[freedom] twilight's last blogging

These are not my words but they could be:

Imperfect, divided, mutually quarrelsome as often as not; we still see the threats approaching and try, as best we can, to rearm the shrinking world of freedom and the culture it springs from. Even when things look as black as they do today for freedom’s cause, we need to fight and fight again, and plan and persuade and rage and swear and sneer and joke wherever and whenever we can.

Because the bad guys aren’t going to stop. So let’s hear it for Themistocles: the dirty, sneaky, pig-headed father of the West’s survival.

Please read the whole thing at North Northwester.

[first aid quiz] will your patient die

1. What can a rescuer do to help a victim in shock?

a) Give the victim some water
b) Elevate the victim's feet
c) Cover the victim with a blanket
d) Both b and c

2. What should NEVER be placed on a burn?

a) Aloe
b) Water
c) Cocoa butter
d) Dry sterile dressing

3. How should a bee stinger be removed?

a) Wash it off
b) Scrape it off
c) Pull it out
d) It shouldn't, leave it in

4. Which of these is the most medically trained?

a) EMT
b) Paramedic
c) First responder
d) Firefighter

5. How long before the brain starts to die through lack of oxygen?

a) 15 - 20 minutes
b) 0 seconds
c) 3 - 4 minutes
d) 10 minutes

6. What is the first principal of First Aid treatment?

a) Preserve life of First Aider, casualty and bystanders
b) Make records to prevent litigation problems
c) Prevent casualty from getting worse
d) Promote general health of casualty

7. The contents of workplace First Aid boxes should include

a) Cotton wool and tweezers
b) A face shield and dressings
c) Aspirin tablets
d) Burn creams, calamine lotion and aloe vera

8. Nosebleeds are usually treated by

a) Putting a cold compress on the casualty's neck
b) Blowing the nose
c) Pinching the soft part of the nose and leaning the casualty forward
d) Pinching the soft part of the nose and forcing the head upwards

9. Treat a minor cut on the hand at your workplace by

a) Cleaning and stopping the bleeding
b) Find the First Aid box and your gloves
c) Find the accident book
d) Do nothing until help arrives

10. Treat a scalded hand by

a) Putting butter on the burnt area
b) Cool burnt area with water for at least 10 minutes
c) Put flour on the burnt area
d) Put ice on the burnt area

11. To treat a broken leg

a) Get the person to walk to a chair for treatment
b) Get the person to move the leg to check if broken
c) If possible, keep the person still until the ambulance comes
d) Practice and experiment with splinting techniques while waiting for the ambulance

12. The main reason that the recovery position is used for unconscious casualties is in order to

a) Keep the back straight
b) Prevent the casualty vomiting
c) To make it easier to monitor their condition
d) To keep the airways clear

13. Since November 2005, resuscitation guidelines have recommended compressions and inflations at a ratio of

a) 10:2
b) 30:2
c) 1:5
d) 5:1

14. A bang on the head requires a medical check if

a) The casualty vomits
b) The casualty is disorientated
c) The casualty has blurred vision
d) All of the above

15. To help a choking adult casualty

a) Ask them to cough, then slap on the back x 5, abdominal, thrusts x 5. Repeat as necessary
b) Perform abdominal thrusts immediately, as no time to waste
c) Reassure them and call for help
d) Do not move them until help arrives

16. If you think a person has swallowed 16 tablets

a) Walk them up and down to keep them awake
b) Quickly make them sick
c) Take them by car to hospital
d) Keep them still and call an ambulance

Answers [highlight to see]
1 [d], 2 [c], 3 [b], 4 [b], 5 (c), 6 (a), 7 (b), 8 (c), 9 (a), 10 (b), 11 (c), 12 (d), 13 (b), 14 (d), 15 (a), 16 (d).

Further 1, 2

[barefoot doctors] primary health care

This was more than a little interesting about the state of medicine in China when the communists came to power on the backs of the peasantry:

With trained doctors in short supply, the central government in 1951 decided that basic healthcare in the countryside should be provided by health workers rather than by fully trained physicians. In 1957, there were more than 200,000 such "village doctors" whose administration was under the responsibility of the local authorities.

While these village doctors had received only basic training and could not treat complicated cases, their impact was considerable and especially so in preventing minor ills or wounds from developing into complex medical problems and in implementing nation-wide vaccination campaigns.

After the cultural revolution, they were allowed to upgrade to be local village doctors but then:

The rural health system started to collapse in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a result of China's economic liberalization and the privatization of agriculture ... many diseases that had been eradicated re-emerged in the countryside.

Primary care, even in the cities, is almost non-existent and with no independent doctors or neighborhood clinics, people have to go to hospitals even for simple healthcare needs.

With hospitals told to finance their own costs and 79% of the population having no health insurance, the burden on the average Chinese is considerable, with the result that many simply cannot afford any healthcare at all.

Primary care in the UK is eerily reminiscent of the Chinese situation:

The NHS inherited a maldistribution of resources, especially in London. where the main hospitals were concentrated in the centre of the city. London's lack of adequate primary care coverage and over-reliance on hospitals for treatment have created recurring problems.

The Labour government in the 1970s attempted to redress the balance by transferring resources from hospital care to primary care, limiting the growth of better served regions, and favouring the development of some underfunded specialties, like medicine for the elderly. This led to hospital closures. The policy was continued by the Conservatives in the 1980s.

As a person who doesn't use the health services [touch wood], I can't comment on how bad it is in the UK but it doesn't seem to be running much better than in China.

[restrategizing] this blog in the coming weeks

Many bloggers don't feel the need to explain but I'd prefer to, if only for the benefit of friends who check in here to see if things are all right.

I've been right in the middle, since last Friday, of the process of shifting house and a couple of job nibbles have come up, meaning train travel. The effect on the blog is unfortunate.

While I still have substantial internet access these few days, there'll be some posts of the kind readers know but more erratic this week. Sometime this weekend it's going to change and until BT or whoever give me a connection, it's going to be from the library for the hour they let you have. The new connection won't be for some weeks as there are other priorities like getting house things in, so this might even run up to my birthday.

Visiting fellow bloggers is going to be the main problem. Posts can be pre-prepared and put up in a couple of minutes but visits take time and my blogroll is long. My priority order is going to be to visit the most regularly interactive with this blog, mybloglog visitors, sitemeter referrals, Bloghounds and then the main and second lists. Aim is to get round to the latter once a week and the main people every day.

Can't see any other way to do it but at least the blog won't be dead.

