[uk budget] is this as bad as it looks

At the same time, the small companies tax rate will rise in stages from 20% to 22%.

Oh wonderful. All for the small businessman, eh?

[sound of music] cast of bastards

Confession time - I always liked The Sound of Music - the sets, Julie Andrews, Edelweiss, the happy memories with my own parents and so on. The hills were certainly alive - that is, until today. I've just read the most curmudgeonly, cantankerous, ornery blogpost on the film by Jack Marx and while it was a chuckle, still, it got me thinking about just how good the film was after all. Jack opens with:

While it's true that there may be more important issues to be addressing today … I fear I may never be able to discuss that which troubles me greatly about what went on in The Sound of Music … a fine piece of entertainment for which director Robert Wise deserved his armful of Oscars. It is my belief that the talent and good looks of the cast, the toe-tapping melodies, the edge-of-seat drama of the plotline and the occasionally witty volleys of dialogue in the production have, for more than 40 years, successfully masked a very awful truth: that every single character in The Sound of Music is a bastard.

Here are some of his comments on a few of the characters:

Maria assumes the role of Liesl's defendant by insisting "she and I have been getting acquainted tonight." This is a downright lie, told by a woman entrusted with the safety of another's children to the very man who has vested that trust in her, and had the Captain known the truth - that his daughter, far from safely chatting with her new governess, had been outside in the dark getting slippery with a Nazi - he'd have been forgiven for suspecting his new governess was not only a "flibbertigibbet", but a fascist collaborator who'd sell his children to the Third Reich for a song [and not a very good one at that].

Rolf is a Nazi and there's nothing redeemable about that. Furthermore, blind Freddy could see that he's gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but his denial of the truth is grossly unfair to Liesl, who's so hot for it she probably wouldn't notice if it were the guy from Little Britain who was spinning her round the rotunda.

The Children There is so much wrong with the von Trapp children that I dare not discuss it, and I know perhaps you don't want to hear it, but you've got to ... Louisa, I'm not real sure about ... and the little ones just want to be loved. But I don't love them. I hate them.

One commenter remarks: "I think this person [Jack Marx] & the article stink. The film was, is & will always be a classic! Films are just not made like that these days ... what a pity. Posted by: Ligia

Another disagreed: Personally, I’ve always thought the Captain was a bit of a nasty piece of work: while the Baroness isn’t the most interesting woman around – rather more style than substance - the way he strings her along while eyeballing the hired help is a rather poor show indeed. And tempting the ire of the Nazis by tearing their flag off his house, while seemingly heroic, is irresponsible and selfish in the extreme considering he is the sole provider and caretaker for those children. In regard to Maria, you forgot to mention how she deliberately manipulates the children in order to pit them against their father in her struggle for power in the household - a spot of psychological abuse, anyone? Posted by: sausage

And finally: I take issue with your statement that "there may be more important issues to be addressing today". Posted by: James

What is it with people called James?

[technology] only as an adjunct to experience

Have a look at Nigel Sedgwick's business site and I think you'd agree - the man knows what he's talking about when it comes to technology. Predictably then, he was never going to be enamoured of this Luddite post of mine.

He argues that technology, after all, is only working to make life more livable for the average person, to streamline his daily commitments and that, of course, all the ramifications are factored in. In the case of the TGV, the whole product solution necessitates the purchase of new land to provide straighter tracks, a complete re-thinking of safety aspects and so on and so on.

All that is so but it still doesn't eliminate key concerns:

1] The bigger the project and the more teams involved in it's realization, the greater the chance of error and the more disastrous the consequences when it does happen;

2] The more that the technology replaces human intervention, the greater the reliance on the human intervention which created that technology in the first place - it just transfers the onus retrospectively;

3] The moment there is an agenda, e.g. first to the moon, the Great Race, the fastest train and so on, the more a gung-ho corner cutting and sometimes unreasoning demand for completion-by-date and mania to run it under budget seeps in - there are reputations involved. Reputation was very much part of the Tenerife disaster, for example.

4] Many disasters are the consequence of a chain of circumstances, rather than due to any one cause. Take the BC ferry disaster, for instance:

The Queen of the North sank about one hour after running full tilt into rocky Gil Island, 150 kilometres south of Prince Rupert, where it had left for an overnight passage to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. How could the Queen of the North have strayed so far off course without anyone in charge of navigating and steering the ship noticing?

A report from B.C. Ferries' own inquiry into the mishap is expected to solve large parts of the mystery when it is released Friday, or Monday at the latest. But company investigators were hampered by the refusal of two key union crew members to answer questions.

Reports have suggested the ship may have been on autopilot when it ran into Gil Island, without a crucial course correction having been made to swing the vessel safely into mid-channel.

An early finding by the Transportation Safety Board also revealed that the monitor on the ship's new electronic chart system had been turned off because crew members did not know how to reduce its glare.

Sometimes, that's all it takes - glare - which wouldn't have entered the boffins' heads who'd designed the state-of-the-art chart system in the first place. How could it, with them not being in an operational capacity? This then comes down to project managers and team leaders. They can learn from the debacle so that it never occurs again but can't reverse the disaster itself.

A 320 kph TGV, French pride and one or two random factors such as glare is all it takes for a whole lot of failure analysis to ensue. Sorry Nigel but this Luddite remains unconvinced.

[george w bush] rarely is the question asked

"No, Sonny, hold it like this when you read."

