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29. november 2004
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Kuchma suggests new elections
Ukraine's outgoing president Leonid Kuchma, definately part of the problem, seems to concede to the demonstrators as he now suggests new elections to end the standoff.
It will be some challenge to ensure that the new elections are fair.
The country's Supreme Court is now working through the evidence of vote-rigging, some of which we've seen on TV also in the west, but isn't expected to reach a verdict anytime soon. Word is it may take up to a week.
There are few signs the demonstrators are backing down. After all, if it wasn't for them, it would be corruption as usual in Ukraine.
Even if the reformists win this contest, they may be facing a hollow victory if the Russian-friendly eastern regions to steps towards autonomy or even de-facto independence. Ukraine's economy is already suffering under this conflict, and the country's industry, heavily supported by Russia, is mostly in the east.
10:26:20 PM 
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O'Really defends Rather
Bill O'Really, of all people, is coming to the defence of Dan Rather. Now that is very bipartisan of him, but one could be tempted to suspect it is a little bit self-serving too, considering how he himself is the target man for quite a bit of new media attention.
Dan Rather did not get what he deserved in this case. He made a mistake, as we all do, but he is not a dishonest man.
Unfair freedom of speech did him in.
Dan Rather may well have recieved more than his fair share of criticism, but the reason wasn't primarily his original mistake. It was his lousy reaction to being exposed. To this day, Rather has not admitted the fake memos were, indeed, fake. People are very forgiving towards those who regret their mistakes when caught. Not so for those who stand by their stories when they have just themselves been part of a very "unfair freedom of speech" attack on others.
It's all about damage control, O'Really. I think you may do well learning from your old collegue's mistakes for the future.
9:32:11 PM
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Roomba
I don't think many would mind having a robot to clean their houses. Wonder if it's really any good?
It does piss me off that somebody is using "iRobot" as a trade name, though. It was bad enough with an action flick having that name.
7:13:47 PM
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Iranians line up to join the suicide squads
Iran's government pretends to not be directly involved in terrorism, but nobody believes them:
The 300 men filling out forms in the offices of an Iranian aid group were offered three choices: Train for suicide attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, for suicide attacks against Israelis or to assassinate British author Salman Rushdie.
AP interviews Mohammad Ali Samadi, a "spokesman" claiming no ties to the governemt (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
Samadi claimed 30,000 volunteers have signed up, and 20,000 of them have been chosen for training. Volunteers had already carried out suicide operations against military targets inside Israel, he said.
But he said discussing attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq "will cause problems for the country's foreign policy. It will have grave consequences for our country and our group. It's confidential."
As devoted Muslims, members of his group were simply fulfilling their religious obligations as laid out by Khomeini, he said.
It appears more and more likely that the Mullahs in Iran have united its cause with the death cults of the Wahhabis and al-Qaeda, doesn't it?
4:49:07 PM
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Drugs in Norway
Jeffrey Fleishman writes a devastating article about Norway's heroin problem in LA Times, showing the contrast between one of the world's most prosperous nations and the mostly discarded heroin addicts.
It shows that the model Norway and Sweden has chosen in dealing with drug problems is a total failure. Here, drug addiction is a criminal matter, as opposed to a health care problem. Naturally, drug use and sale is illegal, and addicts commit a large number of crimes, and I don't advocate there should not be a law enforcement component of this. However, the individual addict is a sick person foremost, and in need of treatment not public harassment, isolation and punishment.
In Norway (and Sweden) the policy is that the beating will continue until morale improves. No politician is courageous enough to say "the current policy is a dismal failure; let's change tactics!"
The primary fear of the core voter is that their son or daughter will end up an addict, not the damage addicts do on people and society because the one thought in their heads is getting the next shot. It's deeply irrational, but I don't see how it will change. We just clear the addicts off the streets and hope they die somewhere else. They do, sure, but there is an endless supply of new recruits, and we fail them.
When some young person, not yet a hardcore addict, is caught with drugs, they are slapped in the head by the law instead of helped to get out of it. Eventually, they will become a fulltime job for a group of social workers, judges and policemen and eventually, the undertaker.
PS: I don't know why some American bloggers, e.g. EconoPundit, believes that the problem is that Norway is "soft on drugs" or has decriminalized drugs. Don't confuse Norway with Holland, folks! Norway has a hardline attitude to drugs, no decriminalization and some of the harshest punishments in Europe for selling drugs, even cannabis. If you are caught with a resale quantity of heroin or even cannabis here, you typically do more time in prison than murderers. I am sure there are downsides to decriminalization, but Norway is not an example of the horrors of being soft on drugs, perhaps except giving free needles to addicts to prevent the spread of Aids.
PS 2: To clarify, I don't advocate being "soft on" as opposed to "hard on" drugs. Yes, personally I am pretty libertarian and would like many drugs to be decriminalized if not outright legal. The hard/soft dichotomy is a fat, stinking red herring as I see it. This is about how we primarily view the drug addicts: as criminals or patients.
For what I care, the gangsters who supply the illegal drugs could be shot on sight. But a better option is to remove their market through a controlled decriminalization, for example giving registered heroin addicts free heroin in controlled environments, and then (this is the important part) pour quality resources into helping them quit. There are no easy solutions here.
4:28:32 PM
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North Sea platform evacuated
Yesterday, the Norwegian oil platform Snorre A in the North Sea was evacuated after the pressure in a production well came out of control. Only 36 remains on board, all working directly with bringing the well under control. This morning there were reports that gas is still leaking from the well. There is not thought to be a real danger of a blow-out. Nobody was injured.
8:43:08 AM
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Why Ukraine matters to all of us
Anne Applebaum warns that Russia under Putin is using methods scaringly similar to those Stalin's Soviet used to get control over Eastern Europe after World War II. Maybe it is a long stretch to warn about a new iron curtain, but given Putin's dubious democratic creditentials and badly veiled ambitions, the people living in his neighbourhood can hardly afford to fear otherwise. Neither, as history shows, can we.
To the west, the democracies of western and central Europe will remain more or less stable members of the European Union and Nato, at least for the time being. To the east, Russia will use local collaborators and proxies to control the "managed democracies" of the former USSR, keeping the media muzzled, elections massaged and the economies in thrall to a handful of mostly Russian billionaires, which is more or less what happens now. Eventually, using primarily economic means - control over oil pipelines, corrupt investment funds, shady companies - the Russians could, like their Soviet predecessors, begin to work at undermining Western stability. The evidence from recent financial scandals in central Europe shows that they have started.
This is not an inevitable outcome.
This is where the people in orange comes in.
And who knows. If the Russians see their neighbours standing up to despotism, they may take their example the next time they have a general election where the government controls the media and stacks the deck against any and all opposition.
Update: Rumours about martial law and a possible crackdown in Kiev. Be that it is not so!
Maidan News is constantly updated.
Kyiv Post is also a good source for updates.
12:18:40 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.12.2004; 07:28:50.
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