DUFF & NONSENSE!

The Sunday Rumble: 31.03.13

Rhinoceros:  Should a friend, or more likely, an enemy, suggest that you trot off to the theatre to see a production of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionescu make your excuses and volunteer to paper the mother-in-law's living-room.  Alas, I cannot provide you with a detailed critique of this, er, play because I only lasted to the end of Act One before making my escape.  The only 'Good Thing' to be derived from this dire evening was that I have achieved what I had hitherto thought was impossible by finding a worse playwright than Samuel Becket and Harold Pinter.

Stop the cuts!  I have just watched a young mother being interviewed by Sky News on the subject of the so-called 'bedroom tax' in which people on welfare inhabiting council properties will have their benefits cut if they have spare, empty bedrooms.  The camera roamed around and filmed the spare bedroom possessed by this lady.  It closely resembled a toy shop at Christmas!  I have never seen so many toys crammed into one room!  Thinking back, I would reckon that there were more toys in that room than I ever possessed in my entire childhood!  As always, I have the sound turned off but her mouth was opening and closing rapidly so I assume she was moaning and groaning about cruel, black-hearted Tories- if only! -  cutting her benefits.  Well, if it cuts her 'toy-bingeing' then so much the better for her and her brat!

I hadn't thought of La France:  Apparently Slovenia is the next Cyprus.  Pity because I remember with great fondness a week's holiday up around the Lake Bled area which is stunningly beautiful.  Their stupid politicians only joined the suckers club (aka: the euro zone) five years ago and already they are flat broke and about to be gang-banged by 'Mr. Rumpy-Pumpy' and his gauleiters.  However, Slovenia, lovely as it is, remains a minnow in the great scheme of things European.  But I keep picking up nudges and winks concerning La France!  President Hollande appears to be a rarity amongst politicians in that not only does he possess an ideology but he actually believes in it and is determined to enforce it.  Thus, like socialist countries throughout history, France, too, is likely to go broke.  Apparently the hitherto unbreakable(!) link between Paris and Berlin lies in pieces and Frau Merkel is not amused!  I had always relied on Italy to be the game breaker but apparently it might be France.  Quell dommage!

Eric Hobsbawm VEP:  That stands for Very Emminent Prat!  One of the more useful things to have occurred in the 20th century is the rise of (at least) two murderous, psychotic regimes which killed people on an industrial scale.  Of course, that is to be excoriated and the victims pitied but for those of us fortunate enough to have been missed it provides a litmus test by which contemporaries of those bloody times, particularly those on the Left, may be judged with unerring accuracy.  Such a man was Eric Hobsbawm, an eminent and respected historian, or so I am told, who despite his fanatical communism was pleased to accept the bauble of becoming a Companion of Honour.  As Bruce ('the brute') Anderson writes in last week's 'Speccie', this is all very odd given that Hobsbawm lived through Stalin's mass murders but continued to give his unwavering support, indeed, he reckoned the deaths of 20 million people was a small price to pay for completion of the socialist wet dream, er, that's 'wet' as in dripping with blood!  I would suggest that Hobsbawm (along with, incidentally, Miliband senior!) failed his litmus test in the biggest possible way so why anyone would take his history books seriously is beyond me.  Incidentally, as he recounts, 'Brute' Anderson has earned the high society award, equivalent of the VC, by being the target for a glass of wine thrown over him by Polly Toynbee.  Good man, that Anderson, steady under fire!

 

This inconsequential load of twaddle will continued on Monday in the post above . . .

 

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Fractured Times by Eric Hobsbawm: review

I'm outta here!

No posts today because I'm off to 'Londinium' to see friends and, God help me, to see a production of Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco, a Roumanian-French playwright of the 'Absurdist School' - yeeees, quite!  Actually, I was quite happy to see this play because I have read about it so often and my curiosity was piqued but reading the production notes I see the dread words  "... updated by renowned playwright Martin Crimp"!  Well, "renowned" he might be but I have never heard of him and if I go to see a play by Ionesco then I want to see a play by Ionesco not by Mr. Crimp whose name makes him sound like an escapee from The Goon Show!  According to Wiki, Mr. Crimp is "a practitioner of the "in-yer-face" school of contemporary British drama, although he rejects the label".  Well, who wouldn't?  But it does not bode well for this evening's 'entertainment'.  I just hope our little theatre has the heating on full blast given that all this freezing 'global warming' is still with us.

 

 

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The forever law of unintended consequences

Shortage of time, m'Lord, has forced me to larceny and I herewith display my ill-gotten gain from the always first class Cafe Hayek, to be precise, their 'Quote of the Week':

is from page 210 of David Friedman’s excellent 1996 book, Hidden Order:

Suppose the English government requires (as it does) that greenbelts be established around major cities.   That reduces the amount of residential land – driving up rents.  A law that is defended as a way of protecting urban beauty against greedy developers has as one of its effects raising the income of urban landlords at the expense of their tenants.

But do socialist Greens ever consider, let alone care about, the consequences of their actions?  Of course not!

And on the basis that I might as well be hung for a pair of crimes as one, I throw myself on the mercy of the court and offer yet more booty, again, one of their 'Quotes of the Week', this one from Ms. Deirdrie McCloskey.  Actually, mention of her name touches what passes for my conscience.  I was once wantonly rude to her and after my abject apology I promised to buy one of her books - which I have not yet done, mea culpa!  Yes, I know, 'I'm a very naughty boy'!  Anyway, this quote . . .

… is from page xxi of the second edition (1998) of Deirdre McCloskey’s path-breaking 1985 volume, The Rhetoric of Economics:

Economics, like geology or evolutionary biology or history itself, is an historical rather than a predictive science.  Economics is not widely regarded as an imposing creation of the human mind.  But I think it is.  It is social self-understanding … as remarkable as anthropology or history.  All the more pity that economists have in the past fifty years become idiot savants of modernism.

“Modernism,” as McCloskey uses the term here, is quite like the “scientism” criticized so profoundly by Hayek.

  

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The art of war: #2

I am rather busy today, part of my time being taken with driving Peg the leg-legga-leg the 'Memsahib' to the hospital where her new hip was inserted, so my posting today will be odds and sods inserted at speed.  To start with, here are some more wartime posters from the site I wrote about earlier - courtesy of 'Big Sis':

This was painted by Drake Brookshaw who was, apparently, a very prolific artist and illustrator responsible for several of the postsers that used to decorate the London Underground.  I'm surprised that he has no Wiki entry.  Anyway, I'm sure you will all agree that this is a delight with the dappled sunshine caught beautifully and contrasted with the dark figure of the man and the tree branches.  One of those magical illustrations which instantly make you smile - a useful thing during wartime.

Here's a very different style in a poster by Tom Purvis:

Can't say I care for this one very much.  In some indefinable way it's just not very British.  It smacks too much of a continental style.  I can't help thinking that Mussolini would have liked that sort of thing.  However, Purvis knew war from the sharp end having served in the Artists Rifles during WWI.  That distinguished regiment, of course, later morphed into the 21st Special Air Service (reserve).

Now this one is terrific.  A brilliant use of Churchill's famous request illustrated with wit and style:

Frank Newbould was one of the greatest of the train poster artists.  This site will give you a whole collection of his work which are well worth a browse.  A superb and witty illustrator.  Here is one of his well known peace-time posters which shows his sense of fun:

 Two weeks in 'Skeggie'!  God, I'd rather have three weeks in Siberia!

 

 

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Is God laughing or crying?

I ask, you see, because I have 'got religion'!  No, no, I'm not banging on your door asking if you believe or any of that sort of thing, but ever since I read Jonathan Sachs's superb book The Great Partnership I have become interested in the history of religion, or to be precise, mainly the Christian religion.  What nags away at the back of my mind is the incredible speed with which, in those ancient times, it spread round the Roman empire and was lapped up so quickly by the populations of so many different countries.  Of course, now I think about it, I can see the attraction for ordinary people in a religion in which prince and pauper are equal before the eyes of God.  Even so, the speed of its spread was amazing.

Talking about this with a friend before Christmas prompted her to buy me another book, The History of Christian Thought by Jonathan Hill.  I am only partway through it but already, like God in my title above, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  If indeed God did despatch his Son to earth to preach a simple but hugely powerful and persuasive message of morality to be easily understood by the great unwashed and ignorant, then surely he must have realised that it would only be a matter of time - a very, very short time - before the intellectuals got at it!  Amongst the first was Justin Martyr, about a hundred years after Christ, and after Justin it was downhill all the way.  Endless 'picking of nits' and 'dancing on the heads of pins' was undertaken by sundry bloody intellectuals so that the simplicity of the original message was buried under a slag-heap of contradictory interpretations, many of which would in time be enforced by axe, sword and fire.

And then yesterday, via the good offices of Arts & Letters Daily, I came across an excellent review of a book called Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg.  The reviewer, R. I. Moore at The Nation, begins with Nirenberg's unique (as far as I know) interpretation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in which he proposes:

“In sooth, I know not why I am so sad,” Antonio wonders at the outset of The
Merchant of Venice. What could seem more universal, more culturally neutral
than melancholy? Yet if David Nirenberg’s argument in Anti-Judaism is correct, by Shakespeare’s time the negative associations of Judaism were so universal, and so close to the surface of Christian consciousness, that Antonio’s words immediately prompt the suspicion that he might be a Jew. Other characters soon echo the suggestion. His friend Salerio attributes Antonio’s mood to anxiety about the safety of the ships carrying his merchandise overseas, thus taxing him with excessive regard for his money; then, when Antonio repudiates the accusation, another friend, Gratiano, charges him with hypocrisy. Either way, Nirenberg writes, Antonio “appears to be, in the vocabulary of Christianity, a ‘Jew.’”

Well, I have lost count of the number of times when Shakespearean experts have offered up a new way of looking at his plays which have left me open-mouthed and my own pet theories in ruins about me.  This way of looking at Antonio is certainly new to me but . . . but . . . now you mention it  . . . !  Anyway, both the book and the review are concerned with wider matters.  They both draw attention to the way in which the early 'Church Elders' (or bloody intellectuals, if you prefer!) felt the need to differentiate themselves from Judaism despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that they both drew their inspiration from the same early chronicles.  This need to distance themselves from the Jews went hand-in-hand with the necessity of crushing any Christian sects who failed to abide by the totally man-made creed of the early church, and , of course, any pagans still surviving who preferred their old, semi-human and therefore recognisable Gods.  Over the centuries these habits, which might be described as 'getting your retaliation in first' persisted with increasingly bloody results.  But through it all ran the over-riding necessity to mark the differences between Christianity and Judaism with results that live - and die - with us today.

I think He's crying!

 

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'Fat Boy' Kim skates towards the very thin ice

My trusty observers at NightWatch tell me that 'Fat Boy' Kim has placed all of his missile, rocket and artillery formations on the highest level of readiness which is a 'war imminent basis' and means they are capable of firing within minutes of receiving the command:

In the four Army Corps that are based north of the Demilitarized Zone, the North has deployed in caves and hardened positions about 10,000 howitzers, guns and multiple round rocket launchers with wartime loads of ammunition. The gun density per kilometer is higher than at the major battles on the Soviet Front in World War II and is, in fact, derived from Soviet artillery doctrine.

No-one seems to believe that he really wants war but explanations for his apparently lunatic behaviour vary.  The shrewdest, I think, was a man on Sky News who suggested that his main aim was to attract the attention of President Aloof - ooops, sorry - President Obama and force him into one-to-one negotiations over a new settlement for the Korean peninsular.  This, of course, will give Kim's reputation a tremendous boost and as any settlement will probably include large dollops of American aid for which North Korea is desperate, that will add even more 'lustre to his cluster'!

For once, Obama will be right to remain aloof.  This is primarily a South Korean, Japanese and Chinese problem.  Kim is like a batty old man living in a community who spends all day and night shouting obscenities at the neighbours and threatening to kill them all.  It is up to the neighbours to decide amongst themselves what to do about him - they, after all, have most to lose.

In the meantime, of course, in such a state of high tension the possibility of some soldier somewhere along the border making a mistake and starting a war is a very great possibility.

 

The light at the end of the tunnel is an express train coming fast!

I rarely urge my readers to do anything but in this case I am jumping up and down and waving my arms by way of encouragement - particularly if you are one of my American readers.  What I want you to do, is settle down in a comfy chair with a cup of good coffee - and a very large Scotch - and spend an hour listening to a man with a tale to tell.  He is American and also a businessman so, as you will have guessed, there is a sales pitch but happily that is kept to the very end and may be avoided if so desired.  However, it is the first 50 minutes or so that is riveting and in which he describes exactly and precisely why the USA is rapidly approaching a major catastrophe that will dwarf the recent bank collapses. 

