[news] why the blog's been dormant

I'm posting this while the technician artificially holds me in the internet.

The system has crashed and I need new processor, new hard disk and a different internet provider. We've done the latter but the other two must be done on Monday morning. We have to reinstall Windows and the other programmes in conjunction with this. He says the FAT 32 is useless for what I'm trying to do. I haven't a clue what he means.

On every seven or eight tries, the blog opens for about ten minutes so I'll try to get three pieces together and post them in one hit tomorrow around lunchtime. I'll have to wait till Monday to surf and say hello to you.

Trouble is, yesterday my wiper motor rod broke in the car in the excessive snow [that's a post in itself] and today the vacuum cleaner went down and the threaded rod sheered on the old tap in the bathroom - that one was my fault entirely for not replacing it sooner. These have to be fixed first. It's a fun time coming up to the birthday but the health is fine [touch wood].

To regular readers - the Blogfocus will be on Tuesday now. Hope you're all right yourselves, nothing broken and see you then. Miss you.

[consumer debt] worse for older men, single mums

The Consumer Credit Counselling Service has seen a boom in demand for its services in the past year, with a 65% increase in clients. However at the same time, charity Citizens Advice said it had seen a 15% increase in debt cases year-on-year.

The bottom line was that it’s the older male and the single mother who are in most trouble.

The latter are problematic because one has to ask why they’re single. This gets into age, the lessening attractiveness of marriage and the unwillingness of the new male to take on the burden of a partner with a more feminist ‘in it for myself’ perspective.

It’s partly his own debt problems and partly the new hedonism. With the new girl giving sex virtually on tap [the pub scene], there’s no incentive for any young man to tie himself down any more and provide for a girl.

As for the older male, aspiration and the spiralling costs of affording key items like houses and cars, together with trying to maintain the ‘good life’ and re-mortgaging have pushed these people into credit debt upon credit debt and the result is always the same.

The answers are: for the girls - only have sex with someone you intend to marry and who intends to marry you and for the older males – live within your means and cut your lifestyle to suit your wallet. To both – use no credit, only debit cards.

If the answers sound glib, I say it’s perfectly possible. It just takes a little willpower.

[climate pact] disquietening political aspects

Amidst the spin over the latest global agreement, one paragraph stuck out in my mind:

The informal meeting also agreed that a global market should be formed to cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions. The non-binding declaration is seen as vital in influencing a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, correspondents say. The forum's closing statement said man-made climate change was now "beyond doubt".

I don’t believe they’d have made their move unless it had been based on sound science. These are very calculating people and they’ve obviously factored in the backlash and its ability to prove there is no climate change. Their ‘beyond doubt’ is seriously worrying.

The other worrying aspect is ‘global market’. Clear to see where that is leading.

[snoring] how to resolve the problem

Men and women can both snore but this article deals with the usual situation:

“I am a snorer and it sometimes drives my wife mad. I know this because she tells me! As the snorer, it is difficult in this situation. I don't like the thought of her [or me] sleeping in another room. That could be a total relationship killer in my view, but then again so is the snoring! Catch 22. Neither of us is a fan of the Darth Vader Mask either. I do appeal to the all the snoring victims out there, spare a thought for the poor snorer too; it's not a deliberate act and it is very frustrating for us too!”

“I sent my husband packing to the spare room almost two years ago when I figured out his snoring was contributing to me being depressed. He was shocked to see the video of it. My brain was simply not getting enough of the feel good chemicals, and my body was stressed. Ever since we have slept apart, he gives me a cuddle every night and every morning for at least 5 minutes [smart man, he knows what women want].”

Real estate writer Mark Nash writes about it in his book 1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home, saying US home builders have documented the emerging trend to create a "snore escape" near the main bedroom. These rooms are usually no bigger than 12-feet by 12-feet and are often soundproofed with acoustic gyprock.

All the catamarans and trimarans I’ve designed have compartments fully sealed off from one another both for secondary buoyancy and for the reason of snoring. Mine is always the furthest away. One lady had no problem with my steam train impersonation. The other few, over the years, did have a problem with it, inversely in proportion to their ages. It’s not a beautiful topic and most snorers either try to conceal the fact or become ultra-defensive.

It’s certainly a topic which requires resolution, one way or the other. Have a good night. I’m for bed.

[thursday] you can keep it

Between lunch time and ‘chas pik’ [peak hour], I can usually do the run into or back from town in 20 minutes and my record is 12 minutes. Today I left town at 1830 and now at 2035, I’ve just walked through the door.

The fSU is a country with only the barest lip service given to law and order and the moment unusual conditions prevail, it’s a signal for people to do absolutely anything they want.

