I Support The Daily Sport

Very pleased to see the lone crusading voice of The Daily Sport come out in support of the beleaguered Brand and Ross.

I actually prefer The Daily Sport to The Sun.
I have more respect for it as a "news"paper.

The roasting this duo are getting is just ridiculous and out of proportion to what they did.

One Hundred Percent

Bliar

What Happened to the US?

The Triumph of Ignorance :
Posted October 28, 2008

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/10/28/the-triumph-of-ignorance/

Great article by George Monbiot about why American political and intellectual culture has degraded to such an extent.

Both

I'm both a Eurosceptic and a Yankosceptic.

Storm in a Teacup

This furore over Brand and Ross's behaviour is another example of a storm in a teacup just like the fuss over Jade's behaviour. What kind of society is it that has such a distorted world view that so many people in it think that this issue is important?
What they did was meant to be a joke. They have apologised. Why all the fuss?

The real scandal is how much they are paid.
The real scandal is how superficial, unentertaining and unfunny both individuals can sometimes be.
I don't find people who think that life itself is a joke funny.
I certainly don't have a problem with swearing.

What would be on the front cover of every newspaper in a sane society would not be this rubbish but something like what is on the front of The Morning Star today :
"BP DRAWS FIRE FOR "OBSCENE" 6 BILLION PROFITS."

In a sane society the only papers covering the Brand and Ross story would be the joke tabloids.

England

"There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other.
That word is ENGLAND."

Winston Churchill

27 Oct

Fact of the day:

Less than 1% of the population of the UK belong to any of the 3 main political parties.

Quote of the day:

"America is a mistake, a giant mistake." Sigmund Freud

The "economy" is shrinking

The "economy" is "shrinking" but prices are going up.
This seems contradictory.
The "economy" here supposedly means the total value of the goods and services in a society.
Therefore if prices are rising, then how can the economy be shrinking since the value of the goods is surely rising?
Am I missing something here?
Also, if prices are rising then the income of someone somewhere is surely going up. (?)
Or at least rising prices mean that someone somewhere is making sure they don't get poorer. (?)

Maybe these musings are wrong actually.
......

"Not In Our Genes"

I have heard about this book called "Not In Our Genes" by the biologist Steven Rose.

Looking forward to reading it.

------

I suspect that IQ is mainly bollocks.

25th October 08

"People are suckers for the truth. And the truth is on your side."

!VIVA CUBA!

!VIVA CUBA! !VIVA FIDEL!

24th October

I am still angry about the Jean Charles De Menezes case.
One of the killers was giving evidence today.
Still no clear acknowledgement from him or anyone that what happened was, in an objective analysis, an example of staggering incompetence.

"armed intervention was used in only the most "extreme" circumstances"

Well, these were obviously not such circumstances.

Fantastic Steve Bell cartoon again

"Mark Steel: It's all poor people's fault, isn't it?"

Another great Mark Steel article yesterday in The Independent, 23rd October 2008:

"Mark Steel: It's all poor people's fault, isn't it?"

"Smoking is not enjoyable"

This is a extract from Alan Carr's book

"Allen Carr's Easy Way to Give Up Smoking":

"...smoking is not enjoyable."

*throws book in bin*

This is a good book with excellent insights but I did find this contention - that basically smoking is not enjoyable - to be utterly ludicrous.
Why do people smoke then?

To be fair, he did qualify it in some way but I wasn't entirely convinced.
I think it was something along the lines of "smoking is not enjoyable, but nicotine addiction is...."

I speak as an ex-smoker.

Among other things, I had to accept that smoking was in some way enjoyable before I gave up.

----

"Virtue consists not in abstaining from vice but in not desiring it." GBS.

Once I realised that yes, smoking is enjoyable but that it is not worth it because it is extremely bad for you and the environment in so many ways and not just in the future but right now, I no longer wanted to smoke. So I made the decision not to.
I also had to accept that having an occasional cigarette was impossible because smoking's essence is addictiveness - physical and psychological - and one cigarette demands another.
I don't really believe in addiction so I would maybe say habit-forming then.
I also saw it as one less thing to worry about, once the decision had been made.

.....
....

