Life, but not as we know it Jim

[Drew]

If you ever watch a fly cleaning its antennae, in the positive
deliberation of the action it appears to exhibit awareness. So too if
you bring your hand close to swat and it haunches down like a cat ready
to spring. It bothers me that cartoons do a remarkable job of emulation
where there is (as far as I can discern) no avenue for consciousness or
awareness. So extrapolating to the putative highest consciousness,
humans, is the whole thing illusory?

What really brought this to the fore for me last week was our flat
topped wood-burning stove in the kitchen. Weather was parky so the
stove was allowed to get sizzling hot. I opened the door and threw on
some logs, in the process liberating a small quantity of fly ash which
landed on the top. Due to the heat and the flat top, little vortexes
formed like dust devils. From these, a few particles of ash leapt up
and pirouetted then shot back down whilst others rolled unpredictably
across the surface. In their motion the particles exhibited the precise
cues of life as humanly perceived. The leaping ones performed exactly
the same motion as non-biting midges and the rolling ones looked to me
just like ants on the patio.

Is the whole business of consciousness purely illusory? Maybe some
alternative words of wisdom can help me with this one.

Best

[Norman]

Don't try a backdoor way of getting me to explain consciousness and
mind, better brains than mine have tackled the question and so far they
don't even come close. This lies in the area of metaphysics, perhaps
it would be better directed towards your Leibniz friend. ;-)

I don't for 100% understand the implications of the question. Are you
saying the fly cleaning its antenna doesn't have awareness because of
its physical size or because of its position in the so called
evolutionary chain? Are we as humans always aware of what we are doing?
How many times have you pulled away from the traffic lights and
suddenly realised that you are in top gear without any knowledge of how
you got there. Did the gear changing happen in reality or was it an
illusion. If it was an illusion how do you explain the gear the vehicle
happens to be in? Again climbing or descending stairs; when you put
the action into your conscious thinking you very often fall over, it
just to seems to confuse your mind when you try to reason it out.

I don't understand the cartoon analogy. Cartoon animators observe
what happens in nature (reality) and try to reproduce the actions they
see on paper. The cartoon animation is just a series of stored images
without any 'soul' (don't want to explain this word), or maybe
life force.

Some philosopher, I can't remember which one now, listed life's
basic needs in descending order; ie the need to stay alive, the need to
be free from hunger and thirst etc. I think this is pretty obvious and
applies to the whole animal kingdom regardless of its position in the
evolutionary chain (in its broadest meaning). I think the crouching fly
is just applying the primordial fight or flight mechanism.

Your wood burning stove only produces the observed effects when it is
burning wood not when it is cold, pretty obvious huh. Perhaps it too
needs a life force to make natures effects observable. Sometimes when
walking in the woods you can suddenly come across about a metre
diameter column of midges. Why are they so localised? Perhaps in that
spot there is a mini vortex of which we are not aware but are
noticeable to the midges. Maybe things in nature follow the line of
least resistance and this is a case of similar conditions applying over
different circumstances.

Here is another experiment to try next time you are burning wood in the
stove. When the flat top is really, really hot, drop a few cc's of
water on the top and see what happens. I would expect it to instantly
explode into steam but this is not what happens. The surface tension
increases when you would expect it to decrease and the water forms
globules which bounce around on the top for ages. I don't have an
explanation for this one.

The guys I really admire are the ones who predict non observable
particles from cloud chamber kinetics. To my mind this is an illusory
state which approaches pretty close to Zen.

Talking about illusions, is the slot on the MS Word floppy disk save
icon, the wrong way round?

These are some alternative words but whether they can be construed as
wisdom is really not for me to say.:-)

Best

[Drew]

"My" floppy hole looks OK. Now I shall be scrutinising icons rather
than working.

Bouncing water globules is due to envelopes of steam insulating the
water but I guess I wouldn't have predicted the behaviour without
seeing it. Like sticking bare hands in liquid nitrogen -- it's OK if
you are quick. How does an milk-anti-boil-over disk work? How did
anyone find this out? Actually I think it's because it promotes
circulating thermal currents and breaks up froth but still seems odd to
me.

Cloud chamber predictions are pretty straightforward, especially if
there is a magnetic field. Quite simple calculations. Even I (given
time) might have predicted the neutrino from the results. Ballistics
use the same formulae form as charge storage in capacitors and
inductors. But it is easy to be awfully smart after the event ;-)
Wilson was a hell of a lot brighter than I. Here's a thing, the rules
of refraction were first worked out by considering light's shortest
distance between two points. This was before the nature of light was
understood. These sort of leaps of imagination hurt my brain.

I suspect you have got it though, nature takes the line of least
resistance. Going back a few billion years this now physically
manifests as what we take to be consciousness. So movements, whether
they be under to auspices of life or simply small particles, are
inspired by arbitrary, random stimuli. This is kinda where I was going
with the thought but hadn't managed to focus it properly. That
however implies that the cues we take for observed consciousness are
indeed illusionary and we have to ignore this and dig far deeper.
Ummmm.

Best

[Norman]

Been busy today and tomorrow also. Will try to find some time tomorrow
pm to reply to this.

Best

[Drew]

And my Amazon order has finally arrived. Heavily into shooting
spaceships out of the sky.

Best

[Norman]

Just as a digresion into an old topic, good ol' America is raising its
sleepy head to the strange antics of Shrub.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/05/news/terror.php

Best

[Drew]

Re the link, funny how any moderately sensible person can come up with
what is patently obvious, even without three years of committee
meetings. Sensible persons also tend not to use phrases like
"communications interoperability".

Hot tip (since that one is dead too). Many people have difficulty
swallowing pills. As a perpetual headache sufferer (my sensitive
nature) I swallow with *warm* water -- cold water closes up the
oesophagus. Ain't it weird that no one I've mentioned this to has
ever thought of it? I draw inferences on consciousness from this ;-)

[Norman]

Back to subject, thanks for the envelopes of steam explanation which
makes a lot of sense but I would not have predicted the effect either.

You are also probably right with the anti milk boil over thing also but
not absolutely sure; maybe we should ask Magnus Pike.

Here is another one that works but since it is almost rare, science
never got around to finding an explanation for it so far as I know. Do
you remember (cast your mind back) to when reagent bottles particularly
Winchesters, had a ground glass cone in the neck of the bottle into
which fitted a ground glass stopper. Quick Fit labo apparatus uses the
same system. The reason they called it Quick Fit was it very often was
not quick dismantle as the stopper and cone would weld themselves
together and defy all attempts to separate them. So you had to use
silicon grease as a lubricant which kind of defeated the original
object. The way to get them apart was to tap all around the neck with a
reasonably long (6 - 12 inch) glass rod for about half a minute to a
minute and then lift the stopper out. I have a feeling that the impact
of the tapping was causing a vibration at or close to the resonance
frequency of the glass. This trick never worked if the tapping rod was
any material other than glass.

