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Blogging as therapy: My 1000th post

August 30, 2011

I started this blog in April 2010 but I was still occupied completing my book and did not really start posting until the summer vacations in June 2010.

This is now my 1000th post.

Since then I have averaged between 2 and 3 posts a day though there have been periods for a week or two with very light posting and some long winter nights with many posts. Some things are however becoming clear to me:

  1. I post primarily for myself as a way of expressing whatever might be engaging or attracting or disturbing me at that moment. Just putting a post together is a little exercise which itself forces feelings or emotions into expressible text.
  2. Having posted on a particular subject functions as a form of catharsis. Sometimes I may never return to a subject for a long while or even at all.
  3. I cannot judge – and no longer concern myself greatly – which posts will get read and which will not. Old posts which had very few readers when initially posted may suddenly attract readers for no discernible reason. Posts I felt were not very well written can attract many more readers than others which I thought were well expressed.
  4. I find that some sense of achievement occurs at the time when I complete the post and not – surprisingly – when the views of the post become high. (Just as the main sense of achievement was when I completed my book manuscript and not when I found a publisher!)
  5. The structure of my web reading has changed as a consequence of posting. I find I look for different viewpoints and not just supporting viewpoints much more regularly. I am continuously amazed at the amount of quality writing available on the web. There is a great deal of utter rubbish also. But it does not seem to be too difficult – or too onerous – to separate the wheat from the chaff. In fact some of the rubbish – if well written – can be quite entertaining.
  6. I seem to straddle all political labels of every persuasion.  On some subjects I would be labelled a fascist, and on others a socialist. I appear to be conservative and liberal simultaneously. Sometimes I find I support some views which would be considered environmentalist views and on many others I find I am totally opposed to what would fit that label. Some left-wing and some right wing causes attract me as often as others which repel. But I am quite comfortable in not finding any label which fits me. Being politically correct was not and is not of any relevance.
  7. A natural cynicism I have had about all politicians and all “do-gooders” is now I think a little more nuanced and analytic under the heading of “behaviour”.
  8. Blogging is a wonderful way of venting indignation.

In essence blogging functions as therapy for myself. It helps in sorting out my disjointed and chaotic thoughts. It forces me to read opposing views. I have even been forced to change my initial view as I have read more. It functions as a means of expressing indignation and a vent for letting off steam. It enforces some self-discipline. It creates some identity markers. It helps me to continue writing though it does take some time away from my next manuscripts. Whether it improves my writing is uncertain but it is certainly addictive.

It is – without doubt -therapeutic.

Some notes to myself for future posts include:

  1. It is perfectly OK to write for myself and not for any specific reader
  2. Avoid preaching
  3. Use fewer extracts from others and let the link do the work
  4. Don’t pretend to be a reporter
  5. Resist posting a link without comment
  6. Resist the temptation to “slander” which can be very strong but does not add much literary merit

The simple truth is that I shall continue blogging primarily for myself and I have no agenda other than to feel better in my own mind. It is an extension of my personal space; entirely under my control, my responsibility and for which I alone am accountable. But I am well aware that this space is also in the public domain. But this is precisely why  – because it allows public scrutiny- I think it is therapeutic.

If in addition some people read what I write and if some few find it readable or provoking or just interesting then that is a bonus. But what readers – if any -may think is entirely secondary.

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Posted in Behaviour, Media | 1 Comment »

Hamza subterranean “river” criticised by Petrobras geologist – a case of “sour grapes”?

August 28, 2011

It seems that a Petrobras geologist – Dr. Jorge Figueiredo – does not like all the attention that Hamza and Pimental are getting. He may well have a point but there seems to be a touch of “sour grapes” about his carping. The data was Petrobras data available to their own geologists after all. Perhaps if the river had been named after him Dr. Figueiredo would not be quite so petulant.

