No way!

War analogy strikes nerve in Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam - President Bush touched a nerve among Vietnamese when he invoked the Vietnam War in a speech warning that death and chaos will envelop Iraq if U.S. troops leave too quickly.  People in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Bush drew the wrong conclusions from the long, bloody Southeast Asian conflict. "Doesn't he realize that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed more people?" said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran of the communist forces that fought American troops in Vietnam. "Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush." He said U.S. troops could never have prevailed here. "Does he think the U.S. could have won if they had stayed longer? No way," Trieu said.

Via Unqualified Offerings

Rum and Coke

Alcohol And Cocaine – But Not Cannabis – Linked To Violent Behavior

Cannabis use is not independently associated with causing violence, according to the results of a multivariate analysis to be published in the journal Addictive Behaviors... Investigators concluded: "When analyses were conducted controlling for covariates, the frequency of alcohol and cocaine use was significantly related to violence, suggesting that pharmacological effects [of the drugs] may play a role in violence. Frequency of cannabis use, however, was not significantly related to violence when controlling for other factors."

The study’s conclusions are similar to the findings of a pair of recent government reports refuting allegations that cannabis use triggers violent behavior. The first, published by the Canadian Senate in 2002, determined: "Cannabis use does not induce users to commit other forms of crime. Cannabis use does not increase aggressiveness or anti-social behavior." The second review, published by the British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, reported: "Cannabis differs from alcohol in one major respect. It does not seem to increase risk-taking behavior. This means that cannabis rarely contributes to violence either to others or to oneself, whereas alcohol use is a major factor in deliberate self-harm, domestic accidents and violence."

America to the Rescue

Jon Stewart: A short history of the USA and the Middle East

Bye, bye BT

ADSL24 - Broadband ADSL, Bonded ADSL and Office services at fantastic prices



I’ve finally lost patience with BT. After spending weeks trying to get the issue of slow evening speeds solved BT customer service admitted defeat and gave me the Chairman’s office number to see if that might prompt BT Wholesale (the people who deal with the connection at the exchange) to actually respond to my complaints.

To cut a long story short, I discovered today that three weeks ago, long after I had begun the complaint about slow speeds, my service has been capped because I exceeded my allowance, in spite of the fact that my contract is for unlimited downloads. So, during the period when I’m moaning about slow speeds BT actually slows things down even more, then fails to inform me (or customer services) and ignores the original complaint.

Well, fuck you BT! I’m off. And after some in-depth research I’ve chosen to go with ADSL24, a partner of the highly respected telephony company Entanet.  I seriously considered the award winning Zen but they get a bit pricey for higher upload speeds and any usage over 50 gigs. There is no contract with ADSL24 so if things don’t work out moving on is not a problem.

One of the things which attracted me to ADSL24 was a faster upload speed. There was a time when upload speeds weren’t considered that important but with more and more people uploading lots of music and video files a slow 350 or 400 Kbps means a long wait to get your media online. ADSL24 offers an upload speed of 832Kbps and unthrottled download speeds which, with Fastpath activated on my line and my proximity to the local exchange should mean getting pretty close to the maximum 7.6Mbps for most of the time, with no evening slowdowns. I’ve checked out several forums and review sites and I haven’t read a bad report on ADSL24 yet.

You also get a comprehensive control panel, a massive 345GB download allowance (fully burstable) plus 200MB of webspace with PHP, a MYSQL database, 10GB monthly bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and free spam/virus filtering, which isn’t too shabby really. The cost? Just under £30. (They have a range of packages from £15 to £94)

Oh, and their customer service is based in the UK  and run by  people who  are directly involved with the company, know their stuff and speak English as their first language.

UPDATE: How interesting. Since notifying BT that I’m moving my speeds have dropped even further. Now I’m getting just 1.5 megs at a time when I would have got over six. You can tell a lot about a service by the way they treat you when you cancel.

Trace me, trace me!

There were two blog posts I noticed this week concerning the tracking of IP addresses. Curious Hamster spotting the Murdoch crowd doing a bit surreptitious promotion on Wikipedia and Tim Ireland hunting for  sockpuppets.   What I fail to understand is why  anyone trying to hide their identity online doesn't just use a proxy server. There is no shortage of services out there both paid for and free.

Even though I rarely post comments on blogs and I'm not in the slightest bit interested in puppetry, sock or otherwise, I've been a member of Proxify for years. I pay for the full service (why?) and, given how infrequently I use it, I reckon it's worked out costing me about a fiver a time to visit sites anonymously!  But if I ever do want to get up to some mischief making at least I know those bloggers with the gift of forensic analysis won't be able to trace me :)

Stabbed in the back

Revealed: Home Office tried to gag Chindamo's character witnesses

The Home Office tried to suppress evidence that revealed Philip Lawrence's killer was a model prisoner who had made such excellent progress that he was now suitable for release into the community.

Two senior prison officers, including the deputy governor of Ford open prison in West Sussex, were banned from expressing any opinion on the rehabilitation of 26-year-old Learco Chindamo, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the west London headmaster in 1995, it has been alleged.

Chindamo's lawyers claim that both key witnesses were also prevented from attending the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal which this week ruled Chindamo could not be deported to Italy. The intervention, which happened at the beginning of the year, was portrayed yesterday as a deliberate ploy to try to skew the evidence in favour of the Home Office, which had told Mr Lawrence's widow that Chindamo would be sent back to Italy upon his release.

