"Don't be evil"? Yeah, about that...

OK, so moderation as a way to deal with spam - has more drawbacks than I'd realised.

First, it means I have to log in regularly to see what's awaiting moderation. But at the same time, I don't get the joy of coming to my blog and seeing the number of comments below a post has increased - so I don't get the same joy of anticipation at visiting my own page, so I don't come here so often, and I actually log in less frequently.

Second, it does nothing to reduce the actual volume of spam that gets posted. All it means is that it doesn't get published. I still have to read the stuff.

That leaves - 'word verification'. Which, thanks to Google's incredibly backward system, I can't even apply selectively - it applies to every commenter, whether logged in or not.

When did Google abandon the fight against spam? And why? - what do they get out of encouraging spam on their own blogs? I've suspected for a while now that they tacitly encourage it in e-mail, as a way of driving more people to use Gmail (with its legendary spam-filtering mojo - basically, it makes life more difficult for their rivals). But on blogs?

Is it a way of increasing activity ("more comments, more views per post")? The Google I used to know - back in 2001, when I emailed them and they actually wrote back - would never have taken such a shortsighted view.

Someday, I hope someone will write a history of Google that can pinpoint the moment, the management decision, where they actively decided that "don't be evil" was a fine motto for a startup, but impractical for a big business. It's a lesson that might tell us something about what kinds of company structure we should encourage, and which we should hunt down with pitchforks and torches.

Spammers. Again.

Six comments! Six comments, at time of writing, on my last post!

And every single one of them was spam.

I can't begin to describe how much I loathe spammers. If you were to catch one, tie it spreadeagled in the sun, spread marmalade all over it and then drop a hornets' nest on its face, I would consider that a good start. These are the scum who wrecked Usenet, who ruined e-mail, who have forced search engines to adopt a war footing, and now have turned their attention to little personal blogs like this one.

But how can I stop them?

Captchas (those stupid wonky letters you have to type in, to prove you're a human) have past their window of usefulness. I often find myself stumbling over them, and I suspect that for particularly tough ones (such as Google's), computers may now be better at reading them than humans.

Moderation? That would require me to log in pretty much every day, to check for new comments. I would consider it pretty rude to leave comments hanging around for longer than necessary. And I'm a busy person, I don't have that kind of time nowadays.

Disable anonymous commenting? That would disqualify some of the people I most like to hear from, including most of my family.

Join Facebook? That would combine the disadvantages of having a non-public blog with the drawback of never hearing from my family again, to say nothing of the downside of having to log in regularly and the nuisance of giving untold insights on my life to one of the world's most evil companies.

The suggestion box is open. Even if you don't know what to do to keep spammers out, I'm always interested in innovative and painful ways of punishing them. Let your imagination go wild.

How many wrongs does it take to make a right?

These Americans are crazy.

President Obama has discovered a new way of fighting wars, at a fraction of the cost (in blood and money) of the usual methods. There's a lot of debate to be had about drone strikes, but of all the possible arguments they could be rehearsing, the huge majority of Americans seem to be locked into the silliest one imaginable: whether it's OK to use them on American citizens.

I went to the lengths of looking up the rights attached to US citizenship. Nowhere does it mention "the right not to be killed by the US military, if it considers it necessary or expedient to do so".

The law that stands between me and anyone who wants to kill me is the law against murder, in whatever country I happen to be in at the time. And in every country I know of, that law says nothing about the citizenship of the victim. Murdering an American is no more, and no less, illegal than murdering a Pakistani, or a Saudi, or a Briton, or even a Frenchman. Obama may be breaking Yemeni law by launching drone strikes into Yemen, but to argue that he's violating US law by aiming them at US citizens is just wrong, on at least two very fundamental levels: by applying US law to what happens in Yemen, and by differentiating between murder victims by citizenship.

Just to put things in perspective: Abraham Lincoln ordered the killing of hundreds of thousands of US citizens. On US soil, no less. History does not generally condemn him for that.

Of all the things that Obama is (arguably) doing wrong, this simply isn't one.

