Verily I vow

This came onto some radio programme I have in the background when I am at this machine. It is one we used to bellow out at school on the last day of each term and the first day of the following term.

Reason for putting it here is that I like it. Surely that is enough? However, it seem that I may be furthering some grossly racist hymn. In August 2004, the Rt Revd Stephen Lowe, Bishop of Hulme, called for the first verse of the hymn to be removed from Church of England services, calling it "totally heretical". He believed it placed national loyalties above religious ones and encouraged racism and an unquestioning support of governments. His words sparked a debate on the wider implications of the hymn. All the more reason for reproducing it then. To cull such a wonderful poem at a time when we are facing the situation when calls to Islamic prayer will ring out over the morning calm makes it all the more important to make our position clear.

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays 'pon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

Gis us a job

The Grauniad tells us :

The average local authority is employing over nine times as many people on £50,000-plus packages as ten years ago—66 people in 2006–07 compared with 20 people in 2001-02 and 7 people in 1996-97.
By contrast, in the economy as a whole, the number of people earning more than £50,000 has increased by less than three times over the past ten years.
The average local authority spent over £4 million employing people on £50,000-plus remuneration packages last year.
The total bill for council middle and senior managers on £50,000-plus remuneration packages was almost £2 billion last year almost £1 in every £11 of total council tax revenues.
The remuneration of local authority middle and senior management is racing past that of MPs. There were 12,600 local authority middle and senior managers being paid at least £60,000 last year—equal to or exceeding the £60,277 salary of MPs in November 2006.

As a proportion - 66 jobs from 20 - that may not seem a big hill of beans but when set against the overall, the rate of increase is high. Obviously, there would be expectations that pay will rise but this is well outside inflation. The paper also reports that they have advertisements for another 91 local authority jobs set at over 50 grand. I reckon I know where family-employer Conway will be aiming his c.v. They might even take on his self-appointed "Queen of Sloan" son as some sort of diversity leader.

What is happening to President Hamid Karzai's leadership of Afghanistan? The amount of land under opium in Afghanistan is more than under coca cultivation in Columbia, Bolivia and Peru combined. Afghan MP Malalai Joya writes in today's Independent that the government is as bad as the Taliban, with more women killing themselves in the country in 2007 than ever before. So why did President Karzai "veto" Paddy Ashdown as a "super envoy" to Afghanistan, and earlier in Davos say that the British presence in Helmand had made things worse? Is he angry that the international community has not delivered the reconstruction aid it promised, and, worried about his own re-election, trying to court votes with a more belligerent attitude to the West?

As I see it, the idea of one man in charge inAfghanistan is a non-starter. The country is a fiefdom of war lords who control areas. These areas are autonomous and neither need anything from Kabul or obey orders from Kabul. If there is anything going for free, they will hold their hands out. Otherwise they keep them on their friendly AK47. They are as likely to fight each other as incomers. Karzai got where he is by offering to organise a lot of freebies. He has not come good.

Not all raza mataz

I suppose a lot of us in UK have this idea about America. Everything bigger, faster, more sophisticated. Well, that is mostly right although there are really many areas of really deep deprivation. This is not a racial thing, there are many poor whites.

The idea I have is that the people are more ready to work. They tend to think of other folks. They are not afraid to show their religious beliefs. There is a strong work ethic. I worked for an American firm in UK and was astonished when I found out that their US employees did not have contracts of employment as we did. If the boss chooses to sack someone, it is out the door then and no notice is needed. Whilst I was greatly enamoured of the actual country and it's amazing landscapes, it was the people who made me wish I had been able to work there. I did a six week job swap and it was possibly the best employment I had. One gets some idea from the blog I have guested.

TODAY'S GUEST BLOG
Just saying it was cold out last night in south central Wisconsin is quite the understatement. It was beyond really f***ing cold; it was deadly f***ing cold. The base temperature was below zero, and with a 30 knot wind out of the northwest gusting to 50+, the wind chill was easily minus 30. Throw in some snow and you had one nasty night to be outside for even a few minutes. For this reason, I could hardly believe my eyes as I drove up US 12 and came upon a person walking a bicycle along the shoulder of the road.
t was about 9pm, and I was heading home from class at UW Whitewater. The roads were icy, and very few people were on them. Downtown Fort Atkinson, the small city halfway between school and home, was deserted. The McDonald's was empty. It seemed wise to take Highway 12 all the way to Cambridge rather than use the back roads, even though it was a few miles longer. It's a major road and would be in better shape, and I figured if I got into trouble I would be more likely to eventually see another car.

About four miles out of Fort, there was this poor soul, in the dark, trudging along. It took a second for me to realize that I had to stop; this person was truly in danger of either being hit or freezing to death. Except for the two of us, the road was deserted. I backed up and rolled down the window to offer a ride. The voice that responded sounded almost childlike, and I couldn't understand the words because the person was shivering so badly.

Like a dope, I asked if the bike had a flat tire or something. Right. As if the bone-chilling headwind wasn't a factor. "C'mon. I'm driving you home," I said, as I took the bike and put it in the back of the car. "Get in." There was no hesitation on either of our parts. Neither of us was worried the other was a psycho-killer. It was too cold, the need too urgent.

We got in and I cranked the heat. Only then was I able to tell that this was a woman, not too old, but not a kid either. She told me where she was heading: the trailer park off Treiloff Road. That was still at least two miles ahead. "Where were you coming from?" I asked. "The McDonald's," came the reply. That was four or five miles back in Fort Atkinson. Holy shit. She told me, in few words, that she didn't think it was really going to be this bad. Then she said she hoped I wouldn't be going out of my way to drive her home. All the while, her teeth continued to chatter.

Her home turned out to be a modest mobile home at the top of a hill at the end of a dark road... four miles from where I picked her up. I pulled her bike from the car and wished her warmth. She looked my direction, not quite in the eye, and simply said, "Thank you. Thank you very much."

This encounter left me with a mix of feelings and some unanswered questions. For a second, I thought about what a good person I was... probably saved this person's life for god's sake. That self-congratulatory award passed quickly. Then, I began to feel sort of guilty. Here was this person, who probably rode her bike to her low-paying fast food job a good eight miles away from her house several days a week. Even though the nastiness of the night's weather was well-predicted, she made this effort to get to work so as not to miss a day's pay. What might that have been worth? Fifty bucks maybe? I blew that much on the hockey tickets I bought but didn't use last week. Talk about getting myself a serving of perspective with a side order of humility. I guess that's why I bristled when the owner of the coffee place in town labelled her "an idiot" and laughed at her predicament when I related the story to him early this morning.

I have to wonder what kind of will it takes for a person to get a McJob, and then keep it by riding a bike 16 miles round trip each work day. Is this what people have to look forward to as good jobs for those with only a high school education keep being exported? Would someone else have stopped if I hadn't? Is she OK?

John Edwards announced he was pulling out of the presidential race today. I haven't made up my mind about a candidate yet, but I liked his strong position on helping that other America, the people like the woman on the bike. I hope whoever we do nominate takes to heart, and then to policy, his ideas and his values in this area.

It's really f***ing cold again today, but the wind has died down and the sun is shining. And on this day, the woman I helped last night, whose name I don't know, is my hero.

Take me back

Electrical stimulation of areas deep within the brain could improve memory, early research suggests.
A team of doctors in Canada stumbled upon the finding while attempting to treat a morbidly obese man through deep brain stimulation (DBS).
When stimulated, the man had very clear deja vu. He then had a sudden perception of being in a park with friends. He felt younger, thought he was around 20-years-old, and his girlfriend of the time was there. He was an observer, and saw the scene in colour. Whilst this was being used experimentally for obesity, it is thought it will have wider applications including Alzheimer's. With the number of people with Alzheimer's forecast to double within a generation, we urgently need to find ways to tackle this awful disease, but research is hugely under-funded.
Well, I'm all for deep stimulation - nudge nudge wink wink. Especially if it brings back former girlfriends who are rather thin on the ground right now.Actually, memories of things long past is something I'm pretty good at rather than faulty or absent short term memory. I can get colours and sounds but not smells. Given Korea and Hong Kong as they were then, this no smell might be a blessing in disguise.

