Coincidences

I might have bored someone with the last two posts, all about Eluana and what other people think of her case and yappity yappity boo, but I just stumbled about the news related to the excommunication of a mother because she allowed/wanted/forced? her daughter to have an abortion; some details you find here and no doubt in a lot of other places. Well, what's the big issue? That the daughter was nine and possibly pregnant because of abuse by her stepfather, who is also suspected of having abused her older sister.

Now, if the Vatican had felt forced to judge the mother for picking such an unsuitable mate, I might even agree with them, but the point is that they rule abortion in such cases (rape, for example) as immoral. Shooting themselves in the foot, since Brazil is not very liberal about abortion: quoting from the article I linked, "Brazil only permits abortions in cases of rape or health risks to the mother.", which is way more restrictive that what happens in most of the western world (do you have to give a reason for wanting an abortion in Italy? I'm not 100% sure but I think not). Pushing the Brazilians might have the opposite effect, i.e. the very catholic population might answer the call for morality with an impolite "mind your own business"...

The coincidence I mentioned: while waiting for the computer to crunch some data, I was reading Ethics: a very short introduction, by Simon Blackburn (it's the simplest thing I could find on the topic - anyone knows if there is an Ethics for Dummies?), and at page 46 I stumbled upon the following sentence:

"If the girl is not allowed the abortion, or the family not allowed to assist the suicide, they have to pick up the pieces and soldier on themselves. Those who told them how they had to behave can just bow out."

This was in the paragraph titled: False consciousness. The point the author is trying to hammer home is that this seems a menace to the foundations of ethics themselves: if ethics tells you you have to pick this or that way no matter what, it is sometimes natural to turn around and bite back, asking pointy questions such as: who the hell you think you are to tell me this? Where is the cross YOU are carrying, that allows you to tell me smugly that everybody has to carry their own?

Well the answer of the author is that Ethics as institution IS a failure; in practice, too easily corruptible by personal and corporate interests. Funny enough how this analysis fits nicely with the recent behaviour of the Vatican...

So, it seems simple enough that determining what's right and what's wrong is something one cannot afford to delegate. Now, how to combine this relativism with the need to live in societies? The world is not big enough for every one of us to have their little universe, so the next big question is how to liaise with your fellow humans without having to kill them first. Maybe there is an answer in the remainder of the book...

Berlusconi, time to rush

He did it again. Made himself ridiculous once again. If you cannot read Italian, in the linked Reuters article Berlusconi maintains that it is urgent to promulgate a decree to save Eluana Englaro. Obviously, that was a couple of days ago, since the poor woman has died in the meantime. But, WHY was this urgent? She has been in a coma 17 years, her medical condition looked quite bad from the onset, hopes of recovery close to zero if not a round O. Mmm, but the premier has a good reason for it: this is a woman who could generate a child.

Well for one I doubt Eluana was menstruating recently, since as far as I can tell in stressful conditions women stop doing so; it's just their body keeping energy and resources for survival instead of procreation. But that's beside the point. Basically he said: the government should rush, otherwise this miracle cannot take place. It's a miracle called rape, you dumb little excuse for a man...

The fat lady sings Game Over

There has been a lot of noise recently in Italy about terminal diseases and whether it's legitimate to stop treatments, who should be responsible etc etc. Particularly, what if someone cannot communicate their will to cease treatment? I.e., someone is in a coma.

Well for a change the Vatican thinks that the choice is not ours. I do need a machine to breathe in my place, another to clean my blood, another to push water and sugar up my bloodstream, and by the way I might be in pain or even knocked out for the count most or all of the time, it doesn't matter, it's not my choice to stop suffering and go push up daisies instead. Not mine, not my relatives', not my doctor's, not even the magistrate. It's god's choice. And if the Italian Constitution says differently, the constitution is wrong, and the laws should be changed. URGENTLY. And when the President says to the government: what's the rush? Sit down and think it through, and by the way have a look at this and this point of the Constitution that are relevant and you CANNOT change, well then the Vatican is disappointed:

2009-02-06 17:04
ELUANA: DA VATICANO, DELUSI DA NAPOLITANO
CITTA' DEL VATICANO - "Sono costernato che in tutte queste diatribe politiche si ammazzi una persona" e "sono profondamente deluso" dalla decisione del presidente della Repubblica, Giorgio Napolitano, di non firmare il decreto che avrebbe imposto lo stop all'alimentazione e idratazione a Eluana Englaro. E' quanto ha affermato all'ANSA il card. Renato Raffaele Martino, presidente del pontificio consiglio Giustizia e Pace.
ANSA

And obviously our government is happy to oblige the Vatican, instead of backing the President (note: the Vatican is another country). You know, next elections the president has only one vote, the vatican can move millions...

