The Han River is very broad, Mr. Kim.

Tony Hayward (the head of BP) recently had this to say regarding the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill:

"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

So where have we heard this before? Remember the Korean movie The Host? The movie begins with the following scene:

US Doctor in Morgue: Why don't you dump this first?
Young Korean Doctor: That's formaline.
US Doctor in Morgue: Formaldehyde, to be precise. To be even more precise, dirty formaldehyde. Every bottle is coated with layers of dust. Pour 'em into the sink.
Young Korean Doctor: Excuse me?
US Doctor in Morgue: Just empty every bottle to the very last drop.
Young Korean Doctor: It's just - They are toxic chemicals, and the regulations state -
US Doctor in Morgue: Pour them right down the drain, Mr. Kim.
Young Korean Doctor: If I pour them in the drain, they'll run into the Han River.
US Doctor in Morgue: That's right. Let's just dump them in the Han River.
Young Korean Doctor: But, you know, this is not just any toxic chemicals -
US Doctor in Morgue: The Han River is very broad, Mr. Kim. Let's try to be broad-minded about this. Anyway, that's an order. So, start pouring.

Ah, yes, corporations will say anything to justify all their criminal actions. "You're in good hands," they whisper softly into your ear, while the earth goes to pieces.

Taxi to the Dark Side

Taxi to the Dark Side is a good documentary which details the American policy on torture, specifically focusing on Afghanistan and Iraq. The US shows utter contempt for the Geneva Convention. The technique administration officials use to evade prosecution after they leave office is to "redefine" torture. Redefining a term is just a weasel way of escaping all responsibility for their heinous crimes.

The other laughable claim made by the administration is that the torture/sadism is limited to certain "rogue officers" and that there is no high-level policy condoning torture. Right ...

I forget if the "ticking time-bomb" justification is mentioned in the documentary. This justification is that "a terrorist knows the whereabouts of a bomb that's going to go off in an hour or so and thousands of people may die, so it's OK to torture". The problem with this justification is that such a scenario has NEVER occurred ever except on stupid TV shows and Hollywood. Additionally, once torture is condoned for this dubious reason, it's only a matter of time before it becomes a routine tactic under a variety of other circumstances. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that torture will produce information of any value.

Also shocking is how the social sciences are used (abused) to futher military and political ends. Completely despicable and total lack of respect for humanity.

In more recent developments:

Here is some of the wording from the Executive Order signed by Barack Obama on Jan 22, 2009 for ensuring lawful interrogations:

“…an individual in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government, or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict…”

This article by Allan Nairn points out two MAJOR problems with this wording:

• Majority of the torture is done indirectly through US proxies, hence not covered under this executive order
• A lot of torture also happens when there is no armed conflict therefore also not covered under this order

The article also discusses other disturbing facts.

Death Note: The Complete Rules

This is relevant only if you've watched the "Death Note" anime series. The series centers around a notebook which can be used (by the owner) to declare judgment and kill who he or she thinks is undesirable. However, the Death Note comes with a thick user guide which should ring some warning bells.

The most basic rule is "The human whose name is written in this note shall die. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in mind when writing his/her name. This is to prevent people who share the same name from being affected." But there's a lot more complexity to this.

The rules are organized into the following sub-categories:

• Entering Names
• Entering the Causes and Conditions of Death
• Alterations
• Limitations
• Other Things to Consider
• The Beginning of Ownership
• Multiple Notebooks
• The Shinigami Eyes
• The Shinigami Rules
• Using the Death Note
• Shinigami Life
• Fake Rules

As you can see, it's hard to use the Death Note! As they say, "The Devil is in the details", or in this case, "The Shinigami is in the details". I wouldn't want that kind of responsibility. Let the battle between "good" and "evil" rage of its own accord :-)

Cybernetic Totalism

Interesting article on Wired (appeared back in 2000, I think) by Jaron Lanier titled 'One-Half of a Manifesto Why stupid software will save the future from neo-Darwinian machines.'

It's a somewhat long read that requires some patient plodding through, but it's all quite coherent in general and I tend to agree with his points. Lanier makes some convincing arguments against "Strong AI" and criticizes the "Cybernetic Totalists" for their rigid beliefs. He envisions the future as a dystopia where cybernetic totalists enforce an ideology which they would then claim to be the only right one (sound familiar?)

