Forty years from now....

we will maybe still be around to see the release of Jamal Zougam, Otman el Ghanoui, and Emilio Trashorras.

These men, along with 18 others, were convicted today in Spain for the Madrid terrorist attacks to the theoretical sentence of 43000 years, give or take. But it won't matter, because Spain has a policy of "maxing out" sentences at 40 years.

In forty years, there's a pretty fair chance that I'll be receiving Social Security, if it's still solvent. I'm fairly certain that the US and Europe will have similar safety standards for cars, and those cars will probably get a bit more mileage than they do now, but I don't think we know how they'll do that yet.

There are lots of things that we don't know about forty years from now. I hope that I'll have children, and maybe even a grandchild by then. In forty years, we will likely have medicines and cures beyond what we can even imagine now, but we don't really know. In forty years, people will still be using tobacco. But it might not be legal to do so outside a designated room in your own home. We don't really know.

But there is one thing we do know -- Jamal Zougam, Otman el Ghanoui, Emilio Trashorras, and 17 other men, and one woman, will feel the sunlight of Madrid on their worn faces.

Unfortunately, one-hundred and ninety-one people felt the equivalent of forty years of sunlight in an instant. One-hundred and ninety-one bodies burned on the eleventh of March 2004, and that doesn't even start to include the one thousand eight-hundred and forty-one people injured.

I thought about this for a bit. Forty years in prison for one-hundred and ninety-one people adds up to about 10 weeks per murder. I had a friend who spent six months there for driving drunk.

I wonder what the concept of "justice" will look like in Europe in forty years.

The Bundeswehr's Toilet Paper

According to this story, a Green politician in Germany's Bundestag, Alexander Bonde, was making some inquiry about paper use by the Bundewehr.

Things were going fairly smoothly until he found that the German Bundeswehr is using 800 million rolls of toilet paper per year.  That adds up to 10 rolls of squeezably-soft per soldier, officer, and civil servant in the German Ministry of Defense per day.  Needless to say, this seemed, shall we say, excessive.  While there can be no doubt that ten rolls is generally a suitable amount on any given evening to toss in the tree and on the roof of your old principal's house, the Bundeswehr generally has a reputation for professionalism, and there is a stunning lack of reports from German headmasters on this phenomenon. 

As it turns out, due to a mislabeling in the report, the Bundeswehr is using 800 million sheets of the vital commodity instead, or 8.8 sheets per day.  This does not qualify under the Paperwork Reduction Act. However, if anyone cares to make a sheet joke, now is the time to make it.

However, I couldn't help but wonder.  I remember stories of $100 toilet seats and there are always news reports of military contractors charging ridiculous sums for otherwise mundane things, like V-22 Ospreys, but these stories were usually about real things.  Paper use as such has never been a particular focus for the American military.  It strikes me as one of those things that just end up in a budget, almost as a footnote.  I find it interesting that some politicians in Germany decided, "You know what we really need to find out? How much paper we need."

I guess my priorities are just different, and I suppose that would be a budget outlay that you really wouldn't want to have, but I just can't get my head around someone spending too much time on an inquiry into paper use.

Here is the reason....

I can no longer offer support to Rudy Giuliani .
Sure, he may be "America's Mayor," a reliable, determined man, a natural-born leader, a stalwart supporter on the War on Terror, and a great patriot.  He is intelligent, admits his mistakes, and takes responsibility for them.  Oh sure, I am not always on the same page with him about certain things, but I respect his views on most issues.

But not this one.  This is one of those non-negotiable situations where I must hold firm to my principles.  There are things that a man believes in that are inherent parts of his very existence -- dyed in the wool as it were. 

How could this seemingly rational man, with his meticulous nature, make such an irrational decision? Is he doing this just to move in on Romney's territory?  Is he planning for the general election?  And if he is, why has he not adopted the well-crafted, triangulated, dispassionate approach Hillary Clinton has, and remained above the fray?

