At our latitude the sun rose at 0848 today.
But even before sunrise on a clear day, as today, the few clouds in the western sky turn pink.
This was taken at 0838, about 10 minutes before sunrise and looking due west.
western sky before sunrise 31st dec 2015
I noted – or thought I noted – that Hillary Clinton’s attack on Trump’s “sexist attitudes” petered out when he responded by bringing up Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. How Bill Clinton got away with his blatant sexism and treatment of women in awe of his position still perplexes me. It was a period when a display of “sexual power” by Bill Clinton in the US seemed to be admired by the electorate just as much as Silvio Berlusconi’s bunga-bunga excesses were admired by the electorate in Italy.
I am not sure though that what Bill Clinton got away with as a minor transgressions, can be transformed and utilised by Hillary Clinton as being something positive and to her benefit. In fact, that she was quite as forgiving of his peccadilloes as she was does not reflect that well on her today. It suggests that she also shared his attitudes of the time. It will not be long before his strategic blunders in Somalia and his downright cowardice in Rwanda are compared to her apparent incompetence in Benghazi, Libya.
But today as Bill Cosby finally faces a criminal charge, it occurred to me that there is a commonality of the attitudes exhibited by Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby. They both felt their positions entitled them to certain “perquisites”. No doubt it was, to some extent, an attitude of the times they reigned in, but that does not excuse them. There were very many others of their time, who also reigned as kings of all they surveyed, but who did not succumb to the de facto power they had. They both effectively believed in a form of Droit du Seigneur. Bill Cosby reigned as king of the TV world and all aspiring young women, who felt he could be of some advantage to their careers, were seen by him as “fair game”and part of his right of office. Bill Clinton was king of the White House, and all female groupies, interns and the like caught up in his train, were also seen as “fair game”, and part of his perquisites of office. Neither could (or can) see that they did anything wrong. Hillary Clinton also accepted – perhaps reluctantly and only by default – Bill Clinton’s Droit de Seigneur at that time. Her relatively weak “feminist” credentials are not enhanced by her acceptance of Bill Clinton’s transgressions.
It does not mean that Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton were not likeable. They still are. So was Rolf Harris. But they represent a time that has gone and attitudes that are not defensible – even for their times. They could have chosen – as others chose – not to indulge in the excesses available to them.
I am not sure that Hillary Clinton can get any advantage – except among the already converted – by relying too much on Bill Clinton’s support.
Apart from for 1999, which is specifically mentioned in one of Nostradamus’ quatrains, there is nothing he had to say which can be specifically attributed to 2016. Moreover, not only did the King of Terror he foresaw for the seventh month of 1999 not appear, but there was no event at that time which came anywhere near to his prediction.
So the coming of WW III or of the next anti-Christ or a new invasion of Europe from the Asian steppes in 2016, as many of the Nostradamus brigade are now predicting, are not actually with any foundation. And even if they were, Nostradamus interpretations have a remarkably poor record in forecasts (but a very good record for hindcasts).
The year 1999, seventh month,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror:
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.
Depending upon calendar, the seventh month refers to July or September. During that period NATO was conducting a local air-war in Serbia and the Russians were battling rebels in Chechnya. But there was little else to match a King of Terror or a new King of the Mongols.
But I do see a high probability of a natural catastrophe during 2016.
The last 25 years have been a remarkably quiet time for major volcanic eruptions. But 2016 may well see a major VEI 5+ volcano eruption, which is now very long overdue. The Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption of 2012 is sometimes stated to be of strength VEI 5, but it seems more likely it was no more than a VEI 4. The last VEI 5+ eruptions were in 1991 (Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. Hudson) and that is 25 years ago. Through the 20th century, VEI 5+ eruptions occurred on an average every 7 years (max gap 23 years) and every 11 years during the 19th century. So for 2016, there is a high probability of a major volcanic eruption. Of course, the Ring of Fire is where this is most likely to occur. But my hunch is that the next major eruption could be in the Northern hemisphere. In which case the Mediterranean or Iceland come into the picture.
Ring of Fire image from volcanoespaster.weebly.com
I note in passing that the earth’s magnetic field continues to weaken and the poles continue to drift. It is not inconceivable that another rapid magnetic reversal event such as the Laschamp event is currently underway. Reversal of the geomagnetic field occur regularly, but slowly, over geologic time periods. The Laschamp event however occurred very rapidly with the magnetic North Pole drifting to the Antarctic and back again over some 500 years.
Phys.org: 41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. ……. What is remarkable is the speed of the reversal: “The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today’s configuration, lasted for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today’s field,” explains Norbert Nowaczyk. “The actual polarity changes lasted only 250 years. In terms of geological time scales, that is very fast.” During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today’s field strength. As a consequence, the Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure.
