DUFF & NONSENSE!

My missing day returns

Every year just before Christmas I have 'an away day' in which I go back to the Home Counties, lunch with old friend, take tea with another, supper with a couple of my old theatre pals (actresses, naturally!) and then go to the Theatre Club Xmas party.  The year before last, regular readers may recall, I only got as far as lunch before the blizzard came in and it took me 12 hours to get home on a journey that is normally 2 hours.  Last year, sort of fortunately, the snow came before I even had chance to set off.  So, today I am trying to catch up by doing all the things I missed but instead of a party I shall be seeing our production of 'Pygmalion'.

Anyway, the point of all this is to tell you that there will be no words of wisdom from D&N today - sorry, what was that? - 'no chang there, then!' - shockin', shockin'!

 

A Clean Air Act of which my wife would approve

I am told constantly that 'naice' people, you know, posh people, like all those Etonians who rule over us, do not ever read The Mail.  I'm sure that's correct but I suspect that ministers simply pass it over to those young lick-spittles who act as their 'meeja & kommunicashuns' advisors to read, in which case, us chaps might be in serious trouble if they pick up a story in last week's Mail and urge their minister to act and thereby guarantee the 'wimmin's vote' at the next election.  You see, some crackpot, demented, African politician called Dr Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi - and my sympathy goes out to all Malawian chaps everywhere - intends to pass a law banning chaps from passing wind!  This ridiculous proposal will certainly be tricky to enforce:

But locals fear that pinning responsibility on the crime will be difficult - and may lead to miscarriages of justice as 'criminals' attempt to blame others for their offence.

The 'Memsahib' could verify that from experience.  You would not believe the number of excuses this particular 'criminal' can come up with, ranging from blaming the cat to the herd of cows half a mile down the road!  The only one I have never dared to try is to blame her cooking!  One Malawian lady pointed out:

'Children will openly deny having passed bad air and point at an elder. Culturally, this is very embarrassing,' she said.

Well, possibly, but it would depend on its decibel count, tunefulness and, shall we say, its nose.  Obviously one would be embarrassed were the squeaky-clean product of some minor to be blamed on one's self.  Simply too, too, shame-making.  Anyway, I can only urge the pugnacious - and pungent - men of Malawi to stand firm, strain hard, and when they see Dr. 'Silly Name' on an election platform, with but one voice (er, so to speak) blow him away!

 

The Duff Diet: sit on your arse and do nothing!

I go swimming - six morning a week I go swimming - early mornings, too - what was that? - I've already told you that - several times - oh!  Well, you see, there is very little (for which you may read: absolutely eff all) in my life, apart from my swimming, about which I can strike a smug, holier-than-thou pose, so I make the most of it - whilst it lasts, and if previous experience of my occasional forays into the sweaty, painful world of 'keep fit' are a guide then it will not last. 

I did fondly hope that perhaps I might lose a bit of weight with all this exercise in the pool but alas my belts remain, as ever, too tight!  But now I am confounded again, this time by a report in the WSJ which seems to indicate that the best way of losing weight is simply to sit around doing nothing.  Lest you doubt me, I can assure you this has been proven by the greatest scientists in the world using the very latest in sophisticated measuring devices:

In a vault beneath a 17th-century pavilion on the outskirts of Paris sits a platinum cylinder known as Le Grand K. Since 1889 it has been the international prototype for the kilogram, the standard against which all other kilos are measured.

This international prototype, made of platinum-iridium, is kept at the BIPM under conditions specified by the first General Conference on Weights and Measures (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, CGPM in 1889. (Photo courtesy International Bureau of Weights and Measures)

But over the years, scientists have noticed a problem: Le Grand K has been losing weight. Weigh-ins at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures show that the bar has shed approximately 50 micrograms—roughly equal to a grain of sand. (My emphasis)

This has caused consternation verging on fury in some scientific quarters:

“It’s a scandal that we’ve got this kilogram hanging around changing its mass and therefore changing the mass of everything else in the universe!” Bill Phillips, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, exclaimed at a scientific summit in London this week. No one knows for sure what went wrong with Le Grand K, but some theorize it lost weight from being cleaned.

Being cleaned!  Now there's a thought.  The 'Memsahib' reckons I do nothing except sit around all day but whether or not I could talk her into cleaning me is a moot point.  Normally she just throws a dust sheet over me!  However, returning to this measurement lark, I gather it's all frightfully important:

Dr. Phillips and other mandarins of metrology were gathered at Britain’s Royal Society to debate an urgent question in the science of measurement—how to re-define the basic unit of mass, as well as other measurements such as the second, ampere, kelvin and mole.

The aim is to tie each to a widely accepted property of nature, rather than to a lump of metal or some other imprecise benchmark. The meter, for instance, was once measured as the distance between two notches on a metal bar. It is now defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

I must remember all that the next time my publican serves me a short pint.  Also, for the ignorant amongst you , "metrology" was not a typo, it is the scientific study of measuring - "notta lotta people know that!"  I wonder how long it would take a particle of light to get round my waistline in or out of a vacuum?  Well, it should get shorter very soon because I go swimming every morning . . .  no, don't go off . . .  what's wrong? . . . have I told you this before?

 

 

Their Djok beat our Jock - thank God!

I'm not good at moral dilemmas, they confuse me, I become all cack-handed, you know, on the one hand but there again on the other hand and when you think about it - and at that point I need another hand and so I end up giving a hopeless shrug.  All of which leads me to expelling an almighty sigh of relief that Djokovich beat Murray in the final of the Australian tennis championship.  After all, just consider if Murray had won!  How would I pin - and hold - the false smile of congratulation on my face?  I mean, dammit, he's a Brit and I jolly well know that I should be cheering him on because it has been nearly 75 years since a Brit won a Grand Slam.  But unfortunately he is also, and here I must be honest, a totally miserable, monosyllabic, Jock grunt of the sort one would make considerable efforts not to sit next to on a long-haul flight, or even a 10p bus-ride.  Well, I suppose his Mum loves him - actually, now I think of it, having seen her antics at various tennis matches it might be that she loves him too much.  The normally sensible Matthew Norman went awry yesterday in The Telegraph:

Everyone will realise that the courtside passion of Andy's mum Judy is a refreshing change from the glacial aloofness of the Henman Parents.

No it's jolly well not!  In her enthusiasm she resembles a Celtic/Rangers (you choose) footie fan screeching her side on to a win.  I always enjoyed and admired Henman, père et mère, as, on those odd occasions when 'Timmy' actually managed to beat some ghastly foreigner they applauded to a strict ration, four claps from him and three from her.  Proper English reserve, that!

Anyway, Andrew, old chap, ooops, sorry, I mean, 'Andy', what can I say?  Except possibly that you deserve congratulations for dutifully upholding a very fine, old, revered, British tradition - losing!  Ouch!  Sorry, Mrs. Murray, did I say say something  . . . ?

 

A Sergeant Major of the old school

The obits from The Telegraph are always worth a quick glance if you are connoisseur of the idiosyncratic.  Today's edition tells us of the sad loss of Squadron Sergeant Major Tom Parnell who died recently at the good age of 92.

This man could have dined out for a fortnight on some of his stories but by all accounts was too modest to do so.  He saw considerable action in WWII including a stint with the Long Range Desert Group.  Returned to his regiment, the 10th Hussars, he recalled the following incident:

On one occasion he had to stop his tank for an arm-waving German officer. Revolver in hand, Parnell dismounted and was told of 30 wounded soldiers needing help. He immediately ordered his troop to minister to the Germans’ needs until medics arrived.

This incident had a happy ending because when, in 1986, QSM. Parnell had become a Chelsea Pensioner he was told one day:

[...] that someone wanted to see him, he discovered that his visitor was the very German officer – a Major Müller – whose men he had saved in wartime, and who had come to say thank you.

Parnell immediately presented his visitor with the regimental tie and blazer badge he was wearing, requesting that Müller wear them at Regimental and Afrika Korps reunions. This Müller duly did.

Less diplomatically during a visit to Paris:

The French would, no doubt, prefer not to remember him. On an official visit to a museum in Paris, where the escort lamented gaps in the sequence of Napoleonic regimental Eagles, Parnell’s enthusiastic but unwelcome contribution was: “Oh, we’ve got those at Chelsea [Barracks].”

Another laudable act at the end of the war was to carry out the orders of Gen. Patton:

In 1945 his regiment, the 10th Hussars, was at Graz. When his colonel sent him to collect four horses, Parnell, remembering the Hussars’ pre-war reputation for polo, assumed he was adding to horses already acquired for that purpose.

In fact they were Lippizaners from the Spanish Riding School which had been dispersed to secret locations because of the war. Unbeknown to Parnell, General Patton, a cavalryman, wanted to get to the horses before the Russians – whom he feared might eat them – and had enlisted the help of the 10th Hussars .

Parnell and a fellow NCO set off with two three-ton lorries; the drivers were armed, and they were joined by a guide. Two hours out of Graz, in mountainous country, they pulled off the road, following a forest track leading to a camouflaged and guarded cave. Inside was a makeshift stable and, to the men’s astonishment, four Lippizaners in good condition.

Getting the horses into the trucks called for ingenuity. Parnell managed it by backing the trucks alongside the road, cutting a bank away and using the soil for the horses to walk into the trucks. Two did, behaving well, but the others, frightened by the dark, canopy-covered interior, would not oblige. Eventually Parnell and his comrades pulled back the canvas from the frame of the lorry and the recalcitrant pair boarded. Blankets were used as protection against injury.

Much hampered by roads packed with refugees, the equines’ escort finally made it to Vienna, spending several pleasurable days with the horses at the Riding School.

Again, this story had a happy sequel:

Nor did the Spanish Riding School forget Parnell. At a performance by the horses at Wembley in 2001, he was a guest of honour. Bemedalled and dressed in scarlet, he was spotlighted while his story was told to an admiring audience, many of whom asked him for his autograph.

Farewell, Sar'nt Major, your place in Valhalla is assured.

 

A consumation devoutly desired and now relished

That's another of the good things about growing old, if you're lucky you live long enough to see the apparently unstoppable expansion of great, man-made, 'intellectual' constructions built on the ages-old, human mixture of avarice, conceit, stupidity and cupidity, first a crack here and there as the irritating moles in the basement undermine the foundations, and then the cracks developing into fissures, and finally, the glorious sight of the whole thing crashing down.  Even better, there is the delicious and delightful joy to be had as survivors of the wreckage clamber out, either dazed or demented, and after taking a quick, panicked look at the remains of their giant theory and unable to face life without it, they clear their throats and try to sing the old songs all over again - but no-one is listening!

Undoubtedly the biggest and best example of this came about with the fall of communism.  One only has to point at the Chinese elephant which, in a matter of two or three decades has ditched Marx, Engels and Trotsky over-board and taken on the main tenets of capitalism.  No-one, anywhere, outside of an asylum, or some tiny, cranky sects takes Marxism seriously anymore.  For example, you have to go to Dave Osler's site to read the daftest most futile heading to a blog-post I have ever seen:

Egypt: what is the class nature of the Muslim Brotherhood?

Osler is not an unintelligent chap, but unfortunately he is just locked in a 1960s to '80s time-warp as he clings desperately to his faith (I use the word advisedly) that class analysis will provide a Marxian answer, like a survivor from the Titanic desperately clutching at a piece of wreckage.

Another 'intellectual' train wreck which, to misquote darling Oscar, you would need a heart of stone not to split your sides laughing at, is the collapse of the Great Global Warming Construct!  Only about a year ago that particular edifice of the mind (or imagination) towered over all of us.  And then, suddenly, another of those naughty moles chewed his way into the e-mails of the CRU and - stand back! - down it came like the twin towers in New York!  I have lost count over the last few months of the number of opinion polls which show that belief in global warming is disappearing a hell of a lot faster than arctic ice - which, incidentally, is now growing again!  This scepticism, or to be precise, this shift in public opinion which the politicians watch like a hawk, now seems to have reached the White House.  According to CNS News:

The abrupt resignation of Carol Browner, President Barack Obama’s global warming czar, and the omission by Obama of global warming from his State of the Union speech on Tuesday could mean that the White House has given up on global warming, according to climate change analysts.

Our very own Met Office, caught flat-footed in a lie, and a useless, incompetent lie, to boot, by the ever-vigilant Autonomous Mind, is obviously 'not fit for purpose'.  To be incompetent is one thing, to be dishonest is another.  Autonomous Mind, pays tribute to another 'mole' Katabasis whose FoI request got through first, sums it up thus:

A look at the information makes clear there is nowhere left for the Met Office to hide.  The Met Office has been caught ‘cold’ lying about its winter forecast in a disgraceful attempt to salvage its reputation.  Its claim that it forecast the cold start to the winter lays in tatters thanks to an exchange of emails between the department and the Cabinet Office.

As a result the Met Office is completely discredited.  Also utterly discredited is the BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin . . .

You can pursue the story concerning Harrabin over at AM's place.  In the meantime, "Rejoice, rejoice" as someone once said, because now, like kids in the blitz, we have another pile of rubble to play in.

ADDITIONAL:  Blimey!  Another of those creepy coincidences.  No sooner had I finished this post with its somewhat historical tone when an E-pal sent me this by Billy Joel and set to some evocative pictures by Ye Li.  Worth watching - and listening -particularly if you are of a certain age!

http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html

 

'Hillbilly' does the soft-shoe-shuffle

And very good she was, too, it must be her 'Arkie' up-bringing!  There she was, as the mobs rampage through Cairo and Mubarak tries to hold his nerve and his power, speaking all things to all men because until she knows for certain who is going to win, she cannot say too much.  Mind you, I sensed that she felt Mubarak was a loser and that she was leaning towards the mob.  Well, sometimes a Sec. of State has to do what a Sec. of State has to do, that is, mumble pieties with fingers firmly crossed behind his or her back.  Of course, the sillies will cheer on what they foolishly believe are the democratic forces on the streets because some of them want a parliamentary democracy in Egypt, whilst the malignant sillies will cheer on the mob knowing that in most cases violent revolution produces a new and frequently worse regime.  Certainly for American/western interests a change of regime is likely to be exceedingly troublesome.  I mentioned in a previous post the potential catastrophe if the eastern Mediterranean were, via political changes in Turkey and Egypt, to fall into the hands of Muslim extremists.  Were I an Israeli, which thank Jehovah I am not, I would be wetting myself.  If Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Lebanon join forces they will be well and truly encircled.  Of course, the Israelis are made of sterner stuff than me and are likely to get their retaliation in first!  Again, the sillies will point the finger at America and blame her for keeping dictators in office but I would remind them that whilst Mubarak might be a bastard, he is our bastard - more or less - and has been for decades.  I am surely not the first to trot out Belloc's famous injunction, to "always keep a hold on nurse, for fear of meeting something worse". (Well, waddya expect on this blog - originality?!)

