Time

I've always been a fan of Pink Floyd's "Time", and the subject of time too. I used to have an old wind up watch as a kid, and could tell the time from an early age. There's something about time that is comforting, it's the same for everyone right? The only difference is of course some clocks are more accurate than others. Mine was always 100%, i checked it with the radio.

So it's no surprise that i was curious about this story about a 100 year old watch found in a 400 year old tomb, that was believed to have been sealed. Ok, so someone is wrong, but look at this:

It appears to be a ring, but has a watch built in. It has siezed, but was fully functional. Beautiful. Apparently it is even marked "Swiss" and should not be older tan about 100 years. But The archeologists are certain that the tomb had not been entered since its sealing 400 years ago, when "Switzerland" did not even exist.

Of course, no discussion on ancient time keeping will be complete without the Antikythera-Mechanism.

That is of course a computer simulation, this is what it looked out out the sea:

The beauty is that once it worked. Flawlessly. From wiki:

The mechanism has three main dials, one on the front, and two on the back. The front dial has two concentric scales. The outer ring is marked off with the days of the 365-day Egyptian calendar, or the Sothic year, based on the Sothic cycle. Inside this, there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs of the Zodiac and divided into degrees. The calendar dial can be moved to compensate for the effect of the extra quarter day in the solar year (there are 365.2422 days per year) by turning the scale backwards one day every four years. Note that the Julian calendar, the first calendar of the region to contain leap years, was not introduced until about 46 BC, up to a century after the device was said to have been built.

If you appreciate mechanical items, you cannot but stand in awe of these wondrful toys.

Secession - Thembuland?

This is too good not to pass up. 

From IOL:

South Africans need to accept the secession of the AbaThembu Tribe, Votani Majola, lawyer for King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, said on Sunday.

"AbaThembu Tribe have seceded from South Africa. The sooner the Nation -aligns with this reality and start preparing to form the State of Thembuland the better," said Majola.

This week the Dispatch Online reported that Dalindyebo's lawyer Votani Majola had served a "secession notice" on Parliament.

Majola was quoted as saying the nation was no longer part of South Africa and that the ANC-led government would have no say in the new independent state, which would be headed by Dalindyebo.
____________________________________________________

So i check Hayibo, a local political satire site, nope. I dig elsewhere, this is real news, no spoof. Now mr king of tribe has just been found guilty of charges "including culpable homicide, kidnapping, arson and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm." Ouch. So rather than accept his fate as per the courts, he's challenging the entie structure of the state. 

Curious. And as his tribe is reportedly several millions strong, he certainly cannot be ignored. With Lesotho and Swaziland still within our borders, and Urania still going strong, in the desert too noggal ... well we south africans are certainly tolerant of giving people self determination to minorities. *grin* And then we have the old homelands, which have become part of SA, thugh still if you visit them you'll find them somewhat different, more rural, than our rural, if you know what i mean. 

Either way, keep watching :)

Traffic

Me again.

Traffic fascinates me. It truly has gotten under my skin, and i can spend hours just sitting on the side of the road, watching. Of course, living in south africa gives a truly unique insight in the mad to-and-froing of all these very busy people.

As a kid, i had the bicycle, and with proper training, i didn't kill myself. I drove into a car once, a beige ford escourt, the old man was very nice about it ...

Next time i crunched was with my father's bike, a honda cb750. Typical bike accident, the bitch didn't see me. Taught me all i needed to know about respecting the size and speed of a motorcycle, not to mention brakes ... even thought the accident occured at under 40km/h, before i hit he brakes. 

Then were the walking years, if i wanted to get there, i walked. Then i had a car for a while, Brunhilde, a 518 BMW from the early 80's. Then for work trucks, and bakkies, and all sorts. I had a job delivering stuff all over jhb for several years, 8-10 hours a day in this hellish traffic. Then an office job, and the bus, and then the bike. And i haven't looked back since. 

I find that even in traffic on the bike, my mind is working, observing, learning, often laughing, at what i see. Often too is the head shake, just, are they really theat stupid? Or just pretending? Taxi doors opening in traffic, blondes sticking make up on their faces while chatting on the cell phone, having beakfast, and driving to work.  

What caught my attention this morning was the pointsmen that we have in jhb. 2 types, the outsurance pointsmen and the metro police. Outsurance: gracefully managing the intersection while being fully aware of where each car is. You can see that they have "road sense" and have decveloped a feel for doing it right. The metro: clumsily flapping about in a state of semi panic, not understanding anything more than people must respond to their instructions.

The results of course are the important thing, and metro management of out of order robots (traffic lights) results invariably in backed up traffic and fustrated drivers. Near collisions are frequent since people don't understand the instructions. 

There is something about the road that fascinates me. Like prey in front of a hypnotising snake, caught in it's death trance. Except i have a healthy respect for this snake, and admire from a safe place. But other people don't ... it's not a natural thing i think, i'm road training the kids, and i almost have to beat it into them, stay away from the road! They're learning though, and they watch as carefully, pointing things out. My son watched an accident happen while we were coming back from Germiston. A car accident in the rain, cue "Swan lake" music. *grin*

OT:

We watched 201 A Space Odysey last night, a truly wierd movie. Bu nice, refreshing to see where half of our current popular space science comes from. That whole era truly changed mankind, injecting a whole mythology into popular world views.

In defense of Judge Richard Goldstone

IN DEFENCE OF JUDGE RICHARD GOLDSTONE BY FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE ARTHUR CHASKALSON AND GEORGE BIZOS COUNSEL IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION UNIT OF THE LEGAL RESOURCES CENTRE

We are concerned about the attacks made on the integrity of Justice Richard Goldstone following the report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict, made public on 25 September 2009. Richard Goldstone was the head of the mission, but there were three other members. The other members were:
• Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science;
• Ms Hina Jilani, an advocate and human rights activist in Pakistan, who was the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders, a member of UN International Fact-Finding Commission on Darfur, and a member of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights. 
• Colonel Desmond Travers a former officer in Irelands’ Defence Forces and a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations, which investigates war crimes . investigation of war crimes and crimes against

The mandate of the mission, whose report was unanimous, was to enquire into whether there were any violations of International Law (which would include International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law) by both the government and army of Israel and by Hamas which was in control of the Gaza strip. The mission interpreted its mandate as requiring it to place the civilian population of the region at the centre of its concerns regarding the protection to which they were entitled under International Law.
 
Hearings were held in Gaza and Geneva. Some critics accuse Goldstone of hearing one side only. However, the mission sought the co-operation of the Israeli government. It refused to make any representations to the mission, despite the representations made to it by the mission and the efforts of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The mission was supported by the Palestinian Authority in the Westbank. Despite Israel’s refusal to make representations the mission considered statements made by senior Israeli politicians, senior officers of its army, documents, photographs and videos submitted to it by various NGO’s and its secretariat.  

The mission determined that it was required to consider any actions by all parties that may have constituted violations of International Human Rights Law or International Humanitarian Law. The mandate also required it to review related actions in the entire occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel (“paragraph 11 page 14 of the report”). The mission found that both Israel and Hamas committed violations of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law.

It is not our intention to express a view on whether the findings of the commission were correct or not. Views differ on this. Our concern is that Judge Goldstone, an eminent South African judge, has been accused of bias, dishonesty and improper motives in being party to the report of the mission.  

 For instance, Jack Shapiro in the SA Jewish Report 30 October 2009 wrote:

“Goldstone became a Nationalist Party judge. In those days only “Nat Boeties” became judges. Did this start the ball rolling? Was this the start of a new career for him? A world personal ambition?”
This theme was also advanced in scurrilous emails which were widely circulated
attacking his integrity.
We have known Richard Goldstone as a friend for more than fifty years, and have followed his career as a colleague at the Bar, as a Judge of the Transvaal Provincial Division, as a Judge of the Appellate Division, and as a Justice of the Constitutional Court. Our answer to Shapiro’s rhetorical question is an emphatic “No”.
  
Not every judge appointed during the apartheid era was a supporter of apartheid. There were a number among them, including Richard Goldstone, who accepted appointment to the bench in the 70s and 80s in the belief that they could keep principles of the law alive. They included Michael Corbett, Simon Kuper, Gerald Friedman, HC Nicholas, George Coleman, Solly Miller, John Milne, Andrew Wilson, John Didcott, Laurie Ackermann, Johan Kriegler and others. There is a considerable body of evidence that they discharged their functions with courage and integrity. This is recognised in the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which observed that “there were always a few lawyers (including judges, teachers and students) who were prepared to break with the norm.” Commenting on such judges, it says “they exercised their discretion in favour of justice and liberty wherever proper and possible. . . . and (the judges, lawyers, teachers and students referred to) were influential enough to be part of the reason why the ideal of a constitutional democracy as the favoured form of government for a future South Africa continued to burn brightly throughout the darkness of the apartheid era.”
  
Richard Goldstone was one of those judges. For instance, his decision in the case of S v Govender in 1986 that no ejectment order should be made against persons disqualified by the Group Areas Act, 1986 from occupying premises reserved for the white group, without enquiring into whether alternative accommodation for such persons was available, was a great blow to the apartheid regime, and contributed substantially to that legislation becoming unenforceable in certain parts of the country. As a judge of the Constitutional Court he concurred in the finding that the first draft of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa passed by the newly elected Constituent Assembly did not comply in certain respects with the 34 constitutional principles agreed to by the negotiating parties at Codesa.

 He was the founding chairperson of Nicro, an organisation to look after prisoners that have been released; he exercised his power as a judge (not often used by other judges) to visit prisoners in jail; he insisted on seeing political prisoners indefinitely detained to hear their complaints; to intervene for a doctor to be allowed to see them and where possible to make representations that their release be considered. After the release of Nelson Mandela he played an important role in persuading his colleagues on the bench to accept the inevitable changes that were likely to take place in the political and judicial structures.
 
President De Klerk with the concurrence of the President of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela appointed Judge Goldstone as the chairperson of the commission to investigate what became known as hit-squads or third force organisations within the army and the police force. His reports exposed high ranking officers who were obliged by President De Klerk to resign, and other members of the security forces, and he made findings that police officers had unlawfully shot at unarmed protestors, and recommended that they should be charged with murder. Threats to his life were made, and his name was on the hit list produced in court as part of the state case against the killers of Chris Hani in 1993.

Some who have criticised him say that as a Jew he ought not to have accepted a mandate to enquire into the events in Gaza. We do not agree. Religion and ethnicity are irrelevant to the capacity to judging with integrity. Others ask why he has shown no concern about human rights violations that have been and are being committed elsewhere in the world. This was not part of his mandate as head of the fact finding mission. But his career, from the time he was chairman of the Wits SRC campaigning against the exclusion of black students, to the present time, shows a long commitment to the protection of human rights and a concern for their protection in all parts of the world. He is a member of the boards of Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights. He is a Director of the American Arbitration Association. He chairs the advisory boards of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation and the Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life. In April 2004, he was appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Independent International Committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, to investigate the Iraq Oil for Food program. He is co-chair of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association. He chaired a UN Committee to advise the United Nations on appropriate steps to preserve of the archives and legacy of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. From 15 August 1994 to September 1996 he served as the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, a post he accepted at the request of President Nelson Mandela, who considered it an important affirmation of the post apartheid South African judiciary.

He was the chairperson of a high level group of international experts who met in Valencia, Spain, and drafted a Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities for the Director General of UNESCO (the Valencia Declaration). From August 1999 until December 2001 he was the chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. He is a director of the American Arbitration Association. And from 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the International Group of Advisers of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He has received many prestigious awards in recognition of his commitment to human rights and humanitarian law.

One trenchant critic of the report, Moshe Halbertal, has said: 

“a mere denunciation of the report will not suffice. Israel must establish an independent investigation into the concrete allegations that the report makes. By clearing up these issues, by refuting what can be refuted, and by admitting wrongs when wrongs were done, Israel can establish the legitimacy of its self-defense in the next round, as well as honestly deal with its own failures.”  

That is a more appropriate critical response to the report of the mission, than the vituperative attacks on Justice Goldstone’s integrity by some of those who disagree with the missions report. 

  Arthur Chaskalson
George Bizos

Johannesburg

21 January 2010

______________________________________________________________

Directly quoting a word document hosted by IOL. Justice Goldstone is certainly a very busy man.

On being busy

Well i have certainly entered a new phase in my life, a very busy one indeed. I took Bertha for a drive last night, and she is running, not great though, the carbs need balancing, and i still have to replace the petrol pump, the one that is on is dodgy and bent ... go figure. At speed she's not getting enough juice, and she's quite noisy too. I'm making a list of things to fix, and it's a very long list indeed. From setting lights, and replacing bulbs, to the interior, to carpeting, and fixing interior fitting, like the cigarette lighter and other buttons and knobs. 

Home is FULL at the moment, of furniture and boxes and such as the in laws move across. The problem is that due to the building going on, we only have half the space to start with! I have literally half my old garage, the other half is now a bathroom, exactly 1 bike plus 30cm in length. But my new workbench is just oooooooo .... *grin*. Huge, a door makes up the surface, and very high, over a metre off the ground. It and the bike are all that fit in there!!! But i have some board, which is going to become the tool hanging place on the wall, and i've been cutting short bits of wire as tool hangers, and we need to paint everything too. It's going to be a very ... tidy workshop, i hope. The woodwork shop will be round the back, i cannot wait for the builders to be done, so that we can start assembling the shop. First order of business is shelving for my bike garage. 

This month has been fairly strange here in JHB. It's rained, constantly. Every single day, either a long, light drizzle, or a highveld thunderstorm. Saturday was a big storm, knocking out electricity and flooding some roads. Today it's the light rain, it's stopped now, but this moning was a comedy of errors on the roads. 1 overturned taxi, 1 bakkie spun into a highway signboard pole, and 1 bumper bashing, and of course in between all of this, everybody was late for work. Even me, i overslept :D

I'm looking at the rainfall stats again, trying to find this month to date, average for Jan is 114mm, i've established that. And it should certainly be thereabouts, or more. 

As an aside, i read a very good article on Spartacus, tying in with the Haiti "slave rebellion". Only 4 recorded slave rebellions in history, which involved full scale war, and Haiti was the only success. Of course, that record could not be allowed to continue, but it makes a very poignant statement. I got home last night with a desire to hear Bob Marley, moving on to Bob Dylan. I think the builders were surprised, they didn't say anything, but clearly they approved.

Isn't it simple, really? And it's funny too, how you get 2 totally different people, with the same stage name, and you listen to them both they're saying the same things. How many times must a cannonball fly, before they form a band?? It's THAT easy to see ...

PEACE \/,,

Haiti

The slaves rebelled, and have been paying for it ever since. Total destruction of what voltaire described as richer than New England. 

We tend to accept any "natural" disaster as exactly that, natural, but after China, i'm really beginning to believe that "they" have the ability to create wave harmonics in a localised area strong enough to destabilize fault lines. Pretty wild thinking i guess, but check out the wierd lights seen just before China's quake, you-tube HAD some. There was Bali, a "natural" event, and a number of others. 

The clue to me is always the degree of "stage-managedness" involved, and the degree of media exploitation.

Ok, a tangent perhaps. But what is NOT a tangent is the fact that this was no accident, nor was the massive death toll surprising. It has been building for years, primarily through the US's policies towards elected leadership, ie remove them. Aristede is here in Johannesburg, somewhere. Apparently he is begging to go back and help, he is a priest after all, compassionate i would think, and why he was elected in the first place (and second too). 

But before the US sends help, they've sent the marines, cos well you know, those rebellious slaves are dangerous, you know? So you have a bunch of marines running around ... not exactly helping much, just BEING there. The US has taken over all aspects of local government, flooded the island with .... MILITARY, and not given a brass farthing in actual aid yet. Fuck them all, hell was made for people like them.

Meanwhile the people are broken, houses all gone, supplies all gone, and even fresh water gone. Those that have survived now face the usual plethora of diseases, and of course the common-spotted-trigger-happy marine. Should the hungry and weak peasants threaten these gods of destruction. *sigh*

History of a Haitian Holocaust

Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

The Lesson of Haiti

May God have mercy on the Haitians.

UPDATE: A first hand account, don't read it unless you're ready to get angry.

Sing along

I mean it ... sing!! Hahahaha, guarenteed to make you smile today ;-)

"Don't worry about a thing,

'Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', "This is my message to you-ou-ou:"

Singin': "Don't worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be all right. Don't worry!"
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing" - I won't worry!
"'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right" - I won't worry!
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing, oh no!
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!

Bob Marley - Everything's gonna be alright.

Doomsday Clock

I don't know how many of you recall the Doomsday clock? Set to reflect how close we are to making ourselves extinct.

Well it's being updated today, around 5pm SA time, although no-one knows which way it will go. It's currently at 5 minutes to midnight, but it's been going since the Cuban missile crisis in the 60's, so i'm really not sure how they plan to interpret  it. 

