Saturday, November 22, 2008

[silent saturday] more in the rock series


Captions please!

[clear as mud] necessary note

If I was enigmatic in the wee hours of this morning, Saturday, I'm even more so now. Pleased to say we have made progress, in fact even since the emails went to a few people this evening. It's a bit unfair to those not in the know to pass messages this way but this will be the last on the matter. It's only so people can sleep tight and not worry too much now.  By the way, every time something happens, another drinks offer comes along.  It's going to be a cheerful company when we meet up.

[spaceships] two more

The Lexx

Scimitar

[rise of a monster] how he gets away with it


The Guardian called it “rumours” but there is plenty of evidence that Prescott Bush and others benefited directly from supporting the Nazi machine and this is supported in a recent lawsuit:

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

Bush defenders don’t defend Prescott Bush very strongly but do take the line firmly that George Bush is not guilty for the former’s actions. The Anti-Defamation League in the US said that Prescott Bush was “neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser”. No doubt, but that was not the issue. The issue was if he had profited from his Nazi ties.

Factor 1: The refutation does not address the issue but answers it obliquely.

Then we come to the whistleblower, the lone voice and it is uncanny how such a person often doesn’t seem to do it very well. In the case of the Bush issue, it was a manic depressive named Buchanan who took up the baton but:

… when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and media outlets that had spurned him … Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami … the charges were dropped last month.

Later Buchanan said:

… he regretted his behaviour had damaged his credibility but his main aim was to secure publicity for the story.

This in no way exonerated Prescott Bush but it did get him temporarily off the hook until someone more rational takes the baton again sometime down the track.

Factor 2: The person who whistle blows has some flaw of his own which the guilty can latch on to, to avoid addressing the facts. When the whistle blower does his nut, the average reader takes that as justification that the evidence must be tainted.



Hitler’s rise

One writer put it thus:

Hitler preached faith, family, and patriotism. His speeches were laced with references to God. He personally claimed Christ to be his Savior. Even his adopted Nazi symbol was created around the Christian cross. As far as the German people were concerned, Adolph Hitler was loyal to historic, conservative Christian values. Why should they have thought otherwise?

On March 23, 1933, the newly elected members of the Reichstag … met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing [the] "Ermächtigungsgesetz" … or … the … "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich." Opponents of the "Enabling Act" rightly warned that, if adopted, the Act would make Hitler a de facto dictator. They worried that the Act would dismantle constitutional liberties.

Why would no one have heeded that? For a start, Goering explained:

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

... and so, in the same way, Attorney-General Ashcroft said, in the U.S.A. years later:

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."

Factor 3: Align yourself to be what the people perceive as “one of them”. This was later the Kim Philby tactic and why he got away with it for so long. He presented himself as an all round good guy and people wanted to swallow it.

Factor 4: Portray opponents as unpatriotic, vindictive and off their brains, given to wild words, in contrast to your reasonable, “man of the people” rhetoric and your apparent intellect, [Wikipedia is a wonderful current day resource before a post, for example], until you do acquire some knowledge and can pass yourself off as an intellectual:

"Hitler read an endless number of books," explained Dr. Schacht. "He acquired a very considerable amount of knowledge and made masterful use of it in discussions and speeches.”

And yet, what were people to make of the rough house tactics, the brawling in the streets, the beer hall antics and so on? The answer is that people’s eyes and minds are so focused on the charisma, the charm, the promises of renewed prestige that they forget the disquietening stuff which is going on parallel to it or else forgave it. They’ve hardly read Mein Kampf, studied the man’s psychological background or looked at his violent past or sexual dysfunction.

Factor 5: Show due deference to national icons, those the people still respect although they might feel he has “lost the plot” compared to the bright young up-and-comer:

[The March 21st meeting] was attended by President Hindenburg, foreign diplomats, the Staff and all the old guard going back to the days of the Kaiser. Dressed in their handsome uniforms sprinkled with medals, they watched a most reverent Adolf Hitler give a speech paying respect to Hindenburg and celebrating the union of old Prussian military traditions and the new Nazi Reich.

supported here:

With deference and apparent humility, and attired in formal dress for the occasion, Hitler bowed his head before the old man.

Factor 6: Distract the people’s attention and feed them what they most want to hear from you:

"It is a fact," French historian Bénoist-Méchin later observed, "that the unification of the states and the Reich answered one of the most profound aspirations of the German people.

Factor 7: With flattery and good humour, assiduously court the people most important to you, who can help you overcome the incumbent:

But it was above all Germany's army -- the Reichswehr -- that was the object of Hitler's most ardent courtship. In 1933, he desperately needed the army's support.

… and:

"A strange mixture of tactician and visionary," Joachim Fest would later write, sizing up this extraordinary stage manager.

Factor 8: Pre-empt your opponent’s barbs by “admitting” your dark side, complete with your own spin and garner sympathy for being so “honest” with the people.

