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Friday 26 December 2014

Oh No, More Predictions

As we approach the end of the year, we may well be reflecting on the past year and also thinking about the year to come ... possibly with a view to predictions!!

Our Predictions Rival ~ Paul The Octopus
Our Predictions Rival ~ Paul The Octopus
 
Now, as we at PC towers have a proven record of predictive failure which would do Nostradamus proud (unless you happen to believe that he was any better than, Old Mother Shipton and other seers .... i.e. rubbish), then we won't be giving the world another cheap laugh by predicting things to come.

Cold Shoulders

The New York Police Department aka the NYPD, showed their displeasure for the New York  mayors actions in supporting protests against them ...



.... the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, went to a hospital to pay tribute to two officers killed by a gunman, only to have them turn their backs on him as he arrived. According to the New York Times, the protest was encouraged by union leaders because the mayor has campaigned against "overreaching by police" under his predecessor.

Without doubt, there are also police officers who also accuse him of having 'blood on his hands' over both the anti-police sentiments, and the recent murder of two New York City cops, after he gave his recent support for protesters in the city marching, in opposition to a grand jury's decision to not indict the police officer who killed a Mr Eric Garner.

This all reminded me of when British Home Secretary's have been booed by Police Officers at their federation meetings .....

Teresa May Gets The British Bobbies Booing
Teresa May Gets The British Bobbies Booing ....

.... I wonder which is more effective the silent shunning of the cold shoulder, or the loud heckles?

Yankee Doodle Blogger

The majority of my readers are from the US, followed by those readers from the UK .... not too surprising, given that the USA is the largest pool of native 'English' first language speakers in the world.

Yankee Doodle Branding ....

However, whether they are following the primarily US content, or just individual stories I am not able to determine, not without extending Google analytic's far more than I am comfortable setting up, especially on such a small blog.

SEO Branding Is All A Game ....

So by way of experiment, and partly because the US interests me, I am going to aim a little more of my content towards US centred stories ... not so much that I lose the UK voice of the blog, but enough to ensure that I can see if there is a spike in visitor hits, and its what visitors want. After all it may be the non-US content that attracts US visitors, but I will never know on present posting content, not without a few tweaks.

I Wasn't Born On The 4th Of July

Trying to please everyone is a mistake, but on the other hand aiming at the core audience is just common sense .... which is kinda like the old favourite “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

So for a little while at least, I am just a "Yankee Doodle Dandy" ... or maybe not ... we'll see how it goes.

Diva of the Year

♪♪"We three kings of orient are"♪♪ .... well not a king but a queen for sure, Heather Cho (Cho Hyun-Ah). Surely in the running for self important personage of the year, and when you consider the opposition (e.g. Andrew Mitchell), that's surely some accolade.

She raised herself above the international parapets and waived the 'look at me flag, look at me flag' when she delayed an international plane flight over the way she was served nuts ... in a bag and not on a plate as prescribed by her airline.

'A Right Diva' ~ The Traditional Depiction

In order to achieve this, she used her authority as a Korean Air executive and a vice president, to order the captain of the plane to turn back from taxiing to the runway on the Incheon-bound flight, and to return to the terminal in New York, in order to facilitate the removal of the chief steward from the plane, after a trainee steward handed her the nuts in an inappropriate manner.

At first when the story broke, in true oriental face saving style, the airline backed her actions by issuing a statement stating that 'checking service standards' was part of her job, and she had the pilot's backing for the action ... however it was later alleged that she had in fact been a simple passenger at the time.

Of course, given that she is daughter of company boss Cho Yang-ho, and a vice president of service standards, then she would never simply be a 'passenger', and no doubt all the staff, from pilot to stewards would have been aware of this ..... the plane eventually arrived 11 minutes late (which is better than my train ever manages).

But when the story broke internationally (to much laughter and ridicule), eventually, after the South Korean travel minister said that she had shamed the airline, and the nation, she was forced to resign. Now prosecutors in South Korea are seeking her arrest, after it was alleged to have jabbed a flight steward with a document folder .... they are also attempting to charge another Korean Air executive with allegedly attempting to cover up the incident during a subsequent investigation. Its actually all gone a little bit OTT as she has since issued not one, but two tearful public apologies, and since resigned from all her posts, but .....

Guess Who Wont Be Going To The Next Staff Party?

.....  it was undoubtedly 'Diva of the Year' moment for 2015.

Friday 19 December 2014

Happy Christmas

Finally .... as its the last post before Christmas, and because its become something of a tradition on this blog, here's a copy of one of the Christmas Annuals I received as a child.

'The Victor' Annual .... An Exciting Read For A Boy
'The Victor' .... An Exciting Read For A Boy

Its 'The Victor' annual from 1967 .... I admit its not particularly 'Christmassy', but for a lad just leaving the Beano and Dandy fully behind (we were innocent for longer back in the day), it was a big step to tackle comic books that had real written stories, as well as cartoon characters.

Well done Big Fella!

A Christmas Tale ..... at the traditional time, the traditional story is usually a fairy tale .... not necessarily in New York though .... its a now proven fact that Santa Claus imbibes just a little too much sherry on his rounds.

As any follower of Health and Safety rules will know, drinking while in charge of reindeer, as well as climbing down chimneys and other hazardous Christmas tree approaches is a dangerous practise. So perhaps its not a surprise that over the years, good old Kris Kringle has had a few accidents .....

