WHYDTINOGO

Greek - The Musical, with apologies to Radiohead

2012-02-22T15:52:00.001+01:00

So the European banks get there Greek related bailout, and the Greeks get a reach around with significantly lowered interest rates on the aid that they have already received. No doubt the other countries that have been receipients of Troika largesse will be expecting sonething similar.

The Germans appear reluctant - though they generally are, but eventually give in. Perhaps not this time - Steffen Seibert, German government spokesman insisted today that Greece is a "singular case in trms of the depth of its problems ... Greece is special".

Perhaps so - I suspect a musical coming soon - music and lyrics by Radiohead, direction .... WHYDTINOGO will do it for free:

Greek

The Merkozy: When you came begging before

We barely looked you in the eye

You're hardly an angel

Your debt made us cry

You're sinking like a zeppelin

In an indebted world

Ireland & Italy We wish we were special

Portugal You're so fuckin' special

Greece But I'm a Greek
I'm no weirdo

What the hell am I doing here? (In Europe)

I don't belong here

The Troika We don't care if it hurts

We want to have control

We will impose total austerity

You'll do as you're told

The Merkozy We want you to notice

When we're not around

Are you so fuckin' special?

Ireland Italy &

Portugal We wish we were special

Greece But I'm a Greek
You're the weirdo

What the hell I'm doing here?

I don't belong here

The IMF Our money's running out the door

It's running out

It runs runs runs

Greece We'll do whatever makes you happy

We'll give whatever you want

The Cast You're so fuckin special

We wish we were special

Greece But I'm a Greek

I'm no weirdo

What the hell am I doing here? (In Brussels)

I don't belong here

Mother Offers Sex With 9 Year Old to Pay Vig

2012-01-20T16:09:00.000+01:00

When I was growing up, there were a number of, shall we say mythical, cities in my. Places that seemed to spark a certain something in the dull grey matter. For some reason Detroit was one of them. As I got older, I could point to Detwaaar, as my Swiss colleague once referred to it, as being the home of Motown, the Stooges, MC5, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, and latterly the White Stripes. But that wasn't it - I can't say how or why, but Detroit became my favourite US city. Obvioulsy "Motor Town" has seen better days, but I hadn't realised just how far down the hole Detroit has fallen. Until now.

I stumbled upon an article in the Los Angeles Review of Books entitled "Letter from Detroit" by Ingrid Norton. According to Norton:

"Over the last 60 years, the city has lost 1.3 million residents from its 1950 peak of 2 million. The continual bleed of people moving to suburbs and other regions of the country means that Detroit’s current population is as low as it has been since 1910. As of the 2010 census, only 18 percent of the metro region’s overall population lives in the city of Detroit. Only 2.8 percent of the region’s white population does. Every year since the 1950s, Detroit has lost citizens while the suburbs have grown. Over the last decade, the city lost over a quarter of its residents — the equivalent of a busload of Detroiters leaving every day. Detroit is currently more than 84 percent black, a figure that represents approximately 61 percent of the metro area’s total African-American population. Detroit holds only 14 percent of the region’s jobs. On any given day after a heavy snow, young African-American men go door to door, seeing if anyone will pay them to shovel walks. The unemployed third of the city’s population roughly corresponds to the third that doesn’t own a car. An estimated 36 percent of the city’s residents and over half of its children live below the poverty line. Over 47 percent of the city’s residents are functionally illiterate."

Before jumping to the, erroneous, conclusion that Norton is suggesting that the degeneration (is that a word?) is due to the fact that the City of Detroit seems to be exclusively black, consider the following comment;

"The mid-20th century explosion of industry that made Detroit a leader in home-ownership also made it a leader in redlining and lending discrimination. Recent immigrants and internal migrants — whether southern whites, Arabs, or Eastern Europeans — adopted racial hierarchies by which their status could be elevated at the expense of African-Americans. As inner-city neighborhoods integrated in the middle of the century, suburbs and townships that had carefully protected racial, ethnic, and religious profiles (often by restrictive deeds) grew around the city like an ever-replicating tumor, killing its host".

In a nut shell, Detroit sucked in hundreds of thousands of cheap migrant workers, chewed them up and spat them out. Those that survived, propspered. When the auto manufacturers moved out to greenfield sites, there was little keeping anybody in the metro area - black or white. As the auto workers moved out to the 'burbs, those at the bottom end of the food chain moved in. Anarchy was held at bay so long as policemen lived in the neighbour hoods. However, after Detroit relaxed the law requiring City employees to live in the city, the exodus was complete. The most disadvantaged and descriminated against were blacks. These are the poor that are preyed upon by gangs and drug dealers - the people that have fallen through the cracks or are barely hanging on ...desperately trying to avoid the dregs of society. With no jobs and no income and barely living above the poverty line how can they afford the up keep of property? With little in the way of tax revenue, how can the City provide decent services? Catch 22.

According to 55 year old Eddie Holmes, most of her neighbors left a couple years ago after a drive-by shooting at the drug house next door. She recalled having recently chased burglars from her porch. “Almost everyone is gone out here,” she said. “We feel abandoned and forgotten.”

No doubt given the chance Eddie would head for the burbs. All in all Norton's piece is quite an eye opener and brutal in it honesty. However it's not just the city that exhibits signs of decay, as the following story from the Detroit Free Press illustrates.

Al Hassan, a co-owner of DaSilva's Pawn and Exchange in Southgate alerted the police that a woman came into his shop and offered him sex in part repayment of her debt ... while bad enough, she also offered Hassan he daughter ... estimated to be 9 to 11 years old. "I felt disgusted," Hassan said of his reaction to her offer. "I was sick." In a sense I suppose that the woman was lucky that Hassan was such a moral person - there are obviously plenty of people out there who would, at least, have considered the bargain.

Moral? Well perhaps not ... consider the following. The woman had pawned her laptop with Hassan for a grand total of $120, which may or may not be fair or the going rate, but it is what it is. But what about the vig? How much is sex with a 9 year old worth in Detroit? $25! In order to prevent her laptop from being sold she had to make a weekly payment to Hassan of $25. A weekly interest rate of 21% - I don't even want to annualise that. Moral? Perhaps not.

Michelle Obama - Panther Candidate for President

2012-01-13T15:37:00.000+01:00

Apparently Michelle Obama is tired of being portrayed as an angry black woman, and has gone on US breakfast TV to state her case, and defelct some the criticism aimed at her in a recent book by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor. According to Kantor, Mrs Obama clashed repeatedly with White House aides before being sidelined, far from the affairs of state, in a remote office in the east wing. How far removed? According to Kantor, Mrs Obama's office was known as Guam - "plesant but powerless". How close did she want to be? Again according to Kantor, she (unsuccesfully) attempted to join the Presidents morning staff meetings where the days agenda was set. What did she end up doing? Planting an organic garden and discussing healthy eating.

But it seems she wasn't always sidelined by Obama's staff - I suppose they couldn't stop Barry and Michelle getting into bed at night and having a little chat over cocoa and Horlicks. For instance, it seems that Mrs O was far from happy with how the health care bill was going. According to the book, the President told his aides "She feels as if our rudder isn't set right". The President then "... sided with his wife and refused to scale back further a reform package that had already been watered down." Is it any wonder that the Daily Telegraph's Philip Sherwell wrote; "The book's contents will be seized upon by critics of Mrs Obama who view her as a Lady Macbeth figure and a left-wing ideologue seeking to exert undue influence over her husband."

I guess it wont be the last time a President's wife will meddle in or attempt to influence the affairs of state, and it certainly isn't the first - during his first term, Clinton was referred to as Billary such was the current foreign secretary's influence on his agenda, and who can forget Nancy Reagan arranging the Gipper's agenda according to the planetary alignments.

Is all the bile due to the fact that she's black, or as Bonnie Greer may prefer "a dark-skinned, big-boned lady with opinions? Perusing the online comments it would appear that race (ism), once again, rears its ugly head. But Mrs O has certainly not refrained from playing the race card herself - at a recent NAACP rally she (baselessly) accused the Tea Party of being racist and her PhD thesis is, according to some of her critics, borderline racism. While Barry may have, officially at least, shunned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his presence at the Trinity Church had much, if not everything, to do with where his wife worshipped.

I suspect that the general dislike for Mrs O mirrors the public opinio of Mrs Clinton as Bill's first term came to an end - an unelected busy body sticking her nose where it shouldn't be. The only way for that to be sorted out, is for Michelle to push Barry aside and run herself - you read it here first.

Desert Island Discs - Failed ... Miserably

2011-12-23T10:17:00.001+01:00

It was drawn to my attention that the bloggers over at Bondvigilantes.com had put up their Desert Island Discs, and some smart alec in the office decided that we too should give it a go. Great idea - sadly I fall into the High Fidelity camp where any list of songs, albums, artists etc. is constantly ammended, updated, rearranged, complemented and bracketed with alternates etc. I think you may get the picture. To make things worse, for me at least, the rules required a list within 5 minutes. I came up with the following (in no order whatsoever);

Massive Attack - Hymn to the Big Wheel

Coldplay - Amsterdam

Primal Scream - Moving on Up

The Band - The Weight

Bob Marley - The Lord Will Find a Way

Stevie Wonder - Living for the City

John Hiatt - Memphis in the Meantime

Mark Lanegan - Lexington Slowdown

Confession time I'm afraid - I wasn't even able to type up what I wrote down for the office! Eight discs, what a load of nonsense - Desert Island Hard Drive - Yes thats a better idea, lets see then ....

Europe Consumed by Kelvin–Helmholtz Instability

2011-12-22T12:02:00.002+01:00

We all know what Kelvin–Helmholtz instability is, well at least visually - the picture "The Great Wave of Kanagawa" by the 19th century Japanese artist Hokusai should spring to mind. No? It's possibly better known as the "Tsunami Wave". What exactly is Kelvin–Helmholtz instability? Simply put KH instability results from velocity shears between two media - so for example if a slight breeze blows across water, very small bumps in the water will be whipped into small waves which may then develop into giant waves, and at some point the crest rolls over and the wave breaks. I suppose the famous Tsunami wave has far more to it than just wind over water (Moby anyone?), but that's the gist.

About a week ago, Tsunami shaped clouds formed in the sky over Birmingham Alabama. According to Chris Walcek, a meteorologist at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York, fast-moving air high in the sky can drag the top of slow-moving, thick clouds underneath it in much the same way that KH waves are formed in water. The pictures are quite impressive - waves in the sky, sadly it wasn't Wednesday otherwise sub editors could have had a field day!*

As I understand it the KH theory suggests a certain amount of stability however at a certain point the "system" will become unstable and the "transition to turbulent flow" can be predicted. Which got me thinking about the current Eurozone mess. Clearly we have two seperate media - the political understanding of the Euro induced Sovereign crisis, and the actual real world issues, manifested in market action. To my mind, the political view has become very dogmatic - the Euro will stay, no country will exit the Euro, bail outs and austerity will solve the problems. The market on the other hand vacilates between damning the weaker peripheral and selling heavily and believing the bullshit spewed by the Eurozone policy makers.

According to KH theory, surface tension stabilises short wavelength instability, in other words if there is some sort of cohesion between the two media, then the waves formed by the different velocities do not develop to the point of instability. This I suppose is why all waves don't become monster Tsunamis. The vacilation between market participants moving with and against policy makers coupled with market distorting intervention by the ECB appears to be acting as surface tension. There will, I believe, come a point when that surface tension dissappears and the "media" begin to move in opposite directions. We can then expect the Tsunami - and it wont be pretty. When? Theoretically, instability will arise when:

Work that out and you're golden.

* Big Wednesday = Surf Movie Classic

Sovereignty Is Not Negotiable!

2011-12-14T16:30:00.000+01:00

According to the Telegraph's Jeremy Warner "There was no fiscal compact of any significance agreed last weekend. Nor was there any progress made in providing a credible backstop" - I couldn't agree more, noting in my previous post that "Other than bringing forward the much fabled ESM, the EU has offered little to solve the current mess that many so called peripheral nations find themselves in." http://whydtinogo.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-treaty-my-arse-lets-go-boys.html. Warner commented further "Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, remains intransigent. It is against his remit, he insists, to engage in monetary financing. What he has agreed to do is provide unlimited liquidity to banks, so that they could in theory buy up sovereign bonds instead. European banks are already bust enough; to exaggerate the problem by loading themselves up with junk sovereign debt is scarcely going to help." Indeed - a recent paper by Richard Mattione sheds some independant light on just how "bust enough" European banks already are.

Removing "capital" that isn't really capital at all from the balance sheets and accounting for "Greece's Default", Mattione calculates that European banks need an additional E17 billion of capital to meet the BIS Tier 1 standard of 7%. If the capital ratio was bumped up to 9% then new capital requirements rise to E30 billion. Without getting into the details of Mattione's assumptions, I suspect 17 to 30 billion may be too low. Why? Consider the IMF's Fifth Review of Greece released this morning. To paraphrase - all private sector holders of Greek debt need to take a 50% haircut, and accept new bonds for the balance with a 4% or less coupon in order to bring debt to GDP to a "sustainable" level of 120%. The targeted debt reduction is some E100 billion! Given that the ECB and other "official" holders are refusing to take ANY haircut at all, the full weight of debt reduction will fall on the financial sector. E30 billion extra to account for Greece - lets see.

But the mess doesn't stop there. In addition, Mattione posed the question - What if banks accounted for sovereign debt as if they were risk assets - which indeed they are increasingly resembling. Using the two milestones of 7% and 9%, Mattione estimates that European banks need an extra E110 or E289 billion!! Thats E289 billion that is just not available from the private sector - at any cost. To whom shall they turn? Their respective sovereign states? Surely not - these are the sovereigns that the banks are going to finance with the "unlimited funds from the ECB". Not even the dumbest banker is going to go for that, or would they? Dexia, the soon to be bankrupt Franco Belgian bank, recently made a significant loan to an unnamed investor to buy equity in .... Dexia!!! Now then, some have criticised David Cameron of vetoing the Merkozy plan for the wrong reasons, i.e. protection of the City of London, but it seems to me that any regulator that okayed Dexia's capital infusion is the wrong regulator for the City.

Dont get me wrong, I believe that the City needs a severe regulation overhaul (and as an aside that investors in bank equity and debt should NEVER have been bailed out by HM Treasury) but it is for British politicians to set the tone, shape the direction and enforce it - not the European Union. Despite the rhetoric (or is it propaganda) spewing forth from Brussels, or is it Paris, claiming that the Anglo Saxon financial model is to blame for the current credit crisis, it is the European banks that have gorged long and hard at the trough. Under Mattione's "Neutron Bomb of Capital Calculations", British banks require less than E30 billion in new capital.

In a speech to the Bundestag today, Frau Merkel "Regretted Greatly" Britains refusal to participate in the treaty changes. Fortunately, the rest of us are spared the spectacle of a British Prime Minister returning from the continent after negotiations with the Germans carrying a "bill of goods"

"My good friends, for the second time in our history a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time." ... How'd that work out Neville?

"New Treaty My Arse, Lets Go Boys" *

2011-12-09T14:00:00.000+01:00

I have poured through the European Union communique and for the life of me I can't understand why the great and the good within the cabal are falling all over themselves to praise it. Well, I can - they simply have no other choice. While many will dismiss former PM Papendreau's comment that the EU has "done too little too late", as sour grapes, I for one, agree with him. After 10 hours of good debate and argument what we find ourselves with is a rehash of the existing stability and growth pact that nobody, and I mean nobody, actually followed. Other than bringing forward the much fabled ESM, the EU has offered little to solve the current mess that many so called peripheral nations find themselves in.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. The summit managed to achieve something else. David Cameron pissed off Petit Nicholas, big time - surely a resounding success in anybody's book, and the Tory leader now appears on record roundly rejecting the Euro. Lets see if he sticks to his word.

* David Cameron to the European Cabal -allegedly!

Jon Corzine - Semper Mendax

2011-12-08T14:31:00.000+01:00

Today we learned that Jon Corzine was born in small town America and served in the Marine Corps. Upon leaving the Corps Corzine's life, at least morally, went into free fall. After amassing much wealth working at for the Vampire Squid he went on to feed his ego by "serving" the people in politics, before sinking the venerable MF Global. We also learned that he is either incredibly stupid ... or a liar.

On page 18 of his testimony Corzine states ... "I simply do not know where the money is ...". While nobody expects him to be able to reconcile each and every account, a reading of Christopher Elias' article "MF Global and the great Wall St re-hypothecation scandal" over on Reuters will tell you where the money is. Simply put, as part of MF Global's normal operations, its clients signed re-hypothecation agreements. While this is standard prime brokerage practice, what is not normal practice was the small print that transferred assets (as part of the re-hypothecation operation) to its London branch where there are no limits to the extent of re-hypothecation - shockingly US law has some restriction!.

Since the day that MF Global filed for bankruptcy, it has been "charged" with using client money to fund its own operations. As Elias makes clear, the "re-hypothecation" clause in MF Globals client agreements freely allowed them to do just that. Should Corzine know this? Given that it was a large part of his firm's funding, it is hard to believe that he wasn't aware. If not he was clearly in dereliction of his duties.

Don't Pop-A -Squat - A thing of the Past?

2011-12-07T13:23:00.000+01:00

Soon to be Obsolete

A few years ago I was a regular visitor of the KK CoolTools site. While I never felt the need to race out and purchase any of the aforementioned cool tools, it was a fun site to browse. For whatever reason I lost track of the CoolTool website. Earlier today I was sorting through my long list of random favourites to post on the Pearltrees gizmo, and I stumbled upon my old friend. Browsing around I spotted this little gem - the "Sport and Travel Freshette" , which is, apparently, a Feminine Urinary Director (FUD)! Cool or what! I will be honest here and admit that I'd never come across such a device before. A few years back me and the boys in the office were looking for a gift for the boss' 50th birthday and came across a cardboard portable toilet which has become known as the shit box, but a FUD? Nope never.

A quick gander at the picture clears up exactly what a FUD is, should you have lacked the imagination to figure it out. According to the reviewer; "It's slightly larger than the TravelMate (another FUD)—just longer than the palm of my hand ... and you can still use it through your pants’ fly. The Freshette’s larger cup ... fits more easily than the TravelMate—and solves the positioning and overflow problems to which the TravelMate is prone. It really is easy to pee all over yourself with the Travelmate due to its small size and smaller throughput (the main reason I can't recommend it).

Thats right - men have directional ability, girls have capacity! According to the reviewer the flexible tube makes for better aiming - yes ladies, you too can write your name in the snow - sexual equality everywhere you look! The downside, apparently, is that it's more expensive than the competition. But wait, "there's a "complete portable" kit that comes with sealable bags you can attach, in case there's a need to pack out your waste or you're going to drive like Lisa Nowak." Lisa Nowak, nice touch.

So ladies, there you have it, rather than stand for hours outside the ladies in the pub, stick a Freshette in your bag and join the video fun and games at the urinal!

Fucked to Death - Richard Sanden Pleads Guilty

2011-11-29T13:34:00.000+01:00

In January this year, Richard Sanden was arrested and charged with, inter alia, necrophilia and possession of marijuana. For more information check this out - http://whydtinogo.blogspot.com/2011/01/richard-sanden-alleged-pot-head-and.html .

The short version is this - Richard and his lady friend had spent the day drinking and smoking dope. One thing led to another and they ended up doing the wild thing. Seems the lady passed away during coitus, however Richard kept on at it. Upon finding his sex partner to be unresponsive, but really unresponsive, he called the police. Seems the cops didn't believe his story - hence the charges.

A few days ago Sanden copped a plea. As part of the deal, the charges of rape, criminal deviate conduct, abuse of a corpse and necrophilia, were dropped - Sanden was sent down for "battery causing serious bodily injury" , and will serve two years in prison. Under common law, battery is "an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact with the "person" of another." From the little we know, this all took place in (reasonably) small town America with little in the way of reporting, the intentional, unpermitted act carried out by Richard Sanden was engaging in "sexual union". The serious bodily injury caused, appears to have led to the death of the victim.

