[pssst] fancy an escort at the singapore grand prix

Singapore's "high-class" escorts [nothing like that - that type of thing is r-i-g-h-t out] are gearing up [see Update below] for a 75% increase in business during the coming grand prix [see Update below].

The biggest difference is that they have to come "from a good family background and at least a university degree," the Straits Times said. "They want escorts who don't look, sound or dress like escorts. They want people to think, 'what a nice girlfriend he has'," it quoted an agency head as saying.

Right, so nooky is quite out of the question, is it?

"Sexual services was not part of the deal but strictly between the escort and client to arrange."

Er ... right. Just to reinforce that this thing is completely above board, a Singapore site presents one of its escorts like this:

Standing barefoot at 175cm, with a svelte 35B-25-35 figure, Mika has a body to absolutely die for and loves to flaunt her assets whenever the opportunity arises, or as the occasion requires!

Anyone planning to fly over that way?

UPDATE: Colin Campbell informs me that it was last Sunday [shows how much I care]. Oh well, better cancel that order then.

[ochlocracy] and the teeming masses

Teeming humanity at peak hour

This is far worse than the Tube stations and buses during peak hours:

At least 100 devotees have been killed in a stampede at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. Officials said at least 100 more were injured in the incident at the Chamunda Devi temple in the city of Jodhpur. A wall near the temple is said to have collapsed, causing panic among thousands of gathered devotees.

It's terrible but equally terrible is the crush of humanity itself, which is increasingly causing an apocalyptic scenario for all.

It is no accident that travelling first class, owning villas and property in Switzerland, having a retreat - all of these are a reaction against excessive population crush. The dole queues, the teeming masses in the street - these are the province of the common man, of which I am one.

Every one of us wants to be treated as special, to have our opinions heard, to be someone - this is what blogs are all about, after all. We recoil from the idea of being a dot in the human landscape, such as in China, India or Africa. Masses are all around us but are still that short distance away to be comfortable. For how long?

What differentiates us from those at the top with the space to think is that we might have thought of the things below but would hardly consider implementing them. Firstly, Robert McNamara, of the World Bank, Oct. 2, 1979:

"There are only two possible ways in which a world of 10 billion people can be averted. Either the current birth rates must come down more quickly or the current death rates must go up. There is no other way. There are, of course, many ways in which the death rates can go up. In a thermonuclear age, war can accomplish it very quickly and decisively.

Famine and disease are nature’s ancient checks on population growth, and neither one has disappeared from the scene…. To put it simply: Excessive population growth is the greatest single obstacle to the economic and social advancement of most of the societies in the developing world.”

Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs, Latin American Desk, February 1981 interview:

“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it….

To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females…. “The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death….”

... and Prince Phillip:

“You cannot keep a bigger flock of sheep than you are capable of feeding. In other words conservation may involve culling in order to keep a balance between the relative numbers in each species within any particular habitat. I realize this is a very touchy subject, but the fact remains that mankind is part of the living world…. Every new acre brought into cultivation means another acre denied to wild species.”

Naturally, this blog does not concur with the Club of Rome, who stated, in 1991, in The First Global Revolution:

"The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

The enemy is certainly population numbers but the people themselves, as they exist today, need charitable feelings above all else, otherwise we ourselves descend to the bestial. The greatest obstacle to ZPG is that whilst the west might embrace it from an intellectual standpoint, the high birthrate societies show no sign of doing that.

So where does that then leave the McNamara Doctrine, which is working towards population reduction and survival of the species? Is it the fear of unsustainable levels or more a fear that they cannot be controlled?

Every State [and many of us too e.g. football mobs], fears the crowd, fears that it will turn into a mob and mob rule is ochlocracy, a particular concern in Imperial Rome, for example, in the time of Commodus:

The tumult became a regular engagement and threatened a general massacre. The Praetorians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers ...

If we, quite logically, as human beings, with some degree of compassion, react with horror to what the elite have put into words, if we however, are feeling quite oppressed by sheer numbers, then what do we offer as a viable alternative to solve this dilemma?

[pets] what is the best choice

You could trace my past few months as going from a lady dog [plus owner] to a male dog [plus owner] to a cat [plus owner] and that cat is curled up one metre from my head right now.

Which is the better pet to have or maybe we should even consider a bird or fish?

Dogs are faithful but lick you all over your face when they like you. Cats use you when they are that way inclined but generally keep their distance. Dogs can wee over the floor but cats spray.

Dogs will defend your home and can be almost like a child to you but cats belong to themselves. Dogs bark and can send up an almighty calm splitting cacophany en masse in the neighbourhood but cats wail.

Both can be wonderful pets but it probably comes down to what you see in your pet or what role your pet fulfils.

