Lazy day's work

Feeling sleepy all day. So, just going to send you straight to the gueast blog. Make of it what you will.

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Dimwit Blunkett and Madonna and and - oh - just Google anyone you do not know

Our gobment - Part (the whatever)

So, I see that Claire Short has resigned again. (Link here for those outside B.Liar's Empire re this lady). She is becoming a serial quitter. I don't go along with the treachery bit; she has for a long time been a bit of a loose cannon and she certainly does not keep her feelings and opinions hidden.
Her Labour neighbour (rhymes at this hour!) makes his point from self-advancement motives as for sure the Party will send the heavyweights up to assassinate her when next they canvas for a General Election and he hopes they will come and show themselves in his fiefdom. I'll put my bigotry into the background beyond mentioning that he is Asian and she is a potential subject for veilling. The points she makes sum up the disaster that the latest NewLabour policies – should that be Thoughts for Today? - have inflicted upon this country. In fact, I think she would be a damned good leader of the Tories instead of that wet and slimy face flannel Dave.
In the context of governance, it seems as if the chickens are coming home to roost. I see it more as the vultures gathering. The National Audit Office has pulled out the plum that was farming controls and subsidies. Never mind the dreadful figures of money lost; the rate at which this Government is throwing away money makes this a small sum in the overall scheme of things. Just look at the reasons given and just see where the pounds poured down the plughole. For an even more eye-watering example of planning and control see what happened to the billions – yes billions of £ and not $ we normally see associated with that sort of sum – sluiced towards the National Health Service. All intended to improve patient care. When it got out to the Health Trusts they spent the majority on staff – more of them and better paid. I suppose there might be some vestigial improvement to me in a bed of pain and confusion to know that I would have three consultants arriving in their Rolls Royce cars very soon. Mind you – hardly any nurses on the wards. The 'patient benefits' did not reach down to the front line troops.
Ah – money for troops. Another funny story. Emperor Tony said that the elements of the British Army in Afghanistan would have all that their commanders asked for. Rumours of under-manning and shortages of fighting tools were not true and just idle talk from each of the 600 guys engaged there and their extended families back home. The Parachute Regiment has just swapped duty to be replaced by Royal Marines. One of the problems was that our grip on the country is so tenuous that resupply and troop movement has to be by air. We have no large cargo aircraft (the planning to fight Russia did not call for them) and helicopters are better suited for the task anyway. Beauty of a Marine unit is that it has it's own helicopters and do not have to rely on offcuts and leavings of the RAF. However, the spending limits imposed some while back are still in force and the gobment have ruled they can take more men or more choppers. Not both. They have taken the men. So much for Bullshine Blair's posturing when in the spotlight.
This apparent disaster to properly budget and then to control expenditure amazes me. The time overruns are incomprehensible. The best I did as a civilian was the preparation and control of an annual budget of about £5 million. On my own. Preparation included new work as well as maintaining what we had. This entailed co-ordination regarding what numerous departments wanted from me in the year ahead, getting estimated costs for those, deciding what would be essential work on the fabric and plant equipment of a large building and satellite offices, what would be nice work to have done. What gobment legislation would require. Having got this I was required to cost it to 10% plus or minus and set a time scale overall and individually. Then followed a Spanish Inquisition before my own Directors who focussed only on money and not physical requirement.
Having got authority to earmark the moneys required, I was Project Manager when the work started after detailed examination was made of that operation. The Finance department gave me monthly reports as to how the actual expenditure was comparing with estimated. Any overspend beyond +/- 10% led to a determined assault upon the globes in my private parts. Similar beating ensued if there was an underspend as my Budgethad tied up monies that could have been better employed elsewhere. The gobment has vastly greater resources far more qualified than I so why does it get into such a mess? Yes – the scale of disaster will be more but the basic principles are the same. Do not give large sums of money to teenagers as they head out to party on down.

