DUFF & NONSENSE!

Keep movin', you 'orrible little man!

Now that's what I call 'man-packing'!  As a regimental signaller, I carried some loads in my day but I never wanted to swap places with the lads in the mortar platoon.  I still remember how we all fell about laughing at one of them as we plodded off a DZ in Scotland and the poor bugger simply sank up to his waist in the boggy ground because of the enormous weight he was carrying. I really and truly feel for US Marine Cpl. Brian Knight.  I sincerely hope he lives to tell the tale and bore his grandchildren to tears.  

This site run by David Guttenfelder of AP is simply packed with terrific photos from which you can infer all you need to know about soldiering in Afghanistan.

U.S. Marine Cpl. Brian Knight, of Cincinnati, Ohio, with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 1st Battalion 5th Marines, pauses briefly in the heat to rest with his heavy pack filled with mortar equipment, ammunition, food, and water in the Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province on July 4, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Give 'em the benefit of the doubt? I don't think so.

Courtesy of Climate Audit (CA), and I have nothing to add because this says it all:

Michael Mann, inventor of the 'Hockey Stick' in Nov 1999:

No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum [realclimate].

Phil Jones, Chief 'Honcho' at the CRU in Nov 1999

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Gavin Schidt, defender of the faith at RealClimate, Nov 2009:

Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.

So this diagram below is what they produced and endorsed:

But as one of CA's readers pointed out:

The green line is tree-ring data on the left. On the right it has been smoothly merged into temperature data. This is “Mike’s Nature trick”, that Mann falsely claimed was never done. The replacement of actual data with spliced temperature data “hide the decline” in the green tree-ring data curve in the late 20th century, making the reconstruction seem able to model recent temperatures, when it didn’t.

Here is a diagram of Briffa's embarrassing and awkward data part of which (in red) was  deleted in the 'trick' which Mann and Jones denied.

 

Need I say more?

It's the way they tell 'em!

Politicians!  I have spent all my life with their usually vapid witterings going on and on and on until, about 40 years ago, I thought I had heard everything. Another thing I was wrong about but which old age had allowed to fall through the gaping holes of my memory.  Yesterday four police officers, including one female officer, were coldly and efficiently butchered as they sat drinking coffee in the small town where they worked.  The main suspect is on the run and turns out to be:

Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing this morning of four Lakewood police officers, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health.

It also turns out that this murderous psycho was released early by Gov. Mike Huckabee on grounds of clemency and against the wishes of local prosecutors.  Well, we all make mistakes and if you are a leading politician taking very many decisions during a life's work then some of them are bound to be wrong - in retrospect.  But when they go wrong, especially terribly and tragically wrong as in this case, how you re-act tells everything that needs to be known about you:

Huckabee, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination last year, issued a statement tonight calling the slaying of the police officers "a horrible and tragic event."  If Clemmons is found responsible, "it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State," Huckabee said.

He added that Clemmons' release from prison had been reviewed and approved by the Arkansas parole board.

Or, to put it in the local argot, 'Le's see if we kin shift this shit aroun' on ter some other sucker's plate'.

'Lest we forget', to quote an old homage to the war dead, of whom these police officers have earned an honourary entitlement, here is just some of Clemmons's history:

When Clemmons received the 60-year sentence, he was already serving 48 years on five felony convictions and facing up to 95 more years on charges of robbery, theft of property and possessing a handgun on school property. Records from Clemmons' sentencing described him as 5-foot-7 and 108 pounds. The crimes were committed when he was 17.  Clemmons served 11 years before being released.

News accounts say Huckabee commuted Clemmons' sentence, citing Clemmons' young age at the time the crimes were committed.

Sorry, Governor Huckabee, you just disqualified yourself from any office higher than local dog-catcher!

 

Man from Mars: First Picture

Either that or he's an escapee from the nearest looney-bin! Or so you might think from his photo but in fact he is Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC.  Looking at that picture I can only ask all of you, honestly, would you buy a used car from that man?  In fact, would you buy it if it was demonstrated to you that the so-called service history was a figment of the imaginations of several crooked car-dealers, that the clock had been rewound more times than your mother's old, antique casement clock, and on inspection it turns out that the car is actually made of two old bangers stitched together with a welding torch? 

Oh alright then, let's be serious, would you buy a world-wide imposition of taxes likely to send your energy bills soaring and the world economy diving, to be controlled under the auspices of Mr. Pachauri and all those other high-minded gentlemen at the United Nations who you know are only there to serve your best interests - sorry, didn't quite catch that - are you alright?

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

This wise guru defended the IPCC reports thus:

[T]he large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said. [My emphasis]

When faced with this incriminating piece of evidence from the hand of one of the leading 'scientists' on the IPCC:

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the climatic research unit at UEA, said of two papers he regarded as flawed: "I can't see either … being in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Guru Pachauri replied, with a straight face:

"I really think people should be discreet … in this day and age anything you write, even privately, could become public and to put anything down in writing is, to say the least, indiscreet … It is another matter to talk about this to your friends on the telephone or person to person but to put it down in writing was indiscreet. If someone was to say something like this in an IPCC authors' meeting then there are others who would chew him up."

This indefatigable seeker after truth thundered:

an independent inquiry into the emails would achieve little, but there should be a criminal investigation into how the emails came to light.

Or, roughly translated, let's find and kill the messenger!  And anyway, one thing has been proved beyond any doubt because, as Pachauri correctly points out:

five days after the emails were made public, Barack Obama announced a major commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

What has been proved?  Why, the fact that Obama is as thick as my huge, fat, stupid, useless, ginger cat!

Quotes from 'The Groan' via Drudge

"Great Britain Loses one of its Finest"

I make absolutely no apology for stealing Michael Yon's heading to a post that tells some of the story of a truly remarkable man - S/Sgt Olaf Schmid.  Everyone, including frontline 'Toms', has admiration for bomb-disposal men, an activity which always takes a special sort of cold-blooded courage that few of us possess.  Schmid cleared 64 mines before being killed by the last, although according to Yon's report, 64 was almost certainly an under-estimation.  This gives me an opportunity to urge you all to put Yon's site on your 'Favourites' list.  He is a terrific reporter who 'tells it the way it is' and his photography puts you right in the action.  What a shame that men like Schmid are led by cowards and poltroons.

 http://www.michaelyon-online.com/great-britain-loses-one-of-its-finest.htm

The Sunday Rumble 29/11/09

Christmas cards:  I'm only writing this because I'm halfway through writing all my Christmas cards and if I don't take a break I shall stab my eyes out!  What a balls-aching job it is.  Normally I get an urge to do it during October or November and I sit down straightaway to knock them out whilst I'm in the mood, but this year, for some reason, I just cannot get in the Christmas mood.  "Forsooth I know not why I am so sad . . ." and all that jazz!

Obama plays spot the lady:  We've all seen those guys, usually in a busy street with a folding table - for a quick getaway if the 'old Bill' turn up - with three cards one of which is a queen and they invite you to 'spot the lady' as they shuffle at enormous speed and with amazing dexterity.  Obama is, I suspect, about to play the same sort of trick.  He has three options in Afghanistan, get out immediately, stay in indefinitely and, in effect, take over the governance of the place, or try and con everyone by surging in thousands of troops next year before surging them all out again the year after faster than you can say '2012 presidential election'!  In this latter scenario, he will either claim victory or he will blame the defeat on Karzai.  Needless to say, Brown and our utterly useless General Staff are going along wasting our blood and treasure to help keep this Marxist shyster in power.

New Year's Eve:  One part of the festivities I do look forward to is New Year's Eve.  Over the years we have taken to celebrating it with four very old friends, taking it in turns to act as hosts.  Many years ago I insisted that us men should wear dinner suits and black tie which did not endear me to my pals but they went along with it and I think they quite like it now.  Of course, my reason for putting the idea forward is that it gives the ladies an excuse to really doll themselves up - such a change!

'Climategate' rumbles across the pond:  Now that Phil Jones has been left as walking wounded merely awaiting someone to give him the bullet, attention has turned to the main man - Mann!  Professor Michael Mann, inventor, in every sense of the word, of the infamous 'hockey stick' is to be investigated by his own university- Penn State.  Not that too much is expected because the university, itself, like East Anglia, is in on the scam.  Incidentally, if any HAFs accuse a sceptic scientist of being in the pay of 'Big Oil', ask them to check on Dr. Phil Jones's list of contributors to his 'research' fund and find out how much came from so-called 'green' energy companies.  Apropos my title, I think the rumble has gone even further than across the Atlantic.  The Australian Liberal (ie, Tory) party has split on the issue of a proposed carbon trading scam scheme supported by their soaking wet leader.  Several front benchers have resigned and there seems a good chance of a change in the leadership.  (My thanks to Bishop Hill and WUWT.)

Whilst we're in the Antipodes:  May I recommend an excellent blog run from New Zealand by Trevor Loudon and called New Zeal.  Amongst many other things, Mr. Loudon is indefatigable in his mole-like diggings into the background of all those hitherto unknown 'czars' and advisers that Obama hand-picked as such in order to avoid letting them come under Senate investigation.  I should warn you that, if you like and admire the USA (despite its myriad faults) it makes for dismal and alarming reading.  Come back Sen. McCarthy, all is forgiven!  Anyway, read 'New Zeal', it's worth it for the background you will never find in the MSM.

Never trust a sailor:  That was, and is, good advice to pass onto daughters but these days, alas, it applies to all of us if the sailors concerned work at the MoD and have lots of gold braid.  The Mail on Sunday has published more revelations concerning that mysterious kidnapping of a British couple by Somali pirates.  Originally, it was given out that RN ships were too far away to help, then it came out that in fact there was a ship present but it was only a supply ship with no offensive power, now it turns out that in fact the fleet auxiliary ship had 20 armed and trained marines on boards all dressed up in their black gear and guns and rarin' to go - but the order never came.  Something stinks at the MoD, and it is particularly rank at the Admiralty end of it.  Don't even go to the political 'leadership' at the top, not without wearing a full NBC suit.  I have it on very good authority that Nelson on his column has now shut his only good eye and is holding his nose with his only good hand!

Was it illegal, illegitimate or just a bastard!

I listened to a fair bit of Sir Jeremy Greenstock's testimony to the Iraq war enquiry.  The first thing that struck me was the truth implied by that old joke that the Foreign Office should be renamed the 'Ministry for Foreigners'.  I am happy to be corrected but my impression was that Sir Jeremy had very little interest in British grand strategic interests but was much more concerned with keeping the United Mafiosi Nations happy.  In so far as he appeared concerned for Britain it was to ensure that we kept our good name and reputation in that 'Hall of Whores'.  What people like Sir Jeremy forget is that whilst he meekly obeys the diktat of the Security Council and thus permits his own country to be hobbled, he seems unaware, or perhaps, unconcerned, with the fact that when push comes to shove no-one else pays it any attention whatsoever. 

There was some humour to be had from his delicate division between the war being 'legal but not legitimate'.  That is the sort of well-bred distinction they teach you at Harrow, Oxford and the FO.  As Paul Waugh points out on his blog, from Sir Jeremy's perspective the main aim for Britain was to defend the United Nations which for the previous 12 years had been utterly useless.  In his own words:

There was no doubt that the United Nations over 12 years had failed to deal with the fact that they were being defied by Saddam Hussein.

We were trying to defend the United Nations from being eroded by successive non-compliance by a member state just as much as we were trying to deal with the threat posed by the Iraqi possession of dangerous weapons.

Perhaps part of the reason for UN failures lies in the fact that so many of their top officials, including a relation of Kofi Annan, were earning fortunes in bribes from international crooks breaking UN sanctions.

Anyway, so far it looks as though the top echelons of our Foreign Service are pathetic and useless, and I am becoming ever more convinced that the same applies to the top brass in our armed forces - but more of that later.

We let little Georgie 'Moonbat' join the gang - on probation!

You all know how me and my mates used to gang up on little Georgie 'Moonbat' in the playground on account of him being a prat in specs who spent all his time sucking up to the teachers in the science block.  Well, little Georgie has come around and now realises that everything the 'Stinks' in the science lab taught him was rubbish, they were having him on, pulling his little legs, and now he's really upset, and cried:

 I have seldom felt so alone.

The true depth of the mean trick that has been perpetrated on him is beginning to sink in:

Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition.

And he is appalled at his erstwhile friends:

The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.

And the worst perp of the lot is the chief 'Stinks', himself:

One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" [My emphasis]

Cor, who'da thunk it?!

Anyway, me and my mates are going to lay off little Georgie.  He's very, very upset but at least he has had the guts to call it the way it really is - a gigantic scientific scam.  Of course, he still believes the basic premise of global warming even if a massive amount of the evidence offered now looks like a huge dollop of steaming tripe which, incidentally, he knows perhaps better than most, having delivered some of it in the past, is now going to be hurled in his direction as he is denounced as a traitor to the cause.

Enough of my heavy-handed humour.  I really do admire the intellectual guts it took for him, of all people, to face the damning and damaging facts as presented and the disgraceful re-action of the malefactors.  George Monbiot is going to take severe criticism and the only item on the plus side is that he will now find out who his true friends are!

"Calm down, dear!"

Yes, yes, I have calmed down - and for the benefit of my foreign visitors the title of this post has achieved some sort of fame 'over here' as the punchline to an advert on TV.  Anyway, my somewhat emotional state on returning from the cinema the other day has diminished and I would like to return to my critique, if that is quite the word, of the film, An Education.

