quills4u’s scratchings

In the year 2008, the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in England, and said:

“Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me. Build another Ark and save two of every living thing along with a few good humans.”

He gave Noah the blueprints, saying: "You have 6 months to build the Ark before the rains commence and they will last for 40 days and 40 nights."

Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard - but there was no Ark.

“Noah!” the Lord roared. “I'm about to start the rain! Where is the Ark?”

“Forgive me, Lord,” begged Noah, “but things have changed. I needed a building permit. I've been arguing with the inspector about the need for a sprinkler system. My neighbours claim that I've violated the local planning laws by building the Ark in my back yard and exceeding the height limitations. We had to go to Planning Appeal for a decision.

“Then the Department of Transport demanded advanced payment for the costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions, to clear the passage for the Ark's move to the sea. I told them that the sea would be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it. Getting the wood was another problem. There's a ban on cutting down local trees in order to save the spotted owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the spotted owls - but no go!

“And when I started gathering the animals, an animal rights group sued me. They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will and violating their rights. They argued the accommodation was too restrictive, and it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in a confined space. Then the Environment Agency ruled that I couldn't build the Ark until they'd conducted an impact study on your proposed flood.

“I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on how many minorities I'm supposed to hire for my building crew.

“Immigration is checking the nationality status of most of the people who want to work, insisting that I employ Poles and Romanians and no-one from the British Commonwealth.

“The trades unions say I can't use my sons. They insist I have to hire only Union workers with Ark-building experience.

“To make matters worse, HM Customs seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally with endangered species.

“So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least ten years for me to finish this Ark.”

And the Lord took pity upon Noah. The skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow stretched across the sky. Noah looked up in wonder and asked, “You mean you're not going to destroy the world?”

'No,' said the Lord.

“New Labour beat me to it.’

(Thanks to Cranmer for this piece)

[Edit] Problem resolved and seems to have been an ISP DNS problem rather than a hostgator problem.

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My apologies to anyone who hosts their web site with me. My host, Hostgator, appears to be down this morning and has been for a few hours. As one of the major hosting companies, with a great deal of back up, in the USA, I have never had a problem before, and their record is one of the best in the industry. While I try and find out what has gone wrong, some interesting side issues have emerged.

Under the title Bear prints found on Georgian cyber-attacks, The Register gives a glimpse on future warfare.

Denial of service attacks against Georgian web-sites started a day before Georgian and Russian military units began fighting over the disputed region of South Ossetia. SecureWorks researcher Don Jackson said that logs showed that portions of the attack were run from command and control servers located on the networks of Russian state-operated firms Rostelecom and Comstar. These servers were not linked to previous botnet activity.

"We know that the Russian government controls those servers theoretically, if they have not been 'pwned' by somebody else," Jackson told eWeek.

Changes made in routing tables by Rostelecom and the Moscow-based Comstar blocked internet traffic to Georgia. The same networks served as the launch pads of brute-force denial of service attacks and cache poisoning attacks against Georgian networks, according to SecureWorks.

Of course, the problem might be more mundane and far less exciting. Oh well. There goes my conspiracy theory. It might just be part of the problem from which Virgin Media/Tucows are suffering. Also from The Register, under the title Virgin Media ADSL punters suffer 2-day email meltdown

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Other ISPs have been affected by Tucows' problems too. The firm said: "We are working around the clock to resolve this issue and are in close communication with the ISPs to help in minimizing the impact of this service interruption. We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused."

There's no word on when the fix will be complete.

Virgin Media said no email has been lost and that outstanding traffic will be delivered as soon as service is fully restored. The spokesman was unable to comment on whether Tucows had breached its a service level agreement by failing to offer effective backup systems.

Hmmm, I think those who host their own web sites at home, might just be feeling a little smug at reading all this. Maybe that redundant base unit, that was about to go to freecycle, might just come in handy after all!

• "As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic . . ."--Barack Obama, Berlin, July 24, 2008 •

"New data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute shows that there is more ice than normal in the Arctic waters north of the Svalbard archipelago. In most years, there are open waters in the area north of the archipelago in July month. Studies from this year however show that the area is covered by ice, the Meteorological Institute writes in a press release."--Barents Observer (Kirkenes, Norway), July 24

Thanks to EURef for this, err, clarification.

It is fascinating to read the news to hear why. Apparently, according to The Telegraph:

Factors include the shifting of the sub-tropical jet-stream from south of the Himalayas to north of the Tibetan plateau, early warming of the north Pacific Ocean and the disappearance of snow and ice from northern Canada.

But then, as Dr. Richard North puts it:

We have had no warming for eleven years, [see somewhat flat graph below] the current global temperature is the lowest it has been since 1999 and snow is lingering on the North American continent for longer than in living memory. We have serious papers suggesting a very real possibility of global cooling and sunspots have all but disappeared.

However, despite all this confusion, or is it vested interests at work, there is Good News

• Thames Water Board vans have painted out “Beat the drought” from their vans

• It was announced yesterday that our reservoirs, in the West Country, are full

• The Weather forecast for the Hampton Court Flower Show, tomorrow, sounds good

Graph from Watts Up With That?

