Ahead of his time

It would appear that Leonhard Euler has a number of papers up on arXiv.org. This is doing pretty good for a guy who died in 1783, a good two hundred and some years before arXiv.org started.

The papers are actually in the history section, but it's still pretty cool that they are there. I haven't actually read any yet, but I may. We'll see if any of the titles sound particularly interesting.

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Time since last post: Good Question
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A Little Suspicious

The results from the Belarus elections have come in and they are curious to say the least. All 110 seats contested were won by pro-government candidates. This sort of massive victory is the sort of thing Saddam managed to pull off and Mugabe wishes he could have.

The president is saying the elections were free and fair, but the opposition naturally rejects the claim. International observers are still evaluating the situation before declaring their opinion of the matter.

It seems the era of tin pot little dictatorships still has a while to go.

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How did this happen?

Recently there's been a few reports of modern day pirates, but recently there's been a group who've managed to do rather well for themselves. Somali pirates have managed to board and take a cargo ship carrying among other things 33 72-T tanks that are reported to be bound for the Kenyan military, though some have suggested other final destinations.

Now, since I've never really been put in charge of anything like this, I can't say I know all the ins and outs of organizing the transport of 33 tanks, but I'd definitely make sure to arrange some security for the damn boat, especially if I knew it would be traveling through waters known to be prone to pirates.

Fortunately the pirates don't seem too interested in the tanks (not that surprising giving the price of gas and the notorious fuel inefficiency of tanks), but are just holding the crew for ransom.

This has not gone unnoticed by the international community. Both the US and Russia have a warship following the pirates, as does a third country not identified. It seems some people want to keep an eye on the tanks.

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Time since last post: Error+++Divide by cucumber error+++Reboot Universe and try again+++
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One Tough Chick

I like to think that I have courage of my convictions, but I know that I am fortunate in that life has rarely tested me to any sort of extreme.

Malalai Kakar is the ideal I'd like to meet, but I know I fall short. She is a police officer in Afghanistan. She gets death threats delivered to her door, carries an AK-47 with her on the way to work, has gunfights with the Taliban, is raising six kids, and is an inspiration and leader for the small but growing group of female police in Afghanistan.

Malalai deserves recognition for her courage and dedication. She does a tough job in a place I'd be scared to visit, let alone live. The best word I can think of to use here is hero.

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Writing time: 22 minutes (I got a little distracted along the way)
Time since last post: two days
Current media: Robot Chicken

PS: I didn't think I'd ever link to an article by Marie Claire.

A wedding

Today I attended a wedding. This was the second wedding I've attended, the first being my Aunt's wedding way back in 88, about which I mainly remember that the reception was held at a vegetarian restaurant, and even at that age, I was not a fan of vegetarian food.

This wedding was of one of the Korean teachers from my school. About half a dozen of the foreign teachers went (all of us who'd been there for more than a two months). The ceremony was held in a big wedding complex. It was about four floors tall with halls on each floor and a timetable for each hall. The wedding was split into two parts. The first was a short ritual for the big crowd, which was followed by a private ceremony for just the family while the other guests went off to have a meal. The public ceremony was quite short, only about ten minutes, and then there was about half an hour of photos and videos. It was kind of a mix of Korean and western weddings. The hall seemed to have an anti camera field, as only a few of my photos turned out ok, and others had the same problem.

Photos of the event can be found here.

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I can't wait for this to be finished

Japan makes a lot of crazy shit, and a lot of the time it's just crazy. But sometimes the crazy stuff is actually just crazy awesome. This is a case of the latter.

Japan are planning to hold a conference to organise building a space elevator. If just the name isn't cool enough, the actual idea is. A massive cable attached to a satellite up in space with an elevator system attached, allowing us to move stuff to and from space at a fraction of a price it takes to send up a rocket.

It's not a new idea. A Russian came up with the idea in 1895. Arthur C Clarke was writing about it as science fiction in 1979. We just happen to be living in the time when it may just be feasible. We truly live in remarkable times.

The space elevator is one of those ideas that will change the world once it is realised. The new possibilities it will open up are amazing, and those are just the ones we can think of. Just like the wheel, fire, the assembly line, the computer, and all those other inventions that completely reshape the world we live in (can you imagine a world without fire?), so too will the space elevator.

This obviously won't be finished tomorrow, but it's exciting to see people seriously looking at this as something to do, and not just a nice idea for stories.

The one down side to the whole thing is the consequences if it falls down. Not a pretty scenario. I should hope that doesn't come to pass.

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Any Fundamentalist is Bad

Today I read a story about a group of fundamentalists causing havoc in their city. People forcing women off buses because they weren't wearing sufficiently modest clothes. Preventing men and women from socializing, to the point where men and women walk on opposite sides of the street, self-proclaimed morality police who go so far as to prevent the sale of mp3 players, even assaulting women who had the audacity to divorce their husband.

The city in question is Jerusalem and the fundamentalists in question are Haredi Jews. I say this not to cast aspersions on Jews, but to point out that fundamentalists of all creeds tend towards the same means and ends. Violence and isolation aimed at preserving some idealized status quo.

Hopefully, such actions will be condemned as strongly as similar actions from those of other creeds have been, but I think further coverage will be minimal since Israel is on the nominal good side in the current scheme of things. This is a double standard which I don't foresee being dropped anytime soon.

Ideally it would be the forces of intolerance and fundamentalism would be the ones being put on notice regardless of which particular creed they followed. Unfortunately, that is not yet the world we live in.

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Extended Stay

Last week my boss asked me if I would extend my contract for two months for various recruitment related reasons that are a bit more convoluted than I particularly want to go into.

This caused me some serious thought as I was kind of looking forward to finishing my contract and going traveling. Some of my classes can be quite frustrating, while others I enjoy.

I was initially reluctant, having seen the hassles others have gone through to get a new visa.

One of the things that had me leaning towards renewing was my travel plans for after I finished, which had several rather cold countries at the start and traveling there during February is more appealing than doing so in December. Staying on will also give me a bit more money. Also, traveling alone for Christmas wasn't that appealing.

So now I'm going to work an extra two months and finish at the end of January. I think I'll stick around in Korea for a week or two after that to do some final sight seeing like the DMZ, and then take a ferry across to Russia and a long train ride to Moscow.

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Uganda Becomes Less Fun

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister has a new proposal to help his country cut down on traffic accidents. He's calling for a ban on miniskirts.

Apparently wearing a miniskirt is like walking around naked and Ugandan men are mentally weak and can't help looking at these women when they should concentrating on their driving.

Fortunately, this is just one of the evils the minister for ethics and integrity is dealing with.

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I hope this doesn't set a precedent

The nation of Jordan has decided to get a little bit tricky when it comes to dealing with international critics of its state religion. Back in 2006 they amended their Justice Act to allow the prosecution of those who affect Jordanians by electronic means, even if those people aren't in Jordan themselves. Now, prosecutors are using this to go after people in other countries, by filing charges and getting warrants for these people, and the asking Interpol to extradite them to Jordan.

Fortunately, so far no one seems to be playing ball with Jordan, as the people they asked to be extradited are mostly from western democracies, who won't extradite someone for exercising their freedom of speech. But if any of those people go on holiday to the middle east, they might not be so lucky.

Another rather worrying aspect of this is that even though the amendment was made in 2006, they are going after people whose alleged crimes were in 2005. This is a rather worrisome retroactive application of a criminal law. Nullum crimen sine lege, nulla poena sine lege is a very old and very good legal maxim. No one should be punished for a crime if there was no law at the time the act was done.

