Giskard and the 'End'.

I recently joined  'The Engineering Guild', mainly because I admired the work that some chap called Giskard had done on extending the whole Oblivion Game.

I am less than impressed that he has taken his Oblivion related content down.

It seems to me to be a storm in a teacup. Apparently Better Cities folk have ripped off his content. But, everyone rips off everyone else's content.

This is someone in a strop. Because his content has been 'ripped off'.

Well, his ideas were based on what Bethesda let him do. And his ideas were really good.

It is verging on crazy, it is verging on mad to think that some little clique don't recognise his genious, for taking a tired old cliché and making it a lot better.

An example:

It seems to me now obvious that the Daedra would also have their 'champion of Kvatch'. It was not obvious until Giskard stuck it in my face.

The community ought to be able to accomodate Giskard.

I am quite angry at Giskard too, who does anger much better than me. He ought to be able to let things rest, but he cannot.

Instead. he goes off in a strop.

Yeah, well Giskard,  thanks for the content. No thanks for the attitude.

This post will mean nothing to anyone who has not played the Elder Scrolls or played the mods. Your loss....

How serious is the debate about gauge?

 It seems to me that we can find enemies wherever we look. Or. alternately allies.

I do not, ridiclous at it might seem to others, see nationalism as exclusiive, rather the contrary.

There is a Gaelic word for Spanish, which I can't find right now. The story goes that after the Armada was beaten by the weather, they ended up, some of them, wrecked in the Outer Hebrides. They married, or summat like that, and their decendants are still seen as Spanish.

That tells you quite a lot about the political landscape of the day, and what these, probably exclusively, men had to offer. Ooh Err.........

I dunno, it just seems worth investing some DNA research in. Are they or aren't they? Maybe not. Who cares?

Still, the principle of  assimilating folk seems to go back a long way. We are not concerned about it. It seems to me that people change, over time. It might take a generation or two, but I expect that folk will have similar difficulties in identifying Asian Scots from, err, what?

Us?

And who are we, exactly? We are who we say we are. And that includes all of us.

Which is an attempt to explain :
 

What I am trying to say, perhaps badly, is that nationality is not that important. It is a bit of a contrary indicator, much like folk whose religion is Muslim and who can’t see outside that box either. No-one needs to define themselves in a one dimensional manner.
You do not need to define yourself. You are not just ‘English’ when a World Cup arrives, you are wrestling with a dilemma that ought to exercise you quite a lot.
Whilst I hate American foreign policy – I think it is generally a pretendy imperialism – I have extremely good internet relationships with Americans. It took me quite a while to disentangle the good that they are, from the bad that they think they need to support. I think, once you try to address their ‘issues’ , on reasonable sites, they are persuadable. The point being that defining yourself by nationality is subject to, winnable, challenges.
It is a point that China Mielville made in an article once. He read specialist magazines, not for their content, but for the range of human emotions that are expressed in them.
There is a ‘gauge’ issue for model railways. They believe, most of them, that 4mm equals a foot. Heretics model in other scales to the foot.
For those concerned, track gauge, the measure of the 4′8″ ( and a half, I can’t seem to work out how to do that) becomes a debate in it’s own right. There are those that believe in OO, there are those that believe in EM and there are perfectionists that believe in P4. We are talking millimetres here.
There is that, albeit small, group of folk that consider that to be an important issue in their lives. Why are they wrong and why are they concerned?
I am not mocking these people. I am just pointing out that a debate will rage unto eternity about the relative merits.
I would assume that none of the participants in that debate see it as defining of themselves. What they do see it as, is important.
To them.
Perhaps because it matters to them. But what matters to you, and them, ought to be subject to review. If you become ’stuck’ on a belief then you are no better, or worse, than a person that wants to build a model railway. For the criteria of difference, the criteria of exceptionalism is there to behold.
Which is, perhaps, an analogy for the attempts here to ‘rule the roost’ on what we should ‘take’ from the immigration debate. I think their are folk that come here that have an agenda I could not agree with, call them the OO folk.
We categorise ourselves at some risk to independent thought.
(Personally, I’d sponsor a Pakistani P4 follower, but the OO person would get short shrift. You can divide the world up any way you like. Respect to ‘Model Railway Journal’ by the way.)

