I've had to turn on an anti-spam image plug-in because, frankly, the spammers are hitting very, very hard right now. That may cause a problem for trackbacks, but it really has become a bother at this point. If you have trouble posting a comment, send me an email (addy is on the "about" page). Let's see if this cuts some of the insanity down.
Geek Stuff | Gaius Monday, 1 October , 2007 | 
Comments Off
SeeDubya from JunkYardBlog discusses the Orwellian Machine that the advocates of freedom in Burma encountered. He pronounces the uprising is over. Period.
As Ace knows and as I said yesterday, the Burmese demonstrations were doomed. The only price the Burmese regime will pay for its apparent murder of thousands of Buddhist monks is mocking and ill will from the global intelligentsia. The Burmese tyrants knew that, too, and that's why they did it.
If there's anything good that may come from the monks' stand, it's that some of that anger is landing on Burma's patrons in Beijing. Which reminds me of a certain picture. Remember this guy? (Ed. Note: SeeDubya has this picture inserted there.)
Yeah, he's probably dead or in hiding. And (thanks to Google) you'll have a tough time even finding that picture from the Chinese internet.* It's like the whole 1989 thing never even happened. And that's how 2007 is going to be in Burma. They're a little cruder about it, but inside Burma those pictures of dead monks are going to disappear, just like the inconvenient monks themselves, and just like those who took those inconvenient pictures.
Totalitarian governments can do this sort of thing pretty well. It's not perfect; there are little holes and gaps, and it's not up to the standard set forth in 1984, but they're working on it. Governments like the PRC and Burma's regime spend a lot of money to jam, filter, suppress, and torture sources of opposition to their rule, because they know that this technology–surveillance, blocking, and brutality–the Orwell Machine–is what keeps them in power.
Democracies talk. Tyrannies act. Then some democracies make trade deals with those who act - by crushing peaceful monk's skulls. Question for the left: still going to hold Europe up as an example of enlightenment? Still going to say that the US needs to be more like Europe?
(Incidentally, wireservice reports about Burma are drying up rapidly.)
An update on the Incan mummy known as La Doncella. The almost eerily preserved body of the 15-year old girl who was sacrificed by the Incas has recently gone on display in Argentine. I posted about her twice, here and here. I still get search engine hits from both posts. A few more facts have come out from researchers in the Times of London that warranted an update. It seems that the three victims of this particular human sacrifice ritual of the Incas were purposely "fattened up" for their fate. Starting at least a year before the actual sacrifice.
Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano.
The remains of the 15-year-old girl known as the “Llullaillaco Maiden” and the seven-year-old “Llullaillaco Boy” revealed that their diets changed markedly in the 12 months up to their deaths, shedding new light on the rituals of the ancient Andean civilisation.
The research, by a British-led team, suggests that the children were fed a ceremonial diet before being marched to a shrine 82ft (25 metres) from the top of the 22,110ft (6,739 metres) volcano Llullaillaco, where they were suffocated or left to die from exposure.
Before being chosen as sacrificial victims, the boy and girl had followed a typical peasant diet. This raises the possibility that they were chosen from among the Incas’ conquered subjects and killed not only to pacify the mountain gods, but also to instil terror and respect for an imperial power. “It looks to us as though the children were led up to the summit shrine in the culmination of a year-long rite, drugged and then left to succumb to exposure,” said Timothy Taylor of the University of Bradford, one of the lead researchers.
“Although some may wish to view these grim deaths within the context of indigenous belief systems, we should not forget that the Inca were imperialists too and the treatment of such peasant children may have served to instil fear and facilitate social control over remote mountain areas.”
The two mummified bodies, along with a third belonging to a six-year-old girl, were discovered in 1999 on Llullaillaco, in northwestern Argentina, near the Chilean border.
As I mentioned before, I have a 15-year old daughter. Scientifically, it may be fascinating. From a human standpoint, it is horrible.
Today, the military junta that is cracking the heads of monks and civilians in Burma diverted the United Nations envoy who is appealing for peace, Ibrahim Gambari, and sent him off to attend a seminar. The seminar, held far, far away from the cities being clamped down on, was about European Union trade relations with Burma.
