02 October 2010
SInead O'Connor - Jackie
I can't say I've ever been a great fan of Sinead O'C but this song I do like very much
01 October 2010
Photo Hunt - letters
The theme for the week's Photo Hunt is letters. There is just one letter that springs to mind and that is the rough M that appears on the forehead of all tabby cats, something that they share with several of their bigger cousins. Above are Robyn and Boris
The origin of the M is the subject of religious legends
One legend tells about Mary and the tabby cat in the manger. It seems that the baby Jesus was cold and fussing, and Mary asked the manger animals to move in closer to warm him. The manger was simply too small to accomplish that, but a little tabby cat came in and nestled next to the baby, and cosseted Him with purring and warmth. Mary was so grateful, she bestowed her own initial, "M" on the cat's forehead.
An Islamic legend states that Mohammed, a cat lover once cut off a sleeve of a garment when he had to leave to attend prayer, rather than to disturb his cat, Muezza, who was sleeping upon the sleeve. It is said that the reason he loved cats so much is that one once saved his life when a snake crawled into his sleeve. (This may be a variation of the well-known Muezza story.) Legend also claims that Mohammed bestowed on cats the ability to always land on their feet. These stories assumes that the "M" symbolizes the enormous esteem which Mohammed felt for cats and that the sight of the "M" on a cat's forehead invokes memories of Mohammed.
Make of these what you will. As far as I am concerned the M tops off the most beautiful creature on this planet.
UPDATE: Sparkle has a far more plausible theory as to why tabbies have an M on their foreheads:
"Actually the truth behind the "M" is that it stands for Master, so that humans will always know who is boss"
Sparkle is quite right of course!
Boris is grounded
For the present he is grounded after his dinner until the late evening, We are trying to break a habit of his we only discovered a week or so ago - his going off to visit another house a fair distance away which is the home of Izzy a 240lb (about 110kg) English Mastiff.We re all worried that he will come to a sticky end crossing a busy road to get to see Izzy.
We were shocked to discover that he has been going to the other house most nights for about 10 months. Izzy's owner said that Boris followed her and Izzy home one evening and then just kept on visiting!
It's just as well Izzy loves cats (and not i the fried or boiled sense!)
30 September 2010
Baroness Warsi and election fraud
Baroness Warsi has been interviewed in the current issue of the New Statesman by Mehdi Hassan. I have not read the article (it not being online and I still not feeling quite my best and thau with no plans to leave the house today) but going by his New Stateman blog it is clear that Warsi has made some serious but unsubstantiated allegations. about Labour electoral frud
…. the chairman of the Conservative Party and minister without portfolio, in this week's New Statesman, she makes a remarkable claim about the extent of electoral fraud at the last general election and
"At least three seats where we lost, where we didn't gain the seat, based on electoral fraud. Now, could we have planned for that in the campaign? Absolutely not."
This is the first time a senior minister has made such a blunt and specific allegation about the impact of electoral fraud on the general election result.
Can she reveal the names of those seats?
"I think it would be wrong to start identifying them," she says, but adds: "It is predominantly within the Asian community. I have to look back and say we didn't do well in those communities, but was there something over and above that we could have done? Well, actually not, if there is going to be voter fraud."
I asked Warsi if she believed the Labour Party in those three seats had benefited from the alleged fraud. Her answer?
Absolutely.
Hmm to say “I think it would be wrong to identify them” is simply not good enough. If she has good evidence of fraud then it is her absolute duty to ensure that the evidence is presented to the police forthwith. If this is a case of hearsay or just sour grapes then she should not make such allegations.
I’m not saying that Warsi is lying. There were indeed cases of alleged fraud at the last election: for example in Two men were arrested in April on suspicion of electoral fraud in April, This took place in Halifax, a marginal seat where Labour did win.
And it is not hard to find example of convictions for electoral fraud here are a few from the last two years or so:
In 2008 Tory activist John Hall was fined £1000 after duping people to fill in proxy voter forms during the 2007 Winchester City Council elections.
Last year six men were jailed for sentences varying from fourh to forty months for election fraud during an election in the Slough Central ward in May 2007 where . Labour councillor Lydia Simmons lost her seat to Tory Raja Khan.
In April a former Tory councillor was found guilty of election fraud at Bradford Crown Court. Mohammed Saghir had fraudulently applied for five proxy votes in other people's names in the May 2008 local election.
Just a few weeks ago Five men, including two former councillors, were jailed for their parts in a failed postal votes scam intended to get a Conservative candidate elected in the 2005 general election. A newspaper investigation and police inquiry had unearthed a plot to get Tory candidate Haroon Rashid elected in the marginal Bradford West seat using hundreds of fraudulent postal vote applications. The five were jailed for between 11 and 31 months.
Hmm seems like there is a problem after all!
Even more fascinating Exoplanet news
Back in 2007 I put up a post about the discovery of an exoplanet Gliese 581c. At the time it was one of three planets discovered around the red dwarf star Gliese 581c which is just 20 light years from earth ( Just down the road in astronomical terms but for the foreseeable future it may as well be on the other side of the universe in terms of getting up close and personal).
Gliese 581c is close to the star’s so called Goldilocks zone (aka the Habitable Zone or HZ - the band around a star where water can exist in liquid form and thus amenable to life…. or at least life that may be remotely earth-like). At the time it was the smallest know extra solar planet was considered a possible location of extrasolar life.
Gliese 581 seems to be a goldmine for exoplanets: In 2009, 581d, a “super-earth” was found to be in the HZ; 581e, although beyond the HZ is at 1.9 times the mass of the earth the smallest exoplanet so far.
And there’s more!
According to today’s Guardian there is yet another planet , Gliese 581g , which is potentially habitable (being in the HZ) and of a similar size to Earth.
Gliese 581g, has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and takes 37 days to orbit the star. Astronomers believe it is a rocky planet with enough gravity to retain an atmosphere.
One side of the planet is always facing the star, much as one side of the moon constantly faces Earth. This means that the far side of the planet is constantly in darkness. The most habitable region of the planet would be the line between the light and dark regions.
The average temperature on the planet is estimated to be between -31 to -12C, but the ground temperature would vary from blazing hot on the bright side and freezing on the dark side.
"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."
"The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 percent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy,"
This is utterly fascinating stuff. I can imagine that such discoveries will be come more and more commonplace.. I can only imagine what newer and more advanced telescopes will reveal.
Shame that we will never see them in the flesh though
At last!
Beginning to feel more human today. Colds are one thing but methotrexate and a bit of asthma thrown in makes the cold experience rather less present. At least I'll be back to work to sort out the month end accruals and transfer journals for the budgets I deal with. Strange to feel that it will be the last time as a civil servant....
29 September 2010
Iranian "King of the bloggers" sentenced to 19 1/2 years
For me Hossein Derakshan falls in to the category "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". From what I have read of his work ( mainly his Comment is Free articles in the Grauniad) he could certainly write utter rubbish.
What he certainly doesn't deserve is a huge prison sentence. 19 1/2 year prison sentence followed being convicyed of "cooperating with enemy states, making propaganda against the Islamic system of government, promoting small anti-revolutionary groups, managing obscene web sites and insulting Islamic sanctities,".
He had been in detention in Evin prison in Tehran since his arrest on November 1, 2008,
Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, condemned the sentence. "This is the longest sentence issued against a blogger in Iran, and it is solely because of his opinions and blogging. The sentence is meant to send a chilling message to the Iranian youth to stay away from the internet in practicing their freedom of expression,"
A journalist working on a reformist newspaper before emigrating to Canada in 200,Derakhshan set up a blog , titled Editor Myself on i.hoder.com. It gained worldwide attention, particularly for his blog start up guides for fellow Iranians.
He was no stranger to controversy: in 2006 he became what must have been the traveled to Israel on his Canadian passport.Shortly before his imprisonment Hossein Derakhshan began writing in support of of the regime, However this was not enough to save his skin.
Even if I think much of the CiF writings are utter drivel (check out his critique of Persepolis for a corker of twisted logic!) there is no way the man deserve 19.5 seconds in custody, let alone the appalling sentence handed down by the regime.
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