Sacreligious Publishing

Okay, I guess that unlike the 25,000¹ ravening bigots whipped into a fury of "peace and tolerance for their fellow man"^(TM), I have watched 'Fitna' and read 'Infidel'. There is some utter crap² around concerning these.

Now, it has to be said that all religions have their utter wackos. Ask any family planning clinic in the US 'Bible Belt'. Or somebody after a drink (or a game of golf) on the Western Isles on a Sunday. However, modern Islam does have its nutters more than a wee bit closer both to the mainstream and to the hairy edge than, for example, Tibetan Buddhists. (Ed notes: And a happy non-violent continuing anti-Olympic protest beating to you in the gulag near Lhasa! And best of British for your protest in SanFran - you ought to have a more favourable policing atmosphere than you did in the Euro-statist capitals of Paris or London.)

Well, Infidel was not a nice story. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has not had a quiet and easy life. An impoverished upbringing of tribal brutality in exile. A violent mother out of place in modern³ society. Endless misogyny and female circumcision⁴. Much of this seemed to be post hoc justified in Islam - but like just the burka, these are tribal customs enforced through female acquiescence to patriarchal stupidity. I was cured of this by reading Germaine at a suitably impressionable age. Islam didn't come out of her childhood too badly - her adults came out appallingly - mother, grandmother (especially) father, brother - a fairly uniform bunch of oxygen thieves. Now, once she was a free adult in the Netherlands, then the 'Religion of Peace' showed its real (ugly) form. It is a good, albeit fundamentally disturbing (especially, I suspect, if you are a sexually active female) book - buy it or borrow it, but read it. If it doesn't make you think then you are probably a nu-Lab PPS.

'Fitna' was a damp squib. Nothing new, nothing particularly interesting. A simple documentary on fundamentalist extremism in Europe would have done the trick, without the political kudos. No mention of Saudi (although I did spot at least one Saudi sheik amongst the rabid), Salafism or Wahabbi. 15 minutes of the best of the Quran, the successful amongst Islamist terrorists and crowds incited to foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Semitism. We get that on the news - even al-Beeb carries that sort of hysteria. Watch it - just because people want to ban it and that is, of itself, a bad thing⁵. Many thanks to Liveleak for carrying it - I appreciate the sheer aggro you went through with all the mindless nut-jobs and the intimidation.

The last word.



1. It's nice to see there are some commonalities in modern policing - 100,000 according to the organisers.

2. Exodus, Samuel, Psalms. And this is an angry response about Christians. Well educated in the 'good book', then. New covenant, anybody? 'Sermon on the Mount', going cheap?

3. Geek moment. Mine is /was an AS400 Sysadmin. Zero cool points for the Tux generation!

4. This is the wrong word. Male 'circumcision' involves removing a small bit of skin on the end of your knob that, frankly (and I speak as one with one) doesn't seem to serve that much of a purpose. And I get the hygiene point. As opposed to removing the clitoris, the labia (various) and whatever else gets in the way of the knife. 'Castration' isn't the right word either. But it's closer.

5. I've read 'Mein Kampf'. It's a terrible book - huge, turgid and vile. The 'John Prescott' of literature. But it is an important book - it shaped a large part of the last century and is still significant now. Which is why it should be available to be read. Along with "Animal Farm', 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'. Both of which are (much) shorter and (vastly) better written.

"Black Swan"

I picked up a copy of Nassim Taleb's 'Black Swan' at the airport on Friday. Interesting book with some basic and difficult to argue with premises:

• The 'normal' or 'Gaussian' probability distribution curve is only ever, at best, an approximation to reality.
• Although there are some aspects of reality for which it is a reasonably good approximation (human height and weight are both examples mentioned), there are many things out there for which it is a terrible approximation.
• Where it is a terrible approximation, it is normally underestimating the probabilities of "tail" events - unlikely disasters or triumphs.
• Where a terrible probability approximation is used to mechanistically calculate for outcomes with high impacts, 'bad things' ™ may happen.

Although the example he regularly uses for a variable which has a long and significant tail is human earnings or wealth, where he considers that some version of a power law distribution is in force, his money has been made from using this understanding to predict high risk events in the financial markets.

