And Now For Something Completely Different

Here we had two competing satellite tv companies, BSB and Sky.
Many years ago they merged, to be known as BSkyB.
But everyone knows it's Sky.
Sky 3 is a free-to-air channel, which used to show double-bills of Futurama.
It stopped and for a while was total crap, but just this week it has been showing a series called 'Jewish Law'.
It is a documentary about various beliefs and practises, especially domestic practises, among the British Diaspora.
It is reminding me of why I used to have so many Jewish friends and especially lady-friends.
It was like coming out of a desert and landing in a community of Peter Ustinovs, cheerful, boisterous, peaceful, friendly and principled.
Not necessarily to be confused with the dementia of Israel.
I'm talking about Jewish communities here, where no thought was given to political law and entity.

Well, this series has brought it all back.
It has reminded me of the genius of developing ways to live with internal principle in an outward world of hostility, or indifference, and yet still prosper.The twists and turns that Jew and non-Jew are permitted to make in this dance of principle, so that life goes on, always with an implied smile.

My fascination with Jewish people (not necessarily Israeli) so often turns to admiration for their unprepossessing and cheerful humility which has a habit of humanising the scale of so many problems.
Jewish people should be protected and cherished in our communities, and yes, studied anthropologically, because they are so damned interesting.

More Laing-Think About It. Cool.

But as Laing was, moreover, a critic of psychiatric diagnosis, he argued that diagnosis of a mental disorder contradicted accepted medical procedure: diagnosis was made on the basis of behavior or conduct, and examination and ancillary tests that traditionally precede diagnosis of viable pathologies like broken bones or pneumonia occurred after (if at all) the diagnosis of mental disorder. Hence, psychiatry was founded on a false epistemology: illness diagnosed by conduct but treated biologically.

The fact that medical doctors had annexed mental disorders did not mean they were practicing medicine; hence, the popular term "medical model of mental illness" is oxymoronic, since, according to Laing, diagnosis of mental illness did not follow the traditional medical model. The notion that biological psychiatry is a real science or a genuine branch of medicine has been challenged by other critics as well.

R.D.Laing was a Great Man.

Reading through 'A Pox On All Their Houses' I found a reference to R.D. Laing.
Looking further I found this:
Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of madness. He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a 'lose-lose situation' and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. (In 1956, Palo Alto, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Paul Watzlawick, Donald Jackson, and Jay Haley^[4] articulated a related theory of schizophrenia as stemming from double bind situations where a person receives different or contradictory messages.) Madness was therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and trans-formative experience.

All this from Wikipedia
Now, I've been 'mad'.
Seriously, I've been very ill.
Years ago.
And I changed.
Fifteen years without violence? That's quite an achievement for an angry man.
Writing is a good way to help.
Obviously my ex-employers, Pinky and Perky understood this, which is why they threatened me with legal action unless I stopped writing.
For the record, Pinky and Perky(we know who) are a couple of vicious little cunts who should be fed feet-first into a slowed-down meat mincer.

But as John Wayne would have said, "I ain't gonna do it."

A Little Predictive Ignorance;

A new two part melodrama
from Channel 4(of course!), that irresponsible repository of think-tank dross and pressure-group salvation.
I have absolutely no doubt that since two or more 'eths' have been subborned(probably by promises of a redeemable future) into appearing as the main protagonists, that this will be standard issue 'liberal' posturing of the sickest and most self-masturbatory nature, leading to an inevitable denoument in which culture and in particular its imposition are found to be absolutely not to blame.

If I had any intention of watching this pathetic apology(read the title folks), I would look forward to stock, non-characterisations of the police( and other stereotypical establishment figures)and their 'sympathy' inducing rampages with almost shame-faced amusement.

But I don't have any intention of watching it, and any bloody idiot who let's this serve as an introductoin to 'Islam', should get down to his local corner shop and start a conversation.

I Want One Of These.

Executive Parking Space.