If the flow is regular and serves to drain the Amazon then I think it can be called a river even if it is only a tiny seepage through the pores in rocks. The key is that the flow should be regular. Continuity of flow or the velocity of flow cannot be the arbiter. Even surface rivers can be seasonal and discontinuous, can completely dry up at times but they all regularly return from the same source to the same sink.

BBC:

…. Valiya Hamza and Elizabeth Tavares Pimentel, from the Brazilian National Observatory, deduced the existence of the “river” by using temperature data from boreholes across the Amazon region. The holes were dug by the Brazilian oil company Petrobras in the search for new oil and gas fields, and Petrobras has since released its data to the scientific community.

Using mathematical models relating temperature differences to water movement, the scientists inferred that water must be moving downwards through the ground around the holes, and then flowing horizontally at a depth of several km.

They concluded that this movement had to be from West to East, mimicking the mighty Amazon itself. A true underground river on this scale – 6,000km (4,000 miles) long – would be the longest of its kind in the world by far. But Professor Hamza told BBC News that it was not a river in the conventional sense. “We have used the term ‘river’ in a more generic sense than the popular notion,” he said.

In the Amazon, he said, water was transported by three kinds of “river” – the Amazon itself, as water vapour in atmospheric circulation, and as moving groundwater. “According to the lithologic sequences representative of Amazon [underground sedimentary] basins, the medium is permeable and the flow is through pores… we assume that the medium has enough permeability to allow for significant subsurface flows.”

The total calculated volume of the flow – about 4,000 cubic metres per second – is significant, although just a few percent of the amount of water transported by the Amazon proper. The underground flow could be confirmed with coastal measurements, scientists suggest. But the speed of movement is even slower than glaciers usually display, never mind rivers.

And whether water really is transported right across the region in this way is disputed by Jorge Figueiredo, a geologist with Petrobras. “First of all, the word ‘river’ should be burned from the work – it’s not a river whatsoever,” he told BBC News.

Water and other fluids could indeed flow through the porous sedimentary rock, he said, but would be unlikely to reach the Atlantic Ocean because the sedimentary basins containing the porous rock were separated by older rock deposits that would form an impermeable barrier. “But the main problem is that at depths of 4,000m, there is no possibility that we have fresh water – we have direct data that this water is saline,” said Dr Figueiredo. “My colleagues and I think this work is very arguable – we have a high level of criticism.” …

The research – Indications of an Underground “River” beneath the Amazon River: Inferences from Results of Geothermal Studies – was presented at the 12th International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society in Rio de Janeiro, and has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The team has named the underground flow the “Hamza River”.

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Posted in Behaviour, Brazil, Geosciences, Natural Phenomena, Science | Comments Off on Hamza subterranean “river” criticised by Petrobras geologist – a case of “sour grapes”?

Marital conservation of mass

August 22, 2011
File:Get fat3.jpg

image: wikipedia

There is a certain symmetry to this conclusion and it would seem to imply that the principle of mass conservation is being complied with. But what would be much more interesting would be a conclusion about weight loss and change of marital status. For example, “women lose weight before getting engaged and men lose weight before a divorce” would be intuitively indicated and would be even more interesting than

Women gain weight after marriage, men after divorce 

Women are most likely to gain weight after marriage while men tend to pile on the pounds following a divorce, according to research.

A study of more than 10,000 people surveyed between 1986 and 2008 found that both marrying and getting divorced can have a “weight shock” effect that leads to rapid weight gain, especially in over-30s. But there was a marked difference between men and women in which marital event was the most traumatic on the waistline.

Researchers used data from a national survey in which men and women were weighed every year to see how many pounds they gained or lost in the two years following a marriage or divorce. Up to the age of 30 there was little impact on the weight of either men or women, but after this point the probability of weight gain after marriage or divorce began to rise steadily until the age of 50.

Both sexes were more likely to gain weight in the two years after a divorce or marriage than someone who had never been married, the research showed. The study, to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Las Vegas today [AUG 22], says it is not clear why men’s and women’s waistlines respond differently to marriage and divorce.

