Category: Uncategorized

At last someone speaks up! Former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, is urging African leaders to do more to address the crisis in Zimbabwe. About time, but might this plea be falling on deaf ears?

His comments about the deterioration of the stimulation in Zimbabwe having a big impacts beyond the country’s borders are absolutely right.

If Mugabe uses force to get his own way, where do the countries that border Zimbabwe think the inevitable streams of refuges will go as they try to leave the the growing violence of Mugabe?

I suppose as those countries have not raised a hand to get rid of Mugabe, particularly Thabo Mbeki’s South Africa, they will just shut their borders and let them all die. Clearly if Mbeki is happy for Chinese arms shipments to pass through his country unhindered, then he can’t care too much for his fellow Africans. Thank goodness for the South African trade unions for stopping the ship from discharging it cargo.

Where is the ship off to now? I won’t be surprised to find that it turns up in Mozambique at the port of Beira.

Beira was the costal port that was used to move oil from the Mozambique coast to Zimbabwe during the to old Rhodesia independence crisis.

There are still road links between the two countries and I expect that Mozambique won’t be bothered if they have to ship the arms across their lands at the behest of the Chinese as it continues to increase its influence in that country.

As the situation in Zimbabwe teeters on the edge of disaster, another indication of how Robert Mugabe intends to deal with the situation lays anchored of the South African coast and it’s not a ship full of food aid for the people of Zimbabwe.

It appears that Mugabe has managed to use some of its stash of secret money, probably from a numbered Swiss bank account to finance the delivery of Chinese manufactured Guns, Ammunition and Rockets!

How nice of the Chinese to continue with their benevolent acts towards Africa!

How helpful of Thabo Mbeki’s South African government to give permission to transport them over their land to Zimbabwe, what a generous act by a very helpful neighbour! We cannot wait to see the results of such a helpful action.

Once again Zimbabwe’s African neighbours seem content to sit on their hands as another tragedy unfolds and the Western world with its current obsession of counting its money, seems to be equally ambivalent in its reaction. I suspect with crude oil prices at an all time high, if Zimbabwe had some, we would see a completely different reaction.

If Thabo Mbeki allows the arms from this ship to pass into Zimbabwe, then he could well be contributing to what might be the next African genocide. Somewhere, someone has to do something.

If this was a movie, the next thing that would happen is that the good guys (whoever they are) would blow the ship out of the water, oust Mugabe and get Zimbabwe back on its feet.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen and we will again all wring our hands when the killings begin in earnest in Zimbabwe.

Just came across this Guinness Advert spoof. Watch and enjoy.

Seems strange to me that its taken a OFT investigation to find out something that we probably have all known for some time, in that any public building contracts are always overpriced and always deliver less quality then they should.

I wonder who will be gong to jail for this? I guess no one as usual!

It’s good to see that the UK Government has had a change of direction in that it is now going to increase it re-allocation of money to Space science.

There had been fears that the cutbacks might end up closing Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope, about time.

We seem to be lately losing our way in the world and we need to keep our investments up in the Space Science to maintain a certain standing.

Looks like the heat is being turned up against Phorm and its use of Internet user profiling for advertisers. The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) has written an Open Letter to the Information Commissioner (ICO) questioning the legality of Phorm’s technology and its invasion of and the subsequent selling of our Internet privacy.

Phorm is one of the growing number of companies including  Double-Click that are selling and using technology that allows online advertisers to focus their web adverts based on user profiles derived from the captured browsing information of Internet users.

Worries are growing amongst many Internet users that every move they make on the Internet will be a tracked by ISP’s such as BT (who also are rumoured to have secretly tested the technology on a number of its users) , TalkTalk and Virgin Media all of which have signed up to use Phorm’s technology.

There is even a Bad-Phorm web site setup to explain in some detail what the issue is about.

The  ICO is still waiting for a full reply from BT to their enquiry for details on how they are staying within UK law. This subject will not go away and if we (the ordinary Internet user) want true online privacy, then the UK government has got to step in and make sure that we are protected.

This subject will not go away and I am sure that we will hear much more about it the coming weeks.

Sign the 10 Downing Street e-petition here.

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We’ve all seen them when we visit various web sites, those very inviting ‘Click Here’ off your next purchase.

As we know, we’re always warned about not clicking on pop-ups or links that we don’t know, but I suppose the lure of discounts are sometime too good to refuse.

Here’s a salutary tale about one such £10 offer that actually started to cost the recipient £8.00 a month from his credit card until he managed to stop it!

As the old saying goes: nothing is for free. What really disturbs me about this story is that that Office for Fair Trading (OFT) seemed unconcerned about the many reports of problems with Shoppers Discounts & Rewards. Is this another case of the OFT sitting on the fence?

I certainly won’t be taking advantage of any of these offers anytime soon.

Read the fully story here.

Is the situation in Iraq starting to stabilize at long last? A new report on the current situation has just been released by The Brookings Institution.

Showing that many of the figures that it tracks relating to military and civilian casualties in Iraq are declining, this may be start of a more stable time for that devastated population.

There is far too much information to include in this post, so you can download the whole report here – it’s worth a full read.

Some sample graphs in the report.

I was sent an email a while ago and had filed it until it came up in a search result on my PC. As one of the many discussed topics of our time is about obesity,  I thought I’d post something about it. First a reference.

A generation ago, three-quarters of the money used to buy food in the United States was spent to prepare meals at home. Today, about half of that money is spent on restaurants, mainly fast-food restaurants.

In 1968, according to Wikipedia, McDonald’s had 1,000 restaurants.  Today it has about 30,000, with 2,000 new ones opening each year.

According to the New York City Department of Health, nine of 10 people underestimate the number of calories typically contained in a fast-food dish — by about 600 calories.

A typical meal from a fast-food restaurant of a large burger, large fries and medium drink is about 1,300 calories, or 66 percent of the daily caloric requirements for an average person.

—  Judi E. Loomis, Fort Wayne Daily News

Now if you think you spend too much on  food as well as eating too much food, compare how the weekly food shop is for different nations?

These images are from a TIME essay, (see more pictures here [1], [2]) using images from the Hungry Planet: What the World Eats book by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio.

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily. Food expenditure for one week: €214.36 or $260.11	Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide. Food expenditure for one week: €375.39 or $500.07
United States: The Revis family of North Carolina. Food expenditure for one week $341.98	Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca. Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09
Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp. Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23	Great Britain: The Bainton family of Cllingbourne Ducis. Food expenditure for one week: 155.54 British Pounds or $253.15

Looking at the family from Chad, I don’t think anyone in Europe can complain about their lot, even with the rising food prices of today.

I was at Reading Town Hall last Thursday at a conference about XML and during one of the breaks I had a wander around and stole a look at the lovely Willis Pipe Organ that is located there.

I have seen it before but unfortunately there was no one playing it this time either.

I have always loved listening to organ music, it invokes such passion and feeling, especially when played in large buildings, churches and cathedrals.

There is nothing like hearing something like Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor, Widor’s Toccata from Symphony No 5 in a large church.

or Widor’s Toccata from Symphony No 5 in a large church.