“That one can convince one’s opponents with printed reasons, I have not believed since the year 1764. It is not for that purpose that I have taken up my pen, but rather merely to annoy them, and to give strength and courage to those on our side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.”
G.C. Lichtenberg (1742 – 1799), courtesy of 'Deogolwulf'
I do realise that for most people politics takes up about 0.5% of their time and interest. I also do realise that for most Americans most of the 'news' they receive on politics is fliltered through a grovelling, lickspittle MSM who make the old-style Soviet Pravda look like a scandal sheet! Even so, ignorance is no excuse. If I, from 'over here', can pick up halfway through his first term that Obama is a dangerous, radical, Marxist socialist imbued with the teachings of Saul Alinsky then so should they, or at least, sufficient of them should have done so that he stood no chance of a second term. If that sounds like sour grapes because my forecast of a Romney victory failed to occur then I will admit, yes, I do feel very, very sour, not least because I put my faith in my belief that a sufficient number of Americans would see 'the bleedin' obvious'. They didn't!
Yesterday, the Congressional hearings into the IRS scandal has - I hope! - frightened the life out of enough of them to ensure that the half-term election next year results in a massacre for the 'un-Democrats'. Alas, my hopes are not high. Like electorates the world over they are likely to be seduced by even bigger, more glittering 'baubles, bangles and beads' which will be showered upon them by a government wishing to distract them from the creeping menace oozing through the myriad channels of power that spread like tentacles across, through and over the body-politic. The IRS is but the first example of Alinsky's theories being put into practice. Congress still has to look hard at the all the other Federal agencies whose corrupted and malignant, party-political power reaches right down to 'Main Street, USA'.
Here are two YouTube extracts from yesterday. The first is 'The Kraut' who, in his usual incisive way cuts to the heart of the matter. The other is an impassioned speech by a Congressman at yesterday's hearings into the IRS which is greeted, incredibly, by a sustained burst of impromptu applause:
Thus sayeth the lyric for that happy-clappy 'toon', "Do the Hokey Cokey". It also might apply to the seemingly never-ending wrangles over our in/out membership of the EU. My commenters, Richard, Paul and BOE are giving me grief over my view that it is now necessary to don the bio-chem suits and vote for 'Dim Dave' (or perhaps, 'Devious Dave') at the next election. I fear they are allowing their disdain, verging on dislike, for Dave to cloud their judgment.
So let me begin by agreeing with their general opinion that Cameron is useless, devious, weak and untrustworthy. Also, he's not much of a Tory! However, none of that alters the facts of the current situation.
First Fact: A large swathe of the electorate either wants out of the EU or a very much looser connection. Whether that "large swathe" actually constitutes a majority no-one knows and that state of ignorance will continue until a referendum is held.
Second Fact: However, it is a fact that Tory MPs have realised with a start that a dangerous part of that "large swathe" are prepared to ditch Tories and vote UKIP unless they see some change of direction from the government.
Third Fact: The electorate knows now for an absolute fact that neither Labour nor the Lib-Dems will give them a referendum. (Perhaps the best outcome from the debate on the Private Member's bill yesterday was that it confirmed Lib-Dem intransigence and pinned Labour to the 'no referendum' ground, so hurrah to all those rebel Tories.)
So, I ask my critics, if you are given a three-way bet in which the odds are respectively zero, zero and 50/50, which bet would you take? You will have noticed that I have not included the possibility of UKIP gaining any parliamentary seats because I simply do not believe they can do it - oh, alright then, maybe Farage could do better than he did last time against that ghastly little midget, Bercow, but that's all.
One crucial element is missing. As Sherlock Holmes pointed out in a different circumstance, the interesting thing about the dog in the night was the fact that it failed to bark! As James Forsyth reminds us in The Coffee House, so far Cameron has given no hint as to what outcome he is seeking in his forthcoming negotiations with Europe:
If you ask what’s the problem with David Cameron’s European strategy, a cacophony of voices strike up. But it seems to me that most of their complaints are tactical when the fundamental problem is strategic: what does Cameron actually want back from Brussels? [My emphasis]
Some of those involved in preparation for the renegotiation tell me that this is the wrong question to ask, that what Cameron is seeking is a systemic change in the way the European Union works. But I’m still unclear on what their strategy for achieving this is.
Of course, it is not unreasonable to hold back on the exact details of your negotiating aim. The Eurocrats will be all too eager to humiliate any British prime minister by sending him home with 'a piece of paper' to wave at the airport - there's precedent for that! But Forsyth hints that detail is not something No.10 dwells upon. The way they were bounced into agreeing (sort of) with their rebel MPs at the very last minute is not an indication of a man in command and control of events. I'm not saying for absolute certainty that Cameron (or whoever leads the Tory party!) will stick by his promise but as it stands today that is the best offer on the table. Actually, I think it would now be hideously difficult for any Tory leader to rat on that promise.
All of which leads me up to what will happen if we do get a referendum. For sure, the EU leaders will be aware of the referendum sword pointing in the middle of Dave's back and so they will be minded to give him just enough in the way of baubles, bangles and beads to help him win a vote. With the combined forces of Brussels, a Tory government, Labour and Lib-Dems, the TUC and Big Business, I think UKIP and the rump of the Tory party will find it hard going to achieve an 'Out' vote. Our main hope must continue to lie in the chances, between now and 2017, of the EU self-destructing in some way. In that case, all the cards would be thown up in the air to fall where they may.
In the meantime, my recommendation is to vote Tory at the next election. Half a chance is better than no chance!
I don't quite see the sense or meaning in the term 'heart-warmer' but you know it instantly when you come across it. This 'warmed my heart' first thing this morning - thanks, Andra - and I hope it will do the same for you:
First of all an apology. One of you lot, by which I mean, of course, you, dear readers, sent me a link to this story but, alas, life being somewhat hectic here at 'Chateaux Duff' these days, I simply cannot remember who it was so I cannot acknowledge you - but my thanks all the same.
So, here is the tale of the strangest battle ever fought in WWII. It involved on one side, a strong force of fanatical SS men still determined to fight on; and on the other side, a rag-bag mix of black and white American soldiery, a group of famous French political prisoners and, to add to the head-shaking incredulity of it all, a small force of ordinary Werhmacht soldiers. Yeeees, quite!
It took place in Austria in early May 1945 just after the fall of Berlin but at a time when fanatical SS troops were busy fighting to the last man! A certain Lt. John C. "Jack" Lee Jr. was despatched with a tank or two and a handful of black and white American soldiers to rescue high-ranking French political prisoners from Schloss Itter, a castle situated in the middle of a fluid area which neither side completely controlled. On his journey towards his objective he ran into a group of Werhmacht soldiers who promptly surrendered. He took them along but no sooner had they entered the castle when it was attacked by the SS. Everyone, French, German and American rapidly co-operated and a stout defence was put up, but with the pressure mounting and the ammo running low the situation was becoming desperate. Almost like a Hollywood movie, at the last minute the American cavalry, or at least, a rescue force, arrived and saved the day.
You can read the details of this remarkable battle here:
Oh, alright then, more chaotic than normal - OK? And what else do you expect as I, a man who failed maths, physics and chemistry exams not just by a smidgen but by a mile, attempt to write a post on the late, great Benoit B. Mandelbrot. On my wall, just above my computer screen is a framed picture of the Mandelbrot set which, apart from their scientific interest, are a beautiful set of images in their own right. It was given to me by the cast of my production of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, in my opinion one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, and I treasure it not just for the beauty of the images and the pleasant memories of a production I was proud to be associated with, but also for constant reminder of what a brilliant observer and thinker Mandelbrot was.
Take a look at a cauliflower - go on, try it! - and you will see that it has a rough floral form.
Additional:Courtesy of 'SoD', see Comment below, here is a Roumanian cauliflower which is obviously off its head on fractals!
When you look closer you will see that the 'head' of the cauliflower is made up of lots of smaller 'cauliflowers', or florets as they are called. Each of these florets looks almost exactly like the cauliflower itself. If you seperate one floret from the main flower and carefully pull out one of its mini-florets that, too, would look like a tiny version of the big cauliflower. If you then placed the mini-floret under a microscope and pulled out . . . and so on and on. In other words, Mandelbrot spotted that there is an underlying similarity in nature and believing that at the heart of everything in the universe lies mathematics he set about working out the mathematics of irregular but similar natural forms. This, of course, set him at odds with the High Priests of classical mathematics who were only concerned with the mathematics of regular forms. Here is a passage of dialogue from Tom Stoppard's Arcadia spoken by Thomasina, a child genius living in the early 19th century and Septimus, her intelligent and thoughtful tutor:
Thomasina: [...] Each week I plot your equations dot for dot, xs against ys in all manner of of algebraic relation, and every week they draw themselves as commonplace geometry, as if the world of forms were nothing but arcs and angles. God's truth, Septimus, if there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a blubell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose? Do we believe nature is written in numbers?
Septimus: We do.
Thomasina: Then why do your equations only describe the shapes of manufacture?
Septimus: I do not know.
Thomasina: Armed thus, God could only make a cabinet.
Septimus: He has a mastery of equations which leads into infinities where we cannot follow.
Thomasina: What a faint-heart! We must work outward from the middle of the maze. (She picks up the apple leaf) I will plot this leaf and deduce its equation. You will be famous for being my tutor when Lord Byron is dead and forgotten.
And Stoppard is a genius, too, for encapsulating a hellishly complex scientific concept in such charming and pellucid dialogue.
Other self-similar phenomena, each with its distinctive form, include clouds, coastlines, bolts of lightning, clusters of galaxies, the network of blood vessels in our bodies, and, quite possibly, the pattern of ups and downs in financial markets. The closer you look at a coastline, the more you find it is jagged, not smooth, and each jagged segment contains smaller, similarly jagged segments that can be described by Mandelbrot’s methods. Because of the essential roughness of self-similar forms, classical mathematics is ill-equipped to deal with them.
Mr. Holt was reviewing a memoir written by Mandelbrot shortly before his death in 2010 entitled The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverickwhich has just been published. I suppose, when you think about it, it's obvious that naturally occurring things will look similar at different levels of magnification. The trouble is that we plodders never do think about it, we needs must wait for the Mandelbrots of this world to tell us 'the bleedin' obvious'! Here is a simple example of the Mandelbrot Set in which each picture is the blown up picture of the tiny square in the preceding picture:
Quasi-self-similarity in the Mandelbrot set
Here is a more extended sequence and if you look closely at each preceding picture you will be able to see the tiny detail which has been magnified:
Start
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
Step 9
Step 10
Step 11
Step 12
Step 13
Step 14
Yes, indeed, now cauliflowers will never seem quite the same, will they?!
(I think even Stoppard would enjoy that little witticism!)
I ask in light of the current left turn, right turn, about turn, state of the parliamentary Conservative party led by the intrepid Capt. Mainwaring ooops, sorry, I mean David Cameron as they march, or rather, stumble their way towards Europe. Good job Cameron wasn't in charge of the D-day invasion force, we would probably have attacked America!
This whole shambles must have them falling off their chairs with laughter in Brussels. How they must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of 'Dim Dave', assuming he wins the next election, coming over to renegotiate Britain's links with the EU. By the time it's over he'll be lucky to come back clutching his Y-fronts to hide his nakedness! It is a typical example of what ensues when you have a problem of geo-political importance and the man in charge has absolutely no idea of what to do because he has no fundamental beliefs to guide him.
Even so, that leaves us, the pbv (the poor bloody voters) with a problem. Let us suppose that Dave and his party, between them, make a pretty definite pledge of an in/out referendum if they win the next election. I use the phrase 'pretty definite' because we all know what lying liars they are. Also, it assumes that Dave will still be leader by the next election - definitely not a given! Well, let's suppose, in which case the question is - who do we vote for? We all know deep in our hearts that UKIP will not win enough seats to form a government so a vote for them will punish the Tories but likely achieve a Lab-Lib coalition which will definitely not give us a referendum. Equally, it may result in yet another Tory-Lib coalition and again, coalition politics being what they are - crooked! - that will give Dave an excuse because the Lib-Dems will oppose him. So the question is, should we all hold our noses and vote Tory?