This also raises again the rather complicated issue of who has jurisdiction over the internet. With this law Jordan is claiming that anything that can affect the people of Jordan electronically falls within its jurisdiction, which essentially means the whole of the internet is subject to their laws. This is all very good, but what does Jordan do if say Israel claims the same thing and starts prosecuting anti-Semites in Jordan (I'm reasonably sure there must be some who have internet access) and asking for their extradition. My prediction is Jordan would tell them to go to hell. The only sensible way to handle internet jurisdiction is that each country looks after those in its territory and leaves the rest of the world alone.

Were it otherwise anyone defamed by something on the internet could simply choose the country with the most advantageous defamation laws and bring their case there to their benefit. And can countries that guarantee freedom of speech keep that guarantee while allowing its citizens to be prosecuted by countries with strict restrictions on speech like China. Overlapping jurisdictions do not work.

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Writing time: 32 minutes
Time since last post: a few days
Current media: The Middleman

Score

Today at the start of one of my classes, one of the kids gave me a small box wrapped in black paper. This is not the first time something like this has happened, and as I usually do in this situation I thanked the student in Korean and put it aside to look at later. When I opened the box I found that it contained two pairs of socks. Certainly better than a kick in the pants.

Previous scores from students include some hankies from a student in Japan when the kids school was closing down, a box of tea from a student who recently went to China for a month (that's going to be shipped home to my mother and grandmother (I'm pretty sure my student won't find out)), various snacks and candy, and once an elaborate decorative egg bauble thingy, which again is something I doubt I'd ever get for myself, but in all of these cases it's more the sentiment of it than the actual item.

There's actually a teachers day over here, where students and parents used to give gifts to the teachers. It mainly applies to regular school teachers, but it does overflow a bit into the English academies. However, people went quite overboard in trying to get the teachers to give the most attention to their children (I've heard of cases of teachers getting new cars or huge amounts of cash) to the point where the Government has actually made teachers day a day off for school children, so they can't go to school and give their exorbitant gifts to their teachers (although why they can't give them a day later I don't quite get).

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Well what do you know, the world's still here.

Despite various doom and gloomers, the Large Hadron Collider, also known as the LHC, at CERN was activated today, and did not destroy the Earth by creating a new big bang or creating a micro black hole that would suck in the whole of the Earth.

The LHC is a massive feat of engineering, and will certain let us explore new aspects of our universe which have not been seen before. I really don't get those who think that these things are unwise or dangerous, especially those who think suing over the matter is the best way to resolve the uncertainties.

Anyway, well done to all those at CERN for a job well done.

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Euler or Broke

Two weekends ago via XKCD I found out about Project Euler. It's a series of maths/computer programming problems to be solved. It's proved an interesting project to while away my hours. I don't think I've played Civilization IV since I started on the problems.

I think though I've now reached the point where I've got most of the low lying fruit. The first problems were easy enough, but now they're taking a lot longer to solve. It also seems to be a test of the strengths of your language of choice. So far I've been using a Matlab clone. On one problem it wasn't giving me the right answer despite everything I did to refine my code. When I put the same algorithm into Mathematica, it gave me the correct answer right away. That really annoyed me. I'm not sure if I make a full switch, since that'll take a fair bit of learning to get up to the same speed on Mathematica as I'm at with Matlab, although it seems to make a few things a lot easier. One problem can be done in one line of Mathematica that took me about 60 lines in Matlab. Admittedly it was a rather crude algorithm but still, that's a big change, and it ran a lot quicker too.

There is no doubt though that I will not complete all the problems any time soon. Problem #202 seems well beyond me (take a look for yourself if you think I'm wussing out), and there are more, tougher problems on the way.

I have learnt a few things along the way, and it's been good to flex the old maths muscles again.

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A Classy Town

I always knew Mt Isa was a classy town. This quote from the mayor just confirms it.

May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa.

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Haeinsa

Last Friday I didn't have to work so I decided to do something that I messed up on the first attempt, and visited Haeinsa temple. Haeinsa is about a 90 minute bus ride from Daegu, for most of which due to crowding I had the small seat right at the front of the bus where the steps to get on are. Hence I managed to take a few photos of the landscape on the way that look similar to this one.
After arriving it was a slight walk to the temple (about 1.2km, so I'm not complaining. It was nothing compared to that damned mountain on Jeju) which is a reasonably large complex. There is at least a dozen buildings and two courtyards. In the first courtyard there was a sort of labyrinth, although I guess it was really more of a path to walk while meditating than an actual maze. Also in the main courtyard they had a big fire going. It looked like they were just burning paper, but at times ash would fall from the fire throughout the temple.

The highlight of Haeinsa temple though is the Tripitaka Koreana, a collection of over 80,000 hand carved wooden blocks containing the oldest and most comprehensive collection of Buddhist writing in Chinese characters. There are four buildings containing the wood blocks that were specially built centuries ago to house the blocks.When you look at it the sheer density of writing is amazing. It is like looking at a huge and ancient library. Well, it's not like looking at a huge and ancient library. It is looking at a huge and ancient library. I think if the Library of Alexandria were still around visiting that would be a similar experience. The Library of Congress might get there if it's still around in a few hundred years.

One curiosity I did notice was the special fire extinguishers they have. Obviously for something as precious as the wooden blocks your ordinary put out the flame and damn the consequences to the burning stuff type extinguisher won't quite make the grade with the guys looking after these. It was the first time I've seen a silver fire extinguisher. I've seen red and yellow before, but never silver.

After wandering around the temple for a while and taking pictures until the battery on my camera ran out (I hadn't charged it since before going to Jeju, and that was only the second time I'd charged it so it does all right, but I should have thought of it before) after which I took pictures with my phone instead. I had a look through the accompanying museum, but there wasn't much to read about the items on display. It was however while I was in the museum that the rain started, and didn't stop until almost an hour later. At one point while the rain was light I made a move for the bus stop, but it started getting heavy and ducked under the umbrella of an old lady selling fruit. I braved the heavy rain when the lady told me my bus had just turned up, but it was full to the brim so I spent another 20 odd minutes standing in the slight shelter the ticket booth provided until the rain stopped. Then it was another twenty minutes until the next bus arrived, and 90 minutes back to Daegu. All in all, a good trip.

I'll put a few more pictures up here, and there are more on my flickr page.The largest building in the temple
The wood blocks on their shelves
A stone thingy

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Ouch

This is why I'm not a foreign affairs correspondent in a war zone.

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Adventures on Jejudo, or Why on Earth did I think climbing a mountain was a good idea?

A week and a bit ago I got four days off work and in celebration of this fact took a trip to Jeju Island, the closest thing Korea has to a tropical paradise. I spent four days on Jeju and enjoyed myself quite a bit. I went with a friend from work.
The first day I got up at the ridiculously early time of seven am in order to catch a 10:30 plane. After the flight we caught a bus to Seogwipo on the south side of the island where one of our hotels was. After checking in we went walking around town to see the local waterfalls. These were pretty good.

Next to one of the waterfalls was a huge rock with some writing on it, which according to local legend was written by an ancient Chinese general.

Day two we went on a submarine ride, for which I inconveniently forgot my camera and then proceeded to get seasick. Not enough to actually be sick, just enough to make the experience unpleasant enough for me to want to get off the sub as quick as I could. In the afternoon we went to a nearby beach, where I sat on a rented plastic chair under a rented umbrella and read some of Purgatory, while my friend went swimming but was yelled at by the lifeguard if he went out further than knee deep, as did anyone else who tried to actually swim instead of just getting their feet wet.

