DUFF & NONSENSE!

'Hillbilly's' hubbie gets a shakedown

I can't help wondering if 'Oprah' Obama has made his first big mistake.  I know Pres. Johnson's famous adage concerning the desirability of having your enemies inside the tent pissing out rather than the opposite, but even so, the Clintons can only be described as toxic.  It is surely totally embarrassing and humiliating for Bill, a former president, to be made to declare the name of every single donar to his various mysterious funds.  It is quite clear that 'Oprah' Obama assumes he's a crook and wants to make sure that the provenence of every single dollar is accounted for.  The question is, why didn't Bill tell him to take a running jump?  I can only think that 'Hillbilly' has the dirts on him and told him to do whatever it takes to get her the job of Secretary of State -  or else!

Another question is whether or not she's up to the job?  It seems to me, from a distance, that she has two qualifications.  First, she's tough and ruthless; and second, she appears to have a gut feeling for what is in America's interest and what is not.  However, against that one wonders if she's intelligent enough to translate a policy into action.  Her command of her election campaign was complacent to begin with and then emotionally hysterical to end with and she deserved to lose.  Also, I remember when Bill gave her the job of inflicting a nationalised health service on America she made a complete 'cods' of the job.

Well, I suspect that it will not matter that much because I think Obama will 'do a Roosevelt', by which I mean that he will pick several different advisers part of whose remit will be foreign policy and let them fight it out between them whilst he remains aloof as the final arbiter but not necessarily letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.  It's not a very good way to run a foreign policy but then again, Roosevelt wasn't much of a president, either.

Bring back Sir Humphrey!

I have long considered that not the least of the causes of our nation's slow descent from excellence to mediocrity to decrepitude is the steady decline in education standards, not amongst the inbred sub-class who inhabit the derelict housing estates which are such an iconic symbol of modern Britain, but more importantly amongst those 'intellectuals' who rise like 'floaters' to the top of the national toilet.  Many of these half-educated morons who mastered joined-up writing whilst young and were therefore guaranteed straight 'A's at 'skool', went on to gain degrees in Origami, or some such, at the likes of Bootle 'Yoonie' and, rather than risk a life of cut and thrust in private industry, slithered effortlessly into the civil service.  Once in, of course, it is only neccesary to be very aware of the latest fads and cults in what passes for thinking amongst the ruling classes and your rise and rise is inevitable.

At this point, I give you - Sir David Normington, KCB.  He is the senior civil servant at the Home Office and the man responsible for urging the 'Metropolitan Criminals' Support and Counseling Service', aka: the Met Police, to send more than 20 counter-terrorist officers to arrest an opposition MP and shadow minister for utterly spurious, if not sinister, reasons and search his home, his parliamentary office and his constituency office.  However, before I sift through that, let me direct your attention to his autobiography, here.  In it, he boasts of "a particular interest in leadership development".  This master of leadership (if we are to believe her and her boss - a big 'if'!) deliberately failed to inform the Home Secretary, 'Jackboot Jaquie' (my thanks to Richard Littlejohn for that one), who was his 'leader' that he was about to condone an action in which several tons of political brown stuff were obviously certain to hit the fan. By this superb example of, er, leadership he stands in relation to the Home Secretary much as Cpl. Jones did to Capt. Mainwaring. (Link provided for the benefit of my foreign readers.)

Returning to his biography, he actually boasts that "In 1995 I became Director General for Schools and later, Permanent Secretary, at the newly-formed Department for Education and Skills." A prudent man, a shrewd man, a man with even a modicum of introspection and intelligence, would have kept rather quiet about that particular career move given the indisputable fact that over the period he was in charge (and ever since), standards in education and skill in this country have dropped faster than the value of British government bonds!  (As a writer who frequently misuses commas, myself, I hesitate, but not for long, in pointing to the redundant comma in the sentence written by this master of education - which I'm not! - plus several other English language infelicities in his biographical precis.)

Not content with exposing himself to public ridicule once, this buffoon doubles his money with this: "A closer examination of my career path through the Civil Service shows it follows the principles of Professional Skills for Government - long before it was thought of!"  I wonder what the Home Secretary would have to say about Sir David's professional skills today, and whether the Prime Minister, in his rage, might throw something heavier than a stapler across the room?  One of his paragraphs begins with "I got a great buzz", not the sort of phrase that would ever have left the nib of 'Sir Humphrey's' elegant pen, one feels, but Sir David, shivering with excitement, tells us this thrill came about from "setting up the first-ever youth training scheme [my emphasis]".  Apparently, this educational Titan has never heard of apprenticeships which go back to medieval times.  Even so, poor deluded fool that he is, he may not know it but he is about to receive the biggest "buzz" of his life via the political electrodes even now being attached to his governmental gonads. (Please, please, Miss Jaquie, can I throw the switch first?)

Sir David ends his autopanegyric with these ineffable words: "All my working hours are spent on trying to create a Home Office which has the confidence of the public and in which staff are proud to work. This is the biggest challenge of my career so far. But I believe achieving it is important to the security of the country and to the reputation of the Civil Service." [My emphasis]

What can one say, except, come back, Sir Humphrey, all is forgiven and your country needs you!

Porn free!

'Sister Wolf', an occasional visitor here and a lady possessed of the sort of very sharp teeth that her name implies, has a blog which I have just added to my links.  I gave it three '???'s indicating that the "Content is mostly garbage", but I also gave it three stars because I read it every day!  (Well, it has an awful fascination, if you know what I mean, or perhaps I'm just a masochist because her readers beat me up regularly.)  To be fair it is mostly her commenters, the finest collection of nuts, nerds and dipsticks I have ever come across, who give the Blog its, er, distinctive flavour.  This morning 'Sister Wolf' opened with a post on the subject of "Bad Sex in Literature" and then, horror of horrors, invited her readership to contribute their own best examples of the genre.  I confess, it was early in the morning and I fled before the prospect, but this evening, emboldened by a large Laphroaig, I returned to see what the loonies on her site had come up with.  Oddly enough, hardly anything, but there was a contribution from a Mr. 'Dexter VanDango', whose own pseudonym is so redolent of those used by the old porn writers who used to work for the famous Olympia Press and whose works I devoured with such excitement and fascination so many years ago.  Anyway, Mr. 'VanDango' provided us with a superb and weepingly funny pastiche of old style porn - or perhaps it's contemporary style porn because I don't suppose it changes much over the years!  I urge you all to give it a read.  He is American but has already proved his intelligence, wit and style to me by choosing to live amongst the most pleasant people in the world, the Danes, who have the most drop-dead gorgeous girls in the world!  So, I am about to place Mr. 'VanDango's' blog on my link list.  He's a very, very funny man - and I need the laughs! Go read!

Not OPM, OPBs!

OPM is, of course, Other People's Money, a currency upon which 'Hash Broon' has been partying for the last ten years!  However, what I would like to discuss today is OPBs, that is, Other People's Blogs.  My new-look make-over -  so terribly smart, 'don'tcha think'? - has provoked me into taking a hard look at my links to other bloggers.  I have, more or less reluctantly, binned some of them, perhaps because I have simply fallen out of the habit of reading them, or, because they have fallen into idleness and post so infrequently that I have given up.  In the course of the next few days I will add one or two newcomers.

As you will see from my side bar, I now have a new box just above my links to OPBs which explains the code rating that you can now see after each blog name.  It is a very simple code indicating two different aspects of the blog concerned.  First, there are 'stars' to indicate how often I read it.  This is not always an indication of my interest but is sometimes the fault of the blogger concerned who fails to write very often.  For example, Kirk Elder always provides an excellent and hilarious read but does so only on a monthly basis - and then only on a good month!  Second, I use the '?' symbol to indicate that the content is more or less questionable by me. Now you all know my general view of the world and its doings, so from that symbol you can have a shrewd guess at the likely content of the blog concerned.  My definitions are in the side bar but here they are again with amplification:

*       I read it occasionaly - but please note my remark above.

**    I read it fairly often

***  I read it daily - in other words I wouldn't miss it!

?       Content is questionable - in the sense that, I would question it.

??      Content is very questionable  

???     Content mostly garbage - but it may not stop me reading it!

I enjoy reading and debating on blogs with whose 'editorial' opinions I disagree.  Many bloggers find that odd but I fail to gain much pleasure or education from behaving like one of those nodding dogs you see in the back of family cars by only joining a thread in which everyone is agreeing with everyone else.  My dear, too, too, tedious!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Sorry, sorry, but my hands are in such a tremble I can hardly type and my tears of anguish are splashing onto my keyboard and threatening to short it out.  All I can do is copy and paste the following article by Chris Marshall in its entirety.  Read it and weep!

A study of the minutiae of Labour budgets always throws up some gems. And this year's mini budget is no exception.

I refer to table B16 – fair enough, you may have skimmed over that one – and the figures on public sector pension spending.

While the changes announced to the state pension in the pre-Budget report are fairly minor (as is the epic £60 one-off payment for pensioners), no expense is being spared on looking after Mr Darling’s co-workers.

As the Lib Dems have pointed out: ‘The expenditure on public service pensions is due to more than treble in three years from £1.2bn in 2006-07 to £3.8bn in 2009-10.’

Step back a few years and you would see that the Treasury thought it would need to spend just £600 million on public sector pensions this year – but, oops, the reality is five times more expensive.

As the Lib Dems point out, if public sector pension costs had been kept down to the estimates from only three years ago, they could have given each pensioner closer to £200 extra each in this year’s budget, not 60 quid.

Anyone else harbour concerns about the government’s number-crunching?

The frog and the scorpion

I am sure most of you know the tale of the frog and the scorpion.  It comes in several slightly different versions but the one I like goes as follows: A scorpion found itself trapped on an island in the middle of a river created by a sudden flood.  It called to a passing frog and pleaded for a lift to the far bank because it faced death by drowning.  The frog demurred on the sensible grounds that the scorpion would sting it to death.  No, no, the scorpion insisted, if you save my life I promise not to sting you.  Touched by his plight, the frog agreed and the scorpion climbed on his back and the frog began swimming across the river.    About half way across the scorpion stung the frog.  As they both sank in the swirling waters the frog asked why the scorpion had executed such a mutually destructive act.  Because I'm a scorpion came the fatalistic answer!

I am reminded of this tale by an article at The Coffee House in which the writer points up the frog/scorpion relationship between the West and China.  We might, as it were, be facing financial death by drowning, but if we go, so to does China.  According to the writer, Daniel Korski, China is producing 24 million - I'll repeat that - 24 million, new labourers every year!  Even a slight downturn in Western economies will result in a lower growth rate in China and those people will be unemployed.  China has not yet developed a big enough domestic market to pick up the slack if export markets in the West shrivel to nothing.  In essence, the situation now is that we need their money and they need us to have enough money so that we keep buying their goods.  I'm not sure in this situation who is the frog and who is the scorpion!

However, and further to my clown report in the previous post, we now have a Euro clown on the scene in the form of that Hungarian dwarf who runs France.  He has made it clear that he intends to go off  and hold hands with the Dalai Lama, not least, one suspects, at the behest of his beautiful but dim wife - such a wonderful photo opportinity, cherie. .  The Chinese, not unaturally, have now cancelled a scheduled Sino/EU meeting.  This is a prime example of MAD - mutally assured destruction!

Order, counter-order, disorder!

Yesterday, ministers led by 'ur wee Gordie' were telling us that the current financial crisis was exacerbated by the Banks lending money to people who had little by way of security and minimal chances of repaying the loan.

Today, ministers led by 'ur wee Gordie' are telling us that they intend to haul in the Credit Card companies, owned by the Banks, and give them a sound thrashing for not, er, lending to people who have little by way of security and minimal chances of repaying the loan.

Tomorrow, perhaps, they will all appear wearing red noses, Jimmy wigs, hooped tights, big floppy boots and have a water-bucket fight.

Such fun!

Additional: Northern Rock, wholly-owned by the government, has just raised its mortgage rates.  Confused?  You should be!

I'm in love!

Come on now, be honest, have you noticed?  No, no, not the new colour scheme which is, of course, too, too, divine, I mean over there, on the left, a new box - "Categories"!  For years I have looked with envy on those smart Bloggers who with impeccable neatness manage to package up their posts under different subject headings, a practice quite beyond my limited computer-thingy abilities.  But yesterday, with the help of Jen, "By Jove, I did it, I really, really did it"! Jen is, I am quite sure even though I've never met her, a tall, lithe, Californian blonde with a splendid figure, frighteningly white teeth in the American style (well, a man can dream, can't he?)  but, above all, possessed of a truly impressive knowledge of the mysteries of 'Typepad'.  Yesterday, she held my trembling hand and showed me the light.  I'm in love!