 

Fancy a dip?

I ask because most of the financial and political commentariat are rubbing their hands in expectation of joy unconfined.  The financial fella's have been spooked by the drop in output for the last quarter, as though anyone thought there would be a rise after the effects of all that 'global warming'!  Now these Jeremiahs (they are either gloomy or shrieking with pleasure and neither condition is a reliable guide as to our economic future) are warning somberly that the next quarter will dip, too, and that will qualify us as being in a recession.  The political hacks, on the other hand, are like a bunch of beer-bellied, vest-wearing spectators to a dog-fight as they look forward to Ed Balls eviscerating Georgie Osborne with one snap of his jaws.  After all, they say, Balls actually understands economics which Osborne patently does not.  Well, it's true that 'Ossy' is not exactly the Milton Friedman of his age but the political scribblers forget (oh my, how easily they forget) that 'Balls-up' was the man who almost single-handedly, well, the one-eyed Jock just huffed and puffed and spoke the lines he was given, was responsible for leaving us staggering under a crippling load of debt, so I suspect that like 'Ossy', he knows, and cares, a lot more about politics than economics.

And it is, as always, about politics.  This year poor, young 'Ossy' is going to resemble one of those English batsmen facing either the ferocious speed bowling of Lillee or the cunning trickery of Warne.  He will need to keep a straight bat along with a stiff upper lip because the economic news this years is going to be more or less bad.  However, if he can keep his nerve as he stands at the crease on a crumbling wicket - and also keep his batting partners, none of whom as much experience at the top level, then eventually the sun will come out, dry the wicket hard and leave him free to score a century. (That's enough cricketing metaphors - Ed!)  Of course, you can never go totally broke relying on the stupidity of the 'bruvvers' in the unions who will spend the first half of the year bringing about chaos and confusion and who will thus offer the fattest of fat targets at which the Tories can aim and blame.  Their action will also skewer Balls and Miliband, and the entire Labour party, as they struggle to decide whether to support the 'bruvvers' or not.

 I read somewhere - on The Coffee House, I think - that a very close examination of the Treasury books indicates that despite all this talk of 'cuts' the Tories are actually very quietly building up something of a hefty cash surplus which, in say 3 to 4 years time, will be quite considerable.  This, of course, will be used as the bribe investment which will give them a second election victory - they hope.  Needless to say, in all of these complex considerations, principle plays no part.  If they had the nation's well-being at heart they would not have raised the top rate of tax to 50% (shortly to become 52%), nor would they have raised VAT.  Instead they would have slashed and burned the quangos and local authorities with double the effort and relish and forced through a bonfire of the rules and regs that hog-tie so much of British business.  Like 'that woman', I think they would have received their reward honourably after 5 years and the country would be ready for rejuvenation.  But no, they chose the path of least resistance.  They had to do something to keep the international Shylocks quiescent, if not happy, but at the same time they piled on the agony to the very people - in fact, the only people - who will ever revive our economy.

For that short-term cowardice alone they deserve to fail, and I would cheer, except that reminds me of what and who would take over - Ed Balls.  "The horror . . . the horror!"

 

Alan Furst is first for espionage thrillers

I know, I know, I have banged his drum many a time and oft' but the fact is that Alan Furst is a first-rate writer, in any genre, I suspect, although he has taken it upon himself to corner the market in historical espionage stories.  I use the slightly dated term of 'espionage' because it captures exactly that period between the mid-'30s and WWII in which his stories are set with an unerring accuracy which leaves readers certain they can smell the ersatz coffee and the stale Gitanes! 

It is yet another of those creepy coincidences which provokes me to write about him again.  I picked up recently in one of my frightfully smart bookshops - I think this one was the Oxfam shop in the High Street - a copy of one of his books which I appear to have missed.  It is called The Foreign Correspondent.  His hero is, if I may conjure a word, typically 'Furstian'!  His name is Weisz but he is Italian, born in that messy little corner of Italy and the Balkans we call Trieste.  Middle-aged but with those angular good looks so many of those damn Europeans have, he scrapes a living as a foreign correspondent for various news agencies which send him from Spain to Prague to Berlin and Paris.  He has voluntarily absented himself from Italy because of his opposition to the Fascists.  Needless to say, like most of his kind he brushes up against various intelligence outfits but in this case, God help him, Britain's MI6.

We also meet a character known only as 'S Kolb'.  As described by Furst:

His real name had disappeared, long ago, and he had become Mr. Nobody, from the nation of Nowhere, and he looked it: bald, with a fringe of dark hair, glasses, a spare moustache - a short , inconsequential man in a tired suit, at that moment chained to two anarchists and a water pipe in the WC of a cafe on the bombed-out waterfront of an abondoned city.  Sentenced to be shot.  Eventually.  There was a queue, one had to wait one's turn, and the executioners might not go back to work until they'd had lunch.

This is in Spain at the end of the civil war.  Needless to say, the not-to-be-underestimated 'S. Kolb' inveigles his way out of his predicament with a well-aimed bribe and later on he re-appears in France.  I dwell on him because he turns out to be a British agent and there-in lies the coincidence because no sooner had I read about him last night when his 'double' appears on the BBC news site this morning!

Some volunteers are trawling through the records at Bletchley Park prior to readying them for transmission onto the internet.  One of them found the document illustrated below:

Apparently this is proof of the success of British efforts to fool the Germans into believing that the Normandy landings were merely a feint and that the real attack was going to be aimed at the Pas de Calais which kept several German divisions far to the east just in case.  Mind you, I thought this had been established years ago.  Still, the BBC report explains:

Behind the story of this crucial message and its global impact lies Juan Pujol Garcia, an unassuming-looking Spanish businessman who was, in fact, one of the war's most effective double agents.

Picture from Wiki

The Nazis believed Pujol, whom they code named Alaric Arabel, was one of their prize assets, running a network of spies in the UK and feeding crucial information to Berlin via his handler in Madrid.

In fact, the Spaniard was working for British intelligence, who referred to him as Garbo. Almost the entirety of his elaborate web of informants was fictitious and the reports he sent back to Germany were designed, ultimately, to mislead.

But agent Garbo was so completely trusted at the top level of the Nazi high command that he was honoured for his services to Germany, with the approval of Hitler himself, making him one of the few people to be given both the Iron Cross and the MBE for his WWII exploits.

"He was no James Bond - he was a balding, boring, unsmiling little man," says Amyas Godfrey, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

"But he had the Germans completely fooled."   (My emphasis)

If 'S. Kolb' is not based on Juan Pujol Garcia, aka, 'Garbo', then I'll eat my hat.  That's why I like Furst's books so much, they positively reek of authenticity.  The Wiki entry for Garcia tells us that his handler was a certain Mr. Mills, who was himself fooled by this extraordinarily resourceful man who faked his own death after the war and disappeared:

For his efforts in aid of the Allies Garbo received an MBE from the British; in an ironic twist of fate, following the war he ended up encountering one of his German handlers, who gave him the Iron Cross for his contribution to the German war effort; the Nazis never realised that Garbo had fooled them, and thus he earned the distinction of being one of the few people during World War II to receive decorations from both sides.

After the war Pujol faked his death and moved to Venezuela, where he lived in anonymity, even Mills believing him to be dead. He had also been told that Cyril Mills, or 'Mr. Grey' as he knew him, had been killed as well. In 1982 they were emotionally re-united at Mills' home in London.

What a story!  What a pair of stories!  Anyway, beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Furst's book, er, but not my copy!

 

Now I really am offended

Odd how when I post a few silly words on a particular subject almost immediately a much more serious example of it crops up.  Two posts down I demanded the right to be offended, that is, I wanted people, who though they might be appalling apologies for humanity, to have the right to express what they think - libel/slander and direct incitement to violence excepted.  The next thing is that I click on the site of my American e-pal, Malcolm Pollack at Waka Waka Waka, to read for the first time of the case of Lars Hedegaard, a Danish journalist.  He has led a publicity campaign aimed at the Muslim extremists in his country and warning that unless the host nation begins to pay attention Sharia law will come into effect.  He pointed out the ghastly iniquities practiced by the more extreme Muslims in regard to their women, their children and in pursuance of arranged marriages.  Nowhere did he state an untruth and nor has he made the slightest suggestion that physical action should be taken.

Nevertheless, the Danish authorities are pursuing legal criminal action against him because under Danish law they can do so:

against anyone deemed to have spoken words that insult or degrade others on the basis of race, sexual identity, or religion.

As Malcolm points out:

As in the Geert Wilders trial, truth is no defense under the law. The prosecution need only establish that the defendant uttered words that a “victim” would find offensive.

Here, in his own words, Hedegaard explains his predicament:

My counsel has instructed me that in cases brought under Article 266b, the only thing that determines whether one is convicted or not is a matter of the perceived insult whereas one is barred from proving the truth of the statement.

The article deals with public statements whereby a group of people are “threatened, insulted or degraded”. But as my lawyer has already noted, I have made no public statement.

When it comes to Article 266b, there is no equality before the law. I am daily insulted and degraded by something I read or hear and I am sure that most people have the same experience.

For example, I am not only insulted and degraded and threatened, but shaken to the core of my being when I hear a well known Danish imam state that, of course, sharia law – Muslim law – will be instituted as Denmark’s official legal regime when there are a sufficient number of Muslims. I strongly urge our country’s jurists to get acquainted with the implications of the sharia, not only for Muslims but equally for non-Muslims, who – if they are lucky – will be reduced to a life as subhuman outlaws. And if one cannot be bothered with tedious dissertations, one may take a look at the legal order pertaining in areas where the sharia holds sway either de jure or de facto. One will then encounter a legal order the like of which we have not known since the passing of the Law of Jutland in 1241 and probably not before.

But the imam wants this disorder introduced in the country where I was born. And I must admit that I am troubled. I am also troubled when said imam defends the killing of Muslims who have left Islam and when he confirms that women and men guilty of fornication must be pelt with stones until they are dead. He thinks that is God’s commandment, which he cannot ignore.

Should I go to the police and tell them how threatened, insulted and degraded I feel? I wouldn’t dream of it for I support free speech. And if free speech has any real meaning, it must also – and in particular – protect statements people do not want to hear. Regardless of how revolting such statements may be.

Besides it would be futile to report the imam and those similarly disposed to the police for the public prosecutor would never indict them. Otherwise it would have happened long ago.

As jurisprudence shows, not only in Denmark but in all European countries with similar insult articles in their penal code, these insult articles open the gates to inequality before the law. There are the insulted who enjoy the tender graces of the public prosecutor, and there are the less favoured who must endure insults directed at them.

But perhaps this is to do with the notion that one must not insult minorities whereas minorities are free to insult majorities? If that is the explanation of why I am in court today, it is a peculiar one. In 2002, the imam I have already mentioned explained to his flock that all Muslims in the world – 1,6 billion or whatever the number is – constitute one people, one umma. The same thing is emphasised by the Islamic Conference Organisation, OIC, encompassing 57 member countries. In other words, the five million non-Muslim Danes are a microscopic minority but nevertheless a minority whose members stand to be punished if they make statements on cultural norms in the umma.

What does the public prosecutor hope to accomplish by my conviction? He may drag me in front of a court. He may portray me as a racist, a right-wing extremist and a non-human. He may do the same to hundreds and thousands of others who insist on their right of free speech to describe Islam and Muslim culture just like we would deal with any other phenomenon in a free society.

But what will he have gained? Does the public prosecutor believe that people will start talking about Islam and Muslim culture with greater respect and reverence? Perhaps in public because people fear fines and jail. But what will people say to each other when they think that the thought police are not listening?

And what does the public prosecutor imagine people will think of a religion, a political ideology and a culture that need the protection of legislators, police, the public prosecutor and the courts because they cannot defend themselves in a free and open debate?

In 1644, when the English parliament considered the institution of religious censorship, that Christian defender of free speech John Milton wrote: “There is yet behind of what I purpos’d to lay open, the incredible losse, and detriment that this plot of licencing puts us to, more then if som enemy at sea should stop up all our hav’ns and ports, and creeks, it hinders and retards the importation of our richest Marchandize, Truth.”

And further:

“There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims. ‘Tis their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meeknes, nor can convince, yet all must be suppresst which is not found in their Syntagma.”

Milton concluded with this exhortation:

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

In conclusion permit me to mention the true victims in this case. The public prosecutor has not considered the 20,000 women in the Muslim world who every year fall victim to so-called honour killings, or the 50,000 Muslim girls in Germany who the federal police consider threatened with genital mutilation, nor the hundreds of thousands of little girls in Muslim majority societies who have been sold into marriage with much older men and who must therefore live a life of constant rape, while Islamic scholars preach that this is in complete accordance with religious orthodoxy.

I hope that the judge as opposed to the public prosecutor will consider the fate of these unfortunate human beings. Likewise I hope that the judge will realise the absurdity of prosecuting me for statements made within the confines of my own four walls. For ten months the prosecutor has been aware of the conditions under which I spoke. That has not affected him in the slightest. I hope it will affect the judge.

  

And where is the voice of that great defender of free speech and liberality, the mighty Guardian, when you need it?  On the missing list - again.  I googled Hedegaard's name with The Guardian and nothing was to be found.  I expect Polly was busy enjoying some winter sunshine at her Tuscan villa whilst she bangs out another 500 words on the plight of the poor under the brutal thumb of that nasty Mr. Cameron.

 

"SQUAD! Pre-seeeeeent - APPS!"

