Shots at Trots

The quote of the day here comes from a clever fellow responding to a piece on Trotskyites in Britain, e.g. the Socialist Workers Party, (SWP) et al.

On "RoboTrots" from English Defence League Extra:

Juniper in the Desert said...

"SWP, IMG and all those groups are just shagging shops for ugly thickos."

British Conservative Party government attacks native citizens with shotguns....

"We've been working very closely with the Muslim community.... "

The Conservative Party prime minister of Britain has threatened to ban opposition to his plan to Islamise the nation. A few days ago his police forces have shot out the tyres of a van carrying a law-abiding citizen because, it seems, some Muslims complained that the driver and his mates were planning to bomb a mosque. Half a dozen people were arrested, then released without charge-- because they were falsely accused. That hardly matters to the British ruling class. There will be more incidents like this because the British ruling class is at war with the British people.

The British ruling class and the Left dhimmi fascist intelligentsia and their followers are determined to destroy the nations of Britain and to turn them into a multi-cultural utopias. Those, such as the English Defence League, are not merely hounded by police, they are shot at and beaten and arrested and generally vilified by the rulership of Britain. Reaction among the alarmed is usually along the lines of, "Someone should do something." The prime minister wants to ban opposition to Islamisation of Britain. That's something.

Hugh Fitzgerald has the line of the year, this concerning David Cameron:

"He doesn't have the mental pencil to connect the dots."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/british-pm-cameron-digs-himself-in-deeper-calls-gaza-a-prison-camp.html#comment-691208

Jasbir Authi, "David Cameron makes dash to West Midlands," Birmingham Mail. 6 May 6 2010.

DAVID Cameron would look to ban groups like the English Defence League if he wins the general election, he said during his latest visit to the Midlands yesterday.
The Conservative leader made his pledge as he met employees at West Midlands Ambulance Service Depot in Dudley, following the Bank Holiday demonstrations by the group in the town, in a final attempt to convince voters to swing to Tory. Mr Cameron said: “The EDL are terrible people, we would always keep these groups under review and if we needed to ban them, we would ban them or any groups which incite hatred.”

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2010/05/06/david-cameron-makes-dash-to-west-midlands-97319-26385771/

Not satisfied with banning the EDL, Cameron now wants to allow unrestricted Muslim immigration into Britain. Those who object? Maybe Cameron will have them shot. So far just beatings and imprisonment without bail.

Pamela Geller, "Free the Dudley 2," Atlas Shrugs. 5 May 2010.

Senior EDL leadership has advised me that "the two lads both went on the roof in perfect health, now one of the protesters, Leon, has a broken arm and a black eye due to a vicious beating by police. To add insult to injury they have both been remanded in custody until their court date. They have been charged with burglary and inciting religious hatred. This is because they played the Islamic call to prayer, and the kufar are not allowed to do this."

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/free-the-dudley-2-.html

For the British intelligentsia, the most important thing on earth is to create their vision of a multi-cultural utopia. The people be damned. Beat them, gaol them, just shoot them.

Jason Groves, "Turkey must join EU, says Cameron: 'Those who are against are playing on fears of Islam' " Daily Mail. 27 July 2010

David Cameron today accused critics of Turkey’s membership of the EU of playing on fears of Islam - as he pledged to ‘pave the road from Ankara to Brussels’.
In a speech in the Turkish capital the Prime Minister promised to ‘fight’ to help the Islamic state achieve its 50-year goal of EU membership.
He said that, by embracing the moderate Muslim nation, the EU can improve relations with the rest of the Islamic world.
And he hit out at those who ‘wilfully misunderstand Islam’ in order to oppose Turkey’s membership.
[....]
Mr Cameron pledged to become the country’s ‘strongest possible advocate’.
He said: ‘I’m here to make the case for Turkey’s membership of the EU. And fight for it.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1297906/Turkey-join-EU-says-Cameron-Those-playing-fears-Islam.html#ixzz0uvEjGSyw

Maybe that's not quite clear enough. Here's more:

Kitty Donaldson, "Cameron Vows to Support Turkish Quest to Join European Union," Blomberg. 27 July 2010

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron called on other European Union nations to drop their objections to Turkey’s joining the 27-nation bloc.

“I will remain your strongest possible advocate for EU membership and for greater influence at the top table of European diplomacy,” Cameron said in a speech in the Turkish capital, Ankara, today. “Together, I want us to pave the road from Ankara to Brussels.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-26/cameron-says-it-s-just-wrong-for-others-to-oppose-turkish-eu-membership.html

Regarding the tiny minority of Muslims who have highjacked the peaceful religion of shari'a, dhimmitude, and eternal jihad, the Muslim police gangs of Britain want the British to stfu and let them do their jobs.

Melanie Philips, "The thin blue line of jihad," The Spectator. 21 January 2010

The Telegraph reports that the National Association of Muslim Police has attacked government policy on countering Islamic extremism. In evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating Islamic extremism, the NAMP attacked the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy, warning that it is an ‘affront to British values’ which threatens to trigger ethnic unrest... that ministers were wrong to blame Islam for being the ‘driver’ behind recent terrorist attacks. Far-Right extremists were a more dangerous threat to national security... that Muslims were being ‘stigmatised’ by the Government’s attempts to tackle terrorism, which was adding to ‘hatred’ against entire communities. ...The memorandum warned that Muslims were subjected to 'daily abuse' due to the strategy. 'We must not diminish our British values further by continuing to allow such behaviour and policies to continue unchecked.'

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5723371/the-thin-blue-line-of-jihad.thtml#comments

But when all else fails, just shoot.

Jim Durkin, "EDL members arrested over Bournemouth mosque bomb plot fears," Daily Echo. 27 July 2010

ARMED police opened fire during an operation to arrest members of the controversial far-right English Defence League, who were feared to be masterminding an attack at a Bournemouth mosque.
Marksmen shot the tyres out on a van belonging to John Broomfield, who describes himself as Dorset EDL head, as he drove alone through Corfe Castle.
He and six others were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque.
All seven, including at least six EDL members, have since been released without charge.
[Police say,] “We’ve been working very closely with the Muslim community since last Thursday and our local safer neighbourhood teams have been providing advice and reassurance throughout.
“At this stage there is no indication whatsoever that any of the mosques in Dorset are under threat of attack.”
We're sorry that we can't allow comments on this story today for staffing reasons. If you would like to comment, please email us.

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/8293728.EDL_members_arrested_over_Bournemouth_mosque_bomb_plot_fears/

I allow comments here, staff shortage notwithstanding.

Up-date:

"We've been working very closely with the Muslim community.... "

Thanks to Blazing Cat Fur we have some smashing good active verbs to fill in this story.

