Armchair Revolutionaries

I see that the scandal of the jackboots sounding through Westminster continues this morning with allegations/innuendos/revelations about the possible bugging of Parliament.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bugging-scandal-inside-the-commons-1041637.html

This is not the first time, as we know that an MP has been bugged previously, but now there is not even the flimsy excuse of the alleged war on terror.

Damian Green was simply embarrassing the Home Secretary by showing how incompetent the Home Office is at immigration control. This is not a state secret - the mismanagement under Jack Straw was legendary - though he blamed the public. John Reid, when Home Secretary himself, declared the place not fit for purpose.

The Home Secretary, hoping the same incompetence defense will work for her personally, has said that the arrest was not Stalinist, (in a possible allusion to comments about her boss when he was in charge of the Treasury), and she has refused to apologize for the behaviour of the police.

On the one hand it seems she thinks correct procedures were followed, as if there is such a thing as a correct procedure for the raid on the office of an MP, Privy Councillor and Opposition Front Bench spokesman, and on the other she is doing an impersonation of one of my favourite childhood TV characters, Sergeant Schultz, pretending, that like the Prime Minister she knew 'nothing' about it.

Brown, of course, has form both for leaking himself and never being around when his decisions come back to make him look unpopular, but how Smith thinks she can do so convincingly in her position as Home Secretary is astonishing.

'Somebody's turned up the gravity again!' - that was the thought as my feet hit the floor this morning. It's my usual greeting for the day. Of course, it's not actually true. As yet nobody in my primitive little world has got gravity under that sort of control. It's just the effect of a bad night and chronic personal entropy.
Apparently I share a disease with the late Arthur C. Clarke. 'Post-Polio Syndrome' or 'The Late Effects of Polio' is what it's called; PPS or LEP for short. I was amused to notice in the relevant interview, that he seemed somewhat miffed that the doctors had invented a buzz-word for his condition. That from a man who is responsible, at least in part, for the invention of all sorts of buzz-words. You know, modern everyday things like 'Communications Satellite,' 'Geo-stationery Orbit' and 'Video-phone.'
Well I suppose I have to blame Arthur for more than that. Seeing the original Cinerama version of '2001' was a turning point in my imaginative life. Until then, I'd only been into Dan Dare, Superman and Batman, great stuff for a future-minded kid, but comic-book stuff, nonetheless. '2001' was different; it was believable. A seminal moment that showed me our small planet's science-future was not all science-fiction, but much of it had a fair chance of becoming reality. For me that film was the monolith on the far side of the Moon. Now, after forty years or so, during which time I've been out-bound for Neptune, imaginatively, that is, I suppose I must be approaching the next seminal moment, or maybe it’s the one before the one after that.
For me, that's what life's all about, chasing those moments of enlightenment. Discoveries such as realising that most so-called professionals are hopelessly inadequate, business-men are mostly self-centred and often a paper-cut away from being crooks, organising a religion is the most deadly sin and if god exists, it's no friend of mine, or the world for that matter. It would be nice to catch up with some good news, but that's an experience I've rarely enjoyed.
We are in the middle of a multi-millennial war. The Battle of the Big Brain, the human brain, the evolutionary triumph that I’m sure evolution never envisaged. A mad war made more terrible by pure creative thought.
The combatants in this war, of which there are two, can best be described in terms of gender, despite the Political-Incorrectness of the concept: The Earth-Mother versus the Celestial-Father or if you prefer it the Earth-Father and the Celestial-Mother - but, whatever viewpoint you like to take, the wrong one is always winning.
To appreciate my point, you may have to chuck away any current concept or belief in religion; there lies true fiction. EM, the Earth-Mother, represents the forces of nature and natural selection - She is unthinking, but anthropomorphically as real as you or I. CF, the Celestial-Father, represents applied philosophy - a virtual god of thought alone. What confuses the issue is that current popular belief applies these concept-characters to the wrong sides of the argument. It is the earthy deity who is the true scientist but the celestial one who is blamed for it.
This is a depressing discovery. It would be wonderfully comforting if we could rely on EM for all the nice sweet painless pleasures, a primrose-path to eternity following nature's ways. But nature's ways are harsh - success against all odds, at whatever cost to the loser, that is EM's way. Her contributions to what we humans call civilisation include conflict, greed, envy, war and crime; anything which gives one creature or species an edge over another. EM's only goal is the dominance and spread of some part of herself; one creature from her multitude that will succeed against all odds. There are no bounds to her territorial ambitions, except those of the Universe itself. CF is both her audience and opposition, He appreciates her beauties and tries to steer her towards the creation of more of them. CF is a true Utopian.
We humans are stuck in the middle. Our big brains have evolved both the ability to see EM's beauty and the ability to take advantage of her. The first of these talents created CF - for he is totally artificial, and the second portends his ultimate failure. EM is on a roll, I fear she can't be stopped, which is why CF is on the run.
Amusingly, it is those who proclaim to be followers of EM, that are CF's greatest warriors: the environmentalists, the fighters of famine, the seekers of cold justice (as opposed to emotional vengeance) and those who would apply science to the health of humanity. For EM this is simply some temporary attempt at subversion, unless, that is, it incidentally promotes Her purpose!
The 'Meaning of Life' is that we are each here to breed and multiply, whatever the consequences. That is EM's prime battle strategy. Total war between all species, even when that means the destruction of other species or the elimination of one's own. For EM, extinctions are irrelevant, there's always another evolutionary adaptation coming up behind. CF represents the unnatural concept that a species can preserve the status-quo for the purpose of beauty, and beauty alone.
The Answer is not Douglas Adams' ironic "42" - It's that we are here to do EM's bidding, fulfil her strategy. But 'The Great Question,' is simple. I suppose it can best be put as, 'Tell me Pilgrim, whose side are you on?'

