Saturday, March 24, 2007

[blogfocus saturday] some stalwarts, some new

A rose between two thorns or are they also roses?

1
Is this piece by Andrew Alison, arch-conservative, amazing or is it amazing? And who can gainsay Andrew on this?

I have never been a fan of John Prescott, but I must give credit, where credit is due. He used a PowerPoint presentation to tell us of his visit to our partner school in Sierra Leone and gave a good and witty speech. The pupils told us of their experiences visiting different countries; did an international rap song, as well as a Chinese dance. They were great, and Mr Prescott really praised them. So good on him for that.

2 If Nu-Labour think they've got away with something there, Bel puts paid to that with this piece on Broony:

Gordon Brown’s misery deepens. On Wednesday, he was prancing around with a sharp knife, pretending to be a taxcutter. The ploy backfired, and he ended up slitting his own throat instead. Almost everybody saw through his illusory tax cut, and by his own actions, he has now freed the timid Conservative Party to start talking about tax cuts. Today brings even worse news for him. A Yougov poll for the Daily Telegraph conducted after the Budget gives the Conservatives an eight-point lead.

3 Let it never be said that this blog doesn't run the views of the opposition, in this case, the NSS, brought to us bythe accommodating Matt Murrell:

For me, the only type of secularism worth supporting is that which is synonymous with freedom of religion - the idea that the government has no right to interfere with the freedom of religious organisations, except where those organisations interfere with the freedom of the individual. The NSS has done a lot of good in this direction, campaigning against compulsory worship in schools and against the EU declaring itself a Christian organisation.

Nine more bloggers here.

[saturday quiz] know your ants

Two famous ants. Now to the quiz:

1 Among the
Native American religions the Hopi mythology claims that the first animal was:
a] the ant
b] the woolly mammoth
c] Genghis Khan

2 The Japanese word ari is represented by an ideograph formed of the character for insect combined with the character signifying moral rectitude. It refers to:
a] the grasshopper
b] the ant
c] the greater spotted purwill

3 Muslims in general avoid killing a particular creature, due to it being mentioned in religious texts. Which creature?
a] Christians
b] the ant
c] the ant's nearest cousin

4
Boric acid and borax are excellent for killing off which creature?
a] Genghis Khan
b] Christians
c] the ant

5 Pavement, Pharaoh, Argentine and Carpenter are all names for which creature?
a] the pig
b] the lesser crested purwill
c] the ant

6 The
Santander people like to toast alive and eat which unfortunate denizen of nature?
a] Genghis Khan
b] the greater steppe yak
c] the ant

7
Charles Thomas Bingham noted that in parts of India, and throughout Burma and Siam, a paste of a green creature (Oecophylla smaragdina) is served as a condiment with curry. Which creature?
a] the sikh
b] the hindu
c] the ant

8 If you unscramble the "nat" and the "tan", you get which two words?
a] the ant
b] the horse latitudes
c] Genghis Khan

9 Which animal lives in a hot climate?
a] the polar bear
b] the yeti
c] the ant

10 Sol the King said, in Proverbs 6:6: "Go to ___ thou sluggard." [Fill in the gap]
a] the yeti
b] the ant
c] Genghis Khan

11 It has been estimated that brain of ___ may have the same processing power as a Macintosh II computer. [Fill in the gap]
a] Tony Blair
b] the ant
c] George Bush

12 The introduction of a writing system based on the Uighur script was NOT due to one of these? Which one?
a] Temüjin
b] Genghis Khan
c] the ant

Answers to questions 1 to 12:

the ant

Further reading and confirmation of some of these answers here and here and here and here.
Bonus question for those kind enough to indulge me thus far:

Which Mongol leader of the early 1200s will be forever associated with the ant?
a] Tony Blair
b] the red crested purwill
c] Genghis Khan

[I know the answer but I'm not going to tell you.]

[bullying] confessions of a cad

Ian Ogilvy, the School Bully

The trouble with bullying is defining it. Some cases are as clear as day. Workplace bullying is well known, school bullying is rife, I've seen girls bullying girls something awful and head teachers can bully staff. Army bullying has been seen by most undertaking officer training, particularly for subaltern rank. Sometimes it's less clearcut and comes down to perceptions.

I once had someone try it on with me while I was working for HM Customs. This 'gentleman', who had just been promoted above me, decided to reorganize my work station which I had 'just so'. It had taken a year of negotiation with my supervising officer and the Inspector to get the standing orders rewritten and so I wasn't going to put up with that.

When I explained to the 'worthy gentleman' his error of judgement and the consequences of ever coming within two metres of my desk again, he went beserk and 'belittled me' with every swearword he could dream up, stood over me physically, [I'm not a tall man], then officially complained about my 'uncooperativeness'.

