Gurkhas win right to stay in UK

Good

Anybody who serves in today's army deserves the right to stay here.

So now where we go?

The lower house of the US Congress have rejected the $700 billion bale out. What is odd is the number of Democrats (95) voted against it. This will make it difficult for Obama to point the blame at the Republicans and so probably won't affect the election. What is worrying is that the Dow Jones dropped heavily upon the news, and banks will be even more loath to lend money between themselves.

There will be a lot of worried people around the globe tonight.

Banged to rights .....

According to a Politics Home survey the Conservatives are winning the contest in cyberspace hands down.

What I liked was this bit:

"Another panellist reckons it is down to the nerdiness of Conservatives, saying: 'They have a grassroots of geeks.'"

Think Dizzy will be chuffed as well!

Trip down memory lane

Son number 2 and I went out n the glorious autumn sunshine just to escape the city. Anyway apart from a visit to Astley Vineyards where got a few bottles of English wine, we ended up here at Harvington Hall near Kidderminster. Why memory lane? Well, I went to school about half-a-mile away from Harvington and I regulally attended the church whch stands just in front of the hall. I am certain that the church was bigger when I was a child ....

This made me laugh

This is from a Rail Accident Investigation Branch report about an accident in Leicestershire (no-one seriously hurt) when a tipper lorry knocked down part of a footbridge on to the tracks and a train was derailed:

"The causal factor was that the lorry driver forgot to fully lower the body of the lorry
because he was distracted from his normal routine by having to unlock the cab passenger
door to allow access for the controller of site safety (COSS)."

http://www.raib.gov.uk/cms_resources/20080925_R182008_BarrowuponSoar.pdf

Road Signs

Now really tell be something I didn't know: "Out of 500 drivers surveyed last year, none was able to correctly identify 12 road signs and only one sign - the speed camera - was known to them all. " (here)

Acorns Hospice

Been listening to the 5 Live BreakFast Show from Acorns Children's Hospice in Worcester.

I wasn't able to listen to all of it (will try tonight) but the bit I did hear affected me profoundly.

Having said that listening to the fortitude of some of the kids was really brilliant! (I was particually impressed by a teenager called Alex who has muscular dystrophy who had a pretty good line in banter ....)

Most uplifting.

One thing though: why does the Government fund children's hospices less than the equivilant adult ones on a proportional basis? This surely isn't right.


Update

Discovered that Alex has a blog here .... and photos here:

EDF buys British Nuclear

No one want a nuclear power station built on their doorstep - although I suspect that some of the people in the remoter parts of the country like North Wales would be glad to get the employment that such stations provide - Wyfla in Anglesea is due to close soon and I guess that that would not help in such a poor area - but I consider them to be, using Lord Lister's phrase about the spraying of Carbolic Acid [phenol] in the operating theatre, "a necessary evil incurred to attain a greater good."

The French have had over the years a safe, productive nuclear industry that provides about 80% of France's electricty. So we have a choice here:

• get the technology to build clean-burning coal stations right
• or build nuclear stations from people who know how to
• continue to import our energy

Britain is horribly exposed to - for want of a better word - blackmail since our energy is now so much imported and makes us very vulnerable.

I don't like nuclear 100% - memories of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island come to mind but I fear that we have no choice - both from a political and environmental point-of-view.

Bad Science

Just been listening to BBC's Midland's Today discussing an outbreak of the norovirus in local hospitals.

"And alcohol hand washes .... will not get rid of this bacteria ...."

Ignorance, pure ignorance....

Finland's Massacre

One of the most bizarre aspects of the horrific massacre in Finland was the gunman's piece to camera.

"You will die next"

In English.

That "Novice" Jibe (Pt 2)

From a comment on James Forsyth's Spectator blog:

'"No time for a novice" he said.
"No time for a bumbling incompetent" say I.'

That "Novice" Jibe

The problem with Brown's "novice" jibe is that Brown has been in power - either as Chancellor or as PM - for 11 years and he is still screwing it up. Although there most certainly is a global turn down, it is the fact that it probably will be worst in Britain when compared with the other western economies prevents the government from passing the buck and absolving itself from the responsibilty for its actions.

If this is what the non-novice can do then give me the novice anytime.

Eurolottery £100m prize

http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/gaming/drawgame/displayEuroPlayslip.do

That sort of money might not buy you happiness but it sure as hell can make misery very, very comfortable.

Darwin Awards

This must be a prime candidate for this year's Darwin Awards

J.K.Rowling's £1m

OK it's her money to squander on lost causes -but her justification seems a bit thin comparing the Tories views on tax breaks for married couples with Labour's record on child poverty - conveniently forgetting their infamous 10p tax break which shoved even more poor people into difficulties.