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Posted in Behaviour, Natural Phenomena, Trivia | 1 Comment »

Victor Muller’s games continue: Are the new Saab shares ending up in Russian hands?

August 16, 2011

Victor Muller is at his games again even as Saab’s cash crunch continues. He has delayed payments to employees, suppliers, creditors and even the tax-man. The China card seems to be played out. Suppliers who start proceedings for bankruptcy get priority in getting paid. Workers get priority in getting their wages before white-collar employees. The trade unions are desperate and go along with anything as they hope for some miraculous solution. Russian “black” money – which needs to be laundered somewhere – is waiting to swoop through the back-door even if it has been barred entrance through the front-door. My own opinion is that even the initial liquidity crisis was engineered by Victor Muller by shifting cash out of Saab.

He is now engaged in the final desperate end-game at Saab (but of course without risking any of his own personal wealth). The question is whether it is his own end-game or one where he is just a proxy for his Russian masters.

Svenska Dagbladet reports:

Saab is issuing freshly printed shares at a loss to the U.S. investment fund GEM (Global Yield Fund Limited), which then sell them on at a profit. An arrangement made for the short term to pay salaries and debts. Saab is now selling four million new shares for just under 40 million Swedish kronor. GEM also purchased shares in a new issue on 3rd August – when 5 million new shares were sold in a desperate move to pay the salaries of Saab employees.

Not only are GEM well paid (because they are taking a big risk), they are also diluting the ownership of Saab’s other shareholders. In fact, these 10 million shares conveyed in a short time to GEM represents almost a third of the total shares. GEM acts only as intermediary and who is actually buying is a mystery.

GEM Yield Funds Ltd. buys shares for 90 percent of their value and then sells them on. These shares are then traded in Amsterdam. Using GEM is considered a very expensive way for Saab to raise cash but there are few options left. Issuing just another 10 million new shares could dilute the ownership sufficiently for a single owner of just the new shares to have a majority stake. And that for less than a total of 80 million kronor (about $13 million). Whether production will ever restart is looking increasingly unlikely – at least for Saab in its present form. What would happen to Saab if it ever came fully under the control of Vladimir Antonov is anybody’s guess. I suspect that Saab’s fate would then be connected more to being a money-laundering centre than to the production of quality cars. I would not be in the least surprised to find that the newly issued shares are ending up in Russian hands. The mark-up that GEM charges is probably worthwhile and represents an acceptable discount for the laundering of “funny” money.

Related: Let Saab die with some dignity

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Posted in Automobiles, Behaviour, Business, Sweden | 3 Comments »

Why are street riots in the UK a “bad thing” but a “good thing” in Egypt or Syria?

August 9, 2011

The scenes from Tottenham and other parts of London were distressing and the looting and vandalism is – I think – despicable.

It has been depressing to watch.

But I found similar scenes not so long ago – though perhaps without the same level of mindless vandalism but with much more severe loss of life – in Egypt and Tunisia were actually uplifting and I took these as a “demonstration” of democratic forces at work”. The ruthless putting down of protests in Syria is also distressing and all my sympathies are very clearly with those protesting.

I am still trying to reconcile my own “double standards” in my own mind.

Was the level of hopelessness and despair in Egypt and Tunisia which forced ordinary people onto the streets and caused governments to fall so different from the hopelessness and powerlessness felt by the crowds in Tottenham or Brixton? Is the feeling of being oppressed in Syria any different from that felt by some in the UK?

Opportunists and hooligans and plain criminals were surely present in all of these scenes.

But I am still struggling to clarify the differences in my own reactions to myself.

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Posted in Behaviour | Comments Off on Why are street riots in the UK a “bad thing” but a “good thing” in Egypt or Syria?

