Saturday, March 10, 2007

[blogfocus saturday] across the pond

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like the Brits or anything but we're … well, we're family and all that and I'm always blogging about us. So I thought it was about time we crossed the pond and presented a few of our cousins.

Just what is it with the North Americans? They'd have to be the raciest bloggers on the block and sometimes even a tad difficult to follow but they generally blog with passion and that's the type of blogging I like. Hope you do too:


1
Sisu is one of those bloggers who's right at you on her slick looking site and from the photos above, you'd have to expect the unexpected:

If you build a viaduct over old stomping grounds, the animals will come. Above, elk crossing at the turnoff from Banff to the #1 highway to Calgary, with thanks to local animal watcher Judie Dyer. The elkway called to mind the totally awesome Saudi Arabian (we think) camelway we blogged here nearly three years back. "I like camels," wrote camelblogger Almamedi, The Religious Policeman [who has subsequently quit blogging to write a book] back then. "They have a look that says 'I was here before you, and I'll be here when you're gone.'" Alhamedi's words from July of 2004 resonate now more than ever.

2 Keith Demko, of Reel Fanatic, is one of my favourite bloggers, though sadly, I don't get over to him enough. This would have to be one of his most entertaining and if you love film, his would have to be a must-see every time:

With a little dose of "Being There" you could have our hero become president. Through a series of accidental encounters, he could get us in the middle of a bloody civil war in Iraq. I think even a hack like me could write some of this dialogue:

Cheney: Mr. President, 27 people died today in suicide bombings in Iraq.

President Gump: Well, like my momma always said: Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.

That's actually a little too close to reality for me. I think I'll just stop now before I get thoroughly depressed. Because, like Forrest says, "stupid is as stupid does," whatever the hell that means.

3 You have to smile at Bonnie Wren's blog. When you leave a comment, she hits you with this preview: Is this what you want to say? I mean, I have to ask. That's my JOB. I'm a PREVIEWER. Duh! If all's in order, she invites you to: Make it so, No. 1. Bonnie is sometimes a bit hard to fathom out but I did notice a passing reference to yours truly so the girl obviously has nothing to do. Actually, she's as busy as can be, thanks to the drug store:

Thanks to the excellent pharmaceuticals available over the counter I barely remember writing anything in February. In fact, in looking back at all the entries made in February I can only wonder who is the woman who figured out my password and why the heck she thinks she can tell tourists where to go in La Jolla. Well, that usurper can just move on out because I’m BACK. I can breathe. I still sound like a Klingon but hey! That just adds a little mystery to my marital relationship.

Eight more bloggers here.

[destruction of the lords] the road to autocracy

The Political Umpire is getting into the vital Lords question but sadly, he's gone astray. He starts well:

When Blair wanted the Hunting Act (HA) passed … [the] Lords forced him to face up to that by holding him to his original draft. One in the eye for the opportunist Blair. Another example was the disgusting lie put about by Gordon Brown concerning the Oxford applicant Laura Spence, an attempt at a bit of old-fashioned class war. The Commons was too busy point-scoring to expose Brown's lies for what they were. But the Lords came down on him like an executioner's axe including old-Labourite Roy Jenkins…

Rousing stuff, Political Umpire, so how on earth did that lead to this?

Hereditary peers have no justification. Appointments by PM patronage or some super-quango commission are a better option than hereditary peers but not much more than that.

PU, it is precisely the way the Lords was originally constituted which led to it being an effective House of Review. Elect them or even stack them from outside and the patronage system and the whip will turn the PM into a virtual dictator. And through this, the EU will become your master and mine.

[poll closed] next poll up

This Poll is closed: Regarding Seven Seven, did Tony Blair:

Know beforehand 83%
Not know beforehand 13%
Have a fair idea 4%

24 votes total

A new poll is up - whom do you think is more of a madman? Please take the poll in the right sidebar.

[george and hugo] thick skin needed in politics

Mussolini had nothing on this boy

This has to be some kind of classic rant from the monomaniacal madman himself:

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, leading 20,000 supporters in an anti-American rally, shouted "Gringo go home!" on Friday night to raucous applause in a crowded football stadium in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Alluding to Bush's waning years in office, Chavez said: "The US president today is a true political cadaver and now he does not even smell of sulphur anymore. What the little gentleman from the North now exudes is the smell of political death and in a very short time he will be converted into cosmic dust and disappear from the stage."

Chavez added that he did not come to "sabotage" Bush's visit, saying the timing was a coincidence, even as Bush landed in neighbouring Uruguay for a 36-hour visit.

Politics is sweet, n'est ce pas?

[expats] you can never come home

Do you remember the 2004 San Diego Acura Women’s Tennis Classic? Neither did I until I read a piece on some very bitchy comments which are now burnt into the psyche.