This may cost him a state that has trended bluer and bluer over the last couple elections -- one could truly say that at this time it could be described as neither red nor blue, but purple.

And Colorado has never been more purple than it is this October.

Caveat Emptor and Government Safety

This piece from the New York Times editors is typical of the ideological rigidity it attributes to the Bush Administration.

The Crabby Gray Hag attacks the Bush team for an "ideological drive to deregulate business." But the Times is at least as ideologically driven. It has this reflexive tendency to demand increased regulation with any economic transaction except between an abortion vendor and his customers, and makes the assumption that, excluding its declining readership, the American populace is a nation of naive consumers in need of protective eyewear and rubber gloves provided by an all-seeing state with a benevolent iron hand.

It has nothing but glowing references to the Consumer Product and Safety Commission, which "was 978 strong in its heyday," (when did regulatory agencies ever have 'a heyday?') and a "watchdog." But then the Times notes that people at least heard about about the Chinese toy recalls. But these recalls were initiated by Mattel itself, which probably calculates losses to its reputation alone as a far greater threat than 400 nosy bureaucrats.

But the end of the article is truly revealing. "Senator Mark Pryor, Democrat of Arkansas, is among those pushing to rebuild the agency, a few million dollars at a time. He ... should keep pushing. When greed or inefficiency trumps safety, consumers need a muscular Consumer Product Safety Commission to fight back."

We're right back to the Safety of the Benevolent State. A few million dollars at a time.

I believe that if something like the CPSC were to disappear (possibly in Grover Norquist's bathtub) something very similar to it would take its place in the nonprofit private sector. I could easily envision something like Consumer Reports, Underwriters Laboratories, or Stiftung Warentest taking its place.

The Germans have a famous organization, the Stiftung Warentest. It is sometimes considered in polls of the German people to be the most trusted institution in Germany, exceeding the churches, the government, the press, and even used car salesmen. It is somewhat financed by the Federal Ministry for Commerce, but is largely an independently-funded foundation, from what I understand. It tests everything from orange juice to cars to financial services, and it is recognized by 96% of the German population, according to its website. Organizations like these should be encouraged, but the more a government acts as regulator, the less incentive there will be for independent regulators, and the more the state acts as a nanny.

A few million dollars at a time.

The town of Třebíč, Czech Republic

is a small town about an hour's train ride from Brno.  Their hockey team is doing relatively poorly compared to Kometa, but this is something else.

Dropping the puck!

Starting off with a hat trick is the way to do it.
Another season dawns.... bring on the Warren Zevon tributes, the Blue Moons, and the Red Wings!

Jimmy Carter in Sudan

According to this article (available on Drudge as this goes to e-press), ex-President Carter is in Sudan, discussing the long-running humanitarian crisis there.  He tried to visit some refugees; apparently, they were scared to leave their homes, and stayed in a village.  Carter wanted to go to the village and pay a visit to them, but the idea was nixed by members of the Sudanese military.

It is good that Carter is keeping Darfur alive as an important issue, but he had an interresting comment that I'm not quite sure I would agree with.  He explained that

"Rwanda was definitely a genocide; what Hitler did to the Jews was; but I don't think it's the case in Darfur... I think Darfur is a crime against humanity, but done on a micro scale. A dozen janjaweed attacking here and there..." noting many refugees have survived the violence.

"I think you can call it ethnic cleansing."


The point of a genocide is not that "many have survived."  Hutus and Jews survived.  Maybe the janjaweed will just be content with some Lebensraum, but that doesn't mean they don't have a Final Solution in mind.  In the same article, it is noted that 200,000 people have died.  It's true that not all these people are innocent women and children, but "ethnic cleansing" and  "genocide" is a distinction without a difference. There is of course legal terminology to consider, but the whole point of the Nobel Peace Prize wasn't "outstanding contributions to international legal theory," but recognition of one's moral authority and stature.  Parsing one's words in an effort to avoid embarrassing the "international community" for its lack of commitment is not the courageous action we should expect from a peace prize winner.