Saturday, October 04, 2008

[misconstructions] server down and other goodies

The immediate blogosphere sometimes reminds me of the ocean surface - rough and dangerous but with far greater villains lurking below.

I'm quite frankly disappointed with being misconstrued, taken out of context and misquoted and the last example was in Bloghounds just now. As I'm obviously not going to give details, I'll use an analogy instead. It's as if I had written to someone, asking if he was aware that though he had applied for B, he hadn't applied for A and could he possibly do it?

The reply did not come to me but to another admin, saying that I had told the member he was not a member. No I hadn't. How on earth can that conclusion be derived from the other? By luck, I managed to see this and set the record straight.

My little RL worries are of no concern to anyone, naturally and yet they are real to me. But if I also have to correct misconstructions on each and every matter relating to myself, I'm going to be a nervous wreck, wasting time on things which are pointless.

At the same time, I'm attempting to keep another situation from imploding and preventing an old wound from opening up, again in the blogosphere. All of this rubbish is in the blogosphere - RL itself is not great, admittedly but step by step we have little victories. I came within a hair's breadth of a good job on Friday but the mood is still positive there.

The rule for me now in the sphere is "steady as she goes" but this is not helped by the things going on behind the scenes. Seriously, you'd think they would get a life. Instead of enjoying the blogging, it's currently a pain in the neck but I'm giving notice that I'm not being drummed out of blogging, not until I'm ready to go. Not this time round.

Two RL friends told me, on two different occasions, that people perceive me as weak because I "appease" those who spit on me. The people who do this, the spitting, if they are intelligent, should not mistake calmness and polite words in reply for acquiescence. Their time will come and it will be by their own petard.

By the way, to my stalker, those emails did disappear from the mailbox this evening but both Firefox and Safari are back in operation and thanks for asking. Blogger is playing up too but that's another question - I think that's so for everyone.

To end on a positive note, Bloghounds is now up to 29 members and a dog and things are on the drawing board. Tomorrow [oops - today] is upon us and I wish you the most pleasant day of rest possible.

Enjoy.

I plan to.

[dirigibles] if we can't have the canal boats ... well


As you all saw fit to squash my narrowboat proposition for a transport network, :), then how about dirigibles? Here's the situation on the commercial variety.

Anyway, I wasn't really thinking of the large, commercial variety nor even about these beauties but more about PMDs [personal mini dirigibles], designed to take two people.

Let's say you had to get to Kings Lynn for an interview or meeting. It's out to the back garden, turn on the heater, load the briefcase into the cupboard and away you go. No M25, no long queues, just a bit of bumping into thoughtless amateur pilots along the way.

What a restful way to go. And if you were worried about the cold, you'd be fully enclosed, wouldn't you? Here are its practical possibilities. Now let's get down to the nitty-gritty - are they possible and how to construct your baby. Here is another page on a personal dirigible.

I don't see the problem. Modern sailboats and ultra-lights already employ the desired materials for strength and lightness plus the propulsion mechanism. Helium appears to be out because of its $6.60 per litre cost, so you'd need around 1000 cubic metres for the hot air variety for two people.

Once you get to the city, tether and deflate in the park-and-ride-area then take the hover bus into town. Yep, the days of the Airdinghy are just around the corner. Anyone care to go into business with me?



[friends] how does one define these


You know, it's really rather interesting what came out of the comments section on the "hidden readers" post two days ago.

I went into that post believing that some readers who visit me "silently" may be miffed that I hadn't linked back to them. It was in no way an accusation - quite the opposite, as Ubermouth pointed out - I was concerned that I didn't know who was regularly visiting and I couldn't return the visit and she construed it correctly.

This was not explained well though in the post and it's not the first time that I've confused readers.

Into this came Welshcakes' aside that I've been known not to declare myself either and though that is not so in terms of intent, I began to see how this could have been viewed that way. I remember saying to Liz Hinds once [or maybe even twice] that she visits but her avatar doesn't show up. Tom Paine is another.

Now, in Tom's case, it is because he uses his Reader and now that mine is set up properly, I can see that that is a good way to do it. In Liz's case, I see that it was not her doing at all. There is something in the conjunction of personal computer idiosyncrasies and configurations, some which might have been put in place, many where someone simply answered "yes" on a dialogue box and many where the way the computer was set up had caused it.

When I was staying at Welshcakes' in Sicily, her computer did some very strange things and Mybloglog just would not configure itself properly. She went in then and it worked after that but I don't think she actually knew what had changed it. I'm sure Mybloglog know.

Perhaps they don't though and that brings home an important truism - that we are going to have to be damned careful with our accusations, beginning with me. It might well look like someone is doing something but it might, in fact, be a technical idiosyncrasy - enough of them occur on my computer, mainly due to my dabbling and imagining that I know what I'm doing. I'm currently learning PHP, by the way.