Seven arrested over Bournemouth far-right mosque 'bomb plot'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 7:29 PM on 27th July 2010

[EDL member] John Broomfield, 27, ... was pulled from his stationary vehicle after armed police opened fire on his van in Corfe Castle village.
[....]
[Police said:] "We've been working very closely with the Muslim community.... "
Officers had followed Broomfield home from work and waited until he was stuck in traffic in the tourist spot before they pounced. When his van came to a halt they fired rounds into the tyres. They then smashed a window and dragged him out in shocking scenes that followed an investigation into alleged plans to blow up a nearby mosque. The marksmen used special rapid tyre deflation rounds to disable the white Ford Escort van. Police then swooped on Mr Broomfield's home in Swanage and seized computer equipment, mobile phones and passports.

Mr Broomfield, the head of the Dorset EDL, said yesterday: 'While travelling home from work I was stopped and arrested by armed police. 'I approached a roundabout near Corfe Castle and there were about six cars in front of me. 'There was an unmarked police car in a lay-by and within seconds of me stopping police appeared from it, ran up the road and shot at my tyres and smashed the window in. 'It was extremely scary. I was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque.' He continued: 'Five other members of the EDL were also arrested and held for 24 hours for questioning while searches of their homes took place. Then all of us were released without charge.'
Of the alleged plan to blow up the mosque, he added: 'There has been no conspiracy, there has never been any conspiracy.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298086/Seven-arrested-Bournemouth-far-right-mosque-bomb-plot.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0uwtjwpzJ

Far right bomb plot? Who writes this crap? The same kind of person who acts as a dhimmi policeman in pursuit of "order." I have some sympathy for the police, not just in Britain or America, but for most professional police. The fact is they are not generally committed to a state or an ideology but to "Order" itself. I have nothing against order. I prefer it to disorder, which one might experience in war-time and conflict on a grand scale.

I'll give a brief personal anecdote to explain what I mean: I encountered an ex-Stasi agent to whom I was seriously close to harming. He told me, (which saved him,) that he cared not at all why he arrested people, not whether they were right or wrong, only that they had broken the laws it was his professional duty to uphold. Yes, it's a Nazi defence, but I can't just write it off. It's not my place to dispense justice in the world. He's a seriously bad guy, and maybe I'm not so good either; but there is law to deal with such people. If he gets away, then my conscience is not burdened for a life-time with his end. If the law never gets him, then he can survive in the jungle till he dies. The worst that can happen to him, and it likely will, is that he will never suffer from any awareness of his own evil. That's a punishment beyond anything anyone can serve him.

In the case of the English dhimmis, these men and women are working class idiots who have no sense or imagination. Like most people, they follow what others follow, doing harm because they're too stupid to think for themselves. A time will come when the ethos changes, and the idiots today will be idiots working for us tomorrow. Disgusting to the moral as it is, that's life. It does no good to take it personally. These people, the police, the Muslims, the Trotskyite fool dhimmis, most of them are social animals acting as the herd acts. Punishing them for it is to lessen us. I left my hatred at a lake-side as a young man, and I hope never to pick it up from the mud again. People are just people. The worst we should definitely hang, but the vast majority will do whatever everyone else does. Too damned bad. Such is life.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Hello!

We're sorry, the number you are calling is out of service. Please check the number and dial again. Thank you for calling NYNEX.

I've been away a long time. NYNEX is dead. So, too, it seems is God. I tried calling Dial a Prayer for some company. No answer. Just, "You again!?" and then a click. I don't get it. I think I need a new telephone.

I looked at telephones recently, and they're tiny, ugly little things that bore me. I held one to my face and I got nothing from it. There was no teenage boy's worried voice saying, "Dad, I got a girl in trouble." No, "Happy birthday, Grand dad." No, "Oh, nothing much, how about you?" No nothing but the feel of plastic that has never held a couple of lives in suspense and wonder and perhaps in terror. So I looked around for other phones, bigger ones with lives in their wires and mettle in the ear piece, tone in the speaking-tube, vibrancy in the bells. I want a phone with voices in it, a phone with spirits alive and buzzing. I want a phone I can hold and behold. My mind is ringing.

I love the line in Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, "My father left the family some years ago. He was a telephone line man who fell in love with long distance. He sent us a post card from Mexico, saying: "Having a wonderful time."

I've ridden my bike on a dirt road with my dog running beside me as we tried to beat a freight train; and I've waved at areoplane pilots flying overhead; and I've stood gazing at crowds from hilltops; but I never really wanted to talk to those people. They were fine where they were, me in my place. Shortening the distance between us would have destroyed the romance of them. I like 'em more where they are, which is away from me. If need be, I guess I could have phoned them up and said hello. I like the idea far more than I like the reality. Telephones sometimes look good. Really beautiful.

In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.

The telegraph and telephone are both wire-based electrical systems, and Alexander Graham Bell's success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph.
When Bell began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. Although a highly successful system, the telegraph, with its dot-and-dash Morse code, was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time. Bell's extensive knowledge of the nature of sound and his understanding of music enabled him to conjecture the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Although the idea of a multiple telegraph had been in existence for some time, Bell offered his own musical or harmonic approach as a possible practical solution. His "harmonic telegraph" was based on the principle that several notes could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch.
By October 1874, Bell's research had progressed to the extent that he could inform his future father-in-law, Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Hubbard, who resented the absolute control then exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company, instantly saw the potential for breaking such a monopoly and gave Bell the financial backing he needed. Bell proceeded with his work on the multiple telegraph, but he did not tell Hubbard that he and Thomas Watson, a young electrician whose services he had enlisted, were also exploring an idea that had occurred to him that summer - that of developing a device that would transmit speech electrically.
While Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson worked on the harmonic telegraph at the insistent urging of Hubbard and other backers, Bell nonetheless met in March 1875 with Joseph Henry, the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, who listened to Bell's ideas for a telephone and offered encouraging words. Spurred on by Henry's positive opinion, Bell and Watson continued their work. By June 1875 the goal of creating a device that would transmit speech electrically was about to be realized. They had proven that different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire. To achieve success they therefore needed only to build a working transmitter with a membrane capable of varying electronic currents and a receiver that would reproduce these variations in audible frequencies.

First Sounds - Twang

On June 2, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell while experimenting with his technique called "harmonic telegraph" discovered he could hear sound over a wire. The sound was that of a twanging clock spring.
Bell's greatest success was achieved on March 10, 1876, marked not only the birth of the telephone but the death of the multiple telegraph as well. The communications potential contained in his demonstration of being able to "talk with electricity" far outweighed anything that simply increasing the capability of a dot-and-dash system could imply.

First Voice - Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.

Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of 10 March 1876 describes his successful experiment with the telephone. Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."

http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm

[Check out this link for some eye-straining thumbnail pics of telephone history.]

http://www.vcalc.net/images2/Telephone-1105x737.jpg

Neil Postman complains that the proliferation of mass and instantaneous communications did nothing to raise the level of conversation itself, just made it possible to spread further and faster the usual banalities of before. Many become passionate in this argument regarding the Internet, and blogs in particular. But who cares what people say? What on Earth would make it another's business if our conversation is about telephones or the latest cell phone? That we can talk, this way or that, and have the freedom to do so because it suits us privately, in our own desire to communicate with each other, is a blessing. Someone, his name escapes me at the moment, brought up the idea that mass travel over-threw the "dictatorship of distance." Planes, trains, automobiles make it possible for us to go and do, even if we don't go anywhere for reasons approved of by others. Even if we use up scarce resources in our pursuit of our own lives. I wouldn't care if my carbon foot-print crushed hippies like a dinosaur crushing plants. I like that I can have a conversation with you. It's more important than living a life of communal purity in a hovel with the starving. Modernity is beautiful. Hello, you. Come here, I want to see you.

From the moment Alexander Graham Bell yelled those famous words, "Come here Mr. Watson, I want to see you!", the business of providing telephone service was off and running. Soon after that fateful day of March 10, 1876, Bell and Watson were demonstrating the instrument.

In July of 1877, the Bell Telephone Company was formed by Gardiner Hubbard. The Charles Williams shop made the first telephones under the direction of Watson, who in effect was the Research and Development Department of the company. Alexander Graham Bell opted out of the day-to-day managing of the company and travelled to England, staying for over a year. By the end of 1877 there were three thousand telephones in service.

In mid-1878, Hubbard named Theodore Vail, the Superintendent of the Railway Mail Services as the new general manager of the Bell Company. This one decision alone would become lead to the basic foundation of what would become the giant monopoly, the "Bell System." The Bell company had 10,000 phones in service at this time.

http://www.telephonymuseum.com/telephone%20history.htm

Tom Farley knows a lot about telephone history. Here is some of it.

Tom Farley's Telephone History Series

On March 10, 1876, in Boston, Massachusetts, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Thomas Watson fashioned the device itself; a crude thing made of a wooden stand, a funnel, a cup of acid, and some copper wire. But these simple parts and the equally simple first telephone call -- "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!" -- belie a complicated past. Bell filed his application just hours before his competitor, Elisha Gray, filed notice to soon patent a telephone himself. What's more, though neither man had actually built a working telephone, Bell made his telephone operate three weeks later using ideas outlined in Gray's Notice of Invention, methods Bell did not propose in his own patent.

[....]

In 1729 English chemist Stephen Gray transmitted electricity over a wire. He sent charges nearly 300 feet over brass wire and moistened thread. An electrostatic generator powered his experiments, one charge at a time. A few years later, Dutchman Pieter van Musschenbroek and German Ewald Georg von Kleist in 1746 independently developed the Leyden jar, a sort of battery or condenser for storing static electricity. Named for its Holland city of invention, the jar was a glass bottle lined inside and out with tin or lead. The glass sandwiched between the metal sheets stored electricity; a strong charge could be kept for a few days and transported. Over the years these jars were used in countless experiments, lectures, and demonstrations.

In 1753 an anonymous writer, possibly physician Charles Morrison, suggested in The Scot's Magazine that electricity might transmit messages. He thought up a scheme using separate wires to represent each letter. An electrostatic generator, he posited, could electrify each line in turn, attracting a bit of paper by static charge on the other end. By noting which paper letters were attracted one might spell out a message. Needing wires by the dozen, signals got transmitted a mile or two. People labored with telegraphs like this for many decades. Experiments continued slowly until 1800. Many inventors worked alone, misunderstood earlier discoveries, or spent time producing results already achieved. Poor equipment didn't help either.

Balky electrostatic generators produced static electricity by friction, often by spinning leather against glass. And while static electricity could make hair stand on end or throw sparks, it couldn't provide the energy to do truly useful things. Inventors and industry needed a reliable and continuous current.

In 1800 Alessandro Volta produced the first battery. A major development, Volta's battery provided sustained low powered electric current at high cost. Chemically based, as all batteries are, the battery improved quickly and became the electrical source for further experimenting. But while batteries got more reliable, they still couldn't produce the power needed to work machinery, light cities, or provide heat. And although batteries would work telegraph and telephone systems, and still do, transmitting speech required understanding two related elements, namely, electricity and magnetism.

In 1820 Danish physicist Christian Oersted discovered electromagnetism, the critical idea needed to develop electrical power and to communicate. In a famous experiment at his University of Copenhagen classroom, Oersted pushed a compass under a live electric wire. This caused its needle to turn from pointing north, as if acted on by a larger magnet. Oersted discovered that an electric current creates a magnetic field. But could a magnetic field create electricity? If so, a new source of power beckoned. And the principle of electromagnetism, if fully understood and applied, promised a new era of communication.

[....]

In 1821 Michael Faraday reversed Oersted's experiment and in so doing discovered induction. He got a weak current to flow in a wire revolving around a permanent magnet. In other words, a magnetic field caused or induced an electric current to flow in a nearby wire. In so doing, Faraday had built the world's first electric generator. Mechanical energy could now be converted to electrical energy. Is that clear? This is a very important point.

The simple act of moving ones' hand caused current to move. Mechanical energy into electrical energy. Although many years away, a turbine powered dynamo would let the power of flowing water or burning coal produce electricity. Got a river or a dam? The water spins the turbines which turns the generators which produce electricity. The more water you have the more generators you can add and the more electricity you can produce. Mechanical energy into electrical energy.

Faraday worked through different electrical problems in the next ten years, eventually publishing his results on induction in 1831. By that year many people were producing electrical dynamos. But electromagnetism still needed understanding. Someone had to show how to use it for communicating.

In 1830 the great American scientist Professor Joseph Henry transmitted the first practical electrical signal. A short time before Henry had invented the first efficient electromagnet. He also concluded similar thoughts about induction before Faraday but he didn't publish them first. Henry's place in electrical history however, has always been secure, in particular for showing that electromagnetism could do more than create current or pick up heavy weights -- it could communicate.

In a stunning demonstration in his Albany Academy classroom, Henry created the forerunner of the telegraph. In the demonstration, Henry first built an electromagnet by winding an iron bar with several feet of wire. A pivot mounted steel bar sat next to the magnet. A bell, in turn, stood next to the bar. From the electromagnet Henry strung a mile of wire around the inside of the classroom. He completed the circuit by connecting the ends of the wires at a battery. Guess what happened? The steel bar swung toward the magnet, of course, striking the bell at the same time. Breaking the connection released the bar and it was free to strike again. And while Henry did not pursue electrical signaling, he did help someone who did. And that man was Samuel Finley Breese Morse.

[....]