But back to the main points: in the middle ages, people with rabies were tied to stakes and let to die in their houses... you couldn't kill them, they could not kill themselves, and there was no cure (there is no cure as of now, for the advanced stages). Result: one of the most atrocious form of agony unleashed on a poor guy, who wasn't allowed to take his own life to shorten the pain. Because that's someone else's decision. My bloody fucking life and it's someone else's choice to call the Game Over on it?

Well, I don't know about you, but I hope that when I'll be used up I'll still be able to take the matter in my own hands...

Missionaries

Just found this great quote:

The Eskimo asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and Sin, would I go to Hell?' 'No,' said the Priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?'

This goes together with Bono allegedly reported to have been clapping his hands in a fundraising concert, claiming: Each time I clap my hands a child dies. And someone from the crowd: Then stop clapping your bloody hands!

Which makes me think, how often is the case that we see evil around us, yet instead of working at the solution we sit on our asses or become part of the problem?

Some missionaries belong to the first category, some to the third... How many, you ask? Good point... needs research, just after I go donate some cash to a charity not ruled by any church. I don't want to be the kettle saying black to the pot...

Why is my PC so slow?

How many of you reading this are computer geeks? How many of you have heard the sentence in the title? Not as a "It's time to buy a new computer" turned into a question, but as a serious, honest question that demands an answer. A precise answer. On the spot. Without looking at the computer. With precise instructions on how to fix the problem. Possibly in ten words or less, and don't ask me complicated questions like: what computer do you have, which operating system, how much RAM...

Well I can understand how the average person feels when looking at a computer, more or less like me when I look at something I have no desire to know but I am somewhat forced to interact with. Suppose I'm skint and there is a million dollars at the bottom of a valley which can be accessed only by suspending oneself to a rubber rope and experiencing wild fluctuations of velocity, a technique also known as bungee jumping. Trust me, I have no desire to do that, but I might have to. Well, given the current economy, make it a million euros, sounds better. But...

I was just watching tv a couple of days ago when this advert caught my eye, strange enough because usually I cannot remember who appears in an advert, what they do in it and least of all what the advert is supposed to try and sell. Well this one was asking this question, "how can I fix my PC? what are those errors I see? How comes everything is blue?"... Just visit this site, we have utilities that will fix your PC as new in a zap. I was all: oh great, finally I can tell people how to fix their computers and leave me alone when I'm on holiday at home... but wait a sec, what's that screen the guy is bumping his head into? An Apple Cinema display, just like the one I have in the office... And that other? It's an IMac just like the one my mate Paul has. And the girl there is working with a MacBook, just like the one I'm typing on right now, only mine is black because I'm a cool boy... and lo an behold, the girl is staring at a Blue Screen Of Death... on the Mac!

Yeah, I know, it is POSSIBLE to install Windows on a Intel Mac. You can pay a lot of money for one of these babies (they cost at least 50% more than a computer with similar specs built by anyone else, don't they?), you can pay to get a retail copy of Windows sVista (no typo there), or if you're lucky you may have a proper copy of Windows XP Professional (which as far as I can tell is on the par with Windows 2000 as regards stability and reliability, good enough stuff both of them), and you can also go as far as bothering to install one on the other, which will leave you with a computer prone to viruses and paid about twice as much as your mate paid his... but tell me how likely that is. I don't claim omniscience but what percentage of mac users is actually running windows? Most of those I know are quite happy to speak ill of windows whenever they can (as in telling me I'm a windows person because I remapped the functions of the apple key to the control key... sorry but for me copy and paste are ctrl-c ctrl-v, and don't get me started on why Finder does not have a cut function at all...), so maybe this nice website supports macs as well but the advert people wanted to show the customers something they could more immediately place in context.

