[zimbabwe] it's the hypocrisy which galls

Good joke that, about predicting democracy - what sheep I reign over.

Please, if you are of a delicate disposition, excuse the tone of this post:

Brown calls Zimbabwe vote "new low"

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday Zimbabwe's presidential election was a "new low" -- but predicted democracy will come to the southern African country.

Yeah, right. Just put your sanctions where your mouth is, tell Milliband to find a spine and Mugabe might miraculously fall. But you have no intention of doing that, do you, you hypocrite? You need Mugabe for the strategic plan.

And in other news, this from David Farrer:

Astounding, isn't it? But it must be true: the BBC is the source: Scotland's only female police chief has spoken for the first time since taking up the role.

Disgraceful the way she was gagged or credit to her gender? And to wind up, some little gems on life in Brown’s Britain:

Firstly, from the Quiet Man:

People living in a north Derbyshire hamlet have been told they cannot have signposts because it is not a "recognised" place. Holestone Moor near Matlock has been mentioned in census and gravedigging records since 1851.

But Derbyshire County Council said the settlement was not shown on local maps and therefore was not a recognised geographical location. Resident Steve Clemerson said the community definitely "did exist".

Next, from the Norfolk Blogger, who is apparently now banned from using direct.gov.uk:

Well in part, the government do know that I exist because they tell me I already have a direct.gov.uk login, but they refuse to allow me to use it. So when I phoned them and asked them to reset my password, I realise just how serious a problem I might have.

You see, because I didn't send in any photo ID last year within 21 days, I have been banned and barred from using direct.gov.uk AND they have no way of re-instating me and no number I can contact in order to be allowed to use the system ever again.

And from Private Eye’s latest edition, 1213 [June 27th]:

In Salford … the Labour Council threatened to charge children from St. George’s Primary School, which is facing the axe, for the cost of a road closure if they marched in protest. No one, as yet, has paid the £1918.35 bill. A letter has arrived at the school threatening “county court proceedings” or “referral to a debt recovery agency”.

Charming, simply charming, don’t you think?

[thought for the day] friday evening

I think it was the Manx poet William Bealby Wright [but was more likely someone entirely different] who, in the late 70s, uttered:

You don't expect a decent chap to actually take you up on an invitation.

[friday olive tree blogging] and a super lunch

Under the olive trees today, the mind moved to L’Ombre in the south of France or wherever he happens to be at this moment. This post is dedicated to him.

The current heat in Sicily essentially means people are fleeing to either their country retreats or the beach [with the tourists] and ours is a bit of a ghost town really, especially during the hours of heat [10 a.m. to 7 p.m.].

For us, this means a sleep in until about 11 a.m., a few jobs, a bit of interfacing with the local population and then a wander along to a café for lunch. Today, Welshcakes went to Raffaele’s for her hair and I met her there.

Let me describe the place.

Welshcakes reaches the ante-garden patio, with its raffia table and low chairs, by lift, the marble stairway being too steep and slippery but it’s a delight nonetheless with its foliage either side. Once inside the main airconditioned room with its canvass awnings over the outside balcony, one is brought water or coffee and the coiffuring of and by the females goes ahead.

Afterwards, we take the road down along the dry stone walls, past the roundabout with its "umbrellered" beer garden and into the steep but picturesque drop down to our destination, the Caffè Consorzio, perched on a hill near the main route down to Modica Bassa.

Inside this caffè, itself on different levels, we go through one garden, past another and eventually come out on an olive tree shrouded stone terrace with table and chairs, delightfully cool and inviting. The girl comes out and puts another table beside it, covers it with a white linen table cloth and brings linen napkins and other paraphernalia.

The bread and drinks are brought and we order.

A breeze plays through the olive leaves and many float down and cover us whilst we wait. The food arrives and the service is courteous to a fault – meat, aubergines, onions, greens, tomatoes and so on, with copious liquid to help it along.

It might be climbing to 40 degrees outside this grove but it is refreshing where we are and tranquil – oh so tranquil.

Eventually we start the trek back up to our place, no direct route but a series of interconnected upward tracks, each with its own charm. At the steepest points, the Higham arm is taken and we do make it back for an extended siesta in the wood-shuttered coolness, followed by the grabbing of the Mac now and the writing of this post.

The “easiness” of the day, the lack of fuss, has been hard to put into words but it was nice for all that.

[de facto] when is it ever genuine

If a man beats his de facto to death, surely that wouldn't count as a genuine killing?

I've been in de facto marriages and in the other sort too and I can't quite see the point of de facto these days, especially as there is still a property settlement and lots of other goodies, should the two part.

In these days when same sex couples can have ersatz marriages and even children [in a manner of speaking] plus certain other difficulties, then one pauses to think. Maybe it's better to be asexual, like me.

More widely in society, for example when there are female clergy and they no longer do the services in Latin, perhaps the genuine article should be subsidized now.

William Gruff considers we should get real in other ways too. I like Welshcakes' method of getting real too.

I'm heading down the road for a genuine coffee at an ersatz caffe after that diatribe.

[i cann] see dissimulation here

At first sight, it looks like another example of encroachment - the net's [so-called] regulator Icann … voting to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed.

The BBC comments:

If approved, firms could turn brands into web addresses while individuals could also grab a unique domain based on their name, for example.

There’s already, for example, http://iangrey.org/ but this could possibly now be turned into http://morleyis.iangrey. My question is, ‘What’s the point of it?’ Ian wouldn't bother doing it. The answer to this lies in this, methinks:

If there is a dispute [over domain names], we will try and get the parties together to work it out... but if that fails there will be an auction. [Dr Paul Twomey, Icann chief executive]

Money. As simple as that.

Naturally there’ll be cyber-squatting and disputes and Icann will resolve them at a price. So what’s the story with Icann in the first place?

ICANN is a California non-profit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. Government by other organizations, notably the The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA.

So, it used to be run by the U.S. government and yet they have a meeting in Paris? Who are these people to wield such power? And do you understand a word of this?

On September 29, 2006, ICANN signed a new agreement with the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) that is a step forward toward the full management of the Internet's system of centrally coordinated identifiers through the multi-stakeholder model of consultation that ICANN represents.

All right, so they are somehow under California law or U.S. or whatever but they hold their meetings far away:

Critics argue that the locations of these meetings are often in countries with lower Internet usage and far away from locations that the majority of the Internet-using public can afford to reach. This makes public input or participation from traditional Internet users less likely.

As I read on, the point continually comes through about them being asked to do this or to oversee that. But who asked them? Read on:

The original mandate for ICANN came from the United States Government, spanning the Presidential administrations of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Some other worrying little things:

On March 14, 2002, in a public meeting in Accra, in Ghana, ICANN decided to reduce direct public ("at large") participation.

Also:

In September and October 2003 ICANN played a crucial role in the conflict over VeriSign's "wild card" DNS service Site Finder. After an open letter from ICANN issuing an ultimatum to VeriSign.

Well Verisign itself is an issue all of its own but by now it's probably best to stop and let you put me straight over all this. Am I completely out of order in thinking that a progressively less transparent U.S. government agency is running the internet for the globe?

Just asking.

[commemoration] blending the old and the new

Nice work of art at Ian Grey's place. A slice of the old Morley is commemorated but admirers are also reminded they're under surveillance at the same time.

A bit of the old, a bit of the new, ushering in the New Feudalism and the ASBO generation.