Hold on to bricks and mortar while stock markets crash as the bears go on a rampage

August 5, 2011

In spite of the US extending its debt ceiling over last weekend with great unnecessary drama, the stock markets this week have all given in to the bears. Massive losses of stock prices have been sustained from Tokyo to Bombay to London to Wall Street.

That the bears have managed to bring so many markets down strikes me as being mainly opportunistic. Of course the underlying weakness of the markets lies in the economic profligacy primarily of the US and also in Europe in Greece, Italy and Spain. But the weakness of the Euro allows the German manufacturing sector to flourish. And the “workers of the world” in China and India and Brazil and Germany have not been strong enough to resist and counteract the alarmist views now pervading the stock markets. A double dip recession now seems inevitable.

A curious combination of the irresponsibility of having bloated public sectors (albeit in over-zealous attempts at “do-gooding”) together with the ravenous greed of the financial speculators who feed upon others but create no real wealth themselves.

I do not know how long it will last or how deep this second dip will go, but bricks and mortar and the “making of real things” that people want will eventually prevail. So I shall get rid of my shares in any companies that do not make “real things” and create real wealth.

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Posted in Behaviour, Business, Economics, Economy | Comments Off on Hold on to bricks and mortar while stock markets crash as the bears go on a rampage

A sandwich and a soda (paid for) is Ryanair’s treatment for a heart attack!

August 5, 2011

Ryanair has its points but caring for its passengers is not one of them. From The Local:

 A furious Swedish family has blasted a Ryanair cabin crew after a passenger slipped into cardiac arrest and was just offered a sandwich and soda.

“We want Ryainair to apologise,” disgruntled passenger Billie Appleton told the Aftonbladet newspaper. Appleton’s stepfather, 63-year-old Per-Erik Jonsson, fell ill during the flight back to Sweden from England on Sunday and at one point went into cardiac arrest. According to Appleton, staff onboard were hopelessly ill-equipped to treat him.

“They said he had low blood pressure and gave him a sandwich and a soda. And they made sure he paid for it,” she told the newspaper. The incident occurred about an hour into the flight to Sweden when Jonsson broke into a cold sweat and asked his wife for some water. Suddenly his wife realised that Jonsson had lost consciousness and while she alerted staff, Appleton, a nurse, intervened. “He didn’t respond when I tried to shake him. But after I slapped him in the chest, he began breathing again,” she said, adding that staff only reacted when she shouted for a doctor and that he needed oxygen.

Their diagnosis, according to Appleton, was that it was a blood pressure problem and that he should have something to eat. She claimed that once the situation had stabilised, the only attention they got from the crew was when they asked for payment for the food and drink.

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Posted in Aviation, Behaviour, Ethics | Comments Off on A sandwich and a soda (paid for) is Ryanair’s treatment for a heart attack!

Peder Nøstvold Jensen admits to being Anders Behring Breivik’s hero “Fjordman”

August 5, 2011

A 36 year old Norwegian, Peder Nøstvold Jensen has  admitted to being the blogger “Fjordman” to the paper VG. The mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik refers 111 times to Fjordman in his manifesto. He has been questioned and police attorney Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said to the media that they are confident it is the right person. 

UPDATE!! Tax records show that Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen was born in 1975 and is tax resident in the county of Møre and Romsdal and in the municipality of  Ålesund. His tax records (in Norwegian kronor) are remarkably (and a little incredibly)  modest:

Unsafe - I have warned my family about the case and will now go underground indefinitely for the sake of my own safety, says Peder Jensen. Photo: NILS Bjaaland, VG

Peder Nøstvold Jensen : image VG

“I have been obliged to issue a statement to the police, and I am going public because my name will be known to the public anyway and that there will be a witch hunt after me from the media”  says Jensen, who says that police seized his computer on Thursday.  “I will never blog under the pseudonym “Fjordman” again. I have lost the desire because it is linked to such a person”, he says.