We no longer face mutual obliteration by the USA and USSR. We've got cancer instead, killing 1 country at a time. Long and painful, with much fussing by those who can do the least to save us. Just as certain a death, but without the grand fireworks finale.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Conversation

Ok, i need to tread careful, speaking about work online is a bad idea lately. But i keep having conversations that really seem odd. What is most disurbing is the frequency aof this type of conversation.

Them: we're going to implement this.

Me: great idea!

Them: Ok, here it is.

Me: Oh no, this is problematic for a few reasons, see here, here and here.  We need to do it this way.

Them: But they know better than us. Can it work?

Me: well, it can work, perhaps, but it's really a bad idea, as is.

Them: Ok, well they'll have to make it work, make it happen.

Me: Ok, but it's bad, wrong, problematic and will cause issues.

Them: do it. 

Them: It's taking too long. That's not how it's supposed to be. Why won't it work?

Me: *sigh*

UNICEF kills

BBC

"Unicef spent $27m (£17m) rolling out vaccinations, vitamin A pills and bed nets to protect against malaria from 2001 to 2005 in areas of 11 countries. 

The researchers studied parts of Ghana, Mali and Benin and said children often survived better outside the UN scheme."

"The study, published in the British medical journal Lancet, claimed that child deaths fell by 13% in areas of Benin targeted by Unicef. 

But in areas of the country where the programme was not introduced, the death rate dropped by almost 25%. 

In Mali the researchers found death rates fell by 24% in districts where the Unicef programme was set up, but 31% elsewhere in the country. 

The UN agency's Mickey Chopra told the BBC it was a misinterpretation to say the programme had failed."

_________________________________________________

I'm speechless.

Huisie by die see

"Almal wil 'n huisie by die see he

Almal hoop die struggle is verby

Almal se die lewe is eers more

Maar more is te laat, vir my ..."

Koos Kombuis, respect.

______________________________________________________-

A South African folk singer, this man is brilliant. Any South African will respond instantly to these lines, so simple and yet so perceptive too. For international readers, allow me to briefly explain the song.

Everyone wants a cottage by the sea

Everyone hopes the struggle is past (referring to the armed struggle launched by the ANC against the then govt)

Everyone says life starts tomorrow

Tomorrow is too late for me

................ *smile* such a wonderfully peaceful ditty.

UPDATE: I just discovered you can download this song from 24.com here.

NEO Sighted

This is a quite exciting bit of news, to geeks, perhaps :)

"A near-Earth object that could be manmade has just been discovered hurtling toward us. On Wednesday (Jan. 13), an object called 2010 AL30 will fly by Earth at a distance of just 130,000 km (80,000 miles). That's only one-third of the way from here to the moon, ie: very close."

"The discovery of this 10-meter-wide object is testament to the increasing capabilities of the international community of asteroid hunters."

Thank you to Discovery News for a great article.

A 2 day warning wouldn't be enough, of course, should it be an earth-ender. While this object is not big enough to pose any threat, 2 days warning for a 10 metre wide object is certainly better than we've had before.

The orbit is almost the same as Earth's, which has prompted some to speculate that it is space junk. This has been proved wrong though, and it is apparently a natural occuring asteroid. 

On Thursday, at about 2PM our time, you won't see it, but it will be whizzing past overhead at i imagine a truly phenomenal speed. Nice.

Ridin' ridin' riding'

Day 3 of back on the bike, i HATE not riding, it is so hard to get back in the groove. Sunday i went to father in law, which is about 50km on the other side of JHB. Me and the wife, it's a road i know very well. 3 lane highway, the roadworks are a problem at the moment, but the road and i are old friends. Taking it slow (relatively) it's a perfect way to get back in the saddle.

Nicely too, for some reason the cops have let that highway alone, likely due to roadworks and construction areas, where they are not allowed *chuckle*. So no fussing about speed and such, just be comfortable, and worry about the cars and the road surface. There and back and bike and i were friends again.

Monday morning back to work was a nightmare. The drivers weren't bad at all, i was. Take it REAL slow through the cars, and watch for the monkey. Fortunately no surprises, i at least haven't forgotten everything. The biggest difference, i was terrified of falling. Sunday, yesterday, and this morning a little too. Except this morning i felt windgat, and had to keep telling myself to slow down, and be more careful. Fun though, i had fun this morning.

The fear returning surprised me. When i started riding, i was petrified. Good. I like that cold taste of fear, it makes you wake the f*** up. Getting breathing under control was lesson one, in, out, in, out, It's also one of the best lessons i've learned, and has saved me more than just a few times. I would literally stop breathing, holding my breathe in anticipation of ... something, probably not good. I used to "see" myself connecting THAT car, or sliding THERE. Not sure why my imagination played that tune, i suspect it was fear, and caution, and i actually believe it was a good thing. That faded as confidence grew, although never entirely leaving me, the 6th sense is still wide awake, just not as loud. 

Sogetting back on the bike and feeling that cold dry taste in the mouth, slightly metallic, warned me that i knew i was in danger. Yes, i know, but acknowledging that i know is a good next step. Fear = danger = wide awake.  

Riding to me, is akin to relaxing. If i consciously focus on everything, it can confuse one very quickly. The mirrors, head movements, tyre directions, car position in the lane. All ts information bombards you at a rate of about 4 cars in any given second, with MUCH more on the peripherals. So i relax, make sure that my eyes keep busy, that my fingers know where they are, my position comfortable and balanced, and i ride. The controls are automatic, as they should be, with my body knowing what to do, without being instructed. The scanning is automatic, keep looking, or you'll miss it. And my brain is automatic too, with almost free reign in hitting the danger button. Often i'm slowing before i know why. That's when i focus, and behold yes, he's about to swing cross my path ... 2 ... 1 ... yes you daft prat, if i hadn't slowed you'd have hit me.

That's when i lean back and applaud the fool. I clap my hands because he's a clever monkey, who can change lanes all by himself. My attitude towards other drivers is simple, see me, remember me. If they move over slightly, as most have taken to doing, a small hand wave over my shoulder acknowledges their thoughtfullness. That alone is enough to provide feedback, positive, and hopefully be the bell that makes the dog drool. Pavlov was SO right *chuckle*

But if they are daft prats, well then, traditionally a mirror is the cost of such thoughtlessness, but no, i'll see them tomorrow too, and the next day, so rather play with their little minds, and embarass them in front of their peers. It's great how when you "accost" one driver, the rest move away, giving you space next to the vehicle, and almost always stare at the offender, sometimes adding a finger wag of their own. Priceless.

Either way, it's a flow, causing no harm. I just want to get by, thats all. I know i make people unhappy in traffic, by not being constrained as they are. Whizzing by stationary cars in traffic, well we're the only moving things, so everybody sees us, once we're past. They sit, and think about how stuck they are. Shame. But really, the difference in general attitude has changed so much since i started this route, i honestly believe that the wave, and non violent confrontation of certain drivers, has helped make myself, and all oother riders on the route safer.

Now it's up to me, and only me, to not go a fuck it all up with a silly accident. 

T-shirt i saw in Knysna

Resumptions

Back at work today .... *blink* .... there was time off, wasn't there?

I'm stronger though, than i've been for a while, looking at the mayhem which seems to have continued unabaited through my leave. The world at large has gone mad, only my glasses are clean now, and i can see it so clearly. I am less attached now, i think i found my centre again. I can actually contemplate wrestling the universe now. Except being a taoist, i think i shall swim the currents, and direct myself towards more rewarding shores.

Rest in Peace Pravesh. He died while on route to a breakfast run over the weekend. Single vehicle motorcycle accident. I knew him as a fellow marshall, and he was always in good spirits, well behaved on the road, and excellent company. A young indian guy, i am sure he leaves behind many loved ones.

I think that Think Bike is one part that will play less in my life this year. I still support the "cause", but my energy neds to be focused elsewhere. As Pratchett put it so well (i paraphrase): "You can pick up a cause on every street corner, but there's only one of ME".

Woodwork is my new passion, and now i have the tools, and the old man as a guide, i expect great things. Anyone want an easel? They are damned expensive in the shops, and i do a very good easel i'm told. Small beginnings :)

If you see my bloglist under people i know, there's a new listing for "creative spirit". My dear wifey, and her beadwork. This blogspot really is great, and i enjoy watching people i know use i for their own personal reasons. Having a creative outlet is so important, as is sharing. She does sell her work, and makes to order, so perhaps a hand made jewellery set for a friend? She does some very fine work, click on the pictures for a closer look, really nicely done. 

