Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category

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FIFA Presidential electioneering underway as Blatter blames Platini, France and Germany for selling 2022 World Cup to Qatar

May 17, 2014

FIFA Presidential electioneering for 2015 is underway as Sepp Blatter (who is Swiss) blames Michel Platini (who is French), France and Germany for selling the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. But this attack is just positioning by Blatter in case the 2014 World Cup in Brazil doesn’t go too well and Blatter will have to take that blame.

FIFA bows primarily to financial inducements (not political pressure as it sometimes appears). In many cases the financial inducements are just simple, straight-forward  bribery implemented in a very sophisticated manner. Even after the FIFA technical committee had clearly indicated that Qatar was unsuitable as a location for a World Cup tournament, the Executive Committee decided otherwise. That Qatar bought the 2022 World Cup is clear and it seems likely that the number of deaths per goal will be the highest ever by a long way in 2022.

Qatar 2022 will achieve more deaths than goals

Based on the track record of World Cup Tournaments, the Qatar 2022 championship will see between 100 and 180 goals – most likely around 150. But this number will be easily exceeded by the number of construction workers who have been killed by then. Already over 70 Nepalese workers have died since 2012 and the total number is probably around 200. By 2022 this number will exceed 1000.

Perhaps FIFA could introduce a safety performance index for the Qatar World Cup? Maybe to have less than 6 deaths per goal?

FIFA’s next presidential election is in 2015 and Sepp Blatter will be trying to retain his seat and Michel Platini will probably be opposing him. And so the electioneering has begun. This year’s World Cup is less than a month away and kicks-off on June 12th. The stadiums and infrastructure are still not quite ready. A fiasco in Brazil will be blamed on Sepp Blatter and will undermine his chances in 2015 of being President again. For some time now he has been trying to ensure that anything negative to do with Qatar is tied to Platini. Come 2015 Platini will have to deal with the Qatari dirt if he opposes Blatter.

A plague on both their houses!

November 2013: Sepp Blatter Now Blames France and Germany for 2022 World Cup Fiasco

Always looking to blame somebody else, Sepp Blatter hasn’t let us down by now blaming France and Germany for the 2022 World Cup mess in Qatar. According to theFIFA fool, these two nations are to blame for the ongoing turmoil regarding Qatar hosting the 2022 event. In addition, he believes they’re also accountable for some of the ill treatment of the migrant workers over there, along with the construction firms. 

Blatter said on November 22 that France and Germany exerted a lot of political pressure to grant Qatar with the World Cup because of their financial interests and they’re the two biggest economies in Europe. In Blatter’s own words, there was a lot of “political pressure from European countries…because there were so many economic interests. Two of these countries pressured the voting men in FIFA: France and Germany…I think the heads of state of these two countries should also express what they think of this situation.” 

March 2014: Only I Can Beat Sepp Blatter In FIFA Elections – Platini

“Only one person can beat Blatter,” Platini said at UEFA congress in Astana (quotes from Reuters). 

Platini told the UEFA Congress he would have more meetings with European football leaders in coming months before announcing whether he would stand for FIFA.

“I will give my answer after the World Cup. There will be a series of meetings with European federation officials. Maybe 99% of them will say ‘we prefer that you stay at UEFA’, that could also be an element of reflection” in the decision, Platini said.

Meanwhile, the Frenchman earlier blasted the world federation’s lack of action over secretive companies owning players as he stepped up a war of nerves with Blatter. Platini said the so-called ‘third party ownership’ of players is a “danger” to football.

May 2014: Sepp Blatter: awarding 2022 World Cup to Qatar was a mistake

“Yes, it was a mistake of course, but one makes lots of mistakes in life,” said Blatter, Fifa’s president, in an interview with the Swiss broadcaster RTS. “The technical report into Qatar said clearly it was too hot but the executive committee – with a large majority – decided all the same to play it in Qatar.”

