Passionate about cricket

This is my blog and one of its aims on the charter is that it will be a place where I can be passionate about the things I love. It was a bit of a surprise when I noticed how little I have posted about cricket.

Cricket is a fantastic sport. I am more of a spectator than a player. The last time I played was for the primary school team and I was very much there to make up the numbers. I couldn't bowl, catch and my batting was definitely reserve standard.

I love the tension that can be built up over a five day test. It is warfare in miniature, none of this running around for 90 minutes all for nothing sport. Cricket is a political waiting game of strategy. Each team player has to play their part, the weather has to be right, the opposing team show some chinks in the armour and then that final bit of lady luck.

Cricket can in a way be about who breaks first, who throws away a wicket or drops a catch. It is a game which Sun Tzu would find fascinating, it is warfare in a battlefield surrounded by rope. The works of Sun Tzu could even be rewritten with cricket examples.

It has culture, tradition, character and famous battles. It is quintessentially British, it is as part of the British psyche as much as strawberries and cream.

Now for ever more it is only available on Sky (and radio). Never more can I rush home from work to watch the steady crack of leather on willow as England score run after run. Never more can I watch Australia loose the ashes live or watch England loose the ashes again and feel that blood rush of wanting to set fire to the wicket. Now I hear all the cricket news third hand little more than a weather report of the day, none of the passion, none of the excitement nothing. Nobody will ever riot or burn wickets over cricket highlights.

Highlights are not the same, any short highlight programme can only show the 4's, 6's, 50's, 100's and wickets. That is not the game of tension and strategy I love, highlights do not get me pacing round the room for the last hour of a five day match chewing cushions in the hope that England can hold off the Australian bowling attack. The highlights will never have me praying for rain to save the series.

The decision to allow cricket to be sold to sky was a criminal act by the English Cricket Board, it can only hurt the sport in the long run. The problem arose because of new stars such as Freddie Flintoff it became too popular, what has always been an underfunded sport saw the money and the greed became too hard to bear.

People like me, the grass root supporters have been kicked in the teeth, all we wanted was to see the game of our heroes played out on national tv. There was a revolution over football and there should be a revolution over cricket but alas we the minority do not have the powers of the tabloid masses.

I miss my summer cricket, please bring it back to me.

Elephants may be able to detect mines by smell

From the sound bites page of NewScientist,21 July 2007.

"They move about with their trunks right on the ground, and it could be that they pick up the scent in this way."

- biologist Ian Whyte at the Jruger National Park in South Africa.

Of course there is now a bit of self selection going on in the Angolan elephant population. This could be evolution in progress. As only mine detecting elephants will survive and prosper. So Angolan elephants could break into a sub species of elephant with fantastic sense of smell in the future. There may be other characteristics that are being self selected as well. At what point will we need to designate these elephants a new species?

Ian Whyte in the National Geographic magazine is more pragmatic and suggested that avoidance of landmines may instead be a result of group learning.

"But they are also intelligent animals which move in groups. Maybe they learn to avoid places where they see other elephants get blown up."

- biologist Ian Whyte at the Jruger National Park in South Africa.

The other part of this story is that following Angola's decades of war there are vast uncharted mine fields which virtually make whole regions uninhabitable. This makes any conservation or re-establishment of wildlife areas impossible.

Mines and un-exploded munitions are a problem in a lot of countries around the world. Although there are some charities that work to clear landmines, there are always more to clear. Animals and humans both suffer and they have to find a way to cope and continue with their lives.

Maybe the elephants what ever way they do it have found one such way.

Misheard lyrics

Sometimes it is very difficult to hear song lyrics, although the internet pretty much means you can now look up the correct version. Here are a few I have misheard in my time.

Alanis Morissette- Isnt it Ironic.

Actual Lyric:

"It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic... don't you think"

My version:

"Its a death throw hard on two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic... don't you think"

Well now that would be ironic.

Damien Rice - Dogs

Actual Lyric:

"She lives with an orange tree
The girl that does yoga"

plus all other yoga references in the song.

My version:

"She lives with an orange tree
The girl that does your garden"

I thought the 'den' part was silent. After all why would you write a song about yoga, your garden is much more sensible.

Damien Rice - Coconut Skins

Actual Lyric:

"Tell them God just dropped by to forgive our sins
And relieve us our doubt"

My version:

"Tell them God just dropped by to forgive our sins
And really bummed us out"

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I Laying plans contd...

22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

Notes by Zephyrist:

This relates to emotion in battle. A general needs to use reason to fight his battles not emotion, Sun Tzu would seek to irritate an opponent to get a knee jerk reaction from them. A battle plan born out of emotion or irritation will be weaker than a plan which is logically planned.

If you make your army look weak then the enemy will not rigidly plan ever last skirmish which can make their plan weak and open to assault.