There was that incident with the wrestler Alberto Del Rio when he was hit by the wrestlers car ...

Drunk Santa

.... lucky not to get breathalysed on that one.

Then of course, there was the regrettable incident in the Florida shopping Mall ..... when His beard became tangled in the winching gear, and for a wrenchingly long time he wriggled furiously to free himself, losing his hat. To distract the crowd, an assistant below led them in a rousing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

When Santa finally landed, he ripped off the tangled facial hair, told the children that he was actually an elf, and fled .

Santa Losing His Cool ... His Hat and His Beard

.... another moment to forget.

However, you have to give the old fella his due. He just dusts himself off, walks unsteadily back to the chimney or his sleigh and carries on .... not missing any Christian boys and girls out.

So spare a thought to the busiest man of next Wednesday .... he's hundreds of years old, packing a lot of timber, and fairly pissed .... but he gets the job done.

Well done Big Fella!

Old Maps Modern Appeal

Old maps are a source of endless fascination for me as well many others .... so I was pleased when many news outlets published an old and previously lost map of the County of Lancashire in England. Dated from 1602 AD, and part of a set of fifteen from which it had become detached centuries ago, before recently being found again.

Old Lancashire Map

This was of course before the Great mapping of Britain and Ireland in the 18th and19th centuries .....

The Modern Version Of The Same Area In Lancashire

I was particularly interested to compare it with the Google version of the same area .... and I can say that its not bad, but also that looking at it "I can see my house from here".

It was an early attempt to accurately and proportionately display the features of the area it was covering but was an improvement on the first non topological Gough map of Britain which was stitched together between 1355 AD and 1366 AD.

Gough Map Of Britain 1355 AD To 1366 Ad

Funny how they never got the shape right (because they believed the world centred on Jerusalem), but you can see what countries it represents ....

Saddest Little Boy

Kun Kun is a little boy from a village near Xichong in Sichuan province China. Kun Kun is HIV positive ... he inherited this from his mother who has abandoned him with very elderly non-blood-related grandparents. Kun Kun doesn't go to school because they don't want him. Kun Kun has no playmates because no one wants him to play with their children. "Nobody wants to play with me, so I just play by myself," he was quoted as saying.

Kun Kun ~ The Unwanted Boy. His Grandfather Signs The Petition.

Kun Kun knows no one loves him because he watched as his 'grandfather' signed a petition which an entire village had signed, to have him taken in to state care (nearly a death sentence in rural China, especially if HIV positive), because they are too old to look after him. After he watched this, the poor little boy was said to have "raced home, climbed into bed, and laid there wordlessly".

Kun Kun Watches Villagers Sign The Petition

He now runs wild and plays with fires, because he is isolated, lonely, scared, angry, rejected, frightened and desperate ... Kun Kun is just eight years old. It actually gave me a lump in my throat (for several reasons I won't go into, but lets say I can empathise somewhat with his feelings). Social media in China has now run wild, and the authorities have now promised to pay for his medical care.

But how very very sad ...

If you are a believer in prayers at Christmas or any time, remember Kun Kun in yours this year, because he and other children in similar situations around the globe, really need all the help they can get ... Kun Kun is the sad hidden face of want and need everywhere this year.

Slaughter of the Innocents

Pakistan has been playing with fire for decades .... and people playing with fire always get burnt in the end. On the one hand, Pakistan's been promoting the Taliban inside Afghanistan, to keep the country destabilised, but on the other, the Pakistani army is increasingly finding itself  fighting a war against the Taliban inside Pakistan.

Pakistan Taliban - Picture Of The Merciless Killers Of Children
Pakistan Taliban - Picture Of The Merciless Killers Of Children

Ever since General Zia Ul Haq Islamised the country, its been sliding into a supine acceptance of Sharia law as the only legal and moral framework for the country, whilst becoming increasingly a hard-line Taliban ridden and intolerant society, where women's rights are going backwards .... but we have a saying in the West which is that you reap what you sow.
 

Friday 12 December 2014

Bad Airports

Occasionally one of those ever popular website lists, most famous this, or most numerous that's, actually catch my attention. I rarely bother to do more than glance at them, but one made me smile. We have all been stuck in airports and seen or worried about what's going on .... Johannesburg Airport (now renamed 'O. R. Tambo International Airport'), was an interesting experience for me. The unofficial 'helpers' are allowed to wander around freely, and demand a fee for 'helping you' ~ 10 rand as I recall.

So when I saw these listings on customers complaints and reviews about Airports on a couple of sites, I felt compelled to combine and re-list them below ..... enjoy.   

Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), Manila:

The NAIA in Manila has been voted as the 2011 world's worst airport by users of the on-line travel website 'The Guide to Sleeping in Airports' (www.sleepinginairports.net), based on reader reviews and poll votes.

The website listed reasons such as safety concerns, 'theft, poor facilities, bribery and lack of comfortable seating'. One reader said: 'You will not want to even close your eyes here! Bribery and theft exists. Airport taxes are collected, but the money does not seem to go towards the betterment of the airport. In terms of facilities, passengers may have better luck at the newer Terminal 3, where it is clean, spacious and offers an internet connection.'

Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Paris:

It might be the largest airport in France - and one of the busiest in the world - but Paris CDG, which opened in 1974, has since frequently been criticised for its confusing layout, rude staff and ugly buildings. What's more, the seating benches have been deemed uncomfortable and insufficient, and homeless people are said to frequently disturb sleeping travellers ~ I have passed through this airport and its not the most attractive.