Wrinkled, grey-headed, old soldier shakes head, mutters something about "it wasn't like that in my day" and shuffles off into the sunset.  A touching self-portrait, alas, brought about by a story in the Washington Times:

Soldiers armed with smart phones are finding new ways to fight and subsequently redefining the battlefield. They can share intelligence and translate languages with what amounts basically to the common cell phone.

“This isn’t the future. This is now,” said Lt. Col. Greg Motes of the Army Signal Center at Fort Gordon, Ga.

Controlling fighter jets, tanks, missiles and machine guns is another way to use the devices, Col. Motes said. Smart phones also could be used for facial recognition to spot enemies and fingerprinting to identify prisoners.

“All that technology could easily be put into a phone,” Col. Motes said.

Good grief, in my day it was either an old 32-set radio (I think I have the correct designation) which weighed a ton and which on occasion would not send a signal to a recipient even though you could see him half a mile away - shouting was sometimes easier!  Either that, or the old 62-set(?) which was a great box-like radio which required you to be attached by leads to another man carrying the almost as big, wet-acid battery.  These had their own problems because, one time, someone whistled in from 800 feet due to their 'chute not opening and the rumour was that acid from a 62-set battery must have dribbled onto the threads of a static line which then unravelled instead of jerking the 'chute open.  There-after, all wet batteries were sealed with melted wax prior to jumping.  Both of these radio sets required the delicate but steady hands of a brain surgeon to tune them into the correct frequency, a feat not easily achieved when you have just enjoyed the adrenalin surge of jumping, the huge relief of landing, albeit like the proverbial sack of you-know-what, and then the fast exit off the drop zone and the unbelievable luck of actually finding your RV!

Today, presumably, they tuck these little 'phones in their top pocket and after landing, send Mum an "I'm alright" e-mail, a message to the pregnant girlfriend that, alas, Pte. Atkins T. has been killed on duty, play a quick game of Call of Duty, oh, and then wipe out half of Afghanistan! I tell you, it wasn't like that in my day  . . .

Additional:  See, I knew there'd be trouble with all these new-fangled techie-thingies; you should never under-estimate the fumble-fingered propensities of your average Tom - this from The Mail:

Delivered from the front line with the tenderness of a man truly in love, it had all the romance a marriage proposal should have.

There was, however, one problem with the answerphone message left by a lovesick soldier for his girlfriend.

He appears to have dialled the wrong number and, consequently, proposed to the wrong woman.

Oooops!

It reminds me of the mistake by a morse-code operator during WWI who mixed up his 'C's and his 'Y's and sent a Regiment to Cork instead of York!

 

I WANT to be offended, it's my right, innit?

And so the tiniest, micro-story of the last 10 years - oh, alright then, the last 20 years - rumbles and bumbles its way on and on through the headlines.  A pair of TV commentators said rude, disparaging things about girlies in football. Cue all-round 'Shlock-Horror', fainting feminists and outraged girlie-men hitting their TVs with their handbags, I'm just amazed it didn't come up at Question Time given that it is, according to the language commissars, a matter likely to shake the pillars of society.

Look, I want to be offended!  It would help me to believe that we do actually live in a society that values free speech.  It is now clear beyond any doubt that we do not.  These days, if anyone is offended, or to be precise, if anyone considered to be under the patronage of, say, The Guardian, The BBC, Sami Chakrabarti, and their ilk, is offended then you can expect a ton of smelly stuff to hit the fan.  If, however, you are a Christian, a Jew, a Tory or, my dear don't even look, a footie-man, then you can expect no defence whatsoever.  For example, has The Guardian begun a campaign against the Metropolitan Police for their failure to investigate the, presumably, illegal taping of people's private conversations? You will have to tell me because I cannot bring myself to look at the wretched rag.  I may well drop dead with shock if they have - so there's an inducement for you to find out!

I suppose I should make clear my own opinion on the particular matter.  I think the two men concerned are a pair of right pillocks who deserve some criticism but neither of them deserves to lose his livelihood over it.  Equally, I believe that if most footie fans would prefer women to be kept out of any active part in their game they should be free to arrange matters to their own choice.

It would not do to end a post on giving offence without offending somebody, so let me say, loud and clear, that all the 'wimmin' on Labour's front bench are stupid, ugly, old cows!  Mind you, to be fair, so are most of the men on the Tory frontbench!

 

They seek it here, they seek it there, they seek that damned certificate everywhere!

The new governor of Hawaii - and who would not give gold ingots for that job? - made a promise when standing for election last November.  He would, he said, find that damned birth cerificate no matter what it took - or words to that effect.  So, true to his words he looked here, he looked there, he lifted the cushions on his sofa, he asked the Registrar of Births (or whatever they call them 'over there'') to look in the 'Pending File' because, well, hell, the birth was only in 1961 and being civil service they might not have got around to it just yet, he told them to look in the waste bins, and amongst the magazines on the tables in the waiting rooms some of which went back to Pearl Harbour days, because, 'goddamit', President Barack Obama's birth certificate must, really must, absolutely bloody well has to be, somewhere!  But all to no avail. No sign of it.  Gone. Vanished. Like Monty Python's famous parrot, this birth certificate has ceased to be!  That is, of course, on the assumption, an increasingly large assumption, that it ever existed at all.

Does it matter?  Well, from the outside looking in I would say not a jot nor a tittle.  Technically, of course, an American either has to be born inside the USA, or, jump over certain administrative procedures in order to gain citizenship, but to be president only the first will do, you absolutely must be "Born in the USA"!  Again, from the outside looking in, I would say that today, Obama is a 'typical' American, if one could ever define such a being.  He's a bit black, a bit white and son of a non-American, all he lacks is a dash of Oriental and pinch of Spanish!  He started poor-ish but grafted his way up the slippery pole of success and finally reached the pinnacle - the very exemplar of the American myth.

But unfortunately America is not just the Land of the Free, it is also the Land of the Lawyer!  That's what you get with a written constitution.  And in this case the lawyers, at the behest of the politicians, have been increasing their demands that Obama produce his birth certificate - so far, to no avail.  However, according to WND, now the wily politicians are making their own laws.  Arizona, shortly to be followed by Montana, Pennslyvania, Georgia and - of course - Texas, are busy preparing State laws which will require any and all presidential candidates to prove that they are eligible.  With a bit of luck and a following wind these might be in place in time for the 2012 presidential election.  Oh dear, will his face be red, er, I mean black - no, no - I mean white - um, coffee? - oh, hell, you know what I mean!

(Incidentally, sorry for my absence yesterday, I had the best brains in the medical services in a panic as I succumbed to one of the severest cases of Man-flu ever seen.  But I was brave and stoic in my distress and the Memsahib only had to fetch me 28 cups of tea!)

 ADDITIONAL:  Just in via Drudge, a news commentator who is a very old friend of the current governor of Hawaii has been told by the governor, who is a tremendous fan of Obama and who knew him as 5 to 6 year old, that there is absolutely no trace whatsoever of Obama's birth in Hawaii. Listen in, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvrb7YqdvxE

 

A slight or a slap or both?

Alas, this blog, being always busy with high affairs of state, profound matters of philosophy, the very latest insights into contemporary art and how it's going to pay the electricity bill the way prices are going up, does not have much time left over for the Royal Wedding. So it was pure chance, and an idle moment, that led me to The American Spectator and an article by Frank Schell.  In it he tells us, deliciously, that the Obamas have not been invited!  Quelle frisson, my dears!

Of course, I don't expect that either of them are brokenhearted at their exclusion but they will, I feel certain, be exceedingly miffed, not least because according to Schell, word is that their newest, bestest friends, the Hungarian dwarf and his Italian, er, lady have been invited.  (So who's your real best friend, buddy, Rahm Emmanual?)

As Schell points out this is perhaps the considered and subtle response to a series of petty pokes from sharp sticks administered by the uppity folks in the White House.  Their crass choice of gifts to the Queen included:

thoughtfully poignant music of Rogers and Hart having special meaning to the royals, and also some of his speeches on an iPod, which attracted attention for its perceived narcissistic value. (My emphasis)

Well, I suppose if Her Maj isn't sleeping well the speeches might come in useful, but I would give serious money to know exactly what grumpy Phil had to say!  And whilst I can understand and even sympathise with Obama's reluctance to be photographed in the Oval Office alongside the ugly, one-eyed Jock, nevertheless, his gift to 'ur wee Gordie' of a DVD of pop music was, shall we say, underwhelming especially given that American DVDs do not work 'over here' and also when compared to the gifts he was given in return:

a thoughtful commemorative made from the wood of a 19th century British anti-slave ship, HMS Gannet; a symbolic document noting the beginning of service by its sister ship, HMS Resolute rescued by the U.S. in the Arctic; and the biography of Winston Churchill by Martin Gilbert.

And that, of course, brings us back to Obama's first, in fact, immediate, gift to Britain - the return of a bust of Winston Churchill which had stood for years in the Oval Office.  The Royals have simply bided their time but now they have delivered their riposte.

In statecraft, form is substance. The omission of the Obamas from the guest list was no accident and suggests that the soi-disant special relationship may not be so special right now -- and it will look even less so on April 29th.

I really must try and keep up with high society goings on; simply too, too, exciting, darlings!

 

"British wanker suggests that free speech is the problem and chains are the solution"

Please note the quotation marks around my title because I would not wish you to think that standards of decency are slipping, here, at Duff & Nonsense.  No, no, I am afraid it those very common fellows at IHTM who provided that heading, although one cannot criticise it for lack of accuracy even if they have committed the cardinal sin of insulting 'Saint' Simon Jenkins of The Guardian.  Show 'St. Simon' a stick and you can bet the deeds of the house that 9 times out of 10 he will pick up the wrong end of it.  Thus, on the subject of the virile/vitriolic (you choose) nature of American political discourse, he comes to exactly the wrong - and highly dangerous - conclusion.  I realise that he is not responsible for the heading provided by some sub-editor but given the nature of his essay he could hardly complain:

Free speech can't exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order

If America is to speak in a way that heals, as Obama wishes, it needs the curbs and regulations that make freedom of expression real

That such words appear in The Guardian proves the truth of my recent contention that only the physically handicapped would buy it because as a newspaper it is not fit to wrap fish and chips.

Now, it is true that by British standards American political discourse tends to the extreme.  This is driven by several factors.  America is a young and dynamic nation not yet fettered by too much tradition.  Their politicians and commentators are driven by TV viewing statistics which tend to favour the bold and outrageous over the quiet and thoughtful.  But above all, I think it is the blogosphere which has poisoned the atmosphere.  Let's face it, most of us (er, well, not me, of course) are as common as muck and as thick as an anvil and consequently our language, to say the least, lacks delicacy and discretion.  As any member of any decent club will tell you, the minute you let in the hoi polloi standards drop, and thus has it proved for the formerly somewhat exclusive club of politics.

But does it matter? Is it serious?  No, of course not, because the old childhood adage holds true: sticks and stones (or Glock pistols) may break my bones but names will never hurt me.  If we fear words, if it is words, not conscience, that "doth make cowards of us all", if "mere opinion" leaves us trembling, or, perhaps shaking with fury, then we are indeed no better than animals re-acting to barks, growls and snarls.  In fact, words, however they are uttered or written, are an absolute necessity because without them minds would never be changed.  I suspect that it is this very fear of 'minds being changed' which drives 'St. Simon of The Guardian' to this sort of thing:

This [the current situation in the USA] is normally put down to such impediments as the US constitution, the silent majority, sheer bigness and freedom of speech.

Today's culprit is freedom of speech, or at least the speech of the American right and its broadcast cheerleaders.

So freedom of speech is the "culprit", according to 'St. Simon', but not his free speech, you must understand, oh dear me, no, just the free speech of those who disagree with him.  Ah, yes, the cry through the ages from one tyrant to the next.  Or the non-stop preaching and prating of those who are convinced that they know best what is best for you and me - with the unspoken threat left hanging that you had better accept it or else . . . !

The vitriol and inaccuracy of the campaign against Obama's public health reforms last year were like those against abortion and homosexuality. To many Europeans, the echo across the Atlantic came from a people isolated from the outside world and unable to handle today's social and scientific progress. The debate was infused with nastiness and xenophobia, as if the US was a land composed of tribes bred only to hate the outside world, and often themselves.

There you have it in a nutshell.  According to 'St. Simon', those poor, benighted colonials 'over there' are just so isolated and backward that they are desperately in need of help and advice from, er, well, funny you should ask, but the immensely wise and broadminded 'St. Simon' and the editorial board of The Guardian, of course!  In fact the implication hovers unspoken that he can hardly imagine how they have become the richest most powerful nation in the history of the world without the benefit of his wisdom.  He continues:

I was asked some time ago by a university-educated Texan, in the nicest possible way, what it was like to live in a country of "baby-killers" about to be "overrun by Muslim bad guys". I inquired where he had gained this bizarre impression of Europe, which he had never visited. It turned out his sole information about the world beyond America's shore came from Fox News. He was not stupid. But he and millions of people like him considered this source of news a sufficient window on the world. He genuinely thought American troops would soon have to save Europe from "the Arabs".

Ignoring for the moment his nasty little sneer at Texan universities - my dear, you can't imagine - consider if you will his frisson of shock when Europe is described as "a country of baby-killers" under threat of being over-run by Muslims.  I would suggest that his Texan interlocutor was spot on - we do kill babies here, at a prodigious and increasing rate; and I would suggest that 'St. Simon' try and get out a bit more, no, no, not to Hampstead or Notting Hill, but to Leicester or Bradford where he could try and count the number of Muslims and then compare the figures to plummeting European birthrates whose falling numbers are increased by the increasing number of abortions!

If final proof is needed that Simon Jenkins is a one-eyed prat living in a dream world just read this and try not to spill your coffee:

Under Britain's 2003 Communications Act, Ofcom's rules on "due impartiality, due accuracy and undue prominence" are voluminous. So is the BBC code of practice on balance. Both require impartiality within news presentation rather than just between channels

I do realise that Simon Jenkins would die rather than be caught reading The Mail but he might find the words of the BBC news veteran, Peter Sissons, illuminating:

For 20 years I was a front man at the BBC, anchoring news and current ­affairs programmes, so I reckon nobody is better placed than me to ­answer the question that nags at many of its viewers — is the BBC biased?

In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the ­pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.