In essence Richard Sanden fucked her to death. Now on that basis he should be cut some slack in the penn!

Come on over to my place

I'll show ya some time

Come on over to my place, baby

I wanna watch you unwind

Come on over to my place so's

I can (x12) fuck your mind, yeah

Open mind, barely alive

An open mind is an empty mind

Green River "Unwind"

Gary Speed - RIP

2011-11-27T16:51:00.002+01:00

On Friday evening my youngest son dragged his school library book from his bag and proclaimed that Newcastle had loads of players in the "Premierships Top 50". As we paged passed Peter Beardsley, David Ginola and Les Ferdinand we arrived at Gary Speed. "Him I said, he was a cracker - top midfielder, box to box, some cracking goals and never afraid to stick his foot in." A bit later that night I spotted him and his brother beavering away at their desks - odd, they never do their homework unless a great deal of shouting and threatening had been aimed their way. Looking over their shoulders I learned that they were putting together a Newcastle Dream Team - taking pride of place in the midfield was one Gary Speed. I was well chuffed as I had done the same in my own - http://whydtinogo.blogspot.com/2010/12/newcastle-united-real-dream-team.html

Today we went for a walk, and the topic of football came up, as usual, and the thousand and one questions came, as usual. Who did this, where was that, did Gary Speed play for Newcastle before he became manager of Wales? Err, no - he went to Bolton. "Why? Did he want to go? Did we sell him or did he ask to go?" Well, I have never understood why the Newcastle management decided to flog him, but I read an interview suggesting he certainly didn't want to go. About half way through our walk I checked the internet for the football scores and was shocked and stunned to read that Gary Speed had taken his own life.

As I read the story to my boys the obvious came - "Why did he do it daddy?" I couldn't answer, but I expect its the question his own two sons and his wife are asking themselves. Gary Speed, gone, but never forgotten - RIP.

Angela Merkel Presides over next 1000 year Reich

2011-11-25T11:16:00.001+01:00

The Merkozy officially annoint Monti

So the Merkozy had yet another meeting to discuss the future of the Eurozone yesterday. Unlike their previous tête à tête, this summit was turned in a ménage à trois with the invite of the recently appointed prime minister of Italy. Desperate to spin this in a positive light, mainstream European media banged on that Silvio had never been invited to these summits and how the Merkozy could barely stand to be in the same room as the prvious PM. Regardless of ones opinion of Berlusconi, he was elected to office, defeated umpteen no confidence votes in parliament and fought Italy's corner in the Euro summits. Can we say the same for Mario Monti? It is blindingly obvious that the failure of the European Central Bank to intervene in the bond markets, pushing Italian rates above 7%, led directly to the fall of Berlusconi's government. Is this now the role of the ECB? Certainly we have seen the non democratic credentials of the Eurozone institutions over the last several weeks. Eurozone leaders are reported to have reacted angrily to the news of a Greek referendum. Within days Angela Merkel threatened Greece with expulsion from the Eurozone unless that "sovereign" state fell in line with her dictat. Needless to say the previous Greek government has been replaced by a European Commission friendly, unelected technocratic government. A few days ago, Angela Merkel announced that Germany would be willing to give up "some sovereignty" in order to ensure the existance of the Euro. Well, she would - Germany has less to give up, at the moment, so she can afford to make these broad sweeping gestures. What of the others? Well in order to ensure the life of the Euro, Germany's competitive export advantage and the well being of the German banking system, they will be obliged to kneel at the alter of Frau Merkel. If anybody has any doubt where this is going look no further than llast nioghts speach by the ECB's Jose Paramo - " ... there is a need for more economic and financial integration for the euro area, with a significant transfer of sovereignty to the EMU level over fiscal, structural and financial policies."

So the tabloid headlines expressing shock and disgust that the Bundestag have had a look see at the Irish budget before it was debated in the Irish parliament will become more commonplace. While the Euro supporters may throw up the canard that its only "economic sovereignty", any right minded person will be able to see that without independant fiscal policy, a sovereign state will have great difficulty in implementing any other policy.

As the press conference concluded yeterday, Mario Monti happily announced that the Merkozy agreed to "come to Rome" - and why not? Surely Rome's new rulers would want to choose and decorate their own offices.

I am Frau Angela Merkel
My aura smiles and never frowns

Soon I will be President

Democratic power will soon go away

I will be fuhrer one day

I will command all of you

Your elected governments will not rule

Austerity Uber Alles

Uber Alles the Merkozy

Technocrat fascists will control you 100% natural

You will agree with the master race

And always wear the happy face

Close your eyes, can't happen here

ECB on the white horse is near

The Lira won't come back, you say

Cut Spending or we wont pay

Increase Unemployment or we wont pay

Austerity Uber Alles

Uber Alles the Merkozy

Now it is 2011

Knock, knock at your front door

It's the unelected IMF technocracy

They have come for your fiscal democracy

Come quietly to the camp

You'd look nice as a drawstring lamp

Don't you worry, it's only austerity

For your jobs, here's a technocracy

Die on an IMF austerity pogrom

Serpent's egg's already hatched

You will croak, you little clown

When you mess with Furhrer Merkozy
When you mess with Furhrer Merkozy

Austerity Uber Alles

Uber Alles the Merkozy

Neutrionos - What is a new super fast cereal?

2011-11-24T17:19:00.000+01:00

I have a theory on the "neutrino faster than the speed of light" controversy - physics students have run out of things to write a PhD on, so the industry has come up with a highly controversial hypothesis, which on the face of it is im/plausible. A squadrillion of student hours can now be spent proving/disproving the said hypothesis. My wife, a physics PhD disagrees - really disagrees. Despite her objections, I suspect that some physicists haven't been let in on the secret and/or aren't towing the line - take Doctors Berry, Brunner, Popescu and Shukla. They recently published a paper with the following title;

"Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?"

So, can it? Fortunately for me, I didn't have to delve into the 8 or 9 pages of formulae to find out, the abstract was good enough for me:

Find the paper here: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.2832.pdf

Have fun!!

Soap Opera Exams - Courtesy of the ANC

2011-11-22T13:44:00.001+01:00

The Department of Basic Education in South Africa is going to investigate a complaint from an "irate parent" about a question set in a recent arts and culture exam. Ministry spokesperson Hope Mokgatlhe is reported to have indicated "that in cases where it was found that an exam question has disadvantaged pupils through no fault of their own, their marks would be adjusted." Seems fair enough, but open to a fair amount of subjectivity and abuse. In this instance, what disadvantaged the exam taker? Poor education facilities? Lack of teachers? Extreme poverty leading to malnutrition and an inability to concentrate and learn? No television? Full marks go to those who guessed the latter. WTF?

According to SAPA, a grade 9 exam posed the following question - “name two soapies that you enjoy watching and name three characters from each” - A correct answer, if there is such a thing, earned 8 marks. A further two marks was awarded "if they were able to say who their favourite soap opera character was and why". Jesus Christ, that's 10 percent of an exam for simply watching the box - there can be no wrong answer, unless of course you dont have a TV - and that's the complaint - not that it is an irrelevant and stupid question that has no place in an exam of any kind. I can't imagine the science paper - name any two elements; biology - name any three mammals for 6 marks and for an extra 4 marks which is your favourite and why? I once got 4% in an Afrikaans exam to which my father sarcastically asked - "Did you spell your name correctly?" - in this day and age getting that bit correct is probably worth a few points.

Walking around with your head in the clouds

Makes no sense at all

Sell yourself short, but you're walking so tall

Makes no sense at all

Is it important? You're yelling so loud

Makes no sense at all

Walking around with your head in the clouds

Makes no sense at all

Makes no difference at all

Blatter - No Racism Issues In Slave Trade - Fact!!

2011-11-18T17:07:00.000+01:00

Despite issuing a picture hand in hand with Tokyo Sexwale in an attempt to diffuse the growing controversy surrounding his "No racism in football" comments, Uberfuhrer Blatter is far from finished in "clearing" his name. Blatter as launched Operation FIFA One in a clear attempt to stay one step ahead of the muck raking British press. Leaks from Fleet Street suggest that the weekend tabloids intend to tie the FIFA supremo's racism comments with his belief that modern day footballers are in a form of "modern slavery". FIFA's press department have decided to leak a rare photograph showing that Blatter is more than comfortable in the company of ordinary black people (i.e. plural), but also proves that his views on football slavery are based on fact rather than opinion. FIFA have ruled out dismissing Blatter, suggesting that the leaked photo is sufficient prove that he has his facts in order.

The Merkozy - Latter Day Baader Meinhof

2011-11-17T13:59:00.000+01:00

In the 1970's one "double barrel" name was sure to bring fear and dread into the hearts of European industrialists, businessmen and financiers - BAADER-MEINHOF - the surnames of the leader's of Germany's infamous urban terrorist group, the Red Army Faction. Over several decades they rained terror across the European hinterland. Today we have two names that will, in time, be assocaited with terror - Economic Terror. A male/female combo that has been transformed into a single name THE MERKOZY. Like their 70's counterparts they have little time for democracy and will go to extreme lengths to ensure their will and economic view reigns - ask Silvio Berlusconnoi and George Papendreou - ousted from their democratically held positions to be replaced by and ECB/Merkozy approved technocrat government, pliable to their will - has anybody noticed that Mario Monti held a senior position in the ECB and Papademos one in the IMF? Does anybody care? They will.

Awulethu Mshini Wami

2011-11-11T17:26:00.000+01:00

11 November 2011 - Lest We Forget

2011-11-10T13:02:00.000+01:00

Kill the Body and the Head will Die

2011-11-09T17:22:00.000+01:00

I grew up in the era when everybody knew who the heavyweight champion of the world was, and I mean everybody. I was an Ali fan like everybody else that I knew. My father, who still referred to Ali as Cassius Clay, kept pointing out that Frazier was the man. In my defence I was a pre-teen, and my boxing knowledge was resticted to newspaper reports and radio commentary. It was some 3 decades later when I saw the documentary "Thrilla in Manila" that I understood what my dad he was going on about.

Just the other day the toughest of fighters lost his battle with cancer - a good, tough fighter gone, but not forgotten. How tough? In the words of Muhammad Ali immediately after the Manila fight:

"I'm so tired I want to rest for a week. My hips are sore, my arms are sore, my side is sore, my hands are sore... I couldn't have taken the punches he took. I would have given in long before... I didn't realise he was so great. He's a real, real fighter... the toughest man in the world".

In 1979 Ali was asked which was his toughest fight;

"The toughest was Manila, feeling so dead, so tired, a hard brutal fight, taking a lot of punishment from Joe Frazier, giving a lot, an endurance test. I couldn't get out of bed after that fight."

Nuff said, RIP Smokin' Joe.

"Pleasure During the Sex is the Top Cream" - Too Right!

2011-11-07T17:10:00.000+01:00

Hmm - Safedom, Wall ... all that's missing is lemon tea and a man!

According to the FT Online, Chinese condom manufacturer Safedom is "seeking European partners or acquisitions as part of a bid to go global". Unlike other consumer products companies that are desperate to get a foothold in the Chinese market, "Safedom sees its future on the international stage. It reckons its virus-proof latex condoms will enable it to compete alongside the global players such as Durex and Ansell." The FT opines that "sales outlets and channels are also likely to vary from China, where half of all condoms are bought by women." Hence the brand names such as "Beautiful Girl", Green Lemon" and, no sniggering at the back, "Take Me". While these brands may possibly be acceptable here in the west, I suspect the following brands may need overhauling "Tightening, Moist and Nourishing"

I expect that their website would likely be overhauled as well.

Take this little gem of Chinglish; "The pleasure during the sex is the top cream of the relationship," and I'm sure they're correct there, at least I think they are - cream, green lemon, lemon merangue pie anyone? Pie you ask, and again no sniggering, but this purveyor of contraceptives does seem to have food and drink on it's mind.

Bounce over to the Sex Education section on their website where they provide the following bit of advice on "How to improve the intimacy with your partner"; "Before the sexual intercourse, put the following items at handy places, e.g. condom, lubricant, tissues and a cup of lemon tea." Lemon tea? What the fuck for? But wait it gets better - once the lubricant and lemon tea are insitu they suggest that you can then "put your feet up and enjoy sex"! Perhaps this is where I've been going wrong! So feet up and away you go ... but wait, this all appears to be directed at the lovely lady. A few more intimate little secrets from Safedom include touching, stroking and keeping your eyes open; "you can close eyes, sink into the happy place and enjoy the pleasure of sex. But, you both will discover some new experiences if you can open your eyes and have eye contact to each other", and this little bomb; "Pin him up against wall tonight, to let him know you’re in control"! I can see it now, millions of demure Chinese ladies armed only with a Take Me condom, smacking their lovers up against the wall and jumping them. What would Mao say?

Safedom even goes so far as to assist the little women in the mental department. Suspecting that the aforementioned demure Chinese lady may have some insecurities, they are straight to the point "Forget those nonsense worries, e.g. are my breasts are small? Or, does his ex is hotter than me? You definitely need stop those thoughts." Indeed you do need to put these minor issues aside and "focus on that is going to happen next". Safedom goes one step further in removing those tiny nagging doubts;

" .. you will be the sexiest woman in this world if you are the only naked woman in the bed room."

Oh Ok, thats reassuring isn't!

Robert King - Selfish Egotistical FuckWit

2011-11-04T17:17:00.000+01:00

This is what's wrong with the world. This is why there is an "occupy movement" somewher near you. Stanford Graduate School of Business announced today that Robert and Dorothy King donated $100 million to the university for research into eliminating poverty. Thats correct, research into eliminating poverty. The release proclaims "the donation will create an institute to train students and work with organizations and entrepreneurs." What a great idea, because what the poor and starving need is more development economists running around imposing experimental solutions on their plight.

Rather than waste time and money having students write long winded and ultimately useless academic papers why not simply set up a trust to help the povery stricken to help themselves? It's not as if there aren't any number of organisations currently doing just that, that would welcome donations.

I can't think of many reasons why this would not be the way to go, except for the ego boosting press release. I'm not a religous man per se, but it seems that the biblical line stating that the left hand shouldn't know what the right is doing, applies here. Presumably its better to have your own institution than actually help the poor. I am the 1% and I have an institution named after me. Do you?

The Merkozy Holocaust - Rejected by Papandreou

2011-11-02T09:21:00.000+01:00

So GPap has thrown a spanner in the works by calling for a referendum on the latest Troika imposed austerity plan for his country. According to to press, the uncertainty that this caused, roiled the markets. While I would agree that GPAp's action have raised the level of uncertainty, the plan announced by the Merkozy last week certainly lacked detail, and in my opinion failed to clarify anything other than, well to clarify that Greece would be "bailed out" and Greece would have to tighten their belts ... again. I think it's revealing the way European policy makers reacted. It is reported that Petit Nicolas reacted with fury, and along with the Merkozy lap dogs van Rumpuy and Barrosso, insisted that Greece should fulfill their commitments. Germany's Bruederle was simply irritated. After meeting with Merkel, Sarkozy adressed the media stating that "Last week's plan is the only way to fix Greek debt". Perhaps in his opinion, but frankly it's not. Greece could default on its debt. The Merkozy imposed plan is the only way to solve the Greek debt issue without causing severe damage to French and German banks that would require a state bail out.

Cast your mind back a few days, to Thursday moring of last week in fact. With much fanfare Merkozy et al presented a detail-less plan to solve the Greek issue. Noticeably absent from the frontline was GPap. I wonder if he was even consulted or involved in any of the dscussions or, like the half wit from the IIF was simply called in and told; "This is what we have agreed, now get on with it." As I wrote some time back adoption of the Euro involves giving up a certain amount of sovereignty - at this point it must be clear to all that Greece has now lost all sovereignty. After a few days of reflection, I believe that GPap has decided to reclaim his balls and brought democracy back to Greece. The nodding donkeys in the rest of the Zone should perhaps reflect - "Do they want to be departments of France or German lande or do they fancy being free nations"? It surely can't be lost on the great unwashed that democracy is withering before their eyes. When several nations, including I believe Ireland, failed to ratify EU treaties, the European commission INSISTED that the referenda be re-run UNTIL acceptance was achieved. Similarly, an unnamed EU official yesterday called for GPap to call off his proposed referendum, accusing him of abdicating his democratic responsibilty.

In my opinion not so. I believe that GPap has eventually realised the pointlessness of the austerity measures, the damage that the Troika is doing to the fabric of Greek society all for the sake of Merkozy's banks. He has thrown the ball back into their court. Several tons of newspaper ink have been spilled proclaiming that Greece must stay in the Euro for the good of Europe, that there is no provisions in the various treaties for a country to leave the Euro etc etc. By calling a referendum on the issue, GPap has called their bluff - if the people reject the austerity measures it will be up to the idiot policy wonks in Europe to come up with a new plan, one that subjects the Greeks to less hardship and one that imposes greater losses on the banks and their investors. Reject European Union Fascism - Support GPap!

All Sizzle No Steak, Still Big in Japan

2011-11-01T15:35:00.000+01:00

You have got to love the Japanese - the home of panchira, bukkake, benjo meshi, green tea kit kat and uncontrolled radiation leaks have introduced far reaching organized crime exlusionary laws. These new laws criminalise doing business with "boryokudan" - violent groups or Yakuza. Seems like a fine idea to me - spend too much time "in bed" with the mob and you're doing time. Excellent - business will shy away from the digitally challenged hoods and within a few years organised crime will be a thing of the past. Except there are a few glitches.

The takeaway pizza industry for example is in uproar. Why? They can't be sure that a delivery address isn't that of a Yakuza. According to the police delivering one or two pizzas is fine, but bulk orders ..... weeeeeeell! What about a funeral? Thats ok as long as its just close family - but where do you draw the line? Who tells the non direct family members that they aren't welcome? As for the the manager of the car rental compay in Oita prefecture, well he should have known better - really!

I got the moon I got the cheese

I got the whole damn nation on their knees

I got the rooster I got the crow

I got the ebb I got the flow

I got the sizzle but not the steak

I got the boat but not the lake

I got the sheets but not the bed

I got the jam but not the bread

But heh I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan

I'm big in Japan, I'm big in Japan (Tom Waits Big in Japan)

Mile High Finger Fucking is a Misdemeanor

2011-10-28T15:34:00.004+02:00

Twenty five year old Katherine Goldberg pleaded guilty in a British magistrates court to sexual assault after grabbing a cabin crew member's crotch after drinking a pint of whisky on a Virgin Atlantic flight. Her punishment? Well we're going to have to wait and see. According to the magistrate her crime was too serious for them to deal with, and recommended the case be heard in Crown Court. In passing the buck, the magistrate apparently warned her that she faces up to 10 years in jail. Nonsense, surely!

I have to say that I'm not sure why a magistrate could not pass judgement - yes it's serious, but not that serious. However I wouldn't want to allign myself with the following comments from Mail Online readers: "I think by now, she suffered enough!!! 10 years for touching someones crotch in public is ridiculous." and "Don't the courts have more important things to do? It's not really a big deal. I wouldn't have even bothered reporting it." and "Absolute mountain out of a molehill" or "She made a bad judgement when drunk, and has publicly internationally humiliated herself. This and paying for any court fees should be punishment enough." What immediately jumped into my mind was; "What if it was me that groped an airhostess' crotch? What kind of time would I be doing?" Surely Katherine should expect the same punishment as a man who committed a similar offence. Surely it shouldn't be that hard to find a similar case involving a male perpetrator. It isn't ... step forward one Iurii Chumak.

Iurii Chumak

Regular readers of the Daily Mail or its online sibling may remember the (slightly) sensationalist story of the aforementioned 53 year old Ukranian man who according to the Mail stuck his hand up the skirt of of an air hostess; "The flight attendant bent over slightly to pour coffee into their cups, at which time the defendant Iurii Chumak placed his hand up her skirt, grabbed her genital area, and began to run his fingers back and forth" Not content to grab the "trolly dolly" he even attempted a little digital stimulation. What a man! - no doubt the attendant had been oggling him all flight waiting for this moment to suggest a quick liason in the smoke free lavatories. Not so. Her colleague witnessed the assault and had the moron handcuffed, and he was arrested on his arrival in New York.