Frankfurt Hahn Airport, Germany:


Frankfurt Hahn also made the worst airports 2011 list. They said: 'Limited seating, bucket seats, and a lack of passenger facilities. A very basic airport for budget airlines.' In a 2010 World's Worst Travel Survey, passengers also complained of 'confusing signs' and 'unpleasant ground staff'..... its also I can testify from experience, huge.

London Heathrow Airport, UK:


In a Priority Pass survey in 2010, London Heathrow was voted the least favourite airport, owing to the fact that it is also one of the world's busiest. The problems of winter 2010, when the airport was ill-prepared for bad weather and snow grounded thousands of flights, further weakened its image. Long security queues and hours waiting at the baggage line have also been cited .... can't deny the queues complaints.

Delhi, India:

According to Independent writer Peter Popham, Delhi airport's 'carpeting is a thin scarlet runner, and stains are splattered in corners. Creature comforts are negligible. Passport control takes an eternity. Half the trolleys are broken down. They force you to x-ray your luggage coming in to the country as well as going out.' And, according to a survey by 'Foreign Policy magazine', it also boasts 'aggressive beggars, syringes on the terminal floor, and filthy bathrooms'.

Mutala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Nigeria:

According to reports, 'the odour of faeces and urine abound in this airport, which no doubt attract the hoards of rats, cockroaches and other bugs that scurry around the departures and arrivals area.' There's also been talk of overflowing toilets, and passengers escaping the airport chaos only to be mugged or beaten up on the tarmac outside.

Los Angeles International Airport, America:

The San Francisco Chronicle describes LAX as 'eight terminals connected by a traffic jam'. And, according to one review seating is limited, rude security staff who 'automatically assume you are a terrorist, or that you will never leave their country', bathrooms are in poor condition, direction signs are poor, and there are no conveniences for people in transit .... 'not even a 24 hour coffee shop.'

Lukla Airport, Nepal:

This small airport in the town of Lukla in eastern Nepal is popular as it is the gateway to the Mount Everest region in Nepal. But it will give you a nail-biting landing, involving a plummet onto an uphill airstrip cut into the side of a mountain. And on take-off, the airstrip comes to an abrupt end at the edge of a mountain cliff .... squeaky bum time.


Lukla Airport In Nepal... that runway drops straight off the mountain.

Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport, Senegal:

At Dakar's airport 'there is only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement, and to some extent danger,' said salon.com's Patrick Smith. Foreign Policy magazine's survey also concurred, writing: 'Dakar has no seats and travellers are targeted by hawkers, porters and security guards who move them on. Immigration takes three hours.'

Simon Bolivar International, Colombia, Venezuela:

Simón Bolívar International, known locally as ‘Maiquetia’, is the main international airport in the South American state of Venezuela. It is located around 29km from the centre of the capital, Caracas, and is described as being 'situated practically in the middle of the favelas'. Hundreds of travellers have been robbed or mugged as soon as they left the airport, while kidnapping, stabbings and shootings 'have all occurred before passengers have even reached the taxi line', according to the Matador Network. What's more, you'll be charged a $53 airport tax for the privilege of risking these abuses.

So there you are .... a rogues gallery of nastiness, acute enough to thrill any potential traveller to these spots ... no doubt there are many other such travel danger zones, so feel free to add them (but keep the language clean). 

UPDATE:

By chance I found a list from 2015 compiled by the website SleepingInAirports based on its travellers surveys which covered various criteria, not just safety, so different regions expected different things from their airports standards. They could have just gone for other African airports which have dreadful reputations. e.g, 2. Khartoum International Airport - 3. Kinshasha International Airport - 4. Juba International Airport - 5. Djibouti International Airport etc.

In Worst Order:
  1. Port Harcourt International Airport - Nigeria.
  2. King Abdulaziz International Airport - Saudi Arabia.
  3. Tribhuvan International Airport - Katmandu Nepal.
  4. Tashkent International Airport - Uzbekistan.
  5. Simon Bolivar International Airport -Caracas Venezuela.
  6. Toussaint Louverture International Airport - Haiti.
  7. Hamid Karzai International Airport -Afghanistan.
  8. Tan Son Nhat International Airport -Vietnam.
  9. Benazir Bhutto International Airport - Pakistan.
  10. Beauvis-Tille International Airport -Paris.

For Comparison - Best Order (top five):
  1. Changi International Airport -Singapore.
  2. Icheon International Airport -South Korea.
  3. Haneda International Airport - Japan.
  4. Taoyuan International Airport - Taiwan.
  5. Hong Kong International Airport - Hong Kong.

Legacy Forever

A few years ago I was watching a documentary on Qin Shi Huang ....
 
Emperor Qin Shi Huang Wanted To Live For Ever
Who Wants To Live Forever?

 
......the first Emperor of China and his increasingly bizarre and desperate attempts to stave of the inevitable fate that gets us all, whether divine royal demi-god or foot in the mud peasant mortals, death. 

Why Half A Job Is Worse Than Nothing

Bob Marley once sang “I’M GONNA smoke’a de ganja until I go blind. You know I smoke’a de ganja all a de time” ......
 
Smoke The Ganja Till I Go Blind - Bob Marley
Smoke The Ganja Till I Go Blind .....
 