This morning I spent a happy hour trying to think of all the different categories which would be needed to encompass the breadth, depth and width of my magnificent brain and imagination, the fruits of which I kindly proffer to you on such a regular basis.  Alas, trying to fit my past, jewel-like essays under this or that heading resulted in the somewhat plebeian "Odds and Sods" category becoming rather over-crowded ... and, oh dear ... here comes another one!

All this complexity does me 'ead in!

(Before I begin let me warn you that later today I am going to attempt a design change on this blog so if you arrive to find a sort of psychedelic nightmare just take an aspirin and come back later.)

You must excuse my feeble witticism(?) in the title to this post.  I should have striven for something classier; perhaps, Lear's plaintiff lament "and take upon's the mystery of things/ As if we were God's spies."  Yes, indeed, "the mystery of things", what a way with words that Stratford scribbler had!  We have discussed here before the nature and worth of intellectuals as applied to political leadership but today I would like to push it into the area of scientific endeavour. I am provoked to this by two very different but excellent blog posts, but before I begin I would like to drop the word 'intellectuals' which, to me at any rate, comes with unfortunate connotations and instead I will refer to 'thinkers', a more neutral term with which I am comfortable.

The first post that caught my attention began my day with a smile because it reported a 10-year study on the efficacy of taking vitamin supplements as a means of beating cancer.  There is none!  Or, to be precise, and in order to avoid the same trap into which some 'intellectual' scientists fall:

"It actually makes a great deal of sense that this study found such results, which after all, could still be wrong, since chance cannot be discounted.  Our biology is so exceptionally complex that it could just as easily be that some percentage are helped by vitamins and an equal number, with different biochemistry, are harmed." [My emphasis]

As the author points out, so little is known of the 30,000 proteins in the human body and their unbelievably complex interactions which operate in a series of "multi-layered feedback loops" and to date no-one has a clear understanding of the "roles of sugars and other cell membrane constituents that [partially] control where proteins exert their efforts".  Ah, yes, "the mystery of things".

The second post is on the subject of dendrology, or again to be precise, on the subject of the statistical methods employed by those dendrologists (intellectuals to a man!) who claim to have proven anthropogenic global warming (AGW) by the study of tree rings and lake sediments.  It was this particular piece of scientific endeavour that led to the (in)famous 'hockey stick' graph, beloved of Al Gore, 'Little Willy' and other, er, intellectuals, which purports to show a fairly straight line of global temperatures until the 20th c.when suddenly it kicks up into a hockey stick shape proving man's malignant influence. 

Now let me introduce you to Willis Eschenbach, a self-described "amateur scientist" and, in my opinion, a thinker of the first order who is the author of the second post.

This is a rather technical paper, most of which passed over my head, but the aim of his self-imposed task was to test the statistical veracity of the 'hockey stick' graph.  This graph was first produced by Prof. Michael E. Mann and others, and it, and its subsequent follow-up papers, are usually referred to, with reverence by scientific intellectuals, as 'Mann et al'.  They used measurements of tree rings from a variety of different sources plus analysis of lake sediments as proxies to establish northern hemisphere temperatures for the last 1000 years.  Here is the graph showing the 95 Mann proxies:

However, when Eschenbach analysed them he found that the proxies that cause the 'flick-up' in the graph came from just two particular sets of proxies.

The top 3 proxies are all from the Lake Tiljander sediment readings and it is sufficient to say that the original paper which Mann et al used for the construction of their graph has been the subject of severe criticism from various quarters long before Eschenbach looked at it. Of the next 25 proxies, 19 of them came from one particular and specific group, "high-altitude southwestern US "stripbark" pines (bristlecones, foxtails, etc)". In other words, or to be exact, in Eschenbach's words: "When these are removed, the hockeystick shape disappears entirely."  The graph then looks like this:



Or, as flat as a witch's tit, as we intellectuals like to put it!  So it appears that the entire 'hockey stick' stitch-up was based on just two specific sets of readings at two specific places, one of which has proved impossible to replicate. Or as Eschenbach puts it "The problem is that a number of closely related records from one geographical area can easily overwhelm and dominate the common signal. This makes it clear that closely related groups of proxies should be averaged before inclusion, to prevent the domination of the common signal".  Even a mathematical dud like me can work that one out!

I will leave the last words to Eschenbach, a truly great 'thinker', as opposed to an 'intellectual, who describes himself as a "self-taught amateur scientist".  When quizzed as to why he doesn't publish this work for peer-review (so beloved of the likes of 'Little Willy') he readily admits to his own limitations and indeed urges readers of the post to send in criticisms before he offers his paper to the journals. 

"Why publish here? I am a self-taught amateur scientist. As such, my knowledge is extensive and need-driven rather than comprehensive. For all I know, [...] the heavyweights in statistics will come along and say "Oh, that's Jacobsen's method, see "Journal of Arcane Statistics 1957". Plus if there's errors, I'd rather find them here …  In fact, I'm hoping someone does say it's a known method, it will save me the trouble of re-writing this for a journal."

What a difference in attitude compared to the secretive and fequently discourteous refusal of the so-called AGW scientific 'intellectuals' who consistently refuse or thwart access to their statistical codes.

There is, it seems to me, only one approach to the understanding of "the mystery of things" and that is rigour, openess and - constant doubt.

Worth reading:

http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2008/11/some-thoughts-on-complexity.html#more

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4428

 

Chancellor announces his strategy: shit or bust!

Well, there you have it!  The strategy is plain for all to see, provided you care to look, that is.  Brown is going to borrow and borrow and borrow, not just up to the hilt, but up over his head in a desperate gamble to win the next election, or, at least keep a Tory win minimised.  He will watch re-action closely over the next few weeks and if he thinks he's in with half a chance he'll cut and run, or, if he truly believes his own propaganda that the worst will be over by this time next year (it won't) , he'll wait until 2010.  For him, it's a win-win situation because having run the nation's finances into ruin by playing double or quits he won't mind handing over the resulting smelly pot of poo for the Tories to deal with when his forecasts are proved wrong - which they will be - and that will perpetuate their reputation as hard-faced 'Gradgrinds' for another generation, thus giving Labour every chance at the election after that. 