It is set in lower middle class Twickenham, an attractive suburb in south west London which I know well from my former theatrical days.  It is 1961 but, and this is important, it was not quite the 'swinging '60s', that was still to come.  In 1961 we were still wrapped in our cosy, 1950s' comfort-blanket; a time, which in retrospect is increasingly remembered by me, at any rate, as an era of calm tranquility, a truly civic society in which manners and stiff upper lips were still regarded as admirable and which seemed, according to the cynics of the time, to be glued into place for ever by that essential cement - hypocrisy.  Even so, beneath the feet of staid, polite, decent England the ground was already shifting.  Increasing wealth was spreading down through the classes and with it, hand in hand, you might say, the dangerous temptations of liberty.

In the film we see a very bright and intelligent schoolgirl, played brilliantly by Carey Mulligan, working hard towards fulfilling her parents' dream of gaining an entrance to Oxford.  She is picked up by an older man, the tremendously charming, Peter Sarsgaard, a new actor to me and to my immense surprise, an American!  He is terific, exactly right in every gesture and the slightly hesitant delivery of his lines, and he positively oozes charm in the very best, apparently effortless way of Lothario's everywhere.  I was only slightly disconcerted by his startling likeness to Ed Balls, although fortunately without the bulging, blinking eyes!  Anyway, the expected happens and our young heroine is introduced to a luxurious but louche demi-monde.  I will say no more of the plot but concentrate on its milieu which is acutely observed.

This was a time when the lower middle classes, those 'unfortunates' who had neither the wealth or the breeding to reach the classes above them nor the popular mythology that guilds the 'noble' working class, were beginning to obtain enough new wealth to aspire to 'higher' things - if they had the nerve.  As a lower middle class lad myself in those days, I instantly sympathised with the father in the film, played by the always superb, Alfred Molina, when, on being invited by Sarsgaard to an expensive restaurant, complains that he does not know how to order a starter!  Such were the apparently insurmountable social obstacles facing a nouveau in a new and sophisticated world.  Today, of course, no such embarrassment occurs because no-one has any standards except money.  The truth of this was borne in on me years ago when I once took my wife to a special birthday dinner at the hideously expensive Waterside Inn which had more stars than the Milky Way and, having dressed carefully, I found myself sitting facing another table at which sat a young man dressed like an out-of-work terrorist but over whom the waiters made a tremendous fuss.  I assumed he was some sort of rock star with enough money to buy and sell the whole restaurant if he so wished.

I remarked in my previous post on this film that the detail in the production is impeccable.  In a scene in which the couple enter a bedroom in a small country hotel I could not but smile in recognition!  It was a dead-ringer for the sort of room  my wife and I shared during our honeymoon in 1964 - including the 'Teasmade' on the bedside table -  I can't remember the last time I saw one of those and I am amazed to see that they still make modern versions of it.

Every single actor in this film is terrific, and that includes the smaller support roles, the heroine's two giggling school friends and the gawky, young 'wannabe' boyfriend, invited to tea and struggling to master a Battenberg cake politely - beautifully observed.  In particular, Olivia Williams was superb as Miss Stubbs, the apparently icey and spinsterish school teacher who recognises the latent talent in this young girl but remains aloof until the very end.  I have written here before of my memory of the late Miss Wood, Eng. Lit & Lang., who unbeknownst to her, actually passed on her love of Shakespeare to me, the most unlikely recruit in the entire school!  How I wish I could have met her again to tell her that she had not laboured in vain.

I cannot praise this film too highly so, please, do try and catch it - and let me know whether you agree with my assessment or not.

There will now be a short commercial break

I don't know what I'm doing advertising Sky Movies, I mean, it's not as though old Rupert is short of a bob or three, but his ghastly TV programme guide thudded on to my door mat this morning and instead of binning it instantly I paused to check on the movies over Christmas.  I did find one I thought I might waste 90 minutes of my life on and having reached my expectations I was about to give up when I spotted another film called A Bunch of Amateurs.  Apparently this stars Burt Reynolds and Imelda Staunton, two excellent comedy players, and the story concerns an ageing Hollywood 'legend' on the slide but who receives an invitation to come to England to play Lear.  Alas, it turns out not to be the RSC at Stratford but some 'bunch of amateurs'.  Given my recent bereavement disappointment there could not be a more suitable film for me to watch.  Perhaps some of you might be interested so I hope it's as good as it promises.

Since writing the above, I went on to Google to check it out and found this, part of the review from Time Out:

A Hollywood has-been slums it in an amateur British production: it’s a description that covers both plot and film in this amiable but scattershot comedy. Burt Reynolds is Jefferson Steel, a pampered action star desperate to make a comeback. He accepts an offer to do Shakespeare in Stratford, little knowing that it’s not upon Avon, but the (fictional) village of Stratford St John in Suffolk.

Naturally, the amateur theatre group is in raptures about the arrival of their LA King Lear, but the man himself is less than enthused about acting alongside pig farmers and staying in a B&B with no ensuite facilities. It’s a reasonably amusing idea, and the script duly has fun with the contrasts between LA-la land and sleepy Suffolk. Steel pops his shoes outside his bedroom door only for a dog to chew on them. Later, the local mobile library is hurriedly transformed into a makeshift trailer. 

I don't know about you lot but that strikes me as perfect TV fodder for idle Christmas 'telly' watching.

 

Sign 'ere!

'My Lord Bishop Hill' points out that there is a Downing Street petition calling for a public enquiry into the scandal at the Hadley Centre CRU which is in receipt of public funds but appears to avoid proper enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act.  You can sign you will sign, here, and that's an order, you 'orrible little man, er, or woman! Actually I think all these enquiries are a waste of time and only of use to historians years later but still, there's much enjoyment to be had from the equivalent of emptying one's bed-pan over the heads of wretches like Dr. Phil Jones.  So go on, sign it, it's so easy that even I managed it in about 15 seconds.

This about sums it up

From the hand of an unknown programmer trying to implement the Hadley Centre CRU data which Phil Jones and his rapscallion crew of artful dodgers tried to hide from us despite it being produced on our tax money:

OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform
data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found. [Emphasis added]

Thanks to WUWT.

Obama's popularity disappearing faster than belief in global warming

Now this, courtesy of those old lags over at IHTM, is a really vicious assault on 'The One':

If we could see a Reduced Shakespeare summary of Obama’s presidency so far, it would read:

Dither, dither, speech. Foreign trip, bow, reassure. Seminar, summit. Shoot a jump shot with the guys, throw out the first pitch in mom jeans. Compromise, concede, close the deal. Dither, dither, water down, news conference.

Oh no, I hear you groan, he's not quoting that Glenn Beck again, surely.  Well, surely not because those are the words of the doyenne of liberal Obama lick-spittlers, 'Dowager' Maureen Dowd, of the impeccably Democrat-supporting New York Times, no less! 

Is it any wonder that in the latest Rasmussen poll Obama's approval rating, that is, the difference between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove has sunk t0 -15, and last week for the first time in his presidency he fell below the magic 50% marker in a Gallup poll.  As a rough guide I seem to remember reading some expert who said that Obama's ratings needed to sink to the low 40s to ensure a Republican resurgence in the Senate likely to give them control.  There's a year to go!

He asked Americans over and over if they could change and they answered with an almighty, "YES WE CAN", and that's exactly what they have done, changed their minds!

The King is dead, long live the KIng!

Er, King Lear, that is!  Some of you may remember I was trying to put this on with my local AmDramSoc but, alas, the actors, or most of them, voted with their feet and stayed away.  Perhaps my directorial reputation as a foul-mouthed, carpet-chewing fanatic went before me!  It's a pity because it is a play of immense, almost unplumbable depths and I would love to have tried to get to the bottom of it.  Mind you, pity the poor actor who takes on that role.  Here is just one speech from the text to give you an idea of the hideous difficulty of it:

O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Exasperation at his ungrateful daughters
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, he tries to control himself using reason

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need! but fails, feels his temper rising
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both! self pity battles with anger
If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, now it begins to give way
And let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks! Rage erupts, fury bursts forth  No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall- -I will do such things,--   he is so demented with rage he cannot think of the words
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.  now, anger spent, he breaks down  You think I'll weep   
No, I'll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep. and finally, dreadfully, he glimpses the future   O fool, I shall go mad!

 

All those changes of mood and emotion to be reflected by the actor whilst at the same time complying with the poet's discipline of iambic pentameters and their variations, remembering where the breathing points are to ensure he has lungs full of air, as well as making the right moves and gestures at the right time and place, and above all, making it look and sound natural and not as though he had learned and rehearsed it for months. 

Oh, and retaining sufficient energy because he hasn't even reached the interval yet!

 

Well, acting's easy, innit?  Yeah, right!

Little Georgie says sorry - sort of . . .

When I read, over at WUWT, that little 'Georgie Moonbat' has said sorry for being a prat and that his Mum had told him he was a very, very naughty boy, I rushed to my OED Dictionary of Quotations for the only possible contender for use in this instance which, like most quotations I sort of know but not exactly, and which I needed to get dead right lest one of you pedants tick me off.  Here it is:

Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Alas, when I read little Georgie's piece in full I then realised that it was only half an apology, but even so, most of us would choke on the words rather than issue even that much of an apology:

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

He takes unerring aim at the main man:

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics(5,6), or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(7). I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed. (My emphasis)

Unfortunately, like a sole survivor from the sinking Titanic without even a piece of wrecked flotsam to cling to, he thrashes about in the icy waters of disillusionment and pretends he's having a dip in the Med:

But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory?(8,9) Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury manmade climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed.

He then goes on and on with a long, tedious and peurile piece of clumsy satire which is, alas, all too typical of the spotty swots in the Lower 5th (or, The Guardian, as it likes to call itself).  Even so, half an apology is better than none and me and my mates might leave off bullying little Georgie - for a while.

It's "An Education" - DON'T MISS IT!

And lest there be any doubt about it, that's an order!  I mean, of course, the film An Education which was released a few weeks back but which has only just reached these western outreaches.  I put it up there alongside The Painted Veil as one of my top ten films of all time.  The story concerns the coming-of-age of a 16-year old girl in 1961 and that summary alone would normally have put me off for life but such were the rave reviews that I decided to give it a try.  What a simply terrific and almost faultless film.  Amongst the smiles of recognition for times past there were occasions in the film when I almost cried.  The acting is sublime in its apparently effortless reality.  Every single performance was exactly right, nothing overdone, just exactly right.  The settings and the furnishings were so accurate for their time - where do they find all those artifacts so common in the '60s but mostly long disappeared.  The cinematography was brilliant with occasional vista views of countryside and then almost microscopic close-ups for effect.

I am still on an emotional high from seeing it this afternoon and my thoughts are somewhat jumbled so I might return to it tomorrow for a cooler critique but, please, please, in the meantime, do go and see it, I promise you, you will not see anything better in a cinema for a long time.

Schadenfreude: so delicious with a dollop of revenge on top!

You, dear reader, may* have misunderstood me all these years.  From my light-hearted scribblings you might* have taken me for a rather jovial, jolly, old cove full of almost Santa-like kindness and goodwill to my fellow men and women . . . sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said . . . do you need a glass of water . . .?  Where was I?  Oh yes, well, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I must confess to possessing a mean, vindictive streak in my character.  Far from kicking an enemy when he is down, I like to jump up and down on his face!  And even as I write I am tying the laces on my 'bovver boots'.  Not, mark you, that I am in a bad mood, just the opposite, I have not enjoyed a happier weekend in a long time, and the prospects for the immediate future are positively rich in good humour.  Let me explain.

A few posts back I remarked that one of the few advantages of growing old is the possibility of finding out that you were right years ago and most of your friends (and enemies) were wrong.  I wrote that in the context of the recent revelations concerning the Soviet infiltration of the Labour party, but whilst I was quietly enjoying my smug feeling of righteousness, somehow it lacked quite the zest I might* have expected because, like me, the story was so old.  But, as you will have seen in the immediately preceding posts, some good - no, excellent - news has just broken which has proved me (and others more deserving) right and utterly dished my enemies.  You may draw back in distaste at my use of the word 'enemies' because, of course, I do not know them, indeed, I have never met them, but in my (old testament?) book, 'enemies' is how I think of them and so that's what they are!  I will explain why later.

The scandal - and somehow that word seems inadequate - which has been exposed at the Hadley Centre Climate Reseach Unit (CRU) is slowly but surely growing apace.  For the first few days the MSM trod very carefully, unlike 'Blogdom' which always rushes in where angels (and lawyers) fear to tread.  However, it now seems certain that the exposed documents are genuine.  No one is sure whether the source was really a hacker or just a truth-exposing insider.  My guess, for what it is worth, is that it may have been one of the disgruntled CRU programmers, those unknown Stackhanovites who labour away trying to turn 'scientific' data into code.  Indeed, there are indications that some of the juicier examples of chicanery at the CRU are to be found in the exposed coding documents - see here and enjoy a quick read of the comments.  Anyway, today I notice that the MSM, world-wide, are taking up the story and the momentum will grow.

