Ambient Irony

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I'm Amelia, and you're late.

Wednesday, June 08

Senate "Communists": Reynolds

Glenn Reynolds thinks the US Senate is a bunch of communists. "I have here a list of 100 communists in the government", Reynolds said today, a clear reference to the 100-member upper house.

"Fortunately, the blogosphere is more careful", Reynolds added. Yes we are. more...

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Zimbabwe Pundit

News about the situation in Zimbabwe - from a Zimbabwean.

More also at Samizdata and Belmont Club.

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Tuesday, June 07

Never A-fucking-gain

We had the famines in Ukraine. (7 million dead.) We had the Great Leap Forward in China. (30 million dead.) We had Cambodia. (2 million dead.) And Uganda and Angola and Ethiopia and Somalia. And now it's happening again.

President Robert Mugabe's onslaught against Zimbabwe's cities has escalated to claim new targets, with white-owned factories and family homes being demolished in a campaign that has left 200,000 people homeless.
Across the country, Mr Mugabe is destroying large areas of heaving townships and prosperous industrial areas alike.
The aim of this brutal campaign is, says the official media, to depopulate urban areas and force people back to the "rural home".

If that last paragraph doesn't send a chill up your spine, then you weren't paying attention during the 20th century.

Across Zimbabwe, the United Nations estimates that 200,000 people have lost their homes, with the poorest townships bearing the brunt of Mr Mugabe's onslaught. "The vast majority are homeless in the streets," said Miloon Kothari, the UN's housing representative. He added that "mass evictions" were creating a "new kind of apartheid where the rich and the poor are being segregated".

Yes, Mr Kothari. And what do you plan to do about it?

Earlier, bulldozers had begun wrecking the adjacent industrial area. Ian Lawson, the owner, was assured by a senior police officer that the site would be spared.
But at 6am last Tuesday, 10 lorries filled with police arrived and the destruction began.
"The police officer said to me 'Why are you running for help? No one can help you now. Not even God can help you. We are going to destroy this place'," said Mr Lawson, 60.

God may not be able to help. But a few hundred UN troops could.

If they weren't too busy raping goats.

Virtually all the areas singled out for demolition voted for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the last elections. The MDC says that Mr Mugabe ordered the destruction as a deliberate reprisal. But the regime is also seeking to depopulate the cities, driving people into the countryside where the MDC is virtually non-existent and the ruling Zanu-PF Party dominates.
The Herald, the official daily newspaper, urged "urbanites" to go "back to the rural home, to reconnect with one's roots and earn an honest living from the soil our government repossessed under the land reform programme".

Subsistence agriculture - if they are lucky. Mass starvation, more likely.

Again.

Again.

AGAIN.

And this time, no-one can say they didn't know.

(via Tim Blair)

Update: Bob of canadiancomment reminds us that Zimbabwe is on the UN Human Rights Commission.

Burning the homes and businesses of the citizens of your country, forcing many others to leave their homes at gunpoint, and arresting journalists that are trying to cover the event, and that's just in the last week. So what would a country have to do to not be considered for a position on the Human Rights Commission, or is it even possible to be a big enough abuser of human rights that you may not even qualify? I was just wondering.

I'm wondering too. Hell, even the Guardian is wondering:

In April, Zimbabwe was re-elected to the UN Human Rights Commission for the third year running by satirically minded African states...

Gah.

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1 Paging Walter Duranty, Robert Mugabe has an assignment for you. Don't worry, the mass starvation will have nothing to do with Zimbabwean gov't action. The problems (which for the most will not exist) will all be caused by poor harvests due to bad weather.

Posted by: TallDave at Tuesday, June 07 2005 12:46 PM (9XE6n)

2 You are right to bring up the issue, but perhaps you can make some concrete suggestions about what your good readers should do. Sounds like Kolthari, who is simply a reporter to the UN Human Rights Commission is doing all that his mandate permits him to do by raising his voice. Others like you have to run with it. Those in Australia should check out the suggestions listed at the Zimbabwe Information Centre, an NGO established in NSW. http://www.zic.com.au/action.htm. Good information is also available at this blog: http://www.willisms.com/archives/2005/04/mugabes_zimbabw.html. Mugabe has turned a bread basket into a basket case, and the world has stood idly by. Mugabe plays us all for fools, who will wring our hands at action, but then step up with food relief as he forces his own people into starvation. Action to remove Mugabe would require a resolution of the UN Security Council; but Mugabe is not threatening his neighbors with WMDs, so the rest of the world prefers not to establish precedents for interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. The only other decent option is to move to have Mugabe indicted by the International Criminal Court, in the same manner that cases are now being brought against Sudanese leaders. Although Condoleezza Rice calls Zimbabwe one of the "outposts of tyranny", her words are empty. This Administration has no interest in insisting that the UN Security Council do anything about Zimbabwe. The US, although originally a chief driver of the ICC, now is firmly against the court, and so cannot push the court to take action against Mugabe. No one else has saw fit to request the Security Council to consider action against Zimbabwe. It seem that the hope has been that Mbeke of South Africa would persuade Mugabe to step down, but whatever "quiet diplomacy" Mbeke has been apply certainly is having no effect. This is a real hole in the international system, as has been pointed out in this recent discussion in the UK House of Lords: http://skidelskyr.com/index.php?id=2,48,0,0,1,0. Clearly the world would be better off if the UN were strengthened and given a mandate to act more proactively to deal with regimes such as Zimbabwe, but arguable there are many places where an intervention may be justified, and very few clear criteria to limit the potential scope. What would you propose?

Posted by: Tokyo Tom at Wednesday, June 08 2005 01:10 AM (R+EaW)

3 The wonderful thing about Mugabe is that he will be dead soon, and hell, like diamonds, is forever. I feel sorry for his people, just like I do for those dying of the Arab genocide of Africans in Darfur. What, you guys didn't hear its Arab militia has been systematically targeting African Christians and Muslims? That might have something to do with the fact that the media has spent the last two years trying to launch a witch hunt against anyone that might have sneezed near a copy of the Koran in an effort to oust President Bush instead of focusing on the real evils of the world.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at Wednesday, June 08 2005 01:21 AM (CO4eV)

4 The fundamental problem with the UN is that it doesn't represent people, it represents governments. There are many governments in the world who would be uncomfortable in seeing Mugabe removed, because they could be next. The UN will never be a useful body because of this. What should be done? Let's ask instead, what needs to be done, and what solutions would work. Mugabe is the problem. He needs to be removed. How, short of war? I see no way, short of war.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 08 2005 02:15 AM (AIaDY)

5 Confederate Yankee, yes, I'm aware of the atrocities being committed in Sudan. It's just not what I'm upset about today. I can only get upset about so many things at once before my brain goes into a spin and I have to post some more puppy pictures. What's happening in Zimbabwe upset me particularly because it so closely parallels the appalling humanitarian disasters in China and Cambodia. It's completely predictable, and we are very likely going to sit by and watch. Do we invade every time some communist fruitcake starts destroying his own country? Is it wise? Is it even possible? I don't know. But if we see two million people die over the next five years, knowing we could have prevented it - what then?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 08 2005 02:20 AM (AIaDY)

6 This Administration has no interest in insisting that the UN Security Council do anything about Zimbabwe. What would you expect the Security Council to do? Given their remarkable action on Iraq... The US, although originally a chief driver of the ICC, now is firmly against the court, and so cannot push the court to take action against Mugabe. What would you expect the ICC to do? Action to remove Mugabe would require a resolution of the UN Security Council No it wouldn't. It wouldn't require any such thing.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 08 2005 02:26 AM (AIaDY)

7 Zimbabwe isn't exactly heavily armed. We need to start forming a Coalition of the Willing, with a mandate to hold free elections and protect property rights of the minority farmers who were actually feeding the country. There's no sweetheart oil deals with France or military relationship with Russia, so it shouldn't be hard to do. And if we don't, millions will die.

Posted by: TallDave at Wednesday, June 08 2005 11:28 AM (9XE6n)

8 PM: You say that "the fundamental problem with the UN is that it doesn't represent people, it represents governments. There are many governments in the world who would be uncomfortable in seeing Mugabe removed, because they could be next. The UN will never be a useful body because of this." I agree with your sentiments; we are looking at a failed world order. However, I still think that the system can be much improved by relatively small changes that leave the big powers in charge. The obvious solution for many parts of Africa is for the donor countries to empower the UN or its members to administer failed countries like Zimbabwe. Otherwise our aid just enables corrupt leaders to carry on as before. The UN Security Counsel can authorize action (not a strong case since Mugabe is terrorizing only his own people, not threatening his neighbors), but there is no institutionalized mechanism for "nation-building". But when we see the Bush administration push guys like Boulton to be ambasssodor to the UN, you can see that the US has no apetite for using the UN as a multilateral tool to solve problems like in Zimbabwe, the Sudan or Myanmar. By the way, another problem here reflects the steady growth of Chinese influence globally, including noticeably in Africa and Zimbabwe, at the expense of the US and its occasional Western allies. Mugabe is a Marxist, and has craftily turned to China for support, as Roger Bales of the American Enterprise Institute pointed out last week in the Weekly Standard: http://aei.org/publications/pubID.22581,filter.all/pub_detail.asp. We can expect that China would veto any Security Counsel resolution authorizing action against Mugabe. Zimbabwe, the Sudan, Myanmar and Iraq are all necessary consequences of the fact that the international community is still composed of sovereign countries - each of which prefers to allow bad things happen elsewhere than to take the bull by the horns and tie themselves down to a system that demands more responsibility from each of its members. The big countries could of course protect themselves (and their allies) by allowing a veto at the UN Security Counsel level.

Posted by: Tokyo Tom at Thursday, June 09 2005 12:20 AM (R+EaW)

9 The obvious solution for many parts of Africa is for the donor countries to empower the UN or its members to administer failed countries like Zimbabwe. Otherwise our aid just enables corrupt leaders to carry on as before. Except that the UN is also hopelessly corrupt. I don't see that this will improve anything. The UN Security Counsel can authorize action (not a strong case since Mugabe is terrorizing only his own people, not threatening his neighbors), but there is no institutionalized mechanism for "nation-building". But when we see the Bush administration push guys like Boulton to be ambasssodor to the UN, you can see that the US has no apetite for using the UN as a multilateral tool to solve problems like in Zimbabwe, the Sudan or Myanmar. So, your argument is that first, the UN is unlikely to authorise effective action and second, that the US is not interested in trying to work through the UN. It seems that the second point follows naturally from the first. We can expect that China would veto any Security Counsel resolution authorizing action against Mugabe. They've been pulling that crap for sixty years, so duh. Zimbabwe, the Sudan, Myanmar and Iraq are all necessary consequences of the fact that the international community is still composed of sovereign countries - each of which prefers to allow bad things happen elsewhere than to take the bull by the horns and tie themselves down to a system that demands more responsibility from each of its members. No. There are lots and lots of sovereign countries that don't systematically murder, maim or imprison their populations. Not many of them are in Africa, however. Leaders willing to kill their own people aren't going to pay any attention to "international law". They will pay attention to bombs and bullets. You can't fix this through the UN, because the UN is part of the problem. It's fundamentally and irretrievably corrupt. We have to destroy the UN and start again. What can fix it? Trade. Free movement of goods, capital, people and information. Freedom makes you rich. The solution to the world's ills is not transnationalism but globalisation. We might have to shoot some more dictators first. And if that involves ignoring the bleating of France and Germany and the scowls of China, then so be it.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 09 2005 02:14 AM (AIaDY)

10 We should form a new UN open to democracies only; call it the Organization of Democratic States or something. It would have a President elected by a nation-by-nation electoral college (with # of electors based on population) and a legislature similar to the U.S. House and Senate. Prospective members would have to meet guidelines of freedom of the press, real democracy, human rights, etc. It would have legitimacy, transparency, accountablity, and by God, it would get shit done.

Posted by: TallDave at Thursday, June 09 2005 01:17 PM (9XE6n)

11 More proof, as if any were needed, that the UN is useless at best, a true source of evil at worst. That's why it would be funny, if weren't so infuriating, to hear Senate Democrats, and a few Rebublicans like like crybaby Voinovich, going on and on about what an important posting the UN Ambassador's job is, and how Bolton lacks the diplomatic skill to represent us there, he'll hurt America's reputation around the world, etc, etc. Dont ya just wanna scream - IT'S FULL OF COUNTRIES LIKE ZIMBABWE - WHO CARES WHAT THEY THINK! The UN isn't the answer to anything. We need another coalition of the willing, like one of the above commenters said.

Posted by: Jim O'Sullivan at Friday, June 10 2005 02:11 PM (6+o02)

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Monday, June 06

Baby Aminals

Gratuitous puppy picture:

Little Cafe Mocha is a cocker spaniel / shih-tzu cross. He's one of a litter of five, along with brothers Oreo, Dingo, Jack Jr. and Bob. Picture courtesy of Scarlet on the mu.nu forums.

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Frank Lloyd Wright

vs. the Zombies.