Our parliamentary life has reached a new low, no longer gutter politics, now it's sewage politics.

Additional:  Fraser Nelson spells out the nasties over at The Coffee House:

"[Brown] has no plans to fund his extra spending. He'll just keep borrowing. Debt will keep rising from £537bn in 2007-08 rising to £1,020 in 2012-13. Darling says it will peak then, but only as a share of GDP. It will rise to £1,080bn in 2013-14 (all excluding NR, B&B etc). Then: pow. His crystal ball runs out.

The debt will be dealt with by whoever wins the election after next. Until then, we'll be paying more in debt interest than in defence and probably on schools and police as well. So the Tories were wrong-footed: the debt bombshell implied some degree of honesty from the Treasury, some repayment plan. The bombshell is there - but it is not due to explode until 2015/16. And until then it will be a blitz of government spending pushing families ever further into the red, year after year. This is Brown's plan: we will knowingly saddle our children and our grandchildren with billions upon billions of debt. And as Eleanor Roosevelt said: this not just an economic failure, but a moral one."

Your 'Rough Guide' to the Chancellor's statement

If, like me, you are probably going to be bewitched, bothered and bewildered by all the financial/economic gobbledegook about to be spewed forth in the House of Commons today, here is a 'Rough Guide' to help you cling to your sanity.

First, hold this thought firmly in your mind at all times, the proposals the Chancellor will put before you will be firmly aimed at one thing, and one thing only, securing a Labour win at the next election (which is likely to occur much sooner than expected),  not the good health of the British economy which will go its own sweet way for good or ill irrespective of any governmental fiddling (I use the word advisedly) around that is proposed today.

Second, irrespective of all the soothing words, there will be pain!  It will either be today, or tomorrow, or more likely over the next several years, but pain there undoubtedly will be.  The more that 'Mad Jock Broon' borrows, the greater and longer and more intense will be the pain.

Third, if he gives you a contribution from the national 'poor box' today, don't spend it, because tomorrow he will want it back with interest!

Fourth, virtually all the money borrowed and spent by the government will either be totally wasted, or carry with it unbelievably huge costs.

Fifth, and finally, there is only one small chance of good news and that, if it comes, will emanate from the opposition, if they can summon up the courage to damn with all their strength this whole crazy, casino-caper gamble on borrowed money.  It may not go down well with the electorate and if 'Broon' cuts and runs early they might lose the next election, but they will have told the truth and eventually that virtue will, after the cataclysm, be repaid.

Oh, sorry, one more thing, Gordon Brown is an inveterate and proven liar, so cling to that thought, too!

'Shuggy' tells it the way it is

For a truly intelligent summary of 'Princess' Obama's first faltering steps and a sceptical dismissal of the more rabid of his worshippers, go and read 'Shuggy's excellent post, here.

Adding injury to insult

Given that this blog offers you 'up-to-the-month-ish' commentary on current affairs, you will not be surprised that it has taken me a week to find out that John 'Gaunty' Gaunt has been suspended by that intellectual broadcasting colossus, 'TawkSpoort', even though I listen to the blasted thing everyday.  The only excuse I can offer is that in the main I only listen to the 'footie witterers' from 6.00 to 10.00 am.  I find it soothing in that unlike my experience with the BBC in which the broadcasters are immensely smug whilst I, the listener, am reduced to stabbing my own eyes out in rage and apoplexy; with 'TawkSpoort' it is the opposite, with the presenters and their call-in listeners foaming at the mouth over this or that disaster in the mindless world of 'footie' about which I remain entirely calm because I simply don't care.  'Gaunty' comes on at 10.00 am and provides three hours of commentary on whatever is causing headlines in the media.  The fact that he is a columnist for The Sun ("We Love It!") tells you all you need to know about his general approach to current affairs.  As a balance, of sorts, the station has 'Pussy Galore' Galloway on late in the evening although my incipient masochism has not so far allowed me to listen to that political spiv spinning his web of political fantasy.

'Gaunty' is intemperate by nature which is why I don't listen to him that often despite being generally in sympathy with his views.  I admire him as a man because from the very humblest of beginnings as a child put into care, and later, as a business bankrupt who lost his home, he battled back to fame (of a sort) and fortune.  Apparently, a couple of weeks ago he interviewed a Tory councillor who was advocating a strict policy of refusing to place children in the care of foster-parents who smoked.  Remember, these are vulnerable, mentally wounded children who are desperately in need of the tranquility of a settled home, and yet this over-paid Pecksniff was going to deny them that chance on the non-existent grounds that there was a danger to their health.  'Gaunty' called him "a Nazi" but later changed it to "health Nazi".  If it had been me, I would have felt impelled to ask the commenters at 'Sister Wolf's' site to provide me with the very latest in scatological insults (they're experts!) because even my years spent in sundry barrack-rooms would not have provided a sufficient vocabulary to describe this jumped-up, little Hitler with a brain the size of a pea.

All of that, of course, brings me to the subject of the place of insult in discussions of what might be called 'current affairs'.  As you know, on this site I can ride with a fair degree of foul language provided it doesn't become totally boring, and vituperative insults are a frequent hazard - how could it be otherwise with the likes of Dr. 'Teabag' hovering in the shadows?  The result is that here, at Duff & Nonsense, the occasional four-letter word is excised but no-one is ever banned.  Apropos the insult offered by 'Gaunty', I have lost count of the number of times I have been called a Nazi.  It never worries me because, of course, I am not, and anyway, in the great lexicon of insulting names I would be more upset to be called a 'Commie' than a 'Nazi' if only because when it comes to mass murder of innocent people the 'Commies' made the 'Nazis' look like amateurish beginners.  Would 'Gaunty' have been suspended for calling that 'pox doctor's clerk' a 'Commie', I wonder, and think probably not.

Hovering over this minature spat is the larger non-problem of what is to be done with people who have been 'outed' as members of the BNP.  Absolutely nothing is the obvious answer but it seems to have been quite beyond the mental capabilities of the 'commentariat' to grasp.  The BNP is a legal political party and membership of it should not affect the employment of anyone.

Anyway, I'm off now to e-mail 'TawkSpoort' and tell them to bring 'Gaunty' back lest they risk being called 'DorkSpoort' in future!

A toilet tax? Don't tell Gordon!