This point continues along the theme of keeping your enemy off balance and forcing them to make a mistake which you can then exploit.

A tribute to the blog 'indexd'

You may have noticed that at the bottom of the left column I have a small list of 'blogs of note'.

One of them is 'indexd' by Jessica Hagy which is a selection of index cards. In her own words she describes her blog as:

"This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math."

It is a truly unique blog and I can truly recommend it.

Anyway my mind works the same way occasionally and I can see mathematical relationships in my head, mainly the curve graph types.

Although I consider myself to be a good interviewer I consider myself to be a bad interviewee, my biggest weakness is the throwaway comment. A throwaway comment is a generalisation or casual comment which you might use with work colleagues. I have been know to drop some real clangers in my time. Examples I have used to my regret, are "you know what manager's are like?" and "typical management come up with ideas and then have no idea how to implement them". There are of course others but I have blocked them out of my mind.

Before anyone says anything, yes, I know they are true but for some reason at interviews people don't want to know about reality they want you to 'fake it till you make it'. I am quite cynical about some interviews but have not found a better way yet.

So anyway the tribute bit is knocking up an index card which mathematically demonstrated the principle of throwaway comments in relation to interview success.

Statutory Emergency Pay (SEP)

I like many others spent my day picking my way around road closures caused by floods. All weekend the police have been saying only travel if you have to and today they even said Oxford is now closed, do not come to Oxford.

For those of you not familiar with Oxford it is where several rivers including the Thames meet. Most of the south and west of Oxford is on a level with the river. There is extensive flooding throughout these districts closing three of the six main roads into Oxford. Of the remaining three one has roadworks and is already overloaded and the other two just serve the north of the city centre. Coupled with the one way system and the trains not running Oxford has pretty much ground to a standstill.

Anyway this got me to thinking who really pays attention to what the police or government say. The vast majority of people go about their daily lives as normal, especially those going to work. This of course causes more work for the emergency services as people get stuck or cause traffic congestion.

Of course to stop all this you have to deal with the need to go to work. Most people will not get paid or need to take a days annual leave if they don't turn up. Obviously no one can afford this so everyone struggles into work.

So just as we have Statutory paternity, sick and maternity pay, we should introduce the following legislation which would include statutory emergency pay.

The Basic idea

When the police or government decide it is no longer safe to travel in an area, it is now no longer safe to travel. All non essential businesses are now closed by order of the government, workers are under no obligation to travel. To compensate for loss of earnings companies will pay statutory emergency pay which can be claimed back from the government. Employees will have the choice of taking the lower earning of SEP or using annual leave entitlement.

Of course enlightened companies will in a similar vein to some maternity schemes enhance statutory emergency pay. They may top it up to normal salary or allow spread deductions over 12 months or allow employees to earn back the extra money in enhanced overtime to make up for lost company time.

Most emergencies would be over in a few days. To date this year I would have claimed two days, one for snow and one for floods. In my own mind I questioned why I was travelling at the time as it may not have been safe to do so.

Although it seems it will cost the government money think of the savings from not having to rescue people who have got themselves needlessly in trouble. It will also free up the emergency services to deal with the actual emergency and get there quicker not just the traffic chaos caused when roads close. Plus it will undoubtedly save lives.

So Gordon Brown how about it, surely this appeals to you?

Sir Alan West sets out his stall

Politicians making spurious comments is one of those things that make me rave at the computer screen. Normally a mild mannered reporter I turn into a huge green mean machine.

So when the BBC reports the new UK security minister's comments on terrorism with a headline of ' Terror fight 'may take 15 years' I was shocked at the obvious sound biting. Look a little deeper and that is not quite what he said. The BBC have unusually made a sound bite which was not quite what the minister originally said. The actual quote in context is:

"We're talking about such a big change in the way people behave that it's inevitably going to take 10 to 15 years, and that's if we're lucky, and that's what I hope we can achieve."

-Admiral Sir Alan West, ex navy chief.

It is obvious to everyone that the war on terrorism is unlikely to be won for a long time. At best our country could be made almost completely safe from terrorism but the causes and will of terrorism would still be there. Sir Alan recognises this above but the BBC chose to interpret the quote to give a more sensationalist spin.

Th other part of this 'article' is to put 'everything' in 'quotes' as they add in little extra 'two or three' word quotes from his speech. Very irritating reporting style and one which does not fill me with confidence that they are accurately reporting what he said and not misquoting him out of context again.

The war on terrorism bears a resemblance to the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war was a battle for 'hearts and minds' and so is the war against terrorism. No country can be isolationist concentrating all its efforts in detecting plots and thwarting terrorism. Everyone need to encourage debate and fix the problems in the world which helps create terrorism.

Even though Sir Alan made the mistake of putting a time frame on things, the BBC article suggests that he is leading a sea change in government policy. The government is moving away from the concept of 'war on terror' which has never sat well with the British due to the American warmongering overtones.