So I jotted down the website, this one, and had a look at it. No mac section. Nothing whatsoever, there is no mention of operating systems at all, so I guess all modern Windows are covered. The company has ten years of experience in fixing troubles (three less than me then, but I admit I might have exercised my abilities on a smaller number of computers...), and they are also Microsoft certified. This may look good enough for the regular user, but I cannot manage not to be puzzled by a high tech company which puts out a technically completely misleading advert. Would you trust the president of your nation to have control of the army if he (or she) had only a faint clue of which nation he is supposed to be in charge of? Like if Napolitano (current president of Italy) were to say on TV: we'll solve the troubles with the rubbish at Napoli and Lugano. Lugano is full of people that speak Italian, but it's in Switzerland...

All in all, it seems I'll have to fix relatives' pcs during the next holiday too...

Be green and save the planet, or How to pick the wrong argument to defend your thesis 101

Recently and not so recently you may have noticed the number of appeals to save this poor endangered planet, and the number of impending tragedies and catastrophes that loom over us, waiting for the right moment to strike and doom all of us. Personally, I don't like to get so emotional about change in the environment, and have not had a look at the numbers involved, so I cannot judge whether some of those claims make sense or not.

Problem is, many, MANY of the arguments I've heard sound silly, plain wrong or simply the wrong argument to pick.

Let's start with an article I've read on some English newspaper a little more than a year ago (sorry I can't give a good reference for it). At some point during summer 2007, an Italian politician had given a speech in which, between other things, she referred to public administration buildings and dressing codes, her argument being: this summer is scorching hot, Italy has been having energy troubles for a long time, if everybody turns their air conditioning on the power grid will simply shut down, and the temperatures are high enough to be a serious health danger for very young and very old people. Let's drop the dressing code in public offices and buildings, leave the tie home and crank down the air conditioning (and save some public money in the process).

EDIT well actually her position was slightly different, but these assertions are my interpretation of what are the possible advantages, based mostly on what I've heard on tv last summer.

The journalist attacked this claim by asserting that global warming is an unproved problem, and, even if it turned out to be true, that would been good for England, since up here the climate is so much colder than Italy.

I wonder if it's fair to the journalist to attack his/her claims. I mean, whoever wrote it is obviously clueless about how global warming works in the models the scientists have prepared (whether you think that those models are valid or not). An increase of the average temperature on Earth is NOT going to warm up England, quite the opposite. The models predict increase of extreme phenomenons, hurricanes, heavy rain and droughts, due to the fact that hurricanes depend on energy the sun pours into our oceans: increase that energy, e.g., through the increase of temperature, and you get more and more powerful hurricanes. Plus, Great Britain is actually warmer than its geographical position grants for, and that's a well known effect of the Gulf Current. The model also includes a weakening of this current, due to changes in the temperature of water that would disrupt the flux (and there seems to be some evidence backing up this bit of the model, i.e., the Gulf Current seems to be weakening). Therefore, the most likely prevision for the climate in UK, if global warming is an actual threat, is that it will get COLDER, with increasing rain and the occasional hurricane sweeping up its coasts. Well, you could say, increasing rain, so what? We're used to it...

I beg to differ on this point. Apparently, enough rain can drown UK like any other country, if last year can be used as a comparison. Apparently, even high security installations, i.e., AWE-inspiring nuclear weaponry facilities are not immune to wet feet.

