Following up a previous article at kuro5hin, Konstantin Ryabitsev has posted an article on how he learnt French to a reasonable level of fluency in just twelve months. I am impressed – he certainly is making more progress than Ruth and I are with our Spanish.
Human Rights Watch, an organisation dedicated to the protection of human rights worldwide, issued its annual report yesterday, covering over 60 countries. The report picks out two main areas of concern – the situation in Dafur, and the behaviour of the USA in Abu Ghraib in particular and in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo in general.
As Human Rights Watch says,
...the U.S. government’s systematic use of coercive interrogation has weakened a pillar of international human rights law — the requirement that governments should never subject detainees to torture or other mistreatment, even in the face of war or other serious threat. Yet in fighting terrorism, the U.S. government has treated this cornerstone obligation as a matter of choice, not duty.You’d have thought that was obvious, but George W. Bush seems to be completely blind to the issue, which in my mind makes his administration one of the most destructive in the last 60 years of world history.
By ignoring human rights standards in its reaction to September 11, the Bush administration has made it easier for governments around the world to cite the U.S. example as an excuse to ignore human rights. Egypt has defended a decision to renew its problematic “emergency law” by referring to U.S. anti-terror legislation. The Malaysian government justifies detention without trial by invoking Guantánamo. Russia cites Abu Ghraib to blame abuses in Chechnya solely on low-level soldiers. Cuba now claims the Bush administration had “no moral authority to accuse” it of human rights violations.
“Governments facing human rights pressure from the United States now find it easy to turn the tables,” said Roth (Executive Director of Human Rights Watch). “Washington can’t very well uphold principles that it violates itself.”
Update (2005-01-15):
Only 2 days after this report, a second report Mapping the Global Future has been issued – this time by the National Intelligence Council, the official research arm of the US intelligence community – which claims that Iraq has become “a magnet for international terrorist activity” and that contrary to Bush’s pre-war claim that Saddam had close links with Al Quaida, “radical Islamic terrorists only moved in amid the post-war chaos”.
One finds oneself wondering whether Bush is a cynical liar, using the American public’s fears for his political gain, or a gullible fool. Either way, it is extremely unsettling to see him firmly in the saddle of the world’s most powerful nation.
An interesting short article in this week’s Sticky Minds.com by Danny Faught and James Bach:
If you think that test automation is mostly about executing tests, then you’re missing out on a big opportunity. Or rather, you’re missing a lot of small opportunities adding up to a big one. Consider this: stop thinking about test automation as merely executing automated tests, stop thinking about test automation as something you need expensive tools for, and start discovering automation you can implement in a couple of days and usually with extremely inexpensive tools or tools you already have available…
No wonder Germany is still suffering from a “Reformstau” (backlog of social reforms). I always thought it was caused by so many lobby groups all pulling in different directions, so that movement was impossible.
Now, according to the Bildzeitung, my worst fears are confirmed – many of the German politicians are actually in the pay of German industry. So, on the one hand they are taking money from industry and presumably lobbying for those companies in return, and on the other, some are apparently devoting significant numbers of hours per week to working for private industry, instead of on the social reforms that everyone agrees are necessary.
After uncovering that VW is paying up to 100 politicians, they now reveal that BASF has 235 politicians on the payroll. Other companies with politicians on their payroll include Siemens, RWE and the Dresdner Bank, according to Bild. Some are prominent politicians, such as Hildegard Müller, a senior member of the opposition party, the CDU, who is apparently working some 16 – 20 hours / week for the Dresdner Bank.
The Sydney Morning Herald has published a graphic showing how much each country has donated as tsunami aid. Interesting to see, since many countries seem to be playing a game of one-upmanship and claiming to be the most generous donor.
Here a several items that caught my eye in the last day or two:
Bill Bennett in the UK has, according to the BBC, just sold a single cornflake for £1.20. This is even more amazing – in terms of the investment to profit ratio – than selling a 50 Euro IKEA voucher for 64 Euro!
We wish all our visitors a happy new year and all the best in 2005 – and how was your Christmas? Quite different from those in the 1950’s, I bet.