Although difficult to make sense of the BBC sound bites it would seem that Sir Alan suggests greater emphasis will be put on intervening before terrorism. Sir Alan raises the issue of jihadists influencing British Muslims and admits that the issue will need to be examined with suggestions on how to remove or fight this unwanted dangerous influence.

There appears to be a greater emphasis on prevention and Sir Alan introduces the four p's - prepare, protect, pursue and prevent, which are the new watchwords on terrorism in the UK.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I Laying plans contd...

21. If he is secure at all points be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength evade him.

Notes by Zephyrist:

This one is a bit cryptic. If the enemy has no points of weakness, in a sense offering no points of attack then the enemy has the advantage. You should be prepared for his attack and so your battle will be to defend. If in the attack the enemy will have superior strength then you must evade him until circumstances change in your favour.

In a more modern example consider a political debate. If your enemy debate has no weakness then he will attack yours, so be prepared to answer his attacks. If his debate is stronger than yours then it would be best to evade or avoid any debate or exchange of views. Again this evasion will need to continue until the field of battle changes in your favour.

The Future of the Car

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about cars and how technologically they don't seem to have developed much in that they still rely on a human driver to do the majority of the work.

Technology is beginning to reach the stage where no one will learn to drive except as a hobby to drive the old cars. These two BBC articles are typical are some of the new technologies that are being developed:

Connected cars 'promise safer roads' (BBC)
Look, no hands (BBC)

According to these articles the car of the future will require no driver and will be constantly forming ad-hoc networks with other local cars to share information about road conditions and traffic jams.

The result fast moving traffic jams, I am thinking it will be a lot like starlings at dusk. All the cars will flock together on the same roads, then come apart only to make up a new traffic jam on another road. It is an unlikely vision of the future but when all the cars are processing all this data and decide an alternative route is appropriate what will happen. If they all run the same program with the same variables wont they all make the same instantaneous decision.

How about a neural network, one that learns from mistakes and adapts to regular routes and localities. Then ever car would be as unique as the owner, but who wants to own a thick car that cant cope with driving round London just because it hasn't been there before.

There is also the consideration of whether we trust computers to do the driving or think that we are the best drivers. Manufacturers know about this pride in our own driving skill and so are introducing technology slowly so we still feel in control.

If computers drove all the cars on the road then in all probability there would be less accidents and less deaths.

"We kill about a million people a year around the globe. Almost every loss of life is a result of human error. Statistics will tell us the truth, that these cars are more reliable than human driving."

- Professor Sebastian Thrun, Stanford artificial intelligence expert.

Of course the one problem trusting computers with safety issues is viruses. What if a rogue car sets out along the road and spreads a virus through these ad-hoc networks and overrides the safety protocols causing high speed crashes. In reality the systems would be isolated from each other and to gain access to the engine controls you would need to be wired in with a hardware key.

It will probably be one of the most exciting developments in technology, that moment when we trust computers to drive us to work and back.

That is if there is still work to be done by mere mortals or the world hasn't ended in some environmental or technological catastrophe.

Then there is the problem of getting a computer to cope with questions from the kids. How do you program a computer to satisfactorily answer the question "Are we nearly there yet?".

YouTube shows Tube driver journey (BBC)

The latest You Tube scandal is that London tube drivers have been filming the view from the train cabs and posting the videos on 'You Tube'. The BBC reports that drivers caught doing it could face internal disciplinary procedures for contravening safety regulations.

Several passenger groups and other individuals have condemned the practice as a risk to safety. London underground have taken a slightly more pragmatic view:

"It's not the kind of behaviour we expect from drivers. We don't think it poses a risk but we don't think they should be doing it."

-London underground spokesperson.

Then in a strange departure from reality the BBC quote the original random commuter who given his five seconds of fame has a rant:

"If I see a driver recording when a train passes through I'm not going to go on that train. I'll wait for the next one because I feel the driver isn't focused and not doing what he should be doing."

-Christoph Delin, the man who discovered and reported
the videos, he clearly has too much time on his hands.

Of course all this negativity means the article is not balanced, where are the quote from people who say as long as it doesn't interfere with driving the train it is fine. After all the camera could be left unattended or could be filmed by someone else in the cab. The article does not mention the practise has been going on long before You Tube. There are some famous black and white films from the age of steam. One particular famous film is I think of Brighton to London in 7 minutes (time lapse?).

I shall let the more balanced comments come from one of the videos, Train Drivers View, I found on You Tube. Watch the video and then read the comments and form your own opinion of whether it is a good or bad thing

Modern policing in a multi-occupancy field

Following on from my thoughts about how horses and sheep relate to each other in the same field it would appear that I am not the only one who thinks about such things.

Inspector Gadget writes on his blog about his concerns about policing in such a multi occupancy field environment ('llama, llama.'). The field in ruralshire is occupied by a lama and some sheep.