Have you ever done a reflux in the lab. Reagents are heated in a round
bottom flask by an isomantle and the distillate is recondensed into the
same flask with a vertical condenser? As the liquid boils, if there is
nothing for the first bubble to form on then you will get super heating
(pure liquid at a higher temperature than the normal boiling point) and
the liquid will go meta-stable and likely finish up on the lab ceiling.
A few glass beads added to the liquid before heating is usually enough
to take the energy out of the system, or scratching the inside of the
flask. These beads have to be filtered out afterwards with loss of
product on the filter paper. A better way is to make a boiling tube.
Take a glass tube which is slightly longer than the diameter of the
flask so it can stand up by resting in the neck. Close one end by
melting the glass over. Make a second similar tube and join the second
to the first so that you have one closed tube and one open tube joined
together. Cut the open tube off to within half an inch of the joint and
place open side down in the reagents before the experiment starts. As
the liquid is heated the air trapped in the open ended tube will expand
and raise the whole glass tube up slightly but not enough to eject a
bubble. This semi - trapped bubble provides a surface on which
bubbles formed from the boiling can form and stabilises the system.

These are pretty out of the way things I will admit. Not everyday
situations like your screwdriver hints.

The laws of refraction were first worked out by Snell and are given as:

Snell's Law: Sin I / Sin R = n where n is a constant; I is the angle
of incidence and R is the angle of refraction.
The constant is the ratio of the speeds of light in the two media.)

General form:
Sin theta 1 / Sin theta 2 = n2 / n1

n = n2 / n1 = v1 / v2

This is OK for explaining the apparent bending of a stick in water but
what about refraction through a prism where the different colours of
light are separated out into a rainbow effect. If Snell's Law is
true, then this can only be explained by the different colours of light
having different speeds which in turn means that there is no universal
figure for the speed of light. There will be separate figures for the
speed of red light; green light blue light etc.
Space is not a vacuum and over immense distances it is possible for the
colours of light to separate out. The so called red shift which has
been used to 'prove' the expanding nature of the universe could
just be down to the fact that blue light and the other colours have
got their running shoes on and left poor red light behind and because
it has been left behind, this is what we see. It is possible that there
is no Doppler effect at all and the universe is not expanding - or
is. What do you think?

Another of life's conundrums.

Best.

[Drew]

Well this is certainly an education. Usually used hot water to expand
the bottle neck and liberate the stopper and if that didn't work,
gentle tapping with a hammer always did the job. Procedure being tap
only as hard as necessary to break the end off!
So tapping with a glass rod eh. How odd. It's doubtful that the glass
actually bonds, at least in under a hundred years. More likely that
temperature cycling and the weight of the stopper slowly inserts it a
few microns further than one would wish. Gas will diffuse out of the
seal too. Metals will of course bond molecularly in a vacuum if
absolutely clean -- preferentially on certain crystal axis. So there
must be something peculiar about the vibrations incited by the glass
rod. Perhaps the extreme elasticity imparts very short duration
impulses with minimal contact damping. Thinking to limits, bang with a
lump of lead and one can visualise little efficacy, whereas tool steel
could be expected to work. Rod shaped too so that the impact isn't
damped by hand. I shall store the info in my "how materials
respond" brain compartment.

Reminds me of 'repairing' TV tube shorts by tapping the neck. Used
to be quite common but not seen a one for years now. Anyway, I would
use a long screwdriver and ping it off the glass, more out of instinct
than deep thought. Just seemed the right way to get vibration into the
gubbins. Of course there was the odd occasion on reluctant tubes
requiring more persuasive taps when there would be a sudden
'whooosh' -- usually followed by "F****".

Didn't realise super-heating was such a problem in labs. Course I
never had the luxury of six 9s reagents. Never managed super-cooling of
water in a freezer either though nature manages it with alacrity at
this time of year. Bad doze of freezing fog this week. Sodium
thiosulphate solution is an impressive doddle though. Can't say I
ever understood why that particular solution should be so
accommodating. Enlighten me?

Smart chap Snell. Speed of light kinda depends on your perspective.
>From outside the crystal light appears to go slower but the light would
say otherwise. Same thing with a electricity down a wire, doesn't go
at 300,000 km/s, especially low impedance co-ax cables. So for the
light it takes the shortest path from A to B, taking into account the
different velocities of vacuum and crystal. Likewise gravitationally
bent photons -- they still think they are travelling in a straight
line. Interesting wee experiment which you may have done is place a
coin at the bottom of a bucket of water and another just outside the
bucket. One in the bucket is bigger. In my discipline it's similarly
expressed in terms of 'group delay'. Some interesting stuff on
optical negative group delay going on at the moment. Intuitively it's
impossible because reaction preceding action is non-causal. Backwards
in time, but it's not really, just seems like it.

Then I had to have a think about your Doppler effect. Interesting
notion but unfortunately no Nobel Prize. All frequencies are shifted
proportionally, as testified by absorption and emission lines. Were
they to be subject to dispersion, related lines would lose correlation.
Pretty sanguine about expanding universe but not the accelerating
universe. Nor indeed inflation theory. Believe in Harold Pinter though,
who I just heard on radio after receiving a literary prize, excoriating
Shrub and Blare with liquid eloquence. Lot's of stuff on line if you
want confirmation that there are those willing and able to tell it like
it is.

Best

[Norman]

Sometimes it wasn't always possible to get hot water on the neck of
the bottle or QF apparatus. Sometimes it depended what was inside the
bottle and how full it was. This is one of those frustrating jobs where
you can struggle with it for half an hour not allowing for the
possibility of defeat and somebody else will casually stroll by, lift
out the stopper and hand it to you with a big smirk on their face.

You have just brought back childhood memories of the local TV repair
man coming around to the house and tapping the glass valves as a first
thing to do and my Dad saying "Doesn't he know how to fix the
bloody thing"? And me saying "Knowing where to tap it is what you
are paying him for".

I would prefer nine sixes to six nines. Sixtynines are even better.

Because light is refracted going into water from air you get the bent
stick in a pond effect so the bottom of the pond appears to be closer
than it really is. That is why the penny in the bucket trick works.

Here is an interesting question I don't know the answer to so no big
revelation in tomorrows post. If Snell got it right and light travels
in vacuum at speed V0; in air at V1 and glass at V2. If light goes from
air into a glass prism, apex up and gets diffracted as usual and as a
result slows down, call it optical friction if you like, and then the
split beam is recombined with a second prism apex down and emerges into
air as a single beam, is the emergent light travelling at a lower speed
or the same speed as the original incident light. If you say it is
travelling at the same speed because that is its speed in air, then
where did it get the free energy boost from?
You may argue that is a similar situation to a car travelling at 50mph
on both tarmac or concrete it just happens that on concrete it may
require more petrol to overcome the increased friction, but if that
were the case why does it slow down in glass (a la Snell) at all and if
it has extra propogational resources in reserve, why does it not travel
faster in air than it actually does? We are getting into areas of
questioning the nature of energy's power source.
Incidentally (now there is a word), Snell means 'fast' in Dutch,
apt or what?

