Passenger comfort is no longer in the vocabulary of airlines and airports

April 10, 2016

Travelling by air has become an exercise in minimising the discomfort imposed by the purveyors of air travel. There is discomfort involved in all aspects of travelling by air. Depending on how fortunate one is, there could be levels of discomfort involved in arriving, in checking in, in negotiating harassment at security, in getting to the gate, in waiting at the gate, on board the aircraft, in leaving the aircraft  in collecting luggage and in leaving the airport. A nightmare journey is when you experience discomfort at every stage – and that is less uncommon than one would think.

Sometime last week the US Senate declined to bring in regulation to set a minimum regulation for seat size and leg-room on commercial aircraft. I don’t disagree with that because that should not be a matter of regulation. That is about passenger comfort, and that should be a matter which engages the airlines not the law-makers. It seems that for airport designers, airport managers, immigration and customs authorities and, most of all, for airlines, passenger comfort is no longer something they feel it necessary to deliver.

As I get older I give more value to comfort. But it is a luxury which is no longer even on offer. So when I travel by air – which is still about 10 -12 times a year – my concern is just to minimise the hassle. For a journey of up to about 500 km my preference is to take the car and avoid the hassle. Time, I find, is no longer of the essence. I go early. I no longer run to catch flights. I don’t hurry, I stroll, the 2 km needed to make a transfer at Frankfurt airport. Making a transfer at Heathrow is only for the masochist. But since I am early, I usually have to wait; in the check-in line, in the security line, in the immigration line, in the taxi line. I choose a carry-on bag on which I can sit. This is essential even at the gate. When was a gate ever equipped with more seats than the aircraft to be boarded? I am resigned to paying double for my rubbery sandwich and diluted coffee. I have learned to switch off my taste buds at airports. Airport designers win awards for architecture but they would never win any awards for passenger comfort. Ground personnel resent that you haven’t used the check-in machine that wasn’t working. On Ryanair you are punished if you bring luggage. Jet Air has a luggage limit of 15 kg for domestic flights just to suit international travellers who come with a 20 kg allowance. Security personnel are required to – and do – suspend their brains as they blindly follow their protocols. You cannot take the shortest way to the gate at Arlanda because that would mean bypassing the shops. Cleaners wait for me to approach before they close and start cleaning the toilets. Low cost airlines don’t even arrive at the city they tout as their destination.

cattle class

Cattle Class

Of course the worst comes after boarding. The only defense I have found is to try and sleep through the entire time on board. I skip the meals. I ignore the passenger in front who has reclined into my face. I ignore the pain in my knees and my sore shins. Announcements on board are in 3 unintelligible languages (all recordings of course) – all about everything of no relevance. There is never any explanation of that big thump while descending.

What you pay for these days is for arrival. Not for when you might arrive. The price of being alive (just) when you arrive is however still included. Comfort is no longer included in the ticket price.

There was a time when there was a joy in travelling by air. I still enjoy arriving, but there is no longer any fun in the travelling. In fact part of the new joy of arriving is that the discomfort of travelling has come to an end. Until the next time.

 

 

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When a foetus is no longer an unborn child – just a toe-nail?

April 8, 2016

Hillary Clinton has been criticised for calling a foetus an “unborn person”. The pro-abortion movement in the US finds this beyond the pale. They find that the use of the words “unborn person” implies that the foetus is an “unborn child” which of course is unacceptable.

So is a “foetus” not an “unborn child” and of no greater significance than an overgrown toe-nail or unwanted hair? To be cut off as and when desired?

NYMagazine: Hillary Clinton drew criticism on Monday after referring to the unborn as a “person” in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. “The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights,” she said, before adding, “that doesn’t mean that we don’t do everything we possibly can to help a mother who is carrying a child and wants to make sure that child will be healthy to have appropriate medical support.”