In a nutshell, there was a bit of stick between the Russian women players. Yelena Dementyeva said fellow countrywoman Maria Sharapova was "not really Russian."

Then French Open champion, Anastasia Myskina, joined the debate with: "Maria lives in the United States and she's more comfortable speaking English than she is speaking Russian," Myskina said. "I doubt she's been back to Russia since the age of seven."

It was Sharapova's reply which got me: "I don't feel American at all. I feel this is part of my job. Even though I train in America, I'm still Russian. I came to the United States because of my tennis. I moved here because of my tennis, not for anything else."

Now I don't know how you feel about it but to me this is a little, well, ungrateful and ungracious. That country has given her succour and helped her reach and win two major championship titles - doesn't she feel the least bit American?

I'm more than grateful that Russia, for all its internal flaws, tolerates me and so far appears to value my contribution. It doesn't make me Russian but I can tell you I'd never go to war against this country. Nor against Britain, America, Australia or Canada.

It's possibly best to feel this way about your adoptive country as research shows almost a third of repatriates end up abroad again, illustrating that coming home from an overseas assignment is often harder than leaving in the first place.

When expats return, there's a tendency to expect that life will continue just the way it was, that they can pick up from where they left off but their friends may have moved on and new co-workers and others get tired of hearing stories about life abroad.

Repats are often placed in specially constructed, temporary jobs and those in regular employment often feel threatened by returnees who might have advised prime ministers or worked for NASA, say.

They're rarely appreciated and often go back overseas, greatly disappointed. That's when the reality of their ghostly existence comes home to them.

Unwanted at home, never really accepted by their hosts, they live in a twilight world where their status is that of the eternal guest. Welcome guest, maybe but guest nonetheless.

It's not unlike a group of humans on an orbiting space station, discovering that the earth has been obliterated. There's a certain adjustment each crew member must personally make.

Somerset Maugham's The Lotus Eater springs to mind here. Would that that situation never arises.

Sharapova in Nationality Feud, Monday, Reuters, August 2, 2004;

Repatriation, Leslie Gross Klaff, Looksmart [U.S.A.], July, 2002.

[science] birds stressed out to see what happens

In a study of European black grouse, the researchers first put captive birds under stress to measure the levels of stress hormone corticosterone that emerged in their faeces.

The scientists then took that knowledge and used it to measure the stress hormone levels in animals in the south-western Swiss Alps. What they found was that native birds in outdoor recreation areas are suffering higher stress levels than birds in undisturbed habitats.

So, first the "correct" conclusion that off piste skiing is disturbing native wildlife in alpine regions and that indeed is a terrible thing. However, the bit which got me was: " researchers first put captive birds under stress to measure …" Could you, yourself, put some birds in your care under stress, immune to their cries of anguish, convinced that by torturing them, you were saving the planet?

Call me weak but I couldn't and certainly not if all it was going to prove was that off piste skiing can disturb wildlife. There appears to be a disconnection here between what the scientific community deems acceptable and humane and what is achieved by this.

[vale john inman] now you truly are free

Mike Berry, who played Mr Spooner in Are you Being Served?, told the BBC: "I felt like going home at the end of the day and ironing my face, he made me laugh so much! As funny as he was in front of the camera, he was funnier off.”

John Inman was a talent, who'll be
sadly missed by many.

[democracy] thoughts on a popular misconception

Tribute to Iain [Dale for those who've been living on the planet Zog]:

Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, Vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

Friday, March 09, 2007

[diana] just when you thought it was safe to return ...

I think … I hope … this is my last post on this. Hallelujah!

Testimony does not depend on which publication it is reported in. It's either on the record or it's not and though I plan to go through the last Diana piece and redo the links [probably on Sunday], the primary purpose was just to collate testimony this time round, particularly that of eyewitnesses. I was too tired at the end to do much more.

The secondary purpose was not so much to convince the reader, who has his or her own prejudices but to provide a dossier of the known and reported data, in order to answer false claims, should another whitewash be organized.

For Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to investigate herself, at taxpayer's expense, then to claim she'd 'never seen evidence' is exactly like the French police claiming that despite the CCTV and radar cameras all along the Voie Georges Pompidou, none of the outside CCTV cameras on any of the buildings along the route showed anything relevant to the crash probe.

A further example is when a colleague said: "Oh, the driver was drunk, wasn't he?" Well no, it certainly doesn't look like he was. Even a cursory reading of the evidence on this point would show that. And yet that view persists among the public, on the strength of a flawed autopsy report which three separate medical teams who reviewed it found to be simply unsound and upon an unwillingness to view the actual evidence.

