First up, get your entries in to the Britblog for this weekend - that review of all things British over the past seven days and for those still not aware, the way to go is to send the url of a post which has struck you as being particularly fine this past week to:
britblog@gmail.com
I'll go in there and check it out, write a little screed around it and you'll see it in the next roundup late this Sunday. I notice that many are submitting entries at the last moment so why should you be any different? If you'd like to see the site itself, click here.
Update at 11:10
Right, the Britblog is now written and in draft form. Any final entries I receive between now and midday tomorrow will be slotted into the various themes, as appropriate. I'm hoping you're going to enjoy this edition.
So sorry for the slow blogging this morning [Geelong victory et al]. I'll have a little kip then get back into the posts.
Result only just in from Australia - Geelong have overcome the odds to snatch a victory in the dying minutes, haivng trailed all day. My maddening, infuriating team whom I'm also so proud of, have done it!!!!!
I don't expect anyone of you out there in the UK or American spheres to feel that in the same way I do but it's as if Wimbledon won the FA Cup or the LA Angels won the title.
I'm still stunned and how it affects my blogging today, I don't know. Might even go out and have a beer or three.
Detractors would call it contrived and yet Francophiles would call it designed. The Anglo-Saxon and Russian would say the Frenchwoman is not "naturally beautiful" with that dark-haired, chisel-jawed slight masculinity which they try to overcome by heavy emphasis on deportment, the tricks of the trade, grooming, dress and cosmetics.
Some of those tricks can be seen in the photo on this post, where the girl is actually wearing a dress and a modest one at that [I know this from the other photos] and yet, photoshot in that way ... well, you see what I mean. The bare lower legs and the cheeky smile do it for her.
That's why most women admire the French and the Italians, the way they do it, with that panache, that style. Interesting that in the current retrospective on Bardot, le Figaro mentioned:
C'est vrais - la France créa Bardot. Celle qui fut vingt ans durant une star internationale et un symbole de la France des années 50-60 fêtera ses 75 ans lundi prochain.
N'oublions pas, par exemple, Edwige Feuillère dans Lucrèce Borgia - elle est aussi une rétive, une insolente, une fille qui a beaucoup d'esprit, le sens de la repartie.
Audrey Tautou - too twee for French tastes?
For those who don't read this language, it roughly means that she was both a creation and a symbol of France, of what she stood for but we shouldn't forget that there were others and Bardot wasn't the first.
Interesting, to me, was "une rétive, une insolente, une fille qui a beaucoup d'esprit", much admired in France, just as the Italians admire "furbo" and "bella figura" or looking and playing the part with panache.
The cosmetic and fashion industries would maintain that beauty can be manufactured or at the very least, greatly enhanced but I would argue that lack of cosmetics and well cut clothes, along with deportment and that indefinable character can carry all before her.
A woman I saw the other day would have been described by the English as "without artifice" and by the French as "without style". She was quite gauche but at the same time, seemed a fun loving person. As I live in the land of my ethnic group, then its take on what constitute good and bad qualities must rule. Solid values and sensible shoes also tug at my heart strings, along with the tweed and the Barbours and so on.
Zeroing in on the French concept of beauty
The French fixation with Bardot seems strange to me. For a start, she looks more nordic, more Britt Eklundish than French but it was the sensuousness really, with her - Carla Bruni also practices the studied look into the eyes, the deep, sensual voice and so on.
Far more seductive, IMHO and far more Gallic, was Françoise Hardy, [don't forget to sound the s, drop the h and sound the last syllable] who perfectly embodied the sultry, melancholy and reserved femme fatale. An example of one who was almost completely Frenchified was the English Jane Birkin. No beauty in a classical sense, she adopted the whole culture as far as she was able and so produced this with Serge Gainsborough:
While real Frenchwomen like Sophie Marceau, Eva Green and Clémence Poésy could never be taken for Anglo-Saxons, they've diluted their Frenchness to appeal to a wider public and in In Bruges, Poésy, in the restaurant scene, sounds "American youth".
Less so in France and more in Russia in my experience, there've been women who've filled the space the eyes take in and later, I've always wondered what it was that that particular woman had which overpowered the senses. I could only conclude that it was the little gesture here, the disconcerting but flattering way she studied you and the attention to detail - everything had to be perfect in order to make demands herself.
So now I'm back here with an eye out for the English Rose but I suspect the English Rose has finer fish to fry than your humble correspondent.
Seriously, I don't know what you'd call it - bad karma, gremlins, spooks - but we've all had this. A fellow blogger [I'll put the name and link after I've been round the blogs tonight] wrote about teaspoons always being found in the wrong places; at the tennis court, the balls go missing - you know the type of thing.
There's an intersection not far from my place, on the way to the station and it involves cycling under a flyover [see diagram] and reaching a point marked by the red fuzz. Now, obviously that's the wrong side of the road so perhaps I get off the bike and walk it, all docile like, to that spot, where it involves stepping on the road and crossing to the roundabout.
Right, this is no exaggeration - even at peak hour, this part of the world is out of the way and you'd be lucky to get two cars at any one time, more usually none. That is, until reaching that red fuzzy part. Suddenly, traffic comes from nowhere and blocks the road.
I mentioned to my mate that on every single occasion I'd travelled to his place over the previous two weeks, I'd reached that point, [never before the point and not after I've stepped onto the road], when the traffic would suddenly appear.
Yesterday took the prize.
