When evil becomes just another way to make money

I'm profoundly disturbed by two reports in the Sydney Morning Herald. The first claims:

Cisco, one of the world's largest technology companies, is being sued by Chinese political prisoners for allegedly providing the technology and expertise used by the Chinese Communist Party to monitor, censor and suppress the Chinese people.

Daniel Ward, of US law firm Ward & Ward, has brought the case on behalf of Du Daobin, Zhou Yuanzhi, Liu Xianbin and 10 unnamed others.

. . .

Cisco has publicly stated that it helped the CCP build its Golden Shield and Policenet systems. In the legal complaint, seen by Fairfax Media, Cisco is accused of training Chinese engineers in how to use its technology to carry out surveillance of online activity and suppress dissident activity.

"With the assistance of Cisco, the CCP is now capable of detecting, identifying and tracking perceived threats to the CCP's power, and blocking 'harmful' websites," the complaint reads.

The case, which was filed in June but received minimal media coverage, is being funded by the Laogai Research Foundation, whose executive director, Harry Wu, spent 19 years in Chinese labour camps but now lives in America. Mr Wu has spent years raising awareness of human rights abuses in China and was the driving force behind the case against Yahoo, which was settled for an undisclosed amount.

"Cisco is a company that would do business with any partner so long as it turns a profit, even at the expense of our people's rights and freedoms," Mr Wu said recently.

In a leaked internal Cisco presentation from 2002, seen by Fairfax Media, the company reveals how its products can address China's goals of "maintaining stability", "stop the network-related crimes" and "combat 'Falun Gong' evil religion and other hostiles".

The document also has a page discussing "Networked prisons and jails", describing how information about a suspect travels through Cisco's system from the time a suspect is first jailed to when they are released. The system links jails and police departments and Mr Wu argues it "directly aided in tracking down dissidents and keeping them under oppressive surveillance".

"They aren't just selling routers to a corrupt regime. They are selling the technology, training and software specifically designed to monitor, censor and suppress the Chinese people," said Mr Ward.

"And they are doing so knowing full well how the CCP treats dissenters."

There's more at the link.

The second article describes another lawsuit against Cisco, also pending in a US court.

A human rights group suing Cisco for aiding the tracking and torture of people in China claims it has new evidence proving the tech giant tailored its technology to specifically enable these abuses.

If accepted by the court, the revelations, including that Cisco trained Chinese officials in how to surveil net users, could prove damning for the company, which has always claimed it has done no more than sell stock standard technology to the regime.

. . .

In an amended statement of claim filed in the Falun Gong case the Human Rights Law Foundation says it has found evidence further implicating Cisco.

It claims Cisco CEO John Chambers repeatedly met with Jiang Zemin – “the founder of the persecutory campaign against Falun Gong” – during the design and development of the Golden Shield.

Senior Cisco executives, including Chambers, knew of the campaign of torture and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China but authorised and participated in the Golden Shield project anyway, the complaint claims.

The amended claim quotes a Cisco engineer describing the all-encompassing monitoring Cisco's technology allowed the Chinese government to conduct.

“Cisco provided a secure connection to provincial security databases allowing for thorough cross-checking and movement-tracing … [such that] policemen could remotely access the suspect's work unit, access reports on the individual's political behaviour … family history … fingerprints, photographs and other imaging information,” the engineer is quoted as saying.

“The Chinese police could even check remotely whether the suspect had built or contributed to a website in the last three months, access the suspect's surfing history and read his email.”

The Golden Shield Project – which makes up part of what is known as the Great Firewall of China – is used by the Chinese government to eliminate references to politically sensitive topics such as Tiananmen Square, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo (jailed for 11 years for his political writings) and the Jasmine Revolution sweeping through the Middle East.

Sites such as Facebook and Twitter are also blocked.

The complaint claims that Cisco with its agents developed “antivirus software” that was used by Chinese officials to identify, block and track Falun Gong users and their internet activities.

It claims Cisco created new “first-of-their-kind features that Cisco suggested Chinese security officers use to facilitate the detection, apprehension and interrogation of Falun Gong, knowing that the interrogation of Falun Gong practitioners included and resulted in their torture and further persecution.”

Cisco allegedly marketed its security software as the only product capable of recognising “over 90 per cent of Falun Gong pictorial information”. It was able to do this by identifying and analysing internet activity that is unique to Falun Gong practitioners and then use these “digital signatures” to track them.

The company “specifically designed and customised the Golden Shield apparatus (including hardware and software) with the scale, complexity and capacity required to enable [Chinese officials] to monitor the Chinese population and identify, track, apprehend, interrogate, detain and torture Falun Gong practitioners”.

Without Cisco's help Chinese officials would not have as easily been able to “obtain sensitive information such as home and work addresses, purchases, financial information, contact with other Falun Gong members, past Falun Gong activities, IP addresses and family information (used for interrogation purpose)”.

The system was so far-reaching it enabled authorities to coordinate large-scale investigations to locate, track, apprehend and persecute Falun Gong members from anywhere in China without having to search homes, ransack their offices and homes for evidence or detain and interrogate them for more information, the suit claims.

Cisco has always claimed that it simply provided the equipment to China and denied taking part in training or customising its products in a way that would facilitate censorship or repression. It would not comment on the new claims filed this week other than to say it was assessing the material.

Daniel Ward, of US law firm Ward & Ward, who is running the other case on behalf of the Chinese political prisoners, said the new evidence was “huge”.

He said it “lays bare” Cisco's story that the leaked internal PowerPoint presentation used in Ward's case was an outlier to be ignored. Ward said he would be using the new evidence as part of his case.

Again, more at the link.

If these allegations against Cisco are proved, I can only hope that its Western customers will punish it by withdrawing their business from it . . . but I'm afraid that's likely to be a pipe-dream. More and more, companies will do anything to make money, irrespective of any moral or ethical considerations. Cisco is merely the latest to be exposed. There are plenty of others.

