Saturday, April 12, 2008

[thought for the day] saturday evening

”You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play."

[Warren Beatty]

CLICK THE PIC AND SEE ALL HIS LOVERS !!!!

[finding the one] you'd go the whole wide world?


This is how it started.

I wanted to put some music up to finish the evening and was rummaging round in YouTube when I remembered a pub do in Australia years ago with Wreckless Eric. Pretty poor selection in YouTube on him - mostly couples using the song as a wedding vid or whatever.

Just about to give up when I thought I'd give this one a try. It was the comments section which did it - wow, this guy was really pouring it out about his lost love. Checked out the first part of the vid - seemed a nice enough guy, then caught this comment by him:

It doesnt matter that there are millions of girls in the universe. It's about one girl and what she meant to me, how she had me believe in a future with her and her great family, an incredible love and connection I've never experienced ..... and so on.

Someone replied:

But... if she can't celebrate who you are, and doesn't appreciate you at all, do you really want to be with her? Everyone deserves to be with someone who loves them back. Don't waste one more minute of your life missing someone who doesn't care about you.

He replied:

Sad sad days. It breaks my heart. Wow over 10 000 hits on my stupid stupid video all about how much I love some girl who completely destroyed my heart.

Whole load of feelings swirling around now. First is that sooner or later someone is going to tell him to stop being a wimp but I say good luck to him - let it all out. Some commenter called Adrift replies:

The last rite of passage into manhood my friend is, the broken heart/dream. Women despise what they perceive as a weak, or, needy man. The best thing you can ever do is, stand tall, and "Walk Like A Man". Pal, never look back. Move on knowing, it is her loss.

Yeah, easier said than done, I'm thinking. Been there where you'd do anything to turn it round but once a woman's decided, there's no going back. Now comes the first woman's comment:

YOUR SO STUPID! its about that he has no one and he remembers what his mom says and does that. AND HE SEARCHES THE WHOLE WORLD TO FIND HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STUPID!!!!

Well thank you dear, for that. Sure helps our friend here, doesn't it?

At this point I half agree with her that it IS stupid placing your heart in another human's hands because he/she doesn't have the mental equipment to take good care of it. You've opened the last door to the inner citadel, my friend and she's gone in, looked about and then spat on the floor.

Poor bstd.

Humans are weak and selfish. They don't appreciate what they have until it's gone and then often not and I've been in both camps, as most of you have too. You know, this is undignified the way this man is laying it all out - I wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction any more - and yet I feel his pain tonight, as apparently, have a few thousand others, judging by the stats.

And well meaning homilies don't help, do they? That pain is bitter for sure.

Sigh. And yet we do it over and over.

Would you do it again?

[Pretty nifty song too, by the way, if you'd care to listen. Original comments here.]


[blogfocus saturday] check these out

You might like to look at:

Beaman's take on China's preparation for the Olympics.

The Quiet Man, who has an interesting piece on Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz's Libel Tourism.

Andrew K. Brown's revelations about the new secessionist State of Lewisham:

...our citizenship ceremonies, our celebration of Lewishams armed forces...

Bob Piper's superb sense of humour - I haven't had this good a laugh for many a year - thanks, Bob:

RIPA wasn't introduced by Big Brother to spy on Winston Smith, but as a way of giving some sort of framework to protect Winston from his Big Brother

The Rev. Dr. Incitatus, who appears to be another with an interest in Penguins.

[saturday quiz] special bumper polio victim edition


All of these people below were polio victims. Match their occupations with their names:

1. Ben Bradlee

2. Ian Dury

3. J. Robert Oppenheimer

4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

5. Donald Sutherland

Occupations:

a] hit people with rhythm sticks, b] enjoyed bad boy roles, c] helped expose Watergate, d] mad bomber, e] stole the nation's gold

Answers in white below - need to highlight:

1c, 2a, 3d, 4e, 5b

Poliomyelitis is:

1.
a] curable with Xenotobin 3X
b] incurable to date
c] curable depending on how it was transmitted

2.
a] infectious
b] contagious
c] can't be transmitted

3.
a] preventable by vaccine
b] endemic to most of the world today
c] impossible to prevent

Answers in white below - need to highlight:

1b. 2b. 3a

[criminalization] where once there was innocence


The Reactionary Snob points out:

I admit my knowledge of RIPA is not what it should be but I'm not certain that trying to get a child into a school (even if the parents are intending to move out of the catchment area) is a 'serious crime'.

Stephen Pollard notes:

But surely the real point of this story is not the law under which such investigations were carried out, or their efficacy. It's rather the sheer lunacy of a school system in which catchment areas and bureaucratic diktat matter and which entails such checks.

I say the real point of the story as the iniquitous RIP Act in the first place, criminalizing where once there was no criminality.

[price creep] the books you once loved to browse

You need to read the fine print with Wat Tyler:

But the thing is this. In the days before the internet, public libraries made vast amounts of knowledge and kultur freely available to everyone. And somehow, that seemed A Good Thing.

Imagine his surprise then, when his local library recently charged him £22.40p.

This is a prime example of charging creep. A close relative of stealth taxation, charging creep is where your public sector supplier surreptitiously charges ever more for services that were once free - or virtually free - at the point of use.

So though the worthy gentleman is talking specifically of fines and entry to the library is presumably still free, still - the basic premise stands. Keep your eye on what goes on in libraries because this must needs be one element of the new feudalism - constraint of knowledge.