I refer to this wretched cabal of unscientific scientists as my 'enemies'.  Even the little 'Memsahib' bridled at that as I exhulted in my triumph (well, not mine exactly but you know what I mean).  So I turned nasty and spelled out why they are enemies of us all.  They have disgraced and denigrated science which at its very best can be a huge benefit to Mankind.  They have allowed politicians to use and abuse them and their crap science to impoverish us all by higher taxes on energy which is as essential to modern Man as wild life was to primitive Man.  We in the west are only mildly impoverished but those struggling for their very existence in the Third World will be eliminated by expensive energy.  It is, and I have pondered on this before committing my words to publication, as big a crime as anything Hitler or Stalin executed, the only difference is that it is more diffused and therefore more difficult to discern.  They have conspired and colluded in a massive fraud against the earth and its inhabitants which they pretended to care for.  They did it for the usual grubby reasons of greed for money and fame.  I want them all sacked and prosecuted for the litany of scientific frauds and malfeasance demonstrated in these documents. In particular I want Dr. Phil Jones and the official at the University of East Anglia responsible for compliance with the Freedom of Information Act hauled in front of a judge to explain exactly how they evaded FoI requests.  Better still, let them be hauled round the streets in an open cart to be pelted with rotten veg.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230122/How-climate-change-scientists-dodged-sceptics.html

Of course, none of my wishes will be met but I am content to know that despite all his blusterings, Jones will henceforth be the subject of nudges and sniggers as goes about his business, his reputation in tatters behind him, an example to everyone of perfidious science.  Likewise, his equally wretched cronies, Mann, Briffa 'et al'.  Yes, all in all, a perfect weekend and I am happy, happy, happy ...

*My e-pal, Oliver Kamm, writes the 'Pedant' column in The Times and on his blog he recently corrected another writer on the proper use of 'may' and 'might'.  There are times when Oliver is a total pain in the bum, particularly when he is in nit-picking mode.  However, honesty insists that I come clean and admit, through grinding teeth, that actually I do think correct grammar is important even if my innate idleness and carelessness makes its use here somewhat haphazard.  And whilst I'm on the subject, the pedants amongst you will already know that my understanding of the 'which' and 'that' rule is equally bereft.

ADDITIONAL: I was so taken with the particular post and thread I linked to on Anthony Watts's site that I missed the one before it which you do not have to read but can just sit back and listen to the very knowledgeable Dr. Tim Ball at your leisure.

Real Climate? You're having a laugh!

Needless to say, 'RealClimate', the HAFs' favourite blog-site and its principal editor, Gavin Schmidt, have been working overtime trying to rebut or play down the nuclear fall-out from the hacked e-mails.  As an integral part of the whole global warming farrago, RealClimate has been forced on the defensive by its own supporters. 

san quintin says:

20 November 2009 at 2:01 PM

One purported email says:

“guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we put up the RC post. By now, you’ve probably read that nasty McIntyre thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don’t go there personally, but so I’m informed).

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.

You’re also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We’ll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont’get to use the RC comments as a megaphone…”

I’m not a sceptic (far from it…I’ve been involved in climate science for a long time and have been convinced about AGW for years) but I do think that this sends a pretty crap message to everyone. If RC is screening posts to push a particular point then it’s not that much better in that regard than a lot of the sceptic sites.

[Response: This is a moderated site, and always has been. We do screen out a lot of the random squawk of the blogosphere and the baseless accusations of malfeasance that are commonplace on open forums. We do that unapologetically in order to maximise the signal-to-noise ratio in threads. When there are technical issues that we aren't qualified to judge, we often ask people more involved to comment - and these comments appear inline with the questions so that the answers are not lost and are provided at the same time as the question appears. This leaves a record for later readers that is much easier to follow. We don't screen out comments just because they disagree with us (as is evident in any comment thread). - gavin]

That is followed immediately by a shorter but much deadlier thrust:

JohnAnnArbor says:

20 November 2009 at 2:01 PM

Your anger at people for simply asking questions and trying to replicate results is damning.

[Response: Nonsense. Anger is restricted to people who misrepresent views and make up false accusations. Asking real questions about real issues is welcome. - gavin]

Watching these charlatans wriggle on a hundred deadly barbs almost qualifies as a cruel sport. Gimmee more!

Just one of the hundreds of smoking guns

Here is just one of the hacked e-mails as reproduced at the ever-excellent WUWT:

So far one of the most circulated e-mails from the CRU hack is the following from Phil Jones to the original hockey stick authors – Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes.

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,[email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: [email protected],[email protected]

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. [My emphasis] Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email [email protected]
NR4 7TJ
UK

"To hide the decline"!  Could anything better expose these rascals for the scientific charlatans that they are than that deadly phrase from the keyboard of one of their leaders?

LIARS! CHEATS! SCOUNDRELS!

Given that title it behooves me to be scrupuously honest and admit that what you are about to read is a cut and paste job from 'Bishop Hill's' site.  I woke up this morning, quite eagerly for a change, ready to spend several hours trawling the net to read what I could of the hundreds of hacked e-mails from the Hadley CRU outfit which is the 'Command Bunker' for the so-called 'scientific' HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics).  However, before settling down to that I carried out my usual scan of my favourite sites which, of course, includes 'Bishop Hill', a man of quiet but excellent intelligence.  Lo and behold, and he must have been up all night, he has done the job for me!  A simply superb summary detailing the lies and corruption at the heart of the global warming scam.

'Bishop Hill' has written a book on the subject called "The Hockey Stick Illusion" due to be published in January and you can pre-order a copy here which I urge you to do.  In the light of this current exposure the poor chap will be spending even more time desperatey adding appendices to his book because so many of these e-mails refer to and make clear the shenanigans of these so-called scientists.

Anyway, it is with very real appreciation that I re-produce 'Bishop Hill's' post here:

• Phil Jones writes to University of Hull to try to stop sceptic Sonia Boehmer Christiansen using her Hull affiliation. Graham F Haughton of Hull University says its easier to push greenery there now SB-C has retired.(1256765544)
• Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.(1047388489)
• Tim Osborn discusses how data are truncated to stop an apparent cooling trend showing up in the results (0939154709). Analysis of impact here. Wow!
• Phil Jones describes the death of sceptic, John Daly, as "cheering news".
• Phil Jones encourages colleagues to delete information subject to FoI request.(1212063122)
• Phil Jones says he has use Mann's "Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series"...to hide the decline". Real Climate says "hiding" was an unfortunate turn of phrase.(0942777075)
• Letter to The Times from climate scientists was drafted with the help of Greenpeace.(0872202064)
• Mann thinks he will contact BBC's Richard Black to find out why another BBC journalist was allowed to publish a vaguely sceptical article.(1255352257)
• Kevin Trenberth says they can't account for the lack of recent warming and that it is a travesty that they can't.(1255352257)
• Tom Wigley says that Lindzen and Choi's paper is crap.(1257532857)
• Tom Wigley says that von Storch is partly to blame for sceptic papers getting published at Climate Research. Says he encourages the publication of crap science. Says they should tell publisher that the journal is being used for misinformation. Says that whether this is true or not doesn't matter. Says they need to get editorial board to resign. Says they need to get rid of von Storch too. (1051190249)
• Ben Santer says (presumably jokingly!) he's "tempted, very tempted, to beat the crap" out of sceptic Pat Michaels. (1255100876)
• Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to '"contain" the putative Medieval Warm Period'. (1054736277)
• Tom Wigley tells Jones that the land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming and that this might be used by sceptics as evidence for urban heat islands.(1257546975)
• Tom Wigley say that Keith Briffa has got himself into a mess over the Yamal chronology (although also says it's insignificant. Wonders how Briffa explains McIntyre's sensitivity test on Yamal and how he explains the use of a less-well replicated chronology over a better one. Wonders if he can. Says data withholding issue is hot potato, since many "good" scientists condemn it.(1254756944)
• Briffa is funding Russian dendro Shiyatov, who asks him to send money to personal bank account so as to avoid tax, thereby retaining money for research.(0826209667)
• Kevin Trenberth says climatologists are nowhere near knowing where the energy goes or what the effect of clouds is. Says nowhere balancing the energy budget. Geoengineering is not possible.(1255523796)
• Mann discusses tactics for screening and delaying postings at Real Climate.(1139521913)
• Tom Wigley discusses how to deal with the advent of FoI law in UK. Jones says use IPR argument to hold onto code. Says data is covered by agreements with outsiders and that CRU will be "hiding behind them".(1106338806)
• Overpeck has no recollection of saying that he wanted to "get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". Thinks he may have been quoted out of context.(1206628118)
• Mann launches RealClimate to the scientific community.(1102687002)
• Santer complaining about FoI requests from McIntyre. Says he expects support of Lawrence Livermore Lab management. Jones says that once support staff at CRU realised the kind of people the scientists were dealing with they became very supportive. Says the VC [vice chancellor] knows what is going on (in one case).(1228330629)
• Rob Wilson concerned about upsetting Mann in a manuscript. Says he needs to word things diplomatically.(1140554230)
• Briffa says he is sick to death of Mann claiming his reconstruction is tropical because it has a few poorly temp sensitive tropical proxies. Says he should regress these against something else like the "increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage" he produces. Ed Cook agrees with problems.(1024334440)
• Overpeck tells Team to write emails as if they would be made public. Discussion of what to do with McIntyre finding an error in Kaufman paper. Kaufman's admits error and wants to correct. Appears interested in Climate Audit findings.(1252164302)
• Jones calls Pielke Snr a prat.(1233249393)
• Santer says he will no longer publish in Royal Met Soc journals if they enforce intermediate data being made available. Jones has complained to head of Royal Met Soc about new editor of Weather [why?data?] and has threatened to resign from RMS.(1237496573)
• Reaction to McIntyre's 2005 paper in GRL. Mann has challenged GRL editor-in-chief over the publication. Mann is concerned about the connections of the paper's editor James Saiers with U Virginia [does he mean Pat Michaels?]. Tom Wigley says that if Saiers is a sceptic they should go through official GRL channels to get him ousted. (1106322460) [Note to readers - Saiers was subsequently ousted]
• Later on Mann refers to the leak at GRL being plugged.(1132094873)
• Jones says he's found a way around releasing AR4 review comments to David Holland.(1210367056)
• Wigley says Keenan's fraud accusation against Wang is correct. (1188557698)
• Jones calls for Wahl and Ammann to try to change the received date on their alleged refutation of McIntyre [presumably so it can get into AR4](1189722851)
• Mann tells Jones that he is on board and that they are working towards a common goal.(0926010576)
• Mann sends calibration residuals for MBH99 to Osborn. Says they are pretty red, and that they shouldn't be passed on to others, this being the kind of dirty laundry they don't want in the hands of those who might distort it.(1059664704)
• Prior to AR3 Briffa talks of pressure to produce a tidy picture of "apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data". [This appears to be the politics leading the science] Briffa says it was just as warm a thousand years ago.(0938018124)
• Jones says that UK climate organisations are coordinating themselves to resist FoI. They got advice from the Information Commissioner [!](1219239172)
• Mann tells Revkin that McIntyre is not to be trusted.(1254259645)
• Revkin quotes von Storch as saying it is time to toss the Hockey Stick . This back in 2004.(1096382684)
• Funkhouser says he's pulled every trick up his sleeve to milk his Kyrgistan series. Doesn't think it's productive to juggle the chronology statistics any more than he has.(0843161829)
• Wigley discusses fixing an issue with sea surface temperatures in the context of making the results look both warmer but still plausible. (1254108338)
• Jones says he and Kevin will keep some papers out of the next IPCC report.(1089318616)
• Tom Wigley tells Mann that a figure Schmidt put together to refute Monckton is deceptive and that the match it shows of instrumental to model predictions is a fluke. Says there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model output by authors and IPCC.(1255553034)
• Grant Foster putting together a critical comment on a sceptic paper. Asks for help for names of possible reviewers. Jones replies with a list of people, telling Foster they know what to say about the paper and the comment without any prompting.(1249503274)
• David Parker discussing the possibility of changing the reference period for global temperature index. Thinks this shouldn't be done because it confuses people and because it will make things look less warm.(1105019698)
• Briffa discusses an sceptic article review with Ed Cook. Says that confidentially he needs to put together a case to reject it (1054756929)
• Ben Santer, referring to McIntyre says he hopes Mr "I'm not entirely there in the head" will not be at the AGU.(1233249393)
• Jones tells Mann that he is sending station data. Says that if McIntyre requests it under FoI he will delete it rather than hand it over. Says he will hide behind data protection laws. Says Rutherford screwed up big time by creating an FTP directory for Osborn. Says Wigley worried he will have to release his model code. Also discuss AR4 draft. Mann says paleoclimate chapter will be contentious but that the author team has the right personalities to deal with sceptics.(1107454306)

• 
  

Hot brown stuff hits cold fan!

No time to go into details, but you can sample some here, on the breaking news that some rascal has hacked into the Hadley CRU computer and printed hundreds of old e-mails going back over the last 20 years.  Now, at last, we can see in their own hand what crooked, corrupt, dismal science they have been practicing in order to sell us the idea that the globe is warming.  Needless to say, Steve McIntyre's site (see left bar) has been swamped for the last 24 hours but it might clear later.  Liars, the lot of them!

"Money, money, money . . ."

I have been intending to write on this subject for some time but an unusual modesty on my part has stayed my hands from the keyboard.  I have only the haziest knowledge of economics and the higher reaches of international finance are quite beyond me.  According to my Bank manager, my knowledge of micro-finanace is pretty shakey, too!  Even so, when I see not just an elephant but a whole herd of them parked in my sitting-room, even I can get the message which is, put simply, that the entire global financial system is moving inexorably towards the edge of a cliff.

For all of my life America has been the power-house of the world economy, to paraphrase a well-known saying, when the USA sneezed we all caught a cold, or to put it the other way around, if America was healthy, we were healthy.  It didn't matter too much which party was in power in Washington because frequently the American people were wise enough to let one party have the presidency and the other to control the Congress.  And even when that was not the case the USA was run by men who for all their faults and weaknesses were intensely patriotic and shared a love for their country and its ethos.  'But now change has come - yes it has'!  America is now controlled by a White House and a Congress whose members hate their own country and who are intent on changing it, on doing away with the age-old visceral belief in free markets and capitalism, indeed, given a free hand they would do away with freedom itself.