I compiled a dossier on him over the next fortnight - when he turned up to work, when he actually began work, which girls he was using HM's time chatting up and so on. It reached the Inspector's desk at the end of the month and naturally got no further but it did get 'my friend' off my back. Trouble was, I didn't let up and arranged 'little accidents' for him and when I'd get to work, I'd go over to 'supervise' his own station for him, making little comments on the state of his desk and so on. I was hauled over the coals for that.

So who was the bully?

I posit that there is blogosphere bullying too. Some big bloggers will only give the time of day to sites who link to them and then refuse to link back. Some august circles of blogfriends consistently won't quote you but will then run a post by one of them on that topic and immediately link. Some consider that the Blogpower issue and the Great Blogwars some weeks later were getting close to bullying.


While the bullying question is vexed, I've always liked Eleanor Roosevelt's comment and try to remember it as some sort of mantra:

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.


Girls are not always sugar and spice.

Friday, March 23, 2007

[cool blogschemes] things stumbled into


I'm in eight schemes:

1] Blogpower - the most human one of all. Join us and other members will come round to your place, visit and comment. This is a real community, medium-tech, where everyone knows everyone else. It has no political view, no common thread except that sense of helping one another.

2] MyBlogLog - I really like this one and would love to see Blogpowerers in it too because many of our regular reads are there. Some may see it as rivalling Blogpower or at least preventing members from joining Blogpower. I can't comment on that but it's nice to see those faces appear and know that a human being is reading your site.

3] BlogLinker.com - I got into this through an American site and the idea is that if you link, this person automatically links back to you.

4] Right Links Banner Exchange - The brainchild of Euroserf, this links right wing and Eurosceptic bloggers to each other and was the first scheme I was in. Very useful for finding people of a similar political bent.

5] Eurosceptic Bloggers - Another of Euroserf's ideas, the name says it all. I need to spend a lot more time here but their latest is always e-mailed to me.

6] RSS - I don't understand it at all but I'm told that somehow I got into it. I suspect either Tom Paine or Thunderdragon put me in and thanks for that. I don't know what it's meant to do but it seems cool enough if the Dragon is in it.

7] Blogrolling.com - Not so much a scheme as a wonderful way of organizing one's blogroll, once you've entered all your links in a really easy to understand manner, you can change them round, add info, revise and do anything you want - it automatically appears in your sidebar.

8] Voluntary Code Free Zone - A scheme started by Disillusioned and Bored, to resist the attempt by the authorities to impose a code of practice on the blogosphere.

I've also now redone my Blogrolls, changed the format and the way I link, added 6 and deleted 1. After much soul searching, I felt the only fair way was to roll according to frequency of interaction but none of these lists are immutable. My cunning plan is to revise the lists every Sunday.

[friday quiz] are you a true scientist

With all the recent references in this blog to scientists, here's a chance to prove you are one. How many of these do you know?

1] How many noble gases are there?
2] Which planet has an orbital period of 687 days?
3] What is inflamed if you suffer from Nephritis?
4] Aquaculture is a term for what?
5] What kind of animal is a basilisk?
6] What is Borborygmus?
7] Evaporation is changing from a liquid to gas and gas to a liquid is called condensation. What is changing from a solid to a gas called?
8] If 8 bits make a byte, what do 4 bits constitute?
9] What did Einstein get the Nobel prize for?
10] Name anything that happened in Britain on September 3rd, 1752.

[debate] only undertaken from entrenched positions

When did I last lift someone's entire post [almost] and repost it? I must do so here because it says what I wanted to myself. It's by Chris Dillow:

What puzzles me about so many people is not what they believe, but the sheer vehemence with which they do so. I suspect there are at least four biases that cause such fanaticism.

1. Over-rating intellect and learning. Most politically active people are more intelligent or better educated than average. And a common error amongst intelligent educated people is to exaggerate the importance of intelligence and learning. They forget (or never knew) Hayek's insight, that knowledge is inherently dispersed, and unattainable by any single mind.

2. Ego involvement. Political views define who we are, so a challenge to them is a challenge to our identity.

3. Groupthink. For most of us, there's a huge correlation between our political opinions and those of our friends. Hardly anyone echoes Robert Nozicks' view: "I do not welcome the fact that most people I know and respect disagree with me" (quoted in this great book). This means we become over-confident in our opinions, bolstered by the fact that so many good people agree with us.

4. Incentives. One problem with vulgar democracy is that incentives favour cheap talk. If we overstate our case, government is more likely to listen to us than if we state our case to the extent warranted by the evidence. Hence the importance of "community leaders."