 .... a sentiment that far too many of our citizens concur with.

Bowing Our Necks To The Black Flag

From Syria ....

From Outside The Town Of Dabiq in Syria

To Iraq

To The Plains of Iraq

To Kenya

The Carnage Of A terror Attack

To Nigeria

Boko Haram Parading The Flag

To Tower Hamlets in London

Even Tower Hamlets Pays Homage ....
 
 ... the same black flag and the same Shahada message inscribed in white, displayed for the same reason. To strike terror in the enemies of the forthcoming world Caliphate that Islamists expect to come soon from a force that they consider to be not as a marauding band of terrorists but as brave defenders of Sunni Islam against the encroaching forces of Iran and its Shia allies. And its that goal that IS propaganda is aimed .. .... IS wants to project an image of itself as a group which has done away with nationalism. 

IS believes it is divinely commanded to adopt particularly savage tactics, because there is a verse of the Quran, which issues a command to "strike terror into [the hearts of] the enemies of Allah".  Its this easy literalism of the IS (and Boko Haram) approach to the Quran, which  explains why the group films and disseminates grisly videos and to such a wide audience amongst Muslims in Western Europe.

The basis of true Islamic identity, they want to argue, comes from the fraternity of faith ... the Ummah. For that reason the self-styled Caliphate of IS (and to a greater degree than its brothers in Algeria, Mali and Nigeria)  aspires to be a sort-of "United Nations of Islam", a melting pot for all Muslims - provided, of course, they are strictly Sunni Muslims, who subscribe completely to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's narrow construction of the faith. Any who don't are the wrong type of Muslim.

The Hadiths suggest that the Prophet Muhammad said that "the last hour will not come" until Muslims vanquish the Romans at "Dabiq or Al-A'maq" (which are both in the Syria-Turkey border region) on their way to conquer Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) .... now technically the Ottomans archived that aim but of course the last hour didn't come, so obviously the Turks are not the right sort of Muslims. 

Which is why the recent execution, of an American convert to Islam, was carried out in the IS controlled town of 'Dabiq' ... to both taunt the US, and send a subliminal message to all 'good' Muslims everywhere, for whom the significance of the town wouldn't fail to register. 

To put this threat into context, the BBC has reported that in just one month this year, Islamists have murdered over 5,000 people and maimed many many more ..... All the while the same black flag flutters over the conquered towns and villages in many areas in the Muslim world, and across the rest of the worlds video screens.

Friday 5 December 2014

Photo-bombed By Animals

Photo-bombing is the accidental (or occasionally deliberate), intrusion of someone or something into someone's posed photograph ..... There is a roaring trade in these on the internet and the newspapers. We at PC towers are no more immune to the humour of these than anyone, and here's a small selection of ones that have made us smile.

Parroting ......

Horsing Around .....
Sneaky Paws ....
Wassup ....
Loaned Shark ....
Birds Of A Feather .... Flock Together
Cheeky Monkey ......
Taken The Hump? .....
Watch The Birdy ......

No apologies for hopefully raising a few smiles ....


Puppies Haram

There are times when you only have to tell the story as it is ..... so here we are.

The young muslims of Malaya and other countries, have taken to celebrating 'western' events such as Valentines day and Halloween. It is just a part of the 'globalisation' that the socialists are so keen on to justify 'multiculturalism' politics in the west, but the Mullahs of Malaysia and elsewhere are not quite so keen on either 'globalisation', nor 'multiculturalism', and in fact violently oppose them (except where its Muslims in non Muslim lands, when they embrace it .... while it suits them).

So they are afraid that their young people's attempts to try and join in the rest of the worlds activities are a threat to Islam, and therefore to be suppressed by whatever means are possible .... in Iran, arrest, clampdown and fear are the norm. In Malaya, the remnants of British laws on equality make this a little more difficult, but state thugs can still terrorise minorities (or waverers), either directly or via false charges.

But the most effective method is the fatwa (a religious proclamation, which is never tolerant), so this month the country's National Fatwa Council announced that Halloween is too Western and "could wrongly influence local Muslim youths," and should treat Valentines day as Haram (forbidden) and that all Muslim should not celebrate it.

The council, one of Malaysia's highest Islamic bodies, says Halloween is a Christian celebration of the dead, and "against Islamic teachings" (what isn't?), in a fatwa issued on its website. "Halloween is celebrated using a humorous theme mixed with horror to entertain and resist the spirit of death that influences humans... It cannot be celebrated by Muslims," it says. In other words, being happy in a humorous way, is Haram in Islam.

What do they say good Muslims should do instead? Well, the council advises young Muslims to remember the dead by reciting prayers and reading the Koran .... err, five times a day as usual then?

It seems that the religion is so insecure that it believes its youths can be easily swayed from the true path, by a card with a rose on it, or a 'humorous theme mixed with horror to entertain', and to that end, in Negeri Sembilan in western Malaysia, an international primary school has been told it must apply to the local education department, to get approval for its private Halloween party, after a protest by Muslim groups. I cant verify it, but I would guess that was a 'no' then.

This Is Forbidden ... in Islam.

This council has a bit of 'previous' form on tolerance, when in an earlier ruling, they warmed up by ruling that touching dogs is 'un-Islamic', this was in response to an event in Bandar Utama called "I want to touch a dog", which was a chance for Muslims to stroke dogs, an act traditionally seen as unclean.

