Just a brief note. I recently got a new Android mobile device that I use, among other things, for blogging. And Blogger just changed their user interface. Now, as far as I've been able to tell, it's added no useful new features or functionalities. What it has done is make blogging harder and more annoying, especially on a mobile touchscreen device. In short, this sucks. It makes blogging harder. For example, managing labels for posts is now rage-inducingly difficult, as is setting the publication date. The pop-up menus on the right side of the screen where this is done are just unbelievably annoying to navigate, as is the new "Edit posts" screen. At times, the menus simply don't work. If you're looking to set up a blog, right now I would advise against doing so on Blogger.
As this comes right on the heels of Facebook's new Timeline, I can't help but ask why the hell. In my opinion, a user interface should only be changed if the transition costs of adjusting to the new interface are significantly lower than the benefits of the new system. I don't think this is even close to being true in either case. On Facebook, I actually believe that their motivation is to deliberately obfuscate their privacy settings and try to deceive people into making previously private information public so they can sell it to advertisers. It makes me wonder why Blogger changed theirs.
UPDATE: I'm finding it almost impossible to label and schedule this post. That should tell you what kind of interface we're talking about here. If this post doesn't have paragraph breaks or labels, it is because I was unable to add them. Seriously.
Showing posts with label this blag. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this blag. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Thursday, December 29, 2011
2011 in review
Another year gone by. What did we get up to in 2011?
* We did our best to promote Goblin Camp, with a let's play kind of thing and a bunch of other posts. The game is still a going concern, and although there hasn't been an update for a while, I'm assured there will be. Eventually. Back in February, I put together really epic camp. The website is here; if you haven't tried it, do.
* There was an election in Finland, that led to no noticeable changes in Finnish politics. We have some really good-looking athletes, though.
* They killed 'Usāmah; I was skeptical about that being the death-blow to terrorism. Sadly, terrorism took a different turn shortly thereafter with the senseless attacks in Norway, the background to which we discussed. Steve Jobs also passed away, and we felt that his eulogies went too far.
* Throughout the year, we were alarmed by the police, as despite the death of "Osama", new threats to our precious bodily fluids continued to emerge. To combat these, we got everything from American police UAVs and the German police going all Gestapo on the German Pirate Party to the Finnish police hacking your phone. I also lost faith in Radley Balko, of The Agitator, for hithcing up with the Kremlin's propaganda machine, and my post on the topic inspired a TV show host to discuss my underwear.
* There was a lot of Minecraft. At the beginning of the year, I was still hanging around Epic Island, and we were impressed by music. We also weighed in on the Mojang - Zenimax legal battle.
* Apart from Minecraft, we liked Harms Way, but were disappointed by Mass Effect 2 being a sexist white supremacist game and by EA's various antics. The future looked bleak. In other media, we liked Detroit 1-8-7 and Sucker Punch, as well as the fantastic Robot.
* We all enjoyed some excellent music!
* Some memes were participated in, and scientology was addressed. We also started a series of posts on the Bible.
* There was, of course, a lot of hockey. At the very beginning of the year, the wrong guy was made MVP of the World Juniors, and later on Winnipeg got an NHL team. Sadly, our favorite NHL player called it quits. However, there were the world champs. In my preview, I had a good feeling about Team Finland, and even though Mats Sundin assured us it was impossible, Finland actually won. We were a little disappointed by the overblown coverage given to one particular goal, though.
Sadly, in the words of Jonathan Toews, the summer of 2011 was the worst ever for hockey. Not only did three NHL players pass away during the summer, but the plane carrying the KHL's Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team crashed, killing the whole team. Earlier this month, the New York Times published a series of stories on Derek Boogaard, an NHL enforcer who died last summer. I highly recommend reading them.
**
Maybe that's a bit of a sad note to end this post on, but as the new year comes around, it won't hurt to take a moment to remember those who aren't around to see it happen. Having said that, though, I'd like to thank everyone who read this sorry excuse for a blag over the past year, and wish you all a happy new year! See you in 2012.
* We did our best to promote Goblin Camp, with a let's play kind of thing and a bunch of other posts. The game is still a going concern, and although there hasn't been an update for a while, I'm assured there will be. Eventually. Back in February, I put together really epic camp. The website is here; if you haven't tried it, do.
* There was an election in Finland, that led to no noticeable changes in Finnish politics. We have some really good-looking athletes, though.