However, one other point needs to be raised: I suspect that she can afford the best accountancy and tax advice that can be bought, and that her tax burden has been shrunk (all legal - don't get me wrong) to the absolute minimum. So I do wish Labour will finally shut up about the Tories taking donations from people who have done exactly the same.

How to lie with statistics - Part 1854

Today the Independent published the result of a survey conducted by LabourHome and crowed about the grassroots turning against Brown. Now I have absolutely no objections in principal to that - the sooner he goes the better, and even better a General Election soon.

However, the survey will with luck go down as a classic example of how not to do a survey. It exhibits all the faults that Darell Huff described in his wondrous, if now dated, book "How to lie with statistics"

What was wrong with it?

The premise was simple: email all the members and tot up those who responded.

The problem with that it is not random. Now the number of respondees is reasonable - 788 but that number has what is known as a "selection bias".

For instance:

• The survey was performed on-line. In other words there was a selection here: only those people who has access to the Internet could respond. Those who didn't couldn't. People who have access to the Internet might have different views to those who don't. (If anyone thinks that this is unlikely, this actually happened in a more extreme for in the 1948 US Presidential election when a telephone poll gave Dewey a big win over Truman. The problem was that the people who owned telephones in 1948 were then wealthier than those who didn't, and hence less likely to vote for the Democrat incumbent).
• Secondly, the 788 respondees were only those people who could be arsed to email something back. Now these people almost by definition are more highly motivated that those who didn't. How this translates into a more accurate poll answer is literally impossible to say - which is exactly the point.
• A poll must be be random across the complete sample that is being measure - ie all the grassroots members and must be of a size that makes it results significant (both in the statistical and political sense)

The combination of the three completely invalidates the poll - making it one that Sir Robert Worcester of MORI fame calls a "Voodoo Poll" and it makes all the worse that a paper such as the Independent could splash it across its front pages this morning. It literally is meaningless

Why we need some greed....

Capitalism has had a bad press over the last few days - "greedy" bankers screwing up the economy, the mysteries of short selling have be explained God knows how many times to a bewildered public who haven't a clue as to what is going on except that it is bad and are looking inwards at jobs, prosperity etc

But some greed is a must since it drives forwards the economy and it provides us all with a increased standard of living. As a colleague put it nicely today: "If we were all tolerant, caring, sharing people, we'd all still be being very nice to each other living in our mud huts."

Totally unacceptable

Apparently some Aussie pub is "offering free drinks to women who remove their underwear and display it to patrons ." (here)

This is totally sexist and most certainly should be banned.

Now where did I put those QANTAS tickets ........?

Silver lining

With luck one result of the HBOS debacle is that we won't see too many more of the profoundly irritating adverts with Howard and his ilk ....

Update

Apparently the even more irritating Sheila's Wheels are also part of HBOS.....

Jeez: Tories on 52%

http://www.order-order.com/2008/09/meltdown-tories-breakthrough-to-52-ftse.html

Labour on 24%.... given this government's performance I am amazed it is 24% ....

No Longer The Conservative Party At Prayer

One of the changes in the Conservative party of the last few years if the increasing personal liberalism that has occured. No-one gives a monkies anymore (well almost no-one - there probably are a few old guard around but not many) about an adults sexuality - see Iain Dale and Alan Duncan - but there is a strange antipathy towards atheists and humanists (for example this comment on ConHome :"The Conservative Party could only become anti-religious if it were to cease to be conservative."). Now the days of the Conservatives being the political wing of the C Of E are long gone but comments like that illustrate my point.

However - and if you pardon my comparison - the Conservative party is a broad church and I was glad to see that there a new society - The Conservative Humanist Association - which is for those right-leaning atheists like myself.

They have invited Richard Dawkins to speak at a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference (something I can't get to because it is inside the security cordon) but there will be another time.

Large Hadron Collider - CERN

There is a fascinating webcam here: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Sarah's law

I am in two minds about the idea that the addresses of known sex offenders be made generally available. Lets be honest no parent would want a violent or known sex offender living close to their family. But I fear that this issue could cause more trouble later. Given the hysterical response to such issues before I really don't trust some of the Great British Public to use violence against such offenders - or even worse get an innocent person.

Well done Australia

David Weir must have had a pretty bad few hours over in Beijing, initally winning his T54 800m race, and then being told that the race would have to be re-run over some issue with the Austraian lane order.

However the result will now stand: the Australian team coach, Kurt Fearnley , has written to the jury formally requestion that the result stand.

Intense sporting rivalry yes - but both nations can spot a major injustice.

Why the rebels will fail...