Love this one from the Asia Times:

President George W Bush's reading tastes - which have been a remarkably good predictor of his policy views - are moving ever rightward. Apocalyptic titles now on his bedside table - such as America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It - suggest we'd all better finish our books before it's too late. - Jim Lobe

This is even more poignant when compared to his previous reading efforts:

In the summer of 2002, for example, Bush was seen carrying a just-published copy of Supreme Command by neo-conservative military historian (and recently appointed State Department counselor) Eliot Cohen. The book argued that the greatest civilian wartime leaders, notably Abraham Lincoln and Churchill, had a far better strategic sense than their generals.

An entertaining read. Apocalypse when?

[thogging] gus and the mindless bloggers society

Donatello's David in thinking pose, minus figleaf, possibly reflecting on Gus Rodin's later snub

To be fair to the great Chris Dillow, he did preface his post on Thogging with: "I was hoping to avoid this meme," then he reflected that:

"Lots of blogs make me think. Iain and Guido make me think: are people really interested in this tittle-tattle? Harry's Place makes me think: don't these guys ever get bored of making the same point? I could go on ... Anyway, my five nominees are: Paul, Shuggy, Fabian, Matthew and Not Saussure. I've excluded those kind enough to nominate me. I've left out Norm, Samizdata, Civitas and Wat as they don't need the traffic. And I've left out US bloggers - though I find Bryan Caplan and Overcoming Bias, to name but two, very stimulating."

As one blogger who indulges in a bit of Blogfocusing a couple of times a week, I certainly noticed some new blogs from Chris' list but at the same time, my exclusion from his list seems to inidicate that I am not a thinking blogger. Ipso facto, I must be a mindless cretin and to shamelessly mix metaphors, [which I'm not doing as this is the only metaphor used to this point], I'll now take my bat and ball and go home. Hence the following exchange on Chris' site:

Delighted I was passed over. Think I'll start up the Mindless Bloggers Club.
Posted by: jameshigham March 17, 2007 at 06:54 PM

James - that was exactly why I was trying I avoid the meme. You just annoy everyone who's not in your list, for no very good reason. Sorry.
Posted by: chris March 18, 2007 at 04:50 PM

Thanks for the mention.
Posted by: Fabian Tassano March 19, 2007 at 05:49 PM

Chris, I wouldn't be annoyed with you, particularly as you were kind enough to link the Malcolm Marshall thing. It does create divisiveness though [speaking generally here, not specifically] and this is the big problem with my blogroll - how not to elevate some to the exclusion of others.
Posted by: jameshigham March 20, 2007 at 08:38 PM

I should have added "… and how not to lose close blogfriends somewhere in the large lists of blog-humanity."

So, there it is. If I had come upon this post by accident, I would have left a comment: "Methinks the man [Higham] doth protest too loudly. Relax. Get a life." To which Higham might reply: "Welcome to the Mindless Bloggers Society, one and all."

Of course, the important issue is what to do about one's blogfriends, vis a vis listmaking.

[modified mosquitoes] about to be unleashed on the ecosphere

One thing which has this blogger seething is the expression 'it's been scientifically proven', trotted out by laymen as some sort of clinching argument in any dispute, thereby elevating the 'scientist' to the status of an oracle, almost a god in himself.

People just don't get the big picture, do they?

Science is simply an attempt by fallible, albeit well-read, humans to increasingly accurately explain natural phenomena, just as philosophers try to explain that which is beyond their ken. And every twenty years a new theory comes out and we all smile at an inviolable Stephen Hawking type truth now debunked.

What is vastly more worrying though is the attitude of science's empirical practitioners and their sycophantic worshippers the MSM. Here is an example from today's BBC:

A genetically-modified (GM) strain of malaria-resistant mosquito has been created that is better able to survive than disease-carrying insects and carries a gene that prevents infection by the malaria parasite.

One strategy for controlling the disease is to introduce the GM insects into wild populations in the hope that they will take over. The scientists also inserted the gene for green fluorescent protein (GFP) into the transgenic mosquitoes which made their eyes glow green.

Oh brilliant. In the interests of malaria control and nothing more, swarms of virtually indestructable mutant mosquitoes with glowing green eyes are going to be released into the ecosphere and as details of the work by the US team which came up with this cunning idea appear in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" journal, then that's all right then, isn't it? If they say it's safe, it must be so, right?

Except there's no mention of further mutations now that the natural balance has been disturbed, no study of ecosystem ripple effects, no thought whatsoever beyond how clever these blinkered bozos have been. Skynet here we come. Imhotep can now be unleashed.

The article goes on to mention 'modified mosquitoes' and that should also sound alarm bells in any rational mind - as if mosquitoes are some sort of personal stereo or new kitchen cabinet. This is the scientific community in a nutshell - the cold, dispassionate, impersonal reduction of living beings to components which can be experimented on, regardles of pain and suffering.

This 'insertion' of the green pigment into the mosquito. Think for a second about the process involved and the Josef Mengele minds of the people doing it. And the way the BBC has embraced the cleverness, with the downside barely given column millimetres - the magnificent, illumined, humanistic perfection of Man's infinite capacity.

Man can do absolutely everything, he understands all and as a god unto himself, he feels he has the inalienable right to do as he deems to anyone or anything within his escalating grasp and consequences be damned - cleverness is vastly more admirable than integrity, after all.

Man is infallible and his high priests, the Scientists, are demanding their sacrifices.