Factor 9: Quietly bring in decree after decree restricting civil liberties and preventing outward criticism of you:

The second decree … allowed for the arrest of anyone suspected of maliciously criticizing the government and the Nazi party. A third decree signed only by Hitler and Papen allowed for the establishment of special courts to try political offenders … without a jury and usually with no counsel for the defense.

Factor 10: Exclaim, with full drama and outstretched palms, your hurt innocence and exasperation that “the people” should have to continue listening to the troublesome “slurs” of your main foe, something like:

"You are no longer needed! - The star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!"

Factor 11: Immediately strive for legitimacy by putting things to the vote but only where you already know the result beforehand:

The vote was taken - 441 for and only 84 [the Social Democrats], against.

Factor 12: Ride a wave of emotional sympathy to force your intellectual opponents to flee the country:

A flood of the finest minds, including over two thousand writers, scientists, and people in the arts poured out of Germany and enriched other lands, mostly the United States.

Factor 13: Now turn your attention to the ones who have been blindly assisting, aiding and abetting you so far:

By dint of flattery and persuasion, within a month von Papen let himself be gently shoved out the door.

Factor 14: Seize your opponent’s political agenda and muddy the waters:

Hitler, never missing an opportunity, grasped this one with both hands. He did more than grant this reasonable demand: he proclaimed the First of May a national holiday … the union leaders [made] a 180-degree turn within weeks.

Factor 15: Now unleash your oratory power or your ability to write:

Hitler, as a speaker, was a prodigy, the greatest orator of his century. He possessed, above all, what the ordinary speaker lacks: a mysterious ability to project power.

Factor 16: Transform yourself from violent, troublemaking, sexual impotent to statesman whom all respect:

In a remarkable tribute, historian Joachim Fest felt obliged to acknowledge unequivocally: “Hitler had moved rapidly from the status of a demagogue to that of a respected statesman. The craving to join the ranks of the victors was spreading like an epidemic, and the shrunken minority of those who resisted the urge were being visibly pushed into isolation.”

Factor 17: Always provide enough good things, by an exponential factor, to overwhelm the dark side of what you are doing:

Describing how the average German adapted to the new order, Shirer writes, “The overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of culture had been destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work had become regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation ...”



Factor 18: Once entrenched, your real purpose all along, whether a Jim Jones or an Adolph Hitler, which one present day writer describes as his “life work”, can proceed unhindered by those who previously called him out on it:

Now, for the first time as dictator, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the driving force which had propelled him into politics in the first place, his hatred of the Jews.

Factor 19: Involve and implicate the people in your own guilt:

Eugene Kogon, a former Buchenwald prisoner, later Professor of Political Science at the University of Munich commented: “... And yet, there wasn't even one German who did not know of the camps' existence or who believed they were sanatoriums. There were very few Germans who did not have a relative or an acquaintance in camp, or who did not know, at least, that such an one or another had been sent to a camp.

You can’t disown him for a number of reasons:

1. You’re now guilty yourself, either actively or passively;
2. To oppose would mean you would not only get what was being dished out but your family would be reviled by the others;
3. You had much to gain at a troubled time in history.

… and:

It is true that the majority of Germans supported Hitler and accepted or tolerated his insanity and enjoyed his successes.

Monsters have agendas which they initially keep quiet; they identify opponents and remove them, then alternately offer much and act to suppress dissent. Finally, they implicate others in their own crimes.

The majority don't realize they have a monster on their hands until it is too late.

[sarko] result great news for him

[when we trust] when it is misplaced

Earlier in the night, late evening, I had two quite large shocks.

One is a real life situation with a friend and I don't quite know how to deal with it or help but I have a few ideas I'll try in the next few days.

The second is that I discovered something in the wee hours of this morning which really knocked the stuffing out of me personally. In the past few months, I've discovered how good true friends can be and it is they who have really kept me going both in RL and in this battle in the blogosphere against an ongoing rank injustice.

Only today, one of them told me that time was only going to allow more and more of the real truth to be discovered and people will cease burying their heads in the sand and see things as they truly are. The longer it goes on, the more it will be seen that I spoke the truth. For the moment though - no.

This is a time for decisions in a polarized situation thrust upon us. As Aneurin Bevan once said: "We all know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road - they get run down." The precedents are many. Chamberlain is a perfect example of the desire to appease, to smooth things over but when the slavering jaws of a Wolf are contemplating your demise, there is little room for manoeuvre, as Churchill well understood.

The hardest lesson I've learnt in these past months is that many who purport to be friends are not. This has been a bitter lesson - for so long I've heard people warning me that such and such a person pretends to be a friend but is not and I've ummed and ahhed and let it go on. Then, when the chips were down, they showed their true colours.

It's got to the point now where one doesn't trust anymore. And yet, a gut instinct tells me that this person is OK, this person does not speak with forked tongue and that this other person, for all the fine words, is a worry. Can't put a finger on it but something doesn't quite add up. A couple of explanations for strange reactions don't quite cut it. So we give the benefit of the doubt.

Then the truth comes out by accident; there is a combination of circumstances and suddenly we realize that the nightmare just goes on. Fine, fine. let it be so. If this is a test of character, then let it be so.