Yours in thought

Best

Chris says "Thanks" by the way but she thinks she will stick on
forty nine if it is all the same to you she couldn't handle being
21again. She actually said she doesn't want to get off tram four and
get on tram five because that is going the wrong way?

Best best

[Drew]

Before I forget, the thought train inspired a thunk. When an ionised
particle is accelerated it emits radiation. This is a bit of a bugger
because there comes a point in cyclotrons where it limits the velocity
(energy). Simple solution is make the diameter bigger but CERN's
already up to something like ten kilometres. Anyway, the thunk is, will
the particle radiate if accelerated by gravity? I'm tending to think
yes.

Sixtynine, oh that brings back memories. So does sixhundredandninetysix
-- I wish.

But if you look straight down on the bucket of water the coin is still
bigger. One might argue that the rays aren't parallel at the edge of
the coin but in that case the middle should look further away, which it
doesn't. Or take limiting conditions of zero size or infinite
distance, the path length is still shortened according to the
refractive index. It is in fact just the same as travelling very fast
towards an object whereby the z dimension contracts. At the speed of
light z contracts to zero, so too with infinite refractive index.

So it's not a case of optical friction, no energy is lost or
imparted. Recombining phase delayed light is a very useful tool in
interferometry, lasers, a bunch of other optical stuff. Equivalents in
electronics too, substituting dielectric constant for refractive index.
As for why light travels at 'the speed of light' is explained by
Maxwell's field equations, which I briefly understood a long time
ago. Really helps if one grasps the concepts of permeability and
permittivity of free space. (Bet that clears things up). Like most
amazing stuff, following the thought process of the genius who
originally derived the equations is quite straightforward, just a bit
tricky to close one's eyes and work it out for oneself. Also the more
one knows of a particular discipline, the more one knows of another. As
I have said before, I worked out the rules of elastic and inelastic
collisions from an electronics viewpoint. Only arithmetic, but it
illustrates the point that one could derive the speed of
electromagnetic radiation from an optics or electronic viewpoint, and
others too. Also quite satisfying that Aristotle never managed it,
though there is a suggestion that he grasped the basics of calculus
(which I still struggle with).

Light (radio waves etc) *is* weird though. Always travels at the speed
of light, has no mass but does have momentum. Even if it 'slow' due
to refractive index (dielectric constant) or gravity, as far as it is
concerned it is still doing it's own thing at the same speed. Again
explained by rather simple sums which I don't remember :-)

Snell means fast eh. There's a term for that, something determinism I
think. And I just discovered today that Permian comes from the Ural
city of Perm. Having worked for The British Geological Survey I really
should have known that. Case of missing the gasometer.

Best

PS Maybe you could call Chris Clementine and see how long it takes
before she asks why.

[Norman]

I had to explain the Clementine connection to Chris but whichever way
you turn it she is still 50. She doesn't seem to mind though. The
small family came around last night, we had a few beers, a few laughs
and a few surprise presents for her and it all went off OK.

Big numbers involving only sixes and nines are fairly illusionary in
nature, I have always found.

I think the turn of this topic is getting beyond both of us. A few
shallow thoughts occurred to me which are more musings and as such I
don't really want to be drawn on them but as usual please feel free
to comment.

Isn't there an underground linear accelerator several kilometres long
somewhere in the Arizona desert which can maybe provide answers to the
ionisation question?

I understand that black holes are detected by radiation from a place
where there is no obvious source of energy. It is a possibility that
this is emanating from ionised particles.

In Snell's laws (see post 8) what does "n = n2 / n1 = v1 / v2"
actually mean or did he just get it plain wrong?

Deriving formulas in one discipline from knowledge of another lends a
certain cohesivity to Standard Theory or the TOE.

Pure energy need not have mass but the thing which created the energy
must, to my mind, have mass; like the pebble entering the pond or the
tap at the end of the Slinky. Whether mass is just a special form of
energy is another thing.

A thing I find a bit odd is opaque glass. I can understand clear glass
transmitting light and say a brick absorbing the energy but the light
that gets through opaque glass gets through completely unhindered. So
far as the transmitted energy is concerned there is no walking wounded.
>From most peoples B &W photography days, filters are made to exclude a
set proportion of the incident light and also absorb set frequencies. I
can hear you asking how this differs from bog standard electrical
resistors or other tricky bits that chop half a wave out and I must say
that I don't know? Electricity can make a thin filament emit photons
in a vacuum bulb and the heat produced could be regarded as the walking
wounded but light energy either gets through unscathed or it doesn't
get through at all. I am sure there are people who know why this is so
and you are probably one of them although it all seems illusionary to
me.

Best

[Drew]

Certainly are rather long linear accelerators, for just that reason.

Black holes radiate for a couple of reasons, allegedly. Also allegedly
they 'boil away'. Some very good, easily explained stuff on the web
which you might find amusing if you care to look -- and you don't
have a life :-) No more of a stroll than Hawking's Brief history of
Time. Much of it is pretty intuitive, like twenty or thirty years ago
it occurred to me that black hole mass could be as small as a hydrogen
atom, which indeed it can. Or that if the hole was big enough one could
pass the event horizon with no immediate ill effect. Starts getting a
bit tricky with rotating holes and into Star Trek territory.

No Snell was dead right, though perhaps for slightly wrong reasons. The
'n' is simply the index of velocity, as in n=c/v (c= speed of
light, v=actual velocity) for any particular material. Note that the
frequency doesn't change, only the wavelength. So 'sticky'
analogy is OK as long as one doesn't invoke energy loss. One might
then argue that since frequency has dropped, energy must also because
it is frequency dependent, ie radio < X-ray < gamma < cosmic. (Can't
do formulae 'cos Greek characters). That however ignores the part
played by the medium. Even in a vacuum, the energy is supported by the
permeability and permittivity of free space. In the dielectric material
of a capacitor (whereby permittivity >1) the energy is stored in the
material. Or in a transformer, the energy is stored in the core. If
there is an air gap though, most of the energy is demonstrably
contained in the gap because most of the magnetic potential is across
the gap. The thing is, all these bits and pieces are intertwined and
merely expressions of the same underlying principle. This is the basis
of TOE, yes, but merely the first step along a very long road upon
which I have no danger of ever being able to walk :-(

Quote from a calculus book :-
Fermat's principle in optics states that light always travels from
one point to another along the quickest route. (1650)
Also :-
Claudius Ptolemy determined quite accurately empirical values of air /
water refraction but the rule evaded him (He was after all a believer
in Geocentricity). Snell found it in 1621.

So Snell was indeed correct but by what process he actually arrived at
the solution when not in possession of all the facts, I really don't
know. Guess he was smart.

Photons are pure energy. No mass. E=mc^2. Do have momentum though which
kinda upset the original p=mv. It worked out just fine though.