Apparently there are lots of issues I hadn't considered. The llama stereotypes predators and questions are raised over whether the sheep are truly getting the service they deserve. With no performance targets or measurements how do we know the llama is doing its job well.

It is yet another sharp observational piece of metaphor by Inspector Gadget. If you have not discovered his blog yet you should.

Yet more sperm donor adverts

Here are a couple more sperm bank advertising ideas:

The Sperm Bank - Helping students buy beans since 1969.

High Street Bank - You can bank on us. The Sperm Bank - You can ???? on us.

The Sperm Bank - feel free!


I think I am pretty much out of ideas now but I thought I would share these last ones.

Fixing the twist in you...

"I don't care no I wouldn't dare
To fix the twist in you
You've shown me eventually
What you'll do"

- ' All the same', Sick Puppies.

Still loving this song, it is a bit of an anthem for me at the moment.

The Sticks of Death Shop

Now that we have banned smoking in public spaces and made smokers out to be complete social criminals how much more pressure can we bring to bear without just getting on and making smoking illegal.

Well take the word cigarette, it is still quite an innocuous name, doesn't really fully describe what is being sold. So what about we go all out and just call them "sticks of death" after all that's what they basically are.

Which got me thinking on a kind of sketch based around buying some death sticks. It is comedy with a serious message, we might laugh but there is an obvious warning of tragedy ahead. Call it a public information sketch.

If comedy can have a style then this would be in the style of a Monty python sketch.

The 'Sticks of Death' shop sketch

Assistant: How can I help you sir?

Customer: I would like some death sticks, please.

Assistant: What sort of death stick would you like sir?

Customer: What have you got?

Assistant: We have gruesome death, quick death, slow drawn out rattling death, foaming blood at mouth death, linger for years death, or you could try painful death.

Customer: How about something milder, like 'live a full life, be cool and die of old age death' sticks.

Assistant: I think you will find the candy store is next door for candy death sticks sir.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I Laying plans contd...

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

Notes by Zephyrist:

This one is another simple one, draw the enemy out by looking disorganised and weak, then kill them.

So imagine a battlefield, make it look like your army doesn't know what it is doing and the enemy will probe for weaknesses. When they commit their forces suddenly your army comes together and slices them to shreds.

For a business example think of two organisations competing for a tender. Spread information and make it look like your tender is going to be weak. Perhaps by leaking parts of your supposed tender. Then at the last minute bring out the actual tender and submit with maximum secrecy. This will mean that the other company may not have been as competitive knowing that you were no competition cutting costs and benefits to make their tender more profitable. Hopefully you have now submitted the better tender and through appearing to be disorganised have crushed the enemy.

A Postcard from Second Life 4

I missed Free Hugs day on the 07/07/07. You can never have enough hugs.

It got me to thinking instead of holding up a placard with 'free hugs' on it why not a t-shirt. I had a quick surf on the net but they were all a bit bland.

So I worked up my own stick men design. I was going to post it on here in 2D but then as I had vaguely worked out how to do T-shirts in second life I thought I would upload it into second life and let my avatar show it off. I can even walk around second life and see if I get any hugs. The design isnt quite right as the figure needs to be a bit smaller to get rid of any distortion but I am quite pleased with the result.

First the T-shirt then the free hugs island plus don't forget the second life Youtube video. Free hugs comes to second life.

'All the same' by Sick puppies the backing track to the Free Hugs videos is also very cool. In fact it is so cool I am going to have to quote from it:

"I don't mind…
I don't care…
As long are you're here

Go ahead tell me you'll leave again
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything
Do it all over again
It's all the same"

-All the same' by Sick puppies

Random Thought: Horses and sheep

I have a friend who has a horse who lives in a field of sheep. They co-exist sharing the same space and grass.

This got me thinking, what do they think of each other.

I have a few questions:

• Can a sheep actually see a horse's head or does it just see four legs?
  
• Can a horse recognise a sheep or does it think there are fluffy clouds in his / her field?
  
• Would a horse with vertigo when put in a field of sheep fall over because it thought it was looking down on the clouds?
• Do both animals just think of the other as a moving non edible patch of grass?
• Do they sleep together for comfort /warmth?
• Would sheep stand under a horse to shelter from the rain?
• Do sheep think of the horse as a really big sheep?
• Does the horse think of the sheep as really small horses?
• Who is boss the horse or the sheep?
• What do the sheep think when there is a rider on the horse's back?

I am not saying this kind of question keeps me awake at night but they would be things I would be interested in finding out. So come on David Attenborough or Bill Oddie forgot about your savannah stories or your spring watch lets have life in a field.

You may now have been wondering why this post has also been tagged recruitment, well I thought the horse / sheep thing could be developed into one of those obscure interview questions.