Oh dear, you can almost hear 'St. Simon' tut-tutting, but that isn't "bias", or a "mindset", that is the product of the finest minds in Britain, because:

By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. ­Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on ­running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.

So let me finish by making it quite clear that those rogues and rascals at IHTM are completely wrong, Simon Jenkins is not a wanker.  That is a ghastly slur on the brotherhood of world-wide wankers, amongst whom I used to count myself - er, well what else do you do for 12 months living in a tent on the end of runway 2 at Bahrain airport? - anyway, what he is, actually, is a colossal idiot with dangerous delusions concerning what he thinks of as his invincible wisdom, and a sinister belief in the power of suppression of speech to further his personal political agenda.

Mind you, all of that takes a lot of saying, so OK, Simon Jenkins is a wanker!

Sexism in footie! Who'da thunk it?

Look at that twatish linesman, I muttered to myself yesterday, as I watched the match of the day, fancy wearing a long pony-tail like that, makes him look a proper cissy!  Then I looked again, and in an instant, yet another tiny part of my world shrivelled, was consumed and then deposited in the memory-bin of history - he, er, she was a woman - a woman officiating at a footie match!

Photo courtesy of The Mail

Needless to say, in what I can only describe as a typically sly, underhand, feminine way, when faced with a tricky off-side ruling - she got it right, dammit!  That's the trouble with women, they do have this irritating knack of being right, blast them!  Even so, what on earth was she doing there in the first place?  I mean (and, yes, you can hear the whine in my words), women have their own footie teams and jolly boring they are, too, from the little I have seen, so why must we have female officials at men's matches?  To paraphrase an old saying, rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen, and footie is a gentleman's game played by ruffians - think Wayne Rooney - yes, quite so!  It is one of the minor pleasures of footie to see Mr. Rooney berate an official for giving what Mr. Rooney thinks is a wrong decision.  His ugly, brutish, whiskery face is placed approximately 1.3 inches from the tip of the official's nose and a stream of consciousness, of which the late Mr. James Joyce would have been proud, is emitted at full volume.  The essence of Mr. Rooney's message could be said in seconds but it tends to run to minutes because every other word is an expletive.  The pleasure to the viewer, well, this viewer at any rate, is the warm feeling of condescension which follows, so that we can say to ourselves, yes, he might earn three times my annual income every week but the fella's obviously a yob and an oaf and that makes me feel better about myself.  Pitiful, I know, but there it is.  Now, if we have lady officials even yobs like Rooney will be forced to mind their manners and that will be one more minor pleasure removed from my dismal life.

Please don't misunderstand, I've got nothing against women but would you want your sister to marry one - ooops, that doesn't quite work - what I meant was that I really like women, in fact, I prefer the company of women to that of men, which is why I loathe stag nights.  Even so, there is a time and a place, and a footie field is not the place at any time . . . hang on a minute . . . what was that? . . .  oh, yes dear, I've nearly finished . . . no dear, you don't want to read it . . .  yes, dear, I'm just coming . . . sorry, must go . . .  my own particular ref has just blown the whistle and there's definitely no arguing with her!

 

You hack, I expose the truth

It all depends on which 'hand' you're looking at because, on the one hand, listening to people's private conversations is not only impolite but also possiby illegal; but on the other hand, do public figures who use the media to advance themselves have a right to personal privacy? I confess that I am, er, 'conflicted' (don'cha lurve the latest lingo?) on this tricky little problem.  I lean automatically towards the ratbags of Canary Wharf who, as I have remarked before, act as the sewer cleaners of our society and if they are somewhat smelly and one would recoil at the thought of one's daughter marrying any of them, nevertheless, the service they do is essential. 

In the past, phone-tapping involved a physical interference with a telephone line and so any such action would risk a charge of tampering with someone else's property.  Now, I'm all in favour of property rights which should be protected as much as possible, but is using a computer to intercept a radio transmission from one telephone to another an attack on property?  I would suggest not.  Thus, any charge of illegality must depend on a supposed right to privacy.  But here we meet another problem.  If the recipient of a telephone call decides to inform a third party, is not that an equal infringement of the right of privacy owned by the original caller?  Or suppose you accidentally overhear a conversation and inform someone else, is that an infringement of the right of privacy?  Finally, let us suppose that in intercepting a phone call one hears details of an illegal act, what is the proper conduct for the listener?  I understand that some of these hacking efforts were not aimed at live conversations but at the recorded messages on the target's telephone; does this make the case for property rights any stronger.  The messages are not tangible, touchable objects although they are contained within a tangible piece of equipment.  However, the interceptor does not actually touch anyone's property by hacking into the machine via the airwaves.

Now let me ask a question which everyone, I suspect, would automatically answer with a resounding 'yes'; do we have a right to privacy, or to be more exact in my language, do we have a right to confidentiality?  Before you snort with derision and tell me that of course we do, let me remind you that property rights, in my opinion, are damn near sacrosanct, so that any effort to infringe your privacy which involves even laying a finger on your property would be illegal, in my view.  However, if you choose to go to the local pub and, because of the noise, shout your 'private' conversation at your interlocutor thus risking being overheard, can you still claim the right of privacy to that conversation?  And is, given the well-known technical expertise available, broadcasting (I use the word advisedly) your private information on the airwaves any different from shouting them in a pub?

Yet more 'hands' are needed when one considers the difference, if there is any, between public and private individuals.  If there is a difference then the terms 'private' and 'public' need to be defined, and that, I suspect, would keep m' learned friends busy for many a year!  I mean, we all 'know' a public figure when we see one regularly on the telly but does that include, say, a footballer who only appears in our living-rooms at night because of what he does for a living.  He is undoubtedly famous but only in respect of his occupation which he did not choose for the purpose of becoming famous.  However, today we have a breed of person known as celebrities and their purpose in life is simply to be famous for being famous (I use the word 'famous' very loosely) and they make great efforts to ensure that certain aspects of their lives are constantly before us whether or not we asked for it!  Now, can it be said that they have, in effect, surrendered their right to privacy?

So far I have stayed with individuals, but what of organised groups of individuals, do they have a right to privacy?  We have just been reading of some amateurish efforts by 'the Plod' to infiltrate eco-groups lest they plan some wrong-doing.  Was that an infringement of their right to privacy?  Or those self-same eco-groups might tap into the telephones of some giant chemical company lest they poison the planet.  Is that an infringement the company's right to privacy?  These might seem frivolous examples but either of these 'organised entities' are capable, if they wish, of inflicting great harm on the rest of us, so, does that potentiality for doing harm weaken their claim to absolute privacy?

Finally, and inexorably, we come to our less than glorious political leaders.  They command us, they can use the power of the state to infringe our property rights; for example, they take our money under ultimate threat of sanction.  They are the ones who draw up and enforce the laws of the land.  Given their huge powers, can they claim a right to absolute privacy?

Well, I don't know - I've run out of hands now!

 

 

Sunday rumble: 23rd Jan 2011

Myers is moonstruck: Did any of you night-hawks see the moon last week?  It was HUGE!  Poor old Kevin Myers was both gob-smacked and moon-struck:

The moon on Wednesday evening rose over a frosted landscape in a perfectly clear and cloudless sky. It had the innocently lethal look of a serial killer wandering into a Montessori playground, and the light that it shed cut through the dark like a cheese-wire through neck-flesh. The fields glowed blue and beaten beneath it. You could actually feel its power on your temples, not so much striking as smiting.

Well worth reading his essay in full.

The Met Office computer and other jokes: Once again I am obliged 'my Lord Bishop Hill' who finally managed to lay hands on that mysterious and secret advice the Met Office provided to the government warning of a cold winter whilst telling us mugs tax-payers who provide their wherewithall to expect a warm winter.  I will reprint the document but urge you to pay his Lordship a visit and read the comments which range from 'laugh out loud' to withering contempt:

Met Office Initial Assessment of Risk for Winter 2010/11

This covers the months of November, December and January 2010/11, this will be updated monthly through the winter and so probabilities will change.

Temperature

3 in 10 chance of a mild start

3 in 10 chance of an average start

4 in 10 chance of a cold start

Precipitation

3 in 10 chance of a wet start

3 in 10 chance of an average start

4 in 10 chance of a dry start

Summary: There is an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season.

You couldn't make it up, but the Met Office can!

Dancing cheek to cheek: It's only Jan 23rd but my annual Golden Ball for the wittiest photo-montage of the year goes to the owner of Autonomous Mind who produced this fine example which in one picture says it all:

I need hardly emphasise the unspoken comment that the product of these two less-than-august institutions is precisely what you would expect to see emerging from between those cheeks.  He quotes at length from Peter Sissons's recent article in The Mail which is worth reading in full.

That damned Aussie dam: Richard North of EU Referendum continues to snap and snarl at the idiocy of all concerned with the Wivenhoe Dam.  The management under the cosh wielded by the eco-catastrophists and their political puppets refused to release the water early enough, but then, under the pressure of the real world, a place rarely visited by 'Greenies', they were forced to release it at the worst possible moment for the residents of Brisbane.

Political Grand Tactics 'over there': Grand tactics, or the 'operational' as it called these days, is the manner in which a commander in the field manouvres his forces in order to bring them to the battlefield with advantage.  Today, both parties 'over there' are beginning their manouvres.  Neal B. Freeman in The American Spectator offers some words of advice, not entirely neutral, to the Republican party which has, the last time he looked, no less than 17 possible candidates! for the 2012 presidential election.  His analysis is shrewd, I think, but in the end he lays down his cards and indicates that his choice is junior Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina whose Wiki biography indicates that he is a well-entrenched conservative.  I really cannot be bothered to read up on all these candidates but I was struck by an argument by someone somewhere that it would be better for the Republicans to choose a former governor, that is, someone with practical experience of running a State's government.  That, of course, would include MDS (My Darling Sarah) but from bits and pieces I have read, she faces some stern competition.  For now, I'm sitting on my hands and if MDS mutters "you dirty stinkin' rat", or something similar, I can only plead guilty as charged and hope she hasn't brought her rifle along.

A Klee a day helps you work, rest and play!

 

Goldsmith or goldfish?

I suppose that like most of you the nitty-gritty details of the Iraq enquiry in general, and the guilt or otherwise of Tony Blair in particular, is not something which keeps you awake at night.  In fact, if you are unfortunate enough to catch one of its less than enthralling episodes it is much more likely to send you off to sleep.  Yesterday's efforts to ensnare the slippery Mr. Blair seemed to end in abject failure - again.  However, one particular aspect has impinged on my consciousness, because the committee kept returning to it again and again like small boys picking at a scab, and that is the advice, or non-advice of the then Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith.  This creature makes Blair's probity look like that of your local vicar!  In offering his legal advice 'he wouldn't say yes and he wouldn't say no'.  No doubt it was a 'damned ticklish' decison but then if you are the highest legal officer in the land you are supposed to provide answers.  Even more important, if you are convinced that your legal advice is not being complied with - you can resign!  But this gutless wonder did not resign and in my opinion that makes any of his later wrigglings totally unconvincing.  In today's Independent, Simon Carr likens Blair to an eel which, though caught by the tail, is still very capable of biting you in the face.  My watery metaphor for Goldsmith is a goldfish - a tiny, decorative but utterly useless fish only ever content to swim in endless circles.

Widening the scope of this post, I can't help thinking that but for the malign influence of the mad, one-eyed Jock and his ghastly little troll, Ed Balls,  Tony Blair might have been one of our greatest prime ministers.  Certainly his views on public services, had they not been stymied by Brown & Balls, would have seen great improvements in our national life.  Also, in an age beset with ridiculous notions of 'legality' in foreign affairs, observed by no-one other than the western democracies, he succeeded in driving through a war policy based on real-politik - and damn the lawyers!  Yes, it was messy and bloody, war nearly always is, but there is, to use the reverse of a common cliche, one huge, great elephant missing from the room today - praise be to Allah - Saddam and his ghastly family who were within months of breaking UN sanctions completely and finding themselves free to re-arm in any way they saw fit.

Finally, let me take a swipe at some of the relatives of the dead and wounded from the Iraq war.  This is not a task I relish, or even in normal circumstances would I think of undertaking it at all, but I am increasingly irritated by those people, mostly women, grieving for lost soldiers who feel the neccessity to go before the cameras and provide us with their political opinions.  I'm not interested, not least because having a dead son or brother provides the moaner and groaner with no more authority than anyone else.  No one forced their son or brother 'to go for a soldier'; he volunteered, he wanted to join the army, he wanted to fight in a war, Iraq and all its dangers was exactly what he was looking for.  I know this to be true because when I was dim and dumb (oh, alright then, dimmer and dumber) and 18 years old that was what I wanted, too.

 

A real-life tale 'de nos jours'!

Matthew Norman in The Telegraph today tells of the dinner party from hell, not, I hasten to say, because of a lack of cuisinery expertise on the part of the hostess (who would dare make a mistake with 'Norman the Killer Foodie Critic' as a guest?) but because of the very slightest of slight accidents.  As everyone was enjoying their food in the dining-room the hostess reported that a candle in the sitting-room had set fire to some foliage decoration around a mirror.  It was easily extinguished, and an immediate check on the sleeping child showed absolutely no harm had been done, and so dinner recommenced - but not for long!  A porter to the appartment block had reported the incident to the local fire brigade and, lo and behold, four fully kitted-out firemen arrived, followed shortly there-after by four ambulence-men who confirmed that the child was completely fit and well.  The lead fireman began a hectoring attack on the parents whose sang froid obviously annoyed him and . . . well, this being contemporary Britain, you can guess who turned up next, that's right, not one, not two, but four 'Plods'.  As Norman points out with withering contempt that made a total of a dozen public 'servants' wasting everyone's time and money over an absolutely nothing episode:

"It's still early," someone muttered, "maybe there's time for the coastguard to make a show. I'd hate the last of the emergency services to feel out of the loop on this one."

It gets worse:

Even so, it's hard to understand their presence, in the absence of any suspected crime, let alone why two of them followed mother and baby to a hospital (where the little fellow was monitored through the night and found, inevitably, to be absolutely fine).

Harder to penetrate still is why one officer accompanied my friend when she took her son off to change his nappy, placing himself on guard outside the door. "I'm just doing what I'm told, madam," was his explanation, but however much one relishes the old Nuremberg defence, it doesn't quite explain why he was given any orders to obey.

Of course, no-one hears of the many number of incidents in which public 'servants' behave sensibly but even so, here we have a dozen of them and not one of them had even a grain of common-sense.

 

This is a joke, er, I think!

This from an American e-pal which, because I am somewhat busy this morning, I reprint because whilst it is a joke it contains within it a germ of truth!

Jails and Nursing Homes

 

Here's the way it should be:

Let's put the seniors in jail and the criminals in nursing homes. This would
correct two things in one motion: Seniors would have access to showers,
hobbies and walks. They would receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental
and medical treatment, wheel chairs, etc. They would receive money instead
of having to pay it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they would be helped
instantly... if they fell or needed assistance. Bedding would be washed
twice a week and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard
would check on them every 20 minutes. All meals and snacks would be brought
to them.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would
have access to a library, weight/fitness room, spiritual counseling, a pool
and education...and free admission to in-house concerts by nationally
recognized entertainment artists.

Simple clothing - ie. shoes, slippers, pj's - and legal aid would be free,
upon request. There would be private, secure rooms provided for all with an
outdoor exercise yard complete with gardens.

Each senior would have a P.C., T.V., phone and radio in their room at no
cost. They would receive daily phone calls. There would be a board of
directors to hear any complaints and the ACLU would fight for their rights
and protection.

The guards would have a code of conduct to be strictly adhered to, with
attorneys available, at no charge to protect the seniors and their families
from abuse or neglect.

As for the criminals:

They would receive cold food.
They would be left alone and unsupervised.
They would receive showers once a week.
They would live in tiny rooms, for which they would have to pay $5,000 per
month.
They would have no hope of ever getting out.

Another example of the iron Law of Unintended Consequences

Obama's poll ratings are going up!  Not because he has suddenly dropped his progressive Left-wing ambitions for which the American electorate punished him and his party last November, but because the Republicans now control the House and have a lock on the Senate.  Thus, as Clinton was pressured to do in his day, Obama will be forced to move to the centre ground on which, by and large, most of the American people stand comfortably.  With Obama hog-tied there, I wonder if an ideological Right-wing challenger will find it quite so easy to unseat Obama at the next election?  Some comfort might be gained by the Right from knowing that a vociferous section of his Left-wing support, already accusing him of failing to carry out the 'wishes' of the proletariat, will be so disenchanted they will simply turn their backs on him.  On the other hand, who are they going to vote for?  The next two years will be fascinating.

A trip down memory lane

I am grateful to The Daily Telegraph for this picture of an F-18 Super Hornet going through the sound barrier at an air base in San Diego.  The amateur photographer, Steve Skinner, only realised what he had captured when he developed the film.  It is a superb photo.

It instantly evoked childhood memories when me and my 'mates' would cycle to Farnborough to see the annual airshow, the highlight of which was to see (and hear) the great test pilots of the day breaking the sound barrier.  The commentator would advise everyone that the plane was at 40,000 feet over Portsmouth and that it was beginning its dive.  If memory serves (big 'if'!) the plane would break the barrier and then slow down so that it arrived over one end of the runway at the same time as the sonic boom and then streak along in front of the crowds at almost zero feet.  You can imagine the thrill of that to a gang of boys! 

But in those days being a test pilot was as dangerous as being a Formula I racing driver.  I was present the day in 1952 when one of my heroes, John Derry DFC and his observer, were killed.  This report and photo from: http://thetartanterror.blogspot.com/2008/01/john-d-derry-dfc-1921-1952.html

At the Farnborough airshow in 1952, John Derry flying a DH110 with observer, Anthony Richards dived from a height of 40,000 feet towards Farnborough, causing sonic booms. As the DH110 swept low over the aerodrome the crowd's admiration changed to horror. Without warning the aircraft broke up, its cockpit fell onto the runway and two engines hurtled through the air, hit the ground and bounced into a section of the watching public. Twenty-six were killed and 65 injured as burning debris continued to fall from the sky. Derry and Richards were killed immediately.

 



Not 007 but 004!

I will not attempt to paraphrase a fascinating post by Paul Waugh who has highlighted the evidence given to the Iraq enquiry by an anonymous MI6 officer referred to throughout as 'SIS4', instead, I will urge you all to read it.  Perhaps the only useful result of these long-winded enquiries which usually go nowhere is that they occasionally provide you with a glimpse through the normally well-drawn curtains of government.  The evidence of 'SIS4' is precisely that.

Will you vote for Gordon Brown's 'consigliori'?

That simple question, or something very like it, should be one of the main slogans of the non-Tory party.  They should lose no opportunity to bind Balls and Brown together and then hang around his neck a list of the financial errors they made and which were instrumental in digging the deep, black hole we find ourselves in.

Photo courtesy of  The Guardian

As for young 'Cain' Miliband, I don't suppose he will be sleeping too soundly in the future.  Not just one but two potential plotters and assassins, one at each elbow - and they're married to each other so the treachery can easily be co-ordinated.  All the 'commentariat' are saying that it is Osborne who must be wetting himself but in my opinion it's 'Cain' who will need the nappies, not least because he was not chosen by a majority of the Labour MPs and with the Balls partnership holding the two key shadow offices of state (foreign affairs don't matter much these days) you can expect the greasers to fall in behind the 'deadly duo'.  If there are any Blairites left, particularly if their erstwhile leader is broken on the rack by the Iraq enquiry, they had better starting singing along to the new tune.

Apparently Balls has said that he will follow Miliband's economic policy.  I can tell you here and now that he will not.  It isn't just that the wretched man is a born-again 'lying liar', the main reason is because he knows the heart and soul of the Labour party is against any financial cuts of any sort - well, except defence, of course!  I confess that I do not see 'Cain' Miliband as a strong man of principle and he has now surrounded himself with two vicious political operators whose sole aim is their own advancement.  Cheerio, 'Cain', it wasn't particularly nice knowing you, but if you ask your brother nicely, I'm sure he can get you a job on the Telly , or somewhere!

Farting killer: Is Palin to blame?

This is the great unanswered question de nos jours!  Sometime in the last few days, Marc Higgins, 21, a nutcase sensitive young man took umbrage - and another man's life - because he was embarrassed at being made fun of for his flatulence.  This makes him something of a rarity amongst the male half of the population most of whom are inordinately proud of their farting skills.  (50 years on I still remember Pte. Mackie in my barrack-room who would whip his trousers down fast and roll backwards on his bed with his knees up to his ears and set light to his long-drawn out farts, all of which produced admiring applause from the bystanders!)  Obviously they have a different attitude to it 'over there' because Mr. Higgins, presumably under the influence of the Tea Partiers (notoriously flatulent themselves due to their excessive tea-drinking), lost his temper when accused of creating a stink at a party.  He left in high dudgeon but returned later with, not one, but three knives and began stabbing everyone he could reach.  Like Mr. Jared Loughner of Arizona, Higgins was an equal opportunities killer, stabbing a total of four people and killing one. 

It can only be a matter of time before the MSM accuse Mrs. Palin/Glenn Beck/Bill O'Reilly/Dick Cheney/the Koch brothers/Fox News/me(?)/Andrew Breitbart/the Tea Party Movement . . . (delete as necessary) . . . of being fully to blame for inciting this poor, young man's murderous attack with our non-stop anti-flatulence propaganda, and our constant and  vitriolic accusations that liberals are full of shit hot air!  This poor man must not be jailed but instead provided with psychobabble psychiatric help because it is clear that he is suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - and if you farted the way he does, you would have PTSD, as well!  In the meantime, the fingers, or at least, those not already occupied holding noses, are pointing firmly at Sarah Palin, an arch anti-fartist which is why she is so keen on shooting those moose - the filthy brutes fart anywhere, even in front of a lady!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348526/Partygoer-teased-breaking-wind-kills-injures-stabbing-frenzy.html

Lost in space!

I frequently link to the acerbic Dr. Richard North of EU Referendum who in turn links frequently to Autonomous Mind, and vice versa, and if I say that they appear to be two minds thinking alike, that is a compliment to both of them.  Today, they both point to the shit-pot farrago of the EU's attempt to produce their own equivalent of the American GPS system which has me dribbling and cooing with pleasure everytime I look at the SatNav-thingie in my car - honestly, sometime I feel like stopping the car, getting out and applauding the darling, little, clever thing, as I chant, "How do they do that?"  According to the good Doctor it was the French who first agitated for an alternative European satellite system because if push (red button) comes to shove, the Yanks can switch off their GPS system and all French military rockets will be rendered useless!  Apparently this is stymieing French military sales to China, India and other, er, 'worthy' recipients.

It is thanks to WikiLeaks (I am rapidly coming to the view that Julian Assange deserves a knighthood!) that we have learned that the German head of a major contractor involved in the project has been sacked for letting a rather large cat out of the bag; this from the good Doctor:

The basic story should have got wide coverage – far wider than it did. It involved a man called Berry Smutny, the head of a German firm, OHB Technology. He was working on the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system, being built as a rival to the US GPS system, and had called it a "stupid idea" being pushed by France for military reasons.

This comment was in a leaked US diplomatic cable, sent in October 2009 from the US embassy in Berlin and obtained by WikiLeaks. It was then picked up and released by Aftenposten.

Smutny, whose firm had been jointly awarded a €566 million contract to develop 14 satellites for the system, had condemned the project as "a waste of EU taxpayers' money championed by French interests." He claimed the EU desire to develop a redundant but alternative to GPS was "spearheaded by the French after an incident during the Kosovo conflict when the US military 'manipulated' GPS to support military operations.

Needless to say, like all government-inspired pipe dreams from Europe this has rapidly turned into the financial and technical nightmare that anyone could have forecast.  It is costing zillions more than they ever let on and even today they are still lying about the future costs  Read North's account and weep! 

 

"The King's Speech"

Believe the hype!  This film is simply superb, an example of an intelligent writer seizing on a fragment of history and wringing from it a touching story, a director with an excellent eye for deft camera-work, and a set of actors who provide a master-class in film acting.(*)  Forget about the historical nit-pickers, they are the sort of people who would condemn Shakespeare's 'Henries' because they failed an accuracy test - prats!

I confess that when I heard that Helena Bonham Carter was playing 'the Queen Mum', as she subsequently became, I groaned because I simply could not see it.  But she does, and she succeeds admirably, giving us a portrait of a wise, witty and tender woman.  Geoffrey Rush, surely the greatest support actor in cinema today, is terrific as Lionel Logue, the Australian speech therapist; an Anglified Australian but with just a trace of his original Aussie accent coming through, but with all of his original Aussie insouciance even, or perhaps, especially, in the face of royal pretensions.  Then there is Colin Firth, an example of an actor who, on the face of it, was totally miscast as George VI, and yet, who made you believe in him completely.  How wise he was to eschew the normal stuttering of those who suffer with this dreadful speech impediment, instead he simply remained silent as he struggled for the sounds, and the director moved in for close ups so that every slight twitch and grimace was captured and thus you 'saw' the inward struggle the man was conducting.  On stage, an actor must be 'big' and it is, perhaps, the main justification for a director's existence that he must be the actor's mirror in order to stop him from becoming extravagantly too 'big' and going 'over the top', as they say in the trade.  But in film acting, it is often the very opposite.  In close up on a big screen an eye movement, a twitch of a brow, an imperceptible tightening of the lips, is huge!  Both Firth and Rush have this skill absolutely mastered.

George VI is, perhaps, the forgotten king.  I know virtually nothing of his character but one gains the impression, perhaps because of his speech impediment, that he was a shy and retiring man, which was just as well, I suppose, given that he was a wartime sovereign with the larger-than-life Winston Churchill as his prime minister.  A more robust, thrusting, demanding king would have spelled trouble during what was one of our most dangerous periods of history.  Even so, George VI was a brave man who saw action at Jutland whilst serving as a junior officer on one of our battleships, he married and so far as I know there was never any scandal attached to his marriage, and he produced and raised two daughters, and if one was a tad rackety, the other has turned out to be, perhaps, one of our greatest sovereigns, possessing, as she does, her father's virtue of steady, dutiful dullness, which has proved so essential as a steadying influence during what might have been a stressful period in the management of the decline and fall of the British empire.

This film instantly enters my Top Ten Best Films - which probably contains 20-plus films by now!  Don't miss it, people, they rarely come better than this!

 (*) Grammar alert: see comments here.

 

Golden Balls!

Damn!  I got it wrong - again!  Normally, nothing on earth would make me watch a film or theatre awards evening.  You could drown in the schmaltz and the self-regard.  So the Golden Globes 'ceremony' passed me by completely - big mistake!  I have just read Quentin Letts in The Mail and watched the film of Ricky Gervais's opening speech to the glitterati of Hollywood.  Normally, Letts confines his wit spiced with acid - or should that be acid spiced with wit? - whatever, to the Houses of Parliament where he regularly spit-roasts the political inhabitants.  Today he turns on Hollywood and their 'Schlock-Horror' outrage at Gervais's very English humour.  Cheer yourselves up by reading his report and then at the end watch the film of Gervais's mockery.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1348067/Golden-Globes-2011-Ricky-Gervaiss-risqu-attack-self-loving-Tinseltown.html

 

I'm spaced out!

Regular readers will know of my paranoia over correct grammar induced by my early experiences with the formidable Miss Wood, Eng. Lit. & Lang., circa 1950-55.  They will also know that, Miss Wood notwithstanding, my grammar is frequently incorrect, not to say, graunchingly bad.  I have learned to live with it and not to worry unduly - I just bite my nails and try to control my facial tick!  However, until now I have never worried about layout, or typographical Rules & Regs.  In fact, until now, I never realised they existed.  But now, Farhad Manjou of Slate has me biting my toe nails in anxiety (well, I would if I could reach them) because he raises The Great Question of the Age - when typing should there be one space or two spaces after a full stop?  Apparently I am in a majority - hurrah, miracles will never cease - in hitting the space bar twice at the end of a sentence, not for grammatical or typographical reasons but simply because it looks better and feels better - and, no, I can't quite explain that 'feeling' but it is there nonetheless.  Anyway, it is an interesting, if esoteric, essay and worth reading. 

