Today, 35 years ago was a dark day for the human age. I mourn the deaths of 4 innocent children as a result of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

Inspired by Amaya, I would like to commemorate the thousands of people who died of hunger on any given 14th of September.

Today, nine years ago, 13 September 1999 was a dark day for the human age: only a few days after more than a hundred of people were killed in bombings all over Russia, another bomb took the lives of 118 in an apartment complex in Moscow. Several other bombs were fortunately defused on the same day.

NP: Pulp: This is Hardcore

Sixty-six years ago was a dark day for the human age: thousands of innocent died when the RMS Laconia (1921) was (allegedly erroneously) torpedoed and the desperate rescue attempts by the offenders were (allegedly erroneously) foiled by a bomber plane.

NP: Gazpacho: Night

Penny keeps me updated on New Zealand terrorism and it’s depressing to hear about it: 18 people detained and tried as terrorists for peace activism, protesting against environmental issues, and fighting for Māori rights.

I’d like to help spread the word and hope that avaaz.org picks up this issue soon! If you would, please pass this on.

NP: Stars: Set Yourself on Fire

I was considering importing my car to Switzerland. When I moved in 2002, I asked the customs office about the process and was told that I’d need to pay taxes and fees, so I postponed the import until Day Unknown. Today, a very friendly customs official told me that this is not true and that I could have imported my car duty-free if I had done so as part of my move.

Slightly annoyed, I went on to discover what those duties would be today. I found out that there are seven different types of fees I’ll have to pay, and tried to understand the reason for these fees:

1. To import a car, I need a form 11.010, downloadable from the Swiss Customs Office. Because each download causes extra work for the administrator, they charge a nominal fee of CHF 0.70 to get the PDF file.

2. I take that form to the customs office. There, the officials will assemble around the car and attempt to lift it. I don’t know why they do that, but they charge me between CHF 12 and CHF 15 per 100kg of weight. I think it must be recompensation for the hard physical labour. Also, each customs official can lift 100kg, which explains those figures — they seemed a bit arbitrary at first.

3. Next, they’ll ask 4% of the estimated value of the car as a car tax. They do this because the value of a car is directly related to the area it covers, and since Switzerland is so small, I effectively have to buy a couple of square metres for the car.

   It’s not quite as easy as that though: once I bought the area under my car, I have to move the car away, because I cannot park my car on the area I just bought. I have to buy parking space for that. If I don’t want to buy a parking space, I have to keep the car moving. In order to keep the car moving I need to fork over CHF 40 per year for a permit to drive the car on Swiss highways.

4. Now, I pay 7.6% value-added tax. It makes no difference that the car isn’t new, that I am not selling or buying it, nor that I have already paid 16% VAT in Germany when I bought it. Since I am about to “consume” the car in Switzerland, I have to pay consumer tax. Since I also consume the physical labour the officials put into the car lifting exercise, as well as the area under the car I bought, I pay VAT for (car value + lifting tax + area under car). Unfortunately, the European Union will not pay back the consumer tax I previously paid as part of the export, since I already consumed the car there.

5. I then get a report about the import. This costs CHF 20. I don’t need this report, but I have to buy it. The reason is that the computer admins are so overworked serving PDF files to future importers that they have not had time to stop the computers from printing this report, and the special paper and toner used by all administrative offices in Switzerland costs about CHF 20 per page. An alternative explanation is that CHF 20 is the smallest bit of “money” in Switzerland, everything else is “change”.

6. I will also have to pay annual taxes for possession of a car, the value to be determined by the custom officials. Since I already paid for the area under the car while moving and while stationary, I think the annual car tax is levied for environmental reasons. A lot of people drive through Switzerland to get from Germany to Italy or from Austria to France, pumping a lot of exhaust gas into the Swiss air. This makes them guilty, just like inhabitants of Switzerland who own a car are guilty. Due to legal reasons, the Swiss government can only punish Swiss people for those sins, so the annual car tax is a little higher to cover for all environmental damage. It is doubtful where the money goes, though.

   I also have to continue paying taxes in Germany, because I still have a residence with my parents.

