Notes from Germany
I am an American expat living in Germany. It's a far away land on the other side of the ocean. It's interesting and often weird here. If you read this and want to comment then email me at nate(the at symbol)chillmost.com. If you find any spelling or grammar mistakes, you can keep them.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Think about it like this: This won't hurt much from Terry Jones of Monty Python fame.
The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr Rumsfeld explained that what may look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if someone "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith".
What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only "torture" if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else - such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice - then it is not torture.
Mr Rumsfeld's memo goes on: "a defendant" (by which he means a concerned parent) "is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control".
Couldn't be clearer. If your intention is to extract information, you cannot be accused of torture.
Glad this was made clear after I moved out of my parents house. Look out Cari and Ben.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Since when are American citizens not entitled to their basic civil rights? Even Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson got a fair trail. The concept of rights implies that everybody has them, otherwise they are worthless. Read it then continue on.... Do it!!
Jose Padilla: Convicted without a hearing written by Scott Turow. You know, the lawyer writer guy? Via metafilter.
This just pisses me off. I've been laying off the political stuff lately because if I want to write about it, I want to research it and provide links and citations and blah blah blah. When I try to do this I just end up getting pissed off even more and then depressed and say sod it. The whole thing with Abu Ghraib made me real depressed. Most of the guards involved there are kids younger than me. I probably would not have thought twice about hanging out and grabbing a beer with some of them if I were to have met them before this ordeal. Depressing. I had written a bunch more but it just turned into an incoherent rambling diatribe. So I removed it from the entry and saved it to a little AshcroftSucksAss.txt file on my hard drive.
F.A.Z. - English Version: "'Spreading' culture"
Peanut butter and Jelly, that's what I like in my belly
Sunday, June 13, 2004
My buddy Lothar (...of the hill people...) has a Garage where he does oil changes and tune-ups and inspections and whatnot. He had my car last week and changed the oil and fluids and did my emissions inspection. When he dropped it off he popped the hood and said he wanted to show me something.
Guck mal den Schlauch da an. Have a look at that hose there.
I looked at the hose going from the radiator to the thing-a-ma-bob.
Yeah what about it?
It's been chewed on by Madern.
What are Madern?
Do you know what a Weasel is?
Yeah.
It's kind of like that but different.
Is it like a squirrel? mongoose? ferret? Chipmunk? snipe?
I don't know what they are called in English. Anyway, they have been chewing on the hose and it could cause you to suddenly run out of coolant. Then your engine could overheat and then you got more problems.
Oh. That sucks.
Yeah but if you get some dog hair and some aluminum foil and then wrap the foil around the hose with the dog hair between the foil and hose, that will take care of it.
Uh-huh.
Well I did some googling and found out that Madern are Martens. This is what they look like:
Pretty cute, huh? Don't let that fool you. They are vicious hose eaters. Dare I call them hosers?
Apparently they are also quite common in Canada. Coincidence? I think not:
Brother Ray
By now most people know that Ray Charles died last week. I find this much more sad than the death of the other person last week that got more frequent flyer miles after his death than in the last ten years of his life.I will share two Ray Charles stories: The first I cannot verify as I wasn't there but my high school music teacher used to play first trumpet for Ray and he told me this story. One day at rehearsal Ray got super pissed because the band wasn't playing too hot or they couldn't get some part or change or something. He got so pissed that he stood up and lifted up the end of his grand piano and just let it drop. First of all, grand pianos are heavy as hell. The were amazed that Ray was so strong and could just lift up a fucking piano. Second of all if you so much as move one across a room it might have to be retuned. Ray fucked up the piano so bad they had to order him a new one and have it ready the next day. On the next day the new piano was there and Ray was in a much better mood. As the musicians were showing up he asked one of them, "Hey man, did you see my new piano?" "Uh, no Ray I didn't". "Neither did I. Ha Ha Ha."
The next story is true because I was there. In 1998 or 1999 at the Chicago Bluesfest I saw Ray Charles play with his big band. There were a few thousand people there and about 10 seconds into some song when he stopped the band and berated the sound engineer in front of God and everybody for not having the monitors on and not turning up the "Raylettes", Ray's backup singers. He said something like, "What the hell is going on out there? I can't hear the Raylettes. Why can't you do your damn job? I ain't got nothing in the monitors either. Get it together! I didn't bring the Raylettes out here just cause they look good. They can sing too." After that there were lots of cat calls and wolf whistles from the audience. Then Ray said, "Well, I heard that they look good. I ain't never seen 'em myself. Ha Ha Ha."