Friday, April 11, 2008

[ian dury] showed what could be done

I love men and women who carve their own way in life, inspired by an idea or a potpourri of influences. Often bawdy, irreverent and wrong:

sex and drugs and rock 'n roll are all my brain and body need

but always with a wry humour in there somewhere, I can't side with the moralists here, of which I am one. People like Ian Dury somehow transcend all that:

looking like some spivvy Cockney update of a Dickensian villain - the punks were suitably impressed

Already a polio victim, he succumbed in the end to cancer:

Here was a man already in his mid-thirties who looked crippled but dangerous, and had an armoury of quite extraordinary songs, ranging from the realistically romantic to the outrageous. He could belt out a thoughtful rock song like Sweet Gene Vincent, and then introduce a distinctive Essex spin.

Love him or loathe him and admittedly he couldn't hold a note but hey, he was unique:



Blue Gene baby

Skinny white sailor, the chances were slender
The beauties were brief
Shall I mourn your decline with some thunderbird wine
and a black handkerchief?
I miss your sad Virginia whisper
I miss the voice that called my heart

Sweet Gene Vincent
Young and old and gone
Sweet Gene Vincent

Who, who, who slapped John?

White face, black shirt
White socks, black shoes
Black hair, white strat
Bled white, died black

Sweet gene Vincent
Let the blue cats roll tonight
At the sock hop ball in the union hall
Where the bop is their delight

Here come duck-tailed Danny dragging Uncanny Annie
She's the one with the flying feet
You can break the peace daddy sickle grease
The beat is reet complete
And you jump back honey in the dungarees
Tight sweater and a pony tail
Will you guess her age when she comes back stage?
The hoodlums bite their nails

Black gloves, white frost
Black crepe, white lead
White sheet, black knight
Jet black, dead white

Sweet Gene Vincent
There's one in every town
And the devil drives 'till the hearse arrives
And you lay that pistol down

Sweet Gene Vincent
There's nowhere left to hide
With lazy skin and ash-tray eyes
and perforated pride

So farewell mademoiselle, Knickerbocker Hotel
Farewell to money owed
But when your leg still hurts and you need more shirts
You got to get back on the road

[irradiation] may reluctantly have to be used


Opponents of irradiation say:

The best alternative to food irradiation to reduce pathogens is in good agricultural practices. For example, farmers and processing plants should improve sanitation practices, water used for irrigation and processing should be regularly tested for E. coli, and production plants should be routinely inspected.

Farmers have much to answer for other practices too, for example:

A potential contributor to this problem that has heretofore escaped serious public health scrutiny is the feeding of animal excrement to livestock, a common practice in some parts of the United States. In 1994, 18% of poultry producers in Arkansas collectively fed more than 1,000 tons of poultry litter to cattle, and the procedure is also common in some other geographic areas as a means of eliminating a portion of the 1.6 million tons of livestock wastes produced in the United States annually.

Or closer to home, The Englishman noted some time ago:

....after Defra's admission that the current outbreak [Feb, 2007] of avian flu could have been brought from Hungary in turkey meat, the betting is here that the one thing the media will not be doing is putting the blame where it properly belongs [the EU].

Having said all that, there is a certain obligation on us to accept current realities, however averse we are to them and it does have some truth to it that irradiation can help eliminate much of the trouble. And yet concerns remain:

Endpoints investigated have included subchronic and chronic changes in metabolism, histopathology, and function of most systems; reproductive effects; growth; teratogenicity; and mutagenicity.

The pro-irradiation lobby has now [Apr, 2008] produced yet another study aimed at the consumer directly:

Washing fresh fruits and vegetables -- even with disinfectants -- may not be enough to stop food poisoning, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The report found that while washing helps reduce the chances of catching a bug, some microbes can hide too well, including getting inside the leaves of some produce.

The corollary is clear and of course google news produces this in the very next article. Highly suspicious, eh? I'm somewhere between the two myself but would like to know your opinion on this.

[polygamous sect] chapel in the house of prayer


[Update Friday evening: one or two were a little confused whether this post was condoning this sect or was opposed. Vehemently opposed of course - these are not Christians - they're paedophiles in this blog's opinion.]


We've all by now seen the lurid details of the polygamous sect in Texas and I shan't be repeating them:

The ranch and compound are owned and run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is a sect which broke away from the Mormon Church when it banned polygamy more than 100 years ago. Inside the ranch they still practice polygamy.

The sect's prophet is Warren Jeffs, a self-confessed polygamist who was jailed last year for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who married her cousin. Authorities have kept the ranch under surveillance since it was bought by the sect five years ago.

It seems, according to this article that things are being handled better here than they were at Waco.

It's worth looking at the proliferation of sects spawned in America. As the whole gay and feminist movements show - there is a fiercely protected freedom of action in America which the rest of us don't always understand. So all sorts of weird things are going to be tolerated, except by the good ole boys.

But there's something more when it comes to Christian sects. Just as Islam, whether rightly or wrongly, has violence associated with it, so Christianity definitely attracts very weird thinking.
In scripture it would be characterized as tares among the wheat and the advice in the gospels is to wait until the harvest and then cut them out.

Daniel Defoe wrote, in 1701:

Wherever G-d erects a house of prayer, the Devil always builds a chapel there and 'twill be found, upon examination, that the latter has the larger congregation.

