Apartheid

The dictionary term is

apartheid apartheid n. [Afrikaans, fr. D. apart apart + -heid
-hood.]
1. segregation by race; — a term used in South Africa.
Syn: racial segregation
[WordNet 1.5]

2. the official policy of strict segregation by race
practised by the government of the Union of South Africa
up to 1993.
[WordNet 1.5]

Apartheid has been around in Africa a long time before the Afrikaners coined the word. There is “Tribal Apartheid” and the government apartheid that was exercised in South Africa by the Nationalist government. Examples of Tribal Apartheid, in recent history, are Ruanda where, in 1994, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe. In addition to this, there is Mugabe’s government who, in the past, marginalised the proud Matebeli people in the North, and to a lesser extent the Ndebele tribe which straddle the border with South Africa in the south. Not to forget the troubles in Kenya, when the MauMau was a jockeying for position between tribes. Whites were killed then because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As far as I can recollect – I was brought up in South Africa - the Nationalist government didn’t try to exterminate any tribes, although they were pretty brutal to people who attempted to fight them.

Let me explain my position. My parents were doing well in South Africa but I wasn’t happy with Apartheid as I thought it wrong to subject a people because of their colour. So I left my parents, I left home and I left my country at fifteen to see the world. I had funded my trip by diving for Mother-of-Pearl shells and selling them to British and American tourists at the docks.

I found apartheid of a worse kind in the UK and also during the three years I spent bumming around the United States. Here, and there, there were no official segregation rules. But people segregated themselves by not allowing other ethnic races into their homes, or their companies. (I am talking about the ‘fifties.)

There are some good traits and bad traits amongst the Afrikaner people. There is an old saying: “n’ Boer moet ‘n plan he”. This means: A farmer must have a plan. When confronted with a problem a farmer will sit under his favourite tree, smoke his favourite pipe, and think about every option under the sun that he could adopt before formulating a “plan”. The English can learn about “making a plan” from him. However, one fault is, once the farmer has decided on his plan, nothing, but nothing will persuade him to deviate from this. He can learn adaptability from the English. Another trait of the Afrkaner is that he says it as he sees it. He is “up front” with what he thinks. If he doesn’t like you he’ll tell you to your face. The English will be nice to you and when you leave will say to there friends, “what a funny fellow he is”. Fortunately this philosophy of the Afrianer has changed over the years and he has become more adaptable.

Alas, the Afrikaner, with his Apartheid in the fifties did exactly what the English and Americans were doing in private. But they aren’t the type to hide it, so they made it legal. The trouble is, they had made a plan. And when the system changed and people in England and America received political training from their governments to take a different attitude, the Afrikaners had already “made their plan” so that was that. It was only when world opinion, and sanctions began to bite that they were forced to reconsider.

A lot of people in England and America thought the Anti-Apartheid movement was to bring down the “whites” but nothing is further from the truth. The Afrikaners knew that to hold onto Apartheid they had to build up a huge black middle class. (doctors, engineers, business people) and allow them to amass huge wealth as a buffer against any possible insurrection within the country.

Many people in England and America still don’t have a high opinion of the intelligence of black people. Let me tell you, having been brought up in the country that blacks, given the opportunity of education, can be every bit as bright, and devious, as their white counterparts.

No, the anti-apartheid movement was not against the white infrastructure. The blacks needed to acquire a healthy government when they took over. The movement was to destroy the black middle class. Which they did, thus hastening De Klerk’s dealing with Nelson Mandela.

I have four stories to add to this blog.

The first was when I was fourteen in an Afrikaans school. I wrote an essay saying that only matric holders should have the vote. We should ensure all whites were educated up to matric standard and put into action a possibility for blacks to be educated to matric standard as well. Then within, say, 40 years, there would be a black majority, but a majority with a different attitude and a desire to better the country much more. South Africa would be far more wealthy and everything would be fine. Well, the result? 1. I was caned in front of the whole school at morning assembly. 2. Forty years on the blacks took over and the whites have been left out in the cold.

The second is that a film maker told Channel Five he had a 30 minute film on Soweto. The Channel Five people invited him to a private screening so they could make a decision whether to show it or not. He turned up with the first half and everyone watched a film showing the deprivations and slums of Soweto. Yes, they said, we’ll show it. However, when it was screened the second half showed the middle class tree lined streets with two car families of the black middle class. He also showed Winnie Mandela’s mansion and the luxury mansions nearby. When the press showed her home they always showed it with telephoto lenses so as not to show all the other lovely houses. Let’s face it. If she had built such a home in a shanty town, she’d have been lynched! I believe this film maker had to move to Canada as nobody would deal with him any more within the UK television media.

The third story is that, in South Africa the African seems to get on much better with the Afrikaner than the English speaking South African. Many years ago, when I was in the British Army and was on a course in the North of England I went to a dance and got talking to the black singer who was from South Africa. We chatted quite a bit and I was surprised when he told me Black South Africans preferred the Afrikaner to the English speaking whites. When the Afrikaans Nationalists took over from the English speaking United Party in 1948, they only had a few percentage points majority. The English speaking whites kept on saying how they deplored apartheid, but – strangely enough – in each election, the Nationalists got in with a larger and larger majority. The “English deception” wasn’t lost on the black South Africans. As I said elsewhere, they are very bright. And they (the average) have more political nous than the average English over here. Believe me! Okay, okay, there are always exceptions!

Finally, I have always thought that De Klerk should have said to Mandela, I am releasing you to to go into politics as the Deputy President of South Africa. We will continue to run the country for five years and, at the start of this, we will groom your ANC people in the affairs of every division and department of government and the civil service. Once your people have learned the job, they will be promoted to number two in each division and department. The year before the next election they will take over the department with the former number one as an advisor to the new promotion. Then when you take over in five years you will have an army of politicians and civil servants who can run the country for you. Meanwhile Apartheid will be dismantled immediately and all segregation laws ended. If any of your people want to keep their advisor on after the next election, that will be up between you and the advisor. If this had happened, South Africa may be in a much better position today. After all, if you put a soldier into a government position, you can’t expect him to be able to do anything without experience. White or Black!

Finally, here is a link to what the Encyclopaedia Brittanica has to say about apartheid.

Ampers.

Don’t be frightened to chase!

I am referring to invoicing your clients. And then ensuring that the invoices are paid on time, or at least before you are crippled with bank charges.

The best time to invoice if you have performed a service is the minute you return to the office after performance of said service. Not the next day, not the next week, and definitely not the next month! But, you know, many people do take their time. If you don’t believe me, check the liquidation and bankruptcy courts. Send your invoice by first class post and not in a window envelope this shows how important you consider your invoice is.

In the late sixties I had a thriving business in Oxford Street (London’s West End) just a few yards from South Molton Street. I costed out my services and then added ten percent to all my charges. I was offering a good reliable services and wasn’t frightened of price.

I would state on my invoice a discount. 10% if settled in full in 14 days. 5% within 21 days, and 1% within 30 days. The reason for the 1% is that large corporations always took at least 120 days and always took the discount anyway. This way they could only take the 1%. This left me 9% to put towards any bank charges needed for working capital caused through their delay to pay; I could live with that!

My first invoice would be labelled: “INVOICE/STATEMENT” and at the end of the month my statement would be labelled: “STATEMENT – FIRST REMINDER” The “First Reminder” bit looked more legal and if I hadn’t already received payment I used to very soon afterwards.

Others in the area charged less and, if I was about to lose a potential client over price, I would give him a sheet of paper with full details of all the opposition listed. I would say that when they were in a position to pay for my specialist services I would welcome them back. Meanwhile here are all the other local companies offering a similar service. Many of them did come back. I was only saving them a few moments of research time, but it was appreciated and labelled me as “helpful”.

Customers come and go and if I lost a client I would visit them and ask “Could you tell me how I fell short in our relationship? So I may not make a similar mistake again?” I learned that I never lost a client through “price” or “chasing money”. One magical phrase to use if you think you may be able to persuade the client to come back is “What might I do to have you return as a client”.