UPDATE: You really must see this humorous piece by Eurodog - the diaries of a dog and a cat. It puts it nicely into perspective.

[product placement] productive or counterproductive

From MI6:

The Bond franchise has long been known as a cash cow for its producers, not least because of how much it grosses at the box office, but also how much revenue it rakes in from advertisers wanting their brands strategically placed in the movies. It has been claimed that since 2002's Die Another Day was dubbed "Buy Another Day" by some critics.

And it doesn't just happen on the silver screen. In 2001, jewellery brand Bulgari paid author Fay Weldon to liberally dose her novel The Bulgari Connection with mentions of the brand, while numerous music artists have made Faustian pacts with commerce to bankroll their endeavours.

How you feel about that can vary from David Lynch's reaction to one a bit less extreme, realizing that the trend has been around from the 80s and even before and also realizing that the film is not going to be initially funded without it, even if the gross exceeds that amount later. After all, Art may be the primary thing but so is making money on the film is also a factor.

What happens when product placement goes further?

When you see giant Coke cups sitting at the fingertips of American Idol judges, that's not just product placement. That's full-fledged product integration — when a brand becomes inextricably identified with the content of a show.

That's why network executives use words such as "natural" and "organic" when they talk about product integration and scripted TV ... they don't want it to be so blatantly obvious that it overwhelms the programming. But they don't want you to miss it, either.

Somewhere along the line it becomes sponsorship, such as in the Formula 1 races and so on. Does it work? I'm not sure but in the case of Bond's Casino Royale, it didn't in one respect. During the train scene with the watches, this exchange took place:

Vesper: ... maladjusted young men who'd give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect queen and country. You know, former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches - Rolex? [indicating his watch]

Bond: Omega.

Vesper: ... beautiful. Now having just met you, I wouldn't go so far as calling you a cold-hearted bastard -

Bond: Of course not.

Vesper: ... but it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine ...

Does it matter in the end or are you, the viewer, annoyed about the intrusion of products into the flow of the film? And what should producers do about it?

[abortion] the right becomes the norm

Dave Cole is concerned about abortion rights in Ireland, an issue which has been round a long time.

In the days where women still considered their partners' opinion on this, it was put to me in two different situations [I shan't go into details now - sorry to remain vague]. There were medical reasons in both cases and both were accidents, inasfaras any grown, sentient woman could, with care, prevent this or cause it to be prevented.

No matter. It happened and that was that. It's going to sound very weak but I couldn't give an answer as I was undecided, as I still am today. I do see the "murder" argument and I do see that it was a simple impossibility at the time to have the child. Possibly some men can walk away from decisions like this and not care less but it haunted me for a very long time and still threatens to, along with other things I've done.

I wish I could be as certain as both lobbies. I wish I knew definitively that it was wrong or that it was the least worst choice.

Where I feel there is firmer ground is in decrying the attitude of some women who feel that any accident can be remedied this way [although it doesn't seem too pleasant a process to me]. It is always meant to be a last resort, preventable in the main and not forming part of any "family planning". It should never be planned and it should never be a reasonable fallback position.

Whether it is an option of last resort - who knows?

[peabody economics] nothing ever changes

George Peabody set up shop in the aftermath of the 1837 panic:

Because of U.S. debt troubles, Peabody became persona non grata around London (after all, he had sold the Brits much of that debt). But that did not deter him. He bought the depreciated state bonds when they were trading for pennies on the dollar. When these bonds paid interest again, in the late 1840s, Peabody reaped a fortune.

Then along came the next crash, in 1857 and:

Corsair, the Life of J.P. Morgan, tells us that the Panic of 1857 was caused by the collapse of the grain market and by the sudden collapse of Ohio Life and Trust, for a loss of five million dollars. With this collapse nine hundred other American companies failed. Significantly, one not only survived, but prospered from the crash.

In Corsair, we learn that the Bank of England lent George Peabody and Company five million pounds during the panic of 1857. Winkler, in Morgan the Magnificent, says that the Bank of England advanced Peabody one million pounds, an enormous sum at that time, and the equivalent of one hundred million dollars today, to save the firm. However, no other firm received such beneficence during this Panic.

Ron Chernow wrote that the Morgan munificence was reprised in the 1907 panic:

"In the following days, acting like a one-man Federal Reserve system, [J. Pierpont] Morgan decided which firms would fail and which survive. Through a non stop flurry of meetings, he organized rescues of banks and trust companies, averted a shutdown of the New York Stock Exchange, and engineered a financial bailout of New York City."

Morgan is always at hand through the majority controlled Federal Reserve [read July 14, 2008 here] and its close association with the FOMC in altruistically helping out in times of crises, which seem to pop up quite regularly. Morgan seems to be particularly astute in predicting crises and preparing for them - what of the gold swaps?