to disclose the true nature of the digital rights management system it uses on its CDs and thousands of computer users have unknowingly infected their computers, according to court documents.
...
The suit claims that around June 2005, Sony BMG began to issue some CDs that install digital rights management software that continuously monitor for rights problems, depleting a computer's available resources. The suit says the technology cannot be removed without damage to the system and that Sony BMG does not advise consumers of the existence or true nature of the program.
One could imagine that the class action will be joined by the makers of WoW and probably anyone else who makes software that scans for trojans etc.Update: The first non-Sony trojan to make use of SonyBMG's misguided DRM has showed up
Sony-BMG's rootkit DRM technology masks files whose filenames start with "$sys$". A newly-discovered variant of of the Breplibot Trojan takes advantage of this to drop the file "$sys$drv.exe" in the Windows system directory.
"This means, that for systems infected by the Sony rootkit, the dropped file is entirely invisible to the user. It will not be found in any process and file listing. Only rootkit scanners, such as the free utility RootkitRevealer, can unmask the culprit," warns Ivan Macalintal, a senior threat analyst at security firm Trend Micro
Second Update: Moonage Webdreamhas a (possibly partial) list of infected Sony CDs - if you have one then you may be infected ...
Also Sony has announced that is is discontinuing this particular strategy
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11 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
11 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!
They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and gray;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old troop sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."
They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.
They strove to stand to attention, to straighten the toilbowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.
The old troop sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.
"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of ‘to be continued' and ‘see next page' o' the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."
The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.
O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made?"
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!
11 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
"We need to respond in a strong and quick way to the unquestionable problems that many inhabitants of the deprived neighborhoods surrounding our cities are facing,"
I just love his on the ball thinking here. If ever an annual award for "head of state making a statement of the blindingly obvious" were to be given I think this one would be a serious contender.France could consider easing restrictions on certain highly regulated service industries and on business start-ups as part of a package to create jobs in poor suburbs, Thierry Breton, French finance minister, told the Financial Times on Thursday.
Although such a link disappears fairly swiftly. For example there is this:Mr Breton, ..., also said he did not expect foreign investors to be scared away: “They will see the disconnect between what is shown and what is real.”
Umm yeah whatever. Call me Mr Unreasonable but were I the possessor of oodles of loot that I wished to invest in business somewhere then a place where my investment is likely to go up in smoke is NOT going to be right up there in terms of attractiveness. And that ignores the red-tape burden.Among the initiatives being considered is an easing of regulations in the specially designated “zones franches”. Currently companies are encouraged to locate in these areas of high unemployment through a limited range of tax breaks. However, the Finance Ministry is considering a form of “positive economic discrimination” that would exempt companies from certain rules in place elsewhere.
These include relaxing professional qualifications on businesses such as hair salons and taxi companies, and increasing the level of state guarantees for business loans.
The ministry is also considering an increase of tax benefits and the elimination of restrictions on state-subsidised jobs.
So here I am - a hypothetical Mr Plutocrat - and I have a choice of where to invest my money. If I see some reason to look at France I have a choice of“We have put a lot of money into the suburbs over the past 20 years,” Mr Breton said. “But obviously it wasn’t enough. We need to work on how to create more jobs and growth in those areas.”
If you have spent bazillions and made things worse shouldn't you consider that maybe this is not in fact a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it?12 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Since 1997 the Labour government has created no fewer than 700 new criminal offences. This is supposed to be an age of increasing peace and prosperity. Yet the Labour party has been in such a continuous panic about the behaviour and potential behaviour of the British people that it has found 700 new ways in which to proscribe courses of conduct. In case you are wondering how that compares with any previous administration, Labour is creating criminal offences at a rate ten times greater than that of any other government.
This might not in itself be a bad thing, if society were plagued by a wholly new set of evils. But far too many of these laws are either vexatious, or else they are unnecessary since the problems they are intended to address are already covered by existing statute. The Terrorism Bill is a perfect example of both vices. We have already discussed the absurdity of the clause on encouragement or glorification of terrorism, which would seem to catch Cherie Blair’s apparently sympathetic words about the predicament of Palestinian suicide bombers. Charles Clarke’s answer has been to assert — without any supporting argument — that the law would not be used in such cases.
If that is so, people are entitled to ask what Labour understands by a law. Is it there to be enforced to the letter? Or is it just a kind of cosmic yelp, a gush of parliamentary feeling, not to be taken seriously by the criminal justice system? The paragraphs on encouragement and glorification are either odious and foolish, and theoretically liable to criminalise people who express opinions about the removal of some of the vilest regimes in the world. Or else they are simply redundant, since the present law on incitement is quite powerful enough. The truth is that the government doesn’t really mind much about the detail of the law. They care far more that in the aftermath of the London bombings they should be seen to be ‘doing something’ about the ‘preachers of hate’, even if that means doing something absurd.
A light goes on. This is the French approach. Actually, to be more specific this is the enarque approach - that is to say the approach of the slimy politicians and bureaucrats that have misruled France pretty much ever since Napoleon lost in 1815. Look at the Bliar approach to the July bombings and compare it with l'Escroc's approach to the current riots and marvel at the similarities.13 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Khan, 30, incites British Muslims to ignore the moderate Islamic leaders who want integration with British society.
“Our so-called scholars of today,” he said, “are content with their Toyotas and semi- detached houses” in their desire for integration. The message is believed to be the first of its kind in which a British suicide bomber calls on fellow UK Muslims to follow his example.
If ever we needed an example of how England is, in general, successfully integrating its Islamic immigrants and subborning religious extremism this would be it. Just as capitalism was irristible to those suffering under communism it appears equally attractive to those who come from repressive Islamic places. I wrote shortly after July 7th about a news article indicating the problems of finding educated Imams and I consider this to be further evidence of the same thing. From that post:Mohammed Rashid would like to employ a British-born imam in his Luton mosque, but limited resources and a shortage of candidates mean he has to recruit from abroad....
"We can't afford to pay our imam more than 300 pounds a week," Rashid explained as he stood in front of the mosque's well-kept, red brick facade, decorated with colourful flower baskets and t opped by a minaret.
"If our young Muslims know they can earn 500 pounds in the private sector, then why are they going to work as imams?"...
There is a chronic lack of well-qualified, homegrown English-speaking imams in Britain and, even when they are available, many mosques -- funded solely by donations from local, often deprived communities -- cannot afford them.
Indeed I suspect that anyone who wants to find an explanation as to why the Church of England seems to produce one loony cleric after another might want to look in the same area. Clerical pay whether for Imams or Christian priests and ministers is, to put it bluntly, crap and crap pay means that even reasonably devout believers are more likely to prefer remaining part of the laity.14 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
AMMAN, Jordan - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is on the move, or at least that's the message he wants to send.
With Wednesday's attacks in his birthplace of Jordan, the al-Qaida in Iraq chief signaled he has the capacity and desire to export his suicide-bombing campaign outside Iraq's borders.
Now, many in the already volatile Middle East worry his stated goals of toppling pro-American Arab rulers, erecting an Islamic caliphate and targeting
Israel may be gaining momentum.
His threat is not new to the region, but the three fiery hotel blasts that killed 57 people in one of the Mideast's most secure cities sparked instant calls for regional and international efforts to fight terror.
Officials in Iraq, where al-Zarqawi's bloody campaign is known all too well, repeated warnings that terrorism will only keep spreading in the Mideast, unless countries work harder to help Iraq end its raging insurgency.
And of course it is all the fault of the AmericansMost regional analysts and officials say they believe the U.S.-led war in Iraq has in fact created and worsened — not stamped out — a breeding ground for terrorism.
"Al-Zarqawi has proved a very fundamental point, that the Americans can't control al-Qaida in Iraq," said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi senior security analyst with the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. "Iraq is no longer a magnet attracting terrorism, but it is now exporting terrorist forces."
Of course you could rewrite this a bit. How about: As US and Iraqi officials have warned for years if terrorists are allowed to flow into Iraq freely then obviously they can flow out again equally simply; perhaps because Iraq has proven to be a dangerous place for terrorists Al Zarqawi is trying to move his operations elsewhere before they are destroyed.Significantly, al-Zarqawi demonstrated with the Amman attacks that he has at least some Iraqis, and not just foreign fighters, on his side.