7. Finally, I have to purchase a car insurance. That insurance does not insure the car, it insures the others on the road. Actually, it is a driver-car-dependent insurance, meaning that the others are insured only if I am the driver of my car. If I drive another car, or someone else drives my car, the others will not be insured. unless I pay higher insurance fees. Because cars with a larger area under them and those that require more people to lift them are more dangerous, the insurance fee is proportional to the car density.

   At least I can give up my German insurance and be covered by the Swiss insurance. However, I cannot keep my German insurance and be covered in Switzerland. I think this is because the head of customs department and the CEO of the insurance company have sex with each other.

It’s been a great day, given how much I learnt. I finally understand why people have fought wars over taxes. I think I may leave the car in Germany.

PS: Yes, this post may be considered hyperbole.

NP: The Pineapple Thief: 8 Days Later

Today is environment blog action day. I don’t like memes or mass actions of this sort, but given a recent discussion on the effects of Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth and everyday/everyone environmental protection on a UL-internal discussion list called “opinions”, I feel like sharing my views.

The original poster suggested everyone to see the movie and was promptly smashed down by two people who responded along the lines of “the movie has no scientific basis,” quoting fancy research on how global warming is not as bad as it’s hyped to be, and that CO₂ is not as guilty as everyone claims. None of this research is relevant to what I had to say to this, so I won’t quote it, but if you’re interested, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the place to start.

One person went further and compared the CO₂-reduction hype to communism and criticised how we’re expecting everyone to take action on the basis of false claims.

I was partly disgusted by (all) those replies, not because they weren’t accurate, but because they simply miss the point. And because the entire discussion was just another iteration of talk versus action.

It may well be true that CO₂ is not that bad, after all. But it’s also true that any reasonable attempt to reduce its emission is not going to harm the environment (not to say that it might actually have a net-positive effect). Or as I put it in the thread:

I don’t care for politics, I don’t even care for research on this matter. I care for my environment, and I don’t need to be a scientist to assume that plastic bags and car exhaust and lights left on when out to the pub are not making it any better.

And yet, I am not a militant green. I prefer halogen light bulbs to the energy-saving ones and occasionally I’ll be at the supermarket without a reusable bag; I don’t condemn people using cars instead of a 15 minute walk to the office, and I still haven’t managed to talk to a housemate of mine (no, not my Swiss flatmate), who notoriously leaves lights and appliances running when away.

But at least I can say that I think of these issues, without scientific basis, but common sense. And I’ll say that a thousand people aware of that will make more of a difference than any politician out there.

Not only do I think about these issues, I also act accordingly. But to be able to do that, I had to become aware of them. In as such, I’ll stand by the claim in the discussion: awareness is what we ought to strive for, rather than talking about possible ways to start considering how we could potentially one day make leaps towards the solution of the world’s problems, of which the environment is one. Awareness and little steps, which everyone can take: turn off lights and appliances, turn down the heater, use reusable shopping bags, prefer local produce to imported products, avoid fancy packaging, and so on…

In the thread, I asked “What have you done today to help lessen the burden we place on our environment?” I got no replies. I hope that’s because people couldn’t be bothered to show off their little contributions to the environment. If that were the case, then we are on the right path.

NP: Gazpacho: Night

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung relayed today the warning by the US American TSA (travel security agency) that terrorists may be practicing attacks on airplanes (in German) (sic), because the USA has recently found loads of highly suspicious substances all over the place.

I love the warning, which states that they could be practicing attacks. They could also be tanning on the beach somewhere and laughing their ass off at the idiots in Washington. And the rest of the world, who have not enough guts to stand up against the crap emerging from the White House but instead just shamble along like brainless ducklings.

Some have claimed that the terrorists have already won because nothing is as it used to be, and fear and chaos are spreading. I agree. I’ll also claim that they’re highly successful recruiters: after all, the governments of the Excited States of America and most of the European nations who like to grease up to Washington have long joined their ranks and are now themselves terrorising their people. Yet, if you ask them, they’ll deny it. Brilliant recruiters.

