Marking Time

I’ve just finished designing and setting up the website for my friend Bruno Lernout.

I’ve uploaded a new version (0.40) of my forums application.

I restructured a lot of the code, added in multiple moderator management and a host of other little features. I’m fairly happy with it.

Version 0.3 is in use here and seems to be doing fine.

Some good progress this week. Finished the sky and the mountains.

The pot on the left contains pieces that have no-black i.e. all trees and bushes, the pot on the right contains pieces with black elements.

Now it gets difficult.

I have a gas cooker and my water is heated by a gas burner. I use one bottle of gas a month. Every two months I order 2 refills.

There is no elevator in my building and I live on the 4th floor. When the delivery men arrive at my front door they are so exhausted that they can barely talk. I just hand them the money and off they go taking the empties with them. They can’t afford to hang around. Their van is probably blocking the street below - parking spaces are impossible to find.

Usually there are two delivery men, carrying a bottle each but sometimes one guy will carry two bottles at a time - one in his hand and the other over his shoulder.

At less than 9 euros a bottle it’s not an easy way to make a living. I can barely carry the bottles from my front door to the balcony without having to stop to catch my breath.

Create your own visited country map

I spent the weekend in Avila. It is a peaceful little town about 2 hours from Madrid, famous for its well preserved city walls and St. Teresa.

I also got to see St. Teresa’s well preserved finger (over four centuries old) and storks, lots of storks. Every available piece of churchtop had a stork’s nest.

Here are some pictures (see if you can pick out the birds):

more…

Progress is a little slow. I’ve been busy with some other stuff plus its getting more difficult to pick out easily identifiable pieces.

Still I’m proud of my progress with the difficult, slightly out-of-focus tree on the right-hand side.

It’s unseasonably warm in Madrid at the moment. This is where I’m working these days.

Slowly working through the sky. Not as easy as it looks…

I have written before about what I regard as the skewed perspective of some people when it comes to issues relating to the so-called War On Terror and America’s place in the post-9/11 world.

I think many of these commentators are encountering what I call The Patriot’s Dilemma; that is: how is it possible to question and criticize your government without undermining the institutions that it represents and thus placing your country in real danger?

It is a topical question given the impending fallout over the revelations that most of the British and American intelligence information relating to Iraq’s WMD capability was wrong. It is possible that the resulting inquiries and investigations will result in the creation of a danger where there was none before by undermining the credibility of the institutions of the state and, in turn, their usefulness.

After all, If the intelligence agancies were wrong about Iraq then is it not possible that they are also wrong about the extent of the threat from terrorism and that they have overestimated the capability of groups such as Al-Qaeda? There have been no terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11. Is this due to the vigilance of the intelligence network or is it due to the fact that the terrorists are unable or even uninterested in mounting attacks in the US?

An objective analysis of events would suggest the latter. That Al-Qaeda were extraordinarily lucky in pulling off something as spectacular as 9/11 and that it is unlikely that they would be capable of doing something similiar again even under pre-9/11 security conditions is a very plausible argument. That they accomplished all their objectives with 9/11 and are happy to sit back and watch the events that they set in motion unfold is another possibility. That they have more to gain from focusing on targets closer to home is also a plausible scenario. That Al-Qaeda are less of a threat and more of a bogeyman that our leaders are using to quell dissent and political opposition is becoming a plausible possibility for many.

Of course, it is equally plausible that the intelligence agencies are actually right about the extent of the terrorist threat. But with so much crying wolf, exaggeration, and twisting of the truth it’s impossible to know for sure. So we come to the patriot’s dilemma.

We are either in a deadly situation in which our only hope of survival is to give our leaders full unwavering support and where dissent is truly the weapon of the enemy, or else we are in a situation where our leaders are exaggerating the terrorist threat for their own political ends, using our fears to control us, and in the process undermining the very things that make our countries what they are. The patriot must choose: either support the leadership without question and strengthen the country or oppose him and depose him before he destroys it. There is no middle ground.

So which is it to be? I’m not sure, but unfolding events are pointing increasingly to the latter. A lot of people are hoping and praying that it’s the former and I fear one hell of a fallout if their hopes are dashed. Either way it’s not a rosy scenario. Pandora is out of the box.

Nothing good ever comes from lies and half-truths even if your intentions are pure and honorable.