This then brings in the question of bona fides. Assuming the good intentions of all the people above, then is there any mischief going on in the sphere?

There sure is. I am fairly certain my emails, if not my computer itself is hacked and my evidence is an email I discovered two days ago, supposedly written by me and supposedly distributed between certain bloggers.

Blogpowerers will recall my opinion on doing that sort of thing - publishing [or distributing] private emails of others and it is one of the main reasons I'm not now there but until yesterday I was cynical about whether someone could actually intercept, hack and alter someone's emails. According to a computer whiz I met, it was easy to do and he proceeded to show me diagrams of how it was done.

The face paled.

Living in Russia, as I did, I'd always assumed I was being monitored and that's why there was never anything left on any computer which could be misconstrued or used - in fact the opposite. I told my friend over there that I welcomed such intrusion - better the knowledge than the suspicion and innuendo.

He mentioned that clearing history does not clear cache and I know that well but even so - that's not the end of the earth.

Finally we come down to bona fides and whether people who purport to be friends are really friends. It was in my Headmaster role years ago that my cynicism really took wing, as time and time again, smiling faces turned out to be treacherous ones. The best way to describe my attitude today is "circumspect". I wish I had a pound for the number of times people have emailed me that I shouldn't assume that such and such is my friend.

I'm puzzled by two things - why people would be two-faced in the first place and secondly, why people would want to combine against another person when their official position does not require it as part of the job specification. Hell, I have too much on the plate to worry the head about that sort of thing. On the other hand, it is true that, as BH honchos, we did email each other to discuss incoming members and I certainly put my point of view there. Still do.

I'd not like the blogosphere to become a hotbed of suspicion and innuendo, as it has so much to offer. I've seen first hand that there are wonderful bloggers who have become real friends and maybe that blinds me to their lesser sides but hell - who's perfect?

Lastly, as was continually being impressed upon me over these past few months - none of us are important enough for anyone to trouble themselves over us so paranoia over what someone is going to do is usually misplaced. The bureaucratic world and even the blogosphere are not necessarily evil - they're just indifferent.

UPDATE: Longrider has a great little piece about drive-by trolls which relates to this post here. Check his out if you haven't already done so.

[travellers] newts and 2.5 million pounds


The thing which caught my eye in walking past the kitchen bench today was the front page headline in the local rag: “Traveller Camp held up by Newts.”

It didn’t register at first and I thought it had to be something to do with Ken [rats with wings] Livingstone but at least it promised to be funny. When I mentioned the issue in conversation, the answer came back that it was to do with gypsies.

It said that the Council authority had been delayed and “that as part of their site investigations, a newt survey must be carried out first.” Reading on, the article said that “for the past six months, the Council has been paying to clean up and collect rubbish from a little known accepted encampment … an unauthorized site the Council is letting the Travellers use.”

Gypsies.

Slowly the story came out about the situation in Britain - how they squat on available land, often private or how they go to these sites, get evicted but the eviction doesn’t take effect for some days and they trash the site and the area before moving on.

I was amazed that the Council were even contemplating the £2.5 million super-site for the Travellers and yet I can see the thinking – make it desirable enough and they might stay there and leave other places alone. Also, as a person who has been going from place to place in the past few months, there is some sympathy for them.

“No, no,” I was told. “You had no choice – they prefer it.”

Well, I don’t know if “preferred” is the correct word but I’m in no position to argue. And another thing - being always moved on is pretty dire but if half the tales of their shocking behaviour are true, then I can see why people don’t want them anywhere near.

Wiki has this to say about them:

Travellers refer to themselves as "Pavees", whereas some English people often refer to them with the derogatory terms "Pikeys. Under the government's "Gypsy and Traveller Sites Grant", designated sites for Travellers' use are provided by the council, and funds are made available to local authorities for the construction of new sites and maintenance and extension of existing sites. However, Travellers also frequently make use of other, non-authorised sites, including public "common land" and private plots, including large fields.


One of the main bones of contention seems to be that they are issued with eviction notices but have some days to move on. During that time, they allegedly trash the site and the general area, which costs the local council a packet to clean up [£14 500 is one estimate by a local councillor]. They do sometimes buy land and then build on it, requesting retrospective planning permission, so the story goes.

In this difficult economic climate as well, spending £2.5 million on gypsies would be a little hard to justify to the local ratepayer, methinks. One Councillor said:

“Police have said that they would move them on if there was somewhere to put them but there is nowhere.”