These biases - there may be others - mean that people with centrist views can be irrational too. They also mean we shouldn't expect political debate to be fruitful or even enlightening. Still, we can try, can't we?

I wonder how many of Chris's readers would nod at the sentiment but of course, know deep down that it didn't apply to them? For myself, I plead guilty. Also, in my situation, the debate over climate change has shown the above to have substance and not just from my side.

[canadian mounties] taken for a ride

This one was as interesting to me for the editor's disclaimer at the beginning as for the story itself. Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail, wrote a long foreword:

The article that follows is incomplete. That is not normally something we do. Usually we make our work as complete as possible. In this case, we are hobbled by legal restrictions. The story is about a man who became an RCMP informant and was eventually enrolled in the Witness Protection program in spite of ample warning that he was an unreliable liar.

This individual went on to commit a heinous crime. We can neither describe the details of the murder nor the current identity of the killer. The Globe and Mail publishes this story today in conjunction with The Ottawa Citizen, a highly unusual act in itself, and one which speaks to the importance the editors of the two newspapers place on this matter.

Greg McArthur and Gary Dimmock researched and wrote this story at The Citizen. Greg is now a reporter with The Globe and Mail. For legal reasons it was modified jointly with The Citizen after he left. Both Greg McArthur and The Citizen have been waging a legal battle to publish it for the past six months. A court ruling yesterday allowed us to tell this part of the story.

But this is more than just the story of an individual gone bad. It is an issue of public policy. But the blanket legal requirement of the Witness Protection Act against ever disclosing the identity of a person accepted into the program — no matter how awful his subsequent actions — inhibits our efforts to not just tell this story, but to examine the RCMP's role in this affair.

Isn't this as neat an indictment of behind the scenes manoeuverings to suppress the truth as you're ever likely to see? As for the story itself, here it is.

By the way, while we're still in Canada, it looks likely Steven Harper will finally get his majority and that will make Halls of Macadamia happy.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

[sorry] toothache kills blogging

Really sorry. Toothache. No blogging. Way behind visiting The ThunderDragon, Sicily Scene, Lord Nazh, Praguetory and so on but it's bed for me now, I'm afraid.

UPDATE NEXT MORNING:
Better now thanks, Westminster Wisdom, The Cityunslicker and Lord Nazh. It's a wonder what a double dose of Pentalgin can achieve.

[the precautionary principle] blind technophilia is ominous

Just been reading a highly slanted article on technological innovation, using terminology such as "increasingly seized upon by green activists" [meaning 'believed in'], "other romantics" [meaning 'impractical people'], "an unanswerable credo" [the only correct assumption in the article].

Basically, what the anonymous author is so down on is that when considering technological innovation, one should exercise caution with regard to its potential consequences. And what? Should we not? Here are some of the other things in this article:

At every stage the opponents of technological progress argue that just because there is no evidence of harm, that does not mean that something is not harmful. We have to 'prove' that it is not harmful before we embrace it.

Yes, you do have to prove it when public safety is involved, e.g. in aircraft, boats and trains. Are technophiles really suggesting that accountability and rigid testing should not be the norm?

This form of pre-scientific thinking presents a serious obstacle to rational discussion.

Actually, the diametric opposite - it's precisely what is needed, rational discussion but technophiles are so enamoured of a new idea, e.g. the new TGV, that any questioning voice is ruthlessly suppressed.

I cannot prove that there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden. All I can say are two things: firstly, sustained observation over the past 20 years has revealed no evidence of their presence, and secondly the existence of fairies, in my garden or elsewhere, is very unlikely on a priori grounds. This is how science works – precisely in accord with the principles of Karl Popper that hypotheses cannot be proved, only refuted.

This is the great technophile drift from the truth. Quite apart from the spurious analogy which has no relevance to the development of hi-tech transport, quite apart from 'science' being quoted as an uncountable noun and therefore an unassailable oracle [which was the basis of my last post], quite apart from the gratuitous use of Karl Popper's notion of the non-provability of hypotheses as a precondition of their truth - this has nothing whatever to do with the development of hi-tech transport where every hypothesis must be rigidly and empirically tested and if unprovable, must be discarded.

This is what makes the principle so dangerous. It generates a quasi-religious bigotry which history has taught us to fear. Its inherent irrationality renders it unsustainable.

Yet again - how is it irrational to demand that all possible known permutations and ramifications be tested, including operational testing which would reveal things which did not arise at the drawing board stage? The perfect example is the BC Ferry disaster where there is sound evidence that the crew switched off the new navigation system because of the glare. Operational testing at night would have revealed this. Plus, the author is invoking the experience of history which is in itself empiricist.

