[just] a word which has no place at work

On the way to work

How are you at saying: "No?" I'm terrible at it and here's the story:

I have a lot of sympathy for John Prescott. Not possessing any particular talent one way or the other, he's the Minister for being a Minister and my level of usefulness is about the same at the DTI over here, Ian McCartney sometimes the target of my interest, sometimes not. It's fair to ask what the heck Higham actually does for his few shekels.

Regular readers will smile, given my last few, largely ignored posts on the bankers, that I also moonlight as a bank spokesman. It's true. I'm the voice [in English] of the 5th largest bank, although in recorded form they usually modify the noise emanating from my lips. I used to work for Mercedes. That's all the revelations for now.

The point of this post is that even though it's not necessary to have every hour of one's day paid for, still … seven of those hours, actually face to face, need to be earners. That's why I've come to greatly dislike the word 'just'…

… Like in the situation of a man I don't know from Adam who comes up to me with a sheaf of documents and asks me to 'just' have a 'quick look' through these. I usually say I'd be delighted to and then I just flick through them, see there's two and a half hours work in there and hand them back.

"No, no," he says, "Could you 'just' check them, see if they're all right. It won't take you long." That last bit always elicits a smile, telling me how long the work will take.

This necessitates a move to Stage 2. "Would you like me to look at them 'quickly' or do you need them done 'properly'? They constitute a bid, don't they?"

Naturally he sees he's up against it here and tries again. "No, no, just a page or two."

"I counted seven and a half, excluding the graphs."

"Well could you …?"

"Not a problem." I quote my going rate.

"No, no, 'just' a look."

"Yes, I've 'just' had a look," I smile as innocently as I can manage. "Would you like me to take the job on?"

He sums me up, scowls and hastens away.

I dislike the word 'just'.

Regulars are another matter and with them you have to give 110% and then some, 'just' to stay ahead of the pack.

So how do you say the word: "No?"

[segie and sarko again] the pendulum swings slightly her way

Segolene Royal, the French Socialist presidential candidate, gained two points on Nicolas Sarkozy as she said she wanted to "reconquer'' patriotic symbols from the "far right and the National Front.''

Saying that all citizens should know the national anthem and hang a French flag at home echoed themes emphasizing values she'd struck earlier in the campaign. Early proposals called for a return to compulsory military service for unruly teenagers and mandating education for parents of troubled youths.

Values such as order and parental authority "are as important as political issues,'' Roland Cayrol, director of Paris-based polling company CSA, said in interview. ``It was important for Segolene Royal to go back to those themes.''

I don't consider myself an expert like Croydonian, say, on the subject of the French Presidential race and yet I've been following it as you have. Seems to me that voters would like to have Segolene - she's pretty for a start and that goes a long way in France. People admire how she looks in a bikini at over 50.

If her policies weren't so loony and if she hadn't made such gaffs, she'd possibly be viable. Sarkozy is not liked. One of my clients is a French interpreter and she spends considerable time in the country. This was her feeling from speaking with French academics but on the other hand, there does not appear to be a viable alternative just now.

Sarkozy doesn't appear to have done anything terribly wrong lately. It seems to be his connection with the UMP and I wonder if Chirac's 'kiss of death' has cost him the two points. I wonder if Chirac knew this all along. I wonder a lot of things.

Stealing Sakozy's patriotic ground might turn out to be a good move.

[unpopular opinions] why not, if they're true

This post is about the Holcombe Syndrome.

Whether you re studying the early Eutychians who believed the Logos preceded the Trinity or the 4th century Collyridians, [AD, not CE, which is not historically accurate], who offered cakes to the Virgin Mary; whether you are fascinated by the Persian Koh i Nur or why Ben Jonson was called Horace by Dekker, the most important thing is to approach them with an open mind.

Sherlock Holmes has always been a hero of mine for his pragmatism and open mindedness, his refusal to follow the majority opinion and for his ability to clear the mind of all prejudices and judge by what he observed, in the light of what he had earlier observed.

Miss Marple was always a hero of mine for her ability to see what was likely to be the case, shorn of all popular reputation or clever manner. If a man was of a type which could do murder and there had been a murder, then there was a likelihood that it was him.

I've just been making myself obnoxious over at Tiberius' site by countering climate-scepticism and the notion that moderate Muslims do not hold strong views and that 12th century thinking does not have relevance today. This flies in the face of popular opinion amongst the thinking class of blogger, which I'm more than comfortable with, as it is not germane to the issue of its essential truth or no.

Surely one should always seek truth, wherever it might be found, however many toes it might step on socially but it does condemn one to the outer shadows, where there is a weeping and gnashing of teeth. What can one do?

