Why I came here

I got interested in weblogs when I was playing internet chess in Toronto on September 11, 2001, and suddenly the screen was full of chat like "Afghanistan should be nuked". A friend told me what had happened, and I spent most of the day trying to get news out of the internet. I can very well understand that when people are shocked they cannot think clearly. But the sad thing was that the tone did not change much. Apparently many people were not willing to think about why this had happened and what could be done to make sure no such horror could happen again. Instead, they wanted revenge and brought more misery to the world with a war in Afghanistan that cost the life of more civilians than the attacks of 9/11. I read that there were organizations like Not in our name that wanted justice, not revenge. But apparently they did not have much say in the United States after a president had come into office who had gotten fewer votes than one of his opponents. I was shocked when Canadian media covered a scandal about their iceskaters winning only a silver medal with a series of front page articles but nothing much was written about their soldiers handing out prisoners of war to a nation that put them in camps where they were held like animals, without any legal basis. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, bombs were dropped on wedding parties, and US officials showed no regret. The main objective, hunting down the real culprits of terrorism, failed. It became even worse when a war was waged against a country that had absolutely nothing to do with all this, while Afghanistan was left alone with anarchy and poverty. While it was said that democracy should be brought to the Middle East, efforts to ensure that democracy works in Afghanistan are minimal. Only tiny parts are controlled by Allied soldiers; there is no way the government could set up a decent nation-wide police force, raise taxes or even educate the population. Billions were spent on bombs and the military while the only way to prevent terrorism--educating people and giving them hope--was neglected. At the time, the US administration even blocked a WTO decision to help economically less developed countries with basic health care. I posted some comments on the internet, and I was disgusted by the response of US conservatives. It ranged from pure ignorance to open hatred. In the meantime, the US Congress decided to rename French fries to "freedom fries". Anything similar would be completely impossible in Europe. First class US media started to publish articles claiming that "Chirac and his poodle Putin have severely damaged the United Nations", called Chirac "a balding Joan of Arc in drag" ("The Rat that Roared": Christopher Hitchens), and Kofi Annan's concern for the lives of innocent civilians an "offense". When I discussed this with an English acquaintance I discovered that propaganda about "frog-eating weasels" had even destroyed the brains of students who did not appear to be stupid.

I found Wikipedia when for a reason I do not remember I searched Google for Mumia Abu-Jamal. The article was spun into a verdict, all criticism of the trial "refuted" in such an artistic way that some might even have thought it was a balanced article. I changed the entry quite a bit and searched for some more entries. When I discovered that our former Minister of Justice had made it into the entry about George W. Bush I was convinced that the idea to let people write their own encyclopedia is complete nonsense. When I made some changes they got reverted because someone told me I was trying to completely rewrite the article without justification. To me the reasons were obvious, and when I applied my changes again, explaining them at the talk site, I saw that it was possible to improve on this, and a lot of what I contributed is still part of the entry. I still think some things here are ridiculous, but others are great and we should try to do as good as possible. I like to discuss, and if I can shed some light on issues that are not so commonly covered or if I can only convince one person with my argumentation I am satisfied.

If you are interested in politics, please take a look at some Open Letters I wrote, some of them in co-operation with friends. Most recently I wrote an Open Letter to US Senator Barbara Boxer who objected to the certification of Ohio’s 2004 presidential election votes.

Articles I created:

• The United States and weapons of mass destruction (may have set a record with a 17-0 keep vote when listed for deletion)
• The United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction
• France and weapons of mass destruction
• Russia and weapons of mass destruction
• China and weapons of mass destruction
• Israel and weapons of mass destruction
• Jesselyn Radack
• antidumping
• non-tariff barriers to trade
• countervailing duties
• Peter Hounam
• Bernhard Schlink
• Wolfgang Borchert
• Max Liebermann
• Lovis Corinth
• Edelweißpiraten
• Monday demonstrations
• Jürgen Todenhöfer
• John R. MacArthur
• Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
• Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
• Vincent Delerm
• Louise Attaque
• Benjamin Biolay
• Étienne Daho
• Coralie Clément
• Françoise Hardy
• Jacques Dutronc
• Henri Salvador
• Keren Ann
• Joan Manuel Serrat
• Funny van Dannen
• 2raumwohnung
• Franz-Josef Hutsch
• Peter W. Singer
• Piero Umiliani
• Kurt Gerstein
• Wilhelm Hennis

Articles I contibuted to:

• Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq
• General Agreement on Trade in Services
• Libération

Learning Project

I have written a program for learning vocabulary. It is based on the belief that it is best to learn foreign words by learning typical sentences. The program can also be used for learning other stuff that works with the question/answer scheme, e.g. the theory for the driving licence or anatomy. Unfortunately I wrote it in qbasic, which can be downloaded here. It also uses images and sound files for alternation and in order to work on the pronunciation. If you are interested let me know. I currently have files in English, French (with sound), Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and about Salsa dancing figures. To the latter three there are links from the open textbook project wikibooks. Corrections or additions are very welcome. The easiest thing to start with for improvements would be adding new vocabulary, sound files or images. A guide to the program will follow soon, although I think it is rather self-explanatory. In the long run the program should be rewritten in a better language. Afterwards it should be possible to switch languages within the program. Up to now there is a different version of the program for each language.