Pondering the Israel, Gaza Situation.

The Idle Man has avoided posting on the recent Israeli Incursion into Gaza, primarily because my thoughts on the entire episode have been contradictary:

Before going further a map of the entire Gaza Strip:

• I fully understand why the Israelis decided to take military action. Having daily rocket attacks into your villages and towns requires action to stop it. As Hamas seems impervious to any diplomatic or economic pressure, military action was the only option left. As to whether the action was proportionate, is not a subject I feel qualified to judge. Unfortunately this has not stopped many just as unqualified as I, making pronouncements in Newspapers, or through Broadcast Media.
• I have immense sympathy for ordinary Palestinians who have been wounded, traumatised, lost love ones, homes, or livelihood.
• I intensely loath Hamas and its core agenda, but admit it has played its few cards extremely well and in many cases has trumped the incredibly slick and well organised Israeli PR Machine.
• I found the British Media's whining about the restrictions placed on them by the Israelis annoying, as none of them apparently tried to report from the Egyptian Side of the Gaza Border and the stalled supplies and medical volunteers stranded there, because Egypt for very good reasons kept the official border crossing closed. Maybe the Egyptians refused them access, if so they didn't mention this. Also none of them tried to get past the Israeli Naval Blockade on the Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps our fearless reporters felt that even if this didn't endanger their lives, it might endanger their careers as if caught they would never work in Israel again.
• In addition Western Media have an unfortunate tradition of endangering the lives of their own servicemen and women due irresponsible reporting and one can therefore understand the Israelis being reluctant to let them anywhere near the front line.
• I agree with the BBC and Sky refusal to broadcast the British Disaster Emergency Committee Appeal. Although this puts the BBC and Sky in a no-win situation, the decision is correct as this is not just another humanitarian disaster, but a political minefield. A minefield involving the fact that the Gaz Strip is governed by a Terrorist Organisation dedicated to the destruction of Israel and is anti-semitic and anti-christian. This coupled with the delicate political situation regarding the other Palestinian Enclave on the West Bank, plus Egypt, Jordan as well as Israel, means that any station broadcasting this appeal is sending a political message, that many will see as a statement of position, rather than simply a request for relief donations. I find it sad that ITV and Channel 4 have decided to Boradcast, but it is a free country, so it is up to them.
  
• At a personal level, whilst I accept that in many disasters some of the donations end up in the hands of the Corrupt, in this case, unless I receive a written guarantee that any monies donated will NOT be accessible by, pass through, or be paid to Hamas Officials, or Agencies, or Agents, then I will not be donating anything. I have never (at least knowingly) donated money, a proportion of which has ended up in the coffers of a Terrorist Organisation and I am not going to start now!
  
• The senior clerics of the Anglican and Catholic faiths in Britain have 'waded in' criticizing the BBC, yet they have been strangely silent over the plight of Palestinian Christians who have been persecuted for decades. I suggest that before having a go at the BBC and Sky, I suggest you start looking at what you should have been doing to help the Christians who live in a climate of persecution and abuse. He who casts the first stone..

Other Posts on Gaza in this Blog:
Hamas and Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, 06/07 Feburary 2008

Recovery of US Air Airbus A320 from the Hudson River

The recovery operation was carried out on the 17th/18th January 2009:








































Copyright Unknown


A reminder how the Crash Landing was reported on the 16th January 2009

There is now a follow-up post covering the Transport of the Fuselage through the streets of Red Hook New York:
Moving the US Air 'Hudson River' A320 to a Hangar

Strike One For Alitalia

The Reborn Alitalia is 7 Days Old and today (20th January) already has had its first strike (as against the mere disruption caused on its first day).
Admittedly this lasted a mere 4 Hours and is more a 'flexing of the muscles' by the union involved, SDL rather than a full scale clash.

This mini-strike still resulted in 22 Flights being cancelled including 6 International services!

So what was this strike over?
According to the SDL Union:
The protest was over new labour contracts and the criteria used to hire employees as part of Alitalia's relaunch.

Surely this was all resolved in the incredibly protracted negotiations between CAI Investor Group, the Unions and the Italian Government prior to the relaunch?

Actually I don't think the answer matters, just the conclusion and that is nothing has changed (so far), and the New Alitalia is the same as the Inefficient, Unsustainable, Old Alitalia.

Previous Posts on Alitalia in this Blog:
14 January 2009: Alitalia - Unions spoil first Day
13 January 2009: Alitalia Reborn - But will it Survive?
Last Year:
06th October 2008:
Alitalia - Is the Opera entering its final act?