Safari

I don't know if you've ever seen a rhino peeing. It's an imposing sight, looking much as if Moses had struck the poor beast amidships with his staff. The stream is as thick as my wrist (estimate made from a respectful distance, you understand) and it goes on for as long as it takes a two-year-old to amble around one side of the beast's enclosure - must have been at least five minutes, I think.

No wonder people treat rhinos with respect. The thing must be made of bladder. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Since it's been two years, now, that Atilla has been learning how to direct our lives, we determined that he should have a birthday treat in the shape of a visit to the zoo.

Negotiations with the in-laws were delicate, when the big day dawned cloudy and drizzling. His aunt and his grandparents actually wanted to transfer the whole celebration to something - indoorsy.

I was having none of this. The forecast said there'd be maybe the occasional light shower, but nothing sustained - and if you can't stand a spot of rain here and there, I maintained, you've no business to be living in New Zealand in the first place. So I insisted we drive to the zoo, and text them when we got there that the weather was fine and if they didn't get their arses out here right now, they'd miss the whole thing.

(I was planning to send pretty much that message whatever the weather we found when we arrived. But as it happened, it was true.)

Of course, this resulted in a certain amount of heel-kicking while we waited for the family to catch up. Fortunately, the zoo features a generous entry plaza where one can hang about and buy tat before going in. Here, Atilla demonstrated the futility of the whole exercise by succumbing to instant fascination with a fledgling sparrow, just learning to fly - exactly the kind of wildlife one might find in any garden, street or playground in the country at this time of year.

I couldn't have been prouder. While kids all around were herding their parents mercilessly towards the 'official' animals, Tilly had spotted the real thing. It was more than ten minutes before the persecuted bird vanished from view, and I was able to guide my son's steps onwards.

Tilly likes animals. All animals, pretty much indiscriminately. As a rule of thumb, however, the larger the animal, the more respect it gets. Birds and cats can claim his attention if they come within a few metres; dogs are worth crossing the street for (although he still demands to be held off the ground in their presence, apparently not trusting these bouncy, waggly creatures); and anything donkey-sized or larger demands a full-length pilgrimage to inspect at length.

So it was no surprise when, on entering the premises, I found myself gravitating rapidly towards the 'Plainswalk' experience, which takes one past zebras, giraffes and ostriches.

"Bezra". "Rahsh". "Ostrish". He was delighted with these elegant creatures, until he noticed the chickens that, for some reason, Auckland Zoo houses with them. I'm not sure why chickens can trump larger animals, but he insisted on keeping a large black-and-white cockerel in view until we were past the first enclosure, and on to the rhinos and springboks.

Downstream of the incontinent rhino, we found flamingos. But these beautiful creatures claimed our attention for only minutes. As I was holding Tilly up to view them, he happened to glance ahead.

"El", he breathed, awestruck.

"Elli", he gasped.

"Elfi", he insisted breathlessly.

He'd seen Burma.

Auckland Zoo's sole remaining elephant is actually quite a small specimen - I think, if I stood beside her, I could put my hand on her back without even standing on tiptoes. But I didn't get to test that theory on this trip. And Tilly was captivated.

Here at last was a chance to pin him down in one spot while the family caught up. From that point on, I was happy for the in-laws to take their turn at guiding his experience. We'll gloss over the rest of the visit (apparently the seals were also a big hit, but I wasn't with him at that point). But the day was a success.

"Should we buy a season ticket?" Susan asked as we left. It's a discussion we had last time we went. Season tickets to the zoo are apparently quite the thing, for parents of young children.

"Only if it's transferrable between adults."

Too long in the dark

Polly Churchill is worried. She's stuck in London in 1940, and the handy time-travel doohickeys that are supposed to take her back to the mid-21st century aren't working. She's afraid she, or her friends, may have changed the space-time continuum and caused the Allies to lose World War Two.

(I am indebted to TV Tropes for giving me a piece of terminology to understand this phenomenon: Godwin's Law of Time Travel - "As the amount of time-traveling you do increases, the probability of Hitler winning World War II approaches one." [1])

Polly is, of course, being silly. As she would have known if she'd read To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book: historians can't change the past like that, even if they try. The past remains the past, even when you're in it. Changes can be propagated forward, only if they're so insignificant that nobody from your own time would have noticed them - you can, for instance, place some newspaper ads in the 1940s, which may then be spotted by your colleagues 120 years later. But you can't change the course of known history.