And make it easy for your clients to pay you. Accept all credit cards, accept PayPal, accept direct transfers. Cheques, even with bankers cards require caution, but if you know “where your clients live” then that shouldn’t be too much of a problem – otherwise a bankers card (and you must write the number on the back of the cheque). It helps with credit cards and cheques to see further identification as, if someone has stolen the card or chequebook, they may not have much other identification in that name on them.

And remember, if all else fails, there is always the small claims courts. Take a look at how easy this is on the Internet.

Ampers.

Why I won’t be tested!

I have just read an article stating: “A quarter of the adult population faces an “anti-paedophile” test in an escalation of child protection policies, according to a report.“

This report is terrifying and should be read here in its entirety.

The article mentions that schools are already banning people who haven’t had a CRB report. The following cases were made in the report to illustrate its findings:

In one example, a woman could not kiss her daughter goodbye on a school trip because she had not been vetted.

In another, a mother was surprised to be told by another parent that she and her husband were “CRB checked” when their children played together.

In a third example, a father was given “filthy looks” by a group of mothers when he took his child swimming on his own in “a scene from a Western when the room goes silent and tumbleweed blows across the foreground”.

Prof Furedi details how one woman was made to feel like a “second class mother” because she was barred from a school disco because she did not have a CRB check.

So there is no way I am going to submit to a CRB check or an “anti-paedophile” test. If this means that I will not be allowed to be around children, then, hooray! It also means that children won’t be allowed around me.

It’s not that I hate children, I don’t. But a large amount of parents nowadays have no control over their children . Many of them shove money at them and tend to allow them to do whatever they want, whilst entertaining, going out to clubs and pubs, and generally having a good time. With parenting comes responsibility. So, because of this, I always steer well clear of the little… errr… children.

I have never had children (to the best of my knowledge) and this has been by design rather than medical reasons. My brother-in-law had two children, a boy and a girl, and I watched them growing up. I did enjoy this experience, but fortunately only ever saw them on Christmas days. It was enough for me. But I repeat, I enjoyed and wouldn’t have missed the experience – as long as it wasn’t more than one day a year.

When I was in my late teens I remember a heavy dating session with a girl of my own age. It was awful and after that, I always picked older girls – over twenty-five. And apart from that one experience, I have never, ever, from the age of eighteen to my wedding day (over thirty years ago) been out with a girl under twenty-five.

I am happily married but do enjoy meeting people of both sexes for conversation, but even so, tend to stay well clear of the young unless they have had a good parental upbringing or have matured.

Ampers

Late entry in the US Presidential race

Click on the picture to start.

I’m a drug addict

Like most youngsters, I experimented with drugs and they slowly got a hold on me. But I managed to wean myself off two of three addictions I had/have.

The first was tobacco.

It gradually got its steely fingers around me and, in the end I was smoking 60 of the strongest cigarettes every day. I was working for NATO and based in Paris, and was smoking three packs of Gaulois Disc Blue cigarettes. But I was also a British soldier and could buy my cigarettes in the NAAFI, duty-free, for only a shilling for 20 (5p). On my posting back to Blighty, I found they cost five bob for 20 (25p) so what I did in England was to put five shillings in a pot every time I bought a packet until there was £5 in the pot.

I then changed the money into a five pound note and set fire to it. As I watched it burning in the ashtray I thought, this was what I was doing every week. My ancestors were Scottish and I was brought up amongst the Afrikaners in South Africa. Two parsimonious races! Well that did the trick. I never bought a pack of cigarettes again, and this was way back in 1962.

But I was left with Alcohol and Coffee.

I am not a binge drinker, but would drink a bottle of brandy a month, a half bottle of wine on each of three or four evenings a week, and a few beers or whiskys during the week as well. I found I was putting on weight. Not enough to be obese, but for someone who likes to be fit, far too much and clothes began to feel a little too tight.

I remembered something I learned many years ago when I took an interest in Anthony Robbins, the American performance guru. So with careful planning I put his suggestions into practice. Robbins theory is that the brain, principally only does two things. It avoids pain and it searches for pleasure.

I waited for a sunny day. It was a long wait but one eventually materialised!

I closed the curtains and sat down and talked, out loud to myself for twenty minutes. I mused on what would happen if I continued drinking. I would have the expense of replacing all my clothes, I would consider not being able to be energetic, I would consider the possibility that I would slowly increase my drinking, become violent, drive my wife away, and possibly ruin my liver, fail to get a replacement liver and therefore die.

I painted a picture of my lonely wife, struggling alone without me, my selfishness, my taking a liver if I did get a replacement from someone more deserving than myself who needed one more, and, in general, just painted gloom and despondency over the whole issue.

Next I opened the curtain, and with the sun streaming in, knowing that the brain hates a void, started replacing the “pain” of drinking, with the “pleasure” of being fit, and therefore more happy, and also a lot more wealthy. I told my brain this would mean more holidays in the sun where I can relax and enjoy myself so much more.

I told myself I can still be sociable by allowing myself three units a week, but not more than one unit a day. And you know? I have, not only stuck to this but, I have had no wish to drink more. In fact when I have wine at home I never want more than half a glass (unit).

Now, I only suffer from caffeine poisoning. But, hell! I enjoy my coffee and don’t want to give that up. But then, this brings me back to the secret of giving up a vice.

“You have to want to give up in the first place!”

Ampers

James McGrath

The Daily Telegraph wrote: “The Conservative leader agreed with Mr Johnson that James McGrath, a senior adviser to the mayor and previously to the Tory Party, was not racist but said his comments were a lapse of judgement.“

I have to admit I fully agree with what he meant. If any section of the public are not happy living in England, I echo the sentiment “If they don’t like it here, let them go somewhere else”.

However, I don’t restrict this to black Caribbean people, or even black people. And what is more important, even foreigners. If English people aren’t happy with democracy and abiding by the will of the people, I wish they would leave, even if they are the same colour as I am and the same nationality that I am.

All are welcome as long as they become British, accept our way of life, and take part in it and become part of the greater community. I do not subscribe to our political masters using mass immigration to break up what is termed “The British way of life.”

The Times, last September (2007) says “Even Trevor Phillips has now spoken of sleepwalking to segregation and even his own outfit, the Commission for Racial Equality (soon to become the Commission for Equality and Human Rights), published a grim and angry report last week about a “fracturing” society, growing ethnic segregation and growing extremism. “

You, dear reader, are possibly a little to blame as Plato once wrote: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Think about it, voting is not enough. You need to take an interest in the world around you.

Ampers

Some of Amper’s favourite sayings

If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating conquest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.

We ask not your counsel or arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Samuel Adams, speech on 1st August 1776.

”One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Plato

We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other
but we are for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with God,
and with one another, that these things may abound.

Edward Burroughs, 1659 – from ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’

England, in effect is insular. She is maritime. She is linked through her trade, her markets, her supply lines to the most distant countries. She pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities and only slightly agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked and very original habits and traditions. In short England’s nature, England’s structure, England’s very situation differs profoundly from those of the Continentals.

These words were uttered by President Charles De Gaulle when he vetoed our application to join the Common Market in January 1963. He knew us well as he had served in Britain with the Free French during the second world war.

To achieve “One World Government” it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, their loyalty to family traditions and national identification

Brock Chisholm when director of the UN World Health Organisation

All forms of governments destroy themselves,by carrying their basic principles to excess. Democracies become too free in politics, in economics, in morals – even in literature and art, until at last even the dogs in our homes, rise up on their hind legs and demand their rights.

Disorder grows to such a point that society will then abandon all its liberty to anyone who can restore order.

Plato

Since the human race insists upon being completely crazy; Since everybody from the pope down to the humblest of village priests; From the richest of men, to the most miserableof paupers; From the fine lady in her silks and satins, down to the slut in her calico dressing-gown. Since the whole world has set its ‘GOD’ given brain, but insists upon letting itself be entirely guided by its greed, its vanity, its arrogance and its ignorance.

Why in the name of a reasonable Deity should the few truly intelligent people waste so much of their time and effort in trying to change the human race into something it never wanted to be. Let them be happy in their follies. Do not deprive them of that which gives them more satisfaction than anything else! Their sovereign power to make utter fools of themselves!