How can you make money from this? By taking it from others through insurance or hedging. If you know (or can place a damn good guess of) the real likelihood and impact of one of his 'Black Swan' events, and everybody else grossly underestimates them, you are not going to need to spend as much as you would if their actuaries were up to speed (this doesn't apply to high-ish probability events where the actuaries just look up the number of events and the assessed costs). You can then take the upside of the event happening or not and transfer the risk of the downside to somebody who understands it less well.

Overall - I would recommend this book for anybody interested in the financial markets and how people manage to get paid quite so much for doing quite so badly. I would note, as a mild warning, that it will be a bit too mathematical for many - although he does try to flag this and allow you to skip those bits. Personally, I will try his "Fooled by Randomness" when I see a copy although I would recommend Tim Harford's "Logic of Life" for an even more sideways look at 'homo economicus'.

An Excellent Publication

I have spent the start of my lunch-time reading the Centre for Policy Studies' utterly brilliant "The 2008 Lexicon - A guide to contemporary Newspeak". Available here (don't be discouraged that you appear to have to pay for it - the PDF is free, printed is a fiver). Get it, read it and laugh.

I'll give you two as a taster:

People: the Government. “The People’s Budget”; “The People’s Europe”; “The People’s Government”, “The People’s Honours”, “The People’s Lottery”, “The People’s Millennium”, “The People’s Money”, “The People’s Priorities” etc.

&

Social (eg social investment; social entrepreneur; social capital, social responsibility): “If you put the word ‘social' in front of any serious word, you reduce it almost to meaninglessness." F E Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 1973.

Or, of course, as in "social democrat".

Two Good Books

Well, these were both "read until you're finished". Admittedly, one of those was being read while I was waiting for a delayed Sleazyjet flight at Gatwick so ...

(Mohamm)Ed Husain, has been a member of an number of Islamist militant organisations, culminating in a position in Hizb ut-Tahrir - a weird bunch of coves that we seem to be the only country on God's green or sandy Earth don't realise are a militant terrorist nut-job collective. His book is the interesting journey from a bright young schoolboy to remarkably close to being a terrorist - and certainly being a terrorist sympathiser - and back to being a true believer in the "Religion of Peace".

This is an utterly remarkable book - comparable to the "Anarchist's Cookbook" and the original "2600" samizdat copies. It is but competently written however remains wholly engrossing. We see the techniques used to prize young Muslim men away from their families; the techniques used to force the politically correct British establishment into allowing a fascist regime to establish itself in its midst; the gradual journey back to an orthodox Quranic faith. Jamal really ought to read it but I suppose he would just declare it haram and go back to his hate-mongering.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed this. Dan seems to have escape Simon's battle to throttle comment (this and other blogs passim) - he actually praises Director Public Relations (Army) on the dedications page. Some of the aspects of the siege of Cimic House have been written about before - (then) Pte Johnson Beharry won his VC for actions on this tour and it has also been covered in Richard Holmes "Dusty Warriors", however this is a compelling eye-witness account from a Senior NCO who was there for almost the whole period of the significant action - covering the pull-out of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the to-and-fro battles with the Mehdi Army and their commanders in the OMS and leaving just before the handover to the Iraqi authorities. Sgt Mills doesn't like Al Amarah; he, like many Sergeants, is sceptical of his officers but extremely positive about the good ones and, like so many of his rank in wars gone past, clearly the backbone of the British Army. He cares for his men (and, with one exception, seems to really like them) and is rewarded by loyalty and bravery in the fight.

The unique point of view of the commander of the snipers allows a further priveleged account of the trials and tribulations of the battle - the changes in RoE (Rules of Engagement) and how they were exploited by the Iraqis and the care necessary when fighting in a built up area. Read this book - with one caveat - it is slightly over a tenner from Amazon, you may wish to wait for the paperback.

A Rather British Conceit

With all of the fuss currently in the press about US General Jack Keane's opinions about the British tactical 'failure' in Basra, it is appropriate that I have just finished General Sir Michael Rose, KCB, CBE, DSO, QGM's book "Washington's War" about the American strategic failure in Iraq as a whole.

