Thursday, March 31, 2011

Trafalgar square rally

According to the often fairly accurate "New Statesman"

"Neither mindless nor violent, young protesters were forced into a stand-off with police."

"half a million students, trades unionists, parents, children and concerned citizens from all over Britain demonstrate against the government's austerity programme."

"The police claim "the clashes in Trafalgar square began because "for some reason one of [the protestors] made an attack on the Olympic clock." That is not what happened. Instead, I witness the attempted snatch arrest of a 23 year-old man who they suspect of damaging the shop front of a major chain bank earlier in the day."

And so on...

IMO: That's nothing compared to dear old Australia... "Mow 'em down, driver" was a typical actual call by a uniformed police officer to a car waiting for peaceful protestors, some years ago in Sydney. And it had been fully expected that the private car would be obliged to run over the protestors. Probably not so bad out there nowadays, but often enough police anywhere in English speaking countries have no idea how to behave. Certainly cuts should be made. It was quite irresponsible of the last (Labor) government to appoint non-banking experts to run banks. e.g. Nick Hornby and the chap supposed to be running RBOS. And the current Condemn moat-and-duckpond government seems to be getting things even worse. What can be done ? I have suggested one or two things in the present blog, and there are doubtless many more.

IMO: UTAP big demos work sometimes. The big poll tax riots probably got rid of the evil old harridan Margaret Thatcher, who with the help of her friends in BP was a major cause for the destruction of the British economy. Who should be Prime Minister ? - well Milliband's mother probably would not take the job, but in an perhaps unwary moment she seems to have said whe would not vote for either of her sons. That shows some good judgement.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Australian diplomats saw attacks on students as racially driven

More Wikileaks cable revelations.

“perpetrators of many of these crimes are not white Australians, but other first- or second-generation immigrants from these ‘tougher’ countries,” the cable signed by US Melbourne consul general Michael Thurston said.

It seems that lack of affordable housing pushed Indian students to farther-flung suburbs with high concentrations of immigrants from Somalia and Vietnam.

IMO: So maybe the problem is at least partly between former Somalis, Vietnamese etc and Indians.If general social services in Australia have not improved a lot, this is hardly surprising. From the point of view of any would be student, Australia may be only slightly worse than most places - I think that as a student in Sydney, Australia, being very obviously Australian, I made just one actual student friend in the academic community, but he was too smart for the local academic log rollers and he was kicked out. Go figure. But academics everywhere in the world appear to many people to be a bunch of crocodiles looking for easy meat such as an innocent swimmer - metaphorically hopefully. Australia is only worse for its provincialism, perhaps. Physical violence is probably rare and relatively unlikely. Some have said that an Indian student is safer in Melbourne than in India - but anyway both places are inside the bounds of reason. Apparently dark skinned footballers get insulted in Russia by blatant obscene gestures with bananas, or so the Press tell people for an easy headline.

Indians expose astroturfing on Wikipedia

The practice of Astroturfing, referred to on the big blog BoingBoing, is the creation of "persona management" software to simplify the process of pretending to be several people at once online, in order simulate widespread support for a point of view.

Bangalore-based Kiran Jonnalagadda and Hans Varghese Mathews built Wiki Analysis. Here is how you can do it too, presumably people will take the trouble to set up a simple system in due course - or it may even have been done already.

IMO: I am afraid I have to say, as a BoingBoing correspondent commented: "makes you wonder just how "spontaneous" the facebook "revolutions" in those countries really were...". At any rate, Jewish "megaphone diplomacy" has been notorious for years, whatever one's views on Israel.... and who may have joined the bandwagon now - Gadaffi, Glenn Beck,even Rupert Murdoch - its anyone's guess, but hopefully the whistles will be blown.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Libya

The Pioneer reasonably says "India has rightly acted in its national interest at a time when US cables released by WikiLeaks indicate that New Delhi has become virtually a pawn of Washington, DC. Having abstained from voting on UNSCR 1973, regretted the air assault on Libya, and asked for the attacks to stop, there is little else India can do".

IMO: Clearly India is no Glenn Beck. But Gadaffi actually spent a lot of oil money on other African countries, some would say in his own interests.

Obama said the US could not stand aside and watch pro-Gaddafi's forces attack Benghazi, a city with a population of some 700,000 people, knowing that it would result in a "massacre".

IMO: Obama may well be correct. But Indians have no cause to fight for America. Why should Indians be cannon-fodder for the latest US whim ? World War 2 was half way fought before America entered and then, many people say it was only for local economic reasons. At the time of Vietnam, Australians were told that it was their 'duty' to fight Spellman's war for him. And that did not turn out so well, some of my friends are now inscriptions on war memorials for no good reason.

2G scam: CBI arrests two more

Asif Balwa, brother of DB Realty managing director Shahid Balwa, and Rajiv Agarwal were arrested here in connection with the case.

Till now, six people, including Shahid Balwa, former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja , his personal aide R.K. Chandolia and former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, have been arrested in the case.

IMO: At least they are trying to catch the crooks in India. I only wish they would cage a few more Westminster MPs.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Ed Miliband to join cross-party alternative vote push

Ed Miliband is to urge all "progressive forces" to come together to press for a new UK voting system as those seeking change launch their official campaign.

The Labour leader will join senior Lib Dem and Green Party figures in a cross-party push for a Yes vote in the 5 May referendum on the alternative vote.

But Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who also backs change, will not be at the event.

IMO: The strong impression left is that Clegg is not popular, apparently for good reason.

Under AV, which will be backed today by Labour leader Ed Miliband, voters have to rank candidates at Westminster elections in order of preference rather than simply voting for the one candidate they want to win.

More than 90 per cent of Labour and Conservative voters would  be unlikely to get a second vote.

IMO: Thank goodness for that ! Presumably this may help to get rid of at least some of those MPs who are in politics to support themselves and not the general public.

The Daily Mail suggests: ¨in some constituencies, supporters of the BNP would have had their preferences counted six times before a winner was declared¨.

IMO: What the Mail says simply seems to be totally misleading. Each voter will only get one vote. But under the present system it is only a lottery as to whether their vote counts at all. With AV the voters get a little more choice. If you do not want anyone to be elected, simply put him or her near the bottom of the list.

IMO: Women are about half the voting population and AV looks as if it may increase the likelihood of the election of suitable (not just ´token') women politicians. Many women would presumably like to vote for another woman, but place party views high also. With AV they can vote first for a woman, then for a party candidate. They can have their vote counted (once only) that way.  And as for the BNP, if they get a candidate elected they may change their policies for the better. BNP policies have changed a lot over the last few years, and many people would say there has been a marked overall improvement.

Norman Tebbitt's wise words

It seems Clegg observed to the Prime Minister, apparently expecting to be off-mike: “If we keep doing this, we won’t find anything to bloody disagree on in the bloody TV debates.”

If the divide between the two party leaders no longer exists, why are they not in the same party?

IMO: Indeed










Sunday, March 27, 2011

Vince Cable says the government is unmoved by the London demo.

"No government would change its fundamental economic policies simply in response to a demonstration of that kind," Cable said.

IMO: Hmm, looks like the Big Society will have to come up with something more realistic than a demo to affect the Westminster pigs. Certainly a larger demo did not work for the (expensive) Iraq invasion and now a lot of jobs go. The Libyan invasion, which had the purpose for France of emphasising the worth of its materiel, had the opposite effect for the UK, as it simply seems to make the Condemn party look even bigger fools than they were. I most certainly won't say that I agree with Lewis Page on this, but some of his points do seem to have merit. But what can people do about the cuts ? Labor's usual responses of protest and strike have not worked so far. But I say again, who will accept cuts from a crooked Government, particularly when they so deeply concern health and social welfare ? Perhaps there are civilised responses to this impasse, but they certainly have not been obvious so far. AV might help, but that's a small step and the brainwashed public probably won't accept even that.


Madgaon cleanliness

Some years ago, the British writer Patrick French visited the Sabarmati ashram on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat, the site from which Mahatma Gandhi led his salt march to the sea in 1930. French was so appalled by the noisome state of the latrines that he asked the ashram secretary whose job it was to clean them. A sweeper woman stopped by for an hour a day, the functionary explained, but afterward things inevitably became filthy again.

But wasn’t it a central tenet of the Mahatma’s teachings that his followers clean up after themselves? “We all clean the toilets together, on Gandhiji’s birthday,” the secretary answered, “as a symbol to show that we understand his message.”...

