Jumping Ship

There's an interesting discussion in the Pacific Press about the dire state of NS over the past 2.5 years. This is an extract of a mini-essay you can find in my memoirs: The Redundancy of the NationStates Game (February 2005):

I think it was last Tuesday - NS was down again whilst they implemented new code. What struck me was that it really made no difference - the government ran along nicely even though we couldn't actually see our region or our nations.
If NS was terminated tomorrow, would it make a difference?

No, it wouldn't make a difference. The communities that were established because of NS, do not require NS to continue. A lot of long-time NS players are now playing Particracy aswell, and some have even completely jumped ship - and the communities have also moved. Take The Proletariat Coalition for example, my mini-essay described why a group of political similar individuals was about more than just playing NS - think of it as an internet-based subculture pressure group. A dozen or so TPCers, including myself, are now also playing Particracy and I've founded an "party organisation", named The Proletariat Coalition.

The real TPC community is based on its forum, like all other developed NS regions. There's nothing to prevent it branching into Particracy or any other political games. That's where I see the future for NS communities - unless NS2 is ever so spectacular, that we can't afford to concentrate on anything else.

[253]

THINK! SIT! PRAY!

This brings up horrible memories of primary school, singing propaganda songs about the birth-of-some-child-that-half-the-world-did-not-believe-was-the-messiah-but-you-damn-well-better-take-that-back-because-we-have-loads-of-evidence-in-our-heart shit.

Top Of The Pish

Usually I put up with Top of the Pops on this one day of the year, but this year The Simpsons were back to back for about 12 hours over Channel 4 and Sky Onc so there was a reason to ignore it more than ever.

Apparently (damn my straying eyes on the BBC News page) "Westlife" are 'number 1' again (as if that's a sign of popularity). On Tuesday I was in my local record store (they're independent AND they have vinyls :D) and noticed two singles displayed at the counter - "Westlife" and that JCB song by Nizboli* or something like that (Nothing to do with the Russian Nazbols [Nationalist Bolsheviks - ie, Nazis] or is it?).

I'd say the "popularity" of "Westlife" was more to do with its £1.99 price, compared to the other singles at £2.99. As I said, obviously more popular because it's good music - in the way that 'The Sun' (I don't fucking love it) is a good newspaper because it's 10p -_-

And you phillistines still didn't buy Dazzle Ships! Nor did you buy the greatest piece of sonic art this year - Franz Ferdinand's 'Walk Away' - Number fucking 13?

[203]

Hey, I'm Picasso

Pour moi's birthday, I got the remastered version of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's third album from 1981, Architecture & Morality - because my Dad doesn't have that one on vinyl and I'm on the verge of wearing out his library (apart from the Bowie albums, spared by my relentless downloading).

Anyway, I'm getting into the few bits I've heard of their 1983 album Dazzle Ships. If you've heard anything they made after 1984 (thanks to If You Leave which they wrote for the film Pretty in Pink), you'll not realise how un-avant things went.

Fade to Grey

I've just noticed the backlit display on my mini Hi-Fi, which I got for my 11th birthday (12/12/97), has given up after 8 years and 7 days of use. Back in September the tape deck gave up, which means no more listening to that Metallica tape my friend put together back in late-98.

I'd salute Matsui if it was actually Japanese, so instead I'll just give it some quiet recognition. Strangely, my brother got a PlayStation (made in Japan) for his 7th birthday (15/11/97) and it completely failed just before I got a PS2 for my 15th (which started experiencing constant disc errors this Summer).

If I look on the bright side (wait for the irony), it means my room won't be so bright when I leave it on at night. Indeed, in the second half of it's life, since I abandoned TV as my main source of entertainment (about the same time I began dallying with Radio 2) it's barely been off.

This is a sad reflection on what constitutes an important event to me...
Anyway, you're probably wondering what's in the CD player right now (and has been for the past week).

[208]

Descent into Madness

With the US imprisoning people indefinitely, invading a country on falsified evidence, killing imprisoned Iraqis, shooting citizens of New Orleans, flying anyone Middle-Eastern to Romania to be tortured, and now beating to death US nationals in prison; The Axis of Evil now surely includes America, does it not?

For Fuck's Sake

BBC:

There are no records that the US has asked the UK government for permission to use its airports to move CIA suspects, Jack Straw has said.

Really? Why would the US not log these flights with the UK? Obviously because it's a Data Protection issue for the passengers. How thick does the government think people are?

Since when do you quite cheerily ask permission to jet people through UK airspace, to be tortured in various European destinations? Of course it was never going to be fucking recorded.

This is the saddest attempt by the government to get an issue to drop. No-one is going to let this go.

Education and Conflict

When people like McIndoe said that my activities and the GA-Slag were creating conflict and polarisation in the school, they were patently wrong. I did not create this conflict, I was not the cause, I was a symptom of the perpetual disharmony between authority and the authorised.

Turn The Fucking Thing Off

I'm tragically aware of C4's new "reality" TV series only due to The Simpsons and C4 News.

If you didn't know, and how I envy you, some people have signed up to go into space - except, they're not and it's an elaborate trick by the arseholes who took a creative shit and dumped 'Big Brother' on the world - oh, how the masses celebrate our new Orwellian future.

These people are obviously very naïve or they would have figured out the obvious lack of attention to reality paid by this new "reality" series. Therein lies the programme's shameless lack of ethics - these people were selected for their gullibility, and are therefore psychologically unfit for an eventual humiliation on TV - at least 'Big Brother' picked the psychologically strong for media exposure.

I can only hope that with the conclusion of this drivel, one of the contestants sues C4 and associates. Better yet, I hope one of them committees suicide under the strain of the media spotlight. Maybe then I'll tune in to see the legal proceedings against this morally-bankrupt, drivel-peddling industry. That's entertainment!

