It (literally) means 3000 realms in a single moment of life. This means that for any given moment your life is composed of everything; all thoughts, all history, all presents and all futures. You only ‘sense’ things one at a time, yet they’re always there.
Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas, Australia
I’ll soon be toddling off to the beach above.
Beautiful Sunset
It’s a fantastic holiday destination, see the sunset here, or click on the image for more shots.
I’ve renamed one of our tracks, the track playing, to “Castaway” after I’d re- jigged it a bit. It seemed “better”.
As a boy my father read a book called “The Coral Sea” and decided to become a sailor who would one day sail that very sea because of it.
He joined the war. His ship was originally called CVE-32.
The Lexington which blew up in the Coral Sea was originally called CV-2.
I’m going to Four Mile Beach soon.
What’s it all mean?
Four Mile Beach again
It means that we are all connected. In many more ways than the 3000, we are all intimately connected both now, to the past and the future. Sometimes the connections are obvious, sometimes not; but as sure as eggs are eggs all our lives are entangled, it’s a part of life.
The Buddha said “work hard for your own salvation” just before he died. It means to take action for your own happiness. Don’t rely on external factors like people, events or gods because you’ll always be dissatisfied. Suffer what is and enjoy what is as if they’re the same.
Golden Syrup Years ago, when I was a lad, my mum used to make us all porridge for breakfast in winter. On the top, I’d spiral a big dollop of Lyle’s Golden Syrup and then, while eating the porridge, I’d read the tin. Yes! There was a different flapjack recipe every time! But also, as...
Well here’s a strange thing I’ve just come across! huffduffer It’s a website utterly bereft of (normal) content except it’s chocka bloc full of MP3 files that are audio books. It’s all public domain, so I’ve uploaded a reading of Crawling Chaos, written by H. P. Lovecraft, locally. Even stranger, if that is possible, I’ve...
How Bad was Thatcher’s Recession compared to the Current Economic Slump?
Q. Well, how would you find out, exactly?
Slump's Progress
A. Surprisingly easily. This graph here compares historical economic slumps with the current one, on a month by month basis. It’s taken from the “National Institute of Economic and Social Research” (NIESR) website here. Notionally, it’s an academic institution, but on examining it’s staff and management you’ll see that it’s a collection of vested interest groups, supplying a “knowledge base”.
But There’s No Denying their Facts!
The current slump is in black and the fall seems to have plateaued out a bit. It’s tracking something like the red line and the green line. So what you see is the Green Line, which is Thatcher’s Slump, being nearly as bad as the depression in the 1930s (the red line)!
However, in Thatcher’s time, Britain was awash with North Sea oil wealth! Coal mines were still producing horrendous quantities of fuel and North Sea Gas had been on-stream for years.
In short, the country was sound with it’s own supplies of energy, dependant on no-one. And yet, it had the worst economic state since the great depression!
So much for Thatcher’s miracle!
The current labour government has not been blessed with such good fortune during the current slump. Britain is now a huge energy importer and is vulnerable to the vagaries of the market in oil as we saw last year.
Where Did the Money Go in Thatcher’s Time?
Thatcher Explains All
The legacy of Thatcher’s time in office was leaking schools everywhere, a crumbling rail network, hived off bus services that redefined “service”, a crumbling road system, paid-for medical treatment…. an almost endless list!
So where did the money go?
Where did the strategic national energy reserves of oil, coal and gas go?
Where did Britain’s manufacturing industry go?
Well the energy was burnt to get money to pay people on the dole.
Britain’s manufacturing (and most of the Western world’s) went to China and would have happened anyway
That leaves the money. Where did the money go?
A. Tax havens, that’s where.
Thatcher and all conservatives of that ilk whine on about making a country fit for the entrepreneurial spirit. But their actions, both now and historically, for the most part, go soundly against that spirit. (I’m thinking particularly of Ashcroft here who may be entrepreneurial but whose contributions to UK PLC as opposed to Tory Ltd have been minimal…)
It’s in their name – conservative.
Their gut reaction is to hoard wealth, and if they can’t do it at home, they’ll do it abroad (like Shirley Porter). Remember, the wealth of “The City” is not derived from the re-invested wealth of landowning Tories suddenly looking for a home for their money once local industries had gone. It comes from abroad. There’s no way they’d invest their own money in infrastructure or development. Sheesh!