The Associated Press, citing diplomats, said Gambari was taken on a government-sponsored trip to attend a seminar in the far northern Shan state on EU relations with Southeast Asia, instead of meeting with junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
Gambari had planned to tell him, "about the international outrage over what has happened and will urge him to talk with various people and try to resolve the problems peacefully," Shari Villarosa, chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, told CNN on Sunday.
While it is not clear that EU delegates were at the seminar (the reporting is kind of scanty there) it is quite clear the the EU made a conscious decision in May to ignore the appalling human rights record of the military junta and to try to expand trade ties with the thugs in power.
(SINGAPORE) - Southeast Asian states and the European Union agreed Friday to launch free trade negotiations, setting aside differences over alleged human rights violations in army-ruled Myanmar, officials said.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson reached the agreement with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic ministers during a meeting in Brunei, ASEAN Secretary General Ong Keng Yong told AFP.
"Yes, we agreed to launch the ASEAN-EU free trade negotiations," Ong said from the Brunei capital Bandar Seri Begawan.
"We will set up a joint working committee to follow through this announcement … The understanding is that we are talking to the EU as a group of 10 member countries and Myanmar is a member of ASEAN. No one will be excluded from the negotiating process."
An ASEAN-EU free trade zone will cover nearly one billion people and is potentially one of the largest in the world. Two-way trade totalled 137 billion US dollars in 2005.
Renate Nikolay, a member of Mandelson's cabinet said the agreement marked an important step in ASEAN-EU ties, which have been strained by European concerns over political repression and human rights violations in ASEAN member Myanmar.
Charming. Enable trade, then make a public show of bemoaning the murder of peaceful monks. This is the western response to monsters. Enable them, then whine and cry when they murder innocents - but expand trade, too. And today, the junta sent their foreign minister to the UN to denounce the "political opportunists" backed by "some powerful countries" that caused the whole thing to happen in the first place.
"The situation would not have deteriorated had the initial protest of a small group of activists against the rise in fuel prices not been exploited by political opportunists," he told the UN General Assembly here.
He said those "opportunists … aided and abetted by some powerful countries" also took advantage of protests "staged initially by a small group of Buddhist clergy demanding apology for maltreatment of fellow monks by local authorities."
The minister asserted that Myanmar security forces showed "utmost restraint" and did not intervene for nearly a month.
He said authorities were then compelled to declare a curfew "when the mob became unruly and provocative."
"When protestors ignored their warning, they (security forces) had to take action to restore the situation. Normalcy has now returned in Myanmar," he added.
But the EU continued on with seminars on trade. And the west talked, talked, talked. But the junta cracked heads, killed monks, imprisoned untold numbers and are now hunting down those who dared report their depravity to the world.
But don't worry. The EU will announce improved trade relations soon. After their crocodile tears dry.
World news | Gaius | Comments Off
We are virtually speechless here. A few days ago, there were reports of a man who had found a human leg in a barbecue smoker he bought at auction. The leg turned out to have once been part of the former owner of the smoker. He lost it in a plane crash (the leg, not the smoker). Oh, sure, that was something fun to post about. But the story is, most definitely, not over yet. You see, the man who bought the smoker (and leg) and the original owner of said appendage are now fighting over custody.
John Wood's leg was amputated near the knee after a plane crash in 2004.
He asked doctors for it back so he could be buried "whole" when he died.
But Mr Wood, of South Carolina, fell on hard times and saw his home repossessed and his possessions auctioned after he couldn't afford to keep them in storage. Unfortunately those possessions included the leg.
The limb, which Mr Wood had kept in a barbecue smoker, was bought by Shannon Whisnant last week in the auction.
Mr Whisnant initially gave it to police, who subsequently turned it over to a funeral home when it became clear it was not the result of foul play.
But Mr Whisnant, who put a sign on the empty smoker charging adults $3 and children $1 for a look, now wants it back.
"He's making a freak show out of it," Mr Wood told The Charlotte Observer. "He wants to put money in his pocket with this thing."