Look at the National Geographic video on the Travellersgives a bit of an insight into these itinerant people. The authorities and the hostility of local residents are one thing but they have other issues as well:

The health threats to them in some ways reflect their traditional semi-nomadic way of life, with members of the community 10 times more likely to die in road accidents. These, at 22 per cent, represented the most common cause of death among males. Infants are 10 times more likely to die before reaching the age of two, while a third of travellers die before the age of 25. In addition, 80 per cent of travellers die before the age of 65.

On the other hand, travellers are less at risk of dying from heart attacks or strokes - though this is largely because so few of them reach the age when they are likely to die from such causes. Suicides are also more common than among the general population.

They are a dilemma. In a society where family, home ownership, job, and car are the aspirations of most, the fate of closed society which bucks conventions and does not abide by conventional behaviour, in majority terms, is always going to cause fierce resentment with that majority.

They’ve been the first victims of despotism before and in a militaristic state with a culture of criminalization of the ordinary citizen, who would raise a voice in protest if the gypsies were “spirited away”?

Once again I have no answers. They move onwards and onwards, never stopping until they move full circle and then they move on or are moved on again. Is there any end to it?



[allergy] or an epidemic

Just saw the weather `'brought to you by claratyne" downunder - I always thought that this was only available in Russia, where I used it due to what I thought was rhinitis.  I also used Semprex.

Now I'm wondering how widespread the usage is.  If the majority of people are taking it in every country, then it appears we might have a silent epidemic on our hands and the advert attached to the weather report makes sense.

Friday, October 03, 2008

[brown] the colour of a hoon


Defence Secretary Mr Browne is to leave the government after turning down two job offers from Mr Brown.  Former agriculture minister, and close Gordon Brown ally, Nick Brown returns as chief whip, to replace Mr Hoon.

Let me see - there's a Brown, Brown, Browne ... mmm ... and somehow they are all connected with a hoon*.

* Wiki says: 

The term "Hoon" was first used in Australia at the turn of the 20th century where it referred to a man living off immoral earnings (i.e. a pimp).  

Hmmm [adjusts pince nez glasses on nose and smiles].

[lawyers] make 'em all circuit judges


Here's the thing on lawyers which you won't remember that this blogger threatened to post.  It arose from an ongoing discussion over this way - hope you like it.

The first in the series was called "small government".  This is the second.

In a nutshell, we alter the whole paradigm in law.  All current lawyers either join the circuit of travelling magistrates [or indeed fixed ones] and all civil and criminal law is handled through them.  No need for solicitors, just clerks.  No need for juries or jury service, just magistrates.

All law works on precedent and on standard procedures developed and written up over the years, certainly in civil matters and there can easily be available blueprints on how to proceed. 

So it works this way.  

Two people are contracting to buy and sell a home.  The estate agent has the standard forms and explanatory notes on site and these are explained to the two parties and copies given.  However, there is a dispute over the exact boundary of the property and this needs resolution.

First step [gratis] is for the estate agent clerk who handles the legal side to sit down with the two parties and talk common sense.  It should resolve the majority of issues.  But let's say one party has dug his heels in and so they need to get a "travelling" arbiter in who, if almost all lawyers have joined this service, will be like well paid JPs.  His decision is final and is binding in law.  He is paid by the plaintiff, if he was the victor as the loser has lost out.  This reduces spurious dispute.

In criminal matters, the magistrate acts as just that.  There is provision for appeal to three magistrates sitting empanelled.

The thing is, the enormous sums saved by eliminating the legal gravy train go back into ordinary people's pockets but the lawyers themselves don't lose out.  They still earn a decent sum as magistrates and as it was in the case of good lawyers/bad lawyers, people can choose which ones to co-opt and which not to.

By changing the whole nature of adversarial law, all the sophistry, all the hanky-panky and all the rip-offs are swept away.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

[hidden readers] where are you, who are you

You know what I'd really like to know?

There are known knowns, such as those who blogroll me and I them and we visit each other and all is roses.  There are those who blogroll me and I them and we never visit.

Then there are the ones this post is about - the fair souls who have blogrolled me and who visit at a distance [maybe via RSS] and because I don't know who they are, I never get a chance to reciprocate.

Step forward and tell me, if you would.

[most unpopular occupations] which

Which is the most unpopular occupation in your eyes at this present time? Some have said that, until recently, lawyers led this list but now politicians have overtaken them. Care to vote on this? Only one vote per ip address per day:

pollcode.com free polls
Which is the most unpopular occupation in your eyes?
Dentists Cold-call telemarketers Traffic wardens Little men on gates at events Politicians Lawyers Record labels Local councils Bureaucrats Other

Record labels must be right up there with the squeeze on Apple which might mean they will abandon their IStore in the near future:
"If word gets out that music publishers are trying to stick it to consumers, and Apple is fighting to keep prices down on their behalf, well, there's liable to be public backlash against the labels. If this thing follows the normal course, there would be calls for boycotts, protests and so on."

