[iran] arab states ponder the juggernaut

The news: Delegates from Arab states are meeting at an arms fair in the United Arab Emirates, embarking on huge military spending in a bid to contain a perceived threat from Iran. Gulf leaders will use billions of dollars in oil revenue to buy the arms, with many of the deals to be finalised at the Idex arms fair which began in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Saudi Arabia is thought to have ordered almost $50bn in military hardware, including fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, attack helicopters and more than 300 new tanks.

Interesting that Iran is seen as such a threat, which puts the Israel question in a different light. Apocalypse, yee-hah!

[geography of a woman] don't believe it

Between the ages of 18 - 21 a woman is like Africa or Australia. She is half discovered, half wild and naturally beautiful, with vegetation around the fertile deltas.

Between the ages of 21 - 30 a woman is like America or Japan. Completely discovered, very well developed and open to trade, especially for those with cash or cars.

Between the ages of 30 - 35, she is like India or Spain. Very hot, relaxed and convinced of her own beauty.

Between the ages of 35 - 40 a woman is like France or Argentina. She may have been half destroyed during the war but can still be a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between the ages of 40 - 50 she is like Yugoslavia or Iraq. She lost the war and is haunted by past mistakes. Massive reconstruction is now necessary.

Between the ages of 50 - 60 she is like Russia or Canada. Very wide, quiet and the borders are practically unpatrolled but the frigid climate keeps people away.

Between the ages of 60 - 70 a woman is like England or Mongolia. With a glorious and all conquering past but alas, no future.

After 70, a woman is like Albania or Afghanistan. Everyone knows where it is but no one wants to go there.

[geography of a man] believe it, believe it

Between the ages of 12 - 80 a man is like North Korea or Britain - ruled by a dick.

[instructions] on how to tie your bandana

Hat tip: Welshcakes [actually, I'm lying through my teeth]

[lit quiz] part 1 - wednesday

All of these describe or are spoken by famous female characters. Who are the females, what was the book and who was the author? [Score half each for the literary work plus the author and one point for the character.]

1. 'For she was dead. There upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now. She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death.'

2. 'I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.'

3. 'There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot.'

4. "You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not live here with gentleman's children like us, and eat the same meals as we do, and wear clothes at our mamma's expense."'

5. 'She did not go to the wood that day or the next, nor the day following. She did not go as long as she felt, or imagined she felt, the man waiting for her, wanting her. But the fourth day she was terribly unsettled and uneasy.'

Clues

1. L N in T O C S by C D
2. D B in T G G by F S F
3. T L of S in T L of S by A L T
4. J E in J E by C B
5. C C in L C's L by D H L

Answers are here. Part 2 will be tomorrow evening.

Guest blogging the EU - by Tom Paine

Tom Paine writes:

"I used to be a Eurobore. Tony Blair cured me by setting out, from 10 Downing Street, to destroy everything I had once feared would be destroyed from the Berlaymont. It's not that I love the EU now. I just fear it less than Labour.

Yesterday, however, I had a twinge of the old complaint, when I received a mailing from openeurope.org.uk as follows:-

On 8 February the EU Commission put forward proposals to punish “environmental crimes” with harmonised EU-wide criminal penalties, over which the power of national veto would not apply...

The proposed directive is the first result of a controversial European Court of Justice ruling in September 2005, which said for the first time that the European Community is able to set criminal penalties and offences, if it is necessary to achieve one of the “fundamental objectives of the treaties.” ...

According to the BBC, at his press conference EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini also raised the prospect that the European Arrest Warrant could be used to detain polluters and send them for trial in other member states. (9 February)

The Commission hopes that public support for punishing “environmental crimes” will be enough to convince member states’ governments to give up their principled opposition to the Commission being able to decide the substance of their criminal law. One EU official told the Independent, "I am 100 per cent confident that we will get the support of EU citizens, despite the worries of member states that want to hold on to individual sovereignty.