I suspect that some of you are shaking your heads sadly and saying that poor old Duffers has a severe dose of the Glenn Becks.  You are right, but then again, so is Glenn Beck (Ch.509 Sky, weekdays at 10.00 pm)!  Of course, his histrionic style is all frightfully un-British but if you cut through that to the meat of his message he tells it the way it is.  President Obama asked the American people to "judge me by the people who surround me".  Well, Beck did exactly that and discovered that most of them are radical, revolutionary Marxists who have far more in common with Chavez and Castro than they do with the Founding Fathers.

I have warned before that, in line with classic Marxist revolutionary tactics, the current administration and its puppets in the Congress would engineer an emergency of some sort, preferably before next year's Congressional elections, and under the guise of dealing with it they would seize totalitarian power.  It being America, I took a guess at a plot to assassinate Obama which, if successful would put the easily controlled dummy, Joe Biden, in the White House.  However, I have had second thoughts.

The US government currently owes the world an almost unbelievable $12 trillion and even just continuing on the same expenditure path will double that in just a few years.  Now, any government faced with that sort of eye-ball swivelling debt would aim to cut expenditure and try to steer the ship of state gradually back into calm blue financial waters.  But the Obama regime is doing the exact opposite, they are fighting tooth and nail to ram through spending plans which even in normal economic times would make your eyes water.  Even the strictly neutral chief of the Congressional Budget Office has spelled it out in crystal-clear terms that the present state of affairs is "unsustainable".  It truly defies all commonsense and prudence and logic - and therefore it is worth asking, as Beck does, why are they doing it?  The answer is obvious.  These people are not mad or stupid, they know what they are doing, and what they are doing is done for a purpose which is to drive the USA into a perilous financial emergency of such huge proportions that they can claim, honestly as it will happen, that they need emergency powers to deal with it.  It may well not be the USA which acts as the catalyst for a world-wide economic collapse because other governments are pursuing similar follies but lacking the hard Marxist edge and determination of the Obama regime, and being mainly just fearful of electoral damage, theirs are somewhat half-hearted - step forward G. Brown and the Labour government, as an example!  Even so, any of them, Japan, for instance, could be the first rock to roll down the mountainside and thus set off the financial landslide.

In the meantime the stock exchanges of the world dance on despite the band having packed up and left ages ago.  I shake my head in disbelief but the number of wiser financial heads urging extreme caution and warning of the approaching disaster are very few particularly in Banking circles where they earn fortunes whilst the merry-go-round keeps turning.  Today, however, confirmation of my fears comes from a French Bank via The Telegraph who report:

Under the French bank's "Bear Case" scenario (the gloomiest of three possible outcomes), the dollar would slide further and global equities would retest the March lows. Property prices would tumble again. Oil would fall back to $50 in 2010.

Governments have already shot their fiscal bolts. Even without fresh spending, public debt would explode within two years to 105pc of GDP in the UK, 125pc in the US and the eurozone, and 270pc in Japan. Worldwide state debt would reach $45 trillion, up two-and-a-half times in a decade. [...]

Inflating debt away might be seen by some governments as a lesser of evils. [My emphasis]

If so, gold would go "up, and up, and up" as the only safe haven from fiat paper money. Private debt is also crippling. Even if the US savings rate stabilises at 7pc, and all of it is used to pay down debt, it will still take nine years for households to reduce debt/income ratios to the safe levels of the 1980s. [...]

Mr Fermon said his report had electrified clients on both sides of the Atlantic. "Everybody wants to know what the impact will be. A lot of hedge funds and bankers are worried," he said.

Sleep well!

 

Awaiting the poisonous puffs of smoke from Brussels

The convocation of crooks currently stitching up a deal on who should or should not be the 'President' of Europe is even more secretive than the process in which a Pope is chosen.  In desperation, even an old heathen like me is forced to his knees to pray to the 'Intelligent Designer' for anyone but Blair.  The sight of that smug, grinning countenance with his ghastly grasping wife on his elbow would be too much for my frail temper to withstand.  Please, please, let us have Mr. 'Rumpey-Pumpey', or whatever he's called, who is, according to the prints, a Euro fanatic with big ideas about pushing for new European tax laws and doing away with all national emblems and replacing them with the EU equivalent.  I am strongly in favour of Mr. 'Rumpey-Pumpey' for the endless cheap jokes to be had from his name, and the expectation that his Euro-fanaticism will finally drive us from the whole wretched, rotten New Frankish Empire.  Incidentally, Hausfrau Merkel has nodded imperiously in the direction of Mr. 'Rumpey-Pumpey' and her pet French poodle yapped in agreement - so that's alright, then!

ADDITIONAL:

Apparently, according to the BBC, Blair has withdrawn, so you see, there is a God! And here is a picture of 'Hausfrau' Merkel's glove puppet, Mr. 'Rumpey-Pumpey.

 

He looks as though he's rather enjoying the Hausfrau's hand up his back even if she is wearing her Marigold gloves!

Shostakovich kept me up last night!

Flicking round the channels in a desultory fashion as I do once the Glenn Beck programme ends I eventually came across a programme on Sky Arts devoted to the life and times of Dimitri Shostakovich.  I think I may already have told the story of how I came across his music.  Years ago, driving back from 'oop North' where I had stitched up, oops sorry, done a deal with someone on a car, I paused at a motorway service area.  Mooching round the shop I saw some cassette tapes (that shows you how far back it was) and amongst them was a symphony, the Fifth, by Shostakovich.  I knew nothing of him or his music except his very Russian name.  It was curiosity alone which made me pick the tape up and buy it.  I can still remember vividly the thrilling shock I received driving down the M1 and hearing those opening chords.  I was instantly and forever hooked!  It is true that not all of his music appeals to me but that which does still produces shivers of enjoyment when, from time to time, I put it on.

It is a rich paradox, of course, that as a young man he determined to find his voice through the modernist movement and his Fourth Symphony into which he poured his efforts and talent was meant to express his finest ambitions in that direction.  I dislike most of it and I am delighted that Stalin put his heavy and potentialy lethal boot into Shostakovich following his opera Lady McBeth of Mtinsk.  He took the hint and held back the Fourth and wrote the Fifth instead, which is infinitely better in my unmusical appreciation.  I have remarked before that in some respects his situation mirrored that of Shakespeare in that they both wrote in highly dangerous times where one mis-step could mean death but both, being possessed of enormously subtle minds, tiptoed across their respective mine-fields safely whilst still producing great works of art.

Anyone not familiar with his music should start, as I did, with his Fifth and then his Tenth.  Eventually, really treat yourself and buy a boxed set of his string quartets which are simply superb, amongst the very greatest music ever written in my opinion which, of course, comes from a man who wouldn't know the difference between a crotchet and a quaver!

Oh God, now he's repeating himself!

Yes, it's true, I did publish this 'quote of quotes' from the late and sadly missed Bernard Levin back in March 2007.  However, today, as you can see from my 'Recent Comments' list on the left, I received a comment on the original from a lady called Jennifer Duff - absolutely no relation but obviously she is of splendid and sterling stock of whom it may be said "Thou art a piece of virtue."  Anyway, it is too good not to repeat.  Incidentally, I know it is a whimsy but I do like to imagine Levin and Shakespeare conversing on a cloud - would poor old Will get a word in, I wonder?

"Quoting Shakespeare"

If you cannot understand my argument and declare "it's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you claim to be "more sinned against than sinning", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you act "more in sorrow than in anger", if your "wish is father to the thought", if your lost property has "vanished into thin air", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you have ever refused "to budge an inch" or suffered from "green-eyed jealousy", if you have "played fast and loose", if you have been "tongue-tied" - "a tower of strength" - "hoodwinked" or "in a pickle", if you have "knitted your brows" - "made virtue of necessity", insisted on "fair play" - "slept not one wink" - "stood on ceremony" - "danced attendance" on "your lord and master" - "laughed yourself into stitches", had "short shrift" - "cold comfort", or "too much of a good thing", if you have "seen better days", or lived "in a fools paradise", why, be that as it may, "the more fool you", for it is a "foregone Conclusion" that you are "as good luck would have it", quoting Shakespeare. If you think "it is high time", and that "that is the long and the short of it", if you believe that "the game is up", and that "truth will out", even if it involves your "own flesh and blood", if you" lie low" till "the crack of doom" because you suspect "foul play", if you have "teeth set on edge at one fell swoop" - "without rhyme or reason", then "to give the devil his due" if the "truth were known" for surely you have a "tongue in your head", you are quoting Shakespeare. Even if you bid me "good riddance" and "send me packing", if you wish I was "dead as a doornail", if you think I am an "eyesore" - a "laughing stock" - the "devil incarnate" - "a stony-hearted villain" - "bloody-minded", or a "blinking idiot", then "by jove" - "o lord"- "tut, tut!" - "For goodness sake" - "what the dickens!" - "but me no buts" - "it is all one to me", for you are quoting Shakespeare...

Allow me to introduce you to . . .

J. K. Fowler, a writer of some merit in my opinion.  On the web he has mastered the delicate and precise art of composing, not so much short stories, but minature vignettes.  Indeed, there is much in the way of skill that he shares with those old masters of minature painting.  In a few paragraphs, Fowler evokes atmosphere, character, and a whisp of a story.  If like me you occasionally tire of non-stop political blogs, treat yourself to a break and sample one of his tales, they are intriguing and will stay with you for some time.  This would be a good beginning:

http://jkfowler.com/2009/11/14/feather-figure/

Whither Britain? #2

Yes, I know it's a high falutin' title that promises a long and meticulously researched paper based on an analysis of shifting global power-blocs and our place amongst them, when in fact, as you all know in advance, it will actually be a disconnected series of grunts and whimpers about our place in the world as seen from my garret in south Somerset!

The first thing that is required is absolute clarity of vision.  It is essential that we see things the way they really are, not as we might wish them to be.  Take Europe as an example.  An incredible number of credulous Westminster politicians like to think of the EU as a beneficent new power in the world.  Well, when it comes to real power in the real world you need to start counting tanks and missiles and suchlike whilst repeating to yourself Stalin's much quoted, needle-sharp question: "How many battalions does the Pope have?" but replacing 'the Pope' with 'Europe'!  Of course, it contains two nuclear powers but they are not combined and neither would use these forces except when their own national interests dictate it, in which case they would act without accepting limitations from so-called partners - and quite right, too.  Nor is there even a fig leaf of a joint foreign policy with which a united Europe could face the rest of the world.  The brutal fact is that the European Union is simply another name for the German Union - or the New Frankish Empire, as I think of it.  The French might think they are on an equal footing but that is only because they choose to toady up tightly to the Germans for very good historical reasons.  However those reasons do not apply to Britain.  The remainder of Europe, conscious of the huge German cuckoo in the nest, adopt a similar approach to the French in the full knowedge that nothing of import will happen without Hausfrau Merkel's nod.  I have no objection to that, only provided that Germany remains a democratic country - which is not necessarily a given.  A peaceful Europe under a democratic German hegemony is to be desired, but there is no need for us to be part of it.  We should withdraw and negotiate a Swiss-style partnership agreement covering trade.  Those who think the Europeans would have us over a barrel in such negotiations forget that we represent a huge market for their exports so a sensible deal is more than possible.

The other great alliance of which we are a part is NATO.  This was formed in a different age for a different purpose than its current use but given the truth of that old American saying, 'what goes around comes around' it now looks as though the Russian bear has woken up, shaken himself down and is looking for some scraps to eat and it is only a matter of time before he seeks a bigger meal.  However, the reality is that there are only three effective parts of NATO; the USA, Britain and some of the old eastern bloc like Poland and Czecha.  Obviously the USA is far and away the most powerful and without it NATO would collapse, so the crucial, the absolutely critical, question, is whether we can rely on America?  According to a recent paper in The Journal of International Security Affairs (1), the rot has well and truly set into America's nuclear capabilities.  Since the end of the cold war hardly any new research and development has taken place and even worse, an ageing work force of skilled engineers and scientists has not been replaced, whilst at the same time the Russians are spending furiously to scrap old cold war weapon systems and platforms and replace them with the latest technology.  On top of that - America is broke!  Not that the current administration seems ready to invest either money or even political will-power into America's armed forces.  On the contrary, Obama, having borrowed and spent like a drunken sailor on domestic issues, is now demanding budget cuts starting next year.  Guess which is the easiest budget to cut for a Left-wing government?  In any case, the main diplomatic imperative for Obama seems to be to make every effort to cuddle up to countries who have hitherto proved themselves to be enemies of the USA.  So, I ask again, when it comes to a threat to Europe can we rely on the USA? 

The acid test, or perhaps I mean the blood test, will be to see if the USA keeps troops in Europe.  Much as the French insisted that the British army be deployed as far forward as possible in 1914 in order to ensure that at least one British 'Tommy' would be killed, so today it is essential that the Yanks are well and truly up the sharp end to take casualties in any future conflict.  Only that will ensure American involvement.  Any effort on the part of the Obama administration to withdraw troops from Europe, perhaps using cost-savings as an excuse, will sound the death knell for NATO which will, in effect, cease to exist when the last 'Grunt' leaves the European mainland.  It hardly needs saying but in such an event, and finding ourselves once again in peril, it would be folly of the first order for us to depend on that sentimental fiction - 'the special relationship'.  It didn't amount to too much in 1914 or 1940 but given the huge demographic changes in the American voting population with the growth of both Hispanic and Asian ethnicities who have little if any regard for Great Britain, then the 'special relationship' will count for even less today and tomorrow.  I repeat, these realities need to be faced - and solutions brought forward which will deal, as best they can, with them.