The narrow road, lower right, is a sliproad off the flyover but all the others are minor. I reached the dreaded spot once again, having checked over my shoulder that there were no cars, I listened intently to what might appear from around to the right and so on. One car did appear and went by.
Fine.
As my foot went to step onto the roadway, two cars came off the sliproad, at pace, into the roundabout, just as a little blue car came from my right, a white van came from ahead and a beige Volvo came from behind. I just stood there with my bike, staring at it all unfolding and then the car horns began - b-l-a-r-e-e-e-e-e-!!!!!
Thirty seconds later, it was all over, I hopped on my bike and had the road entirely to myself for the next half mile. That is not an exaggeration.
Always at that same point on the footpath. I should write a story based on that.
1. There are references to a certain children's game from the sixteenth century, including one in Shakespeare's King Lear (Act I Scene iv), but little evidence that the rhyme existed. Which rhyme?
2. There was a square-four-eight-dance, published in Playford's Dancing Master in 1665, but it is not clear if this relates to this rhyme. Which rhyme?
3. Pawning your coat when times got hard might have given rise to which rhyme?
4. Which rhyme might have been referring to the necessity for Catholic priests to hide out in a priest hole or in a chamber?
5. The border between the two lands and the accommodation the English and Scots found with each other for some time might have given rise to which rhyme? Answers
Little Bo Peep, Oranges and Lemons, Pop goes the Weasel, Goosey Goosey Gander, There was a Crooked Man
What is it about some artists? Not particularly nice people or rather - angry young men with harsh voices - and yet their backing groups were superb musos.
Cockney Rebel [with Steve Harley]:
Can't get over the Top of the Pops kids - Steve Harley was definitely not a kid's artist: Sebastian is an example of that.
The shortages are so bad that retail globocorp Wal-Mart has been forced to introduce rationing at the ammo counter in many of its stores. Depending on calibre, customers may be limited to purchases of just 50 rounds at a time.
Apparently, classic .45 ACP pistol ammunition is especially scarce - a fairly good indication that it is in fact conservative Middle America rather than, say, inner-city criminals buying up all the ammo.
Nine billion rounds in one year with about 80 million gun owners in the U.S. works out to about only about 112 rounds per gun owner. I went through that many rounds both last night and the night before.
I'll go through probably another 200 rounds tonight and then another 150 on Sunday. What the heck is going on here? I'm figure I'm just doing my civic duty here and it turns out I'm doing the job of about 100 other people as well.
If every gun owner were going through just 100 rounds a month that would be nearly 100 billion rounds a year. That is a way to stimulate the economy and have something to show for it afterward--an armed and well practiced citizenry and respectful politicians.
To say that we, in the UK, are not doing the same thing is partly so but there are still a lot of people on the ground that are quietly preparing. To not allow a citizen in his own home to defend his family, on pain of criminal charges being brought and the intruder getting off scot-free is the UK way these days but it can't last forever.
A former finance minister and Olmert associate, Avraham Hirshson, recently began a five-year prison sentence for embezzling funds. A former health minister, Shlomo Benizri, is serving a four-year term after being convicted of bribery, fraud and obstruction of justice in the spring.
The former president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, is on trial, accused of rape and indecent assault against women who worked for him when he was the tourism minister and president. Mr. Katsav resigned the presidency in mid-2007. Benjamin Netanyahu was suspected of fraud during his previous term in office in the late 1990s but was never charged.
Into this steps Mr. Olmert, of Kadima, looking as if he could be in some trouble. Of all of them, Netanyahu is the one who seems the greatest worry:
On the day of the 9-11 attacks, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attack would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: “It’s very good….Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel).”
He held dual citizenship, which enabled him to travel freely between both countries, study in the U.S., receive federal loans to cover his education costs at MIT and work legally. Like every U.S. citizen, Netanyahu has a social security number, a credit account, and numerous other files in a variety of government offices.
Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s files differ from those of most U.S. citizens. The Israeli weekly Ha’ir reports that four requests for credit approval appear in U.S. social security file number 020-36-4537. Under each request one finds a different name: Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Nitai, John Jay Sullivan and John Jay Sullivan Jr.—one man, four names.
Biranit Goren and Einat Berkovitch from Ha’ir tried to find out about him.
Netanyahu’s security file [in the U.S.] has a different classification than most ... a “confidential” classification. Goren and Berkovitch have explained that such a classification only applies to five categories of people: those who work for one of three federal agencies—FBI, CIA, IRS—or those who are considered to be terrorists or criminals. Since it is unlikely that Netanyahu fits the latter two categories, or that he worked for the IRS, it appears that he was on the payroll of a security agency—the CIA or FBI.
Netanyahu was scheduled to participate in an Israeli Investment Forum Conference at the Grand Eastern Hotel, located next to the Liverpool Street Tube station -- the first target in the series of bombings that hit London on July 7 ... The Israeli Embassy ... ordered Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in his hotel on the morning of July 7.
British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said.
His criminal charges themselves are no different to those which would be brought against our crooked pollies, if the law in the U.K. and U.S. were to be enforced as it should be and as it seems to be in other countries. Just bribes, corruption, dodgy appointments to office - that sort of thing.
Finally, what's the difference between the Israeli politicians and the Arab politicians? The Israeli politicians are subject to due process and can serve time. The Arab criminal leaders are lauded as heroes.