IMO: Locally in Chandor, some effort has been made and in fact there is even genuine annoyance at the garbage situation. It really does seem that most people have forgotten Mahatma Gandhi, in practice if not in theory, around Madgaon. But with many people being Roman Catholic in theory at least, did they ever know Gandhi here in any real sense ? It is all such a pity. Maybe the Roman Catholics should be asked to go back to one of the ´ṔIGS´ countries in Europe and to leave Goa to the real Indians. If things head the way they seem to going in London with riot and revolt, India will be a better place to be than Europe, soon enough. And the bankers Goldman Sachs seem to indicate that this will be so in a few years.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

India´s future

According to a recent paper produced by Goldman Sachs, it seems that India´s GDP per capita (roughly, a measure of likely personal income), will exceed that of USA before the century is half way through. At about the same time, Germany, Japan and the UK will have about 1/4 of this GDP. Not paupers, but in some cases maybe approaching third world income levels.

IMO: Honesty and hard work may well be what counts. Certainly in the UK, neither of these are very evident.



Friday, March 25, 2011

Lawbreaking MPs

Greg Hands, Conservative MP for Chelsea and Fulham, said Labour and the TUC had a duty to ensure the march was not "a focus for disorder and law-breaking".

IMO: UTAP Labour and the TUC certainly do have that duty. And cuts must be made and these should start right at the top. But in fairness the TUC has said "It is very disappointing to see a right-wing think tank (ed: and its often criminal and wasteful supporters) - one of the few cheerleaders for spending cuts left - circulating what looks like little more than black propaganda aimed to deter marchers from attending." And surely most of the law breaking has been done already at the top  by crooked MPs, pigs squealing in their Westminster trough. At some point, laws made by bent MPs will be treated with the contempt they deserve. This is bad, a sign of the degeneration of UK society caused by years of bad administration from the top and this is not improving, hence some of the anger. Who is keen to accept pay cuts when the boss is a swindler ? Kettling at demonstrations should be made totally illegal and police who practice kettling should be jailed.


Fukushima nuclear plant and the consequences

The position at the moment seems to be that at least one of the Fukushima reactors (No 3) is damaged, and that workers have been hospitalised due to having been exposed to water containing 10,000 times the normal radiation level.

IMO: I do not like to say "I told you so" but at about the time the reactors were installed (many years ago) I did point out during the course of giving a University lecture to Engineering students on nuclear reactors  that the GE boiling water reactor was a bad choice, and dangerous, and that just as GM cars were 'clunkers', so too were GE reactors of the time. OK, that is long ago and doubtless these reactors had been improved during use, but they were already well past their recommended closure date AFAIK. The saying goes, "if you buy US goods, you buy Enron and Bhopal" - at present India is still seeking extradition of Warren Anderson, and also would like to proceed against Dow Chemical, but this has taken a long, long time. Will Japan win any rights due ? They will be lucky.
  
Kaiga atomic power plant in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, has four plants of 220 MW each under operation. These are quite close to where I am writing now. People say the plants are safe, but then they called the nearby Bangalore a "garden city" and now they say it is not a "garden city" but a "garbage city". I do not wish to upset Bangalore, Krishna forbid, but some of the better off folks do not just refuse to drink any tap water in Bangalore, and incredibly they WASH in soda water, bottled elsewhere - just sayin' the facts. The enormous new nuclear plant allegedly to be built at Ratnagiri, also not that far, will be in an earthquake zone - just like Bhuj, and we all know what happened there. Congress say it will all be OK but we certainly do not have engineering details as to how it will be OK. The great Bal Thackeray, Shiv Sena, and many others in Maharashtra are strongly against the site - but it is a long way from Delhi so that shows how much Delhi seems to care about the ghattis.

What can be done ?

I know one answer, but many will not like it, understandably. Buy from China. I said to someone in Madgaon just the other day that most of the overseas stuff, supposedly from Switzerland, USA etc is actually made in China. I wish we could make it in India. Maybe we can. Here is how the Chinese propose to proceed: China is launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium. China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. I guess the US still made money selling 'clunkers'. Radioactive waste is said to be 1000 times less and if the plant begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. Pressure is atmospheric and neutron production stops at the click of a switch. I do not know full details, brief elementary description here, and it sounds like it might work.