So, this should be enough to prove that UK should give global warming some thought (again, to either prove or disprove it - I'm not religious about it, I'm about to claim that it is the wrong argument to win this discussion). But, back to the article: why should we drop the ties and turn off the airco? To help the kids? To save grandma? That is all nice and good, and it appeals to me personally: I have a young niece and my grandma always struggles with the heat, plus I hate ties (they're useless by definition, I don't like the look of them and I've also heard disquieting rumors about how ties are not supposed to be washed). But each and every single point I just made can be discussed: someone loves ties, someone else has no children or grandmas, someone else may think the problem is in the power grid that needs fixing (and Italy might well decide to get nuclear plants or start studying renewable sources seriously, btw). So none of these arguments holds too much water, and why? Because they are based on goodwill (save this kid, or this small puppy, or whatever), or on personal tastes (burn those useless pieces of cloth around your neck, they're dangerous if you even have to put your head close to your car engine while it's spinning - rant end), and none of these is measurable or universal or objective. The winning argument here is in the last phrase I attributed to the politician: save some money. That's objective, measurable, and universal (show me someone who likes to WASTE money - not spend money for useful or useless things, waste as in: increase the cost, get exactly the same result - I'll show you a fool...). This is so true that even big companies have been known to bend to this law: an example from last year (again) is ENI.
Count the notes in your pocket, would you like to have more of those without changing your life style? Did I hear a "no" from back there? Honestly, mate, what's wrong with you?

Also from last winter (or maybe since last autumn, I'm not sure), there was this very funny advert: open field, sheep, and a guy going: "this is the animal that will save us from global warming. Put on a jumper and turn down the heating a couple of degrees."
I loved the joke, it was great. How many people do you think have cranked down the heaters because of it? Fifty? One thousand? Far from enough to make a difference. Same with this year ads on switching to 30 your washing machine, so that you can save the polar ice. Again, who do you know that gives a crap? If you live in Amsterdam you may refrain from buying a house and keep renting, just in case the sea overthrows the dams (my geography skills suck, so you may replace Amsterdam with any city that's really close to the coastline), but apart from that probably the only concerned people are those in Greenpeace, etc.

And there goes the BIG reason why saving the environment is the wrong argument to use. There is a lot of political color involved in claims like that, there are ideologies based on that, and there are a lot of people who would attack those ideas because of the other ideas that recently have learned to go arm in arm with them. To cite one, it seems that in Italy you cannot be concerned with your environment without being leftish (same goes for not wanting your country to go to war and invade other countries, or for preferring one charity to another - there's lots to be said about that as well, probably in another post). So what happens is that the battle to decide what's the next smart move becomes a political battle, and you get the following plan to disengage from dependence from oil coming from Arabic countries: let's drill in Alaska, leave SUV engines as big as possible, we'll keep petrol cost low by saturating the market.
No matter what you think of Alaska salmons becoming unedible, you can see that this plan is similar to the guy caught by rain next to a forest. He runs under a tree to avoid rain, and he wonders: what when rain filters through this tree? Oh, easy, I'll go under the next tree. Do I need to tell you he'll get home wet?

These days, with the word "recession" being screamed from each tv, the obvious argument to use is even more obvious: do all the little things that make you environment friendly, that make you a tree hugger, and so on and so forth. Why? Because you will save money! Buy a car with a smaller engine, you'll save money! Walk more instead of motoring around, you'll save money! Double glaze your windows!

All this stuff can be proved to help you make ends meet. It will also make you look like a bloody green, the children in the schoolyard will call you names, but you and me are self confident enough to survive some name calling, are we?

G.I. INSane

Last night I came home sometime past ten, and remembered only then that the mattress cover was still in the washing machine. Shit, I thought, it will take an hour or so for it to dry properly. Ok, let's see what's on tv in the meantime...

Nothing... nothing... Renaissance, already saw that one - btw, it's good... - G.I. Jane. Oh well, what the hell, I've seen it already but...
Well, it ticked me off. Badly. I've been on IMDB looking for more details, comments, stuff. On one side, more than one liked the citations from D.H. Lawrence:

Self Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

which is both tender and tough, nice bit of poetry, nails it perfectly. But, on the other end, there was a very long list of enthusiastic comments on how close to reality most of the movie is, how good the director is at conveying the message, how exceptionally good is Demi Moore performance (exceptionally in the real sense, many claimed not to be fans of Demi in general). Me, I think adherence to reality is average for Ridley Scott movies that involve shooting, which means more or less not much. I'll have one cheap shot about that and then move on to more relevant stuff: Demi is visited by the doctor, who says: you are halfway through to being a wreck: tendinitis, huge loss of body fat, jungle rot on your foot, and she stopped menstruating as well, which is not unusual for women under heavy physical or psychological stress. Still, about five minutes after, Demi is doing situps while hanging upside down from some undefined structure, maybe a boiler, and the size of her breasts does not exactly match the idea of a stressed woman whose body fat was just drained out by sheer exhaustion. (yes, I know. I said it was a cheap shot)

