Bush - Little Things Count a Lot

Molly Ivins column (Also here) which points out the little blots on Bush's copy book. Please do not vote for this guy, it only encourages him... but, if you don't vote for him, please vote for somebody else, and somebody else who stands a chance of getting in, not Mr Nader. Please!

UK Management and Productivity



This one touched a nerve with me :



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/16/it_holy_grail/



It's easy, especially as a cynical, non-employee, IT geek, to just

slag off management and blame managers for everything but this

article seems to bear this view out with respect to the productivity

gap.



Personally I think there are a couple of reasons why we are in this

mess :



One such reason why this is such a problem in the UK versus the US is

the albatross we carry round our necks which we call "The Class

System". We defer less than we used to to the "high heid yin's" but

we still have this "them and us" bull and associated inferiority /

superiority complex. I dare say this goes on in the US too but I

doubt it's quite as much of a problem.



Management in the UK is too centered around finance and accountancy.

I can't quote it here but I've read elsewhere that there is some

astonishingly high ratio of accountants in the UK versus the US. This

in turns means more conservative (With a small 'c') decisions are

made and less innovation and input from non-management / non-finance

employees. The obsession with costs also makes investment a very low

priority in the UK, especially with respect to training.



Finally, much as I like to bash the US, I do get the impression that

US employees do invest more of their own time and money in improving

their skills than we do in the UK. Can't blame managers for that,

though maybe I could blame them for not motivating us enough?

Cars = Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.

Disclaimer : I've owned 4 cars in the 16 years I've been legal to drive. 3 were cheap bangers 13+ years ago, my current I've had since '99 and was mainly bought for two reasons :
a) Having a kid more or less makes a car essential, having a teenager makes you an unpaid taxi-driver ;)
b) I work freelance, so not having a car restricts the places I can work a lot.

The car, to me, is the single purchase which most clearly defines all that is wrong with 'Western Civilisation' :
It's individualist and about personal freedom primarily, and doesn't give a toss about the common good.
It brings out the worst characteristics in people.
It's use leads to people being killed and injured, a lot.
It has lead to our destroying large parts of the natural world to accommodate it's use.
Worst of all, it's not even a good technological solution - Cars are woefully inefficient and , superficial changes and materials aside, haven't changed design much since the days of the Ford Model T.
It's one of those things that everyone knows should be scrapped and replaced with a better solution but nobody has the vision or balls to do so - The classic, "But we've always done it that way." excuse.
Until we can take a good hard look at nonsense like driving around in piles of metal powered by dead fish bits, each of which is generally piloted by one person alone, progress of the human race is going to very slow. If indeed we can progress without going into a decline brought on by our use of such 'non-sensible' solutions...

The 'Me' Generation

Interesting article in Wired about our self-obsessed generation and the legacy our actions leave for our children.

Interesting BBC Programme - Terrorism and Fear

An interesting, but very little publicised programme starts on BBC2 this coming Wednesday.
It's along the lines of the thesis that Michael Moore touches on in Farenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine - That governments are making hay out of millennial and terrorism-driven fear.

BBC Spiel :
How fear of terrorism has come to dominate politics around the world
A new series, from acclaimed film-maker Adam Curtis, tells the story and examines just how far that fear is based on an illusion
The Power Of Nightmares – The Rise Of The Politics Of Fear
Wednesday 20 October on BBC TW

Also see :
Guardian Article

The Power of Nightmares starts on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday October 20

G24 Want More Influence in IMF

It seems the G24 are getting vocal about their lack of influence in the IMF.

It's ironic in a way - It's so common to hear Americans bleating about how they bankroll the world (I think a lot of people assume the money they dole out to Israel is matched with donations to other countries - it isn't, far from it), the truth is that the world bankrolls the US by investing in it and letting them maintain a huge deficit. What would happen should China and Saudi Arabia pull their money out of the US I wonder?

Fact is, the current IMF/World Bank set-up was engineered to suit the US's requirements -
If you haven't read about the Bretton Woods agreements prepare to be apalled :
wikipedia
google

And, if you would like to hear about alternative, fair ways of running the world and it's finances,
check out George Monbiot's books, particularly Age of Consent.

A Great Article By Naomi Klein.
8 steps to a bloody mess...

1. Enter Iraq,
2. Fire 500K state workers,
3. Try sell off state owned companies
4. Starve Iraq companies of contracts so you can sell them cheaper
5. Give the contracts to foreign Companies
6. Foreign contractors come into their country and do their jobs while they watch and starve.
7. They kidnap and kill contractors.
8. A Big bloody mess!

British Court Decision Undermines Global Torture Ban how come we havent heard anything about this on the news?

"There are lots of things the intelligence community knows and other people ought not to know." (FBI Spokesperson)
From this compelling article by Greg Palast
More allegations as per Farenheit 9/11 that The Bush Crime Family (Copyright Mike Malloy, sic.) are a little too friendly with The House of Saud.

A good indicator of cost of the war for the yanks, or this one
I wonder if we have a similar comparison in the UK?

Russia- the failure of communism.....
United States- the failure of Capitalism - the "consume more than you can afford" culture is not sustainable...