It stands to reason. If Christianity is correct, for the sake of argument, then the Devil exists. Therefore he would be hell bent on destroying the redemptive power of Christ in people's minds. Therefore one of the best ways is creating strawmen who are putting views and focussing on passages and generally being obnoxious, to the extent that people who haven't read it up themselves will turn against it in droves.

So, instead of focussing on the faith, hope and charity part, they zero in, for example, on homophobic and red-necked passing references and make, of them, the whole focus. This is a twisting of the message but suffices to turn people away from any possible redemption.

As I say, "if Christianity is correct" and that's outside the scope of this post to either prove or disprove. But certainly passages are seized upon and taken out of context and even bloggers are good at doing this - one blogger was fond of biblical images to push his strange philosophy last year but most people saw through that. The Crusaders did that. A noble idea twisted in its execution.

This is the eternal cross [forgive the reference] that Christianity has had to bear - the false prophets, the wolves in sheep's clothing, the real message twisted and presented as some sort of parody of pious rectitude, always scheduled to be Swaggarted at some stage down the line to reinforce the real message that the redemptive power of Christ is bunkum.

And the aping is amazing - from the pipe organ to the pseudo biblical blessings, the other side has it all down pat. That particular blogger made a comment on a post a long time back that he actually preferred the paraphernalia, the regalia and the flim flam to the original gospel message itself. He preferred the ritual to the mental adjustment required.

So it will always be. The true Christians are few and it is next to impossible to keep to the path and still be a human being. I by no means lay any claim to being a proper Christian.

[starbucks] palace of culture


Recently, this blog made reference to the ubiquitous Starbucks but not all is bad - check out this pic from Clive Davis.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

[thought for the day] thursday evening

A man may have his head in the clouds or his feet on the ground but if he has his feet on the ground, he can't remove his trousers.

And while we're on the subject of trousers, here is a little article on their origins.

Or a screen shot on the danger of having the wrong trousers [shhh - don't mention penguins]

If that's not enough for you, here's a video on the art of ...


How To Turn Up Trousers

[kiln living] when you can't get out of the kitchen


Long day but not particularly difficult until I got home. Have the final year for lectures and seminars all week and the other years have had more prosaic work than normal.

At home though we have an amazing situation. These housing blocks are centrally heated and the boiler is turned on on the one day in October and turned off on the one day in April. No exceptions, no consideration of the actual weather out there.

It was 29 degrees Celsius on the street today and guess what - the central heating was on in every flat at full winter level. No concept of anyone phoning the guy and asking, "Could you possibly turn it down a little?" No concept in his own mind that the house might need him to mosey on over and flick a switch.

Of course I'd do it myself but The Key to the Boiler is a jealousy guarded thing, touched only by the annointed.

Unlike some of the neighbours, I do have a solution - the airconditioning unit. So there we were, the client and I in a room with the heater blasting and the air-conditioning on full bore. My friend said that a German had admonished her country for being wasteful with resources.

Well, it's true.

The brightest of readers wil have tumbled to the obvious anomaly - why not just open the balcony door and windows? Sounds logical, doesn't it? Yes, sounds logical but it's not possible - ten minutes with the door or window open and the road fumes fill the flat so the door needs to be closed.

So in this state of heat exhaustion my cleaning girl arrived and I took off for the shops downstairs whilst she did her thing. First thing I noticed was that most people were wearing jackets and I had my polo T on. Just as I appear to be out of step with the majority on the gay issue, so I seemed to be out of step on this.

The only way to check was with the young bucks who always underdress - well they had light jackets and T shirts on. This worried me no end because it wasn't normal that I felt warm and they were giving me peculiar looks.

Anyway, now we're here, the balcony is open and I'm blogging to you. And Britain had snow?

Sigh.

[net tools] roundup of flickr and twitter


This seemed a nice little net roundup:

Flickr video feature spurs online revolt. Not all that surprising to see a mini user revolt after Flickr finally added video uploads. A segment of the user base is unhappy for fear that the photosharing site will lose focus and “turn into another YouTube”.

I don't upload to Flickr but admit to using them for photos on occasions. Video of 90 seconds, available only to Pro users? Naaa - why bother?

Why I deleted my twitter account. I didn’t close my twitter account but cartoonist, marketer and author Hugh MacLeod has done. He says that he finds it “too easy”, and in a brilliant cartoon depicts how uncreative it is compared to longer form blogging.

On the other hand, a post titled Twitter may have crossed the chasm, where he described the service as “cheap” in terms of effort required from the user. Combined with the ‘instant gratification’ you get whenever you log-in to Twitter (i.e. updated content), the barriers to entry are much lower compared with many other forms of online publishing.

I don't use Twitter either as I can't see the point of it. Is it meant to be used as a noticeboard for what you plan to do that day? Would an e-mail to the relevant friend not be sufficient? Perhaps not. As blogging though, it seems a bit bitzie to me.

Then again, Twitterers wouldn't like my style of blogging which places unreasonable demands on attention spans.

[rogue traders] ripping the heart out of the economy

Sometimes, to see the real nastiness of the modern and ancient finance, it's necessary to look sideways at a relatively undeveloped economy and watch the sharks in operation:

Sigurdur Einarsson, Chairman of the Board for Kaupthing Bank, has accused four foreign hedge funds of instigating a systematic attack on the Icelandic financial market and Icelandic banks.

Einarsson told Fréttabladid that they have gone to great lengths to profit from taking short positions in stocks and credit default swaps (CDS). He also contends that this assault has been defused by taking action against the hedge funds who intended to turn a profit by driving the banks to bankruptcy.