I have a sinking feeling that might be the only answer.
Whilst wearing surgical mask and gloves I did touch upon this subject a few weeks back and it is only with extreme reluctance that I return to it. I do so because my e-pal, Dom, sent me link which both turned my stomach and sent me into apoplectic rage. If you do not wish to suffer similar symptoms, read no more!
It concerns Dr.(?) Kermit Gosnell, a man who has run abortion 'factories' for decades and who has now been found guilty on three murder charges relating to the deliberate killing of babies minutes after they were born. In my earlier piece I remarked on the fact that none of the American MSM had bothered to use the court seats which had been reserved for them with the result that great swathes of the American public know nothing of this case - although now, thanks to the efforts of a minority of media outlets, the story is spreading. I also described the technique employed by Gosnell and his assistant butchers to despatch these babies after they had been born as they lay there on the table moving, crying and fighting for life. Gosnell or his assistants used scissors or a scalpel to snip the spinal cord at the back of the neck, in fact, they called it "snipping"!
Today, Dom sent me a link to a Catholic blog which in turn drew heavily on an article by James Taranto in the WSJ written last month. Taranto's article is quite long but is a meticulous summary of the current situation and the past history of abortion in the USA and I urge you all to read it. He ends with this example, rich in irony, of history coming back to bite you in the arse:
One of the strongest practical arguments in favor of the Roe regime is that abortion has been around since time immemorial and outlawing it only drove it underground, leading women to endanger themselves by seeking out the services of back-alley quacks. The Philadelphia grand jurors recounted a powerful example from their own city’s history.
It was called the Mother’s Day Massacre. A young Philadelphia doctor “offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women who were bused to his clinic from Chicago on Mother’s Day 1972, in their second trimester of pregnancy.” The women didn’t know that the doctor “planned to use an experimental device called a ‘super coil’ developed by a California man named Harvey Karman.”
A colleague of Karman’s Philadelphia collaborator described the contraption as “basically plastic razors that were formed into a ball. . . . They were coated into a gel, so that they would remain closed. These would be inserted into the woman’s uterus. And after several hours of body temperature, . . . the gel would melt and these . . . things would spring open, supposedly cutting up the fetus.”
Nine of the 15 Chicago women suffered serious complications. One of them needed a hysterectomy. The following year, the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. It would be 37 more years before the Philadelphia doctor who carried out the Mother’s Day Massacre would go out of business. His name is Kermit Gosnell.
Back-alley abortions were indisputably a problem before 1973. That’s no defense of the Roe regime, which failed to solve it.
How are you feeling? Yeeeees, quite! And before you are tempted to shrug and say, "Only in America", ask yourself how our baby killing factories are doing?!
In the post below I suggested you take note of the name Ben Rhodes. He is Obama's Liar-in-Chief and if you thought Jay Carney, the White House Press Spokesman, had that title then let me tell you that you are confusing the loudspeaker with the DVD player!
Gradually, very gradually, the American press is teasing the truth out about this (irony alert!) failed fiction writer whose skill at weaving fairy stories might not have cut it with the buying public but which were considered invaluable by Obama who appointed - or should that be 'annointed' - him as his foreign policy speech writer - amongst other things. Rhodes it was who composed Obama's fatuous speech in Cairo in which he almost fell to his knees on a prayer mat to praise Islam without bothering to distinguish betweem moderate Muslims and extremists.
As Ed Lasky tells us at The AmericanThinker, Mr.Rhodes might prefer to stay back out of sight but his tentacles reach quite far. A reporter for CBS News, Sharyl Attkisson, has shown considerable spirit, given the nature of her employee, in refusing to swallow the administration's cover story for the Benghazi attack. She has pursued the story against the increasing resistance of CBS who have taken a heavy hand against her, accusing her of "advocacy" not reporting. Guess who is the boss of CBS News - why, none other than David Rhodes, brother of Ben the White House string-puller!
This Benghazi cover-up scandal has a long way to go and given the nature of obfuscating governments everywhere, it will take a long time for everything and everyone to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the daylight. However, Ben Rhodes is definitely going to feel some Congressional heat.
It was me who first mentioned the 'I'-word by wondering if, just if, there might not be a case for impeachment against the 'Commander-in-Chief' for dereliction of duty, if nothing else. Rick Moran at PJMedia disabuses me of that hope. He reminds all of us over-excited 'impeachers' that you cannot:
[I]mpeach a president without mentioning “high crimes and misdemeanors”?
That’s the constitutional standard, and for people who purport to love our founding document, there is precious little said about a serious case to be made that the lies, the incompetence, the political calculation, the whitewashing, and even the stonewalling and denial of documents add up to a reason to overturn the election and make Joe Biden president.
[...]
You can’t impeach a president for being a naive fool or an incompetent boob. You can’t impeach a president because he chose aides, assistants, or cabinet secretaries who can’t, or won’t, do their jobs. You can’t impeach a president for looking into a camera and lying to the American people. You can’t impeach a president because he tries to hide an error that would cost him votes in an election. Nor can you impeach a president for playing politics with national security, failing to rescue Americans under attack, or going to sleep in the middle of a crisis.
Pity, but I think he might be right. Still, that's no reason not to go after Ben Rhodes. And in the process, of course, make sure 'HillBilly' is well and truly splattered in order to ruin her chances for the top job when Obama goes.
I am feeling rather faint! And I do think Breitbart News should have printed an 'Elf 'n' Safety' warning on their story reporting that the BBC - yes, the BBC! - had actually apologised for its worse than useless coverage of the Benghazi scandal:
In a piece titled, "After Benghazi revelations, heads will roll," Mardell writes, "In the interests of full disclosure I have to say I have not in the past been persuaded that allegations of a cover-up were a big deal." He adds, "It seemed to me a partisan attack based on very little."
Well, as a fully indoctrinated BBC-man, Mark Mardell would naturally fear no evil from the sainted Obama in the whitest of White Houses. Still, credit where credit is due, when ten tons of brown, smelly stuff is tipped out right in front of him, even he can take notice:
This is the first hard evidence that the state department did ask for changes to the CIA's original assessment.
Specifically, they wanted references to previous warnings deleted and this sentence removed: "We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."
There's little doubt in my mind that this will haunt Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president, unless she executes some pretty fancy footwork.
State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland is directly implicated, and the fingerprints of senior White House aides Ben Rhodes and Jay Carney are there as well.
Take note of that name - Ben Rhodes. His name keeps cropping up as being one of the backroom apparatchiks doing Obama's bidding. Suddenly the media searchlight is swivelling towards him. A second-rate, 'back corridors' man who has slithered his way into a position of influence way above his abilities, I wonder how he will take the heat of scrutiny?
This is not a joke (it's not even that funny!) but whilst nattering with a friend last night I was reminded of this incident which took place eons ago when I was in the army. I have a feeling that I might have told you this before but, hell, old men, and especially old soldiers, always repeat themselves!
The army, for reasons known only to the 'Brass', have, or at least had, an annual event in which various loonies, who would have been much better off in a pub, paddled canoes down the entire length of the River Thames. Yeeeees, quite! Anyway, for some reason the signals platoon in my battalion, of which I was a proud member, was despatched in small groups to man communication points along the course, presumably in case any of the loonies fell in the river where, given that most of them were probably marines, they could bloody well stay as far as I was concerned! My particular point was Teddington Lock in south west London. We duly arrived at the crack of dawn and set ourselves up. Having fed the swans and ducks with our crap ration packs I set off down the road at lunchtime to find a pub - natch! I entered the first one I came to - and stopped dead in my tracks. The place was packed and to my right was what looked like Robin Hood and his merry band of men, over to the left was a collection of Victorian gentlemen and ladies and intermingled with them were various people dressed in sort of space-age suits.
I began to wonder if my mate had slipped something in my tea but then the penny dropped - of course, Teddington! - then the home of British Film and TV studios. These were all luvvies having a lunch break in costume. Anyway, I made my way to the bar and ordered a pint. Standing next to me was 'a nun' in the full, old-fashioned regalia you never see these days. Her religious effect was somewhat spoiled by a very large gin and tonic in one hand and a fag in the other. I noticed she was looking at me in my camouflaged smock and red beret and as she was quite good-looking I thought I might get lucky so I gave her a smile. She leaned towards me and in her husky, actressy voice asked, "Are you a real paratrooper, darling, or an actor?" Modestly, I admitted that I was the real thing whilst inwardly exulting that I had pulled! She nodded, smiled knowingly and said, "I thought so, darling, your finger nails are dirty".
For the benefit of my Brit readers who may be less enthralled with the minutiae of American politics than me, I should explain that Ms. Maureen Dowd is well-known commentator for the New York Times. Needless then to add that she leans so far over to the Left that only a solid stack of Marxist tracts keeps her from falling over. Thus, it was with some trepidation that I read her take on the Benghazi attack and the hullabaloo that has steadily grown as the facts leak out. Actually, it was rather brave of me because I am incensed to a foam-flecked fury by, first, the American governments inaction as the attack took place and, second, its desperate, scrabbling action metaphorically to spray the corpses with scent and bury them quick lest any unseemly smells seep out. Bearing in mind that the considered opinion of the editors of the NYT was the age-old refrain you hear from coppers at any accident or crime scene, "Right, move along, nothing to see here" I was not expecting too much from Ms. Dowd except possibly my early death brought about by bursting gaskets! So, imagine my surprise when I read this:
The administration’s behavior before and during the attack in Benghazi, in which four Americans died, was unworthy of the greatest power on earth.
I don't quite know why she failed to add the word 'after' to the "before and during" because in the remainder of her article she hammers 'HillBilly' and her minions for their cover-up. But let me not quibble. Ms. Dowd set her political sympathies to one side and more or less told it the way it was, and that is quite remarkable
Now we know that at 8 p.m. Eastern time on the last night of [Ambassador] Stevens’s life, his deputy in Libya spoke to Secretary Clinton and informed her of the attack in Benghazi and the fact that the ambassador was now missing. An hour later, Gregory Hicks received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Stevens was dead. Hicks immediately called Washington. It was 9 p.m. Eastern time, or 3 a.m. in Libya. Remember the Clinton presidential team’s most famous campaign ad? About how Hillary would be ready to take that 3 a.m. call? Four years later, the phone rings, and Secretary Clinton’s not there. She doesn’t call Hicks back that evening. Or the following day.
In the middle of a campaign in which the President had claimed that Al Quaeda (AQ) was now a defeated force, his apparat twisted this way and that to avoid admitting that it was an AQ affiliate that had murdered four American public servants in Libya. Instead, despite knowing the facts directly from survivors in Tripoli, they pointed their Federal finger at Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-born Christian Copt resident in teh States who had released a video on the internet which was fearfully rude about Islam and which had caused unrest in Cairo. The Federal law machine moved into action, this time with no hesitation, and Nakoula was arrested, charged with infringing his probation rules and is now in the slammer for a year. (Silly man, had he made a film denigrating Christ he might well have won an Oscar!) But worst was to come - and at this point you really do need to have a sick-bag to hand - both Obama and Clinton stood over the corpses of their own public servants and lied to them, and then went one further by appraoching the grieving families and lying some more:
As Mr. Hicks testified, his superiors in Washington knew early that night that a well-executed terrorist attack with the possible participation of al-Qaeda elements was under way. Instead of responding, the most powerful figures in the government decided that an unseen YouTube video better served their political needs. And, in the most revealing glimpse of the administration’s depravity, the president and secretary of state peddled the lie even in their mawkish eulogies to their buddy “Chris” and three other dead Americans. They lied to the victims’ coffins and then strolled over to lie to the bereaved, Hillary telling the Woods family that “we’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.” And she did. The government dispatched more firepower to arrest Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in Los Angeles than it did to protect its mission in Benghazi.