[192]

Suicide Bonkers

How does a suicide bomber usually act? They usually act inconspicuous.
When does a suicide bomber strike? When potential casualties are numerous.
What sort of triggers do suicide bombers use? The type that explode WHEN YOU LET GO

I have yet to hear of a suicide bomber drawing attention to himself by loudly declaring he has a bomb, having a bomb that requires reaching into his bag to set off, and doing so when the plane had long landed.

In a statement, American Airlines described the shooting as an "isolated incident", adding that none of the other passengers were affected or were ever in danger.

Hey, if you shoot enough people, you're bound to catch a terrorist at some point in time. Those damn Chinese make it difficult by having all those children and raising the world population.

[139]

Patience

Almost there...

Another Obsessive Post Involving Bismarck

Bismarck > Kulturkampf > Pope > List of sexually active popes > mother-in-law > Stereotype > Are You Being Served? > PBS > Barney & Friends > Dinosaur > Springbok > Africa > 3rd Millenium BC > Domestication of the horse > Trojan Horse > Dardanelles > Golden Horn > Venetia > 1866 > Bismarck

Someone help me...

A Voyage Through Wikipedia

An bout of insomnia (from 0230-0430 last night) led me to come up with the following:

Bismarck > Alsace-Lorraine > World War I > Treaty of Brest-Litovsk > Leon Trotsky > Mexico > Zapatista > Subcommandante Marcos > Rage Against the Machine > Evil Empire (album) > Evil Empire > Détente > Sino-Soviet Split > Nixon > Realpolitik > Bismarck

How disconcerting. There was something else I wanted to jott down last night that I thought was rather more important... Why did I remember this?

He Had No Choice

BBC article:

So why is Britain - the world's fourth largest economy, a nuclear pioneer, blessed with wind, wave and tidal potential beyond the normal lot of nations, a once mighty coal producer, provider of innovators to the world, and with a generation's worth of North Sea booty to invest - facing an enormous shortfall in electricity provision while others are not?

Three years ago the government commissioned a report on the impending energy crisis, and the report recommended heavily investing in renewable sources... and now we find ourselves on the cusp of constructing a few more will-end-up-as-radioactive-concrete-monoliths.

Tuesday Walkabout

Urgh, I left the college too early and realised all the little uncivilised pricks from the school were out for lunch. So I went for a little diversionary walk for 15 minutes until they all fucked off and I could get into the local tobacconist's hassle-free:

The college circled in blue, the shop in green.

What New Hell is This?

Well, after finishing [some of] those college essays, my prediction that another batch would come along has been proven sadly correct. Plus, I failed Psychology A... not that I care.

So you can expect that odd post at 4AM when I've completed some to-hand-in-the-next-day essays. Failing that, wait till Winterfest when the workload will [not] disappear.

What was I going to write about, again?

This is not the usual standard of posts I make, but Bowie's Berlin trilogy's made me go all minimalist... Expect a raft of proper 1000+ word essays to appear on Dardanelles next week.

What Didn't Make The Blog [September-November]

19/11

One step closer to Ben Elton's Popcorn?
---------------------
28/10

Why does Israel think it has the right to condemn Iran, when it should have been expelled by the Security Council long ago for providing Apartheid South Africa with nuclear materials and building its own illegal weapons, on top of annexing Palestinian land?
---------------------
19/10

I think the Greens need to recognise, as Marxists do, that [environmental] change cannot come through a political process dedicated to preserving the businesses that fund the parties.
---------------------
19/09

I await the fictionalised account of Harry's career in, Harrybo: First Blood

A Man's A Man If You Strip Away the Legend

To declare that I live in Scotland when on holiday or speaking to someone over the borderless internet, generally inspires truly cringeworthy stereotypes in that person's mind.

This need to distinguish ourselves from England went OTT long ago - resulting in the awful Burns Night. Apart from the fact I've never been able to coherently read half of his poetry, he's always appeared to me to be some two-dimensional character designed solely to prop up the notion of Scottishness.

When I was in my last year of Primary school, I was the person bringing the haggis in, and the narrator for the play Tam O'Shanter after the meal. I noticed two things: 1) I'm carrying some ground up meat, why are we standing when it enters the room and addressing a speech to it? 2) No-one listening to this play (including myself) has any idea what the play is about beyond the literal.

I'm the embodiment that you can be a nationalist (and like McDairmid, also a communist) without the ridiculous ceremonies, most of which were invented by the English only 200 years ago.

Anyway, I stumbled onto the Burns page at Wikipedia whilst following various links as I do at 2AM. It would seem the same forces that invented the "traditions" also neutered Burns, the revolutionary republican, into a twice-a-year romantic devolutionist.

So dump your incorrect notions of Burns and start thinking about what he had to say.

[248]

Instantly, Utterly, Not Relevant?

It's that time of year again, when I don't buy a poppy. I already know how crap war is without having to engage in the mass-empathy of 'we'll never forget those who died' that's only one step removed from the disgustingly-American hysteria following the death of the People's Pricess (sic).

But apart from the above; is WWI, with its number of veterans approaching 0, relevant to what war is like today? The four years of that war clocked approximately 4.5 million military casualites (most reliable, since these are also the best recorded). The approaching 3 years of the Iraq War and Occupation has killed 2085 (1).

"War" has come a long way in the 91 years since the beginning of WWI. Now, it does not necessarily entail megadeath - it's a much more detached form of conflict, no more hesitating to shoot because you can't actually see who you're killing anymore.

I propose we replace the poppy with a patch of sandpaper - symbolising the new style of war débuted in the Second Gulf War.

[185]

Out of Touch

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005/11/sun-says.html

Am I supposed to take this frontpage (never mind the "newspaper") seriously? (Note the top-right corner)

If I'm out of touch for not supporting the slippery slope, so fucking be it. I refuse to associate with this sort of lazy, biased and dangerous "journalism".