Their other modus operandi is to do as little as possible for the country while maintaining the status quo. Hence, this is why all large companies and financial institutions are full of the same old people, having the same background and speaking the same language. The banks and other institutions behind the economic collapse are headed by these people, who flit from government to the military, to law, ‘business’ and finance with impunity. Anywhere that’ll keep them busy, keep them wealthy and keep them pulling strings.
True, many do ‘charitable’ activities and are on the controlling side of many charities. But that’s purely dressage. Being involved with charity does not make you a good person. You just look good. In a truly civilised society there should be no need whatsoever for charity. It’s a definition of civilised, or being civil, in my book.
Worms from Woodwork
Now, with the piss-poor Labour government and their own side’s resurgence all the old tories are all coming out of the woodwork again. The odious slimery is oozing forth like the dark stain from history that it is. The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) is one such place.
Thatcher-Cameron
The CPS, created by… Thatcher!… in 1974, proclaims it’s freedom credentials from it’s lofty privileged position. Among it’s luminaries is Thatcher’s advertiser (Saatchi) and the European gaffer of Goldmann Sachs, one of the companies internationally bailed out with public funds and one of those businesses at the forefront of the whole current economic mess! Most of the rest seem to have had various Tory positions over the last two decades. So much for independent think tank! (By the way, the CPS is a pseudo-charity – a non-profit-making organisation which relies on the donations of individuals and companies to carry out its work!!)
Part of the CPS’s ‘current thinking’ is to roll back the surveillance culture that has developed under Labour. Personally, I can’t see it happening…
The trouble is, as has just been revealed in a book supposedly derived from recently released archive material from MI5, (The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5), like all power-grabbers, Thatcher used MI5 for her own ends. She used MI5 to discredit Red Robbo the Trades Union Leader and had tabs on Scargill. Prime Minister Wilson even had the tabs on him and ordered tabs on others…. and so it goes. (see Book tells of MI5′s secret past – the fact is that Margaret Thatcher demanded action from MI5 to deal with “wreckers” in British industry and yet it was herself that wrecked that same industry!.)
That’s why I see it as highly unlikely that Cameron, if the Tories get in, will roll back the shutters on our increasingly closeted and shuttered state apparatus. He’s there purely to re-instate the old status quo….
To keep jobs for the boys
Re-exert the dominant power structures of the state and the wealthy, bolstering their unhealthy connections to their former pre-eminence
Say that all the new hospitals and schools which have replaced all the leaking and collapsing ones, would have happened anyway…
Say that the new fast rail links would have happened anyway without government sponsorship
Ensure that money stashed abroad by the wealthy remains unreachable by the state
Bring back smoking in pubs
Tax the poor to pay for the rich’s mistakes
Kill foxes ritually
Say that they’d have fixed the credit-crunch anyway..
All these and more will come under the banner of “freedom” and I’m quite sure that MI5 will be used to ensure they happen. The media will naturally be roped in to lend a publicity hand to smooth the waters and ensure that the status quo has safe passage; A media governed by;
a non-tax paying, non-resident Australian-American,
a non-resident Briton who prefers to pay French tax
and a brotherly twosome who threaten locals who don’t vote for “their man”.
Great? Britain.
Thatcher’s Economic Legacy
Greed
Selfishness
The Channel Tunnel (economic disaster, multiple bankrupt)
Too Little, Too Late, Gordon Brown This morning, PM Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr that he wants to ‘clean up’ parliament. He wants a ‘code of conduct’ for MPs to follow. The thing is, there’s already a code of conduct – it’s called the law! All we, ‘the people’ want, is to have reasonable laws...
New Jaguar XJ In common with most cars like this, it’s a lovely looking machine – a style marvel; sleek and vapid, mercurial. It’s also a waste of space and a waste of effort. It’s two tonnes of mass for a 400kg payload is pants. An ecological disaster zone. Money for Old Rope Not only...
In common with most cars like this, it’s a lovely looking machine – a style marvel; sleek and vapid, mercurial.
It’s also a waste of space and a waste of effort.
It’s two tonnes of mass for a 400kg payload is pants. An ecological disaster zone.