I see that the number of nomination papers submitted to initiate a challenge to Gordon Brown is now up to seven (although Guido reckons the number of sympathisers is now up to about 40) but I fear that it won't happen. Obviously there is an unseen guiding force behind all of this - it is surely no coincidence that a high number of these are women - but what then? Lets suppose for the sake of argument that the magical number of 70 rebels is found to start an election: who in their right (or left!) minds is going to be a token PM (Straw might even lose his seat if current polls are sustained) for 18 months until the next election? Surely the best policy for Labour is to accept that they are doomed (admittedly having a different leader might make them slightly less doomed - at least on an individual MPs point-of-view ie more Labour MPs can keep their snouts in the taxpayer's trough for longer) and then to regroup under a different leader in 2010 who might be able to bring them back from the precipice in 2015.

HMS Victory

According to the Portsmouth News the MOD is considering giving away HMS Victory to either a charity or a private company. Haven't these people got any sense of history?

Hope for Zimbabwe?

It seems that some form of power-sharing is now inevitable but I am wary on the details. It seems that Mugabe will keep control of the army whereas Morgan Tsvangirai will control the police.

Wait and see for details.

Fact and theory

Dizzy has sparked off a vigorous debate about - well it started off about evolution - the scientific method.

Anyway I was attacked for declaring that

"Evolution is a FACT. End of story. The evidence for it is huge, massive AND incontrovertible"

The other person replied:

"did you take this from another debate and change MMGW to evolution ?..... that line of 'debate' is so familiar."

What is sad is that so many people mistake observations and theory.

Global warming is an observable fact - the ice caps are melting.

But what is the explanation?

The current theory is that human activity is responsible for the observable fact. The point about a scientific theory is that it is the best current explanation for a series of observations. However, theories can change with greater evidence and can even be discarded if they don't fit observations.

Examples of this abound - the fact that Newton's laws didn't account for slight discrepencies in the orbit of Mercury and that modification were required to the theory is an absolute classic.

Brown's Clanger

So a low ranking aide inserted into an article that carried the Prime Minister's name (here). This I find very strange: was there no vetting of the article by more senior Downing Street people before publication? Or was there ...?

Either way a bollock has been dropped.

Spore and censorship

There is a determined campaign over at amazon.com which is marking down the new EA game Spore - and when I mean marking it down I mean one star - in a protest at the use of DRM and the fact that you are limited to 3 installs without contacting EA to explain what is happening (and frankly the challenge to the hackers to break that particular obstacle will be greater).

Ignoring the fact that a child might well install the software without understanding the finer points of DRM (& that is precisely what has happened in this house), there are serious allegations that Amazon(.co.uk not .com) has been censoring poor reviews ( here and here ).

If this is true then Amazon's stupidity is beyond belief. If the reviews are negative - and unless they are defamatory then they should stay - then the further damage that Amazon will incur by removing them will be far greater than letting them stay. IF it's true that Amazon are censoring messages then I am pretty certain that they will be bitten seriously in the arse. The Internet has traditionally by-passed censorship.

Update

My son has pointed out that Take 2 (another games manufacturer) had similar issues with DRM and the game Bioshock. Take 2 gave in ....

Rambling Thoughts

Horrible day, leaden , threatening skies still outside - portent of more flooding round this neck of the woods? Jonah Brown is listening but I doubt anything he can do will actually make a difference. Be interesting what reaction he will get at Labour's conference especially now that the unions are beginning to flex their arthritic limbs - the 1970's throwback yesterday was extraordinary. As for the barking idea of a windfall tax... that will only drive more and more companies off to Ireland for a much friendlier business environment....

I wish I had the money

to emulate this . That is a cause that I feel strongly in and I congratulate both Help For Heroes and Julie Heselden.

Must admit I'm not sure if the Hawk aircraft wouldn't need a thorough clean up after me!

Another Downfall Parody

Over at Guido....

How many of them are there out there?

Still funny though ...

Large Hadron Collider

I do hope that the swirling results of the high-energy collisions don't form the pattern of 101010 .....

Gordon Brown

Comment from work:

You've got to love this man.
The power companies refuse to co-operate with him on a voucher scheme, so he re-interprets this and
says that there would be no "short-term gimmicks or giveaways".

The EU and blogs

A considerable amount of the right and centre-right blogosphere is up in arms about reported aspirations that the EU has aspirations to control and regulate blogs. (Ian Dale and Dizzy for example following this in the Telegraph)

I am pretty pro-Europe, which given my deep interest in history is no surprise - but it is the unending ability of certain European institutions to unerringly to shoot themselves in the foot which always astonishes me. Someone , somewhere upon discovering the proposal should have realised that this would go down like the proverbial lead zeppelin, antagonising even further a hostile UK audience and potentially making enemies of people in a wider Europe. Yes, I realise that this is just a EP proposal and so with luck will wither on the EU vine but even thinking about such a think is like pouring more petrol onto an EU-sceptic fire.

Anyways, in a free(ish) society like our the internet tends to find ways round such things.

Completely and utterly crass

Romans Roaming ...

