MPs to look at effect of Megrahi release on relations with US

This is too funny... Look, I know the separation of powers (executive, legislature and judiciary), is a convenient fiction that people can wheel out in support of the idea that we live in a democracy, but let's pay lip service to it, shall we? Just occasionally.

MPs to look at effect of Megrahi release on relations with US

Guys, the release of Megrahi should have been a legal decision, not a political one. British politicians should not have involved themselves in it - and I'm sure that any enquiry will reveal that they studiously avoided committing their opinions to paper! American politicians are one step further removed, and really should STFU. O'Bama's looking less and less like a leader, every day.

You want the "real" world? A world of "political reality"? Then don't present the sham world of legal due process, while you conduct your shoddy business behind closed doors.

These are the facts that the general public has to work with: the man is a convicted mass murderer; he was sentenced to life, with a recommendation that he serve at least 20 years (I think); he's terminally ill; the decision was made to release him on compassionate grounds, so that he could die at home. The decision's been made - live with it - you'll only work yourself up into an impotent fury, trying to argue that Megrahi didn't allow his victims to die peacefully, at home, and thus should have been made to suffer more.

What is wrong with you? We're supposed to be the civilized ones, remember? And an independent judiciary is part of that - because it avoids both the possibility of decisions made on the (generally barbaric), altar of public opinion and the pervasive nature of political convenience.

Genius: there's no other word for it - Part XXXXVI

I should have included something by Madness, before now, but the timing appears entirely apposite, nevertheless! The quality of the lyrics is just exceptional - I'm assuming that Suggs wrote them, but it's not a given...

Only two weeks' training for CIA interrogators

I told you these fuckers were as thick as pigshit, didn't I?

Only two weeks' training for CIA interrogators

You see, stupid as they are, they've made one gigantic error in their calculations - they believe that people are motivated, at their most base level, by fear. So they go looking for stuff to make people afraid. This is what your average bully does, only with greater skill, I would argue - look for a person's trigger, and you can coerce them into doing just about anything, under threat of doing the thing that they're afraid of. This theory falls down when one meets a person who is afraid of nothing, or who appears to be afraid of everything, which is pretty much the same thing, because their testimony becomes completely unreliable, either way. At this point, the interrogator is in grave danger of having their mind rearranged.

This is not a game to be played by amateurs, which Langley's finest most certainly are. Stupid fucking amateurs, at that. Nevertheless, they are vicious, little monkeys. I wonder if they've moved on from genital elecrocution?

Matt

FBI Boss Attacks Megrahi Release

I don't think it's really necessary for me to go into the whys and wherefores of al-Megrahi's guilt or innocence. He was convicted, therefore he was guilty, as far as the Law is concerned. However, I'm interested to consider the fallout of the Scots' decision to release him, officially on compassionate grounds.

Now, take Mr Mueller, for instance:

FBI Boss Attacks Megrahi Release

I was listening to this individual hold forth on BBC radio, earlier today. Apparently, the Scots should have consulted the American administration before making the decision, because more Americans were killed at Lockerbie than British people. Fuck off, Mr Mueller, and keep your zealous nose out of other people's legal systems. OK? Because it happens that in some people's worlds, compassion is a factor. The Law decides how much retribution is just, and not you personally, you snivelling fuck.

Now, when it comes to releasing people on compassionate grounds, I have one word for you: "Pinochet". Would you have liked that we extradited the psycho to Spain, when we had the chance? Would you have liked that he stand trial? I'll bet the CIA wouldn't have, given its involvement in the 1973 coup, and all that followed. Imagine it being publicly discussed how the spooks trained the Dina's torturers? I think you follow my drift - you can't have it both ways...

And as for the discussion of economic reprisals - British goods and services being boycotted, because you didn't get your vicious monkey-like way... Well, just grow up. How much punishment is enough, Mr Mueller - until you're satisfied? That ain't never going to happen. And remember this: Pinochet didn't even serve ten years.

Pinochet's lost millions: the UK connection

He's dead, of course, so I can't wish him dead, even if I wanted to (well, I could, but it would be a pointless exercize), but he was everything that I despise about the world. What a tiny life he must have led, especially towards the end - how few people he must have felt able to talk to. Seeing as they were such good friends, perhaps somebody should investigate Thatcher's business dealings, before she "shuffles off this mortal coil."

Pinochet's lost millions: the UK connection

Of course, he was worth his weight in gold to my Human Rights professor, who barely had to raise a sweat, when preparing seminars! Do yourself a favour: don't research into what this guy did, too deeply, because it'll make you fear what people will do for a few piddling bucks. His hatred of himself, as evidenced by his treatment of those whom he did not want to be like, must have been extreme.

'Terrorist Facebook' – the new weapon against al-Qa'ida

I just love this... No doubt there's a strong rationale behind it, and the technology is foolproof:

'Terrorist Facebook' – the new weapon against al-Qa'ida

but seeing as I'm unlikely to get to discuss this with anybody, I'm left to ponder my misgivings with myself... Let's say, for example, that I'm paranoid. Not just a bit, but a lot. Let's say that everything that I don't have complete control over represents a threat to me and my interests - if I can't be sure that a certain person(s) is doing a certain thing, and that that thing is precisely what (s)he has been told to do, by me, then this is a cause for concern.

Let's say that I am in a position of control and authority. Let's say that my view of control and authority is that I say "jump" and everybody else says "how high?" Let's say that this is what I use as an indicator of who and what is a threat to me: those who don't say "how high?" are very likely plotting something against me, in my world. Are you getting the picture?

