In the UK everyone knows that conservatives are the party for the rich and Labour is the one for the poor. No one is really sure what the liberals do - not even the liberals.
American conservatives are a different thing: they call themselves Republicans. Not being American, I'm not sure where they are come from, but peering into the goldfish bowl, Republicans are intellectually devoid buy dint of religion.
The most recent (2008) election brought this into sharper focus than ever before.
John McCain did not consider himself sufficiently right-wing to appeal to traditional conservative voters, so he brought in Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin.
Despite being demonstrably ignorant in the extreme, the undeniably attractive and charismatic Palin actually gave the republican party a serious chance of re-election in spite of the almighty mess almost eight years of the Bush administration had left the country in.
This is terrifying.
I reserve judgement about President Obama - it's too early to tell. A little over a decade ago, Tony Blair looked like the saving grace for troubled Britain - and now we're in deeper shit than ever. Like many of my peers I hope against hope that Obama won't be a shadowy reflection of Blair. So far things look promising - but he's not even in the oval office yet.
And the Republicans have not given up.
Unlike the UK, America is a very religious country. We don't tend to notice on a day-to-day basis because it shares a similar religious basis as the UK's historical mono-theistic Christianity. America was founded by people fleeing religious persecution in England and it's a history that the young country clings to even to this day.
Yet in spite of being technologically advanced, a massive cross-section of the American public not only believes in the Christian god, they also think it created the world exactly as described in the bible. An idea favoured in Blighty until a century or so ago when Charles Darwin published his theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
Religious people didn't like Darwin's theory because it is directly opposed to theistic creation and while some have adapted their ideas to incorporate evolution (theistic evolution) where a god(s) guides the changes species, the vast majority find it too hard to accept.
The bible is their book of life - they read from and study it ad-nauseum yet fail miserably to detect the myriad patent errors.
America is a country in crisis: country in great pain. A pain that is a by-product of wilful ignorance.
It's OK to believe in some form of supernatural entity to replace the things that we don't understand, but to deny the things that we have learned and replace them with the supernatural is stupid and dangerous.
I don't believe in god - I believe there are things we cannot prove and may never be able to.
To deny facts is more dangerous than Islamic fundamentalism.
Right, now I have some potatoes to harvest.
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Holy Shit, Sheila - Not AGAIN!
Holy crap, you can't keep a gullible idiot good girl down, now can ya?
She's been at it again, until this time (flaming hell!) MSN is going to close down because some bunch of bastards have been stealing all the good names:
Yeah. Convinced that no one would be dumb enough to believe such outrageous, well whatever the name for this stuff is. Bulls*t comes to mind.
For Pete's sake, does anyone read these days? "This is Tara and John the directors of MSN?"
Tara and bloody John! I ask you. They couldn't have thought of better names than that? Who honestly thinks that the "directors" of the Microsoft Network would introduce themselves in such a manner?
But these people are so dumb they'll send stuff on if it opened with names like, Seymour Butts and Mike Hunt, they really would. If you sent this message on to someone, do us all a favour and unplug your computer now. Thanks.
She's been at it again, until this time (flaming hell!) MSN is going to close down because some bunch of bastards have been stealing all the good names:
Hi, this is Tara and John, the directors of MSN,Wow! I'm mean, like WOW! I'm convinced.
Sorry for the interruption but MSN is closing down. This is because too many inconsiderate people are taking up all the names (e.g. Making up lots of different accounts for just one person, etc.), we only have 587 names left. If you would like to close your account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep your account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST.
This is no joke, we will be shutting down the servers.
Send it on, thanks.
P.S. WHOEVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND IT WILL COST YOU 10.00 A MONTH TO USE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS or REPLY. COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL. GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. AND PASTE THANKYOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.
This is no joke if you dont believe us then go to this site: http://news.BBC.co.UK/1/hi/business/1189119.stm and see for yourself. Anyways once you've sent this message to at least 18 contacts, your MSN icon will become blue. Please copy and paste, dont forward because people wont read them.
Yeah. Convinced that no one would be dumb enough to believe such outrageous, well whatever the name for this stuff is. Bulls*t comes to mind.
For Pete's sake, does anyone read these days? "This is Tara and John the directors of MSN?"
Tara and bloody John! I ask you. They couldn't have thought of better names than that? Who honestly thinks that the "directors" of the Microsoft Network would introduce themselves in such a manner?
But these people are so dumb they'll send stuff on if it opened with names like, Seymour Butts and Mike Hunt, they really would. If you sent this message on to someone, do us all a favour and unplug your computer now. Thanks.
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
For Everyone's Sake: Check Your Facts!
Seth Godin is a marketing specialist, and he's written a slew of books. I recently challenged his idea of RadaR - because no matter what he might like to think, it doesn't work.