… Blatter is believed to have voted for the USA to host the 2022 World Cup while his prospective rival for the presidency, Uefa’s Michel Platini, voted for Qatar and has been closely linked in the public mind with the controversial plans for the 2022 tournament.

The Fifa inspection team ranked Qatar as the only “high risk” option overall, yet it was still chosen by 14 of the 22 voting members of the executive committee in December 2010. ….. 

Platini and others have denied being influenced by their heads of state into voting for Qatar for business reasons. ….. 

“I will never say that they bought it, because it was political pushing. Really, both in France and Germany,” said Blatter, who has previously claimed there was “definitely direct political influence” on European executive committee members to vote for Qatar.

France’s foreign ministry said the assertion was “without foundation”, despite the fact that Platini has admitted to attending a high level meeting with former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the now Qatari Emir.

 

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Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, Football, Sport, World Cup | 1 Comment »

The Descent of Air India

May 14, 2014

I have just acquired the ebook “The Descent of Air India” by Jitender Bhargava and which was first published by Bloomsbury Publishing in October 2013. However Praful Patel the former Civil Aviation Minister sued the publishers for defaming him and applied pressure to prevent the distribution of the book. The publisher – without consulting the author – withdrew the book and apologised to Praful Patel.

So much for the courage of publishers.

DNA: Publishing giant Bloomsbury in a decision, unprecedented for its abject surrender, has withdrawn former AI top honcho Jitender Bhargava’s book The Descent of Air India, agreed to destroy copies of the book left in its stocks and tendered an apology to former civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who has been pilloried in the book as the man who caused the downfall of the airline.

I shall review the book in a few days when I have read it through.

Bhargava wrote on his Facebook page:

After the book, ‘The Descent of Air India’ was formally released on October 11, 2013 in Delhi, attempts were made by Praful Patel to obstruct its distribution. Besides ensuring that the books were not sold at airport book stores (he still appears to wield clout with airport operators); had TV channels to drop scheduled programmes relating to the book – in the case of one news channel even after the interview had been recorded; he served a legal notice, alleging that the book contents were defamatory.
He filed a case in the court of the metropolitan magistrate, Mumbai. While I told the judge on January 6, 2014, that everything stated in the book about Praful Patel is true, backed by documented evidence and will be duly justified and contested in the honourable court, the publishers, Bloomsbury, on whom also the notice was served, decided on not pursuing it, and instead agreeing to offer an apology to Praful Patel.
This decision of Bloomsbury was unilateral, and without discussing with me, as an author. Their stand thus naturally came to me as a surprise. And it may surprise you too when you see the apology of Bloomsbury published in the newspapers.
As everything stated in the book is true, based on documents, I will have the book, ‘The Descent of Air India’ reprinted either on my own or through a new publisher. Simultaneous action is being initiated to bring out ‘ The Descent of Air India’, as an ebook. I am told this can take up to four-five weeks.
Please bear the absence of the book from the book stores for a few weeks. I will be back soon because neither can I be bulldozed into submission nor can facts be allowed to be suppressed. In today’s environment, corrupt practices of all people, howsoever powerful, must be exposed.
I look forward to your understanding of the situation and support.

Through the 1970’s and 1980’s Air India was one of my preferred airlines. But since the early 1990’s it has been – for me – an airline to avoid.

 

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Never trust a politician who is “thinking about your children’s children”

May 13, 2014

My grandfathers died around 80 years ago. They could not have conceived of the world their grandchildren would live in and the challenges they and their world would face. They would surely have been able to recognise our behavioural characteristics but they would not have been able to imagine the society we live in. The values of current society would have been difficult for them to understand.

My father died 26 years ago. Not so very long ago. Yet he would not have been able to predict – let alone address – the kinds of challenges my children and the world they live in will face in the next 20 – 30 years. His values were those of having fought in WW2 and the hope of the 1950’s. He would not have been able to predict the pace of life and the networks maintained by my children. He could not have forecast the day-to-day problems they will face or the “big problems” their world will face over the next 50 or 60 years.