13th September 2008:
Alitalia - Have the Unions Killed the only hope?

29th August 2008:
Alitalia Files for Bankruptcy Protection

29th July 2008:
Alitalia - How long before the life support is switched off?

A Soldier's Life Compared with Yours

Introduction
The following is a taken from a chain email forwarded to me.
Whilst it features Canadian and US Army Soldiers and has a distinct Canadian Theme, its message applies just as much to British and other Coalition Troops currently serving in combat zones:

A Soldier's Life Compared with Yours:
Your cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to; his dog tags:


You talk trash about your 'buddies' that aren't with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.


You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.


You complain about how hot it is
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.


You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn't get to eat today.


You make your bed and wash your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.


You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.


You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.


You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.


You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.


You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet.


You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting


You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded


You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him


You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don't.
He does exactly what he is told even if it puts his life in danger.


You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.


You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.


The email chain asks you to support your troops and send the email to 7 people. For once I agree and if you do receive it, please forward it on.


Each Day take a moment to remember our troops:

Alitalia - Unions spoil first Day

The New Alitalia was officially reborn yesterday and the Unions couldn't even hold back to allow the relaunch to pass without incident!

• Alitalia workers wary of the impact from a new alliance with Air France-KLM demonstrated at Milan's Malpensa Airport by chanting slogans and waving union banners, causing delays.
• At Rome's Fiumicino Airport, delays of more than two hours were reported as workers marched outside.
  

The above does NOT bode well for the future of the reborn airline.

See the previous post: Alitalia Reborn - But will it Survive?

But on a lighter note, the following is what I think is a great quote on why the original Alitalia went bankrupt:
"Alitalia died of grandeur," Augusto Fantozzi, who ran it during its bankruptcy told L'Espresso magazine. "It paid triple for everything. To give you an example: it would send three cars to pick up cabin crew, in case the first got a flat tyre and the motor broke down in the second. It was a waste."
Whilst this was part of the problem, a less colourful, but more encompassing summary of the reasons for the failure of Alitalia from Airwise/Reuters:
The state-controlled carrier soon became a vehicle for political favours, and its unionised staff, who enjoyed lavish perks, prevented efforts to restructure to meet the 21st century challenges of an aviation downturn and low-cost competition.

Alitalia Reborn - But will it Survive?

Today the 13th January 2009 Alitalia is officially reborn. Now owned by the Investor Group Compagnia Aerea Italiana, shorn of its non-Airline Operating activies and having absorbed the commercially oriented and efficient Air One, the new slimmer Carrier is officially relaunched.

Also although not yet signed and sealed, the Air France-KLM offer to take a 25%, 320 million euros stake in Alitalia seems almost a certainty. The previous front runner for this investment, Lufthansa, lost its position when it annouced it was starting its own Italian Airline, Lufthansa Italia. Although Lufthansa may, even at this late stage make a bid to top Air France-KLM, this seems unlikely.

Whilst it is a miracle that Alitalia has reached this point (the Pope's prayers for the Airline seems to have helped), and the investment from Air France-KLM (or Lufthansa) will keep the company going for a while, the factors that will determine whether Alitalia has long term future are complex and many are not under its control.

• The ongoing Global Economic Crisis and its effect on the Airline Industry.
• The new labour contracts with the Alitalia Unions must produce the cost savings and productivity they are designed to produce.
• Those same Unions must not revert to their old ways of immediately launching crippling strike action whenever a problem, however minor occurs between them and the company.
• How Alitalia copes with the new commerical realities with Ryanair increased presence in the Italian Market and the launch next month of Lufthansa Italia, which will cement Lufthansa's already major presence in Italy.
• Currently Alitalia is a member of the Skyteam Alliance (includes Air France-KLM), but due to not integrating its computer systems, it does not maximise the benifits. It also retains a 'foot in the door' with the Star Alliance (includes Lufthansa). Once the 25% Stake deal is signed, upgrading and profiling the Computer Systems has got to be a major priority.
• Getting Passengers to Fly Alitalia is also going to be a major problem. The frustration over the Airlines history of long delays, cancellations, poor in-flight service, and a 'take it or leave it' attitude when dealing with customers, is a major hill to climb, in regaining passenger loyalty.
• Although it no longer controls its Ground Handling and Heavy Maintenance operations, industrial action in these organisations will be just as crippling to the new Alitalia, as it was to the old one (70 Flights from Rome were cancelled due a Ground Handling Strike last Wednesday).
• Finally, the European Low Fares Airline Association filed a complaint with European Commission last Thursday over the €3 tax, levied since October on passengers leaving Italian airports under Italy's "Save Alitalia decree," amounted to €100 million of
  illegal state subsidies to Alitalia each year.