Just one small detail re the cost of the NHS (Admired throughout the World). There is a drug which can slow down the progress of Altzheimers effecting old people. A review committee has decided that this medicine will not be made available in the first onset of the disease. Maybe a little later would be OK. So, the period when one is best lucent has to be shortened and it is only when things are desperate to the extent that the patient has totally lost functions and carers are most distressed that the NHS may extend this period of suffering prior to inevitable death. Now - where did I hide that Colt .45 revolver - better check it before I qualify for the helpful drug.

Heritage - what bloody heritage?

I am, I think, quite aged. I have bits of memory that go back to 1938 and quite good recall of things since 1940. Mind you, this morning sometimes gets a bit hazy!
What I have no difficulty with is the way I was brought up. It was very much a case of 'children are seen but not heard'. My parents were above the normal age for parenting when I was born; my father considerably so. As an only child I had the full benefit of their attentions in ensuring I knew and complied with the standards of that time.
I learned that truthfulness was at the top of everything. This might be moderated by considerations of what was permissible in the way of conversation. 'That lady is fat' was possibly true but not permitted from even the youngest child. I was taught respect for my elders. How to approach them, speak to them – after being spoken to – and how to exist alongside them. My parents counted as elders and there was no relaxation due to familial relationship. Aunts and Uncles had to receive the same respect and consideration. Transgressions resulted in physical punishment. The punishment came first directly after the offence. No debate, no discussion.
I knew that provided I had said where I was going, I could be away all day playing in the woods and fields that surrounded our house. I was introduced to a shotgun at an early age – 10'ish or so. The rule was that if you shot it – you ate it. All adults could be trusted – almost implicitly. The police were regarded as friends and one was encouraged to say Hello when seeing one in and around the street. They always answered and often chatted with a young citizen.
Religion was of much significance. Just as important as knowing the tenets of one's own faith was recognition of other faiths and some understanding of what they believed. There was no clash over a person's choice of religion; that was respected.
Schooling was most formal. The idea that one would cause the slightest annoyance to one's teacher was totally absent. Avoiding school was not even considered. One did as one was told. There was little discussion as to why we learned what was put to us no matter how abstract it might seem. Most learning was by rote. Spelling bees were frequent. Reading aloud was common and we all knew our multiplication tables up to twenty times twenty. There were no exemptions from games and sports – all competitive – and those with sick notes still went onto the field and were chivvied around.
Around the age of twenty, I was conscripted into the Army to do a compulsory two years of service. I will not drag on as to what that taught me other than to say it must have been the best finishing school this side of Switzerland. I learned to be loyal and to understand what the loyalty of others meant to me. I became completely able to operate as a single unit with few resources as well as a team member. “Can do” became a watchword that was used to evaluate my personal and team performance. I saw foreign countries and observed how they operated. How the inhabitants inter-reacted and how they treated us – sometimes unwelcome in their land. From these experiences I gained some strong opinions – yes, maybe only just short of prejudice and bigotry.
Now, the world of my youth has gone. I cannot think of a single thing I have described that has survived. All swept away. I've gone back through the archives of the newspapers of those days and certainly there was violence, crime and social injustice. However, the spread of those olden days in no way relates to the parlous state we are in today. This is not just an immigration thing; the changes were wrought by those I would have to consider as 'one of us'.
However, those changes were to some extent benign. Just as people get the Government they deserve (and isn't that appropriate right now!), the community developed as the majority voice decided. I could regret it without understanding it or approving it. I adopted what I named 'reverse apartheid' where I did not aim to exclude people from my personal space and environment but I exiled myself from them.
However, I am now being reviled and threatened by people who are but fairly recent incomers to what was my land. They seek to implement massive change – indeed, the aim is to take the country's principles away and introduce a Islamic paradise. This is being carried out not just by obvious hotheads and terrorists with bombs and threats of chemical warfare on the streets of London. Muslims we might regard as 'nice old guys' are demanding rights and concessions that empower them but remove from me attitudes and conduct I have known and practised for over seventy years. Our smiley-face government has no experience of the attitudes that these disrupters have as their basic drives and cannot accept that there is a hidden agenda. Human Rights For All is the cry. Most of the things I have seen demanded conflict with what I regard as my Human Rights but I'm am told to grin and bear it. The status of refugee is, to me, clouded. Why seek sanctuary here when they have already travelled through three or four countries where, it seems to me, peace reigns? Having made the decision to travel to England as a 'nice' place, why set about destroying everything that has made it 'nice over the years?
Answers on a £10 note please.