Still, at least we know what should be carved into 'HillBilly's headstone, her very own words:
I do not know enough American history to say definitely that this is the worst government they have ever had but I will hazard a guess that it is far and away the most dangerous. Slowly but surely the web of deceit which the Obama apparat threw over the murder of four US public servants in Benghazi is being torn apart. Steven Hayes in The Weekly Standard helped the process along with a forensic examination of how Susan Rice, the ambassador to the UN, was provided with a brief full of out-and-out lies with which she was ordered to trot round five different TV studios on a Sunday morning in order to give the American people a completely false picture of what had occurred and why. Hayes' investigation finally prompted a normally complacent Dem-supporting news agency, ABC, to dig a little deeper and they came up with the fact that the original briefing paper supplied by the CIA after the attack had been changed in twelve important respects after sundry government apparatchiks had insisted that anything that contradicted their version of events must be deleted. This hand-grenade from a normally docile member of the press was startling and when combined with the Congressional hearings in which the man on the spot in Tripoli who took over as amabassador after the murders said that when he heard Ms. Rice's version of events "My chin dropped!" because it was a travesty of what he had reported back to Washington, the collateral damage is beginning to look ugly.
The ABC report was like the first slight shiftings before an avalanche begins. More and more of the formerly supine members of the press began to dig and obviously they were reaching places of intense discomfort to the White House because yesterday, Jay Carney, the professional 'liar-in-chief' for Obama was forced to delay his standard press briefing whilst he privately briefed a select number of reporters. This, naturally, caused immense irritation from all the other reporters who were not privileged with private briefings and Carney was savaged during the subsequent press conference.
Suddenly, whilst Carney's charade was going on, yet another hand-grenade went off, this one from an entirely unexpected direction - the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), their equivalent of Her Maj's Revenue & Customs. There had been mutterings last year ahead of the presidential election that various Right-wing groups, particularly the so-called 'Tea Party', had been subjected to sudden investigation by the IRS. It is important for Brit readers to understand that an investigation by the IRS is no small thing, it involves immense amounts of work and time to answer all their detailed questions and, given their huge legal powers, it is also very frightening. Anyway, yesterday the IRS suddenly 'fessed up' and admitted that it had, prior to the election, mounted a specific campaign of what was, in effect, harrassment and bullying aimed at Republican support organisations.
Like some of the commentators on Fox News, I, too, am puzzled as to why this confession and grovelling apology was made at all, and also why it was made yesterday. The cynical might suspect that it was by way of a distraction to gain the media's attention and keep them away from the Benghazi story. If so, it is a highly dangerous stunt because the implications of the IRS behaving in a blatantly partisan manner in order to effect the outcome of a presidential election is enormous. Potentially, I would suggest, there is jail time awaiting some senior IRS officials and if they acted under political pressure they will sing like canaries! Anyway, watch this space for further developments.
In the meantime, ponder on the stench arising from the midden that is the government of the United States of America, the Land of the Free (to be fooled)!
It's not my job to offer aid and comfort to Mr. Osborne but it would very uncharitable not to offer the Chancellor a small crumb of comfort. He thinks he is facing insurmountable problems - of course, he doesn't say that out loud but he knows it and so do we - so he should relax for five minutes and read Ambrose E-P in today's Telegraph. The Chinese government is up to its armpits in chop-suey, at least, it looks like chop-suey but smells a lot worse! Basically, the government is divided between the reformers and the statists. The reformers have known for some time that the first phase of China's development from a quasi-Soviet state to Sate-controlled capitalism has passed and now the country must remove the grip of the State and open it up to full-blooded capitalism. Unfortunately, as I have reported here before, the State-owned banks who financed the first phase far above and beyond what was required are now in deep trouble and any reform will shake them to their foundations. Another difficulty is the overwhelming predominance of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). They and the banks have been in bed together for too long and their overweening strength has stifled free enterprise. However, the intertwining power of the cronies and the bankers whose financial influence extends deep into the government will make it incredibly hard for the reformers to make any headway. An interesting article in Caixin Online compares the China of today with the Britain of 1979 that Mrs. Thatcher had to sort out:
In Britain in the late 1970s, the government controlled most of the key industries, and the Chinese government today controls PetroChina, China Mobile, Air China and BaoSteel, in addition to all the financial giants such, as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The 10 largest companies by market capitalization in China are all state-owned and account for the majority of the total earnings on the stock market last year. Earnings by private companies remain insignificant after 30 years of privatization. In developed markets, state-owned firms generally account for a negligible portion of the overall economy.
The international market analysts have seen the problems approaching for a considerable time and their warnings are there to be seen and read by everyone - except those determined not to look! Here is Ambrose E-P again:
HSBC's gauge of Chinese services fell three points to 51.1 in April, the lowest in almost two years.
The broader composite index also dropped sharply to a six-month low of 51.1 and is now barely above the contraction line, with new orders trailing badly. The economy grew 7.7pc in the first quarter, slower than expected.
The Shanghai index of stocks rolled over in early March and has given up the half the gains since the rally started late last year. It has dropped almost 60pc since its peak in 2008 and is now trading at levels comparable to 2003.
China's downturn is rippling through commodity markets, led by a major sell-off of base metals this year. Credit Suisse said the short-covering rally over the last few days is likely to prove a "dead cat bounce" as China's structural slow-down and a weakening global economy overwhelm all else. It expects copper to "bite the dust", falling to 2009 levels near $6,000 a tonne.
The China bears based their analysis on this: China's economy is slowing, and the massive debts of local governments could well become a burden on the national balance sheet, impeding the economy's balanced and stable growth. They see risks to the financial system.
None of this is to suggest that China's problems are insoluble, after all, 'that woman' taught us that nothing is impossible if you have the will - and the luck! Even so, the tensions between the reformers and the statists will be intense and dangerous. I have remarked before on my belief that China has inherent centrifugal forces at work and the chances of them overcoming central power is always a possibility.
There, feeling better now, are you, George? I hope not because you need to sort out our untenable borrowing requirements amongst several dozen other major problems!
But everyone ignored it! I watched some of the Congressional committee hearings on the murder of four American officials in Benghazi last year. I'm afraid I lost my temper - yes, I know, difficult to imagine, but I did! - because Fox News is rubbish! When Sky News reports on some important happening, say, a Parliamentary committee hearing on a 'headline' case, they broadcast the whole thing without interruptions for adverts. Not so with Fox News-interruptus, if I may rename it. I suppose there is some excuse for the adverts in that they pay for the lights and heating, etc, but there is no excuse for giving valuable time to all those bimbettes with fright-white teeth who proceed to tell us all again what we just heard - whilst the live proceedings are going on without us! I used to be in love with Megan Kelly but now she has joined the rather large group of people on TV whose faces I want to punch!
Anyway, I saw just about enough to be well and truly sickened. It was politicians doing what politicians do which is bad enough on the normal day-to-day stuff but this concerned the murders of four public servants aided and abetted by gross governmental inefficiences and sullied beyond shame by a deliberate campaign of outright lying by the White House and the State Department then under 'HillBilly's' control. If the Republican membes of the committee were salivating at the chance to land hard punches on the Obama apparat they at least had virtue on their side as they sought to uncover the cover up. The Democrats, or at least the ones Fox News-interruptus allowed me to see from time to time, were utterly despicable, full of cant and humbug, weeping crocodile tears on behalf the dead men, assuring the so-called 'whistle-blowers' that there would be no retaliation against their careers, before laying into them and more or less accusing them of lying.
If I was an American I would be deeply ashamed. If I was a member of one of the victims' families, I would be in despair. As it is, I'm an Englishman, and I wouldn't trust the Obama apparat or the Democrat party as far as I could piss into a gale! Obama almost succeeds in making Putin look like a straight arrow!
This morning there was extreme bad language to be heard around here, in fact, you might have heard it where you are even if it is 'ooop north' or 'over there' or even 'down under there'. I was already guiltily aware that yesterday I had a 'slob-day' in which I did absolutely nothing, just 'slobbed' around watching either the Congressional hearings on the Benghazi attack (more on that later) or watching recordings of various American 'bish-bash' police/gangster films (Banshee is rubbish!) I just didn't feel like doing anything - so there! However, this morning wracked with guilt - oh, alright then - feeling slightly sheepish I sat down and wrote 90% of a marvellously witty, insightful and highly intelligent post on the Stuckists - what was that? You've never met the Stuckists! Well, of course you haven't, that's why I was trying to introduce you. Anyway, in a foolish attempt to add something a little different to the blog post I succeeded in erasing the whole blogging thing. Cue: mouse being smashed onto desktop, computer being kicked, 'Memsahib' being told to mind her own business when she complained about the language and me stomping down the stairs promising never to touch the bloody computer ever again! Happily, a good lunch has cheered me up and here I am doing my Robert the Bruce act - and if it wasn't Robert the Bruce who tried, tried and tried again then please don't tell me, I don't want to know!
Now, I want to take you back to the beginning of April when I wrote one of my witty, intelligent etc, etc, posts - and I heard that! - concerning the artist Graham Ovenden who, I reported, had been charged with various misbehaviours with little girls. Alas for him, a large amount of his painting and photography does concentrate on prepubescant girls and in this post-Savile world that is asking for trouble - which duly arrived in the form of the local 'Plod' who swiftly had Mr. Ovenden up before Judge. At the time I remarked that Mr. Ovenden's guilt or innocence was not my main concern; what was irritating me was that sundry 'Nationalised Picture Galleries' had ordered his works to be taken down immediately. I pointed out that if we were to be denied the chance to look at works of art by artists who had behaved badly, even criminally, then half the galleries would be empty. I then added that given the plethora of so-called post-modernist dross that litters (I use the word advisedly) their galleries it might be an improvement were they to be half empty! A brief discussion ensued with some commenters and that was that - or so I thought.
Two or three weeks later I suddenly received another comment on the Ovenden post from a Mr. Bruce Wagner who pointed out that most of the charges against Mr. Ovenden had been tossed out by the Judge and that he was only found guilty on two charges none of which was concerned with child abuse. Mr. Wagner pointed out that he had begun a blog entitled Artist on Trial for the sole purpose of making public the fact that Mr. Ovenden was absolutely and definitely not a 'kiddie-fiddler'! In a series of e-mail exchanges, I replied to Mr. Wagner repeating my disinterest in the court action but also saying that Mr. Ovenden was lucky in one respect - that he had a true, staunch and valiant friend in Mr. Wagner! During these exchanges Mr. Wagner picked up on my dislike of the so-called 'art constructions' which seem to win all the top art prizes today and which I think are complete rubbish. If I tell you that that dead sheep in formaldehyde from a few years back is actually an improvement on the brainless junk that is produced today,you will have an idea how the arts have descended below mediocrity to total dross. It was at this point that Mr. Wagner introduced me to the Stuckists.
The Stuckists are a group of contemporary artists who decided some time ago to break with the detritus assemblers and instead to call for a return to figurative painting. One of their leaders was, at the time, the boyfriend of Ms. Tracey Emin, yes, indeed, her of the unmade bed with the suspicious stains! She was outraged and in a fury shouted at her boyfriend: "Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!" Thus, in an unholy row the Stuckists were born! They don't deserve it, I know, but the fact is that I am now a Stuckist. I'd rather have one of Banksy's wall paintings than Ms. Emin's "rank ... enseamed bed". Even so, having had a quick glance at various examples from the Stuckists' work I was hardly surprised to find that a lot of it was not of a particularly high standard. Some of them seem influenced by comic-book art, some have traces of Hopper, some seem influenced by the old between-the-wars poster illustrators but without their wit and style. Still, at least they still believe in painting rather than assembling, so let's hear a jolly big cheer for the Stuckists!