Now, apart from being paranoid, this also looks vaguely autistic (according to my understanding of the word, anyway). That is, if things aren't happening in exactly the way that I had envisioned, I get nervous, and seek to exert/reassert control.

OK, so much for that. Now, can you see my dilemna? No? Well, it's this: I think that everything, and I mean everything that I do will have traces of that paranoia and obsession about them. If I write a post, on this blog, it will reek of paranoia. If I have a conversation with somebody, then that's the direction I'll try to steer the conversation. Everything will be about control. And if I were to write, or have written, a computer program to plot the relationships between known and suspected terrorists...

Let's model this. Andrew is a terrorist - don't ask me how we know this, but he is. Now, Andrew regularly has coffee with Brian. We don't know that Brian is a terrorist, but the fact that he's meeting with Andrew suggests this to us. Andrew could have a life outside terrorism, of course, and Brian might be part of that non-terrorist life - so, how can we check that?

All of Brian's other associations (ie, people he knows - Charlie, Dick, Edward, and so on), are not suspected terrorists - they have never had any links with any radical organizations, or anything of that nature. So, Brian's in the clear, right - we've satisfied ourselves that the relationship between Andrew and Brian is merely social? Well, that rather depends upon how paranoid we are. What if it occurs to us that Andrew is in contact with Brian, precisely because of his clean record, as far as the intelligence services are concerned?

Brian might be covertly sympathetic to Andrew's activities, and may be recruiting for Andrew from his own circle of friends and acquaintences. How do we check that?

Hmmm. That's about as far into fantasy land as I'm inclined to go, to be honest. The point I'm trying to make is this: if one's mindset is geared a certain way, then that is the way that one will see the world. If one sees a threat in everything, then one's computer program will do so, too, because it was created by one. It cannot think differently to one, because a computer program has no independent learning capability - it will do what one instructs it to do, and if what one instructs it to do is look for potential threats, then that is precisely what it will do, and it will keep on looking, until it finds one. And nobody is ever off the hook.

I think that it is possible to write a program that can cope with that amount of information. I think it's possible to have a processor that's capable of dealing with that information in a timely manner. However, the success of the operation is dependent upon this, I think: has one accommodated the possibility that what a person is doing is completely innocent? In other words, does the computer/program have the licence to dismiss a certain piece of information, or else shelve it and re-evaluate it in the light of information that might be received in the future?

Alternatively, is the computer/program obliged to ignore innocent actions, as most people do when they've made their minds up? Let's say that 99.99% of what a person does is beyond reproach. But we don't care about that. We dismiss that, and look at the 0.01% that is, at least, dubious; aberrant to our eyes. But the whole of that 0.01% looks threatening, and because we're only looking at that 0.01%, it becomes the universe with respect to that individual, and that individual becomes dangerous in their entirety.

Because it seems to me that a computer doesn't care - it has no concept of master/servant, and it is not afraid of somebody pulling the plug on it. The computer is neutral - so how does one have it tell us that a certain person is dangerous, to us, when it doesn't care one way or the other? One skews its way of thinking. With a program.

Nope, this isn't going to work: it's founded on flawed reasoning and a false premise. The false premise is this: that any human being, no matter how powerful in the human world, has the right to say that they are right and somebody else is wrong, when one only has to view the scene from the opposite perspective to see how fallacious that argument is. You think right and wrong are objectively ascertainable? God help us.

Addendum: Perhaps a better way to phrase my summation is this: I think that there's a risk that we think the computer is infallible, when it's not. If we believe that it's infallible, then even if we perceive that its conclusions are incongruous, we will dismiss our own misgivings and proceed as it has instructed us.

But if the program that it's operating is based on a false premise (our own fear), and it is not required to weigh the positive along with negative, then the results it will arrive at will be flawed. Because, let's face it, at some level everybody, but everybody, is acting against our personal interests.

Dependent upon how microscopic the dubious behaviour is that our computer will pick up on, I think there are two potential scenarios, in extremis. First, the computer will find that everybody is engaged in terrorism, at some level. Second, it will conclude that nobody is. If the program is True, and not skewed in favour of those who have ordered that it be written, then the latter is more likely.

Hacker over under pressure Johnson

I'm intrigued by this story for any number of reasons... Apparently, we're in the business of seeking to punish those acknowledged as being among the most vulnerable in society, now:

Johnson under pressure over hacker

We're told that Mr McKinnon committed "serious crimes," and that he caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage. I'm not quite sure what these serious crimes are, nor how conducting these crimes could have caused damage that might be assessed as costing that much, but what would I know?

I'm a little confused about all this, to be honest. I had initially thought Mr McKinnon, who has been diagnosed with Aspberger's Syndrome, to be a savant of some kind... How else would he have been able to find his way past all those firewalls, passwords and encryption? And then I heard Mr McKinnon's mother say in an interview that there were no passwords. What does one make of that? Mr McKinnon appears to have made the CIA look like muppets, somehow or other [to self: is the simile really necessary?]. Or did they do it to themselves? Or could a lump of turd cause the CIA to make muppets of themselves? So many unanswered questions...

Anyway, I took the kids to a country park not far from where I live, yesterday. They fell into conversation with a young lad who very proudly said that he had Aspberger's. I don't think I'd have known, if he hadn't told us - he looked and sounded like every other nine year-old, to me. What does one make of that?

In any case, the CIA will get nothing from Mr McKinnon, even supposing they get their conviction and he doesn't kill himself in jail. Because they're too fucking stupid.