Just as the aeroplane disappearing into thin air over the Bermuda Triangle may have an elderly scientist aboard who is claiming it is not happening because it's not scientifically possible, so the argument over climate change, which is happening for the following reasons:

1] measurable records of atmospheric and temperature changes over the last decade showing a much greater fluctuation than the norm;
2] vastly too many humans, cars, factories, cutting down of forests, atmospheric experimentation by the elite [e.g. HAARP and Woodpecker] and coal burning in China and elsewhere;
3] simple observation - it's not just temperature rises but a shift in the seasons and the poisonousness of the atmosphere we're now breathing, coupled with strange goings on in the earth with more frequency than hitherto.

One can get tied up in a debate over whether CO2 is the result of warming or whether it's a minor fluctuation over some decades, a mere blip on the charts or whether this scientist or that is to be believed or not or whether Exxon has paid scientists to come out with sceptical opinions - these come to nothing against observation and simple logic.

Ditto with the comment by one commenter on Imams, paraphrased: "I don't know which Muslims you've been dealing with, James; the ones I know are not like that." This might be so but it doesn't alter what was said from what had been observed, for either of us.

When things are said in the English language, some of us have receptors and can decode the sounds into lexical meaning. "The Jews have no right to be in Palestine" does not present semantic difficulties - it seems to indicate that others of the faith are being exhorted to accept this point of view.

These opinions are expressed. So what should I do? Tell me what to do. In order to remain accepted by the thinking blogosphere, should I pretend they've never been said?

I'm always terrified of falling for the Holcombe Syndrome, which dislikes a factual snippet which doesn't accord with its theory and simply ignores it. Terrified of blind prejudice. Of dismissing the veracity of something just because I don't like it.

This is where the pursuit of truth is pure science - it has regard neither for fashion, theory nor prejudice - it simply takes what exists and deals with it. Surely that's what we should be doing.

[blogging on blogging] a bit incestuous perhaps

There is something a bit 'in-house' about blogging on blogging, I know and yet Norm's post, via Cleanthes, makes some good points:

Has the blogging phenomenon passed its peak? According to this piece in the Sunday Times, maybe. It focuses on the number of blogs that go dormant - 'because their authors run out of things to say, have not got the time to write' etc. - but in any case it's an impression I've formed as well.

Some of the earlier enthusiasm of both bloggers and readers of blogs seems to have cooled; several debates that occupied the political blogosphere have been gone over so many ways there's less life in them now, even if they haven't fully run their course; the very abundance of online comment may well discourage potential participants by suggesting that their voices are lost in the crowd.

Cleanthes himself concludes:

To say any more is to commit the unforgiveable sin of “blogging about blogging”.

Personally, I feel it has neither died nor is dying and to this end, I've noticed Thersites and Daily Propaganda have returned, whilst the number of relatively new blogs turning up during the trawl for the Blogfocus is encouraging. Just hope we can get some of them into Blogpower.

If you look at Westminster Wisdom, for example, it seems very much alive and kicking, even if I am currently getting a kicking over there. But that is the joy of debate.

[lizard queen] raking in the cash

Hillary Clinton has raked in more than $US10 million in just over a week.

The previous fundraising record for the entire first three months of a campaign was set in 2004 by John Edwards, when he led all Democrats with $7.4 million. Ms Clinton topped that with just three events that raised $8.5 million by themselves, capped by a star-spangled soiree on Saturday for 660 at the home of Beverly Hills billionaire Ron Burkle. "It was a lot of work, but it was worth it," said Ms Clinton's California finance adviser Sim Farar.

All right, I'm sorry I ran those posts on the Finance. Forgive me - I take it all back. Now tell me how can I get a slice of the action? Please? There has to be someone out there willing to back me for office.

By the way, I think the numbers of guests [above] is out by 6.

[visitors] sobering indeed

Everyone says unique visitor stats don't matter at all. Maybe. Just had a squiz at today's and the jaw dropped. Too depressed to quote numbers but let's say it's 40% of the average.

Had a feeling the deathly silence on the Jeckyll Island post might augur badly and the way I've had trouble with Blogger in the last few days, loading and leaving comments on people's sites ... well, I half expected it.

Another possible reason is the awful grey weather [presuming you also have awful grey weather]. Another reason is maybe people's busy-ness. Another reason might be ...

Oh, I don't know.

[useless information] for your reading pleasure

Once you know this, what will you do with it?

The change at 0100 GMT was the last one to be signalled from Rugby, in Warwickshire, which has been the source of the time signal since 1927. From 31 March, the long-wave signal, used to keep the "pips" heard on BBC radio services accurate, will start to be broadcast from Anthorn, Cumbria. The contract to transmit the signal is switching from BT to VT Communications.

As for me, I'm going to search around for the URL, which inexplicably I lost.