Einarsson explained that Kaupthing Bank has been in contact with international media representatives in an effort to explain the systematic attack undertaken by these speculators and the methods they have used to effect it.

Einarsson named four hedge funds in particular “who have undertaken this [market manipulation] with full force,” Trafalgar Funds, Cheney Capital, Landsdowne Fund and Ako Capital, all based in London.

Whilst Central Banks are still the main problem, the rogue traders such as hedge funds are out there wreaking their havoc as well.

Top Ten Rogue Traders here and look who is the special bonus trader! Sometimes, you know, I think we're a little bit hard on Gordon. David Farrer, a Scot, says this about his fellow Scot:

But what I don't understand is why Scottish, Unionist politicians have been so incompetent. People like Gordon Brown.

Well yes but look at this about the gold sell-off:

Between 1999 and 2002, Brown sold 60% of the UK’s gold reserves at $275 an ounce. It was later attacked as a “disastrous foray into international asset management” as he had sold at close to a 20-year low.

So the man's a non-comp, a wood duck and that is precisely the type of man they needed to groom for the job. The Hacker syndrome is alive and well. That's why this does not surprise in the least.

[honest pollies] camel through a needle



Iain Dale refers to the latest U turn:

April 1
At his Downing Street news conference on 1 April, Mr Brown said: "I think President Sarkozy said himself that he expected Britain, because we are going to host the next Olympics, to be present at the Olympic ceremonies and I will certainly be there." (source BBC News)

April 9

Downing Street "confirms" Gordon Brown will not be attending the Olympics Opening Ceremony.


... and I ask myself whether it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a pollie to be honest and transparent.


[fatigue] look at the root cause


Tiredness - it's a major issue in our town - yesterday I fell asleep in the car on the way home while being driven :) but it was a happy tiredness as the work part of it had been quite rewarding.

Below is an article on tiredness and the points need to be heeded, yet there is an 11th point as well - the air we breathe - and in this city it is fetid. Virtually everyone has some sort of throat or bronchial problem, virtually everyone is worn out, weary.

Four years ago credit started to loom its ugly head and for a Russian used to the Soviet handout mentality, this was welcome news - more handouts at no personal cost - or so they thought. Every store had an upfront credit sign-up near the front door.

One spin-off from this is that in two years the cars on the road had doubled and now, after four years, they have quadrupled. You have to see the pall of sooty haze hanging in the air to believe it - Los Angeles eat yer heart out.

Most of the city leadership resides on the outskirts of the city near the forest.

So whilst the points below are excellent, perhaps we should also be thinking of getting out of the city.

How to overcome tiredness once your spiritual life is in order:

1. Slow down:
Go, go, go ... being on the go all day long can feel envigorating until you stop! Then the tiredness can knock you out so you feel exhausted. Don't be on the go all day. Slow down. Take tea breaks. Take lunch breaks. Have a stretch break. Have a rest break. Alternate activity with rest and you might find your tiredness stops.

2. Stop trying to do everything:

Each one of us can only do so much in a day. Tiredness can occur when we do too much. We can become depleted when we drive ourselves to perform, achieve or please everyone. If you want to stop tiredness, then stop trying to do everything. Be selective. Know your priorities and do them. When you are doing your priorities your stamina will last longer, as your stamina gets recharged along the way.

3. Get a good night’s sleep:

Ah! The luxury of a wonderful cosy bed, in a nice dark and quiet room, feeling peaceful and sleeping well. Good quality sleep recharges our batteries, it rejuvenates us, it stops tiredness, fatigue and exhaustion. Do everything you can to sleep well, every day. Get regular, good quality sleep to stop fatigue and overcome exhaustion.

4. Reduce your stress:
Stress and tension can eat away at your energy at an alarming speed. When you worry, fret and get anxious about things you are chewing up your energy. To stop tiredness and fatigue therefore, take care of yourself and reduce your stress and tension. There are many ways to relax. A relaxed contented person usually has healthier energy levels and more stamina than a stressed and tense one.

5. Eat well for you:

The food you eat has a high impact on how you feel and how high your energy levels are. Eat the foods that don't leave you feeling tired after eating. Choose to eat the foods that leave you feeling alert and vital. Often high fat foods, for instance, can clog up your whole system, and once the initial "yummy" taste has passed you are left feeling tired and worn-out.

6. Choose your social activities carefully:
Are your social activities leaving your tired? Partying all night can leave people on a short-term high and long-term exhaustion. Constantly being stimulated and excited, and interacting endlessly with people, can run down energy and make people tired and exhausted. Driving around from one place to another, propping up the bar in the pub or being with negative people can make you tired and use up your stamina quickly. Pick a good balance of social activities that re-charge your energy and give yourself time to rest as well.

7. Say "no" to your children:

If you have children or teenagers there is always the danger that you will run yourself ragged if you give into their constant demands to be driven or taken "here, there and everywhere". Sometimes you might have more energy if you say "no" to some demands. I know one single Mum, of three children, who says "no" to running her children around on Sundays, for example, so she has one day of rest. Six out of seven days as a taxi driver seems more than fair. Her stamina gets recharged on Sundays!

8. Exercise:

No matter how much you hate it, exercise is a necessity. Even when people are tired and can't be bothered to go for a walk, if they do it they can come back afterwards feeling more energised. It may sound odd but sometimes we have to spend energy to get energy. Sometimes we have to test our stamina to strengthen our stamina. Finding a friend to walk with can help motivate some people to exercise, while having a dog to take for a walk can help others. Motivate yourself somehow to exercise.

