Saturday, January 26, 2008

[almost back] with friends like this

I'd like to thank the person or persons who hit my Mac yesterday and wiped out the MacOS. My mate asked what I expected with a post like the last one.

You did well, my friend. It's almost back but it's been an effort. More later.

UPDATE: 04:04, Sunday, local time

Finally off and running with the latest version of MacOS with lots of goodies and though it took 11 hours to complete the job, it was worth it. As for whether I'd run a post like the last one again - on occasions, yes. The number of people who read it, as distinct from commenting, was gratifying but it wouldn't want to be all the time, mind.

Now, a little post on smoking, time for a snooze and then some more "accessible" posts later today [providing I don't get hit again].

Have a lovely Sunday, readers.

Friday, January 25, 2008

[research] following the scent to one's doom

Gustave Doré’s illustration of Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”, 1868 [courtesy of Wiki]

There are no great revelations here but this post just charts the thinking which takes place once you start researching something. It's an insight into fragmented circumstantial snippets and how they are sometimes enough when checked against previously accumulated data.

I started researching Hans-Gert Pöttering:

From 1984 to 1994 he was chairman of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence. Hans-Gert Pöttering is known as an enthusiastic European federalist and an ally of Angela Merkel. He has stated that his priority will be to rejuvenate the European Constitution. He lives in Bad Iburg near Osnabrück. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 1979, one of only 14 members of the European Parliament who have served continuously since the first elections.

This is what he's about, from the Euro-News soft interview:
"We are not expecting the Treaty to fail, because if we assume it could falter, failure is either guaranteed or very probable. That is why we must do everything in order to make the Treaty a success, and get it ratified - whether it is by referendum, like in Ireland, or by national parliaments, both procedures are equally democratic. The choice of one method or another is down to the traditions in each member state. Each country decides how to ratify the Treaty, be it by referendum or by parliamentary ratification - both are democratic. And we want to do everything possible to ensure the Treaty is ratified so it can come into force from 2009.

And here are his tactics in achieving his goals:

Last week a group of more than 60 MEPS from all over Europe tried to demonstrate against refusals to hold referendums on the treaty. The group, including MEPS from the UK Independence Party and the Tories, had protest banners forcibly removed from the chamber and their calls for points of order ignored. Now Mr Poettering has asked the Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee to give him the power to stifle all protest moves.

If we can put to one side Wonko's understandably emotive language, the gagging action itself has certainly been mentioned in a few places and his closeness to Merkel and her closeness to the Bertlesman Foundation and its closeness to the Bavarian Bruderheist are interesting. This sort of thing comes out of such an association:

“In the EU itself we must move closer to a common European army.” The Federal Chancellor announced, “We should not take peace and democracy for granted. The ideal of European unification is still today a question of war and peace.” [Bild 23.03.2007]

Increased powers of political decision should be conferred on those states which have adopted the euro currency. “The euro group should have a special role in designing the future of the EU”. [zur Zukunft der Europaeischen Union; Guetersloh 21.02.2007]

The Bertelsmann Foundation [which] publicised [the conference], claimed that “the hand-picked circle of participants … covered all the great geographical areas of today’s European Union, EU candidate states and the USA.” The theme was the “strategic reorientation” of the EU.

The nature of the language is indicative of the mindset. Incidentally, this group is active in seeking to "ethically" regulate the internet. You only get into their funding sources indirectly.

For example, the awards to New York students were partly funded by Carl and Lily Pforzheimer and Carl H. Pforzheimer Jr. was an intergenerational investment banker with an oil and gas family background. He's connected with Citybank/Group which in turn brings you back to J.P. Morgan, which brings you to the New York Fed and the F.O.M.C. and the current fun the western world is having. this brings you to Morgan Stanley, which then takes you back to Europe to the Round Table [can anyone remember the shape of the Arthurian Table?], which in turn takes you back to the Bertelsmann foundation.

Now, against this, I have, somewhere down in the vaults, other data of a different kind. Example - for years, the U.S. government denied there was a thing called MK Ultra. Now, under the 30 year rule, it is public knowledge. It involved the covert experimentation and psychological trauma training of human subjects. Much of the expertise came into America under Operation Paperclip and others.

So far, that's safe ground.