Heal thyself

Given that I might end up in this situation myself, I find this rather amusing. Problem is that if I do need such a visit, I'll have forgotten what this is all about!

Want us out - hell. They want to kill us

Just a small addendum on the idea floated by PM B Liar that the Iraquis want us there. The poll detailed here showed that, never mind us leaving, but 60% of a sample of them polled were happy with deadly force being used against us. Sure - the government might claim they want us but only for their own selfish reasons. Most of them would disappear in a ball of smoke and fire the day after we left. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas!

We live in interesting times

I seem to have an amplitude of things buzzing around inside my; apologies if these include something not of interest to you.
There is a terrorist trial running here right now. A British man (Ugandan Asian convert to Islam in UK) admits plotting to 'kill as many innocent people as possible' in the UK and USA by targeting skyscrapers and major financial institutions in New York and Washington and setting off a dirty radioactive nuclear device in London. He is on trial with others who plead not guilty. I have sufficient experience of legal procedures to know that these claims will be amplified but right now all we are told is that plans for the operations were found on his computer. It is accepted by the prosecution that there is no evidence of any vehicles being obtained, specialist knowledge re bomb making or constituents of any such device. So, something like a Power Point on my computer as to how I might seduce Charlotte Church.
It is clear that the trial will be followed by a number of Muslims. Some of the 'peaceful' variety as well as would be fundamental activists. They may lack knowledge of how our legal system works but could have that Islamic tendency to kick off at the slightest imputation. I have to say that the way things have been reported, this Muslim is not getting a very fair crack of the whip. If this guy – even including those on trial with him – has the nous and ability to co-ordinate the attacks on two continents as he planned we should engage him in community service punishment at the Wembley Stadium project.
Jack Straw's attack on the veil still chunders on. The latest in the fall-out concerns a classroom assistant (some sort of glorified milk monitor I think) who insisted on wearing the face covering when at school.
She was involved with young children. Her employers agreed that she could wear the veil in the public areas and staff room but required her to uncover when in class on duty. She refused. Her husband confirms it is a matter of her personal choice. I suggest her suitability to be involved with young kids is clearly in question when she insists on appearing like some Trick or Treat Halloween character. She was on the radio this morning. Yes – she speaks English. It is not the sort of English I would like any child of mine to assimilate. Her pronunciation of many words was dodgy at best, emphasis and pace was quite wrong and she sounded muffled – maybe she had a blanket as a veil? To balance we had problems with English women wearing a Christian cross where it might be seen by the general public. This details treatment of TV newsreader and presenter Fiona Bruce but news is just breaking of a British Airways edict re their female staff. They have said that crosses may be worn but must be invisible. It seems that their dress code which refers to religious symbols does not ban Sikhs with turbans or the religiously significant kara bracelet. Why one may not display crosses signifying a Christian religious belief in what is still (OK maybe only nominally) a Christian country is beyond my understanding. Or acceptance. It think next time I check in with BA I'll take one of those life size crosses as carried by penitents at Easter in Spain or doing Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem. We seem to be fighting a war on terror overseas whilst the people whose aims coincide with those of the terrorists are doing so well and winning in this country. Just as bit of light relief, see this.
War on terror leads me into the CGS of the Army and his remarks about the way this Government is treating the British Army. One small section of his initial interview was given undue prominence. Doubtless, it gave the soldiers a lot of good morale 'bash the government' feeling but I just wonder what it has done for his service future and the ability to ever again draw attention to anything. He will be a marked man. There is a minority view that he was wrong. This based upon the fact that the Government is in charge and soldiers should not get involved. Erm – Cromwell anyone? It could well be that the gallant soldier (holder of Military Cross which does not come stuck to a Mars Bar) has tried to raise the matter privately and been routinely ignored. In the background is the controversy whether the Attorney General gave dodgy answers to the 'How legal is the Iraq War?' question posed by last CGS.

