Greenpeace confronts the Whalers

There are some days I'm pretty damn proud to work where I do.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/whalers-found

This is one of them. If you'd seen the huge amount of effort it takes to make something like this happen, the sheer effort involved in finding a fleet of ships in somewhere as huge as the antarctic ocean.

Go get em guys!

Because they'd publish if they had nothing to hide

I will publish the bomb al jazeera memo if 100 other people will

Or something like that. I actually will publish it if no other people will, but Pledge bank doesn't have an option for that.

Agile Experiences

So after a pretty good pitch process I've found myself working with a company called ThoughtWorks, who are very good at what they do, and rather keen on agile methodologies.

Agile's an interesting thing. It's got devotees who are nothing short of religious and on account of it's reliance on eXtreme Programming (XP) practices it's got something of a rebel edge to it. Documents like this one can be somewhat unnerving at times.

My early experiences of Agile were largely negative, and I assumed that it was a convenient way for programmers to cover up lousy project management and poor client handling. This turned out to be more to do with the practitioners I was talking to being lousy at project management and client handling than any shortcomings of their methodologies. Confronted with problems I'd get the response that 'this is agile' and that I should stop asking inconvenient questions like 'are you doing anything' and focus on the ideas.

My new experiences of agile go a bit like this.

It's not a religion but it helps to be religious about it
If you're going to buy into a methodology buy the whole thing. This goes for business process re-engineering, six sigma quality, Prince 2, lean manufacturing and pretty much every major methodology around. You can't be a 'little bit six sigma', you can't be committed to constant process improvement 'some of the time' and if you're going to run your project on Agile methods you can't expect them to co-exist with more traditional ones.

It's not process or documentation light
In fact to do Agile properly (and I'm sure we could do it better) involves putting in place a lot more low level routine processes than most software project management. You can't do it without source control, you can't do it without daily meetings, you can't do it without written tests for everything - starting with 'is there a homepage', you can't do it without a great big list of stories which require about as much effort to write and update as any specification I've been involved in.

The difference is that these processes are constant, low level and baked into the way of working. It's not about 'do the process then do the work', it's about 'the process is the work'. I suspect that this, coupled with the fact that Agile forces people to use good programming habits (lots of testing, small chunks at a time) explains most of it's productivity benefits.

It takes good people to stick with it
A lot of the discussions about Agile have suggested that it wouldn't work for average or below average programmers. I suspect this isn't true. I suspect that there comes a point where all that baked in process stops looking useful because you know it would be quicker to 'just get on with it'. I think the self control to avoid doing that comes from a deeper understanding of your job and what it involves than most people have - the same thing that makes some graphic designers good and others merely competent, or turns an accountant from someone who can do the books into someone you'd ask for business advice.

Agile is for people who think about how to write good software, not because they're paid to, but because they want to.

It's still too early to tell how this particular Agile experiment is going. So far the signs are good, but it will be a huge amount of work to shift all our projects onto this development process, and Agile is a very intense way of doing things - not necessarily suited to running 8 projects through a team of five or six people. It's also not something all our suppliers could or would want to do. But it's got a lot of potential, and so far I like it.

(Google) bombs away!

Traitor

Greenpeace activists shot at and beaten in the Philippines

Just what the headline says. The activists were in the process of hanging some banners from a power plant calling for clean energy when security fired a shot, and then dragged some of them off for a beating. One was beaten unconscious with a metal bar, several are in hospital.

There's an account of the action at the campaign weblog

The best thing to do is listen to this audio update from the scene

Photos are coming soon to Greenpeace.org (this happened very early in the morning) but the good folks at Getty have the press images.

Several activists have been hospitalised, but as far as we know there were no broken bones and none of the injuries are life threatening.

Sanity!

And by a large margin as well.

Lets hope that's the high water mark for our current push for a police state. Next on the liberty lovers hit list - ID cards.

Nothing to see in Uzbekistan

Unless you think watching a human rights activist being tortured with mind altering drugs is a problem.