 Hat tip to http://thesmartset.com/ another useful site.

Palin and her 'blood libel'

Having attempted a justification of my support for Mrs. Palin in the preceding post, this seems to be a suitable time to draw your attention to a remarkable defence of her use of the phrase "blood libel" in her recent statement on the Arizona shootings.  It comes, courtesy of Breitbart News, from a man who is, politically and ethnically, the very opposite of Mrs. Palin.  He is a distinguished Harvard Law professor and a liberal to the very Jewish tips of his very Jewish fingers.  I refer to Alan Dershowitz who wrote the following:

The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People, its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term.

My emphasis, of course, and how refreshing to feel some cool, calm air being breathed into the rancorous hot air expelled by the more frantic of Mrs. Palin's critics.  It remains a mystery to me why those people obsessed with politics, whether on the Right or the Left, always assume that they have a monopoly on virtue; and also, why they can never simply disagree with their opponents but needs must hate them.  The contortions into which they twist themselves in order to paint one side white and the other black defies description, but here is one small example.  In a discussion on a very Left-wing blog arising from the recent shootings, I attempted to point out that the Left had its fair share of loony terrorists, for example, Bill Ayers, previously of the Weather Underground gang, now an advisor to President Obama and a man who set up an advisory organisation for American schools, including the one that last week's killer attended.  He has admitted that in his youth he helped organise the planting of bombs which, apparently, only succeeded in killing 2 or 3 of his own gang, an example, one feels, of Left-wing incompetence at its very best!  In the discussion thread, one of his defenders came up with this priceless riposte in favour of Ayers and his 'wannabe' murderers:

Mr. Ayers, like every other left-wing terrorist in the past 60 years in the United States, targeted *PROPERTY*, not *PEOPLE*.

The “Weather Underground” targeted property, not people.
The “Earth Liberation Front” targets property, not people.
The “Black Bloc anarchists” non-organization targets property, not people.

Are you starting to see a pattern here?

There is only one set of terrorist groups here in America that target people rather than property, and they are ultra-right-wing groups.

Honestly, I did not make that up, not least because if I sat here for a fortnight I could not make up anything so head-shakingly 'stoopid'.

 

Palin for President: Yes or No?

It has been a tiring day and so perhaps this is not the best time for me to attempt to reply to my e-pal, Sister Wolf, who has been poking me with a sharp stick and demanding to know why I support Mrs. Palin for president.  Perhaps, those who disagree with me will comment below and in my replies I will try to clarify any misunderstandings that arise from what I write now.

First of all, I support Mrs, Palin because she intends to cut the size of government.  (Yes, yes, I know perfectly well that what politicians say now and what they do later might very well be different, but that is no excuse for supporting someone who says the opposite of what you wish in the hope that they, too, will change tack!)  Cutting the cost, and therefore the power, of government is a virtue in any circumstances but today it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death best illustrated by this diagram from The Financial Times:

In it you can see that the US debt up to 2010 is $12+ trillion but it is generally agreed, even by The White House, that by March it will exceed $14 trillion, or, to put this in more understandable figures, for every dollar that the American government spends it has to borrow 40 cents!   Hello!  Hello!  Can you hear me?  This is simply unsustainable not least because the money lenders, who are fairly quiescent at the moment, simply will not support it.  In the end, just as they have done unto Europe they will do unto America and the price of borrowing will rocket.  Not to put too fine a point on it, they will force America to slash and burn on a scale which even Mrs. Palin would shrink from.  Thus, I would urge America to vote for her (or someone very like her) so that these unavoidable measure are inflicted before the Shylocks insist on their pound of flesh.  Whatever is done will be tough but not necessarily mortal because all the money-lenders want is to be satisfied that for the foreseeable future American government spending will be brought under control - but if you leave it too late they will reach for their own knife to cut the flesh themselves!  You can also see from the diagram above how paltry today's suggested cuts are in relation to the whole debt.  Thus, there are three possible courses for action by a president. Either cut hard and ignore the howls of pain, or, let the money-lenders force you to cut even deeper, or, (as the FT considers) default on your debts and let the lenders sing for their supper.  This, of course, will be the worst of all outcomes because no one will lend you a cent and all government programmes will cease for lack of money.  I should add at this point that I believe there are people around Obama who are actively working for this to occur because only through collapse will they stand a chance to implement their agenda for the country.

 Given that, I would vote for a president who appears to live on the same planet as me and is prepared to take the tough decisions.  And they will be tough because, as is mentioned in the small print in the FT's diagram above, the millions of so-called 'baby-boomers' are now about to start retiring and they are doing so in expectations of government financed entitlements.  You see, they were sold a Ponzi scheme by the last few presidents and congresses of both parties which entailed the government raking in their taxes and promising a raft of goodies when they retired, like pensions and medical care.  However, these same presidents and congresses spent the money up front and assumed, like all Ponzi scheme operators that they would collect enough money in the future to cover their promises.  Ain't gonna happen, folks!

At this point I must return to Mrs. Palin and ask myself whether or not she will do what she says she will do?  The only truthful answer is - I don't know.  I am fairly certain that she wants very much to do it, but then I must ask does she have the determination to go up against all the forces that will oppose her and ram her ideas through or over them?  In other words, is she another 'Iron Lady'?  Again, I must answer truthfully that I do not know because like a young soldier going into battle you will only judge his courage under fire after the event.  I am not hugely knowledgeable concerning the minutae of Alaskan politics but as I understand it, Mrs. Palin took on the Republican regime(her own party!) that had run the State like a fiefdom for decades and beat it hands down, so that is some small indication of her strength of purpose.

But there is one other factor which will be critical for her should she win election - does she have the intelligence to enforce her will over recalcitrants?  Again, I do not know for sure but her record so far since she was plucked from obscurity gives me hope because she has come from nowhere to be one of the principal politicians in the GOP and a front-runner for selection as a presidential candidate in just over two years.  Her enemies castigate her for saying things which they find offensive and thus they betray their own dimness because, of course, she is not speaking to them, she is speaking to the people who are likely to vote for her and if she succeeds in upsetting their political enemies, the liberals, then even more of them will vote for her.  It is an indication of the helplessness of current liberal tactics that they seize constantly upon her occasional mis-delivery of words.  They go on and on and on about it.  They did exactly the same thing to George W Bush - and the result was that he won two elections!  You would think they might have learned something by now, and anyway, they support a president who cannot string two words together without a teleprompter!

So, does all of that make it a dead certainty that I will support Mrs. Palin in her primary campaign to gain the candidacy of the GOP?  Well, no, actually!  I believe there are some other excellent candidates, especially amongst the Republican governors, and as and when they come out of the woodwork I will do my best to judge their worth before I decide finally.  However, I can say that if Mrs. Palin does end up as the candidate then I shall be cheering her on. 

And so to bed!

 

 

Hurrah - some good news

I am aware that reading this blog almost constitutes a health risk, or at least, you tend to leave it feeling worse than when you arrived; so today I have some good news but, alas, I cannot find the original report so I must rely on my memory - and you can stop that sniggering right now!

Somewhere, I read that following the recent murderous attacks on Arab Christians in Egypt whilst they were attending services, the churches are now surrounded by Muslims on Sundays who form a protective cordon so that that the Christians may worship in peace and security.  Also, I hear on today's news that an Egyptian judge has sentenced one of the attackers to death for murder.

There - feeling more cheerful now, are you?

 

Another educational Balls-up!

Not too much time this morning because I have to do the ironing.  Oh yes, didn't you know, I do the ironing in this house.  Well, as the adverts said at the time "You'll learn a trade in the army"!  Actually, I don't mind it as a household job.  Unlike anything else about the house involving the use of tools, I can at least do ironing.  And in a sort of 'thumb up bum and mind in neutral mode' it provides some valuable thinking time - so prepare for some terminally tedious posts. 

In the meantime, let us consider the rise and fall, perhaps 'collapse' is a better word, of the Labour flagship school in Huyton, Merseyside - no, no, they didn't nick it, do try to be serious!  According to The Mail:

The school, which cost £24million to build and set up under the controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI), was meant to transform the prospects of children in one of the most deprived areas of Britain, and its design brief was to ‘rip up the rulebook’ and inspire ‘awe and wonder’ in pupils.

My admiration for Liverpudlian shrewdness has just risen several notches - almost above the plus side of the scale - because the parents and pupils took one look at this eye-wateringly expensive - £24 million if the masochists amongst you want to know - waste of space, and instead of inspiring "awe and wonder" they turned their Scouse noses up at it and refused to go:

But it has become the first school opened under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme to close because not enough parents will send their children there.

No doubt part of the reason stems from this loony-trendy crap:

instead of sitting in traditional classrooms, pupils were allowed to move freely around at any time of the school day by downloading lessons from a whiteboard and working in trendy ‘home base areas’.

Rooms have retractable walls while some teachers were renamed ‘progress leaders’.

"Progress leaders" - you couldn't make it up - but Ed Balls, the former Minister for non-Education could!  Under the wonderful PFI (does the 'P' stand for Ponzi, I wonder?) scheme used with such enthusiasm by those financial wizards, Brown & Balls:

Knowsley council is understood to be tied to pay back £157million over 25 years to a Balfour Beatty-led consortium in a deal to replace 11 ageing secondary schools.

Sorry, Balls, only 'E' for effort - must try harder.

 

'Progress, greenie-style'

My title is a paraphrase of the final sentence in a post by the 'vitriolic' but splendid Dr. Richard North of EU Referendum.  In it, Dr. North examines the advances in transport made in the early 19th century and which for the first time altered the only means of travel available in Britain since the Romans - the horse.  The first major advance was the Macadaming of the roads which improved the speed of horse carriages enormously, cutting the London-Edingburgh time from 16 to 2 days.  The carriage trade grew despite its expense but in 1840 the railways killed it dead and the roads were emptied.  But from 1900 onwards the car rapidly filled them once again.  Today, under pressure from the 'Greenies' we have the electric car and under BBC auspices a reporter tried the London-Edinburgh run in one of the new models.  Apparently he had a lot of time to catch up on his reading because recharging the batteries takes 10 hours.  The entire journey took . . . . . .  . wait for it . . . . . . .  4 days,  twice as long as the old stage coach!

The next time you see a 'Greenie' on a soap-box spouting rubbish you know what to do because I've taught you before.  Yes, that's right, shout as loud as you can, "Show us your willy!"

Global warming DID cause the Aussie floods - but not in the way you think!

The HAFs will no doubt 'holla' long and loud that the Aussie floods were all the result of global warming and for once they may be right but perhaps not in quite the way they intended.  According to Richard North at EU Referendum, a man who 'grumps' at Olympic level, there is a tale to be told:

Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman wants a judicial-style inquiry into the flood disaster, and appears to be gunning for the state premier, Anna Bligh. She may well be in the frame, because the roots of this disaster could go back to last spring. Local pundit Cameron Reilly points to her insistence on maintaining water conservation measures, even though dams were then at peak storage capacity.

As Brendan O'Neil remarks, the obsession with global warming may well, therefore, have contributed to the floods. In particular, it may have influenced decisions on water levels maintained in dams and release policies. Better planning, suggests Reilly, might have allowed the water company to keep less reserves in the dams in the lead up to summer, which would have meant smaller releases during this current crisis.

And as everybody and his uncle are publishing this graph to disabuse the simpletons that the Aussie floods are are shocking new phenomenon, I will publish it, too, thanks to Bishop Hill:

Naturally the Aussies have my sympathy, well, a bit of it, I suppose.  But as I keep telling my friends who rave about the place and spend incredible amounts of time and money visiting the place, it's doomed!  It is one huge desert with a tiny population clinging to the outer edges and threatened constantly with annihilation.  Anyone who volunteers to go there wants their bumps felt!

ADDITIONAL:  Of course, this blog never strives too hard for fairness preferring to creep up behind its enemies, kick them in the arse and run.  However, as I'm in a charitable mood this morning I thought I would add an item from The Australian reproduced by Bishop Hill in which a seasoned engineer who helped build the dam gives his opinion:

"These questions [concerning the mismanagement of the dam] are all valid, but put it this way - you would have to have very large balls to [significantly reduce the dam's volumes in the months after the weather warnings] after 10 years of drought, because if you had got it wrong you would be accused of wasting the water".

 

The lions still appear to be led by donkeys

The WSJ came up with an interesting story yesterday which has been picked up by The Mail today.  A former high ranking FO-type with the impeccably FO name of Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has unleashed a guided missile to the very heart of the army's general staff.  He has accused the generals of using the Afghan war as a means of avoiding cuts as formations were withdrawn from Iraq, according to the WSJ::

"The war in Afghanistan has given the British Army a raison d'etre it has lacked for many years, and new resources on an unprecedented scale," he said.

"In the eyes of the army, Afghanistan has also given our forces the chance to redeem themselves, in the eyes of the Americans, in the wake of negative perceptions, whether or not they were justified, of the British Army's performance in Basra.

"Against that background, the then-chief of the general staff, Sir Richard Dannatt, told me in the summer of 2007 that, if he didn't use in Afghanistan the battle groups then starting to come free from Iraq, he would lose them in a future defense review. 'It's use them, or lose them', he said."

Cowper-Coles is entitled to his opinion because he was our principle diplomat in Kabul for some considerable time.  Gen. Sir Richard Dannat, former CGS, went off like a roadside IED, according to The Mail:

Sir Dannatt [sic] has strongly denied the allegations and slammed the remarks as 'a disgraceful set of comments', adding: 'It's not his business to opine about the Army. He is well out of lane and well out of order.'

To which the imperturbable Sir Sherard replied in very un-diplomatic terms by calling Sir Richard a liar!

  However Sir Sherard claimed to The Times: 'He is lying, I am afraid. I can recall him saying it, sitting in his office in the Ministry of Defence.'

'This one will run and run', as the theatre critics used to say and with accusations of lying one wonders where it will end up?  However, one point arises which had occurred to me but I was too lazy to pursue it at the time, and that was the practice of rotating entire brigade HQs with the units they comanded.  The fundamental unit of the British army is the battalion and usually 3 battalions make up a brigade, and by and large, the same battalions stick together under the leadership of the same brigade HQ.  However, individual battalions are frequently detached to other formations without any particular difficulties, so why entire brigades were swapped over, as opposed to changing individual staff officers, is a question that should be answered, not least because the savings in airtime and capacity would have been enormous. The WSJ spells it out:

"This policy was based on the spurious argument that the brigades were fighting as brigades, and that the army generated its forces through brigades, even though several of the brigades were specially formed for the Afghan campaign, and then disbanded on return to the United Kingdom," he said.