Polly may be excused for not knowing this - she's only a postgrad student. For James Dunworthy, however - the head of time travel research in Oxford throughout the 2060s - there's no excuse. Why, after two full-length novels and several short stories, he should still be propounding this nonsense about "the continuum breaking down" is beyond me.

This train of thought somewhat mars my enjoyment of Connie Willis's marathon opus, Blackout/All Clear. Which is a shame, because there's a really good book in here somewhere. (Only one, mind you. The 'two volumes' thing is quite unnecessary.)

Connie Willis does her usual stellar job of establishing sympathetic central characters, a strong supporting cast, and the fretful, fatigued atmosphere of wartime Britain. She's done a lot of research, and it shows. She has, however, left some irritating holes in her blanket of authenticity. For instance, her British characters consistently give dates in the modern American format (e.g. "May fourth", rather than "the fourth of May" or even "May the fourth", either of which would be more natural).

Willis wanted to write a book about the everyday heroism of ordinary people that won the war:

about Dunkirk and ration books and D-Day and V-1 rockets, about tube shelters and Bletchley Park and gas masks and stirrup pumps and Christmas pantomimes and cows and crossword puzzles and the deception campaign. And mostly the book's about all the people who "did their bit" to save the world from Hitler...

And at that, she's done well. Her account of wartime Britain is detailed, sympathetic and absorbing. If viewed as a collection of narratives about people who experienced evacuation, blackouts, shelters, rationing, Dunkirk, the Blitz, the V1s, and the daily expectation of loss and grief - it's a masterpiece. Where it falls down is in the time-travel narrative that ties these little human-interest stories into a coherent tale. While that story has its high points (mostly centred around St Paul's Cathedral), it's much, much too drawn-out to be sustained by its basic premises.

The result is that, when I'd finished reading, not only were my withers (quite sincerely) wrung by the prolonged hardship endured by my forebears, but I felt I'd accomplished no mean feat of endurance of my own. Which feels like an unworthy thought, but that's the price of honesty.

Overall rating: B-. Good, but should have been better.

[1] Incidentally, if anyone with a TV Tropes login is reading this: the above-linked page, at the time of writing, incorrectly states that events in To Say Nothing of the Dog cause the Nazis to win the war. This is completely untrue - that fear is raised at one point, but the whole point of the book is to demonstrate just how resilient history is - the ridiculous lengths it can go to, if necessary, to make sure it turns out right.

Inevitable, schminevitable

So, congratulations to François Hollande, who now has a parliamentary majority to back his own presidential mandate. Nice going.

Now what?

The Economist notably described M Hollande, before his election, as "rather dangerous". I think the article tried to explain precisely what he was a danger to, but I must admit I didn't follow its logic. As far as I can tell, the "danger" is that France will fail to do the things The Economist thinks it should. That seems a rather egocentric definition.

The most salient feature of M Hollande's platform is his promise of punitive taxes on the rich. This is a policy that serious publications (like The Economist) - which, incidentally, tend to be owned by very rich people - have been telling us for decades is a formula for disaster. This wisdom has gone unchallenged for the best part of 25 years: every major country has steadily cut its top marginal tax rate, and enjoyed the "growth" that followed. In 2010 Britain bucked the trend gently, only to change its mind almost immediately. Now, if M Hollande keeps his promise, France will buck it much harder.

It's a test case. If the Serious Publications are right, France's economy should implode like a broken light bulb: rich people will flee the country, new businesses will fail to appear, established companies will stagnate and collapse, unemployment will rocket and M Hollande will be facing riots, revolt and the ascent of fascism, probably within two years.

On the other hand, it's possible none of that will happen. It's possible that the rich in France (who are historically accustomed to higher taxes than their peers in places like the UK, or New Zealand for that matter) will grin and bear it, or simply use tried and tested tax-avoidance methods to reduce the total burden to something they think is more reasonable. And then the economy will continue doing no worse than, say, Britain's or Italy's - but with less inequality.