By opaque glass I presume you mean dark glass which lets some light
through. Nothing is 100% transparent and there will always be some
absorption. It takes place at an atomic level though, rather than say a
bullet passing through a thin piece of wood slowing it down. The
photons aren't slowed (except appearing to in some rather exotic
interactions which I won't go into). The ones which don't make it
through are captured in electron shells. Usually they then get
re-radiated as infra-red. In lasers though, the capture is meta-stable
and can be re-radiated at useful frequencies. Some materials exhibit
the effect of re-radiation very clearly by fluorescing under UV. There
are even a few materials which re-radiate at a higher frequency, eg
absorb IR and radiate visible but the mechanism is slightly convoluted
-- as obviously it must be because photons get the extra energy from
somewhere else and a photon energy cannot be 'acted upon' to change
it's energy either up or down. It has to be absorbed first. It's
called quantum mechanics :-) Again though there are analogues with
electronics for frequency changing whereby non-linear elements provide
the mechanism. And you may have noted my comments of mached impedence
for fast data transmission in USB etc, same thing applies to optics
where reflection is determined by the refractive index mismatch of the
interface. CB enthusiast w****** refer to it as 'swarrie' though
haven't a clue what it means. SWR, or more precisely VSWR (voltage
standing wave ratio) is a measure of mismatch and finds exact
equivalence in optics, sound, reactive electronic circuitry and
colliding bodies. One big circle.

So yes, it's all smoke and mirrors, only thing is the smoke and
mirrors are real and essential. Confused? One specific question at a
time and I could perhaps do it more justice -- but you probably regret
asking at all.

Best

[Jerry]

I'm not exactly lost, just clawing at the edge.

Surely the prism efect is not down to differences in velocity, but
rather due to 'angle of bounce' or with the coin in the bucket, a
slight deflection as as it moves through the change of medium.

Rather like rugby balls of different lengths bouncing off a surface at
different angles.

Odd though, because light can be bent by gravity.

[Norman]

Usually in these things, the ones who are not so savvy can take a back
seat but on this one I have a feeling that we are keeping it going when
none of us really know what is going on.
About six months ago I threw out a video of a Horizon program which I
would have liked to run through again. It was about the Unified Field
Theory and Einstein's normalisation factor which over the years was
in and out with regular frequency. The whole thing was not proved but
explained if it was considered that the speed of light had slowed since
the Big Bang. All sorts of other things which didn't quite fit
suddenly fell into place. I wish I had it again to see what they really
said.

Let's talk about something else.
I see the Chinese have been killing their own again. It is hard for
them to take the usual line of "It never happened" when with modern
communications the West has pictures and eye witness reports of it
taking place.

Best

[Drew]

But with a prism, the angle of bend is determined by two things -- the
angle of incidence *and* the relative refractive indices. The
reflection is of course in principle identical with a rugby ball. As
for light being bent by gravity, yes and no. To an observer it is, but
as far as the light is concerned it isn't. Light is just taking its
straightest route because time and space are distorted by gravity, in
effect similar to its path being warped by hot air.

I don't profess to be an expert on such matters (or indeed any), nor
am I particularly well equipped to do the mathematical crunching
necessary for comprehension. One can however build up an empathy for
such phenomenon. All stems back to throwing balls as a kid, or skipping
stones on water (and mud), or seeing your fingers flash when you wave
them in front of a TV screen. When very young, I noticing that water
flicked onto burning coal makes black spots and immediately twigged
that sun-spots must be cooler areas. Worked for the great Richard
Feynman.

--------------

These denials always horrify / amuse / bewilder me. Is it a case of if
you tell a lie often enough it gets believed? Dunno. The States bought
'the war on terror', and how much convincing did that take? Is it
not that there is something in the Eastern mindset, whether it be
innate or merely social, that losing face is to be avoided at all
costs. Perhaps it is an expression of this.

Best

[Jerry]

I must confess my understanding of light is both simplistic and buried
under a pile of dross.

I reckon that you are dead right about the Eastern mindset, keeping
face is incredibly important to them - they probably regard the Western
approach as pretty peculiar.

To me, it looks as if China is not particularly stable, they are
undergoing massive economic and social change and are dead scared of
any form of rebellion.

I'm quite sure that they have studied Western (and other) history, not
to mention their own, and are well aware that a small spark can set off
a powder keg. They are also aware that the Western press can inflame
matters, it is quite possible that they regard the Western press as an
arm of the government.

Personally I'm very nervous of jumping to conclusions, also of
intervening in domestic affairs, unpleasant things happen, but they
could fade into insignificance beside the alternatives.
For example, the West, specifically the USA was largely responsible for
the Iranian revolution which made SAVAK's atrocities look like
kindergarten activities.

The Chinese also have recent memories of the Cultural Revolution.
When people are scared, they tend to over react.

[Norman]

Sorry if I sounded condescending Drew, I was on the limits of my
knowledge and I thought I was asking questions the scientific jury is
still considering. I didn't intend anything to be taken as a put
down.

Good observations about Israel Jerry. Sharon seems to have nailed his
colours to the mast wrt Iran and a "Senior White House Source" is
ready to make it their fight too should it come so far (how
unsurprising and unsettling also).

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121205J.shtml

Best.

[Drew]

Oh god no Norman, sounded perfectly fair. As I am often pointedly
advised, the art of imparting knowledge is to convey what the receiver
wants to know and not what the teller enthusiastically wishes to share
with the world. I can be guilty. Electronics, hud me back.....

In light of what Jerry says, and that link Norman, would it not be wise
for the West (which by implication includes Israel) to adopt a dovish
attitude to Iran rather than rattling its own sabre? If it came to
heavy duty armed conflict, nukes included, Iran would of course be
wiped. They might however manage the odd suitcase job and with the
blessing of their Allah render certain neighbourhoods.... um....
unhealthy. So how best to avoid this? Exactly the opposite of what is
being done. Gonna get messy before it gets better. Jihad and Yeeha.

Best

[Norman]

Yes, diplomatic language certainly seems to have come down to street
level. I originally thought that it was to rally the troops; a bit like
Monty's "Here we shall stand and fight" speech and also to wrong
foot the West, but it has certainly made them over twitchy. This is
certainly one to watch.

I have the feeling that whenever Shrub is feeling a bit down in the
dumps he goes and hugs a nuke. All those nice shiny things in silos
that can never be used must make him sad so he has gone and reinvented
the Theatre Nuke. This one is very worrying. Let's hope they can't
get the technology together before 2008. A few years ago, can't quite
remember the details now, a satellite containing uranium hit the
atmosphere at a funny angle and now every person in the world has a bit
of it - sorry if this is news to you. I wonder if he really has any
comprehension of what he is doing. The parallels between him and Kenny
Everett's Colonel Gadafi are too close for comfort.
"We are going to round them up".
"We are going to stick them in a field"
"And we are going to Bomb the Bastards"

Best.

