'Nother Solent

Unbelievably

I had not fully taken in that long-time - well, long-time in blog terms i.e. several whole months - correspondent Myria has a blog. It's easy to find at http://myria.blogspot.com but it's called "It Can't Rain All The Time" My favourite phrase, coming in the middle of a long post, was this:

But I digress.

Often

.

I have an awful guilty feeling that Dodgeblog (wherein lies the den of another long-time correspondent Momma Bear) mentioned Myria's blog ages ago and I thought, must go and look there, and then the kitchen timer rang or something equally mundane and I didn't.

Talking of Dodgeblog, the thing I posted just now talked about a local council acting in a way that exuded both stupidity and a slug-like malice against anyone who disturbed their sloth. To be fair to local councils most of them do without the malice - but not, alas, the stupidity. Read the post about the sterling efforts of one council to keep all citizens informed regardless of disability.

"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime..."

...Deeply concerned about criminals, completely freaking indifferent to victims of crime. James Rummel alerted me to a story about a run in between a local council and a 94 year old woman repeatedly victimised by criminals. Observe where the council's priorities lay.

And with reference to the post below, Yoda uses a hankie and blows his nose properly, like the gentleman he is.

The Wisdom of Doris Day.

I have to point out, Mr Steyn, that "Che (rather than Que) sera, sera" is the Italian for "what evening, evening." Or was that all part of the joke?

Whether to watch the Pearl video?

I certainly won't be, but I acknowledge that a man or woman of goodwill could come down on either side. But here is a passionate argument against viewing it from Moira Breen.

"You have the image of this handsome and kindly young man, in the high summer of his life, and you know his fate. With these two things in your possession, what knowledge remains unrevealed? What proper emotion still lies dormant? The photo of the smiling young man, and the knowledge of his fate. What more, pray, do you need to see in order to feel and to know?"

So glad there's nothing going on in the world

, leaving us all free to talk about the scandalous, appalling admission that your odds of winning £10 in the National Lottery are only 1 in 57 and the odds of winning the jackpot are only one in some instantly forgettable but big number. What on earth did people think the odds were? How did they think the lottery made its money?

As government money-hoovers go, I quite like the lottery, or would if it were not for the shamelessly monopolistic restrictions they put on private lotteries competing with it. It's a voluntary tax on stupidity. I pay it every now and then.

I'm mostly better.

Thanks for good wishes.

Ain't No Bad Dude now has his own domain name. It's http://www.aintnobaddude.com ---No apostrophe!

Have you noticed

that I just got a whole bunch of other people to write my blog for me while I feel woozy? And I had the nerve to moan about e-mail. Off to bed now for some more pointed moaning. Oooh, my head, my aching bones...

UPDATE: message to Mr Katzman: In your dreams!

"Kashmir: breathe easier

", says Joe Katzman of Winds of Change. He writes:

Noticed your blog postings. Did my own analysis of Kashmir, and came to less alarming conclusions.

Incidentally, while planes can be forward based, the weapons themselves tend to be stored in very secure locations. An airstrike ain't gonna get 'em, and they won't all be at the front. Besides which, you're not going to get all of the Jaguars - and if you do, they still have Mirage 2000s, and Mig-29s. Etc. There's always another plane to load a nuke on if necessary.

It's not like India or Pakistan are the US Air Force, either, with cutting edge equipment precision weapons up the yin-yang.

Result? Risk of a failed first strike is very, very high - so high I can't see either side trying it. Even without a triad-structure deterrent.

The Hole We're In.

Jim Bennett recommends this review by Irwin Seltzer of Will Hutton's latest book. So do I. Here's an excerpt:

"Oddly for a tract devoted to comparing benevolent Europe with an America suffering from ‘tenacious, endemic racism’, immigration is virtually unmentioned. It didn’t take a Le Pen or the BNP to highlight the failure of Europe to achieve the successful absorption of immigrants that is so much a part of the conservative agenda and the American success story. The prominence of Indian immigrants in the top levels of Silicon Valley firms is well known. Less appreciated is the fact that in New York City alone some 40,000 minority firms account for a quarter of all businesses in the city, and employ 200,000 workers; over 33,000 of these firms are owned by Asian and Hispanic immigrants. "

I would add that the list of dead at the WTC made the multi-national nature of New York's workforce (note that I said workforce, not welfare rolls) well known.

