Manifesto Multilinko
Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.

[add RSS feed][add RSS feed]
[Add to My Yahoo] [subscribe on Bloglines]

[to search, use Blogger search in top bar]

HOME ----



This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

[contact me]

My Blogger Profile

View my photo galleries.

Listen to my radio station.

Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter

    Linkblog


    OLD BlogMarks Linkblog

    Currently Reading



    This is an Ottawa blog (Ontario, Canada).

    [blogroll me]

    Cool blogs:
    (* = recently updated)


    Blogger profiles in Ottawa

    Hot links:
    delicious - popular - new

    Other good sites:
    Slashdot
    Wired News
    Mark Morford's Notes & Errata


    This page uses Extreme Tracker which is determining your referrer by running some JavaScript.
    eXTReMe Tracker


    The commenting system is Reblogger.

    BlogCanada webring

    This blog is listed on BlogShares.

    Thursday, April 23, 2009
    Torture is always only about power

    Everyone knows torture doesn't result in useful information. The leaders know it, the cadres know it, everyone.

    The purpose of torture is not getting to the truth, it is controlling the truth. It is inventing and manipulating reality. Torture is about power and the ultimate power to bend someone's reality to your will.

    King Canute famously could not command the tides. But if you torture someone, they will eventually say that you can command the tides, or that there are no tides, or that it is high tide when it is low tide. They will say anything.

    Garry Wills wrote about lies in Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, he said lies are an assault on the fabric of reality.

    Torture is a systematic effort to create untruth, a systematic assault on reality.

    Star Trek: The Next Generation, of all things, showed this very clearly. In a two-part episode about torture echoing 1984, they are easily able to extract all the useful information from Picard using drugs. Yet they still torture him, not to get information, but to prove a point, about state power, and about the power of one individual over another. The goal of the torture is, in the end, to get Picard to say something that is self-evidently untrue, and ultimately, to BELIEVE that it is true, to change his very reality so that he literally no longer believes his own eyes.

    THAT is what torture is about. Not some ticking clock fantasy.

    Andrew Sullivan has recently written compellingly about this

    The assertion of total power through unchecked violence - outside the Constitution, beyond the reach of the law (apart from legal memos from hired hacks instructed to retroactively redefine torture into 'legality') - will be seen in retrospect as the key defining theory of Bush conservatism. It ended with torture. Why? Because reality may differ from ideology; and when it does, it is vital to create reality to support ideology. And so torture creates reality by coercing "facts" from broken bodies and minds.

    This is how torture is always a fantastic temptation for those in power, even if they first use it out of what they think is necessity or good intentions: it provides a way for them to coerce reality into the shape they desire. This is also why it is so uniquely dangerous. Because it creates a closed circle of untruth, which is then used to justify more torture, which generates more "truth." This is the Imaginationland some of us have been so concerned about.

    The Western anathema on torture began as a way to ensure the survival of truth.

    via Jay Rosen - Quote and Comment

    I've said it before - I don't use this word lightly. Cheney is evil.

    And to me, just as the fact that the citizens didn't march in the streets when it was announced that there were SECRET FUCKING PRISONS, but that it was ok, because they were really useful, just as that lack of action meant democracy is all but dead, the total inaction of citizens when faced with clear, detailed evidence of torture carried out by their government means basically game over. The government can do anything. Maybe it always could.
    posted by Richard at 22:33 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

    ChangeCamp Ottawa - May 16, 2009 - City Hall

    For the tiny number of people who read this blog for Ottawa news, I should mention that our unconference, ChangeCamp Ottawa, is ready to go May 16. It's free (including lunch!), it will be an opportunity to discuss citizen engagement, open government, transforming government with technology, and hopefully some of the politicians will be there to participate directly with the citizens.

    Registration is at

    http://changecampottawa2009.eventbrite.com/

    When you register, you will automatically be sent an invitation to our conference social network, hosted on Pathable.

    If you want to participate in the organising, join us at

    http://wiki.changecamp.ca/ChangeCamp_Ottawa

    Labels:

    posted by Richard at 17:59 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

    Tuesday, April 21, 2009
    Ottawa demolition

    I finally got a shot of the demolition of the Convention Centre demolition.

    [DSC03452]

    I hope the new building doesn't suck. I don't see how it could be worse than the POS concrete thing that was there though.

    Labels:

    posted by Richard at 23:31 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

    in which I ride the double-decker

    It was a rather disheartening chilly day at the Blair stop watching one "out of service" bus after another whizz by, interspersed with Hurdman buses, but it was worth it, because The Double-Decker arrived.

    Good:
    * takes up less space
    * cool view from up top

    Not so good:
    * garbled announcement from driver (he was saying "there's lots of room up top" but I heard "there's no room up top")
    * narrow and (I think) single set of stairs up and down to the upper deck
    * you are not allowed to stand on the upper deck until the bus has completely stopped (there was an OC Transpo guy up there forbidding everyone to stand) which means you're supposed to
    1) Somehow ring your stop (I didn't see many places to ring on the upper level)
    2) Wait until the bus has come to a full stop
    3) Shove your way down the stairs as fast as you can in order to
    4) Get out of the bus before the driver closes the doors and continues to the next stop

    Also I suspect some people may find the unobstructed view through the front window

    [DSC03446]

    either terrifying or (in the case of the guy who was there today) so entrancing it's possible all they do is ride on the upper level front row all day.

    Overall it's cool, but they need to resolve the issues of loading and unloading the top level (particularly if the bus is full) before it will actually be useful.

    [DSC03456]

    You can see the full photoset on Flickr: Ottawa Double-Decker Bus.

    Labels: ,

    posted by Richard at 23:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

    Monday, April 20, 2009
    format

    I think it's the long URL in the twitter stream that's made my format go all wonky.

    Labels:

    posted by Richard at 15:07 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

    Ottawa house next to park - Sandy Hill / Rideau-Vanier

    According to Yahoo maps (which inexplicably provides no embedding option), this is in Rideau-Vanier, just north of Sandy Hill.

    This isn't mine, just posting for a co-worker.

    http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8184911


    View Larger Map

    Labels: , ,

    posted by Richard at 14:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric) / comment

    HOME -