[Norman]

Back to China for a moment; it would seem that face to the Chinese is
roughly equivalent to honour to the Japanese, however here is an
article about business and Chinese mentality.

http://www.alternet.org/story/29237/

Best

[Drew]

Yea it all seems a bit arbitrary. Why ain't Shrub out to nuke China?
Despotic government, invader of sovereign territory, nucleared up,
flagrant abuser of human rights and what's more a serious threat to
'The American People' and 'American Jobs'. I'm sure he knows
what he's doing........

Best

[Norman]

China is a funny one. They are keeping their currency artificially low,
and manufacturing cheap goods that are flooding the American market.
Not only that they are lending America the money to buy the goods thus
making a profit at each end of the deal. For a communist country that
is out-capitalising the West. The problem for China, so much as there
is one, is that USA is by far their biggest customer so as the American
economy plummets they will likely take China's economy down with it.

Best.

[Norman]

Here is a follow up article to the link in post 18 which seems to be a
more distanced perspective.

http://www.alternet.org/story/29603/

Best

[Jerry]

Iran - just more grandstanding
- they know that at best they will have a nasty nuclear accident
- at worst they'll have a lot of them at the same time
Given that there have been 26 years to get things ready, it is unlikely
a single aircraft would need to fly.

Oddly in the mid 1970's I heard from an overly reputable source that
USA policy was to lock the Middle East in a triangle of Israel
(technology), Egypt (manpower) and Iran (cash)

Personally I reckon that this p*sses off the 'fundamentalists' who
manage to overturn a State that was on the cusp of becoming ... viable.

The China stuff is curious, what they are doing is milking the USA of
cash in order to buy up reserves of raw materials - a sort of pump
priming exercize.
Yet it started with Nixon, so they have had rather a long time to get
organized.

Personally, when abroad, I find it advantageous to avoid criticizing
the 'local decor', I would find it hard to listen to a five week
parvenue from Germany lecturing me on the iniquities of our local
government system - or an American explaining the 'Irish Problem'.

I firmly believe that there is not one common system of functional
ethics, but many, and what works (and looks disgusting) in one place is
probably appropriate there, but inappropriate elsewhere.

In some ways, this is what we learnt from our Colonial experiences
(officially c1860 to c1960)

Naively, the USA reckons that it will make long term income from
'investing' in China, personally I think they are deluded and that
China, once kick started, will turn inwards on its own domestic and
local markets, and outwards to solely those who supply raw materials.

It is comical that China and Russia are the 'New Big Things'

[Norman]

Iran was probably better run under the Shah but that is a very pro
western view.
I hadn't heard about this triangle thing before. It surprises me
especially in view of the six day war.

The Chinese people have a saying "The heaven is high and the Emperor
is far away". Roughly translated, this means that local people comply
with Beijing's wishes when Beijing officials are there to oversee
events otherwise things are run by local cadres. Sometimes the West
knows about happenings before Beijing gets wind of it. The problem is
when these local magistrates become over powerful and Beijing doesn't
want to look out of control to the West. The Chinese populous appears
to be flexing its muscles though, the number of reported (to the West)
acts of civil disobedience has doubled in the last two years. It is
this atmosphere of not being able to question arbitrary decisions and
lack of accountability that is giving Western business people
ambivalent thoughts about dealing with China. This particularly applies
to people whose business's are actually located there. Even the
mighty Microsoft, in order to get its products officially accepted, had
to install a "failed Search" dialogue box whenever a search was
made including the words 'Freedom' or 'Democracy'.

Funny about China and Russia being the new Esmeralda; the former is run
by the cadres and the second by the mafia.

Best.

[Jerry]

Even more interesting about Iran after the 1973 punch up
- the US had decided to make friends with Egypt
- of course the Iranians are not really Arabs, the religious fanaticism
came later
There are many parallels between the Iranian revolution and 1917 in
Russia
- started by the middle classes and students, then taken over by
fanatical turds

China is quite interesting, it seems that the Army used to run a heck
of a lot of industry and things like hotels. This became a problem, so
they solved it by de-mobbing the officers and turning them into
managers.

According to a Hong Kong Chinese guy I met on a NG, China has been
going through a bit of a doublethink on the role of the Party - they
want to divorce it from administration.

Interesting times ...

[Drew]

Here's a little notion to run through your thought mills. Always
looking for the alembic, to what extent do you think that a country's
internal structural turmoil or it's relationships with other
countries can be equated to situations which previously existed in more
fully gestated countries. It just seems to me that there are almost
natural phases which are navigated, like a child passing through
adolescence to adulthood. I ask, because there are so many recurring
themes, like civil war, liberation from overlords, internecine
conflict, religious oppression, empire building (though not in that
order), then finally some sort of grudging status quo. On this basis,
can one reasonably suggest that USA has a hundred years of catch-up to
play with many European countries, or that Iraq has a couple of
hundred? Do all the 'themes' have to be ticked off to reach this
minor Nirvana?
Within any civilisation, past or present, there are always liberated
members who could fit comfortably in 'modern' society -- often they
were beheaded or burned at the stake. But when it comes to the gestalt
of a country, these individuals are not representative. Does the act of
bypassing the rites of passage doom the forced democratisation of Iraq
to failure? Is this a reasonable description of why it is failing? Not
limiting the assessment to only Iraq of course -- China, African basket
cases, S & C Americas, Turkey etc.

Best

[Jerry]

Well the simple way of answering that, for me, is : 'a lot'

We have a number of threads that pull the puppet, one is technology,
another is cultural memory.

I've always been intrigued by how Civil Wars affect future generations

It takes time to establish 'cultural certainty', and the pack of cards
is very easy to collapse.
Despite your rather spurious aquaintance who esposed Hegelian theories,
I strongly suspect that they explain quite a lot of things.

At the crudest level, when someone has got something that they value,
they get rather concerned about other people nicking it from them. At
that point they form self protection, or mutual protection allegiances.

A slow process.

[Norman]

Synchronicity strikes again, this is a subject that comes into my head
every now and again. I don't know the answer but there seems to be
some recurring pattern here; first stage capitalism; socialism; second
stage capitalism; imperialism; end of Empireism and third stage
capitalism; globalism; middle of the roadism. The other route is
imperialism; communism; capitalism.

Whatever the system, I believe people need to identify with and
therefore respect the people who are entrusted with the responsibility
of administering over them. Simple societies like tribes or clans have
chiefs or moots where decisions which affect ordinary peoples' lives
are both quick and direct. Single border empires like the old USSR have
too many groups with divergent cultures for the common people to feel
represented by a remote administration. Look at the great land mass of
Russia and the differences between Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan
contained in such a small area that you can hardly distinguish their
names on the map. Another example is the disparate groups that were
tentatively held together by Tito. What do the people who live in the
part of Russia which faces Alaska feel in common with those in the
Baltic States? It takes great dexterity to achieve such cohesiveness.
I feel there will be areas of civil unrest until smaller units are
formed which have a single identity. It was not so very long ago that
Finland grabbed their bit. Recently the Turkmen, amongst others, have
claimed their bit. The Irish question is mostly sorted. The Basks will
probably (or maybe not) get their bit. Until then big stickism will
rule the day.