That's about it for now, still owe a great many pictures, they're here now, so i'll resize etc over the week, and just post arbitrarily. 

peace

Rebirth

I went away, to Kysna. Truly one of the most beautiful places on earth. Set on a lagoon, it is protected from the wind, and the sea. With the lagoon filling and emptying in time with the tides, it has it's own rythm, slowly breathing through the seasons. 

The surrounding hillsides contain forests and farms, all totally at peace. The little town old and comfortable, although sadly too many new buildings, all bright and bold and oddly out of place, typical "development". Poor people and wooden shacks, with views that others spend millions to own. A very extreme place, full of contradictions, yet balanced for all that. And peaceful.

I had forgotten the sea, almost. The feel, of the spray in the wind and the waves between the toes. I had forgotten that smell, heady as wine, and surgically sharp. Clearing the nose, and the mind too. The border of land and the rest of planet earth. Our own small dwellings so brave against the sea carved rock. Birds, hundreds of birds i saw, from the seagulls to the hawks in the karoo. Fiscal shrikes and crows. The birdsong waking us in our tent every morning, and keeping a background whistle whenever we stopped to listen.

Our old merc (1982 280CE) kept turning like a swiss watch, actually improving as the journey took it's course. Taking us 2 old friends over roads tarred and gravelled, with us sharing dreams and smiling at the world. We had no plans, no ambitions, and yet were busy the whole time.

Life, as it should be. I saw it, it exists. I personally suspect it looks something like this :D

Cough

Yes, i've been doing a lot of that lately, the meds seem to be helping though, let's see how it goes.

The merc is hurt, as i'm going through checks and such, one thing another is not as it should be. Running a little hot, so let's just check the thermostat, perhaps it's been gunged up. So as i'm taking the bolts out, one breaks, sheared bolts are a nightmare. I manage to get the two halfs apart, leaving a short bit if the bolt to try work with. Alas no, the bolt had been GLUED in. No wonder i couldn't get it out. At this point i can now investigate the thermostat. There isn't one. 

I am getting a thermostat before day out, and we're going to see if we can get a new housing too, it's bady worn. I had the one carb open yesterday too, despite having been completely overhauled, the floater was not working properly, and i had petrol spewing all over the engine. 

I have to add something here though. I'm doing all the donkey work, but without a father in law on the phone 2/3 times a day, my own father helping with advice and know how, and other friends who are passionate enough to help any way they can, i would still be stuck.

I'm off now to go finish the fence, and make additional re-inforcing the the gate. It's sagging from the weight. Once i've put it all together, we'll paint is white, so it matches the walls, should also help stop the wood from degrading too fast. Then just tidying up, i've made quite a mess so far!!

A quick news flash though, from motoring.co.za.

The gist is that speed cameras have a negative affect on driving, and that the removal of those cameras actually improves the levels of driving. Go figure. 

Lol peace and love, and no auld lang syne ok? It's not good. But look out for the blue moon. Enjoy crazy time :D

She runs!

A 1969 Mercedes Benz 6 cylinder, without exhaust pipe, sounds remarkably like a Harvard aeroplane :D

Not to mention the adrenaline rush on hearing the recently rebuilt engine firing to life. Man triumphs over minerals, it's phenomenal really. Obviously, much to still be done, tighten and tweak and double check and test. She was really in a terrible state, water and oil mixing is death to cars, and i'm nothing if not grateful that she seems to be over the worst. *chuckle* now i'm sitting worrying about which nut i didn't tighten properly!!

Light white smoke, not hugely, is typical for a recently rebult engine, i'm told. There was enough crud caked in the manifold and pistons. I have to take her for a good burn, round JHB once should do (+-100km), and flush everything, again. Then ride nicely for 1000 km, then ... well she should be as good as new.

Lots to do, 2 weeks to get her running, and probably the rest of my life to get her RIGHT. SHe sounds beautiful, runs sweetly, and hints at massive power when you tweak the accelerator. She needs a new accelerator pedal, i'm thinking wood. An automatic, she has 2 pedals, the brake is a nice shiny steel, and a warm wood pedal would both contrast and enhance nicely. Easy enough, just getting the mechanism right. 

I owe a lot of pics here, truth be told, i have been so busy, internet time such has become an afterthought. Nicely done, i think. Hopefully getting to the coast next week, in which case i shall not even take a cellphone. Perhaps, detoxing and quitting smoking is possible. It's my goal. 

Of course i've gotten sick, first honest day's work in years and my body doesn't know what to do about it. Typical, hehe. 

me again

It came and went, wasn't too bad though. A houseful of happy people, a well used swimming pool, and sated kids. My granny reminded me of something my grandad used to say: " Beautiful from the front, but so lovely from behind." Oh yes, i miss his gentle kindness.

I've been up to my neck in mercedes benz, just me and Hans, that engineer from the factory in the 60's. I think i shall name her Bertha. Big old bitch, like a grand aunt. We discovered the problem, the head gasket was incorect. I'm not sure who is more angry, the old man, my old man, or me. Such a stupid thing to have done, and damn near cost the car an engine. Fortunately the damage seems minimal, the sooner we get her running the better. So not only was the piston seal totally not there, causing burning through the gasket, but the monkey put it on wrong. Bent it on inserting the head. I'll bet money the mechanic just gave the easy old car to the appy, some stupid schuck.

It's ok, we have evidence now. The main fear was since i opened the head, any mechanic would immediately deny liability, and keep his fee. Now, we have the wrong gasket with evidence of ham handedness. He will have to accept responsibility. 

My father is a mechanic, a very good one, who has helped so much already. We disagree on a lot though, like he believes one should take cars to experts, i say, look at how they mess it up too. I feel better if i make a mistake, which i pay for, rather than paying someone else to make a mistake, which i would pay for. But the one thing he has taught me, and that we agree on entirely, is that motor mechanics is a precise art, with a right way, and a wrong way. Even a silly boy like me can repair this great engineering marvel, with the right tools, information, and mind set. Even better is you can't get a big head about it, because unless you are humble, the machine will eat you for breakfast. It's a great leveller.

As to the rest, well i'm just keeping busy, one day at a time, and so far as possible avoiding any and all disturbances from the great out there. I think i'm even having fun :)

today

I didn't get my bike ride, too damn sore and tired!!! Have to be sharp to enjoy it, otherise you're just hanging on and hoping ... hehehe

It's ok, i owe myself a ride now. Still owe the woman one, so maybe a long ride early one morning. Out to Ventersdorp maybe, or Koster, that's a lovely road, with long sweeping turns through open farmland. You can see for miles.

My present for the day, 5 sunspot activity regions. It's still ticking over, warming us day to day. Expect electrical appliances to be ... to have personality *wink*

Jethro Tull is good xmas music, fun and playful and fluty and sweet. Going to have a houseful of people all day, so off for a skinny dip and a wake up :D

peace and goodwill to all men woman children animals plants minerals atoms and politicians.

Zuma and CHESS?

Right, this is me eating humble pie, and giving credit where it is due.

IOL

President Jacob Zuma will take part in the KwaZulu-Natal Chess Tournament in his home town, Nkandla, on Tuesday.

"The tournament has been organised at the request of the president in order to teach the youth patience and strategic thinking, and to promote recreational activity in rural areas," said presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya in a statement.

He said Zuma was a chess player and wanted to see the game rolled out across KwaZulu-Natal communities because it required minimal infrastructure.

The event is scheduled to start at 2pm on Tuesday. - Sapa
_________________________________________________________

I want to see more of exactly this.

The Moment Of Truth

By Fidel Castro at informationclearinghouse

Wow, his remarks are minor, he basically just highlighted what Hugo Chaves and Evo Morales had to say in their speech. Damned sight more relevant that anything obamaman had to say.

Go read it, a wonderful counterpoint to the hype, and a view of some of earth's people.

more of the same

This is an *update* to MY life ... glorious and glamorous though it isn't *grin*

So i'm home, working harder than at any point in the year so far. Nice. Stripped the bar of the wooden panelling, it was just packing crates really, previous owner had done a nice job, but we're upgrading the room, fixing the leaks, and building a wall where now is prefab material.

And we ended up with a TON of wood planks. Sadly not great wood, all rough and with nails in, but i'm making boxes out of it. Packing crate type things, huge, and solid enough, and quite clever, i think. The first one looks really ROUGH, but that's fine, i've got my model. Now i can select the better wood, and make a better box. WIth a lid, and rope handles. At a metre and a half long, and almost a metre wide, useful for all manner of things i hope. 

My brother lent me his remote controlled helicopter, YAY! SO i have a toy to play with, and an empty bar area, to play in. Things are looking up indeed!!

The merc is the big beige problem, with rust setting in, time is of the essence. Another round trip of JHB to get the right tool, a torch, and back at the problem this afternoon. Stuck as a pooh bear in a piglet hole, i said to myself. At a guess, from all the sealing compounds found on every join, i'm guesing that the guy put too much on the head gasket, enough to smear, and block somewhere in the block. Don't know yet, only one way to find out ...

Family is off at the zoo, a very good thing to be doing today. Wonderful time of year, and yesterday it poured with rain all day, clearing around eve, so the ground is moist and cool. Lots to do today, so first a joint, then action!! ;-D

peace and love

Holy-days

Yup they're upon us. I'm home, in great pains, thanks to these 21st century torture devices the butcher has installed in my mouth. About all anyone can say is: You'll get used to them. Hmmmm. I'm sure the sufferers in the tower of London told each other the same thing about leg-irons.

The kids, well i'm not rightly sure where they are. Friends is the generic answer. But which one at any point is a bit of a mystery. They'll come flying through myhouse for an hour before running off elsewhere, usually without a by your leave. I've been warned that we wil be reciprocating, so a house full of kids is in my future ..... 

My son, oh dear me i'm so proud of him. Wet onto the roof recently, found both Jupiter AND Beelejuice, all by himself. Of course, the one moves and the other doesn't, i love the old fashioned term for planets: Wandering stars. So when these clouds clear we'll be doing more stargazing together, if he's home long enough! (PS does anyone have contacts for telescope lenses, i have a complete telescope and tripod, minus the one front lens, without which it's as useful as a glass window, if you do, please let me know where i can find? Thanks!)

I'm spending some time online, just keeping up with news. Copenhagen stinks. All of it. From the uttery bizarre welcome sky to the free prostitutes to the utterly shameful agenda of these world parasites. But what you see above is NOT a failed rocket launch. Despite hastily corrected press statements by the Russian military. The above photograph was apparently confirmed to have used a 3 minute shutter speed, no, not a tourist (?). My first guess was hologram, and i'm still hoping it's only that. The other guess is something far more sinister, a new propulsion system? New anti missile tech? It's worth mentioning that Norway has it's own HAARP array called EISCAT pretty much when the blue beam touches down. Buebeam *shudder* ... google it. 

At about the same time in CERN the LHC kicked off for the first time ever. 

All should leave Geneva.
Saturn turns from gold to iron,
The contrary positive ray (RAYPOZ) will exterminate everything,
There will be signs in the sky before this.

Thanks to Mostradamus for this little pearl of wisdom. And i haven't seen anything, just caught a rumour that th first tests were successful, and strongly resembled the above spiral. I'll keep an eye on that one.

My blog counter keeps climbing, each time i refresh it, about once a day, it's climbed by at least 10 ... wow!! Welcome all you information surfers, hope you like what you see. My spelling is fine, it's my typing that sux, i blame the keyboard :D 

Say hi in comments, i notice more little towns in SA jumping up on the ma, hi to Kimberley, someone. But further than that, all over the world people visit me, Alaska, India, plenty in the states, of course, and europe too. I dig it. ;D

Oh, and my 1 plan this holiday is the xmas morning run, concrete highway at 5AM. If you wanna join me it could be fun!!! If you can keep up, of course!

peace and love all over the pretty blue planet

Climategate

I promised a post on this wonderful piece of deception, and when i logged in today i found the perfect inspiration. Mr Anthony Watt (wattsupiththat.com) should be knighted.

His blog started as an exercise in confirming the accuracy of surface station temperature records across the US. Confirming that the thermometres and such were all correctly placed, and so on. A private project. He uncovered station after station were affected by carparks, airports, buildings and such.  All positevely affected of course, wrt the temperature.

He started allowing guest posts because certain trips took several days, which left little time for his blog, which was becoming very popular. A Mr Willie Essenbach poted on the 8th December about the Darwin temperature record, Darwin Australia that is. And you can read the bombshell here.

The global warming argument has become scientific truth, with undisuted facts and scientific consensus to this human inflicted disaster to be. Or so we are told. The need for urgent action should be of conern, since it proposes to govern waste, carbon waste, carbon dioxide. You as human create carbon dioxide, your car, your house, your body. So the earth is warming dramatically and it's YOUR fault. WE must act. WE must stop producing this stuff. WE should pay for the priveledge, and then WE will use less. WE should pay more TAXES. 

Yes. So the whole global warming thing is led by ali gori, a middle eastern scientist. He claims that icecaps melting, increased occurence and severity of storms and all other disasters shall befall mankind unless we sacrifice to the climate god. Ali shall be his man on earth. Our sacrifices should take the form of a small donation, each time we exhale, or fart, or buy something, and that money, shall go towards the coffers of the climategod, who will send more prophets around the world, in private jets, with free prostitutes, and police escorts, to tell us who we have sinned against gaia.

Science is mankind's greatest achievement. The ordering of all the things we know, and the search to discover that which we do not. It commands respect from all, since it stands above mankind, as a shrine to the universe, in wonder and complexity. Science has rules, which may not be broken. We live and work within these, knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow, and that gravity will rescue us from flights of fancy. Mr Einstein knew the dangers of science, and even more so, the dangers of political power over science.

Global climate changes. Everything changes. All the time. That's one of the few things in ts incarnation that I'M sure of. Things change. The 3 main indicators of glogal warming i would think, would be: 

Carbon dioxide levels

Sea levels

Temperature

Now CO2 levels are measured in ppm, parts per million. They number between 300-400 over the last few years. Thay have increased steadily worldwide over the last few years, fossil fuel use being the most likely cause. Not a huge volume though, and plants love it. If the increase in CO2 becomes truly tragic for us humans, plant will thrive. But Thanks to ice core data, we know CO2 levels stretching back millions of years. From Wiki:

"Five hundred million years ago carbon dioxide was 20 times more prevalent than today" It certainly was NOT 20 times hotter. So even if we humans DOUBLE the CO2 in the atmosphere, it would not contribute greatly to the temperature, since there was still ice on the planet, which we can now test, to compare ...

American thinker has an excellent piece on CO2, by a politician no less.

Johannesburg is one of 2 major cities in the world not built on a major waterway, the other is in Russia, a scientific town. Rising sea levels would affect almost half the planet, i am guessing ...

Which makes it great that they aren't rising. There's this picture taken on the`Isle of the Dead', Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Funny that the it's right at sea level, today. That John Daly sight is a brilliant one, an australian amateur scientist, now deceased, who seemed to know exactly how is it is, wrt climate science as long ago as 2004. 

Look dead centre, a star carved into the stone.

Then we have the recent cabinet meeting underwter, by the Maldives government. They are a very low lying set of islands, "with the highest point only some 2.5m (8ft) above sea level" so if the sea rises, they're first. Which  again very fortunate, because they aren't sinking or being covered or anything like that. Nils-Axel Mörner, a sea level specialist, has written several times to the president, with no response hence thois open letter, to re-assure him that: 

"By the end of this century, sea level may have risen by between 30cm and 50cm according to the various IPCC scenarios. Our records suggest a maximum of 20cm. Neither of those levels would pose any real problem — simply a return to the situation in the 17th and the 19th to early 20th centuries, respectively."

The Catlin Arctic Suvey was another very good example of how not to do science. With multiple descrepencies in both their method and the interpretations. Funded by the Royal Society, sad really. The highlight was of course a bunch of idealistic yuppies being surprised how cold it was, and inhospitable. I could have warned them about that. But what we know about ice is that it's all still there. Whether or not large shelves of Antarctica fall off is at this point irrelevant. See my point about change, above. The temperatures are as cold as they always have been, and snow fall is around the same too.

You know what kills more polar bears than any single other thing? guns. 

Climategate is the resulting mess of what appears to be a leaked set of files and emails, from th University of East Anglia, by persons unknown, and left on  Russian ftp server, which is known for having hosted "hacked" data before. These documents revealed absolute proof that the scientists had lied, colluded, conspired and hidden data upon which they had based their findings. I am not getting into the various temperature records, see the article by Mr Essenbach for that, bu they are the weathermen, charged with the management of weather records worldwide. 

The data that they were hiding was the same that made up the worldwide temperature leap graph that has become a political mascot. So it was a graph upon which Copenhagen now meets to make sweeping changes to our lives. Why hide it though? IF global warming is real, any decent records would show the increase in temperature? The answer is quite astounding, the global trend over the last few years has been steadily downward. 