[drug of choice] what do you retreat to


When it's all too much for you, when you're thoroughly bored or overwrought, apart from praying to the Good Lord, what do you retreat to?

Up front, I admit that when it's all too much I grab a sheet of A4, a ruler, "B" grade pencil, eraser, calculator and set square and design myself another yacht. You can imagine how many I've designed over the years.

What's your retreat? Tea, coffee, beer, spirits, sex, acid, weed, what? Naturally you're not going to admit some of these.

Alternatively, let's say you were in a room alone and someone had put some XXXX in front of you and departed. You now have serious problems resisting it and if you were left to your own devices, you'd consume it all. What would that XXXX be for you?

Mine is chocolate.

How The Community Reinvestment Act Hosed Us Over

Originally posted at my blog, Buckeye Thoughts.

I write this just so people will know the truth. I could care less about who wins the election in November. You all know I'll be voting for Baldwin. So, here it is:



Watch that video, quickly! It has already been taken down once by YouTube. I don't share the views at the end that McCain will be the "candidate of change" here. Yes, it's true he did try to stop this from happening in '03 but that's a moot point. How is this relevant? Well, considering what the Senate is trying to do (after the House shot it down, wisely listening to their constituencies) and how both Presidential candidates are for this make it quite relevant. I'm just sick of hearing all my professors spouting lies about how the free market alone caused this. If we walk down this path, there will be no turning back!

Spain taught me a multitude of lessons that are, in my opinion, impossible to be learned through any other way than experience. One of them is, while we think we have it bad in this country on occasion, we don't. We are so much more blessed than any other nation in the entire world!

Don't let Congress or the President force this on us! If the Senate passes it, call your Representatives in the House and tell them NO! Feinstein supposedly was reported on Lou Dobbs Tonight as having received 85,000 calls urging her to vote against this. As they say, Let's get to work!

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

[generation next] return to the old values


Britain has a history of football hooliganism and To Sir With Love type scenarios; the U.S.A. has similar. It is tempting to put it down to some national characteristic or other but this report from Australia, of the former president of the AMA bashed with a baseball bat at an ATM, puts it in perspective:

When news such as this is reported, the immediate assumption is the thugs were young. The assumption was correct. Police are looking for a gang of six or more believed to be behind these attacks, all aged from their late teens to early twenties.

The United Kingdom has this week been shuddering at X-ray images of a 16-year-old with a knife lodged in his skull. That country's psychiatrists are studying the link between low levels of the stress hormone cortisol and delinquent behaviour.

Canada has recently introduced tougher sentencing and plans to name and shame young offenders, abandoning traditional anonymity. And in New Zealand a judge has warned of a "social catastrophe" developing from youth.

Adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg sees several reasons. He believes mass media, including video games, is increasingly violent and may twist those predisposed to violence towards the extreme. "We live in a secular and disconnected society," he said yesterday. "Kids need a moral compass, but they are living in a moral vacuum where Hollywood and the alcohol industry have more influence on them than anything else."

Three point starter plan:

1. The cornerstone is a return to the Judaeo-Christian moorings, which loosely held society and its interpersonal relations in check for decades, which Anon recently described, at this blog, as "all that junk". This is a one generation affair, depending on parents' and teachers' willingness to impart the compassionate and self-disciplinary aspects of it and also depending on other factors.

2. Downsizing everything from classroom sizes to government, in which technology is the key factor in enabling it, for example a return to the one room school, wired for the 21st century. Working far more from home, with sorties to the workplace in small discreet numbers, enabling and economically encouraging at least one parent to work from there.

3. The cutting off of the oxygen supply to the whole pornographic, violent, satanist world culture which has gripped youth today, by means of substituting exciting projects which would not be exciting to today's lost children but to the next generation, brought up more naively and in a more localized environment.

Many other things need doing but these three would start the ball rolling.

[brickbats and bouquets] for fellow bloggers

This is going to alienate some of my regular readers - sorry about the strong opinions:

Bloggers who don't allow comments are virtually saying that their wisdom is enough for the reader, that they don't invite the reader in to put a point of view because many blog comments are shallow [true]. However, what about the serious commenter who really wants to interact? Surely Comment Moderation takes care of that?

Bloggers who use word verification when they are in Blogger/Google don't need the cursed thing and it only puts readers off, having to go through that unpleasant procedure over and over. Admittedly, in other hosts, it is needed.

Bloggers who put "web page" in their profile near the email link are doubly blessed, in my book.

Bloggers who don't answer their commenters in at least half their posts or who answer most of the commenters but not all every time, pointedly leaving some out, should really think of the hurt they might be causing by this omission. Most of us have been guilty of that one.

