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Stories about the rigors of life in Germany are plentiful.  Economic disaster ensued when the Allied Reparation Commission required Germany to pay a whopping 132 billion gold marks in reparations for World War 1 — Janet Klug, Linn’s Stamp News, 25 February 2008.

Whopping?  132 billion gold marks sounds like a lot, but so does 132 billion Turkish “old” Lira.  This is an example of the type of  information searches philately spurs:

What’s was the buying power of 132 billion gold marks in 1921?  A thousand homes?  The Louvre?  All of Liechtenstein?

Let’s start with a Google search for germany inflation 1923 wikipedia and look at the first match:

The total reparations demanded was 132,000,000,000 gold marks which was far more than the total German gold or foreign exchange.  An attempt was made by Germany to buy foreign exchange, but that was paid in treasury bills and commercial debts for Marks which only increased the speed of devaluation.

Um, OK.  You bill the country more than its entire net worth?  Had no idea.  Yikes.  The article also states:

The German currency was relatively stable at about 60 Marks per US Dollar during the first half of 1921.

Have I mentioned I love Google?  People were talking about the “Information Age” decades ago, but Google has gotta define it.  Anyway, a search for dollar historical buying power in Google, and, again, the first match: Historical Currency Conversions.  A little division, and we put “2 billion 200 million” into the form, and choose “dollars” (yes, you can spell out your amounts like that.)  The answer: 4.7 x 10¹⁸ (4.7E18) dollars in today’s buying power!

This post will be useful for students, so I will avoid profanity at this moment.  But, man!  That’s almost 5 sextillion dollars!  The U.S. GDP (thanks, Google!) was 13 trillion in 2006.  That’s 350,000 years’ worth of the U.S. economy!

Someone please tell me I made a decimal point error somewhere, or that the people at Historical Currency Conversions are full of it.  Sextillions of dollars?

Forget Liechtenstein!  There’s not a continent you couldn’t buy for that kind of money!

What were “we” thinking?  Did we really think this wouldn’t trigger another, worse war?

I just watched a TV special about a 9.2 Earthquake in the United States (twice the magnitude of the San Francisco quake) within my parents’ lifetimes.  How the hell have I never heard of this?  More here.

Over 10,000 aftershocks were recorded following the main shock. In the first day alone, eleven aftershocks were recorded with a magnitude greater than 6.0. An additional nine more occurred over the next three weeks. It was not until eighteen months later that the aftershocks were no longer a danger.

Some portions of earth moved 400 meters (!!).

Huggies diapers were introduced in 1978.  So were Laserdiscs, believe it or not.  Also, the game Simon, the villain Mystique, and the Sunkist soft drink.

Find your favorite year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:YEAR_introductions

Article XI

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims], and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.  (Translation from the Arabic.)

Signed in Tripoli, subsequently unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams.

October 25, 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Intruder in Duluth

At around midnight on October 25, a guard at the Duluth Sector Direction Center saw a figure climbing the security fence. He shot at

it, and activated the “sabotage alarm.” This automatically set off sabotage alarms at all bases in the area. At Volk Field, Wisconsin,

the alarm was wrongly wired, and the Klaxon sounded which ordered nuclear armed F-106A interceptors to take off. The pilots knew there

would be no practice alert drills while DEFCON 3 was in force, and they believed World War III had started.

Immediate communication with Duluth showed there was an error. By this time aircraft were starting down the runway. A car raced

from command center and successfully signaled the aircraft to stop.  The original intruder was a bear.

— Alan F. Philips, 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War.

Also see the Wikipedia for a man who should have statues in every major world city: Stanislav Petrov, the man who prevented World War III.

You have almost certainly seen the late-nineteenth century motion study work of Eadweard Muybridge before, even if you did not know what it was. There’s a great online exhibit.

At the Apotex Centre, Jewish Home for the Aged in Toronto, the dental clinic has no gas for anaesthesia.  When flu shots are offered, no one takes part.  Residents are afraid to report pain and weakness to nurses.  At night, flashlights are avoided by the staff, as are brisk walks in block-heeled shoes.  Residents are frightened of showers and hide food in their rooms.  Dining rooms and facilities are intentionally intimate and non-institutional.  When one adult child of a resident asked a construction company to take down the barbed wire surrounding a lot across the street, they did.