Goodnight, readers.

Friday, November 21, 2008

[thought for the day] friday evening

In life, in love, in outer space:

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your Eyes Turned Skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

[which spaceship] the coolest in the cosmos


Some prefer the ship human made, sleek, gunmetal grey and ready to kick butt, such as the Excalibur above ...



Some prefer their ships more free form, which you can only really get if designed by aliens, such as with the Firebird above ...
 


Some prefer a ship on a more grandiose scale, such as the Star Destroyer above ...



... and some prefer their ship in variable geometric form, such as the Borg Cube above.

Which do you think is the coolest ship in the cosmos?  If you answer, could you give us a link, using the ahref html way?

[too funny for words] rough justice


This is a screenshot. Click on the pic to go to Rick's site to see this.

If you have a moment, check this Far Queue gallery out while you're about it.

[boat design] maximum numbers or maximum safety




This is not the first time this blog has referred to this matter. Look at the naval vessel in the first photo and the ferry in the second. What immediately strikes you is their relative stability. Now look at the third photo and see what you think. Does the expression "top heavy" spring to mind?

Oh yes, you say, but these boats are designed to be stable. They have stabilizers below and all that. Don't they? Well, perhaps you can consider this and this when deciding if things perform as they are "designed" to.

You do as you wish but I wouldn't be caught dead on the boat in the third picture or similar. As a sailor, I'd just like to point out that there are things called storms and big waves and freak conditions out on the ocean.

There's also a thing called human error.

[segolene royal] tricky time for her and for her party


The BBC seem to have put the salient points on the run-off vote here:

In the first round, Ms Royal gained 42.5% of the vote, Ms Aubry 34.7% and Mr Hamon 22.8%. Ms Royal - who had won a pre-convention ballot with 29% of members' votes - accused her rivals of clinging to "outdated" ways after they refused to rally behind her leadership bid. France's media have said the Socialists showed themselves at the Reims convention to be "ungovernable".

Segolene Royal is the best known, of course and wasn't far off securing the presidency last time. Of course she has the stigma of being a one time loser and being that much older next time round, also without the support of her former partner. Yet she seems the only viable alternative for the socialists in being able to bring the party into line long enough for the population to vote for them.

Le figaro says:

Le Parti socialiste est au moins sûr d'une chose : il sera dirigé pour la première fois par une femme ... En revanche, «Royal progresse nettement. Ces premiers chiffres montrent une dynamique en sa faveur. Si elle échoue au second tour, cet échec résoudra moins de problèmes au PS qu'il n'en créera de nouveaux», selon ce professeur à Sciences Po.

How far the outgoing Hamon's preferences flow to Aubry is the critical factor here. One key problem is that many don't wish to make a choice between what is seen as three bad choices:

C'est le cas par exemple du président du groupe PS à l'Assemblée, Jean-Marc Ayrault. «Je ne veux pas participer à l'aggravation des fractures que nous avons connues à Reims, a-t-il déclaré mardi. Je voterai jeudi et peut-être vendredi, mais je n'exprimerai pas publiquement de préférence.»

Sarko would not be altogether unhappy with the current state of the socialists in France.

[defend the perpetrator] ignore the victim


Bunny writes:

I have a cousin who used to be a great guy. He was funny, clever and had everything going for him. He used to be one of my favourite people to spend time with.

But not anymore.


Because now my cousin is a junkie bastard who can't see anything past getting his next fix. I used to love my cousin who was a great guy. I'd laugh at his jokes, we'd tell stories. He used to be a go to guy.


But not anymore.


Because now my cousin is up for culpable homicide because he bought heroin for a girl and she overdosed and died.
I hope they make an example of him and I hope he spends a long time in jail.

Someone replied:

Heroin is actually the easiest drug to get inside. He'll end up a victim, he'll come out a broken, miserable wreck.

To which Bunny replied:

What he needs is a gold star and big fu--ing cup of tea for helping that girl kill herself.

Right on. Why, oh why do people insist on concerning themselves with the "poor" perpetrator's broken heart the whole time? Touching but what about the victims? Take your pick of issues where this is the case. Here's one:


[T]here is a practice of giving the victim and the perpetrator almost equal billing, often with the implication that the perpetrator's background, family situation or personal woes somehow mitigate his/her criminal act.


Enough!

And another thing - the media should be castigated over its constant beat-ups and complete lack of concern or connection with the events they sensationalize.

Sheesh.

.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

[dinoquiz] slip back a few million years


Thanks, Wiki, for this:

1. The term "dinosaur" was coined in 1842 by _______ .

2. Which of these were not dinosaurs: the
pelycosaur Dimetrodon, the winged pterosaurs, and the aquatic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs.

3. There is an almost universal consensus among paleontologists that birds are the descendants of _______ dinosaurs.


4. Which came first - the Triassic or Jurassic period?


5. The tallest and heaviest dinosaur known from good skeletons is
_______ (also known as Giraffatitan). Its remains were discovered in Tanzania between 1907–12.

Answers here.

