PRACTICAL RESOURCES: Ministers rated by their names

According to a new and useful semiotic theory, in order to truly understand meaning the world should be reduced to its constituent signs and symbols. We asked Tartu semioticians and American advertising psychologists to analyze and grade Estonian ministers not on their performance, but on their names. We also asked a UK based consultancy, Ad Hominame, to suggest alternatives.  

Helir-Valdor Seeder A+

Agriculture

This is simply a superb name, especially since it's position-appropriate. He's got to be a hit with headline writers. And the first name is about as mellifluous as you can get. "Is your name High Elvish?" is a question Mr. Seeder undoubtedly gets a lot in the halls of Brussels. 

Mart Laar  C-

Defense

In English, a Mart is a commercial center, while "Laar" has no meaning, though it can be mistaken for several other words. In the Deep South, if you called a man a "laar", you would be asserting that he is chronically accuracy-averse.  In Estonian, a "laar" can be a load of laundry. Markets and laundry - an odd mix for such a principled politician. If it wasn't such a brand by now, and you had a guy in his late 20s who wanted to become  prime minister, I would advise him to change it to something else. Like "Mark Starr", maybe.

Other suggestions: Mark Larch, Marco Starr. 

Kristen Michal D

Justice 

He's one of those ministers people are forever getting mixed up with other ministers -- mainly Ken-Marti Vaher. The first name is transgender, and I respect that.  But it's also unclear how to pronounce Michal in Estonian. The French "ch" or the German "ch?  I usually mumble or cover my mouth  if I am in a position where I have to say his name.  Or I just call him Mr. Vaher.

Other suggestions: Kristina Michaels, Crystal Micra

Ken-Marti Vaher (see Kristen Michal) B+

Interior

A fascinating, complex name.  "Ken" is a somewhat poncy name, it makes me think of action dolls and sci-fi, but I think the Marti ("Marty") cements it. It's pure anti-machismo. It's fruity and light, and Ken-Marti does have a clean-cut perky (though certainly not fruity) kind of personality. In the US, "Ken and Marty" conjures up the sense of some couple in the neighborhood you have known for simply ages, "over to Ken and Marti's for the barbecue" -- pure familiarity. Of course, in Miami, Marti has other associations. Vaher means "maple" in Estonian and that adds another splash of lively color. something you don't associate with Interior MInister, generally a dour, grey position.  But then again, you think of Minister of Interior Decoration, and you think, that could work... 

Rein Lang B

Culture

"Rein Lang?" "Yes, for days on end, and then the sun came out." Or, "If he ruled his culture ministry with an iron fist, they would call him Iron Lang." Yes, I know. But although it can be fun, this name is too truncated and cavemannish for me. 

Jürgen Ligi C

Finance

I have no associations whatsoever with this name. It's manly, somewhat staid, I don't know.  It doesn't make me laugh. Can I pass?

Other suggestions: George Gini 

Andrus Ansip A

Prime Minister

If you told me that both of a guy's names were homonyms for taking one's clothes off, and that he was the prime minister, I would say you were joking. Fantastic name, and he's not even French. What keeps it from being an A+ is the fact that it's too obvious - to create true meaning, a semiotic sign must hover in the subconscious.  

Juhan Parts A-

Economy

Pronounced  roughly "YOU-hand parts". Enough said.  He's clearly a walking invitation to Ansip.  What I don't like is that his first name sounds like the Chinese currency. That's a liability. Docked a notch for that. 

Jaak Aaviksoo B-

Education

It is a satisfying, easy name to say. I believe it means Aspenmarsh, which might be  interesting to someone.

Other suggestions: Jack  Aspenmarsh, Jack Aspenmount

Keit Pentus A
Environment


A name with a geometric ring and good balance of first-name and last-name sounds.  It also immediately made me think of Penthouse, an elite piece of real estate at the top of a building in the "City".  