[finance] snippets here and there

Just finished a post on bankers and their questionable behaviour and here's this story today:

Citigroup Inc., the nation's largest bank, is considering cutting about 15,000 jobs, or nearly 5 percent of its work force, as part of a restructuring plan being developed to improve its financial performance, according to a report in Monday's edition of The Wall Street Journal.

This was because last year expenses outstripped profits and so the first to be jettisoned are the human resources. That's as good a place as any to start the article:

# First off is an interesting snippet about Col. Edward M. House's father depositing his profits in gold from his civil war blockade-running with Baring banking house in London. The bank's the interesting thing here. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Dope, Inc., The New Benjamin Franklin House Publishing Company, N.Y. 1978, writes this:

"Baring Brothers, the premier merchant bank of the opium trade from 1783 to the present day, also maintained close contact with the Boston families . . . The group’s leading banker became, at the close of the 19th century, the House of Morgan--which also took its cut in Eastern opium traffic . . . Morgan’s Far Eastern operations were the officially conducted British opium traffic . . . Morgan’s case deserves special scrutiny from American police and regulatory agencies, for the intimate associations of Morgan Guaranty Trust with the identified leadership of the British dope banks."

On the weakness of Woodrow Wilson

# George Creel, Washington correspondent, wrote in Harper’s Weekly, June 26, 1915:

"As far as the Democratic Party was concerned, Woodrow Wilson was without influence, save for the patronage he possessed. It was Bryan who whipped Congress into line on the tariff bill, on the Panama Canal tolls repeal, and on the currency bill."

Mr. Bryan later wrote:

"That is the one thing in my public career that I regret--my work to secure the enactment of the Federal Reserve Law."

# Wilson’s choice [for the Fed] was Thomas D. Jones, a trustee of Princeton and director of International Harvester and other corporations. The other members were Adolph C. Miller, economist from Rockefeller’s University of Chicago and Morgan’s Harvard University, and also serving as Assistant Secretary of the Interior; Charles S. Hamlin, who had served previously as an Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for eight years; F.A. Delano, a Roosevelt relative and railroad operator who took over a number of railroads for Kuhn, Loeb Company; W.P.G. Harding, President of the First National Bank of Atlanta; and Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb Company.

The Senate Banking and Currency Committee scheduled hearings on the fitness of Thomas D. Jones to be a member of the Board of Governors. Wilson then wrote a letter to Senator Robert L. Owen, Chairman of that Committee. Despite the letter, dated June 18, 1914, Thomas D. Jones withdrew his name. Therefore none of the Fed directors was a Presidential appointee, although the Aldrich plan had the Fed ostensibly subject to presidential appointment.

Continued here, if you're game.

[iran kidnappings] maybe the best way

Iran's detention of 15 Royal Navy personnel is "unjustified and wrong", Prime Minister Tony Blair has said. At first sight it looks lily-livered of Blair but in the end, it might be the best way with such a madman as the Iranian leader.

What's always amazed me, especially in such photos as the one above, is how easy it must be for the enemy either to blow such craft out of the water or to kidnap the personnel. If you're going to show the flag to that extent, surely a bit more backup might be in order.

[jeckyll island] one tuesday evening in november

Though the political sensitivities of the populace in the States differ in some ways from Europe, nevertheless, the values, interests, attitudes and behaviour of the participants in the 1910 doings in the U.S. were and still are equally applicable to Britain and Europe. The mindset is the same. To begin with Jefferson:

To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. [Thomas Jefferson February 15, 1791, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by H. E. Bergh, Vol. III, p. 145 ff.)

The following borrows heavily from Eustace Mullins, Mullins On The Federal Reserve, Kasper and Horton, New York, 1952, commissioned by Ezra Pound in 1948:

On the night of November 22, 1910, a group of newspaper reporters watched a delegation of the nation’s leading financiers leave Hoboken, New Jersey, in a sealed railway car, with blinds drawn, for an undisclosed destination.

They were led by Senator Nelson Aldrich, head of the National Monetary Commission, created by President Theodore Roosevelt after the tragic Panic of 1907 had resulted in a public outcry that the nation’s monetary system be stabilized. Aldrich had led the members of the Commission on a two-year tour of Europe but had not yet made a report on the results of this trip.

With him were his private secretary, Shelton; A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Special Assistant of the National Monetary Commission; Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company, and generally regarded as Morgan’s personal emissary; and Charles D. Norton, president of the Morgan-dominated First National Bank of New York.

Photo right: Nelson Aldrich

Joining the group just before the train left the station were Benjamin Strong, also known as a lieutenant of J.P. Morgan; and Paul Warburg, a recent immigrant from Germany who had joined the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, New York, as a partner earning five hundred thousand dollars a year.

Story continues here.