9. Meditate:

When I get home from work tired, I meditate. Afterwards I have more energy. Meditation can recharge people's batteries and stop tiredness from taking over. Tai chi, yoga and similar activities can also help people reduce tiredness.

10. Expect and adapt to change:
People who want everything to be "just right" and to stay the same - can become exhausted and run-down. We live in a world of raging change. Expecting things or wanting things to stay the same may wear you out. If you accept change energy may flow more easily and your stamina stay strong.

To this I'd also add feng shui and doing one kindness a day .

As in the thought of the day last evening, we can make changes if we feel strongly enough about them. We can make quantum shifts to our lives and they'll be efficacious as long as they are not repeating the same old mistakes, e.g. going from one 9 to 5 job to another.

The only limitations are the power to conceptualize these required changes and the mettle to carry them out.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

[thought for the day] wednesday evening


"The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible."

[Richard M. DeVos]

[gay mafia] alive, well and targeting youth


The existence and power of the gay mafia

Not only is there a gay mafia but it is recognizable, well funded and politically active.

The "Gay Mafia" and "Velvet Mafia" are typically associated with the upper echelons of the fashion and entertainment industries, and the terms are also used humorously by gay people themselves, some looking to David Geffen as the unofficial head.

They're well funded and active:

Stonewall, the leading gay rights organisation, has an annual budget approaching £1 million, much of which is raised through the business community. Sponsorship, advertising and corporate fund-raising deals bring in enough revenue to fund a slick campaign, a spacious suite of offices in central London and a regular stream of champagne receptions and events.

And very much involved in changing legislation:

In a survey by YouthSpeak, the gay rights youth group which I chaired for a while, it was found that 84 per cent of young people valued social changes over legal reforms, and that over 70 per cent thought that most gay rights organisations put too much emphasis on trying to change laws.

Like most PC advocates, the gay mafia has clout in its chosen areas of influence and has interwoven with powerful people:

The former head of the CAA talent agency made the accusation in an interview for the August issue of Vanity Fair. Ovitz accuses record mogul David Geffen, co-founder of DreamWorks SKG, of leading the gay Mafia, which includes a few business leaders who are not gay, such as Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney.

Ovitz, who sold his company, the Artists Management Group, in May for $12 million, says he doesn't understand why he is so hated by the group.

... and with public authorities:

Leicester City Council funds a Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Centre which runs a regular "Lesbians making babies" workshop to teach the principles of self-insemination. The centre receives £35,385 from local authorities.

... or

It is a criminal offence to commit a homosexual act in public whether it be in a public lavatory ("cottage") or a public park ("cruising ground"). Yet Lambeth, Southwark & Lewisham Health Authority have published a step by step internet guide to "making cruising more enjoyable" which provides advice on what to do if you are arrested.

... or

Camden and Islington Health Promotion NHS Trust provide a fully searchable internet database to help homosexual men find gay saunas, "leather bars" and other places where they can break the law and engage in the very activities which most place their health at risk.

Not long ago they targeted the last bastion of male youth - the Boy Scout Movement, seeking to allow the recruitment of gay counsellors and attacking the movement's refusal to countenance this:

We see this process working every day in the competitive market. The rights of boys are not violated because the Girl Scouts exclude them. The rights of Presbyterians are not violated because Catholics won't give them Holy Communion. The rights of girls are not violated because the NFL won't let them play. Each exclusion creates a new market niche, and all together they form real as versus coerced diversity.

The gay lobby construed their blocking as an attack on human rights:

If I had suggested to you 10 years ago, that the Boy Scouts of America would come under attack by the homosexual lobby, you would have declared that prospect preposterous too. Face facts, the homosexual lobby is a subversive organization which is working to redefine traditional (male/female) families. They won't stop until they are stopped! Live and live yes, but don't shove the crap down my throat! [Stephanie M. Davis]

The false constructs of homosexuality and sexual orientation

Perhaps the most insidious aspect, due to its subtle message spanning a growing generation of youth, are the social constructs "sexual orientation" and "homophobia", trotted out as freely as "conspiracy theorist" and given hijacked titles such as "Human Rights" which has about as much connection with the gay mafia as "Democratic" has to the former "Democratic" Soviet satellites.

For a start, these constructs are built on a false first premise:

The reason why there was no word for homosexuality in Chinese was because it was never seen as a defining or integral part of a person’s identity. Male-male sexual and romantic bonds were construed as relationships between two people as opposed to a psychological essence that defined either person. Moreover, these same-sex bonds were seen as a perfectly acceptable and natural way of life in Imperial China (Hinsch, 1992).

Part of the reason why gay culture exists is as a counter-reaction to the oppression and marginalization of homosexuals over the past 150 years in Western culture, but the reason why that marginalization occurred in the first place was because a special category of life-long sexual preferences was created and defined as psychologically aberrant. There are two assumptions that were embedded in that definition and both are problematic. First of all, the concept of homosexuality, and more importantly our conceptualization of sexual orientation, assumes a life-long predisposition.

It is just not so that only birth is the primary factor and that one will be homosexual from birth to grave.

As a former boarding housemaster of a senior boys' house, I can cite you many cases of overt homosexual [needs really to be seen as bi] activity, particularly around Class 8/9 level and the reaction of the married couple and myself who ran the house was to not make too big a deal of it.