A key point he makes is that software (in general) isn't necessarily getting better, rather, reality has to stoop to the level of software to make the software look smarter. Another interesting point he makes is that evolution isn't the whole picture as evidenced in this paragraph:

The first two or three generations of artificial intelligence researchers took it as a given that blind evolution in itself couldn't be the whole of the story, and assumed that there were elements that distinguished human mentation from other earthly processes. For instance, humans were thought by many to build abstract representations of the world in their minds, while the process of evolution needn't do that. Furthermore, these representations seemed to possess extraordinary qualities like the fearsome and perpetually elusive "common sense." After decades of failed attempts to build similar abstractions in computers, the field of AI gave up, but without admitting it. Surrender was couched as merely a series of tactical retreats. AI these days is often conceived as more of a craft than a branch of science or engineering. A great many practitioners I've spoken with lately hope to see software evolve but seem to have sunk to an almost postmodern or cynical lack of concern with understanding how these gizmos might actually work

A book I've read that explores the same topic is "The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High-Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking" by Theodore Roszak. The concept of reality stooping to the level of software is discussed in this book as well.

Life and Debt | A Film By Stephanie Black

Life and Debt - Recently watched this documentary which clearly chronicles the havoc wrought by IMF 'Structural Adjustment' programs imposed (or rammed down their throats) on Jamaica since the 70s. The relentless and demented logic of the IMF inexorably and in deadly slow motion leads Jamaica into into its current desperate situation that is many times more desperate than when it had to accept the stringent IMF conditions in the 70s.

Roughly speaking, the 'tricks' of the IMF are elucidated via the specific Jamaican example, the main points of which are outlined below.

1. Make sure the country that approaches the IMF is already very desperate (say due to sudden increases in oil prices)
2. Being desperate and/or naive, the country is likely to accept the most stringent terms on the loan.
3. The money loaned can only be used in very specific ways (it cannot be used for local infrastructure development, education, health care etc.). This prevents the country from becoming self-sufficient eventually (which anyone who has any sense would agree should be the primary goal of the loans ... but not in the IMFs book)
4. Expose and destroy local industry to foreign competition (such as cheap potatoes from Idaho etc.) (i.e advocate free market for Jamaica by removing tariffs etc.). However, note that the potatoes produced in America are heavily subsidized by the government, hence America is able to export them and sell them to Jamaica cheaply, hence undermining the local industry. So, the IMFs strategy: powerful government to protect the rich, and market discipline and tough love for everyone else.
5. Use the loans to build free trade zones where workers slave under horrid conditions. The purported reason being to provide employment and manufacture goods using LOCAL raw materials. In practice, the free trade zone avoids local taxes and uses only imported materials thereby undermining the local economy. And the working conditions, less said about that, the better.
6. To service the interest on the loans, take on further debt, and so on, ad nauseum.

"War on Drugs"

Great interview (with Noam Chomsky) exploring the meaning of the "War on Drugs" and who it benefits.

A few excerpts:

The enormous rate of growth of the prison population has been mostly drug related. The last figures I saw showed that over half the federal prison population, and maybe a quarter in state prisons, are drug offenders. In New York State, for example, a twenty-dollar street sale or possession of an ounce of cocaine will get you the same sentence as arson with intent to murder. The three-strikes legislation is going to blow it right through the sky. The third arrest can be for some minor drug offense, and you’ll go to jail forever.

But the crime-control industry, as it’s called by criminologists, is becoming the fastest-growing industry in America. And it’s state industry, publicly funded. It’s the construction industry, the real estate industry, and also high tech firms. It’s gotten to a sufficient scale that high technology and military contractors are looking to it as a market for techniques of high-tech control and surveillance, so you can monitor what people do in their private activities with complicated electronic devices and supercomputers: monitoring their telephone calls and urinalyses and so forth. In fact, the time will probably come when this superfluous population can be locked up in private apartments, not jails, and just monitored to track when they do something wrong, say the wrong thing, go the wrong direction.

The Machine Speech

This is a video of Mario Savio's famous Machine Speech @ Sproul Hall, UC Berkley (1964). Savio became the prominent leader of the newly formed Free Speech Movement. Don't know if the speech is impromptu; I find it amazing and inspiring.

A transcript of the speech can be found here.