Stuff on Uzbekistan from Amnesty

And a chance to do something about it

People to meet, things to do

There was a veritable cavalcade of interesting folk through the office last week. In no particular order we met with

Zimbra, they of the fantastic email demo thing. It should be noted incidently that the demo is staggeringly feature rich, and does far more than I realised. One of the best bits is a thing that picks regular expressions out of messages (say invoice numbers, or addresses) and can then interrogate other internal or external sources for more information, and display it as a tooltip within the email.

We also met with CivicActions, a very interesting bunch of people from the States, who seem to be mapping out a new way of working for an IT company. One that is much more about relationships, people and communities than it is about contracts and specifications. We're keen to do more with them (and have told them so).

One immediate fruit of talking to CivicActions was talking to Driess, the chap behind the Drupal content management system. Like all good software developers he's still finishing his Phd. which does lead to slightly odd meetings. He's also Belgian, which is odd only because Drupal adoption seems to be a largely American affair.

We also met with an IBM partner (I've forgotten the name) to talk about a possible outsourcing options (v interesting) and I think that was it. On top of all that I've just finished running my first ever tender process from the buyers side (I've been on the sales side a lot). Always nice to hear that you've written 'the best RFP document we've ever seen' - from three different firms. I wonder if that's a sales trick I should have been using back in the day...

The end result is a fantastic developer lined up for a fantastic project. ThoughtWorks are a company I was amazed to find were actually interested in the project on offer, and they were able to convince us that while they're not cheap - they're very very good. Also means I have to get to grips with the all new, shiny Agile Methodology. Should be fun.

Things to see and do

If a tree falls in Papua New Guinea (because it's been cut down by an illegal logger) is shipped to China, made in to furniture and then shipped into Europe as having been legally logged and you complained would anybody hear it?

Find out

Voting on the Iraqi constitution

The voting on the Iraqi constitution has apparently gone well, in that many people voted. I'm trying to find figures to compare turnout in this election and the previous one, but it's not easy.

This is mostly because the provisional figures released so far seem a bit all over the map. This morning Juan Cole was blogging about possible fraud in Nineveh because of the allegedly strong yes vote in a province that was expected to split roughly 50/50.

His comments seem to be based on the numbers given by Yahoo

NINEVAH (Mosul)

• Yes: 326,774, (78 percent)

• No: 90,065, (21 percent)

• Disqualified votes: 2,965 (less than 1 percent)

• Votes counted: 419,804 votes, from 475 of the 500 polling stations counted so far. (Turnout percentage unknown.)

CNN however are reporting a different set of numbers

"A senior Iraqi official said on Monday that while 424,00 of the province's 778,000 voters said "No" to the charter, this fell short of the two thirds necessary to reject it."

These numbers could both be accurate, but only if the uncounted 25 polling stations Yahoo reported had 300 000 voters between them or 12 000 each, which seems unlikely.

The basic point I'm trying to make is that the numbers coming out of the preliminary counts are not reliable. The same sort of thing happened during the first election. In the circumstances it's probably better if officials on the ground keep their mouths shut until they have some solid news to report.

The rumour mill will inevitably lead to allegations of vote rigging when the revised numbers are reported, especially if (as looks likely) two provinces have voted no by more than 2/3rds with Nineveh more or less tied. The extremists will find plenty of people willing to believe the ballot in Nineveh was rigged.

One thing that does seem to be suggested by the numbers is that the pattern of voting has changed significantly. Continuing with Nineveh province... The Wikipedia states that there were 165 000 voters in January (assuming those who voted in the national election also voted in the local one). This suggests that the residents of Nineveh have become much more likely to vote.

However even with what is widely reported as a surge in Sunni participation the overall turnout is apparently barely higher this time than in January. Since Sunni's make up 20% of Iraq it seems that for every ten new Sunni participants the process has lost about eight other Iraqi's. This could be because in provinces where the overwhelming majority are going to vote yes many people feel they're not going to bother. Or it could be because some people have lost faith in the government. I expect it's a bit of both.