African Night Flight

You might actually see some of the posts I promised two weeks from now. The first bloc of my course finishes next Friday, followed by a week in which to remediate any problems with the outcomes.

Let me share some of the highlights for this week:
Tuesday 8PM - Wednesday 3AM: Writing a 1000 word essay on German Unification
Wednesday 8PM - Thursday 4AM: Writing a 2000 word essay on Sociological Perspectives on Education
Tonight: ~8PM - 3AM: I will be writing a 1000 word essay on Memory for Psychology (with the added bonus that it was for last Friday)

I have a number of demands, namely; don't give me all the essays at once, slow the Earth's rate of spin to 1 in 30 hours (15 hours of sleep, 15 awake), genetically engineer me to function without sleep, increase the neural impulse speed between my mind and my hands when typing, and when I do succumb to sleep, pause the time - it's going to waste.

Just waiting for the soothing weekend to get some sleep...

Getting Older

Just listening to The Clash's 'Remote Control' brings back memories of tieless, aviator, black jacket, suspension-seeking, underground anti-school writing, last-time I saw my long-time fancied, when I was 17, free period, indoor-wall political grafitti, days of the last year of secondary school - even if I did hate it.

An extract from my Holiday Diary, Written in Albufeira, Portugal - 20/07/05

Another Article Backlog

Once again, college hogs all my time. For the next week or two I'll be churning out essay after essay about Bismarck, Education, Marx/Lenin, and Memory.

The current backlog of lengthy draft posts include: McDonalds/Coca-Cola - Food and Revolution, The SQA is Out to Get Me, and Part Two of Property, Theft and Thoughts Thereof.

Of course, the minute I finish my college essays another batch will come along. My Alternate History project has already been pushed back to the Winter Solstice (and will probably be pushed back to April or next Summer). I'll be publishing my Marxism-Leninism essay from Politics on Dardanelles along with the rest of them whenever I have a moment to upload them.

At least I blog more than Para :P

EDIT - Updated backlog list
[134]

DEstroyer of CiviliSationS

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Made In China

Well, the Chinese have been to space again. This is a bit late because I could only write-up a short draft on the 14th.

Although they agreed to join forces with the Russians in the 1990s in developing the International Space Station, the Americans, Mr Clark [of the British-based Molniya Space Consultancy] said, still see China as a rival, not an ally. "It's not space as such that's the problem... it's what's the Americans see as technology transfer," he said.
"They don't want the Chinese to have access to American technology, because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that any technology that the Chinese get access to will immediately be applied to the Chinese weapons programme."

Not that the Americans have ever had a problem with using other nation's technology. Nor are they averse to the flood of cheap Chinese-made crap that keeps America's malls full. On the other hand...

"The Americans specified that no American-built component on any satellite anywhere in the world may fly on a Chinese rocket," Mr Harvey explained.

Anyway, we need to get back to Luna to cover-up Nixon's signature.

Also on Shenzhou VI:
An orbital manoeuvre is a sure sign of something wrong! A good example of people writing above their level. Does this qualify as news? Perhaps if atmospheric drag and the Sun, the Moon and Jupiter didn't previously exist. And I wish they'd use a bloody different illustration of Shenzhou's design - that picture of the model is ancient.

[261]

Opportunists Should Understand Concepts Like 'Forwards' and 'Backwards'

I've got a backlog of draft posts on various topics that have irritated or interested me over the past week or so. This is one of them; imagine I'm a heckler, these are my responses:

Introspection

My 11 month old cat, Leila, is dead - runover like the Squirrel. I am not happy. I was originally going to write today about whether everyone is [mildly] bi-polar, rather than just the mentally ill. Instead, I'm expanding on it to include some new thoughts on the subject.

Freud theorised that the human mind is split into three parts: Id, Ego and SuperEgo.

Essentially, the Id is instinct and unable to comprehend logic or reason. The SuperEgo is morality gone awry, and the Ego attempts to regulate both in order to fit into society.

Taking this partition theory of the mind, I've also drawn from Gene Roddenberry's commentary on humanity - Star Trek.

[Heavily edited for privacy]

Vulcans (the evolution of their culture can be viewed as a victory of SuperEgo over the Id) and Klingons (vice versa).

In between these two is Humanity. I could also bring in thesis, antithesis, and synthesis for even-greater analogy. Suffice to say, humanity is a mixture of the two extremes of instinctual aggression and evolved logic. Our personalities derive from this conflict.

EuroSoviets has been investigating culture in NS over at SD, and Black Adder said:

Being a Mason is supposed to be 24/7. Game or not it is part of what we are so it translates out into how we react. Masonry isn't an ideology so much like Socialism or Libertarianism, its a moral credo.

I disagree and say that ideology also something that is part of people 24/7. Christians ask "What would Jesus do?" and Marxists try and understand society through the history of humanity.
If NEDs go on a rampage, I - as a Marxist - don't say it's because there isn't enough investment in the community. I say it's because society is rotting under the pursuit of money, clamouring over each-others' malnourished bodies. My worldview is also in conflict.

My comments on society above are humanist - the side that still has "faith" in humanity, and believes that NEDs can be changed and that false-consciousness can fall away for them. Then there's my misanthropist side. Last Friday I was talking to a fellow student about how humans were 'a disgusting virus intent on the destruction of this planet and everything on it'.

It's confusing how I can have two opinions of my own comments... The humanist says my comments are only true of certain individuals in society - eg, that only the capitalists are destroying the rainforest. The misanthropist says my comments are entirely accurate and the faster we destroy ourselves the better it will be for the rest of the species on this planet. The misanthropist has also declared an interest in the sterilisation of NEDs. I believe this is also the side that found Nazism fascinating as a Tweenager - only with my discovery of Lenin at the age of 13 did that end.

This is probably a very difficult article to read, and in all likelihood I've written it just to straighten-out my mind and thoughts to try and understand them. The only resolution available right now, is to refer to humanity in the third person. Must get around to that emotion-suppression experiment...