I'm in a silly mood this afternoon and nothing could be sillier than this link provided by my regular commenter, 'JK', whose reading habits really do require some attention, I feel!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24670784-2,00.html

I already possess five different bags and bins for my, er, waste, the sixth suggested above does not not bear contemplation!

But was she blonde?

Apologies for the slight delay but upon my return on Tuesday I undertook a major gardening project ... well, not exactly 'major' ... I mean, nothing like the sort of thing 'Fallen Monk' does every weekend, he's practically cultivated half of Georgia! ...  in fact, given my propensity for stopping for tea at every opportunity, gossiping with the neighbours and dealing with the mysterious forces that move and hide my tools everytime I put them down necessitating a huge search each time, the whole thing could, and should, according to the little 'Memsahib', have been completed in under three hours.  It has taken me two days and there's still bits to do.

So, given my aching bones and chilblained fingers, I needed something to smile about this morning and here it is.  There is only one outstanding question to be answered - is she blonde?

 

Non-service announcement!

I am away until Tuesday.  Do try and behave yourselves!

The mysterious case of the missing stats

Each day brings news of ever more lay-offs and job cuts.  A few hundred here, a thousand there, several thousand everywhere, but have you noticed that they are all in the private sector?  Where are the statistics showing the slimming down, or better still, the closure of all those useless quangos, a purge of jobs in our Town Halls, a ruthless axe being taken to our bloated Nationalised Health Service and a long-overdue purge of Education Departments?  Putting several hundred thousand of these people on the dole might seem expensive but it's cheaper than paying them -  and think of the savings on their gold-plated pensions!  And the clincher is that The Guardian might go broke without all those pages of adverts for one-legged, lesbian, dwarf outreach-counsellors.

A layman's guide to the current dispute over global warming

I pointed out below the giggle-inducing report that Dr. Hansen's GISS organisation had inadvertantly put September's temperature figures into their October report and, hey presto, produced the hottest October on record.  Ooops! Their chief spokesman, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, has issued a correction which, if it had  simply stated something along the lines of, hey, it was a computer glitch and, well, shit happens, everyone, including most sensible sceptics would have understood.  Alas, Schmidt, in his embarrassment and anger at being caught out because his own organisation had failed to spot the glitch (despite the extraordinary jump in temperatures) was not satisfied with that but used his statement to excoriate all those 'amateurs' who sieve his statistics looking for error.

Warren Meyer, host at Climate Skeptic, has written two posts in response to Schmidt's bad-tempered tantrum which makes clear in language that can be understood by laymen the gulf between HAFs and the intelligent sceptics.  Well worth reading both of them.

Read this, OK, just read it!

What a bossy-boots I am this morning!  The reason is that I'm a bit grumpy having spent some time yesterday writing my post on intellectuals only to have my reader, Ortega, pop up in the comments and refer me to this:

http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-class-palin-and-obama-note-to-peter.html

My injunction above, of course, applies to this essay by Kenneth Anderson, a writer hitherto unknown to me - many thanks to Ortega for the link. It puts my less than modest effort to shame with a very much more penetrative assessment of the intellectual class than I could aspire to.  The first two paragraphs were enough to catch my attention:

"Peter Berkowitzonce asked me how I made the transition from a fairly radical (if mostly intellectually radical) leftism to a center-right position, rooted in the defense of American democratic sovereignty abroad and a modestly libertarian conservatism at home.

The answer is that sometime during the course of the 80s and 90s, I looked at the left, my friends and confreres in America, and concluded that we were promoting a ‘left authoritarianism’, under the conjoined banner of rights and therapy: which is to say, what certain people think is good for you, promulgated in the essentially unanswerable language of ‘rights talk’."

And this is spot on:

"But unlike me or my confreres in the academy, Palin has an organic, extra-political connection to the people she proposes to govern, whether in Alaska or the United States as a whole. Everything about her says, I’m one of you. Not the whole citizen of the planet thing that Obama’s New Class persona uses as a way to elide the question of his relationship to America and Americans, except as Redeemer, but a representative of the people of whom she is indeed representative, but among whom she must be, in virtue of the office she seeks, also an unapologetic elite. The question for contemporary elites is no longer whether they have, but instead whether they believe they actually need, a rootedness in and among the people whose lives they intend so thoroughly to govern. This is the question that Lasch posed ironically in The Revolt of the Elites (playing on Ortega y Gasset’s Revolucion de las Masas). Lasch answered, ‘not any more’; in classic New Class fashion, they aver their expertise instead and say that it is enough. "

Excellent stuff and I urge you all to read it.

 

Please, Mummy, I want to be an intellectual when I grow up

There has been a certain amount of discussion recently on the subject of intellectuals and their worth, and indeed, on what it is exactly that goes to make up an intellectual.  They have arisen mainly because of the commonly held belief that Mrs. Palin is as thick as a sack of spanners.  Some of the posts have been considered and illuminating, like the one written by my e-pal, Malcolm Pollack; whilst others have been hilarious, like the hoopin' and hollerin' from the commenters on the site of another of my e-pals, 'Sister Wolf', whose average age appears to be about 141/2, either that, or they're retards who have been given computers as a sort of therapy.  There is extra delicious humour to be derived from the irony that these nobodies with no brains are attacking a woman who has at least achieved a considerable ambition and reached high political office whilst simultaneously bringing up a large family.  Even 'Sister Wolf' herself reduced me to giggles when she offered up as an example of an intellectual - wait for it - William Burroughs!  Yeees, quite; a debauched, drunkard, druggie woman-killer who was once a member of the Church of Scientology. She's a card, that 'Sister Wolf', and who says 'the Yanks don't do irony'? 

But let us return to the question of what it is that defines an intellectual. 'Sister Wolf' describes them, in an unlinked quotation, as "a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity".  I would agree with the first clause of that proposition, but I'm not sure that being "comfortable with complexity" is quite the right phrase to describe the anguish of some great thinkers as they struggle to reconcile that which is frequently contradictory and unreconcilable.  Still, "interested in ideas" is, I think, a good description.  Malcolm goes to Google for assistance and is provided with this:

• "An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate, or ask and answer questions about a wide variety of different ideas.
• a person who uses the mind creatively
• involving the faculty of knowing, perceiving, reasoning, reflecting."