I'm afraid I'm out of step with the modern world on these issues. If I'm satisfied that a company has breached my personal standards of morals and ethics, I won't do business with them any longer - ever. I won't buy new General Motors or Chrysler vehicles because of the flagrantly illegal and immoral bailouts that saved them from bankruptcy, at the expense of defrauding preferred creditors and denying pension rights and benefits to non-union staff. I won't buy Bridgestone or Firestone tires because of that company's attitude and conduct during the Ford Explorer controversy some years ago. If - if - it's found guilty of the moral and ethical lapses of which it's accused, I can't boycott Cisco, as the company doesn't market its products to people like myself. However, I can (and will) hope, and argue, that companies - and governments - which profess a more ethically and morally upright position should do so.

Peter

Not quite what they had in mind!

I'm sure many know the famous saying, "Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance". Clearly, the driver of this car and his partner . . . hadn't.

Did nobody think it might be a good idea to calculate the effects of speed, angle, weight of the car, etc. before trying that jump? (Well, no, of course they didn't - that's why it ended up that way!)





Peter

Psychology, lies, damned lies, and statistics

A major European study has concluded that almost 40% of that continent's population are suffering from one or more forms of 'mental illness'. Reuters reports:

Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden -- measured in the hundreds of billions of euros -- as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.

"Mental disorders have become Europe's largest health challenge of the 21st century," the study's authors said.

At the same time, some big drug companies are backing away from investment in research on how the brain works and affects behavior, putting the onus on governments and health charities to stump up funding for neuroscience.

"The immense treatment gap ... for mental disorders has to be closed," said Hans Ulrich Wittchen, director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany's Dresden University and the lead investigator on the European study.

"Those few receiving treatment do so with considerable delays of an average of several years and rarely with the appropriate, state-of-the-art therapies."

Wittchen led a three-year study covering 30 European countries -- the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway -- and a population of 514 million people.

A direct comparison of the prevalence of mental illnesses in other parts of the world was not available because different studies adopt varying parameters.

Wittchen's team looked at about 100 illnesses covering all major brain disorders from anxiety and depression to addiction to schizophrenia, as well as major neurological disorders including epilepsy, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

The results, published by the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ENCP) on Monday, show an "exceedingly high burden" of mental health disorders and brain illnesses, he told reporters at a briefing in London.

Mental illnesses are a major cause of death, disability, and economic burden worldwide and the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease across all ages.

Wittchen said that in Europe, that grim future had arrived early, with diseases of the brain already the single largest contributor to the EU's burden of ill health.

The four most disabling conditions -- measured in terms of disability-adjusted life years or DALYs, a standard measure used to compare the impact of various diseases -- are depression, dementias such as Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, alcohol dependence and stroke.

The last major European study of brain disorders, which was published in 2005 and covered a smaller population of about 301 million people, found 27 percent of the EU adult population was suffering from mental illnesses.

Although the 2005 study cannot be compared directly with the latest finding -- the scope and population was different -- it found the cost burden of these and neurological disorders amounted to about 386 billion euros ($555 billion) a year at that time. Wittchen's team has yet to finalize the economic impact data from this latest work, but he said the costs would be "considerably more" than estimated in 2005.

The researchers said it was crucial for health policy makers to recognize the enormous burden and devise ways to identify potential patients early -- possibly through screening -- and make treating them quickly a high priority.

"Because mental disorders frequently start early in life, they have a strong malignant impact on later life," Wittchen said. "Only early targeted treatment in the young will effectively prevent the risk of increasingly largely proportions of severely ill...patients in the future."

There's more at the link.

This study is a statist's wet dream! Just look at the implications.

• With almost four out of every ten Europeans 'suffering' from what the survey defines as a 'mental illness' (many of which I would dispute are mental illnesses at all), European psychologists and their allies can now argue for massive increases in their State funding.
• If they 'detect' early signs of one or more of these 'illnesses' by screening everybody (whether those being screened like it or not), they can start 'treating' those susceptible to such 'illnesses' at an early age - again, whether they like it or not.

This has little or nothing to do with 'mental illness', and everything to do with control. If your political philosophy, or personal values, or religious (or other) beliefs, don't fit the 'norm' established by those who 'know best', you can be diagnosed with a 'mental illness' and 'treated' until you conform. Like I said - it's a statist's wet dream. If this comes to pass, 'Big Brother' will be nightmarishly close to reality . . .

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #516

Today's award goes to the people behind a proposed ballot initiative in the state of California. I'm struggling for words adequate to express my disbelief - no, my mind-boggled incredulity - at this report in Business Law Daily.

California could ban lender-initiated home foreclosures, under a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would make home ownership a fundamental right.

Initiative 11-0014 could appear on the ballot in November 2012, if supporters submit more than 800,000 voter signatures necessary to qualify the measure.

The Foreclosure Modification Act, a proposed citizen’s initiative, would ban mortgagees from foreclosing on owner-occupied dwellings in the Golden State. It would further require banks and other lenders to help mortgage borrowers struggling amid financial hardship or illness.

Additionally, lenders would be required to reduce loan principal amounts to reflect a drop in local property values of at least 10 percent. Payments would be adjusted without a new credit review, the proposal states.

Lending institutions would have 45 days — from a borrower’s requests — to refinance a loan maintained for at least three years, the proposal seeks to mandate.

If enacted, the initiative would state a finding that “foreclosure has become a method of increasing a lending institution, loan servicer, mortgagee, trustee and beneficiary’s bottom line and profits by turning borrowers out of their homes.”

David A. Benson of Sacramento brought the ballot question on behalf of himself and other California homeowners. On June 7, he requested a ballot title and summary from the attorney general’s office. The documents are required for the secretary of state to set filing deadlines for the initiative.

If approved by two-thirds of ballots, Article I of the California Constitution would be amended, in part, to add Section 31, declaring: “It is a fundamental right for every Californian to purchase and own a home and real property. As such no township, city, county, municipality, corporate entity, the Legislature or agents thereof shall infringe on this given right of the State of California to its citizens.”

. . .

The Department of Justice’s analysis of the bill submitted to Bowen found that some of the initiative’s provisions could be unconstitutional and possibly clash with federal statute and regulations for federally chartered banks, which are supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) through Title 12 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Adjusting loan amounts would cost local governments billions of dollars in lost revenue from property taxes and other assessments, DOJ noted.

Potential state costs are “up to the low billions of dollars annually” because constitutional provisions require the treasury to replace the loss of property tax revenue to cities and counties.