Is the arrest of an MP by policemen who the government claims are not even under their control a sign that our nation's finest are impartial and fearless upholders of the rule of law (give or take a law or two about the sovereignty of Parliament), or evidence that the executive are a bunch of lying bullies who have brought our constitution to the same state it was before an arrogant product of a Scottish dynasty finally pushed the English into cutting off Charles I's head?

If I had written Barack Obama's victory speech, it would have gone a little something like this...

But my question to you all is this:

If you had written Barack Obama's victory speech for him, which world-leaders and/or celebrities would you have thanked and invited to party with you on Air-Force-One, and why?

Both serious and comical answers welcome...

Hi to everybody...here's an interesting article recently in the Independent. I have been saying for a long time that the old GCSE's were harder than the current exams. This does seem to prove it...This was three years after I sat for my exams...

0%: What this year's top science pupils would have got in 1965

GCSE students flunk past papers in experiment that exposes decline in standards

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Thursday, 27 November 2008
The RSC says the current examination system is 'failing a generation'

High-flying GCSE students set for an A or A* pass scored zero points in a mock science exam which included old O-level questions.

The two-hour exam, devised by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and named "The Five Decade Challenge", included questions from past science papers spread over the past 43 years.

The results published today showed the older the paper, the fewer marks the students scored. For instance, the average score for the 2005 paper questions was 35 per cent, compared to 15 per cent for the 1965 questions.

Overall, the average score was 25 per cent but the RSC said some children scored no marks at all. The RSC called the test, taken by just over 1,300 of the country's brightest 16-year-olds, the first hard evidence of a "catastrophic slippage" in exam standards.

In a petition launched on the Downing Street website, the RSC says the current examination system was "failing a generation, which will be unequipped to address key issues facing society, whether as specialist scientists or members of a scientific community".

Too many teachers were "teaching to the test" because of the pressure of performance league tables, so students were missing out on background information to help them understand their subject. Despite taking into account syllabus changes which meant certain topics – such as enthalpy and bond energies – were not tackled until A-level, the results, it argued, provided conclusive proof that the papers had become easier. In particular, it added, today's pupils lacked the maths skills necessary to tackle the calculations associated with equations.

Dr Richard Pike, chief executive of the RSC, said: "The brightest pupils are not being trained in mathematical techniques, because they can get a grade A* pass without doing a single calculation. Conversely, the majority get at least a 'good pass' (grade C) by showing merely a superficial knowledge on a wide range of issues but no understanding of the fundamentals.

"The fact highly-intelligent youngsters were unfamiliar with these types of questions, obtaining on average 35 per cent from recent papers and just 15 per cent from the 1960s, points to a systematic failure and misplaced priorities in the education system."

