05/02

05/02/20 Links
05/02/14 Anti-terrorism, links, novel progress #48
05/02/06 The Holy blood, holy grail thing; links; tarot progress #4

05/02/20

Passed the final exam for the post-doctoral IT auditing course, so the thesis thing is finally over.

Unrelated linkage

This is one of the weirder stories to come around lately. A man without real credentials in journalism gets access to White House press conferences, is being used to ask questions that make the powers-that-be look good, and is given access to highly confidential information. And then it turns out that this same man has been selling his services as an escort over the Internet for years, something that should have come up in any competently performed security check. Not that there's anything wrong with being an escort - as long as you're of legal age and doing it out of your own free will - but, hell, the White House isn't known for its broadmindedness when this kind of thing is concerned.
The Guardian: A hireling, a fraud and a prostitute
Americablog: A man called Jeff
Rigorous intuition: Stirring the White House honey pot
(via Metafilter)

One of the leading lights of the Renaissance.
Progetto Pico / Pico project
(via Metafilter)

It's all about the links.
The Register: Interview with a link spammer
(via Metafilter)

From the blog backlog. Minimalistic but nice.
Clink clank

And another one. Longer, introspective pieces.
Eccentric flower

05/02/14

Some public debate about the government's newest anti-terrorism measures. There doesn't seem to be any significant resistance in Parliament, but some senior members of the legal profession are less than happy.

The most important measures are:

The Wet Terroristische Misdrijven (Law on Terrorist Offences), which has been in operation since August 10th, 2004. Before the introduction of this law conspiracy to plan a terrorist act, without any actions that could be seen as preparation for executing the plan, was not a criminal offence. Under the new law, it is. Under the new law a suspect who gets together with others to plan a terrorist act, but backs out before taking any action, remains punishable by law.
The Wet Afgeschermde Getuige (Law on Shielded Witnesses). This is pending a Parliament decision. This law makes it possible for evidence from the Dutch secret service to be admissible in a court of law. There has been wide-spread criticism because the proposal gives judges and, especially, lawyers defending terrorism suspects very limited possibilities to evaluate the evidence.
The Wet Verruiming Bevoegdheden bij Opsporing Terroristische Misdrijven (Law on Extended Measures to be taken in the Proscecution of Terrorist Crimes). This proposal hasn't yet been sent to Parliament, reactions from the legal profession have been critical. Currently, suspects can only be kept in custody if there's a reasonably suspicion that they've done something illegal, and after six days the proscecution has to provide a judge with additional evidence in order to keep the suspect in detention. Pending trial the suspect can be held, but every three months a judge will evaluate the case in order to decide whether the detention should continue. Under the new law, suspects could be held for a maximum of sixteen days before additional evidence needs to be produced. After that, the suspect can be held for two years pending trial, without the three-monthly evaluations, and with the possibility of witholding evidence from the suspect's lawyers. Also, under the new law it's possible to use phonetaps, infiltration and observation even without concrete suspicion of a terrorist crime. These possibilities are also open to foreign intelligence services. Also, it will be possible to use non-public sources and files about individuals and organisations in investigations.
Bestuursrecht (other measures). If there is insufficient evidence to proscecute certain individuals, but yet there are strong suspicions, the Cabinet proposes to take other measures, like having these individuals report to the police station every day, or prohibiting them from being in the vicinity of certain persons or objects.

The above is based on an article in NRC Handelsblad. (Any mistakes are my own.) More information (in Dutch) can be found on NRC's website:
NRC Handelsblad

A couple of things worry me about this:

With enough bad luck, anyone could become a suspect of terrorist activity.
Not only that but, with the extended datamining permissions under the Wet Verruiming Bevoegdheden bij Opsporing Terroristische Misdrijven, the number of false positives might actually increase.
A number of the new, and proposed, legal measures make it harder for the innocent to defend themselves and for judges to come to an informed verdict. By this, the system's checks and balances are impaired.

More Dutch politics and current events:
Dutch politics in 2005

Unrelated linkage

Information wants to be free
Public Library of Science

Forget about passwords.
Robert Hensing: Why you shouldn't be using passwords of any kind on your Windows networks...
(via Slashdot)

Activism, Swedish style.
Johan Norberg: GlobLog

Stuff they didn't teach you in school.
Alpheus: Esoteric history

She's an original.
Natalie Dee: Drawings to huff by

Novel progress #48

One new episode in the past week, 640 new words, 65,064 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 3
After the war (96)

05/02/06

Modern myth is an interest of mine. Feel free to scroll down to the links if the subject isn't your cup of tea (probably not the best choice of words, considering the subject).

The Holy Blood, Holy Grail thing

One of the claims made about "prince Michael of Albany" (see last week's Unrelated linkage) is that he's a descendant of Christ. In its modern form, this idea seems to originate with the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, who claimed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children whose descendants included the Merovingian rulers of France. In a more general sense, myths about mortal rulers being descended from, married to or chosen by divine beings can be found all through history in cultures all over the world.

I'm puzzled how anyone can take this bit of kingship myth literally. I mean, let's suppose that, yes, Jesus existed as a historical person and, yes, he did leave offspring. In that case the most plausible scenario would seem to be that, in the 70-odd generations that separate us from him, his genes would have nicely mixed into the general gene pool, leaving him with a very large number of current-day descendants indeed.

Another thing that bothers me is that, although in the Gospels Jesus' descent from several great figures in Jewish history is mentioned, there is little to no indication that Jesus himself thought that his bloodline was in any way significant. From what we read in the scriptures, canonical and apocryphal, it appears that he considered his relationship with the Father to be a one-off event, not a genetic mutation that would somehow be inherited by his children. Then again, in kingship myth it's far from unusual to see pre-existing beliefs and myths twisted to fit the purpose of legitimising some ruler's, or would-be ruler's, claim to power.

All in all, the whole Holy Blood, Holy Grail thing seems to be an interesting bit of modern myth, but nothing more.

Unrelated linkage

The inside story.
HRC: The Woodward and Bernstein Watergate papers
(via Metafilter)

A Renaissance gem.
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
(via Metafilter)

The Masons can't be blamed for everything.
Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon: Anti-masonry FAQ

They don't make them the way they used to.
K5: Useful dead technologies

Good writer, though.
Bad mother

Tarot progress #4

First attempt at IV The Emperor.
Current
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