This is the sort of thing I find intensely annoying - making claims without evidence and parroting the official line, especially when the official line has been shown to be erroneous and the authorities themselves have retracted the more outrageous of the distributed assessments.

So all right. For what it's worth, having viewed this material, certain things seems clear. There's little doubt that the Mercedes was being harassed by two cars and a few motorbikes and this lays the blame squarely at the feet of the paparazzi, who have much to answer for.

But for one of the bikes to swing only metres in front of a Mercedes descending into a tunnel at 120kph and for the pillion passenger to swing round and shoot a blinding flash into the driver's eyes, whilst at the same time a Fiat collides with the front corner of the big car and a third car knocks the Mercedes on the side, this seems a trifle more than paparazzi harassment.

At a minimum, this is tantamount to manslaughter. The alternative is that the Mercedes was being shepherded into the pillar. And that's a whole new ball game.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

[diana] the chronology collated

For nine hours now, on the International Day of Women, I've been silent, as I've been collating all the details I have on the Diana case into some semblance of order. It's my little gift to her memory.

The only way I can get any order into this thing is to present each point in the story with all the available evidence relating to that point - eyewitness accounts, official versions and statistics and then trust to the reader to make some sense of it. It's a long read but I hope it presents the facts accurately:

Early indication

From the mid 1990's, Diana released a series of audio, videotapes and letters voicing her fears that she would be killed in a car crash made to look like an accident. In one letter, Diana stated, "My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry”.

July, 1997

The Chicago Tribune on July 15, 1997 wrote: The 36-year-old princess was pictured late Monday leaning over a yacht and reportedly telling the reporters: "You are going to get a big surprise, you'll see. You are going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do."

Robert Jobson, London Evening Standard, June 25, 2004 wrote: "Author Andrew Morton, in his new book, Diana: In Pursuit Of Love, alleges British or US intelligence had forced Diana to change her plans to stay with American billionaire Teddy Forstmann in the summer of 1997, saying it was too dangerous to take her sons there. The block on her travel plans meant that instead, she took a summer break with Mohamed Fayed."

The Private Secretary's leave and Tony Blair's plane

On the night of the 30th/31st, Sir Robin Janvrin was based in the equerries' room, where he also fielded incoming messages. He was on duty because his superior — the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, had taken a weekend's leave.

A middle-aged English wireless operator at the embassy in Paris came on duty in the early evening of August 30, expecting his night shift to be routine, sending encrypted phone calls and messages from the embassy via UK listening stations to Downing Street, the heads of Whitehall departments and, if necessary, senior aides of the Royal Family.

Just before midnight, as Diana was preparing to leave the Ritz Hotel with Dodi two well-spoken men burst through the door of the communications room. Described as "public school", they ordered this operative to leave his post and not to return until told. He told a colleague: "It was that bastard Fellowes. He turfed me out of my own office."

The collation continues here.

In Keeping with the Times

Deogolwulf lurks beneath the erudite and highbrow Joy of Curmudgeonry up in Lancashire and is wont to opine: Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað, which I'm sure you'd agree has a certain ring to it. So read on, intrepid reader, then get you over to his site for your daily dose of curmudgeonry with an edge:

"Nothing avails: one must go forward—step by step further into decadence" [1]. Nietzsche was never one to understate his case; but if one has not yet succumbed to the doctrine of the proverbial ostrich, one might still see that customs, old institutions, anything that smacks, in a word, of tradition: all such must now be cast aside in keeping with the times, that is to say, in keeping with a political passion and a public temper that cannot tolerate anything that might hold it back; for there has crept into the mind of modern man a quite pathetic submission to the practicalities of political power.
The dangers we have to fear may roughly be summed up in the single word — disintegration. It is the end to which we are being driven, alike by the defective working of our political machinery, and by the public temper of the time. [2]
The odd thing about modern "progressive" man — what sets him apart from his forebears — is that when some old custom or institution, tamed and made humane by time and bitter trial, is said to be not in keeping with the present times, then it is not the present times to which he directs his critical eye, so as to see what therein makes it intolerant of that thing, but rather his eye fixes narrowly on that thing itself, as though it were the wild and dangerous upstart, the foreign interloper — and this in an age that quite ludicrously prides itself on its tolerance! It is an age, however, in which the greater part of tolerance is given over to that which destroys.
Nowadays it is enough that any idea or proposal be meant in the conservative’s sense for it to come to nothing; only that which disintegrates and levels has any real power now. [3]
The present merits of an old custom or institution, its historic service to ideals such as harmony, authority, liberty, or justice — always imperfectly realised — cannot bear scrutiny in a mind that has been seduced by the promise of perfection, still less in one that has been flattered into believing that this perfection is a birthright soon to be realised in the practical application of political power.
Devices laboriously set up to keep popular passions within bounds are now derided as little better than superstitions. [4]
The hubris with which modern "progressive" man proceeds will likely lead to all the adverse consequences which experience relates, unless, that is, there will be something new or hitherto unseen in the unfettered but harnessed expression of popular passions, something that leads to more than just a practical, brutish, and uncultured system for the accrual of power and wealth. One would have to be quite the hopeful fool to believe it likely — and quite in keeping with the times.
.....
[1] F.W. Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, in The Portable Nietzsche, (New York: The Viking Press, 1954), §43, p. 547; original emphasis.
[2] Lord Salisbury, "Disintegration", in Quarterly Review, October 1883, quoted by Andrew Roberts, Salisbury: Victorian Titan (London: Phoenix, 2000), pp. 274-5.
[3] ["Es genügt heutigentags, daß irgendein Gedanke, ein Vorschlag im Sinne der Konservativen gemeint sei, so ist es praktisch nichts damit; nur das Auflösende und Nivellierende hat jetzt wirkliche Kraft."] Jacob Burckhardt, Brief an Friedrich von Preen, 17. November 1876, Briefe (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1929), p. 421.
[4] Richard M. Weaver, "Review of Betrand de Jouvenal, On Power: Its Nature and the History of its Growth", The Commonweal, Vol. 50:19, 9th August 1949; reprinted in In Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963, ed. by T.J. Smith III (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000), p.514.