Well, so far, so good, but does it actually help when we consider the basic question of whether or not 'intellectuality', if I may use that word, is a definite requirement in a politician. First, it must be asked exactly how much and how wide should this indulgence in complex ideas go?  Does it necessitate, say, grappling with quantum physics, the origins of language, the details of the Punic wars and the influence of agriculture in the history of man.  Dr. David Deutsch, for example, knows more than almost anyone in the world about the first of the above, but I doubt if he knows that much about the others.  Does that qualify him to be a political leader, or disqualify him?  I, on the other hand, know a miniscule bit about all of them because I, too, am interested in ideas, but does that make me a suitable candidate for prime minister?  (Don't answer that, 'Teabag'!)

Perhaps, then, it is the subject matter of these ideas that is important.  In other words, if you have an excellent grasp of, say, history, geography and economics then, prima facie, you appear to have all that is needed to qualify as prime minister or president.  Unfortunately, even a slight knowledge of history will inform you that all sorts of hugely well-educated intellectuals have achieved high office and failed miserably.  To pluck a couple of 'doozies' from the pack, consider if you will the late Sir Anthony Eden who served as a distinguished Foreign Secretary in Churchill's Cabinet and was therefore possessed of experience as well as a detailed knowledge of history, geography and geopolitics and yet who plunged to disaster once he was given the top job.  Also, consider (because I am just reading all about him), the late Emperor Hirohito of Japan.  An exemplary scholar, a man of wide interests including philosophy, history and marine biology, a man who had been trained from boyhood for the top job, and yet this man with deliberate malice afore-thought took his nation into a total and utter disaster. Oh alright, then, here's a third for the benefit of my American readers - President Wilson - a brilliant lawyer, a Ph.D., a masterful political operator, but a total disaster in too many ways.

I could go on but it seems to me that a background of scholorship is no guarantee of intelligence.  On a personal note, I have come across far too many examples in 'Blogdom' of highly educated idiots garlanded with degrees and Ph.Ds for me to take anything other than a sceptical view of university (so-called) education.  I have no idea if the educated Mr. Obama will be a successful president, not does he, nor does anyone else.  Equally, I have no view as to how successful or not Mrs. Palin might be should she realise her ambition.  I say again, it is the job that maketh, or breaketh, the man, or the woman; and perhaps the single most important requirement for all of them to possess is that rare but blessed ability to learn quickly from mistakes.  Unfortunately, until they make them, we will never know.  Sleep well!

NB: My links are to Wikipedia which does not imply my total trust in their judgments but which I offer up as a quick, general briefing.

"Roses are shining in Picardy"

The day after Remembrance Day, take a few minutes and read Mark Steyn's fascinating essay on the background to one of the great songs of WWI.  Whilst some of you might not care for Steyn's politics, no-one writes better on the subject of popular music.

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/1462/28

You couldn't make it up - but the HAFs can!

The HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) in general, and Dr. James Hansen of GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies) in particular, make Laurel and Hardy seem rather bright.  Hansen, of course, is the man who 20 years ago frightened Congress out of its collective wits with dire forecasts as to how incredibly hot the planet would be about now, only for temperatures to fail to get anywhere near what he estimated.  Never one to lose an opportunity to kick a sucker when he's down, here is Hansen's own graph with the actualite in a rather embarrrassing shade of red to match his face, one hopes!

It is important to realise that Hansen is not just a prophet to the likes of 'Little Willy' and all the other eye-ball swivelling fanatics who revere him, but a veritable God of science and scientific method. 'Little Willy', especially, likes to think of himself as a scientist (stop giggling at the back!) so he will be mortified at the sight of his 'glorious leader' taking an enormous prat fall.

GISS, of which Hansen is the boss, issued the October global temperature statistics a few days ago and proudly announced that this October had proved to be the hottest October on record.  Cue 'Shlock-Horror' headlines from the 'stoopids' who write and broadcast in the MSM.  Alas and alack, a few days later some eagle-eyed trouble-maker found out that the October statistics from Russia had been corrupted and someone had simply taken the September figures and carried them forward into October!  As one knowledgeable commenter pointed out, temperatures in Russia can drop by around 12 degrees between those two months, as Hitler and Napoleon discovered to their cost. We await a correction with bated breath.

The last time I wrote about Dr. Hansen I promised it would be the last but, hey, I lied, so what else do you expect from an old second-hand car dealer?  Anyway, please don't tell 'Little Willy', he'll only burst into tears and you'll ruin his Christmas!

Hat tip to Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre especially for the picture.

"Shome mishtake, shurely"

I am not alone in spotting some 'internal contradictions' in the government's approach to our financial affairs.  Gordon Brown, our new, national bank manager, with the assistance of his chief cashier, Mr. Darling, has spent the last few months castigating the banks for their profligacy in lending money to anyone with a really and truly, cross my heart and wish to die, spiffing wheeze, or, a freehold on a chicken coop in Bootle, which has led them all to near disaster.  Well, that's what they say on Mondays, on Tuesdays they insist it was nothing to do with the 'National Bank of Britannia' whose affairs under the stern eye of Mr. Brown's new, three-part regulatory authorities, was a model of financial rectitude.  No, no, they say on Wednesdays, it was all the fault of those stupid Yanks and that dimwit in the White House - which should, by rights, be repainted in red to match the overdraft. 

No, I don't understand it, either, but to add to the confusion, Mr. Brown and his glove-puppet muppet with the fake eyebrows are now (it's Sunday) insisting that the banks start re-lending and be quick about it, or else!  A further contradiction lies in the fact that if the banks start lending again at the new government-inspired low rate of interest, they won't make any profits and we, the tax-payers, will never get our money back!  Do these cretins have any idea about anything . . . ?

Take that as a 'no', shall I?

"The Great Keynes Con"

I steal my heading from that given to an essay in yesterday's Mail by Dominic Sandbrook , in which he points out that Keynes's theory that governments should  spend their way out of recessions was never actually used in Britain in the 1930s, a period, incidentally, that was never as harsh as old Labourite memories would have it, and the result of not using it was that we came out of it much quicker than the Americans.  This piece of counter-mythology comes almost in tandem with a paper just issued by two UCLA researchers who, with the insouciance of the little boy who pointed out the nudity of the emperor,  have studied the actual results of Roosevelt's much-acclaimed 'New Deal' policy and come to the conclusion that it "thwarted economic recovery for seven long years." Oh dear!