As might’ve been expected, both abortion-rights advocates and abortion opponents quickly seized on Clinton’s remarks. “Usually when you hear her talk it’s about the fetus,” Tina Whittington, executive vice-president of Students for Life, told the New York Times. “To acknowledge it’s a human person, a human child, to us it’s huge.” Other activists condemned her use of the word “person,” saying it implies the fetus is an “unborn child” — rhetoric the pro-choice movement opposes.

I don’t dispute a woman’s control over her own body. But equally she must take responsibility for her own actions. The question becomes one of liability and to whom. And when does a foetus gain an identity and become a “who”? I find that the current practice of banning abortions after a foetus is about 20 -24 weeks old (as the point when it is independently viable) somewhat illogical since the alternative to an abortion is not a premature birth.

Immortality of Identity:

So why should it be that preventing an egg being fertilised, which would otherwise go on to become a foetus, causes no moral qualms but aborting that same foetus after it has been conceived is so disturbing to some? Extending that thought, what is it that makes aborting a foetus and preventing a child from being born much less disturbing than terminating the existence of that same child after birth?

I suspect that it is our concept of “identity” rather than “life” which determines. ……

… Many societies set a limit of 22 or 24 weeks after conception as being the point when a foetus acquires the “right” to live but this boundary is irrational. This time is based on when a foetus – if born prematurely – is considered to be viable. I don’t find this very useful since the alternative to an abortion is not usually a premature birth. I note also that the probability of a foetus reaching full term changes very little after the first 10-12 weeks of a pregnancy. A 12 week old foetus has almost the same chance of being born as a 30 week old foetus. An abortion at any time after about the first 12 weeks effectively eliminates a birth which – with a 90% probability – would otherwise occur. After birth, infant mortality rates today are generally around 5% (ranging from close to 15% in the poorest parts of Africa to less than 2% in well developed societies). …..

….. A unique identity is recognisable first when an egg is fertilised. That identity cannot be foretold but it may be remembered long after the individual dies. It may in due course be forgotten. But whether or not it is forgotten, the fact of the creation of that identity remains. Forever. It is identity, once created, which remains unique and immortal.

The winner spermatozoon – image Gabriel Sancho

 

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Slap in the face for the EU over colonial expansion in Ukraine

April 7, 2016

My own perception is that it was the EU’s adventurism (and a colonial style expansionism) which was a major factor in the Ukraine crisis. It was the EU (supported by the US and NATO) which quite irresponsibly built up the opposition groups in Ukraine (with money and arms and promises of the good life). It is this colonial expansionism which is the ugliest part of the EU’s dreams of a new Holy European Empire, and which is fuelled mainly by sections of the French, the Germans and the Brussels bureaucracy. The EU has degenerated into  a theocracy.

EU colonial expansion (wikimedia)

EU colonial expansion (wikimedia)

But the overwhelming Dutch rejection (61:38) of the EU’s “deal” for the Ukraine is more than just a rejection of just that particular deal. It is yet another manifestation of the unpopularity of the whole Brussels experiment. It is not wrong to paint Brussels with the “Holy” epithet. For all the parasitical politicians of the European parliament and the self-serving bureaucrats of the European Commission, the expansion of the EU and an imposed political union is nothing less than a religion. Their complete shambles in handling the “refugee” invasion has also demonstrated the shallowness and self-serving nature of “European values” as touted by the high priests of the EU.

BBC: 

With 99.8% of the votes counted, 61.1% had said “No”, with 38% supporting a deal, media reports said. Turnout is projected at 32%, above the 30% threshold of voters needed to be valid but within a 3% margin of error.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his government may have to reconsider the treaty if the vote is valid. The Dutch parliament has already ratified the EU agreement and the result of the vote is not binding. “We will have to wait and see but it is clear that the ‘No’ voters won convincingly. The question is whether or not the required turnout will be met.” Mr Rutte said in a televised reaction.

It is almost shameful that 27 EU countries merely rubber stamped the Ukrainian deal and that it is only the Dutch who put it to the question. The “deal” is not just a free trade agreement but a shameless, blatant step in a colonial expansion. It is a stepping stone for bringing Ukraine into the EU. The Dutch vote shows how out of step the EU is with the bulk of the population. One of the key tactics used by the proponents of the Holy European Empire is to govern by fiat, by decrees and diktats from Brussels and by avoiding any votes.

The Brexit vote is another rare example of of the EU theocracy being challenged. The Dutch vote will give support to the BREXIT campaign.

It is time, not to get rid of the EU, but to put a stop to the fantasy of the Holy European Empire and to return the EU to the trade and economic and labour cooperation it was meant to – and should certainly – be. The whole idea of political union is actually destructive of the rich diversity that has built Europe. Cloning nations by imposition of a false uniformity borders on stupidity. It is time to remove the unnecessary, unproductive and undemocratic layers of parasites that have built up in Brussels and made a religion of themselves.

 

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Sweden tries to buy votes for Security Council place

April 5, 2016

Five UN Security Council places (non-permanent) come up for election in June 2016. Sweden is competing against Italy and the Netherlands for the “Western European and Others” place.

The elections are for five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 2017. The five members will serve on the Security Council for the 2017–18 period.

No doubt there is heavy lobbying going on. A UNSC place is seen as a strategic – and ideological – objective by the Social Democrat /Environment party government. The Social Democrats especially see the UN as a minor God and they have already canonised themselves as Saints. (Their sanctimonious self-image has been dented lately as they have been forced to take less than “friendly” actions in stopping the influx of “refugees”).

In any event, the Social Democrats were faced with the problem of how to fund their lobbying activities while not seeming to bribe “poor” countries for their votes and tarnishing their own self-righteous, self-image of propriety. So they chose a round-about method of inviting 27 UN ambassadors of “poor countries” to an all expenses-paid jaunt in Sweden under the guise of an “environment seminar”. They funded the whole business through a number of intermediary institutions to hide the fact that the money was coming from the Foreign Aid budget and that the whole “bribery tourism” was organised by the Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Ministry arranged the “gift packages ” for the UN ambassadors (note that those invited were not environment ministers but UN ambassadors). It is not often that UN ambassadors get their business class air tickets and five-star hotel bills paid for by a foreign country. What exactly was contained within the “gift packages” is not known. The environment seminar, just for these 27 country ambassadors, was an attempt by Sweden to cash in on its “environment credentials” just before the Paris conference. A similar jamboree was also arranged in March 2015.

By FIFA standards, the Swedish bribes were just small potatoes and normally I would expect Italy and the Netherlands to have provided more. But a  UNSC place is probably of more prestige value to the Social Democrats in Sweden. There is nothing wrong, I think, in lobbying. It is trying to hide it which is despicable. The sanctimonious, self-righteous facade which covers Swedish foreign policy is always despicable but it has reached new heights (or should it be depths) with this government. If it was all for the interests of the country it wouldn’t matter much, but for the Social Democrats, ideology often overrides country interests (Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the PKK ….).

(I observe that the left parties in Europe and including the Social Democrats in Sweden, in their ideological zeal to support the Palestinians often come close to being anti-semitic. And they get into a tangle when supporting a Kurdistan).

Kronprinsessan och Prins Daniel tillsammans med ambassadörerna.

Crown Princess and Prince Daniel with the Ambassadors. Photo kungahuset.se

Swedish Television:

Ambassadors from 27 island nations and poor countries were treated to a free trip to Sweden in August. The official reason for the visit was a climate seminar. The bills running into millions were sent to the  Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, who in turn received 14 million kronor of Sida’s aid money.

The common factor for the visitors was that they each have one vote in the UN General Assembly, which in June will appoint new members to the Security Council.

To get a seat in the UN Security Council has been one of the current government’s major foreign policy goals. …..

After the disclosure the government … writes that aid money was also used at another opportunity to invite UN Ambassadors on a trip to Sweden. On March 10,  27 representatives of several small island states met the Aid Minister Isabella Lövin (MP) and Foreign Minister Margot Wallström (S), during a visit to Sweden at the invitation of the Dag Hammarksköld Foundation. ….