[lords destruction bill] last obstacle to eu removed

In some of the most slanted language this blog have yet to read in a major news source, Adrian Croft, of Reuters, wrote:

MPs voted on Wednesday for a historic shake-up of the tradition-bound Lords, saying all or most of its members should be elected instead of appointed as most are now. If put into practice, the vote could transform the influence and image of the centuries-old Lords, which is at the centre of a storm over suspected illegal political funding.

It is not at the "centre of a storm". Certain people who are in the chamber are at the centre, not the institution and the Lords itself, as an entity, has absolutely nothing to do with it. This attempt by the controlled media to create an exasperated mood of 'how much more are we to put up with' is precisely what the Nazi regime created over the Jews. Same tactic.

And there is one of the main thrusts of the funding scandal and why it saw the light of day. The role of the Lords was such a crucial obstacle to Tony's masters but this vote, coupled with the EU constitution legislation, forced into existence irrespective of referenda results and public opinion polls, shows what we're up against. I come back again to Martine Martin's words:

I will argue that point to the death. I've never read an argument yet for this that stands up in any way. To say that an unelected second chamber is somehow "inappropriate for the 21st century" reeks of an incredibly superficial understanding of democracy and our parliamentary system in general. As we know, any banana republic can have elections. They're meaningless compared to all the other nuances of a political system created in order to remove the potential for corruption or abuse of power.

This blog has already put forward proposals on the reconstruction of the Lords which would have accommodated any genuine concern over abuses but that's not what this latest vote is about. It's about nothing more nor less than the reconstitution of a once noble House as a rubber stamp for an autocratic ruler who, in turn, is subservient to his EU masters and then, by definition, to the Finance they themselves serve in Bavaria and Paris.

People of Britain, please wake from the slumber you've been lulled into. If you do not protest this vehemently, your last rights as citizens will have passed irrevocably out of your hands. You've been fragmented - some chasing the cash-for-peerages, some chasing other scandals, some still concerned with Iraq and rightly so, rightly so.

But to ignore this threat to democracy because it's not the flavour of the month or because you have a natural distaste for toffy-nosed aristocrats is to fail to see the thorn in the side of Blair and his masters that this House has been. Now that thorn has been extracted.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

[poll] old poll finished, new poll up

Result of previous poll on "Who'll be Prez?"

Obama 82%
The Lizard Queen 2%
Giuliano 11%
McCain 0%
A dark horse 5%
[55 votes total]

New poll: Regarding 7/7, did Tony Blair:

Know before
Not know before
Had a fair idea

Please leave your vote in the right sidebar.

[tony blair] honest, upright leader we can all count on

Paul Linford is showing surprising horror at what has been quite obvious for some time from a close scrutiny of the documentation. Under the heading "Be afraid...be very afraid", he states:

My attention has been drawn to an excellent but extremely disturbing post on
Rachel from North London today predicting some potentially shattering forthcoming revelations with regard to the use of intelligence prior to the 7/7 bombings.

