John’s posterous

This, if it appears, will be the work of Posterous. It claims that it will direct stuff that I email to my Twitter account as well as other common social sites. Anything after 120 characters gets sent as if it were a Twitterlonger thingy. We'll see!

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I recently Twitted on the deaths of our troops in Afghanistan. I created a hash tag #wastedlives. I have been questioned on this – the waste bit is challenged. I need to clarify my thoughts and intention.

The men we are losing are in the prime of their lives. They are all described post mortem as wonderful people, devoted to their careers, the families and the Regt/Corps. Their loss ruins lives of parents, wives, kids who should all have had the benefit of a son, husband and father.
Instead, they were put into situations without adequate support - equipment wise or politically. At the instructions of someone who had either no idea why he was sending them or did not care except it seemed a good idea at the time. We still do not know what the aim was. The rules and regulations prohibit them from having any say in their being committed. The old story of do as you are told. Birkenhead drill.
My point is that their lives were wasted. Everyone should have gone on to old age and attainment of their potential. No good point has or will be served by their sacrifice. Like planting an oak and then chopping it down after a few years. The fact that they accepted the risks and were willing to surrender their lives is immaterial. They were indoctrinated into this attitude. If they were not so conditioned, none would go into battle. That is what training is all about. I did some daft things in a number of IS situations and never had the attitude that I would be happy to die or that my death would achieve anything. My mantra was "My mum did not raise me to die in (wherever)" My death would have illustrated the adage that when one withdraws ones hand from a bucket of water, there is no sign it was ever there.

Recall the scenes we are shown when soldiers depart. The cry to them is “Come home safe”. No urging to become some martyr – that idea only comes when one is trying to make sense of a senseless loss.
I cannot imagine I am different from those who did not make it. I'm sure you know of DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). World War. They mean "It is sweet and right."  Wilfred Owen uses it in his foremost World War 1 poem. Dulce Et Decorum Est belongs to the genre of sonnets, which expresses a single theme or idea. The allusion or reference is to an historical event referred to as World War I. This particular poem's theme or idea is the horror of war and how young men are led to believe that death and honor are same. The poem addresses the falsehood, that war is glorious, that it is noble, it describes the true horror and waste that is war, this poem exhibits the gruesome imagery of World War I, it also conveys Owens strongly anti-war sentiments to the reader. He makes use of a simple, regular rhyme scheme, which makes the poem sound almost like a child's poem or nursery rhyme. Owens use of excellent diction, compelling figurative language, and extremely graphic imagery, shows that not only is war terrible and devastating but it is also horrific. It was set amidst the khaki abattoirs in France. Think also of the Norniron thing about "I'd die for my country" It was often said that we would be better with people who would live for their country.
No - their lives were taken from them. It was a poor bloody swap or bargain. In a non-military setting one might say "His death was a tragedy - he had so much going for him". Waste is defined by my betters.
I am not alone in the ‘waste’ arena. David Davies has said “our strategic indecision will throw away all the tactical victories that our brave young soldiers buy with their lives.” In a strong attack on Labour’s handling of the war, Mr Davis also said that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair had “wasted six years and many lives” as a result of a flawed strategy and lack of resources.
Lord Paddy Ashdown said "I fear that we are now - and it is a scandal - wasting the lives of our young men and women who we are putting in the front line in the most difficult circumstances when our political leaders have failed to produce any kind of plan that can take advantage of the victories they win over the Taliban at great cost.
That is what was in my mind when I created @wastedlives. It is a tag that will continue to be used by me