Half of the geriatric patients with dementia are Holocaust survivors.  And without short term memory, their past becomes their present.  Sixty years later, safe in a plush Canadian facility, the residents relive the Holocaust.

On the morning of September 11th decisions began tumbling like dominoes.  After the second tower is hit, Bruce Barrett, deputy manager of the New York’s largest FAA’s air traffic facility, declares a state of emergency called “ATC [Air Traffic Control] Zero”, a failsafe in the case of FAA radar failure that empties the skies overhead.  The order stretches from Maryland north to southern New England, from Long Island to central Pennsylvania.  His boss approves the order, and the order goes through without first obtaining FAA permission.

American Airlines knows it has lost one flight.  They cannot lose another.  At American headquarters the order goes out to ground all their planes that have not taken off in the Northeast.

At the same time, Ben Sliney is on his first day on the job as national air traffic operations manager, the central “chess master”.  First he halts takeoffs of all flights bound for the Northeast.  Moments later the order extends to Los Angeles.  Then to San Francisco.  The career air traffic specialists on staff aren’t satisfied.  They shout for Sliney to “Just stop everything!  Just stop it!”  For the first time in history, the unprecedented order goes out: full groundstop.  Nothing takes off.

But where is American flight 77?  There is no response.  American V.P. Gerard Arpey, acting without consultation with the CEO, orders all American flights out of the sky.  But still no word from flight 77.

Then it hits.  35 minutes after the second tower collision, American flight 77 slams into the Pentagon.  Sliney shouts to land all 4,500 planes in the air.  The order is broadcast and sent up to FAA Administrator Garvey and her deputy Monte Belger.  They approve.  But now comes a phone call from a bunker under the White House where Transporation Secretary Norman Mineta has joined Dick Cheney, needing to know what the hell is going on.  They explain the landing order.  He concurs, then asks for the precise details.  Belger explains that every plane is to land at the nearest airport unless, at the pilot’s discretion, there is a major emergency prohibiting this action.

Fuck pilot discretion!” says Mineta.  “Monte, bring all the planes down.”

The news cannot come fast enough for the flights in the air.  On United flight 890 over the Pacific, Capt. Hosking and pilot Doug Price wait for more news.  But they have already decided to behave as if there are hijackers aboard their plane.  Price wedges the pilots’ suitcases against the cockpit door.  It won’t be easy to get in with those in the way.  “Get out the crash axe,” orders Hosking.  “If someone tries to come in that door, I don’t want you to hurt him.  Kill him.”

September 11 described very excitingly.  The second half comes tomorrow.

“The original VisiCalc program that ran on the IBM PC in 1981 still runs on today’s PCs.”

You can download VisiCalc, forerunner of today’s spreadsheet programs, from the website of its original co-author.  Do not worry about hard disk space; the program is only 27,520 bytes, smaller than many image files on the web today.

Good question.  I’m guessing the latter, according to an online philately Q&A forum:

Q: Can you tell me when stamps first began to appear?

A: The first postage stamp was in Great Britain in 840 [sic].  The first U.S. postage stamp was in 1847.

My, were we behind the times!

In 1984, a cloud of the extremely toxic methyl isocyanate escaped from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.  The company was fiercely criticized for its safety, media, and legal policies in the aftermath.  To address this the company launched a huge PR campaign.  The company owns Bhopal.com and uses the site to disseminate information.  One report is entitled Union Carbide: Disaster at Bhopal, written by the retired VP of Health, Safety, and Environmental Programs at Union Carbide.

The essay is a classic piece of spin (some might say propaganda.)  The report will say one thing, then say a second thing a page later that casts it in a different light.  The two statements are sufficiently separated that the report avoids sounding overtly contentious in spots, but a reader with a memory longer that one paragraph sees Browning talking out of both sides of his mouth, apparently taking a mea culpa one moment and denying responsibility the next.

For instance, the “tragedy continues to be a source of anguish for Union Carbide employees”, but the incident was caused by a “disgruntled plant employee.”  Union Carbide Corporation “took the heat”, but it owned “just over 50 percent” of the subsidiary Union Carbide India Limited.  The Bhopal plant caused the deaths of thousands of people but “ironically” the plant was intended for a “humane goal” (namely, the production of highly toxic chemicals.)  Yes, UC is an American company, but at the time of the accident “the last American … had left two years before” and “the entire work force … was Indian.”  The toxic cloud enveloped a shanty town, but the town’s very existence was the fault of zoning decisions by “local officials.”