Meaning perhaps that Blair was involved? No Paul, that could never be - Tony is an honest, decent man who never lies. Here's evidence he never lies:

1998 Hansard:

Mr. Gill: To ask the Prime Minister which members of his Government have attended meetings of the Bilderberg Group. [34298]

The Prime Minister [holding answer 16 March 1998]: None.
30 Mar 1998 : Column: 377

Very interesting:

Tony Blair From Elitewiki
Current OccupationPrime Minister, United Kingdom, 1997+Patron,
Westminster Foundation for Democracy 2005
Previous Occupation Shadow Home Secretary, Labour Party 1992 - 1994 Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, Labour Party - 1988
Political ActivityParticipant,
World Economic Forum 2005 Attendee Bilderberg 1993 April 22nd - 25th

Also interesting:


1991 Conference, Baden-Baden, Germany, 6-9 June

United Kingdom -
Gordon Brown (Opposition MP - Parliament)
Lawrence Freedman (Professor)
Christopher Kgg
Andrew Knight (Editor - News International)
Lord Roll of Ipsden (Conservative Politician, Warburg Banker)
John Smith (Leader of the Opposition)
Patrick Wright (Head of Diplomatic Service)

Captain, oh my Captain, Tony. I shall sail with you into oblivion. [Hat tip: Martin]

[blogfocus wednesday] twelve true tales of today

1 Matt must indeed be An Insomniac to be in so many places at one time. Here he gives a very neat little justification for meat eating, not that I needed any encouragement:

Cutting costs ultimately means a drop in the quality of living conditions for livestock – lower quality food, less room, more chemicals to speed up growth, etc. The consequences of this will be that smaller producers will be squeezed out of the market, as large scale industrial farms can afford to put out cheaper (if lower quality) meat and withstand market pressure better. So convincing people to become vegetarian, whatever its symbolic value, will favour industrial farming methods and lead to worse conditions for livestock.


2 Welshcakes, cuisine blogger extraordinaire at Sicily Scene, writes of Modica and in doing so, says much about Sicily itself:

Modica has a lovely and charming theatre, the Teatro Garibaldi and for years when I first used to come here I was frustrated because I could never get inside: it was always in restauro. Finally it was restored to its former glory but in 2001 the new roof fell in! Miraculously, no one was injured. Now six of those involved in that restoration project have received suspended prison sentences. I should add that the theatre is now functioning again and if you are in Modica it really is worth a visit.

3 Westminster Wisdom certainly comes out with the good oil on whatever issue he tackles, usually historical but this time it's the Scooter Libby question:

Libby's fall though has prompted people to raise some more provocative questions about the longterm in the United States. Jonathan Martin thinks that it makes it very difficult for the Republicans in 2008, Frank Luntz is speculating about the long term future of the Republican party itself. Personally I think that's overblown- the damage will be to Bush and to this administration, it might make it harder for a Republican but I still think their candidate will have a chance in 2008 besides a lot may change by then.

Another nine bloggers here.

[international women's day] march 8th in russia

Age cannot wither her nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.


[Will the Bard 1607]

You can try. You can try your level best to inure yourself against women, to self-containedly lose yourself in books and blogging, to strive for self-sufficiency but when once woman comes close and fixes you with those eyes and does this little thing and that little thing and licks her lips - there is no defence. When she surrounds you with her companionship and you see how dire life would be without her, you're gone. Unless you're a fish.

[rape ad] dolce and gabbana belatedly withdraw

I was searching around for a nice story to counterbalance my current shocking mood and the raft of grim posts I've posted in the last two days. Didn't have much luck - I came across this instead:

Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana will withdraw an advertisement that shows a man pinning a woman by her wrists after widespread criticism. "We have decided to cancel ... the advertising image that has caused such repercussions within human interest groups and individuals," Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana said in an emailed statement. "We were looking to recreate a game of seduction in the campaign and highlight the beauty of our collections," the designers said.

Let's have that again: "We were looking to recreate a game of seduction in the campaign and highlight the beauty of our collections."

Seduction? Beauty? Are these people sane?

[garuda crash] imagine you were in it

Have you ever imagined yourself actually being aboard a plane when things like this happen?

Passengers on a Garuda plane in which dozens of people are feared dead have told of panic and screams as people tried to escape the flaming wreckage. Dozens of people were killed when the aircraft crashed and burst into flames after landing in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta.

Dien Syamsuddin described the moment when the plane crashed, saying it landed heavily before overshooting the runway by about 300 metres.

"The aircraft was swaying and there was maybe something wrong with the engine. (The landing) was very hard the first time and the second time, the aircraft was outside the boundary of the airport. The lights on board went out and the cabin filled with smoke after the plane came down heavily. I felt the emergency exit was empty, nobody there, behind me there was also screaming. That was all I can tell."

Ruth Bamggadan said she was sitting near the emergency exit when the plane came to rest.

