Escalate This!

Escalation is the method we use to ensure that if a problem is serious enough, it is dealt with by the correct person. It also restricts the number of people I can be in direct contact with (or take requests from). It's a weak system aimed at preserving PROCESS above all else, despite the fact that it often hampers PRODUCTIVITY and prevents a speedy and efficient resolution of issues.

Dedication to Process is a way of limiting thought to a bare minimum. While suitable for people who behave like they are school kids, and need rigid discipline, people with good logical/lateral thought are hampered and eventually permanently inhibited by an atmosphere of strict adherence to Process.

Organisations which are Process-based in this way often find that Process itself, and the Escalation path it necessitates, become less an aid to high productivity and more a device for establishing error/blame ownership: this naturally leads to an unhealthy focus on WHO caused the error rather than how the problem should be prevented in the future.

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June 29, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Right wing mentalists

I've been doing my usual Sunday morning routine: rather than go to church, I sit around in my pants, drink coffee and read articles written by right wing mentalists.

I love this way of relaxing on a Sunday morning: my iced coffee (it's pretty hot here now), my underwear, the light blocked by two blinds, the gentle, rhythmic sound of the neighbours installing a new bathroom for the second day running. And The mentalists.

The right wing mentalists are amazing. They are so completely wrong… so utterly bad, that every single one of their message boards and websites is like a new issue of Private Eye!! They are all like a mixture of Monty Burns, Richard Nixon and Margaret Thatcher! Pure comedy genius marred only slightly by the fact that they always seem to be the ones who end up controlling things. And when they're in control, they seem to have a natural tendency to do things like the Vietnam war. What an extravagant catastrophe! What a monumental defeat! Iraq, this famous victory, this moral war, this pearl of Arabia is fucked. It was fucked up by the Americans. They did the original fucking-up. Then they helped it fuck up Iran. Then they fucked it up some more. There followed a 10 year period of almost daily fucking-up of everything. Then they completely fucked it up. They're still fucking it up right now! Even as I write, thousands of under-trained, under-educated, amoral dumb-ass 'special force' dick-head Americans are fucking Iraq up. Oh there are some British dick-heads there too. And a dozen Australians or so. But broadly, it is Americans who fucked, are fucking and will fuck Iraq up.

And then they go on message boards and write this kind of stuff

That Jon in particular sounds like a right prize twerp. I hate these guys.

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June 27, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Male

This is the title of a book soon to be published in the US. It attacks Moore's "far left" " terrorist" opinions, deriding his supporters and making serious claims about the veracity of his work.

The right wing misunderstand (or appear to) the point of Michael Moore. His need not be a balanced viewpoint. We only need to hear one thing from Moore: dissent. There is no imbalance in political thought due to Moore: in a country where the famously right wing Fox News rules the airwaves, Moore provides a decent antidote. Plus, Bush and his mates most definitely are evil. Have you ever met anyone who loves Bush? I mean really loves him? The very thought makes me want to throw up, and then beat the crap out of them. You see what I mean? Moore may not be perfect, but he's ours. And he fucking hates Bush.

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June 27, 2004 | Filed Under 'Terror', Politics | Leave a Comment 

OOooh all those investers

From the BBC News 'On This Day' section for tomorrow, a work-experience classic.

See it for yourself / Full story here

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June 22, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Kilroy magic

amusing Kilroy website.
ahh the big racist!

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June 19, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Whose war is it anyway?

There is a growing feeling that Bush and the US have been tricked into war by Islamic extremists (Iran, hating Saddam, had always looked for a way to get rid of him).

Now, the Guardian reports that Osama bin Laden might be preparing to get Bush re-elected.

This whole idea is pretty scary, and quite believable. For a long time, it has been clear that US intelligence is politicised, single minded, out of date. Is it now true that the neocons got their war not because of Bush and Rumsfeld, but because the terrorists wanted it?

At the same time, this could easily be a clever piece of suggestive writing straight from George H W Bush CIA headquarters. If we are to believe that the Islamists tricked us into a war for their own purposes, then we have to see that they are dangerously subversive, malicious and - to put it simply - everything that Bush says they are. Now there's a little conundrum for a Saturday afternoon.