In 1861 Johann Phillip Reis completed the first non-working telephone. Tantalizingly close to reproducing speech, Reis's instrument conveyed certain sounds, poorly, but no more than that. A German physicist and school teacher, Reis's ingenuity was unquestioned. His transmitter and receiver used a cork, a knitting needle, a sausage skin, and a piece of platinum to transmit bits of music and certain other sounds. But intelligible speech could not be reproduced. The problem was simple, minute, and at the same time monumental. His telephone relied on its transmitter's diaphragm making and breaking contact with the electrical circuit, just as Bourseul suggested, and just as the telegraph worked. This approach, however, was completely wrong.
Reproducing speech practically relies on the transmitter making continuous contact with the electrical circuit. A transmitter varies the electrical current depending on how much acoustic pressure it gets. Turning the current off and on like a telegraph cannot begin to duplicate speech since speech, once flowing, is a fluctuating wave of continuous character; it is not a collection of off and on again pulses. The Reis instrument, in fact, worked only when sounds were so soft that the contact connecting the transmitter to the circuit remained unbroken. Speech may have traveled first over a Reis telephone however, it would have done so accidentally and against every principle he thought would make it work. And although accidental discovery is the stuff of invention, Reis did not realize his mistake, did not understand the principle behind voice transmission, did not develop his instrument further, nor did he ever claim to have invented the telephone.
[....]

In 1830 the great American scientist Professor Joseph Henry transmitted the first practical electrical signal. A short time before Henry had invented the first efficient electromagnet. He also concluded similar thoughts about induction before Faraday but he didn't publish them first. Henry's place in electrical history however, has always been secure, in particular for showing that electromagnetism could do more than create current or pick up heavy weights -- it could communicate.

In a stunning demonstration in his Albany Academy classroom, Henry created the forerunner of the telegraph. In the demonstration, Henry first built an electromagnet by winding an iron bar with several feet of wire. A pivot mounted steel bar sat next to the magnet. A bell, in turn, stood next to the bar. From the electromagnet Henry strung a mile of wire around the inside of the classroom. He completed the circuit by connecting the ends of the wires at a battery. Guess what happened? The steel bar swung toward the magnet, of course, striking the bell at the same time. Breaking the connection released the bar and it was free to strike again. And while Henry did not pursue electrical signaling, he did help someone who did. And that man was Samuel Finley Breese Morse.
[....]

In 1837 Samuel Morse invented the first workable telegraph, applied for its patent in 1838, and was finally granted it in 1848. Joseph Henry helped Morse build a telegraph relay or repeater that allowed long distance operation. The telegraph later helped unite the country and eventually the world. Not a professional inventor, Morse was nevertheless captivated by electrical experiments. In 1832 he heard of Faraday's recently published work on inductance, and was given an electromagnet at the same time to ponder over. An idea came to him and Morse quickly worked out details for his telegraph.

As depicted below, his system used a key (a switch) to make or break the electrical circuit, a battery to produce power, a single line joining one telegraph station to another and an electromagnetic receiver or sounder that upon being turned on and off, produced a clicking noise. He completed the package by devising the Morse code system of dots and dashes. A quick key tap broke the circuit momentarily, transmitting a short pulse to a distant sounder, interpreted by an operator as a dot. A more lengthy break produced a dash.

Telegraphy became big business as it replaced messengers, the Pony Express, clipper ships and every other slow paced means of communicating. The fact that service was limited to Western Union offices or large firms seemed hardly a problem. After all, communicating over long distances instantly was otherwise impossible. Yet as the telegraph was perfected, man's thoughts turned to speech over a wire.

In 1854 Charles Bourseul wrote about transmitting speech electrically in a well circulated article. In that important paper, the Belgian-born French inventor and engineer described a flexible disk that would make and break an electrical connection to reproduce sound. Bourseul never built an instrument or pursued his ideas further.

[....]

In the early 1870s the world still did not have a working telephone. Inventors focused on telegraph improvements since these had a waiting market. A good, patentable idea might make an inventor millions. Developing a telephone, on the other hand, had no immediate market, if one at all. Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham Bell, as well as many others, were instead trying to develop a multiplexing telegraph, a device to send several messages over one wire at once. Such an instrument would greatly increase traffic without the telegraph company having to build more lines. As it turned out, for both men, the desire to invent one thing turned into a race to invent something altogether different. And that is truly the story of invention.

http://www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistory/History1.htm
Telephones, among any number of other great inventions, are a gift to us from Modernity. Those who complain about the low level of conversation should really stfu. Not that I'd answer their calls anyway. I don't have a phone. I'm still looking for the right one.

In the 1890s a new smaller style of telephone was introduced, packaged in three parts. The transmitter stood on a stand, known as a "candlestick" for its shape. When not in use, the receiver hung on a hook with a switch in it, known as a "switchhook." Previous telephones required the user to operate a separate switch to connect either the voice or the bell. With the new kind, the user was less likely to leave the phone "off the hook". In phones connected to magneto exchanges, the bell, induction coil, battery and magneto were in a separate bell box called a "ringer box." In phones connected to common battery exchanges, the ringer box was installed under a desk, or other out of the way place, since it did not need a battery or magneto.

Cradle designs were also used at this time, having a handle with the receiver and transmitter attached, separate from the cradle base that housed the magneto crank and other parts. They were larger than the "candlestick" and more popular.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telephone

The Model 102 telephone (B1 mount/set) was Western Electric's first widely distributed telephone set to feature the transmitter and receiver in a common handset. Prior models had been of the "candlestick" type, which featured a transmitter fixed to the base, and a receiver held to the ear. The 102 was manufactured between 1927 and 1929.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_102_telephone

Now that you know at least as much about telephones as I do is not hardly the point here. The point is that we can look at them as gifts of Modernity and be more aware of our blessings. I don't have a telephone because I don't like the alienation of the medium. I prefer talking to people face-to-face, and in lieu of that, I prefer the Internet so I can sit and pause for as long as I need to to think of what I wish to say next. The shape of telephones, though, the beauty of the machines, the art of the techne, that appeals to me deeply. Hope it appeals to you as well.

Update: I am not one to promote anything the New York Times does, as a rule, but here, in spite of that, is a piece on telephones I think you'll like, even if it comes from the dhimmi arsehole Times.

