Last night we did our post-solstice ritual and torched our christmas tree. The tree was still way too green – we should have let it dry out more. Still, it was quite a firework ….

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I am really torn when I ponder the pre-holiday sellout by Germany’s ex-chancellor Schröder to Putin’s little racket Gazprom. Which is the bigger scandal? His cynical, middle-finger-in-your-face exit from the public arena? Or is it even worse that it is apparently perfectly legal to conduct foreign policy for the German people for seven years while netwoking your way into a lucrative job with an international company controlled by the Russian government? And I also want to know what Fischer knew about Schröder’s plans.

Clearly, politicians who retire from the public arena will often sell their experience and contacts to the highest bidder. That’s the reality, and we can probably live with that, as long as we can see clearly that official business is not too blatantly influenced by private economic interests. But the Gazprom job puts Schröder on the same level with Dick Cheney, who lets the U.S. energy industry write its own regulatory framework, and who is clearly in the pocket of companies that profit from the mess in Iraq. And his new job might put Schröder into the same executive suite with Putin, who is exploiting his elected office for his personal enrichment like a banana-republic potentate.

So the $50.000-question is this: when the interests of his employer are in conflict with the national economic interests, or maybe even security interests, of Germany, where will Schröder’s loyalties lie? Will the former chancellor of Germany condone, or even support corporate decisions against German interests? Or will he lobby for German interests at Gazprom? What will it be Herr Bundeskanzler a.D.? Krimsekt und Kaviar oder Riesling und Nordseekrabben?

What a year: Nature terrorized humans with hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. Awareness rose of the threats of a global flu pandemic and global warming. Terrorists killed innocent people around the world. Human rights abuses, government secrecy and spying were uncovered in the U.S., in Europe and in many countries around the world. The new pope is German and the new German Chancellor is a woman. The president of Togo Gnassingbé Eyadema died and his son inherited the “family business.” Togo qualified for the World Cup! The last year saw a lot of hardship and tragedy for many people around he world. And sadly, again, far too little was done to help those in need.

For our little family, however, 2005 was not a bad year. We have a lot to be grateful for, and we did our best to share what we have with those in need. Most importantly, we’re all healthy and we made it through some pretty significant changes. Yet, we also lost some friends to illness, and last Friday my aunt passed away, after a long struggle with cancer.

In January ’05, Laura started her new job at One World Market and she has just completed her first holiday season at the store. Her first year in retail was very successful, and she really enjoys her work at the store. She has introduced new vendors to the store and new members to the board. And she has discovered a new, intense connection to the community where we live. Her job has vastly expanded our social network and our appreciation for our town. The store was founded by a very active, well-connected church group from Durham, and many of the volunteers and customers are very active in various neighborhoods and in the community.

In July, Jacob got is first taste of “real life” when he began Kindergarten. After the first four years of fun and games, he is now settling into public school and the harsh reality of mass-education. As he is a bit spoiled, and also a bit young (he only turned five after the end of the first quarter) his adjustment was not completely without bumps, but overall he did well. And since he spent a good part of his life in day-care and pre-school, he was socially quite adept and his immune system was up-to-speed. But it is the discipline that got to him. Being quiet, waiting your turn, following the rules and listening to the teacher are the things he struggles with. Yet, none of this is really bringing him down. He is still his happy, unfazed self. He is embracing life with gusto, and he is at this point where his five-year-old world is his oyster.

Julia started third grade, and for her, too, the pace picked up a bit, as this is the first end-of-year testing grade. They spend a huge amount of time on practice tests, cramming spelling words, math problems, reading and comprehension. And occasionally they even learn something, like when she did a report on Minerva, including a costume she made, complete with an owl and a Medusa head on her shield. Last January one of her paintings was selected for an art show at the art museum at the NC Central University, where the best student art of the Durham Public Schools was presented. During the rest of the year she was as creative and prolific a young artist as ever. Using whatever materials she can get, she created sculptures, pictures, games and “fun stuff” throughout the year. I should really scan some or take pictures to make an online gallery … She also got another “Terrific Kid” award and her teachers are generally gushing about how smart and mature a person she is.

Myself, oh well, I got into blogging, made my first few liters of biodiesel, started a biodiesel coop, and read a book. I am still at Duke messing with computers and rooting for Carolina. Right now I am very busy ripping out and re-building several servers at work, since this is a otherwise very quiet time at the office. I need to get working out more again.