That’s partly because local tax coffers are used to meet education-funding requirements for K-12 public schools and community colleges. Minimum schools’ funding provisions were placed in the California Constitution in 1988, with voter approval of Proposition 98.

There's more at the link.

When I finally figured out that this report was serious, and not some belated April Fool joke, I could only shake my head in appalled disbelief. Have the moonbats behind this monstrosity ever thought about a few basic facts?

• If a lender knows he won't be allowed to foreclose on a defaulting customer, what incentive does he have to make the loan in the first place?
• If a lender must reduce the principal amount of the loan, even though he's already paid out that amount to purchase the property, he's basically guaranteed a loss on the transaction - so why would he undertake the transaction at all?
• If it becomes a constitutional right to 'purchase and own a home', this necessarily implies that failure to grant the necessary loan to buy a home is discriminating against an individual's fundamental rights - which means that normal loan criteria such as credit history, income, ability to pay it off, etc. are all to be trumped by the applicant's 'rights'. What lender with any sanity will continue to offer home loans in such a state?

I bet the shade of Ayn Rand is smiling grimly right now . . .





Peter

Password security

Yahoo! News has a useful article on the security of your computer and online passwords.

Nobody wants to get hacked. But when it comes to choosing a password, there are key steps you can take to reduce your risk of data intrusions from unwanted virtual visitors. This week's edition of Upgrade Your Life will teach you how to make a strong, safe password that's easy to remember — and how to reduce your odds of being an easy target for hackers.

There's more at the link. Very useful for those who haven't had formal training in data security.

The article also links to Gibson Research Corp.'s 'Password Search Space Calculator'. This very useful utility calculates the strength of your password, and gives estimates of how long it will take to 'crack' it using various techniques. I found that just a couple of simple changes to my passwords greatly increased their security against 'cracking'. Highly recommended.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #515

The video is self-explanatory.

I'm reminded of this quotation from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, one of Robert A. Heinlein's most famous characters:

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

I suspect those words will, at some stage, be applied all too brutally to the characters in this video clip . . .


*Sigh*


Peter

Are you liable for the illegal use of your wireless network?

It's an interesting question that's being played out in the courts right now. I was alerted to it by this post on Legal Satyricon. Its author, Marc Randazza, is a lawyer who recently represented a company in a lawsuit against a private individual over alleged copyright infringement.

In the light of that case, Torrentfreak published two articles, one (by Mr. Randazza) asserting that owners of unsecured wireless networks are, indeed, liable for any illegal use of their network by others, and another by Nicholas Ranallo denying that position. I urge you to read both articles, as they go into the authors' respective positions in great detail, and summarize the present legal position.

I know several people who actively refuse to secure their home wi-fi networks by using a password or encryption, on the grounds that this is somehow 'opposed to liberty'. (I think the fact that at least some of them unashamedly make use of any unsecured wireless network they come across during their travels may have something to do with this.) Nevertheless, it appears the courts are increasingly taking the position that if you facilitate wrongdoing by failing to take the most rudimentary and basic precautions to secure your network, you share responsibility (and financial liability) for that wrongdoing. If that becomes established legal precedent, it might become very expensive to fail to take appropriate precautions.

Food for thought . . .

Peter

All things bacon

I think I've stumbled across bacon heaven . . . namely, a Web site named Bacon Today. I found it via a link to International Bacon Day, which was celebrated yesterday, September 3rd. It also offers recipes and meal ideas, including such gems as:

• a Bacon Soup Bowl;
• a Turbaconducken (i.e. a chicken, stuffed inside a duck, which is in turn stuffed inside a turkey, with the whole thing wrapped in bacon before being roasted). There's also something called the 'Ultimate Turbaconducken', shown below, which is apparently the same thing, but with each bird (or piece of bird) wrapped in bacon before being stuffed into the next bird! I shudder to think of its calorie and/or cholesterol count . . . it might be more appropriately named 'Heart Attack In A Baking Pan'!
  

The Ultimate Turbaconducken

• A Romanian recipe for Bean Soup with Smoked Bacon and Chard, which sounds delicious - I'm going to try it soon;
• Deep-fried bacon as a South Pole expeditionary food;
• And, just for a change, bacon pancakes, made by pouring pancake batter over bacon while it's frying on the griddle.

Bacon pancakes

There's even a 'Bacon Scarf', to keep your neck warm while you eat the stuff; and they link to a website calling itself 'Bacon Freak', which appears to offer unlimited quantities of bacon for home delivery, along with everything associated with it.

I'll just go and lie down now . . . I think I'm suffering from mental indigestion!





Peter

Pity the poor Post Office . . . NOT!

I'm infuriated by this report in the New York Times today.

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”

. . .

The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is getting squeezed on both revenue and costs.

As any computer user knows, the Internet revolution has led to people and businesses sending far less conventional mail.

At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.

. . .

Mr. Donahoe’s hope is to cut $20 billion of the $75 billion in annual costs by 2015. To do that, he wants to close many post offices and slash the number of sorting facilities to 200 from 500 and trim the agency’s work force by 220,000 people, from its current 653,000. (A decade ago, the agency employed nearly 900,000.)

The postal service has the legal authority to close facilities, although community opposition can make the process difficult. To placate critics and cut costs, officials say they would seek to run some postal operations out of stores like Wal-Mart or to share space with other government offices.

Cutting the work force is more difficult. The agency’s labor contracts have long guaranteed no layoffs to the vast majority of its workers, and management agreed to a new no layoff-clause in a major union contract last May.

But now, faced with what postal officials call “the equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” the agency is asking Congress to enact legislation that would overturn the job protections and let it lay off 120,000 workers in addition to trimming 100,000 jobs through attrition.

The postal service is also asking Congress for permission to end Saturday delivery.

Given the vast range of stakeholders, getting consensus on a rescue plan will be difficult.

There's more at the link.

The whole Post Office boondoggle is symptomatic of the 'too big to fail' mentality that led to the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, the Federal takeover of billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars of toxic bank and mortgage debt, and many other actions that have caused our current massive deficit. Every measure discussed in the article, and all those quoted, fail to address one simple question that should be asked before anything else is said or done:

Why should the Post Office survive at all?