Here are three examples I quite like but alas in the disaster that wiped my machine this morning I do not have the names but you will find them if you look up 'Stuckists':
I do realise, my little wage slaves, that it is double-bubble in bitterness when you have to go back to work after a Bank Holiday and, moreover, a miraculous Bank Holiday in which a scorching sun shone upon us all, er, well, perhaps not on JK because I gather it's snowing in Arkie - shame! Anyway, realising how deeply you will have missed your usual Monday Funny (Sorry, what was that? Oh, never mind . . . ) I have from the kindness of my heart provided you with a Tuesday Funny:
A father watched his young daughter playing in the garden.
He smiled as he reflected on how sweet and pure his little girl was. Tears formed in his eyes as he thought about her seeing the wonders of nature through such innocent eyes.
Suddenly she just stopped and stared at the ground.
He went over to her to see what work of God had captured her attention.
He noticed she was looking at two spiders mating.
'Daddy, what are those two spiders doing?' she asked.
'They're mating,' her father replied.
'What do you call the spider on top?' she asked.
A Daddy Longlegs,' her father answered.
'So, the other one is a Mommy Longlegs?' the little girl asked.
As his heart soared with the joy of such a cute and innocent question, he replied, 'No dear. both of them are Daddy Longlegs.'
'The little girl, looking a little puzzled, thought for a moment, then lifted her foot and stomped them flat.
'Well", she said, "that may be OK in New Zealand, but we're not having any of that shit in Australia."
There are no prizes for guessing who supplied that particular Funny!
Well, I only produce my Monday Funnies to cheer up all you wage-slaves as you start the week but today being a Bank Holiday, and a sunny one as well, you are all, no doubt, lazing about in your gardens watching the weeds grow! Anyway, I will leave you a Tuesday Funny later tonight because I have an early start for 'Londinium' again tomorrow, so no posts on Tuesday. Anyway, today, as I keep taking shelter indoors from this unbelievably fierce sun, I will leave you the occasional mumble.
Euro founder calls for break-up: Not so much a case of chickens coming home to roost as 14-year old dead turkeys hitting the floor to rot! Courtesy of Ambrose E-P in The Telegraph, allow me to remind you of a long-lost name - Oscar Lafontaine - remember him? He was yet another in a long line of swivel-eyed Germans with a fanatical idea - a common currency for a United States of Europe:
Mr Lafontaine was labelled "Europe's Most Dangerous Man" by The Sun after he called for a "united Europe" and the "end of the nation state" in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.
Ah, but that was yesterday, or to be precise, back in 1999. Today, that nasty old real-politik has stuck its oar in and poor old Oscar has had to face reality:
Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable. "Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain," he said, adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a "catastrophe".
He foresees a resurgence of extreme anti-German sentiment across southern Europe including France. Whodathunkit? Well, lots of people, actually, but no-one listened.
Mary Bousted, edukatanist, earns an 'F' for Fail: According to this particularly dim light in the 'edukatanist' firmament, pupils should be allowed to skip the "slow", "boring" openings to the plays because they leave them "gritting their teeth" with boredom. I can only assume that Ms. Boustead teaches 'Media Studies' or 'Japanese Paper Folding' or some such vital subject because it is obvious that she hasn't a clue concerning Shakespeare and his plays. Happily, Ms. Bousted's terminal stupidity has permitted her to, er, rise well above mere class-rooms and reach the exalted heights of being general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. Yeeeees, quite!
Could Adam Smith be proven wrong? A truly fascinating article in Der Spiegel sent to me by the ever alert, 'SoD' - well done, my boy! In it, two economists and directors at the MIT Center for Digital Business dare to forecast the complete overturning of one of the central beliefs of free market capitalism, that is, that no matter if new technology (trains, for example) puts workers in outdated industries (farriers, stablemen, coachmen, etc) out of work, the increase in productivity will provide alternative jobs. According to these two swots this may no longer be the case because the rate of increase in computer controlled automata is such that human work is decreasing. For example, pause and consider for a moment the possible impact of driverless autos which have just been given licences to be tested. The implications, if true, are awesome! A fascinating article, worth reading.
Maybe, just maybe, Obama is nearing a 'Gotcha' moment: I must admit that one of the crucial events which convinced me that Obama would lose the election was the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi followed by the most obvious and disgusting programme of lies and obfuscation put out by his regime. He made Nixon look like a vicar! I thought at the time that American patriotism would be so enraged that they would slaughter Obama at the polls in much the way the American victims were slaughtered in Benghazi. But it didn't happen. Just like the outrage of 'Operation Fast & Furious' in which a Federal government sting took place and went hopelessly wrong leading to the death of an American border guard, a systematic barrage of foot-dragging and out-and-out lying went on and no-one, least of all the Attorney-General, paid a price for it. The deliberate docility of the Obama-lovin' lickspittles in the media was an enormous help, of course. But, as Michael Walsh points out at PJMedia, this time the people feeling betrayed by Obama's inaction at the time and his lying ever since are hard-bitten intelligence and Special Ops types who are thirsty for revenge on behalf of their friends. New Congressional hearings are due and the brown stuff is likely to hit the fan. Obama will be well and truly splattered but so also will 'Hillbilly'. Allow me to mention one word, perhaps more in hope than expectation, but even so - impeachment!
Critics - don'cha lurve 'em? Well, actually I do, at least, some of them. Take for example, Lloyd Evans in The Spectator, I love him because he has just saved me 'loadsa' money! I was trying to work out an underhand way of getting past that implacable backstop, normally referred to here as 'The Memsahib', in order for me to pay over the odds to get a ticket for the ROYAL National Theatre (I like to rub their proper title under their rotten republican noses) production of Othello. I don't have Evans' erudition but I just know that I would share a great many of his views - and his view of this production was exceedingly dim. So, money saved, time better spent and terminal grumpiness avoided - thanks Mr. Evans. And that's the end of this Monday Rumble.
It would be unfair to suggest that 52% (or whatever the figure was for those who voted for Obama last year) were technically brain dead because, alas, like voters everywhere they simply (and I do mean 'simple'!) voted in their own self-interest. Obama, following Saul Alinsky's creed, promised them bread and circuses and they duly swallowed the lies whole. However, one thing is now clear beyond debate, Obama, himself, is as thick as six short Gurkhas!(*) Interestingly, I have just read two articles saying roughly the same thing but rather more politely than me.
Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to ride his reelection success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the fiscal cliff, leaving a humiliated John Boehner & Co. with nothing but naked tax hikes.
Thus emboldened, Obama turned his inaugural and State of the Union addresses into a left-wing dream factory, from his declaration of war on global warming (on a planet where temperatures are the same as 16 years ago and in a country whose CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low) to the invention of new entitlements — e.g., universal preschool for 5-year-olds— for a country already drowning in debt.
To realize his dreams, Obama sought to fracture and neutralize the congressional GOP as a prelude to reclaiming the House in 2014. This would enable him to fully enact his agenda in the final two years of his presidency, usually a time of lame-duck paralysis. Hail the Obama juggernaut.
Well, that story — excuse me, narrative — lasted exactly six months. The Big Mo is gone.
John Boehner and the GOP called his bluff on the 'poker game' over sequester which entails automatic cuts to government spending and, surprise, surprise, the only breakdown in services came as a result of Federal officials obeying orders from the White House to make the ensuing cuts as painful as possible to the public so that blame could be laid at the feet of the Republicans. Alas, for the less than clever dicks in the White House, this nefarious plot was quickly uncovered and anyway, inconvenienced members of the public, like their counterparts everywhere, instantly blamed the government for every breakdown in services:
Things began with the near-comical cancellation of White House tours and ended with not-so-comical airline delays. Obama thought furious passengers would blame the GOP. But isn’t the executive branch in charge of these agencies? Who thinks that a government spending $3.6 trillion a year can’t cut 2 percent without furloughing air-traffic controllers?
Looking not just incompetent at managing budgets but cynical for deliberately injuring the public welfare, the administration relented. Congress quickly passed a bill giving Obama reallocation authority to restore air traffic control. Having previously threatened to veto any such bill, Obama caved. He signed.
Meanwhile, his crusade on gun control has turned into a fiasco with membership of the National Rifle Association growing apace and his efforts to have legislation passed have been foiled not just by Republicans but Democrats, with an eye to their home base, as well.
Grover G. Norquist in The American Spectator is even more dismissive of Obama's fumblings. He reminds us that in his first two years in office, the President had control of both Houses and was thus able to pass more or less any law he liked. He wasted that opportunity by concentrating on an eye-wateringly large splurge of government 'stimulus' spending, and in ramming through 'Obamacare'. (Incidentally, the bills for that gigantic folly are only now just beginning to become apparent to a dismayed public but, hey, never give suckers an even break!)
Then in 2010, his Democratic majority in the House was tossed out. Two years of power as complete as exists in American national politics ended and were followed by two years in which others held the power to say no. The Republican House wrestled away $2.5 trillion in spending reductions as the price for increasing the government’s “debt ceiling.” Obama could pass no new legislation. His first term lasted two years.
By winning a second mandate, Obama was again in possession of real power but, as Norquist tells it, within less than two months he blew it - and even worse, he failed even to realise quite what a political disaster he had brought about. There were around $500 billion p.a. in what were called the 'Bush' tax cuts which had run for years but which required annual endorsement by the Congress or they would automatically fail. Were this to happen Americans would be hit by an enormous tax hike which would total around $5 trillion over 10 years. This was Obama's sword of Damocles - but he dropped it! I will let Norquist explain the tricky details:
Obama spent the months of November and December reveling in his power to get his pound of flesh from the rich. He thought, as he sat across from Republican negotiators, that he was empowered by his election victory, his personal popularity as measured in polls. He misunderstood. His power flowed from the fact that he held the fate of a $500 billion annual tax hike in his hands. Like an upriver landowner with a dam and sluicegate, Obama alone would decide how much income would flow and to whom and for how long.
He chose to take $600 billion in tax increases over the next 10 years. That was 15 percent of the tax cuts that were lapsing. His increases targeted the top 1 percent. On January 1, taxes automatically increased $500 billion. On January 2 the Congress voted to cut taxes $280 billion that year and $3.7 trillion over the decade.
In his lofty generosity he agreed to take only 15% of the possible tax hike when the 'Bush' tax cuts lapsed and he targeted the top 1% of earners. But, what he failed to realise is that by agreeing to that arrangement the 85% of 'Bush' tax cuts that remained were now fixed forever and from now on any desire or demand by Obama and the Dems for tax rises can only be achieved by new legislation. In other words, there is no golden pot of tax income to be had every year when, as in the past, the 'Bush ' tax cuts came up for re-affirmation. Here is Norquist's explanation of why Obama fumbled the golden ball:
WHY, THEN, DID HE give away power? There are three schools of thought. First, Obama believed his own press clippings. He really thought he was in possession of a mandate, that the world would bend to his will, because he won the election. But elections are good for four years; popularity endures until it doesn’t. He mistook the source of his power in the fiscal cliff negotiations and didn’t understand that making the lapsing tax cuts permanent removed his unanswerable threat and ended his power.
Second, after Republicans agreed last year to delay the debt ceiling vote and the imposition of the sequester, Obama believed they were retreating. The courtier press reinforced this by joining in the premature celebration. What was really happening was more akin to the Carthaginian troops falling back in the battle of Cannae…luring the Romans into believing they were collapsing. Republicans wisely took the debt ceiling vote and the sequester—an automatic spending cut of $1.2 trillion over the decade—away from and outside the blast radius of the fiscal cliff negotiations where Obama held the power.
Third, Obama assumed that he had the whip hand on the looming sequester fight just as he did in the fiscal cliff talks. Here the establishment press created some of his confusion, because they paraded Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham across the TV networks to announce that they spoke for all Republicans in preferring anything—anything—to reductions in the increases in the Pentagon budget. Obama assumed the GOP would raise taxes, or at least delay or kill the sequester, to protect its precious Pentagon spending. But the “defense spending is sacrosanct” caucus in the Republican Party now has approximately 20 members, and 17 of them are newspaper columnists without a vote in the House or Senate. The small-government worldview is in control now. Obama misunderstood the changing correlation of forces.
