Public Election Billboard in The Hague

Elections for The Hague’s city council are to be held on 3 March 2010, and around the city, the municipality has erected temporary billboards on which each party fielding candidates in the election can place a poster putting its case to the voters.

I’ve never seen anything like this done in an American election. It’s not a bad idea, and something we might want to emulate, especially if publicly financed campaigns are to be embraced.

I found nadānamkārī used in the plural in a video by Iranian political commentator Mohsen Sazegara that was posted to YouTube today (17 February 2010). He uses the word at about 2:40:

Here, for reference, is the (rather long) sentence in which nadānamkārī appears:

به هر صورت ندانمکاری‌ها و اشتباهات پی در پی دولت احمدی‌نژاد و سوء مدیریت آنها به اضافه بحران سیاسی‌ای که جنبش سبز در کشور ادامه داده و مبارزه مردم ایران که کماکان قهرمانانه ادامه دارد اقتصاد کشور را به جایی برده که به قول شهردار تهران، که گفته بود که در واقع، یک سال است که هیچ کس آجری روی آجر نگذاشته و همه کارهای کشور خوابیده است

My Google Profile

After watching Chris Fisher’s positive review of the new Google Buzz service, I’ve decided to give it a try. You’ll find my  Buzz feed, and may follow it if you like, through my newly created Google profile.

Illustration of sāndīses found at www.razavi-canning.com

The reason this word was in the news this past week as that such fruit drinks were distributed at pro-government events. Green Movement adherents disparagingly referred to those who turned out at rallies in support of the government as ساندیسخوران (sāndīskhūrān) or “fruit juice drinkers,” the implication being that the government had bought their support for the price of a few fruit drinks.

I haven’t yet learned the etymology of sāndīs, though I suspect it may be a trade name that has become generic. The sāndīses shown in the illustration above are marketed under the label taqdīs (blessing).

Lion Dancers at Chinese New Year Opening Ceremony

The Hague has its own Chinatown, and every year the city hosts a Chinese New Year celebration with a parade and fireworks. On Saturday, 13 February 2010, the opening ceremony welcoming the Year of the Tiger was held in the city hall atrium. I was able to take some pictures from the side of the stage.

The mayor of The Hague, Jozias Johannes van Aartsen, gave the opening remarks in Dutch and English (and translated into Chinese). Here he is exiting stage left after completing his address:

Mayor Jozias van Aartsen

The Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, Zhang Jun, also addressed the audience, speaking in English and Chinese (with a few words in Dutch):

Ambassador Zhang Jun

As an American, I found it remarkable how open the ceremony was. Anyone could just walk in (as I did), go right up to the stage, watch, and take pictures. There were no security checkpoints or metal detectors to pass through. The mayor of The Hague passed within three feet of me after leaving the stage. I can’t imagine such openness in a major American city today.

Dr. Krzysztof Skubiszewski, 1926-2010

On Monday, 8 February 2010, Dr. Krzysztof Skubiszewski, the president of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (where I work) died in Warsaw at the age of 83. He had served as an arbitrator since 4 December 1993, and as president of the Tribunal since 16 February 1994.

Last year, I had the pleasure of showing him how to use a computer running Ubuntu Linux. I remember Judge Skubiszewski as having always been congenial and kind. I will miss him.

He is pictured here speaking at a farewell reception for a legal adviser at the Iran-US Claims Tribunal in The Hague on 17 December 2009.

Google Chrome Bus Stand Poster

I don’t recall ever seeing advertisments for a web browser in public spaces before. But now at bus stands in The Hague one sees these posters for Google Chrome. I also saw a very large billboard advertising Chrome by the freeway on the way to Delft today.

I rather like Chrome–in particular the speed with which it executes JavaScript–and I use it in particular with various Google services like Google Voice, Google Wave, and Google Calendar. But my default browser remains Mozilla Firefox.

But Gareth Porter of the Inter Press Service News Agency today reports that “U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London…is a fabrication” (emphasis added). Porter notes that while such a document would presumably be highly classified, the document (4.5 mb PDF) does not bear any security markings–a fact that The Times failed to disclose.

I have read The Times’ document for myself and note another significant irregularity that The Times failed to note: this allegedly “Iranian” document was composed on a computer that evidently lacked Persian (Farsi)–the Iranian national language–resources. It is readily apparent that the document was composed using Arabic, not Persian resources. For example, the Arabic letter corresponding to the English “y” is “ي”. In Persian, however, the dots are always omitted when the letter appears at the end of a word. (In fact, with a Persian input method selected, one has to press the shift key to obtain the Arabic letter “ي” with two dots underneath.) Throughout the document, the Arabic form of the letter, with dots underneath, appears:

Telltale Dots

In addition, the Persian word-initial long “a” (آ) consistently appears as a regular “a” (ا) in the document. The “little hat” above the long “a” is generally not considered to be optional.

In short, it is evident that an Arabic, and not a Persian, input method was used for composing this document. Why would a computer at Iran’s “most sensitive military nuclear project” be configured to use Arabic language resources instead of Persian ones?

Moreover, why would the Times fail to note the lack of security markings and the glaring typographical irregularities of this document?

Update: It should be borne in mind that while the use of Arabic input resources is noteworthy, it is not dispositive. Use of Arabic input methods for documents composed in Persian was fairly common in the early 1990s (before Persian input methods became widely available for computers running Microsoft Windows) and is still sometimes seen today. Still, the document’s lack of any date, classification stamp, or special handling instructions, combined with the typographical peculiarities discussed above, preclude me from taking it at face value.

Update 2: Scott Horton of Antiwar.com interviewed Philip Giraldi regarding The Times’ “nuclear trigger” document on 29 January 2009. Audio is available here.

Update 3: Scott Horton interviewed me about The Times’ document (as well as about polygraph policy) on 30 January 2009. That interview is now available on Antiwar.com. On 3 January 2010, Times leader writer Oliver Kamm, in response to comments that I left on his blog two hours before my interview with Scott Horton, wrote, among other things:

George Maschke, the whole of your comment is undermined by your mistake in assuming that the document that you read online was the document in its original form. It was in fact a retyped version of the relevant parts of that original document. The original document contained a lot of classified information. The Times did not publish the original document, because of the danger that it would alert the Iranian authorities to the source of the leak. The full version of the document is in the hands of the IAEA.

It should be noted that The Times represented the Persian version of its purported “nuclear trigger” document as “Iran’s nuclear trigger: document in full.” A running commentary on Oliver Kamm’s blog may be followed here.