Everything in life involves a risk of some kind. [The article then invokes the Pilgrim Fathers in their fragile ships and advances in medicine.]

So, it's fine to kill off a few dozen people in the interest of medical advancement [
the Mengele principle again].

In reality, the precautionary principle presents a serious hazard to our health which extends way beyond the generation of unnecessary neuroses.

Non sequitur.

The narrow philosophy which surrounds the precautionary principle is fundamentally conservative in both political and literal senses.

Yes it is. It assumes human error and is very, very conservative when the lives of masses of people are involved. An example is the Aeroflot Airbus A310-304 in Siberia. The pilot had his sons and daughter on board and allowed the 15 year old to sit in the pilot's seat whilst he was otherwise engaged.

The boy gripped the half-wheel and 'playing pilot', turned it past 30 degrees, which automatically disengaged the auto-pilot on the ailerons. It was only when the plane began to bank to the right that the pilot sprang into action and demanded of his son what he had done.

The boy was terrified and said, "Nothing, Papa" [on the voice recorder]. So they then ran a rapid check of the auto-pilot to root out the malfunction [of course it was actually switched off]. All 75 passengers and crew were killed.

This article is not arguing against technological advances. It is arguing that human error and human stupidity must be assumed, organizational and bureaucratic glitches must be assumed. The technology might work perfectly, even in operation but that's not enough. The technicians feel their work is done when the machine is in operation and hasn't crashed after a few runs.

This is not good enough in a life or death situation and the attitude revealed in the emotive language in the Precautionary Principle article is the chief concern. Blind devotion to the shiny new toy and thorough factory testing is no substitute for a worst-case-scenario analysis.

In the end, the truth is that such analyses cost money whereas lives cost nothing [in technophiles' metallic cold and bureaucrats' Glory Boys logic]. Except that they do cost money in the end -
billions in compensation.

[generation next] breaking the social contract

A vicious gang of hell's grannies showing an ASBO
a special type of hugging



Generally speaking, the past few generations can be grouped this way:

The War Generation - born 1920 to 1931, now 76 to 87 years old
The Silent Generation - born 1931 to 1946, now 61 to 76 years old
The Baby Boomers - born 1946 to 1961, now 46 to 61 years old
Generation X - born 1961 to 1976, now 31 to 46 years old
Generation Y - born 1976 to 1991, now 16 to 31 years old
Generation Z - born 1991 to 2003, now 4 to 16 years old

Of course these years can be extended either side and there is considerable overlap but the pattern which emerges here is of two parallel sets of generations running side by side down through society:




This would explain the increasing Gen X hostility to the Boomers. It's not the ire of a child against the parent but that of a generation following 12 years or so later who have nothing to do with the former - they're not the children of, not personal friends, they're not anything to one another. Hence the total indifference and name calling.

I wrote this article about the coming generation wars and of course it's debatable. Now there's an interesting article on the cost of the aging generation, from the Gen X viewpoint.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

[old poll down] new poll up

[old poll down] new poll up

Results for the last poll: The 2012 London Olympics are way over budget. Should Britain:

# Pull the plug now? 85%
# Run them anyway? 12%
# Run cheap games? 4%
# Fourth alternative ? 0%

52 votes total pollcode.com free polls


New poll: Should people who won't assimilate be:
# deported
# executed
# incarcerated
# re-educated
# other

[blogfocus wednesday] curmudgeonry training

1 The Man in a Shed is one of my favourite curmudgeons, which he'd probably take exception to, which is as it should be:

So Blair has won his Trident vote. I can hear newsnight in the background with Kirsty (I'm a real leftie) Wark leading up. Some of the Labour MP's wanted to delay a decision - they have local parties to appease. I'd assumed that Blair wanted the vote out of the way before Brown got in. However one of the few clear commitment Brown has given is to Trident.

So why have a vote now ? Given that in the future there will be less Labour MPs - its hardly going to get more difficult is it? Well perhaps you know something is coming that would make this vote very had to win afterwards ...

2 Liam Murray is the new kid on the block, according to his February, 2007 start date but he writes like a pro - is there something I've missed here?

Cover story in this months Prospect magazine ask the question 'what will replace the left/right schism in the 21st century?' They asked 100 thinkers and commentators (it's a shame 'profession' no longer appears on passports - what would such people put?) for their view and it's worth a read. A few of my favourites (either because I agree or they make me laugh with derision, I'll let you speculate which is which) below in no particular order:

You'll have to click on the link to read the list. Liam has a way to go in the curmudgeonry stakes.