Interesting item on the BBC concering the possibility that a gene (CCR5)that makes the current inhabitants of the former Roman Empire more susceptible to HIV infections was spread around in those times (here) .

Now although I haven't read the original report (will try to), the possibility of the propagation of genes around the Empire comes as no surprise.

Evidence from Hadrian's Wall which, apart from the initial building phase, was garrisoned by Roman auxilaries and not legionaries (the former were not citizens whereas the latter were - at least until later in the Empire when all free-born males were made citizens) indicates a huge range of people stationed there: Syrians, Spaniards, Gauls, Africans, Dacians (Modern Romania) ....

Metro Hotel

One of the things that this country can be genuinely proud of are our armed forces. One the whole the forces - and especially the army - have performed their - sometimes thankless - task with humour and a professionalism that is rare today. There have been problems in the last few years - the Deepcut bullying scandal and allegations of deliberate abuse of civilians, some of the latter have ended up as court-martials - but these are very rare indeed.

So I get extremely angry when I read a story about a serving soldier being turned away by a hotel for being in the military.

The prejudices rampant more than a hundred years ago of Kipling's Tommy (I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,The publican 'e up an sez, "We serve no red-coats here.") should have been long forgotten.

Chrome

El Reg has a very interesting piece about Googles new web browser, Chrome.

In Section 11.1 there is the following:

"11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services."

and

"11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license."

In translation this means that Google can do pretty well what they want with your content accessed via Chrome.

Not clever

Also see: http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks

Update

From http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks

"Here's an official response from Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome:"In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome."

The Republican Spin Doctors

must be having heart attacks at the thought of Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's lover and father of her unborn child, being the son-in-law of the VP or even the President......

I feel sorry for my daughter ...

"Women pick men who look like dad "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7593336.stm

BBC Travel

Ironically the BBC has reported that the Lib Dems have obtained details of its travel expenses. I have a number of serious issues with it:

• Although the BBC has reported that "Spend on flights is subject to rigorous scrutiny and has actually fallen significantly in the last year, reflecting our commitment to value for money. " questions must be asked about the amount of first and business class travel involved. Is it just down to the vanity of the people involved? If so tough ....


• This is before coverage the US Presidential Elections and the Olympics is taken into account. If the Guardian (as reported by Guido) is correct then the extraordinary number of 472 people are being sent to cover the US elections which is higher than all of the major US networks. How many of those people are going first and business class.....?

I am reading Lewis Page's hatchet job on the MoD (which is an entertaining polemic with some errors but still worthwhile) and wondering whether its time for the BBC to be subject to such a study? There might even be one already ....

There are still decent people out there ...

Sitting at my desk this morning, when a colleague passed a package to me. It obviously a book but I hadn't ordered one and I was most certainly not expecting one.

I opened it and inside there was this and a note from a colleague/friend: "I was in a charity shop, saw this and thought of you".

Was really touched ....

The Millies

In one of the tackier things that the Sun has done recently, the "Millies" must rank as one of the tackiest. Apart from the fact that is precisely what gallantry awards are for, I dread to wonder what the categories will be. As always the denizens of the ARmy Rumour SErvice, ARRSE to its friends, suggest a few:

• for the chaps.. the "most doses caught in a 12 month period" award proof of courses of antibiotics and having a bell end that looks like a chewed dog toy are mandatory.
• Most obstructive storeman- awarded to the man or woman who despite all the odds managed to issue absolutely nothing to anyone over a 1 year period, and offered nothing except abuse, and bitterness. also called the "i'ts all mine i tell ya" award.
• biggest sex liar award - given to the man (or woman) coming up woth the most implausible, unbelievable, but delivered with absolute sincerity whopper about their on leave shennanigans.

(thread here. You have been warned!)

I also dread to think what the acceptance speeches would be like ....

You have got to have a heart of stone not to laugh ...

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/local/3636182.Cyclist_rides_straight_into_river/


A CYCLIST in Worcester had to be rescued by firefighters after she rode into the river while talking on her mobile phone.

The woman, believed to be in her 20s, was cycling along Kleeve Walk, near Worcester Cathedral and South Quay, at midnight on Sunday.

A spokesman for Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service said the woman had been on the phone to her friend as she was riding.

“She wobbled and swerved the bike down the embankment of the river, through all the stinging nettles, and ended up in the River Severn," he said.

“She managed to scream while still holding the mobile phone and alerted her friend. Her friend then managed to ring 999 and we came out."

Firefighters threw lines to the stricken cyclist and managed to pull the woman to safety. They also managed to drag the bike out of the river.

“She was stung from head to foot and was in shock. We got the paramedics there and she was treated for shock, cold and also the stings.

“This is a salutary lesson if every there was one,” he said.

For ever autumn ....

Lovely autumnal morning today.

However, isn't there normally a season between spring aud autumn?