There was one intersection where cars were hurling themselves into that intersection irrespective of functioning traffic lights and citizens were standing in the middle, blocking traffic in an effort to get their friends through. Cars were at every conceivable angle, like something from a chase film.

Not one policeman was controlling the situation. They were on the sides of other roads somewhere else taking money from passing motorists. I tell you – only aggressive driving got me through that intersection, only to repeat it at the next. So why the complete mayhem?

A bit of snow.

Well actually, quite a bit. Like 36 hours of it, non-stop. That’s all right usually but when the temperature alarmingly climbs to 0 degrees, you know you’re in trouble. It’s slush, cars are bogged everywhere, sliding into one another, let me give you an idea. In my carpark place, it was up over the hubs and I measured 20cm on the roof and bonnet.

Oh, by the way, you may have noticed no posts today. Internet down. The telephone also decided to go down in sympathy and then the car’s windscreen wiper connecting rod snapped in two and the car spent some time at the garage. Today was the day 47 new girls started and I had to meet and orient them. That part was quite nice, actually.

Lovely day. Lovely.

[total oil] interesting headlines, interesting reactions

Have a look at these two headlines and taglines:

Total's record profits stir up French election
Oil giant Total's record profits stirred up France's presidential campaign on Wednesday and the Socialist party said the figures underlined the need for a tax on excess oil profits.

Total profit slips 4.7% on weaker oil prices
Net profit fell to 2.23-billion euros, $2.9-billion, in the October-December period from 2.34-billion euros a year ago, Total said.

What do the Left consider excess profits and how could Total’s profits drop just like that?

[exxon] making surprising sense

You’d surely have to accept that the Double Cross knows the oil biz and so you’d have to listen when Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson says that U.S. crude prices would be between $40 and $45 a barrel if risks of supply disruption were not in the market right now.

"Absent a lot of the risk volatility ... that's probably $10-$15 a barrel of risk premium that the commodity trading markets are reflecting," Tillerson told reporters at an energy conference in Houston. "I would say the underlying price is more like $40 or $45 a barrel if you didn't have the risk premium," he said.

Now to interpret his remarks, in the light of whom he’s trying to lay the blame on? Also, he says governments should address climate change – interesting, coming from the world’s largest oil conglomerate. What benefits have they now seen in supporting the idea of climate change? Have they already found a viable alternative fuel, after the Sakhalin rebuff?

[religion] my principles of spiritual governance

Earlier I ran a piece on the state and sane principles for its governance. Given my view that state and religion are separate, these then are my religious principles:

1] The separation of state and religion should be sacrosanct. There is no place for any religion to be aggressively and temporally enforced. Religion is a personal belief. That’s all. Better one person who truly believes than a billion who are coerced;

2] In Christianity there is no coercion, no state interference. It involves personally, each individual, one by one, if he or she chooses, accepting the teachings of a man called Jesus, whose guiding principles were three:

a] In all religions and societies there has existed the principle of sacrifice, more often blood sacrifice, to atone and appease. Man doesn’t understand any of this spiritual stuff but it seems to exist. The coming of the Christ eliminated the need for such sacrifices and ‘to believe’ is thus the only criterion, which I think is a cool idea;
b] Man should love his neighbour as himself;
c] This has annoyed and stymied a certain coercive dark entity out of his brain;

3] Christianity, having no secular basis, therefore cannot be a state religion. Thus, to compare adherents of different religions, as if numerical supremacy has anything to do with it, is illogical. On the other hand, the state can claim to nominally support a certain religion, e.g. Christianity but that’s as far as it goes. This was clearly demonstrated in the discussion with Pilate - JC was the first to argue for the separation of Church and State;

4] The Christian approach to other religions can only be tolerance [Good Samaritan], as He himself operated by persuasion and example, with a few miracles thrown in for good measure. There was almost no coercion, save the overturning of the money lenders’ tables at the temple;

5] Finer points of theology are garbage, such as con and transubstantiation – there is no record in the Gospels that anything was stated about those. Therefore, to coerce anyone on the basis of fine points of theology, as interpreted and decreed later by humans, is contrary to Christianity. In fact it works for ‘the other side’;

6] You ignore the existence of the coercive dark entity at your peril. Far be it for me to try to convince you, though the Sudan, Algeria, Rwanda, Star Wars, the Matrix and Lord of the Rings should be an indicator. You’ll know sooner or later, through his minions;

7] Even JC liked a drop of the vino and was partial to changing water to wine. To suggest that because a person adheres to the principles of Christianity, there’ll be no more cakes and ale, was never suggested by Him. Ditto for sex. Also, I believe He had a sense of humour though I can’t prove it, except that it exists within us.