[cheerful news] if you're a favoured bank

This was interesting to me on the personal level:

Bank of America (BAC.N) is close to receiving billions of dollars of support from the U.S. government as it tries to digest Merrill Lynch, the investment bank and brokerage it bought on January 1. Merrill has billions in troubled assets -- ranging from commercial real estate to subprime mortgages -- that suffered during the brutal fourth quarter.

Isn't that nice? So now the taxpayer over there is expected to shell out for some takeover, merger or other corporate move its directors decide on. The bank can move with impunity, knowing they're going to be "bailed out" along the way.

It would be nice to have a business where the government takes such a kindly interest in my welfare rather than slug me for every dollar/pound they can get their hands on.

And what of Mandy's £20bn? Favoured sons, eh?

By the way, the "personal level" was referring to when I went for a position and we were assured that BOA was the safest bank in the world. Is that right? Doesn't need a bailout then, does it?

[ambience] would you wander around central town at night

Should be rocking - instead, nothing

The bulk of the day was spent in town and it brought some things home with a vengeance.

The area is well planned. We have Asda, Tesco, Aldi and carparking space for anyone. The arcade is sane, with shops people would actually want to buy from and the sprinkling of coffee concessions are enough. Asda has a nice caf too.

On the other side of the complex are the high street banks, solicitors, estate agents and so on. And don't forget the market and other supermarkets. Truly, anything you need is in here and not at an exorbitant price. It's not spread out but contained within a walkable distance. It really feels nice in there during the day.

So it all looks roses, yes?

Well, on paper, maybe. What is not immediately apparent though is that the council, in wanting to become local letting agents and landlords, have shrunk the market area and dictate what can and can't be sold, have exorbitant pay and display parking fees and avid parking officers who jump at writing tickets to slug the motorist crazy enough to venture into the shopping area.

My mate said that the market area used to be far bigger but the council couldn't control that completely so all market stalls were brought within a purpose built barn area, complete with those metal roller garage doors which come clattering down at 6 p.m. on the dot and open again at 9 the next morning. The area is dead between those hours.

No one wants to park there during the day, especially with a shopping park not so far away with free parking, no one wants to have the doors closed on them late afternoon and there is nothing but Asda to take you into the centre of town in the evening. Asda apparently begged the council not to charge for parking but the council weren't interested - there were pound signs in the eyes.

I wandered through the market last Friday, the day when they get their greatest number of people and the main stalls at the front with the food concessions etc. were lightly visited but the stalls further towards the back, which cost £30 a day - they were totally empty. Not a sausage. Apparently the by-laws and fees have surgically incised any desire on any potential vendor's part to sell what you're told you may in that place.

It's estimated that it is not the economic crisis, it is council action and Gordo's laws which have resulted in only about 60% of the projected numbers visiting the centre of town, the council therefore making a substantial loss and having made it, refusing to change its policy, believing that better times are round the corner.

Russia

I'm hesitant to put the Russkies up as a positive comparison, as much of what they touch turns to ashes but compare the two approaches in this.

In our town in Russia, Moscow money came in and wanted to set up a complex, a shopping village. All right, they built an Imax, various other things and then the main shopping centre on two stories, very modest. So, late evening, being a bit bored with tele at home, you could, for example, take your car down there, park for free and approach this broad brass and glass entrance way.

Immediately inside, on the left, is a giant DVD, CD and video lending and buying shop. On the right is a Japanese sushi bar which has international cuisine, graded from an excusive part to the cafe type part. Further along the ceramic tiled foyer are the fast food concessions, including pizza, tables and chairs, a two cinema area with the latest releases, ten pin bowling, a bar, a coffee shop and a late night supermarket. Up the stairs are the boutiques and flea markets.

The place is warm and welcoming and not only that, it has the main hockey stadium and skating rink nearby and is served by a four laned road bridge from the other side of town. The place rocks.

Now I come back to our town over here. For what, apart from taking the car to the chippy and back, would anyone want to go down there at night for? For what would you want to stroll about with your better half? Where are the shop windows to look in, with their inventive displays? Where are the early evening kids amusement places?

Where's the ambience? There's about as much ambience as a caravan park or an airport.

And why is this so? Because the people in charge, who make the rules about who can be where and what they can sell are local government, not businessmen, not entrepeneurs. Why, oh why, are these people in charge?

[litter] a symptom of deeper issues

Not sure if reducing litter and graffiti reduce serious crime but IMHO, there is a correlation between rubbish on the streets, graffiti and a sick society, at least at the micro-level.

Of course many are sick of it and want campaigns like this:

Keep Britain Tidy have launched a renewed campaign to clean up the UK's dirty streets to coincide with the first anti-litter act exactly 50 years ago to this month. It aims to restore a sense of community pride and encourage everyone to clean up their patch. Across the nation, community groups, schools and businesses have pledged support. It's hoped more than 10,000 clean-ups will take place and half a million bags of litter collected.

It's not just the rotting fish head effect which leads to the conclusion that "a sense of civic pride is doomed", i.e. if the head's rotten, the rest follows suit. It's also people's change in values over the past two generations, since the 50s. This blog has consistently maintained that the Christian ethic was certainly not followed in past decades but at least it existed and kids at least knew about the sermon on the mount and the ideals they were supposed to live up to.

The gospels have no monopoly on charity and kindness but they were a major force in limiting people's excesses on a day to day basis in this society. Someone said to me yesterday: "If you found a million pounds on the street, would you hand it in?"

Today - I'm not so sure. If you did, you're likely to be subject to investigation, acquire a police record and will be under surveillance from there on in. You'd not get any reward for your altruism. In the late 60s, I'd probably have handed it in and something nice might have come from that act.

You can't expect people to act with dignity if they're robbed of it but this is a two way street. Whilst the government's policies have been criminally negligent, the societal attitude of "why should I work when no one cares and I'm drawing tax-payer's money to keep me in this lifestyle" is equally culpable.

Just removing benefits is not going to achieve anything other than starvation in the short term. It certainly was the case five years back that you could have found work if you really tried, if you retrained but that is not the case now. Even with your worthless NVQ, there are 500 applicants for every position you go for.

Frankly, I find it galling to hear politicians and civic groups calling for civic pride, as if it is something which exists outside of the context of society. It's the same, to me, as that annoying song "don't worry, be happy", sung to someone who's just lost his job. In that glib cliche is lack of understanding and lack of caring.