Blaming low blood sugar and the demon alcohol, Chumak pleaded guilty to "misdemeanor airborne assault". According to the New York Post "U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Joan Azrack sentenced Chumakto to time served. As part of Chumak’s probation terms, Azrack ruled that, “Defendant may not consume alcohol on any flight for five (5) years.” Time served? Arrested 28 April ... sentenced 14 July ... roughly three months shall we say.

So, to all the Mail Online readers that said a man would be crucified if he was in Katherine Goldberg's shoes, you're wrong! Illicitly copping a feel isn't, it would appear, too serious a crime. Shocking!

Eugenics Is Not Fascism!!

2011-10-14T14:52:00.000+02:00

I'm not one for eugenics, but I'm starting to rethink my point of view. The following information stunned and staggered me:

Creed has sold more records in the US than Jimi Hendrix
Led Zeppelin, REM, and Depeche Mode have never had a number one single, Rihanna has 10*
Ke$ha's “Tik-Tok” sold more copies than ANY Beatles single
Flo Rida's “Low” has sold 8 million copies – the same as The Beatles' “Hey Jude”
The Black Eyed Peas' “I Gotta Feeling” is more popular than any Elvis or Simon & Garfunkel song
Celine Dion's “Falling Into You” sold more copies than any Queen, Nirvana, or Bruce Springsteen record
Shania Twain's “Come On Over” is the same as the above
Katy Perry holds the same record as Michael Jackson for most number one singles from an album
Barbra Streisand has sold more records (140 million) than Pearl Jam, Johnny Cash, and Tom Petty combined
People actually bought Billy Ray Cyrus' album “Some Gave All…” 20 million people. More than any Bob Marley album

Lets face it, the morons that created these fantastic statistics are currently humping away creating a new offspring without musical taste! This is clearly a crime against humanity and should be nipped in the bud without further ado - compulsory sterilisation - NOW!!
-
* Admitedly Zeppelin didn't release too many singles, buy, hey, come on.

Steve Jobs - Gone ... Can We Now Move On ... Please

2011-10-06T10:01:00.000+02:00

So Steve Jobs has died. It is not good form to speak ill of dead, and I have no intention of doing so, but do we really need all this public out pouring of grief? Everywhere you look there is some eulogy to Saint Steve, but none so obsequious as this from the hedge fund Bridgewater;

"Today is not just another day. Today is the day Steve Jobs died. We can't let today pass without conveying how saddened we are at the loss of this great man - thie Leonardo da Vinci of our era. We are not presumptuous enough to try to adequately comment about Steve, we have heard it said, and we believe, that his genius made the Gods jealous. We are now basking in the glow of his memory".

Oh Dear God, I think I'm about to throw up. What a fucking load of bollocks.

Wolfgang Schaeuble Admits Greek Debt Horizon Is Out of This World!!!

2011-09-27T16:09:00.000+02:00

In the "olden days", not the 1960's as my youngest son suggests, but the 1460's or 1560's, people believed that the earth was flat. Yes, there are many amongst us who still believe this to be the case. Looking out across the sea, they could see a line where sea and sky "met" - to go that far and beyond would mean certain death, as one fell off the edge. This boundary or limit is the horizon, which simply put is never attainable. As such the horizon has been used in poetry (and prose I guess) as a metaphor for a philosophical division of some kind - to be striven for, but unlikely to be attained.

I wonder then, exactly what the German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble meant when he said "Greece needs more time, light at end of horizon." Yes I'm well aware that he was probably badly translated from the German, but I wonder if indeed there is more to it. Schaeuble is no fool and is an accomplished, albeit straight talking, politician that is not know for verbal faux pas. Did he mean "light at the end of the tunnel" or was he suggesting that solving the Greek debt issue was, like the horizon and indeed the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, unattainable?

Personally I think its the latter. To continue the metaphor, we have been heading for the light on the horizon on a ship built out of economic austerity and bailouts. As Greece (and the others) attempt to make their way frantically to the light, bits of the boat are breaking off. Rather than accept the view that the vessel is not designed for the ocean and is constructed with non waterproof materials, the financial inteligensia seem hell bent on simply throwing good money after bad. Has Schaeuble suddenly seen the light, err had an epiphany? Is he starting to realise that bailing out the European periphery isn't as simple as the Troika believe?

But lets assume for a moment that Schaeuble has been "misquoted" and he believes that the horizon is in reach. How far away is it. An article from Discover Magazine suggests that the following formula would give a reasonable guess:

d2 = h2 + 2Rh, thats d (distance to the horizon squared) equals h (height above the earths surface) plus twice the product of R (the earth's radius) and h (height above the earths surface).

As this is a metaphor, I'm going to take some liberties here, and substitute Greece's debt level for its height in order to determine the horizon to which Greece is sailing. Fortunately the article has a nice table with heights and horizon distances - so if we put Greece's debt pile at roughly 330 billion Euros, I can determine that the horizon is some 680 million miles away. Thats some eye sight.

The Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal are mine to see on clear days

You thought that I would need a crystal ball to see right through the haze

Well, here's a poke at you

You're gonna choke on it too

You're gonna lose that smile

Because all the while

I can see for miles and miles

I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles

and miles and miles and miles and miles (The WHO)

The Art of Worldly Wisdom

2011-09-27T11:40:00.000+02:00

Click to Enlarge.

A few of my favourites from Balthasar Gracian.

Sarah Bloom Raskin - Government Misinformation Wonk

2011-09-26T17:00:00.000+02:00

Raskin Says market has responded "Quite Positively" to OP Twist. To the uninitiated since "Operation Twist 2" was announced, the US stock market has declined about 7%, which I guess is better than decling 10% so thats positive, I suppose, but probably not what The Bernank had in mind when he decided to implement a policy that one of his own research papers declares is pointless.

Yet another piece of gratuitious mis-information courtesy of the American government.

Got something to say

like something to me

well just go ahead and spit it out

It's all the same, you see

What's that, it doesn't make sense

Are you talking in tongues

or is your brain out of gear

I can hear it rattle in your head

I can see you lips move

Blah Blah Blah

but all I hear is .... (Husker Du - Blah Blah Blah)

It's Goodnight from Me and It's Goodnight from Him - Goodnight!!

2011-09-26T10:50:00.002+02:00

After expressing my views and opinions on UBS' latest debacle, I downloaded a couple of UBS' adverts and messed with them a little to create, in my mind at least, a witty and humorous picture to go with my little whinge.

I should have waited - somebody with far more talent and time on their hands set to work with photoshop and came up a wonderful remake of the most recent Wall Street film poster. The world wakes to find that Ossie has done the decent thing and stepped down. I hear from counterparts in Zurich that he still doesn't think that he has any responsibility for the rogue trading loss, which in my opinion is the reason he should go.

I'm still waiting for the head of risk and the head of the investment bank to get the chop, but Ossie falling on his sword has given me the opportunity to post the Wall Street Parody. Apparently his last mail to UBS staff didn't recall Carter USM - shame!

"The rogues, the traders and the thieves

The staff, the directors, the risk managers and unique

The BSD's the Gnomes and you and I

Hello, goodevening, welcome

and goodbye"

UBS - Utter Bull Shit

2011-09-21T10:38:00.000+02:00

I love the rank smell of bullshit in the morning. The mighty house of UBS has its scapegoat - according to the bank, 31 year old, Quaker educated Kweku Adoboli, employed on the Delta 1 desk was single handedly responsible for blowing a $2.3 billion hole in the side of the mighty Swiss Bank. According to UBS, "The loss resulted from unauthorized speculative trading in various S&P 500, DAX, and EuroStoxx index futures over the last three months." For those without much knowledge of financial markets, these trades are pretty straight forward, not at all complex and, ordinarily, not leveraged. My initial responses is BULLSHIT! I trade the US stock market for a living and in order to lose $2.3 billion over the last three months would require holding a position of between $15 and $25 billion. And NO one noticed? Kweku's boss didn't spot that he had an open position that big? The word in the market is that Kweku had only been on the trading desk for a couple of years MAX. Under what scenario would a rookie be allowed to run such a large bet? According to the official line "the true magnitude of the risk exposure was distorted because the positions had been offset in our systems with fictitious, forward-settling, cash ETF positions, allegedly executed by the trader." What UBS is saying is that Kweku had two very large positions that offset each other - in effect he was running a nominal position in the region of $30 to $50 billion. Really? A two year rookie is allowed to run a $50 billion position? Really?? Exactly how dumb does UBS think we all are?

Lets take a closer look shall we. First off, lets assume that Kweku was in fact allowed to BUY $25 billion of index futures - his offsetting position, according to UBS, would be a short position in a "forward settling cash ETF". Thus as the long position lost money the offsetting position would gain money and the books would be in balance. We (now) know for a fact that Kweku's purchases have lost $2.3 billion therefore somewhere in the accounts there is a corresponding gain (which we now know is fictitious) and nobody within UBS thought to ask the entity on the otherside of this trade (the loser if you will) for any kind of margin? If this is in fact the case, then UBS deserves all that they get.

Ossie Grubel, the over hyped maestro in charge of UBS is on record as saying that he has no intention of resigning over the episode. He rational being that as CEO he can't be expected to know what was happening everywhere in the bank. He has a point - he is not responsible for ensuring that Kweku or any other trader isn't putting the bank at risk. What he is responsible for though is appointing people to put in place systems, checks and balances if you will, to ensure that these kinds of "rogue" trades don't happen. Who did he appoint as chief risk officer? Maureen Miskovic - former head of risk at .... Lehman Brothers. Yes, that Lehman Brothers! Maureen may well have a decent CV, but she is obviously not suited to the position of head of risk. One massive, massive failure shows that, however there she is over seeing a decent size loss at UBS. Luts Roehmeyer an investment manager (and frankly a fool) offered up the following morsel of nonsense " "If someone robs a UBS branch or steals gold from UBS's safe, you can't blame the CEO for that. The scandal (the $2.3 billion loss) has nothing to do with his (Ossie) performance." True to a point - if the CEO allows his employess to leave the door to the vault wide open and allow any Tom, Dick or Harry in, then he is responsible. Ossie is as responsible as Miskovic, and both should resign.

It doesn't stop there however. The head of the Investment Bank, the division where the fraud took place, Carsten Kengeter suggested in a memo to staff members that they (the management) couldn't possible have done anything to stop a determined individual from committing this level of fraud!! Wow! You know, he may well have a point, after all something of this nature has never happened before! Hang on, didn't Societe Generale, the French bank have something similar a few years ago? My mind is a bit hazy but I seem to recall that a certain 31 year old, having worked his way through the ranks before being promoted to the Delta 1 desk may have blown a several billion Euro hole in the bank. Perhaps not ...

Atirar Em Mim, Mas Não Me Circuncidar

2011-09-16T13:34:00.000+02:00

Not SADF Approved

A few years ago, ok many years ago, when I still listened to the radio, I heard the end of a song which I rather enjoyed. Unfortunately for me the idiot DJ didn't bother to inform his audience what he was playing an the tune and some of the verse is stuck in my head - no matter how hard I try I can't actually find the song. So its there stuck way back in the mind, sort of Gerry Rafferty meets Big Country covering Foreigner. Un-cool I know, but it was three in the morning and I wasn't exactly sober, and when I find it (should I find it) I probably wont like it. But the song is not alone in the back of my head. The advent of the interweb has brought forward all sorts of stuff to nag away at the mind. The big one is a photograph of a South African sergeant talking to what appears to be several members of FAPLA (Angolan army) sometime in the eighties. What is interesting, and driving me nuts, is the soldier's shoulder flash - its highly unusual and frankly irregular. Much searching has drawn a blank.

Thinking slightly outside the box, I figured that the two sides rarely came into (friendly) contact apart from during the various ceasefires during the war and joint monitoring commsssions were established. So I searched under the JMC, Angola and SADF. Sadly I didn't get much closer to identifying the flash, but I did come across this little gem in "32 Battalion: The Inside Story of South Africa's Elite Fighting Unit";

"One morning in November .... Colonel Viljoen summoned the leader group and informed them that the time had come to be circumcised, and he would be the first to go under the knife. To the great amusement of everyone ... a Special Forces doctor assigned to the unit carried out the first circumcision of a South African soldier almost 200km inside enemy territory, in a rudimentary operating table inside a guerilla base!" The author, Piet Nortje, adds;

"While Viljoen's decision was primarily made on hygienic grounds, .... it is not impossible that the tedium of the daily routine might have played a role" !!!!!

As they say in the classics " WTF!!" Is it any wonder that Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Mityaev, retired Soviet Paratroop Colonel and veteran of the Angolan war had this to say of his Angolan charges:

"Angolans were terrified of the South Africans! When we (16th, 21st and 47th brigades) went on a three month offensive head (ing from) Cuito-Cuanavale towards Jamba many Angolans would run away as soon as the South Africans moved forwards."

How do you say "Run! They have circumcision sheers!!" in Portugese?

It was Better in '76

2011-08-30T15:51:00.000+02:00

On June 15 this year, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) warned that the South African education system should be transformed as it was failing most working class children - "70 percent of our schools do not have libraries; 60 percent do not have laboratories; 60 percent of children are pushed out of the schooling system before they reach grade 12 - Millions of young people are still excluded from accessing education beyond secondary school." The statement continued that the country was "sitting on a ticking time bomb of youth unemployment, poverty and mounting impatience. Left unresolved, these conditions, like the socio-economic conditions of the black working class in the 1970s, will propel young people to strive for change and chart their own routes out of the misery of unemployment and under-employment, poverty, disease, slum housing and the bucket system."

The next day, 16 June, South Africa celebrated youth day - a commemoration of Soweto students' uprising against the apartheid regime's education policies. It was, if you will, a watershed moment in the "struggles". In the intervening years, the Nationalist government has been displaced and the ANC government has, well, been doing whatever it has been doing. What it certainly has not been doing is removing vast numbers of the black population from poverty. Cosatu may well be part of the ruling threesome (alongside the ANC and South African Communist Party), but they are becoming increasingly vocal about the ANC's shortcomings. And they are not the only ones - in a speech on 16 June 2009, North West premier Maureen Modiselle noted that the "Youth today face more challenges compared to the 1976 generation" - in essence, is she saying it was better in 1976? Its hard to imagine, but certainly statistics suggest that conditions are hardly much better. Is it then any surprise that a firebrand populist politician like Julius Malema is so very popular with the working class youth?

As I write, Julius and his cohorts from the ANC Youth League are being "tried" by the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute. Meanwhile his supporters are burning effigies of South African president Jacob Zuma and rioting in the streets of Johannesburg, prompting police officers to fire rubber bullets in an attempt to control them. Alarmingly, Reuters are reporting that "some school children were shouting that they were not scared to fight for ANCYL leader Julius Malema."

Has South African youth politics come full circle? Will we see a repeat of 1976? or will the ANC be more successful in putting down this youth revolt?

Joey Barton - Midfield Genius, NUFC Legend, Philosopher

2011-08-26T13:20:00.001+02:00

I admit straight away, that I signed up to Twitter merely to follow Joey Barton - it took some effort on my part to find him - either there are a staggering number of Joey Bartons in the world or some sad and numpties who want to masquerade as a pro footballer who's done time. Now then, I didn't sign up to the @Joey7Barton show for his philisophical musings, oh no, football info was what I was after - was he staying or going? I, for once can claim somewhat of a first mover advantage - Joey's followers were sub 10,000 when I signed up, and I followed him across the US on his summer holidays. Somewhat like his (I think) one and only appearance on A Question of Sport, his musings were amusing in a laddish way.

As we are all aware, those musings turned into philisophical quotes, views on the UK riots, urges to sign petitions and perhaps the initial manifesto of a future member of Parliament. And the media have had a field day. From a BBC News Magazine we have a wonderful article - Joey Barton: What's behind his Twitter philosophy? by Tom Castella. Barton is like Marmite - love him or hate him, nobody it seems is indifferent - many in the press have chosen to ridicule his apparent addiction to Twitter and his "Quote a Day" book (or Google Quotes, whatever). But not everybody is on the Barton bashing bandwagon - "In effect Barton is an autodidact, educating himself. And if he gets the odd thing wrong, so what, says (FT football writer Simon) Kuper. It's inspiring he wants to share his learning. Many of us did that in the uni bar, confidently expressing things we may not have completely understood. He is doing the same to many more followers on Twitter."

A sentiment I completely agree with - not so football's Renaissance man Pat Nevin. According to Castella's article "the "kerfuffle" over Barton's newfound erudition leaves him cold. "Is he simply lifting the quotes or does he have a good understanding of philosophers and engineers?" Really Pat? Really? Does Joey or in fact anybody else have to have a good understanding of the works of Nietzsche to understand the quote "There are no facts, only interpretations"? Personally I dont think so. Why should finding a quote on the internet that fits his feelings be sneered it. Isn't there a probability that the quote may may lead him further into Nietzsche's (or anybody else's) writings? Isn't is just possible that a footballer is able to educate himself? Obviously the answer is yes. I, my employers, my alma mater, my wife and children etc. consider me to be fairly well educated - but in a very narrow field. Have I used a Quote a Day in order to illustrate a point? Yes. Did I have a full understanding of the authors works? No. Did I subsequently delve deeper into the works of that person. No - not always, but do I need to have a degree in philosophy to realise that ""There are no facts, only interpretations" is a complete load of nonsense? Discuss for 20 marks.

As I come to an end, I see Joey has a new tweet and I'll find out what I joined Twitter for in the first place; "Going to have to make a decision today, its only fair to all parties" - indeed it is Joey and several things spring to mind 1. Should you switch to QPR I'll interpret that as you're not moving and 2. I won't have to change this blog to WHYDJOEYGO, 'cos you'll let us know in 140 characters or less.

Financial Crisis - Back Again or Never Gone?

2011-08-10T12:31:00.002+02:00

It's not often I get a request, but a friend of mine asked for a simplified explanation of the current "economic crisis". I have had a go, but I'm not sure if I have answered the questions posed. If not, ask again, and I'll have another go.

WARNING ITS A BIT LONG

So another financial crisis is upon us – where’d it come from and what’s it all about. In truth the financial crisis of 2008/2009 affectionately called the Credit Crunch in the media has never really left us – just like the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano that disrupted global air traffic a little while back hasn’t gone away – it just quieted down and bubbles away, no doubt to erupt at the least convenient time. So too with a financial credit crisis. So how did all this kick off. Sit back and I’ll attempt to explain – bear in mind I have my own prejudices and there are scores of dogmatic ivory tower economists who would disagree, and there are more of the idiotic, sycophantic City of London or Wall Street economists who would disagree as well – they would. When the Queen asked “Why didn’t anyone not see this coming” they all sheepishly started at the ground, twisted their caps in hand and lied, bear facedly – “nobody could”. What they meant to say was; “people did, we weren’t looking, we dismissed those who questioned our outlook as Cassandra”. Let’s get started.

Lets cast our minds back to 2006, early 2007. The global economy was doing pretty well, the so called tech bubble of 2000 was well out of people’s minds and the next global growth engine, China, was chugging along. In the United States, the confidence of the man in the street was high, and for whatever reason, the housing market was booming. As is often the case with the human psyche if something is worth doing its worth over doing – rising house prices led to, well higher house prices. Buying a house, moving your stuff in, living in it for a couple of months, then selling it (at a decent profit) and moving on, became a bit of a hassle. Why not stay put, buy another house using borrowed money, wait a couple of months while prices rise and sell it. With house prices on a seemingly endless trajectory higher, banks in their wisdom dished out mortgage loans at an ever increasing pace coupled with ever declining conditions – the standard 80% loan became 90%, becoming 110%, and on, but I think you may get the picture.