So will Alitalia Survive in the long term?
As an independent entity, probably not!
As the Italian Division, after been absorbed by a major European Carrier, probably yes!

Other Posts on Alitalia in this blog:
06th October 2008:
Alitalia - Is the Opera entering its final act?

13th September 2008:
Alitalia - Have the Unions Killed the only hope?

29th August 2008:
Alitalia Files for Bankruptcy Protection

29th July 2008:
Alitalia - How long before the life support is switched off?

Oilexco In Adminstration - Will other Dominos Fall

As has been expected, Oilexco North Sea Limited has gone into administration. Oilexco was used as a case in point in Mark Jago's Article:
Banks Risk Scottish North Sea Oil industry & Britain's Energy Future
published in this Blog on Monday the 5th. We now have to wait and see if this is the start of a domino effect and other Oil Exploration Companies and those who supply them discover their funding has dried up.

British North Sea Oil and Gas provides the United Kingdom with some level of independence in Energy Needs.
No Exploration, No Infrastructure Expansion and No Innovation, due No Funding is going to have a disastrous impact on Energy Costs and indeed stability of Supply (if Russia keeps playing Games) in the next few years, let alone in the Medium and Long Term.

As Mark said in his article:
Successive British Governments have enjoyed massive tax revenues from North Sea Oil, now is the time to put some back into to those companies working to ensure a more efficient means of maximizing existing fields and using advanced technology to exploit new resources. As the banks seem to be unwilling to invest in the future, the Government should transfer some of the money earmarked for the rumored further bank bail-out into more equitable funding of North Sea exploration.

Electricity Supply Independence by New Generation Nuclear Power Stations and significant contributions by Alternate Technologies are years away. Gas will be a primary requirement for many decades in Industrial and Consumer Applications and however much research is being done in finding suitable alternatives to oil for Vehicle use, Oil is going to be the mainstay for the foreseeable future.

So HMG get some serious money into supporting North Sea Exploration and Extraction and while your at, it starting thinking about rebuilding the Coal Industry for synthetic oil, using technology to make coal gas, appear as if it is natural gas and finally using the new technologies to build the new 'greener' coal fired power stations.

Related Posts:
5th January 2009:
Banks Risk Scottish North Sea Oil industry and Britain's Energy Future
10/11th February 2009:
Banks Continued Failure to Provide Loans makes a UK Depression Inevitable

Banks Risk Scottish North Sea Oil industry and Britain's Energy Future

Having contacted the Author Mark Jago, he has given me permision to post his article.

News that Oilexco one of the most innovative and technically advanced oil and gas exploration companies operating in the North Sea is almost certainly going to file a petition for Administration for its UK Subsidiary after funding has been withdrawn by a UK bank. This not a case of a company failing due bad management, but a 'sign written large' that the future is extremely bleak for other Oil and Gas Exploration Companies operating in the seas around Britain.

Whilst in Britain we are regularly shocked by the mega-profits of the major oil companies, we are rarely made aware of the other types of Oil Industry Companies, those who specialize in exploring for new reserves and applying advanced technology to existing fields to maximize their potential.

Taking the specific case of Oilexco which won the Technology Uptake prize at the 23rd Scottish Offshore Achievement Awards in March 2008,
This Company which is publicly listed on the London and Toronto Stock Exchanges and is based in Calgary Canada, specializes in fast tracking oil and gas development into commercial production, utilizing appropriate technologies to do this at the lowest possible per barrel cost.

Through its UK Subsidiary Oilexco North Sea Ltd the company has been in the process of taking over an existing Oil Production Platform and then upgrading it to take advantage of better technology and to use it to supply both oil and gas that would have been previously burnt off as gas waste. This in turn has required the company to fund and build a new pipeline for the Gas Production. These projects combined early ordering of hardware necessary to fast track future production expansion are expensive and therefore very large loans were required to carry them out.

This dependency on Banks loans as resulted in two interlined problems. Firstly that an over extended Bank, would place very onerous conditions resulting in the company not realizing most of the cash flow benefits from existing production and that as the overall global financial situation worsened and the oil price dropped, cut off funding altogether. .This is certainly what happened in the case of Oilexco and analysts are already intimating that other companies are in the same situation.