[wednesday quiz] wrap your mind round these ten

1] Who do the Italians call Topolino?
2] What was the Jaguar car called before 1945?
3] Illustrated on its logo, the product Marmite is named after a French word meaning what? Cooking Pot
4] What is digamy?
5] Who was the founder of Lotus Cars Ltd.?
6] Donald F. Duncan introduced in 1929 a toy based on a weapon used by 16th-century Filipino hunters. What is it called?
7] Who is the longest serving member of the Privy Council?
8] On which day of the year does All Souls Day fall?
9] What are the caves at Lascaux famous for?
10] What is the collective name for the nine handmaidens of Odin?

Answers here.

[pointless post] world’s most unfriendly country

Tony [aside to Jacques]: Can’t you frogs eat even one meal without garlic?
Jacques [hissing back]: At least we can cook, you shopkeeper’s assistant.

It’s not my post, I swear. An Australian journalist has listed the people of Paris, US immigration officials, the English pub crowds, Switzerland, Austria and any other beautiful looking country as the unfriendliest in the world. Commenters added Turkey but many defended the French.

Surely it comes down, at least in part, to one’s own attitude and whether or not you’re a perceived natural enemy. Example – hitting the continent with a Thomas Cook group many years ago, visiting a supermarket, trying to speak to the girl in French and getting the cold shoulder and hostile stare really puzzled me at the time.

An American I’d met said, at our next stop, to come with them and they went to a little shop up the road and only French was spoken by any of us. Mine was very bad. I told them I was Australian. The French had a good laugh at our French but we were welcomed and helped.

And what of the friendliest? Google’s first page on the topic lists Rio, Ireland, Paris, New Zealand, the South Pacific, Arkansas and the Seychelles. I’d have to add the Russians, once you get to know them.

Again, I’m sure it comes down to your attitude. What do you think?

[february 14th] happy valentine’s day

This blog has absolutely no intention of drawing your attention to the year 1349 in Strasbourg and 1929 in Chicago. Surely the perpetrators now have their reward. Rather, this is a wish to you all to have the happiest, warmest, most loving, etc. etc. …..

As if on cue, the snow is falling here as soft powder and every nook and cranny has filled and smoothed out. The temperature has risen, the wind has dropped and people are out in the hushed, crisp atmosphere, under street lamps, walking, talking, smiles on their faces and cars breaking down everywhere or else sliding into one another.

But what’s mayhem when it’s the Day of Love?

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

[r.i.m.] new business black berry 8800

Research In Motion Ltd has begun offering the new BlackBerry 8800:

# measuring 0.55 inches thick;
# tiny trackball on the front of the device (similar to the Pearl;
# full QWERTY keyboard;
# built-in GPS and BlackBerry Maps;
# multi-media player;
# expandable microSD memory slot;
# quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE-enabled;
# Bluetooth 2.0;
# usual voice and data applications, including phone, email, text messaging, web browser, organizer, and multimedia features;
# noise cancellation for better audio performance;
# "speaker independent voice recognition for voice activated dialing;
# high-resolution (320 x 240) landscape display;
# built-in light sensing technology that "automatically adjusts the screen, keyboard and trackball brightness for optimized visibility;"
# media player supporting MP3 and ACC music files, as well as MPEG4 and H.263 video files
stereo headset jack is also available;
# it ships with a rudimentary mapping capability developed in-house by RIM, but lacking some of the more sophisticated navigation and directions offered in other products;
# In the UK available from Vodafone and Orange (T-Mobile and O2 are expected to follow);
# In the US meanwhile, it will be available on AT&T Inc's Cingular network, priced at $300 with a two-year contract commitment.

Incidentally, what is the company trying to do blocking copying of the picture on their site, now it's released? Just for that, I'm not linking to them but only to this site.

[children] britain, u.s. on the carpet

I’d rather read a critique from a non-friendly source and see the worst it can throw, rather than read one from an ally, excusing himself and softening the message the closer it got to home. Thus it is here.

The United Nations Children's Fund ranked Britain and the US among the bottom third in the study which looked at overall well-being, health and safety, education, relationships, risk and their own sense of well-being. Child well-being was rated highest in northern Europe, with the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark leading the list.

Britain lived up to its reputation for "binge-drinking," hazardous sexual activity and drug use, with the report putting the country at the bottom of the rankings for risk behaviours "by a considerable distance". Almost a third of British youngsters aged 11, 13 and 15 reported being drunk on two or more occasions.

Britain and the US were also found to have the worst rankings in terms of children's relationships with their families and peers. Unicef noted the sensitivity of this field, but said "at the statistical level, there is evidence to associate growing up in single-parent families and stepfamilies with greater risk to well-being."