Day three we changed hotel and went from Seogwipo to Jeju-Shi via the Manjanggul lava tubes, one of the largest lava tube systems in the world. The total length is about 7 and a bit kilometers, but tourists can only walk through about two to three kilometers worth. This was pretty impressive, although I think it would have been better if there was a section of pitch black. One of the coolest things about the other caves I've been to is when they turn all the lights out and you get to see what pitch black really is. But to do that you really need a guide, which this place didn't have, just some guys at a ticket booth near the entrance. (Actually, nearly all natural landmarks on Jeju have a ticket booth.) After the lava tubes we continued onto Jeju-Shi where we checked in with a slight hick up that was quickly resolved.

The final day we spent climbing Mt Halla. In a certain sense, the entire island of Jeju is Mt Halla, wiht Mt Halla being the volcano that spewed up all the rocks and stuff that make up the island. Mt Halla is 1950m tall, but the trail we took starts at around 800m up, so we had a bit of a start. The trail starts out not to bad, but the incline keeps getting tougher as you approach the top. The first 7.6km took about two hours, after which we stopped at the main rest stop for lunch. The final 2.5km however involved climbing about 450m. This was a lot tougher, and I think I took more breaks on this section than I did.

The final climb from about 1800m was a set of stairs and near the end I was climbing in a daze, just putting one foot in front of the other, until I was surprised that there weren't any more ahead of me. The top was cloudy nearly the whole time, so I was unable to see the lake that is inside the crater, and after sitting up there for about half an hour started getting rather cold.

The hike down was a lot easier than the hike up. I managed the first 2.5km down without a single break, and then only a few more the rest of the way. Once I got down to the bottom (well, end of the trail) I saw you could get a medal saying "I climbed Mt Halla" and I tried to buy one, but I then found out you actually needed to buy a certificate before you started and there's a guy at the top who would sign it, and then you could buy the medal. I wish I'd know that before I started climbing. After that, I was too exhausted to do anything else, so it was an early night and got up early the next morning for flight back to Daegu.

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I don't know what to make of this

I just found something on Wikipedia that has left me puzzled. While I certainly fall on the side of inclusiveness on Wikipedia, I can not for the life of me believe anyone is ever going to look for or need this specific piece of information. More worrying is that there are 18 distinct contributors to this article.

So without any further delay I present to you the 1987-88 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning).

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Too Much of a Good Thing

In general I think the more of a good thing the better. I do however acknowledge that you do reach not just a point of diminishing returns (one pizza is good, two are better), but in some cases a negative impact from more of the good thing (21% oxygen in the air is pretty good, 100% is pretty deadly). This is the case for an unfortunate gentleman in Saudi Arabia lately.

So what was this chap overindulging in? Wives. He had not one, not two, not three, not the legally allowed maximum in Saudi Arabia of four, not five, but six wives. Apparently he was using a variant of an old trick to get away with this, since three of his wives live in Saudi Arabia and three live in nearby Yemen.

The particular bit which makes this go from just a bit odd to being a good dose of schadenfreude is the guys job. He was a member of the Saudi religious police, the bunch of wowsers who go around busting people for flirting. However, this is not an unprecedented act among those who police the sharia in Muslim countries.

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You see, it's not really that hard

A group of Islamic groups in the UK have just announced a new nikah, or marriage contract, for British Muslims. This new contract brings Islamic marriages in the UK more in line with a standard marriage in the UK in terms of rights of each partner, but does include features which a simple civil ceremony does not impose.

The new nikah can be found here, and is an interesting read. The first few pages are preamble and then some general instructions on how to fill out the form. The most important page is the last one, where the rights and responsibilities of each partner are outlined. The responsibilities of both partners include: to not abuse their partner or children, to not be away from home for more than 60 days without prior permission, to not transmit diseases, to not have an affair and to not interfere with their partners property. I don't really think any of those should be too hard, particularly for a couple who care for each other. There are a few extra responsibilities for the husband including not withholding financial support to the family, not entering into a nikah with another woman, and the one I found most interesting, to procure a home away from his family and parents (not far away, but a place of their own).

These however are minor points. Probably the biggest change is that the nikah ceremony must be held by a registered marriage celebrant, or the couple must have had a civil ceremony beforehand, which makes the marriage official in a legal sense, and so the partners have a recourse to the British courts if things go pair shaped. While reading about this I learned that traditionally Islamic marriage is essentially a civil contract, and in some cases even just a verbal contract, which can make solving disputes tricky when there's no evidence of a marriage (although I wonder if such a marriage would count as a de facto relationship, which I think has some legal standing). This is a big step.

Another big change is that talaq al-tafwid is a standard clause. In the old contract, the husband could initiate divorce pretty much without cause, but if the wife did, she was liable to forfeit some of her property. Talaq al-tafwid is where the husband grants the wife the same right to divorce at will without loss.

The last big change is not an addition but a subtraction. The wife to be no longer needs the approval of her nearest male relative, or Wali, to get married. I have to admit, I do like the way they explain this one. The word is polite but firm.

Parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children. Out of respect and courtesy it is important that young people involve their parents or guardians throughout the process of marriage. However, parental or guardian’s legal role finishes when children reach adulthood. Thereafter their role is optional and complementary. Hence the Muslim Marriage Certificate does not require the approval of the parents.

This new marriage contract is, as the British like to say, a good thing. It shows that the ideals of Islam and the ideals of the West. Except for resolving disputes through a Sharia organization, for which I'd substitute something like a marriage counselor, and having an Imam sign the it, what this document outlines is almost the way I see the marriage relationship being. If I were to change anything it would be to make it so that the rights and responsibilities of both partners are exactly the same since the wife does get out of a few responsibilities the husband has to follow, and the bit about marriage being only between a man and a woman, but that would be it.

I hope that this new nikah gets widespread adoption within the Islamic community, and that the Muslims in other countries develop similar nikahs that show that Islamic ideals and Western ideals are not irrevocably different.

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Those Wacky Italians

Italy has come up with a rather curious way of dealing with what it considers its crime problems. It has decided to deploy its army in various cities throughout the country to assist the regular police in protecting the people. Around 2000 soldiers will be deployed in Rome, Naples, Milan, Turin and other locations.

I just want to say that I consider this to be a bad decision. Using the military as a police force is a dangerous idea that has a number of drawbacks. The biggest of which is the vast difference in the culture and procedures of the two different organizations. The police are intended to protect the people while the military is intended to protect the state. This difference in focus causes a great number of differences in how the two groups act. A soldier is trained to use their weapon as a standard procedure, while for the policeman a weapon is a last resort. Policemen are trained to deal with witnesses, suspects, crime scenes and due process, soldiers are not.

This plan is really just an attempt at a quick fix to solve a bigger problem. The ideal solution would be to improve the police force so that the soldiers aren't considered necessary, but that would be more expensive and take longer than putting soldiers on the streets.

There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. - Commander Adama

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Templar v Pope

The long line of ridiculous law suits just keeps growing. The fact that some of these drag on for years and years and years to the point where the idiots who started it go bankrupt and delay things even further doesn't help us get through these cases. But today I want to talk about a new law suit.

This one's in Spain, which is not quite as litigious as America (an honour it shares with every country except America). And perhaps will set new records for the oldest claim presented to a court. A group, claiming to be the successors to the Knights Templar, are suing the Vatican and the French Government for the defamation of the order and the treasures stolen during the early 1300s.

Quite frankly I can't really see it going anywhere. Any attempt to force a judgement on two sovereign nations is going nowhere fast. And any claim of being an actual successor of the Knights Templar is going to be a pretty hefty task. And since there have been a large number of changes in the governments of France since 1307 and now (at least three revolutions, two restorations, two empires) its hard to try and blame the current French government for the actions of Phillipe IV. The Vatican is the only party who has a reasonably solid trail down the ages but the idea of holding them responsible for something done 700 years ago.

I hope this gets thrown out quickly for many reasons and the claimants laughed on their way out.