What effect would the total failure of Oilexco North Sea Ltd have?
Well during the first quarter of 2009 Oilexco would have started to add production that would have resulted in the more than doubling of oil production this year and added to UK supplies of natural gas. Significant oil field discoveries made during 2007 and 2008 would have resulted in a material increase in North Sea output over the next two and a half years.

Had the bank extended the existing funding through 2009 and committed to supporting existing operations Oilexco and shareholders would have had the time to commit the necessary capital to ensure successful survival of this company and its ongoing North Sea development. The bank would have also had the opportunity to continue profit from an ongoing successful relationship with company.

Last weeks Oilexco news came at a time when gasoline prices in the US hit a low for the week averaging around $1.61 a gallon or under 42 cents per litre with Oil consumption of 19.9 million barrels 70 percent used for transportation down 3.7 percent from more normal volume slightly above of 20.6 million barrels. According to government EIA data raw oil at 60 percent, tax at 19 percent, with sales and marketing costs accounts for the price consumers pay at the pump. Canada is the largest exporter of oil and gasoline products to the US much of it from oil sands oil produced below cost at under $50US per barrel. Canadian prices were down in some Ontario locations below 62 cents Can per litre. Pump prices and oil futures were up Friday on OPEC news that 1.2 million barrel per day production cuts were completed on announced cuts of 3.4 million barrels and shipbroker reports of an 8.9 percent decline in on board tanker oil shipments.

Successive British Governments have enjoyed massive tax revenues from North Sea Oil, now is the time to put some back into to those companies working to ensure a more efficient means of maximizing existing fields and using advanced technology to exploit new resources. As the banks seem to be unwilling to invest in the future, the Government should transfer some of the money earmarked for the rumored further bank bail-out into more equitable funding of North Sea exploration.

The alternative will risk Oilexco drilling rigs and talented personnel being move to energy development projects away from the North Sea. Other North Sea oil companies partnered with Oilexco will also be negatively affected with future development being delayed or shelved. Oil production in the North Sea will decline more rapidly and oil import costs will balloon on higher priced oil and a declining pound.

Related Posts:
7th January 2009:
Oilexco In Adminstration - Will other Dominos Fall
10/11th February 2009:
Banks Continued Failure to Provide Loans makes a UK Depression Inevitable

Fotopic Reappears

This forms a follow up to my previous posts on Fotopic:
1st Fotopic Disappears - followed by a Deafening Silence
2nd Fotopic Disappears - But the Silence is broken

As Joel Rowbottom hoped the Fotopic Service resumed early this morning.

Whilst the Fotopic Operational Status Log has posted the following:

Mon 05 Jan 2009, 10:41 (logged by jon)

We apologise for the extended outage this weekend which was caused by a technical fault. There will be a full statement coming soon. Thanks for bearing with us.

Here is the Statement from Snappy Designs:
QUOTE:

STATEMENT FROM SNAPPY DESIGNS LTD, 5TH JANUARY 2009

Dear Fotopic User,

On Friday 2nd January 2008 photo sharing site Fotopic.net suffered a core equipment failure while upgrading the server and network capacity. As a result of this the Fotopic.net website was unavailable from approximately 9am on Friday 2nd January.

Despite our best efforts to resolve the situation the gallery service remained unavailable until approximately 10:30am on Monday 5th January 2008.

As a result of this outage we are examining our hosting capability and contingency plans, but wish to assure customers that Fotopic.net has not ceased trading and will be enhancing its services during 2009. No data or images have been lost during this time and all systems are back to normal.

Additionally we will be extending Plus and Premium subscriptions by an extra 2 weeks as a goodwill gesture.

We apologise for the situation which was ultimately out of our control, and would like to thank customers for bearing with us.

Best regards,

The Directors
Snappy Designs Ltd trading as Fotopic.net
UNQUOTE

Even though the promised full statement has been issued, users will be asking Snappy Designs some hard questions about why they didn't release some information via Internet News Services to mitigate the Fear Uncertainty and Doubt across the Fotopic User Community, that resulted in wild rumours and speculation.

However from the Idle Man's viewpoint with Fotopic back online, this will be the last post on the subject until...

Fotopic Disappears - But the Silence is broken:

There is NOW an update covering the restoration of service here: Fotopic Reappears
This Post forms a follow-up to my previous Post:
Fotopic Disappears - followed by a Deafening Silence

Thanks to one of the co-founders of Fotopic and former owner Joel Rowbottom there is NOW concrete information on the Fotopic Situation.