* They killed 'Usāmah; I was skeptical about that being the death-blow to terrorism. Sadly, terrorism took a different turn shortly thereafter with the senseless attacks in Norway, the background to which we discussed. Steve Jobs also passed away, and we felt that his eulogies went too far.
* Throughout the year, we were alarmed by the police, as despite the death of "Osama", new threats to our precious bodily fluids continued to emerge. To combat these, we got everything from American police UAVs and the German police going all Gestapo on the German Pirate Party to the Finnish police hacking your phone. I also lost faith in Radley Balko, of The Agitator, for hithcing up with the Kremlin's propaganda machine, and my post on the topic inspired a TV show host to discuss my underwear.
* There was a lot of Minecraft. At the beginning of the year, I was still hanging around Epic Island, and we were impressed by music. We also weighed in on the Mojang - Zenimax legal battle.
* Apart from Minecraft, we liked Harms Way, but were disappointed by Mass Effect 2 being a sexist white supremacist game and by EA's various antics. The future looked bleak. In other media, we liked Detroit 1-8-7 and Sucker Punch, as well as the fantastic Robot.
* We all enjoyed some excellent music!
* Some memes were participated in, and scientology was addressed. We also started a series of posts on the Bible.
* There was, of course, a lot of hockey. At the very beginning of the year, the wrong guy was made MVP of the World Juniors, and later on Winnipeg got an NHL team. Sadly, our favorite NHL player called it quits. However, there were the world champs. In my preview, I had a good feeling about Team Finland, and even though Mats Sundin assured us it was impossible, Finland actually won. We were a little disappointed by the overblown coverage given to one particular goal, though.
Sadly, in the words of Jonathan Toews, the summer of 2011 was the worst ever for hockey. Not only did three NHL players pass away during the summer, but the plane carrying the KHL's Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team crashed, killing the whole team. Earlier this month, the New York Times published a series of stories on Derek Boogaard, an NHL enforcer who died last summer. I highly recommend reading them.
**
Maybe that's a bit of a sad note to end this post on, but as the new year comes around, it won't hurt to take a moment to remember those who aren't around to see it happen. Having said that, though, I'd like to thank everyone who read this sorry excuse for a blag over the past year, and wish you all a happy new year! See you in 2012.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
This blog on TV
Wow, I missed this. Earlier, I criticized Radley Balko for co-operating with Russia Today here. What I didn't know, and only found out just now, was that while Radley's response to my criticism was, well, underwhelming, Alyona Minkovski decided to address me on a video she published for her show on Russia Today.
It's strange to hear someone talk about my panties on television. What's stranger, however, is that Ms. Minkovski would bother to address my criticism on the air, by name and by showing a shot of my blog, but not actually talk about what it is that I said. In the video, Ms. Minkovski implies that I've said she shouldn't be allowed to criticize her government.
That's absolutely ridiculous. My actual criticism, which you can read from the link in the first paragraph, was directed at Radley Balko. This was the gist of it:
In my view, working with Russia Today, and even more so in letting Russia Today's employees broadcast themselves through his blog, Radley Balko has put a big question mark next to his name and his integrity as a journalist. To me, it's profoundly unethical to blithely co-operate with the propaganda organs of one of the most repressive states in the world and simultaneously cultivate an image of oneself as a libertarian human rights advocate.
Another quote, this time more directly applicable to Ms. Minkovski herself:
Furthermore, I don't believe the people making shows for or otherwise directly working with Russia Today are exactly pursuing an agenda of human rights. Surely if they were concerned with police brutality and human rights, they wouldn't be working for the Russian government. So either they have a very limited definition of human rights that excludes, say, the Russian opposition parties and sexual minorities in Russia, or then they have a different agenda. What's certain is that the channel they're working for is pushing the Russian government's agenda, not a human rights one. And by letting its employees promote themselves and their channel on his blog, Mr. Balko is also taking part in the Russian government's information warfare, to the direct detriment of human rights in Russia.
I don't see how it's possible to read my post as implying that I think Ms. Minkovski shouldn't "dare" criticize her government. What I'm trying to say is that it's more than a little dishonest to criticize the United States for police brutality while working for the Russian government. Surely the two are different things.
When Ms. Minkovski says I should be concerned that US mainstream media isn't reporting on police brutality, I can only say that I am concerned. I've written about SWAT teams and the war on drugs plenty of times on this blog. But what I was trying to say in my previous post is that I'm also concerned that her network isn't reporting on similar stories from Russia. Why is it okay to downplay and ignore police brutality in Russia? For that matter, why is it okay for Russia Today to distort the truth in their country, while it isn't okay for American mainstream media to do the same? That seems like a double standard to me.