Trust thy neighbour?

Reading the Financial Times (as one does!) I saw that Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists has published new research which shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone . This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam said he had delayed publishing until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that”.

The drive of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.” He considers that his conclusions have validity in Europe also.

I rather welcome ethnic diversity, so long as it is legal and controlled. I totally oppose multiculturalism I deem as evil.

Read this

If ever you should think that things in your life are getting heavy, read the blog I've guested. The human spirit is apparently indestructible. One does not have to be Muslim to gain strength from one's religion either.

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A brave family. Long may they remain so.

An enemy within

Writing in the Guardian guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > Michael White gave his opinions on Ruth Kelly’s suggestion that there be a re-balancing on government attitudes to those British Muslims who proclaim that they are the good guys.
[quote]For a politician treading on eggshells I thought Ruth Kelly behaved with suitable delicacy in this morning's speech inviting mainstream British Muslim organisations to accept publicly that they do pretty well here. To encourage them she plans to ''rebalance'' government support towards faith organisations that actively combat extremism in their midst - rather than merely "pay lip service" to the proposition.
But then I thought Jack Straw, who represents a lot of Muslims in Blackburn, also showed appropriate sensitivity when raising the question of the veil last week. He wasn't telling anyone what to do, merely seeking public debate. Myself, I've got used to all but the most severe veils. It's dark glasses worn indoors that spook me: you can't see their eyes. Clearly not everyone agrees. Straw's article proved divisive - even at cabinet level where such divisions can exist because there is no official policy on the veil - unlike in France where Salman Rushdie's insensitive assertion that "the veil sucks" prevails.
In today's Guardian the playwright David Edgar, raises Voltaire's standard of tolerance, rightly insisting that liberals must defend things they don't approve of while inadvertently illustrating the difficulty of sustaining consensus in practice: he catergorised pornography as "harmless". After watching this particular debate for 40 years I no longer think it is, do you?
But as ministers review the implications of last year's 7/7 bombings, carried out by British-born Islamists, it is clear that Whitehall has decided that its multicultural emphasis on tolerance rather than integration in the French sense (which has problems of its own) has failed to nurture the moderate majority in the current struggle with radical Islam.
[/quote]
I think that someone has overlooked the effect of tribalism. Loyalty to the tribe is everything – it over-rides family ties and all personal opinion. There will be polite lip-service to saying what we want to hear but is as if they were speaking with fingers crossed. We saw just how quickly a topic spreads amongst Muslims at the time of the Danish cartoons and the remarks of Herr Pope. Did anyone appreciate the depth of feeling and the tendency to issue murderous threats amongst “those nice people from Somalia who run the vegetable stall”?
The communities secretary's specific reference to Muslim refusals to join the marking of Holocaust Day suggests she may have the umbrella organisation, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in mind, though there will be others, struggling no doubt to maintain unity between its conservative and liberal wings - like many organisations, religious and secular.
Kelly said today "it isn't about preferential treatment, it is about equality." She cited laws and international action, Kosovo for instance, which gives the lie to claims that British foreign policy is hostile to Islam, despite Iraq. We can have differences over policy and politics, not over "non-negotiable values" like the rule of law and freedom of speech, she said.
[quote]Personally, I think Kelly's pitch a useful contribution to the debate. Knowing what Islamists are currently doing to other Muslims (much as Christians used to do to each other in Europe) there's an unanswerable case for more mainstream Muslims, living in security in the west, to speak out more openly for a less oppressive vision of their faith.
They don't have to be "on our side." Our side is strong enough to thrive on diversity and difference. But, allowing for all sorts of difficulties they must have in reconciling conflicting loyalties, they owe it to their own young generation to have the courage of their own quiet convictions.[/quote]
Yes. But how would we monitor the real feeling that is hidden inside the home or mosque? I see it as similar to the pet dog that would ‘never hurt anyone’ that suddenly and for no discernable reason, savages a kid it has grown up with.