As a family, we did some fun stuff this year: we visited Iceland and took a trip to Germany. We also met up with a guy from our family in Togo, who is studying in the US right now. Toward the end of the year, we met several of our neighbors, and our children started playing with some of the neighbor’s kids. That may seem trivial, but most of the properties here are several acres, and we’re right off the highway, so we don’t tend to run into our neighbors, unless we’re traipsing through the woods (or when the firemen are putting out fires).

So now it’s another year, full of excitement, adventures, dirty dishes, unfolded laundry, homework, debating politics, ranting about traffic, laughing about the antics of our chipmunk and moaning about the state of this world. We’ll do our best to keep our little family safe and wish a safe and happy year to you all.

I just watched Robert Greenwald’s new documentary Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price. Greenwald also did Outfoxed a great documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s attack on American journalism. Now Greenwald skewers the world’s largest retailer with a relentless mix of very individual stories of family businesses that were ruined, workers who were intimidated and harassed, and abuses and violations that were covered up by one of the most powerful corporations in the world. He ties those stories together with facts and stats on how this highly profitable company underpays its employees and exploits the government assistance to the tune of billions of dollars every year. He also shows the abhorrent conditions of workers in the sweatshops in China, Bangladesh and Central America that make the cheap stuff that Wal-Mart hawks in its concrete boxes.

This is a great documentary, very focused on the story, very focused on documenting Wal-Mart’s impact on individual families and communities. Greenwald is no Michael Moore – he doesn’t try to corner Lee Scott or any of the Walton billionaires to get them to say something stupid or revealing. He stays behind the camera and lets the people tell the story: community organizers, former employees, judges, folks put out of business by Wal-Mart, and workers at the Wal-Mart sweatshops. And he contrasts their stories with the ads, the corporate PR BS and Lee Scott’s pronouncements. All these facts and stories bring anyone with half a brain to an inescapable conclusion: Wal-Mart is bad for your community and bad for this country. Wal-Mart is bad for you!

Boycott Wal-Mart!

Looks like another South American country is taking a left turn: Bolivia seems to have handed a clear victory to Aymara Indian candidate Evo Morales, a socialist and admirer of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez:

Several polls give him 42-45% of the vote ahead of his nearest challenger, former President Jorge Quiroga who, the polls say, got between 33-37%.

Mr Quiroga has now admitted defeat, offering his congratulations to his opponent and his party.

Mr Morales seems certain to become Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
Leftist set for Bolivia victory, BBC News, 19 December 2005, 01:21 GMT

And there might be more left turns in elections in various South American countries next year.

This is great news – especially for the family of Susanne Osthof:

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German woman abducted in Iraq three weeks ago is free, her brother told German n-tv television on Sunday.

Archaeologist Susanne Osthoff, 43, who spent more than a decade working on excavations in Iraq, disappeared with her driver on November 25.

Robert Osthoff, her brother, told German television: “My sister is free. We are all happy.”
German hostage in Iraq free, brother tells German TV, Sun Dec 18, 2005

I wonder how much ransom they paid …

Shark fin sup is considered a delicacy in Asia. Shark’s fin is “regarded as a tonic food and an aphrodisiac, the Chinese believe shark’s fin strengthens the internal organs and retard aging,” explains a recipe. The sharks that supply their trademark body parts to this dish are caught using longlines. Fishermen then cut off the desirable dorsal fin and toss the wounded shark back in the ocean.

In Mozambique and other parts of Africa, Asian business men offer poor local fishermen money for fins and so create a market for this very wasteful fishery. For hundreds of years these fishermen depended on the ocean to feed their families often utilizing sharks as a food source and had a low impact that was sustainable. Today traditional fishing is becoming unsustainable due to huge numbers of foreign flagged boats raping the coast lines of these poor countries to catch sharks for their fins as well as other threatened species such as billfish, turtles etc. The result is starving families not able to catch their daily meal whilst just a few miles offshore large numbers of sharks are stripped of their fins and dumped back into the ocean.

What is needed is a immediate ban on shark longlining off the South African coastline as well as the Mozambiquean coastline and declaring sharks a no take species. The future of sharks as well as other species hangs in the balance if rapid action is not taken. If South Africa and Mozambique lead the way and the benefits can be seen countries such as Tanzania, Namibia, Angola, Kenya and others will follow suit.
‘Air Jaws’ Photographers Make Desperate Plea for South Africa’s Dwindling Shark Population – Underwater Times, December 11, 2005

via divesouthafrica
Finning a shark is a cruel and wasteful practice per se. But these fishermen are also plundering a precious marine resources along the coast that has great potential. In South Africa, shark diving is a huge tourism industry. The reefs off of St. Lucia and Sodwana boast over a dozen species, and all day boats take divers out to encounter these fascinating creatures.