Seeing this video was a little bizarre. On the one hand, Ms. Minkovski and, presumably, her producers, felt a need to address my criticisms of her appearing on Mr. Balko's blog. However, they couldn't seem to bring themselves to actually answer my questions, but instead attacked a bizarre strawman. If anything, this would seem to confirm to me that my criticism of her and RT was well-founded. If her reply to a question on journalistic ethics is to distort the question beyond recognition and mock me for asking it, I guess that's all the answer I need.
Not to mention that me and this blog are much more famous than I thought!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wrapping up 2010
Since last June, Blogger has been keeping pageview statistics, both of a blog in general and individual posts. I thought I'd share some half-year results.
Blogger will tell you what Google keywords brought people to my blog. A surprising number of people had searched for me by name and ended up on either my Finnish- or English-language blog. Alarmingly, in November and December, several people reached this blog by googling "is rape legal in Finland". They'll have reached my post "Rape is legal in Finland", where I discussed the alarmingly lax sentencing policy of Finnish courts, and if they read it, they'll have found that rape, in fact, is not legal in Finland.
**
My three most popular posts, from July 2010 to the end of December, were:
1. The 10 most beautiful women of the 2000's, May 3 2010, with a little over 3,000 pageviews
2. Happy birthday Bianca Beauchamp!, October 15 2010, with 1,500 pageviews
3. I love Susana Spears, August 17 2009, with 1,300 pageviews
In other posts, Most beautiful women on TV also got over a thousand pageviews, and Best rock albums of the 2000's over 800.
**
So over the last half year or so, these ladies got me a lot of hits. The beautiful Bianca Beauchamp:
Blogger will tell you what Google keywords brought people to my blog. A surprising number of people had searched for me by name and ended up on either my Finnish- or English-language blog. Alarmingly, in November and December, several people reached this blog by googling "is rape legal in Finland". They'll have reached my post "Rape is legal in Finland", where I discussed the alarmingly lax sentencing policy of Finnish courts, and if they read it, they'll have found that rape, in fact, is not legal in Finland.
**
My three most popular posts, from July 2010 to the end of December, were:
1. The 10 most beautiful women of the 2000's, May 3 2010, with a little over 3,000 pageviews
2. Happy birthday Bianca Beauchamp!, October 15 2010, with 1,500 pageviews
3. I love Susana Spears, August 17 2009, with 1,300 pageviews
In other posts, Most beautiful women on TV also got over a thousand pageviews, and Best rock albums of the 2000's over 800.
**
So over the last half year or so, these ladies got me a lot of hits. The beautiful Bianca Beauchamp:
And the gorgeous Susana Spears.
Quite a lot of people got here by searching for Kira Kener, too.
All in all, I think this blag thing is working quite nicely. On the back of people googling for porn, my post on lenient rape sentences got hundreds of pageviews, as did the one on pornography and feminism. They get free advertising, I get people to read my texts. The way I see it, everybody wins.
**
On my Finnish-language blog, the most popular posts were the funny ones.
1. Piratismi on varkautta, August 30 2010. This Chick tract spoof on the Finnish Pirate party is overwhelmingly my most popular post, with a staggering 9,000 pageviews.
2. Vaalijulisteita, December 8 2010, came in second with over 2,000 pageviews.
3. Kukkahattutädin kunnia, August 4 2010, on the Kaisa Rastimo saga, was third with over 1,000 pageviews.
While my English-language blog was primarily reached through Google, the Finnish-language blog got its audience through both Google and linking; people Googled for topics I wrote about, but more often for me by name, and people linked to my posts from other blogs, and posted links on Facebook and on IRC. Blagging about the Finnish "masculinists" or whatever they call themselves got me hundreds of hits and referrals from other blogs, and of course, immigration-related topics were also popular.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the vast majority of my Finnish-language blog's readers came from Finland, while this blog is read mostly from the US.
I'm contemplating adding a Blogger gadget for "most popular posts". As near as I can work out, that should just make my popular posts even more popular. Maybe I'll add it and consider it an experiment.
