Russia backs Kyoto climate treaty

Kyoto treaty must be just a beginning.

28 Palestinians and 3 Israelis have died during the violence of the last two days. The occupation must end.

In Iraq, things "continue as usual". Tens of people have died in attacks, whose most bloodiest were attack in Baghdad, whose two bombs claimed the lives of 41 people, of whom 34 were children. This occupation must end too.

Jimmy Carter writes that "basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida".

Diplomatic desert

South Africa and Morocco, never the best of friends, are at loggerheads over Western Sahara.

Morocco, Israel of the Atlas mountains.

A Nation? What Nation?

Quote:

The government of Israel does not recognize the Israeli nation. It says that there is no such thing.

I made a blog, Pöytälaatikkorunoutta, for my poems in finnish. They are rather weak, but so is this blog too, so... I post new ones when I write them. I doubt that I will post old ones. I have a couple of thousand of them, and none are even mediocre works of art.

The conquest of Galilee.

UN High Comissioner for Human Rights attacks Darfur 'fear and rape'.

Colin Powell admits that situation in Iraq is getting worse.

Zarqawi has method in his madness

It´s a curious thing that if you kill a few people, you are a monster, but if you kill tens of thousands, you can still be a statesman, an honorable general, a hero etc. No doubt al-Zarqawi can be called a monster, but the fact is, the thing that disturbs people most in his actions are not the killings; his group has killed hundreds of people in bomb attacks, but these got far less publicity in western media than the brutal murders of hostages. The victims of bomb attacks are faceless and mostly non-western. The hostages his group has murdered are given faces by these videos, their helplesness and their suffering are not hidden, they are shown. This makes al-Zarqawi such a reviled figure. He doesn´t hide his crimes, he uses them as a propaganda weapon. His propaganda has then different messages for muslims and westerners.

If he would just make demands for the release of the hostages and then kill them in secrecy when his demands are not met, he would not be seen as such a terrible figure. After all, hostage taking and killing of hostages are nothing new in human history. And in reality, these kinds of public murders are neither. But in the past the audience was limited.

For example, let´s go to England during one of it´s civil wars in the 1140´s. King Stephen(1097-1154, ruled 1135-54), the nephew of Henry Ist(1068-1135, ruled 1100-35), was fighting against her cousin Mathilda, the daughter of Henry Ist, for the crown. During a siege of a castle of Mathilda´s supporter, the commander of the castle gave one of his sons, just a boy, as a hostage, for the time of a ceasefire, during which the negotiations for the surrender of the castle would be held. These were unfruitful and as the commander was not ready to surrender, the king decided to hang the boy so that his hanging could be viewed from the castle walls, which would show the determination of the king to take the castle, the helplessness of the defenders to do anything to stop him and how useless it would be for them to resist him.

This was nothing uncommon at the time. King Stephen had executed large number of men in the same manner. But for his undoing, he wasn´t ruthless enough. When everything was ready, the king couldn´t hang the boy, who didn´t understand his coming fate. The boy, William Marshal, lived and in his late years became the regent of England in 1216. Stephen in the end, after the death of his eldest son, made a peace with Mathilda´s son Henry(1133-1189) in 1153 and made him his successor in England. Stephen´s younger son was denied the crown and died fighting in France in 1159.

This kind of executions of hostages served the same kind of role that al-Zarqawi´s videos do. They just had a very limited audience. Nowadays al-Zarqawi has a global audience.

Cave dwellers defy Israeli eviction bid

Palestinians who have scratched a living for generations in the desert defend their biblical way of life.

The only good thing in autumn to me nowadays are the dark skies. Good for observing, before the snow comes. And usually there´s been during the time that I remember far more clear skies on autumn than in winter. Some winters during the last years have been quite bad. Clouds for months, and not a piece of a clear sky. Last winter wasn´t that bad, compared to many others it was good.

In the past, when I was younger, I quite enjoyed autumn. It had this melancholic beauty that I then liked. But now, years tend to go too fast and every autumn marks a one year more lived and one less to live. Gray, rainy days are just so depressing. But when I stand under a clear sky, seeing hundreds of stars above, then it´s nice that it´s autumn. Then everything else vanishes and even self recedes. I don´t feel that I am watching the universe, I feel that I am part of it. Like were are, but you need experiences like this to fully understand and feel the fact; feel the universe that spreads all around you, (likely) without an end.

One year has passed since Edward Said died.

Israel and the Arafat Question.

I would have so much to write about this, but some other time. I have been awake now almost constantly for one and a half days, so lambasting Dennis Ross isn´t as entertaining an idea as it would otherwise be.

But, Americans don´t seem to understand that you can´t be an effective broker of a peace deal when you try to get as best a deal you can for one side, instead of trying to get a deal that is acceptable to both sides. Anyway, I think that nothing would have come out of the peace deal anyway, gallups at the time showed clear Sharon lead over Barak and the polls didn´t show that a peace deal would have saved Barak´s hide; Sharon had already claimed that he wouldn´t honor any peace deal made by the Barak government; US government was changing and anyways US was totally incapable of pressurizing Israel; and there was a lot of opposition on the Palestinian side, and not only among Hamas&Jihad.

Lastly, I can´t understand this American obsession about persons, in this case Jassar Arafat. Jasser Arafat this, Jasser Arafat that, Jasser Arafat is bad, we will not talk with Jasser Arafat blah blah blah blah. Like little children. Getting entangled with personalities and losing the plot when this becomes an obsession.

Americans must recognize that elections are not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - not in Afganistan and not in Iraq. Things will not magically turn alright if elections can somehow be kept. But US government will insist that they will, and if elections can be kept, will afterwards claim that things have improved, even if they wouldn´t have.

Musharraf warns of 'iron curtain'.

If one takes as positive an adjustment of Pervez Musharraf´s game, one can see sense in his double game of appeasing both the Americans and the radical islamists. The sense being that his survival depends on it that he gives something to both sides and so does part of what the Americans want him to do and at the same time he doesn´t drive the extremists into a too difficult a position, so that he doesn´t alienate all of them. Some of course try to kill him, but giving room to the religious conservatives does buy him at least time. And towards the Americans he has to show his usefulness so that he doesn´t drive Pakistan into international isolation and give reason to the US to start supporting the democratic opposition. So, to the Americans he has made himself an irreplaceable man and to the religious extremists he has given more room to maneuver and a chunk of power - but one day even the more moderate and cautious among them probably will want to have whole power, not just part of it under Musharraf´s dictatorial reign.

Antarctic Glaciers Melting Faster -Study

Israel's nukes serve to justify Iran's.

And one shouldn´t forget the Pakistani nukes out of the equation either.

Martian methane hints at oases of life?

Washington Post is angry that the US government supports also other bastards in Asia, not only those in Tel Aviv that the Post itself loves.

I admit that Musharraf is a dictator who tries to ride two horses - those of the West and those of the conservative/radical islamism - at the same time and I hope that he doesn´t succeed, even if things could go quite ugly after he is out of the picture. But when it comes to Pakistani democracy, much of the blame goes to the corrupt major parties of Sharif and Bhutto, who did little to give democracy and non-religious parties a good name in Pakistan.