The top mark was 94 per cent. The average was 33 per cent for independent schools, 23 per cent for state schools, 27 per cent for boys and 23 per cent for girls. "Children are being asked questions that show our curriculum isn't preparing them for the 21st century," said Michael Gove, the shadow Education Secretary.

A campaign to recruit 6,600 science teachers in the next two years is being launched today by the Training and Development Agency, which is responsible for teacher recruitment. It is exceeding its recruitment target for science teachers by two per cent this year.

"The Schools minister thinks science should be made more 'girl-friendly'. How so? By studding lab coats with pink rhinestones?"

Hi to everybody...just a reminder to all the group's member that contributions from you all would be appreciated...I seem to be the only one putting up subjects for discussion recently. There must be issues that interest or arouse deep feelings in you all...LOL...Please feel free to air them.

Hi to everybody...tonight I sat and watched a new BBC1 series I recorded yesterday called 'Apparations' with Martin Shaw playing an exorcist. As I watched it, I became more and more angry. The whole premise of the series is built on the battle between good and evil in the form of possessions of individuals by demons with Satan as their master and the Roman Catholic Church's belief that demons can be cast out by exorcists. In the first one, Mother Teresa was brought into it as being possessed by a demon before she died, and a young leper man praying that it would go into her and she would be saved, which it did. The demon then healed him. It turned out he was gay and was training to be a priest but the demon who cured him kept coming back to haunt him and threatening to take back his new skin if he prayed. All through this, a young girl was trying to get Martin Shaw to believe her that her father was possessed.
He realises that she's in great danger after he pursues the father all the time attempting to cast out the demon in him...in the meantime, the father's demon had plans for the daughter who just happened to be conceived on the night Mother Teresa died and she smelled of flowers according to Martin Shaw when in her presence...he contacts the chief of exorcisms??? who joins him in the park when the father lures his daughter there to abuse her and between them they rescue her and cast out the demon...but the gay trainee priest leaves the church and goes to see if he can satisfy his urge to experience sex with another man...as the demon is cast out of the father, the demon skins the gay man alive killing him.
Now, why have I bothered to tell you all this?
Two posts ago, I showed you an article about exorcists in Africa going around driving out demons from children by torture often leading to death and banishment from their family and village. I do not know why the BBC consider this a suitable subject to make a series out of when they must know what is happening in the less enlightened countries of the world regarding demon possession and which is practiced over here in our own country as well by people who believe in such things - the fact that I actually write about demon possession as if it is possible is a good example of how insidious such a series is because it takes itself seriously...children have been mutilated and killed here...there was the body of a child found in the river terribly mutilated and the police believe it was a ritualistic killing...and no doubt there have been others as well.
I do believe the BBC have made a gross error of judgement making this series, and it's licence payers' money that has been used to make it as well.
I would be interested to know what people here think of this post.

Hi to everybody...if anybody is interested in how the brain works, Melvyn Bragg's discussion on In our Time can be heard on Listen Again on Radio4...for at least thirty years I've held onto the theories discussed in this programme and it was very interesting to hear them confirmed here.
Well worth a listen if you're interested in how our brains function...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/

Hi to everybody...this was the scene in the middle of a service at the Holy Sepulchre between Greek Orthodox monks and the Armenian Church monks...it lasted several more minutes than this video with some really vicious fighting...

Hi to everybody...a practice we should all oppose as strongly as possible....

Scandal of the children killed for 'witchcraft'

In Nigeria, rogue pastors prey on fears of black magic to drum up a lucrative trade in 'exorcisms'

By Emily Dugan
Sunday, 9 November 2008

Five-year-old Utitofong can never go home. She has a loving family and has committed no crime, but her neighbours want her dead. Like thousands of children in the Niger delta of west Africa, she has fallen victim to an outbreak of virulent superstition that sees innocent young people condemned as witches. They can be driven from their villages, tortured or killed.

When her father died, Utitofong was blamed for having caused his death by witchcraft. Her mother spent more than four months' wages on exorcisms, fearing that her daughter would be killed by hostile villagers. But when the money ran out and a pastor proclaimed her a lost cause, Utitofong had to leave home for ever.