**
Overall, I had almost 30,000 pageviews on my Finnish blog and 25,000 here over the last half-year or so. That's not exactly a lot, but hell, it's a lot more than I thought. With numbers like that, I guess I have to keep going! So on that note, everybody have a happy new year, and I'll see you here in 2011.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Environment: Introduction
I made a post on my Finnish-language blog about how I thought Earth Hour was rubbish. Not because I don't believe in global warming or I don't believe we shouldn't be doing something about it, but because I firmly believe that trying to get people to switch their lights off is a horribly inefficient, even counterproductive way to mitigate global climate change.
So far, expressing that opinion has cost me one friend. Several other people have disagreed with me in less drastic ways, and I want to explore this issue further.
Around the same time, my good friend Aaro wrote in his blog about how overpopulation threatens the Earth: if we don't change our lifestyles, he says, our children will be "really screwed" by 2050 when the world's population may approach 11 billion. I also think he's being very silly, but we're still friends (I think!). Of course, just saying he's being silly isn't very constructive criticism.
These are by no means the only debates I find myself in on the topic of the environment. After all, these are complex issues we're talking about here. I and my co-bloggers want to properly address them, so we're starting a series of posts titled The Environment. We hope to cover several broad topics, including:
The limits to growth
Probably not the book, but the topic in general. What are the limits to the growth of the human population? Is overpopulation a real threat to the ecology of the planet and our welfare in it? Are we running out of resources?
Climate change
I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we agree that global warming is happening, and it is strongly affected by human greenhouse gas emissions. We want to look at this topic in some detail. How much greenhouse gas are we emitting? What human activities are contributing the most toward climate change? We may even take a brief foray into alternate history.
The forgotten environmental issues
It feels to me like most people today equate environmental issues with climate change. During the course of this series of posts, I also want to pay attention to some of the "forgotten" environmental issues. Even though global warming is very real, it doesn't mean that we can afford to ignore other pressing issues like overfishing and air pollution.
What can we do?
Interspersed with all this is the most interesting question: what are we going to do about all this? The ambitious goal of this series is to try to figure out what kind of environmental policies we should be advocating in our communities. Should we all become vegetarians? Should we participate in Earth Hour? How should we generate electricity?
**
So, to sum up, this is the first post in a series under the label "The Environment". Over the coming months, several of us will be posting about a range of environmental topics. Our goal is to eventually create a series of summaries on the topics I've listed above. At first, the posts may be somewhat random, because we will do this using hypertext. Some of our first topics will be an overview of CO2 emissions, a look back at the Montréal Protocol that banned CFCs, and some hard limits on human population growth. We'll be working from the bottom up to put together a comprehensive look at the large issues. The first summaries will follow, um, later.
So stay tuned!
So far, expressing that opinion has cost me one friend. Several other people have disagreed with me in less drastic ways, and I want to explore this issue further.
Around the same time, my good friend Aaro wrote in his blog about how overpopulation threatens the Earth: if we don't change our lifestyles, he says, our children will be "really screwed" by 2050 when the world's population may approach 11 billion. I also think he's being very silly, but we're still friends (I think!). Of course, just saying he's being silly isn't very constructive criticism.
These are by no means the only debates I find myself in on the topic of the environment. After all, these are complex issues we're talking about here. I and my co-bloggers want to properly address them, so we're starting a series of posts titled The Environment. We hope to cover several broad topics, including:
The limits to growth
Probably not the book, but the topic in general. What are the limits to the growth of the human population? Is overpopulation a real threat to the ecology of the planet and our welfare in it? Are we running out of resources?
Climate change
I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we agree that global warming is happening, and it is strongly affected by human greenhouse gas emissions. We want to look at this topic in some detail. How much greenhouse gas are we emitting? What human activities are contributing the most toward climate change? We may even take a brief foray into alternate history.
The forgotten environmental issues
It feels to me like most people today equate environmental issues with climate change. During the course of this series of posts, I also want to pay attention to some of the "forgotten" environmental issues. Even though global warming is very real, it doesn't mean that we can afford to ignore other pressing issues like overfishing and air pollution.
What can we do?
Interspersed with all this is the most interesting question: what are we going to do about all this? The ambitious goal of this series is to try to figure out what kind of environmental policies we should be advocating in our communities. Should we all become vegetarians? Should we participate in Earth Hour? How should we generate electricity?