I have a problem with the concept of European Criminal Law. There is no reference to it in the founding treaties. Eleven out of (then) fifteen member states argued against it in the ECJ case mentioned above. The ECJ has effectively changed the nature of the EU, with no democratic mandate and (in my view) with very flimsy legal justification.

The British Government, despite originally opposing the idea, now plans to go along with it - at least when the Commission criminalises things that Labour might criminalise itself, had it the time. New Labour has criminalised more than 3000 activities since it came to power - an average of more than 1 new crime a day. I guess the Government feels it needs help to achieve its apparent goal of putting us all on the wrong side of the criminal law."

[criminal law] globalization continues

Perhaps you might skip through this post then, if you haven't already done so, you might read Tom Paine's post. Then head across to Mr Eugenides.

Weishaupt's criteria - May 1 [Walpurgis Festival], 1776 [also auspicious]:

1) Abolition of all ordered governments
2) Abolition of private property
3) Abolition of inheritance
4) Abolition of patriotism
5) Abolition of the family
6) Abolition of religion
7) Creation of a world government

Congressman McFadden, [1931] states:

When the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world banking system was being set up here. A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.

John Foster Dulles, [October 28, 1939], proposes:

"that America lead the transition to a new order of less independent, semi-sovereign states bound together by a league or federal union."

Sir Harold Butler, in the CFR's "Foreign Affairs," [July 1948], states:

How far can the life of nations, which for centuries have thought of themselves as distinct and unique, be merged with the life of other nations? How far are they prepared to sacrifice a part of their sovereignty without which there can be no effective economic or political union?

John Foster Dulles, [April 12, 1952] , speaking before the American Bar Association in Louisville, Kentucky, says:

Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties can take powers away from Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body, and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.

And so on and so on and so on.

[anglicans & episcopalians] dear oh dear

Fine man, noble purpose, enormous gravitas but still - is all the paraphernalia necessary?

From U.S.A Today:

The worldwide Anglican Communion and its liberal U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church, continued [their endless dispute] Tuesday after bishops released a draft "covenant" and a "communique" intended as a roadmap to mending divisions over views of the Bible, homosexuality and other questions. But the covenant, which could take years to be refined and ratified, could be used to declare that a church is so far afield that it is no longer Anglican.

Another question, of course, is that of female clergy and in particular, bishops.

It comes down to what Christianity is:

1] Narrowly, which is how I view it, one can only use the Gospels, then the Old Testament insofar as Jesus referred to it. This gives a very humanitarian or altruistic view of the faith, with all its healing, charity and so on and doesn't actually mention homosexuals and women per se although the spirit of what was said makes comment on these;

2] Together with the Acts of the Apostles, the Paulian letters are a whole new ball game, bringing in strictures against homosexuals, women in their place and so on. This version has given Christianity its bad name, certainly in the modern era and yet the question remains of whether Paul directly spoke from G-d or whether he added a few little touches of his own, as some cursed infidels [peace not be upon them] suggest Mohammed also did.

3] Then we have the whole panoply of gobbledegook, as represented in the photograph, with its consubstantiation/transubstantiation and so on.

And what Anglicanism is:

1] Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, as nationalism, banking and the United States have also been accused of, the Church of England put a man at its head who had no claims to deification but many to expediency;

2] It became the Conservative Party at prayer. I have no problem with this in itself. I'm technically an Anglican.

Having said all this, the current dispute in the Church comes from deviating from the Word little by little, under the justification of 'modernization' and 'being relevant to our times'. There is ample scriptural evidence that the faith allows of no such thing and time has zero effect on what He asked people to do. In fact, it was stated quite clearly that mankind should 'build on the rock'.

The only problem with this is that rocks eventually erode but to take the analogy too far might be mischievous.

[new blogger] between a rock and a hard place

HELP!!!
Please?