The three suicide bombers who died in the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn attacks were Iraqis, as was the wife of one of the men, who failed in her attempt to blow herself up and was arrested Sunday.
I'm sure that once upon a time, maybe a year or 18 moths ago, we were being told incessantly that the "Iraqi insurgency" was a response by the Sunnis, if not all Iraqis, to the American invasion. At that time agencies like AP were down playing the existence of foreign fighters, hinting that this was just American propaganda. Now however it is considered remarkable that Zarqawi actually has some Iraqis amongst his fightersSome, however, cast doubt on whether al-Zarqawi had the ability to wage a wider war and whether the Amman attacks were a sign of worse to come.
"One event does not mark a trend, and Jordanian security repeatedly blocked prior attack attempts," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It is also important to note that it is far from clear that al-Zarqawi has a broad network."
Are the "some" in this bit more than the "many" earlier?While his commitment to waging his terror campaign in Iraq seemed unparalleled, Iraq may in the end prove just the beginning, says Alani.
"Al-Zarqawi is competing with the al-Qaida headquarters," he said. "With the Amman attacks, he has now proved that the brand in Iraq is able to carry out operations on a regional scale."
But it is importnat to make clear that this is just a viewpoint of "some" so we get more negativism from Mr Alani. One can't help wondering whether Mr Alani is now just a tad worried that his home in Dubai might now be threatened by Zarqawi & co? Perhaps he'd better bugger off back to London and travel on the nice safe tubes. Anyway our doom and gloom merchant at AP wants to make it clear that Zarqawi really is a threat to us all as he signs off with:Two attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killed about 100, including Israeli tourists, and were claimed by several groups, including al-Zarqawi's.
Jordan's renowned intelligence services have foiled numerous al-Zarqawi terror plots here, including a planned 2004 chemical attack targeting the kingdom's security headquarters. But officials admit it was only a matter of time before a successful attack.
Says Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian terror analyst: "Al-Zarqawi is gaining momentum and getting more sophisticated."
This is, apart from anything else, a report more notable by what it omits. Where, for example, is the "Jordan bombings cause backlash amongst ordinary Muslims" story? where is the "Moroccans protest at Zarqawi threats" story? where, to put it bluntly, is there any clue that Zarqawi has seen hundreds of his recruits and dozens of his senior leaders captured or killed in Iraq? reading this article you get the idea that Zarqawi is having things all his own way and that having turned the whole of Iraq into a "raging insurgency" he is now diversifying elsewhere. Inconvenient facts such as the fact that most of Iraq is peaceful and that the vast majority of attacks seem to be stopped before they are launched are ignored because they might give the impression that Zarqawi is looking for an exit strategy to conceal the fact that Iraq is now too dangerous for him. Where, to put it bluntly, is anything along the lines of Austin Bay's or Steven Den Beste's analysis of the counter-productivity of terrorism? (Thanks Vodkapundit for the latter link). Indeed the Vodkapundit (Stephen Green) wrote a very good article on the press being the key weapon in the current war a few days ago wherein he complained that the US government was losing the war because it was not using this weapon correctly and this piece looks like a perfect example of what he was talking about.16 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
"Everyone must know that the law cannot be broken with impunity. In the republic, no one can break the law without being arrested, prosecuted and sanctioned."
Curiously he forgot to mention that "no one" is a bit of a stretch in that the law can, apparently, be broken with impunity if you subsequently become M. le Président before Inspecteur Knackeur-Clouseau figures out that a crime has been comitted because you have immunity from prosecution.Criticized even by fellow cabinet members for the harsh language he used against residents of the troubled suburbs, Sarkozy - in charge of the police force and immigration issues - has made law and order his personal crusade as he eyes the presidency.
He drew fresh attention to himself last week by taking a page out of Le Pen's playbook, ordering the expulsion from France of any noncitizen found guilty of breaking the law during the violence.
His hard-line stance and his indefatigable style - visiting police officers and firemen in the suburbs almost every night since the trouble began - have earned him plaudits from the public.
An opinion poll published Sunday showed that he was the politician most trusted to resolve the problems in the suburbs, with 53 percent support, just ahead of Mr. de Villepin with 52 percent.
"Politically, I do not feel weakened," Sarkozy told the daily "Le Monde" newspaper on Monday.
The recent disorder, Duhamel suggests, "allows Le Pen to hold on to his electorate, but Sarkozy stops him winning more. Sarkozy has given a very energetic response."
I suspect that initially people were annoyed at the way that Sarko had apparently provoked the riots but it is becoming increasingly clear that his provocation was more on the lines of trying to get laws enforced universally than any thing else and that is something that people find hard to criticise. The BBC, which as I have noted before, is doing good work covering the riots, makes this point crystal clear in a piece entitled "Sarkozy shines amid controversy". Likewise Al Zarqawi Press points out that the Sarko vision is not limited to crime:The biggest champion of affirmative action is Sarkozy, who has become the main magnet of immigrant anger after calling suburban delinquents "scum."
While Sarkozy does not support quotas, which by law are generally not allowed in the United States, he has favored active recruitment in underprivileged immigrant areas and scholarships for the brightest minority youths.
Sarkozy also supports programs to educate imams. Some see this as a way to reach out to Muslims; some also view it as a way to keep tabs on Islamic communities.
(Note the utterly bizarre mention of how quotas are not permitted in the US)16 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Washington has said it is troubled by the alleged abuse of more than 170 detainees held by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and backs an investigation.
So why the scare quotes around "troubled"? Are you - in the words of Monty Python - insinuating something? nudge nudge wink wink.The state department said the US did not practice torture and did not believe others should either.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has ordered an investigation into the alleged abuse of the detainees.
The prisoners, many malnourished and some showing signs of apparent torture, were found by US troops on Sunday.
The allegations come as the US faces mounting international pressure to be more transparent about the treatment of prisoners in its war on terror.
And what precisely has the treatment of US prisoners, held in a variety of countries but not, in the main in Iraq, to do with the fact that some Iraqi authorities, in a prison that was raided by the US, been maltreating prisoners? There is in fact no link at all except that the BBC feels like it should remaind everyone that the US is alleged to maltreat prisoners.
The Bush administration has been swift to distance itself from these latest reports of prisoner abuse, reports the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington.
The US is backing the Iraqi government inquiry and believes those responsible for mistreatment should be held to account.
Fresh allegations have also surfaced of US troops mistreating detainees.
Two former Iraqi prisoners have told US TV they were beaten, fired at with rubber bullets and subjected to mock executions at the hands of US troops in 2003.
So just for fun we will now completely change the subject and talk about alleged US maltreatment two years ago.
While the US insists that it does not condone torture, it has lobbied against legislation that would ban all inhumane treatment of detainees.
Some senior officials have argued that the CIA should be exempt.
The US is also under increasing international pressure to answer allegations that the CIA is operating secret prisons abroad.
And just to make it perfectly clear that the US is 'normally' bad - even though in this case the US was on the side of the good guys - we will note that the US is having a debate about torture and secret prisons. While we're about it how about mentioning those sinks of justice known as French prisons which have been criticised by all sorts of Human Rights bodies for their barbarity? If you want to make a story about worldwide prison abuse then why pick on the US? if not why mention the US? unless of course the idea is to smear the US by association.
'Hard evidence'
The US raid on an Iraqi interior ministry building followed repeated enquiries by the parents of a missing Iraqi teenager.
Iraq's prime minister has promised to find those responsible for any abuse. Most of those held were Sunnis.
The allegations are a deep embarrassment for the Iraqi government, but, however shocking, they will not come as a major surprise to many Iraqis, says the BBC's Caroline Hawley in Baghdad.
There have been persistent allegations of abuse by members of the Shia-dominated security forces, she says.
But Sunday's discovery is hard evidence and officials believe it may be the tip of the iceberg.
So having smeared the US we now come back to the real story - or what should be the real story - that the new Iraqi regime seems to be less that perfect
There are suspicions the building may also have been used as a base for a militia called the Badr Brigade, and that such militias may have infiltrated Iraq's security services, our correspondent adds.
The prison is reported to be in the central Jadiriya district of Baghdad.
Mr Jaafari said he had been told that 173 detainees had been held, that they appeared malnourished, and may have been "subjected to some kind of torture".