The participants in this event then had to follow strict religious cleansing rituals after petting the dogs ... as I said at the top of the piece, I don't need to comment on these events, they speak for themselves.

The Story of the Key

Since before the time of the Pharaohs, people have been using keys to lock things up. Such a simple everyday purely mechanical device, which we all use everyday and which has travelled with us since the dawn of human kinds civilisations.

In fact when you think on it, the metal key has proved remarkably resilient, even in the time of electronic locks. In antiquity the key was claimed to have been invented by 'Theodore of Samos' in  6th century BC Greece (they tended to claim credit for everything), but its more likely that it was invented in Assyria, as the earliest known lock and key device was discovered in the ruins of 'Nineveh', the capital of that ancient state, and much the same technology was known to have been used in Egypt around the same time.

The Egyptian version was remarkably similar to what we use for our key locks today ... the Egyptians had a wooden pin lock, which consisted of a bolt, door fixture, and key. When the key was inserted, pins within the fixture were lifted out of drilled holes within the bolt, allowing it to move. When the key was removed, the pins fell part-way into the bolt, preventing movement ... they even came up with the warded lock, which remains the most recognizable lock and key design in the Western world.

Strangely, as far as we know, the usually very inventive Romans made no changes to that basic couple of models, with affluent Romans keeping their valuables in secure boxes within their households, while wearing the keys as 'rings on their fingers'. So the lock and key idea was already over a thousand years old before its next change.

The Lock And Key An Old Invention

In fact we can give ourselves in England a little back pat here, because the first all-metal lock appeared between the years 870 AD and 900 AD , and are attributed to English (Saxon?) craftsmen ..... Englishmen also made the next improvement, when firstly locksmith, Robert Barron invented the double–acting tumbler lock in 1778 AD, and then when this was greatly improved upon by Jeremiah Chubb in 1818, with both designs based on the use of movable levers. He won a competition run by the British Admiralty to produce a lock that could be opened only with its own key. Up until then locks didn't have unique keys.

There was a rival design by the British inventor, Joseph Bramah, in 1784. Using the cutting edge of the precision machine tooling capabilities of the time, and which was deemed unbreakable. His lock used a cylindrical key with precise notches along the surface; these moved the metal slides that restricted the turning of the bolt into an exact alignment, allowing the lock to open.

The last of the modern locks was a double-acting pin tumbler lock invented by American Abraham O. Stansbury in England in 1805, but the version still in use today was invented by American Linus Yale, Sr. in 1848. This lock design used pins of varying lengths to prevent the lock from opening without the correct key.

In 1861, his son of the same name patented a smaller flat key with serrated edges as well as pins of varying lengths within the lock itself, which while used today but in a nice synchronicity is essentially a more developed version of the Egyptian lock.

And that more or less was what we have now with just the three basic designs .... the same designs of Bramah, Chubb and Yale.

However as electronic locking devices become ever-more popular, especially for cars are the days of the humble key numbered? Well if reports are correct (and who am I to argue with the 'The Times' newspaper of London?), possibly not. It seems that Range Rover vehicles with key-less ignitions are being targeted by thieves, and consequently are now hard to insure in London. It appears that thieves have hit on a method of getting inside the vehicles, and copying their key-less ignition code using a device bought on the internet.

But industry insiders say that this will be cracked soon with vehicles made secure by using a different code every time the vehicle is locked and soon key fobs are to replaced by a smartphone with a varying code that unlocks the vehicle ...... hmm we will see.

Of course hotel room keys started converting to ditch metal keys. The first key cards were introduced at a hotel in Atlanta, US, in 1979. The swipe card has been widely taken up, not only for security reasons - it reduces wasted electricity, since a guest can only operate the lights with the key in the holder. It also enables hotel staff to know when the guest is in their room, and, importantly, it means the lock does not need to be replaced if the key is lost.

This, and variants on the electric car lock, such as smartphone apps are being brought in for some houses ... but even if key-less systems take off, most people do not live in new-build housing. Retrofitting homes with smart high-tech locks, would be expensive and impractical, so the metal key and lock may have another century of life at the very least and probably a lot longer than that.

Oh, and a bit of trivia ... Bramah called his lock the "Challenge Lock" and offered a reward of reward of £200 to "...the artist who can make an instrument that will pick or open this lock". The challenge stood for over 67 years until, at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the American locksmith Alfred Charles Hobbs was able to open the lock .... eventually. It took Hobbs' some 51 hours, spread over 16 days before he cracked (hardly Raffles like then) and not exactly in the spirit of the challenge but, following some argument about the circumstances under which he had opened it, he was awarded the prize.

And to cement the keys place as one of man's oldest inventions, in 2013 'Timpsons', the UK key cutting store, sold about 16,250,000 keys - its highest total ever. Finally, humans are actually very conservative, so remembering codes and passwords is a nightmare for most of us (just look at the PC passwords we all have to remember), so you just can't beat the simple straightforwardness and satisfaction of a key.

Clunking Off The Political Stage

Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister ans currently Labour MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Scotland, will stand down as an MP at the next general election .... cue an outpouring of praise for a man who many believe has ruined Britain for a generation to come.