First request: Does anyone either know of or could anyone send, to jameshigham[at]mail[dot]com, a three column New Blogger template which:

1] does not require css sheet fiddling or any sort of html construction at higher than moronic level;
2] is not Beta - this one has now superseded Beta [2006] and Beta templates aren't accepted any more;
3] is not an old Classic, widened to over 900px with an extra column tacked on but is the standard 790px width?

Second request: As if that isn't enough, does anyone have any idea how to put in:

1] "Blogging" blogrolls, such as my page and Blogpower uses;
2] codes in sidebars, such as for the quizzes people have been doing, [not in the post itself,] plus various other bits and pieces?

The issue:

1] Blogger tricked me into converting, by routing me to my site through New Blogger set-up, then informed me that ALL attached sites were also converted - no way back;
2] It's supporting my current template here under sufferance but the moment I change it [which I do frequently], I've lost my blog. I know this because I've copied my template and put it in an experimental New Blog [Mr. Badger] and it simply won't take it, with either widgets expanded or not;
3] There is only one site on the web, "Templatepanic", which supplies a usable three column in New Blogger. Gecko no longer do, Thurs, Freetemplates Inaini - they provide them but none of them work anymore in New Blogger. The one I found is the cursed Rounders with an extra column which is 995 wide [way off the screen] and though I've modified it, it's still not good.

Finally: It's a big ask, I know but I have to do something soon so please, please, kind people, if you have definitive knowledge to resolve this problem and can communicate it at technical nincompoop level, I'd appreciate it so, so much. Thank you.

[blogfocus tuesday] part two of the boy bloggers

Moustaches maketh the man, as Poirot might say.

Maintaining my image of being one brick short of a load, my dozen bloggers today are one man short of a dozen. This is part two of the boy bloggers and the girls will reappear next Sunday, merged with the boys once more. Let's get down to it:

1 Colin Campbell's perspective is always fresh and not just because of the strange place he blogs from - not so far from the City of Churches. Hanging upside down like that downunder, is it any wonder he's occasionally apoplectic, this time illustrating that sheer mindlessness is a global phenomenon:

Shopping is bad enough as it is. The thought of having employees critiquing your selection would be unbearable. Will they get self defence training as angry consumers bash them over the head with a baked bean can. You couldn't make this up if you tried.

Just don't even think about it, Coles and Woolworths.

2 Mr. Eugenides is in the master-blogging category, rarely making either an incorrect or unsupported statement. His vocabulary embellishments may be a little rich for some tastes but the substance is unerring. This is the man to shoot the breeze with on a winter's evening, whilst getting maudlin pi--ed.

If Music Trading Online can undercut the big music companies, why the hell shouldn't they? The price of recorded music remains high - though it's probably declined in real terms over the past 20 years - but if someone can buy a Coldplay CD from Hong Kong [legally], import it, and sell it on for £7, why the f--k can't EMI?

Anyone who's ever walked into a big commercial record store to browse for music will be familiar with "rare" imported CDs - the ones with the stickers on which retail for up to twice the price of a band's regular albums. They're designed to make money out of fans and "completists" who need to have every recording their favoured artist has ever released - as with my collection of rare deleted Judy Garland albums*.

*This is a joke**.

** Higham wonders.

3 Tom Paine, as anyone who has any sense knows, is a top libertarian blogger with connections you'd never fit into a book. Quiet and yet deadly, he observes and then cuts right to the heart of the matter and does it with a neat turn of phrase what's more:

The City of London is a legacy centre of excellence in an otherwise mediocre nation. It competes on a global scale, attracting talent from all over the world. It is handicapped by the poor infrastructure of London, its high costs of living and the perception (not helped by London's mayor being a fan of Castro and a supporter of terrrorists) that it is a hostile political environment. It is a filthy, unpleasant and dangerous place to work.

Operating costs are high, not because of salaries and bonuses, but because of taxes, property costs and costs of compliance with (mostly unnecessary) laws. To run a big business in the City (as anywhere in Britain) you must employ many costly drones to interface with Government and regulators and to collect taxes for the Treasury.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Eight more boy bloggers here.