Deputy interior minister Hussein Kamal, who saw some of the abuse victims personally, said: "I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had their skin peeled off various parts of their bodies."
Good more hard news. No mention that the place where the Badr brigades are most likely to have "infiltrated Iraq's security services" is Basra which is run by the British. I think this ought to be mentioned in any decent report. We could mention this instead of smearing the US if we really wanted to talk about the state of the Iraqi security services, and perhaps we could mention those British troops who needed to be rescued or that unfortunate American journalist who was killed.
Repeated allegations
Dr Laith Kubba, a spokesman for Mr Jaafari, said the prime minister was putting all his weight behind the inquiry.
"This is outrageous," he told the BBC's Newsnight programme. "It goes very much against the core values that the prime minister and his government hold."
But he said methods used under Saddam Hussein had not been completely eradicated despite efforts to introduce new practices.
The security forces have faced repeated allegations of systematic abuse and torture of detainees, and of extra-judicial killings.
16 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
A "24x7 national vehicle movement database" that logs everything on the UK's roads and retains the data for at least two years is now being built, according to an Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) strategy document leaked to the Sunday Times. The system, which will use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), and will be overseen from a control centre in Hendon, London, is a sort of 'Gatso 2' network, extending. enhancing and linking existing CCTV, ANPR and speedcam systems and databases.
What is rather more scary is that, the reg also notes, this vast expansion of powers is being broght in under a rather odd act of parliament and that, natch, the cops are going to go after the low hanging fruit when booking people:Civil liberties trainspotters will share The Register's pleasure at discovering (as revealed here, in the notes to editors) that the Disclosure of Vehicle Insurance Regulations 2005 "were made under powers provided for in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005." The seriousness of untaxed and uninsured vehicles is at the very least a matter of opinion, but 'organised'?
The new offence of keeping a vehicle without insurance criminalises the previously harmless pastime of keeping an uninsured vehicle in a garage and not driving it, and comes on top of the previous breakthrough of criminalising keeping an untaxed vehicle in a garage and not driving it. The latter was dealt with by requiring owners to register the vehicle as off the road via a Statutory Off-Road Notification. The administrative convenience of turning not doing anything wrong into a crime will allow the Government to issue fixed penalty notices for failing to renew insurance on time, while there's also now a fixed penalty for late renewal of tax discs (previously, you could pay in arrears). In both cases the penalties are clearly only going to hit people who've previously been registered with the system. Dealing with the large numbers of entirely unregistered and uninsured vehicles will require real-time alerts and pursuit, and these vehicles will have to be differentiated from the many foreign registered cars on the UK's roads. As it will be a lot easier and cheaper to fine the law-abiding but forgetful than it will be to deal with the hardline serial offenders, we think we can guess which way this one will go.
With legislation like this in blighty I'm rather glad I live in France. I just hope Sarko doesn't get any ideas from this.17 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Country | Corporate Tax Rate |
---|---|
Switzerland | 8.5%* |
Belgium | 40.17% |
France | 34% |
Germany | 25% |
Hungary | 16%† |
Ireland | 12.5% |
Italy | 37% |
Netherlands | 35% |
Spain | 35% |
UK | 30% |
17 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
To see whether CodeSupport is on your computer, try our CodeSupport detector page.
If you're vulnerable, you can protect yourself by deleting the CodeSupport component from your machine. From the Start menu, choose Run. In the box that pops up, type (on a single line)
cmd /k del "%windir%\downloaded program files\codesupport.*"
This is not an ideal solution ? depending on your security settings, it may not prevent the software from installing again - but it's better than nothing. We'll have to wait for First4Internet to develop a complete patch.
Update: Duh - should have realized that the LGPL code that Sony appears to have ripped off is in fact code written by the RIAA's least favourite programmer DVD Jon - ironic isn't it...
Permalink18 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
18 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
The same follows for the rumor that Google, as a dark fiber buyer, will turn itself into some kind of super ISP. Won't happen. And WHY it won't happen is because ISPs are lousy businesses and building one as anything more than an experiment (as they are doing in San Francisco with wireless) would only hurt Google's earnings.
So why buy-up all that fiber, then?
The probable answer lies in one of Google's underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn't just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.
[...] The advantage to having so many data centers goes beyond simple redundancy and fault tolerance. They get Google closer to users, reducing latency. They offer inter-datacenter communication and load-balancing using that no-longer-dark fiber Google owns. But most especially, they offer super-high bandwidth connections at all peering ISPs at little or no incremental cost to Google.
Where some other outfit might put a router, Google is putting an entire data center, and the results are profound. Take Internet TV as an example. Replicating that Victoria's Secret lingerie show that took down Broadcast.com years ago would be a non-event for Google. The video feed would be multicast over the private fiber network to 300+ data centers, where it would be injected at gigabit speeds into each peering ISP. Viewers watching later would be reading from a locally cached copy. Yeah, but would it be Windows Media, Real, or QuickTime? It doesn't matter. To Google's local data center, bits are bits and the system is immune to protocols or codecs. For the first time, Internet TV will scale to the same level as broadcast and cable TV, yet still offer soemthing different for every viewer if they want it.
The fascinating question is what happens when google collides with censoring states such as China or Saudi Arabia. Do they implement required censorship or do they ignore the market or do they somehow subborn the rules? One difference between google and the network inrastructure providers (Cisco, Nortel...) is that google benefits directly from greater information avilability whereas the infrastructure providers don't. For them the fact that censorship requires large and complex firewalls means that there is no clear business advantage for openness beause what they might sell in extra transmission equipment is countered by what they fail to sell in censoring equipment. Google is different. Short term I imagine Google will attempt to comply with the censorship but in the longer term I think it will subvert the regime because Google's business is to subvert gatekeepers.Update: Ann Althouse and her commenters have related thoughts about Google Print which are well worth reading. I think the following part of a comment there is particularly good:
I think therein lies the fear of the publishers -- they fear 'the long tail'. It's no secret that publishers are not happy about what the Internet has done for the used book market. Already, you can easily, instantly find used copies of books for less than new (and publishers, of course, get nothing from used book sales).
GooglePrint goes another step in this direction because it will make it much more likely for people to discover older books by text searches that they never would have found and known about otherwise. But finding these older books won't result in a gain to the publisher in most cases, because the book isn't even in print anymore--so if there is a purchase, the purchase will be of a used copy and, worse, the purchase may be instead of a new, in-print book.
Permalink18 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
The key elements for a functioning democracy are: a liberal market economy, the ability to remove by peaceful means those who govern us, and knowing who we mean when we say “we”. I suspect that the most difficult question to answer is the one which asks: who are “we”?
This comes immediately after the reason why we inhabitants of the EU fail to consider ourselves part of an EU democracy is explained, a reason which is why the EU should be treated with the greatest suspicion by any believer in democracy:Yet it has only been in the last five years or so that I have heard people in my constituency telling me, “I am not British – I am English”. That worries me. British identity is based on and anchored in its political and legal institutions and this enables it to take in new entrants more easily than it would be if being a member of a nation were to be defined by blood. But a democratic polity will only work if citizens’ identification is with the community as a whole, or at least with the shared process, which overrides their loyalty to a segment.
The trick here is that Gisela fails to analyse why people might say they are English not British. It seems to me that she should blame Phoney Tony and his Scotch pals for creating the Scotch Parliamant and (for that matter) the naff Taff Assembly. English people, actually I extend that to all British people, are keen on fairness (it is why we like bloated failures like the NHS because they appear to be fair - we all die equally of MRSA) and the problem is that at present there is a huge unfairness in the system that the Scotch get to elect people who decide things for the English but not (or at least not to the same extent) in reverse. I suspect that English self-identification is also a reaction against the multiculti crowd who are love ethnic minorities apparently at the expense of the rest. To put it bluntly until we expect the Welsh and the Scotch to identify themselves as British not as Welsh or Scotch it should not be a surprise that the English do likewise.18 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
According to yesterday's Le Figaro, he told judge Philippe Courroye during an interview on Oct 12: "I should not have done what I did. I regret it."
But he also said that the payments were made in recompense for work he had done on Iraq's behalf. "All trouble is worth a wage," he is reported to have said.
