[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.

[prat filter] early testing looks positive

The Cynical Dragon raises an issue of the greatest import - how to filter out George Galloway and other prats so that they gain no oxygen of publicity from actually being officially gagged.

Pre-filter: Initial filtration of the first bleatings is through a graded density 5-micron pre-filter that traps rhetoric, whining, mindless opinions and covert agendas that affect the atmosphere, tone, and overall appearance of your living space. It utilizes the revolutionary new Nano-bot search and destroy system.

Electrokinetic Absorption: The graded density main filter acquires a positive molecular charge as verbal bilge passes through it. Since most contaminants exhibit a negative charge in solution, the media fibers will electrokinetically attract charged gibes and asides too small for removal by the main filter. It's not unlike a liquid filter in some ways.

Anger-management post-filter: Foaming and frothing containment is achieved by the Kalashnikov head retention value measurement and by sampling a measured amount of bilge from the offending prat into a froth-cling deconstitutionalizer, to test residual "bitterness" of 2 to 3 BU [bitterness units].

Early testing indicates that the filter has possibilities and this blog wil bring your the news the moment PratFilterPlus [patent pending] is brought to the marketplace.

Cost should be in the region of 2.85% loss of sanity.

[vote jon swift] 2008 weblog awards

That talented satirist Jon Swift is in the Weblog Awards again, in the humour section. If you can see your way clear, click on the pic top left or in the sidebar and give him your vote. A blogosphere without humour and biting satire would be a poor place indeed.

[northern ireland] middle-east parallels

Wiki says that the population of Northern Ireland, at the UK Census in April 2001, was 1,685,000. Not many people for a province which has caused enormous headaches over a long period of time.

It's not necessary for me to have Irish blood, I contend, to write on Northern Ireland but as I do have Irish blood, then perhaps I can just feel what I write all the more in this matter. There's no doubting that the Irish can feel ... oh, they can feel and that's reflected in the Eurovision wins they've had, for one.

Agatha Christie put it well in N or M though when she said that the Irish have this knack of turning a dispute into the martyrdom of a national hero and weaving legend and song around it so that the slight is ne'er forgotten. The vehemence and provocation of the Orange marches, the Apprentice Boys or the Royal Black, the Ancient Order of Hibernian, Irish National Foresters or Republican parades are statements of intransigent positions and they raise issues.

The outside world

Just as with Israel and its legion of would-be-destroyers, it's fine for the world to say "ceasefire" but you have to be inside there to know the true nature of the conflict through their eyes. This is life and death for both sides. Also, you have to have grown up with the "hatred fed with their morning milk", as a journo whose name escapes me put it some years back, to understand and feel the issues deeply.

The Fields Of Athenry - Brian Kennedy

On the other hand, the outsider can see the forest away from the trees and provided he's not representing one side or the other, he can be an arbiter. Trouble is, especially in the middle-east and in Ireland, there doesn't seem to be an unpolarized position. I've had unpleasant experiences with both over-loud protestants and soft-spoken yet stubborn fenians over the years and from both sides, this word crops up again - intransigence.
The Irish will leap to say: "Well what about British intransigence?" True but this post is about the Irish.

Inside

My partner and I were "caught" in a restaurant in Germany with a party of Northern Irish protestants at our long table and I tried to strike up a conversation on non-Irish issues, which was fine at first but inevitably it came back round to The Troubles and there were two or three Paisleys at the table who made the whole experience of the meal unpleasant.

I've already mentioned that when I was a head teacher in London, our kids went to a basketball match near Canary Wharf and there was an IRA bomb scare. The kids were terrified, the police action was swift and we were kept in touch by mobile phone but what shocked everyone was when the geography teacher, named Brendan, said to the parents of the kids that the English had brought it all on themselves, they have, they have. Of particular interest to me was his term "they".



What can be done with such people? The dispute has become so deep that it's affected day to day life, even thinking on seemingly unrelated issues. A ceasefire is fine but then one of the parties does not respect it and the other does. One side is "just" trying to grab a little more land, a little more power before the heavy hand of reason descends.