Norquist summarises the self-inflicted wound that Obama has perpetrated against himself:
So now we are in sequestration. Now the spending cuts are automatic. The Republicans have the upper hand. Obama cannot raise taxes or reduce the sequester without a majority vote in the House and Senate. And it is unlikely that Speaker John Boehner or Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will give away control as easily as Obama did.
According to reports, Obama was never much good as a 'community organiser' so it figures, as they say 'over there', that he's hopeless, helpless and hapless at running a country.
(*) I occasionally make use of the old army expression "as thick as six short Gurkhas" and it suddenly occurred to me that people might misunderstand and assume that I was indicating that Gurkhas were stupid. Nothing could be further from what I actually mean which is that your average Gurkha, being of stocky build, gives the impression of being wider than he is tall, hence six of them in a row is very 'thick' indeed. I wish to make that very clear because under no circs would I ever wish to upset a Gurkha!
Even 'Dim Dave' can no longer pretend that the light at the end of his tunnel is anything other than a high-speed express driven by Nigel Farage. So the urgent question of the day is what to do, starting, of course, with the politician's favourite - do nothing! And that option should not be ignored. It could be said, and probably is by some of his smooth courtiers, that Farage is a blow-hard who will eventually run out of puff. If, Prime Minister, they will be whispering, we simply make the right, er, that's right as in Right, noises towards Brussels which the 'colleagues', knowing our position, will understand and ignore that will take much of the wind from Farage's sails and 'the people' will trust us to look out for British interests, ahem, whatever they might be at the time, of course. And, Prime Minister, if we just make noises without actually doing anything then the Lib-Dems will whinny a bit but trot along obediently because they know that come the election they will be massacred. Thus, the only choice will be for 'the people' to summon up the courage to actually trust Labour with the economy (polite laughter all round). By and large, Prime Minister, whether they enjoyed the experience or not, 'the people' have now learned a few basic economic truths concerning government borrowing and spending and so long as Ed Balls remains shadow Chancellor he is our greatest weapon.
But then another courtier will demur and warn that what we are seeing now is the deadly calm before the electoral tsunami hits. Now is not the time to shift the deckchairs around on the beach but instead we should make for the high hills and dominate the view. The one certain action which will lead to a mass return of Tory voters (and even a considerable number of Labour ones, too) is an 'in/out' referendum before the next election. Let Labour and the Lib-Dems oppose it as loudly and as hysterically as possible, it will merely serve to strengthen our appeal to the electorate and as we know that a bill for such a referendum is unlikely to pass the Commons then we lose nothing!
An even more suave and subtle adviser is John Redwood. He reminds Dave that whatever else the country voted for at the last election it was for a European federalist parliament. They might not have seen it in quite those terms but that is the reality. Since then, however, the mood has been changed by "events, dear boy, events" and the Tories need to respond. He suggests a private member's bill, supported by the Tory part of the government, to hold a fairly immediate referendum asking the country if they approve of HMG immediately setting in train efforts "to negotiate a new relationship with the EU based on free trade and political co-operation?” That would neatly skewer the other parties who would be forced to chose between going along or going against a huge swathe of public opinion. Equally, a British prime minister would have a very strong hand in dealing with the 'colleagues' if it was known that the end result would be placed before the electorate for approval - or not!
The problem with that is two-fold. First, I don't trust 'Dim Dave' who is no Maggie Thatcher to be capable of such a tough re-negotiation, and I trust even less the Europhile creeps in the 'Office for Foreigners' who would be advising him. Second, within days of an agreement being reached the great creep would begin, by which I mean that in exactly the same way that what started (allegedly, according to the lying liars of the day) as a free trade agreement turned gradually under the slow, silent pressure from the apparatchiks in Brussells into almost political federation. The same process will begin all over again.
But I do find these election results fascinating. The fact that, with one by-election for a parliamentary seat excepted, the remainder were concerned with voting in sundry county councillors who are for the most part a complete waste of oxygen, makes the results, which have produced national reverberations, all the more interesting and several random thoughts occur, and to be honest, not all of them are mine, but then, who expects original thinking around here?!
My first thought, if such you can call it, was the joy in discovering that personality still counts in a political world in which almost all of the participants from all parties appear to have been manufactured in a factory somewhere in China! Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, is undoubtedly a man we Brits would call 'a character'! Like all such 'characters' one meets in life, one is not sure whether, in the words of Sellers & Yateman, that is "A Good Thing" or "A Bad Thing". Only time will tell. Churchill was 'a character' and a thoroughly detested one up until he 'got lucky' and a world war came along which eventually ended with him placed firmly upon a plinth of national reverence. Of course, I don't put Mr. Farage in the same mold as Churchill but undoubtedly he has proved determined to stick to his own political course through good times and bad whilst making every effort to distinguish himself personally from the factory-produced muppets in the mainstream parties. These sorts of 'characters' arise from time to time and usually they are found out and sink back into the obscurity they deserve - one thinks of the likes of Arthur Scargill. However, there is no doubt that Mr. Farage is an exceedingly intelligent political operator which he combines with a remarkable skill in political eloquence - his speeches in the European parliament are small classics - and an equal expertise in public relations. A man to watch, not just for the politics but for the fun!
Another thought occurs and this one really is mine. I wonder if the British people, or at least, the English, have at last discovered a subversive way of exerting their pressure on the seemingly invincible political class who so resolutely ignore them? The Lib-Dems used to be a sort of "party of protest" but they were so much part of the establishment that they were ineffective, and now that they are part of government they are well and truly hog-tied to the two main parties. The Greens were, are and forever will be, a sort of religious sect which most voters would avoid like a dog-pile on a pavement. But the UKIP has, under Farage's leadership and also under the pressures emanating from Berlin-Brussels, developed from its beginnings as a single-issue party into something much wider and therefore much more interesting. It is no longer necessary to be possessed of swivelling eye-balls in order to vote UKIP - as I discovered last Thursday!
My thought that the English electorate has discovered a useful weapon with which to threaten the 'Westminsterites' is developed with much greater historical analysis by John Redwood, the title of whose blog post (worth reading!) says it all:
He points out the difficulties faced by anti-EU groups in their efforts to achieve a pan-European opposition to Brussells for the simple reason that there is still no European-wide, European government. Now there's an irony for you! Instead, opposition is limited to various national groups fighting within their own frontiers, just like UKIP. So Mr. Redwood does not expect a sudden revolution leading to the overthrow of 'Rumpey-Pumpey & Co' but what he does foresee is a sort of latter-day Reformation:
I do not think there will be a single trans EU revolution. The forces against the EU are very split by geography, preoccupation, language and political affiliation. One of the ironies of the situation is that because the EU has not succeeded in making a single European demos, there is no single political community to unite against it.
This does not mean, however, that the current EU is stable and proof against opposition. I suspect rather the change will come as it did in the Reformation in sixteenth century Europe. Peoples in different parts of the Catholic empire had different reasons for disliking Catholic authority. They adopted different means of getting out from the Catholic yoke, and did it at different times. Although the Catholic powers at the beginning seemed to have all the cards, they lost much of their empire in a devastating thirty years. The Catholics started with the intellectuals, the lawcodes and the armies all on their side. They ended by losing most of Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and the UK . The fault lines from this can still be seen in modern EU negotiations.
I wonder if the impact of UKIP is actually the beginings of another Reformation in British politics. As a shrewd commentator (whose name I have completely forgotten!) said on TV or radio, the tiny SDP who broke away from the Labour party in 1981 and then dissolved into the Liberal party seven years later had a huge impact on British politics. Remember, Labour then were dominated by extreme Leftists and the rupture hit them below the waterline allowing 'that woman' a more or less free run over three general elections. You could say that the SDP defection eventually brought Tony Blair to power with an electable, soft-Left, social democrat party instead of the sub-Trotskyite rabble it had been hitherto.
I am hoping that even more people will realise the effectiveness of using the UKIP to discipline the Tory party in general, and Dave and his Old Etonians in particular. This could lead next year to a huge win for UKIP in the European elections and an equally huge spanking for the Tories. It might even, with a bit of luck and a following wind, get rid of Cameron if enough of the Tory MPs see the direction the wind is blowing.
Well done, you chaps, er, and you chapettes, of course! I issued my orders a few days ago and I'm proud to say that all of you did as you were bloody well told to do which was get fell in in single rank, tallest on the right, shortest on the left, and march in an orderly body to the nearest polling station - and vote UKIP.
As I write, only some of the results are in but they have already filled my cup to overflowing. The Tories actually lost the huntin', shootin' and fishin' county of Gloucester - unbelievable! I am ashamed to say that my own counties (I live on the border), Somerset and Dorset, failed to turf the Tories out and I regret to say, therefore, that I have issued instructions to Luigi and his pals to go round and break a few legs to re-enforce my instructions for the next big election which is for the European loony bin parliament next year. Now, perhaps, the Tory backbenchers will get the message. Many of them are first time MPs and no doubt thay have got very used to the comforts and privileges of Westminster and will be loath to to lose them at the next election. They are the only ones who can trap Cameron into a corner and force him to get the message from the country and not just from the metro-toffs with whom he normally spends his time.
But the best news of all comes last - and last is precisely where the il-Lib-non-Dems came in the Sheffield bye-election. They ended up in seventh place with a derisory 352 votes which was less than the BNP and two independents. That should wipe the smug smirk off the face of the ghastly 'Cleggeron'!
Yes, sorry, this is going to be one of my 'arty' meanderings! I am provoked to it by a tiny incident earlier this week in which I got into my car at 6.30am (prior to driving to my usual early morning swim!!!) and switching on Classicfm the first thing I heard was Waltz #2 from The Jazz Suite by Shostakovich (click on the link to listen). It's a very jolly tune, don't you think? Almost makes you think of a German beer garden in summer, and yet . . . and yet . . . do you not feel a very slight sense of unease? A frisson in it of what I can only call - menace. If there is a Germanic flavour to it then it made me think of 'vee haf vays of making you laugh'! Well, that's what I hear but perhaps you do not. Perhaps I am just listening too hard. Even so, better critics than me have suggested that Shostakovich was a very subtle man and that the triumphant music he wrote in 'praise' of the glories of the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin actually contain within them a sardonic raspberry or two!
Anyway, mulling over that on the way to the pool got me to thinking of a painting (poster, of course, not an original!) hanging opposite my armchair in my sitting-room - one of Bernard Buffet's Clowns.
I love that picture and I look at it every day of my life! He did several clown paintings but that is the best, in my opinion. Of course, 'the sad clown' is now an artistic cliché but even so it contains a truth, that life is a mixture of comedy and tragedy as theatre has demonstrated since the days of ancient Greece and the design of the famous theatrical masque motif showing Comedy and Tragedy.
And I suppose you could say that the motto for all theatre is "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry!" I think that is what Shostakovich and Buffet are doing in their different ways.
Well, not exactly 'all over Britian' but just here in my village! Dammit, no power means no computer which means (gulp) conversation with the 'Memsahib'! Now I'm not paranoid but it's very odd that during this 5-6 hour outage someone or something spent hours, and I do mean hours, trawling through my blog's search engine looking for references to the words "duty" and "confrontation". Personally, I blame the CIA just because they are to blame for everything that goes wrong in the world and also, of course, the undoubted fact which has obviously noted in certain quarters that I am sometimes less than reverential towards the HOCUS-POTUS! Anyway, just in time, because the 'Memsahib' was well on her way down the list of 'Things-To-Be-Done-Pronto', the power came back on and - thank God - I'm back in front of my computer.