No decisions have been announced about possible criminal charges against Mr Mérimée. He told the judge that he did not declare the income to the tax authorities, according to Le Figaro.
I do wonder what the friendly people at the Trésorerie Public think of the third paragraph though... for normal people they tend not to be terribly understanding about such lapses but maybe its different if you are "Ambassador for Life". Further commentary on this is to be found at the Transatlantic IntelligencerWhat does it take to get promoted by Kofi Annan at the United Nations? For longtime U.N. staffer Abdoulie Janneh, it took less than two weeks after his recent testimony to investigators helped clear Annan of any role in his own son's alleged misuse of the name and privileges of the secretary-general to ship a Mercedes duty-free into Ghana — at a savings of more than $14,000.
Janneh's statements excusing Kofi Annan were included in a report released Sept. 7, 2005, by Paul Volcker's investigative commission into Oil-for-Food. Twelve days after the report came out, Annan promoted Janneh from assistant secretary-general to the U.N.'s third-highest rank of undersecretary-general. No one has accused Janneh of wrongdoing, and Janneh himself in an e-mail this past weekend replying to queries about the timing of his promotion called it "An unfortunate coincidence." But as an indicator of U.N. practice at the top, the tale of Kojo's Mercedes continues to raise awkward questions — which Kofi Annan's office has variously ignored or refused to answer.
But that pales into insignificance in the face of the inability of the UN press corps to get a straight answer on the whereabouts of the car in question. This would be funny if it weren't about such an important official:For the past two weeks, a few members of the U.N. press corps — especially the intrepid James Bone of the Times of London, and Benny Avni of the New York Sun — have been asking these questions, or variations thereon, almost daily at the U.N.'s noon press briefings. And Kofi Annan's office won't answer. What follows cannot quite convey the full-body experience of U.N. stonewalling, but it does provide a sample of what has become the ritual exchange between reporters and Kofi Annan's spokesperson (excerpted from more of the same):
Nov. 7: "About the Mercedes ... "
"I don't think we have anything further to talk about this car."
"I have nothing further right now."
Nov. 9: "First of all, have you found the Mercedes yet? Secondly, is Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, the one who claimed the exemption of Ghanaian import taxes at the behest of the Secretary-General's son, is he still with the U.N., and what is his post at the U.N.?"
"We have nothing further to say on either the car or the official that you're referring to. There were no adverse findings against them, and we have nothing to say."
"... we have nothing further to say. You can ask me many times, but I have nothing..."
"I have nothing further to say. This questions stems from your repeated questions every day, and I have nothing further."
"You are asking the same question over and over again. We have nothing to say on the official that you're referring to and the case that you're referring to, and I ... I have nothing further to say on this subject. I'm sorry."
Nov. 10: "Where is the Mercedes?" (Laughter)
Nov. 11: "Along the same lines of questions we are not getting answered, I'd like to review the question of where the Mercedes is, and whether any disciplinary action has been taken against the United Nations official involved in apparently fraudulently claiming tax discount for that Mercedes."
"James, it's like a broken tape recorder. My answer is the same. I have nothing further to say on the subject."
(Note to NRO readers: On the morning of Monday, Nov. 14, NRO reported that the official who had filed the claim for the import-duty exemption on the Mercedes, Abdoulie Janneh, whose recent whereabouts the U.N. had refused to comment on, had been promoted to the U.N.'s third-highest rank of undersecretary-general on Sept. 19, 2005, 12 days after the release of the Volcker report )
Nov. 14: "Now that we have found where Mr. Janneh is, can we find where the car is?"
"I think we're done with this conversation."
"We have nothing to say on the Mercedes. As I mentioned, there were no adverse findings in the Volcker report neither against the Mercedes, nor against Mr. Janneh."
Nov. 15: "On the Mercedes, do we have any update on the whereabouts of the Mercedes and can you assure us that Mr. Janneh imported only one car on behalf of Kojo Annan with a tax exemption?"
"We have nothing further on that case."
"Are you going to look for the whereabouts of the Mercedes? Because this is a question that we ask everyday and it's on the verge of comical, but we don't get answers."
"We have no further comment on the issue of the car and we don't consider it a U.N. matter."
"So the secretary-general of the U.N. owns a car and it was purchased with a tax discount given to the U.N. How could that not be a U.N. issue?"
"This is the statement that I have on this issue."
"Could you ask for clarification on that statement? And whether the secretary-general still owns that car, a question we've been asking for a long time. And what's happened to the tax discount? Has the U.N. or anybody else refunded the $14,000 tax discount?"
"I have nothing further."
Nov. 16: "... the question of the Mercedes... ."
"I have nothing further on that since what I said yesterday."
"On the Mercedes... "
"I have nothing further on the issue of the car beyond what I said yesterday."
Nov. 17: "The other day you said the issue of the Mercedes is right now not a United Nations matter, is that still the same? Are you sticking by that?
"I have nothing further to say than what I said the other day."
"Should we understand that the secretary-general has zero interest in pursuing this matter of what happened to the car in his name?"
"We have nothing further comments on the issue of this car and that's what I have to leave it at."
"It sounds like you're in an awkward spot with this Mercedes. Someone has told you that you should simply say that you have nothing further to say... .Who it is that gave you that instruction"
"I am the official spokesman for the United Nations and I take my guidance from the secretary-general ultimately."
I think l'Escroc needs to give Kojo & co lessons in passing laws that stop such impertinent questions from being asked19 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
19 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
21 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
21 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
The group was not reflective of young British Muslims. This was a middle-class, socially conservative group that was passionate about political Islam. And it was full of Pakistanis, with only a few African Muslims and Bangladeshis. Ordinary Muslims not too obsessed by religion were not to be found either. In other words treat these words as those of a significant, but vocal (and educated) minority.
This is, I think, important because it puts some of the griping into focus. There is nothing more frustrating for a bunch of would be "community leaders" to discover that their community doesn't really exist and to the extent that it does, doesn't want any leaders.The mood of the forum, held last week, had shifted in unexpected ways; there was less anger from the 60-odd participants from across the UK, but what had replaced it was, perhaps, even more worrying - a pervasive sense of frustration. Much of it is targeted at the government, but some is also directed at the Muslim community itself - why can't it make itself heard? Why can't it address its problems of poverty and educational underachievement? And the persistent questions about representation: who claims to speak for "the community" and why? The self-criticism among this group of largely university-educated Muslims is never far from the surface.
This is I think key. Could it be perhaps that the "muslim community" doesn't actually exist? There may be some commonalities between Muslims but are they different to the commonalities to other immigrants. There are, no doubt problems in some towns but can one generalise? do the Pakistani shopkeepers in Birmingahm (for example) have much in common with the unemployed Pakistanis of Nelson, Lancashire? or do the Nelsonites have more in common with the unemployed whites who live nearby?All us Asians as Asians need to move away from a victim mentality because it is de-moralising. Blaming someone else for your problems, or allowing people like Bunting and Lee Jasper to blame others, means you don’t gather the courage to deal with the problem. It is not empowering.
Then there is the "alcohol problem" (Sunny says WTF? but since Ma Bunting devotes a paragraph to it I think it is worth arguing). Apparently (devout) muslims find it hard to get ahead because they can't go down the pub and network with their colleagues.As ever, eavesdropping on a community talking to itself, as we did last week, throws up new insights: for example, non-Muslim Britain hasn't begun to grasp how big an obstacle alcohol is to Muslims' participation. As alcohol consumption has soared in the past two decades, Muslims have been left to negotiate its centrality in British social life - at work, school or university, or as neighbours - with great difficulty. Alcohol is probably now one of the most effective and unquestioned forms of exclusion practised in the UK, affecting every kind of social network.