Barrack Obama - Right Wing White Male

2011-08-04T11:09:00.001+02:00

In May of this year Princeton University professor Cornel West labeled Barrack Obama "a white man with a black skin", and suggesting that the nature of his upbringing means that he "has a predilection much more towards upper and middle class white brothers and Jewish brothers and a certain distance from free black men who will tell him the truth." The never knowingly undersold when it comes to playing the race card, Rev Al Sharpton, jumped in to support Obama “This is the first time in the country that we have an African American president. He is not the president of African Americans". And for once he's right - Obama was elected president by more white people than black people, and is in the White House to serve the American people. While many played up West's accusations as sour grapes (Obama didn't grant West tickets to his inauguration) it seems that part of West's message was totally ignored as most commentators concentrated on his egregious use of the race card. Under a barrage of criticism West Tweeted "This discussion is in no way about me, it has to do with poor and working people having low priority in U.S. governmental policy including the Obama Administration." Indeed, one of West's original crticisms was that "He (Obama) could have nipped the bud of the right wing populism of the tea party movement by focusing on homeowners who were losing their homes, on workers with a job creation program, with some kind of job corps and declaring war on poverty instead of this abstract war on terror."

Now lets roll forward a few months and once again the President is under heavy crticism. According to Matt Taibbi over at the Rolling Stone; "Commentators everywhere are killing the president for his seemingly astonishing level of ball-less-ness. Both the New York Times house editorial and the Nobel prizewinning liberal columnist Paul Krugman are insisting the president should have invoked extreme measures to counter the radicals on the other side, using emergency legal tactics to unilaterally raise the debt limit. Or, at least, he should have threatened to do this ...". Taibbi goes on "No matter what the situation was with the deficit, or what cuts were or were not justified, a real leader would have invoked such powers at the very least to set a precedent that the government is not to be held hostage by irresponsible lunatics bent on invoking a catastrophe for purely political reasons."

Given that we have no counter factual here, it is hard to imagine the global reaction had Obama taken such action - no doubt the blog sphere would be inundated with indignant posts accusing Obama of dictatorial actions etc etc. But wait, there is, as the infommercials claim, more. Taibbi questions just why the President didn't fight harder for a Democrat plan? Why did Obama look and act tough and then capitulate, or as Taibbi puts it "let out a whipmer and take a dive"? Taibbi then circles round, pointing out that Obama continues to raise vast amount of contributions from Wall Street and the so called corporate elite. He then poses the question - "It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?"

Oh dear - Obama, bought and paid for? Surely not? Well it would seem that a number of liberal writers are on this very page.

Lunch or Edible Panties? Decision, Decision!

2011-08-02T13:22:00.000+02:00

This billboard advert cracked me up - lunch for less than the cost of one edible panty - really? Just how much is that? A quick google gave me more than 2 and a quarter million "hits" to peruse - the one that leapt off the screen was Amazon.com: Edible Panties Strawberry Gummy Women's: Health - Amazon? Seriously? The mind boggles - what's it doing in the "Health and Personal Care" section?

A quick read of the official product description ..."Classic edible item in the shape of a panty. It is similar to very fine fruit leather, and is just as fun to wear as it is to eat! Choose from several fruity flavors, this is one great way to get your daily dose of fruits and veggies! Surprise your partner with this yummy treat!" reinforced my view that the product had little to do personal care, particulalry as Amazon itself doesn't actually do the shipping - I have my doubts that the company doing the shipping has a Health and Personal Care section. I could be wrong, but a click through to "SEXTOYS" website to verify my suspicions holds no great desire. Still, if one had any interest a pair of strawberry edible knickers they are yours for $9.99! Any good? Sadly, there's no buyer reviews, however a quick flick through the "also viewed products list" I found the following rave review of "Edible Underwear Candypants - Male - in Cherry"

"So whether you're a survivalist like me, or if you just enjoy the great taste of plastic-like cherries, also like me, this pair of underwear is for you. I guarantee that you, your woman, and your parents will enjoy this underwear. But hopefully in different ways."

If you're in the market for edible pants, this may be the pair for you, not only do they have a glowing, somewhat tongue in cheek, review, they also appear to be a bargain at 3 bucks! But before you spend any of your hard earned money have a quick read of this;

"These (strawberry flavoured edible panties) came out of the package looking and smelling like the horrible bastard child of Fruit Roll-Ups and a child's chemistry lab experiment gone wrong. Once unrolled from their plastic wrapper, we saw that the "panties" are really more like a heart-shaped piece of chemical-laden fruit-leaf with strings attached. You tie the undies in place. They look horribly uncomfortable and sticky. Both chefs spit their samples out. "I would vomit on my partner," said Stevens. "This tastes like the worst cotton candy ever," said Jones. ... "Did you see the ingredient list here? Glycerol acetate ester and all kinds of other crap." "Dreadful," was Stevens's final consensus"

So three bucks doesn't buy anything particulalry wholesome, unlike the set lunch on offer at a roadside cafe near Kandy - Sri Lankan Rice and Curries Rs180. Did I partake? Err no - truth be told I did wonder what beast would be masquerading as protein in a curry costing $1.65!

All Nigerians are Drug Dealers

2011-07-20T14:39:00.001+02:00

The Battle of Gettysburg is probably the best known (at least by name) battle of the American Civil War, or perhaps it's Abe Lincoln's address of the same name. Anyway, the battle is often described as the war's turning point, George Meade's Union soldiers repulsed Robert E Lee's Confederates with a staggering human cost - some 50,000 casualties on both sides. The battle was fought in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, over a three day period. While the Union army eventually emerged victorious, the battle ebbed and flowed as they often do, and at times the Union army was put under severe stress. Indeed, General Oliver Howard's XI Corps were forced into a humiliating retreat. Despite this defeat, Oliver Howard was a respected commander and became known as the Christian General, due to the fact that he based his decisions according to his relgious beliefs. Howard went on to head the Freedmen's Bureau, which was responsible for intergrating newly freed slaves into society. Howard was a great proponent of educating the freedmen, and eventually founded the Howard University in 1867.

While Howard University has always been non sectarian and multiracial, the majority of the students have tended to be black - indeed Howard University has (according to Wikipedia) "played an important role in American history and the Civil Rights Movement", in 1942 Walter Dyson published a paper: "Howard University - The Capstone of Negro Education" and its most notable alumni (Elijah Cummings, Andrew Young, David Dinkins et al.) are black. Up until today I had never heard of Howard University - you learn something new everyday. So what! you may be thinking, where's this going.

Well about a week ago, as my family and I sat down at our dinner table in Galle (Sri Lanka), I passed pleasantries with a rather affable American couple (white, generally not relevant, but is for this story). As dinner proceded we fell into conversation (as one does), and it turned out that the gentleman (a dead ringer for Ernest Hemmingway) was quite the traveller and had visited, at least once, just about every country in the world, and was running out of places to visit. He challenged my children to propose a new destination for him. What a game .... Iran (last week), China (5 times), India (too many to mention) .... "Nigeria!" shouted the eldest, "I bet you haven't been there!". Before our dinner companion could answer my eight year old flatly dismissed it "You don't want to go there, they're all drug dealers!" My wife looked horrified, but the couple roared with laughter, and the conversation moved on pleasantly for another half hour or so. As we were finishing off I enquired, "So what do you do to get all this travel time?" Professor of Philosophy at Howard University, came the reply!

Oh, and by the way did I mention that Nnamdi Azikiwe, first President of Nigeria, is an Alumnis of Howard? I didn't? Given the irony, perhaps I should have!

40% of Germans think Greece Should Burn in Hell

2011-06-24T10:34:00.000+02:00

"Sixty Percent of Germans Support Greek Rescue, ARD Says" screams the headline, which is somewhat at odds with the Financial Times article which claims that German politicians are having a tough time persuading it's citizens that rescuing Greece is a good thing. Hmm, who can be correct? My gut feel is the FT, but a German TV station may well have a better handle on what the German punter thinks. What does the story say?

Hmmm ... "Sixty percent of German believe that Europe's biggest economy (Germany) has no choice but to support a Greek rescue."

Now then how shall I headline this note? Yip, I'll twist the truth a bit ....

Hughton is a Brummie

2011-06-23T17:02:00.000+02:00

About time too - I have to say I'm well made up that Chris Hughton is back in the game after his shocking treatment at the hands of the fat bastard that owns Newcastle. Blues fans should be over the moon.

Remember the Alamo

2011-06-22T09:57:00.002+02:00

We've all heard the expression no quarter given or asked for, and its generally used by sports commentators during a particulalry tough, hard fought match. We generally know what it means, but I would guess few of us know it's origins. Well I certainly wasn't. I have just started reading Empire of the Summer Moon by SC Gwynne, and he notes that a watershed moment in the development of the American west, was when General Santa Anna marched on the Alamo under the red flag, indicating no quarter would be given. Fair enough, he was signalling Davy Crocket and the boys to expect a tough fight! But its more than that.

The term originates from an order given by the commander of an army that they will not quarter captured enemy soldiers. Bearing in mind that "quarter" in military terms refers to housing, the order simply means that all enemy combatants must be killed. The red flag? Given the nature of communications during war before the turn of the last century, flags were often used to give orders. Nobody could miss the red flag. While all defenders of the Alamo died at the garrisson, and are believed to have willingly and bravely fought to the death - which may indeed be true - they were certainly given no choice.

As an aside, we often read that the most feared flag for a merchant seaman several hundred years ago was the Jolly Roger - not so - aparently pirates and privateers would raise the red flag alongside the skull and crossbones if the merchant failed to surrender in good time. Now that put the fear of God in all manner of men!

The Audacity of Hope ... Dashed for a Lousy Buck

2011-06-21T16:16:00.001+02:00

James Verone passed a note reading "This is a bank robbery and I need medical attention" to a bank teller in Gastonia, North Carolina. After handing over his note Verone sat down and waited for the police to show up. It turns out that unemployed 59 year old is suffering from a growth on his chest and ruptured discs. Like millions of his countrymen, he can't afford medical treatment. Describing himself as a "logical type person" he concluded that the only way he was going to get treatment was to go to prison - hence the heist! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

James Verone is not the only desperate and logical person in America. Step forward Mr Nathan Bootz, a school superintendant in Michigan. Having reached the ender of his tether Mr Bootz fired off the following letter (my edit) to the Governor of Michigan demanding that his school be turned into a prison;

" In these tough economic times, schools are hurting .. everyone ... is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.

We (Michigan) rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. ... Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day ... free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing.

Everything ... just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.

This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State ... spends annually ... $30,000 (to)$40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. ... we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day ... access to free health care .... provide my school district internet access and computers ... put books in my library ... give my students a weight room. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!

Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison. "

That's quite an eye opener - has the system become so far out of kilter that students are so far down the pecking order? I applaud Nathan Bootz' attempts at changing the future for his students, though I won't be holding my breath.

Perhaps James Verone may have better luck with the system - he's hoping for a three year sentence during which time he'll get his medical teatment and be eligible for social security upon release. However, it seems that some people just can't get a break - since Verone only demanded one dollar and didn't use a weapon he was charged with larceny, which carries a shorter sentence than bank robbery.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which taken at the flood,

leads on to fortune.

Omitted,

all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

You! Ugly Bastard! Call 1 (800) 791-0662

2011-06-20T13:35:00.000+02:00

Greg Hodge - Beautiful Person and Dickhead

It's becoming quite the pain in the backside all this hacking. Sony, Sega, the IMF and now BeautifulPeople.com!! A press release issued this morning by PRNewswire, confirms that some form of jiggery pokery has been going on that allowed (their words not mine) 30,000 ugly people to invade the site. Joining BeautifulPeople.com, the dating and networking community exclusively for good looking people is simple and straight forward - send in your photo and the existing members vote on whether you are up to scratch. Make no mistake this is an exclusive club - according to the press release only 700,000 beautiful people have made the grade - some 5.5 million fuglies have been cast asunder, to forever walk the earth, carrying the unbearable burden of being ugly.

But being beautiful on the outside doesn't preclude inner beauty - on the evidence of the press release, this is also a warm hearted and caring community. According to BeautifulPeople.com's MD Greg Hodge;

"We have sincere regret for the unfortunate people who were wrongly admitted to the site and who believed, albeit for a short while, that they were beautiful. It must be a bitter pill to swallow, but better to have had a slice of heaven then never to have tasted it at all".

See - a more touching and heart felt statement you're unlikely to read. If allowing some fugly type to have a small taste of heaven was not enough, BeautifulPeople.com has even set up a hotline to help "recently rejected applicants deal with the hard news and can give tips for those wishing to re-apply." Going that extra mile - a selfless deed designed to help those broken, suicidal shells of human beings back on their feet to face life as fucking ugly bastards. Wow! Just WOW!!

In your white lace and your wedding bells

You look the picture of contented new wealth

But from the on-looking fool who believed your lies

I wish this grave would open up and swallow me alive

For the bitterest pill is hard to swallow

The love I gave hangs in sad coloured, mocking shadows

Come to School and We'll Crush Your Creativity and Imagination

2011-06-10T18:44:00.001+02:00

A few blog posts ago I wrote; "It seems to me that the nature of the education system in China prevents or at least downplays innovation. Is this a result of centuries of education whereby rote learning to pass the imperial exam was the way forward? I suspect its a contributing factor, and China's hubris prevents them from recognising and changing it."

An article by Jiang Xueqin published in The Diplomat seems to confirm my thoughts; "Everyone’s in agreement: the national college entrance examination (gaokao) robs Chinese students of their curiosity, creativity, and childhood", and he goes on to say; "now might be a good time to devise an alternative to the gaokao". That's not the way the article played out, however.

What kind of system would or indeed could replace the gaokao? Front and center, Jiang insists that whatever replaces the gaokao should be "an objective indicator of a student’s academic performance", noting that in a society plagued with "endemic corruption and inequality", admission interviews would be unacceptable, and put too much power in the hands of individuals. Certainly its hard to argue with this view, but is this not a fault of a society that sees bribery and corruption as, well, a means to and end? Be that as it may, I wouldn't disagree with Jiang's view that some form of test is probably the fairest manner in assessing students.

What to test and how to test. This is were Jiag becomes a little unhinged. He rejects the idea of testing "writing and thinking ability" as it would favour the children of well educated parents, and would require specialised and professional teachers! As a result he claims this form of education would " naturally congregate in expensive private ... prestigious public schools in Beijing and Shanghai. And if this were the case, China would just be like the United States, where education is monopolised by the self-perpetuating and self-interested educated elite". God forbid!!

Jiang continues down the inevitable path - the gaokao is the only solution; "tests must be more about the student’s ability to memorise the textbooks he has access to, rather than about his ability to think critically".

Clearly his own education makes him think in this way - rather than lament the fact that the children of 800 million peasants don't have access to well trained teachersand libraries, why doesn't he question why the Chinese state prefers to allocate trillions of Yuan to pointless vanity projects like high speed rail or the environmentally damaging Three Gorges Dam, or allowing corruption and graft to enrich a tiny elite at the expense of the general populace.

I suspect that continued focus on displacing the US and/or the West as a global superpower is preventing the Chinese state from adressing what is truly important and improving the lot of its people - allowing them to think for themselves.

My Cunt is Wet With Fear

2011-06-08T11:15:00.001+02:00

Ploughing through a recent article from a (reasonably) well known investment strategist, I began to wonder if he actually speaks the way he writes - in normal conversation do people really say; "Taking the praxeological approach, we may assume the actions taken to satisfy his needs are rational (if frequently misguided), but we can say nothing about the inner motivation (Mises' 'thymology'), which ...." ? Perhaps they do, but as my eyes skipped ahead, the words Tracey Emin appeared.

As an aside, this is an article attempting to nail down the fundamental economic drivers of commodity prices, replete with words that I had to look up, convoluted sentences and arcane references - aTracey Emin reference seemed, well, out of place.

I'm no art buff, but I have heard of Emin - I don't know much about her or her work, save for the fact that she once displayed an unmade bed complete with used condoms, dirty knickers and stained sheets, and that Billy Childish was once her boyfriend. Given the unexpected use of Emin as a metaphor to help explain the real value of a commodity, I wondered if Emin was somehow big in the news.

It would appear that she is - a 20 year retrospective of Emin’s career, entitled Love is What You Want, is being held at the Hayward Gallery in London. What is on offer left me, frankly, shaking my head in wonder. Writing in The Globe and Mail, a slightly shaken Leah McLaren views used feminine hygiene products;

"I am standing in the Hayward Gallery ... staring at one of Tracey Emin’s tampons. At least, I assume it’s hers ... the tampons – there are six of them, bloodied and solemnly encased in glass boxes – are simultaneously banal and astonishing bits of the artist herself: intimate fragments of a larger, more ambitious artwork in progress that can only be titled Being Tracey Emin. "The tampons were inside her and now they are out,” I think, shuddering slightly. Beside them is a letter, written by the artist, describing her menstruation in unsqueamish detail."

Really? Art? Really? At a push, I can understand used tampons as art - ok at a really big push - in a way that the dead sheep in formaldahyde was considered art. Look, I saw the sheep and I didn't get it - I admit I'm a phillistine - Mona Lisa = Art, Gauguin = Art, Andy Wharhol = Art (but stupidly overpriced), Robert Mapplethorpe's photo's of arum lillies and Patti Smythe = Art, Robert Mapplethorpe's self portrait with a bull whip up his arse ... well no, not really my cup of tea. But you get the point, I'm a boring National Gallery Art type of person.

But I'm intrigued by Emin, there must be more to her work than post coital sheets and bloodied tampons, in the way Picasso painted "properly" before the cubist, squiggly stuff. So I pushed on. It seems there is, just not what I was expecting and not the sort of thing the toothy nun would be seen wittering on about with Phil Tufnell. Mark Hudson writing for the artsDesk website gives us a little glimpse of what else Tracey has to offer;

"While "Those Who Suffer Love", a jerky looped animation of the artist masturbating, is fizzily funny and sexy, the general reiteration of unsatisfied sexual longing and fear of abandonment become painfully repetitive and overstretched. Looking at "My Cunt is Wet With Fear", just one of the endless lubricious messages in neon, or "Sometimes I Feel Beautiful", a photo of Emin in a foamy bath with her head lolling over the side ...";

Or how about something a little more uplifting like "Conversation With my Mum", an unedited taped conversation in which she asks her mother why she encouraged her to have an abortion or "How it Feels", in which she describes her late stage abortions .... oh dear, oh dear. But there's more ... perhaps not.

Despite the generally rave reviews, it seems the art buffs are perhaps a little frustrated with Ms Emin - "... you think, get a life, woman – or at least a new idea." and "her self-exposure serving as both the medium and message of her living, breathing body of work and flesh. It’s a body I’ve seen altogether too much of over the years, and yet I still can’t bring myself to look away."

But what of our Cambridge educated wordsmith? I dont think he quite gets Tracey Emin, but I could be wrong!

"To take matters to the extreme, we might well value a Tracey Emin daub for no more than its calorific value as firewood, but we are very likely to be outbid at auction by some well-heeled 'connoisseur' conspicuously expressing his elevated sense of aesthetics. Even if we suspect he is no more than a pitiable victim of the intellectually naked-emperorship which comprises much of the modern art movement, we must still allow him his exercise of cunsumer sovereignty, to the benefit of Ms Emin's bank balance (and, effectively, in validation of her artistic entrepreneurship)."

Penny Wise - Legal Tender Foolish

2011-06-07T10:24:00.000+02:00

On 31 May Jason West of Utah was cited with disorderly conduct. So, what did Mr West do? According to the police, "... he unnecessarily caused alarm when he unloaded 2,500 pennies onto a receptionist's counter at Basin Clinic to settle his bill .... "; the pennies were “strewn about the counter and the floor” and that West's actions “served no legitimate purpose. So that's the rationale behind the charge, he dumped coins on a desk and upset a receptionist! But does this constitute disorderly conduct? Well lets have a little look - the relevant section of Utah Statute (according to Justia US Law.com) is as follows;

A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if:

(a) he refuses to comply with the lawful order of the police to move from a public place, or knowingly creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition, by any act which serves no legitimate purpose;

The charge uses the correct terminology, but protesting against poor service is surely a legitimate purpose - Jason West's knowingly intended to cause inconvenience, but how can the police claim that he " knowingly create(d) a hazardous or physically offensive condition" - simply they can not.