Should we not have a sensible balance between the 2 extremes?

Sensible consumption, sensible resource allocation, sensible living...?

British think tank is pessimistic about Iraq's future.

The breakdown of Iraq would have dire consequences for the region as well, the report said, giving religious extremists greater freedom and threatening stability in neighboring countries. For instance, militant Sunni Muslims operating from Iraq could undermine the regime in Saudi Arabia. Kurds gaining independence in Iraq could invigorate Kurdish movements in neighboring Syria, Iran and Turkey, and possibly prompt a Turkish military response. If Shiites emerge dominant in Iraq, that could create conditions for an attempt to consolidate the Shiite communities in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

This is an interesting piece from Dom Stasi:

" I neither earned, nor did I contribute a lifetime of tax dollars expecting that in the end so much as one penny of my taxes would be used to incinerate children. However, acquiescing to George W. Bush’s horrific demands in the absence of genuine, direct, supporting evidence of our enemy du jour’s capabilities and intent will mean just that. …and that would be the truest manifestation of spinelessness imaginable.” – Closing passage from the pre-war essay DEAR FELLOW AMERICAN, By Dom Stasi, February 23, 2003. "
... continued

Modern Life is Rubbish?

A recent Radio 4 discussion programme, Mid-summer Sins, invited the public to vote for an 8th, deadly sin.
Their choice?

"Apathy."

It's certainly a good one to add but what will ever drive us out of this apathy? Since I've been a wee boy I've always been interested in space and the idea of aliens etc. Sometimes I think that the discovery that there are other worlds out there with intelligent life living on them is the kick up the bum that the world needs to buck it's ideas up. Bizarrely, the late
Ronnie Reagan famously thought this too :

Reference -

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0102/25/cgs.00.html

" REAGAN: Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war? "

(It took me a while to find a legitimate quote for this amongst all the UFO/Conspiracy web sites, I had started to wonder if he really said this).

Such a discovery would also certainly put the wind up religious folk in particular.

Similarly, the previously mentioned article on Bush's strength being the simplicity of his vision ties up with this desire for something simple to aspire to in an increasingly complex society. A lot of people don't want choice and complexity and want to return to a simpler world with less complexity. Without religion, it's hard to get that sense of being shown the way. To me this is also played out in the trend towards packing in your job and going traveling or starting a farm or self-sufficient "Good Life" type lifestyle - The desire to be in control and to deal with less complexities is coming to the fore more the more complex we make our lives.

It could be argued that religious fundamentalism is a desire to see the world in a black and white simple way, and to live your life according to a few simple rules rather than have to deal with the myriad choices that modern life presents us with. Living used to be hard as a matter of hunter/gathering survival - Now, we make it hard for ourselves by buying into a system that enslaves us into a cycle of work to finance purchases that don't make us any happier?

Bush-Bashing
Bush-bashing is all too easy a habit to fall into for us Europeans especially. This interesting article
is a good one for making even the most ardent Bush-critic have a think about why it is that this guy seems to be appealing to at least half the voters in the USA. I suppose we'll find out for sure soon enough, provided the voting machines don't mess up or there isn't any dodginess...

Glasgow Under-Age Club Nights
A depressing bit of notoriety for my home town of Glasgow in this article.
I'm not sure if these clubs are unique to Glasgow, I understand Edinburgh has them too but they really don't seem like a sensible idea. Facilities for teenagers and young people should be a community thing IMHO, not something commercial that leads kids to hang about city centres on a weekend.

It's a Sin (So it is) (As we say in Glasgow)

An interesting wee programme has just finished on Radio 4.
A discussion about the seven deadly sins which concluded with the public voting for a new, 8th deadly sin.
The upshot of this was that Apathy was chosen as the top choice for a new one.

Apathy is certainly a good choice, at the end of the day, although the world is undoubtedly a better place now than it has been in the past, it's got a long way to go to be as good as it could be. And it's certainly true that it will only get worse if we don't buck our ideas up. Nothing good will come to pass if we stick our collective heads in the sand. Then again, what I am doing to change the world other than anonymously waffling away on a Blog that only other like-minded people I know will read? Hmmm.... ; )

Republican Party Convention

Excellent piece in The Guardian by Simon Schama (Hey, you know me and tha Guardian by now if you read this thing) on the GOP convention. Grand? No way! Old? Too true... Stupid white men in abundance. (Alternative GOP link :)

The Return of the Malloy

The afforementioned Mike Malloy is back on the air in the US / Internet. His programme has found a home on Air America Radio.
Since it's on at 3AM UK time, interested EU people might want to download the mp3s from the White Rose Society web site.

US Liberalism

Mike Malloy, who used to present a great talk radio programme on the, now
defunct IE America Radio, has started a blog on his site.
it's worth a read, even if just to convince yourself that Michael Moore is not the only person appalled by antics of 'The Bush Crime Family' as Malloy calls them ;)

Unfortunately there is no sign yet of another outlet for Mr Malloy, but hopefully Air America Radio will take him on at some point. But, given the fuss the FCC are making over swearing etc in the post-Janet's-boob shock and awe, it seems unlikely anyone who isn't totally sanitised will be allowed on the air in the US :(