This is, I regret to say, utter tosh. Firstly the prophet's strictures on alcohol consumption must be about as strictly obeyed by his followers as the Pope's ones on birth control and it's not like not drinking means you mustn't be in the same room as alcohol. Secondly I know many people, Muslims, mormons, former alcoholics and others who don't drink but who manage to be successful in Britian and/or the USA. All of them go to the pub / dinner / social event and drink water, fruit juice or what ever and manage to socialise just fine. Indeed I know a Muslim chap in the IT industry near London who is (was? its a few years since we last met) remarkably popular as an evening drinking buddy because he was the default designated driver. This is the sort of feeble whining excuse trotted out by losers to justify why they don't succeed. If you are willing to tolerate seeing your networking buddies get plastered and not look all disapproving at them or lecture them about the evils of alcohol they won't mind that you don't get drunk. On the other hand if you must eschew places that serve alcohol and public consumption thereof might I suggest buggering off to somewhere where they agree such as Saudi Arabia?21 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Despite knowing that non-Europeans were viewed with suspicion, I was arrogant to claim that I understood his frustration. Understanding how the "other" was "constructed" was not a substitute for their experiences and identifications. The rioters in the suburbs and cities are inarticulate youths who have not really tasted the frustration experienced by their older brother and sisters and their parents. As much as the "fires" must be put out, all segments of French society must turn to the population that it continually constructs as "the immigrants" to see it for what it is. They are not unassimilated, as the right would see them, or carriers of the Revolutionary tradition, as socialists have recently described them (do they really want to justify the Terror?). Hearing Villepin call for more education and more support to community groups to integrate young "immigrants," I know that Johnny is laughing.
Echoing this is a post by Joel Shepherd, who lives in Paris, who makes the excellent point that the countries that complain the loudest seem to be the ones who are most insecure. I'm not completely convinced (the Netherlands is perhaps the exception that proves the rule), but I do think that there is a good deal of truth in it. I also agree with his concluding sentences, and rather like the metaphor:In France, the government is just clinging even more tightly to the policies that got it into such trouble in the first place -- like that old story about the skydiver who freezes in terror on the way down, and clings ever more tightly to the ripcord, thus preventing his buddy from pulling the ripcord and saving his life. Open societies don't freeze or cling. One day soon, France will have to thaw, before it hits the ground.
Presenting a somewhat contrasting view is this Ha'aretz interview with Alain Finkielkraut that was mentioned by Powerline, Melanie Phillips and probably others. Finkielkraut says some things that I agree with, such as the remarkable closed mindedness of the debate going on in French media and political circles about the causes and fixes for the riots. And for that matter about how the same circles lable alternative views as "extremist" or similar without investigating whether there is any truth to them. He is also I think correct in his explantion that the back and African immigrants have become a "victim" group and therefore allowed, indeed expected, to act out in protests in ways that the rest are not:"Imagine for a moment that they were whites, like in Rostock in Germany. Right away, everyone would have said: `Fascism won't be tolerated.' When an Arab torches a school, it's rebellion. When a white guy does it, it's fascism. I'm `color blind.' Evil is evil, no matter what color it is. And this evil, for the Jew that I am, is completely intolerable.
"Moreover, there's a contradiction here. Because if these suburbs were truly in a state of total neglect, there wouldn't be any gymnasiums to torch, there wouldn't be schools and buses. If there are gymnasiums and schools and buses, it's because someone made an effort. Maybe not enough of one, but an effort."
The difference in attitude was IMO exactly what Sarko was trying to fix and which, if you like to pin the blame on Sarko, is why the rioters rioted. They didn't like the idea that their mayhem would no longer be tolerated. Likewise it is true that compared to Africa the banlieues are not exactly poor or deprived. However the poor chap was a socialist and an enarque and therefore despite his rejection post modernism and political correctness he still has problems with the idea of the limitations of the state and of the dirigiste model. He makes, for example, an excellent point in discussion of small businesses and their hiring practises:"But imagine that you're running a restaurant, and you're anti-racist, and you think that all people are equal, and you're also Jewish. In other words, talking about inequality between the races is a problem for you. And let's say that a young man from the suburbs comes in who wants to be a waiter. He talks the talk of the suburbs. You won't hire him for the job. It's very simple. You won't hire him because it's impossible. He has to represent you and that requires discipline and manners, and a certain way of speaking. And I can tell you that French whites who are imitating the code of behavior of the suburbs - and there is such a thing - will run into the same exact problem. The only way to fight discrimination is to restore the requirements, the educational seriousness. This is the only way. But you're not allowed to say that, either. I can't. It's common sense, but they prefer to propound the myth of `French racism.' It's not right.
But he also misses the obvious point about the discipline of the free market. If the hypothetical "young man in the suburbs" were going to starve if he didn't get a job you could expect him to learn on about day 2 of his job search to do his very best to speak properly and lose the chip from his shoulder. Another example near the end of his seeing diagnosing the problem but missing the root cause is this:"But if they have a French identity card, then they're French. And if not, they have the right to go. They say, `I'm not French. I live in France and I'm also in a bad economic state.' No one's holding them here. And this is precisely where the lie begins. Because if it were the neglect and poverty, then they would go somewhere else. But they know very well that anywhere else, and especially in the countries from whence they came, their situation would be worse, as far as rights and opportunities go."
But the problem today is the integration into French society of young men and women who are from the third generation. This isn't a wave of new immigrants. They were born in France. They have nowhere to go.
"This feeling, that they are not French, isn't something they get from school. In France, as you perhaps know, even children who are in the country illegally are still registered for school. There's something surprising, something paradoxical, here: The school could call the police, since the child is in France illegally. Yet the illegality isn't taken into account by the school. So there are schools and computers everywhere, too. But then the moment comes when an effort must be made. And the people that are fomenting the riots aren't prepared to make this effort. Ever.
"Take the language, for example. You say they are third generation. So why do they speak French the way they do? It's butchered French - the accent, the words, the syntax. Is it the school's fault? The teachers' fault?"
I'm sorry to say but there is a reason why these young men (and women) don't make the effort to study or to work, complain about racism but don't leave, and so on. It is brutally simple: they can get away with it. They get away with it because of the welfare state and its safety net which allows them to survive while making no effort. The only way to fix this is to remove (or drastically lower) the safety net. The problem is that I don't see how the white French, particularly the morons in the state sector, will ever agree to such an anglo-saxon approach. Thus I regret to say that I think that his conclusion is correct, denial is apparently a river running through the middle of Paris:And what will happen in France?
"I don't know. I'm despairing. Because of the riots and because of their accompaniment by the media. The riots will subside, but what does this mean? There won't be a return to quiet. It will be a return to regular violence. So they'll stop because there is a curfew now, and the foreigners are afraid and the drug dealers also want the usual order restored. But they'll gain support and encouragement for their anti-republican violence from the repulsive discourse of self-criticism over their slavery and colonization. So that's it: There won't be a return to quiet, but a return to routine violence."
So your worldview doesn't stand a chance anymore?
"No, I've lost. As far as anything relating to the struggle over school is concerned, I've lost. It's interesting, because when I speak the way I'm speaking now, a lot of people agree with me. Very many. But there's something in France - a kind of denial whose origin lies in the bobo, in the sociologists and social workers - and no one dares say anything else. This struggle is lost. I've been left behind."
However Finkielkraut doesn't really address the racism that is prevalent in France. I want to tie the racism in with the welfare state and the PC educational system because I think they are related. The political elites recognise that many of their citizens are racists and they therefore try to compensate, but because they are unwilling to actually stamp down on the racists if they keep quiet in public no one ever explains why racism is wrong or details how nationalism can be both positive and negative. Furthermore because racism still exists, rather than try to fight it the elites prefer to compensate by cutting their victims some slack. The result is that the victims remain victims and indeed become totally dependant on the elite for their survival and have no incentive to make an effort to do anything believing that they can get whatever they want through protest and government handout rather than through work. Given that this same attitude appears to be held by the rest of France it is hard to see how they will ever learn otherwise until the government finally admits that it is in fact completely bust.21 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Ever since the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan has turned its back on Asia in general and China in particular: its pattern of aggression from 1895 onwards and the colonies that resulted were among the consequences.
To engage with China requires Japan to come to terms with its past, and Koizumi's visits to the shrine represent a symbolic refusal to do so. Japan is stuck in its past, and its past now threatens to define its future and that of east Asia.