Problems and Perspective

Now terrorists and criminals aren't really like for like. But it's good to see the Dutch police cracking down on both. Compare and contrast

Grenades and Flamethrowers

Attacks on the Government

All of which makes me think that

a) Islamic radicals aren't the only worrying people at large in Holland
b) The Dutch police seem to be doing a decent job

Great Books for Children

Well OK, so far there's only one. My former housemate and great friend Frances' Fly By Night but I promise you it's great.

And she's got a contract for another three. But don't take my word for it, try reading this

Football Finance

By and large I've been impressed by Simon Jordan's columns for the Guardian. His latest though doesn't make much sense. Here are a couple of key quotes

"'fans pay the players' wages', but fans need to know gate receipts don't come anywhere near doing that. This whole debate needs to refocus on one thing: salaries and their effect on club budgets. It's an unsustainable business structure - you wouldn't see it anywhere else - but it's a situation clubs created, and one we have to deal with."

He then gives three main points to explain the position.

1. If you've got a bigger stadium you can charge less. That's why Real Madrid are cheaper than Chelsea (their stadium is twice the size)

2. Football is good value compared to theatre

3. If you buy a season ticket things get cheaper. Those who want to pick their matches should pay for the privilege.

None of these points explain why football clubs need to charge so much, when they could be trying to cut wages. To address the points in the easiest order

2. Football is good value compared to theatre
- but lousy value compared to the Cinema or a Playstation 2. The point is that's not the market they're in. Few people say 'Crickey, £45 to see Chelsea vs West Brom, I think I'll nip down the West End and see what's on at the Old Vic'. A football club's competition is a) football on TV, b) other leagues of football c) rugby, cricket, athletics - and it's lousy value compared to all of them.

3. If you buy a season ticket things get cheaper
I have a certain sympathy for this one, right up to the point where he writes "If Selhurst Park held 80,000 and I knew I was going to fill it every week I could charge £5 for an adult. But it doesn't: we hold 27,000, and it never fills."

Right. So the walk in, casual fan isn't wanted because he wants to pay less than the current price. Never mind that the marginal cost of an extra fan is presumably close to 0 (the amount of cost incurred when attendance rises from 21345 to 21346) and any money earned is additional profit (or lower losses). Easyjet have made clear how easy it is to sell tickets at variable prices. I'm sure football fans would do the same - x on the door, a bit less a few days in advance, a lot less some months in advance and so on.

1. If you've got a bigger stadium you can charge less
Or to put it another way. If you've got a bigger stadium you can afford more in wages, which brings better players which fills the bigger stadium. It's a virtuous circle which starts by 'playing good football and winning games'. If Madrid charged £45 a stadium their attendances would fall. If attendances fall by more than the price increase they lose money and the circle goes into reverse - falling receipts, lower wages, worse players, lower attendances, falling receipts... They don't charge £28 out of the goodness of their own hearts, they charge £28 because after that profit starts to drop.

The point Jordan doesn't want to make is that entire divisions of clubs pushed wages up to ridiculous levels and no-one wants to be the first to cut them. I was impressed that Southampton had massive pay cuts written into their players contracts in the event of relegation. If they manage to come back up they should make sure they use the opportunity to keep the wages lower.

Sunderland hammered their wage bill after their relegation as an alternative to bankruptcy. They're now back in the Premiership with an awful squad and will probably go back down. But if they start spending big money they'll probably be down anyway, and they certainly won't be making a profit. Better a few years of profitable yo-yoing while they wait for reality to catch up with a few more clubs than a season or two of mid-table survival and the arrival of the recievers.

