How is Justice served in Spain?

Regarding the 11th of March train bombings in Madrid, colloquially (read: spanish-ly) known as 11-m, what is the ‘outcome’ of justice? The New York Times titled its leading article 7 Are Acquitted in Madrid Bombings while the Washington Post titled its piece 3 Guilty of Mass Murder in Madrid Attack. What are the different discourses here? While the former article focuses on certain miscarriages of justice, the post recounts what justice has been served. First of all, it is hardly clear whether those acquitted deserved punishment or not - the evidence against certain accused was circumstantial at best.

Perhaps this ‘justice’ reflects the true makeup of the terrorist operation - that there are some unmistakably involved in the planning and actions, but others only involved in minor operations. While it clear that those who are directly responsible for the loss of life should face justice, what about those further from the crime? Did they even know what they were involved in?

My point here is that we should hardly evaluate justice on its ability to distribute punishment, anger, and taxes. Justice is way too hard to define, and I do not believe that either the number of punished or acquitted is an appropriate metric. Then again, how good a metric are the 191 killed in these attacks?

Update: if you read Spanish, look here for an El País graphic on the sentencing.

The next imperialist Latin American drug war?

The US and Mexico are in negotiations regarding a major expansion of the drug war in Mexico. This conflict already receives aid and support from the US, but now we’re talking big dollars - half a billion per year (or 1.2 billion here). That’s about the same we spend on Colombia, which is a great success story by any absurd government measurement standards.

South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup - 2007

South Africa outboots England 15-6. It’s wonderful to read it from BBC sport, where England is often referred to as “Champions”, expressing a fond remembrance for their prior victory. Go bokke!

Papal flame retard theory.

I cannot even begin to explain why this is so off base and wrong. The pope might have been a good guy and all, but really - do we really see his image in things, or are we just tricking ourselves. Especially fire…

The commoditisation of nearly everything

The Economist recently ran a piece describing oil, grains, fluids, wood, etc. all as pure commodities, which they describe as

“A comparatively homogeneous product that can typically be bought in bulk.”

I take issue with this extraordinarily narrow view of structures and things on this planet. I won’t even call them resources, because that loads them for human use. What about the non-market value of molecules, trees, wetlands or silicon? Commodity markets are among some of the strongest; as a result, both prices and trade have increased over the past few years.

Here’s the simple kicker: there are no infinite resources. In the economic long run, all categories and values of resources will be depleted and as they become more scarce, prices will rise.

So what’s the net outcome? Those with money get the goods.

But what if we refuse to conceptualize the ’stuff’ of this universe as solely an economic unit? How much is the Amazon rain-forest worth to this planet, for example? With daily harbingers of climate change and environmental destruction, perhaps the value of an object like this has risen.

I’m not certain what I’m trying to get at here, but just think about things in a different way, ok?

UPDATE: see: oil above $90/barrel.

light.sweet.crude.

The Modern Political Machine at Work

In this article, Paul Krugman analyzes a bit of the discourse surrounding recent political issues. He makes some excellent points. I especially empathize with his words that the Republican Party “routine reli[es] on character assassination in place of honest debate”. However, I would spread this characterization to include Democrats as well. It seems that nowadays, so much political discourse is centered upon discredit, patriotism, certification, or process that the true issues at hand are obfuscated, and subsequently ignored. Politics as bullshit - isn’t it classic?