CoffeeHousers' Wall, 23 August - 29 August

alexsandr

Dunno if wallers heard 'any questions' this weekend. But the implication was there that we should not donate to the Pakistan flood disasters because of various anti muslim issues, i.e the ground zero mosque, some fundamentalist saying they dont want help from the infidels and stuff like that.

So should we donate because it is helping a fellow man, or should we donate elsewhere?

Discuss!

charles hercock

Gove had his head down last week with the A level results and scrapheaping by the universities of an army of bright kids
Lets get Ed Balls on to him

Paul T Horgan

Dear Reader,

Abolish the NHS!

Not horrified?

Not disgusted?

Read on...

We can't truly roll back the frontiers of Socialism, less still get Labour to rid itself of its mini-Lenins unless this symbiotic creation, the NHS, is put out of our misery.

It takes the lion's share of our taxes and employs 1.3 million people. There is anecdotal evidence that a proportion of the non-medical staff 'under-achieve' or are subject to draconian restrictive practices that prevent increases in efficiency solely to justify the massive level of employment.

It does not provide 'Universal Health Care' and is definitely not 'Free'. Despite all the propaganda to the contrary.

The Society Promoting the Abolition of the NHS (SPAN) would like to hear from you if you are tired of this state-run monolith lurching from crisis to crisis and it habit of killing people on the way and reducing the quality of life for countless others through negligence.

Get in touch at http://groups.google.co.uk/group/SPANMAIL

Every good idea has to start somewhere. If not now, then when?

TrevorsDen

Perhaps Gove is on holiday?

The universities are not scrapheaping 'bright kids'.

Kids are no brighter then they were 10 years ago. As ever the best and the most suited go to university.

A level results are increasingly meaningless.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, says
highly-tailored teaching and 'built-in inflation' were responsible were the consistent rises in results.

'The questions themselves are becoming much more predictable; they are highly structured and teachers are increasingly familiar with them,'
'examiners feel they are doing a good job if results nudge up a bit each year'
'Exams just seem to have the same built-in inflation that our currency has,'
'Although they will deny it, examiners seem quite happy if there is a little bit of inflation each year.'

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

AngloWelshDragon: I am very sorry to learn of your friend's attack, and pray for a speedy physical and emotional recovery.
There is nothing to forgive, you have never been cruel or spiteful, and we are all (still) entitled to our own opinions.
alexandr: I think it is tragedy that as usual the poor and helpless get the worst of any natural disaster. But, I wouldn't donate one penny to a country filled with scum, who not only dump their citizens on us by claiming British citizenship, despise us, sell our women and girls into prostitution, foul up the very air we breathe, I could go on and on. They are so bloody clever they can produce atomic bombs, yet cannot distribute aid for their own people. Corrupt and vile in every way, let them ask their oil-rich muslim brothers to donate a day's profits from their oil wealth. No doubt the equally corrupt creatures up in Scotland who found it so worthwhile to let a 'dying' terrorist free will jump on the bandwagon demanding we suckers fork out for those who want to destroy us. Any charity should go to helping rehabilitate ex-military personnel and help their families to live in decent housing.

Verity

The individual who posts over on Conservative Cabbie as An American appears to have been prescient when she wrote that whatever the city of NY will allow, that Ground Zero mosque will not get built because no contractors will touch it.

Forty-eight hours after she wrote that, we learn that already, large companies dealing in steel, timber and glass have announced that they will not be selling their products to the Mohammadan Ground Zero. (I write "Mohammadan", although I know it's not correct, because it drives the islamics nuts.)

Neil Turner

100 days or so into the Cameroon Government

So what exactly has changed from the dark days of New Labour ?

- Have we recovered any powers from the EU ?
- does the motorist feel less like a criminal ?
- do the Armed Forces feel supported and funded ?
- has political correct nonsense reduced ?
- has the Islamisation of Britain been curtailed ?
- are we wasting less money on the Man-Made Global Warming scam ?

OK, so it's only 100 days, but it feels very much like business as usual to me.

Meet the new boss - same as the old boss

Rhoda Klapp

I know it's the silly season, or it might just be me having weltschmerz, but the CH lately, by which I mean the main page, has had some of the most boring posts I can remember. I mean, how many stories does the lib-dems dichotomy actually rate? Who cares which nonentity is going to eventually lose (you can't call it winning) the labour leadership? Why did the mosque thing run to four posts (front page and Massie) when one would have done?

AngloWelshDragon

Anne WK1 - Thanks for your kind words. My friend is fortunantely made of pretty stern stuff and will be okay in the long run, we hope.

On the subject of the Pakistan floods, I agree with you entirely as do the shoppers of Swadlincote who almost to a man/woman refused to contribute to the DEC collection in our local Morrisons. I felt quite sorry for the handful of Muslim youngsters who were offering to pack bags for people in return for donations and were being turned down, politely and sometimes not so politely by shoppers.

I did post on the wall on this subject a couple of weeks ago but the post never made it to the wall. THis may have been because I quoted a couple I overheard saying that they didn't want their hard earned cash being spent on bullets to kill our troops!!

charles hercock

Neil Turner
Let's get away from this EU obsession

AngloWelshDragon

A relative works as an ambulance paramedic in the East Mids. She is now able to enjoy 'Loose Women' during her breaks as the local hospital management have kindly installed a large flat screen TV in the drivers rest room.

She recently attended a man from Burton on Trent. Socially services have kindly provided him with a 50" plasma TV as he is short sighted and have also bought him a holiday caravan in Skegness becuase he is depressed. This he earns a tidy income from as he rents it out all summer. SUffice it to say, he has never worked a day in his life.

Just two instances of where our taxes are going gleaned from a 10 minte chat last night. Is the coalition going to do anything about this sort of thing? I won't be holding my breath.

yank

Well, you Brits seem to have gone over to a divided political House. And now the Oz likewise are split. I'd guess we here will soon be following our betters, and splitting up the pie as well.

So across the continents, we've reached unanimity. It seems none of this lot has gained our trust.

Augustus

Verity - If the various Construction Union chapters do band together to picket the construction, and equipment is denied to the
mosque group, they might try and import foreign labour and equipment. But think of all the layer of burdensome legalities and interminable mayhem they would face in the courts considering the raft of OSHA construction industry standards, not to mention the various Construction Union contracts with the City of New York relating to licensed HVAC operators. I wonder if Imam Khan will fund all that too?

Sir Graphus

AngloWelshDragon, I wasn't depressed until I bought a holiday caravan in Skeggie.

Agree with you. I know several people who've worked in private and public sectors, and their consistent remark is the unbelievable waste and inefficiency. You only have to walk into a hospital to think "well, I really wouldn't do it like this".

We have a terrible cancer in the vast overstaffing of public sectors administration. Councils do not exist to serve their residents; they are fiefdoms to be defended, bastions of secure employment & final salary pensions. Their reaction to cuts will be to cut services, not provide more efficiently; to reduce their administrative empires would be to give the enemy what they want for free. 13 yrs of Labour govt gave the public sector free reign & encouraged them to bed themselves in as deeply as they could, to create micro-management systems as complex & people intensive as they could. There is no will to unpick all this; each system needs to be unpicked 1 by 1 by an act of upper managerial will (& there is no sign of this yet) in the face off obstructive opposition from the bottom to the v near the top. It’ll take at least 10 yrs; it’ll cost the political careers of a ½-dozen ministers who won’t be thanked even in posterity. If we don't do it, we're dead.

Verity

Augustus - You did not read my post.

Yes, the powerful construction unions will indeed refuse to work on this obscenity, but my post (and what An American was referring to in her post) concerned the giant COMPANIES active in the construction industry. Already, as I noted, suppliers (that is, companies) of glass, steel and timber are refusing to supply this project.

Post to be continued once I've posted this immovable box off so I can see the rest of your post.

Streeter

A big topic in US politics at the moment is the Bush-era tax cuts that are due to expire this year. Republicans, and some Democrats, what them to continue. Paul Krugman (NYT) is a high profile critic of these cuts, unsuprisingly given his views generally. He is incensed that fiscal hawks shoot down help for the unemployed, while backing tax cuts for the richest.

This debate seems similar to that of the 50% rate here, the supposed benefits of which Coffee House has strenuously refuted. But is it the same? Did tax revenue increase over the last 9 years, as the Laffer curve (may) suggest? Or were the cuts on the wrong side of the inflection point?

It would be an interesting discussion: I wonder whether the team has any data or opinions on this.

Verity

Augustus, cont'd ... Yes, of course they will try to import foreign labour and equipment, but, as you correctly noted, OSHA and all the other agencies would have to approve.

Second, where would the labour come from? Canada? Not bloody likely! Someone earlier suggested Saudi, but as the Saudis need someone to come in and unscrew a lightbulb for them, the notion that they have a bank of skilled construction labour is amusing. Same in the Emirates.

So where is all this supposed foreign labour supposed to come from. And, say they need around 7,000 or more. How long would processing all these people take? And would the big construction companies like Bechtel and Brown & Root, say, be wielding some muscle in all this - as in, they might not like it? They're Americans, too.

And where are all these putative foreign workers going to be housed? Not in US b&bs or hostels, that's for sure.

I have a feeling that this giant obscenity, even if it gets started somehow, and even if the Saudis come barrelling in with four times the amount of the US$100m asked for, is not going to be completed for its target date, the day of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Verity

PS - Isn't it wonderful news about the Chilean miners? And the President of Chile looked so happy when he was announcing that they were still alive and had sent up a note! (They were on our side in the Falklands.)

Augustus

Verity - Correction: I meant Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Daisy Khan is his wife, and according to New York Post is a co-founder of the project and has called it a "history-
making moment" in the fight against
"Islamophobia". I also see that former mayor, Rudy Giuliani has asked the Imam to 'drop it or move to another location
-if he is truly about healing...'

So, if dialogue and healing with America is the reason why proceed? You cannot force respect - you have to do something to earn it. And it's obvious that building that mosque in the face of all the objections by far the majority of American people will do absolutely nothing to combat Islamophobia.

Augustus

Verity - You make good points.

yank

Well yes, obviously there's little chance a Ground Zero mosque could be built by 9/11/11. It's not even likely they could achieve preliminary site plan approval by then, let alone final approval, detailed design and construction completion, which would normally take at least 2-3 years.

When you see wrecking balls swinging on the abandoned Burlington Coat Factory building currently standing on that site, you can adjudge the mosque project to be 1-2 years or so away from the first call to prayer therein.

But if they're funded and determined, they'll get it done, I suspect. Everybody has their price: construction companies, material suppliers, labor unions, politicians... everybody.

But those Saudi paymasters haven't got a clue as to the shakedown payments they're going to have to make, in order to get this done. New York is nothing like anything they've ever seen, particularly in this case. There will be a hand out at every turn. Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans... the corruption in that town would make even a Saudi gangsta blush.

Verity

Thanks, Augustus, but we both know that this mosque/community centre/obscenity has absolutely nothing to do with imaginary "islamophobia" and everything to do with conquest.

For one thing, Daisy Whoever and the rest of them are illiterately misusing the word 'phobia'. A phobia is not an intense dislike. (Peter Tatchell has foolishly popularised this misuse of an ancient Greek word.)

It is nothing to do with dislike. A phobia is an IRRATIONAL FEAR.

There is absolutely nothing irrational about fearing islam. In fact, given the stunning volume of evidence, you'd have to be an irrational loony not to fear them.

Verity

Yank: "Everybody has their price ....

"But those Saudi paymasters haven't got a clue as to the shakedown payments they're going to have to make, in order to get this done."

They don't care. I read in the papers the other day of a Saudi young man who had brought his car over to England for his stay there, in his own plane. The car itself had cost, if memory serves, US$10m. Or it may have been more.

Ten million here, a hundred million there ... it's pocket money.

That's why we should stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia. There´s plenty of oil without resorting to scratching around in the Sahara. N America can easily be self-sufficient, for example.

Britain and some of Europe could buy from Indonesia-Malalysia. Big oil in Kalimantan. Or the Falklands.

Neil Turner

Charles Hercock 3.35pm

"Let's get away from this EU obsession"

So you don't care about the powers already ceded, the irrelevance of Parliament, and the slow death of UK democracy ?

Any talk about immigration controls is totally pointless whilst the status quo exists

Beer Moth

Rhoda Klapp

Be fair now on the Speccie writers: they have the onerous task of having to make it appear as if they are covering the important stories, whilst trying hard to bury the real one.

Thus, the nation descends daily toward dhimmitude and yet what passes for vital information is the current gossip relating to whether Clegg should go for a centre-parting

To relieve the tedium, you could always visit the re-vamped arts page, which could do with some considered input. Could do with input of any kind actually.

Hope your weltschmerz clears up soon.

John Richardson

'Trevorsden'

'Kids are no brighter than they were ten years ago...'

Oh, Mr Den, you are living in a kids-are-no-brighter-or-dimmer-fantasy-land...

How about this from 'The Daily Mail' ?

'British Teenagers have
lower IQ scores than a generation ago, new study reveals
By Laura Clark
Last updated at 10:51 PM on 8th February 2009

Comments (14) Add to My Stories
Middle-class teenagers are less intelligent than a generation ago due to the dumbing down of youth culture and school tests, a new study suggests.
IQ tests show that scores for the average 14-year-old have dropped by more than two points between 1980 and 2008.'

Now, this is the really frightening part....

'For those in the upper half of the intelligence scale - a group typically dominated by the children of middle-class families - average IQ scores were six points down on 28 years ago.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1139062/British-teenagers-lower-IQ-scores-generation-ago-new-study-reveals.html#ixzz0xSn80dDM

SIX POINTS !

These, of course, are the youngsters who would be more likely to take 'A Levels'.
The 29% at 'A' pass,'A Levels'.
The very 'A Levels' that the Government still expects us to take seriously.

Every now and again you get a glimpse of the
total betrayal of the young by their parents.
Parents should be enraged by the transformation of the education sector into a certification industry. Not enough give a toss, across all classes.