Still, if you are feeling glum at your prospects there is much amusement to be had reading the blogs of 'Oprah' Obama supporters (some of whom visit here) who are still giddy with pleasure and excitement and appear not to have noticed that their wallets are already being picked even as they celebrate.  The contents of their wallets are, according to Democrat leaders, to be passed to 'Detroit Car Builders Inc.', an industry nearly as stupid as its customers in that it refused to follow the Japs in building smaller, more economical cars and which has thus been in decline for years, and is now in a nearly terminal condition.  All these 'Obama-crat' bloggers who are cheering him on are the very same people who shrieked and moaned because Bush supported Big Business! (And, no, I don't get the logic, either.)  All I can say to my American friends is this - British Leyland! Heh, heh, heh!

I give you, yet again, Duff's Law:  You spend your money better than your government.

The Washington Post leans so far it nearly falls over!

The Republicans screamed foul play over the biased, pro-Obama, MSM coverage of the presidential campaigns and there is a natural tendency to shrug and think, well, they would, wouldn't they?  However, today we have confirmation (of 'the bleedin' obvious'!) in the case of The Washington Post from an impeccable source - its own ombudsman, Mrs. Deborah Howell:

"The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain."

"One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama's running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission."

I'm not sure that it matters too much.  In a country with a free press editors should be free to take what line they like and if anyone in 'Main Street, USA' thinks the likes of The Washington Post is anything other than liberal, they deserve to waste the money the paper costs them.  I understand that, by and large, talk radio in the States is overwhelmingly Republican, so you pays your money and you takes your choice.  However, I view with extreme suspicion suggestions from the Democrats for legislation to govern talk radio in order to ensure what they call 'fair coverage'.  If it's required for Rush Limbaugh, it's obviously required for The Washington Post, and other newspapers,  as well.

The best use for Mrs. Howell's report would be to make it a large part of the syllabus in colleges teaching graduate journalists - but I won't hold my breath!  Much worse than any of this is the bile-inducing stupidity and cant of the BBC which seriously believes that it is high-minded, neutral and fair and whose wretched output I am forced to pay for through my taxes.  At least the Yanks can cut up The Washington Post and use it for toilet paper in these straitened times.  All I can do is switch my TV to Sky News, and my radio to 'TOORK SPOORT' which does achieve a degree of neutrality even if it is only between the merits or otherwise of Manchester United versus Arsenal!  (Yes, yes, I know its infantile, trivial dross but it makes me smile.  When did John 'Interrupter' Humphries last make you laugh?)

"We shall remember them"

Remembrance Sunday and the always immaculate and moving ceremony at the Cenotaph provides a few moments of reflection on such matters as war, patriotism and 'the butcher's bill'.  In particular, it is still the grim and grief-inducing slaughter of the western front in WWI that gives pause to the most avid jingoist and the calculator of real-politik, alike.  I have touched on this subject before but, after considering the alternative policies Britain could have taken in August 1914, I still believe the balance tips towards the necessity of our involvement on land in Europe. But, sweet Christ, every time I pass my village war memorial and look at the weathered names carved upon it, it still makes me ponder.

Off to throw up!

I have just written one of my long (yes, and probably tedious,too) 'Sunday rumbles' and the unspeakbale Typepad 'thingy' has swallowed most of it and spat it into oblivion.  Bring back the quill pen, I say, but in the meantime, I'm off to throw up and kick the cats!

Where are the "useless Tories" when you need them?

The "useless Tories", Peter Hitchen's favourite description, have already missed one chance to drive a stake through the heart of 'Monster Broon' by allowing his version of economic events to become the received wisdom, that is, that prosperous, prudent Britain under the careful leadership of its canny Scots steward was unexpectedly and unfairly infected with Mad American Disease, and that the only piece of luck for the British people was to have this immensely wise and capable financial specialist at their bedside to see them through the fever of the night.  The truth is, of course, that as the last of the truly humungous great spenders, Brown has not only been profligate but monumentally incompetent, as well.  Billions of borrowed money poured down the drains that are our nationalised health and education services without any discernable improvement, and trillions more promised to state employees for pensions that are now impossible for the private sector to enjoy. Brown's claim that Britain is better placed to withstand the current financial calamity than others has been flatly contradicted by the IMF; it is a despicable, downright lie, to go along with all the other lies that this incorrigible lying liar spews forth.

So where are Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition?  Why are they not using every chance, every outlet, all media ways and means, to ram this lie back down 'Broon's' throat?  Because they're useless, that's why!  Sorry to bore on but I have said it before and I will repeat it again, Cameron and Osborne have no philosophy, no ideology, no coherently thought-out world view beyond doing and saying whatever it takes to get their arses into the ministerial chairs.  They failed to shout a warning as the grossly over-loaded gravy train carrying the British economy groaned its way towards the cliff edge partly because they didn't have the guts to spoil the voters' party but also because they lacked, not just the courage of their convictions, but any convictions at all.  They promised to spend just as much as 'Broon', the drunken sailor, had spent.  What a dire and damning comparison to the late '90s when 'Broon' was compelled in the first two or three years to promise that he would not exceed very tight Conservative spending plans put in by Clark.  Now, bemused and bewildered by the catastrophe, saddled with a shadow Chancellor who has demonstrated, post-Corfu, what we all suspected, that he is a light-weight with no discernment or even commonsense, too 'frit' (I use the word for obvious reasons) to advocate a real policy of free market capitalism and small government, they are about to be caught out again, not once , but twice.

First, Brown is already hinting that he will follow the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' and advocate tax cuts, thus leaving the Tories wallowing in his wake.  Of course, they won't be real tax cuts but some version of forcing people to jump through bureaucratic hoops in order, hopefully, to claim back some of the money already ripped off them by the government.  Second, he might, just might, screw up the remnants of his courage and go for a Spring election on the shrewd assessment that his swaggering display of command and control, which has already had some positive effect in the Glenrothes by-election, might give him a least-bad result nationally compared to what might be after 18 moths of lay-offs, repossessions and bankruptcies.

The Tories need to wake up and smell their own decay!