Around 100 years ago my grandfathers could not have foreseen the Second World War or the spread of easily available and affordable electrical power, or of the second industrial revolution or the digital revolution. Even if they could have foreseen the future they would have had the intelligence but not the knowledge or the technology to better address the challenges of today. In fact they would have been very stupid to have tried to forecast and then plan for their choice of problems to be faced by their grandchildren.

Our children’s children will live into the 22nd century. Any forecast I try to make of the development of technologies and knowledge and societies and values 100 years from now is going to be wrong. For the last 50 or 60 years we have lived with the perception of the problem of population rise and limitation of resources. Actions have been taken – and very successfully – to reduce the number of births, to improve food production and in finding new and alternate resources. In another 50 years populations will decline and the pressure on resources will decline further as new technologies are developed and new resources are found (who would have predicted the abundance of shale gas 50 years ago?).

We may expect that in the 22nd century, one of the major challenges will be that of population decline and aging. It will be a challenge faced and solved by the humans of a hundred years hence and it may or may not be a problem. I have no idea of what genetic and medical advances may bring or of how societies will develop and of the value systems that may prevail then. To use today’s knowledge and technologies and values to address these presumed challenges of the future is both ineffective and wasteful. These challenges – if challenges – will be faced by our children’s children using the knowledge and technology that will have become available to them.

It would have been ridiculous for my parents or my grandparents to have given up advances in their own well-being or their careers or their world – as they saw them then – for the sake of  some unknown problem that would be faced by their children’s children.

And so I am deeply suspicious of any politician or environmentalist who wants me to do something  – or not do something – against my current best interests as I see them – for the sake of my children’s children.

Our grandchildren will always be better placed to define their challenges than we can possibly forecast. They will be better equipped to solve the problems of their age with the tools and knowledge and technologies of their age. And they too would be stupid if they gave up their own well-being in order to solve a problem they choose to forecast for their children’s children.

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Israel is not immune from the neo-Nazi disease

May 12, 2014

Most countries in Europe have an enormous guilt complex – both singly and collectively – over the persecution of Jews in their countries for many hundreds of years and the indifference to what was happening in Germany which allowed Hitler’s Holocaust to take place. This persecution started at least 2,000 years ago but was organised  and well established by the time of the First Crusade in 1096 as the European nation-states developed and practiced enforced conversions. The Spanish Inquisition in 1478 was primarily directed at Jews (and Muslims) forced to convert to Catholicism. Much of this guilt now devolves to the credit of the nation-state of Israel even though this nation-state exists only as a consequence of  a very successful terrorist campaign carried out by Irgun and Hagganah. In a sense the creation of the nation-state of Israel was an attempt by the European countries to do what Hitler had tried to do with the Holocaust  – export the “Jewish Question” to somewhere else.

With that history of persecution of their fore-fathers, it could be expected that Jews in Israel would be especially sensitive to the persecution of minorities. But the nation-state of Israel is not synonymous with the persecuted Jews of Europe. More than 90% of Israel’s population of 8.1 million was born after the country was formed. Since the formation of Israel in 1948 (14th May), Israel and Israelis have been more of persecutors than persecuted against. And the youth of Israel have never actually experienced any persecution themselves.Their religious fanatics are just as “radicalised” and just as bent on “revenge” or Holy war as the European Muslim youth now keeping the Syrian civil war alive. Past persecution is clearly no defence against idiocy.

Right-wing neo-Nazism is alive and well all over Europe and even in Israel. And just as idiot- Mullahs radicalise Muslim youth. idiot-Rabbis drive the Israeli neo-Nazis.

Haaretz: The writer and Israel Prize laureate Amoz Oz said on Friday that those responsible for hate crimes against Arabs and Christians are “Hebrew neo-Nazis.”