Now we don't know diddly about climate yet anyway, at best we can watch it, and try learn. Leading edge thought at the moment regarding climate is that the single greatest influence is sunspots. The more sunspots, the more excited the atmosphere and the warmer it gets. Well, it appears that the earth has cooled slightly recently, and hey, the sunpots haven't been out either. Well that's the start ... you'd have to go back a few hundred years for ny meaningful correlation, but people are doing it, and being surprised by what they find.

But that takes records, on this day the temperature was bl00dy freezing and it snowed all day, so we don't know what the sunspot count was ... get my drift? These weathermen changed the data. Basically put it through mathemetial equations to "homogenise" or "correct" the data. These adjustments are usually done when there is a major change, new equipment, or te recording site moves, and so on.

In the case of Darwin, Australia, the difference between actual recoded temperatures, and what these weathermen was using and showing, is best shown in this graphic from thedogatemydata :

Last day

Today is my last working day for the year. Thank the gods, all of them, including the lesser ones, and throw in the elementals. And the faeries.

This is going to be the longest leave i have ever taken in my working life. About a month. I'm not going anywhere, but i know there is plenty of work waiting for me at home. 

I start tomorrow with having all of my teeth pulled out. Plastic inserts put in. I'm trying realy hard not to think about that bit. But, this pain will cease, and i'll be able to chew my vegetables again, small mercies indeed.

I have a pool to maintain, grass to keep cut, kids to amuse, stairs to build, builders to watch, and a bike to ride, sometimes. I hope to not see too many people, but that is rather short sighted me thinks. There will be varied and many trampers of my halls. 

I haven't gotten round to making a post about CLIMATEGATE. Maybe i will later, maybe over the holidays, i'll have a small amount of internet, which i'm going to be greatful for. Can't switch off completely you know? Well, i'd like to, but i doubt it would be practical.

With regards climategate, google it, really. Global warming is a farce, and anyone who advocates it t this point is being criminal. Crimes against humanity would be apt. Burn them, maybe then they'll get their heat ... hot enough for them?

Thats it folks. I'll be around, and about. May you all have a wonderful season ... it is a good time for taking a deep breath.

peace and love

Weekend

I did the Kassie run on saturday, got more pictures than i know what to do with. Basically delivered a whole bunch of toys to different homes in the soweto and jo'burg south area.

A very long day, we quit around half past 2, since we had a birthday party to get to. I was like a cook in bag chicken by the time we were done. I had my son with me, and another guy by the name of Kevin had his, similar age. Of course the 2 kids hit it off and were inseperable for the day. Throw in cameras (thank you Makro) and the event was WELL recorded!!!

We started at theFreedom Square Hotel in Kliptown, Soweto. Firstly, well done to the staff. The 50 odd bikers present were treated to a 5 star start to the day. Their enthusiasm and support of our delivery run was phenomenal, and they added a very memorable experience. The Freedom Square itself was astounding, i'll post some pics later, but the architecture was so fresh and alive it took me quite by surprise. Textures everywhere, the walls, the fencing, the paving, metal inlays in the walls, it all just took your senses in a whirlpool of visual texture technicolour. 

Oops, i forgot the pics at home. Here's a web advert view.

That brick tower contains a freedom charter wall map thing. The whole square contras so greatly with the other side of the road, where fruit and veg sellars ply their trade off broken tables. The hotel doorman had a vuvuzela (not going to say it) and when he blew on it ... well it echoed, greatly. I had the impression the entire soweto could hear .... *chuckle* but the bikes made their own bid, and left pretty circles on the street outside, so all's well.

Riding around is eye opening. I realised with a light start that i'd never been into soweto in summer before. Now i've been there a whole bunch of times, for many different reasons. Most memorable was the truth commision, at Regina Mundi church, in the dead of winter, and i didn't have transport every day, so had to catch taxi's. It was cold and miserable, and generally that's soweto in winter. As the Transvaal highveld is, dead as land an be. Drab and dull, and generally burning ... but in summer a new face presents. I was surprised at the greenery. Certainly there has been a lot of effort to green the area. 

One of my little observations ... in soweto, all the children's parks are clean. In nearby Eldorado park, they aren't. Our travels took us through some of the poorer areas, and it was heartbreaking. It's always the kids though. These pikkanins, all less than 5 or 6 years old, who stare at you as you go by. There faces full of wonder and amazement at the bikes. I imagine a similar response we'd have to seeing an angel float down the street.

High's and lows. Highs at the orphanages, lows in the street. Throwing toys out the back of a pickup truck, and watching both children and adults running for all they are worth. I dunno, intentions were good, and i wish to hell i could do more for them. All the kids loved their little presents so much. It was emotionally quite rough. 

Kudos to every single biker that gave. All i can do is urge every single person who reads this. Buy something. A toy, a make up kit, some crayons, sports toys, whatever, and go give it to someone. Here in sa it's easy, poor people on every street corner. I saw a kid begging yesterday, a sunday, on a major intersection. The guy was about 8? And he had his cardboard sign and a cup. No adult to be seen, but i think they would have been in the shade. That's my next mission i think. Drive around and find kids begging, and give them something. Not money, toys, crayons, anything that is for THEM. 

peace and love

Whale Song

Taken from : Wired.com

All around the world, blue whales aren’t singing like they used to, and scientists have no idea why.

The largest animals on Earth are singing in ever-deeper voices every year. Among the suggested explanations are ocean noise pollution, changing population dynamics and new mating strategies. But none of them is entirely convincing.

“We don’t have the answer. We just have a lot of recordings,” said Mark McDonald, president of Whale Acoustics, a company that specializes in the sonic monitoring of cetaceans.

McDonald and his collaborators first noticed the change eight years ago, when they kept needing to recalibrate the automated song detectors used to track blue whales off the California coast. The detectors are triggered by songs that match a particular waveform. Every year, McDonald had to set them lower.

Since then, he and Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers Sarah Melnick and John Hildebrand have gathered thousands of blue whale recordings made since the 1960s, spanning populations from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific to the East Indian Ocean. Their analysis, published in October in Endangered Species Research, shows that the songs’ tonal frequency is falling every year by a few fractions of a hertz.
______________________________________________________

Go read the whole article, it's startling. I don't see it as a negative in any way. But proof that nature is adapting faster than we can keep track. These vastly intelligent beings are under assault from every direction, most notably noise, shipping and such, but more than that, ship sonar is on their frequency, and obviously creates confusion amongst them.

But they've been fixing their problem all by themselves, since the sixties, before we even realised there was a problem.

God they're beautiful.

Thank you Ara

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.” [Barry Lopez]

http://theoasisofmysoul.com/?p=10587

life

Edited in the interests of good taste.

We apologise for the interuption.

My marshalls

Unlikely looking bunch hey? 

Black Panther, Lycan and Scorpius ... animals the lot of them!

Hard at work ... This was half the job ... just keeping an eye on things, something was lacking at the other starts. Well done guys !!!

Jaydene and Tessa ... she rides Barney, i mean Tarmac .... and Maya (SV650) and the red 125 honda scrambler. Not at thesame time though.

The bike ....Formerly Tarmac, rechristened Barney, what a beautiful little machine. Oops, i'm getting ahead, bikes coming up later :D

Toyrun ...

Yeah, there'll be a lot more :)

This is me ... and of course my loving daughter, Jaydene, setting up the tape before all the masses arrive. I would imagine she was the most popular person there. 

Small and insignificant in the background. Thats me. Nice though, always seem to have support right next to me. Just a damn shame can only take 1 kid at a time, i believe sidecars can take 4 people ... 2 up and 2 in. Fazer sidecar anyone?

Thanks Irondad

Toyrun feedback

Hmmmmmmmmm - this is a hard post, cos it's almost bragging. I did it. the planning paid off and the run WORKED.

Couldn't have done it without all the marshalls, and the committee, and metro and even the riders, who for the most part worked with us.

Bu i'm sitting here, reflecting, and the e-mails are going round full of congratulations. I want to include them, maybe i shouldn't. 

I made a plan, and it worked. The small bikes as a group in front, the trikes and sidecars following, and then the masses of bikes. Keeping them apart, giving the smaller bikes pride of place, having ride leaders who kept the speed at a friendly pace for the smaller guys. Like a puzzle i've been playing with pieces for months, and it worked. My responsibility was to get everyone there safely and we did.

Ok, i do need to include these small quotes, because i had an axe to grind and i ground it PROPER. South African bikers are generally a bunch over over testosteroned children, who haven't got anything more to say about biking than BIGGER IS BETTER. They're also arrogant fools a lot of the time, and truly do look down on small bikes. A scooter, or 250cc motorcycle is not a bike, and the rider not a biker, and frankly they must just BE out the way of their MEN'S MACHINES. I however, disagree, of course. 

