DUFF & NONSENSE!

One French 'oo la la' may be a misfortune but two looks like carelessness!

Sorry, Lady Bracknell, to paraphrase you so badly, and sorry also to Oscar (such a darling boy!) for nicking your wit!  However, like all of you - you cynical rascals! - I have enjoyed a good laugh at M. Strauss-Kahn's recent antics with sundry ladies which resulted in the loss of his job as boss of the IMF - no, no, not the 'International Mother F*****s', I mean the International Monetary Fund - do be serious!  Happily everything was stitched up settled very quickly in that august and respectable institution when that distinguished, silver-haired, French lady was shooed in to the top job.  But now, alors! merde! she, too, is under investigation by a French court for being, how can I put this delicately?, over-generous to some French 'get-rich-quick' merchant involved in a gazillion euro take-over when she was Minister of Finance under the French dwarf - er, when I say 'under' that is a figure of speech and not to be taken literally - and do stop sniggering at the back! 

What can one say except . . . vive la France!

 

"It's all over"

"It's All Over", I suggest, should be the new anthem of the European Union, courtesy of:

Songwriters: Stock, Barry; Gontier, Adam; Sanderson, Neil; Walst, Brad.

Your bottle's almost empty
You know this can't go on
Because of you
My mind is always racing

For you, for you
When you're on the edge and falling off
It's all over for you, for you
When you're on the edge and falling off
It's all over.

Just two verses but they say it all.  As so often with human tragedy the outsider can see the approaching train down the one-track tunnel but the crew on board the other train see nothing, not least, perhaps, because they have been busy blindfolding themselves.  If you were not quite sure that the EU is a train crash about to happen then you should have listened to that fat, lecherous, old, Italian roué with the ridiculously dyed hair telling the world that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the Italian economy!  That was all the proof you need to pull the emergency brake lever.  If that man told me it was sunny outside I would instantly reach for my brolly!

It's all over, bar the suffering.  The power-mad poltroons who stitched together this monstrous mismatch have resolutely refused to face the reality.  And if you will allow me some delicious schadenfreude, do you remember how they sneered at the realists who warned them that the internal contradictions would lead to disaster?  Now there are only two options.  The first, and most likely, is the disintegration of the whole edifice leaving perhaps the equivalent of a battered castle-keep standing amongst the ruins of the outer walls in the form of the north European nations, although given Belgian instability and Dutch disenchantment even that cannot be relied upon.  The rest will collapse around them sending a tsunami wave across the world banking system.  The second option is a hurried, and therefore botched, attempt to ram through a political federation under a new Federal government of Europe which will have nil democratic credentials but which might, for the moment, hold the markets at bay.

Either of these will be severely painful for us, in the short term, but if we have worked out our strategic aims and objectives and have the will power to drive home our semi-detached advantage then the long term prospects could be benevolent.  So, remind me, who is in charge of our nation's affairs at the moment . . . oh God!

 

Hang 'em high!

Some of my older readers - and, boy, some of 'em are really old! - will remember that there was a time when I regularly murdered the subject of capital punishment, an example, perhaps, of death by boredom.  So, for the past year or so I have let the subject drop but now, thanks in part to the efforts of Guido, it is back on the agenda with a vengeance.  If enough people sign the e-petition it will force parliament to discuss the issue - and you can sign by using the link above to Guido's site. Of course, the chances of them doing anything about it are microscopic but at least they will be shown up as defyiong the will of a great many people.

