Counting

One of the responsibilities of an occupying power under the Geneva convention is to keep a record of all civilian casualties. The US has not done this during it's occupation of Iraq, citing among other things, difficulties in keeping a tally.

I don't think anyone expects such a record to be perfect, just an honest attempt to keep track. Claiming it's difficult is no excuse.

It may not even be that hard. Raed Jarrar has compiled a list of casualties during the war using the efforts of Iraqi volunteers.

Someone really wants to ask Bush or Cheney why this isn't being done.

Never mind eh

Domestic difficulties avoided then...

Domestic difficulties ahoy

Yes, after last nights football and the glorious exit of Germany Euro 2004 is that little bit closer to causing a little domestic strife. If England beat Portugal and Holland beat Sweden it's an Anglo-Dutch semi-final.

I've already made it clear that I'm not wearing the lucky orange cap should this come to pass...

Team of the tournament

What with Euro 2004 dominating my evenings at the moment I should probably write about it. By better two thirds was asking who I'd have as my team of the tournament the other night. Here's my guess....

In goal : Peter Czech, Czech Republic
Central Defence : Sol Campbel, England
Central Defence : Carvalho, Portugal
Right Back :
Left Back :

Central Midfield : Patrick Viera, France
Central Midfield : Pavel Nedved, Czech Republic
Right wing : Steven Gerard, England
Left Wing : Robert Pires, France

Centre Forward : Van Nistelroy, Holland
Centre Forward : Thierry Henri, France

On the bench are the wonderkids Wayne Rooney, Christian Ronaldo, and Joaquin plus Iker Cassilas and Cassano. I haven't seen Italy play yet, but from the response the press gave Cassano he must have been a bit good. Zidane's on the bench, partly cause Nedved was awesome against the Dutch, and partly cause any English manager would enjoy putting him on the bench right now...

The full back slots are still open. If you could give Gary Neville Ashley Cole's attacking ability or Cole Nevilles defensive skills they'd both be in. But you can't.

Quote of the day

"Aye. You see the problem is it's geniuses. It's a fine line being a genius and sometimes you can go over the top and become mental" Paul Gascoigne explains where he went wrong...

He might even be right.

Top song title

I'm not going to claim that the lyrics have any great merit or anything, but

I was a human bomb for the FBI
by
Zombina and the Skelletones

Is a fantastic name for a song. They're a punk band from Liverpool. Probably worth a look if they're playing near you.

iTunes

Apple have just launched iTunes for the UK, I heard it on internet radio. So I downloaded the software, rebooted the computer, connected to the store and...

I live in Holland.

Which is a shame, cause it looks good (if liable to ruin me forever). When iTunes first launched I checked it and a few other services out. My goal was to find 'For Your Love' by the Yardbirds. Back then they hadn't got round to adding late 60's rock n roll, now though it's there, if only you live in the right country :-(

Yahoo Mail gets desperate

Yahoo have just upgraded their email accounts to 100MB of storage (from 6) and are now letting people send emails upto 10 MB in size. There's also been some tweaking of the user interface.

Anyone would think Google's 1000MB of storage had got them rattled. The thing is 100MB still isn't enough. When I've had unlimited storage in the past I've blown through 100MB in no time. A few powerpoint files, word documents or (worst of all) psd files and 100MB doesn't look so good.

I'm not actually convinced Googles 1000MB is enough, but with Moores law allowing them to double the size every 18 months for free I think they'll be fine. Plus, once you get to 1000MB even the most parsimonius web user is going to accept that maybe it's time to start paying for storage.

Oh yeah, and I've got 738 spam messages since yesterday. Admittedly 99%+ of them get put in the bulk mail spam box automatically but still, you'd think they could stop this ever reaching me at all.

Cretins

'Nuff said

Pro Europe Rant

What is wrong with the morons who vote for UKIP? Or perhaps more to the point why hasn't anyone pointed out that the reason Europe is a good thing is that if we all join up we all get rich?

I wish to god Blair, Clarke and the rest would stop waffling about foreign policy benefits and suchlike and concentrate on the one big benefit of European integration and expansion. We get richer. Not just the Irish or the Portugese or the Poles or the other 'net debtor' nations, but places like England and Holland where I'm sitting now, the biggest 'net creditor' per capita end up ahead.

Its simple. We let the Poles sell us potatoes, cheaper than we can make them ourselves. With this money the Poles buy stuff we make that they couldn't afford otherwise. Into the bargain we get better potatoes and a nicer class of Vodka. What's not to like? This process repeats across thousands and thousands of products, the benefits of trade are huge.

It's thanks to Europe that Ireland is prosperous, something that must have helped the peace process there no end. It's thanks to Europe that all those Japanese car companies have put their factories in England. You think Nissan would be in Sunderland if they had to pay import taxes when they sold cars in France? Get real.

Sure there are plenty of other benefits to expanding Europe. Stability, law and order, foreign policy and so on all benefit, but the self obsessed little englanders who vote for out and out racists like Kilroy Silk and the rest of the middle class BNP are only going to respond to one message. Wave a fistful of poundnotes in their face - they're the loadsamoney throwbacks and someone should tell them that they're going to cost us all dear.

The Big Intervention

A really rather nice idea about civic participation in Democracy. Go join in.

Tony Blair is no longer the man to lead the Labour Party. Remember how happy you felt when he came to power? Remember the feeling that now, with the Tories out of the way things were going to be better - and that for a while they were.

Well, as cynicism about the Prime Minister mounts again, as a history of deals, fudged questions and wrong headed decisions stacks up against the good memories it's time to remember why other nations have term limits. There's no shortage of alternative candidates for the job - let one of them have a go.

Martin Lloyd

Been there, done that

MBA Blogs are becoming a lot more common these days. For the record I only know of one MBA blog that existed before mine and that was Adams. There was also a site of occasional essays about doing an MBA, this one from James, also at Oxford.

I was however the first one to finish :-)

That said, its great to see these blogs proliferating so fast. Less good is the fact that while Insead has several bloggers Oxford has still only had me...

New personal best

For the 2.5 mile circuit. Got it down to 16:27.3. Must check the distance again, cause if this really is 2.5 miles - or anything close to it, I'm flying. (by my own rather sluggish standards)

That's sub 6:40 miles. Can't be right.

OK, I've checked and it's about 2.3 miles (hard to be sure, we live right on the edge of the map and a small part of the route has to be guessed.)

Which makes 7:10 minute miles or thereabouts. I'm still rather pleased. It is quite frankly, quick enough. My tenuous goal at the moment is to do the dam to dam run in September which is 17k, so it's time to stop worrying about speed and focus on distance. If I can do the whole thing in 9 minute miles I'll finish in just over an hour and a half, which seems like a reasonable goal.