[hearts and minds] the battle does not recognize christmas

Jona Lewie sang: "Wish I could be home for Christmas." That's hardly likely for thousands of allied troops in Aghanistan, Iraq and other trouble spots.

In short, there is no real plan to come home, except at presidential level:

On the contrary, in the dying weeks of the Bush administration, the US is robustly pushing for an increased military presence in the Russian (and Chinese) backyard in Central Asia on the ground that the exigencies of a stepped-up war effort in Afghanistan necessitate precisely such an expanded US military presence.

The military industrial complex is pushing for a continued presence:

United States military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete pullout of all US combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

One key aspect is the insistence on including the Wahhabis in the Pakistan issue:

Again, the Bush administration's insistence on bringing Saudi Arabia into the Afghan problem on the specious plea that a Wahhabi partner will be useful for taming the Taliban doesn't carry conviction with Iran.

In fact, what it does is bring two powers who ordinarily would not be natural allies, except on geographical grounds, to find mutual interest in military and aid pacts. For all Russia's weakness compared to USSR days and for all Iran's saddling itself with a nutter for a leader and a nation sapping theocracy of the worst kind, the U.S. itself is none too strong economically these days either.

Then you can bring in China and India. The U.S. is powerful but look at that combined opposition and it is opposition to what looks, to them, as the territorial ambitions of one superpower, under the guise of "anti-terrorism".

Looking at it from the American point of view, there is prima facie evidence that the Muslims are conducting a covert assault for the hearts and minds of Europe and failing that, at least in body count. They are also looking to expand their influence worldwide in accordance with their perceived destiny. In the non-Muslim world - trouble and chaos, in their world, peace and harmony.

While long-term demographic trends favor stability, European societies will have to live for some years with the large cohort of young people born before the recent decline in fertility, the youth bulge that will not shrink until after 2020.

The intervening years could well provide a bumpy ride. If the poor and deprived come to link their condition to their religious identity—if the young, poor, and Muslim overtly confront the old, well-off, and Christian—then Europe would face a turbulent future.

Having said this, modern European society does not seem hospitable to institutional or dogmatic religion of any kind.

The trouble for the west is that, with the leadership having abandoned the pretext of a Christian society manning the ramparts against the infidel, all there is now is some sort of wishy-washy humanistic, pc, government enforced love-each-other nothingness to counter the assault, along with a drug-addled, disillusioned, dumbed down new generation who would ordinarily have been counted on to fight for God, Queen and country but who now openly question each one of those.

This is a lose-lose scenario out there. Just as the American hawks conceded that Vietnam could not be won, so they apparently concede that Afghanistan and Iraq can't be won either. Therefore there are two choices - stay there and battle on or pull out completely.

The global political minds are at odds over which will turn out to be the more efficacious. Leaving morality aside, the choice is to either hit with maximum prejudice and do the job properly, with huge concentration on psy-ops and decent supply lines or else forget it, get out and leave the diplomats and trade delegates to get on with it.

[just when you thought it was safe] it comes from nowhere

Just how dependent we are on other people is illustrated, in full measure, by these two bald statements about the round the world solo race:

His Ecover 3 yacht had edged ahead of Frenchman Jean-Pierre Dick when winds of 55 knots caused his mast to break. "It basically went from being a near gale to a hurricane and the mast didn't like it," said Golding, 48.

In a separate incident today:

Elies is unable to move freely after [breaking his leg] when a large wave slammed his boat in the Southern Ocean. Elies, who is also complaining of chest pains and is confined to his bunk, is in radio contact with Guillemot and his condition is described as stable.

Race organisers asked ... two competitors to divert to offer Elies psychological support. They will receive time credits for making the diversion. 33-year-old Smantha Davies ... said: "It's only when you see that for real that you realise how, how much of a Russian roulette it is out here."

This race is billed as a "solo" race but look at the support - radio contact, GPS, fellow sailors able to sail over to help, coastguard and anxious friends and family awaiting word. Plus the necessary money.

