No Air Travel

I hope that, at some point, the security theater (which is prudent for the moment, but which seems likely to be extended indefinitely) that is due to the British arrests of the liquid bomb plotters (good intelligence work there, and perhaps some luck if it's true that the tip was from someone in the British Muslim community) recedes eventually and air travel gets more sane.

I think that the restrictions will remain while GW Bush remains president. But I can hope that after he steps down someone more sane will take over and rationalize those rules. As it is, much as I love my friends and family in the U.S.A., I don't think I'll be travelling there anytime soon. I left the U.S. because the working life there was too tense. It turns out that vacationing there would be similarly tense.

But that's just a feeling I get. On the practical side, all laptops and electronics need to be in checked in luggage. I know people who've already lost laptops in luggage. When the environment becomes *much* more target rich, it's likely that the incidence of lost laptops will increase. It's not that the loss of the laptop would be impossible to recover from (although, since I live in a third world country, it's going to be at least 3 times harder to buy a replacement than it would be for some random citizen of the USA), but I'm attached to my laptops. And to my cellphone too. And sol and I are very happy with the MP3 player that my brother sent to us for our birthday. I'm just not risking the laptop in checked luggage if I can avoid it.

Of course there are some trips for which I would check in the laptop. A trip to New Zealand, for instance, if we're granted the privilege of immigrating there. I'd check in the laptop, sure. I doubt if it would get lost in NZ anyway. And if it did, well, it would be an investment.

But the U.S.A., while GW Bush remains president, I'm staying away. Frankly, I don't even want to fly within the Philippines while this state of hysteria (again, prudent, for the next few weeks, stupid if extended beyond that for no good reason) prevails.

man of steel, woman of kleenex

Long ago, I saw a short article by Larry Niven. I forget where it was, probably online. In UseNet or something similarly obsolete (this was *long* ago, the web browsers were still text based, gopher was still alive).

I'd always wanted to find it again, but I never got up the energy to do so. Fortunately, from Jerry Pournelle's Current View I find the link again.

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, by Larry Niven. Niven and Pournelle, of course, collaborate on science fiction. I always enjoy what they write, although often I don't read it until years after it's been out in the wild.

Petron gas station tax evading bastard

I sent an email to contact_us@cctr.bir.gov.ph, I wonder what the effect will be, if any:

I gas up at a Petron gas station on P. Guevara, San Juan. By default, they don't give any receipt. When I ask for an OR (explicitly saying "O.R.", not just "resibo"), they ALWAYS give a cash invoice, when I ask for an OR again, they will often ask if I really want a receipt
and only when I say YES I REALLY WANT AN OFFICIAL RECEIPT will they finally give me an O.R. This O.R. takes an inordinately long time to make.

All of this seems to be designed to make providing ORs to customers very unlikely (so that they can pocket the VAT, income tax due, etc).

Where do I go to complain formally? Is it sufficient to post it here and you will forward to the relevant BIR officers?

In contrast to this, there is a Shell gas station on Boni and P. Cruz which always provides O.R.'s whether or not it's requested (their POS terminal automatically prints the receipt, much like KFC or McDonalds do).

Is this a Petron corporate issue (they don't require franchisees to provide ORs by default and they allow evasion by avoidance) or is it just the Petron franchisee evading taxes?

US Policy, massacres, and discretion

My sister, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and nieces and nephews are coming to the Philippines in the next few weeks. They all live in the U.S., and they're more on the blue side since my sister's husband is retired Army.

I've got some strong (but not radical) thoughts on US Army (and Marines, basically, United States Military) arrogance leading to ignoring the rights of local populations and concentrating on minimizing casualties.

It's natural that minimizing casualties, in an environment where the enemy looks like the civilians, and vice versa, leads to artillery and air attacks which kills civilians. It's also natural for all those dead civilians to be written off as the cost of war. When I say that it's natural, I mean that I can understand why the American's are relatively callous about non-American casualties. They're not American citizens, they don't count for as much as a single dead American citizen would. Of course the soldiers at the scene care about the difference. But let's be frank, it's not the same. 20 dead civilians is nothing compared to one dead American soldier. Nor would I be surprised if the ratio were higher than that

I'm certainly not being sarcastic or ironic there. I'm being completely serious and practical. That's just the way things work out. If the soldiers there were Filipinos I would expect things to be WORSE.