 

Rainbows and Mercy Ships

As we approach Christmas I had intended to write another post on the subject of the 'Mercy Ships' organisation as a follow up to my original post, here.  However, my e-pal, 'Fallen Monk', a good ol' Southern boy from Georgia, has provoked me to write it a little earlier because, as a result of Obama winning the election (obviously either a clear fluke or  a case of severe hanging chads!) I owe him a bottle of 12-year old Macallan.  He, very generously, has proposed that instead of wasting money on postage and packing to the States I should, instead, donate the money to 'Rainbows'.  Of course I shall do that and I urge you all to just have a quick click on the link to read about it and see if you can spare something for them this Christmas.  The care of dying children needs no special pleading.

However, that is just me settling a bet so my obligation to spare something else for a decent charity is not absolved.  Ever since the summer when I first heard about 'Mercy Ships' I have been thinking of them and their work.  I cannot stress strongly enough that no-one is paid, indeed, the volunteers spend their own money in air fares in order to reach the ship which recently has centred its activities in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.  Also, because all the medical equipment and treatment takes place on board, there is no chance of it being stolen or breaking down for lack of parts.  This has to be one of the most cost effective charities in the world.  By co-incidence, Mary Wakefield in The Spectator last week, wrote her Diary piece from Monrovia and its worth reading as a background to the appalling conditions in that country. Read my original post on the subject and find out exactly what 'war torn' means!  So, perhaps you can cut back on something this Christmas and spare them a little contribution.

What is it that man keeps telling us?  "Yes we can!"

ADDITIONAL:  The following was added as a comment below by the 'Jamie Oliver' of the Mercy Ship:

There are many personal blogs (links) from people working in Mercy Ships at
http://mercyshipslinks.blogspot.com

Very interesting reads...

Only in America!

"Only this more: Lord [Obama] is precise;

Stands at a guard with Envy; scarce confesses

That his blood flows; or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone.  Hence shall we see

If power change purpose, what our seemers be."

"Crash"

No, no, not the financial one from which you are even now picking the shards of glass and twisted metal from your bank account and pension fund, I mean the film, "Crash", directed by Paul Haggis.  I am sure you will all be pleased to see that here, at Duff & Nonsense, our constant endeavour to bring you reviews of the very latest releases at lightening speed is well up to standard as the film was only released in 2004!  Thus, I must assume that most of you have seen it, and if you haven't, then buy the DVD - now!

I missed it in the cinema - damn! - but saw it on TV a couple of years ago, and then again last night on Channel 4 Films. It is a tale of damnation and salvation demonstrated with great skill by Paul Haggis who has taken his scalpel and removed a thin slice of Los Angeles life, from the top in the District Attorney's office, to the bottom in the back of a stolen truck filled with illegal Asian immigrants, and shows us with forensic intelligence the myriad of connections between them all.  It is a walking, talking depiction of the great truth expresssed by Freidrich Hayek that modern societies are simply too huge, too complex, too dynamic, for any bureaucracy, even armed with the biggest computers in the world, to fully comprehend.  It also has the wisdom to point up what is, perhaps, the greatest influence in all of our lives no matter how well we are organised - chance? - fate? - co-incidence? - the law of unintended consequences? - call it what you will.

Just about everyone in this story starts as one thing but ends up, if not exactly as something else, then definitely in an altered state of either being or awareness.  Some of them are clearly conscious of this, some only comprehend it dimly.  None of them are entirely bad, any more than they are wholly good.  Setting them off, in the background, hovering above, beyond and all around these individuals and their trials and tribulations, there is the teeming, non-stop energy of life and death in Los Angeles.  This is a superb film, one of the very few that can be watched over and over.  Do not, under any circumstances, miss it.

My hatred for the lying liars who rule us grows apace!

If, like me, you find yet another example of blatant lying by those who rule over us either enraging to the point of considering murder, or depressing to the point of abject weeping, then read no further! However, if you can stomach it, here's another prime example from a press release issued last Thursday by the Home Office:

" ‘[A] record 186,028 drug seizures by police and HM Revenue and Custums in England & Wales in 2006/07, compared with 161,1132 in 2005; an increase of 15 per cent’. [...] ‘between 2004 and 2006/07, drug seizures have increased by 73 per cent’"

By jove, I bet you're all thinking; well done, the boys in blue, and how lucky we all are to have such a super efficient Home Secretary under the wise and kindly guidance of our very own son of the manse.  Well, of course, you didn't think that at all.  My readers, with the exception of retards like 'Little Willy', are a fairly shrewd old lot and if they thought anything it would have been along the lines of, 'I'm not exactly sure why but that sounds like a load of bollocks'!  We would all then wait for further proof that there is no fool like a smart-arse fool as John Band leaps in to tell us that we have it all wrong because we are suffering from galloping Daily Mail-itis. (Actually, to be fair, he's not always totally stupid but when he is, he really is!)

In this case, I am grateful to Kathy Gyngell of the Centre for Policy Studies for conducting a forensic examination of this particular pile of steaming ordure and then demonstrating from a careful reading of the real statistics that the press release should have read like this if it had aimed for accuracy:

"‘The latest figures show that quantities of Class A Drugs seized fell by 30 per cent on the previous year and are the lowest figures since 1999. They have fallen by a combined 64% per cent on peak takes of heroin in 2001 and cocaine in 2003.’ "

She sums up the real world, a place rarely visited by our glorious leaders, thus:

 

"The reality is that far from going up, the amount of Class A drugs has slumped once again, as it has every year since 2003. Cocaine quantities seized have dropped to 3,191 tonnes, 53% down 2003’s record take. And the amount of crack cocaine seized in 2006/7 was a shocking 73% down on 2003. The continuing failure to stem the importation of heroin is no less worrying. The paltry 1,003 kilos taken in 2006/7 shows a 62% drop since 2003."

To savour fully the rich taste of corruption, mendacity and political chicanery involved in this piece of Goebbels-like propaganda, consider her final remark:

 

"How come Sweden – a country with a seven million population and a huge coastline, with many fewer policemen and customs and excise officers than the UK – managed to seize more heroin than the UK did in the same year and nearly a quarter of cocaine total? Not surprising perhaps that they don’t have the drug problem we have."

I am obliged to Fraser Nelson of The Coffee House for the original link and for a graph which provides, perhaps, the best evidence for exactly how the so-called 'war on drugs' is actually going, in that it shows that in 1997, the price of cocaine and heroin was around £70 - £73 a gram and today it is approximately £50-£53 a gram.   Say no more!