The permanent and cynically unemployed underclass, including many single mothers and Rab C Nesbitts who consider society should be supporting them is also balanced by a new class of people today really wanting the dignity of their skills set recognized but literally unable to get anyone to take them on.

Mandelson's £20bn to stop businesses going to the wall should have been injected years back when there was still some real money in the economy. £5mn is a small business? This is just a cynical ploy for the collapsing infrastructure of medium and large business. Small entrepeneurship is already dead in the water.

Step One - get these bstds out. Step Two - Cameron gets rid of adversarial politics and creates an assembly style legislature, with him at the top if he likes [for now]. Step Three - cut the crippling taxes but at the same time educate people that their lifestyle is going to change, to contract, in line with their real incomes.

[from russia with love] on the ground today

Report just in from Russia through friends and the dollar looks to be 31,56 [artificially held], there's snow on the ground and the mood is depressed. The Ukraine/Russia thing seems to be the fault of both, according to my sources.

Local issue - the mad plan for closing bridges and rerouting traffic through the remaining two arteries into the city seems to have been dropped for lack of money so the crisis does have a silver lining. My favourite trams are almost phased out in favour of the soulless buses. Big stores [equivalent to Asda] are doing well but lesser stores not.

There's a lot of business going on at the upper levels but they're trying to prevent a repetition of the payments crisis and no one wants to return to the bad old days. People are digging in and hoping to keep their jobs.

So, not a lot different to over here in Britain, it seems.

[boycott] one of the few legal weapons

There's a lesson in this for Britain and the U.S.

Thousands of motorists have fled the Sydney Harbour Bridge after its cash booths were removed last weekend [choosing] to find alternative routes into the city after the Harbour Bridge moved to fully electronic tolling on Sunday, Roads and Traffic Authority figures reveal. Road experts say it is because many motorists have refused to buy an electronic tag, and, in the short term, the trend is likely to worsen.

There are very few specific ways for citizens to show great displeasure with the tag and control society in all three countries but the Aussies at least have one now where they can show their feelings. It will be interesting whether boycotts also start in Britain on the more iniquitous new laws and procedures.

[polo lingo] the art of the puerile

"Ugggggh!"

"Take that, Sooty."

[black cap] better on the head

You know those very weird moments when you lose something and it turns up in a completely unexpected place?

Just happened.

We went shopping and stopped off for chish 'n fips and I took off my black cap in the chippie and put it in my pocket but realized it was a bit loose in there. Never mind. Got back in the car with the packets and away we went. Back home, we unloaded the car, put everything away and made ready to watch a film.

I took the jacket off and put it on the chair and that's when I realized the cap had gone. I checked the pocket it had been in, checked the other, checked inside the jacket, checked outside and followed the trail back to the car, checked inside the car where I'd been - nothing.

Not a sausage. Deep gloom.

That cap has a history. It's been with me in Russia for over a decade, to many other countries and it has a history of being lost and turning up in very strange places. It was lost in Sicily last time and turned up on a stone wall.

After the film now, I was made an offer - you want to go down to the shop again - it might be in the gutter, the cap. Nah, it'll be gone. No, let's go. OK, went to put my jacket on and the cap was in the end of the sleeve.

Go figure.

[popularity] the fickleness of a nation

Unpopularity

When you're out of favour, you're really out of favour.

Former PM John Howard lost his seat as well as the election for the party. Then came the Barack Obama tiff over Blair House.

Now it's a flight of passengers angry that they had to wait because John Howard was on the flight. I think this is completely unfair on the man. Australians made their feelings known at the election but that's no reason not to accord a former PM, of whichever party, the dignity of ordinary protocols.

There is a military protocol that when you salute, you are not saluting the man, you're saluting the rank and the station. It should be the same here.

This is not to say he should be accorded personal respect - I think he should - but he should be accorded dignity, just as all should be according to their roles and achievements.

PC madness

In Oz, "the reign of exclusive clubs offering men-only admission to their influential ranks may soon be over. Victoria's Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, has signalled he would favour putting an end to protections that allow private clubs to be excluded from equal opportunity laws."

Can you imagine one of those feminist covens at seats of higher learning, where they decide which texts to rewrite next, being enforced under that law? Equal opportunities is one of the most abused laws in Britain and Australia and it's in the hands of entirely the wrong people to "positively discriminate" towards the wrong people and against the indigenous citizen.

Look, if I want to be in a club for all men or if a ladyfriend wants an all girl club membership, then why the hell not? What business is it of government?

Housekeeping

I don't want to run a separate post but I'm looking to close the deal on a house tomorrow and that's taking time. There are many negatives such as it being a long way out of town and in the middle of ongoing building around the area plus some other down things. What it does have is a good sea view, is new and it's quite snug.

[water] and the middle-east

Putting aside military action, oil and gas for now, a good indicator of whether there is any form of cooperation in the middle-east can be seen through water.

Israel's main water supplies come from:

Long-term Potential of Renewable Water

Resource

Replenishable Quantities

(MCM/year)
The Coastal Aquifer	320
The Mountain Aquifer	370
Lake Kinneret	700
Additional Regional Resources	410
Total Average	1,800

A look at the mountain aquifers and Lake Kinneret [follow links] show that these are not without their problems and the coastal aquifer is similarly environmentally and politically fraught. Also Israeli and Syrian intransigence towards one another has to be counterbalanced against pure need in the region.

Non-conventional Water Resources and Conservation After drawing on nearly all of its readily available water resources and promoting vigorous conservation programs, Israel has long made it a national mission to stretch existing sources by developing non-conventional water sources, while promoting conservation.

These efforts have focused on the following: reclaimed wastewater effluents; intercepted runoff and artificial recharge; artificially-induced rainfall - cloud seeding; and desalination.

Naturally, that is not sufficient and so Israeli long term strategy includes:

# The construction of desalination plants with an installed annual capacity of 400 MCM for seawater and with an annual 50 MCM capacity for brackish water.
# The rehabilitation of polluted and depleted wells with an annual total yield of up to 50 MCM.
# The importation from Turkey of an annual quantity of 50 MCM fresh water.
# To increase the amounts of treated sewage effluents suitable for for irrigation up to 500 MCM.

Turkey-Israeli trade is an indicative factor which adds to the mix:

Turkey and Israel are trade partners thanks to the geographical proximity, the good ties and the friendship, in 2007 Turkey [becoming] Israel's 8th largest trade partner ... based on a Free Trade Area agreement signed in 1997 [allowing] free circulation of trade between the two countries.

[By] 2007 the volume of the bilateral trade had reached a new record of almost three billions US dollars and in the first nine months of 2008 [it had] increased [by] more than 30% ... compared to 2007. The Israeli and Turkish navies have conducted joint exercises, there is a plan to build a massive pipeline from Turkey to supply water, electricity, gas and oil to Israel.

Egypt has a domestic need to publicly growl at Israel and to facilitate weapons through Gaza and yet they have common interests in some ways and are "not opposed" to a joint water project:

Several countries have contributed $15 million for the multipurpose Red-Dead canal project's feasibility study and environmental assessment. French company Coyne et Bellier is currently carrying out the feasibility study for the project, while the British firm Environmental Resources Management is undertaking the environmental assessment.

Meanwhile, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who headed his country's delegation to the water conference, said the "Peace Canal" project could benefit the entire Middle East.

He noted that Jordan's share of desalinated water under the project will be 65 per cent while 35 per cent will go to Israel and the West Bank. The project is expected to provide Jordan with 500 million cubic metres (mcm) of water annually.

The Red-Dead canal project is part of international efforts to save the Dead Sea, which has been shrinking at the rate of one metre per year, largely due to the diversion of water from the Jordan River for agricultural and industrial use.

Ditto with gas:

The protocol signed between Egypt and Israel in 2005 under which Israel imports Egyptian natural gas at a fraction of the cost on international markets provoked reactions that went beyond words. The opposition appealed to the courts and earlier this month the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the pumping of gas to Israel be stopped.

The government has not only refused to implement the decision but in doing so acted so hastily that it effectively undermined its own position in ongoing negotiations with Israel to secure a fairer price.Looking at it dispassionately, there is a joint problem here of expertise and the ready cash.

A 1997 article said:

For the most part, Egypt's desert reclamation attempts have been environmental and technical failures. Typically these Nile diversion projects are very expensive and the economic returns are minimal. Moreover, investments currently spent on desert reclamation could be put to better use in the fertile delta area.

Sorely needed are drainage systems to save the lands that are currently being lost to salinization and to the rise of the underground water table (a side effect of the High Aswan Dam).

While there is an obvious need for water-sharing arrangements, Israel remains a large per capita consumer, due to the lifestyle expectations of its westernized citizens. An anti-Israeli article says:

In spite of the positive publicity that Israel has received for its water sharing agreements with Jordan and with the Palestinians, Israel's share of area waters as a result of their agreements with the Arabs will be reduced marginally if at all, while the Arabs' share will be increased by only a relatively tiny amount.

American money is also a factor with the big players and can't be sneezed at.

Both biblically and strategically, the Tigris and Euphrates loom as a major factor, certainly for Iran's plans for expansion and a reliving of their ancient glory:

Turkey constructed the first major dam of the basin, commissioning the Keban Dam in 1973, with Syria soon following suit with the Tabqa Dam in 1975. The filling of these dams caused a sharp decrease in downstream flow, causing Iraq and Syria to exchange mutually hostile accusations and come dangerously close to a military confrontation.

The implications of the Turkish GAP projects are clear:

Given their position on the two rivers upstream from Syria and Iraq, the GAP projects, in particular, the Ilisu dam, have provoked concern in Damascus and Baghdad that the project, when completed, will substantially reduce the rivers’ total volume of downstream flow.

According to an official in Iraq's Water Resources Ministry, when Ilisu is completed in 2011, it will reduce the Tigris River waters by 47 per cent a year, depriving Mosul of about 50 percent of its summer water requirements (Al-Sabah, July 3).

Iraq annually requires about 50 billion cubic meters of water, with the Tigris providing 60 percent and the Euphrates the remaining 40 percent.

With Turkey angling for EU membership and major powers taking an interest in this, the American and European factors in the region cannot be ignored.

The simple fact is that the major local players in the region have to confront realpolitik, that sustenance and prosperity for each party depends on at least minimal levels of trade agreement and this forever undermines religious tensions at street and holy house level.

The world from the Minister of Trade's office where I put in a few hours each week for a few years was a different world to that perceived on the street. There is a level of realism at the sub-elite level which contrasts with the ideological madness at the elite level [the backers of governments and the king-makers] and the common factor is bilateral trade.

Put simply, there must be trade and on the question of essential resources, e.g. water, if there is much politicking then there is little ideology present at negotiations. It is out and out need. I put the opinion to the Minister last year that if the world could be governed by trade considerations, it would go a long way to normalizing relations.

He smiled a smile which spoke volumes - that it would be very nice, yes but that other parties considered there were higher political considerations.

As population increases, mismanagement continues and the west is present on the ground in the middle-east, water will increasingly become the catalyst for a real deterioration, a real slide in relations:

Facing historical, psychological and political barriers that have impeded cooperation and deadlocked diplomacy, nations in the region are sliding toward conflict over water. Water’s growing role in the emerging hydropolitics of the region has stressed the need for a new approach to safeguard this diminishing resource.

And into the whole cocktail can be mixed the religious factor:

Religious disagreements inside Jerusalem can get ugly, and invariably reverberate around the monotheistic world. Ultra-orthodox Jews have spat on Christian pilgrims visiting the stations of the cross on the Via Dolorosa, and Muslim clerics have screamed vitriolic threats at Uri Ariel, a Knesset member intent on testing Islamic tolerance by announcing plans to re-erect a synagogue beside the 7th-century silver-domed al-Aqsa mosque. Provocatively, he affirmed his commitment by pacing out the construction site with a posse of armed guards.

What to do? What can anyone do. Pray for eventual peace? Implement more efficient irrigation and water-supply techniques using shared technology in a stabilized middle-east with nutter groups like Hamas marginalized and where realpolitik reigns?

[silent saturday] long time, no rock

[15 000 words] time well spent

You've seen it at DK's, you might even have wandered over to Unity's. It's 15 000 words, which dwarfs anything I've written. In these "eight line bite posts" days which the short-attention spanners seem to demand, Unity's piece still deserves to be read in its entirety.

UPDATE: Sackerson begs to differ and his view is over here.

UPDATE UPDATE: Having read the article fully again, what Unity is basically arguing is:

1. The government has made a mess of legislation regarding the "drug war";
2. The scientific articles on risk and harm are inconclusive on newer drugs;
3. Prohibition has not significantly altered the level of drug usage.

All of these I'd agree with but there are two things Unity did which were disappointing:

1. He presented counter-argument as strawmen, inserting emotive phrases instead of examining the arguments against and presenting them impartially, something he does not do with those who wish to legalize hard drugs;

2. He fails to address the overall societal cost, not monetarily or on registered addicts but in terms of the culture of drugs and that is far less able to be pinned down, far less able to be quantified. He also doesn't address the political value of this culture becoming all-pervasive.