Where the ground becomes less safe is placing weight on the tenuous testimony of one such San Diego based "trainer" who said the following in an interview with HJ Springer, Chief Editor CentrExNews.com. in 2000:

When I was in San Diego, human experimentation was still going on. Jonathan and I were investigating the effects of certain drugs on inducing trance states and assisting with programming. We would take the data, and download it into a database ... and then send it to Langley.

Russian, German, French, British, Canadian, and US trainers all worked together ... There is also a lot of trading back and forth of members in these groups. A Russian trainer might come to the US for a while, complete a job, then go back, or vice-versa.


How much evidence has come out? Or the MK-Ultra documents that have been declassified, shown as real, and people still ignore it.

All you can do in this situation is hope other corroborating evidence comes out, which it fortunately has. Now MK Ultra is out in the open, books like Trance Formation of America start to make more sense. And the battery of institutions mentioned in psychologist Dr. Colin Ross's keynote address at the 9th Annual Western Clinical Conference on Trauma and Dissociation, April 18, 1996, on dissociative techniques, suggests that there is little accident in what is going on:

Orange County, California, Columbia University, Cornell, Denver, Emory, Florida, George Washington, Harvard, Houston, Illinois, Indiana Universities, Johns Hopkins, University of Minnesota, New Jersey Reformatory, Bordentown in Tennessee ... Ohio, University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, Princeton, Stanford, a couple of universities in Texas, Wisconsin, the Bureau of Narcotics. Eli Lilly was the big supplier of LSD to the CIA. McGill, NIH, NIMH, National Philosophical Society ...

.. and some of the personalities involved, either knowingly or unwittingly:

James Hamilton, Harold Abramson, Carl Pfeiffer, Louis Jolyon West at UCLA, Ewen Cameron at McGill,Carl Rogers, Martin Orne, Maitland Baldwin [work on monkey brains], George White, Harold Wolff was at Cornell, Raymond Prince, R. Gordon Watson, John Mulholland, G.H. Estabrooks, J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles and hallucinogen research by Daniel Friedman, connected with Loretta Bender, Paul Hawk and Ewen Cameron.

And if you need victims, you can start with Frank Olson and Mary Ray.

Where to go next?

As a researcher, if one is to accept any of the above as having substance, then one really must follow up on the other, less orthodox, parts of the testimony. In the end, one must decide if we're dealing with imaginative loonies or people who know what they're talking about. I mean, if they've been shown to be right on one aspect, when all around have been knee-jerk reacting like one commenter on my site:
Got to laugh. This is how conspiracy theories start.

Key here is to read reader comments, put the "kneejerkers" and "sweeping generalization trotter-outers" to one side and to zero in on those who specifically comment on the grounds that they're involved in this field. Emotion must be excised here and conclusions must not be preempted.

So I neither accept or reject the following from the CentrExNews interview but simply bear it in mind:

The Rothschild family in England, and in France, have ruling seats. A descendant of the Hapsburg dynasty has a generational seat. A descendant of the ruling families of England and France have a generational seat. The Rockefeller family in the US holds a seat.

The Hanoverian / Hapsburg descendants rule in Germany over the Bruderheist. They are considered one of the strongest lines
The British line is just under them, with the royal family, even though parliament rules the country openly. The U.S. is considered lower, and younger, than the European branches.

Germany, France, and the UK form a triumvirate that rules in the European ... The USSR is considered important, and has the strongest military groups. But a lot of the current U.S. leadership will be in Europe when the change occurs, and many have homes there.


The Bruderheist is the ruling council of Germany. It meets in the black forest region, which is considered the center of the earth, and ... they are some of the most vicious people I have ever known in my life, and make the Nazis (who they encouraged) look like fun people. They are still there, manipulating people, running banks, and channeling their dirty money to Brussels, Switzerland, and Cairo, Egypt.


On America: One reason that our economy continues limping along is the artificial support that the Federal Reserve had given it, manipulating interest rates, etc. But one day, this won't work (or this leverage will be withdrawn on purpose) and the next great depression will hit.


They [the old money] run the porn industry, along with other groups such as the Mafia, together with drug smuggling, gun running, and human slavery.

I think you have to approach this now with an open mind and a sense of logic. Why wouldn't the people who funded the nutter Hitler to achieve a pan-European Reich dedicated to eliminating inferior humans from the earth still be around? The motif is exactly the same and involves the same descent into human bestiality which is going on today. Why wouldn't these people still be funding it?