In his recent blog post Gravity is just a Theory (and I'll admit he disagreed vehemently with my analysis) Seth bodly spouts that Newton (as in Sir Isaac Newton) only named gravity.
Seth's a marketeer - or something like that - but something seems that seems to have convinced him that it's OK to run fast and loose with science facts.
Seth and I come from different backgrounds. As a former technology journalist and erstwhile computer programmer I deal in hard facts - in a business where facts count. Marketing is, I assume, rather more "fuzzy" in this regard.
Seth declares that Newton only named gravity (he didn't, the word was already in use before he was born). He further asserts (wrongly) that we don't know how fast it travels (essentially, at light speed - the electromagnetic and gravitational forces are closely related). In a couple of short sentences, Godin slags off Newton to the undoubted cheers of his assembled throngs.
Newton was a very smart guy. He was also a creationist (that shouldn't be a surprise) and a complete arse (not for being a creationist, that was par in his day).
He deserves to be slagged of for being an arse, but we can't deny he was more or less cock-on where gravity is concerned.
Sir Isaac didn't name gravity, he described it - with incredible accuracy - so accurately that guys who probably need girlfriends, used the same equations to predict the motion of the toolbag that an astronaut dropped in earth orbit. It took something like 300+ years before Albert Einstein proposed a (demonstrably) more accurate set of equations.
None of this is relevant to marketing, but it matters nontheless.
It matters when people of influence (will somebody please tell Prince Charles Windsor to shut up?) get a bee in their bonnet about stuff they think they know something about. Seth's errors could have a butterfly effect - it matters because people listen to him and take every word as gospel.
It must be part of the human condition but it never ceases to amaze me how people confuse the size of their audience (or wage packet) with the size of their intellect.
Rich scientists are almost unheard of yet they are the most learned among us.
Pop stars, footballers, journalists, unelected heads of state (to name four examples) are liable to drop some amazing clangers and for the most part it doesn't matter a fig; until they start talking science: and then it does. Not because I care for science any more than I care for the cost of my weekly shopping. but because science is something that affects all of us. Good science helps us - bad science can destroy us and junk science is the most dangerous of all.
I'm very fond of the Winnie Churchill quote (which may be only an attribution) that, "A lie can get round the world faster than the truth has time to get his pants on" but there's a lot to be said for that shrewd observation.
So if you're going to open your mouth and a lot of people are going to believe you, for heaven's sake, check with someone who actually knows first.
In his recent blog post Gravity is just a Theory (and I'll admit he disagreed vehemently with my analysis) Seth bodly spouts that Newton (as in Sir Isaac Newton) only named gravity.
Seth's a marketeer - or something like that - but something seems that seems to have convinced him that it's OK to run fast and loose with science facts.
Seth and I come from different backgrounds. As a former technology journalist and erstwhile computer programmer I deal in hard facts - in a business where facts count. Marketing is, I assume, rather more "fuzzy" in this regard.
Seth declares that Newton only named gravity (he didn't, the word was already in use before he was born). He further asserts (wrongly) that we don't know how fast it travels (essentially, at light speed - the electromagnetic and gravitational forces are closely related). In a couple of short sentences, Godin slags off Newton to the undoubted cheers of his assembled throngs.
Newton was a very smart guy. He was also a creationist (that shouldn't be a surprise) and a complete arse (not for being a creationist, that was par in his day).
He deserves to be slagged of for being an arse, but we can't deny he was more or less cock-on where gravity is concerned.
Sir Isaac didn't name gravity, he described it - with incredible accuracy - so accurately that guys who probably need girlfriends, used the same equations to predict the motion of the toolbag that an astronaut dropped in earth orbit. It took something like 300+ years before Albert Einstein proposed a (demonstrably) more accurate set of equations.
None of this is relevant to marketing, but it matters nontheless.
It matters when people of influence (will somebody please tell Prince Charles Windsor to shut up?) get a bee in their bonnet about stuff they think they know something about. Seth's errors could have a butterfly effect - it matters because people listen to him and take every word as gospel.
It must be part of the human condition but it never ceases to amaze me how people confuse the size of their audience (or wage packet) with the size of their intellect.
Rich scientists are almost unheard of yet they are the most learned among us.
Pop stars, footballers, journalists, unelected heads of state (to name four examples) are liable to drop some amazing clangers and for the most part it doesn't matter a fig; until they start talking science: and then it does. Not because I care for science any more than I care for the cost of my weekly shopping. but because science is something that affects all of us. Good science helps us - bad science can destroy us and junk science is the most dangerous of all.
I'm very fond of the Winnie Churchill quote (which may be only an attribution) that, "A lie can get round the world faster than the truth has time to get his pants on" but there's a lot to be said for that shrewd observation.
So if you're going to open your mouth and a lot of people are going to believe you, for heaven's sake, check with someone who actually knows first.
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