Jensen has a master’s degree from the University of Oslo in culture and technology and studied Arabic at the University of Bergen  and at the American University in Cairo. In 2004 he completed his dissertation on Iranian relations, censorship and blogging. He states in the introduction that he has lived and worked in the Middle East for several years.  He has received money from abroad. It is known that in 2007 Jensen received  10 000 Norwegian kronor from Edward S. May who blogs inder the name Baron Bodissey and who runs the Islam-critical blog Gates of Vienna.  Jensen began to express himself online in the early 2000’s, under the name “Norwegian kafir” on various blogs. He started blogging under the name Fjordman in 2005. This blog was closed down later that year, and Jensen went under the pseudonym Fjordman writing for – among others – Gates of Vienna. Jensen also contributed to Document.no, Brussels Journal, Global Politician, FrontPageMag, Jihad Watch, Faith Freedom International, Little Green Footballs, Free Republic and Daily Pundit. Several sites last week removed all Fjordman’s contributions. Parts were deleted  from Little Green Footballs, but has been preserved by other bloggers.

“I’ve tried to think whether it’s something I have worded wrongly, but I’ve never had someone attack someone because of what I wrote”. 

It seems that Peder Jensen’s conscience is pricking him slightly – but only after his identity was discovered by the police. He may not be responsible for Breivik’s actions but he surely bears responsibility for his own words and  – to some extent – their consequences.

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Posted in Behaviour, Norway, Politics | 3 Comments »

Politics of hate create strange bedfellows

July 31, 2011

The massacre in Norway by Anders Behring Brevik has created a dilemma for many of the extremist parties in Europe whose “ideology” he had adopted. They must now – at least publicly – distance themselves from his actions but without abandoning their politics which he ardently supported and which led to his actions. Many of the islamophobic, anti-immigration, nationalistic parties in Europe today have their roots in fascism or neo-nazism or racial hatred. Upto about 10 years ago their objects of hate were usually blacks, Jews, Asians, Turks, socialists, “big government” and communists. In the last decade or so all of these “hates” have been maintained but have manifested themselves increasingly under the convenient and opportunistic umbrella of islamophobism.

But for these so-called “right-wing, nationalist” parties, I think it is wrong to attribute anything other than “hate” as their ideology. As times change the object of their hate evolves and changes to whatever they consider is currently popular to fear and to hate. Their political strategy seems to be fundamentally based on the marshalling of the fears of the “common man” – by providing the objects of hate which can feed those fears.

Almost every country in Europe now has its version of a “hate” party: the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria, the Vlaams Blok (VB) in Belgium, the Danish Peoples Party (DPP) in Denmark, True Finns (PS) in Finland, the National Front (FN) in France, the Republican party (REP), German People’s Union (DVU) and National Democratic party (NPD) all in Germany, the Hellenic Front (HF) in Greece, Liga Nord (LN) and the Futuro e Libertà (FLI) in Italy, Pim Fortuyn’s List (LPF) in the Netherlands, the Fremskrittspartiet (FrP) in Norway, Partido Popular (CDS-PP) in Portugal, Sweden Democrats (SD) in Sweden, Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) in Switzerland and the British National party (BNP) in the UK.

They are now finding common cause with some strange partners in Israel and India and the US. They include Likud and the settlers in Israel, the fanatics of the RSS and Hindutva nationalists and even the extreme right wing of the Tea Party movement in the US. It is only a short step to move onto the hate parties of Japan (the Uyoku dantai groups), in Australia (United Australia Party) and those that are forming in the Balkans and in eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia). The juxtaposition of ideologies can – on the surface – seem strange (neo-nazis together with Jewish settlers or anti-Asian together with Hindu nationalism) but the common factor is always that there is somebody in common to hate.

Der Spiegel:

The Likud Connection:

Islamophobic parties in Europe have established a tight network, stretching from Italy to Finland. But recently, they have extended their feelers to Israeli conservatives, enjoying a warm reception from members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Some in Israel believe that the populists are Europe’s future.