Union Carbide employees showed their “personal concern and compassion” by setting up a relief fund.  A little arithmetic division shows us that the fund’s coffers swelled to an average of a $1 donation per UC employee, and that the relief payout was under $7 per dead or injured person.  As a corporation, Union Carbide had originally offered $2 million as reparation (a bit over $100 per victim), then increased the offer to $7 million (under $500 per victim.)  The Indian government filed a claim for $3 billion ($200,000 per victim.)  After the Indian Supreme Court accepted a settlement of $470 million ($30,000 per victim), the new administration rejected the offer, returning to the original request of $4 billion.  Understandably this “outraged” many at Union Carbide.  Why?  Not because this would put a dent in profits, surely.  It was because UC, “from the first day … had been moved by compassion and sympathy”, and could not tolerate the government’s “apparent indifference to the plight” of the victims.

Hooray for the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.  This law compels the government to reveal a staggering range of material upon request, but you may need to keep nagging them for a few years.  Take, for instance, a 1971 “telcon” between President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.  Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai had invited Nixon to send a secret emissary to China to make preparations for Nixon’s 1972 trip.  Kissinger wants to be the envoy, but Nixon is seen toying with him, suggesting other people he might consider.  An excerpt:  

P:   I had a couple of thoughts on this.  One with regard to the [Vietnam negotiator Ambassador David K. E.] Bruce thing which seems to me may pose to them a difficult problem because of him [sic] being directly involved in the Vietnam negotiations.  Secondly, let me think of whether there is something [sic] else — how about Nelson [Rockefeller]?

K:   No.

P:   Can’t do it, huh?

K:   Mr. President, he wouldn’t be disciplined enough, although he is a possibility.

P:   It would engulf him in a big deal and he is outside of the Government, you see.

K:   Let me think about it, I might be able to hold him in check.

P:   It is intriguing, don’t you think?

K:   It is intriguing.

P:   How about [future President George H. W.] Bush?

K:   Absolutely not, he is too soft and not sophisticated enough.

P:   I thought of that myself.

…

K:   Bush would be too weak.

P:   I thought so too but I was trying to think of somebody with a title.

One more:  

K:   The difference between them [the Chinese] and the Russians is that if you drop some loose change, when you go to pick it up the Russians will step on your fingers and the Chinese won’t. 

Any West Wing fans out there?  Look at the New Hampshire signatories on a copy of The Declaration of Independence.

The treatment by the United States of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in the past weeks has generated a storm of international controversy.  The Bush administration have decreed that the persons captured in Afghanistan are not prisoners of war in the legal sense but rather unlawful combatants, and are therefore not subject to the terms of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (hereafter “the Convention”).

I am not an expert in military law, but this position seems untenable.  The U.S. Executive branch have been perpetrating what I consider to be an act of misdirection meant to distract attention.  The official word has been that the prisoners do not qualify due to their not being organized into recognized military units, not wearing uniforms, and not bearing arms openly.  This belies the fact that a detainee must be classified as a prisoner of war if he falls into any of six categories, only one of which (category 2) contains the provisions cited by the Bush administration.    The beginning of Article 4 is excerpted below.

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

     1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

     2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

          (a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

          (b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

          (c) That of carrying arms openly;

          (d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

     3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

     4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

     5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

     6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

By the description of the Bush administration, some detainees are of Taliban origin, some of al Qaeda origin.    Despite the obfuscatory efforts of the Bush administration to equate the two groups and use their names interchangeably, these are separate groups of people.  First consider the Taliban detainees: these individuals are unquestionably prisoners of war under the terms of 4(A)(1), “Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict.”  This is indisputable.  It does not matter if the U.S. did not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan; the status of such combatants is expressly protected in 4(A)(3).  The Taliban were the de facto government, as openly acknowledged by the administration, and Afghanistan is a party to the Convention.

It may be true that al Qaeda members are not covered by the Convention.  To decide this, a “a competent tribunal” should operate on a case-by-case basis, as mandated in Article 5, but the Bush administration have denied the captives this entitlement as well.  I had originally intended a more thorough exploration of these topics, but a press release that I found, issued yesterday by the organization Human Rights Watch, does a much better job of this than I could have.  I strongly entreat you to read this and reach your own conclusions

I admit with embarassment that before researching this I had no conception of the extent of the Convention.  If asked, I would have said that the convention allows a POW to state nothing but his name, rank and serial number to inquisitors, prevents the torture of prisoners, and mandates their medical care.  This summation does not afford even a glimpse into the generosity of the treaty.  (In my sampling below, the italicized numbers refer to the source Articles of the Convention.)