Cyprus April 10-19 - Day 1-2

East and west

The hotel transfer company didn't have a desk at the Pafos airport, and everybody else seemed like they were getting set to close and said they hadn't heard of the company. Finally, at around midnight, a harried-looking Russian guy appeared with a sign. He was immediately accosted by burly men in leather jackets who accused him of horning in on their business. We rescued him, proved to the cabbies that our names matched the ones on his sign (actually, we just shouted and gestured louder), and were soon speeding along on the left side of a two-lane road into town, and then on to the tourist strip just north of town where our hotel-apartment was. So that was our introduction to Cyprus, the farthest east I had ever been and certainly seeming to live up to the easternness. But it was the exception. 

I hadn't expected much of the apartment part of the package, just hoping that it would have functional self-catering utilities, but Hilltop Gardens was quite pleasant. Sure, it was bit threadbare like every holiday rental I have ever seen, but had a tub in the bathroom, and a very smart-looking, not at all threadbare lobby and pool area with helpful staff. It seemed that besides sleeping and breakfast, we would also be watching the sun set here - the view from the balcony was great. It seemed to capture the essence of modern coastal Cyprus. We were on a long strip between the tourist town of Pafos and a nice beach 9 km north of town. Along the main coast road, the distance between is gradually getting filled in with estates, estate sellers, oversized tavernas, strip malls, people who sell space in strip malls, and one miniature golf course.  Like S. Tenerife, there were lunar-looking constructions on sere chalky hills, and these had an interesting aesthetic. They were pretty in their hive-like, modular regularity. You couldn't tell from a distance whether they were finished or not, new or from some strange modernist craze in the 1970s.  Between them and us was an expanse of - miraculously -  a square km of reeds and grasses. We could also see a strip of sea and, front and center, a wrecked freighter, the Dimitrous 2, which ran aground in 1998 and has been left out there ever since in apparently a management practice learned from the Sicilians. Sea, the waving grasses, distant lunar developments, the wrecked offshore freighter. And a billboard on the main road down the that said, imaginatively, "Buy Sell!" -- that was it.  It was like something an artist might come up with, a collage.

If we had been a kilometre closer to town, across from the Tombs of the Kings arhaeological site (wonderfully open headlands)  we would have seen a huge KFC billboard. The sign with the Colonel's visage on a pole (I don't remember if the sign also rotated slowly, but that would have been suitably stupid, and let's say it did) must have been 10 meters high and measured 5 metres by 5 metres, apparently designed to appeal to passing ships. Maybe that is what happened to the Dimitrous 2. 

The only odd thing about the apartment was that it was on the top floor and had a vaguely ungrounded feel to it, the circuit box was making a loud hum. Naturally there was a big thunderstorm that night. But then the sun was out for the most of the trip. 

North and south

We had grand plans of covering most of the island in our week, even going to the north, the infamous Turkish side with its promise of unspoiled beaches, cities frozen in time, and probably many burly men in leather jackets accosting people. But the more I thought of it, the less attractive it seemed. Wouldn't it be like flying to Tbilisi, and then going to North Ossetia to experience the unspoiled local culture there? We were the Greek Cypriots' guests, why should we pretend that it's a unitary country if they don't? 

Otherwise, I wouldn't take sides in the conflict. For example, on another trip,  especially if originating in Turkey, I would visit it. For example, if the Turkish military invaded a country I was in and kidnapped me so that, by some strange turn of events, I found myself living in mainland Turkey and unable to leave, I would definitely consider a tour of Turkish occupied Cyprus. 

But who cares about the politics? As said, I'm totally neutral regarding everything that led up to 1974 and everything that happened since.

 It  was a moot point, anyway. We covered only a tiny fraction of the west even on the first of the four days that we had a rental car.  We didn't even get to Limassol or Larnaca (Nicosia, a wealthy functional inland city without too many old ruins) was not really on the itinerary for the family trip.  