(via Spoons)

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Sunday, June 05

The Connector Conspiracy

Observation 1:

There are at least three types of DVI connector, even though they all do exactly the same thing. On the other hand, two plug-pack transformers can have exactly the same plug, even though one provides five volts and the other twenty-four.

Observation 2:

Small electronic gadgets are surprisingly resilient in over-voltage conditions. But I still wouldn't recommend doing that.

I was recabling my computers because the space under my ~~dining table~~ desk had turned into something of a R.O.U.S. nest. In the process, I managed to plug my USB hub into the plug pack for my old Logitech wireless keyboard. (Not the new old one, but the old old one.) It survived, assuming that all the lights are supposed to be lit up all the time.

I haven't got my new flashy keyboard working yet. It doesn't seem to like being connected through a USB hub, which will be a problem since I plan to get myself a little KVM switch - one of these; it supports DVI, so there should be no loss of picture quality. But if my keyboard won't work with a USB hub, it probably won't work with a KVM switch either, which kind of defeets the porpoise.*

Meanwhile, my intended new ISP turns out not to provide static IP addresses. I've always had static a IP address, since way back in 1996, so I didn't even think to check.

Damn. That will really screw things up.

* If you ever wondered why porpoises live in the ocean, well, it's because they don't have any feet.

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Friday, June 03

Gigabytes!

And about bleeding time too. I've been waiting for someone to do this for years. Its so bloody obvious, but the few attempts that have appeared on the market have been absurdly - almost criminally - overpriced.

What?

Oh.

This:

It's a battery-backed RAM disk on a PCI card. The actual interface is SATA, so it works as a standard disk drive without any drivers; the PCI slot just provides the power. The battery is good for about 16 hours, which should cover most power failures, and it looks like it would be easy enough to plug in something beefier if you needed it.

Best part? Well, two best parts. Three.

One, it doesn't come with any memory. In previous cases (the unlamented Platypus Technology cards, for example) you had to buy the card with memory already installed, at a 300% markup, and you couldn't upgrade it later.

Two, it uses ordinary DDR RAM, which is cheap as a very cheap thing at the moment.

Three, $50.

I want at least three of these puppies. And another three for work.

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What It Isn't

Mark Steyn echoes one of my points on the European constitution:

One of the most unattractive features of European politics is the way it insists certain subjects are out of bounds, and beyond politics. That's the most obvious flaw in Giscard's flaccid treaty: it's not a constitution, it's a perfectly fine party platform for a rather stodgy semi-obsolescent social democratic party. Its constitutional "rights" - the right to housing assistance, the right to preventive action on the environment - are not constitutional at all, but the sort of things parties ought to be arguing about at election time.

Exactly.

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1 Hey, every country has already taken care of the big important things in their own constitution, so EU-constitution is making the decisions on the small things. They don't dare touch the fundamentals of the countries' law systems, unless they give everyone a good impression from small changes first. EU-constitution is just the beginning of a larger reform of the European legal systems, but now that it died, the reform is delayed 10 years or more, and forming one country out of the Union will also be delayed, because of this trivial guestion of minor law changes.

Posted by: A Finn at Saturday, June 04 2005 08:46 AM (lGolT)

2 The EU constitution strkes me as dangerously elitist and anti-democratic. Without direct elections of EU leaders (something the EUlites will NEVER contemplate), there is no accountability.

Posted by: TallDave at Saturday, June 04 2005 10:58 AM (9XE6n)

3 Finns have EU-election every four years, so we directly select the ones who go represent us in EU. Dunno if the others already let their parliaments pick theirs, since those guys don't really matter, the voting percentages in EU-elections are usually under 30% anyway. That's why leader selection is going to the parliaments: no one simply cares about who is representing them in Brussels. And if EU would ever need to get a president to be governmentchooser, that's imbossible because there is no common law, and the starting of the common law has recently died when the Dutch and French said 'nee' and 'non'.

Posted by: A Finn at Saturday, June 04 2005 01:07 PM (lGolT)

4 And why should the 30%, the old people who have nothing else to do and always vote for socialists, be any better at choosing representatives than the parliament whole nation picked.