More inspirational abbreviations.

"Augustr", the author of the letter that started all this discussion of ways to streamline the processing of e-mail, has now come up with some more user-friendly ideas. Some of them are not entirely serious. I think. I hope. Well, serious or not, here they are:

"...bloggers may need some subject line abbrev. for other things, if we work hard enough we could have as many as we do all those smiley face thingies :-)

Oh, please -- OP

the obvious one -- FO

absolutely -- abs

references -- REF from happyfacepundit this morning

don't ever email me again -- FO oops used that- but it works doesn't it?

Oh, yeah, one more -- WHATEVER that should encourage people to go away.

The only problem is that after 2 or 3 only frequent users would know what they meant."

I started going down with a bug yesterday afternoon

, and I feel yeuch today. So not much from me until I feel better.

Government funding for Asian language teaching in Australia axed

. This BBC News 24 story seems to feel deeply for Australia's national shame. I've got a totally rad blue-sky idea. If there are all these Chinese tourists wealthy enough to visit Australia can't they pay for intepreters? And can't some Australians pay a little to learn Mandarin (or to hone their specific translation skills if they speak it already) so they can make a lot more selling their skills? And can't some tour companies help financially with such training and then recoup their costs in commissions plus some profit as well? No, no, it's too absurd. The BBC would surely have said if this were even possible.

The answer to my quiz

is: Chris Cooper has a great blog. Now I've seen it and I'm sure. This is his sharp message to both sides of the abortion debate. After pointing out that the strongest objections to the use of foetuses for experiment do not arise from lack of biological knowledge but from an irreconcilable difference of world-view, he says:

"There is no such thing as a right answer here. That's not sitting on any fence: pointing to the existence of a hundred-foot high fence isn't the same thing as sitting on it.

"So chew on that, objectivists. It means that in a free society, people are going to divide into communities of divergent moralities, and the anti-abortionist ones are just going to have to live alongside communities of people whom they regard as murderers. As they already have to do, of course - but they're not reconciled to the fact."

I think he is wrong to say there is no such thing as a right answer. Unfortunately I can't prove it, and neither can you with what you think is the right answer. But he accurately delimits the playing field we can none of us leave.

You want to see something really scary?

This comment addressed to a Vodkapundit post fits the bill:

If the Indians really have forward deployed their strike assets, then the escalation ladder is currently being put in place.

Neither state has what is known as a "secure second strike," i.e., a set of forces that can survive an opponent's first-strike. (Think about our ballistic missile subs, which are hidden and can "ride out" an attack on the US, and then strike back hours, days, or even weeks later.)

Instead, if they've deployed their forces to forward locations, they are vulnerable to an enemy first strike (air bases are very soft targets). Which means that, conceivably, you're either in a launch-on-warning situation (bad, because that really is a hair-trigger alert; we and the Soviets generally avoided going to such a situation), or else you're in a first-strike mode (where your vulnerability won't matter, because you think you'll get your licks in first).

Both are EXTREMELY destabilizing situations to be in, since accidental wars and unintended wars (i.e., "I don't want to go to war, but it looks like he's going to, so I'd better get my shot off.") are much higher probability events under such circumstances.

Posted by: Dean on May 23, 2002 02:45 AM

As I commented to Vodkapundit, no one's mentioned the start of World War I yet, where the railway-based mobilization once started was next to impossible to stop, since to be attacked while de-mobilizing was just about the worst position to be in.

The wages of political correctness is death.

As pointed out by a caller to The Corner, back in early September 2001 it would not have been a good career move for a federal agent to suggest serious racial profiling of Arabs at flight schools. What astounds me is that it still might not be a good career move.

"Carry on carping,"

says Julian Borger in the Guardian. Why, you might get a role in the film and be spanked by Hattie Jacques while Kenneth Williams says "auwww." Borger has no such ambition. He thinks that even though Colin Powell has asked the Europeans to stop carping, the real friends of the Secretary of State should - for his own good - carry on. One might think that a chap who fought in Vietnam, rose to be the most prominent African-American soldier in history, and now holds a major office in the most powerful government in the world would be a better judge of his own best interests than a Guardian journalist. If Borger wants to carp at the US, let him do so. He'll just up the level of Bushite scorn a little further and make it a little less likely that any good advice in there will be lost in the slush. I do wish, though, he'd carp off his own bat and stop pretending that's it's all done for dear Colin's sake.