It's NOT Vietnam...oh, wait a minute...

Bush in Vietnam warning over Iraq

President George W Bush has warned a US withdrawal from Iraq could trigger the kind of upheaval seen in South East Asia after US forces quit Vietnam. "The price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens," he told war veterans in Missouri. Mr Bush said the Vietnam War had taught the need for US patience over Iraq.

So, having spent the last few years denying any similarity between Iraq and Vietnam Bush now invokes America's last great military disaster as a reason for supporting him in it's present one.

Jeeeeeez!

Stabbing pains

Alice Mills in The Times: Chindamo stays – and I’m proud of it

Chindamo is clearly British, having lived here since he was 6 years old. He speaks no Italian, appears to have no connections with Italy other than the accident of citizenship, and grew up in North London. To try to pretend that he is not a British problem, grown on British streets, fostered through a British education system, is a further abrogation of responsibility by the Government. Would that it were so simple; would that we could just deport this social problem, Mr McNulty, sweep it under an imaginary Italian carpet.

This human rights ruling is so wrong - Sue Carrol in The Mirror:

The Home Office, at least, are said to be incandescent over the decision made by the tribunal and will appeal. Good. But there's a broader issue here. The level of discord between government offices suggests that the right hand has not a clue what the left is doing. And if Human Rights legislation was introduced for the greater good, why has it left Frances Lawrence more broken, defeated and demoralised than she was on the horrendous day she lost her husband to a killer's blade?

Sorry?!  ...'more broken, defeated and demoralised than she was on the horrendous day she lost her husband to a killer's blade?' Really? That is something, if true, I find difficult to get my head around. But Mrs Lawrence also seems rather confused:

She (Mrs Lawrence) conceded that, had she been a judge on the appeal panel, she too would probably have decided that Chindamo had a right to stay in Britain. The law (a combination of human rights legislation and EU immigration regulations, on both of which Chindamo won) is clear. Yet the politicians have wrongly given the impression that Chindamo would be deported on release. Why? Because it’s an easy headline in the face of public hysteria over youth crime, immigration, and in particular the deportation of foreign prisoners. But Chindamo was always going to be a different case to the adult asylum-seeker who robs, rapes or murders.

Having admitted that Chindamo probably has the right to remain in the UK, having admitted that much of her furiously devastated reaction is due to shock because she was led to believe otherwise, and having so admirably said that she wishes him well and a positive life – “it’s never given me any pleasure to see a young man locked away” – Mrs Lawrence added that she wanted “humanity” to overturn the law in this instance. “In this case it’s to try and say the law is not always what must be our context; humanity is more important . . . people feel so confused, that their needs and fears are second place, squashed by some bureaucratic, insensate law.” But to draw the conclusion that “humanity” should therefore override the rule of law is, however understandable, wrong. The rule of law developed to put humanity on a legal, equal footing; it is an attempt, however imperfect at times, to deliver humanity objectively to everyone. The decision to allow Chindamo to remain in the UK is in fact a perfect expression of that humanity, and I feel proud to live under a system that ultimately took the decision to allow him to stay.

Me too.


(My earlier post on this is HERE)

(Un)Intelligence

“And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

CIA inspector's report on September 11 faults leaders

Former CIA chief George Tenet failed to follow through on his 1998 declaration of war against al Qaeda and the agency diverted counterterrorism money for other uses in the years before the September 11 attacks.

A summary of the 2005 report by the CIA inspector general was declassified under protest by agency Director Michael Hayden in response to a law passed by Congress earlier this month. The report said top CIA officers "did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner" and it described a "systemic breakdown" in a watch list for tracking terrorism suspects who seek to enter the United States.

Exodus

 SpiegalOnline: Losing Its Best and Brightest - Iraq's Elite Fleeing in Droves

One in ten Iraqis has left the country. Baghdad's elite are trying to make ends meet in neighboring Jordan and Syria. Washington wants the United Nations to address the refugee crisis. In the meantime, the country is losing its best minds -- the very people needed to rebuild Iraq. The first stage on the road to safety is a $20 taxi ride. It takes the future refugee past nervous soldiers, through dangerous checkpoints and along streets with nicknames -- like "Grenade Alley" and "Sniper Boulevard" -- that bespeak the perils of travel in Iraq.

Pink for a girl, blue for a boy

Women may be hardwired to prefer pink

The long-held notion that girls prefer pink while boys prefer blue may hold some truth, suggests a new study. And moreover, there might be a biological basis for why women prefer pink – or at least more reddish colours than men, say researchers. The authors of the new study say their findings support the theory that colour vision evolved in humans in part to help females spot ripe fruit such as red berries.

Antiwar Pledge Week

James Wolcott: Calling All Cavalry!

With Rudy Giuliani sprouting missiles under both armpits, the "surge" proving to be another blood-dimmed tide, superpower tensions reverting to Fail Safe perspiration levels, and familiar rumbles in the orchestra pit as the War Party tunes up for its next Wagnerian overture, the Early Warning Bullshit Detection System known as Antiwar becomes an even more vital bulwark against the overthrow of reason. It's one of the few sites which draws together writers from various political denominations on the right and left in common cause against the authoritarian elites that plunge America into one needless, heedless debacle after another.