Bloggers who provide beautiful navigation from their front page and back and all around are triply blessed.

Bloggers whose comment name is a link but when you click on the link, it goes nowhere, should be taken out and shot. [For those with no sense of humour, this is meant to be light-hearted].

Bloggers who link to other bloggers are the salt of the earth - theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[lowest common multiple] it's sort of clear

The lowest common multiple is found by multiplying all the factors which appear in either list:

So the LCM of 60 and 72 is 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 × 3 × 5 which is 360.

So far, so good. What about this?

900 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 5 x 5
270 = ___2 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 5

The coloured numbers are counted once only as they appear in both columns and don't need to be counted twice. Anything left over [the bold black numbers] are also included in the count.

So:

2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 5 x 5 = 2700 the LCM is 2700. OK?

Now try these: 63,28; 70,64; 147,45; 175, 120

Answers below

252, 2240, 4410, 4200

[luck] some just don't have it, some do


Robert Evans, a transient, was hit by a car [which didn't stop] on a Tuesday evening. He went to hospital, was released early in the morning, tried to cross a railway bridge and was hit by a train.

In 1987, Larry Reynolds was doing contracting work on a building scaffold when he was struck by lightning. In 2004, now aged 57, he was cleaning his shower when lightning struck him again.

25 children at a school in Falkirk in February this year were injured in a pile-up in a school corridor triggered when a first-year pupil stopped to pick up her shoe. Paramedics were called to the school to treat pupils for crush injuries, including ankle sprains, bruising and sore heads.

In March this year, the media called six accidents at the same time around Melbourne "freak" but they were probably referring to the concurrence more than the accidents themselves, which were ordinary.

Some people feel that freak accidents are misnamed and might not be as unexpected as first thought. For example:

According to a study entitled "Demographics of U.S. Lightning Casualties and Damages from 1959 - 1994," by Ronald L. Holle and Raúl E. López of the National Severe Storms Laboratory and E. Brian Curran of the National Weather Service, males account for 84% of lightning fatalities and 82% of injuries.

One snippet supporting this:

Major Summerford, who fought at Flanders, was knocked off his horse by a flash of lightning and paralysed from the waist down. He moved to Canada, and when he was fishing, he was struck again by lightning and his right side was paralysed. In 1930, he was again struck and this time completely paralysed. He died 2 years later.

Did the nature of his business cause this or did he induce this?

Why, for example, when I cross fields sometimes and then walk under street lamps, they go out and then come back on after I've passed by? Why, when I was in Sicily, did the boiler break? Why, back in the UK, did the boiler break two days ago and we won't have hot water until tomorrow? Why did the driving licence arrive from the DVLA and yet the documents didn't?

These things are sent to puzzle us.

[thought for the day] tuesday evening


The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but never forget.

[Thomas Szasz, 1973]

You can forgive all right but be very, very wary, all the same.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

[pssst] fancy an escort at the singapore grand prix

Singapore's "high-class" escorts [nothing like that - that type of thing is r-i-g-h-t out] are gearing up [see Update below] for a 75% increase in business during the coming grand prix [see Update below].

The biggest difference is that they have to come "from a good family background and at least a university degree," the Straits Times said. "They want escorts who don't look, sound or dress like escorts. They want people to think, 'what a nice girlfriend he has'," it quoted an agency head as saying.

Right, so nooky is quite out of the question, is it?
"Sexual services was not part of the deal but strictly between the escort and client to arrange."
Er ... right. Just to reinforce that this thing is completely above board, a Singapore site presents one of its escorts like this:
Standing barefoot at 175cm, with a svelte 35B-25-35 figure, Mika has a body to absolutely die for and loves to flaunt her assets whenever the opportunity arises, or as the occasion requires!
Anyone planning to fly over that way?

UPDATE: Colin Campbell informs me that it was last Sunday [shows how much I care]. Oh well, better cancel that order then.

[ochlocracy] and the teeming masses

Teeming humanity at peak hour


This is far worse than the Tube stations and buses during peak hours:

At least 100 devotees have been killed in a stampede at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. Officials said at least 100 more were injured in the incident at the Chamunda Devi temple in the city of Jodhpur. A wall near the temple is said to have collapsed, causing panic among thousands of gathered devotees.

It's terrible but equally terrible is the crush of humanity itself, which is increasingly causing an apocalyptic scenario for all.

It is no accident that travelling first class, owning villas and property in Switzerland, having a retreat - all of these are a reaction against excessive population crush. The dole queues, the teeming masses in the street - these are the province of the common man, of which I am one.

Every one of us wants to be treated as special, to have our opinions heard, to be someone - this is what blogs are all about, after all. We recoil from the idea of being a dot in the human landscape, such as in China, India or Africa. Masses are all around us but are still that short distance away to be comfortable. For how long?