Many readers know I'm public school educated and the instances I can cite there where homosexuality was displayed are beyond count. Most boys grow out of this but those who don't grow out of it find themselves in a lifestyle and community in which such activity is acceptable. Hence Burgess, MacLean and Blunt.

As Julie Bindel puts it:

Attempts to identify a genetic basis for homosexuality refuse to accept that sexual desire is a social construct. If we wanted to be straight, we would be.

Youth orientation and interference

The most insidious aspect of the constructs themselves is the interference with youth sexually maturing in its own way. Quite simply, the gay lobbies wish to reach a young group and present to them "choices", not as "straight" and "aberrant" but as two equal choices as one would choose between Republican and Democrat.

An article on youth suicide says:

My own experiences with a sexual minority youth groups in Calgary from 1991 to 1996 has taught me to give warnings with respect to anyone contemplating the referral of a youth to such a group, especially with respect to accountability and honesty issues. For example, trouble in Calgary's gay community began after I had been reporting some unwelcome "community" truths, such as the reality of adolescents boys relating sexually with much older gay males because they often were only attracted to older males, and about boys ending up in gay clubs by the age of 14 years as a result of their contact with the gay and lesbian youth group.

I also reported realities such as an 1994 observation made by a 19-year-old Calgary gay youth leader. On the basis of his experiences with many gay youth groups in Canada, about half were reported to be "fuckfest" (sic) groups. He noted this, however, only after I reported what I had overheard a Calgary Gay Lines peer counselor tell a teenager who had called for advice. He was told not visit the gay and lesbian youth group because he would only get "fucked there" (sic).

The great lie the gay mafia peddles is that they are not paedophilic and that large numbers of paedophiles don't prefer boys [not in an overall majority but most certainly they do]:

In 1995 the homosexual magazine "Guide" said, "We can be proud that the gay movement has been home to the few voices who have had the courage to say out loud that children are naturally sexual" and "deserve the right to sexual expression with whoever they choose. …" The article went on to say: "Instead of fearing being labeled pedophiles, we must proudly proclaim that sex is good, including children's sexuality … we must do it for the children's sake."

... or

Larry Kramer, the founder of ACT-UP, a noted homosexual activist group, wrote in his book, "Report from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist": "In those instances where children do have sex with their homosexual elders, be they teachers or anyone else, I submit that often, very often, the child desires the activity, and perhaps even solicits it."

... or

PFLAG has created a national campaign called, "From Our House to the Schoolhouse," distributing to school officials – among other materials – a booklet entitled, "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer For Principals, Educators, & School Personnel.
... or

Avon Health Promotion Services encourages children as young as 13 to act out role plays in class where their roles include: "Married man who was 'done' for cottaging... S & M heterosexual woman....transvestite cabaret artist". [Cottaging is the slang term for homosexual activity in lavatories] The video Avon has produced for schools targets pupils "Questioning their sexuality" and seeks to develop "coming out" skills. It ends with one boy saying "try experimenting with other boys and girls and see who you feel most comfortable with".

... or

Haringey Council's Outzone project seeks to provide homosexual youth workers to go into Haringey and Barnet schools. The project is funded by local health authorities.

... or

Oxfordshire County Council funds homosexual youth workers to "build appropriate relationships" with young people "unsure of their sexual identity".

Young people "unsure of their sexual identity"? And who determines this? And what sort of lifestyle does the gay community have?

The real threat to homosexual Americans is not discrimination but physical devastation. The average life span of an American man is 73. The average smoker lives to 66 years of age. The best available research suggests that the average life span of male homosexuals is around 43 years of age. Forty-three.

When Elizabeth Birch of the Human Rights Campaign took him to task for using Dr. Cameron’s data, Mr. Bennett replied that he didn’t just get it from Dr. Cameron. He had a second source to support his statement — this passage from Jeffrey Satinover’s 1996 book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth:

In April 1993, three researchers presented a paper to the Eastern Psychological Association… They found that the gay male life span, even apart from AIDS and with a long-term partner,is significantly shorter than that of married men in general by more than three decades. AIDS further shortens the life span of homosexual men by more than 7 percent.

Outing

If none of the aforementioned stirred anything in you, then perhaps the practice of "outing" might. In the name of eliminating hypocrisy, the gay community is well known for periodic bouts of exposure of their own people:

In the late twentieth century, outing became a common term for taking someone "out of the closet" - that is, publicising that someone is gay. The term can be used to refer to any publicising of a person's homosexuality without their consent

The counterproductive effects of this and the justification for it are mentioned here:

So if exposing someone’s homosexuality might help a larger cause, is there a principle that nevertheless holds that their privacy should be sacrosanct? Rep. Barney Frank, who came out voluntarily in 1987, has said that closeted politicians “don’t have the right to be a hypocrite; you don’t have a right to exempt yourself from the negative things you do to other people.”

Meaning that because you're gay, it's quite OK to expose someone else who is because you yourself think it's better if he does. Nice thinking.

And of course there is always the Church to out:

The "outing" of 10 gay Bishops by OutRage! during the Church of England General Synod last November was arguably the biggest and most successful "outing" accomplished anywhere in the world. Previous "outings" by gay activists (mainly in the US) have been generally confined to naming lone individuals. None have ripped open the closet doors of an establishment institution quite so decisively as the OutRage! revelations in front of Church House, the London headquarters of the Anglican Church.

Outrage! Not one or two homosexuals but a recognizable organization dedicated to violating basic ethics - violating the right of a person's personal sexuality to be a matter between him and his partner.

