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Malfleur that was an excellent link that stirred much comment last week and I’ll reproduce it here again:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/142269/sec_id/142269
This passage here:
‘In actual fact, prosecutors seize property and drain bank accounts in order to deprive the accused of any representation other than a public defender (who are paid by the number of cases processed not the quality of defense provided).’
Quite so.
I also read of similar things now going on in the UK. Tommy Robinson was a classic case in point. All his assets frozen.
What the authorities were embarrassed to do through the ‘front door’ – close down free speech (their objective), they did through the ‘back door’ – tax investigation – all assets frozen.
No state fingerprints on that: ‘Us? Close down free speech? Nah. It’s just a commonplace tax investigation.’
There was something similar I read about in the UK, where the aim was to make life hell for the convict, but not send her to prison – that would cause bad PR.
She was a little old lady convicted of saying something deemed offensive.
She was convicted by the beak, but they wouldn’t lock someone up for that for fear of bad press, so they got her through the back door: £5,000 fine. To a pensioner that’s a lot of money.
Again, the objective was: ‘We’ll teach you to be afraid to use free speech. Frightened now? Good. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves by locking you up, so we’ll shut you up another way.’
To those of you who worked out or read this, apologies.
I saw the answer a while ago but didn’t know how it was reached:
Try this cryptic crossword clue
It’s an old story – over-familiar Prime Minister loses referendum. (9).
Daniel Maris Dr Talent
“Decameron” is a Medieval collection of stories (not story if we are being pedantic – tut, tut Rod) so the non-cryptic part (these clues nearly always have a non-cryptic part, often a synonym) gives you the whole answer. The cryptic part is:
D(av)e Cameron
The Prime Minister is David Cameron but he is sometimes mocked for being over-familiar “call me Dave”…so the clue is thus telling you to work with Dave Cameron. Then the clue tells you to “lose” referendum from that. We had an AV referendum in the last few years, so you lose the letters A and V which gives you Decameron when you bring it together.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2013/11/try-this-cryptic-crossword-clue/
Joany
Here’s another aspect of departments of state controlling freedom of speech in the USA. No doubt similar pressure is applied in England.
http://www.infowars.com/get-out-of-the-501c3-church/
Saw a description of the troupe Romulus has taken to Peking. Are there no limitations on the shallowness of this self regarding PR spiv? You can bet that Angela Merkel took the cream of German industry with here when she recently visited, nor would she have lectured the Chinese on their internal affaires, which is why Germany sells more to China than we are ever likely to. The state of our nation can truly be compared to the last days of the Roman Empire, not least because we are ruled by a silly child.
A guar-ate investment? Or just another wheeze to scam the guar-llible?
http://uk-mg42.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.partner=sky&.rand=aati4gumveafe#mail
Monday morning contribution from the Naughty Niece:
Wife texts husband on a cold winter’s morning:
“Windows frozen.”
Husband texts back:
“Pour some luke warm water over it.”
Wife texts back:
“Computer completely buggered now.”
And this as a follow-up from the NN:
An open letter to the Prime Minister thanking him for his concern:
Dear David Cameron,
Thank you for the advice on keeping down my heating bills
You said to wear a jumper to keep out the winter chills
I’m 75 years old, I’ve jumpers older than you!
But none of them do the job when it’s minus bloody two!
I’m actually ten years older than our beloved welfare state
I’ll outlive the thing if times keep on as they have of late
We used to have this quaint idea of solidarity
‘All for one and one for all’ got replaced by ‘me,me,me’
They sold off the utilities; thus privatising heat.
So now us old folks have to choose to warm our rooms or eat.
They sold off all the factories; they sold off all the mills
Now kids are lucky to find work scanning tin cans at tills
They sold off all our railways, and they gave away our trains
It made some folks a lot of cash, but we just felt the pains
They sold off schools and hospitals, now police stations too
Things once owned by all of us, now owned by the likes of you
For decades now your lot have sold what wasn’t yours to sell
Your gang of ham faced charlatans can go to bloody hell!
You tell us now we’re old and cold to ‘wrap up warm’. As ‘eck!
I’ll take my winter scarf and wrap it round your soddin’ neck!
You wouldn’t know a tough choice if it bit you in the arse
To be lectured by you on ‘making do’ is beyond a soddin’ farce
‘Wear extra clothes’ to save some cash? I’d love to, but alack…
You rotten thieving bastards stole the shirt right off my back.
Yours Shiveringly,
An Apocryphal OAP
… but just in case that made any of you laugh … here’s something to wipe the smile off your face, not to mention Israel off the map:
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4071/geneva-agreement
Stephen Maybery – Having lived among the Chinese -full of admiration, I might add …let me note that they are not not …. NOT … likely to be out-thought by a fat fraulein. My bets are 100% with the Chinese. These people are not just clever …. they are astounding in their ability to cover all the angles without the other party being fully cognizant of the fact that they are being done over.
Good poem Frank.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/how-tommy-cameron-made-milibands-bribe-disappear/
Energy prices low ‘until after the next election’, says that blogger.
Help to Buy expires, curiously enough, soon after the next election.
There’ll be a referendum on the EU. But only after the next election.
Just one more chance.
One more.
All they ask.
It was satirised beautifully by Peter Hitchens this week:
‘How about plain packets for political parties?
‘They’d be forbidden to advertise and accompanied everywhere by hideous photographs of what happened to people who believed them in the past.’
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/12/peter-hitchens-the-question-is-not-who-is-taking-drugs-but-who-isnt.html
It has been painfully obvious ever since the day that Heath kicked out Powell that the answer is not one more chance, one more leader, one more day.
The answer is, quite simply this: never, ever again.
Ever.
Get out.
And stay out.
50 years of lies. How many more half centuries do the voters need?
It’s over.
Same Hitchens piece:
Would-be UKIP voters are browbeaten by Tories telling them that they’ll ‘let Labour in’. This is false in so many ways. First, the Tories are politically identical to Labour.
Do you really find it hard to imagine Theresa May or Liz Truss in a Labour government? Or Chuka Umunna or Rachel Reeves in a Tory one? It’s only the tribal label that’s different.
No, the people who should be scolded are those who still plan to vote Tory, after all the evidence that the Conservatives cannot win, and would continue with pro-PC, pro-EU and anti-British policies even if they did.
Vote Tory and get Labour.
Fatty Pang refers to the ‘dark side of globalisation’. Peter Hitchens asks: ‘is there a bright side?’
Exactly.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/11/the-liberal-elite-shifts-two-important-speeches-on-rights-and-open-borders.html
Fatty Pang’s outpourings are another thing I am sure only happening because Lynton Crosby cannot get rif of UKIP.
There’s been a sort of ‘we’d better start talking about stuff like this’ moment at the top table.
Don’t be deceived.
It is only talk.
All hot air.
A bit of hand-wringing before the next election that the mainstream media and mainstream parties never meant for any of this to happen.
Oh no. Heaven forfend!
You’ll just give the Establishment one more chance, we hope.
We didn’t mean it.
Cross our hearts and hope to die.
‘How about plain packets for political parties?
‘They’d be forbidden to advertise and accompanied everywhere by hideous photographs of what happened to people who believed them in the past.’
I say satire, only if the picture of the voter is dead:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516077/Legal-clerk-stabbed-death-gang-outside-Borough-pub-mistaken-else.html
or just plain old beaten to a pulp:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516746/Woman-filmed-knocked-unconscious-bus-gang-men-pour-drink-pull-hair.html
I guess it’s not all that funny.
Only Anglo Saxon monosyllables can sum up the response that should greet this woman:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516745/I-survive-500-week-benefits-says-Birmingham-single-mother-eight.html
Verity,
I am 100% with you. The fact that Germany is doing so well in the Chinese market is that they are giving the Chinese what they want, which is goods of technological excellence and not a bunch of clapped out celebs, of which I am sure they have plenty of the home grown variety.
Old Baily;Court No.2. Trial continues;Noon to 4pm. Witness statements.
http://www.courtnewsuk.co.uk/?news_id=35177
Radford NG (16:22)
Thanks for that link; horrifying though the graphic detail is, it needs to be widely disseminated, just in case anyone is any doubt about the level of barbarity that Islam can descend to – and regularly does. A religion of peace? Ugghh!
And why isn’t it in Court No.1, which is normally reserved for the most serious cases. This relegated to No.2? Another indication of the political temerity of our administration. Surprised they didn’t try it in Woolwich small claims court, the bastards.
Verity
Re the Chinese
“…These people are not just clever …. they are astounding in their ability to cover all the angles without the other party being fully cognizant of the fact that they are being done over…”
At least Frau Merkel has something to sell, unlike Mr Cameron. sine the 60’s the world’saspiring middle classes have wanted their Mercedes Benzs and BMW’s.
Like the African’s before them, the Chinese are simply the latest ‘Wabenzi’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-GFqhCq2HA
This is what’s on in Court Number One:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2488494/Property-tycoon-Robert-Ekaireb-accused-murdering-pregnant-wife-Li-Hua-Cao.html
Just to confirm, there are reporting restrictions in place on the trial in Court Number Two:
Court 2 – sitting at 10:30 am
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE SWEENEY
Trial (Part Heard)
T20137220 ADEBOWALE Micahel
Order made under Contempt of Court Act 1981 – DTA – Joined to:
T20137224 HAMZA AKA ADEBOLAJO Mujaahid Aka Michael A
Order made under Contempt of Court Act 1981 – DTA
http://www.courtserve.net/courtlists/current/crown/cccrt_T131203.01.htm
Malfleur @ 21:16
Your favorite? Tannyson?, for the barbarian he’s too deep, he only remembers his ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than not to have loved’.
Joany @ 17:05
Not much in the news though. Baron listens to Classic FM, not a word of the trial. It’s still the Glasgow copter crash that dominates the bulletins.
Tom Daley is going out with a man and he’s so happy.
I’m so very happy as well.
In fact I’m sure everyone here is so very very happy as well.
The BBC seems to be very happy indeed.
They can’t bloody well shut up about it. It seems its an excellent thing which will be very positive to all young people.
So on a day when nothing can be as important as a bloke going out with another bloke lets all rejoice and be very very happy.
Joany @ 14:58
But Joany, the woman only does what she’s allowed to do. It’s the law that’s primarily to blame, we change it, she will have to find a new source of income to live on, or stop breading.
We still are a law abiding country, people behave within the law, and when the law says one with 8 kids is entitled to the money, other benefits, that’s it. The communist Red Menace of the East used moral pressure, too, they’ve very keen on it, it didn’t work, it won’t work here either, we humans are materialistic animals, we are all trying to better ourself within the rules, and the rules are set by the law.
Joany @ 14:36
We can no more fight globalisation than the Luddites could have stopped the introduction of the weaving looms. At the heart of the ‘globalisation’ is the progress of technology, specifically containerisation. This is what pushed shipping costs to the bottom, and from there it was only a short step for manufacturers to shift from high labour cost countries to the low cost ones.
And we, as consumers, all danced with joy, we could buy a pair of Nike trainers for less than a third of what it cost before. In our role as producers, however, there was a massive loss of jobs in the high labour cost West.
In Baron’s humble view, the only way back is for us to start making stuff attractive enough in small quantities that will beat the cheap mass manufacture of China and others of that kind, example Emma Bridgewater cups and stuff.
John birch @ 17:10
Who he?
A powerful argument, Frank, in particular the point that it covers only the technical side of the enrichment programme. One can only hope the Israelis have something uptheir sleeves. It wouldn’t shock if they formed a quiet alliance with the Saudis, Gulf states, and had a go.
Baron
“… or stop breading.”
Let them eat cake, eh? 🙂
Frank P @ 14:00
You’ve sent it? Or is it something you’d like to send? It wouldn’t make any difference to anything, my friend. We’re on the path of self-destruction, and the tossers either don’t know it, or pretend they don’t know it. Lunacy.
Baron
Tom Daly is an Olympic diver. Seems he’s being going into dives that he should have kept well clear of. Obviously someone dived into his nether regions and he learned to like it. But he ‘still fancies women’, he says. Let’s hope women have gone off HIM. This switch-hitting is dangerous for the health, with AIDS still raging through the sodomite milieu. Put him down love, you don’t know where he’s been. Dirty little sod.
Baron ,I agree in despair, some bloody swimmer. !!!
I agree with your first point Baron, the benefits handouts must be lowered further if that thing is still breeding like a rat.
I am not sure about globalism not being reversed.
The US is big enough to go it alone and the people here are sick of all the cultural hopey changey globalists stuff they’ve had rammed down their throats as people waltz across borders.
A lot of people would just like to feel safe in their beds at night and not that the enemy without is creeping in via global financial backdoors. Wahhabism. Buying up Western soccer teams. And so on.
The view that globalism has had its day used to be fringe but here it is expressed by a mainstream economist on a mainstream website (ABC):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-01/das-the-retreat-from-globalisation/4989028
The retreat from globalisation
By Satyajit Das
Far from being an inexorable and irreversible trend, financial globalisation could actually be coming to an end, to be replaced by trading blocs and closed economies, writes Satyajit Das.
Frank P @ 18:03
Thanks for enlightening the ignorant barbarian, and the accurate precis of the the phylum that has a need to shout about its sexual orientation. One would be hard to disagree with you, and Baron certainly doesn’t.
Apropos Daley, if people do what they do, so be it.
But wht is it ‘celebrated’ by the media?
She is not my favourite person, but I recently heard Germaine Greer describe sex as a ‘blood sport’.
It is. Good phrase.
So ‘celebrating’ things gives vulnerable young people the wrong impression that the whole world is some sort of ‘celebration’.
Daley has done the rounds with the ladies and is now swinging the rounds elsewhere. But why the celebration by the BBC?
To use Germaine Greer’s metaphor, this is how bad it can get. Young people should not be given the wrong impression that they can just saunter about the place on libidinous whims.
Daley has the status and the fortune to stay safe, no doubt. But I hope the role model image the BBC is pushing does not lead more vulnerable people to think whims are a good thing to act on.
Live and let live, yes. But cool it on the celebrations.
Young people need role models, yes. But they also need to know there are some very nasty people out there:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516912/Predatory-dangerous-HIV-positive-paedophile-groomed-boys-Facebook-Bebo-filming-having-sex-jailed-life.html
It’s interesting that no comment is allowed about Daley, but it is noted that all the comment is favourable. And it is also hoped that his privacy will be respected, while he never had to tell anyone about what he likes to get up to with other men.
PfM 2nd, – 18:47
“he never had to tell anyone about what he likes to get up to with other men.”
er-r hm…I don’t believe he’s done that; AFAIK, what statement he has made in as bald as it could be.
I think that going onto Youtube and announcing you have a boyfriend explains it all.
John birch 2nd, – 17:10
“So on a day when nothing can be as important as a bloke going out with another bloke lets all rejoice and be very very happy.”
Sounds as if you’d like to give some of them a good birching. 🙂
Joany @ 18:12
Weirder things have happened, it’s of course possible that we turn back to closed trading zones, import barriers and stuff, but then some, the more entrepreneurial amongst us, would resort to smuggling what with the temptation to make a buck or two from the differences in price.
Throughout the history of mankind, the lowering of cost has always been the the most powerful driving force. It is what makes today the middle classes to enjoy the life of the upper echelons of the society only (say) hundred years ago albeit in goods and services more appropriate to today’s tastes and desires.
Baron’s a great believer in the imaginative inventiveness of the Western gene, given sufficient backing it has always triumphed over the brutal force of numbers, there’s no reason to suppose it’s gone, dead, kaput. It’s just that in a society where everyone has rights and entitlements not many who could bother. And why should they when ‘the society’ provides.
Ostrich (occasionally) @ 19:00
There’re some gay people who accept what Nature ‘gifted’ them, are content, have no desire to shout about it, live lives in privacy. Then there’s the lot, most of them under the umbrella of the Stonewall crowd, who need continuous re-assurance that ‘their sexual orientation’ is on par with with the heterosexual lot. It’s they who cannot ‘get it’. The recent marriage deal ain’t the last we’ve heard of them, they’ll come back. They have more than a chip on their shoulders, and at some pint someone will have to tell them ‘enough’s enough’, or life itself will sort them out.
Frank P.
“Put him down love, you don’t know where he’s been. Dirty little sod.”
That just about sums it up Frank.
Later on Friday evening, I saw on TV the first reports of the Police Helicopter disaster in Glasgow. At the time, I thought the Major Incident team were were being a little – er – languid with the rescue operation. Lots of people standing around, nobody acting with much urgency. I assumed that the damage was such that everybody had managed to skedaddle from the pub and that they had succeeded in bringing out all the casualties and any fatalities; so, I assumed that they were entitled to take their time getting the helicopter removed from the roof.
From early on, Salmond, Murphy and a parade of other hand-wring politicians jumped on the bandwagon with their endless stream of politicking platitudes, with peons of praise for the citizens of Glasgae extolling their stoicism and bravery in the face of overwhelming peril and pestilence. Only in Scotland, the Home of the Brave, said the electioneering dickheads, would you see such a stiff upper lip. (No doubt hoping to sway the Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum). Then Cameron and Miliband crawled out of their beds in London and added their sanctimonious bullshit to the proceedings. Never miss a photo op, the first tenet in their credo.
Throughout all of this I wondered ‘why aren’t they getting some heavy-lifting gear on the scene and making sure that that there aren’t any living/injured souls under the chopper’. My missus opined that perhaps they were afraid that the petrol tank would blow up if they moved it, but I doubted this, as there were a few fireman and cops standing on the roof beside the wreck. Moreover, while first wondering whether they had inadvertently run out of petrol on their way back to the heli-pad just down the river Clyde, I was assured by one of the ‘experts’ that the double insulation and springing arrangements for the petrol tanks made it unlikely that the tanks would rupture in such a crash. So why, I reiterated, aren’t they getting the chopper removed?
As the days have passed, a picture emerges that one could uncharitably interpret as an arse-covering exercise. It seems that the various groups of air-safety experts from across Europe with a vested interest needed to converge and have their say on the cause of the crash before the chopper was disturbed.
I share the frustration of the young man who was convinced that his father was under the debris and wanted more done to find out if he was still alive. Others with missing relatives have similar concerns.
Please someone tell me that the rules of Major Incidents haven’t changed since my training days and my involvement in them. The first priority was once clear and unquestionable. First save lives and rescue casualties, all efforts to be directed towards that end; other forensic and evidential considerations are secondary. I simply can’t believe that some contractor in Scotland wouldn’t have been keen to get plant to the scene capable of lifting the chopper within a couple of hours. Would probably have done it free of charge (what better publicity than a firms logo front and centre beamed by TV around the world?). If the PTB are suggesting that the lives of the emergency teams are of paramount importance, then there’s a disturbing shift in ethos there too. Those of us in days of yore who found ourselves in such circumstances would have deemed it reprehensible if any of our number were not prepared to chance their arses in the line of duty in such circumstances. O tempora O mores!
I know it’s easy to indulge in Monday morning quarter-backing, as they say over the Pond. But I really do question, along with the concerned citizens of Glasgow, the hesitancy of the Incident Teams. And wonder whether the CYA principle didn’t play a part in this tragedy. If so, heads should roll.
Baron has just noticed a grave error in one of his rantings. The sentence should read…. ‘not many who could, bother’. Does it make better sense, now.
Also this:
Not one of you has commented on Rod Liddle’s piece in the Spectator on ‘The truths you cannot tell in today’s Britain’. Pretty good, the guy seems to doing everything he can to cut himself from any editorship unless conditions change. Quite a sacrifice from a gifted man.
Mark Steyn on the hockey stick held the other way round.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/365220/ice-everywhere-no-hockey-sticks-mark-steyn
“Global warming will kill us. Global cooling will kill us. And if it’s 54 and partly cloudy, you should probably flee for your life right now”.
Frank, I think you are absolutely right.
There seems to be a lot of this – and not all the cases are high profile.
There is the case of the suspected murder of Marco Blanco, which only has profile because Pete Doherty is a possible witness and ran past his body. As you do when someone ‘commits suicide’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244611/Actor-fell-death-Pete-Doherty-flat-party-probably-dropped-balcony-claims-Newsnight.html
You can research it all very easily on Google.
One man even admitted he did it!
He remains the prime suspect, despite rescinding his confession.
One of the most telling details was when a family member turned up at the scene a few days later, having been told it was suicide only to point to her son’s glasses in the gutter and point out the crime scene hadn’t even been secured to gather important evidence like that and the policeman she was with picked them up and handed them to her there and then. Eat your heart out, CSI. What if his assailant had left prints on them and thrown them down afterwards?
Luckily, that family have a very high profile criminal barrister called Michael Wolking helping them pro bono.
Otherwise they’d be stuffed. Not that they’re having an easy time of it now.
Suicide, my foot.
The chopper case is unlikely to be murder, but there seems to be a disturbing passivity to many of the emergency services these days.
They can move like a rcoket when there’s a ‘hate crime’ on the loose and there’s a Common Purpose promotion ladder to climb, but the notion of real public service – actually doing the things that matter – seems to have been coached out of them by the top brass.
Michael Wolkind QC, not Wolking!
At last, we have a whistleblower on RBS – and they have done the right thing – gone to the media.
The SFO will struggle to get a conviction, it is a notoriously bad dept, but if the facts can at least be made public, that will be something.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2517006/RBS-faces-questions-role-High-Street-collapses.html
This is why that evil Leveson man is so dangerous.
When authority is useless or bent, the only other chance of moral justice, if not criminal justice, is to get it out in public somehow.
Brian Leveson really is the villain of the year.
Paxo just devoted about ten minutes to the queer diver’s emetic announcement about his switch-hitting proclivities. A sign, according to the recently hirsuit Newsnight anchor, that Britain is becoming more ‘civilised’.
I see! Perhaps OED should consider redefining ‘civilised’ to include turd- burgling.
I note that Daley is another example of the large majority of homosexualists who seem to be missing a loving father figure and replace the missing male intimacy in a disordered manner. His own father, an important figure in his life, sadly died a few years ago.
All we orphans miss our late fathers, Peter. Few, I hope, go sexually bent as a result. And for those that do, best keep it quiet, one would have thought. Particularly if you also keep pussy on the back burner … just in case.
Paxo excelled himself with his finale tonight. Invited the latest ‘memory man’ to memorize the credits to Newsnight in seven minutes. The so called ‘winner’, ten minutes later, stumbled through about four of the names, came to a stuttering halt and Paxman finished it off for him. Presumably a researcher will be shit-canned later. Oh! Wait a sec. It’s the Beeb…
No change there, then.
Bring back Leslie Welsh.
Baron 2nd, – 19:16
“There’re some gay people who accept what Nature ‘gifted’ them, are content, have no desire to shout about it, live lives in privacy.”
Precisely. I wasn’t condoning the lad, just suggesting that things had been attributed to him which he hadn’t in fact said.
But…I fully agree; I don’t go making public what decency demands should remain private, and I don’t expect “brahn ‘atters” to do so either.
Alexander Boot on Soixante-neuf and the Palme d’Whore:
http://alexanderboot.com/content/blue-colour-movie
“I can testify that last night many viewers did laugh out loud watching the girls turning the old 69 into more like 4761 (69 squared).”
Tasty! Perhaps a sign that France too, has become ‘civilised’ under Paxo’s new definition.
Read it all; a masterpiece of film critique; funny and depraved. In other words quite normal for today’s dissolute punters.
I’m never sure about that theory, Peter.
From the theory I’ve read, it’s supposed to happen at a young age when it’s unconscious. Daley would be too old to fit that (if the theory were true – but I suppose all science is theory and psychology is a pseudoscience).
Who knows?
I always remember Anthony Burgess, who knew a hell of a lot about religion, psychology and history, writing in Earthly Powers about incest being the cure for homosexuality! So I suppose he gives credence to that theory, one way or another.
There’s a novel of his I have never read, but always meant to read, all about the state imposition of homosexuality. It’s called The Wanting Seed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wanting_Seed
From that fascinating synopsis, I find this character intriguing:
Mr. Livedog — the term used for God, who is both good and evil. He makes masses of useless life and it is the job of Mr. Homo, his master, to eliminate it.
Good grief!
Burgess was always a bit too non-PC for the reviewers, and especially today’s reviewers so I wonder if I should have read more by him.
I can’t imagine the bien pensant ever liking him!
Very funny review, Frank.
I wasn’t aware of that film. I’ve been keeping watch on Mandela and 12 Years A Slave and I think there’s another black hero film too, which I can’t remember.
It’s Oscar film release time and Tinseltown is taking down the white folk. Again.
Those are films that can only be judged in the context in which they are made.
They are part of the social engineering cultural ‘architecture’, when you think black, you will think good, when you think white, you will think bad.
Burgess wrote a pastiche of an Ogden Nash poem in anthololgy of Nash’s work compiled by Nash’s daughters. It probably topped Nash himself:
“I have never in my life said anything other than laudatory
Of the work of Ogden Nash, whose innovations were chiefly auditory.
Meaning that he brought a new kind of sound to our literary diversions
And didn’t care much about breaking poetic laws of the Medes and the Persians.
He uses lines, sometimes of considerable length, that are colloquial and prosy
And at the end presents you with a rhyme, like a twin flowered posy
Or really, when you come to think of it, a pair of dwarf’s gloves.
This bringing together of the informal and the formal his what his genius
… chiefly loves.
I am trying to imitate him here, but he is probably quite inimitable.
My own talent for this sort of thing being limited and his virtually illimitable.
Moreover, he was American and I am incorrigibly British.
And the British when writing light verse, tend to be facetious and skittish.
While he is dry, like a martini, and wittily New Yorkish,
Hardly ever sentimental or mawkish (this doesn’t rhyme in American, which
sounds its r’s, so let me suggest oleaginous, like-the-fat-of-cold porkish).
Not that he always writes like this; he can be brief and epigrammatical.
Allowing the long and formless line occasionally to enjoy a Sabbatical.
I suppose, when you come to think about it, he is like Alexander Pope,
Not of course in any way pontifical, he would not be such a dope,
But concerned with keeping his sense in a couplet, far from heroic,
Though the line is Epicureanly expansive, not stringently stoic.
I suppose, in a way, it’s a marriage of Whitman and Dryden.
Since the latter taught verse to contract and the former permitted it to widen.
You can zigzag across+
the road but sometime or other you have to stop,
Because the rhyme tells you to, like a fairly amiable cop.
What kind of writer is he, serious or jocular?
Is he demotically beerbarrelish or classically pocular?
In the works of literary reference, where the serious have traditionally
dominated,
You will not find Ogden Nash so much as nominated.
And he is virtually unknown to the aficionados of Harold or Denise Rob(b)ins:
He has not, in fact, been wound on to either of the two opposed bobbins.
Like William Shwenck Gilbert, another comic writer admitted to be sizeable,
He is, in the last analysis, pretty well uncategorisable.
Americans have learned from the music hall, the importance of accurate timing
But from Gilbert the essential wittiness of unusual rhyming.
I say no more. In the face of the unanalysable I must not be analytical.
And when a writer is beyond criticism it is stupid to go all critical.
In the dictionary, the term Ogden Nashish
Could only apply to Ogden Nash, who is addictive as hashish.
And ultimately unique, as Caruso or some other distinguished tenor is,
Or if you wish, in Latin, sui generis.
Anthony Burgess.
Sorry that came in two parts, the first prematurely ejaculated as I was laboriously copying it from Candy is Dandy – the title of the anthology. [From his couplet “On Icebreaking “: Candy is dandy/But liquor is qucker. 🙂
Perhaps you would be kind enough to join them up for me, Peter, and delete this. Thank you in anticipation.
Btw – eat your heart out, Fergus.
Baron , I recommended reading rods article last Thursday after I read it on the net.
I was surprised no one commented on it myself. !!!
Frank P, December 2nd, 2013 – 23:07
Re: “the queer diver’s emetic announcement”
This is most likely to have been prompted by commercial considerations. The laddy is in “showbiz” (*) where the value of the queen’s shilling far outweighs the King’s Shilling. No doubt the sales of his 2014 ” Budgie Smugglers” calendar will soar.
(*) showbiz – now including sport, politics and the meeja.
Joaney and Frank. Certainly all orphans miss their fathers, usually. And certainly the majority do not develop homosexual tendencies. But whenever some celebrity comes out I do a google and find that a significant proportion lack a father figure for one reason or another. Humans are complicated and easily broken. The desire for male intimacy, which is normal, can be disordered in a variety of ways. especially in our sexualised society, so that intimacy becomes sexual by mistake or by the influence of some other. We all need a hug, but in the wrong circumstances we think we need something more or different and then we think that is what we wanted all along.
stephen maybery, December 2nd, 2013 – 12:34
Re: Dave’s PR disaster in China:
http://news.sky.com/story/1176902/china-labels-uk-only-good-for-travel-and-study
Brilliant Frank!
My favourite lines:
‘I suppose, when you come to think about it, he is like Alexander Pope,
Not of course in any way pontifical, he would not be such a dope’
I always want to read more of Burgess whenever I read him. I think a lot of what we read can be influenced by critical reception, which for the past 50 years has been cultural materialism / Marxist theory by another name and whether that means Burgess has been overlooked.
Cameron’s ‘sincerity’
I love it.
It’s so fake it has to be put in inverted commas.
So long as the British don’t fall for it again!
Cameron’s China trip takes us right back to his political genesis, rising as he did from the swamp of public relations.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/12/an-interesting-man.html
Peter Hitchens follows the names and some of the money and draws this conclusion:
‘The thing that interests me about this relationship is that it tells us about a side of Mr Cameron the political reporters seldom trouble with – his past as a professional PR man, his strong links, through business and personal connections, with a part of Britain which is personally prosperous but not especially socially or morally conservative.’
To those of you unfamliar with it, Exaro is one of the best UK news websites. It is untainted by the close connections to power of things like the Shariagraph and Daily Mail.
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5148/cps-to-drop-key-charges-brought-under-operation-fernbridge
Essentially what happens in investigations like that is that the police do their job and then, as with Cyril Smith, people higher up the chain of command pour cold water on it.
Politicians have been linked to that inquiry and so you can bet people have gone of their way to ‘do a Cyril’ and sit on the file as much as possible.
Joany (11:31)
Interesting site. Is there any political leaning to it from what you have observed? Any idea who kicked it off?
Joany – sorry. This seems to answer my question:
http://www.exaronews.com/content/our-people
An eclectic mix, I suppose. I know Hencke, he’s old school Guardian. The rest are unknown quantities to me, but then, I’ve been out of the active loop for a couple of decades. Time marches on. Anyway thanks – well worth addition to the blogroll Peter.
EC (0800)
Heh, heh, heh. Spot on! There is, of course, another element:
The relentless predatory nature of the milieu. It operates both overtly through show business, the arts and more recently in sports. But the inexorable energy of the sodomy chapter of agitprop has been the most insidious and successful strand in the hegemonic culture war. And the Church is in a league of its own, as many of us have for decades before the more obvious eruptions have emerged. Any vulnerable youngster, in those formative mid teens when sexuality is shaped, is prey for them (male or female). At this stage nurture can trump nature. Evil. The word homophobia is a card that trumps all in a society that has been groomed by Gramsci’s education mill to appease all rapacious minority ‘victim’ groups. I see no chance of recovery from the depths to which we have descended, I’m afraid. All we can do is to use Gramsci’s own methods in an attempt to halt and then reverse The Long March. Bloody revolution has never worked. And overt proselytising seems to be counter productive, other than in small forums such as this one. But we are written off as antediluvian bigots
by those who call the shots. Depressing. Mind you – humour is still a sharp arrow. And I’m buggered if I’ll thrown in the towel. they’ll have to carry me out kicking and screaming. 🙂
Yes, Frank, I don’t share the political leanings of people like Lord Carlisle for one!
As you say, it’s an eclectic mix.
What I like about it is that they are new and so have to work hard to impress the readership.
As is so often the case with media outlets, expansion is likely to bring compromise and bias.
Phases like thism though, when they are relativley new to the scene, can be when publicationsl like that are at their best.
To my mind, the Shariagraph and Spivtator exist only because of reader inertia, their reputation and their scale – they can reach more people more quickly, but I think that is rarely justified by the content.
I do think things like Exaro have had to crop up because literate net audiences, such as this website’s readers, just don’t swallow the bull of publications aimed at them, like the Shariagraph and Spivtator.
There is a gap in the market for those who see through de facto Pravdas, be they Shariagraph or whatever other mainstream channel.
We just don’t buy it any more – literally.
EC.
Thanks for the link, it bears out everything I have thought of the situation. Our prospects in China wee not helped by Cameron interfering in China’s internal affairs in order to win brownie points from the Guardian. Trade is trade and provides jobs, something the posturing bien pensants should consider.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2517239/CHRISTOPHER-BOOKER-A-terrible-act-inhumanity-shows-justice-secret.html
Christopher Booker on that appalling case, which I am sure has only come to light because the Italian authorities have kicked off about it.
Many of these cases relied on psychiatric reports.
Psychology is a pseudoscience and should not be treated like that.
If there is real evidence of physical harm – and even that can be hard to establish – that is different.
It also stands to reason that if you are a psychologist and a local authority pays you, you would know what ‘goods’ they want you to come up with and that if you stopped coming up with said ‘goods’ the work – and the money – would dry up.
It’s the same issue with the global warming scientists – a lot of people’s salaries ride on global warming being true.
This is but one of the many problems with the new religion of science: it cannot escape some of the things that have tainted organised religion – money.
Too many scientists parade as independent thikers when there is a lot in it for them – often it is their livelihoods.
A comment underneath Booker’s piece. Got it in one:
bustnbroke, Stockton on Tees, United Kingdom
Social workers are the front end of an self serving industry without a name.
They look for vulnerable and weak mothers to exploit, they write reports and have secret court sessions and remove children for no reason other than the mother can’t fight back.
Employment and fat salaries go to the social workers, the police, the psychiatrists, the lawyers, judges, foster parents and anyone else who can get their fingers in the pie.
The other interesting thing is that there have been a spate of Baby P-type cases.
But nobody gave a damn about child welfare in all those deaths.
It was all about profit for the private equity owned adoption agencies – often set up by, surprise, surprise, ex-social workers.
If it wasn’t going to be easy to wrestle Baby P et al away from parents – who clearly were hiding things – they just moved on to the people who opened the front door. And how.
Rack them up. Rack up the numbers. Each one a little gold mine. Who cares about the welfare?
According to a ‘scientist,’ who has just appeared on Sky news, a new study has discovered that the brains and women and the brains of men are wired differently.
No shit, Sherlock!
Without any doubt the helicopter crash in Glasgow with eight deaths and umpteen injured is a tragic event and everyone will have sympathy with the families of the dead and furthermore wish the injured a speedy return to normal good health.
But and these days there is always a but, have not the BBC gone way over the top in their reporting, they would appear to be trying to dredge the very last tear from each and every witness.
Where is the quiet determined resolve?
The stiff upper lip in adversity?
I had thought Glaswegians were made of sterner stuff.
Can’t wait to hear the reasons for the not guilty claims in lee rigby murder. (Allegedly)
David, you have to show you care, cry those tears ( in close up if possible)
Death in an air crash or while enjoying a night out in a pub is no different to being voted out of a tv program .
You have to show your emotions ,parade them for all to see .
If you don’t your probably a repressed heartless right wing bastard .
And we wouldn’t want to be one of those , would we.
I can’t speak for the rest of you but I suspect many here; like me never ever found it necessary to come out of the closet (now such a dirty word) as a heterosexual, my sexuality was obvious to all as I spent my early teens pursuing pre-nubile wenches at every turn.
This aptitude was underscored by my courting of and engagement to and subsequent marriage to my beloved.
And of course I never felt any shame in my conduct; that might have necessitated my finding a closet in which to hide.
But most if not all homosexuals do feel some kind of shame, or why else would most of them hide their true self, only coming out when the have found the courage to do so, or like many in the public eye they are outed in the media.
I would not wish to return to the old days where men were hounded and imprisoned for their preferences and I do agree with some of the changes to the law that has made their lives better but I will never accept that it is entirely normal and equivalent to the one man one woman lifestyle.
John birch December 3rd, 2013 – 15:26
“If you don’t your probably a repressed heartless right wing bastard.”
You know me so well John.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/12/03/We-re-Not-Burning-Books-Yet
“Writing in 1848, Bastiat [French economist] , who sadly is underappreciated in his native land, described the state as “that great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else”. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/10492043/Autumn-Statement-2013-George-Osborne-must-never-forget-he-is-the-guardian-of-our-taxes-not-their-rightful-owner.html
Malfleur @ 21:50
Good points in the clip, Malfleur, but Baron has said it before. They do the surveillance wholesale because the law as it stands doesn’t allow to target any particular group. It’s a sort of a 22 catch case, not unlike what’s happening at all airports except those in Israel.
They’ve enacted (both there and here) a set of statutes guaranteeing this and the other, then they were faced with a threat that necessitated the gathering of alot of evidence, and discovered it ain’t doable by going after specific groups because of the pseudo-liberal laws, hence the blanket coverage of everyone ‘allegedly’ for the safety of us all.
That’s not to excuse it, merely to explain it. Doing it this way is also furnishing those who want to control us alot of information other than what they wanted originally (the Revenue targeting the tea-party activists). It’s hard to see how this intrusive ‘spying on all’ can be stopped, replaced by more profiling based evidence gathering unless we tweak or scrap some of the statutes underpinning it. What Baron finds puzzling is the top courts both in the Republic and here, the ultimate institutional guarantors of our freedoms, seem rather uninterested.
The Allister Heath’s column should be read by the boy in no 11. Urgently. It’s spot on, he could have been even more aggressive. His point about Britain being a socialist country in all but name in the two years the State spent over 50% of the National Income is valid, should bemade over and over again.
David Ossitt @ 15:15
To find a stiff upper lip in adversity in today’s Britain, David? Hmmm. A mawkish bleating of platitudes is that much more likely.
@David Ossitt 3rd, – 15:46
“You know me so well John.”
Or perhaps a student of Macchiavelli?
David Ossitt 3rd, – 15:44
“come out of the closet (now such a dirty word)”
Indeed. It’s always rather tickled me, when visiting 14th to 16th century castles that this structure that they call the ‘garderobe’ is actually the sh*thouse.
Baron @ 22:50
Issa: FBI impeding inquiry into IRS targeting of conservative groups
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/2/lawmakers-suspect-fbi-is-impeding-irs-inquiry-targ/
Baron
Alex Jones – same old 17th century religious preacher struggling on 3rd December with the ancient novel evils of the 2ist century…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC2w7WZqb_A
New laws are to be introduced to control hate preachers etc. Do they think we are complete idiots? The penalties are to be the equivalent to ASBOs. If the mendacious bastards who rule us were really serious they would not have let these Western hating Muslims into the country in the first place, and if they had any guts, would throw them out .secondly, does anyone out there believe that any Muslims would be collard on this subject? heaven forfend, cultural sensitivities ya know, but God help the Primitive Methodists.
Ostrich (occasionally) December 3rd, 2013 – 23:49
“this structure that they call the ‘garderobe’ is actually the sh*thouse”
Quite.
Ostrich (occasionally) December 3rd, 2013 – 23:45
“Or perhaps a student of Macchiavelli?”
In my youth.
Baron December 3rd, 2013 – 23:05
“A mawkish bleating of platitudes is that much more likely.”
I blame it on Blaire and his ilk.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2013/12/britains-new-chinese-catchphrase-you-cant-do-that/
Absolutely brilliant film by Rod Liddle.
CCTV cameras do not stop crime, they displace it; often no-one wants to retrieve the pictures anyway, but most of all they have morphed into a political weapon.
The big mystery is how – in the land that produced Orwell – the docile British public allowed it to happen.
The French think the British are mad for doing this. They are.
Just look at the legion of Little Hitlers unleashed in this one short film.
Joany 4th, – 10:31
And…thirty years ago, we used to joke that:
“In Britain, everything is permitted unless it is prohibited by law.
In Germany, everything is prohibited unless it is permitted by law.
In France everything is permitted unless it is prohibited by law, but even then
one ‘can come to an arrangement’.
In Russia everything is prohibited unless it is permitted by law, but even then
one can ‘come to an arrangement’.
In the intervening period, I wonder where we’ve shifted to in that spectrum? Calling it the “EUSSR” wasn’t just an idle jest.
From the ‘Torygraph’:
“François Hollande admits he was treated for ‘benign’ enlarged prostate”
So THAT’s what’s between his ears!
Frank P.
When I was in Australia I had a T shirt with the following legend on the front. “Candy is dandy, but sex won’t rot your teeth”.
Stephen Maybery (13:42)
Depends on the nature of the ‘sex’ these days, does it not? 🙂
I am so posh I think coal comes in sex….
When a society creates rules it creates credibility and none more so in Broken Britain than multi-culti.
If you are multi-culti, it must then follow that you’re more credible than anyone else.
We see it in the UK’s rush to embrace sharia finance in a way no other society has.
And today I read this.
How can someone sleep with someone, be unfaithful and hand over such a large sum of money?
Would they do this with their own kind?
Or just someone they consider superior?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517963/Top-German-businesswoman-duped-625-000-affair-security-guard-posed-wealthy-Bentley-driving-investor.html
One of my hobbies is woodturning, at my ‘Woodturning Club’ meeting last night another member asked me for my advice.
A speciality of his is for him to turn a large platter and to then carve lettering around the flat rim of this platter, usually names and dates etcetera.
To do this involves a series of intricate measurements to and the marking out of these platter rims, so that the lettering is balanced and is pleasing to the rye.
This is both time consuming and tedious, his question to me was a simple one, he asked if I knew of a way of using a computer to place these letters around a circle in order for them to be printed off as a readymade template.
I had to say that I did not know but I also said that I would ask those who post here.
Please do any of you have any ideas?
David ossitt:-
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070826143053AAoDqX4
Ostrich (occasionally) December 4th, 2013 – 13:14
“In Germany, everything is prohibited unless it is permitted by law.”
Next time that you are in Germany and you are waiting to cross the road but the red light is against you, do if the road is otherwise clear cross, the result will be astonishment and anger from the German pedestrians who will all stand and wait for the green light.
That is one of the reasons why we won the war.
As I expected. Tom Daley is ‘dating’ a man the same age as his father who makes him ‘feel safe’. There is something very sad and disordered that a gay rights activist is willingly acting as a father substitute to gain access to a young man who is clearly not homosexual.
I do not care if people are gay, but I never cease to be amazed at how many ‘gay rights activists’ seem to do such things.
I think of someone like Paul Flowers, a public figure in many ways, running after 17 year olds when not ‘floating on the Ket’.
And we all remember Peter Tatchell’s letter to The Guardian in 1997.
http://www.christian.org.uk/news/tatchell-reiterates-call-for-lower-age-of-consent/
These ‘activists’ do so often happen to be in the right place to indulge their interests.
Many ‘activists’ – and I think here of Muslims and other multi-culti operators – seem to be able to get public or charity funding and it always looks to me like a ‘Don’t question me or what I’m up to’ move.
Activist, indeed.
It is almost as debauched a word as ‘community’.
Both words are now as connoted with fraud as Al Capone.
Alexsandr December 4th, 2013 – 16:39
David ossitt:-http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070826143053AAoDqX4
Thank you so very much, I have passed on this information, I am sure that my fellow member will be both grateful and delighted.
I am no fan of Rusbridger, but I do think one of the few things he has ever got right is the Snowden expose. He was actually quite judicious in what he let out, only 1% of what they had was used and certainly when I read it, it seemed mostly generic: spelling out all the ways they spy on people.
It is the same as this ridiculous deference to CCTV.
And Litte Miss Common Purpose, Cressida Dick, is looking into the whole thing. Well, we know how much secrecy she likes. State secrecy and Chatham House secrecy.
It was a very interesting duel and I think Rusbridger is very cleverly aligning himself with a counterpart media outlet here in the US to shame the UK authorities if they try to prosecute him by pointing out the contrast.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/03/keith-vaz-alan-rusbridger-love-country-nsa
Peter from Maidstone December 4th, 2013 – 17:19
“As I expected. Tom Daley is ‘dating’ a man the same age as his father who makes him ‘feel safe’.”
I suspected something like this, it was his use of the words ‘feel safe’ this is not something that would be on the lips of a young man in a new relationship with a young lady.
Happy, loved, sexy, full of the joys of spring but ‘feel safe’ never.
This youth is being seduced and used by some sick pervert.
Alexsandr December 4th, 2013 – 15:06
“I am so posh I think coal comes in sex….”
Still does, doesn’t it?
David Ossitt
So the common coal is an STD?
I cannot tell you how much Martin Bashir and Piers Moron are hated here in the US.
Why are they here?
I can only imagine it is because the bien pensant networks that hired them wanted their bien pensant views aired with the British accent so beloved of people unfamiliar with the concept of the public school spiv.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518307/Martin-Bashir-resigns-MSNBC-Sarah-Palin-comments.html
They have got away with so much purely because of their diction.
I would say Britain wouldn’t fall for it, but then I remember Boris.
Oh well.
How very diverse:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518242/Man-sexually-assaulted-women-night-guilty-rapes.html
Joany 4th, – 22:03
“how much Martin Bashir and Piers Moron are hated here in the US.”
I didn’t know that…..but I’m delighted to hear it. So what to do? We don’t want either of them, and we don’t want the Ham Shanks to get the impression that many Brits are like them, well…..the Atlantic abyssal plain is pretty deep.
Malfleur December 4th, 2013 – 21:18
“So the common coal is an STD?”
Hello Malfleur we were playing about with the pronunciation of sack’s, as in the coal was delivered in a sack.
Ostrich (occasionally) December 4th, 2013 – 23:21
“how much Martin Bashir and Piers Moron are hated here in the US.”
Freudian slip?
I too think that Piers Morgan is a ‘moron’ and a big-headed zero-talented gob-sh*te to boot.
David Osssitt – any decent desktop publishing application will do this (Though probably not MS Publisher). If he has access to Quark Xpress or Indesign, that’ll do the job. If he ha friends who work in newspapers or graphics, they would probably have the use of one of these programmes.
Image manipulation applications are the other way to go – Photoshop is the obvious candidate, but there’s a lot of Open Source stuff available free – one such is GIMP. More details at http://www.gimp.org/
The version I’ve used gives a lot of text handling options including text on a circle. If he needs any info on actually using it, I can probably oblige.
Davi Ossitt
Yes! I was trying to join the game, as in: the common cold…and…Sacksually Transmitted Disease.
Ah, well, I was never that good at puns!
Malfleur 01.02: Your efforts surely earn a round of applause and deserve the clap.
The City of Moscow has banned the building of new mosques. (h/t The Savage Nation, 4 December)
Frank Sutton December 5th, 2013 – 00:44
Frank you are most kind, I have supplied my friend the link to Inkscape both he and I think this to be promising. I shall pas on your information.
Malfleur
December 5th, 2013 – 01:02
My apologies.
Malfleur, December 5th, 2013 – 01:02
Never mind. Remember this one?
Pete: “Have you seen that bloody Leonardo da Vinci Cartoon?
Dud : “No.”
Pete: “I couldn’t see the bloody joke. I went down there, nuffing.”
Dud: “Well, of course, you know, Pete. The sense of humour must have changed over the years, you know…”
Pete: “Of course it has. That’s why it’s not funny”
Dud: “I bet when that da Vinci Cartoon first came aht, I bet people were killkin’ themselves. I bet old Da Vinci ‘ad an accident when he done it.”
Pete: “Difficult to see the joke, just that lady sitting there …. etc”
Theodore Shoebat at about 1:30 mins into the show speaks vigorously on 4th December about Christian responses to the spread of islam in Russia, Central Africa and Angola – yes, OK, it’s the Michael Sage:The Savage Nation” again – and he has been banned from the United Kingdom by the last two governments; so he must be a bad, baad, baaad man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ-bo4QKO1k
As I sit in Northern Starbucks, I wonder whether I live in a better place fo all the triumphs trumpwted by Osborne.
Then I pick up my Telegraph and read about Lee Rigby and marvel at a country that gives a platform to grandstand after treating a human being like a animal on a hunt.
I marvel that the same country would clap in irons friends of mine who wish to rid our countryside of the foxes that kill my chickens.
I turn the page and see a celebrity chef shouting about canabis and cocaine that she took to ease the pain of hearing her hired hands had surprise surprise used given credit cards to buy things.
What is the answer?
Just what is it?
Marine Sergeant Alexander Blackman:See:-
https://twitter.com/angi_eeee/status/408607632140681217/photo/1
Radford NG (17:23)
It’s surprising: normally the surname would have granted him immunity.
Another stupid judicial ruling from the hypocritical judiciary; at a time when the barbarity of the enemy is being graphically set out in harrowing evidence at Southwark Crown Court. The danger to his relatives, the cost and time of protection far outweighs the out-of context moralizing by these idiots. Patriotism and esprit de corps are now defunct; we are already in an advanced stage of Dhimmitude.
He was trained to kill the enemy. He killed the enemy. Judicial quibbling over the detail is abhorrent!
Frank P December 5th, 2013 – 16:56
“Judicial quibbling over the detail is abhorrent!”
This should never have come to court.
It is the same old story; we have to play the game as though it were a game of village cricket, whilst these bastards are playing tig with hatchets, madness.
‘He went for jugular as he was hacked to death in London street because that is how animals are killed in Islam’, says the paper.
Halal is a clever touch by the high priests of that ‘religion’ because that action of cutting an animal’s throat and watching it bleed to death encourages inhumanity.
It extends the pain unnecessarily and creates a vicious, wicked power relationship between killer and animal.
You have to enjoy that to do it endlessly.
You have to enjoy the look of fear on something sentient as it powerlessly and slowly watches its blood pour out before it only slowly losing consciousness.
There is no need to set up that power relationship when killing an animal for food. There is no need to extend its pain.
It’s in the same class as taqqya: halal encourages the followers to be inhuman, encourage them to lie, lie, lie through their Muslim teeth about the true nature of Islam.
Such behaviours then become second nature.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media obsessed with the ‘complexities’ of getting Islam to exist in Western societies ignores the answer that has worked for thousands of years
The answer that Angola has just adopted and that is the only way to co-exist with Islam: ‘Get out, stay out and go and do it in an Islamic country. No Islam here.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518738/Lee-Rigbys-killer-told-police-went-Fusiliers-jugular-animals-killed-Islam.html
David Ossitt (December 4th, 2013 – 16:27) and others –
This may be of interest. I think that it is relevant to Libre Office as well as to Open Office. I use the former under Linux ZORIN 6.4 (core) which I find suits me far better than any version of Windows – as well as being completely free.
http://www.lpgallery.mb.ca/ooffice/Draw/d3.htm
An article has appeared in The Spivtator that is written in tone as if it is on the side of the reader:
iSPY: How the internet buys and sells your secrets
Every year you give away up to £5,000 of data online. The greatest heist in history isn’t about stealing money, but taking information
Jamie Bartlett
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9093961/little-brothers-are-watching-you/
While what is written there is true, Jamie Bartlett is a very odd author to pose as someone on the side of the British public.
For he works for notorious ‘think tank’ Demos.
Jamie Bartlett
Head of the Violence and Extremism Programme at Demos
Jamie’s day job involves huge interest in online surveillance.
Not from the point of view of the public and their rights – oh no – but from the point of view of the authorities.
Just look who Jamie has it in for:
‘Jamie has recently completed a major comparative research project of the online support for right wing populist parties in 12 European countries, based on a new data set of 13,000 Facebook fans of these groups. Forthcoming papers based on the German Pirate Party and the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle will be released later this year.’
So Jamie has earned a living honing the government’s skills in spying on people, lest they should deign to have ‘right wing populist’ views.
His CV says: ‘In 2012 he authored a paper with Sir David Omand called #Intelligence about how police and intelligence agencies should collect and use social media intelligence (‘SOCMINT’).’
So he helps the government spy on people.
Just in case you though Jamie’s sympathies lay with the put-upon British public, let me clarify (from his Demos CV):
‘Prior to working for Demos, Jamie was a research associate at the international humanitarian agency Islamic Relief and conducted field research in Pakistan and Bangladesh.’
http://www.demos.co.uk/people/jamiebartlett
Get the picture?
The amount of work put in to using social media networks to spy on people by Western governments has grown exponentially over the past decade – and this creep has been in the thick of it.
While corporations are indeed something to fear, Jamie’s article rather overlooks the bigger fear: the entity that he has spent so much time assisting. The Big Brother state.
PS – they don’t like criticism at Demos. Oh no. Check this out:
http://www.demos.co.uk/blog/withfounderslikethesewhoneedsenemies
‘For the third time in the past few months, Martin Jacques (one of Demos’ founders) chose to devote part of a Guardian comment piece to an attack on think tanks.
‘Apparently, we “mark the triumph of political adolescence over experience…as a cultural form [our] staff are generally extremely young, utterly lacking in experience, devoid of the wisdom that only life can teach.”
‘Hmmm. Thanks for that Martin. A really thought-out critique. Quite apart from the fact that a fair few of our (and ippr’s) staff and associates aren’t exactly spring chickens, surely politics has always in part been propelled forward by the enthusiasm, passion – and yes, occasional naivety – of the young. I made a similar point in a letter to the Guardian yesterday.
‘It’s sad to see Martin turning with such bitterness on things which he once worked hard to create. From the general drift of his past few columns, one can only presume that he has ambitions to become the new Melanie Phillips.’
I hope that clarifies a few things for anyone who stumbled across that article and thought the author was in any way on their side.
His bread and butter is in helping the state spy on people and when he can’t get a direct sinecure to that end, he tries to influence indirectly through a ‘think tank’.
What a spivvy piece.
How very Spivtator.
Again, again, again.
The same damn point.
Muslims know they are above the law because of the deference to sharia and as a consequence act as if they are above the law:
Shakil Munir, Sakib Ahmed and Ateeq Latif convicted of sex offences
Taxi driver Munir, 32, sent explicit messages to one victim on Facebook
One girl was picked up in her pyjamas and taken to lay-by for sex
Ahmed, 19, met girl at under-age disco and said ‘pretend you’re 16’
Pal Latif helped Ahmed facilitate sex with young victim
Mother warns children and says social networks ‘a free for all’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518904/Do-know-children-doing-Facebook-Parents-warned-men-convicted-grooming-girls-young-13-sex.html
How many bloody lives must they ruin?
Perhaps Jamie Bartlett, former ‘research associate’ (hmmmm, does that mean propagandist who dreams up sob stories to sell to the West?) at the ‘international humanitarian agency’ (that’s a joke, right?) Islamic Relief would care to spend time closer to home looking at what his Muslim chums get up to?
Thought not.
For Jamie Bartlett, Facebook is not about Muslim paedophile grooming but about ‘right wing populist’ views – people who might dare point out the truth.
Oh!Bloody Hell!
I’m just listerning to Melyvn Bragg on “Hindu ideas of Creation” [Radio 4],when it is taken off the air to announce that a communist terrorist has died in South Africa:then they go over to the World Service. This was only 10 minutes before the Ten O’Clock News;as if it could not have waited.
Comments are already taking off at Spectator.
Radford NG, I suspect the Mail’s website is being heavily censored.
All comments are positive when in the past the chatboards have lit up with negative comments.
People are confined to red arrows.
And in an act of pathetic posturing Downing Street’s flag is lowered to half mast.
The UK grovels to a Marxist terrorist who doesn’t even live there.
No wonder the UK is stuffed. This is its sense of values: grovelling to someone purely because they are ethnic.
And the Gold-digger and Wills were out tonight at the premiere of the bio-pic: Mandela.
Someone on the Spivtator’s coverage has helpfully provided a link to this (not Mandela related but UK grovelling related):
https://news.naij.com/35418.html
Come on mainstream media, get your mourning Winnie Mandela Necklaces out and tell us all about the terror.
Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten, you liars.
I wonder if Downing Street’s flag will be flown at half mast when F.W. de Klerk dies
Not everybody may know that there is a statue of comrade Mandela in Parliament Sq.It was unveiled by Gordon Brown on 29 Aug 2007;Mayor Livingstone having been thwarted by Westminster City Council in his attempt to put it up in Trafalgar Sq.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Nelson_Mandela,_Parliament_Square
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_ Nelson_Mandela,_Parliament_Square
This outpouring of sanctimony is an object lesson in group think.
He was offered freedom YEARS before he was freed on condition he renounced violence.
He refused.
Amnesty International would not take up his case because of his support for violence.
At a time when 500 million people watched that ridiculous concert that lionised him as a poor prisoner, Mandela was being waited on hand and foot, he even had a chef to cook him his favourite fish cakes.
His ‘imprisonment’ at that stage – if one could call it that – was watered down to that.
The looney bin Western support led to Mandela being freed on his own terms.
‘Imprisonment’ had, in effect, ended many years before the official release date.
No one talks about his support for violence. About his Marxism. About the fact his ‘imprisonment’ was not all spent on that island. The latter part of his imprisonment was more like a high class hotel.
It could all have ended so much sooner had Mandela renounced violence.
As ever, the Left (and pathetic Right) have airbrushed all this and more from history.
It is history as a lie.
It is Marxist history.
A lie.
History re-written for political purposes.
postergirl 5th, – 22:57
“I wonder if Downing Street’s flag will be flown at half mast when F.W. de Klerk dies”
🙂
Joany 5th, – 23:13
“It is history as a lie.
It is Marxist history.
A lie.
History re-written for political purposes.”
🙂
Joany 5th, – 18:52
“It’s in the same class as taqiya; halal encourages the followers to be inhuman, encourage them to lie, lie, lie through their Muslim teeth about the true nature of Islam.”
It seems to me that defining ‘telling the truth’ as ‘moral’ is purely a Western, Christian concept. And even then, depending on who you are, or where you live, it isn’t always so.
The BBC re-jigged their BBC One and BBC Two channels to ensure that both channels were replete with Marxist propaganda for over an hour. No change there then. QT was shunted twice and This Week was dumped. All because a black 95 year old commie died peacefully in a country that has gone down the shitter since it ceded to rampant tribalism. Global insanity! Prepare yourselves for at least a week of cloying cant.
Oh! And btw, our own country has gone down the same sluice during the same period for very similar reasons.
One more thing: I want all you Doubting Thomas’s to know that the BBC has a perfect answer to your long standing gripes about rigged audiences of the Question Time panel:
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/2010/02/11/behind-the-scenes-at-bbc%E2%80%99s-question-time/
So there! 😉
Frank P, December 6th, 2013 – 00:14
“Prepare yourselves for at least a week of cloying cant.”
If only it was going to be a week! I fear the worst. It’s going to be “Princess Di” all over again – but to the nth degree.
Ransom Stoddard: “You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?”
Maxwell Scott: “No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The Politico/Meeja cabal can be guaranteed to be 100% compliant. The mere mention of anything historically inconvenient or slightly “off message” will see the perpetraitor(sic) accused of blasphemy, and being cast off the gravy train as a pariah. i.e. they’ll be receiving the equivalent of a flaming car tyre necklace – which, we will all remember, was the ANC’s frequent remedy for anybody that they didn’t like or that had been denounced.
http://thebackbencher.co.uk/3-things-you-didnt-want-to-know-about-nelson-mandela/
I’ll be fascinated to read what David Starkey Mr Boot have to say.
Frank P, December 6th, 2013 – 00:37
Re: QT audiences
The frightening, and awful, truth is that the QT audiences actually ARE representative of modern brainwashed Britain!
Frank P – 00:37
EC – 08:31
And, apparently, it’s all our fault!
Britain ‘too generous’ with welfare payments to EU immigrants
Theresa May is told by Brussels that Britain is to blame for benefit abuse by EU immigrants because British welfare is “too generous”
“Viviane Reding, EU justice commissioner, on Thursday dismissed Theresa May’s pleas for changes to EU free movement rules, telling the Home Secretary that only Britain was to blame for any abuses of benefit system by European nationals.
Using distinctly undiplomatic language, the commissioner, who has refused to contemplate any tightening of EU rules before Romania and Bulgaria have free movement rights next month, made an astonishing attack on Britain’s welfare system.
“It seems that some national systems are too generous. Don’t blame the commission or EU rules for national choices and national regulatory systems,” she said.
“If member states want to restrict the availability of social benefits to EU citizens they can do two things: First, change their national systems to make them less generous. Second, apply the existing EU rules which provide safeguards to counter abuse, fraud and error: for example possible expulsion orders and re-entry bans in case of abuses.””
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10496871/Britain-too-generous-with-welfare-payments-to-EU-immigrants.html
They really do think they are in charge!
RobertC 6th, – 09:18
EUSSR harridan she may be, but it doesn’t automatically follow that she’s wrong. Welfare payments ARE too generous, but that c*nt Clegg wouldn’t allow Gideon to let them erode with inflation; after 3 years of so-called austerity they’re still too generous.
Alex Jones as the Jeremiah de nos jours:
first hour 4th December
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atEzYOKtdgQ
A black man who doesn’t accept the blackwash:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u5wonVVFdY
but just you try saying it!
The Rocking Song
Little Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir;
We will lend a coat of fur,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you:
Fur is no longer appropriate wear for small infants, both due to risk of allergy to animal fur, and for ethical reasons. Therefore faux fur, a nice cellular blanket or perhaps micro-fleece material should be considered a suitable alternative.
Please note, only persons who have been subject to a Criminal Records Bureau check and have enhanced clearance will be permitted to rock baby Jesus. Persons must carry their CRB disclosure with them at all times and be prepared to provide three forms of identification before rocking commences.
Away in a Manger No Crib for a bed
A Case work Team from Social services will be calling at the stable in question shortly….
Further Health & Safety and Equality Considerations for Christmas Songs….
Jingle Bells
Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
A risk assessment must be submitted before an open sleigh is considered safe for members of the public to travel on. The risk assessment must also consider whether it is appropriate to use only one horse for such a venture, particularly if passengers are of larger proportions. Please note, permission must be gained from landowners before entering their fields. To avoid offending those not participating in celebrations, we would request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance.
While Shepherds Watched
While shepherds watched
Their flocks by night
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around
The union of Shepherds has complained that it breaches health and safety regulations to insist that shepherds watch their flocks without appropriate seating arrangements being provided, therefore benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available. Shepherds have also requested that due to the inclement weather conditions at this time of year that they should watch their flocks via CCTV cameras from centrally heated shepherd
observation huts.
Please note, the angel of the lord is reminded that before shining his / her glory all around she / he must ascertain that all shepherds have been issued with glasses capable of filtering out the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and Glory.
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.
You are advised that under the Equal Opportunities for All policy, it is inappropriate for persons to make comment with regard to the ruddiness of any part of Mr. R. Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr R Reindeer from the Reindeer Games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of this offence. A full investigation will be implemented and sanctions – including suspension on full pay – will be considered whilst this investigation takes place.
Little Donkey
Little donkey, little donkey on the dusty road
Got to keep on plodding onwards with your precious load
The RSPCA have issued strict guidelines with regard to how heavy a load that a donkey of small stature is permitted to carry, also included in the guidelines is guidance regarding how often to feed the donkey and how many rest breaks are required over a four hour plodding period. Please note that due to the increased risk of pollution from the dusty road, Mary and Joseph are required to wear face masks to prevent inhalation of any airborne particles. The donkey has expressed his discomfort at being labelled “little” and would prefer just to be simply referred to as Mr. Donkey. To comment upon his height or lack thereof may be considered an infringement of his equine rights.
We Three Kings
We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star
Whilst the gift of gold is still considered acceptable – as it may be redeemed at a later date through such organisations as ‘cash for gold’ etc, gifts of frankincense and myrrh are not appropriate due to the potential risk of oils and fragrances causing allergic reactions. A suggested gift alternative would be to make a donation to a worthy cause in the recipients name or perhaps give a gift voucher.
We would not advise that the traversing kings rely on navigation by stars in order to reach their destinations and suggest the use of RAC route finder or satellite navigation, which will provide the quickest route and advice regarding fuel consumption. Please note as per the guidelines from the RSPCA for Mr Donkey, the camels carrying the three kings of Orient will require regular food and rest breaks. Face masks for the three kings are also advisable due to the likelihood of dust from the camels hooves.
Herbert Thornton December 5th, 2013 – 20:08
Thank you so much.
It looks to be an interesting link.
O(o) – 09:42 ‘Welfare payments ARE too generous’
Yes, but I am sure I have read that the Eu wouldn’t allow Britain to make them less generous for aliens.
35 years ago my neighbour planted a copper sycamore just to the north of our dividing fence. It has grown somewhat since then, and for the last 35 autumns the prevailing wind has decanted its leathery, smothering leaves into our garden. On Wednesday it was still quite well clad; this morning it is bare.
So how come it is predominantly leaves of oak that this jolly tar is sweeping up after the gale? 🙂
RobertC 6th, – 11:58
“I am sure I have read that the EU wouldn’t allow Britain to make them less generous for aliens.”
Indeed, but when they’re so generous that my wife’s sister, on the dole, was comfortably able to put her daughter through university I believe a good case can be made that they should be allowed to erode through inflation, but the ball and chain around Gideon’s ankle wouldn’t permit it.
Noa 6th, – 10:33
“We would not advise that the traversing kings rely on navigation by stars in order to reach their destinations”
It worked fine for me for many years. Sextants don’t need batteries, or regular recharging. 🙂
Ostrich (occasionally)@December 6th, 2013 – 12:54
Sextants are a sadly underrated instrument these days
apart from observing the sun/stars for position foxing, they can be used for rangefinding from an object of known height (like a lighthouse) or for finding the distance from 2 objects that we know their distance apart.
but best of all their batteries don’t go flat!
Frank P’s link at 02:00 in to the details of how Question Time is produced are very illuminating.
The BBC in there pseudo pretence of showing how very well balance they are have achieve exactly the opposite result in that they show how very selective they truly are. (Weeding out the right wing head bangers)
The out of the hundreds who apply to be in the audience they select the final one hundred and fifty by the following.
“This process involves checking the background of every applicant against their political affiliations, campaign involvements, advertising intentions, and many other factors”
Furthermore they tell us that all of the questions are from that evening’s audience but then go on to say that ““Most of the questions are selected on the day” this tells us that some are not selected on the day and if that is the case where did they come from?
And how did they get someone to read out the question that is not their own?
David Ossitt@December 6th, 2013 – 15:30
pay them?
Malfleur @ 01:47
Thanks and sorry for the delay.
Former Marine Alexander Blackman has been given a cruel and unusual punishment. I am not discussing the length of the sentence, nor the decision of finding him guilty, but rather the place where he will be confined. This ex-Marine is to spend his time in a civilian prison, which in itself becomes a cruel and unusual punishment. The civilian gaols are filled with maniac moslem fanatics, and all the scum swept up onto our shores, and welcomed here by this multicultural garbage can, that was once called Great Britain. Blackman’s life will be under constant danger, and I do not see a Geneva Convention ready to protect him.
The communists of the East perfected the ‘cult of personality’, but there it was involuntary, no way for anyone to ignore it if one wanted to keep a job other than one with a shovel, have kids educated.
When the great leader, the Georgian thug, was present, delived a lecture, stopped talking, everyone had to applaud, the one who stopped first was taken away, punished. The hall would only stop applauding, shouting greetings and stuff when the man himself got tired, set down. Mao, who hated Stalin, complained about it and said he would never ever attend another Congress of the UUSR Communist party.
The adulation of Mandela is a voluntary act, nobody’s forcing anyone to submit to it, but like a heard they all do. Baron has nothing much against the man, compared to others of his ilk he wasn’t that bad, they’re still many around who are much worse, but why this blanket coverage.
Baron couldn’t resist contributing to Rod Liddle’s blog on Mandela’s death in the Spectator. The barbarian hopes you will also sign the petition this chap Jem Collins is going to set up.
Here it is:
“Jem, of course, the coverage (of the BBC) wasn’t excessive, Baron would also expect more, much more not only from the BBC, but from the whole country, too. An hour of mourning at least, all of us on our knees, a day would be more appropriate, a week even better, and a month could just about do justice to this earth shattering event.
You ready to set up a petition on the Downing Street website going for the month of mourning? Baron will sign it immediately.
and another thing?
Why not one of the pictures the MSM papers are carrying displays halos above his head? Someone should look into it, and quick. Disgraceful this.
Frank P @ 02:00
the website that carried the interview is most likely run by journalists trained by the BBC, they have a huge journalist breeding programme, and only a handful of the scribblers writing for the MSM media, in the TV studios avoided being mauled by the monstrosity.
AWK (17:22)
The conviction, the sentence and the reasoning behind the whole self -flagellating travesty is abhorrent and stupid. War is not a cricket match and as for the ‘British Army having to prove anything to the international community, ?? (as the sanctimonious judge advocate justified his treacherous reasoning) well, the ‘international community’ needs to understand that if cultist maniacs attack HM Royal Marines, then no quarter will be given and no mercy applied. We’re doomed ad a nation. Dhimmi shit-bags!
All empires fall, eventually.
One day, brethren, we will be able to celebrate the life and mourn the death of a great person who frees us from the yoke of the EU.
(But don’t be getting any big ideas, DC, NF, NC, EM or anybody of the current lot.)
Baron, I fear that what I have mooted in the past and what EC avers today, that whether by accident or design, the audiences of BBC QT agitprop are now representative of the British proles, is now clearly true. Irretrievable mongrelization!
Frank P
December 6th, 2013 – 18:22
Well said, Frank. As a matter of interest, has that judge advocate ever worn a British military uniform?
Ostrich (occasionally)- 12:45
“…So how come it is predominantly leaves of oak that this jolly tar is sweeping up after the gale?”
Prehaps leaves of oak have an affinity with heart of oak…
I’ll get me coat.
Judge advocate was a Naval officer. Mind you, there have been some right rum characters in the navy, Millibands, and Straws……..
The Blackman’s sentence is an outrage, it clearly shows those in charge have lost the plot. Baron hopes he appeals against it, and the Court Martial Appeal Court quashes it. It must, if they don’t it will more than seriously dent morale, it will collapse it.
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 December 6th, 2013 – 17:22
“This ex-Marine is to spend his time in a civilian prison, which in itself becomes a cruel and unusual punishment.”
I agree, he was tried by the military for a supposed crime committed whilst he was on active service, he should serve any time due (I do not think he should serve any) in an English military prison.
PS Anne, I hope that all is well.
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 December 6th, 2013 – 19:29
“Judge advocate was a Naval officer.”
As the great man once said when an Admiral accused him of having impugned the traditions of the Royal Navy, provoking the reply: ‘And what are they?
They are rum, sodomy and the lash’.
Blackett is famous for presiding over a rugby scandal; no suggestion that he ever presided over a confrontation with an Afghan barbarian. He had a naval/legal career. ‘ nough said! Senior service ‘n all that, doncha know? Nothing in his Wiki entry to indicate that he ever confronted a shop-lifter, never mind a sniper. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. Let’s hope that the Appeal Court overturns this draconian nonsense.
Frank P 6th, – 21:03
“Let’s hope that the Appeal Court overturns this draconian nonsense.”
‘twon’t give Blackman back his anonymity, which was not just for his protection, but for those he holds dear.
Frank P 6th, – 18:22
“War is not a cricket match”
Given the current enthusiasm for pursuing “historical offences” perhaps those in authority will start pursuing the perpetrators of the occasional atrocities carried out by the Allies between 6th June 1944 and 8th May 1945. (Max Hastings, ‘Overlord’ et al.)
Punishing his family by naming him was adding cruel insult to injury. Mutiny has been kicked off by less serious injustices. Why would anybody volunteer for armed service with this treacherous shit coming down? Perhaps that’s what our current administration are angling for? Dispersal of our armed services by depleted recruitment? All the better for ceding all our sovereignty to the EUSSR and closer trade ties to the Chinks.
David Ossitt
December 6th, 2013 – 19:43
Thanks for your kind concern, David. All is not well, I get more dejected each day. I listen to silly people moaning that they will have to work until 68 or 69. Do they really think they will be lucky enough to have any work? Soon the poor carcass which remains of this country will be torn apart by the moslems and the romanians, arriving in avaricious hordes. I only hope the two groups destroy each other, rather than what remains of our once green and pleasant land.
It’s good, the piece on Bashir, but the last sentence beats them all, those who have commented on Mandela’s death.
http://alexanderboot.com/content/pot-kettle-and-martin-bashir
Frank P @ 21:15
It has crossed the barbarian’s mind not just once that some of the stuff that’s done vis-a-vis the armed services hints at the powers to be wanting to curtail recruitment, hence the numbers of full time service personnel to a minimum, perhaps zero, replace them with the territorials of whatever these arecalled today.
The verdict of murder should have been sufficient, the sentence should have reflected more than the act of the murder itself. Obviously, it didn’t. Baron wonders what will happen if the appeal fails. The MSM won’t tell us, the bloggers may.
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 21:19
Anne, not all is lost, not yet anyway. Come to East Anglia (avid the closeness of the coast for the time being though), you may like it. Still civil, plenty of polite people around, and honest, too. Baron left an expensive scarf in a restaurant today, was still there (the scarf) when he got back few hours later, nicely folded up, someone needed more space, most likely.
Baron December 6th, 2013 – 21:32 Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 21:19
I agree with Baron, it is high time that you had a trip up into the Yorkshire dales Anne.
David Ossitt – 23:56
“…I agree with Baron, it is high time that you had a trip up into the Yorkshire dales Anne.”
Indeed you should. A most beautiful part of England. Though it cannot, in my opinion, compare with the Trough of Bowland… 🙂
Baron, David Ossitt and Noa
It all sounds tempting, and when the weather improves, some day trips will be possible. But, as with many people of my age, I have the need to be near certain places, and in easy contact with close family members.
Anne
Here’s the latest from my naughty niece – you are not alone:
AGE IS A WONDERFUL THING
ROMANCE
An older couple were lying in bed one night. The husband was falling asleep but the wife was in a romantic mood and wanted to talk.
She said: “You used to hold my hand when we were courting.”
Wearily he reached across, held her hand for a second and tried to get back to sleep.
A few moments later she said: “Then you used to kiss me.”
Mildly irritated, he reached across, gave her a peck on the cheek and settled down to sleep.
Thirty seconds later she said: “Then you used to bite my Neck.”
Angrily, he threw back the bed clothes and got out of bed.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To get my teeth!”
_____________________________________
DOWN AT THE RETIREMENT CENTRE
80-year old Bessie bursts into the rec room at the retirement home. She holds
her clenched fist in the air and announces, “Anyone who can guess what’s in
my hand can have sex with me tonight!”
An elderly gentleman in the rear shouts out, “An elephant?”
Bessie thinks a minute and says, “Close enough.”
_____________________________________
OLD FRIENDS
Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.
One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, “Now don’t get mad at me… I know we’ve been friends for a long time but I just can’t think of your name. I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t remember it. Please tell me what your name is.”
Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said,
“How soon do you need to Know?”
_____________________________________
SENIOR DRIVING
As a senior citizen was driving down the motorway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Vernon, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on M25. Please be careful!”
“Hell,” said Vernon, “It’s not just one car. It’s hundreds of them!”
_____________________________________
SUPERSEX
A little old lady who had lost her marbles was running up and down the halls in a nursing home.
As she ran, she would flip up the hem of her nightgown and say “Supersex.”
She ran up to an elderly man in a wheelchair, flipping her gown at him, she said, “Supersex.”
He sat silently for a moment or two and finally answered, “I’ll take the soup.”
_____________________________________
DRIVING
Two elderly women were out driving in a large car – both could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to major crossroad. The stop light was red, but they just went on through.
The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself “I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light.” After a few more minutes, they came to another major junction and the light was red again. Again, they went right through. The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous.
At the next junction, sure enough, the light was red and they went on through. So, she turned to the other woman and said, “Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!”
Mildred turned to her and said, “Oh! Am I driving?”
Please!!!! Friends, tell me this won’t happen to us !!!!
Alex Jones’ take on Mandela – and on the suborning of the US military’s officer class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9porcP0EL8U
Frank P
December 7th, 2013 – 00:55
NICE! 🙂
In a world filled with more evil people and phonies than the good, I always respected and admired Mandela. This latest BBC adoration of the departed man is enough to turn one off a saint, and I am sick of hearing the speakers whinging on and on. One positive thing is that I am in my eighth decade, and unless a ‘Kennedy’ event occurs, or illness strikes, Obama will outlive me. I dread to think what would happen if he suddenly popped off this mortal coil, it would truly be a field day at the damn BBC!
So the Mandela-fest goes on and on and we have now been told that it will go on for another fortnight, what with an official week of mourning starting next week (in S. A.) followed by his state funeral on the 16th.
I wonder if it will interfere with the Queens speech at Christmas?
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 December 7th, 2013 – 00:29
“I have the need to be near certain places, and in easy contact with close family members.”
I for one fully understand your predicament, I too put off or delay taking breaks, I often am too comfortable at home with our garden and all things familiar all around as is my beloved.
But at least twice a year I force myself; prompted and pushed by she who must be obeyed and the strange thing is that on our return, home is all the sweater.
Harrogate is the gateway to the dales and in spring would be delightful (much too far for a day trip) it has some excellent hotels good shopping all in the centre a lovely park and of course ‘The Stray’ and if there were to be a need an excellent Hospital very near to the town centre.
My twirling Windows 8 screen saver cuts in far too soon if I have not been active for about half a minute.
Please will someone remind me what to do to lengthen this time scale?
Frank P @ 00:55
Pretty smart that niece of yours, Frank. The one about the motorway driving Baron’s heard before, the others he didn’t. The going to the bathroom to get the teeth is the best, someone who knows ‘how to tell them’ would get a good laugh. Here’s Baron’s contribution of a similar construction.
A man dies and because he’s been more than naughty he goes to hell, gloomily and fed up. Lucifer meets him and says ‘why are you so depressed, it’s not all bad here’.
‘Did you drink?’, he asks. ‘Of course, I drank’, says the man. ‘Well’, says Lucifer, ‘on Mondays, we do nothing here but drink. Anything you fancy, and top quality stuff, too, whisky, brandy, vodka, plenty of beers, You will enjoy Mondays.
Did you smoke?’, he asks. ‘Yup’, says the man,’alot’. ‘Well, says Lucifer. ‘on Tuesdays, we do nothing but smoke. The best tobacco money can buy, cigarettes, cigars, you name it we have it, and you won’t have to worry of dying of cancer because you’re already dead’. You will enjoy Tuesdays’
‘Did you do drugs’, he asks. ‘Well’, say the man, ‘when I was young and….’Say no more’, Lucifer answers, ‘on Wednesdays, we do nothing but drugs, all as pure as goes, coke, heroin, LSD, anything that’s up there we have here, too. You will enjoy Wednesdays’.
‘You gay?,’ he asks. ‘Me?, jees, never’, says the man. ‘Argh’, says Lucifer, ‘in this case, you’ll hate Thursdays’.
It just occurred to the barbarian he may have told you the joke before. If he did, apologies for wasting your time.
David Ossitt @ 11:39
Baron doesn’t run Microsoft Windows, but what you should do is go to Settings (or whatever Microsoft calls it), find the Screen saver icon, click on it. There should be an option somewhere to change the time the Screen saver kicks in.
Baron (13:04)
Good adaptation of “Sunday’s – it’s your turn in the barrel” joke 🙂
Those of you who have a couple of hours to spare would enjoy this:
http://www.aei.org/events/2013/12/06/shaping-society-the-intersection-of-economics-and-culture/
Brain food – a little rich, but energising for those hungry for enlightenment.
David Ossitt 7th, – 11:39
“My twirling Windows 8 screen saver cuts in far too soon”
David, try clearing all your windows until only the wallpaper is visible, hover over it, right click and select ‘personalise’. at bottom right you should see ‘screensavers’.
Select it and on the page that appears you’ll find ‘settings’, also a thumbwheel that should let you select the time before it cuts in. One of those should help you, although I haven’t tried them myself; I’m afraid I don’t bother with a screensaver so I’m guessing a bit…
Ostrich (occasionally) + Baron.
Many thanks I have moved from I minute to 5, should now be OK.
Further to my comment at 14:00; it came as part of a the moderator’s periodical essay known as The Goldberg File, which he disseminates by email.
Jonah Goldberg is the founding editor of National Review Online and a frequent contributor to Fox News Report. I can’t link his latest ‘file’, but although it’s rather long – here is a pasted copy. I’ll leave you to judge the quality of his musing, but I find it surrealistically witty, stimulating and occasionally provoking laugh-out-loud joy:
>
Nationalreview.com
The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
Dec. 6, 2013
Dear Reader (including our new robot overlords),
The above “Dear Reader” gag while not technically funny (“Is it funny in some non-technical sense we cannot discern?” — The Couch) is a reference to my column today which makes the point that the minimum wage is a boon to robots. If you make human labor more expensive, non-human labor becomes more attractive. If you tell car-wash owners that they have to pay their employees $100 an hour, the owner will most likely search his desk for that business card from that salesman from Acme Robots.
Robots have lots of things going for them. They don’t steal from the cash register. They don’t show up late with some sob story about how their dog ate their car keys. They don’t spit in the customer’s food or lick the tacos and post pictures of it on the Internet. Robots don’t file sexual-harassment suits just because you got over-served at the Christmas party and thought it would be funny to hand out photocopies of your butt.
Thingamabobs Have Consequences
Long time readers of mine might think of taking a speed-reading course so they don’t have to take so long reading. They might also recall that I think technology is a greater challenge to conservatism than ideas are. I wrote about this at some length in a G-File last February.
My main point is that conservatism — full-spectrum, traditional conservatism and not just a checklist of timeless principles, or a political agenda in Washington — requires an appreciation, even love, for the way things are. And technology forces change more than ideas do (indeed, many of our ideas are simply the sparks that fly from the friction of technological change). Sure, Richard Weaver was right when he said, “Ideas have consequences.” But you know what are really consequential? Thingamabobs, geegaws, doohickeys, and whoziwhatsits.
Technology is why Thulsa Doom goes looking for iron, Sauron wants his ring, and why everyone in Westeros wants a dragon (while technically not technology, dragons are a reasonable substitute for, say, an F-16). But I’m not going to get into a whole “power flows from the tip of a gun” argument. Instead, think about all of the things you associate with the traditional agrarian life — the cocaine, the hookers, the creepy guy with sideburns wearing nothing but a Members Only jacket and speedo following everyone around with a video camera — oh, wait those are the things we associate with the Arkansas governor’s mansion in the 1980s when Hillary Clinton was out of town. I meant to say, the daily toil in the sun, the intimate relationship with the land, the reliance on the benevolence of God and Nature to provide sufficient rain and sun, etc.
Those physical necessities were intimately linked to emotional commitments and intellectual convictions. Now think about what modern technology did to all of that. The tractor, modern irrigation, pesticides, industrial fertilizers, biotechnology: These things did more to upend settled worldviews than any stupid French or German ideas ever could. But it’s easy to argue with some French pinhead at a café; it’s more difficult to argue with a tractor, and not just because tractors don’t talk (“They might, buddy.” — The Couch). No, it’s more difficult to argue with a tractor because a tractor is an obvious improvement. It speaks through results, nothing more.
Contra Beaconsfield
As I’ve written before, accepting the role technology has in changing the political facts on the ground is what Whittaker Chambers called “the Beaconsfield position” (Edmund Burke was from Beaconsfield). In a letter to Bill Buckley he wrote:
Briefly, I remain a dialectician; and history tells me that the rock-core of the Conservative Position, or any fragment of it, can be held realistically only if conservatism will accommodate itself to the needs and hopes of the masses — needs and hopes, which, like the masses themselves, are the product of machines. For, of course, our fight, as I think we said, is only incidentally with socialists or other heroes of that kidney. [Essentially], it is with machines. A conservatism that cannot face the facts of the machine and mass production, and its consequences in government and politics, is foredoomed to futility and petulance. A conservatism that allows for them has an eleventh-hour chance of rallying what is sound in the West. All else is a dream, and, as [Helmuth] von Moltke remarked about universal peace, “not a very sweet dream at that.” This is, of course, the Beaconsfield position. Inevitably, it goads one’s brothers to raise their knives against the man who holds it. Sadder yet, that man can never blame them, for he shares their feelings even when directed against himself, since he, no less than they, is also a Tory. Only, he is a Tory who means to live. And to live is not to hold the lost redoubt. To live is to maneuver.
I know many liberals agree with this sort of argument. They use it to advance the idea that the Constitution is outdated — “the Founding Fathers didn’t know about airplanes!!!!! So therefore guns for no one and abortions for everybody!” — but I take from this the opposite conclusion. I believe in encouraging innovation, yet I also think the rapidity of technological change should make us revere enduring institutions more, not less. Normally, it’d be around here that I’d bring up Chesterton’s fence again. But I’ve been getting my Burke on of late. I review Yuval Levin’s wonderful book, The Great Debate, for the upcoming issue of Commentary and it’s had me rereading and renoodling a lot of stuff
I couldn’t get too deep into it in the review, but one of the things I find most interesting in Burke is his Hayekian side. He doesn’t believe that the past is a repository of genius or perfection, far from it. He believes the present is better than the past — at least his present — and that society should move toward a perfect, albeit unattainable, ideal. But what makes improvement possible is continuity with the past, not breaking from it.
Yuval contrasts Burke’s views with Thomas Paine’s faith in the “Eternal NOW” (the all caps are Paine’s). Paine believes every generation is the only game in town and it needs to align everything with its needs and principles. Burke believes that each generation inherits an already existing society from its parents and is obliged to try to leave it in slightly better shape for the next generation. If “the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken and no one generation could link with the other,” Burke writes, then “men would become little better than the flies of a summer.”
Burke, of course is right. The challenge for each new generation is figuring out what’s worth keeping and what worth tinkering with. The progressive attitude is that everything is eligible not just for tinkering, but wholesale replacement. The people who lived yesterday were idiots, but we are geniuses! The conservative attitude is to assume that our parents and grandparents weren’t fools and that they did some things for good reasons. But — and here is the Hayekian part — it’s also possible that some things our forebears bequeathed us are good for no “reason” at all. Friedrich Hayek argued that many of our institutions and customs emerged from “spontaneous order” — that is they weren’t designed on a piece of paper, they emerged, authorless, to fulfill human needs through lived experience, just as our genetic “wisdom” is acquired through trial and error. Paths in the forest aren’t necessarily carved out on purpose. Rather they emerge over years of foot traffic.
This reminds me of a story Kevin Williamson tells in his book.
There is a lovely apocryphal story, generally told about Dwight D. Eisenhower during his time as president of Columbia University: The school was growing, necessitating an expansion of the campus, which produced a very hot dispute between two groups of planners and architects about where the sidewalks should go. One camp insisted that it was obvious — self-evident! — that the sidewalks had to be arranged thus, as any rational person could see, while the other camp argued for something very different, with the same appeals to obviously, self-evident, rational evidence. Legend has it that Eisenhower solved the problem by ordering that the sidewalks not be laid down at all for a year: The students would trample paths in the grass, and the builders would then pave over where the students were actually walking. Neither of the plans that had been advocated matched what the students actually did when left to their own devices. There are two radically different ways of looking at the world embedded in that story: Are our institutions here to tell us where to go, or are they here to help smooth the way for us as we pursue our own ends, going our own ways?
The paths were formally recognized by the planners only after the paths were created through human experience. In the parable of the fence, Chesterton says you must know why the fence was built before you can tear it down. But Burke and Hayek get at something even deeper: What if no one built the fence? Okay, that would be weird. But metaphorically, what if no one built it. Or what if everyone built the fence without realizing it. What if we are surrounded by fences that were never consciously built or planned but were instead the natural consequence of lived experience like the footpath at Columbia?
My inner Hayek and Burke believes this to be the case. So much of what makes civilization civilized is intangible, spontaneous, and mysterious. An unknowable number of our greatest laws are hidden, our greatest wisdom is authorless, and our most valuable treasures are in our hearts. This should foster enormous humility about how to out-think humanity. The rules should follow the experience, whenever possible, not the other way around. Burke once told a friend that “every political question I have ever known has had so much of the pro and con in it that nothing but the success could decide which proposition was to have been adopted.”
Thomas Paine, anticipating a lot of anarcho-libertarian types, believed that if you looked back to the founding of monarchies you’d find mere villains and brutes who established themselves as better than their fellow men by force of arms. And he was right! A point Burke sort of tacitly acknowledged. But his response to such claims was, in effect, so what? Of course, there was evil in the past, of course mistakes were made. But as societies advance, they slowly — sometimes too slowly (See, “Slavery, U.S.) — correct out the mistakes or simply build successes on top of them. This is something I was getting at in The Tyranny of Clichés in the chapter on dogma.
It is true that many dogmas are built upon mistakes. But that doesn’t mean the resulting edifice is not worthwhile. A ship may sink because of the blunder of the captain, but the resulting sunken wreckage beneath the waves may serve as a bountiful reef supporting a wealth of new life. So it is with humanity and her institutions. Columbus “discovered” America by mistake and the world is better for what was built upon that mistake. How many beloved children were born thanks to some capricious accident? We are told that the institution of monogamous marriage between a man and a woman was a mistake, unchartered by the laws of evolution and unlicensed by the conclusions of science. Maybe so. But what was built upon the rock of that “mistake” is not so easily or desirably undone even if we are willing to admit the existence of an error committed somewhere in the ancient recesses of prehistory. If tomorrow science tells us that it would make more sense to make stoplights green instead of red, the price of the resulting chaos would not be worth the gains in rational organization. Indeed, a reasonable man understands that the costs of ripping up the old and tried are often too expensive for the theoretical promises of the new and untried.
Where Was I?
Oh right, robots. I am open to the idea that our robot future will be super-terrific awesome. But I am far from convinced. Indeed, I’m downright nervous about it. Humans find happiness through finding meaning in their lives. For many of us that comes from faith, family, and friends. But it also comes from work — both in the occupational sense, but also in the sense of struggling to accomplish something. I don’t think there’s nobility in poverty, but I do think there’s nobility in work, even menial work. Indeed, as anyone who has had a menial job will attest, they can be the most rewarding, because they build good character and ingrain good habits.
Now, it’s entirely possible that robots will free lots of people from drudgery and let them become full-time spoken-word poets or basset-hound wranglers. Maybe robots will make it easier for us to do complete re-enactments of the mall chase scene from the Blues Brothers in Lego. Note, I said “easier” not “possible” because it’s already been done. I for one would be delighted to have a permanent robot slave rub my feet while I write this “news”letter. But when you look at what is already happening to men in our society as good-paying strong-back jobs vanish, I can’t help but worry that robots won’t just take menial and dangerous jobs, they will, for some people at least, also take many of the most redeeming habits of the human heart as well.
Chait’s Confession
I was travelling when Jonathan Chait wrote his very strange column on 12 Years a Slave,Quin Hillyer, and conservatives. I’m not going to weigh in on everybody’s contribution to the “debate” (though you should probably read Quin’s response). I will say that what I find interesting about Chait’s argument is that it basically rests on a very common failure of liberal imagination, which is ironic because it claims to identify a failure of conservative imagination. Chait bizarrely thinks it’s bizarre that Hillyer thinks Obama is arrogant. For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that Chait could concede Obama is arrogant. The upshot of Chait’s argument is that it would still be wrong to point it out because that would play into a “racist trope.” And conservatives who don’t understand that are morally or intellectually deficient. They lack the “alarm bells” enlightened liberals have.
Assuming for a moment that’s true, what I find so interesting is that Chait thinks the lack of these alarm bells is a bad thing, when in fact a society where such alarm bells are unnecessary is supposed to be the goal of the civil-rights movement. When I say Barack Obama is arrogant, I’m judging the man by what I believe to be the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Honestly, his skin color rarely occurs to me. Chait and his fellow liberals are the ones who can’t get past skin color and, in turn, denounce conservatives who can (surely liberals can at least concede that it’s possible to be arrogant while black).
This strikes me as a particularly dangerous manifestation of political correctness for the simple reason that in a democracy politicians must be fair game for criticism. The standard Chait is trying to establish is that you can’t say true things about politicians if it sets off racial-trope alarm bells for liberals like Chait. That’s awfully convenient given how supportive Chait is of Obama. But even if he wasn’t, who on God’s green earth declared that Chait — or, MSNBC — is the arbiter of what is or isn’t racist? Yeah, yeah, he has a right to his opinion, but mine isn’t simply a “who is he to judge?” point. Chait is saying that conservatives are kinda-sorta racist not because of their internal motives or intentions, but because they don’t comply with Chait’s entirely subjective tastes. Calling Obama arrogant isn’t racist because of racism, it’s racist because Chait doesn’t like hearing it. I’ll pass on making that standard my own.
Various & Sundry
My thanks to the college Republicans at Fordham University, where I spoke this week on Liberal Fascism. I was a bit rusty, but it went well and the kids were very impressive.
Anyway, speaking of Liberal Fascism, folks on Twitter have been tweeting around a passage from my book on the minimum wage that might be of interest:
Consider the debate over the minimum wage. The controversy centered on what to do about what Sidney Webb called the “unemployable class.” It was Webb’s belief, shared by many of the progressive economists affiliated with the American Economic Association, that establishing a minimum wage above the value of the unemployables’ worth would lock them out of the market, accelerating their elimination as a class. This is essentially the modern conservative argument against the minimum wage, and even today, when conservatives make it, they are accused of — you guessed it — social Darwinism. But for the progressives at the dawn of the fascist moment, this was an argument for it. “Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites,” Webb observed, “the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners.”
Ross put it succinctly: “The Coolie cannot outdo the American, but he can underlive him.” Since the inferior races were content to live closer to a filthy state of nature than the Nordic man, the savages did not require a civilized wage. Hence if you raised minimum wages to a civilized level, employers wouldn’t hire such miscreants in preference to “fitter” specimens, making them less likely to reproduce and, if necessary, easier targets for forced sterilization. Royal Meeker, a Princeton economist and adviser to Woodrow Wilson, explained: “Better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind.” Arguments like these turn modern liberal rationales for welfare state wage supports completely on their head.
For those interested in the connections between eugenics and progressive economics, this article by Thomas Leonard is a great place to start. It had a huge influence on me.
Earlier this week I wrote a column — or I should say “yet another column” — on how liberals are the aggressors in the culture war. I talked to POTUS radio’s Julie Mason about it and got a little ranty. I like Mason, but I thought it was interesting she couldn’t really explain why Cuccinelli was a culture-war “aggressor.” Here’s the audio (It’s about ten minutes long).
I had to rush this “news”letter this a.m. because I’ve got to head downtown for a panel I’m moderating at AEI. If you can’t make it, look for the video.
You know how you can tell a new dog is in your future? When you keep catching your wife cruising animal-shelter websites. We’ve been talking a lot about getting a new dog, though not a replacement for Cosmo, since Cosmo was irreplaceable. We’re pretty big believers in rescuing dogs — Coz was a rescue, and rescuer — which makes it tougher to find 1) puppies and 2) purebreds (except for pitbulls). I don’t much care about the purebred part — Cosmo was a rich ethnic cocktail — but my daughter has never had a straight-up puppy and I think she’s still at an age where that would be a good thing. Anyway, we’re moving at our own pace on this, but we are on the look out. Please let me know if you know of any special opportunities out there.
Meanwhile, I think this may be the single most handsome puppy ever. I can’t stop looking at him.
Maybe we’ll just get a wolf.
Since I didn’t file last week because of Thanksgiving, I hope it’s not too late for this: an oral history of the funniest bits from TV ever. As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
Finally, despite a widespread lack of demand, the Dark Crystal has been restored!
Boobies, is there anything they can’t sell?
Some awesome words for the ombibulous amongst us.
17 really odd Pinterest boards.
15 scary pics of dust storms.
Kids, wash your ears!
Thank you, Internet.
Did you know that one in five dudes who sit next to you on planes have this?
The links contained in the final paragraphs did not survive transmission. If you want to avail yourselves of them, suggest you email Goldberg via Nationalreview.com
I spent a couple of hours in my shed earlier this afternoon roughing out a wooden bowl blank listening to Radio 4 in the hope of being stimulated and entertained by today’s repeat of yesterday’s ‘Any Questions’ with a panel made up of ‘Andrew Lansley MP, Tristram Hunt MP, Jeanette Winterson, Paul Johnson’ it looked quite promising.
But I had not allowed for the now very common small socialist ‘clack’ in the audience making awful loud noises far more than their number would indicate to be the case, each time that it was Andrew Lansley’s turn to speak, Jonathon Dimbleby did try to stop them but not very successfully.
Unfortunately this encouraged the loony lesbian author Jeanette Winterson to try to take over the chair by loudly insisting that Andrew Lansley should not be allowed to voice his opinion on a question, this as you would expect roused the ‘clack’ to further hysteric shouts (obviously this was her intention) and Jonathon had to resort to saying he not she was in charge.
The Any Answers that followed was as bad as it now regularly is, since Jonathon handed over the program to the simpering simpleton Anita Anand in June 2012, it is only any good when she takes a break and a temporary host takes over.
I believe that she is in the job because she ticks most of the boxes.
Young, female, a Hindu from Pakistan (now there’s a novelty) her far from melodious voice both in tone and pitch are as irritating as scratching ones nails on a black-board.
SANTA CLAUS: An Engineer’s Perspective
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second — 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the “flying” reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them-Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance-this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in 0.001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g’s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now.
P.S. For those engineers among you I do not claim to be an engineer.
one watches it, cannot decide whether to laugh or cry in despair. Not all Americans are like that, but …
http://www.youtube.com/embed/O0azojPPRhw?feature=player_embedded
Frank P @ 15:53
Superb, the stuff, Frank, by far more worth reading the Jones’s three hour tirades Malfleur keeps recommending (no offence, Malfleur, peace?), and Baron has already booked the nationalreview site.
His point about conservatism being ‘undermined’ by the progress of technology (if the conservatives don’t find a way to accommodate to it) fits neatly the argument Baron was making for globalisation driven by the lowering of the cost of transport through containerisation. His siding with the great Burke makes him a must for Baron.
David Ossitt
December 7th, 2013 – 10:30
Exactly,David. By the way, isn’t the TV foul than usual this weekend. Thank goodness I have some lovely books at hand.
Baron
There is, unfortunately, nobody so far as I can see doing the work of Alex, Jones, Michael Savage, Bill Whittle and others in England. By the same token, England appears to lag behind America in its access to reliable news and alertness to the pressing dangers to our liberties and lives.
We may say that this is because the dangers are further advanced in the United States than in England. That may or may not be so; but the collapse of the united States into chaos and a military police state, which seems to be the agenda being implemented,can only have catastrophic consequences for our own land. I therefore regret what I see as your complacency. Mr. Jones has, and indeed Mr. Savage,has had many years of thinking and speaking about the concerns which you reduce to tirades. He has millions of listeners, some of whom, whether in the military, the security services, the government, academia, or business,have a measure of intelligence. He should therefore be seen as a voice of his people. If you disagree with any of the wealth of facts with which his tirades are amply supported, address that. For my own part, someone who can maintain informed tirades for three hours six or seven days a week in the face of a threat to the American republic far more serious than under John Adams and Alexander Hamilton in 1798 should be listened to with all the passion, admiration, and eagerness to learn of those who tuned in to the drumbeats of the BBC in December 1940.
Anyone
Has Anyone heard this appalling news?
http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-seek-refuge-central-african-airport-223752147.html
“Thousands of Christian civilians sought refuge at an airport guarded by French soldiers Friday, fleeing from the mostly Muslim ex-rebels with machetes and guns who rule the country a day after the worst violence to hit the chaotic capital in nine months….
“They are slaughtering us like chickens,” said Appolinaire Donoboy, a Christian whose family remained in hiding.”
Fortunately, it can’t happen here.
Worth a tirade?
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/the-ten-most-iconic-photos-of-the-1940s?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=taboolaINTL
Vis-a-vis Alexander Boot’s last line in his piece on Bashir, Boot was, of course, trying to satirise.
As ever, satire is dead in the UK, because Sharia Oborne wrote a similar line, only he was being serious:
‘Few human beings can be compared to Jesus Christ. Nelson Mandela was one’
By Peter Oborne
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100249502/few-human-beings-can-be-compared-to-jesus-christ-nelson-mandela-was-one/
(commments are closed)
That was written seriously.
I’m not going to link to every piece in the Shariagraph, because there were so many on Mandela, but I’m going to put a few just to shame anyone who pays a subscription to the rag.
How can anyone tell me there is a ‘right wing press’ when there is endless garbage like this, all of it censoring any dissent?
Nelson Mandela was a secular saint for the whole world
By Tim Stanley
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100220825/nelson-mandela-was-a-secular-saint-for-the-whole-world/
(commments are closed)
Nelson Mandela fought the last great crusade of modern civilisation
By Dan Hodges
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100223191/nelson-mandela-fought-the-last-great-crusade-of-modern-civilisation/
(comments are closed)
Nelson Mandela showed a divided country how to forgive
By Tom Chivers
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100249422/nelson-mandela-showed-a-divided-country-how-to-forgive/
(comments are closed)
Nelson Mandela: Saying farewell to South Africa’s liberator
By Telegram
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/telegram/100249450/nelson-mandela-saying-farewell-to-south-africas-liberator/
(comments are closed)
Nelson Mandela had a unique gift: he was able to govern in poetry
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/johnmcternan1/100248969/nelson-mandela-had-a-unique-gift-he-was-able-to-govern-in-poetry/
(comments are closed)
Judge Rebecca Poulet QC (sat up the corridor from the Lee Rigby murder trial): ‘My understanding is that Islam is a peaceful religion’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519519/Muslim-Patrol-jailed-harassing-couple-holding-hands-men-drinking-bid-enforce-Sharia-law-East-London.html
Malfleur!
An oh-so telling two-minute tape. When a guest on a political chat show has a lot of relevance to the preceding guest, they often leave them on the sofa together.
Not Bilderberger Ed Balls and Alex Jones.
Jones had to collar Ed Balls off camera. And the BBC duly stepped in to stop him!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FoUXzhuzkQ
Jones’ flaw is that he is a one-man band. He cannot command a news room in the way the mainstream media can and that means he can get some things wrong. But on the big picture he is right more often than not.
I would concede Jones’ temper can get frayed but when you’re on your own, the world can feel like that. Why did the BBC choose him for their Bilderberg stitch up and not someone with a cooler head.
This might answer that question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPcUFVeJwxs
Now place Ed Balls’ headlong dash off that sofa and away from Alex Jones alongside Ken Clarke’s answering of questions on the Bilderberg outfit in Parliament and you can see that it is obviously an unwritten rule that mainstream journalists do not ask questions about Bilderberg or they would soon lose the other ‘stories’ thrown their way.
Why didn’t Mr ‘Rottweiler’ Andrew Neil cross examine Balls about Bilderberg if he was in the same room with Jones?
He was happy to smear Tommy RObinson.
That tacit code of not asking Bilderbergers is why one MP tabled those questions for Ken Clarke to answer.
It wss the first time in his career, Clarke complained, that he had ever been brought to the house to account for something – and this was chutzpah – that was not government business.
He’s a member of it, it could present clear conflicts of interest (if only it would be transparent), but he didn’t want to answer questions on it.
The taxpayer paid a fortune for the security at the event, but Clarke didn’t want to answer questions on it.
One can only surmise that if a ‘Rottweiler’ like Neil lets Bilderberger Ed Balls go as soon the subject crops up (he didn’t even let Alex Jones ask him a few questions on camera) that the MP that tabled those questions for Clarke knew that that was the closest we’d ever get to anyone answering questions in public on the Bilderberg.
The mainstream journalists know and obey the code of omerta on that subject when interviewing Bilderberg members.
It’s an international disgrace.
The Shariagraph really showed its true colors in the past 24 hours.
It’s all about controlling the debate, they write steam valve articles and allow steam valve debate, but only because they’re scared if they ban it outright people will debate elsewhere.
But there are times when it will just step in and ban outright. That’s why it allows debate when it does. Only so that it can step in and ban it at other times and not let other non-mainstream media platforms grow.
And you can bet Jamie Bartlett and his MI5 chums are doing this sort of thing when people are allowed to comment: ‘Jamie has recently completed a major comparative research project of the online support for right wing populist parties in 12 European countries, based on a new data set of 13,000 Facebook fans of these groups. Forthcoming papers based on the German Pirate Party and the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle will be released later this year.’
It is interesting that the pilot of the plane which crashed and nearly killed Farage in 2010 has been found dead.
Peter from Maidstone
Spooky!
This from a friend in Singapore:
An Emergency Call Centre worker in London England, has been fired,
much to the dismay of her colleagues who are reportedly unhappy with
her dismissal. It seems a male caller dialled 999 from a mobile phone stating,
“I am depressed and lying here on a railway track I am waiting for the train to come so I can finally meet Allah.”
Apparently, “Remain calm and stay on the line,” was not considered
to be an appropriate response…
Now to return to a serious subject that will be of interest to all conservatives of whatever colour, does anyone know which is to be preferred between oxygen-based colon cleansers and non-oxygen based? I have never tried either, but the use of one is being recommended. I don’t want to fall between two stools.
Know your enema!
The plane crash incident with Nigel Farage will always have cloud over it.
If MI5 are prepared to kill people like David Kelly and Gareth Williams, then Farage would fit the bill as a target.
Most political upstarts get smeared into oblivion, but that hasn’t happened this time.
The real story behind the Gareth Williams case is very intriguing. He had made a number of ‘unauthorised’ searches on the database.
It’s one thing to suspect the Establishment of a lot of things but don’t go getting corroboration!
They really are as bent as a nine bob note. MI5/LibLabCon – they’re thick as thieves the established parties and the security services.
And why did his employer – through whatever channel – set out to smeat him?
This passage from this cutting shows the coroner damning MI5:
“During the inquest Dr Wilcox concluded that Mr Williams was not a transvestite and that his collection of women’s clothes were probably gifts for friends.
“She dismissed claims that Mr Williams had entered the sports bag seeking sexual gratification.
“The coroner said: ‘I wonder what the motive was for the release of this material to the media. I wonder whether this was an attempt by a third party to intimate a sexual motive.’”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2506898/Gareth-Williamss-parents-insist-son-WAS-unlawfully-killed.html
The coroner’s words are loaded with meaning.
Well, whaddya know, Lynton Crosby has just handed some footage to the Mail on Sunday.
Remember, if Farage isn’t metaphorically – if not literally (although they might have tried that!) – dead before the Bulgarians and Romanians start arriving, Dave and chums are probably going to lead the Tories not just to defeat but to total disintegration.
There is no Tory membership.
Anyway. Telegram from Lynton Crosby:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520012/Send-home-In-shocking-video-UKIP-councillor-key-Farage-ally-launches-astonishing-racist-rant–tells-MoS-I-stand-word.html
Why has this tape surfaced now and not when she was a Tory?
The timing of it is very odd.
Set-up?
Have UKIP been ‘borked’ by the Tories?
Anyway, the Mail on Sunday readers think her comments are right so hopefully it will bag more votes for UKIP.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10497760/Those-love-letters-will-be-vital-ammunition-when-the-Coalition-split-comes.html
This is an article all about how Lib and Con are going to have a pantomime divorce for the cameras before the next election.
But I was intrigued by this comment underneath.
I had not speculated on how old the cosy coterie of mainstream parties was but it seems it’s a very old concept indeed:
GhostCat&Co. Richard Johnson
‘Before long, the regrettable “LibLabCon” idea, which we often see on Disqus, will be 100 years old:-
‘”Through the press propaganda, through the use of the organs of information, it was possible in England to found the great model parties.
‘”Already in those early days they saw to it shrewdly that there were always two or three groups apparently hostile to each other, but in fact all hanging on a gold thread, the whole designed to take account of a human characteristic – that the longer a man possesses an object, the more readily he grows tired of it.
‘”He craves something new: therefore one needs two parties.
‘”The one is in office, the other in opposition.
‘”When the one has played itself out, then the opposition party comes into power, and the party which has had its day is now in its turn the opposition.
‘”After twenty years the new party itself has once more played itself out and the game begins afresh.
‘”In truth this is a highly ingenious mill in which the interests of a nation are ground very small.
‘”As everyone knows, this system is given some such name as ‘Self-Government of a People.”‘
(Adolf Hitler, 28th July 1922)
It’s happened again.
Hundreds and hundreds have come out in support of Victoria Ayling on the Mail’s website.
Every time Lynton Crosby tries this smear it makes people realise the thought tyrrany people in the UK under: Human Resources departments and their spiteful ‘diversity’ training. Thought police knocking down people’s doors.
They watch people like Godfrey Bloom and Victoria Ayling and think ‘there, but for the grace of God’.
The Mail seems very shy about the fact that the video was shot for the Tories.
It took a UKIP spokesperson to point that out to them.
They’re good at not playing detective too, aren’t they, on that xxxtbag of a newspaper.
Article in the mail about funding for the P I E in the 70s.
Harriet not mentioned yet but I bet she and others are getting worried.
This whole episode explains the attitude which allowed Jim to get away with what he was up to.
Eric King: “What we are really talking about here is an acceleration of the confiscation of wealth. What’s being proposed around the world, the wealth taxes and some of these other things, it is the confiscation of wealth going forward — that’s the theme by governments, isn’t it?”
Sprott: “That is the ongoing thing that is happening. There was some work done in the UK saying that by having zero interest rates you help the banking system by 120 billion pounds a year. But of course the opposite side of that is the savers don’t make 120 billion pounds. And with this financial repression ongoing, people can’t better themselves. They are losing out to inflation.
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/12/7_Billionaire_Eric_Sprott_-_The_End_Game_Is_Absolutely_Horrifying.html
Pastor Manning of Harlem thinks we can win – but we need a strategy for revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAjPN8ujn6o
Yes, apologies, Jones again – who is is doing this stuff? – in the second hour.
Malfleur. First you hit those with savings by having zero interest rates. They have to live off capital and it diminishes. They become dependent where they once were independent. You take away their houses when they fall ill so that not only they but their families are less independent. Then you increase interest rates so that those with mortgages and loans can’t cope, both private households and businesses. The state steps in to ‘help’ taking ownership of majority stakes in houses and UK companies. Those with unsustainable levels of debt are either allowed to bankrupt and become dependent, or can sell themselves to the state and become dependent.
The aim is to increase dependence. Who will speak out when the vast majority depend in some real and critical manner on the state. You want to stay in your house, then don’t speak and don’t say anything that is politically incorrect when you do. You want continuing support for your business, (we own 51% of it) then employ those we tell you to under the terms we impose on you. The aim is to make us a nation of indentured servants of the state so that it hardly matters whether our masters are the disciples of Marx or of Mohammed.
I second those three posts above by Malfleur and Peter.
It is a disgrace.
I see the savings rate in the UK has plummeted. This is terrible but people feel trapped with money earning nothing.
But what then happens to the culture of saving?
You create a new generation of dependency. Debt slaves.
I think it no coincidence that as this has accelerated Mark Carney has arrived in the UK. He is not British, for heaven’s sake. And the CV: Bank of International Settlements (a very respectable name for a not very respectable institution) and Goldman Sachs tell you this man knows how to wrap tentacles around the masses and then squeeze the pennies and their souls from them.
Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who took £6,000 to pay for his electricity, has condemned Victoria Ayling (message: UKIP are racist) but condemned Ed Miliband’s pollster for saying – when he found out how anti-immigration Labour voters are: ‘This shows the contempt Labour and Ed Miliband have for the public. They don’t want to hear people’s views about immigration.
‘Instead they want to censor and shut down any sensible and rational debate on an extremely important subject.
‘It’s the same old Labour. Anyone who doesn’t share their world view is mocked and attacked.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520044/Ed-Miliband-accused-contempt-voters-polling-guru-said-anti-immigration-views-depressed.html
The cheek of it is to do it in the same 24 hours.
But this is how the Cons have kept conning people: they run with the hare (the anti-immigration public) and then with the hounds (the political and media class).
They have used that playbook since the days of Enoch Powell.
How can anyone ever give them any credibility ever again?
It’s a lie.
All their promises are lies.
It is pantomime concern.
Joany@December 8th, 2013 – 10:05
One can still make a decent return on savings of one shuns the old financial institutions like banks and insurance companies, and use things like peer to peer lending.
Google zopa, funding circle and funding knight.
wiki has an excellent article on peer to peer lending.
Noa@December 7th, 2013 – 16:32
but when you approach the speed of light, time stops for you so santa can get between homes in zero time. But how some reindeer can accelerate a slay to the speed of light is not known.
Also we do not know how his distribution logistics works. Maybe he sends consignments of parcels to depots in locations around the world and thus does not need to carry all the presents when he sets off.
On Radio 4, the BBC were discussing the Mandela legacy. The resident socialists were rambling along about the ANC, and how scandals have rocked its original aims, and how so many ordinary Africans felt betrayed. Leading members of the ANC live in luxury whilst many people do not even have clean water. What utter British armchair socialism was spewed! Why don’t they look nearer home, where the Harmans, Millibands and other leeches enjoy all the goodies and decent citizens barely make ends meet. The old time socialists like Aneurin Bevan and Bessie Bradock must be turning in their graves.
Malfleur @ 19:42
And the point of this (the ten iconic pictures from the 40s) was what?
Also, it isn’t complacency that drives Baron’s take on Jones and co, it’s time. How could one spend hours listening or watching the stuff?
It also is not true to say nobody in Britain is pointing to the madness of PC, the multy culty or equality obsession and everything that goes with it, Melanie, Hitchens, Boot, Russel Taylor, Delingpole, Condell, even Rod Liddle amongst others are all at it, doing it differently from the likes of Jones. They may not be pushing it as far as your favorites, Baron prefers it though.
Joany @ 00:12
The quote by Hitler doesn’t really point to any better solution. The one he offered is a non starter, it led to a disaster for Germany, the world, and its red replica doomed the Russians to a tyranny that lasted generations.
In any society there exists diverging views not so much on the what to do (nobody has ever offered to lead a nation to oblivion, got the votes), but how to get there. Whether in a two party system or through some form of proportional representation the society will always end with one bunch or another or another. Democracy isn’t perfect, nothing ever is, one can mock it, Mencken did (a pathetic belief in the common wisdom of individual ignorance), but waht else do you suggest then?
Sorry, Baron!
All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!
Enjoy LibLabCon forever – maybe it will deliver someday!
Joany at 20:12
It should be of little or no interest to us whether Islam is a religion of peace or not. The scholars, historians may argue, as may the members of the club of Islam. For us, it should be sufficient to tell those who worship Allah that if they live amongst us, in a secular society where laws are made by the consent of the governed, they obey those laws or else.
In the case you highlight they didn’t, and got fingered for it. Except for the judge’s judgmental utterance what’s wrong with it?
Baron, we don’t live in a democracy. And what we have is the worst of worlds.
Joany @ 16:51
What? How did you figure the barbarian backs the current set up?
For the record, when the count was over, Baron preferred solution was (still is) the Tories sack the boy who couldn’t defeat the most inapt PM in he country’s history, man who as a Chancellor nearly missed bankrupting the country, offer to give support to a minority Labour Government if certain conditions were met.
Baron’s musing about the forms of government was only to suggest that whichever system one choses it will not be prefect. And he certainly can never back a dictator, howwever enlightened. That was all.
Peter from Maidstone @ 16:59
Well.yes and no, Peter.
The unwashed cannot be all blind, brainwashed, scarred stiff, Peter, and they voted the way they did. Perhaps the time will come when they vote differently, more to our liking, but the point is each of us still has a free vote, nobody as yet forces anyone to vote against one’s will, correct?
Joany @ 16:51
Again, Joany, what sort of government do you suggest then? Governance by anarchy (?), referenda, localised or what?
Baron, about 35% of the population is dependent entirely on the state. Over 50% in some places. It is not surprising that such people, whose votes have already been paid for, vote for a continuation of the present situation whereby a shrinking middle class pays for the inactivity and inefficiency of the rest. When you make your living from the state you do not have a free vote.
It is the system which is broken, not a few policies here or there. We need to start again with what we had and with what worked and always worked. That is what conservatism is all about.
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 14:47
Well said, Anne, Harold Wilson died almost in penury, a fate unlikely for the leading (and not so leading) New Labour tossers.
Peter from Maidstone @ 17:09
Excellent point, P{eter, the same Baron’s been making over and over again, but it wasn’t what’s being debated. We were talking about forms of governance in general, not how any of the forms corrupts.
Still, point the barbarian to the new beginning then.
You see, it reminds Baron of the guy who asked another one how to get to a place, and the latter answered: ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’.
What we must do, those in the society who have the wisdom, the courage, the ear of the people to tell those sucking on the taxpayer’s tit that it cannot last, it must stop, it will bury them and the rest of us unless it’s abandoned.
what does CHW make of reports that MP’s will get an 11% increase?
How will any sitting MP justify this on the doorstep?
Some time ago I wrote to my inept MP, Helen Grant. She has been sacked from the Department of Justice, and now is in the Department of Sport, where unfortunately her complete ignorance of current sporting events has been made all too manifest by her failure to answer any ‘Question of Sport’ put to her.
It took some time for my letter to circulate around various departments. It posed some questions about the present spate of Christians being arrested for preaching in public. The answer was of the usual quality, and came from Damien Green’s office, but what was most noted was the covering letter from Helen Grant.
I had written to her about street preachers, and she replied…
“Further to our previous correspondence regarding energy prices…”
Of course I have never corresponded on such a question. She should perhaps abandon all ministerial pretensions and concentrate more closely on her constituents.
Baron
” Harold Wilson died almost in penury”
I doubt it. If he did, then it was because he was out-conned by the crooks with whom he was associated throughout most of his venal life. Marcia Forkbender’s purple list enumerated some of them. But in his younger days at the Board of Trade, characters like ‘Custard ‘ Clark and ‘Chopper’ Watts could have enlightened you about the likelihood of the ‘penury’ of ‘arold the old ‘ood from ‘uddersfield. Jimmy Hanson was another old mate. It wasn’t about politics though. Harold got him Knighted, but Maggie ennobled him. I doubt the pound in Harold’s pocket ever ran out, despite what others would like you to think. Corruption in Labour Party politics, or any other shade come to that, is hardly a novel phenomenon.
Frank P.
re: Harold Wilson…
Wealth at death £490,992: probate, 17 Oct 1995, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
That’s worth £800,000 in today’s money.
Alexsandr
December 8th, 2013 – 17:47
What do I make of this report? I’m hardly surprised, considering my opinion of MPs. The sitting MPs do not concern themselves with justifying anything. They are corrupt knaves, ruling a nation of mainly brain-washed cowards. If the public had any guts, they would arise and do what happened in other country’s civil wars. Off with their heads!
Frank P @ 18:07 & Peter from Maidstone @ 18.11
Baron stands corrected. Apologies, but he’s certain he had read not only he was penniless, but lonely, too, before his death. Your observation about his government and the cronies surrounding it is spot on, Frank. Nevertheless, the bunch of them then – Baron remembers the Hungarian mafia – was not as lucripetous as the ghastly Blair’s generation.
Baron, he was ill for many years before his death and I believe he was cared for by his wife until he died, and she is still very old but alive.
There is a widespread belief that we in the western world live in Democracies, but I notice that several of us seem to have become convinced that the belief is in fact a delusion. I’ve certainly become convinced of that.
But when we consider how much and how steadily Democracy has deteriorated since World War 2, it makes the existence of the delusion very frightening indeed.
Joanna (December 8th, 2013 – 00:12) cites Hitler’s earlier (1922) scathing summary of Demovracy –
”As everyone knows, this system is given some such name as ‘Self-Government of a People.”‘
Hitler was no doubt pig-headedly & overly ambitious – not to mention paranoid and ruthless to the point where it is accurate to describe him as wicked – but he did, nonetheless have a very clear grasp of some things.
For example – and this bears out what Joanna wrote – a journalist once asked Hitler for his opinion of the collective German people. There is no doubt Hitler held the German people very high indeed in his affections, so the journalist expected Hitler to heap fulsome praise on them. The journalist was astounded by Hitler’s reply –
“The people” Hitler said, “are like a great worm crawling whichever way it is prodded.”
Isn’t that pretty well now universally true, right here too in our own so-called, “democracies”? Doesn’t the question of whether we have good government depend on who is doing the prodding? Sadly, over the last half century the prodding has more and more been done – and is now universally being done – by people who are rogues and fools.
Is that true of the Chinese government too? I very much doubt that many of them are fools, and as for being rogues, I notice that from time to time some rogue seems to be rooted out.
Re: Harold Wilson
I thought it was Mrs T. who, after hearing about Wilson’s hardship, introduced a pension for ex-prime ministers as such a thing didn’t then exist. She was more caring than I might have been as it is very rare for those who espouse socialism to ever have to face its inevitable consequences.
Thanks for so many amazing posts this week, especially Frank’s “know thine enema”!!
Irishboy, I can’t find any evidence for Wilson’s penury. Nor any evidence that he was particularly given a pension. He was an MP until 1985. His widow still has a home in Westminster and a holiday house in the Scillies.
“…the chances of the BBC commissioning a drama which explores the experiences of an ageing white couple in an area transformed by mass immigration — surely a subject with real dramatic potential — are virtually nil. And if such a project ever did see the light of transmission, the audience could be forgiven for predicting quite accurately all the conclusions that would inevitably be drawn.
On a whole host of issues — foreign aid, climate change, social inequality — the viewer, gallery-goer and novel-reader, far from being shocked, provoked or given even a slightly alternative perspective, generally know exactly what they are going to get.
For our cultural establishment, there is a right and a wrong way of looking at such issues and as a result the arts, far from being “challenging” or “cutting edge”, have essentially become the providers of window dressing, a sort of visual aid unit, for the views and assumptions of the political and media class…”
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4415/islam_the_subject_artists_won_t_tackle
Rod Liddle got over 4000 `green arrows`in support;in response to knocking-copy in the DM re. his article in Spec. on Mandela.
In the DM and the Express,where ever it was possible,there were `green arrows`and/or comments in respect of negative items on Mandela.
Baron @ 18:25
I had to check that word. One up to you! But perhaps Baron is a racing man?
Baron@ 16:31
I shouldn’t really have to explain this – we like to leave something for the brain to work on here sometimes – but it is that it would have been worth enduring quite a few tirades to have avoided the misery depicted.
The Alex Jones Show is really a news programme. I find I no longer watch news on the TV unless I am on the road in a hotel. Where do you get yours from and how long do you spend collecting it?
Alexander Boot’s thoughtful analysis of the Mandela story (see his last post today) is a welcome antidote to the emetic gushing of all sections of the MSM today. A communist is a communist is a communist, regardless of his modus operandi. Crafty old sod!
Malfleur @ 22:59
Point taken, Malfleur, and frankly, Baron has no quarrel with what Jones, the others you promote, say. It’s just he hasn’t got the time. How do you and the rest of the crew here find the time to search the Net (the links), read, post, often quite lengthy and well argued pieces? If the barbarian can spare a couple of hours a day, he considers himself extraordinarily lucky.
Frank P 2329
You usually post sense.
My question is this:
How does this Bootian Garbage
“Around 50 people are murdered in South Africa each day, which is more by an order of magnitude than 40 years ago. One in 4,000 women have been raped in the past year alone, while over 25 percent of South African men admit to rape, with half of them having raped more than one person.”
How does this have any relevance to a great man who single handedly prevented a white black bloodbath which would have led to the deaths of millions?
How much better to digest this from the Huffington Post from George Bush just 2 days before he died:
“I was honored to be the first American President to welcome Mr. Mandela to the White House. It remains a genuine highlight from those four years I was privileged to hold that high office. Together with Poland’s Lech Walesa and Czechoslovakia’s Vaclav Havel, I viewed Nelson Mandela as one of the great moral leaders during that hopeful and transformative era of global change.
Early in 1990, after President de Klerk announced his intention to release Mr. Mandela — who was then the African National Congress leader — I publicly welcomed the news as it was another significant step on the road to the nonracial, democratic South Africa we all desired.
Following his 27 years of wrongful imprisonment, it would have been understandable if Mr. Mandela had harbored and expressed more animosity — more bitterness — towards his political adversaries. That he didn’t is one of the more remarkable examples of grace and dignity I have ever witnessed. More than that, it showed Nelson Mandela’s true wisdom and, indeed, his genuine devotion to the cause of all his countrymen that he did not indulge whatever personal emotions he may have felt in private.
Nelson Mandela knew that the progress for which he had long fought and suffered would be tougher to achieve had he contributed to a climate of division and recrimination.
In our meetings at the White House, on June 25, 1990, we talked about the future of South Africa — and how the United States could contribute towards the positive change we were already seeing. We talked about how we shared the goal of true democracy and dismantling, once and for all, the vestiges of apartheid — a system that based the rights and freedoms of citizenship on the color of one’s skin.
It was a time of transition for South Africa, and political change breeds both optimism and uncertainty. To their credit, President de Klerk and the Government of South Africa had taken concrete steps to expand the rights and freedoms of all South Africans. In order for that progress to continue, however, it was imperative that all elements in South African society renounced the use of violence in armed struggle — to break free from the cycle of repression and violent reaction that had bred little more than fear and suffering.
It took genuine leadership for the political leaders in South Africa to compromise and show restraint. No one better embodied this spirit than Nelson Mandela.
With the United States offering help and encouragement, five critical developments took place in South Africa in a relatively short period of time: the repeal of apartheid laws on racial segregation, the lifting of a national state of emergency, the legalization of political parties, the initiation of good-faith negotiations toward a non-racial government, and finally, the release of all political prisoners.
Looking back, it is plain to see that it would have been impossible to achieve not only these policy objectives — but also the larger ambition of a truly free and democratic South Africa — without the moral leadership, courage and vision of Nelson Mandela.”
John Jefferson Burns
December 9th, 2013 – 06:29
As I have written earlier, I have great respect and affection for the late Mandela. The only criticism I have, is of the armchair socialists. and ‘intellectual freeloaders’ who are scribbling and jawing away about a man too good to be spoken of in their mealy, milksop mouths. Good posting, John.
John Jefferson Burns @ 06:29
If Baron were you he wouldn’t take Bush’s Junior judgment as the pronouncement of God. Instead, but only if you have the time, read the essay below. It was penned way back in 1953.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/71087/gwendolen-m-carter/can-apartheid-succeed-in-south-africa
Also, Baron hails from the country whose post communist leader Bush also admires. Yet another poor judgement. As a playwright, Havel ranks amongst the best in his own country, an average outside it; as a dissident first, then politicians his ranking sinks to the end of the queue. Some even believe he was a informer for the Czech equivalent of the KGB. When inside for some minor law infringement, he was allowed French cognac, Cuban cigars, food delivered from top Prague restaurants. Not many other political prisoners were that lucky. Baron amongst them.
JJ Burns
Try the following post, debate and links therefrom for the spiritual enlightment which you seek.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/12/what-did-you-do-in-the-struggle-daddy-the-real-story-of-nelson-mandela-and-the-communists/#comment-1157530272