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The whole world and his wife seems to have spoken out about the release of the Libyan. (I would name him but I suspect it would cause my spiel chucker to go into meltdown). I have some thoughts on the topic and offer them for anyone who is seeking the views of the cantankerous right wing.
Firstly, the American point of view. Whilst I accept their right to comment in critical terms, I cannot give them any influence arising from those thoughts. It seems to be based upon the fact that we have gone back on our word. This word was given to them way way back and we now know far more than we did at the time we gave the undertaking that the guilty party would end his life in a British prison. There is now much more doubt about whether the man is in fact guilty. I consider this to be a major factor in the 'breaking our word' situation. Another factor in the demands from America is that the speed with which things moved caused many to speak out before they knew the true basis for the decision. It would be easy to criticise the American sense of fair play and justice derived from legal facts. Right back to the lynch-mob up to the widespread bombing of Libyan targets following an explosion in a Berlin nightclub there was a tendency of bomb now, investigate later. If I have any recognition of the American case, I take it from the actions of Jim Swire; father of one of the deceased and a leader in a parents of deceased group. He can understand why the release took place.
So much for the American POV. I would like to se this condemnation taken further. Given that we cannot keep our word and blithely toss aside solemn undertakings - their view and not mine - it must surely be unwise to trust as as allies in  the prosecution of any significant joint enterprise. I'm sure you can all see where I am going here. We would seem to be the last country on earth to be in any coalition and can bring our troops home with no heart ache or problem. Trade - trade with the Americans has always been on the basis that they hold all the cards. They are masters at tariffs. Their much vaunted Lend Lease programme when we faced extinction was drawn on very firm marketing processes and we were saddled with debt for a very long time. No regard as to how Hitler's and Tokyo plans would have prospered if our island-wide aircraft carrier sank. The days of the Marshall Plan are long behind us. Tourism reductions. Big deal; we faced the same downturn when the Lockerbie incident was new and as terrified Americans were too scared to fly. Anyway, only a very small proportion of Americans hold passports and even less have used them.
So - that is the American angle so far as I see it. The furore spinning around the watering holes of our politicians both at Westminster and in Edinburgh's House of Sticks is potentially much more damaging. It seems now that Brown has done the washing of the hands equally as well as Pontius Pilate . 
My attitude is that he has now removed himself from any responsibility, he has no grounds for any further comment. To hide behind Lord Mandy of Randy and have the protection of that man's waspish tongue is cowardly in the extreme. The boy Dave and the Lib Dem chap are merely making their winging calls for an inquiry for party political grounds and not from any desire for clarification. The Scottish Minister has explained his motives to exhaustion of all listeners; what more would an inquiry serve?
We have heard that there was an objection to having the Libyan die in a British jail and this was for humanitarian reasons. I can see another motive. There would be rioting on the streets of Libya and these could have a detrimental effect upon trade when British companies reviewed the security of their assets and personnel. I was responsible for arranging the recovery of wives and children from Tripoli of a major US oil company following the burning of the US Embassy in Tripoli. Many were almost catatonic. The cancelled appeal connects here. What if journalistic enterprise in running their own non-official appeal concluded that the Libyan was innocent. Imagine the ire and harm that would cause when linked into the death of a sick and innocent man in a far away country?
There remains the  question that Scotland's action was related to trade; so far denied. Why deny it? It seems strange that America threatens trade sanctions as part of indicating disapproval but then cries foul when we do something to preserve trade.
This whole thing has gone on long enough. Let us find something else.

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Under pressure from the Youth Wing of the family, I signed up some while back to both Facebook and to Twitter. The pressure was subtle - as I would have suspected from the relevant individual anyway and took the form of a challenge. The suggestion was that Silver surfers could not hack it on the Internet and that triggered a Manchurian Candidate response from me.
I was quite receptive at first. At first. Just until I exercised my feeble knowledge and did a Google search. I then established that I was mixed up with a load of young tearaway as Serfdom commenced at 50 years of age. My failing powers were unknown to me. At the age of 50 I had been preparing, fighting for and controlling a budget of over £6 million, directing premises and property matters at more than ten offices throughout the UK and was lead consultant of a Facilities Management NHS contract worth just over £30 million. I was regularly walking over 20 miles a day in the hilly and virtually deserted parts of England and Scotland. I was at a muscle-not-posing-pouch-gym four times a week.
I could accept that there had been degeneration between my 50th. and 76th birthday but it was the arrogance of those who set up a age classification at 50 that dismayed and annoyed me. However, to withdraw myself from these two sites could well have intensified the calumny about age-related mental ability.
That rather extended lead-in is necessary background to clarifying my decision to leave both FB and Twitter. I had been a member of a number of discussion groups and forum where the exchanges were robust to the point of  being antagonistic and insulting. Some were run in accordance with the (pedantic) rules of Usenet where the ethereal corridors were patrolled by Moderators eager to banish on the slightest hint of a misdeed. So, there can be no suggestion that I cannot keep up. In fact, it is the lack of that sort of cut, parry and thrust that sees me walking off, Shane-like, into the sunset.
Examine the claim Social Networking. Twitter has been analysed as has Facebook. I can understand the networking bit. I have been careful in my choice of 'understand' because I was always - and remain - dubious about the premise of networking. My experience as a military detective and as a commercial executive was that such liaisons were considered essential to success but I had never followed the collection of business cards and names. I am a solitary sort of bloke; individuals are fine once I have sized them up but lists of people en-masse were not my thing. The discipline of establishing secretary and PA names, birthdays, wife's forename and golf handicaps was beyond me. I thought - and have proven time after time - that I had sufficient chutzpah to telephone or go see an individual who could assist me and get what we both wanted even though we might have started the day totally unaware of the other's existence. So, I have no need of the network side of either Twitter or Facebook. It was the absence of the claimed Social aspect that disappointed me.
I had been used to a reaction to my posts. I would post or read and contribute to a thread that interested me. Back would come a response and generally I was able to follow up on that. Others would gather and we might have ten or more all participating with a wide gamut of personal opinions. Sometimes these got personal when someone would go for the player and not the ball but I found ad hominem situations quite exciting. Facebook seems to attract the middle-class; nothing wrong with that but they are seemingly reluctant to contribute anything that might be described as 'not quite nice'. They retreat behind the net curtains.
Twitter appears - to me anyway - to have a wider range of contributor but a lesser participation. I do not know the figure but I suspect that the ratio of those registered to those who post or respond is very low. There is some - to me inexplicable - need to boast of 'followers' and 'followed'. Applications boast that they will have every Red Sea pedestrian following you in the space of 24 hours. Why the hell would anyone want that? What do they do when they have them? Tweetup gatherings are announced but, whilst these might be held in social settings such as a pub, it is clear that the main attraction is - you've guessed it. Bloody networking again.
After a while, I became bored. I felt that I was having sex with a woman too drunk to know what day it was or dining with a shy virgin who kept her knickers firmly in place with men's braces. Neither challenging or attractive. I thought I might attract responses by submitting contentious posts outside the normal patterns. Nothing. Then I started being (discreetly) abusive or annoying to others. Almost zilch. A return in the realms of decimal point 0 0 sod all.
So - that is why the Aged Parent and John Wood will mount up and ride off into the purple sage resisting any call to Come Back. I cannot say I did not enjoy my short exposures. But then, I cannot say that I enjoyed anything either. To those who tried - thanks. To the others, please carry on with the Networking and God Bless. I am off back to the cut and thrust of My World.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LettersFromATory/~3/wO-MnXoGNK0/