A reed magazine dropped into my in-tray suggesting that you should never ever ask these questions. Not that I would but they are an interesting reserve questions for people that are clearly con-interviewees (expert interviewees - so practised they have text book answers). Typical examples would be executive managers who are so good at spouting management speak but have no common sense. A good sheep / horse question might catch them out, as they would have to think on their feet.

Scenario question:

You are the line manager of a field containing one horse and five sheep? As part of the internal development of the team, the team are asked to describe their opposite colleagues including their strengths and weaknesses. You as the line manager are reading the reports.
What does the horse say about his / her sheep colleagues?
What do the sheep say about the horse?
How as a team leader will you address the identified weaknesses?

Well that is one interview question that will never get used, but it does make you think / laugh / cry (delete as applicable).

Blog title change

I have decided to change the title of the blog as is my prerogative. The original title of "Too many thoughts" was just too bland and similar to other blog names on google search.

A title should be reasonably unique and easily recognizable after all in the blog it must represent me in the wider internet and the real world.

I have renamed the blog as "One mind, many thoughts". Similar to the old title but more unique and hopefully more in keeping with the blog as it stands. As the blog has now had some times to grow hopefully the name is more representative of the content.

If not, here is the phone, phone someone who cares.

Media Disrupts Effective Government

This is a story from a few weeks ago when Tony Blair made a speech about the relationship between government and the media. It was well timed in the sense that nobody could accuse him of sour grapes as he no longer had anything to loose or gain.

The one good thing about the BBC article is that they have published Tony Blair's speech in full. This gives me a rare research opportunity to go back to the source material rather than rely on sound bite quotes from a media outlet.

"A free media is a vital part of a free society. You only need to look at where such a free media is absent to know this truth."

No one would disagree with this although the media also use this as a crutch to report everything and anything. Tony Blair is right as much as anyone complains about the media the countries that have one are all the better for it.

"But it is also part of freedom to be able to comment on the media. It has a complete right to be free. I, like anyone else, have a complete right to speak."

Agreed, the media are not exempt from free criticism and in our society at times the media can seem untouchable except by law courts and even then a retraction of a story or compensation does not change the original untrue story or its impact.

"The verdict [of the Hutton enquiry] was disparaged because it was not the one the critics wanted. But it was an example of being held to account, not avoiding it. "

I have made this point before, the strength of the media can mean that they can set the agenda, once a front page gives an opinion it can sway public opinion. Stories are sometimes end up being a small number of editors representing the public majority. Where the system fails is what if the editors give incomplete or opinionated facts rather than presenting the whole story.

A prime example is when the media see an opportunity to force a minister out of office. The minister makes a mistake and they put pressure on him to resign like a pack of jackals. There is never a considered review of whether he is a good minister just a blood lust. The labour party have largely resisted these calls for ministers to resign but due to this culture how many good ministers have we lost just because the media are baying for blood.

What Tony Blair refers to in the Hutton enquiry is that the media had already decided the result. If it agreed with the media view it would be a triumph for democracy and Tony Blair would be pressured to resign. If it disagreed then it was clearly corrupt and not given the full information and Tony Blair would still be pressured to resign. So the media had acted as a non-independent inquiry with a small group of people deciding the outcome claiming they represented the people rather than their own self interest of selling stories.

"Internet advertising has overtaken newspaper ads. There are roughly 70 million blogs in existence, with around 120,000 being created every day. In particular, younger people will, less and less, get their news from traditional outlets."

Blogs get a mention. Blogs can be worse than the mainstream media, they are sometimes pure opinion, they can be even less concerned about facts that the mainstream media. Readers of blogs still need to consider the source and compare with other stories. At their best blogs complement the mains stream media and help to question the established truth.

"They[the media] are not the masters of this change [increased competition] but its victims. The result is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by "impact". Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamour, can get noticed."

With 24 hour rolling news any event is instantly reported, reporting is now real time. Take a major incident like a rail crash, road crash, terrorist bomb something where by the nature of the event the information is slow, sketchy and often contradictory. The general questions we want to know the answers to who, where, how, government response, police response, comments etc.

The story will start with perhaps a one line news flash on the news wire. So at minute 1 you have the standard "We are just getting reports..." After that one line, in order to keep going they have to move into speculation, eye witnesses are tracked down, terrorism experts are dragged in. Similar events in the past are recapped. This is not news its speculation, created to maintain as Tony Blair says 'impact'.

This media cycle can continue, for 5 minutes out of every hour you get the actual facts and then the other 55 minutes of news is speculation or so called expert opinions. Then in the next hour you get more facts which contradict 40 minutes of speculation from the previous hour. That doesn't matter because if you don't put out the story, any story, someone else will and they will beat you to it. The truth doesn't necessary matter if the speculation creates 'impact'.

"Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of a story counts. But it is secondary to impact. It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else."