Well, well, well, here's a turn up for the book - and, yes, I'm in tired old cliché mode tonight, or at least, I'm tired after a day grass-cutting in the Churchyard and planting my bedding plants in my miniscule garden. But, I have just stumbled across the best bit of news I have had in ages - I have found my old e-pal (well, perhaps 'pal' is tad familiar), Oliver Kamm. He was one of the first bloggers I ever came across 'back in the day' and I took to him instantly, not that I agreed with everything he wrote but I learned rapidly, as I surveyed the remnants of his opponents littering 'Blogdom', to be exceedingly cautious before taking him on. Back then he was just another 'something in the City' but before long he was taken on by my mate 'Rupe' and today he is a leader writer for The Times. Alas, 'Rupe' ignored my advice and took The Times behind a pay wall and Oliver stopped his blog, and thus was one of the most fiery and intelligent voices in 'Blogdom' silenced - unless you wanted to make 'Rupe' even richer!
However, today I came across a piece at The Coffee House by Peter Oborne, perhaps the equal of Oliver in journalistic pugilism, counter-punching vigorously against two posts written by Oliver concerning a recent book by Oborne and a co-writer, David Morrison, called A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran. In it, Oborne and Morrison propose that Iran has absolutely no nuclear weapons and no intention of getting them. In Oliver's first attack ( I cannot call it otherwise), he had not yet read the book itself but he took exception to Mr. Morrison whom he accused of being a Srebrinica-denier. As I hinted above, you need to be very sure of your facts before you take on Oliver:
Srebrenica denial is, as I’ve argued here, the same class of “argument” as Holocaust denial. Except the lie is even more blatant. We know how many victims perished because the bodies have been found. Scientists have recovered the remains of more than 7,000 victims and used DNA analysis to identify 6,838 of them. I’ve noted here the heroic work of the International Commission on Missing Persons, which can thereby reliably estimate the number of victims as between 8,000 and 8,100.
This analysis was based on an article for the Labour & Trade Union Review in August 2005. I have read it carefully and do not find that it supports Mr Kamm’s interpretation, or anything like it. Indeed Dr Morrison explicitly stated in his article ‘that Bosnian Muslims got massacred in large numbers is not in doubt’ (a statement to which Mr Kamm did not draw his readers’ attention).
Well, 'you pays your money and you takes yer pick'. Of course, far and away the most interesting point is whether Oborne and Morrison are correct in their assertion that Iran does not now and will not in the future possess nuclear arms. I suspect that neither party knows for sure, any more than I do. Oborne's claim that Khomeini has stated that nuclear weapons are against Islamic creed may have been said but how far would you trust him if you were an Israeli? And mention of Israel brings me to the key player in this frighteningly dangerous poker game. It doesn't matter if the CIA is convinced that Iran has weaponry because the USA will do nothing so long as Obama is in the White House. However, I reckon Israeli intelligence knows exactly the state of the game and the day they are certain the weapons are there will be the day before the Big Attack and then we will all know for sure!
Incidentally, if any of you techie-swots know how to log in to this Times.tumblr. thingie without paying I would be very grateful and 'Rupe' would be irritated!
My regular commenter, JK, is what is known in country house circles as 'a treasure'. I look upon him as m'butler, you know, a sort of Carson to my Lord Downton. He discreetly shadows my every step picking up my unconsidered trifles and then, with a modest cough behind a white-gloved hand, he produces them miraculously when they are needed. Thus it was that in a comment discussion yesterday he remembered - how does he do that? - a brilliantly elegant and incisive post of mine - sorry did you wish to say something? - written almost exactly four years ago! Quite extraordinary because I can't remember what I wrote four days ago!
It was a post in which I wondered whether David Cameron, then leader of the faux-Tory party in opposition, would turn out to be a Hamlet or a Coriolanus. Of course, being a bit pedantic on Shakespearean matters, I was quick to point out that the popular opinion of Hamlet as being indecisive was, like most popular opinion, completely wrong but for the purposes of my post I would go along with it. Well, now we know, he is neither of those two great but flawed heroes, instead he is more like the Duke of Venice in Measure for Measure, a well-meaning chump incapable of running a piss-up in a brewery!
All of that brings me to my e-pal, Able, whose exposed nerve-endings I touched, well, bashed, apparently, by referring to UKIP candidates as "mouth-foaming loonies". That strained even his extra-large amiability and led to a comment which verged on the disrespectful - yes, I know, to me, a latter-day Lord Downton! Fortunately, Carson, ooops, sorry, I mean JK, stepped in and reminded me of old times when commenters here at Downton, er, Duff & Nonsense knew their places in the natural order of things. As it happens, the phrase "mouth-foaming loonies" was, so to speak, a bit of a throw-away line and in retrospect I wish I had done exactly that! Yes, probabaly UKIP does possess a slightly higher than average number of ab-, sub- or even para-normal members but that is because they are still imbued with enthusiasm verging on idealism, something the members of other parties lost years ago. I am in favour of enthusiatic idealism provided it is married to cynical operation which is an exceedingly tricky skill to master. Mr. Farage has it in spades but I'm not too sure the remainder of his party share his intelligence. In the unlikely event that UKIP ever reached positions of power I fear that those master manipulaters in the civil service would eat them for breakfast.
But, on Thursday we are not voting for a national government, only for various local authorities. Thus, as I said in my previous post, we have the chance, with very little downside risk, to send a clear message to our less than glorious leaders, in particular, D. Cameron Esq. Let the true-Tory vote (and a wedge of Labour, too) give Farage and his 'enthusiasts' a tremendous victory, the pressure waves from which will instantly flatten every glass of champagne at Tory Central Office.
Anyway, dammit, I have just spotted one of those impertinent canvassing Johnies approaching m'front door, time for me to change into m'shootin' togs, I think, now where's m'butler, J.K. Carson? (Oh dear, Andra, m'housekeeper, informs me that he has gone up into, er, 'them thar hills', can't imagine why!)
For the purposes of this particular post I am adopting my 'Senior-Officer-Addressing-the Troops' voice, so you will all sit to attention and take notes where necessary! There are local elections approaching this week which are, of course, of no interest to anyone outside the political circus. Men and women of sound mind would normally shrug and continue on their way to the pub where they will quickly become of un-sound mind! However, on this occasion, your orders have been changed. On Thursday you will move in an orderly body towards your nearest polling station and once in position you will proceed to mark a large 'X' next to the name of the UKIP candidate. He, of course, will be a bit of a mouth-foaming loony but he has one great advantage - he is not a faux-Tory - (there are virtually no real Tories to be found anywhere these days.) If you lack a UKIP candidate, feel free to use your iniative and vote for any non-faux-Tory candidate provided only that they are neither Labour nor Lib-Dem. The object of the exercise is simple, it is absolutely necessary to send a huge message to 'Dim Dave', so huge that even he will notice it, to the effect that he has proved to be in most respects utterly useless. This will be your last chance before the next general election so make the most of it! Right, carry on!
Just for a change, today's 'Funny' does not come from Andra's Joke Assembly Factory but from another source closer to home, er, one of my neighbours, actually:
Viagra is now available in teabags.
It doesn't enhance your performance but it stops your biscuit going soft!
Boom-boom - it's the way I tell 'em!
Well, of course, I can't not tell one of Andra's or she'll start throwing boomerangs or aborigines at me:
Paddy says to Mick "I found this pen, is it yours?"
Mick replies "Don't know, give it here."
He then tries it and says, "Yes it is"
Paddy asks "How do you know?"
Mick replies, "That's my handwriting."
There, that's cheered you all up on a Monday morning, hasn't it? Sorry, did you say something . . .
Sorry - sorry - SORRY! OK? I'm really sorry! On Thursday, with all the computer expertise for which I am famed the length and breadth of, er, this room, I carefully composed a brief but elegantly worded post informing you of my absence. Just to prove it, here it is:
London calling!
Well, it's calling me, at any rate, on personal business and theatre business on Friday and Saturday. I will get home in the wee small hours of Sunday morning so you can expect a Sunday Rumble - but not too early!
Having written it I then saved it as a 'draft' ready to publish on Thursday night before my departure early Friday morning. And yes, you are quite right, there it stayed in my 'Draft' box unpublished until now, and whilst I think 200x lines is a bit on the steep side of course they will be completed and handed in on Monday morning! There is nothing more irritating than regularly visiting a gossipy blog which suddenly stops dead without warning and you are forced to keep clicking back on it to see if it has started up again. Those of you hoping that this one was indeed dead and buried must delay your celebrations - I have returned! My usual Sunday rumbles will commence a little later.
Sam Walters, The Orange Tree Theatre: Part of the theatre business that occupied me yesterday was a visit to The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond to listen to a talk by Sam Walters, its founder and manager. At one stage he described himself as 'a jobbing director' which was absolutely accurate but under-stated the breadth and width and depth of his theatrical experience, and his total and absorbing love for it all. He was entertaining, shrewd, enthusiastic, slightly disorganised but through it all you could positively feel the drive behind the man which led him to start with a theatre in a room above a pub and which has now moved to a room next to a pub and which provides a small theatre in the round. Being so close to the metropolis, and given his lifetime of friendships in theatre, he frequently attracts top class actors to his tiny performing space. Plus, I suspect, his obviously tremendous charm plays its part in getting the 'luvvies' to work there. Well worth a visit for any of you metro theatre lovers.
'Enemies of the Earth': Regular readers will know that under my strict accuracy policy that has long been my re-arrangement of the name 'Friends of the Earth'. It appears I am not alone. 'Bishop Hill' attended a seminar given by some cove called Pascal Bruckner - yeeees, quite! - and he jotted down the main points that came across:
The idea of catastrophe has replaced the idea of progress
Racial minorities, women and slaves have been replaced as principal victims by Mother Earth
Fear has become something to be desired.
We are being transformed into children, ready to obey the orders of an enlightened elite.
Friends of the earth have become the enemies of mankind
Environmentalism is universal but "end of the worldism" is purely western.
Environmentalism is about keeping the world for the bobos (bohemian bourgeois)
Sound fella, that Bruckner despite, or perhaps because of, his formidable name!
"Bye Bye Miss American Empire": Continuing my secessionist agitprop, there is a review in The American Spectator of an interesting book which looks in detail at the myriad groups of what they call 'seceshers'.
Some seceshers, like those in West Kansas and New York City seek to form their own states. Others, (Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, Vermont and the old confederacy) long for complete independence.
Apparently their chances are minimal to zero!
It’s a cliché to say that lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for, but that doesn’t make it any less true. And, as Kauffman reminds us, “I know: Breaking away is impossible. Quixotic. Hopeless. So was dancing on the Berlin Wall.”
These are Kauffman’s kind of people, the kind who hesitate to say the Pledge of Allegiance, not because of the phrase “Under God,” but because of the word “indivisible,” which clangs on the ear like a cell door. Self-government dreamers, small-is-better believers, localist underdogs and home grown patriots. How can you not love them?
Someone is to blame! But I don't expect they ever will be, except, perhaps, by the historians eventually. I refer to the somewhat dismal record of the British army in recent times. There is a truly dispiriting article in Commentary Magazine remarking on what looks like a total cock-up in Camp Bastion, the British base in Afghanistan, in which an unguarded perimeter was attacked and two US marines killed and six Harrier jump-jets destroyed. The writer, Max Boot, reminds his readers of the shambles in Basra after Iraq II when the Brits, full of supposed expertise in urban counter-insurgency gained from the Malaya campaign onwards, more or less handed the entire city over to the gunmen and eventually the American s had to go in and clear up after us! Too, too, embarrassing - but no-one in command has been blamed!
One doesn't usually visit Marxist sites for the laughs but David Osler's example nearly had me falling off my chair with hysterics. It is a site worth visiting if only to realise that there are actually bigger loonies out there than the ones who run global warming sites. Ostler's is packed with every sort of mouth-foamer you could imagine and, although they are all Marxists, it is obvious that they hate each other much more than they hate non-Marxists. Anyway, the other day I was reading a review of a new biography of Karl Marx in The New York Review of Books and it contained this short quote from the man himself:
It is now completely clear to me, that, as proven by the shape of his head and the growth of his hair, he [Lassalle] stems from the Negroes who joined the march of Moses out of Egypt (if his mother or grandmother on his father’s side did not mate with a nigger). Now this combination of Jewry and Germanism with the negroid basic substance must bring forth a peculiar product. The pushiness of this lad is also nigger-like.