Left and right 

Coastal Cyprus is very user-friendly, hosting massive numbers of British expats. It is also a good place to have breakfast -- an English breakfast. And get this: at all but the greatest ripoff places, a full breakfast costs less than a cup of coffee.  At Pinguino, right smack downtown in Kato Pafos, breakfast was €2.90 but coffee -- real coffee -- is €3 and up everywhere -- and even in good places with an espresso machines, if you order a coffee drink for €3 and up, they may make it based on instant coffee. A local Byzantine coffee is also more than an espresso in Italy (€1-1.50). 

The British, despite their considerable charm and way about the first meal of the day, are a minor hazard on the streets. I was not aware that when people approach, one is expected to keep left. I thought those rules were restricted to cars, and that people behaved the same way as they do on the Continent in matters concerning pedestrian right of way. Not so. I wonder if anything has been written about this. Several times, I found that oncoming pedestrians effectively forced me to my right, where there was only a very small space to pass them, so that I had to flatten myself against a brick wall.  

Less facetiously and by way of practical advice, the left-hand driving rules are a particular hazard for tired pedestrians, as we were on our first full day. Compared to constant hopping on and off  city buses and road crossings with young children, it's probably much safer just to rent a car, it takes only a bit of mantra-murmuring ("left, left", "look right first"), and a very measured defensive approach and you'll be used to it in no time. Although many times I would get into the car the usual way and find myself staring puzzled for a split second at the apparent theft of the steering wheel. 

My International Driving Permit had just expired, but as on most islands, renting a car wasn't a big deal, and was cheap. Sorry to say, it appears increasingly as if Estonia is the only European country that makes a big deal about this silly document, which is issued by a private club in the US yet which is necessary to validate your foreign government-issued license in the eyes of Estonian authorities.  


To be continued in the next post - I promise.

Ahmadinejad Snubs Workshop, Huddles with Eesti Energia Chiefs

Invited to attend a DIY nuclear warhead workshop in Tallinn, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reportedly met at the airport by a private motorcade and "whisked away" for closed-door meetings with Eesti Energia executives.

"We're disappointed," said a member of the NGO who had originally invited the controversial Iranian head of state to Tallinn. "We assumed that Ahmadinejad's schedule would be filled out later by other meetings with officials, such as from the Centre Party, but we didn't think that he would be essentially kidnapped by state oil shale company executives for the entire day. It was not part of the plan for him to be whisked away."

A director of a NGO group on Tallinn's west side also involved in the workshop, The Old World Will Soon Be Gone, took pains to note that the point of the workshop was to explore clean use of weapons-grade nuclear energy -- harnessing the potential represented by the world's 3,000-some nuclear warheads "for peaceful purposes".

The circumstances of Ahmadinejad's meetings with Eesti Energia were hushed, but the motorcade was said to visit Eesti Energia's new oil plant where construction is set to start soon, and an oil shale enrichment facility in Ida-Viru County.

Eesti Energia had not returned calls from our staff, but a energy council adviser from the Academy of Sciences, who asked not to be named, said the company was exploring a project of mutual benefit to both sides and that Ahmadinejad would also be "briefed exhaustively on Estonia's e-solutions". "It's just something that has to happen," said the adviser. "All visitors to Estonia endure at least 30 minutes of it, and the leader of a rogue state is no different."

- Single Sourcer Herald Tribune

REVIEW: Another supposedly good movie, supposedly set in Alaska

I'm not sure if anyone picked up on it, but halfway through The Grey, a film by Joe Callahan, something irritated me. A handful of the Alaskan air crash survivors are enjoying a brief respite by a campfire and musing on what they would do if they got out alive. One of the men, who happens to be a Latino from the Bronx and is the troublemaker in a group of hardened men, says he would want "just one more fuck." He elaborates: the last time he copulated, at the North Shore oil pumping station, was with a "50-ish, fat, ugly, half-Eskimo hooker." The rest of the men, including Liam Neeson, appear to sympathize, as much as you can sympathize when it's so cold. So, as if ugly and fat wasn't bad enough, she was also Inuit... OK, granted, these men are tough and un-PC - the film's starting premise is Con Air meets Alive -- but would a line in some other movie about a "fat, ugly, hooker who was black on top of it all" have made the cut? I strongly doubt it.

Even factoring in the film's own metalevel -- the brutal, bleak, gory world of men facing long odds -- it strikes me as offensive. And gratuitous, as in "let's just drop in an additional reference to 'Eskimos' to establish our credentials that we're actually doing a film about Alaska here." Because the film actually knows nothing about Alaska except that it is snowy, mountainous and wild. Example: one of the characters suffers altitude sickness below treeline; even in coastal Alaska there's a mile of vertical space separating woodland from nosebleed country.

Ken Kesey wrote a semi-great last novel, Sailor Song, about a Hollywood film crew that comes to an Alaskan coastal town, parking a cruise ship in the port, and turns things upside down for a while. The making of The Grey must have been similar. A scan of the Google results turns out several bizarre groaners. One is that Liam Neeson ordered four wolf carcasses (which may or not have been killed otherwise) so that the cast could feast on the flesh in what I suppose was some kind of weird method-acting version of the Eucharist. And the actors did in fact eat the wolf. It belongs in another bad movie, like drinking deer blood in a male-bonding ritual and then shouting "Wolverines".

I suppose none of this would matter too much except to a few natives, but the film has been positively reviewed by smart critics and has pretensions of being important. I do realize it isn't supposed to be taken at face value. It wants to be a parable with mystical, supernatural overtones, like Jarmusch's Dead Man. And of course, it's almost impossible not to think of "Lost" when a plane crash is involved. The scattered burning wreckage on the frozen wastes near the beginning could have been lifted directly from the pilot episodes in Hawaii. The CGI-generated wolves are clearly the smoke monster here. They even look like a bit like the smoke monster - they're really not very well generated for a good movie.

Like the half-Eskimo hooker, wolves are a sensitive topic in these times -- not just in Alaska but throughout the upper West. I'm left shaking my head at why Callahan chose to be deliberately provocative in demonizing them. Starting with Canadian writer Farley Mowat (good old Farley -- Never Cry Wolf was one of the first feature movies I remember seeing as a kid), at least forty years of thoughtful work has been devoted to rehabilitating their reputation. No one has ever seriously considered wolves a threat to humans (as opposed to humans' economic interests) anyway. How many grown men have been killed by wolves in the last century? Why were wolves picked? Is it ill-conceived revenge for years of movies like Dances with Wolves? Joe Callahan's way of saying, "Screw you, Farley Mowat, for stretching the truth a bit, here's a complete lie"?

The movie is laced with dubious facts ("wolves are the only animal that seeks revenge") and absurd theories about rogues and alpha wolves. I even considered that it could be on the verge of saying something cryptically about American military adventures (seeing as many movies like Avatar do go there) but I'm not sure what it would be saying in that case. Compared to its claims about wolves, it would be about twice as logical to have the enemy be a pack of marauding grizzlies who have out of hibernation for years of ill treatment. After all, grizzlies in Alaska are truly unpredictable and deadly. Wolves, wild ancient dog ancestors, really aren't.

Anyway, there's another very similar movie in feel made a few years ago about men, escaped convicts, lost in the Tasmanian temperate rain forest. They don't have a chance, and the audience knows it, and they're picked off one by one just like the ten little European-Anericans here. It's much better. It doesn't use any flashbacks, characters don't burn calories in awkward sentimental reflection, and the enemy is not dog, he walks among them. It's called Van Diemen's Land. I recommend it.

KNEEJERK REACTION: Santorum

I finally gave Santorum 10 minutes today. I've been a Santorum virgin, meaning I've never seen video of this particular US presidential candidate. (After all, I live overseas and I don't usually "check out" senators, especially not senators from other states, not before they hit the bigtime.) So for 10 minutes, I watched the worst, most gaffe-laden, repugnant "gotcha" stuff I could find from the liberal media via Youtube.

I have this to say: while Palin is a disaster and a walking bag of malapropisms who is terminally provincial, I don't think the media has anything on Santorum. I think he's bright, fairly articulate and very committed to his version of the truth.

McCain scared me (the anger/temper thing); Santorum didn't. I didn't see deep-seated pathologies and hang-ups just begging to come to the surface; I think those are in people's minds. Such as in the mind of advice columnist Dan Savage. (I watched a video of Savage, too, for comparison, where he explains why he coined a new word named after Santorum -- Savage seemed troubled and used a lot more curse words than Santorum.)

Of course, when I watched Santorum, I see a bit of inflexible white dork who wears his belt too high, but that's par for the course for Republicans. Apart from the fact that he's Republican (weak, splintered party, damaged brand) and that he seems too principled (it will be more painful to watch his inevitable slide to the center if he is elected), he seems like a very strong candidate.

I wish him well, in the sense of good sportsmanship.

ACTA, and then some

The protests against ACTA are a just cause, and I support them. I'm always for the underdog, and the underdog these days, if it isn't a small independent bookseller or something, is almost always bound to be an individual. Whenever individuals have to compete against corporations, special vigilance is needed; and more than anything, opposition to ACTA ultimately comes from the concern for the status of the individual in the face of government control and corporate special interests. As for the rest of the criticisms of ACTA, there's very little I don't agree with, and I don't see too much misrepresentation, ignorance or, as the Prime Minister put it, seed intoxication.

Personally, I have two predictions -- fatalistic, pessimistic, but not too hard to see coming. One is that ACTA will pass anyway, largely unaffected by the opposition. The other is that, post-ACTA, rather than entailing too many expenses and red tape as some warn, it will be ridiculously easy to regulate many aspects of what reaches consumers on nearly the data packet level, just as it was easy for, say, Napster, after the anti-sharing backlash had begun, to prevent certain files from being shared. Even in Estonia there will be little disincentive to eventually go the route of policing content, of putting all these wonderful tools we have to index information online to work -- to flag certain information online.

But this is not just a post against ACTA or about freedom of expression. President Ilves talked about the ACTA protests being a symptom of broader dissatisfaction with the government's communication, and I don't think he meant just its lack of dialogue on ACTA, or the way it went over and behind the people and parliament on this particular issue. A much broader problem is the government's attitude, its implicit and often explicit insistence that it is infallible. It was impressive, maybe refreshing, in the beginning. But now, years down the road, like Ansip himself, it has started seeming sociopathic, self-justifying and hectoring. He's always right and never admits he's wrong. So what if the man is competent and usually has his facts straight; it's no way to talk to other people. It's too bad, because many of Reform's ideas like the flat tax and other liberal ideas appeal to me. I am after all a small business operator. But if Ansip thinks he is winning any points with his approach and demeanor, he must be from another planet. These are not my values.

Overlooked in the wave of protest against ACTA is the fact that the government has been smashing unions. Because part of it affects moribund industries and poor people, it's not as sexy an issue as educational reform, which is most people's #2 issue. But if anti-ACTA people are worried at all about individual rights losing out to corporate rights, there is nothing more glaring than the shabby way the pro-business government is eroding the potential role of unions, which should be an equal social partner. Actually, "smashing unions" sounds heroic, like Thatcher going after a bunch of menacing, dirty, Internationale-singing thugs. Considering that no one is very red in Estonia anyway, unions are practically non-existent in Estonia, and no one is striking yet in the first place, the government isn't smashing them, it's like it's dissecting a one-armed man in vivo. I'm not sure if anesthesia is being used, but Harri Taliga, the top union leader, seems to be in a state of permanent pain. It seems like half the bills that come out of the ministries these days attack one or another employees'-rights clause. Today it was a minor one: the right of employees who leave voluntarily to receive full compensation for a limited period. A plausible cut, but not all seem as clear. What will it be tomorrow?

The idea of increasing the level of companies' protection against their own employees began, of course, with the recession. Ever since the Employment Acts Contract was rewritten during the downturn to make it easier for companies to lay off workers, it has been one thing after another. Little of it will be reversed, now that the recession is long over. Even though growth is soaring (arguably it rode on the back of Ericsson exports for most of 2011, but now even other sectors look pretty solid), reserves are full of cash, in some cases much fuller than they were before the recession.

The Unemployment Insurance Fund's reserve in fact was so full it proved attractive to the government, which decided to take control of it last year. The stated reason: it knows how to invest this nest egg better than a wishy-washy public-law-governed body like the Fund, and can give the Fund better interest rates on it than a bank. The government decided this even though it holds only one-third of the seats on the Fund, which, as said, is not a government institution. The other members on the board have walked out, it didn't matter what they thought. The employers and unions actually agreed, this one time, that the government was playing foul.

What is interesting about the Fund's reserves is that they are not really being spent for the purpose they were designed for. They just sit and gather interest, because the government cannot bear the idea that money could be paid to people for doing nothing, and because there may be another "crisis" around the corner, at which point the government will need the reserves for other things besides the unemployed. It must be something in the national character: I witnessed similar behavior at private companies in the year of the recession. They had 300,000 kroons tucked away, but it was never used. Employees were asked to take a pay cut even though orders had not started dropping. It was so that the reserve could remain at that level, even though there was no requirement that a company have that much cash and with interest rates near zero and inflation high, financially pointless.

The workers' disability system is being overhauled. Here, too, the idea is to try to pay less whenever possible. Again, sounds admirable, until you remember that there are people on the receiving end, not all of them crooks faking gimpy legs. Apparently the idea is to make all payouts conditional on people having a personal return-to-work plan. It's something that sounds brilliant, but at the same time, nothing except for Soviet bureaucracy will drive a man to drink and apathy more than proactive meddling. Forgive me, but I am not optimistic that clinical depression and other intangibles will be taken into account by this return-to-work plan. And despite more such conditions, the overhaul proposal still contained the idea that the government might be unable to manage it and would have to involve private insurance companies in the scheme. My question: If the government can't even provide basic disability measures for people who lose limbs on the job, and has to farm it out to a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool sharks like the private sector insurance industry, what good is that? Is that really reform?

Another area where the unions have been stonewalled -- also this winter -- is proposed amendments to the Collective Bargaining Act. Here the idea is to give employers more wriggle room so that old collective agreements eventually run out -- even before a new agreement is reached. The problem here is that the government has behaved in such a bad-faith way with the unions vis-a-vis employers, that the unions don't expect there will be much dialogue or bargaining in the future. As far as they are concerned, they are probably serious when they say they fear the collective agreements will just be ripped up.

I understand that all this may be consistent with the government's platform and the holy principle of soundness of the public finances. I think financial soundness ("we're not Greece") may arguably have become a bigger selling point for the country than things like cyber defense (requires too much explaining). But there's a lack of a human face to it all, a whiff of paternalism, and I wonder whether these measures aimed at straitjacketing organized labor will really help make society stronger. It's like ACTA -- you could conceivably not implement it, but it's easier to implement it than you think. With ACTA, instead of a thriving, fertile, open-source innovation sector, you may end up with a stifling environment and a dead cyberspace where people don't have even access to their full cultural heritage. With the assault on employee's rights, instead of a flourishing real economy, you have a shifting landscape of insecurity, crumbling public services, lack of middle-class pride, crumbling brick and mortar, and places that don't produce anything. Might as well move to Greece.

EU INFO: A Citizen's Guide to Extradition in the New Era

It may have happened to someone you know. It will probably happen to you sooner or later. Maybe it was that download from that site. Maybe it was something you said about the US president on Facebook. Maybe it was just mistaken identity. All you know is that you were having breakfast one moment, and the next the local constable is at your door with two gentlemen from Tallinn. He's apologetic, but there's a hard set to his face you haven't seen before and it's clear you're to come with them, and now. What are the charges? They don't know, but it's all in a dossier they have in the capital city, in a foreign language and they say it looks pretty official. Yes, it's happened, you think as they push your head down. You're about to be…extradited.