**
So, to sum up, this is the first post in a series under the label "The Environment". Over the coming months, several of us will be posting about a range of environmental topics. Our goal is to eventually create a series of summaries on the topics I've listed above. At first, the posts may be somewhat random, because we will do this using hypertext. Some of our first topics will be an overview of CO2 emissions, a look back at the Montréal Protocol that banned CFCs, and some hard limits on human population growth. We'll be working from the bottom up to put together a comprehensive look at the large issues. The first summaries will follow, um, later.
So stay tuned!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The hour of chaos
Today, I'm going to prison for refusing to complete my military service. My reasons are in my previous post. I'll be gone for some four months, so I'll be back in February. In the meantime, my co-bloggers will be looking after this blag.
Anyone who wants to get in touch with me during my jail time will have to use good, old-fashioned snail mail. The address is Jokelan vankila, PL 20, 05401 Jokela. Other information on the Jokela prison web page, such as it is.
See you all in February.
Anyone who wants to get in touch with me during my jail time will have to use good, old-fashioned snail mail. The address is Jokelan vankila, PL 20, 05401 Jokela. Other information on the Jokela prison web page, such as it is.
See you all in February.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Arrangements for my absence
As anyone who's been following this blag knows, I'll be going to prison some time this fall. More on the topic here, but suffice to say that I won't be around to do any blogging for some four months. Finnish jails don't exactly provide inmates with Internet connections.
Instead of just leaving this blag to stagnate, I've managed to round up some people to fill in in my absence. I don't know yet when I'm being locked up, so for the near future, all of us will probably be posting here, just to keep things confusing. But let's meet our other contributors.
There's Henriikka, who'll become our featured artist as soon as we persuade her to draw that one webcomic, but as she's got enough projects of her own, someone needs to take over the duty of keeping this thing running.
This means handing it over to our tame computer scientist. Some say that he only speaks in machine code, and in order to read an e-mail from him, you have to compile it first; and that he can operate his Xbox 360 without a controller. All we know is, he's called Juho.
Instead of just leaving this blag to stagnate, I've managed to round up some people to fill in in my absence. I don't know yet when I'm being locked up, so for the near future, all of us will probably be posting here, just to keep things confusing. But let's meet our other contributors.
There's Henriikka, who'll become our featured artist as soon as we persuade her to draw that one webcomic, but as she's got enough projects of her own, someone needs to take over the duty of keeping this thing running.
This means handing it over to our tame computer scientist. Some say that he only speaks in machine code, and in order to read an e-mail from him, you have to compile it first; and that he can operate his Xbox 360 without a controller. All we know is, he's called Juho.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Going to jail
I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while this year. Later in June, I'll be receiving a four-month prison sentence from the Porvoo district court for refusing to complete my conscript service.
Finland still has conscription, meaning (nearly) all men have to serve in the army for a period of 6-12 months. Those who refuse armed service must complete 12 months of "civilian service". This civilian service has no function related in any way to the defence forces; it is solely a punishment for those who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Refusal to complete civilian service results in a prison sentence equivalent to half of the remaining service time.
I've refused, and will shortly be receiving a four-month prison sentence.
**
Of course, in Finland, not everyone gets drafted. People living in the demilitarized Ahvenanmaa Islands or belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses religious cult are exempt from service. Similarly, of course, all women are exempt.
Think about that for a moment. If I belonged to a particular religious cult, I wouldn't have to go to prison. Or, indeed, if I had different genitals. This blatant inequality alone is reason enough for me to refuse to participate in the system. It's unbelievable to me that in a 21st century Nordic country, your gender gives you an exemption from service. But this is part of the reality of gender equality in Finland.
**
I'm not refusing service because I'm an antimilitarist as such. I'm a pacifist, yes, and I consider myself an antimilitarist, at least in the sense that I'm strongly opposed to the political ideology of militarism. But I have nothing against the existence of the Finnish army; in fact, I'm positively in favor of it.
I principally oppose conscription because I'm a libertarian. I don't believe the State has any right to force me to serve in the military. Conscription is nothing but forced labor, and that has no place in a free country.
I also oppose conscription because I'm a feminist. I believe firmly in equality in life and especially in equality before the law. However, this summer I'm going to prison because of my gender. If I was a woman and didn't want to serve in the army, I wouldn't have to; because I'm a man and don't want to serve in the army, I'm going to prison.
Also, I'm going to prison because I'm an atheist, more or less. At least in the sense that if I was a Jehovah's Witness, then I wouldn't have to serve. I'm not, so I do.