In praise of folly ’ written in 1507 by Erasmus

Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a gazelle or a lion.
When the sun comes up – you’d better be running!

His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Crown Prince of Dubai.

Beware the toes you tread on today are not attached to the leg that supports the arse you are going to kiss tomorrow

Anonymous

Our doubts are traitors
and make us lose the good
we oft might win
by fearing to attempt

William Shakespeare – Measure for Measure, Act 1 Scene V.

We trained hard …..
but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.

Petronius Arbiter – (Titus Petronius Niger) 40AD

Cricket explained:-
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in goes out and when he’s out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs — that’s the end of the game

Anonymous

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.

Edward Langley, Artist (1928 – 1995)

Talk is cheap…except when Parliament does it.

Anonymous

The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

Ronald Reagan

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Ronald Reagan (1986)

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

Mark Twain

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.

Sir Winston Churchill

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

“No longer is European AnonymousLaw an incoming tide flowing up the estuaries of England. It is now like a tidal wave bringing down our sea walls and flowing inland over our fields and houses – to the dismay of all.”

The late Lord Denning

“It is the old, old worry: will the British people perceive in time what is happening to them and where they are being taken? If they do, I am not afraid for the outcome. But will they?

Enoch Powell on the eve of the 1975 Europe Referendum:

And how can we take the EU seriously when all Jacques Chirac could say to the Brussels Press Corps in Spring 1998 when announcing a ‘successful outcome’ to negotiations over the presidency of the European Central Bank - ‘Please don’t laugh…”

Jacques Chirac 1998

Heath said: ‘There is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty” And, when interviewed on BBC a while ago (1998) his exact words to the question “Did you know, when you took us into the Common Market, that it would lead to Federalism?” were: “Of course I bloody did!” What absolute and total arrogance – and this man was once a Prime Minister. How dare he do this to us!

Edward Heath, during the 1975 Common Market Referendum

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.

Thomas Jefferson

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

Joseph Conrad 1857-1924, British Novelist

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.

Albert Camus

Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He’s the chap who makes it possible for civilized folk to despise war.

Allan Massie

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.

Jean De La BruyFre 1645-1696, French Writer

“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper and the people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey.”

This is the essence of his quote – several slightly different versions are listed.

John Ruskin 1819-1900

My Aunt Maud always said :
Whatever you do in life, always go in at the top
There is plenty of room at the bottom but very little at the top.
It’s much easier to work your way down, than to work your way up!

Extract from “Champagne Exercises by Joan Oliphant-Fraser

There’s a difference between beauty and charm. A beautiful woman is one I notice. A charming woman is one who notices me.

John Erskine

Five questions to ask yourself every morning

• What is great in my life?
• What could be great if I wanted to feel great about it?
• What’s not perfect about it yet?
• What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?
• What new thing could I do in my life to create more fun out of it?

Anthony Robbins

Only the Bransons and Sugars of this world know this!
Until one is committed there is hesitancy (and) ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative ‘there is one elementary truth’ that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. The whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, and meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Goethe

Corporate Management?
There are few situations in life that cannot be resolved promptly, and to the satisfaction of all concerned,

• by either suicide
• a bag of gold
• or thrusting a despised antagonist over a precipice on a dark night.

Ernest Bramah (Kai Lung stories)

Persistence:
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence!
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Anonymous

Excellence
Excellence can be obtained if you…..

• Care more than others think is wise
• Riisk more than others think is safe
• Dream more than others think is practical
• Expect more than others think is possible

Anonymous

Consult. To seek another’s approval of a course already decided on.

Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914, American Author

The Credit Belongs
The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who are the best, know the triumph of high achievement; and who know at the worst, if they fail, fail whilst daring greatly, their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

Sir Francis Bacon

A friend is one who walks in when others walk out

Walter Winchell

England, in effect is insular. She is maritime. She is linked through her trade, her markets, her supply lines to the most distant countries. She pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities and only slightly agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked and very original habits and traditions. In short England’s nature, England’s structure, England’s very situation differs profoundly from those of the Continentals.

These words were uttered by President Charles De Gaulle when he vetoed our application to join the Common Market in January 1963. He knew us well as he had served in Britain with the Free French during the second world war.

All forms of governments destroy themselves,by carrying their basic principles to excess. Democracies become too free in politics, in economics, in morals – even in literature and art, until at last even the dogs in our homes, rise up on their hind legs and demand their rights. Disorder grows to such a point that society will then abandon all its liberty to anyone who ca restore order.

Plato

To achieve “One World Government” it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, their loyalty to family traditions and national identification

Brock Chisholm when director of the UN World Health Organisation

Since the human race insists upon being completely crazy; Since everybody from the pope down to the humblest of village priests; From the richest of men, to the most miserableof paupers; From the fine lady in her silks and satins, down to the slut in her calico dressing-gown. Since the whole world has set its ‘GOD’ given brain, but insists upon letting itself be entirely guided by its greed, its vanity, its arrogance and its ignorance.

Why in the name of a reasonable Deity should the few truly intelligent people waste so much of their time and effort in trying to change the human race into something it never wanted to be. Let them be happy in their follies. Do not deprive them of that which gives them more satisfaction than anything else! Their sovereign power to make utter fools of themselves!

In praise of folly ’ written in 1507 by Erasmus

Beware the toes you tread on today are not attached to the leg that supports the arse you are going to kiss tomorrow

Anonymous

Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914, American Author

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Sir Francis Bacon

The rainy days a man saves for usually seem to arrive during his vacation.

Anonymous

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Sir Winston Churchill

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi Indian ascetic & nationalist leader (1869 – 1948)

Respect yourself and others will respect you. This is also true – Love yourself before you are able to love others.

Confucius Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC – 479 BC)

If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; and y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

Albert Einstein, US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955) Observer, Jan. 15, 1950

You are a slave, but you don’t know it.

A hair-raising video that, in the end, explains a lot of what many of us have suspected for a long time. At the end of this video are a list of up to a hundred websites where you can research what has been said, for yourself.

In the Talismanic Idol website, their opening paragraph reads:

“Talismanic Idols is a compilation of information from leading researchers, Lawyers, Scholars, Doctors, Scientists, and professionals in relative fields which influence all of humanity and the reality we perceive. It is likely that everyone has reached the point somewhere in their lives where they feel something is missing or seriously wrong in the world.“

It is a long video, well over an hour, but I honestly think everyone should read it. If you are an intelligent person, you will have suspected much of what is said already. The earlier conclusions make a lot of sense. The final truth of how these wicked people who manipulate wars, and terror (terror on their citizens) may be defeated is so true. However, we do need to verify for ourselves the truth of the video. Whilst it is not enough to say you discount it, it is also not enough to say you believe it all. You have research it yourself. All thoughts and facts put out as the truth needs verification, even if they emanate from your priest, your government, or your teacher.

Watch it when you have a couple of hours spare. Ignore it at your peril. Discount it without researching its premise will cause you untold pain in the end.

Ampers

Odds and sods

Downing Street Petitions

I have, for a long time now, thought that the Downing Street “email petition service” exists for one reason, and one reason only. It is to enable the authorities to get information on who is for this and against that.

And, what information do they have on you? Your full name, your email address (this is checked by you having to complete your verification by clicking a link on an email they send you). And your postal address which is checked against the electoral register. In addition, they have the contents of the petition you have signed.

From their point of view, pretty good information which no doubt goes on their database. One of the many they have on you.

Airport Security

One of the “rules” is that you cannot take liquids through customs larger than 100 millilitres. You may be sure of one thing. This “rule” will never go away as it enables the so called “duty-free” shops to charge anything they want. Including bottled water at least twice as expensive as that in local shops.

And, if you find you have to pay for all those extra items in the extortionately priced shops air-side, and you need to withdraw extra cash, you will find the ATMs air-side nearly always carry a charge for withdrawals

What is the “Gold Standard?

This is something that was used in the past, when money was stable and inflation therefore, was also pretty stable. Our currency was based on the value of precious metals, and we never printed more money than we had gold reserves for.