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A gambit lost

It seems Starbucks have decided that their strategy of remorseless expansion into every nook and cranny where a coffee drinker might stick their head is not quite as good as they thought it was. Following announcements of closures of branches that rival NOVA in its death throes in America, Starbucks have announced that they are closing 61 out of the 84 Starbucks in Australia.

Apparently it's because Australians were already drinking decent coffee before Starbucks showed up and so their strategy of being everywhere with good coffee didn't work in a place where there was already good coffee everywhere. In America before Starbucks the pinacle of coffee in most places was filter coffee over a hot plate, so the idea of going somewhere for quality was sensible. But since the Italians brought their cafes and cappuccinos with them to Australia post WWII we were ahead of the curve. We were a crowded landscape where America was an open plain.

Now if only the Italians had brought good burgers with them as well, we might be able to get rid of MacDonalds.

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On The Wealth of Nations

I recently finished reading The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. A weighty tome that took about a month to get through (my reading rate has dropped since I don't have an almost hour long commute each way). I actually got it back in January, but my reading of it got preempted by some other books (some of which I'll write about later).

When thinking about The Wealth of Nations the best comparison I can think of is to Dracula. Both are great works which were groundbreaking when they came out, but nowadays lose a lot of their immediate impact simply because the ideas in them have become so much a part of the ingrained knowledge of society. Ideas such as the division of labour, free trade, supply and demand are part of the basis of modern society, but were significant topics in his day.

The first two parts are definitely the strongest, and the most timeless. This deals with the ideas of labour and stock. The latter parts are of more interest historically but don't apply quite so well to the modern day.

The last part is of the expenses and revenues of the sovereign (government) and in those days the government was a lot smaller and less sprawling than most governments today are and people expect a lot more from their government today than anyone would have dreamed of in the 1700s.

Also less relevant to today is the warnings on the pitfalls of foreign colonies and the diversions on the historical values of the price of corn over the centuries. These are interesting, but a modern writer would perhaps have put those at least as an appendix or a separate volume, not as a digression during the middle of the text.

Overall it's a solid text that is definitely worthy of its place in history, but a lot of its message has already reached the modern audience.

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And About Time, Too

One of the less pride inducing things done in Australia is going to be wound down. The mandatory detention of asylum seekers is going to be stopped^1,2,3. And not a moment too soon, I might add.

I was surprised to see that the original implementer of this policy was not Howard, but in fact Keating. However, in my particular case I really don't recall much politics pre-Howard, and in general the idea has been associated with Howard more so than Keating for the inflexible way Howard stuck to the idea in the face of popular disapproval, human rights concerns from the United Nations, cock-ups like the Cornelia Rau incident.

The changes include no longer detaining children at detention centers and in general asylum seekers will be allowed to live in the community while their applications are processed. Some detention will still be allowed, but each case will be examined at least every three months and the onus will be on proving a need to keep the person detained.

Hopefully this will see a lot less people detained for a much shorter time.

The detention centers were a stain on Australia's national conscience, and it is good that finally something is being done to reform them. It really was an appalling way to treat people, and the extremes it drove some of the refugees to to get their voices heard were horrible. It is shaming to think that my government did that to people.

There are some people who would argue that such strict measures are necessary to protect our country from the refugees, as if the illegal immigrants would soon outnumber us if we didn't. The fact that the total capacity of the facilities built to house such immigrants is around a few thousand shows the problem with that argument⁴.

A number of years ago (around 2001) I generally took the position that since there was a legitimate method for acquiring a visa to Australia that these people didn't take, then yes they were here illegally, but the way they were dealt with was somewhat harsh. I don't think the idea that like any other lawbreaker they still deserved a trial with proper representation occurred to me at the time.

That changed a few years later. The thing that crystallized the change was talking to someone who had moved to Australia from another country. Hearing about all the things he had to do to get a visa was daunting. And he was a well educated person with a job lined up from England, and he still had a lot of hassles. Imagining how a poor, persecuted person living in a country where they were liable to be arrested for thinking of leaving would go about getting a visa made the idea farcical. So instead they'd pay all that they had and risk their lives to travel here illegally, since for them that was a much easier and safer option. Then when they got here, we stuck them in a prison that was much more like their home country than the country they were dreaming of.

This is another move the Rudd government has made to distance itself from the Howard years, and I think all of Australia will again benefit from this. It doesn't erase what went before, but we're now moving in the right direction.

1) Australia abandons asylum policy
2) Mandatory detention (sort of) scrapped
3) Tough asylum laws scrapped with comments
4) List of Australian immigration detention facilities, Wikipedia

End Post
Writing time: 48 minutes
Time since last post: a day or two
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Before and After

Before	After

As I have mentioned before, I recently acquired new glasses. This was a significant change for me because the last time I got new glasses was before I finished undergrad way back in 2001. At that point in time my motivation for getting new glasses was that I was no longer able to read the blackboard in lectures which is a pretty good reason to get new glasses. This time my vision had no declined quite so bad, although it had declined more than I thought it had.

This time the motivation for replacing my glasses was their near self destruction. The nose rest bits were slowly wearing away, the hook at the end of the left leg was coming apart and if I took the glasses off quickly would slide off and stay behind my ear, and the screw holding the rim around the right lens would come loose every now and then. They were dieing, but after 7 years of faithful service I couldn't really fault them for not doing enough. Especially when I'd had that pair for half of the total time I'd been wearing glasses and a quarter of my life.

Of course, getting new glasses was not without difficulty. When the right rim first came apart, I had a look in the glasses shop below where I work but couldn't find anything I liked. In Asia, narrow rectangular glasses are common, and while they look good on some people, I don't like them on me. So that narrowed down the selection.

There's also the fact that my glasses are now somewhat a part of the way I think I look. If I don't have my glasses on the only way I can see my face is if I'm a few inches away from the mirror. And after seven years, my old glasses had become one of the few permanent features of my life. In the time I've had them I've lived in five houses in three countries, graduated university, done honours, started and quit a PhD, five different jobs, and other stuff I can't quite recall but I'm sure has happened. There is definitely a reasonable number of people who have never seen me with a different pair of glasses (everyone who knew me in Japan is the easiest such group to define).

The actual shopping for the new pair was made easier by the assistance of my Mum and my sister. They provided an external viewpoint that could tell me how the glasses looked from a distance of more than 4 inches from the mirror. They also prompted and prodded me into making a decision. Even with that, it did take visiting about four glasses shops before I found a pair that I was happy with.

It has now been about three and a half weeks since I got the new glasses, and I'm still in the process of getting used to them. My nose has indentations where the nose rests of the old pair would lie on my nose, and the new pair rest differently on my nose. They sit more forward, and not exactly evenly. I also did not get this set tinted, mainly because I didn't want to bother getting the salesman to understand what I wanted, although his English was reasonably good. A consequence of this though is that the world is now awfully bright during the day, and I'm considering getting a set of sunglasses to make up for this. I think next week when I go on vacation I'll use my old set as sunglasses.

One surprising thing about the new glasses was the lack of notice they got at work. A few weeks before getting the new glasses I got a new haircut, which got a lot of comments, but it was a few days before anyone noticed, and only one or two comments. I guess this means that I succeeded in getting a pair that were similar to my old pair in appearance. I had at one point in the shopping process considered the idea of getting a new pair custom made based on the old pair, although that would have been ridiculously expensive, and I doubt if it could be done on my sort of financial status.

Well, I've run out of things to say about my new glasses, and have been quite distracted for the last ten or so minutes, so I'll post this and be done.