[frame up] favoured ploy of the fallen

All the reviews seem to pan the film The Fallen [1998, Denzel Washington]. That's as maybe but the idea is quite neat and I imagine close to reality.

The plot, in a nutshell, is that a serial killer is caught and gassed for his crime but he was, in fact, possessed and the daemon can switch hosts either by touch or over a certain distance, otherwise it dies. Its game is to frame cops for murders, by having the cop kill whichever innocent was possessed at the time and then to move on, once the innocent is dead and blood is on the cop's hands.

Of more interest to me was the frame-up, as this was one theme in this post as well, which is about when black is presented as white and white as black. It also seems applicable to many things going on today. It would be horrific being framed, even down to your own fingerprints being there to incriminate you and all that just to continue the agenda of someone or something which revels in distrust and destruction.

You'd have no way out and would have to watch as friends and family began to think you'd either gone off your brain or were guilty. If you accept the stool pigeon as a frame-up of sorts, then Oswald might fall into that category and htere is evidence that Dean was initially meant to take the rap for Watergate as well.

Very difficult to counter.

[the obama bunch] here's a story ... of a ...

[frankensteins] when mammoths and neanderthals roam again


Here's the scheme:

Reconstruct the genome of the woolly mammoth from its hair, implant the DNA in an elephant egg, then, after successive generations, the mammoth would be reconstructed. Don't forget:

The same would be technically possible with Neanderthals, whose full genome is expected to be recovered shortly ...

So, we get back to the good old days of Neanderthals and mammoths, exterminate the pesky human vermin of the current day and hey presto - controllable, reduced population and a food source. How much would the initial step take?

Stephan Schuster ... at Pennsylvania State University ... estimated [it] would cost $10 million.

[germaine greer] who listens to her anyway


And these are the things Germaine Greer is concerned with, in her struggle for women's rights?

Germaine Greer says the dress Michelle Obama wore to her husband's US election declaration was a "butcher's apron" and looked like a "geometrical hemorrhage".

Deep.

Adding to her credentials as an intellect of note, Ms Greer pronounced last year that Princess Diana was a "devious moron" and that Steve Irwin, crocodile hunter, "deserved it" when he was killed.

The movement's in good hands, sisters.

[supertanker revisited] piracy on the high seas


This post did not seem to garner a great deal of interest and yet the issue has now forced itself onto the world consciousness - the return of piracy on the high seas. Naturally, the shipowners are calling for protection:

This was reinforced on Wednesday when the Hong Kong Shipowners' Association called for preventive action by the world's navies as well as for humanitarian help in war-torn Somalia.

For a start, what is in it for the worlds' navies and how can they patrol the area the pirates are now operating in? As mentioned in the previous post on the issue:

Perhaps the answer is that if there were any rescue attempt, the cargo would be sunk and whilst the pirates lose millions in this particular deal, it is better for Saudi Arabia and the company to pay out a few million in ransom and save the 995 million left over.

My friend came up with the only solution I've so far heard which might work - pay them the ransom, get the ship and cargo back then send in the warships, subs and gunboats and destroy the pirate HQ in its entirety and most importantly, take over the port area. Yes, the pirates would relocate, like the Hezbollah but it would eventually prove to be yet another less port to operate from.

The alternative of arming the merchant ships is not so good because that would also mean offensive capability.

[brazil air crash] again, a combination of circumstances


The Brazil crash was not the same as the Tenerife crash, which I've studied in some detail, but only touched on in blog posts and yet there's at least one common element - the combined force of a number of small errors which led to it:

1. The reverse thruster had been switched off during regular maintenance [though why it could not have been switched on again, I'm not sure];

2. The runway had been recently resurfaced;

3. It was too short;

4. There was heavy rain that day;

5. The geography of the runway and surrounding area had a fuel depot immediately to the left near the end of the runway;

6. That same plane had had problems landing the day before.

That was for starters. The critical point following that was that the jet appeared to be trying to take off again but only veered left and crashed into the fuel storage facility. Thus the 200 or so died.

Trying to look into the pilot's mind, imagine his thoughts as he touched down, presumably at the correct speed but instead of the thrusters working, they didn't. Now he had a set of safety procedures at this point and he would have employed them but to no avail.

The aircraft was still travelling at three times the correct speed. At what point he changed his mind and wanted to abort the landing and take-off again, on a short runway, is the crucial point - the earlier the better, of course. I'm also thinking of traction issues on that slippery runway.

With the runway being so short, wouldn't it have been in the pilot's mind that the instant he realized the thrusters weren't working he should have aborted there and then and attempted a takeoff?

Everyone was to blame - from the runway designers, through the officials, to the crew at the end. And always there was the commercial pressure, with soaring prices, to delay solutions just that little bit longer.

When we take that car to the airport, we have other issues on our minds - the meeting, the holiday, whatever. We worry about the weight of our baggage, the delay in traffic, we make that call on the cellphone. We check in and then have to run the gauntlet of the screenings on the way through.