Under the Convention, detainees are allowed to keep all effects and articles in their possession at the time of capture, excepting arms, military equipment and documents, and horses; this specifically includes clothing, items of sentimental value, and items of personal protection such as gas masks and helmets (18).  The prisoners must be housed in dormitories at least as desirable as those in which their captors reside, with allowances for the customs of the prisoners (25); specifically they may not be housed in penitentiaries by default (22).  The prisoners’ habitual diet must be taken into account when providing food rations (26).  They shall be able to freely exercise their religious duties (34), and if a minister of a prisoner’s faith is not in captivity with him, the captors must provide an appropriate minister at the request of the prisoner (37).  All prisoners must be given a monetary allowance (60; more on this later) and this money, along with money the prisoners had when captured (18, 58), may be used to purchase foodstuffs and personal articles at reasonable prices from a store set up within the camp (28).

The captors must assist prisoners in the preparation of legal wills satisfying the legal requirements of their own countries in case the prisoner dies in captivity; if the captive does indeed die his will shall be forwarded to his home country, he shall be buried honorably (or cremated, if he so desires), the grave must be clearly marked and properly maintained, and its location centrally recorded (120).  A prisoner of war may not be tried in a civilian court of the detaining power unless a soldier of the captor power is also permitted to be tried in a civilian court, and any trial must guarantee independence and impartiality (84).  The prisoner on trial must have access to adequate counsel (99).

A prisoner shall be allowed to send and receive letters and postcards (71).  The prisoner shall also be able to receive packages in the mail containing a wide range of items.  A prisoner could, for instance, receive a package containing granola bars, a six-pack of Coca Cola, a coat, extra socks, Band Aids, a Koran, a crucifix, a dictionary and thesaurus, a hobby microscope, a guitar, a rugby uniform, and a GED test form (72).  These may be sent to a prisoner for free, without charge for custom duties or even postage (74).

I had no idea of the scope of this convention.  I love it.  This is the most civilized law I have ever read; it paints a picture of a camp much like the camp portrayed in the 1997 film The Brylcreem Boys.  It could be argued that these rights and resources exceed those afforded to civilian prisoners of the United States, and even exceed those afforded to the destitute and homeless.  This should not suggest that we need to reduce the living standards of prisoners of war, but rather that we should not allow our own citizens to live in squalor.

I wrote that I would return to the issue of the allowances.  These are specified in exact values of Swiss francs.  For example, prisoners ranking below sergeant would receive the equivalent of eight francs per month in the local currency, majors, colonels, etc. would receive fifty francs, generals seventy-five francs.  In 1950, one Swiss franc was equal to US$0.23.  Adjusting for inflation, this is equivalent to US$1.64 in year 2000 dollars.  As of this writing one Swiss franc is equal to US$0.58.  This is a factor of three decrease in buying power.  It think it would more desirable if this were calibrated against actual buying power in the host country (some function of, say, the prices of beef, automobiles, electricity, and books.)

Happy Burns Night!

Five years ago today Thomas Hamilton walked onto the campus of Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, Scotland (near Stirling) and opened fire on a class of five and six year olds.  He shot and killed sixteen children and their teacher, and injured fourteen other children and three other adults.  The act was so monstrous that at one point he walked in a semi-circle around a group of children on the floor (they had either been disabled or thrown down) and systematically fired 16 shots down at them from point-blank range.  The actions of the school staff, police, and medical personnel in response were truly heroic, but of course could not undo the atrocity.  I am wearing a black armband today in memory of the children who would have been ten or eleven years of age today:

Victoria Elizabeth Clydesdale

Emma Elizabeth Crozier

Melissa Helen Currie

Charlotte Louise Dunn

Kevin Allan Hasell

Ross William Irvine

David Charles Kerr

Mhairi Isabel MacBeath

Brett McKinnon

Abigail Joanne McLennan

Emily Morton

Sophie Jane Lockwood North

John Petrie

Joanna Caroline Ross

Hannah Louise Scott

Megan Turner