Quiz time.

Of whom did I say, "...I'm sure he has a great blog. Pity either Blogger or my server is malingering so I can't look and see."?

The evidence of my senses.

James Rummel, of Hell in a Handbasket ("James Rummel, of Hell..." This could be misunderstood. I attempt to thus indicate the name of his blog rather than speculate on the eventual residence of his immortal soul) has many years of experience in the field of forensic science. Read his post about the way the Soviets and others have been doctoring photos for years. He also writes:

"I just read your post on the age of evidence. You were troubled by the news that creative editing with a computer can alter videos to the point that the tape has nothing to do with reality.

"I get this a lot from people. You see, what you're worried about isn't evidence.

"It's not just the law that I'm talking about, even though it provides the best example of what I mean. Think back to your own experiences. Ever have an event happen, something that was important to you so you thought that you'd remember the details forever? Then, when discussing the event with someone else who was there, you found that they had gotten the details completely wrong?

"Right about now you should be saying 'But it's videotape! A recording of real events! To alter that
is beyond belief!' Not really. Tapes have long been edited. Time stamps on surveillance video (the digital clocks at the bottom of the image) was altered almost as fast as video was introduced. Tapes can be altered to show an empty corridor when a whole herd of people are moving through it. Things like that."

[Though I do think our growing ability to put a herd of people in when the corridor was really empty does move matters on to a new level - NS]

"REAL evidence (my old field) is still safe. Fingerprints, DNA, hair and fiber, all still of value. False evidence can be planted, but it can't be altered after the fact."

I am partially reassured, although even for these types of evidence the time will come when something like the replicators in Star Trek can fake anything. However I had in mind more than just the pointed question of what happened on this or that occasion. Once one gets to the stage of asking factual questions on the course of particular events then, yes, recent advances in video technology don't really change things that much. We rightly trust blood, grease and bone more than magnetic tape. My fear is more of that the river of background knowledge will be polluted.

How do we know about history? Or, widening the question, about the way the human race conducts its affairs? Direct experience and instruction count for a lot, but a vast amount of knowledge comes as a by-product of either entertainment or of instruction ostensibly about something else. You watch a Public Information Film about women war workers made in 1943 and, along with foreground knowledge about World War II, you learn that commentators in those days had a special speech-rhythm, and you observe something about women's hairdos and the care needed to protect them, and how big a deal it was that the women were wearing trousers, and you make some assessment of the level of deference in those days, and you note that the makers of the film evidently thought that a reference to Soviet female workers would help morale, and a whole lot of stuff. It worries me that, say, some well intentioned person could put a few black faces among the workers (for a US example) in order to show the black contribution to the war. OK, that would be a stupid thing to do even by the professed lights of the "anti-racists", as the way the contributions made by blacks were hidden from view is a genuine historical injustice. But people do do stupid things that harm their own cause. (Ye gods, some teacher dorks want to ban To Kill A Mockingbird because it contains the word "nigger".) Well, now they can put in the missing black faces. Easily.

Too easily. That was a lousy example, since changing white faces to black has been possible for decades. I shall leave it in as a swipe against teacher dorks, though.

How about the scope for manipulation of our negative knowledge - I mean the things we'd surely know about if they had happened because we are well informed people who know about the world. This is a surprisingly large category of knowledge, and it is evidence of an active mind not a closed one. It's how you know no animals have been found on Mars. It's how you make any sort of estimate of the character of a public figure.

Now it gets scary. No public figure will be safe from some website somewhere having a video clip of him or her saying or doing whatever is calculated to offend the maximum number of supporters. Conversely some public figures will have acolytes making videos portraying them as doing whatever is calculated to appeal to the maximum number of supporters. Osama Bin Laden, for instance...you knew I'd get to him eventually, didn't you? And so I have, but you'll have to do your own worrying because I'm off to bed.

Public interest in this blog has reached a new level

- namely, 57,000. I know, 'cos Peter Briffa of Public Interest was the 57,000th visitor.