The weekend's coming and that means it's time to explain Reverse Osmosis to those who still don't quite get it. Of course, this just draws on the excellent How Stuff Works article on the topic:
On the left is a beaker filled with water, and a tube has been half-submerged in the water. As you would expect, the water level in the tube is the same as the water level in the beaker.
In the middle figure, the end of the tube has been sealed with a "semipermeable membrane" and the tube has been half-filled with a salty solution and submerged.
Initially, the level of the salt solution and the water are equal, but over time, something unexpected happens -- the water in the tube actually rises. The rise is attributed to "osmotic pressure."
A semipermeable membrane is a membrane that will pass some atoms or molecules but not others. Saran wrap is a membrane, but it is impermeable to almost everything we commonly throw at it. The best common example of a semipermeable membrane would be the lining of your intestines, or a cell wall.
Gore-tex is another common semipermeable membrane. Gore-tex fabric contains an extremely thin plastic film into which billions of small pores have been cut. The pores are big enough to let water vapor through, but small enough to prevent liquid water from passing.
In the figure above, the membrane allows passage of water molecules but not salt molecules. One way to understand osmotic pressure would be to think of the water molecules on both sides of the membrane. They are in constant Brownian motion.
On the salty side, some of the pores get plugged with salt atoms, but on the pure-water side that does not happen. Therefore, more water passes from the pure-water side to the salty side, as there are more pores on the pure-water side for the water molecules to pass through. The water on the salty side rises until one of two things occurs:
* The salt concentration becomes the same on both sides of the membrane (which isn't going to happen in this case since there is pure water on one side and salty water on the other).
* The water pressure rises as the height of the column of salty water rises, until it is equal to the osmotic pressure. At that point, osmosis will stop.
Osmosis, by the way, is why drinking salty water (like ocean water) will kill you. When you put salty water in your stomach, osmotic pressure begins drawing water out of your body to try to dilute the salt in your stomach.
Eventually, you dehydrate and die. Isn't that nice?
In reverse osmosis, the idea is to use the membrane to act like an extremely fine filter to create drinkable water from salty (or otherwise contaminated) water. The salty water is put on one side of the membrane and pressure is applied to stop, and then reverse, the osmotic process. It generally takes a lot of pressure and is fairly slow, but it works.
The Madalene [whose link leads to a photo of Madame Lash and therefore undercuts his position] points to this, from Bloomberg:
Iran and Venezuela signed a memorandum of understanding to build a $1.5 billion oil refinery in Syria, the Regional Press Network reported in a story published on the Web site of Lebanon’s The Daily Star.
Venezuela would hold a 33 percent stake in the project, Iran would have 26 percent, Syria 26 percent and Malaysia 15 percent, the report said, citing Mohammed Ali Talebi, an official at Iran’s Petropars Ltd. The plant would have the capacity to process 140,000 barrels of oil a day.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela said when construction would start, according to the report.
It seems to me that the forces in the known world are aligning themselves, whether or not this refinery ever gets built. On one side are the communist leaders of China and North Korea, along with the Saudi princes, Gaddafi, the Iran nutter, Malaysia [which also has a dicey record] and so on - the pariahs of the sane world.
On the other are Obama, Brown and Sarkozy, Mandelson, the Bilderbergers et al. Russia is playing its own game but the top is aligned with the club.
Nothing whatever to do with us, the ordinary people. I'm no socialist and yet there is this niggling point that the battle is between two sectors of this ruling club who decide when it's time to stir up a war. The economic crisis is one thing, people out of work, people on benefits, loss of homes, pressure on available homes for rental and so on.
That's bad but much worse is the inevitable result of these things - war. This is the mentality which has come down through the past few centuries, the same dialectic, the same militaristic motif - finding the issue on which to wax rhetorical so that the MIC can be set into full swing.
They want war. That's all there is to it. I keep coming back to John Buchan MP who was kicked upstairs or put out to pasture, whichever term you care to employ, for speaking truths and even putting them in books. In The 39 Steps, he has his little agent say:
The first thing I learned was that it was no question of preventing a war. That was coming, as sure as Christmas: had been arranged, said Scudder, ever since February 1912. Karolides was going to be the occasion.
He was booked all right, and was to hand in his checks on June 14th, two weeks and four days from that May morning. I gathered from Scudder's notes that nothing on earth could prevent that. His talk of Epirote guards that would skin their own grandmothers was all billy-o.
The second thing was that this war was going to come as a mighty surprise to Britain. Karolides' death would set the Balkans by the ears, and then Vienna would chip in with an ultimatum.
That book was published in 1915 and was therefore written earlier, by a British MP who later wnet on to become Governor-General of Canada, as Lord Tweedsmuir. The work is fiction and yet the man had a closer knowledge than most of the goings on at the time.
These days, the doings are better concealed but around the turn of the century, in Buchan's day, things were far easier to glean. The Jeckyll Island meeting was observed, Colonel House's and Warburg's machinations seen for what they were and it wasn't such a big deal understanding how these things work.
Today, with the power of the net and with Google at hand, you'd think we would all be au fait but it seems we're still light years away from understanding, simply because we're accepting the pap we're fed by the MSM, we wish to have it that way in fact and it's an uphill battle getting people to join the dots.
Those who do join the dots see something we can't deal with - too organized, too interlocked. How did I get here from a Venezuelan/Iranian oil deal? Chavez, Mugabe and Hitler have shown how one man with a rampant ego and a desire to straddle the world like a Colossus can cause such enormous damage because everyone kowtows and similar megalomaniacs in the world recognize him and can play him at his own game.