Snouts back in the trough: Watchdog caves in on MPs' demands on expenses

The parliamentary standards watchdog unveiled a swathe of concessions to the stricter regime imposed on UK MPs after the 2009 expenses scandal.

IMO: Disgusting. These Jeffrey Archer style layabouts are not fit to be pigs in a pig toilet. (Here in Goa we do have pig toilets, where the pigs are allowed to eat human excrement as it is dropping).  MPs David Chaytor and MP Eric Illsley were jailed for 18 months and one year respectively over the expenses scandal, and now the other pigs are squealing. Live up to your election promises, Cameron. We do not want the UK to have to become ¨little Libya¨.





Thursday, March 24, 2011

Another Tory MP faces fraud charges

EU judges on Thursday ruled that the European Parliament was right to act over Tory MEP Dan Dover's "significant and serious misuse" of expenses.

The former North West Conservative MEP now faces an investigation by Olaf, the EU's anti-fraud agency and calls for him to be arrested by British police. 
EU Court of Justice papers show that £101,068 of the cash meant for paying wages was spent on three cars, a clear breach of rules.

Another £100,735 was used on renovation to Mr Dover's house and rent was paid to lease his own family's property, including office space in his Borehamwood home which is over 100 miles from his former constituency in North West England.



Other sums, totalling another £143,486 were wrongly spent on printing, postage, telephoning, entertaining and a small £200 donation to the Tories. "Sums had been unduly paid, at the very least," found the official investigation.

The parliament also identified £167,903 in unpaid VAT, a sum that EU judges decided must be recovered by the British tax authorities from the family firm, rather than from Mr Dover personally.

IMO: Obviously all the UK MPs, not just Tory or Labour, should now have to answer to the UK public. The EU for many years has clearly been extremely corrupt. It is not just the current carbon market frauds, we can look back many years to even earlier than the 'sugar mountain' and the 'wine lake'. But the British, for many years regarded as 'honest fools' are by now as incriminated as the current behaviour of the moat-and-duckpond crowd might lead one to expect. All these MPs should be jailed just like Tory MP Jeffrey Archer was, but at present there is little real chance. Hopefully Dover at least will be jailed.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The UK Government deficit reductions – nonexistent.


John Redwood's figures on Cameron's deficit reduction seem to indicate that the Condemn promise to reduce their bosses' (the so-called 'civil servants') numbers by 30% has in fact only resulted in a 2% reduction of staff numbers.

Deficit reduction – if any – would seem to be arising from the planned destruction of the NHS, and it is caused by Condemn Party pandering to the highly inefficient private health companies who gave them an enormous cash donation to that end. The poor old general public seem to be finding that the existing health service has 'never been better' according to surveys by the Kings Fund and like entities.

There is no real chance that the Condemn party in real terms will make any deficit reduction whatsoever, especially as they are spending three billion dollars a day firing rockets at General Gadaffi, not exactly what the voters or indeed the Arabs told them to do.

IMO: Nobody without personal vested interests would seem wise to vote Tory now, or in the near future. Such a pity, and “Searchlight” seems to feel that the BNP are not taking enough measures to level the playing field. Right now the only hope looks like AV, and that seems at least better than nothing and could be improved on later if ever adopted.

The Indian 39 billion dollar scam again

A few days before the mysterious death of Sadhick Batcha in Chennai, the CBI was passed on information in Mumbai that Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company might target the probe agency headquarters to destroy the 2G scam papers.

According to sources, the chargesheet will also name Kalaignar TV MD Sharad Kumar and at least two corporate houses — Swan Telecom and Unitech.

The CBI also seem to be trying to get Anil Ambani's Reliance group, Loop Telecom, Essar group, Tata group, Videocon, S-Tel, Shyam Mobile, Alliance Infra, Dishnet and others.

Intelligence agencies suspect Swan Telecom promoter and a main accused in the 2G scam case, Shahid Balwa to have links to Dawood Ibrahim's gang.


IMO: Seems like a lot of people could be involved, one way or another. More than five days after Sadiq Batcha’s so-called suicide, a hitherto unknown man called Vivekanandan has claimed that he identified the body brought to the Apollo Hospital around 1.30 pm on 16 March as that of Batcha’s.

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