Why would the old money concern itself with local matters only when they can ensure their hegemony through the instruments of state? It would stand to reason. And what do these people look like in the flesh? Are they likely to be wickedly chuckling, disfigured monsters in cloaks or would they be the Armani suited, clinically clean, plush powered wheelers and dealers of Europe, Britain and the U.S.A.? Which is more likely to be the truth?

Churchill was able to see it in 1920:

"From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this world wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."

Now just by living over here and observing the legacy, as well as listening to many Russians of all walks of life on the topic, nothing they say undercuts Churchill's words. And that's the thing in all the above, before we even start getting into the seriously sick, insane stuff these people are allegedly into.

I see no specific fisking, no debunking other than character assassination and off the cuff remarks like "got to laugh". I'm waiting patiently to read a serious piece which addresses how the old money cannot be held accountable for any of it.

And if the old money can't be exonerated, then one has to look at the current Millibrandish rush to war [Iran is the current starter but that might change over time]. And people must wake up and start researching these things properly instead of constantly returning to the same sources of a certain bent and ignoring other sources which run contrary to their mindset.

Now if we do finally end up with the old money, then why stop there? Any researcher worth his salt is going to look even beyond that and start asking certain questions. Such as why the fruits of covert groups must necessarily be negative. Why must Poettering's actions ultimately lead to war and the blighting of a regulated and numbered humanity? Why can't they, for example, lead to peace, human happiness and philanthropy?

All right, the old money is rich beyond imagining. So they plough those trillions into poverty relief, right? Into fresh water and food for the masses and into peace and mutual understanding, not into child prostitution, gun running and drugs. Or if they observe these things happening, they exert financial pressure to stop them and the Christian ideals reign supreme. No?

Well if not, why not? Have you ever thought why things tend one way [look at the concerns of the political blogosphere, for example here] and not the other? I think it's fairly obvious - they themselves are in thrall.

And it's an interesting phenomenon but the further down this path your investigation goes, the more seriously weird these people come across as, from the ceremonies of 1000 points of Light to Bohemian Grove's cremation of dull care - whatever slant they want to put on it, these are the supposed leaders of the world and that sort of language and burning crosses suddenly springing up around lakes is seriously weird too.

Look at Bush Snr's inauguration speech for a start. I didn't invent it - he did. I didn't start talking about splitting people's minds and taking them back to incontinence - that is on the record. I didn't start talking about the Skull and Bones drinking from Geronimo's skull - they did. I didn't introduce Mothers of Darkness - they did.

I didn't start talking about child prostitution rings with one of the exchange points Omaha Airport - they did. I didn't invent Abu Ghraib. And look at the nature of the games on the web which entrance the kids - now is that stuff normal? The sort of thing a normal, healthy kid should be into? I didn't start talking about Alexandria Temple in Philadelphia or wherever it is and Eastern Star or tearing people's hearts out if they ever speak of things [and then they laugh it off, saying it's just an ancient ritual]. And this is not the street tramps into this stuff - it's the dicers and slicers themselves.

Was it me who introduced Hiram Abif and Jubelo and brothers? And why the constant referenve to Egypt and Assyria? Why that business with the U.S. dollar note, for example? Why are full moons important? Why the 13th pillar of the Pont de l'Alma and do you know what that bridge represents? Why not Pillar 8 of a different bridge? And so on and so on. Why did Woodrow Wilson write of a power so interlocked that you'd better not speak of it above a whisper?

Why do wars really occur and how can they be known of in advance? Read Buchan.

Don't shoot the messenger - he's just following the trail.

Can't anyone see the footprint here?

I mean, sit back and look at the whole policy direction in Europe and the U.S. and the way these people conduct themselves, especially the arrogance, the untouchability. Look at Poettering. Look at any britpolit post in the last few days and ask who's the weirdo - Higham or them?

I'm starting to feel a little like Dr. Who now, at the mercy of Sutekh, who thunders that the doc is nothing but an ant. Well yes, he is an ant in himself but he didn't go into this thing alone, did he?

Thursday, January 24, 2008

[danger day] moan, moan, moan

Would you buy a tin of baked beans labelled "fancy grade"? Seems a bit suss to me.