The smaller bikes are either one of the following:

New rider - teenagers and ladies, they are still nervous, inadequately trained and more likely to panic. 

Poor rider - those who buy a motorbike because it is all they can afford, they have no passion for it, yet, and it's a utilitarian matter. They do no research, buy no gear, and often dislike the bike.

Normal guy - These are your average Vespa riders, they are trained, enthusiastic and capable, yet still face being "run over" by the big bike hooligans.

Again, the economics would show that smaller bike riders are less likely to spend money on training or gear. While they fall at slower speeds, they fall a lot more often.

SO ... we need to look after our smaller brothers and sisters, isn't that part of the BIKER CODE? Something that all these fucking hooligans claim to OWN, and respect and pay lip service to, yet plainly don't. I digress, These 2 little quotes are to me, worth more than everything else (someone even called me a bulldog in a bear fight !!!) but 1 from a small bike rider, the other from a big bike rider, and it worked great. Not as many small bikes as last year (typical) but i'm hoping next year they bring their friends :)

"... for the first time actually felt that being on a smaller bike was not frowned upon ... "

" ... it was a really good idea keeping the smaller bikes out front where they were less at risk from the big bikes ... "

TOYRUN 2009

Just a few quick pics, i'll be honest in saying i didn't get as many picturs as i wanted to. Rather, i have plenty images, just not very many good ones.

But, what an amazing day, all round. 35000 bikes, 35000 toys,and about 60000 people on the day.

Just a few pics that were worth showing off :)

The day before, 3 bikes parked outside the main hall. This is one of my favourite bike pics i've taken yet.

The good marshalls of Steeldale. Respect to you all. Despite all the worries, concerns, dangers and such, it went like clockwork. A well oiled machine is a beautiful thing to behold.

The fine men of the JMPD, we had a good chat. And they were also very good at what they do. Just a question though, why was my BIGGEST problm on the day metro closing highways?Ended with me shouting through my helmet, and over several hundred close-by bikes, that another 10000 bikes were about to hit the tailback he'd just created. So i took over, cleared the traffic, and then moved on to where he'd closed the OTHER highway, *chuckle*. That one needed closing though, an a mercedes benz is now driving around JHB with a punchmark in the boot lid. I don't take kindly to people trying to run me over.

And the run, this was the carnival city crowd, Joe Perreira out in front ....apparently he's some kind of biker hero, bad boy or something. I'm glad he fucked off to carnival city, he was on our run last year, and was our single biggest problem. He was selling his new book too. Bad boys .... go play in traffic the lot of you. Not an ounce of common sense between the lot of them.

But what a sight hey?

I'll find some pics of the toys, the photos i took inside didn't come out well, and to be honest the toys were less than last year. But thousands and thousands of toys got processed and sorted within hours, and by the day end, all had been collected by the various charities.

A logistical nghtmare carried though with military precision. 

I was so proud to be involved, respect to everyone who put any many hours of hard work in to make this possible.

peace

Jabal Al Rahma

Jabal Al Rahma holy mountain, the mountain of forgiveness, on Mount Arafat outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia

(no idea why)

Big Brother

Ok, hereby renamed to Big Bully. BB is pernicous, everywhere, all powerful, and utterly stupid. Still a major problem, to us, but it helps to know how pathetic they truly are, these dictatorial demigods of higher government, and lower too.

So "climate change", "global warming" and all these silly ideas have reached most of the planet, and most of the planet are stupid enough to fall for it. There is no global warming. Now even those who have been pushing the agenda have been found out to be lying. If you follow "Watts up with that" on the blogroll, you will find the best source for what's happened.

Basically, the people who are responsible for keeping track of, and predicting Britain's weather have been hacked. E-mails and other documents were taken and made freely available on a russian server. Despite very loud no comments, they have been confirmed genuine for the most part. Obviously, hackers are BAD people, so we assume they fudged stuff too. Somehow, i doubt it. The reality is too bizarre, leave it 100% origional, and enough shit is hitting the fan.

In a nutshell: These scientists in emails to each other, have admitted changing climate date, to show specific predetermined trends (upwards), hiding data requested under freedom of information requests, lying, blacklisting certain specific people and websites, colluding to tarnish reputations, oh the list goes on for quite some time. Get the full story at Watts Up WithThat, arguably the most trusted source on weather trands on the internet today, probably only because of their open peer review system, and a respect for the open ness of scientific enquiry.

However, that not the best part. In and amongst the emails which are exploding all over the world, is the following gem. Well, not a nice gem, kinda like finding out your dog shat in your slipper, and finding that out only when you put your slipper on.

Ladies and gents, no further ado, i give you EARTH GOVERNMENT.

(read it through, ponder it, then, get really really really really ... really fucking angry.)

From: Earth Government
Subject: Press release from Earth Government and April Newsletter
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 16:05:07 -0800

Press release from Earth Government and April Newsletter
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

This Press release from Earth Government is found at
[1]http://members.shaw.ca/earthgov/HNewsPR05.htm

Formation of Earth Government for the good of all

March 27th, 2003

To all Peoples of the Earth,

Earth has long been waiting for a truly global governing body based on universal values,
human rights, global concepts and democracy. Earth Government might as well be created now,
there is no longer any reason to wait. We are the Earth Community, and we will form the
Earth Government. Earth management is a priority and is a duty by every responsible person.
A democratically elected Earth Government will now be formed, and we want you to reflect on
future effects of such an event on the history of humanity. Certainly one will expect
extraordinary changes: a reorganizing of human activities all over the planet;
participation by all societies on the planet in solving local and global problems; new
alliances forming; north meeting with south (eradication of poverty will be the price to
pay to get votes from the south) in order to gather more votes within the newly created
Earth Government to satisfy power struggles between European, Asian and Western countries;
adoption of democratic principles, human and Earth rights, global concepts, and universal
values by every human being; expansion of consciousness; gathering and coordinating of
forces to resolve social and political problems in a peaceful way (no more conflicts or
wars); gathering and coordinating of forces (technologies, scientific research, exploration
work, human resources, etc.) to resolve global problems such as global climate,
environment, availability of resources, poverty, employment, etc. Thousands more changes!

Let your heart and mind reflect on ‘the good’ of a democratically elected Earth Government.
Everyone is part of Earth Community by birth and therefore everyone has a right to vote.
Everyone should be given a chance to vote. Decisions will be made democratically.

Earth Government is proposing that:

a) different nations may require different political systems at different times
b) a democratic system is not a “must have it” to be a responsible member nation of the
Earth Government
c) all democracies are to be upgraded, or improved upon, to be a responsible member nation
of the Earth Government. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of the Earth
Government are the newly added requirements to all democratic systems of the world.

In today’s Earth Government it is important for our survival to cooperate globally on
several aspects such as peace, security, pollution in the air, water and land, drug trade,
shelving the war industry, keeping the world healthy, enforcing global justice for all,
eradicating poverty worldwide, replacing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the
Scale of Human and Earth Rights, and entrenching the Charter of Earth Government as a way
of life for the good of all.

Earth needs urgently a world system of governance. The United Nations fail to satisfy the
needs of the people of the 21st Century. It has never improved upon the old ways and
thinking of the middle of the 20th Century. Its voting system no longer satisfy the 6.157
billion people on Earth. The challenges are different and require a world organization up
for dealing with the needs of all these people.

During the past several years, the Earth Government has been pleading the United Nations
leaders to make changes in the UN organizational structure and ways of doing things. There
has been an urgent need for fundamental changes in the United Nations organization. The
decision of the United States Government to invade the Middle East nations and Afghanistan
has shown to be a result of this incapacity for changes on the part of the United Nations.
A lack of leadership at the United Nations is a major threat to the security of the world.
The world wants a true democratic world organization. The UN is not!

The most fundamental requirement of a world organization is a democratic system of voting.
Democracy must be a priority. The right that the greatest number of people has by virtue of
its number (50% plus one) is a human right. It should be respected. The actual UN system of
voting is undemocratic, unfair and noone likes it. It does not work! Earth Government has
proposed a voting system based on democracy.

Of the 190 Member States of the United Nations, it takes only one of the five permanent
members to overthrow any decision or proposal during a meeting. This means 1/189 or 0.5% of
the membership is more powerful than the remaining 99.5%. If that is not a dictature, what
is it? It does not say much about democracy at the UN. More like a dictature of the five
permanent members. In the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations, it says “WE THE
PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS ” but in fact it should say “WE THE FIVE PERMANENT MEMBERS”.