Many years ago when I was a student, I worked in a bank during vacations. As the lowest employee on the totem pole, it was my job to count the coins when a client came in with a 5 litre Whiskey bottle piggy bank. It's a mind numbingly boring task, but it's neither hazardous nor offensive. Could this nail painting prima donna find the task offensive? I guess so, in that she found it an unpleasant task, but Jason West didn't pelt her with the coins, which would be physically offensive. Now, the US Supreme Court has ruled that burning the American Flag is legal - it constitutes freedom of speech - dumping coins on a desk to inconvenience a person that has inconvenienced you is surely then a legitimate protest.

As it currently stands, this case will go to court. If found guilty, West says he will not pay his $140 fine in one-cent pieces ... “I recognize my place ... I recognize it's a court of law and I have respect for the legal process".

And this for me is the irony of the whole story.

The headline that attracted me to this story was "Police cite Vernal man accused of paying bill with 2,500 pennies" - the clear implication being that he was cited for making the penny payment. Within the first paragraph, the writer makes it clear that West was not charged for paying in pennies, but the damage, so to speak, was already done. Why wasn't he charged with making penny payments?

The US Treasury interprets the US Coinage act of 1965 as follows " ... (legal tender) means that all United States money as identified above (notes and coins) is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor in the U.S. There is, however, no Federal statute that requires private businesses, persons, or organizations to accept it as payment for goods and/or services."

So you can offer to make payment in notes and coins, and it is for the creditor (private individual or enterprise) to accept or decline. Indeed, one can stipulate exactly what form payment needs to take - dollar bills in denominations less than 50 etc. provided the form is stated before the contract is made. According to the undisputed facts, West asked if the clinic took cash, the clerk confirmed they did, but did not stipulate the minimum denomination. West is therefore well within his rights to pay in pennies.

Where's the irony? Well should West be fined by the state he will be subject to a "public charge" and can pay his charge in any denomination of legal tender he so chooses - according to Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, legal tender is defined as "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." Sadly he will not.

"Why I like Hitler"

2011-06-01T14:11:00.001+02:00

Hitler and his Chinese brothers circa 1918

Apparently blog posts with the above title (or similar) are popping up across China's social networking sites. According to an article in the Asia Times by Richard Komaiko, a rumour is spreading through the Chinese blogsphere that Adolf Hitler was raised by Chinese expats living in Vienna. According to the rumour, the Zhang family took a young Adolf into their care when he fell upon hard times. Not only did they provide him with food and lodging, but they also paid for his tuition. Which is just a tad surprising because Hitler never had any formal tertiary education. Nevertheless, despite this unlikely turn of events, the rumour continues that because of the help that he received, Hitler "held eternal gratitude and admiration for the Chinese people". Chinese bloggers further believe that Hitler "secretly supported China in World War II", and after he conquered the world he would share power with the Chinese - "everything west of Pakistan to be administered by the Fuhrer, and everything east of Pakistan the province of the Chinese people".

Flog Him Around the Fleet Mr Christian!

2011-05-25T13:57:00.000+02:00

"Given the choice between five years in prison and 10 brutal lashes, which would you choose?" - so begins the book "In Defense of Flogging" by former Baltimore policeman and now assistant professor of law in New York, Peter Moskos. According to a review of the book, Moskos' describes how, over the last hundred years, the US penal system has gone from one of punishment to one of rehabilitating wrongdoers. With this in mind Moskos concludes that this has failed - prisons in the United States are "little better than schools of crime" - and what large schools they are! The United States incarcerates the largest total number of prisoners in the world, some 2.3 million or some 750 per 100,000 of population - also the largest in the world. It's a staggering number. Put into context; "It's more than the total number of American military personnel—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Reserves, and National Guard. Even the army of correctional officers needed to guard 2.3-million prisoners outnumbers the U.S. Marines". Housing and feeding this many people is going to be a strain on the finances of any country, even one as wealthy as the United States. In 1970, the total number of prisoners in the US was 338,000!!

Presumably, those in the know are aware of the percentage of prisoners that have re-offended, and can conclude wether or not offenders have been rehabilitated. Anecdotal evidence suggests that for some, mostly young offenders, the harsh life of prison scares them from a life of crime. In other instances, rehabilitation appears to be less about what the system provides, and more about the individual does for himself - finding God for instance - which I'm fairly certain has nothing to do the the US Department of Correctional Services. I guess then, it boils down to the fact that prisons really are there to punish an offender, in the hope that he wont re-offend. Severe corporal punishment is then surely a cheaper option.

Moskos goes further and suggests that flogging would be less disruptive to society, since "from behind bars a prisoner can't be a father, hold a job, maintain a relationship or take care of elderly grandparents." Why then isn't flogging brought back? Moskos suggests that because prisons are such big business in the US that downsizing the industry would result in thousands of lost jobs and profits that "political confluence of various interest groups that benefit from the business of incarceration" would furiously oppose it. No doubt under the "cruel and unusual punishment" banner. Personally, I'm not against flogging as a deterrent - look at Singapore, many crimes are punished by caning (or coupled with caning), and as I understand it, Singapore is one of the safest places in the world to live.

But then Singapore does appear to hand down caning sentences for some rather disparate crimes. Some people may remember Michael Fay being caned for vandalising cars and more recently a Swiss 30 something was caned (and sent down for 5 months) for tagging trains. If it was my stuff that was vandalised I'd be all for it. According to the Swiss President "For us, it's not a big debate because, obviously, this Swiss citizen did not follow the laws of Singapore. (But) We agreed that we have different views on punishment." Somewhat more disturbing is the fact that overstaying your visa by more than 90 days also carries a mandatory caning sentence. So, where does one draw the line?

I guess it's hard to be specific - vandalism - yes; murder - no; drunk and disorderly - yes; GBH - yes; rape - no - we could go on and on. Moskos suggests however, that corporal punishment should be an alternative to prison time, not in addition to it; and that flogging should only be carried out with the consent of the flogged. Consent? Well, when I was at school, caning was still allowed. Some teachers caned, others didn't, some (occasionaly) gave a choice. Four cracks of the cane on the backside hurts like hell, but the result never looked like the picture above. On the other hand, I would have gladly taken four lashes than have to copy out Psalm 119 - but that sadistic bastard never gave the choice!

Mr. Christian, pipe the ship's company at five bells to witness punishment.

Would you care to see the flogging?
No. The only discipline I know is science.
There's science in using a cat-o'-nine-tails.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn - Innocent

2011-05-20T14:51:00.000+02:00

"Hey Dom, Ya Shoulda Stayed at Rikers"

So, I have resisted making any comments in writing about the former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, because ... well ... whats to say? However, I recently had a rather interesting conversation with a nice, albeit naive, female stockbroker. "Quick straw poll", she said, "and I won't tell you what I think" (like that would make a difference), "but, what do you think about DSK not getting bail the other day?" Well, my view is straight forward - he is accused of a heinous crime, has the ways and means to escape justice in the United States and probably would given a half a chance. "WHAT!" She shrieked, "How could you suggest such a thing ?", she demanded to know, "Running away would only prove his guilt! Even so" she continued, "I can't imagine that a man in his position would do something like that anyway." Run away of molest the help? "Good grief" she exclaimed "You really don't think that he ... raped her do you?" Well, yeah, I kinda do, but...

Turns out in the straw poll, the voters are split fairly evenly. The men think he absolutely did it ... perhaps not all he's charged with, but definately something untoward. The fairer sex think that he didn't! Now then, I didn't want to go into the reasons why she/they thought he was innocent - set up, consensual etc.- but I was astounded that by far and away the majority of women think that he didn't do it. My wife thinks that he probably did it, but then she doesn't, or at least didn't, know who he is, while the respondents in the straw poll all work in the finance industry and know who he is. This is the man (we are told) who helped save the Euro system (don't get me started), clearly a man of distinction, intelligence and authority. It seems to me this is a real world equivalent of the so called Milgram experiments.

As you may recall, the "Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures" was a social psychology experiment conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram which measured the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Said experiments involved ordinary individuals delivering (fake) electric shocks to participants when they answered questions wrongly. Despite not knowing that the shocks were fake, some participants were willing to deliver shocks up to 300 volts causing (apparent) massive discomfort and pain, simply on the authority figure's say so.

Now then, to the young and impressionable working in the finance industry, there are several figures of authority - the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, the head of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet and the MD of the IMF, well the former MD, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Ordinarily, the head of the IMF would be as obscure as the head of the World Bank (Robert Zoellick), however the IMF's role in solving the European mess had catapulted DSK into the limelight. For the last two years DSK's authority has gone stratospheric, is it any wonder that his denial of wrong doing is taken as gospel within certain circles?

As for fleeing the United States as a tacit admission of guilt ... well. Who in France, where over 60% believe he was set up, would disagree that he would not get a fair trial. Following the howls of indignation after DSK was "subjected" to the "infamous perp walk" (oh please spare us), I can hardly wait to hear of accusations that DSK was tried, convicted and executed by the media after Jon Stewart's little piece the other night;

http://gawker.com/5803797/jon-stewart-takes-down-ben-steins-defense-of-dominique-strauss+kahn

Still let the justice system do its job, and what will be will be.

A lot of people won't get no justice tonight

The battle is getting hotter

In this iration

Armagideon time

A lot of people running and a hiding tonight

A lot of people won't get no justice tonight

Dogs and Cats Living Together... Mass Hysteria

2011-05-18T16:22:00.002+02:00

Count me in as confused. I have been having a little fun with the whole rapture thing scheduled for this Saturday - honestly, I'm not a mean spirited person, and I wish those who believe in these things all the best - it's just that the reasons for their prediction just don't add up for me. Particulalry as the phrase "will come like a thief in the night" resonates in my mind from many years ago's religious instruction. So imagine my surprise when I read a comment appended to a financial blog article on negative US Federal Reserve Repo rates (yes really!!);

"The truth will finally come crashing down in October of this year. There is no escape. It will be impossible to prop these markets through October, impossible." Here we go again - rapture on 21 May plus 5 months equals the end of the world - we've been here before. But NO! "Comet Elenin is going to be a real nasty little bitch." Which I guess rules out the whole rapture business, but ushers in a Bruce Willis armageddon scenario.

"The earth will pass through its comet tail in October. The solar winds will be cut in half for days. It’s impact will be ENORMOUS. It will cause the earth’s mantle to vibrate, it will create unimaginable weather of wind and rain. It will cause destruction beyond comprehension. Dust particles from the tail will create enormous rainclouds on a global scale. Sea levels everywhere will rise, a great deal higher than right now."

I thought it was going to go all Bill Murray on me; "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!", but no, its all very serious stuff.- "Literally billions of people are going to die when Elenin strikes" - now if thats the case I figured I'd better find out what exactly Comet Elenin is and is likely to do.

As one would expect Wikipedia is a little dry on this subject - officially discovered on 10 December 2010 by Russian astonomer Leonid Elenin, Comet C/2010 X1 is a "long period comet" that on 16 October 2011 will pass (at its closest) within 35 million kilometres of the earth. Now as the doom and gloom merchant seemed to imply, its the tail that'll do the damage - and its estimated at some 86,000 km's in diameter. And that was it. So back to Google and the second site down. Ahh .... a full page of information ...

The author of the blog notes that there have been a flurry of questions on Comet Elenin addressed to NASA's "Ask an Astrobiologist" site, and quotes the following question from a rather desperate reader (my edit);

"I've recently heard about the discovery of comet Elenin, which is scheduled to come close to earth ... Is it possible it will be an extinction level event? ... AND I have read that Russian scientists are now predicting that asteroid Apophis will impact the Earth April 13 2036 causing terrible damage. I understand that the Russians are planning a mission to stop the asteroid."

Obviously the Ruskies aren't too worried about Elenin otherwise they wouldn't be bothering with Apophis, but I digress, surely. The answer from NASA is simple and straight forward - "concerns about collisions are without foundation" and they caution their readers about spending too much time reading conspiracy sites, referring them to "dependable" sites like Wikipedia. Now I have put dependable in quotes because I'm convinced that everything on Wikipedia isn't dependable. It's good enough as a start, but I wouldn't start and end there.

As I read further, it seems the author of the blog agrees with me - "I about choked on my corn flakes when I read that. Wikipedia is just as liberally biased as any site, so biased, that Conservapedia, an English-language wiki project written from an American conservative Christian point of view was created to present more accurate information than Wikipedia." Which is when my antennae (figurative) picked up. Warily reading on, my expectations that I'd found a useful site for info started to slip away - slowly at first and then rather rapidly - accusations of government lies, manipulation of facts, cover ups etc came to the fore.

With these accusations as fact, the author points out that its no surprise that people "turn to conspiracy sites, because the information is naked and unfiltered by corporate mainstream media". Of course reading so called conspiracy sites has some drawbacks - "you have to wade through profanity, stupidity, and real conspiracies like reptilians living inside us (WTF??!!) to get to any nuggets." But there is a solution;

"There is no need to read conspiracy sites about the Illuminati that want to take over the would to reform it into a New World Order. That is a real event that is described in Chapter 13 of Revelation. There is no need to sift through conspiracies about Nibiru/Planet X because that is described in Revelation 8..." and on and on ...

As the author states "there is increasingly a difficulty in learning the truth", and while he prefers to manipulate his holy book, I'll keep on digging away, bull shit detector in hand - so much information, so little knowledge;

Overkill

Overview

Over my dead body

Over me

Over you

Over everybody

Too much information running through my brain

Too much information driving me insane

Are You Ready To Be Raptured

2011-05-16T21:30:00.000+02:00

With all this talk about the upcoming rapture and messing about with a mate of mine, a song popped into my head .... with all due apologies to Mr Cole;

Looking like a born again

Listening to Family Radio

Quoting (Harold) Camping prohecies

Making your friends feel fearful

About their denialism

And the upcoming apocalypse

Not even the anti-christ gonna stop you now

But are you ready to be ... raptured?

Are you ready to be ... raptured?

Pumped full of prophecies

On account of all the believers

You say you're so reborn now

You can hardly stand

Look over Revelation

If you really want straight facts

(dont) Read norman mailer

Cos this time it won't be a failure

Are you ready to be ... raptured?
Are you ready to be ... raptured?
Are you ready to be caught up?

What would it take
What would it take to be gathered in the air

Are you ready to be, are you ready to believe?

Are you ready to be raptured?
Are you ready to rise? (raptured)
Well you better get ready now baby
Are you ready to arise? , ready to arise?

A - bollocks - alypse - The end of the world isn't coming now

2011-05-16T17:09:00.000+02:00

According to a brief story in the Daily Mail, the beginning of the end of world will fall on 21 May 2011 - believers will ascend to heaven while the sinners will suffer 5 months of torment before the world is destroyed by a raging fire on 21 October. Gosh. The Mail notes that, unlike previous calls for apocalypse, the fire and brimstone preachers aren't seeking cash. I have to be honest, I'm not convinced. In fariness I like to see evidence before believing ... in anything. So I had a little look.

Why 21 May? Why an extra 5 months of suffering for the naughty ones? According to ebiblefellowship.com, Revelation 9:5 has the following to say;

"And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man"

So if you know 21 May, you know 21 October - dead simple. So far so good, very little in the way of interpretation - its 5 months and I checked the King James Bible, there's no messing here. But why is it 2011, and why 21 May? First off lets get 2011 out of the way, the big picture if you will. According to ebiblefellowship.com, we know that 2011 is 7,000 years after the flood - you know the big one, Noah's ark, two by two etc - which means the flood was 4990 BC - historical fact? Why 7,000 years? It seems that a little interpretation is needed here.

According to Genesis 7:4 God said; "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.". According to the believers, we need to read this passage in a spiritual way. Whereas we read that God gave Noah 7 days to avoid oblivion, what he really meant was that "sinful mankind would have 7000 years to find refuge in the salvation provided by Jesus Christ." This grand leap is backed up by reading 2 Peter 3: 6- 8;

"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

So one day is a thousand years, so we can get the 7,000 years out of the way. What about 4990 BC? Well this looks to be the tricky part. It would seem that good folk over at ebiblefellowship.com have " recently ... discovered the Biblical calendar of history on the pages of the Bible ..." and "The Bible’s calendar of history is completely accurate and trustworthy. Since this Bible calendar is given by God in His Word, it can be trusted wholeheartedly." Oh dear - this is where I start to back out of the room. Reading a little further, I note that they peg "creation" around about 11,013BC, which seems to fly in the face of scientific fact. Now, if these people want to believe their biblical calender is the divine word of God, then so be it, but I've watched my fair share of History Channel documentaries illustrating just who was involved in writing the Bible, and what went in and what didn't and why.

Wondering why the 21st? Well this bit appears to be awfully convoluted and I gave up - sorry. So then count me out - the end of the world may indeed happen come the 21st October, but I suspect there'll be a touch of co-incidence about the whole event.

Rick Rubin in the Studio - Not

2011-05-16T13:58:00.000+02:00

I have just finished reading Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown, and I'm wondering exactly what his intentions were when he started out. Being vaguely aware of his multi genre production talents, and having read a two page interview in Mojo magazine on Rubin, I was expecting to learn far more about the wizard producer. I am left rather dissapointed. According to the publishers blurb, "this authoritative book posits that he has taken greater risks than any other producer of the past 25 years." I don't think you can argue with that comment - simply looking at the genres that he has successfully skipped through, one can conclude that. What I have learned about Rick Rubin the produier is that he likes the bands to have the songs written and well rehearsed by the time the band enters the studio; that he's laid back and looks at the bigger picture rather than micro-managing the engineering process; that he guides bands with suggestions rather by diktat. Beyond that, not so much.

I don't think Brown interviewed Rubin for this book, and I would wager that he has never even met him. I learned more about John Frusciante's guitar playing, RHCPs' song writing technique and that Johnny Cash was granted more leeway when recording for Rubin than at any other point in his recording career. Don't get me wrong, Brown's writing style is simple and engaging, and he weaves together hundreds of interviews into a "whole" really skillfully, but thats about it. No doubt he spent some time tracking down the various articles, but the end product is less about Rubin than the bands he produced.

Super Injunction This - MoFo!!

2011-05-11T11:26:00.001+02:00

So, this whole super injunction thing has become a bit of a farce. The British "Culture Secretary" was quoted yesterday saying that the internet is making a mockery of privacy laws and pledged to investigate how regulations can be improved. Really! What in God's name has culture got to do with any of this? The idiots who have been caught in flagrante delicto have worked the law to prevent the great unwashed having a little bit of a laugh at their expense. While they may have prevented their names being splashed across tabloid front pages, has it helped their private lives? Clearly the absence of a super injunction hasn't (on the surface) hurt Wayne Rooney's marriage, though one wonders if his wife would still be around if he wasn't rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Officially we don't know the names of the wandering gentlemen, but we do have the absurd situation where British newspapers are reporting on social networking sites releasing the names of the injunction holders rather than the actual names - which they obviously know - while the British public simply sign up to Twitter. So I had a look.

The owner of the first site I stumbled upon was clearly concerened about British privacy laws and simply dropped a massive, massive clue, presumably in hope and expectation that followers on his site would do the dirty for him. Hmm who could this be;

"... but other clues to his identity are that he is married, has a child, uses Twitter regularly, is Scottish, has appeared in a Star Wars movie, paid £195 for a shag and kisses like a virgin"

Straight forward, right? After a little subtlety from Capt Haddock playing 20 questions (Is he a Trainspotter?), Bucko blurts it out "... Ewan Mc Gregor paid 195 quid for a shag ...?" - badabing super injunction violated. But no! after much too-ing and fro-ing, it seems that the reading public plumps for a certain Hugh Bonneville. I, for one, agree with Earwig - "Can’t be. You said “world famous” and I for one have never heard of the cunt." But the unwashed will not be shouted down - by the end of the comments section they have outed Hugh Bonneville. Amongst the conclusive evidence? Private Eye placed a picture of Bonneville next to Wayne Rooney and, well, Ewan McGregor seems like a nice bloke and wouldn't do anything so sordid!