Two other events of note occurred simultaneously – though that may just be coincidence. Forty thousand years ago is close to the time when the Neanderthals disappeared as a separate species and continued only as those absorbed within modern humans. It was also the time when the supervolcano (VEI 7+) erupted 39400 years ago in the area of today’s Phlegraean Fields (Campi Flegrei) near Naples. It was the largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100 000 years.
The polarity reversal was a global event. © Dr. habil. Norbert R. Nowaczyk / GFZ
The magnetic poles are already a long way away from the geographic poles. The South magnetic pole in particular is already outside the polar circle.
NOAA: The most recent survey determined that the Pole is moving approximately north-northwest at 55 km per year.
Currently, in 2015 the location of the north magnetic pole is 86.27°N and 159.18°W and the south magnetic pole is 64.26°S and 136.59°E.
Pole reversal is not a catastrophic event in itself. Even with a weak magnetic field, the atmosphere provides good protection against radiation and the effects would probably not be catastrophic. But the indirect effects of changing flow patterns in the earth’s core (which might be the cause of geomagnetic reversal), on tectonics, volcanic activity and climate may be much more profound. My gut tells me that that the releases of energy which accompany major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can only be explained by the flow patterns in the earth’s core which power the movement of the tectonic plates – and also control the earth’s magnetic field.
If last year the probability of a VEI 5+ eruption was said to be 95% over the next 5 years, then the chances of a major eruption in 2016 are now quite high.
In Sweden the days after Christmas Day and up to the New Year are known as the “in-between days” (mellandagarna) and the normal greeting during this time is “a good continuation” (god fortsättning). The “in-between days” is also the period when the The Language Council of Sweden (Språkrådet) produces an official list of “new words ” that have entered the Swedish language during the previous year.
The Language Council of Sweden does not – fortunately – waste its time too much on futile exercises to defend against change (like the French do) but generally acts as an observer of change that has occurred. (I take the view that “defence of a language” and trying to prevent change is a meaningless exercise. The only language that does not change is a dead language and a living language is defined by current usage. Equally there is no such thing as “correct” spelling or grammar – there is only “accepted” usage).
Thirty seven new words are now acknowledged officially as having entered the language during 2015. However, the Language Council is also terminally afflicted by a deep-seated political correctness, especially about gender “equality” (this is Sweden after all). They sometimes try to be exceedingly good and try intentionally to introduce “gender-neutral” words – usually with little success. It is no different this time and this shows up in 3 of the words “officially” recognised (14, 16 and 35).
Many of the “new words” recorded every year by the Language Council do not stand the test of time.
Actual usage always wins.
Miloš Zeman is a Social Democrat, a former Prime Minister and now President of the Czech Republic. But he is known for being unconventional and not averse, at times, to being politically incorrect and even taking “right wing” positions when it involves common sense. On the refugee situation he takes a fairly hard line – but it must be borne in mind that the Czech Republic is at heart an anti-immigrant nation (>70%).
His Christmas message has been heavily criticised – though mainly outside the Czech Republic:
The Guardian: The Czech president, Milos Zeman, has called the movement of refugees into Europe “an organised invasion” and declared that young men from Syria and Iraq should stay in their countries to “take up arms” against Isis.
“I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees,” said Zeman in his Christmas message to the Czech Republic.
Compassion was “possible” for refugees who were old or sick, and for children, he said but not for young men who should be back home fighting against jihadists.
“A large majority of the illegal migrants are young men in good health and single. I wonder why these men are not taking up arms to go fight for the freedom of their countries against the Islamic State,” said Zeman, who was elected Czech president in early 2013.
Fleeing their war-torn countries only served to strengthen Isis, he said. ………
Migrants are not the only target of Zeman’s caustic remarks: he said last week that his country should introduce the euro on the first day after indebted Greece’s departure from the common currency, causing Athens to recall its ambassador.
He also said he was “very disappointed” that talks in the summer to eject Greece from the euro did not come to fruition.
Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, former communist countries that joined the European Union in 2004, have rejected the EU’s system of quotas for distributing refugees amid the current migrant wave.
To talk of an “organised invasion” may be a bit of an exaggeration and he could have chosen his words to have been a little kinder to the Greeks, but on both issues I think he voices the correct, but politically incorrect, positions that must be addressed, but which others fear to express.
The EU and its treaties are not Holy and written in stone. If the whole concept of the EU is to work it requires the club to be able to alter its rules – written for 6 members – to suit the realities of an expanded membership. And a Holy European Empire with a Pope in Brussels is not the way to go.