There have been Christians in Nigeria since the 19th century. While the majority hold moderate beliefs, an extreme minority has harnessed existing superstitions about black magic and turned them into a lucrative trade. Up to 15,000 children in Nigeria's Akwa Ibom and Cross River states alone have been branded witches by rogue pastors, who charge large sums to "exorcise" them.

Sam Itauma runs the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), a makeshift shelter and school in Eket for 150 children who have been deemed to be possessed. The children bear the horrific scars of witch-branding: acid burns, machete wounds and severe malnutrition.

A man from Ibaka in Akwa Ibom, who calls himself "the Bishop", has made a fortune conducting "exorcisms" of children, claiming that they are possessed by the devil and eat human flesh. He told an investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches that he had killed "up to 110 people" who were identified as witches.

Gary Foxcroft, a Briton who is director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a charity that works with children abandoned because of their supposed "possession", describes the situation as "an absolute scandal".

The distribution of a video claiming to explain how to "diagnose" those possessed is blamed. The film, End of the Wicked, is distributed widely across the Niger delta by the Liberty Gospel Church, a powerful evangelical sect with some 150 branches in the region. Its graphic images of apparently possessed children eating a human carcass, and being inducted into covens, have fuelled an epidemic of paranoia.

But more damaging than this are the film's directions on how to spot a child witch. It tells viewers that an infant under the age of two may be possessed if they scream in the night, experience ill health or get a fever.

Hi to everybody...on Remembrance day for the dead...spare a thought for this little one...
'Don't kill me,' she screamed. Then they stoned her to death

Outrage at execution of 13-year-old Somali rape victim for 'adultery'

By Daniel Howden
Sunday, 9 November 2008

This was a death foretold. A Toyota pickup with a loudspeaker began an early-morning tour of the ruined neighbourhoods of Kismayo, a port in southern Somalia, announcing that there would be a killing. By 4pm a crowd of 1,000 people had gathered at the football stadium. A hole had been dug in the ground, and half an hour later a truck loaded with rocks arrived.

A group of fighters from the Al-Shabab militia who control the city appeared, firing warning shots into the air to disperse a crush of people trying to reach the stones.

A young girl was dragged into the stadium. She knew what was going to happen next, and witnesses saw her struggling and screaming.

"What do you want from me?" she asked. Then she shouted "I'm not going, I'm not going. Don't kill me."

But four men forced her into the hole and buried her up to her neck. Fifty men then set about stoning her to death. After 10 minutes she was dug up and two nurses checked to see if she was alive. She was. So they put her back in the ground and the stoning recommenced.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow's crime was to be raped and then report it. After being attacked by three men her family went to the Al-Shabab Islamist militia to report the crime. She was detained and accused of adultery. No effort was made to identify or arrest the rapists.

Despite reports that she was 23 years old, Aisha was actually 13. "She hadn't even reached the age to be married," her distraught father said.

People in Kismayo say they live in constant fear of the Al-Shabab, but not everyone was content to watch a "clearly distressed" girl being stoned to death. Some people tried to intervene. The gunmen fired shots; one man was wounded and an eight-year-old boy was shot dead. The militia later apologised for his killing.

After the execution a man called Sheik Hayakalah told a radio station: "The evidence came from her side and she officially confirmed her guilt," he said. "She told us that she was happy with the punishment under Islamic law." Aisha's father said his daughter had begged for her life. It is illegal under Sharia to convict a 13-year-old of adultery.

Somalia is nightmarish. During the Cold War its strategic location on the Horn of Africa saw it become possibly the world's largest arms dump. With no effective government for nearly two decades, it has become a theatre for the proxy wars of its neighbours and a domain ruled by warlords and extremists. The emergence of the Islamic Courts movement, which drove the warlords out of Mogadishu, briefly offered hope of relative stability. Instead the movement was portrayed as a hotbed of Islamist extremism, accused of links to al-Qa'ida, and neighbouring Ethiopia was encouraged by the US to invade.

Today the country is divided between warlords, an illegitimate government protected by occupying troops, resurgent Islamist militias and a small, besieged force of Ugandan peacekeepers. Three million people out of a population of nine million are at immediate risk of starvation.

Incidents such as the stoning are presented by some as evidence of the need to confront Islamist forces in the country. However, analysts point out that the "military solution" has been a crushing failure that has driven out moderates and made a bad situation dramatically worse.

A waspish Gore Vidal vs Sir David Dimbleby.