Already the evidence for the received opinion - that low marginal tax rates stimulate growth - is shaky. America's tax cuts since 2000 signally failed either to create growth (except for the rich), or to increase the total tax take. Japan cut its top tax rate from 75% in 1979 to 50% in 1990, and was rewarded with a "lost decade". In Europe, highly-taxed Belgium, Denmark and Germany are, if not exactly going gangbusters, at least better off than their lower-taxed neighbours in Italy (and, one might mischievously add, Greece).

Here in Antipodea: in the late 1980s New Zealand and Australia were roughly at parity in terms of GDP per head. Then New Zealand slashed its top tax rate (Australia also cut its, but much more modestly), and since then the Australians have outpaced us steadily. Today, even after their (higher) taxes are deducted from their payroll, the average Australian takes home a substantial 30% more than the average Kiwi.

Okay, I'm cherrypicking data. Each country has its own story - Australia is propelled by Asian demands for its mining exports, Japan's long decline was more to do with demographics, the US's tax cuts were accompanied by a huge boom in government spending, and so on. But I think there is more than enough evidence to question the assumption that a high top marginal tax rate is necessarily and in itself bad for the economy.

So, what if M Hollande implements his policies and France doesn't implode? What if his gamble actually pays off?

The Economist could argue that he was merely delaying the inevitable. The same "inevitable", mind you, that successive French presidents have been staving off now for more than 30 years. That's a whole generation of French people for whom "the inevitable" has, in fact, been evited.

Literary roundup

My avider readers may have noticed, amid the sporadic coverage of this year, that my book reviews have been trending to the negative. Of the two books I've reviewed this year, both have fallen short of my expectations, at least in any positive sense. My public, I make no doubt, will be worried for me. There's only so long one's soul can survive on the sort of diet I've discussed in the previous two literary posts.

But allow me to reassure you, dear reader, that my literary experiences have not all been negative. I have in fact read some fine works this year. Some of them, indeed, several hundred times.

There's a Wocket in my Pocket is far from Dr Seuss's greatest work. It lacks the compelling characterisation of The Cat in the Hat, the poignant pathos of Yertle the Turtle or the timeless sagacity of Oh, the Places You'll Go. But on the other hand, its vivid depiction of a world packed with sentient creatures in every cranny echoes the powerful meanings of Shinto or Gaian animism, and that can only be a good thing. In other words: if you think there's a jertain in your curtain, you'll treat it with more respect.

More importantly, the pages are made of stiff card, which means it can survive day-to-day handling by a 16-month-old child. That, indeed, is the common theme of this list.

Ten Little Babies, Gyo Fujikawa's sinister thriller based on the Agatha Christie novel, tells of the varying fates of - as the title suggests - ten babies. The illustrations make quite clear, however, that the nine little babies who went to bed late are not included in the ten who originally sat down to dine. So in fact there are 55 little babies in this book, only ten of which are accounted for. A disturbing thought.

Guess How Much I Love You is the only book on this list that belongs to me, having been a gift from Susan some years ago, and ownership not having formally transferred to Atilla. I must remember to include it in my will. In reading to 'Tilly, I have been forced to recognise that although stretching out one's arms or reaching up high are fine graphical demonstrations of "this much" - flipping oneself upside down and stretching one's feet up a convenient tree trunk is, frankly, hard.

Duck's Stuck, a muddy fable of farmyard life, doesn't aspire to either the poetic or artistic heights of a Seuss. But it does have a quiet little charm of its own, which I can best explain by pointing to the fact that Cow's lines are predominantly words that you can actually moo. "Cow chewed. Feathers flew. 'Try now', mooed Cow." I defy you to read that aloud without changing your voice. This, together with the great "Aaaa-chooo", have kept this book firmly at the top of Tilly's favourites list for more than three months.

How to Catch a Star is a little more advanced, with its themes of holistic astronomy, sophisticated engineering and animal training. 'Tilly is less convinced by it, generally seeing it as a last resort to fend off the moment when he finally has to accept that it's bedtime.

Honourable mention should go to That's Not My Polar Bear, now pretty much retired, but an invaluable guide to distinguishing wildlife. Thanks to this book, 'Tilly has known since before his first birthday that if he is confused between two polar bears, he can identify one from another by carefully squeezing their noses, tickling their tummies and rubbing their tongues. Valuable tips, I'm sure we can all agree.