In the early part of the 20^th century our currency was taken off the Gold Standard (don’t be confused by Gordon Brown selling our Gold reserves – our currency was taken off the Gold Standard many decades before this event).

Now you can go back onto the Gold Standard yourself because GoldMoney now gives you a facility of not only owning Gold and storing it in their vaults, but allows you to trade Gold with other GoldMoney customers. The American government are alarmed at the number of Americans who are dealing with GoldMoney and they are attempting to bring in draconian legislation to forbid this.

Low alcohol wines

It seems that many wineries (vineyards) all over the world are experimenting with various methods of reducing “alcohol”, but not “pleasure” of enjoying wine. However, the stumbling block of obtaining these in Britain are our own authorities.

First of all, if you follow this link, you will see the three main methods of reducing alcohol. I show the three methods below, but there is much more to learn from this website.

Reverse osmosis removes water, alcohol and acetic acid from a wine after fermentation. The water and acetic acid are then added back into the wine, which is “re-alcoholised” with an appropriate amount of alcohol. Spinning cones use centrifugal force and a vacuum to separate volatile components, including alcohol, from a wine. The winemaker then decides how much alcohol to blend back in. Dilution is strictly illegal, but the fact remains that some producers add water to sugar-rich musts. The problem with this technique (other than its dubious legality) is that flavour gets diluted along with alcohol levels.

And if you have a Muslim friend who you want to take for a drink, it seems they may drink beer which has an alcohol content of no more than 0.5% which is pretty much all of them. An official website from Saudi Arabia says this about low alcohol beers:

For example, a person weighing a mere 54 kg (120 lbs) would have to consume at least twenty-three 330 ml bottles of non-alcoholic beer at 0.5% alcohol per volume – the high end of the spectrum for non-alcoholic beers – to even begin to feel intoxicated by the alcohol that it contains. (Incidentally, this is larger than the faraq mentioned in the hadîth.) Moreover, he would have to drink this quantity within a period of less than 15 minutes. He will not be able to become intoxicated if he takes a longer time to consume those 23 bottles, since in that case the liver will be eliminating the alcohol faster than he can consume it. Needless to say, anyone who undertakes to consume 23 bottles of non-alcoholic beer in 15 minutes so he can experience a transient moment of mild intoxication is doing something unlawful in Islam.

The article goes on to say it is therefore alright to drink these low alcohol beers. The exact words are: “Hence, there are no grounds to prohibit this drink. And Allah knows best.”

Saturday’s Daily Mail

Yes, I plead guilty to buying the Daily Mail! But I inly every buy the Saturday edition for the television pages. There are six pages of television listings for each day, and that is not including all the lead-up pages talking about what’s on next week. I usually skip through the newspaper as well as I like the fact that there is a lot of humour contained therein. I have Page 33 open at present in which the following two items brought a smile to my face. “Muslim Gets Jail…” reports: “When Questioned, Gharfoor said he planned to bomb Bluewater … in Exeter. After being told Bluewater was in Kent, he replied ‘The plan is not finalised’. And “The end of brainstorming…” reports: “But in genteel Tunbridge Wells, the Council decided it might lead to the traditionally “disgusted” residents of the town becoming “offended” as well”.

Non residents of these islands may not understand the second item so I will explain that “Letters to the Times and Telegraph” of Englishmen complaining about something, would often sign themselves as “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”.

Who is moving to Linux in the 21st Century?

Citroen are moving their 250 servers and 20,000 PC Workstations over to SuSE Linux, Now that is a lot of Microsoft licenses being lost. Licences for 250 servers and 20,250 copies of Windows and probably 20,000 licences of Office as well could be a blow to Microsoft. Not so much the loss of income, but that such a large commercial company is moving over to Open Source. This will surely encourage others to move.

Then we have the French Gendarme moving over 70,000 of their PCs to Ubuntu Linux and the Spanish government authorising the education sector to move over to Linux. Not only could that mean a loss of up to 500,000 licenses to Microsoft, they will be very unhappy at all these school children growing up on Linux machines.

The New York Stock Exchange is moving over to Linux. Their CIO said the real reason he is moving is that he needs technology independence.

Philippines companies – collectively 23,000 computers. Article link.

From ZDNet: “Another thousand schools are being added to the program, this time using Kubuntu and Edubuntu, for a total of 23,000 computers. While the program appears to have been quite successful…”

All of Russia by 2010. Article Link.

From “Russia Today” comes: “A free on-line alternative to the Windows operating system is set to be introduced in schools in three Russian regions by 2009. If the pilot project proves successful, all schools across the country will make the switch a year later.”

South America Article Link.

From C|Net News Com: “Argentina, having recently undergone an economic collapse, is also a lover of Open Source. The enthusiasm for it there has engulfed much of the private sector, where according to a 2004 survey from Argentina-based Trends Consulting, 42 per cent of Argentine companies use Linux and many of these are planning to use Open Source for all new applications.”

US Army. Article Link.

From The Register we have: “In multiple media reports over the past two weeks, the US Army has professed its love for the penguin. The Army eventually intends to move from a Windows-based infrastructure over to Linux for its new, roughly $200bn weapons program.”

Munich is Linux, Netherlands will go too. Article Link.

Linux Insider informs us “The government in Munich, Germany, runs on Linux. Same thing in the Netherlands, thanks to a recent law there that requires open source software in all departments of the national government. In France, any product for IT use must have an open source alternative in the decision-making process.”

Australia. Article Link.

Australian IT say: “Red Hat is buoyed by a recent Australian Government Information Management Office survey that showed most federal government agencies expected to use more free and open source software over the next five years.”

San Fransisco Bay Area Schools. Article Link.

And nearer to Microsoft’s home, Computer World writes “For years, open-source software advocates have been holding “installfests,” gatherings to help others learn how to install and use Linux and other open-source applications on computers. Tomorrow, a San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit group and a San Mateo, Calif.-based open-source vendor are taking the idea a step further by co-sponsoring an all-day “Installfest for Schools” to create what they hope will be 500 refurbished computers to be used by underprivileged students in schools in nearby neighbourhoods.”

South Africa to save over $352 million going to Linux. Article Link.

Finally, from Infoworld: “Besides saving the South African government several billion rand, which amounts to several hundred million dollars, adopting open source software would boost the local software industry, said Mojalefa Moseki, the chief information officer of South Africa’s State Information Technology Agency (SITA), when the proposal was put together earlier this year. SITA is a South African government agency that provides information systems and other related services to participating departments. “

…and from the Ubumtu Forum: “South Africa plans to switch all government departments over to open source computer software instead of using Microsoft systems, a cabinet spokesperson said. Themba Maseko told reporters the cabinet would use the open source Linux operating system in a bid to lower administration costs and enhance local IT skills. The cost implications are considerable in a country struggling to bridge the digital divide, and where a vast majority of the people are computer illiterate.”

Extracts

From Linux.com “From an August-September survey of 512 US companies, government agencies, and others, Optaros reported that 87 percent were using open source software. Dave Gynn, application infrastructure practice lead at Optaros, said all companies and agencies are likely using open source software in reality. “There’s still a gap of many people who don’t realize they’re using open source,” Gynn said.” And this was way back in 2005.

What to do first

Companies who are thinking of moving from Windows to Linux should read this interesting article on how first to see whether this is a good move for you, and also what immediate steps should be taken.

The French Gendarmerie approached the next step very wisely. Their IT people needed to be au fait with Linux and this would take a lot of training, over a fairly long period. So they did this in four stages. First of all they analysed that the three major programs they used on their Windows computers were Microsoft Office, Outlook and Internet Explorer. After discovering three good alternatives which ran not only on Windows, but also on Macs and Linux, they decided to install the replacements, step by step. But using the Windows versions.

First of all, they replaced Internet Installer with Firefox and whilst the users were getting to grips with this, the IT people learned about Thunderbird whilst studying how Linux worked. Once they were up to speed, Thunderbird was exchanged for Outlook. This took a little longer to master, but even so, it wasn’t that long. Meanwhile, the IT people worked out everything about Open Office, the MS Office replacement and this was introduced.