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The Government has taken a new stance in its attempts to convince us they are doing a good job. A new bogey-man has been deployed to stop Joe Public pressing that the troops come home from their exile in Afghanistan now it is clear that their sacrifices can never achieve any lasting improvement there. Brown first brought up the new spectre

Britain's offensive against the Taliban is showing signs of success, despite the heavy losses of recent days, says Gordon Brown.The Prime Minister said the campaign in Afghanistan was a "patriotic duty" to keep the streets of Britain safe from the threat of terrorist attack. In an interview with the British Forces Broadcasting Service, he paid tribute to the "sacrifice" of the 15 troops who had died since the start of the month in the bloodiest fighting the Army has seen in the Afghan campaign.

Britain's offensive against the Taliban is showing signs of success, despite the heavy losses of recent days, says Gordon Brown. "I know that this has been a difficult summer - it is going to be a difficult summer," he said. "These sacrifices that have hurt so many families in our country are ones that the whole of Britain will want to acknowledge."

Commander of the US-led forces in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Franklin L. Hegenbeck, said in an interview that virtually the entire senior leadership of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has been driven out of eastern Afghanistan and is now operating with as many as 1,000 non-Afghan fighters in the anarchic tribal areas of western Pakistan. He claimed on the strength of intelligence reports that the Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders were plotting terrorist attacks, including car and suicide bombing, to disrupt the selection of a new government in Afghanistan this month.

At least two senior Taliban leaders, Fazul Rabi Said-Rehman and Obidullah, have said in an interview that Taliban leaders are reorganising their militant religious movement and the Al-Qaeda was recovering fast. They said there was a split within Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, ISI, between those who share the Taliban’s ideology and those who support Pakistan’s alliance with the US. The two Taliban leaders who claimed that both Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden were alive, warned of some more suicide attacks on the US and Britain in retaliation for the war in Afghanistan.