One thing I learned in Russia was that there is no survival without a support network because the government sure as hell is not going to do anything. So you create your own with assistance and in return, you must give back, otherwise that support fades away. There is no other way over there.

No man is an island, as much as he [or she] would like to be independent. At any moment, usually when things are going swimmingly, it can all suddenly change.

[which song] sing along if you wish

This song was:

1.  first performed for Countess Sophie Weissenwolff in the Austrian town Steyregg;

2. written with a different subject in mind originally;

3. not written to be sung in Latin;

4. used in Fantasia;

5. also used in Hitman.

Clue for no points:

MP3 

[non-statement] suppose it's necessary

More than one person is applying the pressure for me to make a statement.  

I feel an outrageous allegation has been made about a fellow blogger's father and I hope that that matter is addressed.  As for this blog, there will be no statement of any kind on that or other related matters pre-New Year.  Last December I was sucked into a fight on December 23rd and I'm not repeating that mistake this year.

There will be no comments on this post and no discussion entered into by me either here or on other blogs pre-New Year.

Let's have a Merry Christmas and let's hope that charity seeps into certain hearts over the break.  This blog's official  Christmas wishes will come mid-week.

Cheers.

[mark felt dies] an era passes

Most people know the facts of the Watergate Scandal but here's  a refresher to mark the occasion of Deep Throat's passing today:

Nixon

He became president n 1968, for four years.

Ellsberg

This whistleblower leaked papers to the NYT, in 1971,  about America's real reasons for being in Vietnam and the paper duly published them until the White House got an injunction to prevent any more being published.  Ellsberg then sent copies to other papers, making it clear that Nixon would have to get an injunction against each and every one of them to stop him.  He went into hiding.

The Plumbers

The White House set up this covert group to plug leaks, under the auspices of John Ehrlichman.  One of the junior honchos, G. Gordon Liddy, wanted to burgle Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office for dirt on him.  Ehrlichman approved, it went ahead, they found nothing, Ellsberg surrendered and went for trial in 1973; during the trial,the break-in and other naughtiness were exposed.

CREEP

Actually called CRP by the GOP, the campaign to re-elect the president was mainly to raise funds but also indulged in dirty tricks on the Democrats, effectively harassing their campaign.  

Watergate

The plumbers decided to hit the DCH, in mid 1972, to see if they could dig up any dirt by planting bugs and the next errors were made - the team included people connected to CRP, they had bugging equipment, they were caught but there was one other factor.

The Dahlberg cheque

Wealthy supporters of the GOP were in the habit of contributing to campaign funds, often by cheque made out to CRP.  Liddy got the idea that if he paid the burglars directly using benefactors' cheques, then if something went wrong, it couldn't be sheeted home to CRP.  So he thought.  One shuch cheque, from Kenneth Dahlberg, was found in the pocket of one of the burglars.

Silence

The astounding thing is that, like Obama's non-citizenship, no one seemed interested and Nixon was returned in a landslide.  However, the FBI had the goods and had been digging deep.  For complicated reasons, they and the White House had an uneasy truce but when a Nixon appointee took over the agency, passing over the N2, Mark Felt, this also turned out to be an error.

Woodstein

Bob Woodward had a source and it was Felt.  When the Watergate burglary occurred, the two talked and it was Felt who put him onto the connection with CRP.  Felt had his own internal issues and probably thought the Woodstein way was the better chance to stymie Nixon.  Nixon was worried about him as he had all the dirt he needed, should he have chosen to use it.

Deep Throat

Woodward and Bernstein began their investigation and were met with the cold shoulder at every turn.  Felt was meeting Woodward at 2 a.m. in a garage and trying to set him on the right path without actually revealing specific information.  The film claims Felt told Woodward: "Follow the money,"  a good piece of advice, as this is largely what unravelled CRP in the end.  Deep Throat was a joke name based on a porno film of the time.

Senate hearings

As it became apparent that the White House was involved, at least to some extent, the question became: "How much did the President know and when did he know it?"  The war of attrition began, with the White House not cooperating in the least. 