I should add, that whilst I have no sympathies for the crass stupidities of the Obama administration, I do understand that America itself is facing, not a new geo-political situation, but a repetition of an old one which it thought it had solved with the defeat of Japan in 1945, that is, a Pacific threat, this time from China.  It may well be that America will decide this is a bigger threat than anything from Europe and shift military resources accordingly - and who could blame them?  Particularly as the Germans are already in bed with the Russians on major trade deals and the French tart is only too eager to join them in a threesome!  The former east European countries must be shivering in their boots.

Thus we see a confusing world scene, full of shifts and turns and smoke and mirrors - so no change there, then!  And hence my call for clarity of vision and thinking.  It is no good us putting our future in the hands of doubtful allies and dodgy coalitions.  By all means do so for the slight protection they might yield but never, under any circumstances, believe that they can be relied upon.  Britain needs a new and independent approach to world affairs, and in a later post I will try and spell it out.

(1) Thanks to Alan Sullivan for the link

Whither Britain? #2

Yes, I know it's a high falutin' title that promises a long and meticulously researched paper based on an analysis of shifting global power-blocs and our place amongst them, when in fact, as you all know in advance, it will actually be a disconnected series of grunts and whimpers about our place in the world as seen from my garret in south Somerset!

The first thing that is required is absolute clarity of vision.  It is essential that we see things the way they really are, not as we might wish them to be.  Take Europe as an example.  An incredible number of credulous Westminster politicians like to think of the EU as a beneficent new power in the world.  Well, when it comes to real power in the real world you need to start counting tanks and missiles and suchlike whilst repeating to yourself Stalin's much quoted, needle-sharp question: "How many battalions does the Pope have?" but replacing 'the Pope' with 'Europe'!  Of course, it contains two nuclear powers but they are not combined and neither would use these forces except when their own national interests dictate it, in which case they would act without accepting limitations from so-called partners - and quite right, too.  Nor is there even a fig leaf of a joint foreign policy with which a united Europe could face the rest of the world.  The brutal fact is that the European Union is simply another name for the German Union - or the New Frankish Empire, as I think of it.  The French might think they are on an equal footing but that is only because they choose to toady up tightly to the Germans for very good historical reasons.  However those reasons do not apply to Britain.  The remainder of Europe, conscious of the huge German cuckoo in the nest, adopt a similar approach to the French in the full knowedge that nothing of import will happen without Hausfrau Merkel's nod.  I have no objection to that, only provided that Germany remains a democratic country - which is not necessarily a given.  A peaceful Europe under a democratic German hegemony is to be desired, but there is no need for us to be part of it.  We should withdraw and negotiate a Swiss-style partnership agreement covering trade.  Those who think the Europeans would have us over a barrel in such negotiations forget that we represent a huge market for their exports so a sensible deal is more than possible.

The other great alliance of which we are a part is NATO.  This was formed in a different age for a different purpose than its current use but given the truth of that old American saying, 'what goes around comes around' it now looks as though the Russian bear has woken up, shaken himself down and is looking for some scraps to eat and it is only a matter of time before he seeks a bigger meal.  However, the reality is that there are only three effective parts of NATO; the USA, Britain and some of the old eastern bloc like Poland and Czecha.  Obviously the USA is far and away the most powerful and without it NATO would collapse, so the crucial, the absolutely critical, question, is whether we can rely on America?  According to a recent paper in The Journal of International Security Affairs (1), the rot has well and truly set into America's nuclear capabilities.  Since the end of the cold war hardly any new research and development has taken place and even worse, an ageing work force of skilled engineers and scientists has not been replaced, whilst at the same time the Russians are spending furiously to scrap old cold war weapon systems and platforms and replace them with the latest technology.  On top of that - America is broke!  Not that the current administration seems ready to invest either money or even political will-power into America's armed forces.  On the contrary, Obama, having borrowed and spent like a drunken sailor on domestic issues, is now demanding budget cuts starting next year.  Guess which is the easiest budget to cut for a Left-wing government?  In any case, the main diplomatic imperative for Obama seems to be to make every effort to cuddle up to countries who have hitherto proved themselves to be enemies of the USA.  So, I ask again, when it comes to a threat to Europe can we rely on the USA? 

The acid test, or perhaps I mean the blood test, will be to see if the USA keeps troops in Europe.  Much as the French insisted that the British army be deployed as far forward as possible in 1914 in order to ensure that at least one British 'Tommy' would be killed, so today it is essential that the Yanks are well and truly up the sharp end to take casualties in any future conflict.  Only that will ensure American involvement.  Any effort on the part of the Obama administration to withdraw troops from Europe, perhaps using cost-savings as an excuse, will sound the death knell for NATO which will, in effect, cease to exist when the last 'Grunt' leaves the European mainland.  It hardly needs saying but in such an event, and finding ourselves once again in peril, it would be folly of the first order for us to depend on that sentimental fiction - 'the special relationship'.  It didn't amount to too much in 1914 or 1940 but given the huge demographic changes in the American voting population with the growth of both Hispanic and Asian ethnicities who have little if any regard for Great Britain, then the 'special relationship' will count for even less today and tomorrow.  I repeat, these realities need to be faced - and solutions brought forward which will deal, as best they can, with them.

I should add, that whilst I have no sympathies for the crass stupidities of the Obama administration, I do understand that America itself is facing, not a new geo-political situation, but a repetition of an old one which it thought it had solved with the defeat of Japan in 1945, that is, a Pacific threat, this time from China.  It may well be that America will decide this is a bigger threat than anything from Europe and shift military resources accordingly - and who could blame them?  Particularly as the Germans are already in bed with the Russians on major trade deals and the French tart is only too eager to join them in a threesome!  The former east European countries must be shivering in their boots.

Thus we see a confusing world scene, full of shifts and turns and smoke and mirrors - so no change there, then!  And hence my call for clarity of vision and thinking.  It is no good us putting our future in the hands of doubtful allies and dodgy coalitions.  By all means do so for the slight protection they might yield but never, under any circumstances, believe that they can be relied upon.  Britain needs a new and independent approach to world affairs, and in a later post I will try and spell it out.

(1) Thanks to Alan Sullivan for the link

The Sunday Rumble: 15 Nov 09

I haven't enjoyed a 'Sunday Rumble' for a while, and as I'm out for lunch and will possibly probably return unfit for duty here are a few items that interested me.

Democrat Crumble: No, not a recipe for a pud! I am obliged to 'Ol' eagle eyes' Sullivan for spotting this perceptive, I think, article on the beginnings of the breakup of the Democratic coalition which Clinton built so skillfully and which provided him with two successive terms as president.  We can but hope!

Republican Souffle? Maybe, according to Bruce Walker in The American Thinker, but it is not yet 'a gimmee'.  There has certainly been a souffle-like rise in the popularity of the Right across the old democracies of Europe, and judged by the summer of discontent and the recent state elections in the USA,  their love affair with Obama is rapidly waining as he shows his true socialist colours.  However, the rise of the Right is, at the moment, mainly a re-action against the Left who have proved to be not only incompetent but hypocrites, as well.  Those rascals at IHTM have pointed up the fact that no member of the Democrat-controlled Congress has agreed to switch his medical cover to the new Obama-care scheme which they have fought tooth and nail to force through onto the statute book.  So it still remains for the Right to be for something rather than an amorphous recipient of disappointment.  We have discussed this, apropos 'Dave', for some time but it is still difficult to gauge exactly what he plans for us next year.  Similarly, the Republicans appear to be led by precisely the same out-of-touch machine politicians as the Dems.  I can't help feeling that it is time for Mrs. Palin to blast some fresh air and commonsense into the higher echelons of the Republican party - but that may be because I'm biased since I am deeply desirous of her having my babies!

Friggin' Footie!  Why do I watch it?  Year after year the England football team practice to deceive.  Last night Brazil barely broke into a sweat, despite the game being played in the Middle East, and still won by a goal, although I dread to think what the score line would have been if they had really tried.  In the meantime our clodhoppers laboured away without a hint of style, panache, skill or brilliance.  I dread the forthcoming World Cup!

Chavez clings to the lip of the toilet:  Further to my recent post in which I told you that one advantage of growing old is that you live to see that you were right all along, but sometimes you don't have to live that long.  It was perfectly obvious, except to purblind dafties of the Left like Councillor Bob Piper, that Chavez was merely the latest in a long line of South American thugs and robbers who would steal the wealth of their country and leave it impoverished.  Hannah Strange of The Times reports:

President Chávez came to power promising to harness Venezuela’s vast oil resources to create a 21st-century nation in which no one was deprived. Now, with water and electricity shortages and soaring crime and inflation, even his ardent supporters are beginning to turn away.

In Caracas, which has the world’s highest murder rates and runaway food prices, residents now face two days a week without water until May next year as the Government imposes rationing to cope with a 25 per cent shortfall in supply. [...]

Rampant inflation — officially 31 per cent last year — is squeezing Venezuelans even more, with jaw-dropping food prices. A packet of cheese can cost more than £10.

I assume he learned his economics from Mugabe - or perhaps it was Councillor Piper!

Housework lowers your sperm count: According to that superb newspaper of record The Mail on Sunday. Can't say I'm too bothered given that these days I could probably count my sperm on the fingers of one hand!  My hopes rose slightly on reading the headline because I briefly saw the chance of a new excuse to avoid doing the hoovering, but then reality set in as I imagined the snigger of disbelief from the little 'Memsahib' and the snarky reply - followed up by one of her karate kicks if I wasn't quick to switch on!

The Ministry of Silly Bows:  How can any of us ever forget John Cleese and his Pythoneque 'Ministry of Silly Walks'?  Now, President Obama demonstrates the Ministry of Silly Bows.  The man is so pig-ignorant it's beyond belief.  Even I know that the Nips only bow with the head.  I've always rather admired it as a particularly civilized and courteous gesture.  Then along comes this big-eared clown and makes a mockery of it - or rather, a mockery of himself.  Oh, poor America . . .

Picture courtesy of http://www.drudgereport.com/

On beauty

According to the TV guide provided courtesy of The Daily Mail, which is without any doubt the very best TV guide produced by anyone so don't give me an argument about it, some clever chappie on BBC2 is going to give a talk next week on 'beauty'.  It nudged my tired and third-rate brain into musing upon the subject - so don't expect too much in the way of enlightenment.

A 19th century lady, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, told us that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but the philosopher, David Hume, put it further back behind the eyes and into the brain, writing "Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them".  Of course, that implies, rather irritatingly for tidy-minded people, that there is no universal 'beauty' to act as a template and to which we might compare our own particular sense of 'beauty'.  It's all relative, as that loon from Berne told us a hundred years ago, in a somewhat different context.

Even so, 'beauty' does exist for each of us.  We know it instantly when we see it or hear it.  One of those peculiar but measurable physiological, and therefore material, re-actions takes place even though the cause is immaterial and beyond mere measurement.  It is, I suppose, an example of that mysterious interface between mind and body which my e-pal, 'Bongers' and I discussed the other day in a thread down below.  Beauty comes in different sized packets but if it is sufficiently large it causes an intake of breath, a momentary frisson of excitement, a heightened emotional response.  But what is it?  What is the essence of the thing that causes the re-action?

If sight is involved the psychologists suggest that symmetry is involved.  At first glance (no pun intended!) that seems true when one contemplates the great buildings of the world

Picture by Anjoita

However, this conglomoration of old houses on a cobbled hill set in the Dorset countryside contains not a hint of symmetry anywhere but produces in me much the same re-action as the Taj Mahal.

Picture of Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, the scene of the famous Hovis advert.  http://www.dorsets.co.uk/Shaftesbury/ 

Of course, it does not have the grandeur of the Taj Mahal but for me the effect is the same.

Any talk of 'beauty' naturally leads to "the ladies, God bless 'em", and here again symmetry is supposed to be all important.  There can be no doubting Elizabeth Taylor's symmetry and beauty, it is perfection, and yet . . .  and yet . . .

 

By dstarprincezza

When it comes to human 'beauty' it cannot be divorced from human personality, and that, alas, is often a downfall.  It hardly needs saying but ideas of human beauty change through the ages.  The 17th century notion of female beauty appeared to be measured by weight rather than symmetry!

 

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_and_the_Elders_(Rubens)

Perhaps one should not confuse the full figures favoured by Rubens for the purposes of showing musculature and the reflection of light, for his personal taste in women and I have no idea what Mrs. Rubens looked like! Personally, I have never met a perfectly beautiful woman and so I cannot gauge how I would re-act to her.  I would hope to withold judgment until I knew her better, but I'm a man, so not much chance of that!  However, I have met very many attractive women - and no, don't ask me to define the word 'attractive', like 'beauty', you know it when you feel it.  The point about attractive women is that they are not symmetrical, and perhaps there-in lies their attraction.

I have not touched upon the beauty of sound as expressed in music.  Again, you can measure the physical response to the catalyst of sounds and rhythms but exactly where or in what lies the beauty it is impossible to say, but exist it undoubtedly does.  The beauty of words is perhaps the most mysterious of all beauties.  Let this speak for itself:

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

Byron: Hebrew Melodies

The Jocks are as thick as their porridge!

Well, to be strictly accurate, at least the eight thousand of them in Glasgow North East who voted for 'the big Brown job' are as thick as their porridge. Those who remained at home did so, I guess, from a variety of reasons, mainly because their only outings are to the benefit office to pick up their state handouts and then back home via the pub, or possibly because they are dying, given that life expectancy in Glasgow North East is lower than many Third World countries:

Glasgow City, as a whole, has a male life expectancy of 71 years which is actually lower than the 72 years of both Gaza and Pyongyang. But this includes its lush suburbs. Those in the welfare ghettoes of Glasgow East can only dream of such longevity.