The report highlighted how the Czech Republic had a higher ranking than many richer countries, including France, Austria, the United States and Britain.

The good news is that Britain had made progress in the field of child safety, having cut the incidence of deaths from accidents and injuries to the "remarkably low level" of fewer than 10 per 10,000.

Despite the clear political point scoring in the article, nevertheless, it has implications and is a clear indictment of how children are being treated. Parents, as always, will blame the education system, quite rightly so but take none of the blame upon themselves.

[states] sane principles of world governance

Discussion paper, ladies and gentlemen, no more:

This is how I think the state should be run - my political views in a nutshell. My religious views are in a separate piece.

Historicity - Different parts of the world have developed idiosyncratic cultures and languages which define that nation and all artificial nationalist designations are subordinate to that. Pride in one’s historicity and ethnicity is a fine thing, even though it will eventually be redefined by immigration;

States’ rights – There is endless fragmentation of geographical areas down to the smallest district but for defense and administrative purposes, most people are happy to own themselves part of a state not so large that it cannot respond to their needs and it can be part of a loose confederacy for defence purposes, e.g. NATO. The principle of constitutionally combining under the auspices of a larger entity, e.g. the EU, is anathema;

States are subject to their people and not vice-versa - They need to be driven by an altruistic code towards that people. They take care of welfare for those who can convince a panel of doctors and JPs that they’re incapable and they combine with other states of the same ethnicity and/or views for the purposes of defence. Their major purpose is to oppose organized coercion, either military, religious or criminal and to ensure free trade. They supply and ensure electricity and water and that’s it;

The business of states is business - Free trade is the only criterion by which disputes are resolved and the only ensurer of personal freedoms. Anti-cabal legislation is the only coercive power invested in the state. Defence and balance of power is the only justifiable usage of state militias, within the state’s borders. International dispute is resolved through free trade principles;

Appointment, tenure and promotion - To any state office, this should be according to merit, tempered by the demonstrated time period of good service.

Borders should be fuzzy - Everyone knows where historical national borders basically are and while one can dispute Schleswig-Holstein or Sud-Tyrol ad infinitum, beyond that it’s generally recognized where the boundaries are and they are sacrosanct. Therefore invading Russia is right out and vice-versa;

Understanding the cabals – Once we recognize there is an evil actively at work in high places [Ephesians 6:12], attempting to overturn the natural order, clearly spelt out in both scripture and in history and which follows the principles of reduction of and enslavement of the common man under a global elite, ordering and regulation of all aspects of life, destruction of the family and suppression of religious belief, reduction of the world population to eliminate inferior species, promotion of deviance in all aspects of life and the rule of the world under a cabal of cabals, itself ruled by a certain shady entity, then all the other aspects above become infinitely stronger and more easy to maintain.

Having said all that - Each home country in the British Isles has its own parliament, which in turn cedes certain powers to local government; the national assembly meets on the Isle of Man for strategic and defence purposes only.

[sherlock holmes] the best story in my opinion

Mycroft Holmes, by Sidney Paget, although the illustrations for this story were by Arthur Twidle

There’ve been many surveys of the top Sherlock Holmes stories over the years and I’ve a complicated comparative chart of surveys in a file, decades apart, which it would take too long to post. The one below is a fairly recent reader survey:

1. "The Speckled Band"
2. "The Red-Headed League"
3. "A Scandal in Bohemia"
4. "Silver Blaze"
5. "The Blue Carbuncle"
6. "The Musgrave Ritual"
7. "The Final Problem"
8. "The Empty House"
9. "The Dancing Men"
10. "The Six Napoleons"
11. "The Bruce-Partington Plans"
12. "The Man with the Twisted Lip"

Personally, I put the Bruce-Partington Plans at the top, not because it fulfils all these criteria necessarily:

1. 3 dimensional, memorable characters – real living, breathing people
2. clever, inventive situations
3. the thrill of the chase, the passion, the seriousness of the hunt
4. mystery – the Agatha Christie ‘whodunit’ method
5. watching a professional at work - seeing Holmes’s deductive method in action
6. reader’s feeling of immediacy, particularly at the beginning of stories
7. sense of ‘fullness’ and ‘richness’ in the text, particularly in the dialogue

… but because Holmes and Co’s dialogue is almost as I imagine myself reacting, e.g.

He paced restlessly about our sitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction. "Nothing of interest in the paper, Watson?" he said.

I was aware that by anything of interest, Holmes meant anything of criminal interest.

Then comes the telegram that his brother is to visit so they brush up on the case:

"There has been an inquest," said I, "and a good many fresh facts have come out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it was a curious case."

"Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a most extraordinary one." He snuggled down in his armchair. "Now, Watson, let us have the facts."

Later, when Mycroft refuses to accept Sherlock’s puzzlement over the case:

What is there for us to do?"

"To act, Sherlock - to act!" cried Mycroft, springing to his feet. "All my instincts are against this explanation. Use your powers! Go to the scene of the crime! See the people concerned! Leave no stone unturned! In all your career you have never had so great a chance of serving your country."

"Well, well!" said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. "Come, Watson! And you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour or two?"

You can access the whole story here.

[blogfocus tuesday] the boys cut loose

The moment you try to make a distinction between the best men’s and women’s writing, you’re on a sticky wicket and people can equally point to a hundred pieces which would disprove your hypothesis.

Still, I do persist that there is a subtle difference in style, in approach. Dare I say it’s maybe the difference between ‘power and range’ and ‘unerring accuracy and roundness’? Perhaps not. Well, you be the judge, as the boys flex their muscles this evening:

1 Dead as a Dodo was always going to be a great concept – to write up events and pass them off as if they were obituaries - but great concepts are as dead as dodos if they’re not accompanied by some nifty writing, as in the death of Free Will, peace be upon it:

Free Will was an unpopular child – frequently getting into fights with philosophers who felt their decision to gang up on Free Will and attempt to beat it to a pulp were all preordained by bearded men on Mount Olympus given to chucking thunderbolts about and changing into swans and bulls to ravish young maidens. Later on it would grow up be an unpopular adult, frequently getting into fights with Logical, Biological and Theological determinists who thought their decision to gang up on Free Will was preordained by past events, the contents of their genes or a bearded man in the sky with a strange resemblance to Dr Rowan Williams.

2 The rant is a form of writing many ladies do well but for sheer effortless style, the Periodic Englishman takes some beating. Here he explodes at the escalation of atrocities and dispiriting cr-p which is going on in the world just now, peace not be upon the perpetrators:

What is wrong with people? Where in the name of God are the good guys? How is it possible to twiddle one’s thumbs as these babies cry out in despair? A club to the head and a knife through young hearts and a mother slumped dead in her chair. A blood soaked mountain stinking of death. Too much to take in, too much to deal with, and all so very far away that it should just feel fine. It really doesn't though. I’ve got to quit this Rwanda habit immediately, because it simply does my head in. This shattering confirmation that the world has gone to hell destroys the will to live.

Does it not, sweet Romeo?

3 One of my very favourites, if you can see past the c—ts and f---s, is the Reactionary Snob and I enjoy him more in cruise mode than in overdrive but each to his or her own:

I am an anachronistic, mud-soaked old thing who likes things the way they are. I like, when I get in to my house, to be met by a rather stiff gin & tonic. I like my son to eat at the table in the fashion that the Booby and I have instructed him, rather than doing his 'pig eating slops' impression and I am not too keen on the new fashion of footballers kissing each other when celebrating a goal - not that I'm a homophobe, I just don't think it's the done thing. I am, as you may have guessed, inherently conservative.

Nine more boy bloggers here.

[bee world] colony collapse disorder

This blog doesn’t usually cut and paste vast tracts of an MSM story but this is an exception:

Colony Collapse Disorder is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the United States. Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some commercial beekeepers have reported losing more than 50 per cent of their bees. A colony can have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.

The country's bee population had already been shocked in recent years by a tiny, parasitic bug called the varroa mite, which has destroyed more than half of some beekeepers' hives and devastated most wild honeybee populations. Among the clues being assembled by researchers:

- Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.

- From the outside, a stricken colony may appear normal, with bees leaving and entering. But when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find few mature bees taking care of the younger, developing bees.

- Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive's honey. That's not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.

[harvard] the enormity of the error

Harvard Business School in winter

You could be forgiven for thinking that Harvard had made a marvellous decision and is at the dawn of a new era of prosperity:

Despite the 50-50 leadership split at the Ivies, only 20 percent of US colleges and universities are run by women. Dr. Faust's appointment could have a lasting impact on the gender imbalance among faculty at Harvard, and in the leadership ranks across academia, experts say.

Note the little bit tacked on the end – ‘experts say’? Really and what’s the criterion for expertise in determining ‘gender imbalance’? That’s right – the feministi, at the ready with the free-of-charge-quote. Well let’s hear, for a change from real experts – women involved in the Ivy League.

First off, Sissy Willis has yet another quote from the woman who’s looking worse and worse as she goes along:

"The fascination with war can be 'almost pornographic in its combination of thrill and terror,'" wrote the ivory-tower-bound woman who would be President of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, in a 2004 article in the journal Civil War History.