First comes the bullshit from those other members of the Westminster bubble, some of it from people who in reality must have loathed him: 

  • PM David Cameron said: "Gordon has given a huge amount in terms of public service and his contribution in government and Parliament ....."
  • His successor as leader of the Labour Party, the back stabber Mr Miliband said "Gordon has been a towering political figure for a generation" .... instrumental in Labours "investment in health and education and the minimum wage. He worked with other world leaders to stop the financial crisis becoming a great depression. And even recently he played a really important role in the Scottish referendum making sure there was a no vote". 
  • Finally arch manipulator, Peter Mandelson said ..."no-one could take away" his achievements in office. "The balance of achievements will be very much in Gordon Brown's favour."

Then comes the BBC 'analysis' of his career ..... laughable in its dismissal of any failures in this left wing socialist hero (contrast that with the lukewarm analysis of the achievements of the real 'giant' of this political era, Margaret Thatcher, when she died).

  • As 'Chancellor Mr Brown oversaw a decade of growth', 
  • He made the Bank of England independent and 
  • Played a key role in keeping the UK out of the Euro.

Reality:

He was a flat track bully as a politician, beating up those who were weaker, but backing away when faced by those with more balls such as Tony Blair. He was a fair weather Chancellor of the Exchequer ... good at spending money during a world wide boom, even the money we didn't have.

  • When he took over as Prime Minister from Mr Blair it was only when he was guaranteed that there would be no contest in 2007 .... in fact he never seems to have competed in, let alone won any election where he was seriously facing opposition.  Even his Scottish Westminster seat of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath is a Labour safe seat, with a 20,000+ majority.
  • As PM he chickened out of going to the country immediately, and it looked to everyone like his fear of defeat was the ruling factor. He had never taken on Tony Blair in a contest either, despite much personal antipathy between them, for much the same reasons.
  • As Chancellor, by borrowing during a world wide boom, and even inventing the private Finance Initiative, to build it now, pay for it later, he has mortgaged the countries children, and even grand children's future. He has set up debts that we and they will still be paying for long after the shoddy assets he built (virtually all in the NHS, over which he, like many Labour politicians, obsessed), are gone. 
  • His 'decade of growth', was a decade shared by every major nation in the world barring Japan. How hard is it to do that? Answer, not very hard. The hard part would have been to not bankrupt us during a boom .... the moral of the crickets and the ants comes to mind when thinking of his chancellorship.
  • As Chancellor he stole money from the best run pensions industry in Europe .... it never recovered, and many of us not on an MP's golden pension, will suffer for this until the grave.
  • As for 'keeping us out of the Euro', well he apparently decided to do it without bothering to tell Prime Minister Tony Blair (who favoured membership and thought it was the UK's "destiny" to join it), and for political reasons, not necessarily the economic ones at that time .... he always cited his 'five euro tests' as having not been met.  To be fair, he feared that any instability in the euro-zone could threaten his overall reputation for successful economic management, which by chance is what's happened. So he gained some credit by the accidents of the economic cycles, but as for his overall reputation for successful economic management? Well that's entirely another matter.

Saviour of the Union?

This Is Who Many Scots Blame For Their Woes
 
As an architect of Scottish Devolution, and the inevitable path it went down, to describe him as a key player who 'played a  really important role in the Scottish referendum' is a strange one .... he was a major signatory of the Scottish Claim of Right in 1988. To this document and its principles he remained ever true, and his late intervention in the referendum may have been motivated by the fear that he would considered as one of the key architects of the union's dissolution if the Scottish National Party won. Now when it finally happens in a few years time, people will have forgotten his part in the breakup of the country and its balkanisation and his hands will be much cleaner.

Browns Loyalties Never Doubted

He was never this colossus that the Left and the Labour party, will try to make him into ..... in fact it was his parties attitude to white English working class concerns, over his governments open door immigration policies, well illustrated by his run-in with a Mrs Gillian Duffy during the 2010 election campaign (he called her a bigot ... but worse was forced to grovel an apology which he patently didn't mean). Its the consequences of that immigration policy, which is in many ways the driver for the current UKIP rise, which combined with the eventual inevitable break up of the British Union, that will be his real legacies ....

But to end on a positive I'll say this.

He faithfully kept his oath to the Scottish Claim Of right ....

Friday 28 November 2014

Lucky Lucky Lucky

A pictures says a thousand words, or so they say .....


.....  at least this one is close to that, because would you believe that after this accident no one was seriously hurt, when the front of the car was separated from the rest of the vehicle in the crash.

The car was split in two when it crashed, but the male driver and the two children who were in the saloon when it left the Fletchamstead Highway in Coventry, all got out of the vehicle with just a couple of minor scratches, but were otherwise uninjured.

Sometimes the fates were looking kindly down upon you, and that's a fact ......

The New Mad Sultan Of Istanbul

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is fast becoming my new 'Gadfather' ..... not only has he beefed up the Presidents role, so that he, and not the prime minister, effectively still runs the Turkish state ...
 
One Of Erdogan's Presidential Palace Complexes
One Of Erdogan's Presidential Palace Complexes
 
.... and he  is now building palaces suitable for his ego and status as the new 'Sultan of Turkey'.  

Any Excuse Will Do

The violent reaction of the black community of the State Grand Jury of Missouri's decision not to prosecute Police Offer Darren Wilson, over the death of black teenager Michael Brown, was as predictable as day following night.

It seems that the idea of a peaceful vigil in the black community is long gone, replaced by the urge to burn and loot at the first 'excuse' (remember the London riots were ostensibly over a similar event, but quickly became an excuse to loot all the shops and supermarkets, then burn down the buildings) .... how long ago does the peaceful of protests of Dr King seem now?