Tony Blair is a lot kinder than I am when he says that accuracy matters. The only bearing accuracy has is that on balance a media outlet must be seen to be accurate the majority of the time otherwise the public will go elsewhere. Some media outlets survive because they share the opinions of their public which is at times far from the established truth i.e. Daily Mail.

"The audience needs to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged. Something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked. The consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down."

This is why the media nearly always take a negative view in its reporting. They rarely agree with the government because that just doesn't sell. Controversy is always better.

"It is not enough for someone to make an error. It has to be venal. Conspiratorial."

The public love conspiracy theories and this hunger is fed by the media, there are no mistakes in the world it is always an act of conspiracy or negligence. This attitude pervades into our personal lives. Some people today refuse to accept that anything could be their fault or that they made a mistake, it has to be some body else's fault.

The media should challenge these conspiracy theories, they should be the guardians of the truth. The media is in a position to offer moral leadership to the people yet it struggles to raise itself above self-interest.

I should point out at this point that a large number of reporters are in the job to expose the truth and they are not the media equivalent of stock brokers. Some even actively challenge the media to act as the guardians of truth. However, it is clear that even they are powerless to change the entire industry.

Tony Blair defines five consequences of the media drive to create shock and emotional responses:

1. Scandal or controversy stories always come first.
2. Attacking motive is always better than attacking judgement.
3. Pack hunting - the media hunts together to destroy, tearing victims apart like a 'feral beast'.
4. Commentary is more important than the story.
5. Confusion of news and commentary.
   

Mr Blair gives an example of a speech by a minster. The speech is almost re-written, every word is scrutinised to see if any of the above can be applied. The story can almost be about what they missed out as much as what they said.

"This leads to the incredibly frustrating pastime of expending a large amount of energy rebutting claims about the significance of things said, that bears little or no relation to what was intended."

"Comment is a perfectly respectable part of journalism. But it is supposed to be separate. Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible. The truth is a large part of the media today not merely elides the two but does so now as a matter of course."

It is rare for this separation to be clear in any news article. In this you can compare my article to the BBC article. Both written from the same source but both containing different commentary. I am not representing my article as news but purely commentary, is the BBC presenting commentary or news or a mixture of both.

This is a criticism of so called 'experts'. Whenever anything they get an expert on to comment, the news caster will generally encourage them to speculate. This speculation is then passed off as news such as a "bomb by suspected Al- quieda". There may be no news to back that claim up.

This applies to so called 'inside sources close to the investigation'. This still isn't news it is commentary until it is officially stated. How can you accurately judge the information? I am not saying everything needs to be official before it can be news but the media should give us some indication of the source of the statements rather than using standard code words like 'inside sources'.

"Things, people, issues, stories, are all black and white. Life's usual grey is almost entirely absent."

The media generally take a firm view to create a better story, or if it is a bit greyer get equally strong but opposing views. A middle line just does not sell.

"New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.

In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five. But here is also the opportunity."

The internet is a great thing for news and can act as a balance to traditional news outlets but it can also create a 'wild-fire' of opinion that can race ahead of the media. The interweb could be said to be the home of the conspiracy theory. On the internet there is even less of a need or desire to stick to the truth, opinion and theories whoever extreme can be easily proposed and accepted as fact or the 'real truth' behind the news.

"The way that people get their news may be changing; but the thirst for the news being real news is not. The media will fear any retreat from impact will mean diminishing sales. But the opposite is the case."

There is definitely a market for 'real news', several internet sites have opened up to service that need. Certainly for the main stream if someone took the leap then they would create a point of difference from their competitors which would be a selling point. Others would then jump on the band wagon and the media would change for the better.

The BBC website already occupies this niche as a respected market leader and thus demonstrates that others could follow.

Tony Blair then says a bit about the need for a unified regulation system across all media outlets but leaves it at that, he doesn't offer a way forward, just that it need to change.

In a final summary Tony Blair describes the damage that is being done due to this disconnect between public life and the media:

"The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future."

Tony Blair is right, all this negative reporting undermines our society and may harm our future.

"I've made this speech after much hesitation. I know it will be rubbished in certain quarters. But I also know this has needed to be said. "

A well though out speech that did need to be said and will need to be repeated until the media mends its ways. The 'feral beast' does not need to be tamed but society does need to be able to live with the beast within.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I Laying plans contd...

18,19 All warfare is based on deception.

Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away we must make him believe we are near.

Notes by Zephyrist:

This is a variation of the key to winning a battle is 'the element of surprise'. Distract your enemy from seeing how you intend to attack and you can win because they will be unprepared.

Sun Tzu says that you must deceive the enemy into believing that you would not attack in that way. For the world war 2 d-day preparations the allies went to some lengths to persuade Hitler that they were going to attack across the straits of Dover in order to give the allies the elements of surprise on the beaches they actually attacked. The allies forced Hitler to keep his reserves farther back because he did not know where the allies were going to land which gave the allies more time to secure a beach head.