March 18, 2011

Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You

By PAMELA PAUL

NOBODY calls me anymore — and that’s just fine. With the exception of immediate family members, who mostly phone to discuss medical symptoms and arrange child care, and the Roundabout Theater fund-raising team, which takes a diabolical delight in phoning me every few weeks at precisely the moment I am tucking in my children, people just don’t call.
It’s at the point where when the phone does ring — and it’s not my mom, dad, husband or baby sitter — my first thought is: “What’s happened? What’s wrong?” My second thought is: “Isn’t it weird to just call like that? Out of the blue? With no e-mailed warning?”
I don’t think it’s just me. Sure, teenagers gave up the phone call eons ago. But I’m a long way away from my teenage years, back when the key rite of passage was getting a phone in your bedroom or (cue Molly Ringwald gasp) a line of your own.
In the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up the telephone — land line, mobile, voice mail and all. According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years.
“I literally never use the phone,” Jonathan Adler, the interior designer, told me. (Alas, by phone, but it had to be.) “Sometimes I call my mother on the way to work because she’ll be happy to chitty chat. But I just can’t think of anyone else who’d want to talk to me.” Then again, he doesn’t want to be called, either. “I’ve learned not to press ‘ignore’ on my cellphone because then people know that you’re there.”
“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”
Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people.”
Though the beast has been somewhat tamed by voice mail and caller ID, the phone caller still insists, Ms. Martin explained, “that we should drop whatever we’re doing and listen to me.”
Even at work, where people once managed to look busy by wearing a headset or constantly parrying calls back and forth via a harried assistant, the offices are silent. The reasons are multifold. Nobody has assistants anymore to handle telecommunications. And in today’s nearly door-free workplaces, unless everyone is on the phone, calls are disruptive and, in a tight warren of cubicles, distressingly public. Does anyone want to hear me detail to the dentist the havoc six-year molars have wreaked on my daughter?
“When I walk around the office, nobody is on the phone,” said Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president and publisher at HarperCollins. The nature of the rare business call has also changed. “Phone calls used to be everything: serious, light, heavy, funny,” Mr. Burnham said. “But now they tend to be things that are very focused. And almost everyone e-mails first and asks, ‘Is it O.K. if I call?’ ”
Even in fields where workers of various stripes (publicists, agents, salespeople) traditionally conducted much of their business by phone, hoping to catch a coveted decision-maker off-guard or in a down moment, the phone stays on the hook. When Matthew Ballast, an executive director for publicity at Grand Central Publishing, began working in book publicity 12 years ago, he would go down his list of people to cold call, then follow up two or three times, also by phone. “I remember five years ago, I had a pad with a list of calls I had to return,” he said. Now, he talks by phone two or three times a day.
“You pretty much call people on the phone when you don’t understand their e-mail,” he said.
Phone call appointments have become common in the workplace. Without them, there’s no guarantee your call will be returned. “Only people I’ve ruthlessly hounded call me back,” said Mary Roach, author of “Packing for Mars.” Writers and others who work alone can find the silence isolating. “But if I called my editor and agent every time I wanted to chat, I think they’d say, ‘Oh no, Mary Roach is calling again.’ So I’ve pulled back, just like everyone else.”
Whereas people once received and made calls with friends on a regular basis, we now coordinate such events via e-mail or text. When college roommates used to call (at least two reunions ago), I would welcome their vaguely familiar voices. Now, were one of them to call on a Tuesday evening, my first reaction would be alarm. Phone calls from anyone other than immediate family tend to signal bad news.
Receiving calls on the cellphone can be a particular annoyance. First, there’s the assumption that you’re carrying the thing at all times. For those in homes with stairs, the cellphone siren can send a person scrambling up and down flights of steps in desperate pursuit. Having the cellphone in hand doesn’t necessarily lessen the burden. After all, someone might actually be using the phone: someone who is in the middle of scrolling through a Facebook photo album. Someone who is playing Cut the Rope. Someone who is in the process of painstakingly touch-tapping an important e-mail.
For the most part, assiduous commenting on a friend’s Facebook updates and periodically e-mailing promises to “catch up by phone soon” substitute for actual conversation. With friends who merit face time, arrangements are carried out via electronic transmission. “We do everything by text and e-mail,” said Laurie David, a Hollywood producer and author. “It would be strange at this point to try figuring all that out by phone.”
Of course, immediate family members still phone occasionally. “It’s useful for catching up on parenting issues with your ex-husband,” said Ms. David, who used to be married to Larry David, the star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” “Sometimes when you don’t want to type it all, it’s just easier to talk.”
But even sons, husbands and daughters don’t always want to chat. In our text-heavy world, mothers report yearning for the sound of their teenage and adult children’s voices. “I’m sort of missing the phone,” said Lisa Birnbach, author of “True Prep” and mother of three teenagers. “It’s warmer and more honest.”
That said, her landline “has become a kind of vestigial part of my house like the intercom buttons once used in my prewar building to contact the ‘servants quarters.’ ” When the phone rings, 9 times out of 10, it’s her mother.
There are holdouts. Radhika Jones, an assistant managing editor at Time magazine, still has a core group of friends she talks to by phone. “I’ve always been a big phone hound,” she said. “My parents can tell you about the days before call waiting.” Yet even she has slipped into new habits: Voice mails from her husband may not get listened to until end of day. Phone messages are returned by e-mail. “At least you’re responding!”
But heaven forbid you actually have to listen — especially to voice mail. The standard “let the audience know this person is a loser” scene in movies where the forlorn heroine returns from a night of cat-sitting to an answering machine that bleats “you have no messages” would cause confusion with contemporary viewers. Who doesn’t heave a huge sigh of relief to find there’s no voice mail? Is it worth punching in a protracted series of codes and passwords to listen to some three-hour-old voice say, “call me” when you could glance at caller ID and return the call — or better yet, e-mail back instead?
Many people don’t even know how their voice mail works. “I’ve lost that skill,” Ms. Birnbach said.
“I have no idea how to check it,” Ms. David admitted. “I can stay in a hotel for three days with that little red light blinking and never listen. I figure, if someone needs to reach me, they’ll e-mail.”
“I don’t check these messages often,” intoned a discouraging recorded voice, urging callers to try e-mail. And this is the voice-mail recording of Claude S. Fischer, author of a book on the history of the telephone and more recently, “Still Connected: Family and Friends in America Since 1970.”
“When the telephone first appeared, there were all kinds of etiquette issues over whom to call and who should answer and how,” Dr. Fischer, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told me when finally reached by phone. Among the upper classes, for example, it was thought that the butler should answer calls. For a long time, inviting a person to dinner by telephone was beyond the pale; later, the rules softened and it was O.K. to call to ask someone to lunch.
Telephones were first sold exclusively for business purposes and only later as a kind of practical device for the home. Husbands could phone wives when traveling on business, and wives could order their groceries delivered. Almost immediately, however, people began using the telephone for social interactions. “The phone companies tried to stop that for about 30 years because it was considered improper usage,” Dr. Fischer said.
We may be returning to the phone’s original intentions — and impact. “I can tell you exactly the last time someone picked up the phone when I called,” Mary Roach said. “It was two months ago and I said: ‘Whoa! You answered your phone!’ It was a P.R. person. She said, ‘Yeah, I like to answer the phone.’ ” Both were startled to be voice-to-voice with another unknown, unseen human being.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/fashion/20Cultural.html?_r=1

Yalla, Dag

Hey, here, long time later, is a bit about our president and his desire for a real telephone.

WASHINGTON -- Turns out President Obama would like a phone upgrade.

The president, in an unscripted moment with donors in Chicago, was talking about the need to innovate in technology.

"The Oval Office, I always thought I was going to have really cool phones and stuff," he said during a small fundraising event at a Chicago restaurant. "I'm like, c'mon guys, I'm the president of the United States. Where's the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn't happen."