Martin Luther King - Peaceful Protest

In fact the similarities in the end events in London and Ferguson, and the reactions afterwards, suggest that there are violent tendencies inside black communities worldwide which simple 'cultural' excuses can't really explain.

There is no proven such thing as an inherited 'culture', based upon skin colour ... For example what common culture do the black peoples in Johannesburg South Africa, or Kingston Jamaica, or St Louis USA, share? None I would suggest, they just don't share the same life experiences ... they only share the same skin colour. But as we are not allowed to suggest that there is any other genetic factor such as intelligence involved, then there's no obvious cause for this propensity for violent protest.

A few facts:
  • Mr Brown had a criminal rap sheet for violence despite his tender years.
  • On the day in question he had already robbed a shop keeper (it was filmed)
  • When challenged by the police officer there was according to the police a brief struggle between the officer and Mr Brown.
  • Officer Wilson said that before the shooting occurred, Mr Brown pushed him back into his car, hit him and briefly grabbed his drawn gun.
  • Mr Brown had been shot at 12 times and hit 6 times.
  • The State Grand Jury was randomly chosen and comprised 9 white and 3 black members, randomly chosen. 
  • The jury was very well aware of the pressures to find the officer 'guilty enough to be charged' but after weeks of sifting the evidence found that they had to separate fact from fiction, and that some witness statements had been contradicted by physical evidence. 
  • Seven or eight witnesses largely backed up Officers Wilson's account of the shooting in testimony before the grand jury. Those witnesses, like most of the people in Ferguson, are African-American.

The jury also noted that much of the evidence against the police officer turned out to be by people who had not even been at the scene, or who altered their evidence to match the facts put before them, or were simply repeating hearsay ... in other words most of the evidence from the black witnesses was lies.

And yet, still they rioted .... and looted .... lots of looting.

Ferguson Riots In Memory of .... well, who cares its just an excuse.

In fact in the reports I read, the only part of the events that I could not see fully explained, was why 12 shots and six wounds from that range? ... however I am led to understand that this can depend very much on the calibre of the hand guns the police use. If its a Dirty Harry magnum .45 then one shot and you don't get up, but smaller calibres may not stop an big guy immediately. So 12 shots (and I am assuming that the police officer didn't fire a full magazine, stop and reload, and fire another full magazine), suggests that the bullets were closer to being the Beretta 9 mm semi-automatic semi-automatic magazine which they have only just started replacing, which may not have as much stopping power, and that he missed with most of the shots.

Of course it wasn't long before the copycat rioters were out in Oakland California and the shops were soon being targeted in righteous anger .....

Righteous Anger Is Better At T-Mobile Stores

Yet lets compare and contrast with the killing of a white teen by a black police officer in Salt Lake City in similar circumstances .... no rioting, a peace vigil and a petition .. that's it. Strange isn't it? PC nonsense means that we can't really speculate why faced with a similar event, two sets of human beings from the same country, whose only difference we are told is skin deep, react so differently nearly every time.

The 2013 FBI Uniform Crime Report, a compilation of annual crime statistics, shows that: 
  • 83 percent of white victims were killed by white offenders; 
  • 90 percent of black victims were killed by black offenders; 
  • 14 percent of white victims were killed by black offenders;
  • 7.6 percent of black victims were killed by white offenders

Racial Homicides USA

 ..... so who is persecuting blacks in the US?

Update 30/05/2020: Its interesting to note that the killing of black American George Floyd, has resulted in a spate of rioting, arson and looting by protesters, following the arrest and charges against the white Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin. These are following much the same pattern as the riots, arson and looting that occurred on earlier 'black protests' in America and elsewhere. 

Iran As You Don't Know It

Adam Michnik, a Polish historian who helped to overthrow the Communists in Poland, once said: “Revolutions have two phases: first comes a struggle for freedom, then a struggle for power. The first makes the human spirit soar and brings out the best in people. The second unleashes the worst: envy, intrigue, greed, suspicion and the urge for revenge.”  .... and Iran followed this dictum. But now, it is being argued that its past stage two and is in a post revolutionary stage ... and this could best be described as the 'cynicism cycle'.

So here's some facts about modern Iran that may surprise you: they did me.

Iran's Nuclear Timeline .... Ticking Away.

  •  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, led the revolution but seven of his 15 grandchildren have openly criticised the regime .... "Westoxification” (the title of a book by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, published in 1962), is rampant in the shopping malls that spring up despite the Western sanctions.

  • Both Facebook and Twitter are officially 'banned', but Twitter is used by officials to put out statements and Facebook is the primary medium of communication for half the country’s youth

  • Azad University, has over 100 campuses and 1.5m students as tertiary education levels boom.

Iranians The Best Educated In Region.

  • Iran’s cabinet has more members with PhDs from American universities than that of America itself .... maybe not a surprise under Bush, but under the Obama regime.

  • Iran’s scientific output has increased by 575% in the past decade.

  • Iran publishes three times more books than all Arab nations combined ... excluding Koran's I suspect.

  • Most Iranians access the Internet using virtual private networks (VPN) to bypass State censorship. So ubiquitous is this service that its made millionaires of backstreet providers. One example cited is a 21 yr old, who charges a dollar a month or $10 a year to his 80,000 clients. He pays the 'cyber-police' a few hundred dollars in bribes every few months to turn a blind eye.