3 Colin Campbell, not noted for his curmudgeonry, neverhteless has a quite passable shot at it in presenting academic corner all the way from Glasgow this evening:

SCOTTISH MODERN MATHEMATICS PAPER 2007
DRAFT HIGHER GRADE MODERN MATHEMATICS PAPER 2007
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
GLASGOW REGION

Name...........................................
Nickname....................................
Gangname..................................

1. Shuggie has bought half a kilo of cocaine to sell. He wants to make 300% on the deal and still pay Mad Malky his 10% protection money. How much must he charge for a gram?

2. Wee Davie reckons he'll get £42.50 extra Marriage Allowance a week if he ties the knot with Fat Alice. Even if he steals the ring, the wedding will cost him £587. And he'll have to start buying two fish suppers at £3.95 each every night instead of one. How long will it be before Davie wishes he'd stayed single?

… and so on.

Another nine bloggers here.

[uk budget] is this as bad as it looks

[sound of music] cast of bastards


Confession time - I always liked The Sound of Music - the sets, Julie Andrews, Edelweiss, the happy memories with my own parents and so on. The hills were certainly alive - that is, until today. I've just read the most curmudgeonly, cantankerous, ornery blogpost on the film by Jack Marx and while it was a chuckle, still, it got me thinking about just how good the film was after all. Jack opens with:

While it's true that there may be more important issues to be addressing today … I fear I may never be able to discuss that which troubles me greatly about what went on in The Sound of Music … a fine piece of entertainment for which director Robert Wise deserved his armful of Oscars. It is my belief that the talent and good looks of the cast, the toe-tapping melodies, the edge-of-seat drama of the plotline and the occasionally witty volleys of dialogue in the production have, for more than 40 years, successfully masked a very awful truth: that every single character in The Sound of Music is a bastard.

Here are some of his comments on a few of the characters:

Maria assumes the role of Liesl's defendant by insisting "she and I have been getting acquainted tonight." This is a downright lie, told by a woman entrusted with the safety of another's children to the very man who has vested that trust in her, and had the Captain known the truth - that his daughter, far from safely chatting with her new governess, had been outside in the dark getting slippery with a Nazi - he'd have been forgiven for suspecting his new governess was not only a "flibbertigibbet", but a fascist collaborator who'd sell his children to the Third Reich for a song [and not a very good one at that].

Rolf is a Nazi and there's nothing redeemable about that. Furthermore, blind Freddy could see that he's gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but his denial of the truth is grossly unfair to Liesl, who's so hot for it she probably wouldn't notice if it were the guy from Little Britain who was spinning her round the rotunda.

The Children There is so much wrong with the von Trapp children that I dare not discuss it, and I know perhaps you don't want to hear it, but you've got to ... Louisa, I'm not real sure about ... and the little ones just want to be loved. But I don't love them. I hate them.

One commenter remarks: "I think this person [Jack Marx] & the article stink. The film was, is & will always be a classic! Films are just not made like that these days ... what a pity. Posted by: Ligia

Another disagreed: Personally, I’ve always thought the Captain was a bit of a nasty piece of work: while the Baroness isn’t the most interesting woman around – rather more style than substance - the way he strings her along while eyeballing the hired help is a rather poor show indeed. And tempting the ire of the Nazis by tearing their flag off his house, while seemingly heroic, is irresponsible and selfish in the extreme considering he is the sole provider and caretaker for those children. In regard to Maria, you forgot to mention how she deliberately manipulates the children in order to pit them against their father in her struggle for power in the household - a spot of psychological abuse, anyone? Posted by: sausage

And finally: I take issue with your statement that "there may be more important issues to be addressing today". Posted by: James


What is it with people called James?

[technology] only as an adjunct to experience

Have a look at Nigel Sedgwick's business site and I think you'd agree - the man knows what he's talking about when it comes to technology. Predictably then, he was never going to be enamoured of this Luddite post of mine.

He argues that technology, after all, is only working to make life more livable for the average person, to streamline his daily commitments and that, of course, all the ramifications are factored in. In the case of the TGV, the whole product solution necessitates the purchase of new land to provide straighter tracks, a complete re-thinking of safety aspects and so on and so on.

All that is so but it still doesn't eliminate key concerns:

1] The bigger the project and the more teams involved in it's realization, the greater the chance of error and the more disastrous the consequences when it does happen;

2] The more that the technology replaces human intervention, the greater the reliance on the human intervention which created that technology in the first place - it just transfers the onus retrospectively;

3] The moment there is an agenda, e.g. first to the moon, the Great Race, the fastest train and so on, the more a gung-ho corner cutting and sometimes unreasoning demand for completion-by-date and mania to run it under budget seeps in - there are reputations involved. Reputation was very much part of the Tenerife disaster, for example.