…… Niclas Kvarnström Manager of the Security Council candidacy, said that the UN ambassadors’ visit was a collaboration between the Foundation and the Foreign Ministry. …..

During the visit, the ambassadors lunched with Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, had coffee with Aid Minister Isabella Lövin and had dinner with Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. 

But the program was not mentioned publicly …. and they made no press releases.

The UN ambassadors also met Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel who received them at the  royal palace.

The Social Democrats together with the Environmental party makes for a dangerous mix. They are particularly good at “Do as I say and ignore what I do”

 

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A question of genetics (race) or of parental engagement?

April 4, 2016

A new study from Centre Forum in the UK about educational achievements only confirms what has been obvious for the last 2 or 3 decades. It should be noted though that Centre Forum is a “liberal” think tank and does have an agenda to push. Nevertheless, it is more objective and data-driven than many other “left/liberal” groups. The difference between “Black African” and “Black Caribbean”, between “White British”and “White Irish” and between “Asian Pakistani” and “Asian Bangladeshi” convinces me that the difference in achievement is more due to parental engagement than genetics (race). But genetics is clearly also a factor.

The Telegraph: Pupils with English as a additional language (EAL) are outperforming white British students across subjects at GCSE, a new study has shown, as it was revealed students in England are further away from world class standards than previously thought. 

….. The new study shows white British pupils lagging behind ten other ethnic groups when judged against new benchmarks based on eight subjects to promote a broad and balanced curriculum at the end of secondary school.

UK education achievements 2016 age 5 (graphic via Daily Mail)

UK education achievements 2016 age 5 (graphic via Daily Mail)

 

UK education achievements 2016 age 16 (graphic via Daily Mail)

UK education achievements 2016 age 16 (graphic via Daily Mail)

 

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Deer 5 – Crocuses1

April 3, 2016

It’s that time of the year and the young deer are in the garden at dawn. The crocuses (except the yellow ones) don’t stand a chance.

But that’s as it should be and all’s well.

This morning they hung around for almost an hour.

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Leonardo di Caprio’s movie was financed from corrupt 1MDB Malaysian fund

April 2, 2016

Di Caprio spends much of his time posturing as an environmentalist and anti-corruption champion, but I am not very much impressed. He chooses to support whatever is in vogue or “politically correct” or can get publicity, with little exercise of mind. Right now he is in Indonesia protesting against the palm oil industry and the Indonesian government has even had to remind him that he could be deported for anti-government activities.

It now turns out that his 2013 movie “Wolf of Wall Street” was financed from the infamous Malaysian 1MDB fund.

Wall Street Journal:

Investigators believe much of the cash used to make the Leonardo DiCaprio film about a stock swindler originated with embattled Malaysian state development fund 1MDB.

Despite the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese, the 2013 hit movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” took more than six years to get made because studios weren’t willing to invest in a risky R-rated project.

Help arrived from a virtually unknown production company called Red Granite Pictures. Though it had made just one movie, Red Granite came up with the more than $100 million needed to film the sex- and drug-fueled story of a penny-stock swindler.

Global investigators now believe much of the money to make the movie about a stock scam was diverted from a state fund 9,000 miles away in Malaysia, a fund that had been established to spur local economic development.

The investigators, said people familiar with their work, believe this financing was part of a wider scandal at the Malaysian fund, which has been detailed in Wall Street Journal articles over the past year.

The fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, was set up seven years ago by the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak. His stepson, Riza Aziz, is the chairman of Red Granite Pictures.

The 1MDB fund is now the focus of numerous investigations at home and abroad, which grew out of $11 billion of debt it ran up and questions raised in Malaysia about how some of its money was used. …..

