A London skyline, in Southwark last Monday.
Monthly Archives: April 2008
On this day…
… in 1951, President Harry Truman fired General MacArthur for insubordination. The NYT of the day reported the decision thus:
Washington, Wednesday, April 11 – President Truman early today relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of all his commands in the Far East and appointed Lieut. Gen. Mathew B. Ridgway as his successor.
The President said he had relieved General MacArthur “with deep regret” because he had concluded that the Far Eastern commander “is unable to give his wholehearted support to the policies of the United States Government and of the United Nations in matters pertaining to his official duties.”
General MacArthur, in a message to House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. Of Massachusetts, made public by Mr. Martin last Thursday, had publicly challenged the President’s foreign policy, urging that the United States concentrate on Asia instead of Europe and use Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Formosa-based troops to open a second front on the mainland of China.
The change in command is effective at once. General Ridgway, who has been in command of the Eighth Army in Korea since the death in December of Gen. Walton H. Walker, assumes all of General MacArthur’s titles – Supreme Commander, United Nations Forces in Korea, Supreme Commander for Allied Powers, Japan, Commander-in-Chief, Far East, and Commanding General U.S. Army, Far East.
I’ve always admired Truman. He’s been unfairly under-estimated, mainly because he stepped into FDR’s shoes and forever lingered in his shadow. He’s also the author of one of my favourite sayings: “It’s remarkable how much you can accomplish in life so long as you don’t care who gets the credit”.
David McCullough wrote a terrific biography of him.
When you read the background stuff about MacArthur’s behaviour, it’s obvious that the decision had to be made. But MacArthur was a very big figure in his time, and something of a popular hero in the US. What’s striking about Truman was his ability to make very tough decisions. Gordon Brown is the exact opposite.
Property snakes
Insightful piece about the UK housing market in this week’s Economist.
HOME renovation would seem to be as exciting a spectacle as, well, watching paint dry. But as Britain neared the peak of a decade-long housing boom, it became prime-time television as producers rushed to make shows like “Property Ladder”. Those happy days in which acquiring a house seemed a sure bet have now ended and even the boost of a quarter-point rate cut from the Bank of England on April 10th is unlikely to bring them back.
Prices, which had been drifting slowly lower over the winter, have started falling more rapidly and dropped 2.5% in March, according to Halifax, part of HBOS and the country’s biggest mortgage lender. The biggest monthly drop since September 1992 prompted widespread concerns in a country that still remembers its previous big bust, which started in late 1989 and from which prices did not fully recover for almost a decade…
So will we now see TV production companies rushing to make programmes entitled ‘Property Snake’? (After all, ladders take you up and snakes take you down.) I think not. Viewers aren’t interested in get-poor-quick stories.
Facebook: the future
Don’t know who created this, but s/he is a genius.
Thanks to Gill for passing it on.
Update: It’s by Stephen Wildish.
‘My Nazi orgy with F1 Boss’
Er, not me, Guv. Just the heading on the News of the World‘s web page celebrating the refusal of a judge to grant an injunction banning them from showing a video allegedly showing F1 boss Max Mosley doing unspeakable things with jack-booted ladies of the night. I’m afraid I was unable to view the offending video because it required the installation of browser plug-ins that I was reluctant to accept, but here’s the surrounding text:
Max Mosley’s attempt to suppress the News of the World’s video of his sordid activities has failed. The film is now back on the News of the World website.
Watch F1 boss Max Mosley in 5 vice girl Nazi orgy
[special plug-in required]As the judge acknowledged, he was able to see only “very brief extracts” – less than two minutes – of the very much longer video. Had he seen it in its entirety, we are confident that he could not fail to recognise the Nazi connotation which Mr Mosley so strenuously denies.
If, as he claims, this filmed orgy of sex and violence was not meant to be a sick fantasy based upon the brutalities of Nazi Germany, we must ask Mr Mosley the following questions.
1. Why are German military uniforms worn?
2. Why does he issue orders and threats in German to women who cannot speak German?
3. Why does he deliver and count out beatings in German to women who cannot understand German?
4. Why does he put on a German accent when speaking English?
5. Why are the victims of these beatings in German made to put on sinister striped uniforms?
6. Why the head lice inspections, the forced shaving of body hair and the sinister references to inmates being housed in “facilities”?
We look forward to Mr Mosley’s answers to all these questions.
Me too.
Also: is this Max Mosley any relation of Sir Oswald Mosley, the 1930s Fascist leader who was mercilessly lampooned by P.G. Wodehouse as Roderick Spode, the Amateur Dictator and Leader of the Black Shorts movement? Surely not? But (check Wikipedia) yes he is! This is too good to be true. It wouldn’t be the first time that the News made things up. On the other hand, it’s interesting that Mosley hasn’t sued them for defamation (which might suggest that he doesn’t challenge the truth of the story) but for invasion of privacy.
Later: The News of the World claims that traffic on its site has increased by 600% since it re-posted the video.
Cyber risk ‘equals 9/11 impact’
There’s something very comforting when someone in authority starts to say what one has been saying for a while. This from BBC NEWS today…
The US homeland security chief has made a heartfelt plea to Silicon Valley workers to stand up and be counted in the fight to secure the cyber highway.
Michael Chertoff invoked the attacks of 9/11 as he sought to galvanise IT professionals and security experts.
He told the world’s biggest IT security conference that serious threats to cyberspace are on “a par this country tragically experienced on 9/11”.
Phorm tries a spot of creative editing
From The Register…
Phorm has admitted that it deleted key factual parts of the Wikipedia article about the huge controversy fired by its advertising profiling deals with BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse.
The tracking and ad targeting firm said in an email: “We wanted to clarify a number of inaccuracies in the Wikipedia entry on Phorm.”
As we reported yesterday, a number of Phorm-friendly edits were made to the page on Friday. The revisions were quickly reverted by a Wikipedian who argued that they made Phorm out to be “awesome and perfect”.
In an Update, the Register reports a phone call from Phorm promising to behave more sensitively in future.
Dongles ‘R Us
From The Register…
Maverick mobile operator 3 UK says it’s seen a 700 per cent increase in data traffic since it launched its price-busting dongle last October. Average data throughput on the network rose to 1,400 mbit/s by February, a steep ramp from 200mbit/s when the offer was introduced.
The dongle is available to pay-as-you-go customers for £70, with 1GB for a tenner, or 3GB for £15. T-Mobile and Vodafone have followed suit with aggressive dongle deals.
3’s UK CEO Kevin Russell said it had conjured half a million customers “from nowhere”, as he gave details of the networks roadmaps for higher higher 3G speeds, and how it will share infrastructure with T-Mobile.
But we weren’t alone in wondering the aspiration of becoming the king of mobile broadband was something to wish for. Data networks don’t make money – ask a British ISP – and the new investment in fibre is coming from taxpayers or is being cross-subsidised by TV. So what’s the masterplan?
Russell told us it was all about incremental margin. He didn’t think mobile broadband was going to display fixed broadband by 2012 – a figure we plucked out of the air – and preferred to see it as a new marketplace, rather than one of substitution.
“Data becomes valuable as a leverage into increased share of the handset business,” he said. “We have a different strategy from the other four operators.”
So, give away the data and make more on handsets. It seemed rude to point out that you can walk out of a 3 Store with a dongle, but no handset.
Another reporter asked the same question, phrased differently. Nobody makes money from data – “so isn’t your business model running on empty?”
Russell said he didn’t understand the question.
Personally, I don’t much care what 3’s business model is: my 3G USB dongle has already proved a Godsend — especially since Pipex and BT began to ‘regrade’ my DSL line, thereby making it chronically erratic.
Are you a geek at heart?
I’ve come up with a definitive test. If you think Twitter is absurd, then you’re not a geek.
(Retires to await protests.)