It started with a cancellation from my mate who always visits Thursday morning for a dose of my Higham Chunky Chicken Soup. Apparently there was total gridlock on the roads in the 48 hours of snow blizzards and drifts we've been having [and it's still going out there].

Then came two more cancellations and my chum told me all of his had cancelled today. Then our water went off completely. Not a drop. Then came the first internet problem. Then came the Fancy Grade baked beans episode [best left unexplained].

I also ran into a huge plot problem in Chapter 10 of the rewriting of Obsession and still haven't solved it.

Now the lovely and talented 18 and 19 year old sisters I've told you about before, who usually grace my humble home for a few hours on a Thursday evening - they've just phoned and cancelled. I'm not a Happy Higham.

Tomorrow will be better though - it just feels that way, you know and outside it's winter wonderland with snow on the windowsills and little birds perching here as well.

[danger femmes] the trick is to stay alive

Is this good or is this good?

Today, I found myself having a one sided conversation with my cat....I'm slowly cementing my place on Spinster Hill. She's about 10 now but she's still very lively. I'm beginning to believe that she will in fact live forever.

Which is incredibly reassuring. I actually don't know what I'd do without her.

Is this woman dangerous or is this woman dangerous? Don't you think different or dangerous women are more exciting? All right, they take you to the cleaners and in the end murder you [see my first novel] but what a way to go, eh? And the sex is incredible.

[intelligence] suicide pact


Click pic for larger image. H/T Wonkotsane and Witanagemot.

[water] big stakes being played for here



No one's disputing that water supplies worldwide are dwindling and the U.S. situation has been well documented. California has been one highly publicized area where a city like Los Angeles, for example, can provide water for one million but is expected to house over 20 million people by 2020. In drawing attention to the world situation, the World Water Council inadvertently chose the wrong verb:

Water should be recognized as a great priority. One of the main objectives of the World Water Council is to increase awareness of the water issue. Decision-makers at all levels must be implicated.

Implicated - yes, how true. Decision makers are indeed implicated in this. Here are four examples from the directly criminal to the criminal by non-actionable negligence:

1. Alberta Tar Sands

Tar sands consume three to six barrels of water per barrel of oil produced and the South Saskatchewan River, the Athabaska and surrounding wetlands are being dried up and poluted beyond redemption and for what?

2. Bottled water scam

The progressive enabling, through government negligence, of the corruption of water supplies, especially to developed countries has resulted in people being forced onto bottled supplies and the buying of filtration systems. This is a multi-billion dollar industry which only exists because of the state of tap water. A Canadian from Vancouver, [mark_in_bc], where water should surely not be a problem, commented:

I live in the center of British Columbia, Canada, surrounded by more fresh water than most people in the world could imagine. Despite this my community has been under a boil water advisory for almost 10 years. Bottle water in our home is a must even if it comes from a tap in some other town.

Fellow blogger The Dragonstar has just bought a new super-duper filtration system to cope with the perceived problem - see the picture below - and that's indicative of the situation.



3. Planned giving away of LA's water

Gaining control of a nation's or state's water supplies also gives you the power to distribute it to whom you will, for largesse, a point this linked article addresses.

4. Failure to act to develop desalination as a viable alternative while pouring money into programmes of destruction, such as MK Ultra, such that 6% of the C.I.A. budget for one calendar year was spent on discovering ways to mind control people, let alone the money wasted on HAARP and the like.

Why no massive R&D into desalination?

Desalination is a process that removes dissolved minerals (including but not limited to salt) from seawater, brackish water, or treated wastewater. A number of technologies have been developed for desalination, including reverse osmosis (RO), distillation, electrodialysis, and vacuum freezing. Two of these technologies, RO and distillation, are being considered by municipalities, water districts, and private companies for development of seawater desalination in California.

Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) is a reverse osmosis desalination membrane process that has been commercially used since the early 1970s. It's a method of forcing water through membranes and while it is definitely energy intensive, it's not impossibly so - we're talking developed societies here who can achieve and afford these things when faced with the alternative..

At the macro level, countries like Israel have been using it for some time:

With a capacity of 320,000m3 per day, the plant produces around 13% of the country's domestic consumer demand – equivalent to 5–6% of Israel's total water needs – at one of the world's lowest ever prices for desalinated water.

And though expensive, as already admitted, it is possible, costing Israel around 53c per cubic metre on current technology.