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That nice young man Darling has announced his reforms of the general banking system. I've not found the enthusiasm to go into the nitty gritty but it seems that he has merely done a bit of a tune up round the edges. No major change in the supervisory system which remains with three major parties involved. Just a bit of finger wagging at bonus schemes. This after the greatest banking melt down for a very very long time.
I had hoped to see that the banks would be denied the opportunity to indulge in what is little more than gambling. There needs to be a firm foundation of banks that will serve the basic needs of customers. No get rich quick plans coming out every day. No take overs. Just plain vanilla attention to serve clients with terms, conditions, plans and charges all pre-determined and immutable. These staid and proper banks would never get into any circumstance that needs them being supported from central funds.
There is a need for cowboys to cater for the risk-takers. I have heard the term 'casino bank' and that seems about right to me. Players in a casino know the risks they run and a few spins of the wheel can strip them of everything they have made at the table. If one of the casino organisations were to go down the pan - so be it. They would not cause any major movement in the finance world and there would be no question of rescue, part-nationalisation or support. The term 'casino' would serve as a warning to those who would do business with them and they also would be on their own if things went tits-up. No great need for supervision; there would be clear and unambiguous rules and audit would be frequent and rigorous.
The question of bonus payments needs attention. The mantra is that the employer must pay inflated salaried and promise bounties for performance if they are to get the employee they desire. Nonsense. High demands and expectations by the prospective CEO or whatever are nothing other than blackmail. "Pay me this or I will go elsewhere" The system needs to be such that there is no elsewhere that will pay him the inflated salary and benefits from performance. If banks and other employers refused these high rewards to all, the idea that they had to meet the blackmailer's demands would fall by the wayside. Rugby clubs have wages caps where their total wage bill must not exceed a stated sum and these work. If the cap is £1 million and the employer wants to pay Mr Wonderful £900K - fine. All he has to do is fund the rest of his Board on the £100K that is left. There would be no £90 million transfer deals as in soccer if the agent and player knew no one would pay more than £30 million.
There should be other controls. The high cost of motor fuel and the instability of the market is artificially created. Getting a 50 gallon drum filled at the well head remains the same this week as it did 26 weeks ago. It is the machinations of the traders that cause the ups and downs. Trading on oil supplies must be barred. Only in the last few days we have seen how a trader went on a late night binge and caused a heck of a lot of trouble. The refiners all have long term contracts with those blessed with oil in their ground and it should be these that govern prices. Having a fixed price for crude would bring to a halt the nonsense where oil countries manipulate prices by raising or lowering the amount released on to the refiners. I have used oil as an example only. The same system should apply to all things capable of being traded in futures markets. These 'positions' also effect prices where costs to produce and market is steady but the cost of the item varies wildly.
I do not know enough of the, to me, murky world of the venture capitalist but the sale of deals here suggests it is something that needs control if it is not to damage a nation's economy. They are drawn into deals where they smell vast and quick profit as shark smells blood in the water. Fine. But there must be firm controls set up such that what they do is isolated from routine banking and should work alongside the 'casino' banks on the same terms. If they want to play no limit poker and go all-in and someone has a better hand - tough. Do not come crying to me.

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I've mentioned my attraction to country music. I use the free Spotify which has resources far in excess of iTunes and it plays in the background. I've got my own playlist which must have over 1000 tracks. Anyway, I came across a German country singer Tom Astor, It is really weird hearing a vocal in German that one knows so well in English. He sometimes sings along with the original artist and the mix of them in English and him in German is fun. Go and listen on the link.

I have some Spotify invites if anyone thinks they might want to get started.

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My civic duty score is increasing.

Last night I attended a Council Meeting on the subject of the Jim Clark Rally through our town. Clark was the local boy made good in car rallying and Formula 1 racing cars. Every year, there is a motor rally based in Duns. Quite unique as local roads get shut off for normal traffic to let the big beasties have a run at speeds up to 145 miles per hour. No 60 mph limit those days.

This years held a few weeks back broke new ground in having one section run through the middle of the town. Residents and visitors were strictly marshalled as to where and when they might be about in the hour or so prior to the start of the stage. I put my 'even Hitler didn't get to tell me what to do in my own home' hat on and felt pretty negative about the whole thing. In the event, my stroppiness was noticed and I was treated very well and properly.

One concern that did stay was safety. I live in the Market Square and the course came into the Square and then made a 90 degree right turn to go down a street leading off the Square. The Big Boys in the International class came up to this corner at about 100 mph and drifted sideways into the turn. A crowd of about 200 gathered on the outside of the bend and, whilst there were straw bales in position, the bales were not secured. A car hitting them would not be slowed but would merely slide on with the straw as a battering ram. Three cars that I saw did have difficult negotiating the corner but were brought under control without too much damage and no injury. Somewhat proved my concern for potential tragedy.

I wanted to comment and chose to go to the Council meeting. I was one of about 50 mostly middle aged men and women. I had expected it would be mainly boy racers with a sprinkling of coffin dodgers attending out of boredom with life indoors. The majority of attendees had notebooks and recorded the to and fro of the debate. Some had drafted what they wanted to say. I got to make my observation without it being seen as a complaint and had a full and constructive answer.

I was encouraged by what transpired. I'll do it again (so long as it does not qualify me as a 'coffin dodger attending out of boredom'). Just another sign of how we seem to have a very good community spirit up here.

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