a roll of the dice » Uncategorized

afternoon storms, new orleans

Paul — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:44:49 +0000

Things I like about the USA:
- the food
- everything is a robot
- it feels like the centre of the world
- the beer is surprisingly good
- the sheer variety of people, places, weather, culture
- new york
- chicago deep dish pizza
- everything I ate in new orleans
- you can get The Onion for free as a real newspaper
- Jon Stewart is on every night live
- the natural environment

Things I do not like very much about the USA:
- the rampant homelessness
- the outrageously poor healthcare system
- the total lack of public toilets
- the fact that anyone wearing a uniform from the janitor upwards acts like a member of the SS
- the apparent obliviousness to the irony of having to pass through aggressive security in order to view the liberty bell
- the media

chicago

Paul — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:44:55 +0000

Amazing food, amazing architecture, amazing city.

yosemite

Paul — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:32:17 +0000

tiny art director

Paul — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:30:31 +0000

This site is funny, in a slightly sickly-cutesy kind of way – an artist receives briefs from his toddler daughter who then critiques the results (read: gets angry and hurls abuse).

how to undo 61 years of progress

Paul — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:46:24 +0000

This is a heartwarming little story – the process put in place to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay lacks some of the essential elements of fairness that were afforded even to the senior Nazis tried at Nuremberg. That is according to Henry King Jnr, who was chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, where a number of Nazi leaders were ultimately found guilty and executed despite the onerous burden of having to hold a fair trial before an impartial decision maker.

King is particularly appalled that evidence obtained through coercion is acceptable at Guantanamo, and he also points to the more essential problem: by acting in this way, the United States risks losing its moral authority as a liberal democracy with traditions of fairness and justice.

The United States has always stood for fairness. That’s the important thing. We were the ones who started war crimes tribunals and we’re the architects. I don’t think we should turn our back on that architecture.

Approximately 72 million people died in World War II, yet even in the immediate aftermath of the war the Allies understood the need to ensure that justice was afforded in a fair and transparent manner. What is so different about the ‘war on terror’ that requires such a radically different approach?