Sunday, October 24, 2004
Your Fears / Four Years
The New York Times: Bush Keeps Focus on Preparedness for Terrorism; Kerry Shifts to a Theme of Hope
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Support your local bookshops
If you're in northwest London, don't waste your money on Amazon delivery charges. Just pop in to the Willesden Bookshop, Kilburn Books or Queens Park Books and get yourself a copy of The London Silence while there are still a few in stock. Alternatively, I'm sure your local bookshop would be happy to order it for you.
Ossian
A penny for Saddam*
Children outside Willesden Green station this evening, with an effigy of Saddam Hussein instead of Guy Fawkes.
*The sign says "Penny 4 the Guy / Execution 5th November" (bonfire night.)
Who would you vote for, dull or stupid?
Bush cries wolf
"As the campaign approaches its last full week, Mr Kerry is focusing his efforts on south-western states today, and will make a speech tomorrow on faith in an attempt to attract undecided religious voters.
"The president, meanwhile, has surprised some of his supporters by deciding to take a rest, withdrawing to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for the weekend."
All work and no play makes John a dull boy. All play and no work makes George a stupid boy.
"As the campaign approaches its last full week, Mr Kerry is focusing his efforts on south-western states today, and will make a speech tomorrow on faith in an attempt to attract undecided religious voters.
"The president, meanwhile, has surprised some of his supporters by deciding to take a rest, withdrawing to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for the weekend."
All work and no play makes John a dull boy. All play and no work makes George a stupid boy.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Release Margaret Hassan
Sky News: "Kidnapped care worker Margaret Hassan has made an emotional plea for British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq in a new video aired by an Arabic TV station."
If those rotten sewer rats don't release Margaret safe and sound, I swear I'll sign-up to blast the fuck out of them myself.
Zoz
If those rotten sewer rats don't release Margaret safe and sound, I swear I'll sign-up to blast the fuck out of them myself.
Zoz
Chequers mate
The Prime Minister has claimed £43,000 of public money on a constituency home bought for just £30,000 according to the Daily Mail.
Zoz
Zoz
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Iraq: January election - "weeks rather than months"?
More hoons: "An armored battlegroup of 850 soldiers from the First Battalion Black Watch complete with medics, signalers and engineers will be redeployed for a 'limited and specific period of time, lasting weeks rather than months' to relieve U.S. troops, Hoon said."
It's October. Before the Iraqi elections in January, we will have to traverse the months of November and December. Months, not weeks.
However the US Presidential election is in weeks not months.
You don't have to be Professor Kronk to work this one out. They have refused previous requests for troops, but in the run-up to the US Presidential election, they have accepted this request. What a pack of hooners.
It's October. Before the Iraqi elections in January, we will have to traverse the months of November and December. Months, not weeks.
However the US Presidential election is in weeks not months.
You don't have to be Professor Kronk to work this one out. They have refused previous requests for troops, but in the run-up to the US Presidential election, they have accepted this request. What a pack of hooners.
Fear and Loathing in 2004
RollingStone.com: "Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mister President,' and then I felt ashamed." (Hunter S. Thompson)
Zoz
Zoz
Science for the Confused - an occasional series
No.1: Space and Time
Did you know that space and time are really the same thing? To have space is to have time, and to have time is to have space. You can't have one without the other. Without space there is nowhere to have time, and without time there is no time to have space. We can't see timespace fully because we are functions of it. It is behind us, in a way that we can't turn around to see. We are part of a marbled edifice growing, not moving. We do not move from place to place, but grow from one place to another, but we can only see the surface, the growing tip, and not the marbled trails. We are not bodies but body-shaped tendrils trailing through the years.
It is not time travel that we need, in order to see the past, it's an additional sense. Whether it is possible to generate such an additional sense using only the ones we have to start with is a difficult question. A superior being would carry on its existence not only at the "flat" three-dimensional tip (think of two-dimensional analogy) where we exist, but simultaneously in more than one spacetime location. Therefore such a being would not need to travel in time, it would be in or span many places in time at once. Evolution doesn't look like it will ever get us there, and devices travelling at any speed couldn't get us there, because they are only trying to move from one location to another. What we need is a device that will enable us to be in more than one location simultaneously.*
Some experiments with photons and particles, e.g. sending them different ways through polarising filters and detecting where they end up, produce results indicating that a particle has gone both ways simultaneously. Also one half of a particle spins one way, the other the opposite way, no matter how far apart you separate them, when you change the spin on one of the particles the other changes too. This defies the theory of relativity, because it shows action / influence travelling faster than the speed of light, yet nothing can travel faster than the speed of light according to Relativity. But can something be in two places at once?