Interestingly the shark fin cartilage used in the soup has no taste whatsoever – itmerely supplies a supposedly interesting texture to the soup.

Boycott shark fin soup.

It’s getting chilly out in Durham and the chill gelled the juice in the juicebox, despite the 10 percent kerosene blend. Today at noon it was just below freezing, and the biodiesel/kerosene blend (B90) was solid in the mason jar net to the pump. The pump only managed to squeeze a few drops out of the juicebox.

So as soon as we can, we’re going to add more kerosene, and possibly some additives that should keep the juice flowing freely. In the meantime, we need to check the thermometer when we plan to fill up with biodiesel. Also, I topped off with couple of gallons of diesel on my way home tonight, because I want to be sure my car starts tomorrow morning …

Not your daddy’s diesel clunker: Audi is going to compete at the 24 hours of LeMans with the R10 race car, powered by a 5.5 liter 650 HP V12 diesel engine. According to Audi this engine put out 1100 Newton meters of torque (811 Lb Ft).

Audi claims this is the most powerful diesel engine – well for cars it may be. But check out this one!

The cold fact that Governor Schwarzenegger refused to grant clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams was predictable and consistent with the cruel spirit of the death penalty. The practice in this country to terminate the lives of convicted murderers is irrespective of any subsequent redemption or repentance. It is thus quite remarkable that the Governator’s decision (pdf) was based on the lack of an apology from Williams:

Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption. In this case, the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do.
Statement of Decision (pdf)

So had Tookie said “sorry,” and admitted guilt, Schwarzenegger would have let him live? Hardly.

In the death penalty the state executes its patriarchal control over its subjects. In other societies where the state has the right to take a citizen’s life, like China, Swaziland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Libya, Iran, or Bangladesh, the power of the state to control a citizen’s life is much less questioned than in the U.S. While most Americans prefer the state to stay out of their lifes, most also agree that the state has the right to end the life of those among them who commit capital crimes.

But I believe for the average American this issue is not one of the state executing control over their life, but one of the state projecting the image of the strict (but just) father figure. Many in the American middle class want the state to wield this power to punish the “bad children” with the wrath of the God of Abraham and Moses. This is why to the fundamentalist Christian Americans anti-abortion and pro-death-penalty positions are NOT inconsistent. It’s all about submitting to the authority of the “Father.” This fundamentalist Christian absolutism is a moral framework that is popular across American mainstream society.

As popular as this moral absolutism is, most Americans are really pragmatists and the steadily eroding support for the death penalty shows this. Key is to show that using the death penalty the state projects strength at our expense. The death penalty is a social and moral burden to this country. It has no value as a deterrent, provides no “closure” or “comfort” to the victims, it is prohibitively expensive and it drags this country down morally. The death penalty bestows an absolute power over life and death onto the government and the judiciary that these all-to-human and error-prone institutions should not have. It is the beginning of a slippery slope of the government using more and more force to enforce its laws and impress upon its citizens its determination to do so. And in the end, no matter how rigorous the judicial process, the state will end up killing someone innocent. And in America, we are the state.

The Reverend Moon is at it again, promoting an idea so breathtakingly absurd that he should get a prize for it: a highway tunnel from Alaska to Siberia!

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean giant of the religious right who owns the Washington Times, is on a 100-city speaking tour to promote his $200 billion “Peace King Tunnel” dream. As he describes it, the tunnel would be both a monument to his magnificence, and a totem to his prophecy of a unified Planet Earth. In this vision, the United Nations would be reinvented as an instrument of God’s plan, and democracy and sexual freedom would crumble in the face of this faith-based glory.
AlterNet: Neil Bush Meets the Messiah

So far, so crazy. But guess who is a featured speaker on Moon’s crusade for the Peace King Lunacy? The prezman’s younger brother Neil Bush. Yeah – the younger Bush is tagging along with the Moonies to promote this project, which is, according to the Moonie brochures, “God’s fervent desire,” dwarfing such past wonders as the Chunnel and heralding a “new era of automobile travel.”

Looking for a good laugh? Check out the video of Moon’s coronation as the worlds messiah and peace king at the Senate Office building (yes – the United States Senate!) last year.

Old Europe is in a tizzy over finding out more and more details of how the CIA used European airspace and airports to shuttle abducted terrorism suspects to and fro for “innovative interrogation” in what some call a “gulag-like” system of “black sites” – secret prisons. Well, the GULAG it ain’t, but a scandal it sure is.