From the horses mouth

As things are at the moment, we have all sorts of people trying to explain Islamic values. I spent some 14 years in total in Muslim countries and find it hard to recognise some of the explanations. My memory is of a gentle and counsiderate people loath to offend or condemn.

In what I see as a partial vacuum of explanation, I offer the guest blog from a Muslim woman in an Arab country. Some of the ideas are strange ("As women are not allowed to raise their voices in prayer if men are in earshot") but if they are accepted by those directly involved, why should I condemn?

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Maybe this is a better insight?

Thank God (or Allah)

Just imagine this happening in UK! The riots would have exceeded those following the cartoons and comments made by Herr Pope

NAIVASHA, Kenya (Reuters) - A couple caught having sex in a Kenyan mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan have been sentenced to 18 months jail for what the judge called an "abominable" affront to religion.
Peter Kimani and Jennifer Wairimu pleaded guilty to the charge of having sex in a place of worship after being caught on October 3 at the Abubakar mosque in Gilgil, about 60 miles north of Nairobi. Neither is a Muslim.
A worshipper heading for evening prayers found the couple having sex after investigating what the prosecution described as strange noises emanating from a dark corner of the mosque.
Kimani and Wairimu both pleaded for clemency at Monday's hearing, saying they were too drunk to know where they were. Kimani told the court he thought he was in a lodging house.
John King'ori, senior magistrate in nearby Naivasha, dismissed their plea.
"Having sex in a mosque is a most abominable thing to religion and only a custodial sentence can add justice to this," he said.

Nice people

I still cannot get over how friendly people up here in Scotland can be.

Our pharmacist set up a scheme where he will look at minor injuries or other health concerns and advise on what if anything needs to be done. Saves the aggro of making appointments and wandering of to the medical centre on the outskirts of town. One needs to register with him for this.

I went into his shop and told one of the assistants that I wanted to sign up. She trotted off - I thought to get forms. Within a couple of minutes she was back and said, "That's OK" I asked her how she knew who I was and she just laughed and said we had lived in town for three or four years.

We get our prescription medicine from the same chemist. In the package is a form to request further supplies. Drop the form into the shop, they take it to the doctors and collect the prescriptions. All we have to do is collect the drugs some two or so days later. I lost my form and had to ring the doctor's receptionist to see what had to be done. She asked what medicine I wanted and said she would deal with it. I realised I had not told her who I was and gave her that information as we were ringing off. "Yes. I know" she said.

I must really be some freak of nature to be universally recognised.

Oh! No!

Just what you do not want to see stuck up on the door of the refrigerator!

Us oldies

The bit below comes from a site to which I will not link. I am conscious that some people who come here might well have an attack of the vapours.

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Following the introduction of the UK’s new anti-ageism laws, a recruitment agency has sent me an unusually sanctimonious and annoying brochure. “Remember, spotty little scrotes and doddering codgers have a valuable contribution to make at the workplace, so following the new law will actually help your business,” it more or less says.

It drives this do-gooding “you’re too dim to understand, so the government had better do it for you” message home with an extraordinarily stupid quote from American writer Norman Vincent Peale:

Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.

No, it isn’t. Racism and sexism are considered particularly odious in society because they’re not fair. A white racist will never find himself denied a job because of the colour of his skin (while white racists tend to decry half-hearted attempts to redress their massive advantage in life as anti-white discrimination, this doesn’t make it so). A sexist man will never find himself denied a job because of his unwise choice of chromosones.