Posted by Mukesh Garg on Facebook
Braj is a region mainly in Uttar Pradesh of India, around Mathura-Vrindavan. Braj, though never a clearly defined political region in India, is very well demarcated culturally. It is considered to be the land of Krishna and is derived from the Sanskrit word vraja.
It’s not difficult to see the connections to the “yard of coffee” in South India.
I was reading the Reuters report about the fatwas issued by ISIS which apparently justify the harvesting of organs of apostates and infidels – even from living individuals – for the sake of transplantation into “good muslims”. There has to be a genetic component to “barbarism”. Then I saw the report of the Pope’s speech at his midnight mass yesterday attacking consumerism and all “bad things”. That got me to thinking that all the pretty speeches made by politicians and Popes, exhorting “good behaviour”, are all meaningless if actions to ensure and sustain “good behaviour” are not also taken. If humans mean that “good behaviour” is something to aspire to and work for, then we must also take the measures available to us which can improve, whatever we may define as “good behaviour”, from one generation to the next. If behaviour is entirely due to nurture then it just requires proper teaching (though the line between teaching and brainwashing is quite thin). But it is not just nurture, of course. There is little doubt, in my mind that there is a significant genetic component to the behaviour that is expressed by an individual.
Certainly there is no doubt that genetics defines the envelope of behaviours that is open to any individual. Normally the envelope of enabled behaviour is so wide that it allows both “good” and “bad” behaviour. Thereafter it may well be nurture and the peculiarities of each individual which determines which particular behaviour will actually be expressed. But the artificial breeding of pets and livestock shows that key behavioural (as opposed to purely physical) characteristics (aggression, curiosity, propensity to cooperate, playfulness, sensitivity, …) can be selected for. Even “intelligence” has been selected for among dogs with some measure of success. It follows that in addition to physical characteristics, the envelope of possible behaviours that can be expressed by an individual can also be altered by genetics. It is highly likely then, that modifying genetics and shifting the envelope will allow certain behaviours to be completely eliminated from the realm of the possible.
Of course it is primarily natural selection which has produced the humans of today and it is this evolution which gives the cognitive behaviour which favours the “compassionate society”. But in this compassionate society, all those who would otherwise have been deselected by natural selection are now protected. The advances of medical science allied with the development of our ethical standards of behaviour (concepts of “human rights”), mean that the physically and mentally disadvantaged are protected and enabled to survive and reproduce. But one consequence is that even those exhibiting “bad behaviour” are also protected and survive to reproduce. The “welfare society” not only protects the weak and disadvantaged, it also ensures that their genetic weaknesses – assuming that they exist – are carried forward into succeeding generations. The “compassionate society” sees to it that even murderous psychopaths (whose behaviour may well be largely due to genetic “faults”), are imprisoned for relatively short times and then permitted (even encouraged) to pass on their faulty genes to succeeding generations.
Something is not right here. To be a compassionate society and protect the weak and disabled is wholly admirable, I think. But when the protection of the weak and disabled extends to the preferential propagation of the weakness or the disability, then the “compassion” also becomes counter-productive and eventually unsustainable. From the perspective of the future survival of the human race, the unnecessary perpetuation of weaknesses and disabilities becomes stupid and suicidal. It may be that the same genes which give some perceived weakness also give some critical survival attribute, in which case there is a trade-off to be made and a call to be taken.
I like the analogy of genetic propagation being seen as a chemical or nuclear reaction. Run-away reactions are avoided if moderation is available. I am coming to the view that some method of moderation of propagation is actually a necessity. Now that natural selection has been neutralised by human compassion and can no longer provide a moderating influence on genetic propagation, then some other form of genetic moderation is needed to avoid “run-away” genetic explosions. That then requires some form of “artificial” selection as the moderator. We may not yet know the specifics and the extent of the genetic components of intelligence or behaviour, but it is a simple conclusion that without moderation, we may well be ensuring the dumbing-down of the human race or ensuring the propagation and expansion of “bad behaviour”. It may not be causal, but there is a clear correlation showing higher fertility rates with lower “intelligence”. It is an arithmetic certainty that, if there is a causal relationship between intelligence and lower birth rates, then the intelligence of humans will decline.
There is nothing fundamentally incompatible between being a compassionate society which protects the weak and the disabled of the current generation, while still ensuring that genetic weaknesses are not carried forward into succeeding generations. In fact, it could even be considered unethical to knowingly allow such weaknesses to be carried forward, especially if we had the knowledge and the means to prevent it. But that, of course, would be considered eugenics.