A Postcard from Second Life 3

Well, the new memory is installed and it runs a lot better, no more lag. So I have done a bit more sight seeing.

First I went to visit Midsomer Isle (SLURL) , which is a garden with lots of little nooks for quiet whispered sweet nothings and a bit of a dancing area for a romantic slow dance. Definitely somewhere you could go on a second life date . Not too crowded either.

Here are a couple snapshots of me on my lonesome enjoying some of the views on offer.


A view from the dance terrace .


One of the many exquisite objects on the isle.

A Postcard from Second Life 2

I might be turning into a bit of a second life photographer, I popped in to see what was going on and it was a beautiful moonlit night, so I sat on the coast and watched the water for a bit.

Interest rates hit 5.75%

Interest rates are now at 5.75% and although I think there will be no change next month after that it is more uncertain.

The CPI measure of inflation is dropping but slowly 2.8% in April down to 2.5% in May. Whilst a downward trend continues I think there will be no change in the interest rate. Long term prospects for inflation is to return towards 2% naturally by the end of the year. So any slow or steady downward drop will hold interest rates stable. However, any increase, unless there is a short term economic reason will put an upward pressure on interest rates.

Other factors include retail and housing both not particularly strong at the moment. However wage settlements may have an effect if they start to increase. There have been a small number of agreed pay settlements a significant margin above the rate of inflation which could keep inflation high.

Overall I would expect interest rates to be stable for the next few months but I think there will be one more rate rise to come once the impact of the previous rises can be judged. I don't think interest rates will fall below 5.5% for the remainder of this year unless there is a major economic instability.

Of course I am not an economist so your opinion is as good as mine, but these are my humble thought on the subject.

Everyday Super Heroes:Sniffer Dogs

The police dogs who were busy sniffing out suspect packages in the aftermath of the 7th July bombings have been awarded PDSA gold medals.

Labradors Vinnie and Billy plus spaniel Jake were given the awards at St James's Palace.

All 3 dogs were on duty at the bomb sites searching for secondary devices in difficult circumstances. They did their duty calmly and professionally and made sure the area was safe allowing rescue personnel to enter the area.

The usual police recommendation would be that all three dogs acted in the highest standards and traditions of the police service. They are a credit to the police and the nation.

Every day police dogs are going above and beyond the call of duty putting themselves at risk to uphold the law. They deserve the superhero pants of honour.

For a handler on behalf of all police handlers and their dogs I shall leave the last word to PC Rob Brydon-Brown talking about Billy:

"Billy is a good lad... every working day I put my trust in Billy and he has never let me down."

- PC Rob Brydon Brown, City of London Police

Alan Johnston is freed

After 114 days Alan has been released. Alan's release was achieved through negotiation and pressure bought to bear by Hamas. This kind of negotiation which did not break down into warfare shows that there is still hope for the region and that things can be achieved when people talk.

It would be naive of anyone to think this heralds a new era of peace in the middle east but after recent violence in the area where it has seemed there was no hope for the future there is now a glimmer of hope.

For a quote about the whole affair I shall leave it to Alan himself:

[One of his first acts after his release]
"...going to the barbers and getting rid of that just-kidnapped look"

-Alan Johnston, BBC Gaza correspondent.

A Postcard from Second Life

This is me grooving on down at the boat shed.

Not a lot too add to my last post about second life apart from if you are a new citizen of second life like me you might need a bit of a guide to what to do, what to see etc. After a quick google I found Natalia Zelmanov's Second Life Diary which is currently acting as my guidebook to starting out.

I have earned a bit of money camping and I have found out that some of my lag problems may be due to not having enough system memory, this is now on order from crucial so hopefully that will help. I don't normally recommend companies but crucial does offer good value prices and in terms of memory it makes finding the right memory for your system easy. Even a non computer geek can easily find the right memory.

What's next in second life, well one of the places I am looking to visit soon is the Botanic gardens.

I step into Second Life

I have a go at most things interweb sooner or later. I gave myspace a miss because frankly it became too popular and seemed to be full of teenagers.

Second life seemed a whole more serious affair so on Sunday when I got bored, I finally joined up.

As of Day 2 it seems to be a good place to explore. I have found my self a chill out bar as well where you can listen to internet radio and chat with people.

Even cooler I got myself a free Ghost busters T-shirt to identify myself as a true 80's child.

The only downsides so far is a lot of lag and a lot of client crashes. Having said that the whole internet has been a bit laggy lately.

My dancing in second life is also dead impressive.

More reports later.

Interesting links: Blog film rating

While surfing some other blogs I found the link to where to get your blog rated. 'Too many thoughts' is unofficially rated:




Of course given the nature of some of the things I have previously written about and things I will write about in the future I would give myself a minimum rating of 15.