Mr Whisnant, who was unsuccessful in his bid to get the leg from the funeral home, consulted with a lawyer and decided his best move was to persuade Mr Wood to share custody and profits.
"It's a strange incident and Halloween's just around the corner," he said. "The price will be going up if I get [a stake in] the leg."
Actually, we'd rather not say anything at all about this one. We do actually have limits around here, after all.
An American diplomat in Burma reported earlier that every, single monastery staffers visited in Burma was missing all the monks who usually live there. All gone. Nobody knows if they are alive or dead. But the junta has done something with the monks who were the main threat to the regime. Now they have targeted some other troublemakers.
They're going after the bloggers.
They have the skinny arms and long hair, the dark T-shirts and jokey nicknames. But few such figures have ever taken the risks that they have in the past few weeks, or achieved so much in a noble and dangerous cause.
Since last month, Ko Latt, 28, his friends Arca, Eye, Sun and Superman and scores like them have been the third pillar of Burma's "Saffron Uprising".
While the veteran democracy activists, and then the Buddhist monks, marched in their tens of thousands against the military regime, it was the country's amateur bloggers and internet enthusiasts who brought the images to the outside world.
Armed with small digital cameras, they documented the spectacular growth of the demonstrations from crowds of a few hundred to as many as 100,000.
On weblogs they recorded in words and pictures the regime's bloody crackdown, in a city where only a handful of foreign journalists work undercover. With downloaded software, they dodged and weaved around the regime's increasingly desperate attempts to thwart their work.
Now the bloggers, too, have been crushed.
Having failed to stop the cyber-dissidents broadcasting to the world, the authorities have simply switched off the internet.
Ko Latt and his comrades have abandoned their keyboards and gone underground, sleeping in a different place every night, watching and waiting to see whether thedemocracy movement has been truly crushed or simply put onhold.
"When things were hot on the streets, we were not the main worry," Ko Latt said.
"But as the situation cools down, they will follow us. They know who we are, they know we are bloggers, and I am afraid."
The junta, with characteristic paranoia, has always monitored and controlled every aspect of the internet, from licensing computers to issuing accounts through state-monitored internet service providers - meaning any dissident blogger could be easily tracked down through hisaccount.
Bloggers were the main channels of communication from that benighted country. They showed us the pictures of hope, they showed us the crushing of that hope. And now the junta is coming for them. Once again, it is talk, talk, talk versus do, do, do. Guess which one the west has chosen.
And say a prayer for the bloggers who will suffer at the hands of those who do rather than talk.
The New York Times published a fairly stinging attack on the use of food for fuel. They point out that the biofuel craze is partly responsible for soaring food prices. The sharp price increase for food has in turn has led to sharp declines in the amount of food aid the US has purchased this year. Since the US is by far and away the largest food donor in the world, this is a huge problem for the starving in the world's poorest places.
Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year.
The United States, the world’s dominant donor, has purchased less than half the amount of food aid this year that it did in 2000, according to new data from the Department of Agriculture.
“The people who are starving and have to rely on food aid, they will suffer,” Jean Ziegler, who reports to the United Nations on hunger and food issues, said in an interview this week.
Corn prices have fallen in recent months, but are still far higher than they were a year ago. Demand for ethanol has also indirectly driven the rising price of soybeans, as land that had been planted with soybeans shifted to corn. And wheat prices have skyrocketed, in large part because drought hurt production in Australia, a major producer, economists say.
The higher food prices have not only reduced the amount of American food aid for the hungry, but are also making it harder for the poorest people to buy food for themselves, economists and advocates for the hungry say.
“We fear the steady rise of food prices will hit those on the front lines of hunger the hardest,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program. The United States is the biggest contributor to the agency.
She warned that food aid spending would have to rise just to keep feeding the same number of people. But the appropriations bill for the coming year now moving through Congress does not promise any significant increases in the food aid budget.