Dr. Fausta's own violent, shapeless and meaningless verbal assault on the honorable men and women who make this world safe for her to pursue her muse took our breath away. She is William Arkin with a PhD. It gets worse:

Thus we are the ones who give meaning to war - so it's up to us to come to terms with the power of war stories. "In acknowledging its attraction," she concludes, "we diminish its power" - we move from being part of the problem to part of the solution.

The arrogance is stunning.

Lest you feel that this is one biased lady with a chip on her shoulder, try this, from a Dymphna e-mail she’s kindly allowed me to quote from:

It's viscerally sickening. This stuff makes me feel impotent. These women are not going to just age out and retire – they have recruits who will follow in their footsteps.

Ever since that woman had to flee Larry Summers' speech because she was "so upset" I have been amazed at how the events flowed from that. She should have been laughed out of Harvard for being so emotional re a philosophical *inquiry* but instead Larry Summers let them nail his family jewels to a chair.

*He* should have left as soon as he started being mau-maued. Maybe he was too close to the situation to see that he was being stripped and the fems had their spike and hammer ready. I will never, ever understand why he stayed till the bitter end and kissed gluteus maximus for months. He sure didn't do real feminism any favors because now we're stuck with these nasty specimens.

Women like this don't get it ... it's a law of human culture that when women begin to dominate a field, men slowly drift away. Female undergraduates are in the majority now (but not in the sciences, of course). Makes you wonder where all the men are.

Also makes you wonder about the rising phenomenon of "mean girls." They're really increasing. The B and I had no idea or we'd have tried to arm the future Baron for those encounters. Girls sure have changed, and not for the better. I think it's a culture-wide happening. On both sides of the divide.

If I knew Larry Summers' address I'd send him a deeply-felt sympathy card.

Let’s look at the bona fides of the two women making these allegations. This is Sisu. A glance at her post titles says all that’s necessary about her capacity to reason. As for Dymphna, Gates of Vienna needs no comment from me. Plus these two are close to the action over there on an almost daily basis.

It's time we all woke up, from whichever country we blog from, as to what's going down here.

[breast cancer] hope for the hormone sensitive

One for Jeremy Jacobs, who now must be counting the hours until his trek:

A new drug is giving women with breast cancer fresh hope by lowering oestrogen levels in women with hormone-sensitive breast cancer. Research has shown that switching from tamoxifen, the standard breast cancer treatment, to the new drug exemestane after two or three years resulted in death rates falling by 17 per cent.

The chances of dying were now 50 per cent lower than they would have been with no chemotherapy, and 17 per cent lower than they were without the switch from tamoxifen. The charity Cancer Research UK, whose scientists were involved in the study, said the treatment protocol would prevent an estimated 1,300 deaths each year if it was rolled out across the UK.

Let’s hope and pray that is so.

[fashionisti] various proposals to clean it up

Should the fashion world follow the lead of Spain's top runway show, the Pasarela Cibeles, and stop using thin models?

Yes (89%) 3259 votes
No (11%) 413 votes

Personally, I think that:

# unprovoked scowling should be banned [see photo];
# they should all undergo a course of interpersonal relations and kindness training before they’re let loose on the catwalk;
# the gay mafia should be excised from the fashion industry altogether;
# ‘real women’ in real sizes should be encouraged to join the industry.

[qantas hostesses] should they be toilet trained

Qantas Girl's Choir

First, a Qantas flight attendant was telling off another woman for taking too long in a toilet when the toilet door was slammed shut on her, cutting off her fingertip.

Now, a Qantas flight attendant, accused of having sex with British actor Ralph Fiennes in an aircraft toilet, has been stood down. She says Fiennes followed her into the toilet and "became amorous", but she denies having sex with him.

A glance at Qantas requirements for hosties:

· Lifting a 28kg aircraft window exit;
· Dealing with emergencies in a smoke-filled simulator;
· Swimming and assisting people in the water;
· Descending an escape slide, 9 metres above the ground;
· Fighting fires while wearing a full face mask;
· Controlling people in panic situations;
· Moving disabled people in evacuations.

… does not appear to include toilet training. One also wonders about N3 on the list.

[relationship survey] some canadian results

1,500 adults were surveyed across Canada:

# 70% Canadians are in a relationship.
# 55 % of women said being faithful was the most important criteria;
# 49 % of men said being faithful was the most important criteria;
# 35 % of those polled said intelligence was a major factor in lasting love;
# 34 per cent of respondents said respecting the other's independence was important;
# 31 per cent said knowing how to listen was vital;
# 30 per cent of men said physical attraction rated high;
# 26 per cent said being nice was vital;
# 14 per cent of women rated physical attraction important;
# 12 per cent of males said being good in bed was a priority;
# 5 per cent of respondents rated money as very important;
# 4 per cent of females said being good in bed was a priority;
# respect and listening were significantly more important to the women than the men.

1] Do you believe these results?
2] Are they your priorities as well?

[u.s.a] open letter to my american friends

My US blogfriends are most important to me and keeping your interest in this blog is one of my main tasks. Visiting you over there is part of that and I enjoy reading and discussing your issues with you, e.g. the Harvard matter.

I have but one gripe – unilateralism.

There really is this tendency, at times, to feel you’re going it alone, that it’s only the US out there and then the rest of the world. This attitude ignores your allies Britain, Canada and Australia. These countries have fought alongside you and are happy to be full allies, not so much to implement US policy but to implement a Free-World policy, or so the theory goes. You’re the largest and most powerful of these and so enjoy premier place.

When John Howard said that he was defending Australia’s interests in his comments on the US presidential race, that’s what he meant. The US alliance means that these countries are inextricably interwoven and the leadership of the US very much affects the prospects of its other allies. If you didn’t need those allies, you wouldn’t have kept them on. Therefore there is not only keen interest in your presidential race but a stake in it as well.

To turn round and tell us to ‘butt-out’, as I’ve read today, is illogical because our interests are also involved. To say Britain, Canada and Australia contribute nothing in Iraq, as I’ve read today, is not only blind to the reality but smacks of the unilateralism I was referring to.

It’s also not very friendly.

[welfare] money on language learning, not translators

More than four million pounds is spent on translators at job centres to help those who cannot speak English claim benefits. Welfare Minister Jim Murphy has proposed that from April, this money should instead be spent on improving the language skills of the unemployed to help them find work.

At first sight, this seems reasonable but I’ll watch with interest the comments of other Britbloggers. Perhaps there’s something we’ve missed here.

[la gioconda smile] eating her with relish

Eating La Gioconda [dipinto di Leonardo da Vinci che mostra una donna con un'espressione pensierosa e un leggero sorriso quasi enigmatico – in case you didn’t know] is very tasty, even when she’s not quite fresh. You see, a French speaking girl brought her and 19 other art chocolates back from Paris and I’m saving the wrappers.

[france] ségolène’s proposals

# 500,000 subsidized jobs for young people;
# the streamlining of presidential ministries;

# free medical care for children younger than 16;
# reduced class sizes;
# better unemployment benefits;
# interest-free government loans to graduates to start businesses.

Royal did not detail Sunday how the country would pay for the new entitlements. So she’s consistently leftist.

Her supporters drifted to other candidates, experts say, after she blundered on trips abroad and refused to be specific about how she'd run the country.

Also consistently left, she has said she’s a victim of "a hard right, without principles, without virtue" that had her "vilified in seedy publications and on the cover of weekly magazines linked to the government."

Currently it stands Sarkozy 53% and Royal 47% but both acknowledge that under the French system, that is far from certain.

[obama] john howard sticks his oar in

Australia's prime minister is in hot water for suggesting that Barack Obama would be popular among terrorist leaders because of his promise to recall troops from Iraq if he wins.

Howard says his remarks were appropriate.

Obama challenged John Howard to send another 20,000 Australian troops. "Otherwise, it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric," he said in Iowa.

Republicans and Democrats have both told John Howard to butt out and not to interfere in another country’s politics, which is quite delicious, coming as it does from the U.S.

I'd like to know how you can have a 'bunch' of rhetoric. Just asking. Seems to this blogger that as long as the Americans keep out the Lizard Queen, the rest hardly matters.

UPDATE: John Howard has reiterated his stance: "I hold the strongest possible view that it is contrary to the security interests of this country for America to be defeated in Iraq."

[miss deutschland] schön schauspiel oder fragwürdig wettbewerb

Nummerngirls: "Miss zu sein, heißt nicht, ein Model zu sein, sondern ein Repräsentant", sagt Katie Steiner, die 23-jährige Miss Norddeutschland

Und Platz 1 geht an - extra langer Trommelwirbel - "die Nummer vierzehn"! "Oh G-tt, das ist ja meine Nummer." Es dauert einen Moment, bis Nelly realisiert, dass sie gemeint ist, dass sie nun Miss Germany 2007 ist. Die Miss Germany 2006, Isabelle Knispel, setzt ihrer Nachfolgerin die Krone auf - und hat Tränen in den Augen. Weil sie an ihre Siegerehrung vor einem Jahr denken musste, und welch ein toller Moment das war. Und die anderen Mädchen sagen unisono: "Wir freuen uns alle für Nelly." Sie sei so superlieb, sympathisch und die Hübscheste von allen - das Mädchen, dessen Make-Up in der Schule nur aus Wimperntusche besteht.