Is there any good reason why the Post Office shouldn't be disbanded? Cease to exist as an organization? After all, there are many private companies (including FedEx, UPS, and many other courier companies) who'd happily offer to handle all routine mail deliveries (for an appropriate and commercially viable fee, of course). They'd do so using modern technology and business practices, not rooted in the old days of foot and horse transport. They'd also offer jobs to hundreds of thousands of new employees to handle the business. Of course, they'd pay them a market-related compensation package, rather than the feather-bedded union contract deal currently enjoyed by Post Office staff.

Quite frankly, I don't think there is a solution to the present impasse over the Post Office. Congress wants solutions that are palatable to the electorate, more than it wants solutions that make business sense. The Post Office employee unions want solutions that secure the privileged position of their members, more than solutions that make business sense. The Post Office's managers want solutions that support and strengthen the organization's privileged position, rather than opening up the sector to commercial competition (which is the only approach that makes business sense). Since all three stakeholders are focused on solutions that don't make business sense at all, how can we expect anything to come of the present imbroglio?

The article ends as follows:

Fredric V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, warned of disaster if partisanship keeps Congress from acting.

“This is about one of America’s oldest institutions,” he said. “It survived the telegraph, it survived the telephone, and we have to do everything we can to preserve it and adapt.”

Why the hell should we 'do everything we can to preserve it and adapt'? The telegraph is dead. The telephone (in its original, wired form) is going that way. The buggy whip industry died a long time ago, and US car manufacturers (unless they improve very fast) are confronted with a similar fate in the face of smarter, leaner, more nimble international competition. Why should the Post Office be any different? And why should we be forced to pay, through taxes and user charges, for the survival of a commercially non-viable anachronism?

On the facade of the James A. Farley Building (the main post office building in New York City) appears this inscription, based on a quote from Herodotus' Histories (8.98):

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Legend has it that a disgruntled customer once wrote on another portion of the facade, "Well, what is it, then?" One might ask that same question of both the current management and union leadership of the US Post Office, concerning their inability to understand and/or accept reality.





Peter

Amazing control!

I don't like Harley-Davidson motorcycles at all, regarding them as inferior to more modern designs. Nevertheless, I was astonished to see the control and expertise displayed by Officer Donnie Williams during the Grand Prairie Police Motorcycle Rodeo on April 30th this year. How he did it on so heavy and unwieldy a machine, I don't know, but my hat's off to him!

Even during my best days on a motorcycle, I could never have equaled that!





Peter

A medevac in Afghanistan

House Organ, a publication of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has published an article describing a medical evacuation flight in Afghanistan. It's powerful stuff. Here's an excerpt.

Thrust from the powerful main rotors contacts the ground forming a dust cloud. Racing down before it can engulf me, staying ahead of the swirling debris is critical and must be done correctly – calm and steady. My crew chief opens the door to look, narrating our progress he calls out; “dust cloud forming”, “reaching the tail now,” – “coming up the fuselage, approaching the cabin doors.” It will be over in seconds. With his voice guiding me in, I am distracted by an overwhelming array of data from the flight computer. I free myself from it; letting my experienced hands and eyes guide the ship in. Rate of descent is too fast, adding power, leveling off, and then down again, rate of descent is slower – better. “Dust cloud, very thick” he says; “converging on the landing gear,” I am still too high, still too fast, I can’t let this happen; we must get down on the first try. Another attempt would mean fouling the landing area, obscuring it under the wake of an enormous dust cloud.

Adjusting nicely, coming down, this may work out. Ground comes up fast underneath. Landing gear extends, reaching out to find stable footing, then, an act of faith born deep within my flying instincts telling me the earth is near. Gunfire erupts again. Our guys reply with a devastating volley. Less than ten feet to go, rate of descent is good, heading and ground track all set, then the tail gear finds the ground , the main gear follows an instant later with a satisfying jolt as the desert dust closes over me as solid as a clenched fist. We are down.

My landing here forces a communion with the terrain, baptizing us in dirt, sand, and sweat. Visibility is zero. Low on the western sky an orange glow lingers, long rays reach out, penetrating the dust, as the remnants of daylight ushers in the nether world of failing light. During those first seconds on the ground, suspended between the action that was, and the action to come, an odd moment of reflection carries me away from this windswept high desert landing zone on the far edge of the world at Shah- har-adin. A strange eternity is lived in these places where men meet their mortality. I think of an encounter with a petite, curvy Lebanese woman I met a long time ago, then wondering if he would approve; my flight instructor appears in the co-pilots seat during this fleeting moment. Would this landing earn a passing grade? Noise and action bring me back; the medic leaps out and runs to them. Gunfire from hidden assailants stitches an angry gash in our ship. Overhead, a dark blue sky calls to me, offering safety. I want to take off, but I must not, so harnessed by duty, I remain tethered here.

Dust settles, raising the curtain on this chaos. With absolute clarity I see the awful meaning of war. The sand is bright red. Discarded crimson stained bandages fly away in the wind and we hold no illusions about what has happened here. Governments and chains of command are pale compared with these events. Philosophical discourse is of no consequence. It is a confusing moment of sadness and urgency.

Afternoon flows into twilight and night will soon arrive hard and fast. I am glad we can leave before the real blackness comes. Running to us in a shuffling gait, they bring him on a litter. An arm hangs low from his side nearly touching the ground. Someone carefully replaces it in an act of kindness, restoring his dignity. A soldier holds a bottle of fluid connected to him by a plastic line, the cargo doors swing open and they lift him carefully aboard.

There's much more at the link. Highly recommended reading.

Peter

The hidden - but increasing - dangers of air travel

I note with concern that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found itself in hot water with the Federal Aviation Administration over its air shipping practices. Flight Global reports:

An improperly labeled fiberboard box containing 33 lithium battery-powered electronic devices has landed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in hot water with the US Federal Aviation Administration, and highlights the ongoing risk of shipping the batteries on cargo aircraft.

The safety regulator has levied a $175,000 civil penalty on MIT, alleging that the university had shipped the box via FedEx from Cambridge to Seattle on 25 August 2009.

"The package was discovered with smoke and flames coming from it while it was moving on a conveyor at the FedEx sorting facility in Medford, Massachusetts," the FAA says in a 2 September release.

"Two of the devices in the package heated and melted, which caused the surrounding cushioning and packaging to catch fire," the FAA continued. "Because the package was not properly labeled and marked, Federal Express employees did not know the shipment contained hazardous material. They made several unsuccessful attempts to extinguish the flames with a fire extinguisher."