"One of my colleagues, she told everybody to stay calm and leave their belongings. People were panicking, it was really chaotic. Some people were helping the older ladies but we were really close to the door so we had to get out first. After I get out of the plane an explosion started. I think it is from the right side of the plane because we get out from the left side and the left side there are no fire yet at the moment.Then some explosions come again and I didn't see the whole flames.''

One of the crashes I always come back to is the Tenerife crash between KLM and Pan Am. It keeps coming back to haunt me because I know every detail of it. We're always just 'that' far away from it. The closest I came, apart from turbulence and steep drops, was at Heathrow in 2000, when the BA plane suddenly dropped 5 000 feet, as it was circling, on orders from the tower. We all saw the other plane out of the windows, so the pilot came on to the intercom and said:

"You've probably seen our neighbour over on the starboard side. Don't worry, he's on a different flight path to us."


Er, yeah.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

[fragility] one click and your blog is gone

This has been blogged on by many, the poor man:

Earlier this month, Abdel-Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student at al-Azhar Islamic university, became the first Egyptian jailed for his blogging when he was handed a four-year prison sentence. The case against Suleiman, a Muslim and a liberal who uses the name Kareem Amer on his blog, was based on a complaint by al-Azhar University about eight articles written since 2004.

Suleiman accused the conservative Sunni institution of promoting extremist thought and described some companions of the Prophet Mohammed as "terrorists". He also compared President Hosni Mubarak to the dictatorial Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.

Could it have been otherwise for Suleiman in such a regime? But before we start to congratulate ourselves that it could not be so in our own increasingly oppressive regime, it only takes one click and you're blocked, mate. Or something more draconian - Blogger gets shut down in one blow. What have we left? The telephone? The e-mail?

I always operate on the basis that each time I go to my site, it's just not going to be there. Of course, that's a completely different thing to being thrown into prison for having an opinion.

[blogfocus] tomorrow evening, wednesday

Starting yesterday, unfortunately, they've put an extra three hours a day on me for the next three weeks and something has to give. The way round it is to run a slightly shorter Blogfocus tomorrow but this evening I simply can't, sorry - I have to prepare for these people tomorrow. I'll try to get a post up later and another tomorrow morning. Bear with me, please.

[diana] … and one last thing, if I may

There are three fundamentally illogical positions taken by the 'it was simply an accident' devotees:

1] The Butler-Sloss position is not illogical in itself but it has the greatest gall if it hopes to be taken seriously. You can't blame her for doing as she has in defending her department but the notion that it was in any way a fair and impartial analysis or an impartial decision is a hoot. Hence the jury hearing, which in itself is capable of being rigged.

This is exactly like Tony doing his own investigation of cash-for-honours, then gravely announcing to the country his personal self-exoneration, announced by the most impartial and venerated commoner in the realm - namely himself.

2] The second illogical position is for someone to say: "Well, I don’t believe in all that conspiracy theory stuff. Let's just move on. Everyone's sick of it."

Well, you'd be pleased to know that this blog is also dead against conspiracy theory. The evidence in the last post was all on the record [though parts of it have subsequently been expunged by person or persons unknown] and the worst that can be said is that it is circumstantial. But it's certainly not theory. Those people really did see and say those things.

3] The third illogical position is to read but not comment, then post a counter argument without addressing the issues in this one or refuting the evidence. As if this article had never been written, in other words. When someone writes that black is white, when everyone can clearly see it's black, then either the person who wrote it is not completely au fait with the evidence or else he or she has an agenda.

This Diana thing might have been the fault of the paparazzi, it might have been the fault of Henri Paul, it might have been the sheer incompetence of officials but one thing it most certainly was not - it was not an accident.

[diana] when these are answered, we may move on

About the only PC term this blog would concur with is 'closure'. Like Hamlet's ghost, ofttimes the business is unpleasant and all anyone ever desires is to lay the matter to rest but a soul can never rest until justice is finally done.

I am no ghoul. I have not the least desire to rake over old coals. However, to gloss over clear anomalies in the name of 'moving on' when it is as clear as day that we can't move on under the current circumstances, this is plain wrong.

So, at the risk of my readership, I re-present some unanswered points:

Tony Blair's plane

The RAF crew which flew Tony Blair from his Sedgefield constituency to London to greet the Princess’s repatriated body had been on continual standby to make the flight from two days earlier.

Sir Robin Janvrin was based in the equerries' room, where he also fielded incoming messages. He was on duty because his superior — the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, had taken a weekend's leave.

Two senior MI6 gave evidence to Lord Stevens, then later produced tickets and documents dating from 1997 which prove they were not in Paris that weekend. One was in the South of France with his wife and in-laws. The other was taking a short trip to Greece.

A middle-aged, English wireless operator at the embassy in Paris came on duty in the early evening of August 30, expecting his night shift to be routine, sending encrypted phone calls and messages from the embassy via UK listening stations …

Article continues here.