Hi to everybody...found this article in the Independent today and think that, if they ever try to get this passed, it will be the greatest infringement on human liberty this country has ever experienced...it would be the same as opening every single letter posted to every single person in this country...why do they think they can do this to us?

Government black boxes will 'collect every email'

Home Office says all data from web could be stored in giant government database

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Wednesday, 5 November 2008

Internet "black boxes" will be used to collect every email and web visit in the UK under the Government's plans for a giant "big brother" database, The Independent has learnt.

Home Office officials have told senior figures from the internet and telecommunications industries that the "black box" technology could automatically retain and store raw data from the web before transferring it to a giant central database controlled by the Government.

Plans to create a database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK have provoked a huge public outcry. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, described it as "step too far" and the Government's own terrorism watchdog said that as a "raw idea" it was "awful".

Nevertheless, ministers have said they are committed to consulting on the new Communications Data Bill early in the new year. News that the Government is already preparing the ground by trying to allay the concerns of the internet industry is bound to raise suspicions about ministers' true intentions. Further details of the database emerged on Monday at a meeting of internet service providers (ISPs) in London where representatives from BT, AOL Europe, O2 and BSkyB were given a PowerPoint presentation of the issues and the technology surrounding the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), the name given by the Home Office to the database proposal.

Whitehall experts working on the IMP unit told the meeting the security and intelligence agencies wanted to use the stored data to help fight serious crime and terrorism, and said the technology would allow them to create greater "capacity" to monitor all communication traffic on the internet. The "black boxes" are an attractive option for the internet industry because they would be secure and not require any direct input from the ISPs.

During the meeting Whitehall officials also tried to reassure the industry by suggesting that many smaller ISPs would be unaffected by the "black boxes" as these would be installed upstream on the network and hinted that all costs would be met by the Government.

"It was clear the 'back box' is the technology the Government will use to hold all the data. But what isn't clear is what the Home Secretary, GCHQ and the security services intend to do with all this information in the future," said a source close to the meeting.

He added: "They said they only wanted to return to a position they were in before the emergence of internet communication, when they were able to monitor all correspondence with a police suspect. The difference here is they will be in a much better position to spy on many more people on the basis of their internet behaviour. Also there's a grey area between what is content and what is traffic. Is what is said in a chat room content or just traffic?"

Ministers say plans for the database have not been confirmed, and that it is not their intention to introduce monitoring or storage equipment that will check or hold the content of emails or phonecalls on the traffic.

A spokesman for the Home Office said that Monday's meeting provided a "chance to engage with small communication service providers" ahead of the formal public consultation next year. He added: "We need to work closely with the internet service providers and the communication service providers. The meeting was to show the top-line challenges faced in the future. We are public about the IMP, but we are still working out the detail. There will a consultation on the Communications Data Bill early next year."

A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association said the organisation was pleased the Home Office had addressed its members and was keen to continue dialogue while awaiting a formal consultation.

Database plans were first announced by the Prime Minister in February. It is not clear where the records will be held but GCHQ may eventually be the project's home.

Hi to everybody...here's the low down on the first appointment made by President elect Obama.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6188783&page=1

Hi to everybody...my apologies, I put up another acceptance speech by President Elect Obama prior to the election...I have now put up his acceptance speech after the election results.
It is in two parts and shorter than the previous speech...

Hi to everybody...a dignified concession speech by Senator John McCain...

Hi to everybody...on this momentous day...here's President to be Obama's acceptance speech...my apologies...the first one I put up was an early acceptance speech for his nomination...here's the first part and second part of his acceptance speech after the election...

1. They inevitably drift towards the political centre, becoming wishy-washy and similar

2. They reduce individuality as members lock step

3. They increase mediocrity as only broadly popular things get done

4. They squash good ideas that aren't "policy" or that might be unpopular

5. They cause popular bad ideas to be implemented to gain votes and re-election

6. They cause a reduction in choice, the worst being a choice from 2 (like in America right now)

7. They make being a politician a career, and a careerist needs to keep his/her job

8. The concentrate power in the hands of a few and those few seek re-election

9. They cause opposition, even when there need be none

10. The emphasize policy over people

Cheers, Tom.

Theme: America - World Police

Hi to everybody...here's an interesting site for anybody interested in the US election...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/