A Slow Descent Into Madness

I just finished reading The Lover of Ursa Major (the Swedish translation from 1938) by Sergiusz Piasecki, a 1937 book about smugglers on the border between Poland and Soviet. It was quite a refreshing read, being very different from most present-day books I have been reading recently. Interestingly, people and locales are very sparingly described, being mostly "a man with a funny gait" or "a house in the woods". Yet, the way in which it is written makes the story come alive much more than I had expected. Another thing I noticed was that there was a lot of what seemed like foreshadowing going on, but most of it never led to anything. Large parts of the book describe events that have no bearing upon the upcoming chapters, and many characters who could be expected to play a major part just disappear. I thought at first that this was a book about friendship, love and alcohol in about equal doses, but I realized partway through that it is much more about a slow descent into madness. The latter might make more sense if you know a bit more about Piasecki's life and his imprisonment.

The author does not seem exceptionally skilled in the art of the novel, but that is not so strange, given that he was a Polish intelligence officer (who smuggled cocaine and furs across the Polish/Soviet border to fund his operations) writing the book in prison. He had been incarcerated for ten years for a robbery conducted under the influence of cocaine, and apparently passed his time in prison writing books and inciting riots. All in all, he seems like an uncommonly serious badass for a famous novelist, and that is not even taking into account the fact that he was later an executioner for the Polish resistance during WWII.

Anyway, the book was enjoyable, largely for deviating so much from the books of today, but also because the story was engrossing in its simplicity. It felt very real, and given Piasecki's track record, parts of it probably are.

Sten Tolgfors is a liar (and so is Ingvar Åkesson)

I have a hard time understanding the yes-side in the debate about the new Swedish "FRA law", which stipulates that all Internet traffic into and out of the country should be monitored by the FRA for - guess what - security reasons. The Minister for Defence, Sten Tolgfors, has actually stated in a major Swedish newspaper that this is certainly not "mass surveillance", since the FRA is only allowed to spy on information going out of the country, and according to specific search terms (which are not disclosed). Furthermore, there are unspecified "controls" which "monitor" their actions.

Well, guess what, Mr Tolgfors, you cannot really find the specific data allowed to be spied upon without looking at all the data, now can you? Somewhere within the deep, dank caves of government, all the Internet traffic will be caught and processed, and Swedish citizens will have absolutely no way of knowing how, where or when. The spooks will have the authority to map everybody's life without a warrant. One of the justifications is that "Hey, we could actually catch bin Ladin, Sweden might be al-Qaida's next taget!" Guess what? Mr bin Ladin encrypts his Internet traffic. Mr bin Ladin does not have a beef with Sweden. Mr bin Ladin is just a straw man for a government increasingly desperate to secure their insane law.

The government's statements are so bloody stupid that I am unsure whether Mr Tolgfors really believes in what he is saying, or if he has made devious calculations coming to the conclusion that a large enough part of population are such complete idiots that his cause can actually profit from his lies. I hope for the former but suspect the latter. Also, I sort of wonder what the ulterior motives are. More power for the government? More happiness from the U.S.? Transition into a fascist state? None of my guesses are particularly uplifting.

Oh, and from the horse's (the General Director of FRA, Ingvar Åkesson) mouth. My translation, mind you.

"FRA has never and will never 'monitor all citizens'. Only the traffic that is deemed to be interesting and that refers to foreign circumstances is selected, which is a fraction of all available traffic. Only a very small part of this information will in turn ever end up in FRA's system." (emphasis mine)

Apparently, Mr Åkesson is nothing short of a liar, because you cannot really be the General Director of the Swedish equivalent of the NSA and not know that to be able to select the interesting information, you have to somehow process all the information from which you want a subset of information. The "interesting traffic" does not automagically jump into the lap of the FRA, while the rest of the bytes flow past, unperturbed and unmonitored. Ergo, everybody's business is now showbusiness to the FRA.

Genetic Engineering Facility

So, now I have had my vacation for this year. It consisted mostly of painting walls, buying furniture I do not like and moving things around. That is, preparing for another attempt at selling my old apartment. All in all, it has been a pretty crappy vacation with a few notable highlights.

My cat seems to really like living with me. Not only does she follow me around everywhere, she also seems to genuinely like living with me, and seems to have no interest at all in leaving. If I leave the door open, she just sits by the door looking moderately interested. She also seems to have the best night temper of all cats I have ever encountered. She curls up at the bottom of the bed when I go to sleep, and she is still there when I wake up. No running around hitting things, no waking me up by screaming or sitting on my face. Maybe she escaped from a genetic engineering facility trying to produce the perfect cat. Her only real problem is the fact that she is a bit too obsessed about her food, but given that she has been living on the rough for at least a month, that is to be expected. I think she is slowly realizing that there is an ample serving of food twice daily, and that there is no need to make a fuss about an empty bowl.

Right now, I am going through piles of old CDs and DVDs I have burned during the years, in the hope of finding something worthwhile. There were some pictures from my 2001 trip to Japan, songs I wrote back in the 90s, embarrassing party pictures and a lot of music I had forgotten I ever used to listen to. All in all some great reminiscing.

As for the last few weeks?

We visited the museum of natural history or whatever they call it in English. This fish says "nom nom nom *buuurp!*" if you feed it the correct "food bricks" or "blääää!" if you feed it the wrong ones. It is important to feed your catfish properly.

I saw the first boat ever that actually made me lust for it. A 60 foot trimaran. Sadly, I think this one is not only insanely expensive, but strictly for professionals. It is also ocean-going.

I looked about as happy as usual.

I finally tried some durian together with a friend. It smelled like hot garbage and tasted like hot garbage (or rather, how I assume it would taste) mixed with fruit. I will not try durian again.

Stockholm is really beautiful during the summer. I caught the Gotheborg on a picture.

As a stark contrast, they have recently finished building this "hotel" in the middle of the picture - in central Stockholm, no less, blocking what was once a beautiful view from Norra bantorget (on the other side of the hotel, from the vantage point above), making one of the nicer bits of the city dark and dreary. It looks like a futuristic rendition of Naglfar. At least, that is what I call it. What the hell were they thinking? Progress is not making the city look like the worst of Soviet.