It is, or should be, of major concern to us 'over here' because, as the old saying has it, 'if they sniff we catch a cold'.  However, it seems almost inevitable that this time they are going down not with a sniff but with double pneumonia!  The warning comes in the form of an audio presentation so all you have to do is listen - and gulp at your Scotch.  The central premise is simple.  The American government is printing dollars at eye-watering levels never before seen in their history.  They are doing this in the confident knowledge that because the dollar is the world's reserve currency used by nations everywhere to conduct their business, there will be no ill effects from this money-printing exercise because the dollar will be in constant demand.  Any minute now they, the American government, are about to find out that the dollar has ceased to be a reserve currency for the simple reason that nobody trusts it any more.  When that happens you can say goodbye, America and hello, Zimbabwe!

The effects of a total crash in the value of the dollar on a heavily-armed American society facing an even more heavily-armed government do not bear thinking about.  The gentleman giving the presentation has not convinced me of anything new because I have long festered on my suspicion that American national debt is unsustainable - and today, and for the foreseeable future, that debt can and will only get bigger.  I hasten to add that this is not entirely the fault of the Obama administration, they are simply the last in a long line of 'spendaholic' governments.  By the time Obama leaves office, most experts reckon the debt will have reached $20 trillion.  There are many people in his administration who will be delighted at that state of affairs and look forward with revolutionary fervour to a breakdown in civic society when the bloated chickens come home to roost.

Already China is discreetly easing itself out of dollar holdings.  They are doing it slowly because they hold too much to want to cause a panic.  However what they, and many other nations are doing, is to set up currency agreements which will allow the participants to do their business in currencies other than the dollar.  This alone will be enough to gradually devalue the dollar as you can see from this 10 year chart, courtesy of www.tradingeconomics:

Just look where it was ten years ago and where it is today.  Think of it in reverse, like the water rising slowly and inexorably up inside the SS Titanic!   It is in the nature of these things that it is only at the last minute that suddenly the water rushes in and the ship turns turtle in minutes.   As for my own poor 'septic Isle' I would like to think that the great minds at work in our Treasury under the guidance of our very own wise and shrewd Chancellor of the Exchequer(!) are already surreptitiously getting out of the dollar, of which they own about 135 billion, and setting our nation up ready for the coming financial apocalypse - but I don't because they ain't!

Please do give it a listen: 

http://pro.stansberryresearch.com/1303EOASALYN/LPSIP3XA/

I am grateful to PJ Media for the link

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The Art of War: #1

My gorgeous e-pal, 'Sister Wolf', sent me a link to a site at the National Archives featuring War Art from WWII.  Mostly posters but including some portraits.  I was born in 1939 and so my 'experience' of the war was that of a very young child and I suppose, in retrospect, most of my impressions were taken from the conversations of 'grown ups' and the impeccably correct pronunciation from the 'man at the BBC' reading the news.  Some, however, were real enough, like being taken to the school bomb-shelter with my gas mask for a practice drill.  Anyway, from time to time I will be offering you samples of these.  I think they, that is, the posters, need to be judged by their efficacy in getting over a message, and their quality as art forms.

This is the first poster:

 

By and unknown artist known only as 'Xenia'.  Very simplistic, one might call it naive, especially in comparison with some of the more sophisticated poster work that was produced.  Even so, I like and admire it.  It spells the message out with the repetition of 'Better' and the touches of green in all of the little sketches.  It was aimed at 'The Village Produce Associations' of the time, what we would call today, the allotment owners.  I think that little poster would have hit the intended target exactly right.

Here's another one, concerned with agriculture but with a different target group:

It doesn't quite work for me.  I suspect the unknown artist, "O'Connell", has been somewhat influenced by Soviet-style art with their endlessly smiling and handsome peasant girls and boys.  The white-on-black message at the bottom and the choice of typeface smacks of government bureaucracy!

Anyway, I am enormously grateful to 'Big Sis' for a fascinating site.

 

Plus ça change mais everything stays the same!

I am obliged to 'my man in Moscow' - er, no, no, please, no names, discretion, old boy, toujours la discrétion!   Let's just say he's a friend currently living in Moscow - poor bugger! - who passed on this vital piece of financial intelligence:

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance."

And no, those are not the latest words from the Italian Finance Minister because, well, as it happens, Italy does not yet have a Finance Minister.  These words are somewhat older, in fact, truth be told, 'my Man in Moscow' is a bit out of date with his intelligence reports these days but, as I told the PM the other day, what else do you expect with all these bloody cuts!  Anyway, the author of those prescient words was, er, well, Cicero in 55BC, actually.  'Not a lotta people know that'!

 

Honesty is not always the best policy

I have just been sent this as a 'Funny' and so I pass it on to all you poor wage-slaves as an extra bonus on a freezing cold day:

 

The following is a record of a job interview:

    Interviewer:  What would you consider to be your greatest weakness?

    Applicant:      Honesty.

    Interviewer:  Honesty?  I don't think honesty is a weakness.

    Applicant:     I don't give a fuck what you think!

 

Well, it made me smile.

 

Shoot one in three 'pour encourager les autres'!

I do realise that my injunction above does not make clear which group should be, so to speak, targeted, so let me make clear that I am referring to Public Sector officials earning in excess of £100k a year.  I am provoked to this not unreasonable suggestion in the light of today's report from a HoC committee that some utterly useless woman who has ripped off the public purse to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds in the form of pay and perks whilst failing miserably to show even a tiny modicum of ability or efficiency and who, despite her obvious incompetence has recently been promoted to the £180k a year job as boss woman of Revenue & Customs!  This total tit of a woman is called Lin Homer and if, in these austere times, you are unable to afford a rifle treat yourself to some cheap but very rotten veg and if you spot her stepping from her limousine outside the HQ of the Inland Revenue, chuck it at her.  Here is a photo to assist you:

This ninny was actually in charge of our so-called UK Border Agency which has not been 'fit for purpose' since the day after it was invented!  As far as I can tell from the HoC report, Ms. Homer's efforts, if she made any apart from carting home her huge salary each month, were worse than useless and when faced with an inquisition she lied - or to put it in parliamentary language, she misled the committee.  I thought misleading a parliamentary committee was a crime so hopefully there will be charges brought against her and if found guilty perhaps she could spend some time with Vicky Pryce when they could contemplate les temps perdus - whilst the rest of us suckers taxpayers contemplate les 'dosh' perdus!

When you consider these self-interested graspers and grafters who snuffle their way to the best positions in front of the trough, people like 'Sir' David Nicholson, the former supervisor of the North Staffs hospital group whose only expertise appears to be in the running of a concentration camp, you almost begin to feel sorry for the politicians.  Well, you do, but only up to the point when you remember that both the Minister for Health and the Prime Minister both came out in support of the wretched man.  So who, we ask, supported the decision to promote this stumblebum, incompetent, lying woman to be the boss of the Inland Revenue?  Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer!

 

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Your Monday Funny: 25.03.13

To cheer you up as you spend the first hour in the office trying to warm up here is a great joke from, who else but Andra:

 

An  80-year-old Saskatchewan farmer goes to the clinic in to Saskatoon for a check-up.  The doctor is amazed at what good shape the guy is in and asks, 'How do you stay in such  great physical condition?'

'I'm from Sask and in my spare time I like to hunt and fish', says the old guy, 'and that's why I'm In such good shape. I'm up well before  daylight in the field plowing and mending fences and when I'm not doing  that, I'm out hunting or fishing.  In the  evening, I have a beer and all is  well.' 

'Well' says the doctor, 'I'm sure  that helps, but there's got to be more to it. How old was  your father when he died?'

'Who said my  father's dead?'

The doctor is amazed. 'You  mean you're 80 years old and your father's still alive? How old is he?'

'He's 100 years old,' says the  old Sask boy. 'In fact he worked with and hunted with me this  morning, and then we went to the topless bar for a while  and had some beer and that's why he's still alive.  He's a Saskatchewan farmer and he's a hunter and fisherman  too.'

'Well,' the doctor says, 'that's  great, but I'm sure there's more to it than that.  How about  your father's father? How old was he when  he  died?'

'Who said my Grandpa's dead?' 

Stunned,  the doctor asks,  'you mean you're 80 years old and your grandfather's' still alive?'

'He's 118 years old,' says the  man.

The doctor is getting frustrated at  this point, 'So, I guess he went hunting with you this morning too?'

'No, Grandpa couldn't go  this morning because he's getting married today.'

At this point the doctor is close  to losing it. 'Getting married!!  Why would a 118 year-old  guy want to get married?'

'Who said he  wanted  to?'

I'm thinking of moving to Saskatchewan - when I find out where it is!

 

The Sunday Rumble 24.03.13

A Grand Prix grumble:  Having just watched the Malaysian Grand Prix I am now going into full 'grumpy-old-man-it-was-all-much-better-back-in-my-day' mode.  You may be surprised that a man such as myself who has never, not even in my youth, taken the slightest interest in motor cars, should actually be somewhat taken with Grand Prix motor racing.  But once, back in a previous life - I have several of those indicating a less than straightforward career path! - I attended several Grand Prix in my capacity as the boss of a Transit van towing a trailer on which sat a BRM racing car once driven by Jackie Stewart.  Yardley, the fragrances company, had decided to move into the men's market with aftershaves and all that other ghastly, smelly stuff blokes splash on all over, and our job was to visit nearby cities in Europe and dish out leaflets and free samples before going to the track on Sunday.  Of course, there have been huge changes in Formula One racing since those days -the ancient name of BRM will give you a clue as to how long ago it was - but one change stands far and away above all others - these days no-one is killed!  Obviously this is 'A Good Thing' but the fact is that in some indefinable way it has taken an essential element out of the sport - a bit like drinking a dry martini without any gin.  I tried to remember all the names of the drivers who died during the few years when I was a dedicated fan of the sport but I simply can't recall them all, well over a dozen, anyway.  I'm glad they don't die any more but today it has become all too controlled and managed with pit-line bosses telling drivers how to drive.  I'd like to have seen them trying to tell Graham Hill that!

  

I'm shocked Shocked is shocked!  Even by my convoluted standards that heading is a corker of elliptical complexity, particularly if, like me, you have never heard of Ms. Michelle Shocked.  This lady is, or was, the doyen of Left-wing idols 'over there' whose career was helped enormously by photos of her being arrested at various, er, 'right on' demos beloved of the American Left.  But alas, Ms. Shocked opened her mouth and instead of squawking one of her tedious songs (no, I've never heard her sing but I just know these things, trust me!) she provided her audience with her opinion of gay marriage ending her mini-rant, according to The American Spectator, thus:

The folk-rock singer then joked, “If someone would be so gracious as to please tweet out ‘Michelle Shocked just said from stage: God hates faggots.’”

Cue the instant cancellation of the remainder of her tour.  I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

 

Oil on troubled American waters:  This brief report via Bloomberg contains some seriously good news:

U.S. crude oil production in the fourth quarter will exceed imports for the first time since 1995, as booming fields in North Dakota and Texas put the nation on track to surpass a quarter-century output record.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the research arm of the Energy
Department, said domestic crude production will be 2 million barrels a day
higher than imports at the end of 2014, as oil from outside the U.S. is forecast
to drop late in that year.

“This projected change is primarily because of rising domestic crude oil production, particularly from shale and other tight rock formations in North Dakota and Texas,” the agency said in a “Today in Energy” note posted on its website.

Two thoughts occur: First, will Obama in his blunderingly stupid, anti-oil way contrive to turn the spigots off; and second, when will 'Dim Dave'  drop his green trousers, bend over and take his punishment for spending zillions on utterly useless windmills instead of driving ahead with shale oil exploitation in the UK?  Jest askin'!

 

Kerry is a Klot:  Sorry, can't avoid corny alliteration, I mean 'clot', of course, and a potentially dangerous one at that.  According to Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary, Obama seems to have aquired some slight understanding of 'the bleedin' obvious' when it comes to the absolutely non-existent chance of an Israeli/Palestinian peace deal anytime in what looks like the next millenium!  However, John Kerry, the new Secretary of State, is hell bent on writing his name in the history books for something other than telling 'porkies' about his service in Vietnam.  The man sounds deluded and, given the nature of his 'jarb', downright dangerous, too! 

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Is China's foreign policy inscrutable because it doesn't exist?

I am grateful to my regular commenter, JK, for sending me a link to an article in the NYTimes written by Prof. Zheng Wang, an expert on foreign policy matters, particularly those of China.  In it, he suggests that part of the problem with China's foreign policy is that it does not exist!  Thinking about it and bearing in mind the last century or two in which, on good days, China was only a small and divided player in strictly regional affairs, adn on bad days, was a wrecked and raped plaything of much greater players on the international scene.  Thus, it is hardly surprising that its sudden rise to global domination leaves it somewhat bewildered as it looks about it from on high and wonders what in hell to do!

Prof. Zheng indorms us that none of the members of the very top standing committees who rule China have any experience in foreign policy.  In any case, he reminds us, their main, indeed, their imperative, concern is how to maintain 'Communist' Party control of a rapidly acquisitive population, that is, a population that seeks not only prosperity but also political power of a sort that is in direct opposition to the existing one party state.  Naturally, the government will, from time to time, use foreign issues in the time honoured way as a means to whip up nationalist fervour, but mostly this is confined to 'neighbourhood' issues like control of the South China Seas.

When it comes to grand strategic plans for China's place in a global context there appears to be a vacuum!  This is dangerous in that we have already suffered with the USA blundering from one folly to another and no clear idea on direction or purpose.  The thought of a totally inexperienced China doing the same does not bear contemplation.  Rather sensibly, they appear to be aware of their shortcomings and - for the moment! - they are not exerting themselves in any one particular direction.  However, as a wise man once said, "Stick around, you ain't seen nuthin' yet!"

 

I think we get the message, Mr. Fraser

 

 

Of course, you didn't believe me when I wrote the other day that I was waiting for young Master Fraser Nelson of The Spectator to tell me whether or not I approved of the vile stew of festering rot that is intended to be the new Press Gagging System - er, you didn't, did you?  It was just that young Nelson is much cleverer than me, as well as being a better writer, and I just knew that his critique would be informed and therefore deadly, where-as my old mis-firing blunderbuss might have missed targets.

Anyway, in this week's Spectator he confirms an earlier decision to ignore the "mess of pottage" cooked up by blow-job specialist Hugh Grant and chronic spanker Max Mosley which 'Edenoidal' Miliband and 'Chubby-Smuggy' Clegg couldn't swallow fast enough!  Incidentally, you will now see the truth contained in my retitling of Clegg's party as the 'Il-lib-non-Dem' party.  Clegg and his acolytes are as authoritarian as any commissar or gauleiter and their eagerness to set up a Board of Censors says all you need to know about them - and the sound you can hear in the background is the shade of poor old George Orwell howling, although whether it is with anguish or laughter I cannot say.

Nelson begins by a sort of back-handed compliment to Cameron:

Whatever else is said about David Cameron’s hand-ling of press regulation,
there can be no doubt that the deal he struck on Monday demonstrated masterful
sleight of hand. Just days earlier, his differences with Ed Miliband and Nick
Clegg had seemed irreconcilable and the Prime Minister was heading for defeat in the Commons. But then, overnight, everyone united around a compromise: a state regulator which insisted it was no such thing. It was the political equivalent
of Magritte’s ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’; Britain’s first piece of legislative
surrealism.

What an utterly useless 'bendy man' Cameron is!  I expect prime ministers to be both supple and subtle but there are some things which transcend our day-to-day politics and which deserve to be fought for as a matter of principle.  Anyway, Nelson continues:

At first, the newspapers treated news of the charter with stunned silence.
What started out as a sensible attempt to regulate the 21st-century press
somehow ended up lost in the 17th century. The language was kept deliberately
vague to allow every political party to claim victory: if no one knew what it
meant, how could anyone object? But one thing was clear: a cabal of politicians
had gathered in an office until 2.30a.m. on a Monday morning to stitch up a
deal, with the campaign group Hacked Off in the next room. They were acting on a shared premise: that the press would at last be theirs to regulate.

It was Nigel Lawson, a former editor of this magazine, who observed that the most dangerous moments in our democracy come when all parties agree. Consensus means no proper scrutiny, and that glaring flaws go unnoticed. So it is with the Royal Charter. It is deeply illiberal, proposing a new system of ‘exemplary damages’ for non-licensed publications that may yet prove against European law. Worse, it solves none of the problems that have so dogged the British press and appalled the public, and by invoking the most egregious examples of press intrusion, and the disturbing notion of victims’ justice, the political class is attempting an audacious power grab. [My emphasis]

All the phone-hacking and document-theft are, and were, covered by existing law, and if the 'Plod' - from the top to the bottom - had managed to put down their mugs of tea as they counted the bribes they had taken from hacks and drag themselves out of their canteen to do a bit of policing, they could have taken action years ago.  This new set-up - an exact description! - does not add or subtract an iota from the situation as it stood before all this furore broke loose.  The imperative driving many of the 'Hacked Off' group, like Grant and Mosley, is obvious but that which drives so many of our Right dis-Honourable Members of Parliament is equally so.  They are still smarting from the revelation that so many of them were rank thieves stealing from the public purse via their inflated expenses.  They cannot wait to see the press bound and gagged forever.

Read Fraser Nelson's piece, it's worth it!

 

 

Now we have 'Fanny' Cameron and 'Freddy' Osborne running our housing market

When considering the causes of the financial crash in America, most sensible commentators point to the quasi-governmental 'building societies', Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, who followed the precepts of their political masters and lent eye-wateringly huge amounts of money to zillions of people who would never qualify for a mortgage in the open market to enable them to buy a house.  You do not need to be an expert in high finance to see instantly that disaster would follow as sure as night follows day.  The only people not to see it were the influential Left-wing, Democrat pols who urged it on. 

As so often, where America leads we follow blindly after and so now we have a couple of (allegedly) Right-wing pols, Cameron and Osborne, deluding themselves that it is their duty to interfere in a free market because a) they know best and b) they need the votes!  So, they are using government money,that is, my money and your money, and have opened a brand new mortgage brokerage for people who, er, cannot afford a mortgage - by Jove, old boy, what a spiffing idea!  Of course, they think they are onto a winner because this is likely to raise house prices so their gamble (with our money) is a safe bet.  Unfortunately, their housing minister has just been caught out telling building contractors that restrictions on house building in country areas is to be lifted so they can concrete over "our green and pleasant land" as fast as they like.  That, of course, will drive house prices down.

It's called 'joined up government' - and will someone please pass me a sickbag - fast!

 

Related articles

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Budget 2013: Housebuilders' shares soar as Osborne promises billions

Fannie and Freddie Must Go

"Inspiration budget"? More like a desperation budget!

If anyone doubted what a pair of dimwitted, public school-educated plonkers we have running our country, then Osborne's pathetic performance yesterday, with Cameron sitting next to him nodding and smiling, must have convinced them that their optimism was misplaced.  This was not a budget to solve our nation's economic and fiscal ills, in fact, none of his budgets have ever done so.  The final insult for me, and also the point when I switched the 'tellie' off, was when he knocked a penny off a pint of beer!  What an utterly pathetic example of totally useless 'gesture politics' that was an insult to our intelligence!  Here we have a government spending more and more and needing to borrow more and more.  All the sins of omission and commission perpetrated by the last profligate and corrupt Labour government repeated ad nauseum. 

Economists make economics ferociously difficult for non-economists to understand but let me assure you it is quite simple.  Governments have no money of their own.  They only have three sources, your money wrenched off you by taxation, the money they decide to print and the money they can borrow - in your name!  There is a limit as to how much money they can raise by taxation, as President Hollande is finding out the hard way in France, because beyond a certain point the higher the rates the less you will collect.  It is that realisation that sends politicians scurrying cap in hand to the Shylocks for loans because they are desperate to convince you that they are wonderfully warm-hearted, generous people positively eager to be as liberal as possible with largesse for needy causes - and you fall for it by voting the bastards back in!  Alas, as the debts mount the Shylocks begin to assess the increasing risk involved and their interest rates begin to rise.  It is usually at this point that the political crooks start to print money and, of course, the more money there is the less it is worth, which means you need more of it to buy the things you need - it's called inflation - and it's inflation that causes the Shylocks to demand even higher interest rates to compensate for the fall in value.  So far, so bleedin' obvious, although it is a mystery to me that so few people are able to grasp it.

As I have said before on this blog, when the new government came in at the height of the global financial crisis they had the oportunity to be truly radical and to go to the very source of all our troubles - government spending.  The people knew there was trouble and whilst they would have moaned and groaned most of them would have recognised the reality of the times, gritted their teeth and put up with it.  But no, Cameron and Osborne fudged it.  They cut some government spending, mostly off easy targets like the military but baulked at the real heavy spenders - welfare and the NHS - and for the sake of their image (not the country's as they would have you believe) they ring-fenced overseas aid to places like India which is busy sending rockets into space!

What the government spends each year above and beyond what it receives from revenues is called the 'deficit'.  In his first two years Osborne cut the deficit by about a measly quarter but still continued to live above his means!  Thus, the national debt which is the accumulation of all those annual deficits added together continued to mount ever higher and higher.

 

As of yesterday, it is now clear that even Osborne realises that he cannot even maintain a reduction of our annual deficit and that the only way out is to borrow even more.  (Of course, there is another way out and that is to spend less but that is quite beyond the wit and courage of these two public-school spivs who run our affairs.)  In case you comfort yourself with the notion that even if things are bad here, it's much worse in the rest of Europe, then cast your eye over this diagram:

 

At this point we must look to an unlikely gang of saviours - the Shylocks!  If our posh boy spivs haven't the guts to do what it is required then we must rely on the money-lenders to do the dirty deed.  They should slash our ratings and begin to charge a realistic rate of interest on our loans.  Then, and only then, will minds be concentrated in the Treasury and the BoE, and possibly, even in the empty heads of the politicians.  The other day there was a rather melancholy story concerning the finding of the long-lost violin owned by the leader of the band which played on the deck of the SS Titanic as it went down.  Apparently, the man concerned strapped it to his body and it was recovered later.  They should present that violin to George Osborne to play as SS Great Britain sinks beneath the financial waves.

My thanks for the diagrams to The Coffee House - and an excellent article by Fraser Nelson

 

Feeling happy, are you?

Honestly, the BBC should come with a government health warning!  Driving home today - after my usual early morning swim - God I'm good! - I heard the news presenter say that today was the United Nations' World Happiness Day.  I very nearly drove off the road!  Apparently, this prize collection of crooks, thieves, murderers and rapists believe that on one day a year governments should concentrate their thoughts on what they can do to make their citizens happier - and, no, mass suicide on their part is not an option.  Even so, and in line with my policy of always trying to be helpful and positive, they might like to make a start by questioning the delegate from North Korea because, according to my faithful observers at NightWatch, 'Fat Boy Kim' is taking his hobby of 'playing soldiers' to an extreme degree.  The whole country is close to being on a maximum 'war footing' basis as his military undertake nationwide exercises which means that all production and distribution of food stuffs for the civilian population come to a halt.  Reports from The Daily NK:

[C]onfirm that a partial mobilization of manpower has occurred since 11 March, unlike any in a long time. The only work teams still functioning are those devoted to goods for the armed forces. Production teams that make goods for civilians are participating in or are supporting the training.

Food allocations are based on production output by workers.  Closure of a production line for military training terminates food allocations for the workers on that line. Mobilized workers are fed by the army but their families at home must fend for themselves or receive special allocations from the government or pilfered food from the army. The contacts in North Korea report serious food shortages among the families of the mobilized workers, some of whom have threatened protests. In one major city on the China border, the government made a special allocation to avert a riot.

Doesn't sound like life is a barrel of laughs in North Korea and I wasn't surprised to hear another report on the radio to the effect that huge numbers of North Korean children are showing signs of debilitation and illness due to malnutrition.  If anyone deserves a dose of malnutrition it's 'Fat Boy Kim'!

 

Related articles

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North Korea Vows Military Action Against More U.S. B-52 Flights

Millions of North Koreans depend on food aid: UN

Woman Flees North Korea And Is Shocked By Freedom and... Cosplay

The mighty European Union trips over a Cypriot twig

So, the EU apparatchiks cleared the Irish hurdle, they scaled the Portuguese cliff, they ran the race with Spain, jumped over Italy, and there before them was the winning tape and just as they thought they had won - crash, bang, wallop - down they went, face first into the merde and scheisse, and all because of a  little Cypriot twiglet.  Whodathunkit?

And now the Cypriots, ungrateful, olive-eating peasants that they are, have rushed off, not to Brussels, but to Moscow where that very nice man, Mr. Putin, welcomes them with an open wallet in one hand and a cosh in the other behind his back!  Even Frau Merkel is squawking in alarm that Russia might step in with a load of dosh and buy out all the natural gas fields that lie off-shore from Cyprus.  That would allow the Cypriots to stick two fingers up to Brussels!  And how long would it be before the Russians put pressure on the Cypriots to rid themselves of British/NATO bases leaving us without a foothold in the eastern Med just as Egypt, too, hovers on the brink of bankruptcy and chaos.

The two biggest Cypriot banks are absolutely and definitely broke and it doesn't matter how long their authorities keep them closed, the minute they re-open there will be a run that will finish them off.  Spanish banks are in a similar condition and any sensible depositor in Spain will already be considering different options.  In the meantime, Italy staggers on without a government, although, on consideration, that might be an advantage given that European politicians couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery!

Could 'plucky little Cyprus' be the catalyst that brings about the downfall of das neue fränkische Reich?  A man may hope, so as we wait, why not join me in a little song:

The party's over

It's time to call it a day
They've burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid

The party's over
The candles flicker and dim
You danced and dreamed through the night
It seemed to be right just being with him
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party's over It's all over, my friend.

 

 

What's the good of me being nice to little Georgie Moonbat?

No more 'Mr. Nice Guy', that's my motto from now on!  Just the other day I was nice to little Georgie Moonbat (aka, George Monbiot) and then he goes and writes something monumentally stupid and puts me into a bad temper.  In a blog post entitled Cardinal Sins ('Oh, very witty, Wilde!'), little Georgie takes a swing at the new Pope - and misses by a mile!  He takes him to task for failing to be active in support of so-called 'Liberation Theology', an idea so foreign to the teachings of Jesus Christ that I am amazed any Catholic could ever dream it up, let alone support it.  Matthew 22.21: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's".  In other words, true Christians should not concern themselves with earthly matters of governance but simply lead their own personal lives according to the teachings of God as expressed by his Son on earth.  So leading people into political action against governments that will prove to be almost certainly futile and probably life-threatening is not what the followers of Jesus Christ should be doing.  It is not life on earth with which Christians should be concerned but the promised 'life' after death.  This life, according to Christian theology, is merely temporary, a testing ground, if you like, upon the record of which you will be judged for what you will receive in the next life.

Now let me make clear, as if you didn't know, that I am no Christian, indeed, I am not even a theist of any sort.  I squat, quite comfortably, thank you, on the fence of agnosticism.  I view Christianity (and Christians) with the same degree of bemusement as I do Muslims, Wotan worshippers, the 'Wee Frees, Mithraists, atheists and all those other people who seem to require more than what is around them to attract their wonder and their awe.  So, I feel no need to protect Pope 'Frannie' from the likes of little pipsqueaks like George Monbiot.  My only reason for grumbling away here and now is that little Georgie should know better.  I mean, he's an intellectual and all that sort of thing; you know, he sits around all day reading books, writing articles for 'The Graun', opining from time to time on my TV and, for God's sake (no pun intended) he's 50 years old and should know better!

Buck up, little Georgie, or I'll set 'DM'* on you!

*For the sake of any newcomers who may have stumbled in here by mistake, 'DM' is the 'headmaster' here and he's a stickler for detail!

 

A Tuesday Funny

See, this week you all get an extra 'funny' not because of anything you've done but because I'm kind and generous and a really good guy at heart - sorry, did someone say something?  Anyway, one of Anna Raccoon's guest writers has turned all lyrical at the tragic plight of the 'Lesbian-straightener' and his former wife.  Go and have a quick read, it's rather witty:

http://www.annaraccoon.com/political-poetry-compendium/for-huhne-the-pryce-of-justice/

 

The cracked European edifice

In a comments thread further down, my e-pal, Ortega, provided me with a link to a YouTube film of a seminar at an American university (Harvard, I think) given by a distinguished French professor of politics on the subject of the EU.  It is, I think, a little out of date on small details, and also, whilst the Professor's English is excellent, his accent is not!  Even so, I persevered to the end and it was worth it.  You may watch it here but bear in mind it lasts well over an hour: http://youtu.be/ERRJyd5doXc

I'm not sure I learned anything new but it was good to hear my own suspicions confirmed by a man who obviously had studied the history of the EU from its inception.  He ran through the obvious - well, obvious to anyone who is not a European fanatic - that the whole set-up is riven with internal contradictions as a continent made up of proud individual nations attempts, in a ludicrously short spell of time, to become one nation.  In his (paraphrased) words, the result is an EU 'constitution' that is both too strong and too weak.  Since its very beginning, the men driving this construction upwards and onwards have been blinded by their own vision and only now is reality, already huge and growing more ominous by the day it seems, exerting pressures undreamt of by these dreamers!

An indication of their blind faith is the constant repetition of their mantra that the European Union has brought peace to Europe.  Nonsense!  It was the Russian and American armies with a little (comparitively) help from Britain that brought peace to Europe.  The nation-states that existed in 1945 were far too wrecked and ravaged to contemplate war with anyone and ever since the first moves were made to form the EU these nations have chosen material comfort over standing armies which is why today we can barely manage to drop a few bombs on Libya or Mali!  Today, under the pressure of financial (not military) events it is more clear than ever before that the fundamental fault at the centre of this construction has not be solved, that is, the balance between central European authority and the individual power of the nation states.  The emotional heart of this 'union', of course, was the engagement followed by the marriage between France and Germany.  Alas, like all marriages Time has wrought his changes.  A defeated, humiliated and shameful Germany was embraced by victorious La France and all past sins forgiven; but today, it is Germany that is all-powerful and an enfeebled France, about to be made even more anaemic by a strong dose of socialism, has no more power over Germany than good manners dictate.  As the good Professor put it, with a likely split between north and south Europe, the only decision France has to take is which side to join!

Like the Central Committee of the old Soviet Union with their mad idea of unifying countless different peoples in different countries with different histories, one must not make the mistake of thinking the pseudo-'religiosity' of the fanatics who dream a similar dream of a United States of Europe will give up easily.  In the last few days they agreed to steal money from citizens by means of edict.  How long before they back up their monstrous demands with tanks?

 

It's a simple question, really . . .

Do you want the rules and regulations concerning the liberty of our press influenced in even the smallest way by these two upstanding examples of British, er, gentlemen?

 

Hugh Grant                            Max Mosley

Take that as a 'no', shall I?

I confess to being as bewildered as you by the conflicting agitprop coming from all political parties and I simply await the decision of young Master Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, who has promised to refuse to sign up to any deal that he considers a threat to the freedom of the press.  However, Guido reminds us bloggers that we should take heed because, apparently, we too will come under whatever deal is stitched up by those duplicitous, money-grubbing ratbags in parliament . . .  ooops, was that a knock at the door, I heard . . . ?

 

Related articles

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What should we get Hugh Grant to look at next?

Hacked Off's Blackmail Letter to Miliband

Max Mosley's friend in the Lords plots a Leveson law by the back door

Hugh Grant to be "King of the newspapers"

Your Monday Funny: 18.03.13

Sorry for the delay - again - in your 'Monday Funny', "events, dear boy, events" and, yes, I know that the sight of one of those monstrous and utterly useless windmills falling down is funny in itself but this one has that extra delicious ingredient of unintended irony.  Check the place where this Green icon fell to earth!

 

 

 

Aaaah, Kyoto, of course, simply too, too, as 'the Master' might say!

My thanks to Tallbloke

   

The Sunday Rumble: 17.03.13

Another Sunday rumble, or perhaps 'grumble' is a better word, as I awake to yet more global warming falling gently from an iron grey sky and settling nicely, thank you for asking!  As usual, I shall add to this litany of moans and groans as the day goes on, so if you are actually feeling rather happy today, then read no further!

'And then they came for your bank savings':  So now you know, and you must be deaf, dumb, blind and lacking a sense of smell if you didn't know it already, that to the apparatchiks who run the Berlin-Brussels axis nothing is sacred, least of all your hard-earned savings which you have entrusted to your local bank.  The Cypriots have just found that out - the hard way - with banks closed until Tuesday whilst the authorities rip off up to 10% of their savings.  Of course, they put it about that what they're really after is the untaxed il-gotten gains of various Russian crooks oligarchs who decided that Cyprus with its, er, Mediterranean banking laws was a haven of first resort.  Call me 'Mr. Cynical' but I wonder how much Russian 'moolah' was shifted electronically on Wednesday and Thursday when, in return for a nice bung, various apparatchiks quietly tipped them the wink?

Mother Russia is a murderous old bitch!  When I read Tom Rob Smith's best-selling book, Child 44, I promised myself never to read another book by him on the subject of Russia - well, I didn't have to really because Child 44 nauseated me - not, I hasten to add, that Mr. Smith isn't a first-rate writer, he's terrific!  He seems to capture exactly the fear and loathing that existed within Stalin's Soviet Union in which everyone is seeking either to denounce others, or desperately trying not to be denounced themselves.  Anyway, being a hopeless 'bookaholic' I wasn't too surprised to find that somehow, in some mysterious way - nuffin' to do wiv me, honest guv! - someone had slipped a copy of his book Agent 6 into my shopping bag.  I only reached page 25 and already I could feel the nausea returning - when will I ever learn?  Anyway, I was reminded of this by a review at The Atlantic by Benjamin Schwartz of a book called Moscow 1937 written by Prof. Karl Schlögel:

Schlögel’s book is a fragmentary yet meticulous social history of Moscow in the grip of the Great Terror—the period from the summer of 1936 to the end of 1938, when the already sanguinary Bolshevik regime let loose on itself its apparatus of suppression, purging, in waves, all Soviet institutions and at all levels of society, from the nomenklatura, the highest echelons of administrative, cultural, and scientific life, through the high command of the Red Army, to the engineers and apparatchiks, down to the factory workers and peasants. It is an almost impossibly rich masterpiece. [...]

In this chapter and throughout his book, Schlögel is the master of the chilling counterpoint. He subtly makes clear to readers that the 1936 Directory [the equivalent of our Dictionary of National Biography] is brimming with the names of people destined for the abattoir, and he notes that this edition of the Directory was, perforce, the final one: “No editorial board could have kept pace with the frantic rate at which people were driven from their posts and destroyed while their places were taken by others.” Completed on the eve of the Terror, this last Directory “encapsulates a moment in time in which the accusers and the accused, the perpetrators and the victims, the executioners and the executed of the morrow, still sit side by side.”

Once again, and not for the first time, I fall to my knees and thank the Gods of Good Fortune that I was born English!

There's no fool like an educated fool:  And here I give you - no, no, please, there's no charge and he's all yours - Prof. Geoffrey Miller, not just a fool but a dangerous one, to boot.  In a (thankfully) short article at Edge, this eye-swivelling maniac urges on us the advantages of Chinese eugenics:

There is unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state. Given what I understand of evolutionary behavior genetics, I expect—and hope—that they will succeed. The welfare and happiness of the world's most populous country depends upon it.

I cannot be bothered to take up all the hideous nonsense this man writes but I would remind him that there is nothing unusual about "close cooperation in China" because, you stupid, master-race theorist, it's a one party dictatorship in which everyone does what they're told - or else - so if you admire it that much, Prof. Miller, why don't you fuck off and live there!  (Apologies for my language but I haven't read this sort of vile vomit since the late Herr Hitler did us all a favour and topped himself!)

How are your alkenones hanging?  I ask, not that I have the remotest idea what an 'alkenode' is when it's at home, but because some less-than-scientific HAF called Marcott has just published a paper indicating 'The Hockey Stick' of all 'hockey sticks'!  He and his little helpers base their record of galloping global warming in the last century by using ocean core samples as proxies.  Very good, you might think, and quite rightly you will be alarmed at the way that temperatures have rocketed up, up and away such that the end of the world really must be nigh.  Unfortunately, that meddlesome nuisance, Steve McIntyre, decided to take a closer look and - whodathunkit? - it appears that the HAFs concerned altered the dates of some of their data.  This, shall we call it, carelessness with regard to dates had rather a significant result, as this diagram, courtesy of McIntyre's Climate Audit site shows:

 

'Les flics' finally spiral out of action:  Yes, yes, I know it's a rather heavy-handed sub-title but last night Spiral 4 came to an end on BBC4 which is a personal catastrophe for me because the other two women in my life will be no more - unless they bring it back for a fifth serial.  You have days left to watch most of the episodes on your I-Player-thingie (whatever that it is) or perhaps there are DVD sets available.  Most of the time I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on in the series - so no change there, then! -  but I didn't care just so long as my two ladies kept appearing.  First, Caroline Proust whom I hope fervently will one day handcuff me and throw away the key!

 

And then there is the sexiest 'lawyer' I have ever come across - no, I admit, not a hard test - the gorgeous Audrey Fleurot.  Whenever I am in legal trouble, and assuming that Ms. Anna Raccoon is unavailable, then this is the lady I want to defend me - and quite honestly I won't care very much if I lose!

Now I have a problem!  What on earth am I going to do with my empty Saturday nights?

 

Zis iss ein German yoke:  Which probably means you won't get it!  However, as the new Gauleiters of Greater Germany (er, that's Europe to you and me) set about stealing money from people's bank accounts in order to teach them fiscal discipline so that they can be loaned more money - vich zey vill pay back on time viz interest - sorry, that's enough cod German - an article on the DW.de site will give you a smile.  According to the story:

Highly indebted, without access to capital, viewed suspiciously by creditors - . Half the country's debts were canceled 60 years ago this week - the foundation of the "economic miracle." [...]

It was only with the London Debt Agreement of 1953 that the German economy was given room to breathe again, says historian Ursula Rombeck-Jaschinski of Stuttgart University: "One could even argue that the economic miracle would have been impossible without the debt agreement."

Ah, yes, now remind me, what exactly is the German for 'don't do as we did just do as we tell you - or you will be shot'?

 

I am now out of rumbles for today!

 

Being "economical with the 'actualité'", were you?

Oh, yes you were, don't lie to me!  I know you tell  fibs   porkies  whoppers, oh, alright then, terminological inexactitudes, if you want to be posh about it!  I know you do it because we all do it!  And we've all done it since language evolved.  Lying is part and parcel of being human.  I am provoked to these obscure thoughts by The Penguin Book of Lies written, or rather, compiled by, Philip Kerr.  This is a fairly hefty book, as you would expect given its title, and so it is odd that I haven't the remotest idea how I came by it.  In his introduction, Mr. Kerr reminds us that in actuality, lying is often much more entertaining than tedious truth-telling.  He asks us to imagine two dinner tables, the first occupied by Augustine, Knox, Wesley, Kant, Hume and Bentham, and the other by such 'born-again liars' as Machiavelli, Casanova, Rousseau, Napoleon, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway.  I know which one I would wish to be seated at.  He also reminds us of the way opinion, especially Christian opinion, has shifted in its attitude to lying:

Over the twenty-five centuries or so that this book spans, opinions on lying have necessarily changed.  For example, the question of whether every lie is a mortal sin.  Augustine, writing towards the end of the fourth century after Christ, thought every lies was a mortal sin; Aquinas, writing some eight centuries later, though tthat only malicious lies were mortal sins, and that pious frauds - or white lies as we call them now - were not; and five hundred years after Aquinas, opinion changed again, with John Wesley holding that all lies were 'an abomination to the God of Truth'.

I, of course, as an ex-member of the second-hand car trade, am in no position to offer moral advice on the pros and cons of lying but I can, from my vast experience of the ways of the world, offer you some practical advice - when your wife asks if 'her bum looks big in this' - lie, lie again and keep lying - if you know what's good for you!

 

 

Nagel or Nagle, who cares, they both sound interesting

I wrote about naughty Thomas Nagel back in January.  He has had the temerity to write a book pointing out 'the bleedin' obvious' that Darwinism cannot explain consciousness.  Now he has popped up again in Arts & Letters Daily which pointed me to an essay in The New Republic by Leon Wieseltier.  He describes the 'shock 'n' awe outrage' in Darwinian circles at Mr. Nagel's slim little book Mind and Cosmos:

[I]n which he has the impudence to suggest that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false,” and to offer thoughtful reasons to believe that the non-material dimensions of life—consciousness, reason, moral value, subjective experience—cannot be reduced to, or explained as having evolved tidily from, its material dimensions [...]

The one almost certain reaction from 'Darwinistas' (just like the 'Warmers') facing a critique of their beliefs is a screech of rage:

Steven Pinker took to Twitter and haughtily ruled that it was “the shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker.” Fuck him, he explained.

Thus, in my eyes, Mr. Pinker sinks to the level of 'Bishop' Dawkins!  Nagel had warned earlier that any criticism of the 'Church of Darwinism' was likely to cause the formation of a mob and indeed that is what has occurred on publication of his recent book - if, that is, you can call a bunch of 'tweeters' a mob:

A mob is indeed forming, a mob of materialists, of free-thinking inquisitors. “In the present climate of a dominant scientific naturalism, heavily dependent on speculative Darwinian explanations of practically everything, and armed to the teeth against religion,” Nagel calmly writes, “... I would like to extend the boundaries of what is not regarded as unthinkable, in light of how little we really understand about the world.” This cannot be allowed! And so the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Secular Faith sprang into action. “If there were a philosophical Vatican,” Simon Blackburn declared in the New Statesman, “the book would be a good candidate for going on to the Index.” I hope that one day he regrets that sentence. It is not what Bruno, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Voltaire, Hume, Locke, Kant, and the other victims of the anti-philosophical Vatican had in mind.

No doubt Mr. Simon Blackburn would call himself a 'liberal' - yeeeees, quite!  But let us turn from one load of old rubbish, the 'Darwinistas', to another, and here I mean real rubbish as studied for some ten years by my other 'Nagel/Nagle', Prof. Robin Nagle.  She is a professor at New York University and has spent her time studying the 'Noo Yawk' garbage industry.  I don't wish to be ungallant but whilst she might be the clinical associate professor of anthropology and urban studies, and from her photo looks to be a very attractive and elegant lady, my advice would be remain up wind of her as far as you can!  Lawrence Biemiller at 'The Chron of High Ed' refers to her as 'Dr. Garbage':

So several dozen sanitation workers waiting for roll call take notice when, a
little before 6 a.m., she strides cheerfully into the sodium-­vapor glare of the
Manhattan 2 garage, a hulking yellow-brick relic of mid-20th-century New York
that juts into the Hudson from the West Village. A sidelined collection
truck—what most people would just call a garbage truck—sits outside the door,
while salt spreaders are parked cheek by jowl inside (sanitation workers are
responsible for clearing snow as well as collecting trash). Over by the office,
guys are standing around in boisterous groups, sipping coffee, telling stories,
ribbing one another, and waiting to get their assignments for the day.

Several recognize Ms. Nagle. In some cases, that's because she has worked
alongside them—about 10 years ago, she decided that the best way to do field
research on the department was to get hired as an ordinary sanitation worker and
see DSNY from inside its lunchrooms and transfer facilities, to say nothing of
seeing it from behind the gaping maws of its trucks. Other guys know her because
she rode with them while collecting information for Picking Up, her new
book about the department and its people, or for one of her related projects,
like a series of oral histories she assigned as a class project at NYU two years
ago.

Admittedly, garbage collection and disposal is a somewhat esoteric subject but on the other hand, were I paying taxes in 'Noo Yawk' I would be very interested to learn that their dustmen (as we call them 'over here') can retire on half pay and full benefits after a mere 22 years service!  I am sure there were all sorts of other highly interesting facts in Mr. Bielmiller's essay but that one stuck in my mind, rather as it will, I suspect, stick in the craws of many 'Noo Yawkers'!

  

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The gallant charge of the Nagel Brigade

Is There A Place For The Mind In Physics? Part I

Tom Nagel's antievolution book gets thrice pummeled

Plantinga Reviews Nagel

A "Chinese dream", or a nightmare?

The new president of China,  Xi Jinping, has delivered his equivalent of a 'state of the union' speech in which he lays down the guiding aims for the next ten years of his administration.  It is summed up in the phrase "A Chinese Dream".  As always with these elliptical statements it is not easy to be definitive as to how this Chinese dream is to be achieved or even, in detailed terms, what it actually is.  I suppose you could sum it up as 'get richer, get stronger'!  However, what is interesting, according to my alert observers at NightWatch, is that he first gave a  virtually unreported version of this speech to the military.  They were encouraged to undertake a period of intense re-education so that all military personnel were aware of the aim which is "to win in war", but also, and rather oddly to my occidental eyes, they were also encouraged to maintain "good behaviour"!  I gather this mean something more than the British equivalent of telling the troops to stop having punch-ups on a Saturday night!  In Chinese terms, which can only be read between the lines, it implies that the rule of the Communist Party of China over the miltary is, and will remain, absolute. 

I recommend Andrew Erickson to anyone seeking a fairly balanced analysis of Chinese military capabilities.  He points out that although the Chinese military budget has increased every year (with one exception) for the last 20 years, the latest increase in terms of a percentage of the total government budget is actually slightly less.  Also, he reminds us that whilst the Chinese are able to apply overwhelming force in or around their vicinity, they are still nowhere near the size of the American military which, because of its global interests, is spread further but thinner.

On the civilian front, Chairman Xi faces even greater problems.  Anthony Bolton, a well-known investor in Chinese markets, put it this way in The Telegraph:

“There is a new generation of internationally educated, internet-informed
individuals who will push for reforms,” he said. “They are aware of the
realities of their country and their government in a way that no previous
generation has been. The people will want a say.”

There is not too much difficulty in maintaining power in an autocratic, one party dictatorship, especially if you have hit upon state capitalism as a means of increasing wealth for your people.  However, beyond a certain point, the people begin to yearn for other things besides just houses and holidays.  Increasingly, they grow irritated by the corruption which always attends state-run enterprises and they can become downright angry at the heavy-handed clout of authorities in their towns and villages.  Today, courtesy of the internet they can see and read and hear that there are other ways and other systems of government.

So Chairman Xi has a delicate path to tread.  I gain an impression, very slight and il-informed, obviously, that Chairman Xi is rather an intelligent man who will be determined but careful in pursuit of his goals.  I just hope the White House contains equal intelligence!

 

Related articles

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Chinese People Must Define Their Own Dream

'Little Georgie Moonbat' done good!

It is, of course, an undoubted fact averred by all men of good sense and discernment that 'little Georgie Moonbat' is a prat!  There is no cause too dotty for George Monbiot, for it is he of whom I write, to espouse with an enthusiasm which almost reaches fanaticism.  In fact, the dottier the cause the better as far as he is concerned.  And yet . . . and yet . . . even a bitter and twisted old reactionary like me has a soft spot in my heart for little Georgie, the greenest of the Green Lefties..  I cannot remember the details but some time back there was a kerfuffle over global warming, I think, and little Georgie reckoned his own side were out of order - and said so!  Just recently, he became 'tired and emotional' (I assume) over the rumours being floated concerning the perfectly innocent and blameless Lord McAlpine and, over-excited, he allowed his tweeting fingers to outperform his brain which led him straight into the welcoming arms of M'Learned Friends acting for the blemished Lord.  Now we learn, courtesy of Guido, that the good Lord instructed his litigators not to take little Georgie to the cleaners but instead to require of him that he carry out three years of charity work.  It is a testament to his inherent good nature - and his self interest - that he has concurred without complaint:

“I accepted the suggestion immediately and without reservation. I feel the
proposed settlement reflects very well on Lord McAlpine, who is seeking nothing
for himself, but wants to see work done which could be of great benefit to
others. I have been prompted by Lord McAlpine’s admirable proposal to do the
right thing – something I should have been doing all along – and I hope very
much that I am able to do it well.”

Let's be honest, we all drop fairly large bollocks from time to time during our lives, but it is how we deal with the consequences that tells the world what sort of a person we are - are you reading this, Chris Huhne?  Anyway, I can only say that I would be prepared to go into the jungle with George Monbiot - even if it is likely that I would kill him after 24 hours!

 

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Is the government drunk?

I ask because they appear to be staggering about all over the place on the subject of alcohol pricing.  That they are even considering the laying down of minimum pricing for booze is an indication that at the very least they have all lunched 'not wisely but too well'!  Apparently they have fallen for the weepy line put about by sundry pokenoses that we must all be protected from the evils of acohol - along with smoking, eating, getting out of bed in the morning and anything else these busybodies can dream up as a hazard.  Of course, the sight, sound and smell of our very own yobs and yobettes staggering out of pubs and clubs, vomiting profusely in all directions whilst directing a stream of abuse at everyone in earshot, is not one of which we, as a nation, can be very proud.  For some, but by no means all, there may be longterm health considerations but that is their business not the government's.  Of course, given that we are all enforced contributors to the Nationalised Health Industry, the cost of dealing with these weekend drunks is a factor but the answer is simple and, unlike the government's 'plan'(?) does not penalise those who do not misuse alcohol.

First, anyone who turns up drunk at an A&E should be charged a fee for any service they receive.  Equally, any drunk who spends a night in the cells should be charged for the B&B service in addition to any fine they might receive from the magistrate.  But more effective than any of that, the authorities should turn their attention to the people making money out of getting people drunk - the pub and club owners.  They are, after all, licenced to sell alcohol and if they are obviously breaching their licence conditions by turfing out dozens of drunks onto the streets they should have their licences curtailed, or withdrawn if they are constant offenders.  Closing down your local High Street pub/club for one weekend would concentrate the publican's mind wonderfully.  The prospect of being closed down for a month would do even better.  Suddenly the landlord/club owner would watch his customers very closely and refuse to serve anyone looking legless.  This, of course, would mean that he would have to raise the price of his drinks in order to maintain his profits and that, in turn, would slow down the drinking.

As it stands, every weekend we have veritable battalions of police standing around (at huge expense) outside city centre pubs and clubs doing nothing much else except picking up the human detritus that falls out of them.  Why don't they simply film the results and pass them on to the local licencing authority for appropriate action?  And, yes, thank you for asking, I am indeed prepared to take over as prime minister . . . er, you did ask, didn't you?

 

More "dismal science"!

An article by John Steele Gordon at the Commentary site caught my attention.  He draws attention to what he calls "the strike of capital".  He reminds us that during the great depression, one of the major factors prolonging it was the refusal by holders of capital to invest because of a fear that the muddling politicians would make matters worse not better.  He suggests that a similar strike is taking place today:

As the New York Times noted in an editorial yesterday, American
corporations are sitting on vast piles of cash. Apple Corporation alone has
about $140 billion in the bank. Altogether publicly-listed corporations in the
United States are holding about $4.75 trillion in cash, not far short of
one-third of annual GDP. In 1995, they held only about $1.2 trillion in cash,
and cash has about doubled as a percentage of corporate assets since that time,
to 12 percent.

Given the Left-leanings of the NYT it comes as no surprise that after harrumphing like a retired colonel in his club it makes no effort to explain why capitalists are sitting on their hands.  Mr. Gordon gives them a clue:

Could it have something to do with the fear that federal economic and tax
policies, and Obamacare, might either throw the economy back into recession or
make any investment less profitable and more risky?

Also, the NYT is shocked, shocked, I tell you, that American corporations with overseas businesses are not repatriating the profits back home.  Again, Mr. Gordon suggests that it might have something to do with the fact that profits earned abroad are not subject to tax until they are repatriated - duh!

Perhaps, instead of sending 'Old Man Cable' to a gulag (see previous post) we could send him to the NYT, they would all speak the same economic gobbledegook.

 

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The Strike of Capital

Offshore Cash Hoard Expands by $183 Billion at Companies - Bloomberg

$2 Trillion in Corporate Profits Perched Overseas

Corporate Profits and Offshore Cash Hoards Surge as Taxes Shrink

Should all Lib-Dem 'pols' be shot - for the good of the country?

I ask because the latest dribblings from that obvious Alzheimer sufferer, Vince Cable, added to the demented ambition of Huhne, the wretched crookedness of David Laws and the almost terminal smugness of their leader with the rictus smirk, Nick Clegg, confirm my view that the whole lot should be packed off to a freezing cold gulag - anywhere in the UK would do because all this 'global warming' has turned the entire country into an ice-box! 

But today, let me concentrate on that old ninny, Vince Cable, who for reasons I cannot fathom, has something of a reputation as a shrewd economic operator!  The man is a semi-senile, old fool who, despite evidence both historical and contemporary piling up around him, still maintains his belief that only an all-wise, all-powerful, all-controlling, all-taxing and all-dispensing government can solve our economic woes.  Given the obvious imbecility of the policy pursued by the 'Posh Boys' in which they continue to borrow and spend us all down the drain leading to the Brokers' Men, old' Gramps' Cable suggests that they should borrow and spend even more!  He thinks that because we can borrow at relatively low rates today, we can steam ahead and indulge in a huge splurge of spending which, of course, being directed by government and called, carefully, 'investment' will result in the economy booming.  If the old fool was capable of understanding anything, I would suggest that he goes and has a nice chat with the boss of, say, PIMCO, the international moneylenders to find out what they think of his idea and by exactly how much they will ratchet up their interest rates if the country spends even more of their money!  However, as he is, apparently, unable to remember the voluble Ms. Pryce shrieking, like the tragic heroine of a Greek tragedy, her desire for vengeance on her former husband, then I guess he would forget what the money-lenders told him before he even left the building!  In fact, without his numerous SpAds and assistants would he even know where he was or who he was?

 

In D-wing, 'Big Bubba' licks his lips!

Eight months - and he'll only serve three inside!  After perverting the course of justice, that's the best one of our more useless 'Cocklecarrots' can come up with?  And, yes, I know I'm sounding like one of those old ladies who sat cackling and knitting beneath the scaffolds of revolutionary France, but Huhne was a cabinet minister, a member of the Privy Council, a man looked up to and admired by the mental retards in the il-Lib-non-Dem party and he deserved at least eighteen months, not a measly eight with four off for 'good behaviour' served mainly in a holiday camp!  And his wife deserves a gong from 'Her Maj' for exposing this arrogant hypocrite for what he is, not eight months inside!  Let me be clear, if it was 'Joe Doe' up on this charge the punishment would be about right, I suppose.  But Huhne, as a leading politician, had a greater responsibility to the country to behave well in adverse circumstances.  As he has now admitted, he should have 'coughed' immediately, taken his punishment like a man and moved on to other activities.  Instead, he huffed and bluffed - and thus blew his own house down.  Good riddance, I say, and Big Bubba - do it - for England!  

 

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This blog prides itself on its consistency!

Oh, yes, indeed, this blog has been consistently wrong about almost everything for almost as long as it has been running which, in six day's time, will be 8 years!  Today, I am proud to announce that it has been completely wrong about Europe.  Well, actually, I wasn't really wrong about Europe, it's just that those slippery continentals cannot be relied upon to act rationally, that is, in the way that I forecast - silly people!  The other day I remarked to my regular commenter, Ortega, that I was amazed that the Spanish were failing to throw all their politicians into the bullrings of Spain and then set the bulls loose.  Equally, the Italians have let me down badly by displaying the sort of phlegmatic stoicism that we British consider to be solely  ours by right, even if nowadays we are given to behaving like a bunch of Hollywood starlets caught wearing out-of-date fashion.

Mr. Beppe Grillo, the, er, well-known Italian comedian - I hesitate to define him thus because he has enormous competition as a comedian from the entire Italian political community starting with the most hilarious of them all, 'Bunga-Bunga' - won a surprisingly large vote in their recent election and now he is proposing that Italy should leave the EU altogether.  However, a recent poll (sorry, I cannot recall where I saw it) indicated that whilst Italians are fed up with the Berlin-Brussels axis they are not prepared to leave it.  It is understandable, I suppose, if you follow Belloc's aphorism, "And always keep a hold of [German] nurse, For fear of finding something worse".  So my faith in a new Italian risorgimento has been disappointed and I am forced to look elsewhere for someone, anyone, with the strength of purpose and the political courage to drive a stake through the heart of this monstrous conglomoration.

To my considerable surprise I find myself doing a fast, unbelieving double-take and looking at - Germany!  Oh yes, Germany, as Ambrose E-P tells us in The Telegraph, has seen the birth of 'UGIP' - no, no, not 'UKIP' (United Kingdom Independence Party) but 'UGIP' ('United German Independence Party').  Of course, they don't actually call themselves that, instead they have adopted the rather stodgy name of 'Alternative for Germany', perhaps it sounds more exciting in German!  Anyway, these stalwarts are giving Mrs. Merkel the same sort of problem that Cameron gets with UKIP - the threat that they will outflank her to the Right:

The latest ZDF poll shows that 65pc of Germans think the euro is damaging,
and 49pc think Germany would be better outside the EU. This is no doubt "soft",
yet what is clear is that the all-party consensus on EMU gives voters nowhere to
turn.

The rebels may struggle to cross the 5pc threshold for seats in the
Bundestag, but they do not have to take seats to plague Angela Merkel over the
next six months. She is already in trouble. Her Free Democrat (FDP) allies have
crashed to 4pc in the polls.

In the same way that UKIP has forced elements inside the Tory party to shift Cameron slightly to the Right, so to Mrs. Merkel may be forced to take an increasingly hardline attitude to the 'Meds' - starting with Cyprus which is seen in Germany as merely an illicit haven for Russian oligarch funds.  Der Spiegel takes a cautious view as to the likely electoral success of 'Alternative for Germany' but does not underestimate its power to create considerable leverage from the sidelines:

Even if the party does get on the ballot, it remains unclear whether it will attract significant support. So far, it remains a single-issue party -- and even on that single issue there is a lack of clear consensus on exactly how to proceed.  

Still, with concern in Germany growing that the country has become the de-facto paymaster for the rest of the euro zone, Alternative for Germany could attract a fair number of protest votes from frustrated conservatives. Judging by the increasing difficulty Merkel has faced in pushing euro bailout packages through parliament in Berlin over the last 15 months, the level of frustration on the center-right could be growing. Indeed, Lucke has said that he is in touch with a handful of euro-skeptic parliamentarians from the Free Democrats, Merkel's business-friendly junior coalition partner.

So, with considerable surprise I find myself turning East and muttering fiercely a paraphrase of Claudius' fervent plea in Hamlet: 'Do it Germany!'

 

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Italian newcomer Grillo predicts collapse in six months

Your (late) Monday funny: 11.3.13

Sorry, sorry, I'm late with your funny today but what with the ironing, the hoovering, emptying the dishwasher, dusting and polishing, planning tonight's meal . . . well, who said men can't multi-task?!  If these are not very funny then you can look forward to my latest analysis - don't laugh yet! - of the European situation which is to follow.  In the meantime:

 

These are classified ads which were actually placed in
Newspapers:

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.

8 years old, Hateful little bastard. Bites!

___________________________________________

FREE PUPPIES

1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

________________________________________________

FREE PUPPIES. Mother is a kennel Club registered German Shepherd.

Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

_______________________________________________________

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED. Also 1 gay bull for sale.

________________________________________________________

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!

Must sell washer and dryer £100.

_____________________________________________________________

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE .

Worn once by mistake.

Call Stephanie.

___________________________________________________________

And the WINNER is...



FOR SALE BY OWNER. Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes.

Excellent condition, £200 or best offer.

No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.

________________________________________________________________________________

Thought from the Greatest Living Scottish Thinker--Billy Connolly.



"If women are so bloody perfect at multitasking,

How come they can't have a headache and sex at the same time?"

____________________________________________________________

Wingless wonders!

So, in the same week in which it is announced that the armoured brigade bearing the proud name of 'The Desert Rats' is to lose its tanks, along comes another Shlock-Horror story in The Mail today.  Apparently, the Parachute Regiment is to have its parachutes withdrawn - no, no, they're not going to throw the chaps out the back of a Hercules with large beachballs to break their fall, they're just not going to train them as parachutists any more, which rather makes a nonsense of the regimental name!

Still, I suppose the Lancers lost their lances a century or so ago and they seem to have managed without them and I'm sure the non-jumping Paras will get by without their wings but it seems a pity because I remember wearing mine with some pride - in fact, I still have a set of three taken off my last uniforms which sit on the book shelf to my left to remind me of 'times past'.

 

 

To be honest, I am amazed that it hasn't happened sooner.  The last large-scale parachute operation was at Suez in 1956 so it really doesn't look as though the parachute is the entry route of choice to enemy territory, particularly in this age of the helicopter.  Perhaps now is the time to change the name and call it the Airborne Regiment, or perhaps, the Airborne Commando Regiment to keep it level with the Rock Apes Marines.

"What's in a name", asked Shakespeare.  Well, in this case a lot of regimental pride earned by some very brave men.

 

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Funny old day, Friday!

Apologies for going AWOL - again! - but yesterday 'SoD' and partner paid us a visit so of course the house had to be cleaned top to bottom, huge meals designed and cooked to perfection and the finest wines brought up from the cellars of Chateaux Duff - NOT!  Actually, with his usual generosity, he brought most of the food with him and refused even to drink a beer.  Anyway, it was good to see them both again, and the 'Memsahib' was, quite rightly, complimented by them on her amazing recovery - she is now walking around the house without even a stick to aid her.

However, all that was on Saturday and what I want to tell you about is my slightly odd Friday.  I had to go up to London, well, west London - Teddington, to be precise, to see a play directed by a friend of mine.  It's a tedious two hour journey but thankfully 90% of it is dual-carriageway so at least it is a fairly relaxing drive.  I am quite happy in my own company and with Classic FM playing quietly on the car radio I can think my thoughts - such as they be.  However, at the beginning of the journey, just as I was about to join the main A303 I did the most extraordinary thing - I actually picked up a hitch-hiker!  No, no, she was not a blonde bimbo with long legs and a large chest, on the contrary, he was a young man with hair that would have driven my old sergeant-major to apoplexy and who sported sundry large ear-studs and a ring through his nose!  Yeeees, quite, not exactly the sort of company you would expect a crusty old fart like me to choose to share a journey.

In retrospect, it was also extraordinary that I stopped to pick up anyone at all because I am by nature a loner who prefers my own company even if I am, frequently, even more boring than the people I meet!  To give you an idea of my in-built - and increasing - misanthropy, let me tell you that on our occasional holidays staying in hotels I keep hissing at the 'Memsahib' not to talk to anyone!  Then again, consider, if you will, the differences between me and the young man I picked up - he was young (a major sin, in my old eyes!), dead scruffy (no doubt the height of fashion amongst his peers) and if my experience with young people provided any sort of clue it was likely that he communicated with the world via a series of glottal grunts and clicks like a Kalahari bushman.  Definitely not the way I had intended to spend the next two hours of my life.  But, on the spur of the moment (a kind of repeating motif in my rickety-rackety life) I stopped and offered him a lift.

Well, as you have probably guessed already, the young man in question turned out to be a delightful travelling companion - lively, intelligent, curious, slightly eccentric and full of that cheerful optimism which used to be part of the charm of the young at heart but which these days seems to have deserted so many of them.  Anyway, the journey passed most pleasurably and also provided me with a something of a boon - and at this point I do hope that my stern mentor, 'DM', is reading this - because during a coffee break, my young companion produced a very odd and eclectic selection of books from his rucksack.  He immediately rose even higher in my estimation because anyone who reads books is halfway to being a good egg even before you know them.  Amongst this collection of literary oddities I spotted one of those old, paper-back 'Pelican Books', this one dating from circa 1951-3 written by a Prof. Simeon Potter, a tremendous linguistics swot, called "Our Language".  The sub-heading is "A popular study of our language - its sources, its history, its peculiar genius, and how it is and should be used in speech and writing".  Already smarting under the withering scorn of my 'headmaster', DM, for mixing up 'peninsular' and 'peninsula' (see earlier comments), I immediately offered my young companion a couple of quid for the book which, being shrewd as well as amiable, he took.  I am now waist-deep in the intricacies of Indo-European, although quite how that is going to improve the standard of English around this blog I do not know.  Anyway, my thanks to Courtney, my young companion, for enlivening the journey and, hopefully, improving my education!

The play I saw was a favourite of mine, Rat in the Skull by Ron Hutchinson.  If I tell you that it is a sort of summary of 'Oirish' history as played out to deadly effect in the recent 'troubles' in Ulster, I can almost hear your groans.  However, Hutchinson is a superb writer whose prose can rise to lyrical heights.  He takes no sides in this age-old, three-way dispute between the romantic and deluded 'Oirish' and the perplexed and uncaring English.  By inference he simply declares his anguish and pity for war and its consequences.  My enjoyment of this play is, of course, in no way influenced by the fact that I once played the lead and, of course, darlings, I was wonderful!

So, all in all, a really good Friday!

 

Korean Konflict or Kon Trick?

Sorry about the even-more-peurile-than-normal heading to this post but the military temperature is rising on the Korean peninsular.  According to my trusty, old warriors at NightWatch the bellicosity from the North Koreans has reached levels not seen since 1988.  Not only have they unilaterally abrogated the ceasefire set in place at the end of the last Korean war but now their government-controlled media are ratcheting up the sense of crisis amongst their own people, warning them of imminent war.  'Fat Boy' Kim has paid an official visit to the artillery units which fired on the off-shore Islands owned by South Korea a few years ago.  The NightWatch boys and girls reckon that the North Koreans will now be in a high state of readiness for war with all ICBMs loaded and ready to fire on the word of command.

Meanwhile, back in Beijing, the silence is deafening!  I cannot believe they are happy about the possibility of a war - especially a nuclear war - breaking out on their borders.  The leadership in China maintains its political control via the constant increase in trade and wealth shared amongst its people.  If that is disrupted and zillions of Chinese suddenly loose jobs and incomes they have become used to, the government will quickly be in trouble.

The problem with 'Fat Boy' Kim's antics is that there are too many actors involved - in the two Koreas, in Beijing, in Washington and Tokyo, and thus the chances of mistakes and misapprehensions increases hugely.  However, perhaps now, people will realise the dangers of loonies being allowed to 'go nuclear' - and they do not come much loonier than those in Tehran - except possibly in Pyongyang!

 

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Why does David Ruffley MP keep sticking to my shoes?

David Ruffley MP is like the worst sort of shit which, once trodden in, is virtually impossible to remove from your shoes.  I first trod in this dog-pile of an MP in January 2011 when he succeeded in the impossible by making me feel genuine sympathy for Bob Diamond, the erstwhile boss of Barclays Bank.  Then, dammit, I trod in him again in February 2012 when he was laying into (Sir) Fred Goodwin, another banker, and by his hectoring and ignorant manner succeeded in making him a victim!

Now he's back again, this time courtesy of Guido, who reports:

A Guidorama investigation can reveal that Ruffley has had at the
very least 16 staffers over the last two years – a phenomenally high turnover
for a backbench office. [...]

Ruffley’s man-management skills are the stuff of parliamentary folklore, and
Guido hears reports of his “obnoxious” behaviour leading to bright-eyed
hopefuls leaving his office in floods of tears, some binned after only days.
Apparently, “to have been fired by Ruffers at some point is a rite of
passage”. While no doubt some members of staff left for good reason, things
have become so “shouty” recently that Ruffley has been reported to
party whips over his behaviour. 

Are the hayseeds of Bury St. Edmonds deaf, dumb, blind and without a sense of smell, or is it that most of them wear wellington boots all day as they trudge through the sludge of their farmyards and therefore never notice the shit clinging to them?  Whatever, they keep sending this nasty little man back to parliament and I really do wish they would stop it!

 

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Advice to my American friends: Don't let Obama take your guns!

This is quite something:

This is called an MRAP, or, a Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicle.  Just the job, you might think if you are an American, because it should keep the chaps safe and sound out in Afghanistan or some other murky corner of the American empire.  Well, it may, but - yes, you knew there was a 'but' coming - it's not for use in foreign fields, oh dear me, no, it's intended for operations - on the street where you live!

Your Homeland Security Department (CEO: Ms. Janet Napolitano; Chairman: B. Obama) have just purchased a few of these monster machines, well, I say 'a few', what I mean is, a few hundred . . . er, well, actually, a few thousand . . . that is, 2,700, to be exact!  And, just in case it transpires that all you gun-toting Republicans are better armed than your government, they have also bought a few hundred  thousand   million - sorry, sorry - I mean, billion bullets, er, 1.6 billion, to be exact.  And whilst they are busy spending your money to 'tool themselves up', they are equally busy trying to disarm you!

Not that they don't have your best interests at heart, as you can tell from all those nice government drones that circle around your neighbourhood.  And whilst President Obama might kill American citizens he is always meticulous in doing so when they are overseas - by the way, exactly where are you planning to holiday this year? 

Er, have a nice day!

 

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What is going on in Cloud Cuckoo Land?

Like old men everywhere I am constantly warning of troubles to come but the good news is that my forecasting skills are, shall we say?, negligible verging on downright incompetent - yes, that sums it up nicely!  Perhaps it is my daily 'intrep' from those shadowy chaps at NightWatch that is giving me increasingly bad vibes from the 'People's Democratic Loony-bin' that is North Korea.  Under the leadership, if that is quite the word, of 'Kim Bill-ee-Bun-ter', the fat teenager who allegedly runs the asylum, North Korea has poked its greatest supporter, the Chinese, not in one but in both eyes by firing off an ICBM and then letting off an A-bomb.  The Chinese appear helpless to control this teen-age hooligan and therefore those who might be seriously damaged by his yobbish behaviour, the South Koreans, are beginning to look hard at defending themselves:

South Korea: Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Army Major General Kim Yong-hyun warned on 6 March, "If North Korea carries out provocations that threaten the lives and safety of South Koreans, our military will carry out strong and resolute retaliations."

The South Korean statement advised that if provoked by North Korea, the South would attack the North's 'command leadership.'

Meanwhile, Japanese obsevers have noted that the North Korean authorities have begun camouflaging civilian lorries, buses and cars, an activity that could indicate the possibility of war.  However, the North Koreans are adept at ratcheting up tension in order to win concessions and this might just be another example of it.  However, Kim Jong Un is a very young man whose domestic position is not entirely secure and one wonders if he has the skill to ride the one-wheeled bike without falling off - and taking a few million people with him!

 

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In the shadow of a king!

I have just finished a fascinating - well, fascinating to an AmDram actor like me -  diary of a year in the life of David Weston.  David . . . who? I hear you mutter, and yes, I'd never heard of him either until I read his book Covering McKellan: An Understudy's Tale.  In it, the always modest Mr. Weston tells the story of working for a year on an RSC production of King Lear and The Seagull which opened in Stratford and then went on to tour Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, New York, LA and, er, Minnesota before returning to London.  Mr. Weston had two very minor roles, one non-speaking, because his main job was to act as Sir Ian McKellen's understudy as Lear.

I warm to Mr. Weston because he has the honesty to admit that he is probably viewed by others, particularly the younger members of the company, as "a boring old fart".  I share his self-perception!  The director of this mammoth enterprise was Sir Trevor Nunn, arguably one of the very greatest theatre directors of his age, a man steeped in the classics but also capable of producing popular hits like Cats and 'Les Mis'.  Two things become increasingly clear during the book, first that McKellen is a great actor and also a good guy - they do not always go together.  Second, Trevor Nunn is a brilliant director but simply does not know when to shut up and go home!  It was interesting to read that gradually the cast - or at least, the younger element in the cast - gradually fell out with Sir Trevor and even took umbrage at McKellen who comes across as the very nicest of men.  Instead of being enthralled at the chance of working with two of theatre's greatest exponents, they became disgruntled and fed up - poor little darlings.  The fact that I have never heard of any them since speaks for itself!

But the man I admire the most in this theatrical tale is Weston, himself.  He is, to me, the ultimate professional actor.  A player who realised years before that greatness was never going to descend on him but whose love for theatre and acting kept him going, not just because it was a job but because he just loved every minute of it - well, most of them, anyway!  If you have any interest in theatre, this is a must-read.

 

Hugo Chavez, R.I.H.

That stands for 'Rest In Hell' as we bid farewell to yet another stupid, thuggish clown, a type of political gangster of which South America appears to have a surplus.  I suppose the most good you can say of him is that he wasn't quite as bad as some of the worst but only by a matter of degree.  Still, he gave us all - well, me, at any rate - a good laugh by swallowing Left-wing propaganda, especially that of Michael Moore's film "Sicko" - to the effect that the Cuban 'Castro-Care' health service was "the envy of the world" (to quote a phrase!).  As I pointed out in a previous post, if he had accepted the offer of treatment from Brazil he might well have beaten the cancer that took him.  Well, never give a sucker an even break, I say, and I just hope it was a long, lingering and excruciatingly painful ending.

 

 

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'If irony be the food of humour, give me excess of it'!

Tory apocalypse now!

Peter Hitchens goes further than me, well, he goes further than most people, but in this instance I cannot fault his thinking.  Where-as I am looking forward to bidding farewell to 'Dave 'n' George', either this year or in 2015 when they lose the next election, Hitchens goes further in yesterday's Mail and insists that we should say our goodbyes to the entire Conservative party for this very compelling reason:

You have to say one thing for the Prime Minister. His strategy of driving away the Tory Party’s traditional supporters is a roaring success.

The other bit of the plan, in which thousands of Guardian readers and Labour voters would flock to Mr Slippery’s rainbow banner, hasn’t quite worked out. It never will.

The Tories are now (in my view rightly) loathed and despised by people from all political viewpoints and all walks of life.

Well, can't argue with any of that!  But he continues in a mood I can only describe as vengeful gotterdamerung:

 

Even if you’re still deluded enough to believe that a Tory government would be any use to you, nothing that you do will change the outcome of the next Election. It’ll either be a Labour administration or a Lib-Lab one, which is the same thing.

This is your chance to sweep away a party whose time has gone, which long ago ceased to be what it claimed to be, which despises its own supporters, which has now added failure to fraud and treachery as its chief characteristics.

Don’t work or vote for it. If you feel for some odd reason that voting is a duty, vote for UKIP. Britain’s Left-wing elite truly fear the destruction of the Tory Party that
would follow a thumping defeat of the kind it deserves.

They rightly see its existence as a barrier to the birth of a truly pro-British party, one that could sweep New Labour, the Liberal Democrats and all their works into the sea.

I think what he is asking is - what is the Tory party for?  And if it fails to defend and to propogate those principles dearly beloved by people of a conservative disposition, then his conclusion is that it might as well be consigned to the dustbin of history and an entirely new party formed from the ashes of the old.

Hmmmn!  I will now try and think of some argument - any argument - to justify the continued existence of the (non)-Conservative Party.

Well, give me a chance, it's not easy . . . !

 

A tiger in a Tiger!

My previous post on the subject of Tiger tanks extolled the courage and cunning of a British tank crew who, out-gunned and out-armoured, simply adopted naval tactics and rammed the Tiger tank with their own puny Sherman.  Here is a photo of the end result:

 

This tale excited 'SoD' who went haring off through the internet records and produced, amongst other things, the history of one of the most effective German tank commanders of WWII.

 

He looks a bit like a very young Burt Lancaster but actually his name is Kurt Knispel (20 September 1921 – 28 April 1945).  A Sudetan German who served in their armoured forces, he was credited with the greatest number of confirmed 'tank kills', a total of 168, in the war.  A maverick personality who refused to conform, he sported a goatee beard and long hair.  According to Wiki:

Knispel's slow promotion is attributed to several conflicts with higher Nazi
authorities (for instance, he assaulted an Einsatzgruppen officer whom he saw mistreating Soviet POWs) and general lack of military bearing, sporting a goatee and hair longer than regulations. Only his impressive track-record saved him from ending up in a military prison.

Alas, this brave man died of his wounds 10 days before the war ended.

 

Your Monday Funny: 4.03.13

I didn't have a joke ready for this morning - actually, I'm pretty hopeless at jokes, I forget them within seconds of being told them - but Andra saved the day with this one which did make me laugh so I hope it cheers up all you wage slaves at work this morning:

Sex On Mars

The year is 2222 and Charlie and Maureen land on Mars after accumulating enough
Frequent Flier miles.   They meet a Martian couple and are talking about all sorts of things.

Charlie asks if Mars has a stock market, if they have laptop computers, how
they make money, etc.

Finally, Maureen brings up the subject of sex.

'Just how do you guys do it?' asks Maureen.

The Martian responds, 'Pretty much the way you do.'

A discussion ensues and finally the couples decide to swap partners for the
night and experience one another... Maureen and the male Martian go off to a
bedroom where the Martian strips... He's got only a teeny, weenie member about
half an inch long and just a quarter-inch thick.

'I don't think this is going to work,' says Maureen...

'Why?' he asks. 'What's the matter?'

'Well,' she replies, 'it's just not long enough to reach me!'

'No problem,' he says, and proceeds to slap his forehead with his palm.

With each slap of his forehead, his member grows until it's quite impressively
long.

'Well,' she says, 'that's quite impressive, but it is still narrow.'

'No problem,' he says, and starts pulling his ears. With each pull, his member
grows wider and wider until the entire measurement is extremely exciting to the
woman.

'Wow!' she exclaims, as they fell into bed and made mad passionate love.

The next day the couples re-join their other partners and go their separate
ways. As they walked along, Charlie asks, 'Well, was it any good?'

'I hate to say it,' says Maureen, 'but it was wonderful. How about you?'

'It was horrible,' he replies. 'All I got was a headache ... She kept slapping
my forehead and pulling my ears.'

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I should have finished reading all my e-mails before posting because here's another from Andra - but not to be read during your 'elevensies'!:

A duded-up city rider walks into a seedy tavern
in Sturgis, SD. He sits at the bar and notices a grizzled old biker with his
arms folded, staring blankly at a full bowl of chili.

After fifteen minutes of just sitting there staring at it, the newby rider
bravely asks the old biker, 'If you ain't gonna eat that, mind if I do?'

The old veteran of a thousand rides slowly turns his head toward the young pup
and says, 'Nah, you go ahead.'

Eagerly, the guy wearing the shiny new leather fashions reaches over and slides
the bowl into his place and starts spooning it in with delight. He gets nearly
down to the bottom of the bowl and notices a dead mouse in the chilli. The
sight was very shocking and he immediately barfed up the chili back into the
bowl.

The old biker quietly says, 'Yep, that's as far as I got, too.'

 

The Sunday Rumble 03:03:13

I will add further 'rumbles' to this post concerning this, that or the other during the course of the day as and when anything occurs.

News from the Rehab Unit:  The 'Memsahib' gains strength daily - and I'm steadily going downhill!  It's not the weight of work in running a household but its sheer unremitting, relentless, never-ending nature that pisses me off.  I don't want to think about what we are going to eat for lunch next Tuesday, or whether the sheets are due for a change, or whether or not I remembered to leave the money out for the milkman . . .  I mean, it's all so damned domestic!  Nobody seems to realise that a great mind like mine should not be encumbered with such trivia, I have matters of great moment upon me which it is essential be passed on to my faithful blog followers who wait, daily, hourly, for my views and opinions and . . . sorry, did someone say something?  Anyway, 'er upstairs' is now downstairs as well and is leaping about on a single crutch, well, "leaping" is perhaps a slight exaggeration, but anyway, she is now in a position to actually supervise my downstairs activities - so there goes the occasional nap on the settee!

Bye, bye, Benny, baby, but why?  Yes, the question is, why did Pope Benedict resign?  I must instantly confess my almost total ignorance concerning the Catholic church but in doing so, I suspect, it places me amongst a vast majority of people including most catholics.  Only the Vatican insiders plus a tiny handful of informed outsiders know what is going on inside Vatican city, a place that makes Stalin's Kremlin look positively transparent!  Some possibilities are discussed by John Cornwall in The Mail.  His Wiki entry seems to mark him as an outsider with some penetrating knowledge of what may be going on inside the Curia, as the Vatican civil service is called.  Worth a read but my guess is that, given the secretive nature of the Catholic hierarchy, it will be a hundred years before we even get a hint as to the truth behind this resignation - if resignation it was! - and in a hundred years will I care?

When cracks appear in an icon:  I never thought I would live long enough to see the beginning of the collapse and fall of the Nationalised Health Empire in Britain - but it is beginning.  As I mentioned in a previous post, perhaps the only good thing to emerge from the Mid-Staffs Hospital horror story is that the carefully nurtured image of nurses being angels of mercy and light and therefore above and beyond criticism has just crashed and burned.  From now on we will all view them as they are, ordinary people trying to do their best, some good, some not so good and some who should have been prison officers!  There may be one other benefit derived from the Mid Staffs story, that is, having driven all other NHS stories off the front pages it has hidden the sly, surreptitious changes wrought by this government.  Yesterday there was a 'Shlock-Horror' story in 'The Graun' (natch!) reporting howls of complaint from some Doctors' union about the sneaky privatisation of the NHS.  Well, if it results in the sort of service provided by the privately-owned Shepton Mallet Clinic who dealt with the 'Memsahib's hip under a NHS contract, then "give me surfeit of it"!

D' Ancona no can do:  I have long had my doubts concerning the judgment of Matthew d' Ancona notwithstanding the fact that he was once the editor of my favourite mag - The Spectator.  I suppose you can mark him A1 in loyalty to Dave but is that really a virtue as it becomes clearer to everyone, except our Matthew, that Dave is driving the Tory party into oblivion.  As far as I can tell from his article in The Telegraph, 'all is for the best in the best of all worlds' as far as Dave's leadership goes and the only slight fault is that perhaps his presentation isn't very good!  And the idea that somehow Dave is a paid-up member of a metropolitan elite with no understanding of ordinary people's concerns d' Ancona dismisses out of hand saying that such a "cabal" is a figment of imagination.  Well, no one was suggesting the existence of a "cabal", only the very real existence of a certain state of mind prevalent amongst the wealthy upper middle-classes with comfortable homes in both the country and in London neither of which brings them into contact with ordinary people beyond the butcher, baker and candle-stick maker.  D' Ancona is as big a dimwit as his hero!

My two favourite 'biches sont revenus':  Oh, yes, indeed, they're back.  Both the enticingly tough but tender Caroline Proust (Insp. Laure Berthaud); and the deliciously naughty and red-headed Audrey Fleurot (Lawyer Joséphine Karlsson) on my TV courtesy of BBC4 on Saturday nights in the superb French crime and justice(!) series, Spiral.  I'm loving every minute of it but hating trying to choose which of those lovely ladies I prefer.  I know, I will write to both of them in impeccable French, er, with a 'leetle 'elp from mon ami, Google Translate' and see which of them replies soonest.  Waddya mean - neither of 'em!  Of course they will, I shall enclose a photo, perhaps that one with me in my Long Johns, that's always a winner!

Here endeth my Sunday Rumble - see you tomorrow!

 

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Well, did the earth move for you? No, me neither!

According to 'The High Priest of America', chaos would reign across the land if the so-called 'sequestration' act went into operation on Friday night.  His public breast-beating was picked up by the Chorus, that is, the American media, or the PR Department of the Democrat party as it is known, and the message was shrilled forth to all and sundry.  As it happened, 'all and sundry' simply shrugged and went on about their business.  No planes fell out of the sky, the American army continued to waste its time and money in Afghanistan, firemen continued to put out fires and policemen did what policemen have always done, that is, give the odd villain a smart truncheon smack between the legs pour encourager les autres! 

As 'The Kraut' explained with weary persistence, the 'Monster-Horror-Armageddon-Sequestration' is actually:

 [J]ust one-half of 1 percent of GDP. It amounts to 1.4 cents on the dollar of nondefense spending, 2 cents overall.

Or, as the witty Mark Steyn puts it:

No, in an America in which every throwaway gag is a hate crime, Obama’s fake disaster movie of the month is the only joke we all go along with, even though he’s insulting our intelligence far more than Seth and the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus singing “We Saw Your Boobs” to Anne Hathaway and Halle Berry.

Can you pierce the mists of time and go back all the way to the year 2007? Back then, federal spending was 40 percent lower than it is today. In a mere half-decade, has all that 40 percent gravy become so indispensable to the general welfare that not even a teensy-weensy sliver of it can be cut? [My emphasis]

If you really believe that, then America is going to die, and a gullible citizenry willing to give this laughable charade the time of day will bear ultimate responsibility. We have seen the boobs, and they are us.

It became very clear to everyone, except 52% of  American voters, within a couple of years of Obama's presidency that he was a born-again liar of monstrous proportions.  At long last the ninnies in the Republican party have summoned up such strength of purpose as they possess and have decided to call this bluffer's bluff.  And the last word goes to the American Stock Exchange which rose on Friday!

 

 

'A farewell to arms'

A depressingly accurate editorial in this week's 'Speccie' (no link to the editorial) entitled "Little Britain".  Perhaps 'Miniscule Titchy Britain' might have been even more accurate.  The writing on the wall, or perhaps, the writing down of our armed forces, has been evident since 'Dave' cut the defence budget but simultaneously increased the Foreign Aid budget by exactly the same amount.  What bullets will not achieve, apparently bedpans and blankets will!  Anyway, it is now clear that it is not just that Britain has no appetite for foreign adventures/projecting power (you choose!), the fact is that today we are incapable of it.  The French, with a little help from their friends(!), managed to fly a few troops to Mali in order to shoot up some 'Fuzzie-wuzzies' who quickly ran away but who, once reorganised, now appear to be coming back.  In the meantime, nos chers alliés, having run out of real bombs, were forced to drop concrete bombs during their recent Malian campaign.  And 'Dave', with all the dexterity of a card-sharp, has now reversed his earlier policy by ear-marking part of the Aid budget to the military.  By jingo, it's this sort of clear, decisive thinking that has got us where we are today! 

We're fucked, the French are fucked, NATO is fucked - and Obama doesn't give a fuck!  He, of course and not without cause, is fed up with defending Europeans who refuse to cough up a reasonable amount of dosh for the service provided, and anyway he has turned away to face what he considers to be a truly grand strategic problem - China.  Given the potential riches already flowing from shale oil, his interest in the Middle East is also waning.  If Europe is still highly dependent on Arab oil then, he will let it be known, let them take on the burden of providing the security for it.  It is now clear beyond doubt that he has no intention of lifting a finger to stop Iran gaining nuclear capability.  All those many Europeans and Brits who moaned and groaned about 'irresponsible American adventurism' now have what they wished for.  Let's hope they enjoy it!

 

So it's farewell, then, Bob Piper

You can always tell when a blog is dying.  The posts become more and more intermittant and consist of more and more long-winded quotes.  Thus it has been for Councillor Bob Piper's site which has now expired on its ninth birthday.  He is, of course, a hopeless old Leftie, quite beyond redemption, but I shall miss his blog.  Unlike so many of his Left-wing 'comrades', Bob would always take a contrary opinion on the chin - before retaliating with a head butt!  Even so, whilst he was, shall we say, robust in his retaliation, he never descended to the vicious nastiness of, say, Richard Seymour's vile site.  I shall miss his blog but I have invited him to visit here as often as he likes and to bring his hammer and sickle with him.