I stop short of saying he's wrong but it is going to require the level of research I just can't put in at this moment but should be able to two weeks from now.

[redundancy law] when are you eligible

Charon's podcast.

[civilians] when are they considered combatants

Before getting into the main question, the attack from the Lebanon raised a question:

So, if Nasrallah did not fire the rockets, who did?

Some Arabs claim that Israel fabricated the attack to justify striking against Hezbollah. That is difficult to believe, since the IDF already has too much on its hands and cannot fight on two fronts - despite assurances from Israeli officials that they can simultaneously battle Hamas and Hezbollah.

A more reasonable argument is that Saudi Arabia doctored the attack, through its own proxies in South Lebanon, to incriminate Hezbollah and provoke Israel into striking at the Islamic group. Saudi Arabia, after all, was not pleased with the results of the Lebanon war of 2006, since it failed to break - or even weaken - Hezbollah, which it sees as an extension of Iranian influence in the Arab world.

Coinciding with the latest tension in Lebanon was the emergence of a rival group to Hezbollah on January 7 called the Arab Islamic Resistance - believed to be linked to Saudi Arabia.

"When is a civilian a civilian and when is he a combatant?" An article on the Iraq war dead says:

And there is a more fundamental problem: hospitals had no formal category for "civilian combatants," although some doctors did note militia membership when this was obvious. The principal distinction they drew was between civilians and military personnel -- and this is not synonymous with the distinction between noncombatants and combatants.

Civilian combatants is a tricky category. Would you consider Dad's Army as civilian? If you were being invaded and were neither official military nor militia, would you still not have taken up a cudgel against a German unit if it came to it? Would you not give aid and succour to your nation's troops and aid them in whichever way you could? Would you not sit at a desk at Bletchley and try to decode enemy messages? Is not all of this destructive to the enemy?

What is a civilian in war time?

Hamas plays this game to the nth degree [see youtube above]. The ringleaders say that the civilians are lovingly surrounding the glorious hamas heroes and willingly laying down their lives. Oh really? Hamas have this thing about death is glorious and every Palestinian laying down his grandparents' and children's lives for the cause [see video] but the question still remains, from the point of view of Israel:

"When is a civilian a civilian and when is he a combatant?"

This is the thing it is so difficult to forgive with Hamas - that they will lodge weaponry and military supplies in the centre of supposedly civilian populations to increase the civilian dead and even fire at Israel from in there:

The Hamas tactic of firing rockets from schools, hospitals and mosques dates back to 2005, when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza. Several months ago, the head of the Israeli air force showed me a videotape (now available on YouTube) of a Hamas terrorist deliberately moving his rocket launcher to the front of a U.N. school, firing a rocket and then running away, no doubt hoping that Israel would then respond by attacking the rocket launcher and thus killing Palestinian children in the school.

And what of the "civilians" who suddenly man a rocket launcher, then just as suddenly go back to being shoemakers and housewives the moment the rockets are launched?

Hamas leaders have echoed the mantra of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, that "we are going to win because they love life and we love death."

This is why the bloggers who are waxing lyrical about the wicked Israeli targetting of civilians have their facts skewed.

What absolute bollocks.

It is significant that the individuals and groups saying Israel are "targetting" civilians are largely non-middle-eastern and/or leftist. People on the ground there know full well that Israel is solely targetting anything remotely Hamas:

Major Avital Liebowitz, of the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, told the correspondent that the army had indeed widened its target list in comparison to previous operations, saying Hamas has used ostensibly civilian actions as a cover for military activities. "Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," she said.

Israel let it be known that they were doing this. Now what did Hamas do? Move all civilians to safe ground which civilized nations do? Not a bit of it. They arrange the maximum possible head count for their own people. And why are Hezbollah not attacking in the north? Why are Egypt and Syria not wading in? Why is Iran not sending troops?

So to quote the civilian casualties of Israel's actions - yes and the blame is laid fairly and squarely at the feet of the people represented in the youtube video which opened this post.

Thank goodness rational bloggers with no axe to grind recognize this:

I posted earlier this week about the double standards on display, but the more ludicrous articles I see from apologists for this violent anti-Semitism, especially the truly disturbing ones that try to make some (sometimes thinly veiled) comparisons with the Holocaust, the more I draw the conclusion that many of these apologists as little more than modern day “noble savages” (though what’s noble about violent ant-Semitism is beyond me).

Stop the rockets. Stop the violence. That's it.

UPDATE: For a more detailed look, try this and this.

[personal values] the system of things

[questions] you might not have considered

1. How do mermaids procreate?

2. Why do people keep returning to the fridge, hoping something new will be there to eat?

3. Where do lost tennis balls really go?

4. Why is the alphabet in that order?

5. How do you connect all nine dots in a square grid, using four straight lines only and never taking the pencil off the paper until it's done?

[long termism] the incentives need to be attractive

Long-term planning takes courage and lays potential burdens on posterity, whilst providing them with benefits which must be paid for now. In other words, your balance sheet in this and the next quarter are not going to show any tangible result for the investment, under current accounting methods.

Business think tanks have been urging long termism for a long time, e.g.:

1. Pension fund trustees should develop internal governance practices consistent with a long-term investment outlook. 2. The transition from antagonism to engagement of certain long-term investors-especially regarding long-term strategic discussions-should be fully explored.

Taking British industry as an example, Roderick Moore says:

Will Hutton is absolutely right when he says that we would all benefit if British companies invested more in research, development and training, and formed long-term relationships with their workers, bankers, suppliers and customers. However, I would like all this to be achieved by voluntary agreements between the people involved, because they perceive that it is in their best interests, rather than being forcibly imposed by the state, as stakeholding theorists believe it should be. This will only happen if taxation and company law are reformed so that companies are freed from the pressures which are driving them into short-termism.

Ditto in the U.S. Lawrence E. Mitchell, writing today in Business Week, takes the long view and diagnoses a problem at the heart of the American business system:

“The real culprit is the growing preeminence of finance over operations. It causes stock market considerations to trump those that improve the actual workings of a business. And the quicker the stock payoff can be engineered, the better. Until that changes, don’t expect CEOs to stop gaming the system.”