Once everyone was at ease with the three Open Source programs, Windows was to be stripped from all the computers (70,000 of them) and replaced with Linux. The three Open Source programs replaced with Linux versions which had the same look and feel and worked exactly the same way.

Implications for Microsoft

First of all, Linux will never replace Windows, and Microsoft will be around for decades to come. However, with children growing up in Russia working only with Linux, and 500,000 Spanish children growing up with Linux, and the adoption of Linux by many governments and schools around the world, we will see more companies moving over to Linux when they find their workforce are “expert” at running the Open Source operating system. What we will see is Microsoft having to relax their contracts with computer suppliers, lower their licensing fees, and re appraise their latest idea of “renting out” their software rather than selling it.

Now that I have practically retired from Journalism, and retire on pensions to keep body and soul together, I have to look to the future.Having now moved to Linux not only means that I never have to outlay valuable financial resources for computer software, but that my hardware will last much longer before having to be renewed. This is owing to the fact that Linux uses less internal computer resources than Windows. In addition to this, the next time I buy a computer I can choose one with a much lower technical “spec” and therefore save even more money.

Ampers

News Snippets

Some Russian Billionaires aren’t too bad

In a world where artefacts are often stolen and seldom returned, the story of the Danilov bells (Danilov Monastery in Moscow) is rare.

In 1930 Stalin had given orders to destroy the churches. American philanthropist Charles Crane purchased the bells from the Soviet government, which was desperate for money. They were then shipped to the US and then transported to Harvard where they were installed.

The request for the return of the bells in 2002 as Harvard alumni and the monastery made a case. A new set of bells created at a foundry in Russia will replace them – all financed by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

What question should you be asking?

“Coffee drinkers can be reassured that coffee does not increase their risk of death,” says Esther Lopez-Garcia, an epidemiologist at the University of Madrid, who worked on the research at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

There may even be a modest benefit to a cup of coffee, especially for women. The risk of mortality due to all causes was 26 per cent lower for women who consumed four to five cups a day than for those who didn’t drink coffee. Women who drank two to three cups of coffee a day appeared to have a 17-per-cent lower risk.”

and

That Red wine seems to prolong your life. According to researchers at a University in Germany. It seems that “pre-fat cells are prevented from converting into mature fat cells. The element is called Resveratrol which also hinders fat storage in cells.

We are bombarded, each day in the news, by this and that being good or bad for you. But we never get enough information from these articles to make an informed decision. Do you remember, in a previous blog, I spoke about “Cui Bono” which means “Who benefits”. We should constantly ask ourselves that question, but try to translate it to the relevant subject. In this case, we need to ask ourselves who commissioned the research. Research cost money and any scientist will always work from their paymaster’s point of view or they won’t get further work and the “word” will go out.

Take the first piece of information. I am almost certain a company to do with coffee commissioned the research. If the research said coffee was very bad for you, I’d look at tea companies or other beverage companies as the sponsors!

McCane – “We’ll stay in Iraq for 100 years if we have to”

What is the Iraq war really about, is it Oil? When I give you the following figures and you realise that the American political elite look after Corporate America, you may well come to another conclusion.

The above dollar figures for the year 2000 have been increased to be based on the 2007 value of the dollar so that they can be shown as “like with like”.

Contractor . . . . . . . . . 2007 CEO . . .2000 CEO Pay . . .%
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pay (mil) . . . .Pay (mil) . . . . . . .Change

Lockheed Martin . . . .$37 . . . . . . . . .$ 6 . . . . . . . . . . . 517%
Boeing . . . . . . . . . . . .$15 . . . . . . . . . $20 . . . . .. . . . . -25%
Northrop Grumman. . $10 . . . . . . . . . $ 7 . . . . . . . . . . .43%
Raytheon . . . . . . . . . . $17 . . . . . . . . . $ 8 . . . . . . . . . . 113%
General Dynamics . . .$60 . . . . . . . . .$10 . . . . . . .. . . .500%

(Excuse the dots but there is no “tab” in Blogspot and more than one space is not recognised.)

Remember, the 2000 figures have been increased to the 2007 dollar value.

Of course, there is never a scandal to emerge of politicians receiving payments from these companies, but when they (the politicians) eventually retire, I am sure that “non-executive directorships” are handed around like confetti.

Ampers

A good guru teaches himself out of a pupil

A dictionary term for guru is (g[=oo]“r[=oo]) one who has expert knowledge of a technical or moral area and serves as an advisor to others; an expert and teacher.

The key word here is teacher. Gurus are good for you if they are wise and have something useful to impart. But if they are really good, once you have learned their teachings, you will “grow out” of them, and move on.

A decade or so ago I had the good fortune to have been given a £500 ticket from one of my clients to attend a Tony Robinson weekend at the Alexandra Palace. It was an eye-opening weekend and I learned a lot which I have subsequently used to my benefit in life.

One thing I noticed was his helpers. They help with all the organising and, as far as I am aware, don’t get paid, but do get in to the sessions free of charge. I found this sad as once I had learned a lot of what Mr Robbins taught, I moved on.

Moving on is something a lot of people feel difficult to accomplish. Life goes on, life moves on, and so should we move on. I guess this all boils down to the inability of many people to push themselves out of their comfort zone. Sir Richard Bransom doesn’t remain in his comfort zone and how far do you think Peter Cruddas, the richest man in the city pushes his box? He has come a long way from roaming the mean streets of the East End with a Smithfield porter as his dad!

If you work in a box, come home, put your feet up and watch the box, and do little else, then you deserve the misery you get. I know this is what you do as otherwise, I’d be reading about you in the newspapers and magazines, and perhaps see you occasionally on the box.

In case you haven’t guessed, the objective of my blog here revolves around the phrase, “move on”. Don’t stand still, get involved, plan for success, do something, or you will end up in a box sooner than your allotted time!

Ampers.

It won’t happen in the future.

This almost an extension of my 2:22pm blog.

I was reading a newspaper report about yet another cock-up by the government and it reported that last night a Treasury spokesman (nice to see the newspapers are not always politically correct) said it regretted the latest incident.

He Said: “We are extremely concerned about what has happened and will be taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future”.

This can be interpreted as follows: “The public are so gullible, they can be fobbed off with anything – just issue one of the standard platitudes”.

My two questions to you, dear reader are: Are you one of the gullible public who will be easily fobbed off with this type of platitude? And: If you are not, are you going to take any further action?

These are rhetorical questions, I don’t expect you to answer me. But it would be nice if you could think about it.

Your first question may be: “What can I do about it?”

I know times are hard, but can you afford a second class postage stamp and have you the time to write a letter? Even if you are on the Internet, a physical letter has far more impact on a politician.

If enough people write and tell them that this “standard platitude” is not enough and, who is going to get fired, who is going to get reprimanded, and who is going to get some of their pay docked?

It may not get much visible action from the person you write to but it sure as hell will put the fear of God into them.

If you are on the internet, collect the required politician’s email address, the one who is the minister of that department. Normally this will be [Surname][First Initial]@parliament.uk. Write to him saying you have sent a letter through the post to [Name][Department] and that you would appreciate if he would ensure you receive a reply. You could send a copy of the letter, but if so, it would be better to put it in-line after your signature, rather than as an attachment. Believe me, he won’t bother to open it as an attachment.

Remember, you get the government you deserve. If you don’t try and guide them on a course that you would like them to take, then they will steer themselves on the course that they want to take!

Of course it won’t make a difference if only you write, but if all of you write, and pass this particular blog on to all your friends and contacts, then this could start to make a difference.

Do it now!

Your private parts will be exposed.

When a politician says:

“We understand your concerns…”

This means: We “hear” your concerns and will totally ignore them

“We are putting another £200M into…..”

This means: Well, not really, this is the same £200M we mentioned five months ago and, errrrr…. sixteen months ago.

And many of us are stupid enough to believe them. In my younger days I was too busy enjoying life to worry about politics. Now that I am older and wiser I have come to a frightening conclusion.