What differentiates us from those at the top with the space to think is that we might have thought of the things below but would hardly consider implementing them. Firstly, Robert McNamara, of the World Bank, Oct. 2, 1979:

"There are only two possible ways in which a world of 10 billion people can be averted. Either the current birth rates must come down more quickly or the current death rates must go up. There is no other way. There are, of course, many ways in which the death rates can go up. In a thermonuclear age, war can accomplish it very quickly and decisively.

Famine and disease are nature’s ancient checks on population growth, and neither one has disappeared from the scene…. To put it simply: Excessive population growth is the greatest single obstacle to the economic and social advancement of most of the societies in the developing world.”

Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs, Latin American Desk, February 1981 interview:

“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it….

To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females…. “The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death….”

... and Prince Phillip:

“You cannot keep a bigger flock of sheep than you are capable of feeding. In other words conservation may involve culling in order to keep a balance between the relative numbers in each species within any particular habitat. I realize this is a very touchy subject, but the fact remains that mankind is part of the living world…. Every new acre brought into cultivation means another acre denied to wild species.”

Naturally, this blog does not concur with the Club of Rome, who stated, in 1991, in The First Global Revolution:

"The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

The enemy is certainly population numbers but the people themselves, as they exist today, need charitable feelings above all else, otherwise we ourselves descend to the bestial. The greatest obstacle to ZPG is that whilst the west might embrace it from an intellectual standpoint, the high birthrate societies show no sign of doing that.

So where does that then leave the McNamara Doctrine, which is working towards population reduction and survival of the species? Is it the fear of unsustainable levels or more a fear that they cannot be controlled?

Every State [and many of us too e.g. football mobs], fears the crowd, fears that it will turn into a mob and mob rule is ochlocracy, a particular concern in Imperial Rome, for example, in the time of Commodus:

The tumult became a regular engagement and threatened a general massacre. The Praetorians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers ...

If we, quite logically, as human beings, with some degree of compassion, react with horror to what the elite have put into words, if we however, are feeling quite oppressed by sheer numbers, then what do we offer as a viable alternative to solve this dilemma?

[pets] what is the best choice

You could trace my past few months as going from a lady dog [plus owner] to a male dog [plus owner] to a cat [plus owner] and that cat is curled up one metre from my head right now.

Which is the better pet to have or maybe we should even consider a bird or fish?

Dogs are faithful but lick you all over your face when they like you. Cats use you when they are that way inclined but generally keep their distance. Dogs can wee over the floor but cats spray.

Dogs will defend your home and can be almost like a child to you but cats belong to themselves. Dogs bark and can send up an almighty calm splitting cacophany en masse in the neighbourhood but cats wail.

Both can be wonderful pets but it probably comes down to what you see in your pet or what role your pet fulfils.

UPDATE: You really must see this humorous piece by Eurodog - the diaries of a dog and a cat. It puts it nicely into perspective.

[product placement] productive or counterproductive


From MI6:

The Bond franchise has long been known as a cash cow for its producers, not least because of how much it grosses at the box office, but also how much revenue it rakes in from advertisers wanting their brands strategically placed in the movies. It has been claimed that since 2002's Die Another Day was dubbed "Buy Another Day" by some critics.

And it doesn't just happen on the silver screen. In 2001, jewellery brand Bulgari paid author Fay Weldon to liberally dose her novel The Bulgari Connection with mentions of the brand, while numerous music artists have made Faustian pacts with commerce to bankroll their endeavours.

How you feel about that can vary from David Lynch's reaction to one a bit less extreme, realizing that the trend has been around from the 80s and even before and also realizing that the film is not going to be initially funded without it, even if the gross exceeds that amount later. After all, Art may be the primary thing but so is making money on the film is also a factor.

What happens when product placement goes further?
When you see giant Coke cups sitting at the fingertips of American Idol judges, that's not just product placement. That's full-fledged product integration — when a brand becomes inextricably identified with the content of a show.

That's why network executives use words such as "natural" and "organic" when they talk about product integration and scripted TV ... they don't want it to be so blatantly obvious that it overwhelms the programming. But they don't want you to miss it, either.

Somewhere along the line it becomes sponsorship, such as in the Formula 1 races and so on. Does it work? I'm not sure but in the case of Bond's Casino Royale, it didn't in one respect. During the train scene with the watches, this exchange took place:

Vesper: ... maladjusted young men who'd give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect queen and country. You know, former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches - Rolex? [indicating his watch]

Bond: Omega.


Vesper: ... beautiful. Now having just met you, I wouldn't go so far as calling you a cold-hearted bastard -


Bond: Of course not.


Vesper: ... but it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine ...