It seems to me that the debate over this tricky subject is falsified by concentration on only two sets of 'victims'.  There are those who have been killed for which there is frequently a welling-up of sympathy, and later, there is a tide of softness for the killer, especially if he, or she, faces the gallows.  However, there is one other set of victims for which there is scant sympathy mainly because it takes an act of imagination to envision them.  They are the people, men, women and children, who even as I write are living their lives as fully as possible unaware that they will be future victims.  let me illustrate it by looking backwards.  When the death penalty was halted around the late '50s, early '60s the annual murder rate in England and Wales was around 250 - 300.  Today it is up in the 700 - 800 area.  Of course, some of this increase has arisen naturally as a result of population increase, but on the other hand, the death rate has been reduced by enormous advances in emergency surgery.  Also, hand in hand with this increased murder rate is the undoubted fact that we live in a far less disciplined society than that of the 1950s.  Even so, and rounding the figures down, one can say that roughly 300 extra people a year have been slaughtered since capital punishment was banned.  But let us go further and agree (with my opponents) that for various social reasons part of the increase in the murder rate is beyond mitigation, and so let us say that perhaps only 100 people a year would not have been murdered because their killers would have been restrained by fear of the gallows.  That is 5,000 truly innocent people who would have lived their lives over the past 50 years.

But they are dead and gone and now it is necessary for us to concentrate on the future.  The main argument put forward by abolitionists is the danger - and it is a real one - of hanging the wrong man or woman.  Unquestionably that could and would happen - but how many times?  My opponents trot out the 'usual suspects' but increasingly they are part of a pre-scientific age in criminal investigation.  Today the forensics and the video evidence can be very compelling and very accurate.  Even so, mistakes will be made but when you compare the number of innocent men and women hanged to the number of potential victims saved because their potential killers held back from fear of the consequences, then the latter outweighs the former by a huge margin. 'Better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man is hanged' is the sort of unimaginative, sloppy thinking one has grown to expect from soppy liberals.  Never do they spare a thought for the truly innocent who will be killed in the future.

My argument, I admit, depends completely on my belief that punishment works as a deterrent.  It never stops bad behavior, the human spirit for good or evil is too restless for that, but it does deter at the margins.  If a hundred potential murderers a year pause before they act, then capital punishment is vindicated.

I am obliged to Anna Raccoon for offering a novel twist to this debate.  She points to the reluctance of some juries to convict in the knowledge that within the year the accused will hang.  She suggests that instead of hanging them immediately they should serve a long prison sentence in the certain knowledge that after, say, 20 years, they will be executed.  Living with the certainty of death would be part of their punishment.  In addition, however, it provides time for subsequent evidence to come to light which might clear an innocent person and thus knocks away one of the main props in the arguments of the abolitionists.  I'm not sure I go along with that entirely but it is worth discussing.

In the meantime let us hope that our members of parliament are forced to stand and declare where they stand on this issue.

 

Lest you be in doubt

The American Right maintains a constant howl of anguish concerning what they see as blatant bias from the MSM - with the honourable exception of the minority media outlet, Fox News.  Perhaps you think they 'doth protest too much' but happily, these Leftie reporters are so dim and so mouthy they simply cannot hide their bias.  CBS’s Norah O’Donnell gave the president's press secretary a hard time by continually asking in an increasingly hostile tone where the extra taxes were in the (so-called) 'debt deal'?  She ended by asking this:

You have Democrats saying you gave them everything they wanted and we  got nothing.

Please note the give-away "we".  'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings', well, er, MSM babes with microphones, that is!  Commentary has a full report with a YouTube film of the event.  One can only ask how much trust you can invest in CBS News to provide even-handed reporting?  Somewhere between nil and minus nil, I would suggest!

 

Is this man good for anything?

I ask the question because his impact on our nations affairs so far has varied from the pathetic to the downright damaging.  One only need cast a fond farewell glance at our aircraft carriers, whilst simultaneously waving goodbye to several £billions handed over to rich, nuclear countries like India and to sundry corrupt thugs in Africa, even more £billions shovelled into the sink-hole that is Europe, and at an increase in VAT which put the kybosh on any chance of an economic recovery for years to come.