He also links to a story in that says a majority of Germans want to ditch the Euro. Interesting. As I've said before, the price rise that accompanies the introduction of the Euro is a one-off, recognized as such by both friends and enemies of the Euro, and not really politically significant. They'll get over it. But the dissatisfaction of the Germans (of all people) with the Euro, if sustained, is very significant. I should make that "if sustained and reported," because I don't seem to have heard this story elsewhere. Kudos to The Scotsman for getting the word to the English-speaking world. Didn't they get the one about Pim Fortuyn's dubious attitude to paedophilia too?

We are pleased to note

the very proper attitude of respect for our person held by Benjamin Kepple. He refers to "Queen/Senator/Her Worshipfulness Natalie" and further observes "She's quite a dish, isn't she?"

We are perturbed, however, that there seems to be some talk of "Ex-queen Natalie." We are very much still upon our throne. Perhaps Mr Kepple's mind has been over-excited by viewing motion pictures. We are informed that a Mr George Lucas has presented another one of these novel entertainments to the public recently.

I homed in

on the Anglosphere interest in this comment on the role of philosophers by Junius:

"Anyway, there's no such thing as "British" philosophy these days: there's just one big anglophone philosophical sea in which the British, Americans and Australians etc swim together. There are anglophone philosophers whose work has tremendous relevance for public life - Rawls, the late Robert Nozick - but they didn't achieve the things that they have by being pseudo-politicians and op-ed commentators like, ....the French."

Then I felt a bit sad. "Pseudo-politician and op-ed commentator" perfectly describes us bloggers - even Chris Bertram himself, who I assume from the "us" is a working philosopher. Yer average working philosopher, even.

And if Chris Bertram gets sick of jokes about the number 42, think of the unfortunate barrister called "Harry Potter." Imagine it, perfectly normal life, reach eminent position in chosen career - then BAM! You can never book a room or order a meal without getting a snigger again. I tried to find a link to an excellent article the poor man once wrote on the MacPherson report, but a looking for a needle in a haystack has nothing on this.

This hasn't been one of my more tightly focussed and mentally disciplined posts, has it? And that's even after I edited out the reference to cutting off arbitrarily able-bodied people's legs on Rawlsian principles as a possible post-Answer occupation for philosophers.

Drown 'em in cream.

Happy Fun Pundit explains how to defeat environmentalists.

Erasure of history.

The Waqf, the Muslim trust that administers the Temple Mount, is busily rubbing out the Jewish past of that site. (via the new-look MCJ.)

Are they serious?

Nuclear war between India and Pakistan? Hmmm. Sometimes that's the way it happens - the world is focussed on one eruption while all the time pressure is building up in a completely different volcano. That said, my instinct is that Kashmir is a good deal more intrinsically solvable than the Israeli/Arab conflict.

20 years ago today

Staff sergeant Jim Prescott was killed aboard HMS Antelope while trying to defuse a bomb. This is how he died. I was just thinking that even a rather optimistic assessment of the near future will require many men of Jim Prescott's calibre, and will contain a steady stream of death notices. "The London Gazette, Published by Authority" will once again be familiar, not archaic. That said, I hope no interfering fool gets it into his head to drop the crest and the gothic typeface and modernize the layout. These archaisms are minor symbols of remembrance in their own right. Brave men have been commemorated in these pages over several centuries.

Glitch-aid.

That Sekimori lady, the one Dawson likes so much tells you how to sort it out if your Blogspot page has been replaced by a fetching minimalist "Page Not Found". Apparently mine hasn't - Chris Pastel says he can read it. Then follow Dawson's link to Vincent "Vinny" Ferrari's mobile phone story. Go to the loo first. You plutocrats with laptops, take it in with you.

Inappropriate Response?

Moira Breen of the above-named blog has the following arresting quote from David Warren, writing in the Ottawa Citizen:

In the rather shocking words of a British Afghan expert, a man I believe to be deeply humane: "Real progress requires that we address root causes, which means putting bullets through the right foreheads."

Now why does a normally peaceful woman, a typical bookish middle-class mother and law-abiding citizen, feel a distinct sense of pleasure in reading such advocacy of political killing? No, I'm not talking about Moira. I'm talking about me.

Perhaps it's because at least this unamed expert doesn't think empathy or aid solves the problem of people who want us all dead or enslaved.