Which made me wonder. Personally, I couldn't care less which one was doing the prostitute, but what is clear, is that it wasn't both. As such, one of them is being unfairly castigated on the interweb. I would imagine Obi Wan could care less, but it seems to me that the British government is far too focused on the privacy of the moral wrongdoer, while ignoring that innocent parties are likely to be drawn into the speculation. But of course it doesn't end there.

As the commentary petered out into stupidity (as it so often does), a rather helpful poster provides a link, promisng to reveal all - and indeed it does. We learn that Hugh Bonneville visited Rooney's prostiture and had a sex toy used on him; that "family man" Ryan Giggs has had an affair, that Gordon Ramsey is a cunt and that somebody called David Schneider likes BDSM. Of course the blog concerned could be making this all up, and indeed I think they may be, after all who would believe that Jeremy Clarkson would have an injunction preventing the publication or mention of intimate photographs of him and Jemima Khan - surely he'd be sticking those pictures on the cool wall!

" ... The American Way ... It's Not Enough Anymore"

2011-05-09T10:06:00.001+02:00

According to a recent article in The Guardian, some of the Iranian president's close allies have been accused of using supernatural powers to further the policies of Ahmadinejad amid a power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An Iranian news website, described Abbas Ghaffari, one of the arrsted men, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds". It would seem that this feud kicked off after Khameni reinstated the intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, after he was sacked by Ahmadinejad. As a result, the president staged a walk out in protest, and refused to attend any cabinet meetings. A hard line cleric, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, warned that "disobeying the supreme leader (Khameni) is equivalent to apostasy from God", and threatened to have Ahmadinejad impeached. According to The Guardian, "Khamenei's supporters believe that the top-level confrontation stems from the increasing influence of Mashaei, an opponent of greater involvement of clerics in politics, who is being groomed by Ahmadinejad as a possible successor."

The Guardian continues; "the feud has taken a metaphysical turn following the release of an Iranian documentary alleging the imminent return of the Hidden Imam Mahdi – the revered saviour of Shia Islam, whose reappearance is anticipated by believers in a manner comparable to that with which Christian fundamentalists anticipate the second coming of Jesus. Conservative clerics, who say that the Mahdi's return cannot be predicted, have accused a "deviant current" within the president's inner circle, including Mashaei, of being responsible for the film". According to the Guardian, Ahmadinejad is somewhat infatuated by the return of Mahdi - often alluding to the Hidden Imam in his speeches, and in 2009 accused the United States of preventing Mahdi's return!

After a quick Google search, it would appear that a number of signs would portend the return of Mahdi. According to Wikipedia,

"... among the most commonly reported signs that presage the advent of the Mahdi in Shia Islam are the following:

* Before his coming will come the red death and the white death. The red death is the sword and the white death is plague.

* Several figures will appear: the one-eyed Antichrist (Masih ad-Dajjal), the Sufyani and the Yamani.

* The Muslims will throw off the reins and take possession of their land, throwing out the authority of the foreigners.

* There will be a great conflict in the land of Syria, until it is destroyed.

* Death and fear will afflict the people of Baghdad and Iraq. A fire will appear in the sky and a redness will cover them."

For a Shia believer the current situation in North Africa and parts of the Middle East must be setting of all manner of alarm bells. I wonder if these events are expected to build slowly over time ... Iraq and Baghdad over a decade a go, conflict in Syria etc. or wether they should all cascade together in a doomsday scenario. Anyhow, with the US intimately involved in some (if not all) of these events, I wonder why Ahmadinejad is accusing the Great Satan of preventing Mahdi's return, rather than welcoming their involvement in facilitating it. Nevertheless, lets assume that he's correct, how exactly could the US change the course of history and prevent the return of the hidden one? Certainly the mind boggles ... and the world works in mysterious ways. I was initially drawn to The Guardian's story via a link on the Naked Capitalism blog, and as I scrolled through the blog, an earlier entry led to an epiphany.

As I read the story under the headline "Superman Renounces US Citizenship", it all started to become a littler clearer.

According to Laura Hudson in Comics Alliance, a recent short story in Action Comics #900 shows Superman consulting with "the President’s national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime" !!! wow but WOW!! HOLY COW!!!! Hudson continues; "since Superman is viewed as an American icon in the DC Universe as well as our own, the Iranian government has construed his actions as the will of the American President, and indeed, an act of war." To an obviously shocked G man, Superman informs him that he is renouncing his citizenship because he's

"Tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy"

So there we have it, its Superman who's messing with Mahdi's return - all we have to do now is find out why! Oh and if you have a massive stash of Kryptonite laying around, there's a dude in Teheran paying top dollar!

The Last of the Apache - Osama bin Laden

2011-05-05T15:31:00.000+02:00

Despite rather crude disguise its clearly him. The SEAL team 6 operator obviously had no no doubt who was standing in front of him when he squeezed the trigger - he was emphatic when he radioed back; "Geronimo E - KIA". Simply, Geronimo - enemy - killed in action. Geronimo, what a great name for an operation, after all who hasn't called "GERONIMO!" when diving into action, and what action this looked to be! Needless to say the choice of operation name has caused some problems.

"The government does what it wants when it wants. The name calling is going to stay around forever. But when you think about it, this is an insult" said Leon Curly, a Marine veteran and Navajo. And he's right. While Obama was unlikely to be directly involved in naming the operation (remember he was brushing up his Trump roast) he is the Commander in Chief, and he was surely well aware of the code name. While it seems Obama was subject to racism and racial stereotyping in the past, to the extent that he preffered the monicker Barry while in Indonesia, he seems less than aware of any other form of bigotry other than racism. After all, this is the man that tore up the White House's bowling alley because he "bowls like he's in the special olympics, guffaw guffaw."

Still, one can see why Geronimo seemed like a good idea. The legendary warrior was known for his ability to walk without leaving footprints, and he evaded Mexican and U.S. soldiers for an extraordinary period before his surrender. Co-incidently, Capt. Henry Lawton, whoi took his surrender, was ordered to capture Geronimo, "dead or alive" ... sounds all to familiar. When questioned about the choice of names, the US Department of Defence indicated that no disrespect was intended.

Indeed Jeff Houser, chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, believes that is the case. Writing in a letter to Obama, Houser noted;

“We are quite certain that the use of the name Geronimo as a code for Osama bin Laden was based on misunderstood and misconceived historical perspectives of Geronimo and his armed struggle against the United States and Mexican governments. However, to equate Geronimo or any other Native American figure with Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer and cowardly terrorist, is painful and offensive to our Tribe and to all Native Americans."

Indeed they might well be offended. The various Native American tribes have, since the great war, served in the US military with distinction and honour, and their roles were certainly not limited to that of "Code Talker" as depicted in the Nicholas Cage film. While the American military has something of a tradition in naming weapons systems and helicopters in honour of Indian tribes, they still seem rather insensitive to the Native Tribes. While many Indian leaders appear to recognise that the choice of operation name was simply an oversight, others are not so sanguine. Chairman Mitchell Cypress of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, who is still waiting for an apology from the Defence Department after it compared Seminoles with al Qaida, wrote in a letter to Obama; “Once again, our nation’s native people were categorized as terrorists,”

Co-incidently, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, is holding a hearing today on

"the depictions of Native peoples in American society and the effect they have on these communities and the American public in general. The Committee will explore how Indian mascots, common caricatures and prevalent mis-portrayals have far-reaching impacts on the identity and sense of self-worth of Native peoples and negatively impact how all Americans perceive and relate to each other."

No doubt there will be much hot air I can't see any likelihood of advancement on any of these issues. Will changing the Redskins, Braves, Chiefs or Indians achieve anything substantial? Certainly I can't imagine anyone from the Apache tribe calling for Boeing to drop the word Apache from the AH-64 chopper, where it is clearly meant to honour the Apache fighting man of the last century. Must be tough being a politician!

I Got Him Jack, I Got Him!

2011-05-04T14:12:00.003+02:00

After eventually releasing his long form birth certificate, President Obama concluded;

"We do not have time for this kind of silliness, We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do. We’ve got big problems to solve. And I’m confident we can solve them, but we’re going to have to focus on them — not on this.”

Of course the birthers took a microscope to the document and concluded that it appeared in some way altered and once again the conspiracy continued. Personally, I think that they should focus on his year of birth, after all Hawaii was only a territory up to 1959, so if they could just get him to be, you know a couple of years older, that might just throw the cat amongst the pigeons ... but I digress. The Prez had better things to do, and indeed he did ... slapping down the fabulously wealthy Donald Trump, the latest in a line of clowns to question his birthplace.

At the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton the other night, Barry launched a broadside against Trump;

"Donald Trump is here. I know he’s taken some flack recently, but no one is more ready to put the birther issue to rest than the Donald ... so he can focus real issues at hand facing America, like ‘Did we really land on the moon?’ ‘What really happened in Roswell?’ And, ‘Where are Biggie and Tupac?"

Once again I applaud Obama's speech writers ... belittleing Trumps "big concerns" in such a humorous way, was a master stroke. Trump, as one would expect failed to see the humour.

“I had no idea it would be to that extent, where you know, it was just joke after joke after joke ... it was almost like, is there anyone else they could talk about?”

With such thin skin, I would suggest Trump saves his money and forgets the Presidency. In a note of balance, I would point out that Tupac and Biggies friends and family, not to mention the legions of fans, were less than impressed with Obama's reference. Still you can't win 'em all. To the Sunday morning press it was all very clear what the Presidents big problems were; how to smack down Trump. But no. As we all are aware, Obama was wrestling with a tad more than remembering his lines.

The Scariest, Darkest, Sexiest Sound

2011-05-02T13:50:00.004+02:00

Riding with the King may be John Hiatt's best known song, despite the insipid cover version that was foistered upon the world by Eric Clapton and BB King. But for me it's gotta be Memphis in the Meantime from the album Bring the Family. Harking back in time one could wonder how Hiatt could better the verse;

"I dreamed I had a good job

and I got well paid,

blew it all at the penny arcade

A hundred dollars On a kewpie doll

No white chick is gonna make me crawl" *

But for me he did with the album Bring the family - a raw, honest, personal album full of clever word play and wonderful rythmn and rhyme. In fact just about every song has at least one killer line. Having destroyed countless relationships through his abuse of alcohol, and seeing his first wife commit suicide, a recently sober Hiatt confronts himself and tells it straight in Alone in the Dark;

It's a lonely picture

Of an empty glass

It's a still life study

Of a drunken ass

In Just Like Your Dad Did, he paints a picture of ordinary life, a life he saw his father living and promised not to repeat. A life that simply slips by while your getting on with, well, living.

Yeah the food is cold and your wife feels old

But all hands fold

As the two year old says grace

She says help the starving children to get well

But let my brother's hamster burn in hell

With lyrics like this is it any wonder that John Chelew felt compelled to convince Hiatt to get back into the studio and lay down the tracks. Without a label, no funds to record and few friends left in the industry courtesy of his substance abuse, Hiatt was reluctant. Fortunately for Hiatt and the music loving world, the UK label Demon Records put up thirty grand, and Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner and Nick Lowe hit the studio. Four days later the album was done. According to Hiatt "These songs were all that were recorded - there were no leftovers or outtakes." And what songs they are.

Playstation Network Hack - Credit Card Fraud is Overstated ... Really!!!

2011-04-28T14:11:00.000+02:00

"This malicious attack against our system and against our customers is a criminal act and we are proceeding aggressively to find those responsible." So says Patrick Seybold Sony spokesman in the aftermath of the "external instrusion" into its PlayStation Network and Qriocity streaming music service.Seybold continued, stating that Sony were "working day and night to restore operations as quickly as possible" and expected to have some services up and running within a week." So the gamers will be back on line whizz banging around in no time at all. Of more concern though is Seybold's comment; "While all credit card information stored in our systems is encrypted and there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility ... we are advising you that your credit card number and expiration date may have been obtained." Seybold didn't elaborate further, but I for one would be concerned.

Fortunately I have never lost my credit cards, nor been the subject of credit card fraud, but my wife has - for both. At the end of the day nothing was lost, but the hassle and effort involved was incredible. With this small experience in mind, I found I found The New York Times' columnist Ann Carrns most recent article most interesting. Entitled "The PlayStation Breach: Why You Should Remain Calm", Ann notes that while "no one wants to have their credit card information taken and possibly used for nefarious purposes", (damn right) the "odds of serious financial damage from the incident appear to be low." While she may be correct, I wondered why she would take this view. Ann bases her arguments on two somewhat dicey arguments.

According to Ann, and I don't know where she gets the info, "hackers in this type of situation are often looking for notoriety, rather than to resell financial information", and secondly, "even if you were unlucky enough to be one of the 77 million card numbers whose account information ended up being resold for criminal purposes, you’d see the suspicious charges on your account." As we all know, or should know, one is not responsible for unauthorised credit card purchases. As she sanctimoniously points out "we should be monitoring our credit card statements regularly", anyway. So then, thats ok then.

Raped at Snake Point

2011-04-27T15:34:00.000+02:00

Many, many years ago, I, along with scores of classmates were taught that a good story had a beginning, middle and an end … oh, and make it interesting as well. Overseeing homework today, it seems that, that rule still applies. For a damn fine reason, that it’s a good rule, and it works. I imagine that Walter Nyamukondiwa was taught that rule as well, and it seems that he’s implementing it – regardless of his subject matter.

Perusing the news wires today, a story flew up and bit me (err pun intended) - “Karoi Man Raped at 'Snake Point'”. Before we go any further, rape is hardly humorous subject matter. Sadly in southern Africa it’s reaching epidemic proportions where hundreds of rapes are reported daily. Shockingly, a recent study in South Africa concluded that many perpetrators of gang rape failed to understand that their actions were wrong, and that rape was so common place that (male) children as young as 8 or 9 saw it as “normal”. But back to Walter’s story.

Some years ago, the small town of Karoi in Zimbabwe, became famous for a goat that followed women to and from their place of work. It would appear that the goat had, shall we say, displayed amorous intentions towards the women until he was whacked by a bus. Walter suggests it was an accident, methinks the women folk had had enough. This little tale serves to be the “beginning” of Walter’s tale. Setting the scene, if you will, but has nothing at all to do with the story at hand.

In what I guess is standard journalistic style, Walter gets the basic story out of the way early.

“A man was offered a lift as a token of appreciation for helping a stranded female motorist but got the shock of his life when he was shown a massive snake at the back seat of the car before being ordered to be intimate with her.”

Intimate? Well, yes, intimate in the biblical sense of the word. Of course we all know the story now – a man is raped. Walter has his beginning and his middle, but it’s probably not “interesting”. To rectify that, Walter adds some body to his tale, informing us that an unnamed man was returning home from a sports club, no doubt having had a few drinks, when he sees a woman attending to her car. Given what subsequently happened, Walter describes the scene in what is surely an un- intended use of the metaphor;

"The woman had her bonnet open and she asked him to help attend to the vehicle. She was scrubbing the terminals of the battery and he agreed to help her"

One Humble Pie and a Brown Ale, Please

2011-04-21T16:48:00.000+02:00

So I was wrong - I admit it, and I'm not afraid to say so.

A few months back in a fit of anger and pique, I threw a hissy fit in the wake of Chris Hughton's un-necessary sacking and suggested that the there'd be a player revolt and Newcastle would spiral down the league. I was clearly wrong. Make no mistake, my hissy fit had nothing to do with Alan Pardew, he hadn't been appointed at the time. In fact I have always had some time for Pardew - a mate of mine supports Charlton and I tend to keep an eye on them.

In fairness to myself, I supposed that the team spirit that had done so well for Hughton would crumble in the face of a new manager and new methods. It clearly hasn't. I wonder if he garnered some respect from the players having to face the media on his appointment without any of the boardroom to back him up. Given that he's clearly old school, what ever's gone on in the dressing room is likley to stay there. Still, the teams he sends out have shown as much commitment and spirit as any team under Hughton - who could forget the 4 goal fight back against the mighty Arsenal? Certainly the goal-less draw against Man U was as good a (non winning) performance as any I have seen from them in some time.

Belgium? are you sure it's not Korea - PDR?

2011-04-20T16:07:00.000+02:00

According to the Daily Telegraph, Belgium has won recognition from Guinness World Records (GWR) as the country that has gone the longest without a government. Oddly enough, GWR actually has a sub category in this particular field - in peacetime and in conflict. For the record, Belgium has been without a government since 22 April 2010 as political parties from either side of the Flemish,Walloon divide have failed to agree any form of power sharing. The Dutch speaking Flemish essentially want to jettison the French speaking Walloons and gp their seperate ways. And indeed why not. The Flemish bit is the best bit - according to Wikipedia " dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind." So whats the big deal on the split, after all they hate each other with a passion and only have the national football team in common. The simple answer is money and pride. How do you split the national debt, which is pretty large, and who gets Brussels? Historically Brussels is a Flemish city that has been "invaded" by French speaking Walloons as the agricultural economy slowly drifted away. Still it seems that the record is probably not something Belgium wants, and indeed its probably not something we're likley to see when we page through the Guinness Book of World Records.

According to Justine Bourdariat, marketing manager for GWR, their database holds some 40,000 world records and only 4,000 make the book. Why? Not why do only 10% make the book, but why are there 40,000 records? For what? I used to be a bit of a fan of the book, having received it as a Christmas present getting on for thirty years ago now, and my children seem similalry enthralled, but frankly I just can't be bothered. Its no longer about the tallest person in the world, longest fish, most accurate time piece. Nope its about self promotion. Have a quick google, and you'll find a staggering number of sites devoted to "Top X Weirdest GWRs" etc. For example one site proclaims "Welcome to the world craziest Guinness records post" and lists his/her top 5 weird ones -

1. Fastest Underpants Jumper (French);

2. Most domestic appliances thrown in one minute (Austria)

3. Most Clothes Pegs Clipped on Face (British)

4. Most people dressed as superheroes (Dunno)

5. Most items kicked off peoples heads in one minute (British)

Weird indeed, but why? Who really gives a monkey's toss? Clipping pegs to your face isn't exactly achieving the world land speed record, where, at least, man is taking on a staggering engineering challenge. First to the summit of Everest, surely a human achievment, man against nature. Skipping in and out of your underpants is just stupid and pointless. Which got me thinking, why would you want to hold a GWR? So I popped over to GWR's web site.

Communist Era Photo Buff ... err not!

2011-04-19T13:24:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, my company IT department requested and required that I upgrade my 10 year old mobile phone. Not content that I simply get the cheapest option replacement, they insisted that the replacement be an iPhone. Frankly I don't need a smart phone - I hardly need a mobile phone at all - but in fairness its reasonably cool to acces the internet from all over the place, and the built in iPod reduces the need to carry two gadgets around (not that I ever did). But the big selling point (not that I paid for it), is the camera. Most of the time I use a DSLR, and generally speaking its too bulky to drag around everyday and so I fail to take "candid" shots that after the fact I wish I had captured. But there is in fact more to it than meets the eye. I stumbled upon a couple of camera apps (the ubiquitous app aggggh).

The first app I played with was the Retro Camera app by Urbian. First of all its a great function and the end product is cool in an arty way, but the version I downloaded freezes up after four or five shots and the app has to be downloaded again. I tend to use the Soviet era Little Orange Box and East German Bärbl the most, perhaps this is app irony in that it mimicks communist era unrelaibility?

Any way, the Bärbl is "an East German classic, naturally faded with a scratched film and medium vignetting, the perfect all-round choice."

As you can see, the natural fade is almost black and white and I get the feeling the pictures are from a different era. As this is achieved by digital filters I guess it captures the "average" effect of a Bärbl camera, nevertheless I enjoy its effects.