However, and unfortunately, if you're not American the equation doesn't favor the Americans at all. Americans (and Tony Blair, if not necessarily the British Army, quite as much) come out as bullies. To be ignored, if possible, resisted where they must (if the American's come to my country and start throwing their weight around backed up by guns, of course I'd stand up to them, who wouldn't?), avoided if irresistible, attacked where they can.

But I'm not saying any of that when my sister and family come over. After all, the Americans are not throwing their weight (and bullets) around in my country yet. So all I can do is disapprove of their doing so elsewhere, and wish that they'd go home and defend their country instead of making other countries their foot rugs. Let them terrorize their muslim citizens instead of killing the muslim citizens of other countries. Let them get away from walking all over other countries so that those of us who are free can breathe a sigh of relief.

But none of that is getting voiced out when my family come over. They're not George Bush, after all. And if they support George Bush, well, let them. The U.S. is sowing the wind, it will reap what it deserves. Those of us who are not likely American invasion targets will watch from the sidelines, and maybe place a few side bets.

Fuck You. Strong letter to follow.

I saw that on:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/03/bush_declares_war_on_freedom_o.html

which is a rant on how George W Bush is trampling all over the US constitution. I was going to put it in my sig quotes, it's so perfect. Unfortunately, I think I might forget to elide when it randomly appears on email to someone sensitive.

On the other hand, fuck it, I'll put it in there anyway. Embarrassed recipients will live. Or learn something, if they follow the link.

Pride and Prejudice

Sol and I went to see Pride and Prejudice last night (Thursday). I've been sick the past few days, but I felt a bit better that night so we decided to go to Robinson's Galleria to see the film. I wanted to see the film since I love the book and I read the book once a year or so.

The movie is "based" on the book, and Keira Knightley is good as Eliza, but, as with all film adaptations, I didn't like the movie as well as I loved the novel. The scenes and dialogue are from the book, sure, but the film's pace is just too far from the book's. I know that it's necessary to speed things up for film, but they had things happening one thing right after another, without even an attempt at maybe indicating that there was a gap of a week or two between events.

There are other things I didn't feel were right too. But I'm too non-verbal tonight. And tomorrow I'll be too lazy.

And pics from the Foja Mountain expedition

While I'm on the subject of pics. National Geographic has pictures from the expedition to Foja Mountain in Indonesia

Beautiful pictures of China

On Digg I saw a link to a collection of pictures of the hidden beauty of china.

Wow, rice terraces of china. Prettier than any pictures I've seen of Banaue and other mountain province terraces. Although that's probably just a matter of having a vehicle and the time to drive around looking for the right shot.

US Military Rape

There's an article on US Military men raping female soldiers and the effects of that. I can't judge how much of that to believe. The main source is Gen Janice Karpinski, who commanded at Abu Ghraib at the time of the torture scandal there, and it's in a forum where I wouldn't be surprised if much of what is printed is untrue since it's so liberal/Democratic. The extremes of both the Democratic and Republican spectrum are similarly nutzoid. The Republicans perhaps more than the Democrats, but the extreme left Democrats are just as much lying bastards who feel no shame about their lying that it's difficult to believe anything un-corroborated that comes out of that end of the spectrum.

So the story is that US female soldiers in Iraq weren't drinking any liquids in the afternoon and at night because they didn't want to go to the latrines since they were afraid of being raped.

I'm not too concerned about the female soldiers, myself. They're americans, there are avenues of appeal (the article shows they don't work, but they can still always quit the army and bring up the stink in the papers, or they can frag the bastards, although maybe that's male thinking and the berserker culture that can do that and not care too much about being caught isn't something women do). What I wonder is, what are the rape statistics on Iraqi women? And since violence is certainly *far* easier to slide into than rape, even for a blooded american soldier, what are the statistics on torture and battery and unjustified shootings and killings of civilians?