Speaking at a Tel Aviv event marking his 75th birthday, Oz said that terms like “hilltop youth” and “price tag” are “sweet names for a monster that needs to be called what it is: Hebrew neo-Nazis groups.”

Oz added that in his mind, perhaps the only difference between neo-Nazis around the world and perpetrators of hate crimes in Israel is that “our neo-Nazi groups enjoy the support of numerous nationalist or even racist legislators, as well as rabbis who give them what is in my view pseudo-religious justification.”

Of course Amoz Oz is now being castigated for even using the word “Nazi” in relation to Jews. But the reality is that Israeli politicians and religious leaders give tacit support to the persecution of and discrimination against Muslims. The indignation at the use of the word “Nazi” is the same as that against Kerry for calling Israel an apartheid state.

But, I think, their indignation is misplaced and they protest too much.

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India has 13 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities with New Delhi as the worst

May 9, 2014

The WHO has released the 2014 update of its Ambient Air Pollution database.

The database contains results of ambient (outdoor) air pollution monitoring from almost 1600 cities in 91 countries. Air quality is represented by annual mean concentration of fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5, i.e. particles smaller than 10 or 2.5 microns).

The database covers the period from 2008 to 2013, with the majority of values for the years 2011 and 2012. The primary sources of data include publicly available national/subnational reports and web sites, regional networks such as the Asian Clean Air Initiative and the European Airbase, and selected publications. The database aims to be representative for human exposure, and therefore primarily captures measurements from monitoring stations located in urban background, residential, commercial and mixed areas.

The world’s average PM10 levels by region range from 26 to 208 ug/m3, with a world’s average of 71 ug/m3.

India has the dubious distinction of having 6 of the ten worst polluted, 13 of the 20 worst polluted cities and 20 of the 50 most polluted. Needless to say New Delhi is the worst. Delhi, Patna, Gwalior and Raipur are the 4 worst polluted cities in the world. 

50 most polluted cities WHO 2014 (pdf)

Delhi’s preeminent position in the pollution stakes was also reported by the Yale 2014 Environmental Performance Index which I posted about in February. I wrote then:

Whether Delhi is worse or better than Beijing is irrelevant. The point is that Delhi is as bad as it is.

I visit Delhi 5 or 6 times every year and it has the worst air quality that I experience. It is dust particles in the main – and a lot of that is from the ubiquitous building rubble and  building materials lying in piles (some small and some large) all over the city. The diesel engine particulates have – I think – reduced after the introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for taxis and autos but they build up every night when the long-distance trucks roll through the city (they are banned during the day).

But Delhi is essentially a huge building site. In new building projects (many for domestic dwellings), building materials (bricks, sand, cement, tiles, sewer pipes….) are all brought and dumped in open piles on the street long before any building actually commences. Even completed building projects leave behind their piles of sand and bricks and rubble on the street which are never cleaned up. If a road is dug up for any reason the remaining mud and rubble is never actually cleared up . it is usually just pushed to one side. The last mile syndrome applies and nothing ever gets finally or properly finished.

But the real issue is one of attitude and behaviour. .. 

Delhi’s atmosphere is what it is because the citizens of Delhi do not give any value to it being any better.

I travel to Delhi 5 or 6 times a year and can vouch for the muck and grime both in the air and on the ground. The problem is not one of money or of technology but of attitudes. The population of Delhi – on average – just does not give much value to the quality of the environment they live in. The politicians are followers rather than leaders and none have the courage to follow a vision of what Delhi could be like

The Indian General Election results are due out in a week.

Toilets before temples may win the day. 

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The EU Parliament at work

May 7, 2014

The European Parliament must be the most useless, unnecessary, wasteful and undemocratic parliament of any in the world.

766 MEP’s are each paid €7,000 per month.

Roger Helmer hard at work in the European Parliament

Parliament in session

Enthusiastic attendance

A hereditary seat to be handed down?