The tapes

It came out that Nixon had recorded, on audio tape, all Oval Office conversations and now the investigation demanded those tapes.  Nixon refused.  He tried sending edited transcripts, he tried everything, including the Saturday Night Massacre when he interfered with the judiciary.

The Smoking Gun Tape

Even after all this [and I can't help thinking that it will occur this way with Obama too] many people resolutely stuck by the President's innocence, even when he announced to reporters that he "was not a crook".  What did for him amid the rumblings for an impeachment, was one particular tape which showed that he'd known about Watergate all along and had approved a course of action which covered it up.

Resignation and pardon

Nixon resigned, Ford took over and immediately pardoned Nixon of all crimes.  That did for Gerry Ford.

Felt outs himself

In 2005, Mark Felt came out and admitted he was Deep Throat.  On December 18th, 2008, he died, aged 95.

Vale, Mark Felt.

[up yours] get knotted, reid

.

This from Martin Kelly today:

Melanie Reid, forever to be remembered as the journalist who published an article praising the Taliban on the morning of 9/11, has a commentary in 'The Times' calling for the introduction of compulsory voluntary service.

Although she is probably unaware of it, what Reid is calling for is not a greater ethic of service but the introduction of 'robot'; the unpaid labour which the German nobles imposed upon the people as a reaction to the economic devastation caused by the Thirty Years War. This is a strain of thought which is very dangerous to the continued liberty of the British people; she might not think so, but what she is calling for is serfdom.

Melanie Reid is a member of the elite, and all elitists share two defining characteristics - they want to stay elitists regardless of the consequences to other people, and boy, do they like being served.

I have no problem in working for and even serving someone I can respect but these incompetent bozos of limited intellect who set themselves up as an elite and give themselves airs - they can get knotted. More than that - their names are on these bullets.

[ceasefire ceases] ho hum, here we go

There's a grave risk of sounding like a worn vinyl record.

Maybe the most definitive post at this place although not necessarily the best, was this one and it really does seem, putting everything in the pot and seeing what emerges, that the notion that in any organization there are the "career people" and then there are the "bad 'uns" and that the "bad 'uns" get the plum roles and rise to the top because it is their goal - that seems to be the way this world runs.

I've seen nothing in the EU, Britain, the U.S.A., the Masons, the Church, the CIA anywhere, to definitively negate that. Thus, when looking at the whole Israel/Palestine thing, applying the same criteria, it stands to reason that there are seemingly calm but actually quite evil nutters at the very top in Israel who make things even more intransigent than they are and there are total fruitcakes running the Palestinian cause.

Thus the Palestinian idea of a ceasefire is to keep firing rockets into Israel whilst Israel must not step one foot into Palestine, Thus the hard nuts on the Israeli side, by their very intransigence, however justified in their eyes, play right into the hands of the Palestinian extremists who always seem to rise to the top and are the most vocal and violent.

Why are the vocal extremists in charge?

It's the Ford Prefect syndrome. In Douglas Adams' book, Ford tells Arthur: "They care, we don't. They win."

Just as with the long suffering citizen and in blogs, the anger bubbles underneath but never explodes. When has the common man ever spoken with one voice for more than one day before the lurking, organized extremists step in and hijack the agenda?

Our number one priority, before all else, is to wrest control out of the hands of the bad 'uns and into the hands of the average citizen - you. I'd rather have a dozen wrong decisions by you than even one carefully calculated one by a member of that lot up there.

Sounds revolutionary socialist.

Not at all - it's more a demand to just leave us alone and let us get on with our own lives - that's all. Keep your bloody EU, let us earn a crust and have a skeleton crew up top to run the ship. In Britain, in Palestine, everywhere in the world.

We desperately need to find a mechanism to achieve this and then go for it.

[nightcap] let's gather these together

First, from William Gruff:

From where does denim come? This is not the same as blue jeans material. Where did that come from originally?

From Dave Cole:

1. What are the two double landlocked countries in the world, i.e. countries where the countries surrounding them are also landlocked?

2. Which are the northernmost, easternmost, westernmost and southernmost states of the USA?

From Dearieme:

What did Fitzroy [sea zone near the British Isles] used to be called?