So that's a known known, still relevant in the current crissis, as is political short-termism, which is far more insidious for the planned economy. Andrew Leigh and Glenn Withers say:

Four attitudinal conditions are identified as restricting implementation of good policy in Australia. These are: short-termism, divided responsibility, risk aversion and lack of trust [in politicians and institutions].

Commonwealth Bank Chair John Ralph said at the 2004 AGM that “In today’s climate it takes a brave CEO to promote a long-term risk R&D project that will reduce current earnings and deliver the benefits well past his or her tenure.”

Today it would be seen as lunacy. Here are some other areas which need to be addressed:

The press exacerbates the problem. Leigh and Withers:

The media as an institution also has a role to play here. Regrettably Australia has amongst the most concentrated newspaper ownership, most advertising dependent television and most parsimoniously funded public broadcasting amongst the OECD countries.

Social safety nets are a huge drain:

Social safety nets are in place as they were not in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries, but there is fear that these may be wound back severely as pressure on government budgets increases, including through demographic ageing [and] growing numbers on disability support and single parent payments.

The failure of the two party Westminster system of government:

The political wisdom has been that oppositions should present “small targets”, offering not bold visions of the future, but small increments on the status quo.

The Westminster system, with its loyalty-based preselection sidelining of talent, the adversarial, grand-standing political debate from entrenched positions and that "small target" presentation, is inimical to brainstorming and sound long term strategy.

Evidence based policy testing never shows its face:

[Governments don't] work to improve the evidence base from which we build our economic and social policies. Cost-benefit analysis for all large public investment projects should be obligatory and made publicly available. Similarly, randomised policy trials.

It's all very well for Jamie Saunders, of Bradford City Council to state:

Successful councils ensure that the voices of all get heard – not just the most vociferous, powerful or well-established… it means safeguarding the interests of future members of the community. Many decisions made now will have long term implications. These need to be identified, understood and designed into local policies.

.. but as more and more people are realizing, the new hierarchy of available money dictates the pecking order and today it runs like this:

1. EU loans and grants rule, especially outside London and the regions, e.g. Yorkshire Forward, allow only people to have a voice who are onside with the Common Purpose mindset, i.e. the EU rules;

2. The only long-termism is stemming from EU policy and it's not a long-termism which is healthy for "Britain as Britain" or for its new serf class.

Steps

Seems to me that there are a few immediate changes required:

1. Kill off Lisbon in Ireland and start the road back to regaining control of Britain by British money reinvesting in infrastructure, production and R&D, despite the allure of EU money;

2. Cross-party agreement to make mandatory a percentage of annual revenue for long-term infrastructure based on all interested party recommendations;

3. End to confrontational Westminster politics, retention of premier minister and council of ministers, cross party;

4. Elimination of stealth taxes, VAT, capital gains tax and implementation of flat tax rates with reductions to reward incentive on start-ups involved in national manufacturing.

That's a start.

Now of course you're going to say that they'll never get their snouts out of the trough [N3 here] so what incentives could you offer the two party system to end itself? The only way I see is for an external threat to galvanize the parliament into an enforced working arrangement, with personal financial incentives in the medium term to create a vote in parliament which would allow this to happen.

Only then could there be, not so much a covering of butts but a joint attempt to find solutions.

[never changes] the impossible dream

Vox:

Considering that it was some 89 years ago that Ludwig von Mises first demonstrated the Impossibility of Socialist Calculation, it's stunning to observe that Americans are collectively dumb enough to intentionally repeat one of Mankind's greatest economic blunders.

[eyewatch 1227] how stupid are people these days

In Private Eye this fortnight, apart from the Jamaicans stealing beaches for the construction industry [p16], the one which grabbed my attention was about David Lammy MP, on Celebrity Mastermind [p9].

Asked, "What was the married name of Marie and Pierre, winners of the 1903 Nobel prize for the discovery of radiation?" Lammy answered, er, "Antoinette," and went on to say that Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII, Leicester is a famous English blue cheese and replied with other gems. However, he did know about Opray Winfrey and William Hague's 13 pints of beer.

There is great danger in lambasting the Dumb - just because half the population is dumber than you, half of it might be brighter than you too. Bill Bryson recognized this principle in his Notes from a Big Country and yet ... and yet ...

There really does seem to be an awful lot of ignorance about these days and inevitably it must come down to, not only what is being taught in schools but the whole curriculum and methodology, combined with the breakdown of society. Easy to use the old "in my day" preface to any remark but you know, it's true.

My occasional quizzes here were not what I should have thought fiendishly difficult although I'm sure you could have constructed one on feminism, reality TV and the Beckams which I would have failed miserably. All of which brings us to the question of which knowledge we value.

Surely there is a base level of memorable facts and figures which one would expect the average bear to have a working knowledge of and if not, why not? Try these five and see how you go:

1. Name any three of the seven ancient wonders of the world;
2. Which substances are represented by NaCl and H2CO4?
3. Name any revered American baseball babe and a perfect 10 from the Montreal Olympics;
4. How many are a baker's dozen, a score and a gross respectively?
5. What is the difference between "respectively" and respectfully"?

It's not the intention of this blog to put anyone down because you could hit back with myriad things I don't know and yet the general ignorance about in this day and age seems a little more than the imaginings of a jaded ex-academic and way above any statistically acceptable level.

By the way, is "myriad" used in singular or plural and what number does it originally refer to?

[bloodhounds] and the investigative obsession

Just finished watching the 2007 version of Zodiac, the story of the serial killer who left cryptic clues in California in the late 60s. The story you can follow for yourself but the angle I'm interested in concerns the stages of an investigation and where it bottoms out.

In the case of the Zodiac killer, the cop who leads the investigation obsesses and finally gives it away after compromising himself. The baton is taken up by a newspaper cartoonist, Robert Graysmith, who finds himself drawn further and further into the case, to the point where his knowledge of it is second to none but sadly, it is at a human cost:

Graysmith ... loses his job and his wife Melanie takes their children with her.

Jim Garrison springs to mind too:

Opinions differ as to whether he uncovered a conspiracy behind the John F. Kennedy assassination but was blocked from successful prosecution by a federal government cover up, whether he bungled his chance to uncover a conspiracy, or whether the entire case was an unproductive waste of resources.

Ditto The Winslow Boy:

Although the family has won the case at law and lifted the cloud over Ronnie, it has taken its toll on the rest. His father's physical health has deteriorated under the strain, as to some degree has the happiness of the Winslows' home. The costs of the suit and the publicity campaign have eaten up his older brother Dickie's Oxford tuition, and hence his chance at a career in the Civil Service, as well as Catherine's marriage settlement. Her fiancé John Watherstone has broken off the engagement in the face of opposition from his father ...