The president made his off-the-cuff remarks with donors as he took questions and after reporters had been ushered out of the event. But the question and answer session was piped back to Washington by mistake and into the press briefing area where a few reporters were still working late.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/15/obama-disappointed-lack-cool-phone-oval-office/#ixzz1JbmkMIg1

I find myself sympathetic for once. He should have a cool telephone. So should we all. One with the 'ring of truth'.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Who stand still move

My first foray into northern Mexico was back in the early 70s, just a kid back then, 17 or 18, and still a bit new to travelling the world, though I'd been on the road for a few years by then, through a minor war zone, into and out of ghettos and crime scenes, witness to a fair number of close-up and ugly murders, gang rapes, and the usual brutal violence of the world at the bottom. But still, I was a kid and didn't really know much, just enough to manage to stay calm and stay alive. So, when I got a ride across Chihuahua in a van driven by a blond hippie from San Diego I jumped at it, thinking, "What could be better than this?" I climbed in to the cab, turned to toss my backpack into the cargo space, and saw as I did so, a pair of feet sticking out from a tarp. I turned back and put my pack between my legs and looked out the window. Didn't say a word, and my host didn't speak, so everything was cool. Sort of. Except that even in deep winter Mexico isn't a cold storage area. I sort of rolled down the window, and that prompted my host to ask me or tell me or command me to roll it back up, which I did, pronto. Or maybe he didn't actually tell me to do anything with the window, and I only thought he did, because he said to roll it down again, which I did. Had to, pretty much, or I would have died anyway. The body in the back was higher than any living hippie ever was. Went on for hours across the desert till we pulled in for gas, at which point I told the driver I'd be staying to check out the local church and all and thanks for the ride. He chased me around the lot in his van for a bit but must have gotten bored 'cause he took off in a cloud of dust, and I hid till dark behind some wooden barrels, not seeing him again. Frankly, I'd been through far worse, but that was my first memorable experience of Mexico. Way it is today, I wouldn't blink at a dead body in a van. Today, northern Mexico is just damned dangerous.

Robert Eugene Simmons Jr, "The Southern Border Could Get Much Worse" American Thinker. July 01, 2010

The southern border of the USA is no longer something that we can ignore or use as a political tool. Successive presidents have failed to control this border for one reason or another, but the escalation of drug cartel violence on the southern side of the border is making the issue of illegal immigration almost an afterthought. It seems that if something doesn't change, we could be looking at an all-out war with Mexican drug cartels.

Police Chief Jeff Kirkham of the border town Nogales, Arizona, told Tucson Channel 9 (ABC) news that he has received threats that the Mexican drug cartels will start using snipers to target on- and off-duty police officers from across the border.

Given the fact that Nogales sits right on the border with the town of Heroica Nogales on the other side, the threat is entirely credible and feasible. Heroica Nogales would provide ample places to hide within sniper range of many parts of Nogales. With an effective range of over one mile, modern rifles could easily target U.S. citizens and police in an eerie echo of the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian war.

If snipers start setting up shop in Heroica Nogales, we certainly won't be able to count on the Mexican military to take care of the problem. The cartels clearly don't fear the Mexican military, given the enormous intimidation and bribery that they are able to bring to the table. Leaked stories of massive Mexican military corruption and intimidation are commonplace in the border regions.
Given that the Mexican military would be of dubious worth, what options are left for the Obama administration to deal with the problem? Would Obama fire predator missiles into Mexico from drones to take out snipers, or would the risk of a real military conflict with the regular Mexican army and civilian casualties make that option out of the question? Would counter-snipers be employed to take out drug cartel snipers? Given Obama's reluctance to deploy anything more than logistic personnel from the National Guard to the border, the answer is likely "no." If Obama will not authorize return fire, what is the game plan for the police and civilians being shot at from across the border? If Obama did authorize return fire across the border, how would Mexico react to military snipers from our side shooting drug cartel snipers from theirs? Finally, what would the rules of engagement be? Would American military snipers be authorized to take out anyone deemed a threat, or would the life of a police officer or civilian have to be taken before they can fire back? Even the military will admit that counter-sniper operations are complex and fraught with risk.

However dismal the sniper scenario sounds, the problem doesn't stop there. The Mexican drug cartels are exceptionally well-manned and armed with fully automatic AK-47 rifles, RPGs, and standard grenades, none of which are available for sale in the USA. How long before the cartels realize that they have far more men and armament than a border crossing and outright attack the police manning the crossing? It could start with the Mexican border control agents abandoning their post to avoid certain death and end with the cartels attacking a border crossing, thus opening up a floodgate through which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, narcotics traffickers, criminals, and terrorists could flood into the USA in a matter of hours.

If the Mexican drug cartels stop fighting each other and unite, this scenario could rapidly become a catastrophe. Imagine a wave of violent drug cartels overrunning the border, crossing in Nogales and then the entire town. The most frightening thing is that the scenario is entirely plausible. With a foothold in the USA, the flood of people and narcotics would be virtually unstoppable, and we would end up with an urban war in our own borders.

Make no mistake that America is under an invasion. The army is not that of the Mexican government, but it is an invasion nonetheless. If we continue to turn a blind eye to the situation, it could easily escalate out of control into an international and human catastrophe. We can no longer wait and see what happens on the border and then react to it. Any military strategist will tell you that if you are merely reacting, you are losing.

It's time that we send the American military, not just the National Guard, to the border to defend the USA, as is the responsibility of the federal government. This suggestion is not meant to disparage the Arizona National Guard, but they are simply not built for large-scale combat operations, and this is no longer just a simple law enforcement situation. We need to secure the border with combat troops and convince the Mexican drug cartels that they are better off squabbling with each other than fighting the USA. In fact, if the border becomes so secure that nothing can get through, the cartels will have to find other routes for their drug trade, leave the border area, and improve the lives of law-abiding Mexicans on the other side of the border as well.

In addition to securing the border, it is time for Mexican President Calderón and Obama to meet to discuss the possibilities of worsening assaults on the border and our possible responses to these events before they actually happen. If protocols and understandings are there beforehand, the likelihood of any incident spinning out of control into a war is greatly reduced.

Finally, Obama needs to reprioritize his administration away from attempting to sue Arizona and toward addressing the problem that prompted Arizona to pass the law in the first place. Only after the border is secure should we talk about what to do about illegal immigrants still in the USA and expanding work permit programs for law-abiding Mexicans to make a living here.

This makes me wonder how often I'm likely to return to some of my favourite border towns in Mexico for the cheap delights and weird thrills I used to enjoy. All that dangerous stuff of decades past came to little in today's terms, then it being a night out with the local lawyer and journalist, maybe with the local accountant and town doctor, middle class guys having drinks in the taverna and flirting with the girls, staggering to the hotel singing Mexican love songs and wailing sentimental vows of eternal friendship.

I used to like Mexico because it wasn't violent. Not like back home where I'd survived a gun battle in a living room in L.A, got caught in the middle of a gang shoot-out on the street in Chicago, watched a big Black guy gutted on the street in New Orleans, been in a couple of serious car wrecks, saw a kid get hanged by a mob in the forest in the mountains [....] I'd had lots of bad adventures on the road, those events and a hundred more similar, and Mexico was a nice place to escape to for cheap good-times, more or less pretty safe.

Things change. Things go wrong in spite of what we work to make good, and no matter how hard we work and how much we want things to work out right. I've got some scars now, some that show and some that don't, and I still find myself working to make things work for the good, even though little turns out the way I want it to no matter how hard I work at it. I'm just one guy, and I will never change the world. No, I'm not even capable of making it worse. Neither though were those who did their shitty little violent things to others, the killings and the brutalities and the small damages against the world, none of it making any real difference in a meaningful way. But things change. Things get worse when we don't notice them changing all around us, like going to the office one find morning in early Fall to find a passenger jet crashing through the windows, destroying office towers full of ordinary folk who had no clue what was coming. It ain't the same for a family man going to work in an office as it is for a wild guy on the road seeking adventure. It's worse for the poor bastard who doesn't know how bad it can get and doesn't see it coming. I came to Canada after two years in the wars in the Middle East and the Balkans just in time for 9-11. I left a week later for a year of travelling around Mexico and Central America. I came back here to rest. But things have changed, and the peace I expected on my return is gone. Now I find myself travelling through my days with corpses in the back of my mind that I don't want to turn and confront, maybe someone next to me asking if I've done something wrong, leaving me to account for myself in ways I would rather not. There's no escaping it now, nowhere to run off to, and nowhere to hide. Things have changed for the worse, but not so much for me as for those who didn't sign up for this, didn't want it, and don't know how to deal with it. It's a bad change in spite of how hard so many have worked to make things right.

The borders I've crossed all my life seem now to have dissolved into fog, and the demons lurk everywhere without one having to seek them out as adventure. Now my crazy travels in a wild youth are your normal day. No boundaries any more. No borders between normal and mad. Folks just sit and stare straight ahead and hope it will all go away, the miles and the days clicking past, the smell getting worse, afraid to roll down the window....

William Tynedale and Avril Lavigne: Cultural Dynamos

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was good. He was a boi and she was a grrl. Can I make it any more obvious? Tynedale was a sk8r boi and Avril was a pop singer. He was a punk, and she did arena concerts. What more can I say? He spoke truth to power; she got rich and famous. He just got famous. He got burned; she got the stars. Somehow it all makes sense to me. He wanted her, she'd never tell. Secretly she wanted him as well. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. But all of her friends, stuck up their nose. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. They had a problem with his baggy clothes. Fashion not yourselves to the world. He was a sk8r boi. She said see you later boi. He wasn't good enough for her. Judge not that you not be judged. She had a pretty face. Let there be light. Her head was up in a space. The signs of the times. She needed to come back down to earth. It came to pass. She turns on T.V., guess who she sees? The powers that be. Skater boy rocking up MTV. She calls up her friends, they already know. Seek and you shall find. And they've all got tickets to see his show. Filthy lucre. She tags along, and stands in the crowd. The spirit is willing. Looks up at the man that she turned down. Ask and it shall be given you....


I once thought of standing in front of a Methodist church of a Sunday afternoon asking if anyone knows a man named John Wellesley. I figured most people would say no. It would have been a mean-spirited joke, which didn't deter me, it's that the weather here sucks and I never found a nice day to try it. Wellesley is the founder of the Methodist church, and my guess is that most people entering in wouldn't know that. Why the Hell would I know? I just do. I also know a bit about William Tynedale, whose life makes me tremble in a spirit of joy. I know now too a bit about Avril Lavigne. Not much, but more than enough.

I also know that fifteen year old girls buy music and go to concerts and buy things for fifteen year old girls, and that the market is a good thing, if not an outwardly moral thing. I don't have much in the way of music stuff in my home, but I have a full shelf of Bibles for some reason. I have a lot of King James versions. I like reading Ecclesiastes. I'm a boring guy. All is vanity. There is nothing new under the sun. Except that there is: girls can get rich singing songs for girls. Still, one can get killed speaking truth to power. In the beginning was the Word. Now there is the ipod. That's good. I'm glad that girls can listen to music and have fun. Our oft vacuous Modernity is preferable to fifteen year old girls commonly dying in childbirth. They have ear-phones. I read quietly. Life is good for us all.

William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindall or Tyndall; pronounced /ˈtɪndəl/) (c. 1494 – 1536) was a 16th century scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and Martin Luther. Tyndale was the first to translate considerable parts of the Bible into English, for a public, lay readership. While a number of partial and complete translations had been made from the seventh century onward, particularly during the 14th century, Tyndale's was the first English translation to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, and the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. This was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Catholic church and the English church and state. Tyndale also wrote, in 1530, The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's divorce on the grounds that it contravened scriptural law.

In 1535, Tyndale was arrested by church authorities and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels for over a year. He was tried for heresy, strangled and burnt at the stake. The heretical Tyndale Bible, as it was known, continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across Europe.

The fifty-four independent scholars who revised extant English bibles, drew significantly on Tyndale's translations to create the King James Version (or final "Authorised Version") of 1611 (still in mainstream use today). One estimation suggests the King James New Testament is 83.7 % Tyndale's and the Old Testament 75.7 %.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale

Avril Lavigne, "Sk8r Boi."

Avril Ramona Lavigne (pronounced /ˈævrɨl ləˈviːn/; born 27 September 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, fashion designer, and actress. She was born in Belleville, Ontario, but spent the majority of her youth in the small town, Napanee, Ontario. By the age of 15, she had appeared on stage with Shania Twain, and by 16, Lavigne had signed a recording contract with Arista, now RCA Records. Record executive Antonio "L.A." Reid offered her a two-album deal worth more than $2 million. When she was 17 years old, Lavigne broke onto the music scene with her debut album, Let Go, released in 2002.

Let Go made Lavigne the youngest female soloist to reach #1 in the UK, the album was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. As of 2009, over 16 million copies had been sold worldwide, more than 6 million of which were sold in the United States. Her breakthrough single, "Complicated", peaked at #1 in many countries around the world, as did the album Let Go. Her second album, Under My Skin, was released in 2004 and was her first album to peak at #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 , eventually selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. The Best Damn Thing, Lavigne’s third album, was released in 2007. This album gave Lavigne her third #1 album in the UK Albums Chart and featured her first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 single, "Girlfriend". Lavigne has scored a total of five #1 singles worldwide, including "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi", "I'm With You", "My Happy Ending" and "Girlfriend". Lavigne has sold more than 30 million copies of her albums worldwide and is currently one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA. Billboard named Lavigne the #10 pop artist of the 2000s, and she was listed as the 28th overall best act of the decade based on album sales, chart success, and cultural relativity in the U.S. She is currently working on her fourth studio album, expected to be released in 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avril_Lavigne

Life for the long-lived is a matter of stages. Tynedale had his that fateful day, and Avril has hers to perform on. We have our stages too. It's good that we have our stages, separate and defined and for ourselves, old men and young girls pursuing their separate interests. It's not so good when the stage is occupied by a teenager in his middle age and few knowing how foolish it is, applauding his performance. But he is a sk8r boi. Need I say anything more?