End Post
Writing time: 86 minutes (this includes a phone call from Mum as well as other distractions)
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Seeing Red

The last time I saw my grandfather was in 1994, the first year I was in high school. My family had been doing something in the area where my father's side of my family lived, and the idea popped into someone's head to drop in and say high. It was a bit before milking time so we pulled the car up near the dairy. When I got out of the car he didn't immediately recognize me because that was the year I started wearing glasses, and he had never seen me with them. But the lack of recognition didn't last long, nor did the conversation. I think it was just mostly Hi, how are you, what are you up to and other things along those lines. It was a brief conversation, and then we got back into the car and continued driving home.

This is perhaps slightly better than the last time I saw my father, which was when I was working on the ticket gates at the Cairns show in 1998. A man walked past me and it took me a few seconds for the mental gears to click over and realize it was my dad. I don't know if he even noticed me.

There's a chance the story of the last time I saw my father might change in time. It's a slight chance, but it's there. However, the story of the last time I saw my grandfather is now set in stone. Last Friday he died. Apparently he'd been having blackouts for a while, and when he felt one coming on he'd lie down and let it happen. On Friday though, he blacked out and didn't wake up.

I've thought about calling my grandmother or my father to express my condolences, but that would be awkward enough without the added difficulty of explaining who the hell it is calling them from Korea. I'm not going to fly back for the funeral (odd thought that followed on from that one. There are probably only five people whose funeral I would fly back for.). If I was in Australia, I probably would have gone, but I'd have lurked at the back and not made myself known unless someone recognized me.

I generally treat my father's side of my family on an "Out of sight, out of mind" basis. It's been so long since I've had anything to do with them that most of the time they're off my radar. It's only times like these that they register on my consciousness.

At this point though, I don't really have much more to say so I'll finish with this:

Rest in Peace Granddad Red.

End Post
Writing time: 47 minutes
Time since last post: an hour or so
Current media: The Middleman

A Christian Monopoly is Broken

I thought that the Christians had the monopoly on seeing religious icons in their food. It seems however that the Muslims are joining in on this bandwagon. In Nigeria people are swarming a restaurant where several pieces of meat have been found with the word "Allah" written in gristle. I can't really judge how good a depiction this is since I can't read Arabic.

It turns out the Muslims have been doing this for a while now, so it wasn't just the Christians who are crazy. It is interesting to note that while the Christians tend to find pictures of holy people, Muslims find holy words such as "Allah" or "Muhammad". I wonder what would happen if a Muslim found an object with a picture of Muhammad on it? Would it be considered a miracle or a blasphemy?

End Post
Writing time: 19 minutes
Time since last post: I don't want to check
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Adventures around Daegu, or the time in which I was not the only member of my family in Korea

So recently my Mum and my sister came over to Korea for a bit over a week. I managed to get a little time off work (two days) and we did some stuff in and around Daegu.

I met them in Seoul at the airport on a Sunday. My sister flew in early in the morning, so after storing her bags at the airport, we went into downtown Seoul and looked at one of the castles. We got there at a pretty good time, for just after we bought our tickets, a changing of the guard ceremony took place.

After a bit of wandering around, we had lunch at a food court and had one of the more Korean meals I've had for a long time. We then went back to the airport to pick up Mum. Then we caught the KTX back to Daegu and checked Mum and my sister into their hotel. The KTX was as always a smooth ride, and we got back to Daegu about 7ish. After checking into the hotel we got room service for dinner, which was quite pricey. About 80 bucks for two pizzas, a bottle of wine and a coke. I'm glad I wasn't pay.

I had to work the next day, so they did some exploring around Daegu on their own. The next day I spent the morning with them and we walked around the park near the hotel which has a few memorials, temples and a museum about a Japanese invasion from the late 1500s. Interesting, but not a lot of English.

Wednesday, like Monday, I didn't see them, but then on Thursday we went downtown and along with some sight seeing we went looking for new glasses for me. I'd needed to get new glasses for a while since on of the rims would occasionally have the screw holding it together come loose and the plastic bit that makes the shape of the legs (arms?) behind the ear was coming apart and if I took them off quickly would come off and stay behind my ear. I'd put it off because I really need a second opinion for these sorts of things as well as some prodding because otherwise there's a chance I'd have ended up commissioning some to make a replica of the old ones. I did however look through about three or four stores before finding a new pair that I liked. I'll tell more of that story and it's follow up in another post. After that, we walked around downtown for a bit until it was time for me to head back to work.

Friday I didn't see them in the morning, but they came over to Chilgok (the part of Daegu I live and work in) and we went to a galbi restaurant for dinner. We went to a place near my house where the staff know a few of us from work since we go there a bit, so we got pretty good service, as well as some service (in Korea, service means free stuff shops, bars and restaurants give to good customers, in this case we got three free bottles of coke). Everyone enjoyed the food, which is probably my favorite Korean dish.

Saturday we went to Palgong mountain, where I learnt that Koreans are part mountain goat. After the bus ride there we caught a cable car about halfway up the mountain. Mum decided she'd wait around the cable car where there was a restaurant, and my sister and I tried to climb the mountain. Let's just say we both failed. On our way back to the restaurant where Mum was waiting we passed an old man who had been sitting next to Mum on the bus. He'd climbed up from the bottom instead of taking the cable car and was keen to go the rest of the way. After getting some lunch we took the cable car down and walked around a temple which included a giant Buddha we could see from the restaurant.

Sunday was an easy day. We went downtown and walked around a bit. We had a look at what the tourist map called culture street, and were disappointed by the lack of culture there. Towel street had a ton of towels, and hardware street also had plenty of hardware. So culture street not having much culture was a surprise.

Monday we went to a village about an hour and a half away called Andong. This town has a lot of historical sites, a folk village museum where one of the guides followed us around for most of the museum adding extra bits of trivia along the way. The old folk village was interesting to look at but a bit samey after a while. And when most of the traditional houses had the traditional satellite dishes, it lost a little. Some nice sights though. The final stop was the Andong paper thingy which was a little too proud of the time the Queen visited. After getting back to Daegu we went for dinner at the Outback Steakhouse.

On Tuesday we were going to go to Hiansa temple, a world heritage listed temple that is the location of the Tripitaka Koreana, a famous Buddhist text. Indeed, we even went to the bus terminal and bought tickets there. While we were waiting for the bus though, we were reading the lonely planet and noticed that the whole place was closed on Tuesdays. So we spent a kind of easy day walking around not quite downtown Daegu. This included a hike up to Wubang tower, the highest building in Daegu, which is pretty easy when it's built on what seems like the highest hill in Daegu to start with, and the elevator reads 1 2 3 4 5 74 75 76 83, which makes me doubt if it's exactly that many stories high. From this vantage point I did notice the curious fact that all of the built up areas of Daegu are pretty much flat, and every hill of even modest height is not built upon, but has been left as a park.

Finally on Wednesday Mum and my sister caught the KTX back to Seoul, where they were going to stay until their flights on Friday. Thus ended their trip for me. More photos can be found here.

End Post
Writing time: 59 minutes
Time since last post: a while
Current media: The Hollowmen

There's Potential There

A number of creative types I enjoy the work of are behind this experiment. It looks like it'll be worth checking out.

End Post
Writing time: 1 minute
Time since last post: half a day or so
Current media: None

Just How Useless is the Security Council?

A few days ago the UN Security Council considered a resolution applying sanctions to Zimbabwe including an arms embargo and personal restrictions on Mugabe and a number of his cronies. This sounds like a very sensible thing considering the shit that went down during the last election. Indeed the resolution got nine votes for compared to four against with one country, Indonesia, abstaining.

Notice I didn't say the resolution passed nine votes to four. That's because it didn't pass. Two of the four countries that voted against the idea were Russia and China, both of which are permanent members of the security council with the power of veto. And because of them, international pressure on Mugabe to actually stop being a dickwad has been greatly reduced.