CIA finally releases 'Family Jewels' Documents

The CIA have released documents which give a history of misdeeds over several decades. Known as the family jewels most events had already been exposed or speculated about in the American media, however this is the first time official documents have been released.

Events covered include attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, confinement of a Russian defector, surveillance of journalists, break-ins, wire tapping and experiments on the general public.

It is these experiments on the general public that caught my attention. There is an element of trust that governments do not carry out experiments on the general public. In the UK and the US it would be a breach of fundamental rights. Of course it is only a breach if the government gets caught.

The 'family jewels' is a 702 page document which summarises "activities conduced either by or under the sponsorship of the Office of Security in the past which in my opinion conflict with the provisions of the National Security Act 1947" . The report was written in 1973 and covered the period from 1959 to 1973. It is a collection of responses from CIA employees asked to report on the above type of activities.

The uncomfortable truths mainly arise from the prohibition of the CIA to have any internal influence. This is set out by Section 102 paragraph D3 (mentioned on page 458):

"The Agency shall have no police, subpoena, law enforcement powers, or internal security functions"

The internal documents which caused the review are also included in the family jewels such as employee bulletins and responses to the press.

A lot of it is obviously still top secret and so entire pages make little sense, as an example take this paragraph from Page 72:

"2. Other activities of the Agency which could at some point raise public questions should they be exposed and on which Bill Colby is fully conversant are:

--CI acitivity of Dick Ober DD/O

-- 'blank' and 'blank' investments and accumulation of Government capital.

-- Use of CIA funds and facilities to aquire US real estate for FBI and provision of technical equipments by NSA 'blank' for use against 'long blank'"

Items 2 and three would appear to relate to some major mis-use of government funds but what for is still considered to be a National security issue over 30 years later For the nest batch of pages follows a report on funding for responding to letters generated by a speech by the president on Cambodia. Whether this is connected with the above funds is difficult to determine.

Watergate gets a mention too although again a lot of the material is still considered sensitive and I doubt anything new has been released.

Most of the stuff is incredibly dull and it often repeats itself.

On Page 235 which is a report detailing contact with other US agencies it details a request by CIA to the US Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

"CIA has requested the establishment of a two-acre plot of opium poppies at a USDA research site in Washington state, to be used for tests of photo-recognition of opium poppies."

The next paragraph is blanked out so no indication of what happened to the request is given.

The public testing, first mentioned on pages 238,239 seem to refer to covert intercepts of telephone conversations, tested in domestic locations.

'Laser Probe' 1967 San Francisco.

'Blank' system 1968 -

This system is designed to permit intercept of 'blank paragraph'.

You cant get much more top secret.

'Telephone intrusion study'

This seems to be monitoring of telephone systems including systems overseas. It would appear they did testing in the US for proof of concept before conducting tests overseas in unspecified locations.

Other unspecified sensors unconnected with telephones were also tested domestically for engineering test purposes.

Remote cardiograph tests were carried out on contractors that worked for the CIA (Page 240).

On page 324 there is a 'memorandum for the record' about the disposal of classified trash from the NSC.

"The material contains documents for the White House situation room, codeword and other documents from the intelligence community. This practice began in December 1971 and is still in effect. Pick up of 30 bags of trash is made every Thursday"

The memo does have a second paragraph explaining why this needed to be put on record but the paragraph give a curious look at the housekeeping of confidential material destroyed by the White house in the early 70's.

Trivia about funding for stamps and stationary seems to be an ongoing saga with little nuggets like the following on page 468.

"9. I raise these issues of funding because I remember the Agency's being severely criticized by the House Appropriations Subcommittee for having spent $3000 for stamps in connection with a program to buy tractors to secure the release of prisoners from Cuba."

Sadly the report doesn't detail exactly how they managed to spend $3000 on stamps alone.

Of course the events recounted in these pages all took place long before the use of email. Documents were sent by telegram to a signals centre and then taken by hand to the recipient. With the CIA intercepting telegrams the information could sometimes be read by the CIA before the recipient. On page 469 the following anecdote is recounted:

"12. During my stint on the 7th floor there was a special arrangement with the Office of Communications whereby the Director's office gained access to non-CIA traffic. This surfaced briefly at one point shortly after Admiral Rayborn became DCI. He had visited the Signal Center and removed a copy of a telegram from the Embassy in the Dominican republic for Under Secretary George Ball, Eyes Only. He returned to his office and proceeded to discuss this telegram with George Ball who was naturally quite curious as to how Rayborn knew about it, and also how Rayborn had it in his possession before Ball did. Ben Read in the Secretary of State's office and I spent several weeks putting this one to rest."

After that nothing interesting is worth retelling and the document ends on page 702.

Not as interesting as you might think the 'family jewels' is a collection of documents mainly centered around the CIA's domestic activities in the 60's and 70's the vast majority being involvement with law enforcement agencies.