Next >>
Professor Kronk
*The Herald would like to offer a million pound prize for the first person to build such a device. Richard Branson would you please contact us to arrange sponsorship. I think I will call this the Padre Pio project. Ed
Did you know that space and time are really the same thing? To have space is to have time, and to have time is to have space. You can't have one without the other. Without space there is nowhere to have time, and without time there is no time to have space. We can't see timespace fully because we are functions of it. It is behind us, in a way that we can't turn around to see. We are part of a marbled edifice growing, not moving. We do not move from place to place, but grow from one place to another, but we can only see the surface, the growing tip, and not the marbled trails. We are not bodies but body-shaped tendrils trailing through the years.
It is not time travel that we need, in order to see the past, it's an additional sense. Whether it is possible to generate such an additional sense using only the ones we have to start with is a difficult question. A superior being would carry on its existence not only at the "flat" three-dimensional tip (think of two-dimensional analogy) where we exist, but simultaneously in more than one spacetime location. Therefore such a being would not need to travel in time, it would be in or span many places in time at once. Evolution doesn't look like it will ever get us there, and devices travelling at any speed couldn't get us there, because they are only trying to move from one location to another. What we need is a device that will enable us to be in more than one location simultaneously.*
Some experiments with photons and particles, e.g. sending them different ways through polarising filters and detecting where they end up, produce results indicating that a particle has gone both ways simultaneously. Also one half of a particle spins one way, the other the opposite way, no matter how far apart you separate them, when you change the spin on one of the particles the other changes too. This defies the theory of relativity, because it shows action / influence travelling faster than the speed of light, yet nothing can travel faster than the speed of light according to Relativity. But can something be in two places at once?
Next >>
Professor Kronk
*The Herald would like to offer a million pound prize for the first person to build such a device. Richard Branson would you please contact us to arrange sponsorship. I think I will call this the Padre Pio project. Ed
Postscript to "More non-US casualties needed"
What if a number of British soldiers are killed in the week before the US Presidential election, which is only two weeks away? It is possible that on the day before the election a Land Rover might be hit by an RPG somewhere in the American zone, for example (God forbid). Picture George Dubya Bush's cheesy salesmanship of this appalling event. Then imagine that the Democratic candidate loses the election, and the neo-Con wins. The Prime Minister's position would be untenable. It is already.
Constructive genocide
All the disingenuous chaos of the Knesset is just so much sleight-of-hand to distract the world's eye from systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Sharon: "Oh I'm so under pressure, I have to do these things. (Psst - shout louder!) Oh no, against my better judgement they're forcing me to build walls, raze olive groves and demolish houses. (Louder! Louder!) Listen to what I have to deal with... What's this, a rocket has been fired. Oh no, I have to demolish another 1,000 houses and kill 100 Palestinians, all against my will. This is terrible. (Don't forget to demolish their police stations, playgrounds and zoo too.) I bet they'll fire another rocket soon. (Have they fired one yet?)"
Zoz
Sharon: "Oh I'm so under pressure, I have to do these things. (Psst - shout louder!) Oh no, against my better judgement they're forcing me to build walls, raze olive groves and demolish houses. (Louder! Louder!) Listen to what I have to deal with... What's this, a rocket has been fired. Oh no, I have to demolish another 1,000 houses and kill 100 Palestinians, all against my will. This is terrible. (Don't forget to demolish their police stations, playgrounds and zoo too.) I bet they'll fire another rocket soon. (Have they fired one yet?)"
Zoz
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
"The boys will be home before Christmas"
"...the Black Watch will be home before Christmas" - Tony Blair, Prime Minister's Questions today.
Hurray! The Herald's campaign is taking effect. Everything is going to be fine. Hurray! Boys and girls of Willesden will return home safe and sound. None of them will be shot for Bush's re-election.
(But wait, Christmas is after that... Hmm, should we still worry? Oh well, at least some of them will be home before Christmas, one way or another. )
This is the good old spirit that millions gave their young lives for in the abattoir of the Somme. It's still with us. At the going down of the thingummy, and the coming up of the whatsit, we will tumpty tumpty thingamajig.
Hurray! The Herald's campaign is taking effect. Everything is going to be fine. Hurray! Boys and girls of Willesden will return home safe and sound. None of them will be shot for Bush's re-election.
(But wait, Christmas is after that... Hmm, should we still worry? Oh well, at least some of them will be home before Christmas, one way or another. )
This is the good old spirit that millions gave their young lives for in the abattoir of the Somme. It's still with us. At the going down of the thingummy, and the coming up of the whatsit, we will tumpty tumpty thingamajig.