The FAA notes that the batteries "were not packaged in a manner that would prevent a short-circuit that could create sparks or generate a dangerous quantity of heat", nor was the box marked as containing dangerous goods.

. . .

According to IFALPA, lithium batteries have been responsible for over 40 reported incidents since 1990, involving smoke, fire, extreme heat or explosion in aircraft cabins and cargo holds. Two pilots were killed in September 2010 when their UPS Boeing 747-400F crashed near Dubai after an in-flight cargo hold fire and smoke in the cockpit. Investigators determined that there were ion battery packs onboard that had not been labeled as hazardous materials.

There's more at the link.

Modern batteries pose a very great risk of fire compared to their older counterparts, so much so that the FAA has issued a special safety alert about them. This has been accentuated by the crash in July this year of an Asiana Boeing 747 freighter, also carrying lithium batteries. A fire in the cargo area appears to have caused the crash.

What worries me is that such batteries are shipped by many people in checked baggage, inside their electronic devices. Others are boxed for shipment without being identified by warning labels, and shipped by private citizens and corporations using public carriers. In the absence of such warning labels, they may be included in routine cargo shipments, which are often loaded into the holds of passenger aircraft. It can only be a matter of time until one of them causes a fire aboard an airliner, perhaps leading to a large-scale loss of life.

I don't know the answer to this problem, but I hope we can find one before the worst happens.

Peter

World War II in pictures, continued

I've written before about the Atlantic's 20-part series documenting World War II in pictures. It's up to the 11th instalment now, and contains some remarkable material. Here are a few more examples.

Americans learn of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941

American women workers install fixtures in the rear fuselage of a Boeing B-17F bomber, 1942

German troops callously observe the massacred men of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, June 9th, 1942

A dust storm clouds the streets of the Manzanar Relocation Center in California
(a detention facility for Japanese-Americans), July 3rd, 1942

Aftermath of a Japanese air raid on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, June 4th, 1942

Essential reading for the military history enthusiast.

Peter

Around the blogs

Here's a small selection of blog posts that have kept me interested and/or amused recently.

Bergheim Follies learns a new word. (Not safe for work, but very funny nonetheless!)

Rev. Paul points us to a local government boondoggle that's come back to bite them on the ass (or other portion[s] of anatomy, depending on one's perspective). So much for 'freebies from the Feds'! Why does this irresistibly remind me of the 'new' North Korean cruise liner?

Lawyer With A Gun identifies a judge with a sense of humor. I'll say!

Warren Meyer, over at Coyote Blog, picks up on the new moonbattish California legislation concerning domestic servants, and wholeheartedly approves. After reading his post, so do I! Talk about 'sauce for the goose' . . .

Finally, Tamara is blindsided by Roberta, but it's too late to undo the mental image, I'm afraid. (The actual image is linked in the comments to Tam's post. It's NSFW - to put it mildly! - and more than a little weird . . . but that's Burning Man for you.)

Thanks to all my fellow bloggers for some fun and interesting reading.

Peter

I imagine she can't hear herself think!

Quite why anyone would want to install 40,000 watts of bass-boosted sound in their vehicle, I can't figure out, but that's what someone did to this one. The results are plain to see.

I wonder if such an incredibly deep vibration could affect one's bodily organs at close range like that? Certainly, it looks like a sure-fire cure for indigestion and/or constipation!





Peter

More about Dragoncon

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Miss D. was on her way to Dragoncon. Since then, I've had a couple of puzzled e-mails from readers who don't know anything about that particular convention. If you're puzzled by the name, Wikipedia has a good article about it, and the convention Web site has more information.

I've never been to Dragoncon myself, but CNN informs me that there are five major categories of geek in attendance: sci-fi, fantasy, goth/vampire, comic and videogame geeks. You can read all about them at the link, complete with photographs. Suffice it to say that normality does not appear to be a common affliction at Dragoncon!




Miss D. tells me she's been run off her feet today. She hopes to meet my blogbuddy and bestselling author Larry Correia tomorrow, which will be great if she can wade through the throngs of fans who are sure to be pressed around his table. I'm hoping she can bring back a Monster Hunter International cap for me. Wish I could be there with her. Maybe next year . . .

Meanwhile, take a look at the CakeWrecks Ode to Dragoncon - convention-themed cakes! Here's a sample to whet your appetite.




Yes, that's a cake! I don't know whether, upon cutting the very painstakingly-decorated icing, you'd be greeted with normal cake innards or mechanical debris; but I guess at Dragoncon, anything's possible! There are many more cakes at the link.





Peter

There are very few of The Few left now . . .

. . . and one of them left us the poorer for his departure a few days ago. The Telegraph reports:

Group Captain Billy Drake, who died on August 28 aged 93, was one of the leading Allied “aces” of the Second World War.

Five days after the outbreak of war, Drake and his colleagues of No 1 Squadron flew their Hurricanes to a French airfield to provide support for the British Expeditionary Force. Throughout the bitter winter of the “Phoney War” there was little action, but on April 19 1940 Drake met the enemy for the first time. His formation attacked a flight of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and, in the ensuing melee, Drake claimed one, the first of many successes.

When the Blitzkreig was launched on May 10, No 1 Squadron was thrown straight into battle, its Hurricanes trying to provide support for RAF bombers that were suffering terrible losses. In three days, Drake, always a highly aggressive pilot, shot down three Dornier 17s and shared in the destruction of another.

Three days later he had just succeeded in setting a Dornier on fire when he was attacked from the rear; despite being wounded in the back, he managed to bail out of his blazing Hurricane. After a spell in a French hospital he returned to England to be reunited with the survivors of his squadron. He admitted that the situation on the French front was “total chaos”.

Drake spent much of the Battle of Britain training fighter pilots but, after badgering old friends, he was allowed to join No 213 Squadron, flying out of Tangmere. On October 10 he probably shot down a Bf 109 before heading to Gravesend to join a reconnaissance flight whose job was to fly over the English Channel looking for incoming German raids. Flying a Spitfire, he shared in the destruction of a bomber and damaged a number of others. In December he was awarded a DFC.

. . .