4] Many disasters are the consequence of a chain of circumstances, rather than due to any one cause. Take the BC ferry disaster, for instance:

The Queen of the North sank about one hour after running full tilt into rocky Gil Island, 150 kilometres south of Prince Rupert, where it had left for an overnight passage to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. How could the Queen of the North have strayed so far off course without anyone in charge of navigating and steering the ship noticing?

A report from B.C. Ferries' own inquiry into the mishap is expected to solve large parts of the mystery when it is released Friday, or Monday at the latest. But company investigators were hampered by the refusal of two key union crew members to answer questions.

Reports have suggested the ship may have been on autopilot when it ran into Gil Island, without a crucial course correction having been made to swing the vessel safely into mid-channel.

An early finding by the Transportation Safety Board also revealed that the monitor on the ship's new electronic chart system had been turned off because crew members did not know how to reduce its glare.

Sometimes, that's all it takes - glare - which wouldn't have entered the boffins' heads who'd designed the state-of-the-art chart system in the first place. How could it, with them not being in an operational capacity? This then comes down to project managers and team leaders. They can learn from the debacle so that it never occurs again but can't reverse the disaster itself.

A 320 kph TGV, French pride and one or two random factors such as glare is all it takes for a whole lot of failure analysis to ensue. Sorry Nigel but this Luddite remains unconvinced.

[george w bush] rarely is the question asked

"No, Sonny, hold it like this when you read."

Love this one from the Asia Times:

President George W Bush's reading tastes - which have been a remarkably good predictor of his policy views - are moving ever rightward. Apocalyptic titles now on his bedside table - such as America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It - suggest we'd all better finish our books before it's too late. - Jim Lobe

This is even more poignant when compared to his previous reading efforts:

In the summer of 2002, for example, Bush was seen carrying a just-published copy of Supreme Command by neo-conservative military historian (and recently appointed State Department counselor) Eliot Cohen. The book argued that the greatest civilian wartime leaders, notably Abraham Lincoln and Churchill, had a far better strategic sense than their generals.

An entertaining read. Apocalypse when?

[thogging] gus and the mindless bloggers society

Donatello's David in thinking pose, minus figleaf, possibly reflecting on Gus Rodin's later snub

To be fair to the great Chris Dillow, he did preface his post on Thogging with: "I was hoping to avoid this meme," then he reflected that:

"Lots of blogs make me think. Iain and Guido make me think: are people really interested in this tittle-tattle? Harry's Place makes me think: don't these guys ever get bored of making the same point? I could go on ... Anyway, my five nominees are: Paul, Shuggy, Fabian, Matthew and Not Saussure. I've excluded those kind enough to nominate me. I've left out Norm, Samizdata, Civitas and Wat as they don't need the traffic. And I've left out US bloggers - though I find Bryan Caplan and Overcoming Bias, to name but two, very stimulating."

As one blogger who indulges in a bit of Blogfocusing a couple of times a week, I certainly noticed some new blogs from Chris' list but at the same time, my exclusion from his list seems to inidicate that I am not a thinking blogger. Ipso facto, I must be a mindless cretin and to shamelessly mix metaphors, [which I'm not doing as this is the only metaphor used to this point], I'll now take my bat and ball and go home. Hence the following exchange on Chris' site:

Delighted I was passed over. Think I'll start up the Mindless Bloggers Club.
Posted by:
jameshigham March 17, 2007 at 06:54 PM

James - that was exactly why I was trying I avoid the meme. You just annoy everyone who's not in your list, for no very good reason. Sorry.
Posted by:
chris March 18, 2007 at 04:50 PM

Thanks for the mention.
Posted by:
Fabian Tassano March 19, 2007 at 05:49 PM

Chris, I wouldn't be annoyed with you, particularly as you were kind enough to link the Malcolm Marshall thing. It does create divisiveness though [speaking generally here, not specifically] and this is the big problem with my blogroll - how not to elevate some to the exclusion of others.
Posted by:
jameshigham March 20, 2007 at 08:38 PM

I should have added "… and how not to lose close blogfriends somewhere in the large lists of blog-humanity."

So, there it is. If I had come upon this post by accident, I would have left a comment: "Methinks the man [Higham] doth protest too loudly. Relax. Get a life." To which Higham might reply: "Welcome to the Mindless Bloggers Society, one and all."

Of course, the important issue is what to do about one's blogfriends, vis a vis listmaking.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

[modified mosquitoes] about to be unleashed on the ecosphere

One thing which has this blogger seething is the expression 'it's been scientifically proven', trotted out by laymen as some sort of clinching argument in any dispute, thereby elevating the 'scientist' to the status of an oracle, almost a god in himself.

