George W. Bush Reaching for Dictatorship?
Bruce Schneier may overshoot his target every now and then, but he summarizes the Bush administration’s actions in a very tought-provoking way in his blog entry “The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power”. Read it, but keep a critical mindset.
A couple of selected quotes:
If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I’m the dictator.
—George W. Bush, December 18, 2000
In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving,
Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately
started using it to avoid the law.
—Bruce Schneier
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2005-08-09Religion considered harmful?
The US Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress has prepared a rather interesting report The Sociology And Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?. The report notes that a new type of terrorists has emerged that does not follow the norms of the society at large. Extreme religious groups divide the world into “them” and “us”, and can easily justify almost any actions aimed at “them”, regardless of the targets.
There is a significant aspect of these new terrorism movements—they are motivated by extreme religion or ideology. I believe that any radical movement that abandons rational thought and focuses on ideology instead can potentially turn to terrorism. Religious groups are a prime breeding ground for such movements, because religion requires you to suspend rationality and believe, “have faith”.
The terrorist is actually quite sane, although deluded by an ideological or religious way of viewing the world. [...] In short, a terrorist will look, dress, and behave like a normal person, such as a university student, until he or she executes the assigned mission.
Religion, however, is strictly speaking not a requirement to become a terrrorist. It is enough to have blind faith in the righteousness of one’s cause. Such faith can also be found in activist groups, especially in groups who recruit gullible teenagers. A low education can be an influencing factor, but quite often even highly educated persons join terrorist cells. The type of education is critical.
Based on this, I would expect to find terrorist traits in groups such as “rights” activists, revisionists, nationalists; basically in any groups who hold a strong ideological belief in being right, typically despite evidence to the contrary, and have an urge to act. I would be especially worried if there is a strong religious motive. Movements such as “Pro Life” and creationists spring to mind.
Beware of strong convictions and belief. Think. Always be ready to challenge established truths. This is the way to eliminate terrorism.
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2005-06-27No news in the news?
For some time now, I have played a small game with the yellow press. In Finland, we have two leading tabloids, “Iltalehti” and “Ilta-Sanomat”. I challenge myself to find one piece of news on display, and sofar I have always managed to find one piece. Too often, though, that’s all.
A colleague then jokingly asked me to define what I mean by “news”. Although I laughed it off at the time, it’s actually a very valid question. I really should be able to express my intuitive feeling for what is news, or newsworthy. At least beyond the dictionary definition of “Of sufficient interest or importance to the public to warrant reporting in the media.”
After thinking about this for a while, and reading up a bit, I realized
that what I mostly object to is actually things I
do not consider newsworthy. The journalistic definition I
stumbled
upon
noted that prominence is a factor: If you break
your arm it won't make the news, but if the Queen of England breaks her
arm it's big news.
I can buy timing, significance, proximity, and
human interest, but prominence?
There is an amount of circular reasoning behind citing prominence as a source for newsworthiness. News is by definition prominent, thus anything in the news becomes prominent. This leads to a vicious circle where seemingly “prominent” persons figure repeatedly in the news—exactly what today’s celebrity culture flourishes on.
I believe that news should have an element of objectivity, that is, a foundation similar to that of science. This means that news is not entertainment or advertisement, which is often overlooked nowadays. News items that are based on how famous or prominent someone is cannot be news. Actually, I believe that the opposite should be true. The less prominent the news is, the more newsworthy it is.
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2005-05-11New bike: Tunturi H81
My old bike was really getting old, and would have required a major overhaul to be useful. Fortunately for me, our company has a bike leasing program which is quite cheap. I decided to get me a Tunturi H81 trekking hybrid. I suppose most manufacturers would call it a “commuter bike”.
I picked up the bike yesterday, a little less than 10 km from home, and the ride home took 40 minutes. Bikes have changed since the 80’s; they are lighter and easier to ride. I suppose that benefit will be gone once I pick up the child seat for the bike and put our 3-year-old on it.
Going to work by bus takes me 30 to 40 minutes, riding a bike may take 45 minutes plus the time to shower and change. Unless my hey fever prevents it, I expect to go to work by bike at least a few times this summer.
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2005-02-18First Aid is Important
Yesterday I got to a car accident site right after it happened. There were no others around who knew first aid, so people were just standing there watching. Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt, and as this happened downtown, rescue services got there even before I had had the time to check on all three injured.
Having first aid training helped me act quickly, and hopefully also correctly. I was amazed at how little the bystanders managed to do. The injured and dazed driver of the worst wreck was left sitting on his own behind the wheel.
Contact your local Red Cross and find out where you can take a course in first aid.