It's no coincidence that 'big clubs' tend to have big stadiums. At clubs like Newcastle or Liverpool it's not true to say that ticket sales don't cover the wages. Wages at these clubs tend to be around 50% of costs while ticket prices are close to 50% of revenues. They're still too high, if I was in Jordan's position I'd be pushing pay for performance, share options and schemes like EVA payments which delay payment for a few years to increase loyalty. It might mean settling for a weaker aquad in the short term, but if the game keeps going the way it is there will be few clubs with strong balance sheets around in 3-5 years (there aren't many now) and a well run profitable business could clean up - at the bank and in the transfer market.

Good stuff in Chile

In the absence of any other information on this than this article I'd say this sounds like a fine idea.

Become a multi-millionaire, buy vast amounts of land, let it return to it's natural state.

I'll try and find out if anyone at work knows any more about this. Seems like our kind of guy.

The media stirs

The BBC has picked up on the UN's decision to try and talk the Iraqi government out of changing the rules ahead of the referendum. Full story here.

Meanwhile on CNN filed in the 'other things happened in Iraq' section of this story we learn that the rule change may have happened last week.

"Parliament voted last week to change how that law would be interpreted. The new rule would require opponents to get two-thirds of registered voters to vote no, instead of two-thirds of ballots cast, the source said"

Come on guys, it's not like this happened in one of the bits of Iraq it's hard to report on. It happened in Parliament, which I'm pretty sure announces it's decisions.

Meanwhile I still don't understand why they even tried this in the first place. Most of the smart money seems to think that the Sunni will only manage a no vote in two provinces, not three. Or maybe the constitution isn't as popular as the western media have been suggesting. I have no idea.

Zimbra

Got shown the Zimbra demo at work today.

One of those web changing moments, when you see a technology and realise that you know what things are going to be looking like for the next few years.

Return of the Phantom

Despite yesterday's events in Iraq the major media outlets have spectacularly failed to cover it. Odd, since it seems to be the biggest thing to hit the country since the constitution was drafted - and that got loads of press.

Anyway, on the constitution itself I found my way to these posts by Riverbend who highlights the fact that an awful lot of the constitution is made up of grey areas.

It seems inevitable that the constitution will immediately be followed by a merger of the three Kurdish provinces (this has effectively happened already) who will then be able to produce their own constitution and raise their own army (these things have pretty much happened too). During the first round of elections in Iraq the Kurds organised a parallel referendum on independence which passed resoundingly. I wonder if they'll decide to stay inside Iraq in the near term, or immediately seek to break free and whether they'll claim Kirkuk if they do.

In exchange for not having to fight *another* war it's possible the resulting government in Baghdad might let them go, but whatever happens it's unlikely to be pretty.

The odd thing is that as far as I know a Kurdish state would be a pretty secular place - the kind of Islamic democracy that was originally envisaged for Iraq as a whole. On the other hand, it will be potentially ethnically riven depending on how the Arabs and Turkmen living in the three provinces feel about it - probably not good.

The flip side of this is the possibility of large, heavily islamic provinces emerging in the South of Iraq. These areas would come to resemble Iran, with the big losers being women, secular moderates, non-Islamic groups and perhaps most worryingly the Sunni minorities in these areas.

That leaves the rest of Iraq as Baghdad plus the Sunni provinces. A weak centre surrounded by antagonistic regions, the North having declared virtual independence and the south exercising a theocratic hold over what was once a secular city. The economy will suffer until the oil revenues start flowing creating the kind of narrow industrial base that makes elites rich and keeps the rest poor.

Not too clever really. Especially if any of these traumatic uphevals make the violence worse.

The Phantom Election

Maybe it's just me, but I've heard barely a whisper of the coming Iraqi referendum on the news. Odd, because there's a chance that the whole assembly > constitution > referendum > elections > democracy process could fall apart.

I'm going to leave that opening paragraph because I thought it was true I've just gone to check for news updates and I find this (posted about an hour ago)

I was planning to write a much longer post on this, but this kind of throws things into the air. It is in effect a coup by the Parliament against the law it operates under. Having done this, there is nothing at all to stop the Parliament passing the constitution by itself, or cancelling forthcoming elections or well anything it feels like. It's a powergrab, by which the ruling parties have pushed through their constitution in a move clearly intended to disenfranchise those opposed to it.

