“Dear Colleagues,” by Viswa Priya, hydroforum, 12 October 2004, http://hydroforum.com/phpbbforo/archive/o_t__t_95__water-statistics.html.

“Hello Daniel,” email from “Priya,” nationmaster.com, 8 April 2005.

I hadn’t heard this before:

…asking for a refund is not legal or ethical on your part.

As you have paid for the next three months anyway, I suggest that you
utilize our services for the period and cancel just before the next
date of payment

I blogged before on my trials with nationmaster. In spite of of a direct, person-to-person request to cancel my subscription, they decided to keep billing me. I haven’t used their crummy service in months. Their response? I should keep enjoying their service.

Not only has nationmaster.com refused to refund my payments, they refuse to make a per diem refund.

My only contact is a supposedly named “Priya” with the genetic email of comments@nationmaster.com. A quick google search revealed a “Viswa Priya” hawking nationmaster instead of, you know, actually responding to customer requests.

If you want statistical information, there are some very good sources on the internet. Nationmaster is not one of them.

“Blow to machismo as Spain forces men to do housework,” by Giles Tremlett, The Guardian, 8 April 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1454802,00.html (from Democratic Underground).

The March 11th Terrorist Attacks were one of the most significiant in modern history. If September 11 was deeply ambiguous, March 11 was an unqualified success. al Qaeda removed a Coalition government from power, removed a Coalition partner from Iraq, and now…

Spanish men will have to learn to change nappies and don washing-up gloves under the terms of a new law designed to strike a blow at centuries of Latin machismo.

The law, due to be passed this month, is likely to provoke a revolution in family affairs in a country where 40% of men reportedly do no housework at all. It will oblige men to “share domestic responsibilities and the care and attention” of children and elderly family members, according to the draft approved by the Spanish parliament’s justice commission.

This will become part of the marriage contract at civil wedding ceremonies later this year.

Why is this important?

al Qaeda is a Lenninst organization. It has to alienate European Muslims from society to succeed in that continent. There’s a Barnettian and 4GW reason for this

• In Pentagon’s New Map (PNM) theory, connectivity is the key to success. We — the United States, the West, the Functioning Core — win when we build a web of connectivity. Information Connectivity converts the youth of other cultures to our ways of thinking. People Connectivity allows relocation of labor. Security Connectivity allows the state to protect the rights of individuals. al Qaeda is against this connectivity. It wants to unplug Europe’s Muslim from globalization’s grid.
  
• In Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), connectivity can be challenged. The three general stages of 4GW are
  
  1. Terrorize Government while building a base
     
  2. Contest Territory
     
  3. Seize the Country

  al Qaeda is clearly in 4GWS1 throughout Europe — cells and plots have been detected in many countries. al Qaeda trying to move to 4GWS2 in Europe. Territory won’t be contested conventionally — it will be tested through connectivity. al Qaeda needs neighorhoods of Muslims to be alienated from society and not to trust the state. al Qaeda, an extremist religious organization, needs an extremist secular government to achieve this. 4GWS3 may be a generation off, but the creation of “Muslim safe havens” is achievable within a generation if al Qaeda is lucky.

al Qaeda needs European Muslims to think the government is “messing with their women.” They need the desires of the state to be incompatible with conservative Islam. They need the government to do something stupid and alienating, like replace horizontal control in families with vertical controls. al Qaeda’s creature, the socialist government of Spain, is doing exactly that.