Monday, March 05, 2007

[sources] the msm is still the one to trust

Mr Eugenides had this today:

And they wonder why people
don't trust blogs? It's the sheepish yet graceless retraction this morning that makes this funny.

He was referring to the Alex Hilton post, reporting Maggie Thatcher's death. Hilton says he was given dud info by a 'journo friend'. Some friend.

Whether or not Hilton did it just to boost his traffic, [which of course it did - enormously] or whether he made a genuine mistake late at night and didn't check his sources sufficiently, it does bring the blogosphere under severe scrutiny and temporarily relieves the pressure on the MSM.

I'd been planning to write a piece anyway, defending the MSM, but this Hilton biz has already done it for me.

What it also does is make me scrutinize my own posts, for example the very last one, on Diana's death. I'd like to say I scoured 17 articles of all hues before coming out with that and I'm preparing a follow up right now with 10 questions the enquiry needs to answer.

One mustn't make statements unless they can be backed up. I hope that mine can be; I think they can. I suppose when we can't find backup, we're faced with a dilemma.

For example, I certainly had a piece on file, before my computer crash, asking why an 'older' man was seen by one of the orderlies going into the emergency room unaccredited and not wearing surgical clothing and why he was standing at the foot of where Diana lay, speaking some phrases repeatedly, then was not there when the orderly returned.

I had that piece on file but then it and dozens of others on my 'D' disk were lost in the crash, along with all the programmes. Does that mean that this information can then never see the light of day? In the MSM that's so - unless it's double sourced, it doesn't go in.

The Voluntary Code Free Zone banner above is clear enough but now I don't know if we shouldn't at least follow some basic protocols on sourcing. That's if we wish to be taken seriously, that is.

[diana] butler-sloss well out of order on this one

As Ian Hislop once said: "If this is justice, then I'm a banana."

Elizabeth Butler-Sloss,
pre-empting the jury inquiry, said on Monday she had not seen "a shred of evidence" to back up claims she had been murdered.

Now I'm no lawyer, unlike some of my learned fellow bloggers but this seems to me to be well out of order, offering an opinion before an investigation she'll be co-heading even gets underway.

Appeal court judge Janet Smith, on the other hand, said: "Mr Al Fayed has alleged that the Duke of Edinburgh and the security services conspired to kill the princess and Dodi Al Fayed. The allegation must be inquired into."

Damned right. Fayed knows exactly what went on in the emergency room and who was in there when Diana was taken in there. He knows why the delay in getting her to emergency, so that certain persons could be present and he probably knows why they had to be there in a non-medical capacity. And why they departed soon after.

It will be interesting to see if this comes out or not.

[russian president] ivanov and medvedev firm favourites

The biggest question in Russia just now is what Putin is up to, vis a vis the presidential election.

He certainly doesn't seem to be running, himself, as he announced "a reshuffle on Thursday, appointing defence minister Sergei Ivanov as first deputy prime minister, equal to Dmitry Medvedev, who already holds that position, and who has been widely tipped as Ivanov’s main rival in the 2008 presidential election."

“Thus begins the unfolding of Putin’s answer to the 2008 problem,” the daily Izvestia wrote. “There will be no 'successor' to the post of president, the voters will have to chose between absolutely equal candidates.”

The speculation can now begin as to Putin's broader game. If the two deputies will have to fight it out and if both are now being given a free rein to boost themselves before the poll and if there is no clearcut winner at the poll, would that mean Putin would be waiting in the wings to take over again in 2012?

Or is it Putin's way of observing which one to throw his weight behind, thus truly ending his era and ushering in a new? Surely Putin will be very much in the background, perhaps as some sort of elder statesman. And what of Khodorkovsky? When he comes out, won't revenging himself be very much on his mind?

Either Vladimir Putin is playing his cards close to his chest or else he's simply playing according to the rules, thereby enhancing the chances for genuine democracy in Russia, despite what his fiercest critics say.

Or perhaps he has a third motivation - to leave office a Russian statesman who put a divided country back together and back on the world map. His legacy may be very close to his heart, more so than continuing in power.

Or else he knows of the coming world disaster the Finance is planning and doesn't want to be at the helm at that time.

Intriguing.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

[britblog 107] from the keyboard of mr eugenides

Get thee over to Mr Eugenides henceforth, for the first non-Tim Worstall Britblog Roundup and a humdinger it is too.

[sunday quiz] is your history hazy or honed

Sorry it's a bit late:

1 The ancient region of Nubia is in which two modern countries?

2 Eboracum is the roman name for which city?

3 In which country is Waterloo, where the battle took place?

4 The Condor Legion was the name of the German air force flying for Franco's nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War. What was the name of the Irish volunteers on Franco's side?