--------------------------------------------

Neil Turner @7:37pm

I suspect, without chagrin, that any who regard the EU as 'an obsession' either have a direct financial stake in our betrayal,
or understanding is simply beyond them.

--------------------------------------------

'Anglo-Welsh Dragon'
3:43pm

A terrible shame your political perspective must be informed by such an incident, but there it is. Testing times.

How about this re-Welfare ?
They know all about the waste and the generation of such expensive, violent, Damned poverty.
It is not an accident. It is delibarate. There is zero possibility of 'reform'. It's a smokescreen (IDS's sincerity is irrelevant).
This IS the policy.
A degenerate nation is the objective. This is a spiritual battle and 'our' enemy is wicked, not confused.
They are not well meaning.
They hate 'our' guts and will happily see civilisation fall before they stop or retreat.

'twas ever thus..

Hope your friend recovers.

--------------------------------------------

Sir Grampus.

"I wasn't depressed until I bought a holiday caravan in Skeggie."

YOU GO TOO FAR SIR !

What's wrong with Skeggie ?

Skeggie was a magical sunshine, sandcastles and ice cream paradise when I was seven.
Today, it's great to see the shinning excited eyes of small children exclaiming,
"We're goin' down Skeggie Mr Richardson ! Me and me mam and sister and everyone !"

(I teach primary aged children in Leicester.)

I recall catching a Starfish and carefully putting him in a plastic bag under our caravan one summer. He was not allowed in the caravan. I remember running to see him the next morning.
He was dead ! Not enough water you see ?Poor little fella. All on his own. Still makes me sad....

No Skeggie is just fine...when you're seven.

Augustus

Charles Hercock - I would have thought that now would be an ideal political climate for this government to raise all sorts of questions about democratic accountability and the exact relationship of citizens to the EU, especially following the recent murmurings of direct taxation in some form.
But instead of disdain at this continued super-state's self-aggrandisement, this government shows only continued admiration for the beloved EU enterprise, and aren't of course troubled in the slightest by fundamental political issues entailing a significant transfer of sovereignty. They are in fact more than ready to take any step, accept any proposal, suffer any disadvantage, which these outrageous bureaucrats can now so neatly pluck from the Lisbon Treaty. Is Britain really to be relegated to a shadow of its former self, by default? Or can it ever again look to wider horizons to preserve its own identity,
parliamentary powers, and sense of national pride?

Occasional Ostrich

Rhoda Klapp

Thanks, Rhoda! A month into the silly season I'm so fed up with it all, but the only description my stunned mind could come up with was 'ennui'. 'Weltschmerz' is so-oo much better a word. German has always been for me a very unintuitive language (probably mental rust through being exposed to it only for short sharp visits about every 5 years) but they do come up with some wonderful words that describe the modern human condition much better than any other language.

Verity

Augustus - I give you two words: The Anglosphere.

We must dump Dave and get a more international, yet loyal Brit, in office.

I don't know how this is to be done, but I have been saying it for over three years now: The Anglosphere.

So has James Bennet, author of ... "The Anglosphere".

Robert Taggart

2010 = 476 ? (anno domini).
All this talk of decline... will we go, are we going, have we gone... the way of the Roman Empire ? !
Talking of Empire... Pakistan / floods / aid... methinks those of Pakistani origin living over here are doing quite enough along with 'our' government to pay for the relief effort.
AWK1, here, here, here.
AngloWelshDragon, where is your fire ? !

Verity

Augustus, what you have to take into account is, Davie's ambitions in the EUSSR. As I've said before, he feels a natural sense entitlement to be a member of the Nomenklatura and he knows the Nomenklatura are housed in Brussels. One of the chosen to rule because ... oh, .... because, well, he's a patronising git. He wants to be chauffered in a car in a lane reserved for the Nomenklatura. The same ambitions as Tony Blair, but Tone was a bit too flash and didn't have the pedigree ...

Not only is Davie Dim not over-abundanced with grey cells, but he was slotted, by the skin of his teeth, with some fancy footwork by his managers, into the Premiership of Britain, in a manner of speaking, because he would serve a purpose there without being a bore by asking too many questions ...

Unfortunately on this pre-Roman occupation posting apparatus, I cannot refer back to your post, Ausgust, to develop the argument as the this posting block covers your post. Bring on Julius Caesar and the lads!

Verity

Occasional Ostrich - 'Weltschmerz' means ennui? I like it!

On the other hand, Weltschmerz sounds too active for boredom. Ennui sounds like a sigh - and a dismissive sigh, at that.

On the other hand, Weltschmerz sounds actively dismissive.

I'm going to go with the German.

Archie

Well, quite, Aleksandr, and did you also notice - as I've observed here before - a very distinctly pro right-wing leaning panel, and I believe, audience? Perhaps al-Beeb can feel the way the wind is starting to blow.

Archie

And yes, Anne Wotana Kaye 1, I agree completely with your comments. How much "aid" should we give to a nation which is manifestly trying to destroy us by immigration or whatever means possible, but which also has nuclear weapons and an international airline. My sentiments apply equally to India and China.

Archie

Verity and Augustus: the problems of bringing temporary workers into the U.S. are pretty much insurmountable. The (legal) immigration laws are among the tightest on the planet, the current aggro along the Southern border nonwithstanding, and this before all the inevitable legal challenges rear their beautiful heads. On top of which this will be the most scrutinized building project of all time. No chance of anyone pulling a fast one, I fancy! And where exactly IS the money for this building coming from?
Charles Hercock: please let us REMAIN with the EU obsession.

Andy Carpark

What you didn't miss

Scrap metal frankfurter wins Turner
Jez Righton | Comments (0)

Semiotics of the Teletubbies
Ziggy Pseud | Comments (1)

Simon: Hey, Ziggy. Great to have you on the blog. Any time mate. Ciao. Later. Mine's a frappucino.

It's all happening down under the railway arches, maaaan!
Marc Nash | Comments (0)

Wouldn't you simply die without Mahler?
Lucinda Lavendar | Comments (1)

Reg Varney: No.

How about a bit of Joy Division for a change?

Simon Mason | Comments (0)

Daedalus

Just watching Dispatches from last night about the Pakistani/Bangladeshi muslim communities marrying first cousins and the genetic issues that then arrive. Quite frankly this beggars belief in this day and age with the medical and genetic knowledge we now have. British royalty was brought up as another example of inbreeding but how long is since the royal family did that?
Listening to some of the comments from older parents just goes to show how ingrained “family” is, nothing wrong with that you may say; but listen to younger Asians and there seemed to be a real feeling of disgust about it. This needs to really be addressed, forced marriage seems to be a part of it as well as financial pressures and “honour”. I am not one for new laws after the last 13 years, but the abolition of 1st cousin marriage should seriously be considered. The tragedy of some of the people affected is heartbreaking to see, but there is also a cost to society in the treatment of these avoidable conditions, £250,000 per child per year was mentioned, that has to be a good reason in its self .
The theme that came out was “it’s part of our culture”, it may well be in Pakistan but it’s not in the UK; this has got to be one of the worst effects of multi-culturism we have; it’s probably too late now to talk of integration.
My question is what can we do?
Daedalus

Ronnie

Ah yes, the Angloshere. A concept as magnificent as the Non-Creating Creator.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

I saw an item on the BBC News about the wonderful Chelsea Pensioners. Old, some creeping along on sticks, bent, wrinkled, past their sell-by date? Forget it! Their eyes shone behind their glasses, and they proudly wore their medals and spoke precisely to the commentator. These men - and now some ex-servicewomen - have given up their pensions so they csn remain with their colleagues living in the historic Chelsea Royal Hospital. They live in little wooden 'rooms' 9x9 with only 4 toilets per 36 pensioners. Some modernisation has taken place, but to accomodate them all, £30 million is needed. Now THIS is a charitys we should all try to help, and I'd like to see some of our millionaire peers, of all political parties, setting the ball rolling.

alexsandr

Thought for today on BBC Radio 4 today (Tues 54th Aug) mentioned a flooding disaster in africa. So why is that not receiving news coverage????

charles hercock

Augustus
Neil Turner
Others so EU obsessed

The recession has led the EU into terminal navel gazing such that we can forget about Europe for a parliament
Let us have no more EU paranoia

AngloWelshDragon

@ John Richardson.

Thank you. I wouldn't say this appalling event has changed my political view although it has, as you say informed it. Perhaps it was a route my views would have taken and this has given me a push along it.

When we debated crime, immigration and capital punishment and Verity would come out with some totally OTT statement (love you V!) I would role my eyes and mutter "yes but the state shouldn't kill its own citizens blah blah".

Well now I just think bollox to that! If those 3 immigrants had not been here my friend wouldn't have been severely beaten and sexually molested. Sod their human rights, sod the EU, sod the economy and the demographic time bomb. My first priority would be to cut their filthy heads off.

I would rather my opinions were shaped by debate and reasoning but if they must be shaped by bitter experience, so be it. Perhaps those among us who sometimes take a hardline also have more than philosophical reasons so to do.

On the subject of subject of Skeggy I am with Sir Graphus. Howling wind, cold sea, wind farm about 3 feet from shore, greasy chips, chavs, hen parties from hell. Nottingham-on-Sea they call it in these parts!

AngloWelshDragon

@ Robert Taggart
Read the final comment on last weeks Wall to find out where my fire went. It will be back though. I am currently gargling meths and vodka. That and a weeks camping in the land of my fathers next week should see this dragon restored to full fighting form.

Rhoda Klapp

I see the eloi known as Massie is running the mosque story up the flagpole again. Blimey.

Robert Taggart

re: AngloWelshDragon, here, here, here (last weeks last words), no... literally so... both terrestrial television networks up here covered this story / slag in detail last week.
As for Skeggy (yes, with a y surely ?), well, Blacky = Chavonia !
Oh, just out of idle curiosity... does one know you ? know what I mean ?!

Augustus

Verity - I'm sure that you are right about
Dave's EU ambitions. A sort of genetic nomenclature for mice.

Charles Hercock - No, not obsessed, merely vexed by an evil political spirit.

Daedalus - Yes, this is an amazing state of affairs. Why doesn't the Government run a proper publicity campaign? I posted something about this on Melanie Phillips' blog (Britain today) and a poster called Harold accused me of spreading 'poison'. One has to wonder at the lengths to which dhimmitude will go to protect religious convictions.

Rhoda Klapp

OK, who sent me to the culture pages to cure my weltschmerz? BM, was it you? I'll get you for that, some day.

Wilhelm

Ronnie

So predictable and so pathetic, kid.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

To all Skeggie Bloggers: In today's pathetic parlance 'I do not do caravans in Skegness, nor anywhere else'. Neither 'Do I do depression. Outright rage is more my thing, innit?'

Wilhelm

Roda Klapp

Do you actually spend your precious time wasting it by reading the inane scribblings and twitterings from pro sharia's, useful idiot Alex Massie, for ever known now as Allah Massie.

Robert Taggart

re: AngloWelshDragon... does this mean you be a PINK Dragon ? !
?... google 'white dragon flag' plus 'the white dragon flag of the english' via facebook to understand !

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Regarding the Claudy Bombing, the media report that Father Chesney was protected by the Catholic Church and the State. What one finds odd,is that the excuse for the State is that it didn't want to give the impression of persecuting Catholics. Surely no right minded person would condemn the Catholics for the sins of one particular man or group. Catholics are after all, an integral part of the Christian faith and a vibrant part of our British ethos and culture.
Perhaps we should rename Northern Ireland as the North Bank, many of the people who live there as Settlers, and ask the UN to poke its long nose into the affairs of this region. It might take the pressure off the Middle East.

yank

And now for something truly important: How manly is your drink?

http://www.askmen.com/daily/photo_blog/infograph-how-manly-is-your-drink.html

Wilhelm

I know this may shock and upset a lot of people, some folk may faint, so get the smelling salts ready. Dont read the next sentence if you are easily upset.

Quite frankly I dont care about the Haiti earthquake victims or the Pakistan flood. Why should I since the corrupt leaders of these nations dont care either about their own people.

Haiti is a very interesting place, its the biggest basket case on the planet. Since its independence, its been 200 years of disaster. Japan has earthquakes but they have learned to build with the right materials to with stand an earth quake, so no one dies.

250.000 Haitians died but because they have very high birth rates, they will make that number up in 3 or 4 years. Millions of people die around the world, we cant live for ever.

Verity

No news of those poor coalminers in Chile (on our side during the Falklands) trapped 4.6 miles inside a collapsed mine? The president of Chile announced yesterday, looking like a little boy for whom Christmas has come early, that they had managed to attached a piece of paper to a wire that had been angled in for some purpose, and every one of the 33 is alive. They are in an area the size of a small apartment, and they will stay their for the next three to four months while the rescue workers try to reach them. American and Aussie engineers with experience in this particular problem (whatever it is) are already in Chile helping out.

It's a wonderful story. The photo of the people's - mainly women - who were waiting at the mineface when they heard all their men were alive and no one injured brought tears to my eyes.

I know it's nothing to do with British politics, but then, neither are David Cameron's wife and new kid.

Wilhelm

Correction

I should have wrote Achmed Massie or Abdul Masie

strapworld

AWK1..You are wrong. The Nationalists, IRA would have wrung this for all it was worth. The English/Army/Police..taking on the Catholics without any evidence etc etc etc. You can see them now, in your minds eye, just saying it over and over and over. The street riots, armed service and police personnel killed, bombings increased.

Sad and sickening as it is, I can certainly see the logic of it all, sadly. Mind you one cannot condone the church authorities allowing this beast to carry on being a churchman. He was certainly not the first nor the last to get involved!

yank

Following an initial and atypical scattered analysis (likely a result of his recent serious illness), the great Christopher Hitchens has regained his footing, and herein reviews the situation RE the Ground Zero mosque, giving all their proper weight.