Anders Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto is nothing if not thorough. Pages and pages of text outline in excruciating detail the ideological underpinnings of his worldview — one which led him to kill 76 people in two terrible attacks in Norway last week. 

It is a document which has led many to question Breivik’s sanity. But it has also, due to its myriad citations and significant borrowing from several anti-immigration, Islamophobic blogs, highlighted the deeply entwined network of right-wing populist groups and parties across Europe — from the Front National in France to Vlaams Belang in Belgium to the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

But recently it has become clear that Europe’s populist parties aren’t merely content to establish a network on the Continent. They are also looking further east. And have begun establishing tight relations with several conservative politicians in Israel — first and foremost with Ayoob Kara, a parliamentarian with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party who is also deputy minister for development of the Negev and Galilee districts.

The reason for the growing focus on Israel is not difficult to divine. “On the one hand,” Strache told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a recent interview, “we are seeing great revolutions taking place in the Middle East. But one can’t be totally sure that other interests aren’t behind them and that, in the end, we might see Islamist theocracies surrounding Israel and in Europe’s backyard.”

In other words, in the battle against what right-wing populists see as the creeping Islamization of Europe, Israel is on the front line. ….. 

At first glance, the European populists’ relationship with Israel would hardly appear to be a marriage built on love. Many see the FPÖ as being just one tiny step away from classic neo-Nazi groups and the same holds true for their partners throughout Europe.  …… And Kara was blasted in the Israeli press for a recent meeting in Berlin he held with Patrick Brinkmann, a German right-wing populist. “Deputy Minister Meets Neo-Nazi Millionaire,” read a headline in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this month, noting that Brinkmann, while now insistent that he is not anti-Semitic, once had close ties with the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). ….

Read article:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,777175,00.html

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Politics | 1 Comment »

Seeking notoriety Paul Ray would now like to have been Breivik’s “Richard”

July 29, 2011

Paul Ray (Lionheart) from his safe haven in Malta is spending a lot of blog energy in insinuating that Alan Lake and not he is the “Richard” referred to in Anders Behring Breivik’s “manifesto”. Ray is or was a member of the English Defence League and was apparently expelled which he disputes.

But probably seeking all the notoriety he can get he has now admitted that he was in contact with the killer and concedes to The Telegraph that he may have been the inspiration for Breivik:

Paul Ray, a British blogger who calls himself “Lionheart” revealed that his opinions could have influenced Breivik’s Islamophobic diatribe, which the killer published online hours before he massacred 76 people.

Speaking from Malta, where he has fled fearing arrest for inciting racial hatred, Mr Ray conceded that he had been in direct contact with the 32-year-old gunman online.

In his manifesto Breivik described a character very similar to Mr Ray as a mentor, claiming to have met him at an event in London in 2002. Mr Ray said on Thursday: “I am being implicated as his mentor. I definitely could have been his inspiration.

“It looks like that. He has given me a platform and a profile. But what he did was pure evil. I could never use what he has done to further my own beliefs.”

The Daily Telegraph can also disclose that Mr Ray played host to Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, former leader of the Ulster Freedom Fighters in Malta last February. … He is also known to be friends with Nick Greger, a German “known as Nazi Nick,” who describes himself as a “former neo-Nazi-leader, convicted terrorist, militiaman, artist, book writer and preacher”. ….. Mr Greger, who is banned from Britain, has traveled widely in Africa and currently lives in Malta, as does Mr Ray, who is originally from Luton, Bedfordshire. … Mr Ray was arrested in Britain in 2008 over blog postings allegedly inciting racial hatred but said he was never charged. He left the country the same year.

But he would love to be taken for being much more important than he is. He seems to be torn between avoiding any association with Breivik while at the same time he would be immensely gratified to have been the inspiration of anything to anybody. His incoherent ramblings would indicate that he is little more than a two-bit, publicity-seeking hoodlum skulking away in Malta – even if Breivik did take some inspiration from him.

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, UK | 1 Comment »

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