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Israel moves closer to constitutional apartheid

May 5, 2014

John Kerry caused a bit of a fuss a few days ago by using the apartheid word with regard to Israel.

With immediate pressure from the Jewish lobbies in the US, he backed away from his use of the word. But there is little doubt that he meant it and that Israel – which already has two classes of citizenship in practice – is moving closer to a form of constitutionally sanctioned differentiation of nationality for Jews and non-Jews. Which is indistinguishable from a separate treatment of peoples by religion. Constitutionally sanctioned, religious discrimination it surely will be. Apartheid is not too strong a word.

Guardian: 

Binyamin Netanyahu will push ahead with a rare change to Israel’s basic laws – which amount to the country’s constitution – to insist Israel is “the nation state of one people only – the Jewish people – and of no other people”.

At Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the civil rights of minorities, including Arabs, would be guaranteed, and the move was vital at a time when aspects of Israel’s legitimacy were “under a constant and increasing assault from abroad and at home”. …

The proposed law would be in addition to Israel’s declaration of independence of May 1948 – the anniversary of which is celebrated on Tuesday – which defines Israel as a Jewish state.

Most of Israel’s basic laws deal with procedural issues relating to elections, the appointment of the prime minister, state payments and the administration of the judiciary, but some laws have been more controversial, including the 1980 law that designated Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Despite the intention that the new law should guarantee full equal rights, critics say it strays into contentious territory in its explicit definition which, regardless of passport and citizenship, would codify a differential notion of nationhood.

Every religion which claims some kind of special position for its own adherents – inevitably and of necessity – denigrates and sanctions discrimination against all who do not follow the “true faith”. Which is of course the fundamental weakness of every organised religion which claims to be the “true faith”. There are as many Heavens as there are organised religions.

A “faith” – by definition – is unproven and unprovable and its “truth” is indemonstrable.

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Posted in Behaviour, Israel, Politics, Religion | 1 Comment »

Every religious state has practised apartheid

April 29, 2014

I note that John Kerry is backing away from his (self-evident) statement that without a two-state solution, Israel would become an apartheid state.

Daily Beast: John Kerry apologized Monday for warning last week that the lack of a two-state solution in the Middle East could lead to Israel becoming an “apartheid state.” Kerry’s remarks, made in a closed door meeting of the Trilateral Commission and first reported by The Daily Beast Sunday night, provoked strong reactions from across the political spectrum. 

In a statement issued Monday evening, Kerry defended his record as a supporter of Israel but also said, “if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution.” 

But Israel is already an apartheid state.

The simple reality is that all states which have or have had an official state religion have practiced apartheid. They inevitably created different classes of citizenship. Some countries (UK, Scandinavia) have now softened their positions and have legislation to protect those of other religions while still maintaining an “official religion”. In the UK the top 25 servants of the Church of England still have an automatic place in Parliament. Many states still give strong preference to those following the official religion and in such states – whether they admit it or not – a form of religious apartheid is in place. Many of these are Muslim countries (Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan and the Muslim countries of the Middle East and Africa).To be a non-Jew in Israel is to be a second-class citizen. Israel still has no provisions for civil marriage or for marriage between people who do not belong to one of the 9 recognised religions. To be a Hindu in Sri Lanka is currently a distinct disadvantage. To be a non-Buddhist in Cambodia has its difficulties.

Religious discrimination is much more widespread and is practiced at community level and at the level of individuals all over the globe. In most of Europe it is a clear disadvantage to be visibly a Muslim. Most of the right-wing, nationalistic parties would like to return to a “Christian” state religion – but that is not because they wish to be Christian but because they want to give their anti-Islamic views a cloak of “officious”  respectability.

Politics and religion make a heady mix and nationalistic and religious fanaticism will continue as long as religions continue and nation-states continue.

I won’t live to see it but there will come a time when individual faith takes precedence and organised religions and their brainwashing will be abandoned. And nation-states could – hopefully – have become obsolete by then.