My favourite is without doubt the "Little Orange Box - The Soviet Staple with aggressive cross processing and scratched square film. It's crappy plastic lens leaks in light and exhibits strong vignetting."

The colours are very un-natural, the darker colours and shade are almost indistinguishable, light is magnified beyond its true state - the result is something altogether different from what I saw with my eyes.

Perhaps thats what I enjoy about these filters (if thats what they should be called). Whenever I take a picture I try to capture what I see as best as I can - a record for posterity. Rarely if ever to I attempt to take an arty shot, and thats what Retro Camera gives you every time. I'm not sure how one can achieve these affects with an ordinary camera, or indeed in "post production". Now I don't need to - point and shoot - instant Soviet Tourist. Now if they could only sort out the reliability!

And Now for Something Completely Different

2011-04-14T15:48:00.000+02:00

Something a little different from the usual fluff, some thoughts on US monetary policy.

In a recent presentation, Philadelphia Fed President, Charles Plosser, suggested that as part of a plan to normalise monetary policy, the Federal Reserve would not only have to raise the interest rate it pays on reserves, but also actively shrink its balance sheet. Plosser suggests a plan that increases rates by 25 bps per FOMC meeting as well as sales of around $125bn of assets intra-meeting. Thus after 8 meetings, interest rates would be at 2.5% and the Fed’s balance sheet would have shrunk by some 50%.

Will the Fed be raising rates any time soon though? A recent NDR research note suggests not. Of the ten voting members, it judges 4 as having a “very slow” attitude to tightening monetary policy. It would appear that only 2 are in favour of tightening monetary policy, with only Plosser in favour of raising rates with concurrent asset sales.

The timing of Plosser’s presentation is interesting. As a noted hawk, he is clearly trying to get in front of the other members in setting the tone of the debate. In his presentation Plosser suggests that critics of his plan (read some FOMC members) would note that “we (the Fed) cannot shrink the balance sheet this rapidly without disrupting the markets.” In defense of his plan, he claims that “the pace of sales … is likely to be no more rapid than the pace of asset purchases during the crisis … “ By suggesting asset sales and rate hikes, Plosser clearly understands that raising rates alone will have unintended consequences. Is his plan of $125 bn per 25 bps enough?

Fund manager John Hussman suggests that $125 billion in asset sales per 25 bps rate hike is a reasonable average assumption over an 8 meeting period, but that the asset sales would have to be front end loaded otherwise the interest rate hikes would be inflationary.

In a recent article, Hussman, assuming a nominal GDP level of $15 trn and an expected monetary base of $2.6bn, estimates the following T Bill yields and monetary base levels consistent with price stability:

T Bill                                      Monetary Base (Trn)

0.03%                                            $2.60
0.25                                               $1.92
0.50                                               $1.68
0.75                                               $1.54
1.00                                              $1.44 etc.

What immediately stands out is that the first interest rate hike of 25 bps would require a $738 billion dollar sale of assets by the Fed – roughly 6 times greater than the amount that Plosser suggests is required. Anything less than $700 billion would be inflationary. Surely this is contradictory – the Fed would be raising rates to offset inflation rather than to promote it!

The following illustrates his point.
Read more »

Nunc iaceo ac dormio *

2011-04-13T14:15:00.002+02:00

I guess it goes without saying that the more tired we are, the less likely we are to do something well. Lack of sleep clearly impacts our ability to function. From time to time one sees stories of extreme survival, and more often than not they mention the fact the the human body can survive so many days without food, but significantly less without water. They never mention sleep! We can survive a week without food, but not a week without sleep. Amnesty International lists sleep deprivation as a form of torture for a very good reason.

Former Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, wrote the following in his memoir, White Nights, about the experience of being deprived of sleep in a KGB prison: "In the head of the interrogated prisoner a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep ... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it."

Now then, most people are unlikely to be the victims of sleep deprivation torture, so what's the harm in missing a few hours here or there? Research suggests that even small amounts of sleep deprivation can have a significant impact on one's health, mood, cognitive capacity and productivity. Stay awake for longer than 18 consecutive hours and one's reaction speed, short-term and long-term memory, ability to focus, decision-making capacity, math processing, cognitive speed, and spatial orientation all start to suffer. Cutting back sharply on sleep for several days in a row magnifies the negative effects. We don't learn to live with it - things just get worse. According to the US Highway Safety Administration, more than 1.35 million car accidents in that country occured over the last five years directly as a result of driver fatigue.

Let the War Continue

2011-03-31T17:22:00.001+02:00

So the uprising in Libya drags on. Its two weeks since coalition airstrikes started, yet we seem no closer to a solution. So far this week, the rebels have pushed the Libyan army back towards Tripoli, and the army has pushed the rebels back again. Footage from television news reports suggest, to me at least, that the rebels don't really have much of a clue as to tactics or, in some instances, how to use some of their weaponary. Absent coalition air cover, they seem poorly matched against Gadaffi's troops. An interesting story on the wires this morning report that UK special forces along with MI5 and CIA operatives are on the ground directing the air strikes against Libyan army mechanised units. However, I suspect that absent greater involvement by coalition forces, this whole thing may end in a stalemate - nasty, spiteful and bloody.

This may, according to some observers, be the best thing for Libya!According to Charles Onyango -Obbo in an article distributed by AllAfrica Global Media,

"Ironically, for the long-term wellbeing of Libya, it is actually necessary and good that there is a long stalemate between Col Gaddafi's forces and the rebels. This is because easy victories, in general, never produce changes that are deep enough. I think that is one reason why coups were such a disaster for Africa in the 1970s, through to the 1990s. It was too easy. A few mutinous soldiers could sleepwalk to the state radio station, seize it, announce that they had overthrown the government, and the president would hightail it out of town. Then a staff sergeant, in dark glasses, would announce that he was the new man in charge."

Onyango - Obbo then goes on to suggest that recent struggles in Africa that resulted in a new class of rebel leader (Rwanda and Uganda) lasted on average 5 years, but suggests that the leaders are not up to snuff - not even Eritrea's 30 years of armed struggle or south Sudan's 25 years is good enough to develop leaders with a stomach for significant change. How long does a revolutionary struggle need to go on to bring about leaders willing and able to impose some deep and meaningful changes? Fifty years might be a start!

The 70's - WTF is Going On Here?

2011-03-28T13:24:00.000+02:00

I am working on a mix tape and was looking for an early 70's late 60's "weirdo" picture that would go with the theme. Wading through all sorts of word combinations on Flickr, I stumbled upon a vintage 60's/70's group, and found this little gem for a, shall we say, gentlemans magazine. Not weird in the sense that I was seeking, but weird none the less. WTF is going on here? Whose bright idea could this have been, and what exciting pictures could be found in side the covers. I guess we'll never know! Perhaps thankfully!

Home Taping Didn't Kill Music

2011-03-25T15:27:00.000+01:00

T Shirt Available at Amazon.Co.Uk - seriously!

According to the music industry, file sharing deprives the industry of billions of dollars in revenue every year. In order to make their point and punish the culprits the industry has prosecuted. In the United States the courts have sided with the recording industry and imposed some serious fines on the file sharers.

In 2007, the RIAA took action against Jammie Thoms – Rasset, accusing her of pirating almost 2,000 tracks but the record industry sought damages for only 24 of them. Ms Thomas was found guilty and ordered to pay damages of some $200,000. Unfortunately for Thomas, legal mistakes were made in her original trial, and she was re-tried in 2009 - she was found guilty again. This time she was ordered to pay $1.92m in damages. According to US law, recording companies can seek damages of between $750 and $30,000 for each song illegally downloaded, HOWEVER, a jury can raise the sum to as much as $150,000 if they believe the piracy was willful. I’m not sure how “piracy” can be committed unwillingly, but that’s the law. As once would expect, Thomas appealed – and won … well kind of. The appeal judge reduced the damages to $54,000. Judge Michael Davis who heard the appeal wrote;

"The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2m verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music. It was the jury's province to determine the award ... and this Court has merely reduced that award to the maximum amount that is no longer monstrous and shocking."

Nevertheless the industry may never see the money - according to Thomas;

A Call for a Crusade or Protecting Civilians?

2011-03-23T17:20:00.000+01:00

Civilian casualty courtesy of Col. Gaddafi

File under "What did they think would happen". Just days after abstaining in the vote on UN resolution 1973, China, Russia and India (collectively the RICs) are having a bit of a whine. The idiot Putin went so far as to likening the coalition action to a "medieval call for a Crusade". All three parties are now calling for an immediate ceasefire in Libya, suggesting that the coalition forces were endangering civilians and exceeding the mandated no fly zone. Really? Item 4 of the resolution authorises;

"Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, ... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory."

As for the No Fly Zone, item 8 authorises;

"Member States that have notified the Secretary-General and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights imposed by paragraph 6 above (the establishment of the NFZ), as necessary"

Exactly how did the RICs expect the coalition forces to ensure compliance with the establishment of the no fly zone? Anybody who was watching the endless hours of news coverage on Libya would be aware of the necessary actions needed to "enforce compliance with the ban on flights". Simply, destroy the Libyan forces' radar systems, anti-aircraft systems and air craft. The latter may be going a little far, but so be it. To date, and regardless of Gaddafi's propaganda, the coalition forces are doing what it says on the tin - enforcing the NFZ. The RICs would have known exaclty how the NFZ would be enforced and certainly Russia and China could have used their veto. Not to have done so, and subsequently trying to score political points shows them to be both gutless and stupid.

There appears little doubt that, absent the intervention on Saturday by French forces, Benghazi would have fallen to Gaddafi's forces. Presumably the RICs believe that once the Libyan army regained control of Benghazi they would have returned to their barracks (assuming that it hadn't been totally destroyed) and life would have returned to "normal". I suspect not. I believe that what is currently happening in Misurata, but on a grander scale would be taking place in Benghazi - according to a doctor in the city, coalition forces have driven Gaddafi's tanks from the city, however his snipers are shooting anybody entering or leaving the hospital - so far 4 civilkians killed.

I would also assume that, absent the intervention of French jets, Nisan Gouriani would not have been able to announce the formation of a "transitional council" in Benghazi today either. Certainly, we wouldn't have had the following report from The Daily Telegraph's Rob Crilly; "Benghazi is staring to get back to normal today. Shops that have been shut since Friday - when Gaddafi forces closed in on the city - are open once again. People are more confident that government forces have been banished for good."

We can also be absolutely sure that Crilly wouldn't have been able to end his report with the comment;

" my hotel room has been cleaned for the first time in a fortnight!"

Cheap Tar Sands Oil - Alas Not Just Yet

2011-03-22T17:29:00.001+01:00

Approximately two thirds of the world's oil reserves are to be found in bituminous sands or as they are more commonly referred to, oil or tar sands, the majority of which are to be found in Alberta. All well and good you say, but extracting Syncrude (synthetic crude oil) is very expensive. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) the cost of recovering oil from bitumen sands is approximately $60 odd per barrel, which doesn't compare very favourably with Saudi Arabia which is approximately $4 per barrel including capital costs. Refining tar sands is not particulalry clean or environmentally friendly either - part of the damage comes from the storage of contaminated wastewater from the separation process in large open air ponds. The major risk is that the waster water seeps from the storage ponds into the water table. In addition, the process requires large amounts of water, which globally is rapidly becoming a scarce resource. Nevertheless, the process continues apace - according to Canadian Oil Sands corporation, they expend some 1.34 Gigajoules of energy (principally natural gas and diesel) to produce a barrel of oil, which has an energy value of around 6Gj. Economically, at least, this makes sense, but they are still a staggeringly high cost producer. Some years ago the industry proposed a simple solution - Canada, for instance, could become totally self sufficient in energy by simply building relatively small nuclear power plants near the tar sands. After all Canada is home to massive Uranium reserves. After sunk costs, nuclear power is extremely efficient, and barring a fat tail event, is safe and clean. The power needed to distill the tar would be provided at very low levels and hey presto, Canada would no longer be a high cost producer. That idea got knocked on the head - perhaps sensibly so.

However, all is not lost. According to Science Daily, a team of researchers at Penn State, have "discovered" a method of extracting crude from the sands using ionic liquids (salt in a liquid state) to facilitate separation - the separation takes place at room temperature and does not generate waste water as a by product. Not only that, but the process can be used to extract oil from oil related disaters (Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon for example), without any (apparently) side effects. In experiments, at least, the sand was clean enough to be thrown back onto the beach. Unfortunately, the team of polymer scientists have only managed to build a bench top, functional model system. I guess the west will have to wait a bit longer to reduce its dependence on politically unstable states for its oil. Oh well!

The Yamaguchi-gumi Bears

2011-03-21T16:25:00.001+01:00

In the aftermath of the earthquake that hit north eastern Japan, several tons of aid left Tokyo on the back of a couple of dozen four ton trucks. Over the next few days many more tons of aid in the form of cup ramen, bean sprouts, paper diapers, tea, drinking water, torches, batteries and other essentials of daily life made their way to the disaster zone. Apparetly the journeys along the back roads takes upwards of 12 hours, and the drivers are delivery supplies into 'radiation zones" without and protection of pottasium iodine. Not unusual right? Well the organisations making the delivries are Inagawa-kai, Sumiyoshi-kai and Yamaguchi-gumi - collectively known in Japan and the west as The Yakuza - the Japanese Mafia. The Yakuza have not been keeping records of how much aid they have sent north, and they have certainly not been publicising their acts of charity. One member of the Yamaguchi-gumi told writer Jake Adelstein "Please don't say any more than we are doing our best to help. Right now, no one wants to be associated with us and we'd hate to have our donations rejected out of hand"

Now then, I have very little knowledge of the Yakuza, other than they cut parts of their pinkie fingures off and are heavily tattooed, so these acts of kindness came as a surprise to me. As an aside, Bob the Builder had to be remade for Japan because he only has four fingers! It would appear that the Yakuza have a history of humanitarian aide. After the Kobe earthquake in 1995, Yamaguchi-gumi was one of the most responsive organisations on the ground, acting quickly to distribute food and helping to provide shelter to the affected. Ironically, the supplies would have been financed with money taken in by the Yakuza from years of shaking down the people in the area.

Chocks Away - Biggles goes to Tripoli

2011-03-18T16:39:00.001+01:00

So, despite my unwarranted cynicism, the UN security council managed to push through a resolution that looks to impose some serious restraint on the old Libyan mad dog. And yet we wait for some form of action. If I'm not mistaken, and I probably am, William Hague was quite clear that while he and his French counterpart were working hard on drumming up support for their proposed UN resolution, the British armed forces were making preparations ahead of any authorisation of a no fly zone. Addressing Parliament this morning, David Cameron informed the members that Tornados and Typhoons were on the way to bases closer to Libya. Well, why weren't they already there? I realise that there is more to planning a NFZ than shipping planes to Naples, but I would have thought that could have been done as soon as the resolution was passed.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi's playing this one quite well. Declaring a unilateral ceasefire after gaining significant ground and effectively cutting off Benghazi, he's going to be negotiating from a position of strength. If and when the British and French attack Libyan anti aircraft systems and radar stations, his overt actions will already have ceased. He can of course accuse the west of aggression and drum up support from his lunatic mates in Syria, Cuba, Venezuela etc. Furthermore, with his airforce no longer required for ground support, they will be scouring the skies for signs of in bound RAF fighter bombers.

Chocks Away Biggles - I can't wait to see how this plays out.

The Mad Dog Bites Back

2011-03-11T11:03:00.000+01:00

Well, this was all just a little too predictable. Despite hoards of decently paid diplomats and country specialists, western nations failed to spot the north African revolts. When they came, they reacted to events in a rather predictable way, dropping their support for decades old dictatorships with nary a thought for the consequences. The replacement regimes in Tunisia and Egypt hardly look stable, and lets face it have risen to power in a very non democratic fashion - lets see if elections transpire - yet western politicians embrace them. Yesterday the French annointed the Libyan rebels as the true representatives of the Libyan people - based, I wonder, on what. The fact that they led an uprising against a regime that as of (at least) December last year was seen by ALL western governments as legitimate.? How exactly would the various western states, now jumping to embrace the Libyan rebels, react if a rag tag bunch of protesters had taken over the second largest city in their country and started a military offensive against the capital? I suspect a swift military response would be called for and enacted. Reading this, one may surmise that I am pro-Gaddafi. Far from it. However, I cannot stand the sheer hypocrisy of politicians. Why would they expect Gaddafi to react in a way different to their own - regardless of how he rose to power.

As the UN, Arab League, EC, NATO, African Union, Uncle Tom Cobley and all denounce the military action taken by the Libyan Government forces and debate the necessity (or not) of taking som eform of military action, Gaddafi is just getting on with it. As events unfold, it seems that the rebellion in Benghazi and the rebel move along the coast took Gaddafi by surprise. It certainly appears as if any dissenters in the military ranks have either defected or been purged. Whats left look to be following a (reasonably) well thought out strategy. From what I read in various press reports, the rebels don't stand a chance and look likely to be beaten back to Benghazi.

Respect Libya's Sovereignty and Territorial Unity *

2011-03-09T11:24:00.001+01:00

"We will not let Gaddafi murder his people, says Cameron" proclaimed the online edition of the Daily Mail. Mr Cameron said he and president Obama would have to act in the event Gaddafi "does terrible things to his own people". Ignoring the fact that he has been doing so since mid February, what exacly is David Cameron and Barrack Obama going to do about it? The no-fly zone has been "up in the air" now for at least a week, with very little in the way of progress. The Arab League originally set a meeting for this coming Friday to discuss the issue, but have decided to postpone the discussion by 24 hours. Presumably it's not important enough. Mrs Clinton is on record stating that the US can not take a decision to impose a no-fly zone unilaterally, and that it had to be a UN decision. Good luck with that. Two members of the so called Security Council, China and Russia, have already remarked that they are unlikely to support it. While Britain and France are drafting an UN resolution to impose such a measure, the French foreign minister was quite vocal only a few days ago that humanitarian aid was France's first priority, and a no-fly zone was not necessary.

So it seems we have a stale mate, of sorts. The Libyan rebels clearly feel that they would benefit if Gaddafi's forces were deprived of close air support. Both the US and UK appear reluctant to join a shooting war, clearly cogniscent of the reactions to their unilateral actions in Iraq. So we all stand around and talk about it ... and people die.

But we have been here before - from the BBC;

By 'eck a Better Mousetrap or... err Widget.

2011-03-04T17:27:00.001+01:00

People of a certain age will remember the arrival of the widget - a little gizmo in cans of ale and stout that "formed" a decent head when the can was opened and the beer was poured. Why was it necessary? After all open a can of lager and whoosh, bubbles everywhere - why not the same for ale and stout? Well ... most beers and lagers are pressurised with carbon dioxide, while ales and stouts tend to be pressurised by a combination of CO2 and nitrogen. The addition of nitrogen gives the drink a "smoothier, creamier mouth feel" because nitrogen forms smaller bubbles. There is a science, apparently, dedicated to the study of bubble formation in carbonated drinks, and scientists in the field have discovered that nitrogen leaks from a solution to a bubble at an extremely slow rate, compared with CO2 for example, hence the smaller bubble. Over 3 decades, scientists at Guinness worked on a solution to force the bubbles to form faster, but maintain their relative size. They hit upon the "widget" - a small, hollow ball with a small hole, filled with nitrogen and CO2 under pressure. When the can is opened, depressurised in scietific terms, the gas jets out, creating millions of bubbles, and allowing a head to form when the beer is poured.

As you would expect, the widget isn't cheap - widgeted beer costs up to 30% more than CO2 pressurised beer, and as a result tends to sell less well. Now then, back to the bubble formation scientists. The wonks discovered that gas will only leak from a solution into a bubble with the aid of a "nucleation site", and that "the primary sources of nucleation are pockets of gas trapped in cellulose fibres" within the drink. Mathematicians calculated that a single fibre of coffee filter paper produces a bubble very 1.28 seconds - if the pint takes 30 seconds to pour, then one would need 4.3x10^6 fibres, or a 3 squared centimetre of filter paper. The upshot of this. is that a credit card sized piece paper could replace the widget at a fraction of the cost. Just what we need - cheaper beer alround. Excellent, Cheers.

Hey Carlos! So who do I speak to to sort this out?

2011-03-03T17:24:00.001+01:00

Ya gotta love Charlie Sheen. Discussing his current, how shall we say, alternative lifestyle arrangements, Carlos had this to say; "Many men would kill for this. Everybody's needs are met; everybody is cool.There's synergy. When one is busy, the other is available to do something else. If there's a blatant absence of attention being paid, that's the bed I go to. We're all piece of a puzzle that fit together." you have to admit that's some puzzle. Fortunately, the bimbos agree; 'We do whatever Charlie wants us to do. This is the type of lifestyle I’ve always wanted, and I’m thrilled with it" so say the porn star one Bree Olson. I dont have anything against porn stars, but my impression is tha tthey are somewhat dim and shallow. I have no doubt being kept in sex, money and clelbrity is exactly what she has always wanted. What about the other one? Well, she's a bit ditzy too ... "'Our bed is big enough for all three of us, and we take turns sleeping in the middle. [But] if someone’s really tired, there’s always a place for them to sleep in peace." So thats cool then. In case your wondering, the non porm star one, Natalie Kenly works at a medical marijuana dispensary, though there is no word if thats how she met Mr Sheen.

So everybody is happy here? Not quite. For starters Kenly's mother isn't over the moon - she's praying daily that her daughter would snap out of it. Another mother that's not chuffed to bits is Sheen's ex wife, the mother of his twin sons. How in the world Sheen got custody is anybodies guess, suffice to say that he no longer has them.

Now I don'y have any real issues with Carlos Estevez, and wish him all the best, but its me I'm worried about. Why? You may well ask, and I'm sure I'm not the first to spot this, but this is a two part Two and a Half Men episode. I'm absolutely sure of it. Which means that, some how I'm in this story. Which is all well and good, but I aint in Malibu and I aint on several hundred grand an episode. So who do I speak to to sort this out?

Different Gear, Still Speeding

2011-03-02T10:04:00.000+01:00

Ahead of the upcoming Beady Eye tour, Liam Gallagher announced that those attending the gigs expecting a host of Oasis numbers would be dissapointed. In a BBC Radio 6 interview he made his point clear - "they can shout out songs all night, but I'll have a microphone and can shout louder". But why will they bother shouting for Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova when they'll be pretty much hearing the new Oasis album?

After Noel stormed off in a hissy fit, I figured that his mates would stick by him and he would be the first Gallagher to release new material. Afterall, Andy Bell and Gem Archer were his mates - Gem in particular. According to Bell " He (Noel) needs a less extreme mate and Gem's it. Gem chills Noel out. And that makes Oasis a more stable ship". Perhaps not. Perhaps the control element within Noel was too much for his mates to endure anymore. Perhaps Noel's ego had gone too far. Recall that when Archer joined the band he asked what Liam would say - Noel's retort? "It's my fucking band. I'll have who I want.". Not so - Oasis was Liam's band, Noel joined, wrote the hits and kicked them on into the stratosphere But it was always Liam's band. Perhaps the idea of getting from under the yoke convinced Bell and Archer to stay with Liam - who knows. As for the new album?

In truth I was expecting a seismic shift from Oasis, but no. Loading up all the Oasis albums and Different Gear, Still Speeding on an MP3 player and then hitting shuffle, I would be hard pressed to seperate Beady Eye from the non hit Oasis tunes. Noel Gallagher tended to hold his brother''s song writing skills in contempt - perhaps with some justification. However, Different Gear, Still Speeding, written collaboratively with Archer and Bell, shows Liam's true skill. My guess is that without the "songwriter" Liam was obliged to pull his finger out and concentrate on the job at hand, much like Dave Gilmour after Roger Waters fled the scene. Lets not kid ourselves Oasis were a lot like Queen - after the hits were picked from the albums what was left was, well, alright but not brilliant. From that point of view Different Gear, Still Speeding is better. There are no obvious hits, but the quality of the songs across the album is more consistent, and certainly better than the last couple of Oasis albums. At heart Different Gear, Still Speeding is a 60's album - The Beatles influences are clear, as they were for Oasis - The Roller springs immediately to mind and they're less than subtle with "I'm going to stand teh test of time" from Beatles And Stones’. Nevertheless its not all Beatles tributes - its not hard to pick out the Stone Roses and Paul Weller. Like Shaun Ryder, Liam weaves his influnces rather well, and he even seems to get the olive branch out in Kill for a Dream (Life’s too short not to forgive/ I’m here if you wanna call) which is in stark contrast to his usual snarling.

Definately Maybe its not, but it could be the start of something very interesting. BTW love the cover - contender for 2011 Best of...

'Jou Ma se Kinders'

2011-03-01T12:30:00.001+01:00

Sunday World columnist has had her column discontinued with immediate effect, despite apologising for its content. Kuli Roberts wrote on Twitter " I am truly sorry to all those upset... No harm was intended....". What could Roberts have done? In her weekly column entitled 'Jou Ma se Kinders', Roberts wrote that "coloured girls were the future" and listed some reasons why;

"you will never run out of cigarettes"

"you will always be assured of a large family as many of these girls breed as if Allan Boesak sent them on a mission to increase the coloured race."

"they are the closest thing to being a white woman and we know you black men love them as they look like they've popped out of an Usher music video."

"they have no front teeth and eat fish like they are trying to deplete the ocean",and

"they love to fight in public and most are very violent"

So .... I'm sure all those nearly white, cigarette smoking, fish eating, cat fighting man humping chicks would not take offence. Well why would they? Well, If they aren't, at least the SA Human Rights Commission is, and is investigating.

According to Sunday World editor Wally Mbhele, the column "made derogatory generalisations about coloured people which were in clear violation of the SA Press Code and Avusa Media's (the newspapers owners) internal codes". Graciously Mbhele takes full responsibility "for the offending column appearing in my newspaper".

But, what the fuck was he thinking in the first place?
Read more »

"Best of 1977 - Hungarian Rock".

2011-03-01T11:05:00.001+01:00

1977 was quit some year. Economically, the early to mid seventies were good, sexual and racial liberation, started in the late 1960's, continued apace. People had money - life was good.While the summer of love was well and truly over, hedonism was no longer shunned - disco was the new thing, champagne, cocaine, free love and Saturday Night Fever. The Bee Gees may have taken disco mainstream, but harder, blues influenced rock remained in full flow - 20 minute guitar, organ and drum solos were de rigueur. As the seventies rolled on the prog rock star, while no longer in its ascendency was still shining bright. But the stars all over were dimming. In the Caribean, many were bracing themselves for the ominous clash of the three sevens. Around the world a new phenomena was on the horizon - stagflation. Profligate military spending on the war in Vietnam and and the ever escalating arms race with the Soviet Union coupled with an OPEC oil embargo sent prices through the roof. Disastrous policy responses on both sides of the Atlantic pushed the global economy into free fall. Suddenly the future looked far from bright to swelling ranks of the unemployed. The lifestyles of the pop and rock stars became intolerable to the youth, provoking the punk back lash against the rock establishment. The punk movement grew rapidly in both New York and London - 3 chords and an attitude. Some bands were (n)one hit wonders, others grew legs and legions of followers - the establishment were appalled, the youth enthralled. Things had changed, and would likely never go back.

Real Life isn't Pulp Fiction.

2011-02-25T13:33:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago I posted a story on a guy called Richard Sanden (http://whydtinogo.blogspot.com/2011/01/richard-sanden-alleged-pot-head-and.html) who had been charged with rape, criminal deviate conduct and abuse of a corpse. At the time it wasn't clear how the unfortunate victim died, but according to WTHI (a TV channel in the area) Rebecca Whitehead died of an accidental drug overdose. While sad and everything it perked my interest. Why? The other night I watched a documentary by British "journalist" Ross Kemp that included scenes of a guy overdosing on heroin. In truth it was very freaky and disturbing, not least because the guy from an out reach program (Kemp's guide) had only saved the addict from an OD a few days earlier. Nevertheless, it seemed saving the addict was straight forward and had NOTHING in common with the whole John Travolta/ Uma Thurman/ Pulp Fiction carry on. Disappointingly there was no red marker or wide eyed recovery, just a certain bewilderment and, well... not much else.

But it had me thinking. If Rebecca Whitehead had in fact died of an OD, surely Sanden would have spotted it if they were engaged in the wild thing when she OD'd. Based on my recent TV knowledge it wouldn't have been hard to spot - the junky was convulsing, his eyes were wide and "starey" and it was pretty clear things weren't hunky dory. Sanden admitted that the couple had been drinking and smoking marijuana before she died, but its clear, even to me, you can't OD on grass. So what happens when you OD? Clearly, it depends on what you overdose on. There in lies the problem - simply typing "what happens when you overdose" throws up a multitude of answers, from the "I don't intend to OD - why are you asking the question", to a complete "first aid" course should one of your mates suddenly start to shut down - available on the wonderfully named "Black Poppy" website - "A Drug Users Health and Lifestyle Website" - seriously! So here's the, ahem, dope on overdose.

"It can happen fast, the person passing out before they even get the works out of their arm, or it can happen slow, 15-20 minutes after they've had their hit. It can even happen when they've seemingly crashed out on the couch or in bed, sometime during the night. In fact, the usual time for an OD to happen is 3 hours after the drugs have been ingested!" The signs of an OD appear to be many; physically the person may suffer from seizures, chest pain, continuous vomiting or stroke like symptoms. On the other hand, the victim may show psychotic symptoms - anxiety, hallucinations or aggression. In any event it depends on the drug. Once you spot these signs you have to work quickly, if you want to save your friend. As the Black Poppy website points out, if the victim loses conciousness and the brain is deprived of oxygen for more than 5 minutes then they could suffer brain damage. Sound advise I'm sure, but as I witnessed on TV the other day, when the addict started to OD, the only people capable of action were the non drug users. The junkies appeared incapable or unwilling to react. Nature of the beast I suppose. Anyway, lets assume your on the ball, immediately put the OD in the recovery position, clear the airway and provide mouth to mouth if necessary - and call an ambulance.

As for Richard Sanden, well, it seems he didn't bother to do any of the required actions until it was too late. As such he continues to languish in Daviess County Jail, unable to post the half a million bail, awaiting his day in court. Now then, if Sanden was Vincent Vega and Rebecca Whitehead was Missus Mia Wallace, none of this would have happend, but then real life isn't Pulp Fiction.

Is Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Septimius Severus in Disguise

2011-02-23T15:45:00.001+01:00

History will not treat Libya's most famous son kindly - of that I have no doubt. But what of its other famous sons? Frankly, I can't imagine that King Idris who Gadaffi overthrew will be much remembered by anyone. But what of Septimius Severus?

Severus was the Roman Emperor from April 193 to February 211, and was born in Leptis Magna, whose ruins stand in Al Khums in modern day Libya, and is currently under the control of Libyan "rebel forces". Severus was of Roman heritage on his mother's side and Punic (Libyan) on his father's, and his family was "well to do". He was well educated, however, according to historians, his thirst for knowledge was stifled in Africa. Severus was ambitious, and after reaching as far as he could in Libya, he ventured to Rome, where he held down some decent positions, and advanced through the ranks, thanks to "the loss of many able bodied men to the "Antonine Plague". This last comment may be rather harsh on Severus, as his early years are apparently not well recorded. Nevertheless, it seems that he reached a decent station in life. In 191 the Emperor Commodus appointed Severus commander of the legions of Pannanonia - modern day Balkans.

Severus became Emperor in 193, but it wasn't easy. Didius Julianus paid the Praetorian Guard to murder Emperor Pertinax. Upon hearing of the death of Pertinax, Severus' troops proclaimed him emperor and he returned to Rome. Meanwhile, Julianus had been sentenced to death for his part in the murder of Pertinax allowing Severus to take Rome without opposition. Meanwhile, the Legions of Syria had proclaimed their commander, Pescennius Niger, emperor, obliging Severus to march east to confront Niger - he did so at Issus, crushing him and his forces. Before taking on Niger, Severus had annointed Clodius Albinus (the governor of Britain) his successor, however after defeating Niger, Severus raised his son, Caracalla, to the rank of Caesar. Enraged, Albinus' troops appointed Albinus Emperor and moved to Gallia (France). With an army of some 75,000, Severus marched on Gallia and defeated Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum (Lyon), securing complete control of Rome. Phew!

"You're always a lampshade, never a light".

2011-02-22T14:30:00.001+01:00

I have just finished reading a Mark Lanegan interview from an old copy of Spin magazine circa 2004 - coinciding with the release of the Bubblegum album. I often wonder if the raison d''etre of music journalism is to inform the reader about the subject matter or to use the subject matter to show off the sublime writing skills of the journo. The Lanegan interview, originally entitled "Heart of Darkness" is in fairness a bit of both. The author, Tom Lanham, has some silky skills;

"This, then, is darkness. Grim and soul-swallowing, deliscious and decadent. The absinth-hazed bohemian Baudelaire, murmuring sepulchral lullabies to his demonic "Lethe" in Les Fleurs du Mal. The scythe-wielding Red Death skeletal fingers on the chambers of Poe's poor opium-addled brain."

It goes on ... a bit ... too far. This is after all a rock magazine - still I imagine he had two or so pages to fill and his interview with Lanegan was likely not too long. The article doesn't reveal too much new - afterall the story is 7 years old, and thats to be expected, but Lanegan is definately on form and is pretty open for one so taciturn. Digging through the prose, reveals some real nuggets;

"...everyone of these god-damn songs is about drugs, and when I'm talking about love, it's not a human love."

"... and luckily, some people can connect to this shit, this music, that aren't junkies. But I always figured that I was making this music for my own people. You either get it or yoo don't."

"they (the tattoos) are there just so no one will sit next to me on the bus."

when asked what the tattoos read, he responds "Youthful Indiscretion".

he reveals that a girlfried once told him; "You're always a lampshade, never a light".

"So I'd rather listen to Robert Johnson or ... Appalachian murder ballads - I love that shit... it's a constant source of inspiration ... you can rewrite that shit a hundred million times. God knows I have! ... y'know, lift a line here or there".

"And , this is not to say that I promote drugs in any shape or form. because I don't, ... but I gotta say, with speed ... I got a lot done."

"Cocaine and heroin? They just made it impossible to work... I looked around and saw that all my friends had died, and I wasn't much older than most of them."

"... there are no old, successful junkies."

" ... I know I had a problem with alcohol early on, because other guys didn't go haywire on it quite like I did"

Lanegan at his best, displaying self depricating wit and honesty, and very open ... perhaps too open;

"As a teenager Lanegan drank too much tequila before a Saxon concert. He awoke mid concert to find the ugliest chick in the school openly fucking him, while his classmates watched from the seats above. He never drank Cuervo again."

Well you wouldn't would you?

ANC "A Complete Mess": WIKILEAKS

2011-02-21T16:50:00.002+01:00

According to one of the ANC's myriad of spokespeople, the ANC is a "complete mess". South Africa's weekend press reports that Dumisa Ntuli told a US diplomat in October 2009 that the party was deeply divided - citing a diplomatic cable recently released by Wikileaks, Ntuli is quoted as saying "There are die hard Zuma supporters, pro labour people, the communists, pro Mbeki people, and no one speajks for the same things." Ntuli, who the diplomat believed is a Mbeki supporter, pointed out that the Party leaders were attempting to unify its members, and educate the younger members to the history and values of the ANC. Ntuli feared that these attempts "would only lead to failure ... the younger cadres have no interest in the history of the ANC. They want access to jobs and personal enrichment." Tellingly, he commented that party members "were focused on jockeying for positions" and that the youth "will not listen to, or respect senior officials".

I can't say that I'm too surprised. For some time now the ANCYL and its president Julius Malema have been at loggerheads with the ANC leadership. Without flogging a dead horse, Malema seems intent on raising his profile regardless of the consequences - to him or the ANC. Lets not forget, this is that man that, inter alia;

threw a BBC reporter out of a press conference after accusing him of being a "bleddy agent";
refused to stop signing "Kill the Boer" despite pleas from the ANC hierarchy,forcing them to back his Supreme Court challenge to a lower court's ruling that the song satisfied the crime of incitement;
supported Robert Mugabe and his deranged policies whilst denouncing the democratic movement as imperialist pawns;
refuses to pay a R50,000 fine levied on him by the Equality Court after finding that his comments regarding Jacob Zuma's rape accuser constituted a hate crime;
has questionable business practices and
refuses to fall inline with the ANC's stance on the nationalisation of the mining industry.

The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories

2011-02-18T16:23:00.001+01:00

This year's finalists for the Diagram Prize have been announced by Britain's Bookseller magazine. Before we get to the lucky few, what exactly is the Diagram Prize? The Diagram was conceived as a way to pass time at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and is now an annual event celebrating books with odd titles. Titles are nominated by publishers, booksellers, editors etc. and the person who nominates the eventual winner gets a big bottle of red wine. Nice. The inaugural winner in 1978 was "Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice" - other winners have included "If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs", "Reusing Old Graves", "The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories", "High Performance Stiffened Structures" and the magnificently titled, "The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today"!

This years nominations have a lot to live up to and are, indeed, a fine crop;

The Generosity of the Dead - feeding the multitude?

The Italian's One Night Love-Child - Sylvio's autobiography?

8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings - rivetting stuff!

What Color is Your Dog - don't see this one myself, but whatever,

Managing a Dental Practice: The Genghis Khan Way - surely the winner.

My favourite didn't win - "How to Avoid Huge Ships: Or I Never Met a Ship I Liked" by John W Trimmer. Here's the kicker - it's a serious, non fiction book:

"Off in the distance, beyond the bridge spanning the waterway, you can make out the lights and shape of a containership moving down the channel. Have you ever wondered what action you must take to keep clear of that fast-approaching ship? This book will tell you how to do so quickly ... It is fascinating to learn what is taking place on the bridge ... of these leviathans as it heads your way. Can it be stopped before it hits you? Can it even turn rapidly enough to avoid you? Learn how to protect yourself ..."

Sadly no longer available at Amazon.Co.UK - though I had to laugh at the sole review; "not only did they send me the wrong title I had to wait a very long time for a refund.". Should have kept it!

They think it's all over - it is now, maybe, perhaps ...

2011-02-18T13:32:00.003+01:00

Of course we thought it was all over, but we were wrong, and there won’t be a Kenneth Wolstenholme moment - at least not any time soon. Kenny Kunene must wish he hadn’t bothered to get out of bed on his birthday this year. For those who don’t know, Kenny Kunene is one of the nouveau riche black entrepreneurs. He appears to be well connected within the ANC cadre, but he just pissed them off by serving Nyotaimori at his birthday bash at the ZAR nightclub in Cape Town. For uninitiated, that’s serving sushi from the body of a naked model. According to The Times newspaper, the party featured bikini clad women with sushi arranged on their bodies while lying on the bonnets of luxury cars. White Maseratis according to the Sowetan. Class! The nation, apparently, was horrified. Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war.

Now that's REAL class

The ANC Women's League issued a strongly worded statement; “This is an insult to the principles and values that the ANC stands for … and is a blatant attempt to undermine the selfless sacrifices made by all those who fought for the emancipation and respect of women in our country.” A "blatant attempt" may be a tad harsh, but the ANCWL was determined to hammer home its point. "We are appalled by this derogatory act... We cannot allow such an insulting act or anyone trying to associate it with the ANC." And they weren’t alone. COSATU issued an appropriately politically correct statement; "Stripping women and reducing them to sex symbols for the pleasure of men does nothing but entrench stereotypes and reinforce patriarchal behavior." Not to be left behind, Floyd Shivambu of the Youth League chimed in as well "The ANCYL has on more than one occasion disapproved of such practices in the past and publicly voiced our disapproval,"