NP: Dominici: O3 A Trilogy - Part 2

I am sure you’ve heard that “hacker tools”, including nmap and other system administrastion essentials, may be considered illegal in Germany as of now. It’ll depend on whether judges determine that e.g. nmap is a tool primarily used to do harm, so we all have not become criminals overnight, but there will be complications and ridiculous showdowns in courtrooms.

I was only one of thousands of protestors, when this bill was first discussed by our politicians. Back in October 2006, I wrote an email to Ilse Aigner, the spokesperson for education, research and the estimation of consequences of techynology (whatever that may be) of the Christian Democratic and Christian Socialist Unions, who is a member of the German Bundestag. She’s the Bundestag representative for my hometown.

Surprisingly, I got a reply from her secretary, which I shall quote in full below:

im Auftrag von Frau Ilse Aigner ich habe mich bezüglich Ihres Anliegens bei unserem Referenten der CDU/CSU-Arbeitsgruppe für Recht erkundigt. Ich wurde darauf hingewiesen, dass die Bedenken Ihrer Branche hinsichtlich des Refentenentwurfs eines Strafrechtsänderungsgesetzes zur Bekämpfung der Computerkriminalität bekannt sind. Auch hat der Bundesrat eine Prüfbitte geäußert. Zwar ist der Referent der Meinung, dass die Gefahr der Illegalisierung schon jetzt nicht bestünde, trotzdem wolle man aber im laufenden Gesetzgebungsverfahren alle Bedenken beseitigen.

Seien Sie versichert, dass Sie auch in Zukunft weiterhin Ihre Arbeit ganz legal ausüben können.

That last sentence says: rest assured that you may continue to exercise your profession legally in the future.

In the spring of 2007, it seemed as if all protests were overheard, the Bundestag pushed the new legislation 202c StGB, and the Bundesrat drew in their horns and failed to appeal the decision.

I wrote another email to the secretary of Ilse Aigner asking whether I can still “rest assured”, but this time, no response came back.

And now the law has been passed. Politics as we know it.

On the topic of whether the Debian project now has to provide a non-German archive for Germany, I find myself in the middle of the swamp of German legislation. On the one hand, publication or distribution of “hacker tools” has been made illegal, in addition to their (ab)use. On the other hand, however, the law only makes tools illegal which are (a) primarily used for cracking, and (b) are used with malevolent intentions.

It’s the “yes or no?” — “maybe.” bullshit which makes it impossible for people to do their job in Germany, if they actively want to stay on the legal side. A good example is the tax system where you have three options: do it yourself with minimal time investment and pay way more taxes than you have to, or let a tax advisor do it, or try to do it right yourself. If you do the latter, it’s like walking a thin ridge in absolute darkness, except you won’t be told immediately when you fall off.

I think Debian should not take any action. We’re not malevolently or intentionally distributing tools primarily used for cracking, so we stand good chances of getting by with it. Apart, Debian is not a legal entity in Germany anyway, so who are they to sue?

NP: Overhead: Metaepitome

Update: Thomas Jollans writes in that Debian can’t be sued, but the German mirror operators can, with which I have to agree. Then the solution is obviously to move the German mirrors. That’s a topic for this thread.

Via interesting-people and from sianews:

Forget no-fly lists. If Uncle Sam gets its way, beginning on Jan. 14, 2007, we’ll all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us permission to leave-or re-enter-the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (HSA) has proposed that all airlines, cruise lines-even fishing boats-be required to obtain clearance for each passenger they propose taking into or out of the United States.

It doesn’t matter if you have a U.S. Passport - a “travel document” that now, absent a court order to the contrary, gives you a virtually unqualified right to enter or leave the United States, any time you want. When the DHS system comes into effect next January, if the agency says “no” to a clearance request, or doesn’t answer the request at all, you won’t be permitted to enter-or leave-the United States.

[more…]

Here’s a PDF with more information about this proposed regulation.

Next thing we’ll see is American officials travelling to Germany in the hopes to find how-to documents in the archives of the former Stasi.

Disgusting.

Update: the original NPRM (whatever that may mean) by the DHS is available from here. The IP thread is here and this post has some more information.

NP: Amplifier / Insider