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Tuesday July 4, 2006

Happy Fourth of July

Anglosphere

Thanks for reminding me, Kiki. If it weren't for the holiday support in my stylesheet code I would have never noticed.

Happy birthday America!

On-line safety through common sense

Software

Please put down that webcam for a while and while you're at it, put those boobs back where they belong as well. Profile sites such as MySpace are dangerous. Join any such network and you will soon end up in some pervert's basement. Raped and prostituted if you're lucky, dismembered in all other cases.

Or that's the impression one would get by reading The Dead Kids of Myspace for a while. It doesn't even matter whether you are the stereotypical 14-year-old inexperienced virgin (as if!) or not:

Two girls - 14- and 15-years-old - chatted on MySpace with a man for two weeks, claiming to be an 18-year-old named "Natalia." When the man showed up for a tryst at Natalia's supposed apartment, the two girls robbed him at gunpoint!

Scott Granneman's defense of social networks quotes heavily from the list of MySpace victims, but then fortunately makes the same point I've been making for the past eleven years, when I first started to meet people "from the Internet" in real life:

Look, I know there are really bad people using MySpace to do really bad things. If its criminal, they should be caught and punished. But I also know that there are really bad people in the grocery stores, at the movie theaters, in parks, and even on the other end of the phone.

Dead on. I'm also sick of the "Internet is dangerous" hype. The majority of MySpace's 87 million users know and apply the decades-old common sense rule to never meet in private and on your own, so why can't most policy makers, columnists and parents? Follow common sense and MySpace offers long weekends full of consensual sex yet void of dismemberment. No amount of parental guidance or law expansion necessary whatsoever.

Divide and prevail

Anglosphere

Are the US and Al-Qaeda bedfellows?

Al-Qaeda leaders sold out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to the United States in exchange for a promise to let up in the search for Osama bin Laden, the slain leader's wife claimed in an interview with an Italian newspaper.

"I think a secret pact was struck whose immediate goal was his death," she told the newspaper. "In return, the American troops promised to ease, at least momentarily, their hunt for bin Laden."

Personally I think it's a load of bull. The true story here is probably as follows: Al-Qaeda sympathisers are getting cranky and divided because we are getting the good results (There has not been a terrorist attack on US soil for almost five years) while they are getting the bad results (free elections instead of Taliban and Baath, Zarqawi dead) in the war on terror.

In case Zarqawi's wife is making correct claims, good riddance President Bush. He promised not to negotiate with terrorists and the American electorate should hold him to that promise. On the other hand, if Al-Qaeda is indeed breaking apart, then perhaps Americans should give credit where credit is due and repeal the 22nd Amendment. (Or at a minimum keep Hillary out of the White House.)

Income from aviation? EasyTax!

European Union

The European Union does not have the power to levy taxes, but don't blame that on lack of trying. Here's a new EU proposal on air taxes:

Parliament is discussing the proposals, contained in a report, as Europeans queue up at airports to fly off on holiday.

The report recommends that the airline industry's exemption from paying Value Added Tax (VAT) on fuel should be scrapped, and says an additional fuel tax should be brought in. It would apply around the world.

I'm worried.

Removing existing tax exemptions does not worry me so much. In reality the proverbial exception to the rule means nothing but more rules and more complex rules, in other words bureaucracy. Of course, compared to sales tax, VAT itself is very bureaucratic, but the removal of exemptions would at least make more transparent to deal with VAT.

However.. historically governments have been inept to even make an estimation of the economical costs of their actions. Let alone a worthful comparision of costs to actual benefits (in this case environmental). The EU in particular is not known for transparency nor efficiency, so there would be no way to verify that the extra tax revenue would actually be invested in the environment. It is far more likely extra taxes would primarily assist the .

Last but not least: raise your hand if you agree that the European Union should not have the capability, ambition, desire and sheer arrogance to talk about levying taxes that "would apply around the world".

Personal quickies

Personal

A few personal quickies:

1. I dreamed of Inge last night. I do not remember the context nor any gory details, but I do remember that at some point the dream involved holding hands.

2. Tomorrow morning I'm having a malaria vaccination. It's 99% sure now that work will send me to Uganda at the end of the month which might possible be my first birthday in Africa.

3. My friends are hot. (Okay we already knew that, I'm just pimping the new and improved profile pages.)

Next day: Thursday July 6, 2006 Previous day: Monday July 3, 2006

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