Leila: nth November 2004 - 15th October 2005

[547]

Property, Theft, and Thoughts Thereof (Part One)

Theft is defined by Wikipedia as follows:

Theft (also known as stealing) is in general, the wrongful taking of someone else's property without that person's willful consent.

File-Sharing cannot be theft, because the file is not taken away from anyone - it is only replicated. Of course, it's done without the consent of the record labels - though file-sharers themselves do consent by their very actions. Therefore, it is not theft.

The Ripple Pool

If Record Labels can copyright sound waves, presumably I can go swimming and copyright the unique waves I make?

Why are people paying £0.99 for music over iTunes? 90% of that goes straight to the record label and you think legal downloads can't get any cheaper?
What is the defining characteristic of a legal download? There's no huge warehouse of MP3s as there is for physical products - just a server and a file - Yet it costs 99p.

When legally downloading, you get a copy of the file from the server, but you're restricted in what you can do with it.
When illegally downloading, you get a copy of the file from another computer, and you can do what you want with it.

I don't think 99p is required to cover the costs of production. Do I charge myself £0.99 when I backup my computer? Do I install Digital Rights Management to limit myself to only three backups? I just copy the files - I don't need a factory to do it. Look at Daniel Beddingfield. He recorded his entire debut album at home on his computer - yet the record label made a fortune from him.

Owning a CR-RW drive is equivalent to owning the means of production of entertainment.
The only thing standing in the way of communal ownership of the internet are the ISPs.

[232]

I Smell A Methoxymethane Soaked Rat

How does Wikipedia define advertising?

In general, advertising is used to convey availability of a "product" (which can be a physical product, a service, or an idea) and to provide information regarding the product

Thus, M*Donald's, for example, will perpetually tell you that their cheap crap is now even cheaper and that you can go down to your local M*Donald's to "eat" it (and that you are apparently "lovin' it", in yoof speak).

So let's get to the point: What's the fucking point in perfume adverts? It doesn't pass the above test. Yes, it tells you the leftovers of fractional distillation are available for you to cover yourself in. However, I have yet to see an perfume advert 'tell' me (maybe I can't hear them) exactly what function perfume performs. It's all just 10 second art-pish - stupid angles, climaxing music, semi-clad models/advertising whores.

And you know why they can't say anything? Because the only justification they could ever give for their product is that 'it makes you more attractive to the opposite sex'... and they can't say that due to advertising regulations (nevermind the fact that it is unproven). That's all it's about - sex. No hope yet for your species.

[216]

Come and Talk to G*d on the Party Line

I can think of nothing more dangerous than this: Let me split it into two issues...

1)

"Mr Bush launched an impassioned attack yesterday in Washington on Islamic militants, likening their ideology to that of Communism, and accusing them of seeking to "enslave whole nations"
The Independent

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That is the most misleading and contradictory thing ever uttered by anyone in the history of the spoken word. Aside from Afghanistan during 1979-1989 where the two "evils" allied to destroy America's world-renowned tolerance and secular-humanism, compare the following:

"[5.] A classless, stateless, society in which its members have free access to all resources."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Communism

and

"Islamic fascism [is] a totalitarian mind-set, a hatred of the West, fanatical extremism, repression of women, loathing of Jews, a firm belief in conspiracy theories, and dreams of global hegemony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism#Concepts_and_terms

The two are quite obviously in league.

If you wish to raise yourself above the level of the Monkey President, it is critical you understand that totalitarianism is the correct parallel of Islamic Militancy/Fundamentalism/Fascism. Whatever negative understandings you have of the word 'communism' are wrong and, importantly, unsubstantiated - Again, the word you are looking for is 'totalitarianism'.

2)

"I feel God's words coming to me: 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.'"
George Bush

Truly the words of the the almighty. Compare:

"Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you"
Exodus 3:14 (King James Version)

I remember being in primary school and being taught not to repeatedly say 'and' and 'get' in a sentence. I'm amazed there's actually a comma.

Rather than say he was: told by the CIA that there were WMDs/a 'freedom-doer' who had to free the Iraqis from tyranny (circle as appropriate for the time of day), he is now insisting he is carrying out divine will. At least with the intelligence reports, someone can be found accountable. At least with the belief in "freeing" the oppressed, his ideology can be found accountable.

By claiming divine inspiration, no-one can be found accountable. If I claim the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster told me to kill college lecturers in order to free classmates from the oppressive workload, I'm pretty sure I'd be in an institution.

"If G*d did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"
Voltaire

Similarly, if one does not have a decent excuse, you can always invent someone to 'blame' (or credit in this case). Of course, the desire to free people via killing them is not inconsistent with "his" "observed" behaviour (not to mention a number of "his" followers): drowning everyone for stuff other people did, having Beelzebub torment a farmer, inciting terrorism against the Romans (especially the evil-doers at The Judean People's Front and its sister organisations - They were responsible for the Dark Ages! Do you know how long it took to rediscover concrete?).

Where this leads is unaccountability - as if we weren't already heading in that direction.

[537]

Copy and Paste Threatens Our Way of Life

Originally, Pirates were sea-going persons who stole other people's merchandise and sold it (or for some reason, buried it, allowing someone else to get it via an elaborate story).

Today, the only people who can accurately be described as pirates are those in certain street markets selling dodgy videos and CD-Rs. Those internet users who upload music are not making a profit - remember that it is only the capitalists (eg, major music labels) who would use the internet to make money.

The corporations talk of [internet] piracy as the reason prices must rise. Firstly, the internet drives prices down (to the maximum of free). Secondly, prices will stay high for as long as that product is scarce. Digital media has made scarcity unthinkable; thus, through taking downloaders to court and raiding pirate server locations ; artificial scarcity is enforced. Imposing restrictions on legally downloaded music has the same effect.

An extract from my Holiday Diary, Written in Albufeira, Portugal - 22/07/05
[164]

Surfing the High-Seas

You can tell life's become absurd when software predominantly used to break copyright, is itself copyrighted - In particular I refer to KaZaA (not that I'm using it... *cough*).

Kazaa's owners, Sharman Networks, had the ad-stripped Kazaa-Lite banned. They should know that if Kazaa-Lite is on "the network", they have no way of driving it into the ground (the ultimate irony). Even if file-sharing technology was banned, which looks increasingly possible but probably ineffective for the above reasons, there is still always the old-school way... disk-based shareware/freeware.

I remember the final few years of share/freeware; Test Drive II, Crystal Caves, Wolf 3D, Commander Keen; from my pre-10yo forays into Personal Computing. They just don't make DOS like they used to - to the extent that Win doesn't have real DOS anymore. Once the disk is out-there and endlessly-copied, you have a low-tech file-sharing network. Of course, this is comparing cup & string to e-mail.

Regardless, you can't stop people copying copyrighted material - we're not in the age of the first printing-press, we're in the age where everyone has the capability to publish and distribute. It's just that copyright is a relic of that age.

[215]

I'm Sorry, I Thought I Heard A Politician Speaking Sense

Jack McConnell, someone who has never really looked like a First Minister of anything, has gone insane and spoken sense:

Until there's a solution to the problem of nuclear waste, I don't believe that we should be involved in further generation of nuclear power.

In fact, one could almost say he sounded like he was in touch with the public... except, the SNP believe this is an example of Holyrood taking orders from Downing Street - how exactly? Labour are pro-Nuclear, amongst other things.

Richard Lochhead, Scottish National Party energy spokesman, says:

The first minister should rule out new nuclear power stations once and for all and throw his weight behind turning Scotland into a renewable powerhouse instead of a nuclear danger zone.

Yes! Go the whole fucking hog! Can someone tell me why we're still reliant on non-renewable energy sources? Could it be: lack of political will, corporate manipulation and the rest of the crap that defines our 'democracy'? (Those are also reasons why we haven't been to the Moon since 1972 - it's not like its far)

I find myself gravitating towards the SNP. My SSP vote was wasted whatever way you look at it (their share went down in May, they're in a mess since they booted Tommy from the throne, by definition Marxists should know they can't change the system through the system) and the SNP went up here (here being a safe-labour seat).

[246]

Evolution For Your Eyes

Walking home from college for lunch, I saw a squirrel run across the road in exactly the same spot as the one I discovered dead yesterday. I thought this was coincidental until I saw the squirrel briefly pause beside that of the utterly flattened one.

It's as if the run-over squirrel stood in the way of the forces of economics and was deliberately flattened... almost as if drivers have some sort of grudge against it, its body is still sprawled over the tarmac - seeing something that used to be alive that flat seems unnatural and disturbing. Perhaps those bloody humans have annoyingly socialised me, but leaving a dead body where it died seems somehow disrespectful to the squirrel - even if it is "only" a squirrel.

We Won't Be Needing Those Lenin Statues Anymore

Friday is like a coin. On one side there's an image... and on the other a picture of The Queen. Psychology and Liz have something in common - I don't like them (and Psychology claiming to be a science makes me laugh). I look forward to the afternoon, though, because I have John teaching Politics.

Crushed by the Wheels of Mechanisation

I noticed at lunch whilst going back to college that there was something run-over on the road. Not a pleasant sight. Some morbid fascination made me stop to look at it up-close on the way home.

What I had initially thought was a seagull (somewhat notorious for exploding, supposedly from eating tipex chips), then a rather large rat, turned out to be a grey squirrel, quite common around this area with a surprising amount of other wildlife in the early morning.

The flies were scurrying all over it - which might explain why there were so many wasps around earlier. What you really notice when you get close to the squirrel's furry little body, is how red flesh is. From the way it had been squashed it was stuck between lying on its back, with limbs fanning out, and lying on its left-hand side. If you think the sight of a squirrel's mouth opened and spilling its brains out is disgusting, you really do not want to see how its bloody spine snapped and pierced the skin between the shoulder blades at an angle, jutting out by around 3cm.

I suppose it's a damn sight better than being one of 100 cats to have died in a fecal-carpeted house and have been stuffed between the walls and under the floor.

[226]

Wireless

Oh, dear. I have a backlog of rants to post now that my wireless broadband is finally working.

I hope to get my point-by-point assasination of laymen's criticisms of Marxism up by the weekend and responses to anything I hear politicians say on the Jeremy Vine show.

Anyway, I should probably add some prose to my 1000 word essay which currently consists of bullet points (it was due for Friday - I thought it was an in-class assessment! :@)

The Hollow Men

Oh, the tragedy of having to bear the local TV news...

Jack McConnel is mingling with the unwashed and some politicians are making speeches in the Scottish Parliament. None of it happens to CHANGE anything.

I also happened to be listening to John Reid (Defence Minister) on Jeremy Vine's lunchtime show on Radio 2. It concerned this, and for all Reid rebutted the arguments that the occupation forces have no Plan B, he never actually said anything.

My college class has been studying Marxism in Politics, and we seen how change can only come through the economic base - the media, education, law, parliament - all the superstructure is controlled by the bourgeoisie. Whether voting for the vaguely leftist Labour Party or the SWP or SSP - neither can evoke change like owning the modes of production ourselves.

It reminds me of a daydream I had some time ago in sixth year English, in which I imagined the workers of IBM had taken control of the factory and were running it themselves (since another round of layoffs had occurred at the time). My only stumbling point was wondering why they hadn't done so already. They want to keep their jobs, but the union does not fight. The unions are complicit.

I don't even hear the politicians anymore, just as I don't notice the hum of the mains supply.

[229]

Mad Harry: The Road Warrior

I'm glad our Royal overlords are having a great time. I don't know about everyone else, but I love to get my motorbike out and blast across the family farm. Oh no, wait - I live in an urban hellhole.