Now it looks like the CIA had an interesting collaborator in Germany: former Minister of the Interior Otto Schily, as the Washington Post reports:

In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country’s interior minister. (…)

[Ambassador Daniel R.] Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations.
Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake – Washington Post, December 4, 2005; Page A01

Otto Schily is an interesting figure in German politics. As a co-founder of the Green Party, he is a key figure of the German left. He later “defected” to the Social Democrats, and built a reputation as the one-man law-and-order wing of the German left.

The issue of the CIA planes transporting abducted suspects, many of whom were innocent, could be a huge problem for Germany and other European countries, because they may violate the European Convention on Human Rights. If the German government was aware of these flights and human rights violations were perpetrated on these planes in German airspace or on the ground, than Germany is also implicated in these violations. and unlike the U.S. government, the German government does not assume it can violate human rights with impunity by waving the “9-11 wand.”

Big promises, lots of talk today, and some quirky publicity, for World Aids Day. Anybody care to listen to the voices of those among us living with the dreaded disease? The stories of how the stigma, the ignorance, the silence kills millions? Anybody? Black Looks shares one of those stories, Rose’s story, with us:

R: The pressure he put on me to keep this secret was huge. And not being able to talk about it to my friends and family increased the huge shame he made me feel about what I had done. Because it also meant at the time that I could not have children. I became very frightened, depressed and isolated, loosing all confidence in myself and feeling very undeserving of everything. It was only thanks to the small women’s support group that I survived those early years but he eventually made me leave that when it (the group) became more public ally known in case I might be “spotted” there. It took me 10 years to get out of this abusive relationship because I always felt I had no option but to say as who would want a woman with HIV? Therefore I should just be thankful and put up with it.

It is very difficult to explain what it was like from one year to the next because so many people were dying and that is what we were told to expect. Every time I got the slightest sickness I thought this was it and of course every 3 months you had to go and get your bloods tested and wait the two weeks for the dreaded results.
Personal Story – Living with HIV – Black Looks, November 30, 2005

Thanks to “Rose” for coming forward and sharing her story and thanks to Black Looks for posting the interview (great blog, BTW, read it!) Only if more of those among us who live with HIV/AIDS get a chance to share their stories, get a voice, do we stand a chance to cure this world of AIDS.

As this year’s record-breaking hurricane season officially ends (tell that to Epsilon), the residents of the Canary Islands are picking up from the devastation caused by tropical storm Delta. Delta was the first tropical storm recorded to ever get anywhere near the Canary Islands, according to Jeff Masters. Although is was not officially classified as a tropical storm when it hit the islands, it caused the deaths of seven people, did significant damage and destroyed the landmark of Tenerife:

The emblematic rocky pinnacle known as El Dedo de Dios or God’s Finger, which had pointed skywards from the sea for millennia, a natural wonder and one of the must-see sights of the archipelago finally gave up the ghost after thousands of years and collapsed into the broiling sea. The news of the loss has left islanders in a state of shock.
Tenerife News English Local News from Tenerife Canary Islands

So now have 6 months to get ready for the next crazy hurricane season!?

BILD, der bottomfeeder des Schmuddeljournalismus lotet neue Tiefen aus: Deutsche Geisel – Wird sie geköpft?

Schluss, der Irrsinn dieses Blattes und seine millionenfache Ruchlosigkeit sind ansteckend wie Aids und haben in Wirklichkeit schon längst die Abdankung von Takt und Mitleid im weiten Kreis seiner Leser zur Folge gehabt. Warum sonst würden sie sich täglich gemein machen mit solcher abgründigen journalistischen Gemeinheit?

Es sei, so heißt es in Berliner politischen Kreisen, BILD das neue Leitmedium der Republik. Das wollen wir gerne glauben.
Deutschland : Ruchlosigkeit, millionenfach, Michael Naumann, Herausgeber, Die Zeit, Nov. 30, 2005

Leitmedium der Republik – vielleicht. Ganz sicher aber ist BILD das Leitmedium der Leitkultur-mentalität in der Republik. Und immer mal wieder das Leitmedium der Kultur die sich am Leid der “Anderen” aufgeilt.

[Update] Jawoll – die Sau wird durch Kleinbloggersdorf getrieben! Überall werden die Mistforken gewetzt … auch bei der taz … den Katholiken … und im Presserat.
(via BILDblog)
Treibt die Sau!

What an extraordinary hurricane season! I wonder if this is the first tropical storm recorded to have hit Africa?