So...

Looks like a pretty straight kind of a guy to me.
Who exactly did he kill, and why?
Could this be the beginning of a Free-Pardon for McNair Now campaign?

Old School Killer-Like His Style

Medicinal Viewing.

Nervous Shakedown!

Ho-Hum!

This was the place; on an operational FAA airfield at Yeovilton a few miles from Yeovil.
Meanwhile today a colleague handed me a DVD with the collected works of AC/DC on it.
Now I'm no thief, and I will be buying the hard stuff as soon as I can find a retailer- two of the last three Amazons have gone missing.

Think on this; in '74 Bon Scott and Phil Linnot both released different Jailbreak albums, celebrating escape and liberty from the 'Man'.
Within five years both were dead, from 'accidents'.

So believable right?
Meanwhile, to Angus and the rest- I'm truly sorry to be pirating your post 1983 works, but rest assured I shall be on Amazon tonight.

Moving On Twenty Years or so;

Here are the rest of the pictures.
Location to be revealed soon.

A Supermarine Seafire; who knew that the company produced for the sea before the Spitfire? And this was one that returned to the sea.

Fairey Albacore - one step up from the Swordfish, and still a torpedo ship, with a cutaway weapon beside the aircraft.
Something tells me few people would have driven a car to work when they were involved with these.

An early twenties Fairey design- a Fox? Not sure.


A Fairey Firefly. Fairey aviation shut up shop in the early sixties after the Rotodyne, but the engineering company lives on in West London.(They sold the airfield).


A Mig 15. Blasphemous.

Apparently This Proves Climate Change

Climate change being the more mealy-mouthed bullshit phrase for the catch-all religion.

More HP 115.

Definitely a rare and peculiar plane.
Top speed around 300mph, though like the good research tool it was, it had all the characteristics of a fast supersonic jet.
Except the speed, of course.
It was a low speed delta-wing research bird which flew for the first time shortly after I was born, and stopped flying when I was 13 years old.
Moon Astronaut Neil Armstrong was supposed to fly it in '62, but NASA banned him until 1971.
He had other things to do apparently.
(Giant steps are what you take-walking on the moon....)

Meanwhile Back At the Ranch...

This is about a nice trick which stopped the IRS of the USA dead in its tracks.
It comes via Djomama

Meanwhile, Back in the Trenches!

A Sopwith Camel

The Western Front parking lot



Something from our European friends-an Albatross, flown by the Germans, built by the Dutch.
Or is this the Camel?
This is also a Sopwith- a Sopwith Triplane.

So I Stepped Onto Concorde Today, But The Flight Was Cancelled

Pre-flights



'Course, my hangar is a bit crowded. Space is so expensive these days.

A little Handley Page goes a long way, unfortunately not across the Atlantic

All the comforts of home, including loads of electronic kit to play with. And a few seats for the family

Go up to the cockpit, the blasted pilot wasn't there.


He just left a note. Boasting as usual.


I suppose I could have taken one of the others; the blue one is a Fairey Delta 2(BAC221?Ha!).
It is certainly fast enough.




Oh well.
Perhaps another day eh?

Criminals and Criminality

One thing that struck me about the Police, Camera, Action-show on TV tonight; the people in nine tenths of the clips were wildly irrational.
They pursued their courses with no regard for the shallow truth of their situation, the fact that the police were on their cases and in close, inescapable pursuit.
And this was, except in the cases of the actually criminal, due to their obedience to the feelings of rebellion, blind rebellion, the sort of rebellion that arises from the crisis.
The crisis being the emergence of long-forgotten feelings over which they have no control, feelings which they never knew before, feelings which lead them into uncharted territory.
It is in the expression of these feelings, when they have no real experience or idea of how to express them, that they act in ways which are considered illegal.
Thus this moment of rebellion and its expressers are criminalised.
And so the stereotype of sense in conformity is reinforced to the point that millions of viewers sit in judgement, led by the nose by the platitude-spouting presenters, denying themselves in order to condemn as 'unfortunates' these irrational individuals.
And yet- there is more rationality in the outbursts of these few tens or dozens than in the slavish conformance of the watching thousands, especially as at any time the two are interchangeable.
The statistics may be constant(more likely rising), but the specific actors are interchangeable, as none of these repressors knows when he or she will be the next one to crack and scream for a few moments of doomed freedom.