Firstly it seems odd to describe Japan as turning its back on Asia and China in particular when the first war that Japan fought was in 1895 against err China and that the second against Russia was all about who would have influence in Korea and China. It is also worth noting that the China of the late 19th century was a state in apparently fatal decline and up until the death of Mao there has been very little to learn from China other than how misgovern a country so badly as to kill millions of its own inhabitants. It should not be a great surprise that Japan in the 1880s and 1890s thought there was little to learn from China but much to exploit since that was to put it bluntly the pevailing viewpoint of the rest of the world.The rise of Japanese nationalism should be seen alongside another trend: the increasingly close links between Japan and the US. Earlier this year Japan affirmed, for the first time, its willingness to support the US in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. It has also agreed to work with the US to develop and finance a missile-defence system whose intention is clearly the containment of China. It is not difficult to see the early signs of a new cold war in east Asia, with Japan and the US on one side and China on the other. It does not have to be like this. If Japan grasped the nettle of its past and ushered in a new era in its relationship with China, South Korea and the rest of the region, it would surely play a major role in the evolution of the most economically powerful region in the world. Instead it looks increasingly likely that Japan will remain in splendid isolation from its continent, weighed down by fear, suspicion and anxiety that its neighbours, above all China, will seek to lord it over Japan in the way that Japan did over them for over a century. Its only solace will lie in looking across the Pacific to the US, which is likely only to intensify its isolation. Japan faces an extremely uncomfortable future.
This concluding paragraph is flat out bizarre. Given the statements of the Chinese leadership and their actions in sending submarines and aircraft into Japanese territoral space repeatedly it is hard to imagine what other response Japan should make other than respond with efforts to contain what looks like a threat. Perhaps the difference between Japan and, say, Belgium, is that Japan can in fact mount a credible defense of its territory. However saying that Japan reamins in splendid isolation seems to show a lack of knowledge about corporate Japan's investments in Asia that is surely a lie. Japan's corporate titans, from Toyota and Sony on down have essentially moved much of their manufacting to lower cost factories in mainland Asia, from Indonesia and Thailand to China. This is a funny sort of isolation in my book.21 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
It is not acceptable - and I say this without beating about the bush - for the United Nations Organisation to continue to include among its members those States which imprison citizens for the sole reason that they have criticised their government or their authorities on the internet or in the press.
Any knowledge society respects the independence of its media as it respects human rights. I therefore expect that freedom of expression and freedom of information will constitute central themes over the course of this Summit. For myself, it goes without question that here in Tunis, within its walls and without, anyone can discuss quite freely.
For us, it is one of the conditions sine qua non for the success of this international conference.
It seems the Tunisians had a bit of a sense of humour failure about this particular piece of "speaking truth to power" by an invited guest and retaliated by firstly harrassing as many Swiss offiicals as they could find and secondly by making sure than none of the Tunisian population could find out anything about Switzerland by replacing the usual www.swissinfo.org site with a friendly 404 error message.Richard Stallman, Mark Shuttleworth, and I are in Tunis, Tunisia for the UN World Summit on the information society. We've had an interesting day :-)
Richard is opposed to RF ID, because of the many privacy violations that are possible. It's a real problem, and one worth lobbying about. At the 2003 WSIS in Geneva, there was objection to the RF ID cards that were used, resulting in a promise that they would not be used in 2005. That promise, it turns out, was not kept. In addition, Richard was given a hastily-produced ID with a visible RF ID strip. Mine was made on a longer schedule, it seems, and had an RF ID strip that wasn't visible. I knew it was there because they clearly had us put our cards to a reader at the entrance gate.
You can't give Richard a visible RF ID strip without expecting him to protest. Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently. He willingly unwrapped it to go through any of the visible check-points, he simply objected to the potential that people might be reading the RF ID without his knowledge and tracking him around the grounds. This, again, is a legitimate gripe, handled with Richard's usual highly-visible, guile-less and absolutely un-subtle style of non-violent protest.
During his keynote speech at our panel today, Richard gave a moment's talk about the RF ID issue, and passed his roll of aluminum foil around the room for others to use. A number of people in the overcrowded-to-the-max standing-room-only meeting room obligingly shielded their own passes. UN Security was in the room, not only to protect us but because of the crowd issue, and was bound to notice. Richard and I delivered our keynotes, followed by shorter talks by the rest of the panel and then open discussion.
At the end of the panel, I went out in the hall to be interviewed by various press entities including Al Jazeera. Another item for my CIA dossier, but I'm sure my association with Richard would have caused more notes to be taken today. I was busy with the press for two solid hours. So, I didn't see what happened with Richard. But a whole lot of the people in the room did, and stayed with Richard for the entire process.
Apparently, UN Security would not allow Richard to leave the room.
Richard and I are actually here representing the United Nations, and are carrying UN Development Program IDs. I would otherwise merit a "business entity" ID, but I guess because of our keynote-speaker status our UN Development Program hosts ordered us better treatment. Richard and I also have some limited immunity as delegates to this conference. So, this was no doubt an interesting problem for the security folks, who had no real idea who Richard was except that he was someone reasonably distinguished who was visibly violating their security measure.
All of this completely disrupted the panel that was supposed to follow ours in that room, and the folks operating that panel were rightly furious.
UN Security eventually let him out, and then would not allow him to enter the room where he was appearing on another panel.
I got to the room just as the panel was about to start, at the moment that the problem suddenly evaporated and Richard was allowed to enter. No doubt some of our UN hosts had been dealing with security during those two hours, and eventually got an order from a high-enough officer or something. We'll probably never know who, but imagine the headlines: Kofi Annan frees Richard Stallman. So, I walk in and Richard relates the entire situation to me in front of the audience present, including more than one government minister, and other folks arriving for the panel. I humorously remind Richard that he and I both have immunity as delegates, and he responds "Well, perhaps then I should have killed Bob Kramer". Kramer is the CompTIA representative who comes along to these things to relate an pro-software-patenting and generally anti-Free-Software viewpoint which gets Richard very steamed up. There's a laugh, and I explain that our immunity probably doesn't go that far. Richard goes on to say that he wouldn't really kill anyone, but no doubt UN Security has heard this entire exchange too.
I didn't see anyone further molesting Richard, but I'd imagine he was followed around by plainclothes agents for the rest of the day. This, however, may not be unusual. Perhaps Kramer even got his own protective detail.
I guess I'm permanently on the books now as a dissident, if I wasn't already. Viva la Revolution!
So just in case you've missed the point, let me summarize:24 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
I perused your developed matters on your blog relating to the crisis that crossed several of our suburbs. Beyond your grotesque and provocative arrows of which I am the target, I was anxious to reply you personally for I believe the virtues of the debate and exchange, notably with those who are not in agreement to my ideas or my acts.
The first point that hit me while reading your blog, this is that it strongly leaves the impression that the current crisis suddenly arose, as by an unfortunate chance. You attach it in a manner réductrice and Manichean to my person and to some words pronounced by myself… These words, I assume their direct and frank tone for they are based on the reality of a daily one lived by a majority of our fellow-countrymen in the cities. Furthermore, I consider that the "politically correct" jargon that has prevailed for decades is not unrelated to the climbed extremist vote of which I fight since always the ideas and the leaders.
You know, does it seem, sufficiently "the neighborhoods" to know, at the far end of yourself, that the position is stretched since of long years and that the malaise is deep. Your film, "hate", that dates back to 1995, already evoked this malaise that of the governments, right as left, had to manage with more or less than successes. Limit this crisis to the facts and gestures of the Minister of the interior, this is, in a way and once again, pass next to the true problems. I put that on the account of a blow of poorly placed cœur.
The second point is that you appear to be done, without shades, the spokesperson for the minority that is the demonstrators rather than the interpreter of a majority of families and of young ones that also live in the cities and that in has enough to note as the culture of the violence and power struggles imposed on the one of the right state. Why have no word for those of whichwhose car were burned, the depriving thus of a liberty tool and of work harshly obtain? Why not to evoke these young ones of which the gymnases were reduced in ashes and these children of which the school is destroyed? Why, besides, not no to have thought for the 110 injured policemen, the firemen caillassés and the insulted doctors?
Your emotional proximity with regard to the young ones of the citys is understandable and estimable, but I feel that she drives you to accept this that is not acceptable. This is not to return service to the suburbs that to take does and causes for a minority of which the reprehensible acts and deadly sometimes very. I believe even the opposite. Live in a popular neighborhood or be the son of parents or immigrated grandparents does not authorize at all to launch cocktails molotov on the police and rocks on the firemen. To give to understand the opposite, this is, according to me, insult all the one and all those that, in conditions of identical existences, behave in responsible citizen.