Now there is the point that the Parliament was elected, but Parliaments exist by the sufferance of the people and are expected to do what they're entrusted to do and no more. The Transitional Adminstrative Law deliberately kept the Parliament weak by limiting it's term (till the November elections) and it's remit (agree a constitution, reconstitute government). This certainly isn't what it was elected to do.

So what is this likely to mean for the aforementioned assembly > constitution > referendum > elections > democracy process ? My ten cents is that it makes it much less likely that the process will result in peace, or even a curtailment of the insurgency. I can't believe that there will be anything other than a boycott of the constitutional referendum in the Sunni provinces now. Their only remaining option is to deny the vote legitimacy by witholding their support. When you agree to a political process you assume that all parties will play by the rules - that seems to have gone out of the window with this.

I suspect that this sets Iraq onto a longer and darker course than it was on previously, if such a thing is possible. If the Iraqi Parliament see this through it will deepen the insurgency, providing a legitimate grievance to a vast swathe of the nation who so far have not sympathised with the armed opposition.

Take a look

There's a lot to like here

Aahhh

It's the last paragraph that scares me

The Zombies are Coming

What a good idea

Demonstrate against the Uzbek Massacres

Who'd have thought a regime that routinely tortures people and brutalises it's subjects might turn out bad. I'm shocked, and I'm sure Jack Straw is too.

Free the GE Two

Well, they haven't gone to jail yet, but it'd be terrible if they did. Two activists who did nothing more than expose the failure of Thailands government to enforce it's own laws are now facing the prospect of jail time, and a politically motivated prosecution.

Fortunately you can do something

DIY Xenophobia

It's a far cry from the work of Saatchi and Saatchi back in Thatchers glory days. The current Tory ad campaign is like some kind of sick black tar, coughed out of the lungs of middle england to hang dribbling on the pavement for the rest of us to step in.

Fortunately we can rewrite it ourselves thanks to this build your own Tory poster website.

Here's my effort. I like to think it distills the Tory campaign down to it's essence. Boils things right down to the nitty gritty so to speak.



Sadly I can't take credit for the copy. Click the image to see where I pilfered it from.

Craig Murray Could Win

I'm not sure he will, but just like Martin Bell in his white suit if he did, it would be a good thing. Not least because he'd be another blogging MP.

Read about what he's up to at www.craigmurray.org.uk/

See the flames, higher and higher

Things at Ice Station Reindeer have taken a decided turn for the weird (again). The Finnish Loggers who are objecting to Greenpeace's presence through the bizarre 'anti-terror info centre' have been resorting to ever more bizarre intimidation tactics.

Burning crosses, air raid sirens and now the driving of a big, dangerous tree harvester through our camp. Elsewhere we've seen 'Greenpeace = Al Queda' signs and 'Fuck FSC' banners (FSC is a certification scheme for sustainably farmed wood - a friend of mine in the paper industry tells me there's massive demand for it and a global shortage. You'd think people would be scrambling to produce it...)

You can see the decidedly Blair Witch style movies we've recorded of all this here

and an account of what's been going on - with added photographs here

How things change

I swear, it's the labour party who've moved, not me

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -6
Conservative -57
	Liberal Democrat 83
UK Independence Party -22
	Green 50

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

New Greenpeace Blog

The Arctic Seas tour has kicked off at work. They're working to ensure that the Norweigan Governments plan to introduce an integrated management plan for their coastal areas isn't watered down. Expect lots of community work and talking with local fishermen.

Read about it at The Arctic Seas Weblog

One place where we're finding it slightly harder to talk with the local fishermen is Ulsan in Korea, where our Come Back Whale's campaign is facing threats from the local Korean Fishermen.