So yes, I have many homosexual blogfriends and some personal friends I imagine are that way inclined. Good luck to them - they are consenting adults and can do as they wish, a point I made earlier today.

But the political propagation of said behaviour and the institutionalization of it in law to the point of making normal family oriented people criminal or vilified in opposing this propagation, e.g. in Penguin or the youth orienting of their message - this is something up with which I shall not put.

[penguin power] fighting the gay mafia

Penguin - what is it a symbol for?

In what would have to be one of the more bizarre episodes in world affairs, the small town of Penguin in Tasmania is at the centre of a "gay" controversy involving property development:

Property developer Stephen Roche had plans to transform the spectacular ramshackle town of Penguin, on Tasmania's north-west coast, into an exclusive holiday spot.

But Mr Roche's development dreams were tainted last year after he was subject to death threats and a mail campaign that urged residents to say no to an "influx of gay Sydney men" and to "think of their children".

Mr Roche had a dead wallaby nailed to the door of one of his properties and his partner, Keith Westerby, left Penguin shortly after the campaign to take up a job in the Middle East.


The PC media then decried this:

Julian Punch, state co-ordinator of the Coming Out Proud program, said Mr Roche's departure was a sign that gay business people were still deterred from moving or investing in the state because of an "old, dominant homophobic culture that reigns supreme and unopposed" in many rural areas.

OK - so time for this blog to buy into the gay issue.

It hasn't done so to date because many of my fellow bloggers are gay and the blog didn't particularly wish to push it. But now I'm going to say, "Great. Good on that town for standing up to the gay mafia and against the global push for deviant sexuality forced onto a heterosexual, marriage based normal society."

Far from being "backward" or "homophobic", this is a positive stance - "pro-normality". These residents said "enough is enough" about the whole culture pushed onto society, with its drugs, family breakdown, teen pregnancies, homosexuality unleashed onto kids as "equal and opposite" when it is anything but and the whole bundle of policies most people don't want a bar of.

In the 80s I was actually part of a gay social scene [yes - it's true], went to their inner city parties and did all but partake of the offerings. There was no problem with individual gay men and women. They do what they do and I don't interfere.

Human sexuality is a private affair and neither lobbies nor the state have any place whatsover in the matter, let alone pushing their views onto schoolchildren.

There is an enormous problem with this town being flooded with gays from a major metropolis and residents forced to accede to something they simply don't want and don't believe is right.

Well done that the gay mafia has been stymied at least in this small way.

So now the words "gay" and "rainbow" have been hijacked from the vocabulary without any of us being asked our opinion, maybe the word "penguin" can also be hijacked to represent the fightback against a culture which actually criminalizes me for saying that I don't want a bar of homosexuality in my own private life though what my friends do is a private matter between them.

And one last thing - the morons who did that to that wallaby should be rounded up and incarcerated for cruelty to animals.

[Naturally there'll be a backup post this evening where the links will be. Time this lobby was nailed.]

[olympics] time to return to first principles

Time for this blog to put in its tuppence worth. Paula Radcliffe said:

A peaceful protest on the sidelines - fine.

Sorry, Paula - that isn't going to do it. Mutering "acceptably" in the corner like a Church of England Archbishop about Jesus is not going to convert or convince anyone. If it's going to be a protest, it has to be loud and outrageous.

But don't try to stop the torch, because the torch is about more than the Beijing Olympics. It's about the Olympic spirit and the importance of the Olympics in teaching youth, and teaching the world, what sport can do - how sport can bring people together, how it can overcome suffering, how it has overcome even wars in the past.

Trouble is - this is also true. The torch is the wrong thing, the one thing, in fact, which should never have been targetted. Gutless Brown and cronies should have gauged public mood or at least acceded to it, as revealed in polling organization results.

While these can be wildly inaccurate, mass feeling in a community shows through any polling system. If the China games are clearly anathema to most, then boycott them and hand in the keys to 2012 as well.

London 1908

That the games are now a farce is sad but true. To continue them in this fashion is a drug riddled parody. Better to drop the whole thing and start over in the fashion of the early games, as a largely impromptu affair using existing facilities.

Though they had their problems even then.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

[thought for the day] tuesday evening


“I remember when I was a girl, one of my – well - my young men - picked up a handful of gravel, and the girl who was with me said at once that he was treasuring it because my feet had trodden on it.

Such a pretty idea, I thought.

Though it turned out afterwards that be was taking a course in geology at a technical school. But I liked the idea anyway - and also stealing a girl's handkerchief and treasuring it - all those sort of things.”


[Agatha Christie, from “The Seven Dials Mystery”, 1929]

[personal things] memories reside in these

Update: check Bunny's offerings here and Nunyaa's here. Cherie's here. Welshcakes' here.

As more come in, this will be updated.


People are more important than things and feelings between people are the most important of all but the danger is that when the people are gone, only the things remain.

This is nostalgia and I'm not a nostalgic person.

And yet the things about me each carry a memory. For example, in the collage at the end of this post, the little bird in a garden is all that's left of perhaps the most important girl in my life. She's still here but not the same person.

One either loved or loathed Roy Orbison but in the track Bono penned for him below: "She's a Mystery to Me", there are many personal things, many images, many memories, glad and sad.

Looking at the woman's visage, it's not surprising to me the memories were mostly sad and yet piquant at the same time.

Will you make a collage of your most important things and post it on your site? Will you include your favourite musical track? I'd like the pragmatic, the gruff, the unnostalgic to post these things as well - to give us an insight into who you are.



Collage of some of my personal things

[meme] from anastasiarta


THE THINGS I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT:

* tuhan [G-d]
* kebenaran [truth]
* kemerdekaan [liberty]
* satu orang wanita [one woman]
* sangat lucu [fun]


THE THINGS I SAY OFTEN:

* Dengan semua rasa hormat hak [with all due respect] ... when I'm about to disagree
* Apakah anda nyaman [are you comfortable]?
* Teh atau kopi [tea or coffee]?
* Mendesah [sigh]
* Uh-huh ... when I don't believe what you say


THE BOOKS I’VE READ RECENTLY:

* Obsession ... proofreading [mengoreksi]
* Lemmings ... proofreading [mengoreksi]


THE THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE:

* Taubat [atonement]
* Menolong seseorang [help someone]
* Menari dengan baik [dance well]
* Temukan cinta [find love]


THE SONGS I COULD LISTEN TO OVER AND OVER AGAIN:

Ada sebegitu banyak:

* Deep South [Layo & Bushwacka]
* Temptation [New Order]
* You've got something [JJ Cale]
* Turn, turn, turn [The Byrds]
* Mystery girl [Roy Orbison]


THE THINGS I'VE LEARNED IN THE LAST AND THIS YEAR:

* Anda harus memberi sesuatu untuk mendapat sesuatu [you must give something to get something]]
* Sebegitu banyak orang tidak jujur dengan anda, khususnya dengan perasaan [so many people are not honest with you, especially with feelings
* Lebih baik untuk sudah mencintai dan hilang daripada tak pernah untuk sudah mencintai di semua [better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all]
* Be patient, nourish obscurity and persist until you've nailed them.
* Tidak lupa untuk tertawa [don't forget to laugh].

Dedicated to my friends Santi, Ajeng and Febra ... passed on, as usual, to the first twelve faces in MyBlogLog to the left here. [Please correct my Bahasa.]

[liverpool] capital of culture

On Thursday, August 23, 2007, Deogolwulf took it into his head, under the title Some Sense of Culture, to post:

Liverpool is to be European Capital of Culture in 2008. One must charitably suppose that it is culture in the anthropological sense.
One of the major joys of many blogs is the comments section and so it is here:
dearieme said...

European Hubcapital of Culture?

Deogolwulf said...

Not bad, dearieme.

Sir James Robison said...

Not unlike Glasgow, would you say?

Deogolwulf said...

I've only been to Glasgow once. A few friends and I decided to go out somewhere in the Gorbals, and to that end we took a taxi, the driver of which, hearing our English accents, declared with some pleasure that we were going to die. We didn't.

Anonymous said...

Surely microbiological sense?


[economics 101] eazy peazy if explained simply

There is a logical problem with economics.

The Tim Worstalls, Chris Dillows, Cityunslickers, Karl Denningers and Sackersons who actually understand this guff are fond of either graphs, esoteric references or eco-speak [Sackers is at least partly understandable] and tend to mutter to each other in their communities.

But it must be obvious to even Blind Freddy and his dog [wait for the PCers on this one] that the average person, e.g. me, is so awestruck by this fractional reserve banking and so on that he hurriedly shuffles to one corner and lets the big boys get on with it.

Well this blog thinks it's time economics is explained in words of one syllable or less to non-afficianados and this humble blogger is going to start the ball rolling. Today I'd like to look at:

Fractional Reserve Banking

Before that, it's bona fides time. As a non-economist, one has to start somewhere, so Lew Rockwell seems pretty good to me, as he was at World Net Daily and this is Vox's hideout and I trust Vox [even in intergalactic mode].

Rockwell seems to be in awe of Murray N. Rothbard who in turn is in awe of the Austrian School:

Austrian economists reject statistical methods and artificially constructed experiments as tools applicable to economics, saying that while it is appropriate in the natural sciences where factors can be isolated in laboratory conditions, acting human beings are too complex for this treatment. Instead one should isolate the logical processes of human action ...

Now that seems like a damned good model as it eliminates all those pesky graphs and projections and seems pretty libertarian to boot.

So, on that basis, I'd like to quote Rothbard on FRB. This is a long article for a blog [though short by eco-standards and no more than a synopsis for them]. I put only a brief portion here and please follow the link for the full thing:

Let's see how the fractional reserve process works, in the absence of a central bank. I set up a Rothbard Bank, and invest $1,000 of cash (whether gold or government paper does not matter here).

Then I "lend out" $10,000 to someone, either for consumer spending or to invest in his business.
How can I "lend out" far more than I have? Ahh, that's the magic of the "fraction" in the fractional reserve. I simply open up a checking account of $10,000 which I am happy to lend to Mr. Jones.

Why does Jones borrow from me? Well, for one thing, I can charge a lower rate of interest than savers would. I don't have to save up the money myself, but simply can counterfeit it out of thin air. (In the nineteenth century, I would have been able to issue bank notes, but the Federal Reserve now monopolizes note issues.)


Since demand deposits at the Rothbard Bank function as equivalent to cash, the nation's money supply has just, by magic, increased by $10,000. The inflationary, counterfeiting process is under way.

This is one small reason [another being the global sub-prime scandal] why this blog is so vehemently down on banks and cartels. Now if you are lost by this or you've simply lost interest, then it is my fault for not cranking it down to more understandable and bite-size terms.

I'll hopefully do better next time. I'm working on it.