And it's never as the arbiters portray it, a dispute between little boys. That's only to trivialize the issue and make the arbiters look like annoying lightweights in the eyes of the combatants.

On the other hand, do we all need constant supervision, a contention you could make after watching Lord of the Flies? Do we all need arbiters at hand the whole time?

Do we need apartheid with agreed, internationally acceptable boundaries?

Personally, I'd like to see a process whereby we could circumvent the lawyers and have travelling arbiters paid by the state, [along with the state's only other functions of defence, social security in a reduced form, education and representing the country internationally].

[unrequited love] the winter may pass ...

Kanskje vil der gå både Vinter og Vår,
og neste Sommer med og det hele År,
men en gang vil du komme, det vet jeg vist,
og jeg skal nok vente, for det lovte jeg sidst.

Gud styrke dig, hvor du i Verden går,
Gud glæde dig, hvis du for hans Fodskammel står.
Her skal jeg vente til du kommer igjen;
og venter du hist oppe, vi træffes der, min Ven!

The winter may pass and the spring disappear
The spring disappear
The summer too will vanish and then the year
And then the year
But this I know for certain: you'll come back again
You'll come back again
And even as I promised you'll find me waiting then
You'll find me waiting then


Sarah Brightman?

[obama] the missing six months

I'm not even going to start promoting the implications of this photo

Weatherman and Nation of Islam connection

The last post touched on the birth issue. Leaving that side for the moment, the story gets weirder:

Just prior to the Pennsylvania primary Barack Obama was asked at a Democratic debate about his relationship with unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers. Obama pretended that he was only casually acquainted with Ayers, describing him as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago...".

Hilary provided a bracing corrective, reminding people that the two men had served on a charitable board together, the Woods Fund of Chicago. This exchange was newsworthy enough to provoke coverage in the Chicago Sun-Times, and the NY Times; earlier stories had sparked The "Fact Checker" at the Washington post.

However:

Barack Obama and Bil Ayers worked together for several years on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational reform group co-founded in 1995 by Bill Ayers and chaired by Barack Obama. How did Obama forget this?

Plus:

In addition to Auchi, Ayers, Dohrn, Pfleger, Rezko, Wright, etc...we now have Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian bagman for Yassar Arafat that secured megabuck from the Woods Fund while Barack H. Obama and Ayers were on the board.

Barack and Michelle Obama and the Khalidis swapped dinner parties and Michelle Obama would babysit the Khalidi's kids, this was not some casual professional relationship they were good friends as Sean Hannity reports.

And:

I live in Obama's neighborhood and know some of the Obama / Ayers crowd. Ayers and Dohrn have babysat the Obama kids personally. The families are personal friends, not just professional acquaintances.

Posted by: hydeparker | August 13, 2008 at 01:41 PM

Bernadette Dohrn is the one who said, in response to the Manson family murders:

"Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in pig Tate's belly. Wild!"

Ayers claimed she'd only said it as a joke.

Dohrn went underground in early 1970, engaging in bombing activities. In a 1994 interview, Dohrn said that while the group carried out some bombings of buildings, it did not target people, and the group's actions were justified as a proper response to violent government actions.

Further, from Atlas Shrugs:

Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left four people dead.

These were babysitters and dinner guests for the Obamas?

In a recent interview, Obama called his mother "the dominant figure in my formative years. . . . The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics."

Stanley Ann Dunham chronology

Obama born August 4, 1961.

“The University of Hawaii at Manoa is only able to provide the following information for Stanley Ann Dunham: Dates of attendance:

Fall 1960 (First day of instruction 9/26/1960)
Spring 1963 - Summer 1966
Fall 1972 - Fall 1974

Spring 1978
Fall 1984 - Summer 1992

Degrees awarded:
BA - Mathematics, Summer 1967 (August 6, 1967)
MA - Anthropology, Fall 1983 (December 18, 1983)
PhD - Anthropology, Summer 1992 (August 9, 1992)

Sincerely,
Stuart Lau”

Then:

Ms. Stanley Ann Dunham was enrolled at the University of Washington for:

Autumn 1961
Winter 1962
Spring 1962

The records responsive to your request from the University of Washington are above as provided by the Public Disclosure Laws of Washington State. This concludes the University’s response to your Public Records request. Please feel free to contact our office if you have any questions or concerns.

Madolyne Lawson Office of Public Records

Ann Dunham became pregnant approx. Nov 1st, 1960 while still 17 years old. This was while she was at UH.

What is unaccounted for is the period from February, 1961 to August, 1961 and at what point she split from Obama Snr. Here is a comment from DeadSerious 12/27/2008, 17:56:38:

Who remembers Stanley Ann Dunham (Obama) in Hawaii?

No relative or friend
No classmate or teacher
No neighbor or landlord
No prenatal care doctor or nurse
No delivery room doctor or nurse
No hosptial admit officer or attendant
No hospital room mate for the shared room
No post natal care for the mother or infant
No co-workers of Grandma's from Bank of Hawaii

Leaving wild theories aside and accepting the Obama camp line, she had the baby in August in Hawaii and then left husband and baby and attended college in Washington State shortly afterwards?

The whole bloody thing doesn't add up.

[obama] this question now becoming critical

Some of the documentation which would help decide this is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight:

"Even the Hawaii Department of Home Lands does not accept a certified copy of a birth certificate as conclusive evidence for its homestead program. From its web site: ‘In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.'"

The essence of the complaint is that the "Certification of Live Birth" that is used by FightTheSmears, the Annenberg Political FactCheck and others does not have the same information as an original birth certificate, including location of birth.

Surprisingly, Hawaii happens to issue birth certificates for babies born outside Hawaii. The Hawaiian law on that states:

"Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child."

In the comments section of a recent post, Ted Mathis stated:

3. BHO is therefore not a “natural born citizen” (irrespective of Hawaiian birth or whether he may be a 14th Amendment “citizen” of USA) — confirmed in the Senate’s own McCain qualification resolution (that both parents must be citizens of USA) co-authored by BHO.

4. Supreme Court has already docketed two upcoming conferences, 1/9/09 and 1/16/09 — between dates Congress counts electoral votes (1/8/09) and Presidential inauguration (1/20/09) — to address Berg Case and fashion relief on BHO’s eligibility to be President.

The 14th Amendment appears to scupper the Obama challenge until one returns to the material above. Hawaii issues certificates for births outside of Hawaii. My reading of this, to be fair, is that they may mean "in any other part of the United States" but they may also mean exactly what they say, with no futher stipulation. If Obama had been born in Kenya [grandmother and Kenyan Ambassador] or even in transit, then Hawaii would have been satisfied for their own purposes.

However, clearly, given link one above, he would be ineligible for natural born status, for the purposes of federal election. So there is a convoluted case here. SCOTUS accepts a Hawaiian assurance of his birth, as they have precedent in doing. Therefore he is natural born in their eyes and the case goes no further. However, to go back to the setting aside of Dred Scott [link four above], the differentiation between state and federal law was preserved, not overturned.

So there is a logical impossibility here. "Natural born" is not defined and depends on congressional statements or court interpretation and precedent. In federal law, if he was not born in a Hawaiian hospital but Hawaii accepted the "intent" of being Hawaiian, then he is natural born in terms of their acceptance of the Hawaiian statement to that effect but not natural born in terms of their own conditions.

At the very least, this requires a court case. However, private persons have been ruled to have no standing to bring a case against an elected federal official, e.g. Berg. Only congress has that standing and it is Democratic.

The clear answer to this is that Obama was born on Hawaiian soil.

But where? There is no Hawaiian hospital nor presiding doctor or nurse stated anywhere in the Obama camp reply. The name of the hospital has to be on the vault copy and Fact Check [an Obama camp website] says it has viewed it and yet it has not been stated. More than that, they are refusing to state it.

There is a case, with the grandmother and others, claiming he was born at Mombasa Coastal Hospital in Kenya. Records are now sealed in Kenya.