When the Israeli media themselves are disgusted, then the criticism cannot be just waved away as being ant-Semitic propaganda. To exult in and glorify the killing of a Palestinian toddler is not that far different to the obscenities of ISIS.
This from Haaretz:
The Judea and Samaria district police said on Thursday it opened an investigation into a video shot at a wedding which shows Jewish radicals stabbing a photograph of the Palestinian toddler who was killed in the Duma firebomb attack. A statement said the inquiry commenced a few days ago.
The police said they were looking into the “numerous and serious offenses seen in the video,” including those who were careless with their weapons. The police intends to question those responsible and to revoke their gun licenses.
The video shows Orthodox youths at a Jerusalem wedding singing songs of revenge and dancing with guns and knives. One masked youth holds up a firebomb, while another is seen stabbing a photo of Ali Dawabsheh, the toddler killed along with his parents in the West Bank arson attack earlier this year.
Radicalised, young, orthodox Jews are just as much brainwashed as those from the most rabid madrassas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
strongly condemned the “shocking images” displayed in a video recently seized by police, which shows Orthodox youths at a Jerusalem wedding dancing with guns and knives, stabbing a photo of Ali Dawabsheh, the toddler who was killed in the Duma firebomb attack that killed three members of the Dawabsheh family this past summer.
This video filmed at an Orthodox wedding three weeks ago, Netanyahu said, exposes “the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security.” He then went on to bolster the Shin Bet, by saying that the images publicized in the video “attest to the importance of the Shin Bet to our security,” Netanyahu said.
So politically correct, morally arrogant, mentally infantile campaigners at Cape Town and Oxford want all traces of Cecil Rhodes (statues, plaques …) to be torn down because Rhodes was such a heinous racist.
No different at all to ISIS in Palmyra or the Taliban’s destruction of the statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan.
But the really sad part is that part of the Cape Town University establishment, and some of the Oxford University establishment, give in to, or seriously entertain, such juvenile attempts to rewrite history.
Taxation is fundamentally a confiscation of private assets for public purposes. It may well be necessary. Tax laws may be fair or unfair. Good citizenship – individual or corporate – then requires that prevailing rules of taxation law be followed, due amounts calculated and paid. Individuals and companies are required to cooperate in calculating the taxes they owe to their tax jurisdictions under existing rules and to pay such amounts in a timely manner.
I find it irritating when the lawmakers then criticise taxpayers for the deficiencies of the laws they have formulated. It has become popular for politicians to criticise large companies and wealthy individuals for “tax avoidance” (which is perfectly legal) as being cases of “not paying your fair share of tax”. It strikes me as a rather irrational – if populist – argument. Tax laws are not inherently, and of themselves, “fair”. In fact the question of “fairness” is not a criteria when it comes to paying or not paying tax. It comes into play only in the formulation of the enabling law. Once a tax law is passed, all legal entities within the jurisdiction are required to pay – whether or not it is “fair” in somebody’s opinion. Many tax laws are intentionally “unfair” to try and implement some policy or other, or to encourage some particular behaviour. When politicians start referring to the “spirit of the law” not being followed, it is just a confession of their own incompetence in formulating laws to implement their intentions.
As law-abiding individuals and companies, we calculate and pay our taxes according to the rules that prevail. We use all available rules of allowable deductions and off-sets and deferred taxes and tax-breaks to minimise the amount of personal assets that are to be confiscated by the State. We use accountants and experts to navigate the complexities and intricacies of tax legislation. No individual is ever expected to pay more than the prevailing rules require. Any individual who does pay more than required, and assuming his perfectly rational objective is to minimise the tax to be payed, is fundamentally incompetent. Any company which pays more tax than it should also demonstrates incompetence and is not demonstrating due care of its investors’ assets.
Individuals and corporations are not required or expected to pay more than what is due under the rules prevailing. The issue of ethics is in play when the rules are formulated and is also involved in the following of the rules. The act of payment is an ethical issue but minimisation of tax due is a matter of competence, not of ethics. Paying more taxes than are due demonstrates incompetence and gains no ethical credits. So when there is criticism of companies for “not paying enough tax”, the real failure is with the politicians who have made the deficient rules – not with the individuals or companies who have followed the prevailing rules to their own best advantage.
I would certainly not wish to invest in any company which was not sufficiently competent to keep its taxes to a minimum.
Tax evasion is illegal and demonstrates a lack of ethics with the taxpayer. Tax avoidance is a measure of the incompetence of lawmakers and of the competence of the taxpayer. I would go so far as to say that to pay more tax than is due is not just incompetent, but also unethical in being deficient in the due care of resources to be expected of any responsible entity.
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