There are common elements to all such investigations:

1. Something kicks it off and somewhere along the line, certain coincidences or certain evidence pops up which reveal that there really is truth in it after all. This is the trickiest part because it often occurs to one or two people and no one else can see it, having not been privy to how it cropped up;

2. For some time the investigation runs on the fuel of the investigator's good history and reputation but now the counter-claims and things which just don't seem to check out come into it. This is a time when a lot of soul searching goes on and the point where the investigator feels like throwing in the towel;

3. The next stage is the key.  The investigated person or phenomenon slips up - it only need be the once, whether it be a sent letter, a mannerism, whatever - and now the investigator [s] is sure he's on the right track.   The fixation with nailing the bstd now kicks in but because he's so focused, the others look at him askance;

4. One by one, helpers and friends drop out, acquaintances start to accuse him of obsession, of a vendetta, of a personal dispute, of ego kicking in and of losing the plot ... but meanwhile, more and more evidence is being accumulated and makes the truth easier to see;

5. The investigator's behaviour has been altering for some time and maybe even his character ... or at least the part of the character required for the investigation becomes highly developed and sensitized, whilst the more social aspects die away. Wives leave and take the children but the investigator still can't leave it alone;

6. In the end, he has a damned good case and confronts the accused with it but unfortunately, the world has lost interest after so long and the pyrrhic victory is so partial and achieved at such a cost that one wonders if it had been worth it;

7. The investigator finally ceases and takes stock. It takes him a long time to get back a sense of balance and perspective and then he sees how he's been sucked into another man's agenda, a nutter who is still not convicted [Zodiac] and goes off to some other victims whilst the investigator can do no more. He's used up all his favours and no one sees that the accused has got away, to the latter's sardonic smile, with virtual murder.

Serial perpetrators do this - they suck others into their agendas and it's near impossible to make that break with the case and not give the perpetrators the oxygen of publicity and obsession which they crave to mask their inadequacies.   They even attract admirers and their ego now knows no bounds.

There is only one piece of justice in this.

Whilst the investigator, if he can stop early enough, can get back to some sort of normality and perspective, unfortunately, the perpetrator, though believing himself invincible, is actually being eaten up from within and he does come a cropper in the end, not from any final conviction nor public approbation ... but from within himself.

More and more cases go on and on and on.    Another example is Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace.    See what I mean? If you let it, it just goes on and on, branching into new territory like a river into new tributaries.

Unless you stop it.

[bloody word verification] blogger seem to have learnt

Now I'm certain Blogger are taking the p--s with their word verification. Not complaining, mind but I've seen, over the past few days:

tiespons

fierher

pissere

conical

flitifi

sqidgi

At least it makes it much quicker to use and even adds a bit of interest to the soul-sapping process of bloody word verification.

[iraqi resistance] and the problem with subtitles

Hat tip Northnorthwester [lesbian football beer] who got it from Lilith Stuff.

[charity] when it is less than transparent

This is the first time I've linked to Conservative Home, to my knowledge but this is an article we all should read.

[blair house blues] exercise in pettiness

You've probably read of the brouhaha over Blair House, guesthouse for foreign leaders in Washington.

Remember that Obama wanted to be in there, leading up to the inauguration, so his kids could go to school but Bush refused, saying that the house had been pre-booked? It was then booked to former Oz PM and MP Howard and wife for one night, on the occasion of "the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former British PM Tony Blair, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe" and Howard.

"Mr. Howard will be staying for one night as per the invitation," his spokesman told [the Australian]. "There's no entourage; it's just Mr. and Mrs. Howard. None of it is at the expense of Australian taxpayers."

Even so, Aussies appeared to be decidedly opposed. A Melbourne newspaper, the Age, in an online poll, found that, of 11,360 respondents, 82 percent said he didn't deserve the medal. (Prior winners were Tommy Franks, George J. Tenet and J. Paul Bremer.)

It seems to me that there is pettiness everywhere in this story, from the Obama snub through to 9,315 Australians. I wonder about Blair though, who was just as much a key member of the coalition of the willing. Could it have been his Labour label which saw him lose his place to Howard?

Another house to keep an eye on is Trowbridge House, being renovated for the use of former presidents who are in town.

Shoot me down in flames and maybe it's a legacy of my occasional proximity to a minister I worked with in Russia but protocols are protocols and IMHO, when a president or PM ceases active duty, no matter what he did or who he was, even Brown and Obama eventually, he should at least be accorded a few retirement perks out of recognition of past service.

There is a feeling about, amongst large sections of the citizenry, understandable but a bit short on understanding, that nothing be conceded, that the taxpaper owes zero to former heads of state, that they took enough of the taxpayer's money swanning about the world during their time in office.

I think this is mean-spirited.

While I wouldn't cry tears if Brown found himself bumped off or summarily thrown out on his neck, there are protocols which ensure some sort of dignity for the office, if not the person. They should be automatic and not linked to the incumbent.

While we're on it, the salary of £190 000 odd a year is ludicrously small for a de facto head of state - no wonder it can't attract talent, that job. It's not arguing for Brown here but for the dignity of the office itself.

Criminal wastage, such as Wat Tyler exposes, is appalling and needs to be roundly condemned but the perks of office - well why not? I'd like to think that all jobs have their perks and bonuses which make them rewarding, from air traffic controllers through to rubbish men. Well maybe not rubbish men, the bstds.

There's a danger of falling into the "politics of envy" trap here, of thinking we are equally, if not more deserving than that man over there, of begrudging the perks he enjoys. He might begrudge the few reamining perks you enjoy.

Tell you what, while I'm up in the air over Heathrow, about to land, if the air traffic controllers were on some perk or other, I'd say give it to them, give it to them, along with the brain surgeon who examines my head for running this post.

A Quick Tip for Digital Cameras

If you're going to have to transfer your images to a computer before coming back home (ie: to send via e-mail to family and friends) and there's a possibility you might be using one of those image readers (or even transferring directly from the camera itself), be sure to make sure your card is locked before beginning the transfer. I learned the hard way last year and lost all my photos of Barcelona and then some.

[ethical blogging] increasingly in demand these days

The whole question of blog ethics is a minefield. So glad the Devil's Kitchen posted on the topic because its owner illustrates exactly what Bloghounds is also trying to do.