The impact of rising food prices on food aid is part of a broader debate about the long-term impact on the world’s poorest people of using food crops to make ethanol and other biofuels, a strategy that rich countries like the United States hope will eventually reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
Regular readers know that I have been pointing out this inevitable result for quite some time. But it is even more complicated than just this aspect. So much food is being diverted to fuel production that ethanol prices are collapsing.
NEVADA, Iowa, Sept. 24 — The ethanol boom of recent years — which spurred a frenzy of distillery construction, record corn prices, rising food prices and hopes of a new future for rural America — may be fading.
Only last year, farmers here spoke of a biofuel gold rush, and they rejoiced as prices for ethanol and the corn used to produce it set records.
But companies and farm cooperatives have built so many distilleries so quickly that the ethanol market is suddenly plagued by a glut, in part because the means to distribute it have not kept pace. The average national ethanol price on the spot market has plunged 30 percent since May, with the decline escalating sharply in the last few weeks.
“The end of the ethanol boom is possibly in sight and may already be here,” said Neil E. Harl, an economics professor emeritus at Iowa State University who lectures on ethanol and is a consultant for producers. “This is a dangerous time for people who are making investments.”
While generous government support is expected to keep the output of ethanol fuel growing, the poorly planned overexpansion of the industry raises questions about its ability to fulfill the hopes of President Bush and other policy makers to serve as a serious antidote to the nation’s heavy reliance on foreign oil.
It is NOT just happening in the US:
The ethanol producers are going bankrupt. Higher corn prices (because the whole grain complex is going up) and lower ethanol prices are killing the ethanol manufacturers that depend on corn. The lower ethanol prices helped the economy because the gasoline prices stayed depressed because of a glut of ethanol all around of us.
As ethanol producers go belly up, the supply reduces, three things will happen. First, the ethanol price will go up. So will gasoline price compared to crude oil. Lastly, Sugar 11 (the international sugar) will also jump as worldwide ethanol prices go up.
And yet Al Gore and his sycophants yowl for more "renewable energy." Too bad the lives of the people who starve to death as a result of the diversion of food for fuel aren't renewable.
Hillary! Clinton's proposal to buy votes outright by giving babies a $5,000 "baby bond" appears to have been a huge mistake. In fact, she may have really shot herself in the foot with that little gem of pandering. None other than Larry Sabato says as much. And the poll numbers are blistering.
Sixty percent (60%) of America’s Likely Voters oppose giving every child born in the United States a $5,000 savings bond, or “baby bond.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 27% support the concept suggested on Friday by Senator Hillary Clinton.
“The baby bonds proposal is one of the few mistakes Hillary Clinton has made in her campaign,” according to University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato. “Should Clinton become the Democratic nominee, she may have handed a powerful issue to the Republican candidate.”
At a Congressional Black Caucus forum, Clinton said, "I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time. So, when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school, they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to put that down payment on their first home, or go into business."
Clinton’s remarks were reportedly well received by the friendly audience, but Democratic voters nationwide are less enthusiastic—38% support the idea and 47% are opposed. According to Sabato, “It will be interesting to see if any of her Democratic opponents challenges her on this. They may not do so, fearing the idea will sell among the activists that vote in Democratic primaries and caucuses.”
Even a majority of Democrats are against this idea. Oh, but the Republicans have been handed a club of almost biblical proportions. A greasy little attempt at pandering that might just have done real damage. It is to laugh.
At this point, nobody is sure what the real casualty count is in Burma. Estimates range from a few to a few thousand. Rumors are swirling, with many exile groups trying to get word out and the media struggling. But there are some ugly details emerging that sound very ominous.
BANGKOK, Thailand - One hundred shot dead outside a Myanmar school. Activists burned alive at government crematoriums. A Buddhist monk floating face down in a river.
After last week's brutal crackdown by the military, horror stories are filling Myanmar blogs and dissident sites. But the tight security of the repressive regime makes it impossible to verify just how many people are dead, detained or missing.
"There are huge difficulties. It's a closed police state," said David Mathieson, a consultant with Human Rights Watch in Thailand. "Many of the witnesses have been arrested and are being held in areas we don't have access to. Other eyewitness are too afraid."
