Two days ago, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, President Bush condemned China’s human rights record. From the safety of Bangkok, Bush referred to Chinese crackdowns on dissenters in the lead-up to the Games, and declared:
The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings.
Impeccable timing! The very next day, the US announced their intention to deprive Salim Hamdan, a poverty-stricken Yemeni taxi driver, of his fundamental liberties. Hamdan’s crime was the identity of his employer — he was Osama bin Laden’s driver. For over five years he was locked up at Guantanamo Bay, awaiting trial. Over the last couple of weeks, he was duly tried, and the military tribunal decided that driving around a known terrorist is a crime, but that it was his only crime. He was sentenced to 66 months. He has already served 61.
In any freedom-loving society governed by the rule of law, you’d expect that he would be released in five months. However, the US is no freedom-loving society governed by the rule of law. (As further proof of this, see again who tried him.) On the subject of Salim Hamdan’s fate once he’d served his time, the Pentagon had this to say:
He’ll still be retained as an enemy combatant.
WTF, USA? You have established a military base on Cuba and decided no national law applies there. Among your inmates are respected journalists (e.g. Sami al-Hajj) and you torture these people for years on end hoping they’ll divulge something you can charge them with. You pretend all of this is legitimate, that you’re still the land of the free despite it all, but how can you keep pretending? That military tribunal was your pathetic attempt to restore some semblance of respectability to the joint, and you’ve just announced that you intend to ignore it?
China’s certainly not a free country, but China doesn’t pretend to be. There is no freedom of speech in China, no freedom of the press, and they even have labour camps they send their citizens to without trial. However, China’s not the one pretending to be the “leader of the free world”. China makes no secret of where they stand. They cop a lot of flak because of it, but at least they’re honest. In that regard, they’re one step ahead of you, USA.
Most electricity in Australia is generated by burning coal. This leads to a few problems, most notably global warming — coal is roughly 80% carbon — but Australia swears by its coal anyway. We have to have electricity, and electricity is produced by burning coal. Therefore, Australia must burn coal. We’ll shame people into using less electricity, so less coal will have to be burned. We’ll up prices to force them to use less electricity, too. We’ll insist on the existence of “clean coal”, a truly mythical form of coal that will not contribute to global warming.
All of this really pisses me off. Why? Because coal is completely extraneous to electricity generation. Electricity is generated by the movement of metal parts. All coal is used for is boiling water such that the steam may move the metal parts. People waving these parts around would generate electricity. You could make bikes with the parts attached to the pedals, and when ridden they would generate electricity. You could stick the parts in the ocean and the tides would generate electricity. You could get some wind to blow the parts around, and you would generate electricity. The only reason we use coal is because thousands of miners would be put out of work otherwise. Well, that and coal generates electricity faster, but that could easily be compensated for with extra generators. The main reason is the miners. Read on…
I heard on the radio this morning that Cadel Evans is now in the lead in the Tour de France. I don’t really care that he’s in the lead, but I still thought this was amazing. How do you fall off your bike, get covered in cuts and bruises, spend the day being tended to by a doctor, and emerge at the end of the next day in the lead of the Tour de France?
I mean, this strategy has never once worked for me! As I reminisced about the past, I found myself overcome by jealousy. When I had a bike, I always fell off it less than ten seconds after deciding to ride. (Usually in less than five.) My arms are different lengths, and it was impossible for me to steer the damn thing. I usually crashed into my own leg and collapsed in a jumbled mess. My dad always insisted that I could ride, but that I just wouldn’t practise enough. Determined to prove him wrong, I spent three hours practising one day. I emerged so bruised and battered that he had to give up on his dream of having a daughter who could ride. (He still teases me about not trying, though.) And you know what? Not once did I get a yellow jersey out of the deal! If falling off = yellow jersey, where’s mine? I felt so ripped off.
After spending an hour or two getting over my disappointment, though, I began to understand the basic difference between myself and Cadel Evans. He’s a skilled cyclist who fell off his bike once. I’m a committed pedestrian who has fallen off my bike so many times that staying on would be a surprise. I’d say that’s a pretty fundamental difference right there. After remembering that little fact, I was instantly over my jealousy, and would like to congratulate Evans for succeeding where I failed.