Obviously you can tell how utterly happy I am that funds, used to sustain Harry's down to earth life are not being used, say, to cure cancer or something equally untabloid.

Harry is seen wearing red, white and black biker gloves, a grey T-shirt and wristbands, and with strategically-placed dirt on his forehead and chin - put there by one of Testino's assistants.

"We had this idea - instead of making sort of fake photos - for me to be who I am," the prince said.

To be who you are? The strategic dirt prince? I prefered it when he was wearing a Afrika Freikorps uniform, so much more entertaining.

Respect

Kids today are always banging on about how you have to earn their respect. Well I agree, but maybe the contingent of wee pricks that insist on dropping their litter all over the street ought to start giving the environment some fucking respect.

The environment cannot earn your respect. Your respect is prerequisite to the continued function of our environment. Fail to respect it and you will see the consequences, wether they be natural or artificial.

Daft/Draft

An hour and a half writing a 1000 word Psychology essay. I'm only at ~250 and I'm bored to death. Hopefully the fact that I did a draft at all will appease the Ann, my Psych lecturer.

For all that I prefer the sciences precisely because they avoid all the random disorganised philosophising, Psychology, having prided itself on using the scientific method, still seems utterly factionalised into a myriad of groups all with proof of Theory X that can't be proven.

Is is not inevitable that applying the scientific method to something as FUBAR as the human mind, in all it's random flashes of thought, won't work? It's like trying to find a pattern in a truly random system. This is another thing about the human mind.

We have a greater capacity for finding patterns than we do in finding statistical probabilities. 'Whoah! One of my lottery numbers came up! I'll put more money on next time!' No, you idiot (that's why it's called the Idiot Tax), it does not mean that number, nor anything else you believe you have worked-out, will reappear that next time, nor will any of the numbers you can think of will appear exactly as expected in the lifetime of the universe. Am I communicating my point here? Earth being pulled out of orbit by a Near Earth Asteroid is more likely (statistically, I'm not exaggerating here) than you winning the lottery. If you want to support charities, give them your money in the first place, as if it makes a difference (and you won't do it because there is no incentive for you, except self-satisfaction).

What a horrible species you are.

[290]

The Knowingly Exploited

Another compelling Sociology class this morning. We've started on Conflict Theories, though we started Marxism last Friday in Politics (where I excelled :D), so it's triply old-hat for me.

We were talking about whether we thought Communism would be a good thing - everyone said yes. Then the lecturer asked some rhetorical suggestive questions (eg, Wouldn't people just not bother working?) and suddenly everyone has awakened to the idea that it would really be boring. These people can't think for themselves. Being the resident Marxist (among my duties for tomorrow's Politics class is to print off copies of The manifesto), I must tear their arguments apart through quoting their very own words as evidence against their positions.

For example; 'People feel uncomfortable on benefits because they feel as if they aren't contributing to society' and when discussing motivation in Communism, 'People don't need the money so they won't bother working'. What?

You're saying capitalism is about advancing society and your argument against Marxism is that there isn't a monetary incentive. Monetary incentive IS why you have shitty jobs! Are you under the illusion it's because you're helping society? You're killing it at an accelerating pace.

You truly are under False Consciousness even when you claimed not to be at the start of the class.

[227]

Stunted Growth

This is frontpage on The Herald today.

That politicians would put their own jobs ahead of the wellbeing of those they rule over is hardly a revelation, but nonetheless appalling.

For 31 years, Westminster has trumpeted that Scotland would never survive on its own and that there was certainly not enough oil to tide it over. By 1980, Scotland should have been on-par with Norway and Stizerland - those are two of the best places to live in the world. By contrast, Scotland is one of the worst small states in Europe.

"Some countries discovered oil and made the desert bloom. We discovered oil and created, in too many places, an industrial desert." - Kenny MacAskill

The SNP, advocating a petrol-fund, puts the lost revenue at £200bn. Kenny MacAskill said that Scottish North Sea oil "would have transformed Scotland economically, socially and politically." What do we have now? Abandoned factories, ghettoid housing estates, and social decay.

"With oil at only $45 a barrel there is still at least a trillion pounds worth of oil left in the North Sea, at $62 a barrel there's 1.5 trillion pounds worth of oil."

Thank you Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Thatcho, John Major, and Tony Bliar.

As a sidenote to this political rant, like the schizophrenic I am: doesn't Yulia Tymoshenko have lovely hair?

[223]

Mute

If you happen to be unfortunately watching commercial television channels, mute the TV when the adverts come on. I've been doing this for some months now.

In my first year of secondary school, many years ago now, our Music teacher demonstrated the importance of sound - or more precisely, music. He showed us a typical Tom & Jerry cartoon except he turned the TV around so there was no picture, then vice-versa. This showed that not everything can be conveyed by image alone, some information, perhaps critical, is thus conveyed in audio.

By not listening to adverts, I don't have to hear about the shite they're trying to sell me. Again, this is why I advocate Media Studies. Don't listen, but watch what you pick up without the distracting branded sentences (where every second word is trademarked, see anything written by Micro$oft®).

[146]

Culpability

I'm very disinterested in domestic news, being an internationalist (I think I'll change my BBC News edition to World), but I noticed an article about the Hatfield rail crash.

Railtrack, the company that owned the rail system, was charged with Corporate Manslaughter. However, this week the charges were dropped because "The judge found that there was no evidence to support the prosecution case that performance or profit was placed before safety in Corbett's case."

I'm sorry, I forgot that capitalism cared about people. Exactly what would cause a company to ignore a problem for two years if it wasn't about cost? Did they do it so as not to inconvenience commuters? Did they do it for the good of the people that died?

"Jonathan Goldberg QC, for Jeffries [an executive], told the court it would be unfair to make the five men scapegoats in the "blame culture of modern-day Britain"

So do we just sweep aside justified blame because some Americanised arseholes are out for money? Oh wait, out for money...