"The result of this policy in Helmand was to have brigades reinventing the wheel every six months."

Brigades would spend months training for their mission in Afghanistan, only to see the expertise they had built up dissipated once their tour of duty was over.

And this has the ring of truth to it:

"Each brigadier would say that he understood the 'comprehensive approach', and planned to work with DFID [Department for International Development] and the FCO [Foreign Office], as well as with the Afghan authorities," he said.

"But each brigadier would launch one kinetic operation, before returning with his brigade to Britain after the best six months of his professional life. And then the whole cycle would start again."

Yes, indeed, those precious six months in theatre were, and still are, a potentially golden opportunity to a young, ambitious brigadier!  As with battles, reputations can be won or lost.  However, I always try and restrain my criticism of military activities whilst they are on-going because finding the truth of this or that controversy is devilish hard and one must be patient and wait for the histories to be written. - I still remember the 'shock 'n' awe' of Chester Wilmott's history of WWII which turned over so many preconceptions!

However, some good-ish news.  Apparently 'Cain' Miliband did not entirely finish of his brother 'Abel' who, according to Daniel Korski in The Coffee House, has some shrewd advice for those grappling with the Afghan imbroglio.

 

 

 

David Duff - fashion icon!

It was only ever a matter of time before the world realised that I am a fashion icon and that where I lead it is only a matter of time before others follow.  When it comes to haut mode I work on the stopped clock system, that is, I never throw any of my clothes away so that sooner or later they are back in fashion!

Of course, older readers will remember, despite every effort to forget, the way in which, two years ago, in fashion terms I took a long stride in my, er, long strides!  Or to be precise, in my efforts to teach you all what is absolutely required wearing by a gentlemen in these freezing days of global warming, I modelled my Long Johns.  This caused complaints from my postman as he was forced to deliver sacks of fan male, oops, I mean fan mail, and by republishing the photograph today I risk mass swooning amongst my very many lady admirers.

The reason I return gloating to this subject is that 'Sister Wolf' - such a dear girl and absolutely mad about me - has been kind enough to send me a link to the NYT in which they proclaim now what I could have told them back in 2009, that Long Johns are the must have accessory de nos jours!  In their article they feature a photograph of a young man wearing these desirable accoutrements despite me offering them my picture for a very modest fee (well, my agent insists) and honestly, I'm not one to brag, but I think I cut a very much better figure than he does - bitch!  Anyway, gentlemen, if you don't have Long Johns, well, sorry and all that, but you're simply not in the Great Game.

Oh well, more sackloads of fan mail from the ladies, I suppose; it really is hell being a fashion icon.

 

And 'they' say this woman is inarticulate and 'stoopid'?

I give you this in its entirety because I suspect you will only hear brief sound bites.  The language is simple and dignified, and the message thoughtful and wise.  If President Obama had delivered these words I would have applauded him, too, but in fact thay come from a very different person who was wise enough not to speak until a decent interval had passed:

Like millions of Americans I learned of the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims’ families as we express our sympathy. 

 I agree with the sentiments shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy and for our country.

 Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world. Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our Republic’s core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day. 

 There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman.

 Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

 President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

 The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

 Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions.  And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

 There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

 As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional. 

 No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

 Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment and more than simply “symbolic,” as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just “symbolic.” But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

 It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

 Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families and by cherishing their memories. Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded. And let us pray for our country. In times like this we need God’s guidance and the peace He provides. We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate.

 America must be stronger than the evil we saw displayed last week. We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country. May God bless America.

 - Sarah Palin

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=487510653434

 

Irish laments are a lesson to us all

The always excellent Kevin Myers continues his laments on all things Irish.  His essays are worth reading and pondering upon because what happens in Ireland is but a small microcosm of what happens, or could happen, here.  Today in The Irish Independent he warns that the black economy is growing and that can only be a disaster for the next Irish government due to be elected early this year.  The reason for the growth of the 'readies' economy is quite simple according to Myers, it is because that section of the Irish working population not employed by the state has finally realised that it is being cheated and robbed by the public sector unions who have the current Fianna Fail government by the balls.  Thus, non-state workers are, with complete predictability, in effect going on a tax-strike.  Why work above the line if the government is ripping you off in order to keep un-sackable public sector workers in the luxorious style to which they have grown accustomed until they reach the very young age at which they can retire on handsome pensions?  Does all this remind you of something similar somewhere else - nudge-nudge?!  The next time you hear Labour party spokesmen whining and keening on behalf of the far too few government employees (I hesitate to describe them as 'workers') who are likely to be laid off by 'call me Dave', take a long hard look at the basket-case that is contemporary Ireland.

Similarly, in his essay yesterday, Myers provides a lesson from Ireland as to what happens when you give local authorities, or local busybodies, freedom to apply planning rules as they see fit.  Almost certainly corruption will ensue and in addition you will quickly learn that big decisions with complex outcomes are best not taken by amateurs, or, 'no-nothing-prats' as professional developers always think of town councillors.  Not that in Ireland, a very much smaller country than Britain, decision-making is much more sophisticated at governmental level, as can be seen by:

Today, a comparable process sees motorways without service stations, and Metro North, and Dublin Airport's empty €1.2bn terminal.

There are lessons to be learned over the Irish Sea and there is not a better teacher than Kevin Myers.

 

Ambassador, just smile, smile and murder as you smile!

That is my advice to our straight-backed, chinless, Foreign Office chaps sent abroad to lie for their country as they serve in the Washington embassy.  Lying, or at least, being economical with the actualité, is a prerequisite for any diplomat and thus, faced with President Obama's latest pronouncement as reported in The Mail:

'We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.'

our man in Washington needs must smile and smile in public, whilst in private asking his masters back in London whether or not today our very old and well-established intelligence links with the USA really do form the basis of a 'special relationship' or not?  If, as seems likely to me, we receive no more and no less co-operation from the CIA et al than any other major European power, then it is time to call it a day.  Not, of course, to flounce off in a huff, but simply to take a long, cold and very rational look at our circumstances and adjust accordingly.

By flouncing off, I mean, for example, pulling our 10,000+ troops out of Afghanistan and telling Obama to rely on the 3,500 French contingent who are stationed well out of trouble!  That would be disasterous because there is, I believe, still a well, although not necessarily a deep one, of goodwill towards Britain in America.  Also, and more pertinently, Obama will not be around for ever, perhaps not even after 2012.  Finally, and more immediately, and dangerously, an eruption over the Falklands might well be on the cards in the near to mid term future.  We, of course, now lack a navy, thanks to G. Brown Esq., and the Argies are gaining considerable support amongst the South American nations for their claim on the Islands.  The Telegraph reports that the former Left-wing terrorist, Ms. Dilma Rousseff, who is now President of Brazil has refused landing/visiting rights to a Royal Navy ship wishing to enter Rio de Janeiro.  This may have been caused primarily by her political need to throw a bone to her Left-wing activists but even so it indicates a change of direction since we signed a mutual defence treaty with her predecessor only last year!  During a brief hike in tension last year, the delightful (not) and steadfast (not), Mrs. Hillary Clinton, made it quite clear that the USA would remain strictly neutral in any dispute.  Well, gee; wham-bam, thanks, Ma'am!

So, we are now on our own as far America is concerned and anyone who looks to the New Frankish Empire for support needs their bumps felt.  However, I am slightly encouraged by one or two slight hints from the government that they realise this new state of affairs.  I hope - well, dammit, one can hope - that the Foreign Office is conducting a rigorous review of the options with no soppy sentimentality involved.

 

Is David Ruffley the most pig-ignorant MP in the Commons?

Difficult to choose, I know, given the hordes of swine who snuffle and grunt their way around Westminster never straying too far from the expenses trough.  Ruffley was caught with his snout well in the 'Great Expenses Scandal' and received so much stick for his greed that, according to The Mail, he attempted suicide by throwing himself under a train.  In a classic example of Tory incompetence he couldn't even top himself properly - he managed to miss both the train and the live rail!

You may wonder at my animus against this prize parliamentary hog because until today I had never heard of him.  However, this morning I caught him on Sky News berating Bob Diamond, the new boss of Barclays Bank.  He was so rude, so intemperate, so impatient, so . . . pig-ignorant that had Diamond reached over and pulled the little runt to his feet and nutted him I would have instantly switched my bank account to Barclays!  Ruffley's manners made those American Congressional bully-boys who grilled the former boss of BP look like choir boys. 

Whilst his manners were gruntish, it was his pig-ignorance that really annoyed me.  He went on and on, never allowing Diamond to answer, demanding in the sort of hectoring tone you expect from a police interrogator to know exactly how much Barclays intended to lend this year.  Diamond refused to answer directly for the very good reason that the busines of lending requires two sets of people - banks and borrowers.  If, as a result of the economic policies of Ruffley's own government, borrowers follow the example of their American counterparts and decide that expansion is not the name of the game in the current financial climate then Barclays can hardly be blamed for not putting a figure to it.

In yet another demonstration of his abject stupidity and/or ignorance, Ruffley appears not to have realised that a large part of the problem which brought about the recent financial crash was banks lending too much too often to businesses whose credit worthiness was dodgy.  Financially this year is going to be exceedingly stringent for everyone and it is in precisely these sorts of times that those who are struggling will be attempting to cajole funds from their banks - and on this subject I know personally where-of I write!  These are exactly the sorts of businessses which should not be loaned money for the very good reason, as everyone has learned except Ruffley, dodgy loans lead to dodgy banks and dodgy banks bring about disaster.  I would have thought that given the last 3 years everyone had grasped that simple fact of life but obviously it was quite beyond the dis-Honourable Member for Bury St. Edmunds.

Such a pity the hayseeds of Suffolk voted this rude, bumptious pig back into Parliament.

 

Only the deaf, dumb, blind and those lacking a sense of smell would buy The Guardian

Needless to say I hardly ever read The Guardian.  Nor do I read, if I can avoid it, their heavily censored 'Comment is Free - Provided You Toe the Party Line' blog-spot.  I find that every time I inadvertently step in one of their amateurish dollops oozing with falsehoods and illogicalities it is incrediby difficult to rid oneself of the smell!  Take today's Editorial on the subject of the Arizona killings.  To give you some idea of what passes for thoughtfulness at the highest reaches of The Guardian their editorial begins thus:

Faced with a terrible event like the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, it is important neither to leap to cute conspiratorial conclusions nor to be in any way naive about the circumstances in which such things can happen. The United States is not the only country in which politicians are at risk of their lives.

Good grief, I thought, that actually sounds balanced and sensible, and it went on to list the number of countries, including our own, which have suffered murderous attacks on their own politicians.  Such a considered approach could not last - and it didn't!

But what happened in Tucson cannot be brushed aside as one of those things that could happen to anyone in public life anywhere. It happened to an articulate, moderate, pro-business, pro-gun, female Democrat in the United States at a time of deepening and increasingly obsessive partisan polarisation.

No it didn't!  It "happened", if one is talking of murder, to Federal Judge John Roll (a Bush appointee); Christina Taylor Green, 9 yrs of age;  Dorwin Stoddard, 76; Dorthy Murray, 76; and Phyllis Scheck, 79; and Gabe Zimmerman, a political aide to Rep. Giffords.  So when it comes to murder, and if you are as stupid and bigoted as the sack of rocks who wrote The Guardian leader and you therefore wish to politicise it, then the score is one Republican and one Democrat so I fail to see any political leanings in this massacre.  The killer, to use the sort of half-witted language Guardianistas understand, was an equal-opportunities killer!

Then, in as nasty a smear as you might expect to find inside the underpants of The Guardian's leader-writer, you can read this:

The US already had a distinctive history of political violence in the modern era. The assassinations of the 1960s, the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 and a series of attacks on abortion clinics have all been evidence of the readiness of a small but significant group of mainly male, mainly white, mainly rightwing, mainly religious conservative Americans to use lawless, lethal violence against real or imagined examples of political movements or institutions by which they deem themselves threatened. Now Congresswoman Giffords and the score of people who were shot with her in Tucson are their latest victims, gunned down in the 21st-century wild west.

I leave it to the measured words of William A. Jacobsen at his blog Legal Insurrection to expose the agit-prop lies of the Left in America who in recent years have seized upon every killing and attempted to hang the fault round the neck of the Republican party or its allies:

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have seen this type of reaction.  The meme that opponents of Obama are crazy and dangerous has been an explicit Democratic Party campaign strategy for over two years.  Here is just a partial list of events in which the left-wing and Democratic Party media operation has immediately blamed right-wing rhetoric, only to be proven wrong when the facts finally came out:  Bill Sparkman, Amy Bishop, The Fort Hood Shooter, The IRS Plane Crasher, The Cabbie Stabbing, and The Pentagon Shooter.

This sorry excuse for a newspaper leans heavily on the words of Sherrif Dupnick, or 'Dumbnuts', as I prefer to think of him, who unleashed a barrage of wild accusations immediately after the killings:

It is hard to disagree with Sheriff Clarence Dupnik in Tucson, who lamented after the shooting that "the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous".

Interviewed later by Megyn Kelly of Fox News (well worth watching), 'Dumbnuts' was forced to admit that he possessed not a single shred of evidence that Right-wing rhetoric from anyone had been the cause of the incident.  No-one, except the juvenile sillies at The Guardian will keel over in shock to discover that Sheriff 'Dumbnuts' is an old Democratic party hack!

The Guardian, its editorial telescope firmly rammed into its blind eye, then launches into, dare I say 'vitriolic'? attack on Right-wing politicians and commentators who have used inflammatory language:

What is clear, though, is that every Republican and media loudmouth who has flirted with insurrectionary rhetoric – and a lot have – should examine their consciences.

In response, I can only ask who it was who spoke this immortal line only a couple of years ago: 

 "If they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun"?

Oh no!  Tell me it ain't so!  Surely not - The One!

 ........................................................................................