It only takes one man, one forceful and yet insane person to achieve this mayhem. Have you ever wondered why this happens - this constant churning out of and pushing up of this type of person into positions of genuine power in their land and therefore on the world stage? He couldn't do it on his own. Clearly he is piggybacked by others seeing his potential for them.
The essential thing that anyone representing the interests of the majority of people desiring a comfortable life, free from the ravages of war and pestilence, must try to do is to find a way to break this stranglehold on world events. As for your humble correspondent, I don't particularly care to be swept along by the tide of events these nutters set in motion.
Web bots predict collapse
Good article in the Telegraph today. Of course the sceptics are right here - there are cogent reasons for these results. You don't need web bots to do simple research and equally, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
... this Sunday, September 27th and your humble blogger has every intention of having it posted by mid-afternoon. I shall be relieving Mr. Eugenides who is on holiday.
So, get your nominations in to:
britblog@gmail.com
... tout suite.
I say "every intention of having it posted" but the question is - where? This blog passes into history on Tuesday, September 29th and the new blog:
http://nourishingobscurity.com
... will carry on from where this one leaves off. The solution is clear - the Britblog Roundup will be posted both here and at the new site.
1. July 2008 - last month, the news broke that Gordon Brown was making phonecalls to unsuspecting members of the British public. Now, the News of The World has reported that The Queen had been thinking about setting up premium rate phone lines to allow the British public to call and get a message from the Royals - for what purpose?
2. September, 2008 - a "lady' burst on to the scene, calling Paris Hilton "a piece of sh-- who looks like a tramp". Then she impersonated a presidential hopeful. Who is she?
3. October, 2008 - there was a real stink when a prank resulted in one man having to depart but the other golden boy only got 12 weeks. A lady called Lesley also had to resign over the affair. Who was the prat who got 12 weeks?
4. November, 2008 - one which has died away of late but at the time, this sort of thing was said - it is better for Saudi Arabia and the company to pay out a few million in ransom and save the 995 million left over. What was the issue?
Les avocats de Dominique de Villepin ont jugé mercredi soir «scandaleux» les propos du président de la République au sujet des prévenus du procès Clearstream, propos qui selon eux violent les règles relatives à la présomption d'innocence.
A case of paranoia, slander and vengeance involving:
a) Dominique de Villepin, an ex-prime minister who dazzled the world on 14 February 2003 with a historic speech at the UN against the war in Iraq, a Gaullist with a taste for history and poetry and a penchant for Bonaparte;
b) Nicolas Sarkozy, former Chirac minister, today president of France, whose permanent agitation has transfixed his compatriots, and amused, irritated and awed the world in equal measure since his election on 5 May 2007;
Le Monde concludes: “The involvement of the head of state unmistakably emerges from the testimony. Contrary to official statements it is very probable that Jacques Chirac issued ‘instructions’ in this affair... Irrespective of what the prime minister has said so far, the almost obsessive search for elements which could compromise the UMP president is unmistakably clear.”
The French love a good scandal but not of this sort, at this time and indications are that most French, for either reasons of boredom or reasons of fear for what it might do to UMP, vis-a-vis the next election, ushering in the truly loopy and perpetually infighting French Left, do not think it should have gone this far.
If UMP have plans to remain in power, they'd best get Sarkozy to close this thing off out of court. But that's not in the nature of Them, is it?
Let me wax religious for one moment. What the Clearstream affair revolves around is someone's knowledge that something was false and his willingness [however true or not is it of Villepin in this case] to remain silent on it and to allow things to come out which would damage the other.
That is no different to the exhortation, in Christianity that "blasphemy against the spirit can't be forgiven". Translated into Secular, it means exactly as stated - knowing something to be based on a false premise, namely the way the Pharisees and Saducees were going about things, they chose instead to bring down the accuser and rival with false testimony.
The EASA airworthiness directive concerns carriers that fly Airbus A330/A340 jetliners equipped with Goodrich pitot probes stamped with the part number 0851HL.
"Several reports have recently been received of loose pneumatic quick-disconnect unions" on the probes in question, the agency said, adding that the problem might lie at the "equipment manufacturing level."
The fault could result in an air leak that could in turn provide false airspeed indications, the statement said.
Ah yes - good luck with your Airbus flight if you have once scheduled.
US President Barack Obama has said the world must tackle stark challenges, and the US cannot face them alone. In his first speech to the UN General Assembly, he said global problems included nuclear proliferation, war, climate change and economic crisis.
There's something of the murky way to power [JFK's daddy bought him Illinois, according to some, Obama concealed his Kenyan birth], something of the rhetoric which is based on nothing but catch phrases used by politicians since the Year Dot and now the critical question - is he starting to believe in the rhetoric the national "Tammany" Machine has written for him?
If he does see himself as the messiah, as Kennedy began to, doing this Great Work of Ages which was starting to be something quite different to that envisaged by the Machine, is he heading for a fall? He's playing with an impacable set of forces in the Washington lobby, in Israel and in the pathetic excuse for political life which Hamas and Saudi et al are pursuing with such quiet vigour.
When President Barack Obama spiked plans for a missile shield in Europe, the international community was taken aback. Yet, Washington is leaving nothing to chance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently spoke of a "defense umbrella" in the Persian Gulf if Iran refuses to agree to nuclear inspections. Most likely, this "umbrella" will be a quick-striking military force overseen from US bases in Afghanistan.
Contrast that with his speech to the UN:
All nations bore responsibility for addressing these problems, he said. Mr Obama said "no world order which elevates one nation above others" could succeed in tackling the world's problems. "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," he said.
Really pushing this one, isn't he? And that talk of world order. Fashionable to seize on any talk of new world order as OTT and yet they keep mouthing about it, all globalists like Obama. And the Washington Club with members like Maurice Strong and Gore keep mouthing about shamballa and climate change as a religious phenomenon.
If you still feel that Obama supports the U.S.A. as a separate entity, then, with respect, you haven't been reading the material brought to this site by various students of the international situation or anywhere else on the web where think-tanks like American Thinker write:
Meanwhile our own president is proclaiming the end of Pax Americana, the most successful peace-keeping policy in human history. He publicly denies the plain and obvious lessons of history. The fascist regime in Tehran would not even exist were it not for the abject failures of another president in exactly the same mold, the blighted Jimmy Carter.
Carter had this "let's all love each other and just peanut farm" mindset, he had the leftist notion that if we all pull together [no comments], we can achieve miracles, which is true but not if we all pull together in the direction they mean. Brown mouthed this off in his own U.S. speech. It takes no account of realities - bloodythirsty guttersnipes, Churchill called them.
The left then says well that's the type of confontationalist rhetoric which got us into the mess.
No it isn't - what got us into the mess is:
1. the Machine which has determined American foreign policy for the past century, with its stranglehold on the three arms of government in the U.S. and international in complexion and the ripple effect on British polic;
2. using the natural patriotism of the American people, distorted and fuelled by the bought media, to support something quite un-American in nature but masquerading under the American flag, to the point that anyone who questions it, as many of the General Staff in the U.S. and in the UK have, is a dirty traitor and not supporting "our boys" over there and for tacitly supporting terrorism.
Look, the bottom line is that these globalists, by the very definition of their stance [how many quotes do you need from your hmble correspondent], are playing the same game, only with a newer generation which can't remember the last time on account of not having been born.
The end result is war.
Where does the natural need, which many heartily agree with, to defend the cause of freedom and free enterprise in the world, cross over into furthering the agenda of the globalists? Look at the pic of Hezbollah above and see if we're not playing the same crazed militarization of the peoples of the world, organized into rank and final and directed to destroying one another.
If this post seems to give out mixed messages - first defend the nation, then don't go to war, that's because the truth is in the middle. Yes we need to be strong but no we don't need to march off on a global financiers' war game which will make a killing of us and a killing for them.
... and the date it goes active is September 29th. If you change your link to this site [that's if you ever did link and plan to continue, I mean], then the new link will also bring you here until the changeover date and then will automatically switch to the new site.
For those interested, I'm on Wordpress.org and am [almost] self-hosting. The themes have been the main problem - I must have been through about 1500 of them and the two left at the end [which I can't decide between] are:
1. a three column not unlike this site's [but I've made the sidebar's much wider so that the whole is now a three column magazine, featuring certain posts];
2. a true magazine/news layout which has layout problems with the blockquotes and images, the latter having been solved.
Both are quite configurable [a major factor for me] and now it's down to the cosmetics and widgets. I'll get both themes ready and decide which one later. I've even been thinking of running one of them for two days and then the other and seeing what you think of each.
The body managing the government's stakes in bailed-out banks has fired headhunters charged with finding its new boss after they recruited a disgraced top banker from RBS.
Eh? Anyone care to explain that one to me? How does it rate against a politician getting down to specifics?
But sometimes the reality is that defining moments of history come suddenly and without warning. And the task of leadership then is to define them, shape them and move forward into the new world they demand.
Or political foot shooting?
“I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
This is not really the post to return with but there are a number of things weighing on my mind. Some might think it is getting hassled by phone [I don't answer it] or the Blogger thing or the way someone close backstabbed me recently - nope, it's none of those. Nor is it the economic situation or the way my particular situation could go pearshaped pretty soon.
No, it's mainly someone I realize I still haven't got over, getting married and while officially I'm happy, inside it seems that part of my life is now over and that's not a pleasant thing. That's the main downer but there is one other too and that's nervousness.
Whoever said football's just a game obviously never supported Geelong Football Club, the team of whom it was said:
Some people are destined never to find happiness in life. For such people, G-d provided the Geelong Football Club.
If ever there was a bunch of frustrating, impossible yet brilliant players who, on their day, can't be beaten, then this is them.
It's a mark of the Australian football scene that the grand final rated the greatest was that of Collingwood in 1937, not to mention Richmond in 1967 and Hawthorn in 1989. All of these involved Geelong as the other team - they seem to have a way of lifting a game into a spectacle, even if they don't win.
Last year they were odds on favourite ... and lost.
Now they're back again this coming Saturday and this time their opponents are the perennial whipping boys, St Kilda, only this season they've taken all before them, including Geelong. So, not only is this a lip-licking festa of two very attacking teams with great defences, the two who have dominated all season but there are no losers.
If St Kilda win [and almost the whole football world will be behind them], then it will be like the England World Cup victory. Hell, I don't even mind if they win. Well, actually I do. If Geelong win, having thrown it away last year, then a few of us will be very happy. This Saturday though, for three frustrating hours, the heart-attacking playing style of my team will be trying to keep out the current champs.
Why do I have to support teams like this or Wimbledon in England? Masochism?
The state of play is this, ladies and gentlemen - it's been a learning curve and widgets are doing strange things, pics are not appearing where they should and so on at the new site. The url of the new site is:
http://nourishingobscurity.com
However, for the present, until September 29th, things have been so configured that the dotcom url, as well as the usual blogspot url, will both lead you straight back here.
On the 29th, the dotcom automatically switches itself over to the new site - you needn't do anything. If you change the url in the next week, it just means that you needn't change it again. Don't know if that was as clear as mud.
This site will still be active, in the sense that comments on previous posts will still be answered and the site will be maintained but the new site will be for all new posts. More closer to the time.
The Korean film, The Host, suffers from the wooden English dubbing and very Asian style of acting in places but it has some excellent parts - the monster himself and how the little girl who is taken by it and kept in a narrow pit under a bridge and how she manages to outwit it. It's all about how authority reacts in an emergency by denial and by turning on its own people.
This part in the clip is not the very best - later scenes of despair are quite moving, how the grandfather re3acts to the loss and so on. Definitely a cut above the average, this one. You can read up on it here.
Why has no one ever told her that it's not what you reveal but what you conceal which makes you more alluring. However, that's not even the issue here:
Beyonce Knowles says she will perform in Malaysia in October, two years after canceling a show in this Muslim-majority country after protesters threatened to disrupt the concert because of her sexy image and clothing. The R&B superstar's upcoming show is already drawing the ire of conservatives in this country, where female performers are required to cover up from the shoulders to knees with no cleavage showing.
"We are not against entertainment as long as it is within the framework of our culture and our religion," Sabki said. "We are against Western sexy performances. We don't think our people need that."
There are different issues here, all being mish-mashed into one. The issue if decency is one thing and the issue of killing off fun is another. The story of Inul in Indonesia is a case in point. Vilified by the Imams for lascivious conduct, nevertheless follow that clip and see the attire she's wearing. She does not let it all hang out, as the western woman does.
It doesn't have to be a Muslim society either. When we were in Cypress, my gf had to change into something which revealed less before going into a Makarios church. She was up in arms about that but I pointed out that that was their rules, they were well within their rights to ask that and so it should be. I went into a mosque without footwear and I went into a synagogue wearing kippar on the head.
So what?
That she should wish to bowl in, promoting her slatternliness in a culture which does not appreciate it is beyond that sort of person.
And another thing - if we are to fight back against the imposition of Muslim life on us by means of spreading our own culture to Muslim nations, then let it be our higher culture that gets exported, not something which reveals our cultural ignorance.
Let it be something which edifies them and let's them see something higher to aspire for.
Senior officials of Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, are facing claims that they pocketed millions of dollars by dishing out loans that were impossible to repay.
Impossible to repay? What's the judge say about this?
Credit Suisse has now been accused of loaning the money in an unorthodox and lucrative deal for the bank that federal bankruptcy judge Ralph B. Kirscher described in May this year as a case of “naked greed” that “shocks the conscience of this court.”
This was a bunch of low-level employees, or even middling staff, right? Uh, wrong:
Brady Dougan, the Chief Executive Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, and Hans-Ulrich Doerig, Chairman of the Board of Directors, received the subpoenas along with past and current Executive Board officials and Credit Suisse’s Board.
“Bank officials have testified that Credit Suisse created a Cayman Islands ‘branch’ in 2005 to sell these loans. “In reality, there was no phone and no staff in the bank’s phony branch. “They used the Caymans to circumvent US banking laws and to issue inflated loans that Credit Suisse executives called a ‘gravy train’ in internal memos.“
What's it all about? Yes, of course it's about a naughty bank which did what comes naturally to them and adds fuel to the fire of opinion quite willing to accept restructuring of the financial system of the world [and why does everything always have to be global?] in the image of Them.
Why all the media attention? The MSM is controlled, it's not even an issue, so why no D notices on this? Why are Credit Suisse left unprotected? To hit back at the Swiss releasing personal details on clients? It would be nice to know what's going on here.
John Scalzi attempts to explain, again, why established writers are seldom interested in reading the work of those hoping to break through the publishing barrier:
Dear currently unpublished/newbie writers who spend their time bitching about how published/established writers are mean because they won’t read your work/introduce you to their agent/give your manuscript to their editor/get you a job on their television show/whatever other thing it is you want them to do for you: A few things you should know....
It's ironic that Scalzi has to point this out so often, considering that he does more for beginning writers with his Big Idea posts than any writer not named The Original Cyberpunk.
My reasons for not reading unpublished fiction are a little different, however.
First, I simply don't have the time. I don't even read much good published fiction these days; I prefer to spend my reading time on history and economics. For example, yesterday afternoon I was reading Bernanke's The Great Depression, about which more will be said anon, and finished with Demosthenes's Orations as the nightcap.
I'm not saying I don't plow through my share of mind candy, having just read Conn Iggledon's four Emperor books last week, but unless a novel is particularly good or original, I find that I'm less interested than I used to be.
Second, after two spells on the Nebula novel jury, a year participating in the Critters Workshop, and six months working as the de facto gatekeeper for a fantasy publisher, I never, ever, want to read any new writer's unpublished fiction ever again. Still less do I feel like arguing with a writer over why my opinion of his writing, which he sought out in the first place, is wrong.