Those are probably one or two (maybe even three) orders of magnitude over the female soldier rape cases. But of course the US doesn't care, or not enough to do anything about it. After all, the US military exists in order to protect americans. The rest of the population are targets.

Boy, George W is going to have *some* session with St Peter. I wonder how he's going to squirm his way out of that, the lying bastard.

One of my very favorites

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;

Portia, in The Merchant of Venice

christmas 2005

The runup to christmas this year has been incredible. Work has always been lots of fun (and it's nice that I can work from home occasionally, so I don't need to be away from sol too much, as I probably would if I weren't able to work from home).

A few days ago we had sushi. That was very, very good. The other night it was nilagang baboy with lots of pechay. Tonight it's going to be, ahh, let me see... vietnamese fresh springrolls, pomelo salad, yangchow rice and other health food after yesterday's lechon, crab, shrimp, potato salad and macaroni salad with white cheese.

The last few month's have been good too because they've seen the launch of C2 lite iced teas and Zesto's One lite iced teas. I like the non-lite stuff too, but the lite I like more since I'm not a sugar person.

There were strawberries from baguio this year, so there's been strawberries dipped in condensed milk and, until i killed the bottle, strawberry daiquiris in Cuervo Especial :-).

All that, plus inexpensive fast internet at home! And good people to work with (well, mostly, there are some duds whose attitude I will need to work to adjust) and fun at work.

I'm very happy for Sol that she's joined a christian church (I might prefer that it be Catholic, but as long as it's not a freako church that is clearly just plain wrogn, I like most non-catholic churches too). It's been very good for Sol. It might be better for her too if I were to join, but I doubt if that's going to happen soon. I have my own spiritual row to hoe (or weed, or plant, or harvest, the metaphors keep pouring out), I think it all works out though. And it'll all work out better as time moves forward.

It's been a great year, and next year will be better. The year after that, maybe in New Zealand, that's going to be even better, and sometime between now and then, probably a baby, God granting.

Torture dehumanizes the torturer too

In 1971, while in Lefortovo prison in Moscow (the central KGB interrogation jail), I went on a hunger strike demanding a defense lawyer of my choice (the KGB wanted its trusted lawyer to be assigned instead). The moment was most inconvenient for my captors because my case was due in court, and they had no time to spare. So, to break me down, they started force-feeding me in a very unusual manner -- through my nostrils. About a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical unit. There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while a doctor was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.

The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man -- my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully. Then she poured some slop through a funnel into the pipe that would choke me if it came back up. They held me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was absorbed by my stomach and could not be vomited back, and then began to pull the pipe out bit by bit. . . . Grrrr. There had just been time for everything to start healing during the night when they came back in the morning and did it all over again, for 10 days, when the guards could stand it no longer. As it happened, it was a Sunday and no bosses were around. They surrounded the doctor: "Hey, listen, let him drink it straight from the bowl, let him sip it. It'll be quicker for you, too, you silly old fool." The doctor was in tears: "Do you think I want to go to jail because of you lot? No, I can't do that. . . . " And so they stood over my body, cursing each other, with bloody bubbles coming out of my nose. On the 12th day, the authorities surrendered; they had run out of time. I had gotten my lawyer, but neither the doctor nor those guards could ever look me in the eye again.

Torture's Long Shadow

But of course George W Bush, and his vice president, are pushing for it. Huh. It's probably impossible for them to dishonor themselves, but they dishonor their country, and those citizens who aren't all hot to torture someone too. Now there's been a compromise, they'll accept Sen McCain's restrictions against torture. But of course it'll still happen, and there won't be too vigorous a fight against it. It's just posturing. George W Bush knows what the effect of pushing for a legal right to torture would do to his presidency. So he'll accept the legal restrictions, and then the armed forces and the security agencies will continue to do it anyway.

Baguio

Sol needed a break and we went to baguio for a weekend. It was a good
trip. On two previous trips I'd given up on baguio as being too crowded
and polluted to be worth the trouble.

