Tuesday, June 30, 2009

You Have To Squat If You Want To Relieve Yourself

Today, I went to look at the another attempt to evict squatters from the Milada squat in Holesovice, Prague.


When I was taking pictures, one of them, a young girl in black tank top, rather nice except the large amount of facial hair, approached me:

Suspected Terrorist: "Can you please don't take photo?" (sic!)

Me: "I'm in a public place, and I am not photographing you personally."

Suspected Terrorist: "This is a political action and I don't want my photo in police database."

Me: "What's political about it and why should it matter if it's political action or not?"

Suspected Terrorist: "You cannot photograph me if I don't want it, that's illegal."

Me: "No it's not. This is a public event and I will report from it."

Suspected Terrorist: "You are lucky you are from here, otherwise I'd take your camera and throw it in the river"

Me: "And that's legal? If you think I am doing anything illegal, go tell it to the policeman over there."

Suspected Terrorist: "The police is illegal!"

And so on... That sums up the most bizarre thing about these guys quite nicely. They willfully break the law, they are above it and they are proud of it, and at the same time, they are very quick to point out to you that you are doing something they consider illegal.

By the way, afterwards I discovered she is already in the international police database and the image matches exactly:

Suspected Terrorist from Milada Squat

The definition of "squatting", as far as I know, is "Using a building and/or land which belongs to someone else". There is no question that the land Milada is standing on belongs to SOMEONE (either some individual or the state). Saying that "The house should have been demolished long time ago so it's OK for us to live in it" is of course entirely stupid. It seems nice when an owner of some building lets squatters live in his building and I have absolutely nothing against it. However, it's still his building and he can do whatever is legal with it. One of the things anyone can definitely do with his building is "deciding he doesn't want anyone living in it anymore". When I decide I don't want anyone living in the building/land I own, I specifically don't have to:
  • Explain to anyone why I don't want him to live there
  • Care about where he will live after the eviction (unless I have some sort of legal agreement with him, which contradicts the definition of "squatting")
  • Enter into any sort of "constructive dialogue" with him (the only constructive dialogue I can have with him can be "No, you can't, now GTFO")
There are some other things that can be considered in this case, for example:
  • Is anyone writing any petitions and/or demonstrating?
  • Are the squatters noisy / filthy?
  • Do they take drugs and abuse animals?
  • Are their actions culturally relevant?
However these things don't change anything about the fact that I can do whatever I want with my property - including completely neglecting it and not letting anyone inside. And if someone prevents me from doing this with my property, it's my right to to use any means necessary to stop him from doing it.

If you don't agree with the above that means you don't agree with the basic principles of property ownership. (In this context, it's rather funny the squatters object to "police destroying their personal property in Milada".) In this case, be advised that you are bound by the laws of the country you currently live in and if you ignore those laws, the legal system and the police will make your life problematic. Don't act surprised afterwards. And it's perfectly OK that the police is being paid from everyone's taxes (except yours) to do this. If you don't like it, change the system. But of course you don't want to do that because Anarchy only works when the Anarchists are in the minority.

I remember going to anti-communist demonstrations in the 80s. Not because I was an activist but because it was thrilling, being chased by the police. Back then, if you approached a policeman and looked at him menacingly, you usually ended up in jail. If you touched the policeman or threw anything at him, you mostly ended up missing some teeth. The police did things that clearly were not legal. And yet, I don't remember anyone starting fights with the police or throwing things at them. Back then, the protesters (those that weren't in it just for the thrills like I was) just wanted to exercise their legal right to make their opinions known.

In contrast, today's protesters (I specifically mean Anarchists, Squatters, Anti-IMF, Anti-Globalization etc.) are pussies who want to start the conflict with the police because otherwise everyone would just ignore them. Note the fundamental difference. If they just wanted to tell the world what they think, they could easily do that. But they didn't want that. Unless they wanted to tell the world that "Michael is dead, Milada lives"...


They hoped the police would try to take them down from the roof and they hoped someone would get hurt or killed so that they can blame the police afterwards. Just think about it. I refuse to leave the roof of house that isn't mine. I'm told repeatedly to do so and I can do this anytime. The police tries to remove me. I fall down and get hurt. And I blame the police because if they didn't try to remove me, I would't have fallen. By the same logic I could blame my parents for my fall because if they didn't have sex, I'd never have fallen from that roof. You see, cause and effect...

As I wrote above, you can only be Anarchist if you are in the minority. If everone was Anarchist, no one would have anything to eat, you'd freeze (because you couldn't illegally connect to electrical grid), you couldn't call your friends on your Nokia mobile phone and you couldn't twitter about police brutality because there would be no Internet.

And, please, if you are against globalization, and you REALLY have to use mobile phones and Internet, at least don't use languages you are not really comfortable using.

"It's time you vandalism"

"It's time you vandalism!"

UPDATE: According to the comments, that penultimate word could actually be "for". I am no longer sure unless I have a photo from better angle, but when I first saw the words, it never occured to me it could be anything else than "you". This if course doesn't change anything about the quality of protesters' English vocabulary...

Monday, June 15, 2009

Official T-Mobile Repair Center "Repairs" G1 Android Phone by Installing Windows Mobile On It

My friend bought T-Mobile G1 Android mobile phone from T-Mobile Czech Republic (i.e. standard, non-rooted, white version).

My friend had problems with the phone. It locked up without reason, repeatedly. He went back to T-Mobile and the phone (still under warranty) was sent to the repair shop.

After one day in the repair shop, it was back, supposedly "repaired", with the following priceless explanation from the repair technician:

"Malfunction acknowledged. The phone uses highly unstable Android system. Repaired by completely re-installing Windows Mobile. Restored factory settings and tested in GSM network."

Note that this was done by official T-Mobile repair service! Below is the scan of the actual service report (click for large):

"Závada byla odstraněna kompletní reinstalací Windows mobile"

However, it seems the service technician overestimated his haxx0r sk1llz. When my friend tried to turn the phone on, it just cycled between "T-Mobile" and "Android" logos ad infinitum, without booting. So they took the phone back again, noting that it was probably "not fixed".

Maybe they will now give him a new G1 phone but personally, I'd wait first, to see if they will be able to install iPhone OS on it...