Tropical Storm Delta slammed into Spain’s Canary Islands last night at near hurricane strength, killing at least seven people. One man died when he was blown off the roof he was trying to repair, and six African illegal immigrants drowned after winds caused their boat to capsize while attempting to reach Gran Canaria Island. Twelve of the immigrants remained missing while 32 were rescued. Each year, thousands of migrants try to reach the Canary Islands from Africa and many die in the attempt, but usually not in a tropical storm!
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground

And tropical storm Epsilon may yet turn into a Hurricane (of sorts).

Worried yet about the bird flu? At least the Feds are on the job, now, right? There are competent public-health experts hammering out plans for a response to a flu pandemic, right?

Meet Stewart Simonson. He’s the official charged by Bush with “the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies”–a well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak. When Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recently speculated, “If something comes along that is truly serious…like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence,” many of those professionally concerned with such scenarios couldn’t help thinking of Simonson. They recalled his own unsettling words at a recent Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on government response to a chemical or biological attack: “We’re learning as we go.”
Germ Boys and Yes Men – The Nation – November 28, 2005 issue

A lawyer? A former Amtrak lawyer? And he is learning as he goes???

I dread the day the president announces that “Simonson, you’re doing a heckuva job!”

The Council on Foreign Relations held a conference on Nov. 16 in New York where a number of high-powered panelists discussed the threat of a flu pandemic and the status of avian flu preparedness in the U.S. and around the world. The intensity and complexity of the problem, as laid out in the discussions, is truly mind-boggling. The experts seem to mostly agree that we don’t know when the pandemic is going to begin, and we don’t know how bad it’s going to be. Most also agree that we are pretty sure it’s going to be bad, but just how bad is a matter of debate.

“Hope for the best and prepare for the worst” is the operating mode for folks involved in crisis preparation and contingency planning. Some of the scenarios kicked around in the discussions talk about a massive pandemic, a horror scenario where millions die, 1 in 2 are sick, critical infrastructure breaks down, hospitals are totally overwhelmed. Hundreds of millions have no power, no fuel, no medicines, little food or water. I have not seen any predictions as to the real probability of this worst-case scenario, but it is clearly out there as a possibility. The factors that will determine the scale of the pandemic are either unknown or variable. What we don’t know is how soon the H5N1 virus will be able to start jumping easily from human to human and the pathogenicity of that virus. And one of the changing variables we control is our level of preparedness.

The effects of the next flu pandemic are difficult to predict, because these major variables are unknown or changing. Preparedness is a major factor, and there is now momentum on a global scale to get ready. However, preparations are only in the beginning stages, and we need a lot more time to be able to cope with a major pandemic.

In a discussion with David Nabarro, UN system senior coordinator for avian and human influenza, and David Fedson of Aventis-Pasteur, Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at University of Minnesota lays out this picture in Session 2 of the CFR conference:

OSTERHOLM: (…) I mean, when you think about the fact that this if a pandemic were to occur today, there’s a very high likelihood we would begin to shut borders around the world. We live in a global, just-in-time economy today where this country, in particular, absolutely lives on the goods and services of much of the rest of the world. Many of our critical medical supplies, our pharmaceutical products, our food supply everything you can name that would come to a screeching and crashing halt if, in fact, pandemic began today.

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Both are depressing:
Kanzlerin Sauerkraut climbs behind the wheel of that stalling, choking, smoking dumptruck that Germany is these days. Good luck, you’ll need it. 53 members of the Bundestag from her own “coalition” voted against her. I give this arrangement no more than 2 years. This government will probably fail not so much over SPD-CDU tensions as over power struggles inside the two parties. Too bad, because Germany really could use some bold, smart leadership.

History: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on this day in 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

We woke up this morning at 5:30 because Julia was not feeling well, and noticed the woods behind our house were burning. Across an area of about an acre (roughly a third of a hectare) the leaf litter on the ground was burning and the fire was rapidly spreading in a wide swath across the forest. So I called 911 (emergency) and within 5 minutes the first fireman arrived, and now we have the driveway in front and in the back of the house full of firetrucks and about a dozen firemen hosing down smoldering logs.

It looks like the neighbor was burning leaves yesterday and did not fully extinguish the fire. Over night is restarted and spread across their back yard and into ours and another neighbor’s. I am glad that I cleaned our foot/bike path from leaves yesterday, because the fire did not get across the path. That prevented it from getting near our wood shed, which is full of … you guessed it … dry fire wood! That might have made this morning even more interesting. As it is, it does not look like any damage was done, but I bet the guy who caused the fire feels pretty stupid!
[UPDATE: added some pictures – see below the fold]

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