My thanks to IHTM, and to Guido who offers this photo taken outside The Guardian's HQ, plus an old headline from 'murderous', old 'Polly the Pirate', neither of which provoked even a tiny squeak from the kiddies inside.  Anyone for humbug?

 

Art critics are like London buses!

No, really they are, you wait around for one to turn up and suddenly there are two of them!  I told you yesterday of the excellent Morgan Meis and immediately up pops regular commenter, 'Dearieme', to offer Donald Pittenger of Art Contrarian - gotta love that title! - who, amongst other items of artistic interest, offers some wise words and examples on the subject of so-called combat art.  The whole subject is worthy of more thought because the question arises as to whether it is the job of the artist concerned to depict combat and by so doing become, in effect, a 'reporter/photographer', or, whether he should remain true to his artistic drive and simply paint good pictures which happen to use war as a background?  Pittenger provides one example, Gassed, 1918, from Singer Sargent (a great favourite of mine):



Now here is a photograph of the same subject and a sight with which Singer Sargent must have been familiar:







What strikes me immediately is that Sargent chose to show the men moving which immediately increases the interest and the tension - note the third man in line raising his leg high fearing to trip on an unseen obstacle, and the way he breaks the line at No. 7 and contrasts the leaning pose of that figure with the upright stance of No. 8.  Thus, the photo is of academic interest and no more, where-as the painting is both captivating and moving, an example of 'art lending enchantment to the eye'.



However, you were all very naughty last week - no, I can't remember exactly what you did but I know you did something - so instead of showing you a super Klee to cheer you up I am going to punish you all with a 'painting' by some cove called Kasimir Malevich who has at least had the decency to sink into the oblivion he deserves.  Even so, Mr. Pettinger offers an interesting glimpse into Malevich's work which, since most of it was done under the beady, murderous eyes of J. Stalin Esq., I suppose he is deserving some sympathy of us:





 

Although, having stared at this for 2.8 seconds I must confess that my sympathy is all used up!

 

Anyway, thanks, 'DM', for the link, and I urge you all to bookmark Mr. Pettinger's excellent site.

Hopper: An Insight

I would like to recommend to you all an excellent critique of Edward Hopper by a, hitherto unknown to me, critic called Morgan Meis.  I praise his essay not because I agree with all of it, that would be asking too much given my galloping contrariness, but because it is intelligent and, unusually for much art criticism, intelligible.  That is, it is entirely cant-free.  I should admit immediately that I like a lot of Hopper's work immensely and some of it hardly at all.  His rural exteriors, particularly those painted in New England, leave me cold - and he can't paint trees for toffee, in my opinion!

Meis begins by asking whether Hopper was a cliché but in this rare grammatical error I think what he means to ask is whether Hopper's paintings were a cliché?  He points at the example above, Soir Bleu, 1914, and complains, in effect, that the clown is an over-elaborate flourish, meaning nothing and taking the painting into cliché.  I agree that it does somewhat strain for effect but I think the stern Mr. Meis should remind himself that this was a relatively early work and even so, it does intrigue.  As usual with Hopper's figures, nobody seems to be making eye-contact with anyone else despite the extraordinary clown smoking his fag in the middle of them.  I don't think this is a cliché, I would suggest that it is whimsy taken a tad too far, whimsy of the sort practiced by Mr. Jack Vettriano and loved by the general public which, I'm almost but not quite ashamed to say, includes me!  Here, Mr. Meis wanders dangerously close to the bog of artistic exclusiveness in which any work of art enjoyed by the 'great unwashed' must, perforce, be handled with tweezers and treated with disdain.  If this picture is to be criticised surely the first thing that leaps out is the unfortunate post which divides it cleanly into one quarter and three quarters with absolutely nothing in the foreground to cross over and thus unite the two segments!  Even so, and begging Mr. Meis's pardon, I remain intrigued by it and would be happy to have it hanging on my wall.

Usefully, Mr. Meis goes on to provide some background to Hopper's life.  He emphasises that although Hopper spent some considerable time in France along with all the other American 'wannabe' artists he avoided even dabbling in the abstract, cubist zeitgeist that was height of artistic fashion.  Instead, he plodded along his lonely farrow painting 'realistic' paintings.  Usually, but not always, of people inside buildings, be they cafes, bars, theatres, hotel rooms and so forth, and frequently as seen through an open window or door.  Mr. Meis chooses this superb example, New York Interior, 1921:



In Mr. Meis's own words:

But “New York Interior” gives us a woman wrapped up in the process of acting and doing and thinking and dreaming all at once. We don't even have the faintest glimpse of what could be going on in her head, where her thoughts have wandered as she sews her dress. But we know that she is going somewhere, mentally, that her thoughts are wandering. It is in her gesture, in the absent-minded way she pulls the thread. We know that there is an entire universe of interiority unfolding within that person as she does what she does. We can see it because Hopper has so perfectly captured her in that moment of hiddenness without bursting the shell, without rupturing that thin but impenetrable membrane between the inner and outer. “New York Interior” is dangerously close to being a sappy and sentimental study of a lonely young woman. It is a great painting because it hovers so very close to being a cliché without ever crossing that line.

Yes, I think that says it very well and sums up the recurring theme of so many of Hopper's paintings.  I have said before that, in a sense, art criticism is redundent because art is essentially visceral and any analysis of it is unlikely to change your opinion.  However, Mr. Meis almost makes me change my mind about critics!

Now, if you are all very good next week I shall show you another Klee!

 

Call for Huhne - another lesbian needs 'straightening'!

Actually, Huhne can stick to his own lesbian, because this particular lesbian needs no straightening at all, I like her just the way she is - drop dead gorgeous and exceedingly bright.  I may have to fight the proprietor of IHTM for her affections because he, too, has fallen for this very attractive lady. Her name is Tammy Bruce - oooh, what a delicious name - Tammy, sooo American, and Bruce, sooo Jockish - perfection!

This splendid lady began life as an out and out Lefty-Liberal but gradually as her natural intelligence took stock of an all-too-real world she shifted to the Right.  Today she is a radio host, blogger and Fox News contributor, but according to my rival suitor at IHTM, she is also a mightily caustic and perceptive wit.

As he quotes her over at IHTM, with my emphasis on my favourite aphorism:

If you’ve never heard Tammy Radio, give it a listen. You’ll quickly understand why we love the damn woman.

But enough of this idle fiddle faddle. Here are ten pieces of wit and smart ass wisdom that make us love Tammy:

“Trials are no longer about freeing the innocent, punishing the guilty, and making restitution to the injured. They have devolved into a contest over who will win.”

“When the courts decide that murderers, rapists, and others who maliciously break our social contract deserve health care that most working Americans can’t afford, they are condemning good people to death.”  

“Yes, we have the freedom to do what we please, but it only works because we don’t do everything we might please – we should exercise some degree of personal, and corporate, responsibility.”

“Manipulating pop culture is the Left Elite’s sure-fire way of forcing society to bend to their depraved view of themselves and this country.”

“For those whose goal it is to twist wrong into right, a good starting point is to convince young people that the vulgar is beautiful.”

“In my opinion any man who thinks simply having his penis removed, having breast implants, and taking hormones turns him into a woman needs to be in a psychiatrist’s office, not in a parade.”

“Believing a person deserves a defense is not the same as doing anything in your power to get him off scot-free.”

“The Left Elite only pretend to be concerned about what’s best for everyone else because it is the most effective way to manipulate you and your children into their abyss.”

“For the gay establishment, the death of right and wrong began when gaining civil rights ceased to be enough.”

“For women who turn to welfare, Big Brother becomes Husband.”

I'm sorry, and for God's sake don't tell the 'Memsahib', but I want this woman to have my babies!

 

Psycho-babble silenced?

No, not a chance, too many fakes and phonies earn too much money from it but this morning it did take a punch.  Regretfully I cannot quote exactly because I heard it on the radio fairly early in the morning as I was getting up to go swimming - have I told you I go swimming these days? - very early - but only six days a week - despite the freezing weather - oh, I did you tell that - OK, several times I told you that - well, I just thought you should know - where was I? - oh yes, this rather sensible psychologist, Dr. Chris Cowley, was on the radio telling us that over a period of several years he had struck up a relationship of sorts with Ian Brady, the moors murderer and torturer.  Dr. Cowley specialises in criminal profiling, an over-hyped discipline I raised in a post yonks ago when an American critic, an ex-FBI man as I recall, demonstrated that psychological profiling rarely if ever works.  Dr. Cowley was asked what he had learned from his long association with Brady and, bless his little goatee beard (er, he does have a goatee beard, surely, all these psycho-babblers do!) he told the truth by admitting that virtually everything he had been taught previously on the subject of criminal profiling was bunkum.  None of the techniques used regularly by profilers would have caught or even hinted at someone like Brady.  Asked why, he replied that it was because to all intents and purposes Brady was as normal as you and me!  (I should point out that I am paraphrasing Dr. Cowleys remarks in my usual style so they should not be taken literally.)  However, he did remark that if Brady's own family and friends could not spot that he was a mass murderer how could anyone else?  He went on to state quite definitely that current profiling techniques would never have worked in the search for Brady.  I do hope that the police officers leading the search for Joanna Yeates's killer will eschew the use of yet another psycho-babbler but if they really do feel the need they should use the sensible Dr. Cowley who, I hope but I will not be holding my breath, will one day be elected as president of the Psycho-Babbler's Union, or whatever.

 

One graph worth a thousand Labour lies

I am obliged to Guido for appropriating this graph from The Spectator - can't think how I missed it.  The next time - and there will surely be lots of 'em - that you hear Labour lying through its lying liar's teeth, as for example, 'Cain' Miliband in The Times:

“Labour is not to blame for Britain’s debt mountain and accuses David Cameron of peddling a “great deceit” about the previous Government’s record to pursue a damaging programme of cuts.”

You can study this simple graph and 'ye shall know the truth'!

In his own adenoidal words, 'Cain' Miliband protests far too much:

“What is this deceit? It is that the deficit was caused by chronic overspending rather than a global financial crisis that resulted in recession and a calamitous collapse in tax revenues.”

Actually, looking at that graph you can see the tragedy of Brown's great error.  He took over an economy that was fairly well balanced with cash in hand enough to pay back debt!  Stuck with modest mid-term Tory spending plans already laid down he was forced to abide by them until circa 2000/1 when he started his binge spending and, hey-ho, we were off to the races where 'Punter' Brown lost the lot.

By their lies shall ye know them!

 

 

The wager turns into a duel!

I told you yesterday that Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek had offered Brad Delong, an economist from UC Berkeley, a bet based on the famous Simon/Ehrlich wager of years ago in which the former bet the latter that the price of 5 different raw materials would drop over time not increase as the doomsters of the day predicted - Ehrlich lost! 

Anyway, the matter has progressed and Delong has turned down Boudreaux's bet (why am I not surprised?) but offered another one on different terms.  He wants the bet limited to the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil only, instead of a basket of commodities.  Boudreaux replied that this was nowhere near the classic Simon/Ehrlich bet but said that nevertheless he would ponder the matter when he had returned from a long journey to attend a funeral. 

Delong, only reading the opening lines of Boudreaux's response, immediately shot from the hip - and hit his own foot!  He wrote a post headed “I Have Failed to Get Don Boudreaux to Agree to a Bet…”.  To his credit, having been pulled up by Boudreaux, he has owned up and apologised.  You can read Boudreaux's version here.

So now we all wait in a state of extreme tension as the two professorial gun-slingers approach each other down the internet highway.  Such fun!

And here's even more cheerful news

You know, I'm beginning to enjoy this good humour 'shtick'!  So here's some more cheering news.  One of the greatest moments of last year was the beginning of the end of the global warming scam, brought about by the leaked e-mails from East Anglia University.  Of course, the HAFs continue to hang on with grim determination as you can see for yourselves if you visit the congregation of the 'Reverend' Tim Lambert over at 'Doltoid' as they try desperately to bolster each other's spirits.  After the last three winters in the northern hemisphere the HAFs will be lucky if all they get for their prating is a snowball between the eyes!  Still, there is much amusement to be derived from reading the past pronouncements of their leading guru, Dr. James Hansen.  These extracts are taken from Haunting the Library (an excellent site, new to me) and I am obliged to 'Bishop Hill' for the pointer.

In 1982, Hansen said this:

Hansen presented results of studies which indicated likely climate changes under different energy policies.

If there were slow growth in the use of hydrocarbon fuels, the world in the middle of the next century would be as warm as it was 125,000 years ago, when lions, elephants and other tropical animals roamed a balmy southern England.

Pursuing present plans for coal and oil, Hansen found, the climate in the middle of the 21st century “would approach the warmth of the age of the dinosaurs”

The Leader-Post, January 9th, 1982.

In 1986, he said:

Hansen said the average U.S. temperature had risen from one to two degrees since 1958 and is predicted to increase an additional 3 or 4 degrees sometime between 2010 and 2020.

The Press-Courier (Milwaukee) June 11 1986

 

Still in 1986 he offered this firm prediction:

“Within 15 years,” said Goddard Space Flight Honcho James Hansen, “global temperatures will rise to a level which hasn’t existed on earth for 100,000 years”.

The News and Courier, June 17th 1986

By 1989 he was in full 'End of the World is Nigh' mode:

“By the year 2050 we’re going to have tremendous climate changes, far outside what man has ever experienced” said James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.

Computer models by Hansen and others suggest that by the middle of the next century earth’s average temperature may rise 4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly altering storm patterns, making crops fail, and raising sea levels to flood low-lying coastal areas.

Observer-Reporter, December 7th, 1989

And only 5 years ago it was 'Apocalypse Now':

“The last time the world was three degrees [celcius] warmer than today – which is what we expect later this century – sea levels were 25m higher [my emphasis]. So that is what we can look forward to if we don’t act soon. None of the current climate and ice models predict this. But I prefer the evidence from the Earth’s history and my own eyes. I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.”

The Independent, 17th February, 2006

Faced with this ludicrous man, and others of similar ilk, preaching these nonsensical prophecies at us over and over again, one is almost at a loss as to how to respond.  I find myself forced to fall back on Auberon Waugh's wise injunction as to what to shout back when faced with a politician on a soapbox: "Show us your willy!"