The life expectancy of its sink estates is worth recording here. A boy born in Camlachie is expected to live to 64.5 — the same as in Uzbekistan. In Parkhead it is 62, the same as Bangladesh. Just outside its boundaries lies Dalmarnock where the figure is 58 — lower than Sudan, Cambodia or Ghana. The lowest is Carlton, where the figure of 54 is lower than even Gambia’s equivalent. (*)

I suppose some of the 33% (a record low turnout) who did bother to vote must have come from that tiny percentage of the inhabitants who actually work:

Official unemployment is just 6.7 per cent. But add in such factors as those claiming incapacity benefit, and it quickly emerges that a scandalous 50 per cent of the working-age population are on out-of-work benefits. And here, as everywhere, dependency begets poverty.

Once, Labour would have been outraged at this. Now, the party refuses to recognise this as a problem — or thinks, madly, that even more money is the answer. What Beveridge once called the ‘great evil’ of idleness is now being mass-produced by a welfare state that pays the poor to do nothing. It is fuelling the very problem it was set up to eradicate, petrol on fire.

When, as must surely be the case, Gordon Brown is bound hand and foot and dropped into the Clyde weighed down with sundry Labour party manifestos, it will surely be because of this - and I choose the word with care - wickedness:

Mr Brown’s energies have been devoted to moving people from just beneath his arbitrary poverty line to just above it — and then claiming they have been ‘lifted out of poverty’. Those at the bottom, with no hope of crossing any threshold, are literally growing poorer each year. Languishing on welfare, they have been ignored and replaced in the British labour market by an industrious, ambitious immigrant workforce. This has been Labour’s deplorable formula for the last decade.

Glasgow North East in all its ghastly poverty and ignorance stands, or rather crumbles, as a monument to the hypocritical evil that is the Labour party.  The Jocks might be thick but that's no excuse for the rest of us; come the day of electoral retribution we must despatch this gang of crooks, spivs, charlatans and commissars to the unemployment registers they have filled so avidly.  "Do it England!"

(*) All quotations from Fraser Nelson in an article well worth reading even if it does make you weep!

Is Obama about to make a really well thought-out mistake?

Sorry to return so quickly to Afghanistan but there is a very perceptive essay in this week's edition of The Spectator by an astute American academic called John C. Hulsman who suggests, with only half his tongue in his cheek, that perhaps America should take some lessons from Britian in how to relinquish empire gracefully.  On the Afghan question he writes:

But by all accounts, pressured by both his generals and the neoconservative opposition, Obama is about to make the fateful decision to go ahead with a significant new deployment. And the problem is, as Bismarck put it, that when you draw the sword you roll the dice. In this case, tragically, President Obama will find that the odds of his dice throw are monumentally stacked against him.

Hulsman re-iterates in more refined language than I can manage the unpalatable fact that America is skint - broke - lacking even a pot to piss in!

For like the British in 1920, America today is economically imperilled. Using the White House’s own dubious numbers, the American deficit over the next decade is projected to explode by $9 trillion, which is greater than all the debt accumulated by the republic since its founding. This is the uncomfortable elephant in the corner of the room that will, sooner or later, dampen Washington’s zeal for social engineering abroad. Likewise, though a long way off, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the other rising powers are clearly gaining on an America winding down a disastrous war in Iraq, mired in Afghanistan, desperately trying to stop the Iranian government from going nuclear, getting nowhere with the Israelis and the Palestinians, and having to accommodate the rise of Beijing. So much for the peace prize. [My emphasis]

In addition, Hulsman points to the fact that there is no political legitimacy attached to Karzei's government of Afghanistan, although in my opinion its similarity to the government of Chicago should at least make Obama feel at home!

A series of tribes form the local unit of politics, rather than some Jeffersonian ideal. As such, a confederation, with as much power as possible being devolved to the local level, would suit the country’s realities. Sadly, the Afghan constitution vests far too much control at the national rather than the regional level ...

In my less-than-adequately-experienced mind, I think that if the Americans decide to re-enforce to the hilt, they should bypass the Karzai regime including the corrupt cronies and placemen appointed as district governors, and instead, concentrate on making direct alliances with existing tribal groups and their 'warlord' masters.  The possibility of allowing Afghanistan to break up into its constituent parts should not be ignored.

Either that, or get out.  Any halfway-house scenario will be the worst of all possible worlds.  According to my embittered, but usually shrewd, e-pal, Alan Sullivan, the worst is precisely what Obama wishes for:

Barack Obama is not a patriot. He does not wish his country well. He wishes to diminish what he perceives as an evil power, and bind it to international institutions so it can never rampage again. Everything he says and does makes sense only in that context.

Then why the Afghan waver? Obama committed himself to the Afghan conflict solely for domestic political gain. He is against war in general, and American wars in particular. He wants to withdraw, but he is waiting for public displeasure to grow, as he knows it will, so he can change policy with less political consequence. There is no thought of geostrategy in this man, only political calculation.

That has a ring of truth about it.  If it be so, then we in Britain, as I have mentioned before, need to take a hard, clear look at the real-politik of a new world (dis)order in which the USA withdraws and some new and very hard kids take over the block.

ADDITIONAL: I just came across this by David Blackburn at The Coffeehouse:

Obama is correct to take time and consider. However, a fudge is engendering. The Guardian reports that David Kilcullen, a leading counter-insurgency expert and contributor to the Spectator, is criticising the Obama administration’s “messy pontificating” over the Afghan surge. Kilcullen tells the paper:

"It feels to me that all these options are dangerously close to the middle ground and we have to consider whether the middle ground is a good place to be. The middle ground is a good place on domestic issues, but not on strategy. You either commit to D-Day and invade the continent or you get Suez. Half-measures end up with Suez. Do it or not do it."

The middle approach is a fudge determined by economic frailty, the US’ declining international strength and Nato’s inability to pull together. The unconditional surrender of the Taliban is a hopeless fanstasy; yet the strategy remains unchanged. This meandering war exacerbates jihadism, accelerates the spoliation of American power and endangers Nato’s integrity. Coffee House has been urging Nato to talk to local Afghan potentates; the leaked Foreign Office plan to engage with elements of the Taliban represents the way ahead. 

Thank God for Nick Griffin!

Yes, yes, I know he's a fat, obnoxious menace whom one would not wish to see in control of a Parish Council but, like those splendid fellows who regularly go down into our city sewers and ensure that any build up of brown stuff is whooshed away, so it is with Mr. Griffin and his thugocracy who have just assisted in the whooshing away of somewhat similar Brown stuff!  Mirabile dictu, suddenly the Brown blockage which has held open the doors to mass immigration has dissolved under a powerful stream of BNP uric acid.  Or, to put it another way, they just pissed on Labour's parade!  Not only has a hitherto non-subject, only spoken of in the impolite, ignorant and not yet re-educated white, working-class circles, been allowed to enter the Westminster salons, but the big Brown job himself has now decreed that actions will be taken to cut down on visa entries from countries outside the EU.  Is it not wonderful, mes enfants, how politicians can so easily, so effortlessly and so elegantly, perform 180 degree turns when they find themselves staring down the double-barrels of the shot-gun from electoral hell which will despatch them to oblivion?

Of course, it goes without saying that the panic U-turn will, as usual, take Brown & Co. in completely the wrong direction.  He is, I gather, planning on cutting visas to well-educated, highly trained professionals who are precisely the sort of immigrants the country needs.  Its the scallawags camped out over the Channel that we need to keep out - not that I don't admire their drive and determination, but until we force our own less-than-determined 'youfs' and 'youfettes' back to work by cutting off every single welfare benefit, then I'm afraid they will just have learn French.  Also, before we celebrate it must be remembered that on Planet Brown words and deeds are rarely conjunctive!

Anyway, let's give old Nick one cheer - oh, come on, I know you wouldn't want him to marry your sister but if it wasn't for him putting the frights up Gordie's kilt, immigration would still be a non-subject spoken of by non-people. So, altogether now  . . .

One advantage of growing old

There is only one advantage as far as I can tell and it is this: if you live long enough you find out that you were right all those years ago.  Ah, but, I have just remembered a second advantage of being old, happily some of your memory goes and so you forget how many things you got wrong!  Still, never mind that, just please a cantankerous old man by letting him crow over a past triumph. 

Years ago in the '60s,'70s and '80s I used to fulminate about the Russian infiltration in the Labour party and its various Left-wing off-shoots like the unions and CND, etc.  I was firmly sat upon by my Left-wing friends (yes, I had a few!) and also by my non-political friends who thought I was exaggerating.  Last week The Spectator published the diaries of Anatoly Chernyaev who for years was the Kremlin's main contact man in the west and in which he detailed his relationships with a variety of Labour party officials.  Jack Jones, for example, the General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), whose power in the nation was enormous, was a KGB agent in the pay of the Soviets for years.  His unelected 'consigliore' in the TGWU was Alec Kitson, another Soviet toady, and between the pair of them they controlled, via the TGWU block vote, dozens of safe Labour seats.  Thus, if you failed to dance to their communist tune your chances of being selected as a candidate were nil.  Gordon Brown, himself, gained his safe Scottish seat only on the nod from the TGWU which may be the reason why his eulogy to Jones after his death was so fulsome - and which he refuses to withdraw now that Jones's treason is public knowledge.  Others who were similarly rewarded by the TGWU communist cabal were Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman, John Reid - and the list goes on.

Another key figure in steering the Labour party to Moscow's line was the disgusting traitor, Ron Hayward, its General Secretary from '72 to '82.  Gerald Kaufman in the early '80s was a leading player in Labour politics and he was dumbfounded by the policies espoused in the election manifesto of 1983 under Michael Foot which he described as the longest suicide note in history.  He writes:

The remarkable revelations published in the Chernyaev diaries make this attempted political suicide easier to understand.  It is clear that key elements in the Labour party structure were determined to ingratiate themselves with Moscow - regardless of any adverse electoral impact in Britain.  They show, vividly, how Labour was being poisoned by key officials who were laying the groundwork, apparently deliberately, for the debacle of 1983.

Hayward, as General Secretary of the Labour party considered himself to be the true leader of the party not Harold Wilson who was merely the parliamentary leader.  He held secret meetings inside the Russian embassy.  Chernyaev's diaries describe how Hayward boasted that he "prepares young people , puts them in the right places, helps them become prominent."

See?  I was right all along.  And don't bother asking me what I was wrong about - I can't remember!

He who hesitates is lost

Like most old saws it has a grain of truth in it but only a grain.  I am provoked into using it by the extraordinary time it is taking President Obama to make up his mind on the grand strategy to be used in regard to Afghanistan.  I am one of the few who do not begrudge him that time because there is no immediate crisis and the decision - in essence whether to stay or go - needs to be carefully weighed.  Even so, it does seem to have dragged on and on and I had assumed that the Afghan election might have been the cause of the wait and see approach.  However, that stitch-up is done and dusted so I wondered what else might be the cause of delay.  I wondered if perhaps all the diplomatic  pieces have not yet been lined up despite 'HilBilly's' constant to-ing and fro-ing.  A more likely reason for delay is that the American high command, civilian as well as military, is completely split.  Confirmation of a sort can be had from a leaked memo indicating that the US ambassador in Kabul has come out strongly against re-enforcement because of his doubts concerning the Karzai government.  His views carry considerable weight because he is a former soldier and thus understands the problem from all sides.  The other factor plaguing Obama must be the intentions and the reliability of the Pakistan government and its military on the other side of the frontier.  An American withdrawal would diminish their reputation but Obama could disguise it as the only option to extricate his country from the quagmire into which the Republicans under George Bush had led them.  There are many more currents and counter-curents at play in this imbroglio than I have time to elucidate now and it is almost enough to produce a twinge of sympathy for statesmen - until, of course, one remembers how they fight tooth and nail to get the job.  Needless to say, not the least of Obama's concerns will be his place and reputation in the history books depending on this decision!

I'm not the only one . . .

Hoping for a Labour massacre at the next election, that is.  Jackie Ashley in the Guardian may not exactly be hoping for it but she is forecasting it:

‘Some Labour people may think I'm sounding too gloomy, but those who have been privy to recent private polling are a lot more than gloomy. This suggests that Labour could return to the Commons with just 120 MPs or thereabouts, taking the party back to 1930s territory. As ministers look for jobs to keep themselves going after politics, a Miliband move to Europe looks sensible.’

I haven't read the whole thing but you can - here.  My thanks to David Blackburn at The Coffee House.

 

The way it was - 20 years ago

I am pushed for time and I will be away for a couple of days but here, via the excellent Tim Worstall, is an eye-witness account of that incredible victory day 20 years ago by the man with the keenest eyes in the business - P. J. O'Rourke. He it was who years ago laid down the best definition of real third world poverty I have ever heard - absence of chickens!

Cameron should prepare for the bowl of cold sick coming his way!

Several months ago I warned that Brown, facing certain defeat and beset by his in-built Tory hatred which is possibly re-enforced by a latent anti-English phobia, would adopt a policy of slash and burn to the British economy to ensure that Cameron would inherit a waste-land.  Not particularly perceptive of me since anyone with half an eye (like Brown, himself) could foresee that likely course of action.  However, Peter Oborne in The Mail on Sunday compares Brown's despicable attitude to that of his predecessors who also faced certain defeat at their next elections.  Callaghan and his Chancellor, Dennis Healey, went against the inclination of their party and did their patriotic duty by cutting government spending.  Similarly, John Major, went against the instincts of his party and pursued a peace deal with Irish terrorists, whilst simultaneously keeping a strict control of government budgets which resulted in Gordon Brown inheriting an extremely healthy economy.