Iraq Vox Pops

There's a broad selection of views on this page from the BBC. Worryingly though they all give the impression that if a strong-man were to come along and promise to crack down on terrorism, play the nationalist card and so on there'd be a real chance of a new dictatorship.

Maybe not, but if these interviews are representative then the new government of Iraq had better focus on delivering things quickly, before Iraqi's start to lose faith in their elected officials.

(Not?) Cricket

For reasons I can't be bothered to go into the idea that any game of cricket will inevitably be won by the side with the best character is one I rather like.

Hence this challenge to MPs ahead of the election rather appeals to me. Don't debate, don't talk policies, just show us how you play the game.

Only in England.

State of the Art

I've just been introduced to AJAX, not the football club, but Asynchronous Javascript And XML. There's a very good essay on AJAX here from the people who came up with the name. Unusually for technology they're not the same people who came up with the idea - indeed it's not clear who did since it's really just plugging a number of existing technologies together in a new and interesting way.

Plus it's named after a football team - or maybe a Greek hero. Either way it's cool.

Another non-miracle

This story on CNN suggests that China is going through exactly the same labour+capital=growth process I talk about below.

If the new higher estimate is accepted as a consensus we can expect oil prices to drift up a little further. It also does very bad things to predictions about Chinese emissions of CO2.

Corruption

High levels of corruption are almost always indicative of low economic growth. The Iraqi economy is currently flat on it's back thanks to invasion and insurgency, but as the post WWII Japanese economy shows with a sufficiently large infusion of capital that can be overcome. Simply put if you have an economy with lots of labour but little capital you can get a lot of growth quickly by levelling the mix off. These events are usually trumpeted as economic miracles - they're not, they're exactly what you'd expect in this situation.

However Iraq's chance to go through this process (which would only undo some of the damage done) may be endangered by high levels of corruption. Capital just won't go to places where it won't enjoy a return - and if system wide corruption takes hold in Iraq there'll be precious little reason to invest at all.

Climate Change

It's happening everywhere.

Victory for common sense?

Tony Blair's latest round of scaremongering, liberty curtailing legislation has been thrown out by the Lords. It's outrageous that an unelected chamber packed with political appointees is a better safeguard of our democracy than the elected chamber which supposedly represents the people.

The guardian has the details.

Too good not to link

300 Days of Demonstration

There's a place in Japan called Okinawa, and just off the coast of Okinawa live some of the last Dugong in Japan. Sadly this is where the US has decided to build a new airbase - despite the opposition of local residents who overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.

So for 300 days the locals have been resisting the construction - occupying the proposed site (offshore, on a coral reef) - it's the kind of thing that deserves anyone's support. Especially yours.

Boxes and Arrows

Have just been introduced to Boxes and Arrows which appears to hold a great deal of good thinking about usability and information architecture related issues.

In other usability news Jakob has announced his top intranet's for 2005(surely 2004?), which means my current project will have to wait for the 2006 awards. I've been involved in one award winning project before, and this time round I've had lots of experience working with one of the winners. (pre-redesign). I can only assume that the redesign made it a lot better.

What I do

I've just read this little piece by Om Malik, and was pleased to note that in a month's time I'll have brought into Greenpeace all the things he praises the BBC for having.

Discussion groups - check
Social networking tools - check
Blogs for all - check
Wicki - OK, no Wicki

But... the BBC are still looking for a good RSS aggregator. Mine is built in from the bottom up.

Not bad for six months of work.

More on the Doctor

Chris Locke, who's new job as Chief Blogging Officer for Highbeam Corporation seems to have dragged him back to some kind of lucidity has this to say on Hunter S Thompson.

For my money I thought Locke's Gonzo Marketing was a good book that got eaten by it's own stylistic posturing. The best bits (on permission marketing and/as spam) were great, much of the rest though had been said better elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the folks at Goats remind us of this fantastic episode

Meanwhile it seems Hunter's last wishes are going to be observed

Quick Observation

When on MTV news they say 'Meanwhile in the real world' they actually mean 'Meanwhile in The Real World', but you have no way of telling.