It is my fault that the country is in the state that it is in, and that democracy is dead in our islands. It is my fault, and people like me’s fault because we were too busy watching TV, drinking in pubs, enjoying our lives, so the “powers that be” surreptitiously introduced more, and more, carefully thought out legislation, that would enable them to get hold of us by the dangly parts. Funny how those legislations are so carefully planned but the really important laws are rushed through without much thought!.

Who amongst you are also guilty? Come on, hands up. Who spends more than 7 hours a week watching television before 10 o’clock in the evening? Who spends too much time in the pub? The two devises Government love because both debilitates the citizen and therefore keeps them out of political mischief.

When people talk about the ruling class, who thinks of the aristocracy? Why, for God’s sake? They aren’t the ruling class. They used to be, in bygone centuries, but now it is the politicians, but they are only a small part of it as I have said in a recent blog. There are a multitude of people working with politicians aiding and abetting them to destroy democracy and allow powerful and rich people to get more powerful and richer; with the help, apart from the politicians of all the Quango people, the press barons, the corporates, the civil service heads and the like.

But hey! Who cares. And why all that stuff about dangly parts?

“Oh that”. It’s in America at present, but it will surely come over here soon. It seems that you now have to go through a special scanner at airports that can see through all your layers of clothes to you body underneath “to see if you have any concealed weapons on you. Naturally the staff will ensure the men scan the women and the women scan the men! After all they have to be perverted in the first place to want to work in “airport security”.A jobs-worth paradise. Perhaps we should put them all on the “sex offenders register”?

Ampers

To buy or lease in business.

I read in the newspaper today that insolvencies in business will be rising by 20% over and above the norm.

People starting up in business need to be able to handle smart salesmen who persuade them to lease so their money stretches further. If you are a well established company with many employees, then leasing may be fine. But if you are a start-up with just yourself and one or two others, it can be fatal.

Let me explain. You all know about profit and loss. Profit is when your graph of income over expenditure is positive and the graph rises over the mean. Loss is when your expenditure is greater than your profit and the graph crosses over to below the mean.

The more regular outgoings that cannot be terminated is what will kill you when you hit a rough patch or there is a recession. Leasing is one of those regular expenses that cannot be terminated.

I talk, above, of the “mean” the horizontal line through your graph that separates profit and loss. When you first start up, that line is at zero. Not a penny more or a penny less. So anything below that line threatens insolvency, unless you have a large private bank account or a rich daddy.

But why is leasing a different proposition for the larger company? Well this is because the horizontal line is well above ground point zero because of the size of your business. This means you have assets and a certain amount of business that will sustain you, and the “mean” is a lot higher than ground zero. So if your business model loses money, it would have to lose a lot more before you come to the zero point and really go into “insolvency loss”.

This is why, until your business acquires enough assets, and you acquire enough customers and business so that, even in hard times, you make enough to stay solvent, leasing is the wicked witch that can totally destroy you.

A couple of years ago I had a good friend who wanted to start up in business. He was a good salesman who earned quite a good salary and commission. I persuaded him to wait, to save as much “capital” as he could, to ensure that apart from operating capital to last the best part of the year, he should replaced his computer and all his home office equipment with new more powerful models, aand update his car for a newer more appropriate model and pay cash, and then I persuaded him two months before he left, to place advertisements for his new company so that when he left he could start seeing potential customers from day one.

He gave notice at the end of that month and, as we both knew, the company marched him out of the building immediately with a months pay in lieu of working out his notice. Many companies do that when a salesman hands in his notice if they have a lot of sensitive information that they wouldn’t like their competitors to get hold of.

So he started up his business. With no capital expenditure for three years , he just had to worry about stock. I introduced him to a company which gave him a telephone number in their office and whenever he had to go out, he just used BT to switch his phone to their number. Emails kept the “office” up to date on everything he was doing so that the phone operator, when his account came up on her screen as his phone in her office rang, could talk intelligently to the customer.

He is now very successful, and very grateful. I can’t wait for him to make his first million

Ampers

The Irish vote

The third largest country, after England and Scotland, in the British Isles, is Eire which still packs a powerful punch and the initial blow to the unelected Commissioners in the EU must have been catastrophic!

The one thing the people who run the EU do not like is democracy. Yes, alright, they pay lip service to it by having a parliament of MEPs who are allowed to vote in the “laws” written by their Commissioners. Most countries send failed friends from their local country to act as commissioners. For example, we sent Paton, Kinnock and Mandelson. Fail hopelessly in your home country and you end up where all the power (and money) is without having to worry about the voters.

I occasionally meet people who are quite happy with this and it makes me wonder why they don’t emigrate to the sun, to Zimbabwe. Now there would be a government right up their street.

Then I meet others who, although their hearts are in the right place, still think that the UK is a sovereign state. I just don’t have the heart to point out the facts to them and I won’t here. If you don’t believe me – and why should you – and you are genuinely interested,. “Google” – you will see that I am right and because you have looked it up yourself, you will remember it longer. I don’t expect you to act on it now as it is too late.

David Davis is a foolish man if you are a hard-headed politician or businessman. Of course he would be from that point of view. He could easily lose his seat. Fortunately for him he has a good chance of winning. A very good chance. I initially thought he wouldn’t succeed in making his points all that known, nationwide with Labour refusing to contest the election. Many say that Gordon Brown hasn’t the bottle to fight on Davis’s terms. There could be a little of that, but Labour is almost bankrupt so an excuse not to fight it could also be on monetary grounds. I also suspect that he didn’t fight Cameron in a National Election because party bosses couldn’t afford a general election at that time. Look for Brown to hang on until the last possible day before the next General Election. Once again that could well be through monetary reasons. Also it must have infuriated Brown when goaded by Cameron in Question Time about not having the bottle to fight an election, not to be able to give the reason why – the Labour Party being broke.

Luckily there is that “Sun person” who is going to enter into the by-election campaigning on even longer “bang ups” than 42 days. This will give Davis an opportunity to air his views.

I am puzzled why Murdock is funding this though as I thought he was very pro labour. Murdock is also a newspaper owner and as such, is part of the ruling class (MPs, Quango leaders, Civil Service leaders, newspaper and radio station owners and Big Business CEOs) which makes it even more strange that he is giving Davis the opportunity. Unless he really believes the Sun person can win?

And, of course, ego has a lot to do with it. But, in that, Davis is no different to any other politician or anyone at the top of “their heap”. I think that he genuinely thinks that the State is getting too big and powerful, and also that he is quite prepared if he loses, and has other plans with his life which he could soon put in place.

Me, personally? I don’t like the Conservatives. Ever since I heard a television commentator ask Ted Heath if he knew, when he took is into the Common Market, that it would turn into a political state. He answered, and these are his words, “Of course I bloody did!” However, I hope that Davis wins, and I hope he manages to get the entire country discussing the path we are being taken down by our government.

Ampers

Translations are not cheap!

Prior to the new enlargement of the EU the BBC published an article on costs. As with many things published by the BBC on anything to do with the EU, I thought it worth checking, and found the amounts were thought to be nearer one billion Euros than the eight hundred million mentioned in the above BBC link.

And, if we bear in mind that these were politician’s estimates, I would hazard a guess that the true cost may well be in excess of one billion pounds Sterling.

However, I am also interested in translation costs in our own “English speaking” country and they are enormous. Many government leaflets for the public are printed in umpteen different languages to cater for all the immigrants flocking in and I can’t help but feel they should bear some, if not all, of the enormous costs that are involved.

Why don’t we reduce all benefits and grants by a small percentage (5% to 10%) so they can pay for their translated documents? I offer this suggestion neither as a punishment, nor as an incentive for them to learn English. I offer it as a way that each and everyone should make a contribution towards the costs of the society they wish to live in.

There should be one leaflet offered free of all cost and this would be the one explaining this rule, and why the percentage has been levied. The leaflet should also explain that if they bring an English speaking friend or relative to any assessment meetings who would also translate all the forms for them, there would be no percentage levy made. Because of the way people (including English speaking people) know how to work any system the leaflet should explain that if they need a translated leaflet just once, the percentage levy would immediately start to apply.

Many of these immigrants either have a friend, colleagues or family member who are on the Internet so the Government could provide a website set of pages on the benefits website for each language. Naturally this should be free of any levy and would allow the immigrant to get fault-free facts which their friend may not have interpreted correctly.