I had hoped that the un-sackable Chancellor Darling would at last emerge as a strong man in his own right but, alas, he has proved to be weak and pathetic against the machinations of Brown and his 'bully-in-chief' Ed Balls.  The pre-budget report due in a few weeks will be Darling's last chance to prove to us and to history that he is a man prepared to put country before party.  Don't hold your breath because I fear that he will do what he's been told and hurl money which hasn't got in every direction in order to achieve two aims - buy as many votes as possible, and ensure the economy is a train wreck when Cameron comes into office.  Thus, the Tories will take all the blame for the massive and unprecedented cuts in government spending which will be inescapable next year.

I have said it before and I don't care if I sound like a Saloon Bar bore because I will keep on saying it - the Labour party must be decimated at the next election, reduced to less than a hundred seats, as punishment for their malignant behaviour over the last 12 years in general, and the last two in particular.  "Do it England!"

Let's all bully little George Monbiot!

Well, why not?  I mean, you only have to look at his smug, smiley face in the post below to know that he was the school swot despite being as thick as John Prescott, than which, etc, etc.  If I had been at his school, he would have been the one whose packed lunch I would have nicked for no other reason than the obvious fact that he was a tosser.  Of course, being the school bully does require some mates, er, just in case the victim hits back, but happily on this occasion I do have a pair of them.

First, there is the pugnacious Rod Liddle in 'The Speccie' who clobbers all those 'cataclysmics' like Monbiot.  Given that little Georgie indulges himself in some psycho-babble, 'my mate Rod' gives a little of it back:

If somehow it could be proved tomorrow that climate change was a huge con, these people [true believers like little Georgie] wouldn’t be relieved — they’d feel robbed of something intrinsic to themselves.

He speculates on where this 'cataclysmic tendency' comes from:

[N]ormal, apparently sane people seem to wish for catastrophe too: they are determined that calamity will befall us all, and are furious when they are gainsaid.

He continues:

[Y]ou hear it every time a ‘climate-change’ evangelist opens his or her mouth — and I wonder if ecological disaster is an upmarket version of the 2012 scenario [some loonies believe the world will end in that year!] a catastrophe the chattering class of every Western country have eagerly bought into, a politically correct Armageddon which requires us to be endlessly self-flagellating (and even that, we are lectured, will not avert the crisis, nor even much lessen its impact).

My other mate in this disgraceful bullying incident is Don Boudreaux from the always excellent 'Cafe Hayek'.  He sent (yet another) letter to the WaPo provoked this time by some moaning Minnie (perhaps little George's American cousin?) who had written in a state of panic weeping over the inevitable end of the world because of over-population.  'My mate Don' gave him a smack:

For example, the earth’s population today is seven times larger than it was in 1800, and yet most people today live lives that are far more sanitary, healthy, long, and rich in experiences than were those of all but the most privileged potentates and pooh-bahs before the industrial age. 

Then he gives him a kick:

Each hectare of land now feeds more mouths and clothes more bodies than ever before.  Water and air in capitalist countries are cleaner than they were a century ago, or even just 50 years ago – and still getting cleaner.  Available supplies of oil and most other raw materials show no signs of being depleted, despite the fact that today we use absolutely larger quantities of these materials.

He describes this assault on little George's 'cousin' as "Simonizing", this being a reference to the late Julian Simon.  Back in 1980, Simon offered a bet to that great doomsdayer, Paul Ehrlich, who had written a book telling us all that it was only a matter of time, very short time, before the world ended because over-population would consume all natural resources.  Simon invited Ehrlich to choose any five commodity metals and then bet him that the prices would fall rather than rise due to scarcity as you would expect them to do under Ehrlich's prophesy.  Ten years later, Ehrlich sent Simon a cheque for $576.07.

Simon died in 1998 but Ehrlich, the inventer (and writer) of  The Population Bomb is still with us and still parading up and down with his banner warning us that "The End of the World is Nigh".  One of his great friends and supporters is John Holdren who is - hang on to your hat - now the White House adviser to President Obama on Science and Technology.  You couldn't make it up - but I bet he could!

George Moonbat, oops, sorry, Monbiot, admits defeat!

George Monbiot, 14, the well-known sage (stop giggling at the back!) of The Guardian runs up the white flag of surrender over belief in Anthropogenic global Warming (AGW):

There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease.

Oh dear, what a pity, never mind, was the first thought to enter my head.  However, George, whilst bemoaning the lack of faith, goes on (and on and on . . .) like a dememented prophet in the wilderness cursing the subversive non-believers, in particular, and this really got up my nose, the elderly!  He then babbles on through several paragraphs of psycho-speak in a futile effort to convince us that the elderly disbelieve AGW because they are near to death themselves!  Hello, Earth calling Moonbat, don't you remember that it is the young who are devil-may-care and optimistic, and the elderly who are timid and cautious?  Also, 'Moonbeam-Sunshine', there is one other characteristic of the elderly that you failed to spot even with those smart designer glasses you wear to convince us all that you are really grown up, that is, the elderly have experience.  They have seen and heard most things several times over, particularly clever-clog intellectuals selling bullshit at a discount!

Now, why don't you go away, take a break, and come back when you are at least an adult, if not elderly!

Grateful thanks to 'IHTM' - again!

'Allo, allo', Inspector Blog spots a clue!

The Sherlock Holmes of the Ruralshire Constabulary is undoubtedly Inspector Blog and nothing escapes his eagle-eyed surveillance.  Thus, he points out the conviction of that fat greedy cow 'grieving' aunt of Shannon Matthews, the little girl whose disappearance was faked by her family in an effort to scam the public, for benefit cheating to the tune of £35k.  She told one story to the authorities whilst living another in secrecy. 

'You're nicked', growls Insp. Blog, but then turns his suspicious stare on another miscreant - his former boss, the ex-Policing minister, Hazel Blears, a vertically-challenged greedy cow.  She told the House of Commons one story about her two dwellings, and the Tax Authorities another, before creaming off a profit of £45k on the sale of her subsidised house and avoiding the 45% tax that was due.

Is an arrest imminent?  I doubt it.  As always, it's one law for fat lying cows and another for short, lying cows.  It was ever thus!  Anyway, the fat one has just gone down for a year, the short one is standing for Parliament again.  I trust the people of Salford are even now rotting down their veggies reading for pelting!

Is Anthony Flint as thick as cold porridge? No, he's thicker!

(Anthony Flint?  Who he? Ed.) 

He is the director of the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry.  He deserves to be the stage doorman.  On second thoughts, I would like to ponder on that before taking a final decision.  What has he done to invoke my ire?  He has ordered an actor playing the part of Al Johnson, in a show dedicated to that great musical entertainer, not to black up!  Even for the rendition of those rightly famous songs Mammy and Sonny Boy. 

He said: 'We were asked if we wanted Mr Baldwin to use black face make-up or not, and we decided it would be inappropriate in a modern multicultural society for him to do so. Our box office staff made it quite clear to ticket bookers that Mr Baldwin would not be using black face make-up on our stage'.

I would like to suggest some stage make-up for Mr. Flint to wear every day for a month -  a bright red 'Jimmy' wig, white face, red nose, big baggy trousers and size 20 boots.  Not only could we all enjoy a good laugh at the expense of this prat but we would also, through the magic of theatre, darlings, gain a deep insight into his character!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225457/Performer-ordered-black-Al-Jolson-tribute-theatre-bosses.html#ixzz0W1cneaQa

 

The Warrior's Tale

A friend loaned me a book which I have just finished.  It is not a particularly well written book, it is rather too episodic as it jumps hither and thither, and a confusing host of odd-ball characters are cursorily introduced, dropped, re-appear and then disappear, and conversations and descriptions are littered with specialist 'insider' jargon not always fully explained to the reader.  Even so, for anyone interested in, putting it somewhat grandiloquently but absolutely accurately, the ethos of the warrior this book is essential reading.  It is also, in its studiously off-hand, under-stated, English way, deeply moving.

The book is called Seven Troop and is written by ex-Sgt. 'Andy McNab' DCM, MM, the leader of the ill-fated SAS patrol into Iraq during the first war which led to the deaths of several of his men and the capture and subsequent torture of the remainder.  His book describing that episode, Bravo Two Zero, was a world-wide smash hit and 'McNab' (not his real name) went on to write several fiction adventure yarns.  Hitherto, I had never read any of his books, even Bravo Two Zero, because I had gleaned enough information from the newspapers to satisfy my curiosity on that particular operation.  Incidentally, I was faintly amused to find out that 'McNab' and his fellow SAS troopers were tortured in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.  However, they were really tortured, in the improper old-fashioned meaning of the word, and how they must have smiled at the subsequent fuss over the mild mistreatment of some prisoners in American hands many years later.  Funnily enough, the likes of The Guardian never made half as much fuss over their beatings, whippings and burnings - why am I not surprised?  'McNab' tells of his daily torture and gives away just one little example of how thorough the SAS are in preparation.  Apparently there was an American Marine pilot who had been held and brutally tortured by the North Vietnamese for six years - but had survived!  The SAS command had him flown over to the UK to talk to the men so that they might learn something from his experience if, as was frequently the case, they might risk the same predicament.  'McNab' clung to the advice he was offered by that American pilot and it helped him withstand his torment.

Anyway, 'McNab' has written this book, I think, as a tribute to the men he served with in his first operational sub-unit inside the SAS - 7 Troop.  It is a desperately sad tale.  They say you have to be mad to join the SAS, which I suspect may be true; in which case it proves that I am at least only half mad because whilst I did consider trying for it, in the end I didn't, mostly because I doubted my ability to pass the selection course.  I had managed to bluff my way through the Para selection tests but that was a tea-party compared to what you had to endure with the SAS.  According to 'McNab', some 200 soldiers joined the course with him and at the end only eight remained!  Having passed, he describes in a series of short chapters his various activities and some of the men with whom he served.  The second half of the book is the long, sad and, to me as an ex-soldier, the deeply moving account of how so many of them perished, not by enemy action, although several did, but by their own hand!  You read this book and come away convinced that an above average number of SAS men are, by their operational experiences, driven into mental breakdown.  Or, perhaps there is something about the average psychological profile of the type of men attracted to that regiment which inclines them to psychosis. Even the ones who avoid it still manage to give the impression of being, shall we say, slightly odd!

And yet ... and yet ... what superb warriors they are!  And I use that rather old-fashioned word with deliberation.  It isn't just their courage, all soldiers have that capability in them which is why they are soldiers, but in the SAS it is allied with tremendous skill and technique.  I once went on an exercise with them in Denmark and I still remember vividly how hugely impressed I was by their impeccable soldiering skills.  They really thought through everything in detail and trained and practiced accordingly.

Even so, the book ends on the despondent scene at the little churchyard in Hereford, the town that hosts the SAS HQ, with 'McNab' visiting the graves of dead friends and comrades and pouring a splash of rum over their graves in remembrance of times past and lives lost.  McNab, himself, as he admits, was once a young, ignorant tearaway from a ghastly housing estate in Peckham where he thieved and fought until his native wit and intelligence told him that any more would lead to disaster.  To give himself one last chance he joined the army, and like so many before him, found a sort of salvation.  He now spends a lot of time speaking to young soldier recruits at the British army in-take centre at Catterick.  He is the very best example that they could have set before them.

Read the book, it's terrific!

A 'Good News/Bad News' announcement

The Good News comes from 'over there', where the Democrats (or the American Socialist Party, as I like to think of them), have received a shot across their bows from the elections a few days ago.  The experts can, and have, analaysed it this way and that but the inescapable fact is that the shiny new toby jug with the big ears in the White House has been severely chipped!  My guess is that this will have two equal and opposite re-actions.  The Marxists who are deeply embedded in the administration and the Congress will be galvanised into pushing through as much socialist legislation as they can before the possibly debilitating (to them) elections due next November.  On the other hand, moderate Democrats in Congress facing re-election next year who have felt at first-hand the wrath of middle-America at Townhalls during the Summer recess and who are now aware that even the enthusiastic help and support of 'The One' will avail them naught, will be minded to drag their feet on these contentious Bills.  Obama has learned (or has he?) the hard way the answer to that Machiavellian question: should a prince be loved or feared?  Or, as any divorcee will tell you , love don't last!  My fear, and yes, I know I'm an old 'worry wart', is that elements in the administration will attempt to orchestrate a crisis before next year in order to use emergency regulations to postpone, or at least to manipulate, the next elections - tell me it ain't so!

The Bad News is that our incarceration in the the New Frankish Empire is almost complete.  The iron door, made in Germany and polished in France, has almost swung shut behind us.  It will take an act of supreme political courage and vision for a Britsh leader to execute a 'great escape' - so that let's out 'Dave', then!  

The Old Frankish Empire:

 

I confess that my prediction (and hope) that the current financial morass would cause one or more European nations to default on the single currency has not come to pass.  Thus, I must hope that as the Eurocrats strut about enjoying their triumph over the recalcitrant Brits by increasing the scope and speed of their take-over, they will take a step too far and finally the British people will rise up in anger and take back control of their own destiny into their own hands - well, a man can hope, can't he?

"Last of the Red Hot Lovers"

In a comment thread down below on the subject of Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophy I introduced the name of Barney Cashman, the middle-aged 'schmuk' who is the endearing but hopeless and hapless hero of Neil Simon's play Last of the Red Hot Lovers.  If nothing else, this acts as a warning to you all that conversation, here at D&N, can sometimes take a surprising turn!  Anyway, I needed a quotation from the play which induced me to hook out my old acting copy of the script.  Thus I was transported back some 25-odd years to the time when I played the part of dear, old Barney, the frustrated fish restaurateur who is desperate to have an affair but is such a Jewish tight-wad that he arranges his illicit meetings in his mother's appartment whilst she's out working!

