Are you a woman, person of colour, indigenous person, poor person, queer, trans-gendered or disabled?
If so, the G8/G20 Toronto Community Mobilization team assumes you must sympathize with civic disruption, lawbreaking and maybe even a little good old fashioned terror. They want your help. They’re mobilizing to disrupt the gathering of democratically elected politicians who are meeting in Toronto next month and they assume — just because you’re a woman or a disabled person — that you must hate civilized society as much as they do.
That’s their logo, above.
The CN Tower, torn from its roots, used to stab the G20 like a knife in the heart. Gee, isn’t that inclusive, co-operative and non-violent. Hard to imagine anything more likely to attract widespread public support than an image like that. Hey, women and indiginous people, wanna stab some white guys? How about you, queers and indigenous people? Because we here at the Community Mobilization team take for granted that you must be as twisted, angry, vengeful and keening for violence as we are.
Kelly McParland, “Anti-G20 activists want your help in spreading the hate”, National Post, 2010-05-20
May 20, 2010
QotD: Recruiting protesters for the G20 in Toronto
Torpedo damage and the sinking of the Cheonan
Geoffrey Forden posted information on likely causes of the sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan before the formal report was released:
One of the “mysteries” surrounding the sinking of the ROK’s warship, Cheonan, is that the explosion split the ship in half, a result our popular culture has trained us to forget. After all, World War II movies always show a torpedo strike in the same way: one or two white streaks quickly approaching the ship followed by a localized jet of water where the torpedo struck the hull. Sailors stream out of their bunks to jump over the side as the ship keels over, taking in water. Below the water line, jagged holes, punched by the explosive force of the warhead, let in sea water. Compartments quickly (or if dramatic effect is needed, slowly) fill with water, drowning all the bit players, uh, sailors trapped below.
These movies have influenced our expectations for the damage caused by modern torpedoes even though there are much more efficient ways for a torpedo to destroy a surface ship. [. . .]
The second major effect damaging the hull, and probably the one that caused the vessel to break in half, was a jet of water blasting its way through the ship. This jet was formed as the gas bubble created by the initial explosion collapsed upon reaching the ship’s hull.
This is the way modern torpedoes sink ships. Everything about the Cheonan’s sinking is consistent with either a torpedo or submerged mine blowing up beneath the ship’s keel.
Fascinating though this is, the official report (as filtered through what was made available to international media) discounted this mechanism:
South Korean scientists at the Sound Engineering Research Lab of Soongsil University have performed an analysis of the acoustic signals (the media report mistakenly calls them seismic waves) associated with the sinking of the Cheonan. It would be very nice to see their actual analysis — and the data would be even cooler — but it appears on the face of it to be a very interesting result. Their main conclusion, again based solely on the media report of their findings, seems to be that the Cheonan was actually struck by a heavy torpedo. (The say the most likely candidate is the Chinese Yu-3 heavy torpedo with a 205 kg high explosive warhead.) According the article, the South Korean scientists believe the torpedo struck the hull of the Cheonan but since the explosive is significantly aft of the torpedo’s bow, the center of the explosion was a little over 2 meters away. They rule out the “kill mechanism” being a bubble jet.
Interestingly, a summary in New Scientist (which is where I found the link above), seems to have been written before the updated information was added to the original post, as it attributes the sinking to the “deadly bubble jet”.
The root of the Greek economic crisis
No, it’s not the evil banks, the evil insurance companies, the evil oil companies, or even the evil manufacturing sector (take it as read that most media types think every corporation is, by definition, evil). No, in this case the reports are starting to identify the real culprit: the civil service. Mark Steyn summarizes handily:
They were not an “anti-government” mob, but a government mob, a mob comprised largely of civil servants. That they are highly uncivil and disinclined to serve should come as no surprise: they’re paid more and they retire earlier, and that’s how they want to keep it. So they’re objecting to austerity measures that would end, for example, the tradition of 14 monthly paycheques per annum. You read that right: the Greek public sector cannot be bound by anything so humdrum as temporal reality. So, when it was mooted that the “workers” might henceforth receive a mere 12 monthly paycheques per annum, they rioted. Their hapless victims — a man and two women — were a trio of clerks trapped in a bank when the mob set it alight and then obstructed emergency crews attempting to rescue them.
Unlovely as they are, the Greek rioters are the logical end point of the advanced social democratic state: not an oppressed underclass, but a pampered overclass, rioting in defence of its privileges and insisting on more subsidy, more benefits, more featherbedding, more government.
We’ve already seen that employees in the public sector have been outpacing their private sector equivalents handsomely, but the Greek civil service has it even better than most:
Greek public sector employees are entitled not only to 14 monthly paycheques per annum during their “working” lives, but also 14 monthly retirement cheques per annum till death.
Nice. I wonder how they got into that interesting arrangement? No matter, the private sector will ride to the rescue, right? Not likely:
According to the World Bank, when it comes to the ease of doing business, Greece ranks 109th out of 183 countries. If they were dramatically to liberate their business-killing economy, they might overtake Lebanon at big hit position 108, and Ethiopia at 107, and maybe Papua New Guinea at 102. And who knows? With even more radical reform, they might crack the Hot One Hundred and be bubbling under such favourable business environments as Yemen (99) and Moldova (94). Greece ranks 140th when it comes to starting a business, and 154th when it comes to protecting investors.
If it’s that difficult to start a new business, is it any wonder that so much of the Greek economy is in the underground/unreported/untaxed sector? Many media reports say that anywhere from 10% to 25% of Greek economic activity is “off the books”. A quick Google search will show a much higher range of estimates going up to 60% . . . and that might be an optimistic under-estimate.
If more than half of the nation’s economic activity is in the black market, it will take much more than adding a few auditors and inspectors to the tax department to fix the problem: an absolute majority of Greeks are actively hiding their business from the government, and any serious attempt to crack down on them will bring down the government. And that’s not even the biggest danger — the Greek government isn’t the most stable entity to start with. The government falling might be a safety valve, because the other alternative is literally revolution.
Talk about your destabilization!