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Religion | 7 Comments »

Idiot science: Babies cry at night to prevent Mom from having another child!!

April 28, 2014
David Haig

David Haig

Some so-called “science” is done primarily for headlines – even at Harvard. I wonder if there is a correlation between headlines generated and funding received?

This time the idiot science is from David Haig – a biology Professor at Harvard. His abstract states

All these observations are consistent with a hypothesis that waking at night to suckle is an adaptation of infants to extend their mothers’ lactational amenorrhea, thus delaying the birth of a younger sib and enhancing infant survival.

From Science News:

When a baby cries at night, exhausted parents scramble to figure out why. He’s hungry. Wet. Cold. Lonely. But now, a Harvard scientist offers more sinister explanation: The baby who demands to be breastfed in the middle of the night is preventing his mom from getting pregnant again.

This devious intention makes perfect sense, says evolutionary biologist David Haig, who describes his idea in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. Another baby means having to share mom and dad, so babies are programmed to do all they can to thwart the meeting of sperm and egg, the theory goes.

Since babies can’t force birth control pills on their mothers, they work with what they’ve got: Nighttime nursing liaisons keep women from other sorts of liaisons that might lead to another child. And beyond libido-killing interruptions and extreme fatigue, frequent night nursing also delays fertility in nursing women. Infant suckling can lead to hormone changes that put the kibosh on ovulation (though not reliably enough to be a fail-safe birth control method, as many gynecologists caution).

Of course, babies don’t have the wherewithal to be interrupting their mothers’ fertility intentionally. It’s just that in our past, babies who cried to be nursed at night had a survival edge, Haig proposes.

The timing of night crying seems particularly damning, Haig says. Breastfed babies seem to ramp up their nighttime demands around 6 months of age and then slowly improve — precisely the time when a baby would want to double down on its birth control efforts. … 

Tenured Professors would seem to have little need for common sense.

What is worse than the idiot science is the fawning article by Laura Sanders in Science News.

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Drunk + Australian = Air-rage

April 25, 2014

At first glance a not very remarkable story. Australians being drunk and unruly has been a stereo-type since the 1960’s. I would have imagined that the Nanny-State that Australia has become might have softened that image but perhaps it is the very existence of the Nanny-State which gives more cause to rebel against authority and reinforces the “spoilt-brat” image.

Sydney Morning Herald:

A drunk passenger caused the closure of Bali’s airport and sparked a full-scale security alert when he attempted to enter the cockpit of a Virgin Australia flight from Brisbane to Denpasar, prompting the pilot to report a hijacking attempt.

Bali Air Force Commander Colonel Sugiharto, said the perpetrator was an Australian passenger named Matt Christopher Lockley, 28. 


DENPASAR, BALI, INDONESIA - APRIL 25: Australian Matt Christopher, (C), a passenger of Virgin Blue Australia Airplane, who is believed to have tried to enter the cockpit, is arrested by Indonesian millitary officers at International Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar on April 25, 2014 in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Early reports suggested an attempt to hijack a Virgin Australia had occured mid-flight, although Virgin has since clarified that the disturbance was caused by a drunk passenger acting aggressively and attempting to enter the cockpit. (Photo by Agung Parameswara/Getty Images)

Australian Matt Christopher Lockley, a passenger of the Virgin flight, who is believed to have tried to enter the cockpit, is arrested by Indonesian military officers. Photo: Agung Parameswara – Getty Images

But the interesting aspect is that air-rage leading to unruly “passenger incident” is – based on population or passengers carried  – more than 30 times more likely in Australia than the US.

Population: Australia 22.7 million; US 317 million

Air passengers (2012): Australia 65 million; US 735 million

Unruly Passenger Incidents (WSJ – 2011): Australia 488; US 192

Unruly Passenger Incidents per million passengers carried:

Australia – 7.5; USA – 0.26

World statistics are hard to come by but Australia probably leads the field in unruly airline passenger incidents.

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