Does it matter in the end or are you, the viewer, annoyed about the intrusion of products into the flow of the film? And what should producers do about it?

Monday, September 29, 2008

[abortion] the right becomes the norm

Dave Cole is concerned about abortion rights in Ireland, an issue which has been round a long time.

In the days where women still considered their partners' opinion on this, it was put to me in two different situations [I shan't go into details now - sorry to remain vague]. There were medical reasons in both cases and both were accidents, inasfaras any grown, sentient woman could, with care, prevent this or cause it to be prevented.

No matter. It happened and that was that. It's going to sound very weak but I couldn't give an answer as I was undecided, as I still am today. I do see the "murder" argument and I do see that it was a simple impossibility at the time to have the child. Possibly some men can walk away from decisions like this and not care less but it haunted me for a very long time and still threatens to, along with other things I've done.

I wish I could be as certain as both lobbies. I wish I knew definitively that it was wrong or that it was the least worst choice.

Where I feel there is firmer ground is in decrying the attitude of some women who feel that any accident can be remedied this way [although it doesn't seem too pleasant a process to me]. It is always meant to be a last resort, preventable in the main and not forming part of any "family planning". It should never be planned and it should never be a reasonable fallback position.

Whether it is an option of last resort - who knows?

[peabody economics] nothing ever changes


George Peabody set up shop in the aftermath of the 1837 panic:


Because of U.S. debt troubles, Peabody became persona non grata around London (after all, he had sold the Brits much of that debt). But that did not deter him. He bought the depreciated state bonds when they were trading for pennies on the dollar. When these bonds paid interest again, in the late 1840s, Peabody reaped a fortune.

Then along came the next crash, in 1857 and:

Corsair, the Life of J.P. Morgan, tells us that the Panic of 1857 was caused by the collapse of the grain market and by the sudden collapse of Ohio Life and Trust, for a loss of five million dollars. With this collapse nine hundred other American companies failed. Significantly, one not only survived, but prospered from the crash.

In Corsair, we learn that the Bank of England lent George Peabody and Company five million pounds during the panic of 1857. Winkler, in Morgan the Magnificent
, says that the Bank of England advanced Peabody one million pounds, an enormous sum at that time, and the equivalent of one hundred million dollars today, to save the firm. However, no other firm received such beneficence during this Panic.

Ron Chernow wrote that the Morgan munificence was reprised in the 1907 panic:


"In the following days, acting like a one-man Federal Reserve system, [J. Pierpont] Morgan decided which firms would fail and which survive. Through a non stop flurry of meetings, he organized rescues of banks and trust companies, averted a shutdown of the New York Stock Exchange, and engineered a financial bailout of New York City."

Morgan is always at hand through the majority controlled Federal Reserve [read July 14, 2008 here] and its close association with the FOMC in altruistically helping out in times of crises, which seem to pop up quite regularly. Morgan seems to be particularly astute in predicting crises and preparing for them - what of the gold swaps?

[bizarre experiment] not so bizarre conclusion


This blog usually tries to steer clear of just commenting on what the Telegraph or other MSM might be running at a given moment but this story requires a comment I don't think many would make.
Research at Oxford University has found believers can draw on their religion to endure suffering with greater fortitude, suggesting Christian martyrs may have been able to reduce the agony of torture or slow death.

Firstly, what is the point of the study and why the electric shocks? This immediately makes one smell a rat, as the shock approach is beloved of a particular type of people who enjoy the Joseph Mengele style of "research".

Secondly, it is attempting to reduce the physical to the metaphysical, the latter which just won't fit into the box and lie still. There is a contract that anyone who is actually Christian [as distinct from Sunday Churchgoer or Christian Right] enters into and it's spelt out clearly in Matthew and John.

It says that you can be redeemed by belief, not only because of the feeling of relief you get that you're actually going to make it to heaven but through the spirit, the third person of the trinity, actually flowing in like a lifeforce. All you need to do, it says, is believe that it is possible.

Almost no one in the MSM or the main blogosphere either dares or is interested in a kooky idea like that. Look at the adjective the Telegraph uses - bizarre. Yes, the experiment seems that way but in my eyes, it had an agenda. The paper mentions that the experimenters "hoped" for a certain result. I'm sure they did and they duly published it.

Does that make you suddenly believe in Christianity's ability to deliver on the Holy Spirit? Does it heck as like. For the majority, all it does is place the whole concept in the kook category in their minds, thereby putting another nail in the coffin of the "Cross superstition" [or so the shockophiles think].

Looking at society in general, you have to be pretty blinkered not to see the assault on Christianity from within and from outside [Winterval, banning the Nativity plays and so on] over the last decade and the obvious question is why this fixation with stomping out something they deny even exists? Why the Muslim fixation with it, for example?