The gombee's in the crombies
Dublin may trade roots of its history for a modern view: "an avenue of ancient trees lining Dublin's central boulevard, whose bullet holes and shell scars are a source of national pride, are facing the axe in what some call an act of official philistinism."
What need you, being come to sense
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the ha'pence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer until
You've chilled the marrow from the bone
...
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
(Yeats)
Zoz
What need you, being come to sense
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the ha'pence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer until
You've chilled the marrow from the bone
...
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
(Yeats)
Zoz
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Forget the Laughing Policeman
"Has Been"
"Common People" by William Shatner (featuring Joe Jackson) has to be the funniest record of all time, a brilliant, brilliant and strangely touching production. It has everything. I swear it's Shatner's masterpiece. If this isn't number 1 next week, eat your hats.*
*I've got it on iTunes. Ed
"Common People" by William Shatner (featuring Joe Jackson) has to be the funniest record of all time, a brilliant, brilliant and strangely touching production. It has everything. I swear it's Shatner's masterpiece. If this isn't number 1 next week, eat your hats.*
*I've got it on iTunes. Ed
It's time for a Pointless Gesture
"There are a lot of crossed fingers in Westminster" (Andrew Marr, BBC News at One)
What does that mean? People are to be sent to their deaths, and the government are "crossing their fingers"?
"Okay, 100 of you, you're sons are going to be shot. It's time for a Pointless Gesture. Got to be done. Sorry old chaps. Duty to allies. Ours not to reason why and all that rot."
Zoz
What does that mean? People are to be sent to their deaths, and the government are "crossing their fingers"?
"Okay, 100 of you, you're sons are going to be shot. It's time for a Pointless Gesture. Got to be done. Sorry old chaps. Duty to allies. Ours not to reason why and all that rot."
Zoz
Base Details
IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,
’I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)
Counter-Attack and Other Poems. 1918.
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,
’I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)
Counter-Attack and Other Poems. 1918.
More non-US casualties needed?
MPs must have a vote (Guardian)
90% bad, 80% good.
Bush's answer to Kerry's criticisms: increase British casualties. Bush wants reports of British soldiers being killed in the run-up to polling day, so he can turn around and accuse Kerry of "demeaning the allies" and exaggerating the isolation of the US position.
We've had more hoons today about weighing up the advice. It's all crap - they've decided already. The man whose name is synonymous with lies, Geoff Hoon, was stupid enough to give the game away in an answer in parliament, when he said it was Britain's duty as an ally to agree to the US request for secondment of troops to their command.
He's been caught out telling hoons again. Either he is so stupid he doesn't know that most people can see through him, or he is reckless, inconsiderate and bloody-minded, happy to survive on the gullibility of a constituency of idiots. Or is he just completely and numbly incompetent? When answering difficult questions, he has the look of a cow watching a train go by.
How the hell do these people in government sleep at night?
90% bad, 80% good.
Bush's answer to Kerry's criticisms: increase British casualties. Bush wants reports of British soldiers being killed in the run-up to polling day, so he can turn around and accuse Kerry of "demeaning the allies" and exaggerating the isolation of the US position.
We've had more hoons today about weighing up the advice. It's all crap - they've decided already. The man whose name is synonymous with lies, Geoff Hoon, was stupid enough to give the game away in an answer in parliament, when he said it was Britain's duty as an ally to agree to the US request for secondment of troops to their command.
He's been caught out telling hoons again. Either he is so stupid he doesn't know that most people can see through him, or he is reckless, inconsiderate and bloody-minded, happy to survive on the gullibility of a constituency of idiots. Or is he just completely and numbly incompetent? When answering difficult questions, he has the look of a cow watching a train go by.
How the hell do these people in government sleep at night?
Hoon, Blair - they love playing war with the soldiers
They are not proper men, they're like half-popped corn - boymen, but the nightmare is that we have given them control over us. These half-men are conspiring with zombie hordes of their ilk in parliament and the media to play war with real soldiers. Peter Snow will be stomping around in his computer generated battlefield with his toy tanks. The fierce, bald, short of breath ex-major generals will be wheeled on to add colour to the fantasy. But when all these unpeople shout their playground orders, real men, women and children are blown to bits. This would never happen under Charles Kennedy, would it? It wouldn't, it just wouldn't. That's why I'm voting Liberal Democrat. I've always been a liberal at heart.
Zoz
Zoz
Monday, October 18, 2004
More hoons from the quislings
Refusal of US troop request would be a failure
"There will be no penalty, but we will have failed in our duty as an ally and as a country"
This is the latest hoon from the government, which is trying for a Guinness Book of World Records entry for "Most Tangled Web Woven after First Practicing to Deceive". When will they stop telling hoons, and admit that they are blairholes?