In October 1941 Drake left for Freetown, Sierra Leone, as a squadron leader to command No 128 Squadron and to provide defence for the nearby naval facilities. Vichy French bombers occasionally strayed into the airspace, and on December 13 he intercepted one which refused his orders to land; with some regret he shot it down.

Life in Sierra Leone was too quiet for the restless Drake, and his efforts to see more action paid off at the end of March 1942 when he left to join a Kittyhawk fighter bomber squadron in the Western Desert. Two months later he was given command of No 112 (Shark) Squadron, and so began a period of intense action during which Drake accounted for more than 30 enemy aircraft, 15 of them during strafing attacks against enemy landing grounds.

On June 6 he was leading his squadron on a bombing attack over Bir Hacheim in support of the Free French. Spotting four Bf 109s, he dived on them; all four were shot down, one of them by Drake. The French commander signalled “Bravo! Merci pour le RAF!” to which the RAF commander responded: “Merci pour le sport!”

Over the next few weeks Drake destroyed at least five aircraft on the ground, and in mid-July he was awarded an immediate Bar to his DFC, for a raid on Gazala which “grounded the German fighter force for three days”.

During the retreat to El Alamein, Drake was in constant action, destroying at least three more aircraft in the air and two on the ground. After a brief respite, operations gathered momentum again, and in September and early October he added to his score as he attacked enemy airfields; among his victims in the air were two Italian Macchi fighters.

In the latter part of October, Drake claimed a German bomber and a fighter. Over the next few days he destroyed more fighters, two Stuka dive bombers and two transport aircraft on the ground. At the end of October, two months before he was rested, he was awarded a DSO. During his time in command of No 112 he had destroyed 17 aircraft in the air with two others shared, a total exceeded in North Africa only by one other pilot, the Australian-born Group Captain Clive “Killer” Caldwell.

After six months in a staff post Drake was back on operations commanding a Spitfire Wing in Malta. Providing escort to USAAF bombers attacking Sicily, he claimed two enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground; and on July 7 he shot down an Italian fighter, his 25th and final victim in air combat (having shared in the destruction of three others). He added an American DFC to his decorations.

After returning to England in December 1943, Drake commanded a Typhoon Wing and attacked the German V-1 sites in the Pas de Calais. With his great experience of fighter and ground attack tactics, he was sent to instruct at the RAF’s Fighter Leaders’ School. Despite being in a training appointment, he frequently absconded for a day to take part in attacks against targets in France. His operational career finally came to an end in August 1944, when he was sent to the US Command School in Kansas before returning to join the staff of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.

There's more at the link. For those trying to put Group Captain Drake's combat awards into US military perspective, they're equivalent to one Distinguished Flying Cross, two Silver Stars, and an Air Force Cross. That's quite a collection by anyone's standards! His Royal Air Force rank of Group Captain is equivalent to a USAF Colonel.

There are very few of 'The Few' left alive today, certainly no more than a handful, and they're growing very old now. I'm sure they bade farewell to Group Captain Drake (a descendant of the legendary Sir Francis Drake) with sorrow, but in the hope of rejoining him soon. I trust he found many old comrades waiting for him on the other side.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #514

Today's winners are from Changsha in China.

An amorous couple were forced to put the brakes on their moment of passion after accidentally sending their car shooting through a 60ft-high rooftop crash barrier.




The couple from Changsha, Hunan province, southern China, had driven to a lay-by on a rooftop car park for a few minutes of intimacy in what they thought were safe surroundings.

And as the loved-up pair's clinch began to get steamy, the two decided to keep the engine running on their car so they could make use of the air conditioning.

But in the heat of the moment, Qiao Hou kicked the car into reverse, sending it lurching backwards towards a horrifying 60ft drop.

The pair were saved from a deadly fall when passers-by were alerted to the screams of 43-year-old Hou's girlfriend, Lili Tang, who could be heard yelling terror as the car dangled from the rooftop.

Witnesses managed to get to their aid and pull the couple from the car, which was only stopped by its exhaust catching on the broken barrier.

There's more at the link.

I suppose it could certainly be described as the 'height' of passion . . . but it's a rather mechanical variation of coitus interruptus, wouldn't you say?





Peter

The Catholic Church versus the authorities, redux

I'll be interested to see how a brewing confrontation between the Catholic Church in Ireland and that country's government is handled. (We originally discussed this in July.) The BBC reports:

The Irish justice minister has said that forthcoming child protection measures, including mandatory reporting will "apply regardless of any internal rules of any religious grouping".

Alan Shatter was responding to comments made by Cardinal Sean Brady who defended the seal of confession.

Cardinal Brady stressed it was a "sacred and treasured" rite.

Mr Shatter said past failures in the Catholic Church had led paedophiles to believe they could act with "impunity".

Last month the Cloyne report was published.

It found the diocese failed to report all complaints of abuse to police.

As a result, a number of child protection measures were announced under the legislation currently being drawn up.

A priest could be convicted of a criminal offence if they were told of a sexual abuse case and failed to report it to the civil authorities.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr Shatter said: "It is the failure in the past to make such reports that has led sexual predators into believing that they have impunity and facilitated paedophiles preying on children and destroying their lives."

Anyone who fails to declare information about the abuse of a child could face a prison term of five years.

The Irish Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald said that priests who are given admissions of child abuse during the sacrament of confession will not be exempt from new rules on mandatory reporting.

There's more at the link. In another BBC report, one Irish priest has already gone on record as saying he'll go to prison rather than break the seal of the confessional, as the proposed new law requires.

This is going to set up a monumental conflict between canon law and civil law. It might be described as a classic case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. The Irish government is not going to back down from its demand that those knowing of offenses against civil law inform the authorities, and public opinion is likely to be strongly on their side. However, the Catholic Church has defended its internal system of law for many centuries, and is adamant that "A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See" (cf. Canon 1388 § 1). It matters not to the Church whether or not the confessor is obliged to violate that seal, in terms of civil law; the prohibition is absolute.