Authorities have acknowledged that government troops shot dead nine demonstrators and a Japanese cameraman in Yangon. But witness accounts range from several dozen deaths to as many as 200.
"We do believe the death toll is higher than acknowledged by the government," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press Monday. "We are doing our best to get more precise, more detailed information, not only in terms of deaths but also arrests."
Villarosa said her staff had visited up to 15 monasteries around Yangon and every single one was empty. She put the number of arrested demonstrators — monks and civilians — in the thousands.
"I know the monks are not in their monasteries," she said. "Where are they? How many are dead? How many are arrested?"
She said the true death toll may never be known in a Buddhist country where bodies are cremated.
"We're not going to find graves like they did in Yugoslavia … We have seen few dead bodies. The bodies are removed promptly. We don't know where they are being taken," Villarosa said.
Every, single monastery visited was empty. This may actually be even worse than the Daily Mail is reporting. Again, nothing is confirmed at this point. Gateway Pundit has links to pictures and video that are not for the squeamish. Ace of Spades calls the west's response to all this for what it is. Nothing useful. Agam is very displeased with the UN right now. I read an earlier report (can't find it now) that said that Ibrahim Gambari, the UN envoy, was spending the day with European trade delegates who were negotiating trade deals with Burma's junta.
So much for a meaningful response. It's actually worse than doing nothing. It's sending the signal that it's perfectly cool with the EU to eradicate troublesome monks and unruly mobs.
World news | Gaius | Comments Off
Then slap yourself on the side of the head. Vladimir Putin has no intention of relinquishing power even if he follows the Russian constitution and leaves the office of President. Instead, he will run in December parliamentary elections and will (most likely) take office as Prime Minister.
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said Monday he would lead the dominant party's ticket in December parliamentary elections and suggested he could become prime minister, the strongest indication yet that he will seek to retain power after he steps down as president early next year.
Putin is barred from seeking a third consecutive term in the March presidential election, but has strongly indicated he would seek to keep a hand on Russia's reins.
He agreed to head the United Russia party's candidate list in December, which could open the door for him to become a powerful prime minister — leading in tandem with a weakened president.
Putin called a proposal that he become prime minister "entirely realistic," but added that it was still "too early to think about it."
He said that, first, United Russia would have to win the Dec. 2 elections and a "decent, competent, modern person" must be elected president.
Putin's agreement to top the candidate list of United Russia sent an ecstatic cheer though the crowd at a congress of the party, which contains many top officials and dominates the parliament and politics nationwide. The move will likely ensure that United Russia retains a two-thirds majority in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, enough to change the constitution.
It is not unlikely that such a revision will be coming which grants president-for-life status to Putin. The "decent, competent, modern person" Putin wants as President will be a marionette, of course.
Over in Afghanistan, the taliban hanged a 15-year boy from a handy tree branch. His crime? Having American money in his pocket.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants hanged a teenager in southern Afghanistan because he had U.S. money in his pocket, and they stuffed five $1 bills in his mouth as a warning to others not to use dollars, police said Monday. Taliban militants elsewhere killed eight police.
The 15-year-old boy was hanged from a tree on Sunday in Helmand, the most violent province in the country and the world's No. 1 poppy-growing region.
"The Taliban warned villagers that they would face the same punishment if they were caught with dollars," said Wali Mohammad, the district police chief in Sangin.
Dollars are commonly used in Afghanistan alongside the afghani, the local currency, although the U.S. currency is more commonly seen in larger cities where international organizations are found.
Militants often justify their attacks and executions as a response to U.S. meddling in Afghan affairs.
In Sangin on Saturday, the Taliban shot and killed another man who had sought farm assistance and seeds from an international aid program, Mohammad said. The militants accused him of being a spy.
Yesterday, there were reports that some taliban fighters were talking about the possibility of laying down their arms. At least part of the reason for that is the growing awareness that a taliban fighter's life expectancy is getting shorter all the time. This would be a good opportunity to reinforce that lesson. Hunt down the lynch mob, give them a fair trial, then, if found guilty, hang them, too.