Please Note: Joel has worked hard to obtain this information despite NOT being an employee, director or Shareholder in the company that now owns Fotopic.He has done this to assist and he deserves to be thanked by all users of the service.

Here is the main elements of Joel's post on:
The Former Fotopic Users Group on Google (any highlighting is mine NOT Joel's):
QUOTE:

I've just got off the phone after managing to track down one of the directors of Snappy Designs. I asked them to post here but they have declined (I reckon because they can't get in touch with their PR people at this hour).

Therefore here is the news as I understand it:

1. The reason it's unavailable *is* a hardware fault with the interface to the outside world. The gentleman I discussed the situation with isn't an IP engineer so was unable to give me solid details on how it's failed but if I can be of assistance in getting it back up I will be - sadly the old Cisco 4000 series in my garage won't cut the mustard with at least a partial routemap! The router is intentionally powered down which could mean anything from a router failure to a cabling fault.
   
2. Snappy Designs is solvent - and they're injecting more cash into it to sort out Printshop and the rest. At that point (apparently) the Printshop system will change somewhat and be more "automatic". I don't have any more on that so please don't ask me for further details.
   
3. There is a plan to give Plus/Premium users at least a fortnight extension across the board.
   
4. It's 'hoped' that it (Fotopic) will be back in the early hours of Monday morning. I make that a 72-hour outage. I will keep track of what's going on and see if I can get further information tomorrow.
5. The architecture for Fotopic.net is still largely the same as when we left in May. This means that when it comes back it should be mostly OK - the image servers will probably take about 20 minutes to populate their caches during which it'll be a bit slower than usual. I have volunteered to be on standby to help the engineers if required.
   
6. There will be a full statement going out to all Premium/Plus users when it's back, which will explain things. I did ask if they had any plans to email their users prior to the recommencement of service but there are no facilities to email upwards of 60,000 people without the servers to handle it (which I can well believe, we have some "interesting" issues emailing Yahoo people en-masse for instance). SD said a statement will come pretty sharpish tho.
7. I'll be having discussions with Snappy Designs about the future of Fotopic.net, but please remember that myself and Nicky have been away
   from the front-line since May (with the exception of assisting with the odd support mail nobody else could answer, or when I've tried to assist with things they didn't understand yet). So please, please, please, the "Mr Angry" emails have to stop or I'm going to have to put this down again. I'm just trying to help here.
   

UNQUOTE
I think Joel is a star, but the fact that someone who is no longer has any formal connection to the Company has out of a sense of loyalty to his former customers performed the Customer Support task that was the responsibility and indeed duty of the current owners, I find frankly almost beyond belief.

Snappy Designs are going to have to answer questions which are going to be a lot harder to answer than providing the technical explanation of the problem.

Fotopic Disappears - followed by a Deafening Silence

Please Note: There is now a follow up to this post here:
Fotopic Disappears - But the Silence is broken:

Fotopic is one of the most popular photo sharing gallery sites especially for transport enthusiasts, which by 2007 hosted 76,400,000 Images from users in 204 Countries.
The site disappeared from the internet early on the 2nd January 2009 and at time of writing is still down!

There has been NO information from the UK registered owners of the company Snappy Designs Limited, their parent company Any-Web, and as for the Media, not even the specialist Internet/Computing Sites have picked up on what should be a major story!

The result has been Fear Uncertainty and Doubt across the Fotopic user community, with rumours and speculation rife.

This Deafening Silence is amazing when in normal times a two hour outage for one popular site results in stories appearing across the Internet News Pages with quotes from Company Representatives, Network Operator and a complete list of previous problems.
So why this time around nothing?.
Many Blogs are carrying the latest rumours, speculation and unverifiable comments from ex-Fotopic staff, but nothing concrete.

Someone somewhere MUST know the situation, but in the meantime, one place any Fotopic User should keep an check-on is the Former Fotopic Users Group on Google, which in the absence of anything useful from the Company, or Media is trying to keep people informed.

Even if Fotopic magically reappears, as David Beilby says in the Support group:
Quote:
If the Fotopic service resumes, there has been a loss of confidence which will take some restoration. In particular the complete lack of communication during an outage in excess of forty-eight hours is not good customer service.

If the business model is proving to be a bit shaky this affair will not do anything to make it
more robust. A single e-mail to all subscribers explaining what was going on would have been enough for most subscribers, although there are those who use it for business who will expect something more.
Unquote
Which summarizes the entire appalling lack of Customer Care and Service Extremely well!
But the question is why haven't the Media, or at least the specialist Media taken this sstory up?