the joyfulness of man shortens his days

The joyfulness of man shortens his days just as the misery of man prolongs them. I would say my writing style, as evident in that last quote, is a defining part of my online personality. Actually, I found that quote on a fortune cookie. Other things you’ll find other than your no friend of mine is the employed streams of consciousness in a unique format.

I am not a sentimental person in writing, at least I try not to be, just because my inner workings are so completely silly. Yesterday someone knocked on my front door sending me to my feet with a scowl. This is not a respectable way to greet me in the middle of the night, no matter how dismal, or a winged messenger, no matter how towel-tongued and murky-eyed. But when you learn to embrace my bare-footed slobber, the world will accept it and expect it of me.

I said, sorry I’m not writing you back on there but I really wanted to blog so I hope you understand.And no you weren’t rambling in your message, in fact it was nice to learn a little about you. I get a lot of emails (not really) and I always like to hear what people are up to or where they’re from. Sometimes I get questions from people who often frame the questions with "I know this sounds dumb, but..."
I need a new type of art in my life, it should involve more music and camerawork and costuming and dancing girls and midgets and elephants and etc. Meanwhile with blogging all I need is a keyboard, a blogger, electricity, and someone to write to.

Say, here’s a fantastic piece for you today entitled Canada’s Retreat from Laws of War, which makes some fantastic points. For example…

"During operations in Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers were ordered by their American commander to lay anti-personnel landmines around their camp. When the Canadians refused — citing our obligations under the 1997 Landmines Convention — American soldiers, who are not subject to the same restrictions, laid the mines instead.

The fact that American, rather than Canadian, soldiers laid the mines makes it possible for the Canadian government to argue that there was no violation of the convention. Our government interprets the prohibition on the "use" of anti-personnel mines as not extending to reliance on mines laid by others — providing that Canadian soldiers do not request the mines be laid.

In my view, this is a strained interpretation and hardly one that reinforces our claim to be the leading proponent of the total elimination of anti-personnel mines. For the same reason, I am concerned that Canadian forces at Bagram Airbase near Kabul have benefited from the protection provided by anti-personnel landmines laid by Soviet forces during the 1980s.

Then, there is the issue of detainees. In January 2002, Canadian soldiers captured suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and handed them over to U.S. forces. The transfers took place despite the fact that U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had publicly refused to convene the "status determination tribunals" required by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, to investigate whether individuals captured on the battlefield are prisoners of war. Canada, by choosing to hand the detainees over, also violated the Third Geneva Convention. The transfers did not, however, violate Canada’s obligations under the 1984 Torture Convention, since there was no reason to believe that U.S. forces would mistreat the detainees."