 Update:

You might find this enlightening. 

I fought the Law and the Law won

It seems to me that Israel was completely in the legal right in murdering folk delivering supplies to Gaza, which, let us not forget is being encouraged by the Knesset to become completely self sufficient. In the sense that imports are banned.. Y'know, dangerous materiels such as cement and stuff. Allegedly wheelchairs too. But that can't be right, surely?

Y'know a separate jurisdiction applying it's rules to another? Why not? The Knesset is obviously the arbiter of what the Palestinians should do.

Is that not an obvious choice for a muscular liberal?

Well, yes, indeedy it is.


Why, I ask you, would anyone see an attempt to break that embargo as wrong?

Well, the contested true story of the good ship 'Exodus' suggests another narrative, one where breaking an embargo was seen as heroic.

Quite how muscular liberals reconcile that remains to be seen.

Given the ability to apologise for anything, I suspect that the brain dead zombies that co-habit 'Harry's Place' will get their legal shit on.

For that is how bereft these poor children are. Kill folk and say it was legitimate.

What pathetic fools these people are!

Late to the Party - The 'Exodus' Analogy

It had occurred to me that there were parallels between Leon Uris's 'Exodus' story and what has happened to the 'Peace Flotilla'. Googling around gave me this link:

http://tinyurl.com/29d9o7o

Which makes the following point, amongst others:

"The tougher Israel is, the more the flotilla’s narrative takes hold. As the Zionists knew in 1947 and the Palestinians are learning, controlling public opinion requires subtlety, a selective narrative and cynicism. As they also knew, losing the battle can be catastrophic. It cost Britain the Mandate and allowed Israel to survive. Israel’s enemies are now turning the tables. This maneuver was far more effective than suicide bombings or the Intifada in challenging Israel’s public perception and therefore its geopolitical position (though if the Palestinians return to some of their more distasteful tactics like suicide bombing, the Turkish strategy of portraying Israel as the instigator of violence will be undermined)."

So, it is clear that others can see the analogy, or perhaps the derivative nature of the tactic. Here is a pretty reasonable summary of the PR battle that is going to surround this incident.

One highlight is this, referring to the original model for the latest atrocity:

"Captain Ahronovitch was 23 when he took the helm of the Exodus. On July 11, 1947, he picked up the refugees at Sète, in southern France. On July 18, as the ship neared the coast of Palestine, the British Navy intercepted it. Captain Ahronovitch tried to break through, but two British destroyers rammed the ship.
Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship’s passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, The Times reported at the time. Soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously. The ship was towed to Haifa, and from there its passengers were deported, first to France and eventually to Germany, where they were placed in camps near Lübeck."

Plus ca change? and all that.

Seems to me that this has been an enormous misjudgement on the part of Israel.

If you prefer your tea with a dash of whisky, I'd thoroughly recommend the Flying Rodent approach. Which includes the quite incredibly pithy summary:

"Shorter – there really is an urgent and perilous threat to Israel. It’s called “the Israeli government”."

Update:  It is difficult to feel much sympathy for this post in today's Telegraph.

The idea of overcriminalisation

There are two, or more, sides to any arguement. See here:

http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2010/03/03/philosophy-tutor-and-atheist-harry-taylor-in-court-for-leaving-anti-religious-cartoons-in-john-lennon-airport/

It seems to me that the idea of overcriminalisation is a 'steam engine' moment in English jurisprudence. It seems to me to be fundamentally wrong that laws that are passed through Paliament - with specific objectives in mind - can be used for purposes they were, and this is controversial, never intended.

Why, for instance, can a law directed at terrorism be used to check on our methods of rubbish disposal?


See, here:

In addition, opposition MPs fear the 2000 Terrorism Act could be used by councils to probe ordinary householders’ bins.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: “It is one thing for the security services to go through your rubbish but quite another for the council.

