Anne Summers in Bath, Somerset

This was taken by Clare (for me) at the front of Anne Summers in Bath. A lady came running out saying that no photographs were allowed, but she got it..... The model did not mind !

International Crimes and Justice

This contribution is written following the death of Slob0dan Milosovic and the impending arrest and trial of Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone for possible transfer to the International Criminal Court (ICC) of Justice at the Hague ? This triggered thoughts about International Law, the policing of that law and the system of International Justice.

First a review of the conventions and tribunals since the end of World War Two : -

1948 The UN General Assembly set up the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. Is this victors justice ?

1949 Geneva Conventions on War Crimes

1993 The UN set up an International Criminal Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia (ICTY)

1994 The UN set up a similar Tribunal for Rwanda

1998 The Rome Statute of the ICC was adopted at a meeting of 160 countries, this recognized that the Security Council of the UN and the ICC will continue to complement each other in the maintenance of international peace and security. There was a deadline of 31.12.2000 for states to sign-up.

2000 In all some 139 states signed up ( out of 160 ) including the USA under President Clinton.

2002 Then President Bush informed the UN that the USA idi not recognize the signature on the Statute and accordingly they " unsigned " ( One wonders if this has anything to do with the war on terror and Iraq? )

Note : Some ot the countries not yet signed up are :- USA, China, India, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Uzbekistan, North Korea
Syria, Belarus and Saudia Arabia . ( Thus it seems that the US lines up with the world's worst human rights violators )

Secondly a definition of the crimes which the ICC can charge an individual : -

Genocide
Crimes against Humanity ( Including Sexual Crimes )
War Crimes

Further crimes under consideration are Aggression; Terrorism and Drug Trafficking

The fist three most serious crimes are carefully defined in the Rome Statute :-

1 Genocide - Killing and causing serious harm committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

2 Crimes against Humanity - Acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. To include murder, extermination, rape, sexual slavery, the enforced disappearance of persons, and the crime of apartheid, among others.

3 War Crimes - This covers grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and other serious violations of the laws of war, committed on a large scale in International as well as Internal armed conflicts.

The inclusion of " Internal Conflicts " is consistent with the reality that in the past 50 years the most serious crimes have been within States and not International. Previously the Internal matters of a nation state, rather like Domestic abuse were considered to be beyond the business and jurisdiction of other nations, or individuals.

All the above applies to individuals and not to Nation States.

Visit the site below to see a list of Dictators and other "Monsters", and to see how many people have died due to International Crimes, and also innocent civilians during the course of Wars. Also the considerations regarding whether Hiroshima and Nagisaki should be considered to be War Crimes as well as the bombing of Dresden and the Vietnam war.

Click here for 1900: a century of genocides

A Julia fractal Crop Circle at Stonehenge

This pictogram appeared in daylight on July 7th 1996. It is 900 x 500 ft consisting of 151 circles, and materialised in a field close to Stonehenge. A pilot flying over the monument saw nothing in the field as he passed over but on his return a mere 35 minutes later the design was complete. And as the photo shows it was within a short distance of the busy A303, and Stonehenge, and appeared in a short time in daylight although no-one saw anything, despite the dozens of visitors to Stonehenge, nor the probable hundreds of motorists passing within feet of the field. The design is a perfect Julia Fractal which is a complex mathematical symbol familiar to chaos theorists. It would have taken several days for landscape artists or other qualified people to plot the designs on the ground, let alone construct it.

Click here to access The Cropcircle-connector site

All crop circle images in this website are by courtesy of " The Crop Circle Connector " www.cropcircleconnector.com

The Triple Crop Circle at Avebury Trusloe Wiltshire - July 1996

The above shows the triple spiral with equilateral triangles spiralling and extending, and the photo below shows
this mighty crop circle formation made up of three arms, totalling 194 perfectly graded circles spiralling out from the centre ( an overall diameter of over 1000 feet or 303 mtrs ) The formation also consisted of a series of equilateral triangles, spiralling and rotating from the centre outwards in quite awesome precision. This geometric exactitude alone makes this almost impossible to replicate exactly, and in the dark overnight without disturbing the surrounding crop. We know that many crop circles are man-made, but the only way to lay out this complex pattern in such a field would be from an aerial view. Also there is a time element, and if we allow say 10 minutes to flatten each circle, with 194 circles it would have taken 32 hours. It would seem impossible for this formation to be a " Crop Circle Hoax "

( http://www.observations.org/Richard/TplSprl.jpg )

Michel

Photo taken by me in my study at Jaspers

Sir Issac Newton ( 1642 - 1727 )

" I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me "

The Buddha

Praise and Blame; Gain and Loss; Pleasure and Sorrow, come and go like the wind

To be Happy rest like a great Tree, In the midst of them all.

Canterbury Panels

Some of the window panels from 7 North Lane, Canterbury, with Diana's breakfast tray in the foreground. 

Clare and Louise in Venice - 2003

 

The Egyptian

Charlie Gregory was an Egyptian in a School project - February 2006

Hibiscus

This is one of my Hibiscus flowers taken in 2005

Chartered Accountant

I qualified in 1963, became a fellow in 1973 and was awarded a BA in Accounting in 1985. Although I am now retired I still enjoy accounting & act for a Charity on a part-time basis. M H Kennett BA FCA

Stained Glass Window

I am an amateur stained glass artist, and have been using antique glass and lead came for many years, although until now I have not actually painted on glass. This panel, which is not finished is my first attempt to paint the face and hands.

Louise in Tokyo - 2000

This is my elder daughter Louise Gregory who was born in 1960, a true child of the "swinging sixties" She lived in Tokyo for 7 years with her husband Richard and their children Jessica and Charlie

My Logo

I have always been interested in Spirals which includes the unbilibical cord and in particular Spiral Staircases. My logo spiral is a bastard spiral, in that it does not conform with a gnomic ratio such as the one based on the series, which is derived from the ratio of 1:2. The Fibonacci spirals are frequently found in the natural world. A Fibonacci spiral starts with one unit square increasing with side ratios = 1 ,2 ,3 ,5 ,8 ,13 ,21 ,34 ....