I am sick of people who proclaim "Oh, communism is all good in theory..." - What fucking good did privatising the railways do? They blindly defend the companies that will one day kill them. Are you listening smokers?

[214]

NS: TPC Delegate Election

I pass the baton to another... at least there was an election this time :P

Hopefully with USK immigration bringing new active players to the region, there might be more than two candidates standing for election.

Looking back on my delegacy (I'm leaving the good material for the update to my memoirs), it was, as the first, fucked up by circumstance. Did I acheive my aims?: Yes, the only one not implemented was the prefecture setup which I hope to get done through the R&A committee (If I was to pass the buck, I cite the Hypercube abandoning his post and deciding to work in the Story thread).

But the election has just finished and I pass the reigns to fellow blogger, Paranoidm.

[125]

25 Years

Bloody hell. 5 hours at maximum time compression to get to Neptune with the Leonov in Orbiter (in simulated years - 25.4)... I thought it took a while to get to Jupiter (mostly because I left outside the launch window). Of course, for the simulated occupants of the Leonov who have just aerobraked into orbit, life as a pancake on the back wall will go on.

1:4:9

I was reading the Seven Days pullout of The Sunday Herald last night, and two articles were particularly interesting; One and Two. The latter chimed with the book I'm currently reading: 2010 by Arthur C Clarke (although I've already read 2061 and 3001 since I saw the two films).

In case you haven't figured out what 2001 was about, if I say intelligent design do you get it? You remember when the ape touched the monolith? The future of humanity had been directed by the monolith; and when humans reached the moon, the waiting monolith signalled this to its creators.

So a problem arises... obviously, this is artificial selection - a science. But intelligent design, thus far, is psuedoscience. The current intelligent design movement in the New World is a backdoor creationist movement, but Alien intervention is surely not religious (unless some stupid humans saw stuff come down from the sky they couldn't explain, wrote it down and some other idiots translated it through 5 different languages centuries later - fucking typical).

Ponder this.

[176]

NS: Francoist Thought

Most of Francoist Thought is on par with Jiang Zemin's Three Represents - Plenty of words, lacking in meaning. The rest is an interesting adaptation of Conflict Theory (Marxism) into NationStates - something which I had been trying to do for over a year.

However, the PRP is, as I have observed, a classic totalitarian state - though, less so than its NPO predecessor.

Decadence

Hmm. September 1st and the Polish Campaign... makes me laugh for some reason. Perhaps it's because I defeated the SuddenStrike demo using blitzkrieg tactics...

Anyway, we were discussing perspectives in Sociology today and, frankly, we hate what society has become. We were asked to describe our view of society today with one word - in Leninist fashion, I said 'decadent'.

This was something I was going to post yesterday, that there are two subjects that I would make compulsory at some stage in secondary schools - namely, Media Studies and Sociology. Media so that the mindless drones will stop buying packaged life, and Sociology so the kids (NEDs/Chavs) might start giving a shit before they go round tearing the place up.

Off on a tangent, that bint that did the Sky One programme claiming 'Chavs' were a cultural asset is doing a programme entitled 'Reality TV is Good for You'. Neither of those programmes did anything like approach the issue from an unbiased starting point or make use of the Scientific Method. So, as I wrote in my diatribe against the pope, fuck off.

I think I'll hit publish now.

[191]

B-16

Pondering my earlier article in which I attacked the pope, the following entered my mind:

The RCC proclaims that all popes are ordained by g*d, Christ, both, whatever (and having a "free" vote amongst the cardinals is contradictory). If you haven't heard B-16 was in the Hitler Jugend, then you've either avoided the whole thing more successfully than I or you live under a rock. I'm irritated no end by the fact that this is trumpeted about endlessly, not because I care about B-16, but because it's downright anti-German.

What you may have heard less in the Tabloid "newspapers" is that membership was compulsory after 1938 - refusal could land one in a KZ, and ultimately, perhaps, death. Thus, in order for Ratzinger to become pope, G*d must have intended for him to join the HJ. If I wanted to draw a logical fallacy, I'd say that G*d was a Nazi. However, as a militant atheist I never acknowledge the supposed existence of G*d nor ever utter the word. I've thus nullified any reason I had to write this article :D

[193]

Japonic Economics

I can't remember how a Napoléonic History class managed to go on a tangent about Japan, but it got me in a mood to write an essay... or be lazy and blog the main points *cough*... The premise was that Japan used to be a backwards feudal society completely isolated from the world except for a small artificial island open only to some European traders. Today it is the second most important economy in the world. What some economists are wondering is whether the same magic that turned Japan around can improve Africa's economic state.

NS: Delegacy

This blog is many things - it's also being used to shoehorn in some Delegate work from NS.

This week has been quite busy (in terms of actually being on NS, rather than offsite forums). My time has been divided into argueing on the CvHQ, and discussing relations with the PRP - oh, and I was mentioned in a longtime player's farewell letter. Before the end of my term, I also want to organise the prefecture structure for the future so as to maintain a population spike of 300+.

Wipeout 2060

If I and the entire generation born between the years 1981 and 2002 were to be wiped out, well wouldn't that be a tragedy? Perhaps.

There are two important effects this would have. Firstly, and my reason for stating this premise, is that the workforce for the years 1999-2062 would be severely crippled if not non-existant (I derived this from a radical Trotskyist theory that a nuclear Third World War would offer revolutionary possibilities). 2015 would probably be the beginning of the end for pre-1981 people to have children naturally.

The drawback would be the absence of a liberal generation, which could damage future generations sense of morality, etc.

Our parents, are abominations who about-turned, kept the bomb, became Blairites and continue to insist capitalism is a force for good. Ours is the generation that does not remember the deformity that was Eastern Europe. Tabula Rasa.

[151]

Free Thought?