I do not be unaware of at all the fact that behind this crisis there is factors more economical, more social and more cultural. I some measured extent and this is the reason I defend, notably, the principle of positive discrimination or again votes it foreigners to the municipal elections. It is times to break facade equality of which our country is customary since too a long time! It is times to give all its luck to plural France of which I consider that she is a trump and no a handicap! In this respect, I want to say you that the Police doubtless the public service the most representative one of this plural France than I call of my vows.
This new impulse of which the neighborhoods have so need, cannot be engaged in the absence of a restoration of the republican rules. The development of the traffics, violences, of the "turning", clandestine immigration, mine all the efforts that we can undertake. In these no-go zones the republican order is not the opponent of the progress, but well his ally.
We are in the presence of one of the urban crises the more complexes and the more aiguës than we had to confront. She demands firmness and a lot of cold bloods. These are these precise instructions that I gave to the police forces and of french police force. They act with a mastery and a professionalism that be a credit to our democracy. During the four last weeks, certain of our unities faced, in the calm and the discipline, to a violence of which I ask you of not under to estimate brutality.
Here the some reflections that inspires me the reading of your blog. I know that you are, with your trains and your convictions, to the research of a taken one of conscience of the authorities lives to lives suburbs. Since so many years, a lot of monies was engaged, a lot of efforts were undertaken by the services of the state as by the land actors. The results are not at the height of the expectations. We there have all our responsibility party. How do better and otherwise? This question, it is necessary now to resolve it.
Remaining available to follow, if you judge it useful, our exchange of lively voice, I you taken to believe, Mister, to the assurance of my feelings the better ones.
I do not know if this response is truly by Sarko or not, but it sounds authentic and it is precisely the defense he needs to make and has made in part on other occasions. Assuming it is authentic it is I believe a global first. No other leading minister of any major world government has ever blogged or posted responses to blog posts. While I disagree with part of the Sarko manifesto, in so far as it is known, I think that he is the first politician to really understand the modern world and the internet which means that he is likely to do far more good than harm. The fact that he is also the first mainstream politician to clearly reject slimy tranzi political correctness which blights political discourse in the western world and call a spade a spade not an earth-moving device can only make things better. No he is not perfect and yes he is frequently a media whore but while he may love to parade in front of the cameras he also does things instead of remaining aloof and he does actually visit problem spots and talk to residents as well as the policemen on the beat. His notorious "racaille" remark was essentially a response to an inhabitant of one of the troubled suburbs and was not objected to by those listening nearby. It only became a problem when it was beautifully taken out of context by the French media which generally speaking prefers the current order to his threatened changes.24 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Men in Serbia are lining up to have electric shocks delivered to their testicles as part of a new contraceptive treatment.
Serbian fertility expert Dr Sava Bojovic, who runs one of the clinics offering the service, said the small electric shock makes men temporarily infertile by stunning their sperm into a state of immobility.
He said: "We attach electrodes to either side of the testicles and send low electricity currents flowing through them.
"This stuns the sperm, effectively putting them to sleep for up to 10 days, which means couples can have sex without fear of getting pregnant.
"The method does not kill the sperm permanently and it does not affect the patient's health."
Dr Bojovic added patients were now lining up at his fertility clinic in Novi Banovci for the shock treatment, as it had none of the problems attached to using condoms, the male pill or having a vasectomy.
He added: "We are hoping to have a small battery powered version on sale in the shops in time for Xmas."
25 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
27 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
28 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Some analysts say his absence from the political stage has been carefully orchestrated to allow his protégé, Mr de Villepin, to appear as the nation's de facto leader, and a credible presidential alternative to his rival, Mr Sarkozy, who leads the UMP.
although the statement that "the president will stop at nothing to block Mr Sarkozy's rise to power - even if it means backing a socialist candidate" does ring very true. Unfortunately for l'Escroc I suspect that he may regret this attempt to block Sarko because I do believe that when (if) Sarko is elected he will insist on a thorough investigation of l'Escroc's corruption as revenge.28 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
While the killing of innocent people is to be condemned without question, there is something rather repugnant about some of those who rush to renounce acts of terrorism.
They rather remind me of trembling slaves all scuttling forth for the approval of the boss class in the hope of receiving a few crumbs from the big man's table ... oh, if only they knew how pathetic they really are.
I was reminded of such a vision just the other day when family members of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi renounced the terrorist leader after he claimed responsibility for the November 9 bomb attacks on three Amman hotels that killed 61 people.
I doubt the statement will be regarded as a serious blow to al-Zarqawi. I know he loves his mum - let's face it, we all love our mothers but who could really give a flying fig about some great, great aunt or ancient uncle once removed from a half cousin's wife's mother? OK, so he will no longer enjoy the protection of the tribe ... well that's not going to be a big deal either because they don't sound like the sort of tribe which would head off to help him in Iraq.
I mean he is hardly likely to bump into his cousins in downtown Fallujah or Ramadi to repel the foreign invaders and occupiers (that's the Americans and Brits to you and me).
It would seem to me that Yvonne has forgotten that his tribe is rather influential in Jordanian society with members in all sorts of government and military positions and may have intervened to get him released from prison in a 1999 amnesty. Furthermore her description of Zarqawi's activity as "repel[ling] the foreign invaders and occupiers" is not one that stands up to close examination since Zarqawi is cheerfully killing Kurdish and Shi'ite civilians who are not in anyway foreign invaders or occupiers (lest one worry that this claim be considered merely American propaganda, Juan Cole, a notable critic of the Bush administration, notes that Zarqawi is doing this and that it is is unpopular).What I can now tell you is that according to my man in the local Amman souk these demonstrators were Jordanian troops out of uniform as well as government lackeys. Their numbers were swollen with Christian and Muslim bedouins, all funded by the government ... no doubt courtesy of the boys from Virginia (CIA).
Now it may very well be that the government approved the protest and ensured that it received appropriate permissions, security etc. but it is quite a stretch to move that into "funded" and no evidence other than hearsay from "some bloke down the souk" is presented to gainsay it.In fact, to be brutally frank, Jordan provides backing, support and intelligence to the American military which is carrying out genocide in neighbouring Iraq. Thousands of residents have been wiped out in the cities of Tal Afar, Qaim, Karabila, Haditha and Husayba, as they had done earlier with Falluja. Masjids, schools and hospitals have been trashed, but not one peep of criticism comes out of Jordan or its mealy-mouthed media.
How on earth can these malignant rulers and corrupt journalists sleep at night? Hmm, I suppose when you have no backbone or conscience then it doesn't matter how lumpy the mattress is.
As I said earlier in this column, it is very hard to justify the deaths of innocents. But you know, I wonder if you see that attack on the Jordanian hotels in a different light now?
I really think that Yvonne should consider who is killing the civilians in Iraq. Why just last week the "insurgents" managed to kill and maim dozens of women and children outside a hospital and a week earlier they killed 74 worshippers at two Mosques in Khanaqin:On Friday, the suicide bombers wandered into the Sheik Murad mosque and the Grand Mosque during noon prayers and detonated explosives strapped to their bodies, police and survivors said. The blasts ripped down part of the Grand Mosque's roof and heavily damaged the other place of worship.
I am indeed forced to turn the questions at the end back on Yvonne, how can she sleep knowing that the people she supports are killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians? And I agree it is hard to justify the deaths of innocents but I would look on a report of the killing of Ms Ridley in a different light now.28 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
... Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Tuesday’s gathering was that it was genuinely all-party. The event was hosted by two MPs, Michael Gove, a Conservative, and Gisela Stuart, a former minister under Blair. Denis MacShane, Europe Minister until June, is a signatory of society’s statement of principles.
The truth which I expose today is that the Henry Jackson Society is not a secret cabal designed, as one Guardian columnist put it last week, to create “a new governing consensus of the right” but quite the opposite. It has neoconservative members. But it also has social democrats and traditional conservatives. Socialists would feel comfortable with its aims - “the spread of democracy, using all realistic and available means - not only on idealistic grounds, but also because this is the surest guarantee of…security.” And it is not about American dominion but the very absence of empire. There is indeed a mission to change the world. But it is to rid it of tyranny and to give all people the liberty as we enjoy in the West.