The justification the Chinese and Russians gave for the decision not to support sanctions against Zimbabwe in the wake of their so-called elections is that so far it has been a domestic issue, and so a Security Council resolution, which is meant to deal with international issues, is inappropriate.

While the matter is certainly so far a purely domestic issue, I still think the Security Council is within it's jurisdiction to apply pressure in this situation. Firstly, it is one of the few international organizations with some teeth that is able to do so. This is not a particularly great reason, but it does place some responsibility on the council, and particularly the permanent members to be responsible members of the community of nations.

Secondly, action needs to be taken against Mugabe to prevent the precedent he appears to be setting. If other tin-pot dictators see that they can use such tactics to ensure that they retain power with little or no real consequence, they will be much more willing to do so. And then when we have a bunch of countries run by power mad crazies with little or no concern for anything or anyone but themselves, I can almost guarantee there will be international problems. Action needs to be taken against Mugabe to show that his antics are not acceptable in the modern world.

China's track record on such matters is particularly poor. Their position of non-interference in internal affairs means that a number of less than savory administrations have gotten a lot of necessary support when it would have been better for everyone concerned if they were under pressure to change their ways.

Combine this with the Security Council's somewhat outdated voting system and China is causing a lot of hassles for those of us who want to encourage unpleasant governments to change their ways. If someone is giving away carrots for free and stopping others from using the stick, it's a lot harder to have a positive effect.

End Post
Writing time: 45 minutes
Time since last post: a while
Current media: Arrested Development

You've just got to feel sorry for them.

The latest group to be suffering due to the declining US dollar has just been revealed: the Catholic Church. Apparently, of all the countries in the world, America is the largest overall donor to the Catholic Church, and due to the fall in the value of the US dollar against the Euro, these donations aren't quite what they used to be (although America still donated almost ten times as much as number 2 Italy. Interestingly, South Korea is number 8). In fact, the church actually made a loss of about 9 million euros in 2007.

Now, I don't think the Catholic church is really going to suffer from this. They are indeed the masters of playing the long game (how many other organizations except for the Illuminati have such a long track record?), and I'm pretty sure they've got enough saved up to last them through this dip in income. They won't exactly be mortgaging the Sistine Chapel or anything to make ends meet.

End Post
Writing time: 8 minutes
Time since last post: I can't be bothered working it out
Current media: None

Cracking Up

Will someone please think of the crackers.

End Post
Writing time: 1 minute
Time since last post: x, where x is the amount of time since my last post
Current media: iTunes shuffle

I mean, really?

A rather depressing case from England. Some guy called up the emergency number to report a strange bright object in the sky slowly rising. Someone was sent out to investigate what it was this gentleman had seen.

What was this mysterious object in the sky.

The Moon.

I have no further comment.

End Post
Writing time: 1 minute
Time since last post: some arbitrary amount of time, and isn't it all relative anyway.
Current media: None, although I did just finish watching the Doctor Who finale.

One Step Too Far

A rather worrying report from England today about a religious education class where the teacher pushed things a little too far.

The class was about Islam, and started out telling the year seven class about the history of Islam and then about the way Muslims pray. This is all good and sensible and in no way problematic. Indeed, there should be more education about all the important faiths of the world and what they believe.

Then the teacher said that they would all have to pray to Allah as Muslims do. This did not go down so well. In fact two of the students refused and were given detention.

I'm completely with the students on this one. Being forced to pray to something you don't believe in is wrong. I too would refuse to do this, regardless of if I was being made to pray to Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Krishna, Shiva, Zeus, Odin (although you have to respect a god who hung himself to gain knowledge), Gaia, Xenu or anything else.

End Post
Writing time: 22 minutes
Time since last post: 21 hours?
Current media: Stargate SG-1 1x02 The Enemy Within

An Invitation for Trouble

In a case of correctness gone wrong in Sweden, an eight year old boy's birthday party is the latest battlefront in the fight against discrimination.

The boy handed out invitations to his birthday party in class. However, he did not invite two of his classmates to his party. When his teacher noticed this they confiscated all the invitations. Apparently, since they were handed out in class time the teacher had to ensure there was no discrimination.

This is quite ridiculous. It's an eight year old boys birthday party. Young children are notoriously undiscriminating in the usual sense. Indeed the reasons for the two students not getting an invitation is that one did not invite the boy to his party (presumably those invitations weren't distributed in class) and the other was fighting with the boy. Both of those seem entirely legitimate bases for not inviting someone, if a little petty in the first case.

The school says the boy violated the children's rights by not inviting them to his party. Quite frankly I think the school doesn't have a leg to stand on. They can't control the children's activities away from school and shouldn't try to pretend that they can. They also should not be trying to pretend that they're being noble and protecting the children's rights. There are a right to many things (free speech, liberty, protection from unwarranted government intrusion, privacy, etc), but nowhere among the rights of man is the right to be invited to a party held by someone who doesn't like you.

Legal proceedings have been initiated regarding the matter, and should be resolved by September. Unless the boy is very forward thinking, I presume this will be after the party in question is held.

End Post
Writing time: 19 minutes
Time since last post: 1 dayish
Current media: None

Too Much Information

A while ago Viacom sued Google (well YouTube, which Google owns) over a bunch of clips that were posted which Viacom claims violated its copyrights¹.

As part of the case they want to know how popular the clips of their material are compared to other non-infringing material. To do this they asked for, and the judge has ordered Google to provide them with a log of user IP addresses, login names and videos watched. These logs will include everyone who has ever watched a YouTube video².

This is way too much information. And not just because it's about 12 terabytes worth of data. It's information that isn't needed by Viacom to prove it's claim. If they want to show that their content posted inappropriately is more popular than non-infringing content, they just need to compare the number of times each video was watched. They don't need to know who watched it. They don't need the IP address of who watched it. They just need the clip name and the number of times it was watched.

Another problem is that if Google hands over this information, they may violate privacy laws by giving people's personal information away.

The judge in this case should be doing a better job. He should realize that the information he ordered Google to provide is unnecessary for Viacom to make their claim, and should have given them only the information they need, not what they want. And he should know better to make an order that could require Google to break the law. This decision is bad and it sets a dangerous precedent for future cases.

Edit: Just after hitting post, the question came to me, why has YouTube been storing all this information? It would make life a lot easier for us if they could tell the judge "Well, we never really needed that detailed information so we never kept it. We might be able to get the last 24 hours worth for you if we try." The best way to keep information like this safe is to not store it.

1) I'm sure that there are many clips that violate Viacom (and others) copyrights on YouTube. However, under American law (the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA specifically) YouTube's liability is negligible if they rapidly respond to properly sent take down notices.

Also, I don't think companies should be getting upset by people liking their stuff so much that they want to share it with the world. Especially when said company isn't sharing it with the rest of the world.

2) I think that my definition of the civilized world could be those who have watched a YouTube video.

End Post
Writing time: 21 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: None

A Choice

Yesterday my mother and sister arrived in Korea for a stay of a little over a week. That will probably be discussed later, but for the moment I'm grappling with a choice that was opened to me due to this fact.

My Mum brought me a lot of stuff (more than I expected) and in this bounty was included a Rubik's cube. I can see three possible options with how to keep this object. They are as follows:
1) Keep it in it's original pristine form as a shining beacon of order in a realm of chaos.
2) Mess it up and leave it in an unsolved position as a reflection of the chaos that exists around me
3) Swap two of the stickers and mess up the cube and leave it as an exercise in frustration for any who dare to try it.

What should I do? The poll is on the right.

End Post
Writing time: a little bit of time.
Current media: None

The Third Devil

Blizzard has announced that they will be releasing Diablo 3. The only downside is that even more of my time will be sacrificed to Blizzard.