From me:

Who are the two on the bike?

[higham exposed] this blog and others discussed

A couple of years ago, my mate in Russia asked me two things, after looking through my blog:

1.

"Yes, very nice but where does the money come in?"

"Er ... it doesn't," I told him.

"Well, what's the point of wasting all that time?"

2.

"The annoying thing about your blog is that it only rarely has what I'm interested in."

I replied with the Tom Paine line: "James' posts are so frequent, his interests so varied and his contacts so extensive that his blog is rather like the Scottish weather. If you don't like it now, just wait a few minutes."

"Well, that's your problem, you see. Someone like that foul-mouthed friend of yours gets regular readers because he publishes the same type of thing all the time. You post on all different things and so your audience is fragmented and no one would know the other person."

"Yes but he's one of the top bloggers. He's established and he writes well on the type of thing people are thinking. I often post an outrageous point of view no one could agree with. Plus my targets are often sacred cows."

"Yes but take me, for example. I would only come to a blog which had something on ceramics or fitness. When was your last post on those?"

"Point taken but I still want to post on anything interesting."

"Interesting to you."

"Well maybe but I hope the majority would interest someone."

"Can't see how you're going to build up a readership that way. And how are you going to make money?"

I think he had a point. With the advent of RSS and with me posting so frequently, the only way to actually follow this blog here is to scan the headings in RSS and come in when you see something of interest. As for core readership, it's very small, particularly when ex-friends part company with you.

My friend here said much the same things today as the Russian did two years ago plus how the posts are too long. We were talking about how the uniques in the last two days were about double what I had four weeks ago, so something has obviously happened. At the same time, the number of comments has drastically decreased.

This puzzled him so he speculated how many uniques were image searches. Well, I could answer that. In every hundred visitors during the day, about 35 are image searches, about 45 are searches for an old post and a bit under 20 are other bloggers. Yet people who have been following the blog in their rounds are popping in from RSS land more and more.

Therefore, the conversion rate from visitors to comments is about 0.04% on revealed visitors. This puzzled him a lot and he asked why so few comment on my site. I don't have a clue. Maybe people don't want to get into an argument with me; maybe the material's just not interesting.

Another thing I pointed out is that many old blog friends will visit fellow bloggers and their Mybloglog avatar is in view. Then, when they come here, they turn off the avatar and comment as Anonymous. One is of particular interest- she comes in as Anon but then leaves her name. I'll have to ask her why some day.

We started to look at other blogs.

Well, with Iain Dale's, a lot of that is that it's the blog to go to, along with Guido and DK. Americans like Vox Day get enormous hits and comments as well but he gets some of that from WND. Jon Swift and Gates of Vienna are two others which spring to mind.

They all have their finger on the pulse and they do what they do consistently well. In Theo's case, I don't think it's all tit and bum - the people who go there like a rollicking sort of irreverent blog with a lot of common sense. We were talking about Tim Worstall but he's a bit different. To him, his blog is a business venture and the story has done the rounds how he built a house in Portugal on the proceeds, although I suspect a lot of that came from the articles he had in journals as well.

Then we get into the medium bloggers whom I've now slowly joined and what's happening to me now most likely happened to them - the offers started to trickle in, mainly from America.

The Anonymii seemed apoplectic, before ceremoniously breaking my sword in two and stomping off, that there is no debate on this blog. True - I think it's difficult with the "picture blog" lovers and the "start the revolution now" types both converging and not taking to the others' points of view. I had to laugh that almost no one seems to have looked at the Russian dancers youtube. I have, I can tell you.

Finally, to the newer bloggers, you probably don't need advice but for what it's worth - visit and link. They're the key rules, otherwise we end up muttering in the corner to ourselves.

[mystery character] this time from the screen

Here is the man's CV Resume:

1. He wasn't naturally bald, just shaved;

2. Worked with director Robert Aldrich;

3. In one film, on a bobsled run, had his head caught in a forked tree branch but survived;

4. His horse won the Norfolk Stakes and Del Mar Futurity;

5. He was a world class poker player.

Clue for no points: He liked lollypops.