Just now, from our, non-ECO, home delivery driver, on enquiring as to whether he
found us easily or not. He did apparently, despite the fact that
SatNav maps are way out of date in this area, because .......!

"Real drivers don't use sat-nav!"

As oil prices hit $142 a barrel today, a quick history lesson. Based on this, I predict that the oil price will drop significantly, in the not too distant future rather than keep rising, but time will tell if I'm right or not.

1973. The USA's support for Israel in the October 1973 Yom Kippur war angered Saudi Arabia. Oil cost $3.60 a barrel then ($18.68 in today's prices) which is similar to the price in 2001. Saudi Arabia started to restrict supplies. The result. Those with long memories will remember that the UK and much of the world, ran short of oil. The UK issued fuel rationing books, in preparation for worsening shortages, although these were not actually used. In the USA half of all motorists could only fill up on an odd day and the other half on an even day. Motorway speed limits were reduced to 50mph in the UK and 55 mph in the USA. As a result, buy the early '80s, USA cars became smaller lighter and more fuel efficient, a process that continued in the UK to the present day and in most of Europe as fuel prices were kept artificially high by taxation. The price of a barrel of oil peaked at $37.42 or around $96 in today's prices.

1990. While the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war kept those two nations busy, Saudi Arabia seemed to have little to fear from these aggressors, but when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, fear crept through the Arab nations. Saudi Arabia suddenly needed the USA as an ally so oil supplies were ramped up. Oil which cost $1.50 a barrel to extract, in Saudi Arabia was selling at just $11 a barrel ten years ago.

In 2003, The USA lead coalition overthrew the Iraqi regime and thus the threat of Saddam Hussein towards Saudi Arabia was removed. As in the past, Saudi Arabia began to restrict oil supplies. The result was that prices went up to $50 in 2005 and $65 in 2007. Although the Saudis say that the blame for the current crisis lies with the speculators, it seems that history suggests otherwise.

Saudi Arabia is sitting on a shrinking reserve of oil and seems to be aiming to get the most money for it before it runs out, however the world is, surprise surprise, reducing its usage as it simply cannot continue to afford the prices being sought. Even USA inventories are increasing with the national reserve currently at a 5 year high. The world seems to be moving towards some sort of a recession, much of it brought on by these high prices. The Asian countries are complaining that demand for their products by their main customer, the USA, has fallen and is hurting them so they are producing and shipping less and thus using less oil.

It seems inevitable that as demand falls, market forces will come into play, but we must take account of two other factors.

1. The USA has made a commitment to reduce its dependency on foreign oil, by 75% by 2025. OPEC's response to this commitment has been to further reduce supply.

2. The Saudis are now becoming increasingly concerned about the rising threat from a nuclear armed Iran. At the moment they seem to be betting on either Israel or the USA removing that threat, but who knows what will happen?

My bet is for a repeat of history; that the reduction in supply will lead to a collapse in oil prices, as the world just reduces it demand as it goes into recession. Even if this does not happen, then I believe that the Saudis will once again want the USA as an ally against the threat posed by Iran, and will thus turn the oil taps on again. Therefore, whatever happens, it seems almost inevitable that the world price for oil will plunge.

Of course this is a simplistic view, as there are other factors such as the reactionary Islamist attempts to take over oil producing areas such as Nigeria and Iraq as, although Saudi Arabia is the major producer, the contributions from such countries and also from Iran and Venezuala, are significant.

(Much of this is based on some research by Hal Lindsey)

PS.

The UK consumer is paying £1.16 for a litre of unleaded or £4.39 a US gallon = $8.72 a US gallon

The USA consumer is paying $3.95 for a US gallon of unleaded, or $1.04 a litre = 53 pence. (Based on some Virginia USA prices)

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(£1.00 =1.98651 USD as of June 27th 2008, 1 US gallon = 3.78541178 litres)

We've just returned from a lovely day out in a very packed Marlow. It was Regatta Day and a fine show it was.

(I'm also trying out this impressive little phone, come everything else. Many thanks Matt)

It is probably just a cultural thing, but I was struck by this water tower - not literally I hasten to add.

You have to look carefully at the side - did you have the same thought as me?

Maybe, it was just me.
Half a glass full anyone?

(OK, for the technical guys, it wasn't until I looked carefully at the photo, after the event, that I realised that I had made a misjudgment, but it did start an interesting conversation in Gloucester, VA)

Dr Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, is prepared to stand up and be counted, thank God. May we have more "Tall Trees" like him who are prepared to speak out. He gave a speech recently at a dinner organised by the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, in which he said:

Listening to the Hillary/Obama/McCain debates reveals some fascinating insights into American politics, however this post is about saving you money. I advise against rushing over to the Hillary Store and buying an "Original Hillary" print at $40 because it might be discounted soon - just my guess of course.

["Union printed in USA using 100% wind power and vegetable-based inks."]

As Zehra in Gloucestershire points out (from a Washington Times article), it does have a slightly creepy similarity to a poster from another time and from half way around the world.