We all shine on. Like the moon and the stars and the sun

Suicide would be the last act of a man's life, but I can't find a good way of judging it. Post mortem, it's about the survivors. Sometimes I can listen, even if I have to turn my head away because I can't bring myself to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP3wT5lpa4

You know your stud days are over when...

Yeah, you're not a stud when you find yourself playing solitaire with a deck of race cards.

I called up Jesse, Al, Louis, and the NBPP gang for a night of talking about what studs we are, but they were all hung up about me not being the right kind of stud to be hitting on blonds with too much make-up. I told 'em we could have some fun playing race cards, but they weren't having none of that, having a race card game of their own to play. So, it leaves me to live the life of an ageing stud set to pasture, alone, all, all alone, a sadder but saggier man.
Oh, come on. Sing along, boys, while it's still summer, and we are old Marxists in our ruin.

[Groucho]
I don't know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway,
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I'm against it.

Your proposition may be good,
But let's have one thing understood,
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
And even when you've changed it or condensed it,
I'm against it.

I'm opposed to it,
On general principle, I'm opposed to it.

[chorus] He's opposed to it.
In fact, indeed, that he's opposed to it!

Lonely yes, but for me, I think of it as almost as good as a day at the races.

When love turns gray

When I was a kid I thought I'd love the girl forever. Well, little did I realise how right that would turn out to be. Gary Moore gets it right for all of us. Still got the blues for you.

Riot, Dudley, U.K.

During the course of a Muslim rampage in Dudley, West Midlands, a car hurt six people. The car just jumped out from nowhere and hit six people for no reason. It might have been drinking the night before and was angry that its wife kicked it out of the garage. Yeah, that's probably right. Meanwhile, back at the riot....

From Jihad Watch, Hugh writes:

A story on the BBC website about six pedestrians hurt when the driver of a car tried to run them down in Dudley reads thus:

17 July 2010

Six hurt as car hits pedestrians in Dudley

Six pedestrians were injured, three seriously, when they were struck by a car in the West Midlands.

The ambulance service was called to the junction of King Street and Stafford Street, Dudley, at 1605 BST.

Three men, aged 42, 37 and 32 suffered head injuries. The 37-year-old also broke his leg.

Three others, including a girl aged 16 whose leg was broken, also needed hospital treatment.

An 18-year-old man suffered a foot injury and a 19-year-old man has a suspected broken leg, the West Midlands Ambulance Service said.
----------------------
It will be interesting to see what further information comes out about the driver, and other occupants, of that car. Let's see how long it takes.

We won't find out from the BBC or from some of our media in Vancouver, Canada who are so confused and [...] that they think of the Tea Party as akin to Hizb'allah supporters. More here as it comes.

Up-Date. Dudley Police Report: 6.00pm

A man has come forward to police after six people were injured in a road traffic collision close to the scene of today’s EDL protest in Dudley.

The man came forward to West Midlands Police following the incident in King Street, Dudley at around 4pm today.

Police have appealed for witnesses to the incident but at this stage there is nothing to suggest the collision was deliberate.

A force spokesman said: “We are in the very early stages of the investigation but initial witness accounts suggest a family car was caught up in a small pocket of protesters.

“Whilst trying to work its way clear the car collided with some of the protesters as they left the protest area.”

The injured, none of whom have suffered life threatening injuries, were men and women ranging from 16-years-old to 45.

So it looks like nothing much happened but that a person accidentally hit six pedestrians. We need a national news corporation to inform us of this. Thank you, BBC. Thank you, Dudley Constabulary. "Man, family car, small pocket of pedestrians, no life-threatening injuries. "

Up-date 2.

A Hindu temple is attacked. Must be English racists, right? In the same way that Tea Party supporters are no different from Timothy McVeigh, so all English are racists who hate everyone else.

"Initially the demonstration was going off peacefully but protesters tried to force some of the barriers that had been placed around the car park where they had been allowed to gather," Little said.

"They did that with a little success and when police arrived in riot gear that's when it turned ugly."

Little said many more demonstrators could have been arrested "given the violence that was shown towards the police".

Police are also investigating possible damage to a Hindu temple in Dudley.

Sky News.

If you're wondering why it is that Dudley is in such a state today, then perhaps you'd like to look at the area and its relatively recent history, from c. 1810 to 2010 to see if there's a trend in the culture that produces a huge Muslim welfare population and a hostile and anti-native constabulary guided by a clique of burghers trembling over the end of Romance and the green and pleasant land of -- oops-- Dudley and environs.

Dudley, (not so much in particular but generally for the sake of this post-modernist England,) is the rough home of Ludditism in the early nineteenth century. The areas of Dudley(ism) are welfare and anti-Industrial backwaters of Reaction since c. 1815. [Yes, professional historians will quibble.] It's the general local tradition. Smash machines, deny industrial progress, live on the dole. Live under a tyranny of Labour government in one form or another, whether it be latifundista Toryism or Trotskyite dhimmitude. It's much the same.

I'm providing links to the tales of Sandwell below to show what there is in the way of local culture in the hope that one might take away a sense of how backward such an area is and why we shouldn't be surprise by this. It's not a perfect analysis, and nothing can be, but generally it fits. In an anti-Modernist culture stretching back for centuries, we will have to expect this kind of reactionary situation.

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/03/sandwell-down.html

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/10/sandwells-yvonne-davies-and-our-tribal.html

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/10/sandwells-big-bill-thomas-alcatraz.html

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/10/big-bill-thomas-day-off.html

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/11/bill-thoms-sandwell-er-lye-in-mornin.html

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2010/03/big-bill-thomas-dead.html

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-football-can-save-modern-world.html

These links should give at least some idea why things are such as they are. It doesn't just spring up from the ground over-night. There is much deep background, and I hope that if one has the patience to look through the links and puzzle it out at least some of today's events will make sense in this context.

Hey, Racist.

Ha. The problem with a free country as opposed to a dictatorship is that in a free country the bullshit changes its face on a regular basis, and that leaves some people confused about the essential bullshitness of it. In a dictatorship, the bullshit is always the same, and once people catch on to it after the first round the rest is just more of the same, which no one buys but genuine mental cases. But most of us in free countries don't really get the fundamentals of this or anything else cause we're-- RACISTS.

This is the free West, and when "racist" is so worn out as to be laughable, then we'll see the geniuses turn to some other bullshit, like, for example, "Tea Party."

Yalla, racists.