DK points out that if you are shown to be wrong, you should at least concede it. Yes, yes and yes. Bloghounds believes that ethics means this type of thing, not that you need to be a goody-two-shoes, for whom butter wouldn't melt in the mouth.

Imprecate vocabulary and hitting hard, as long as you can back it up with sources, does not mean you are unethical. Making wild statements without backup is unethical. Shooting off at the mouth without some facts to point to is unethical. Threatening litigation at the drop of a hat, rather than arguing your case - I include that as unethical as well.

Like it or not, only blogs following scholarly standards, no matter how swearbloggy they are, are likely to survive in the long term [or at least keep readers coming back]. Everyone knows that.

Like it or not, we are coming into a period of official pressure to regulate and "clean-up" the blogosphere. We need to look to ourselves and clean up our own act first, the better to resist this trend towards regulation and sanction.

Bloghounds arose from the ashes of some very unethical behaviour from certain quarters which we won't rake over here. Its intellectual capital, the value of its very name, depends on ethics and that's why we go through a complicated process with new membership, with no beg pardons.

The value of your name is not established by bully boy tactics - it's established by how far readers accept your arguments and if yours are better, then they'll be believed. That's the ethical way to go and its the only way we're interested in.

[7 января] с рождеством Христовым

C Рождеством Христовым !

Сердечно поздравляю вас с Рождеством Христовым.

Этот великий праздник объединяет и сближает семьи, поколения и народы в стремлении к духовному преображению и обновлению, в желании делиться друг с другом теплом.

Рождество для миллионов людей служит непреходящим символом чистоты, искренности, человечности и милосердия. В прекрасные рождественские дни наши сердца наполняют вера, надежда и сострадание, вдохновляющие на свершение добрых дел, оказание помощи всем, кто в ней нуждается.

Пусть праздник Рождества придаст вам силы для осуществления самых заветных желаний и планов. Пусть наступающий год порадует новыми достижениями, принесет в каждый дом спокойствие, взаимопонимание, благополучие и любовь.

Желаю вам крепкого здоровья, успехов в делах, счастья и мира.

For non-Russians

January 6th here is Epiphany but January 7th in the East is Christmas.

Today I received a message from someone special and then another [plus photos] from someone else special in Russia and so this is one of those days, Orthodox Christmas, when things get a bit shaky in my psyche. Some years back I chose to follow the January 7th Christmas as it seemed altogether better, as I've tried to explain to my friends over here.

Let's face it, at the end of the previous year, we're all knackered and the last thing we need is the enforced smiles and jollity. It's much better to go off and do something nice with family or partner, to let all the worries fade away and then, invigorated in the new year, you can address yourself to Christmas. An added bonus is that the traffic is lighter then and people are in a better frame of mind.

However, the western tradition dies hard and thank goodness people are still celebrating it here at all.

What I particularly liked about this day was that I got to visit grandparents and that meant a scrumptuous luncheon and a little wine. Unfortunately, it was also a time to make me reflect on where I was and how precarious were all our lots and this is how I'm thinking right now.

The words above in Russian are quite beautiful and basically wish you peace, prosperity and happiness.

Who could argue with that?

[real life] about to curtail this blog

Most bloggers who've been at it for some time would claim that Real Life transcends any blog matters and yet it seems to me, from what I've seen, that many bloggers cannot let it go, even when they run out of things to say.

Let's face it, our blog is probably the only forum where more than our immediate circle get to hear [or read] our views on matters. That's at least so for the political blogger. The food and garden blogger is a different creature but his or her motivation might be the sense of community in that corner of the sphere. That's a motivation for many political bloggers as well.

Real Life does intrude and any day now it's going to with me.

Not to put too fine a point on it, when I go, my internet connection goes too. I don't think it's going to be a total thing, as there is always the local library membership which allows an hour a day and so I'd aim to keep one post up a day but it is going to severely curtail the research time. Quite frankly, I shouldn't be spending hours in the local library when I need to be out following the recovery plan.

I can't see it ever being permanent or even a hiatus but it's certainly going to be a dent in the output for some time, for very necessary reasons and it must be any day now. I now have a commitment to Bloghounds as well and there are advertisers starting to trickle in who are expecting the blog to be maintained.

I don't know how many of us consider our loyalty to the readers either; after all, a reader is a person who clicks in from time to time to see if anything interesting is happening but each of us, in these troubled times, does like to see certain faces in the blog firmament and are sad when they drop away.

So that's the current state of play.

[iran] are they gun running to gaza

The allegation that Iran is providing arms and assistance to Hamas has been denied as "illogical" by many pundits. Gaza is sealed, they say and so it is just not possible for Iran to get in there.

Here is another point of view:

Reva Bhalla, a Middle East analyst with the private intelligence firm Stratfor, said Iran uses a sophisticated Hezbollah smuggling network to get arms to Hamas.

"Basically, you'll have a bunch of Hezbollah agents who will procure arms through Sudan. They'll enter Egypt under forged documents, pay off disgruntled Bedouins in the Sinai with things like light arms, cash, Lebanese hashish - which they can sell in the black market - and pay off Egyptian security guards as well so that they can travel covertly into Gaza to pass off the weapons shipments through Hamas' pretty extensive underground tunnel network," she said.

But most analysts agree that even if Iran is arming Hamas, it would produce little practical gain for Tehran other than to make life difficult for Israel. It is on the political front, they say, where Iran looks to benefit from the crisis in Gaza as it tries to project itself as the leader of the Islamic world.

Analyst Reva Bhalla said Iran is trying boost its standing in the region by embarrassing moderate Arab states.

"It basically makes Iran stand apart from the Arab regimes. And note that the Arab regimes are the most silent on this issue. Most are quite happy seeing Hamas contained, [they] really have no problem with the Palestinians being contained in the region by the Israelis. It's that huge disconnect between what you hear in the Arab street and what you see being actually discussed within these regimes. And so Iran is trying to exploit that," she said.

[wordless wednesday] captions please

Oops - shouldn't have run this one at Christmas time [see next post].

[rfk] in the shadow of brother john

The assassination of RFK doesn't get the same attention as that of JFK or JFK Jnr's "accident". This is an interesting piece of investigation into RFK's demise:

And incidentally, that youtube on JFK I couldn't find has been found by a correspondent. It's a worry the way the investigator constantly speaks of "scientific, mathematical measurements" and "precise measurements" but he does seem to have the angle fairly right and more importantly - he shows, physically, that it was possible.

Combine that with the other video of a car going past from that pov and the sewer looks a bit difficult but the storm drain would have been quite possible.