The answer is that it delivers on its promise. So yes, there was a resurrection, there has to have been, as the results of it flow through to a few million worldwide on a daily basis. They're not going out preaching it but just living with the benefits day by day. It's always available if you should one day need it.

But look at the anger, the raised eyebrows and the snorts of bemused disgust such an assertion produces in people who like to deem themselves "rational", people who supposedly take all phenomena into account in their conclusions. This thing just won't die off, won't go away, will it? Non-believers trot out rationalization after rationalization explaining it away, sociological, psychological and other and those rationalizations hold up well when measured against physical phenomena.

Trouble is, you can't measure someone coming alive after three days and the power deriving from that, flowing into millions worldwide, in physical terms. It's like trying to measure Herbert's Dune and the life water or Star Wars' Force or the nature of electricity or why we actually "live" and are sentient, as distinct from being robotic. It is like trying to scientifically measure joie-de-vivre - it just won't fit into the scientific box.

It just is, as quite a few people dotted about here and there can testify to.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

[feminist quiz] do you know your heroines

Woman strangling male beast to death

C'mon girls [and guys], let's see how well you know your heroines. The task is to identify which of these famous people:

Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Wollstonecraft, Henry Kissinger [oh how I'm missin' yer]

...was behind which quote:

1. Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy. 2. I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves. 3. A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual. 4. One is not born a woman, but becomes one. 5. I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover.

Answers in the correct order

Henry Kissinger [oh how I'm missin' yer], Mary Wollstonecraft, Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer

Bonus questions - which one of these quotes did Simone de Beauvoir not utter?

a. The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them. b. To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job. c. That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. d. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living. e. One of the things I really like about men is that they are raised to take responsibility for their actions. They don't make excuses, and they don't have a whole lot of tolerance for people who do make excuses, who try to weasel out from their responsibility.

Answer

e. Correct - it was spoken by feminist Marylaine Block.

[quicksand] how to get in and out


First the good news - you're not going to drown in quicksand - only sink down. The bad news is that stuck you will be and if you're in, say, Morecambe Bay, the tide will get you.

The science is here and below is a practical though misnamed video of how to get stuck and then escape:





Lindisfarne is a place where the tide is also treacherous though well known and signposted. Also, there are refuges [see pic above] dotted along the way, which is fine if you're in one car but what if you're a party of twelve people or so?

I've only once experienced this sort of thing. Being down at the beach in northern England, a few of us ventured round a point to look in a well known cave, only accessible from the sea side. That was fine but on the return, some fifteen minutes later, the tide had already started to come in and was round the ankles.

The thing which frightened us a bit was that it had not come in near where the cave was but it had snuck around the sides where we couldn't see it. A few minutes later, now back within safety but still paddling, it had risen to calf height. In forty minutes we would have been swimming over our heads.

Good luck in your ventures!

[tina fey] darling of the american heartland



... the younger American heartland, anyway. She called Paris Hilton a piece of sh-- who looks like a tramp. Judge for yourself.

[small government] provisions in a mixed economy

Local government office in the new society


The Number One rule of the society, by means of constitutional provisions, is to prevent those who hold elected office from reneging on their roles, as listed below and assuming instead a “nannying” or command and control stance.

The Number Two rule of government is to protect, through the judicial arm, the constitution and associated bills at all costs, a constitution written by and voted for by a panel of representatives, meritocratically appointed from each section of society.

These two rules prevent a regulatory society where the government can criminalize those who put them there.

The Number Three rule is to ensure a mixed economy, heavily weighted towards free enterprise, jealously guarding the right and opportunity for private enterprise, with particular emphasis on companies with less than 30% share of the national market [as distinct from global] and turning the haves and have nots in society into the cans and cannots and want tos and want nots. Equal opportunity means government incentive schemes [as below] but not regulation.

The Number Four rule is that government is assigned to legitimately restrict these areas:

1. formal and de facto merging or collusion of economic entities for the purpose of controlling the market economy in their sector[s], based on market share;
2. price fixing, as far as it can be established;
3. derivatives of certain kinds by regulation but not elimination.

The Number Five rule is that government is officially directed that funds from its flat tax rate of 15% over a threshold, corporate and private, are to cover:

1. initiative and start up grants plus patents;
2. social security for the genuinely needy, inc. part pension provisions 1:1;
3. defence provisions [this being the only area where collusion is legitimate, i.e. treaties with other nations but not in defence contracts, which come under Rule 4];
4. telecommunications, power grids and waste collection/disposal.

One fundamental principle is that an enterprise which goes down goes down and is not bailed out by government under any circumstances.

All other areas, including community policing, are handled by the private sector. The bloated bureaucracy is re-employed in both enterprises set up by the contracted government in a one-off changeover and to work in ensuring the rules .