A Test of Tolerance

No offense to the Spectator, but not a one of you seems to understand your cousins over here, albeit a few of you caricature yourselves attempting to do so. Hitch is one Brit who isn't patient with caricature, in himself or his writings. Do read it.

Rhoda Klapp

Rhoda: But Wilhelm. we must work at building bridges with our liberal-minded eloi cousins, because they are not all extremists, we can come to an accommodation with moderate liberalism and work together to isolate and shame the nutters, and agree on a common program. Not all of them want to establish the new world order, some only want to live in peace, to assimilate into the real world.

Answer: Is that why they call us racist bigots at every opportunity?

Rhoda: OK, Sod em all.

Verity

Thanks, Wilhelm. And now the Pakistanis know that when you bomb innocent people going about their ordinary lives, and disrespect servicemen being brought home in their coffins, and when you should insults and hold up insulting signs at returning troops, people in rich, intelligent countries are inclined to notice and not harbour the faintest degree of sympathy for you and your natural disasters.

I suggest you don't look West for help. Look to your allah who, frankly, hasn't done that well by you in the scheme of things. Maybe you should switch to Scientology.

AngloWelshDragon

@ Robert Taggart
Never thought of my colour in that sense! Red and white make pink it's true but pinko - well definitely not. Welsh father, English Mother, proud to be British, blue in tooth and claw and a bit of a firebreather according to my husband.

AngloWelshDragon

@ Robert Taggart

I have just google the White Dragon flag of the English as you suggested. I love it! We fly the Union Jack and I love the Welsh Dragon but I am not keen on the St George's Cross. Personally I think we should have a British patron saint not a dragon slaying Turk. Also the red cross on white ground has been ususrped by football numpties (One emblazoned with a beer companies logo still droops from a lamp post in our village). I think I will start flying the white and red dragons together. Just not sure which should go on top though!

Noa

strapworld

'..Mind you one cannot condone the church authorities allowing this beast to carry on being a churchman..'

The thought crossed my mind that this comment also applies to that apologist for Dhimmitude, the Archmufti of Canterbury.

Wilhelm

Rhoda

Trying to use reason with a liberal like Achmed Massie is like going to the monkey cage at the zoo and reasoning with the chimps. You just dont do it, do you ?

I think mockery is the best tactic because liberals like Achmed Massie dont have a sense of humour, they take themselves far too seriously, too busy saving the Africa.

John Richardson

As my response to Rhoda Klapp re Coffee House topics, and my witterings about who is
actually funding the New York Mosque and why, are not to be posted, I'll have to restrict myself to Mr 'yank's eternal question....

'How manly is your drink ?'

Mr 'yank', I would like to respond in the form of a true story.

Humphrey Bogart, on his death bed, spoke the immortal last words;

"I never should have switched from Scotch to Martini."

...sniff...if that isn't enough to bring a tear to your eye....

AngloWelshDragon

Verity @ 3:46pm

Too right! You can't laud the actions of the 7/7 bombers and expect much sympathy for your troubles round our way. We only have so much money to spare - better to give it to people we know to be our friends than to those we suspect to be our enemies.

Rhoda Klapp

I had heard hints that the appeal for the Pakistani floods had not done so well. Now we have the government proclaiming that the British public are leading the world in donations. First, whoop-de-doo. Second, are you sure? For the tsunami, I know of several impromptu local fund-raising efforts that started immediately. For this flood, nothing. Limited sympathy for Pakistan? Probably. Hope they don't have to sell their nukes.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

At 6 o'clock News, the families and friends of those men trapped underground was a sight which sent goose pimples all over me. How fortunate we are who do not have to earn a living in such dangerous places. Let them all return safely.

Noa Zrk

A friend of mine has just started his own export business.
Manufacturing landmines that look like prayer mats.
It’s doing very well.
He says Prophets are going through the roof.

Verity

Noa Zrk - Hysterical! I've sent it on.

Robert Taggart

re: AngloWelshDragon. Aha, a Dragoness ! (methinks we do not know one another, but, the clues in your previous 'firings' led one to believe...)
Regarding the flying of the Dragon flags... White on top, well, the Reds are still our subjugates, are they not ? !

Alexandrovich

Noa, I had just taken the last mouthful of my Horlicks as I read your joke. Thanks a bunch. Now tell me how to clean this bloody keyboard.

Noa Zrk

Are you sick to your hadith with fatuous religious freedom arguments for the win Towers Anniversary Mosque being pushed by the liberal useful idiots so ably represented by the Allah Massive and its associated reivers?

Then turn the screw!

Support a campaign for the entire ground zero site, including the 'Bloody Ground' for the Allah Victory Mosque, to be returned forthwith to the Manhattoes, the original dispossessed native owners, for their own animist spiritual uses.

Noa Zrk

Why conservatives shouldn't believe in man made climate change.

The 'science' doesn't stand up to close inspection
The satellite data is flawed and so the 'hockey stick' effect is wrong, being based on incorrect Monte Carlo modelling predications.
Many temperature stations are badly sited.
The scientists have been shown to be devious, self interested and subjective (despite three thin coats of whitewash).
They won't make all the temperature data public.
They won't make the climate model code open source.
The so called scientific consensus is only a few dozen scientists.
As many and more scientists think the hypothesis is flawed and wrong.
Too many opportunists view it as a gravy train.
Governments haven't been able to resist using it as an excuse for punitive taxation.
The only way to monitor carbon emissions would be to make the world an Orwellian nightmare.
It leads to ludicrous energy policies.
It demonises plant food and primary energy sources.
The last forty years show no warming trend
We have now seen two 'brass monkey' winters in a row
Chief AGW architect Maggie Thatcher now thinks it's a load of BULLS**T
Too many grungy ugly greenies believe in it
People who believe in it are ugly and they smell.
Georgie 'The Moonbat' Monbiot believes in it.
Caroline 'watermelon, crimson, trotskyite' Lucas believes in it.
Rajendra 'Casey Jones' Pachauri believes in it.
Chris 'The Lhuhne' Huhne believes in it.
Gordon 'scorched-earth' 'I saved the world' Brown believes in it.
Jo 'climate fear promoter' Abbess believes in it.
Al 'Sex Poodle' Gore doesn't believe in it, but pretends he does.
The Chinese and Indians don't buy it and won't destroy their economies for it.
The Germans don't buy it despite the fact they love green issues.
My cat thinks it's a load of rubbish.

.... but by far and away the most important reason? ....

Because it's complete bollocks.

Noa Zrk

Alexandrovich

"Now tell me how to clean this bloody keyboard".

Thoroughly!

Wilhelm

A very good website which tells you all the multicultural catastrophic news you dont hear about on the lame stream media is American Renaissance or www. am ren. com, written by the eloquent and witty Jared Taylor, check him out on YouTube.

Last night I read that 200 women and baby boys were gang raped by Congo rebels, source Associated Press. Africa really is the heart of darkness, isnt it ?

Verity

"A Downing Street spokesman said: "The Prime Minister and Mrs Cameron are delighted to announce the birth of their fourth child, a baby girl. Both the baby - who was born weighing 6lbs 1oz - and Mrs Cameron are doing very well.

"The PM and Mrs Cameron would like to thank the doctors and nurses at the hospital for their help and kindness."

Who the hell does this creep think he is to be issuing such princely announcements to the public? He isn't even an elected prime minister. He´s just a temp.

AngloWelshDragon

@ Noa Zrk 10.30pm
I am printing your list off and sticking it to my office wall as we speak. It will be my box of ammunition for dealing with passing warmists.

Sam ARMSTRONG

Noa Zrk: At first I tutted at your mention of The Blessed Margaret being the first AGW proponent, but I do now remember her flirtation with environmental issues. I remember her picking up scraps of litter for the cameras and going all 'green' in the last few years of 1980s. She must have been 'advised' to do that...

John Richardson

Sam Armstrong.

A while ago, the BBC reported that M. Thatcher had, in the 1980s, advocated the 'theory' of AGW due to CO2 emissions.
They stated that this was a part of her 'war' against the miners and thus a secondary justification for 'closing uneconomic mines'. Her official reason for the pit closure programme.
Then again, the BBC has for 30 years claimed M. Thatcher said, 'There is no such thing as society.'
The BBC always basically lied about that, so take your pick.....
I remember the miners strike very clearly and recall zero Government promotion of the CO2 = planetary destruction myth.

Personally, I think the BBC are twisting the facts. Though I admit I do despise them...

MikeF

Article here on the BBC website about gypsies and travellers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11080726

It is, of course, utterly biased. Note the reference towards the end about the possibility of 'vocal resident' (note that emotive word 'vocal') gaining influence over local politicians. Funny but I thought politicians were meant to be influenced by the people who vote for them.

Ronnie

Wilhelm, ever been to Africa or is this just another puff of wind, dik?

AngloWelshDragon

@ Wilhelm

I just put the AmRen website into my browser at work. It came up "Racism and Hate" are filtered. Oooops!

Austin Barry

Pakistani Floods - Result:

God 1 Allah 0

AngloWelshDragon

@ Mike F

Travellers are a huge issue here in Derbyshire. In one village the same group has been moved off the same land 12 times already this year, each time living a dreadful mess to be cleared at council tax payers expense. They seem to make a living from selling scrap metal, often of doubtful provenance, round the local scrap yards. We had a landrover bumper taken from our drive before my husband had a chance to put it in the garage. He had to chase them down the road to get it back! They seem to make a good living though as none seem to drive vehicles older than 58 plate.

However, an illwind always blows someone some good and a local precast manufacturer is doing a roaring trade in blocks and beams which are laid on many local verges and across many gateways.

Eagle Corps

A fascinating piece by Mary Ellen Synon on the Obama's debacle:

http://synonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2010/08/a-mosque-at-ground-zero-not-here-not-ever.html

yank

For those interested, the bloodletting being inflicted on the political establishment here continues apace.

The foolish Left first denigrated the "Tea Party" types as a right wing astroturf movement. And the devious Right was silent on the matter, but has quietly attempted to coopt them, and make them their own, just as the Left wants to believe. They were both in full alignment, in other words.

This is the political establishment's view of affairs... to fit it into their comfortable templates... and allow more of them to survive the electoral process.

They're both mistaken. The pile of bloody heads continues to grow, and especially since it's the party primary season, the mix is composed of a nice bipartisan blend of bloody heads, including a goodly portion of alleged "conservative" heads, inshallah Goldwater.

In the US Senate, where 1/3 of the 100 come up every 2 years, so far this season it appears 3 sitting senators have had their heads removed in their primaries. Added to the 1 who retired a few months ago rather than face a certain beheading, that means +10% of the incumbent senators have suffered cranial detachment.

That figure alone puts this cycle near historical highs... and we're not yet even out of the primary cycle. The November election itself will be the true bloodletting.

It is simply a glorious time, if you truly want to bring about hope and change.

A nice capture of what's happening here, which I believe to be an extension of the divided and transitional governments you and the Oz have experienced recently, as you lot move through this same process of a restoration of proper governance. We are of a piece with this trend, albeit trending it in our more bloody fashion:

The New Political Division

Verity

Austin Barry - V good!

Re the miners, the government has sent down phones so they can be in touch with their families, but at the same time. they're concerned that some family member may blurt out the length of time this rescue is going to take place. The men currently don't know the 30 of them will be in that tiny enclosed space for at least three months. I think all of us who aren't engineers secretly believe that the rescue won't take four months and that the men will be scrambling out with happy smiles in a couple of weeks. But science is cold and logical.

Ronnie

Yank, it's called realignment of the political system from the bottom up. Enjoy.

Noa Zrk

Sam ARMSTRONG 10:38am

Of course the Lord is always ready to forgive a truly repentant sinner!

Frank P

Verity

What's your take on Gerard's piece about the southern border issues; how about a first hand report from the sharp end?

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/bad_americans/the_big_pinata.php

Would appreciate your perspective.

Sam ARMSTRONG

John Richardson: The dates don't add up because the miners' strike ended in 1986, and global warming can't have been on the scene before 1988. It kind of 'fits' though, that demonising 'pollution' would assist the kind of change in the economy that she craved... but how absolutely depressing if true...

Noa Zrk: Are you referring to Margaret Thatcher, or me?

John Richardson

Sam Armstrong.

'The dates don't add up...'

Why, how dare you ?
You know nothing about my...oh...oh, wait, Thatcher and the miners !
Oh. I see. Right.
Yeah, remember 'acid rain gonna kill us all' ?
That was linked to coal-fired power generation as I recall.
I agree that the CO2 nonsense was not (directly) linked to M.Thatcher at the time. However, 'the hole in the ozone layer' lie was being promulgated circa '87.
The miner were on strike sometime in '84 as I attended a R. Albert Hall rally in support that year (an roughly two year long strike).
It seems comical now.
I thought the country needed revolutionary socialism at that age (14-15) when all I actually needed was a girlfriend.
(You see what trouble you caused......Vanessa Wright !)
'I can laugh now but at the time it was terrible.'

Verity

I'd love to read it, Frank P, but, again, a sign that says Forbidden comes up when I put the link in my address bar. Tried it two or three times, but won´t come up.

Noa Zrk

Verity commented on another blog

"..You appear to be clinically insane. I recommend a pre-frontal lobotomy".

And I recommend a full bottle in front of me...

I'll get me coat.

Frank P

Verity

Let's try it thisaway:

[The article opens with a picture of lots of smiling Mexicans carrying a star shaped 'pinata']

The Big Pinata
Take my country, please.

We talk about sealing the border. We talk about not letting the Mexican flag prevail over the American flag. It's all nonsense. The real symbol of Mexican illegal immigration goes unremarked. It's right there in the foreground. It's the Pinata.

The pinata is a bright candy-and-toy-filled container (generally suspended on a rope from a tree branch or ceiling) that is used during celebrations. A succession of blindfolded, stick-wielding children try to break the pinata in order to collect the candy inside of it. -- Wikipedia

I submit that America as The Big Pinata is what all this is about. It's all it ever has been about. This Mexican flag over the American flag hung upside down (Distress!) simply takes our eye off the ball, or rather, the pinata. And since pinatas are normally approached blindfolded, that's not surprising.

The kids above know, even if it is unconsciously, that the pinata is what is at stake here. What illegals from Mexico and every other country want most is unlimited chances to step over the line and take another swing at The Big Pinata. To date our border reality, if not our policy, enables that.

Those Americans who would like to think that there really is a border want the number of chances to take a swing cut back to somewhere below absolute zero. Those Americans who are consumed with the notion that self-esteem is more important than security favor unlimited swings along with policies that feed, clothe, medicate, and otherwise care for those 'wretched masses yearning to get the Big Pinata jackpot.'

Congress seems to be going for a policy which is: "Okay, kids, you get unlimited swings but, damnit, you gotta get in line, sign the guest book, and take your turn. After all, we can't have a horde of party animals just whaling away at the Big Pinata from all directions. Somebody could get hurt. And while you're waiting, could most of you please walk the dog, water the grass, take out the garbage, mind the deep fryer, give our spouses a little satisfaction in the afternoon, and do all those other dirty, little jobs that 'Americans just won't do.' You know, like coal mining."

In the meantime, it's clear that the Pinata Party is going to continue. After all, what can really shut it down? The fun's too cool. The prizes are too rich. And they're not even carding most people.

I know, I know -- a Wall; favored solution of Israel and East Germany. It'll probably happen in some form or another, but -- in the present political climate -- it's not going to happen anytime soon, mano, so be cool.

In America, just the argument about the wall is good for another five years. Then there'd have to be "legislation" for appropriation since no state is going to pay for it. That's at least two sessions of Congress right there. Then we'll have the period in which the various federal agencies will draw up the specs. Then the bidding period. Then the review of the bidding period. Then the review of the bids. Then the discovery that the winner of the bidding process is a company owned by Halliburton. Whoops, back to square one. Then the awarding of the contract. Then the beginning of the construction of a barrier that's what, a thousand miles long? Get back Great Wall of China, here's something else that can be seen from space with the naked eye.

Timeline? Ten years minimum. Fifteen in realistic terms. Twenty in Washington Time.

And guess what? The Big Pinata will still be there and the party will still be going strong, and the people will still keep a coming.

I mean, wouldn't you? If you are a person with an IQ level a few points above that of broccoli, and you want to make some money and have a good life, and you suddenly discover that, oops, you've been born in a Third World oligarchy like Mexico, without the benefit of being born into the Mexican oligarchy, you're walking north, compadre. North is where they're having the pinata party. And you don't care that the party's been walled up inside an exclusive club with a bunch of big armed bouncers manning the velvet rope and checking ID, you're going to get in somehow.

If anyone thinks a wall is magic bullet that puts our immigration problem out of its misery, they are sadly mistaken. As inventive as the means of getting in now sometimes seem (hiding people "inside" car seats, leasing children in order to become an instant familia), they will seem like amateur hour once a wall (physical, electronic, cyber) goes up. Once that's done, we're in for decades of Wile E. Coyote antics south of El Paso. Human catapults. Rent-A-Rocket Packs, Pocket Submarines, the Full Rube Goldberg.

Why? Because we've done everything possible to stop the flood except the one thing that would stop the flood: call off the party and slap the organizers of the Big Pinata Raves into jail, pronto, so they can't organize any more. And, while we're at it, we need to make sure any pinata around is empty. Yes, even if you make it and hit it, you get bubkis. Nothing falls out. After all, when a slot machine doesn't have a jackpot, nobody plays it.

Will we do it? Will we really throw the people who hand out the jobs in jail? Will we stop giving free food, shelter, medical care, education, and citizenship to babies born on American soil no matter the status of their parents? "In the present political climate," no way, Jose.

The stark reality is that for this country to get serious about immigration and controlling our borders, something else other than just a flood of illegals coming in on a daily basis has to happen. Something terrible. Something that doesn't just cost mere money and jobs, but costs lives. A lot of lives. That's the one way, the only way, that anything will be done. And what will be done then will be, well, the most terrible solution to the border problem any can imagine, and nobody wants.

Communist East Germany. Searchlights and the Stasi . With the guns pointed out and Predators high overhead.

And that, my friend, is. not. going. to. happen.

Vanderleun : August 25, 10 | Your Say (16) | PermaLink:

Let me know if they block this post.

Derek

I see from this cat in a bin business that England is well on the road back to drowning witches.

Noa Zrk

Mien Gott, mien herren und damen, but it's quiet in the Coffee House at the mo'!

The cabinet and the footstools are all on their hols, their staffs left carefully reviewing the latest expenses guide for loopholes. Dave is no doubt checking his family benefit entitlements with IDS.

Elsewhere gruntled inky-fingered Speccie journos are lazing on sunny beaches, disgruntled ones share their inherent dissatisfaction of life with us by telling tales of the Labour Party's dis-embowelling ritual, quaintly known as the leadership contest or that New York must be Mecca-nised forthwith.

Clegg is left in charge of the shop, the faded sign "For Sale Everything Must Go!" flutters disconsolately, to the dusty floor.

Posters themselves suffer from Weltzmertz; Nicholas, hardly heard of for weeks, Rhoda, pining for Bright to torture.

It's nearly autumn, short days and long nights, cold rain, steaming scrums, budget cuts. The politics and arguments will resume as the phony war ends and the phonies return.

Thank God.

Noa Zrk

A cat in a hot bin? Strewth!

It's enough you make you Blanche.

Verity

Thanks, Frank!

I didn't stick with it all the way through. In fact, I started skipping after reading that Mexico is "a third world oligarchy".

Maybe that's because although we have dependable garbage collection six days a week, we don't have to separate the garbage. Maybe that makes us third world.

Also, although there's a good national health service, foreigners don't get treated free. Maybe that makes us third world.

Yet the utilities are dependable, shops and stores take items back with a till receipt, without an argument, the traffic is orderly and, in the main, courteous.

I don´t know where to begin, but as to oligarchy, the conservative People's Action Party has only been in for around nine years, after 50 or more of dingbat communism (or whatever they called it). Elections are held regularly, including for state and city governments.

Conservative Fox was in for six years (two three year terms and that's your lot) and under him the whole government started being reorganised and things that didn't work before began to crank into action. They've revamped all the government departments to make them accountable. That's the problem with socialism. Intelligent people have to come in and unravel the mess.

A third world oligarchy? What a baffling observation!

daifromwales

Just back from hols (no internet...) and see comments about exam results/IQ/etc.

It seems to me to be bizzare that almost nobody points out that the probability that people are becoming more intelligent is effectvely zero because there are so many applicants that significant fluctuation in their genetic make-up is not possible. And in any case: it's irrelevant. The only purpose of exams is to allow potential employers (or institutions such as univarsities) to discriminate fairly between applicants. So any examination system which allows grade inflation to take place is clearly faulty. Exam results, overall, MUST remain the same year on year. If grade inflation takes place, the examination boards and their political masters are guilty of fraudulent deception. Are they too stupid to understand this - or are they really guilty? I think they are both...

John Richardson

"Making progress on this agenda requires focussing on reducing the mobility blocks contained in the benefit system and improving educational outcomes for the poorest."
This from 'Reform' over in the Coffee House.

I never ever imagined for one moment that 'Welfare Reform' would really happen.

For me, it has always been an obvious smokescreen for tax rises and the destruction of the middle class, as they have been known, post war.

For some reason, the above passage allowed me to think again about explaining this unpleasant truth to others.

look at the above, if you will, and ask...

1) What is 'Welfare Reform' for ?
To spend less or more ?

2) Who benefits should it 'succeed' ?

Impossible to answer unless we know...

3) What is success ?

Less money being redistributed to all ? More money being redistributed to some ?
The same sums being redistributed to a smaller number people ?
A smaller total number of people getting less money ?
The same amounts being redistributed to the same people more efficiently ?
More people in low paying jobs getting more money redistributed to them (incentivising work) ?
Less money being redistributed to single parents who work (incentivising marriage) ?
More money being redistributed to low earners who are married (incentivising marriage) ?
Better exam results for those who at present do not pass exams (surly no-one honestly thinks exams can get easier) meaning much higher spending on the lowest achievers ?
Compelling employers to employ claimants who do not want to work ?

Just a few questions.

All this with 100,000s arriving each year. Most to receive benefit, a small number to depress unskilled and semi-skilled wages.

The above, I hope, demonstrates the glaring moral and intellectual dishonesty of the whole 'Welfare Reform' sham.

The answer is most likely 'No', to all the above.
There is zero public agreement about the true aims of 'Welfare Reform'(what success would look like) and this is for one reason.

Wealth redistribution using welfare payments IS THE WELFARE STATE'S POLICY.
Whether the economy shrinks or expands.
The social and moral decay is a price our rulers decided we would pay long ago.

This is why the destruction of the middle class is a foregone conclusion. They just haven't realised yet. This is why there is zero anxiety amongst the welfare class.
You can keep your middle class Child Benefit and your Cold Weather Payments.
Obviously, you lose the house on retirement though.

That's how it seems to me and I can see no other logical future. Nothing else makes sense.

(Poor IDS. I think if he realised he'd drop dead.)

...I wonder what Charlesh Kennedy shinks of the issue...he will know a sholution...

Wilhelm

Ronnie me old son

Ive never been to Africa and Ive never been to the north pole either but I know its cold there and I dont want to go there.

Yeah Ronnie, Africa is the apex of civilisation, its so sophisticated with their modern welfare states and advanced society, why, its just like Switzerland, isnt it ? !!

I wonder why then all the Africans have fled their continent and are now living in Europe ? Strange that, isnt it Ronnie ?

daniel maris

Daifromwales -

I don't think you're up to speed on this subject. For many decades people were getting more intelligent in that the IQ tests had to be made harder because the average was being attained by a greater and greater proportion. This is a well established fact and it wasn't a matter of a small adjustment - there was a huge leap in intelligence which commentators put down to improved education, television and other factors which made people more adept at manipulating information. Whether we are now going into reverse is perhaps unclear. The internet and computer games might be have differential effects and we don't know how that is going to play out.

Wilhelm

The plain looking woman ( aged 48, bank clerk, no husband ) who put the cat in the bin, which you can see on YouTube.

Whats shocking about it is the cat wasnt doing anybody any harm, the woman went up to it and stroked it, she was friendly to it, then she put it in the bin. The cat is defenceless, it cant stick up for itself and the crime is motiveless. She said '' It was a joke '' and '' I didnt mean any harm ''. Obviously all lies.

Some one should stick her in a bin for 15 hours, see how she likes it, the bully. What a nasty ugly bitch she is.

London Calling

Made In Britain…

Following the closure of Woolworth’s stores across the UK last year, 40% still remain unused, however pound shops are flourishing to accommodate the demand for cheaper items. Woolworth stores generally cover a large space which consequently demands higher rent, therefore unless the large space is broken up into smaller units the only alternative is a another supermarket, but the problem is most high streets already have an existing Waitrose, Sainsburys etc, hence the remaining 40% Woolworths Ghost Shops left remaining. It’s a sad reflection of our times, especially with high unemployment and the desperate need for job creation, which brings me to the point I want to make about our dependency on imported goods and the one-way traffic of imported goods in general. The erosion of manufacturing in the UK due to the import of cheaper goods has not only left us economically vulnerable, it has stifled
Our creative innovation for new ideas and standing in the competitive global market, in the process of which cheaper imports are getting less cheap and we didn’t have a plan B. I’m praying we get smart and have more faith in creating jobs and goods Made in Britain and for it to mean something that we as a country can be proud of. I live in hope.

The following comment says it all…like we haven’t got any unemployed machinists in the UK…

“At the moment I am hand-making all of them but hope to mass-produce them in India or China for a fraction of the cost later this year.”

A dream solution... single mother set to make a fortune with three sides of buttons on her duvet cover

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306006/Single-mother-set-make-fortune-revolutionary-duvet-cover-opens-sides.html#ixzz0xfcC6UT8

In china …A tide of workers’ protest

http://www.opendemocracy.net/li-datong/china-tide-of-workers%E2%80%99-protest

In India ... Indian garment workers face harsh working conditions

http://somo.nl/news-en/indian-garment-workers-face-harsh-working-conditions/

Malfleur

Drug hitmen dump 72 bodies at Mexican ranch. (Reuters)

"We don't have to separate the garbage - may be that makes us third world." (Verity)

daifromwales

Daniel

You might be correct re: IQ scores might well be improving in a particular form of test which is 'easier' for generations brought up in an increasingly technological world - but the fact remains that the purpose of examinations remains the same - to allow others to discriminate. Thus: allowing grade inflation to take place devalues the system.
However: when I compare the intellectual demands made on readers of English Literature in the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, it seems to me that authors' demands on their readers have certainly fallen significantly. People are not 'cleverer' now than they were in the recent past (i.e. the past few hundreds or more) - indeed, survival for the unfortunately incompetent is so much easier now in Western societies that the converse is almost certainly true. Today, only the very poor (of whom there are many) and the very rich (of whom there are few) can afford to reproduce in large enough numbers to replace their death rates. So those less able or willing to perform increase in their majority in true Malthusian style. 'Natural Selection' works in favour of the unintelligent - for the first time for any species on planet Earth. This is already rectifying itself as our nation's international performance lags further behind that of nations who are less self-indulgent.
The Labour Party (of course) courts the poor as its natural supporters, so it has no interest in actions which will increase national prosperity since that would destroy its power base. Ultimately that is why all thoe 'nice, kind, considerate' socialists we all know actually have no real sense of morality whatsoever. The moral foundation of the Socialists is entirely absent.

John Richardson

“At the moment I am hand-making all of them but hope to mass-produce them in India or China for a fraction of the cost later this year.”

'A dream solution... single mother set to make a fortune with three sides of buttons on her duvet cover'

London Calling.

Disgusting on so many levels.
How much does she think the Chinese/Indians deserve to earn ?
Cow.
Only the disgusting MSM could still present globalisation of slavery in such a positive light.
Only the MSM could present the export of work/jobs as some kind of 'clever' solution.

We will get what we deserve.

The plan has been to remove wealth creation to slave states abroad.
To conceal this, the 'dumbed down' West has simply been showered with easy credit and Welfare payments; both borrowed to maintain the illusion of prosperity.
Borrowed from the international banks who now own your house, your company pension scheme, your health plan and your country.
All with money YOU bailed them out with, remember ?

The only funny aspect of this is that the shock troops of the New World Order (Police Officers, Social Workers, Council Workers etc)
will be going to the same bankers for their
'index-linked gold plated pensions' in about 10 15 or 20 years.
That's the only funny part.

Augustus

Talk of the silly season, martinis, and IQs,
leads me to this:

A man walking into a classy bar in London is amazed to find a robot bartender serving drinks. "What will you have?" Says the robot. The man says, "a dry martini." After producing the best dry martini ever the robot says, "what's your IQ?"

The man says, "168", and the robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration, and medical technology, whereafter the man leaves. But outside the door he's quite intrigued, so he returns to the bar. "What will you have?" Again the man says, "a dry martini", and again the robot produces yet another perfect drink.
The robot asks, "what's your IQ", and the man says, "100", and the robot starts to talk about travel, tractors, and stock car racing.

The man again leaves, but he is still so intrigued that he immediately returns to order another superb dry martini. When the robot asks, "What's your IQ", the man says,
"Oh, about 50", whereupon the robot moves it
head gently forward and says in a hushed tone: "So, are you people still happy you voted LibDem?"

Ronnie

Wilhelm, dik.

'I wonder why then all the Africans have fled their continent and are now living in Europe ?'

Why do you waste our time with this?

AngloWelshDragon

@ Sam Armstrong

Global Warming theory eas around earler than 1988. I remember being taught about it in A Level Geography in 1982 - as an alternative to the then prevailing orthodoxy of a new ice age!

Ronnie

John Richardson.

'The plan has been to remove wealth creation to slave states abroad.'

I have a question.

Do you think that the wealth is created at the point of production (in the 'slave state') or at the point where the profits are received (in the West, I presume)?

No trick, no attack, it's a serious point.

AngloWelshDragon

Augustus - superb! I laughed like a drain!

Austin Barry

So, one of our spooks was a cross-dresser.

This from the SIS web-site:

"Developed Vetting (DV) is the most detailed and comprehensive form of UK vetting. It is required for sensitive jobs and tasks, which involve long-term, frequent or uncontrolled access to SECRET material".

Nice to know that the vetting procedures are so much more robust than in the days of Philby, Burgess, MacLean etc. etc.

We're doomed chums.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Wilhelm: It was a horrible experience to read about that poor cat dumped in a wheelie bin. Almost as vile are the actions of the police in placing Community Support Police Officers (those cheaper rate auxilliary cops) around this evil woman's home in order to protect her. People can get murdered, 999 calls ignored, women (and men) battered, but a shortage of police prevents them intervening. Another case of our sick judiciary: The slag heap who urinated on a war memorial and performed a sex act has been spared prison. She has been given a chance 'to stop her heavy drinking and drug taking', and instead of a custodial sentence she has been left with a suspended one. Apart from wishing one could put that woman who abused the cat in a wheelie bin, I'd like to see somebody pour a chamber pot of urine over the magistrate in Blackpool who has such pity for a wretched slapper.

Verity

What AWK said. The woman who peed on the war memorial should have her face punched in. The fat slob who put a trusting little cat, who was interacting trustingly, in a bin, should be confined in the slammer for a couple of months.

yank

John Richardson: "The only funny aspect of this is that the shock troops of the New World Order (Police Officers, Social Workers, Council Workers etc)
will be going to the same bankers for their
'index-linked gold plated pensions' in about 10 15 or 20 years.
That's the only funny part."

.

.

Mr. Richardson,

We don't have to wait 10-20 years, as the hammer is falling on them even as we speak. The State of New Jersey recently sold some shady municipal bonds, which failed to disclose to investors the shaky nature of state finances, crippled by public employee benefit commitments. The SEC slapped NJ down viciously, and now they're being forced to go public with their weird bookkeeping. The newly revised bonds and yields will further erode the cash available to NJ. Something will have to give.

And California is about to issue IOU's again, because their budget is gone, due to public employee benefits and welfare state payments. Not even the Cali State House kooks can hide this. Their bond rating is below junk, below Greece's even.

Uncle Sam is skating along, because the rest of the world still seems clamorous to buy its treasuries... but that can't last. Those individual States are the canaries in the coal mine, and the canaries are falling off their perch.

But be not afraid. The patriot mujahidin here in the US are taking up their scimitars. It's on, baby.

Verity

My penultimate post was directed at a snide little bundle of uppity ignorance posting as Malfleur.

yank

AWK,

The old boys lined up at the courthouse, and gave that slag heap her proper welcome.

God bless those men, struggling into their best, and with failing step, standing for us and their mates... once more.

Will we ever see their like again?

Now's a time for us to take up their torch. The simple and personal things matter most, and are to be sentinelled by all.

daniel maris

Wealth is normally defined as goods and services that one can access - by purchase, by right or whatever. Monetary profit is only a small proportion of all wealth. Basically consumption = production = income I seem to recall, but profit is only a small percentage of wealth - normally somewhere between 5 and 10% .

Globally we have a situation where wealth has been increasing hugely. I think I am right in saying production just about doubled over the last 20 years. Where the increased wealth has been going has not been clear. Obviously a great amount has gone into lifting people out of poverty in places like China, India and Brazil. But we here are still working the five day week. The improvement in labour conditions has come to a grinding halt. The wealth is going somewhere. The huge bonus and salary inflation in the upper echelons must have been sucking a lot of up.

I think we should concentrate again on wealth production, through increased agricultural production and increased industrial production. We have seen recently how our growing popultation is causing food price inflation (because basically we just don't grow enough food). Instead of letting the sea nibble away at our coasts, we should be expanding out into the North Sea as the Dutch have done over centuries. We should also be pouring money in to hi tech agriculture: farm towers and polytunnels need further development.

On the industrial side we should invest in a channel road bridge - that would really give our industry a boost. And let's please forget nonsense about tolls (At least from the UK side). We would want that to be as successful as possible.

John Richardson

"I have a question.

Do you think that the wealth is created at the point of production (in the 'slave state') or at the point where the profits are received (in the West, I presume)?"
Ronnie.

Thanks for the response.

Good question.
I would answer that the wealth exists where it terminates, that is to say in those wretched major international banks.
That is to say in electronic accounts in 'cyberspace'.
One could almost argue the real 'wealth/money' has no physical existence any more, once a gold standard is renounced and electronic banking adopted.

Two important points.

One.
The globalisation process allows for the banking elites to control all human activity, to control all States, without having to deal with uppity Western Anglo-Saxons and their bothersome 'values'.
Globalisation extinguishes everything Western civilisation ever attempted to achieve. Very quickly.

Two.
It helps to think of wealth/money as a form of energy.
One implication of this is that we can see why the very rich and the very powerful prefer 'liquidation' and 'internationalisation' of every facet of wealth; they will control it all. Impossible in human history until now.

Oh, and this is why they must destroy the middle classes and their cultural/economic heritage.

Regards.

John Richardson

'yank'

Just read your 3:07pm posting and it 'cheered me up no end', as they would say in 'Skeggie'.

Excellent.

I can only admire a People still prepared to take direct action in defense of their own country, their own interests and their children's futures.
May Almighty God bless and protect the true patriots of America.
May Almighty God confound the enemies of Western civilisation and their evil designs.

Huuum.

That feels better.

Anyway,
over here it is still difficult to convince people to take any interest whatsoever in what the Schools teach THEIR children, what the BBC does with THEIR money, or what the Local Authority does with THEIR local property taxes.

Perhaps the spell will be broken with a little interest rate reality ? Who knows.

Here, the ruling parasitic class has total control of the public sphere, the Courts, the Police etcetera

I predict 'they' plan to import huge numbers of people to fill State jobs after a 'pension reality' type conflict in the near future.
They have already started: 20% recruits to the Army are foreign; I'd estimate 15-20% of teachers in London are foreign.

I ask; 'Do the British still deserve to be free ?'
Time will tell.

John Richardson

Oh, Verity.

You sure were correct about Israel, and that's a fact (see how I'm picking up the accent ? Does it suit me ?).

AngloWelshDragon

AWK1 and Verity - what you said on Bin Cat Remtard and Memorial Slapper!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Yank: I like the words, they really mean something. Will there still be people to take up their torch?
Verity: I see you understood my disgust and hence what may be seen as vulgarity. Absolute wickedness.

John Richardson

daniel maris.

"Where the increased wealth has been going is not clear."

That is a real question.
Apparently, there is a measure of GDP and output that identifies 'real' wealth as opposed to activity.
ie
If I charge my Council to pick up litter say £10,000, GDP has increased by a given sum, but zero real wealth has been generated. There is increased taxable activity, but it's the same wealth being moved about. From the Council to me to the local bookies or whatever.
I'm sure you know this but I recite it anyway as I cannot recall the correct name of the 'alternative' measure of GDP.

According to this 'real wealth' GDP, this country has been getting poorer since 1959 !

Doesn't that ring true when we look at modern buildings and houses as opposed to older for example. Same with clothing (especially men's shoes).

I do not doubt that you are using legitimate sources, however I often doubt the whole edifice of the contemporary global economic model.
All evidence seems to suggest that only Chinese Com. Party members really benefit in China.
Isn't Indian software production etc a wealth transfer from the West ?

As you suggest, the management and professional class in the UK has never worked harder or longer.
The Welfare Class are a serious financial blight, but surly mechanisation & technology should perhaps even that out ?

Where has the wealth gone ?

Have the 00.0001% of globalists really stolen it all ?

How can they be controlled by democratic States with changing, biddable Governments ?

What does Charles Kennedy propossh ?

AngloWelshDragon

@ John Richardson

Everything you write strikes a chord but what are we to do? I think people increasingly want to make their voices heard but most of us are just little people with jobs and families etc etc. May be I should get off my arse and start a Briish Tea Party or some such but surely I am not the best leadership material this country can throw up?! Who out there is going to offer us some real leadership, vision and inspiration? Not Cameron, Balls, Milliband/s or Clegg, that is clear.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

John Richardson:
Dear John, I so agree with your sentiments. So it is not only I who despairs.
The case of Dr Shankar, a doctor who allowed a 26 year old woman to die of undiagnosed cervical cancer, a woman who had been in his 'care' for six years disturbed me. The GMC have, as usual, shoved this under the carpet, and his punishment is to continue working, but under the control of another doctor. I reprint below, the answer to my first letter to the GMC demanding why this idiot is allowed to continue to be let loose on the public.
--------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr Haywood

Thank you for replying to my email.

Please note that what I am writing is not intended to refer to you specificslly, rather it is for those who control the organisation to which you belong as an employee.

In my opinion, the concerns of the GMC are not geared to the welfare of the patients. Dr Shenkar is a man of mature years, and by now should know what is correct and what is not in medical practice. He would not be missed if he was struck off the Register, indeed the CMC would be viewed in a better light if it did this.

The GMC does not protect patients. It can only be described as a trade union, of the lowest kind, dressed up to appear as a professional body. It is a pity that most of the general public in this country are apathetic and unused to challenging established bodies. In most parts of the civilised world, wrongs which the GMC push under the carpet, would be challenged in courts of law, and damages would be awarded to the victims of gross malpractice.

Kind regards

Anne Wotana Kaye (Mrs)
- Show quoted text -

Wilhelm

Ronnie asks a gotcha question

'' Do you think the wealth is created at the point of production in the slave state or at the point where the profits are received in the west, I presume.''

Why ask the ask the question when you all ready know the
answer, Ronnie ?

'' no trick, no attack, its a serious point.''

Why state it then Ronnie ? Obviously it IS a trick question.

Tulkinghorn

The watch

It is in his safe but the message is to all of us now that the coalition are grinding us down

Bring on David M

charles hercock

They ground him down so much he came back for free NHS care(just look at his eyes)

Verity

John Richardson, I read this: "Perhaps the spell will be broken with a little interest rate reality ?" AS "Perhaps the spell will be broken with a little interest hate reality?" and thought, "What a good point! There's not enough hatred in the world!"

Then realised I'd misread it.

Verity

Wilhelm, surely Ronnie realises that the wealth was created when members of their own tribes, in a working arrangement with the Arabs, captured them and manhandled them aboard the Arab slave ships?

Verity

Tulkinghorn - Who's David M.

Charles Hercock - Ground who down? Is this a particular person who came back for free NHS, or is it a group name? Your message is opaque.

Ronnie

I think you are nuts Wilhelm, dik.

Where did I write an answer to my question? I wanted to know what John thought about this (following his post) so I asked him. I didn't ask you, I asked him.

I wouldn't ask you anything, dik, that would be absurd.

Rhoda Klapp

Wealth. Very confusing. A while ago a friend sold, through ebay, a book bought new in the high street (priced at £15ish) for £700. It was a first edition of a popular author. It went overseas. What happened to the wealth? Was it created in the ten years or so it stood on the shelf? Is it part of GDP? I don't think the transaction was counted anywhere. Was it counted in the trade balance (it went overseas)? I don't see how, no forms were filled in, I don't think the customs from for the post is needed for books. Apparently the profit worked just like real money.

If I buy 50p of materials and make a T-shirt for a fiver then sell it for ten, how is that different from buying a chinese one at 50p and selling that for ten instead? Is the UK better off? Worse?

Is it not in fact true that wealth can be created and destroyed pretty much by whim? And that all trade statistics are to say the least approximate.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Tulkinghorn : Lawdy! Is David M, David Millipede??????? Uuuugh!

John Richardson

Verity.

Ha.

John Richardson

"Is it not in fact true that wealth can be created and destroyed pretty much by whim?"
(You mean like 'Waterworld' with Kevin Costner)

Not if we think of money as a form of energy.
Print too much and the 'energy' is dissipated in larger denominations (inflation).
Too little and you can buy a caravan in Skeggie with 50p (perhaps that's a confusing analogy for some ?).
OK, too little and you can buy a house on the High Street for 50p (satisfied?).

Ten people on the face of the Earth.
Ten chairs.
Smash one and chairs 'are at a premium' they would 'fetch a higher price' if on sale.
However, the 'wealth' like energy, now flows into a piece of wood on the ground as it 'increases in value' as it can be made into a chair.
A craftsman now more 'value' as he is needed to craft the chair.
I am reminded of this explanation of wealth as daniel maris asked 'Where has the wealth gone ?'
The truth is it can be concentrated in a minuscule number of hands.
Through all human history until now the 'elite' did need, but now the 'elite' do not need : Law and Order ; National defense ; religious stability/faith ; basic sanitation and healthy masses ; common languages ; private armies ; literate reliable servants.
Technology and globalisation mean that the future does not need us.
This is why the intellectual elites have deserted the public space since the War. We are irrelevant. Cloning. GM crops. Nano-technology. Welfare States. EU. Did anyone ask you about the big decisions cause they certainly forgot to ask me.

--------------------------------------------

If you're interested in a brilliant analysis of wealth & human societies read
'Secret Weapons for a Quiet War' on-line.
It usually blows people's minds.
It's where the idea that money = a form of energy comes from.
Not from this blogging monkey.
Or Charles Kennedy.

John Richardson

Anglo W.D. @ 4:51pm
I have echoed the exact sentiments a million times in the past.
I am obliged to explain I am a Christian and therefore am blessed with peace and strength, for that I thank God.
Not much use to you if you ain't though.
Most of my friends are not and worry about the future too.

In the 'Salisbury Review' I was reading about the modern 'internal exile' of decent people in this now darkened land.
It worked in the Communist East.
Worked to keep people sane. I recall you have a young daughter (at Uni. ?).
Ensure she is aware how civilised our world was, as I'm sure you have, as this will temper your hatred of the progressives; if you feel she is spiritually safe from them.
Oh, and turn off the TV.
Television has been weaponised against us.
Like Nazi propaganda, a little stain will remain even if you know it's all lies.

AWK1

The scum at the GMC allowed a paedophile Doctor at the Queens Medical Center, who abused children dying of cancer, to work again.
Obviously, he moved area.
Don't want unhelpful parents asking 'inappropriate' questions.
The Judge at his trial said he 'had suffered enough' so did not jail him.

Any one out there who still does not believe that there is a Hell ? And it's getting crowded.

Wilhelm

Ronnie splutters '' blah blah blah ''

There's nothing quite like a bit of good old fashioned fake indignation, is there Ronnie ?

AngloWelshDragon

@ John Richardson.

Wise words, thank you. 'All will be well, and all will be well and all manor of things will be well'. Julian of Norwich, I think, oft repeated by my late mother.

You have a good memory. Our daughter is at Uni, son starts college in 2 weeks to do motor mechanics, one daughter still at school.

Without Coffee House I might sometimes feel I was going insane. At least if I am, I am in good company.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

John Richardson: It's good to read your postings.
My late mother believed that we made our own hell on earth, if we were so inclined. No matter what life threw at her, she never despaired and never allowed hell to intrude upon her space. She was blessed with Grace, full of humour, kindness and love. I know that if she could see what is happening today, she would sigh, but then say, they won't last for ever, and continue on her way of decency and honour, creating an oasis of warmth wherever she was.

John Richardson

AWK1 & A-W.D.

Thank's both.

Noa Zrk

Choiristas beware!

The revenge of the Cat, as Lola strikes back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYyI51a463E

Frank P

Verity

Oh, and I forgot to mention, while Michael Berry is drawing attention to substantial matters over there, our lot here are getting excitedly exercised about whether Mrs Miliband is voting for Diane Abbottom? I suppose it is this insouciance that defines the English?If indeed the English can any longer be defined at all.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the Land of Lost Content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went,
And cannot come again.

I wonder what AEH would think about todays SOA?

Stuart Seacole Smith

The Times(£££) has an article on a think-tank report on (more) potential for muslim -extremist radicalisation in British prisons. The link to the report is free:
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/images/stories/pdfs/unlocking_al_qaeda.pdf

The UK is unsurprisingly the western country at highest risk from home-grown islamic terrorism (I imagine France isn't far behind). The next round of slaughter in the name of islam is likely to be led by enthusiastic amateurs acting more or less on their own (a la shoe-bomber Reid).

Oh what a lovely mess the powers-that-be have got us into. Still, at least we have the consolation of having been endlessly "enriched" in the process. No-one can ever take that away from us.

Vulture

I agree with whoever it was who posted here recently that the posts on the main Coffee House board have grown so dull that reading them one loses the will to live.

I know its the silly season and Parliament is away and all that, but if I read another piece abt the Millipedes, Ed Balls, Nick Clegg or whither the coalition I shall thream and thream until I'm thick.

Somehow, its not the same now we haven't got mad old Gordo to hate any more.

alexsandr

Re my post above. there is a disaster happening in Niger now, as bad as the one in Pakistan. Got a report on Today this morning to BBC is waking up to that one.

But Niger is french so not our problem?????

Ronnie

So much for Anglospheria and the triumph of the English language.

Andy Carpark

Mulling over the demise of the poor bloke from GCHQ.

Clifford Cocks of that parish figured out the theory of what later became known as RSA encryption ten years before the Americans (this is a matter of public record). Two observations.

1. He did it in his head. The staff were not allowed to work offsite or scribble down their idle calculations, lest their landladies find them. It seems that things have been relaxed since then, probably not for the better.

2. People who choose this career know from the outset that they must renounce any prospect of recognition. Maybe not so hard given that having done work you are not ashamed of is its own non-negligible reward. But the operative word is *any* recognition, ever. Mathematical talent and total innocence of personal vanity quite often do go hand in hand but by no means inevitably. This line of work takes a special type.

RIP

charles hercock

Verity.verity,verity

Michael Mates gift(the insciption-dont let the b...... get you down) to nice Mr Nadir who strangely came back to England,the speculation being because he needs medical treatment

Mates clearly representing the nasty tories who can be supplanted by even nicer Milliband senior

charles hercock

Or did I not read Bleak House correctly

Frank Sutton

John Richardson - 'Secret Weapons for a Quiet War'

Interesting read (ok, I haven't ploughed through the whole thing), but pretty obviously a work of fiction.
Not that that means its revelations are untrue, of course.

Frank Sutton

...disaster happening in Niger now... Got a report on Today this morning, BBC is waking up to that one.
I noticed the BBC used that Africa correspondent who always talks in hushed tones, in the manner of Attenborough beholding rare beasts mating, presumably to convey the solemnity of what he has to impart.
Trouble is you can't hear what he's saying.

Frank P

Verity

The postscript at 9.34am should have followed a post just a few seconds earlier that disappeared into the cybermuda triangle. I linked a post from Trevor Loudon and I'll try again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrATS4mthX4&feature=player_embedded

Verity

Vulture - I don't read the main Coffee House board any more. A quick glance through the headlines is enough to send me running for the hills.

Alexandr - Pakisan's not our problem, either. It's Pakistan's problem. They have a military. Haven't they trained them to do rescue work? I mean, they have helicopters and all that stuff, don't they? Of course, no rescue dogs, but that's their problem. No dogs, so at least allah's happy. Maybe they have to dip into the funds they'd put in the jam jar for nuclear weapons.

I doubt that you will find one indigenous British person (or one Indian, Sikh or W Indian origin person) who gives a crap about their disaster. My only thought was, 'let's hope there are hundreds of potential suicide bombers among the disasterees'.

Verity

Frank P - Never heard of Michael Berry. Who he?

David Ossitt

Vulture

“Somehow, its not the same now we haven't got mad old Gordo to hate any more.”

I still hate him, just as I still hate and loath all the rest of his cabinet.

The latest news is that he wants to join the shadow cabinet, something to do with his love of Africa,(Africa is welcome to him) could be that the job offers have not been as forthcoming as he had hoped.

Verity

David Ossitt - Ha ha ha ha ha! As though Africa hasn't got enough problems! Let's hope he gets some kind of remit in Nigeria, so all the Nigerian scamsters will have a new person to write to with genuine banking proposals.

Vulture

My last post about the terminal dullness of current CH posts was a wee bit negative.

So here are some positive suggestions for stories that could take the place of the endless blah-blah abt the coalition, the Liebore leadership and the fiscal position.

> Why is everyone employed by our security services apparently a wierdo pervert? After the unfortunate demise of the body in the bag in the bath man I have read in different places that he was a) a cross dresser with women's clothes in his own size; b) a bondage fan c) an autistic socuopath unable to make relationships
d) all of the above.

> A survey by the EU's own opinion research finds that enthusiasm for the project is at an all time low across Europe. In Briain under 20% now back the EU. How much longer will this mad farce go on?

> The RUSI defence thiunk tank thinks we are now at severe risk of an imminent attack by a home grown Islamist terrorist released from a British jail where they will have been radicalised. What is the coalition doing abt that?

Any one of these topics would be a more fruitful subject for dusciussion than the borefest currently on CH - so let's hear
abt them. Or could it be that none fit the current disastrous Daveite-Cleggist-Millibandist consensus agenda that is leading us all down the road to perdition?

Frank P

Verity

He's a Houston Radio Host. And he's not high on the Obamessiah. You need to keep the volume control handy. It seems America is awakening - by degrees.

Frank P

Verity

btw - Pat Condell is laid back by comparision.

Noa Zrk

I'm getting quite frustrated by the number of my posts which are 'moderated' to the editor's floor at the present time, not least because there are no guidelines to what is likely to be published or not.
Leftist liberal views seem more likely to be published than right wing ones.
Perhaps referring to Labour politicians as the spawn of Satan is now deemed to give potential offence to the Devil worshiping community?
For whatever reason some posts are published and others not, the overall result appears to be an increasingly anodyne quality to all too many posts, or is this just me?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Noa Zrk
August 27th, 2010 7:11pm
Good evening, Noa,
I'm surprised that your blogs have been censured, since you always write in an erudite and reasonable manner. I'm also surprised that a certain person who makes nasty personal snipes at myself and another lady hasdn't been banned completely for insulting words ill-suited to a journal such as "The Spectator". But then, perhaps the powers that be find it amusing to have a 'court jester' or considering him insane are kindly and allow him to continue. Personally, I wouldn't dream of wishing anybody to be censured or banned, but then, as I think everybody knows I am not a left winger!

Frank P

The comments about the CH posts do seem to be justified. They are boring. But is that because the current wet non-government has left politics in a a state of suspended animation? We don't hate the current crew sufficiently to warrant avid interest in their muddled compromises and false alliances (Verity excepted of course - she maintains an admirable and consistent flow of invective against the Cameroons). But Dave has not yet qualified for the sustained barrage of abuse towards Brown that flowed from our fingertips in the dying days of his regime.

My problem is I hope they will succeed, even though they don't deserve to and God only knows what their idea of success would be. I still want to believe that they are really conservatives who are still having to tread water because of the 'marriage of convenience'. But HTF are they going to get rid of the bride? She is definitely of the cloying ilk and the extended family known as the electorate are still rooting for the marriage. What a terrible fuck-up it all is. Even the fact that Brown and his crew have been ousted is no comfort during this impasse, the CH hacks still seem to be inclined give them more column inches than the party the the mag purports to support. As for the tittle tattle about the charade of the 'leadership' campaign - why play into Nunulab's hands by giving them the oxygen that the protracted haggling was designed to attract?

And why have the bloggers completely abandoned reportage of American politics as it heats up for the mid-terms ('cept Massie 'n' the Mosque). Is it perhaps because that they don't want to admit that they were wrong not to listen to out dire warnings during the Presidential election campaign when their palpable support for the Obamessiah was almost adolescent in its naiveté?

As it appears that none of them read the Wall, perhaps we shall never get to know.

charles hercock

Back to David M
Balls did such a good job yesterday that we should consign Milliband Major to toast

John Richardson

"Special Investigation: As France expels its gipsies [not my spelling], is this a chilling echo of the Nazis... or just a desperate attempt to tackle crime?
Images of Roma families being bused to airports have provoked condemnation not just in France but across Europe. "

The above is a headline from today's 'Daily Mail'.

For ages I've been warning that this newspaper has gone over to the enemy. That is potentially dangerous as it still poses as a decent, honest, real newspaper.
Not a disgusting 'progressive' propaganda rag, filled with all the usual lies and distortions.
Above, the gibbons almost write; 'condemned in the Court of public opinion'.
Or 'condemned by the international community'.
Or some other such slimy, dishonest, meaningless psychological-warfare b.s. used by Social Workers and BBC journalists and such-like.

I remember contacting a lady from 'The Campaign Against Political Correctness' after reading a 'Daily Mail' report on them.
Her e-mail to me confirmed how distorted and dishonest the article was.

Well, apparently the 'Nazi' slur is now...oh, you get the message.
Just like 'The Spectator' in my opinion. Just like 'The Daily Telegraph' with the sometime exception of Delingpole, Warner & Brooker.
(Oh, did the 'Daily Mail' always have so many partially clothed young girls bodies adorning every possible article ?)

The MSM has imploded as a result of this cultural warfare (I heard that CNN lost an encouraging 50% of it's audience between Christmas & June,seems a lot...). No-one with brains takes a bit of notice any more.

Noa Zrk.

Censored all the time.
It's a badge of honour.
These guys ain't on our/my side.

daniel maris

RK asks:

"Wealth. Very confusing. A while ago a friend sold, through ebay, a book bought new in the high street (priced at £15ish) for £700. It was a first edition of a popular author. It went overseas. What happened to the wealth? Was it created in the ten years or so it stood on the shelf? Is it part of GDP? I don't think the transaction was counted anywhere. Was it counted in the trade balance (it went overseas)? I don't see how, no forms were filled in, I don't think the customs from for the post is needed for books. Apparently the profit worked just like real money."

This is to confuse money and wealth. Germany in the 1920s demonstrated once and for all that the two are not synonymous. but if government gets things right then money is fairly stable a measure of wealth.
Stability hypnotises us into equating money with wealth.

In terms of the E Bay transaction, I am fairly certain the Treasury would be on to that one. It would show as a transaction. Whether it would figure in trade I don't know but I would be pretty sure the Treasury will be monitoring E bay money flows as they are now significant.

Sale of second hand goods are I think more to be viewed as an addendum to the economy. The book was there. In that sense the "wealth" had already been created many years ago. But money is really a sophisticated form of barter. When someone bid £700 they were offering £700 worth of goods. Had your friend been offered £700 worth of gold or fine wines he might have been equally minded to take the offer. So the "wealth" is really a voucher to used against current production. In that sense the "wealth" (in terms of money) has been created now as a result of the transaction. It's complicated here because it's overseas, so someone abroad takes the decision to buy some sterling in order to be able to make the purchase. In that sense they are offering production overseas to make the purchase. That's why exports make you rich!

Rhoda Klapp

Frank P, good post. Although I don't think the temporary suspension of left v right politics in favour of a soppy mess is sufficient excuse for the poor blog posts. It ought to be an opportunity to raise new subjects. Maybe to tackle the democratic deficit, or use some actual insight rather than recycling gossip from behind the Murdoch paywall or guido. No, it is editorial policy. Nobody could be doing this badly with such consistency unless it was intentional.

As far as US politics is concerned, please join me in calling for Conservative Cabbie to get the Americano beat for the remainder of the year. Massie has his view, but it does not seem right that this should be the only view presented.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Frank P: Hi Frank,
I agree with you abut the hate factor. Together with most here, I loathed (and still do) the vile traitors belonging to NuLabour. I didn't have much hope for wimpy Caring Dave and Clinging Clegg, but they are performing even worse than I ever imagined. They are so pathetic, rather like mangy runts in a poor litter, that rather than hate them, one would prefer to put them down. Osborne, now he is 'hate' material, as is Kitten Heels May, a scheming harridan in the guise of a Tory Lady. She doesn't even wear a hat or carry a formidable handbag. No doubt as time passes, more of us will join Verity in honest wholsesome hatred of this miserable shower. Regarding the USA: Well I love America, but not the Land of Obama and Hiliary, a devilish cocktail if ever there was one. Oh well, we have our DC and Clegg and they have their own vile duet.

Verity

For the American beat, we need the outstanding John Sullivan (it may be O'Sullivan) who was on Maggie's team. He is an excellent, lucid writer and a seasoned bi-Atlantic observer and understands the relationship well. I believe he's American, but with his astute reading of British politics as well, it's hard to speak with certainty.

I am on my first cup of tea and read AWK's final sentence of "Oh, well, we have our DC and Clegg and they have their own vile duet" as, "Oh, well, we have our DC and Clegg and they have their own vile duvet." I thought it was a sharp observation on Dave getting into bed with the Lib Dems for cover (of his gross inadequacies and lack of democratic legitimacy).

Verity

John Richardson writes: "mages of Roma families being bused to airports have provoked condemnation not just in France but across Europe."

Not in my house.

Verity

Wow, Frank P -GREAT LINK! This fellow ROCKS! This is a GREAT VIDEO IN THE CAUSE OF DEMOCRACY that should motivate most Houstonians to VOTE AGAINST OBAMA AND FLUSH HIM OUT WITH THE SOLID WASTE!

Oh! I'm sorry for shouting ... I just got so motivated there ...

Beer Moth

As has been noted recently, there has been a marked decline in the number of relevant posts in the CH.

But we can take heart from the fact that, as we are now nearing the end of the summer and of its associated leave-taking, we can look forward to the return of Abu Bright, who will no doubt be making his keffiyeh-clad return, with revelatory nuggets regarding plans to haul the nation from its economic slumber through a national programme of arts community projects by which public funding (so not real money) will be utilised to ignite in our youth a latter-day white heat of creative energy.

And all that shit.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Verity
August 28th, 2010 2:58pm

John Richardson writes: "mages of Roma families being bused to airports have provoked condemnation not just in France but across Europe."

Not in my house
=====================
Verity: I second your comment. The people from Romania are Romanians who have left their horrible country of their own free choice. Most come to western europe to steal, use their chikdren or rented-by-the-day babies to beg and generally make problems. To compare France's actions to those of the Nazis is a gross insult to democratic France. I don't especially admire France's leadership, but at least the have the guts to do what we should have done long ago, before we were almost taken over by freeloaders.

John Richardson

Err....Verity & AWK 1:-

Wait, just one cotton-picking moment....

I refer the Right Honourable ladies to the blog that was posted a moment ago, well at 11:54am.

"Not in my house", and "seconded", indeed.

Really.
The very thought that I would 'condemn' France enforcing it's own Laws !

'I', of the rabid-'rightwingedness'.

Duels have been fought over less...

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

John Richardson:
Point taken, John.
In any case, no duels. I never get up these days before 10:00 :=)

Verity

John Richardson, A thousand apologies! I don't think your post was up when I posted.

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.

And also agred that almost every story in The Mail lately is accompanied by a girl in a scanty bikini with important headlines like: "Is Carleen trying to draw attention away from her pimple?"

And, "Oh, no! Is Chimpalita Slutsky's very brief bikini supposed to catch the eye of an unknown Russian billionaire spotted holidaying in Cannes?"

You're right. Item after item on starlets no one has ever heard of, nor will, wielding the weapons of bikinis, silicone and nose jobs.

What does it all mean?

John Richardson

AWK 1 @6:61pm.

Ha ha !

John Richardson

Hi Verity.

I'll call off the hounds...but seriously, 'The Mail' really is a sad effort.
Peter Hitchens is still worth a read, but the quality and tone of the newspaper is pulp.
I maintain the MSM is a psychological weapon being used against people with brains/character/moral substance, regardless of their 'politics'.

Oh...no...wait, look, a politician and he's got a likle baby !
What a novel idea !
Who'd have thought private family affairs could fit so snugly into the public arena ?

What does he actually do for living ?
Anyone ?

Beer Moth

Verity

'What does it all mean?'

It means that the Mail is doing what it needs to do in order to keep selling copies to the new generations dropping off the education conveyor: ditch meaningful reporting and commentary and replace it with celebrity gusset shots.

It means our young people are now so denuded of their identity, so acquainted with the absence of right and wrong and the idea of worthiness, that they are primed to be pushed whichever way the ideological wind blows. Our evolutionary next stage: Homo Titilatus.

It means the long march is almost done.

Verity

Beer Moth. Yes. That is what it means.

lescam

Vulture

“Somehow, its not the same now we haven't got mad old Gordo to hate any more.”

True. It was such fun flinging mud at Bully Brown and his tribe of lying freaks. Now they (thankfully) have departed, politics has become unspeakably dull. Cameron, whatever one's opinion of him, never suffers from such verbal contortions as "how we saved the world - er, the banks"; "women, and you are one of them"; and best of all, "she was just some bigoted woman". Cameron's bland boringness just turns me off politics because there is no hate figure any more. I'm even beginning to miss "Lord" Prescott, as he was a great contribution to the gaiety of the nation.

Sam Armstrong

Oh Beer Moth you really are a depressing little man aren't you?

Have you met any young people lately? Or is your only experience of the younger generations tutting at them from behind your copy of The Daily Mail?

The world is in such a mess because YOUR disgusting generation started all this shrugging off convention stupidity and threw away a perfectly decent way of life. Judging by your hate filled post directed at homosexuals on another thread recently, in which you bragged about 'shagging women in their beds', I deduce that you are indeed a part of the cause of this mess. But now that you are presumably too old to shag any more women in their beds, you direct hate at young people, who are bewildered in this Kafka like world that people like YOU created.

What a man. What an example.

Can't you find some hideous local advertiser rag to comment on?

Verity

Lescam - "Cameron's bland boringness just turns me off politics because there is no hate figure any more."

Is this what they call irony?

Cameron, despite failing to win the election after four years of twinky-footed campaigning, is prime minister only by grace of a coalition - which he had to beg for as Clegg favoured Brown.

Was your comment a stab at an ironic aperçu?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

New subject to chew on! The powers that be at the BBC say that if the License Fee is reduced, we could lose lots of famous names. What no Jo Brand, Stephen Fry et al!???? It would be worth doubling the Fee to get rid of that lot of wankers!

EC

Noa Zrk

Do you collect rainwater and drink it in preference to tap water?
In that case it was you that I spoke to at about 11am at the News Stand in Booths (A6 South) yesterday!

If it wasn't you then I must say how impressed I was about how clued up the general populace in your neck of the woods are. Particularly with regard to the leanings of labour leadership past, recently past and present. Pity I didn't have time to ask about Dave.

I thought that your mate who chastised you for not never actually buying a paper overlooked an important point. Why actually buy a paper when Booths let you read ALL of them for nothing!

Rhoda Klapp

Hi Sam. (Sam is a friend of Klapp minor, I believe).

Sam, take it from me, and it is hard if not impossible to learn when you are young, that when you are in somebody's position it is only then that you find why they act as they do. So, when you get old, you'll undoubtedly think the young are just a bunch of useless unappreciative punks, just as we were. That the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and it's all the fault of those old people. When you get there, you find that there are only people doing their pathetic best in the circumstances.

Think of the world Beer Moth grew up in. Just to take the homosexuality angle. It was illegal. Nowadays you think it is clear that it should not be, that the state has no business interfering in a person's sexuality. But until the 60s it was not only illegal but punishable by prison, and that was not all that controversial.

Now, think of, say, paedophilia. Illegal, punishable by prison, and widely despised. What if, in fifty years by some turn in public perception it becomes an issue of the state interfering in a person's sexuality, and paedophilia is decriminalised, then legalised, then made into something that is almost a badge of honour, as gayness is now. Paedo pride parades paid for by the council. Won't you (or in fact a sixty year old Sam) find that just a little, well, confusing? Welcome to our world.

Verity

To little Sam Armstrong - Is your modern attention span long enough to have noted that around 80% of the individuals commenting on here are opposed to absolutely everything the Labour governments either executed or encouraged, and to the BBC, the purveyor of vile, abnormal political propaganda, pointless violence, and sex, sex, sex, and to the entire communist (for let us call "socialism" by its real name, not its drawing room name) governance?

We were outnumbered at the polls by people seeking a louche life, free money
and free housing, stacks of pointless 'A' levels for their children and mean-spirited power for themselves - as in, for example, the entire local government structure, 1300 quangoes, schools governance, etc.

We were outvoted and robbed of our country and our society. That's democracy for you.

Beer Moth

Sam Armstrong

You presume far too much.

I do not, by the way, hate homosexuals. I hate the lie foisted upon our time, that those of us who are heterosexual, are somehow missing out. My ire is reserved for and aimed at such idiots.

I do not and have not since my very early adulthood, ever bought a copy of the Daily Mail. Why would I buy something which I have gone to such lengths to criticise?

I must correct my previous generalisation: sometimes it was in cars, the occasional phone box, once in the Officers mess on one of Her Majesty's minesweepers and once on the penalty spot of my home team's football pitch, but for reasons of economy I stated 'bed'; that being the most common venue for my bouts of pleasuring.

But to address your main point. Of course there are young people presently, who do not fit the parlous description I outline. But there are not enough of them. If you are young and aware of what is going on, then you surely must have noticed that you are atypical of your cohort?

We agree entirely on the point you make that the mess we are in is wholly the creation of my generation. But mess it is.

Please explain though, what you mean by our 'shrugging off convention stupidity...threw away a decent way of life etc'?

Finally for now, I would just add the, hopefully reassuring message to a younger chap, that the sex act can progress in our senior years, to sensual heights which are inaccesible when in full hormonal flight. Thus I can truly boast that together with Mrs Moth, we have after assiduous practice, managed to perfect said act. One minute and twenty eight seconds after the final strains of the Match of the Day theme, and its all done and dusted.

And calm down.

Herbert Thornton

Despite the touching faith that so many people seem to have in democracy, I have begun to wonder whether it is entirely justified.

Verity has asked -"What does it all mean?" Beer Moth has responded that "It means the long march is almost done", and Verity later points out that "We were outvoted and robbed of our country and our society", and concludes - "That's democracy for you."

Those exchanges brought to mind a letter that I found about 40 years ago in the Canadian government archives in Ottawa. It was a letter written by a Canadian Judge around 1820 about some matter of Constitutional Law. He complained that America had been "abandoned to democracy."

It has been a very long march indeed, but are the forecasts of men like the Canadian Judge who believed that democracy would eventually lead to the debasement and corruption of good government at last proving to be accurate?

Frank Sutton

Sam Armstrong -

I am intrigued by your post about the "disgusting generation" that got us all into the mess we're in today (and not just because you write with indomitable self righteousness of a student radical circa 1969!)
I am one of the generation which I think you have in mind, since my teenage years co-incided with the 1960s - the decade which is widely blamed as the source of our ills.
And maybe it is - but I do wonder just who did what at the time to bring about that disastrous decline.
To be sure, it was an age of student radicalism, but for many I think that was no more than a pose... a default position if you wished for any sort of social life. The more determined radicals might quote Marx, Engels, or assorted other bedsit poster-boys, but I never got the impression they really meant it.
So if the seeds of our downfall were sown then, who sowed them?

Noa Zrk

Beer Moth

"and once on the penalty spot of my home team's football pitch"

For some reason I thought you were a Rugby man.

Noa Zrk

AWK & John Richardson

Thanks for your support. So it isn't just me, the Speccie's moderators are, in their comradely fashion, out to get all of us; David Camerons to our Miichael Howards.

EC

I'm intrigued! Do I have a doppelganger? As mature, wise and yet, informed?
The A6 South? That covers a lot of ground, from Kendal to South Preston for Mr Edwin Booth's emporiums. I do like shopping in them, as you note a certain gentility from a slower more refined age lingers; with excellent cheese and the sort of clientèle that, unlike ALDI's customers, won't lift your wallet but are ruthlessly adept in maneuvering a mobility scooter in a crowded aisle.
Regrettably, your conversation was not with me. Though I have been accused in other circumstances of drinking my own bathwater, I generally allow the stuff to pass my lips after suitable treatment, at least fermentation, preferably distillation.
You'll receive a similarly 'blue' stain of politics too in there. Not the sort of place in which a Labour candidate should linger too long if he (or she) wants to retain their 1 minute 28 seconds worth of joie de vivre.

And if Cameron turned up he'd be told in no uncertain terms to hand the party back to it's rightful owners. In fact I rather think that despite his public, Sainsburys-like pretensions, he's really an ASDA man; more Wal-mart than street smart.

Noa Zrk

Verity

"the entire communist (for let us call "socialism" by its real name..governace".

I think you have accurately identified the root cause of our decline there. The Labour party, generally previously respectable, honest, patriotic and contemptuous of Bolshevism, became infected with the communism of Lenin and Stalin. Its members, previously humane and interested in bettering the lot of the poor, became radicalised by our deadly enemies. In contrast to the previous intellectual traitorous minority; the Philbys, Burgesses and Macleans, the radicalism of the sixties saw a more general acquiescence to our enemy's international socialist politics and propaganda.

Ironically that enemy has now gone, but defeat enabled his ideology to permeate much more freely into our society, no least because there is no longer a direct public comparison between Eastern and Western Europe.

We, as the generation preceding Sam Armstrong's, are much more aware of how the freedoms we value have been diminished since communism became a key accepted component of the Labour Party's values.

Verity

Nice to see you back, Herbert Thornton! How's the weather in BC?

Frank Sutton, an intriguing post. Yes, the sixties radicals were attention-seeking, self-righteous jerks but I am guessing that few of them were malign. If I'm right, it was the beginning of mass information, so there were hours of broadcast time to be filled and noisy youth were a novelty.

However, it got nastier during LBJ and the Vietnamese war. That, I remember ... shaking their fists and chanting their catchy slogans ... "Hey, hey, hey, LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?"

That may have been the break-down of authority and respect, but I don't know whether it was the beginning of the Tony Blairs, the high toxicity Jack Straws, Harriet Harmons and other self regarding slithy toves. Britain always seems to have had a seam of poisonous, self-regarding (not self-loathing; that's a myth), destructive, Britain-hating communists. The ghastly Bertrand Russell and his cohorts ...

After the Viet Nam war, the left, although intent on socialism and social "justice" - whatever that means, didn't make such a career of being destructive the way the British did. In fact, in it sheer malignity, I think the British left stands alone.

EC

Noa Zrk,

It was the Lancaster branch. Visiting my daughter, en passant, after another cultural mission to Cumberland.

I think that the gentleman concerned came from the Galgate area. I enjoy striking up conversations with people as I wait for Mrs EC to emerge from supermarkets. This one was particularly enjoyable. Can't do that sort of thing down south - they don't like it - especially on trains where they like to remain in their private bubble.

John Richardson

Frank Sutton ,'Who sowed the seeds of destruction ?'
The 'hollowing out' of Western civilisation is now apparent to anybody with eyes to see.
This is not a 'left/right' issue.
If you read my posts you will be aware that I regard 'the radical left' as trigger men & women for the attack on civilisation. They were enabled by darker, non-political forces who, for example, now enable 'radical Islam' in the same manner & for the same purpose.
The 'sexual revolution' is another front in this war. Though the current avaunt garde are organised, politicised, homosexuals (and the surgically mutilated to a lesser, though significant, extent) the first shots were fired by 'feminists'.
Remember 'feminism' ?
If multiculturalism & 'Human Rights' based Laws turn society against itself. 'Radical feminism' turned men & women against each other in a war unique in that everyone could lose.
So who enabled 'radical feminism' to help cripple civilisation ?

How about this ?

"In the 1960's, the elite media invented second-wave feminism as part of the elite agenda to dismantle civilization and create a New World Order....

Since writing these words last week, I have discovered that before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA spying on Marxist students in Europe and disrupting their meetings. She became a media darling due to her CIA connections. MS Magazine, which she edited for many years was indirectly* funded by the CIA.

Steinem has tried to suppress this information, unearthed in the 1970's by a radical feminist group called "Red Stockings." In 1979, Steinem and her powerful CIA-connected friends, Katharine Graham of the Washington Post and Ford Foundation President Franklin Thomas prevented Random House from publishing it in "Feminist Revolution." Nevertheless the story appeared in the "Village Voice" on May 21, 1979."

Aint that peculiar ?

*Other sources I have read state directly funded.
JR

John Richardson

Rhoda Klapp 11:07am

I am intrigued by this post because either.

a) You are attempting to reveal a reality that no British MSM blog would allow you to do. You have visited the 'Outrage' website. You know what they are publicly campaigning for, now, and over many years.

You are aware who Harriet Harman was Legal Council for in the 1970s.

Or

b) None of the above. You were attempting to use an almost unthinkable example to demonstrate a facet of 'social entropy'. These days usually masquerading as 'progress'.

I wonder is it 'A' or 'B' ?

--------------------------------------------

My previous post can be researched easily by using Google by the way.

Frank Sutton

Britain always seems to have had a seam of poisonous, self-regarding (not self-loathing; that's a myth), destructive, Britain-hating communists.
Home-grown Britain haters aren't just lefties, Verity. There's also a well established seam of England-despising among people with 'sophisticated' tastes, inclined to regard almost anything European - particularly French – as innately superior to its English counterpart.
Jean Luc Goddard v "Carry-On" films, for instance.
And food, of course... Elizabeth David leading the charge with a little olive oil gave England another reason to despise itself (with some justice in the 1950s, you might argue... it's a mystery to me - and another topic - why England seems to have lost any tradition of good, down to earth cooking).

Austin Barry

Apparently, at 13.5% Slough has now the highest number of Muslim residents in South East England.

It occurs to me that Betjeman's, 'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn't fit for humans now' has wholly inappropriate connotations and should be banned from schools and libraries not just in Slough, but throughout the UK.

I intend to make such a ban my crusade, er, no, sorry, mission to further inter-community cohesion.

I urge fellow Coffeehousers (yes, including you Frank P.) to support me.

Noa Zrk

Austin Barry

Apparently "Slough" was written in protest against 850 factories that were to be built in the town.

I totally support your proposed positive and life enriching ban on this anti communitarian propaganda.

As if 850 factories would be built nowadays in Europe, let alone one English town.

daifromwales

Herbert Thorton makes a very good point which has been entirely ignored (or rejected) by too many in the West. Indeed it sums up much of the problem in the Middle East in general, and Iraq in particular.
Democracy is not synonynous with good governance. It is merely one of the safer means of appointing governments. Safer, that is, for the appointees - since, because there is a formal mechanism to get rid of them when they fail to perform (as fail we all do eventually), they are safe in the expectation that they will be pensioned off and not hanged by the incoming mob. But when 'democracy' is used by one social group to destroy another - simply because one group is in the majority - it creates just as much injustice as any other form of government. In the UK, the only political party to deliberately employ social division in its favour is the Labour Party - which is why I despise Socialists so much.
When the USA found Saddam Hussein, they did entirely the wrong thing. His behaviour in government might not have suited to our senstive taste - but he was far better at governing the restive masses in Iraq than anyone else has proved to be. The US should he re-instated him - sutiably chastened by his experience of being unnecessarily rude to the USA. Western nations do not have the stomach to rule an unwilling people.
Whenever I hear yet another politician calling for 'democracy' rather than calling for 'good government' I feel a sense of despair. 'Democracy' has merely become another word for Republicanism - and what exactly to the Saudis (the US's one remaining sort-of-friend in the East) make of that insult?
Democracy cannot work in a divided society, since it merely legitimatises repression of unfashionable minority groups (e.g. snobby fox hunters, proletarian off-road motorcylists, vulgar speed boat owners on Lake Windermere - to name three of many non-PC groups who have lost their liberties in the last 10 years).

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Austin Barry: Dear Austin,
I am sure your concerns are not justified. Do you seriously believe JB is taught any more than Rudyard Kipling is? The English class is now instructed sans any poets who may have the slightest trace of patriotism or Western religious ethos. Can you seriously visualise burka-clad pupils repeating the words of such infidels?

Polly Gamma

A little ode (writer unknown) for the attention of Sam.

Its not easy getting old, and I should know, I've tried;
but I notice other people seem to take it in their stride.
But I still look at breasts and sportscars the way I always did.
I still think: I can do it, I still think like a kid.

But for every hair that leaves my head, a wrinkle now appears.
The workings of a mobile phone reduces me to tears.
I look at young girls on the beach, wiggling their bums;
I try to flash a winning smile- I flash receding gums.

I used to play at rugby, a valued member of the team;
and with a week or two of training, I could still fulfil a dream.
I've thought of a new lineup that Johson hasn't tied,
Its Dallaglio then me with Jonny Wilkinson outside.

I dont suppose they'll try it - there is a weakness at the base.
Me and Wilkinsons OK but Dallaglios lost his pace.
I go out 'clubbing' twice a week, Thats the Bingo at Broad Oak.
I used to meet my mate down there, but he's just had a stroke.

It happened cos he laughed too much when I touched Enid's knee;
she gave a cough, her wig fell off and her teeth dropped in her tea.
I'm still active in the bedroom, I'm up three times a night.
Well the bladder isn't what it was and the prostates not quite right.

No its not easy getting old, but before my last bell's rung.
I remember way back when it wasn't easy being young.

;)

Herbert Thornton

Verity -

Thanks for enquiring after British Columbia. Both B.C. and Canada as a whole continue to suffer from Political Correctness Disease, though to identify a Canadian government as deeply infected as that of Gordon Brown requires us to look back to the days of Pierre Trudeau and the underhand way in which his party entrenched PCD as part of the Canadian Constitution - by means of the so-called Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - a title as blatantly far from the truth as the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland.

The symptoms of PCD are quite conspicuous - e.g. the continued existence of the Soviet-type Human Rights Commissions where proceedings and the people conducting them resemble those in Stalinist show trials; the federal government's recent failure to repel a ship full of Tamils claiming to be refugees and allowing it to dock & unload right here in Victoria; and the recent arrests, in Ottawa, of some people who appear to be Mohammedans, and who are alleged to have been plotting an assault on Parliament and to assassinate Prime Minister Steven Harper.

The failure to repel the Tamils and the growth of Canadian-based terrorism are an inevitable consequence of Canada's weak immigration laws, foisted on us by the politically correct Liberal Party. Canada of course, unlike Britain, can benefit from reasonably large scale immigration, especially when the immigrants come largely from a highly civilised country and bring commendable standards of outlook and behaviour with them. That, thankfully, is the case in Vancouver, which has a great many immigrants from China.

Harper is, to some extent like Cameron, in that he's running a minority government, but at least he is not doing it by means of a coalition with either of the two socialist parties - i.e. the so-called Liberal Party, or the oddly named New Democratic Party, so perhaps we should be thankful.

Rhoda Klapp

John Richardson, 7.52pm

It was B. An egregious example. But don't blame me if it comes true in the fullness of time, and we are all obliged to treat them (people who I regard as sick rather than evil, and not really justifying their uniquely awful place in the popular mind) as to be commended for their good deeds. Paedo pride parades are on the way.

Don't you remember the old joke, seen on that was the week that was back in 63ish, Willy Rushton saying "I don't mind them making it legal, old boy, so long as they don't make it compulsory"

At the time it was indeed promised that the new act was as far as it would go. 21 years old, in private. Can't remember the weddings being mentioned, or the 16-year-olds, or the adoptions.

John Richardson

Hi Rhoda,

Thanks for the response.
(Mr Rushdton's joke was a little before my time, but I have heard of it.)
The truth of the contemporary situation is unfortunately* much worse than you seem to imagine.
There is no way that the reality: verifiable by access to publicly available policy documents;
websites (as I mentioned);
and proselytising interviews** would ever get past the censor on this blog.
So I will not bother to type it out.

Except this.
Harriet Harrman was Legal Council for The Paedophile Information Exchange in the 1970s.
This is a matter of record.

*Unfortunate for children.
** Tim Sebastien on BBC's 'Hard Talk' circa 2003...now who was he interviewing...what's his name now...

Herbert Thornton

Rhoda - That reminds me of the parody on the closing lines of Canada's National Anthem which read -

"God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."

The more realistic version -

"God help us all, where can we flee? Pederasty's going to be compulsory,

Pederasty's going to be compulsory."

It will of course be declared that pederasty is a natural and desirable part of childrens' education because it represents multiculturalism and ensures that they grow up to be properly rounded and worthwhile human beings who treasure diversity.

Herbert Thornton

Western Canada get the Weekly Telegraph rather late, but I see that there is talk of the Attorney General instituting further enquiries into the death of Dr David Kelly.

We all know, I think, that Dr. Kelly's opinion that the government had exaggerated the grounds for the Iraq war was publicised by the BBC and that Dr Kelly was subsequently found dead.

There have been all sorts of far fetched theories about his death, but try this one for plausibility - the BBC have established a very extensive network of informers which includes all parts of the government. After the BBC had drawn attention to the report, it was realised that any thorough inquiry into the leak of Dr. Kelly's opinion would expose the extent - and subversive nature - of the BBC informant network. For this reason it was in the interests of the BBC that Dr Kelly should be prevented from disclosing the names of everyone in whom he might have confided or had contact.

Is the idea that the BBC do have a subversive network of informers, and consequently found it necessary to eliminate Dr Kelly, plausible? Would you be surprised if the theory turned out to be frighteningly accurate?