Now will you believe me?

Everyone says they are a threat to the countryside. Now look what they are up to.

Large wonga

I have been following the twists and turns of the Soc Gen guy who lost the bank a few billions. When it first broke I had two main thoughts. One - the French were jealous of our Northern Rock saga and wanted to show they were as good as us and Two, what the hell was Avec Frits going to do with the money he was dealing in if he had got it outside the bank? This latter point was made more interesting when the Kent Securicor trial finished. They had to settle with just 53 million as the truck they had was limited to a 8 ton cargo. So, just how would the French guy disappear into the mists with the bulge in his trousers that was 2 billion? Shifting that from France to Brazil would leave a trail.
Some clarification came when the police chose not to include straight theft in their charges and appear to have accepted that what was done was meant to raise the prestige of the trader. I will leave aside wondering how he thought he might maintain his winning ways through the rest of his career based as they were upon severe bending of the control systems. These must surely have led to his downfall given time.
So - reduction of interest in Soc Gen. Except - how do banks handle these profits and losses or the monies involved when company A buys company B for a couple of billion quids?. Well, there is a system but, don't worry, I'm not going to go into it here. However, have a look at what Wikipedia says about fiat money (no, not the price of a small car for the Attorney General ) and representative money. What these have to do with the price of fish is (exhaustively I warn you) dealt with by a paper considering changes.
Having read that jogged my memory of extremely smart men seen on the streets of the City of London. They wore formal morning dress and were topped of by extremely shiny silk top hats. These were bank messengers and they were the carriers of settlement notes between banks. Doubtless, it is now all done by electronic means (and open to fiddles).
Another piece of useless information that came with my inquiries was that the largest value Euro bank note (representative money now we know!) is 500 euros. So, our French friend would have had a problem ordering Le Grande Mac avec jambon and offering a whopper as payment.

Meat eaters of the world unite

From The New York Times

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation. To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. 20 percent - suppose you ate one more pasta dinner a week, hold the meatballs. Or had a pizza with just veggies instead of pepperoni. Or at breakfast, skip the bacon and sausage. If you knew that making a simple choice like what you were having for dinner could make that much of a difference, wouldn't you do it today?

I am not a vegetarian: I used to be a very big eater of meat often to the exclusion of any vegetables. However, if this is true it is good news. Rather than have to adopt daft measures that would be inconvenient or unwanted, we could do this. I'm not quite sure how it might work. My abstaining from 2.2 pounds of beef surely would not lead to any reduction in beef overall. Sizing it up to some 60 million times 2.2 pounds is much better but which would be chicken and which would be egg? Reduction in demand or reduction in crop?

Light relief

Amidst the serious things in life, this is worth looking at

TODAY'S GUEST BLOG
http://www.diyjoe.com/index.php?p=dirtyvan

How to get a positive result

Murder suspect murdered during trial
Jan. 29 - A gunman has walked into a Manila court and shot dead an ex-mayor on trial for murder. A bodyguard and a civilian were wounded.
The assassin escaped after gunning down Reynaldo Yap, a former mayor of a town on the southern island of Mindanao. He was on trial for murder.
Panic spread through the area as police teams moved into the building to search for the gunmen. No weapon was found on site and the assailant remains at large.

Given the way that our judicial system seem fairly constant in their judgements as to how leniently one can be tried, this solution might become more frequent here.

What about that Bruni?

