(no subject)

[rozk]

If things were not bad enough, it would appear that Tony Blair has locked us into a wartime alliance with a country that commits serious war crimes as a matter of policy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1643679,00.html

I am not denying that the British Army has sins to its account, but this is cold-blooded murder of a kind we have not gone in for for some considerable time. Coupled with the attacks on Habeas Corpus in the Senate, a case is building itself that the UK should simply cease to regard itself as in alliance with a country that no longer acts as our closest ally should.

I love the US, and it pains me very deeply to say this. Your President and his clique are acting as if they were determined to create decades of war.

*****

Just though to remind ourselves that moral idiocy is universal, I ended up at Speaker's Corner on Sunday, to support Cory Doctorow and the other critics of Copyright law. And I found myself yelling quite serious abuse at a series of Islamic speakers who were trying to justify killing civilians in Jordan for being 'drinkers, gamblers and prostitutes' ie for using a hotel where some of these things may perhaps have gone on, and people in the West for 'building brothels' in the Arab world. Someone asked them what they thought about the killing of the schoolgirls in Malaysia, and the guy who was speaking said he did not know about it, and tried to move swiftly on. I shouted 'Well, you know now. What do you think about it?' and got a small cheer.

The Christian fundies went on about how they were engineers and knew that you could not get something from nothing. So that proved that God had created the world in 4004 BC. I must practice explaining quantum theory and its cosmological ramifications in words of one syllable, inasmuch as I even begin to understand it.

Why are these idiots always engineers?

They really do not like it when you bandy texts with them. The Christian was very fond of telling the agnostic hecklers that they were idiots so I pointed out to him that 'He who says to his brother 'thou fool' shall be in danger of Judgement.' He really was not happy - atheists are no longer expected to know the Gospels, it appears.

*****

On a happier note, vschanoes is in town momentarily.

Rome, this evening, had Octavia quote Aeneid Book 6 twenty years or so before it was written. No-one can get everything right, but 'facilis descensus Averni' is probably the second best-known quotation in the whole poem. And pretty much the same in English - 'Easy is the way down to Hell' - which brings us back to Blair and Bush.

Knowledge of Latin poetry in the original is, I suppose, definitely extinct.

Comments

[paratti.livejournal.com]

The white phosperous news is horrific.

Canada looks better every day

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

I love the US, and it pains me very deeply to say this. Your President and his clique are acting as if they were determined to create decades of war.

Not my President. My President had the election stolen from him by the Supreme Court in 2000. The current occupant of the White House is, in fact, determined to create decades of war, though, in all likelihood because he genuinely believes that we're living in the end times.

Re: Canada looks better every day

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Good point.

And 2004 looks dodgier every day.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Facilis descensus Averni:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum suparasque evadare ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

That's annoying - what I originally wrote looked wrong, so rather than go and get the Oxford Dictionary, I googled. And of couse came up with the standard misquotation. Beware of Google bringing gifts - and actually I should have said third best known quotation because 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes' probably beats it out.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It's a hopeful passage in full though. One of the most hopeful passages I've ever encountered. Because it is toil, it is labour. And nothing worth doing is ever easy.

And yes, the greeks bearing gifts probably beats it, but, it's pretty naff that one.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

We have decided that any act, no matter how despicable, is acceptable when we do it, because our intentions are good.

I am deeply, deeply ashamed.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not to defend anyone here, but if you read American war fiction white phosphorus is always depicted as something that makes dense smoke screens, not as the incredibly nasty weapon it is. I think it's possible that, initially at least, some US soldiers fell for the propaganda.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It happens that the use of WP is convered in treaties, and (leaving aside the moral questions) the US (and I'd guess, from British Army policy on use, the British as well) are exempted from being held to account for using it in combat.

I've not looked at the relevant treaties, and so my understanding of the terms is second hand, but I've been told the use of WP is, like the international criminal court) something the US got itself written out of.

The British Army says they only use it in combat (as a weapon) when there are no civilians in the area.

TK

[osl.livejournal.com]

I read the Guardian article, and earlier today, that on the BBC. As a former soldier, and American, take my words with a grain of salt, but I thought I would try to clear up a couple things.

Much of the journalism on WP has a problem with confusing two issues. The first is the terrible effects of burning white phosphorus, the second the issue of whether it is a chemical weapon or not. People (in my experience) tend to conflate the two, thinking that any weapon that causes such horrible injuries (which no one doubts burning WP does) must be evil, and chemical weapons are evil, so therefore they are synonymous.

This is untrue. The injuries from WP are not caused by the toxicity of the substance (which is what defines a chemical weapon under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons), but rather by the extreme heat it creates when burning. The Guardian article, I believe, unintentionally conflates two meanings of the word 'burn': combusting WP is what does the damage (via heat), while WP smoke (the creation of which is the goal in the vast majority of uses of WP, for use in screening and concealment) 'burns' mucous membranes in the sense of irritation, just like woodsmoke or coalsmoke or any other type of smoke. Albeit, it is more irritating, but it is a falsehood to claim that WP is a chemical weapon because the smoke can 'burn' people. Take anecdotal evidence as you will, but I have witnessed the use of WP, to the point of breathing/walking through/operating in the smoke, and it is nowhere near as bad as the media would like to make out.

This is not to say WP is not a terrible weapon. It does wicked, evil things to flesh in contact with the burning particles. If people object to it on that account, I have no problem; I do wish, however, people would cease referring to it as a chemical weapon, because by any definition, it is not.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. :)

[omniguy.livejournal.com]

The main issue here is that they do wish to create decades of war. I have amny American friends and, as a country I believe it has substantial positive attributes... it's just then that it opens it's mouth and the supposed President begins his diatribe against humanity. Britain will follow because Britain does not know what else to do. For that matter neither do I...

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Hi, Roz!

I've been pointing out since before 9/11 that much of Bush's foreign policy seems intended to lead to or perpetuate war. The man is a menace, both to Americans and to people across the globe.

He isn't our President, incidentally. He was not properly elected in either 2000 or 2004. Call him what you like -- dictator, despot, deluded, deranged, dangerously stupid -- but don't accord him the title he's tried to usurp.

It pains me to see leaders of other countries, the UK in particular, going along with him. Didn't WWII teach you lot that appeasement is a lose-lose strategy?

On a lighter note... I haven't seen a new ep of Rome in weeks (woe!) but if she just quoted the line "Facilis descensus Averni," is it possible that was a saying current at the time which later found its way into the Aeneid, that Virgil didn't necessarily coin the phrase?

[giogio.livejournal.com]

Et quae tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi?

Sorry, it seemed fitting.

Though in all honesty, I would be hard-pressed to remember much besides a line or two from Catullus. Now, Greek poetry in the original, on the other hand... I think I've had the opening verses of the Iliad permanently branded into my memory since O level classics...

By the way, I'll be haunting the minitrog household for a week on Sunday; we should plan another get together :)

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

It often startles people just how much I know about the bible, being the smart ass liberal atheist that I am. But I was raised Southern Baptist and they're big on the bible study. Besides the King James version has such lovely language. And of course gives you lovely ammunition, as you have discovered. No learning is ever wasted!

MKK

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

William "Buzz" Brock, one of my professors back in the day, said after a talk on non-linear systems that engineers (this was 1991 or so) hated stuff like chaos theory, and other sensitive-to-initlal conditions processes. It didn't gybe with Newton's God.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I don't think the current administration wants to create decades of war. I don't think they're capable of looking that far ahead.

What they want is to posture and to hurt people. This is quite bad enough, and may well lead to decades of war.

[aristophains.livejournal.com]

In spite of having studied Aeneid VI in Latin, I must confess that I didn't recognise the quotation. My feeble defence is that to lose myself enjoyably in Rome, I had to switch off the Classicist in me. (When in Rome, do as the Romans do: use English.) Having said that, I do now recall an echo in Milton: 'Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.'

As for knowledge of Latin poetry in the original being extinct... possibly not, if you count widespread use of 'carpe diem'. But then, how many of those who quote it have heard of Horace?

For what it's worth, I made the first words of the Aeneid the opening words of my LiveJournal. 'Italiam non sponte sequor' is another memorable line for me.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Regarding crank engineers, I posted a theory a few years ago that Susan Stepney has kindly put on her web site.

(As I explain, Electrical Engineering graduates are the worst for this. I should know, being one.)