It's still that way in the central section (session road down to the
market and surroundings), but it's not bad if you avoid that.

When we arrived we checked out one hotel that was right across from
where the bus first let passengers off (not the station). The hotel
wasn't all that great (smell of mold in the room), so we decided to find
a taxi and look for someplace else.

The taxi driver was very nice, very helpful. Very good english too.
They have good english up here in the mountains, something I found to be
true out in Banaue and Sagada too. He gave us a bunch of options
(including a backpacker type place, we weren't really into that). Our
first try, though, was the Microtel in Baguio. It's affiliated with
Victory Liner, the bus company we used, so there was a substantial
discount if we could show our tickets.

It's a good hotel, seems to be an international chain. Very new, clean,
all rooms have airconditioning (although it's really not needed since
this is Baguio).

We had lunch at the Manor in Camp John Hay. That was pretty good.
Expensive, but good. Sol wanted to plan to stay there on another weekend
trip, but I don't think we'll do that since we were discouraged by the
prices. It's a nice place to visit though. And the surrounding area is
a great place to walk around.

A few hours in the Baguio market are always nice. I love the Baguio
market. The only thing I don't much enjoy about it is the constant
pestering from kids who want to sell sack bags for carrying things, and
who want to carry my bag for me. But they're polite, if persistent, and
I like them, so I just smile at them while telling them that I'm not
interested.

All in all, if we don't go to the regular tourist traps, it's a nice
place to visit and rest. A bit expensive, but fun, and restful. We

--
Gerald Timothy Quimpo bopolissimus@gmail.com bopolissimus.lists@gmail.com
http://bopolissimus.blogspot.com http://monotremetech.blogspot.com
Public Key: "gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 672F4C78"

All men see only in 16 colors. Peach, for example, is a
fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have
no idea what mauve is.

Japanese School Teacher essays

I recently read Memoirs of a Sansei by David Mura. Didn't like it much. I read it for the mind expansion and insights it might lend. There was some of that, but the general whining (liberal, overtones of hippy) of the author was offputting. And the occasional hypocrisy, or honesty, or something. He's taking a vacation in the Philippines, is rushing to Banaue, there is some sort of emotional turmoil and he has some liberal insight about some hitchhiking filipinos whom he passes by, and later he meets a japanese on the same road, picks him up and continues to Banaue, where he has some sort of epiphany about how he was able to connect best with the japanese person outside japan, when he couldn't quite connect that deeply with the japanese on their home ground. Yech. Dreck.

Now comes I am a Japanese School Teacher, essays by . Haven't read through them all, first essay looks OK though. I may enjoy them all.

Slowly.

Camiguin Curfew Stupidity -- the politicians must be stupid

My wife and I went to Cagayan de oro recently to visit my favorite uncle and wedding ninong who is in the hospital and is in a bad way. Since we were in Mindanao already, we went to camiguin to visit the Camiguin Action Team I thought we might get some Camiguin Diving in.

I was surprised to be informed that there is a 10PM curfew imposed. It doesn't make sense and is bad for business. The reason put forth is that it's an anti-prostitution measure. That's a crock of manure since camiguin is a small place. Everyone knows who the prostitutes are, no one prosecutes despite that.

The rumour though, is that the curfew was imposed due to a conflict between the governor and his son, the mayor of Mambajao. The mayor has chosen to finally ditch his wife and live with his mistress. The governor, for some reason, is punishing the whole population of the island (including the bars and restaurants that depend on tourism, and the foreign tourist high season starts this month) for his son's pigheadedness. Par for the course, I suppose. There is far worse that the reigning family has done, they're just keeping true to form.

Torture, American-Style

Torture, American-Style

the CIA has a list of acceptable interrogation methods, including soaking naked prisoners with water in 50-degree rooms and making them stand for 40 hours handcuffed and shackled to an eyebolt in the floor.

"Palestinian hanging," where a prisoner's arms are twisted behind his back and his wrists are chained five feet above the floor.

Waterboarding (in which a prisoner is made to believe he is drowning) and withholding pain medication for bullet wounds

blasting detainees with high-volume "futility music" (the report's phrase) by Metallica and Britney Spears, dressing a detainee in a bra, and making him do dog tricks

In the Bush lexicon, therefore, sexual humiliation, acute sleep deprivation and threats to have a detainee's mother kidnapped and imprisoned are humane.

18- to 20-hour-a-day questioning for 48 out of 54 days, blasting prisoners with strobe lights and ear-splitting rock music, menacing them with snarling dogs, threatening to hurt their mothers, and humiliations such as leading them around on leashes Pfc. Lynndie England-style, stripping them naked in front of women, or holding them down while a female interrogator straddles them and whispers that we've killed their comrades.

Huh. Leader of the free world.

The US government, on torture by its clients

The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that it was "united" with the Iraqi government in deploring the mistreatment of detainees.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top12nov17,0,2672377.story

huh. sounds like milspec U.S. government issued male cow manure to me. And no, I'm not referring to Abu Ghraib, I'm referring to the U.S. Vice President's vigorous, shameless and (so far) successful attempts to give certain U.S. arms the right to torture non-citizens, on their own soil or elsewhere.

"Detainee abuse is not and will not be tolerated by either the Iraqi government or the Multi-National Forces in Iraq," it said.

Which implies that it's the U.S. government that calls the shots in the Iraqi Government. Not particularly surprising in this context since, certainly, the U.S. government *does* call the shots in Iraq, but any competent hypocrite would mask the blatant insensitivity to a sovereign nation's decisions. But then one should not be surprised, amazed or otherwise discombobulated by such hubris.

I would wait for the gods to make U.S. leaders mad, but it seems that has already been accomplished.

refreshing conservatism

I took some quotes for my sig quotes file from an article on the decline in parental guidance in the U.S.. Some quotes though are too juicy even for me, e.g.,

Not that I’m laboring under the illusion that modern girls are all sugar and spice and everything nice. Owing to feminism, which liberated the fairer sex from common-sense, morality, restraint, and chastity, quasi-harlotry now infects much of contemporary womanhood. A lady close to my heart said it best: “Forty years ago you knew who the bad girls were; now you know who the good girls are.” And now we have a whole generation of girls-gone-wild.

Altogether a good article, very useful point. It doesn't address the issues with old-time conservatism though (some repression is a good thing, excessive paternalistic repression is, well, excessive and oppressive). Some sort of middle ground moderated and guided by love (rather than fear and punishment, as of old) is certainly the better way, but I can see that that middle ground would be difficult to maintain. Possibly it takes more goodness and wisdom than is normally available. It's something sort of like the rhythm method a good idea but too difficult for normal persons.

I think they should make them glow in the dark!

Cockeyed has a an article on The Military Applications of Silly String.

I don't know if that's a hoax. It probably isn't. I think they could enhance the product a bit by making it glow in the dark :-). Does mentioning the concept make it unpatentable? Or do I actually have to create some silly string that glows in the dark and then document that somewhere? :-).

tiger

Bad show, Funny wmv

Like my mom (she was scandalized by scenes involving toilets and activities therein) I can't stand Pinoy Big Brother. I'm not as sensitive as my mom, but stupidity bothers me. Hmmm, that link says that Willie Revillame is in there, that might be why it's so shallow then. Although maybe that has to do with Asia Agcaoili too. I wasn't very clear on who Asia Agcaoili was, but a quick google image search on her name reminds me that she's the Sex guru on one or another soft pr0n magazine sold publicly hereabouts. I wasn't going to give her much respect anyway, since she works on the show, but now my already negative impression of the show drops to new lows. huh. morons.

On the other hand, a friend sent me a link to a (no doubt unauthorized) video of the Pinoy Big Brother theme song and that's freaking funny. Hahahah, highly recommended.

The song itself is reasonable. The lyrics are upbeat and although it isn't particularly gripping, the song works well enough. But since it's related to the show, well, I can't like it. Not that it matters though. I'm not anyone's target market for anything.