Via BBC News

People choose what they like, and some are even able to make a profit from it. But religion constructed on a 'do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us, help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ.

How dare people choose what they like. He then:

demonstrated his emphasis on cross-faith relations, by addressing Muslim leaders and visiting a synagogue.

even though he's just told us Christianity is the one true faith. He

has warned of the dangers of secularism and of "do it yourself" religion, on the final day of his visit to his native Germany... Young Catholics should point people towards Jesus Christ in a Europe turning away from g*d, he urged.

Europe being secular and being the most advanced continent obviously doesn't ring bells in the pope's head. The Vatican should relocate to a banana republic somewhere. I sum up my thoughts with two words for the pope: Fuck Off.

[169]

Caricatures

I watched the final episode of 24 last night on BBC1 for the first time since it was originally broadcast. When I first saw my dear Nina being dragged away, it was much more depressing (I had been listening to The Smiths - before I found the comedy in Morissey).

Yes, Nina was a trigger-happy backstabbing bitch, but I still love her. And when it comes to American cinema and television, I side with the baddies. Sideshow Bob form The Simpsons jumps to mind, as does The Galactic Empire from Star Wars (thought the rebels had Leia, mmm). This stems from the fact that America, being a cultural wasteland, has a habit of making its heroes two dimensional and whiter than white. But aside from American media, I also did this when I went to a pantomime when I was 8 with a friend. We hissed the goodies and cheered the badies - which annoyed and confused some of the other children. Of course, pantomime is the epitome of 2D media.

I want heroes with questionable morals - that's why I like Film Noir (and by extension, Blade Runner). I recognise that modern media has its roots in Greek theatre and is a form of escapism, but story-telling is also about reflecting the world, making people think and getting them to question their assumptions. American media can produce modern works of genious, but too often things are dumbed down or cut-down by poor ratings because the idiots don't get it - modern Star Trek being the prime example.

Even if I didn't think any of the above, Nina was still the most attractive ;D.

[276]

Utopia Planitia

You might not know I'm a Star Trek fan, but there's been one thing that's annoyed me for quite some time (unless you include Enterprise and sometimes Voyager, which makes it 2.5 things).

I've been reading this from which I've taken two quotes:

"[Avery Brooks] said he took the role of Sisko in Deep Space Nine in order to "keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon. To let the children know that there is possibility, to let the children know that someone is not going to take away or destroy this world before they have a chance." He added, "That's not altruistic. Somebody has to keep the horizon happening. Let us not acquiesce or fall down or lie down for somebody else's desire to destroy the world."

"At the conclusion of his time on stage, Shatner followed up on the thought: "Those of us who love Star Trek know that there is a future. It's just taking a pause right now. We don't have anything to worry about. Paramount Studios has made ... in excess of $2 billion? From the franchise of Star Trek? They aren't gonna let that die! There's too much money there! So, there will be another Star Trek, I assure you."

I take Brooks' quote to mean he believes in the future depicted in the Star Trek franchise (regularly attacked as a Socialist future by reactionaries), and I and many fans certainly do.

Then Shatner only goes and highlights the problem: that Paramount is happy to rake in billions thanks to a TV series about a utopian future where there are no corporations and no money and people are motived by faith in humanity. Does no-one else see the contradiction? The people in paramount obviously have no problem knowing that 2+2 is both equal to 4 and 5.

[317]

Solidarity... not

The workers at Ferguson's shipyard in Port Glasgow are remembering 25 years of Solidarity by claiming the workers of Remontowa, Gdansk aren't showing solidarity to them because they won a contract which could have assured the future of Ferguson's. Aside from the fact that solidarity or lack of has nothing to do with the people who work in whatever yard - because they are a *BUSINESS* and they only care about money (the controversy being Remontowa hired some cheap Russian migrants to do the work, screwing the Poles over possibly against EU law), Solidarity was an organisation (but they weren't fighting for better pay, so not a trade union) backed primarily by the Church and the CIA - so obviously it was a great worker's movement. Of course, what is Solidarity (ASWP) now? Why, it's a liberal-conservative-christian democrat coalition - quite the bastion of change. And Lech isn't a popular politician anymore.

[158]

Dethrone Television, All Hail the Internet!

I don't watch TV news (not even C4 News, but that's more because I can't get out of bed for lunchtime) but I wanted to watch 'Deep Impact' on BBC One and they've inserted a bloody 30 minute break in it. Now I'm reminded why I don't watch much TV - The 10 O'Clock "News" consisted of, "these people have missed their holidays, all this little girl ever wanted was to lie in the sun... this elderly woman's friend died at home in Canada whilst her flight to see her for the last time was cancelled".

First of all, that's not news. That's the pish I expect from the popular/ist magazine 'The Sun' (I don't fucking love it) rather than some actual journalism. Secondly, I've seen this before - some people demanding others should be banned from striking so they can have a hassle-free holiday. Who cares what Thatcherite employment practices these out-sourcing septic-tanks think are "economically sensible"? I just want to read about how these commies are terrorist-sympathisers in 'The Sun' on the beaches of the Iberian colonies.

[194]

Why, Oh Why?

To begin, dear readers, let me explain the name of this blog:

On Sunday 7th August 2005, BBC One broadcast a program entitled 'Hiroshima' which followed the movements of several people on the 6th August 1945. During one segment, the program follows a Mother in the hours immediately after the bombing, as written in her diary. The scene I refer to depicts the Mother, having exhausted herself trying to rescue her child from under the rubble, listening to her child being burnt alive- to which I thought... "The Horror of One's Child Screaming In Flames Within Earshot".

I continue to try and keep the subject of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alive in the public conscience (and unconscious, via my two email addresses).

But to the purpose of this blog: Firstly I intend to post some of my thoughts that don't quite make it to essay stage. Secondly, I'll also be posting in relation to events over at NationStates (credit to Para) and, finally, anything I generally feel like dumping on the world.

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