At the micro-level, it's been in use on boats for years and many companies supply boat sized plants - even small yachts can afford these. Admittedly they are slow, relatively expensive and suitable mainly for long haul voyages but the bottom line is that they do work.

And they are becoming more and more viable:

"Until recently, seawater desalination was a very expensive water source solution," said Gary Crisp, an engineer for the Water Corporation of Western Australia. "In the last ten years, seawater reverse-osmosis has matured into a viable alternative to thermal desalination," Crisp says.

So the claim that the costs are insupportable is complete rubbish. If massive investment had been put into the technology in the first place, it would be just as cost competitive as, say, windfarms or nuclear technology - and then we could talk subsidies after that.

Major obstacle

The single greatest obstacle to reverse osmosis and indeed other desalination technologies is that if it succeeds, the bottom falls out of the multi-billion dollar water industry, the grip which governments are now attempting to get on the daily lives of people* is weakened immeasurably - we can live without fuel but not without water - and the ID in the wrist in exchange for food and water loses its meaning.

In that is the true criminality of what's been going on. If desalination succeeded, then the only way these people could still defeat it is to ensure that industrial pollution continued apace and that some sort of global conflagration plus acid rain would render even osmosified water non-potable.

We'll have to see who wins this one.

* See the comments sections, particular comments by Anonymous, on any political post on this blog for evidence of this.


Wednesday, January 23, 2008

[my struggle] to ruin europe

Jose Manuel Barroso has given details of what he has called a "detailed roadmap" in the struggle against climate change. He insisted nothing would be left undone and no opponent left hiding under a stone unturned.

Addressing business critics who have complained that the proposals might drive industry away from the European Union, the commission president said the package was "not in favour of the environment and against the economy. We don't want to export our jobs to other parts of the world," he said.

Maria Margarida Pinto Ribeiro de Sousa Uva and I understand that this is precisely what's going to happen at this grave economic juncture but we will press on regardless."

Jose added, in passable Merkelese: "Es ist mein kampf."

[wordless wednesday] courtesy workofthepoet

Click pic to enlarge [a little].

[eternal beauty] in praise of the older woman

As one knowledgeable gentleman put it:

They doubt themselves now, but they're more interesting and lovelier than ever. They've had their adventures, they have stories to tell. They're knowing, wry, and speak in husky cigarette voices. They get my jokes. They tango, foxtrot, and swing. They make me feel suave, sophisticated, just like they are. I don't get that from young women (Don't fret, young women, you have plenty going for you, and all I'm saying is the best might still be yet to come).

As another put it:

* An older woman can wear any hat she chooses and nobody will laugh. A younger woman wearing the same hat will always look like a lampshade in a brothel.

* An older woman will never wake you up in the middle of the night & ask you, "What are you thinking?" An older woman doesn't care what you think.

* Older women can run faster because they're always wearing sensible shoes.

* Older women are more honest. An older woman will tell you that you are an a--h-le if you're acting like one. A young woman will say nothing, just in case it means you might break up with her. An older woman puts herself on a pedestal.

* An older woman will never accuse you of "using her." She's using you.

* Older women take charge of the situation. An older woman will call you up and ask you for a date. A younger woman will wait forever, by the phone, for you to call...

* Older women know how to cook. Young women know how to dial Pizza Hut Take out.

* An older woman will never accuse you of stealing the best years of her youth because chances are someone else has stolen them first.

As I put it:

The trick in getting an older woman to look at you is to be ten years younger than you actually are and being prepared to switch to the role of mature escort and confidant at a moment's notice. The great advantage of the older man is that he is a natural rogue and women love bad boys.


[l'ancien sénateur] jette l'éponge

Just love the way the French put it:

Le républicain Fred Thompson jette l'éponge

I'd jette l'eponge too if I was trailing that far behind. The CFR will have to get themselves a new boy. Wonder how he feels too about being called "the ancient senator'.

[blizzard] when being snowed in is desirable


Dave was writing of the philosophy of snow over at his place:

It snowed today. The skies were overcast, the wind blustery, the air crisp against the cheeks. Reminiscent of the Michigan Winters of old, it was comforting, familiar. Being born here, it's difficult for me to imagine what life must be like where there are no seasons, no transitions.