In short, some people are privileged and remain so forever; some people are disadvantaged and remain so forever. Even though individual white men might fuck up and ruin their lives, and even though individual black women might succeed admirably, the former will always have done so while facing fewer race- and gender-derived obstacles than the latter (obviously, a black female born into a loving family with enough money to get by will face fewer non-race and non-gender-derived obstacles than a white male born to a homeless alcoholic, but this isn’t relevant here).

Ageism doesn’t have the same effect: we are all every age at some point (except for people who die young, which is worse than being the victim of ageism anyway). If everyone who is 30 treats everyone who is 70 like shit, then this isn’t unfair at all: everyone in the first group will either be dead or be treated like shit in 40 years’ time, and net discrimination against individuals will be zero.

So ageism isn’t a fairness problem, and Mr Peale was an idiot. But worse than that, the introduction of anti-ageism laws will actually make things less fair.

The current crop of near-retirees looking for protection from this law are the baby-boom generation, who avoided WWII, profited massively from asset price rises throughout their adult lives, and left their descendants enormous financial and environmental liabilities to clear up. They also treated their parents’ generation like crap: abusive, horrible retirement homes flourished under the boomers’ rule, since they couldn’t be bothered to look after their parents themselves, and they also severed the state pension / earnings link because they didn’t want to pay taxes to support anyone else’s either.

Suddenly, now they’re approaching the receiving end of this treatment, the fear is kicking in – so now, as a final act before retirement, the spoilt bastards have successfully lobbied for a law prohibiting their children from treating them the same way (as well as making their children pay through the nose to bail out their bankrupt pension schemes).

If that’s fairness, then I’m the Pope dressed in a Mohammed costume and clutching a novelty fake bomb vest at the annual Vatican fancy dress party.

French letter

We may wonder what our cosy little world is coming to with all this Islamic content. One of the TV news programmes yesterday carried nothing but matters involving Muslims - things done to them, things done by them, arguments involving them.

So, it may be some consolation to see just what is happening in France. Let us hope that, just like rabies, we can keep this sort of thing out of Britain.

Whither goest thou?

Consider

"Sadly enough, instead of Muslims marching out of the suffocating swamps of submission to the meadow of liberty, Allah’s faithful aim to drag the rest of humanity into the deadly Islamic quagmire. Islam may have been an improvement to
the life of the nomads that roamed the Arabian deserts some 1400 years ago. The 21st century world, in spite of all its problems and challenges, is not willing to surrender to the clearly failed and failing Islamic experiment."

Write on one side of the paper only.

Attack on Virgin Rail train

I was rather taken with the Virgin Rail TV advert where the train comes under attack. It has been running for about a week and I was wondering when the 'stereotype' backlash would come from Guardian readers.

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Is this allowed under our Brave New World Order?

Amish

The TV coverage of the shooting at the Amish school led me off through Google.

Seems strange that a community could live so apart from main stream America but then, there seems to be something similiar with the American Indians/native Americans or however we refer to them today. Never had contact other than visual with Amish. Saw the film Witness but this short article seems to get the bullet points across.

My experience with the native Americans did not impress me. The elders may well have chosen to run things their way but I saw no evidence that this was any improvement. Certainly a lot well down on their luck and victims of booze or drugs.

Higher Education

Maybe because it reflects my own experience in a number of Arab countries, I found this interesting.

Never mind Know Thyself - know thine Enemy

I have alwasy had a lot of time for the admonition "Know thine Enemy". Not just a deadlu enemy but anyone whose intentions run counter to one's own plans. Events in Iraq have proved that we either did not know or did not take notice. Hence the lack of rose petals showered upon us by grateful Iraqi.

My guest blog today is long and requires serious reading. Provided it is not some CIA- inspired plant, it does give real insight into how the brain of an AQ leader ticks over. The readiness to invest time and patience in the long game is somewhat scary. Sure as hell confirms to me that it will not all be sealed and signed in a short time and that this fundamentalism is set for the long haul

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Long but worth it