A helpful letter.

Dave Trowbridge of The Redwood Dragon has this little contribution to establishing new standards of internet courtesy and convenience. He writes:

I too am hoping this meme of John's spreads. But my mind keeps assigning
inappropriate meanings to the acronyms.

For some reason, Not Ready to Eat is the irresistible translation of the
first, and Waste Management of the second. The first doesn't make a lot of
sense, but the second does, I think, since it enables you to delete the
message without opening it.

Thanks for sharing, Dave.

At MIT they can put words in our mouths.

Regular readers will know that every now and then I yammer on about how the age of evidence is passing away, and the time is returning when a man's word had better be his bond because nothing else is trustworthy.

I didn't think that my prophecy would come true so soon. It might well be worth your while to pay the Boston Globe $2.50 to get the entire article. And if you haven't got $2.50, and your credit ain't good, just read this intro and tremble.

(Article found via the Libertarian Alliance Forum, where it was posted by fellow-blogger Chris Cooper. I keep hearing his name around, and I'm sure he has a great blog. Pity either Blogger or my server is malingering so I can't look and see.)

Blogger's down

. And that's OK. The good thing about it is that you won't even know that I'm posting these two worthwhile Telegraph articles a day later than I should have done; you'll think it's all the fault of Blogger.

Here's the first. Sheesh, isn't it amazing that you can be an anti-welfare fanatic like me, jaws dripping blood like Tyrannosaurus Rex, and still vaguely think that Tony Blair or David Blunkett or one of those people had fixed the system so that this didn't happen any more.

Here's the second. Shot teenager was in IRA. He was shot dead on Bloody Sunday. Revered for decades as an innocent civil rights protester he is now revealed to have been a member of the IRA's Youth Wing, Fianna. Sez who? The IRA themselves actually, in a commemorative book- which I would dearly like to see - commemorating 364 IRA volunteers killed in the Troubles. (Why only 364? Which day of the year doesn't get its Daily Martyr? Christmas, if you're good.)

And another thing. Two Sinn Fein councillors killed by loyalist terrorists are revealed to have been IRA members too. I am wounded, wounded to my very heart, to discover that a party that claims to be at the heart of the peace process has so cruelly deceived us.

Smile

, it's Time to Blog On says the Guardian.

NRE = No Reply Expected.

I've started getting e-mails with NRE on the end. Some precede it with an asterisk, some don't. Wouldn't it be cool if John Weidner's meme spread all over the internet? Go on, spread it, and say you were there at the beginning.

As for WM = Whole Message, Jonathan Gewirtz writes to John Weidner that "(nm)" for "No Message" is already in use in some bulletin boards. I confess I slightly prefer my version, seeing as there is a message if only in the subject line, but let's see what takes off. Something will, I'm certain. I don't care for the brackets, though. Brackets take a few milliseconds more to type since you have to stretch your fingers out of the range of the familiar alphabetical keys. Rather like Olympic sprinting, it's these little factors that make for success or failure.

Links.

I speculate that Jim Bennett spends a lot of time here in the UK. No, I don't know him personally, although we've exchanged emails several times. But he does have the knack of selecting apparently minor stories about the UK that resonate, and nine times out of ten you only get that knack by stacking up those air-miles. Most of this article is a take-down of Chris Patten's recent remarks about what he sees as a developing European identity. But along the way Jim Bennett hits that note when he talks about the local government reorganization of 1974. "Huh," say all the non-Britons reading this, "a local government reorganization a quarter of a century ago - this you call a story? Talk about Dullsville, Arizona." And that's the point, guys. Just be grateful you still have an Arizona. Our equivalents, the traditional counties that had stood for centuries, each with its own identity and place in history, were dissolved by administrative fiat one fine day when Edward Heath wanted to look modern and efficient. I remember my resentment when it happened and I was ten for heaven's sake.

Let the people be heard.

Martin Devon a.k.a. Patio Pundit says:

I have found that adding a comments facility cuts down on the email load considerably. Unless you have a readership the size of InstantMan's or Andrew Sullivan's audience, you don't have to spend much time managing the comments. It seems to give people the feeling that they have been heard without getting an actual reply. I dip into my comments section and reply every once in a while, mostly to show people that I read them.