Frankly, I'm surprised it has taken this long. The first call is going out to threaten a boycott of the Beijing Olympics because of the crackdown in Burma. The call comes from Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post.
And here's something else I would do: Tell China that, as far as the United States is concerned, it can have its Olympic Games or it can have its regime in Burma. It can't have both.
Here, too, I understand the arguments against: China's rulers are gradually becoming more responsible in the world; to threaten their Games would only get their backs up. The Games themselves offer a chance to enhance international understanding; if we let world affairs interfere, there will always — every two years — be some cause. The athletes have trained for years; they deserve their chance.
And yet: Hundreds of thousands of Burmese have risked everything — their homes, their families, their lives — to be free. They have done so with nothing on their side but courage, faith and the hope that the world might stand with them. And they still have a chance to succeed.
Whether they do depends mostly on decisions made inside Burma. But people and countries outside can have some effect. Burma's neighbors in Southeast Asia could do more. The world's largest democracy, India, could do far more. China could do most of all.
This is one of those cut off your nose to spite your face useless gestures that the west is well known for. It was flat stupid when Jimmy Carter did it to Russia, it is not smarter having aged 27 years or so. At least when Carter did it, the idea was to punish Russia for the invasion of Afghanistan. Calling for the punishment of another nation for the acts of a third party is not the brightest idea the WaPo has ever come up with.
Frankly, the best thing the US - and the entire west - can do is to apply pressure to India and China. But goading the latter with threats against the Olympics will backfire.
Time has run out for Zimbabwe. The western nations have ignored the disaster Robert Mugabe has brought down on that poor, benighted nation. Today the Guardian is reporting some remarkable admissions by the Zimbabwean government. The agriculture minister, Rugare Gumbo, has admitted that the "land reform" which took land from white farmers has been disastrous for his country. There is no bread, there is no food, there is no electricity, there is no money, there is no hope.
Zimbabwe's bakeries have shut and supermarkets have warned there will be no bread for the foreseeable future as the government admitted that wheat production had collapsed following the seizure of white-owned farms.
The agricultural ministry announcement that the wheat harvest is only about a third of what is required, and that imports are held up by lack of hard currency, came as a deadline passed today for the last white farmers to leave their land or face prosecution for trespass.
The maize harvest is expected to be equally dire and price controls to contain hyperinflation have emptied the stores of most other foodstuffs. The World Food Programme says at least 3 million people - one in four of the population - will need food aid in the coming months. It describes hunger in some parts of the country, which used to be a food exporter, as "acutely serious".
Last week, the government said it plans to import 100,000 tonnes of wheat but acknowledged that a shipment of 35,000 tonnes was held up in Mozambique because of a shortage of hard currency to pay for it.
The agriculture minister, Rugare Gumbo, has blamed the food shortages on black farmers who have taken over formerly white-owned land.
"I am painfully aware of the widespread theft of stock, farm produce, irrigation equipment and the general vandalism of infrastructure by our new farmers," he said.
"I am disappointed that our new farmers have proved to be failures since the start of the land reform programme in 2000. In spite of all the support government has been pouring into the agricultural sector, productivity and under-utilisation of land remain issues of concern."
The ministry of agriculture has also blamed electricity shortages for the wheat shortfall, saying that power cuts have affected irrigation and halved crop yields per acre.
The power shortages are likely to continue. Mozambique has reduced electricity supplies to Zimbabwe because of a $35m (£17.1m) unpaid bill. Shortages of coal and spares for power stations and mining equipment have also hit electricity production and power cuts are now a regular feature of daily life.
Only a few years ago, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of southern Africa. It was the second largest exporter of tobacco in the world. No longer. There is nothing to sell because nothing is being grown. The land is being grabbed by government officials and military officers - not handed to black farmers. The government has passed a law requiring foreign firms - those few that are left - to "sell" 51% of their interests to government cronies. The funds to pay for the "purchases" are raised by taxing the companies themselves. The stage is now set for the next Rwanda. When the collapse comes it will be sudden and complete.
The west talks, the UN moans and expresses concern.
Zimbabwe dies.
Our Founder