The official Obama camp claim is that he was born at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu. His sister Mary claimed he was born at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. There is no record of either the birth or the mother having attended those hospitals.

These hospitals were contacted by Republicans and none had records of Obama's birth.

Many reference materials say Obama was born at Kapiolani, including Wikipedia English version under the subject “Barack Obama.” But under the subject “Queens Hospital,” Wikipedia says Obama was born there. And Wikipedia Italian says this:

Barack Obama nacque al Queen’s Medical Center di Honolulu da Barack Hussein Obama Sr….

Wikipedia Geneology says Queens too. And there’s this reference on Yahoo Answers:

Apparently, examination of the hospitals’ records in Hawaii have shown no birthing records for Ann Dunham Obama even though there is a registry of the birth in the public records office a week after his date of birth it does not show his place of birth.

Perhaps that Yahoo Answer explains Ann Dunham’s brief stop-over in Mercer Island with baby Barack when he was only a couple of weeks old. Is it possible that she was on her way back to Hawaii?

The State of Hawaii does provide for “late registration” births.

Does anyone know in which hospital Stanley Ann Dunham delivered Barack Obama?

UPDATE: A reader, Aragon, adds…

Alternatively, I ask, “Can anyone identify a written statement or interview or recorded statement wherein Obama, himself, identifies which hospital he was born in?” I’ve asked this question for a month now. No statement has been idenitified by anyone here or elsewhere. The inference to be drawn from this is obvious. He doesn’t identify a hospital because it is something that can be factually verified or debunked and this would compromise his aura of plausable deniability when it comes to issues of his true birth place.

Add to this the AFI tape. AFI originally produced a transcript in which Michelle Obama states:

My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband's adoption by his stepfather.

That one is easily solved. Did she say it or not? Produce the tapes where it was said and all is resolved. But this has not happened and it has gone into the same circular non-resolution in which all the other questions have now fallen.

This issue won't go away because it has not been resolved. Whatever is on that certificate is sufficiently important for the Obama camp to ignore a SCOTUS member demand that it be produced. At the very least, they are being secretive and it is no defence to say it is a private matter. To hell with that - this man is to become president.

This smells, it truly does. There is untruth by omission in here. It has to be resolved.

On a personal note, there's a very simple test of the intent of this blog on this and the Gaza matter, of whether this is a vendetta of mine. If you were to take out the name of Israel and Hamas and substitute Palestine and Irgun, would this blog's stance have been the same? Similarly, if it had been McCain in this situation and not Obama, would this have still been pursued as it has?

The answer is an emphatic yes. Damned right. This blog has no affiliation one way or the other, except to the ideal called the truth. This is not to say that I am a moral person or a saint - merely that I want to know the truth on any issue.

[new dawn] a hungarian rhapsody

4 a.m. in Budapest

Budapest dance ensemble

Eastern influence is strong too.

[hawaii five o] book em, danno, murder one

Hawaii Five-O, does anyone remember it?

Jack Lord had a dark side but he was certainly The Man in this police series - he'd have found Obama's vault copy birth certificate, no problems. In an act of utter prattiness, the supplier of this youtube of the famous theme song won't allow it to be posted on web pages. Click on the pic above to see and hear it.

The show was hugely popular, running for twelve seasons and much of that was down to the characterization and idiosyncrasies. For example:

Curiously, it [the Five-O department] lacked its own radio network, necessitating frequent requests by McGarrett to the Honolulu Police Department dispatchers to "Patch me through to Danno". McGarrett's tousled yet immovable hairstyle and proclivity for wearing a dark suit and tie on all possible occasions rapidly entered popular culture.

Most episodes of Hawaii Five-O ended with the arrest of criminals with McGarrett's catch phrase to Williams, "Book 'em, Danno!

The popularity of the Hawaii Five-O format spawned various police dramas on all the major television networks since its debut. Another legacy is the popularity of the Hawaii Five-O theme song, composed by Morton Stevens and later covered by surf music band The Ventures and by Radio Birdman, a punk-era band from Sydney.