John Lenonism is still a dream to be imagined.

Best

[Drew]

Quite relieved to hear that my notion is not utterly naive. One can say
therefore with a degree of confidence that Shrub's grand plan for
Iraq (the one that is punted) is heading for the toilet.

More garbage on Ireland tonight on the news with dirty fingers doing
dirty deeds. The thing which pisses me off is that in a great blaze of
publicity the Republicans are blamed for this that and the other, such
as the bank robbery and the spy thing tonight. Paisley and his motley
crew of Satanists, Chief Constibule, etc mouth off their bigoted filth.
Then a few months or years down the line the truth gets sneaked in that
Republicans had now't to do with it -- which of course was bleedin
obvious at the time. Oddly enough the revelation tonight is actually
getting some airplay but damage has already been done. It's like
labeling someone a paedo, nothing will ever clear his name. So yes
Ireland is much healthier, but only unification will ever stabilise
things. Generally Scotland is much more at ease now that we have a
degree of autonomy, albeit that Jack McConnell is an ignorant, useless
wee s***. We don't now blame the English though, just our own
fecklessness. Jings, crivens and help ma boab. Bring back 'The Lord
of the Isles'...... well maybe not 'cos technically I think
Chairlie has that honour.

Best

[Jerry]

Well now, I have long reckoned that Gerry and Martin are on the payroll
- otherwise they would be long time dead

This is a double or triple diversion

Diverting, a few years ago I found myself in a bar in Britanny where
'Breton Libre' was the byword, oddly it got me concerned

I detest regional Mafia

[Norman]

I often wondered why our boys didn't infiltrate and started taking a
few out instead of sitting back and taking the flack, but there again
how would we know what really went on. Maybe we had the official nice
guy version.

On a different tack Shrub has turned a mainly compliant nation into a
totally cynical one.

I think there is a big difference between a few Welsh hotheads blowing
up an English water supply pipe and people who feel deprived of their
homeland. In either case it is disturbing when you meet it face to
face.

Best.

[Drew]

Re Gerry and Martin, I suspect that even the clod minded Brit
government twigged that creating martyrs is a bad thing. Not that I can
in any way ever condone the obscene latter day actions of the IRA but
it is understandable how the organisation came about and why it
descended into pure thuggery. Personally I really don't know about
Gerry. My propaganda filter excludes 99% of what is said, and of course
the Scottish were never bombed, so we are perhaps a little more
objective about his involvement. Let history be the witness I guess.

Breton Libre, yea. Local autonomy is a good thing in principle, as in
Scottish case 'only ourselves to blame' now -- but we keep voting
in useless wee self serving bauchles! I doubt the Bretons would do
differently.

Best

[Norman]

I think the "Obscene latter day actions" can be laid fair and
square at the door of the good Reverend Paisley. After thirty to forty
years the UU's have still been sold down the river. The same end
could have been achieved with a lot less mindless deaths. Still, as
Jerry has said, it was a good training ground for our troops.

Skipping back to America for a moment, throughout history there have
been people who disagreed with government policy even if they saw it
was for the overall good and fairly well intentioned. After a long
period of giving the benefit of the doubt to this administration people
as a mass are waking up to the bankruptcy of their policies. Not even
Nixon received this amount of vitriol. Now he is using his powers as
Chief of Staff to decide which laws of the land he wants to disregard.
Harking back to the talk around at the time of Nixon's political
demise, it was stated that the word 'impeach' was a bit like the
word 'implore' in that he no longer had the confidence of the
people behind him and was therefore requested in the strongest possible
terms to stand down from office. There was nothing in the constitution
however that could force him to go. I think the man is so politically
corrupt that even this route would have little effect. In fact it would
not surprise me if he dragged Iraq on for another two years and tried
to claim it as reason to do a Roosevelt and try for a double/ double
whammy.

[Norman]

It would appear that the incumbent president is following in a long
tradition; his policies represent a difference in degree not a
difference in kind, flavoured with panache for disregard of public
opinion.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505D.shtml

and on disregarding the laws he doesn't like:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121705A.shtml

and on the consequences of the war God told him to start:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505C.shtml

This is not required reading by the way I am just posting things I find
interesting, feel free to ignore it.

Best

[Jerry]

The revelation that the NSA has been running a few taps and scanning
Emails leaves me utterly ... yawning
- surely most people with an IQ above that of a blow up doll are aware
of what GCHQ Cheltenham does.

Actually Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code fame (readable rubbish)
published a book on just that in 1998 - I've just read it (bought it at
an airport) a load of technical twaddle, and if anyone fancies sending
encrypted Emails just use a variation of the one time pad. Book codes
are best, but a bit slow.

Somehow I doubt that Shrub will get another term, amending the
constitution is tricky, it looks as if he is already in 'lame duck'
mode so his clout/influence is a rapidly devaluing currency.

The South America stuff is quite amusing, obviously the USA is going to
have to extend generousity to the South - especially those areas rich
in raw materials. Now there is real competition from China, so a quiet
carveup with the local nomenclatura is not a viable option, well not if
one pays lip service to 'democracy'.

One interesting thing is that the CIA's little white aircraft delivered
undesirables to places like Egypt ... and fascinatingly Syria. While I
reckon that torture and forced confessions are a waste of time, the
idea that one might be repatriated to a very unfriendly home probably
has an effect.

Shrub and his cling-ons obviously have no idea what is going to happen
in Iraq, interesting that Colon Brown (sic) has started bleating
innocence. One thing I heard recently on the WS made me prick up my
ears, 'with a weak to nonexistent army, Iraq is vulnerable to its
neighbours'

So we might see a Turkish/Kurdish alliance grabbing the North, the
Syrians moving their redundant troops from Lebanon into the Sunni areas
and .. Iran taking the South, unless Kuwait invents an army. Oddly it
could work, the catch is that the Sunni areas appear to have no oil,
but oil is only a pseudonym for $US ...

I suspect that this hint was from our esteemed FO who have 87 years
experience in the area.

On another topic, the nicking of that Henry Moore was a laugh.
While I despize most modern art, I rather like his stuff.
Supposedly his moulds were not to be used to run of a few hundred
clones, but I long ago heard a rumour that HM's widow took a liberal
view, and it only takes a small Act of Parliament.

If I had anything to do with the HM estate, I would be suggesting that
the best way of preserving his works is to go for safety in numbers -
limited editions sold 'at cost' to major museums, municipalities and
anyone with an ego to fan.

I'll bet that it was something of an 'inside job', probably low level
and not properly thought out, but an inspiration for those concerned
with 'posterity'.