End Post
Writing time: 2 minutes
Current media: Bullshit! 6x02

God Damn It

I was wandering around Seoul today and walked past a music store with a giant poster for a tour by the Blue Man Group in Seoul. I was quite excited about this until I saw the dates: June 14 - June 20. Then I was pissed off. I keep missing out on these sort of things.

I did see in a newspaper today that the Daegu International Music Festival starts soon. I might try and go to some part of it.

End Post
Writing time: 6 minutes
Current media: Bullshit! 6x02

Those Wacky Chinese

If you're Chinese and want to party on the opening day of the Olympics, but can't get a ticket to the opening ceremony (which is probably most Chinese, since there is an awful lot of them), there's another way to jump on the bandwagon.

Get married.

That's right. Scores of Chinese couples are applying to get married on the 8th of August to celebrate not just their love (I hope their celebrating their love), but also the Olympics. This is a novel approach which I have not seen in other countries which have hosted the Olympics. It certainly didn't happen in Sydney.

Anyway, here's my best wishes to all the lucky Chinese couples getting married on the 8th of August, because there's really no better way to celebrate a two week sporting event than with a life long commitment.

End Post
Writing time: 6 minutes
Time since last post: some time.
Current media: None

This is Why This Sort of Junk is a Problem

Some people suggest that flim-flammery like psychics and spiritualists don't really cause any harm and that those who aggressively rail against them are misanthropic types who want to take some of the fun out of life.

But this is not the case. These frauds do cause harm. In many different ways they do cause harm. This is one example.

An educational assistant (EA) (I presume this is like a teacher's aide) at a Canadian school visited a psychic and the psychic told them that a student whose name started with a "V" was being sexually abused. Based on this the EA reported the family of a student named Victoria to the relevant authorities.

This has obviously caused much distress to the students family. It has wasted tax payer money on an unnecessary investigation. It has opened up the school to ridicule.

All because the vague guesses of a so-called psychic were given more than the iota of credence they should have been given. Psychics play guessing games and watch the gullible client for a response. They should never be a basis for any sort of investigation.

End Post
Writing time: 27 minutes
Current media: Yes Minister

History Time

What notable event occurred on April 16, 1178 BC?

It turns out that this date is believed to be the day Odysseus returned home and slew the suitors of his wife Penelope.

Some researchers used a series of astronomical references in the Odyssey to narrow down the date. After analysis of the clues they came back with just one possible date.

This also seems to make it plausible that there is at least some basis in fact to the story. The consistency of the events adds credibility to the story, and it seems unlikely Homer was a great enough astronomer to get such details in his story correct. Of course, this is not to say that the story should be taken as entirely true (I'm pretty sure there aren't cyclops and witches who turn men into pigs), but certainly that someone had a big adventure on his way home from the Trojan War.

End Post
Writing time: 28 minutes
Current media: Yes Minister

Gotcha

After not being seen since early to mid 2007, Nozumu Sahashi has been found.

Why do I care about this guy being found? He was the president of NOVA, and the one most feel is responsible for the collapse of NOVA. He is the guy who appears to have embezzled significant quantities of cash, and done some rather irregular share trading in the lead up to the collapse.

And today he was talking to the police in Osaka. Justice may not be swift, but it is sure.

End Post
Writing time: 9 minutes
Current media: None

Just What is Their Malfunction?

I've just read this rather harrowing tale of an unfortunate 14 year old girl in Poland.

This young girl is currently pregnant. She is pregnant because she was raped. This is a terrible thing in and of itself. With her family she decided to get an abortion, which is allowed in cases like this under an exception to Poland's strict anti-abortion laws.

Unfortunately she has been unable to undergo the procedure. Originally, she had wanted to have the abortion done in her home town, but a priest barged in on the family while they were discussing the matter with the hospital director, telling her she should give birth. There has also been pressure from various anti-abortion groups on the family and hospitals as well. Both hospitals in her home town refused to perform the procedure.

When the family tried to discretely organise an abortion at a hospital in Warsaw, her harassers somehow found out (a privacy violation worth investigating) and turned up to intrude upon the family once more. They swarmed on the hospital, attacked staff and occupied the office.

These people have continued to harass this unfortunate family, even to the point of submitting a request to police to investigate the coercion of a minor to have an abortion, which is a crime in Poland, and trying to take her away from her mother and put in emergency foster care.

Now is where I get all righteous about this. Just who the hell do these people think they are? This is an extremely traumatic time for this unfortunate young girl, and all they are doing is making things worse. Do they really think that taking this girl away from her family is going to help this girl? Do they really think that persecuting her and following her around telling her what to do will make her feel better?

There is only one person who gets to decide what this girl should do, and only a few people who are allowed to advise her. The ultimate decision is the girls, and only the family, her doctor and those they ask to be involved (this could include a priest, pro-life or pro-choice supporters or whoever else they choose to ask) should be talking to this girl about things¹. For everyone else, it's none of their business and they should leave the poor girl alone.

The involvement of all these anti-abortionists in this case has been despicable. It is harassment plain and simple, and the family should be able to get protection from it.

I think it also shows which side on this debate has the crazies and the nut jobs. I've never seen pro-choice activists harassing someone saying they should have an abortion. They agree that the decision lies with the woman, they just want her to have the freedom to decide what they want to do and the ability to carry out their decision. This is a position which is a lot harder to get very fundamentalist about, since it's essentially "You choose", compared to the anti-abortionists "You can't".

The people in this story really got to me because they have caused a lot of grief for this unfortunate girl who has already had a terrible experience and doesn't deserve this. Have they no decency? Are they so self-righteous that they have to further traumatize this young girl? Can't they let her have some peace?

1) In general, two people get to make the decision about abortion. These two people are the couple involved. A doctor should of course be involved for medical advice. Family, friends or others such as a priest may get involved if asked to by the couple, although in the case of minors the family should be more involved. For anyone else it's none of their business and they have no business telling the couple what they should do. In cases like this one, the father obviously does not get a say in the matter.

End Post
Writing time: 45 minutes
Current media: George Carlin's Class Clown

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits

Noted comedian George Carlin has died due to heart failure at the age of 71. This is a loss for the world.

I think I first saw Carlin in this role in Dogma, but as I later learned that was but a mere footnote to what he had earlier in his career.

As it turns out, the most significant part of his career ended up in the Supreme Court in one of the most significant first amendment cases of last century. His seven dirty words caused a shit ton of controversy when they were first aired. Although time has changed the impact of some of them, it's still a harsh list. At any rate, I think these guys can explain the whole mess better.

To conclude, Rest in Peace George Carlin.

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Writing time: 16 minutes
Current media: None

This Sucks

It likes Robert Mugabe has bullied his way to the top again. Morgan Tsvangirai (I almost got the spelling right before checking) has declared he will not contest the presidential run-off as it is blatantly controlled by Mugabe.

I remember being optimistic about the whole Zimbabwe thing when I first read about the elections on Pappus' Plane, but it seems I have again misjudged the capacity for dictators to serve their own interests over those of the people.

Given some of the stuff Mugabe has pulled since the first stage of the presidential election and the run-off, I have to admire Tsvangirai's bravery for sticking around in Zimbabwe. He certainly has a significant amount of testicular fortitude.

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Writing time: 16 minutes
Current media: iTunes shuffle, currently Beelzeboss by Tenacious D

This is Nifty

I found this over on Neil Gaiman's blog. It's a tool that takes a given text and creates a tag cloud sort of thing out of it. I decided to see what it would make of this site. Here is the result.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Current media: None

In Remembrance of Lowbrow

Once upon a time there was a website. It was lowbrow.com. You can go there today but it is a pale shadow of what it once was. During its golden years I was a regular reader. Those who know about it don't need to be told what it was, but for those who don't, it was a collection of stories from people, moments from their lives that tended towards the lowbrow. Some were truly low, some were entertaining, some were enlightening, and some were profound¹.