Still, you might comfort yourself by thinking, at least he's swung the axe at all those pen-pushers in the civil non-service as well as all those eye-wateringly expensive quangos.  Wrong!  Courtesy of the Spock-like John Redwood, The Daily Mail provides this analysis of its story:

Did you like that one from the Dept of Energy & Climate Change?  Really gets you, doesn't it?  And the MoD, too, who are busy laying off soldiers, sailors and airmen whilst recruiting yet more civilians.  The Mail sums it up thus:

At least 4,500 civil servants have been taken on since the election in May last year by Government departments and quangos – three times the number that have been handed compulsory redundancy notices.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the Committee on Climate Change are among the quangos which have been busy recruiting.

Redwood used Parliamentary questions to elicit the information from different departments:

He received responses from only eight, meaning the totals he has received are only the tip of the iceberg.

The responses show that 4,538 staff have been recruited since May 2010 and 1,570 have been 'made redundant'. It is not always clear whether these were both compulsory and voluntary redundancies, or just compulsory ones.

This story should be read in conjunction with one in The Times (if you feel like giving 'Rupe' some dosh) by Peter Hoskin but on the other hand you can save your money by reading the essence of it over at The Coffee House:

Before last year’s spending review, the Treasury asked a group of outside experts whether plans for a 40 per cent headcount reduction at the Department for Communities and Local Government were too ambitious. Their response? It wasn’t nearly ambitious enough. The staff cut ought to be at least 90 per cent.

Will it ever happen?  Only when pigs land at Heathrow Airport!  So, I repeat, what is Cameron for?  What does he do?  It is now not so much a question of whether we would miss him if he went but whether we would even notice that he had gone?

Now it begins!

I just clicked onto Drudge and the following heading jumped out and punched me on the nose:

DOW -265

Underneath that there was another less than cheerful item:

Italy under fire in widening euro debt crisis...

According to Yahoo News:

Italian and Spanish bond yields hit their highest levels in 14 years, with five-year Italian yields reaching the same level as Spain's in a sign Rome is overtaking Madrid as a key focus of investors' concern about debt sustainability.

Italy's stock index fell 2.5 percent to its lowest in more than 27 months, dragged down by banks that have heavy exposure to Italian debt. European shares hit a 9-month low amid worries that slowing economic growth will make it even harder to overcome the euro zone's debt troubles.

Now it begins and where it will end no-one can tell.

Could Obama lose the black vote?

Well, according to Pat Buchanan he could.  I suppose most Americans would mutter something like 'well he would say that, wouldn't he?'  But Buchanan backs his assertion with some uncomfortable facts and figures, well, uncomfortable for the President and for the Democratic party:

In 2007, best year of the Bush era, white households had a median net worth of $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households.
   
By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860. For black households, it had plummeted 83 percent to $2,170, a near wipeout.
   
As Algernon Austin of EPI's Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy put it, "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households had two cents."  (My emphasis)

Buchanan reminds us that such 'wealth' as blacks do enjoy is hugely dependent on government employment and the generous terms that go with it:

Not only are African-Americans over-represented among government employees, these jobs are the backbone of the black middle class. For federal pay and benefits have in recent years far outstripped those of the private sector.
   
From 2000 to 2010, the number of federal employees earning over $150,000 increased tenfold. That number doubled in the first two years alone of the Obama administration. The average pay of federal civil servants in 2009, after benefits were factored in, was $123,000, twice the average pay and benefits of $61,000 in the private sector.

To support his contention that blacks have taken a disproportionate number of government jobs, Buchanan offers these statistics:

Though 10 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force, African-Americans are 18 percent of U.S. government workers. They are 25 percent of the employees at Treasury and Veterans Affairs, 31 percent of the State Department, 37 percent of Department of Education employees and 38 percent of Housing and Urban Development. They are 42 percent of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 55 percent of the employees at the Government Printing Office and 82 percent at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.