People just don't get the big picture, do they?

Science is simply an attempt by
fallible, albeit well-read, humans to increasingly accurately explain natural phenomena, just as philosophers try to explain that which is beyond their ken. And every twenty years a new theory comes out and we all smile at an inviolable Stephen Hawking type truth now debunked.

What is vastly more worrying though is the attitude of science's empirical practitioners and their sycophantic worshippers the MSM. Here is an example from today's BBC:

A genetically-modified (GM) strain of malaria-resistant mosquito has been created that is better able to survive than disease-carrying insects and carries a gene that prevents infection by the malaria parasite.

One strategy for controlling the disease is to introduce the GM insects into wild populations in the hope that they will take over. The scientists also inserted the gene for green fluorescent protein (GFP) into the transgenic mosquitoes which made their eyes glow green.

Oh brilliant. In the interests of malaria control and nothing more, swarms of virtually indestructable mutant mosquitoes with glowing green eyes are going to be released into the ecosphere and as details of the work by the US team which came up with this cunning idea appear in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" journal, then that's all right then, isn't it? If they say it's safe, it must be so, right?

Except there's no mention of further mutations now that the natural balance has been disturbed, no study of ecosystem ripple effects, no thought whatsoever beyond how clever these blinkered bozos have been.
Skynet here we come. Imhotep can now be unleashed.

The article goes on to mention 'modified mosquitoes' and that should also sound alarm bells in any rational mind - as if mosquitoes are some sort of personal stereo or new kitchen cabinet. This is the scientific community in a nutshell - the cold, dispassionate, impersonal reduction of living beings to components which can be experimented on, regardles of pain and suffering.

This 'insertion' of the green pigment into the mosquito. Think for a second about the process involved and the
Josef Mengele minds of the people doing it. And the way the BBC has embraced the cleverness, with the downside barely given column millimetres - the magnificent, illumined, humanistic perfection of Man's infinite capacity.

Man can do absolutely everything, he understands all and as a god unto himself, he feels he has the inalienable right to do as he deems to anyone or anything within his escalating grasp and consequences be damned - cleverness is vastly more admirable than integrity, after all.

Man is infallible and his high priests, the Scientists, are demanding their sacrifices.

[blogging test] put these in their correct order

In which order of importance should these activities be rated?

1] visiting other sites for interest but not to show you've been there;
2] visiting other sites and leaving comments to show you've been there;
3] attending to your comments section, answering what your commenters say;
4] creating interesting new posts;
5] increasing your stats through various schemes like RSS feeds and MyBlogLog;
6] just posting your point of view on something with no concern about who reads it.
7] other blog purpose.

[french tgv] are you willing to risk your life

For those who like to prostrate themselves before the great god Onwards and Upwards, the news of France's pursuit of the ever higher and faster will be a joyful event. For others who see other sorts of consequences flowing from such news - they will not be quite so overjoyed.

French officials have inaugurated a new high-speed train link, which will cut travel time between Paris and more than a dozen cities in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and north-east France. The train, TGV, will allow travellers to go from Paris to Reims in 45 minutes, and from Paris to Strasbourg, on the German border, in just two hours and 20 minutes. Under the old schedules, the trip to Strasbourg was nearly twice as long, at three hours and 50 minutes.

TGV stands for "train a grande vitesse," which literally means high-speed train. Tickets, reservations and timetables for the TGV East service will be available starting April 10 on raileurope.com. Trains on the line are expected to travel at speeds of up to 320 kmh, compared to a maximum of 300 kmh for current TGV trains.

Sorry but 300kph is just too damned fast for a train which goes round bends, no matter how great the magnetic hold or levitation. Fiddly little details like human and mechanical error are usually swamped or forgotten in the Eyes-on-the-Glory mindset which, after all, is a form of madness with a difference - it plays games with our lives.

Monday, March 19, 2007

[bobby sox] and don't forget poodle skirts

Girl in poodle skirt and bobby sox

Liz asks what bobby sox are. They're a bit before my time but this might help from Wiki:

Bobby soxer was a term coined in the
1940s to describe the overly zealous, usually teenage, fans of singer Frank Sinatra, who was the first singing teen idol. Typically, they would wear poodle skirts while rolling their socks down to ankle level.

Here is more about them. Frankie Avalon sang, in 1959/60:


When a girl changes from bobby sox to stockings
And she starts trading her baby toys for boys
When that once-shy little sleepyhead
Learns about love and its lilt
You can bet that the change
Is more than from cotton to silk.

If you haven't already reached for the paper bag, then what about penny loafers? Do you know what they were?