  • The fastest internet speeds in Iran are achieved near seminaries, since clerics preach online to few viewers but still get priority on fibre-optic cables .... but pornography, although strictly banned, apparently blazes a trail for freedom, as its the primary usage for the older user.

  • Iranian GDP per person rose from $4,400 in 1993 to $13,200 last year (at purchasing-power parity), and they are by far and away the most prosperous of the large population countries in the region.

  • After the revolution the birth rate soared, but as Iranians became more prosperous and more importantly women became educated, it started falling and now is below pre-revolution levels ... experts now put it at between 1.6 - 1.9 children per woman, and broadly in line with European rates. By comparison, in neighbouring Iraq it is 3.5 children per woman.

  • By law all public buildings in Iran must have prayer rooms as you might expect. Yet officials have silenced many muezzins public calls to prayer to appease citizens angered by the noise.

  • The state broadcaster used to interrupt football matches with live sermons at prayer time; now only a small prayer symbol appears in a corner of the screen. It is suggested that by forcing religion on people it has meant that they have become sick of being preached at, and have turned away. Possibly, privately the country is now 'Islamic' in much the same way that Italy is 'Catholic'.

  • Misogyny is still organised and state sanctioned, with heads having to be covered and religious 'morality' police on the streets, but female students outnumber men by 2:1 at many Iranian universities. There are even calls for male education quotas to address the imbalance. 

  • A recent survey of young adults by Iran’s parliament suggests that 80% of unmarried women have 'boyfriends' (with or without their parents knowledge).

  • In Qom, Irans religious capital face veils used to be common among women, but were banned after three men wearing them entered a local school and groped the girls. 

So there you are. There are no absolute certainties in human societies, so just as the old Soviet block was a slowly melting without us noticing, the revolutionary regime in Iran is not a stagnant regime of complete religious jihadists .... there are changes going on that we in the West don't always see.

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions Continue Despite The Sanctions

I still don't want them to get a nuclear bomb though ....  

Friday 21 November 2014

Scooby Dooing Bad Things?

I was always vaguely suspicious of 'Shaggy' in the ScoobyDoo TV show and films. I mean he eats like a horse, and obviously likes his recreational substances to be organic, but has no job or visible means of support. He is usually too out of his tree to help when the rest of the gang perform their sleuthing ....

My suspicions were based on the fact that he wanders around with a dog, which only he can talk to and understand ..... and any trip to your local city centre will uncover a number of characters who are very similar. They usually have an upturned cup in front of them, and congregate near bank cash dispensers. The only difference is that they don't eat like horses, usually preferring their nutritional intake to come in liquid form and their other recreational substances to be less organic, and more man made.

But I could never prove my suspicions about 'Shaggy' aka Norville Rogers (yet another unlikely moniker), so imagine my surprise when I saw this artists impression of a murder trial suspect ......

Is It Shaggy?

I immediately thought of my earlier suspicions about Shaggy .......  so with a little tweak, and maybe the likeness becomes even more so.

Shaggy Is Exposed As 'The Moncton Killer!!'

I know I shouldn't make light of the murder of three policeman by Justin Bourque, but as he has admitted the charges, there will be no ordeal for the families .... and it was just one of those little moments that take you back in time to something you had almost forgotten about.

Spiders From Mars


The 27th October 1954, was a day that has survived in UFO'ology.

Newspaper Illustration Of The Events - Stadio Artemi Franchi
Newspaper Illustration Of The Events

In Tuscany, Italy, Fiorentina football club was playing against its local rival Pistoiese, with ten thousand fans in the Stadio Artemi Franchi. Just after half-time, the crowd fell eerily silent ..... all eyes looked to the sky.

Too Big For His Palace

He became 'President' instead of Prime Minister this year ~ It was a ceremonial role when he was Prime Minister for a decade, but now like President / Prime Minister Putin in Russia, he just rearranges power to suit his role and keeps it in his hands.

The New Sultan And His Clients ~ Looks Like A Hotel Foyer.
 
He is now Turkeys new Ottoman Ruler .....  Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan I
  • The new Turkish President will cost the Turkish taxpayer about £385m ($615m) for his new Palace, plus another $135m which has been budgeted for its completion in 2015. 
  • His new palace is bigger than the White House in Washington, the Kremlin in Moscow, Buckingham palace in London and even the Palace of Versailles near Paris ... delusions of Sultanate grandeur indeed.
  • In order to build it, hundreds of trees were cut down to make space for it in what had been a forest reserve, bequeathed to the nation by modern Turkey's secular founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (this would once have been a criminal offence in Turkey ... he ignored over 30 outstanding legal challenges to the building ~ one rule for the new sultan, one for the others). 
  • Other Presidential properties will be renovated next year, notably the Huber Palace in Istanbul, and a guest house in Marmaris, on the Aegean coast. 
  • To top off his new role, $185m will be spent on a new Airbus A330-200 Presidential jet. 'Sultan I' anyone?

He even had one of his new 'subjects' fined for smoking in a spot he didn't think proper .... shades of the Sultans here.

The Presidential Palace, Ankara Turkey ~ Looks Like Stalinist Building.

Oh, and the new 'prime minister' and nominally the leader of the country?

Well Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will now be using the modest Cankaya Palace in Ankara, which Mr Erdogan has vacated as too small for his head.

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