Update

I'm feeling quite a bit better. I've checked the prognosis for this kind of shoulder separation and it's 8-12 weeks, no surgery required. I won't know for sure until I see the specialist next week but there doesn't seem much risk that it's any more serious than that.

I'm finding that I can still use my right hand for some things, albeit awkwardly, even with the sling on. Typing is definitely slower than usual though and left-handed mousing is purgatory. So far I haven't had to do anything near as bad as the drive home from Markham on Sunday. That was absolute hell. Every gear change was agony. I don't think I'll be driving again until the sling comes off.

It's probably as well there are no kittens at the moment but :LJG is being very snuggly so maybe I'm getting the best of both worlds. Non stinky kitten lurve!

Small victories

I managed to get my contact lenses in and to have a shave.

Competence and incompetence

I've been doing some thinking about the Mall Ninja Terrorist Wannabee incident here in Ontario and the latest Metropolitan Police balls up. My principle conclusion is that the elephant in the room is competence. I suggest that the biggest obstacle to defeating the current range of terrorist threats is not lack of legislation, Islamic fifth columns or weird lefty conspiracies, it's the unfortunate fact that the agencies fighting terrorism are made up of not very bright people who aren't particularly good at this kind of work. It's pretty much axiomatic that the reason most criminals get caught is that they are stupid. This is really helpful because so, by and large, are the police. Ask yourself, how many of the brightest people you knew at school and university went into the police. I knew one person who joined the Hong Kong police. She was a not very bright thug.

Add to this that police work tends to be self selecting. Cops who like a punch up on a Saturday night get themselves stationed downtown, the bent ones find their way onto the drug squad, the decent guys who want a quiet life end up in the suburbs and Rambo wannabees who enjoy kicking a person with gunshot wounds in the head while shouting "shut the fuck up" end up in "tactical units". It's only natural but like most simple truths no-one in authority wants to hear it. If there are intuitive, insightful cops you won't find them in the macho environment of anti-terrorist work.

Does it matter? Well it should to anyone who is genuinely concerned to defend our society and its values. Poor diagnosis rarely leads to correct treatment. The police/government reaction to terrorism and, frankly, their inability to deal very effectively with it is to demand more power, new legislation etc. (Legislation is of course the politicians' panacea). The trouble is what is really needed to beat terrorism is good intelligence work and public co-operation. One doesn't need legislation for that. One needs imagination and brains. Let me give an example. In WW2 British Military and Naval Intelligence was surprisingly extremely competent. (I say surprisingly because anyone who has looked at the record in the earlier war would not have predicted it). Why? Well it wasn't legislation. It was the drafting of first class brains to the job at a number of levels from Bletchley Park to field formations and it was most certainly helped by a considerable degree of social solidarity. I note that the entire Abwehr network in the UK was rolled up without the kind of smash and grab operation the Met seems to like so much and without the self-congratulatory theatrics of the RCMP and CSIS.

Unfortunately, not only is very little brainpower being applied to the actual business of catching terrorists but the PTB seem to be going out of their way to alienate sections of the community thereby making the real task that much harder.

What's to be done? Here are a few suggestions:

• The police and politicians might actually try and learn from their mistakes. Fucking up and excusing fuck ups is not good policy even if it makes politicians look tough.
  
• Try using brains not brawn. A few secondments of really bright people to intelligence work might make a huge difference. If some of them actually understood the nuances of the different groups and tendencies that would help. We are, after all, talking about agencies which couldn't tell the difference between a Maoist and a Trotskyist so I doubt that they are any smarter about Islamic groups.
  
• Quit the grandstanding. It doesn't help. If the police can catch the buggers the courts will put them away without all the self congratulatory drama that so often backfires.
  
• Recognize that the constituency for terrorism is very small indeed but there are a lot of people who will be reluctant to cooperate with the police if the consequences of their cooperation are the kind of bungled raid the Met made last week.

England v. Ireland ODI

I have to assume that Andrew Strauss was either taking the piss or had started far too early on the Guinness. This is an England side that has a recent record of not closing down games they should have won easily so what does Strauss do? With 13 overs to go and 13 overs of his top line seamers in hand he bowls Bell and Dalrymple. When he finally gets around to his close out bowlers he bowls Harmison and Plunkett rather than the much more economical Mahmood and Chapple. To waste 9 overs of one's most economical seamers is arrogant and stupid.

Harmison was a bit of a mixed bag too. The wickets were nice but 11 extra deliveries in 10 overs conceding 19 silly runs could have lost the game against a better side. Not impressed.

OK, England won but it would have been shocking if they hadn't. The manner of the win doesn't suggest they have learned much from the test series. If I was an Aussie I'd be firing up the BBQ.