The old French smoothie is seen here without his latest lady
but I should imagine that OneI joshed him about the luck of someone like him getting alongside someone like her.
So - anyone reading this - what about a caption for this image?

Returner a les moutons (or somesuch)

Well, some sort of learned start anyway. So, why after such a long gap, am I coming back to the beginning?

Easy to know for me but maybe dificult to explain. My first away spell was with the Daily Telegraph's site. Technically, apart from one or two difficult bits, it was good. The site semed to spend rather more than average time down with server problems or quite frequent updates being installed. Somehow or other the site had gathered itself a strange membership. Apart from the usual only-slightly-mad crowd, there were some who appeared to border on the psychotic. Anything Islamic was like bull + red rag. We had a very nice Muslim lady on board who tried to correct the more outrageous postings and comments but the Islamaphobes ganged up on her as soon as her head came over the parapet. There was a system where the site posted statistics as to the most popular (i.e. most read) contributer and the post which generated the most comments.

Nice idea. However, the ratings were skewed by posters creating more than one identity and using these to read and re-read the post oneof them had written. They also commented on these contributions. Generally in scabrous style which provoked more comments. The site had the facility for anyone to complain about any post. All to get their name 'in lights'. Clever guys in the membership established and showed what was going on. There were moderators. They put into limbo any post that had drawn complaint. They would also act on their own initiative and delete posts they felt might be inappropriate. There was no swift resolution of the problems and a total lack of feed-back explaining their actions. The doppel-gangers used this to further enhance their results. The site ober-fuehrer claimed that the matter could not be solved as he lacked proof of the allegations.

The testesterone overload was more than I wanted to be on the edges of so I backed out. This led to an invitation from someone who had also removed himself from the fray and set up an closed site. I joined that. At that time there were about 13 of us. All nice, well mannered people. No one ever struck back at anything: mere posting of the day's date could well lead to a flood of comments saying what a lovely post. Not a flower died or a bird fell without being commented upon with a multitude of comments showering hugs and sympathy. We had a religious writer who went to great lengths to point out God's message in almost everything and anything that happened. As a non-believer in everything except my own multi-talents, I was itching to get in amongst him but it would have been like farting at Communion - inappropriate. So, in fear of the sweetness generating some form of mental diabetes, I let that fall away.

I do feel that I would like to have somewhere to blog. It is rather like the process of sorting out a course of action by listing on a piece of paper the 'pro' and 'con' points of the matter. Putting things down in writing itself concentrates even the most grasshopper mind. I used to review the day gone and plans for the day present whilst sitting in the smallest room in the house. I get the same relaxation here. I am not sure who - if anyone - might read this stuff. Comments are very few - but welc0me.

So, watch this space.

Still on the run.

No MyT work for a couple of days. As yet, no with-drawal symptoms. My last post there drew a response from an ex-MyT'r who had set up a small operation on a social network basis. I joined as I was aware that going cold turkey might be difficult after the high activity levels of blogging. If the new thing directs me down the paths that made me quit MyT I shall drop that as well.

What was that about 99 sheep?

I have given up my My Telegraph blog. No particular reason that I could identfy as responsible. The DT blog is quite cerebral with a lot of deep thinkers and serious commentators and that led me to explore their ideas and thoughts.

I was learning more than I wanted. Allied to this greater awareness of how this world was sliding down the stairs on a tea tray was the realisation that there was little I could ever do to ameloriate the situation still less offer any solution. I have little interest in being an onlooker; I always want to get down in the dirt with the players.

So, I came away. For a rest? Maybe. I want to continue with my steps to discovering if I can write. So here I am.

Ah! Blogging

I returned to this blog area today to find something from the archives. Awaiting me was a comment from Wireless Guy dated 9 November 2007. Due to weird persons such as him, comments are moderated. I rejected this one.

However, as he seems to wish to use this method of communication, it might help if I explain why his comments here will always be rejected and those made elsewhere reported for total removal or amendment.

The short answer is that I do not wish to communicate with him in any way, shape or form. I have made this clear to him when he was using email. I also advised him that I would not hesitate to contact his ISP if he again sent abusive or unwanted traffic. He seems to have understood that. I stand ready to issue the same warning regarding his harassment on any blog of mine.

I do not know what his problem is. He makes reference to events in my past but these are either founded on his misinterpretation of my actions or just sheer animus. He refers to the death of my daughter/his sister. What he does not know is that I discussed my attitude with her whilst she was still lucid. We agreed there was no good outcome for her. We also agreed other matters; these were personal her to me and I do not intend to debate them with him.

Another matter that rankles is my attitude to her husband and children. I do not know what transpired but after his intrusion at the latter stages of my daughter's resulted in her daughters feeling unable or unwilling to contact me or my wife. I associate his appearance with this situation. If they cannot discuss the problem, I cannot assist. I know not what I have done wrong. Their father has confirmed Wireless Guys part in their changed attitude but says, quite rightly, it is a matter for them and not his resolution.

On odd occasions he refers to the death of my mother. He can have no idea of that which he complains. Her consultants confirmed that there was nothing further the medical services could do and recommended I give consent to cessation of treatment. She and I discussed this when she was aware of what was going on. Anything I did after her death was agreed by and with her. I do not accept any criticism from him. His intervention and allegations are unwanted and slightly distressing. It is matters such as this that could cause me to complain to those who provide his Internet access.

He goes on to other sundry matters. These include the question "have you stopped beating your wife?" and seems to expect either a yes or no answer. Again, I see the matter as nothing to do with him. I would point out that my wife and I recently celebrated fifty years of marriage; if she is being beaten she looks well on it and is prepared for the next few years.

His own behaviour would support adverse comment.

Anything that comes from this wireless guy needs to be taken with a large dose of salt. If there is any opportunity I would add legal action to the complaint to his service provider. He may see me as his father. This is biologically true but I certainly do not see him as my son such that he may feel he has rights to speak out and be heard.

Whither now - SatNav required

So - it does seem as if the MyT blog has been cleansed. There are still a couple of things that need to be sorted out but doubtless that will follow.

Now, what happens with this blog? I resurrected it to give me the facility to get away from the over-weening MyT protection of TCP. Where I could get my opinions across without someone lodging a spoiling complaint.

I think I might try and run them both.

End of the world as we knew it!

Well, today we can well and truly claim that goodness will triumph over evil. Bit dramatic but that is how it feels. The despotic and dyspeptic Slocombe has departed from MyT. Long rambling justification which completely evaded the fact that he was almost universally reviled.

I do have a few doubts. His sudden collapse came very soon after, at long long last, we got TCS to organise a forensic analysis of activities as recorded on the server logs. My personal opinion, based upon the long leash he had enjoyed for so long, is that he was given the alternative of Go or Be Pushed. Either was he is off.

Or is he? One of the failings of the registration process is that all one requires is a valid email address. These are as scarce as gay condoms in Brighton. He could well come back. The bogeyman returns.

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http://my.telegraph.co.uk/phil_slocombe/september_2007/goodbye_myt.htm

Watch out - snipers!

The decay continues of what could have been a first class blogging facility run by the Daily Telegraph. Some good forensic work by outraged and disappointed members has shown very clearly that there is something untoward afoot. Shane (TCS in my Army-like nomenclature) has appointed a side kick to undertake some sort of inquiry. Doubtless, it will be just as the Dr Kelly job - your terms of reference are that if you find anything dodgy you must not publish them.

I have given up. I will post what I want in the manner I want.

Return, tail between legs, downcast

Well, I have been away some what - 4 months? Went to the blog run by the Daily Telegraph. I say 'run' - after this update you may form some other opinion.