Posted by: A Finn at Saturday, June 04 2005 01:12 PM (lGolT)

5 Finn, you say:Hey, every country has already taken care of the big important things in their own constitution, so EU-constitution is making the decisions on the small things. They don't dare touch the fundamentals of the countries' law systems, unless they give everyone a good impression from small changes first. EU-constitution is just the beginning of a larger reform of the European legal systems, but now that it died, the reform is delayed 10 years or more, and forming one country out of the Union will also be delayed, because of this trivial guestion of minor law changes.The problem is, if you ever want to form a single country, your will have to tackle the big things. The smaller things are a matter for the government of the day, not for the constitution. The constitution is for setting the structure of and limits on the government. The branches of government, the houses of parliament, voting procedures (popular and legislative), that sort of thing. Not fishing rights in the Baltic Sea. The constitution has to change the fundamentals of the law systems of the individual states. Otherwise it's just a trade agreement with delusions of grandeur.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, June 04 2005 03:45 PM (+S1Ft)

6 The point was small things first, look good when doing those, and then change the bigger things, so no one leaves the Union because of the huge changes for worse they expect to come from sudden massive changes on their whole system of law. It's like going to the lake for a swim at early summer: If everyone just jumps in right away, the ones who didn't like the temperature will just run into the sauna right away. If you are patient and let them poke their toes in the shallow end first, they get used to the water and don't mind taking a deeper plunge.

Posted by: A Finn at Saturday, June 04 2005 04:31 PM (lGolT)

7 The constitution right now won't be the final constitution, trust me. It's just the flat dirt layer below the foundation. They'll make it grow until covers everything important and they have the unified law they were planning.

Posted by: A Finn at Saturday, June 04 2005 04:36 PM (lGolT)

8 No, that's backwards. A constitution, a real constitution, deals with the most important and fundamental rules of government, and nothing else. Read the U.S. constitution, or the Australian one. Both were designed to join a number of independent states into a single nation. This is what I'm saying, what Mark Steyn is saying: This document is not a consitution. You seem to be proposing a constituion by stealth, the boiled-frog approach. That's not what they're doing either. Have you read the blasted thing?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, June 04 2005 10:00 PM (+S1Ft)

9 Yeah, it's bullshit. That kinda justifies making big changes to it. Constitution has to look useless and trivial to get accepted. After it's done, they can do whatever they want with it and not care about public opinion. Also, constitution of Finland was once just a decision about sharing the fishing areas and determining who gets whos stuff when some guy with no relatives dies, so things can start with crap and advance to an acceptably good level.

Posted by: A Finn at Sunday, June 05 2005 04:54 PM (lGolT)

10 Oh perhaps I need to read it in English, it might have different interpretations that way.

Posted by: A Finn at Sunday, June 05 2005 05:19 PM (lGolT)

11 Oh well, not gonna, since the one in English is 325 Adobe pages. The one in Finnish in bookform was 220 paper ones and included comparisons of the laws into Finnish law, so I think I know enough. I found only about 10 parts that weren't almost exactly the same thing as the Finnish law and jokamiehenoikeus-parts they were compared to. They must've just gone through our law and picked the parts they found interresting and refreshing, creating a mess that people living in crowded places can't understand.

Posted by: A Finn at Sunday, June 05 2005 05:41 PM (lGolT)

12 Maybe so. However it came to be, that's exactly the problem. It's not a constitution.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, June 07 2005 07:55 AM (+S1Ft)

13 ya pidoras, pizu chujie doors, zaabuzte moi url - http://greatpharmacies.com/ a suda pishite pisma i spamte - admass@pisem.net

Posted by: ya pidoras at Wednesday, July 26 2006 11:27 AM (8M7ix)

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The True Gulag

Amnesty International recently completed its spiral into irrelevance when it called Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our times". Rusty Shackleford has a powerful and disturbing article on the true nature of the gulags:

Ten percent of the entire population of the Soviet Union lived in the camps.
The Gulag administration was the largest single employer in all of Europe.
The average life expectancy of a camp prisoner was one winter.
At least twenty million people perished in the labor camps during StalinÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s rule.

The Red Cross at least had the decency to deny that one of its representatives accused U.S. authorities of being "no better than and no different than the Nazi concentration camp guards" - which suggests that they realise there is a difference.

Will Amnesty International show similar decency? It seems unlikely.

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Thursday, June 02

Encroaching Shininess

I've put in the forms to switch over to my new ISP, iiNet, so sometime next week I will be reduced to using dialup for a couple of days. sad

Following that, though, I will be running at a zippy up to 8Mbps! That's more than five times what I get at the moment.

But I will have to somehow survive on just 80GB of downloads per month. That's only, what, 200 hours of anime?

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