Any comments on this, whether you think it is a good or bad idea, would be appreciated.

The end of French, as we know it, Jim!

I recently read that the French are alarmed that, with the Euro enlargment, all the new countries have English as their second language and that the French authorities are concerned that English, rather than French, seems to be the accepted world language.

Well, I have some news for them. More people speak Chinese than English, and I am just referring to the Chinese who live in China. But this is a digression as, in all seriousness, English certainly seems to be the preferred second language in so many countries around the EU and to a lesser amount, the world.

Most Africans in South Africa speak, not only their own their language, but at least one other tribal language and also both English and Afrikaans. And in Namibia, Afrikaans is used as the Esperanto amongst all the native tribes there. They seem to have an amazing ability with languages. But I am digressing again!

I have been watching the second half of the Eurovision song contest for years now. I say “second half” for three reasons. The actual songs are a little too insipid for me, Sir Terry Wogan has me in stitches and I make a note of how many of each country commentators give their results in one of the two official languages. English and French. It is mostly English.

One year quite recently, only the French gave the results in French and I wrote to the French Ambassedor pointing this out. The next year, he must have been hard at work as four countries gave their results in French – perhaps he should have worked harder. But it didn’t last and now, this last time, only the French commentator gave their results in French. And it certainly doesn’t help their cause when their singer sung their contribution in English. That did bring a smile to my face, I can tell you.

I think it is time for England to pull out of this contest because, as we have followed the Americans blindly into Iraq and Afghanistan, we are hated as much, all around the world. In addition to that, there are three blocks of countries who tend to vote for each other, why should we even try to compete with that loyalty? If this were sour grapes, I wouldn’t be admiring their loyalty.

So why should we waste our money and energy? Rather we should reflect that our music industry is second to none, and all these countries who won’t vote for us, still buy and play our music. So I say, save on the expense of the Eurovision song contest and be content that our music really is good.

Cultural Revolution, Culture War

This is the forward of Sean Gabb’s book, “Cultural Revolution, Culture War.” You can either download the book free or buy this book from the Hampden Press.

I downloaded the PDF first and after reading a chapter or two decided he deserved the money and purchased a copy. What you do is up to you.

Here is a copy of the forward which Sean has kindly allowed me to reproduce. As you will see, both parties are partly responsible for this problem and Sean does not favour either.

Ampers.

Introduction: England, July 2007

Those who wish to change the world must first understand it. Unless we can know where we are, and why, we cannot hope to end where we want to be..And for those traditionalist Tories, classical liberals and libertarians who comprise the British conservative movement, the first step to understanding is to accept that we have lost the battle for this country.

The Blair Government was not an aberration from an otherwise healthy state of affairs. Its social and political acts were not “political correctness gone mad”. Nor did its economic policies involve “wasteful government spending”. Tony Blair was not, as many gloomily or contentedly repeat, “a conservative in charge of the wrong party”. Gordon Brown is not a conservative.

Nor is it the case that, if we have lost many others, conservatives have at least “won the argument over economics”. The truth is that we have lost every argument at any level that matters. On all issues during the past quarter century or more, we have failed to set an agenda to preserve—let alone to re-establish—ourselves as the free citizens of an independent country. We have lost.

Now, I will emphasise that our defeat has extended over a generation. It was already evident before Tony Blair came into office. Undoubtedly, his Government did, after 1997, set records in this country for corruption and tyranny and treason. It increased taxes and spending. It regulated matters that even despotisms in other times and places have mostly left alone. It fought wars of aggression against Serbia and Afghanistan and Iraq, and justified these with the most shameless lies. It threw our armed forces into unwinnable occupations, and exposed us to attack by foreign terrorists and to insurrection from within the Asianised areas of our own cities. It hastened the transformation of our laws from a shield for the innocent into a weapon of the State. It placed us deeper under various kinds of foreign rule.

Yet evil as the Blair Government was, it was not original in its evil. The personal and financial corruption of the Ministers aside, its acts were entirely a working out of principles established before 1997. There was no break in continuity between the Blair and the Thatcher and Major Governments. It is notorious that no bad act of government since 1997 has been without precedent. We can ask whether Tony Blair was a Thatcherite, or whether John Major was the first Prime Minister of New Labour. The questions are equally unimportant. Our past three Prime Ministers may differ in order and degree, but not in their nature.

Nor is it important that Gordon Brown is now Prime Minister, or who may win the next general election. Electoral politics may change governments. It is normally other forces that determine the policies of government. Led by David Cameron, it is possible that the Conservatives will, before 2010, win office. But will this be a victory for conservatism? We can imagine a Conservative Government. It is much harder to imagine a government of conservatives.

Just as it is possible to trace the evils we now face over the past few generations, it is possible to look forward to a country—indeed, a world, for England is not alone—in which they will have triumphed. It is clear that our ruling class—or that loose coalition of politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, educators, and media and business people who derive wealth and power and status from an enlarged and active state—wants an end of liberal democracy.

The desired new settlement that already exists in outline is one in which those at the top or with the right connections can enjoy the most fabulous wealth and status, and in which their enjoyment of these can never again be challenged from below. We, the ordinary people, are to be stripped of our constitutional rights—no freedom of speech, no personal or financial privacy, no procedural safeguards in the criminal law. We are to be taxed and regulated to what counts in our own culture as the edge of the breadline. This is on the one hand to provide incomes for clients of the ruling class, and on the other to deprive us of the leisure that might allow us to understand our situation, and of the confidence that might allow us to challenge it. In any event, every organ of the ruling class is at work on promoting ideologies of boundless submission to the new settlement.

At the same time, structures of accountability that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries are to be deactivated. Their forms will continue. There will be assemblies at Westminster. But these will not be sovereign assemblies with the formal authority of life and death over us all. That authority will have been passed to various unelected and transnational agencies. And so far as the Westminster assemblies will remain important, our votes will have little effect on what they enact.

We are passing, in England and all over the West, into the sort of world that existed in much of Europe before the French Revolution—a world of diverse and conflicting sources of authority, all equally unaccountable. The great simplification of authority that happened in Europe after 1789, and that had happened over two centuries earlier in England, was a product of nationalism; and simplification was followed by accountability and then by liberalism.

This sort of reaction is in future to be made impossible by promoting movements of people so that nations in the old sense disappear, and are replaced by patchworks of nationalities more suspicious of each other than of any ruling class.

Seen as actors in an historic tendency, the Ministers of the Blair, and now of the Brown, Government are to be much condemned for their bad acts. But, as said, they really have only given a speed and individuality of detail to tendencies that were established before they came to power, and that will continue after they have fallen. The evils that we face are only partly a matter of individual wickedness.

To understand why all this has happened, and will continue to happen, we must look beyond electoral politics. We must even look beyond the ideologies, or claimed ideologies, of electoral politics. The true key to understanding lies in the analysis of class interest.

Google Trends.

I was sent the following link on the American press and American Politicians (a YouTube) video where Gerry Day, a Californian TV producer illustrates how he has used Google Trends to show how the American press manipulates public voting intentions. It was really very impressive so I decided to take a look at Google Trends for myself.

The first things I decided to compare was the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. This showed a graph of Labour way high on the graph and the Conservatives way down the bottom next to the Liberal Democrats. Oh, I thought, they seem to have got this wrong. But then I realised what the graphs show. The top graph shows which subject gets the most requests for information by people searching Google, and the bottom graph shows which trend gets the most media attention from media websites on Google.

Then I understood. Because Gordon Brown is not doing very well in almost all areas, more Labour supporters are searching for information in dismay, and more of the press are each writing more of Gordon Brown’s ails, because that is “news” as they see it.

There is one thing I am aware of, the press in the US are deliberately suppressing Ron Paul, a very popular politician, in the race for the White House. I did a comparison between Ron Paul and David Cameron and the following is interesting. This shows the last twelve months. Just look how Ron Paul towers above David Cameron in the world’s interest and search for more information, whereas the world’s press coverage is on David Cameron and almost non-existent on Ron Paul. This reaffirms the information in the above video.