Someone compared this movie with Alien. Please, please, please. Sigourney Weaver is way more convincing than Demi Moore as a fighter, she doesn't even need to shave her hair to look tough, and the alien idea is way more fascinating than tough women in kaki doing special ops missions. Which takes me to the core of what ticked me off badly in this movie.

The final real battle presents us with some fine american heroes who try and challenge dangerous foes, battling to secure safe return to their buddies, and bravely waiting for their commander to join them after being separated in action, because their motto is: you never leave your people behind. All nice and good.

Oh, I forgot. The mission of which the SEALs cadets are part is intended to rescue a satellite (not clear whether it's a spy satellite or not, some sort of military implement anyway) which has fallen down from the sky... in Libia. It's actually an armed intrusion in a sovereign country (whether you like Gheddafi or not), and the SEALs, including the noble commander, think nothing of shooting enemy soldiers who, as far as the movie shows, are regular grunts working the beat, little more than police patrols. They happen to carry RPGs, but none cares to shoot a rocket at the american soldiers. The proud commander gets two bullets, arm and leg, and is valiantly pulled out of the mine field the american soldiers prepared to welcome the pursuing soldiers by none else than Demi Moore. Twenty to thirty soldiers buy it in the meantime, notably not one of the americans gets as much as a scratch ("buy it" meaning to die - this being the military jargon to say that someone rests under two meters of dirt, or "bought a farm").

So the heroic deeds that the brave SEALs do are basically black ops, stuff that is probably (probably because I don't know the details of the laws covering these cases) considered illegal, the kind of stuff you send double o seven to do, and deny that it ever happened if someone finds out. That might be realistic, but consider the relationship with the rest of the movie, which is along the lines of: everyone has freedom of choosing how to live his or her life, no matter if a bra is needed or not, military hierarchies should be sensitive to the issue of sexual discrimination, blah blah... btw we don't give a fuck who else we have to kill for whatever menial purpose, such as recovering some high technology we happened to drop outside our borders, they are just cannon fodder we use for show, and a good replacement for the "real training" mission we were about to carry out in the Mediterranean sea.

Just now some funny coincidences struck me: Mediterranean, Libia, americans, stuff dropping from the sky. My limited knowledge of Italian recent history (yes, I admit that, I don't know shit of what has happened in my home country in the last sixty+ years) rings a couple of bells, Ustica and Sigonella (Achille Lauro, anyone?), but that needs a lot more researching into before I can say any more without sounding just stupid.

Leaving aside any consideration on the specific american vs rest of the world topic, the point is that, just like in Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott does a nice clean job of presenting the american side as the righteous one, even when the situation is at least blurry when it comes to right and wrong, and american heroes seem more or less invincible. More to the point, one side gets a good characterization, a plot, actual people, the other gets only shooting targets or inept enemies. That sounds just like propaganda, dehumanizing the enemy while trying to make you cry about your officers citing poetry and your grunts becoming all for women rights and respect. Frankly, I cannot remember another couple of movies so embarassingly... mmm what's the best word for this? racist? since John Wayne was shooting Indians in the Wild West... should I say Native Americans? Well not if you watch the movies, I'm not referring to Geronimo, Sitting Bull or Red Cloud, I'm referring to the savages attacking the good ole pale faces, scalping and torturing whenever they could. Pity they learnt scalping from some guy from Great Britain, who used to do that back in the 13th century... have to dig up that name too...

End of story, I'll not waste my time watching any other Ridley Scott movie. I loved Blade Runner, Alien and Thelma and Louise, and The Gladiator is also a great movie, one in which he manages to do exactly the opposite, both sides are nicely described, the characters seem almost real, you can feel sympathy, of a sort, even for the evil Emperor... but the only other good movie I've seen is American Gangster. Seems like the best of Scott's production is in the remote past.