Which brings me to the point.

When Freedom is prohibited, the only freedom available will be bootleg freedom which is precisely what these unpractised, unrefined outbursts are.

Tribe.

The Montagnards.
40,000 of them fought the Communists.
They fought on after the Americans left them.
They are still fighting today.
Please don't forget them.

Oh, What?

The New York Times reports; that would be the Sub-Prime disaster explained then.(Three US economists win the Nobel Prize).

'Life' Form.

From the New York Times.
Bring back the birch.

Politician Pram

Has anyone else noticed that no political scum thinks it is really on Cloud 9 until it is being ferried around in the cliched 'black Mercedes', to be aborted onto the steps of some flea-bitten hotel or government building with the mandatory misery of photographers and hangers on.

Fucking pathetic.
Pull all their funding and sell off all the limos to stock-car enthusiasts.
Then let the useless bastards get jobs. If they can.

No Ball Prize

Far be it from the Meat-Ball eaters to attempt to subvert democracy in America.
They were really taking the Peace today.

No Ball Prize

Far be it from the Meat-Ball eaters to attempt to subvert democracy in America.
They were really taking the Peace today.

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?!?!

From 1969 to 2006, at least 45 children died after taking decongestants, and 69 died after taking antihistamines, the industry association has said.
From the New York Times, remedy makers withdraw products.
Meanwhile millions have died of preventable disease and starvation worldwide, and hundreds more from even less actionable causes every year even in the USA.

Beer And Skittles.

The ancient and traditional sport of Skittles- much older than bowling.



Drink by the lane.


The one in the middle-the one with the crown - that's the Kingpin.
How many times have you wondered what that meant?

A little fast action-sitting with a beer between turns.

And all a few minutes away.

Nero's Dream.

With the growth of Facebook, the mob finally has one neck.
Today it is the curiosity of big business and the development of targetted advertising which drives the growth.
Tomorrow, who knows?
Homeland security?
And the day after?
Good governance enforced by bad government?
But of course, Facebook isn't Big Brother from 1984. After all, they ask for your details first, don't they?But they never give them back.

Politics .NET

Leaders of the C-sharp Party were outraged today over the way in which the Visual BASIC team adopted their Common Language to produce a Labour-saving device.
Especially the use of Inheritance.
Of course, they are hoping that they can prove that c-sharp is only a front for people who want to return to C++ policies of the past, and are frightened; but multiple inheritance is nothing to be ashamed of, and although the old party ws objectified to the point of being oriented that way,the Agile voter knows where his true interests lie.

Tired Of Being Average?

Then get yourself some 'eminent prominence'!

The Burma Road.

They can still be seen.
There is a list of them here.

The Writing Is On The Wall.

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill revealed in his history of World War 2 that he lost all doubt of victory once the USA entered the war.
So now I understand how he felt.
MSM - sorry MSN - had this to say today.
Nice.

God Bless Free Burma.

From the Toronto Star.

Some Chance

Apparently the Thugs of Burma have 'cut off the internet'.
Since the blogs of the Burmese rebels are hosted thousands of miles from Burma, they have only cut Burma off from the internet.
Of course, to cut it off they would need to shut down absolutely every piece of routing hardware in Burma, the big server farms etc (if they have any) and, of course, return the telephone network to the last century.

Trouble is, anybody with a simple Linux server download set up as a LAMP server, and absolutely any means of connecting their Apache site to the outside world, will simply go round the swine.

It Is HOW Big?