If you think much of the fiction that is published today is pretty awful, you're correct. It is nevertheless markedly superior to the stuff that is being rejected. I don't care if you think your first scribblings are brilliant or not, the probabilities dictate otherwise and I'm quite willing to swap the chance to be the first to recognize an unpublished masterpiece for the privilege of not having to read three dozen attempted crimes against the reading public.
There are some talented writers out there who are just beginning their literary careers. I occasionally read them over at the Friday Challenge and wouldn't mind publishing two or three of them someday if I ever find myself in a position to do so. If you want advice and constructive criticism, I strongly recommend participating in the activities there.
However, since I don't use an agent and at least half the publishers in the States and UK would rather chew off their fingers than sign a publishing contract with my name on it, you'd probably be much better off not doing things my way anyhow.
Now, I have certainly had the benefit of help from established writers such as Bruce Bethke, Joel Rosenberg, Lois Bujold, and Pat Wrede. But keep this in mind. At the time the OC was kind enough to look over my work and tell me to throw away my second novel attempt - which a few of you may be interested to know was set in the world of Summa Elvetica, albeit a version sans religion - I was already a nationally syndicated columnist.
The lesson is: if you have the talent or the ambition, or preferably, both, and you are willing to be persistent, you'll eventually find a way.
My comments
I find Scalzi a prat and have made a mental note never to read him - those comments of his were nasty. However, he does have a point, as Vox mentioned. The grim reality of the writing scene is that:
1. The majority of it is dire and yet the new hopeful only wants someone to read him/her, just wants someone to give him a break.
2. Every writer a bit further up the ladder is wanting him/herself read instead and is not, no matter how altruistic in nature, vitally concerned with a newbie of unproven and maybe unskilled writing talent - there are how many million of them out there.
Thus we have a, "Will you just look at this piece I've written?" which gets, in reply, "Well OK, if you just look at my piece on intergalactic travel first. Now, funnily enough, I thought of the theme in the bathtub some years ago and some people have been kind enough to suggest ..."
The first budding writer left five minutes ago.
3. Quite frankly, in the writing game, no one is going to give you a break.
4. Some put their scribblings on their blogs, as I do and a few others on my blogrolls do - one blogger's whole site is given over to his writing.
Vox's idea of writers' workshops and sites where you can run the gamut of criticism is a good one but it flies in the face of the artistic temperament of the would-be writer - his is a masterpiece, misunderstood by the critics, consummate and whole as it stands. It's humble pie to go through a process of "wasting" time on other budding writers when all you want is to have yourself published.
The writer who does initially get published knows how hard the road is and goes through a lot of s--- before getting to anywhere near "known" and during that time, he is honing his technique, learning the ropes and finding out which genres will be read and which won't. He sends pieces to magazines and news services, hawks himself to agents or else finds one and builds on that and so on.
There's a blog here which let's you cut through the c--p with contacting Blogger/Google but they don't make it easy. As the guy says:
Having some issue and want to contact Blogger Support directly? Wait a minute pal, it’s not that easy. Many important reporting forms are hidden somewhere inside a maze called Blogger Help. If you lucky, you might find some, after going here and there, turn left and right, back and forth, up and down, etc.
To those people kind enough to suggest they'd contact Blogger on my behalf, about this lockdown, I really don't know what to suggest. The link above might work. Either way, Blogger are less than impressive in the way they deal with clients.
Meanwhile
Still in the experimental stages, the new blog is being constructed but as it is more than a blog this time, it is taking a fair bit of work. It is a different url and even that is being changed from day to day, things added, things subtracted, new themes found, new databases.
The transfer of Blogger files continues - there are many - and all that remains is to thank you for your help and offers of help, turning bewilderment into a clear idea where this thing is headed. This will be the last of these lockdown posts until it's actually resolved now.
Update Tuesday, 0912, our time
Right, they've lifted the lockdown without a word of apology and turned what were reasonably kindly feelings towards Blogger into a resentment of the way they organize themselves and pursue these policies. They need to look long and hard at their bots and what can be done to someone's site and piece of mind.
Do they seriously want sustainable blogs on their hosting service, do they want people who use the blog to write or do they want the Myspace Kid? If Blogger aspires to anything higher, and they seem to be doing so with their innovations, compared to three years ago, then the whole systemic mentality has to change.
Breathless, The Seventh Seal, Casablanca, Die Hard, Battleship Potemkin and so on and so on - how can any of these be left off a list of influential films? To choose the four most influential is a near impossibility but mine are below.
Which ones have been left out? Remember - not best film - most influential on English speaking audiences.
Busy building the new site - you know how long that takes - and so I can't get round much until tomorrow morning. I'll be over to you as soon as I can. There are scheduled posts coming this evening.
This morning's post
From the fact that this post is up, it appears that I can post, with verification, verification being something I detest at the best of times so let's not dwell on that.
More to the point is how this situation could have happened in the first place.
There seems to be a mechanism where anyone at all can come in to anyone's site - I could come to yours, if you're on Blogger - and simply click Flag in the navbar. Your blog then is immediately locked down by Blogger and you can't post. Worse than that, I can click Delete this Blog on YOUR blog at any time - Blogger let you do that.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Pardon me but isn't there a principle in U.S. and British law that a person is innocent until proven guilty? I know the West-Midlands springs to mind immediately to a Brit, in terms of justice but even in our democracy-lite days of this era the principle still technically applies.
And whatever happened to previous form on a blog? Whatever has been built up over the years?
If this is, in fact, the Blogger/Google policy, then it stinks.