Pop culture may be seriously messing with some people's ideas about the state of the world.

Woke up this morning got yourself a gun

Right now there are probably some people out there asking why it took him so long. Personally I'm inclined to think it was Nixon's fans in the Ku Klux Klan, or GW's flunkies carrying out one more insane mission for their increasingly deranged boss. Hell, it could even have been Clinton, a man who's never quite forgiven Hunter for all those things he said. Especially the one's about Chelsea.

Monkey gone to heaven

Since I started working for Greenpeace certain song lyrics have taken on a bit more meaning. Like these

There was a guy
an under water guy who controlled the sea
got killed by ten million pounds of sludge
from New York and New Jersey
This monkey's gone to heaven

The creature in the sky
got sucked in a hole
now there's a hole in the sky
and the ground's not cold
and if the ground's not cold
everything is gonna burn
we'll all take turns
i'll get mine, too
This monkey's gone to heaven

If man is five
Then the devil is six
And if the devil is six
Then god is seven

This monkey's gone to heaven

Good isn't it? Plus I've just bought Doolittle, and it's a damn fine album. Indeed as the customer reviews on Amazon make clear, it's also one of the most influential records of the last twenty years.

The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

Once, long ago I wrote that shareholder value threatened to remove all morality from business life. This was of course heresy since I was at business school at the time, but Oxford is the heretics business school of choice so I was OK.

Joel Bakan was apparently thinking on the same lines as I was when he wrote 'The Corporation : The pathological pursuit of profit and power' which is a serious look at the moral consequences of the doctrine of shareholder value. To wit "Companies must always act to maximise profits". Aside from the first chapter 'The Corporations Rise to Dominance' which rather overstates the influence of the corporation (principally because in most areas of life corporations don't act as a single group) the book is a well constructed and solidly argued investigation of its subject.

Although Joel mentions the possibilty of a world without corporations his final policy prescriptions are actually pretty straightforward and middle of the road. He advocates

Improved regulation : Staffing regulatory agencies at realistic levels and increasing the fines they can levy

Strengthening Political Democracy : More restrictions on politicians / civil servants going straight from government to industry posts related to their previous occupation and other reforms like Proportional Representation in the voting process.

A robust civil sphere : Clear 'no go' areas for corporations, like schools, nature reserves and so on.

Challenge International Neo Liberalism : Broadly speaking this is a call for the institutions set up at Bretton Woods (GATT (Now the WTO), World Bank and IMF) to re-evaluate the economic orthodoxy they have been run on since the mid 70's / early 80's.

All fine ideas. Now, how do we get them enacted?

The revolution will be blogged

Out in New Zealand a band of Greenpeace activists have occupied the Marsden B power station. They're planning on staying for a while, and to let people know how they're doing they're running a blog.

Livewire : The Occupation of Marsden B

Elsewhere a group of peaceful activists discovered just how psychotic oil traders can get. I'm sure they're all lovely people, and I'm sure none of them will be charged with assault...

They get letters

Write to Them (www.writetothem.com) is the followup to the hugely successful fax your MP website. Expanded to include councillors and European MPs it provides clear information that shockingly hasn't been consolidated by the government themselves at any level.

Bad news from the Amazon

There is certainly a valid debate to be had about how much deforestation can occur in the Amazon. Sadly, even were that debate to reach a conclusion crime and corruption are so endemic that implementing the results might prove impossible. Here's why

Today "74 year old American missionary Sister Dorothy Stang was assassinated on Saturday in the Amazon state of Para, Brazil. Sister Dorothy was travelling to a sustainable development project in Anapu with some colleagues when she was shot three times by two gunmen"

NY Times
Greenpeace coverage

Sister Stang was a long standing campaigner for land reform, peasants rights and sustainable development. Her death is a tragedy, but it's also a symbol of just how much damage crime and corruption causes in developing countries. I only found out who she was today.