Just like 'over here', all those government jobs are bang in the sights of those who are determined to reduce government spending - hence Obama's and the Democrats' fierce, not to say, fanatical, resistance to the whole idea of reducing government expenditure.  All those jobs, particularly those occupied by blacks, were virtually guaranteed votes come election day:

Already, black voices are beginning to blame the black president whom fate has chosen to preside over the downsizing. 
   
Obama, says Princeton professor Cornell West , "lacks backbone." He is a "black mascot of Wall Street and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. ... I don't think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Barack Obama."
  
Incredibly, the question must be asked.
   
Is this Democratic administration about to go to war with its base? Is black America souring on Barack Obama?

Well, on one political hand we must hope that they are, but on the other societal hand, given the racial tensions which still persist in the USA and which are constantly rehearsed by malignant agitators, the ravishing of hard-earned, black, middle-class wealth and status could result in an explosive re-action.  If a man has nothing he might well fight for something, but if he has something and it is taken from him he will fight twice as hard and three times as bitterly.

 

Debt deal? What debt deal?

For all the shenanigans in Congress yesterday it was no big deal, in fact, it was no deal at all.  All that happened was that the Congressmen 'strutted their hour upon the stage' and postponed everything until November next year.  And that is the time when a real deal has the chance of being struck.  It will be then that the American voters will have a chance to 'speak'.  Until then there will be yet more strutting, the application of yet more sticky plaster to the wound which will continue to bleed at a prodigious rate thus weakening even further the pale body-politic of a once great America.  November 2012 will be the last chance!  To paraphrase Claudius:

Do it, America!

(I'm off to the seaside today with my book, my sun-lounger, and my wife - er, that does not constitute an order of priorities, he said quickly, remembering who makes up the picnic!  No more posts until this evening.)

 

Judge Mary Jane 'Muppet', a true lady Cocklecarrot!

I have a file on my computer entitled 'Blog Feeder' in which I save any items of interest for later perusal and possible entry into these hallowed columns.  I read this story quickly and was so utterly gob-smacked that I filed it fast and it has taken me several days to summon up the will to write about it.

Judge Mary Jane Mowat is the ineffably smug-looking dimwit in the photo below.

Photo: INS from the report by Murray Wardrop in The Daily Telegraph

This lady bears the shield of law and order behind which we all shelter against the villainy that threatens us and our loved ones.  The other day, faced with a school-teacher, let me repeat that, a school-teacher, found in possession of 4, 500, let me repeat that, too, 4,500, indecent photos of children, this Solomon-ette of legal wisdom, this defender of our innocent little kiddie-winkies, said this to the culprit:

I don't criticise you for being a teacher who's attracted to children. Many teachers are but they keep their urges under control both when it comes to children and when it comes to images of children.

I would repeat that, too, but I fear I may throw up and it will be the very devil to clean my keyboard.  However, you should not think that this amoeba-brained, legal idiot of a judge did not realise the seriousness of the offence, because she told the defendant:

This was by any standards a substantial collection, with some 300 of the worst kind.

Golly-gosh, I bet that had him worried, knees knocking in the dock and that sort of thing, but then she pronounced sentence:

Judge Mowat handed Armstrong a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

My emphasis, of course, and perhaps you would like me to repeat it - oh, take that as a 'no', shall I?  But this Madam Cocklecarrot has form as long as your arm:

In 2008, she allowed former headmaster Phillip Carmichael to walk free from court after accepting that medication for Parkinson’s disease had turned him into a paedophile.

If I ever appear before this moron I'm going to claim to be suffering with a really bad dose of Man Flu - what are you giggling at? - because from her judicial record it is obvious that a claim of any medical condition is guaranteed to get you off.  This from The Oxford Mail

A former postman who sent sexually explicit messages to celebrities could face up to five years in prison if he breaks a new restraining order.

This perve pestered women 'slebs' with sexually explicit letters despite already having a restraining order placed upon him.  Still, our stern Judge 'Soppy' Mowet having been told that the poor man suffered with Aspergers syndrome (you what?) she lashed out with a truly harsh sentence - another restraining order!  Ha!  That'll teach him!

If you have a strong stomach you can google this stupid woman up and read about some of her other cases.  I simply sit here shaking my head and wondering how these morons reach such high office? 

 

But, America, is he worth it?

I refer to your less than distinguished vice-president, Mr. Joe Biden.  In describing him thus, I must confess my lack of any direct knowledge of the man and rely simply on the passing commentary I have read over recent years in which he appears to be regarded by one and all as a prize 'putz'!  Even so, he is the vice-president which at least serves to provide us all with one reason to fervently hope and pray for the long life of President Obama!

Of course, as vice-president, Mr. Biden needs must be protected by gun-toting, sun-glass-wearing Secret Servicemen, those chaps who spend so much of their time talking to their cuffs!  Fair enough, but it now transpires that good ol' Joe has been charging his protectors rent for a cottage on his grounds which they use as a base.  So far, according to The Washington Times, he has earned $13,000 off the Secret Service who are only there in order to protect his life.  I need hardly remind my American friends that the $13,000 originally came out of your back pockets!

So, I can only ask, because as an Englishman I have no right to an opinion, is he worth it?

 

Very 'Worthy Oriental Gentlemen', all of them!

I refer to the Indian cricket team who yesterday reminded all of us English that the spirit of cricket is alive and well even if nowadays it lives only in India.  Of course, I risk censure from the 'sillies' who will pounce upon the oft-used acronym in my title, WOG, and accuse me of racism.  There's no helping such bigots but just let me stress that I use the term 'Worthy Oriental Gentlemen' in its exact and precise meaning with emphasis as indicated by my italics.

For the benfit of my foreign readers let me explain that in yesterday's Test match, one of our English batsmen made a silly but easily committed mistake.  Off the last ball before tea, his partner hit the ball towards the boundary and to all intents and purposes it crossed the line.  Only later TV footage showed that a diving Indian fielder had accidentally blocked it with his flailing leg in his effort to stop the ball.  He, himself, thought the ball had crossed the line and tossed it back casually to his team-mates at the wicket.  Meanwhile, one of the English batsman, thinking the ball was dead, simply shouldered his bat, left his crease and strolled off with his partner for tea.  But the ball was not dead and one of the Indian cricketers tapped the bails off and appealed for an 'out'.  Much huffin' and puffin' from the umpires who, after examination of the TV record, upheld the appeal and the batsman was given 'out'.  Cue massive booing from the crowd as the Indians left the field.  During the interval a polite request from the English coach and captain was considered by the whole Indian team and they decided to withdraw their appeal so that the batsman could continue to play.  The boos which greeted the Indian team as they returned to the field withered into embarrassed silence when the original batsmen was seen to return to the wicket.

The chances of an English team, consisting as it appears to do of mostly 'yobs' and 'grunts', behaving with a similar spirit of sportsmanship are vanishingly tiny.  As for the Australians, they would bust a gut laughing at the very idea!  Personally, I cannot remember the last time I heard such excellently good news on the sporting front for years.  So well done the WOGs who might lose the match but will have won the spirit of the game.

Now, there is only one way to finish this post, with a nice dollop of Sir Henry John Newbolt, 6 June 1862 – 19 April 1938:

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night

Ten to make and the match to win

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play, and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat.

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red -

Red with the wreck of a square that broke

The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed its banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the school is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind -

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

I shall be cheering for India during the remainder of this Test series!

 

A Klee for today

I'm feeling generous and I thought I would cheer you up with a Klee today.  As so often with him, he teases on the borderline between reality and abstraction, a sort of 'now you see it, now you don't' type of picture.  Mainly, of course, it is an exercise in colour and balance.  I stress the word 'exercise' because it seems to me that Klee never stopped experimenting with colour and form.  This is more muted, even sophisticated, in its colouration compared to some of his pictures.  Very restful to the eyes and the soul.

God, I'm good to you people!