I don't see the Church backing down on this one. If it does, it'll be the start of the proverbial 'slippery slope' - it'll only be a matter of time before demands are made for confessors to reveal other sins, not just those relating to child sexual abuse. In order to prevent that escalation, the Church is sure to try to prevent it starting at all, even if that means some of its clergy must face prison sentences for their lack of co-operation with the civil authorities. On the other hand, those same civil authorities are quite right to be furious at the Church's mishandling of cases of clergy sexual abuse of children, particularly when that mishandling endangered more children. The Church cannot possibly make any defense of its criminally immoral actions (and, all too often, inaction) in this regard. It's actually rendered itself complicit in the crimes of some of its clergy. Under the circumstances, I don't believe any defense is possible.

The real tragedy is that, if only Bishops and seminary professors had been doing their jobs properly for the past few decades, this wouldn't be an issue at all . . .


*Sigh*


Peter

Another funny advertisement

This one's for a mass transit service.

Cute!



Peter

The restoration of HMS Victory gets under way

I've written before about the need to restore Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory. The Daily Mail reports that the long, complex task of putting her to rights has begun.

The rigging has started coming off HMS Victory. Piece by piece, yard arm by yard arm, mast by mast, Nelson's mighty flagship is being stripped of her finery and the 26 miles of rope which keep her standing as tall as Nelson's Column itself and peering majestically over Portsmouth Harbour.

Within weeks, the 104-gun monster — without which much of the world might now be speaking French — will hardly feature on the skyline.

. . .

More than 200 years after Victory's finest hour, she has been undergoing rigorous inspection.

This was no mere 'Trousers down, cough please' medical from the ship's doctor. This was a full biopsy performed by top scientists and marine archaeologists. And the diagnosis has been a stark one. Without a serious overhaul, Victory will fall apart. Like a beached whale, she is in danger of collapsing under her own weight.

In recent days, that remedial operation has begun, starting with the rigging. And it is a work of art in itself, a mighty 18th-century equivalent of the ship's engine which once drove this 3,500-ton snub-nosed war machine and her 800 men across the ocean.

. . .

Overseeing it all is Ian Bell, a rigging expert who has rigged and derigged everything from the Cutty Sark to the latest film set for 'Pirates Of The Carribean'. He speaks fluent 'shiver me timbers' jargon. 'I know my futtocks from my baggywrinkles,' he laughs, as he helps me navigate my way around the lower ratlines.




'Once you get to understand a ship, it's all quite simple,' he insists, pointing to a basic rule of thumb when it comes to rigging. If ropes are black, they have been painted with tar which means they are 'standing rigging'. In other words, these are the permanent fixtures which hold up the masts.

Any white ropes are 'running rigging'. They are for pulling things. In other words, they move. So, if in doubt, grab a black rope.

The last time that all the upper rigging came down was during World War II. This time, the plan is to go even further and leave her as bald as Yul Brynner in a pirate caper.

Everything will then be catalogued and tested with ultrasound (to check for cracks) before it goes back.

. . .

'It's the best command in the Navy,' says her proud captain, Lieutenant Commander 'Oscar' Whild, 50. As a Falklands veteran who survived a 1,000lb Argentine missile through the stern of HMS Broadsword, he has a profound respect and affection for a ship which stands for all the finest traditions of the Royal Navy.

Indeed, Victory stands for so much else. She helps to explain to successive generations why a small island nation was able to spread her influence and way of life around the globe. She helps to explain where so much of our language — from 'three square meals a day' to 'touch and go' to 'on the fiddle' — has originated.

She also happens to be the oldest commissioned warship in the world and a magnificent spectacle to boot.

If she is going to look a little threadbare for a few years, so be it. She will look even better when she is finished.

There's more at the link.

It's good to see this grand old lady of the seas being restored to her former glory. I hope I'll be able to visit her again before I die.

Peter

Official hypocrisy exposed, yet again . . .

I note that after World War II, US authorities tried to locate Dr. Josef Mengele and his assistants, to put them on trial for the barbarous experiments they conducted on concentration camp inmates during that conflict. Mengele avoided detection, and lived out the rest of his days in South America before dying a natural death.

Now comes news that the US government deliberately conducted equally immoral experiments, using the citizens of Guatemala as subjects. The BBC reports:

US government scientists who infected Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhoea as part of a study knew they were violating ethical rules, a US presidential panel has said.

The researchers infected hundreds of prisoners, psychiatric patients and sex workers during the 1940s to study the effects of penicillin.

None of the Guatemalans was informed.

. . .

The Commission said some 5,500 Guatemalans were involved in all the research that took place between 1946 and 1948.

Of these, some 1,300 were deliberately infected with syphilis, gonorrhoea or another sexually transmitted disease, chancroid.

And of that group only about 700 received some sort of treatment.

According to documents the commission had studied, at least 83 of the 5,500 subjects had died by the end of 1953.

The commission was unable to say whether any of those deaths were caused directly or indirectly by the deliberate infections.

But Dr Gutmann lambasted those responsible for the research.

"Those involved in the study failed to show a minimal respect for human rights and morality in the conduct of research," she said in her concluding remarks to the panel.

She said many of the actions were "grievously wrong" and those individuals behind the study were "morally culpable to various degrees".

"Civilisations can be judged by the way they treat their most vulnerable... we failed to keep that covenant," she said.

There's more at the link.

So, tell me . . . if Mengele's experiments were regarded as war crimes, and he would have faced the death penalty if brought to trial, why were the same standards not applied to the doctors who conducted these Guatemalan experiments?


(Listens to crickets in the silence . . . )


This is just the latest chapter in a long and convoluted horror story of US government-authorized unethical experiments against its own citizens and others, both on US territory and elsewhere. There's a long list of them here, complete with supporting references in footnotes. You can read more about one such experiment in this Los Angeles Times article.

"We're from the Government. We're here to help you." Sometimes, those aren't the most reassuring words in the world, are they?

Peter

She refused to be cowed . . .

US readers may not have heard of the ongoing saga of Yvonne the cow. It started back in May this year, as the Guardian reports.

Yvonne, a six-year-old dairy cow, has, in the words of one newspaper, become "a kind of freedom fighter for the animal loving German republic" since she escaped from her field in the village of Zangberg, 50 miles north-east of Munich, on 24 May.

Having been fattened up, she was due to be dispatched when she managed to breach the electric fence surrounding her farm. For months she led a quiet life grazing among the fir trees of nearby forests, until she nearly came a cropper crossing a road into the path of a passing police car.