What sorts of charges can I expect?

If you're lucky, you will be facing libel charges in Britain. Britain has a relatively high standard of living, not that you would find out first-hand, but it can be evident in certain aspects of civility and politeness you experience in your new life in pre-trial holding centers. Extradition will be automatic because Britain is nominally in the EU. From the capital of your country, you will be on the way to Gatwick the very next day.

The negative side, as noted, is that libel cases drag on for years. You could find yourself in legal limbo where your case never comes to trial due to a backlog and where you waste away in a regional holding center, although you will find yourself treated with respect, including behind your back, probably because the officials have an interest in avoiding slander charges themselves.

The libel charges against you could be based on anything you said in the last seven years online. The governments have maintained a rigorously cross-linked registry of IP addresses, MAC numbers and usage habits, so it's all on the record.

But the content of what you said may be contestable. Make sure you find out what the charges against you are before the case goes to trial, i.e. what they claim you said. This may be hard to do.

If you do succeed in finding out anything about your case, a last-ditch but surprising recourse may be to cite differences between British and US English -- sometimes a good strategy is just to own up to making the libelous statement but counter that the statement means the opposite in another variety of English.


But are libel charges out of thin air really a possibility for an ordinary citizen?

Tax charges in the US are another distinct possibility.

For anyone? Say I'm a guy with a paint shop in Tõrva. I don't have any business in the US.

It doesn't matter. If you own any property anywhere, it is a technically a piece of the global pie and the value of your property affects the percentage of American assets with respect to the rest of the world, and thus affects the money global investors have staked on making those assets grow. If you didn't do what you were supposed to, you could be in trouble with the IRS.

What should I have done?

Found out what your obligations were, obviously. And forms. Downloaded forms. Filled out forms. The more the better. And declared income, especially income not earned in the US but which was income contingent on US assets.

Contingent on US assets?

That's right.

But..

I know what you might be about to say, but ignorance of the law is no excuse. In fact, actually, ignorance of the law is punishable as a separate offense, under a US Congress bill being prepared for ratification right now by committee in a leading EU member. An extraditable offense.

This is crazy.

Look. If you have money, people will want it, including powerful people with bad cash flow. One of the best ways of getting it is to claim you said things that insulted their honor. Or the honor of their money. In another age, such matters were settled more speedily, in a duel. But now we rely on seconds -- trusted alternates known as the Justice Department and Interpol.

Think of yourself as lucky. If you're unluckier (and have specific enemies who know who you are), you may be charged with a sex crime based on unreliable testimony. However, this is usually reserved for politically exposed persons.

Sex crimes? Rape?

No, not rape, anything but. Some sort of failed attempt. You'll probably be in for something that sounds ineffectual and kinky and utterly perverted, like attempted frottage.

But if you're seriously unlucky, you will find yourself facing child pornography charges. The worst case scenario in this case is extradition to the US. While you're guaranteed to be raped in any US prison, in the case of sex offenders, the first rape usually happens as soon as the pretrial detention stage. In fact it could happen on the airplane ride to the US, when you are handcuffed to a Federal Marshal.

Unlike the case with libel, do not make an effort to find out anything about your case. Asking to be shown the culpable material can lead to even more serious charges, up to and including the death penalty.

On second thought, being on death row can substantially reduce the frequency of rape, so this may not be a bad idea. If you're being extradited to the US, you're basically a goner, so might as well take the most sequestered option.

This thing about rape in US prison…

Aboslutely true. There's a lot of differences in jurisprudence from state to state -- they need to have another Civil War to clear it up -- but one thing is certain, when push comes to poke. You will be violated. Multiple times. A whole dang bunch of times, as they say down there.