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June 19, 2004 | Filed Under 'Terror', Politics | Leave a Comment 

wot a time


we went to Tarragona, Roman capital of Spain. Pontius Pilate was born there.


(but not until I'd had my hair cut)


we were there to meet up with some of my family.


and also to visit Port Aventura.


Rob displayed an interesting ability.


And then we drove back. (well, Gemma drove).


Then it was the next Friday.


It got late.


And later.


And later still.


Soon later, it was Wednesday.

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June 16, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

This weekend, I suffered a great illness, not unassociated with my behaviour on Friday.

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June 15, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

The weekend beckons, promising more food and wine than ever.
we'll sit on our terrace, watch the sun go down, listen to the flaming lips.

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June 11, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Sitting on the train after work. Yesterday, two of my colleagues were made redundant. Today, we were told that our project will likely last until at least December. It's a curious feeling to be assured of more (albeit limited) job security, just the day after redundancies.

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June 9, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

"Now watch this drive" - Fahrenheit 911 trailer

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 now has a trailer available to watch online.
I have high hopes for this film, even if the auteur is a bit of a capitalist. Aren't we all?

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/

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June 3, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

His insanity knows no limit

First of all, Private Eye's quote of the week (remembering that this is a fortnightly magazine) gave us this gem:

"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabalise their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers."
-George W. Bush, Al Arabiya TV

Next, we have this report about Bush comparing the war in Iraq to the second world war.

He went on to claim that Iraq is "more secure with Saddam Hussein in a prison cell". This last statement deserves closer inspection. Given that there is undeniably still some fighting in Iraq, we must accept that the country is not wholly stable. We must also accept that evil as Saddam's dictatorshipwas, the country was stable and fairly secure. Indeed, the only way that national security has changed since the invasion is that the US are no longer foreign invaders. Give them the status of legitimate occupiers or brave liberators and we see that the single worst threat to Iraqi national security in the last 10 years (the USA) cannot any longer be perceived as a threat exactly, because they are technically there by request of the governing council. But if we go with the side of international justice and a large body of photographic and written testimony, we must conclude that the US/UK alliance invaded the country illegally, killed more than nine thousand civilians, committed acts of torture and atrocity, and failed to prevent a slow slide into anarchy. So, as if you couldn't guess, Bush is correct in his statement - but only if you are president Bush.

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June 3, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

The Day After Tomorrow

Independence Day On Ice. (1 out of 1).

This film was really good. The world froze over and the following bits were excellent:

- New York City being destroyed (nearly) by a massive tidal wave
- People freezing to death
- The US president agreeing to release all Latin American debt
- The way the US president (formerly vice pres.) looked exactly like Dick "What a Dick" Cheney
- Acting was actually quite OK. The girl (alleged to be "new Audrey Hepburn" -?) was very pretty and nice.
- Unusual environmental plotline, good to see instead of aliens/zombies etc . not that aliens, zombies et al don't have their place of couse).

Bad bits were:

- Not actually seeing the royal family frozen to death.
- Not actually seeing any "lets make love to keep warm" moments which, let's face it, would certainly have occurred.
- Too many lingering shots of star spangled banners / complete focus on New York/Washington/American citizens. (Europe was completely destroyed. We learnt that from a brief shot from the space station).
- Cross-advertising a little too obvious: film was 20th Century Fox (Murdoch owned); Fox news and Sky news were the only TV stations shown in the film (both Murdoch owned); several mentions of Manchester United (Murdoch owns share, makes money).

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June 1, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

a long weekend

I have so many memebers of my family currently visiting that I can't remember all their names. We climbed the Sagrada Familia, traversed the beach at Port Olimpic, we got ripped off by a dodgy café (these things will always happen with tourists, so even though G and I were acting as guides, we felt it only right to allow nature to take its course).
I saw a woman being robbed on Sunday night.

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June 1, 2004 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment