The dear old 'Duke of Boot' will not be amused! When it comes to the battle of Waterloo, according to Dr. Matthew Genge, a swot at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, 'it woz Mount Tambora wot wunnit'! Apparently, this little known volcano in Indonesia blew its top, so to speak, and sent zillions of tons of electrically charged ash into the ionosphere which short-circuited the earth's atmosphere and caused huge downfalls of rain in Europe including the field at Waterloo. Because of the soaking conditions, 'Boney' delayed his attack on the British lines until late in the morning which gave time for all those plucky Prussians to arrive. What's the German for 'jolly good show'?
Senator John McCain R.I.P.: I will immediately admit my ignorance of the minutiae of Sen. McCain's life which, like everybody's life, contains the usual mix of faults and virtues. Even so, his conduct during five years of cruel imprisonment in North Vietnam marks him out as an exceedingly brave man. His subsequent political life is best described as 'maverick' which means, in effect, he never automatically toed the party line, no doubt sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. National politics needs independent thinkers like him and so I salute his memory.
Everybody should have a Peter Hitchens: It is such a relief on a Sunday morning to click on to The Mail and enjoy a fierce slug of Peter Hitchens. Today he leads on the state of Britain's (non)prisons! This follows the forced governmental take-over of Birmingham jail which, under useless private management, had ended up, in effect, being run by the prisoners.
Common sense has been banished from our country, but nobody connects this with its results. The liberals themselves drivel that prisons are full because we send too many people to them. I will come to that in a moment.
Others claim that the squalor, drugs and violence of the verminous Birmingham Prison, revealed last week, are the result of privatisation. Well, I oppose private prisons because I do not think the punishment of wrongdoers is a business. It is the moral duty of the state. But it is not the issue here. It is easy to find state-run prisons that are just as bad as Birmingham.
The truth is astonishingly simple. In the 1960s, our ruling elite decided that they knew better than any generation before them.
Do yourselves a favour and read the whole thing.
Hey, Donald, better watch the stock market! Thus sayeth Liam Halligan, a financial expert, in The Telegraph today. Mr. Halligan points to a steady rise in the market due to some very smart tax cuts and various other measures but, "as any fule do no", what goes up eventually comes down and that is when the brown stuff hits the fan!
Sorry, sorry, I went a.w.o.l. - again: Well, it was out to lunch with friends and then back home to watch a recording of the Belgian Grand Prix. Thank God I had recorded it because it was the most eye-stabbingly tedious race I have seen in yonks! I kept fast-forwarding hoping that (Sir) Lewis would get his finger out and beat that damned Hun but it was not to be.
The Pope is in the poop! And I'm glad because I have never liked the cut of his jib - he smiles too much! Damian Thompson has the less than Holy details and the stench is already rising following the exposure of the homosexual child abuse covered up in the America church.
In Australian, 'all change' means 'no change': According to WUWT, the new Aussie PM who came in with the expectation of getting Australia out of the ridiculous and hugely expensive Paris Agreement, is now expected to stick with it. One of his cabinet ministers has already resigned. So, in effect, it's back to the ever-Green, Malcolm Turnbull! I wonder what my Aussie e-pals think of that?
No more rumbles today
http://www.thediplomad.com/2018/08/john-mccain-rip.html
Senator McCain performed a final service to the Republican party and mostly to the Conservative movement.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 12:24
Hitchens' piece is fantastic! The 'liberal experiment' of the 1960s has failed! God how it has failed! The same misguided, ignorant of history and experience, notions that took hold in Britain took hold over here too. Did you send it here or did we send it to you? Do 'liberals' now 'progressives' ever learn anything? No! They will only blame society and culture and class and privilege and other excuses. They will say we in the West didn't do enough! Being 'liberal' today means you never have to learn a damn thing!
What about 'conservatives'? Be they yours or ours, they only seem to 'conserve' that which the 'liberals' have changed, devalued, degraded, ruined or otherwise screwed up.
It will take smoke rising in cities- over there and here- for anything to begin to change-there or here. Hitchens dreads a 'Trump'? He had better pray for one to rise soon! If not, far worse will come. The 'Trump figure' is a warning.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 12:59
Additional:
Liberal: Change what works to something that doesn’t
Conservative: Preserve those changes
Reactionary: Change them back to what worked.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 13:22
John McCain was the rarest of conservatives in recent American politics; an independent voice. He was an undoubtedly brave man with an outstanding war record who sincerely served his country most of his tenure, be he right or wrong. Political nit picking is now pointless.
Posted by: Bob | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 14:03
Colonel Colborne of the 52nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry won the battle of Waterloo.
No damn gritty cloud was going to stop 9 battalions of Boney's Imperial Guard at the final critical moment, nor was Wellington.
But Colborne and the 52nd dispatched those 9 battalions off their own bat, without any orders from Wellington or anyone else.
Then Wellington covered it up and spun up a great lie that it was him (Wellington) and the wooden tops (British Guard) that defeated the Imperial Guard at the final critical moment and won it.
Possibly the biggest scandal in British military history.
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 20:23
I wonder what my Aussie e-pals think of that?
Duffers what I think about the treacherous bastards is unprintable.
The polite response is that once again we have been shafted by the people who are supposed to be looking after the best interests of the nations citizens.
The smell of hypocrisy around the Paris fiasco is strong. We have idiot pollies wanting to stick with it because burning coal in power stations is bad yet we export millions of tons of the finest coal to India and China so they can burn it in power stations to provide cheap electricity.
Lamposts may be he answer
Posted by: AussieD | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 22:44
the answer
Posted by: AussieD | Sunday, 26 August 2018 at 22:45
It was the Scots that won the Battle of Waterloo with some help from the Krauts, Irish and some other fellows. The English were having Tiffin as they do and played no part.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Monday, 27 August 2018 at 00:00
Richard Sharpe won the Battle of Waterloo!
Posted by: Backofanenvelope | Monday, 27 August 2018 at 07:07
Turnbull should never have been in the Liberal Party. Here in Australia, we have stuck to the classic definition of Liberal, pro-business and minimal government. That was never Turnbull.
Scott Morrison has not abandoned the Paris agreement, but he is talking of it as a third-ranking order of business, so it's been sidelined. Maybe forever.
Posted by: Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Gray | Thursday, 30 August 2018 at 03:25