Money for Old Rope
New York Congestion
Not only that, with the firm reputably losing £1m per day, it’s cost of >£50k to a tad under £90k means that 10-20 will need to be sold each day just to cover that loss, without any pretence at covering their own manufacturing costs.
The irony isn’t just in the financial gloss applied to make it appear that Shangri-La is returning very soon; a bizarre hope exists of a ‘business as usual’ scenario, when we can repeat the whole cycle again.
The irony is in the design of the vehicle, it’s presentation to the public, and the public’s perception of the machine as a desirable status symbol, swooping over life’s problems like fuel shortages, the congestion of our urban sprawls and speed limits.
The Jaguar website provides full technical specifications for the vehicle, which show it to have good acceleration and economy. They fail to point out that the standard laws of physics mean these aren’t at the same time…
Bored young Jaguar
The slow-motion pictures at the beginning of the launch video aren’t slow at all. This is real-time speed in a traffic queue, the place where the vehicle will spend most of it’s travelling life.
And whenever the Jaguar owner feels like opening it up to it’s 155mph limited maximum, hopefully they’ll be reassured that it’s lightweight, rivetted aluminium structure is stronger than that of the similarly shiny, magnesium and aluminium Mercedes which was in this crash below, at only 125mph.
The point is that rapid transport itself is a luxury. Although we in the West have become accustomed to ever cheaper travel of all types, this has been at the expense of the future. Like the credit crunch, we are “leveraging” today’s resources against tomorrows expectations of a miracle. The pot of black gold isn’t bottomless, but the continuing production of anachronisms like this beautiful car, seeks only to deceive us that it is.
The only miracle will be if people see the truth that they’ve been living in a dream world for the past century. In the 35,000 years of human existence, these last hundred are but a plip in a pond.
From the Department of the Bleeding Obvious World Bank warns of social unrest In this little snippet we find that bad things are going to happen because of the financial crisis! I we consider that the top bank in the world is “The World Bank” (i.e. it’s in the name), and the top bank has...
Atlantic Ocean Floor Profile Following the (as yet unresolved) crash of the Air France airbus on flight AF 447, much has been made about the ocean floor having huge cracks and being very uneven. Most atlases, online and TV news reports say this and back the statement up with visual imagery of the bathymetry. See...
One Third of Second-Hand Hard Drives Contain Secrets
This is the astonishing findings from research conducted by three Universities, from Wales, the US & Australia (see here).
In an absolutely random sample of second-hand discs bought at computer fairs and places like eBay, 34% had secret, classified and/or personal data of the highest order, easily retrievable using standard tools e.g. Undelete!
Currently, virtually all data is stored magnetically on discs (and tape). These media are actually quite fragile…..
The new Solid State Discs (SSD) which will rapidly supersede them over the next few years, are infinitely more robust (see advantages). It’s said that the only way to really get rid of data from an SSD, is to whack a nail right through the chip, drive backward and forwards over it several times with a road roller, and then cast it into the flames and melt it down, Terminator style.
Given that ALL government data storage uses exactly the same storage technology as Auntie Mavis’s PC, what chance is there that all our data will stay secure on the ID Card, Passport Control, Driving Licence, MI5, MI6, CID, Child Support, Social Services, Home Office, NHS Trusts, and all the other systems in future now that we know that one third of data is currently leaked using the current hard disc, tape and CD (optical) systems?
Can they be trusted with our data, in other words?
News Items The only news item missing is that from a premiership football club at the wrong end of the league regarding the future employment status of it’s manager… There have been two news items in the UK today that must surely have everyone either rolling their eyes in the air, or laughing down their...
Introduction This is a small investigation into mail lists and scammy companies. Some companies are fine, but I always go by the adage to judge a man by the company he keeps. This shows how lists spread far beyond their initial purpose when you sign up for something. It also shows how the privacy policies...
The DWP have lost in the courts again after a tribunal today ruled that the Atos run Work Capability Assessment (WCA) disadvantages people with mental health problems. This follows a string of legal decisions ruling against the DWP as they … Continue reading → […]
Boycott Workfare joined the Civil Service Rank and File Network (CSRF) and Brighton Benefits Campaign in Brighton yesterday to lobby the PCS Union to take meaningful action on the brutal benefit sanctions currently driving hundreds of thousands of people into … Continue reading → […]