The blatant inequality of the Finnish conscription system is so abhorrent to me that I can't participate in a system that forces some citizens to serve in the army, but exempts others because of their gender or religion. And for that, I'm going to prison this fall.
**
For additional information, there is a rather poor article on Conscription in Finland on Wikipedia. There's more information at the Union of Conscientious Objectors' website. Note that I'm not a member, nor do I intent to become one.
I'll receive my sentence at the end of June, and will post updates as I know what happens next. Obviously my blog will be on a rather long hiatus this fall because of this. I'll likely be starting my jail term in late June or August, but I don't know that yet.
To be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to four months in prison. Of course, I'm getting off relatively easily; 70 years ago conscientious objectors in Finland were murdered by the Finnish army. But still, it's not a decision I've made lightly.
However, I firmly believe that conscription is one of the most unjust, tyrannical and simply unacceptable human rights violations taking place in Northern Europe today. I'd like to finish off with a quote from the Anti-Conscription Manifesto of 1926, signed by such renowned communists as Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, among others.
(feminists should take especial note of the penultimate sentence)
Finland still has conscription, meaning (nearly) all men have to serve in the army for a period of 6-12 months. Those who refuse armed service must complete 12 months of "civilian service". This civilian service has no function related in any way to the defence forces; it is solely a punishment for those who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Refusal to complete civilian service results in a prison sentence equivalent to half of the remaining service time.
I've refused, and will shortly be receiving a four-month prison sentence.
**
Of course, in Finland, not everyone gets drafted. People living in the demilitarized Ahvenanmaa Islands or belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses religious cult are exempt from service. Similarly, of course, all women are exempt.
Think about that for a moment. If I belonged to a particular religious cult, I wouldn't have to go to prison. Or, indeed, if I had different genitals. This blatant inequality alone is reason enough for me to refuse to participate in the system. It's unbelievable to me that in a 21st century Nordic country, your gender gives you an exemption from service. But this is part of the reality of gender equality in Finland.
**
I'm not refusing service because I'm an antimilitarist as such. I'm a pacifist, yes, and I consider myself an antimilitarist, at least in the sense that I'm strongly opposed to the political ideology of militarism. But I have nothing against the existence of the Finnish army; in fact, I'm positively in favor of it.
I principally oppose conscription because I'm a libertarian. I don't believe the State has any right to force me to serve in the military. Conscription is nothing but forced labor, and that has no place in a free country.
I also oppose conscription because I'm a feminist. I believe firmly in equality in life and especially in equality before the law. However, this summer I'm going to prison because of my gender. If I was a woman and didn't want to serve in the army, I wouldn't have to; because I'm a man and don't want to serve in the army, I'm going to prison.
Also, I'm going to prison because I'm an atheist, more or less. At least in the sense that if I was a Jehovah's Witness, then I wouldn't have to serve. I'm not, so I do.
The blatant inequality of the Finnish conscription system is so abhorrent to me that I can't participate in a system that forces some citizens to serve in the army, but exempts others because of their gender or religion. And for that, I'm going to prison this fall.
**
For additional information, there is a rather poor article on Conscription in Finland on Wikipedia. There's more information at the Union of Conscientious Objectors' website. Note that I'm not a member, nor do I intent to become one.
I'll receive my sentence at the end of June, and will post updates as I know what happens next. Obviously my blog will be on a rather long hiatus this fall because of this. I'll likely be starting my jail term in late June or August, but I don't know that yet.
To be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to four months in prison. Of course, I'm getting off relatively easily; 70 years ago conscientious objectors in Finland were murdered by the Finnish army. But still, it's not a decision I've made lightly.
However, I firmly believe that conscription is one of the most unjust, tyrannical and simply unacceptable human rights violations taking place in Northern Europe today. I'd like to finish off with a quote from the Anti-Conscription Manifesto of 1926, signed by such renowned communists as Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, among others.
(feminists should take especial note of the penultimate sentence)
It is our belief that conscript armies, with their large corps of professional officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription involves the degradation of human personality, and the destruction of liberty. Barrack life, military drill, blind obedience to commands, however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate training for slaughter undermine respect for the individual, for democracy and human life.
It is debasing human dignity to force men to give up their life, or to inflict death against their will, or without conviction as to the justice of their action. The State which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war will never pay proper regard to the value and happiness of their lives in peace. Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male population at the most impressionable age. By training for war men come to consider war as unavoidable and even desirable.
I will rather go to prison than in any way give my assent to this system.
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