The other thing I found was that once readers had an outlet to comment, the nature of emails I got were different. Hardly anyone sends the "vote" type email anymore. I get mostly comments that a reader wouldn't want others to read, for whatever reason.

In any event, I don't feel obligated to answer email from my real world pals, so why should I treat my readers any better than I treat my friends?

Very frankly spoken, Martin, especially that last bit. Got a lot of friends, have we?

I might end up putting in a comments facility. Some downsides to think about, though: it does make a site slower to load, some people have had glitches and of course one loses control of what is said. That's my control-freakery coming out. You wouldn't believe the tactics I use to ensure that people undo their clothes buttons when they put 'em in the wash basket.

BTW, I just drafted Patio Pundit into the New Model Army.

The Throne Room.

Continuing an earlier discussion, Captain Heinrichs writes:

"... I am unfocussed in this situation. At present "Rob Roy" is at hand, but also three others which should be rotated out as I have read them. However, I often snatch what is immediately available when the spirit is not only moving but urgent: this can cause heartache when the chosen material has been read recently and is no longer of interest. A lesser problem is having material which very interesting or requires deep thought. This generally prolongs the stay and can distract one from the job at, er, hand.

There is also the long, hot, lingering bath to be considered. Once I had a project from the office for which I did the groundwork and calculations during several evenings/baths. Might this be a suitable
follow-on discussion, avoiding reference to telephones of course?

Over the last two days

Tim Blair has demonstrated that he remains free of the dreaded "post lightly over weekends" meme that has wreaked such havoc in the blogosphere.

I once sent Winnie Mandela a Christmas card. I just felt the need to confess that.

And if you're wondering who inspired Tim Blair this week, it was Matt Welch, in fiery form. Superannuated anchorman Dan Rather plays the toast.

Random Jottings

suggests a new e-mail convention to indicate that no reply is expected or that the whole message is in the subject line.

I don't think I could cope with the asterisks, though. Quite apart from the surprising double meaning revealed by Redwood Dragon (link within John's post), I'd be sure to forget which code meant what. How about *NRE and *WM standing for No Reply Expected and Whole Message respectively? The asterisks are only there to make it look pretty. Now someone's going to tell me that NRE and WM stand for... well, you tell me.

Talking of new conventions, my failure to link directly to Redwood Dragon was deliberate. Redwood Dragon's comments on kitty tarot are very funny and you should read them. But they are quite a lot funnier if read directly after John Weidner's post. So I obliged you to get to them via Random Jottings. This oppression, besides mortifying your impatience and making you better, stronger human beings, (a) gives John clicks, (b) saves me time and (c) makes the whole thing read better as I said before.

The new convention is not without problems. For a start, some readers will not get round to clicking Redwood Dragon who otherwise might have done. I claim in mitigation that those who do will be in a better frame of mind and more likely to stay. My claim of solicitousness for the Jottings click-counter might be met with scorn, too - perhaps he is even now penning an email saying, "Be off with you! I can get my own clicks! * ** (or NRE WM)

So let me admit that my major motivation is (b). I get sick of cutting, pasting and typing out pointy bracket a href equals quote blah blah. Yes, I know there are meant to be quicker ways but some defect in my intelligence means that I spend as long trying to figure out how to employ the short cuts as I would just typing the thing. If I can convince myself that it is actually virtuous not to do it then that suits me fine.

Another story where the story isn't the story

. As Instapundit points out, isn't it interesting that the Guardian feels the need to defend their coverage of the quote massacre unquote at Jenin? Incidentally, I see that even the Prof is taking it slow at weekends now that May is here. Sunshine: blogdom's biggest enemy.

Man bites dog. Tony Blair condemns animal activists.

Here's another story where the interest lies in condemnation from an unexpected source. To be fair, Mr Blair has shown no strong feelings one way or the other about the use of animals in medical research. Then again I very much doubt that he has any great love for Mr Fox yet that didn't stop him reaching for the fox-lovers' vote when he needed a bone to throw his supporters. Here's the story.

Palestinians condemn bombing

, says the headline of this BBC News 24 story. I wonder if the BBC are aware of the irony in the fact that their headline writer considers that the news value lies in the condemnation not the bombing?

I'm back.

I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to post over the weekend, which was exceptionally busy.