Global Economy - Personal Choice

I ordered two tickets for the ballet from londonwestendtheatretickets.com. Seven days later, they arrived - from Oslo. Curious?

So what is happening here? londonwestendtheatretickets.com has clearly chosen to contract its ticket distribution process, and the best bid was from a company in Norway (!?). The tickets were sent by airmail. The risk of them arriving late was compounded by their long journey - they warned me to leave 7 days before they might arrive and they were not wrong. Obviously, their carbon footprint must have been a little larger than being printed and posted from London, but for something so light, is that important? However, unless londonwestendtheatretickets.com is run by idiots, it must make commercial sense to use this contractor.

Of course today we should all been concerned about carbon footprint. For example, shipping tomatoes and other produce from Israel to the UK, by air freight is often quoted. In this case, however, it may make sense, commercially and environmentally. The cost (and environmental impact) of heating a greenhouse in England to grow the same product is actually higher than the airfreight footprint (the necessary sunlight in Israel is free). However, the irrigation needed to grow organic carrots in Israel for consumption in the UK could be destroying the environment.

Perhaps this highlights the need for sensible restrictions of air freight. It is reminiscent of the use of containers, which in recent decades have allowed a free economy between road and rail. Who won? Well, left to commercial pressures, always the lowest cost options – very often road, although the use of rail has actually increase in the UK in recent years. So is this where government tariffs come in? Just make it the lowest cost to use the most environmentally friendly option.

Come to that, a ticket is not something that should need to be sent through the post, anyway. When you check in to an airline, all you need is your passport and a reference number (often, only your passport). Why can’t I check in to the theatre in the same way? Well of course I can, but using a credit card. However, my expectation is that this will be arduous and stressful. I have to use the machine in the theatre to get the tickets printed – I’ll probably be arriving at the last minute. Will there be enough machines. If I can’t get the machine to work, say I can’t work out which card I used, what will I do? Will there be adequate support? Will the box office even be open? So I opt for making sure that I have the physical tickets in my hot paw. I truly didn’t expect that I would be using airfreight in this process, though. It is my choice - maybe next time I will make sure I use the environmentally friendly option.

So what is bin Laden's problem?

At http://www.acommonword.com/, 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals have come together to declare the common ground between Christianity and Islam. Since October 10th, 2007, 3560 visitors have endorsed the site. Today, this same group of Muslims responded with a half page advert in the Sunday Times, to deliver a “Muslim Message of Thanks and of Christmas and New Year Greetings.” This is a very positive gesture in a mad world where differing points of view are normally so polarised.

In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine (originally 1920) into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arab League rejected the plan, but on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. We should all remember what US and UK (supported by Australian and Polish) action was taken starting on March 18^th 2003, to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. The resulting war has resulted in over 4000 coalition casualties and more than 600,000 Iraqi deaths.

Meanwhile, reported on Xinhua, a Chinese news site: “A year after former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was executed, his influence is still strongly palpable at his hometown as the country remains polarized in sectarian hatred.” Abdullah Jbara, governor of Salahudin province in northern Iraq, told Xinhua that the role Saddam had played should be viewed in an impartial manner just like any other political figures in the history. "The man had good acts as well as bad ones. So we need to look at his good deeds and make use of them, and at the same time we need to fix the wrongdoing he had committed," said Jabara, who gained reputation and respect in the province for insisting that Saddam should be buried at his birth place instead of a secret location. This comes after a report in Reuters on 6^th December: “Iraq will have to cut food rations in 2008 because of insufficient funds,” Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany said. So after all that has happened, and using a ration system developed by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people now face harsher rationing than was needed when the West imposed trade embargoes on Hussein. Are we proud of the progress we have made?

Also, in a statement posted on the Internet on 29-12-07, Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden accused the United States of having a plot to take control of Iraq's oil (is this news?). In the statement, bin Laden also accused Washington of seeking to build military bases in Iraq and dominate the region. The United States is making efforts to rebuild a pro-Washington national unity government in Iraq, which is meant "to give the Americans all they wish of Iraq's oil", said the statement, urging Iraqis to reject it. bin Laden also made very clear in this statement that a primary concern was the fate of the Palestinian people, and his intention of giving them back their territory between the river Jordan and the Sea.

So, whilst a small group of Muslims make strenuous efforts to bring peace and understanding between Islam and Christian groups, there is a miserable response from the Christian community. Instead, Al-Qaida will continue to gain sympathisers because of historical US and UK action in Palestine and Iraq.

Human Rights - Not for Al-Jedda

Do we take the law on human rights seriously? It seems that the British legal system is prepared to indulge in petty argument about jurisdiction rather than deliver justice. An Iraqi citizen, who subsequently claimed asylum in the UK in the 1990s returned to Iraq in October 2004, was arrested and has been detained in Basra ever since. He may well be a terrorist, but no charges have been brought against him. In this country, of course, he could be detained for no longer than 28 days under such circumstances. However, in Iraq, it seems, detention can be indefinite. Meanwhile, this case attracts very limited coverage in the press, or even by Amnesty International. Why? Have all you journalists and campaigners gone to sleep for Christmas?

Hilal Abdul-Razzaq Ali Al-Jedda, 50 year old father of 6 and holder of dual British and Iraqi nationality has been held prisoner in Iraq since being arrested on October 10^th 2004 by US forces and handed over to the British forces. He complains that his detention infringes his rights under article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. These claims were rejected by the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court and also by the Court of Appeal; both courts “delivered lengthy and careful judgments, commensurate with the importance and difficulty of the issues then raised”

From 29^th to 31st October the House of Lords had a hearing of his case based on a new question: “the attributability in international law of the conduct of which the appellant complains.” (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ ldjudgmt/jd071212/jedda-1.htm). So is Al-Jedda subject to UN or British law? The judgement was made by the House of Lords on 12^th December. After thirty nine paragraphs, covering the history of who had jurisdiction over whom during both the course of the Iraq war and the period following it, we finally hear: “There is in my opinion only one way in which they can be reconciled: by ruling that the UK may lawfully, where it is necessary for imperative reasons of security, exercise the power to detain authorised by UNSCR 1546 and successive resolutions, but must ensure that the detainee’s rights under article 5 are not infringed to any greater extent than is inherent in such detention. I would resolve the second issue in this sense.

Furthermore, a third issue arises: “whether English common law or Iraqi law applies to the appellant’s detention.” Apparently, after further deliberation “The appellant’s claim in tort is governed by the law of Iraq”

In other words, the British acting in Iraq can make up their own laws, not the same as those exercised within Britain, and when it is convenient, they can claim that it is nothing to do with them, in any case, since Iraq is now in charge of their own country.

Ethiopia - Unique Watercolours

Artist and explorer Sir William Cornwallis Harris led a mission to the Court of Shewa in the Highlands of Ethiopia between 1841 and 1843. Whilst there he recorded in watercolour a unique collection of images for a three volume book about the country (The highlands of Aethiopia - 3 vols., 1844). Some of his illustrations were also used in the Illustrated London News, and were some of the first images the western world saw of that part of Africa, its people and culture. The illustration shown here dates from a earlier hunting expedition into the interior of southern Africa in 1836-7.

A unique insight into the perception of Africa in the 1840’s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cornwallis_Harris

I made you deaf

Jackie Ballard, Chief Executive of Royal National Institute of Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID) is advocating allowing deaf parents to screen their embryos to select a deaf child over those with normal hearing. Genetic screening for “designer babies” is an area evoking considerable controversy, but this concept turns the debate on its head. Until now, the debate has been on the ethics of selecting good characteristics for your child, reminiscent of creating a master race, eugenics and Nazism. Ballard was formerly director general of RSPCA for 3 years, a Liberal Democrat MP and originally a social worker, is advocating deliberately designing a baby with a disability.

This has arisen from the debate on a clause in the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, and would make it illegal for parents undergoing embryo screening to choose an embryo with an abnormality if healthy embryos exist. Prof. Ulrike Zeshan of UCLan, Preston has said “If the intent of the bill is to prevent human suffering, then deafness does not fall under its remit. Deafness constitutes a linguistic/cultural minority and adds to our diversity. Our society chooses to say that deaf people are disabled, but left-handed people are not. Why? This is an arbitrary choice. Research has shown that there are societies where deafness is regarded as an equally viable option, not a disability.”

A spokesman said: “While the RNID believes in the individual’s right to choose, we would not actively encourage the selection of deaf embryos over hearing ones for implantation when both are available.”

So how exactly are you going to explain to your child that they are deaf because you selected them over an embryo that most likely would have normal hearing? To me this clarifies the rights of parents over choosing the genetic make-up of their children. They should not have such rights. Parents do not own their childern, who are in any case in their care for less than 20 years. The more difficult question is “should anyone have the right to design a baby?”

FrontPage Madness

Story so far: New web site provided by my son (who develops commercial web sites with a major UK ISP). So no problem there!

Actually, yes. I used Word to compose my content. It's Microsoft, so natually it uses Microsoft font. However: the new " server is in iso-8859-1 so your site is telling the browser one thing and the server something else, which is where the question marks are coming from"

There are 65 .html files to change and if I edit any of them with Word, the settings are changed back.

OK, so try to convert to FrontPage 2003 and use that to sort the problem; it can't be that difficult to learn! Actually, Yes. When I run it I can't import the existing site either from a disk copy or from the live site. Most HTML insists on still being default edit in Word (see Windows Explorer screen shot above), even though I asked for FrontPage to be my HTML editor on installation. Manually setting .HTML and .HTM file types to edit in Front Page has resulted in a mixture. Open a file within FrontPage and it opens it in Word. Not really getting anywhere here.

Now FrontPage won't even allow me to create a new web site, either on disk or at the remote site - it always says the folder in inaccessible.

Oh, and every time I start FrontPage I get the message "Can't load Speech Recognition Files" - What!