Though his theme was different, still - snow really does transform the whole mood and adds a touch of the exotic. We had a blizzard which went all day yesterday and just looking out of the window down on it was really something. Add to that scene a beautiful half Slavic, half Eastern woman who's just trudged through the snowdrifts in her fur coat and hat and who greets you at the door with her French/Russian accent and it's like living on another planet.

I adore the snow, I adore exotic women and I don't want to be anywhere else at this point in life. If this isn't heaven on earth then what is?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

[captcha] a bullet in your skull








Was there ever a device more designed to make you tear out your remaining hair and shoot the offending blogger than the insufferable, obnoxious, mental-health threatening captcha word verification atrocity?

I mean - zvwyoko - really and truly!! Do you really wish to spend the rest of your blogging days negotiating garbage like this?!! Bloggers want visitors and then put up these sorts of barriers and for what? So that we can sit there thinking, 'Now I wonder what words I can make out of this - I know - Yoko [as in ono, as in ononism].'

OK - for some mickey mouse providers like the execrable Typepad, maybe. But Google blogs do not need word verification in the least - there's an inbuilt system of protection.

Let's start up:

Bloggers Against The Gratuitous Use Of Word Verification In Google Blogs

A nice, short, catchy little name, don't you think?

[why not] they laughed at noah

Longrider poses the question:
Here’s an easy question. What do the following have in common - people on housing benefit, people getting child benefit, people wanting to be RAF pilots or Royal Marines, people in hospital and people learning to drive? The answer is that they have all had their personal details lost through government incompetence. And here’s another question. With the national database for ID cards looming, just how much do you trust the government to keep your identity details safe?

Right - so we're not in disagreement over the incompetence but the level of it raises other questions. It's so regularly revealed to the media and they so public pronounce on it with handwringing aqpology that surely one's suspicions are aroused. All public sectors have levels of incompetence but this seems almost to have been orchestrated.

Now what could be a possible reason for this? Perhaps that the people are so sick and tired of it that they throw out the corrupt, self-serving, incompetent bastards and usher in the new slick, efficient EUmodel which looks after the common person's interests with the only drawback being the little chip in the right wrist.

Why not? They laughed at Noah. Time will tell.

Monday, January 21, 2008

[russia] some myths and misinterpretations

Just ran the Dmitri Panov piece past our new Deputat, home from Moscow for a few days.

Predictably, as a former trade minister and now special adviser on trade to the Gosduma, he took exception to some aspects and I'd like to summarize some of his main points from today.

1. That the Russian mentality is historically as different to the western as is the Chinese.

The Deputat disagrees and says that since 1998, great strides have taken place in 'rethinking' Russia's place in the world economy and putting Russia on a stable economic footing. There are western aspects to people's thinking now which might not have been there earlier. To that end, the probable new president is committed to this new Yedinaya Rossiya mentality, as are most of the newer deputats. A lot of people have done a lot of work trying to restructure the Russian economy to perform more effectively on the world stage and negative stereotypes are therefore ultimately counter-productive.

2. Russia has a different concept of democracy to the west's.

To an extent that's true. There is historical local colour in the complex relations between the different nationalities represented in the RF and these require balance. As yet, this country cannot adopt the parliamentary system of, say, Britain because it has a Tsarist tradition and the decades of Communism.

It has to be introduced carefully to allow the people time to adjust to the new realities and the infrastructure must move with each introduced change. Wholesale change too quickly resulted in 1998 and no one wants that to occur ever again, particularly given the western troubles about to bite over there.

So a reserved stance is necessary - watching, evaluating and deciding how much to introduce and how soon. These are not blandishments and you need to be in here at governmental level to understand what really is on the drawing board. Therefore it's unfortunate the way sections of the western media rush to the most negative assessment so quickly. It was particularly impressed on me today that Russia does listen to the criticisms and weighs them up - there is no collective blindness here - but it makers its decisions based on national interest nonetheless.

3. Russia has a newly aggressive stance towards the west [not specifically in the Panov article].

Just as in the west, there are hawks and doves and shades of opinion and there is most certainly a desire for Russia to be taken more seriously on the world stage - almost all are agreed on this - and trade delegations ffom here will continue to push Russian interests as you'd expect they would. But the prospect of a new cavalier attitude and a newly aggressive policy is not a general stance - where it has been highly publicized by the media, it's been more a case of stonewalling specific things certain countries are doing inside Europe to destabilize the sphere adjacent to Russia.