I'm sure that at some point I'll find a reason to disagree with her but from what I'm seeing so far she seems to be precisely the sort of politician that we need more of, in England, Britain and, for what it is worth, in Europe and the world. Perhaps more to the point while I may well end up at some point disagreeing with her policy prescriptions I do think that we share many of the same values and that is enough to make me want to see her career progress.29 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
We are not deaf to the arguments against custody for juvenile criminals. We know that many young offenders' institutions are no more than training schools for a life of crime. But that is an argument for better detention regimes. It would be all very well to impose non-custodial sentences, if only the alternatives to imprisonment were a real punishment.
The trouble is that most young muggers regard community service orders as a bit of a laugh. They suspect, as we all do, that the desire of the authorities to relieve prison overcrowding is much stronger than their will to punish crime.
The only way to stop the horror of street muggings is to make offenders genuinely frightened of the consequences of their actions. Lord Phillips's new guidelines will make them less afraid than ever.
There would seem to be an obvious solution - introduce a non-custodial sentence that causes major discomfort to the criminal. Something like, say, corporal punishment or being placed in the stocks for a day or two. Of course anything like this will offend too many liberal do-gooders who will worry that we will harm the self-esteem of the poor little darlings or otherwise open them up for psychological trauma, but it seems to me that ten minutes of being beaten is far less traumatic than six months locked up in a prison and far less likely to lead to long term harm because it will not lead to them missing school or their families.This is one thing that middle-class adult smokers who support liberalising drugs don’t understand. As adults it may not be affecting their brain chemistry doing it once a week. They also have jobs to go to. They may control it. But these young kids don’t. When the liberal classes have the view that 'oh, we can all smoke a bit', they do not realise how it generates crime for young people here who need to finance their habit. By not making drugs seem like a big deal, by decriminalising the drug, they are criminalising the kids. This sanctioning of drugs pushes poor kids into bullying at school, then into low-level crime to get the money for drugs. This introduces them to criminality. Most children don’t begin with the desire or the confidence to rob someone. But once they bully for items at school they gradually build up and their targets become more frequent and bigger until they rob adults.
I think there is a key point here. By decriminalizing as opposed to legalizing drugs we get the worst of both worlds. We still pay the high prices for drugs and criminalize the suppliers and hence make it more likely that addicts in turn will also become criminals to pay for their habit, but yet because we do not punish posession we lose all the benefits of regulation that come from a legal supply. If we legalize posession of drugs but tax them and (as with tobacco and alcohol) set a minimum age to sell it we immediately gain the benefit of cutting out an entire criminal funding scheme and we also get to control its distribution by means of licensing thus helping to reduce distribution to minors. Now of course this isn't the only problem, Shaun's article lists a whole bunch, but they all stem from the same do-gooder mindset that treats the poor as victims and fails to realise that the poor are just as capable of making rational cost/benefit and risk/reward analyses as others when it comes to basic things like whether to get pregnant, mug someone or smoke drugs all the time. Reversing this institutional victimology and freeing its victims from their worthless slavery is going to be hard but it has to be better than letting things continue and is precisely what Sarko is trying to do here in France.29 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Howitt A (Alison)
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 4:47 PM
> > To: '[email protected]'
> > Subject: Copyright material
> > Importance: High
> >
> > Hi, we have been made aware of the following site -
http://www.toque.co.uk which I understand you host. If you follow thislink
you will see that they currently have a copy of the Scottish
Parliament web site - http://www.toque.co.uk/witan/home.htm
> >
> > Whilst we do not want to make a huge issue of this we were hoping
that you would be able to remove the page concerned. This has already
hit the media and we don't want to make this worse and I would
appreciate any information you can give me on how to proceed.
> >
> > Many thanks
> >
> > Alison
30 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
30 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Spitzer's office dispatched investigators who, disguised as customers, were able to purchase affected CDs in New York music retail outlets -- and to do so more than a week after Sony BMG recalled the disks. The investigators bought CDs at stores including Wal-Mart (WMT), BestBuy (BBY), Sam Goody, Circuit City (CC), FYE, and Virgin Megastore, according to a Nov. 23 statement from Spitzer's office.
...
MORE PRESSURE. "It is unacceptable that more than three weeks after this serious vulnerability was revealed, these same CDs are still on shelves, during the busiest shopping days of the year," Spitzer said in a written statement. "I strongly urge all retailers to heed the warnings issued about these products, pull them from distribution immediately, and ship them back to Sony."
This is not good and means that Sony has problems in the three of the most important US states: Texas, California and New York. Of course it isn't just Sony that is hurting, the artists whose CDs were afflicted with the root scheme are losing sales too:Sony BMG had promised the CD would be swapped out with non-rootkit CDs. Instead, the rootkit CDs simply were pulled, Schilling says. "It's obviously very bothersome," he says.
"HARMING THE ARTIST." That means Van Zant's CD and others were not on the shelves for the busiest shopping weekend of the year. Sony BMG has told Van Zant to expect a 50% to 80% decrease in sales when the new numbers come out on Nov. 30. That's in a week that should have seen a 50% to 80% increase in sales. The week of Nov. 9 to 16, Van Zant's sales actually jumped a point, a spurt Schilling attributes to exposure from the Country Music Awards.
Now that retailers are pulling the CD, there's potential for a 50,000- to 60,000-unit loss, Schilling says. "I believe they [Sony] went in with good intentions, but it turned into an unprecedented situation," Schilling says. "It certainly is harming the artist.... There's going to have to be some commitment made on Sony's side to their artists." To say nothing of the assurances Sony BMG may need to make to consumers and a couple of states' attorneys general.
BTW I can't help noting that Mr Schilling seems to be using understatement in a terribly British fashion - one wonders whether "very bothersome" was not originally spiced up a little....That's when F-Secure got into the act. Guarino sent an e-mail to the Finnish company, since it makes the rootkit-detector software that he used to investigate. F-Secure did its own investigation and notified Sony DADC, which manufactures Sony BMG CDs, on Oct. 4. Sony BMG says the e-mail, which was forwarded to it on Oct. 7, didn't signal a serious security issue. F-Secure said its rootkit-detection software had spotted a potential rootkit in XCP.
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS. "This e-mail, which we have also reviewed, seems to be about a routine matter," says Hesse. "While it did introduce the notion of a 'rootkit,' it did not suggest that this software was anything but benign."
Nevertheless, Sony BMG asked First4Internet to investigate. Both Sony BMG and F-Secure say that it was on Oct. 17 that F-Secure first spelled out the full scope of the problem to Sony. The security company's report on the matter, sent that day to First4Internet and Sony BMG, confirmed there was a rootkit in XCP and warned that it made it possible for hackers to hide viruses and protect them from antivirus software products. F-Secure referred to XCP as a "major security risk," according to a copy of the e-mail supplied to BusinessWeek Online by F-Secure.
Note the sentence I have bolded. Anyone who can state with a straight face that a "rootkit" is "benign" is clearly unaware of some farily basic security points. I'm sure that F-Secure's initial contact was polite and did not stress the danger because I'm sure that F-Secure assumed (obviously incorrectly) that Sony understood why rootkits are bad things. It is sort of like a car magazine sending an email to GM saying that they have discovered that while driving a GM car that the door opens when the car goes around the corner. Further evidence that Sony BMG should not be left in the same room as a computer follows:Next, F-Secure and Sony BMG held their own conference call. F-Secure says Sony BMG didn't seem inclined to do anything about the CDs that were already in circulation. "We told them it was a major security risk," says Santeri Kangas, F-Secure's director of research, who was on the call. "They thought we were silly. They wanted to keep the problem quiet." Sony BMG disputes this account.
Since the blowup, Sony BMG has been analyzing what transpired in search of what it should have done differently. "Right now, we are in the process of reviewing all of these initiatives," Hesse notes.
I think lesson one would be learn what a computer is and go on a few computer security courses and lesson two boils down to stop treating your customers as if they are criminals and maybe you'll get some loyalty. Lesson three is that if someone reports a problem you immediately figure out how to fix it and, if it is because of a third party vendor, you have daily update calls to keep informed of the status.Do other companies put this kind of spyware on your computer?
I'm afraid so. Reputable companies don't, but not all companies are reputable. The worst offenders that I know of are the suppliers of clients for peer-to-peer file sharing networks such as KaZaA.