Thursday, October 28, 2004

John Horvat has it right... partly

He writes in his column for telepolis.de:

Take, for example, America's proposed CAPPS II, a law which represents a
scary example of the extent to which a government seeks control. According to
this law, all airline passengers would be screened and their records would be checked against the FBI's NCIC (National Crime Information Center) database -- which, ironically, is exempt from requirements to ensure that its contents are accurate.


This means in short, that they can take all data or hold persons which may or may not be guilty, because there is no sort of verification necessary. This is a new high in government observation and an addition extension of the Big Brother state.
Most likely, you cannot even get the information about the criteria via the "Freedom of Information Act" (which is not nearly as free as you think), because those data would fall under national security. Incidentially, those are listed under a category which is exempt from this Act. Tragical and pure luck, isn't it....


Commentary: smg.max@gmx.net
Is Turkey ready for the EU?

The talks about the joining of turkey to the European Union has gone into the second round and they didn't lose momentum. In fact, they even built momentum in the last few days. Famous politicians, writers, artists and other stars have commented the attempt to include a partly-islamic country into the European Union.

I want to demonstrate the problem via the discussion in Germany. The socialist party hopes to get Turkey into the EU, because they believe that it would set an example to the rest of the world. What kind of example should that be, you ask?
Well, they want to demonstrate that there is no difference between an islamic-secular country and the western world and they want to show that we can live together peacefully. They hope to get access to the Middle East and disolve the resentments of the Mullahs and Theocracies.

Then there is the conservative party, the CDU, which doesn't want them to join. In the wake of the anti-Turkey voices of the conservatives swims the liberal party FDP. And once the liberals have made the choice out of the right reasons.
Turkey, they reason, is still not ready to join up, because they still violate human rights, aren't truly secular, because they still prevent the ancient rule of patriachic nations. The administration of Erdogan does nothing to prevent abuse of women by their husbands and they still torture their prisoners if necessary.
Those violations of human rights are no small things and should alone stop the integration until they are solved sufficiently.

So, my opinion is clearly towards more talks, but no integration until we have a truly democratic turkey with safe civil liberties.

Commentary: smg.max@gmx.net
Bush considers Europe to be a security problem
AND
German Bild endorses George W. Bush as President


The Spiegel reports of some truly stupidious and bad explained acts on behalf of the George Bush campaign team:

Wanna log on to George W. Bush's re-election website? No problem. If you happen
to be in the United States that is. For everyone else on the planet, the Web
site www.georgewbush.com is blocked. "Error message 403. Access denied." The
move by Bush campaign officials to block the site to visits from outside the US
comes following an attack on the domain last week that shut it down for two
days. The assault was a so-called "Denial of Service" attack, whereby a huge
number of computers are hijacked and used to simultaneously log-on to the same
site. The site's server crashes under the strain. The site was blacked out on
Monday. "We took this measure for security reasons," Bush spokesman Scott
Stanzel said on Wednesday following days of silence on the issue. (1:45 p.m.
CET)


Of course, security reasons is only the obvious part. Most likely, they don't want to have more anti-bush comments with proper reasoning and logic on their servers. And perhaps they don't want to terrify their European counter-parts with their theocratic agenda. Who knows?


When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pledged, in 2002, to oppose a US attack on Iraq, the image of Germans in the mind of most Americans went down the tubes. Now, however, a new poll offers hope that the transatlantic ice age may be ending. US pollster Magid, working with the German Information Center, asked Americans how they viewed German-American relations and found that 35 percent felt they were "excellent" or "good," up from only 17 percent in a poll taken a week after Baghdad fell in April 2003. After Britain, which got an 88 percent approval rating, 57 percent of Americans further said that Germany was the country's most-important European partner. Nevertheless, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin still has its work cut out for it: 45 percent of Americans still think Germany is a stray ship. Still, "the trend is going in the right direction," Germany's ambassador to Washington, Wolfgang Ischinger told reporters. (12:38 p.m. CET)
Is it? I don't believe it, just because a poll said that more people like Germans. I don't want to be liked by people who support someone I despice, because this only gives you goose-bumps. They might actually know something, you don't and it will surely be to your disadvantage. Another precious detail in this poll, when applied to our anti-war policy, is the short period of hatred against Germany, which has decreased (as the poll indicates) and I can only affirm it, because I have been to New York in Mid-August.
It shows that you can even succeed with an unpopular policy, if you stick to it and you think it was right. If it was right, the truth will win and so it did (or at least the memory of the American citizen is very short).

So, I think Schröder went in the right direction and the American people start to believe him. That's what the poll indicats in my opinion.

