Sunday, August 20, 2006

Some Other Uses of "Convergence"

Random search results at BBC site:

Convergence is the new buzz word in the communications industry - mobile, fixed line, internet and TV in one package.

============================================

The Chancellor is due to deliver his verdict on the five economic tests for Euro entry within three weeks. Meeting these criteria is crucial before the government puts the decision about joining the Euro to the British public.

One of the key tests is over the UK economy converging sufficiently with the rest of Europe.

For the last five years the British engine has been chuffing along very nicely with low inflation and steady growth. But today the picture is not quite as clear.

The last time the Chancellor examined the convergence issue, we were heading in the same general direction as Europe, but we and the Americans seemed to be going one way and the Europeans another.

============================================

The World at One examines the chancellor's first precondition for the UK joining the euro - convergence. Gordon Brown's number one condition requires the convergence of the UK economy with that of Europe's, so that we can live comfortably with euro interest rates on a permanent basis, as he explained when he unveiled his five tests:

"That convergence must be capable and likely to be sustained - in other words we must demonstrate a settled period of convergence," he said.

============================================

The daughter of Rupert Murdoch has given her first major speech since taking up the post of general manager of Sky TV at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
She told her audience to expect the imminent reality of the digital era in broadcasting.

This would reinvigorate the relationship between viewer and producer, she said.

But Ms Murdoch ruled out talk of convergence between the Internet and television.

"For years now, the word convergence has gone side-by-side with digital, a convenient way of explaining how TVs and PCs will get married and live happily ever after.

"Well, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there's been a divorce. No, not the first time I've had to talk about this subject in the last few months.

==========================================

If two lifts are travelling in opposite directions in nearby lift shafts, they may come to rest on the same floor at some point. When the doors open it would be premature to celebrate their convergence.

Any attempt to hitch the two together would be doomed to failure; once the doors shut and they resumed their journeys in opposite directions, there would be a terrible rending asunder.

=========================================

But there are questions about every part of the apparently pragmatic middle-ground consensus. For example, is pragmatism an adequate approach to government? Is the middle ground a place that dishonestly tries to deny the trade offs between competing policy objectives? Is the claim to be beyond ideology credible?

And if the present consensus does look unsatisfying, what are the alternatives? In Politics for Plumbers, Bob Tyrrell dissects the apparent convergence of the political parties and asks if the initial statements from the new Conservative leader David Cameron imply more of the same, or a radical departure that could make politics bitterly ideological once more.

========================================

Enough for now. You get my point, which is the word "convergence" within the context of retreating from strategic portions of the Jewish homeland is not only a bad idea, but it si bad English as well.

No comments: