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As Boris pens today:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11734869/Greece-must-rediscover-the-spirit-of-Marathon-to-burst-its-euro-shackles.html
“If Greece wants to stay in the single European currency, Athens must prostrate herself in an act of doglike self-abasement that the ancients called proskynesis. If the Greeks want more of our money, says Schäuble as he waves his Glock/Schmeisser/Walther, they will have to do as follows…”(they did)
We have seen proskinesis
telemachus has changed his mind on Europe
We must now give them
And particularly the Krauts
A Bloody Nose
Alex Boot cuts through the grease to the bone:
http://alexanderboot.com/content/remember-greek-referendum-forget-it
telemachus @ 10:16
But Schäuble didn’t wave a Glock, telemachus, but a wad of money, the commodity by far more powerful in today’s world of mutual love that the gun, a commodity the Germans have alot of, the Greeks haven’t.
Your anger though is not entirely misplaced for at leat two reasons: The Germans were themselves in debt in a big way after WW2, most of what they owed was forgiven by the London conference at the beginning of the 50s. Baron reckons that the reason the Zorbas will not get the same treatment isn’t so much the German Frau’s parsimony as is the fear that if the Greeks are forgiven every other debtor – and there as many of them as they are Euro members – will join the queue.
Also, the Bundesbank can borrow at near no cost (the yield on the 10-year bond fluctuates below 1%, if memory serves, it nearly dipped below zero few months back, people were willing to entrust their money to the German government just for safekeeping, no return on the money at all), but Baron bets you they lend the money to the Greeks at noticeably higher rate, hence booking a profit.
Frank P @ 11:10
Good stuff, the explanation of socialism to the DE economist in particular.
What the affair of the Zorbas has revealed clearly about the EU/Euro constructs is that one can agree anything on paper, have it sealed by the legislatures, try to enforce it even, but what one cannot do is to mix two distinctive approaches to life, the one in the North of prudence, industriousness, discipline, and the one that has evolved in the regions of the South – there’s always mañana, cheating on the State ain’t a crime, siesta is what life’s about.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11735544/labour-in-crisis-over-welfare-cuts-live.html
http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/we-are-all-fascists-now/
DT: ‘Toxic’ deal will plunge Greece into turmoil after Tsipras ‘crucified’ by EU leaders at summit, say analysts
So, it’s all going to plan.
How does one square a circle is a conundrum as yet to be solved, Robert.
Some 80 out of a 100 Zorbas want to stay in the EU/Euro, 62 out a 100 want no more austerity i.e. would prefer the State to keep on borrowing, spending.
The negotiations may have ended, a deal’s on the paper. Now, it has to be ratified by the House of the Hellenes. How likely is it?
If the deal cannot get their backing, there will be another election. But what if the Greeks elect an even greater number of parliamentarians of Syriza, the Tsipras’s left leaning, anti-austerity bunch, or their allies, the right leaning, anti-austerity ANEL?
Could anyone remind Baron what was it the EU/Euro was supposed to achieve?
Peter from Maidstone @ 14:06
An excellent stab at the the sad state of a society that was once the beacon to the world, to be admired, emulated, seeded across the globe, but unlike the Italian model, Peter, the mutation of it we practice still retains the swapping of the dictator at the top of the political pyramid. That should give us hope, no?
A man called Andrei Portnov, who was an advisor to the deposed Ukrainian President Yanukovych, was prosecuted by the new regime, cleared, the Western sanctions on him lifted in March this year, has filed a lawsuit in Vienna against Poroschenko and Klitschko (former boxer, turned politician, rejected by Victoria Nuland for a post in the new Kiev government, ‘not yet ready’, she said). In it, he alleges that both men plotted to overthrow Yanukovych’s government, concluded an agreement to that effect in Vienna in March 2014. This should enable the case to be heard in the Austrian capital. “If anyone were to organize a plot to kill the US president Barack Obama in Vienna, this also would be within our competence,” a Vienna public prosecutor has allegedly said.
Baron expect this news to hit front pages tomorrow (only joking).
Baron, I’m afraid I think not. Cameron is not at the top of the political pyramid, just as Tony Blair was not. There is a state behind the state. I think we should look again and often at the list of attendees at the Bilderberg meetings as a start, but also the various global financial organisations, the UN agencies, the global businesses etc.
Baron, the aim of the EU is to impose a fascist state on the European people with the subversion of nation states and the elimination of any local authority structures that oppose the politico-corporate ambitions of the true European leadership.
Cameron at best leads a puppet government which performs extraordinary amounts of spin to give the impression of its own sovereignty. For most of the UK electorate, if it is honest with itself, the machinery of democratic representation in the EU is obscure and indirect, thereby ultimately undemocratic. Too often both the government and the EU pretend to court some kind of represented democracy when in fact they are courting only vested interests and single issue lobby groups. The proliferation of appointed “tsars”, advisers and wonks just exacerbates the disconnect.
There is now a broad, nebulous network and consensus representing the state which consists of far too many unelected individuals who either hold influential office by appointment or are courted by the government, as well as various “consultative” organisations and “agencies” that have no democratic mandate but operate on the presumption of a “settled agreement” with government over various topics, usually involving the manipulation of language.
Dissent and debate have never been more impoverished beyond the narrow, fabricated, media-driven narrative of platitudes and cliché.
The way the EU operates has made this network even more incestuous and unaccountable as various unelected organisations are sponsored by and in turn lobby the EU for the directives that are spun by Cameron and Co as though they represent the government’s own initiatives and policies. That is why the same initiatives and policies keep re-appearing, regardless of which party is in power and regardless of the fact that they have been, ostensibly, rejected, in what is a replay of the “Irish Referendum Ploy”.
Because society has been broken up and polarised into fabricated identity groups with the empowerment of odd minorities, the government can ignore anyone whose “identity” isn’t represented by a lobby group and instead pursue lobby group interests which are part of their cosy consensus network anyway.
A classic example is the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995 which established actions to be written into EU and UK government policy. Who were the people/organisations attending that conference and how were they empowered to represent the UK electorate? Did you vote for any of them, did I? This is their mission statement:-
“The Platform for Action is an agenda for women’s empowerment. It aims at accelerating the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and at removing all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all spheres of public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural and political decision-making. This means that the principle of shared power and responsibility should be established between women and men at home, in the workplace and in the wider national and international communities. Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and is also a necessary and fundamental prerequisite for equality, development and peace. A transformed partnership based on equality between women and men is a condition for people-centred sustainable development. A sustained and long-term commitment is essential, so that women and men can work together for themselves, for their children and for society to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.”
It is full of presumptive dogma. What business is it of anyone to decide how male and female responsibilities should be shared “at home” other than the couple sharing that home themselves. What was the relationship of this conference to our Parliament? It appears to have been one of directorial imperative because there seems to be little or no evidence of debate in the passage to government policy. Were men (as a collective entity) asked what they thought of it even though women were presumed to represent a singular “empowered” consensus? Why was this conference held in a totalitarian communist state with an appalling human rights record with apparently no debate or concern over the irony of that?
This feels less like democracy and more like a conspiracy of elected and unelected political elites with their own agenda and “solutions” for us and an inconsistent degree of scrutiny and debate over what is progressed into policy and law.
Peter from Maidstone @ 16:26
Isn’t talking about ‘the state behind the state’ and ‘the true European leadership’, the fear of the Bilderberg bunch a step to far, Peter? It smells to the barbarian very much like the conspiracy theories that Malfeur’s so keen on.
Weird as it may seem (or is it serendipity) the barbarian came across a rant today by a Russian chap called Evgeny Fedorov, who, too, sees conspiracy everywhere, but is more specific as to who the conspirators are.
The man heads the National Liberation Movement (that’s the NOD in the clip, if you were to watch it), a movement of all Russians regardless their political affiliation), He’s also a Duma deputy, and believes the American political elite is corroding Russia from within.
The rant lasts for over half an hour, his knowledge of economics and finance seems less than elementary, but his convictions are unquestionable.
If you choose not to watch it, the only new information Baron has learnt from it is rather sparse.
When Boris Yeltsin was facing up to the old communist thugs, an American plane was waiting for him to take him to safety in the US ‘with all his wealth’ says Fedorov.
During the St Petersburg get together few months ago, the cars driven by the NOD’s supporters, and only their cars, got burnt. The police haven’t yet located the culprits.
The US Ambassador in Russia is going around, talking to business leaders, oligarchs, ordinary people convincing them to get rid of the KGB colonel.
Even though in parts Fedorov is praising Putin, in other parts he’s rather critical of him, the government, the agencies of the State. Baron would put him in the same category as the other, more extreme nationalists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCyUZjGV3Zg
Btw, the Barclays account of ‘Russia Today’, the TV channel broadcasting here in English have been closed today.
Colonel Mustard @ 18:03
Excellent expose of the shenanigans of the political elites, Colonel, but is it conspiracy? Doesn’t conspiracy require a dose of secrecy? Yet it’s all in the open, the unwashed know about it. Why is it their knowing about it doesn’t get reflected in the elections more convincingly than the 4mn votes for UKIP? Could it really be that the masses are so brainwashed they cannot see through any of it?
Conspiracy: “An evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot”.
Baron July 13th, 2015 – 18:36
Well, if you equate ‘secret’ in this case with invisible, unseen, unaccountable then I think that, yes, it is.
The main point I suppose is that the activities of the political elite are not being driven by the wishes of the people but rather by an agenda that they have formulated themselves for “our own good”. From a concept where politicians felt they had a responsibility to represent and protect the people they have moved to one where they
seem to think they are in charge of us and that we must be controlled and regulated.
How much of this is the result of a consensus driven wonkery taught in academia in PPE courses I couldn’t say but I suspect that it might be a factor. The wonks, like Cameron, join a “corporate” with an aspiration to rise to “senior management” imbued with a common jargon and belief system. The whole process seems replete with presumptive dogma of the “we know what’s good for you” sort.
Government does now have a corporate feel with bean counters at the fore and “codes of conduct for we “employees” even though the spin is to dress it up that they are somehow serving us.
Why does conspiracy require secrecy? The electorate has been deliberately lobotomized and diluted by universal suffrage. There is no need for secrecy in the face of stupidity, ignorance and self-indulgence.
I’m not afraid of the state behind the state anymore than anyone should
be. It needs to be exposed. And a programme of resistance needs to be developed to attack the corporate foundations of EU fascism.
The etymology of conspiracy doesn’t contain any element of secrecy. It means to agree or to act in unison.
Colonel Mustard @ 18:53
Peter from Maidstone 32 19:05
The main point, Colonel, the barbarian buys without a murmur.
OK, Peter, as an explanation of the lethargy of the unwashed your response fits, and exposing the de-coupling of the governed from those in power is right, too.
I’m interested in understanding the networks of these people. I picked one Bilderberg name at random. Anne Applebaum. I’ve started to develop a network diagram. There are various activities that Applebaum is directly involved in, and which I will want to understand. But look at her husband, and just two of the networks I’ve listed on this graphic. He was a member of the Bullingdon Club, and he has been an advisor to Rupert Murdoch. Apart from this, he is one of the most important politicians in Poland over the last decades.
It is reasonable to ask whether Anne Applebaum was invited to attend the Bilderberg meeting for her Spectator posts, or because of other network involvements, including those of her husband.
Peter, Applebaum is also a historian who has written two books on the Soviet Empire – ‘Iron Curtain – the Crushing of Eastern Europe’ and ‘Gulag – A History’. I haven’t read them although I once intended to but the reviews suggest that they are generally hostile to Soviet-style communism.
The first book actually only focuses on Hungary, Poland and East Germany rather than on the whole of Eastern Europe.
Watched the evacuation of Saigon documentary on Storyville this evening.
When it finished my thought was that Tariq Ali and all the other duplicitous, treacherous aiders and abetters of North Vietnamese aggression deserved to roast in Hell.
Hi Colonel, yes, I had seen that she takes an anti-Putin line, and is reported as saying that Ukraine and Europe need to prepare for Total War with Russia. The American Enterprise Institute is very neo-con and has membership of a great many senior US politicians and political activists taking a strong US v the World approach. And of course she is an American by birth.
Peter from Maidstone @ 07:44
It doesn’t worry the barbarian she’s anti-Putin, what worries is her warmongering bleating all over the place.
Btw, she also writes a bi-weekly foreign affairs column for Washington Post (WP), is the Director of the Global Transitions Program at the Legatum Institute in London (google it).
Read one of her columns in WP from August last year, it’s short, it shows how manipulative with history the woman is. ‘Invasions from west and east’, and ‘should Ukrainians, in the summer of 2014, do the same, i.e. prepare for total war while it is still possible. Should central Europeans join them’? Baron bets you she didn’t say that when her friends, the US neocon bunch, openly invaded, or bombed Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Bosnia …..
The woman should be despatched to a ‘total war country’ to get a feel what it’s all about.
But, how does one get rid of the Applebaums of this world, she cannot be voted out?
Anne Applebaum.
After 1992 she published many sound conservative articles on Eastern Europe:more exactly, Central Europe\ Mittel Europa. More recently she has taken the europhile/eumaidan line against Russia.
The leering face of Philip Hammond among the bunch of traitors who have ‘reached an agreement and clinched a deal with Iran’ is indeed a deeply depressing sight on this dank and dismal day of July 14th 2015. Short term political expediency in pursuit of the ‘legacy’ of idiots has prevailed against the interests of Judaeo-Christianity – and common sense. Let us hope that the backlash destroys them all. If only there was a backbone and a lash still extant in the West!
Since when was it in the ambassadorial terms of reference to directly interact with the unwashed of the country they’ve been posted to:
https://www.facebook.com/LegatumInst/posts/519412691490333
Check on Lallana on the list, amongst other achievements she “served as a consultant in London, overseeing global thought leadership campaigns for government and corporate clients.” Hmmm
The Legatum outfit is a charity. Who exactly funds it?
Frank P @ 09:55
But the honourable Muslim in the White House never liked Israel, Frank, and as for Judaeo-Christian traditions of faith he wouldn’t recognise any, he was brought up as a Muslim.
And Frank, even closer to home:
We will all be like Greece if the EU gets its way
The humiliating terms imposed on Greece show just how far the EU will go to snuff out any hint of sovereignty in its member states
Nigel Farage: What we are seeing in Europe is the complete and total failure of supranationalism. While cooperation between independent nations has always been important, the last few weeks have laid totally bare the European Union’s brand of authoritarian dogma. Much of what I have been warning about for many years indeed is playing out on the world stage – a Greek tragedy that beggars belief.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11737773/We-will-all-be-like-Greece-if-the-EU-gets-its-way.html
Peter from Maidstone, July 13th @ 20.39
Trust not for freedom to the Franks – brief thoughts on a fascist coup –
It might be interesting to take a name with Greek connections from the list of Bilderbergers and trace the network there.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage plays Cassandra again in the DT:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11737773/We-will-all-be-like-Greece-if-the-EU-gets-its-way.html
For other Englishmen, of whom none seems to have felt the need to take to the street to express himself, one can still be heard…
The Isles of Greece
THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse:
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.
The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set, where were they?
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
‘Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though link’d among a fetter’d race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!
What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;—the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
And answer, ‘Let one living head,
But one, arise,—we come, we come!’
‘Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain—in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine:
Hark! rising to the ignoble call—
How answers each bold Bacchanal!
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
He served—but served Polycrates—
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
That tyrant was Miltiades!
O that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks—
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords and native ranks
The only hope of courage dwells:
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade—
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
I’ve had a look at Alexander Stubb, the Finnish politician and Bilderberger. He’s an interesting fellow. What would such a person be discussing in a secret meeting? Certainly Leading Beyond Authority I’d imagine. He is a EU man through and through and his ambitions are entirely a la mode. It is reasonable to ask why a senior serving politician of a European nation should be engaged in private talks the content of which are not disclosed to the Finnish people any more than our own.
Malfleur, I note that Dimitri Papalexopoulos was a graduate of Harvard Business School, and then a McKinsey consultant, and now is a member of a list of impressive sounding groups without a mandate….
Federation of Greek Industries
Council for Sustainable Development
Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research
Hellenic Foundation for European Foreign Policy
Eurobank Ergasias
European Round Table of Industrialists
The Hellenic Foundation for European Foreign Policy appears to be very pro-EU and to receive funding from the EU and other non-Greek nations and organisations, as well as from Dimitri Papalexopoulos’ own company.
Eurobank Ergasias is the third largest bank in Greece. The majority shareholder is Fairfax Financial, a major Canadian investment company.
Of the European Roundtable of Industrialists, a report states…
“Presenting a report under the name of the ERT seems to be the only way of getting the attention of the leaders of the EC (the European Community, as it then was). Time after time the ERT has succeeded in getting the EC to adopt the agenda of business at the expense of the environment, of labour and social concerns and of genuine democratic participation…..The political agenda of the EC has to a large extent been dominated by the ERT……While the approximately 5000 lobbyists working in Brussels might occasionally succeed in changing details in directives, the ERT has in many cases been setting the agenda for and deciding the content of EC proposals.”
This report looks like it is worth a read. It is by one of the leaders of the European Roundtable of Industrialists and describes what they were trying to do, and what they wanted the EU to become to suit their business objectives. I think this might give a peek behind the scenes.
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=sei-working-paper-no-35.pdf&site=266
There are, of course, intemperate posters in our Christaln tolerant country who wish a Dante Style inferno on peace loving Muslims who put pen to political paper
*
I came upon this excellent tract from one of the objects of such graphic violence:
“David Cameron and other Western leaders insist, as they do after every outrage, that the problem is radicalised Islam and therefore the responsibility lies within the religion. (Why was Catholicism never blamed for the IRA offensives?) The real problem is not a secret: Western intelligence services regularly tell their leaders that the radicalisation of a tiny sliver of young Muslims (more work for the security services in Britain and France than for al-Qaida or ISIS) is a result of US foreign policy over the last decade and a half. ”
*
I wish I read such reason in The Daily Mail
telemachus July 14th, 2015 – 13:45
Why so coy about your loathsome comrade in communist subversion Tariq Ali? You should have provided the opportunity to read his whole tract:-
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n03/tariq-ali/it-didnt-need-to-be-done
As to the “graphic violence” of a hoped for divine justice – and Tariq Ali won’t be judged for his deeds in this world – let’s look at the “graphic violence” that his campaign of subversion and misinformation indirectly contributed to. Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final NVA Spring Offensive in 1975 were killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa. Approximately 165,000 South Vietnamese died in the re-education camps out of 1–2.5 million sent there, while somewhere between 50,000 and 250,000 were executed. Forced labour in the “New Economic Zones” caused 50,000 deaths (out of a total of 1 million deported to work in them). According to the UNHCR, between 200,000 and 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea fleeing North Vietnam’s communist regime, although other estimates range from 100,000 to 1,000,000 people. It is estimated that from 1975-87 between 400,000 and 2.5 million people died of political violence at the hands of the regime in Hanoi that Tariq Ali wanted to volunteer to fight for.
For those of the older generation (like Baron), who do not really comprehend the need for Facebook:
As it happens, Baron’s also trying to make friends outside of Facebook while applying the same principles. Every day he walks down the street and tells the passers-by what he’s eaten, how he feels, what he’s done the night before, and what he will do tomorrow, next week, in the more distant future.
Then, he shows them pictures of his family, his dog (now deceased), his gardening successes and failures, the time he spends relaxing. He also listens to their conversations, tells them he loves them, and that they are the best passers-by he can hope to meet, talk to.
And, it works: He already has three followers … a couple of police officers and a psychiatrist.
(Adopted from an e-mail).
You really couldn’t make this stuff up.
New Labour, which apparently every self-respecting Labour party member now repudiates despite being once happy to vote and hold office under its banner, imbued with internationalist socialist zeal and scornful of the scourge of nationalism, pursue the contradiction of implementing devolution in a Union.
There is already a united Parliament but New Labour create another Parliament, sort of, so that Scotland can exercise some self determination. Then the SNP gain ground in that Parliament and Westminster concedes a referendum on “independence”, slyly contrived to perpetuate the myth of one country ruling another.
Labour, suddenly alarmed by the prospect of losing their Scots Labour MPs in Westminster, campaign rather lamely for ‘No’, which wins. But the SNP behave as though they won and promptly thrash Labour in the General Election, stealing almost all their seats in Scotland. Labour lose convincingly in England too, a defeat supposedly prompted by the fear of a Labour/SNP alliance under a less than impressive Labour leader.
Labour and the SNP, at each others throats in Scotland, now appear to jump into bed together in a cosy “progressive” alliance intended to thwart the democratically elected government in Westminster because they both don’t like it.
The 50 million + population of England look on, some of them wondering why 5 million Scots get to call the shots in two Parliaments and how mortal enemies in Scotland suddenly become best friends when it comes to governing England.
Does any so-called representative of an English constituency in Parliament have any clue as to how all this looks from outside the Westminster bubble?
This is long, painfully wrong, and requires some knowledge of the Middle East history, but from around half way through when it homes on Syria it’s superb.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n14/hugh-roberts/the-hijackers
Sorry, it should have said ‘painfully long’ (EC, the same problem again).
There are those who see reds under the bed and that now extends to Scottish Ladies wearing red
Roger Gale spoke eloquently on PM indicating that whatever anyone else did 50 Tory MP’s would be voting with Labour
Thus it mattereth not what the SNP did or did not do
Labour were to vote down the de facto reintroduction of hunting. The SNP had an Scottish interest in that many hunts span the Borders
*
The real story of this is that Cameron and his Cotswold’s cronies cannot use their Commons majority to foist plutocratic HCEA policies on the rest of us
The real story of this is that Cameron and his Cotswold’s cronies cannot use their Commons majority to foist plutocratic HCEA policies on the rest of us
Wrong. wrong, and yet again wrong, the SNP are voting against a change that is already the law in Scotland, it is so silly once the English votes for English matters is brought in this will pass through easily.
Is it not time to rid this forum of teletubby?
David Ossitt – 19:30
Just ignore it.
Apologies
I felt a need to riposte in respect of ad hominem from the Good Colonel in another forum
I will go into self imposed exile
The secret International Monetary Fund report isn’t secret any more! But then, it doesn’t really tell us anything that surprises us.
Secret IMF report reveals EU numbers on Greece don’t add up
“The punitive austerity programme imposed on Greece by eurozone leaders has been blown open by a secret International Monetary Fund report revealing that the European Union’s numbers do not add up.
Greek MPs have begun voting today on draconian cuts, tax increases and unpopular economic reforms that are supposed to help Greece pay off its debts as well as qualifying for new eurozone loans.
Eurozone leaders bludgeoned Greece into the measures at an all-night summit on Monday despite knowing that the IMF has warned that more austerity and up to €86 billion in new loans would not help Greece.”
(£) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4497609.ece
It is kicking the can down the road again, just in a different way, with an extra portion of humiliation for Greece.
Will more people notice what is happening? Let us hope so.
It is in the DT as well:
IMF stuns Europe with call for massive Greek debt relief
‘There would have to be a very dramatic extension with grace periods of 30 years on the entire stock of European debt,’ the fund says
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11739985/IMF-stuns-Europe-with-call-for-massive-Greek-debt-relief.html
How plonker Cameron can still want to be involved with such a dysfunctional grouping stretches credibility past the elastic limit …. TWANG … it’s past the yield point as well!
telemachus July 14th, 2015 – 19:59
Where is this “ad hominem” of which you complain? Please quote the precise words.
And the reds aren’t under the bed anymore. Currently most of them seem to be infesting the other place.
This is how democracy works in contemporary Britain.
Fewer than 1.5mn votes were cast for the SNP, which got 56 MPs. UKIP got 4.0mn votes and just one MP. In other words, UKIP needed 150times as many votes than the SNP to get a member of the party elected.
And nobody finds this monstrously unfair.
David Ossitt July 14th, 2015 – 19:30
Unfortunately telemachus can’t seem to overcome his need to post provocations which reduces him to trolling status.
Baron – 23:44
In reality, if a party has a majority in the House of Commons, which it has, the other parties have little influence.
What would make it ‘fairer’ is the BBC being less of a propaganda machine for liberal lefties. Allowing a real discussion, rather than Left and Further Left being represented, would be a change.
In think there is an idea that a few more UKIP MPs would help in this regard, but I doubt it.
But a few more in the House of Lords wouldn’t go amiss. And it would be in line with what had been promised earlier!
We could do with a national broadcaster reporting on Greece who is not in the pay of the EU.
Baron (23:44)
You surprise me, your Lordship. I thought you had come to terms with the fact that life isn’t ‘fair’; never was and never will be when viewed from the limitations of human perspectives. And as you can infer from the expressed agonies of this forum, there is no consensus, anyway, about what ‘fair’ means.
Here’s something to distract you from our quaint electoral system; I received it by email from ‘Furriskey’, an erstwhile blog buddy of our earlier platforms (Melanie One; The Daily Ablution; Melanie Two; The Old Wall under Pete, & etc.), who retired from the fray some time ago due to logistical issues, but still fires little gems at me from time to time via email.
It is entitled ‘Food for Thought’ and apparently originated from a source in Bengal (the mind boggles!):
1. Einstein, Newton and Pascal are playing a rousing game of hide and
seek. Einstein begins to count to ten. Pascal runs and hides. Newton draws
a one meter by one meter square in the ground in front of Einstein then
stands in the middle of it. Einstein reaches ten, uncovers his eyes, and
exclaims “Newton! I found you! You’re it!” Newton replies “You didn’t find
me. You found a Newton over a square meter. You found Pascal!”
2. A mathematician and an engineer decided they’d take part in an
experiment. They were both put in a room and at the other end was a naked
woman on a bed. The experimenter said that every 30 seconds they could
travel half the distance between themselves and the woman. The
mathematician stormed off, calling it pointless. The engineer was still in.
The mathematician said “Don’t you see? You’ll never get close enough to
actually reach her.” The engineer replied, “So? I’ll be close enough for
all practical purposes.”
3. A buddhist monk approaches a burger food truck and says “make me one with everything.” The buddhist monk pays with a $20 bill, which the vendor takes, puts in his cash box, and closes the lid. “Where’s my change?” the monk asks. The vendor replies, “change comes from within”.
4. Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting in a cafe revising his first draft of Being
and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I would like a cup of coffee
please. No cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry sir, but we’re out of
cream. How about with no milk?”
5. Noam Chomsky, Kurt Godel and Werner Heisenberg walk into a bar.
Heisenberg turns to the other and says “Obviously this is a joke, but how
can we tell if it’s funny?” Godel replies “We can’t know that because we’re
inside the joke.” Chomsky says “Of course it’s funny, you’re just telling
it wrong.”
6. It’s hard to take kleptomaniacs and puns seriously. They take things
literally.
7. What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
8. Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks “Do all of you want
a drink?” The first logician says “I don’t know.” The second logician says
the same. The third says “Yes!”
9. A Roman walks into a bar and asks for a martinus. “You mean a martini?”
asks the bartender. The Roman replies, “If I wanted a double, I would have
asked for it.”
10. Another Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says “Five
beers please!”
11. A logician’s wife is having a baby. The doctor hands the baby to the
dad. His wife asks if it’s a boy or girl. The logician replies “Yes.”
12. Entropy isn’t what it used to be.
13. How do you tell the difference between a plumber and a chemist? Ask
them to pronounce unionized.
14. Why do engineers mix up Christmas and Halloween? Because Oct 31 = Dec 25
15. Pavlov is at a bar enjoying a pint. The phone rings and he shouts “Oh!
I forgot to feed the dog.”
16. Helium walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, “Sorry,
we don’t serve noble gases here.” Helium doesn’t react.
17. Schrodinger’s cat walks into the bar and doesn’t.
18. A Higgs Boson walks into a church. The priest says “We don’t allow
Higgs Bosons in here.” The Higgs Boson replied, “Well, without me, you
can’t have mass.”
19. A programmer’s wife asks him to pick up a loaf of bread and, if they
have eggs, get a dozen. The programmer comes home with a dozen loaves of bread.
20. There’s a band called 1023MB. They haven’t had any gigs yet though.
Very enjoyable, Frank, but some made the barbarian think hard, some he still cannot fathom (7). His favourites are the ones of logic (e.g. 8, 11), simple when one gets them, often hard to crack quickly.
The other one he cannot get is the one of Schrödinger’s cat, the guy’s joke was about the state of things (the cat both dead and alive), not about a motion. If it read ‘Schrödinger’s cat sits in the bar, and doesn’t’ that would be OK, but then the barbarian’s often confused, and wrong.
Some of them Baron wishes he could remember e.g. he would talk about how things were, how they’ve change then quip ‘even atrophy ain’t what it used to be’.
Btw, the lament about the FPTP election system wasn’t so much about how unfair it is as about nobody minding, not even the people who were the losers, i.e. the UKIP lot. Still, one shouldn’t be shocked the quality of the great unwashed isn’t what it used to be, but then the same goes for everything else like atrophy, does it not?
RobertC @ 10:02
You say, Robert that “if a party has a majority in the House of Commons, which it has, the other parties have little influence.”
Really? So how do you explain the SNP killing the relaxation of the hunting ban (no pun intended)?
Opposition can often have massive influence because the majority party is seldom united as the case of those who have a penchant for chasing foxes around the countryside shows.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/15/the-eu-is-dead-it-just-refuses-to-lie-down/
Baron
I was thinking if UKIP had say, 5 MPs.
I still think it is the lack of any balance that is the problem.
Just look at Greece, where the Greek PM doesn’t believe in what he hasigned (but what else could he do, with Adolf Merlel) and Ceron saying he won’t contribute, yet they expect to use EU funds that the UK contributes.
And still the bozo wants is to stay in!
Has the BBC pointed this out
Has Nigel been able appear?
Baron July 15th, 2015 – 11:56
There were supposedly 50 Tory rebels planning to vote with Labour/SNP. Entirely plausible when you consider this:-
http://www.conservativesagainstfoxhunting.com/
The surprisingly unidentified three co-founders of which are not even elected but the six patrons are MPs Caroline Dinenage, Tracey Crouch, Mike Weatherley, David Amess, Dominic Raab and Sir Roger Gale.
As I have observed elsewhere ‘activists’ make really lousy politicians, undermining reason and democracy.
John birch – 12:10
I don’t know that Tsipras have made a mistake. At least we know what the Elite’s position is, and it is, according to the IMF, completely bonkers!
?
The mistake was bailing out the?
French & German banks, via Greece
Isn’t that 15 Love to Greece
Well, there have been dozens, but that rawas the best!
John birch – 12:10
I don’t know that Tsipras have made a mistake. At least we know what the Elite’s position is, and it is, according to the IMF, completely bonkers!
?
The mistake was bailing out the?
French & German banks, via Greece
Isn’t that 15 Love to Greece
Well, there have been dozens, but that rawas the best!
John birch – 12:10
I don’t know that Tsipras have made a mistake. At least we know what the Elite’s position is, and it is, according to the IMF, completely bonkers!
The mistake was bailing out the?
French & German banks, via Greece
Isn’t that 15 Love to Greece
Well, there have been dozens, but that rawas the best!
Carswell has a good piece on the BBC and the celebs saying how good the BBC is. It’s in the DT.
One question is why Cameron thought he could ever win this – Conservative anti-hunting MPs were being listed by hunt saboteurs in 2010. Unless he thought, naively, that because it was just to bring the law in line with Scotland the SNP and Labour would play ball. Acts and Amendments are never about what they really are now, but how they are spun emotively by those with a vested interest in promoting or opposing them.
Can’t really see what he might be attempting to “smoke out” either.
I’m a little puzzled. telemachus apologises above in an exchange with another commentator and then states that he is going into self-imposed exile.
Previously he had accused me of an ad hominem at the other place which he then declined to substantiate when politely asked to do so.
Now at the other place he accuses me of ‘intimidation’ and that I have ‘a very clear objective to clear blogs which (I) haunt of any dissent’.
Thoughts?
telemachus • 9 minutes ago (at the other place)
“Colonel Mustard
July 15th, 2015 – 14:06
*
A perfect example”
A perfect example of what? Objecting to telemachus’ defamation of me is now “intimidation”?
UKIP.
Leaders of UKIP appear to be speaking this afternoon at the Heritage Foundation,Washington D.C. with `live streaming` at the site below.
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/07/patriotic-voices-from-europe
Re. the above:
It is currently 10:05 am in Washington.
I didn’t get 7 either, had to go cap in hand and ask. Explanation – it is rhetorical – there is no answer. ☺ Hmmn!
Btw. St Mark of Steyn summarised the Iran deal with his characteristic aplomb on Hannity last night. It should be played as a Sixth Form history lesson in every school in England forthwith. In case you missed it, here’s the link:
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/07/14/mark-steyn-sean-hannity-president-obama-sees-america-problem-world-stage.
Brilliant!
The above item is available `live` until about 5:30pm. BST.
Boot’s on the ground but out of step with Obama’s Long March:
http://alexanderboot.com/content/do-americans-want-world-war
A blunt question – where the fuck are we headed as a civilization?
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/5minute_arguments/chilling_video_planned_pa.php
Frank P
A blunt answer – into the dustbin of history.
And yesterday’s ‘ historic agreement ‘ will help speed us on our way.
John birch @ 12:10
If only it were true, John. As the blu veined barbarian has said before the EU has by now reached a stage not dissimilar with that of the USSR when the Warsaw Pact invaded the land of the Czechs. They did it with tanks, the most potent weapon they possessed, the more civilised EU did it with money, the essence of the ‘invasion’ being the same, the taming of a recalcitrant, unruly, disobeying minnow.
It will take something else to bring the undemocratic construct to its knees, but brought to its knees it will be.
Colonel Mustard @ 14:06
You’re taking the sparring with the one misbehaving doxastic contributor to the blog too personally, Colonel. You should relax, you’ve knocked him down so often it amazes he still pick himself up, continues attacking you.
Frank P @ 17:56
Russia is about as much a threat to the West as is an invasion from Pluto.
The rhetoric, the arm waving, needling of the Russian bear is but a diversionary tactic from the two real dangers, that of creeping islamisation, to which the West worshipping at the alter of equality, including the equality of culture, has no answer, will not have an answer until it drops the suicidal maxim, and that of the Mandarin speakers.
Btw, on Friday, it’ll be the first anniversary of the downing of the MH17, and it looks the MSM are readying for another onslaught on the KGB colonel.
On the PM programme today, the news reader said ‘the EU finds a Russian patriotic song “sinister’ (Baron only caught the start of the programme, knows not what song it is, and what’s that sinister about it), and in the ITV local news tonight the reporter was visiting an US airbase in East Anglia showing a couple of tank buster planes, the Warthogs, getting ready to be deployed in Poland for the biggest military exercise so far ‘to curtail the aggressiveness of the Russians, to reassure our East European allies’.
Wasn’t Mr. Boot, amongst others, predicting, after east Ukraine exploded, Russian soldiers on the street of European capitals just about now?
Frank P @ 18:02
It truly sickens, Frank, but fits the morality of our times well. Perhaps, they’ll get down to harvesting bits that can be re-used from the old, too? Not after, but before they peg it.
You remember one of the parts of the film ‘The Meaning of Life’, the kidney donation crew? The song accompanied the organ recovery was quite memorable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk
Frank P – 15:52
Iran Deal: Netanyahu’s thoughts on the matter – which we won’t get to hear on the BBC/ITV/CH4/SKY etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mYJaDIKLNk
EC @ 21:52
Before the honorary Muslim entered the White House, EC, it would have been inconceivable to even contemplate the Republic kicking Israel into the long grass. One has to think the deal may a trap, few years into it, the Iranians will be accused of violating it (they very probably will, a Muslim can lie to an infidel), the Americans will say ‘you’ve had a chance, you blew it’, hit them hard, no?
Baron (23:15)
You are taking the wee-wee, no?
Frank P @ 00:18
This reversal in the foreign policy towards Israel is such one is bound to speculate, Frank.
Not only does this deal of Obama let the Shias of Iran develop the bomb, it will also push the Saudi Sunnis, who have already lessened their allegiance to the Republic, to do the same. The extreme wings in both hate each other more than they hate the infidel. This deal brings the possibility a future under nuclear dust much closer, Baron reckons, and that’s the one thing we don’t want. Everything’s better, and that includes the ghastly EU, than a world polluted with radioactive dust.
It puts a smile on one’s face, but it’s nothing short of reality.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9583242/im-off-to-join-islamic-state-see-ya-kafirs/
Baron (12:22)
One wonders how our ‘leaders’ process this blunt satire. Allowing for the fact that Rod is a polemicist and a bit of a switch-hitter, the message from this is nonetheless clear and punchy. Do they just ignore it? Do they not factor it into their political machinations? If they do, how? Are their spads so head-up-arse that they cannot see the truth of the message and advise accordingly? Are the demographics such that the tipping point is now well past retrieval? Someone help me here. The mind boggles.
Btw I should have qualified ‘switch-hitter’ with ‘political’ (no sexual connotation intended). ☺
Noted that the IPPC have adjudicated that the fact that Essex Police initially decided that gangster John Palmer’s death was from ‘natural causes’, when he fact later he was later discovered to be suffering from the complication of six injections of hot lead, is not something that they need to look into – and that it’s okay for the Essex fuzz to conduct its own internal probe.
I wonder whether the case was mistakenly referred to that other august body with an identical acronym – the International Panel on Climate Change? They have form for drawing bogey conclusions from rigged data.
On the other hand, one could argue, perhaps, that given the lifestyle of Mr. Palmer, it is quite ‘natural’ for him to have met his end as a result of a professional hit. 🙂 🙂
Needed a short sentence to describe Philip Hammond’s visit to Israel, purporting to assuage the sense of grievance clearly expressed by Mr Netanyahu. Decided this would suffice:
Our Foreign Secretary is a bigger wanker than I already thought he was!
Mrs Frank P has once again pronounced on the subject of astronomy, of which she is no fan.
She suspects that their findings of ‘large ice mountains on Pluto’ are in fact large mountains of bullshit from NASA. The above mentioned IPCC has a lot to answer for. The latest graphic of a used cricket ball with a strip of grey duck tape stuck on it has done nothing to disabuse her of her misgivings.
Peter – thank you for the emendation to my 15:36. It does of course render my 15:39 redundant. ☺
You may recall Baron’s post about a fence the Hungarians are building on the country’s border with Serbia 150km in length, 4m high. To speed things up they are deploying convicts as well as army units. Apparently, in the first six months of the current year, the influx of immigrants using this route toped 80,000, double the number for the whole of 2014, almost all of them entering Hungary illegally, the vast majority have no intention of staying in the country, want to move to the West, the preferred choice (wait for it) – Britain.
Doesn’t it make you happy Britain’s so popular?
Frank P @ 15:08
The barbarian from the East cannot but defend the Essex Constabulary, Frank, for a villain of Palmer’s lifestyle and habits to die from six bullets is to die naturally.
Nigel Farage and other leading UKIP MEPs gave a presentation yesterday at the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. to make the case to American conservatives for Britain to leave the EU;and to get their support against the State Department and Obama.
There were also speeches from Patriot MEPs from other countries.Especially good is the Sweden Democrat,a former lorry driver (at 2:21:40 below).
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/07/patriotic-voices-from europe
Correction:
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/07/patriotic-voices-from-europe
Nato’s planning the biggest military exercise since 2002, over 36,000 troops (army, navy, airforce) in three countries (Spain, Italy, Greece) simulating a fast response to an attack on a country that isn’t a NATO member, but is friendly to the alliance. The Russians were invited as observers. “They’ll be watching us anyway, we might as well ask them to be there’, the US general in charge of the games has said.
Does anyone have any idea which is the country, not a member of NATO but friendly to the alliance, that NATO forces will be defending?
Baron at 19:53
The Republic of Ireland?
A Boot full of delicious sarcasm that should make CMD think; but will it? (See my plaintive pleas at 12:58):
http://alexanderboot.com/content/now-we-know-what’s-wrong-britain
So many gems from AE-P:
We already know that the EMU accord – if that is the right word – is an economic and diplomatic fiasco of the first order. It does serious damage to the moral credibility of the EU but resolves nothing.
…
There is not the slightest chance that Greece will be able stabilize its debt and return to viability under the Carthaginian settlement imposed on Alexis Tsipras – after 17 hours of psychological “water-boarding”, as one EU official put it.
…
Some are already comparing the terms to the Versailles Treaty but this does not quite capture the depravity of it.
…
What Greece is being asked to do is scientifically impossible. Almost everybody involved in the talks knows this. Yet the lie goes on because the dysfunctional nature of EMU politics and governance makes it impossible to come clean. The country is dishonestly kept in a permanent state of crisis.
…
Mr Schauble has been pushing for Grexit since 2012, and probably earlier. He genuinely thinks it would better for all concerned. When he floated his plan, he meant it.
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not mean it. She had the opposite purpose. There lies an enormous confusion.
…
So we now have the worst of all worlds. The deal is an atrocity. The crisis has not been resolved. The integrity of EMU has been breached. Greece has been publicly crushed and humiliated, yet for no purpose. The country cannot possibly meet the demands. There is no debt relief (other than a vague and worthless promise for the future).
…
German diplomacy is in ruins.
…
One can only feel sympathy for German diplomats who must clean up the mess and explain how this tangle of conflicting agendas spun escaped control.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11744305/Greece-should-seize-Germanys-botched-offer-of-a-velvet-Grexit.html
All of them so true, except the last one! I don’t know how that managed to get past the censors.
Frank P – 20:29
CMD WILL think about it. He will think, “So that’s another convert.”
Irony needs intelligence to comprehend the full message.
Radford NG @ 19:56
Not even close, Radford, the country’s just too far from the biggest threat to the democratic, peace loving, equality worshipping West.
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez – obviously nothing to do with Islam. Four Marines and a cop down as a result of him being nothing to do with Islam, in Tennessee. Don’t y’all cynics go jumpin’ to them thar nasty conclusions. Wouldn’t want to upset the ROP.
Frank P @ 20:29, RobertC @ 21:07
What? The word ‘thinking’ with the boy’s name together in one sentence?
Sorry to say it, my friends, but habetation may be creeping in.
He shouldn’t have quit chairing the Oxfordshire Beekeepers Association, that demanding job suited him well.
Radford NG – 19:49
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/07/patriotic-voices-from-europe
Very good from the UKIP lot, and the Belgian et al @ 2hr 6 min has little aired information about the city of Brussels.
Apparently it is rumoured that the Tennessee terrorist was heard to sing the following song as he sprayed the Naval Reserve Centre with automatic gunfire:
“Pardon me boys … this is the Chattanooga shooter …
Nuthin’ to dooo, with the famous choo choo.”
Forgive my gallows humour, but when is the long streak of weak piss in the White House going to start taking the Islamic threat seriously?
Unbelievable! Truly unbelievable!
Cameroon bans the veil after terrorists exploit Islamic garment in suicide bombing carnage
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/591724/Cameroon-bans-veil-terrorists-exploit-Islamic-garment-suicide-bombing-carnage-African
Read it again, and it isn’t unbelievable at at all. It is quite believable!
It’s the country ‘Cameroon ‘, not the PM!
I thought I was hallucinating, but it was just a bit of ‘misreading’ instead. 🙂
Radford NG @ 19:46
Just a smidgen over an hour, Radford, that’s all Baron has managed so far, he’ll have to watch it in stages. The argument’s solid, Nigel though looked as if a jet lag was eating him.
Frank P @ 22:34
What should worry our American friends is that the guy was well educated, a property owner, mild in character …. all the attributes of someone who fits into our enlightened culture.
Ten Turkish F-16 fighter planes were apparently trying repeatedly to enter Greece’s airspace over the Aegean Sea today, were intercepted by two Greek F-16s and two Mirages, two of the Turkish intruders refused to turn back, the Greeks, fully armed, locked them in their missile sights (from reports in European papers).
Both countries are members of Nato, shouldn’t they focus on fighting the biggest threat to the West, Putin’s Russia, rather than each other?
But then, as this article says, it’s nothing new.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/turkish-and-greek-jets-engaged-in-dogfight-2015-7?r=US&IR=T
The Saudis are beginning to tap the bond market thanks to the oil price drop. But look at the massive foreign currency reserve they have.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150716/1024685858.html
The 1% wants the money.
“Greece Is Just The Beginning: The 21st Century ‘Enclosures’ Have Begun
Submitted by Paul Craig Roberts,
All of Europe, and insouciant Americans and Canadians as well, are put on notice by Syriza’s surrender to the agents of the One Percent. The message from the collapse of Syriza is that the social welfare system throughout the West will be dismantled.
The Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has agreed to the One Percent’s looting of the Greek people of the advances in social welfare that the Greeks achieved in the post-World War II 20th century. Pensions and health care for the elderly are on the way out. The One Percent needs the money.
The protected Greek islands, ports, water companies, airports, the entire panoply of national patrimony, is to be sold to the One Percent. At bargain prices, of course, but the subsequent water bills will not be bargains.
This is the third round of austerity imposed on Greece, austerity that has required the complicity of the Greeks’ own governments. The austerity agreements serve as a cover for the looting of the Greek people literally of everything. The IMF is one member of the Troika that is imposing the austerity, despite the fact that the IMF’s economists have said that the austerity measures have proven to be a mistake. The Greek economy has been driven down by the austerity. Therefore, Greece’s indebtedness has increased as a burden. Each round of austerity makes the debt less payable.
But when the One Percent is looting, facts are of no interest. The austerity, that is the looting, has gone forward despite the fact that the IMF’s economists cannot justify it.
Greek democracy has proven itself to be impotent. The looting is going forward despite the vote one week ago by the Greek people rejecting it.[Continued….]”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-16/greece-just-beginning-21st-century-enclosures-have-begun
I see Tommy Robinson is back in jail for an undisclosed sentence. Worth remembering that the police broke Robinson when they refused to protect him from the Islamocrazies. They gave Qatada 24/7 protection, but said to Tommy that they couldn’t protect him. In other words the police used the threat of Islamist violence against his family. The police are working with the terrorists.
There’s a good piece on that at:http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/2015/02/warmonger.html
I watched ‘Escape from ISIS’ and was appalled by the treatment of Yazidi women and girls by ISIS but inspired by the Yazidi men rescuing them at great peril to themselves, especially those guiding the escape parties to safety, three of whom have been killed. After bringing out a party of about 20 escapees one of those men turned round to walk back into danger.
What struck me was how different were the faces of the secretly filmed ISIS brigands gloating about their paedophile slave markets and the men of the Yazidi militia rescue parties. Abhorrent evil versus essential decency there, recognisable at once in their faces. It appeared that a lot of imported London gang culture ‘enrichment’ has travelled east and found licence under radical Islam.
One of the rescued was a girl just 9 years old, brought to safety because the ISIS brigands believe that age is old enough for them to defile.
Malfleur @ 04:06
And who might the 1% be, Malfleur? Would you care to tell Baron?
A Boot connects the dots that the FBI are reluctant to do (and echoes my somewhat flippant and tasteless joke from the small wee hours):
http://alexanderboot.com/content/pardon-me-boy-who-chattanooga-shooter
Baron – 12:29
Since you don’t know, it’s not you 🙁
By the same token, I don’t think it is me either :'(
Baron @ 12:29
You really should know the answer to this by now. It is infornation that is freely and easily available on the web. Here is a way of identifying the 1 per cent in the USA.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/26/1-percent-in-each-state-map_n_6548222.html
Better though that we were to look at the just 0.01%, we would have a better idea of the looters worldwide. Someone who has spent time under under the heel of the soviet system should to have been able to hazard a guess at the answer. Apparently not. How close does a face have to be to the boot to see the stitching?
RobertC @ 13:15
It’s not you, it’s not Baron, and it’s not me – but you are saying that therefore it’s not anyone?
RobertC @ 13:15
In reality, it is you, Robert, Baron, the others if we have any savings in any form whatever including bank deposits. From the perspective of the writer, it’s the evil banks, or the evil 1% of the superrich, right?
Baron has no idea of the composition of the money used to buy the Greek bonds, but he reckons not much of it came from the super rich, their wealth is usually in forms other than cash (that’s why they survive bank collapses better), e.g. in shares, bonds, woodlands and stuff like that.
The little men, people like Baron, have their savings in cash, or what’s known in the industry as ‘near cash’, an instrument that’s easily converted into cash i.e. a sovereign bond. This paper can be owned either directly, that is Baron would ask his bank to buy the bond for him, hold it in custody, or indirectly, the unit trust that Baron buys into from his savings for a private pension buys it itself. The end result is the same, the little people own most of the sovereign debt everywhere.
If the Greeks were to default, that money’s gone, kaput, no longer there.
Frank P, July 16th, 2015 – 22:41
Ditto for Hammond of the FO!
http://news.sky.com/story/1520418/hammond-clashes-with-israeli-pm-over-iran-deal
Frank P, July 17th, 2015 – 13:02
Mr Boot on good form yesterday, as was Saint Mark of Steyn:
http://www.steynonline.com/7054/the-enemy-within
I dont save in banks
I use peer to peer and bullion (in case the banking system goes tits up)
I dont see why I should get a derisory rate of interest so the banks can build their balance sheets.
John Alexander – Tommy, Dear Tommy:
Tommy is the Man with duty—
That perches in the soul—
And Marches tunes without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Jail -is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little turd
That kept so many warm—
I’ve heard it from the chillest band-
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It remotely moved old me
Alexsandr @ 15:18
There indeed are many ways how to protect the little one has, Alexsandr, and your objection to putting one’s savings with a bank makes sense, the return is derisory except for one thing. What’s the yield on your bullion? Also, you keep the circle of your peers, and they pay back, on time and with interest, right?
Since the near meltdown, the barbarian has chosen to go for high yielding stocks in four countries, at one point he was losing near two fifth of his minuscule capital, today he still doesn’t break even, but the gross yield over the last five years wasn’t bad at all.
Btw, the bank he’s with has just told him his ISA interest rate will drop from a paltry 1.25% to just 0.80% pa from September. Criminal this, and as a result they’ll have to do without him.
EC @ 14:24
Mark keeps scoring far above everyone else, but nobody in position of power seems to notice. Take as an example the way he defines the thug: ‘He (the killer) is obviously a victim of economic deprivation whose urge to blow up America would be mitigated by a decent economic-stimulus package’.
It’s amazing how quickly this news became no news. If it were a white guy going berserk the honorary Muslim in the White house, the MSM everywhere would be telling us guns must go, but in this case it’s silence, not even the usual ‘it has nothing to do with Islam’ stuff.
Did you know that Prince Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Foreign Secretary of the Saudi Kingdom for 40 years has died?
The BBC couldn’t miss it, it did a stint in the programme at 16.00 hours inviting our former Ambassador to the Kingdom, another bloke, everyone was praising his achievements. You couldn’t have met a better man, erudite, well educated, loved by all. Not a word about the country he represented, the small matter of hiring 12 executioners referred to in Rod Liddle piece, the treatment of women, gays, the inability to bring in the bible, the funding of mosques that install in the young the hatred of infidels …. Sickening.
If the barbarian were younger he knows what business he would be in. Smuggling cigarettes from Ukraine to the EU.
Apparently, the business’s worth close to half a billion dollars, each day 5-7 large trucks are crossing the border between Ukraine and any one of the four neighbouring countries, all EU members. In Ukraine, a packet of branded American cigarettes costs 0.8 Euro, in Hungary, Slovakia the price jumps to 4.0 Euro, in Britain it’s over 10.
That is allegedly one of the reasons for the shoot-out in the picturesque town of Mukachevo (Baron in passim). The situation’s too complicated to relay to you in detail, but in short, the local smuggling mafia is resenting sharing the spoils with the Right Sector even though there’s enough to pay for those taking the risk, the protectors of the smugglers, and the protectors of the smugglers’ protectors, if it makes sense to you.
In another local skirmish in the Western Ukraine, inhabitants of a village involved in illegal mining and selling of amber didn’t like it when a Government agency wanted to put a stop to it, attacked the local police station, kicked the inspectors out.
That’s what real entrepreneurship is all about, perhaps Brussels should speed up the entry of Ukraine into the EU, we can do with some imaginative business ventures driven by private initiative rather than pontificate whether we should bail out the lazy Greeks, no?
Braking news: The cigarette smuggling may be coming to an end, at least temporarily, all the countries involved are tackling it.
A new shocking video on the MH17 crash is circulating in the media in Europe. Baron advises caution.
To voices are hard to hear properly, but the rebels who are going through the personal belongings of the victims (what they are searching for they don’t say) talk also about a pilot, and four jumping with a parachutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K70igRdKVhA
This is Taki, not at his best, but excellent nevertheless, you should read it.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/high-life/9583872/lets-read-the-riot-act-to-the-kleptocrats-who-are-buying-us-out/
Cameron wants a ‘big conversation’ about ‘murderous’ seagulls killing pets and attacking people
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11746530/David-Cameron-wants-a-big-conversation-about-murderous-seagulls-killing-pets-and-attacking-people.html
Nothing to do with Islam!
Really, honest, absolutely nothing to do with Islam! 🙂
But wait:
“One of the problems is that seagulls are protected and so a cull is not possible.”
So, absolutely nothing to do with Islam, but there are similarities.
RobertC July 17th, 2015 – 20:26
He really is a ‘something must be done’ nincompoop.
This latest punditry is probably the result of him spending far too much time ‘chillaxing’ with Angry Birds.
Check out some of the threads at Conservative Woman (an excellent website) where telemachus is now operating a couple of his sock puppets as hard line feminists in the usual provocative wind-ups. ‘Fabian_Solutions’ and ‘Keep Calm and Smash the Patriarchy’.
Some of the stuff he/they are posting is outrageous(ly funny).
The article’s argument may be questioned (first link), and is in the debate below, which is of better quality than offered by other blogs.
One of the posters also furnishes a link (the second one), not too long, and the guy who speaks in that clip has an intriguing take on societal control. If you listen to it, listen to the end because the last few minutes sum it up, the believable mechanism of control through sexual liberation.
http://thesaker.is/what-does-vladimir-putins-89-rating-really-mean/the discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AVayky0DUg
You may by now be tired of the EU – Greece saga, but Baron has just finished listening ta a debate (unfortunately not in English), in which the participants argued that the EU instead of turning the national tribes of the Old Continent into European Germans, French, Italians, Poles…. it looks likely the EU will turn them into Germanic Europe.
Baron – 23:45
One would have thought that those on the Continent have already been thinking that they were European, for many years – that is why they clubbed together in the first place!
I think the Greek saga shows that turning non-German Europeans into Germanic Europeans will run into problems, from running out of cash, integrity, even sanity and certainly time ?
Did those in the programme really think it would end in success (for the Germans) and did they look upon this as a favourable outcome.
If so, were they all traffic wardens?
Baron – 12:29
We have some late news coming in, from Guido:
Rich And Famous: Owen Jones Joins The 1%
“According to the IFS to be in the top percentile of earners in the UK you have to earn a mere £88,000 …”
http://order-order.com/2015/07/17/rich-and-famous-owen-jones-joins-the-1
I find it hard to believe the bar to the 1% club is set so very low?
According to the Equality Trust:-
” In 2011, the top 1% had an average income of £248,480 and the top 0.1% had an average income of £922,433.”
Makes my paltry 40K look poor.
Should I ask George for a WTC?
Peter from Maidstone @ 08:05
Income differentials aren’t the best yardstick, Peter, wealth is. Those with the billions know that it’s by far more beneficial to hold assets that are taxable as capital gains than those taxable as income, or to have large income. The rate on the former exceeds that on the latter massively, something that the MSM tossers seldom talk about.
In fcat, Baron would argue that focusing on taxing income has led to the big gap between the top and the bulk of us.
Baron – 10:28
The reason is that if you earn £1000, it is ‘easy’ to siphon off a fraction, say 20%. It is in your hand!
If your house increases in value by £1000, where will you find the £200? Do you sell off a bit of garden? If your painting increases in value, what do you do?
If the State took less, the basic rate could be lowered, though currently more than half of families are a net cost to the State, so some of the public spending would have to give as well.
Baron – 10:28
Quite a lot of “the MSM tossers” that you speak about have weekend/holiday homes in the leafier parts of Surrey, West Sussex Cotswolds, Provence or Chianti-shire from which they like to write articles about the benefits of diversity brought about by mass immigration.
CMD has put the cat among the pigeons (sts) by saying that laridae lari – a protected species of birds – should be culled, because they are attacking people.
There’s another protected species of predator that he is apparently less keen on culling: isis islamica.
Perhaps an adjustment in priorities is called for, Prime Minister?
Frank P – 12:01
It’s a brave man who dines alfresco at one of the many pavement cafes of Worthing! These birds constitute a different danger up Noa-arth. Pedestrian’s enjoying a stroll around the harbour in Lowther’s model town of Whitehaven are well advised to don a tin hat or brown paper bag as the Seagull shit there is radioactive, I kid you not! 😯
RobertC @ 10:48
Good point, Robert, but one that isn’t supported by evidence. Not only are there many ways how to escape CGT legally such as exempt classes of assets e.g. woodlands, film financing under certain conditions), trusts, passing the lot to your siblings under the 7-year rule and others, but often it’s simple cheating that does it like leaving a valuable collection of stamps, jewellery, coins out of one’s estate.
Tax on income is much harder to reduce, income goes through a bank account.
Years ago, Baron came across a table showing the difference between the tax revenues from income and capital not just in monetary terms, but as a percent of either, and the gap was huge. Just look how much CGT collects today, and yet the number of millionaires runs into tens of thousands here.
EC @ 12:22
Radioactive shite?, EC, that’s a new one for Baron.
All over the place there is this stuff from the Dirty Digger press about H.M.The Queen giving a Hitler salute at the age of seven.I seem to have been responding to this all morning.
The full video from the `Sun`can be seen below.
It seems fair to assume the film was made by Her father (the Duke of York).It starts with Princess Elizabeth waving to Her father (as we assume him to be),and then her mother.Then the Duchess gives a mock Fuhrer salute to her husband,followed by the Princess.
The Fuhrer salute has always been the subject of mockery to us.
Are we to think that Charlie Chaplin and John Cleese are Natzis?
The `Sun` video is at
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6548665/Their-Royal-Heilnesses.html
Baron – 13:05
Isn’t my point supported by the evidence: that taxing income is easy, because wealth is moving between people, usually bank accounts, while capital gains involves less movement and, as you post, has lots of exemptions? It has exemptions because it is the easiest way of injecting capital into a favoured area.
Radford NG July 18th, 2015 – 15:30
It’s just another little increment in the softly-stealing agenda to replace our monarchy with a head of state like Tony Blair or “Baroness” Ashton.
As Diane Abbott said “When our present Queen dies we need to have a conversation about the monarchy”.
New Evidence: Wind Farms Contaminating Water Supply In Scotland
“Campaigners in Scotland are calling for a full, independent investigation into allegations that wind farms are contaminating water supplies across large areas of Scotland.
They have written to the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Energy Secretary Amber Rudd calling for an immediate halt on all wind farm development north of the border until the government can guarantee safe drinking water for everyone.
The problem first came to light when residents living near Europe’s largest wind farm, the 215 turbine Whitelee farm in Ayrshire, began to suffer from diarrhoea and severe vomiting. Tipped off by an NHS report which mentioned that difficulties in treating the water supply may pose health risks, local resident Dr Rachel Connor, a retired clinical radiologist, started digging into the council’s water testing results.
She found that, between May 2010 and April 2013, high readings of E.coli and other coliform bacteria had been recorded. In addition, readings of the chemical trihalomethane (THM), linked to various cancers, still births and miscarriages, were way beyond safe limits.
Scottish Power, who run the wind farm, denied causing the pollution but admitted that they hadn’t warned residents that their water supplies may be contaminated.”
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/18/new-evidence-wind-farms-contaminating-water-supply-in-scotland/
Frank P – 12:01
Re: “Lardarse Larry” – the homicidal Seagull
Sounds like a case for the world famous 1930s detective, Inspector Drake – he never ducks asking the hard questions!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qLPn9bl4UA
No doubt he’ll organise a swoop at sparrowfart after getting a warrant from the beak. ☺
Colonel Mustard (15:40)
When Diane Flabbot dies we should have a conversation about having her buried in a pit of radioactive birdshit!
RobertC @ 15:36
Agreed, Robert.
Radford NG @ 15:30
As you say, Radford, it doesn’t look much like ‘Sieg Heil’ to Baron either, the forward arm raising by her, and anyway could a seven year old have any understanding of its sinister meaning just after the Nazis got it? Moreover, acquired only after the Nazi hordes took over the lives of the Germans years later?
What the Queen should do is find out the culprit who stole it, get rid of him at once. The Old Australian is taking a risk here, it couldn’t have been published without his nodding to it. Senility, or something else?
RobertC @ 15:53
How do these contraptions contaminate drinking water, Robert?
Dan Hannan: EU or democracy – one or the other. Speech in Amsterdam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PalZQapEnbk
It’s all good, but from 11:50 to 18:10 it is ‘extra good’ 🙂 and then he covers the other myths!
Baron 23-01
Read the link baron, it’s the disturbance of the wild area they turn into construction sites.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/18/new-evidence-wind-farms-contaminating-water-supply-in-scotland/
John birch @ 07:19
The whole article has just two sentences of the mechanism involved, John, it ain’t enough: ‘the dumping of huge quantities of carbon into water sources’ and ‘chemical and diesel spills’, that doesn’t feel to be enough, CO2 may not be a noble gas, but it does us no harm, we drink tons of it in Cokes and other carbonated drinks.
Baron’s very much against the contraptions, they are next to useless in emergency, have to be backed by stand-by diesel engines. To come up with an allegation of this seriousness though one has to have the evidence well backed up. The article just fails to furnish the backing up.
I happened to visit the other place this morning and was disturbed at just how unpleasant the comments were. It used to be that the actual posts could be ignored and the meat of the issue discussed in the comments. But it seems that the other place doesn’t want that to happen and has let loose a pack of wild dogs to prevent discussion and simply generate clicks. The other place is part of the problem.
“New Evidence: Wind Farms Contaminating Water Supply In Scotland”
How can they tell? :-p
I’m not sure whether it is a pack of wild dogs or one wild dog using a pack of names. I suspect the latter because the style of each “comment” is remarkably similar if not identical, but there is no doubt that commentators at the other place are under attack from about 12 noon each day when America begins to wake up.
That might just be coincidence and mean that the wild dog(s) only drags himself/themselves out of bed in the afternoon.
Colonel Mustard – 10:40
That sounds like the lifestyle of the “living on benefits” classes.
Peter 9.28: This was what I was referring to in my long post about the troll issue 2-3 weeks’ ago. In fact the situation has slightly improved since I wrote. At the time the order of posts in the sort from best was being actively manipulated by multi-sockpuppet downvotes & self-upvotes. (It still happens on some threads.)
ColM 10.40: I’m pretty sure it’s one person operating well over 20 sockpuppets. But once or twice the accounts have been operated by a different, more pleasant personality.
I’ve noticed that it gets started around 11.30 am, but I’ve put it down to a late riser. I don’t think he is American judging by the style & intimate knowledge of UK politics. The question is, who pays his (her?) sub? And how does he finance himself as he’s around all day? Benefits?
There is also a new disruption caused by two leftist posters who have private conversations, making a thread long & irrelevant, & swamping more serious posts.
I have no objection to serious left wing posters commenting at the other place. But what is happening looks like a conscious disruption of Spectator readers’ comments by leftists, & therefore an attack on free speech.
The editors obviously don’t care one jot for the commenting experience of their regulars. They can show a thread with an impressive 200-300 comments to advertisers, despite the fact that a large proportion of these are spoof ‘comments’.
PS to my earlier post: I’m 99.9% sure that they are all sockpuppets of one troll because when I challenged one of them by listing their names, one after another started upvoting the first sockpuppet post. In the end there were about 20 of them, all present on line at the same time.
Having watched the Labour leadership “debate” on Andrew Neil’s program this morning I don’t really think it matter which one of of them wins. They’re going to be stuffed for 2020 whichever one of them wins. Of course, my dream team for comedic purposes would be Corbyn & Abbott.
It has been reported that, to date, Diane Abbott has trousered in excess of £100K for her appearance’s on Andrew Neil’s “This Week” program.
The BBC’s own guidelines clearly state that an MP should not normally be paid for appearances where they could express political views. See section “Payment to MPs” 10.4.7 here. Diane Abbott is a politician and an elected Labour MP. The vast amount of her BBC payments come from her appearances on BBC’s “This Week” hosted by Andrew Neil. This show is described by the BBC itself as “A political review of the week presented by Andrew Neil”.
How can it possibly be the case that an elected Labour MP can appear as a BBC co-presenter on a political programme and be impartial?
http://linkis.com/wordpress.com/gDs3M
#WARNING# GRAPHIC PHOTO!
I thought a thought from me about the Spectator would be appropriate.
In the days of Coffee House Wall a journalist called Pete policed the wall and kept an eye on the whole blog.
Sorry.
Pete got fed up and left and such an important task was beneath Frazer and co.
The answer is to bring back Pete.
On the Spectator blogs:
Agreed with all of you, seldom the posters address the issue of the piece they comment on, the postings are often petty, frivolous, nasty, show ignorance of basic facts, their stream runs into the hundreds, yet contributes next to nothing to the knowledge of anything. And to top it all, the guard dogs censor Baron’s postings.
Another Peter could help, as huktra suggests, but what would certainly boost the quality of the blogs is if they were to weed out posters who totally ignore, divert from the subject matter, pursue their pet obsessions, and it must be said, telemachus scores top on this.
Damaris Tighe@July 19th, 2015 – 12:15
are we sure they are not speccie journos acting as agents pravateur?
even so i would have thought having multiple accounts would have been outside the forum rules. Or dont they even bother checking multiple account with the same IP address, which is sloppy.
even more sloppy is the advertising that appears in comments. they dont even seem to be able to stop that.
RobertC @ 23:13
It’s not often the barbarian spends almost an hour watching a video on the Net, Robert, but this one was an exception. He speaks well, articulates the five myths vividly, confirms what we’ve been saying anyway that the whole project of federalising Europe is indeed a political venture through a nd through.
For the reasons that he de-bunks so conclusively we are driven to some commonality of European interests above those of the individual European tribes, a forced unity without any regards to democratic principles rooted in our past or costs.
His talk also explains why there had to be a deal with the Zorbas, letting them go would denture the dream, perhaps start the destruction of it. The undemocratic coups in Italy and Greece four years ago were a part of the same obsessive Pan-European ideology.
What will it take to burst the bubble of the dreamers then?
Alexandr & Baron: The Spectator seems to have completely washed its hands of the comments sections. Baron – you’re probably falling foul of Disqus automatic moderation.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/19/if-you-think-christians-and-muslims-cant-live-peacefully-side-by-side-the-government-is-coming-for-you/
Baron – 18:59
A level playing field would help! 🙂
Hannan is always so measured, and he has a Dictionary of Quotations embedded, somewhere upon his person, as well as a several interesting points from History.
His bit on the Flemish(?) painters creating a market for paintings, for the common man, and what better thing than a country of shopkeepers: better than one full of military or clergy, if I remember correctly. Brilliant!
Damaris Tighe @ 20:48
You’re right, Damaris, everything today seems to be run by robots even if they have the shape and form of humans beings, and have the capacity for speech, if one can call some of the heavily accented bleating a speech, but the barbarian cannot be bothered animo re. In the past, he re-phrased, shortened, altered. Now, he just leaves the site.
Why cannot he say as a Christian that indeed practising homosexuality (for this is what the bible actually says) is a sin?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/18/christian-elected-party-leader-media-freak-out/