In summary:

While the location, theme song, and esemble cast made "Hawaii Five-O" one of the longest running police dramas in television history, the show is also noted for its liberal use of exterior locations as "sets" throughout the entire 12 seasons, breaking the tradition of filming indoors as with the case for a typical TV series. A typical episode, on average, would have at least two-thirds of all footage shot outdoors.

Here is the Radio Birdman version of the theme:



I loved the deadpan McGarrett [Jack Lord] who reminded me of Robert Stack in some ways. Does anyone recall Stack in The Untouchables? Here he reprises and caricatures his film persona:

[serious people] and bully boy punks

A few people have asked me to continue my series of posts on life in Russia from time to time. I'd like to but not being there now, I don't have the daily incidents to draw from. This one is from what I recollect.

The essential thing to remember in Russia is that the network of family and friends is everything. It provides support systems, which the state does not provide and it also provides protection, an absolute necessity over there.

This is not to say that daily life is like that for anyone but the local gangs. Most people go about their business, going to the market, kids going to school, grandparents playing their roles. Most now have cars and the rest usually go by the now quite satisfactory bus system.

There is a golden rule that you don't go out looking for trouble but if it does come upon you, you need to have a "krisha" [roof] or two in place to help you. Krisha is an outmoded word these days and most people speak of "par' ni" or "rob' yerta" [the guys]. The thing for you to ensure is that the krisha is appropriate for the occasion.

Let me illustrate this. I was going to buy a place in a carpark not far from my home but what it did was put me on the other side of the new development block I was living in [maybe 250 000 population]. While it was safe enough to walk around the well-lit periphery of this block, it wasn't so good to go through it because of the punks.

In Russia, there are egotistical young punks dotted here and there, everywhere, who imagine themselves as hard men and use bully boy tactics which work on the majority ... and then there are the seriously hard men, known as "seriosniye lyudi". I was introduced to a few of these latter and the thing which characterized them was that they were generally softly spoken, with a sense of humour and were nice guys to know.

Only their history and physique gave them away.

The thing is that the punks generally do get away with threatening and standing over the ordinary citizen and so it's best to avoid them. If you can't or if they come to you, then you have to respond and so I asked one of my 'seriosni' acquaintances how to deal with the punk problem in that 'dvor' or yard between the main roads.

His solution was to get a carpark berth at a place which wouldn't require walking through there. If, by some unfortunate chain of circumstances, you did find yourself face to face with them, then there were certain key jargon phrases to know and say, to the effect: "Let's come back here tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and settle the matter. You bring your people and I'll bring mine."

The absolute essential was that you did go back there the next day at 10:00 a.m. If you failed to, then you'd created a major ongoing problem for yourself. Anytime anyone saw you alone after that, they'd know they could do as they wished. So to use your krisha seemed the solution but this was a double-edged sword. My particular krishi were a bit too high powered for punks in a yard and it would have to have been a major threat to utilize them.

They knew that too because if they did act for you, then there was the standard payback required in some way. Life revolves round favours done and returned over there. So people generally tried to resolve a matter like gentlemen. However, if you were really forced into a corner, there was only one thing for it and that was to utilize your krisha with maximum prejudice and no beg pardons.

Most people knew that a punk might get a result for his bullying but it didn't help much in the long run if he ended up crippled for life. Only nutters ignored silent warnings and it illustrates something which has been said many times in the last few days on the Gaza issue - ongoing violence, such as the Hamas and Hezbollah rockets, only begets violence.

It's better to come to the table in a strong position and not demand anything outrageous which could not be accepted by the other side. Then it's a case of standing by the agreement, otherwise it all starts over again.

Above all, in Russia and perhaps elsewhere too, it's best not to threaten, even obliquely. That leaves you with one of two choices - either remove yourself from the threat as far as possible [which is not weakness - it's intelligence] - or else hit hard out of the blue, when they least expect it.

There is a concept of Russia as a lawless land but that's to misconstrue it. There is a law at ground level and as long as all are au fait with the ground rules, things generally stay calm.