Lest you think that everyone in Europe is anti-Bush, the German tabloid
Bild comes through on Wednesday with "Ten Reasons George W. Bush is the Better
President:

1. Bush has clear priorities.
2. Bush has learned that military strength is the only answer to
fanatics.
3. Under Bush, the US will continue to bear the financial, military and
casualty burden in the fight against terrorism.
4. Bush will do everything he can to prevent nuclear proliferation.
5. Bush has learned that America can defeat every country in war, but needs
allies in peace. Thus, his second term will be characterized by cooperation with
international partners.
6. Bush knows Europe is militarily weak, so he won't ask them for
help.
7. Under Bush, America will remain a strong partner for Israel in its fight
for survival.
8. Republicans have always been stronger supporters of free trade than
Democrats.
9. Every new American administration makes mistakes. Bush has already made
his.
10. With Bush, we know what to expect. With Kerry, we don't. (Wednesday,
4:18 p.m. CET)


German's biggest newspaper, that's right, but still the most supid one. I don't know anyone who truly appreciates the opinion of the "BILD Zeitung". Instead they think it is flat and not very detailed, oftened too sensational to be taken seriously.

But, well, let's go to their reasons, why Bush is the better alternative.
Bush has clear priorities, yes, and these priorities are the reason why not to appeal to him, because he is in favor of a theocratic democracy, because he applies a new form of socialism by the Right-Wing and he has the worst record on civil liberties I can think of (Patriot ACT I / II).

Bush has learned that force is the only way to make war on terrorism! That's another lie in itself. He didn't learn it, he just applied it and irgnores any consequences or logical fallacies in it! Instead Iraq is a shattered nation, terrorism is on the rise in all other countries. He has brought Iran to proliferation and Syria will surely follow to be at peace. Bush has ignited the Middle East in a new Jihad also affecting Israel and Palestine. Bush has started to impose sanctions on free trade and research (stem-cell imports and research f.e.). He has stopped the trade of work-force via the anti-terror policies. The once proud nation of immigrants has become a isolated suspicious island!

On the last two issues:
Bush has made errors and mistakes, but instead of admitting them or even performing better by learning from them. He will do them again and again! I don't this is a solution or an argument in this case.
The last one is stupid, because it is no valid argument for Bush. Yes, we know Bush and perhaps this is the reason, why we would even go with an unkown?!

All in all, this evaluation of Bush is again short and stupid, even for BILD standards.

Some other interesting parts

Commentary: smg.max@gmx.net

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

On a side note

http://cordair.com

This is a site you should check out of you are interested in realistic and meaningful paintings/drawings and/or scultpures. Quent Cordair presents some beautiful images of aspiring and inspiring artists, especially the degree of realism is sometimes disturbing.

All those images are well crafted and show some of the virtues of Objectivism and more so Liberalism. The freedom of man to do what he needs to be happy, the liberty to free himself of his restrictions, the ascent of happiness.



This is one of those pictures I love. It is named "Mind over Matter" and was painted by Sylvia Bokor. She grandly captures the theme of Mind over Matter, while the blue sky represents the sky without limits and thus shows that we are not limited by Earth, because our destiny is up there. The blue represents freedom of mind and thereby freedom of the individual. It also gives the impression of a moved image with the clouds in the middle-lower picture.
Above the clouds you can see a plane crossing the sky, leaving a white line behind. The plane could also represent freedom, but most likely turns on man's achievement to dominate, control and understand nature. Ultimately, it shows how man used nature to conquer it in a peaceful and gentle way. Again you see the two dominating colors in it, blue and white. Those two colors are also meant to symbolise liberty and individualism, because they refer to the U.S. Independence War.

Of course, there are still more symbols, analogies and impressions in this picture, but I only wanted to demonstrate some of its qualities.
So, now, you are off to look for yourself and perhaps get yourself some of this wonderful works of art.

Commentary: smg.max@gmx.net
The Election in the United States comes closer and closer...

Yet, there are still so many lies and a deceiving administration that blocks any attempt to get an objective truth out of the dozen reports. Fakes, like Bush's hysterical terror warning, sheddered my truth in any good information policy in the current government of the USA.
Despite all the uncovered truthes, that Iraq was no direct threat, that there was no link to Al-Qaida before 9/11 and so forth, there are still people in the U.S. who stick to this lying example of a spine-less person.
Instead of facing the truth, he continues making up his dream-world (as seeing in the faked terror-alert). Can YOU trust someone, who does not trust this world, who doesn't believe in a real world?

The old hype of the Republicans, that most media-channels are in control of the Democratsm is history if you watched TV lately. Just take FOX News, which is clearly patriotically and right-winged, but the problematic thing is that it can reach millions of homes at once. And what leftist media stands against it? CNN? It's not that left-sided....

And where is a liberal channel by and for liberals? There is no such thing in the most liberal country on Earth (still).. Or at least, there is no country-wide channel and thus the liberal party will never claim what could be a middle path between the two extremes. But, meh, this is again very biased, isn't it?

But, well, it is still yours to decide what is true and what not...

Commentary: smg.max@gmx.net