Winning my vote

As the sensible party on immigration it's nice to see Charles Clark making good noises about civil liberties too. Sadly the five points (they're at the bottom) the Lib-dems are pushing on this make little sense to me, for no other reason than I have no idea how important these procedural adjustments would be.

On a related note I wonder if anyone's followed up on the impact of withdrawing the right to silence from people arrested in Britain. (your silence can be used against you if you later rely on in court something you failed to disclose earlier). Have we had more convictions? Were these convictions more likely to be overturned on appeal? Inquiring minds want to know...

Things to buy when I'm rich

Via Gaping Void I found my way to http://www.englishcut.com/ . Should I ever find myself in the market for a top class suit I now know where to go.

I'm pointing this site out because it's exactly the kind of marketing blogs are good at. Taking a complex subject and explaining it over a long period of time. Educating people about the product you want them to buy - turning your customers into devotees.

It's all what Douglas Holt calls viral marketing. In a better definition than this is usually given he describes it as any marketing technique based on getting customers to do the advocacy for you. This says Doug is not the way forward. He advocates iconic branding - but since I'm only up to chapter 2 of his book I can't tell you exactly what that is yet. But since he mentions my employer in the first paragraph I'm hoping to find out.

Sadly he's not in his office today, or I'd have been able to ask in person...

Blogging MPs

Tim of Bloggerheads has been running a long term effort to get more MPs blogging. His two pin up succeses so far are Boris Johnson (con) and Tom Watson (lab). Today he posted some interesting thoughts on their search results.

While achieving the kind of popular exposure Tim talks about is probably what drew the two MPs he's worked with into this in the first place I think the benefit to their constituents and democracy as an institution is much more important. Dialogue and openness are things which many people complain are missing from contemporary politics, blogging is one way to put them back.

Commenting on Tony's blog a few days back I noted that cynicism in American politics has now reached the level where seemingly innocuous statements are open to all kinds of interpretations. Blogs may be one way to cut through this kind of noise.

As the general election draws closer I'd like to see MPs from all sides take up their keyboard every now and then. Of course given the blogosphere's tendency toward conflict and vendetta you could argue this will just make what looks like it's going to be a nasty, personal election worse. If it does at least we can hope that those slinging the mud will be clearly visible...

I am an Immigrant

The current UK debate on Immigration is profoundly depressing. Since I'm watching it from Holland which is also in the throes of an anti-immigrant backlash it's particularly pertinent.

This Lib Dem policy paper (PDF, biggish download) makes a number of salient points about the economic benefits of migration. The subject is also a hobby horse for the Economist, which regularly points out that migrants are the best value citizens a nation has. Take me as an example, the Dutch government has paid nothing toward my education or upbringing, is unlikely to find itself looking after me in my old age and gets to levy taxes on me during the most productive period of my life.

Oddly enough you can make pretty much the same case for Polish labourers building walls, Fillipino nurses propping up the NHS or any other immigrant who takes a job - and most of them do.

Further, some parts of the country are actually shrinking. I've just been visiting my sister in Scotland, where the population of 5.5 million is in decline. Attracting economic migrants is something the Scots are understandably keen on.

So let's throw open the doors and invite in the world. I am an emigre, find an immigrant to take my place.

Lets try this again

It's been a while since I wrote anything, a long while. But I feel like I've probably got something to say again and if I can bring myself to uninstall Rome:Total War I'll even have the time to say it.

I also have a plan. Many blogs, including my own previous blogs contain their fair share of bitterness and bile. No more, at least for me anyway. I intend to avoid attacking people, be they bloggers or Bush. If I disagree with people I'll do my best to keep it civil and present clear alternatives that will hopefully achieve more than shouting from the sidelines.

This blog isn't about to become La La land, but I'm hoping it can start being a positive contribution. After all, the people who like this blog don't praise me for my rants and screeds, but for the good and useful stuff I said. Lets hope there's something in that.