[after new year] state of the planet, state of the head

Welcome to the New Year, everyone. Still alive? How’s the head?

Well, skipping over the killings, executions and so on, the world’s journos consider 2006 their worst year ever as they actually began to get killed going into trouble zones, whereas before they could stay at a safe distance and invent portions of the stories.

The Pope, predictably but no less correctly, bemoaned the assault on the family by modern culture, meaning the culture of sex, drugs, indiscriminate clubbing and shopping that so many parents are delighted their children are developing a taste for.

After New Year Debt. The flurry of gift shopping near the end of the year leads some down the path of least resistance and into the land of credit card debt. The average U.S. household has $10,000 in non-mortgage debt, and the holiday spend-a-thon no doubt puts pressure on consumers to buy more and boost their personal deficits ever higher.

The Consumer Credit Counselling Service offers five tips to consumers who find themselves having bought more than they had planned:
# Know how much you owe: Add up all your credit card and other bills to get a realistic picture.
# Create a spending plan: Decide beforehand what needs to be paid, then put in place a plan for your income.
# Pay off credit card debt: Stop making new charges and pay down what you already owe.
# Build a savings cushion: The goal is to have enough to cover your expenses for three to six months.
# Develop a strategy for a financial future: Monitor your finances on a regular basis. Open a retirement fund and contribute to it regularly.

Can’t see the point of this advice. Those who are careful and frugal will remain so and those with no money and big eyes will continue to load everything onto the cards with no thought of tomorrow.

The one piece of good news is that scientists seem to have developed a non-BSE cow. That’s a good start to 2007 – I’m sure the cows will be delighted by the news.

[bliadhna mhath ùr] с наступающим новым годом

A guid New Year to ane an` a` and mony may ye see!

Why do we go all Scots when we come close to Hogma – er- New Year? Never mind. I have my little tipple ready. My single malt went long ago and all I have is a drop of Chivas [it is the fSU, after all].

So, to ane an` a`:

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, We'll take a cup o kindness yet, for auld lang syne."

Frohes Fest und guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr
Ευτυχισμένο το Νέο Ετος
bonne année
聖誕節同新年快樂
クリスマスと新年おめでとうございます
חג מולד שמח ושנה טובה
اجمل التهاني بمناسبة الميلاد و حلول السنة الجديدة

Anyone I’ve forgotten? Oh yes. Happy New Year!

[thought for the day] new year's eve

We know exactly where there've been terrorist attacks around the world. Why haven't there been any in China, do you think?

[underwear] more than meets the eye

After my last piece on undies, it was about time to follow it up.

Loincloths were originally outerwear, first worn by cave dwellers, then Egyptians and Romans. In 1352 BC Egypt, the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun was buried with 145 loincloths. Surely that was an ample supply for the afterlife.

They were each a long piece of linen shaped like an isosceles triangle with strings meant to be tied around the hips. The length of cloth hanging down in back was brought forward between the legs and tucked over the tied strings in the front, from the outside in.

Around the 13th Century, pull on underpants were invented and underwear became an important garment. Not only did underwear help shape the wearer’s figure, it also kept their clean clothes from touching skin. In Europe the underwear evolution went into full swing – men started wearing corsets, cod pieces, stockings, long johns, undershirts and drawers.

Women’s underwear included garters, lace corsets, knickers, petticoats and stocking suspenders. The brassiere didn’t appear until the early 1900s, then flattener bras of the 1920s, layered petticoats of the 1950s, cleavage enhancing bras of the 1990s

As the 20th century began, most Americans wore union suits or “all-in-ones”—undergarments that combined pants and a top. In the 1930s, they traded their union suits for separates and easy elastic waists replaced button, snap, and tie closures. Boxers and briefs swept a nation, and the word "underpants" entered dictionaries.

"Day of the Week" underpants were a craze in the 1950s. Each pair of underpants in the set of seven was labeled with a different day of the week.

Now there are reversible undies. According to Man Lore, reversible underpants are good for at least four wears: front ways, the right way; back-to-front, the right way; front ways inside-out; and back-to-front inside-out. Just in case women turn up their noses at this, Bonds have come out with reversible undies - just for women.

As the boys move away from boxers but don’t wish to cut off their prime with “le slip”, the solution is the traditional white Y fronts, as worn by their fathers.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

[china] the scope of the threat [part 2]

Part 1 ended with the words of General Gao Rui, former Vice President of the Academy of Military Science (AMS), writing that the Warring States era is "extremely distant from modern times, but still shines with the glory of truth" and "the splendid military legacy created through the bloody struggles of our ancient ancestors and today has a radiance even more resplendent."

Such talk would be quite worrying to western ears because we’ve heard similar rhetoric before, usually prior to world expansion of some kind.

That the Chinese take such things seriously is reflected in the comments of the director of research at the General Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army, which published six volumes of studies on ancient statecraft in 1996 that contained specific advice on how to comprehend the current and future security environment.

An essential aspect in this assessment is to determine the rank order of the power held by the various warring states. Although today's Chinese concept of Comprehensive National Power (CNP) was invented in the early 1980s, it originally stemmed from traditional military philosophy.

According to ancient strategists such as Wu Chunqiu, calculating CNP can aid a nation not just for war but also to "coordinate a political and diplomatic offensive, to psychologically disintegrate enemy forces and subdue them." Assessing one's own CNP can also aid a country in promoting development and growth.

Sun Zi long ago warned that victory depended on calculations and estimates of enemy strength and weaknesses made in advance. Two of ancient China's greatest advisers on statecraft, Lord Shang and Li Si, also warned of the need to calculate the future. States which rise too fast suffer attack, dismemberment, and even complete extinction.

As every literate Chinese knows, a brilliant strategist always forms a coalition that stands for several decades against the predatory hegemony of the time.

The solution, therefore, is in alliances.

More here …

[china] the scope of the threat

According to Deng Xiaoping, in order to eventually overcome, China should adopt the ancient maxim of "hiding brightness and nourishing obscurity," and Beijing adds, "to bide our time and build up our capabilities" and again - "to yield on small issues with the long term in mind."

The Warring States era in Chinese history was the age in which the classics of Chinese statecraft were produced and Colonel Liu Chungzi of the National Defense University Strategy Department states that "in the 1990s, the world entered a multipolar era very similar to the time of Sun Zi."

To dismiss China’s fixation with its destiny in terms of its ancient warlike past would be an incalculable mistake for the west but one which it’s quite likely to make in its arrogance. And arrogance with the Chinese never washes. They have their own in good measure.

I once “under-headed” a college half full of Chinese boys and the most poignant memory was that they had their own hierarchy, their own summary justice system, their own quiet insolence and arrogance which never confronted the British pattern and order but neither did it embrace it.

An older member of staff advised me one evening, over a game of snooker, to run with the Chinese and let them feel you were onside, however much it galled. “Don’t ever pull rank,” he warned or strange things would start to go wrong.

I mentioned this to another colleague who was apoplectic at their insolence – this was the Britain of the late 80s after all and he was a member of the greatest empire the world had ever seen and supporter of the greatest team – Man U.

Continued here …