5 The War of Jenkin's Ear (1739) was waged between which two countries?

6 Was Operation Sea Lion in the Second World War the invasion of Britain or the evacuation at Dunkirk ?

7 What was the name of Haile Selassie before he was crowned in 1930?

8 What was the name of the cult that Charles Manson led which killed at least seven people and what was the similar sounding name the British Royal family gave itself, particular in the days of the last Georges?

9 Which Republic has existed in France since 1958? [1st, 7th, 14th or which?]

10 Which other country joined the EEC at the same time as Ireland and Denmark?

Answers here. How did you do?

[iceland news] no fatal traffic accidents this year

This blog adores Icelandic news. As Euroserf once commented, "In the middle of a hectic day of a hectic life, Iceland seems somehow peacefully inviting doesn't it?" Now here's their latest classic:

No one has been killed in traffic in Iceland in the first two months of 2007. In January and February last year four people lost their lives in traffic accidents, and on average in 2006, one person died in traffic every 12 days. “The goal of the road safety plan of the government is that there will be no more fatal traffic accidents in Iceland than in countries where the situation is best,” stated an announcement from the Road Traffic Directorate.

“It is important to continue this development by respecting speed limits, using safety equipment in cars and using it right, and do everything we can to prevent driving under the influence of alcohol and other euphoric substances,” the announcement continued. Furthermore, it was stated: “2006 was the second worst year regarding fatal accidents in Iceland in 25 years. A civilized nation cannot accept that.”

I don't know what it is about Iceland - is it the provincial nature of their largely non-news, presented seriously and fully attributed, even down to "Morganbladdid said this"? Or is it the quaint English, such as 'euphoric substances' in the above post? Or is it the amazing Icelandic names such as Bjorgolfur Gudmansson and Vilhjalmur Th. Vilhjamsson?

Or the quaint thinking processes? I once wrote to Iceland Review, asking if they were serious and had a very prim and proper reply but the niceness of the lady made me feel a cynical, curmudgenonly heel and I vowed never to take the p--s again. And yet here are some classics which can bring tears to the eyes:

Icelandic bitch has record number of puppies;

German author publishes fantasy novel about Iceland;

… and these stories demanded their own posts:

[icelandic pervert] window peeper busted in akureyri

[bloody vikings] no spam for these boys

My favourite though was a two paragaph post trying to beat up the fact that it was + 17 degrees at the start of summer. It concluded:

Many people have taken the day off. This explains why not much is happening in the country, as you can see from the lack of news.

[flawed hero] the tragedy of gary ablett

Nobody's interested in someone else's sport. The Americans skip over English football, the English ignore New Zealand club rugby. Goals, points, handpasses - when they're not your local heroes, they're simply a yawn.

Just occasionally, sportsmen like Beckam, Bradman, Alabama Pitts, Truman, Jordan, Shaq, Babe Ruth, Jona Lomu, Tyson, George Best, Shane Warne and Popov come along and their ability is inconceivable. Transcending the field of sport, soon to be cultural icons, more often than not their off field antics, their inability to simply live as human beings, makes them the stuff of legends and of course, of tragedy. Everyone is fascinated by a tragedy.

Such a man was Gary Ablett, of the AFL team Geelong, at a time when I was living in Australia in the 80s. He ended up, like Eric Clapton, being called G-d in the graffiti and in the flow of adulation which engulfed him everywhere he tried to turn. Everyone wanted a piece of him.

And on Saturdays, they'd flock to see the goliath perform his superhuman antics, often seeming to suspend the laws of physics as he quite legally, under the laws of the Australian game, bestrode other men's shoulders in his climb to the stratosphere to take in a high grab. Once asked about a particular spectacular he'd taken, he replied: "It was a good mark but wasn't such a good landing."

Therein lies the story of Gary Ablett. Not the most articulate of men, his tale is one of soaring for the stars then crashing heavily to earth and he rarely let you down on the field. When opposition fans saw him take a grab or whip up the ball from the turf, shoulders sagged all round and they'd mutter: "Bloody Ablett," with a touch of awe. The goal was usually a foregone conclusion.

He came from the right side of the tracks for a footballer - a street fighting, bar brawling country boy, with massive shoulders and an athlete's body; he'd been on the shady side of the law more than a few times, he'd once hospitalized a man. When he hit the big smoke, he was no immediate hit, joining his brothers' club and stifling in its atmosphere. Then he went to the flashy, lightning quick Geelong, of the western district 'old money', a one town club who knew how to worship a hero. Ablett was on clover but even here lay the seeds of the later tragedy.

Gary Ablett's story concludes here.