…… The story of how “The Wolf of Wall Street” was financed brings together Hollywood celebrities with a cast of characters mostly known for their connections to the Malaysian prime minister. It detours through parties in Cannes and aboard a yacht, and spending on such embellishments as a rare, million-dollar movie poster and an original 1955 Academy Award statuette. ……. Shooting began in August 2012. Three months later, when Mr. DiCaprio had a birthday, the Red Granite principals forged a closer tie to him with an unusual gift: the Oscar statuette presented to Marlon Brando in 1955 for best actor in “On the Waterfront.” People who described the gift said the statuette had been acquired for around $600,000 through a New Jersey memorabilia dealer. …..

 

Wolf of Wall Street Financing (graphic WSJ)

Wolf of Wall Street Financing (graphic WSJ)

So, what’s new?

 

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Walk-through “intention scanner” will revolutionise airport security

April 1, 2016

The I-Scan will be on commercial trials later this year and soon airport security will again be almost as unobtrusive and as non-invasive as it was before 9/11.

The brain and its centres for emotion and cognition are increasingly becoming readable. Strong emotions create stronger brain waves and their characteristic brain-wave signatures are being “read” in ever increasing detail. Israeli research  – which has been classified as a military secret for some time now – has shown that “malicious intent” has a characteristic signature of brain-waves and that the proximity of actions based on the “malicious intent” are clearly connected to eye and facial movements. The new malicious intention detector (I- Scan) is non-intrusive and is based on detecting and reading the brain waves of passengers as they simply walk through what looks like a door – albeit a rather thick door. The I-Scan is built into the surrounds of the 1 m thick door and identifies anybody who has “malicious intentions” by monitoring the emanations from the limbic centre of the brain – the amygdala.

Within the limbic system is a small structure called the amygdala, a storehouse for emotional memories.  It is also the area of the brain responsible for our “fight or flight” reactions, our natural survival instincts.

The brain wave detector built into the I-Scan has to be within 80 cm of the subjects skull and detects a “malicious” signature within 20 ms. Malicious intentions show up clearly as tell-tale brain-waves, and together with facial muscle and eye movements, it can now be determined if the malicious intentions are also connected to actions planned for – or carried out in – a time proximity (about 3 hours) to the present (probability >99.99%). As the passenger walks through the door-scanner, an array of five cameras placed about 2 m ahead read the facial expressions and eye movements of the subject. The scanner has been tested extensively at 3 airports in Israel and now a corporation has been vested with the sole rights for commercialisation of the device. It is unlikely that the Israelis will make the technology generally available but they are expected to licence 2 or 3 US manufacturers.

It is envisaged that everybody would walk through the intention scanner. Only those who triggered the scanner would then need to go through a conventional X-ray scanner. The luggage of these passengers would also need to be X-rayed. Even using a “safe” threshold would allow over 95% of all passengers to effectively experience no delay whatsoever. They would just walk through a door. The other 5% would still have to undergo the usual X-ray scanners and a pat-down. Most of these 5% would be false positives for “malicious intent” but but even these passengers would experience a much speedier process. It would allow the number of security staff at airports to be reduced drastically.

“No hijacker or bomber or terrorist could conceal his intentions from the I-scan” said Dr. Jakob Malinowski of The Israeli University of Bio-Competence. “We have been developing the scanner for almost 10 years and it is now ready to be rolled out. It has already been on trial – secretly, and very successfully – at 3 airports. It is so unobtrusive that nobody has even noticed”. 

The scanner is now being produced by Bethmalion-I Ltd., at the rate of about 50 I-Scans per month. Production is being ramped up and it is expected that given a sufficient number of licencees, the I-Scan could have been rolled out to most “friendly” airports within 3 years. It is not expected that the Russians or the Iranians or others considered “unfriendly” will even be allowed to just purchase the I-Scan.

I have always felt that every increase of security is a sort of victory for the terrorists. We will never return to the innocent days when there was no security, but the I-Scan could both simplify the entire security process and provide a much greater level of security. That will begin to redress the balance.

It is expected that the I-Scan will have many other applications (concert halls, football stadiums, government buildings and the like).