Go to Wordpress you say and I'm very much inclined to but I've been looking at the Wordpress terms and conditions and even if I purchase the top upgrade, I still can't do something as simple as alter my site's appearance. I can write new CSS style sheets, at a cost to me, renewable yearly and my old changes are lost if I don't renew.
The only way to achieve a comparable level of site control to what I currently enjoy, vis-a-vis editing, is to be a VIP blogger and for that you must be invited and have 500 000 hits a month. I don't like this. For most people, editing of blog appearance is not an issue but for me it is.
For example, I want 994px width to my theme. OK, currently, I just go to my template and type it in, making the other necessary changes along the way. Simple. But on Wordpress, that's not possible - one can only choose between custom themes someone else is offering and can make only cosmetic changes to it, playing at being an editor.
Even if you were to recommend a good-self hosting and server set-up, that's money, whereas Blogger lets you do that for free. Apart from Blogger's recent insistence on trying to organize Compose with this stupid "p", which I then have to go through and change back or else compose entirely in html, the only criticism is this bloody lockdown nonsense they seem to pursue, on the whim of someone who doesn't like you.
In my situation, the nature of my subject matter means there are plenty of people who don't so I could be in for a more or less continuous lockdown, each time with a 20 day waiting period for someone to come along and unlock it.
Who was it who said that if it hadn't been a James Bond film, it would have been acclaimed? On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with soundtracks like this, was very strong as an action romance, it didn't enter the realms of the improbable [not a lot anyway] and it had all the required elements of a top film.
I'll go out on a limb and rate these my five contenders for best Bond films of all time:
1. Casino Royale [2006]
Craig was fantastic the way he exploded onto the screen and later rolled the Aston Martin a record number of times, his leading lady was excellent with real interaction the like which hadn't been seen since OHMSS, Mads Mikkelson and the terrorist were quite creepy and frightening respectively and just as important as a leading lady, in my book, is the quality of the offsider - in this case Giancarlo Giannini, a great choice for the role.
M - Dame Judy, who's done to that role what David Suchet and Joan Hickson did to theirs, is the only conceivable choice.
The locations were superb and that train journey "I'm the money" exotic. From the free-running at the start to the sad ending, this was a film and a half. And don't forget the muscle bound Bond in the blue trunks, rising from the water.
2. OHMSS [1969]
Barry's lush score, the plot, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas and a very strong supporting cast, including the great Ilse Steppart, made for a superb piece of escapism. These were real actors in there. The offsider [as far as Bond has offsiders] was Gabriele Ferzetti - an Italian smoothy, just as in Casino Royale. Don't forget Moneypenny either.
On the down side was George Lazenby, of course, for his woodenness but I contend that he was excellent in the fight scenes and I couldn't see Sean Connery doing romance as well as Lazenby. Remember Entrapment - great film but Sean's writers wisely kept off the romance. The scene in the car with father and daughter in OHMSS was as good as acting gets. "Love? That might come too."
This film had exotic written all over it, from the atmosphere at the glass door of the UE office to the bobsled chase, not to mention suspense in Gumbolt's office. Great film.
3. Goldeneye [1995]
Great return for Bond, bungee-jumping down that dam wall and Sean Bean lifts anything he's in - he was a mean muvver of a baddy [one reviewer said "At last we have a villain who is more than just a megalomaniac."] He always disquietens me, Sean Bean and as for Famke Janssen and Dame Judy, they were right out of the top drawer. Joe Don Baker was much better here, Robby Coltrane was Robby Coltrane and clearly enjoying the part, not to mention Izabella Scorupco's feisty Natalya and don't forget Q.
Very strong and like the previous two, in the hands of a very good director on a mission from the franchise. Downside? Not a lot really and that might be it's main strength, Goldeneye - it's evenness. It's a real Bond vehicle.
4. For Your Eyes Only [1981]
Moore is not my favourite Bond but he sure is smooth. I should think a lady would be more satisfied with a night out with the assiduous Moore than with Wham Bam Sean, however dangerous he looks. Put Carole Bouquet in there with her brooding manner and add Topol, a great rogue if ever there was one and there are the makings of a great film.
The graveyard scene showed Moore back to his best - he can act - and the clifftop finale was very strong, as was the nice touch of the sleigh ride. Less acceptable was the killing off of a baldy meant to be Blofeld and the egregious Bibi plus the Margaret Thatcher at the end was barely OK. That was the Bondishness that the series doesn't really need and where was the Aston Martin, even though the 2CV was fun?
The professional marksman was more frightening than any of the main baddies and it's a pity that couldn't have been developed. However, all in all, it was an excellent film.
5. I'm going to cheat here and say I can't make up my mind between:
a. From Russia with Love - Grant, Tatiana Romanova, the wonderful Kerim Bey and the train motif, often a winner. But more than this - it was a film where all the elements came together, against the odds, of a great director. Don't forget Sean at his menacing best either.
b. Die Another Day - for Halle Berry and Rick Yuen.
c. Goldfinger - because it's great.
d. You Only Live Twice - exotic locales and score but a boring space-plot and tedious destruction of the techno-cavern again.
e. TWINE - for Sophie and Denise.
f. For me, the two best villains ever - Richard Kiel [Jaws] and Goetz Otto [Stamper]
"Villains" is a good theme for another post but for me, Otto and Die Hard's Alan Rickman [Hans] and Alexander Godunov [Karl] take some beating for sheer terror and creepiness.
