Anti-cycle rage

I've always said that Helsinki drivers are incredibly aggressive against cyclists - totally unwilling to share the road with people on two wheels - but it's nothing in comparison to this:



At least, as the NY Times points out, with half the western world now having a video camera in their pocket in the form of their phone, people might think twice before doing mindless, dangerous things like deliberately pushing a cyclist off a bike. I hope the cop does get at least fired, because regardless of what the cyclist was doing (and most people seem to think he was doing nothing wrong) pushing a rider off a reasonably fast moving bike is incredibly dangerous just because of the significant chance of causing serious head injuries.

Iraq is still there

Photo courtesy of Zoriah.net

"A bit obscene that we can bury so many people in the earth and know so little about them"

Poet/soldier Brian Turner

By mistake it's been an 'Iraq day' - a series of coincidences of what I have read and listened to over the last 24 hours that has meant I've spent more time thinking about a place I've never been to than is normal, or least healthy. This used to happen more often; I would see a link to a blog, a smart-arse U.S. soldier or some Iraqi civilian who writes better English than I can - either of whom should have been a 'proper' writers in better times, and I would spend hours reading it, clicking links, reading other blogs and news reports not doing the work I should have been and that seemed so less important. Articles by Nir Rosen or George Packer would have the same effect. I could always excuse spending mornings doing this as I am a political scientist and this is the most important political event of my generation, but the truth is more probably somewhere between a sense of feeling the need to bear witness and a very uncouth morbid fascination.

Last night as I rode home I was listening to a pretty tragic story of an Iraq vet, now jailed for attacking his partner and family, on This American Life. His reoccurring dreams are a curse not to wish on anyone, and made more sense of this photo that I saw this morning:

Photo courtesy of Zoriah.net

I found Zoriah's site via a link after happening to look at the Guardian Online for the first time in weeks and reading this piece about attempts by the U.S. military to manage the images coming out of the war in Iraq. Then this evening on the bus home I was listening to an edition of Fresh Air on NPR from last week which included interviews with two clearly exceptional American soldiers, theorist John Nagl and poet Brian Turner. Terms such as warrior-philosopher and warrior-poet are rather trite and overwrought, but if anyone one deserves such accolades I suspect these two gentlemen do.

Iraq is a fading from the news to a great extent, at least as anything other than an issue between McCain and Obama, but the slaughter goes on just not at such high rates anymore. It is easy to ignore, or simply to miss, but Iraq is still there.

Swearing on the "radio"

This blog was once told by a friend and commenter that if I want to swear, don't pretend I'm not doing so by using asterisks. My defence is that we're all more polite in public than we are in private amongst friends. Some years ago I was on a US radio show as a guest. The presenter, Chris Lydon, has an on-air persona of an eccentric, favourite uncle but as soon as the show finished, but whilst all us guest were still on the line, he reverted to what I presume is the normal way that Bostonians of Irish descent tend to express themselves - a rather more bracing usage of the language. It was amusingly shocking to hear people described as "total fucking idiots" and the like when you had gotten used to the regular, refined on-air persona!

Anyway - I'm a big fan of the Slate Political Gabest, which made this weeks show all the more fun as I suspect the unedited extra footage in the latter half is probably more like how Emily, David and John normally talk to each other!

Is this terrorism?

If a group or an individual target civilians with violence - say, Egyptian Islamist groups attacking fellow Egyptians because they are Coptic Christians - that would count as Jihadi terrorism I think most would agree. In which, case - what is this case?

An unemployed man accused of opening fire with a shotgun and killing two people at a Unitarian Universalist church apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its support of liberal social policies, police said Monday. (from AP)

Is it "Right-wing terrorism"?

All at sea!

I'm blogging this from the cafe on the Silja line ferry somewhere in Baltic south of Finland and north of Estonia. How cool is that? I have absolutely nothing interesting to say besides the sun is shining and it's very beautiful, its more just to say - wow, I'm on a boat. Blogging. :-)

Right - off to check out the duty free prices now.

Wikipedian Protester

Yesterday evening I finished a paper that I'd been working on for the previous four days. I think it had 83 footnotes, so when I saw this, I had to laugh.

From the lovely xkcd website, and first seen on Harry's Place.

I'm off on a big boat tomorrow to Sweden. I love the big boats; hopefully some photos when I get back on Monday.

High Summer - climbing at Kvarnby

It is pouring outside at the moment but last weekend was rather nice. Tony and myself headed to Kvarnby - Tony wanting to make some progress in his quixotic (that's a challenge not a doubt Tony!) 7x7 quest - seven grade seven routes this year, so far he has six still to go. It was hot and rather sweaty but Tony managed all the moves on a rather fine grade 7 trad route that goes the height of main cliff at Kvarnby. I managed something rather less than all the moves, but did find a better sequence for a hard section low down, to play my part as the faithful Sancho Panza. I'm sure he'll lead it by the autumn. I also belayed in the sunshine and generally enjoyed the birdsong and being out in the countryside after an abnormally political week that kept my mind in London, long after the rest of me was back in Finland.

Name these flowers (i.e. does anyone know what they are because I don't?)

High summer is so green. Everything is green. All shades of green. Nothing has started dying back yet. The forest is thick; cliffs you normally think of as being quite open disappear behind this thatch of growth. The forest is busy with life, both flora and fauna.

Tony high up on great, moderate unnamed route

The rope catches the light low down whilst above your correspondent does battle with the ants

I did one unnamed route on the left of the cliff that I had seconded before, but not led. I was quite happy with a reasonable go-for-it-attitude, although this may well have been more to do with ants nest that seemed to be deep down in the crack at the crux, meaning speedy upwards movement was the only option to ant in your pants. One still managed to fall into my eye as I pulled through the crux - an unusual objective hazard!

Tricam in a horizontal break

We also messed about with the tricams that I'm testing for UKclimbing. Tony began as an utter sceptic of the "what's the point?" school. Five minutes of fiddling with them and including both of us trying to unseat the placement above and he seemed to have been converted!

Heading home through the green

No surprise: the BNP is utterly cynical

I've been writing today on the BNP and its recently acquired respect for Israel and Jews more generally. This has meant lots of reading the BNP website - a rather depressing experience - but I turned up one gem of political cynicism from the pen of Nick Griffin himself. A 2007 article called "By their fruits (or lack of them) shall you know them" is basically a reply to American neo-Nazis who have criticised the BNP for being to cosy with 'the Jews'. These US anti-semites parrot some of the Islamist (and indeed "Troofer") conspiracy theories, that terror attacks like 9/11 were really the work of Mossad and represent Israel's continued machinations to get the US west to fight their middle eastern wars for them. Griffin writes that these conspiracies "may or may not contain some elements of truth" but this is not the point:

“May or may not contain some elements of truth,” I said. Is that too cynical for the purists? Then they need to wake up to the rules of real life politics rather than settling for last place every time. It’s better to be a little cynical on this issue and stand a chance of winning than to fret about which bunch of liars are lying in this particular instance and in so doing miss a great political opportunity to surf our message into the public mind on the back of a media tsunami of ‘Islamophobia’.

Everyone accuses politicians of utter cynicism, but normally they at least have the decency to try to hide it. Mr. Griffin rather lays it out for all to read. He then goes on to consider why the British media have become so critical of Islam in recent years - suggesting various explanations before concluding:

Frankly, who cares [why]? We don’t have the media clout ourselves to swim against the tide, but as it’s running in our favour in terms of boosting public rejection of mass immigration and the multi-cult, why should we even want to? Instead of wasting time worrying about it, we should - to mix metaphors - be organising to make hay while the sun shines.

By their own word shall you know them.