Well, of course, me being me I couldn't wait to drop that one in their little Marxist laps but, dammit, I couldn't get it accepted by the site. I tried again this morning but it still wouldn't go through. Then the penny dropped, of course, it has the dreaded 'n'-word in it and even if it was penned by the great oracle himself there was no way that pathetic, latter-day Lefties could face it without the risk of fainting. How Marx would have despaired and despised them all! With disciples like that one almost (but definitely not quite) feels sorry for the evil old sod!
Thanks are due to my pal, Richard, who drew my attention to an article in The Evening Standard by Jonathan Shaw who, as a retired General (and ex-Para and therefore a splendid chap, natch!) acted as military advisor to the current production of Othello at The Royal National Theatre. All I can say is "praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" because his immediate influence may be gauged from this photo in which, perhaps for the first time on a British stage, the luvvies actually look like 'Toms'! For a start, they have shrunk and shaped their berets instead of just plonking them on their heads as they usually do which makes them look like a feeding tables for birds! This lot in the photograph really look the business. Well done, General!
[Sorry, photo deleted because bloody TypePad couldn't cope! But you can see it via the link]
Richard reminds me that I once directed Othello. Memories fade so I can only hope that I did it justice. It is I think the greatest of Shakespeare's personal tragedies. All of his tragedies involve a seemingly implacable cosmos exerting intolerable pressure onto a man's weaknesses until he is broken but most of them are mixed in with other external matters, usually politicis in one form or another. Even Hamlet has strong themes concerning kingly duties and inheritance which act upon the hero, but Othello is almost entirely domestic and personal. The trap-door upon which our hero stands is the classic one of an older man marrying a younger woman with all the insecurities that entails. Thus, the scene is set for the evil Iago to spring the trap-door open and watch our hero - and several others - make the big drop.
If I had to use one word to describe Othello it would be - inexorable. We get to know the hero fairly quickly because he is, by nature, an open and guileless man; obviously something of an outsider given that he is black but equally obviously a man of enormous courage and intelligence to have fought his way up the ranks and used his martial skills to save his adopted city-state. Alas, where his intelligence falls short is in his personal life. Like Lear, he is unable to see clearly the nature of the people about him and Iago is quick to take advantage of his General's blind spot. The scene (III.iii - I think) when Iago mounts his subtle attack on the exposed flank in Othello's character is amongst the greatest Shakespeare ever wrote. Iago advances, injects a tiny drop of poisonous doubt into the great man's heart and mind, withdraws to see the result, advances again for another injection, pulls back and then gradually but with mounting confidence he plunges the needle into Othello's heart and presses down the plunger leaving him, in effect, as 'dead man walking'! Throughout this scene you feel the urge to stand up and shout - STOP! But, inexorably, the story plays out to its tragic finale.
The whole play can be summed up in one plaintive howl of misery:
I think I must blame my e-pal, Ortega, for the last two disastrous nights. Well, someone is to blame and he's the only Spaniard I know! Whatever, the prospect is appalling. Following the 4-0 destruction of Barcelona last night by Bayern Munich, and the almost equal catastrophe tonight in which Dortmund crushed Real Madrid 4-1, it is beyond hope that the situation can be reversed in the second legs. Thus, we face the prospect of hordes of Huns invading Wembley later this year for the European title! It's bad enough suffering the dreadful sight of tens of thousands of big beer bellies from 'ooop north' as they descend on us posh southerners to settle this or that footie competition, but the thought of even bigger bratworst and beer bellies from both north and south Germany is simply too much! No one would have minded an all-Spanish final at Wembley because after all Spain is more or less our second home these days, and even the most fanatical fan would admit that Barcelona and Real Madrid are the greatest teams in the world - or at least, they were up until the last two nights! The memory of the great Real Madrid team of yesteryear, packed with unforgettable stars, er, whose names I seem to have forgotten (except 'Becks', of course), remains with me but today's team were whatever the Spanish is for rubbish. Anyway, I don't know when the final is but I can only urge 'Dave' to give us all a holiday so that we can abandon London to the Hunnish hordes and all go off to Spain!
The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.
Beneath the philosophical debates about amnesty and border security, there are brass-tacks partisan calculations driving the thinking of lawmakers in both parties over comprehensive immigration reform, which in its current form offers a pathway to citizenship — and full voting rights — for a group of undocumented residents that roughly equals the population of Ohio, the nation’s seventh-largest state. [My emphasis]
If these people had been on the voting rolls in 2012 and voted along the same lines as other Hispanic voters did last fall, President Barack Obama’s relatively narrow victory last fall would have been considerably wider, a POLITICO analysis showed.
One wonders how that map will look after all those immigrants are absorbed? The Republicans appear to be rattled - and divided. Some seem to be bowing to the inevitable and by appearing to welcome the influx of new potential voters they hope eventually to gain their votes. Others, remaining strictly opposed, find themselves between a rock and a hard place!
Since lobbing my handgrenade in the previous post, and reading the commentary, I have decided to return to the subject of the possible break-up of the USA. But let me begin by making some things very clear. My knowledge of America has grown enormously since the invention of this 'internet-thingie'. Up to ten years ago my main source of information was printed copies of The American Spectator which arrived once a month, the rest of the media being quite beyond my reach. But now I can not only read and watch the main media, I can also, if so minded, follow the regional news. Needless to say, all this detail has produced considerable, er, 'shock 'n' awe' in me which would not be the case to ordinary Americans who have lived their lives there and who take matters more for granted. In other words, there is a tendency for a 'newcomer' like me to behave like a Bateman cartoon character and repeat endlessly, "I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!"
For example, I really am shocked at the path followed by Obama and the Democrat party. It is only necessary to contrast and compare the ideological fervour driving the party today with the easy-going pragmatism of Bill Clinton t0 see the huge difference in the political zeitgeist. Today the spirit of Saul Alinsky rules in almost every area of American public life including, or perhaps I should say, especially, in the media which no longer even pretends to some sort of detachment. (As I write that, however, I am reminded that back in the '40s and '50s the media were equally virulent against any politician deemed to be soft on communism, so what goes around, comes around!) Even so, the first requirement for any civil unrest is sustained political pressure in one direction and the Obama administration is certainly providing that, and should he be replaced by another Marxist ideologue that could result in sixteen years of relentless growth in Federal power reaching into every part of American life.
The second requirement, and as I have written here before, it is one that is eagerly sought by the Alinsky-ites within the Democrat party, is a catastrophic emergency. As political cynics have said through the ages, no emergency should ever be wasted! Again, as I have written here before, and others far more knowledgeable have repeated endlessly, the USA is heading towards a financial crisis of epic proportions. At the end of the Obama regime the country will owe $20 trillion. The dollar will have ceased to be the world's reserve currency and so it will be left to sink or swim on its own - it will sink! That will cause economic convulsions around the world so if Americans think they will be able to export their goods cheaply they are mistaken because no-one will be buying anything! In fact, Americans will feel austerity as they have never felt it in 75 years. It will be worse, far worse, than the 1930s because ordinary people then did not have that much, but today most Americans are wealthy beyond the dreams of their grand-parents and when you lose what you have always considerd to be yours by right, the shock is immense.
After the cataclysm of WWI, Wilson took advantage of the times and pressed through with his socialist agenda. In the depression of the 1930s, Roosevelt followed his lead. In the coming disaster in this century an ideologically committed president will try to ram through even more extreme socialism. And that, in my opinion, is when the brown, smelly stuff will hit the fan! Already today, there are vast differences between the mid-west of the union and the two seaboards. Will the citizens of the prosperous, tax-light mid-West, imbued as they are with old-fashioned ideas of American virtue, take kindly to the idea of the United Socialist States of America? I don't think so, but the question is, will they do anything about it? And if they do, which way will the military move - particularly the reservists who have local loyalties? (Incidentally, now you see why elements of the Democrat party are so keen to disarm the populace, it has nothing to do with poor little 'kiddie-winkies' being shot dead by nutters but everything to do with the coming battle they see as likely!)
To stand any chance of success, the Republican party needs to think ahead in the same way that the Alinsky-ites do. It is essential that they have ready a political plan for secession which they can put into operation before any 'cowboy' hotheads start shooting. Like all wars these days, it is the message that counts and ill-defined acts of violence will put people off particularly when virtually the entire media is against you.
So, only two questions remain. Do I think secession is likely? No, but it is, just, a possibility. Will it succeed? Nah!
This thought has been niggling away at me for some time but, alas, I am short of time this morning so I can only pull out the pin and lob the grenade in amongst you all. I am provoked to this action by an article in The American Spectator by Marta H. Mossburg in which she warns us to watch and beware Gov. O'Malley of Maryland. I do not know for certain if he is possessed of swivelling eyeballs but from what Ms. Mossburg says he ought to! He it is who has introduced a 'rain tax' to the goof balls good electors of Maryland and seeing as how they put him in the job they deserve no less. Apparantly, satellites will map Maryland and any property having an excess of hard-standing will be taxed in order to reduce the runoff of rain water into the Chesapeake Bay. This is but one of several 'Greenie-socialist-la-la-land' ideas that Gov. O'Malley has in what passes for his mind, I suppose it is the whimsical 'Oirish' in him.
However, my main point is that O'Malley is not alone in his crazed desire to tax everything including rain. Over the other side, the 'Kommissariat of Kalifornia' continues its mad tax and spend binge as city after city goes broke throughout the State and businesses flee to Texas which, under a liberal tax regime is prospering like never before. But of course, given the federal nature of the United(?) States, Texas is forced to send money to Washington, now in the grip of Democrat socialists, who then send it out to places like Maryland and 'Kalifornia'. Now, if Obama is succeeded by another out-and-out socialist, and O'Malley is already planning his campaign, and the prospect of another eight years looms then the pressure will mount. So my question is, how long will they put up with it in middle America before that dread word 'secession' raises its ugly head? I'm not saying it will happen, I'm not even saying it is probable that it will happen but it has to be a possibility. After all, you all know how far behind the times I am, so if I've thought of it then sure as hell someone else has too!
When I went into business on my own I had my first meeting with a bank manager. It was at a Lloyds branch and I was expecting a hard time with close questioning of my means (nil), my guarantees (zilch) and my prospects (Panglossian). But not a bit of it, instead, all I heard was a litany of moans and groans from him to the effect that he had been with Lloyds for 30 years during which he had been trained to say 'no' to virtually everything in several different ways, but now, in this new, er, golden age he had been instructed to say 'yes' to absolutely everything. Well, his 'bad', my 'good'! Even so, Lloyds remained a fairly old-fashioned bank, rooted in the High Streets of the land and in comparison with others it was reluctant to become too involved in the lunacies of international investment activity. Thus, when the brown, smelly stuff hit the fan, Lloyds was one of the best placed to cope with the shock waves. Well, they were, until 'Brown & Balls, the Brokers Men' leaned on the Chairman, Victor Blank, and helped to persuade him to swallow the head-on train smash that was Royal Bank of Scotland (*oops, wrong bank, I meant the other Jock joke) the Halifax Bank of Scotland. This he duly did and in time duly, and no doubt graciously, accepted his Knighthood. Needless to say, Lloyds shares which had hitherto been exceedingly healthy ended up looking like survivors from the Titanic splashing about in very deep water crying for help. A great many of them are now pursuing Sir Victor either for recompense on lost dividends or as part of a campaign to strip him of his Knighthood.