“They should concentrate their efforts in collecting it not looking at it. It is yet another example of a growing police state.”

That is not the most persuasive quote I have ever seen, but it is indicative of what you get when you allow loose legislation, well loose. It is used for unintended purposes by bureaucratic non entities. For that is what they do. Twist legislation beyond it's original purpose and apply it in, frankly evil, ways. There is, apparently, no consensus that religion has no right to protection. Apparently it ought to, and it does. I refer you to this thread, where I may have lost the plot, but remained polite:

http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2010/03/03/philosophy-tutor-and-atheist-harry-taylor-in-court-for-leaving-anti-religious-cartoons-in-john-lennon-airport/


We are completely stupid in allowing government to enact laws that are twisted far and away beyond their original intent. I do not believe it was the intention of Parliament that Harry Taylor should be criminalised. It is, however, the rule of unintended consequences. Crap legislation makes for crap decisions.

It was never right to allow you or me to prosecute under the criminal law for 'offence'. Your offence is my decency, and vice versa. Trying to arbitrate between us is taking the state, and the stakes too far.

Fuck your 'offence'. Fuck my 'offence'. Your right to offend and mine ought to be equal under the law.

There certainly ought to be no religious exceptionalism.

 I'd go as far as to say that Parliament has got this entirely wrong.

And the law that protects the god fearing is out and out wrong.

Salman Rushdie had a right to say what he did. And no petty fool had the right to do anything other than argue against him. Balancing the law in the favour of religious bigots is completely stupid.

That is the measure of what is right and what is wrong about this case.

What next? Politics as a spectator sport.

OK, I am a bit depressed. I am a member of the SNP and, frankly, I have no idea where we go to next.

I see the loss of both our by election gains as a kick in the teeth by Scottish voters.

I really do not understand the dynamics of what exercises Scottish voters sometimes.

It seems to me obvious that Scottish voters are actually liberated in who they can vote for.

For instance, a vote for the SNP was not going to increase the overall Conservative majority at Westminster.

It seems that the availability of that freedom of expression - vote Green if you like - was denied in some sort of self serving masochism by voting Labour. Despite the fact that, if you think about politics at all, it would never have mattered. Scottish voters could have voted better, but were feart of the big bad bogeynman and assumed that the beautiful Princess that is Labour would save them, when it is now quite evident that they can't and weren't really interested in even trying.

Odd times we live in.

For, whenever we feel threatened by Tories, we revert to that.

It is a failure to, simultaneously, see how wee we are and how much better we could be. And a vote for the SNP would not have been a vote for the Tories, either.

This blog has kept an eye on Steven Purcell, but Glasgow voters just ignore that sort of stuff.

It is quite astounding. Usually folk will see the wood from the trees.

It seems to me that Scottish voters don't.

However, This is probably down to a pretty poor election strategy by the SNP. We should have done better, but we didn't, probably because we don't understand the electorate, and I don't mean 'focus groups'. It is far more fundamental than that.

Another Option - A Lab / Con pact?

It seems to me that Labour and Conservative's, apart, obviously from their unique tribal instincts, have more in common with each other than they do with Liberals, or Scottish Nationalists, or frankly, human beings:

Extending on that idea:

Could someone tell me what the heck is the substantive difference between them on the following, broad, subjects?


Most they are willing to do about fixing our voting system is AV’

Agree in principle about getting rid of our debt mountain,

Agree in principle that we are up shit creek without a paddle, on our finances,

Hate asylum seekers,

Hate immigrants..

Love Trident,

Hate the poor, but pretend otherwise,

Love the rich, but pretend otherwise,

Prison is the answer to all crimes,

Love the privilege of ‘your turn’ politics and will fight tooth and nail against any change to that,

Hate progressive politics.

Seems to me they have more in common with each other than they let on….

The Liberals ought to take a care, as Dixon of Dock Green may, or may not, have said.

A 'Government of National Unity' would be a disgraceful outcome, but no-one could argue against it's electoral legitimacy.

Could they?