Catholic church a fraud – we can all go home.

Well almost:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/24/wpio124.xml

Yes I know it’s another link to the Telegraph. I still find it's the best news website around, and once you mentally adjust two clicks to the left, it’s well balanced too.

Anyway, this is priceless for two reasons (three if you count Padre Pio’s undoubted ingenuity – straight out of Fight Club)

First off is the revelation that more Italians pray to Padre Pio than to Jesus, and the second is the riposte that these revelations – true or not – can be dismissed under the all encompassing cloak of papal infallibility:

Pietro Siffi, the president of the League, said: "We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility."

So that’s all right then.

In some ways this reminds me of the Larry Craig story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6998619.stm mainly because both share a strong denial theme.

Craig, who is no doubt advised by the brightest and the best of the Republican Party’s spin doctors, flatly denied that he was gay, on the basis, one must assume, that the spin doctors knew the American public would more readily accept a liar than a queer. At that neatly links a story about an Italian saint to the realisation that Americans expect their politicians to lie (and probably to cheat and steal at the same time).

Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped the US government from using this set of values as a solid foundation from which to export their brand of morality across the world, and why should it when, with a deft adjustment of the blinkers, one can hide behind the twin veils of self asserted infallibility and absolute denial?

Note: This isn’t actually supposed to be an Anti-American blog. I’ve met, worked and travelled with some top people who were also American. My sister is American. But when a target is that large it’s sometimes hard do avoid hitting it. Even if you didn’t aim in that direction.

SPF and all that

So this morning I start up my PC, and fire up my usual start-the-day apps. First is Dilbert, for there is no finer way to start the day than by looking in the mirror and seeing if you recognise who’s there. Next comes Angelsys – our job/life management database. Then Outlook.

Outlook has (and this isn’t a discussion) the best scheduling facilities there are in a PIM. The group collaboration facilities once it’s tied in to an Exchange server are simply unbeatable. And the code was written by a monkey with a hangover. As you are probably already aware, this is one application that gets slower each time you upgrade it, and even on the fastest quad-core beast-of-a-PC it grinds to a halt as soon as it needs to download mail from a POP server. This is, I assume, because of something called synchronous programming. In other words it can’t do two things at once. So instead of letting my check my diary while it polls for mail, I wait.

‘Downloading 26 of 384 messages’. Bugger.

Ten minutes later I’m able to start working. The huge volume of spam is mostly already in my Norton Spam Folder, but I’ve already guessed what the problem is this morning. Some scum bag for whom death is way too good is sending out penis enlargement invitations with my (spoofed) domain in the ‘from’ address.

The 384 mails are of course a special form of spam called DELIVERY FAILURE NOTICES, which lazy sysadmins send out because they:
1. have absolutely no idea of how to run a mail server, or:
2. don’t care how much disruption this causes ‘spoofees’ such as us, or they:
3. do it on purpose because they are bastards.

I really don’t understand why spam is still such a problem – it could be so easily solved. Here are a few suggestions:
1. The frivolous. We all get our penes (yep, that’s the plural) enlarged. Then they go away.
2. The angry. We find them and we kill them (my personal favourite)
3. The serious. We adehere to the SPF.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) works. Last year it cured the same problem I had with another domain overnight. SPF is a simple mechanism that allows a mail server to accept or reject mail according to whether its’ acknowledged as coming from the mail serve that is supposed to have sent it. In other words the mail server asks “was this from you?” ad if the answer is no then the mail is ignored. It’s better explained in detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework, but the problem is that it requires the support of the appropriate DNS record, and some of the amateurish operations just don’t support it.

Amateurish operations such as Network Solutions, who’s FAQ doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. And to think these guys once pretty much ran the internet. Shame on you.

In the meantime, if you fancy a bigger dick, or maybe just a casual bit of DOS practice it’s open season over at http://griltext.com/.

USA - USA - USA

So the US Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives has decided to declare the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a 'genocide'. Well, they should know all about genocide.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/11/wturkey111.xml

Before we start on the theme of glass houses, let's spend a few moments looking at this from Turkey's point of view.

1. This indefensible massacre happened in 1915, at which time most of the 'civilised' world was being thwarted at its own attempts at genocide by the inconvenient fact that the other side had guns and poison gas too.

2. In 1915 modern Turkey didn’t exist. The Ottoman Empire was superseded in the early 1920s by the modern Turkish republic, a secular and progressive government that looked to the West, not the East for it’s political lead. So are the children to atone for the sins of the fathers, even if they ousted said fathers in a popular revolution?

3. Let’s not even start on the Native Americans.

4. Whether the massacre was a state orchestrated attempt to systematically exterminate the Armenians as a people is still a matter of debate – until this is decided it cannot be officially labelled genocide (though I am reliably informed that whatever the outcome, the dead will remain dead)

This [misnomer] House of Representatives[/misnomer] committee is hardly representative – even George W Bush himself opposed the motion.

Yet again we see a privileged minority with an agenda driving US foreign policy. Remember the “With us or against us” speech? Clearly the Committee has clear views on where they wish to herd the Turks. Add to this the demonisation of Turkey that is being deviously pedalled by elements of the EU, and we can see a clear path (to the door) being shown to Turkey. And that path leads to another Islamic state, because it's no fun being a democracy in isolation when there's a top spot in a leading team on offer.

The point is that the Committee in question realise this. They realise that their own purposes (and pockets) are best served by creating and sustaining division. And there you have the full horror of the Orwellian vision. Keep us at war. Keep us sacred. And we may not even notice that suddenly we aren’t free any more.

Introduction

This blog has history. Ten years ago I was working for a large bank in Switzerland. As an expat life could be pretty frustrating - the Swiss do everything their way. So every morning - usually after putting the phone down on yet another obtuse conversation - I'd vent my feelings to my long suffering co-workers. One even christened this routine as the 11 O'clock rant.

Ten years on and I'm a different person. When I was young I thought I knew everything. Now I know that really I know very little, and the older I get the more I realise the depths of my (our) ignorance. I believe this is called wisdom. I’ve travelled the world and learned patience too. But every day something somewhere will remind me how stupid people can be, and how dangerous such people can become if they end up in a position of authority. If we don’t stop them – then one day they may be in charge. Or are they already there?