Fantastisch Leistung oder einfach ein Fleischmarkt?

[cricket] yes, more does need to be said

… as Colin Campbell has pointed out. Please click on the photo either here or at his site.

[evil empires] so which is which

Fifty kilometres from where I live in the ‘Former Evil Empire’

Ronald Reagan, in his speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, Orlando, Florida March 8, 1983, uttered the classic lines:

I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

Now it has come full circle and in an address at an annual international security conference in Munich on Saturday, Vladimir Putin, in some of his harshest criticism of the United States since he took office seven years ago, said that Washington's unilateral militaristic approach had made the world a more dangerous place than at any time during the Cold War.

The United States has overstepped its national borders in every way. Nobody feels secure anymore, because nobody can take safety behind the stone wall of international law … Stability and economic justice should be not only for the chosen ones, but for everybody.

Interesting, don't you think?

[pumpkin stew] couples have divorced for less

Now what would you do in this situation?

Let’s say you had a wife of eighteen years standing, whom we’ll call Yeleda D and you both lived in Voronezh in Russia. There’s just been a bumper pumpkin harvest and so she makes stews for you but pretends they’re made from zucchini [courgettes], instead of the less well-regarded but more plentiful pumpkins. For half a year you eat and enjoy these stews and then, one day, you discover the horrifying truth.

What do you do? Why you file for divorce, of course, on the grounds that you can never trust a woman who poisons your food. The court, of course, agrees with you and grants a decree.

[cricket] need any more be said

[faust takeover] latest manifestation of the same old thing

Reader, you may see this post as not directly concerning you and yet it really does concern you. It really does.

When I ran this post on Faust, I felt something was wrong with her but couldn’t quite pinpoint it and so wrote nothing more. That this lady should have been rushed into the job, after the vilification of Lawrence Summers, seemed to smack of “Them”.

“Them” is different things to different people – PC mafia, moral relativists, feminists, Marxists et al – but the agenda’s the same and I kept returning, over and over, to Woodrow Wilson [1913]:

"Some of the biggest men … are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."

and Churchill [1920]:

"[T]his world wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing … It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads."

It is the greatest foolhardiness and misreading of history to suggest that because Churchill was speaking then of communism, the threat exists no more. It very much does, only in its latest manifestations. So it was no surprise to read Sissy Willis’ own post on the Harvard takeover and if someone were to subsequently bring out that Faust is a dignitary in some group like Eastern Star or whatever, it would equally not surprise:

"The feminist takeover of Harvard is imminent," writes Heather MacDonald at City Journal. "Faust runs one of the most powerful incubators of feminist complaint and nonsensical academic theory in the country. … [This] confirmation, could not have more clearly repudiated Lawrence Summers's all-too-brief reign of meritocracy and academic honesty Harvard will now be the leader in politically correct victimology."

Nonsensical academic theory - I wrote on this here and here, the latter with, admittedly, only 70 linked references but how many do you need?

Christina Hoff Sommers’ equity feminism is one thing and as a male, I can hardly blame the women for sticking up for their sisters but Feminism was given a capital F and hijacked along the way by those very forces just alluded to:

"The women at the Heilbrun conference are the New Feminists: articulate, prone to self-dramatization, and chronically offended. Many of the women on the "Anger" panel were tenured professors at prestigious universities. All had fine and expensive educations."

Behind Faust’s seemingly mild views lie assumptions which are terrifying in their full implications for policy and for academic programming:

# I guess I've been studying unpleasant people or politically incorrect people for my whole academic career.
# it's very important to understand how individuals in the past rationalized lives that we might find unthinkable …
# My daughter, a committed vegetarian, now tells me that in a hundred years none of us will ever believe that we were eating meat.
# It is important to celebrate people but not to do so uncritically. By celebrating people in an uncritical way we only make them removed from ourselves . . .

As Sissy says: “Who but politically correct Marxist "thinkers" would ever dream of "celebrating" people uncritically?” And I add that Faust’s stated and implied feminist agenda for Radcliffe may well be arguable to a $300 million point but her takeover of all of Harvard, male and female alike, is nothing short of execrable.

Finally: "Whether it's back in the gulags of the old USSR, in the inimically orchestrated "street" of today's Arab tyrannies or in the politically correct, ivy-covered towers in our own backyard at Harvard, intimidation is the blogtheme that keeps on giving."

And intimidation is what we’re all facing now, from the evil of ID cards through to enforced views in the halls of learning.

Earlier post here.