As word spread of this invincible cow, animal protection activists got involved, incensed that local hunters had been given permission to shoot Yvonne on sight. Gut Aiderbichl, an animal sanctuary over the Austrian border in Salzburg, agreed to buy Yvonne from the farm for €600 and has offered her a paddock with grass to graze on for the rest of her days.

Now a fight is on as the bovine protectionists are pitted against the trigger-happy Bavarians, who shot and killed Bruno, the first bear to be seen on German soil for 170 years, in June 2006.

Gut Aiderbichl are pulling out all the stops to catch Yvonne alive. Last week they enlisted the help of a bull called Ernst to try to lure her back home. Ernst has "a deep baritone moo that will appeal to Yvonne", as well as a particularly manly musk, said the sanctuary's founder, Michael Aufhauser. "He is the George Clooney of bulls." Sex is not on the agenda, however, as Ernst is castrated.

Aufhauser also called on an animal psychic to communicate with Yvonne from afar. Franziska Matti, an animal communication expert from Berne in Switzerland, said she had managed to contact Yvonne using telepathy. "I spoke to her yesterday and she said that she was fine but didn't feel ready to come out of hiding," said Matti. "She said she knew that Ernst had been waiting for her but that she was scared. She said she thought that humans would lock her up and she would no longer be free."

There's more at the link.

In response to the overwhelming public interest in the cow, the authorities took steps to ensure her safety. Der Spiegel reported over the weekend:

The district authority of Mühldorf am Inn in Upper Bavaria said on Friday it had revoked its permit to shoot the six-year-old brown-and-white dairy cow.

. . .

This is the news Yvonne's army of fans have been waiting for. A Facebook page set up in her honor has over 27,000 friends, and media from around the world have devoting copious column inches to her adventures, possibly in a bid to feature some light relief from the Libyan war and financial market turmoil. Her celebrity status evidently helped to protect her.

Hindus Concerned For Yvonne's Safety

Bild, the tabloid German newspaper, offered €10,000 ($14,500) for information leading to her safe capture, and provided almost daily coverage of the hunt, even paying a vet to examine one of her cowpats. He declared she was healthy and well-fed.

Prominent Hindus, for whom cows are sacred, weighed in with calls on German authorities to protect Yvonne. A Bavarian band has composed a folk song called "Yvonne You Wild Cow" and hopes it will become a hit at the Oktoberfest beer festival next month.

Again, more at the link.

However, Yvonne decided to co-operate with her well-wishers, and was recaptured peacefully last Tuesday. Bild reports (in German, translated by Google):

A farmer from Eigelsberg (Bayern) has captured the raging cow on Tuesday - and so even the reward of € 10 000 secured.

How did he do it, even after big-game hunter and [Lockbullen] failed?

Konrad G. Farmer (46) told BILD: "It was a lot of luck involved. I was about 18 at the clock with my daughter Melanie on one of our willow forest to check the fences. As Yvonne was suddenly in front of the fence, staring at the young cows. "

The farmer continued, "When she saw us she ran back into the forest. We thought about what we do. At the end we decided just to open the gate. "

While the daughter (13), the young cows in a pasture corner of distraction, Konrad Bauer ran crept through the woods from behind Yvonne.

The farmer: "I went very slowly, so gradually they've put out to pasture. She was noted to the stress of the past days. She was very nervous. "

That's really where cattle are trapped by the wild cow, says Hans Winter Plate (44) from "Aiderbichl": "We have checked the number on the ear tag. It is our Yvonne."

. . .

Yvonne [will] now spend her days on the farm animal protection organization, "Aiderbichl" in Deggendorf.

So the saga of Yvonne seems to have come to a relatively happy ending. At least she provided some warm fuzzy news to many in Germany, to balance the woes of the European currency crisis. Still, I can't help but wonder what the Germans hoped to achieve, using a castrated bull to attract her attention. Yvonne didn't fall for their plan, or the steer, so she clearly wasn't as gulli-bull as they thought!





Peter

A Museum dedicated to Bad Art?

Yes, there really is a Museum of Bad Art. The Independent reports:

With 600 pieces in its permanent collection MOBA prides itself on being “the finest bad art establishment in the world”.

MOBA Collection - "Dog"

Located in Massachusetts, USA in an old basement (“conveniently beside the toilets”) of the Dedham Community Theatre, it has attracted some priceless contributions with little or no funding.

MOBA Collection - "Retch Like An Egyptian"

The brainchild of a group which includes Michael Frank, currently the curator-in-chief who has a sideline as a musician and children’s entertainer (“with enviable balloon-twisting skills”), and Louise Reilly Sacco, a founding member and the Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director, MOBA has been going since they discovered a picture so bad they felt compelled to exhibit it back in 1993.

MOBA Collection - "Sunday On The Pot With George"

With the help of another founding member, Marie Jackson, MOBA’s Director of Aesthetic Interpretation (“who refuses to be restrained by a lack of formal artistic training or her inability to distinguish one end of a computer keyboard from another”), and a one time Playboy photographer Tom Stankowicz, MOBA has published a book to accompany its online and physical exhibitions, also titled Museum of Bad Art: Art Too Bad to Be Ignored.

There's more at the link. The Independent has a small gallery of the 'worst of the worst' from MOBA, and the Museum's Web site has an extensive online display of its collection.

I suppose it's generally considered an honor to have one's work selected for exhibition in a museum . . . but if the museum in question is MOBA, does that still count as an honor? And can one decline?





Peter

Tree removal FAIL!

A tip o' the hat to reader J. C. for sending me the link to this video clip.

I wonder what the insurers had to say about that?





Peter

A remarkable photograph!

I found the picture below courtesy of a link at Dark Roasted Blend. It was taken by Tatyana Kildisheva, and shows the Strokkur geyser in Iceland, about a second before it erupts. The bubble of gas rising through the water, pushing it into a bulge on the surface, can be clearly seen.




In order not to steal Ms. Kildisheva's thunder, and in terms of the 'fair use' provisions of US copyright law, I've reduced the size of the image and cropped it slightly. To see it on Ms. Kildisheva's Flickr photostream in its original glory, click here, then click the magnifying glass icon at the link to enlarge it.

Congratulations to Ms. Kildisheva on being in the right place at the right time to capture this beautiful image.

Peter