It all started off well. Very easy site to use - this because it has limited features. Limited HTML, few formatting options. Only upload one image per post. It was a lively site with most posts getting an average of, I suppose, 20 or so comments. These were a happy mix of serious, facile, what-the-hell-is-that-about and in-jokes. They have a section which establishes the most popular post, comment, saved item and bloggers. Each post has the ability to vote Yes or No in agreement with the post and these are consolidated to an overall popularity percentage. I'll do a link with the Guest Blog and you will see what I mean.

This Top of the Pops feature is well on the way to killing the whole thing. Registration requires only that one have a email address. Canny posters looking to get themselves or their work included registered many times and this gave them the facility to manipulate the results. What they were doing was very obvious and logs were maintained of weird activity which suggested the doppelgangers. The blog moderators poo hooed the double identity creation but did not amplify how they prevented this. Some of us, to check, used multiple emails to see where any hidden check might be. There was none. We were able to make posts in more than one identity before cancelling what we saw as an abuse and loophole not closed.

Another built-in by design failure was the ability to complain about a post or comment. This was directly and all too easily available from the post. Using the Complain About feature allowed ill-minded members to stifle any comment or post that revealed their quirks or double-identities or manipulation tactics. The post and comments are then removed from general view whilst, alleged, they have been cleared by the moderators. In all the time I have been using the MyT blog, I have not seen any resurrection of a complained about post or comment. Surely, not every complaint can have been justified for cause? Feed-back from the blog fuhrers is almost non-existent giving none the ability to correct their future work to avoid it's abortion.

So, if anyone here is thinking of designing a blogging application, the MyT is a good example of what not to do.

Now, without further ado, one of my posts that was killed and an example of the writing of the person I highlight in that post. Enjoy.

Photobucket" src="http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a29/gemmak/jonwebding.jpg" border=0>

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Philip S. is a much talked about man at the moment. It is not just a few awkward members doing this but people one rarely reads of are commenting as well. It cannot be easy for him as he doubtless still sees himslef as a founder member. Maybe he has some idea that he is the blog. I did entertain the start of a wonderful conspiracy theory that TCP does not really exist but is someone invented by Shane or such to give the blog that appearance of success that any application initiated by a newspaper requires if it is not to be a chain around a even more seniors' neck. This conspiracy would involve under the table payments and action in manipulating statistics. I cleared Shane after finding him and TCP on site at the same time, However, we still have to wonder why such a sharp executive seems unable to comprehend the logs and information addressed for his perusal.

I used to get quite annoyed at TCP. He appeared to have his own private line when he complained about a comment or a post. I imagined a dedicated moderator alert as the HMV dog Nipper for when His Master's Voice came on - Exterminate, exterminate. He made quite immoderate and extraordinanry claims in his own work without giving any reference or other citation. All it needed was for him to say it - instant truth andconfirmation. However, as his work became even more like that of Captain Queeg and his cache of strawberries, I sensed that there could well be something like megalomania at work. The symptoms were just so accurate; "Megalomania is an unrealistic belief in one's superiority, grandiose abilities, and even omnipotence. It is characterized by a need for total power and control over others, and is marked by a lack of empathy for anything that is perceived as not feeding the self". He needs to controll everything and this to an extreme. I imagine that much of his life is now out of his control. He will be crippled and look terribly unhealthy and old beyond his actual years. As an ex-serviceman. he smokes 60 a day. He cannot sell his house and has lost so much of his limited capital. He cannot communicate or understand so much around him in China and his wife would seem poorly educated. She would be of limited support on his trips to Spain where his conquistador lifestyle delusions give him comfort unattainable in China.

So all in all, the poor chap deserves our sympathy rather than the scorn and derision that he now attracts.Were he a dog, he would need a rescue center. I think he deserves to be treated like a dog for the rest of his few years here.

Ave Atque Vale

I include an article that comments on the Nazi attitudes to racial purification by the sad old Slocombe. No action was taken to kill the original article.

However

the blogging continues here - http://my.telegraph.co.uk/old_chap/