I am reminded of all this by a small item in today's Telegraphreporting that Lloyds has decided to sell its stake in the F1 racing team Marussia. Yes, indeed, as you can guess from the name, Marussia is a less than well-known oxymoron being a Russian sports car company! Rumours that they produce their cars in the same factory Stalin manufactured his tractors (and his economic statistics) are entirely wrong. Of course, suspicions linger given that the Marussia team regularly finish last or next to last or there-abouts in every Grand Prix they attend and they have yet to score a point at any race. To be (slightly) fair to Sir Victor, the investment in this company took place shortly after he had graciously stepped down as leader of the festering pile of poo which Lloyds resembled after his stewardship but obviously his spirit, or his business acumen, lived on:
In 2011, LDC gave the team a loan of £38.4m, taking its total debt to £77.7m and leaving it with a shareholders’ deficit of £81.2m.
Now, dear reader, be honest, would you invest the loose change that falls out of your trouser pockets as you make swaying attempts to hang them up after a Saturday night down the pub into a Russian anything let alone a Russian Formula One team? Take that as a 'no', shall I?
I'm glad to say that the Andra Joke Factory is back up to full production and thus my blushes and your groans are saved - for the moment.
His Lordship was in the study at Downton Abbey when the butler approached and and coughed discreetly.
"May I ask you a question my Lord?"
"Go ahead Carson " said his Lordship.
"I am doing the crossword in The Times and I have found a word I am not too clear on"
"What word is that?" said his Lordship.
"Aplomb" my Lord.
"Now that's a difficult one to explain. I would say it is self assurance or complete composure"
"Thank you my Lord, but I'm still a little confused".
"Let me give you an example to make it clearer. Do you remember a few months ago the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived to spend a weekend with us."
" I remember the occasion very well , my Lord. It gave the staff and myself much pleasure to look after them."
"Also", continued the Earl of Grantham, " do you remember Will plucked a rose for Kate in the rose garden? "
"I was present on that occasion, my Lord, ministering to their needs"
"While plucking the rose a thorn embedded itself in his thumb very deeply"
Carson replied, "I witnessed the incident my Lord and saw the Duchess herself remove the thorn and bandage his thumb with her own handkerchief."
"By the evening the prick on his thumb was so sore Kate had to cut up his venison from our own estate even though it was extremely tender."
"Yes my Lord, I did see everything that transpired that evening."
"The next morning while you were pouring coffee for Her Ladyship, Kate enquired of Will with a loud voice," "Darling does your prick still throb?" "You, Carson, did not spill one drop of coffee!
A husband walks into Macy's to purchase a sheer negligee for his wife. He is shown several possibilities that range from $250 to $500 in price -- the more sheer, the higher the price.
Naturally, he opts for the most sheer item, pays the $500, and takes it home. He presents it to his wife and asks her to go upstairs, put it on, and model it for him.
Upstairs the wife (she's no dummy) thinks, 'I have an idea. It's so sheer that it might as well be nothing. I won't put it on, but I'll do the modeling naked, return it tomorrow, and keep the $500 refund for myself.'
She appears naked on the balcony and strikes a pose.
The husband says, 'Good grief! You'd think for $500, they'd at least iron it!'
"Oh, what a beautiful mornin'"! And, as it happens, it is indeed a beautiful morning here, all the more so given what seems like in retrospect six months of cloud, rain, snow and a non-stop freezing wind from even further 'ooop north' than the usual 'ooop north'. Even so, I am provoked to the opening quote not by the sunshine but by a filmed version of Oklahoma produced by the Royal National Theatre back in 1999 and which was shown on Sky Arts last night. I was curious to see it because it starred (a much younger) Hugh Jackman who later played Jean Valjean in the film of Les Misérables. I remarked at the time that whilst I had heard of him I had never seen him before. Well now I have seen him twice with a fourteen year gap in his career and I now realise what the rest of the world already knew, that he is tremendously talented. Unfortunately, Oklahoma suffers a little, as so many of those earlier musicals do, from thudding dialogue whose only advantage is that it gives one time to get up and make a cup of tea before the next brilliant, moving and/or witty song begins. In retrospect, what an act of genius it was when the producers of Les Mis decided to forego spoken dialogue and just let the songs tell the story. Even so, Oklahoma from the RNT was a superb piece of theatre and the director, Trever Nunn, is quite simply the very best.
Sometimes it gets personal: This morning, quite properly, the news bulletins are full of details concerning the Chinese earthquake with 200+/- killed and God knows how many injured and thousands bereaved and mourning. And yes, for a moment one is moved to pity and sympathy before moving on to the next story of the day. To be thus is to be human. But sometimes, somehow, a tragedy sticks beneath the skin and it will not be moved. For me, it is the tragedy of the man and his family - wife, two sons and a daughter - who went to the Boston marathon. The father was taking part in the run and his family were close to the finishing line to cheer him in. And then - personal apocalypse! The bomb went off, one son killed outright, a daughter maimed by the loss of a leg and a wife in hospital with brain damage. It beggars understanding. At one moment you are this, a happy family tied together with mutual love and affection; and the next moment you are that, a wreckage of hopes and expectations blown apart. "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport."
Sow and ye shall reap: Or something like that; but it was Heffer, I think, in The Daily Mail yesterday who reminded us with sardonic brutality that Boston was the main centre of financial and 'moral' support for the IRA whose atrocities 'over here' far, far exceeded the marathon bomb. Folly, to which we are all prone, does not deserve the non-linear retribution exacted lat Sunday but it is a salutary lesson all the same. Think before you drop a dollar in the collecting tin!
And talking of terrorist bombers there's always the president's old friends:
Whilst supping with the Devil (and his wife) it is usually good practice, or so I am told, to use a very long spoon. The President seems unaware of this as he enjoys a dinner with the convicted terrorist, Bill Ayers, and his equally despicable wife, Bernadine Dorhn. Both, of course, now major players in the Chicago mafia Democrat party which, as Emmett Tyrell of The American Spectator reminds us, is never totally averse to bombing atrocities. According to Obama they are "just good friends"! Yeees, quite!
Fitch the Fab! At last, and long overdue, the credit rating agencies are turning the screw. On Friday Fitch downgraded the UK to AA+ which is not much in itself but anyone with half a brain would take it as a serious warning of more, much more, to come unless Osborne stops borrowing m0ney! He can only do that by cutting government spending, not little bits here and there but wholesale slashing and burning whilst at the same time cutting taxation to those likely to produce wealth in the future. And, no, I'm not holding my breath!
Another great oxymoron - 'settled science': Well, they told us that global warming was 'settled science' and temperatures have barely budged for 15 years. Then again, we have been told that the origin of life took place down in the depths of the ocean where heated air from the earth's core erupted through fissures and set off a chemical re-action and, hey presto, suddenly what was inanimate was animate. So, the swots told us, 'settled science', move along, nothing to see here. But, you just gotta love those swots because no sooner is science settled when some rascal comes along and unsettles it. According to The Mail, a couple of computer nerds have used something called Moore's Law which explains the rate at which computers have increased their complexity and efficiency since they were invented. Using the same equations on life forms but working backwards they estimate that life actually began about 10 billion years ago and as the earth is a mere stripling of 4.5 billion years then it is obvious, innit?, that life began somewhere else in the universe and caught the equivalent of a No.29 bus to this old globe of ours. 'Settled science' - heh!
Yesterday was the first cut of the Churchyard grass but because of 'change-of-mission orders' from High Command, yes, 'er indoors, I could only manage part of it and today was mostly spent finishing it off. What is quite extraordinary are the dates, the 19th and 20th April. Last year I was cutting in March! Anyway, as usual my task was made harder by the necessity of avoiding the bloody daffodils (yes, I planted them!) and the bloody primulas (yes, they're spreading because I go round them with the mower) and the leaf clusters left over from the snowdrops (and yes I carefully go round them, too, so they're spreading!) Why do I make work for myself, the 'Memsahib' has plenty of it to go round!
Anyway, by late morning the sun was shining and my scruffy patio and my half-dead, semi-frozen garden looked in desperate need of some TLC which I administered with the aid of several cups of tea and pieces of home-made cake - it's the only reason I keep her on! Needless to say, gardens being gardens,what looked like a fairly straightfoward couple of hours escalated and when I called a halt several hours and two visits to the Garden Centre later there is still what looks like at least a day's work tomorrow. My 'garden' is the size of a postage-stamp so how people cope with proper gardens I do not know.
Anyway, all of that, as you have probably guessed, is by way of apology for my absence here in the last couple of days. Tomorrow you can look forward to a nice long Sunday Rumble because I will be looking for every excuse of the "just popping upstairs for minute, darling" variety. Er, you will be looking forward to it, won't you?
Regular readers will already know that any mention of early American history almost always produces a swift snarl from my e-pal, 'Dearieme' ('DM'), aimed at the unfortunate head of the late President Thomas Jefferson. Now what this distinguished former president has ever done, or been the cause of something being done, to 'DM' I do not know. Alas, in my ignorance of early American history I know next to nothing about Jefferson except that he was part of a group of men imbued with good British, not European, philosophy which acted as a basis for their Constitution. Yes, I know there are some minor quibbles concerning his opposition to slavery which went, so to speak, hand-in-skirt with an affair with one of his black slaves but, hey, we're all chaps here - er, well, with the exception of Andra - and sometimes a chap has to do what a chap has to do, and all that sort of thing. According to Wiki, whilst Jefferson kept slaves he treated them exceedingly well and certainly no worse than white tenant farmers. Anyway, always trying to be helpful I would like to try and draw 'DM's concentration away from Jefferson and onto another and much greater hypocrite, the truly ghastly President Wilson. In this I am aided by Prof. Paul A. Rahe writing in The National Review.
Wilson, of course, is held in veneration by today's Democrat party stalwarts, not least, President Obama. Wilson is generally reckoned to have laid the foundation for a socialist state and using it as a base for attacking and subverting the Constitution, a practice later re-enforced by Roosevelt, tried and failed by Carter, but today, renewed with vigor by Obama. Of course, today's Democrat party draws huge support from minority groups, especially blacks, and the virulent use of 'racism' slurs against their opponenets hs proved to be very effective.
Thus there is considerable irony to be relished when one is reminded by Prof. Rahe that April 11th was the one hundreth anniversary of the bill which was rammed through Congress by Wilson and which specified the segregation of whites and blacks in the American civil service:
Wilson, our first professorial president, was a case in point. He was the very model of a modern Progressive, and he was recognized as such. He prided himself on having pioneered the new science of rational administration, and he shared the conviction, dominant among his brethren, that African-Americans were racially inferior to whites. With the dictates of Social Darwinism and the eugenics movement in mind, in 1907, he campaigned in Indiana for the compulsory sterilization of criminals and the mentally retarded; and in 1911, while governor of New Jersey, he proudly signed into law just such a bill.
Prior to the segregation of the civil service in 1913, appointments had been made solely on merit as indicated by the candidate’s performance on the civil-service examination. Thereafter, racial discrimination became the norm. Photographs came to be required at the time of application, and African-Americans knew they would not be hired. The existing work force was segregated. Many African-Americans were dismissed. In the postal service, others were transferred to the dead-letter office, where they had no contact with the general public. Those who continued to work in municipal post offices labored behind screens — out of sight and out of mind. When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Independent Political League objected to the new policy, Wilson — a Presbyterian elder who was nothing if not high-minded — vigorously defended it, arguing that segregation was in the interest of African-Americans. For 35 years, segregation in the civil service would be public policy. It was only after Adolf Hitler gave eugenics and “scientific racism” a bad name that segregation came to seem objectionable.
The only thing that stands between the liberty of the American people and their sometimes swivel-eyed leaders is the Constitution. Obama's efforts to circumscribe it are in a direct line from his predecessor Pres. Wilson.
which has just been published. I suppose, when you think about it, it's obvious that naturally occurring things will look similar at different levels of magnification. The trouble is that we plodders never do think about it, we needs must wait for the Mandelbrots of this world to tell us 'the bleedin' obvious'! Here is a simple example of 
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