When I was reading it it sometimes occurred to me that I had no stories to submit, and I was never sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I now have at least one, and I'm still not sure if it's a good thing.

The thing which has brought about this remembrance though is a beer. A brand of beer which is connected to Lowbrow through its name, which is Lowenbrau. I first learned of the existence of such a brew through lowbrow, and though I'm not a beer drinker I thought I'd give it a try in honour of lowbrow.

A week or two ago I finally did so. I went out with some coworkers to a bar that had a statue of an American Indian out the front, and the tables were decorated with piles of empty bottles which you could use to order by pointing at the one you wanted. While most of the night I stuck to my usual drinks, I did decide to avail myself of a Lowenbrau.

It was not good. Even by the very low standards I hold for the quality of beer, it was bad. But I managed to down it, even though it took some time. And I kept the bottle, in remembrance.

1) I need to get back to an English speaking country. My first draft of this sentence read "Some was truly lowbrow, some was entertaining and some was profound." After noticing this mistake I corrected it to "Some wer truly lowbrow, some wer entertaining, and some wer profound."

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Writing time: 36 minutes (I got distracted reading what little of lowbrow exists on the Internet Archive)
Time since last post: I think I might drop this as I no longer really need it as a motivation to write more
Current media: the Doctor Who Soundtrack

Boom Times at Gloucester High

A baby boom that is. The number of students having babies this year has quadrupled and it turns out that this is no accident. A group of girls have made a pact to all get pregnant and raise their children together. They've been so successful that the school has opened up a day care center for student's children.

They don't quite seem to get what they're getting into with all this, and don't seem to be taking the whole process very seriously. One of the girls child is fathered by a 24 year old homeless. I'm pretty sure he's not going to contribute much to raising the child.

Another example of why they shouldn't be doing it comes from a schoolmate explaining why they're doing it. She says "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally." This is wrong for many reasons. First, they should think back to how they were as kids, which shouldn't be too hard since it wasn't so long ago, and try and remember if they unconditionally loved their parents all the time. Then someone should tell them that the way babies show their unconditional love is by waking you up at 3am with their crying and then puking over your shoulder.

Human life is a precious thing, and those who bring a new baby into the world should be sure that they are aware of and ready for the responsibilities that go with it. By their attitude and actions, these girls have shown that they have done neither.

I just hope these girls get their act together and start treating life more seriously.

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Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: about a day
Current media: iTunes shuffle

And So It Spreads

It appears that the creationist dogma is spreading from its heartland of middle-America to the colder climes of the British Isles. Fortunately, a response is being made to this villainy.

The worst part though is a quote about religious students in subjects like medicine. According to Professor Steve Jones of University College London, "They want permission not to come to those lectures and sit those exam questions."

This is just ridiculous. I honestly expect better from those seeking to become doctors, or those studying any sort of anything, really. If I was their lecturer, I'd say "Sure, you don't have to attend those lectures or do those questions on the exam, but don't expect me to give you any credit for it." For anyone working in the biological fields, evolution is a fundamental concept and denying that is to ignore nearly all the knowledge gained in the field since the mid 1800s.

Dear oh dear oh dear.

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Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days (I ran out of stuff I preposted)
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Did He Really Think This Would Fly?

A weird story about some schmuck in Korea who had less than good luck with the ladies. It seems that after dating a lady for a few months, she called it off and he managed to get her to sign a promise to pay him back the money he spent on their dates. When she didn't pay, he took her to court. Although a lower court enforced the deal, the High Court has overruled them.

In any country such an action is messed up, but it fits in with a general trend of things I've learnt about dating in Korea. Over here, things seem a lot more involved and messed up. For a start, there's a lot of pressure for women to get married before they get too old, which is defined as about 31. But they can't just marry anyone, they have to marry someone whose family is of similar social status. Dating agencies are the most common way people meet, and if they get married, the dating agency gets a regular payment for several years afterwards.

One time I went to a nightclub and it was an almost disturbing experience. Groups of guys and girls would go to the club, and after a while the waiters would start bringing girls to the guys. The idea was kind of that they'd start talking and maybe something would happen, but most of the women seemed very reluctant, with some from the table across from us putting up a big fight not to be taken from her table. She had to fight because the waiters would actually drag them from their table to another table. A few girls were brought to our table, but between the noise (I could feel my chest vibrate), the language barrier and the incredible awkward feeling on both sides nothing came of it.

That's all for now.

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Writing time: 27 minutes (I got distracted by the new Futurama movie
Time since last post: 14 hours, I think
Current media: the new Futurama movie

Hasn't this happened before

So it turns out a rowing crew training on the Brisbane river got hit by a citycat the other day. Fortunately no one was hurt.

This is not the first time such an accident has occurred, and others have not been as lucky. I wonder why there is not a designated section of the river for such activities that the citycat would avoid during training hours. It would be an easy way to prevent unnecessary accidents like this.

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Writing time: 9 minutes
Time since last post: about a day or so
Current media: The Three Amigos

You don't go girl

Another battleground for women in the middle east has opened up. Not content to jihad, women in Saudi Arabia are pushing for the right to play sports. Sports is banned at girls schools, and few facilities allow women to use them.

This issue is being highlighted now because the Saudi Arabia only allows men in its Olympic team, and once again, the bright light of the Olympics is showing us things that were hiding in the shadows. One good point to note is that the London Olympics is planning to ban any country that outright prohibits women from competing. I'm worried though that in a country where women aren't allowed to even train, will any women qualify to compete. It's no good saying "Women are allowed on our team" but provide women no way to reach Olympic standards. It's like telling someone you can have any job you want so long as you have the skills, but, you aren't allowed to learn to read.

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Writing time:10 minutes
Time since last post: probably 24 hours
Current media: Allegro from the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack

Some things should be taken seriously

A rather large trial in NSW has had to be aborted because several of the jurors were playing soduku instead of listening to the evidence.

I don't know where to start with this one. Don't these people understand that jury duty is serious business. Someones future is in your hands. Justice is in your hands. This is not something you can do half-assed.

I certainly agree with the defense lawyer for pulling them up on this, and am glad the judge agreed. The jury has been dismissed and the trial will restart when a new jury is established.

The only bit I don't disagree with is the fact that the jurors can not be penalized for this. Because of their lack of seriousness, this case will go longer, which will mean increased costs for the defendants, the prosecution and the courts. In cases like this where the jury is dismissed for blatantly not doing their job, there should be some sort of consequence. Not the full cost, but they should be made to realize that they have screwed up.

As a hint to anyone who is on a jury and wants to get away with this, avoid two dimensional puzzles. At first people thought these jurors were making notes, but suspicions were aroused when it was noticed that they were writing vertically, a somewhat unusual method of note taking.

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Writing time: 11 minutes
Time since last post: nominally 24 hours, but who knows
Current media: None

I Want My Epidural

Of course, not every woman opts for an epidural. Some go with a caesarean, and others for some reason choose to bear the pain (I can't say I fully understand that one). A Polish woman went for a rather unusual option, booze. The woman turned up at the hospital with a blood alcohol level of 1.2 grams of alcohol per 1000 grams of blood.

The woman seems to have suffered no ill effect from the experience, although the doctors are worried about the baby who got a concentrated dose from its mother and had a blood alcohol level of 2.9 grams per thousand

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Writing time: 10 minutes
Time since last post: It is not for man to know that which shall be, only that which is
Current media: still the soundtrack from Rushmore