My marketing policy is that nobody ever lost a buck by going down
market
- the bigger the net, the bigger the catch

[Norman]

Of course everybody knows what GCHQ does, I would be very surprised if
somebody was not monitoring our posts, after all they are in the public
domain. We probably have our ISP's logged somewhere and are labelled
as subversives. There is a question; what action should those in charge
take when the subversives start to outnumber the versives? The real
point is that when you have political debate to define the line between
civil liberties (privacy) and national security and that clearly
defined line is enshrined in law it is not the meaning that you go off
and do the exact opposite of what that law says just because it is
convenient or because those in charge want to chase shadows. Never
having had that debate we don't have any laws to break so we can be
quite open about what GCHQ does.
It has occurred to me that some of the one person News Groups could be
message passing. Do you remember some time ago when I brought the Group
'Philosoforum' to everyone's attention as gibberish ramblings?
Well message number one, 'testing the system' was very lucid. I am
not suggesting that there was any intrigue behind this particular one
but it would be a very simple and quick method of passing information
around the world and the sort of thing that listening stations should
be monitoring. It would have been a bit of a laugh if we had all
started to bombard the site with nonsense.

Re Latin America; I can see USA's big stick being broken across
somebody's knee and handed back to them. Unless they are planning
another Bay of Pigs episode of course.

I had no idea that the private jet had landed in Syria; that is
interesting. Since both countries stand on opposite sides of the Israel
issue I can't see the Syrians harbouring a friendly covert detention
centre so it most likely is a repatriation job. Probably some low level
suspect given back with a bit of publicity to get the other
detainee's minds right.

A tripartite annexation if Iraqi territories by reasonably stable
states could be a workable answer to the whole thing and an out for GB.
Following the whole thing up with dollar diplomacy could be cheaper
than continuing the war but how would he explain not catching the
terrorists? He has been sending very confusing signals to the world
recently. His troops have been taking a pasting on the ground so he has
been dropping 1000lb - 2000lb bombs in the centre of Baghdad. Melvin
Laird has been popping up and saying "This tactic worked for me when
I got the ground forces out of Vietnam" but Shrub has been saying
"We are going to see the job through to the end". I think he has
lost the plot and he is making it up as he goes along, mind you I
suspected that from the beginning.

Monopolies are not necessarily a bad thing. If you can pile them high
and sell them cheap to such an extent that nobody else wants to enter
the market and you have the self discipline not to jack the price when
you taste success then the policy can work. It is what Barron Bic did
with ball point pens.
On the other hand if Porsche raised their price by 10% then Ferrari
would raise theirs by 20%. Its horses for courses.

Best

[Jerry]

I'm quite certain that some miserable jerk has the unfortunate task of
monitering our ramblings.
Quite comical really.

Personally I don't much care although I'm aware that life can be made
pretty miserable, mostly I'm concerned about people building up
dossiers of misleading information.

As for transmitting information, I would be enclined to use a book code
embedded in valid JPEGs which can be posted on valid image sites.
Nobody is going to be able to make much sense from a bit of
pixellation.

Latin America is a bit curious, some of their leaders grandstand, but
so do a lot of leaders.
Frankly, I see the new world order as one governed by economic
realities rather than political dogma - one can almost ignore the
political outpourings. Maybe I'm wrong, but I reckon that quite a lot
of people have realized that destabilizing a regime tends to cut of
supplies of raw materials.

I can never work out how Syria really feels about Israel, or to be more
accurate how the nomenclatura feel about it. My suspicion is that they
are more worried about fundamentalism and an unruly populace - the
Golan Heights are a bit of an irritation, but it is probably convenient
not having to worry about rogue artillery officers deciding to drop
shells over the border.

The canny 'terrorists' are probably Sunni members of the last regime,
catching them would be more of a nuisance than a benefit, since if
bought off they would contribute to stability and would certainly make
short shrift of 'foreign jihadists'. A stable Iraq could be fairly
prosperous and would not welcome being a training ground for a new
'Taliban' - who would be a threat to them.

The economist Joe Schumpeter also reckoned that monopolies were not
such a bad thing, the excess profits are a resource for research and
investment - companies struggling to survive take a rather short term
view. A classic example is the pharmaceutical industry.

To make things more palateable they can also go in for 'demand pricing'
- variable prices for consumers - so that more product can be supplied
at the lower end. An example of this is the abolition of standing
charges for gas and electricity.

Another aspect is that it is easier to keep a careful eye on
monopolies, and give them a nudge when they are getting a little too
enthusiastic.

Adam Smith reckoned that there is a natural tendency to oligarchy, I
would go further and say that there is a natural tendency to monopoly -
or even more to 'mafia', and that 'competition' only exists (in many
cases) because of government intervention.

[Drew]

Lurgied. Might miss the pagan festival. Bovered!?.....

Personally I doubt that 'we' are monitored. There is just too much
going through the wires for even bots to grab anything useful. What's
more, we have heard many times recently "failures of intelligence".
Well duh. Next time you (Shrub & Blair) think there aren't enough
wars in the world, just ask me (or Jerry or Norman) if there are likely
to be weapons of mass destruction aimed at Yankland before you go off
one of your jolly jaunts.
There are no restraints on the intelligence services, no feedback, no
alternative common sense input. So they veer off on tangents or miss
the bleedin obvious. I could site many salient examples since WW2 but
you pair know far more than I. Waste of space.

Cough, splutter, sneeze, splurt -- eeugh.

[Norman]

Personal regrets that you are feeling so unwell. There are a lot of bad
things in the air at the moment. Too long a summer and then when it
turns cold the buggy wuggies start to look for somewhere warm to hide.
I am sure the profits from your medication will be Welcome (ugh!). It
is at times like this a car has definite advantages over a motorcycle.
Anyway, I hope that you will not be prevented from celebrating the
famous birth in the church of William the younger. With all this good
water around I don't know why the Scots make such awful Beer. Gordons
is OK but the rest can go straight in the outfall from Sellerfield imo.
Still Cider has to be imported from God's country.

Cheers

[Drew]

Thank you Nurse Norman. Ach not too bad, not shorting out the keyboard.

Reason why Scottish consume (and apparently enjoy) filthy chemical beer
is because we are an uncivilised bunch who just don't know any
better.

Cider comes from USA?!

Not quite best.

[Jerry]

Interestingly, I've run into a few people from the intelligence
community, and they were pretty bright - but my sample was probably
filtered by natural selection.

I guess it is a bit tricky predicting what unknown people will get up
to, specifically those tube bombers - although I'll bet there are quite
a few more people attending the mosques.

Sorry to hear about your snivels Drew, a spot of self medication from
the whisky bottle should help.

One of our Southern pastimes is introducing Scots to our real ales, at
first they don't know what hit them, but they tend to catch on pretty
quickly. It's surprizing that we don't shift more of the stuff in
Scotland.

Hmm, Hertfordshire used to be a major producer of cider for London.

Regards

[Drew]

No doubt that intelligence guys one meets are smart and clued up, just
that it is an open loop system. A further danger, (with direct
numerical and formulae analogy to electronic stuff) is that when the
system *is* subjected to recursive restraint, the recursion can
actually exacerbate the error. In electronic terms, hits the end stops.
So we end up with W of MD nonsense and not even Tony is going to
believe them in future. Therefore worse than useless. Shuffle up.