The overall mood and one even agreed by Mr. Zhirinovsky and other hardliners, is that Russia is a major player and cold war tactics have no place in where this country is going. Trade is the new language of diplomacy when it is allowed to breathe and not misrepresented.

[globalization rocks] according to broony

Well, no debate necessary any more about what Gordon's masters are up to:
In a keynote speech in New Delhi, the prime minister said it was time to build a "new global society".Mr Brown also called for greater international cooperation in the battle against terrorism to "ensure that there is no hiding place for terrorists".
No hiding place for dissenters, he means of course. Bloggers get ready - you are the insurgents of the web and a nice gurney, replete with electrodes, awaits you. Correct thinking will be ensured.

Also, ever wonder who Gordon sees as the leader of the new global society? Djwahl Kuhl perhaps? Or him-glorious-self? Oh, worship the Broon.

Do you detect a slight negativity in today's posts? Got out of bed on the wrong side.

[round the world] record smashed

Joyon's IDEC II

Exciting news not just for the yachties:
Frenchman Francis Joyon [51] has smashed Ellen MacArthur's solo round-the-world record by more than 14 days, finishng his circumnavigation in 57 days, 13 hours 34 minutes and six seconds to beat MacArthur's mark set in 2005.

He set off from Brest on 23 November and crossed the finish line on Sunday. MacArthur [31] congratulated Joyon but has not ruled out trying to reclaim the record one day saying "records are set to be broken".

But the 31-year-old confirmed any attempt would not be launched in the next year because she was already committed to other projects.

Apparently, Ms MacArthur was at the finish line to greet him and that's the thing in this sport - the camaraderie, even when there's rivalry. In my own racing days years ago, we'd fight tooth and nail and then have a hot tea together later in the clubhouse and analyse the whole thing.

Perfect example is the Little America's Cup for C Class catamarans - the racing was fierce but the camaraderie amazing, even down to the winning crew inviting the others to have a sail on their boat. The only other sport I know where we'd try to knock the other's block off and then have a meal together is Rugby Union.

Contrast that with the America's Cup itself which is marred by protests, underhanded tactics and obscene amounts of money. Of course, this description fits The Money perfectly so we know with whom we're dealing in that situation.

Leaving that aside, it is exciting though and raises the question of whether people should attempt these things or else spend it on education and social services.

C Class Catamaran Cogito

One other small matter is that what I've done in this post might be seen as precisely what I was moaning about here. Oh well, I plead guilty.

[hillary] heart skipped a beat

Just checked BBC News and it was like the heart momentarily stopped:

Mourners pay respects to Hillary

Don't tell me! It's not possible. Clinton dead and the world spared. But no, it was not to be:

Hundreds of people file past the casket of Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary, ahead of his state funeral.

Oh well. Don't get the idea I want the Lizard Queen dead - no, no. Not at all. Not any way. I'd like Obama or someone to beat her after the MLK jibes but still ....

Now, as for the real Hillary, Sir Edmund - well, a great man indeed but he'd had a good innings.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

[not dormant] just preoccupied

Sorry for the lack of posts and lack of visiting. The whole of the first book is being rewritten and though it uses great slabs of text from the original, it needs linking sections and that's what I've been up to. A professional writer can split his attention two ways but I can't do that, so it has to be one or the other just now. Plan to blog tomorrow.

[diabetes] most certainly there's hope


We all feel that little bit more mortal when one of our own, so to speak, develops a medical condition and the words 'there but for the Grace of G-d' spring to the lips.

Diabetes is, to me, worse than cancer because cancer is a release sooner or later. I wouldn't wish either onto my worst enemy. The worst I'd wish onto an enemy is want of friends. There is most certainly hope, for example with statin drugs, tweaking of ordinary adult cells in the pancreas so they become insulin-producing beta cells, iron-based 'magnetocapsules' of insulin-producing cells and so on and so on.

There is hope.

I don't know why I fear diabetes so, having seen my father succumb to emphazema and hepatitis and my mother to chronic bronchitis and asthma and yet I do fear it. Medical opinion on me is currently that I should fear more for the heart, in more ways than one.

I have no doubt that Iain will face this thing stoically and that all that can be done will be done. Crazy thing to say but better now than fifteen years earlier - there's a better chance now of getting back to that normal life.