Then comes the boredom of the wait, the boarding procedure and the putting of things in the overhead lockers. The last thing on our minds is that this particular plane had problems yesterday or that the runway we are to be landing on is too short.

There's a lot of trust in this thing, isn't there?

[try these blogs] thursday diversion

Today:

Methodius

Orthodox deacon, freelance writer, editor, and teacher.

Waking Hereward

Designer and appreciator of Black Cat.

Mark Wadsworth

Chartered tax adviser and conservative [?] who wishes to legalize cannabis.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

[black is white, white is black] a golden compass will get us back


Oh my goodness, there's no stopping this thing, is there? We're indeed in the times when they don't even bother disguising the message any more but a quote from Isaiah puts it in perspective:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

There's a war raging and it's an unknown war yet for most people still tied to their shopping centre lifestyle and credit card debt, the loss of all values except "do as you will" and the slow slide into the new feudalism.   Into this comes a film which would never have been made for children twenty years ago and it's straight black theology - the Golden Compass.

Where to start within the constraints of a blog post? 

In this heavily symbolic film [the first indicator], each person has no soul but a personal daemon beside them. The daemon is good, a protector [second indicator] and the Catholic Church is the Magisterium. Superimposing the clinical white torture chambers of the future [third indicator] on the "evil" church, all dissent is suppressed, everything is based on a lie, the black priests contrast with the fair-haired and white clad daemons, whose allies, the witches [fourth indicator] come to the rescue.

The evil church is experimenting on children, reducing them to spiritless robots called gobblers and it is up to the heroic gypsies, polar bears, witches and the star child to rescue them from the clutches of the church and their Russian speaking cossack guards. The dastardly deed is:

... cutting away the child's dæmon by a process called intercision which is equivalent to disconnecting their souls from their bodies [fifth indicator] ...

... precisely the aim of the dark side in RL and the diametric opposite of the aim of Christianity which is the synthesis of the spirit and body. But no one knows that any more, do they? No one has been brought up any more with any knowledge of the old scripture, which states this as clear as day.

This is meant to be a kids' film?  Bl--dy hell.   The kids learn to love black and distrust white.  Yeah, right on.

What impression did the film makers hope to make on kids? Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, Daniel Craig and many other stars should have ensured a perfect reception in kids' minds. "As of July 6, 2008, it had earned $372,234,864 worldwide."   

Not quite what they'd hoped for.

Near the end of the film, the high witch Eva Green, [my, she loves these roles, doesn't she], explains to the star child that the Magisterium is trying to take over the whole world and other worlds too, stifling free speech, regimenting people and that a war is coming which will consume everyone.

Now, that rhetoric and modus operandi is straight from the Illumined Ones and the world elite - has anyone ever heard a Christian church preaching that, even the Catholic Church? And yet because the ground has been made fertile over three decades now, with education, the media and the arts all white-anted, the anti-truth will be received wisdom for the zombified but for mavericks of the old school - it's going to be an uphill battle.

A blog post like this will only convince people that the blogger is off his brain, won't it?    Should this blog just lighten up and watch everyone sleepwalk to oblivion?   Not much else it can do.



[the right to bear arms] in a changing society



You'll recall the 2003 Canadian law requiring all firearms to be registered and Canadians' reluctance to do so:

The grace period to register rifles and other long firearms ended yesterday with about 1.6 million shotguns and rifles — about one of every five such weapons in the country — still outside of the national database. But the federal government is not rushing to track down and charge people with unregistered long weapons.

Despite being past the deadline, Canadians will not face punishment if they voluntarily contact the Canadian Firearms Centre to register a weapon in the coming weeks. They run the risk of a fine or jail sentence only if they are caught by police with an unregistered weapon.

Canadian law regarding firearms can be seen, in summary, here. My reading of the government strategy is that they must bend over backwards to show reasonableness in this matter before they start the prosecutions. There can be little doubt that the ultimate purpose of the registrations is to enable the weapons to then be surrendered. Australia has already begun proceedings this October. Britain started down this road in 1999, utilizing the Dunblane Tragedy to demand gun surrender.

In the U.S.A, the situation is a little different. They've ended the gun-surrender program implemented by former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, on the grounds that it was too costly and might have been illegal. Americans are openly discussing not only buying in weapons but which ones:

I’m thinking a 9mm since that is standard issue around the world and the bullets would be cheap for practice. Anything you’d recommend? I’m leaning towards a sub-compact because I like the element of surprise. I’m looking at this

The Americans are even taking an interest in our situation:

It's interesting to note that as recently as 1996, there were fewer than 600 annual homicides in Britain. Once more, and in direct contrast to the assertions of the gun control crowd, it is demonstrated that fewer legal guns indicates more crime. In this case, 30 percent more lethal crime. Britain would have done much better to keep its guns and ban the migration from the third world.

This is logical. If a citizen wants to kill someone and guns are legal, then that would be his weapon of choice. If you ban guns, then the whole thing moves one rung down and people start using, say, knives. The difference is that a knife is far easier to conceal and explain away if you were found with one. Ban knives and then people would take to acid or poison or whatever.

You're not going to stop a person determined to kill anyway but that's not the real point of the government. The difference between the gun and the knife is the citizen militia. That must never be, say the government and significant portions of the population, who believe the government is on their side, cite the British tradition of not carrying firearms.

Philip Luty was the test case over here and he was jailed for possession. Apparently it is legal to advertise plans on how to build your own gun but illegal to build and carry one from those plans.

Returning to the U.S.A., the right to bear arms means, in Bob G's words:

I feel safe when taking care of my own protection, something they cannot assure. To listen to this bunch, the NRA [not the rifle association but the regulatory authority] makes the Illuminati look like pikers.

The increase in weapons sales since Obama got in illustrates the American view that patriotism means loyalty to the flag and constitution but not particularly to the government of the time. To carry weapons in defence of yourself, your family and the people is a second amendment right.

This blog is certainly not advocating it and its owner can't remember when he last saw a gun but it seems, as the British people observe more and more the resemblance of their nation to a police state, that more and more they are probably going to start thinking about the necessity of the right to bear arms.

[bnp list] a hypocrite pontificates

The BNP matter. It is outrageous that they were outed.

A completely unprincipled blogger who is well-known for publishing whatever he damn well likes on those who oppose him said that he opposed the principle of personal information being published [I choked on my coffee when I saw that, the freakin' hypocrite] but that in this particular case dot dot dot ...

What a tosser. You either have a principle or you don't. You either say it's OK to out or you don't. In this case, it is not. Data Protection Act et al.

UPDATE 21:17:  I apologize for the tone of this post - hypocrisy really gets on my nerves and so the tone is a bit wild.  I even apologize to the target of the post - I'd have hoped to have remained more even-tempered.  Still, what's done is done.

UPDATE  00:18:  You know, this post has received such massive traffic since it was posted, I wonder why, when far better posts were put up today and generated nice but steady traffic.  Why would anyone be interested in my opinion on the BNP?  Maybe it was the word "hypocrite" which brought people in, thinking I might be dredging up an old issue.  No such luck.  That one's over.

[try these blogs] wednesday diversion

Try these:

Over the water

A misplaced scouser seemingly living in San Francisco and involved in construction.

Writing on

South Florida writer with a mystery persona.

Infidel 753

Portland, Oregon accountant with specific views.

[new members] can past history be looked at

There is apparently a proposal at a blog group [not Bloghounds] which runs roughly along these lines:

That the criterion by which new blogs are decided for membership should in no way take into account the blogger himself, his past history or his "private life" nor if it is being used for "recruitment" purposes.

In other words, members must decide on the blog, excluding what they already know of this blogger or what subsequently comes out.

Thus, if he is a known troll or a stalker or has a history of trouble-making, this must not be taken into account in deciding if the blog itself is fit for membership.

Put another way, the blog itself becomes a member, rather than the blogger.

I think that is the case in a nutshell - correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, at Bloghounds, we simply don't yet have a formulated policy but there is an unwritten principle that it is the blogger who applies, nominating one of his/her blogs as his/her main vehicle. We do look at history and the membership decides on that basis, after first looking at the quality of the blog.

An aside about my blogrolls

I've just added The Far Queue, Damon Lord, Letters from a Tory and Angus Dei to my personal roll. This is my N2 roll, my main one being the Bloghounds roll. They'll be transferred there pending membership approval. My blogrolls in general are going to be revamped soon.

Some people have been wondering why they were there but now aren't. The reasons are two - either they don't link to me or they do link to a person [who shall remain nameless] whom I refuse to link to. You can call that petty but I call it my right on my blog.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

[blogging] and a sense of perspective

Angus Dei, a pending member at Bloghounds, has done the statutory blogger thing and looked inwards at why he blogs. The message is remarkably consistent with what other bloggers have also felt:

Blogging enables people to communicate, it enables discussion, and a chance to join together against the things that really irritate us, or things that are wrong. I know why I blog, I do it to keep sane, I do it because I want to get a message out to people and perhaps just maybe make a tiny difference to this tortured world and all the tortured souls in it.

Good and that's the spirit within which most people blog and so we fisk away and blithely post. As it's usually Gordo or the NHS on the receiving end, who are in no position to fight back, everything is hunky-dory. Where it starts to falter is when the wrong 'un is apparently another blogger - then the thing gets murky and the right to freedom of expression is suddenly withdrawn by the accused. Suddenly suppression and threats are on the agenda.

I take the point of view that if you're willing to dish it out and willing to justify it with supporting evidence, then you have to be willing to cop it in return. You'll be posted on in none too flattering [and in your view - unjustified] terms. Ho hum. The principle of the blogosphere has always been freedom of expression and as most of us have relatively small readerships, it's pretty pointless worrying ourselves too much over it, once the hue and cry is done. Voltaire once reportedly referred to it this way:

What a fuss over an omelette.

In the end, a bit of common sense and a thick hide are the required attributes of a good political blogger. We do find ourselves spammed and trolled at times though; unpleasant types also wish to hijack our comments sections.

Comment moderation is a pretty effective deterrent there, when used sparingly. I don't particularly like to use it, as it depersonalizes the whole blogging experience but sometimes it's necessary - there are some crazy people out there in the sphere.

So yes, blogging's largely a rewarding thing but keep an eye peeled over one shoulder, all the same.

UPDATE WEDNESDAY MORNING: I continue the theme in the comments section. Ordo has also posted on a blogger whom some Welsh MPs have tried to silence.

[in defence of romance] new era dawneth


It need not be retro, it need not even be nostalgic, it can even incorporate the new technology, as in this blog post but one thing I know we need in this world now is a new era of romance.

In the coming era of adversity, in the black goth ascendancy and current atmosphere of disillusionment, in the current loss of all human dignity and sense of hopelessness, there are two things missing this time round - the creativity such as blossomed during the jazz age and the return of elegance.





We need the fashions of yesteryear to be borne in mind and a new fashion for the times created, a new rush of possibilities, a new code of social relations, loosely based on chivalry and respect.

We need men to be men, rather than frightened, emasculated disrespecters of women and for women to be women, not the carping "I can do anything better than you" sisterhood but people a man can respect and adore. I see fewer and fewer of each today.


We need a cranking down of our lifestyle to one of more simplicity and sheer enjoyment, embracing the new technology and going forward, rather than some luddite stopping of all progress. Let's redirect the current direction rather than stop it in its tracks.

We need a new family deal, where parents do the things parents should do without blaming society and for schools to expunge themselves of entrenched revisionists who have led the children astray, away from their roots and from the core values of a sane society.


Above all, we need hope and confidence. Hope that we will always defeat this new negativity and confidence that we will prevail under the assault of destitution and social engineering. We need to wrest our nation back from those who have hijacked it. As Winston said:

You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."


[the boss] lonely life at the top


I've had two main brushes with being isolated and lonely - one involving me and one involving being at close quarters with another who was there. As well as that, my little consulting practice brought me into contact with CEOs and they all had the same outlook, the same melancholic quietness, punctuated by irritation and annoyance.

This piece on Barack Obama was quite interesting in that context. A thousand levels above anything I ever experienced, nevertheless it meant something to me personally.

CEOs used to come to visit, always with a cheery greeting but over coffee they'd unwind to the point that they could reveal how wound up they were. The sessions with me were a sort of relief from the hurly burly and yet they couldn't relax, didn't want to sacrifice any advantage. All steps had to be forward and upward.

One chap said that his friend had just died the day before at 57. He'd been a workaholic, couldn't delegate, had had a lovely wife and family he rarely saw without business issues intruding and he'd then stressed himself out so far that he'd shuffled off. My own client wasn't that far off this either, I surmised at the time.

It's lonely for a CEO and it's a slightly different thing for a man and a woman. The women I've known in those positions have been just as driven but lived in golden cages, in goldfish bowls. They had no life to speak of and couldn't have. Known in the town, the chances of a man wanting her just for herself was mighty small and so the defences were permanently up.

Meetings with friends for a drink were timed and then concluded. Novels were glanced at last thing before bed. There was never real respite. In the Min's case, he came in about 10 or 11 a.m. but was pretty constantly on the go, chairing meetings, entertaining dignitaries, visiting the free economic zone, travelling, travelling, called to audiences with the PM until 8 or 9 p.m. Then he'd go through his dispatch boxes at home.

Looked glamorous and every one of these people didn't shy away from the position when it was offered. It had many perks which I prefer to call "things which make the job possible to do". Yet all of these people were under stress the whole time because even one false decision was going to cost deeply. I have no time for people who envy what they see as the cushy life of such CEOs - it's a lonely game up there and it is very hard work.

In my own case, in our organization, I had two roles and they had me on call from about 6 a.m. until about 11 p.m. It wasn't that which burnt me out in the end but the constant issues needing resolution which never, ever let up, even on weekends. Yes, the money was good and I could run two cars but the stress outweighed that significantly. I think I got out in time.

So yes, I can oppose Obama, politically, from this blog, as the best choice for America but one can only respect the job he's taken on.

[supertanker] the stakes are getting higher


At first I thought, "How the ... ?" when the story broke of the Saudi supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates. There seemed anomalies:

1. How could such a huge boat go down to a few speedboats, even with rocket launchers;
2. Where were the protective warships we read about;
3. Why wasn't the tanker accosted by gunships as it was being taken back to the Somali pirate's haven?

This is not the particular tanker above but you'll get the idea that it wouldn't be too difficult to scale - it's low to the water; it was 450 km south of the protective ring of warships.

However, the answer still doesn't seem to have come through as to why no one is doing anything. The U.S. could accost it, Saudi has the money to back an interception. So why not?

Perhaps the answer is that if there were any rescue attempt, the cargo would be sunk and whilst the pirates lose millions in this particular deal, it is better for Saudi Arabia and the company to pay out a few million in ransom and save the 995 million left over.

If that's the reason, then this thing is going to continue, isn't it? It's highly lucrative for the pirates and each new hit finances the next phase, with better and better weapons and better tactical moves. They're probably counting on the international oil trade not to get their act together and to agree to combine and fork out for protection either.

[ripping yarns] the making of

Have you a spare ten minutes?



Well ... twenty minutes?



Forty minutes?

Part 3

Part 4

Reviews here and here.
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[conspiracy theory] or blinkered philistinism


The lack of logic in the ignorant's war cry "conspiracy theory" is that it presupposes that nobody colludes.

If nobody colluded, Mr. Ig, then there'd be no oligarchies, no anti-trust laws, no anti-price fixing actions. The tendency of bookshops to run a section called "conspiracy theory", next door to the fiction section, is another ignorant move in the same vein.

Of course there's collusion and why wouldn't there be?

People who never think things through are wont to trot out this catchcry in lieu of using the grey matter and as for the blinkered, well, Michael Palin dealt with them in his Ripping Yarn of the young lad who asked where India was, only to be told by his father that it did not exist; he then argued and was admonished by his mother that: "Your father has spoken, dear."

People with an agenda, e.g. businessmen who want a global climate condusive to their sort of business are going to collude, aren't they? They're going to sit down at Round Table meetings, Bilderberg meetings and other meetings and map out strategies. Are you seriously saying they would never do that, would never have conferences with like minded people in their field?

Turning your attention to governments, can you name a western government which does not play to its richest investors and provide fast track and kickbacks? Come on. Who is the realist here - the ostrich or the person who accepts that such doings do go on? And if they do go on, then they don't go on in a namby-pamby way but full-on.

So, to maintain that some vast global conspiracy is a fiction is to fly in the face of facts. CFR, TLC, Club of Paris - they all exist and all support the global financial agenda, as does the UN and as does the EU. And yes, there is ample evidence out there. The governmental end of the spectrum deals with the social engineering aspect of it.

However, just because they support this does not necessarily mean they'll get what they want in all respects.

They make errors, other factors like the U.S. involvement in the No vote in Ireland have an effect on the result; the employment of sub-par robotic, demi-intelligent, ambitious people in key Common Purpose roles [and who else would pay vast sums of money to become a Leader when the crash comes anyway?] - that kicks in; sheer human turpitude among the masses stymies the best laid plans - there are so many factors bu--ering up the elite vision of a "utopian" future.

Is there anything sinister or satanic about any of this? Look at wartime Germany, Salon Kitty, the the sexual dissolution at the top levels, the rest of that black scene - hardly healthy, wouldn't you agree? Do you really believe that doesn't exist in the Germany of today? Where did the escaped nazis end up? What, all of them? Where did their progeny go? Are the forces which saw the rise of this horror not present in Bavaria and Austria today?

Turn this thing back on itself.

If you were an evil entity, where would you be more likely to turn your attention - helping the Old Families make obscene amounts of money in a crisis or helping out the poor with philanthropic donations? The answer is: "Both."

The greatest problem humanity has is that it can't open its mind wide enough to encompass what is only logical, after all. So it is left to the Alex Joneses and Fritz Springmeiers of the world to come out with their disreputable take on elements of truth which they discover upon scratching round.

To their credit, at least they are scratching around, looking.

An example was the recent story of the youth who was accosted by the PCSOs and that came to the notice of Alex Jones. Jones's boorish interruptions all the way through, to push his own take on the British stasi, had the effect on the listener [and who sits, looking at Jones's face during his diatribes?] of saying: "Please!"

What he had to say could well have been true and I have no doubt that Gordo is utilizing these people as a stasi-in-waiting but no one's going to accept that when it comes through Alex Jones's sensationalism. You know, it's almost as though ... well, how can I put this?

Look ... if I was employing a stasi like that and I needed to cover my tracks, then I'd certainly leak it to Jones and let David Icke get a soundbite as well.

Once the auto-deniers had done me over, no one would believe a word of it, except the dispossessed and those on my payroll anyway and so I'd be as safe as houses until the revolution which would never come except as a spectacle for the news cameras because I would have the "leaders of the revolution", the Trotskies and Lenins, well paid and in position, ready for the day.

This is the central problem. The people with the good oil, those who discover dire goings on, are so loopy in the way they disseminate it that the original message is lost.

That's why you have to proceed with caution. That's why you only build on your last piece of solid evidence, such as a man's own words. When you have to connect the dots, you have to do it in a way consistent with your evidence. When you say someone is a dangerously criminal fruitcake, you need to have something to back that up.

There is so much disinformation and so many auto-scorners in key positions in the press and blogosphere that you can afford the errors in secrecy to fall into the hands of the Jones's, to be mashed up in their wild assertions.

Nothing is that simplistic in real life; ambitious people, even do-gooders, for whom the end result turns out to be something evil, anti-human, actually believe that they are the "good people" all along and are genuinely shocked when someone calls them out for it; things never go according to plan completely and then ... well, incompetent ignorance, particularly in the PC zombies, is endemic.

Meanwhile the rest of us suffer and almost no one blames the correct causes of it until it is upon them.
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