Fortified Ribena does OK. Not the 'good stuff' though. But yes, do
please keep educating the Scottish muck drinkers. Not that fine brews
aren't available up here but it's something to do with pubs being
owned (sort of) by the breweries. Various other advertisings have also
conspired to make the filth supposedly trendy to 'Record' readers,
like 'T in the Park' concerts. If you've never seen the Record,
it's like a downmarket Sun.

Ribena's kicking in
Besht

[Norman]

I have an admission for you; I used to read the Sunday Sport until it
went downhill after they stopped printing alien stories.

Best

[Jerry]

Yes Drew, I follow what you mean, I have some deep suspicions about
what people got up to in the late 1970's - and later.
Hmm... the more I think about it ... a pretty untrustworthy bunch.
- not even loyal to their own.

My impression is that the WMD rubbish was largely down to Blair, who is
a most peculiar creature. Things were also hampered by the lack of an
effective opposition.

I'm amazed that Ribena does the trick - can't stand the stuff myself.

That brewery breakup was a laugh, fortunately down our way the more
discriminating tippler avoids purveyors of muck.

[Drew]

>read the Sunday Sport
Read? So that's where your comprehensive knowledge of world events
comes form. I wis brung up on the Sunday Post, a remarkably, narrow,
parochial, twee, right wing little piece of nonsense it was too. Bit
like the Readers Digest. You can see where people get their daft
notions from though.

We don't appear have a lot of discriminating tipplers up here I'm
afraid, other than the malt drinkers of course. I try to do my bit.

Best

[Norman]

Now you have caught me out. I guess that is what makes me such a well
rounded person ;- ) Here is a typical story line. A father went into
his son's bedroom to check on the youngster and found a note that he
had been abducted by aliens and since his son was gone he went to bed.
The following morning the aliens had miraculously returned him. You
don't get storylines like that in the Sunday Post. Believe it or not
I am familiar with the Sunday Post, my folks had it delivered for a few
years; a Thompson sheet if I remember correctly.

Best

[Jerry]

Hmm, most likely the son was sharking the pool table at a pub a few
miles away.

My only memory of the Sunday Sport was something about a WWII bomber
being found on the dark side of the Moon.

Had a Reader's Digest cookery book once, it was spectacularly good, I
had to get another copy when it disappeared with a long time gone lass.

[Drew]

Think there was a double decker bus found on the moon too, wasn't
there? No more ridiculous than the mythology which is doing its annual
rounds. Think I'll complain to the Beeb for failing in its charter of
'education'. Purveying fiction as truth is mis-education. BTW I
note no one has mentioned the 'C' word :-)

Problem with the Readers Digest is that a lot of the publications were
actually very good, still are. But by god was it an arm of the US
right-wingers. People actually believed the fabricated tripe, so did I
at the age of twelve. Similarly with DC Thomson's Sunday Post.
Stunned that the rag got down to Liverpool. One good thing is 'Oor
Wullie' and 'The Broons' but they could be viewed as the sugar
coating which always accompany tendentious agendas. However I divorce
the two and still relish the old world charms. Dennis the Menace (also
DC T if I recall correctly) is big in the States apparently.

Bah humbug

[Norman]

Is it not strange that people can spend money buying drivel that is
meant to be drivel where as drivel that is meant to be taken seriously
gets right up their nostrils?

Readers Digest publications are very good. Do you remember their mail
shots to persuade you to buy the magazine? There was a big flowery YES
stamp you were supposed to send back or a tiny grey No stamp but if you
sent this latter one back you got all the stuff anyway.

The Sunday post so far as I remember had one bland news story on the
front page and the inside was like Woman's Own. I would have thought
that Dennis the Menace would have gone down a wow in Afghanistan too.

Mixing together Woman's Own and Radio four, I used to think
Woman's Hour was one of the most interesting programs on radio. Apart
from the occasional article on flower arranging or the like, the people
they had on were pretty remarkable, mainly people who had done
something unusual with their lives or had lived through unusual times;
a bit like a soft version of HARD talk.

Another sad thing is the virtual demise of the Radio Play but I guess
that once they made it unavailable there was no call for it anymore.

Best.

[Jerry]

I was always staggered by the amount Readers Digest must have spent on
direct mail
- interestingly I've seen little of it in recent years
- perhaps they have changed their tactics, or maybe they are getting
better at filtering persistent non responders from their mailing lists.

So the Sunday Post was DC Thomson !
A fascinating company that seems to survive without getting bought up
or doing something really stupid.

My impression is that the BBC has rather lost its way, when one hears
one of their controllers or 'commissioners' speaking, it is not hard to
work out why.

Innovation for the sake of innovation, coupled with a bunch of self
selected (and selecting) trendies who are representative of little but
their peer group.

[Norman]

So the Sunday Post was DC Thomson !
A fascinating company that seems to survive without getting bought up
or doing something really stupid

Correct me if I have my knickers around my ears but was the famous Mr
Murdoch, not progeny of the Thompson Newspaper Group?
Another little known fact which springs from my insulation days, is
that the Thompson Group owned or owns the former Turners Asbestos
Cement but when asbestos received a bad name, the company was reformed
at Companies House as TAC ltd. and asbestos became a banned word within
the company.

It is hard for me sitting here to give a current objective view of the
BBC but if what is independently available on the internet is only 10%
true then it indicates appalling degeneration of standards of
journalistic objectivism as a whole. Such views could be labelled
Liberal or even Pinko but one can read what is available and make an
independent interpretation of whether they are objective or scurrilous.
You are free to decide if true investigative journalism is alive and
well or if the smoke from the fire is somehow being contained. I prefer
to take a pragmatic view and make my mind up as I go along.

Best

[Jerry]

Well ... The Canadian mining group called Thomson bought The Times
group some time back - I think the deal was something to do with North
Sea oil.

They also set up Thomson holidays on the advice of management
accountants, when they wanted a division that generated a positive cash
flow.

Naturally like Conrad Black, a peerage was part of the deal.

At some stage Thomsons got fed up with publishing and flogged The Times
et al to Murdoch - who probably wanted it to get leverage for his Sky
operation.

D.C. Thomson is an unrelated company - I'm pretty sure of that.

Interesting about the asbestos connection, it kind of figures, funny
how miracles turn out to be poisons.

The BBC is in a peculiar position, they seem to be pretty well
integrated with the chattering classes and have to watch their step
with the government.

[Norman]

It would be a great pity if the Beeb lost credibility in a similar way
to the New York Times by sitting on political dissent. You somehow
trust aunty.

[Jerry]

Yes, I totally agree
- the WMD fallout was disgraceful
- it is amazing that the goverment got away with lashing the BBC

Somehow though, the BBC's reputation is a form of protection
- lose the reputation and the BBC becomes useless