[happy monday] great day and great week - yo!

Sorry, Laze and Jem - a bit out of it yesterday but I see the incomparable Flying Rodent has flown in and left one on the blog [below this notice] and a good read on a gloomy Monday it is too.

If you haven't yet made the acquaintance of this worthy gent, I suggest you get yourselves over there right away - he has a Welshcakes
Sicily Scene type food post up right now - from Scotland!

Heavy day today but this evening I'll be once again making a pest of myself and the Blogfocus is on schedule for Wednesday evening. So, despite what we have on our hands this week, despite any negative vibes due to the grey skies, it's going to be a wonderful day and a good lunch.

Go to it rightly and may scallops rock yer tadger!

Sunday, March 18, 2007

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The PM

Always stirring the thinking processes, often left field, never incorrect factually, with an idiosyncratically challenging style, the Flying Rodent is one of the best going, especially when he dons combat gear and Rab C. Nesbitt footwear. Natch - that's why I invited him to blog this evening on a topic of his choice:

Evening all - James asked me to share some of my thoughts on a subject of my choosing, so I thought I'd bore the bollocks off you with an extended rant on nuclear deterrence.

It’s proved controversial, but I think that the Government should be congratulated for convincing Parliament to
vote for the new Trident nuclear defence* system. It’s extortionately expensive and completely useless, and Tony Blair managed to convince a majority of Parliamentarians to blow twenty billion pounds on it.

Jolly well done, sir. Truly, this man could sell tits to Hugh Hefner.

It’s just a little disappointing that we’re too polite to ever actually use it. I can’t really imagine any of our recent Prime Ministers ordering a massive thermonuclear strike on Moscow - they’d think it was terribly rude.

Actually, I tell a lie - I could envision Lady Thatcher ordering a strike on Moscow. Now that I come to think of it, I can easily imagine Mrs. T nuking French Guyana, just to annoy Jacques Chirac. At least now, with our shiny new missile system, we could theoretically do so.

That’s assuming the damn thing works, of course. Picture the scene - as the Iranian missiles shriek towards London, placid senior civil servants calmly explain to a panicked Prime Minister that our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work in desert conditions.

Still, nukes seem to be the weapon of choice as far as bloggers are concerned. Every time some crank in the Middle East burns a flag, I wind up reading feverish demands that we turn the entire region into a sheet of radioactive glass.

I can see why that might appeal to certain figures in the Bush administration. After all, it’d make prospecting for oil a lot easier - you’d just have to walk about looking down.

So if we can’t use these missiles, why don’t we take that twenty billion pounds and spend it on something we can use?

If they junked the Trident program and just handed every Briton their own big pointy stick, we’d have enough left over to buy a round and crisps for 55 million people.

I’d think better of New Labour come polling day, I can tell you.

In coming to this conclusion, I've had to consider what would happen to the concept of deterrence. The arms race would brutal, as countries competed to build ever larger and sharper sticks. I suppose that the worst case scenario is the Iranians developing a stick so big and pointy that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could lean out of his Tehran window and poke us all in the eyes.

I’ve considered that eventuality, and we’ll need to keep a secret weapon of near infinite destructive capabilities in reserve - Britain's enemies will have no response to the shock and awe of the sock and 8-Ball.





We should take great care to use this awesome power wisely.

Thank you for your kind attention - I’ve been Flying Rodent, and I’m
here all week.


*You can tell this is the British government we’re talking about - the Americans spell the word “defence” differently, and imbue it with a wildly different meaning.

[chinese junk rig] interface with the west

Left: western plastic fantastic; Right: western boat, Chinese rig

I've just been spending some time looking at the Chinese junk rig and how it is being finally adapted for western use after about 2000 years. As always in these situations, western men and women of pioneering spirit and open minds first took to it and ironed out the problems [for our minds] while going through a steep learning curve to undo decades of western thinking and to start thinking 'Chinese'.

The rig, with all its lines, checks and balances is so at odds with the slick, metal and plastic, dial-in-the-speed western mentality and I'd imagine it wouldn't cut much ice with the average hi-tech blogger. Quite frankly, it looks like a toddler's idea of a sail and yet the Chinese have been utilizing it for blue water sailing since the 2nd century Han Dynasty, so it must have something going for it.

Apparently it's perfect for blue water cruising and awful for racing and therein lies the difference between our frenetic, ever-updating psyche and hi-cost solutions and the Chinese simple materials, simple concept, efficiently working for the purpose for which it was designed.

There's a nice article by Brian Platt who tried to get it operating and now associations are springing up all over the net. To this blogger/sailor, it's slowly growing on him but it would be nice to see some more of the bugs ironed out first.