It is a play of three acts; in the first he brings back a very tough, 'Noo Yawk' woman who is a customer of his at his restaurant; in the second he tries it on with a zapped-out cookie of a girl who is as daft as brush even without the hash she smokes; the last effort he makes is with his wife's best friend who turns out to be a manic depressive who can't stop moaning about her husband's infidelities!  Needles to say, all three episodes end in humiliating - and hilarious - disaster for poor, old Barney.   The play is so funny that even after weeks of rehearsal there were still passages in it which almost made me 'corpse' during performance.  There is a running sight-gag throughout the play in which Barney, in his nervous insecurity, keeps spraying after-shave on his fingers in case the smell of fish has lingered from his restaurant. 

I was very much a beginner in those days and in fact I didn't even bother to audition for the part - but then, neither did anyone else!  Consequently, I was well and truly buttered up by our Secretary of that time who assured me, darling, that I was just sooo, sooo right for the part!  You see, she knew I was as big a sucker as Barney - and she was right because I took it on.  Of course, I hadn't realised that, bar one brief 10-second break, Barney is on stage for the whole play.  Interestingly, the first lady was American but she was from California and she dropped out during rehearsals because she couldn't master the 'Noo Yawk' accent!  Her English replacement had no problem and played the part excellently. The second girl had never acted before and, so they told me afterwards, thank God, she was so nervous every night they practically had to throw her on stage but, again, her nervousnes helped make her performance exactly right as this dip-stick 'wannabe' actress/model/dancer.  The third lady was played by two different actresses because the original had become pregnant and was not up to a full run.  A fascinating exercise to play against two different partners in the same scene because their moves and timings and deliveries were slightly different - but they were both terrific. Whatever, the fact is that all those ladies carried me through the longest and most gruelling role I have ever played and they were marvelous and supportive.  As a post-script I should tell you that within a few months of that exercise I developed alopecia and my hair started falling out in handfulls and everyone thought I had been receiving cancer treatment!  The doctor told me that they really did not know what was the cause of alopecia but stress was likely to be part of it - so I blame Neil Simon for writing that role!  Happily, most of my hair eventually returned.

They did make a film of it which I have never seen.  I suspect that I wouldn't enjoy it because the part of Barney was played by Alan Arkin, an excellent actor but really the man who was made for the role was Walter Mattheau and I confess that I modeled myself, in my poor, amateurish way, on him.  Also, on stage all the action takes place in one location, his mother's appartment, which concentrates the action and the comedy.  In the film, as always, they broaden it out and that, I feel, is likely to lose some of it.  If you ever get a chance to see it on stage, take it.  It's a little dated nowadays but the humour flows not just from Simon's excellent gags but from the characters you see on stage.

Monckton for PM, Glenn Beck for Chairman of the BBC!

Well, that awfully nice black chap with the sticky-out ears who runs America these days keeps banging on about the necessity for change, so this is my little contribution.  Last week I watched the Glenn Beck show and his guest for the entire hour was our very own Lord Monckton.  Oh, I do like a nice Lord!  It brings out all the fawning, supine tendencies of the lower-middle class in me.  Monckton, for those of you who are unaware of him, is a leading opponent of the climate alarmists.  He travels the globe giving lectures and interviews in a desperate attempt to insert some sanity into this runaway hysteria whipped up by, amongst others, Al Gore.  He has constantly re-iterated his invitation to debate with Al Gore anywhere, anytime - and answer comes there none.  I have never seen or heard him until last week and I can tell you that he is as smooth as you would expect the third Viscount of Brenchley to be but as sharp and deadly as a dagger!  It really is time, I think, to have a properly posh prime minister and they don't come any posher than Monckton who makes 'Dave' look like the nouveau tyke he is!

As for Beck, well, I have sung his praises too often to risk boring you even more.  Suffice to say that I wish we had half as good a commentator over here to rip apart that insidious crime syndicate known as the European Union and expose its evil to everyone.  Anyway, courtesy (again!) of 'wattsupwiththat', you can watch the entire show in 7 seperate YouTube videos.  Monckton is mustard!

In praise of the Home Secretary - am I going mad?

Great kerfuffles over the sacking of Prof. Nutt (I do the jokes!) by the Home Secretary, the former 'Postman Pat', Alan Johnson.  For the benefit of my visiting 'cousins', Prof Nutt was head of an advisory body charged with producing 'scientific' reports to aid the government in formulating drug policy.  This, he and his colleagues duly did but were mightily miffed when the Home Secretary ignored their advice and did it his way.  Prof. Nutt made a speech criticising government policy which roughly translated means 'this ignorant ex-postie had the infernal cheek to disregard our 'scientific' expertise!  Johnson promptly sacked him for campaigning against government policy, and now two other members of this council have resigned in support of the Prof. 

As usual with these sorts of disputes, smoke and mirrors play a large role.  Thus, some of the prints are arguing the pros and cons of Nutt's assertion that alcohol is more harmful than cannabis.  Were I Home Secretary I might accept this proposition but only after I had handed it to other 'scientists' for their views.  Almost certainly there would be some who disagreed - there always are!  Even at a quick glance you can already see fruitful fields for dispute - how do you define harm? - what were the statistical methods used in the original study? - what is the difference between cannabis and skunk? - and so on and on.  After that, I would take a political decision, bearing heavily in mind the eye-watering amount of money that the drinks industry produces for the Exchequor!  Personally, I would be minded to legalise all drug use and then tax it, but that's another story.

Most commentators are siding with Prof. Nutt and accusing the government of ignoring the advice of its 'scientific' advisors.  To an extent, that should be a matter of high praise not condemnation.  You will have noticed my use of inverted commas round the word 'scientific' because it seems to me that the religion of science has gone too far.  I cannot list all the 'scientific' prognostications that have proved to be utter bollocks but just grit your teeth and cast your mind back to the dreadful Mrs. Edwina Curry and her panic over eggs in which, under 'scientific' instruction, she nearly destroyed the UK egg market; or the non-millennium disaster that was going to destroy all the computers in the world; or the AIDS epidemic that would kill us all but turned out in fact to kill mainly druggies and homo- or bi-sexuals; and the dreaded bird flu that scientists warned us about; to say nothing of the current swine flu which has cost us all a fortune as our dippy governments surrender to 'scientific' advice - which, of course, they use as a very convenient bit of armour-plating behind which they can hide when all the forecasts prove to be nonsense.  I hardly dare mention Anthropological Global Warming Climate Change!

So I applaud Mr. Johnson for giving that jumped-up scientist a slap and I hope it provides a warning to others that they can, and should, offer dis-interested scientific advice to ministers but after that they should shut their mouths - or, resign their posts and then sound off to the media.  Let ministers administer, and let us decide their fate every five years.

Additional: Normally I read other blogs first (to see what I can steal!) but today I blasted off two posts and then went on my daily tour of Blogdom.  It serves me right, then, that I failed to pick up this juicy little item from those scallawags over at 'IHTM' which makes my point concerning 'scientific' advice better than I could.  These are the words of the very, very scientific Sir David King who was once Chief Scientific Advisor to 'Tony' Blair and Gordon Brown:

 “When people overstate happenings that aren’t necessarily climate change-related, or set up as almost certainties things that are difficult to establish scientifically, it distracts from the science we do understand. The danger is they can be accused of scaremongering. Also, we can all become described as kind of left-wing greens.”
- Sir David King, October 30, 2009

Well, he can say that again as loud as he likes, but only a year earlier he said:

“If all the ice on Greenland were to melt, sea level would rise by seven metres. Is that likely to happen? Well I was saying six years ago unlikely [but] I’m afraid that that’s having to be revised… 80 percent of our human population lives within less than a one metre rise of sea level so imagine the destabilisation of our geopolitical system with a sea level rise of the order of one or two metres. And that is on the cards I’m afraid.”
- Sir David King, June 19, 2008

Thanks to 'I Hate the Media'- don'cha' lurve 'em?

Sir Norman Angell (Who he? ed.)

I am obliged to The Spectator, er, the American one, that is, not the London original, for drawing my attention to the late Sir Norman Angell, and I admit that like you I had never heard of the gent until now.  Apparently he was yet another recipient of a Nobel peace prize who, like the current winner, gained the prize not for what he had actually achieved but for his well-meaning aspirations.  He was from the Wilsonian mould that instilled belief in vast international bureaucracies to oversee and keep unruly nations in order.  The fact that he received his prize in 1933 when a certain Austrian upstart confirmed his dictatorial rule over Germany is an irony so delicious that not only does it prove that God exists but that He has an excellent sense of humour as well!  The author of the piece in The American Spectator maintains that Angell's writings were tremendously influential particularly on British foreign and defence policies.  I bow to his superior knowledge but I can't help thinking that British ministers during the middle and late '30s were only too happy to seize his ideas and wave them to the idiot masses who themselves, for very good reasons, had no wish for more war.  The only prominent opposition to Angell's idealism was that old attack dog, Winston Churchill, whose warning speeches were regularly jeered at by a House of Commons devoid of both education, historical knowledge and even basic intelligence - so no change there, then!  Let us all hope and pray that Angell's succesor in the Nobel prize stakes does not fall at the first hurdle in the way his predecessor did!

'Ruraltown' ruminations

After all that amateurish waffle on philosophy and grand strategy (see below, but only if you're not sleeping well) it is a relief, for me as well as you, to direct you to a man who truly knows where-of he writes - Inspector Blog of the 'Ruralshire Constabulary'.  This is life as it is truly lived for many of us on this "scepter'd Isle".  Insp. 'Blog' is one of life's good guys and, happily, seems to have the strength of character and the robust humour needed to stop him from dwelling for too long on the follies of those who rule over us and the sickening results that follow as surely as night follows day.  For my foreign readers, welcome to the real Britain that lies in the gutter not even gazing at the stars but face down!  Insp. 'Blog' will be your guide and companion and I recommend him most heartily.

"The thing in itself"

I have been enjoying a private e-mail 'conversation' with a regular commenter here, 'Umbongo', or, 'Bongers', as I call him.  Very kindly he sent me a link to one of Melvin Bragg's excellent Radio 4 programmes on the subject of the 19th century philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer.  You may listen to it here but I am not sure how long the BBC keep the link going:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nfrrz/In_Our_Time_Schopenhau

 

I confessed to 'Bongers' that I came to philosophy very late in life as a result of my inability to contain my curiosity when faced with odd-ball titles in bookshops.  Thus it was, back in the early '80s, I came across "Philosophy Made Simple", one of those, mostly excellent, series of books designed in a teach yourself format.  I was instantly entranced and intrigued and I followed it up as best I could whilst holding off the vicissitudes of daily life.  After a few years I gradually gave it up and I am not sure of the exact reasons why I did so.  Partly, I suspect, because other more pressing interests intervened, but also, partly I think, because I sensed that philosophy was running out of useful things to say - an inability on my part, being a third-rater by nature, to struggle with some of the complexities may well have been another factor!  Anyway, it semed to me that all the really big questions had been asked and, depending on the philosopher concerned, answered for good or ill.  Nobody, it seemed to me, offered a complete answer and I gained the distinct impression that modern philosphers were, by and large, scratching around the edges almost inventing problems with which they could then grapple to their and their publishers' content.

 

Let me take Kant's mysterious proposition concerning the state of "the thing in itself" which I take to be an extension of Plato's original notion that for all things perceived by us there exists and ideal example, a template, if you like, which is, and will always remain, beyond our ability to contemplate with any accuracy.  In Plato's famous metaphor, these ideal templates exist like the flickering shadows cast on a cave wall by the light of a fire.  Kant's version was, to use an analogy supplied by my e-friend, 'Bongers', rather like a pebble, perhaps a pebble upon which I stubbed my toe.  By means of my senses (ouch!) and better still, science, I might be able to comprehend much about that particular pebble but, according to Kant, there is a further, deeper essence to that pebble which is impossible for me to comprehend, the pebble as a "thing in itself".  He divided the world into the 'phenomenal', that is things which can be comprehended by our senses, and the 'noumenal', those essences of things which cannot be subjected to our senses.

 

This argument stems from a wider one in which philosophers have attempted to decide whether the world is simply all material, or all 'spiritual' (for lack of a better word and not to be confused with any particular religious meaning), or a mixture of the two.  There are certainly some massive questions which have, so far, defied science (and science, of course, is just an extension of our senses) to answer, such as for example, who or what began the universe?  It is fairly easy to suggest some sort of 'prime mover' and normally he, she or it is given a spiritual essence, but of course, if and when, via the miracles of modern science, we ever get to experience this 'prime mover' at first hand, it might well prove to be a material form, immensely sophisticated, of course, but still subject to measurement.

 

I agree with Schopenhauer when he argues that there appears to be no plan or structure for the universe and for our lives in it.  We simply strive to live without any definite knowledge of a purpose in living.  Like Lear, we celebrate when we can, and shake our puny fists at the cosmos when, apparently on a whim, it turns its cold, implaccable face in our direction and squashes the life out of us.  But the fact is, that virtually none of us, except philosophers (and playwrights!), ever think like that, indeed, we could not get through our lives really believing that.  We might all be, as far as I can tell, just so many pebbles on a beach of infinite extension, but the fact is that for the majority of us that is sufficient.  From the personal viewpoint, life and living is a gift and sufficient unto itself.  Even most of those in the most abject of conditions still fight for life.

 

All of that, and other things, drove me away from the metaphysical philosophers and into the world of what I thought might be more practical works of modern philosophy, such as, the philsophy of science, and politics, and warfare.  By and large, these dealt with things the way they are, rather than with mysterious entities which no-one can describe or even contemplate.