Iain Cameron's Diary
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2003-03-21 - 9:42 a.m.

I had a meeting on the Automotive Academy which was fairly productive and then I went across to the NEC to meet someone from the Dept of Transport.He is the head of their systems certification branch � but he turned out to be very knowledgeable about the institutional landscape of the automotive industry especially its relationship with the banks in Germany, Japan and the US. I hadn�t realised that the US banking laws were designed to promote competition and stop them being too powerful overall. This partly explains some of the commercial restructuring that MacArthur did when he ran Japan � limiting the power of the four big trading houses. Anyway its quite something to be on top of this stuff and all the details of the global quality standard. It was an interesting half hour.

Then I spent half an hour looking round the Midlands Manufacturing exhibition and I spoke to a few of the exhibitors and made couple of contacts which might come in handy. Then I went back to the office and had a look at the emerging Automotive Academy Business Plan which I still think misses the main issues.

This evening I have been listening to talk radio in the West Midlands about the war. The Muslim dimension strikes me as pretty fraught and could easily lead to inter-community strife. The radio anchor-people have to be pretty skilled to avoid the various inter cultural tank traps that are around and I didn�t think all of them were quite up to scratch.

I posted various material to www.kwase-kwaza.org including something off the DoD website about Rumsveld worrying about service men being too free in their discussions with the media. Someone at work said that they thought the level of international scrutiny would restrain the conduct of the war. Apparently amongst those lawyers who think that war is legal, there are some who think that nonetheless there are constraints how the war is prosecuted. The war is eg for disarmament and certain actions eg terror bombing would be illegal as the don�t stand in much relationship to the aim that licences the military action..

I finally got round to listening to where the tune had got to � I rather like it although it already sounds alien and separate. I couldn�t really explain to anyone why it is at is � except that it came out of a specific development path and reflected the character of the time.

I couldn�t be bothered to cook supper again � this is not like me.- but I did some washing. James has moved onto Florence and I have been thinking about Brunelleschi who is one of my favourite architects ever.

I am not sure I buy the argument that out of respect for the armed forces and the dangers they face one ought to stop debating the fundamentals of the moral arguments. Soldiers get called in when diplomacy has failed and that is more likely than not going to be controversial � its only with hindsight that going to war with Germany in 1939 looks uncontroversial. If you are in the armed forces then you ought to accept that you are going to do dangerous and controversial things which might not have universal support. The Falklands were like that � sinking the Belgrano for example, and the battle for Goose Green.

I think it makes sense to hold back from rushing on with the 4th tune � maybe it won�t need much anyway. My nails are in a state � maybe I ought to eat more sensibly.

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