20 October 2008: "This recession is the ideal time to deal with global warming."

20 October 08.
Great article today by Johann Hari in The Independent:
"This recession is the ideal time to deal with global warming."
http://www.johannhari.com/

Pardon me while I die of embarrassment

Pardon me while I die of embarrassment.

Anti-copyright

I am anti-copyright.

http://www.anticopyright.com/

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Under (possibly never-ending) intellectual construction

Why I still vote and will always vote

(*under intellectual construction*)

Anarchists are (mainly) opposed to voting.
Among other things it is regarded as giving consent to be governed.

I regard myself as an anarchist: yet:
I have always voted, still vote and will always vote, whilst there is a vote and whilst there is still government.

I even think voting or expressed registered abstention should be compulsory.

Proportional Representation should be guaranteed as well.

--------

As an anarchist I suppose I should look towards a time when there is no government and hence no voting as currently conceived.
The essential principle of anarchism is individual autonomy. I will not rule and I will not be ruled.
Well if voting is merely part of organisation and not part of government then I am not opposed to it.....

--------

I am an anarchist who votes.

I will attempt to explain why I vote.

[I do not regard voting as consent to be governed I regard it as consenting to be governed with certain conditions....]

I regard voting as a step towards giving more power to people, to individuals.
A step in the right direction.

I regard it as pragmatic to vote.

I regard a society where there is a parliamentary democracy where people can vote, as better than a governed society where there is no vote and almost always better that what went before it.

I regard it as giving consent to be governed less. Maybe like a stepping stone...
I regard it as a way to have more power and more of a say in what goes on.

Many people fought and died to secure universal suffrage and this should never be forgotten.
The benefits that voting has secured for people are many.

I regard voting as voluntary co-operation in organisation.

In a free non-governed society voting of some kind may still be necessary.

I believe in real democracy.
I am against governments: I am a true democrat.

I am even in favour of more voting! On more issues!

If voting means having a say in what goes on then surely we must be in favour of it, and more of it!

More democracy! And less government!... if that makes sense.
.....
These are incomplete ramblings in which I am trying to work out what I think....

But at the present time I still say I have always voted, I do vote and I will always vote.

*under construction*

*Socratic dialogue*

The alternative to the ballot is often the jackboot.

?
----

But how can you want freedom, no government and individual autonomy and still vote?
It doesn't make sense.
It is agreeing to government.

I still vote because it gives me a chance of obtaining more freedom!

.....

Saying that "voting has never changed anything" is a bald lie.
I can give lots of examples.
I suppose the people who say "voting never changes anything" really mean "voting never changes anything worth changing."
If that's what they mean, then that's what they should say.
But voting definitely has changed things and can change things to some extent.


Can voting harm? That depends on who you vote for.
Is "signaling consent to be governed" as it is seen by anarchists, actually doing any harm?

I still say VOTE!

even if you are an anarchist.

VOTING HAS CHANGED THINGS!
VOTING DOES CHANGE THINGS!
VOTING WILL CHANGE THINGS!
-------------
I VOTE!

Be honest

Be honest.
If what psychiatry does is "(possibly necessary) social control" then say that's what it is!
Don't pretend it's medicine.

The wisdom of Oasis

"Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?"

"Don't go put your life in the hands of a rock and roll band who'll throw it all away."

Oasis.

Overall Oasis as a pop band are pretty crap.

The Stone Roses are better.

Let us not delude ourselves any longer - the USA and England are to blame

Who is responsible for the financial crisis we are suffering?
It's time to point out that most of the responsibility is to be borne by the governments of the USA and England and their extreme belief in unregulated and unsafe financial practices.
Let's not delude ourselves anymore.
-----

The UK government for example is itself to blame for the Iceland collapse, as made clear here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/11/iceland-savings

What I do

I spend my time doing the following.
Saying totally obvious things that everyone knows anyway but that no one ever says.

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

I have told the truth all my life.
I will continue to do so whilst I live.

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

Fame is the new shame.

If you are famous you must have done something really crap.

Is it just me or is everything shit?

Hurtful acts.

"A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves."

Simone Weil.

Pointing out the obvious again.

Every price that exists and every price that has ever existed and every price that will ever exist is determined by humans.


It is perfectly possible to have a society without money.
For most of existence there was no money.

"Neither a lender nor a borrower be."

"Neither a lender nor a borrower be."

What's the bigger crime, robbing a bank or opening one?

"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?"
Berthold Brecht.

----

So I think I've figured this thing out.

They are lending out lots and lots of money that they don't have
to people that can't pay it back.

Banks are needed to loan out money to people. Maybe.

But it needs a bit of regulation surely.

Tenner on the dogs. 20 on the bank.

TENNER ON THE DOGS.
20 ON THE COPPER MINE.
FIVER ON THE HORSES.
20 ON ROONEY TO SCORE FIRST.
50 ON THE BANK OF SCOTLAND.

What is the difference between John McCririck and an economist?
John McCririck is honest about his job.

"
NAT WEST. MIDLANDS. BARCLAYS. LLOYDS.
BLACK HORSE APOCALYPSE!
DEATH SANITISED THROUGH CREDIT.
"

--------

What's the difference between a bookies and the London Stock Exchange?
The people in the bookies are less greedy and don't destroy the planet.

It's a fake economy!

It's a fake economy anyway!

Bill Hicks.

I hate all skyscrapers without exception.

I hate all skyscrapers without exception.

The Old Lie

The old Lie:
Dulce et decorum
est pro patria mori.

Good Old Private Eye

Think of the Planet as a 46 year old

Think of the planet Earth as a 46 year old …

The Earth is thought to be around 4 600 million years old, an almost inconceivable time-span. For the moment, think of it as someone in middle age, 46 years old.
This person is a late developer. Nothing at all is known about their first seven years and only sketchy information exists about the next 35 years. It is only at the age of 42 that the Earth began to flower. Dinosaurs and the great reptiles did not appear until a year ago, when this planet reached 45. Mammals arrived only eight months ago. In the middle of last week, human-like apes evolved into ape-like humans, and at the weekend the last ice age enveloped the Earth.

Modern humans have been around for four hours. During the last hour we discovered agriculture. The industrial revolution began just a minute ago. During those sixty seconds of biological time, humans have made a rubbish dump out of Paradise. We have caused the extinction of many hundreds of species of animals, many of which have been here longer than us, and ransacked the planet for fuel.

Now we stand, like brutish infants, gloating over the meteoric rise to ascendancy, poised on the brink of the final mass extinction and of effectively destroying this oasis of life in the solar system.

- Greenpeace

Christianity and sex

Why is Christianity traditionally so anti-sex?

Does this opposition to sex come from the Old Testament or
from medieval Eruope?

"Castitas infamiae nvbe Obs curata emergit" (“Chastity emerges from the dark clouds of Infamy”).

Often true surely....

......

Staggered As Usual

I am staggered as usual.
The Cop Woman responsible for the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes says, "We did nothing wrong."
Er. Er. Er. No.
I think you.. er.. did do something wrong. Er.. you murdered an innocent man.
Rather a serious error. Or I should say serious crime.
Once again Orwellian doublethink offered for consumption to the bewildered populace.
For her to say "We did nothing wrong" is literally absurd.The point to make is that what happened that day was, in an objective analysis, an example of staggering incompetence.

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

Why is there no questioning of the insane economic system that we live under and which
we do not have to live under?
It is running society on the principles of a gambling shop.
Running the world as a bookies.
Gambling with our lives.
We don't have to do it this way.
Unnecessary and insane.

Psychiatric "medication" is fake and kills for no reason!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/ignored-the-mentally-ill-killed-by-drugs-that-are-meant-to-help-them-951821.html

Excellent that someone is telling the truth!
But still no one is asking the question: How are these "medicines" supposed to work? This is never asked!

"But it is also important to remember people who need the strongest medication are the most severely ill." (Royal College of Psychiatrists).

What illness? What medication?
Where is the evidence that giving more of a substance changes the behaviour in any way?

Psychiatric medication is fake. It is poison and not much more.
There is no evidence that this medication achieves anything at all.

Checklist

Keep your eye on the checklist.

Could add a few things.

For example, talk of the need for continuous and fake wars....

and wars in general...

A Lament for the Dying Bookshops

Does anyone remember "Books For A Change" in Charing Cross Road?

or "Compendium" in Camden Town?

Both gone.

Superseded by profit and the Internet......

NON ANGLI SED ANGELI

Do you really need to do that much travelling?

Do you really need to do that much travelling?