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In Scandinavia, Sweden becomes the example not to follow for integration of immigrants

March 31, 2016

Parts of Stockholm and Malmö and Göteborg have now some areas which are dominated by immigrant communities. With multiculturalism (as opposed to multi-ethnic under a common culture) made into a god of political correctness, Sweden has done relatively little to ensure the integration of immigrants into the country. That, in turn, has led to the congregation of immigrants into just a few areas and their subsequent segregation.

Both Denmark and Norway are now using Sweden as the cautionary tale and of how not to manage integration.

The Local: Norway’s integration minister has called for tighter immigration policies – to avoid the country becoming like Sweden.

Sylvi Listhaug used Sweden as the cautionary tale when speaking about recent terror attacks in Europe, as well as a package of asylum reforms due before the Norwegian parliament shortly.

“Many of those who have carried out terror attacks in Europe are born and raised in France and Belgium. It shows how important it is to succeed with integration and that is again connected to how many come to Norway. Therefore a tight immigration policy is important,” she said.

In the aftermath of the terror attacks in Brussels, there has been a debate in Norway on so-called parallel societies and neighbourhoods where the police don’t dare to patrol. Listhaug acknowledged that the problem exists.

“We have foreign fighters who have left Norway and [we have] radical environments. We should not stick our heads in the sand and say that everything is good here. But fortunately we are a long way from the conditions we see in some other countries, for example Sweden,” she told NTB.

The difference between multiculturalism with a fractured society and a multi-ethnic society with a common over-riding culture, is one of my hobby-horses.

A “society” – to be a society – can be multi-ethnic but not multicultural

Of course one can have – if one wishes – many different cultures within different sub-societies in a single geographic area. But if these sub-cultures are not subordinated to a larger culture then the sub-societies cannot – because it becomes a fatal contradiction – make up any larger society. Multiculturalism dooms that geographical area to inevitably be a splintered and fractured “greater” society – if at all.

 

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Saudi Prince royally renditioned from Paris?

March 29, 2016

Strange goings on in the Kingdom. Prince Sultan bin Turki, (who is suing the Saudi government for being kidnapped in 2003) boarded a plane in Paris bound for Cairo, but didn’t arrive. It seems he may have been whisked off to Saudi Arabia. Saudi princes wouldn’t normally interest me greatly but he “is the third Saudi prince seemingly to go missing in suspicious circumstances in the last year”.

The US has made the practice of extraordinary renditions a regular and allowable action against its perceived enemies. Saudi Arabia, it seems, favours royal renditions. The orders may have come from King Salman but are more likely to have come from his son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, who is also the power behind the throne

…. the BND, the German intelligence agency … portrayed Saudi defence minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman … as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria. – Wikipedia

The royal dungeons must be filling up.

The Guardian:

Staff working for a Saudi prince involved in high-profile legal proceedings against the Saudi government claim he has been taken to Saudi Arabia from Europe against his will.

Prince Sultan bin Turki, who has elaborate 24-hour protection, brought legal action in Switzerland against the Saudi government over a kidnapping in 2003, which he says left him with serious, ongoing medical problems.

On 1 February he and his entourage boarded a Saudi plane in Paris ostensibly bound for Cairo, where he had made plans to visit friends and his father, the Saudi king’s elder brother, who lives there. His aide made reservations at the Kempinski Hotel in Cairo’s Garden City district. But he never arrived.

“There was a Saudi plane with a flight plan to Cairo but the plane did not fly to Cairo,” said an associate of the prince who was with him in Paris. “This airplane had a Saudi flag on the tail. This plane came from the Kingdom.”

The Guardian concludes

Saudi Arabia has long had problems managing disaffected royal family members. In 1975 King Faisal was assassinated by a disaffected prince, but until now there have been no claims that the kingdom might have a concerted campaign targeting defectors and dissidents.

Attempts to contact the three princes directly and members of their entourage received no response. The Saudi government and Moroccan authorities did not reply to requests to comment.

 

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