The voting system for Earth Government is very simple and practical. One representative per
million people. If all countries in the world had decided now to participate with this
process we would have today 6,114 elected representatives to form Earth Government. They
would form the Legislative body of Earth Government. They could actually all stay home to
govern or from some place in their communities. Today communications are more than good
enough to allow voting and discussing issues, etc. through the Internet and video
conferencing. That would cut cost of governing down to a minimum, at least administrative
costs. The Executive body would also govern in this way to cut cost down to a minimum.
Ministers can administer their Ministries from where they live if they wish to. There will
be a place for the Headquarters. We will show that it costs very little to administer Earth
Government, and that we can achieve immense results. There is no limit to the good the
Earth Government can achieve in the world. Think! What can do a unified 6.114 billion
people determined to make things work to keep Earth healthy?

For the first time in human history, and the first time this millennium, humanity has
proposed a benchmark:

* formation of Earth Government
* formation of global ministries in all important aspects of our lives
* the Scale of Human and Earth Rights as a replacement to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights
* an evolved Democracy based on the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of
the Earth Government
* a central organization for Earth management, the restoration of the planet and Earth
governance: the Global Community Assessment Centre (GCAC)
* the Earth Court of Justice to deal with all aspects of the Governance and Mangement of
the Earth
* a new impetus given to the way of doing business and trade
* more new, diversified (geographical, economical, political, social, business,
religious) symbiotical relationships between nations, communities, businesses, for the
good and well-being of all
* the event and formation of the human family and the Soul of Humanity
* proposal to reform the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank,
the IMF, NAFTA, FTAA, and to centralize them under Earth Government, and these
organizations will be asked to pay a global tax to be administered by Earth Government
* the Peace Movement of the Earth Government and shelving of the war industry from
humanity
* a global regulatory framework for capitals and corporations that emphasizes global
corporate ethics, corporate social responsibility, protection of human and Earth rights,
the environment, community and family aspects, safe working conditions, fair wages and
sustainable consumption aspects
* the ruling by the Earth Court of Justice of the abolishment of the debt of the poor or
developing nations as it is really a form of global tax to be paid annually by the rich
or industrialized nations to the developing nations
* establishing freshwater and clean air as primordial human rights

The political system of an individual country does not have to be a democracy. Political
rights of a country belong to that country alone. Democracy is not to be enforced by anyone
and to anyone or to any community. Every community can and should choose the political
system of their choice with the understanding of the importance of such a right on the
Scale of Human and Earth Rights. On the other hand, representatives to Earth Government
must be elected democratically in every part of the world. An individual country may have
any political system at home but the government of that country will have to ensure (and
allow verification by Earth Government) that representatives to Earth Government have been
elected democratically. This way, every person in the world can claim the birth right of
electing a democratic government to manage Earth: the rights to vote and elect
representatives to form the Earth Government.

In order to elect representatives to Earth Government it is proposed the following:

A. Each individual government in the world will administer the election of
representatives to Earth Government with an NGO and/or members of Earth Government be
allowed to verify all aspects of the process to the satisfaction of all parties
involved.
B. Representatives be elected every five years to form a new Earth Government.
C. It is proposed here that there will be one elected representative per 1,000,000
people. A population of 100 million people will elect 100 representatives. This process
will create a feeling of belonging and participating to the affairs of the Earth
Community and Earth Government.
D. A typical community of a million people does not have to be bounded by a geographical
or political border. It can be a million people living in many different locations all
over the world. The Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go
the archaic ways of seeing a community as the street where I live and contained by a
border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a
heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
E. Earth population is now 6.114 billion people. If all representatives had been elected
this year there would be 6,114 representatives to form Earth Government. They would be
the Legislative elected body of Earth Government. They would participate in some ways in
choosing the Executive and Judiciary bodies of Earth Government.

Humanity has now a Vision of the Earth in the years to come and a sense of direction.

May the DIVINE WILL come into our lives and show us the way.
May our higher purpose in life bring us closer to the Soul of Humanity and God.

Germain Dufour, President
Earth Community Organization (ECO) and Earth Government

Meteor

So this hasn't received as much attention as i thought it would. Once i had seen the videos, i was astounded. I don't have youtube access from work anymore, but here are the 2 LIVELEAK videos i did see, and another link i cannot verify from you-tube.

liveleak 1

liveleak 2

youtube 1

And probably the best info i could find is from a userboard called yahoo meteororbs.

1. Meteorite impact close
Posted by: "Magda Streicher"

Hi all, perhaps you all heard about the meteorite seen over South Africa on Saturday night which was scary close to our farm. Read my report below.

Magda

Meteorite entry in Northern Province

At the farm site around 15km from the Zimbabe border, 16km north of the little town Alldays at South 22o30 and East 20o07. a meteorite entry was seen on Saturday night at 22.04 SA Time and 20h04 UT Time.

The brightest light ever seen was light up the bush field as far as the eye could see, you should be able to read a book! The next second an impact sound close to that of a bomb blast with a definite ground impact sound, follow up with an after sound that went over into a rattle sound which last for around 3 seconds with slight trembling of the ground.

I ring various people around the area and there was a few who saw the bright meteorite entry.

One guy reports that the blinding meteorite turn into a fiery red purple fire ball. In this stage a loud sizzling sound was heard, burning smoke was seen and the earth was rambling with windows shaking like mad. Another close to Platjan border post report that he thought his house is been blast away and ran outside with shock.

This morning, Monday I talk to another Botswana guy who said that the impact was like a bomb blast close to him. He stayed around 20 kilometres inside Botswana from the SA border. Because of the rain no fire was report in the area around us. It looks like the impact sound was been heard over a radius of more that 200 kilometres. Taking all into account the impact could be around 50km from us but it is only an estimate. A very real experience which just show one how vulnerable we are on this little blue dot.

Magda

My son

I had another really good conversation with him the other day. This little gem came out.

"Daddy, i get teased at school because i'm clever, and because i'm white."

His response went something along the lines of: "Mr Einstein is clever, and i want to be clever like him." Also included in his comments to me was the fact that he was going to honours evening, they weren't.

Well, the whole conversation is one of those terribly kafka-esque scenarios, where the reality is so badly contorted, that even Alice would throw her hands up and say bugger that for a lark, or something similar.

Teased, clever, white. The 3 main points in that, and unfortunately, teasing is never a once off event, it's usually ongoing, insistant, and as my son has pointed out before, it comes looking for you. Teased for being clever, well thankfully he sees the irony in that. Nothing that he could ever say would do justice to the absurdity of stupid people, being stupid people, and being loud about being stupid, to boot.

Of course, being teased for being white, well he must be lying. That never happens in this quasi-communist-fascist-dictatorship-rainbow nation of ours? *chuckle* I think the stupid rule applies here too.

I'm glad to say he had a huge grin on his face as he told me this. He knows it's not right, but he also knows it's irrelevant. He has his friends, and all he needs, and he knows it. I think the word *progress* can be whispered softly.

Ah to be 10 again. The only difference i can tell between my youth and his is the ability to ride a bicycle all over the neighbourhood. Oh, and he has a computer. Fair trade? I don't think so, but such is life.

Anyhow, just for my budding scientist: *ugh* our internet is not happy, hence neither am i. *insert einstein tongue picture here*

peace

Toyrun

http://www.toyrun.org.za/

I'll be at Steeledale. It will be a great day out, for everyone i'm sure. Even if you don't have a bike, get to a bridge near you. Several thousand bikes chuggin along jo'burg's highways is going to be an awesome sight.

As ever, we want toys. As many toys as we can. There are as many children as you can deliver toys for ... so as many as you can. And please, these are kids in childrens homes, mostly, leave the battery operated stuff alone :/

80km/h maximum limit on all rides at all times. That WILL be enforced. There will be a lot more pics this year though. Nomally those involved are too busy for stuff like taking pictures. But thank you too someone nice, rather, a nice company.

Shameless advertising coming up, Makro have pulled all the stops in helping this year. From tape to mark out the vendors stalls, to special prices on toys for us, for any donations we receive, and cameras, for us to better record the days events.

Rapatronic photography

Developed by Dr. Harold Edgerton in the 1940s, the Rapatronic photographic technique allowed very early times in a nuclear explosion's fireball growth to be recorded on film. The exposures were often as short as 10 nanoseconds, and each Rapatronic camera would take exactly one photograph.

http://simplethinking.com/home/images/tsspike.jpg

That is what the photo looked like.

Notice the spikes. Those are the guy ropes, which transmitted energy faster than the air.

Lots more info here, with more photos and so on. Wiki has a good article too.