You have a choice of over periods of the last few years, twelve months or the last 30 days.

But Google Trends does not have to be used for political trends, it can be used for business trends and also for sporting trends.

Please bear in mind that, although this is still in its experimental stages, which is why it is not widely advertised that the moment, but it is still pretty good in what it shows.

Google “Google Trends”, with or without the quotes, to fire it up.

There will be more on this when they finalise it.

I know why!

Everybody seems to be wringing their hands, and running around like headless chickens over all this “knife” business.

On the one hand they are trying to discover the cause and on the other hand they are trying to discover the knife holders.

I have to put my hand up, and own that I do not know where the little bastards are. But what I do know is, how this all started.

Although I will point the finger, initially, at the Labour party for causing all this mayhem, many decades ago, the Conservatives are equally at fault for not reversing their dastardly policies. If any Liberal Democrats have worked this out, they are keeping pretty quiet about it!

It doesn’t take much intelligence to realise that the bedrock of our civilisation is good governance and the family unit. Without these two important qualities in our lives we end up in queer street. And we have!

Good Governance means, amongst many things, using money wisely. One result of their total lack of knowledge on how to spend our money is the breakdown of education in this country. (We won’t talk about health or we might all end up totally depressed.)

Our total government structure has broken down and this affects us in all walks of life.

Our schools aren’t educating our pupils well enough, everything is made too easy. If they aren’t printing the answers on the question papers, they are using multiple choice questions on almost every subject. Already a top University (Imperial College of London) has introduced entrance examinations because they say “A” levels are too easy and don’t prove anything. You may be sure that others will follow.

Our family unit has been totally and utterly undermined. During the past we have seen the encouragement of single parent families, the undermining of marriage as now being totally irrelevant. Not allowing teachers or parents to chastise our children.

Because of the high taxation (including a 17.5% VAT, duty on petrol – we have the highest prices for petrol – all the stealth taxes that the government has slowly introduced over the years) we are working for the first five months of the year for the Government before we can start working for ourselves. The consequence of this is that mothers who should really stay at home to bring up their children properly have to become another wage provider. It’s a fine thing for mothers to go out to work by choice, but not to go out by necessity! It is no wonder gangs of feral children are roaming the streets, with knives.

Well, not all, some of them have guns.

£1.2 billion Network Rail profit.

This article came to me after Sky News reported that “Network Rail” made £1.2B profit. I have written a strong letter to Sky Management complaining, along the lines of this blog.

First of all, what does this mean to you? It means absolutely nothing to me. It does not tell me if they are doing well, or doing badly.

I think we should encourage all the media to add “on £x capital employed”. Then we would know of the profit was in excess, or was almost break-even. Alternatively they could say “made x% profit” if they want to keep the reporting simple.

Let me explain.

Company A makes £1 billion profit. Company B makes £1 million profit. Who has made the biggest “profit”?

Let us suppose that the capital employed in A is £100 billion and in B is £5M

Here we see that Company A has made only a 1% profit which is bad for the shareholders, bad for attracting incoming investment and is almost a loss.

Whereas Company B has made a 20% profit. Whilst this is good for the shareholders, it is certainly not good news for the customers who have been paying well over the odds.

I do agree that this is over simplification and I am no financial genius but it is enough when the newsreader announces such huge figures in a way that insinuates this is “capitalism at its worse” one wonders what their hidden agenda is!

Without knowing what the capital employed is, I am sure you will agree, there is just not enough information to make a decision on this.

Let us see if we can learn anything from this that we can look at in terms of our own lives.

What my above example shows most of all is that the quality of any decision, or conclusion, you make is reliant on the quality of the questions you ask and the quality and accuracy of the answers you receive.

Naturally, in many areas of life we have to make decisions on almost no available information and here our success rate will always be in the region of 50%. However, whenever possible, always remember that “the quality of your decisions depend on the quality of the information you amass.”

The more questions you ask, and the more accurate answers you receive, help to move that 50% chance of making a correct decision towards a 100% chance.

Google Reader

I blogged recently about various Google products. I have had some very positive results from one of these products which I would like to share with you.

This is Google Reader. To access it, just search for “Google Reader” with or without the quotes.

The best way to impart my experiences is to tell you how I use it.

Google Reader is in essence a single page with a narrow column on the left with all your subscriptions and when you click on a particular subscription, all the new documents are shown as one liners with just the title.

A subscription is an RSS feed you have subscribed to. All large news websites have RSS Feeds, as do most Weblog providers.

I now have nearly 50 different RSS feeds I subscribe to, At this stage, you are probably wondering how long it takes me to read them all, especially when it must be a few hundred. OK: 6 to 10 minutes – but more about this later.

Google Reader brings in all the information that interests you to your desktop from around the web, so you don’t have to go out there searching - that presupposes that you can remember all the addresses in the first place!

First of all, I manage my website addresses by putting them in various folders within Google Reader. I have, amongst many, one for “News”, one for “Technology”, one for “Linux” one for “Politics” etc. The subscription list on the left then groups them all together.

Let us just look at “News” as this is the most prolific. I started out with all the newspapers but then began deleting them one by one until I ended up with a few that cover everything. I have “Reuters” and “Sky News” for the important stories, “The Telegraph” for the interest stories, such as “Polar Bears in the Arctic” or “Insects are very nourishing to include in your diet” and suchlike. Finally, I have “News24″ which is South African based and of interest to me.

When I go into Google Reader each morning I first open the lesser sized folders and here I tend to read about 10% of the articles as they are of interest. Then I open the news folder with at least 200 items of news. First of all, for two whole minutes, I run my eye down the “one-liners” and at the end of that time I have a pretty good idea of what is happening in the world. If I am busy that day I mark all the rest as “read” as I have enough information to know what is happening in the world, (do I really need more) but if not so busy I may open up the window of half a dozen of them. This shows me the first paragraph of the article. If I want to read further, I click on the heading and this takes me directly to the newspaper page, where I can read the article. But I seldom need to do this.

Throughout the day, if people talk to me about what is happening in the world, I have a pretty good idea, and haven’t had the expense of purchasing a newspaper.

This would only really be of interest to the busy person. If you have lots of time on your hand, you can spend it watching the television news and buy and read newspapers.

Take a look and when you click on the subscriptions button (on the left in green) type in http://ampers.blogspot.com and you will always be notified when I have another blog. One advantages of doing this is that I have access to a beta website on stocks and shares by Google. This will be doing the sort of jobs where, at present, you need to pay “subscription software” from financial companies who charge you around £100 a month. And you will be able to list your shares on the website, and eventually get prices in real time.

Who should you vote for?

Having observed the Conservatives in a long term of power between 1979 and 1994 and Labour between 1994 and what will probably be 2010, I think what is more important than whether you swing to the left or right, is that you make sure the parties only each serve one term.

Fifteen years is too long for any party to be in power consecutively.

The Right’s “Margaret Thatcher” did what they wanted – at first – but after a while it became a disaster. The Left’s “Tony Blair” did what they wanted and after his first term it was also a disaster. Both these very able people became jaded towards the end of their time which doesn’t help the citizens of our islands. Actually, I shouldn’t use that phrase as I keep forgetting that Eire is in the British Isles!

The results at the recent “Crewe and Nantwich” bye-election has shown that people are not necessarily still prepared to vote as they have always done in the past. Perhaps the die-hards are getting too old and are dying off. A horrible thing to say but in my opinion, the more “floating” voters we have the better.

My reasoning here is that if we all decide to always vote for the party in opposition, we will never have one party in long enough to ruin the country. Bearing in mind that, nowadays, there is not that much difference between the two, rather than waste time voting for the smaller parties, which we all seem rather loathe to do (myself excluded as I have been the Head Office manager for UKIP and an NEC executive for Veritas in the past). I think that, by voting for the main party in opposition, we will ensure that whilst everything continues, a different set of politicians get in and won’t be in long enough to start milking the system too much at our expense! And we won’t end up with things that are bad being impossible to alter.

Think about it.

And of course, we know the present system of fifteen years are not working in any way, whatever the party.

Ampers