Zoz
"There will be no penalty, but we will have failed in our duty as an ally and as a country"
This is the latest hoon from the government, which is trying for a Guinness Book of World Records entry for "Most Tangled Web Woven after First Practicing to Deceive". When will they stop telling hoons, and admit that they are blairholes?
Zoz
Bush's hotline to God is faulty
Rhetorical Device Fact Checking: "Bush claimed in the debate last night that 'God loves freedom,' but this turns out not to be the case. We have examined God's record on freedom, wherein we have found the following disturbing statements..." (via Brokentype)
Zoz
Zoz
What goes around, comes around
Police raze war veterans' farms as fresh land evictions rock Zimbabwe: "No official explanation was given for the evictions, but the suspicion was that senior figures in the ruling Zanu-PF party wanted to claim the farms, which had names such as Little England, for themselves."
Zoz
Zoz
"When we came back they had destroyed all the houses"
Guardian Unlimited Special reports: "The Israeli general who commanded the destruction of the only Jewish settlement in the Sinai before it was returned to Egypt recently offered Ariel Sharon advice on how to carry out his pledge to remove settlers from the Gaza strip. 'Evicting someone from the home they've lived in for 20 years isn't a simple matter,' wrote Brigadier General Obed Tira. 'To remove a family from its home is embarrassing and difficult, and that is why the removal needs to be done with a lot of love and a lot of wisdom.'"
A lot of love and wisdom goes into demolishing people's houses. Did you know that? Takes your breath away, the kindness. I'm all choked-up.
Zoz
A lot of love and wisdom goes into demolishing people's houses. Did you know that? Takes your breath away, the kindness. I'm all choked-up.
Zoz
US Republicans are rabidly anti-English
Guardian Unlimited US elections 2004 Reaction from the US to the Guardian's Clark County project: "If you want to have a meaningful election in your crappy little island full of shitty food and yellow teeth, then maybe you should try not to sell your sovereignty out to Brussels and Berlin, dipshit. Oh, yeah - and brush your goddamned teeth, you filthy animals. "
Why should Willesden boys and girls give their lives to support people who hate them? The New Labour government, with the support of the Conservatives, has turned Britain into America's whore, abused and treated with contempt.*
*I wouldn't treat a working girl like that, no matter if her name was Britannia, Hibernia, Caledonia, Mesopotamia or Lily French. Ed
Why should Willesden boys and girls give their lives to support people who hate them? The New Labour government, with the support of the Conservatives, has turned Britain into America's whore, abused and treated with contempt.*
*I wouldn't treat a working girl like that, no matter if her name was Britannia, Hibernia, Caledonia, Mesopotamia or Lily French. Ed
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Golf / mathematics of putting / topology of greens
Golfers fondly imagine that every putt can be holed if they apply the correct force and direction to the golf ball, but is this really the case? Given greens with more than one slope, even with perfect smoothness, would it always be possible to make a successful putt? This is an interesting problem for applied mathematics, which could have commercial applications; if golfers knew that a certain putt was impossible to hole, they would adjust their tactics accordingly.
In practice, long putts are often treated as highly unlikely to go into the hole. Golfers realise that the force needed to hole the putt would result in the ball going too far past the hole if it missed. In effect they are worrying about their ability to "hit the target" from a long way off. Tiny variations in direction and proclivity of slopes on the way combine to make the targetting very difficult. But do they make it impossible?
I couldn't find an answer on Google, so this could be a good thesis for somebody. There, it's no longer a googlewhacker.
Updated 22/6/2017:
I'm thinking about a device that could scan a green from the position of the ball and calculate the best shot. I think I've mentioned this before. It could go in the shaft of a putter; might be disallowed, but okay for training. It's a kind of "Dragons' Den" idea, really. [Ed.]
In practice, long putts are often treated as highly unlikely to go into the hole. Golfers realise that the force needed to hole the putt would result in the ball going too far past the hole if it missed. In effect they are worrying about their ability to "hit the target" from a long way off. Tiny variations in direction and proclivity of slopes on the way combine to make the targetting very difficult. But do they make it impossible?
I couldn't find an answer on Google, so this could be a good thesis for somebody. There, it's no longer a googlewhacker.
Updated 22/6/2017:
I'm thinking about a device that could scan a green from the position of the ball and calculate the best shot. I think I've mentioned this before. It could go in the shaft of a putter; might be disallowed, but okay for training. It's a kind of "Dragons' Den" idea, really. [Ed.]
Conspiring with a foreign power (again)
Reuters LONDON: "Prime Minister Tony Blair has secretly agreed to allow Washington to station U.S. missiles on British soil as part of President George W. Bush's missile defence programme, [according to] the Independent on Sunday "
Zoz
Zoz
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