Although the cover suggests otherwise, this is not really "A Tale of Two Georges" - the adventures and tribulations of George Washington and his fellow revolutionary generals, including Osama's predecessor as the hate figure for all rootin' tootin' apple-pie eatin' Yankees, Benedict Arnold, are covered in detail but if anybody from the Bush administration gets rocketing, it is Donald Rumsfeld and, to a lesser extent, General Tommy Franks. There are interesting moments of comparison between George III and George Bush, a detailed history of the War of Independence and some insights into the difficulties of peace-keeping against a counter-insurgency movement in modern times.

In retrospect, the destruction of Fallujah in 2004 probably represented as great a strategic disaster for the Americans as the destruction of Fairfield and Newhaven had been for the British

The direct equating of the Continental Army with the Iraqi insurgencies (and the state militias with their Iraqi tribal and religious counterparts) is not going to make it comfortable reading for gung-ho supporters of the war in Iraq, nor is the comparison of the British Army and politicians in the 1770's with their modern American counterparts.

This is a short, scholarly and, overall, interesting book. At £14.99 (or £10.49 from Amazon) in hardback, it is currently one for the military historian or enthusiast rather than a more general (no pun intended) reader, who may wish to wait for the paperback.

A Tale of Two Books

In amongst my extended reading on holiday and the Pottermania of the recent several weekends ago (apologies, this post has been some time in the drafting), I have read a couple of interesting books with a couple of themes in common: they are both by bloggers, without being the usual re-tread of the blog: - Rachel North and Rogue Gunner; and they both deal with traumatic events, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and survivor guilt. (Ed notes - that is a "g" in "guilt". I know it looks like a "q" but it ain't! I suppose a "survivor quilt" is the sort of thing the Yanks put together as a community from time to time.)

So, the books:

"Out of the Tunnel" - describes Rachel's hideous experience with, and recovering from, firstly stranger rape and attempted murder, with the ensuing prosecution and court appearances, and, the very day an article about the rape was published, narrowly missing death during the 7th July London terrorist bombings.

This is an extremely well written book, especially for a first-time author. It helps that Rachel has a clear writing style (possibly a result of her previous career) and is a very sympathetic protagonist - strong-minded and rational, and a wholly innocent victim in both cases. Don't pick this book up hoping for an easy read - it really isn't a beach book, the subject matter is too serious - but it is an extremely worthwhile one. Me being a sentimental git, it does help that it turns out all right in the end: Rachel married her beau J earlier this year and, despite numerous other tribulations (here, thankfully over, and here, still ongoing, for example) is successfully back on track. An excellent book, all in all, read it yourself and make up your mind. I have to just hope that Rachel's life doesn't continue to give her sufficient grief to justify the sequel.

"Watching Men Burn" is a book of a completely different breed. The main reason this review is delayed is that I wanted to be as positive as possible about it, something I must admit, as you will see, that I found really hard. There are a number of cuts against it: it is one of the admittedly many military memoirs that take the view "all officers are bastards", which was hardly going to endear it to me and Tony is, as he readily admits not the most sympathetic character. It starts with a gritty description of life as a Junior Leader (now replaced by the Army Foundation College - interestingly with a Gunner CO at the moment). The bit I found most interesting (and I thought best written, but that may just be bias), covered Tony's experiences as a teenager Rapier operator in the Falklands War. The critical incident for him in this, as the title and cover show, was the bombing of RFA Sir Galahad, an incident that cost 48 lives. An equipment malfunction had prevented him from shooting down the lead attacking Skyhawk (having said that, the third plane's bombs also hit the Galahad, so even a fully functioning system would probably only reduced the loss of life.)

The last third of the book covers Tony's mental disintegration under PTSD, including a volunteer spell (still with the Army) in Northern Ireland, a descent into alcohol abuse, the catastrophic effect on his relationships, and his eventually failed battle with the MOD for proper treatment as a wounded veteran.

If you are a Falklands historian, this is a significant contribution to the eye-witness account. If you are in the military, this shows you, if you hadn't already seen it happen to your friends and colleagues, what can happen when it all goes horribly wrong. I didn't really like it, as you may have gathered, but your mileage may vary.

S-E