Earthman, Come Home

Truth is stranger than irony

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:48:48 +0000

I’m very proud. A post by Gary Sick inspired at least in part by my other blog (the one people actually visit…). If you’re still following Iran, it’s a good read:

In my posting below on Oct 26 I denounced the fact that my fellow academic Kian Tajbakhsh was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Iran, in part because he had met with me and because I was falsely accused of being a CIA agent. I commented ironically:

… .I have been in meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on four different occasions over the past three years. I have spent at least nine hours with him, much more than I ever spent with Kian… .Iranian security officials are notably lacking in any sense of irony or humor. But I do wonder whether President Ahmadinejad is being considered for indictment because of his extensive contacts with me over the past four years… .

I have now discovered that my words have proved truer than I could ever have imagined.

Earlier today it was reported by Scott Lucas’ blog Enduring America that the Iranian Labor News Agency features an interview with conservative activist Mojtaba Shakeri, who says that some of the journalists and scholars who met with Ahmadinejad, presumably during the President’s trip to New York, were undoubtedly CIA operatives. This in turn was picked up by the opposition press, which is accusing Ahmadinejad of consorting with CIA agents.

My ironic comment seems to have been transformed into a straight-faced criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad with an utter disregard not only for the truth but also for any appreciation of the humor of the accusation.

It is impossible to parody a system that constantly parodies itself by its actions and words.

Daily Express Freudian slip. (Green box by me, but discovered by...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:03:15 +0000

Daily Express Freudian slip. (Green box by me, but discovered by Tabloid Watch).

Gordon Brown accused of disrespect over misspelled name of dead...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:11:33 +0000

Gordon Brown accused of disrespect over misspelled name of dead soldier

bestoflife: Hand reaching over of glass embedded in the...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:35:25 +0000

bestoflife:

Hand reaching over of glass embedded in the newly-constructed Berlin wall which divides the eastern & western sectors of the city.

August 1961, Paul Schutzer

UK surveillance plan to go ahead

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:52:12 +0000

UK surveillance plan to go ahead

Are Hackers Essential to Resilience?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:02:45 +0000

Are Hackers Essential to Resilience?:

Here’s a hierarchy of resilience hacking:

Fixers. People that can repair existing equipment to maintain its previous function. (these people are the staple of almost all disaster fiction).

Makers. People that repurpose existing technology through the implementation of alterations to change its function. A corollary to Makers are people that improve existing products/systems (make them more powerful/better/faster).

Creators. People that create new tools or unique systems from scratch using raw materials (think fab lab hacks).

Terror training camps smaller, harder to target

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:25:32 +0000

Terror training camps smaller, harder to target:

Counterterrorism officials estimate that Zazi is one of 100 to 150 westerners who have gone to the Pakistan border region for terror training in the last year. Their ability to filter in and out of the isolated camps has fueled fears that “sleeper” operatives bearing U.S. or western passports are traveling back and forth with ease to train and plot attacks destined within America’s borders.

…

“All you need is a shack or a house to learn how to fabricate explosives using homemade or commercially available ingredients,” said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University and a longtime government adviser.

Hoffman adds that in these harder-to-find camps, “they’re not training insurgents, they’re training terrorists for deployment to the west … Some of them may be deployed in the insurgency, but I think its obvious that their value to these groups is not fighting on the battlefield in South Asia but in being deployed back to their home or adopted countries as sleepers.”

[via]

A shooter's religion is only relevant when he's Muslim

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:47:40 +0000

A shooter's religion is only relevant when he's Muslim

"In several columns, I’ve noted indignantly that we have worse health statistics than Slovenia. For..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:26:01 +0000

“

In several columns, I’ve noted indignantly that we have worse health statistics than Slovenia. For example, I noted that an American child is twice as likely to die in its first year as a Slovenian child. The tone — worse than Slovenia! — gravely offended Slovenians. They resent having their fine universal health coverage compared with the notoriously dysfunctional American system.

As far as I can tell, every Slovenian has written to me. Twice. So, to all you Slovenians, I apologize profusely for the invidious comparison of our health systems. Yet I still don’t see anything wrong with us Americans aspiring for health care every bit as good as yours.

”

- Nicholas Kristof, who appears surprised to learn that Slovenia is a modern, functioning European democracy [via]

Bucket Of Rags This Year’s Must-Have Christmas Item Sorry,...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:30:09 +0000

Bucket Of Rags This Year’s Must-Have Christmas Item

Sorry, Onion Radio News, but American Apparel’s reality outpaces even your parody:

Swine Flu Mortality (click the picture to see bigger but suffice...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Swine Flu Mortality (click the picture to see bigger but suffice to say the only disease that’s killed fewer people recently is leprosy). [via]

Iran, today: “Obama, You’re Either with Them or with Us” [via]

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:43:48 +0000

Iran, today: “Obama, You’re Either with Them or with Us” [via]

Clive James isn't a climate change sceptic, he's a sucker - but this may be the reason

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:03:44 +0000

Clive James isn't a climate change sceptic, he's a sucker - but this may be the reason:

George Monbiot nails the worrying rise in climate change denial in the face of scientific evidence, before making a less convincing case for old age being the key characteristic of climate change sceptics.

"It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s..."

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:57:29 +0000

“It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s unnerving for columnists, not least because their opinions are now frequently challenged by people who know more than they do. Instead of responding like adults – correcting when they’ve made a mistake, engaging when someone raises a sensible point and defending themselves from false accusations – they are whining like children and dismissing technologies that they don’t understand.
It’s not the complaints culture on Twitter that annoys me, it’s the complaints culture among columnists that is getting tiresome.”

- Shane Richmond [via jhnbrssndn]

Iran to get new capital?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Iran to get new capital?:

The government is said to be reacting to calls from Iranian seismologists, who have long warned that Tehran lies on at least 100 known fault lines, and would not survive a major quake intact.

…

However, Qom is the spiritual home of Iran’s conservative Islamic establishment. Moving the capital nearer to Qom could be seen as a sign of the conservatives stamping their authority, says Mr Dudley.

'Torture flight' plane spotted in Birmingham

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:12:29 +0000

'Torture flight' plane spotted in Birmingham:

A Ministry of Defence source said that the meeting at Birmingham airport had nothing to do with the rendition of prisoners, whatever the allegations about the plane’s past use. “This was routine military liaison between two allies,” he said.

Sure.

"The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or..."

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:02:37 +0000

“The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or “bourgeois-bohèmes,” the trendy urban middle class, and they stir resentment and covetousness. They are often being vandalized in a socially divided Paris by resentful, angry or anarchic youth, the police and sociologists say.”

- French Ideal of Bicycle-Sharing Meets Reality [via]

Subversive cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog [via]

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Subversive cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog

[via]

Democracy Live

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:42:26 +0000

Democracy Live

The Revolution Will Not Be Hand-Made

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:10:33 +0000

The Revolution Will Not Be Hand-Made:

This is good:

We have inherited a whole set of solutions by conventional wisdom, many of them surrounding lifestyle choices. Almost all of us believe that someone who buys local food, who drives a hybrid, who lives in a well-insulated house, who wears organic clothing and who religiously recycles and composts and avoids unnecessary purchases is living sustainably. They are not. As we’ve explored a bunch of times in different ways here on Worldchanging, the parts of our lives that actually fall within our direct control are the tips of systemic icebergs, and often changing them does nothing to alter those systems: not individually, not in small groups, not even in larger lifestyle movements. If we’re going to avoid catastrophe, we need to change those larger systems, and change them for everyone, and change them quickly.